Spiritual Teacher – Jamyang — Jamyang – DB Spiritual Teacher 3

Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.

About this talk. In this two-hour session, Ven Jamyang addresses guru devotion—how to train the mind to see the guru as the Buddha. He covers the five key qualities a student must cultivate (honesty, non-attached mind, discriminating wisdom, yearning, and proper motivation), then explores the deepest practice: reframing faults not as obstacles but as opportunities for learning. The talk includes striking examples of relics appearing from highly realized beings, practical answers to students’ hardest questions (when to move on from a teacher, how to handle disappointment), and a final daily practice: spend the day noticing hidden kindness in difficult interactions. For practitioners already familiar with basic Buddhist concepts and actively engaged in study, it offers concrete methods for accelerating progress toward enlightenment through trust in a teacher.

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File: Jamyang – DB Spiritual Teacher 3.mp3

UUID: 774f063f-02e1-4325-ad3d-90911b6655cb

Teacher: Ven Jamyang

Collection: Spiritual Teacher – Jamyang (Ven Jamyang)

Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide

Duration: 142.2 minutes

Words: ~17,627

How is everybody? Good? That’s just the homework from last week. Everybody ready? Maybe we can start with a very short meditation to bring the mind here.

We have tonight a very big bubble of energy, and that’s all good. But it’s good if it goes into the right channel and becomes really powerful. And normally what we do when we have generated some energy and there was a strong energy when we did the practice, wasn’t it? And then when you go out and you start talking, then you have this whole waterfall of words. And it’s like if you have all that energy, that’s how it feels in the beginning.

It’s almost like excitement that you’re going to feel and you want to you want to express that and you want to share that and you want to but but if you can keep that a little bit quiet, you know, it’s like an art, like what do you do with that energy? You have generated all that energy, what do you do with that? And you will notice that if you talk, then at a certain point you get exhausted and then it’s gone. But if you keep it with you, that energy keeps on going inside you and then you can use it to nourish yourself and to, you know, whatever is overflowing, you just let it overflow and it will touch others if you say something or not. It doesn’t really matter.

But be aware of that, that you don’t open the doors completely, that you keep something inside, that you preserve yourself. But it’s fantastic. I rejoice in all that energy at the same time. And also the night you can come and do the talking. Let’s do first the meditation and then we do the Heart Sūtra and the refuge prayer.

So make sure that you sit comfortable. And just give yourself some time to let the energy settle down. If you feel blissful, joyous, just enjoy that. And at the same time try to find the stillness in that energy. Focus the mind on your breath in a relaxed way.

Let your mind rest on the movements of your abdomen. And you can see the rising and falling of your abdomen as the waves of the ocean. And you just enjoy watching the waves or you can even imagine that you’re floating on top of the waves. You don’t have to do anything. You don’t have to change anything.

Everything is just perfect, and you fully enjoy. And then adjust your motivation for being here tonight, recognizing that if we do not pay any attention to our motivation, our habit is to, whatever we do, we just do that for our own direct happiness, to feel pleasure and to avoid suffering. And that habit is the cause. If we follow that habit, we create a causes for suffering again and again and again. So if we can adjust that motivation that we normally have, we can actually, attending this class can become a cause for happiness in the future.

And the biggest happiness is the happiness of enlightenment, the most perfect happiness, which is a complete freedom of any mistakes, any distortions, any disturbing emotions, and where we have all the realizations, perfect wisdom, perfect compassion, and perfect ability to help others. And the only way we can achieve that state is when we realize that we are not the only ones suffering in saṃsāra. Everybody around us, all living beings are experiencing exactly the same. All of us are trapped and we all strive for happiness, but because we are trapped, the way we look for happiness is not accurate and is never going to give us what we want. So if you recognize that each and every sentient being or living being experiencing exactly the same as we do, and if we realize that we have a connection with each and every sentient being, a connection in this life, a connection from previous lives.

And not just a connection, but a close connection. We depend completely upon them. All our happy experiences come from them. So then to strive just for our own happiness, that will be very selfish. But if we include them in our heart and whatever development we go through in our mind that we dedicated to their benefit, to help them to be free of suffering, to achieve their perfect state of happiness.

Then whatever result comes from this class will definitely take us to enlightenment. And with that in mind, we read a Heart Sūtra. On page two. Thirst that I hear at one time, the Bhagavan was dwelling on Vulture Peak Mountain in Rajagriha, together with a great community of monks and a great community of Bodhisattvas. At that time the Bhagavan was absorbed in a concentration on the categories of phenomena called profound perception.

Also at that time the Bodhisattva Mahāsattva Ārya Avalokiteśvara looked upon the very practice of the profound perfection of wisdom, and beheld those five aggregates also as empty of inherent nature. Then through the power of Buddha, the Venerable Śāriputra said this to the Bodhisattva Mahāsattva Ārya Avalokiteśvara: How should any son of lineage train who wishes to practice the activity of the profound perfection of wisdom? He said the Bodhisattva Mahāsattva Ārya Avalokiteśvara said this to the Venerable Śāriputra, any son of the lineage or daughter of the lineage who wishes to practice the activity of the profound perfection of wisdom, should look upon it like this, correctly and repeatedly, beholding those five aggregates also as empty of inherent nature. Form is empty, emptiness is form. Emptiness is not other than form.

Form is also not other than emptiness. In the same way, feeling, discrimination, compositional factors and consciousness are empty. Śāriputra, likewise all phenomena are emptiness, without characteristic, unproduced, unceased, stainless, not without stain, not deficient, not fulfilled. Śāriputra, therefore, in emptiness, there is no form, no feeling, no discrimination, no compositional factors, no consciousness, no eye, no ear, no nose, no tongue, no body, no mind, no visual form, no sound, no odor, no taste, no object of touch and no phenomenon. There is no eye element and so on up to and including no mind element and no mental consciousness element.

There is no ignorance, no extinction of ignorance, and so on up to and including no ageing and death. Similarly, there is no suffering, origination, cessation, and path. There is no exalted wisdom, no attainment and also no non attainment. Śāriputra therefore, because there is no attainment, bodhisattvas rely on and dwell on the perfection of wisdom, the mind without obscuration and without fear. Having completely passed beyond error, they reach the endpoint of nirvana.

All the Buddhas who dwell in the three times also manifestly completely awaken the unsurpassable perfect complete enlightenment through reliance on the perfection of wisdom. Therefore, the mantra of the perfection of wisdom, the mantra of great knowledge, the unsurpassed mantra, the mantra equal to the unequaled, the mantra that thoroughly pacifies all suffering, should be known as truth since it is not false. The mantra of the perfection of wisdom is declared: Tayata Om Gate Gate, Pāragate, Pārasamgate, Bodhi So ha. Śāriputra and the bodhisattva ma, sattva should train in the profound perfection of wisdom like that. Then the Bhagavan rose from that concentration and commanded the Bodhisattva Mahāsattva Ārya Avalokiteśvara, saying: Well said, well said, son of the lineage.

It is like that. It is like that. One should practice the profound perfection of wisdom just as you have indicated. Even the Tathagatas rejoice. The Bhagavan having thus spoken the Venerable Śāriputra, the Bodhisattva Mahāsattva Ārya Avalokiteśvara, those surrounding in their entirety along with the worlds of the gods, humans, asuras and Gandharvas were overjoyed and highly praised as spoken by the Bhagavan.

I go for refuge until I am enlightened to the Buddha, the Dharma and the Supreme Assembly. By my practice of listening to the teachings and other perfections, may become a Buddha to benefit all sentient beings. I go for refuge until I am enlightened to the Buddha, the Dharma and the Supreme Assembly. By my practice of listening to the teachings and other perfections, may I become a Buddha to benefit all sentient beings. I go for refuge until I am enlightened.

To the Buddha, the Dharma and the Supreme Assembly. By my practice of listening to the teachings and other perfections, may I become a Buddha to benefit all sentient beings. So we’re talking tonight about the spiritual teacher, why it is important that we have a spiritual teacher and how we rely on a spiritual teacher or how do we devote ourselves to the spiritual teacher. And what are the advantages of that if we do that and what are the disadvantages if we do not properly rely on the spiritual teacher or devote ourselves. So we talked in the first class about the qualities of the teacher, how we check the teacher out and see if what qualities are there.

In order to have qualities you need to have walked the path. Qualities are not coming out of nowhere. Qualities are not given by God according to Buddhism. Qualities come about due to causes and conditions. Disturbing emotions also come about due to causes and conditions.

Whatever arises in our mind comes about due to causes and conditions. Our personality, our character, everything that we experience in our life comes about due to causes and conditions. So if we see somebody with lots of good qualities that means that person has not only in this life but probably in many other lives worked bloody hard. They do not come from nowhere. We don’t see that.

Think, Oh, that’s a lucky person. You know, everything that that person wants just happens. That’s not luck. Luck doesn’t exist in Buddhism. That comes from causes and conditions.

If you have a wish and a wish comes true like that means you have a very pure mind. Right? The purity only comes about when you practice a lot, when you practice the Dharma properly. So if you look for qualities in somebody and you see quite some qualities you can assume without making mistakes that a person must have done a lot of work. And if that person has many good qualities you can think: Oh, but probably he has a bad motivation.

