Viewing the Guru as a Buddha
7 April 2025
On the thirteenth day of the Spring teachings, His Holiness the Gyalwang Karmapa continued to teach the Fifty Verses on the Guru primarily according to the outline of Tsongkhapa’s Commentary. He noted that there were eight points on how to pay respect to the guru. Previously he had discussed the first point: how to make offerings. For this session he would cover the second point: viewing the guru as a buddha.
Viewing the Guru as a Buddha
This contains two subtopics: 1. The actual meaning and 2. Avoiding being disrespectful to their shadow, and so forth. The Karmapa would speak about both points.
In the Mahayana Ornament of the Sutras (Skt: Mahāyāna-sūtrālamkāra-kārikā), the Protector Maitreya says:
Serve the spiritual friend with respect,
Gifts, service, and practice.
This correlates with the Fifty Verses on the Guru and concerns today’s topic: serving the spiritual friend through respect.
The root text of the twenty-second stanza is:
Thus, students with qualities of compassion,
Generosity, discipline and patience
Should not ever consider the master
To be different from Vajradhara. (22)
The Karmapa explained how he used different translations for the teaching: the Sanskrit is the original, the Tibetan from the Tengyur, the Chinese from during the Song Dynasty, and the English by our translator, Khenpo David Karma Choephel.
In this stanza, the students have qualities of compassion and generosity. The first two lines describe the characteristics of these students.
They have three qualities:
The students naturally have great compassion with altruism, they wish to help sentient beings, pay little attention to material wealth and are very generous; they make offerings to gurus and give to the poor and deprived. In this way they are very generous and make great gifts.
They have the prātimokṣa vows of giving up [negativity] and benefiting others.
They have the vows of the bodhisattva for benefiting others. In brief, the student should have the wish to reach buddhahood, particularly in this lifetime.
Therefore, these students must have compassion, be very generous, and keep their discipline.
If the student has these qualities, when they follow their guru, there’s a great hope they will be in accord with the dharma. The main necessity for them to be in accord with the dharma is that the student must never think of their master as being different from the guru. They must think of the guru himself as the deity; that Buddha himself as the deity. This is very important.
From Tsongkhapa’s commentary
Here the guru is the field for gathering merit. The guru is the same as all the buddhas. Therefore, true students do not consider the vajra master to be separate from the vajra bearer, Vajradhara. They have the resolve that the guru himself is indeed Vajradhara.
True students, or great students, have the compassionate mind, the basis of the Mahayana. They have the generosity of discarding all self-interested attachment to their bodies, possessions, and virtues. They are dedicated to sentient beings and have the discipline of keeping the vows they have taken purely. They also have the patience of not being discouraged by sentient beings’ wrong practice and austerities.
Following this, Lord Tsongkhapa discussed how viewing the guru as a buddha was not something that an ordinary person would teach but was expounded through many different scriptural texts. He cited how viewing the guru as a buddha was taught in many tantras: chapter 17 of Guhyasamaja, chapter 15 of the Vajra Dome (Vajra Pañjara), chapter 14 of the Ornament of Vajrahridaya (Vajrahṛdayālaṇkara tantra), and chapter 32 of the Vajrakhandra, and also the Four Seats (Catuḥpīṭha).
Since there would not be time to discuss each of these tantras, the Karmapa said he would review some of them.
During the time of Lord Tsongkhapa, most of the citations he gave were primarily from the unexcelled tantra. However, he did cite two lower level tantras considered main tantras of the charya class: The Manifest Awakening of Vajrapani, and The Tantra of the Empowerment of Vajrapani.
Then the Karmapa read from The Tantra of the Empowerment of Vajrapani:
“Lord of Secrets, how should a student view the Master? Just as they view the Bhagavan Buddha.”
This quotation stated very clearly that the student should view the vajra master as an actual Buddha in this great tantra. Although not included in the unexcelled tantras, most Tibetans say this charya tantra, The Tantra of the Empowerment of Vajrapani, was important because it was an example of how the lower tantras also taught that the student should view the guru as a buddha.
Lord Tsongkhapa also cited an excerpt from the 17th chapter of the Glorious Guhyasamaja Tantra. Here the bodhisattva mahasattva Maitreya supplicated all the buddhas and bodhisattvas and asked the Buddha this:
“Bhagavan, how should all the tathagatas and the bodhisattvas view a master who has been empowered by the secret vajra of the body, speech, and mind of all tathagatas, Guhyasamaja?”
“Child of the noble family, all the tathagatas and bodhisattvas, view them as the Bodhicitta Vajra. Why? The master is the same as bodhicitta, they cannot be separated into two.”
So Maitreya asks, when you view a master, how do all the buddhas and bodhisattvas recognize a guru? The response is that the master is the same as Bodhicitta Vajra, and Bodhicitta Vajra is just another name for Vajradhara.
According to Tsilupa’s commentary on the Guhyasamaja:
…‘cannot be separated into two’ means that from Bodhichitta Vajra’s dharmakaya, there arises a sambhogakaya. Because its emanated forms are not in our field of vision, it abides in their body and so… it’s inseparable from them.
