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“The Vajrayana’s way of dealing with ego and the emotions is hazardous.”
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“I am assuming if you are reading this book, you are not a wimp and you have chosen to take this risk.”
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“One day, beautifully packaged, nicely marketed, inauthentic Buddhism will be offered up as the real thing. So scrutiny is important: scrutiny of the teachings, scrutiny of the teacher, and scrutiny of the student. That is the reason I wrote this book.”
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“Here, in this book, I will try to show that the guru is actually like the horizon. A horizon is apparent—a line where earth and sky appear to meet. But in reality, they never meet. There is only an illusion of an ending point, a point of reference where we can stand and measure and assess. In this way, the guru is like a horizon between wisdom and method, myth and truth, science and faith.”
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“Because there are infinite types of beings with infinite ways of misunderstanding the truth, the buddhas have taught in infinite ways.”
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“If a Zen master asks, “What is the sound of one hand clapping?” at the right time to the right person, such a seemingly ridiculous question can be a profound and valuable pith instruction.”
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“The Vajrayana’s mantra recitation is as absurd as the sound of one hand clapping, as pointless as concentrating on the philtrum just below the nostrils. Yet mantra can be a powerful nutcracker that cracks the shell of conventional thinking.”
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“Wishing to help cut delusion once and for all, an accomplished guru may instruct a successful Hong Kong student to quit his dream job at Morgan Stanley and sell hand-painted postcards in Goa for a living. Or wishing that a student actualize the truth in this lifetime, a guru may instruct a lazy, idealistic, leftist hippie from Byron Bay to get a job at Sotheby’s auction house in New York City.”
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“Never opt for the easy way out. Be ruthless toward the desires of the mind.”
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“Keep in mind that whereas marriages can be arranged, romances cannot. Husband material is not necessarily lover material. The guru has to be like both the husband and the lover—but in order to point out your true nature, the Buddha, the guru is more like the lover.”
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“For your own benefit, the guru takes charge. This is compassion.”
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“As your perception changes, the experience changes.”
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“See if you are swayed by praise, criticism, being ignored, or being showered with attention. If you get agitated, embarrassed, or infuriated, then more than likely you are still under the spell of the conditions of habit and culture. You are still a victim of causes and conditions.”
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“More recently, in 2015, a video of Sogyal Rinpoche dancing with his students floated into social media and instantly created an uproar. It’s very “interesting to see. There are people who think he looks cute and roly-poly, and some people who think he looks silly. Others think the video is a complete disgrace to the Buddhadharma. But a Taiwanese teenager saw it on YouTube and thought, “How nice that Buddhists dance in the temples,” and ended up taking refuge. Clearly, all varieties of circumstances, settings, faculties, and connections can turn people to the Dharma.”
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“What he values, his view, how he approaches that view, how he doesn’t get caught up by distractions that are the opposite of this view—this is what you need to emulate; this is your role model. These are the qualities you are supposed to be attracted to.”
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Listening, contemplating, studying, “and analyzing are common methods for seekers of truth, but in the end, the real understanding of emptiness can arise only when the mind is free of reference points, cultural hang-ups, values, the burden of logic, dialectics, reason, speculation, rationalism, and hypotheses. This is called devotion. Of all possible superior faculties, devotion is supreme.”
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“So in addition to honing your analytical mind, learning to play the game of karma is crucial. Things like prayer and offerings can be game changers. In some cases, if you have the right merit, you won’t even have to search; the guru will find you at the most unexpected place and time. The guru will just happen to you.”
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“You choose the guru, so you are the master.”
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Alak Zenkar Rinpoche
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Surya Das
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“In places like Oxford University, to admit devotion while being academic is like admitting you are gay in a homophobic environment. How likely are you to come out of the closet? As much as academics want to think they are liberal and open-minded, their tyranny of objectivity is ruthless.”
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“Sometimes you can tell the greatness of a teacher through the greatness of the students.”
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Ani Pema Chödrön
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“Outsiders might think the followers of Trungpa Rinpoche sound like fanatical, idiotic cult followers who were lured by a charismatic leader akin to David Koresh. But all you have to do is look at Trungpa Rinpoche’s legacy of books to see what a great and benevolent master he was.”
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“A student must be savvy in extracting the nectar of the Dharma from different lamas with different approaches and styles.”
