Chagdud Khadro met H.E. Chagdud Tulku Rinpoche in 1977. According to Khadro, “I first saw Rinpoche in Nepal at a ceremony held at a very large monastery. There were maybe 1,000 people there and almost 150 Tibetan Buddhist lamas. He was passing by in a procession with the other Tibetan lamas, and he turned and smiled at someone he knew in the crowd. For me, that was like the sun breaking through the clouds—the warmth and the humor of that smile—and I just had to meet him.”
Since that time Khadro has devoted her life to assisting Rinpoche in his dharma activities, taking on such varied roles as writer, translator, administrator, construction planner, and housekeeper. Over the years, her example of guru yoga has served as an inspiration to many of Rinpoche’s students. Now a teacher in her own right, she took time from a very busy retreat schedule at Rigdzin Ling to speak to Lama Trinley for the Windhorse.
LT: What advice would you give new practitioners regarding their relationship with a teacher?
CK: First I would say that you need to observe someone for a while before you decide that this is your teacher. You can appreciate a lama and their teachings for some time before you make a full commitment to them as your main teacher. When that lama’s teachings cause your faith to grow, then at a certain point there is just no turning back. You feel you want to follow the lama because you can see the great blessing of the relationship.
When I met Rinpoche I was very new to the dharma, so there was a lot for me to learn. I am not a very easy person and Rinpoche has his own style, which is not always easy either. He had to witness all of my stuff. At first he was very peaceful with me, but when he realized that I was there for the duration he started changing what needed to be changed. I would also suggest that you check your motivation. Are you connecting with this teacher because all your friends are? Are you connecting because the teacher is famous and it seems glamorous? Or is your motivation for doing so to transform your mind? Lamas have different ways of pointing out what needs to be transformed. Some are wrathful and others can be very peaceful. But even with a peaceful lama, at a certain point you will arrive at a place where you are really shocked by what you see in yourself. At that point you will need to apply the methods you have received because it is then that your faith will begin to evolve.
There are so many different ways to talk about guru yoga. There are a number of wonderful stories about great lamas like those in Tulku Thondup’s book Masters of Meditation and Miracles. But I like having simple structures to hang things on, and for about a year the way I’ve been thinking about guru yoga is in terms of the Red Tara prayer in which we aspire that people will develop the four kinds of devotion.
We can have different degrees of devotion for a teacher. At first we may regard the teacher as a friend. But what does it mean to be a friend? A friend is someone who is trustworthy and has our best interest at heart. But deeper than that, when we discover the incomparable kindness of our teacher, we regard the teacher with the devotion one has for one’s own compassionate mother. Your mother has your interest even more at heart than a good friend does because she is related to you. In the same way, the lama is related to you by fortunate past-life karma. That is why the relationship feels so familiar. Another kind of devotion for the teacher is like that for a benevolent sovereign. A very great lama has the capacity to protect and is able to influence circumstances in a powerful way.
But ultimately we need to cultivate our devotion to the teacher as a lama, somebody who not only knows the dharma in an intellectual way but has genuine meditative realization. That simplifies things a lot, because what we are really trying to do— as we say in the Seven Line Prayer— is follow in the guru’s footsteps. In doing so we need to adapt to the lama’s style, really practicing according to the lama’s instructions.
Although people can take teachings from many lamas, I don’t think they can experience profound, ongoing guru yoga with many. Following in the guru’s footsteps takes a lot of mindfulness, and most of us can’t maintain that with many lamas of different styles and lineages. There is too much to assimilate. If we rely deeply on a guru, we can allow them to orchestrate what other teachers we go to and what practices we do. A great lama like Chagdud Rinpoche may bring many other lamas to his centers so that his students can enhance their practice according to those lamas’ traditions, but they are still within his style and lineage. There is a certain consistency there. And there is a great deal of trust, because we are offering our body, speech, and mind to the lama and trusting that lama with our transformation.
When you practice really deeply, in the same moment that you accomplish the practice you see that your realization is due to the lama’s kindness. And that is very moving. The boundaries fall away between yourself as the practitioner, the deity, and the guru, and these three are one essence. It can be overwhelming. Who could turn back from that? It really doesn’t matter if the lama is irritable on a given day because that is just the lama’s outer display.
LT: I was thinking about what you were saying in terms of my own experience—the times that Rinpoche gave me advice and I didn’t follow it because I couldn’t see the value of what he was offering. In retrospect I can see where I resisted and backed off. If I had just pushed forward, there would have been much more benefit for everybody, but I didn’t trust that he knew—that he could see my path and what I needed to do. I didn’t have that kind of faith.
