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Six-Session Guru Yoga SIX-SESSION GURU YOGA Kyabje Gehlek Rimpoche Six-Session Guru Yoga with highest yoga tantra initiation only Jewel Heart Transcript 2006 Gehlek Rimpoche, Six-Session Guru Yoga © 1998-2006 Ngawang Gehlek. All rights reserved 1st edition 1998, 3rd extended edition 2004; 4th half-size edition 2006. Jewel Heart Transcripts are lightly to moderately edited transcriptions of the teachings of Kyabje Gehlek Rinpoche and others teachers who have taught at Jewel Heart. Their purpose is to provide Rimpoche’s students, as well as all others who are interested, with these extremely valuable teachings in a way that gives one the feeling of being pre- sent at the teachings. JEWEL HEART Tibetan Cultural and Buddhist Centers, 207 East Washington Street, Ann Arbor, MI 48104 USA Tel. (1) 313 994 3387 Fax: (1) 313 994 5577 www.jewelheart.org Acknowledgements This transcript combines several teachings on the Six-session Guru yoga, given by Kyabje Gehlek Rimpoche. These are: a two-evenings teaching on request of the Dutch given at the end of the summer retreat in USA august 1992 (the first time Jewel Heart Holland joined the retreat in USA), an evening talk in Nijmegen spring 2001 and a two-days teaching in Nijmegen, spring 2003. These transcribed teachings are to be read only by those who have received an initiation in a highest-yoga tantra and this have a com- mitment for practicing this. The transcription of these teachings from tapes was done by the vajrayana mandala in The Netherlands. The drawing of Buddha Vajradhara is by Marian van der Horst. The manuscript is slightly edited. The format has changed into half size. Possible errors in this transcript are due to my lack of knowl- edge. Nijmegen, February 2006 Marianne Soeters Contents I INTRODUCTION 7 II THE PRACTICE OF THE SIX-SESSION GURU YOGA 13 Homage to Manjughosha 13 Preliminaries 14 Taking Refuge and Generating Bodhicitta 14 The Four Immeasurables 21 Aspiring Bodhicitta 23 Active Bodhicitta and taking the Bodhisattva Vow 24 Generating Joy 26 Contemplating conscientiousness 28 Actual Guru Yoga 29 Generating the Field of Merit: Lama Buddha Vajradhara 33 Invocation of the Wisdom beings 40 Prostration 41 Eight lines of Praise 44 Outer, inner and secret offering 54 Mandala offering 57 Praying and Requesting 61 Absorbing Practice 71 Rising as Vajrasattva 75 Practicing Generosity 81 Keeping all vows and commitments purely 82 Upholding the Dharma 84 Conclusion 86 Dedication 86 6 Six-session Guru Yoga III TANTRIC VOW DISCOURSE 89 Bodhisattva vows 89 Tantric Vows 95 IV COMPACT EXPLANATION OF THE SIX-SESSION GURU YOGA 103 V SHORT SIX-SESSION GURU YOGAS 117 The short Six-session yoga 117 The shortest Six-session Guru yoga 119 VI APPENDICES 121 VII NOTES 153 VIII GLOSSARY 159 IX LITERATURE 173 I Introduction Kindly generate the motivation that has been recommended and prescribed in the Lamrim tradition: For the benefit of all sentient beings I would like to obtain the enlightenment stage, the ultimate stage of buddhahood. For that I would like to listen to this teaching, learn it, practice it and then obtain it. In other words, in your motivation there should be (a) seeking help for other beings and (b) seeking enlightenment for your self- purpose. A combination of such a mind is known as bodhimind. Whatever understanding you have of that, please generate it. And with that motivation do kindly listen to this teaching. The teaching you are going to listen to is the Vajrayana practice of the great Mahayana tradition. It is one of the most important teach- ings in the Ganden Kagyu teaching tradition. On a number of places it is said that this is even more important than the Thirteen Golden Dharmas1. This has been very strongly practiced and taught by the great Ti- betan lineage masters, for whom guru-devotional practice has been the essence of their practice. It is known as Six-session Guru yoga [Tib. tün druk], compiled by and made easy to practice by the First Panchen Lama, Losang Chökyi Gyeltsen, who himself wrote a com- mentary on it. Whoever has taken an initiation in either one of the two highest tantras, the yoga tantra or the maha-anu-yoga tantra, should do the 8 Six-session Guru Yoga Six-session yoga. Should. They are not necessarily doing it, but they should do it. The simple reason is that for both of these classes of tantra you have to take the Vajrayana or tantric vows. These are based on the five Dhyani Buddhas and each one of them has com- mitments [that you take]. If after taking the initiations, you don’t do