1st Jamgon Kongtrul Rinpoche
1. Reciting the names of the buddhas and bodhisattvas specifically praised for their ability to purify obscurations, such as Amitabha, the Medicine Buddha, and Akshobhya
2. Fashioning statues, texts, and stupas
3. Presenting offerings to those three representations (in point two), serving the Sangha, offering mandalas and ganachakras if a Vajrayana practitioner, and especially practicing the five methods of pleasing the guru (ie, showing him respect, offering service or necessities, having faith and confidence in him, obeying him and practicing Dharma).
4. Reciting the sutras and tantras taught by the Victor, such as the Prajnaparamita sutras and The Sutra of Great Liberation.
5. Reciting profound dharanis such as the hundred-syllable mantra of the Tathagata or the mantras of Sarvavid, Akshobhya, and so forth.
6. Having confidence in buddha-nature and meditating on the meaning of selflessness: devote yourself to resting in a state free of focus on the three spheres—the misdeeds and obscurations to be purified; the deity and mantra that purify; and yourself, the person purifying—and meditate on either the actual profound yoga or the attitude compatible with it that all things are unreal, like an illusion.
Although any of these, if practiced effectively, is capable of completely purifying the causes and results of wrongdoing, the meditation and recitation of Vajrasattva is taught to be swift in purifying coarse misdeeds and obscurations that obstruct the arising of experience and realization in the main practice of mahamudra.
The misdeeds and obscurations we have accumulated in this life obscure experience the most because they are so recent. In particular, violations of the three types of vows, and especially, violations of the samaya of the guru’s body, speech, and mind are extremely grave wrongs and downfalls.
Violating other samayas of the secret mantra such as unethical use of the sangha’s possessions and offerings to the gurus also obscures previous experiences and prevents new ones from arising. That is why the hundred-syllable mantra of Vajrasattva is renowned as the best way to purify all of these.
(Note: Generating Bodhichitta is also a very swift and powerful of purifying eons of negative karma.)
