Question asked by Charlene
Tsem Tulku gave Dorje Shugden as a YIDAM practice to some of his students so claims Pastor David Lai.
He stated this in his Youtube video of August 10, 2021 titled, "Once Upon A Time With Rinpoche – Rinpoche's Personal Yidam Pt 6".
Here is the link to that video and please go to the 11:00 minute mark. It is roughly 45 seconds long.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tSw_LcHw4S0
Dear Charlene,
Rinpoche had assigned Dorje Shugden as the main practise that certain students should practice, hence they take Dorje Shugden as their “yidam” referring to Dorje Shugden being their primary practice, due to affinity, need, etc.
As Pastor David clarified, Dorje Shugden is an enlightened being. So he can be practised as a proper yidam, however there doesn’t exist the practice of Dorje Shugden as a yidam, or meditation deity, only a Protector deity. The criteria for a deity to be considered a yidam deity is the generation and completion stages associated with tantra. That is the difference between whether a deity is practised as a Dharma Protector or a Yidam. Pastor David has clarified these in other talks that he has given, but I cannot remember which ones, as it was not the main topic.
For example, let’s take the example of White Mahakala. He has texts that propitiate him as a Dharma Protector, so he is practised as a Dharma Protector. He is also fully enlightened, and lamas do assign his practice as a Dharma Protector as the main practise that a student should focus on. In that sense he is their ‘yidam’ because he is the main practice that they focus on.
However, he is also practised as a proper yidam, because there are initiations, lineages and practice texts that include the generation and completion stages, so in that case he is a proper yidam. That is the main difference between emanations of enlightened deities being either a Dharma Protector or a Yidam. Currently there are no lineages of Dorje Shugden being practised as a yidam, only a Dharma Protector. I hope the difference is clear.
So there is actually no contradiction with what Pastor David said, because of how Pastor David used the word yidam to refer to a person’s main practise, and the actual definition of the difference between a Dharma protector and a yidam. As stated by Tsem Rinpoche himself on many occasions, Dorje Shugden is Manjushri, and as an enlightened being he can be practised as a proper yidam, but this practice simply does not exist at the moment. Hopefully in the future, Dorje Shugden and the Lamas will manifest his teaching as a yidam replete with both the completion and generation stages. I hope this helps. Thank you.