The 33rd Kalachakra initiation by His Holiness The Dalai Lama begins with the ceremony of accepting the disciple and taking them under the care of Guru on July 3rd at Jivetsal Photang, Choglamsar. His Holiness the Dalai Lama was warmly greeted by the devotees on his arrival on stage to begin his morning session of teachings.

Addressing the devotees His Holiness Dalai Lama said, “I receive this great Kalachakra initiation from my monastic ordination precept master Skyabje Ling Dorjey Chang Rinpoche in Tibet and then after receiving this initiation from him I gave this Kalachakra initiation in Tibet also after coming into Exile. This is the 33rd Kalachakra I am giving, of course even if I cannot practice the two stages of the Kalachakra that much but I feel that I have some Karmic connection with this particular system of Tantra. And then after coming to exile I gave the first Kaalachakra initiation in Dharamsala and after the initiation was finished, I had a dream in which I was sitting on the platform on which the sand mandala is made and then there was Namgyal monastery monks who were reciting the prayer which is to actually invoke the master in the process of the practice of the Kalachakra. There is a process of desolation of the master and at that point when the deities have resolved when the Vajra master have dissolved and the Namgyal Monastery monks were actually reciting this prayer. So I felt this is an indication that I have to give Kalachakra Iniation many times over. When the Kalachakra initiation was given many people gathered and therefore I make the point to give a good introduction to Buddhism & to the large number of gathering. Today we are gathered here particularly on this occasion for the ceremony called accepting or guiding the disciples, taking the disciples under the care. This particular occasion is meant for those as the Sponsors as well as the main disciples and of course the general public who have gathered here.”

“Different religious traditions and all major religious tradition of the world have existed in India and then within India the home grown religions such as Samkhya School which is considered perhaps to be the very first religious philosophical tradition of India. From there many religious philosophical tradition developed and then around 2000 years ago Jainism , Buddhism also came into being and then there are other religious tradition that came from outside of India such as Zoroastrian about a thousand years ago and then Christianity later and also Judaism. Today all these major religious tradition of the world exist in India, not only do they exist but co-exist harmoniously respecting one another although there may be some problems here and there but those are understandable  and so India has become like the role model for religious harmony in the world .”

His Holiness giving emphasis on what different religion taught us said, “The word Religion or spirituality in Sanskrit is known as Dharma which has the meaning of protecting or saving or shielding someone. And what happens to us is that we have lots of problems physical as well as mental and mainly the mental problem such as fear and anxiety. And if you really look carefully what is the source of all these problems that we face and we will find that it’s because of our extreme selfishness and because of that we tend to think for the benefit of ourselves and disregard others and we go against the wish of others and cause harm to others and therefore in order to reduce or overcome selfishness we have the teaching of different religious traditions such as Hinduism, Islam, Judaism, Christianity and Buddhism and so forth. All these religious tradition what they teach us in order to rid us of the selfishness and also to overcome our suffering is that they have the common message of Love and Compassion and Love & Compassion becomes the essence of all the major religious traditions of the world. And therefore what these religious traditions teach us in order to foster the practice of love and compassion and the practices of Tolerance, Patience , contentment , self discipline and so forth and therefore the term Dharma in Sanskrit which means to help us protect, save us ,to uphold us means to help us overcome suffering. Therefore there are one billion people on this earth who are non-believers and then there are 6 billion who are supposed to be believers.”

He said, “There are many religions in the world and they have God as a creator for eg. In Islam, Jew and Christian religion, ‘God’ as depicted as Compassionate and kind hearted. So all these Religious tradition considered their creator as nature of Love. This helped them to foster their own practice of Love and compassion and reduce the selfishness. And on the other hand Atheist religious traditions like the Buddhism and Jainism did not believe in God as a creator and in that case the notion of ‘I’ becomes relevant.”

What is taught in Buddhism Samkhya School is that, “If you do something bad to others, they have its own negative consequences. So to avoid harming yourself, you think of helping others in order to avoid your own suffering and therefore all these religious tradition teach Love and compassion and happiness is what we want. So we should keep in our mind that happiness is the goal of our life.”

Briefing about the teachings of Buddha HH Said, “With regard to the teaching of the Buddha itself usually we say the philosophical understanding of view of Buddhism is that of the Dependent origination and then its ethical practice of non violence or not harming others. So with regard to non violence, if you have love and  compassion towards other people there is no question causing harm to others and practising non violence. The reason why we need to practice non violence is because we are dependent on others. So from the point of Buddhism we say that our happiness and suffering comes from some cause that is action or Karma. The karma here is, “If you harm others, then the consequences are that you will suffer and if you help others, consequences are that you will have happiness and therefore on the basis of this understanding of Law of causality that if you do something bad to others, you have negative consequences of suffering and if you do something good to others you have the positive consequences of Happiness. And therefore in Buddhism Happiness and suffering are based on the causes of negative actions and positive actions.”

During the teaching, Offering of ‘Gyakstor’ also took place, it means offering the Storma of ritual cakes to drive away any negative spirits or evil spirits who might  otherwise hinder the practice of giving the Initiation and in this case to do the ceremony of  taking or guiding the disciples under the care of guru.

In order to do the ceremony devotees were asked to repeat certain lines and making request for taking the disciples under the care of the Guru. The text we says ‘Gewa Mangpo digpa ni’. Gewa mangpo means sins of many beings, including human beings who do not want suffering but want happiness we all are same in this respect. What we need to feel is the disadvantage or understand the fault of negative Karmas or sin and because of sin what happened is you are harming others and therefore what you would say is that you will not harm anybody. And if possible you should think of helping other sentient beings and even if you are not able to help others at least restrain harming others.”

