Lama Zopa Rinpoche

Also, the Sutra of the Stainless Sky gives very clear advice:
Regard the virtuous friend as more special
Than the tathagatas who have gone beyond,
Who see emptiness as it is.
No matter how skillful and compassionate the buddhas are,
Without the self-condition of the guru
In the mental continuum of sentient beings to be tamed
The buddhas’ holy actions and blessings cannot be received.
Without the guru, even the buddhas themselves cannot occur. 65
We should regard the guru as more special than the tathagatas. The Tibetan for tathagata, dezhin
sheg-pa, literally means that they have gone beyond both disturbing-thought obscurations
and subtle obscurations to knowledge (sheg-pa) and that they see emptiness as it is (de-zhin).
They see all phenomena as empty, as tong-pa. Here, we do not say tong-pa-nyi, “emptiness
only,” that all phenomena are emptiness only; we say phenomena are tong-pa, empty of being
truly existent. Tathagatas see everything directly “as it is,” de-zhin, which is one part of the
term, the other being sheg-pa, “gone beyond.”
Why should we hold the guru more special than the tathagatas? Even though a buddha is so
skillful, so compassionate, if there is no self-condition, 66 if there is no guru in the mental
continuum of sentient beings who are the objects to be subdued, they cannot receive the
buddhas’ holy actions, the buddhas’ blessings. And then, even a buddha himself or herself
cannot happen. (In English you have to say “him or her” but in Tibetan you don’t need to.
Sang-gyä can refer to a buddha in a male and female aspect.)
Because a buddha cannot happen without a guru, we must hold the guru as more precious
than the buddhas. As the quotation from the Sutra of Stainless Sky proves, that is what Guru
Shakyamuni Buddha himself said very clearly.
The first time Lama Yeshe and I went to Australia there were two hundred people at the
course in Diamond Valley, Queensland, near Chenrezig Institute. Our hut was some distance
from the main tent and the kitchen, which were next to the mountain. The outside of the
hut was made of logs cut in half whereas inside was neat and fresh, with the walls made of
the stuff you make take-away cups from, Styrofoam. It was all white, except for the floor.
There was Lama’s room, my room and then, through a door, the kitchen. Although we
usually had meals from the main kitchen there was a small stove where we made tea and
cooked some food. Lama made it. He usually made food really quickly. 67
At that time there was a tall man 68 with a long nose who was supposed to practice
Ganapati—not the Hindu Ganapati but the Buddhist Ganapati, the manifestation of
Chenrezig. I think Lama had found a Ganapati statue for him somewhere in Australia. Lama
had him help put together a Four-arm Chenrezig meditation for Lama’s upcoming visit to
the Chinese Buddhist Society in Sydney. Anyway, he told Lama, “I don’t know who
Chenrezig is but I know you, I can see a lama.” I just remembered that.
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