Vajradhara- Buddhist GodDeity"The Primordial Buddha"

The Diamond Holder

Vajradhara's name means "diamond holder." His skin is deep blue, the color Tibetan painters use for infinite space. He sits in meditation with arms crossed at his heart: vajra in the right hand, bell in the left. The gesture is called vajrahumkara mudra. He wears the silks and jewels of a buddha in his glory body, but the blue beneath them is older than form itself. In the Kagyu and Gelug schools of Tibetan Buddhism, he is the Adi-Buddha, the primordial source. Not a being who attained enlightenment but the ground from which enlightenment arises.

Tilopa's Vision

The mahasiddha Tilopa, an Indian yogin who ground sesame seeds by day and meditated in charnel grounds by night, received the tantric teachings directly from Vajradhara. No human teacher stood between Tilopa and the source. Vajradhara appeared to him in vision and transmitted the Mahamudra and the six dharmas that would pass from Tilopa to Naropa, from Naropa to Marpa the Translator who carried them over the Himalayas to Tibet, and from Marpa to Milarepa, the cotton-clad hermit who sang them into the mountain caves of Lapchi and Kailash.

The Guru's Face

When Kagyu and Gelug practitioners sit before their teacher, they are taught to see Vajradhara. The root guru and the primordial Buddha are the same. In guru yoga, the practitioner visualizes the teacher dissolving into Vajradhara's blue form, and receives through that image what Tilopa once received without intermediary. At the apex of the refuge tree, where all lineage masters gather, Vajradhara sits with arms crossed, unchanged since he first spoke to Tilopa.