There’s a brief but effective technique used by the lineage lamas to meditate on the four outlines of how to see the guru as a buddha as explained in Liberation in the Palm of Your Hand and other lamrim texts. This presentation helps to cut off some of the wrong views in relation to guru devotion practice. We do analytical meditation by debating with and defeating our own superstitious mind, which sees faults in the guru. We debate with our superstitious mind until it runs out of answers.
First, visualize all your gurus, without leaving any one out. Then ask your superstition, “Are all my gurus buddhas?” Just pose the question—don’t put forward any reasons to prove that they are buddhas. Superstition, your opponent in the debate, will then answer, “Even though you say that all these gurus are buddhas, all you’re doing is imagining it.”
You then introduce the first outline of how to see the guru as a buddha, Vajradhara asserted that the guru is a buddha. You tell the superstitious mind, “My gurus are buddhas. Why? Because in many sutra and tantra scriptures Vajradhara says that he will manifest in ordinary forms in future degenerate times—and a buddha doesn’t lie to sentient beings. In the tantric text Two Investigations Vajradhara says, ‘In the degenerate time, I, who am called Vajrasattva, will abide in the form of the spiritual master. With the aim to benefit sentient beings, I will abide in ordinary forms.’ There are similar quotations in Vajra Tent and many other texts. Therefore, my gurus are buddhas.”
When you put forward these quotations to negate your superstition, it argues, “No, no, no! It’s not like this! Even if you tell me all these quotations, it still doesn’t mean that all these gurus are buddhas. It means that among all these gurus, one of them is a buddha.”
You then ask, “Then which one is a buddha?” With all your gurus visualized in front of you, you check each one with your superstition, “Is this one a buddha?” Superstition replies, “No. This one is not a buddha because I see that he has faults. He is very angry (or impatient or ignorant or desirous or immoral or miserly…).” Since the superstitious mind is trying to find faults, it will definitely see some faults there.
You try another guru, “Is this one a buddha?” Superstition again responds, “Oh, no—I see many faults in this one.” As you keep checking your gurus one after another in this way, your superstitious mind will point out faults in all of them. Superstition will see faults in every single guru; it’s simply a question of whether the fault is large or small.
You then argue, “If you say that a guru is not a buddha for the reason that you see mistakes in his actions, since you have found faults in every single guru, there is not one buddha among all your gurus. In that case, there is not one buddha working for you. This makes you the unluckiest sentient being, because you have been abandoned by all the buddhas.
“With great compassion, the buddhas cherish all sentient beings as objects to be subdued. They cherish sentient beings more than sentient beings cherish themselves. If you had been abandoned by all the buddhas, it would mean that buddhas have partiality of mind, guiding some sentient beings but not others, and that their promises are lies.
“While Guru Shakyamuni Buddha was a bodhisattva following the path, his motivation for achieving enlightenment was to work for all sentient beings. How is it possible that after achieving enlightenment Buddha stopped working for you? It’s not possible! If Buddha had this motivation even before entering the Mahayana path, he is definitely working for you now. Therefore, among these virtuous friends, there is definitely at least one who is a buddha.”
If you follow your superstitious mind you reach the conclusion that what Vajradhara and Guru Shakyamuni Buddha asserted is not true, that they are telling lies and are therefore not worthwhile objects of refuge. If a buddha cheats sentient beings, it means that you can’t trust anybody. There’s then nobody who can save you from samsara, especially the lower realms, and from the lower nirvana; there’s nobody who can guide you.
Argue further with your superstitious mind. “If none of your gurus is a buddha, they are all just ordinary beings with faults. There is then no one to point out as the buddhas guiding you to enlightenment. By revealing the teachings to you—giving you vows, oral transmissions, initiations, commentaries and so forth—these ordinary beings are leading you to enlightenment but the buddhas aren’t. It leads to the impossible conclusion that these ordinary beings are more skillful than buddhas. These ordinary beings are working very hard to bring you to enlightenment but the buddhas aren’t doing anything for you. Buddha is hiding somewhere or is a fairy-tale. How is it possible that the buddhas have to depend on these virtuous friends, who are ordinary sentient beings, in order to work for you? This would be like a wealthy king having to beg food from a beggar in the street. How is it possible that ordinary beings are bringing you to enlightenment but the buddhas are not doing anything to benefit you?”
