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| Guru Yoga of Lama Tsong Khapa by Geshe Dakpa
Topgyal |
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- INTRODUCTION INTRODUCTION
Guru yoga is a special practice used to
accumulate merit and receive the blessings of
all Buddhas and past Guru lineage masters. Your present guru received teachings from these Buddhas and Guru
lineage masters. They are the ones who carry
the entire transmission lineage. Guru
literally translates as "spiritual mentor" and yoga as
"union." Guru yoga, therefore, means "union
with your guru."
Guru yoga is also a
powerful method for communication with all enlightened beings through your spiritual guide and for
coming under their joyful care and protection.
It is also a powerful means to accumulate
merit. In one moment of guru yoga practice, you can accumulate as much merit as you would through eons of
practice through other methods.
In the Gelugpa
tradition, there are three types of guru yoga: Ganden Lhagya-ma, the guru yoga of Lama Tsong Khapa; Six
Session guru yog; and Lama Chopa guru yoga,
which emphasizes the union of bliss and
emptiness. The last two, Six Session guru yoga and Lama
Chopa guru yoga, require initiation and transmission,
and it is not advisable to practice either of
these without going through the proper
means. With Ganden Lhagya-ma, transmission and
initiation are not required, but it is best if
one can receive transmission.
This book will describe
Ganden Lhagya-ma guru yoga. The information is
based on the teachings of Lama Tsong Khapa, the founder of the Gelugpa tradition, who is expected to be the
seventh of one thousand Buddhas to turn the
wheel of Dharma on earth in this era. It is
believed that Lama Tsong Khapa presently resides in Tushita, the pure or blissful land, the kingdom of
Maitreya, who is the fifth (and next) Buddha
to appear on the earth.
The purpose of guru yoga
practice is to be able to view your guru as a
living Buddha. This is accomplished by training your
perception and by cultivating faith and
devotional inspiration towards your guru, through whom you receive
blessings from all the enlightened beings.
Human perception is
normally governed by delusions, and it is through guru yoga that your are able to purify your
perception and see the guru as a living
Buddha. Guru yoga also permits the practitioner to receive blessings from the enlightened
beings, which can only come through obtaining
this pure perception.
If you fail to purify
your perception toward the guru then, even if the guru is truly a living Buddha, you will not be capable
of seeing him or her as an enlightened being
and you will not be open to receiving
blessings from him or her. On the other hand, if you purify
your perception toward the guru, even if your guru is
not fully enlightened, you will be able to
view the guru as an enlightened being and thus
receive the blessings of the enlightened beings from him or
her. Therefore, seeing the guru as a living Buddha is
crucial to spiritual practice.
In Buddhism, a blessing
is any encounter with a spiritual teacher that
has the power to genuinely inspire you to live in a more
meaningful way, with increased calmness and peace of
mind. The blessing can come in an
instantaneous way immediately strengthening your faith and devotion and deepening your spiritual
understanding. Or, the blessing can happen
more gradually, through observing the way your
spiritual teacher acts, speaks, and lives according to the
Buddha’s teachings. If such an encounter with a
spiritual teacher changes your perception and
increases your spiritual understanding, it is
called a blessing.
Through the practice of
Dharma in general and guru yoga in particular,
should you gain an unusual feeling of faith, devotion, and
respect toward your guru and the Dharma, then you
will experience an increase in the pleasure
and joyous effort of your practice. You will
be inspired to abstain from negative emotions and deeds,
and you will deal more easily with physical
and mental pain. Your practice
will also create an inner acceptance that will
result in an unusual experience of peace of
mind because you will experience less negative emotions, such as fear, worry, or greed. In addition, you
will become less concerned with obtaining the
material objects to fill a depthless desire.
When this happens to you, it is a good sign that your
practice
is working and that you are receiving the
Buddha’s blessings and the blessings of your
guru.