Since those who are unable to see the three kayas of the buddha as they are because of their own obscurations, the buddha enters the vajra master’s body to purify others’ karmic obscurations. When we are ordinary individuals, we cannot actually see a buddha. But at this time, when all the buddhas enter the Vajra master’s body they then bring benefit to sentient beings. This is what Acharya Tsilupa said in his commentary.
The reason for viewing them as inseparable from the guru is to have equal faith in Vajradhara and in the guru. Faith should be stabilized in Vajradhara and accumulations gathered with few difficulties to swiftly reach accomplishment. This is the purpose according to Shantipa’s commentary on Guhyasamaja. This is what Lord Tsongkhapa said.
The Karmapa also quoted a passage from the 15th chapter of the Vajra Dome, (Vajra Pañjara Tantra). The citation in Tsongkhapa’s copy (which is from the Tengyur) is a little different from the Kangyur. The Kangyur reads:
The one who is called Vajradhara
Takes the form of the vajra master.
Aiming to benefit sentient beings.
He remains in ordinary form.
Here, the Kangyur and Tengyur are basically the same, as Vajradhara takes the form of a guru to benefit sentient beings.
The Karmapa’s Own Thoughts
Just being a guru or a master does not necessarily mean that someone is a buddha. For example, the Treasury of Knowledge discusses the different kinds of masters:
The types are in general: ordinary being, bodhisattva, nirmanakaya, and sambhogakaya, according to one’s own four phases.
When you are a beginner, you primarily follow a guru as an ordinary individual. When your obscurations are somewhat purified, the guru is a bodhisattva on the levels. When your karmic obscurations are mostly exhausted, you follow a guru who is a bodhisattva on a high level. When you are on the path of seeing, the spiritual friend is an actual nirmanakaya buddha. When you are on the high levels, you can follow the spiritual guru who is an actual sambhogakaya buddha. These are the four different types of vajra masters.
But this is not necessarily definitely so. Even when your karma has not been purified, it is possible that you may be cared for by an emanation of a buddha or a bodhisattva. It’s not necessarily the case that if you are an individual, your spiritual friend will be an ordinary individual. When you talk about the division of the four types of spiritual friends, then this is just a general or a gross overview.
When you think about the four types of Mahayana spiritual friends, these four types are also similar in the secret mantra: you can classify the gurus as ordinary individuals and as noble individuals who have reached the levels. The reason is because it is not the case that a guru of a secret mantra absolutely must be a buddha. It is not so that an ordinary individual may not be given empowerments or be a guru. This is not what the Tantras say.
Likewise, the secret mantra explains many characteristics of the guru: it does not say that they must have achieved the bodhisattva levels or that they must be a buddha. It is possible that the guru may be an ordinary individual. However, whether the guru in their own perspective is a buddha or not, the prospective student must have unlimited faith and great pure view of them. This is very important.
When we look at this from the perspective of the student: the student must have unlimited faith and great pure view of the guru, it is important to have faith as if they are an actual buddha. There are a few main points here:
We see the gurus as being like ordinary beings, but they might be emanations of buddhas and bodhisattvas, since many are like that.
Lhodrak Marpa, the translator, was known to be an emanation of Bodhisattva Samantabhadra, or Domba Heruka. When we look at them, they seem like ordinary beings, but they actually are emanations of buddhas and bodhisattvas. This is possible.
When we go into a monastery—like Rumtek—we cannot categorically say that there are no emanations of buddhas and bodhisattvas in Rumtek monastery. When we study the signs, we remember the reasons for the non-observation of the imperceptible. We can’t point at someone and say: there is an emanation of a buddha or bodhisattva. We cannot categorically say that there are none.
Similarly, when we read the biographies of the Indian siddhas, many had achieved the supreme siddhi, but to benefit a variety of sentient beings, they even took the lowest of low forms. For example, Saraha was servant to a prostitute. Tilopa was a fisherman who caught live fish. Merely appearing in an ordinary form does not necessarily mean that they’re not a buddha.
Many gurus and scholars in the past have said that while transmitting a teaching through writing, they were possessed and blessed by a deity.
When Acharya Gunaprabha was writing the Vinaya Sutra, the Buddha entered his chest, and he became possessed and blessed. Later, when he wrote the Autocommentary, he didn’t receive the blessings from the Buddha and the Autocommentary didn’t completely live up to his understanding when writing about the Vinaya Sutras. But it can still be said that the Vinaya Sutras are still the words of the Buddha, because the Buddha had entered and blessed him.
Even if the guru is not an actual buddha, they are the ones who give us empowerments, teach us the dharma, show us the path, and guide us out of samsara. In terms of activity, they are like a buddha. It’s not like the sun can directly light a fire. Only if you shine sunlight through a magnifying glass can it light a fire. If you’re going to receive the activity of the Buddha, it needs to pass through the guru. When the Buddha has possessed the guru, the guru has received the blessings of the buddhas. From our perspective, the guru is like a buddha. Because we have lesser fortune, we cannot take empowerments from the Buddha directly or receive instructions directly.
Since we don't have the fortune or the capability, even if a Buddha were to appear before us, we wouldn't be able to receive an empowerment. Even if a Buddha came carrying a vase, we wouldn't be able to take it, because we don’t have that connection with the Buddha. If a Buddha should come before us, we wouldn’t see them, hear their words, or meet them. We don’t have the ability. Therefore, there’s no one better way to meet the Buddha than through the guru. The guru shows us the Buddha’s method, whether they're a good person or a bad person, for us, a Buddha would have to be just like them. There is no other way.
