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19840925GRRST101

0:00:22.2 The subject today is the relationship with the spiritual teacher. I think we talked this morning about it. Since it is in contact with Buddhist points of view the relation with the spiritual master is no doubt very important. Very important in both directions, the teacher’s relation to the students is also very important, as well as the relation of students to spiritual master. It’s not just one way, that students have to listen to the spiritual master.

0:01:50.5 whatever he says, nor is it that the spiritual master doesn’t have to bother what the students think about and care about. Both ways are very important. It is a very tricky thing. In one way we have the saying in Tibetan

0:02:33.6 (quotes in Tibetan) – There is no spiritual development or even the name of Buddhahood without proper spiritual guide. The thousands of buddhas that have come over many eons or even in this eon or within the last 2000 years, all have come through the spiritual master. So this is very important, no doubt. But as said this morning, many times, especially these days, under the pretext of the guru many people – should I say, If I am wrong, forgive me – take advantage of the situation and use it for their own benefit, from all angles, from monetary or selfish thoughts or from all angles. This is totally bad and I think a disgrace to the spiritual practice, totally. I don’t say everybody does that, but there are some that are corrupt.

0:04:14.4 Therefore, it is very important for the students to see whether the person you are going to follow is correct or not correct. It is very important. The spiritual master is something unknown and very difficult and important. So it should not be like a person throwing a piece of meat to a dog. If you throw a piece of meat to a dog it will eat it, good or bad. So we should not behave like a dog. We must see and check whether we can take it or not. We have in the West the tendency to say, “I guess that is the only one available, we have no alternative, so let’s take it, whatever it may be”. Whether you make a mess of it or whether you get success – I don’t think you can do that. If you lose it is a big loss.

0:05:35.8 You must check, turn it over, see it from the side, see it from above and from below and when you are satisfied then you can take it. But when the question rises: how does one know and check? This is an important question. What should a spiritual master be? Is it necessary to be somebody sitting on a big throne with a lot of retinue and trumpets blowing right and left and all sorts of things? I don’t think that is the answer. Is it necessary to be someone with a little longer hair? Anyway, I won’t go into all those details. You all know. The dress, the show, the function, the ceremony, the retinue, will not make the master good or bad at all, not at all.

0:07:01.7 You and I can organize to have 30 people to go ahead and 30 people coming behind and we can do a big show, but that doesn’t mean anything. Anybody can do that. It just requires a little money. So that’s not the answer. Then what? If somebody comes out and says, “I thought over it for a year and this is what I feel and you should follow it”, is that going to be a good spiritual master? That’s also questionable. I can’t say yes or no, but it depends on what the person says. Then what a spiritual master really be? Lama Tsongkhapa said,

One who is well behaved from body, mind and speech, one who is watching their behavior, that is one quality that has to be.

That is also not sufficient. The spiritual master must also have vast knowledge. That’s also not sufficient. He should also be very patient. If he doesn’t have patience, then no matter how learned he or she may be, it will not help. If he or she gets angry, if something happens, then that will not help. Therefore, patience is important. Not only that, the person must be very honest. Now I am adding up qualities one after another. If you are not honest, then you can say, “Early in the morning when I was half asleep and half awake, in my meditation, not very sure whether it’s a dream or life, but I saw this and that and God came to me and said this and that.” All kinds of long things may come out.

0:10:31.8 “He whispered this and that thing in my ear”. So who knows if that is true or not? So the person must be very honest. That’s an absolutely important quality. Also, almost the same as honest, he or she should not be a wicked person. Really, a wicked fellow can do almost anything. Let’s say if they have an eye on certain things, they can talk this way and that way, in such a way that makes the other person lose their property or wealth or anything. In other words they cheat. That should also not be there. It is almost the same as not being honest, but we count it separately because it is very important.

0:11:45.2 So it must not be a politician-type of person, sorry (laughs). In addition to that he must know the subject they are talking about. Not only that, he also must have the unbroken lineage of the teaching, from the Buddha down to the present day. There should be the unbroken lineage of the teaching. The lineage, if you look at it, seems not important. I am not talking about information. Information is different. Intelligent people can read a book, pick up information and prepare their talk and give a very attractive talk and prepare a beautiful paper and present that.

