January 23rd 2010 · Read More · Comments Off
(From a teaching on Life of Guru Rinpoche given by Bardor Tulku Rinpoche at Karma Thegsum Choling Seattle in April 2009. Translated by Lama Yeshe Gyamtso, transcribed by Linda Lee, copy-edited by Basia Coulter. Copyright 2009 Karma Thegsum Choling Seattle, Bardor Tulku Rinpoche, and Peter O’Hearn. All rights reserved. Please do not reprint without permission.)
In vajrayana, we are taught to view our guru as the complete embodiment of the trikaya—three bodies—as the overlord of all buddha families, the principle of all the mandalas, the embodiment in the single form of all yidams.
Some people, who have studied Buddhism from the outside, have questioned this. Observing the tremendous emphasis placed on the guru in the Tibetan Buddhist vajrayana tradition, they have called this not Buddhism but Lamaism. And they make a distinction between Buddhism and Lamaism. They say that all that Tibetan teachers talk about is lama, lama, lama, lama this; serve the lama; venerate the lama; pray to the lama; give to the lama, etc. It is just nothing more than self‑serving advertisement. To be honest, of course, there are lamas who justify this criticism. Obviously, charlatans exist as they do in every tradition, but it is not true that any authentic guru is self‑serving.
Authentic gurus teach the path of devotion and faith not because they need our devotion or our faith, but because we do. Authentic gurus do not want or need our respect. They have no use themselves for our service. They do not want or particularly enjoy our wealth. This is because they have no hope or fear. Hope and fear are born of dualism. Authentic gurus are not dualistic, therefore, respect and disrespect and so forth are irrelevant to them. However the fact remains that while the guru may not need you, if you whole‑heartedly supplicate a guru who is authentically beyond dualism, you can achieve the same state as his in a single instant. In a single instant, you can achieve what we call “the mixing of the guru’s mind and your mind.” And it is this whole‑hearted open supplication that makes vajrayana the fastest possible spiritual journey.
The Buddha’s teachings are incredibly vast. Even among the teachings of the sutras alone, the teachings of the Tripitaka, the Vinaya, sutras, and Abhidharma are so vast that probably no one could even read through them once in a single lifetime, let alone attempt to practice all of them. And yet, in this [vajrayana] path, we do not have to go through that process. The entire vajrayana path can be traversed in less time than it takes to read through the sutras. It is said, “In a single instant, the difference is made. In a single instant, samyaksambuddha is achieved.” Go reading
January 7th 2010 · Read More · Comments Off
(From a teaching on Life of Guru Rinpoche given by Bardor Tulku Rinpoche at Karma Thegsum Choling Seattle in April 2009. Translated by Lama Yeshe Gyamtso, transcribed by Linda Lee, copy-edited by Basia Coulter. Copyright 2009 Karma Thegsum Choling Seattle, Bardor Tulku Rinpoche, and Peter O’Hearn. All rights reserved. Please do not reprint without permission.)
Many of us are very interested in the bardo or interval that occurs after death, and we want to learn about it. We want to learn what we can expect to experience, what sorts of things appear in the bardo, and what the stages of dying—the stages of dissolution—are that precede it. Especially nowadays many people are intensely curious about the practice of powa or the ejection of consciousness. They want to know where they can learn how to do this, how they can practice it, and be able to eject their consciousness at the moment of death.
The practice of the ejection of consciousness, of course, is a very good thing. And if someone can learn this, practice it, and gain the ability to do this, then they can be of great use to themselves and to others at the time of death. It is also very good to learn as much as you can about the bardo (the interval after death), what happens then, what you can do, and so on. But the actual vajrayana approach for the time of death is much simpler, much easier than all of those techniques.
The actual vajrayana approach to death and dying is something so simple that the most simple‑minded of human beings—someone who is even unable to comprehend basic meditation instruction—is still capable of implementing, because we are all capable of seeing our root guru. We know what our root guru looks like; we have seen his face. It does not take any special ability or technique to recollect the face of your root guru. Go reading
January 3rd 2010 · Read More · Comments Off
(From a teaching on Life of Guru Rinpoche given by Bardor Tulku Rinpoche at Karma Thegsum Choling Seattle in April 2009. Translated by Lama Yeshe Gyamtso, transcribed by Linda Lee, copy-edited by Basia Coulter. Copyright 2009 Karma Thegsum Choling Seattle, Bardor Tulku Rinpoche, and Peter O’Hearn. All rights reserved. Please do not reprint without permission.)
In our practice, we depend upon our teachers or our masters. And we naturally choose teachers based upon their qualities. We choose teachers based upon their learning: who has the best ability to compose, to teach, and to debate. But if we rely upon the teacher for their learning and our reliance on such a teacher is genuine, then we ourselves must come to exhibit the fruit of having heard the Dharma.
Traditionally, it is said that the sign of having really heard the Dharma is to be tranquil and subdued or at peace. No matter how great our teachers may be, no matter how eloquent, how skillful, and how learned they may be, if we remain wild and untamed, then never mind practice, it means that we have not actually even heard the Dharma yet. We are like yak horns that are impenetrable. No matter how much oil you rub into them, it does not penetrate the substance of the horn. We may rely upon masters who are renowned as great yogis and teachers of meditation, but if we rely upon such masters, we must exhibit the signs of the practice of meditation.
In Buddhist tradition, the sign of having meditated is very simple—it is to have no kleshas. As we go on year after year, practicing meditation, relying upon or attending great gurus or great masters of meditation, if our kleshas increase as time goes on, then it is simply not working. So we need to be genuine on the inside. We need to actually be going through a process of training. Only through being genuine on the inside, can we become good examples of the sangha, good examples of what Buddadharma does to people. Go reading
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