Lama Zopa Rinpoche

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that it is his mistake. It is like having dirt on our forehead and being unaware of it until we look in the mirror and then blame the mirror for the dirt. That way of thinking is totally false; the reality is not like that. This is exactly what the Fifth Dalai Lama said: we must recognize that this is our mistake and abandon such wrong thinking like poison. Guru devotion is like a jewel; it’s the most important jewel in our life and we can destroy it in an instant by seeing any apparent mistakes of the guru as coming from him. For as many seconds as we think like that, we must suffer for that many eons in the lower realms; for that many eons our virtue is destroyed. Even though we might be just about to attain bodhicitta or renunciation or the realization of emptiness, that is delayed for the number of eons equivalent to the number of seconds we had heresy or anger. When mistakes in the actions of the guru appear to our hallucinated mind, there are two ways of utilizing this. The first way is described in this verse from the Fifth Dalai Lama. When we recognize that the appearance of a mistake is our own mistake, instead of destroying our guru devotion, it strengthens it. We use apparent mistakes to develop our devotion. We see that the mistake is a projection of our hallucinated mind, our negative karma, and there is no mistake from the guru’s side. Because the guru is a buddha, the mistake cannot be from the guru’s side. If we think like that our devotion will not be disturbed and will, in fact, be made stronger. The second way is to see that in order to guide us to liberation, to free us from the oceans of samsaric suffering of the lower realms, the guru manifests in an ordinary aspect, as having mistakes, especially for us. Showing an ordinary aspect is his method of helping us. When His Holiness the Dalai Lama first gave the mahamudra commentary 84 I asked him what “showing an ordinary aspect” meant. He explained that showing an ordinary aspect means showing mistakes. It is very important for the guru to show us an ordinary aspect and appear to have mistakes in order to guide us. If he were to show himself in the aspect of a buddha we would not be able to see him because our mind is so impure. Without pure karma we cannot see him in an enlightened aspect. With a mind such as ours, a mind full of obscurations, we can only see mistakes. As His Holiness said, the guru can only guide us by appearing to have mistakes. But it is a manifestation of our own mistakes, our hallucinated mind. Therefore, showing the ordinary aspect, showing mistakes, is unbelievably important to us. It is mentioned in the Lama Chöpa, Adorned with a sugata’s three bodies and ornamental wheels, You manifest from an alluring net of skillful means In ordinary form to lead all beings. Compassionate refuge savior, I make requests to you. 85 That is very important. The guru is the essence of the three bodies of all the buddhas gone to bliss, the sugatas, the skillful means that is like a net cutting through appearance. His actions, like a blissful dancing gait, guide transmigratory beings to enlightenment in an ordinary form, not in a pure form. This means that when the guru appears, he purposely shows us this mistaken, ordinary aspect in order to guide us and all other transmigratory beings to enlightenment. The 135
conclusion is that without the guru guiding us in this ordinary aspect, we would be without a guide, totally lost in samsara. We would be like a baby left out in a hot desert with no food or water, surrounded by dangerous animals. Or we would be like somebody lost in the nighttime in a forest full of tigers and many other animals around that could eat us at any time. We would be totally lost in samsara, totally without a guide, without a protector. Because of that we live our life creating only negative karma, nothing else, creating only the cause to be born in the lower realms. It is terribly sad, just living our whole life day and night to create the karma to be born in the lower realms. The lower realms are where we have just come from and now all we are doing is creating the cause to go back there and to suffer for eons. Every second that the guru appears to us in an ordinary, mistaken aspect to guide us is more precious than the whole sky filled with wish-granting jewels. This is a very important meditation. 136
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SUN OF DEVOTION, STREAM OF BLESSING
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The Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive Bring
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6. The Guru Is the Most Powerful Ob
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Editor’s Preface This book is the
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Chapter 1. Taking Care of the Mind
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We still have to experience death b
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In a well-cultivated field, whateve
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What a pleasant life we human being
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enefit the teachings of the Buddha
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Among those fifty-one secondary min
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means the cessation of all the gros
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Padmasambhava’s ways of diagnosin
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Practicing Dharma is subduing our m
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from life to life, we will be able
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In A Guide to the Bodhisattva’s W
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said, that allows them to develop i