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“Imagine if the president of Peking University or Harvard quit to go trawling the ghettos, devotedly talking to the homeless and prostitutes night after night and finding more meat and meaning there than in any lecture room or laboratory. Naropa was looking for something higher, something that could not be taught in the university, something that is beyond usual logic. And for this he did not need a certificate.”
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“At public events in Taiwan some Mahayana monks emerge from a lotus onstage, and thousands of fans have this kind of ecstatic experience. It’s as if these spiritual characters are worried they will lose their relevance. Like, “If you don’t do this, someone else will take over”—as if the Dharma is a brand like Apple that needs to keep up with the market, otherwise Samsung will take over.”
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“Your guru could very well appear somewhere and in a form you least expect. Having a title or not is irrelevant to the qualities of the guru. Your guru could be a janitor or a banker or an academic—whoever inspires you, leads you, and gives you the confidence to practice the Dharma.”
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Alak Zenkar Rinpoche
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“The whole purpose of the outer guru is to fish out the inner guru, to teach us how to tap into the space between past thoughts and future thoughts and, if possible, remain there. That moment is the inner and secret gurus.”
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“there is the famous story of two monks crossing a roaring river. Just as they are about to cross, a woman approaches them in distress, asking for help. The old monk offers to carry her across and hoists her on his shoulder. He places her on the other shore, and they part ways. An hour later the young monk, who has been quietly seething, bursts out, “How could you, a monk, carry a woman?” The older monk replies, “Why are you still carrying her?”
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“An open-minded guru should be able to understand why Jewish people might have trouble accepting the concept that everything is a product of past causes and conditions and therefore there is no such thing as good and evil.”
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“How a person handles praise and criticism, gain and loss, fame and insignificance, happiness and suffering is all very telling.”
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“JIGME LINGPA’S DEFINITION OF A SUBLIME BEING
You may come across someone who isn’t ruffled by the eight worldly dharmas. Such a person is definitely on the way to becoming a sublime being. You may meet someone who has absolute engagement with the eight worldly dharmas. Such a person is definitely a sublime being.”
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“The guru lineage is the staircase that leads you to this primordial Buddha. The whole apparatus of steps is an illusion, but it is a necessary illusion. The very first step of your ascent on this staircase is the most important, and on this step is your present guru.”
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“Gendun Choephel replied to the question “How do we know the Buddha is great?” by saying, “Because Nagarjuna said so.” And why do we buy into Nagarjuna? “Because Chandrakirti said so.” And how do we know Chandrakirti is right? “Because my teacher said so.” And how do you prove your teacher is right? This part is up to you: you must make up your own mind.”
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“Nondualism does not mean that two things come together to make one. They have always been one; it is our dualistic mind that has separated them.”
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“Many Japanese masters have a penchant for linking Zen and Christianity, and from time to time I hear someone list Buddha, Jesus, and Muhammad together as messengers of peace and love, all lumped into the category of “great saviors.” What choice is there but to agree? You could also lump Steven Spielberg and Yasujiro Ozu together as “great directors.” Spielberg is obviously successful, but if you lump him together with Ozu, you risk devaluing the unique influence of Ozu, trivializing his great vision and forgetting the challenges he had to overcome.”
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“the qualities of the Buddha—such as the ten powers, the four fearlessnesses, the four miraculous powers, the eighty minor marks, and the thirty-two major marks—”
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“A guru who fussily switches off unnecessary lights to save electricity and recycles used envelopes as note paper but who without hesitation makes the most abundant offerings of food and flowers on feast days is a guru who trusts in karma.”
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“Excessive judgment indicates a lack of understanding of the fundamental view of dependent arising and equanimity.”
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“A good teacher can teach, but a better teacher is someone who can inspire and lead by example. You can always argue that image is not important. Of course, not if you are genuinely seeking a path of enlightenment and you have pure vision. Then if you find somebody who owns forty-nine Rolls-Royces and who can lead you to enlightenment, by all means, offer another Rolls-Royce and receive the teaching.”
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“Ironically, it’s human fallibility itself that provides the guru with the most effective tools. If a guru manifested as a completely perfect being, you might not be able to communicate with him or her because you are not perfect.”
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“The Kadampa masters said a Dharma practitioner should be ready to make three sacrifices: to (food), go (comfortable environment), and tam (fame).”
