Study the view of emptiness that deity yoga presupposes
Deity yoga is defined as a clear appearance held together with emptiness, so the view of emptiness is studied before any image.
Por qué funciona
The Karma Kagyu teaching on Study Buddhism defines deity yoga as having the clear appearance of a deity or mantra while realising its void nature, and calls that union the combining of the development and completing stages. The view is therefore part of the definition of the practice. The texts speak of realising the void nature, not only of understanding it intellectually, which is why study of the view is the work the tradition asks of a student first.
Cómo hacerlo
- Read the madhyamaka emptiness page on this site for an overview of what emptiness means in the Madhyamaka view.
- Take one idea at a time: that things lack inherent existence, and what it means for a self to be merely labelled. Write one sentence for each in your own words.
- Return to the sentence and check whether it still holds when you apply it to something ordinary in your day.
- Talk the view through with a teacher or a study group, and note the points where your explanation does not hold together.
Evidencia
Emptiness is studied through philosophical and contemplative texts. The connection to deity yoga is the tradition’s definition, and the sources here do not measure the effect of studying emptiness on deity practice. (mechanistic)
The view is a subject of study in its own right. Studying it does not make anyone a deity-yoga practitioner, and the texts speak of realisation, which is more than intellectual grasp.
Fuentes
- Karma Kagyu Mahamudra: Enhancing the Meditation, a commentary on Mahamudra: Eliminating the Darkness of Ignorance. Study Buddhism.
- Study Buddhism (Berzin Archives). Glossary: pure appearance (dag-pa’i snang-ba).
- Study Buddhism (Berzin Archives). Glossary: complete stage.
Error común
Using emptiness as a reason to dismiss the image, or treating the image as solid while ignoring that the tradition holds it to be empty of inherent existence.
Practica esto con IX Coach
Más prácticas para Deity Yoga: The Vajrayāna Practice of Generating Oneself as a Yidam
- Learn what an empowerment involves before anything else
An empowerment is the ritual gate the tradition requires before deity yoga, and learning what it involves tells you what to ask a teacher.
- Begin with refuge and bodhicitta, the first inner preliminaries
In the ngöndro sequence, refuge and bodhicitta are the first inner preliminaries, and they come before the tantric practice.
- Understand divine pride and pure appearance as technical terms
Divine pride and pure appearance are precise terms in the tradition, and knowing what they mean stops them sounding like self-inflation.
- Attend a public teaching as an observer, not a student
Sitting in on an open teaching at a centre lets you learn the vocabulary and the atmosphere before you decide anything about an empowerment.
- Start with one careful book on deity yoga
One introductory book, read slowly with its context, gives a firmer footing than several summaries that contradict each other. The 1987 edition introduces deity practice in the lower tantra classes, not the highest class this page describes.
- Read what the imagery studies measured, and what they did not
The 2009 deity-meditation study measured imagery performance, and reading its abstract shows what that finding does and does not cover.
- When visualising makes you feel unreal or shaky, ground first
If an imagined figure leaves you dizzy, shaky or far from your body, stop it, come back to your senses and body, and talk to a teacher or clinician before going further.
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- Śūnyatā: Emptiness and the Two Truths in Madhyamaka
Nāgārjuna’s Middle Way: why nothing has a fixed essence, and why that is not the same as nothing
- Mahāmudrā: Looking Directly at the Nature of the Mind
The Kagyu path of calm, then looking at the mind itself — practised the way the manuals lay it out