From the first day of the Umdze Training for the Practice of Mandarava, February 24, 2025, afternoon, Dzamling Gar

“I started doing this umdze training when Rinpoche was still alive and he very much supported the idea of learning how to sing the practices correctly. Of course, this does not mean that everybody can become a good singer, because for that you need training and some kind of natural talent. But still, we should try to sing with the correct rhythm, be in tune, and learn at least the basic melodies. Everybody can do that. 

This is important because whatever we do in the Vajrayana tradition is on the level of our three gates. Sound is related to the principle of energy or voice and melody is part of the principle of sound and how we move with the musical notes. 

It is important to understand that most of the practices that Rinpoche transmitted to us and that we do did not come from monasteries in Tibet or from practices that Rinpoche learned from some lamas. Most of them originate from other dimensions that Rinpoche visited in his dreams. For instance, in his dreams he saw how to do the Ganapuja. The way we do the Ganapuja is not found anywhere else and if you go to Tibet or Nepal, they don’t do it like we do. Everything comes from Rinpoche’s own experience and he taught us what he learned through his dreams. This is something very important and we should try to keep this tradition. 

Even when we receive the eighteen empowerments of Dzogchen Semde with its presentation of the mandala and so on, one of the important principles is to maintain the tradition as it is. For that reason we should try to continue in that way because it is not something only related to culture but to transmission. We should distinguish between culture and transmission because they are not the same thing. We are trying to continue, at least I am trying to continue with all my effort, to keep Rinpoche’s transmission as it was taught originally, in a pure way, hoping that in the future it can benefit all those who are interested in doing that. 

The Mandarava practice is a terma teaching that Rinpoche received in 1984 and is part of the Anuyoga transmissions. Anuyoga is a path of transformation but deals more with the essence of our condition rather than external factors or elements, such as asking for blessings. Anuyoga is based on the principle of primordial potentiality in the same way as in the Dzogchen teaching, although it mostly works through the three gates of body, voice and mind, especially through energy. 

We have a long version of this practice as well as medium and short versions, and its benefit on the relative level is basically to harmonize or coordinate the energy of our five elements. In Vajrayana, when we refer to the five elements, they are generally personified as five dakinis and for this reason we could also say that the Mandarava practice is a practice of the five dakinis. This is why we have all these mantras with the seed syllables of the five dakinis BAM HA RI NI SA related to the nature of the five elements, which in turn is related to our primordial condition. This is not something outside ourselves and we are not asking for an external blessing but activating our natural energy, power and strength. The Mandarava practice is considered a long-life practice because long life refers to our elements. 

Generally, we have different elements of life such as sog, the vital force, and tse, or the capacity of our life force to remain stable. We do that through coordinating the five elements. This is the principle. Then of course all Vajrayana practices are related to transmission, which entails the principle of what in Dzogchen we call the state of Guruyoga, or being in our real nature. That is the ultimate level. If you know the Mandarava practice, in the end after we do all these stages of visualization, we finally discover what the real dakini is. Dakini is not only a female manifestation of something. This is on the relative level. The real dakini is our primordial state with its energy, this is called primordial dakini. When we reach that level it means that Anuyoga arrives at the principle of Atiyoga or Dzogchen. This is the main principle of this practice.”