CK: I think that as your guru yoga deepens, your ability to follow more subtle levels of direction increases. Great gurus have trained their minds for many lifetimes. Even if their style seems wild, their minds are very refined. As beginning dharma practitioners we tend to be quite crass and rough. It takes years to really tune in, and then gradually you reach the point where the lama doesn’t have to say much. You just know. Eventually the lama doesn’t even have to be there; if you simply pray, then you know. At that point it all becomes very spacious.
There is no fixed position in guru yoga. Our relationship with the guru is close and far, close and far, until our mind and the guru’s are inseparable. Everybody wants to fix that relationship so that it is an area of certainty, but the lama doesn’t allow it. We have all lived so many lives in this single lifetime that when we meet the guru we want to develop something stable, but they always demolish it. They don’t let you take a fixed position. The reason they can’t allow it is because it is just another source of ordinary attachment that will get in the way of attaining ultimate truth. Do you know what I mean?
I still can’t get over how Rinpoche can push my buttons. He is a master at it. I know what he sees in me and (I think) I know how to sidestep it because I have had twenty years of experience doing so. I can’t believe that we still haven’t been through all the scenarios and I still stumble, crash, and fall.
We need to remember that the guru’s primary responsibility is not to make us happy but to enable us to become enlightened, and that the guru is not just responding to us alone but to many beings with various needs. In being married to Rinpoche I’ve learned that you need to give people in the sangha a lot of space. At first I gave that space rather grudgingly knowing that otherwise I would become a lightning rod for Rinpoche’s wrath. But gradually I gave them space because we share the same intention: that all beings might find enlightenment. It may seem that we are sacrificing something, some self-interest, but actually everything goes faster, more joyously. Really, as our self-centered perspective diminishes and our intention melds with our lama’s, the very heartbeats of lama and disciple begin to synchronize. Accomplishment increases beyond anything we could have imagined previously.
LT: And now you are a teacher.
CK: I’m a teacher of practices but I’m not a guru to people. I give empowerments but I don’t have my own students. There is only one person I allow to call my student and that’s just because Rinpoche encouraged me to do it. But even one person saying, “You are my teacher” is an enormous responsibility. Why would people rely on me when they can rely on Rinpoche? I am his emissary; I am not him. They say that you can be only as great as your teacher, because the teacher is a mold. Right now I am too small a mold. At a certain point hopefully that mold will expand. I have received a lot of blessings from Rinpoche. He has invested me with authority and shown me a very clear path. So despite my limitations, at some point I may be able to step into bigger responsibilities. But for now, while Rinpoche is here, I don’t see why anyone would call themselves my student. I might be their p’howa teacher or their Red Tara teacher or their Vajrakilaya teacher, but I’m not their main lama. I feel more like a very good dharma friend.
Chagdud Khadro met H.E. Chagdud Tulku Rinpoche in 1977. According to Khadro, “I first saw Rinpoche in Nepal at a ceremony held at a very large monastery. There were maybe 1,000 people there and almost 150 Tibetan Buddhist lamas. He was passing by in a procession with the other Tibetan lamas, and he turned and smiled at someone he knew in the crowd. For me, that was like the sun breaking through the clouds—the warmth and the humor of that smile—and I just had to meet him.”
Since that time Khadro has devoted her life to assisting Rinpoche in his dharma activities, taking on such varied roles as writer, translator, administrator, construction planner, and housekeeper. Over the years, her example of guru yoga has served as an inspiration to many of Rinpoche’s students. Now a teacher in her own right, she took time from a very busy retreat schedule at Rigdzin Ling to speak to Lama Trinley for the Windhorse.
LT: What advice would you give new practitioners regarding their relationship with a teacher?
CK: First I would say that you need to observe someone for a while before you decide that this is your teacher. You can appreciate a lama and their teachings for some time before you make a full commitment to them as your main teacher. When that lama’s teachings cause your faith to grow, then at a certain point there is just no turning back. You feel you want to follow the lama because you can see the great blessing of the relationship.
When I met Rinpoche I was very new to the dharma, so there was a lot for me to learn. I am not a very easy person and Rinpoche has his own style, which is not always easy either. He had to witness all of my stuff. At first he was very peaceful with me, but when he realized that I was there for the duration he started changing what needed to be changed. I would also suggest that you check your motivation. Are you connecting with this teacher because all your friends are? Are you connecting because the teacher is famous and it seems glamorous? Or is your motivation for doing so to transform your mind? Lamas have different ways of pointing out what needs to be transformed. Some are wrathful and others can be very peaceful. But even with a peaceful lama, at a certain point you will arrive at a place where you are really shocked by what you see in yourself. At that point you will need to apply the methods you have received because it is then that your faith will begin to evolve.