When Mikyö Dorje wrote Complete Teachings on Mahamudra, he asked:
What is the basis for considering someone the root guru?
What is the reason we call them the root guru?
How do we understand the guru?
First, we must understand the great guru: the first guru, the first among the lamas with no one above him, the one who plants a/the stable basis for the roots of virtue, the first one from whom we feel faith, that is our root guru.
From our perspective as ordinary individuals, the guru is among all the gurus and jewels throughout space, but our guru is the one who has the greatest and highest wisdom, love, and power. There are many jewels throughout space, but compared to all the gurus throughout space, the one who benefits us is the one who has the perfect wisdom, love, and power, is the guru.
From beginningless samsara until now, many buddhas and jewels have come, yet we haven’t been able to make a virtuous connection with them. Because of this exalted guru, we are able to make a virtuous connection. So compared to all the buddhas who fill space, this guru is far superior to them. The gurus themselves, if they are ordinary individuals in terms of their qualities, can’t be compared to the buddhas. But for us, their capacity and their kindness are far greater. This is why we say, equal to all the buddhas in qualities, far superior to buddhas in kindness.
No other buddha has been able to bring us onto the path to liberation, so now we have reached the beginning of the path. This is because of our guru Vajra master and our root guru’s kindness. They are extremely kind to us. The Kadampa masters of the past said, “Ordinary gurus are like people who give us food when we’re hungry.”
Are noble gurus like that? The gurus who are well on the bodhisattva levels are the people who finally give us food. Once we’re already quite full, they’re the only ones who finally start giving us food. The gurus on the noble levels are like that.
When our stomachs are empty and we’re about to die from hunger, the ordinary gurus give us food; when we’re about to die from cold, the ordinary gurus give us clothes. The noble gurus give us food when we’re full and that is kind, but it’s not as kind as the ordinary guru because we don't really need it. The gurus who dwell on the noble levels, by the time we get to the point where we can see them, we're doing all right ourselves and are at a pretty high level ourselves. The Kadampa gurus say noble gurus are pretty good, but not quite as kind as the ordinary individual gurus.
In the worldly tradition of upstanding people, the people who are like our parents and teachers, beneficent, and so forth, are the jewels. Likewise, the guru is the one who can bring us onto the path to buddhahood in one lifetime, in one body, even if they’re not actually a buddha themselves. There’s no way we can find a buddha by ourselves. If we went looking for another buddha other than them, we wouldn’t find them. For this reason, we need to view the guru as a buddha.
With this point in mind, Mikyö Dorje said in his text on the indivisibility of winds and mind states:
“Even though the guru is an ordinary person, when performing activities which has benefit in empowering students, all the buddhas actually come.”
From one perspective, we visualize the guru as the Buddha, as the yidam deity. All the buddhas and the bodhisattvas, the yidam deities, all the blessings of all three vajras of the body, speech and mind enter the guru. When the student takes the empowerment, they naturally receive the blessings of all the buddhas and the bodhisattvas. For that reason, the guru at the time becomes an actual guru. We receive the activity of the guru coming through the guru, so we are able to receive any benefit from them. Without a guru, we cannot receive the power of the Buddha’s activity, because we haven’t really come to that capability or to that level yet. From our own perspective, the guru is kinder than the buddhas.
After this, there are many different citations that Mikyö Dorje gave from the tantras and the Indian texts. So, a qualified guru such as that, when you see them as being an actual buddha or being equal to the Buddha, or even seeing them, if we can view them in this way, this is excellent.
As Mikyö Dorje said in his 100 Short Instructions:
As you develop devotion, as you develop the ambition to use supplications, then you receive the blessings to be able to receive the supreme and ordinary siddhis according to the level of your devotion and supplications.
In general, it’s not only supplicating that’s important. It’s not enough to think that “my guru is like this, but there must be some buddha that’s superior to that.” If you don't think of your guru as being the greatest, then you’re not going to receive many blessings.
If you think that there is no Buddha who is superior to the Buddha, if you have that confidence, that certainty, and you have that confidence within your mind, then you can supplicate them with every fiber of your being. With this enthusiasm of body, speech, and mind, unlike any other enthusiasm, then you will receive the blessings of the guru.
Even if the gurus themselves are ordinary beings, whether they are an ordinary being, or a buddha, or a nirmanakaya, or not a nirmanakaya, most important is that the guru has all the qualifications, and that you yourself have faith—the faith that you are someone capable of development, the faith that causes this—and devotion. This faith you have is one you are able to develop, the faith that is the cause that gives you devotion, and then you will receive the kindness of the empowerments, instructions, and transmissions. In this way, you'll be able to receive all the blessings of the Buddha’s body, speech, and mind.
From the 100 Short Instructions, Mikyö Dorje said:
Some people think that when we say that the guru isn’t a buddha, but we imagine that he’s a buddha, but they are not, they think that we just imagine being like, we’re just feeling; but the guru is not freed from birth, age, and sickness, they suffer from heat, and cold, hunger, and thirst, and if things don’t happen the way they like, then they can cry out in pain, they can complain, and they can worry. It’s just a human who does that, so if you have an ordinary individual like that, can they possibly be Vajradhara?
