Lama Zopa Rinpoche

There was also a great Kagyü lama called Kyobpa Jigten Gonpo 33 . From his holy mouth
came these words,
If on the guru, snow mountain of the four kayas,
The sun of devotion fails to shine,
The stream of blessings will not arise.
Attend, therefore, to this mind of devotion. 34
This means that we cannot receive realizations without the guru’s blessings. Therefore, we
must pay very careful attention to developing the minds of respect and devotion to the guru.
For example, while we are doing something that pleases the guru, a retreat or something, we
have a dream. Maybe we have not even informed our guru, but we have a dream in which he
is very happy and gives us a present. He is so pleased, so joyful; he has such a happy face.
This happens.
I think one thing is that all the buddhas are happy with us because of our karma with that
guru, so all the buddhas communicate with us through the guru. Receiving a present or
something like that is an indication of this. Because we have a connection with that guru,
they use the aspect of the guru to communicate with us, to give us a blessing. This is
definitely there. Conversely, if the guru is displeased, that means all the buddhas are
displeased.
Pleasing the buddhas through correctly devoting to and following the advice of the guru is
not easy to understand but we have to think about it because it is an incredibly important
consideration for our life. And not just this life but all our lives until enlightenment. Whether
we can achieve enlightenment or not, that’s the highest success. It means completing
purification of all obscurations and attaining all realizations. There’s no higher success. Only
then can we do perfect work for sentient beings without the slightest mistake and free them
from the oceans of samsaric suffering and bring them to enlightenment, the state of the
omniscient mind.
What higher success can there be? And that depends on this alone, developing and
maintaining a proper relationship with our guru. So it’s not easy. We have to be incredibly
careful. We have to think and understand well. It’s not just playing a game. It’s not like
having a boyfriend or a girlfriend where we decide to stay with that person if we like them or
leave them if we don’t. I want to make that clear. This is a very deep thing, a really important
matter.
To disrespect the guru is to disrespect all the buddhas
As I mentioned, after we have done something that pleases the guru, even if we have not
informed him, we can have dreams that indicate the guru is extremely pleased, dreams in
which he is very joyful or gives us presents. In the same way, if we do something negative,
even if we do not tell the guru, he can show a negative aspect in dreams, such as appearing
very skinny or sick. There is a message for us.
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