It’s very difficult to generate a very good quality with a bad motivation. Bad motivation leads to unhappiness. Bad motivation does not lead to very good qualities. Right? So we have this, I don’t know, I have a paranoia mind, you know, that I want to check out everything and I don’t believe it when I just see it and I want to find the faults.

But actually when you use the logic, if somebody shows that they have good quality it’s very difficult to cover up a very negative mind. And there might be some negativity in the mind and that might surface at a certain point, you know. But if you see compared to all the positive qualities that might be nothing. So then it’s your way you’re going to focus upon: Oh, I saw that that person had a fault. Although you’re going to say: Yeah, of course, it’s a human being.

But the fact that a person has these qualities means must have done all this work, must mean has been devoted to the path for a long period of time, must mean has had many teachers, him or herself, must mean, you know, then you might develop some faith that if you listen to the instructions of this person that that is going to take you where you want to go. Because that’s why we need a teacher. We want to achieve something. We want to learn to ride the bike. We need somebody who can teach us how to do that.

Right? If we would know how to get enlightened intuitively why haven’t we done it yet? But you know we have in mind, I mean we’re all so arrogant basically. I know everything, know, I know how to do that. And if you give me an answer I’ll first check if I agree with that before I’m going to practice it.

That’s how arrogant we are. But we do not realize that we have no clue where we’re going to go. No clue. We are blind, blind people. So we have to find somebody that we can see, that person can see.

And because that person can see that person can tell us where we go for the next step. And we have to trust. If we see that that person can see we have to trust because we can’t see. But it’s a challenge. Our ego gets challenged in all kinds of way with this topic.

Want to do it. You know we had a little two year olds. I want to do it myself. Right? We all have done that and part of us is still like that.

See how we behave, we are like that. So we have to let a two year old grow up and say, It’s okay that you don’t know it, you know. Everything needs to be learned and for everything there is a person that you can ask for help. If you have trained a lot like this when you were a little kid you have a problem with your Guru devotion, you know. When you have a teacher, how do you decide when it’s time to move on?

From the teacher? How how do you differentiate between it’s time to move on and that you’re not you move on because, obviously, you’re not getting enough from this teacher. But how do you differentiate between it’s time to move on and you’re not paying enough attention or you’re not do you know what I’m saying? You’re not paying enough attention. Who who to who?

If you’re not getting what you want a teacher Yeah. And you’ve decided it’s time to move on, then how do you because you’re not getting enough from a teacher, is it your fault? Or is it I mean Can we talk about that. We’re gonna talk about that today. Is it is the recording on?

Mhmm. Yeah. Good. Can we either open that one or that one? Don’t is it hot here?

Yes. Oh, it’s I thought maybe the hormones are off. Not yet. We talk about that. By the end of the day, if you still have that question.

And maybe it’s good if I can just talk on a moral because I’m not sure if I can focus enough to hold all the questions and at the same time my own line of talking tonight. So we talked about the qualities of the teacher and why it is important that the teacher has these qualities and from the teacher’s side there is no reason why you would follow a teacher. From the teacher’s side there is no reason why he or she wants to be a teacher except to help you. The teacher doesn’t come to you and say: Hey, you need help. I think you need help.

Never ever. A Buddhist teacher never ever will do that. You go to the teacher. Not because you feel less worthy, not because you just enjoy the feeling of being with this person, but because you have a goal. I want to develop my mind.

I want to find happiness. I want to find lasting happiness. I want to find something that gives meaning in my life and I do not know how to do that. And I can see this person knows how to do that. Please can you help me?

What do I do? How do I get there? How do I get to Brisbane? Have been ten times, I’ve never been there. How do I go?

That’s what we ask the teacher. The teacher has no profit in telling you how to get to Brisbane if you don’t have a wish to go there. So keep that in mind. It’s all about what we want. We have a goal, we want to achieve something and we need a means to do that.

Keep that in mind. So we have the qualities of the teacher and we talked about relying on the why it is worthwhile to rely upon a teacher and I read today from Lama Zopa he said relying is actually a too passive word. It’s like you just rely and you don’t have to do anything. And he said devoting yourself is maybe a better word because there is an activity involved in doing that. You actually have to focus your mind towards that teacher and not just sitting back and wait till it comes from his sign.

We’ll talk about that more tonight. We talked about the advantages of properly relying on the spiritual teacher or devoting yourself to the spiritual teacher. And we saw that when we do that every step that we practice, every advice that we put into practice we move closer towards our goal. So if a teacher gives you a certain practice and you start to do that and you get more and more angry, you’re doing something wrong. Right?

Because your goal is to get less angry. Your goal is to become more peaceful. So if you are having a practice or an exercise that makes you the opposite either you were completely mistaken with regard to the teacher but probably not, probably you did something wrong. Right? So you check that.

Because every step that you make necessarily has to take you closer to the goal. True? So you have to check yourself all the time. So if we practice the Dharma somehow that is going to give us a protection for the mind, that gives us a protection from negativities. As soon as we start to engage in virtuous activity, as soon as we set out a goal, oh we want to achieve the state of enlightenment, we want to become a Buddha.

It’s like you say to the Buddhas I want to be part of your family. And they say Oh wow, how fantastic! So they are happy and they come and help you. And they send helpers on your way all the time. Wherever you are there will be a helper.

No matter what problem there is there will be a helper. If you really devote yourself to develop your mind so that you can be of benefit to sentient beings there will be help everywhere on the path. It’s up to us to recognize it. Right? But the Buddhas will send it.

They will provide it. That’s what they do all the time. It’s just that we are blind and we can’t recognize it. When you’re on the path and you know that they are happy with what you’re doing you know that they send their helpers. And if there’s absolutely nobody who is there to help you and you’re desperate then you have to look really deep within and say then what is it that I need to experience right now and ask help by doing that.

When you move towards enlightenment or move towards developing your positive qualities and letting go of your negativities, what you’re doing is you do that by practicing virtue or you do that by stop, Even when you stop harming that is a practice of virtue. Even if you stop in negativity, even if you catch yourself doing a negativity and have the wish not to do that again, you practice virtue. Abstaining from negativity is virtue. You don’t have to be a good person. You just stop the negativities.

The more virtue you create, the more you are protected from negative situations, negative people, negative emotions from your own mind. It’s like the virtue will protect you. The seeds for the negative karma to ripen just won’t ripen because there is constantly virtue in your mind. So you smooth the path. It becomes easier and easier.

When you practice proper Guru devotion you meet the teacher again and again and again. Right? In this life and future lives there will always be a teacher. The better you follow the advice, the easier the teacher can appear to you. So we also mentioned a little bit the disadvantages didn’t we?

So all these advantages are in the meditation that is outside so you don’t have to write them down. So today I would like to talk about the qualities of the teacher but also the student needs some qualities. We are not naturally good students. So in the Lamrim there are five qualities described and the first one is that the student is honest and Not attached to their own group and feels hostile towards another group towards another group. Right?

We have that isn’t it? Oh we are from Buddha House and they are from somewhere else. We are all friends. We’re all, you know, I’m so obsessed. Think about sentient beings, our family.

You know, everybody is our family somehow. So having that non biased mind that can see the good in everybody or not good but you don’t have that attachment, you’re not driven by your own attachment. If you come in a center where people have that strong need for attachment you meet little groups and you never get in, you know. And after three times you say, Oh sorry, I don’t like this. You see yourself and we have all that tendency.

When we go somewhere we meet with the people that we already know and we connect with them and the people that we do not know we have this look like, Who’s that? We never go to the person that don’t know and say hi, I haven’t seen you here before. We go to the person that we know. So that biased mind is always there. So you as students that’s a challenge like open up again and again for whoever is there, friends or those that we do not know or maybe even somebody that has said something really rude to us and try to stay open with the mind.

That makes you a good student. Right, so you check-in your own mind how much you have of that. Then another thing that a student needs to have is a wisdom that can distinguish between right and wrong. When we practice Dharma we want to practice something, we want to practice virtue and we want to discard non virtue. We want to encourage our wisdom and we want to discourage our afflictive emotions.

We have to know the difference between both. The more subtle the emotions the more tricky our mind becomes and our disturbing emotions can appear in the form of wisdom. Right? Looks, I’m really right when I tell you this. I know what I’m talking about and I feel that I’m really right and I have reasons.

And the reasons are logic and it seems so right. Our delusions do that, isn’t it? And try to convince us that we should follow them. So learning to distinguish between both is very important. And also with people, you know, there are people who appear to be very wise and have all these reasons but you have to check if there are real reasons or if there is something behind the reasons.

If somebody really is right and wants to have their right you can be sure that there are emotions there. And if somebody finds themselves justified to judge or to do whatever negativity there are emotions behind that. If somebody really wants to be right and demands that, there are emotions behind that. So you can feel in the attitude even if the reasoning is right. And also in your own mind, you know, the mind is very very tricky.

It can dress up like anything. So developing your discriminating wisdom, you know that’s one of the things that you’re doing. Buddhism is not about just accepting everything and everything is good. Alright? Not everything is good.

There are things that are really wrong and you do not want to do that. And you do not want to mix with that. But right and wrong is emotional, right? Right and wrong is based on wisdom, on discerning wisdom that says, No, I don’t like to practice that but I don’t like to do that. It’s not on you are doing something wrong or I am doing something, it’s not like that.

