A Short Hayagriva

Practice
By Lama Zopa Rinpoche
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Practice Requirements
There are no empowerments required to do this practce. It can be
performed by anyone with faith.
Short Hayagriva Practice 3
Meditation on the Graded
Path to Enlightenment
Combined with
Hayagriva Visualization
by Lama Zopa Rinpoche
Motivation
Contemplate:
The purpose of my life is to free all sentent beings from obscura-
tons and their causes, and lead them to not only the happiness of
self-liberaton (freedom from suering), but to peerless enlighten-
ment.
I have the responsibility to bring happiness to all beings and free
them from all suering. How? Because if I generate compassion
now it will make me benet others at least they wont receive
harm from me. So I am responsible for the happiness of all sentent
beings, because whether I help or harm them is completely depen-
dent on my own mind having compassion or not.
4 Short Hayagriva Practice
Since the ultmate purpose of my life is to work purely for others, I
need to achieve enlightenment. To do that, I need to achieve the
path to enlightenment. Therefore Im going to do the direct medi-
taton on the Graded Path to Enlightenment.
Visualization of Guru Hayagriva
Every aspect of the visualizaton is made of light transparent,
intangible and radiant.
At the level of your forehead, about six feet away, appears the em-
bodiment of all the buddhas omniscient mind, which is the ult-
mate guru, in the aspect of Guru Hayagriva, who has puried all
delements and atained all perfect realizatons.
His holy body is red with three faces and six arms. His central face is
red, his right green, and his lef is white. He has three, dark-green,
horse heads above the central face. They are looking upwards with
mouths open and emit a sound that covers the six realms. Fire
ames issue forth from the horses manes. These ames form a
vajra tent and fence that envelops all of samsara from the peak of
the Brahma realm to the lowest hell realm. Each of his faces has
three eyes. His mouth is open and grinning showing bared fangs.
In his rst right hand he holds a vajra, in the second a trident and in
the third a sword. His rst lef hand is in the threatening mudra. In
his second lef hand he holds a short spear, and in the third a lasso
made from intestnes.
Standing on a lotus and sun disc, his eight legs press down on eight
snakes. Each of his heads are adorned with a crown of ve human
skulls. He wears a garland of fy fresh human heads, a tger skin
and human skin with the hands ted at the front. He also wears a
Short Hayagriva Practice 5
fresh elephant skin and the six types of bone ornaments. Drops of
blood cover his body and arms. His hands and ngers are dripping
with grease. Parts of his body have heaps of human ash and he is
adorned with black snake ornaments.
He stands in the center of a transcendental wisdom re of violent
ames like the re at the end of an eon.
From below the throat to above the lower organs, the holy body is
covered with wrathful manifestatons similar to Hayagriva. His
three places are adorned with OM AH HUM. Above the HUM on
a sun disc is HRIH and from that the transcendental wisdom re
radiates out.
Refuge and Bodhichitta
To the Buddha, the Dharma and the Sangha,
I go for refuge untl I am enlightened.
By the merit I create by practcing generosity and the other
perfectons,
May I atain Buddhahood in order to benet all sentent beings
(3x)
The Four Immeasurable Thoughts
How wonderful it would be if all the sentent beings were to abide
in equanimity, free of hatred and atachment!
May they abide in equanimity!
I myself will cause them to abide in equanimity!
Please, Guru-deity grant me blessings to be able to do this.
How wonderful it would be if all sentent beings had happiness and
the causes of happiness!
6 Short Hayagriva Practice
May they have happiness and its causes!
I myself will cause them to have happiness and its causes!
Please, Guru-deity grant me blessings to be able to do this.
How wonderful it would be if all sentent beings were free of
suering and its causes!
May they be free of suering and its causes!
I myself will cause them to be free of suering and its causes!
Please, Guru-deity grant me blessings to be able to do this.
How wonderful it would be if all sentent beings were never
separated from the happiness of higher rebirth and liberaton!
May they never be separated from these!
I myself will cause them never to be separated from these!
Please, Guru-deity grant me blessings to be able to do this.
Seven-Limb Prayer
Reverently I prostrate with my body, speech and mind,
And present clouds of every type of oering, actual and mentally
transformed.
I confess all my negatve actons accumulated since beginningless
tme,
And rejoice in the virtues of all holy and ordinary beings.
Please remain untl samsara ends,
And turn the wheel of Dharma for sentent beings.
I dedicate all the virtues of myself and others to the great
enlightenment.
Short Mandala Offering
This ground, anointed with perfume, owers strewn,
Mount Meru, four lands, sun and moon,
Short Hayagriva Practice 7
Imagined as a Buddha land and oered to you
May all beings enjoy this pure land.
