Lama Zopa Rinpoche

Once in Nepal I dreamed of a small four- or five-year-old girl who was Vajrayogini. The
next day we went to Pharping, 58 not because of the dream, it’s just something we do from
time-to-time. Pharping is where two brothers, two yogis, the Phamtingpas, achieved
Vajrayogini’s enlightenment. There is a main Vajrayogini statue there and also a small one—
a natural one not made by man—that might have belonged to the Phamtingpas. The
caretakers show it from time-to-time, if they are happy. Anyway, that day the girl was
there—exactly the same girl I saw in my dream. She was with some Nepalese ladies who had
come to worship the statue. Although she was so young she put some sindura on Lobsang
Nyima, Lama Yeshe’s disciple from Tibet who served him at Buxa, Lawudo and Kopan. He
had good guru devotion but sometimes got angry while he was working. This little girl didn’t
know him and he didn’t know her but she put some sindura on him. She didn’t put it on me.
It was very interesting and very strange.
Even though I had seen this very clearly in my dream, still my mind is so bad. Because the
way it appeared was a projection of my mind, so ordinary, what she did was still hard to
believe. I should have done what it says to do in the Vajrayogini commentary—go around
her three times anticlockwise, grab her feet and say the verses, “You are my mother” and so
forth, and then one-pointedly pray for her to guide me. Nobody stopped me from doing
that, only my own mind. My very strong ordinary mind would not let me. My mind is very
thick-skulled, full of very ordinary concepts and I followed it.
The guru’s kindness in guiding us in this life is really unbelievable. It’s inexpressible. This has
been happening from beginningless rebirths. For countless lifetimes the guru has guided us,
manifesting in all kinds of ways in pure and impure forms. He has manifested not only as a
Buddhist teacher but also as Brahma, Indra and Shiva, benefiting sentient beings by taking
their form and then guiding them. He has manifested as a Christian priest, a nun or monk, or
as a Muslim practitioner. There are all kinds of ways he manifests. From beginningless
rebirths we have been guided.
In 1983 Lama Yeshe and I went to Assisi, where Saint Francis had died and where his holy
body is kept along with that of his chief disciple, the nun who had three hundred disciples.
Her very long body is well preserved in a glass-topped coffin but Saint Francis’ body is
covered in a black iron coffin. When we visited there, Lama Yeshe sat down in front of his
body and meditated.
At that time I thought that because his mind was so pure, Saint Francis was the same as a
Kadampa geshe, with bodhicitta, with no self-cherishing thought and no attachment to this
life. I don’t know how, but he was a completely pure Dharma practitioner in his mind. He
dressed differently from the other monks, so renounced, with many patches in his chuba-like
robes. In India and Tibet and also among the Kadampa geshes, there are monks who
practice renouncing this life who have many patches in their robes, even though they have
great realizations and are great tantric practitioners. Saint Francis was like a Kadampa geshe
in this.
He was very humble and he always recited “God, God” in the same way we recite “Tara,
Tara.” All his disciples were also very humble. The other priests who lived higher up would
spit on him and say bad things about him because of his humility and patched robes and
because he was so different from them.
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