A Vajradhara is someone who has no feelings of pleasure or pain, someone who has no experience of hunger, cold, thirst, and so forth. That’s what we think. Their Vajradhara, doesn’t need to experience hunger and thirst, doesn’t need to have birth, age, sickness, and death, for their Vajradhara won’t complain when things don’t work as they should, so we think there’s no way that they can be like that. That’s what a Vajradhara has to be like. But the book of Vajradhara says: “In the final 500-year period, I myself will appear in the form of a teacher, I think this is me, and at that time generate respect for me.”
If we examine it, they may seem like an ordinary individual, but they receive the blessings of Vajradhara's body, speech, and mind, then the disciples can receive from them the blessings of Vajradhara and accomplishments can be bestowed.
For this reason, there is no greater root of virtue than pleasing the guru.
*
Many similar things have been said, so I don't need to say all of it. Before you follow the guru, you need to look whether the guru has all the characteristics or not. Even if you can’t, you need to examine. You can’t just follow any guru. Once you have followed the guru, even if you see a few faults, you should not lose faith or complain about them or criticize them.
The Kadampa masters have said, “If you follow the guru, but don’t examine them first, it’s like getting married.”
The Karmapa commented on how getting married these days is not as in the past when marriage was for life:
If you get married one year, you break up and go with someone else next year. It’s not like that. It’s not like when you go to a guru and then you are with him for a little while and think, ‘Oh, there's a better one,’ and then you find another.
That's not good. If you disappoint one guru, you are disappointing all gurus. Even if a guru is not good, you must respect them as an actual Buddha. Even if the guru is bad, you should still not disrespect them. If you disrespect them, then no matter how much respect you show a good guru later, you will not be able to receive it, because you will have a breach of samaya; then later, no matter what instructions you have, you will not receive the blessings or develop experience and realization. So, we must be very careful. The main thing here are the blessings. They are extremely important for taking the blessings of the path.
The Karmapa referred to Gampopa’s Excellent Dharma Teachings:
Gampopa said that in the sutra path, taking blessings is the path. Some say that it is taking perception as the path. But Gampopa said that the Tantra is taking blessings as the path, taking Mahamudra, taking the perception as the path. So, in the secret mantra, blessings are extremely important. The origin of the blessings is the guru, it’s the place where you receive the blessings from, the place where the faucet from which the blessings come is the guru. The place where we receive the blessings from is the guru. The place we feel the faith and devotion must be the guru. The place where that comes from, the place where we go, it all comes down to the guru.
It's possible you could receive some blessings without the guru. But if you have violated your samaya, if you have upset the guru, if you have disrespected the guru, then it’s basically impossible for you to receive the blessings and it’s extremely difficult to receive any of the blessings. For this reason, no matter how many blessings you receive from the buddhas and bodhisattvas and so forth, you can receive from the buddhas and bodhisattvas, you must receive them through the guru. So first, you must have true faith, pure faith in that guru. If you don't have faith, then you can't receive any blessings. The gateway for receiving blessings is faith.
There was a Kadampa master in the past who spoke to a student. The student said, “Please give me blessings.”
The guru said, “Well, first of all, give me faith. If I need to bless you, then first, you must have faith in me. If you don’t have faith in me, then I can’t bless you.” So similarly, the greater your faith, the greater the blessings that you will receive.
As Gampopa said, “It’s well known that the highest devotion has the devotee’s blessings. If you have excellent vigilance, then you have the greatest blessings. If you have middling devotion, then your meditation will also be middling, and your blessings will also be middling. If you have the least devotion, you have low-rate devotion, then you just have low-rate blessings and only have low-rate meditation.” This is an example of faith for a guru.
There is a story found in the biography of Tsurphu Jamyang Chenmo, about a student of Third Karmapa Deshin Shekpa from The Feast of Scholars by Eighth Karmapa Mikyö Dorje:
A student, Thrimkang Lotsawa Sonam Gyatso, was traveling through Kham to gather offerings where there were many Karmapa followers. He knew he needed the Karma Kamtsang lineage blessing if he should teach them, so he went to Tsurphu to visit Tsurphu Jamyang Chenmo. Upon arrival, he was welcomed and they both prostrated to each other. When they sat, their seats were exactly at the same level. They had good meals together and were provided with excellent hospitality, but Thrimkang Lotsawa did not receive any teachings. They had conversations and discussions about the dharma. Tsurphu Jamyang Chenmo was very learned.
But after a month, Thrimkang Lotsawa thought about it. Tsurphu Jamyang Chenmo was treating him with respect but hadn’t given him any dharma teachings. Every day they had many conversations, but Thrimkang Lotsawa thought, “He’s giving me a lot of respect but not teaching the Dharma.”
Then Thrimkang Lotsawa thought, “To listen to the dharma properly, I have too much pride, my view is too high.” He hadn’t developed faith and had thought of the spiritual friend. He realized he had been thinking about the dharma as a thing, like wealth; he had not thought of the dharma as the dharma, so he had not been able to develop faith, and had not become a proper vessel for the dharma. He hadn’t developed the perception of the spiritual friend as a buddha, but had seen him as a friend, an ordinary being. Thus he realized he had not been a proper vessel for the dharma, and he immediately became very sad and shed many tears.
