Most people attending these would agree that the experience is improved by having a reasonable understanding of what is going on in the empowerment and the meaning of its various parts. The purpose of the following notes is therefore to help explain some of the principles involved in Kalacakra empowerments, or initiations, for the benefit of people intending to take such an initiation.

The first point to understand is that although one often hears people talk of receiving "the Kalacakra initiation", as though there were only one, there are in fact many. For a start, the different schools of Tibetan Buddhism have their own distinct, although very similar traditions. Also, within each such lineage there are several different types of empowerment.

The simplest of these are generally known as "rituals of permission" (rjes gnang). The phrase "torma empowerment" (gtor dbang) is also often used. These are not full-scale empowerments, but are intended to enable the student to start performing a simple version of the main practice. For example, a ritual of permission for Kalacakra usually prepares the student to perform the practice of the more simple one-faced and two-armed form of Kalacakra, known as Sahaja-Kalacakra. The main empowerments involve the four-faced form of Kalacakra with twenty-four hands.

Rituals of permission will also be given for other deities within the Kalacakra cycle, such as the wrathful form of Kalacakra, Vajravega; the consort of Kalacakra on her own, Vishvamata; the Kalacakra form of Garuda, and so on.

Of the main empowerments of Kalacakra, there are two types. These are associated respectively with the generation process (bskyed rim) and perfection process (rdzogs rim) meditations of Kalacakra.

In the generation process meditation the practioner imagines being transformed into Kalacakra, standing in union with the consort, within the full mandala, surrounded by the deities of the Kalacakra retinue. (The full image also includes a "world-system mandala" that supports the palace, including Mt. Meru, continents, etc.

In this practice the focus of attention is first of all on the process of the creation of this image of the full mandala (it is this that is properly called the "generation process"), followed by the contemplation of this complete image together with the repetition of one or more of the mantras of Kalacakra.

The main type of empowerment that introduces the student to the mandala and to this practice is known as the "Seven Empowerments Raising the Child" (byis pa 'jug pa'i dbang bdun). The generation process meditation - specifically the many steps in the formation of the mandala and the generation of all the deities within it - purifies one's experience and perceptions of the process of life, from conception up to the stage of puberty, and for this reason the introduction to this practice is likened to raising a child.

Empowerments of this type are generally the most complex of all Kalacakra empowerments. They are usually preceeded by several days of ritual, and the empowerment itself usually takes two days. The Seven Empowerments Raising the Child will be explained in more detail later.

The perfection process meditations of Kalacakra are known as the Six Yogas (sbyor drug), or Six-limbed Vajrayoga (rdo rje'i rnal 'byor yan lag drug,). These start with the development of non-conceptual meditation, developing a process where the winds that are considered to move in the main right and left channels within the body are drawn into the central channel. This process is continued by methods involving control of the breathing and imagination of the various channels, the seeds (drops, "thig le") within them and the winds that move within the channels. The intention of these practices is to bind the winds within the central channel and then dissolve those winds back into the seeds from which they originated.

Once this has been perfected, the interplay of these seeds and winds is then allowed to develop fully in a purified form by means of Tummo (gtum mo) and related practices. The Six Yogas can be considered to purify one's experience after puberty. Once sexual maturity has been reached, so has the full potential of the main seeds within the central channel, and they need to be controlled and purified. These practices can also be considered as purifying the general process of perception.

There are two sets of empowerments specifically to grant the ability to perform the Six Yogas, known as the Higher Empowerment (dbang gong ma) and Ultimate Special Empowerment (mchog dbang khyad par can). The structure of these is essentially the same, with each of them consisting of four parts: flask empowerment, secret empowerment, understanding-awareness empowerment, and, the fourth empowerment.

No physical mandala is required for these higher empowerments. Rather, the mandala is considered to be the body of an imagined consort, as this aspect of practice is intended to purify the stage of life after sexual maturity. The higher empowerments are much shorter than the seven empowerments. No long ritual over several days is needed, and the whole process can take just a couple of hours. Sometimes a short version of the seven empowerments can be included in the beginning of a set of higher empowerments. I should point out that some consider that only the Ultimate Special Empowerment really empowers one to practise the Six Yogas.