Spiritual Teachers

Premises People at Dharma centers often have difficulty relating to spiritual teachers, even properly qualified ones. Some may feel nothing toward the resident teacher, even if the person is a geshe or a lama. Others may be unimpressed with a famous teacher who visits,...

Tsongkhapa, the Author of the Text All of you here have great interest in the Dharma and great intentions to follow the teachings. You’ve invited me here to give you teachings and I’m very happy to be with you. I’ve been asked to teach the text called The Foundation for Good...

This weekend I’ve been asked to speak about a practice that was composed by His Holiness the Dalai Lama called The Yoga of the Spiritual Master Inseparable from Avalokiteshvara, which is a practice of guru-yoga that focuses on the development and practice of compassion. And...

This weekend I’ve been asked to speak about self-voidness and other-voidness, what is called in Tibetan rangtong (rang-stong) and zhentong (gzhan-stong; shentong). This is a very advanced, very complicated and very important topic. Therefore, it requires a great deal of...

The Relation between a Mentor's Functioning as a Buddha and Being a Buddha Beyond the suggestion to focus with firm conviction and appreciation on the good qualities and kindness that their mentors actually have, the sutras and tantras instruct disciples to regard these...

Healthy Relationships with Spiritual Teachers It is very important for the disciple to examine and check the lama very carefully before studying with him. Don’t go just because a famous teaching is being given. You have to examine the lama very carefully. It is said in a...

Avoiding Overdependence on Others for Spiritual Energy Even after committing oneself to a spiritual path and establishing a disciple-mentor relationship, maintaining energy and motivation in one's spiritual practice may often present a challenge. Thus, seekers need a variety...

Defining the Term “Guru-Yoga” “Guru” and “yoga” are Sanskrit words. We need to learn what these mean in order to know what we are going to be talking about.  First, a guru is a fully qualified spiritual master. The word literally means someone who is heavy, and in the case of...

Cultures play a large role in shaping the form of the personal interactions of their members. Just as the child-parent relation differs from one society and time to another, so does the relationship between spiritual seeker and spiritual teacher. It is only natural, then, that...

The Sanskrit and Tibetan classical Buddhist literature provides the source material for how to relate to a spiritual mentor. Most of the texts, however, explicitly refer only to the relationship with a tantric master. The main examples include Ashvaghosha's Fifty Stanzas on...