If your llama is Minja Riboche, if you get one interview every
three years for 5 minutes, you're doing awesome.
Our true nature appearing to us ourselves through that right?
Like we're trying to poke a hole in the matrix.
That's what the guru is really this hole, hole in samsara that
that the light starts to leak through.
I've been to Tibet many times and I have teachers in Tibet and
spending time at the feet of llamas who you actually see as
enlightened, who are, hate to say it, but giving off light out
of their bodies, or assuming various forms, or revealing
terrorists. All of these experiences I'd
myself have been fortunate enough to have.
They say the llamas like a fire. If you get close, you're going
to get burned. And that is 100% true, because
all these llamas, all the ones I've met anyway, are encased in
human bodies made out of karma. Welcome back to the Denver's O
Gen. podcast. I'm your host Damien Abel, and
I'm here once again with Joseph Wagner.
And today we're going to kind of extend off the last episode
where we talked about pure vision and a big chunk of that
being the seeing everything as the llama.
And so another question from one of our listeners has been about
how to navigate the student teacher relationship and the
complexity of having a guru. And, you know, this is, of
course, a pretty foreign thing to our Western sentiments, and
it can be a tricky thing to navigate.
So, Joe, maybe you can introduce how you've related to this topic
through your life and how you've come to understand it.
Hi, Damien. Hello, everyone.
Yeah, I love talking about the guru.
What can I say? I've been very fortunate as
Damien has to have good relationships with a lot of
llamas starting many years ago. I suppose before I talk about
the way I see it, I think it's important to acknowledge that my
experience and even Damien's experience is becoming
increasingly difficult for a Western practitioner to relate
to. When I got started, I met
Tolkorge in 1993. You could just, if you were in
Nepal, you could just go to his Hermitage and if he was
available, you could sit in and receive a teaching.
He thought whenever he was, you know, not in retreats, which was
a lot of the time. So and there were, you know, I
remember receiving an empowerment.
There were only four people there.
This is like impossible now. The the real truth, you know the
the llamas we think of when we think of top quality llamas
these days like soak Nirbuche, Happy birthday, soak Nirbuche.
His birthday was just two days ago.
The son of Tolkuorjan. Or even more choke Nima Rimbuche
or Rob Jom Rimbuche, any of these guys, they are huge.
They are big time. If your llama is ninja Rimbuche,
if you get one interview every three years for 5 minutes,
you're doing awesome. It's very challenging these days
to have a close relationship and I want to just say that's OK.
In some ways it's actually good it and I will, we will try to
talk about how it's good, but when I talk about my
experiences, people might think well, I can't relate to that.
I didn't have any private time with the llama.
They don't know who I am. I see them only in a big group
once in a while, this kind of thing.
I just wanted to acknowledge that times are changing.
There are fewer and fewer Lomas, more and more people interested,
bigger reach of the students. So even if you, it used to be,
if you just went to Asia, you had them to yourself.
Now that's not at all true. So I just wanted to put that in
parentheses so people didn't think they're just talking about
how great they are. And I don't relate to this.
It's not like that. It's, it's OK.
That said, you know, in the Theravadan tradition, you don't
even have a guru, right? You have a kalyanamitra or a
teacher of some sort who teaches the techniques, transmits to you
the lineage instructions, and can answer your questions.
In Mayayana, you definitely have a teacher in many cases, but you
don't see your teacher necessarily as the Buddha in
person. You see them as, you know,
someone more advanced than you on the path.
That's also kind of Kalyanamitra, spiritual friend
kind of orientation in the Bhajriana, you know, we try to
find a teacher who we can see in a pure way this, this is sort of
the opposite, looking at it from the other direction of pure
perception and try to find a teacher who has so many good
qualities and so few, you know, negative or ordinary qualities
that we can see them as a Buddha in person, in human form.
And by supplicating that teacher, paying respect to them,
paying homage to them, serving them to whatever degree, you
know, your situation allows, we receive their blessings.
And we can really feel that because we're not receiving
blessings from an ordinary person, we're receiving
blessings from Moboda. And this is the sort of goal of
the student teacher relationship inside the Vajriana.
