This coming March (13-18) Lama Liz Monson and I are going to be teaching a retreat called “An introduction to Vajrayana”. So I thought I would formally introduce you all to the topic as well. Like introducing an old friend. If you have been practicing sitting meditation for more than a few years, I can recommend this retreat. If you want to talk about it after, or 1:1, I’m happy to do so.

“Vajrayana” literally translated means “Diamond Vehicle”. It’s an enormous body of meditation practices, teachings, philosophies and cultural artifacts that started in India and spread throughout the Buddhist world, arriving in the United States in the early 1970s.

Vajrayana practices build on the mindfulness and awareness practices that we’ve been doing. Vajrayana meditations are not separate from them. In fact, it’s universally acknowledged that Vajrayana doesn’t work unless the meditator has a thorough grounding in mindfulness, has an open and compassionate heart, and has some experience working with emotions and other people in a skillful way.

The main attitude or approach that distinguishes Vajrayana meditation practices from other types of Buddhist meditation is that everything is included. Every part of life, every emotion, every doubt, every shadow, can be fuel to travel on the path.

Sometimes when we are practicing mindfulness, we can shun difficult topics because they disturb our peacefulness. Sometimes when we are practicing compassion practices, we avoid or ignore feelings of anger, resentment, jealousy, etc because we don’t think they are appropriate.

Vajrayana uses all of that. Everything.

Because of that, the Vajrayana meditation techniques are more challenging. You might have gotten a sense of this in the tonglen practices of sending and taking that we’ve done. There’s a flavor of this when we talk about the bravery that comes with sitting still in the storm of emotions. That story of Milarepa in the cave? Putting his head in the mouth of the biggest demon? That’s the flavor of it.

Again, Vajrayana meditation is not separate from mindfulness and compassion. It builds on them. But it uses different tools or technologies. The two main tools that Vajrayana practices use that mindfulness and compassion practices don’t (at least not much) are ritual and imagination.

Ritual and Color: There are more trappings with Vajrayana meditations. There are bells and drums, paintings, singing and dancing. The shrines are bigger and more colorful. The whole environment is richer and more elaborate than for example a Zen temple. By the way, here’s the Wonderwell shrine room where our retreat will take place… here and online. So you can see it’s a little bit of a hybrid.

The other tool that Vajrayana uses is imagination, also called visualization. I’m sure you’ve all seen pictures of thanka paintings. Well, those are not just decoration. They are actually meditation aids… Here’s one from a meditation called the Sadhana of Mahamudra.

[talk about that if we have time]

Read from Sadhana of Mahamudra offering section.

Again, this is not for everyone, but I wanted to share it with you in case it sounds intreguing. And being on retreat is almost always a good thing.