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General Buddhism => General Buddhism => Topic started by: DSFriend on January 24, 2011, 11:12:44 AM

Title: What does being one with the Yidam, Guru means?
Post by: DSFriend on January 24, 2011, 11:12:44 AM
There is a discussion in the About Dorje Shugden board which made me post this question here.

What does it mean "being one with our Guru", "being one with our Yidam". How does a practitioner go about practicing this in their every day lives..
Title: Re: What does being one with the Yidam, Guru means?
Post by: Big Uncle on March 01, 2011, 05:51:40 PM
Our visualisations and meditations are more effective when we visualise our Guru as our Yidam (our main meditational Buddha). That means when we visualise the deity, we see that the deity as bearing the same physical and mental qualities as our Guru.

It means we are invoking upon the blessings of the lineage Lamas and that connects us to the Buddhas directly. The samaya or spiritual bond we have with our Guru determines how direct the connecting line is. So what people do is have pictures of their Lama close to the statue or image of their Yidam so their visualisations are easily made. However, there are more extensive practices relating to Guru devotion in Higher Tantra called Six Session Guru Yoga and certain Higher Tantras have their own specific meditations on the Guru.
Title: Re: What does being one with the Yidam, Guru means?
Post by: Roberto on April 03, 2011, 09:21:00 PM
Is there any visualisation techniques you can share? Or just bam..... My guru is Dorje Shugden, Tara or whomever.

Title: Re: What does being one with the Yidam, Guru means?
Post by: Tenzin K on January 21, 2012, 04:37:13 PM
s mentioned by Big Uncle, the key point of visualizing the Guru being one with the Yidam we must have great samaya with our Guru.

This quite make sense, if we do not think of our Guru has the same physical and mental qualities as the yidam means we do not think that our Guru has the great qualities that can guide and bring us to enlightenment.

Without our Guru we can not get initiation for higher practice and we can never gain any attainment. Any tantric practice will need our Guru blessing and great samaya and devotion from the students. 
Title: Re: What does being one with the Yidam, Guru means?
Post by: Ensapa on January 23, 2012, 09:33:37 AM
We cannot perceive the Yidam directly so we need the Guru to give us an idea as the Guru himself also has those qualities in him. Which is why he is our Guru in the first place. I dont think so anyone can directly perceive the Yidam so the Guru serves as the bridge between us and the Buddha. This is also why Vajrayana is so effective because it helps you get in touch with your inner qualities directly and because your Guru is a real living person, there is no room for imagination or self interpretation because you cant do it to an actual person and this person will guide you to the state of a Yidam.
Title: Re: What does being one with the Yidam, Guru means?
Post by: pgdharma on January 29, 2012, 08:15:16 AM
As a dharma practitioner we need to rely on our Guru. The reason why we take refuge in our Guru is that we have strong faith and trust in him in order for him to guide us to enlightenment. Thus, our strong and clean samaya with him.

It is quite difficult for us to visualize the Yidam directly, but knowing the Guru has the same qualities of the Yidam, we can visualize the Guru and Yidam as one for the visualization to be more effective and clearer.
Title: Re: What does being one with the Yidam, Guru means?
Post by: Poonlarp on January 30, 2012, 06:51:56 PM
In my humble opinion, I think because we yet to have higher attainment to visualize Buddhas and other deities well (as they are abstract, or just a statue), we need someone we see physically to carry out the visualization well during prayers and meditation.

Our Guru is the living representative of the Yidam and protector. Guru gives us knowledge, advices, using skillful ways to push our buttons to be better, remind us to always have correct motivation; these are exactly the same functions of us having a Yidam and protector. So I think "being one with Yidam, Guru" makes our practice more efficient and easier to connect to the enlighten beings.
Title: Re: What does being one with the Yidam, Guru means?
Post by: RedLantern on May 06, 2012, 03:41:53 PM
During empowerment,the Buddha,personified as the Lama takes a for of a meditational diety.The meditational diety is thus an indirect personification of the Buddha adopted in order to confer the initiation on the disciple.
Meditational dieties are Buddhas by nature.They are beyond the cycle of rebirth and in the context of the merit field.They are placed on the highest level of  the tree.Lama and Yidam,mentor and diety,be revered and seen as individual from one to another,Those who consider them equally will attain spiritual.
Title: Re: What does being one with the Yidam, Guru means?
Post by: Manjushri on May 19, 2012, 11:34:12 AM
Being one with the Yidam, and Guru I think involves meditating and visualing your Guru to possess the same nature, attainments and qualities as your Yidam, therefore the blessings of your Yidam through your visualisation would come from the blessings of your Guru, who is the closest portal you have to achieving enlightenment for He teaches you the Dharma. Then you dissolve the qualities and nature of your Guru into yourself, to open up the Buddha potential in you and generate the same qualities within yourself for others.

