DJKR on GURU YOGA

September 30th 1996, Boulder, Colorado, U.S.A.

"In front of all these Rinpoches, I feel like I am going through an oral examination. To tell you the
truth, I think I am the wrong person to talk about guru devotion, because I don’t have guru
devotion. I don’t think so, at least. This is not because there is anything lacking in my teachers. It
is only because something is lacking in me.
First of all, I do not have total renunciation mind. A renunciation mind should be the main cause of
devotion. I have not seen the futility aspect of samsara. Probably I don’t even wish to see the
futility of samsara. I have not seen the quality of all the phases of enlightenment. Although I may
have a little understanding, it is all intellectual understanding. I still think very highly of this worldly
life. If someone praises me, I like it very much. If someone criticizes me, I can sometimes miss
my sleep for a few nights. I get very thrilled when people accept my opinion, and I get irritated
when people contradict me. I have so much pride. I think pride and devotion don’t really go that
well together. And I have so much ego. Devotion is bad news for the ego. However, I have heard
a lot about devotion, I have studied devotion, so I perhaps have some theoretical knowledge
about devotion. I guess this is what I will have to repeat here.
We should talk about why we need devotion. In general, we need devotion because we need
enlightenment. Enlightenment can be understood very simply as a release from certain
obsessions, certain habitual hang-ups. Until we are free from these obsessions and habits, we
will endlessly roam in samsara. While we are in samsara, we will always go through all kinds of
anxiety, suffering, pain, and so on. Our basic insecurity is the cause of all these sufferings. This
insecurity is so subtle that it is often quite difficult even to express. The ego, or the attachment to
self, as strong as it is, ironically, is also completely insecure of its own existence. In other words,
we are always wondering whether we exist or not. Although we do not ask such questions
consciously, there is always this subconscious insecurity within us of not being completely sure
about whether we exist or not.
I can give you a few examples to illustrate this subtle insecurity. For instance, our possessions
such as friends, money, position, power, or all the mundane things that we do, such as watching
television, or going shopping; all these somehow function to confirm and establish our existence.
You can try sitting alone in a house and doing nothing. I mean absolutely nothing. Sooner or later
your hands will be reaching for the remote control, for the TV, or the newspaper. We need to be
occupied. We need to be busy. If we are not busy, we feel insecure. Paradoxically however, when
the ego searches for distraction, whatever it is, this distraction becomes yet another problem.
Instead of helping you to feel reassured, it actually engenders more insecurity. In the process of
trying to reaffirm our own existence, we adopt a variety of escape techniques, such as television,
shopping, etc.. For some people, even the very notion of Dharma practice is an escape. That’s
fine. What is not fine is when you get obsessed with this so called escape, which, rather than
providing a release from insecurity, just develops into another habit. It becomes a problem. Once
it becomes a habit, it is difficult to get rid of. In order to get rid of this new habit, you have to adopt
another habit. This is how our samsaric tendencies go on and on.
In order to jeopardize the strategy of this habitual pattern, Lord Buddha taught us many different
methods. Some are offensive methods, some are defensive methods. Certain methods involve a
skillful approach, such as overcoming the emotions by making friends with them. We do not
actually have to practice all of the methods taught by the Buddha. Even a single word of the
Shakyamuni Buddha can liberate us from all these obsessions and habitual patterns. One
example of this is the teaching on impermanence. I know many of us, including myself, when we
hear teachings like impermanence, precious human body, love and compassion, all these sound
to us like very basic preliminary teachings. When I was receiving teachings from His Holiness, of
the 2 to 3 hours of teachings everyday, more than half would be on same old preliminary
teachings on mind training. The actual main teaching was very short, sometime even non-existent.
So what did I do? There was this very diligent disciple of His Holiness, call Lama Senge Drakpa, I
would ask him to give me the signal when the main teaching came. While all the preliminary
teachings were going on I would be secretly reading a Tintin comic book. Similarly, I am sure,
when we read dharma books, we usually skip all the preliminary stuff, such as teachings on
impermanence and the preciousness of human life etc., and we only read the main text where it
talks about such exciting topics as emptiness, mahamudra or dzogchen. I myself have done this.
