Dalai Lama Foundation Study Circle Montreal

When I was a young boy, Tantra was just a matter of blind faith. At age twenty-four I lost my own country, and then after coming to India started really reading Tsongkhapa’s explanations on emptiness. Then, after moving to Dharamsala, I put more effort into the study and practice of the stages of the path, emptiness, and Tantra. So it was only in my late twenties after gaining some experience of emptiness that deity yoga made sense.

One time in the main temple in Dharamsala I was performing the ritual of imagining myself as a deity of Highest Yoga Tantra, called Guhyasamaja. My mind continuously remained on the recitation of the ritual text, and when the words “I myself” came, I completely forgot about my usual self in relation to my combination of mind and body: Instead, I had a very clear sense of “I” in relation to the new, pure combination of mind and body of Guhyasamaja that I was imagining. Since this is the type of self-identification that is at the heart of Tantric yoga, the experience confirmed for me that with enough time I could definitely achieve the extraordinary, deep states mentioned in the scriptures. (p.188)

–from How to Practice: The Way to a Meaningful Life by His Holiness the Dalai Lama, translated and edited by Jeffrey Hopkins

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