Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 39-minute teaching, Lama Zopa Rinpoche guides practitioners through guru yoga, the foundational practice of developing faith in the spiritual teacher. He opens with a detailed visualization: establishing a merit field with Lama Losang Tubwang Dorje Chang at center, surrounded by all one’s gurus, making offerings and prayers for blessings. The core insight is simpler than it sounds—realization depends entirely on the depth of one’s devotion, not on the guru’s actual status. Rinpoche illustrates this with examples: the three liquids appearing differently to beings of varying merit; Asaṇga perceiving Maitreya as a sick dog until his mind purified. He then guides practitioners in practical training: focusing on the guru’s qualities while abandoning all thoughts of faults, training the mind past its habitual wrong views. The teaching concludes with food offering practice, part of the formal Mahāmudrā retreat structure.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 48 2004 04 21 MR.mp3
UUID: f199e178-1349-4376-81c4-c3b7e4cea407
Teacher: Lama Zopa Rinpoche 1
Collection: y Mahāmudrā International Retreat (Lama Zopa Rinpoche 1)
Date: 2004-04-21
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 39.0 minutes
Words: ~2,712
That is the core of the retreat. So very briefly, the very first stage of the path is correctly devoting to the virtuous friend. A goal is to change the mind that has no faith to the mind that has so much faith that just by recollecting the guru, we’re overwhelmed by devotion. So happy to follow the advice. The first you meant to take the advantages, correctly devoting, and now generate the wish to rely on the guru.
On the disadvantages, to avoid any mistakes, and rely on the most perfect way. So then now we’re going to do the actual meditation on developing faith in the guru. Visualizing in the space in front of merit field. The center of the merit field is inseparable from your own guru. And in front of Lama Losang Tubwang Dorje Chang is your own root guru in his ordinary form.
And surrounding him or her, all your other gurus, Visualize more clearly without leaving out one and without seeing any imperfections in them. Imagine your lama is sitting joyfully, and all those gurus with whom you had dharma contact in the ordinary aspects smiling at you. Then think to yourself, myself and all sentient beings since beginningless time have been wandering in cyclic existence, experiencing the general and particular suffering of the three lower realms. Why? The reason is because we haven’t trained our mind in the correct way of devoting to the guru.
Therefore, right now, myself and all sentient beings are going to train our minds in the correct way of devoting to the guru. Please, Guru Rinpoche, grant blessings to be able to generate these realizations of the path. Having made this request, visualize inconceivable streams of nectar flow from the holy body of the gurus, Purifying all negativities and obstacles created since beginningless time and particularly all those which prevent us from generating the stages of the path in connection with correctly devoting to the virtuous friend. This nectar fills up our body and those all sentient beings, filling us with merit, wisdom, long life, power and so forth, and particularly granting all the blessings so that our minds can ripen very quickly in the stages of the path relating to correctly devoting to the spiritual guide. Now think to yourself.
How should I view these gurus? The omniscient Gyalwa Ensapa, who achieved enlightenment in one short lifetime by taking guru yoga as the heart of the path said this. Whether you are able to generate profound or superficial realization in your mind, it all depends on the level of faith, profound or superficial, that you’re able to generate towards your lama? If you focus solely on seeing the qualities of your guru and abandon the heresy of seeing even the slightest mistake, all your obstacles will be eliminated and all the realizations will be quickly achieved. Keep this as a very essential drop of your heart practice.
This is the heart advice of the omniscient Gyalwa Ensapa, and this is exactly the way that I should train my mind. Now think of the reasons for doing this. The first reason to train our mind to see our guru’s Buddha is that we want profit and we don’t want loss. We want happiness and we don’t want suffering. We’re all the same in having this innate wish.
How does this come about? By viewing the guru as Buddha. By viewing the guru buddha, we receive the greatest profit, the greatest benefit. How we view the guru doesn’t affect the guru in the slightest, but for us, the disciple, it brings the highest benefit. By seeing the guru’s Buddha, all the blessings of all the Buddhas enter into one’s heart.
Depending how much devotion rises, the mind is easy to be transformed, easy to be subdued. The greater our devotion, The easier it is to meditate and generate the realizations, the quicker we achieve enlightenment. Receiving the blessings of the guru depends on having the cause within one’s own mind, and the cause is devotion. Knowing, seeing, realizing, understanding from the depths of one’s heart that the guru is an enlightened being. Now reflect that even if the guru is a fully qualified Buddha, if we don’t view them that way, we won’t receive that benefit.
So we lose. Kadampa Geshe Potowa, the main disciple of Dromtönpa said, whether you receive big blessings or small blessings, it doesn’t come from the side of the lama. It comes from your own mind. This is very profound. If you regard the lama as a bodhisattva, you receive the blessings of bodhisattva.
