Making Tsa Tsa.

Making Tsa Tsa.

I would like to encourage you to engage with the making and placing of tsa tsa images of Padmasambhava, Amitayus and other deities connected with our practice.

While making the tsa tsa we recite the mantras of Padmasambhava or the Seven Line Prayer. We start with our bodhisattva intention, then we recall the sufferings of all beings in the six realms of samsara and conclude by dedicating the merit of our work to the benefit of all sentient beings.

Read the Tsa Tsa Practice Text

Then we place the tsa tsa in the environment in order to bless and heal this wounded world and to rebalance the five elements upon which our lives depend.

Moreover by these repeated gestures of connecting with the pure potential of the field of our five senses we de-reify our experience and open ourselves to our intrinsic non-dual awareness. The view of dzogchen reminds us that all that occurs, whether seemingly identifiable as subject or as object, is inseparable from the whole, the great completion. Everything we experience, including ourselves, is intrinsically pure and free of the least taint of inherent existence. We are already living in the pure land of the Buddhas. Whether we call this Dewachen or Zangdopalri, if we focus on the four verses from the Seven Chapter Prayer that we have in our Padmasambhava practice (Pages 14-17 in the English version) then we will gradually shed the obscuring beliefs that hide us from the truth of who we are and where we are.

To awaken to this it is helpful to read the books Longing for Limitless Light and Lotus Source.