In our Thunderbolt vehicle, the Vajrayana, quickness of success in one’s practice depends upon the degree of trust one has in the Guru. As if in a flash of lightening, one’s attraction to the Guru—likewise his or hers for you—comes from the passion of highest discrimination. Having seen, felt, and perhaps even tasted the very agency of the Buddha within this relationship, an inner-most, determined desire to stop the pain of existence for oneself and others arises. After such a fateful, correct appraisal of the sufferings, one takes refuge in the Guru as the Buddha, Guru as the Dharma, and Guru as the Sangha. In light of this seriousness, requiring openness and vulnerability, one embraces the Guru as one might a lifesaver in a roiling sea. Generosity, and it remedial effects, which matures patience and pliability, further strengthen one’s resolve and one’s own Buddha nature becomes closer at hand with giving and the removal of adventitious defilements, faults and failings. The compulsion to be the ‘knowing’ one, the one in control of the ‘others,’ attempting to dominate through mental and physical aggressions, lessens and gradually the ego’s death-grip weakens. Then it’s time to supplicate, praying unabashedly to the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas, and especially to one’s Guru, to completely overcome all fear, anger, and indifference from which pride and jealousy also arise. Turn your attention outwards and analyze where you and your cherished individuality end and someone else’s begins. Focus on that point of inseparableness. Reflect on the Guru’s kindness, the same as your mother’s most tender demonstrations of love for you as her baby. Amplify this love with the fullness of your own mature passions. Direct this strong desire for unification with the object of your passion onto the Guru as the objectless projection of one’s own mind. Recall the Buddha’s teachings, that all is a projection of one’s own mind, until feeling the ripening acceleration of that passion become Great Compassion, a loving kindness and commitment to help others by realizing one’s Buddha nature. Pay homage to the Guru, and resume your four modes of being, free from worry or concern about oneself, knowing your Guru loves and supports you in your aspiration to become a mind hero, greatly kind and compassionate, just like them.
8/2/25 Before my recent flight to New Delhi, I had breakfast at the Pacific Hotel in Phnom Penh, where the experience is usually relaxed and subdued. But that day was quite different. As no sooner did I sit down with my plate full of buffet favorites, then suddenly the entire room was flooded with a large Japanese group having to mix into a much smaller Anglo one. Having just come from Siem Reap, where it’s quiet and spacious, this scene suggested to me what might be creating some of the fascist tendencies in America, and much more, now that I really start to think about it. Expansionism in the face of global crowding, was one. Resource plundering of special minerals for increasingly higher consumption of war goods and higher tech lifestyles, was another. While the expulsion of foreign nationals is simply to assuage bigotry—a return to what never really was, ‘a great America’—being a dog whistle to exercise lazy, smug, and arrogant thinking, that naturally gravitates to base...
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