Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 45-minute talk, Geshe Pema Tsering reaches the culminating topic of his seven-week introductory course: the relationship with a spiritual master. He explains why this sits at the end rather than the beginning — Western newcomers need the whole philosophical map before the guru relationship makes sense. He walks through finding a qualified teacher (lineage credentials plus years of personal investigation of character and conduct), relating to one honestly (a Jack Kornfield quote anchors the point that even realized teachers remain on the path), and the tantric ideal of ultimately seeing one’s master as a fully enlightened Buddha. The session closes with a survey of tantric practice: the principle of taking the result as the path, the four levels of tantra, generation and completion stages, and a frank dismissal of “tantric sex” weekend courses as a profound misreading of extraordinarily demanding prerequisites. Suited to those completing a first introduction to Buddhist philosophy.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 2002 03 04 Intro to Buddhist Philosophy 4-3-02 (3).mp3
UUID: d1846ce0-22bb-4c9b-be31-2e2061339eff
Teacher: Geshe Pema Tsering
Collection: z Intro to Buddhist Philosophy 2002 wk 7 (Geshe Pema Tsering)
Date: 2002-03-04
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 45.0 minutes
Words: ~5,847
What are called the small, the middle, and the great scopes of spiritual practice. These three dimensions of spiritual practice, are integrated in the sense of each one growing out of the previous one but also integrated in the sense that each of the three are never left behind in practice but always in an ongoing way contribute to the spiritual practice however long the person’s been doing it. So it is taught however that certain practitioners may simply wish to practice up to a certain level. So it’s traditionally presented that there might be such a person as a small scope practitioner who simply lives with the determination to live skillfully and and they they don’t really seek to do anything more than that in a spiritual practice. And then beyond that the middle scope practitioner practices that same stuff but adds on to it this determination to be free from the predicament I’m in.
And to make that happen practices the three higher trainings of morality, concentration and wisdom. And then a practitioner may move on to the great scope where the person practices all of that up to there but adds on again the awakened heart of bodhicitta and using that energy practices the six perfections, especially the perfection of wisdom which by investigating the nature of reality leads to this liberated insight, insight, this transformational insight into self and the world. And further beyond that a great scope practitioner may choose to enhance his or her practice by the use of the tantric method of the clear light mind. And this practice is rooted in a relationship with a spiritual master. And that brings us to tonight’s topic.
So the second thing we’ll look at tonight now is this establishing of a relationship with a spiritual master. And here we’ll look at three things. I’ll make some introductory comments. I’ll talk about actually finding a spiritual master. And then thirdly, I’ll talk about how to relate to such a person.
Firstly, some introductory comments. Establishing a relationship with the spiritual master is is in fact usually taught at the beginning of a Lamrim or graduated path to enlightenment course. So why have I left it till the end? Because traditionally these teachings were given to usually to groups of monks who had been brought up in a Buddhist world, who had probably been studying Buddhist philosophy for many years at the monastery, and then later in their career these teachings would be given as a foundation for them to move into the serious meditative practice. That’s the origin of these teachings.
We’re using them in a very different way. We’re taking them perhaps for some of you as a first introduction to the whole of the Buddhist world. And so therefore it seemed appropriate to me to leave this topic till now rather than the very first night starting to talk to you about how to find a spiritual master. And it fits very nicely here because the relationship with a spiritual master the critical ingredient for tantric practice. So in fact in fact it fits very nicely to talk about it at this point.
But it’s not just tantra however. All of the Buddhist schools, whichever scope, whichever particular school and whichever scope of practice the practitioner is undertaking have all acknowledged the importance of the role of what what is variously called a spiritual friend or a teacher and or a master. And the different approaches within Buddhism have tend to put different emphases. And what I’ll present here is the emphasis within Tantric Buddhist practice on on the nature of the spiritual master. But one way to get an initial feeling for what this is about is to compare it with the relationship between a master craftsperson and an apprentice.
If you want to learn some apprenticeship like whatever it might be how to be a great carpenter then or a skilled craftsperson of some sort then the best way to do that is to go and apprentice yourself to someone who has mastered the trade and work beside this person for a number of years to pick up how to do it, to learn all the little tricks, to get some guidance about the difficult parts. And that’s not a bad analogy for the relationship with a spiritual master. And that’s in contrast to just going off on your own and saying, well, you know, I don’t need anyone to show me. I’ll just read a couple of do it yourself manuals and become a, you know, become a world class goldsmith in my own right on that basis. But this relationship, this master apprentice relationship is it has a special importance when it comes to the practice of tantra.
