The inner confidence – when you’re doing something correct; especially meditate on non-conception, like emptiness or meditate on Rigpa, awareness – there are no concepts, no thoughts. Whether you’re doing it correctly or not – you need to have a clear instruction first. Then you have to make a custom to remain in nature
That means “all the Buddhas”. If you talk about time, there are three times: past, now and future. If you talk about directions, there are ten directions. So talking about the Buddha, there must be one of those three times and one of those ten directions. Basically, “all the Buddhas”, no Buddha is left behind.
So when you visualize yourself, you totally become Varjayogini. You don’t need to think the second of me is here, on top of that Varjayogini, seating on top of me or something like that. It’s not a good way of thinking. It’s also called attachment, grasping. It’s wrong view. Therefore, we need to think: “I am, I am the Deity, I am the Varjakilaya.” When you are visualizing, you should think that way and believe that way. Then slowly, slowly, you eventually will become a Buddha. But [if] you always think: “I. me. I am ordinary person. I am Vietnamese. I am American”, you’ll never become a Buddha.” There’s no American Buddha, sure? (laughing). No Buddha is a citizen of Vietnam. No?
Buddhism teaches us very clearly the difference between wisdom and ignorance, the difference between Dharma and non-Dharma, samsara and nirvana, good motivation and bad motivation.
I often mentioned the qualities of the student. They’re not many. Of course, there can be many but there are some very important or three principal qualities for students to be good students.
The idea to practice Guru Yoga is to receive the blessing from Guru, which means one becomes inseparable from Guru. One doesn’t have to have too many thoughts but only faith, only mindfulness, only visualization of Guru. That’s the result of the practice Guru Yoga. And the high masters like Milarepa really achieved that kind of result and reached that kind of level. In his mind, there’s no physical, regular guru separated from him, therefore he was able to receive all the blessings, all the power from Guru.
There are many teachings. There’re many texts but sometimes it’s too much. May be they’re too complicated to bring together, because some individuals do not have that kind of mental faculty. So that with the kindness of the higher beings, the masters bring all the necessary teachings instructions together to make very simple practice for the people who are not very intelligent, not very diligent, not very serious, so this becomes very important teachings or practices.
This time, the main teaching is on “Guru Yoga” – Guru Yoga from Longchen Nyingthik lineage. There are quite many lineages of Tibetan Buddhist traditions. And each of those traditions has its own ngondro practice. Even though the names or titles are probably different but the meanings are pretty much the same.
The An Lac Dharma friends make report to Rinpoche about their daily practice sessions via Zoom/Gotomeeting, every day from 4.30 am, which include meditation, daily prayers, ngondro.
Buddhism teaches us very clearly the difference between wisdom and ignorance, the difference between Dharma and non-Dharma, samsara and nirvana, good motivation and bad motivation.