I am sure some of you also do this.
Recently, however, I realized that even the most seemingly simple teaching of the Buddha, like
impermanence, can really benefit us a lot.. Many of us do not actually understand such teachings
and this is why we do not appreciate them. Generally, people misconstrue the notion of
impermanence to be pessimistic or somehow life-denying. But it doesn’t have to be like that. For
instance, I don’t have a Ferrari today, but if somebody gives me a Ferrari tomorrow, then this is a
change, a direct result of impermanence – from not having a Ferrari to having a Ferrari. This
shows us that impermanence can be good news. Furthermore, if I understand this properly, and
practice this thoroughly, on the third day, if a thief comes and takes away my Ferrari, it should not
worry me that much. I am just trying to tell you that every word of the teaching of the Buddha can
benefit us.
Of all the methods that Buddha taught us, the quintessence of the path is to have the wisdom to
know egolessness. We need to develop prajna or wisdom; this is the main teaching, the
quintessential point. Until we have the wisdom that realises the truth of selflessness, and that
knows that ego-clinging is the root of all suffering, we have not begun to understand the essence
of the Buddha’s teaching. In order to gain this kind of wisdom, it is necessary to make our mind
malleable, workable, so that we can gain control over our own minds.
At the moment our minds are very rigid and limited. If, at this very moment, I requested all of you
to get angry with me, you may not be able to do so, because your minds depend on certain
conditions and stimuli in order to respond in certain ways. This shows that you have no control
over your mind. If you had control over your own minds, you could make your mind and emotions
respond in any way at any time, at your own whim. If you were angry with me, and I told you to
stop your anger, you should be able to stop your anger as though you were switching off a light.
But you are not able to do this, because you have not made your mind workable and elastic.
What do we need to do then to remedy the inflexibility of our minds? We need to go to a fitness
center. Just as we make our bodies flexible, strong, healthy and toned, we should also work on
our minds in a similar way.
Why should we work on our mind? The terrain of samsara is very rough and rocky and constantly
changing. As Shantideva said, if you want to make the ground smooth, so that it doesn’t hurt your
feet, it is extremely difficult to obtain enough leather to cover the whole face of the earth. But if
you simply cover your own feet with leather, then it will have the same effect. In the same way,
rather than trying to get the external world to change according to our wishes, or trying to change
our emotional responses to things, we need to be more practical and to deal instead with the root
of the problem. The root of all our experiences is our mind. Once we work on our minds then the
roughness of samsara is solved. Therefore, Buddhists emphasize the indispensability of training
the mind in order to make it workable and flexible.
From the point of view of the highest Buddhist teachings, however, a flexible mind is not enough.
We have to also understand the nature of our mind. Often teachers will give the example of
muddy water. If you let a glass of muddy water stand still, all the mud and dirt will settle, thus
enabling us to see the clarity of the water. However, this doesn’t mean that ultimately the water is
clean, because the dirt is still there. Similarly, if you settle your mind and let it remain still, then
the clarity will arise. This shamatha meditation, or peaceful abiding meditation, might manage to
make our mind flexible, workable, calm and peaceful, but this, also is not our only aim. Especially
if we are a Buddhist, our main aim is to cut the root of samsara. We have to destroy the root of
samsara. Even though we may possess certain supernatural powers, understand other people’s
mind, or maybe even walk through this wall, these things are nothing amazing from the
Buddhist’s point of view. We have to understand the nature of the mind. That is the most
important.
Understanding the nature of the mind is understanding egolessness, and realising wisdom. All
these are different names with one meaning. It is extremely difficult to gain this kind of wisdom
and to realize egolessness. From beginningless time we have been in samsara holding onto our
habitual patterns which are very strong. We are so deluded, that to try to develop wisdom
suddenly, is extremely difficult. Therefore the next question needs to be, how do we obtain such
wisdom?