And it’s it’s actually the practice of tantra is actually seen as being rooted in the relationship with the teacher or the tantric master or the Sanskrit word for this for like this person is the guru, and the Tibetan word is lama. And it’s this person who would give the practitioner the empowerment to be able to proceed with Tantric practice and the instructions for how to actually go about it. So how to find? Second point, finding a spiritual master. This, of course, this varies with each person, but and it’s not it’s not necessarily a simple or easy task.
And I think this is especially the case for us Westerners where it can be hard to make any contact with such a person in the first place because there’s not a lot of them around. And even when we do, we can be quite apprehensive because sadly there have been all sorts of well publicised cases in the last thirty years of things seemingly going very badly wrong with some teachers and ending up with people being hurt and misled. So actually in response to this difficulty that we face, a very real difficulty, the Tibetan tradition actually puts great emphasis on two factors which help us to prevent such problems. And one is this concept of teachers practicing as part of some clearly recognized lineage. A lot of importance is put on that in the Buddhist traditions.
And this is like the credentials of a teacher. But of course, that’s no guarantee in its own right. And so the next and second point in a sense becomes the most important one and that is that the student has to take responsibility for investigating the quality of the teacher. And in the text, this has gone into inconsiderable detail about the sort of characteristics you should look for in a spiritual master. The degree to which they are reliable, have mastered the material both intellectually, degree to which they have mastered themselves, the degree to which they practice what they preach and so on.
And there’s all sorts of details given. And time and effort needs to be put into checking out a person in such a way. So we have to use our intelligence and our discrimination in this business and not not allow ourselves to be swept away by someone’s charisma. And the Dalai Lama says that it’s it may be inappropriate in fact to check someone out for a number of years before really making any commitment. And the tantric path does require a deep level of commitment to this relationship with one’s master.
So great care and good thinking are the order of the day. So the third point actually relating to a spiritual master. Once one has found such a person and begun to enter into a relationship, we have to be realistic about the nature of the possible spiritual master for two reasons. One is this idea of wholeness as distinct from some idealized perfection. So a genuinely great and highly realized teacher will still have all sorts of little quirks and idiosyncrasies because they’re simply being themselves.
Perhaps perfectly whole, but not fitting my projection of what godlike perfection is meant to be. And so, you know, you’ve you’ve fallen in love with this great spiritual master, and one day you see him picking his nose and you think, I made a mistake. He’s not godlike perfection of what I’m projecting onto him. How could he do such a thing? And the second point is that a teacher who has some significant realizations may still in fact be working on the path himself or herself.
And I’d like to read a quote from Jack Kornfield’s recent book called After the Ecstasy, the Laundry, which is a nice title. And it’s about the hard ongoing work. Remember I talked last week about the five paths of the realization of emptiness and you have the path of seeing where you have this first insight but that’s followed by the path of meditation which may be a very long path and requiring a lot of effort and meditation over many years to continue to bed that down and familiarize and integrate it into who you are. And Jack Kornfield in this book is is one of the main topics he’s looking at is the reality of that path of meditation and what may be involved there. And he’s got this to say after his experience of some must be nearly thirty years of being around Buddhists and teachers.
Most masters agree that after the first illumination, there can still arise periods of fear, confusion, loss of spiritual bearings and unskillful conduct. No matter how compelling the vision, how profound the initial sense of freedom and grace, a process of maturation must follow. Over the years I have not seen a single Westerner for whom this was not true and it seems to be true for most Asian teachers as well. If we fail to acknowledge this truth we simply fool ourselves. When a proud mother once announced to Mullah Nasruddin my son has finished his studies Nasruddin replied no doubt, God will send him more.
It’s like that for us all. So this this is the side of thinking dealing with a spiritual master where we have to be discriminating and aware and not just in love. And like most things in Buddhism, it applies all the principles we’ve been talking about apply here. But this is there’s something very interesting going on here. So we must have this healthy realism.
