Lama Zopa Rinpoche

means bringing the practice of the six perfections into whatever you do. When you make
charity, within that there is the practice of the six perfections. When you do a mandala
offering, within that there is the practice of the six perfections. Within any activity you do,
within any practice you do, there is the practice of the six perfections. The third morality is
the morality of ripening others’ minds. There are about eleven different methods to help
sentient beings mentioned in the lam-rim, for example, guiding, showing the path to
somebody who is lost. That is one of the practices of morality you should keep.
Sentient beings are numberless; you are one. No matter how much you suffer in samsara,
you are one. But sentient beings have been suffering from beginningless rebirths up to now.
There are numberless hell beings, numberless hungry ghosts, numberless animals,
numberless human beings, numberless gods, numberless demigods and numberless
intermediate state beings. Just like you, they have been suffering from beginningless rebirths,
but they are numberless and they have the most unbelievable suffering. This is utterly
unbearable. It’s as if your mother had fallen into a red-hot fire. You could not stand seeing
her there for even one second. Therefore you need to become enlightened quickly in order
to free sentient beings from samsaric suffering and lead them to enlightenment as soon as
possible. This is your motivation for taking the tantric vows.
The samaya of Vairochana also includes taking refuge in the Three Rare Sublime Ones, the
Buddha, Dharma and Sangha. Relying on them so that you (and because of that, all others)
can be saved from samsara is causal refuge. Resultant refuge is the belief that you will
achieve the state of Buddha, Dharma and Sangha in your mental continuum in the future
and taking refuge in that. Going for refuge to the resultant refuge is the samaya of the
Buddha Vairochana.
Next is the samaya of Akshobhya, which has four types: vajra, bell, mudra and guru. The
samaya of the vajra is in order to remember the holy mind of transcendental wisdom of great
bliss. Holding the vajra and remembering that wisdom is keeping the vajra samaya. There is
the interpretive vajra—remembering emptiness only, tong-pa-nyi—and the definitive vajra,
remembering the meaning of the wisdom of great bliss.
The samaya of the bell is to remember the wisdom of emptiness, which is the interpretive
meaning of the bell. Holding the bell is keeping the samaya of the bell. This is why, when
you are trying to practice tantra, you must always have a vajra and bell, even very small ones,
like on the counter of a mala. You have to secretly keep them in order to remember and
practice the definitive meaning of vajra and bell. Even a drawing of the six mudras of the
father and the five of the mother that has a vajra and bell helps keep this samaya. For this
reason, like statues, the vajra and the bell are holy objects.
If possible, the actual vajra and bell you use in practice should also be kept secret. Although
the Kadampa geshes practiced tantra, they didn’t show it externally. When they died people
would find a small vajra and bell sewed secretly into the collar of their coat or somewhere
like that.
The third samaya of Akshobhya is the samaya of the mudra, where you visualize your body
transforming into the Buddha Vajradhara father-mother, the desire deity. It is very important
to understand the reason for this. In Highest Yoga Tantra the meaning of vajra and bell
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