Gurus in Vajrayana

Exploring Theravāda's connections to other paths - what can we learn from other traditions, religions and philosophies?
Bundokji
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Gurus in Vajrayana

Post by Bundokji »

Can anyone explain to me the emphasis on finding a guru in vajrayana Buddhism?

Many thanks :anjali:
And the Blessed One addressed the bhikkhus, saying: "Behold now, bhikkhus, I exhort you: All compounded things are subject to vanish. Strive with earnestness!"

This was the last word of the Tathagata.
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Coëmgenu
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Re: Gurus in Vajrayana

Post by Coëmgenu »

I don't practice Vajrayana, but I have read a fair amount of chatter at DharmaWheel, and have read some off of DharmaWheel concerning Vajrayana. So this is not an insider's answer. Part of the thing with Tantra is that it is supposed to be infallible techniques to bring about natural uncaused bodhi that is transmitted along lines of teacher-to-student succession, Buddha-to-learner. In guruyoga, the Guru is to be understood to be like a supreme Buddha. The three jewels become refuge in that Buddha. The Dharma is his speech. The Samgha is his personal body. The Buddha is the Guru's perfectly enlightened mind. Vajrayanikas believe in this for any variety of reason. The book is called "Words of My Perfect Teacher" for a reason. The author understands his teacher to have been as perfect as Sakyamuni. He believes this as an exemplary of the tradition of guru-devotion he is part of. It's not limited to Buddhism. Most serious Hindu meditation is taught in conservative teacher-student lines with almost identical guruyoga, to the point of considering your Guru an avatar of the divine.
What is the Uncreated?
Sublime & free, what is that obscured Eternity?
It is the Undying, the Bright, the Isle.
It is an Ocean, a Secret: Reality.
Both life and oblivion, it is Nirvāṇa.
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Re: Gurus in Vajrayana

Post by retrofuturist »

Greetings,

Thanks for the explanation. It sounds all very convenient for the guru, doesn't it?

Metta,
Paul. :)
"Whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things."
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Coëmgenu
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Re: Gurus in Vajrayana

Post by Coëmgenu »

Things like infallibly enlightened Buddhas-via-initiation lead to suggestions like "crazy wisdom." If Lama So-and-so is infallible and he's acting nuts, it follows that some of the Dharma must be nuts, one supposes.
What is the Uncreated?
Sublime & free, what is that obscured Eternity?
It is the Undying, the Bright, the Isle.
It is an Ocean, a Secret: Reality.
Both life and oblivion, it is Nirvāṇa.
Bundokji
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Re: Gurus in Vajrayana

Post by Bundokji »

Coëmgenu wrote: Mon Apr 19, 2021 9:21 pm I don't practice Vajrayana, but I have read a fair amount of chatter at DharmaWheel, and have read some off of DharmaWheel concerning Vajrayana. So this is not an insider's answer. Part of the thing with Tantra is that it is supposed to be infallible techniques to bring about natural uncaused bodhi that is transmitted along lines of teacher-to-student succession, Buddha-to-learner. In guruyoga, the Guru is to be understood to be like a supreme Buddha. The three jewels become refuge in that Buddha. The Dharma is his speech. The Samgha is his personal body. The Buddha is the Guru's perfectly enlightened mind. Vajrayanikas believe in this for any variety of reason. The book is called "Words of My Perfect Teacher" for a reason. The author understands his teacher to have been as perfect as Sakyamuni. He believes this as an exemplary of the tradition of guru-devotion he is part of. It's not limited to Buddhism. Most serious Hindu meditation is taught in conservative teacher-student lines with almost identical guruyoga, to the point of considering your Guru an avatar of the divine.
Thanks for sharing what you know. :anjali:

Do they provide a system of justifications of why having a guru is the way?

For example, i know of a Muslim sect that promotes the idea of esoteric meaning of the Quran that is only known by an Imam (akin to a guru). They persuade followers by showing them that language is a mere convention (akin to conventional reality believed by Buddhists), and then they use this skepticism to present the imam as a god-like figure who only understands the esoteric meaning. They are also known to be neoplatonic believing in some kind of oneness behind appearances.

