A pure Mahayana practitioner has faith in Buddha Vajradhara and in his words as being completely non-deceptive and reliable. Therefore, such a person can develop conviction that his or her Spiritual Guide is a Buddha simply by reasoning ‘My Spiritual Guide is a Buddha because Buddha Vajradhara said that all Spiritual Guides are Buddhas.’ In Two Examination Tantra Buddha Vajradhara prophesies:
In degenerate times, when the practice of Buddhadharma is in decline, I will manifest as a Spiritual Guide. You should understand that I am that Spiritual Guide and you should pay due respect . . . . I will appear as an ordinary being, and I will come in many forms.
Who are these Spiritual Guides? Who are the ordinary beings that are emanations of Buddha Vajradhara? Surely they must be the Teachers who are doing so much to help us right now.
our spiritual guide performs the enlightened actions of a buddha
If we consider what are the actions of an enlightened being we must conclude that they could only be the actions that guide others along correct spiritual paths to liberation and full enlightenment. If we consider who is performing such actions now, we will see that it is our Spiritual Guide.
Since at present we cannot receive guidance directly from Buddha, if we are to take Buddha’s teachings and put them into practice we need a Spiritual Guide to act as our interpreter and intermediary. Just as we need a mouth if we are to take food from our plate and digest it, so we need a Spiritual Guide through whom Buddha’s enlightened actions are communicated in such a way that we can actually comprehend and learn from them.
Although this line of reasoning is perfect in establishing that our Spiritual Guide performs the enlightened actions of a Buddha, we may still be unable to gain conviction. If so, the fault does not lie in the reasoning but in our own mind. As a result of our own harmful, deluded actions we carry a heavy burden of negativity within our mind, and this weighs down and obscures our intelligence, preventing us from developing believing faith even when we are meditating on perfect reasons. When this happens we can at least acknowledge that the reasoning itself is valid and that our failure to feel convinced is the result of our own negative habits of mind. Then we can try the next line of reasoning.
in these degenerate times buddhas continue to work for the benefit of all living beings
Although it may seem to us that there are no longer any Buddhas, if we think about it we will see that such a thing is impossible because Buddhas have developed bodhichitta, practised the six perfections and completed the spiritual grounds and paths solely for the purpose of helping others until the end of samsara. Since benefiting others continuously is the very meaning of full enlightenment, it is impossible for Buddhas to cease helping us.
If we consider how the Buddhas are helping us right now, we will see that they are helping us principally by means of our Spiritual Guide’s instructions and example. Buddhas cannot purify us or take away our suffering directly with their own hands, and they cannot help us by revealing themselves in their actual forms because we are incapable of perceiving these. Therefore, the most skilful and effective way they can help us is by means of our Spiritual Guide. Knowing that Buddhas are helping us right now, it follows that they are helping us as our Spiritual Guides.
appearances are deceptive and our own opinions are unreliable
We may object ‘Although these ways of reasoning are valid and lead me to conclude that my Spiritual Guide is a Buddha, when I actually meet my Spiritual Guide he does not appear to be a Buddha because I can see faults and a Buddha would not possess any faults.’ To change this way of thinking we meditate:
What appears to my mind is indefinite and uncertain. I cannot be sure that something exists just because it appears to my mind, and I cannot be sure that anything really exists in the way that it appears to exist. Things appear differently at different times. While my mind is impure I will continue to experience hallucinations and mistaken appearances. Only a completely pure mind can perceive things the way they really are.
Depending upon their individual karma, beings perceive objects differently and with different feelings. For example, a human being perceives plain water where a god perceives nectar and a hungry spirit perceives repulsive substances like pus and blood.
Before they purified their minds many of the Mahasiddhas and Yogis saw their Spiritual Guides in low and imperfect forms. Asanga saw his Spiritual Guide, Maitreya, as a dog. Naropa saw his Spiritual Guide, Tilopa, as a fisherman. Devadatta and Bhikkshu Legpai Karma saw the completely perfect Buddha as a very limited being. Bhikkshu Legpai Karma could see a cubit of light radiating from the body of Buddha Shakyamuni, but he could not perceive Buddha’s inner qualities and so he complained ‘This Gautama has got only one cubit of light!’
We can consider the following stories. Gyalwa Ensapa once visited a Sakya monastery in Tibet where he recited the Perfection of Wisdom Sutra in Eight Thousand Lines in Sanskrit; but since the monks did not know Sanskrit they could not identify what he was reciting. They thought that he was mumbling some kind of spirit language and they concluded ‘This is not a human being, it is a Gelugpa ghost!’
A man called Naro Bon Chung went to see Milarepa after Milarepa had attained enlightenment, but this man saw him as very ordinary. He said ‘Before I met this man known as Milarepa I heard high praise of him, but when I approached I found that he was nothing special, just an old man lying on the ground.’ If mistakes like these could be made even in the golden age, no wonder we make mistakes so often in these degenerate times. In Essence of Nectar Yeshe Tsondru says:
Until I purify this impure mind, even if all the Buddhas were to appear in front of me I would see them all as ordinary. At present it is impossible for me to see their holy bodies with all the special signs and indications.
While our minds are impure we will perceive only ordinary appearances. To overcome these we need to develop believing faith that our Spiritual Guide is a Buddha.
When we meditate using these four lines of reasoning we are doing the analytical meditation that causes us to develop conviction that our Spiritual Guide is a Buddha. When this conviction arises clearly in our mind we stop analyzing and hold this new feeling as our object of placement meditation so as to become more and more closely acquainted with it. The sign that we have gained the realization that our Spiritual Guide is a Buddha is that whenever we think of our Spiritual Guide we think of Buddha, and whenever we think of Buddha we think of our Spiritual Guide. We always think of them as one and the same. A mind that has this realization is very pure. Recognizing our Spiritual Guide as a Buddha is a very powerful method for gaining higher realizations, such as the realizations of generation stage and completion stage of Secret Mantra.
how to develop respect for our spiritual guide by remembering his or her kindness
This has two parts:
1 Remembering that our Spiritual Guide is kinder than all the Buddhas
2 Remembering that our Spiritual Guide is kinder even than Buddha Shakyamuni
remembering that our spiritual guide is kinder than all the buddhas
How can we say that our Spiritual Guide is kinder than all the Buddhas? Suppose we are very poor and someone gives us some money over a period of time so that eventually we are rescued from our poverty and become very rich. Suppose another person then comes and gives us food and other gifts. Which benefactor is the more kind? Surely it is the one who gave to us in our greatest need.
Our Spiritual Guide helps us directly when we are spiritually impoverished and the Buddhas help us directly when we have a wealth of realizations. At present we have little wisdom, concentration or mindfulness, and we have only a small amount of merit or good fortune. Yet in our spiritual poverty our Teacher heals and nourishes us with Dharma, enabling us to improve our condition by increasing our wisdom, concentration and mindfulness, and, by reducing our delusions, making our minds more calm and peaceful.
If we accept and assimilate the wealth of Dharma given to us by our Spiritual Guide we will eventually attain the concentration of the Dharma continuum and be capable of seeing Buddhas directly. At that time, when our mind is rich with realizations, we will receive instructions