Unfortunately, as I just said, it's increasingly difficult to
have that kind of relationship with a teacher in which there's
any kind of closeness. And also, and I, I'm not, you
know, throwing casting aspersions here, but the llamas
are more ordinary than they once were.
You know, the llamas that came from Tibet, they didn't do
anything. They spent their entire lives in
retreat or, you know, teaching vast assemblies.
If you think about the 16 Paramampa, if you think about
dilgul cancer mache in their immediate predecessors, those
guys lived in a world of entirely Dharma.
Now the teachers are, they are much more worldly.
They're on jet planes a lot, they're moving around a lot.
They've got lots of students and the students are in many cases a
lot of Westerners with ordinary Westerner problems.
So of course the llamas are exposed to that in a way that,
you know, when I first started to go to Tibet, they had never
met Westerners. They couldn't even believe we
were practitioners. They couldn't believe it.
They were so psyched and, and, and it was a different
situation. So it's not only that there are
fewer llamas, but also that the llamas appear externally as more
like us, which we sort of see ourselves as ordinary because
what's what we're familiar with. So the llamas seem more
ordinary. That makes it harder to relate
to them as Buddhas. Yeah.
Well, I think you hinted at it earlier, but this is one of the
benefits of being less close to the gurus because really this is
about our perception, right? That's what we're working with.
We're not trying to pretend that the group needs to be emanating
light and levitating off the ground to be worthy of your
recognition. In some sense, you are training
to see an ordinary person as a Buddha.
In some sense, that's what's happening.
And that's harder the closer you are, because you just see.
It's just even back in the day, the closer you are and the more
you start to become familiar. And familiarity breeds contempt,
as they say. And so having that distance is
actually beneficial. And to really recognize from the
beginning that the guru is a mirror, right?
We're working with ourselves through this relationship.
We're working with our own vision or pure vision or lack
thereof. We're working with their own
devotion or lack thereof, and our connection to our own nature
through this being right and that.
So from the beginning, I think it's helpful to know that that
this isn't so much about that person.
You know, we can kind of project onto them, oh, that's a person
living a life and they are great or not great and they do this
things and that we're trying to stop that stuff and to just
really work with this direct perception and faith and open to
the possibility that this person is our true nature appearing to
us, our ourselves through them. Right.
Like we're trying to poke a hole in the matrix.
That's what the guru is, rather than this hole in samsara that
that the light starts to leak through and it leaks through
through our capacity to stay pure about it.
And so, as Joe said, there's benefit to not being so close.
And if your teacher is the sake treats in or Garchan room share
the Dalai Lama and you meet them once or not at all, but you
receive empowerment, this is actually can be helpful.
Beautifully said, and you're absolutely right.
That was very, very nicely said. It is not I, I think should just
say it's not that important for the the guru to know you
personally. It is good if the best situation
is a situation of old where you have a personal relationship
with the teacher. They know you, they know where
you're coming from and they can guide you.
This is as I said before, this is almost impossible.
Even my friends who are translators who spend enormous
amount of times of the llamas, they don't get this opportunity.
It's just the llamas are are spread too thinly these days for
that. So I think that one thing that
we can all try to shoot for is you need 2 aspects of the llama.
Let's say you need a llama who you can see as as representing
the lineage as a the end of the tube, so to speak.
If I meet, I saw Zoek near Mche last year and when I saw him,
he's not my primary teacher, but I see here's the lineage coming
straight from his father, T.O.K Wujin, who is my teacher.
To him, to me, it looks like a a hole shaped like Zoek near Mche,
like you said, in which the light comes through.
And I really appreciate that. We need that and we need to find
a llama who represents that for us.
These days I always talk about Garchandrabaje because he to my
mind, he is, he's one of the last of the true.
He grew up in Tibet. He seems fully processed.
He's he is a living Buddha. But I only met Garchandrabaje
once. I consider him one of my
teachers, but certainly has no idea who I am except through his
super normal excellence. You know, if I saw him again, he
would relate to me like he relates to everyone with
kindness. Wonderful.