If you follow your superstitious thought, you make the big mistake of concluding that a buddha doesn’t have all the qualities that are explained in the teachings. It leads you to the mistaken conclusion that the buddhas don’t have compassion for you, don’t have omniscient mind or don’t have the power to guide you. The logical conclusion you reach is that in fact, there is no such thing as a buddha. It then leads you to the conclusion that there was no Guru Shakyamuni Buddha who showed the twelve deeds82, including enlightenment, in India. You are then contradicting what actually historically happened. You’re saying that something that exists doesn’t exist.
After having achieved enlightenment, the dharmakaya, a buddha effortlessly manifests sambhogakaya and nirmanakaya forms for the sake of others. Even to guide one sentient being, a buddha can manifest billions of forms and, with various actions of body, speech and mind, guide that sentient being in accordance with her level of mind. According to superstition, it would be impossible for buddhas to work effortlessly for others under their own power; they would have to rely on the help of ordinary sentient beings, these virtuous teachers. This would mean that buddhas had not achieved enlightenment.
Continue to argue with your superstition. “Even though it is not your present experience, it is the experience of Guru Shakyamuni Buddha and other enlightened beings that a buddha is able to work effortlessly for other sentient beings without depending on the help of others. There are ¬definitely such enlightened beings who can work effortlessly for others in this way. Among all their actions, a buddha’s highest action to guide sentient beings to enlightenment is revealing teachings. Your gurus are doing all the buddhas’ actions that bring you to enlightenment; therefore, they are buddhas.”
If the superstitious mind then insists, “These gurus are not buddhas because I can actually see their faults. It’s not that I’ve just heard about them—I’ve actually seen them with my own eyes,” you then debate with it in the following way. “You say that none of your gurus is a buddha because you actually see that they all have faults. Does everything that you ‘actually see’ exist? Even though your death could happen at any time, you actually believe that your life is permanent, that you are going to live for many years. And even though the I and other phenomena don’t have inherent existence, you actually see them as inherently existent, the complete opposite of reality. If you have bile disease, you actually see a white conch shell or a snow mountain as yellow and if you have wind disease, you actually see white things as blue.”
Many things that we actually see don’t exist. We actually see things as permanent, we actually see things as truly existent, we actually see things in dreams and hallucinations, and we believe them to be true. You can refute the superstitious mind with the many other examples I mentioned previously.
“You actually see many things that don’t exist; therefore, your actually seeing faults in your gurus doesn’t alone prove that in reality they have faults. Your gurus don’t necessarily exist in the way they appear to you to exist. Isn’t it possible that the faults you see are the projections of your own hallucinated mind?”
The superstitious mind then argues, “If the gurus are buddhas, why don’t I see them that way?”
You reply, “There are many other phenomena that exist that you don’t see or that you see incorrectly. You don’t see things as impermanent and empty of inherent existence, even though they exist in that way. The fact that you don’t see your gurus as buddhas doesn’t prove that they are not buddhas. The only person you can be certain is or is not a buddha is yourself. You can’t decide about anyone else.”
As Lama Tsongkhapa explained, you can also think that the guru even purposely manifests the faults that you see in order to subdue your mind and inspire your guru yoga practice. On the basis of Lama Tsongkhapa’s advice, put the following questions to your superstitious mind, “Isn’t it possible that your guru is purposely manifesting faults for your benefit? Isn’t it possible that this is a buddha showing an ordinary aspect?” When you ask such questions to the superstitious mind, it finds them very difficult to answer.
The point here is not that you are trying to prove that someone else’s guru is a buddha; you are trying to convince your mind that your own guru is a buddha. I remember when Geshe Rabten Rinpoche was once debating with someone at Sera Je College about whether or not Geshe Rabten’s guru was a buddha. Geshe Rabten answered by making a gesture that meant his opponent should shut his mouth. Geshe Rabten then said, “You don’t need to argue about whether or not my guru is a buddha. That is my responsibility and I understand. You have nothing to say on this matter.”
In relation to your own gurus you have to think, “My gurus are buddhas.” There’s no discussion on that—for you, that is the practice. And not just the practice but the fundamental practice. It is the foundation of all the other practices of lamrim. In terms of my relationships with my gurus, it is like that. No matter how others might want to debate that my gurus are not buddhas, from my side there is no questioning of that.