0:13:22.2 That will be nice and beautiful information, but it is just information. What will that do in the spiritual field? Nothing. You just brought in more information, that’s all. In order to effect the information to the individual person and also, to gain whatever the subject maybe – each thing has something to gain – the students have to gain – and that requires a little more than that. It requires the unbroken lineage. That is absolutely necessary. The moment the lineage is broken it is finished. The tradition and not only the tradition……you may have the information. That can be black and white on paper. You can now put it in the computer and videos and tape recorders and all this, but that won’t help. The moment the lineage is broken you cannot sit down and try to develop and I can guarantee you, you can sit there for 100 years and nothing will happen.

0:14:41.8 So it is very important. A talk like this really doesn’t mean anything, but when a serious teaching is happening, it’s different. When I speak then the backbone is the lineage. Unbroken lineage is really important. And That speaks to you, that helps the individual, that brings the individual up and lays the seed in the mind of the individual. Without lineage, somebody can take out a piece from a book and sit down and write and give a beautiful talk but it won’t be a teaching at all, nothing. You might as well read the book yourself and do research. Traditional systems like Buddhism cannot invent something new. You may do so. If you are sure and if it is true and if you are experienced and developed I have no objections. But if you build up something with your own delusions and try to sell that in the market you cannot do good work and it is harmful to yourself and them.

0:16:26.2 So the unbroken lineage is very important. Also, the spiritual master should be well informed. If he has one source only and doesn’t see others in Tibet we normally we give the example of the one-eyed yak. If you let that go on the mountain it will start chewing the grass from only one side. So one should not be a one-eyed yak, you must have both. Then the person has to be quite enthusiastic. If the spiritual master is lazy you will have a great deal of problems to push him to teach. You will have to work very hard to push him. You can’t bully him, so you really have to use a lot of tactics. So therefore, the person has to be enthusiastic.

0:17:42.8 Not only that, he must be quite well versed in quotations. You must be able to quote something, otherwise what do you say? Whatever regular things you want to say may mean nothing. Whatever you say to have to be able to prove it from the quotations from the collection of Buddha’s teachings and from his disciples, widely accepted persons. You can quote and prove that it is not something you made up yourself. That is one quality. Of course I told you, you must have not only knowledge but a little development on the subject you are teaching. If you don’t have some development with you then you cannot try to grow anything with anybody else.

0:18:51.4 Atisha, the great Indian pandit said,

Rang gyu ma gyu pa du zhen kyi me du dang/ to ma rang gyu de..- unless und until you move your mind, until you build up something, you can never help others. Therefore, the first thing is to build up yourself. You must not only have knowledge and information, but some realization or experience or development, good or bad, whatever maybe. You have to have it. If you don’t have it, nothing will happen to you.

After some time, the teacher has to pretend that he has some development and the student also has to pretend that something is happening and then it becomes fraud. It will get corrupt. You cannot go on cheating everybody all the time.

0:20:03.2 it will be fraud and cost everybody money, time and energy and will become a disgrace, not only to yourself but to your own tradition, to all the good things in your tradition. Not only that, you get tremendous bad karma for this. This is the worst lie you can ever tell. It equals killing a human being and is even worse than that.

0:20:37.4 So these are very important points. He also should be good at presentation. It is also important that the teacher must be good at presentation. If not, then he can’t be a great master. If he cannot express or communicate, if he has no gift or build up qualities like that to be able to put imprints on the students, then again it doesn’t serve the purpose. If you cannot communicate, yet sit there and try to say something the best way you can, but that won’t do. So you must have a good way of presenting. Presentation is important. It is the one line on which things work. You may have a great thing to present, but if you cannot verbalize it, then what will happen?

0:22:07.9 If you want to give good food to somebody you may bring the rice, vegetables and meat and everything, but if you cannot cook them together then you can’t eat it. So presentation is also very important. He almost must be good-hearted and compassionate. If he doesn’t have compassion he won’t bother much for you. Why should he? He himself is well to do. Why bother for somebody else? So he has to be compassionate.