So it's good to have a llama like that.
And that could be just like you said, go to the Dalai Lama.
Someone you meet once don't meet at all.
Maybe you go to teachings. They vaguely know you, you have
some sort of thing, but they don't know your situation and so
forth. But you also, you know, even
though it's best if you know the actual teacher of you is that
same person. Since that's so difficult these
days, it's good to find someone who can act in the role of a
Kalyanamitra. Kalyanamitra, Sanskrit word
meaning spiritual friend. In early Buddhism, they even the
Buddha himself referred to himself as a Kalyanamitra.
Right As a as someone who could guide others, we need someone
whose guidance we can appreciate.
Someone we feel whether we're right or not is ahead of us on
the path. They know more, they have more
exposure, they have more confidence in whatever they're
teaching and you can learn from that person.
I have this in with many people. I don't necessarily see them as
my gurus. I might see them as my teachers.
I might bow to them. I might get a a chalk Wong hand
blessing. But there difference between
them and someone I see as my actual guru.
But these are the people you can really receive the teachings
from. I've got several Kempo friends,
one in Bhutan, 1 here in the States.
If I have a question about something, what does this really
mean or how do you do this? I can call one of those guys and
to some degree they can help me understand that.
That's great. Damian is a Kalyanamitra of
mine. He has received quite a few
teachings I haven't received. So if I'm like, hey, how do you
set up this part of the shrine? I don't know how to do this.
I don't know, it's like this, we need this relationship and I
think ultimately we are have to act as our own gurus these days.
So we need to find someone we can we can receive that those
blessing waves from someone who we see as as close to
enlightened as possible. Whether that's Zongsar can say,
good luck having a private interview with him.
He's huge. Or it's it's someone like your
local llama, like, you know, someone who's a little bit more
accessible, like Kilon Rimache, an excellent, super amazing
teacher who doesn't have that many students.
You can have an actual relationship with him.
Sorry if I blew his cover there. I think he's amazing.
He came to my house one time and I was like, wow, how fortunate a
great master who is is kind of, I wouldn't say unknown, but not
as popular as some makes it accessible.
We need someone like that. And we also need someone we can
receive teachings from. We can receive instructions
from. Hey, how do I, you know what?
My back is hurting. You can't ask the llama that
question. And like when I sit like this,
what should I do? And you just can't get those.
Which way should my the? Head of my bed face.
You can't ask a teacher that you know, but you can ask your
Kalyanamitra, your spiritual friends.
So I think it's important to have both, and we sort of have
to arrange that in our own little lives these days.
And I'll, and I'll even share, you know, I, I've been studying
with Keeling Ripsche for over 20 years.
And in the beginning, you know, like you have a lot of
questions. And so I bothered him with all
kinds of questions and lots of interviews.
Most of that didn't amount to very much.
You know, like the truth is that that most of this I just want to
put people's mind at ease that most of everything that I've
received from the path and received from doing practice,
the thing that I received from him is what do I do now?
What do I do now? What do I do now?
Like that was really the only question, you know, like OK, I
did, I didn't enduro OK, I did this yet I did this.
I did 3 routes. Like he just walked me through
the path, but it was the path that really like chewed me up.
Like there's no words that came out of his mouth that it that if
I didn't hear that, I wouldn't be where I am, right?
It was I connected to him with love and devotion and as a
represent representative of the lineage.
And so that faith helps the practice have more power, right,
because it's coming directly from Jigme Lingpa's heart son.
And I have faith in that's true. And then I but it was doing the
practice that made all of the results that I've ever
experienced in my life happen. So I don't want you to feel like
there's some magic thing that's going to happen in an interview
with a llama. That hasn't been my experience.
And you know, maybe for you, I've had, you know, blissful
devotional moments with llamas, but they're just like every
other experience, like a meditation experience.
It's just a passing thing. It the the continuous engagement
to practice in a lineage is the most important thing and the
thing that really matters. Not so much like having to you
know, the llama, knowing you can be helpful because they can kind
of tweak the instruction, right? Like maybe you need to work a
little with a little more detail or you need to work with a
little less detail. Maybe you need a little more
effort or you need a little less effort, this sort of thing.