If you view your lama as a Buddha, you receive the blessings of a Buddha. If you see your guru as ordinary, you get no blessings. How much blessing you receive, how quickly your mind is ripened and liberated depends on your way of viewing the guru. Come to the conclusion. This is the way the great masters of the past have practiced.
Whether I’m able to see realizations or not, big blessings or not, depends on whether or not I’m able to generate strong devotion. Therefore, I will train as much as my capacity to view the guru as a Buddha as perfectly as has been taught. Make this strong determination in the presence of your gurus. Now think to yourself, even if the guru is not a Buddha, still, if I view him view them that way, I will receive all the benefit as though they were actual Buddhas. Therefore, by viewing my gurus as Buddhas, whether they are or not, I will receive all the profit and all the blessings and all the realizations quickly.
This is supported by the example of Ānanda, one of the attendants of Buddha who served Buddha twenty two years but was unable to see the Buddha as an enlightened being. Remember, Buddha can only manifest to us in a way that we can perceive. Maitreya appeared to Asaṇga in the form of a dog. Until Asaṇga had purified his mind, he was not able to see anything other than a dog, a sick suffering dog. Until our mind is purified, we are only able to perceive things as ordinary, but that doesn’t mean that the guru is ordinary.
Think of the example of the three liquids. The same thing appears to humans as water, to pretas who have less merit as pus and blood, to the devas as nectar, and to the Buddhas who have the most extensive merit, who have the most pure minds as uncontaminated wisdom nectar, the highest nectar. The object itself doesn’t change, but as the mind becomes more pure, one is able to see it differently. Apply this to your understanding of the guru being Buddha. Just as things are empty, but we see them as truly existent.
In the same way, the fact that we see them guru as ordinary doesn’t mean the guru is ordinary. Our minds are full of wrong views, full of hallucination, full of superstitious thoughts. Therefore, the training has to come from our side, from our minds by applying effort constantly. It has nothing to do with the guru. Geshe Potawa said, if you are not able to generate the thought that your guru is Buddha, even if actual Buddha appears in front of you, you won’t be able to receive any benefit.
Even actual Tārā, Mañjuśrī, Maitreya, Śākyamūni Buddha appear in front of me. If I see ordinary, they will only appear ordinary. If I train my mind to see the guru as Buddha, gradually, will be able to see them as Nirmānakāya, then Sambhogakāya, and finally, when I achieve enlightenment, as the actual dharmakaya itself. So set up a very strong determination. From now on, I will try to develop the faith that my lama is Buddha.
I will never allow the thought of ordinary to arise. Next is capacity. Ask yourself, am I actually able to develop such a kind of faith in my mind? vajradhara says in the tantras, do not behold mistakes in the lama. Focus on his qualities.
By focusing on the qualities, you will abandon all wrong views of mistakes. It is because of beginningless times negative karma on our mind stream that we focus on the mistakes of the guru, and this obscures the qualities. So we are unable to see the inconceivable qualities of the lama. By focusing instead on all the qualities of the lama, naturally all thoughts of mistakes will dissipate. Even the appearance of being ordinary will arise in our minds as the most precious kindness the Buddhas have given us by appearing in this way.
If I only look at thoughts, if I only see ordinary, that is all that will appear. If instead, I look at the qualities, My mind will be trained in devotion, and I will see the guru as pure, which is reality. The reason for seeing the guru as Buddha is because I myself and all sentient beings want the highest benefit. We want the greatest happiness. This can only come by seeing the guru’s Buddha.
Whether the lama is Buddha or not makes no difference. The difference comes from the depths of my devotion. This has been proved in the past by numberless different stories and examples. So the story of Leper Kachama, the story of Geshe Tsembupa, his Guru Namkha Gyalpo, and Vajrayoginī manifesting as his leper. Even if the guru is Buddha, if I don’t view that way, I will only lose out.
Even the guru is not Buddha, By viewing that way, I receive all the blessings. Therefore, set up the determination. From now on, I will only train myself to see qualities, and I’ll never see the slightest fault or mistake. This brings the greatest profit and there is a method, faultless method to do this. May I not arise heresy even for a second in the actions of the glorious guru.
May I regard whatever actions are done as pure. With this devotion, may I receive the blessings of the guru in my heart. Dedication prayers. Due to merits of the three times created by me, Buddhas, Bodhisattvas, and all other sentient beings. May bodhicitta cherishing others, letting go of oneself, letting go the I, the source for happiness and success, myself and all other sentient beings be generated within my own mind, the mind’s all sentient beings without even a second’s delay.
