Archive Result

Soundfile 20071005GRGRVaj1

Speaker Gelek Rinpoche

Location Garrison

Topic Vajryana

Sections 1

Transcriber John Thornton

Date date on which you finished this transcript

Welcome everyone. We are here to talk about Vajrayana. When I am looking at those of you who are here today and I see that some of you are very senior. Many of you have been with me for a number of years. Many of you have studied Vajrayana for many years. Anyway, it is very nice to welcome everybody here. Without a Vajryana foundation, there is no difference between Hindu tantra and Vajrayana. Buddhism and Mahayana make the difference. The most important thing is the guru devotional practice, so we emphasize saying the Ganden Lha Gyema. We have not emphasized this much, but those of you who were with me remember that we used to start with the Ganden Lha Gyema all the time. For almost ten years we also would stop and someone would comment on each verse. Also (we did that with) the Foundation of All Perfections. And also with the Ganden Lha Gyema we have a number of different sections.

The ground of the Vajrayana is the guru devotional practice. It is the way to achieve something and it is also the root downfall, the number one downfall. One cannot do without it. When you take the commitment, you are very specifically taking the commitment on the guru devotional practice. From today you accept me as your master and you don’t despise me or you will fall into Vajrayana hell and this and that.

And yes, I would like to talk to you what little know I know about Vajryana, its structure and how it works and all of that. But before I talk about that, first I have to talk with you about the basis of Vajryana, or Sutrayana. It is necessary to do that and if I don’t do that first, I will get a downfall. We did not restrict people from coming if they do not have an initiation. We did not want to deprive people from the Vajrayana. They may be connected with it or they may want to achieve some thing. So we want them to have the opportunity. Many of you have read Introduction to Vajryana by Lama Yeshe and others.

So the basis for talking about this, I will do this today, in a very traditional style. You may not have heard about this, or perhaps you have heard about it from Lama Yeshe or from others. You have been very fortunate to hear from many people who have talked to you. They have talked like talking to a kid. They never gave the wrong information and they made it so simple. Traditionally, when we learned, to give you a little taste, they start with a quotation. They start that the great Buddha generated the first bodhimind. He contemplated and did purification for three countless eons. Finally he gained total enlightenment and gave teachings of 84,000 collections. Essence of this falls into transcendental wisdom, pranjaparamita. The have direct and indirect teachings. The direct teachings were made clear by Nagrajuna, Asanga, and Aryadeva. That is the profound wisdom, transcendental teaching. The indirect teaching, that vast teaching, which has been emphasized by Bodhisattva Maitreya, along with Emapa Sanga (?), and his cousin Basobandu. (?) And those transcendental teachings are the essence of the great mudra, which gives birth to all buddhas. And essence of those will ultimately come down to the teaching of Maitreya Buddha’s Asamadra Langa or Nagrajuna's root text Madhyamiki or commentary by Chandrakirti. So in this essence really comes into these.

Now, how you people are taught, the essence come down to two- the profound path of developing the individual, which boils down to lamrim teachings. Both the vast teachings and profound teachings boil down to lamrim. For that reason you have all these lineage masters describing which comes from where, this huge lineage tree, remember? Even lately we skip all this lamrim lineage, or we shorten it, instead of going through literally hundreds of names we made it short, we pray to all of you. Even in the medication we pack it up into Tsong Khapa with two disciples or without two disciples. Otherwise, if you look in lamrim, this Lama Chopa tree, mostly you have the Buddha with Lama Tsong Khapa at the heart level. The profound lineage comes through Manjushri, the vast comes through Maitreya, and the direct through Atisha; plus the masters from whom you have taken teachings. All these masters are almost skipped in the West. In one way, it is because we do not have time. It is very true if you keep on going though the lineages, it will take ten days, then followed by the preliminaries and that is going to take at least ten days.

Then the actual teachings will come after about two weeks and then you begin with the guru devotional practice. So now we skip much of it and make it very abbreviated. You people went through that way., It is fine. We don’t have time for anything more in the West. We think that is so difficult, but where we went though it w did all of that. You hear a lot of stories—how the Thirteenth Dalai Lama gave a lamrim teaching for two months. In a way you are fortunate and in a way you are unfortunate. When I was a kid the chief abbot of Drepung who was Jumje la (?). He was a very nice person, but he would scold people, even though he had no bad feeling for anyone. So whenever Jumje la(?) came we would go in another direction. He would say come over here. In Tibet so many special feasts developed --for 16, 17 18, or 19 courses for breakfast. So he would call, “Hey, young lamas, maybe it is your good fortunate or unfortunate. When I was young there was nothing like this, so eat more, don’t wasted it!” So it is almost like this.

