Visualizing the Guru as Deity During Initiation

My most dear, most kind, most precious, wish-fulfilling one,
Thank you for your kind letter. I loved your comment that even if I didn’t say anything but just looked, you would be satisfied. Regarding counting the tonglen practice and missing a day, it’s OK, you don’t have to start counting again from the beginning. It’s OK to add them.

Regarding your comment about not taking the Highest Yoga Tantra initiation—until you have realized renunciation, bodhicitta and wisdom realizing emptiness, yes you are right, but this may take time. All three realizations may not happen in this life or in a few years or a few months etc, therefore it’s better to take the Highest Yoga Tantra [initiation] before having the realizations, to make preparation for quick enlightenment. This plants the seed of tantra, at least to have effortful [experience of] renunciation, bodhicitta and emptiness, the correct understanding of emptiness, then it will be OK. Even if there is no realization, but you just generate effortful experience, that will be OK, otherwise you will miss out.

The four continents are the East, West, South and North. The human continent, where we are, is the Southern Continent. This is the only continent that has tantra and not only that, it is not all the time—just at this moment it exists and soon it’s going to end. Even bodhisattvas who are born in a pure land pray to be reborn in the Southern Continent in order to be able to meet tantra.

Regarding your comment about not visualizing the guru as Tara during the initiation—even though you didn’t visualize him in the form of Tara, if you thought of him as Tara then that’s OK, you have received the initiation. If you did not visualize him in the form of Tara, but you just thought of Tara, that is completely OK. However, you would have done some visualization during the initiation.

Please continue your life every day with a good heart and bodhicitta. In this way, your life is most beneficial to numberless hell beings, numberless hungry ghosts and numberless animals—all the animals in the ocean, each type, so they are numberless; every small insect that you can only see with a microscope, but can’t see with the eye; all the animals that are large like mountains, and those on the ground—when you walk on the grass, so many times insects are jumping, trying to escape—and all those in the sky. Even when there is animal dung, there are so many small flies there, so [generate bodhicitta] for all of them; and for all of those who come alive in the summer due to the sunshine; and those that when you look at the sunbeam, actually there are so many insects, but when there is no sunbeam you can’t see them; and all the animals in the sky. So when you do something, generate bodhicitta for all sentient beings. When you do something with bodhicitta, then you can see not one sentient being is left out—not one person, not one hell being or animal, not one insect, not one bat is left out. Include all the billions of mackerel fish, so not one sentient being is left out.

With much love and prayers...