The Practice of Guru Yoga
The actual way in which you carry out the meditation of guru yoga is to visualize yourself in the form of a deity, in this case the feminine deity Vajrayogini. Meditate that in the space above your head, about a cubit in length above your crown (it would be about the length of your forearm), there is a seat formed of three lotuses, one above the other - a white, red and dark blue lotus. Resting upon this threefold lotus seat, you visualize the flat disk of the full moon. Above this you meditate the form of Guru Rinpoche, considering him to be the quintessence of all of the blessings of all buddhas and bodhisattvas united in this single form. Even though the manifestation of Guru Rinpoche's form takes on a certain appearance with specific posture, gestures, ornaments and garments, his essence is inseparable from the essence of your root lama. Praying with this conviction is the basis for guru yoga practice.
The particular form of Guru Rinpoche is white in color with a reddish tinge. He has one face and two hands and his expression is described as semi-wrathful in the sense that it is basically a peaceful expression with a just a slight hint of wrath - not an overtly wrathful expression. The form of Guru Rinpoche is marked with the 32 major and 80 minor marks of physical perfection so that there is nothing about the form that is any way displeasing, disproportionate, lacking or unsatisfactory to the mind of one who beholds such a form. The hair of the figure of Guru Rinpoche is flowing over his shoulders and back. On his head Guru Rinpoche wears the lotus crown that confers liberation upon all who behold it.
The form of Guru Rinpoche is wearing a rich cloak that is referred to as the Cloak of the King of Sawok. The origin of this cloak refers back to a particular event when Guru Rinpoche was staying in the area now known as Tso Pema to the Tibetans or Rewalsar in India. The king of that region offered his cloak to Guru Rinpoche. In recognition of this worldly king offering the symbol of his majesty of Guru Rinpoche, the form of Guru Rinpoche is clad in this outer cloak. Additionally, Guru Rinpoche wears a formal monastic robe emblematic of the Hinayana disciplines. He is adorned with jeweled ornaments such as earrings, necklace, bracelets and anklets. The right hand holds a five prong vajra to his heart center. The left hand is in his lap in the gesture of meditative equipoise, holding a skull cup filled with nectar in which there is a vase filled with the nectar of immortality.
In the crook of the left elbow Guru Rinpoche cradles a trident which is a veiled reference to feminine principle, the aspect of Vajra Yogini. Various consorts such as Yeshe Tsogyal and Mandarava are associated with Guru Rinpoche. Given that they were all essentially of the same nature of Vajra Yogini, this then is the significance of the trident in the crook of the left elbow.
When we find the reference of yab and yum (masculine/feminine consort or father/mother consort) applied to deities, we shouldn't make the obvious mistake of assuming that this has to do with male/female in the physical sense. The deities are not male and female beings, but masculine and feminine energies. The bipolar imagery of the masculine and feminine illustrates the primordial union of appearance (or form) and emptiness. One of the descriptions of this imagery is that the masculine aspect, the yab aspect, refers to phenomenal appearance while the yum, the feminine aspect, is the expression of emptiness. So the way in which the deities manifest is simply a direct expression of the fundamental nature of reality as it is.
The dakini Yeshe Tsogyal is famous for having been the Tibetan consort of Guru Rinpoche, but we should remember that her primary function as his consort was to gather and codify his teachings. Her role is directly analogous to that which the student of the Buddha, Ananda, performed after the passing of the Buddha - to gather together the Buddha's teachings so that they could handed on to future generations. This was exactly the function of Yeshe Tsogyal - to uphold and codify and collect and gather the teachings of Guru Rinpoche. While the dakini Yeshe Tsogyal did appear in human form as a woman in Tibet, her ultimate essence was that of a dakini of timeless awareness. So there is no contradiction in her manifesting that essence as a human woman or as a trident held in the crook of the left elbow of Guru Rinpoche.
In addition, you meditate that the form of Guru Rinpoche above your head is seated in the full vajra posture with the left leg on the right thigh and the right leg on the left thigh. Meditate that the form is radiating brilliant rays of light in all directions.
