Mahayoga

Mahāyoga (Skt. "great yoga") is the designation of the first of the three Inner Tantras according to the ninefold division of practice used by the Nyingma school of Tibetan Buddhism.

Mahāyoga is held to emphasize the generation stage (or "development stage") of Tantra, where the succeeding two yana, anuyoga and atiyoga, emphasise the completion stage and the synthesis or transcendence of the two, respectively.

Practice

Reginald Ray (2002: p. 124) associates the Mahāyoga with removing the obscuration of aggression (or anger). The relative aspect of the two truths is mentioned and an embedded quotation by Tulku Thondup:

Mahāyoga-yana is associated with the masculine principle and is for those whose primary defilement is aggression. In Mahāyoga, one visualizes oneself as the divinity with consort. "All manifestation, thoughts and appearances are considered to be the sacred aspects of the divinities within relative truth," in the words of Tulku Thondup. By visualizing all phenomena as the deities of the mandala of buddhahood, in the development stage, all appearances are purified.