Your Yidam
Reposted from Thus Have I Seen by Zhaxi Zhuoma Rinpoche p.217-219
In His book Learning from Buddha, H.H. Dorje Chang Buddha III provides the definitive definition of “Buddha-Dharma.” He gives a one-sentence summary stating that “In Buddhism, the perfect practice of the preliminary practice, main practice, and concluding practice is called Buddha Dharma.” This practice relates to “Yidam” practice. I am not going to discuss how you do these practices. You can read about them in Learning from Buddha, which is now available online in English. I do want to share my observations and experiences about an important aspect of this Buddha Dharma—your relationship with your Yidam.
The Buddha Master tells us that “your Yidam is the holy being presiding over the particular Dharma you decide to practice in order to attain accomplishment.” The Buddha Master also tells us we have to face our Yidam and the Dharma protectors of our Yidam. And you cannot hide from either your Yidam or the Dharma Protectors. You may wonder how you know who your Yidam is. As you advance in your practice, you may receive a particular Dharma of Selection and be told who your Yidam is. As I understand it, this is probably a being that you have already achieved some accomplishments with in past lives and you are already familiar with the Dharma associated with that Yidam. Many of us start this practice with Kuan Yin Bodhisattva as our Yidam and follow the “Vajra Yoga Perfection Dharma” that you can find in True Stories about a Holy Monk. Many different other Bodhisattvas or Buddhas can serve as yidams including Shakyamudi Buddha, Amitabha Buddha, Green Tara, Manjurshri Bodhisattva, or Sarvanivarana-Vishkambhin. You may be fortunate to receive other Yidam practices from authentic Dharma masters and rinpoches. However, you only do one Yidam practice at a time, but you may also follow different Yidams through the course of your spiritual career as you evolve in your spiritual practices. (FIGURE 85)
FIGURE 85: My painting of the Female Buddha, Green Tara.
I was told that if you cannot receive a Dharma of Selection, you may select the Yidam for whom you have the greatest affinity. In fact, you do not pick the Yidam, the Yidam actually picks you. However, you must continue your cultivation, keep your precepts, and not hold any of the “128 Evil and Erroneous Views” denoted in the Supreme and Unsurpassable Mahamudra of Liberation for this to happen.
Do not be frustrated if something is not clear. If you are not progressing in your Yidam practice, go back and reflect on your cultivation. You should be doing this three times per day anyhow. If you are not keeping the precepts or developing your bodhichitta, you cannot progress. If your cultivation is good, your Yidam may come and teach you what you need to know. I have had that happen as have several of my students.
Once I was not clear on how to visualize a particular mantra and my Yidam showed me how to do it. I have a student who does not live near California and who is unable to visit either the Buddha Master or me very often. He is a serious, sincere, and compassionate cultivator and does have a very good relationship with his Yidam. She has helped him on many matters. I recently received an email from him telling me how much he had gained from his last trip to the Holy Vajrasana Temple and being able to study Imparting the Absolute Truth through the Heart Sutra. Even though he was only able to study this Dharma a short time this trip, he gained realizations which he didn’t get in all the previous years he had studied here. He said, “It made a deep impact on my life and I am very grateful that I was able to read even this little bit of it. Since then I was reflecting even more on how our daily lives relate to achieving accomplishment in the Dharma, how cultivation and Dharma practice need to go together. I often compared it with breathing, like inhaling and exhaling following one another and both are necessary to keep [your] life working. This morning I received an instruction from [my Yidam] on this topic while I was doing my Dharma practice which I would like to share with you.”
He went on to explain that his Yidam told him that he should see that cultivation is like collecting firewood. Doing a Dharma practice is like igniting a fire. If we have not collected enough wood (or any at all) the fire of wisdom cannot burn. So even a kind thought is like a dry twig that will fuel the fire. Cultivating ourselves seriously and not slipping in any moment is like piling up a huge amount of firewood which will cause the fire to burn strongly and result in accomplishments.
I was delighted. He said I could share the teaching as an example of how our Yidams do teach us, but we must do the practice and cultivate our behavior. The Buddha Master tells us in Learning from Buddha that if you learn one of the Mind Essences from The Supreme and Unsurpassable Mahamudra of Liberation …“to the point of proficiency and put it into practice, you need not worry about not being able to learn Buddha Dharma. Even if I, your Master, do not teach you, the Yidam will teach you.”