Lama Zopa Rinpoche

Focus on the deity’s holy body that appears as real while at the same time understanding that
what appears as real is not real, that it is nonexistent from its own side, like recognizing a
dream as a dream or recognizing a mirage as being the false appearance of water. While at
the same time you are focusing on the deity’s holy mind you can think that it is merely
labeled by the mind, or empty. It comes to the same point: merely labeled means empty.
In the Mahayana Paramitayana, method and wisdom are practiced together but not by one
mind. Each is practiced by a separate mind. What makes tantra the quick path to
enlightenment in one life is practicing method and wisdom together, in one mind.
That becomes “vajra.” That is the diamond or the vajra, the thing that can cut all other
things. Just as a diamond can cut glass or many other things but nothing else can cut the
diamond itself, this vajra alone can cut the dualistic mind, the dualistic view, the impure
appearance, the impure mind.
Practicing method and wisdom simultaneously, focusing on the deity’s holy body becomes
the cause to achieve the rupakaya, a buddha’s holy body, and the awareness that it does not
exist from its own side become the cause to achieve the dharmakaya, a buddha’s holy mind.
If you can actualize that vajra, it takes you to enlightenment. That is why it is called a yana,
or vehicle. Just as a car takes you to the place you want to go, this vehicle takes you to
enlightenment. Therefore it is called the Vajrayana. This is why, in order to practice method
and wisdom in one mind, inseparably, it is so important to really understand emptiness.
Tantra is the resultant vehicle
Not only does tantra become the quick path to enlightenment in one lifetime because it
allows one mind to practice method and wisdom simultaneously, it also allows you to
meditate on the path similar to the result, hence its other name, the resultant vehicle.
That is the reason why there is usually a commitment to recite the long, medium or short
sadhana daily and to visualize the deity and the mandala. It’s not because you have nothing
better to do. Like in the West, when people get old, when they are retired, they have nothing
to do. They don’t recite OM MANI PADME HUM or anything worthwhile. They just
garden, put flowers around their house and so forth to distract their mind but no matter
whatever else they do, their life is so boring. Doing your sadhana is not like that. You don’t
do it just to stop your mind from getting bored.
By doing the meditations of the resultant vehicle you achieve the four complete purities, the
purities of body, place, deeds and offerings.
The final result of the path is that you become a buddha; your body becomes the deity’s
pure, holy body. What you are going to attain in the future, the deity’s holy body, you
visualize now. That is the practice—you visualize that you have already achieved the deity’s
holy body. That is the purity of body. Because this practice purifies the mind of all
obscurations, of all dualistic views and concepts, it becomes the quick path to
enlightenment. You collect the most unbelievable merit and purify so much.
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