Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 126-minute teaching, Ven Jamyang identifies faith—not blind faith, but reasoned trust in a teacher’s spiritual attainment—as the foundation of guru devotion. He directly addresses the central challenge for Western practitioners: the critical mind that fixates on apparent faults while overlooking genuine spiritual qualities. Jamyang explains that Buddhas must appear in ordinary form, since minds like ours cannot perceive enlightenment directly; this reframes apparent mistakes as integral to the teaching. He clarifies the spectrum of teacher relationships—from refuge-taking to daily practice commitments—and presents the nine attitudes of devotion: obedience, inseparability, bearing burdens, immovability through hardship, equanimity in service, humility, joyful effort, patience with criticism, and constant availability. Throughout, Lama Zopa’s own practice and his demanding approach to testing students illustrate these principles. Aimed at serious practitioners already committed to the teachings.
File metadata (for organising)
File: Jamyang – spiritual teacher 4.mp3
UUID: 1389d258-2fab-450d-8620-b874d9d67673
Teacher: Ven Jamyang
Collection: Spiritual Teacher – Jamyang (Ven Jamyang)
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 126.6 minutes
Words: ~11,854
We’re already doing that. Last week we talked about training the mind in Guru devotion, And we talked about seeing the Guru as the Buddha. So how do we train in Guru devotion? We train in thought and we train in action. So we have certain ways of thinking about the teacher so that it helps us to develop Guru devotion and we have certain ways of acting that helps to nourish the Guru devotion.
Guru devotion you can also call that faith. In order to achieve enlightenment we have a long way to go. We need somebody that we feel knows how to get there. Preferably somebody who already is there. So if we see the teacher as somebody who already has walked the path, it is much easier to develop faith in that teacher.
So the more we can see that the teacher has all these good qualities that we talked about in the first class, and the more we can see that if the teacher has all these qualities he must or she must be a Buddha. That helps to generate the faith in the teacher. Faith is not a blind faith. Faith is something based on reasoning. We talk about faith many times we talk about something that we actually don’t know.
But faith means that I’ve seen all these qualities and if a person has all these qualities that means that person has all the causes for these qualities and the causes for these qualities are a lot of merit, lot of wisdom that means that person has trained their mind for a long period of time in a certain way I have faith in that person that whatever advice they give, that’s going to be useful for me. Right. Can you follow this buddy? I’m going a little bit quick for you maybe. Faith is like the mother of the Guru devotion.
It’s the primary cause. If we can see the qualities and we start to develop the faith, that is the cause of the whole Guru devotion. Then also faith helps to nourish whatever Guru devotion we already have. It helps to increase that good devotion. Faith also helps that the Guru devotion that we have doesn’t decline.
And if we look into our mind we have the tendency to see faults in everybody. That’s what we see. That’s what we focus upon. It’s very difficult for our mind to see qualities. When everything goes well we don’t think, Oh, that person has this quality and this quality and this quality.
But if things go wrong we are very good at seeing the things that made things go wrong. We are very good at seeing negative qualities. So we have to protect our mind from that tendency in relationship to the Guru. If we have faith in somebody that they have achieved enlightenment and we start seeing that person as the Buddha and then suddenly this person does something that we do not understand, our critical mind can come in and say: That person must make a mistake. I’m sure that person is doing something wrong.
Not that a person is not doing something wrong, that really doesn’t matter, but if we think that person does something wrong we damage our good devotion. We damage with that our achievement of enlightenment. We postpone it and we might not even get there because of our thoughts. So we have to protect ourselves from that tendency and we do that by contemplating the qualities of the Guru and by keep on seeing the Guru as the Buddha. And if mistakes appear to us, we can say, well, I see mistakes but I’m a deluded being anyway.
I have a wrong view anyway. Everything that I perceive is actually not that doesn’t exist in the way it appears. I know that, you know. So now something appears to me that also doesn’t exist in the way it appears. I don’t understand why this person is doing this but I’m sure it doesn’t exist in the way it appears just like everything else that I perceive.
So in that way we correct our negative tendencies to criticize. There was another thing that escapes me. I’ll come back to that. Oh, we can also see that the guru, the Buddha cannot appear to us as a Buddha because we would never be able to perceive that person. So the Buddha has to appear in ordinary form for us to be able to see and to receive teachings from that person.
So all ordinary beings have mistakes. So that means that the Buddha also appears in a form that has mistakes. Necessarily the Buddha cannot appear in any other form than that. Right? If the Buddha would appear perfect we would not be able to see it because our mind cannot see something that is really perfect.
True? So this is what we use in order to counteract the tendencies that we have in the mind and we do that to protect the mind because we want to achieve enlightenment. And we can only do that when we have the faith that person who is teaching us knows how we can get there and that we have to make sure that we don’t doubt our faith in any way. Right? The moment you have decided this is my teacher, you have to make sure that doubt doesn’t come in.
Before you accept somebody as a teacher, can doubt whatever you want and you can check it out until you feel for sure this is my teacher. But the moment you decide this is my teacher, you have to prevent doubt from coming in. Any questions on that? If you do have doubt coming in, does that mean that that person can’t be your teacher then because you obviously deep down you don’t trust them or is it just something you have to work on? Well the moment you have accepted that person as your teacher and doubt comes in, then you have to work on your own mind.
Yeah. And counteract that doubt and say this is my distorted view, this is because I cannot see things in the way they appear or I cannot see things in the way they really exist. So you counteract your mind. Before you have accepted somebody as your teacher you investigate your doubt. In order to get enlightened we have to give up our ego.
We have to give up that mechanism in ourselves that has told us for so many lifetimes how to survive. We have to give that up. So that means that we can experience oh I’m in danger. So the teacher is going to teach us something and we have to go through that letting go of that ego, letting go of that mechanism that helps has helped us to survive for so many lifetimes. That can be very scary.
So you have to make sure that when you accept somebody that you can keep on following. Many times the doubt comes in when the ego is challenged. Suddenly we say, now I’m not so sure anymore. So far he could do it very well, but now I’m not so sure if I want to do that. That’s the ego.