But like Joe said, a Kalianaometra can actually do
that even better because Kila Rimshe is never going to know me
close enough. Like Joe knows me, right?
Like I'm not going to talk to Keelan Shea about my modern
Western problems and stuff like these things are not beyond the
pale to have a conversation with the llama about.
So it's so important to have a Kalian Dimitra like Joe saying,
I think that somebody who you just respect and who can help
you like with the nitty gritty and the details, because it
takes too much time to process and get through this stuff.
And the llama, even if you have an interview, is kind of like,
you know, like they're busy. They, they don't have, So you
get, you get the kind of pith instruction from the llama and
you get the transmission and the empowerment and you do the
practice, but do not feel like you're missing out on anything.
I don't, I don't think maybe Joe, you can speak to this more,
but I don't think there's a whole ton you're missing out on
by not having like lots of interviews with some Sarkenti
Riboche, you know? I, I I can concur entirely.
I'm not, I'm to be totally transparent, I'm of a mixed mind
because although I, I everything you say, I totally agree with
and I think that that is the most practical approach.
You see the llama when you you need the llama for two things,
empowerment and the transmission of the nature of mind.
Those are usually things. If you get the transmission from
your neighbor, your neighbor becomes your llama.
It's not, you know, the, the transmission of the insight into
your true nature is required. That is called the pointing out
instruction or the direct introduction, whatever.
And even if you get that from reading a book or from seeing a
video, it's important to receive it as part of a living lineage.
And that's something you can, you need to seek out.
Same thing with empowerment. Now these days, Gajran, he says
if you receive empowerment online from me, it's the same as
in person. So if he says it, it must be
true. But there's some magic to the
ceremony and the ritual of being present when a llama gives an
empowerment in person and puts the vows on your head or
whatever. Not that that is 100% required,
but the empowerment is required. So those two things are kind of
indispensable from the llama and everything else could be
theoretically done by a spiritual friend, someone who
can guide you. And that's, you know, that could
be someone who just knows this much more than you or someone
who's a llama themselves, You know, you never know, but
someone you have a more conventional relationship with,
let's say. Now all I'd say this is the
truth. I put it in that box.
It's the truth. But then I talked just a little
bit about my own experience just because it's also it's my truth,
whether it's true or not. I had the good fortune of
meeting many llamas. I hope it's not over.
But I, as I said in our last podcast, I just came back from
India where I got to spend some time with Andrea Lo series,
who's an Austrian scholar and a practitioner of real, the real
form of should where you practice in cremation grounds
and so forth. And I got quite blown away by
her. And I wouldn't trade those
experiences for anything. I've been to Tibet many times,
and I have teachers in Tibet. And spending time at the feet of
lamas who you actually see as enlightened, who are, I hate to
say it, but giving off light out of their bodies or assuming
various forms or revealing tamas, All of these experiences
I myself have been fortunate enough to have.
Is it essential? No.
But is it very inspiring? Yes.
So for those of you who are like the go getter type, I encourage
you, you know, save money, go to India, go to Nepal.
Nepal is probably the best place to go.
There's still a lot of lamas there.
They are less busy than they are in the States.
There are fewer gateways to jump through and you can have a
personal relationship, even if it's 5 minutes and they never
know who you are, who cares? You know what, that can be very
inspiring because the main teaching of the Dharma is don't
give up. And the the easiest way is to
see someone who didn't give up and see what that looks like.
Now, if Damien is so fortunate, killing Rinpoche lives two hours
away from him or something very close and you can you have such
a good relationship, you can see him and you can have that.
Most of us don't have that. And so maybe it is worth making
a journey somewhere. I want to encourage those who
feel that that interest not to give up on that.
Go do it. You know, it's worked for me.
It's been very beneficial. Is it required?
No. Is it required to leave your
meditation Hut? No.
You can sit entirely in your meditation Hut and do it the way
the Buddha did. He didn't even have a teacher.