It’s like oh this is just not so clever when I do that. Can you see the difference between the emotions and the wisdom? We normally use our emotions to distinguish right and wrong. Right, what feels good is right and what doesn’t feel good is wrong. That’s not what Buddhism talks about.

Right can feel really wrong. Sometimes you have to do something that feels really wrong, you know, but you know that it is right to do. When we have done something and for instance, admitting that you have made a mistake or a fault with somebody that you really do not like, that feels really wrong to do that, but it can be the right thing to do. What about intuition? Where does that sit then?

That gut feeling. Yeah, I’m still thinking about that. I’m not one hundred percent sure. How much that is related to our surviving? Surviving is normally motivated by attachment to this life and aversion to dying.

So I don’t have that clear yet. But it can be a wisdom in it too, you know? You need someone who seems really nice but your gut feeling just tells you this is a bit funny and then you find out your intuition was right. Yeah. So is that coming from past wisdom?

Yeah, can be, yeah. It can be both, it can be both. I’m still looking into that one already for a long time and I don’t have it clear yet. Maybe in ten years, I don’t know. Because we use intuition a lot, isn’t it?

And then we develop it. But the danger is there that you put in your own agenda. And I haven’t clear yet how you pull out the agenda and only have the intuition there. I’m not I don’t know. Maybe you know.

I just know if I trust my intuition then it’s right. Whenever I’ve doubted it and gone oh yeah but and convinced myself otherwise it’s the wrong decision. Because if I just go on that gut feeling it’s so hard. Is intuition, is there also an emotion in there? Sometimes yes, sometimes no, it depends what it’s about.

So I’m not saying that your intuition is wrong, right? But what you want in Buddhism is that you want to purify the mind. And by following the intuition I do not know how much you follow your attachment or how much you follow your wisdom. So although it can turn out to be good that you follow that intuition in the sense of that you are right, Maybe if you had allowed the situation to be there you had learned something really interesting. I don’t know.

That is what I always wonder and try to observe but I haven’t gone further than that. I come back. Yeah, and also I think women have maybe more learn easier about wisdom, maybe? So when they talk about the this is the the the the Heart Sūtra. That’s the perfection of wisdom.

They call that they talk about the mother. So the the the wisdom energy in Buddhism is connected to the feminine energy, the female energy. And the method aspect, the doing aspect, the skillful actions, the compassion is connected to the male energy. That’s the only reason why I mentioned that. But maybe there is, you know, I don’t know.

I mean, there is a reason why in Tibetan Buddhism or in Tibet women didn’t get any education. You know, that’s maybe because the man was scared of the wisdom that would come up or something. I don’t know, the women are now catching up. So we will see in ten, twenty years what’s going to happen on that level. You can’t wait.

You start yourself. Don’t wait for other women to do it. So the wisdom to know what right is, between, know the difference between right and wrong. You need to yearn, you need to have a yearning for the teachings. You know, the teacher is not going to come to you.

I grew up learning that you’re not allowed to ask anything, you had to wait till the adults came to you, you know. In Tibetan Buddhism nobody came to me. And I waited for many, many years and I had to turn around my whole attitude before I could say: But I want something, you know. Please. But before my mind could even find a question, you know, that took years because the habit was there just to wait for something to come.

So I don’t know how that is here. But you need to yearn for the teachings. It has to come from you. Nothing is going to come from the teacher without you yearning for it. And you do not necessarily have to say that but you need to have that feel, you know.

If you’re sitting in class and you want to hear, the teacher can’t stop, right? They’re poor, they give you everything that you want to hear. That depends completely on you. If you sit in a room with a high lama they give everything exactly what they need. You can go in before class with question in your mind, all your questions will be answered for everybody.

Everybody hears their answers. Have you ever had that in a high teachers, know, Choden Rinpoche, and you might not get it in words but you just sit there and suddenly you know, you know, something shifts in your mind and you know the answer is there. But only when you yearn for it otherwise nothing can be put in. Students should have great respect for their teacher. So we’re going to talk about how to train in respect.

What means respect? We talked about that on Monday last week in the sixteen guidelines for a happy life. And it was very difficult to define respect. So we had two forms of respect. One was respect in the sense that everybody has a need for personal care, love, development, nourishment, that kind of things.

You have a respect for that. And the other form of respect was that you see that somebody has qualities and that you want to learn from that person. If you go with a question to your teacher and the teacher gives you an answer and you say: Yeah, but I think you haven’t heard what the teacher said. So you listen to the answer and you go away with it and you sit with it until you get it. But if you doubt that a teacher gives you the answer you cannot hear.

You haven’t heard the answer, have you? And we as Westerners, we are used to discuss, discuss, isn’t it? We have this habit. So when you ask a question and somebody gives you the answer there is immediately a discussion. But it might be a sign of disrespect, you know, you have to, sometimes you really have to listen and sit back and just allow the answers to sink in.

If you have a realised teacher their answers are so profound that probably I might won’t get it the first time that we hear it. And we have to think about it. And I know that sometimes Lama Zopa has said something to me and ten years later I still think: What did he mean with that? What was that? And I think I still don’t have it.

Still need to sit more with it. What was it that he really meant? And it’s not that it is intellectually difficult, but it’s like why did he say that? What was that? So it must be a blind spot in me that I don’t see that.

But after ten years could you go back and ask him or is that disrespectful? No, I could do that. I could do that. I could do that. Yeah, thank you for that.

You can ask for clarification. Yeah. But that’s something else than discussing it. Yeah. So, and then the last one is that the disciples should or the student should listen with a mind properly directed, which means having a good motivation.

So the more your motivation is achieve enlightenment or to find a way out of suffering, the more the teacher will be naturally willing to give you what you’re looking for. If you only want to have an answer for your life and this life now, right now, you’re not invoking anything in that spiritual teacher. Right? That energy of them only starts to really, oh maybe I shouldn’t say that, I don’t know. But it’s like if you draw on that person being a teacher there is an energy there from their side.

But you have to draw on that energy. So the more you want to achieve really enlightenment the more that energy will start flowing and start giving you what you need. So these attitudes or these qualifications of the students, the more you develop them in your mind the bigger the chance is that the teacher is just going to pour everything that you need onto you. Right? That’s what we want, isn’t it?

We want to make sure that we get what we need. We want to make sure that we’re going to end up where we want to end up. So if we can do something from our side and then we can check that that person has everything from their side and then we can start engaging in and we can start developing a relationship with that person because that is what you’re doing, isn’t it? You have seen the person, you think: Yeah, that’s the person that’s I know that that is going to be my teacher. Many times you just recognize that person as your teacher.

You might not even know exactly why but you know it and you’ve got feeling, so there is my lack of knowledge. And then you can make from your side you can make sure that you are ready to receive and then because you have met you have to develop that relationship. It’s not just in the first meeting and then the relationship is already there, you know, just as every relationship you put work in it. And the more you invest, look into any relationship. If you are kind to the other person, if you are loving, if you give that person what they want, if you want to make that person happy, then your relationship becomes good with that person.

However, if you just use that person to benefit only yourself that relationship is at risk of falling apart very quickly. So the more you can give towards that other person in a relationship the better the relationship will become. And with the teacher it’s exactly the same. How do you make the teacher happy? Hard.

His or her advice.. So then we rely upon the guru, what we talked about last week. So we’ll talk yeah. And so today we’re gonna talk about how you devote yourself to the spiritual teacher in the sense that how do you think about the teacher? And how do you act in relationship to the teacher?

So we’re going to talk mainly about how to devote ourselves through thought and it has two aspects. One is that we are going to train our mind in a certain way. We’re going to train the mind in seeing the teacher as being the Buddha. So we will talk about that whole aspect. And then we’re going to train to see the kindness of the teacher.

So these are two things that we need to train. The first one, seeing the guru as the Buddha. So first of all, it really doesn’t matter if that person is a Buddha or not. It is about us, what we can see. If I talk about the glass and say, is this glass permanent or impermanent?

You know, we all see permanent glass. And some of us know, or maybe most of us know, this glass actually is not permanent, it’s impermanent, but we see permanent glass. If we talk with others they might say: No, no, no, that doesn’t change. Glass doesn’t change, so that’s permanent. Right?

The person seeing a permanent glass doesn’t make it a permanent glass, right? But we can train our mind to see the impermanent glass. Seeing the teacher as the Buddha is exactly the same. It depends upon us if we see that person as the Buddha, not upon the person. Glass being impermanent doesn’t depend upon the glass, does it?

Us seeing the glass being impermanent is not depending upon the glass. It’s depending upon us seeing it, isn’t it? And we can train our mind in seeing that, seeing all sentient beings as your mother, you know. If you talk to a non-Buddhist they say, What are you talking about? And why would I even go there seeing everybody else as my mother?

That doesn’t mean that all sentient beings have not been our mother, right? But in the beginning we don’t see it, but when we start thinking about it we can train our mind in seeing it. And the moment we can see it has enormous benefit for our own mind, has enormous benefit achieving what we want to achieve. And it doesn’t even matter if it’s true or not, you know. We set out, I want to achieve this, I want to achieve enlightenment.

