The supreme wisdom ḍākinī who serves as a yidam (iṣṭa-devatā) of the higher tantras is Vajrayoginī, “the personification of vajra emptiness.”55 Yidam is a shortened form of yid-kyi-damtsik, or sacred bondage of the mind. The practice of the yidam deity in her or his maṇḍala is what binds the practitioner irrevocably to the enlightened sanity

Is there something behind the appearances, something boundless and infinitely spacious, something in which the dance of change and impermanence takes place? Is there something in fact we can depend on, that does survive what we call death?

• Mañjuśrī ("Gentle Glory") Kumarabhuta ("Young Prince"), the main bodhisattva of wisdom


• Avalokiteśvara ("Lord who gazes down at the world"), the savior bodhisattva of great compassion


• Vajrapāṇi ("Vajra in hand"), the bodhisattva of protection, the protector of the Buddha (in East Asian sources, this figure appears as Mahāsthāmaprāpta)


• Maitreya