So then your faith can help to counteract that tendency. You see that we need to do that? That it’s very dangerous that when you’re on the path and you follow somebody and you have decided to do that and you and you have trained in guru devotion to give up the guru, how that damages ourselves, you know. And if you really see something that you think, you know, I’m not, I do not want to give up the path but at this moment I cannot follow this teacher but I can follow that teacher. You just stop following that teacher but you don’t criticize.
You just say, thank you for bringing me here and now I go this way with this teacher. And you keep on honoring that teacher with having a picture on your altar or reciting their long life prayer because acknowledging that they have taken you that far. Yeah? But you still don’t doubt. You just say, I don’t understand.
He must be a Buddha, but I do not understand. You know, we talked about the Kadampa, the New Kadampa, that other center with the Shugden practice, and we asked Geshe la, like, you know, we have to see the teacher as the Buddha. What do we do with this teacher? And he said, well, how do we know he’s not a Buddha? Yeah.
So and especially I know that there are students who have taken initiations from this teacher and then realized, oh, what he’s doing is really wrong. I don’t want you to be my teacher. So they write to Lama Zopa, this is what I’ve done. And Lama Zopa says, you go back to the teacher and apologise, you know, and you purify your mistake because that teacher has been your teacher, you’ve taken initiations and that person stays your teacher, you don’t have to follow him any further, but never discard him as your Guru. Never do that.
Even though Dalai Lama is saying the New Kadampa, some of their teachings are incorrect? Yes, so you don’t follow them, but you also don’t criticize them. I know that Robina had him as her teacher when she was studying in England. She, you know, in the mind it’s very difficult if you see your teacher doing that. She has two teachers, Lama Yeshe and this Geshe and suddenly they are completely opposite of each other.
So for the mind it’s very difficult to hold both teachers in esteem but that’s what she has to practice. So that teacher is still on her altar, but she’s not following that particular advice. But all the teachings that she has received, she honors. Right? So it’s a matter of my time and respect for the teaching.
Yes. Yeah. The Dalai Lama is saying that some of the New Kadampa’s teachings are incorrect, is that correct, what I’m saying? No, what he’s saying is that they are doing a certain practice, a Shugden practice. They call that a protector practice but the Dalai Lama calls it more a spirit practice.
And he says that’s a dangerous practice to do. But he’s not saying that the whole No, the practice is The teachings are exactly the same as what we are doing. They are Gelugpa teachings. They’re exactly the same. No no difference.
That makes it difficult to so in the teachings there’s no difference, it’s just a particular practice that they’re doing. So how do we know who they are? How do we know if they’re the ones, if buy a book or we read something or we go somewhere? They make pretty obvious. They’re called called Oh, I see.
Yeah. And and the Geshe is Geshe Kelsang Gyatso. Oh, so they’re quite open about who they are, their their names. Yeah. They’re not hiding.
Not But their books are looking They’ve quite clearly got New Kadampa on the books. On the books? Yeah. And there’s no Lama. And if you go to teachings there’s no Dalai Lama.
So if you ask the Dalai Lama then you see their reaction. So you can always ask when there’s no picture, who are you following? Is there a center here? There is a centre in Melbourne and a teacher comes over once in the so many months and then during a period of a month they teach in the city. Teach at Fullerton Park Community Centre once a month and they teach down month was coming every Wednesday to do because they actually gave a woman from work went and she gave me the prayer and the picture of Śākyamūni Buddha and on and then I turned over and there’s a prayer.
Uh-huh. And we had absolutely no idea until we came, and it was amazing. The next day I came here and that’s when you first spoke about it and she’d given it to me the day before. Oh, alright. So the main thing is that you don’t take that initiation, you know?
We talked about You have to go? Here on Sunday. Yeah. Saturday, isn’t it? Six o’clock.
Six o’clock. Yeah. I’ll see you then. Otherwise, next Wednesday, will be here. Alright.
I’ll be here next Wednesday. Okay. I’ll try and get here on Sunday. See you, LNZ. See you, Paul.
Have a good week. So if we can see the Guru as the Buddha, that means that every action that we are doing, every virtuous action that we are doing creates the merit of having done an action in relationship to the Buddha. If I see my teacher as an ordinary being, then the merit of doing a virtuous action in relationship to that person is also only the merit of an ordinary, you know, of an ordinary action or an action towards an ordinary being. So your merit is much, much, much bigger if you see the teacher as the Buddha, which means that you go much faster. Merit is like our motor, our turbo, you know, so the better we can see the teacher as the Buddha, the faster we will go in realizations.
We will receive the blessings of a Buddha if we can see the teacher as a Buddha. So we can’t see the teacher as the Buddha because we can train our mind. At the moment we see everything in a distorted way and we know that we can train the mind to see things more in accord with reality. So the same with seeing the teacher as the Buddha. We train the mind.
The mind is trainable, we know that, isn’t it? We can train the mind. So we can train the mind in doing that. We talked about that we focus on the good qualities of the Guru and if we see the faults, we use that to develop even more devotion. How fantastic that he appears in ordinary form with all these faults to show me, you know, that he you know sometimes when especially when we do long life pujas we thank the teacher for their unbelievable kindness of having taken rebirth as a teacher and we do that by talking about all their good qualities, all their amazing qualities and then at the same time talking about how grateful we are that they appear in ordinary form.
Enter this body that is in the nature of suffering in order to benefit us as they do not have to do that for their own benefit. For their own benefit they can sit in bliss somewhere, you know, in another kind of atmosphere where we cannot see anybody. But for our benefit they come in this form that experiences a lot of suffering that is in the nature of suffering and they come out of their bliss in order to benefit us. That is a huge kindness of the Guru. And when you hear the devoted students talking about that, it’s like everybody starts crying, you know, like, Oh, this is so fantastic that this teacher is doing this for us.
Because if they wouldn’t do it, it would be pretty dark on earth, isn’t it? We would only have a self-cherishing mind that we follow and that is never bringing us what we want and we had no idea how to get out of that. So it is very, very kind that they come. So how do we so we think about the kindness of the Guru a lot and that we do that in order to develop more respect. We have the habit to treat everybody as ordinary beings.
