Yidam

Yidam is a fully enlightened being (a deity or divine being) who is the focus of personal meditation, during a retreat, or for life. The term is often translated into English as tutelary deity, or meditational deity.

Yidam appears as one of the Three Roots in the Tibetan Buddhist "inner" refuge formulation — it is the "root of methods, or root of accomplishments". The yidam may be "peaceful", "wrathful", or "neither peaceful or wrathful", depending on the practitioner's own nature.

Yidam represents awakening, and so its appearance reflects whatever is required by the practitioner in order to awaken. The guru will guide the student as to which yidam is appropriate for them, and then initiation into the mandala of the yidam is given by the guru, so that Deity Yoga practices can be undertaken.

Yidam is a personal meditational deity, a potent ritual symbol simultaneously representing the mind of the guru and lineage of enlightened teachers, and the enlightened mind of the tantric practitioner. In essence, the mindstream of the guru and the yidam are indivisible. The yidam is considered to be the root of success in the practice.

During the meditation practice of the "generation" stage, a practitioner establishes a strong familiarity with the yidam by means of visualization and a high level of concentration.

During the practice of the "completion" stage, a practitioner focuses on methods to actualize the transformation of one's own mindstream, and body, into the meditation deity by means of meditation and yogic techniques of energy-control such as kundalini (tummo).

Through these complementary disciplines of "generation" and "completion" one increasingly perceives the pervasive Buddha nature (true nature of reality). The yidam is used as a means or a goal of transformation towards full enlightenment. According to tradition, the yidam is considered as the emanation of the adept's own mind.