When he had this feeling, he realized that Tsurphu Jamyang Chenmo was the same as the Buddha. He supplicated intensely. Then on the next morning, very early, he was called to meet Tsurphu Jamyang Chenmo.
When Thrimkang Lotsawa arrived, it was different from other days. He saw Tsurphu Jamyang Chenmo seated on his throne. He did not stand up and prostrate. Then Tsurphu Jamyang Chenmo gave a blessing with his hand. In the past they had touched foreheads. In front of Thrimkang Lotsawa there was a small carpet.
Jamyang Chenmo said, “You please sit here.” When he said, “Sit there,” that, “Someone who seeks the Dharma should act like this."
Then immediately, Jamyang Chenmo gave a teaching on the profound inner meaning and taught the Six Limits and Four Amounts. Thrimkang Lotsawa made notes on this which we can still see in his commentary. He received this as instructions, so he developed extraordinary faith in Jamyang Chenmo. This is the reason why faith is so important.
The greater our faith, the better it is. There is another story about that.
Phagmo Drupa Dorjé Gyalpo and Geshe Zhang Sumthokpa were first dharma friends, but later Geshe Zhang Sumthokpa became a senior student of Phagmo Drupa Dorjé Gyalpo.
At that time, Gampopa was very well known so Phagmo Drupa wanted to meet Gampopa very badly. So Geshe Zhang said, “If you are going to Gampopa, let’s go. I also want to see Gampopa and prostrate to him.” Since they were both friends, they went together. Geshe Zhang Sumthokpa was very wealthy and brought many gifts and provisions to offer when they arrived at Daglha Gampo monastery. When they arrived, Gampopa was not feeling well, so they did not meet for forty days.
During that time, Gampopa’s students were building a stūpa as a long life offering for Gampopa. So Phagmo Drupa joined in and carried the earth back and forth to build it. When Gampopa recovered his health, they were immediately called, and they went to see him.
Then Phagmo Drupa thought, “He’s not going to give me any dharma. I don’t have anything to offer. He considered himself at fault, so, he said to his friend, “I have nothing to offer. So if we go together, he might not give teachings to you as well. We should go separately.” But Geshe Zhang Sumthokpa didn’t say anything, so they went to see Gampopa together. At the beginning of their audience, Geshe Zhang offered Gampopa a huge turquoise, the size of a pigeon according to some accounts, declaring, “This is in place of Phagma Drupa making his offerings.” He then offered many silks and brocades. They drank tea together and conversed.
Phagmo Drupa had been so worried about not receiving dharma teachings, but Gampopa told both of them to return the following day for breakfast and dharma teachings.
Afterwards, the two friends discussed what had happened. Although Gampopa had had his own personal cup, the student attendants had given them tea from Gampopa’s personal teapot, which surprised them. Geshe Zhang particularly thought this was a breach of protocol.
Phagmo Drupa asked Geshe Zhang, “When you saw the Guru Gampopa, what did you think him?”
Geshe said, “I saw him as a really learned, virtuous and good individual”
Phagmo Drupa said, “When I saw him, it wasn’t like that, I think it was like seeing an actual buddha.”
They would see him again the next morning, but Pagmo Drupa had such a strong desire to see the guru, he didn’t sleep well. He lay waiting for the dawn. The next day he rose early in the morning, and said, “We’ve got to go now, get up, Geshe.”
The geshe also rose, since the precious guru had said to come early. Geshe Zhang Sumthokpa said, “Those yogis do have some problems. Those students really don’t understand the way things should be done, because of the way the student attendants had given them tea the previous day. He was critical of Gampopa. He said, Gampopa doesn’t really know how things should be done.
Phagmo Drupa said, “But they did this out of a wish to help us. It was beneficial for us. They did this so we could receive the blessings. There’s nothing to think about. We should go.”
Only then did Geshe Zhang Sumthogpa go along.
Because of their interdependent connections, later Phagmo Drupma had activities equal to space because he was among Gampopa’s greatest students; but Geshe Zhang became a senior student of Phagmo Drupma—and other than that he did not have particularly vast activity.
Now, another example is that if you only have medium activity, when your activity increases, your faith grows stronger and stronger. For example, when you receive this tradition, where you actually see the paths and levels, and you see the Buddha as the Buddha.
Gampopa had incredible faith in Milarepa before he met him. Then when he met Milarepa, he, of course had greater faith.
But when Gampopa was about to part from him, Milarepa predicted this: “In the future, one day you will have developed superior realization. It’s unlike what you have now. At that time, you'll also have developed the certainty of seeing me, this old man me, like a natural Buddha.”
Later, when Gampopa was practicing at Olka and other places, he realized the nature of his mind. And at that time, he had the faith of seeing his guru as being an actual buddha. His previous faith was a great faith, but as he said before, the guru was an actual dharmakaya. He thought, “In the past, I saw him as an actual great mahasiddha. That wasn’t okay.”
The Karmapa commented: You should think the guru is the actual dharmakaya. Because when you receive the dharmakaya, he actually realized that the guru is also the dharma nature, the dharmakaya. That was one story.