Enlightenment is a state of mind. So that state of mind you can only access that because of, by thinking in a certain way. Enlightenment is a non conceptual state of mind. There are no thoughts in that mind, but we can only access that state by developing our thoughts in a certain way. It’s a very blissful, powerful, unbelievable, I cannot comprehend how big that mind is.

Can you see that? bodhicitta is a feeling, it is something that arises in the mind. Compassion is a feeling that arises in the mind. At the moment these feelings just arise sometimes if we are lucky, but we do not know really how to do that. Buddhism says if you think like this and this and this and this, the feeling will arise.

That mind will arise. Definitely, because for every mind there are causes and conditions why that arises. If you are practicing anger every day, you can be sure that tomorrow morning you wake up angry. And if you keep on practicing, eventually you can be almost the whole day angry, no problem. In the same way we can train our mind to be free of anger.

Exactly the same training, just we train a little bit different. But the training itself, train. So you can train your mind in becoming enlightened which is the most powerful state of mind. In order to get there you follow a certain way of thinking that will induce that powerful mind, that are the causes and conditions for that mind to arise. And as soon as that mind arises you can meditate upon it and recognize it.

And the more you can do that eventually you don’t need all that reasoning anymore to get there. You remember and you go there. True? We don’t have to remember how did I do that getting angry? Naturally it comes up because we are so trained in it.

So same with compassion, same with bodhicitta, same with enlightenment, exactly the same. So Buddhism is not more than or not more, it’s like how do I think in order to generate these minds? And when you follow the thinking and you meditate upon it, definitely the result will come. So then the specific thing about Guru devotion is that when we have Guru devotion in our mind, when we somehow can completely rely upon a teacher, these realizations come much quicker. Know, and I don’t know, I’m trying to understand why that happens but maybe it’s because our ego is out of the way.

You know, we feel like I do not know what is best. It’s like when the Christians say whatever God’s will is, you know. The moment you can say that you are open for whatever is happening. Your ego, you put your ego aside. Following your teacher is also like letting go of your ego, letting go of the thought I know what is best.

Know, letting go of that feeling well the teacher first has to convince me of everything he is saying before I am going to do it. Teacher doesn’t have to convince you of anything. You want to get enlightened. You choose to ask his advice. So it’s up to you to practice that.

True? I want you to get some people say: Oh, I’m so devoted to the guru and they just do this and then they swear at you, you know. They turn around and they swear at you. I think that’s not good devotion. Good devotion is that you practice what this teacher is teaching you.

And a teacher never teaches you to swear. And also they never ask you to bow down. You know, that’s not what is devoting yourself to the good. There can be an expression of devotion, but it’s not devotion itself. So, if we want to achieve enlightenment and if we want to develop these states and if we know that these states of mind depend upon causes and conditions and that means that we follow a certain line of reasoning to get there, but at the same time if we get that ego out of the way we can go much faster, you know.

Then how can we go fastest? That’s when if we can see the teacher being the Buddha that whatever comes out of his or her mouth is perfect. We might not understand it. We might think that that is a little bit human what they’re doing, you know, but at the same time we see them as being the Buddha, coming coming from the Buddha. Can you see that that would speed you up?

If you, they say that if you can see your teacher as being the Buddha then whatever blessings you receive from your practice of devotion, you will receive the blessings of a Buddha. That powerful, you might even receive the blessings of all the Buddhas. If you see your teacher as an ordinary being, you can only receive the blessings of an ordinary being. That’s completely up to you. As long as I see permanent glass, the glass will be permanent for me and it will not change my mind.

The moment I think, oh, I see something else than what is actually there, I can start training my mind and I can shift my mind. The glass is not only impermanent, the glass is also empty of inherent existence, which is even more subtle and more difficult to see. But if I would focus on that, I could also learn to see that. Right? It’s all already here.

It’s just me not being able to see it. Same with the teacher. Here? So we have to prove that a little bit, isn’t it? That the teacher is the Buddha.

Or why should we see him as the Buddha, the Guru as the Buddha? Lama Zopa says that if we have no guru devotion and we read the Dharma, we read the books, and we know impermanence and we know emptiness and we can all say that intellectually, but they say when there is no guru devotion it is like your heart or your mind becomes like a dry rock. There is no fluid, there is no water, there is no moisture, there is no nothing that makes it juicy. Know, good devotion gives a lot of juice. Makes it also supple.

Yeah. And that helps you to keep on going. Can, if the, sometimes people come here and they have read so many books, you know, but they haven’t been touched in the heart. And they think that’s really logic and I want to do this. But only when you’re really touched in the heart something, something, it’s like something makes you move more.

I don’t know how to say that. If we can develop devotion in our mind we will have less pride. True? Because we recognize that that person knows much more than we do. That means that we can let go or we can acknowledge our ignorance.

If we are the one who always knows better, we can’t learn anything, right? So the moment we can acknowledge somebody as our teacher and seeing somebody as the Buddha, that moment we let go of our pride. We say, I do not know how to do that. When we let go of our pride our mind becomes more clear, more calm because a disturbing emotion is out of our mind. If we can see our Guru as being the Buddha, then whatever action we are doing in relationship to him is going to create unbelievable merit.

It’s going to create the merit of following the advice of a Buddha. It’s going to create a merit of pleasing the Buddha. And when we please one Buddha, we please all the Buddhas. True? If we please one sentient being that will not go further than that one sentient being.

Or maybe that person tells a few other people and then it’s gone. Right? The merit is small. But if we please a Buddha the merit is very, very big. If we have a teacher that we can see as a Buddha and we devote ourselves completely to that teacher, we purify very, very quickly negative karma.

They say as soon as good devotion is in the mind and if you offer service to the guru, you know, if you say: Lama Zopa, what can I do for you? Then you can be sure that all your negative karma is going to ripen. And you get sick and you, I don’t know, you meet many, many unpleasant circumstances and your own emotions are constantly in the way and just difficult, but that’s strong purification. So when you go to the Chenrezig Nuns’ community in Queensland, know, then people say: Oh, something is not right here. All these nuns are sick all the time.

Something is wrong. But maybe that’s right. Maybe that’s the practice of the Guru devotion and maybe that’s just the purification that happens. And normally it happens especially in the beginning, you know, and then you work through it and you hope that at a certain point you have worked through it. I don’t know how long it’s going to take.

If you’re really devoted to the Guru then whatever is asked for, it’s not a problem. If Lama Zopa Lama Zopa has all these surprises. He sends in the morning an email and says, oh, it’s a special day today. I would like the centers, people in the center to set up as many offerings as possible. So sometimes he does that.

Preferably I would like you to set up a thousand sets of seven offerings evening. Or if that is not possible, you can also set up hundred sets. And if that is not possible, you can also and then it brings it down a little bit. So eventually he says, you know, and if you just do the medicine Buddha Puja or Guru Puja, that is also good. But he starts with this huge amount of offerings.

And then it’s up to you what you’re going to do with that, you know, and it’s your challenge. And if you can, I don’t know? I know he did it once at Chenrezig, and we got early morning an email that he wanted to have so many offerings. And we somehow thought we had done it before, but now we thought, okay, we know where the table are coming from, know where the tablecloth are, you know, so we just organised it and we had it done at a certain point. Yeah, we knew how to do it but it’s a challenge, you know, and sometimes when you start doing something for him everything goes wrong, everything.

Or it looks like there is nobody who is going help you and you’re there and you think how the hell am going to do this?’ And then suddenly people turn up and they say oh I just had this feeling I had to come here. I’m not sure why, you know, do you know why I’m here? And you say: Well, you know, you can help me and they say: Oh yeah, great, why not? This is what happens when you do something for Lama Zopa, you know. And sometimes you have the feeling that he is just managing whatever in his centres, you know, whatever event is happening, whatever is going on.

He somehow is the orchestra leader and sometimes we have no idea why he is doing what he is doing. But if your devotion, if there is a devotion towards him, you know, then there is a trust that whatever is happening there is a reason for that. And it is alright, you know, and whatever needs to happen needs to happen. That is how Lama Zopa is very challenging to be But so he moves you from one quarter to the other, you know. And sometimes he brings you in absolute despair and then he brings you in great bliss and then anything is possible.

If you devote yourself correctly to the Guru or if you devote yourself to a Guru, then what you’re doing, you’re engaged much easier in virtuous actions. You want to engage in virtuous actions. It’s almost when you have good devotion, Lama Zopa is always there. Or whoever, you know, whoever your Guru is. So if you take for instance the vow of not killing and you have a Guru and there is this mosquito agitating you, it’s very difficult to kill that because you know somehow.

If you see the guru as the Buddha, the Buddha is omniscient. It’s like you’re killing in front of your teacher. How can you do that? So that gives you some extra inspiration not to do that. And if you see your Guru as the Buddha, you will be able to follow his advice, no matter what his advice is.

Right? If you want to achieve something in your life, you know, now people have personal trainers. Or even if you go to the gym, it doesn’t really matter. You want to achieve something or you want to lose ten kilos, you go to the gym and the person says, This is what you need to do. If you really trust that person you do it because you want to lose that weight.

And then the Guru comes and he says, I want you to do this. And you say, Why would he ask me that? And you’re going to doubt it. And you forget why you actually ask him the question, you know. As with the personal training or the gym, somehow we know that and we can follow that.