Do you know how they persuade people?
And the Blessed One addressed the bhikkhus, saying: "Behold now, bhikkhus, I exhort you: All compounded things are subject to vanish. Strive with earnestness!"

This was the last word of the Tathagata.
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Coëmgenu
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Re: Gurus in Vajrayana

Post by Coëmgenu »

Bundokji wrote: Mon Apr 19, 2021 9:36 pmDo they provide a system of justifications of why having a guru is the way?
This is going to be very discursive, apologies. Keep in mind, I have no right to answer why someone might think that someone else is enlightened.

The belief is that, in order to become a Buddha, you must have, in a past life, sat in the assembly of a Buddha and either have received a prophesy of Buddhahood from him or have been taught the Dharma by him. I'm not sure which is technically the case. The necessity of an ancient prediction for your Buddhahood certainly is well-attested in Buddhist apocrypha.

The power of a great man echoes through time, and "a great man" is actually a considerably more neutral term than how it is used in Buddhism. There are, for instance, evil great men while there are no evil Wheel-Turners or Buddhas. When a great man is good, we call him a Wheel-Turner, a Buddha, and other sorts of names like maybe "sage" and "saviour," etc. When a great man is wicked, we don't call him great, despite whatever might he might have wielded and whatever impact his wicked ideas might have had on the world or whatever kind of wicked great man he might have been. This is presuming a very naïve "we" that is purely rhetorical and for the sake of talking about how we categorize different people who wield might. There are also very different ways to wield might. A wicked great man of war might wield might through the threat of violence. A wicked great man of charisma, a cult leader, might wield might through the power of convincing people of things, making them fall in proverbial or literal love with him. Cult leaders, I imagine, must necessarily possess some amount of charisma, power, or social capital. There are, of course, poor cults that live in poor complexes, but that is just because the cult leader is unable to draw in people with more money to give them to enrich them and their cults. Buddhas also have charisma, but are fundamentally unlike wicked cult leaders. Non-Buddhist religious leaders whether good or wicked also generally have a certain charisma. There is, they say, an energy to be around a truly and profoundly great person, because there is a sense that you are near something wondrous and rare, if you've the discernment to take note of it, they say.

Here starts the first of two digressions, the first on the true origin of the idea of the "pure land," and the second on the Lotus and Mahayana origin speculations. Hopefully between these, I will address your question that I cannot answer in whatever way I am able, not being a Tantrika myself.

The term "Pure Land" in Mahayana Buddhism comes to refer to a kind of magical Buddhic dimension -- a conjured reality ineffably floating somewhere, maybe in dreams, "out there somewhere" in the three worlds. This is the most fantastical and least realistic understanding of what a "pure land" is. The "pure land" is merely the physical space that surrounds the body of a Buddha, an Arhat, or a deeply realized bodhisattva, while they disclose the Dharma in the act of teaching. It encompasses the immediate environment of the retinue of that Aryan as well as the sense field of the Aryan's experience wherever he is and whether he simply speaks concerning the Dharma or he formally teaches. Internally, the pure land is the sense fields of that Saint while he observes reality from meditative equipoise.

It is the physical experience of being around the body of a great teacher while he teaches and while others become Buddhas around him that began Buddhism. It should be expected, I would argue, that other similarly charismatic individuals, realized or not, would have similar impacts on those around them.

The first "pure land" in Buddhism that was "here" in the sense of "a place here on planet earth in recent past that plenty of people know about" was the site of awakening of Gautama Buddha, the bodhimanda. The second was the location of Gautama Buddha's first sermon. Through manifesting the "pure land" and bringing others to experience this pure land, the Buddha created a fourfold community of followers. He didn't create a cult. If your understanding of the Dharma is such that a Buddha would never give a sermon like the Lotus, then the "Buddha" or "Buddhas" who did give that sermon were potentially cult leaders, maybe just famous celebrity monks of whichever sect that sutra comes from. Who knows?

