The Buddha Book: Buddhas, blessings, prayers, and rituals to grant you love, wisdom, and healing. Lillian Too
me share with you a story that I heard about the Dalai Lama. Once, when he was teaching in America, one of the questions posed to him was “You must be a most highly realized person. Some say you are the Buddha Chenrezig – can you confirm this?” And His Holiness replied, “I am but a humble monk.” Hearing this, the questioner replied sadly, “If that is all you are, then what hope is there for the rest of us? How can we ever reach the state of high realization – let alone enlightenment – if you, such a high being, are still only a humble monk?”
Seeing the genuine dejection in the eyes of the student, His Holiness seemed to reflect for a moment before saying, “Well, sometimes when I contemplate, it seems that I remember the time I drove the chariot that took Buddha on the tour of the city … the time he met up with old age, sickness, and death …”
That was as much as His Holiness said on the subject, and those of us who heard this story have often wondered how many other high lamas once lived with the Buddha in Bodhgaya and were among those who attained enlightenment under his teaching.
* enemies of the mind.
Chapter 2 Five Tantric Buddhas for Spiritual Transformation
To find happiness and avoid suffering We should learn about those factors that bring happiness so we can practice them, And those factors that bring about suffering, So we can avoid them.
LAMA KYABJE ZOPA RINPOCHE
The Dhyani Families
In mystical Buddhism there are five buddha families in the cosmos, led by five transcendent buddhas, or tathagatas, who symbolize the purity of the five associations of body and mind (form, feeling, recognition, consciousness, and conformation, or compound aggregates).
These are the Dhyani buddhas (exalted ones) who preside over the five elements, the five directions, the five colors, and the five wisdoms. They manifest the vitality of Buddhism transcending space and time. These cosmic buddhas have distinct appearances and colors, but we can also think of them as separate manifestations of the one Buddha, each representing an aspect of the total experience of enlightenment that are involved in spiritual transformation.
In the abstract, we can imagine these buddhas taking form in response to the meditative creativity of Buddha’s disciples and, over the centuries, becoming popular images for enlightenment. Like white light refracting through faceted crystals to produce a rainbow of colors, so from the single white light of Buddha comes a spectrum of hues, which imbues each of the Dhyani buddhas with attributes that give existence to humankind.
Traditionally, when you have been initiated to Tantric Buddhism (a branch of Mahayana Buddhism), you enter into the mandala (here meaning a sacred palace) of one of the Dhyani buddhas or deities who are in the type of one of five. In Highest Yoga Tantra you also take what are known as the “samaya vows” which transcends your attitude toward the guru and which keeps your attitude pure – not separable from the guru who is giving the initiation. These vows are repeated six times daily in a practice known as the six-session guru yoga – recited three times in the morning and three times in the evening.
Six session guru yoga contains the samaya of the Five Dhyani buddhas and through the practice of six-session guru yoga it causes to achieve the tantra path, method and wisdom, which purifies the five impure aggregates and the purity of each aggregate manifested as the five types of Buddha. As there are doctors who are specialists in dealing with cancer and different types of sickness, these five Dhyani buddhas help overcome these five delusions, which makes us sentient beings suffer. By ceasing these five delusions you can achieve wisdom. When you achieve the five wisdoms you can achieve the five buddhas as well.
The Dhyani buddhas are always shown in meditation pose and are sometimes referred to as buddhas in meditation. In Nepal they adorn many stupas. These four forms are inset around a small shrine at Bhaktapur, Nepal.
THE DHYANI BUDDHAS AS FIVE SYMBOLS OF PURIFICATION
1 Purified ignorance causes it to cease in our consciousness. Purified ignorance manifests as Buddha Vairochana.
2 Overcoming, or purifying, anger and aversion manifests as Buddha Akshobhya.
3 Purified pride and miserliness manifests as Buddha Ratnasambhava.
4 Purified jealousy manifests as Buddha Amoghasiddhi.
5 When the delusion of attachment is purified, this manifests as Buddha Amitabha, the Buddha of Infinite Light.
Meeting the five Dhyani buddhas implies the start of a spiritual journey, which always begins with purification.
Tantric Buddhism and the root guru
Tantric Buddhism requires considerable commitment and thought, plus the guidance of a teacher – someone to whom you initially relate as a virtuous friend, and who then becomes your all-important “tantric guru” when you take Tantric initiation from him. It is he who guides you to your deepest spiritual practices, bringing you to liberation from the cycle of samsara and eventually leading you to perfect enlightenment. Taking a guru implies a renunciation of non-virtuous actions, such as killing and stealing. Above all, it implies embracing the bodhisattva’s way of life. This means developing bodhichitta – an intense compassion for the suffering of all beings, which in turn leads to the strong desire to attain enlightenment in order to bring that suffering to an end.
Tantra thus centers on your guru. You can take teachings and even initiations from different gurus, but you only ever have one root guru who is your main guide. Although all Buddhist traditions can be traced back to the same historical Buddha, there are gross and subtle differences in the various lineages, so it is best to find one guru with whom you feel a real affinity. Once you decide to take refuge with him, you should practice intense loyalty, devotion, and obedience to your guru. All traditions, however, say the same thing: the guru is the root of the path, the source of all your goodness, the cause of all your happiness.
The root guru is so central to Buddhist spiritual practice that if you are to make any progress at all, in terms of achieving “realization,” you must practice guru yoga. This is done by visualizing your root guru as encompassing all the buddhas, and having the aspect of whichever deity you are practicing. No matter how many hundreds of thousands of buddhas you get to know, progress along the graduated path to enlightenment simply cannot happen unless you receive the blessings of your guru. So when you visualize a whole sky full of buddhas and lamas – what is referred to as “the meditation of the merit field” (see here) – it is vital to understand that all of them are manifestations of your gurus.
Therefore the real meaning of the guru is that he encompasses the holy mind of all the buddhas purest consciousness, the mind is the experience of the highest complete bliss. This is referred to as Dharmakaya. Thus it is said that when enlightenment is attained, the mind instantly understands this and becomes one with all the buddhas.
So a guru (or Tantric master, if you are taking Tantric initiations from him) is someone whom you should be very careful about taking on. You should check him out thoroughly, feel that you really want to study under him, and revere him as a true spiritual master before committing yourself to the samaya vows.
This book merely points the way. I am simply planting a seed in your mind, sharing what I have learned and experienced, and what I have discovered