There are so many different ways to talk about guru yoga. There are a number of wonderful stories about great lamas like those in Tulku Thondup’s book Masters of Meditation and Miracles. But I like having simple structures to hang things on, and for about a year the way I’ve been thinking about guru yoga is in terms of the Red Tara prayer in which we aspire that people will develop the four kinds of devotion.
We can have different degrees of devotion for a teacher. At first we may regard the teacher as a friend. But what does it mean to be a friend? A friend is someone who is trustworthy and has our best interest at heart. But deeper than that, when we discover the incomparable kindness of our teacher, we regard the teacher with the devotion one has for one’s own compassionate mother. Your mother has your interest even more at heart than a good friend does because she is related to you. In the same way, the lama is related to you by fortunate past-life karma. That is why the relationship feels so familiar. Another kind of devotion for the teacher is like that for a benevolent sovereign. A very great lama has the capacity to protect and is able to influence circumstances in a powerful way.
But ultimately we need to cultivate our devotion to the teacher as a lama, somebody who not only knows the dharma in an intellectual way but has genuine meditative realization. That simplifies things a lot, because what we are really trying to do— as we say in the Seven Line Prayer— is follow in the guru’s footsteps. In doing so we need to adapt to the lama’s style, really practicing according to the lama’s instructions.
Although people can take teachings from many lamas, I don’t think they can experience profound, ongoing guru yoga with many. Following in the guru’s footsteps takes a lot of mindfulness, and most of us can’t maintain that with many lamas of different styles and lineages. There is too much to assimilate. If we rely deeply on a guru, we can allow them to orchestrate what other teachers we go to and what practices we do. A great lama like Chagdud Rinpoche may bring many other lamas to his centers so that his students can enhance their practice according to those lamas’ traditions, but they are still within his style and lineage. There is a certain consistency there. And there is a great deal of trust, because we are offering our body, speech, and mind to the lama and trusting that lama with our transformation.
When you practice really deeply, in the same moment that you accomplish the practice you see that your realization is due to the lama’s kindness. And that is very moving. The boundaries fall away between yourself as the practitioner, the deity, and the guru, and these three are one essence. It can be overwhelming. Who could turn back from that? It really doesn’t matter if the lama is irritable on a given day because that is just the lama’s outer display.
LT: I was thinking about what you were saying in terms of my own experience—the times that Rinpoche gave me advice and I didn’t follow it because I couldn’t see the value of what he was offering. In retrospect I can see where I resisted and backed off. If I had just pushed forward, there would have been much more benefit for everybody, but I didn’t trust that he knew—that he could see my path and what I needed to do. I didn’t have that kind of faith.
CK: I think that as your guru yoga deepens, your ability to follow more subtle levels of direction increases. Great gurus have trained their minds for many lifetimes. Even if their style seems wild, their minds are very refined. As beginning dharma practitioners we tend to be quite crass and rough. It takes years to really tune in, and then gradually you reach the point where the lama doesn’t have to say much. You just know. Eventually the lama doesn’t even have to be there; if you simply pray, then you know. At that point it all becomes very spacious.
There is no fixed position in guru yoga. Our relationship with the guru is close and far, close and far, until our mind and the guru’s are inseparable. Everybody wants to fix that relationship so that it is an area of certainty, but the lama doesn’t allow it. We have all lived so many lives in this single lifetime that when we meet the guru we want to develop something stable, but they always demolish it. They don’t let you take a fixed position. The reason they can’t allow it is because it is just another source of ordinary attachment that will get in the way of attaining ultimate truth. Do you know what I mean?
I still can’t get over how Rinpoche can push my buttons. He is a master at it. I know what he sees in me and (I think) I know how to sidestep it because I have had twenty years of experience doing so. I can’t believe that we still haven’t been through all the scenarios and I still stumble, crash, and fall.
We need to remember that the guru’s primary responsibility is not to make us happy but to enable us to become enlightened, and that the guru is not just responding to us alone but to many beings with various needs. In being married to Rinpoche I’ve learned that you need to give people in the sangha a lot of space. At first I gave that space rather grudgingly knowing that otherwise I would become a lightning rod for Rinpoche’s wrath. But gradually I gave them space because we share the same intention: that all beings might find enlightenment. It may seem that we are sacrificing something, some self-interest, but actually everything goes faster, more joyously. Really, as our self-centered perspective diminishes and our intention melds with our lama’s, the very heartbeats of lama and disciple begin to synchronize. Accomplishment increases beyond anything we could have imagined previously.
