Buddhahood in the Female form: Vajrayogini's Attainments.
Vajrayogini's glowing red body is ablaze with the heat of the yogic fire. And circled with the flames of wisdom. Her dancing, leaping, and soaring poses proclaim that she is fully alive and joyously free. Her flowing hair and swaying bone ornaments ripple on the currents of her swirling energy field. She never parts from her brimming skull cup. Ever slaking her thirst for primordial ecstasy, which is not ordinary pleasure but innate bliss. That pulses at the core of every being and is the birthright of all living beings.
Her chalice is made from a human skull. For nothing deters her ability to taste and enjoy life, even when life’s feast is served in something that looks like death.
From her sovereign vantage point of ultimate truth, she recognizes all human concerns as mere bubbles of illusion as the eternal play of primordial bliss.
Rather than fulfilling the petitioners' needs and desires, she severs the bonds of attachment. And dissolves conventional thought, removing all vestiges of duality and delusion.
"Dancing in the realm of ultimate freedom, they beckon their beholders to leap free of the confines of worldly illusion and soar into a dazzling realm of infinite possibilities."
Vajrayogini: Dakini as Buddha
Her name, “Adamantine Yogini” describes her as a female who has attained perfection. Through the practice of yoga, she becomes a divine, or “adamantine” yogini. A Compassionate, All-knowing, and supremely blissful Yogini. Adamantine, here refers specifically to the indestructible state of enlightenment she has attained.
Among all dakinis, human and divine, Vajrayogini reigns supreme as Sarva-buddha-dakini. A Dakini Whose Essence Is That of All Buddhas. This title is important in her invocation. Appearing in the primary mantra of the most forms including:
Adamantine Dakini (Vajradakini),
Glorious Dakini (Sridakini),
Dakini of Highest Knowledge (Jiianadakini),
Fully Enlightened Dakini (Buddhadakini).
The word Dakini has a complex range of associations. It describes Vajrayogini as one who flies, moves freely in space, dances in the sky, and sports blissfully in the limitless expanse of emptiness.
She has attained full awakening. And she manifests a divine body that expresses her spiritual realizations. She provides a guide map on which others may meditate to achieve the same goal of attainment. As an enlightened being, she has attained both transcendent wisdom (prajna) and supreme bliss (mahasukha).
"She possesses the five transcendent insights of a Buddha and the essence of spontaneously arising bliss.” Liturgies lay equal stress on her compassion and blissfulness alongside her wisdom and realization of emptiness.
As a Buddha, Vajrayogini has three bodies or levels of embodiment. Her ultimate “ body” is a formless “truth body” (dharma-kaya) of pure radiance and wisdom. She also manifests in subtle “bliss bodies” (sambhoga-kaya). The divine forms in which she sports as a deity, enjoying enlightenment and teaching and inspiring others. Third is the “transformation body” or “emanation body” (Nirmanakaya) forms in which she appears among humans in the phenomenal realm.
In this mode of embodiment, she manifests her presence through female adepts. Beyond the human sphere, Vajrayogini generates millions of emanations in countless worlds. Suited to the bodily types, levels of understanding, and wishes of their myriad beings.
Khechara: Vajrayogini's Buddhaland
She presides over Khecara, a Buddha-land suffused with her enlightening presence. Her residence is located in Akanistha, the purest and subtlest plane of existence. As are the realms of all Buddhas. She resides in her paradisal abode in a bliss-body form, amidst clouds of enlightened dakinis in the rainbow array. She is accompanied by her consort, Heruka-Chakrasamvara.
Click here to view this thangka of Heruka Chakrasamvara and Vajrayogini
The great practitioners who have sufficiently purified their vision may glimpse her Buddha-land. And receive guidance and blessings. Those who have made significant progress in the practice during their lifetime will ascend to her realm at the time of death. Many advanced adept is said to have left behind a tiny corpse or only hair and fingernails. Or the sky was filled with rainbows at the time of cremation.
This signifies that the body was so luminous. It dissolved into light and was absorbed directly into Khechara in “Rainbow body”.
Source: Buddhist Goddess of India, Miranda Shaw