But that balance that it doesn’t stand by itself. It balances the next point which is it’s central to this radical point in the tantric approach to dealing with a spiritual master. This radical point that the commitment from the disciple’s side is a determination to see one’s master as actually being a fully enlightened Buddha. The living embodiment of the completion of the spiritual path and thus embodying one’s own potential to be enlightened. And it’s an approach it’s this approach to one’s spiritual master which allows the the relationship to be of maximum benefit for you.
Because everything which the master does, you interpret as being a teaching directly to you emerging from the enlightened state. So this is a very powerful way to approach the spiritual master. Of course viewing one’s teacher in such a way isn’t easy and it’s an approach that needs to be cultivated over time and grown into. And in the meantime one can still gain great benefit simply by seeing some teacher that you respect, simply by seeing them as a spiritual friend who is somewhat more advanced on the path than you. So it’s not as if we have to leap into this profound commitment sort of in one gulp.
But point is the point at which tantric aims us to be eventually in the way that we relate to a spiritual master. Now one of the master’s main tasks is to facilitate our taking responsibility for our own journey. And so any directional advice from the teacher always puts the ball into into our court to intelligently decide what should be my response. What is appropriate for me at this time? I have asked a question of the teacher.
The teacher has said this. Now how am I going to respond? What’s my circumstances? What’s my situation? What’s appropriate?
And in some cases it may be simply humble submission and acceptance of what’s been advised or it may be that you feel that you’re not capable of doing that at the moment or it may be that you feel that what’s been suggested doesn’t seem correct or appropriate for me at this stage. In which case one needs to simply let the teacher know I don’t think I can do that. I don’t think I can handle that. That doesn’t seem right to me. Which is exactly what is required in such a relationship.
So although such a relationship will involve a deep and growing devotion, it’s not mindless slavishness or some sort of escape from taking responsibility for oneself. And that brings us on to this point of devotion. Now devotion on the part of the disciple is actually a really important part of the practice that we haven’t talked about at all yet in the whole course. The business of devotion. And the opening up of oneself by means of intense spiritual devotion seems to have been a method that’s been used by all spiritual traditions in one way or another.
And in Buddhist practice, it’s seen as a key way of energizing and preparing one’s mind so that mental obstacles can be overcome and new insights gained more easily. It’s almost like devotion is like a a softening agent in the mind or something. It frees it up. Helps break down the obstructions and open us to seeing things in deeper ways. And the traditional ways of expressing this happening is that we are receiving blessings from the teacher or the master, And the blessings of having these obstructions removed.
And the practice of devotion to the spiritual master is also what can be a type of meditation practice in its own right. And this type of meditation has a central place in tantric practice. And if you stay around Buddha house a little bit in the time to come, you’ll quickly come across something like this happening here. Usually every two weeks there’s something called the Guru Puja happens at Buddha House. The Guru Puja.
Puja meaning offering, guru meaning master, the offering to the master. And this is a one and a half hour chanting meditation session, which is a bit like the Tibetan Buddhist version of of holy communion. And this practice consists of making extensive offerings and requests to the visualized spiritual master. It’s a very beautiful practice with delightful chanting tunes, but unfortunately it’s a bit it’s not so easy to relate to because it’s usually done in Tibetan, although there is an English translation you can follow on the side. So one of the key things of that practice is the development of devotion to the spiritual master, to be opening oneself up through this process.
So when the master is well qualified, we’re told, and when the disciple is both devoted and taking full responsibility for herself or himself, then this relationship it said can be extraordinarily potent and transformative for the student. A catalyst if you like, like a catalyst in the chemistry of waking up. So having developed such a relationship, one can then in fact pursue one’s spiritual practice with a much greater sense of direction and purpose, radically more directed and purposeful than if you’re trying simply to do it on your own. Because then you’re operating under the guidance of a master practitioner. So that brings us to the topic of the introduction to tantric practice.
Perhaps I’ll just pause for a minute there and just ask if anyone has a question they’d like to ask about the spiritual relating to a spiritual master. Well, it depends what you mean by full time. I mean, do you mean full time as in getting ordained, or or do you mean full time in the sense of this is what I wanna build my life around to whatever degree I’m able? No. No.
Not at all. Not at all. It’s it’s a it’s a inner process primarily, and it may involve some time with that person or it may not. For example, Lama Zopa Rinpoche, who is the head of this organization, has many thousands and thousands of students all over the world and virtually hardly ever sees any of them because he’s so busy. And with my teacher, there are times when I spend quite some close times with him and other times where I’ll go for maybe nine months without seeing him.