At the conclusion of this particular guru devotion meditation in which you debate with your superstitious mind, superstition might say, “Why do you need to look at a guru as a buddha? Just because someone is a guru doesn’t necessarily mean that he has to be a buddha. I am also a guru—I teach Dharma and I have disciples—and I know from my own experience that I am not a buddha. My disciples don’t need to look at me as a buddha because I am not a buddha. How can I tell them that they should think of me as a buddha?”
Dr. Nick [Ribush] raised this question when we were working together on the translation of this part of the guru devotion subject, debating with the superstitious mind, for the revised version of the first Kopan course book The Wish-fulfilling Golden Sun. The same question is also raised by the lineage lamas when they explain how to stop wrong conceptions when meditating on guru devotion. When you hear this question, you might be struck by it and think it is true. If your understanding isn’t clear, there’s a danger it will affect your practice of guru devotion, causing you to lose or to degenerate what little experience of guru devotion you have.
As I explained earlier, this is similar to thinking, “Oh, I’ve also been mother and kind to others,” when meditating on the kindness of other ¬sentient beings. That’s useless. It doesn’t help you to develop bodhicitta. Your thinking that you have also been mother to all sentient beings, even though it’s true, doesn’t help you to realize the kindness of other sentient beings. Thinking this has no benefit, but thinking how sentient beings have been mother and kind has benefit because you then feel it unbearable that others are suffering and you’re able to generate loving kindness and compassion. From that then comes bodhicitta, the thought to achieve enlightenment for sentient beings. The whole aim is to benefit others. Thinking “I have been mother to all other sentient beings and been kind to them” doesn’t help you accomplish your goal of achieving enlightenment for sentient beings.
It is similar here. Even though your reasoning is true, it doesn’t help you. The main point is that for you to succeed in liberating the numberless sentient beings from the oceans of samsaric suffering and bringing them to enlightenment, you need to practice guru devotion. You have to understand this point. Otherwise, the thought can arise in your mind, “This Tibetan Buddhism is very strange. I teach Dharma to others but I’m not a buddha.” You can then have doubts about the lamrim and especially about this very first and most important meditation.
You debate with the superstitious mind in the following way. “You say that your disciples can’t meditate on you as a buddha because you’re not a buddha. But don’t your disciples need to generate devotion by stopping the thought of your faults and looking at your good qualities? Don’t your disciples need to devote themselves to you as their guru with thought and with action, where ‘with thought’ means recognizing you as a buddha? If, because you’re not a buddha, you don’t guide your disciples by teaching them about guru devotion, they will have no way to protect their minds when negative thoughts arise. They will then create negative karma and experience the sufferings of hell for many eons. This means that you are throwing your disciples into the hells.”
If you are teaching Dharma to others, you have to explain guru devotion as much as possible out of compassion in order to guide your disciples and protect their minds. If you explain the subject with a good motivation, there is no risk. The point is that you’re explaining it for the sake of your disciples so that they can attain enlightenment.
Of course, it doesn’t mean that it is always suitable to teach guru devotion. It is best to explain it when you can see that it is the right time. If you try to explain guru devotion when others aren’t receptive, it can create more obstacles.
Teaching guru devotion is the responsibility of the teacher and practicing guru devotion is the responsibility of the disciple. If guru devotion is not explained, it is the fault of the teacher; if it is not practiced after having been explained, it is the fault of the disciple.
The conclusion of this particular analytical meditation on guru devotion in which we debate with our superstitious mind is not only that there is nothing to trust in our own view but also that Vajradhara asserted that the guru is a buddha, the gurus are the doers of the buddhas’ actions and even nowadays the buddhas and bodhisattvas are working for sentient beings, including us. Even if we don’t visualize our gurus in the aspects of buddhas, we concentrate one-pointedly on the feeling that they are buddhas. We keep our mind in that state, with recognition of our gurus as buddhas, for as long as we can.
Wrong thoughts toward the guru don’t usually arise right at the beginning when we first meet the Dharma and first hear the teachings. It is after some time that many wrong thoughts arise toward the practice of guru devotion and we start to look at things in a negative way. This meditation is especially useful at that time.
NOTES
82 For a list of Shakyamuni Buddha’s twelve deeds, see Opening the Eye of New Awareness, pp. 91–92. [Return to text]