But the teacher is exactly the same. It’s just the time span of what we are talking is much, much, much bigger and maybe that’s why we lose a little bit. But it’s exactly the same. Following his advice is just doing the training so that you can move towards you where you want to go in your life and in your next lives. If you do not follow, if you do not see your teacher as the Buddha, what happens with the mind that we have?

The teacher gives you an advice and you start debating that. You know, I don’t know what you’re talking about. I don’t know why you’re giving me this advice. I don’t see any good in that. You tell me why I should do this.

Can you imagine negativities that arise in our mind? And the teacher will not fight with you, you know. You ask for his advice, he gives you the and that’s it. It’s up to you. And then you think why don’t they get any attention?

And you go to your friends and you say well you know I don’t know about this teacher but and you start talking and you start talking badly because you want to be acknowledged or you know you have more issues that you bring into the relationship with your teacher. And suddenly you start to create all these negativities. So even seeing him as a guru or his or her as a guru, as a Buddha, you can prevent yourself from going there. But you have to hold on to that idea even if whatever happens is challenging. Because our mind is as soon as it’s challenging or we don’t like it then we just put it aside.

Oh no, he’s not really a Buddha. I thought he was a Buddha for a while but afterward he said: No, no, no, definitely he’s not a Buddha. That’s wrong, isn’t it? It’s wrong for you. You are on your way, you can’t see anything and you just go on a sidetrack.

It’s damaging you. For the teacher it doesn’t really matter, but for you it does. So that is why it is good to see. Yeah, I have no more wise. So the only reason why we do it is because it is best for us.

It is only going to give us some profit when we do it. Can you see that? Can everybody see that? It’s only going to be of benefit to us. It’s about us.

It’s not about the teacher. It’s about what do I want and how do I do that most quickly. You have to think very selfish in Buddhism in a certain way. If you see Mr. Yeh.

Does the teacher have to be realized or just only part of No. Can be even an ordinary being. But you see that teacher as the Buddha. What is going on from his side doesn’t really matter. If you start to see mistakes in the teacher you create obstacles for your own achievement of enlightenment.

So if you can see the teacher as the Buddha and you can see that that is going to bring you as quick as possible to enlightenment, if that’s the quickest way, then seeing faults in the teacher are obstacles on your own path. Can you see that? It’s like that’s the mind that knows better comes in there again. If you say yes, so there are many stories in this book and I’m very sorry that it’s not in the shop, but it’s the Heart of the Path from Lama Zopa. Just ring Hilary and ask for copies and she will order them.

But there are many, many stories where people venerate something or somebody as being the Buddha and that it behaves like that. Many blessings come from that. So there are many stories about that somebody asked something to a teacher and the teacher gave a very rude answer, like your nose looks like something. And person doesn’t really understand it and thinks, oh, that’s a special mantra that this teacher gave me. And they start repeating this, you know.

And by practicing this with full devotion, that mantra becomes very powerful and very healing. So there was one teacher, the teacher had said this to somebody, Your nose looks like, I can’t remember what it was, and the person went away and thought that was a special mantra and started repeating that. And years later this teacher had a problem with something, a physical problem. And they heard about this healer and asked, you know, if the healer could come to heal the teacher. So the healer came and he repeated that mantra, Your nose looks like But the disease was healed, you know, the teacher was healed just by the power of the devotion.

There are stories about relics, you know, have you heard of relics? You believe in relics? So when I highly realized there are I don’t even know where to start there because I don’t know. Relics are sometimes they appear as little white pearls or pills and they coming from their manifestations of the body of the Buddha, the mind of the Buddha, not sure, or both. They are manifestations of the Buddha.

They are seen as being the Buddha. And these relics, when you venerate them, they can multiply. So you get more and more and more, and then when they become more you can hand them out. So there was a story about a lady who wanted to have a relic from a certain Buddha and her son went to a pilgrimage place where and she asked her son, Please take me a relic from the Buddha home. So on the way home the son realized, Oh my God, I forgot that from my mom, you know.

So he saw a dog, the body, the skeleton of a dog and he took a tooth from the dog and he went to his mom and said, This is the tooth of the Buddha. And the mom was so happy and she started to venerate the tooth of the Buddha and at a certain point pearls, the relics were coming from the tooth. You know, it started to produce relics, it started to behave as it was the Buddha. There are many, many, many stories like that, that if you see something as the Buddha or somebody as the Buddha, the blessings are exactly the same. So when high lamas die and they get cremated then in the ashes they find these relics.

Sometimes they are white, most of the time they are white, sometimes they have other colors. They can find many precious substances in the ashes. There has been one lama in Nepal and he died four or five years ago and he had an incredible amount of relics and actually we should have the DVD from this lama. We’ll have to look that up, that we ordered that before I go. So they burned the body, they burned it.

They opened it and then they found the heart was still soft. You you think that can’t happen. And in the heart was the image of Tārā. They found his brain, they found his skull and in the skull was also something written, some Sanskrit letters written. They found his tongue and on the tongue was also an image of something.

They found his eye. They found hair, he had no hair, but they found black hair and orange hair and the thing that had to do with the practices that he did. And then they found all kinds relics, they found white pearls and they found green ones and they found brown ones and there was a whole, you know, they have made pictures of all these things that came out of the ashes. And the moment that he was burned, I think, there were three rainbows above Kathmandu that everybody could see. Three, not two, three rainbows.

So he was a very highly realized lama and they only realized how high they realized he was when they opened the how do say that? They they make a stupa, not like that exactly but a similar kind of thing where they put them in the lotus position and then they burned them. And when they opened that they saw actually how incredible his realizations must have been. So these relics are a manifestation of the realizations of the teacher. Don’t ask me how it works, you know, this goes beyond what my mind can do but you know the proofs are just there.

Bendigo Bendigo they’re building a big big stupa and one thing that happens in stupas is that you bring many relics together from holy beings and you put them inside the stupa to make the stupa a really, really powerful holy object. The stupa manifests as a manifestation of the holy mind of the Buddha. So these relics help to make it a powerful object. And Bendigo where they are building the stupa there is a center, there is an exhibition center where there is a constant exhibition of relics. Relics coming from Śākyamūni Buddha, relics coming from the previous Buddha, relics coming from high meditators.

Very, very, very powerful. If you go there and you just walk around, your mind becomes so peaceful. They were actually here though because I’ve got the one on two. That’s true. And it’s sometimes true.

And they but they go to the Vietnamese community because they you know, the Vietnamese people, they venerate that so completely. You know, we are skeptical and say, what’s that? But they know what it is. So they they are better hosts for something like that. I tried to get them here, but, you know Yeah.

Yeah. How was that? I thought it was different. Different? Yeah.

Did you feel? I don’t know. I was reserving my judgment on them. Yeah. But Tenzin Palma was there the day I went to look at them.

Alright. Yeah, so that was quite interesting. Yeah. Lama Zopa travels with the whole suitcase of relics. He has unbelievable many and he collects them for he’s building a big statue in India, the Maitreya Project statue.

So he’s collecting relics for that or people give him relics for that. So part of the relics travels all around the world and they haven’t been in Australia because the relics in Bendigo, there’s a little bit of competition between both. But I think now the relics are allowed to come in. So when they’re coming you have to go and have a look. But he also just travels with the suitcase.

So every time where he goes, if you are lucky, he will ask his attendants to set up all the relics and then he starts doing prayers as if the Buddhas are really present. And it’s so, it’s very very powerful, I think, very powerful. But you know this is our sceptical mind that is in between, isn’t it? Saying, Yeah, what’s that? Do the Buddhists use the same cremation site as the Hindus in Kathmandu?

No, they build a kind of stupa. If it’s high lamas, no, they don’t bring them to the site. They build a stupa wherever they are, I think, and then they put them inside and then they burn them. So they don’t lay their bodies flat and there’s not all that wood involved and but I don’t know exactly how the ceremony goes. It’s another way of saying it that really the guru is like a living relic.

I mean, that makes relics sound dead and they’re not clearly dead things. No. But I don’t know, I just I would say the Guru is an other kind of manifestation of the Buddha. I wouldn’t call him a relic. No.

No. Yeah. In a way, I understand what you’re saying, but I wouldn’t. No. It’s actually better to say the other one.

Yeah. So are we able to see the Guru as the Buddha? And as I said before we can train the mind. We can train the mind to learn how to see that. Right?

And I give all these examples so I’ll do that again. And then we can look into the tendency of the mind. If we see a guru and we recognize a person as our guru, we see all these beautiful qualities. And when it goes wrong, it goes wrong because we see something that we feel is negative. And the tendency of our mind is then to focus on that negative and to make it really, really, really big.

And then we lose faith and then we turn away. Right, that’s how our mind normally works. So how can we train our mind? By keeping focusing on the positive qualities. That by remembering ourselves that that person in order to have all these positive qualities must have done this and this and this this and this and and keep on focusing on that.

Keep on focusing on what that person has achieved instead of what that person maybe still has to do. Right? And then when that person manifests negative qualities, use that to develop more good devotion instead of following the tendency you use it to break down your good devotion. Good devotion is something really really precious. It’s like a very powerful It’s like a turbo motor, you know?

