Within Vajrayāna, the Four Empowerments (abhiṣeka) are understood as a graduated process that purifies the practitioner’s body, speech, and mind, while planting the seeds for full awakening. The first is the Vase Empowerment, which purifies the body and gross obscurations and authorizes the generation stage of tantric practice, such as deity yoga and mandala contemplation. This empowerment is associated with ritual implements like vases and consecrated substances, and it is said to establish the conditions for realizing the nirmāṇakāya, the emanation body of a Buddha. In this way, the physical dimension of practice is sanctified and redirected toward awakening.

The second is the Secret Empowerment, which purifies speech and subtler energetic dimensions. It is linked to inner yogas and completion-stage practices that work with subtle energies and channels, sometimes symbolized through consecrated substances. This empowerment plants the seed for the realization of the saṃbhogakāya, the enjoyment body of a Buddha. Here, the practitioner’s expressive dimension—speech, mantra, and subtle energy—is reoriented so that even the most intimate currents of experience become part of the path.

The third is the Wisdom or Wisdom-Knowledge Empowerment, which purifies the mind and its more refined obscurations. It transmits an experiential understanding of the union of bliss and emptiness, and in higher tantric contexts may be connected with symbolic or actual consort practices, depending on the lineage. This empowerment plants the seed for the realization of the dharmakāya, the truth body, in which the ultimate nature of phenomena is directly known. At this stage, the practitioner’s cognitive and emotional life is gradually transformed into a direct vehicle of insight.

The Fourth, or Word Empowerment, is sometimes called the Precious Word Empowerment and is regarded as the culmination of the sequence. It purifies the most subtle obscurations of body, speech, and mind together, often through a direct pointing-out of the nature of mind that transcends conceptual elaboration. This empowerment plants the seed for realizing the svabhāvikakāya, the essence body understood as the unity of the three kāyas and complete Buddhahood. Taken together, the Four Empowerments trace a path in which every level of experience—outer, inner, and secret—is progressively consecrated and revealed as inseparable from awakening itself.