May-June 1997

By Adèle Hulse

Last issue I told you about the Vajrayogini retreat I faked. Well, I never did the fire puja for that because even though I felt very happy afterwards I didn’t feel I had understood the process and was damned if I was going to confound my limitations by adding some other ritual I understood even less. This is my Dharma practice and I am the best judge of how it affects me. I am not interested in ticking off a list of commitments for frequent flier points.

We had that at boarding school – getting sore knees in the icy chapel, blisters bursting on our fingers and toes as we babbled off “indulgences” – little prayers with credit points that guaranteed a certain number of days less in “purgatory.” “Oh Lord, keep the fires away,” kind of thing. It was pure superstition, on my part at least.

So I thought I’d start again. Vajrayogini is a terrific little retreat; both of mine took 26 days doing only two sessions a day and there is only one mantra. There I was again sitting up in bed with my legs out in front (if Maitreya can do it so can I) trying to focus on that funny little red bam in the heart and pretending I was sending bliss to all sentient beings. But again I felt I was just wasting my time.

“All sentient beings” is the Mahayana touchstone but being so wide and all encompassing, for me it leaves too much undone up close. How can I send bliss to “all sentient beings” when half the people I meet every day irritate the hell out of me? So I had a brain wave: I got out that list of 20 “enemies” I wrote about in a previous column.

It is so scary looking at that list, rubbing my nose in my confession. But there is real energy there, real regret, not just this amorphous “all sentient beings” thing. So I propped up the list and said rounds of mantra focusing on one name at a time.

The tantric deal is of course that while you are pretending to be a deity you can hardly have room to dislike someone. That sort of stuff is a bit beneath deities.

So holding my pathetic attention on the red bam and the name, I send bliss light to that particular person, wishing them to be free from all delusion, releasing that person from all suffering – especially from my unkind view of them. (In ordinary terms they may still be a very irritating person but my responsibility is to how I feel about them – in practical terms that is the only thing I can logically improve on.)

I tell you, it felt good. For the first time I felt I was getting somewhere. I went to see Geshe Doga at Tara Institute again and told him what I was doing. He said that was fine. “But some of these prayers, Geshe-la, this Tibetan stuff, honestly it would be just as much use to me if I said them backwards; I don’t understand one word and don’t expect I ever will. What is the point of saying them three times, etc., etc.?” He laughed and told me, “Sometimes we need some blah blah blah.” I guess it’s just as much work to learn them backwards as forwards.

Afterwards I really did want to do a fire puja. Breaking several summer by-laws in my city I lit a little BBQ fire and got a token range of ingredients together. I couldn’t find black sesame seeds so I visualized the white ones as black. It’s my mind that’s the problem, not the color of the sesame seeds.

I tell you, I had the best fun doing the fire puja out in the back yard, all alone, taking my time, stopping to study details, no one blah blahing me. “Visualize ordinary Adèle in your heart throwing all her bad views in the fire, burning them up,” said Geshe-la. So I got my list out again and went to work on the strong feelings and daily emotions I know so well. It felt fantastic. For the first time I realized why fire pujas are one of the preliminary practices. Now when old Snake-eyes starts up in my heart, I visualize myself throwing her thoughts into the fire, burning them up.

I’ve done fire pujas before and seen plenty, all with serious faces, being worried about missing the next bit, catching up, getting sparks on you and thinking, “Oh, purification.” I just thought: “Ow.” I kept myself nice and finished the things but I have to say, nothing much stuck. This time, with the ritual firmly in my own hands I felt good. Like maybe all is not blah blah blah that first seems so. Especially if it tames my murderous heart. Hundred thousand fire pujas then – how do you do that? Plenty of “ow” I think.