Guru yoga practice is
the only way to view correctly your guru as a living Buddha. Guru
yoga practice is the root of
spiritual realization, and
there is good reason to view your guru as a living Buddha. It
is not just an exercise in blind faith. If we
did meet a real, living Buddha able to display
magical powers, the only way we could truly benefit from such an encounter would be to receive teachings from
him or
her—teachings which are like nectar that can
satisfy all of our spiritual needs. If we have
impure perceptions towards enlightened beings and are not able to perceive their purity, then we will not
be capable of benefiting from their
teachings—even if they put on magical displays
for us. Conversely, if we have undeluded perceptions and
meet a qualified spiritual guide not yet
enlightened, we still could receive the full
power of their teachings through the strength of the purity of our own perceptions. We could receive the nectar
of his or her teachings in its purest and most
potent form.
The ultimate deed the
Buddha performs is to give teachings, and your
guru is present to perform this deed. This is the deed that
you can best benefit from; you need nothing
other than the teachings of the Buddha given
by your present teacher. This alone has the power to meet all of your spiritual needs. This is why you need
to view your Guru as a living Buddha.
Buddha himself said, "I
cannot wash away your negativities and sins
with water, nor can I remove your pain and suffering by my
hand, nor can I transfer my realizations to
you. The only way I can help you is through
giving teachings, and you should strive to liberate
yourself."
This passage shows us that Buddha himself
considered his ultimate deed to be giving
teachings to others. Because our present spiritual teacher performs this for our benefit, it is only
appropriate that we view him or her as a
living Buddha, as one who keeps the Buddha’s teachings alive for us in the present day.
Seeing your guru as a
living Buddha-cultivating faith, devotion, and respect, and
keeping him or her as the most precious and cherished object in your heart-is the root of goodness in
present and future lives and the root of
Sutric and Tantric realizations of paths (in
Sanskrit, margas) and grounds (in Sanskrit, bhumis). There
are five paths—the paths of Accumulation,
Preparation, Seeing, Meditation, and the path
of No More Learning. The practitioner passes
from path to path (marga to marga) through a subsequent
non-meditative state to a meditative state. A
subsequent non-meditative state occurs in the
brief period of time when the meditator comes out of his or her
meditative state, and the mind is not yet tainted by
mundane conceptual thoughts and emotions. Grounds
(bhumis) are the ten levels or stages of
realization, starting from the first moment of
the path of Seeing to the last moment of Vajra-like concentration of the path of Meditation. The meditator
moves from meditative state to meditative
state. However, there is still a subsequent
non-meditative state, considered part of the path (marga) and not
the ground (bhumi). Once the meditator resumes meditation,
the meditative mind serves as a direct antidote to
its corresponding obscurations to liberation
and to knowledge, and this is said to be ground (bhumi).
The first
ground (bhumi) is an antidote to removing the grossest
of obscurations to liberation. In the same way, if
you are washing clothes in three rounds, in
the first round you remove the grossest of the
stains. In the second wash, you can get rid of the more
subtle stains. In the third wash, the stains
are entirely removed, with no trace left
behind.
Guru yoga practice
subdues the perception flaws of the spiritual teacher as flawed and enhances the perception of a
perfectly realized living Buddha. This is the
most important feature of the guru yoga practice. You should try to hold onto perceiving the guru
as a living Buddha not only during the
meditation period but throughout daily life.
Your own impure perceptions are the reason you do not
recognize your present guru as a living Buddha
and his teaching as a healing nectar and are
not able to gain deeper levels of spiritual realizations –
even with a good understanding of the Buddha’s
profound teachings on emptiness and his vast
teachings on Lam Rim.
Three
factors must come together in your spiritual practice in
order to achieve a higher realization: 1) the
purification practice, in which negativities
that prevent realization from occurring and progressing,
are purified; 2) the practice of the accumulation of
merit, in which the positive energy created
contributes to higher realization and its further progression; 3) the practice of visualization,
meditation, contemplation, and concentration,
which serves as the material cause for one’s
spiritual realization. Guru yoga practice contains these three
factors, which should be considered the heart of your
Dharma (spiritual) practice. In other words,
you should emphasize this practice in daily
practice.
