English
The so-called 'vital essence of life' refers to relying on the life-force root channel, as stated in the Great Seal Bindu and the Wisdom Bindu. In the middle of the two breasts, at the life-force channel, is the center of the heart chakra, so one should focus there. For practices such as meditating on bindus that press the vital points of the body, if one knows the vital points of the body well and focuses the mind there, it will hit the mark; otherwise, it will not. Regarding the bindu to be meditated upon in that place, although the Vajra Garland does not explicitly mention a real bindu other than the letter, the Lamp of Illumination states that one should meditate on the indestructible in the form of a bindu. Some followers of the Gö tradition believe that one should meditate on a short A (ཨ, Devanagari: अ, Romanization: a, Literal meaning: A) in the center of the union of the sun and moon bindu. The Condensed Five Stages states that one should meditate on the indestructible bindu with a short A. In the two instructions of the Golden Platform, one says a white bindu and a black short A, one says that inside the white bindu is a half-white, half-black short A, and another says that inside the half-white, half-black bindu is a shape like an A-sha (ཨཱཿ, Devanagari: आः, Romanization: āḥ, Literal meaning: Ah), and another says to contemplate the bindu as white with a reddish glow. Regarding the union of red and white bindus, the great accomplished Kukuripa said: 'Thinking of its center, the sun-circle bindu, the moon above, the shape is like a joined gau box, the sun is method, the moon is wisdom.' This is consistent with the statement about the bindu as the basis for vajra recitation, but here the letter is used instead of the bindu in its center. The Oral Instruction says: White with a slight red tinge. In the womb, the intermediate state consciousness enters the center of the parents' sperm and blood, which is said to be in the heart, and it is also said to be the basis of the mind. Therefore, practicing according to these two methods has the essential points of practice. The size of the bindu is said to be about the size of a mustard seed. If the mind can focus on a subtle object, it is easier to cut off conceptual thoughts and gather the winds. Regarding the letter, the Vajra Garland says that the letter in the center of the heart can be either A (ཨ, Devanagari: अ, Romanization: a, Literal meaning: A) or Hūṃ (ཧཱུྃ, Devanagari: हुं, Romanization: hūṃ, Literal meaning: Hūṃ), and the Compendium of Practices says that the letter A is meditated upon as a symbol of the indestructible. There is no definite form of the letter there, but here one meditates on either A (ཨ, Devanagari: अ, Romanization: a, Literal meaning: A) or Hūṃ (ཧཱུྃ, Devanagari: हुं, Romanization: hūṃ, Literal meaning: Hūṃ). The color is either both dark blue, or the Root Tantra of the Compendium also says a white Hūṃ (ཧཱུྃ, Devanagari: हुं, Romanization: hūṃ, Literal meaning: Hūṃ) letter. This is the wind.