At the start of the Lotus Sutra, Manjusri, who is a higher-ranking bodhisattva than Manjusri in the text, discloses to him that they both once heard preached the very sermon they were are about to hear, the Lotus Sutra, before in different lives as it was taught by Candrasuryapradipa. Manjusri speaks of a succession of two Candrasuryapradipa-named Buddhas followed by an extravagant unrealistic number who supposedly taught the Lotus Sutra. We are expected as readers potentially to extrapolate backwards and conclude that Candrasuryapradipa in turn heard it while a bodhisattva, but that is not actually said. This IMO is one of the actual pieces of second-hand evidence we have that might point to the actual author and prominence of the Lotus, but this is a completely unscholarly and personal theory that couldn't be argued in any sort of scholarly setting. In the text itself, Candrasuryapradipa is the "first" teacher of the Lotus, through a succession of two named with the same name, then supposedly 20,000 Candrasuryapradipas. The 20,000 is a mythological number that is either true or not true. The text says that Candrasuryapradipa lived in the remote past, an ancient Buddha, so if we believe this, then maybe there were 20,000 Candrasuryapradipas. I suggest that Candrasuryapradipa is a hagiographical memory of a historical figure claiming Buddhahood in a way similar to how some Tantric teachers might be believed to be enlightened today. This hypothesized historical Candrasuryapradipa would have had a "pure land" around him with a retinue in much the same way that the historical Gautama Buddha did when he taught the early community. Candrasuryapradipa is supposedly ancient, more ancient than Gautama. This, I speculate, is just hagiography. This is a post-Buddha figure being remembered with one of the extensive and extraordinary hagiographies ubiquitous in medieval Buddhism.

I think there were maybe a succession of two main Candrasuryapradipas in this hypothesized Mahasamghika-derived maybe-Gandharan maybe-Andhraka community that produced the Lotus. I think this community possibly also had a lively culture of stupa-veneration and worshipped the remains of another previous religious figure of the community, possibly pre-Buddhist for them, named Prabhutaratna in one of their stupas. Anyways, I warned that this would be discursive. Obviously I have no hard proof for a lot of the speculations that are to do with the origins of the Lotus and whatever community that was and how it arose.

It is the physical experience of being around someone that convinces you that they are awakened. This is not just how they look or if it seems like the air vibrates around them. I'm talking about how they talk. What they say.

In a weird way, I think that might answer your question, or it didn't at all and I have to say "Some people in the world exist in states where they are convinced that they are in the room with an Aryan or a Buddha and maybe they are right." Maybe not.
What is the Uncreated?
Sublime & free, what is that obscured Eternity?
It is the Undying, the Bright, the Isle.
It is an Ocean, a Secret: Reality.
Both life and oblivion, it is Nirvāṇa.
Bundokji
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Re: Gurus in Vajrayana

Post by Bundokji »

Coëmgenu wrote: Mon Apr 19, 2021 10:29 pm It is the physical experience of being around someone that convinces you that they are awakened. This is not just how they look or if it seems like the air vibrates around them. I'm talking about how they talk. What they say.

In a weird way, I think that might answer your question, or it didn't at all and I have to say "Some people in the world exist in states where they are convinced that they are in the room with an Aryan or a Buddha and maybe they are right." Maybe not.
I am going to pay back your generosity with honesty. I felt some parts of the answer to be explaining something, but none explained why a guru is essential. I can imagine why it would be advantageous and cool to be around someone who is believed to be enlightened, but necessary?

I had a couple of experiences on dharmawheel that appeared somehow weird. I remember having a conservation and then a discussant, all of the sudden, advised others not to talk to me because i do not have teacher! Or reading someone introducing himself to the forum, and being advised right away to go and find a teacher. Generally, i prefer not to be dismissive of people, but try to understand where they are coming from. I have no issues with people preferring personal guidance in spiritual training, but i do feel that they take it to extremes that are a bit difficult to understand!
And the Blessed One addressed the bhikkhus, saying: "Behold now, bhikkhus, I exhort you: All compounded things are subject to vanish. Strive with earnestness!"

