Kagye – The Eight Herukas Sadhana
Rigdzin Rabpel Ling Yogi Temple – Rebkong, Amdo, Eastern Tibet
Kagye
Kagyé, or the Eight Commands for Sādhana Practice, is a set of teachings and contemplative practices entrusted to Guru Rinpoché and the Eight Vidyādharas of India. These teachings got transmitted to Tibet and form the core of the Nyingma system of Mahāyoga practices. This practice is a revealed treasure (Terma) from the great master Rigzin Palden Tashi.
The Kagyé maṇḍala is constituted by five wisdom deities who represent the enlightened body (Yamāntaka), speech (Hayagrīva), mind (Yangdak or Vishuddha Heruka), qualities (Chemchok, or Mahottara Heruka) and activity of all the buddhas as well three semi-worldly or worldly deities: Mamo Bötong, Jikten Chötö and Möpa Drakngak (as they are more well known in Tibetan). Having Mahottara Heruka as its central deity, it constitutes a complex 725 circle of deities.



















KAGYE MANDALA

The Ceremony
Every year, Ridzin Rapbel Ling, a gompa within the biggest Buddhist lay tantric community on Earth, celebrates and unfolds this maṇḍala within a intensive group practice ceremony that epitomizes the depth, power, and precision of tantra, drawing together the entire range of its skilful methods—mystical, ritual, and artistic—and including: the creation of a maṇḍala house; the complete sādhana practice with visualization, mudrā, chant, music; the creation of tormas and offerings, with sacred substances, ganachakra feasts revealing and celebrating each participant’s own innate Buddha nature.
Benefits
The Kagye ritual is very powerful, and is said to act as a remedy to the negative forces at work in the world, to promote inner personal peace, peace within the community and the world. All blend to create the transcendent environment of a pure realm of the deity.
Such a ceremony has a tremendous effect and potency and is capable of creating substantial benefits, to those who attend with an altruistic motivation or create a connection by sponsoring it. Such benefits as reducing mental afflictions, restoring broken samaya, establishing auspicious conditions for peace, harmony and further spiritual progress allowing positive qualities and circumstances to arise unhindered– both for oneself and all sentient beings.
