Take for example, if you’re friends with the Prime Minister, all his smaller ministers will help and be friendly with you too. So it is similar to this concept.
Then how come I don’t just pray to Buddha and all of them also will help me?
In regards to this question, this is the difference between the Buddhas and Dharma Protectors. They both have different functions. Take for example, even the Buddhas have many different emanations and functions. Medicine Buddha is very good for healing, Dukkar is good for protection from spirits, White Tara is good for long life etc. This is because each Buddha when they arise they have certain aspirations to help people of that particular affliction. It doesn’t mean that if we pray to Medicine Buddha, all we get is healing, but the main focus is healing, and along with it comes other blessings and the path to our eventual enlightenment.
The Buddha’s main wish is for us to reach enlightenment. But because we live in a world that’s full of distractions, that’s where the Dharma Protectors come along to help us. Dharma Protectors like Dorje Shugden is able to help us in most regards of our lives, for example, creating a good condition and environment for us so that we will have lesser distractions to practice the Dharma. So you will see many people will tell you for example, they managed to get a stable job, or their families don’t cause too much trouble anymore, or they found a Dharma centre; all after praying to Dorje Shugden. So when we pray to Dorje Shugden and create the connection, he helps us to create a good environment of which we will then be able to practice with more ease and garner merits to support our actual Dharma practice.
His help also comes swiftly, not because the Buddhas is inferior to Dorje Shugden, but simply because he is ‘closer’ with us. Tsem Rinpoche likes to use this example: If you live in Singapore, and you need help from a friend. One of your friend lives in Singapore and the other in Penang… of course the one living in Singapore will reach to you faster. At the moment, because of our lack of merits, the Buddhas are spiritually distant from us. Even if Shakyamuni was screaming infront of our face, we can’t see it due to our negative karma and obscurations. But for Dharma Protector such as Dorje Shugden, we can see him, such as when he takes trance in an Oracle, he can bless us and guide us, even give us Dharma teachings through his minister Kache Marpo.
As a conclusion to the above, Yidam practice (which is prayers towards the Buddhas such as Manjushri, Lama Tsongkhapa etc) is our main practice because enlightenment is the ultimate goal. But having a Dharma Protector is equally important as he helps support us to create the right conditions NOW so that we can engage deeper in Dharma practice.
