Guru Yoga
Guru Yoga is a tantric Buddhist practice that cultivates devotion to a spiritual teacher and identification with that teacher’s awakened qualities.
Seven-Line Prayer: A Tibetan Buddhist prayer invoking Padmasambhava through seven lines of verse. Practitioners often recite it while invoking Padmasambhava as the root teacher.
Vajrayana Guru: A spiritual teacher who transmits tantric Buddhist teachings and guides students in their practice. Guru Yoga centers on the teacher as guide and source of tantric instruction.
Padmasambhava: An eighth-century tantric master traditionally associated with establishing Buddhism in Tibet. Tibetan traditions preserve influential Guru Yoga practices centered on Padmasambhava.
Teacher devotion and abuse in Buddhism: The ethical problem of spiritual teachers exploiting students under claims of authority or sacred status. Devotion can be misused to excuse coercion, making ethical boundaries essential.
Merit Field: A visualization of teachers, buddhas, bodhisattvas, and other sources of refuge and blessing. The teacher is visualized within a sacred assembly that receives offerings and prayers.
Guru–disciple relationship: A spiritual relationship in which a teacher instructs and guides a student on a religious path. The practice depends on trust and commitment within this relationship.
Marpa Lotsawa: An eleventh-century Tibetan translator and teacher who transmitted tantric teachings from India to Tibet. His relationship with Milarepa became a defining example of teacher-guided transformation.
Buddhist devotional practice: Religious practices expressing reverence through offerings, chanting, pilgrimage, or veneration. Guru Yoga is a specific tantric form of devotion, not devotion in general.
Mantra: A sacred syllable or phrase repeated in religious practice for concentration, invocation, or transformation. Recitation gives the visualization a repeated verbal focus.
Buddhist Lineage: A chain of teachers and students through which Buddhist teachings and practices are transmitted. The guru is revered as a link in an inherited transmission of teachings.