Yeah. Another question? The Tibetan approach to that is that you that the best way to do it is to see yourself as having one teacher especially at the beginning of your practice and the way they go about it is they primarily work with one teacher and then when you become more advanced in your practice perhaps in discussion with your teacher, you then may start relating to some others as well. What we Westerners tend to do is sort of start collecting teachers and have a whole series of sort of, you know, badges for all the people we go to teachings for and start building all these relationships. And in a sense it’s hard for us not to do that because of the difficult circumstances.
We have to go and check out people in a way that perhaps traditionally wasn’t done and His Holiness Dalai Lama’s advice is on this that yes we need to go out and check out people. What are their credentials? Look at them, have some teachings from them. But sort of do it with not in a sense of this person’s not my great spiritual master. I’m coming to these teachings or doing this to begin the process of checking out who I might want to have a deeper relationship with in the future.
The question is how how do you determine if if from what teachings have been what you’ve been told or directed are correct or not? And I think that’s where the points of the caution here that I was saying before. The the only answer to that is to use your own discrimination and to be cautious and to to ask questions and to continue with your study and to and and let it gradually build. There’s no easy simple answer to that. But but it does rely on us taking responsibility for ourselves and for using our intelligence.
Okay. So let’s have a look at let’s have a quick look at tantric practice. And here I want to talk about six things. Some introductory comments consider the tantric principle of what’s called taking the result as the path. Thirdly to look at the different levels of tantric practice.
Fourthly to explain what are called the two stages of tantric practice in other words the generation and the completion stages. To look briefly at the role of sexuality in tantra and finally some comments about ritual and symbolism in tantra. So these are some introductory comments. So at some point in your journey and in discussion with your teacher, it may come to the point of being appropriate for you to begin to undertake some practice of Tantra. And let me just make a comment about this word Tantra.
The word Tantra actually applies to a genre or a type of Buddhist texts. Some texts of teachings are called Sutras. And as distinct from those some are called tantras. So the word tantra actually applies to a body of texts that are taking this particular approach. And this you might remember from the first night I made the comment that this approach began to emerge in India probably around, you know, the fourth, fifth, sixth centuries around there of this after Christ.
So at some point, it may become appropriate for you and one of the key factors in leading to this appropriateness is one’s prior understanding and practice of the previous stages of the path. The teachings are quite clear about this and the founder of this tradition, Je Tsongkhapa, called these the three fundamentals of the path. We’ve already talked about each of them. The three fundamentals of the path, as Je Tsongkhapa categorised them, are firstly the determination to be free. So this wish to get out of my current predicament, and this includes the idea of renunciation.
Includes that idea. In other words, the willingness to begin to let go of our old habitual patterns. And that provides a stable foundation and a clear space in which I can practice. And second fundamental is the awakened heart or bodhicitta. And this gives me this vast energetic mind which is the powerhouse of the practice.
And then there’s the third fundamental is the correct view of emptiness or the correct view of emptiness which is the pathway of liberating insight into the nature of reality. However, tantra goes beyond all of those previous types of practice in that it provides a means which is more powerful at breaking through some of our deepest obstacles to full and complete enlightenment. And it’s also taught as being a much faster method. Allowing the traditional way of presenting of explaining this is to say that the practice of tantra can allow a practitioner to attain to attain full enlightenment within one lifetime. As distinct from the traditional account of how you would have had to go about attaining full enlightenment if you simply practiced according to what we’ve said in the course up till now.
In other words, if you practiced the perfections and practiced bodhicitta and practiced emptiness and tried to do all those things. If you just did that, the traditional way of of presenting this is that that would take a practitioner many eons of lifetimes to finish the path. Whereas tantra, you can do it in one life time. That’s the an idea of the traditional way of how the power of tantra is seen. How powerful it’s seen as.
So growing out of one’s determination of the awakened heart, one wishes develops a wish to practice tantra so as to more quickly attain the state of enlightenment to be able to benefit others more quickly. That’s the underlying motive with which a practitioner would move into this practice. So this idea then secondly of taking the result as the path, this is one of the key underlying principles in tantra. And it means that one begins to practice as if one has already realized enlightenment here and now. So in other words, of working with the self image of a limited and struggling person at the beginning of the path, one imagines and mentally rehearses with the self image of actually already being a Buddha.