But still guru devotional practice is the root of all development. I will not spend so much time on it because it is located in lamrim. There are a number available and I would especially like to recommend Pabongka’s Liberation in the Palm of the Hand and Lamrim Chenmo. You will not find anything on lamrim more comprehensive and profound than that. I don’t know if there is any Lamrim by His Holiness, but there will be one in a few years. Also, there is the translation of the Second Dalai Lama’s Smooth Path, Refined Gold and the First Panchen Lama’s Quick Path. There is also Geshe Lama’s Joyful Path. All those Lamrims are available.

Then in addition I have one; a transcript is available. You really have to look at the guru devotional aspect. That is the fundamental basis, especially in Vajrayana practice. If you think it is something for beginners, because I made my own deal with Tara or Yamantaka or any yidam, you will definitely find that is a mistake. That is why guru practice is fundamental.

In Vajrayana, the guru is not just a simple guru as we think in usual sutra. This is like the Vajrayana essence. I don’t know exactly how to say that in English. We all have it in the six session yoga, guru who is kind and even great bliss and jewel like lama, I bow to your vajra feet. So this is the Vajrayana guru devotional practice. Not only that, in the Vajrayana, every yidam that you practice, is all in reality the essence of guru. The guru is the essence of the yidam. There is no separation. Everything is oneness-mind is oneness, physical aspect is oneness, everything is oneness. So that is something quite important.

Even Buddha Vajradara himself has said, in future I myself will come back to you to guide you and protect you, to help you in the form of vajra master. That is the tantra word, in the future, at the time of a degenerated age, I myself will appear as a vajra master. So the guru devotional aspect is emphasized so much in the Vajryana teachings. Even in sutra they will quote those quotations. If you read Liberation in the Palm of Your Hand, it is definitely there. In a lot of Lamrims a lot ofVajryana will come.

In Vajryana, this is something you cannot do without. It is also extremely dangerous. It can have a tremendous advantage and a tremendous disadvantage. The disadvantage is this: our mind is such that it is almost impossible to see the living master as the actual living Buddha, unless you are Chinese. If you are Chinese you do. You know the word incarnate lama? The word incarnate lama, the Chinese translate that in their language and they go “ho fu” which means “living buddha.” They even asked me when I went to Tibet, “You are the former living buddha from Drepung, right?” I say, “Yes, yes.“ That is number one. It almost impossible. Even me, talking about my own personal experience, I have about 40 teachers I have taken a teaching from now. I see their own faces. I don’t see them as a Buddha, but I have to make the point of telling myself that they are all living buddhas. Fortunately, I don’t have resistance against that. But you may see them as an ordinary human being. If you are fighting with them, you see them as ordinary beings, full of anger, obsession, this and that. You do see them very definitely in that way. We do. You cannot say it is not true. That is most unfortunate and dangerous, and that’s what I mean. That is very dangerous. So if we know how to look into it, it is a great opportunity.

Even to begin with, I had a great teacher called Gen - La Rinpoche, who first taught me how to read and first taught me how to memorize. He is one of those four pillars of Pabongka’s disciples. Four pillars they call it, especially for lamrim. He is just simple in a sense. Just an ordinary monk who doesn’t wear nice clothes, as far as I remember. He wears torn clothes, dirty, filthy. And he walks around like an ordinary monk. And Geshe Ling Rimpoche one told me in Daramsala. He asked me who was your teacher. I said, “Gen - La Rinpoche.” “Oh, I know him.” He used to come and talk to my teacher. He used to come and joke with my teacher when my teacher was scolding me. They would both laugh and all scolding is forgot. Geshe Ling Rimpoche said, “You know he eats his food and it clings to his teeth and he had food in his mouth all the time.” I don’t remember that, but he used to have his finger in his mouth all the time. Probably he doesn’t brush so he uses his finger all the time.

Luckily I recently found a photo of him. I forgot his appearance. I don’t exactly remember his face. When I was in Tibet last year, I saw a noble Tibetan family member. The family used to be the benefactor of Jessing Rinpoche(?). Being a benefactor of Tsong Khapa himself, that family has a lot of benefits. No one can sleep in Ganden Monestary, particularly the women unless you are a member of that family. Only the women in that family can sleep in Ganden, above the Ganden general assembly hall, In the Ganden monastery there is a protector called Demjin Chumbe (?). No woman is allowed to walk in Demjin Chumbe’s (?) room, other than those women. Not only that they can take his seat and they can do that and give Demjin Chumbe (?) a hug and offer him a scarf. They are all students of Pabongka. They asked Pabongka to go to eastern Tibet with them when their grandfather became a governor in the East. They asked Pabongka to come with us. They said you are part of our family, you have to come with us. Pabongka has thousands of disciples, so it was not possible. He said I will come and visit. It was not possible for him to go there permanently, so he said I will send somebody and he sent Gen - La Rinpoche to stay with the Shatas(?) as Pabongka’s representative.

