Lama Zopa Rinpoche

This is mentioned in Pabongka Dechen Nyingpo’s commentary on The Essence of Nectar, 35
which is an extremely inspiring text by Yeshe Tsöndrü. It has a very good lam-rim outline
and I often recommend it as a daily meditation guidebook. There is also a commentary by
my guru, Geshe Rabten, a great scholar and meditator, which has been published in English
as the Essential Nectar.
Kyabje Trijang Rinpoche, His Holiness the Dalai Lama’s younger tutor, is the root guru of
Geshe Rabten Rinpoche and Lama Yeshe, who took care of me for more than thirty years.
Both my gurus have the same level of tantric realizations: the gross and subtle generation
stages and five stages of the completion stage; the isolation of body, the isolation of speech,
the isolation of mind, the path of unification of clear light and the illusory body, and the
path of no more learning. Both of them have clear light realization. Kyabje Trijang Rinpoche
mentioned this.
Recently I was lucky enough to receive an oral transmission of the whole collection of
Kyabje Trijang Rinpoche’s teachings from Kyabje Khyongla Rato Rinpoche, a Drepung
Loseling lama who lives in New York and is advanced in both qualities and age. Then, in
Sera Monastery after the recent teachings by His Holiness, I also received the complete
transmission of Pabongka Rinpoche’s collected works from Kyabje Chöden Rinpoche.
A monk came to help me with the long-life prayer afterwards. I hadn’t met him before but
he looked like somebody who was a very sincere practitioner. He was a reincarnation of
Yeshe Tsöndrü, the author of The Essence of Nectar. When he explained his story I felt his
coming to see me was very auspicious.
Anyway, in his commentary, Pabongka Dechen Nyingpo mentioned,
What are the gurus? They are the embodiment of all the Victorious Ones, those who have gained victory
over the four maras. What are called the holy actions of the Victorious Ones and [the holy actions] of the
gurus are just names; they are the same thing. And so, disrespecting the guru is disrespecting all the
buddhas. There is no heavier negative karma than this. By thinking of the guru as your savior you become
the disciple. Then if you belittle the guru you will always experience suffering.
That is the instruction. What are the gurus? We have to think of this quotation as an
instruction to us. The buddhas are called the Victorious Ones, those who have gained
victory over the four maras: the maras of the delusions, the contaminated aggregates, the
Lord of Death and the deva’s son. This is victory over the gross and subtle maras, the
disturbing-thought obscurations and the obscurations to knowledge.
We are not victorious over the maras but defeated by them. We are under the control of the
maras. But the buddhas are victorious over the four maras because they are able to
transform the self-cherishing thought into the thought cherishing others. The Buddha was
the same as us, having all the problems and negative emotions and the same self-cherishing
thought, bound by all the worldly dharmas. But that is what he changed. He was able to
transform his mind and develop bodhicitta, and from that he was able to become victorious
over all wrong concepts.
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