Checking meditation on the mandala and basis Heruka

Question 1

Location of charnel grounds compared to VY

Answer 1

Heruka - eight great charnel grounds outside protection circle

Vajrayogini - eight great charnel grounds inside protection circle

Question 2

Explain the face, legs and arms:

Answer 2

Principal face dark blue, left face green, back face red, right face yellow. Each face has three eyes and a rosary of five-pronged vajras on its forehead.

Right leg outstretched and treads on the head of black Bhairawa.

Bent left leg treads on the breast of red Kalarati, who has four hands.

I have twelve arms. The first two embrace Vajravarahi, right hand holding a five-pronged vajra and my left hand a bell.
The next two hands hold an elephant skin.
Third right hand holds a damaru, third left hand holds a khatanga.
Fourth right hand holds an axe, fourth left hand holds a skullcup full with blood.
Fifth right hand holds a curved knife, fifth left hand holds a vajra noose.
Sixth right hand holds a three-pointed spear and sixth left hand holds a four-faced head of Brahma.

Question 3

Explain the heads:

Answer 3

My hair is tied up in a topknot marked with a small crossed vajra of various colours.
Each head is adorned with a crown of five human skulls strung together top and bottom with a rosary of black vajras.
On the left side of my crown is a half moon, slightly tilted.
My four sets of fangs are bared and terrifying.

Question 4

What are the nine moods?

Answer 4

Three physical moods:
> majesty (body maintains an air of majesty)
> heroism (feet tread on Bhairawa and Kalarati)
> menace (frown at the center of my brow).

Three verbal moods:
> laughter (slight smile on my lips)
> wrath (my bared fangs)
> ferocity (my tongue curled back)

Three mental moods:
> compassion (long almond-shaped eyes)
> attentiveness (my wide-open eyes)
> serenity (my looking at the Mother from the corner of my eyes)

Question 5

More:

Answer 5

Lower garment of a tiger skin

Long necklace of fifty shrunken moist human heads.

Six bone ornaments:
(i) crown ornament,
(ii) ear ornaments,
(iii) necklace,
(iv) bracelets and anklets,
(v) a heart ornament,
(vi) ashes of human bone smeared over my entire body.

Hair is woven through the eight spokes of the crown ornament and gathered into a topknot, which is surmounted by a nine-faceted jewel.

Question 6

Vajrayogini:

Answer 6

The Father is embracing the Blessed Mother Vajrayogini, who has a red-coloured body, one face, two hands and three eyes. She is naked with freely flowing hair and wears a lower garment made from fragments of skull.

Her left hand embracing the Father’s neck, holds a skullcup brimming with the blood of the four maras.

Her right hand in the threatening mudra brandishes a curved knife, opposing the malignant forces of the ten directions.

Her body shines with the brilliance like that of the fire at the end of the aeon.

Her two thighs are clasped around the Father’s thighs. She is the nature of blissful great compassion. Adorned with five mudras, she wears a crown of five shrunken human skulls and a necklace of fifty shrunken human skulls.

Question 8

Corpses

Answer 8

symbolize impermanence and the faults of samsara

Question 9

Corpses

Answer 9

symbolize impermanence and the faults of samsara, particularly sickness, ageing and death

Question 10

Corpses

Answer 10

symbolize impermanence and the faults of samsara, particularly sickness, ageing and death

Question 11

Corpses

Answer 11

symbolize impermanence and the faults of samsara, particularly sickness, ageing and death

Question 12

Lake

Answer 12

symbolizes conventional bodhichitta

Question 13

Naga

Answer 13

symbolizes the six perfections and the ten perfections

Question 14

Jewel held by naga

Answer 14

symbolizes the four ways of gathering disciples

Question 15

Wild animals

Answer 15

> symbolize generation stage realizations, and
their eating corpses teaches us to destroy our ordinary appearances and ordinary conceptions through the power of our generation stage practice.

Question 16

Tree

Answer 16

symbolizes the central channel

Question 17

Directional guardian at the foot of the tree

Answer 17

symbolizes the downward-voiding wind just below the navel

Question 18

Regional guardian at the top of the tree

Answer 18

symbolizes the life-supporting wind at the heart

Question 19

Fire at the base of the mountain

Answer 19

symbolizes the inner fire of tummo at the navel

Question 20

Cloud

Answer 20

symbolizes the white bodhichitta in the crown chakra

Question 21

The eight charnel grounds themselves, four in the cardinal directions and four in the intermediate directions,

Answer 21

symbolize the four joys of serial and reverse order

Question 22

Mountain

Answer 22

symbolizes immovable equipoise of spontaneous great bliss mixed with emptiness

Question 23

Stupa at the top of the mountain

Answer 23

symbolizes the three bodies of a Buddha.

Question 24

What is inside the charnel grounds?

Answer 24

the protection circle of the varja ground, fence, canopy and tent, surrounded by five-coloured wisdom fires swirling counter-clockwise.

Question 25

Describe the celestial mansion

Answer 25

Like a large square house with an elaborate entrance on each side.

The jewelled walls have five layers.

Rafters whose ends form the shape of sea-monsters with strings of pearls hanging from their mouths.

Question 26

Describe the celestial mansion (2)

Answer 26

Around the outer foot of the wall runs a red ledge upon which stand sixteen offering goddesses of various colours and postures, each with three eyes and four arms.

Question 27

More:

Answer 27

At the front of each entrance is an eleven-tiered archway. Above each archway is a Dharma Wheel flanked right and left by a male and female deer.

To the right and left of each archway, set in golden vases, are wish-granting trees bearing the seven precious possessions of a king.

Question 28

More: 1

Answer 28

On the very top of the mansion is a square lantern adorned with a golden roof and surmounted by an eight-faceted jewel and a five-pronged vajra.

Inside this is a precious jewelled case containing the scriptures of the Heruka root Tantra.

Question 29

Where are the deities?

Answer 29

On the lowest platform are the sixteen deities of the body wheel;
on the second platform are the sixteen deities of the speech wheel;
on the third platform are the sixteen deities of the heart wheel.

Question 30

Where are the Deities of the commitment wheel and great bliss wheel?

Answer 30

At the four inner corners of the mansion, and at the doorways to each hallway, stand the eight Deities of the commitment wheel.

Upon the petals in the cardinal directions stand the four Yoginis of the great bliss wheel.

At the very center of the lotus, standing on a sun mandala, we appear as the Blessed One Heruka, with a dark-blue body and four faces.