There’s another story about Götsangpa. Götsangpa’s guru was Drogon Tsampa Gyare. He once thought that Drogon Tsampa Gyare was probably a tenth level bodhisattva. This was Götsangpa’s initial thought—that the guru was a tenth level bodhisattva—but then he immediately criticized himself:
“The guru who points out my own mind, who points out the actual nature of the dharma, do you think that is the dharmakaya? I think there's no one else who thinks of that. He is an authentic guru.”
“Thinking that the guru is a tenth level bodhisattva is not authentic devotion. Thinking that they are an actual buddha is actual devotion.
“Since I once thought of my guru Chöje Repa as a tenth-level bodhisattva. Immediately he scolded me saying, ‘It’s only the guru who points out your mind is a buddha as on the tenth level.’ From then on, I never lacked the idea of him being a guru.”
From then on, Götsangpa never lacked the idea of the buddha. Thinking that the guru is a tenth level bodhisattva, for somebody like great Götsangpa, we think that the Guru is a tenth level Bodhisattva. Do you think of that? This is not authentic devotion. Thinking that they're an actual Buddha is actual devotion, is what he was recognizing.
Forget about thinking of the guru as a buddha or a tenth level bodhisattva! For us, it’s even difficult to think of the guru as an authentic guru. Because of our obscurations and negative karma, the fact that we can see the guru as a human being rather than a dog or a donkey is an improvement. How then can we develop the faith and pure vision of seeing the guru as an actual buddha?
Some Additional Ideas to Share
There was a time when Dromtonpa asked Atiśa a question: “There are many people in Tibet who practice meditation, but there aren’t that many who develop superior qualities, why is that?”
Atiśa replied:
“All the qualities of the Mahayana you develop, whether great or small, all arise because of the guru. You Tibetans only think of the guru as an ordinary person. For that reason, how can you possibly develop extraordinary qualities?”
The gurus of the past, said that if you lacked dedication to the guru, you would not receive the blessings. You must have faith and dedication to the guru and you must also think of the guru as being a buddha. If you think of the guru as a buddha, then you will receive a buddha’s blessing. If you think of the guru as a bodhisattva, you receive a bodhisattva’s blessing. If you think of the guru as being an ordinary person, a regular person, you won’t receive many blessings at all.
There are many scriptural and logical proofs that teach us that the guru is the same as a buddha or is an actual buddha. But if you don't believe that, no matter how many thousands of proofs you are presented with, there's not much benefit.
When you say that the guru and the Buddha are the same, what is the buddha like that the guru is like? That’s something we need to consider. In general, we have our individual ideas. Is this like being the greatest person we know? Or might it be the one with the purest ethical conduct? Or could it be like an individual who has exhausted all qualities, possesses all qualities? The levels differ from person to person.
Some people have very low-level expectations. Some people have very complicated needs and wants, they have a very high level that is difficult.
We tend to think of the Buddha as a superhuman, or like a god, or we think of the Jowo in Lhasa, getting up and coming down to us from heaven. When we talk about the Buddha we treat it like myth. We don’t think of it as human history. But the Buddha was a historical person who lived in India 2,500 years ago. He was a historical person. He wasn't a god. When he was born, he was born from his mother's womb. He spent eight or nine months in his mother's womb. That's the same as all of us, isn't it? When he wanted to learn the alphabet, he had to be taught the letters from the very beginning. He had to eat food. He had to go to the bathroom. At night, he had to sleep. He got sick. He got old, and he passed away. If we don't say it respectfully, he died, didn’t he? He was someone who experienced pleasure and pain. So when you look at him, he’s just a human being, right?
But what was different about him from other people, is that he had awakened to buddhahood. He had achieved the level of buddhahood. That makes him different from other people. When you say that he awakened to buddhahood, it doesn’t mean that he developed three heads and developed six arms, as if when you become Buddha, you develop extra heads and extra arms.
That’s not what you mean. Sometimes we talk about the third eye in the middle of your forehead. It’s not like this eye develops in the middle of the forehead, right? We’re not talking about the growth of a third eye. We’re not saying you grow an extra eye when you become a buddha.
Awakening to buddhahood means that you realize the true nature of phenomena. It's when you understand what the path to achieving liberation in omniscience is. It’s knowing how to teach that path to other people. It means you are someone who can teach this path unmistakably to others. Being a Buddha means you've come to an extremely high level of experience and realization. That’s why we call him Buddha.
It's not about becoming some superhuman and becoming a god. That’s not what it means. When you say, he’s “awakened to buddhahood” it means a huge improvement in his internal qualities. It doesn't mean that his external form as a human has changed at all. If we only look at him on the surface, it would be difficult to distinguish between whether he's a Buddha or not.
For example, in the future, scientists could invent a time machine, that could go back in time, so we could return to the time of the Buddha. We would have to search for and find the Buddha on our own, right? If we needed to do it on our own, I think that we probably wouldn't find the Buddha. It wouldn’t be easy to find the Buddha. Even if we did find the Buddha, we wouldn’t recognize him as being a Buddha. The reason is that none of us has ever actually met the Buddha.