And what we are doing is we put the wrong petrol in it when we start focusing on negative qualities and then the motor doesn’t work anymore. So in order to keep the motor working we, whatever comes, we use that to help the motor and not to stop it. So when somebody has negative qualities then there can be a whole First of all we can think, you know, I can’t even see that this glass isn’t permanent. How can I judge that that is a negative quality? I have so many wrong views.

We are deluded beings, right? We can’t see even our next step. So if this person has all these positive qualities and something appears to me as negative maybe I’m wrong. Probably I’m wrong. Probably it’s me who’s wrong.

Probably it’s me who cannot see something. I can’t see many many many many things. So maybe I can’t see that one too. Right, is that easy or not? Yep.

Every quality that we achieve, if we would just follow a negative mind, we would just follow a self-cherishing mind, then the negativities get bigger and bigger and bigger in our mind. Every virtue that arises, they say, is like an action of the Buddha’s, even in our mind. Every virtue that arises must be connected with the enlightened mind. How else can it arise in our mind? If we just follow a self-cherishing thought, no virtue can arise.

So when it arises there must be something working that is different from our self-cherishing mind, that is connected to the mind of the Buddhas. These are just lines of reasoning that you can follow when you see negativities in somebody. You can think that the guru is the doer of all the actions of the Buddhas, you know. The Buddhas, and we talked about it I think the first week, Buddhas, they would, the Buddhas how they are present we cannot see them. When we practice here we invoke the Buddhas, but we can’t see them.

But somehow we have to believe that they are here. So we do not have the eyes or we do not have the pure mind that can see the Buddhas. So in order for us to see the Buddhas, to see them, they have to manifest in ordinary form. We cannot see anything else than that. So things appear as having mistakes.

They cannot manifest in another way as appearing with mistakes. They appear as if they are like us. They appear with delusions. They appear with suffering because there is no other way they can manifest to us. Right?

But it doesn’t mean they are not a Buddha. Oh no, that person suffers. It’s not a Buddha, can’t be. We can’t say that. We do not know that.

So the Dalai Lama says the Buddha cannot manifest in any other ordinary way and therefore necessarily has faults. So then it’s up to us. If we’re going to focus on the faults we know what our negative mind does or the mind becomes negative and we’re we’re going to create resistance, we’re going to create obstacles. So if we want to go quick to enlightenment we have to keep on focusing on the positive aspects, on the positive qualities. Then we don’t create any obstacles for ourselves.

Are there any questions about that? No questions? Is it too hot here? I don’t know. It’s hot, isn’t it?

Open the window? Yeah. Maybe open the window. I see everybody’s going slowly into a sleeping state. Brains are just frying from all the information.

Is it? Just when you said that, it reminded me that, you know, that Leonard Cohen guy who’s a Zen Buddhist? Mhmm. And he wrote this line in his song, when I heard this line, it changed everything about the way I saw certain things about me and others. And the line was, there’s a crack in everything.

Mhmm. That’s how the life gets in. So it’s not and it’s just what you were saying about what’s a mistake. I know what mistake it’s taking. I had a problem online.

It’s not just some dinky little positive thing to say, but it’s really it just changed so much how I view myself and others and that maybe this crack is how the light gets in. Maybe that’s where the wisdom is. Whatever the, you know, relative to evidence of being faulty or damaged or whatever, that’s where I need to be. Maybe that’s the equality. Any questions?

Do I have answered my question about No, go Ants. Bring it on. Bring it on. Can you repeat your question please? How does one decide when it’s time to move on to a new teacher?

You never have to be guilty of moving on. Right? Mhmm. It’s not that because you feel that you’re inspired by this person and this person is teaching you that you always have to stay with person. It’s not at all like that.

It’s more like it’s very organic. And what experience is that teachers can see who is your teacher and somehow they sent you on the path to these teachers and you just go with the flow. You just practice whatever advice has been given. So if I ask advice, I have a question and I go to Lama Zopa and I say: Oh, Lama Zopa, this and this and this and he gives me an advice and I’m not one hundred percent happy with that. So next time I see an old Lama and I ask the same question.

That’s really wrong. Because definitely that other Lama is going to give me another answer and then I’m only going to be confused so I’m not going to practice so I don’t practice anything so I don’t follow the advice of two lamas. You know, so don’t go there. You practice the advice. If you have finished that, you can move on.

Or if you haven’t finished that and you keep on practicing, you don’t have to meet with that teacher. You know sometimes you meet a teacher one time. I see my teachers hardly ever, but it doesn’t mean they’re not here. You know, maybe teachers have passed away, don’t even know they have passed away. But for me they’re still here completely alive.

So when I know what this teacher teaches me because they all have their specific things so when when I need something from there I just I just ask or I think about them. When you say maybe you only see teacher one time isn’t that different from what you’re talking about though? You’re talking about long term relationship. But you don’t have to see anybody to have a long term relationship. For your relationship, what you need to do is you have to make sure that nourish the relationship and you do that by following the advice of the teacher and by seeing the teacher as the Buddha.

That is your nourishment of the relationship and you can keep on doing that if you meet with the teacher or not, it doesn’t really matter. And when you’re on the Buddhist path, I don’t know how they do it, you know, but it’s like everybody walks another path. And if you just go with the flow, you know, you practice as good as you can and you follow whatever advice you receive from, I would say whoever, but whoever is on your path as a teacher, you will meet what you need for the next step or you will meet the person that is going to take you to the next step. Right? If you’re doing your practice well, there is always a teacher if you can see the teacher or not.

Is that true? Yeah, I just wanted to add a comment if I can. I don’t know if it helps, but it might. I think sometimes as Westerners we see teachers in a Buddhist sense, our Western eyes where we have to see the teacher like we’re going to school every day or on a real regular basis. But but in a Buddhist sense, with a teacher is somebody that we, like you say, don’t necessarily see all the time, but it is also somebody that we’re going to see in future lives.

Yep. Once once we get connected to that teacher, we meet them in future lives. Yeah. We won’t meet with our primary school teacher in the future life. No.

Or maybe in another form, yeah. That’s true. Certainly the Buddhist teacher, we will meet in future lives. At that stage I’ll teach you something new. Yeah.

True, true. Thank you for that. So you make a really, really big picture. Much bigger picture. And maybe in this life you see the teacher one time, but the teacher touches you so deep that whatever that teacher says to you, you keep that in your heart and you keep it alive.

And just merely doing that will bring everything you need on your path. I understand what you’re saying. But the thing that I always think about was that when you’re in the presence of such a person, it’s an incredible feeling to be in the presence of that person. Yeah. And if you only have that presence once and never again, then I feel that you’re you’re missing something.

I mean, you can remember the experience and you can remember what they say but to only make it once and never again. Yeah. But then maybe after three years you think, oh, you know, I really want to go back to Nepal and for whatever reason it just happens and go back to Nepal and you meet another teacher. And that teacher also has an impact on you and maybe not so much but you come back and then you think oh you know what now I’m going to Buddha house and I’ll do my this and this and this and this and and you do that. You, although you might not be aware, you would just walk on the path.

And then when you’re ready for the next step, somebody will appear. And sometimes you might feel a little bit dry, you know, like, oh, I haven’t seen a teacher for a long time. I don’t know. I think I think the more you really put into practice what they’re saying, the more you keep the things juicy, even if you see them never. Is it something about too that when that teacher, Guru, touches your heart and it’s a really big heart thing, that it isn’t just relying on that memory of that instance.

I mean, I’m speaking from just the beginnings of understanding something. It’s not it’s not just the memory of of when I was in his presence. It’s like I’ve internalized that and that grows. I don’t pretend that I’ve seen him last week and I enter into fantasy, but that internalizing Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yes. Is what grows in you. Yes. And what you can also have is that you talk with the teacher, you know, you invite a teacher and you talk to her and you listen to his or her advice.

That’s right. And that’s what you’re doing. And it’s like the ultimate guru is what they say, it’s the dharmakaya. How do I explain that? If you develop your wisdom completely and you are a Buddha, then that wisdom aspect is the dharmakaya.

So that’s the ultimate wisdom aspect of the Buddha. That’s like, that is called the dharmakaya. That is the ultimate guru. And we can actualize the dharmakaya in our own mind. Right?

We have the potential in our own mind to actualize that. So having a connection with the guru, that guru is going to help you to actualize the dharmakaya. But that is also the ultimate guru. The dharmakaya is the ultimate guru. So you have that already inside you.

And the guru is the one who shows you the way. So it’s not something that is strange to us. It’s something that I think when you reach it you think, Oh, this is so normal, this is so me. You do not become you become only more you, you know, but not the ego you but who you really are. You only get more confidence, more wisdom, more love, more compassion, more of all the good things that are just you.

You’re not going to become a stranger by becoming a Buddha. You’re just going to find something in yourself that the potential is already there, the seeds are already there. You just let it grow, grow, grow, grow. So you’re not becoming a stranger for yourself. You become more you.

I don’t know if that helps. I forgot to make your name tag, Heidi. I’m sorry. I’ll do that for next time. He’s very free and easy with his name tag.

Have to tell you. I made too much shells, maybe it was that. Sorry. Any questions? How is this for the mind when we talk about this?

