The following is an excerpt from a teaching by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo called “Guru Yoga”
We should think in such a way that we know if we practice deeply enough, we will look at Guru Rinpoche and see that innate wakeful state which is the true face.
Guru Rinpoche said before he left, “I will appear as your Root Teacher.” What that means is we should practice considering that the teacher who comes to teach us and gives us blessing, gives us empowerment, gives us commentary teaching, who makes it possible for us to practice the path, is actually an extension of Guru Rinpoche’s activity. The teacher cannot be separated from Guru Rinpoche’s activity, and is Guru Rinpoche’s activity—an extension of miraculous enlightened compassion, enlightened intention.
If we, in our ordinary perception, separate the two and say, ”Oh, Guru Rinpoche is over here, and the Root Teacher’s over there, and I’m over there,” and practice in a superficial way, we won’t get very far. But if we see the whole event as the miraculous intention of the Buddha, as enlightenment itself, if we understand that the path is inseparable from the benefit, inseparable from the nature itself, and if we understand this activity to be this enlightened process, inseparable from the true face, and we practice focused in that way, the blessing cannot be counted. It is incredibly profound. It’s an entirely different process, really, than the kinds of ordinary activity that we always engage in. We’re always working hard at something,,but that’s not the point. The point is to see the face, to know the nature. The point is to be awake.
If one uses the thoughts that I have just described, contemplating in the way that I have described, practicing Guru Yoga as I have described it, one dispels the delusion that comes from the fixation on self-nature and phenomenal existence as being inherently real and solid. By dispelling fixation, one can know the nature that can only really be described as “suchness,” that which is beyond.
So, I hope that you will take this into your heart and begin to practice. Perhaps you can begin to practice the Seven Line Prayer and Vajra Guru Mantra. But most especially, I really hope that you will think in the way that I’ve described: understanding what is ordinary and what is not ordinary; understanding what is of the world; understanding what is part of the process of fixation and what is a direct display of the Mind of Enlightenment. Thinking on these things and practicing accordingly, one can have great results.
Copyright © Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo. All rights reserved