Ceremony of throwing the neem stick into the mandala tray was also done to check if there is any obstacle to the disciples taking the initiation after entering the Mandala. Devotees were asked to imagine throwing the neem stick in the Mandala tray. His Holiness said, “First think about emptiness and when we think about sentient being they are made up of five different elements plus consciousness where as external world of Inanimate things have the five elements like Earth, Water, Fire, wind and space element and on the top of these five within the sentient beings, within those who have consciousness or mind. So the consciousness is the 6th element and within the space element in Tantric context we talk about the four empties stage which are called empty, very empty, great lay empty and all empty stage. And within the kalachakra tantric on the top of these the five elements there is the primordial wisdom elements which is the 6th one. On the basis of this element now what we have to understand is that we have the sense of ‘I’ .And in one sutra which is also in the Theravada or the Pali sutra as well as the Mahayana Sutra what we find is that the Buddha says the sense or the notion of grasping at ‘I’ is a devilish mind, it is the source of all the distorted view and since all the psycho physical aggregates are empty and therefore there is no self. And we have the notion of self as a controller of our body and mind but the sutra says as Nagarjuna says; “A person is neither the earth element nor the water. Apart from these five what is a person and we are merely designated just as a chariot is designated.”

“The disciples have to imagine 'Om' Syllable on the forehead which is sitting on the moon and at the throat ‘Ah’ which is red in colour and at the heart ‘Hum’ syllable and then at the naval imagine the whole syallable (Om Ah Hum) which is yellow in colour and then on the crown imagine a ‘Hum’ which is green in colour. With this ritual we are done with the ceremony of accepting the disciples. On July 5 His Holiness along with the monks of Namgyal monastery will do the earth ritual and disciples do not need to come for this, said His Holiness.”

“The actual path which lead us to that goal of enlightenment is the six perfections held by the wisdom realising selflessness then we should also have the practice of compassion and within this context we also should do the practice of taking refuge in the three jewels and also cultivating Bodhichitta which we can do on the basis of the verse we usually recite. It is easier to think about the meaning of what we are actually practising when we recite the mantra. We recite this verse rather than doing some mantra which we need some translations. So if we use this verse which says; “I go for the refuge to the Buddha, Dharma and the supreme assembly and until I am enlightened through the practice of my generosity and so forth may I become a Buddha to benefit all the sentient beings.” If you use this verse in order to cultivate the practice of taking refuge and also the cultivation of Bodhichitta would be good and then the path which actually overcomes our negative emotions and their stains completely is understanding of emptiness therefore we could also recite the verses from mata Nagarjuna’s, which says whatever is dependent is arisen is said to be empty and that is to be designated therefore that is the middle way. Since there is nothing which is not dependent, there is nothing which is not empty. So with these two verses if we could think along the meaning of emptiness it would be really helpful and so when we come for the initiation the preliminary process of initiation the teaching of course it will do the actual transformation should take within yourself, your mind itself . The preparation for that we should recite this verses either one time or we should say it 21 times each or and also one round of mala just as we need to overcome sickness we need some medicine. Likewise we need to overcome our selfish attitude and grasping at some kind of extreme independent existence. These verses will be helpful and so for the next three days recite the mantra and on 6th we will meet again. And among the audience there may be people who follow Islam, Christian or other traditions and they could also practice to transform their inner self and cultivate a warm heart", said His Holiness.
 
Giving the message His Holiness said, “The purpose for coming to initiate Kalachakra initiation empowerment is to become a good person, to make transformation within one self and therefore having come here for Kalachakra Initiation your goal should be that you will become a good person in the future and therefore you have to do whatever you can to make transformation within yourself. If you can do that the purpose of coming here is served. If you can’t do that it will not be meaningful for you. If you have a good heart you will be very happy in your life. So just as a sick person or weak cannot take a strong medicine. Likewise if we are not ready for the initiation or teaching with our selfish attitude and clinging to some selfhood of course the initiation will not work . For the next three days work on reducing the self- centred attitude and also grasping at independent self.”

And on 5th July, prayers of Kalachakra Ritual Preparation will be held and on 6, 7 & 8 July, there will preliminary teaching on Nagarjuna’s Precious Garland of the Middle way (uma rinchen trengwa) & Letter to a friend (Shesting).

And on the July 9 monks will perform the ritual dance having completed the construction of Mandala and visualise the deities and there will be dance ceremony and on that day local people can also as usually do come and do the dance and songs as offering to the deities of Kalachakra Mandala and then in order to receive their blessings. Kalachakra initiation will begin with the preliminary process of Initiation on the July 6.

His Holiness said, “On July 10 onwards, what we need, is a good heart and a warm heart. From today onwards I would ask you to do your best to cultivate a good heart and best and highest form of Good heart meaning the practice of Bodhichitta, the mind which is focussed on full enlightenment of Buddhahood for the benefit of all the sentient beings. Bodhisattva is with the wisdom they focussed on enlightenment and with their compassion they focussed on sentient beings.

On the 11th the disciples entering into the Mandala and on the 12th we have the7th initiation in patron of the child rearing and for higher initiation and then on top of that we also have the fourth greatly high initiation and after that puja for long life initiation.