Prayer of the Three Great Purposes
I prostrate and go for refuge to the guru and the Three Precious
Rare Sublime Jewels. Please bless my mental contnuum.
Please grant me blessings to cease immediately all wrong concep-
tons, from incorrect devoton to the guru up to the subtle dual
view of the white appearance, red increasing, black near atain-
ment.
Please grant blessings to actualize immediately all the correct
realizatons from guru devoton up to the unicaton of no-
more-learning.
Please pacify immediately all outer and inner obstacles.
IDAM GURU RATNA MANDALAKAM NIRYATAYAMI
Requests
Glorious and precious root guru, sit upon the lotus and moon seat
on my crown. Guiding me with your great kindness, bestow upon
me the atainments of your body, speech, and mind.
Whose holy body is created by millions of virtues and goodness;
whose holy speech fulls the wishes of all sentent beings; whose
holy mind sees every existence exactly at the holy feet of the
Principal of the Sakyas, I request.
Guru Vajradhara who encompasses all three objects of refuge, tak-
ing the form of the virtuous friend in whatever way it can subdue,
and grantng common and sublime realizatons to you the kind
gurus, I make request.
8 Short Hayagriva Practice
Short Prayer of the Graded Path to Enlightenment
Please bless me to see that proper devoton to my kind master is
the foundaton of all good qualites and is the root of the path, and
to devote myself to him with great eort and respect.
Please bless me to understand that this excellent fortunate rebirth
is found but once and is most rare and precious, and to develop
night and day the mind that unceasingly grasps its essence.
Please bless me to be mindful of death, when my unstable body
and life will be quickly destroyed like a bubble, and to be rmly
convinced that afer death, results follow actons - black or white -
just as a shadow follows the body.
Please bless me to train with strong enthusiastc perseverance, in
the practce to be always alert to abandon even the slightest ac-
cumulaton of wrong actons and in accomplishing the vast accu-
mulaton of virtue.
Please bless me to understand the faults of samsaric perfectons:
they can never satsfy, they are the door to all suering, and they
cannot be trusted. Let striving for the bliss of freedom grow strong-
ly within me.
Please bless me to have the greatest mindfulness and awareness
induced by this pure motvaton. May I practce the essence of the
pratmoksha, the root of the doctrine.
Please bless me to see that just as I have fallen into the sea of
samsara, so have all mother migrators. May I train in the supreme
bodhicita that bears the burden of freeing all beings.
Short Hayagriva Practice 9
Please bless me to perceive well that if I produce the mere wish
but lack practce in the three types of morality, I shall not achieve
enlightenment. Let me train with strong eort in the bodhisatva
vows.
Please bless me to calm distracton towards wrong objects, and
to investgate correctly the meaning of reality. May there quickly
arise in my mind the path unitng calm abiding and higher seeing.
Having trained in the common path, and when I become a suitable
vessel, please bless me to enter with ease the noble entrance for
fortunate beings, the highest of all vehicles, the adamantne ve-
hicle.
Please bless me to understand correctly the essence of the four
classes of tantra and the points of the two stages. May I practce
the holy teachings and not be lazy in practcing the four session
yoga.
Thus, may the gurus who show the excellent path and the help-
ers of true practtoners all live long. May all hindrances, inner and
outer, be pacied. I pray, please grant such blessings.
In all my rebirths may I never be parted from perfect gurus and
may I enjoy an abundance of the Dharma. May I perfect all quali-
tes of the stages and the paths and may I quickly atain the state
of Vajradhara.
Mantra Recitation
Visualize that light and nectar beams, white in color, ow from the
heart of Guru Hayagriva. These enter your body, speech and mind,
10 Short Hayagriva Practice
purifying disease, spirit harms, negatve karma and obscuratons.
They are washed out of you just as dirt leaves clothes when they
are washed. Also, you can visualize all sentent beings on a very
large moon-disc at your heart, and that they are puried along
with you.
Do this visualizaton while recitng Guru Hayagrivas mantra for
50 or 100 tmes.
HRIH VAJ RA KRODHA HAYAGRIVA HULU HULU HUM PHAT
(50x or 100x)
or
OM VAJ RA KRODHA HAYAGRIVA HULU HULU HUM PHAT
(50x or 100x)
Then, contnuing to recite the mantra, visualize yellow light and
nectar owing from Guru Hayagrivas heart and entering your
body, speech, and mind. You receive all the qualites of the Bud-
dhas holy body, speech and mind. In partcular, concentrate that
your mind has become the Buddhas omniscient mind. Think that
you have received the perfect power, compassion, and wisdom to
be able to fulll the wishes of all sentent beings and to bring them
to the highest happiness. All sentent beings on the moon disc at
your heart also receive all the Buddhas qualites.