For us it’s not easy to see the good qualities. It’s not easy to know what it is to see a Buddha. What is a Buddha? We first of all have to think about all these qualities and then have an imagination how it looks like when you develop these qualities and then and then see that that person has that and then feel some veneration. That is already a lot, isn’t it, that you need to study and you need to understand before you can get that because otherwise that person is just an ordinary being and when they appear as an ordinary being you cannot develop the respect of them being a Buddha.
So you do that by thinking about the kindness of the guru, by the guru having to take this body in order to be able to benefit us. The guru, they say even being more kind than Śākyamūni Buddha because Śākyamūni Buddha did not appear to us. Somehow we didn’t have that karmic relationship with Śākyamūni Buddha to be in his presence and learn about the way to enlightenment from his mouth. But our teacher is so kind that he helps us to make that connection with him. He is there to benefit us.
He has appeared in the time that we are living. He is appearing in the places where we are coming. So that is his kindness or her kindness to appear there. The Guru is also very kind because he is teaching the Dharma. He or she doesn’t have to do that.
The main practices, I mean if we practice, we practice to achieve enlightenment for all sentient beings. But normally they say before you’re enlightened you can’t do much. So why would I go out and teach, you know, because I’m not enlightened yet. So but the Guru, even if he is enlightened, he comes out of that state in order to help us to teach. The Guru is kind because he is constantly blessing our mind stream and I think I said it a few weeks ago that Lama Zopa, he is constantly praying for students never ever to be reborn in the lower realms.
Is like a blessing. Was that last week, Julie, that we had a palliative care work group or was it the week before? The week before. Before. And Lama Zopa has made this card for people who are terminally ill or about to die and on the card are many pictures of different Buddhas and many mantras and then on the back he’s written written this unbelievable beautiful letter where he says, you know, how much he loves the person and the person doesn’t have to worry because he dedicates all his three times merits, so all the merits of the past, present and future towards the happiness of that person and he will make sure that that person will have a happy rebirth as long as that person puts trust in him to do that.
But he wrote I said oh I’ll read this and I started reading it and immediately I started crying and I couldn’t go further so somebody else had do that. But it was so loving how he said that, I could not repeat the words now. You? Yes. You want to repeat them?
I can’t but his love is so great that it doesn’t matter where you end up, does it? He will make sure that whatever happens to you will always be for the benefit of sentient beings. He said that whatever happens to you pray that it is for the benefit of sentient beings, yeah, because that is the best way that we can experience any problems or sickness or death. If we experience it so that it’s for the benefit of sentient beings, it becomes the cause for enlightenment for ourselves, you know, so then we can experience anything. That was an advice that he gave.
But where he said that he would he loved them so much that he would dedicate the three times merits himself for their higher rebirth. So The Guru inspires us to practice and it says in the teachings through material gifts. So what teachers do is that they have ways of how they connect with students and one way is to give gifts. So what Lamas do, you know, they like to give malas for instance. When you get a mala from the lama it’s like oh you know, every day when you do your prayers you think about the teacher.
What’s a mala? A mala is a rosary. Oh okay. Yeah, beads, many beads, yeah. So every time that you do them you think about a teacher.
I think Mala is very clever, but the attendants from Lama Zopa’s attendants say, So what shall we buy as presents for students? And Lama Zopa says, Mala, and they say, Oh, Mala? Can’t we think about something else? So one day on the on the way from the airport to the to the place where Lama Zopa was teaching, he asked the person to stop and he bought for in a shop, in a petrol shop, you know. And he bought for seven hundred dollars little presents in addition to the mala, you know.
So I came with all these little furry animals, stuffed animals, yeah. I prefer Mala. Very funny.
So then if we have the mind that is devoted to the teacher then we can also practice devotion in action and devotion in action means that we, first of all, that we follow the Guru’s advice and this is a this is really an I I wish I had read this whole book before I was going to give this class, but, you know, I I didn’t. But it says that if if it is not a problem if you can not follow the advice, what you do is say, I’m sorry, I cannot do this. You know, this is and you can set your reasons. And which is better than that when you get when the teacher asks you something and you can’t do it, you just say, maybe later, maybe later, maybe later. You keep postponing it and then eventually nothing happens.
It’s better that you give it back and then he can give you another advice. Carrying out his advice. If you see, for instance, have the book Dear Lama Zopa. He has many, many advices on many specific problems from people, so you can look into that. And I don’t know if your mind has the same tendency but I always think, oh no, but I want to ask that question personally, you know?
I don’t want to listen to this advice and I’m not going to do that, I’m not going to do that, but I do want to ask another question. So that is not really good devotion. Know, good devotion means that you do these things that he already has advice and you keep in mind and you do not necessarily have to ask again and again and again the same question. Also when, for instance, you know, we as Buddha House we ask many times what can we do to remove the obstacles, to a harmonious Buddha house? And if you then get an advice and you don’t practice that and then half year later you ask the same question, you know, then it’s very, very difficult for even for the Guru to talk to you because you appear as somebody who can’t hear.
You know, so he can’t talk to you when you do that. You have to put it into practice and then show what you have been doing and if you then still feel like we still need something else then there’s no problem, you will get the advice. So it is important that when people work here that they keep track of the advice that Lama Zopa has given and they keep checking if that’s really on the program and if we’re really doing that so that we make sure that we’re creating the causes for being more successful in what we’re doing. There are centers and it’s actually very inspiring I think. Know, centers grow so at a certain point every center has to look for another premises.
So we all have the same problem and we all have then the money problem and I go, oh that’s the money, how are you going to do this? So Lama Zopa gives advice of doing certain prayers and some centers they do kinds of competitions or come together and doing the prayers or other ways how they inspire the students to keep on contributing and doing that that actually starts building the community. And I think doing practice is that what we share. We’re not here because we like each other. We like each other because we have something else in common.
And if we keep on practicing what we have in common, why we’re actually here, then the liking just becomes bigger and bigger and bigger. But if we stop practicing and we just start liking each other and having teas and chats with each other, the liking very easily goes back, you know, almost down the toilet. It’s like we’re going to lose it and we’re going to do exactly the same as what we do with everybody else in life. We like someone five minutes and then we need somebody else Mhmm. That we like more.
