Samaya - Sacred Commitments
The vows and commitments that maintain the purity of tantric practice.
Samaya are the sacred commitments taken during empowerment. They bind practitioner and guru, maintaining the purity needed for tantric realization. Breaking samaya creates serious obstacles.
Keep samaya as you would your own eyes.
Pure samaya is essential for tantric accomplishment.
Tantric Root Texts
Written about in
- What Tibetan Buddhism says about habit and discipline
Samaya are the commitments taken at tantric empowerment, binding student to guru, and breaking them is held to create serious obstacles rather than mild regret. Padmasambhava's instruction is to keep them as you would your own eyes: the purity they maintain is treated as the precondition for tantric realisation, not an optional extra.