By doing this, you would regard your Guru as a Buddha, generating a tremendous amount of blessings from the samaya you hold, if kept clean. The root of all attainments come from one's guru, as stated in the 50 verses of Guru Devotion by Asvaghosa.
Title: Re: What does being one with the Yidam, Guru means?
Post by: biggyboy on May 19, 2012, 03:29:17 PM
Yidam and Buddha are the same by nature.  Lama and Yidam (mentor and deity), should be revered equally and seen as indivisible from one another.  Should one claims that Yidam are more superior to a Lama, he or she will not attain the required realisation.  Those who hold strong Guru Devotion with faith and trust that Lama and Yidam are considered to be equal and inseparable from each other then the practitioner will gain higher spiritual attainments. Why? One's progress in spiritual practice depends very much on the Lama (Teacher) whom one would relate easily with.     
Title: Re: What does being one with the Yidam, Guru means?
Post by: Positive Change on May 20, 2012, 01:56:16 PM
Hang on a moment... the question posed here is the following:

There is a discussion in the About Dorje Shugden board which made me post this question here.

What does it mean "being one with our Guru", "being one with our Yidam". How does a practitioner go about practicing this in their every day lives..

It is different from visualizing our Guru as our Yidam right? In fact I believe it means visualizing ourselves as having the qualities of our Guru and or Yidam (being one) as in the Gaden Lhagyama. This is to help us generate the potential qualities of the Guru within us all. Is this not what we strive to achieve through our practice? To break free of samsara and have the qualities of ones we so revere!
Title: Re: What does being one with the Yidam, Guru means?
Post by: Tenzin Gyatso on May 22, 2012, 02:32:25 AM
If you cannot hold on to guru devotion, then you should just be a general dharma practitioner.

Dalai Lama has advised us on many issues, but if we cannot follow, then better to stick to general-non-tantric practices.

Safer.
Title: Re: What does being one with the Yidam, Guru means?
Post by: Dondrup Shugden on March 09, 2015, 09:24:09 AM
It is my humble opinion that when we are saying prayers to any particular deity, we only have the unsubtle physical form of the deity and having no attainments, it is hard for us to hold our visualisation of the deity.

As for our Guru, we have known and seen him in a form that we comprehend.  As such to visualise the deity during our meditation, I will place my Guru's face to the form. Our Guru is our bridge between us and the Buddhas.

At the same time when we meditate on any particular deity/Buddha we are also inspired by the virtuous qualities and we must have the samaya to hold on to the faith that our Guru has the same virtuous qualities and as such in the Human form, we are able to follow and emulate the same qualities to assist us our journey to enlightenment.

All Lamas want us to embark on this spiritual path for enlightenment.
Title: Re: What does being one with the Yidam, Guru means?
Post by: psylotripitaka on March 15, 2015, 07:52:18 AM
Trijang Dorjechang strongly encouraged the practitioner to see the Guru, Yidam, and our own Mind as one. Now, our human Guru is not our actual Guru, but an emanation of our actual Guru. Understanding this points us in the direction of realizing our own conventional and ultimate nature and identifying these as not being different from the GuruDeity.

I have never read or heard instructions saying we should visualize our Yidam having the face of our Guru's human emanation. While it is important to connect initially through our Guru's human emanation, we must learn to go deeper into identifying the actual nature and qualities of that person. When the scriptures and commentaries describe the Guru's real body as being like a jewel and the human form as a jewel case holding this, it is pointing us in the direction of this understanding.

Being one with the GuruDeity means being the GuruDeity experientially, but we have to understand what that means within our own mind.

As long as we do not clearly recognize the conventional and ultimate nature of our own mind, this is challenging. As long as we do not identify and oppose self-grasping within our own continuum, this is challenging. We conceive strongly that I am me, the Guru is the Guru, and Yidam is the Yidam. Even these conceptual labels can contribute greatly to hampering progress. These labels themselves are just doorways through which we must step into the actual experience. For example, we can spend years in meditation repeating the definition of the conventional nature of mind to ourselves, and repeating the analogies such as a still pond, bubbles, and bursting and having this visual of being a pond and bubbles etc, but eventually we need to shut off the dialogue and connect to the experience these things are pointing to.

When we are told to mix our mind with the GuruDeity, there is this nebulous searching that happens where we visualize the GuruDeity come down to our heart and we're thinking that our nature is one with the GuruDeity. This thinking is useful for familiarity sake but eventually must be let go of. We are also conceiving ourselves to be inherently different, haven't let go of self-grasping of either self or others, so there is still a gap between us and the GuruDeity. The analogy of breaking two glasses whose empty space is the same, or pouring water into water can be helpful, but again, if we continue to think and visualize and label without letting go into the serenity and quietude of non-conceptual experience of the conventional and ultimate nature of ourselves, others, and phenomena, we will continue to remain trapped in this compartmentalized dialogue, not connecting, and so, in daily life it will be difficult to connect with identifying with even our own nature never mind being the GuruDeity.