But if we keep on practicing and know that that is what we share, then there is a lot of joy in meeting with each other and the liking only becomes and the appreciation only becomes bigger and bigger. So I don’t know. I just have to say this. I want you to know that and for when I’m not here anymore, somebody has to check. Let them all hear it.
Yeah, absolutely. Know, Dharma is is to do it all right, it’s so difficult. There’s so much knowledge and and to have to know, I only have a little bit and when I went to France I suddenly realized, oh, I never really understood why Dharma centers are there and Lama Zopa is doing the things he’s doing. But he’s trying to give advice so that we all go as quickly as possible, so that we all purify as much karma as possible and create as much merit as possible. Possible.
So he’s looking apparently through all kinds of texts and then when he finds somewhere a quote that says if you do this and this and this then you will accumulate so much merit or will go so much quicker to enlightenment or then he writes it down and he integrates it in the practice. So everything that we practice is based on that, on his work, and that’s why he wants us to practice that. Not for any other reason than to become enlightened very quickly. But he reads so fast. So he comes up every time with new ideas and to enable to, you know, you can’t catch up.
You have to constantly look on the website because he’s constantly come with new things. If you have worked here ten years ago and you come back, everything has changed and you have to catch up. And it’s huge to catch up with Lama Zopa. I can’t do it. I can’t keep You know, he runs too fast.
But that doesn’t mean that we can’t try and the more people try, maybe the better we do. So so when I say what I share with you is what I’ve heard two months ago, you know, and and most people here in Santa do not have that knowledge. And there is no time for me to share that knowledge. And I know that in, I think in November there’s gonna be a meeting here at Buddha House from FPMT Australia and some, so many directors from these centers are gonna come here. But person who’s leading that meeting or she wants to do a weekend workshop and at least one day where everybody can come, also members and non members, to hear about Lama Zopa and what he’s actually doing and what he wants and how he So keep that in mind.
It’s like the more you know about him and the more you understand, the more you can really act in the way he says it. And if you hear the first time about what he’s doing, it’s like why is he all doing that? And our mind can perceive things in a negative way because we just, that’s the way we operate. So what he for instance has done is he has, if you go to his website, all these charitable projects, unbelievable big charitable projects. He makes promises to people, Oh yeah, I’ll give you one hundred thousand dollars Oh yeah, I’ll give you hundred thousand dollars And his people who work for him have to find the money.
That’s one thing that is dischargeable projects. He has set them up in a way that if we want to practice generosity, the projects are there and projects projects that create unbelievable much merit. For instance, if you put one dollar in the Sanga food fund from Sera Je Monastery, you contribute to offering food to two thousand seven hundred monks every day. So if you do that and then you dedicate the merit of having done that action to enlightenment, you have done a very, very powerful action. So with a little bit of money you can create huge karma.
And all these projects are set up like that. It’s all big and it’s all about getting enlightened. If you look at the projects like that, then it starts to make much more sense. And then I started slowly to see like, oh that’s why he’s doing that and that’s why he’s doing that. You know, because what do I know?
Yeah, his mind is so big it’s like I can’t even perceive it. So helping him in doing that creates a lot of merit. Having faith in that he creates this for our benefit, you know, creates a lot of merit. He’s not doing that for him, he’s doing that for us, to give us the opportunity to create quickly merit. So then what we also can do is offer respect and service.
So offering service means that you give up your ego. And I think in the Hindu world you call it karma yoga. Lama Yeshe really liked the karma yoga. He felt that everybody who comes to Tuśita should do some karma yoga. When I go to Paramita, I have to work five hours a week as the karma Yoga.
Everybody who studies there has to do that in order to help to develop the attitude to just give up your own life and offer your life to the benefit of others. So you say, what can I do for you? And you stop your critical mind and you just follow whatever is needed. That is offering service. If you offer service, we can do that everywhere.
Are many, many charitable objects where we can offer service to. If you offer service to a person that benefits all sentient beings and has it very strong in their mind, that is the merit that you get from them. It’s like when you help Buddha House you get the merit of helping all sentient beings. You’re not just helping Buddha House, you’re not just one person. You’re helping Lama Zopa who is helping all sentient beings.
So you are helping all sentient beings. And if you start feeling that and if you start to develop Guru devotion a little bit, it’s just joy what you can experience. Because if you work for Lama Zopa and you have your mind focused on that, he will be there with his blessings. And the most miraculous things can happen. Sometimes really bad and sometimes really good.
Most of the times, you know, for instance when a high lama comes and you want to organize a obstacles come, obstacles come. And you have to, you know, you’re frustrated and you have to work through that. But then at a certain point it is always, at the end, it’s always going to be so beautiful. You know, the result will be so beautiful. It’s like at the end everything falls into place.
You think, oh, how did that happen? Seems to work and suddenly everything works. And sometimes I even have the feeling that it sends people on the path. And if you talk to students, they have many stories that they get big projects and they have no idea how to do it. Know, Lama Zopa’s office says, oh, I’m going to come to your center in two months time.
Huge organization to do that because many, many students from all over the world are going to come and you have to make sure that they have food and accommodation and that there is a place for Lama Sopa. If he gives you the job and you trust that he will provide, you know, and you are open, you have an open mind for that, everything just happens. And you do things that you thought you could never ever do in your life. And you suddenly think: Oh, how is this possible? You are in the middle of that it’s a fantastic experience if you can have that.
Does that come across? Can you imagine what I’m talking about? So I feel like when I was doing the SPC job, I had never ever done that in my life and I had never ever SBC job is many, many different areas that you all have to hold together in order to make the whole program happening. What does it stand for? Spiritual Program Coordinator.
So it’s like in the center you have two wings. One is the worldly wing that is Lindsay taking care of that, and then there is the SBC taking care of the other wing. So it has to do with making the programme and making sure that everything is there to implement the programme. From newsletter to making sure that teachers are happy, to making sure the gompa is clean, everything, everything. So there are many many different areas where you have to be.
So you need many many people to work together with. And I refused 3x the job I think. And I thought, I better give up my own self changing mind and start doing that. But then seeing how it works, know, that is just unbelievable. It’s like you get so much joy and you have so much energy to keep on working the whole day, day after day after day.
