This is Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s advice to a student who was very disturbed by an experience with their guru and felt that something should be done about it. [Please note: Lama Zopa Rinpoche gave these pieces of advice to specific individuals and the advice should not be taken out of context. Personal safety and self-care are paramount and if you or someone you know is experiencing any form of abuse, please seek help from a suitable service in your region to  develop a safety plan. If engagement with teachings or advice on this website brings underlying issues in relation to past abuse to the surface, we recommend that you seek professional support.]

You are asking about a very urgent and very important practice—in other words, a protection for the development of your mind in the path to enlightenment.

I’m not sure whether you have heard what His Holiness the Dalai Lama has said in regard to this matter—at the Western Teachers’ Conference, for example. That advice was given according to the Western world. If it is not given that way, this topic is dangerous and becomes a problem for the Western mind.

In monasteries, of course, there are generally an abbot, a disciplinarian and many others who can punish whatever mistakes are made in monastic rules or personal vows. They can even kick a person out. But up to now I have never heard that a disciple kicked a guru out of a monastery or sued a guru. In the East, I have never heard of this.

According to the texts, the teachings of the Buddha and the lamrim, one should look only at the good qualities of the guru and speak only praise of the guru. Acting contrary to that, generating anger or heresy and criticizing the guru in speech, creates the heaviest negative karma.

It is said in many tantric teachings, such as the Kalachakra and Guhyasamaja root texts, that even if one has accumulated the five uninterrupted negative karmas, one can still achieve the sublime vehicle in this life, in particular the Highest Yoga Tantra path, which has the most skillful means to grant enlightenment in the brief lifetime of degenerate times. But those who criticize the guru from their heart will not achieve this, even if they practice the sublime vehicle.

Lama Tsongkhapa’s lamrim clearly mentions that even giving rise to the thought that the virtuous friend is an ordinary being becomes a cause of losing realizations. This also means that it becomes an obstacle to developing the mind in the path.

The very important thing is to analyze and check as much as possible before making Dharma contact. Once the Dharma contact is established with recognition of a guru-disciple relationship, there is no going back. One has to have a new relationship. It is another world, in which you look at that person with a new mind, a pure mind.

Pabongka Dechen Nyingpo, the great enlightened being, the actual Heruka, said that if one is able to stop all thought of faults and look only at the good qualities, seeing the guru as only a buddha, one can achieve enlightenment in this life.

This is not only for this life. Generally, one cannot get enlightened while seeing mistakes in the virtuous friend. But, with the realization that sees all buddhas as the guru and all gurus as buddha, one can. This is said in both sutra and tantra and in all four Tibetan Mahayana traditions.

Making mistakes by allowing anger or heresy to arise or by criticizing or giving up the virtuous friend becomes the cause not to find a guru in future lives. It is said in The Essence of Nectar¹ that it causes one to be unable to hear the sound of the holy Dharma, not to mention being unable to find a virtuous friend, and that one becomes impoverished in terms of a virtuous friend in all one’s lifetimes (the last of the eight shortcomings of incorrectly devoting to a virtuous friend).

And I often mention this quotation from the Fifth Dalai Lama: “One’s own mistakes appear to one’s own hallucinated mind in the actions of the guru. One must realize that this is one’s own mistake and abandon it like poison.”

This means that, with this guru devotion meditation, one must abandon the belief that there is a mistake in the actions of the virtuous friend. With this mindfulness, you look at that person as a buddha, one who has ceased all faults and has all good qualities.

If your guru asks you to do something that you don’t have the capacity to do because your mind hasn’t reached that level, with mindfulness of the pure thought that I mentioned before, you respectfully explain to your guru that you are incapable of doing it. In this way you try to get the guru to excuse you from doing it.

This is what is mentioned in Fifty Verses of Guru Devotion and in the Vinaya. If the guru says to do something that is not Dharma, you can ask permission not to do it.² It doesn’t say to have negative thoughts toward, criticize or sue him.

This last part is the way to practice guru devotion, the way to deal with this problem without its becoming an obstacle to developing your own mind in the path.

Of course, as His Holiness the Dalai Lama mentions all the time, when a special guru and special disciple meet together, the disciple does every single thing the guru says to do, like Naropa and Tilopa or Milarepa and Marpa.

The main thing here is to be skillful, to try not to hurt the holy mind of the guru. Hurting the mind of the guru is the greatest obstacle to developing your own mind in the path to enlightenment.

Many tantric teachings, especially, say that one should understand the path by hearing it from the holy mouth and realize it by pleasing the holy mind of the virtuous friend. Many secret things like that are mentioned.

Once a guru-disciple connection is made, even if the guru kills many thousands of people, it is the responsibility of the disciple to look at this as a positive action. It is said in the teachings by the past realized practitioners of the Tibetan Mahayana traditions that even if the guru kills someone, one should look at it as a positive action, as a quick way of enlightening an evil being by sending their consciousness to a pure land. The conclusion is that this particular action of the guru is guidance for the benefit of that person.

There are a few quotations like this, describing how the past and present practitioners of the Tibetan Mahayana traditions practiced guru devotion.

You should ask Istituto Lama Tzong Khapa for a copy in English of a small pamphlet in which I translated these quotations during a short talk on guru devotion. The teaching was given there because many other people had experienced similar problems.

If a mistake has already been made, you must confess it from your heart. In this way, you will get the profit of lightening and purifying the negative karma. Of course, you can do Samayavajra, self-initiations and many other practices, but one very good thing to do is to offer some service or some practice that pleases the holy mind of the virtuous friend.

I know you mentioned sincerity, but in my view this sincerity is without wisdom. Sincerity is beneficial to others when it is combined with wisdom and compassion. If there is wisdom there is usually also compassion, which means the wisdom is vast.

For example, what if a man who wants to kill someone comes along and asks you where that person went? If you think you should be sincere, without wisdom—which should also include compassion—you would tell him where the person went instead of saying you don’t know, which would save the person’s life.

Another point is that in the West people have many extra concepts that were not in the East, especially among Tibetans—for example, looking at a child’s mental or physical problems as being the fault of the parents. Now, even in America, people are finding out that this is not true. In Time there have been reports that what was thought to be the fault of the parents now turns out not to be so. Even parents who loved their children very much can later experience many problems because of this concept.

There are many other additional concepts that I had never heard about until I met Western people, even though I’ve traveled and lived in different parts of the East. Now, of course, people in the East are trying to get their education from the Western world, so some people who follow Western culture in India, for example, talk like this now.

So, I am just making conversation with you about what I think, from my experience; just trying to give you more background.

The other thing is that when we look at the guru, we will see mistakes; we will always find mistakes. It’s just a question of whether the mistake is big or small. If you look from the side of mistakes, you will see mistakes.

Colophon
Rinpoche dictated this advice at Kopan Monastery, Nepal, 20 April 1994. Edited by Ven. Lhundrup Damchö.

NOTES

¹ If, by chance, one finds the body of a happy migratory being,
Because of experiencing the result similar to the cause
Of not having respected the guru,
One will be born in unfortunate states without freedom
And one won’t even hear the words “holy Dharma” or “virtuous friend.” (V. 111.) [Return to text]

² (Disciples) having great sense should obey the words of their guru joyfully and with enthusiasm. If you lack the knowledge or ability (to do what he says), explain in (polite) words why you cannot (comply). (V. 24.) [Return to text]