You must make a strong determination to have a new mind toward this person from now on. You must make a complete determination to see that person as a buddha, all the time. Making yourself see the person as a buddha is extremely important for practicing guru devotion with that person.

It is also very important in everyday life not to expect a pure view to come from the side of other people. If you have that expectation, when it doesn’t happen, your mind gets into trouble. So, in everyday life, you must always remain aware that the pure view must come from your own mind. From your own side, you must try to generate this view. In this way, it will happen that you see that person as being as pure as a buddha. This is very good.

This is a question of transforming the mind. For example, if you look at yourself as a buddha, visualizing that you are transformed into a deity and placing yourself in the mandala, then that will happen immediately when you want it to, without effort.

This happens when you attain the realization of the gross generation stage of the highest tantra. Similarly, during the subtle generation stage, you see yourself as a deity in a mandala that is very, very tiny, small enough to fit inside a drop the size of a mustard seed. This pure appearance comes from your own mind training, from being able to see yourself this way. Later, during the completion stage, your subtle-wind mind transforms into the deity in the mandala. Then you are able to do many practices with that. At that point, you can actually travel. Finally, when you become enlightened, no impurity appears to you at all. Your senses perceive only infinitely pure appearances.

All this comes from your own mind training. Seeing the guru in an ordinary form and making mistakes came from your own obscured, ordinary mind. You should always be aware also that seeing the guru as buddha has to come from your own mind.

Once you understand this, you still need to stabilize the thought of seeing the guru as a buddha. This thought becomes stabilized in your mind by using quotations and logic and your own personal experience with the guru. You should also read subjects on guru devotion from Liberation in the Palm of Your Hand.

I advise you to confess to whichever gurus with whom you feel you have made mistakes. Specifically, you should make a verbal confession to the guru toward whom you had negative thoughts.

Then the student asked for advice on a different topic. She said that when she thought about Dharma or listened to teachings, some very heavy thoughts came into her head, making her sleepy, unable to concentrate, and distracted. She thought maybe this was due to the negative thoughts she had toward the guru.

This heavy thought that makes the mind sleepy and unclear could be due to negative karma resulting from having abandoned Dharma in the past or having polluted holy objects or holy beings.

Here I will suggest some solutions. You should confess to the gurus who you thought made mistakes. In particular, you should confess verbally to the one toward whom you had negative thoughts, and you should practice offering a bath to the buddhas, to the merit field.

This actual practice involves washing and offering water to clean the guru’s holy body, to wash it yourself, massage it, ornament it, offer robes to it, and dress the guru. You do all this directly with your own hands. If there is no opportunity to do it directly, you can visualize this practice of offering a bath. I advise you to perform this practice, called trutor, 800 times.

Trutor is a particular practice for purifying pollutions, such as these kinds of obstacles to reading Dharma books or listening to teachings. Being unable to understand, falling asleep, or being unable to follow Dharma teachings are not external pollutions. They are inner pollution, mental pollution. Trutor is very good for similar sorts of pollution, such as from selling statues, scriptures, or other holy objects, and buying food with that money, and for many other types of pollutions.

I also suggest you do a Compassion Buddha retreat.