LT: And now you are a teacher.
CK: I’m a teacher of practices but I’m not a guru to people. I give empowerments but I don’t have my own students. There is only one person I allow to call my student and that’s just because Rinpoche encouraged me to do it. But even one person saying, “You are my teacher” is an enormous responsibility. Why would people rely on me when they can rely on Rinpoche? I am his emissary; I am not him. They say that you can be only as great as your teacher, because the teacher is a mold. Right now I am too small a mold. At a certain point hopefully that mold will expand. I have received a lot of blessings from Rinpoche. He has invested me with authority and shown me a very clear path. So despite my limitations, at some point I may be able to step into bigger responsibilities. But for now, while Rinpoche is here, I don’t see why anyone would call themselves my student. I might be their p’howa teacher or their Red Tara teacher or their Vajrakilaya teacher, but I’m not their main lama. I feel more like a very good dharma friend.
Chagdud Khadro met H.E. Chagdud Tulku Rinpoche in 1977. According to Khadro, “I first saw Rinpoche in Nepal at a ceremony held at a very large monastery. There were maybe 1,000 people there and almost 150 Tibetan Buddhist lamas. He was passing by in a procession with the other Tibetan lamas, and he turned and smiled at someone he knew in the crowd. For me, that was like the sun breaking through the clouds—the warmth and the humor of that smile—and I just had to meet him.”
Since that time Khadro has devoted her life to assisting Rinpoche in his dharma activities, taking on such varied roles as writer, translator, administrator, construction planner, and housekeeper. Over the years, her example of guru yoga has served as an inspiration to many of Rinpoche’s students. Now a teacher in her own right, she took time from a very busy retreat schedule at Rigdzin Ling to speak to Lama Trinley for the Windhorse.
LT: What advice would you give new practitioners regarding their relationship with a teacher?
CK: First I would say that you need to observe someone for a while before you decide that this is your teacher. You can appreciate a lama and their teachings for some time before you make a full commitment to them as your main teacher. When that lama’s teachings cause your faith to grow, then at a certain point there is just no turning back. You feel you want to follow the lama because you can see the great blessing of the relationship.
When I met Rinpoche I was very new to the dharma, so there was a lot for me to learn. I am not a very easy person and Rinpoche has his own style, which is not always easy either. He had to witness all of my stuff. At first he was very peaceful with me, but when he realized that I was there for the duration he started changing what needed to be changed. I would also suggest that you check your motivation. Are you connecting with this teacher because all your friends are? Are you connecting because the teacher is famous and it seems glamorous? Or is your motivation for doing so to transform your mind? Lamas have different ways of pointing out what needs to be transformed. Some are wrathful and others can be very peaceful. But even with a peaceful lama, at a certain point you will arrive at a place where you are really shocked by what you see in yourself. At that point you will need to apply the methods you have received because it is then that your faith will begin to evolve.
There are so many different ways to talk about guru yoga. There are a number of wonderful stories about great lamas like those in Tulku Thondup’s book Masters of Meditation and Miracles. But I like having simple structures to hang things on, and for about a year the way I’ve been thinking about guru yoga is in terms of the Red Tara prayer in which we aspire that people will develop the four kinds of devotion.
We can have different degrees of devotion for a teacher. At first we may regard the teacher as a friend. But what does it mean to be a friend? A friend is someone who is trustworthy and has our best interest at heart. But deeper than that, when we discover the incomparable kindness of our teacher, we regard the teacher with the devotion one has for one’s own compassionate mother. Your mother has your interest even more at heart than a good friend does because she is related to you. In the same way, the lama is related to you by fortunate past-life karma. That is why the relationship feels so familiar. Another kind of devotion for the teacher is like that for a benevolent sovereign. A very great lama has the capacity to protect and is able to influence circumstances in a powerful way.
But ultimately we need to cultivate our devotion to the teacher as a lama, somebody who not only knows the dharma in an intellectual way but has genuine meditative realization. That simplifies things a lot, because what we are really trying to do— as we say in the Seven Line Prayer— is follow in the guru’s footsteps. In doing so we need to adapt to the lama’s style, really practicing according to the lama’s instructions.
Although people can take teachings from many lamas, I don’t think they can experience profound, ongoing guru yoga with many. Following in the guru’s footsteps takes a lot of mindfulness, and most of us can’t maintain that with many lamas of different styles and lineages. There is too much to assimilate. If we rely deeply on a guru, we can allow them to orchestrate what other teachers we go to and what practices we do. A great lama like Chagdud Rinpoche may bring many other lamas to his centers so that his students can enhance their practice according to those lamas’ traditions, but they are still within his style and lineage. There is a certain consistency there. And there is a great deal of trust, because we are offering our body, speech, and mind to the lama and trusting that lama with our transformation.