This was the last word of the Tathagata.
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Coëmgenu
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Re: Gurus in Vajrayana

Post by Coëmgenu »

Look at the reason why Amidists want to go to Amida Butsu's pure land. They want to be in the personal retinue of a Buddha who teaches them. Tantrikas want also to be in such a retinue, and are willing to rightly or wrongly believe that certain Lamas are Buddhas. The scribe who copied Visuddhimagga and left that colophon wants to dedicate merit towards hearing Maitreya preach in heaven, to be in his personal retinue, if I'm not mistaken. Personally in the retinue of a Buddha, like Ven Ānanda was. That's how they want to learn the Dharma. Buyer beware. Your recent post is more to do with tantric secrecy. More on that later, which is separate but related to guruyoga. There is also the widespread unforgivable slander that Gautama Buddha's Dharma has declined and is all but gone and you must be in the retinue of a new Sammāsambuddha. This is a feature of the latest and most degenerated Mahayanas. Gautama's Dharma is dead, go to Amitabha. Gautama's Dharma is dead, go to secret mantra. Gautama's Dharma is dead, chant the title of the Lotus Sutra.
What is the Uncreated?
Sublime & free, what is that obscured Eternity?
It is the Undying, the Bright, the Isle.
It is an Ocean, a Secret: Reality.
Both life and oblivion, it is Nirvāṇa.
Bundokji
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Re: Gurus in Vajrayana

Post by Bundokji »

Coëmgenu wrote: Mon Apr 19, 2021 11:10 pm Buyer beware. Your recent post is more to do with tantric secrecy. More on that later, which is separate but related to guruyoga. There is also the widespread unforgivable slander that Gautama Buddha's Dharma has declined and is all but gone and you must be in the retinue of a new Sammāsambuddha.
This is why i gave the example of the Muslim sect (Isma'ilism). I am trying to find parallels in belief systems. Oneness or non-duality seems to be emphasized in both. Esotericism is a form of secrecy which is also emphasized in both, and according to wikipedia, Tantra has been studied as an esoteric practice and ritualistic religion, sometimes referred to as Tantrism.

In relation to secrecy, from Theravadin POV this seems to contradict the suttas, but the decline of the Buddha dhamma is widely believed amongst Theravadins as far as i know.

I would also add that dividing reality into conventional and ultimate is not explicitly mentioned in the pali suttas (and this division can be used to justify secrecy, at least, in the case of Isma'ilism) , but seems to be more emphasized in Mahayana and Vajrayana.
And the Blessed One addressed the bhikkhus, saying: "Behold now, bhikkhus, I exhort you: All compounded things are subject to vanish. Strive with earnestness!"

This was the last word of the Tathagata.
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Re: Gurus in Vajrayana

Post by 4GreatHeavenlyKings »

Bundokji wrote: Mon Apr 19, 2021 11:28 pm but the decline of the Buddha dhamma is widely believed amongst Theravadins as far as i know.
I think that such a belief is perfectly justified. After all, Buddhism has declined from the purity of the Pali canon (and related rescensions) with Mahayana forgeries, and even where the Pali Canon has been preserved, there have been long times when monastics forgot to strive for arhatship and came to believe that arhatship is impossible without a Buddha's personal guidance. And that is not even taking into account monastic laxity and the spread of other religions at Buddhism's expense.
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Re: Gurus in Vajrayana

Post by Bundokji »

4GreatHeavenlyKings wrote: Tue Apr 20, 2021 2:54 pm I think that such a belief is perfectly justified. After all, Buddhism has declined from the purity of the Pali canon (and related rescensions) with Mahayana forgeries, and even where the Pali Canon has been preserved, there have been long times when monastics forgot to strive for arhatship and came to believe that arhatship is impossible without a Buddha's personal guidance. And that is not even taking into account monastic laxity and the spread of other religions at Buddhism's expense.
I do agree that it is justified, but possibly for different reasons than the ones you have mentioned. This is why i am trying to draw parallels by presenting justifications through systems of thoughts and how humans generally function.