And you never get tired. Having that experience is just fantastic. So if ever that job comes available and you have nothing else to do, and you want to know what it is to work for Lama Sopa, then that could be an opportunity. And then another way how we can practice good devotion in action is making material offerings. We do not do that for the teacher, so we think: what would Lama Zopa like?
Lama Zopa when he receives something, it goes out there. He never holds on to anything. So we do not have to think: what would he like. You can sometimes think about something spectacular that could make some impression on him. But in general he doesn’t really, not that he doesn’t care, but he has no attachment to anything.
So he will be happy with anything that comes from your good heart. Anything that you buy or make or with a motivation of devotion, he is happy with that. Right? But no personal Did I tell you that story about the monk with the prayer oil? That was a big American monk and he became a monk.
He was a little bit he had a little bit of non monk way of articulating himself. And he was very funny though. He made jokes all the time. But he thought how can I what can I do? What can I do?
And he decided to start making prayer wheels. You know these patterns they work with these prayer beautiful wood and the best sanding and then and then you have the prayer wheel. And what you try to do is to get as many mantras in it as possible. So the Tibetans do that on paper rolls and then print them very tiny. Westerners put them on a kind of film.
What kind of film would that be? Microfilm? Microfilm? Yeah. So you can have millions of mantras on very little film.
So then you have the most mantras. That’s what we Westerners want. We want to do it better and better. So he had done that. So all was most fantastic and most beautiful and then he had something special like this.
So he had worked for years on that prayer wheel. And then he went to Lama Zopa and he was so proud and he said: Lama Zopa, this is what I made for you. Lama Zopa, said: Oh yeah, very nice. And the next day he’s walking somewhere and this girl comes to him and said: Ah, Lama Zopa asked me to come and see you because you could explain me how this prayer wheel works. He gave it to me, you know, and he said I could see my mind going completely mad.
His attachment to I want Lama Zopa to have my prayer wheel, you know. But he gave it. And not only gave it, he gave it away, but he told the girl to tell that to the monk. To make sure that he would know it. So letting go of your attachment.
So you offer whatever you want to offer. But everything that you offer, and I think last time I said that, we have to ask for things. From the Guru nothing comes without a request. So he’s waiting for anything, you know. So if you, you have to think what do I want, what do I need?
I don’t know if that’s easy for you. For me it’s the most difficult thing to do. I have no idea. You don’t know what you don’t know. No, exactly.
So you don’t know what to ask for and you don’t know where to start and you know what kind of questions can I ask to this person and is it stupid when I say this or not? Never worried about being stupid, right? Because we’re all ignorant and somehow, you know, whatever question you ask I think they can hear where you’re at, what kind of answer you need. So sometimes you ask a question and you get an answer that you think that was not really what I asked for but maybe that is what you need. So even if you say something stupid then at least there is an opportunity teacher to give you what he or she thinks that you need.
So if the teacher gives us something do we have to do that necessarily? Not always. First of all the teacher is the person who hands over the teachings. So the main thing is that the teachings are pure and if the teacher asks you to do something against the teachings, you say: I’m sorry, I cannot do that. No matter how you vow to follow this teacher, you follow the teacher by refusing to do that.
The teacher might test you know, how easy do you follow. Maybe that’s your biggest teaching that you shouldn’t follow every word that he’s saying. There are people who go blind, isn’t it? They might get very strange advice advice and they start doing very strange things until they realize what am I actually doing? This goes against the teachings.
So it’s still your responsibility what you’re doing? Many times people say: Yes, that’s because Lama Zopa said so. I have to do this because Lama Zopa said so. And that’s always your responsibility. If you do not want to do it, you do not do it.
Also ‘s your responsibility. So you say I want to do that. Right? We do that, we have that tendency, isn’t it? I do this because somebody told me to do so.
So when do you think about somebody as being your teacher or when is somebody your teacher? If you just listen to somebody teaching the Dharma that person is not necessarily your teacher But the moment you think that person is my teacher that person becomes your teacher. The moment that happens in your mind then you have made that connection. Before that you’re just listening to a professor or a lecturer at a university. If you receive initiations and you really want to receive the initiation from that person, person becomes your teacher.
If you want to attends a certain initiation because of any other reason, you do not necessarily have to receive it while you’re there. So for instance, I don’t know if I can give an example. For instance for the harmony in the center it is best if I would do this and this and this, you know? But that does not necessarily mean so so on that Friday I’m gone. Right?
Mhmm. So imagine I hadn’t done anything like that and I I wanna I I think I’m gonna go to initiation or that permission to practice. I’m actually not sure if somebody like that will become your teacher, would have to look that up. But imagine that if I would do that, that I would take on that person as my teacher. Let’s have it not about Buddha House, somewhere else because this feels very awkward.
So I am somewhere in the community and there is a teacher and I do not feel that that is my teacher. But a teacher is giving an initiation and there are many, many students who do feel that that is their teacher. And so I can go to that initiation but in my mind I do not take the initiation. I’m there because of everybody else who is there to help the harmony in the center. But just thinking, does that mean then when you take refuge now some people are taking refuge with Geshe-la.
Some others I think that could be. I have to look it up. Because that’s something that that you’d you’d like an opportunity to consider before you if you if you take refuge in that automatically becomes a teacher. I’m not saying it’s necessarily a bad thing. But what we’ve learned so far is that it’s a serious step asking for a teacher and devoting for a teacher.
But if somebody see it like this. If you have taken refuge with somebody, that person is your teacher, but you do not have to do anything else than that with your teacher. So you honor that teacher as the person who gave you refuge. How wonderful is that? That person helps you to go into the Buddhist path.
How wonderful is that? That makes him your teacher. That can be it. Then you have teachers where you take strong commitments, commitments where you have to do practice every day. You have to be sure that you want to have a connection with that teacher.
So it’s different levels of Of commitments and of what you’re doing, yes. A friend of mine, she has taken many daily commitments with Lama Zopa Rinpoche but I don’t think she ever received a teaching. Somehow for all these commitments she ends up with Lama Zopa and then with teaching she ends up with other teachers. That’s her karma, somehow that works out like that. I have hardly any initiations with Lama Zopa but I have them with other teachers and I have most teachings with Lama Zopa.
