Chögyal Namkhai Norbu

Final day of the Zhilam Drasbui Nadyig retreat at Merigar West September 13, 2013

This is the last session of this retreat so we try to concentrate on what we should do when the retreat finishes. During the retreat we learned a little about how to do the practice: the main practice and the secondary practices. We should distinguish between them. Sometimes when I explain different topics in great detail, you shouldn’t concentrate on them because they are relative things. If you understand everything, that is fine, but if you don’t you can read about it in a book, for example. There are many ways in which you can go deeper into that knowledge.

However, the main point of any kind of teaching we have received, directly or indirectly, is going in the direction of our real nature. For that reason, at the beginning we explain the distinction between mind and the nature of mind. It does not mean that we are being in mind, in thought, but with this we know how to go to discover our real nature. We need to concentrate on it. This essence is, as I have already said, the practice of Guruyoga.

Today we have finished the retreat and think that we have learned something. But in a practical way, what should we do? I am asking you to do Guruyoga, in any moment, if you have that presence, particularly in the daytime and the night time which is our life. So this is the first point.

We have also learned very well how to apply Guruyoga, going into the essence, which means into knowledge of the three vajras because everybody has body, speech and mind. Their real nature is connected with what we call semnyi (sems nyid), the nature of the mind. In Guruyoga we unify the states of all the enlightened beings and particularly of all our teachers, their three vajras, Om A and Hum, body speech and mind. If we do Guruyoga in a formal way such as in a tun practice, we have indications on how we should apply it. If we go to the essence, the visualization of a single A within a tigle in which all the aspects of body, voice and mind of all our teachers are unified, it isn’t necessary to go into detailed visualizations mentally one at a time. This is called Ati Guruyoga.