Here is today's podcast. It is about part of the Guru Lama Prayer which can be found in the Amida Shu Nien Fo Book, which is the book of chants, hymns and services. You can find a copy of the Nien Fo Book at http://www.amidashu.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/NienFoBook-2018.pdf
Buddhism is a transmission through the generations of the Dharma. It is more caught than taught; and so, we all have mentors, exemplars, guides, teachers; and the relationship of mentor to mentoree, teacher to disciple and so on is very important in the Buddhist tradition.
There are many scriptures and prayers and chants around this reality of Buddhist life. Some of the finest prayers are in the Tibetan, and one that I use as part of my daily practice goes like this:
Kyo-ni lama, kyo-ni yidam,
kyo-ni kadro cho-kyong-te
Deng-nae zung-te jang-chob bardu,
kyo-min kyap zhaen mi-tsol wae
Di-dang bardo, chi-mae tar-yang,
tu-je cha-kyu zung-zo-la
Si-zhi ji-drol!
Go-dup kuen-tsol!
Taen-gyi dok-zo,
bar cho sung.
That comes out in English as:
You the yidam, you dakini
You protector of the way
On the path of Dharma-faring
You will be my refuge true
With your hook like kindness hold me
Through all bardos, through all lives
From fear save me!
With power fill me!
Be by my side,
Keep me true.
This prayer which I like very much, says quite a lot of the role and nature of the teacher and also of the student, disciple, learner, follower of the path.
The two Sanskrit words in here, yidam and dakini, are the respectively male and female aspects of the spirit of the, in this case, the teacher, who is the protector of the way.
The role of a teacher in Buddhism is like that, is to be an inspiring spirit and a protector of the way, not really a teacher in the sense of, if you think of a teacher in a class room giving a lecture, though, of course, teachers do give lectures from time to time.
On the path of Dharma-faring
You will be my refuge true
With your hook like kindness hold me
Through all bardos, through all lives
That’s a very powerful passage and this passage “with your hook like kindness hold me” appears in the ordination ceremony when people join the order and become ordained as Buddhist priests.
From fear save me!
With power fill me!
Be by my side,
Keep me true.
You can see here that the role is very largely that of giving courage. On the Dharma Path we need courage. We need to confront difficulties. We need to confront the obstacles in ourselves and to overcome many things. Each of us, myself as much as anybody else, struggling with our own koans, our own bombu nature, our own delusions, our own obstructions.
The role of the teacher is not to take this away from us, not to solve it for me. But the spirit of my teachers gives me strength to work through this, to confront it, to overcome these difficulties.
So, I like this prayer and I recommend it to you.
Kyo-ni lama
Namo Amida Bu
Thank you very much
Dharmavidya
David
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