Very different, you know. So having done an initiation with somebody means that I have to do that practice every day and that doing practice every day can be very difficult especially when you’re very busy and you don’t have much time. So if you have strong devotion to the teacher you’re still prepared to do it even when you’re very tired and you actually want to go to bed and you keep on doing it. With somebody that you do not have a strong devotion towards, you say, Oh, well, would I do that? And then you give it up.
But you’re not going to give up your refuge. No. No. So Geshe la is forever in your mind as your refuge master. Of course it would be.
But teacher doesn’t mean so that means for everything now I have to go to him. Know, you have many teachers. No, wasn’t really going down that road. What I was saying is that when you do take an initiation, you have an initiation and automatically the person giving you that becomes a teacher. I think that’s a consideration that the practitioner probably needs to think of before they take an initiation.
Do they want to automatically make that person a teacher? I mean, I know you can be So most most geshes are really safe, you know? Quite safe. Yeah. And and and and most Rinpoche’s are quite I don’t know.
Check them out anyway. You listen to their students, you look at their students, you know, how safe they are. Geshes are trained unbelievable, know, for so many years since they were little boys trained specific way in a way that there’s not much space for delusions even to arise. And I think I talked about that attendant from Tuśita Retreat Centre who talked about his time in the monastery that he said that was the happiest time of my life because there were no delusions. Complete freedom in my mind, no delusions.
So happy. Because everything is in a way that they just cannot arise. So that when they start to arise they know how much suffering that is. When they arise in our mind we think that’s happiness. When attachment arises we think that’s happiness.
But they think: Oh my god, what’s that? Yes, it looks like happiness but I know it’s not really happiness because they know what real happiness is. And I won’t make it too long. I wanted to say something else about it. Nine attitudes of good devotion.
Do you have them? I’ve already printed them. Yeah. Oh, I don’t have a copy. Can I ask a question?
You know how love is the wish for someone to be happy Yes. I don’t think I understand what faith is. What is faith? Faith has to do with seeing the good qualities. Faith is a kind of trust but not a You have faith, blind faith, and faith based on reasoning.
So when we talk about faith in relationship to good devotion, you think about the qualities. Seeing the qualities is reasoning why you would have faith. And from faith comes aspiration. From faith comes: Oh, I can do that too. Because somebody else can do it, I can do that too.
Because there are causes and conditions for qualities to arise, I can create the causes and conditions to do that. So you have an aspiration to follow the same path. So faith is something that is at the beginning of a whole development that leads towards something. Faith has to do with understanding how the process is. If you go to somebody who works with wood and he explains to you what a table is and where the wood comes from and you have the pieces and he shows you the tools and how to do it and he just shows it and you have seen everything and you can say: Yeah, that can be done.
I have faith that I can do that. Maybe I do not make immediately the perfect table, but definitely when I start to practice, one day I know that I can do it. That is faith. So the more you know about how we develop qualities and what qualities really mean, the more where they come from, the more we can generate faith that we can do that. So that’s why we look at the qualities in the teacher.
And that’s why we study the whole path all the time. And there are texts, and I can’t even remember the title of the texts, where they describe all the realizations, all the powers, all the extraordinary powers, everything that we can achieve on the way to enlightenment. It’s unbelievable. So then you have all that and you start looking at teachers and you think: Oh, he can do that and he can do that. That must mean they have done all this beforehand.
And then you get some idea about what is needed to develop certain things and what some people have done and on the base of that you have faith. Because many things we do not understand. So there is a part that is always blind. Know we have to trust. But you base the trust on what you can see and what you can understand.
It’s like with karma we can never understand karma completely until we are Buddhas. So until we are Buddhas we have to have faith and that’s a little bit blind faith but based on all the other teachings that we can understand. That what a Buddha is teaching is really true. If we see that all the other teachings are true, then that must be true. Practicing Guru devotion with the nine attitudes, that is one of Lama Sopa’s favorite prayers.
And I I won’t go very in in detail in it, but you can so he says it’s important to practice nine attitudes. It’s not he, it’s an old prayer that he helped to translate. So we can read it maybe? Shall read it? Okay.
I am requesting the kind Lord Root Guru who is more extraordinary than all the Buddhas. Please bless me to be able to devote myself to the qualified Lord Guru with great respect in all my future lifetimes. By realizing that correctly devoting myself to the kind Lord Guru, who is the foundation of all good qualities, is the root of happiness and goodness, I shall devote myself to him with great respect, not forsaking him even at the cost of my life. Thinking of the importance of the qualified guru, may I allow myself to enter under his control. May I be like an obedient son, acting exactly in accord with the Guru’s advice.
Even when Maras, evil friends and the like try to split me from the Guru, may I be like a vajra, inseparable forever. Whenever the Guru gives me work, whatever the burden, may I be like the earth carrying all. When I devote myself to the Guru, whatever suffering occurs, may I be like a mountain, immovable. Even if I have to perform all the unpleasant tasks, may I be like the servant of a king with the mind undisturbed. May I abandon pride, holding myself lower than a guru.
May I be like a sweeper. May I be like a rope, joyfully holding the Guru’s work, no matter how difficult or heavy a burden. Even when the Guru criticizes, provokes or ignores me, may I be like a dog without anger. May I be like a ferry boat, never upset at any time to come and go for the Guru. O glorious and precious root Guru, please bless me to be able to practice in this way, from now on and all my future lifetimes.
May I be able to devote myself to the Guru in this way. So be like an obedient son. You can imagine that all these female students from Lama Zopa have protested against this many times. So for a while he changed it into child and now he’s gone back to son. And there was a reason for that.
He talked something about but that’s not exactly right. He said if somebody is a king and you want to achieve the same as the king, you need to be a son. You cannot do that as a daughter. So if you follow the guru and you want to become a Buddha, then you have to follow him as a son in order to become a Buddha. But that’s a little bit strange.
I can’t remember. Sorry, forget what I just said. Be obedient, which means that you follow the guru’s advice, and we have spoken about that. Be inseparable from your guru. And, you know, it says evil friends and the Mara try to split me from the guru.
But what Mara is our own delusions. People say: Oh, let’s go to the cafe and have a drink. And you just have taken the vows of not drinking anymore. Then you to pray that you will be in separate way with your Guru, that you keep on following his advice or her advice. A vajra has the qualities of a diamond.
