The Dharma Path
By Michael Erlewine
Margaret and I have been trying to move for about seven years, but no go. The houses either are priced too high or don’t meet our needs. Between us we have looked at thousands of houses online and visited too many to think about in person.
We could tell you a lot about the good and bad of houses at a glance, but here is the rub.
The house we are looking for only fits us, not anyone (or many ones) like us. What is similar to this in dharma is what is called our yidam.
A yidam in dharma for each of is like that particular house we are looking for. When I was learning I kept reading that your yidam was secret. And it took my own experience to not believe that old wife’s tale that our yidam is secret.
A yidam is not secret, but rather it is unique, peculiar to just us and it will only fit us. That’s the truth of it. It’s not good for anyone else, but we still can learn something by investigating. It’s our personal path to recognizing the nature of the mind.
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Another analogy is that we all ride the bus of the dharma Preliminaries, The Common Preliminaries, the Extraordinary Preliminaries, and the Special Preliminaries.
Where we get off that bus and take the walk to our personal house is like our Yidam. It fits only us, not anyone else. The yidam is the exact path that it will take to introduce us to the recognition of the mind’s true nature. In the diagram included here it is the red lines that take each person on the bus of the general practices we all do to their own individual yidam or house. Our yidam is the particular dharma path we each must walk. It helped me to know this.
[Midjourney AI graphic prompted by me.]
EMAIL Michael@Erlewine.net Note: If you would like to have access to other free books, articles, and videos on these topics, here are the links: SpiritGrooves.com.
As Bodhicitta is so precious,
May those without it now create it,
May those who have it not destroy it,
And may it ever grow and flourish.
