TRANSCRIPT

Buddhas cannot liberate you, they can’t take away your suffering, they can’t give you their happiness, they cannot take away your karma, they cannot give you good karma. So, what do Buddhas do?

Buddhas can teach you how to achieve that. Just like anything in life, if you have a lovely mother who’s giving you so much wisdom, she can’t take anything from you or give you anything she has, she could only teach you. And the kindness of teaching you is teaching you how to make bread as opposed to getting it for free. Because one day somebody will stop giving you some bread, but if you know how to make it, isn’t your mother very kind?

So we revere the Buddha in that manner. When we knock our heads on the floor and worship to Buddha, when we offer incense, when we offer water and flowers to the Buddha and we pray and chant, we are praying in that respective and not in the Christian sense. I want you to get that straight. Can you see the analogy? You’ll get better, like that.

When we revere the Buddha, when we worship the Buddha, for lack of a better word, when we trust the Buddha, we create an open affinity for a Buddha to assist us, whether in our dreams, through manifesting or manipulating things in a positive way that we can go towards the teachings more.

When we go to the teachings more, we’re able to learn more and then in the end, the very help the Buddha gave us, we won’t need a Buddha anymore. And the Buddha is fine with that we won’t need him in the future because the name of the game is to be a Buddha.

Your mother teaches you to become independent of her over time so that you can grow up to be a fabulous adult on your own. She doesn’t make you dependent on her unless she’s sick, off, or abnormal and do evil-like Bates Motel thingy. Buddhas make you independent.

Buddhas also realise that we have different types of karma. Some of us can learn, some of us can meditate, some of us cannot. For example, someone who’s mentally handicapped, cannot meditate, cannot learn. So, are they going to be bereft of spiritual refuge? No, they’re also included. Therefore, we as humans due to the karma that we have created and the manifestation of karma in our lives make us restricted or not restricted. The karma is not static but it’s there.

For example, your karma to be an intelligent, independent woman opens. You can’t be a man, you can’t be a dog, you can’t be a kangaroo. You have to be an intelligent woman. If you want to be anything else, it is not possible. That’s karma opening. Your future life of what you’re going to be – an intelligent woman, a man or whatever – has not open yet and what you are doing now would determine that.

In between, because of the many levels of intricate karma that we have created, sometimes we won’t get food, be abused, get sick, have accidents, get robbed, go to a wrong place, meet the wrong person, things like that can happen along the path. But the basic path is open to us, although we have obstacles.

We know our guru is good. We know Buddhism is good. That’s why we’re even here but along the way sometimes we lose faith, sometimes we have doubts, sometimes people talk or we see things we don’t understand, and then it just builds up, and we say, “You know, I give up”. And that’s how a Dharma Protector comes in to protect us from veering off the path.

When we consistently pray and make offerings and worship a Dharma Protector, he removes those little things on the side along the way so that we can walk on the path. He doesn’t walk on the path for us. He doesn’t walk us on the path, he removes things on the path that might stop you, but you still have to walk the path.

Therefore, Dharma Protector practice in Buddhism is very strong and very necessary. Now, these Dharma Protectors can be different types and you’re going to learn this well. They can be powerful elementals that have been subdued by more powerful lamas and bound by oath to help you.

Pele, the Hawaiian Goddess

For example, you live in Malibu and there’s a powerful elemental there associated with the ocean. She always appears as a mermaid or as a lady walking on the beach. She appears when there’s a disaster, when people need help she’ll come to the rescue. But sometimes she gets pissed off and gets revenge, like Pele in Hawaii.

So, a powerful lama comes and summons her and says, “Look, you’re a powerful lady and I know you are temperamental, but these people are not as strong as you and you are hurting them sometimes in your anger. From now on, I bind you to not hurt them anymore and only help. So, when they recite these words, you will be invoked. Om Pele Hum Phet. And I know you, beautiful lady that you like seashells, you like salt, you like animals of the ocean and you protect them, and they are your pets. So, people who worship you can’t eat seafood. People who worship you, they want to get into your good books, they offer you seashell, they offer you water with a little bit of salt. So when people do that and they ask you a prayer or ask you a wish that is not harmful for them long instance, can you grant it?” So, the goddess or elemental says, “Yes, I promise.” “So, you are bound to this place for 2,000 years, that could be 20 generations, after that you are free to do what you want. Do you agree?” “I agree.”