And a diamond is very hard to split. Right? So that’s how you wanna become together with the guru. Be like the earth carrying all So the Guru can give you big, big jobs. There was one person who was running Lama Yeshe wisdom archive.
I think he got the job quite straight from the beginning, which is preserving all the teachings and transcribing them, making books from them, then having all these free books, doing the fundraisings. I think he’s having that job for twenty five years. He’s still doing the job every day. Know, you need to be like the earth in order to even start doing a job like that. If things then if you start working for the Guru, what do you do?
How do you deal with situations that arise? Because things can be tough, you know, suffering will occur. So when suffering normally occurs is that we give up. Oh this is too hard, I’m not going to do it. No, may I be like a mountain that I do not give up.
Even if things are unpleasant. You know, you start reading about teachers from the past with their students, there are many incredible stories about how their students serve the guru. So there are also stories about, what was that, somebody was incontinent I think, one very high lama. What was that? Lama Yeshe was doing pipi and kaka in his bed?
I know somebody did and then the other one ended up like a recording. Like this for Yes, yes. And then see that as the most precious thing that exists. Know many times you have to do unpleasant things, know. It’s like saṃsāra is full of unpleasant things, but still you do not say and what we normally do is we avoid that, we don’t like to do that.
But what you do is you just keep on doing. You just let your mind not get disturbed by whatever unpleasantness that is coming in front of you. Abandoned pride, that’s very accurate for us. Holding myself lower than the guru. We might think that we’re better than the guru in some things.
Or that we feel too good for certain things. May it be like a rope, joyfully holding the Guru’s work. That’s all. That speaks for itself or not? I don’t have to explain that, do I?
So if you read over that and you think about it, then I think what can happen in your mind is that you start to merge with these qualities, you start to develop these qualities and then when difficulties arise you have that in the back of your mind. Oh, the Guru provokes me, normally I get angry, but I better not angry when he does that. Lama Zopa is an attendant in France, he said that Lama Zopa puts him on the spot all the time and humiliates him in front of everybody. That’s what he feels. I haven’t seen it but he said, Oh, how did you see when he did that?
But that’s his practice. So why is he telling you that? What? That doesn’t sound as if he’s doing Why is the assistant pointing it out to all of you to see the fault? Not to me, not to all of I was there on a personal conversation, Yeah.
I was and we were talking about how the guru gives you jobs that are really difficult and how you might react to that. And so that’s what he said. So we talked about giving up your own reaction, you know, because you can say, and what is going on here? And you know, but give it up, give it up, give it up, and see it as part of your training. Does that mean then that Lama Zopa’s attendant is a young monk and relatively inexperienced?
No. He’s not young. Actually, he was a monk for fifteen years, he said. He’s my my age. Why?
Well, just seems if a monk that’s he attended a mum’s over, I would think, would have that conversation if they were a young monk. Why? You know? Because they they don’t understand the challenges of the young monk. I think he does.
He does. Oh, okay. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
He was showing me how I should face my challenges. Oh, I’m sorry. He says this is how I do it. He was giving you advice. Yes.
From his learning. Well, there you go. See? Yeah. All lineage.
Yeah. All lineage. Yes. This is how you do when Lama Zopa asks you to do something. I think the challenge I’m not such an obedient child.
You know? It’s very difficult for me. I I was just gonna say there’s a the challenge thing about, you know, that ego thing, and I always get challenged by this, the kind of, I am the greatest thing. Mhmm. I’m the better or I’m the best or I’m the whatever.
But also the the I can’t do it. No. Not that I the deflated one. Mhmm. The one that says, oh, I’m not good enough or I I can’t or But they go together.
They do. But, you know, it’s and I think for me that’s much more of a challenge, that one. I mean, maybe they both are. Maybe I’m just all But that’s our pride, It’s still pride. It’s pride.
So pride is a big thing for Westerners and for us to follow the Guru is is very very very big because we have such a critical mind and we have so many reasons why we shouldn’t do it and why it’s really not clever to do that. So we have to work really really hard to develop good devotion and even if I feel that I have a strong connection with Lama Zopa, you know, my mind is is constantly fighting against whatever he puts me. One day I will give up. That’s the purification I think. So he puts you there where it’s hardest, know, and where your pride gets very much challenged.
And then you see your pride all the time, so you have to work with it all the time and at a certain point you have to give it up. Just because you’re tired, you know. I’m tired, doing the same thing all the I understand that. You just get bored with it so you decide to stop it. If you can’t, but he yeah, that’s I really feel that he does that.
No, you don’t get bored but you really get tired because there is a fighting behind that all the time. And you never get, you know, and every time you think oh yeah now everything goes well there is something else to fight and there is something at a certain point you have to give it up because what are you doing? You’re worn out. Yes, you’re worn out. So are there any questions?
Otherwise we’ll leave it with here and we can listen next week to Lama Zopa talking about guru devotion. He writes in the book that more teachings he gives the more awkward he feels about talking about guru devotion because you know you teach that people should see the teacher as the Buddha and he said oh and then I think it’s almost like I’m saying I’m the Buddha and that’s not what I want to say but you know to say to talk about that without giving people the wrong impressions why you’re doing what you’re doing. That is a challenge. Does Lama Zopa have a guru, a guru in human form? Well, Lama Yeshe is his guru.
Yeah, that’s right. And he is completely devoted to Lama Yeshe, to Dalai Lama. And the Dalai Lama says if I need really something to be done, I’ll ask Lama Zopa because then I know it happens. Know, and he practices, the way he behaves towards the Lama, he shows what it is to have good devotion. And Lama Zopa has many many teachers, there are many high geshes or very old geshes that he receives teachings from and what he’s doing at the moment a lot is that he travels around to get oral transmissions because all these there was a generation of teachers that are now really really old like eighty or ninety so they’re going to pass away very soon and somebody has to carry the lineage and there are so unbelievable lineages so what he’s doing is he’s first of all looking what lineages there are and then he’s looking who can give that and who has what and then requests them to do it and then he invites many people to come so that many people get the lineage so he’s helping in that way to preserve the lineage for Lama Zopa.
