Syllables and Prayers During Guru Yoga

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Accepted answer

Just the prayer and syllables in question, not the surrounding prayers and other elements of the practice (e.g., the refuge prayer), but this is the prayer that I was thinking of (བླ་མའི་རྣལ་འབྱོར, called the "lamai naljor prayer", also transliterated as "lamé naljor", or translated as "Guru Yoga prayer"):

སྤྱི་གཙུག་བདེ་བ་ཆེན་པོའི་ཕོ་བྲང་དུ།
དྲིན་ཆེན་རྩ་བའི་བླ་མ་ལ་གསོལ་བ་འདེབས།
སངས་རྒྱས་སེམས་སུ་སྟོན་པ་རིན་པོ་ཆེ།
རང་ངོ་རང་གིས་ཤེས་པར་བྱིན་གྱིས་རློབས།

Transliterated:

Chi tsuk dé wa chen pö po drang du
Drin chen tsa wé la ma la söl wa dep
Sang gyé sem su tön pa rin po ché
Rang ngo rang gi shé par jin gyi lop

It has been translated as:

On the crown of my head, in a palace of great bliss
Benevolent root lama, I pray to you.
Precious one that reveals that my own mind is Buddha,
Bless me to recognize my own true nature.

I have also seen it translated a little more poetically:

From the crown of my head, palace of great bliss,
I pray to you, benevolent root lama.
O precious one, grant me the blessings
To recognize my own true nature as a Buddha.

There is a version of this practice found in Opening the Door to Bön by Latri Khenpo Geshe Nyima Dakpa Rinpoche, in the 5th preliminary practice, "Connecting With the Teacher", which provides a virtually identical prayer with a slightly different transliteration and another translation.

It also includes a lot of the surrounding details, visualizations, and prayers. This version of the practice is subtly different from the one that I learned, but the bones are very similar if not identical.

The three syllables are:

  • AH – White, Forehead
  • OM – Red, Throat
  • HUNG – Dark Blue, Mind

These are Bön-specific seed syllables and other branches sometimes use variations.

I don't own the book and so can't speak to its contents in any great detail, but Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche has written a book called Guru Yoga: According To The Preliminary Practice Of Longchen Nyingtik would seem to cover the practice from a different angle.

Upvote:2

I am a Vajrayana practitioner and Guru Yoga is our core practice. It has nothing to do with 'yoga'. It translates as ‘Meditation on the Lama’ (Skt. Guru Yoga, Tib. Lami Naljor) and its goal is to realize the nature of mind through identifying with the Lama.

It is a profound practice and I am not sure whether it is appropriate to share the details publicly. Normally one should receive explanations in person from a teacher or some experienced practitioner. I can imagine there are many variants of Guru Yoga as there are plenty of lineages and people have connections to various Lamas. The most important is to trust the Lama that he indeed represents perfect qualities which we want to identify with.

If you want to practise this meditation, the best would be to find a Buddhist centre from Vajrayana tradition and try to receive the explanations there. Please note that some forms of Guru Yoga can only be practised after completing Ngöndro (preliminary practices) which can take a couple of years.

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