Oneness of Guru and Buddha

Yutang Lin


Devoting to Dharma for three decades without regret or complaints,
Compassionately blessing all worldly beings as does a Bodhisattva,
Protecting sentient beings through the oneness of Guru and Buddha,
Such essence was graciously revealed via a wondrous Dharma dream.

Comment:

Long ago when I read the Chinese book "Mu En Lu" I was very touched by a photo of Dr. Lin that was taken during his performance of a fire puja; it showed him in deep meditative concentration. So I thought about sketching his image based on this photo and presenting it to him one day. However, I doubted that my karma was good enough for me to carry out such a project well, so I told myself to postpone it until I have completed the basic one hundred thousand repetitions of the Hundred-Syllable Mantra of Vajrasattva.

On the day I finally finished the chanting up to 111,111 times, coincidentally and auspiciously I received Guru Lin's gift in the mail, a splendid copy of "the Seven Medicine Guru Buddhas Sutra." It arrived as if it was a timely encouraging present for me. I was extremely excited, yet I hadn't forgotten my wish of doing the sketch. So, one day later, I started the sketch. Many hours went by, and many times I ruined the sketch. The reason was that I just couldn't capture Guru's shining spirit. I looked outside and saw the sun setting over the top of the hill, and finally stopped amending and just let it be. Thus whatever ideas of suitable background came up to my mind were immediately put down on the sketch. I framed the sketch, then did the same to the copy of the fire puja photo, which I had previously sent to Staple's for an enlargement color copy and cut to the right size. The next day both frames got mailed out in one package, and, after a few days, out went another package of documents to Guru Lin also. However, both packages arrived at Guru Lin's house at the same time. He told me the glass of the framed sketch was broken during shipping. I felt very bad and sorry, but Guru Lin comforted me by saying that it's an auspicious sign of liberation because the sketch was "getting out of the frame."

That night I had a dream, in which Mrs. Lin showed me her version of Guru's sketch. It was so realistic and beautiful it's just unbelievable. Then I went to their altar room to pay worship to Buddhas. All of a sudden I noticed that on the left wall of this room there was a niche about 2 meters tall and 1 meter wide, and the depth was about 1 meter, too. The five surfaces of this niche were all crimson. I could see many small and big sketches of Guru Lin filling up this niche. One of them was done by his second son Frank, and the others were from Dharma friends all over the world. However, the biggest one that was put in the middle caught my eyes. I looked carefully and found that it's a sketch of Guru Lin combined with Wei Tuo Bodhisattva. I couldn't really tell if the face was that of Guru Lin or Wei Tuo Bodhisattva, but just by the first sight I realized it's actually a non-dualistic picture of Guru Lin and Wei Tuo Bodhisattva, thus inseparable and non-differentiable. There was even some kind of power telling me that this image is also Guan Gong the Dharma Protector. So, seriously speaking, it's an image of Trinity. This image was framed in the kind of light box that doctors use to examine X-ray films, so it seemed translucent, and was glowing and making the whole niche shining.

After I woke up I pondered again on the dream, and realized that my Guru, Dr. Lin, has dedicated his life to Dharma for almost 30 years without regret or complaints, whose spirit is just like that of Wei Tuo Bodhisattvas and Dharma Protector Guan Gong. Furthermore, his endless care and help over Buddhists in general, students and all sentient beings are manifestations of Buddhas and Bodhisattvas. No wonder such a miraculous image appeared in my dream! Accordingly, I also realized that I have been constantly blessed by Guru Lin ever since I started my Buddhist practices. It's very fortunate that I was shown and taught such Dharma significance in the dream, which coincides with what's expressed in Guru Lin's previous poem "Guru Buddha."


July 9th, 2004
New Jersey


Epilog

Yutang Lin

After Pao-Yuan offered the sketch she got an inspirational dream. She described it to me in an email, and I told her to write it into an essay to help the public build right faith in the Dharma.

Long years ago when I started to follow and attend Guru Chen once I saw in a dream Wei Tuo Bodhisattva was holding the hand of a five or six year old boy by his side and the boy was me. Since then I have had many blessed experiences of his presence. Among those the most outstanding ones were related to the photo of Giving of Fearlessness and the "Om Mani Padme Hong" mantra sheet that I wrote. Please read my related works on these for details. Dharma Protector Guan Gong also appeared many times to me to grant his supportive blessings.

This time a most extraordinary blessing was granted to us through the manifestation of a miraculous non-dual image of Trinity of Dharma Protectors and Practitioner to Pao Yuan, so that novices may be well guided on the path, and my dedication to the Dharma is thereby awarded with distinction to encourage more Buddhists to follow suit with the knowledge that such efforts would not be in vain eventually.

To commemorate this extraordinary blessing I offered a poem below:

Full devotion in offering the sketch won Buddha's blessings,
Let see an awe-inspiring Protector image of Guru in dream.
Non-dual and non-differentiable are Guru and Bodhisattvas,
Thus teaching that their Bodhi intentions for beings are one.


Epilog written in Chinese on July 9, 2004
Translated on July 10, 2004
El Cerrito, California


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