0:23:13.5 One also must be able to take hardship if necessary. If the guru cannot take hardship, if you have to move the guru inside all the time into a hotel what is he going to do? He must be able to live with the students, eat the same food, drink the same tea, be able to mix together and wear the same clothes and be able to talk and communicate and share all the good and bad things together. These are some of the qualities that are described by Buddha in his sutras and also by the other great teachers of all the traditions, the Nyingma tradition, the Kagyu tradition, the Gelugpa tradition and the Sakya tradition, everywhere these are the qualities that are required.

0:24:31.9 Now, today at such a time, can we get a person with all these qualities? That’s a big question. It’s very difficult to get someone with all these qualities. But at least 50 percent of them are needed and among them some are most important like honesty, presentation, unbroken lineage and development. These are necessary. I think I have counted about ten, it should be then, though I have not counted. But if you have, there should be ten and out of these five are absolutely necessary. That person should at least be more informed than yourself on the subject, right? If you are more informed than the teacher, then you can teach him, rather than him teaching you.

0:25:39.9 So these are the absolute qualities. When you check the spiritual masters you have to check whether he has this quality and that quality. You have to check all of them. When you find it is satisfactory then you pick, if not, then don’t pick. Once you choose a spiritual teacher then you have your own obligation and he has his own obligation. I told you this morning: normally you have to follow what the teacher tells you to do. It’s like when you go see a doctor and the doctor tells you to take this medicine and don’t take that and if you listen to him it may help you. If you don’t, you can keep on seeing the doctors but you can have doctors to your right, left, front and back, and don’t take any medicine and keep paying the fees – a lot of money – you can do that.

0:27:12.2 In the same way you can go and listen to all the teachers here and there and everywhere, wherever the trumpet blows you go. Then if you follow nothing it is a waste of your energy and time. You have to follow. Once you start taking the teaching and following it then that is becoming the first of your development. And then the relation between you and him will become very delicate, from his point of view and from your point of view, from both ways. You have to carry it out very carefully. That’s why I am saying: it’s not like throwing a piece of meat to a dog. The dog will just eat it and that’s the end of it. But here it’s not.

0:28:17.5 This is the channel through which the information flows and the channel through which you ask questions and it’s the channel through which you seek help and the channel through which you get feedback and the channel through which you get blessings. It is the channel through which you develop and go up to enlightenment. It is not easy. If we have to buy a piece of machinery we will try to check if that machine will work or not, whether it is new or old. We will ask a friend who is an expert for his expert opinion. If you buy a wrong machine just throw it. At the most it costs you $100. But if your spiritual path is wrong, then a couple of your generations are wrong. Therefore it is a very tricky place where you really have to check carefully. How to check I have presented you the qualities of the spiritual master. They have to have these qualities.

0:30:04.0 (inaudible)

0:30:16.0 So these are the important qualities the spiritual master should have. It is difficult to have all these. I think I counted 10. Anyway, if half of the qualities I have counted are available in one person you can say it is suitable to be a spiritual master. That is probably the best available today. Having all is difficult. But out of these some are absolutely necessary. Unbroken lineage, honesty, having development, knowing more than the student and ability to present. These are very important.

0:32:02.8 When you have found such a master then try to learn from him. The first step is learning. As I mentioned earlier, without learning, if you try to do something you can do nothing. Without knowing what you are doing, you sit down and do all kinds of things and if you have just blank mind nothing happens. You may relax. But if you just want to relax, why don’t you just go to bed and sleep? That’s better, rather than sitting around here, really. So the first thing is to learn and also learn from the base onward. You have to build a proper base. If you want to build a proper house, if you don’t have the foundations, however high you may build, it will collapse, it will not stay. So always learn from the base. That is very important.

0:33:16.8 Try not to jump up. Everybody would like to jump up to the highest subjects, like emptiness, tantra, bodhisattva practices – something very high up. I don’t blame you. Everybody wants the best. But if you cannot have the best unless you have the preliminaries, the necessary things. In the teachings they present long ways of doing things, short ways of doing things and the shortest way of doing things. You follow the shortest way, because then you don’t have to go through the long way. There is no reason to cross the river twice. Take the shortest way. Really. However, have the base – for God’s sake. If you don’t have the base, whatever you build will collapse. I can guarantee you that in writing.

