It's just after nine and a sunny cold morning here at the Samye Ling on my first day back. This time I am going to try to pretend that I'm here to enjoy myself. Usually, I bring down something to work on writingwise and then ignore it. But this afternoon I'll bring the netbook thing in here and try to edit Jock Tamson's on it. Just work for two hours maybe.
I was having a problem with guru yoga the last time I was here. If you are doing vajrayana, I've read that you are supposed to think of your teacher as being even more cosmic than the original buddha. (I was going to write guru there instead of teacher, but even the word bothers me a little!). It is your guru who is supposed to be helping you directly of course, unlike the original buddha.
I don't like devotion. I certainly don't feel comfortable engendering feelings of devotion towards a living person. You have to build on these feelings. So I'm taking a big red pen and drawing a line right through that.
Developing devotion towards a deity might be a bit easier. The deity is not there. The deity is in your imagination and I don't have bother developing emotions there. Developing positive emotions is okay, you'd think, however you do it.
All human beings will have feet of clay at the end of the day. We're all Jock Tamson's bairns around this part of the world, or we should be. Grovelling and forelock tugging should be left to the folk who love the Queen. Stupid people.
Anyway, I've never had a proper guru. The only person who has sat down with me and told me stuff is Mrs Palmo. I saw her here in the refrectory last night and wanted not to. I don't like meeting folk down here. Anyway, I'm okay with visualising deities. As far as skilful means go, that's a proven plus. Also, the prostrations are out for the moment since my feet don't like them!!
I'd like to find a way for an ordinary agnostic Scottish person to do this stuff and the way guru yoga is described to me might work in Tibet (well, it did), but this isn't Tibet and we aren't Tibetans.
Sometimes I think it was a mistake to abandon Sussquehanna. Calming meditations. That plus the analytical ones should be enough for anyone!
Having said that, it was very easy to visualise Dr Agong in the temple this morning. Of course, it's okay with him because he's dead. I've never had a problem with dead gurus!!!
So a bit of tai chi and back into the temple till lunchtime. The nicotine withdrawals are hardly even apparent. That's a Samye Ling effect. Just a little teeth clenching!!
Hey Mac. The mantra, the mantra deity, & the practitioner of the mantra all r 1. :Swami Muktananda. Who is my guru, also deceased, in this life.
ReplyDeleteSo continuation of ur practice as taught by the guru may be all the worship needed of the guru.
1 of his 2 successors, Swami Nityananda, Mahamandaleshwar, once gave a wonderful talk: Muktananda does not want us 2 be like him; he wants us 2 be fully ourselves (in realization). I found this idea clarifying.
Not much of a guru worshipper, myself. But grateful 4 the teaching & 4 the teacher as an embodiment of the teaching.
Be well. Vani