Vajrakilaya Practice according to the Nyingmapa Tradition

Vajrakilaya Practice according to the Düdjom Tersar Tradition

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. Born in southeastern Tibet, he was early recognized to be a reincarned Lama, or Tulku, in this case a reincarnation of one of the original twenty-five disciples of Guru Padmasambhava who established Vajrayana, or the Tantric form of Buddhism, in Tibet in the 8th century of our era. The hidden treasure texts, or Termas, discovered by Düdjom Rinpoche and by his predessessor and previous incarnation, Düdjom Lingpa (1835-1904), are collectively known as the Düdjom Tersar, “the New Treasures of Düdjom.” Many of these treasure texts particularly focus upon the meditation and ritual practices associated with the Yidam meditation deity Vajrakilaya, or Dorje Phurpa, “the diamond-like magical three-bladed dagger,”which overcomes, subdues, and destroys the Mara demons and the Vighna obstructing spirits, especially as they are represented by the Rudra demons of inflated egoism.