Then people started making images of her. They make pictures of her. They make amulets of her, and recite her mantra, Om Pele Hum Phet. They make offerings of seashells. So, what happens? She becomes their protector and when they ask her things, she will help. How does she help? With those ordinary things you need in life; but she doesn’t help you reach moksha, freedom.

So, she is a protector that is bound.

There’s another type of protector that when you have achieved enlightenment, and you are a Buddha, you have zero limitations of your body, speech and mind. So those body, speech, and mind can emanate or avatar into different forms and different appearances for different occasions.

For example, a loving mother will show her angry red eyes, long nails, a stick, loud voice if a child is playing in traffic; and the child will probably get beaten, put away, locked away, or sent to the room with no dinner. Is that love or hatred?

Similarly, a Buddha can manifest into a ferocious form to protect us from something that is very harmful in a wrathful manner. Therefore, the protectors can manifest in male or female forms. They can manifest in wrathful and peaceful forms. It depends on the occasion and where you live and who you are. If you live in a war-torn area, the protectors will manifest in a wrathful fierce stance because he is always ready to go to war.

Now, Dorje Shugden is believed for 400 years, even by the Dalai Lama’s own teachers, to be an emanation of the Buddha Manjushri of Wisdom. The Buddha Manjushri of Wisdom is himself a disciple of the main Buddha Shakyamuni. So we have established he is a Buddha.

If you adopt Dorje Shugden and you are a kind person and you do the rudimentary worship of Dorje Shugden, at the time of death he will come to take your consciousness to a better place. It is promised.

So, what’s the shortcut? You get the cake and you get to eat it too. Meaning, you don’t have to be a monk for him to help you. You don’t have to go and join the monastery to study and debate. He will help you if you are a good person. You just contact him.

You see, “worship” is a very scary word for a lot of Americans. Worship to me is making a telephone call to him every day. “Hey, I’m thinking about you, don’t forget me. I brought you some milk, I brought you some tea,” things that he liked during his lifetime, like that mermaid. And so, when you do those familiars you develop a relationship between you and him.

But the commitment is this, you can’t steal, hurt people, or kill. White lies are okay. Are those difficult to keep? Not at all because you’re already a good person. And that’s what’s required of Dorje Shugden’s worship.

Guess what? You can be an atheist and worship him. He’s fine. You can be a Christian and worship him, he’s fine. People say if you worship him you can’t study the other school of Buddhism. I say you are wrong. You could be a Jew and worship him, and he’ll still help you. You know why? He doesn’t help you on the basis of what you are, he helps you since you need help and you trust him.

Shouldn’t a United States Federal judge give decisions based on the law or on personal like and dislike? By law, that’s how Dorje Shugden is.

People would like to politicise and say that if you practise the yellow hat school of Buddhism and you practise Dorje Shugden, you can’t practise other lineages or else he’ll kill, hurt or punish you, or he’ll make you crazy. I haven’t seen anyone become like that until now. Anyone.

Look at me, I’m not exactly the goody-goody monk, am I? I’m still alive, fat and doing “okay”. I’m not exactly the Dalai Lama, am I? And why don’t you take a few minutes out every day to contact Dorje Shugden so that when you and I finally drop dead, you will also go to a good place?

And guess what? If he doesn’t exist you still won’t lose anything because reciting his mantra will still keep you calm and meditative. And guess what? You don’t have to give him anything. You don’t have to give me anything. You don’t have to pay me for a mantra.

Why is it free? Because universal truth is free. So if I package it and sell it to you, I might have to build a temple or I’m just greedy. So, if you pray to such a deity, such a guardian angel of Tibet, I won’t say your afterlife is guaranteed but I will say that you are wearing your reflectors while riding your bike at night. It’s better than no reflector. Yes, it’s a little cumbersome to wear those reflectors but guess what? It can only help, not harm.

This transcript has been edited for clarity and ease of understanding.

Close transcript