There is only one way to obtain this wisdom – by accumulating merit. How should we accumulate
this merit? According to the general vehicle, the method of accumulating merit is by generating
renunciation mind, by contemplating impermanence, by refraining from all the causes and
conditions that will strengthen the ego, by engaging in all the causes and conditions that will
strengthen our wisdom, and by refraining from harming other beings, and so on. In the Mahayana
school, accumulating merit is done by having compassion for sentient beings. Thus, in order to
get enlightenment we need to have wisdom; in order to have wisdom, we need merit; to have this
merit, according to Mahayana, we need to have compassion towards sentient beings, and we
need to give birth to bodhicitta.
According to the Vajrayana, amongst its multitude of methods, the most important one is to
develop a sacred outlook. And guru devotion is the essence of the sacred outlook practice. This
is where, at last, we reach the topic of devotion. Why is guru devotion so important? I told you
earlier that the root of samsara is clinging to the ego. This might be a bit too much for some, but
in my opinion, if you want to practice the dharma for enlightenment, you need to not only abuse
the ego, but you have to destroy it, to completely eliminate it. This is very important to realise.
Then again, you shouldn’t really take this too seriously because in reality there is no ego to be
destroyed. If there is something to be destroyed, then I can understand why you are feeling sorry
for yourself and your ego. But since there is no ego that inherently exists, you shouldn’t really
hesitate to adopt the method of abusing and destroying the ego.
In order to get rid of, communicate with, or to counter-react to this ego, there are many, many
different methods, and guru-devotion is probably the most effective way. Now, I should tell you
that unless you are not interested in enlightenment (maybe there are some people here that are
not really interested in enlightenment), devotion cannot be excluded. There are a few reasons for
this. The Buddha can be sitting there, smiling all day; the teaching of the Buddha can be sitting in
our library bookshelves. We can read about the Dharma and we can somehow intellectualize it
and probably contemplate on it a little bit. But other than this, you are on your own, and these
techniques don’t necessarily pose much of a threat to the ego. On the other hand, the guru is a
genuine threat to the ego.
In order to even begin to see the purpose in destroying our ego, and to develop devotion towards
a teacher, we need to first of all see the futility and essenceless aspect of our samsaric life. Let’s
say we are watching a movie right now and we somehow forget that we are in the cinema, we
actually think that this is real. Everything that is happening right in front of you, the loves,
sufferings, heart-aches, we think all of these are real. If someone sitting next to you tells you,
“look, don’t panic, don’t cry, this is just a movie”, then you can realize that this is just a movie, and
you gain the confidence to walk out when the movie ends. You don’t just sit there all day even
when the movie has finished. You have the confidence to walk out because you understand the
futility aspect of the movie. Likewise, the guru here shows us the futility aspect of samsara. The
guru has an enormous role in our spiritual life.
In our lives, although we are going through lots of pain, from time to time we meet people who
love us, people who care about us. But if you really think carefully, they always have some selfish
reasons why they love and care for us. Their love and care for us is conditional. They may send
you flowers, or they may give you a job or provide you with companionship and such things. But
our guru, our spiritual companion, gives us the most important gift, and the only gift really worth
having: the understanding of the truth.
Let’s go back to the analogy of cinema. When this person who is sitting next to you tells you that
“this is just a movie, don’t panic”, he is telling us the truth. The gift of the truth, the ultimate truth,
is the most important gift. Just for this reason, we should have guru devotion. A genuine guru
does not tell us what we want to hear, he tells us what we need to hear. This is important to
realize, because to tell someone what they need to hear requires incredible courage and patience.
This is why for someone like me, I may never become a good and genuine guru. As I said earlier,
I love and cherish this worldly life too much. I have everything to lose. I will only tell my disciples
what they want to hear. I know very well if I tell them what they need to hear, they may run away.
And that means I will have less disciples. That’s very bad news these days. To be able to tell the
truth, to tell people what they need to hear, requires so much courage.
It says in the Chakrasamvara Tantra Commentary that, “With the blessing and the kindness of the
guru, great bliss, the realization of emptiness, the realization of the union of samsara and nirvana,
can be obtained instantly.” This quotation talks about Buddha Nature. Generally in Buddhism, the
ultimate teaching is that you have Buddha Nature. In other words, you already have complete
enlightened qualities. All you need to do is to realize this Buddha Nature. Since you don’t have
that kind of recognition, this is why you are roaming in samsara. Nagarjuna said, Buddha never
taught a state of enlightenment which requires the abandonment of the samsara, Buddha only
taught the state of enlightenment in which you know that there is no samsara inherently. What we
need to recognize is the essence, the Buddha Nature, which has been, or is with us all the time,
and which has never been separated from us. In order to recognize this Buddha within, there are
so many different methods, among which, receiving the blessing from the guru is the quickest and
the easiest method. This is also one of the reasons why guru devotion is necessary.
