from Kyabje Gelek Rimpoche's extended commentary on the Lama Chöpa:
Do kindly generate a very good motivation:
For the benefit of all mother sentient beings I want to obtain the ultimate Buddha Vajradhara
state within a very, very short period. For this purpose, I would like to listen to this teaching of
guru-yoga, the combined essence of sutra and tantra, and practice it.
This is the pure motivation normally prescribed in Lamrim teachings. So whatever understanding of bo- dhimind you have, generate that for the whole period of this retreat.
As for the motivation, it is a Dharma orientation. In this retreat, the beginning activity is the motivation. We are here in a retreat place, in the cold, in the middle of nowhere, somewhere in the middle of Michi- gan, in the snow, in miserable conditions. If you wanted to pick the most miserable place, this would be it! Really true. We could have done this in New York, or in California, or on the Bahamas. But we chose to be in the middle of nowhere, the most miserable place ever possible. All of that is not to torture ourselves, but to make some difference to our journey.
If you look at earlier times, people would go out in search of the teachings. The Tibetans did not get teachings easily. They had to select their best twenty-one kids and send them out of Tibet to India with a great deal of difficulties. Apart from six or seven, all died in India from the heat, coming from a cold country like Tibet. Also, in those days there were no roads. One early translator said, ‘There were a lot of difficult times on the journey, where the trees had fallen down on mountain passages. Even now, when I think about it, my heart shakes, together with my intestines.’ They really went through a lot of hardship. You can read Marpa’s biography in English and find out how much hardship he took to get teachings from Naropa. You can read how much hardship Naropa took to take teachings from Tilopa, how much hardship Milarepa took to get teachings from Marpa. That was in Tibet itself.
So whatever we do here, some hardships are well-deserved. The purpose why we are taken these hardships is to get some benefit through ourselves, for ourselves, for other people and also for future generations. This is our motivation. Even if you can’t think of all sentient beings, think of people you are connected with, the people around you, the family, the parents, the children. That is the motivation. That becomes your purpose, your mission, your job. That is why we are here.
Also it is really strange. This kind of teaching should not be happening here. But by sheer luck, it is happening. We are very fortunate to be part of it and so we should make best use of it. It is really a great opportunity. There is great benefit. I don’t have to tell you how good it is. You know yourself. So think of the family, children, grandchildren and so on. Then ‘all sentient beings’ will naturally come out of that. There is no such a person called ‘all sentient beings’. Remember Stephen Batchelor’s joke: “Hey, you are not ‘all sentient beings’, so get out of my way.”
To remind you again, bodhimind is nothing other than the motivation and this is nothing but your purpose, your mission. You are about to hear the teaching which all the past and present enlightened beings have practiced. Traditionally, it is said:
It is the single path which all enlightened beings of the past, present, and future follow.
It is the essence of the practice of the early Indian mahasiddhas and mahapandits and of the Tibetan
great masters who were specialized in learning, meditation, teaching, and composing.
It is the hand which collects both accumulations of merit, relative and absolute.
It is the fire which destroys all negativities, broken commitments, and downfalls.
It is the ultimate fire which destroys all bad karmas.
It is the hook which brings ultimate accomplishments, ordinary and extraordinary siddhihoods.
It is the practice that is absolutely necessary in sutra and tantra both.
It is the bliss-void combination.
This is guru-yoga practice, particularly the way it was practiced by the Mahasiddha Dharmavajra and his disciple, Gyelwa Ensapa, traditionally known as father and son Mahasiddha Dharmavajra. (For the story see Geshe Kelsang Gyatso, Great Treasury of Merit, pg. 35-38.)