That’s one of his goals he feels he needs to do. He’s sort of the stand-in for Osel, isn’t he? Yeah, in the organisation, yeah. So when Lama Zopa passes away, is it true that Osel now doesn’t want to have anything to do with it? No, not really.
He says he needs to go his own way and one day we will meet. Okay, so who will take over from Lama Zopa? Well we hope that Lama Zopa waits so Osel is ready. Because I read an interview Osil gave in July or something and it seems like he now I I think there was something that that’s it now, I’m not interested anymore, thanks very much. Think that came across like that.
So immediately an email came around saying that’s not really what he said or what he meant. He doesn’t say he doesn’t want to have anything to do but I you know, Lama Yeshe, his mind is like a revolutionary and very highly realized. And what he got is this training where he had to learn exactly what is in the text and he said I want to learn from my experience. I don’t want to just have this intellectual knowledge. I want it to be connected to me and I have to discover that.
I have to make that connection and I need time out to do that. He signs all his letters with big love, you know, same like Lama Yeshe, and it is all about big love and he’s looking for new ways to share or to connect people with a big love. And he doesn’t want to do it just by being a teacher like Lama Zopa. He’s looking into making films and he’s looking into photography and using this media to share the teachings but his mind the way he talks he’s an incredible being you know and I think we just leave him and he will come one day and a few these high lamas, know I told you about Gomo Tulku, who wants to do the music thing, you know, and I think here Lama Yeshe Rinpoche might be or Lama Osel might be friends or But what he says, I’m not a Lama, I don’t want to be called Lama Osel, I’m Osel. Lama means teacher and I have nothing to teach at the moment.
I first need to fix that in myself. And I think it’s great, you know, he’s a healthy young man running away from where he was. I think I personally like what he’s doing. And I’m not worried about the organisation. It’s not about the organisation, it’s about the dharma.
And in whatever way it’s going to be there, it’s about the dharma, not about sustaining an organisation. It’s just that it works at the moment best, you know? I felt really sad when I read his story. Like I read the whole thing all about, like from the day he was born to yesterday type of thing. Oh did you?
Yeah, read it, it was hours. You read the book and it’s got really sad for him. I just thought it was really a sad story. Yeah, I think what he suffers from is that people see him as Lama Yeshe and he’s another person and the students keep on seeing him as Lama Yeshe! He’s not.
He’s a completely different person. So he feels that people do not connect with him. So he can’t connect with himself. He but at the same time there is a wisdom there isn’t it and a compassion which is unbelievable so he will I mean he has these tools inside he will digest whatever he went through in life and he did not have that happy life. No, that’s true.
That’s true. I saw him when he was fourteen I think at Gaya and had this feeling just run away, just get out of there. I was so, you know, I want to see young guys laughing and being happy and having the energy up and he didn’t. But think now he’s doing. Well he said when he went to uni in Madrid nobody knew who he was.
He said he was fantastic. Because then he can become Osel, really who he is. And no one knew who he was and had no idea who he was until someone recognised him and Then it was finished. They just well, they just sort of kept it quiet, really, his friends, and they still just kept going. They didn’t care.
So that was when he could really be himself. Yeah, it’s very important. So he hasn’t turned his back on Buddhism then? Absolutely not, no way. Not on Buddhism, not on FPMT.
He’s, you know, for a while he wanted nothing to do with anybody anything. And then he met with Lama Zopa again and then he went away for one or two years and then he came back. And now he’s meeting more and more. So, you know, then we think that’s a good thing. There is a huge love connection between these two, you know, huge.
I think Lama Zopa, he felt very strong that Lama Osel had to be in the monastery. So he ran away from that. But now, don’t know maybe maybe Lama Zopa has to learn. Or he shows the aspect that he needs to learn how to deal with Western young monks, you know, or Westerners who go to the monastery so early.
He has to learn how to do that. So this other monk who disrobed, who was in France, who was doing the music thing, Lama Zopa was like, I want you to perform for my students and see if they like it. You know? That was a completely different attitude as with Osel. So things are shifting there.
Let’s stop. It’s nine thirty. You’re all going to be too late at home I think. Let me do this. I’ve copied a meditation on why to rely upon a spiritual teacher.
So you have all the meditations from this module. These are four meditations, you all have them. I didn’t make homework because I thought you have done all your reading. And next week is video. And I’m not sure how we can do something with exam.
I’ll just sign? I can sign it. I’ve done everything. I can do that if you want to. Do you need a paper for that?
I haven’t printed out, So I’ll bring that next week. Yep. Good. Sorry? What would normally have that the following Saturday?
We could do it this Saturday, but it’s no. Yeah. Sometimes next Saturday or you know, we we haven’t really had a big schedule for that. Oh, okay. Yeah.
So maybe we dedicate the merits quickly before people run away. You alright? So give yourself a minute to connect with your body and with your mind. And if you have the prayer book, we can read the dedication prayers together on page six. And maybe we can read from the top of the page.
May all beings everywhere plagued by suffering of body and mind obtain an ocean of happiness and joy by virtue of my merits. May no living creatures suffer, commit evil or ever fall ill. May no one be afraid or belittled, with a mind weighed down by depression. May the blind see forms and the deaf hear sounds. May those whose bodies are worn with toil be restored on finding repose.
May the naked find clothing, the hungry find food. May the thirsty find water and delicious drinks. May the poor find wealth, those weak with sorrow find joy. May the fallen find hope, constant happiness and prosperity. May there be timely rains and bountiful harvests.
May all medicines be effective and wholesome prayers bear fruit. May all who are sick and ill quickly be freed from their ailments. Whatever diseases there are in the world, may they never occur again. May the frightened cease to be afraid, and those bound be freed. May the powerless find power, and may people think of benefiting each other.
For as long as space remains, for as long as sentient beings remain, until then may I too remain, to dispel the miseries of the world. Due to the merits of these virtuous actions, may I quickly attain the state of the Guru Buddha and lead all living beings without exception into that enlightened state. May the supreme jewel bodhicitta that has not arisen arise and grow, and may that which has arisen not diminish, but increase more and more. You very much for coming. And I’ll see you next week with the video.
Saturday. Oh, Saturday. Saturday.