Treasury of Blessings

Traditional instruction texts encourage us to use a photo or a statue as we habituate ourselves to visualization. Tibetans often practice part of the time with an image, and then rely less and less on that as they gain familiarity and confidence. Start by looking gently (not staring hard!) at a statue or a painting or image. Then close your eyes and see how much you can recall. Repeat this process until the Buddha’s form comes easily to mind, just like the face of a good friend. It is good to proceed at your own pace—some people find visualization easy while others may take some more time to develop comfort. There’s no magic formula—it’s just a matter of developing a new habit. We all can learn to work with our visual imaginations if we approach the practice with a willingness and sense of curiosity. Phakchok Rinpoche, Tulku Migmar and the druplas in our tradition always remind us that the most important factor in visualization is confidence and decisiveness that the Buddha is truly present in front of us. If we can maintain that confidence, we don’t need to worry so much if all the aspects of the visualization are not perfect. Feeling the presence of the Buddha is the key point. We’re experiencing being in the presence of a pure object—beginning to train in seeing things as not solid and yet vividly present and pure. It takes time, and it takes repetition! Our teachers are always encouraging us to keep our visualization vibrant. For some practitioners, video may be a more useful medium to train in this aspect than a statue or static image. For others it may not. That’s fine. But In order to inspire you and help you work with visualization practice, Samye Institute has produced a visualization video for the Treasury of Blessings sadhana. We encourage you to practice first with the full version of the video that includes the guidance instructions that appear in the small print of the text. These instructions, the lamas remind us, are integral to the text and we should not skip over them in a hurry to finish. Listen to these pith instructions—remembering that when you do so you are following the recommendations of Mipham Rinpoche on how to practice. Think of these as oral instructions from a highly qualified guide! Note that during the video we have included a chime and the instructions to sit in meditation according to the instructions you have received. Thus, you can pause the video and spend as much time in that practice as you or your group would like (the same goes for the mantra recitations portions of the video. Feel free to pause in order to recite as much as you would like). Then simply resume the video to conclude the practice session. And with that in mind, please remember that this video is a tool merely meant to inspire our practice and spark our own imagination. It is only one interpretation of this visualization. Ultimately it is up to us, as practitioners, to figure out how best to work with the sadhana and make it as vivid as possible for ourselves.  So don’t worry. If, as we continue to practice, our own visualization begins to evolve and change, become more elaborate or more simple, or even looks very different from this one, that’s totally fine. That’s exactly what is supposed to happen.