Heart? Well for me personally it’s about having a teacher that you can guess what, quiz constantly. Quiz? Yeah and ask questions often. If that teacher is a long way away and you never get to see them, who do you actually physically ask?

Do you ask in your mind or? You can ask in your mind and also just by thinking about there are different teachers, right? There is a teacher that you have that strong connection with and that you feel is going to take you to enlightenment. That teacher you do not need to have present. You just have that teacher in your heart all the time and you think about that teacher and you let that teacher inspire you to keep persevering on the path.

Many obstacles, many difficulties, but just because of that inspiration you keep on going. Then you have practical questions. Any student who has more experience than you might be able to help you with that. You can even ask your teacher: I really have this you know, please send me somebody who can help me to answer this. And you wait.

Or you wait till the question gets out of your mouth and you think: Oh, where did that come from? Right? It’s much bigger than this little life. It’s much, you know, and if you open up for that big sphere or that big mind then everything will be alright. You know, it’s like sometimes I think they say that like a Dharma center like this, that’s like the mandala of Lama Zopa Rinpoche.

You know what a mandala is? Mandala. Mandala is like the house of the deities. So, Lama Zopa, if he is a Buddha he can manifest as any deity. He can manifest as anything.

So he manifests for us in the form of a teacher but he can also manifest in the form of a deity. So this center and all the FPMT centers is all part of Lama Zopa’s Mandala. He is in the middle. He is the orchestral leader. Right?

And sometimes things become a mess and you think: how can this happen?’ I said what I thought but there was a reason behind everything and what he says is the only reason why we are here, why we exist is to purify our negative karma and to create as much merit as possible. That’s the only reason why the sangha is here. So every action that you are doing for instance to help Buddha house is you help Lama Zopa. Lama Zopa has this huge mind constantly thinking about all sentient beings. If you start helping Lama Zopa you are helping all these sentient beings that are in his mind.

Can you imagine the merit that comes from that? But also the purification that can come with that, you know, so you go fast. That’s why they think, you know, it’s an opportunity that you have to if you feel like oh I want to offer help see it as that you help Lama Zopa. You can go very fast. If something strange happens you know or somebody is rude to you, you can say: Wow, you know, that purifies some negative karma.

Thank you very much Lama Zopa. And let it go, you know. Don’t hold onto it and don’t try to address it or don’t try to If it keeps going, you know, then maybe you would try to address it in a normal way but don’t hold onto it in your mind. Just let it go. That’s how we try to work.

Right? So this is our living practice for whatever we hear in the teachings. And everything that happens here can be more intense than what happens in the outside world. So when we do meditation the meditation can be really deep and really intense, you know. But then also the other side can also be more intense.

That’s just the nature of being in the mandala of such a big being. It just amps up. Fiona was saying, if you have a teacher, another way when she was saying that was maybe for we Westerners to use them as more to use them as an inspiration for us. Would that fit? Yeah.

As rather than keep hanging on to this teacher bit where we think we’ve gotta have him in front of us. But No. Yeah. He’s our inspiration for being better people. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Definitely.

But you Fiona would like to have who’s constantly here. Yeah. The average attachment you should be true. But if you’re going to see beyond this life, you know, and know that whoever you have a good connection with you will meet again and again and again. You know, then you fulfill your attachment.

How do I meet with this person? You practice their advice. And the better you do it, the more chance the person is going to appear when you need it. You know when you say follow their teachings, where do you find the information to follow the teachings? Like read the books do you know what I mean?

You say pick a guru and how do you just keep studying? How does it all flow? If you’ve so I checked, do you have to ask the guru to be your guru? No, do not have to ask that. You can just if you feel that that is your guru, you just accept that as your guru and then especially with big lamas, they have many students, you do not have to ask that.

And even if the lama is not so big, you know, is not really. The lama’s opposites you don’t have to. Now go to the intuition. I’m not sure if that’s intuition or maybe I should call it your wisdom mind. Your wisdom mind is much bigger than your ego, right?

And most of the time we connect with our ego and we’re not maybe so aware of the wisdom mind. But your wisdom mind will bring opportunities and challenges on your path. Or maybe your wisdom mind is exactly the same as the wisdom mind of the teacher. And by you trusting in the teacher whatever happens on your path you can see as coming from the teacher. So if you need something you ask for it.

We have to learn that. Even, I don’t know, for me it’s very difficult. What do I need? Biggest question in my life. How do I know what I want?

What do I want? You know, but the more clarity you get about where do I actually going? I want to achieve enlightenment. So what do I need for that? And if I completely have no idea where to go, you know, then I pray for a teacher.

But if you find who you want to teach you and you ask him can you be my guru? So then what happens is he say do this, do this, do this? No, sometimes nothing happens. Know that person is So for instance the Dalai Lama is your teacher. He’s just in your mind.

And every day he’s there. Or whenever you need him he’s there in your mind. When you have a problem you think about the Dalai Lama. When something goes really well or you see somebody with a lot of compassion you think about the Dalai Lama. Whenever, you know.

The Dalai Lama appears in your mind. That is enough. That will take you wherever you need to go. And you do not have to question that. So we’re talking about coincidence happen?

Coincidences do not exist. Everything comes in existence due to causes and conditions. So when you think wow that’s a coincidence, no that’s not. Maybe you ask for it. Yeah.

When you ask for it, it will come. And if it doesn’t come and if you have constant obstacles, purify your mind. Right? Come here do the Vajrasattva purification practice. Oh yeah, we did that at six o’clock.

At six o’clock we do practices, right? So on the third week of the month we have Vajrasattva which is a very strong purification practice. You can learn to do the practice and do that. Reading the Heart Sūtra is a purification practice. Reading any sūtra is purification practice.

The more you purify the mind, the less obstacles you have in achieving whatever you want to achieve. If you have a pure mind, you have a question, it arises in your mind and it just happens. The trick is recognising the answers when they’re done. They can’t but we don’t always see them. How do you know?

I wonder you were gonna say that. Oh, that was an answer, but I didn’t see it. The moment that you said it, you have seen it. Sometimes I do afterwards. Uh-huh.

Yeah. But you still say it. Still haven’t seen it. Yeah. I suppose.

Not right there and then you ask questions. No. No. No. It’s it’s like these little synchronicities that happen.

But Yeah. You know? And that is causing is things come in existence due to cause and conditions and that’s why things pop up at the same time, you know, because the conditions are just there. Yeah. And then you can say, Oh wow, look at that.

Must have done something good. And then sometimes I look back and say, Oh why didn’t I see that then? Doesn’t matter. It matter. It’s when you do see it.

Well, sometimes it does. Well, no. I know what you’re saying, but, yeah, it’s the recognition of of that event. I meant to see it right. The first off, maybe something needed to happen and then suddenly, you know, click.

Yeah. Jamyang, can I just ask you if So there are two different teachers, right? Are we talking about a spiritual teacher? And then there’s somebody who is talking. If there isn’t a small teacher with a small T found, how do you think we would go if we were to get the tapes of the course and all get together and do it ourselves?

That was half my idea. Oh, wow. I’m thinking like that. Wow. Yes.

I know there is a set of like you can do it by distance and there is a set of tapes. If we were prepared to buy them Oh, the tapes are in the library, so you don’t have to buy them. Do you think we So there different things. First of all, the person who is organizing the program is Lindy. Lindy is SPC.

And she had a plan to come here tonight and and have her plan ready, but she got a swine flu. So she has been out of, you know, she didn’t work for I think ten days and she started today. So I think she’s still catching up and I hope next week everything, you know, there will be an idea. So then when you think about if if you want to do something like that, there are videos I think that are about half an hour and they talk about what is the module about. And they have a nice introduction with Richard Gere and somebody else.

Richard Gere is a student of Lama Zopa. And sometimes he appears in FPMT centers in India or, you know, so if you wanna see him, you have a chance there. He just does a little introduction, you know? And there was another guy, I don’t even know his name. I’m not good with actors, but also he’s famous apparently.

Robert, yeah, but he’s not famous. Oh, is he not? Yeah, a teacher, but no, I mean he’s an actor. There’s another actor. So that is one thing that exists.

And then there is a home study discovering Buddhism that comes through and that you could maybe pick up and do as a group. I we’re not supposed to be attached to groups and all the rest of it, but it does help because you get feedback. I think this is a fantastic group. I don’t think it’s about not being attached or forming one, it’s about not clinging to one. So the forming of one might be really useful.

And I think you guys work in a way together. I think it’s just amazing and I would hate to see this fall apart. But that’s trying not to be attached to it. But you give each other so much, you know, and you help each other so much. And, you know, I’m gonna trust your inner wisdom that you’re gonna find some way of continuing this.

Yeah. I’d like to as well. My idea Yeah. Similar, But we could nominate ourselves if we choose to to maybe teach a module or part of a module, like go away and actually study it for a little bit. Uh-huh.

And come to the class with that assistance and go and then put the two pieces together or three or four pieces or whatever, and then teach it that way or learn it that way. That’s actually that’s maybe quite difficult. Don’t know. Maybe. But it’s cool.

You yeah. But you you you know, Christel did the module how to meditate. Yeah. And you talk to her and ask her how much she already studied and then how much time she had to put in to prepare the teachings and she didn’t do it on her own, you know? It was just an idea.