He did it. Ramana Maharishi didn't have a
teacher, went very far. Amazing, right?
I'm not saying that that's not true.
I'm but I am. I do having this opportunity
encourage those who have this desire to follow up on and go
for it and see, you know, and see.
You don't need to develop this interest if you don't have it,
but if you do, then you know, party, you might as well try.
It has been beneficial to me and it has been.
It's kept my enthusiasm. The Tibetan statement about
enthusiasm is it's as strong as a, as a yak, but as short as the
yak's tail, which is not very long.
And for me, it's stretched my yak's tail a lot longer.
Seeing what the end of the path really looks like, seeing what
it is when someone spent 50 years living in a cave and and
being inspired and drawn out of my ordinary life and ordinary
view of things a little bit by that.
So I did. I just didn't want to not honor
my own experience and say you don't need that shit.
You can do it online, which I know maybe you can, hasn't been
my experience, but it certainly can be.
But you do want to have a relationship with someone who's
a human. I I want to say one other thing
about this. I know a lot of people, it's
common to hear this in students of Chogyam Trungpur Rumiche who
died in 1987, which is a long time ago and they'd never had
another teacher after that. Some people I know, they just
continued to relate to their memory of the teacher.
Hey, I'm on the fence about this.
I think it's very good to have somebody in your life you think
is more advanced than you who's guiding you on some level,
whether it's full blown guru in the middle somewhere or
Kalyanamitra or whatever, someone who can keep you on the
straight and narrow. We're not alone.
We need a sangha, and so that's something I would like to just
mention. It is not good to have your guru
be the Dalai Lama, let's say. And that's it.
And you're just like, I just do what the Dalai Lama says.
Is that awesome? Yes.
Is it enough for the Bhajiana? No.
We do need we are humans, we are social creatures and we need a
relationship with someone, even if it's the vaguest relationship
that when you go up at the end of Tophner Mache's retreat and
offer Akat, he says, nice to see you, I'm glad you're here.
That's enough. Maybe that's enough.
But without anything, then this part gets involved and we just
start to have our own little fantasy.
And I meet people from time to time who they're, they're
revealing termos and stuff, but they have no relationship to a
teacher. Kind of like, come on, you know,
this can't be good. So I wanted to just address that
because it's so common. Well, one caveat to what I was
saying earlier. My main point was about the
interview portion. I would say the hugest part of
my path has just been hanging out, being in in teachings with
Keelan Shay for hours and hours and hours and hours and, and out
of that, I got something I can never replace because there's
direct transmission mind to mind, right?
But I will say I've done the same thing with Garchinrum
Shay's videos on YouTube and had the same experience.
If you just sit and you are in, you practice being in the nature
of mind and you sit and watch and really have some faith.
Don't like half heartedly do it like do your prostrations and
set up your altar and and treat it like you're with him.
If you do that, then I believe you totally could get the full
deal, full meal deal from Garchan Rumche.
But yes, being in the presence of llamas is so important.
I just want to say that, you know, like, so you go see Sokhne
Rumche and you never get a chance to talk to him.
You're not missing out on so much because your question
answer thing, we're as Westerners really hung up on
this question answer thing. And I'm saying that's not the
most important thing. The most important thing is like
your faith and and listening. You know the talk, He will give
a teaching directly to you, but when you even if it's to 500
people, if you listen with the right kind of attitude, you'll
get a personal teaching directly related to your problems.
Beautifully said. Yeah, so.
That that was what I wanted to say.
That's very good. And I, I don't want to.
Yeah, it's in the middle somewhere.
All of this is important and I think also it's important to
recognize, we know we've talked about this many times, but it's
very important to keep uppermost of your mind.
Nobody really knows. This is a new Dharma.
The Dharma in Tibet is not the Dharma now, right?
You can't, don't go to The Cave and live with your guru for 20
years and then you go do the next thing.
You just, no, it's not happening, right?
So we don't know exactly what's required.
We don't know exactly what is what can be left behind and what
can't. How much can you get from a
video of Gartner of shape? Maybe everything.
