Guru Yoga

The Entering of Blessings Through Devotional Prayer

This practice is important to get the blessing through your spiritual teacher of a specific subject of teaching. This is the practice of guru yoga. According to the Gyalwa Chaktri, the guru yoga teaching is called receiving the blessing through devotional prayer.

Visualization:

1: Purification Practice:

Visualize on the crown of your head, there is a lotus, sun, and moon cushion. On top sits your root lama in the form of the Dzogku form. Above the root lama there are other lineage lamas of sutra, tantra, and dzogchen. Surrounding them are the sutric and tantric deities, the Buddhas of the ten directions, rigzins, sempas, khandros, and protectors of Yungdrung Bon. 

Seriously, visualize your room lama with respect and devotion with single pointed mindfulness. From the depth of your heart visualize single-pointedly. Then imagine that from the root lama and Buddhas, emanate primordial wisdom light that streams to yourself and all sentient beings dissolving into the crown of your head and all sentient beings. This light when it dissolves becomes a continuous flow of nectar that purifies all karmic tendencies and obscurations of the past life until the present. 

2: Practice of Accomplishment of Empowerment of your Root Lama:

From the lama and all the deities, imagine white light at the crown, red light at the throat, and blue light at the heart of the lama arise and dissolve into your crown, throat, and heart. When this dissolves, imagine you attain the accomplishment of Enlightened Body, Speech, and Mind. By the blessing of empowerment, you receive all the wisdom, enlightened activities, enlightened experience and realization of the View. Feel you have received these blessings of empowerment and all these qualities. Through this blessing feel your mind more active towards devotion to your root lama. This is how you receive the blessing of empowerment from your root lama.

The Lama prayer, guru yoga prayer, and Tapihritsa prayers are all wonderful prayers we can do at this time. When you do this practice, you receive the blessing and obstacles are purified, and you attain positive qualities of your practice and devotion. By doing this practice the accomplishments will come quickly. Your experiences and realizations will increase, and you will be connected to the compassion of the lama. 

This is the teaching of devotional prayer.

Geshe’s Commentary:

“Guru” means the teacher or lama who teaches you. That teacher you have to trust, respect, and believe. What does “root lama” mean? All lamas are important, but a root lama means “one who introduces you to your natural state of mind.” You can have a root lama of sutra, tantra, and dzogchen. They can be different people. Whoever introduced you to the view of sutra is your root lama of sutra. Whoever introduced you to the view of tantra is your root lama of tantra. What is a blessing? When you get a teaching from your lama, even though you don’t understand the teaching much, still in your mind you increase in interest, belief, and trust for the teaching. In your mind, you become more devoted to the teaching. A blessing is not physical. Nor does a blessing mean you understand the teachings. Blessing comes from within, and it’s the power of the connection, respect, and devotion to the teaching – through the teacher’s teachings. What is important is how much you connect to the teachings, and lessen your connection to samsaric activities. The blessing changes what you consider important in this life. That is the most important part. This change comes slowly over practicing in this way.

Note that trusting your lama and the teachings doesn’t mean you don’t question them. You still use your intelligence and ask questions. 

You can read the lives of the lineage lamas and learn about the importance of both lamas and students. 

Guru Yoga Prayer

ཨེ་མ་ཧོ། སྤྱི་གཙུག་བདེ་བ་ཆེན་པོའི་ཕོ་བྲང་དུ། །

CHYI TSUG DE-WA CHEN PÖ PHO DRANG DU

In the palace of great bliss on the crown of my Head,

དྲིན་ཅན་རྩ་བའི་བླ་མ་ལ་གསོལ་བ་འདེབས། །

DRIN CHÄN TSA WAI LA MA LA SOL WA DEB

Is my benevolent Root Guru to whom I pray;

སངས་རྒྱས་སེམས་སུ་སྟོན་པ་རིན་པོ་ཆེ། །

SANG GYAY SEM SU TÖN PA RIN PO CHE

Oh, Precious One who reveals (my own) nature of mind as Buddha,

རང་ངོ་རང་གིས་ཤེས་པར་བྱིན་གྱིས་རློབས། །

RANG NGO RANG GI SHE-PAR JYIN GYI LOB

Please grant me the blessing that I may recognize my own nature!

གསོལ་འདེབས།

Lama Prayer

Amazing! The origin of all the Buddhas of the Three Enlightened Bodies,

I pray to the holy Lamas.

Granting empowerment, instruction, and practical application with supreme

compassion,

I pray to the kind Lamas.

Freeing from the dangerous situation of cyclic existence and establishing the

ladder to liberation,

I pray to the guiding Lamas.

Connecting to the previous Lamas and showing the path to future followers,

I pray to the lineage Lamas.

Destroying the mindstream of cyclic existence with the light of wisdom,

I pray to the Lamas who liberate the mind.

Completely cutting delusion by the profound instructions,

I pray to the root Lama.

Protecting beings with wisdom and love like their children,

I pray to the Buddhas of the ten directions.

Emanating everywhere in infinite ways by skillful means and compassion,

I pray to the outer and inner deities.

Increasing the realization of primordial wisdom on the grounds and paths,

I pray to the assembly of Rinzins and Sempas.

Granting empowerment, accomplishments, power and blessings,

I pray to the assembly of mother and sister Khandros.

Clearing all outer and inner obstacles,

I pray to the assembly of oath-bound protectors.

Having liberated the dualistic grasping of cyclic existence arising from non-realization,

Bless me that self-knowing Rigpa Primordial Wisdom arises.