Another example is, imagine we are having a dream of some monsters, and suddenly somebody
comes with a bucket of cold water to pour on us. Then we wake up from this nightmare. The
pouring of a bucket of cold water doesn’t really cause the monster to disappear, because there is
no monster to disappear in the first place, it is just a dream. A bucket of water can’t make
something not existent to disappear. But when you are having a nightmare, your sufferings are
real. Then someone who pours the bucket of water is indeed very kind and very special. With
countless lifetimes of accumulating lots of merits you are finally able to meet this person, to
encounter this person who will pours water on you and wake you up from your very strong and
old nightmare.. If you don’t have the merit, you may never wake up from this nightmare. In the ( )
Tantra, it says “years and years of doing meditation of the development stage, completion stage,
and years and years of chanting mantras, cannot compare to the power and merit of one instant
of remembering the qualities of the guru”.
Then the next question is, who is this guru? What kind of guru are we talking about? Generally,
as I said earlier, we all have this Buddha within us; Buddha Nature, Tathagatagarbha, whatever
you want to call it. From this Buddha Nature, all phenomena arise as a display. Depending on
your personal karma, purification of defilements, and accumulation of merit, you will see these
phenomena differently. Chandrakirti said in Madhyamikavatara, “a glass of water can be seen by
a fish as home, while human beings see it as water, gods can see it as amrita, and someone else,
like hell realm beings can see it as fire”. In our world, when we look at a person, we all have
different projections about this person. If you like this person, everything that he does gives you
happiness. If you don’t like this person, everything that he does irritates you. In this way all
phenomena is the display of Buddha nature which we then interpret in different ways in
accordance with our karma. The guru also happens to be one of these phenomena. The guru is
the phenomenon that we produce with an enormous amount of merit accumulated from
beginning-less time.
One must concentrate on and learn this. Another way of looking at this is examining the guru
lineage. If you look at the guru lineage you are taught to visualize that we have our guru on top of
our head, and he has his guru, and then he has his other guru, and all these gurus go on and on
like this. The last guy is someone who is called Vajradhara, Samantabhadra and all that. But who
is he really? Then our masters tell us that he is our own mind, the nature of our own mind. So you
see, when we follow these layers of the guru lineage, we actually end up reaching our own minds;
the essence of ourselves. The guru is not some kind of almighty mentor that we have to worship
or we have to obey. The most important thing to know is, the guru is nothing but the display of
this Buddha Nature that we talked about. On a relative level, however, one can say that the guru
is someone who tells us what should be abandoned and what should be adopted. He is someone
who gives us that kind of skillful advice. A small child may not realize that a burning iron is hot, so
the father tells him that it is hot. Then the child is saved from the burning. Like this, the guru tells
us what is wrong and what is right.
In Vajrayana, the guru also does something that is even more important than this. You must have
read many times about the five emotions and the five Dhyana Buddhas, and that our body,
speech, mind and aggregates have always been pure from beginningless time. But we don’t
really realise this. As His Holiness Dudjom Rinpoche said, sometimes it is so simple that people
do not understand. Like the way that eye lashes are so close to the eye that we cannot see them.
Because of the lack of merit we do not understand this, we do not recognize this. So what does a
guru do? He gives us empowerment, he grants us the abeshika, in order to understand these
truths. He introduces us to it: “Look, this body that you have is not just a body, this is Akshobya”,
and so on. This is why the guru is so important.
In the Ati-yoga, in the Dzogchen lineage, the guru does an even more special job. Without
wasting time on all the trivialities involved with common advice, he directly points out to you the
nature of the mind which has the quality of the Dharmakaya, the Sambhogakaya, and the
Nirmanakaya. These qualities are your own awareness, your own rigpa, your own Buddha Nature.
