What is the meaning of Guru Yoga in Vajrayana practice?
The Kagyü school has a very good reputation in Tibetan Buddhism. It is said that most of its practitioners were able to rest in their practice at the moment of their death. Many die while directly in meditation and others are at least able to keep their minds from getting lost in the conditions of the outer world, which is what usually happens and is the reason why one is uncontrollably reborn somewhere.
Especially in old times in Tibet—although one still hears it today—it is said that the Kagyüs have a special way of dying. For instance, in the 1970s, many of our young monks studied in Gelugpa monasteries. While there, one of the great Gelugpa scholars told them: “In terms of intellectual knowledge, no other school can compete with us, but you Kagyüs have a very special knowledge, which should not be lost.” These scholars study 27 years to get their Geshe title, while our young monks only spent a couple years there. They told our monks: “In these few years, you cannot acquire the knowledge that we have. But you have something much more important and you should not forget this.”
What they meant was that many people practice Vajrayana, but the special thing in the Kagyü school is that we first build a special connection to the lama and then eventually begin to meditate on buddha aspects. That is our form of practice, Guru Yoga.
Normally, one first does the Ngöndro, then either a practice on a buddha aspect (Tib. Yidam) or also the practice of the Great Seal. The Vajrayana practice on the buddha aspects, however, is much more stable if one has first emphasized the Guru Yoga practice.
It is, in fact, not so easy at all to use Vajrayana methods without having practiced a lot of Guru Yoga beforehand. Very difficult situations can arise in practice. For instance, it is not at all simple to maintain the tantric promises (Skt. Samayas). If one is not able to correctly maintain the conditions for the practice, then the results will be weak. That is why Kagyüs have always first practiced Guru Yoga in depth. When you practice the special Vajrayana meditations, then they work even if you cannot correctly maintain all the required conditions. So Guru Yoga is a prerequisite for really achieving the results of Vajrayana practice.
How important is an empowerment for Guru Yoga practice?
Of course, there are empowerments for Guru Yoga practices, but the 16th Karmapa said that the Guru Yoga on him is an empowerment in itself and, for that reason, requires no further empowerment. You can do this practice and later you can get an empowerment and then do a yidam practice. When you do Guru Yoga, you do not have to worry about getting an empowerment right away. However, if you have received an empowerment and are meditating on a yidam, then Guru Yoga practice is very important in order to achieve the results, if all the necessary conditions are not present. Of course, Guru Yoga itself is a Vajrayana practice. However, sometime people use other Vajrayana practices too early, such as meditations on buddha aspects. You can achieve much better results if you have first established a really stable connection with Gyalwa Karmapa.
In the West, it is difficult to do yidam practices and the Six Yogas of Naropa. Can Guru Yoga help with the obstacles that arise during these practices?
When you practice very deep teachings like yidam practice and the Six Yogas of Naropa, many obstacles can arise. This is true not only in the West; it was also like this in Tibet in earlier times. You can read this in the biographies of lamas, which describe these problems. Most obstacles come from our own conceptual notions, however some do come from the surroundings and from other beings.
It is advised to avoid getting caught by obstacles as much as possible, and simply to acknowledge them and continue. An obstacle is not necessarily a physical thing but consists of many different thoughts and feelings. When meditators in the mountains found themselves is such difficult situations, then they would concentrate on their lama. This is what all the great yogis say. The protection that Gyalwa Karmapa gives us can help us to avoid difficult obstacles. To ensure that this protection is always there for us, it is good to build up a strong habit for Guru Yoga practice.
With the very detailed special yidam practices, it is not unusual that obstacles arise in the form of various ideas and feelings. They disturb you by keeping you from practicing the right way. Obstacles like this can arise anywhere, regardless of whether you are in Nepal or Europe—all lamas have experienced this. The best remedy for this is the invocation of one’s own teacher. Milarepa especially advised inwardly calling on one’s lama when such situations arise. When Milarepa encountered problems meditating in his cave, he would call on his teacher Marpa for help. Because Marpa was quite far away, Milarepa used the Guru Yoga of Marpa.