Also, a more important reason is the way we think about a Buddha. We don't think of him as an ordinary person. We believe he must be different, an extraordinary being. When we go to the Bodhi tree, we see an ordinary person who is the Buddha. We wouldn’t believe it. This can’t be the Buddha. It must be someone who’s radiating light, who has a halo. He must be huge. We look all around to see if we can find him. We wouldn't really take any interest in the person directly in front of us as being the Buddha.
So when we say “Buddha” there’s an incredible, huge gap between the Buddha that we think should be there and the actual Buddha. Also at that time, there were many spiritual practitioners who sat on their mats meditating. In India at that time, if you looked from the outside, many looked like the Buddha. The whole country was filled with them. So we’d wonder, “Who’s the actual Buddha?” We wouldn’t know.
I think it would be difficult for us. We need to understand that Buddha Shakyamuni was an individual who appeared in a human form. If we understand that, then I feel we can understand how the guru can be a buddha.
In general, when we talk about a spiritual friend or a guru, about the external appearance of the spiritual friend or the guru, the way we should understand that is that we don't mean an external appearance of another human being. That's not what we mean when we say a spiritual friend or guru. What it means is someone who teaches us the pure dharma and elevates our mind to a higher level.
The word “buddha” doesn't refer to the external form. It refers to inner qualities. To understand the Jewel of the Buddha is to recognize someone who teaches the students the unmistaken path. That’s the main activity of the Jewel of the Buddha.
For this reason, we call Shakyamuni Buddha our teacher, because he’s the one who teaches us the path. He’s the first one who taught us the path, so we call him our teacher. Also, the guru is authentic. The guru teaches the path without mistake, just like the Buddha. They’re able to teach that for us individually. The guru performs the activity of a buddha, just as the Buddha.
If the guru has a lineage, the dharma they teach has been passed down from Buddha Shakyamuni, from one guru to the next. Many great beings have practiced it, all the way down to our own root guru now.
The dharma we receive from the root guru and the dharma that we receive from Shakyamuni Buddha would be no different. The dharma they teach is the same. There’s no difference between them. For this reason, if we think about it in terms of these reasons, it wouldn’t be presumptuous to say that all the teachers who teach the students of the dharma are like the buddhas. It’s not contradictory of reality. I think it actually matches how things truly are.
Instead of taking the very person as an ordinary person, as an example, a spiritual friend, we need to take the person who teaches us the true dharma and helps us elevate our dharma at our mind to a higher level. The teacher Vajradhara himself also said, as I also said before, “In a future time of degeneration, I will appear in the form of a master.” He said this while in a degenerate time: the people who want the dharma will not be able to meet me, the teacher Vajradhara. But they don’t need to think that they can’t meet and practice the Dharma, that they can’t receive the Dharma. Because even though I seem to have passed away, always, I'm performing an activity to pass on the Dharma.
If you are born in a degenerate time, if you want to enter my teachings, at that time I'll become your teacher and teach you the Dharma that’s appropriate for your devotion.
Another doubt that we might have is that if we think about the guru as a buddha, this might mean we’re being taught secret mantra, and it’s not Buddhism. It’s not something that’s accepted generally in Buddhism. But that's also not true.
For example, we talk about the preeminent account of the Vinaya. We speak about the activity of associating with the teachers, that those who associate with them should keep the concept of thinking of the Khenpo as the guru. They should serve him, stand up promptly, walk quickly, be respectful.
In the Vinaya, it says that you must regard the Khenpo as the Teacher (Bhagwan Buddha) Likewise, the Mahayana Sutras, such as the Sutra on the Ten Dharmas says: “They are thus free of depravity of body, speech and mind, so arouse the conception of the abbot as the Teacher.”
Likewise, the Light of Gold Sutra says: “Arouse the connection of the Teacher Dharma as the great Teacher.” The Sutra of Narayana's Questions, also known as the Noble Mahayana Sutra called “The Samadhi that Encompasses All Merits” says that you should think of the Dharma as medicine and think of the abbot and master as the Teacher. For this reason, in general of course, we say that in the sutras it said:
We recognize in the sutras that you should view the gurus as being like the Buddha. And in the śastras it says you should recognize them as being the actual Buddha. They do make that distinction, but in any case, where the Buddha is similar, you need to visualize, see them in that way. What we need to do is, it’s not just someone who can teach their guru. What is as important to that is having belief, having confidence. If you don’t have confidence, even if the Buddha came in person, it would be difficult.
Because the Buddha lived around 80 years, during that time many people had faith and confidence in him. Many followed him and achieved liberation. There were a lot of people like that. But there also were people who didn’t feel faith in him, who didn’t consider him valuable, or even who didn’t take much interest in him. There are many people like that. And then there was Devadatta. He wasn’t just anyone. He was the Buddha’s own cousin. He was his own cousin, but Devadatta felt jealous of the Buddha and began to hate him. He tried to kill the Buddha several times. There were even people like that. Even with a perfect Buddha, there were people who made good connections with him, people who made bad connections, and there are people who made no connection at all.
So, there are many different types of people. It’s not like the Buddha is just merely being there. It doesn’t mean that everyone’s going to feel faith in him. That's not necessarily going to happen. There’s no lesson that says you’re going to achieve liberation. The main point is from your own perspective, having faith and confidence is as important. So having faith and conviction in the guru and the Teacher, are the same in importance. Sometimes having confidence is even more important. It’s even more important than having someone to teach you the path.