The inexhaustable adornment of Guru Rinpoche's form is the essence of the sangha principle; that of his speech, the dharma principle; that of his mind, the principle of buddha as a source of refuge. The qualities of Guru Rinpoche embody the chosen deity principle of Vajrayana; his activity, that of the dakinis and dharmapalas (the dharma protectors.) In brief, what appears initially to be simply the form of Guru Rinpoche is understood on a more ultimate level to be the very essence of all buddhas, yidams, dakas and dakinis, dharma protectors and the entire vast array of the three jewels and the three roots all subsumed within a single manifestation.
Regardless of the particular deity that you are meditating upon in your own individual practice and regardless of the specific form that you are visualizing, it is important that you visualize that form to be pure appearance without any substantial or corporeal nature. You are not visualizing the deity as a body of flesh and blood, but rather as a form that is completely insubstantial - a form that is nothing but pure appearance without any solidity or any substantiality. For example, when you are practicing ka-gye (the eight commands on sadhana practice), if you are meditating on Vajrakilaya or Chemchog or any of the major herukas of this cycle, the visualization in the more extensive practices involves the basic visualization of your form as the form of the deity with whole mandalas of deities appearing at points in your body associated with the concentration of subtle energy. So you are not visualizing a form that has a skeletal structure, a circulatory system, a digestive system or musculature. None of these ordinary physical elements enter into the picture at all.
In our time and place Guru Rinpoche is the source for the lineages that we receive. Even though the actual presence of Guru Rinpoche is not perceptable to us directly, still we connect with that source through the unbroken lineage that has been handed down from generation to generation. When we rely upon the lama as the very embodiment of Guru Rinpoche and inseparable from Guru Rinpoche, we connect directly with that unbroken source that has come down to us historically.
In the pinnacle pure realm of Akanishta, Guru Rinpoche received transmission from the dakini known as Leche Wangmo, the powerful goddess of activity. The process in which he received this transmission was of her transforming him into a seed syllable hung which she swallowed. As the hung syllable passed through the chakras of her body, he received the four stages of empowerment: the vase, the body, the wisdom awareness and the fourth empowerment. She expelled him through her secret organ and he reassumed his form. This is obviously not an ordinary process of her swallowing something, digesting and excreting it.
This particular process finds its expression as well in the many abishekas or empowerment ceremonies that are performed by vajra masters. These include similar visualizations in which the student is transformed into a syllable, ingested by the vajra master, transformed and brought forth into the world again as the deity. These are processes whereby the vajra master, in transmitting the blessing to the student, purifies the student's mind stream of the effect of harmful actions and of obscurations and transmits the spiritual power of the empowerment.
Once the student has been generated as the deity by the vajra master, the student maintains identity with the chosen deity for the duration of the empowerment ceremony. The student recognizes his or her essence to be the essence of that deity manifesting in that particular form. The student's conception of him or herself as the deity is the samayasattva, the commitment aspect, which the vajra master imbues with the jnanasattva, the aspect of timeless awareness. The vajra master then proceeds to use the various substances or articles such as the vase and forth as the symbols that transmit ultimate blessing of the various levels of empowerment. It is on that basis that the true transmission of spiritual power and energy can take place.
This is simply an expression of a much larger principle. Whether we are involved in activities of the dharma or whether we are involved in ordinary work, it is our own mind that is the most important factor - how our mind is viewing the situation, how our mind is relating to the circumstances. Both the lama and the student have a responsibility here: in order for true transmission to take place, both the mind of the lama and the mind of the student conceive the situation in the appropriate manner. Then and only then can there really be the authentic transmission of blessings in an empowerment.
Returning to the actual meditation of guru yoga: Having visualized the form of Guru Rinpoche as the union of all buddhas and all sources of refuge above the crown of your head, you meditate that the form is marked at the forehead with a white om syllable, at the throat with a red ah syllable, at the heart center with a dark blue hung syllable and at the navel center with a green hri syllable. In addition you meditate that on the palms and soles of Guru Rinpoche's form are the four syllables ha ri ni sa. Rays of light shining from these syllables in all directions invoke the blessings of all sources of refuge which return and are absorbed into his form above the crown of your head. With one-pointed focus you begin the actual practice of guru yoga which involves supplication to the lama and recitation of the vajra guru mantra, the mantra of Guru Rinpoche.
