from Kyabje Gelek Rimpoche's extended commentary on the Lama Chöpa:
What are the necessary qualities for you to learn and practice this teaching? You must have had the common teachings already, common with Theravada and sutra level Mahayana, and, in addition, you must have obtained an initiation into the Vajrayana for one of the great maha anu yoga tantra yidams. That means you must have received the four initiations properly in one of these great mandalas of a yidam and you also have kept the commitments and vows intact.
In others words, you must have had basic Buddhist teachings, must have taken refuge in Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha, must have a good understanding of and be influenced by the mind that seeks liberation, must be influenced by compassion, and must have taken initiation into a perfect mandala and kept the commitments and vows intact. Such a person is qualified. For people who have not taken initiation it might be a problem to do this practice. That is why we say that practitioners should have taken initiation. On the other hand, you cannot seal everything.
Keeping commitments and vows is very important. Normally, when we tell you that you can obtain enlightenment easily, this totally depends on keeping your vows intact. We often tell you that, as a Vajrayana practitioner, even if you are not doing anything, just lying down and sleeping and doing nothing, you will still obtain enlightenment, remember? This is the Vajrayana quality, but it depends on keeping your own commitment.
The moment I say ‘commitment’, people in the West think that I am referring to saying the sadhanas. That’s not the commitment. Actually that is some kind of voluntary work, although it has been made into a commitment by the lineage masters just to make sure people actually do practice. Apart from that, your real commitment is protecting the vows you have taken. If you do that, then, even if you just lie down, you will become enlightened, maybe not this lifetime, but within sixteen lifetimes it is guaranteed. That’s why it is so fortunate to meet with these teachings. If such a fortunate state is further helped along by a little work, you can produce enlightenment like an artist makes a piece of art by hand. So if you have the prerequisites and add guru-yoga as the backbone of all practices and on top of that do certain sadhanas and practices in the combination of mother and father tantras, you can produce enlightenment as easily as if you commissioned an artist to make some sculpture for you. There is a quotation from the Lamrim at the level of guru-yoga, which goes:
If you get teachings by the kindness of the guru,
even if you think you are not going to be liberated,
you will in fact be liberated.
There is also an example for that, which I can’t remember. You find it in the Liberation in the Palm of Your Hand. (Pabongka Rinpoche, Liberation in Our Hands, vol. II, pg. 6; Pabongka Rinpoche, Liberation in the Palm of Your Hand, pg. 254. It is a quotation from Nagarjuna’s Panchakrama, Five Stages of the Perfection Stage, to be found in Thurman, Essential Tibetan Buddhism, pg. 251: Who falls from the summit of a high mountain / May think ’I mustn’t fall!’ but she will fall. Who obtains the helpful prophecy by the Mentor’s kindness / May think ‘I should not be delivered,’ yet he will be delivered.) So it is very fortunate.
One of the commitments of the Vajrayana is that individuals should respect each other. Particularly between vajra master, vajra students, and the vajra brothers and sisters there should be profound respect. You express that respect by letting the senior vajra masters and students sit in the front. The junior ones should sit at the back. It is not right that whoever comes first should occupy the front row and leave the senior ones outside. That is not the Vajrayana way. If I don’t mention it, it is not right. So right from the beginning this should be done, unless certain individuals, for whatever reason, choose to sit at the back. That is different. Otherwise, with the exception of the chanting leaders, etc., one should let the senior people sit in front. There will be a time when the junior ones come up to the front. That is the way it works in the Vajrayana sangha.
It is the same in the Sutrayana sangha of monks and nuns, too. They count four levels of seniority according to how long they have been ordained.
In the Vajrayana system, at least in this sangha, we know who is senior and who not. It is not according to what your age is, or your color, but the time since you have entered into the Vajrayana teaching tradition. That is part of the Vajrayana commitment, too. It is a measure of respect for one another. Regarding this kind of respect, if you are looking for faults, you will always find them; if you are looking for qualities, you will always see them. However, you have to make sure that you don’t go as far as becoming a Sir or Madam Positive. Apart from that, one should always look for the good qualities of the vajra master and sangha. That’s how it works.
See Also: How to listen well