Dorje Shugden
Who is Dorje Shugden?
Buddhas appear in many forms to help living beings.
Dorje Shugden is a Buddha who appears as a Dharma Protector to help us progress along the spiritual path to enlightenment.
‘Dharma’ means Buddha’s teachings and the inner realizations we gain from putting them into practice.
To follow the path to enlightenment taught by Buddha, we must develop love and compassion for all living beings and then train sincerely in giving, moral discipline, patience, joyous effort, meditative concentration and wisdom.
Our motivation is to become free from all faults and accomplish all good qualities so that we can help every living being find lasting peace and happiness.
When we recite the Dorje Shugden prayer we ask him to protect the growth and development of these precious realizations, or Dharma, within our mind.
That is the function of a Dharma Protector.
The symbolism of Dorje Shugden
How does Dorje Shugden protect the growth of spiritual realizations within our minds?
Because he is the nature of enlightened wisdom, he helps us to identify, reduce, and eventually eradicate our harmful states of mind such as anger, pride, jealousy, desirous attchment, and ignorance.
Buddha called these harmful minds the real enemy of living beings, and the wrathful aspect of Dorje Shugden symbolizes the power of spiritual wisdom to destroy them.
Buddhists never regard other living beings as their enemies. Our only enemies are the inner enemies of the harmful minds that cause suffering to ourselves and others.
The sword held by Dorje Shugden symbolizes the power of spiritual wisdom to cut these harmful minds at their root, and the heart he holds in his other hand symbolizes his enlightened love and compassion. He wears the robes of a monk to remind us that we should always observe pure moral discipline.
In reality, Dorje Shugden is a compassionate Buddha, like an enlightened father who cares for us and provides for us while we are progressing on the spiritual path.
He shows a wrathful aspect only to remind us that harmful states such as anger, pride and jealousy within our minds should not be tolerated.
Protecting all living beings
Followers of Dorje Shugden think of him as an emanation of their Spiritual Guide, who is a faithful follower of Je Tsongkhapa.
Je Tsongkhapa was a great 14th century reformer who restored the purity of Tibetan Buddhism, emphasizing the original teachings of Buddha as passed down through an unbroken lineage of realized teachers. To this day, the masters of this tradition are able to reveal the complete path to enlightenment originally taught by Buddha himself.
In the Dorje Shugden prayer we pray for this pure tradition to be preserved so that all living beings can follow the path to enlightenment and experience lasting inner peace and happiness.
But we do not pray only for followers of Je Tsongkhapa, or even just for Buddhists, we pray for Dorje Shugden to protect every living without exception.
As the prayer says:
Through your skilful deeds of preventing and nurturing,
Please lead all beings into the good path to ultimate happiness.