And now this is in contrast to the approach up until this point. Namely the approach as is taught in the Sūtra text, which is described as creating the result via the path. Creating the result via the path. In other words, steadily working away at putting in place all the bits and pieces, all the causes and conditions that will allow the emergence of the fruit or the result at the end. The blossoming of enlightenment.
So tantra in contrast to that gets us to imagine that the result of Buddhahood is already here now with us right now. And that we have already and we for those of you who came on this Saturday, we’ve already done a meditation that is leading up to the approach of tantra. Where we where we visualized an image of Śākyamūni Buddha as per the one behind me. And we imagined that this image is like a representation of the fully enlightened state of our potential. It’s a representation of our aspect that we haven’t yet fully realized.
And then we went on in this meditation to develop a sense of devotion and made requests to this imagined entity. That’s really our own part of our mind because we’re imagining it. And considered that this was a skillful means of opening ourselves up to new insights and for overcoming mental obstacles. And it’s related to this business of devotion again, I think. But that meditation was beginning to move towards the idea of this visualising of this final state as already being there.
Now let’s talk about the levels of tantric practice. So to move beyond that initial level that we practiced in that meditation one needs in fact to obtain an empowerment from a qualified tantric master Which amongst other things grants the disciple or the practitioner the permission to begin to practice that particular meditational deity as they’re called. That a visualization of a particular meditational deity. For example, one of the most common popular ones is the the meditational deity of Chenrezig, which I think might be that one above the fireplace there. I think.
Which is a visual depiction of the embodiment of the compassionate nature of Buddhahood, Chenrezig. So prior to having received an empowerment to undertake that practice, that visualization or meditation is this one here, is it? Yeah. I can’t really see clearly. Thousand one.
Yeah. There’s a thousand arm one there, and this might be a four. I can’t really see what that one. Anyway, before before you received an empowerment, you would if you wanted to do that practice, you would visualize this meditation of deity as external to yourself like we did on that Saturday, And you would work on developing a relationship with this aspect of yourself, be it wisdom or compassion or the fully enlightened state or whatever. However, after the empowerment, you would you would actually visualize yourself as being transformed into that image.
So you visualize yourself as becoming Chenrezig the embodiment of compassion or Mañjuśrī, the embodiment of wisdom or whatever. So there are actually four levels of tantric practice as is set out in this particular tradition. Are the action the four are called action, performance, yoga, and highest yoga tantra. Practices like that Chenrezig one I’ve been talking about and another very popular one is Green Tārā and she’s hanging here somewhere as well.
These are practices at the first level or action tantra. And most of the tantric practices that are undertaken are either the first level of action tantra or the fourth level of highest yoga tantra. Now the action tantra practices like Chenrezig and Tārā, these are things that if you look at the Buddha House program, you’ll see that there are certain times when those practices are done each week or not maybe every week, but they’re done regularly here. And a few group of people will sit around and work through a little visualization and say some mantras associated with that particular meditational deity. And there are empowerments to do those that are offered from time to time as the years go on.
But it’s the highest yoga tantra empowerment practices that I want to talk about. And once once a practitioner in discussion with a teacher has taken a highest yoga tantra empowerment, this entails that the practitioner has to take certain commitments to doing certain specific daily meditation or practices, as well as taking certain pledges, certain tantric pledges regarding one’s behavior. And this is now another level of morality or ethics in Buddhist practice. This is now the fourth level of ethics that we’ve talked about. I’ll come back to that at the end.
So what’s I mentioned this generation and completion stages. What’s meant by that? In the generation stage of practice, one imagine ones oneself as being the meditational deity. For example, this drawn image of Chenrezig, one imagines that you become that. And what you do is in this stage of practice, you stabilise your mind on the visualisation of yourself as being this meditational deity.
And what you then develop calm abiding, not on your breath, but calm abiding on this complex visualization. And it’s very difficult to do. And it’s much more difficult than developing calm abiding based on your breath because of the complexity of the visualization that you’re trying to generate and see clearly in your mind’s eye and hold your attention on fully. So this is actually a very advanced practice to do this. But this is the generation stage and at the same time that you’re developing calm abiding based on this visualization you are also maintaining an awareness of the emptiness of this whole process.