If you take the story of creation and original sin in Abhrahamic religions for example, you would see that humans (Adam and Eve) were somehow in a state of bless and harmony (Heaven/Jhana) before descending into earth. The goal of spiritual life becomes to return to this state of purity by worshiping God, and by presenting our time here on earth as a state of inferiority in comparison with paradise. An original state, or a state of purity is a recurring theme. For example, for sunni Muslims, believing that the immediate companions of prophet Muhammad were somehow flawless is necessary to justify that the Quran and Hadith are trustworthy and have not been subjected to distoritions. For Shia Muslims, the family of prophet Muhammad is presented as pure, and these two versions of purity became a cause for schism amongst the biggest two Muslim sects.

Buddhism and Indian religions present the opposite version, but the dynamics remain the same. Gotama and Mahavira were both in a state of hedonism before choosing the ascetic path, then attaining the goal of the spiritual path (including the jhanas!) and began their teaching career. The goal of spiritual path under this state of affairs is to end an endless cycle or death and rebirth, and by ending it, the state of purity can be found. The state of decadence or decline in this circular view of time has to do with women (similar to Eve in the story of original sin) and it is believed that it began when the Bhikkhuni sangha was established. It comes at no surprise that a state of non-duality in both tantra and other religions becomes equally a recurring theme. This also sheds light about different attitudes towards sexuality both as a motivation and deterrence.

The unsatisfactory nature of human existence seems conducive to creating all types of strange things and beliefs.
And the Blessed One addressed the bhikkhus, saying: "Behold now, bhikkhus, I exhort you: All compounded things are subject to vanish. Strive with earnestness!"

This was the last word of the Tathagata.
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Re: Gurus in Vajrayana

Post by SteRo »

Bundokji wrote: Mon Apr 19, 2021 8:22 pm Can anyone explain to me the emphasis on finding a guru in vajrayana Buddhism?

Many thanks :anjali:
Explaining that would necessarily be based on the assumption of having understood vajrayana Buddhism. But such an assumption would be necessarily based on the assumption of self. The assumption of self however is also the cause of your question.
Nevermind ... all the aggregates following "vajrayana Buddhism" are subject to the same error.
Cleared. αδόξαστος.
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Re: Gurus in Vajrayana

Post by Inedible »

The trouble with Vajrayana is that even if you get the books and somehow learn to practice and start getting results, without the right empowerment it is all cause to go to hell. It can be expensive to get the right empowerment. Expect your teacher to string you along for a long time and give you stuff from books about compassion.
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Re: Gurus in Vajrayana

Post by Aloka »

Bundokji wrote: Mon Apr 19, 2021 8:22 pm Can anyone explain to me the emphasis on finding a guru in vajrayana Buddhism?
Here are some links:

What is a Guru? :

https://www.rigpawiki.org/index.php?tit ... n_Rinpoche

What is Guru Yoga? :

studybuddhism.com/en/advanced-studies/l ... -guru-yoga

The Importance of Guru Devotion :

https://www.lamayeshe.com/article/chapt ... u-devotion

The Path of Guru Devotion:

https://www.chronicleproject.com/dzongs ... inpoche-2/



.
Bundokji
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Re: Gurus in Vajrayana

Post by Bundokji »

Inedible wrote: Wed Apr 21, 2021 5:27 am The trouble with Vajrayana is that even if you get the books and somehow learn to practice and start getting results, without the right empowerment it is all cause to go to hell. It can be expensive to get the right empowerment. Expect your teacher to string you along for a long time and give you stuff from books about compassion.
What is empowerment if you do not mind me asking? Is it a recitation of sacred or secret mantras that is believed to have magical powers?

Do you see any similarities between the need for empowerment, and the need for baptism as Catholics believe? Also the bodhisattva ideal seems similar to the Christian ideas of Jesus sacrificing himself and his resurrection. The Dalai Lama seems similar to the Pope in terms of hierarchical structure.

By the way, i confess that a humanistic approach to compare belief systems does not do justice to individual traditions and could be naive and over-simplistic.
And the Blessed One addressed the bhikkhus, saying: "Behold now, bhikkhus, I exhort you: All compounded things are subject to vanish. Strive with earnestness!"

This was the last word of the Tathagata.
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