When you practice really deeply, in the same moment that you accomplish the practice you see that your realization is due to the lama’s kindness. And that is very moving. The boundaries fall away between yourself as the practitioner, the deity, and the guru, and these three are one essence. It can be overwhelming. Who could turn back from that? It really doesn’t matter if the lama is irritable on a given day because that is just the lama’s outer display.
LT: I was thinking about what you were saying in terms of my own experience—the times that Rinpoche gave me advice and I didn’t follow it because I couldn’t see the value of what he was offering. In retrospect I can see where I resisted and backed off. If I had just pushed forward, there would have been much more benefit for everybody, but I didn’t trust that he knew—that he could see my path and what I needed to do. I didn’t have that kind of faith.
CK: I think that as your guru yoga deepens, your ability to follow more subtle levels of direction increases. Great gurus have trained their minds for many lifetimes. Even if their style seems wild, their minds are very refined. As beginning dharma practitioners we tend to be quite crass and rough. It takes years to really tune in, and then gradually you reach the point where the lama doesn’t have to say much. You just know. Eventually the lama doesn’t even have to be there; if you simply pray, then you know. At that point it all becomes very spacious.
There is no fixed position in guru yoga. Our relationship with the guru is close and far, close and far, until our mind and the guru’s are inseparable. Everybody wants to fix that relationship so that it is an area of certainty, but the lama doesn’t allow it. We have all lived so many lives in this single lifetime that when we meet the guru we want to develop something stable, but they always demolish it. They don’t let you take a fixed position. The reason they can’t allow it is because it is just another source of ordinary attachment that will get in the way of attaining ultimate truth. Do you know what I mean?
I still can’t get over how Rinpoche can push my buttons. He is a master at it. I know what he sees in me and (I think) I know how to sidestep it because I have had twenty years of experience doing so. I can’t believe that we still haven’t been through all the scenarios and I still stumble, crash, and fall.
We need to remember that the guru’s primary responsibility is not to make us happy but to enable us to become enlightened, and that the guru is not just responding to us alone but to many beings with various needs. In being married to Rinpoche I’ve learned that you need to give people in the sangha a lot of space. At first I gave that space rather grudgingly knowing that otherwise I would become a lightning rod for Rinpoche’s wrath. But gradually I gave them space because we share the same intention: that all beings might find enlightenment. It may seem that we are sacrificing something, some self-interest, but actually everything goes faster, more joyously. Really, as our self-centered perspective diminishes and our intention melds with our lama’s, the very heartbeats of lama and disciple begin to synchronize. Accomplishment increases beyond anything we could have imagined previously.
LT: And now you are a teacher.
CK: I’m a teacher of practices but I’m not a guru to people. I give empowerments but I don’t have my own students. There is only one person I allow to call my student and that’s just because Rinpoche encouraged me to do it. But even one person saying, “You are my teacher” is an enormous responsibility. Why would people rely on me when they can rely on Rinpoche? I am his emissary; I am not him. They say that you can be only as great as your teacher, because the teacher is a mold. Right now I am too small a mold. At a certain point hopefully that mold will expand. I have received a lot of blessings from Rinpoche. He has invested me with authority and shown me a very clear path. So despite my limitations, at some point I may be able to step into bigger responsibilities. But for now, while Rinpoche is here, I don’t see why anyone would call themselves my student. I might be their p’howa teacher or their Red Tara teacher or their Vajrakilaya teacher, but I’m not their main lama. I feel more like a very good dharma friend.
Chagdud Khadro met H.E. Chagdud Tulku Rinpoche in 1977. According to Khadro, “I first saw Rinpoche in Nepal at a ceremony held at a very large monastery. There were maybe 1,000 people there and almost 150 Tibetan Buddhist lamas. He was passing by in a procession with the other Tibetan lamas, and he turned and smiled at someone he knew in the crowd. For me, that was like the sun breaking through the clouds—the warmth and the humor of that smile—and I just had to meet him.”
Since that time Khadro has devoted her life to assisting Rinpoche in his dharma activities, taking on such varied roles as writer, translator, administrator, construction planner, and housekeeper. Over the years, her example of guru yoga has served as an inspiration to many of Rinpoche’s students. Now a teacher in her own right, she took time from a very busy retreat schedule at Rigdzin Ling to speak to Lama Trinley for the Windhorse.
LT: What advice would you give new practitioners regarding their relationship with a teacher?