0:34:18.6 Really, it will collapse, no use. A waste of everybody’s time and energy. As I told you, the presentation is also very important. The presentation does not just mean to express content, but being able to take the students on the path properly. The student will have no idea. They are almost blind-folded up to a certain level. So to take the steps properly the master must be able to present this properly. If you get a good teacher like this, if you are able to follow properly then it as it says

0:35:45.3 (Tibetan quote inaudible) you can have enlightenment as it if were made by hand. If you have an artist who knows what they are doing they can make anything whatever they want. You can also have enlightenment, the best attainment. It is very much possible. It depends on this. If you have a bad teacher and follow them, you can sit for weeks, months and years, nothing will happen. Yes, sitting for weeks, months and years is absolutely necessary. But if you follow someone for 3, 4, 10, 20 years and nothing happens, then there is something wrong somewhere. You have to look at that. Even if nothing happens it is still okay, but if something bad happens it is worse. Really, you can go crazy, you can create a lot of negativity, you can also find the best way to go to hell. I am sorry my language may be a little rough.

0:37:25.4 The student will also have obligations to the spiritual master, the spiritual master also has obligations to the students. The negative forces of the bad outcome, not only the students have it, but the masters have them worse. So you have to look at. You have the check the qualities.

Now there are certain special people – this I must tell you here. The way they behave you may not like it. There are certain special persons, like the great Mahasiddhas of India. If you look how they behaved, it was very strange. If you look past the strange behavior you will see the good qualities in there. If you can’t see those good qualities it is bad luck for yourself. If you are able to see, then you must check and check carefully. There are good qualities, extraordinary qualities, in between the strange behavior. They will show their own light. These are special persons. So don’t say, “He is bad because he is drinking.” Don’t say, “He is bad because he is not sober.”

0:39:22.6 These are special people. You must be able to recognize it and take advantage of it. If you don’t see the light in between it’s too bad, really. Briefly, the qualities I mentioned to you earlier are the necessary qualities of the master. With these qualities if you are able to find one you are very fortunate. Not only fortunate, but you can achieve some very special thing which you have been unable to achieve for many, many lifetimes. One of the Panchen Lamas has said

0:40:23.0

Sang gye tra me chen du ma tu wa

Ma ru de me mi gyu dro wa…

De chen ma tsang de chi jam pa yin

…inaudible??

Millions of enlightened persons came past,

However, we have been left out.

But once we are able to pick up and do something,

If we are not grateful for them, who are we?

It goes always both ways: the teachers have obligations to the students and the students have obligations to the teacher. It’s not just one way, but both ways. Once you have taken a spiritual master and his teachings, then you cannot break the relationship. If you do so it is very bad. It cannot be worse than that for the spiritual path.

0:41:32.8 If the channel breaks, what can fix it? You may have another hundred more, but nothing happens. If you break one channel – especially with your root guru, if you break that channel, no other channel will work. You may get another thousand teachers after that but it will not work. So it is a very important point.

The subject is also very important. In Tibet, fortunately, the subject was well established and everybody knew. If somebody tried to teach you everybody would know straight away so there cannot be anything wrong. But here it is different. You also have to check the subject. If the subject that the master is going to talk about is leading you towards enlightenment and virtuous activities then the subject is a right subject. But if leads you to wrong things, to non-virtuous actions, making you more deluded and brings you misery and problems then it is the wrong subject. So the subject must be perfect. If you learn the wrong subject you are gone completely.

0:41:32.8 How the subject is going to be good or bad, how do you know? Big question. There is one teacher called Tenzin Tenpai Chöphel who said,

0:43:54.3 [quotes Tibetan verse – see Liberation in the Palm Day 10 beginning quote]

The collected teachings of Buddha run into hundreds of volumes. No one can teach all that. But one must be able to collect the essence.

The teaching subject must be the essence of the Buddha and his disciples, not just a story that one builds up.

It also has to be able to stand on any reasonable logical explanation, not be contradicting actual phenomena.

It should withstand any logical debate and be proven with reasonable logical. For that one should check with the great pandits like Nagarjuna and Asanga – whether it goes according to their teachings or against that.

0:46:11.6 If it goes the other way round, there must be something wrong with that. After Buddha, seven regents have come, followed by so many great pandits and then Nagarjuna and Asanga, and all these Six Ornaments and Two Excellences. Even in Tibet we had the great Padmasambhava and all these great masters like Düsum Kyenpa and so many lamas, then the Sakyas, Kagyus and even the Gelugpa tradition through Tsongkhapa and his two disciples and all of them.