So I saw a member of the Shata(?) family and he said I found thousands of pictures, tens of thousands of pictures, and I found Gen - La Rinpoche’s two pictures, so I sent them to you. Did you get it? I said no, I did not get it. He said, “Well, I know who I sent it through, some young Tibetan guy who lives in New York. He didn’t give it to you?” I said, “No. “ So by the time I came back from Tibet, it was put in my apartment under the door in an envelope. I still have it there. When I look in the picture, you know it is different from my memory of his face. The picture is different. He is much shorter than I remember. His robes look very well—nothing is crooked or hanging out. Probably they made him sit that way. So the Shata told me, probably his father took the picture.

Anyway, one day Gen - La Rinpoche (?) was beating me up, so I needed to challenge him. I was probably six or seven and I didn’t know how to challenge him. So I started peeing down his legs because I could see his legs! I remember that still very clearly. So this shows you, you are not seeing your guru as Buddha. Nobody is going to pee on Buddha’s legs, right? So I need to take it back. I can still see it! (Laughter).

So it is not easy, you know. The most important thing is at the end. You have to be really corrected, especially if you get angry or upset. I don’t know if you get angry or not, but you get discomfort. In one way this is an incredible opportunity to correct the individual if you keep on getting upset. If you keep on getting angry, then it is a total disadvantage to the individual. Even if you can’t do it every day, at least during the guru devotional practice, Lama Chopa, Six-Session Guru-Yoga or the sadhana. Even in the Yamantaka, when you meditate a guru on the crown of Yamantaka in the form of the lama, for example, these are all so much important reasons in there. These are very, very important points. That is why Vajrayana practice is more harder, more difficult than the usual ones. But is more profound, very important. The total liberation of the individual depends on the guru devotional practice. This, itself, is capable of liberating the individual, totally.

I must also share one more story here. Kyabje Lhatsun Rinpoche from whom I received Tara teachings. He was very old, and unfortunately he did not come out of Tibet. We do have the reincarnation Kyabje Lhatsun Rinpoche, but reincarnation is a different story. Until the individual shows it is reincarnation, we don’t even call, we say “chord” rinpoche, which means reconstitution. I received my first Vajrayogini initiation from Kyabje Lhatsun Rinpoche while I was in Tibet, in some Tibetan official’s house, I did not have much exposure to Vajrayogini at all at that time.

So when we went, Kyabje said, “Come with me, sit with me and do a self-initiation.” I said, “Without having done a retreat or having had the initiation before I don’t see how I can sit and do self-initiation.” He said, “Come sit with me and we will do it together.” So I said, “All right.” Then he also wanted me to be the attendant at the ceremony today at the initiation! I focused my mind on being sure that I would make no mistake! During the vase initiation a thunderstorm came! It never thundered in Tibet during this time in winter. Then Kyabje Rinpoche whispered to me, “See I told you!” He had a little funny mustache. If a lama delivers you, you will reach wherever you want to reach. In other words, they say you have to pay for the leg. That is paying for the transportation, you have to pay for the vehicle that delivers you. So to do that you should have a profound faith in the guru. Even early in my life I had that.

It is very hard to develop profound faith. In a way though, it is not that difficult. It is easy. With Kyabje Rinpoche in one way it was very easy to develop profound faith to him because he was a wonderful, gentle and kind person. In another way though he is such a silly person, extremely silly. I never saw such a silly person in my life. I told him many times, “You are so silly!” “Why I am so silly,” he says?

He is so well known, so many people come to see him. He stays in my house sometimes and people line up to see him, mostly in the center room. My father gives him the biggest room. He has managers too. I am not supposed to think because they are supposed to be the hair pores of Kyabje Rinpoche. But they are horrible people, honestly. There are three of them and they are all monks, and Kyabje sits in the center room of our house and people are lined up all the time. No one comes empty handed to see him. He will accept their gift and then they go. Then, after a half an hour passes, his managers take everything for themselves every half hour and they take it to their house. He is poor and only has three different underwear and three different robes. That is it, nothing else. He has a brother who looks like Rinpoche. His brother starts stealing from his table. Every time he comes my mother makes him a new robe. Sometimes, he will take the coins and put them under his cushion. I look out for the managers when they come and I tease him sometime and say—look they are coming! They know somehow that his brother is coming and they come and collect everything. He buries things so his managers won’t find them and then gives them to me after his brother leaves and I have to take them out to his brother. I say, “Why you silly, it is all yours? Why are you afraid of your managers?” He says, “Shhhh, they are my managers. Don’t say that.”

The first downfall is not having guru devotion and that is the basis for the practice. I hope to talk more about how one individual can travel through the Vajrayana path. This is a Vajrayana teaching. It is not like a sadhana teaching or generation teaching or completion teaching. Be sure to emphasize your Six-Session Guru-Yoga and your sadhana every day if you have an initiation. If you don’t, then you should say the Ganden Lha Gyema every day and at least 21 Migsema’s from your heart, dissolving the guru to your heart level. (Then they say together the last verse of the Ganden Lha Gyema in Tibetan and a short lamrin dedication). In the morning you will have a Tara meditation.