He certainly says when you see me on video, you see me more
than in person because it's my some Bogakai form is there his
words and I have no, I think he's definitely telling the
truth. So maybe you can do it that way.
The main thing is you are the captain of your own ship in
this. We are checking it out.
We'll see, you know, if we get a Western Maha Sita, then we'll
have the Dharma will have come to the West.
Until that happens, we're all kind of experimenting.
We don't know exactly what leads to what and who's really God and
who doesn't. It's very hard to tell.
So Damien, I honor your experience and I, and he is,
Damien is being, there is something transmitted simply by
being in the field of the llama. Now that can be online and it
can't even be through recording. It depends on you.
It may be you're capable of that, maybe you're not.
But it's good to see the llama in person occasionally too.
Watching the llama drink tea. That's very profound, right?
And so we don't want to say you don't need that.
At the same time, how much of it you need depends on the person.
Think of all those stories of those, you know, fairly recent
19th century llamas. Not even llamas, just people who
attain the rainbow body after one teaching.
They saw the llama. They couldn't even read and
write. They received the teaching, they
got something and they they took it to heart and they practiced
and their body is all in the light.
That's a lot more than me. So yeah, who's seen lots of
llama? So you know, it depends on the
person. Yeah, yeah.
I think those, you see always the stories, it's always just
somebody's incredible faith. And all they did was like the
Mani mantra or the Vajra guru mantra, and that's all they did.
And but because their faith was incredible and they made the
connection, it took them all the way to the path.
But before we get to the end of this episode, I want to give you
a chance, Joe, to talk about the nuts and bolts of having a
teacher because I think that's some of where this question came
from. Like, you know, of course,
people are curious about the pitfalls of what if your guru
turns out to do terrible things or how do you relate?
How do you have faith? What happened?
Yeah, these things. I can only give, I mean, we only
have a couple minutes, but I'll give a general idea of this from
my experience. It's good to check the llama
out, right? And that means to check the good
and bad, the the general situation before you make a full
commitment. But once you have you feel like
this person is really what I want, then best case scenario is
to have a situation where you're face to face with llama, whether
it's through the Internet or whatever, but where the llama is
paying attention to you and to request, please accept me as
your disciple. This is a key thing that makes a
special link between you and the teacher.
If the teacher says OK, even if you never see them again, you
made a karmic connection that is going to take you out of samsara
eventually no matter who the llama is or whatever, You know,
I do encourage people to check the scene out because there are
a lot of scumbags out there and a lot of most of the scumbags
are not full blown scumbags. They're mixed, right?
They're not naming names in this particular episode, but I love
doing that. It's good to call people out,
but you know, the many of them really are lineage holders.
They really do have all these things.
They really did do the retreats and they still are acting in
ways that are maybe not in necessarily good for their
students in any kind of conventional sense.
And we've seen this a lot lately.
So it is upon the student to be careful.
The llama is not being careful in that way.
So traditionally the llama's supposed to check out the
student, Students supposed to check out the llama.
These days, the llamas are too busy to do anything.
But if you feel the connection, if you do make that, if you feel
that strongly enough, you say please accept me as your
disciple. That's like the link one,
whether that leads to studying with them all the time or not,
in your heart you now you feel it.
I remember being encouraged to do that with Till Gorge.
I didn't know anything about Badriana.
I did that and he said something that has maybe the most
important thing he ever said to me.
You can be my disciple if you practice hard.
That's what he said. And for some reason that got me
to do my nundro 4 times. That got me to do unending
numbers of mantras. Have they really benefited me?
Who can say. But man, did I take that
seriously. I'm not allowed to be a student
if I don't practice hard. And I thought that was pretty
cool. So me, that's the one thing I'd
recommend in terms of that. Once that happens, you see, I, I
would recommend, I don't know recommend, but I would encourage
people to be careful about taking on too many
responsibilities. Your responsibility is to attain
enlightenment, not to become, you know, the head of some
organization that your llama is tangentially related to because
it's convenient for them or something.
