Experiencing Bliss in Retreat
Rinpoche gave the following advice to a nun who was doing Vajrasattva retreat and experiencing a lot of bliss. She asked Rinpoche how she should relate to the bliss, what she should do.
My very dear Anila,
Thank you very much for your kind letter.
If you have good experiences with Vajrasattva it means you have karma with Vajrasattva, also that Vajrasattva is blessing you with these experiences.
When you have some bliss then you can make an offering of this to the merit field, the gurus, and the guru puja merit field.
Also, when you experience bliss, think the “I,” action, object, and appearance are empty, merely labeled by the mind, so they are empty. Or, you can make an offering of the bliss, with a mind of bodhicitta, and experience the bliss together with emptiness.
Regarding your question about Manjrushri, it is very good that you have a clear visualization of Manjrushri. It is very good to practice meditation, especially with guru yoga. This will help you to develop all wisdom and realize emptiness. So, make strong prayers to Manjrushri.
It is very important that you continue to do Vajrasattva practice every day.
According to my observations, it would be very good for you to recite 400,000 Vajrasattva mantras. You can do this in three ways: in retreat, strictly; four separate retreats of 100,000 mantras each time; do Vajrasattva practice while you are working, by doing a session in the morning and in the evening, then on weekends doing two days of four sessions; or within the year doing a week retreat now and then (as well as doing morning and evening sessions). If you do it while working, you have to keep the continuity of doing a session every day until you complete the amount of mantras. Or you can do half a day of Vajrasattva practice and half a day of work.
Please enjoy your life with devotion. You are extremely fortunate to have these realizations and experience bliss. It means you can have realizations, so you are very lucky.
With much love and prayers...