CK: First I would say that you need to observe someone for a while before you decide that this is your teacher. You can appreciate a lama and their teachings for some time before you make a full commitment to them as your main teacher. When that lama’s teachings cause your faith to grow, then at a certain point there is just no turning back. You feel you want to follow the lama because you can see the great blessing of the relationship.
When I met Rinpoche I was very new to the dharma, so there was a lot for me to learn. I am not a very easy person and Rinpoche has his own style, which is not always easy either. He had to witness all of my stuff. At first he was very peaceful with me, but when he realized that I was there for the duration he started changing what needed to be changed. I would also suggest that you check your motivation. Are you connecting with this teacher because all your friends are? Are you connecting because the teacher is famous and it seems glamorous? Or is your motivation for doing so to transform your mind? Lamas have different ways of pointing out what needs to be transformed. Some are wrathful and others can be very peaceful. But even with a peaceful lama, at a certain point you will arrive at a place where you are really shocked by what you see in yourself. At that point you will need to apply the methods you have received because it is then that your faith will begin to evolve.
There are so many different ways to talk about guru yoga. There are a number of wonderful stories about great lamas like those in Tulku Thondup’s book Masters of Meditation and Miracles. But I like having simple structures to hang things on, and for about a year the way I’ve been thinking about guru yoga is in terms of the Red Tara prayer in which we aspire that people will develop the four kinds of devotion.
We can have different degrees of devotion for a teacher. At first we may regard the teacher as a friend. But what does it mean to be a friend? A friend is someone who is trustworthy and has our best interest at heart. But deeper than that, when we discover the incomparable kindness of our teacher, we regard the teacher with the devotion one has for one’s own compassionate mother. Your mother has your interest even more at heart than a good friend does because she is related to you. In the same way, the lama is related to you by fortunate past-life karma. That is why the relationship feels so familiar. Another kind of devotion for the teacher is like that for a benevolent sovereign. A very great lama has the capacity to protect and is able to influence circumstances in a powerful way.
But ultimately we need to cultivate our devotion to the teacher as a lama, somebody who not only knows the dharma in an intellectual way but has genuine meditative realization. That simplifies things a lot, because what we are really trying to do— as we say in the Seven Line Prayer— is follow in the guru’s footsteps. In doing so we need to adapt to the lama’s style, really practicing according to the lama’s instructions.
Although people can take teachings from many lamas, I don’t think they can experience profound, ongoing guru yoga with many. Following in the guru’s footsteps takes a lot of mindfulness, and most of us can’t maintain that with many lamas of different styles and lineages. There is too much to assimilate. If we rely deeply on a guru, we can allow them to orchestrate what other teachers we go to and what practices we do. A great lama like Chagdud Rinpoche may bring many other lamas to his centers so that his students can enhance their practice according to those lamas’ traditions, but they are still within his style and lineage. There is a certain consistency there. And there is a great deal of trust, because we are offering our body, speech, and mind to the lama and trusting that lama with our transformation.
When you practice really deeply, in the same moment that you accomplish the practice you see that your realization is due to the lama’s kindness. And that is very moving. The boundaries fall away between yourself as the practitioner, the deity, and the guru, and these three are one essence. It can be overwhelming. Who could turn back from that? It really doesn’t matter if the lama is irritable on a given day because that is just the lama’s outer display.
LT: I was thinking about what you were saying in terms of my own experience—the times that Rinpoche gave me advice and I didn’t follow it because I couldn’t see the value of what he was offering. In retrospect I can see where I resisted and backed off. If I had just pushed forward, there would have been much more benefit for everybody, but I didn’t trust that he knew—that he could see my path and what I needed to do. I didn’t have that kind of faith.
CK: I think that as your guru yoga deepens, your ability to follow more subtle levels of direction increases. Great gurus have trained their minds for many lifetimes. Even if their style seems wild, their minds are very refined. As beginning dharma practitioners we tend to be quite crass and rough. It takes years to really tune in, and then gradually you reach the point where the lama doesn’t have to say much. You just know. Eventually the lama doesn’t even have to be there; if you simply pray, then you know. At that point it all becomes very spacious.
There is no fixed position in guru yoga. Our relationship with the guru is close and far, close and far, until our mind and the guru’s are inseparable. Everybody wants to fix that relationship so that it is an area of certainty, but the lama doesn’t allow it. We have all lived so many lives in this single lifetime that when we meet the guru we want to develop something stable, but they always demolish it. They don’t let you take a fixed position. The reason they can’t allow it is because it is just another source of ordinary attachment that will get in the way of attaining ultimate truth. Do you know what I mean?
