Lama Zopa Rinpoche

Then you make a promise to generate both wishing and entering bodhicitta and to protect
the nineteen samayas, the samayas of the five types of buddhas.
The hearer listener and solitary realizer arhats and the bodhisattvas who have attained the
pure bhumis—the eighth, ninth and tenth—are free from the disturbing-thought
obscurations but not the subtle ones. You want to free these arhats and bodhisattvas from
even these subtle obscurations. And you want to liberate ordinary sentient beings, those who
are neither arhats nor higher bodhisattvas living in the last three bhumis and are therefore
not free from either disturbing-thought obscurations or subtle obscurations. You want to
liberate them from both kinds of obscuration.
You want to “give breath” to all lower realm beings, such as those in hell, who are “unable
to breathe” because of the unbelievably heavy suffering they have to experience, which
means you want to free them from the suffering of the lower realms. In that way, you
promise to lead all sentient beings to enlightenment, the non-abiding sorrowless state. That
is the purpose of taking the tantric vows with these commitments.
Sentient beings are most kind, most precious, most dear. All your past, present and future
happiness, including enlightenment, every collection of goodness, comes from every sentient
being. You need to understand this deeply and also see how much they are suffering. They
want happiness but they always destroy the cause of happiness. They dislike suffering but
day and night they are always busy creating the cause of suffering. They are always running
toward suffering. They destroy their merits because they don’t know Dharma.
Think, “I must free the numberless mother sentient beings from the oceans of samsaric
suffering and bring them to full enlightenment, the state of the omniscient mind, by myself
alone. Therefore, I must achieve the state of the omniscient mind as quickly as possible.”
This is the kind of motivation you need to bring with you when you take an initiation.
Using the damaru, vajra and bell
When you use the damaru, you have to hold it in your right hand together with the vajra
while holding the bell in your left hand. Then, as Kyabje Zong Rinpoche explained, you
think, “In order to achieve enlightenment for the benefit of all the mother sentient beings I
am going to practice the two bodhicittas.” The vajra symbolizes the method of great bliss
and the bell symbolizes the wisdom of emptiness, which means you are going to practice
method and wisdom respectively, or, in terms of the two bodhicittas, conventional and
absolute bodhicitta.
Because holding the vajra and bell symbolizes the inseparability of method, great bliss, and
wisdom, emptiness, you never put either of them down in order to use the damaru. You
hold them both at the same time to show the essence of tantric practice: the inseparability of
method and wisdom.
Whether you can remember that every time or not, at least when you’re doing a puja try to
remember this meaning at least once! (Kyabje Zong Rinpoche didn’t say that; I’m saying it!)
Anyway, you need to remember to always hold the two together. People also commonly play
175