Yeah. But maybe Andrew, you can have somebody guide the group, to be the chairperson to guide the group maybe. Oh no, we’ll do that. I think it’s actually good that there’s one person who takes the responsibility and says, and I’m going to be the mother of this group or the father. You can also be mother, it doesn’t really matter, Andrew.

I think we wait and see what Lily’s got. But that’s, you know, it’s like you let your inner wisdom work and be creative. There’s like twenty five people in this room and every single person in this room knows something that the person sitting beside them doesn’t know. And everybody But the the you if you start sharing that, you know, you can easily become shared ignorance, and that’s really, really, really useless, and within no time, nobody will be left. Yeah.

You need something that is to find. You need someone who’s competent. Well that’s what I thought. But as long as that person hasn’t arrived yet, it’s about that period of time. So don’t make a shared ignorance because that’s really difficult.

But they’re not long enough. They’re not giving the whole course. If that was true, I would not be here. Would just put you up and scream and If did our own home study and came together as a group and had some discussion. You do need So you want to wait till what Lindy comes up with or you want to communicate with her during the week?

Maybe. Her plan was to come in today, and she hasn’t made another plan known yet for next week, but I would assume that she’s gonna come in next week. Maybe it needs just a group. I don’t know if anyone’s not on online. We’ve always assumed that everybody is, and I don’t know that that’s a correct assumption.

And it’s interesting, you can’t do the forum and put a house on the website if you click on at the library. You can’t join the community discussion. You have to log in first. Yeah, but you can’t actually register. Alright.

Oh, right. You have to go to a home computer. So as a preparation of whatever is going to happen when I’m gone, you know, we a meditation day for a spiritual teacher and the meditation day that is advised by FPMT is to do a day on Śākyamūni Buddha, Guru Śākyamūni Buddha practice. Śākyamūni Buddha practice. So I will be gone by then, that’s on the fifth of September.

And I have proposed to Lindy that four students are each going to lead one session. Not daily practice, Śākyamūni Buddha practice. So you know you’re very familiar with that. Isn’t it? Because you put your name always behind that.

So that whole practice is described in the prayer book and you just get your prayer book, you get it home and you could even read it this week if you have questions. Can take a little bit of time next week to answer the questions. Everything is described, you just have to go through it. Which prayer book are you talking about? Oh, are no, not that one.

There is the big one in the back, and you would just get one home if you if you feel you wanna do that. So I need if you want that, is that an idea? Yeah. Who said that? Yeah.

I think a good idea. So is Lindy going to coordinate that day? I ask her to send at least somebody who can do the meet and greet and can take care of the lunch so that when you come that you bring your shared lunch but somebody else will put it all out and you could, for instance, keep silence in the morning. And then in the afternoon that you talk. And then practice can go really deep.

And the other three people to run a session, are you outside, Lamrim people? Was that your proposal? No. From here. And I asked her if we’re going to do that, I want everybody to pay less money so she said you can all pay ten dollars less than was advertised.

So that we just had a facility for you to help to pay the rent, you don’t have a teacher. Is the email for when she’s eventually better? She’s better today. So maybe I’ll bring the email list with me next week and we check the emails because I tried to send an email and Judy, do you have an email or do you just not online online? I think eight or ten came back.

I’ve never received an email. I’ve put my name on the list. No, haven’t sent any after that. I do have your email. So who would like to put up their hand for doing that?

Zaffo? Yeah, it’s a meditation day, the fifth. Yeah, you, Andrew, Zaffo, Dianne? So you lead one session. Oh, leaders session?

Yeah. One more. I’m actually thinking of doing the intro to Buddhism because I think I’ve sort of missed I’ll talk to you about it afterwards, but I’m thinking of doing that four week course until Sunday So you can do that on a Saturday morning and then you lead a session in the afternoon. No, that’s maybe too much. I want you to hear other people leading before you would do it.

I think you can do it now. Who wants to do two sessions? What does neither session actually mean? That you read Is it four different practices during the day? No, not just Śākyamūni Buddha.

You do four times Śākyamūni Buddha. What is Śākyamūni Buddha? Oh, that is? He was the historical Buddha? No, no.

What is the Śākyamūni Buddha? So what you do it is a very extensive practice that goes through all the Just as getting enlightened has an order This is him. Getting enlightened has certain order. So you have to train your mind in following that order. So what Lama Zopa for instance So whatever you’re doing you follow that Lamrim.

So he says for instance when you wake up you set a motivation and you say: Oh, thanks God I woke up today. So many people have died last night and how lucky I am that I was not part of that. So you remember, but, so how fantastic it is to have this human body, sorry. You almost jump off your chair. So you remember your precious human rebirth, but then you remember also impermanence and death.

You can die at any time. You know, how great am I life now, but I’m not going to die, but I’m not sure when I’m going to die. So that is all lamrim thinking, the path to enlightenment. So you sense the motivation like that, and then you generate refuge and you visualize the Buddha in front of you, you generate the bodhicitta motivation. And we do practices in order to generate these minds.

They help to generate the mind. The main practice is to think over it again and again and again. So the main thing is that you meditate. So you read and you give people the time to meditate on it. And the more you know what you’re talking about, the more you know where to stop and how long to stop for.

And it’s just a feeling where is the group, you know? And sometimes you feel that you can read something a little bit faster and sometimes you feel like, no, this needs some extra time. Thanks, Diane. I’ll give you all a book and I want you to read through it this week and think about it and then see what kind of questions you have and we just meet next week. We do next week the daily practice or the week after?

The week It was the week after I think. Okay. Second. And maybe maybe maybe the woman who knows more about it could go first. Yeah.

Diane will be first. And you will be second. I’ll just forward it. Doesn’t really matter. We’ll see.

Doesn’t really matter. I’ll I’ll make a program. I’ll make the roster I’ll make and then and then we’ll keep in the names. The fifth of September. When do you actually leave in there?

The third. So I’ll do the video night with you guys, and then the next morning, I’ll go. Do you want an airport Yeah. Yeah. Isn’t that true, Jimmy?

Because when when we Just all I’d ask. Visiting nuns and monks that we’re allowed to go to the arrival. There’s an open invitation. To the arrival on the airport? Yeah.

Like, when when robe It’s always nice. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It’s always it’s always good to do so.

You know? To wish you a farewell. Yeah. Probably. Big contest.

What time is it like? I’m not sure. I really don’t know. I thought it was eleven thirty, but I’m not sure. Oh, yeah.

I’ll to check. Get there at nine. Where are you flying who are you flying with, though? I’m flying to Brisbane first. I kick off a few days before I go.

So you leave? Which year airline? Yeah. He’s gotta get a bit of surfing. Virgin.

I do not have to hide this, but I just know I don’t know. I don’t know. It’s just gonna be a cry party. It’s gonna be what? A cry party.

Yeah. Yeah. Are we crying to live by then? Yeah. But I won’t be able to stop.

It. What have you been the same with that woman? Can you tell us that woman said, I just wanna kill myself? She said, well, that’s okay. But you know And the benefit for others?

Yeah. Then it’s okay. Yes. That’s a good point, Safa. Said to me his hope is at airport goodbye and never goes.

Didn’t you say that Lama Zopa said that the only way to I don’t want his attention. Where are we Where are we It’s like It’s not Russian. That came down, Laura. No. I wanna enjoy Italy.

I’m not gonna talk about Saint Gomorrah now. It’s nine thirty and I know some people have to drive an awful long way. So maybe we and I give you two meditations for this spiritual teacher. I didn’t put that on the homework. I just and I already forgot what questions I put on your homework.

To do during the day. Thank you. Oh, yeah. In the morning, I want you to check the qualities of the student. Okay, so I’m working.

Yeah. And then check what you feel you have or check where you feel that they have a problem with and try to work on that during the day. And then whatever during the day, whatever you meet during the day, try to focus on the kindness of others. Try to focus on the qualities of others, instead of on the faults. And when somebody does something and there is a difficult situation, try to think: How is this person now kind to me?

You know? Maybe they say something unkind, but what can you learn from that? And that can be kindness too, although they do not try to be kind, but they give you an opportunity to learn something. Try to see that kindness, you know, and let go of the focus on the negative aspects and see what is that going to do with your mind and then because of that with the situation. This is a difficult practice, a very very difficult practice.

But if you get a little bit of taste in it, it’s just going to shift your whole life. It’s like a gateway to happiness, you know. You get just rid of so many problems when you can do this. Alright. Try.

I know you all do. And then maybe we just dedicate. Is that alright? Let me see if the is a nice dedication. So just give yourself the time to let whatever you have heard tonight and thought tonight, let it settle down.

And try to connect with faith that whatever is gonna happen is gonna help you on your path. Whatever situation is going to arise in your life is going to help you on your path. Your guru, your teacher, and even if you don’t know your teacher yet, will present that to you. It is an opportunity to develop your qualities. It is an opportunity to let go of afflictive emotions, any unhelpful tendencies that we have.

And the more we can take these opportunities, the more we will be able to help all sentient beings to progress on their path to enlightenment. So think may I and all sentient beings never be separated in all our lives from the perfect Dharma teachings and from a spiritual teacher who teaches us the path, who guides us along the path. And may we remember his kindness or her kindness over and over and over again. May doubt never arise in our mind. Thank you for coming.