That this visualization is just is has no inherent existence. It is empty of inherent existence. So you’re beginning the process of combining the conventional or the outer practice with the ongoing understanding of emptiness. And that sort of practice can be done at any of the levels of tantra. But it’s the next stage the completion stage practices which are unique to highest yoga tantra practice.
And this is where the meditations involve the visualized system of channels and chakras and winds that most people probably think of when people mention tantra. Often and a very common talked about is sort of a very new agey thing to talk about the channels and the winds and this sort of thing. Where it fits into Buddhist practice is here in the completion stage. And various other practices to do with the winds and channels things like inner heat and dream yoga can be in are used here. And these are all particularly powerful ways.
All of this is done for one reason. All of these completion stage practices are done for one reason. That’s to allow the practitioner to to access the clear light mind. So that the practitioner can enter into and begin to experience uninterruptedly the clear light mind so as to use that as a tool of spiritual practice. Of practice.
And eventually that incredibly subtle mind which is much more subtle than the calm abiding mind that we’ve talked about. So even though the calm abiding mind on your breath will not be as subtle as the calm abiding mind on the visualisation of yourself as a deity, more subtle again than that is the experience of the clear light mind. And that clear light mind is said to be the most potent tool to bring to bear on the realisation of emptiness. So to integrate one’s intellectual insight of emptiness, to bring that down with you into this experience of the clear light mind so that the two blend and become one, it’s that that is seen as the most powerful and critical, not the final step, but one of the final critical steps in the attainment of full and complete enlightenment. So the highest yoga tantra practices can be seen as a particularly powerful way of supercharging, if you like.
The two wings of spiritual practice that we talked about last time. The wings of wisdom and compassion. The wings of wisdom and method. So you always have to have some methods, some means that you’re using as one wing. And the other wing of spiritual practice is the wisdom, the analysis of reality.
These two have to be integrated. So here in Tantric practice at the previous level we were talking about the method being the great compassion of bodhicitta. Now in tantric practice, that is built on and the clear light mind becomes the method in conjunction with that mind of bodhicitta. It’s like the bodhicitta mind becomes supercharged with a clear light mind. So that then comes onto the topic of sexuality and tantra.
Now the meditational deities in highest yoga tantra are often depicted as being male and female deities in sexual pictured in sexual embrace. And the female is symbolizing the wisdom aspect of enlightenment and the male is symbolizing the method or compassion aspect of enlightenment. And once you have attained an empowerment to practice this and you begin to visualize yourself as one of these dual deities, dual images, visualizing yourself. In other words, as being both halves of an embracing couple. What one is actually visualizing is one’s own inner unity or potential to unify wisdom and compassion in yourself.
To have these two aspects fully realised and integrated with oneself. Now for some individuals at a very advanced stage of practice the spiritual master may instruct that it would be a benefit for that person to incorporate actual sexual activity into their practice together with a spiritual partner who is like them pretty advanced on the path. And the conditions for that being seen as appropriate or useful or skillful practice are very very demanding. The meditator has to be a very advanced meditator to the point of having virtually Probably what is required is conscious control over one’s autonomic nervous system so that you have under the control of your will the control of the onset of sexual orgasm so that you can control that whether it happens or not. So the the context in where sexual activity is an appropriate part of spiritual practice is extraordinarily demanding one.
And of course such practice is not permitted for those who have taken ordination such as myself. But and how interesting it is that it’s taught that the best basis for undertaking tantric practitioners practice is in fact this state. The best state for Tantric practice is the state of ordination. And perhaps that’s in recognition of the large amount of preparatory work that has to be done before something like sexual activity could remotely become useful or appropriate. And then not for all practitioners in any case.
Instead of just creating vast numbers of extra problems for yourself. So with this in mind, the popular idea of Tantric sex for new age partners, which you go and learn together on a weekend course, is quite absurd. But I guess it’s understandable in our world where we want to have our cake and to eat it too, and we want the cake to come real fast. So what about ritual and symbolism? Tantric Buddhism has a very rich and complex world of rituals and symbols.
And this can provoke two types of reactions from people. Some people fall in love with it all, and that opens them up to the danger of perhaps confusing all this involvement with the outer complexity as actually being spiritual practice when it isn’t in itself or the opposite reaction of being repelled and confused by all this alien and bizarre baroque stuff that’s just over the top by anyone’s description. So one needs to go slowly to avoid the first reaction and very patiently to avoid the second.