"In guru yoga, the essential point to understand is that all the buddhas are of one taste in the dharmakaya. The dharmakaya is the absolute guru, and this is all the buddhas. This is the very heart of guru yoga practice. Without understanding this, there’s no way to practice guru yoga comfortably. Even if we do the visualizations it won’t be completely satisfactory because we’ll be unclear as to how a buddha is the embodiment of the guru and the guru is the embodiment of a buddha. However, it will be extremely clear if we understand the very heart of guru yoga, that the guru is a buddha and a buddha is the guru.

The dharmakaya is like the ocean in which many waters are mixed and our various gurus are like drops from the ocean. All our gurus are manifestations of the dharmakaya, the absolute guru, the holy mind of all the buddhas; the absolute guru manifests in an ordinary form in accordance with our karma.

This ordinary form is the conventional guru, the essence of which is the absolute guru. When we actually see or visualize a deity or see statues or paintings of deities we should recognize that they are all the guru."

Lama Zopa Rinpoche