every day whatever you are supposed to do, i.e. you don’t follow the negative and posi- tive advices, then every time you get a downfall. There are root downfalls and secondary downfalls, and they are important. You know, many of us like to go and obtain many initiations, but when we come to the samayas, the commitments, we probably try to skip as much as possible. That is really an invitation for the vajra hell, which is deeper, stronger and more painful than the usual eighteen different hells. Though it is a little bit stronger than those, the duration of the life over there might not be that long. So, downfalls are an invitation for the vajra hell. Pabongka emphasizes, No matter how many non-virtues you commit, even if you do all ten you will not be taken to the vajra hell, but if you take a Vajrayana initiation and you are unable to keep its commitments, you’re really invoking the vajra hell. During the initiation we committed to say this six time a day, that six times a day, do this, do that etc., but if we cannot keep our commitments, it is not very nice. If we can’t keep them we get these downfalls, which we call ‘thicknesses’. The First Panchen Lama was the one in the Gelugpa tradition who organized the commitments together and composed some words to say, so that every commitment gets covered. Even if you don’t know exactly what they are, even if you can’t count them, just saying these words and thinking according to the words, ‘I am do- ing the same thing’, will cover all of them. If you can’t say many sadhanas, you should at least do this Six-session yoga every day very carefully. In Vajrayana we normally say, You either get attainments or you are going down. There is no other door. You are like a snake in a bamboo trap. A snake caught in a piece of bamboo either has to go up or to go down, there is no other way. All other practices have means of go- ing in between, but Vajrayana has only two ways: up and down. Introduction 9 What makes you to go up or down, is not so much how many hours you meditate or how much you do, it is the samayas, the commitments. How much you can honor your commitments, is really what makes you go up, rather than a lot of learning or even a lot of meditation. In Vajrayana the commitments count; these are the point where you are going to have benefits or downfalls. Even if you don’t meditate at all, or don’t do anything at all, if you can protect yourself from the downfalls, within sixteen lifetimes you’ll become a buddha. That is why the commitments are very impor- tant. Benefits. If on the basis of properly keeping the Vajrayana com- mitments one practices, then one may be able to achieve the stage of buddhahood within one’s lifetime. That is the best category. The second category is achieving buddhahood during the bardo period. The third category is obtaining enlightenment within the next life, or at the least of least within sixteen lifetimes. Those are the Vajra- yana benefits. The benefits are great and the downfalls are great. That means: it is very beneficial and very dangerous, both. We normally say that a person who enters Vajrayana, is somebody who can take tremen- dous risks: either you make it or you are going to fall. If you make it, you make something great, if you fall, you fall badly. That is the sort of person in Vajrayana: not calculating so much, not planning much, but jumping into it: either make it or go down. That is what it is. The Six-session yoga makes you to make it. Really. It is the es- sence of the practice, so it is important. Not only is it important to do it, but to do it six times a day. If you do that, it will also help you tremendously to keep the commitment of the refuge. It reinforces everything. In Asvaghosa’s Fifty Verses of Guru Yoga2 it says: Three times a day with supreme faith you must show the respect you have for your guru who teaches you [the tantric path] by pressing your palms together, offering a mandala with flowers and prostrating your head to his feet. All of this is covered by this Six-session yoga. Also the bodhisattva commitments that go with the bodhisattva vow, are covered by this Six-session yoga. The great Tibetan teachers say, 10 Six-session Guru Yoga Many Tibetan lamas will claim this or that is a very vast and profound practice, a golden religion, (i.e. a religion which you cannot get without giving gold.) However, the real essence is the Six-session yoga. So it is important! Pabongka goes on saying, There are very few non-Gelugpa lamas who also emphasize the Six-session yoga.
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