All of the later students of Milarepa also practiced this. This was not only in the Karma Kagyü tradition, it was also common in the Drukpa Kagyü school. Many yogis who did very deep practices in the mountains would call on their lamas, and later these invocations started to be used in rituals. They originated in these often very difficult experiences, and many of the texts tell stories about how difficult it was for the meditators to deal with their emotions.
What is the difference between the Guru Yogas on the 8th and the 16th Karmapas?
The effect is the same, but the Guru Yoga on the 16th Karmapa is easier to practice for the beginner.
Some time ago I had an interesting experience with a dog, which was quite ill at the time. He was close to death and fell down in the garden one day and could no longer get up. I thought to myself that it would be good if he heard Karmapa’s name one more time, also for a fast and good rebirth. So right there in the garden I recited the “Tun Shi Lame Naljor” out loud for him—the Guru Yoga on the 8th Karmapa—and five minutes later he was suddenly on his legs again. Sometimes you hear stories like this and you know theoretically that things like this can happen, but in this case I experienced it myself.
One and a half years later he was once again very ill and I thought I would do this Guru Yoga for him again. As I began the mantra phase with Karmapa Chenno, he suddenly started to bark very weakly. Earlier, he had just lain there for a long time without reacting to anything. The next night he died.
How did the Guru Yoga on the 16th Karmapa come about?
The Tibetan leader of the Bir1 community asked the 16th Gyalwa Karmapa for something that he could practice that would be fast and effective. He had already been an important leader in Tibet before the escape, but he wasn’t a very positive person. For instance, during a family feud he killed a cousin of the Karmapa. Later in exile, when he was around 50 or 60 years old, he came to Gyalwa Karmapa and asked for a simple meditation because he was afraid of a bad rebirth. Karmapa gave him this meditation. Later he gave the same meditation to other students, but not really very often.
Karmapa also gave the mantra Karmapa Chenno, which literally means “Karmapa know me.” When one recites it, then Karmapa is present and one is connected to him. There is in fact an orally transmitted tradition from the time of the 1st Karmapa Düsum Khyenpa about this: He had a hunter as a student and told him that he should stop hunting. The hunter promised to do so, but one time he caught a little fox in the mountains and said something like, “Karmapa, do you know about me? Do you know that I have killed this fox?” In that moment Karmapa appeared to him and then he really stopped hunting.
What is the origin of the Black Crown ceremony?
The Chinese emperor Yung Lo of the Ming Dynasty saw the actual Black Crown, the usually invisible power field, above the head of the 5th Karmapa. He asked Karmapa what it meant, and Karmapa said that it was a symbol that he had achieved the power of the activity of all Buddhas, and that only very few people could see it. Yung Lo proposed to the Karmapa the idea of building a physical replica of the crown, so that everybody could see it and have the same benefit as if they would see the real crown. Karmapa agreed and the crown was made. All the Karmapas since then have used a ceremony to show people the crown.
What does it mean to hold the pure view in the Diamond Way?
This is very easy and rather complicated at the same time, depending on how one approaches the subject. If you try to explain it intellectually, then it is very complicated because there is a lot of confusing information. However, it becomes very simple if you do not try to understand it intellectually.
The pure view means that human nature is pure in itself and that one can connect with this pure nature in a very easy manner. To really develop the pure view, one has to understand the background a bit better, but not too intellectually, otherwise one can become confused. It is an entirely different thing if one goes into a deep meditation. Then one can no longer be confused by intellectual understanding.
There were some very learned Tibetologists from Paris, some of whom gave up Buddhism because they became too intellectual. At first, they were very engaged and put a lot of effort into study. But when one becomes too intellectual, then one gets so critical that it is difficult to focus oneself. To achieve a truly precise understanding of Buddha’s teachings, it is important to practice, to gain our own experience, and in this way to develop a good understanding. Then one can study more without losing one’s footing.