For all these reasons, we have to have guru devotion.
After becoming a student of the guru, we need to receive his or her blessings. Until we receive
the blessings of the guru, we will not understand the nature of the mind. And in order to receive
blessings, we will need devotion. What do we mean by devotion? How should we have this
devotion? As the great Jigme Lingpa said, “ it’s very important to know or to analyze the guru first.”
I think this is a very important point and I want to elaborate on it a little bit.
Before you take on a guru, you should have a good understanding of the Dharma. Maybe not
necessarily a thorough understanding, but at least you should have some understanding. You
should analyze, you should be skeptical and critical. Perhaps you should go against all this
Buddhist teaching and even argue with them, try to find fault using logic and with contemplation.
But while you are doing that you should not have the journalist’s approach of finding fault. The
aim here is to find the path, not to find faults. So, when you study Buddhism, you should try to see
whether this path suits you or not. Whether this path is logical or not. This is very important.
Let’s say we all want to go to New York. It is good to know that New York is somewhere in the
east. If you don’t know this, then you go and search for a guide. And then what happens? I call
this inspirational disease. Usually we meet a guide and we get inspired by him without knowing
whether New York is in the east, south or west. We never care to find out the direction of New
York. We are attracted by the guide, the way he looks, the way he talks, they way he manifests.
That’s not good. You should have at least some knowledge where New York is before you find a
guide and go with him. If suddenly in the middle of the way, he takes out from his bag a worn out
map and begins to act a little funny, you are still okay. Because you are able to check and know
that you are heading towards the right direction. He may lead you through bumpy roads, through
some bushes, and some rough roads, that doesn’t matter, if you are in the right direction, you are
safe. If you don’t know the direction at all, then you have to place all your trust on this one guide
who claims that he can do everything. Maybe if you have lots of merit, you might accidentally
succeed after going around and around, and actually reach New York. But if I were you I would
not trust this kind of accidental success all the way. It is good to analyze the path and then have
one or a hundred or thousands of gurus.
After having a guru, what should we do next? One of the great Sakyapa masters Lama Jamyang
Gyaltsen said, “First you have to think, contemplate and create the devotion.” You have to have
this fabricated devotion thinking that the guru is the Buddha. Contemplate, make believe, so to
speak. “And then after a while, you will, without difficulties see him as the Buddha. Then on the
third level, you will realize that you are the Buddha.” This is the uniqueness of Vajrayana.
Let us talk about this fabricated devotion. As I said earlier, I don’t have genuine devotion. I don’t
see my guru as the Buddha, but I try to contemplate and think that he is the Buddha. This is what
we call created, fabricated devotion. In the beginning we think that every fault that we see is our
own projection. He has all the qualities of the Buddha, he is the Buddha, he is the Dharma, he is
the Sangha, he is everything. We contemplate like this again and again. You may think that this is
illogical, but this is very logical, because everything is mind after all.
I will give you one outrageous example. When a man gets infatuated with a woman, what
happens? The way she looks, the way she smells – everything about her is so beautiful and good,
isn’t it? You try to win her attention, you date her and exchange rings with her and finally
somehow you actually manage to get married and then what? It doesn’t happen to everyone, but
to most people, it happens. After a while your ego that wanted so much attention from someone
is now getting a little tired with that particular ego which always sleeps next to you, which always
eats breakfast and dinner with you, which nags a little bit and all that. You begin to find her not as
beautiful as before, even her smell is bad at this point. She may try to put on all the expensive
perfumes that you bought for her, and she doesn’t even have to be near, just the smell of the
perfume in the bathroom can irritate you. See, it is not only in the case of the guru, your liking of
someone and not liking of someone decide the person’s appearance to you. With this logic we
can definitely develop our devotion thinking that guru is the Buddha, guru is Dharma, guru is
Sangha, again and again.
These days guru devotion is a tricky topic. Many of us only have guru devotion towards a certain
guru who has something in common with us. Let’s say if you like pizza with anchovy, the smelly
stuff, and if your guru likes this also then your devotion grows a little bit more, just because there
is something common between the two of you. This is such a petty and pathetic way of having
devotion.
