Spiritual Teachers

The graded-path presentations nearly always include instructions on appropriate thoughts and actions for disciples in relationship to their mentors, whether on the sutra or the tantra level.

Dr. Berzin reminisces about his relationship with his teacher, Geshe Ngawang Dhargyey.

Tsenshap Serkong Rinpoche’s experience of being recognized as a reincarnation.

Dr. Berzin reminisces about his relationship with his teacher, Tsenshap Serkong Rinpoche, and his young reincarnation.

Unhealthy relationships between disciples and mentors can manifest in many ways, including overdependence on the mentor, not maintaining discriminating awareness or transference and regression as known in psychotherapy.

Guru-yoga is done with visualizations, where we imagine that our own qualities of body, speech, and mind become joined with the good qualities of our spiritual teacher and uplifted by them.

Dr. Berzin remembers the great Kalmyk geshe, Geshe Wangyal, who always combined the spiritual approach and the buddhological, scientific approach.

Dr. Alexander Berzin, founder of the Berzin Archives, talks about his experiences of studying Buddhology in academia and practicing Buddhism in real life.

Tsenshap Serkong Rinpoche describes how and why he chose his teacher to be his guru.

Venerable Chang Zao speaks of Chan methods to focus the mind, causality spanning the three times, and why Chinese Buddhists are strict vegetarians.