Purifying Negative Karma with Vajrasattva, Meditation and Metta / Karuna Practices

Venerable Acharya Zasep Tulku Rinpoche, Spiritual Head of Gaden for the West Centers, answers a student’s question:
"What practical advice would you give to a new student to purify their mental defilements and bad karma? Can you speak about Vajrasattva purification?"
Partial Transcript: Zasep Rinpoche: “Purification for a beginner. There are two types of purification. Purification according to Sutra, and purification according to Tantra.
According to Sutra, basically, meditation itself is the purification. According to Pali tradition its called ‘Visudimada’, Path of Purification, and you meditate every day, cultivate awareness, mindfulness - that would be very good for purifying the mind.
Also, I would suggest one should practice ‘Metta’ and ‘Karuna’, loving kindness. Meditate on love and compassion, for yourself, for others. That will purify our mental defilements and purify our karma.
According to Tantra, one of the most powerful purifications is meditations on Vajrasattva. Recite the mantra of Vajrasattva, the 100-syllable mantra [mantra below transcript]. If you don’t have initiation, you can say the mantra, no problem, you can visualize Vajrasattva in front of you. [Or] Above your crown, as well.
Imagine - as you say the mantra - imagine purifying nectar coming from the heart of Vajrasattva, and the nectar enters through your your crown [of your head] and enters into your body, first purifying the body. The nectar flowing down through the body. And as if flows down it purifies all the bodily karmas: disease, sickness, unwholesome karmas of the past, unwholesome karmas of the bodies are purified. Say the mantra, lets say 21 times.
Then you do the purification again, this time purifying the speech, the speech karmas. This time, the nectar comes down from the heart of Vajrasattva dissolves into you, into your body, and slowly fills up your body, and then [you visualize] the unwholesome karmas of the speech coming out from the mouth. They are expelled. Gone. Imagine your speech karma is purified.
The third time, nectar comes down from Vajrasattva’s heart, dissolving into you directly into your heart, and then you mind is purified, mental karmas such as fear, attachment, ignorance, and confusion disappear, are dispersed. Disappeared straight from your heart. This is very powerful.
Say the mantra, the 100-syllable mantra of Vajrasattva, and then imagine Vajrasattva becoming smaller and smaller entering through your crown and dissolving into your heart. Imagine Vajrasattva is always with you as a personal yidam deity. This is very powerful way to purify your body, speech and mind. There are other purifications, but I think this is good enough for the beginner.”
For full transcript see: buddhaweekly.c...
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[@FireLionKnight]

Thank you very much for this teaching Rinpoche and those who recorded and published it here and on Buddha Weekly! It has been to my benefit and I'm sure it has been to the benefit of others around the world!

[@BuddhaWeekly]

Thank you for watching! May all beings benefit.

[@columbusstrehle8628]

Thank you Rinpoche

[@mikyzulu1180]

Thank you so mich for this teaching.

[@ugyendema2775]

🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏

[@MichaelFijal]

You had me at "MEDITATION". :o) Thank you very much! Bringing nectar down feels almost instantly healing.

[@JosephineNolan]

Very clear and concise, thank you Rinpoche _/\_ _/\_ _/\_

[@adim00lah]

Name of Lord Vajrasattva clears our give-and-take account with our karmic debtors. The mechanism of how this works is that the subtle basic sattva component is generated through the chant and passed on to the person in which you have harmed in this life, or the last This acts as a repayment mechanism and helps to nullify the give-and-take account between yourself and the person whom you negatively effected in the past.