I still can’t get over how Rinpoche can push my buttons. He is a master at it. I know what he sees in me and (I think) I know how to sidestep it because I have had twenty years of experience doing so. I can’t believe that we still haven’t been through all the scenarios and I still stumble, crash, and fall.
We need to remember that the guru’s primary responsibility is not to make us happy but to enable us to become enlightened, and that the guru is not just responding to us alone but to many beings with various needs. In being married to Rinpoche I’ve learned that you need to give people in the sangha a lot of space. At first I gave that space rather grudgingly knowing that otherwise I would become a lightning rod for Rinpoche’s wrath. But gradually I gave them space because we share the same intention: that all beings might find enlightenment. It may seem that we are sacrificing something, some self-interest, but actually everything goes faster, more joyously. Really, as our self-centered perspective diminishes and our intention melds with our lama’s, the very heartbeats of lama and disciple begin to synchronize. Accomplishment increases beyond anything we could have imagined previously.
LT: And now you are a teacher.
CK: I’m a teacher of practices but I’m not a guru to people. I give empowerments but I don’t have my own students. There is only one person I allow to call my student and that’s just because Rinpoche encouraged me to do it. But even one person saying, “You are my teacher” is an enormous responsibility. Why would people rely on me when they can rely on Rinpoche? I am his emissary; I am not him. They say that you can be only as great as your teacher, because the teacher is a mold. Right now I am too small a mold. At a certain point hopefully that mold will expand. I have received a lot of blessings from Rinpoche. He has invested me with authority and shown me a very clear path. So despite my limitations, at some point I may be able to step into bigger responsibilities. But for now, while Rinpoche is here, I don’t see why anyone would call themselves my student. I might be their p’howa teacher or their Red Tara teacher or their Vajrakilaya teacher, but I’m not their main lama. I feel more like a very good dharma friend.
Chagdud Khadro met H.E. Chagdud Tulku Rinpoche in 1977. According to Khadro, “I first saw Rinpoche in Nepal at a ceremony held at a very large monastery. There were maybe 1,000 people there and almost 150 Tibetan Buddhist lamas. He was passing by in a procession with the other Tibetan lamas, and he turned and smiled at someone he knew in the crowd. For me, that was like the sun breaking through the clouds—the warmth and the humor of that smile—and I just had to meet him.”
Since that time Khadro has devoted her life to assisting Rinpoche in his dharma activities, taking on such varied roles as writer, translator, administrator, construction planner, and housekeeper. Over the years, her example of guru yoga has served as an inspiration to many of Rinpoche’s students. Now a teacher in her own right, she took time from a very busy retreat schedule at Rigdzin Ling to speak to Lama Trinley for the Windhorse.
LT: What advice would you give new practitioners regarding their relationship with a teacher?
CK: First I would say that you need to observe someone for a while before you decide that this is your teacher. You can appreciate a lama and their teachings for some time before you make a full commitment to them as your main teacher. When that lama’s teachings cause your faith to grow, then at a certain point there is just no turning back. You feel you want to follow the lama because you can see the great blessing of the relationship.
When I met Rinpoche I was very new to the dharma, so there was a lot for me to learn. I am not a very easy person and Rinpoche has his own style, which is not always easy either. He had to witness all of my stuff. At first he was very peaceful with me, but when he realized that I was there for the duration he started changing what needed to be changed. I would also suggest that you check your motivation. Are you connecting with this teacher because all your friends are? Are you connecting because the teacher is famous and it seems glamorous? Or is your motivation for doing so to transform your mind? Lamas have different ways of pointing out what needs to be transformed. Some are wrathful and others can be very peaceful. But even with a peaceful lama, at a certain point you will arrive at a place where you are really shocked by what you see in yourself. At that point you will need to apply the methods you have received because it is then that your faith will begin to evolve.
There are so many different ways to talk about guru yoga. There are a number of wonderful stories about great lamas like those in Tulku Thondup’s book Masters of Meditation and Miracles. But I like having simple structures to hang things on, and for about a year the way I’ve been thinking about guru yoga is in terms of the Red Tara prayer in which we aspire that people will develop the four kinds of devotion.
We can have different degrees of devotion for a teacher. At first we may regard the teacher as a friend. But what does it mean to be a friend? A friend is someone who is trustworthy and has our best interest at heart. But deeper than that, when we discover the incomparable kindness of our teacher, we regard the teacher with the devotion one has for one’s own compassionate mother. Your mother has your interest even more at heart than a good friend does because she is related to you. In the same way, the lama is related to you by fortunate past-life karma. That is why the relationship feels so familiar. Another kind of devotion for the teacher is like that for a benevolent sovereign. A very great lama has the capacity to protect and is able to influence circumstances in a powerful way.
