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According to the traditions of pre-Christian Old Europe, the Great Goddess possessed a cauldron embodying her power over life and death. Those who were dipped into her cauldron were reborn and rejuvinated. The dark aspect of this Goddess dances between worlds and other dimensions of reality, thus she manifests in the liminal expance of the cremantion grounds, the place of death and rebirth.

Dorje Drolöd is an especially wrathful manifestation of Guru Padmasambhava and it is one among his eight special manifestations known as the Guru Tsän-gyäd. He appeared as Dorje Drolöd at some thirteen sites, in particular at Paro Taktsang, or the Tiger’s Den in Bhutan, in order to tame and subdue certain very hostile local spirits who were causing harm to human beings.

The peaceful form of Avalokiteshvara, white in colour and with four arms, holding with his hands a precious jewel before his chest and with the other two holding the crystal rosary and the stem of a lotus blossom, is quite well known to us here in the West. His four arms signify the four immeasurable states of friendliness, compassion, sympathetic joy, and equanimity.

One of the aspects of Tibetan Buddhism that have fascinated many Westerners is the depiction in Buddhist art of various meditation deities. These exotic images of naked dancing Dakinis and of ferocious Wrathful Deities, often resembling what we Westerners think of as demons and as something evil, seems strange and ironic to us.

The following publication does not present a full translation of “The Secret Book of Simhamukha,” but consists of just three extracts from that translation, namely, the Outer, Inner, and Secret Sadhanas for the Vajra Dakini, the Padma Dakini, and the Krodhi Kali Dakini forms of Simhamukha, composed by Jamgon Kongtrul at the request of Jamyang Khyentse Wangpo. We plan to publish the full translation of this Secret Book in the near future.

In the Nyingmapa tradition of Tibet, the lion-faced Wisdom Dâkinî Simhamukha is regarded as the feminine aspect of the personal practice of Guru Padmasambhava. He received this transmission in his youth while in his native country of Uddiyana to the northwest of India from his female Guru, Guhyajnâna Dâkinî.

The Dakini or Khandroma, literally “she who moves through space” or “she who goes in the sky,” is a manifestation of energy in female form. There are worldly Dakinis who are human beings such as female spiritual teachers or else witches possessing psychic powers, but also non-human Dakinis such as goddesses and nature spirits in female form.

His Holiness Düdjom Rinpoche, Jigdral Yeshe Dorje (1904-1987), during the latter part of his lifetime in exile in India, was the Supreme Head of the Nyingmapa School of Tibetan Buddhism. Moreover, he was one of the greatest masters of Dzogchen and Buddhist Tantra in recent times. Rinpoche was not only an accomplished Tantric Yogi and Tertön himself, a discoverer of hidden treasure texts, but a profoundly learned scholar generally of the Mahayana Buddhist tradition.

In the Higher Tantras of Tibetan Buddhsim, known as Anuttara Tantra, there are four principal kinds of magical activities, corresponding to the colors white, yellow, red, and green. Nevertheless, in each case in terms of Buddhism, the motivation of any Trinlay, or magical action practice, is always Bodhichitta, or compassion for all sentient beings and the desire to release them from their suff ering experienced in Samsara. Vashikarana, or red magic, functions to attract, overpower, and magnetize whatever obstacles may appear on the spiritual path.