There’s a story when it’s more important than being on the path. This story took place in the old days, long ago, when two people wanted to go to circumambulate Tsari mountain. Tsari is a sacred site, a very important Kagyu place. These people went to circumambulate Tsari, and there was a neighbor in that region, an old lady who heard about them. When she heard them, she went to them, and the old woman asked them, “Is it true that you two are going to Tsari?”
And the two people said, “Yeah, it’s true, we’re going.”
The old woman was delighted. She said, “Okay, then my wish will be fulfilled.” And she said, “Tsari is a long way, so you’ll need some provisions for the trip.” So she gave them a bag of tsampa and a bag of puffed wheat. A full bag for both. Then she said, “Now you two go to Tsari, go to the top at Dakpa Sheri, the Pure Crystal Mountain, and then from Dakpa Sheri, bring a small rock, a small stone as a support for me, an old woman, to pray over. I’ve heard that Tsari is the mandala of Chakrasamvara, so if I can have a stone from there, I can practice.”
And they said, “Oh, this is easy, of course, we'll do this.”
And off they went. They went to Tsari, they circumambulated the mountain but forgot to bring back a rock.
As they were returning, the old woman knew that it was about the time they’d return, so she went out to look. “Are they coming?”
She searched to see if they were coming, and then, from the high point, they saw her standing and immediately remembered they’d forgotten to bring the rock. “What are we going to do? What should we do? Think about it, what’s the best thing to do? There’s nothing we can do. We needed to bring just a black rock from there.”
So they went to a spot where the old lady couldn’t see them; they found a black rock, wrapped it in a kata, and pretended it was valuable. They put it inside their cloaks and went to visit the old woman.
When they arrived, the old woman asked them, “How are you doing? Did you have problems?” She listened, then said, “And then? You two must have brought my rock, right?”
They replied, “Of course. We paid so much attention to this we intentionally were careful to do this.” They said they took the stone from right in front of the Pure Crystal Mountain and then gave it to the old woman. They thought to themselves, “Oh, this old woman! There are many gullible old women like her. Even these days, right?”
She said, “Oh, this black stone must really have come from that sacred place, and it must be the yidam deity itself.”
She put it above her pillow, she made a shelf above it, placed it on top, then made offerings to it. Every day she offered water and lamps, and whatever she ate or drank she made an offering to it. In the morning and at night, she prostrated a hundred times, and supplicated it. Eventually, the stone grew an image of Vajravarahi herself, the image just grew spontaneously. And the old woman’s faith increased greatly.
Of course, your faith is going to grow, right? She just supplicated like a nun, and as she did, the stone started to give off many relics. In the end, when the old woman passed away, there were so many miraculous signs, it’s like she went off to Kechari. So this is the story.
This is how important confidence is, right? And that belief in confidence must be stainless, sincere, and pure. If our faith and conviction is not pure, then it’s not good. A lot of people nowadays who enter the gate of dharma do not find an authentic guru and instead meet fake gurus. A lot of times this happens. And one factor in this is when the student does not have a pure motivation. The student doesn’t have a stable intention to practice genuine Dharma.
The Karmapa Dusum Khyenpa said, “The student’s mirror is the guru.”
The guru appears in the way according to your desires and wishes. If you’re someone who is attached to external appearances, then basically when you look, it’s possible to find a guru who, when you look at them from the outside, is handsome and good-looking. That’s what you’re going to look for, and that’s what you’re going to find. Some people think they should find a guru who pays a lot of attention to them, always welcoming, who doesn’t think about other people, and always will see themselves more than anyone else. They think that’s what the guru is going to be like. Because that’s what they want, I also find that there’s the danger that they’re only going to find a guru like that.
Think of Milarepa, for example. He practiced sorcery, killed people. He killed a lot of people. He thought, “When I die, there’s nowhere I’m going to go except for hell.” He only had one hope, that he could reach a guru who could give the instructions on awakening into buddhahood. If he could meet them, get the instructions and achieve buddhahood, then he could do that. Other than meeting that guru, there was nothing else he could think of that he could do. There was nothing else that he needed. Perhaps this seems like too extreme an example, but in any case, for us to practice the Dharma, it’s important for us to have the motivation of wanting to practice the Dharma and the pure true motivation of wanting to follow a guru as a real practitioner. If our motivation is pure and sincere, then our chance of meeting the guru becomes hundreds of times much more likely. If you don’t have that, you won’t be able to.
For example, if Tilopa, Nāropa, Marpa, and other teachers manifested, how would we see them, as being like a good guru? Most of us probably wouldn’t see them as being like a good guru. People who behave so badly! Forget about us seeing them as a guru. We’d probably call the police to have them arrested, put them on trial, send them to prison, or maybe send them to a lunatic asylum. There’s the danger that we’d do that, right?
Particularly in Tibet, forget about it, there’s no freedom. Here, however, there is the freedom to sue the gurus. People will say anything about the gurus. You have a lot of freedom of criticism. So now we’re in a time like this. If Tilopa, Nāropa, and Marpa were alive today, it would be difficult for us to consider them an authentic guru. For this reason, it’s important to have a good guru. But from our perspective, it’s important to have good certainty and good conviction in them.
With that, the Karmapa concluded the teaching.