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Thumbnail Path for a Spiritual Friend

Yes, this kind of practice works to make things more positive. That’s why now I’m always looking for a dream and not just sleep. Dreams you can influence and change. In sleep one is mostly unconscious. During the day many people are still in a sleep-like state. Because of this, mostly nothing very positive occurs. Meditation can wake one up and then good things will happen if the mind is ethically trained. It’s called Awareness. We need to be aware as well as ‘beware.’ Because in carelessness is death, said a second Buddha. Therefore, I guard my mind by saying mantras which protect and shape it toward the positive, as well as meditate on the nature of mind which is ultimately nondual emptiness and clarity. In the union of that is ecstasy. This is the yoga tantra. 
Here’s a continuing part to the above teaching (which I’m thinking to blog): Tantra means continuum and by practicing with great diligence, the other five Perfections, one enters a ceaseless stream of Enlightened being. Whenever a Buddha or Bodhisattva displays this, it is in itself a positive action that inspires others to do the same. This is what Buddhas and Bodhisattvas do out of loving kindness for other beings. But as in the traditional example of an armless mother watching her only child drown in a rushing river, we too must acquire ‘arms’ of compassion. This is made possible through taking vows of ‘wishing’ and ‘accomplishing,’ aspiration and its fulfillment, in the Bodhisattva’s Path. This is the Mahayana, and the Vajrayana is yoga tantra and the Bodhisattva’s Path combined. 
More: Three sets of vows is required to practice Vajrayana: Refuge in the Buddha, Sangha, and Dharma (inclusive of the Pratimoksha personal liberation vows), Bodhisattva vows, which outline compassionate behavior, and the fourteen root and nine branch Vajrayana vows. These last sets of vows is the first of one’s numerous samaya (tantric conduct) commitments after taking a major empowerment, and is the most difficult to follow. It requires not only the faith and an associated behavior with the two or three sets of vows, but the constant transformation of the ordinary into the extraordinary. These vows are absolutely necessary for the accumulation of merit and wisdom, the ‘two heaps’ by which one be becomes an Enlightened Buddha. 
And the rest: It’s first necessary, however, to choose a qualified Guru and start accumulating the authentic teachings as if they were liquid Bodhicitta being poured into the cup of one’s mind. This cup needs to be ‘right side up,’ not cracked, and clean. Then, diligent study, reflection, and meditation is applied for however long it takes to join one’s mind through yogic experience of the eight foundational practices, and the two stages of generation and perfecting processes on one’s meditational deity, until one achieves through a yogic realization, the purification of emotive and cognitive obscurations, thereby achieving the ‘path of seeing.’ This is the attainment of the First Bhumi and, as this is the Diamond Vehicle, it goes beyond the ten bhumis of the other two, Shravaka and Mahayana, to the Thirteen Bhumi. King of all  accomplishments, it’s a destiny foretold in a prophecy, given during one’s Supreme Yoga Tantra empowerment, that each participant will one day develop into a fully Enlightened Buddha. May it be so for you too, my superlative friend. 

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