Into the Heart of Life (26 page)

At a teachers’ conference, one very famous Western teacher asked His Holiness the Dalai Lama, “How do we deal with the issue of sitting on a high seat and giving teachings and then how we act in our everyday life as an ordinary person? How do we bridge that gap between the spiritual persona we are giving out to people and who we are behind the scenes?” His Holiness looked blank and said, “What?” So the teacher asked the question in a different way, and His Holiness glanced at the translator again in puzzlement, asking, “What?” The Western teacher tried it again, rephrasing it, and then His Holiness said, “If there is any difference between who you are sitting on your throne, and who you are behind the scenes, then you should not be sitting on that throne.” He explained that this does not mean we can’t relax, but essentially it has to be one continuity. If we change and become a different person behind the scenes from what we present as the teacher, then we should not be the teacher.

We have to look at our teachers carefully. Are they the same, are they compassionate under all circumstances? That’s a very important one. Are they always kind, even to people who are of no importance? Do they get angry? What is their reputation? Are they ethical? If the teacher is male, what is his relationship with his female disciples? Are there male disciples? Are people who have studied with these teachers after many years better people? What are the people around the teacher like? There was a controversial lama who lived in America whom I knew and who was a good friend of my lama, Khamtrul Rinpoche. I asked Khamtrul Rinpoche about him because he was so very notorious. Rinpoche said, “Well, at that level, it’s very difficult to know. We have to wait for twenty years and then look at his students. Not two years but twenty years. Give them time to mature, then look.”

In the meantime there are, as I said, many levels of teachers. We have gratitude to every teacher, not just lamas, but to anyone who teaches us anything. Even if they are a little lacking in some aspects, still we remember and feel gratitude for what we’ve learned from them. Every teacher we receive teachings from, every teacher from whom we receive initiations—although one is very grateful to them, and keeps them in one’s refuge tree, they nonetheless don’t have to be our heart lama.

Two of his Holiness the Dalai Lama’s teachers were the regents of Tibet during his infancy. They were quite special but on certain levels, they were failing. One of them had a mistress and children although he was supposed to be a monk. Now, those regents were trying to kill each other and one of them succeeded. That is a very heavy thing. And these are some of the Dalai Lama’s teachers. And yet he said, “I know they did these things, but I still have them in my refuge tree because I remember their kindness to me. I remember the teachings they gave me, and I remember how they helped me. But nonetheless I don’t close my eyes or condone all the things they did wrong.” Again, there’s no blind faith here. If something’s wrong, we don’t have to shut our eyes or try to sweep things under the carpet. I keep quoting His Holiness so that you won’t think it’s just me saying this!

His Holiness also said that if there are any problems concerning the teacher, if students have doubts, then they should voice them to the teacher. There might be, for example, sexual misconduct or any kind of manipulation or doubts about the financial situation. Maybe the teacher is misusing the offerings to support his family or to support himself. The student should confront the teacher politely but firmly and say, “Look, why is this happening? I don’t understand why you’re doing this. Maybe this is not how things should be done.” Then it’s up to the teacher. Either the teacher says, “Yes, I’m sorry, this is a weakness of mine. I apologize. I’ll try to get things together better from now on.” Or they say, “Oh no, this is high tantric practice, you don’t understand. This is beyond your level of realization.” In which case, His Holiness says, “you get out.” His Holiness also says, although I’m not sure if I agree with this, “you let everybody know; you don’t keep it secret.”

Tibetans, like most Asians, tend to sweep things under the carpet and then replace the carpet as if dirt is no longer there. As if all we have to do is close our eyes and our mouth for the problems to go away. Perhaps this is a difficulty with religious organizations everywhere, not just Asia. His Holiness is very unusual in being so outspoken, but he’s very concerned that the reputation of Tibetan Buddhism is in jeopardy because of the conduct of some lamas. He is also concerned that he himself often doesn’t hear about it. People don’t like to tell him. Sometimes when he goes to the meditation centers, he is shown smiling with these lamas because he doesn’t know they are controversial. Nobody tells him.

I was at a conference where he said, “Look, if you know anything about any lama that isn’t right, please tell me. Tell me right now. Or if you don’t want to stand up and talk about it, send me a letter. I promise you it will only be kept between me and my secretary, and we’ll deal with it, but I have to know.” He said this because there are abuses; there are some who whitewash and pretend that it’s all part of the tantric practice.

Once I asked my lama, Khamtrul Rinpoche, “Seeing that sexual yoga is the quick path, how come you’re all monks?” He replied, “Yes, it’s true, it’s a special quick way, but you have to be practically a Buddha in order to practice it. It’s extremely difficult, extremely precarious, and very few are able to practice it.” Another Kagyu lama also said to me that he thought nowadays there was nobody who actually could practice sexual tantra anymore.

I am just telling you this because I think we shouldn’t be naive. Faith and devotion do not mean being credulous. We need a lama whom we really connect with, whom we feel is the kind of being who is worthy to inspire us. This being embodies the Dharma in his every action—how he acts, how he speaks, how he thinks. We watch; we look; we see. If there is perfect integrity, then we trust. We connect from the heart, and after that, whatever he does, we accept. That’s why we have to be so careful.

Devotion to the guru means that at a certain point we become completely open. The role of the true guru is to show us the nature of our mind. The nature of our mind is our innate buddha nature, which is the same as the guru’s mind. You see, we don’t go to the guru for his body, or his personality, or even his learning. We go for refuge to his dharmakaya mind and the fact that he embodies dharmakaya—that he himself has realized this and is capable of revealing this to us and guiding us.