Feel how the suering of sentent beings is unbearable. Feel how
unbearable it is that even one sentent being must experience so
many problems, and that even one minute of suering in samsara
is like the suering of many eons. Have a strong wish and determi-
naton to free every sentent being from suering and its causes.
Not only that, but also feel how wonderful it would be completely
to take upon yourself that beings karma, delusions, suerings and
problems! Even more than that: feel happy to take on the suer-
ing and causes of suering of all the sentent beings in all realms,
Short Hayagriva Practice 11
and to let them have the peerless happiness of ultmate liberaton,
complete enlightenment.
Feel determined that you will live your life in this way, with the
good heart: having great compassion and loving-kindness for all
sentent beings, and being commited to freeing them from all suf-
fering and causes of suering, and bringing them to the state of
enlightenment.
Final absorption and blessing
Imagine that Buddha Hayagriva is extremely pleased with you be-
cause you have generated this thought to benet all beings, the
good heart, and because you are making your life worthwhile.
Then visualize that Buddha Hayagriva melts into light which then
absorbs between your eye-brows, thus blessing your body, speech
and mind.
Dedication
Due to all the merits of the three tmes and the merits of all the
buddhas and bodhisatvas,
May the altruistc wish to achieve enlightenment be generated in
my mind and in the mind of all sentent beings,
And for those who have it may it not decrease but increase.
Whatever suering sentent beings have, may I experience it.
Whatever merit I have accumulated, may others experience it.
Due to the merit accumulated by myself, the buddhas and
bodhisatvas over the three tmes, who are empty from their
own side,
May the I, which is empty from its own side,
12 Short Hayagriva Practice
Achieve the state of Shakyamuni Buddhas enlightenment, which is
empty from its own side,
And lead all sentent beings, who are empty from their own side,
to that state, by myself alone.
Due to all the merits of the three tmes,
Accumulated by myself and by others, may any being just by
Seeing, hearing, remembering, touching and talking to me,
Be freed in that very second from all their suerings and
Abide in happiness forever.
May the glorious gurus lives be long and stable.
May all the beings equaling the extent of space have happiness.
May I and others without excepton accumulate merit and purify
negatvites,
And may we be blessed to quickly atain Buddhahood.
Due to the merits of the three tmes created
By myself and others, bodhisatvas and buddhas,
May we be able to meet perfectly qualied
Mahayana virtuous friends in all our future lives.
From our side may we always see them as enlightened.
May we always do actons only pleasing to
The holy mind of the virtuous friends.
May we always be able to fulll their holy wishes immediately.
Due to these merits may my actons never cause
Even the slightest of harm to any sentent being,
Instead may they only bring the greatest of benet.
Whatever experience - suering or happiness - that I have,
May it only be of great benet to others.
Short Hayagriva Practice 13
Just as the brave Manjushri and Samantabhadra
Have realized things as they are,
I dedicate all these virtues in the best way,
That I may follow afer them.
Whatever dedicaton the Victorious Ones Gone-To-Bliss
Of the three tmes have admired as best,
I also perfectly dedicate all these roots of virtue
In the same way, so that I may perform good works.
May I and all others be able to live a life of pure moral conduct (like
Lama Tsongkhapa himself),
Train the mind in bodhichita, and live in pure view and conduct.
In this way may we be able to complete our lives
Without corruptng the pure wisdom of the second Buddhas
teachings.
Additional Dedication Prayers (Optional)
It is only from the kindness of my gurus that I have met the
unequalled teachings of Buddha,
I dedicate all this merit
So that all migratory beings without excepton
May be guided in the future by kind and holy gurus.
Untl samsara ends, may the teaching that benets
Not be moved away by the wind of the evil supersttons.
14 Short Hayagriva Practice
May the whole world be always lled up with people having
understood
And found stable faith in the true teachings.
May I pass the tme, day and night,
Thinking and examining by what means
This teaching can spread in the minds
Of all sentent beings and me.
Colophon
The basic practce was compiled by the Venerable Lama Thubten Zopa
Rinpoche, Taipei, March 1992. It was adjusted for practce with Hayagriva in
accordance with instructons from Lama Zopa Rinpoche by Murray Wright,
FPMT Central O ce, August 1992. Lightly edited by Kendall Magnussen FPMT
Educaton Services, July 2003.
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