Because teacher or
divine guru plays a key role in Guru yoga practice, it is
important to search for a qualified guru right from the
start. As stated in the Lam Rim by Lama Tsong Khapa,
ten minimum qualifications are required of the
guru. The guru must be an expert in and have a
profound knowledge of the topics he or she teaches. He or she must be kind and compassionate, with a pleasing
behavior that reflects his or her teachings. He or she must be
skillful in guiding his or her disciples
according to the disciple’s capabilities. He or she must teach from his or her inner experience and be pleased
by his or her student’s Dharma practice and
not by material gifts and material offerings.
This guru must always be concerned with his or her student’s spiritual well being. Search for a teacher who
possesses these spiritual
qualifications.
These days,
although many people have a good understanding of the Dharma and, to some extent, engage in spiritual
practice, many lack the experience of true
inner spiritual realization. They may not have
found a teacher with the proper qualifications, and/or they
may not have fulfilled their responsibilities
as students. When students engage in spiritual
practice, they should mainly be concerned with not clinging to
this life. Nowadays, especially in the West, many people claim to be spiritual teachers and give teachings,
but their inner motivation is personal
material gain and fame. They totally lack the
qualifications stated above for a spiritual teacher. Students
who honestly and sincerely search for a
spiritual teacher must be aware of this to
find the proper teacher.
One of
the early Tibetan masters said, "Realizations of paths and
grounds will never be born if one fails to recognize
the Lama as a living Buddha and fails to
perceive his teachings as nectar." Therefore, it is important to strive to see your guru as a living
Buddha by means of contemplating the valid
reasons presented here, until you have a spontaneous recognition of your guru as being a living
Buddha.
Through engaging
in the practice of Lama Tsong Khapa, you should try to minimize your habit of finding fault in your
guru through impure perceptions and should
instead promote pure perception through which
you can see his or her inspiring spiritual qualities. The
guru yoga of Lama Tsong Khapa has a special power to
increase wisdom, compassion, and inner
resistance and to keep away obstacles that
prevents realization of paths and grounds from
progressing.
Ganden Lhagyamai
Lamai Nyaljor or the Guru Yoga of Lama Tsong Khapa can be performed with recitation of the Sacred Praise
Verse called "Migtsema". This praise verse is sacred and blessed
because it was originally uttered by Manjushri and transmitted
directly to Lama Tsong Khapa. Later, out of devotion, Lama Tsong
Khapa substituted the name of his guru, Jetsun Rendawa, for his
own in two lines and offered it to him. But
Jetsun Rendawa returned it to him, saying that, unlike Lama Tsong
Khapa, he did not have all the qualities worthy of the verse. Many
of Lama Tsong Khapa’s followers have attained very high realizations as a direct result of the practice of
"Migtsema" combined with the Guru Yoga of Lama
Tsong Khapa.
Your guru is the
prime focus of the visualization of the merit field, and it is mainly through guru yoga that we receive
blessings, accumulate merit, and purify
negativities and karmic imprints, particularly
those related to disregarding the guru’s spiritual instruction and disturbing the guru’s
mind.
Guru yoga is very important in
both Sutric and Tantric practices and is a
crucial preliminary for Tantric practice. Without it,
Tantric realizations can’t grow. Many Tantric
realizations will come as a result of fruitful
guru yoga practice. Lama Tsong Khapa, in The Gist of The Lam Rim, states:
". . . the root
that brings about the goodness in one’s present and future lives
and brings all forms of spiritual realizations, consists of
cultivating faith, devotion, and respect for the guru, and
maintaining the spiritual connection through proper intentions and
actions. One should see this relationship as precious and not
relinquish it even at the cost of one’s life, and one should
please one’s guru by making offerings of one’s
Dharma practice. Even I have done this, and
encourage you, the liberation seeker, to do the same."
Through Lama Tsong Khapa’s spiritual
advice, you can understand the importance of
guru yoga practice, the only means of seeing your guru as a living Buddha. Through maintaining this pure
spiritual connection with him or her until
you attain enlightenment, you truly deepen
faith and devotion.
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