0:47:13.1 When millions of those have come and they share their experiences and when they express everything the same way, in almost the same language and share that, then that must be reliable, definitely. But when it is going the other way then you know something is wrong.

Now, the most important point:

On this path, not only does it need to follow the great scholars, but the experience of the siddhas. They have to experience all that. If it is only your delusions then there is something wrong.

In short, the teachings should be leading you to enlightenment, rather than the other way. If that is there, the subject is right. If that’s not there the subject is wrong. In addition to the qualities I mentioned earlier now it is very important to check on the subject.

0:48:51.8 Now things like Hatha yoga or martial arts and things like that are definitely part of the spiritual field, yet these masters are not the same as the persons who teach you the subject leading to enlightenment. I am talking about Hatha yoga and [physical martial arts] only here. You don’t have to treat [those teachers] like gurus, I believe. If I am wrong I am sorry.

0:49:30.3 So I have given you some background on the qualities the teachers should have and what the students should think about. But then, if you are a guru or teacher you must keep one very important thing in mind. I mentioned it this morning. We have a saying in Tibetan

If I have to listen to you, don’t tell me funny things.

If you tell me funny things I am not going to listen to you. If I have to see that whatever you are doing is pure and nice, then don’t be mischievous?? (0:50:38.3 inaudible). This is only taught among Tibetans in the old tradition. This is very important, I think. The Tibetan tradition is very much influenced by religious, spiritual ideas.

0:51:04.0 Every time there is counter-checks. These are the counter-checks to the spiritual masters. If you have no development of anything, if you try to teach somebody then that is a disservice, don’t ever do it. If you are only passing on the message, that may be a different matter.

0:51:34.2 (Quote in Tibetan inaudible)

When Buddha was alive he did give the Mahayana teachings. When he gave those, the Theravadan students, aiming at their personal ordinary enlightenment, were listening. They just listened, but didn’t practice that. Then they passed on the message of what they had heard.

But then you have to make sure that whatever you say is correct and whatever you do is perfect and whatever you say is according to the right message. If you pass on the wrong message you are carrying …..(??) to a hook. That’s it. I have nothing more to say. Do have questions?

0:52:45.6 Audience: I don’t understand the concept of how the lineage comes. Is that directly related to birth?

0:53:13.3 Rimpoche: No, when you are taking any teachings in Buddhism, these teachings have to come from the lineage. That means they come from Buddha who passed them on to his disciples. They passed it on to the next generation of disciples in an unbroken lineage.

0:53:47.0 Audience: (inaudible)

0:53:55.6 Rimpoche: not only the information. That is a big question, important. There are three things, normally. We have empowerments, oral transmissions and we have the explanations and teachings. Oral transmissions and empowerments are not so much information. The explanations and commentaries carry the information. Oral transmission and all these don’t carry the information, but I think they carry the sound, completely unbroken. Empowerment is another important thing.

0:55:22.9 It is a complete function of subject, object and relativity activities, from there to here unbroken, being carried on. I think these are the more important things than information alone. That’s my feeling.

Audience: passing along wisdom?

0:56:03.4 That comes with the information.

Audience: But wisdom is more than information, there is a seed that is laid?

0:56:22.3 Rimpoche: That’s true, the seed of the development comes through that, that’s definitely true. The moment the transmission of the empowerment and oral transmission and teachings are going on, it is laying a seed within you, though the mind (inaudible…has to follow up and investigate, etc.) however, the seed has been sown. That is what happens and thereafter if you practice you have the development come through. Without that, whatever you do, the development will not come, because there is no seed. Thank you for mentioning wisdom.

0:57:09.5 Audience: (inaudible)

0:58:44.7 Rimpoche: You have to know that every karmic result of previous karma, the karma we have paid is finished. Okay, whatever you have enjoyed, good or bad, is done. After that, that karma is finished. It is very important for the individual to realize it is finished. If you don’t realize that and still think it will keep coming, then that fear is very bad. Fear is not ???, but fear can lead you. You don’t have to be afraid. A lot of people are afraid of falling back and get depressed and all sorts of things. This is mostly mental – not delusion, but….

1:00:00.5 End of recording