With that which has already been generated increase. Due to merits of the three times created by me, Buddhas, Bodhisattvas, and all other sentient beings. May all the father, mother, sentient beings of happiness, may the three lower realms be empty forever. May all bodhisattvas prayers succeed immediately, and may I be able to cause all this to happen by myself alone. Due to merits of the three times created by me, Buddhas, Bodhisattvas, and all other sentient beings.
May all holy Dharma Lamas, Buddha compassion, and all other holy beings, all our virtuous friends of stable lives. May all the holy wishes succeed immediately. Due to merits of the three times created by me, Buddhas, Bodhisattvas, and all other sentient beings. May I be able to offer limitless benefit to all sentient beings as Lama Tsongkhapa did, by having within me the same qualities Lama Tsongkhapa has from now on in all my future lifetimes. Due to merits of the three times created by me, Buddhas, Bodhisattvas, and all other sentient beings, are totally nonexistent from their own side.
May the I, which is also totally nonexistent from its own side, achieve Guru Śākyamūni Buddha’s enlightenment, is also totally nonexistent from its own side. And need all sentient beings with totally nonexistent from their own side to that enlightenment which is totally non existent from its own side. For myself alone is also totally non existent from its own side. I dedicate all my merits and which are greatly admired by Buddhas and Bodhisattvas of the three times and realized by Samantabhādra and Mañjuśrī. May I be able to completely actualize Lama Tsongkhapa’s teaching which unifies Sūtra and Tantra within my mind and spread these teachings in the minds of all sentient beings.
Thus, may Lama Tsongkhapa’s teachings flourish forever. Due to merits of the three times created by me, Buddhas, Bodhisattvas, and all other sentient beings. May I, the members of my family, all students, benefactors of this organization, and all the rest, meet only perfectly qualified Mahāyāna Gurus in all our future lifetimes. From our side, may we see them only as enlightened beings. May we do only actions most pleasing to the holy minds of virtuous friends.
May we be able to fulfill all the holy wishes immediately. The food offering. Purpose of my life is not just to benefit myself alone, but to free the numberless sentient beings from the oceans of saṃsāra suffering. In order to do this, I’m going to the practice of offering food and making charity to sentient beings, especially by making charity to sentient beings that are existing in my body. But this create the cause in the future to be able to have Dharma contact with them and teach them the Dharma.
Purify all the food in the kitchen to emptiness and generate it into uncontaminatedly blissful nectar using the mantra of one’s own deity. Oceans of uncontaminated nectar wisdom, multiplying, offering all these oceans of nectar along with all the other offerings to all the gurus and the merit field. Every single figure in the merit field is all the buddhas. Even each pore contains all the merit field. Prostrating, making all these offerings, generating infinite bliss in the holy minds.
Offering all this nectar to every hell being, every hungry ghost, animal, human, suras asuras, every intermediate state being, they all became fully satisfied, actualized the entire path to enlightenment, became fully enlightened in the aspect of the deity that one practices. Due to this, accumulating an inconceivable amount of merit and dedicating, due to all the merits of the three times accumulated by myself, all the Buddha’s bodhisattvas, all sentient beings. May I myself or the organizers of this course, all the members of Buddha house, all my family members, all the members of this organization, all those who sacrificed their lives teachings and to serve sentient beings, and especially all those sentient beings who died for this food, who created negative karma for this food, all those involved in the evolution of this food. May all of us never be separated in any of our lives from the triple gem. Always accumulate extensive merit by making offerings to the triple gem, and receive all the blessings of the triple gem in our mind streams from now until enlightenment.
Guru assembly, deity assembly, to you we offer this enjoyment of this circle of magnificence all please take by being pleased and satisfied instead of uncontaminated bliss grant us the holy body speech and mind please grant blessings to achieve in this life. Mahāmudrā, profound vajra Yoga, inseparable with method and wisdom. So we have to finish eighteen by twelve, so that’s regulation. And must finish eating by twelve. Then also a strict method is you don’t move from the seat once you’ve taken the food.
So take enough food, and then you can just keep eating until twelve. And then we have a three hour break till three o’clock. So get some rest, do commitment. And Venerable Gyatso will be doing questions and also explaining the stages of the sūtra, the sūtra grounds and paths. And that would be one thirty.
Here? Oh, no. The second Khenpo? Would be here, here at one thirty. Here at one thirty.
So the the members of venerable members of Sangha are saying not to do the strict way, or the queues will be too long? Just be relaxed. Go with what has to happen. So go with what has to happen and be relaxed. Don’t you think?
Okay. We’re going to be playing chanting in the lunch times at Rinpoche’s request. So until one thirty, there’ll be chanting the Sanghata Sūtra and Chinese chants and all kinds of things happening in here. So