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“As for students and teachers having sexual relationships, if one is a monk or nun bound by the vinaya vow, having sex is a violation of that vow. But if you have taken this person as your Vajrayana master and you have no doubt whatsoever, and if you have devotion to see him as the Buddha, Dharma, sangha, deva, and dakini, the guru’s command is your practice. (Wait, wait. Keep reading. I will explain more about this later.)”
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Shakya Shri
(promesa en frente de la estatua de no volver a practicar)
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“Now, if your guru is someone like Tilopa and you are a student as sane as Naropa, then forget about sex and vows. If your Tilopa-like guru says you should jump from the highest cliff, then you will not have any qualms about doing that. If you have enough merit to meet a great being like Tilopa, you must already be quite accomplished.”
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(El relato con respecto al francés: no perder el humor y mantener la sabiduría: es decir, mantener la sabiduría en el humor…)
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“We say the world is changing so much—that it’s becoming more progressive, more modern—but there are a few things that just don’t change, and one of them is sex.”
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“In the Mahayana sutras it is said that there are three defilements: ignorance, aggression, and desire.”
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“If you as a disciple have the right view and attitude, you can have all the fun you can imagine and still achieve enlightenment—in fact, faster and with less pain than on other paths.”
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“The attitude of the Vajrayana makes no distinctions between wisdom and emotion if you apply the view. The classic analogy is camphor, which can be seen as poison or as medicine. Or like a scientist who sees water and H2O as the same thing, a Vajrayana master sees emotion and wisdom without distinctions. With that attitude or view the Vajrayana makes little if any distinctions between right and wrong, moral and immoral, pure and impure.”
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“The eight worldly dharmas, as given in verse 29 of Nagarjuna’s Letter to a Friend, are hope for happiness and fear of suffering, hope for fame and fear of insignificance, hope for praise and fear of blame, and hope for gain and fear of loss.”
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“The point is that when you have too many choices, you become sophisticated, and when you become sophisticated, things become complicated.”
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“When Yvonne asked me whether she should be in a relationship with Yannis, I said yes, because they already seemed to be in a relationship—why not? Yvonne interpreted my simple “yes” as a vajra command, and I have a strong feeling she went back to Yannis and told him he had to be with her, that this was the guru’s order. So today they are still together as husband and wife. Or sometimes students ask if they can come to a teaching, and if I say, “Why not?” this gets interpreted as a 100 percent command.”
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“If the guru tells a vegan to drink milk, it could be for health reasons, or the guru may be testing the student’s devotion. Or maybe the guru doesn’t remember that the student is a vegan and has no idea this is a challenge. A beginning student could maybe remind the guru that she is a vegan. An advanced student could either drink or not drink. But she will not be bothered by obeying or not obeying.”
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“If you have never tried Tibetan butter tea, you might be disappointed when you try it for the first time. But if you are told, “This is soup,” then it may taste better, because there is no assumption of tea. It is a kind of mind training.”
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“We are in an age where we need to inspire people in a very different way.”
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“And as the saying goes, you can only do your best. Also, “it’s the thought that counts!” Never give up. You may not be able to follow every instruction, but you can have the aspiration to.”
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“Properly dressing and putting on lipstick to see the lama can be a vehicle of accumulation of merit. If a lazy man with a revolutionary attitude who detests wearing formal clothes dons a suit and tie when visiting a lama with the motivation of showing respect, he is accumulating merit.”
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“These Westerners are not stupid: they are educated, critical-minded. They don’t have any cultural reason to have devotion, yet here they are.”
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“As a Dharma practitioner, it is your responsibility to inspire others to follow the path of the Dharma.”
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“There once was a powerful, wily lion with the most beautiful fur, who was pursued by many hunters but never captured. For some reason, the lion became tame whenever he saw monks in robes. He was inexplicably devoted to the sangha. One day a hunter disguised as a monk was able to get close enough to kill the lion. Because of the lion’s veneration toward the saffron-colored robes, he accumulated ninety-nine eons of merit—even though the hunter was not a genuine monk. This lion eventually became Shakyamuni. Veneration to the Dharma has so much merit.”
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“To feel no devotion whatsoever for your guru is like being a stone on the floor of the deepest part of the ocean. There is a whole ocean above you, and there you are, a round pebble that can’t absorb even one drop of that water.”