It is similar when one looks at the bodhisattvas. They think in a much different way than normal people, who always experience things in a dualistic manner and think, “I like this, but I don’t like that. This is mine, and that is yours.” In order to really understand the pure qualities of a bodhisattva—to really feel that there is a lot more freedom when one becomes a bodhisattva—it is necessary to both study and to practice. If one only studies and does not practice, then one will see only that bodhisattvas are different than normal people, and one will become very critical and confused. It is the same with understanding the pure view: first we practice and become a bit more stable within ourselves. In this way confidence in the practice can arise and then it can be useful to study more. The practice itself is actually really simple. One only needs more intellectual explanations if one’s mind is very complicated. However, without being well-grounded in a simple practice, intellectual knowledge will not help much, but will tend to confuse us even more.
It is not very easy to express this in words, but I have some experience with this. Some years ago, a young Khenpo (teacher) died in France. He knew a lot but had not practiced very much. At the end of his life he was not really able to focus with confidence on his practice. He became depressed and fearful and began to search on the Internet for other ways to relax his mind. Some people got quite upset and wondered why he gave up practice now that he was going to die. But he was simply unable to use the practice.
Among the old people in Rumtek, however, there were many who had a very deep confidence when they were dying. For example, there was an old lady who was on her deathbed. People asked her if she wanted help in the form of instructions from a lama or an empowerment. She thanked them but declined and said that she didn’t need anything because she was able to rest in meditation, inseparable from Gyalwa Karmapa. They were somewhat astonished and thought she was a bit proud. But when she died there were rainbows everywhere and her body still sat in meditation. Until then people had thought she was just an old village woman.
I also met another woman, about whom the monks said that she never washed herself but that she never looked dirty and did not smell bad. She asked me for a blessing so I came close to her and touched her. It was true: her hair was not greasy and she seemed completely fresh. That was unusual because in Sikkim, it is different than in the high altitudes of Tibet. If you don’t wash yourself, then you will soon smell pretty bad. But the people there confirmed that she would never wash herself. It was my first visit to Rumtek after 20 years and she said to me, “I am really happy that you are here again today. But I don’t have to worry about a thing because I rest in complete confidence in Gyalwa Karmapa.” People like these two women are real practitioners—solid and completely free of suffering.
In Rumtek, laypeople were often much better at this kind of practice than monks. Of course, there were also very good lamas, but in general, these special practitioners were people with everyday lives—silver smiths, cattle herders, etc. One could find practitioners of a very high level who were completely focused on Gyalwa Karmapa. For this reason, they will remain connected to Karmapa from lifetime to lifetime, will become bodhisattvas, and then become enlightened. Many of them have passed away in the meantime.
When one starts to practice holding the pure view, it is not possible to immediately see everything as pure, but one learns certain things in the practice. When difficult things arise in the mind, then in the course of time, it is increasingly possible to rest in the pure view, and it becomes quite possible to see everything as pure.
The pure view is a specialty of Vajrayana. The importance of this has been emphasized again and again in the Kagyü school, in particular since Marpa’s time. In the beginning we still experience disturbances and notice that we cannot really hold the pure view, but we kind of pretend we can. It is simply not possible to immediately have the pure view. But it is important to frequently remind ourselves of its significance. If we keep the connection to the practice, then with time it becomes easier to hold the pure view.
When the 16th Gyalwa Karmapa said for the first time that Lama Ole was a “one-pointed man,” he was referring to the pure view. Here, Karmapa was referring to the fact that Lama Ole was completely focused on the pure view, which is rare.
- The Bir Tibetan community is located in North India in the Himalayan ranges in the State of Himachal Pradeshm which is about 60-70 kilometers away from Dharamsala. ↩︎
