Spiritual Teachers

The appropriate relationships with our teachers depend on our aim, our level of development.

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.

Tsenshap Serkong Rinpoche: Master Debate Partner and Assistant Tutor of His Holiness the Fourteenth Dalai Lama.

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.

We practice this meditation in order to inspire and uplift ourselves to the state of our spiritual teacher inseparable from Avalokiteshvara, by joining our good qualities with theirs.

Venerable Robina Courtin discusses Buddhism’s radical nature, the power of self-therapy, and forgiveness as a result of compassion.

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

Learn why Dr. Berzin began berzinarchives.com, the original version of studybuddhism.com, in 2001.

As Buddhism takes root in the West, more Westerners are becoming spiritual teachers. Time-tested Dharma methods have provided solutions to culturally based problems that can arise.

Khandro Rinpoche explores her nostalgia for the past, the status of women in Buddhism, and why contemplating impermanence can be so enriching.