Initially it is very difficult for us to see the guru as the Buddha because of our delusion. But one
has to contemplate on this again and again, and it will definitely work. Shatideva said, “if you get
accustom to something, there is nothing in this world that is difficult.” Everything can become
easy. I have another example here. Sometimes when we get depressed, we go to the bar or the
nightclub. Let’s say this is the first time in you life that you are going to a bar. Someone
introduces you to this man, due to some past karmic connection. This person then gives you all
the initiations and oral instructions and teachings on how to mix various drinks. Tequila with
lemon and martini dry and sweet and all sort of details about drinking he will give you. Being a
very devoted and diligent student, you practice drinking. In the beginning, it burns your throat, it
hurts your stomach and you become drunk. You vomit and you get up the next morning with an
headache. With lots of enthusiasm you keep on doing this. This is what we call foundation
practice. You keep going to this man’s place even though he gives you all sorts of hard times, but
it doesn’t matter, you are a very diligent student. And one day your mind and his mind get mixed,
you know everything about alcohol, you know how to drink. At this point, you are a perfect lineage
holder of alcohol drinking. You can then begin to teach others. This is what happens. Nobody is
born suddenly alcoholic. Nobody is born with a certain habit. All this is acquired by getting
accustomed to.
Likewise, even guru devotion can be acquired by getting accustomed to. Maybe it is too much
asking you to remember the guru everyday, how about make a mark for every Wednesday,
between 5:30 to 5:33, and remember the guru for just 3 minutes. There is so much merit. If you
do that for a few years I am sure you will begin to see him as the Buddha. Gradually this un-
conditional, un-fabricated devotion will grow. And then of course, our final aim, to understand our
own mind as the Buddha’s, will come one day out of nowhere. This is very important.
We have a habit of always looking for another protector, don’t we? We always have this problem,
we always limit our guru. We think that guru is only good for giving teachings, guru is only good
for doing this and that, but guru is not good for my headache, guru is not good for my other
problems. This is not the way to think. For every problem that you have, pray to the guru, receive
his blessings and you will be free from it. For many of us to see the guru as the Buddha, not just
the meditated, not just the fabricated, may be difficult. On another hand, it is not so difficult
especially for those who have met someone like His Holiness Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche. Then I
don’t think you require that much effort. I don’t think I can ever finish talking about the qualities of
His Holiness Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche: the outer, inner and the secret qualities. But Rabjam
Rinpoche on the first day told us a lot. And Ugyen Tobgyal Rinpoche also told us a lot. And last
night with the slide show, there was a lot of explanations from Matthew. I can add a few things
here about what I see in His Holiness.
His Holiness is not only a great teacher for me, he was also such a good man. Probably this is a
very petty way of thinking, but for me, it is very important. There are lots of great teachers who
can teach, who can smile and all that, but a combination of being both a great man and a good
teacher is so rare. I see in him a good man, a gentle man, truly a gentleman. He was very easy to
get along with. If I were not a Buddhist, I would still be very happy to hang around with him. He
was such a great man.
There is one big problem, especially among the dharma practitioners. I dare say, even among the
great masters, there is this problem of being too sectarian. I need to explain to you about His
Holiness’ non-sectarianism. This is another great quality that I have seen in him which is very
special in this degenerate time. Being the reincarnation of the Great Jamyang Khyentse Wangpo,
I should not be surprised that His Holiness was such a non-sectarian master. Let us take this cup
as an example. We are thirsty, we want to drink the water, not the cup. Dharma is like the water,
Sakya, Kagyu, Ningma, Hinayana, Mahayana, all these are like the cup. Many people, being
sectarian, emphasize so much on the cup, how it should look, where it should be made, Japan,
China or Italy. Very few people care about the content, the water.