But ultimately we need to cultivate our devotion to the teacher as a lama, somebody who not only knows the dharma in an intellectual way but has genuine meditative realization. That simplifies things a lot, because what we are really trying to do— as we say in the Seven Line Prayer— is follow in the guru’s footsteps. In doing so we need to adapt to the lama’s style, really practicing according to the lama’s instructions.
Although people can take teachings from many lamas, I don’t think they can experience profound, ongoing guru yoga with many. Following in the guru’s footsteps takes a lot of mindfulness, and most of us can’t maintain that with many lamas of different styles and lineages. There is too much to assimilate. If we rely deeply on a guru, we can allow them to orchestrate what other teachers we go to and what practices we do. A great lama like Chagdud Rinpoche may bring many other lamas to his centers so that his students can enhance their practice according to those lamas’ traditions, but they are still within his style and lineage. There is a certain consistency there. And there is a great deal of trust, because we are offering our body, speech, and mind to the lama and trusting that lama with our transformation.
When you practice really deeply, in the same moment that you accomplish the practice you see that your realization is due to the lama’s kindness. And that is very moving. The boundaries fall away between yourself as the practitioner, the deity, and the guru, and these three are one essence. It can be overwhelming. Who could turn back from that? It really doesn’t matter if the lama is irritable on a given day because that is just the lama’s outer display.
LT: I was thinking about what you were saying in terms of my own experience—the times that Rinpoche gave me advice and I didn’t follow it because I couldn’t see the value of what he was offering. In retrospect I can see where I resisted and backed off. If I had just pushed forward, there would have been much more benefit for everybody, but I didn’t trust that he knew—that he could see my path and what I needed to do. I didn’t have that kind of faith.
CK: I think that as your guru yoga deepens, your ability to follow more subtle levels of direction increases. Great gurus have trained their minds for many lifetimes. Even if their style seems wild, their minds are very refined. As beginning dharma practitioners we tend to be quite crass and rough. It takes years to really tune in, and then gradually you reach the point where the lama doesn’t have to say much. You just know. Eventually the lama doesn’t even have to be there; if you simply pray, then you know. At that point it all becomes very spacious.
There is no fixed position in guru yoga. Our relationship with the guru is close and far, close and far, until our mind and the guru’s are inseparable. Everybody wants to fix that relationship so that it is an area of certainty, but the lama doesn’t allow it. We have all lived so many lives in this single lifetime that when we meet the guru we want to develop something stable, but they always demolish it. They don’t let you take a fixed position. The reason they can’t allow it is because it is just another source of ordinary attachment that will get in the way of attaining ultimate truth. Do you know what I mean?
I still can’t get over how Rinpoche can push my buttons. He is a master at it. I know what he sees in me and (I think) I know how to sidestep it because I have had twenty years of experience doing so. I can’t believe that we still haven’t been through all the scenarios and I still stumble, crash, and fall.
We need to remember that the guru’s primary responsibility is not to make us happy but to enable us to become enlightened, and that the guru is not just responding to us alone but to many beings with various needs. In being married to Rinpoche I’ve learned that you need to give people in the sangha a lot of space. At first I gave that space rather grudgingly knowing that otherwise I would become a lightning rod for Rinpoche’s wrath. But gradually I gave them space because we share the same intention: that all beings might find enlightenment. It may seem that we are sacrificing something, some self-interest, but actually everything goes faster, more joyously. Really, as our self-centered perspective diminishes and our intention melds with our lama’s, the very heartbeats of lama and disciple begin to synchronize. Accomplishment increases beyond anything we could have imagined previously.
LT: And now you are a teacher.
CK: I’m a teacher of practices but I’m not a guru to people. I give empowerments but I don’t have my own students. There is only one person I allow to call my student and that’s just because Rinpoche encouraged me to do it. But even one person saying, “You are my teacher” is an enormous responsibility. Why would people rely on me when they can rely on Rinpoche? I am his emissary; I am not him. They say that you can be only as great as your teacher, because the teacher is a mold. Right now I am too small a mold. At a certain point hopefully that mold will expand. I have received a lot of blessings from Rinpoche. He has invested me with authority and shown me a very clear path. So despite my limitations, at some point I may be able to step into bigger responsibilities. But for now, while Rinpoche is here, I don’t see why anyone would call themselves my student. I might be their p’howa teacher or their Red Tara teacher or their Vajrakilaya teacher, but I’m not their main lama. I feel more like a very good dharma friend.