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“Devotion is like owning a house that’s well sealed off against intruders. All kinds of negative emotions may approach, but they will quickly move on because they have no access.”
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“Offering to the guru’s eyes is like making offerings to Ksitigarbha and Maitreya. Offering music is like offering to Vajrapani and Dripa Namsal (Sarvanivarana Vishkambhin). The right nostril is Akashagarbha, and the right side of the tongue is Avalokiteshvara. The left nostril is Samantabhadra, and the left tongue is Manjushri. So instead of making offerings to different deities, you can make offerings to different parts of the guru’s body and those eight attributes or deities.”
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“Often people long only for the guru’s blessings for longevity or success in worldly activity, but the quintessential blessing of the guru is for the greater ability to understand the Buddhadharma in general and in particular the intricate teachings of karma and shunyata, and to conceive the inconceivable and express the inexpressible teachings.”
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“five aggregates—form, feeling, perception, formation, and consciousness—”
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“The aim of following this spiritual path is to actualize the truth. Unless we understand the truth, we are constantly deceived by believing that everything illusory is real.”
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“This belief is what we call delusion. Having delusion creates emotion, and emotion breeds endless karma and its consequences. This cycle is what we call samsara.”
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“If you build a rocket to the moon, the potential for glory is equal to the potential for catastrophe. But if you are looking for the nearest 7-Eleven and you take a wrong turn, it’s not going to be the biggest disaster of your life.”
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“You will end up a person who needs to have the omelet assembled before you see it as an omelet. And that, in the Vajrayana view, is even worse than burning in hell. This strong habit of no confidence in the method is a heavy loss for you.”
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“Some students start to resent their gurus when they feel ignored or left out. They may think the guru spends time with an inner circle of favorites and excludes them. Such students need to be mindful of their insecurities, expectations, and assumptions. They must remember that this appearance could very well be a product of their imagination. They must also remember that the reason they come to a guru is for enlightenment, not attention.”
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“The whole purpose of the institution of the guru is to promote the spiritual path. When Shakyamuni Buddha appointed Kashyapa as his regent, he was not looking for someone who was skilled at management; he was looking for a great master to continue the lineage.”
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“One day of searching for a guru could equal more mind training than nine days of vipassana, because here you are not sitting on a secure and comfortable cushion with everything scheduled.”
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“In the sutras we are told that buddhas and bodhisattvas are manifesting everywhere. We must be encountering them in one way or another, but due to our karma, we are not able to see them as buddhas and bodhisattvas.”
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“If you know how to associate with the guru properly, not just verbally, you can begin to decode the sight and sound and presence of the guru. This association will do a much better job of waking you up than will shaving your head, sitting up straight, or watching your breath.”
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“By “pure perception” I mean not bound by right or wrong, good or bad, two arms or four arms, male or female.”
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“All the skillful means and methods of the Buddhadharma are like a thorn that we use to take out another thorn in our hand.”
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“We use the word “dissolution” because in our dualistically inclined minds, we like the idea of dissolving. But a better word is “merging,” like the space inside a bottle merging with the space outside the bottle once the bottle is broken.”
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“Yoga is like a practice. One could almost say “my daily Starbucks yoga,” or “my taking shower yoga.” It’s the thing that you do—a discipline, a method, a means—therefore, in the tantra you will hear of many different yogas: yoga of sleeping, yoga of dreams, yoga of waking up, yoga of eating, yoga of postmeditation, and so on.”
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“It helps to recite supplication prayers in a loud voice with all kinds of tunes, so as to penetrate your stubborn shell of impure perception.”
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“the five buddha families—vajra, ratna, padma, karma, and buddha—”
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“The vajra family is pacifying. The ratna family is abundant and increasing. The padma family is magnetizing. The karma family is assertive and strong. And the buddha family is spacious and accommodating.”
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“Tashi Namgyal said that just before Khyentse Chökyi Lodrö passed into parinirvana, he met with Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche in Sikkim and had a long conversation, and shortly after that, Khyentse Chökyi Lödrö died. Tashi Namgyal said there was an immediate and very obvious change in Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche. He said that when Khyentse Chökyi Ldrö was alive and teaching, Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche was nowhere near as eloquent or majestic as he suddenly became and as we all came to know him to be. The older students could visibly see a complete transformation.”
