Affiliated with the FPMT

Special Appeal:
New Book by Lama Zopa Rinpoche on Guru Devotion

THE HEART OF THE PATH
Seeing the Guru as Buddha

Would you like to make a contribution to a wonderful new book that we are planning to publish in the middle of this year?

Lama Zopa Rinpoche has said:

In the lam-rim, or graduated path to enlightenment, the first meditation outline is the root of the path: how to devote to the virtuous friend. Why is guru devotion the root of the path to enlightenment? Enlightenment is like a ripe fruit, the path to enlightenment is like the trunk of a tree, and guru devotion is like the root of the tree. From the root of guru devotion, the trunk of the path grows in our mind and bears the fruit of enlightenment. Whether or not we can start to develop the path to enlightenment in our mind in this life is determined by our practice of guru devotion.

For the past seven years, our senior editor Ven. Ailsa Cameron has been editing Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s teachings on Guru Devotion. She has drawn on nearly fifty different teachings that Rinpoche has given over the past three decades and the resultant book, The Heart of the Path: Seeing the Guru as Buddha, will run to some 400 pages. This is a fantastic teaching on Guru Devotion and will be a great and very important book.

The chapter headings are:

1. Why Do We Need a Guru?
2. The Power of the Guru
3. Checking the Guru
4. The Qualities of a Guru
5. The Qualities of a Disciple
6. Who to Regard as Guru
7. The Benefits of Correct Devotion to a Guru
8. The Disadvantages of Incorrect Devotion to a Guru
9. The Importance of Devotion
10. Why We Should Look at the Guru as a Buddha
11. Why We Are Able to See the Guru as a Buddha
12. How to See the Guru as a Buddha
13. Debating with the Superstitious Mind
14. The Kindness of the Guru
15. Devoting to the Guru with Action
16. Is Absolute Obedience Required?
17. How the Past Kagyü Lamas Practiced
18. Exceptional Gurus, Exceptional Disciples
19. What is Guru Yoga?
20. Guru Devotion in Six Session Guru Yoga
21. Guru Devotion in Calling the Lama from Afar
22. Teaching and Studying Guru Devotion
23. The Realization of Guru Devotion
24. Dedications

Over the years we have incurred many expenses in the preparation of this book and we would like to recoup some of these but what we really need now are the funds to publish it.

The breakdown is as follows:

$2,500 Copy editing
$2,500 Design
$14,000 Printing
$1,000 Shipping

Thus in total we need $20,000 to get the book into readers’ hands and bookstore shelves. Any funds raised over this amount will help us recoup the over $50,000 we spent developing this project and underwrite future books.

You can donate to this project online using a credit card. See our Donations page for other ways you can make an offering to this project; be sure to specify y that it is for the Guru Devotion book.

Like our recently published Universal Love by Lama Yeshe, The Heart of the Path will be for sale, not free.

Thank you so much for making this important book possible.