Merits of Empowerment

In the Vajrayana tradition of Buddhism, there are great merits in receiving empowerments. These empowerments transform an ordinary and mundane person into a child of the Buddha. After receiving an empowerment, the body, speech and mind of the person are equivalent to the Buddha. Though once has not attained buddhahood, one has received the seed of buddhahood in principle, and is regarded as a Buddha in waiting.

Empowerments are a phenomenon wherein the cosmic consciousness, the Root Guru and the disciple who received the empowerments, have merged into one. Empowerments carry these three significances:

1. Purification: Removal of all past negative karma.
2. Blessing: The power of the Root Guru enters the disciple's body.
3. Conferring the prediction of buddhahood: The most important significance is "the conferring of the Buddha's consciousness and Buddha seed in the body of the disciple."

There are four types of empowerments in Vajrayana, namely the outer empowerments, the inner empowerments, the the secret empowerments and the most secret empowerments.

Basic Knowledge of Empowerment

All practices in Vajrayana Buddhism require empowerments.

Empowerments are needed in order to identify and understand one's lineage. If the practitioners receive empowerments outside of True Buddha School, they naturally lose the lineage from True Buddha School.

There are various levels of empowerment, and a higher level empowerment should not be taken prior to receiving the lower level empowerment that precedes it. The rules as laid down by the lineage gurus dictate that the practitioners begin with the Generation Stage and progress onto the Completion Stage. Once the practitioners obtain confirmation of a spiritual response, they are allowed to receive the higher empowerments.

When the practitioners receive a direct empowerment from the Root Guru, they cannot accept the same empowerment from a True Buddha School acharya (master). This would be an inversion of lineage transmission and it is forbidden.

Empowerment that are higher than the inner empowerments (except for the Treasure Vase Breathing Practice Empowerment) must be directly transmitted by the Root Guru, and cannot be transmitted via remote empowerments.

An acharya, who has not received a certain empowerment from the Root Guru, cannot confer that empowerment, since he or she has not received it.

When the practitioners are receiving the Personal Deity Practice Empowerment, they must focus on the respective deity as they form the mudra, recite the mantra and perform the visualisation, aligning their body, speech and mind with the respective deity.