Being non-sectarian does not mean that you have to mix every thing, a bit of Sakya, a bit of
Nyingma, a bit of Kagyu here and there, mixing everything and somehow creating a Buddhist
beehive. We are not talking about that. Being a non-sectarian is actually very simple, let me give
you one example. If you have an headache, to cure it you take pills for headache, right? If
somebody has a stomachache, you can’t say to him, “hey, take this headache pill for your
stomachache.” It is very wrong to say this. For someone who has stomachache he should take a
pill that is appropriate for that kind of sickness. I like to tell you this openly. We often think that, oh
we are not sectarian, someone else is. Don’t think like this, we have to admit that we have
sectarian mind. I am sure many of us here today, the Vajrayana people, look down on the
Hinayana people, thinking that the Hinayana is the lesser vehicle, Theravada stuff, monk stuff.
Don’t we? We look down on them, we have sectarian mind. It’s so sad.
Teaching of the Buddha are given to cure different diseases. Different people who have different
problems should eat different kind of medicine. You should respect the other person who is
having eye problem. You should respect the medicine for that particular problem. You should not
insist that they should have the headache pills, simply because that’s what you have. This is very
sad. There are some lamas who pretend to be non-sectarians, myself being one of them. I don’t
think people like me are qualified as non-sectarians.
I will give you one of my very relative observation of His Holiness being non-sectarian. In Tibetan
we call it semdrel – worry. His Holiness had a peculiar worry, he worried for all lineage. If we are
practicing Vajrayana, when we heard of a downfall of Hinayana, do we really worry? We think, oh,
that’s their business. It really does not affect you. This happens among the Vajrayana students. If
you are Nyingmapa, and if you see that some Sakyapas or Kagyupas are having some trouble,
you think that ah, that’s them, not us. This is what we think. But with His Holiness Dilgo Khyentse
Rinpoche, this is what I have observed in him during all these years. He worried for everything:
such as the life of various masters, the teaching lineage of various schools. For example,
Sakyapa school has a very thin transmission lineage of Tripitaka. I have studied in the Sakya
school for very long time. One day, His Holiness told me that he had been searching for a certain
guy somewhere in East Tibet who had this particular transmission which was required for the
Sakya lineage. He instructed me to send some monks there and make sure that they receive
such and such lineage. This is just one out of many examples, this shows that he was genuinely
concerned. He was like a guardian. This shows us what it should be like being a non-sectarian. It
is not trying to be diplomatic, it is actually managing to be worried, concerned and responsible.
This is what I have seen.
Furthermore, if you talk about practice, it almost sounds like he did nothing else but practice all
the time. If you read books that were written by him, you will think that this guy must have done
nothing but had written all the time. Similarly, if you try to recall the amount of teachings that he
had given us, you will think this guy must have been giving teachings all the time and do nothing
else. Days and nights, tirelessly, he did so much for the dharma.
If you stay around him, the longer you stay with him, you will notice that he grew kinder and
kinder everyday, he became a better person everyday. With some people, after you become
familiar with him, you feel you can take advantage of him, right? But His Holiness is different. The
more you knew him, the kinder he became, he also became more majestic. Every morning when
we walked in to see him, it was like the first time.
All of the disciples here, everyone of us think that His Holiness had paid special attention to
ourselves personally. This is very special. Right now, for the sake of living, I am also teaching,
taking the role of a guru, right? These days, gurus like us, we have the problem of disciples
complaining that Rinpoche is not paying attention to them, that “he is ignoring me”. This happens
to many, many lamas like us. But His holiness was different. Everyone thought that he had the
complete attention of His Holiness, not only the high lamas who had titles like “His Eminence”, but
any ordinary follower who may be sitting somewhere in the corner of the monastery, he also
thought that His Holiness loved him, His Holiness praised him, and felt contented. This is another
very special quality of His Holiness.
I know I should not feel that I miss him, because I should think that he is here, everywhere,
always ready to help, always ready to give me blessing. I know I should not miss him, but as I told
you, even though I may not have great devotion, I have a lot of admiration for him. Probably it is
attachment, probably it is simple admiration, but I do miss him. I do miss the thrilling but deep
sound that he made when he cleared his throat once in a while. I miss going to his room every
morning. There he would give all his disciples long life pills. Every morning he did that. Even
nowadays, when I go to see Rabjam Rinpoche in Nepal, I would wake up in the morning, and I
would still think that His Holiness was there in his room and he might call me as he used to. This
is my emotional devotion, you understand? Something you should not be inspired by.
