Timeless Rapture: Inspired Verse from the Shangpa Masters

Translator’s Preface 25
good it looks, will not lead to enlightenment, even though it may lead to
high levels of erudition or seeming proficiency in meditation.
The attitude we are advised to adopt is that of a patient who seeks the
advice of a doctor. We approach a doctor cautiously, speak frankly, and follow
the advice we receive. We continue to consult with the doctor until our
health and well-being returns. The teacher is the doctor, we are the patient,
and the teachings are medicines the doctor prescribes according to our
needs. The state of health and well-being to which the doctor’s treatments
restore us is our innate, primordial enlightenment.
The primacy of the role of spiritual master in tantra is not an invitation
to a personality cult. In fact, my experience with Kalu Rinpoché prepared
me well for meeting many of the best spiritual masters of our day: like
him, they never, ever talk about their meditative experience or realization.
They are endlessly energetic and dedicated to the work of bringing awakening
to the world but do so in a completely self-effacing manner. We
could say that they accept the role of spiritual master, so central to tantric
Buddhist practice, in an impersonal manner. Their degree of self-effacement
is worth reflecting upon. To take an example we can all verify, the
Dalai Lama, familiar to us all and universally loved and respected, does not
speak of his meditative experience, his “pastlife experience,” and so on. It
is not as if we aren’t interested or intrigued by his inner life, but he is far
too concerned with us to waste our connection by creating a personality
cult around himself. If we recall any of the great Tibetan masters of our
time, they share his extreme self-effacement and dedication to Buddhism
and others’ needs, even while they serve as vajra master, the central focus
of tantric practice.
Further, Kalu Rinpoché, like any other lama worthy of the title, did
not see his role as that of a dispenser of information, a professor or scholar
in monk’s clothing. His only criterion for sharing information was whether
it would help the person enter and continue on the path to enlightenment.
In that way, he was probably no different from the Buddha, whose
forays into the realm of half-truth (or less!) we call “provisional meaning”—just
enough truth to lead to the next step and eventually to the
final, definitive meaning. Buddhists are very comfortable with the Buddha’s
and his followers’ dedication to enlightenment above all else. For
example, my Canadian friend and I profited immensely from Kalu Rinpoché’s
concern for us, which was far more important to him than an
empty notion of honesty at all costs.