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From the NITYANANDA INSTITUTE NEWS Fall 2003
Lama Wangdu Brings the Queen of Great Bliss to Portlandby Michelle Lawson
We were delighted to see Lama Wangdu again this winter. He spent three months in Portland, practicing Chöd and Phowa with us and doing many pujas for the benefit of the ashram community. His presence was as light and joyful as ever.
Toward the end of his visit, Lama Wangdu introduced a new practice to our community called The Queen of Great Bliss. It is a beautiful puja devoted to the Queen of Great Bliss, a title bestowed on Yeshe Tsogyal, one of Padmasambhava’s consorts and his principal disciple. On February 9, Lama Wangdu gave an introductory teaching and the formal initiation for the practice to the Institute community.
This puja, like our chöd practice, was discovered as a treasure text by Jigme Lingpa and is from the Longchen Nyingthig tradition of the Nyingma school of Tibetan Buddhism. Lama Wangdu explained the importance of the Longchen Nyingthig in his introductory teaching on the puja: “In Tibet, there was a great lama named Longchen Rabjampa, and that’s where the first part of the Longchen word comes from. In the actual etymology, ‘long’ means expanse and ‘chen’ means great. So it is a great, vast expanse. And then Nyingthig means ‘heart-drop,’ or ‘heart blood’, so there is a sense that this is the most essential practice, the heart essence of this vast expansive practice.”
The Queen of Great Bliss practice is a tsok or feast offering. The word “tsok” means gathering, and tsok practices involve a gathering both externally and internally. Outwardly, we gather offerings, such as sweets, wine, fruit, yogurt, and meat, and gather together as practitioners. Internally, we gather our creative energy. We make offerings of the various material substances we have assembled, and we offer the entire range of our inner and outer sensory experiences. In the Tibetan tradition, tsok practice is believed to be a very profound method of accumulating positive energy for ourselves and our environment.
Many Institute students are familiar with another tsok practice that Lama Wangdu has done for us during his visits here: the “Precious Garland of Chöd Feast Activities,” by Karmapa Rangjung Dorje, which we usually refer to as the “all day Chöd.” Like the Precious Garland, the Queen of Great Bliss puja is performed by the community as a whole once a month. The Queen of Great Bliss is done on the 25th day of the Tibetan month (the tenth day after the full moon), a day that is considered especially auspicious for practices associated with the feminine energy and dakinis. The Precious Garland practice is done on the 10th day of the month (the 10th day after the new moon), since that is the day dedicated to practices associated with male energies and Padmasambhava.
In addition to the tsok, the practice includes a sadhana to the Queen of Great Bliss. We visualize and meditate on Yeshe Tsogyal in the form of Vajra Varahi, of whom she is considered to be an emanation. Red in color, Vajra Varahi represents kundalini, our individual creative energy, and her form is similar to the form she takes in the Phowa practice. Through this sadhana, we begin to develop the understanding that we are not separate from the Queen of Great Bliss and that everything in the world is her mandala.
We have been doing the Queen of Great Bliss puja monthly since Lama Wangdu left, and we’re hoping to learn more about it on his next trip to Portland. We’re very grateful to him for sharing yet another blessing with us.
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