Following the main body of the practice, you meditate first that from the white om syllable in the forehead center of Guru Rinpoche there comes a white ray of light, like a shooting star, that enters into your own forehead and completely fills your body. The white light purifies you on the physical level of the effects of obscurations and harmful actions, imbuing your form with the blessings of enlightened form. By a similar process you meditate that from the throat center of Guru Rinpoche, from the red ah syllable, there comes a red ray of light that enters your own throat center purifying your speech. From the heart center of Guru Rinpoche, from the dark blue hung syllable, there comes a thread or filament of light like a wafting of incense smoke that is absorbed into your own heart center purifying your mind. And finally, you meditate that from all of the centers of Guru Rinpoche's form come rainbow rays of light of five colors, white, red, yellow, green and blue, all of which are absorbed into your own chakras purifying the last traces of obscuration and conferring the fourth level of empowerment. In this way you receive the four levels of empowerment, the vase, secret, wisdom awareness and the fourth empowerment. This establishes the potential for your own realization respectively, of nirmanakaya, sambhogakaya, dharmakaya and svabhavikakaya, the totality of the three kayas.
When you come to actually finish the session, you meditate that the form of Guru Rinpoche above the crown of your head dissolves into light. This light is absorbed into you and at that point you enter into the formless completion stage of the practice. You meditate that Guru Rinpoche's enlightened form, speech and mind are in no way separate from your own body, speech and mind. There is complete non-dual union. You meditate in a formless state of mind, without any frame of reference, without any conceptual elaboration, simply allowing your mind to rest in that state of non-dual union for as long as possible. Following that, you conclude with the prayers of dedication and aspiration.
There are a number of other specific ways in which the visualization of guru yoga practice are presented according to specific lineages, specific traditions and even specific situations. But the general principles that are described in this presentation hold true in all cases: you visualize the lama above the crown of your head. In this particular case you envision the form of Guru Rinpoche as the form that embodies all sources of refuge. In others systems of practice you may be instructed to visualize an actual crowd of the sources of refuge, like a large assembly, above the crown of your head. Or you may be instructed to visualize a lineage, with each figure of the lineage above the other, extending vertically up above the crown of your head. There are different details to the specific visualizations depending upon the system you are studying, but you should understand that despite the seeming differences in the details, the essential nature of the practice is the same in each case.
As I said before, the most important qualities to ensure the success of the practice in the students' mind are faith, devotion, trust and pure view. If a student is truly bent upon benefiting from his or her practice and his or her association with the dharma, those qualities are indispensable.
The particular form of Guru Rinpoche is white in color with a reddish tinge. He has one face and two hands and his expression is described as semi-wrathful in the sense that it is basically a peaceful expression with a just a slight hint of wrath - not an overtly wrathful expression. The form of Guru Rinpoche is marked with the 32 major and 80 minor marks of physical perfection so that there is nothing about the form that is any way displeasing, disproportionate, lacking or unsatisfactory to the mind of one who beholds such a form. The hair of the figure of Guru Rinpoche is flowing over his shoulders and back. On his head Guru Rinpoche wears the lotus crown that confers liberation upon all who behold it.
The form of Guru Rinpoche is wearing a rich cloak that is referred to as the Cloak of the King of Sawok. The origin of this cloak refers back to a particular event when Guru Rinpoche was staying in the area now known as Tso Pema to the Tibetans or Rewalsar in India. The king of that region offered his cloak to Guru Rinpoche. In recognition of this worldly king offering the symbol of his majesty of Guru Rinpoche, the form of Guru Rinpoche is clad in this outer cloak. Additionally, Guru Rinpoche wears a formal monastic robe emblematic of the Hinayana disciplines. He is adorned with jeweled ornaments such as earrings, necklace, bracelets and anklets. The right hand holds a five prong vajra to his heart center. The left hand is in his lap in the gesture of meditative equipoise, holding a skull cup filled with nectar in which there is a vase filled with the nectar of immortality.
In the crook of the left elbow Guru Rinpoche cradles a trident which is a veiled reference to feminine principle, the aspect of Vajra Yogini. Various consorts such as Yeshe Tsogyal and Mandarava are associated with Guru Rinpoche. Given that they were all essentially of the same nature of Vajra Yogini, this then is the significance of the trident in the crook of the left elbow.