For starters, we should learn to quiet the mind by resting in the conventional nature of mind. This meditation has profound meaning and impact on connecting to this Union thing because it is the actual gateway to it. Did you catch that? Once we become familiar with this, we consider that this nature we're resting in is exactly the same as the conventional nature of our GuruDeity's mind. In other words, to mix your mind with the GuruDeity, simply rest in the nature of your own mind understanding (knowing) that this experience itself IS the union of your mind and the GuruDeity.

This is just from the point of view of the gross conventional nature of mind. If you then go through the dissolution death process either imagined in generation stage or actual during completion stage and access the clear light of bliss, you rest in that very subtle conventional nature (either imagined or actual) again knowing that it is the union of your mind and that of the GuruDeity. If imagined, like the other meditations that started via definitions, analogies, and pointing out instructions, through familiarity and labeling you must come to a point when while resting in this experience of the clear light, having already labeled the experience many times as being the clear light and being the union of you and the GuruDeity, you don't have to keep mentally repeating or telling yourself, you just automatically know that is the case, just as we don't have to always repeat our name to know who we are! If you're still repeating checking meditation on the 4 recognitions during the 1st bringing after many years, this is the main point you may be missing to go further in.

Having generated an experience of union of the conventional natures, throw in union of the ultimate natures of mind, then union of the conventional and ultimate natures of mind, then union of the conventional and ultimate natures of self and other and all phenomena etc. You just keep playing, visualizing, labeling until familiarity takes you past the dialogue into the serene experience of the meaning those labels are pointing to. First gaining experience of resting beyond dialogue in the conventional nature of mind will take you a long way in this regard.

Then it is simply a matter of deepening concentration on our experience of these unions, and learning to rest in them while engaged in daily activities, activities which we understand to be the same nature as everything we've just accomplished.

The same can be done with all the other qualities of the GuruDeity, for example meditating that we have universal compassion already. We can think about what it would be like to see others through those eyes, but again, we need to connect to the feeling and actual experience of that ocean-like mind that embraces others as self without this constant dialogue saying 'I have universal compassion blaa blaa blaa'. That has its place, its called analytical meditation. Holding the thought does not just mean repeating it over and over without thinking of anything else, it means passing through the words to an experience that isn't thinking anymore but just is embracing everyone in a great big hug. After all, the real nature of compassion is the space-like empty conventional nature of mind.

I hope this helps bring some clarity and experience for someone. The kindness of the GuruDeity revealing such things to us is outrageously kind. Thank you Supreme Siddha for revealing your nature to us!
Title: Re: What does being one with the Yidam, Guru means?
Post by: Kim Hyun Jae on March 15, 2015, 02:18:56 PM
Thanks Psylo for the enlighting explanation on the guru-yidam visualisation and methods. For a beginner, the techniques outlined by you may seem alien to them and they may most likely need a proper meditation teacher to guide them through these experiences to check regularly where they are at their stages of practice.

I find your explanation thorough but requires lots of meditation practice on the part of the practitioner.

Thanks for sharing anyways.
Title: Re: What does being one with the Yidam, Guru means?
Post by: Dondrup Shugden on March 15, 2015, 03:34:23 PM
Thank you Physlo for the explanation which I have read thoroughly and shall try to quiet my conventional analytical mind and experience the moment during my next meditation session.

Although I seem to understand your explanation, I know it will not be easy but for sure I will try my best to have the concentration to do.
Title: Re: What does being one with the Yidam, Guru means?
Post by: psylotripitaka on March 15, 2015, 03:43:55 PM
Kim

Indeed, much joyous effort is required to accomplish this. However, if as a beginner we read and hear teaching about the conventional nature of mind in particular, then meditate on this, it helps reduce distraction and gives rise to many insights regarding the rest of the path. All the other things I mention are extra elements to play with once we have some initial experience of the conventional nature of mind. The 1st Panchen Lama praised this practice highly in his teachings on MAHAMUDRA and says it is particularly helpful for beginners.

If when doing so you bare in mind that the main point is to rest in the tranquility of this nature rather than continue analyzing and thinking, this will lead in the desired direction.

Then, when we visualize the GuruDeity descend into our heart, rather than thinking a lot about mixing, we simply return to our experience of resting in minds formless nature, no center, no circumference, knowing our Guru is here.

Je Tilopa said of this:

Don't recall, don't imagine, don't think, don't examine, don't control. Rest.

This refers to resting in the experience of mind once we've utilized definitions and analogies to identify mind, and how to sustain the experience. It would be nothing but worthwhile for beginners to start with this.