Nov 04

Kalu Rinpoche | Why do we have to practice the deities

Q: As we have the potential in ourselves, why do we have to practice the deities, peaceful or wrathful?

A: So you are saying that we have a potential, all the sentient beings have a potential to recognize the nature of the mind, or to reach the buddhahood, but why we have to practice deity? Why we have to practice the pacified deities or the wrathful deities? So that is your question.

So my answer is the wrathful deity and the peaceful appearance of the deity is simply a preference to the people and to all the sentient beings. It’s not necessarily that has to be the exact appearance of the Buddha and Bodhisattva. So therefore we need to understand that the wrathful protector or deity does not mean that they are very upset and angry all the time. Their wrathful appearance is due to wanting to liberate all the sentient beings but with a great courage and great strength and great, full compassionate state of mind, combined together, and that is their expression.

Little bit like the family relatives and the best friends who loves their other relatives and other best friends, who has this beautiful and strong emotions that is expressing by itself, towards others and towards your loved ones. So it can be like that. It’s not necessarily means that the wrathful deities are very unhappy and the peaceful deities are very, very calm. It doesn’t mean anything. It’s just a preference to all the different practitioners.

That being said, I think the most important that you need to understand, is that all the deity practice is part of the shine practice, it’s part of the method to train our mind, because in order to reach to the non-duality state of mind, it is simply impossible. Like an example, I was just giving a teaching just before this live streaming.

I was saying that, when we are little children, we, our view in life is very simple. It’s little bit like, “I’m happy”, or “I’m unhappy”, and then as we go into our life, as we explore more into the life, of the suffering and the life itself, and then we discover much more than happy or unhappy. There’s much more into our emotion and we explore much more sadness, we explore much more adventurous attitude, we also explore much more courageous attitude, we explore and we mould and transform into a different attitude to different individuals.

So therefore, as a practitioner, it’s not simply as doing a practice or not doing a practice. Our state of mind, and the emotions, there’s much more different levels of, different categories of improvement that we can make. And there’s many subtle levels that we need to overcome, gradually with a sense of patience and dedication combined together.

So I think you need to understand little bit more in that perspective. And then at the same, like I said, all the wrathful and the peaceful deities, is simply a preference to all the different individuals, as it is an emanation of the Buddha and the Bodhisattva itself.

 

Kalu Rinpoche
FB Livestream – December 13, 2020