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contained in the Tengyur, a collect
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Thus the misconceptions about Buddh
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Not understanding this specific emp
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Cutter Sutra eventually does. Then
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There are sentient beings who are a
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vase, the neck is not the vase, the
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4. The freedom of not being born as
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sentient beings, not only to the ti
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If Milarepa could do that after kil
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All of us, believers or nonbeliever
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The need for refuge in our life Per
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▶abstaining from telling lies ▶
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Otherwise they come into the kitche
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Our life is so important, so precio
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Even though our mind, or the other
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We will realize this as we are abou
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The emptiness of the Z I want to en
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the greatest problem that affluent
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Without a guru, we cannot be free f
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This is mentioned in Pabongka Deche
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particles of dust of the earth. Eve
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human mother. If we were to sacrifi
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Buddhism came from the Buddha, from
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obscurations but also the obscurati
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Chapter 7. A Talk about Dolgyal Rec
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seemed to like us and we were able
Page 86 and 87: very crowded. That’s how we lived
Page 88 and 89: him about the bum-pa, the vase. Thi
Page 90 and 91: A key element of guru devotion prac
Page 92 and 93: who helped with his education, his
Page 94 and 95: In short, practicing Dolgyal is har
Page 96 and 97: Khadro-la and earthquakes Although
Page 98 and 99: esult of negative karma is rebirth
Page 100 and 101: Publicly she is like an ordinary pe
Page 102 and 103: There are other quotations but that
Page 104 and 105: Once in Nepal I dreamed of a small
Page 106 and 107: is the kind root guru. Then it star
Page 108 and 109: It is as the quote says, Before the
Page 110 and 111: The importance of guru devotion Pad
Page 112 and 113: So now, this is a real story. At Bu
Page 114 and 115: them perfectly—and even if he has
Page 116 and 117: Practicing Dharma is more important
Page 118 and 119: memorize them but then forgot them
Page 120 and 121: egin by achieving a long life, wher
Page 122 and 123: Chapter 10. Seeing the Guru as a Bu
Page 124 and 125: The monks did that, but of course,
Page 126 and 127: uddhas. That is also mentioned in t
Page 128 and 129: person without head. I don’t know
Page 130 and 131: Those meditators who have achieved
Page 132 and 133: When I was in Tibet I visited Tsurp
Page 134 and 135: Why should they be called kon-chog
Page 138 and 139: Chapter 11. More Precious than a Wi
Page 140 and 141: patience, perseverance, meditation
Page 142 and 143: dust of this earth can be counted,
Page 144 and 145: we were once crossing a short bridg
Page 146 and 147: There are so many animals. There ar
Page 148 and 149: Whether or not we eat animals is in
Page 150 and 151: Having been born at a time when the
Page 152 and 153: We must prepare for the next life T
Page 154 and 155: There is no sentient being we have
Page 156 and 157: Probably many people think that ren
Page 158 and 159: Chapter 12. Cutting the Root of Sam
Page 160 and 161: Because things appear to us not as
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Page 164 and 165: This is all karma. What the Buddha
Page 166 and 167: numberless suffering sentient being
Page 168 and 169: By seeing that person as a wish-gra
Page 170 and 171: light more and some illusory body.
Page 172 and 173: to achieve enlightenment. The other
Page 174 and 175: together is the transcendental wisd
Page 176 and 177: Then you make a promise to generate
Page 178 and 179: eings who also need the Medicine Bu
Page 180 and 181: Focus on the deity’s holy body th
Page 182 and 183: End Notes 1. Or his. Rather than us
Page 184 and 185: 30. Khedrub Sang ye Yeshe (1525-91)
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64. In other teachings Rinpoche has
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97. These are the three ways to und
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Where and when these teachings were
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Gyatso, Tenzin, the Fourteenth Dala
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———. How to Practice Dharma:
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If you, dear reader, would like to
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Other available teachings by Lama Y
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Our further development similarly d
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The Foundation for the Preservation
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Dedication Through the merit create
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About Gordon McDougall Gordon McDou
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