HYT Wangs

jmlee369
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Joined: Tue Aug 09, 2011 1:22 am

Re: HYT Wangs

Post by jmlee369 »

zerwe wrote: Mon Jul 25, 2022 1:58 pm What Geshela says is important to note (Love that you found that--he is a lovely teacher BTW). However, I have also been told that with HYT, you no longer are making this choice. Once you accept or have developed the intention to receive the empowerment, whoever you receive the empowerment from is to be considered your root guru for that particular lineage of transmission. There is also the one is the all, all is the one principle at play for the circumstances where you have received multiple transmissions for the same deitie's lineage/practice.

Shaun :namaste:
Yes, it's a given that when taking any tantric teaching, let alone a highest yoga tantra initiation, a master-disciple relationship is established. According to Je Rinpoche's commentary on the vows, the vow to not disparaging the vajra master applies to any guru who has taught you something that is exclusively tantric in nature, whether it be from the lower or higher classes, and not just initiation but commentary or oral transmissions alone, etc.

Kyabje Zopa Rinpoche's advice is also helpful:
In “...drawing forth the blessing of the lama, the inseparable three kayas...,” lama doesn’t mean just any lama. The word “lama” can be used in many ways, but here it means your own personal lama with whom you have had Dharma contact, from whom you have received teachings with the recognition of a guru-disciple relationship. As I mentioned during the Amitabha initiation, if you cannot devote to the person who teaches you as a guru from the very beginning, you can first learn from that person in the way that you learn from a school teacher or professor; after some time, if you feel devotion and think that you can devote to the person as your guru, you can then do so. You don’t normally need to request someone to be your guru. Before listening to teachings for the very first time, you can make a request; however, because there are generally thousands of people involved, there is no time for each person to request, “Please be my guru.”

There is a tradition in Tibet, for example, that before attending an initiation or teaching, you go to see the lama to ask if you can attend. The lama then checks and accepts. There was this tradition with Tibetan lamas to check before; but after the teaching has happened and the connection has already been made, there is no need to request, “Please be my guru.” After you have been born, you do not request your mother, “Can you be my mother?” or your father, “Can you be my father?” After you are thirty, forty or eighty years old, you then ask, “Can you be my mother?” I’m joking!

In the Tibetan tradition, if you are going to take a teaching from the very beginning in a guru-disciple relationship, you generally get permission from the lama. You just quickly ask, “Can I take these teachings?” and the lama then checks up.

Now, centers in the West are much more like a school where different teachers come to teach. Here in this kind of situation, we find it very difficult to practice pure view with everybody—if you can practice pure view, it is okay to have many thousands or billions of gurus—and our minds are full of superstitions. So, if you can’t devote to someone as a guru from the beginning, then first listen to their teachings as you would to a teaching in a school or university. Then if you really feel that you want them as your guru, you make the decision to form a guru-disciple relationship then take teachings from them.
Generally when it comes to His Holiness or situations where asking the guru directly is not possible, I was either told explicitly by one of my other gurus to receive, or approached them to check.
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