The first thing the guru reveals to us is our true nature, our naked awareness behind the coming and going of thoughts, our buddha nature. In order to do that, the guru herself must have realization and the ability to transmit it. The student from his or her side must be open. The connection has been described as a corridor with two doors. The guru opens one door, but the student has to open the other door for there to be space for the wind to blow through. So even though the guru could be the greatest guru in the world, if from our side we are closed, then nothing is transmitted. In order for the student to open, there has to be total trust and devotion. That’s why devotion is so stressed.

Devotion can illuminate even a very simple gesture. I knew an older English nun who came to my lama’s monastery in Tashi Jong at the time of the annual lama dances. This was during the time of the previous Khamtrul Rinpoche. She was just sitting there watching him dance, and obviously her mind was very open. As he turned, he looked straight at her, and when he did this it was as if her whole conceptual mind fell apart, and she spontaneously realized the nature of the mind. And this, even though he was not her lama, and she’d just gone along to watch the dances! But because at that moment her mind was open, and because obviously she was feeling this very relaxed, open spaciousness while she watched him, he was able to transmit something even while he was dancing.

But that is just the beginning. Once we’ve seen the nature of our mind, as my lama said, then we can start to meditate. It is not the end, it’s the beginning. We need the teacher, the guru, to guide us because each one of us is very unique, coming from a different part of the circle, and each one of us has very different needs. When I was younger, in my lama’s community at Tashi Jong, there were three Western nuns. One was from the United States, one was from Holland, and there was myself. We’d often take initiations and oral transmissions together. We would decide on certain practices and ask for the empowerments together with oral transmissions of the text. The lamas would wait and give them to all three of us at the same time. But then the actual teaching on the text we each took separately, even from the same person. We never took teachings together. Each one of us got a slightly different teaching. Just an example, there was one teaching where you had to visualize a mandala of one hundred and twenty different deities: one set outside yourself, one set throughout the body, and one set in the heart. It turned out there are about six hundred different deities we were visualizing, and all of them had three heads and six arms plus a consort, and the colors didn’t coordinate. My sisters were told just to visualize it sort of roughly, to just get the feel of it. So when I went to get my teaching, I asked, “Just see it sort of roughly and vaguely?” But the lama said, “No, no, see it very precisely; really visualize each deity very clearly. Then if you can really keep the whole thing in your mind, your mind will very quickly get up very high and become very vast.” Each one of us was taught in a very different way with a different emphasis, because we were very different from one another and had different needs. A true teacher understands that.

At first, we all got the same kind of teaching on the same things. We did
ngöndro;
we did certain other practices which everybody does. But after that I would ask Khamtrul Rinpoche, “What shall I do?” And he’d say, “Well, how about such and such a practice?” And I’d reply, “Yes right! Fantastic! Let’s do that.” Then I’d go back to my Dharma sisters and they would say, “Oh, I hope he doesn’t tell us to do that!” So I said, “Well, if that’s your reaction, of course he won’t.” And he didn’t. What one person needs is not what another person needs, and the glory of the Tibetan tradition is that there is so much. The true guru will guide you. She will find the practices which you need to make your body and your mind healthy. It is a very person-to-person relationship.

In the meantime, we practice, we practice, and we practice. There are so many wonderful teachers; there are so many books. We are very lucky—we are educated and we can read books. Most Tibetans, even those who are educated, never just sit down and read a book. They wait until someone gives them teachings on a particular book before they read it. If someone goes through it sentence by sentence and explains it, they read it. If we give the average Tibetan, even an educated Tibetan, a book and ask, “Can you explain this?” they’ll look at it and say, “Oh no, sorry, I’ve never been given the teachings on this.” And if we insist, “No, no, just these words.” They’ll say, “No, I can’t. I was never taught it.”

But we can pick up and read almost any book, because we’ve been educated to do so. How lucky this is. We can go to many teachers, and many teachers come through and give teachings. How extraordinarily fortunate this is. We can practice. There are practices which everyone can do. But first, we have to clear our mind. It’s like we are vessels which are filled to the brim with dirty water. Now, even if the most perfect Buddha came with nectar, how could he pour it into a glass which was already filled with dirty water? First we have to empty out the glass, and we have to clean the glass to make it ready to receive the nectar. Otherwise, whatever is poured in will become contaminated. As long as our minds are full of the poisons of the negative emotions, and the garbage and junk of worn-out opinions and memories and judgments, where is there room?

If you have been to Tibet, you know it is empty. Once you get outside of Lhasa, the emptiness is noticeable. You can go days and days and hardly see a tree or a building and almost never a person. Empty. So when Tibetans prepare their decorations or when they paint their thangkas, look—they leave no space! No space, because outside there is so much space. Likewise, the Tibetans’ mind was traditionally quite empty. No television, no magazines, no novels, no movies—nothing, just lots of empty space. And so they fill up that vast space with extremely complex visualizations and extremely complex philosophy, because there is lots of room.

But our Western minds are mostly crammed full, and mostly with garbage. So where can we put those precious seeds of the Dharma? How can we plant them in the garbage bin? We have to prepare the garden of our mind—throw out some of the rubbish, dig in there, pull out the weeds, toss out the stones, and get the land ready. We have to really work at preparing the soil. Then, when someone comes along with the perfect bodhi seeds and plants them, they will grow—provided that we water them, fertilize them, and give them the sunshine of the blessings. Only in this way can we absorb the teachings and use them. Otherwise, not even the greatest teachers can have much effect.

Each one of us has to look into our own mind and see clearly what is there and what needs to be done in order to prepare ourselves to accept and practice and become one with the perfect Dharma. It’s a challenge; it’s not easy. But the lamas are here. They are very compassionate, and they come again and again to the West. They sow their Dharma seeds everywhere in the hope that some of them will flourish. But to make it worthwhile, we have to prepare the soil. We have to be worthy vessels. No one else can do this for us. Even the most perfect guru can’t tread the path for us. Each one of us has to tread it for ourselves.