Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this nine-minute talk, Geshe Dhawa Gyaltsen makes the point that in Buddhism, spiritual authority and high positions depend on practice and qualifications, not gender or social status. He illustrates this through the true story of a poor Tibetan boy who herded yaks and later became one of Tibet’s highest religious authorities—the doctrine holder—through dedicated study and intensive meditation practice. When he returned home, his childhood friend couldn’t recognize the spiritual achievement and refused his teachings, unable to see past their shared history as yak herders. Throughout, Geshe Dhawa emphasizes that anyone with genuine practice can reach Buddhism’s highest positions.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 04 IBP no date.mp3
UUID: 8ec78be5-f756-4149-a77a-40b6a377e01b
Teacher: Geshe Dhawa Gyaltsen
Collection: Introduction to Buddhist Philosophy (Geshe Dhawa Gyaltsen)
Date: 1983 (exact day not recorded)
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 9.3 minutes
Words: ~937
There are lots of, you know, sort of female lamas. Some of them personally know, and these these female lamas, you know, are considered to be this, you know, source of, you know, different teachings, different lineage of the teaching, and Geshe la has known them personally. And for instance, in Tibet, they are, you know, how to say, few, you know, highly respected and highly realized female lamas. That shows. But, generally, you see, generally, there’s no, you know, overall rule that some should be Lama or some shouldn’t be Lama.
Just depends upon your own practice. If you do practice, you are you can be called as Lama. You can be called like anything. You see? So as, you know, sort of in the teaching itself says that or in Tibet, we say that if the son or the daughter of the mother has the has done the proper sort of practice or proper studies, then the how to say, the positions of the the positions of and the highest positions of the Dharma or the teaching hold in Tibet has no permanent honor.
So in in a way, if one can, then I should say in the western sort of sense, there’s no permanent positions holder or pope or something like that. So everybody can in Tibet sense, everybody can female, girl, boy, he, she can become the pope provided that they have the proper qualifications qualifications. So in Tibet, you know, mean, as we’re saying that, like a pope, you know, pope in the western sense called the the throne holder of the doctrines. So and so how to say? To get that positions, there’s no, you know, discrimination against female or male.
So whoever does the right practices, they can, you know, go right through on top of their thrones. Mhmm. So, honestly, I think you have already I think you have already got this sense of humor. So I don’t as the was telling this some event, you know, which happened in Tibet, believed that it would be very sort of, you know, helpful to, you know, to prove that if one can, nobody how does if one can, there’s no permanent holder of the, you know, the throne of the doctrine holder. And so in Tibet from Eastern Tibet, you know, the monks, they used to go to Central Tibet to study, you see, and, you know, live in the monastic system and they study and things like that.
So one, you know, sort of Tibetan boy, he was from very, very poor family, and he used to, you know, he used to he used to, you know, look after the yaks and, you know, like, let’s say, cows and so forth when he was poor. So he used to, you know, take the take the, you know, the yaks and so forth in the forest to, you know, to get them, you know, graze the grass or whatever. So in that time, he he he has got, you know, his friend. You know? His friend, they were so young.
And this boy, you know, he has got a big nose. You see, he’s so he got a nickname, the one who has got a big nose. So, anyway, he became, you know, the monk, and he went to central Tibet, and he did the studies and everything. He’s very poor. He hasn’t got any sort of rich families or powerful peoples influence.
However, he did study, and he became really good monk. He how to say? He achieved higher spiritual understanding, things like that. Anyway, he become the eventually, he become, you know, the the he I have to say, the throne holder of the doctrines in in the in Tibet. So after having done the few years, he went for holiday to his local home or his local how home or town, whatever.
So then, you know, the sort of the people started to talk, oh, there’s now a big Lama. As is coming to, you know, this place, and we must go for teachings, blah blah blah. So all people, you know, went there to take teachings. Then his friend first didn’t know who was the Lama, so he went to in the to take the teaching. So when he saw him, he said, oh, I’m not going to take teaching he from him.
Bloody this big nose. Well, he doesn’t know anything. He doesn’t any he doesn’t know anything. We used to go to look after the cows and rapulos. He used to be no sillier than me, so I don’t want to take teaching from him.
So this, you know, is not just some kind of, you know, some kind of fictitious character or anything like that. It’s, you know, fact. If you want to see, you can find in a lot of his Buddhist writings, and he says a lot of book and things like that he did. Still, you know, monks sort of study them. So and and he did a lot of concentration practice once he known he used to sort of do the concentration practice for, how to say, weeks and weeks time nonstop.
Yeah. Yeah. So basically, I said, like, that there are many Yeah. So I gave these, talks with the pure motivation that it may not help you or you can benefit from, from my talk. So and I hope that, you can sort of, you know, get something from this, and, we will all try to do, do the practice or whatever accordingly.
And, yeah, that’s it.