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“Kyabje Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche received not just Khyentse Chökyi Lodrö’s knowledge; everything was transferred—his aura, his way of thinking. This is the ability of a great master, and the recipient might not even consciously know it has happened.”
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“We practice something akin to this transference during the guru yoga. But the word “transference” is a bit misleading: it sounds as if something foreign is being downloaded into the student. In one sense, it’s like that, but in another sense, the student already has the same buddha nature as the guru. So it’s more like the guru is rekindling something in the student or causing something in the student to awaken. The transference of a guru’s wisdom shouldn’t be understood as an aura or energy. The absolute level of transference of the wisdom mind in a guru-student relationship is inexpressible.”
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“When that starts to happen, you are beginning to subdue and outshine appearance and existence instead of existence and appearance subduing and outshining you, which is probably what is happening in your experience of phenomena now.”
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“We must appreciate how precious spiritual legacy is. It’s like a most valuable inheritance. If you want to retire and entrust your multibillion-dollar business to the next generation, you have to give it to someone who really knows what to do. For spiritual people, the Dharma is worth much more than a multibillion-dollar company.”
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“Some monasteries have their own kind of hierarchy: there is a rinpoche, an abbot, khenpos, lamas and lopons, and then the regular monks.”
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“When a religion becomes a dominating power, politically or financially, there is potential for people to be mistreated. If there is no system, there is nothing to corrupt.”
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“One should live for the Dharma, not use the Dharma for a living.”
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“Therapists don’t have to be concerned about their patients’ well-being beyond this life.”
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“My student Daenerys has very mixed feelings toward me because she was abused by her father as a child. She had a love/hate relationship with him. She craved his love and attention but of course hated him for what he did to her, then despised herself for liking any form of attention from him. So she saw me as a teacher and as a father figure, and then emotions began to get out of control. She trusted me and wanted my attention, but she had this habit of using a sort of twisted sexual energy to get me to notice her. This kind of neurosis and complexity is something that no lamas from the eighteenth century had to deal with. Luckily, Daenerys went to a psychiatrist, who really helped her put aside these feelings so that we could have a more direct student-teacher relationship without these pitfalls.”
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“In predominantly Asian institutions, with their very sophisticated system of denial and concealment, you can be sure much is hidden or left unsaid. You don’t hear what’s happening behind closed doors at the Chinese Politburo, whereas what happens in the White House often immediately ends up on the evening news.”
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“One of the foundations of Buddhism is the Noble Eightfold Path: right view, right intention, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right concentration, and right understanding.”
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“Asians will hide and lie about even petty things, like that they are addicted to watching football.”
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“We should view an offering of one rupee as an example of extreme generosity. Think, “This is so amazing,” and encourage and praise and dedicate the merit of that. Then if the next day you have the courage to accept one million dollars, think, “Well, this is not really enough.”
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“It’s disgraceful when instructors, especially those coming from the West, take their time opening their wallets after dining in a restaurant with their students, as if they are entitled to be hosted by their students. Even when people are “going Dutch,” they wait until the end and pay the least. This demonstrates a lack of dignity from someone who is supposed to inspire others. It may not be so important if you are teaching business or mathematics, but if you are teaching spirituality, paying for a meal involves love and compassion and generosity and merit, so you should be meticulous about your behavior.”
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“Always quote the great masters of the past. This attitude of many modern teachers acting as if they invented the truth has to stop.”
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“Even mundane worldly jobs require the prospective employee to sit down with “the boss and be interviewed and to have a background check, so the important and special of job of enlightening all sentient beings should probably involve interviews and background checks too.”
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“If variety were not good, the Buddha would have taught the same thing again and again, but he taught in myriad ways on myriad subjects.”
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“And it’s important to remember that the teachings of the Buddha are to enlighten, not to educate.”
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“be grateful for having this body that you have obtained due to an act of your parents.”
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“We humans have a habit of making something out of nothing—even our names. For example, if you call your child “Bob,” Bob becomes an even more solid entity, and you become trapped by that label.”
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“the cup on my table is part of the vajra body, but because of the net, we have such a limited view of it. We can’t see it as bigger than the universe, and therefore we are unable to put the whole universe inside this small cup.”
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“if you have the karmic predilection for admiration and devotion, it’s the best delusion you can have. This delusion has the power to decode your delusion.”
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Viernes 17 septiembre 2021
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