Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. A deceptively tricky question about the teacher-student relationship anchors this 16-minute Q&A session from Khensur Rinpoche’s Lamrim series. Can faith in an unqualified teacher still be genuine faith? Rinpoche argues yes — faith generated by sincerely perceiving a teacher’s good qualities is proper faith regardless of whether the teacher is fully qualified — but draws a firm line when the teaching itself is doctrinally wrong, as when a teacher denies karma or future rebirth. Along the way he explains how mental obscurations directly limit how many qualities a student can perceive, and therefore how strong their faith can grow. The session closes with a reminder that resolving such doubts takes sustained weekly meditation practice, not a single conversation.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 15 LR 1998 12 01.mp3
UUID: 224019de-59ef-4ee2-95ef-a9020ea7da9e
Teacher: Khensur Rinpoche
Collection: Lam Rim (Khensur Rinpoche)
Date: 1998-12-01
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 16.0 minutes
Words: ~735
The the ocean of ignorance, ocean of attachment, ocean of wrong views, you know, ocean of saṃsāra. Marpa. Yes. Maripa. No.
No. No. No. No. It’s so vulnerable.
He’s saying is the ocean of ignorance, ocean of wrong views, an ocean of the craving of desire ones, I think. An ocean of craving, which is called the upper realms. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Next. Intensity. So, the degree of So, here actually, here the faith has been developed by seeing the qualities of the teacher. And the greater you serve the knowledge of the teacher, greater you can develop a knowledge, sorry, faith. The smaller you the smaller you see the knowledge of the teacher, the smaller your faith is.
Is that okay? Depends on how Yeah. There is a relation or it it also depends upon this obscuration because that one, but the faith is being generated by seeing the qualities and strong, the greatness or how deep the depth of faith depends on how greater knowledge you see in the spiritual teacher. And, so, if you have a strong obscuration, then you can’t see not much qualities within your spiritual teacher and if you have a less obscuration then you can the less obscuration you have the greater you can see the qualities of the spiritual teacher. So, it also relates with the it’s like and but the faith is mainly just developed by seeing the qualities.
For example, if one sees if there is a beautiful woman and some people just suddenly generate or develop a very strong attachment towards her by seeing her, the qualities of her beauty. And some people didn’t see much and he or she has a less attachment towards her. So, it depends on how strong you see within that girl. It’s like that. Okay.
Yeah. And I was just joking. Faith in an invalid teacher. You mean an unqualified teacher? Yeah.
What does it mean? Captive season. Doubt. Okay. And then okay.
Then you raise certain doubt. Yeah. Uh-huh. Okay. So this is first bit.
To raise faith in the unqualified teacher. Alright. Faith. Okay. Yeah.
It’s it’s actually it’s a proper faith because if one develop faith, you know, unqualified teacher, and the faith doesn’t need to be invalid faith because the faith you have generated is by seeing these qualities of that particular unqualified teacher. And the faith you have developed is seeing a good qualities or how much you see the qualities of the spiritual teacher. So, that faith is the proper faith because we have seen the qualities, good qualities of that unqualified teacher, which is also from a good quality means it’s also proper faith. We’re running out of time. Who told you that?
Who told you that? Or if somebody said, remember that? So, there is no comma. Uh-huh. Oh, okay.
Alright. Okay. You understood what the Quran and yeah. So is that the complete question or have you got more? Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It’s it’s been strange. Yeah.
Alright. You’re saying that if someone raised faith in a teacher who taught there is no karma. Alright? Yeah. If a teacher says it’s supposed there is no karma.
Alright? Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
This This Just a minute. Many people I got it. Very happy. Very hot. No.
I mean, developing a faith by hearing that person teaching there is no karma and everything is permanent. So, that kind of faith is not a proper faith. Yeah. But I don’t think, I mean, a person will develop faith for this particular receiving, because being a yeah. Sorry?
I mean, I can’t hear you clearly. Can it shorten that question, please? I can’t hear you clearly, actually. If no longer no longer yep. Pamela’s laughing speed loud, so I can’t, I’ll miss your second part.
So if person no longer have no longer No. Actually, let’s just talk to Jirps. So Rinpoche was saying that if someone who teaches there is no former rebirth, or there’s no future next rebirth. If someone taught that, that is not a spiritual teacher. It’s not a qualified teacher.
We were talking about this special teacher and we don’t consider that a special teacher. So we can’t clarify all our doubts today. So and it has to be clarified through, takes a long time, through our meditation practice every week. Okay. Thank you.