I miss him telling me to lift Matthew’s skirt in the public. And I also recall all the good times that
we have. Once we were all traveling with His Holiness to Tibet, we were flying from Hong Kong to
Chengdu. Being a naughty person myself, together with some other young Rinpoches, we always
try to avoid sitting next to His Holiness in the plane because His Holiness was very big. If you sit
next to him, you have to sit very still. We always pushed Matthew to sit next to His Holiness.
Today being the very special day of His Holiness’s anniversary, I must confess here that during
one of those journeys, I bought some itching powder. While Matthew was sitting next to His
Holiness, I put a little bit on his neck. By this time His Holiness was having a nap, and his head
was on Matthew’s shoulder, and Matthew had a hard time trying to sit still with minimum
movement. Later he found out that it was me, and he said, “Do you think it is funny?” Then I said,
“No. I didn’t do anything.” Then with his French accent he said, “ I don’t want to hear.”
The last thing I want to tell you is, how to be with a guru. How a person should be with his guru.
All this things like dress code, suit or no suit, doesn’t really matter, if your guru tells you to do that,
fine. You can do that as an offering. Etiquette, politeness, all these are something you can have,
you should have. But there are two very important things that you should remember. One is that
you should never have pride, because you are there to learn, you are there to receive teachings,
you want to learn, you want to achieve enlightenment. If you go there with pride, as Tibetans
would say, “pride is like a pebble” a round stone, no matter how much water you put on it, it will
never sink inside. If you have pride you will never learn. So taking a position of humility is the
most important advise.
The second most important thing is always take the opportunity to accumulate merits. Having
merit is so important. Do you remember the example that we were all watching a movie? In the
beginning we don’t know that this is a movie, we think this is real. We go through all sorts of
emotional trauma but then the person who is next to you says, this is a movie. From then on you
are free from this kind of delusion. But if you don’t have the merit, when this person says to you,
“Look this is a movie,” if at that very moment, the person behind you coughs very loudly, then you
may not hear what the person was saying. You missed this opportunity because you don’t have
the merit. If you don’t have merit, your ego is always there ready to interpret everything according
to its own way. Even though the teacher gives us the most important teaching, you will always
interpret this according to your way.
So instead of trying to outsmart the ego, at this point, the most important thing to do is to
accumulate merit. How should we do it? There are many, many different ways. Wear a tie and
look smart, think that this is an offering to my teacher. If you are driving at night in Boulder, when
you see the street lamps, immediately visualize this as lamp offerings to the guru. If you can’t do
this yourselves, and if you see somebody doing this, at least rejoice that you have seen this
person who has the merit. There are so many things we can do. His Holiness Dudjom Rinpoche
said, accumulating merit is so easy, much more easier than accumulating the non-virtuous
actions, but somehow people really do not do it.
“Next door there is another Rinpoche who is giving teaching, if I go there is it all right?” Feeling
that you are cheating your guru as if you are cheating your husband or wife – this is a very petty
way of understanding devotion. Devotion should be grand. I think if you have true devotion, every
teaching, the verbal and the visual teachings, can all be taken as a manifestation of your own
guru. Our mind should be grand.
Since it is nearly time, I have two more advice. One is, I wonder how much you should really brag
about whose student you are. Because this guru devotion is very Vajrayana stuff, and Vajrayana
is supposedly very secretive practice. You are not supposed to tell anyone, I am doing such and
such yidam practice and my guru is so and so. Maybe we can’t really avoid this, but I think it is
good to keep that in our minds. Very often we may hoist the banner of guru’s name to boost our
ego. This can happen by saying I am such and such person’s disciple. We should watch out for
this. If you do that and when you hear some other people criticizing your guru, you immediately
becomes defensive and all that. All that becomes a little bit petty. This is why it is very important
that we keep our devotion grand and seek an open attitude.
Lastly, don’t ever search for and don’t ever end up with a guru like me. But if you have no choice,
and already you are with this person, then spend the least time with him before he reveals his
true temperament. The longer you stay with him, you will think of different things, and you will
make judgments; and the more judgments you make, the more unpleasant phenomena will
appear, and that may become the cause of all sorts of breakage of samaya."