When we find the reference of yab and yum (masculine/feminine consort or father/mother consort) applied to deities, we shouldn't make the obvious mistake of assuming that this has to do with male/female in the physical sense. The deities are not male and female beings, but masculine and feminine energies. The bipolar imagery of the masculine and feminine illustrates the primordial union of appearance (or form) and emptiness. One of the descriptions of this imagery is that the masculine aspect, the yab aspect, refers to phenomenal appearance while the yum, the feminine aspect, is the expression of emptiness. So the way in which the deities manifest is simply a direct expression of the fundamental nature of reality as it is.
The dakini Yeshe Tsogyal is famous for having been the Tibetan consort of Guru Rinpoche, but we should remember that her primary function as his consort was to gather and codify his teachings. Her role is directly analogous to that which the student of the Buddha, Ananda, performed after the passing of the Buddha - to gather together the Buddha's teachings so that they could handed on to future generations. This was exactly the function of Yeshe Tsogyal - to uphold and codify and collect and gather the teachings of Guru Rinpoche. While the dakini Yeshe Tsogyal did appear in human form as a woman in Tibet, her ultimate essence was that of a dakini of timeless awareness. So there is no contradiction in her manifesting that essence as a human woman or as a trident held in the crook of the left elbow of Guru Rinpoche.
In addition, you meditate that the form of Guru Rinpoche above your head is seated in the full vajra posture with the left leg on the right thigh and the right leg on the left thigh. Meditate that the form is radiating brilliant rays of light in all directions.
The inexhaustable adornment of Guru Rinpoche's form is the essence of the sangha principle; that of his speech, the dharma principle; that of his mind, the principle of buddha as a source of refuge. The qualities of Guru Rinpoche embody the chosen deity principle of Vajrayana; his activity, that of the dakinis and dharmapalas (the dharma protectors.) In brief, what appears initially to be simply the form of Guru Rinpoche is understood on a more ultimate level to be the very essence of all buddhas, yidams, dakas and dakinis, dharma protectors and the entire vast array of the three jewels and the three roots all subsumed within a single manifestation.
Regardless of the particular deity that you are meditating upon in your own individual practice and regardless of the specific form that you are visualizing, it is important that you visualize that form to be pure appearance without any substantial or corporeal nature. You are not visualizing the deity as a body of flesh and blood, but rather as a form that is completely insubstantial - a form that is nothing but pure appearance without any solidity or any substantiality. For example, when you are practicing ka-gye (the eight commands on sadhana practice), if you are meditating on Vajrakilaya or Chemchog or any of the major herukas of this cycle, the visualization in the more extensive practices involves the basic visualization of your form as the form of the deity with whole mandalas of deities appearing at points in your body associated with the concentration of subtle energy. So you are not visualizing a form that has a skeletal structure, a circulatory system, a digestive system or musculature. None of these ordinary physical elements enter into the picture at all.
In our time and place Guru Rinpoche is the source for the lineages that we receive. Even though the actual presence of Guru Rinpoche is not perceptable to us directly, still we connect with that source through the unbroken lineage that has been handed down from generation to generation. When we rely upon the lama as the very embodiment of Guru Rinpoche and inseparable from Guru Rinpoche, we connect directly with that unbroken source that has come down to us historically.
In the pinnacle pure realm of Akanishta, Guru Rinpoche received transmission from the dakini known as Leche Wangmo, the powerful goddess of activity. The process in which he received this transmission was of her transforming him into a seed syllable hung which she swallowed. As the hung syllable passed through the chakras of her body, he received the four stages of empowerment: the vase, the body, the wisdom awareness and the fourth empowerment. She expelled him through her secret organ and he reassumed his form. This is obviously not an ordinary process of her swallowing something, digesting and excreting it.
This particular process finds its expression as well in the many abishekas or empowerment ceremonies that are performed by vajra masters. These include similar visualizations in which the student is transformed into a syllable, ingested by the vajra master, transformed and brought forth into the world again as the deity. These are processes whereby the vajra master, in transmitting the blessing to the student, purifies the student's mind stream of the effect of harmful actions and of obscurations and transmits the spiritual power of the empowerment.
