Lama Zopa Rinpoche

Rather than having a mind thick with attachment, we have to shake our mind, we have to be
aware. We have to enlighten our mind. When the guru talks to us, we need to see it as the
holy speech of all the buddhas. This is Shakyamuni Buddha talking to us, this is Maitreya
Buddha talking to us, this is Tara talking to us, this is Manjushri talking to us, this is Heruka
talking to us, this is our own particular deity talking to us. This is our practice. This is what
we have to do.
We also have to think that whatever the guru says or does, which is the action of the guru’s
mind, is the action of all the numberless buddhas’ holy minds.
Every single atom of the guru’s holy body is all the buddhas’ holy bodies. We have to think
like that; we have to meditate on that; we have to realize that. If we do, then it is like the
sutra says—any guru we think of as a buddha in that way, the buddha always abides there
and always blesses our heart, liberating our mind from all the wrong concepts.
If we want enlightenment, then this is how and why we should practice. We shouldn’t
practice just so that we can space out like we do on drugs, on LSD—not that I know if
anybody here has taken LSD or not.
In the very early times at Kopan, before we built the monastery, Lama Yeshe and I were
staying in the old British-style house built for the Nepalese king’s astrologer. We had a small
room, just big enough to fit two people, with Lama on one side and me on the other. There
was a door and a window, but I can’t remember whether there was a table or not. I
remember a Western student at that time was smoking what he called “Buddha grass.” There
were many drugs around then. LSD had just come out. Everywhere you went in
Kathmandu, on every corner you could see Western people, coming from here, coming
from there, their faces unhealthy and pale because of the drugs they were taking. Once a
student gave us some bread with LSD in it but we didn’t eat it. If we had taken it, I would be
able to describe our experience, singing the mandala or maybe visiting hell, I’m not sure.
Offering to the pores of His Holiness
Even though you have read many other lam-rim texts, when you read any of Lama
Tsongkhapa’s teachings you think, “Oh, I should have read this at the very beginning, as my
first teaching. I wish I had seen this when I first encountered Buddhism.” When I read one
of his texts it strikes me like that. His advice is very concise but so vast, so deep. That is the
way Lama Tsongkhapa explains the teachings. For example, with the mandala offering, he
said it is very important to make a good-quality visualization. Good quality means visualizing
the mandala in the most extensive way we can and then making the offering.
Offering the mandala is one of the exceptional methods of collecting extensive merit, so
doing it purely, doing a good-quality one—the best quality—is very important, as is doing
the greatest number of mandala offerings possible. He mentions that these are the two ways
to collect the most merit, the quality of the mandala offering and the number of times it’s
made. Other lam-rim texts describe the details of the visualizations but Lama Tsongkhapa
just makes this main point.
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