With the full Kalacakra empowerment this is an elaborate process, for two principle reasons. The first is that the self- and front-generation practices for the full mandala (the triple body, speech and mind mandala) of Kalacakra are themselves very complex and take each day several hours. Also, it is traditional to use a powder mandala for the Kalacakra initiation, and the drawing of this can easily take three or four days.

The main traditions actually insist that a powder mandala is used, and that it is wrong to use a painted mandala (prepared in advance and that can be used many times). However, there is one empowerment that comes from the tradition of the Vajravali (rdo rje'i phreng ba) by the late 11th century Indian master Abhayakaragupta. The Vajravali is a set of mandala descriptions and initiations for the main Tantric cycles, and it specifically allows the use of painted mandalas. All the main Tibetan traditions preserve a lineage of the Vajravali, but there are those that consider its use for Kalacakra to be somewhat improper.

The normal use of a powder mandala adds significantly to the time taken for the preparations. Once these are over, there are two parts to the main initiation. The first is a preparation (lhag gnas) for the students and the second is the actual seven empowerments. These usually take place on two successive days.