I'm not saying you shouldn't do what the teacher says, but a lot
of people have this idea that by opening a center or doing some
taking on some role, they will then have this super close
relationship to the teacher in which they'll get all these
instructions that definitely does not work. 100% no.
If you feel like serving the teacher through doing some task,
I think that's great, but don't expect that that's going to lead
you to get instructions. In fact, it's going to go the
opposite because the teacher, once you're in that role,
especially if you're doing a good job, the last thing they
want is you to be wanting to go to three retreat.
Think about Heidi Koppel. Heidi Koppel is a student of
Chokin Emerimache. She's been around that scene
since I got involved with Tolko Urgent.
She went on and got a PhD. She ran the wrong Genesha
Institute that teaches all these classes, released all these
books. Amazing super smart woman the
whole time she want to do a three-year retreat since I met
her in the in the 90s and then she just finished her three-year
retreat after many years of begging Chokinima.
He was like, actually you're doing a little too much good
right now. You can't do the retreat now.
I'm sure there's more to it. I'm I'm being a little bit
superficial, but that's an important thing is you do not
get enlightened by not practicing.
You get enlightened by practicing.
So all in your relationship with the teacher, you want to be
careful about not taking on too many responsibilities that will
prevent you from actualizing the path.
What you do on your cushion, I hate to say it, everybody thinks
integration's most important. Well, not if you don't have
anything to integrate and you're only going to integrate it by
sitting. So I have been lucky not I'm so
stupid. I do not have any skills that
that almost can manipulate. So I have not had to do too
much, but it's very dangerous to get involved in running centers
or being a fundraiser or any kind of thing like that.
All of a sudden that's all you're doing.
That's super samsaric more than everything.
Plus it's mixed with your Samaya because you're working with
people. This is a whole episode.
You have to be careful about this.
We should talk about this sometime.
Main thing, be close enough to the teacher to be able to make
it impossible for them not to answer your questions, but be
far enough that you're not on the hook for a whole bunch of
time of doing things so you don't have any time to practice.
That's what I have to say about that.
Yeah, And tailing off what you just said, I think the trick,
the thing, the main thing is go to your llama, say what should I
do? Then go do it and then come back
and say I did it. Like, this is how, because a lot
of times they'll be like, they don't trust people, but Tibetans
in general are less quick to develop close relationships with
people. They tend to be more standoffish
than Westerners. And the first thing that they
give you, if you have to push them often to even give you
something to do, you really insist I want to do a practice
and I want to connect to you. And like Joe said, I want to be
your student, you know, asking that question.
But then whatever they ask you to do, if they say do Nundro,
then go do Nundro and come back and say, I did it, you know,
because this will really demonstrate your seriousness.
And then they'll really be impelled to keep giving you the
teachings, because if you don't do the first thing they ask,
then why would they continue to give you more teachings?
Very true, like I this is going on and on, but when I met
Telkuwarj and I, I was encouraged by other teacher
other they were teachers, but they were also students of his
to request an under transmission.
I didn't want to do the nundro. In fact, when I got to Nepal
when it before I met to where I was like, there's no way I'm
doing that. That sounds insane.
No way. All of a sudden after meeting
was like, I'll do whatever you said.
I went to see him and I did say please give me an under
transmission. He said, OK, do this one and
then come back and see me. I think that at that point you
probably if he even had thoughts, he thought was like
never see this guy again kind of feeling right because they give
it to lots of people. They don't do it And I I was
told that it was necessary to do it four times.
I don't know where this idea came from, but I went home and
in the period of a year or two, I did it 2 times and I went back
to Seattle origin. It was right before he passed
away. He was not well.
And when I told him I had done it twice, he was like, really?
And I was like, yeah, you said to do it and I'm your student.
I do what you tell me to do. He was really like, whoa.
And he told his translator, who's a friend of mine, how can
I? I requested an empowerment after
that, and he had been requested this empowerment by many other
people in recent months. And he had been like, I'm not
well, no. And then when my friend, the
translator said, what do you want to do about this?
He said, how can I say no? And then that really put me in
there. And it was because of what I
did. So I want to say that's very
good. If you do what the llama says,
if he says OK, do 100,000 Mani mantras and you don't do it,
then they, they know right then this person's not serious.