Once the student has been generated as the deity by the vajra master, the student maintains identity with the chosen deity for the duration of the empowerment ceremony. The student recognizes his or her essence to be the essence of that deity manifesting in that particular form. The student's conception of him or herself as the deity is the samayasattva, the commitment aspect, which the vajra master imbues with the jnanasattva, the aspect of timeless awareness. The vajra master then proceeds to use the various substances or articles such as the vase and forth as the symbols that transmit ultimate blessing of the various levels of empowerment. It is on that basis that the true transmission of spiritual power and energy can take place.
This is simply an expression of a much larger principle. Whether we are involved in activities of the dharma or whether we are involved in ordinary work, it is our own mind that is the most important factor - how our mind is viewing the situation, how our mind is relating to the circumstances. Both the lama and the student have a responsibility here: in order for true transmission to take place, both the mind of the lama and the mind of the student conceive the situation in the appropriate manner. Then and only then can there really be the authentic transmission of blessings in an empowerment.
Returning to the actual meditation of guru yoga: Having visualized the form of Guru Rinpoche as the union of all buddhas and all sources of refuge above the crown of your head, you meditate that the form is marked at the forehead with a white om syllable, at the throat with a red ah syllable, at the heart center with a dark blue hung syllable and at the navel center with a green hri syllable. In addition you meditate that on the palms and soles of Guru Rinpoche's form are the four syllables ha ri ni sa. Rays of light shining from these syllables in all directions invoke the blessings of all sources of refuge which return and are absorbed into his form above the crown of your head. With one-pointed focus you begin the actual practice of guru yoga which involves supplication to the lama and recitation of the vajra guru mantra, the mantra of Guru Rinpoche.
Following the main body of the practice, you meditate first that from the white om syllable in the forehead center of Guru Rinpoche there comes a white ray of light, like a shooting star, that enters into your own forehead and completely fills your body. The white light purifies you on the physical level of the effects of obscurations and harmful actions, imbuing your form with the blessings of enlightened form. By a similar process you meditate that from the throat center of Guru Rinpoche, from the red ah syllable, there comes a red ray of light that enters your own throat center purifying your speech. From the heart center of Guru Rinpoche, from the dark blue hung syllable, there comes a thread or filament of light like a wafting of incense smoke that is absorbed into your own heart center purifying your mind. And finally, you meditate that from all of the centers of Guru Rinpoche's form come rainbow rays of light of five colors, white, red, yellow, green and blue, all of which are absorbed into your own chakras purifying the last traces of obscuration and conferring the fourth level of empowerment. In this way you receive the four levels of empowerment, the vase, secret, wisdom awareness and the fourth empowerment. This establishes the potential for your own realization respectively, of nirmanakaya, sambhogakaya, dharmakaya and svabhavikakaya, the totality of the three kayas.
When you come to actually finish the session, you meditate that the form of Guru Rinpoche above the crown of your head dissolves into light. This light is absorbed into you and at that point you enter into the formless completion stage of the practice. You meditate that Guru Rinpoche's enlightened form, speech and mind are in no way separate from your own body, speech and mind. There is complete non-dual union. You meditate in a formless state of mind, without any frame of reference, without any conceptual elaboration, simply allowing your mind to rest in that state of non-dual union for as long as possible. Following that, you conclude with the prayers of dedication and aspiration.
There are a number of other specific ways in which the visualization of guru yoga practice are presented according to specific lineages, specific traditions and even specific situations. But the general principles that are described in this presentation hold true in all cases: you visualize the lama above the crown of your head. In this particular case you envision the form of Guru Rinpoche as the form that embodies all sources of refuge. In others systems of practice you may be instructed to visualize an actual crowd of the sources of refuge, like a large assembly, above the crown of your head. Or you may be instructed to visualize a lineage, with each figure of the lineage above the other, extending vertically up above the crown of your head. There are different details to the specific visualizations depending upon the system you are studying, but you should understand that despite the seeming differences in the details, the essential nature of the practice is the same in each case.
As I said before, the most important qualities to ensure the success of the practice in the students' mind are faith, devotion, trust and pure view. If a student is truly bent upon benefiting from his or her practice and his or her association with the dharma, those qualities are indispensable.
The Amulet