I'm not going to spend any time on them because they don't love
all beings, but because come on. So it's very important.
That's well said. Thank you.
And and it is their vow, right? Like as a llama, they're, they
have even heavier vows than students, right?
Like that's why they're partly why they're careful about what
teachings they give and who they teach to and all of these
things. But their vow is that somebody
who's serious and capable that they give them everything they
it says that it says you have to give them all the teachings for
a student who's a worthy vessel, but you have to show you're a
worthy vessel by doing the thing that they ask you to do.
And inevitably it's Nundro. So once again, here's Joe and
I'm telling you, go to your Nundro.
They love that. Yep.
But I have to say too that Nundro is the foundation of your
relationship to your llama, that this is what that does.
Like one of the main functions of completing your hundred
thousands is it foments that deep relationship to the lineage
and to your llama. This is the the access point.
And you will find that when you've done that many that you
are now connected in a way that no other thing would do.
And that's my opinion. Well said.
Yes, well, we've, we've gone on for a long time.
I hope this is helpful to you. I hope you appreciate this.
I know it's a vast topic and we could talk about it more.
I wanted to say one thing about when you see your teacher do
something that makes you irritated or you think is
inappropriate or something, because it's almost inevitable
if you around anybody long enough that something like this
will happen. In fact, part of the teacher
student relationship is you working with your feeling of
irritation or frustration based on your llama, right?
Like they're going to do something that's going to make
you feel and, and so to recognize that this is the path,
right? So when that happens, whether
it's something really disturbing and there's total talks out
there about what to do if your llama does something big, I'm
not going to get into that. But when your teacher
inevitable, you see a human side, they they, they snap at
somebody, you hear something and just like, ah, you know,
recognize this as the mirror you're working with, right?
Like this is the practice of transforming your vision about
the world into something more pure.
So let that recognition, try to see them as a manifesting
enlightened qualities to really work with that.
And this is, you know, like I said, probably a whole nother
episode and I want you to comment on it, Joe, But but to
really see that as enlightened activity and train yourself to
do it. And it takes a little bit of
work, but I think that this is an essential and key point of
this whole. And that's much easier to do if
you're not super close. They say the llama's like a
fire. If you get close, you're going
to get burned. And that is 100% true because
all these llamas, all the ones I've met anyway, are encased in
human bodies made out of karma, whether they're conscious
rebirths or some sort of other sort of tolko.
And they tend to do things that are pretty human and humans are
pretty gross. So it it is very important to
modulate and manage how close you are to the scene.
Don't read a bunch of stuff, don't do a bunch of research
after you made your decision before it's fine.
Once you once you did that, don't look for faults.
We'll find them everywhere. Yeah, yeah.
And, and basically the my advice is just treat it the same way
you treat thoughts and meditation.
If the thought comes up, oh the teacher, blah, blah blah, just
let it go. Just train yourself in letting
go of your reactions to anything having to do.
And this includes your Vajra brothers and sisters too.
This is the essence of Samaya. We don't get to indulge in
criticism, competition, jealousy, irritation with our
llamas or with our Vajra brothers and sisters.
So. The training ground as of
Audriana practitioner is like I said just like in basic shamata
meditation when the thought comes up that persons blah blah
blah blah or then the lamas doing this, just notice it and
let it pass and that is training in pure vision.
This connects to not don't grab it.
That's the the instruction. Don't hold on to it and and
wrestle with it. That'll just make you crazy.
And like Joe said, once you've received empowerment from the
llama, there's no going back. You don't get to go check on
them and go maybe I didn't make the wrong decision.
That's bad news bears. So just don't do it and just
stay focused on maintaining your pure vision.
And then like I said, there's there's lots of talks from much
greater minds than me online where you can find about what to
do if there's a controversy around your llama.
So we won't get into that. But thank you again for liking,
sharing, subscribing, watching, being a part of this community.
We appreciate you so much. Thank you, Joe.
Thank you, Ricky, to our producer and we'll see you in a
couple weeks.