Lama Zopa Rinpoche

person without head. I don’t know what scientists would say. If I were in a meeting with
them, I would ask that question.
This is all just to do with the notion that the mind is the brain. These examples show that
there is more to reality than what scientists believe. They need to change their ideas, to refine
them so that they become closer to reality.
Wherever we consider the mind to be, think of the guru as a buddha who always abides
there, blessing us and liberating us from all the wrong concepts, especially the ignorance that
is the creator of samsara, believing that the I and the aggregates are truly existent. This is a
very important practice. If we want to achieve enlightenment and liberate sentient beings
from the oceans of samsaric suffering, if we want to lead them all to sang-gyä, the total
elimination of all obscurations and the completion of all realizations, we must practice seeing
the guru as a buddha.
This is the very essence of how to follow the virtuous friend, how to devote to the virtuous
friend through thought and action. Devoting through thought is looking at the guru as a
buddha and devoting through action is receiving the guru’s advice and fulfilling his wishes.
When we invited Kyabje Chöden Rinpoche to Vajrapani Institute 79 he said that the reason
we, as disciples, see the guru as a buddha and follow his advice is because this is the sole way
to enlightenment. If we are able to fulfill these two things, correct thought and action toward
the guru, the result must be that we will achieve sang-gyä. Otherwise it is impossible; there can
be no sang-gyä. That was his conclusion. Rinpoche did not use that term, but that is what it is,
sang-gyä.
Many people think that to serve the guru we have to be with the guru. This is not so.
Whether we are far from the guru or near we can still serve the guru. It doesn’t matter
whether we’re living in his house or on the other side of the world. We could be on the
moon or the sun and still be serving the guru by keeping purely the vows he has given us:
refuge vows, pratimoksha vows, like the five lay vows or the eight Mahayana precepts, and
higher vows, such as those of monastic ordination or the bodhisattva or tantric vows. If we
are keeping those vows we are following the guru’s advice, fulfilling his wishes; we are
serving the guru.
Also, meditating, studying such things as the lam-rim, the commentaries and the
philosophical teachings—learning the Dharma and integrating it into our practice—is what
the guru wishes us to do, and doing all that is also serving the guru, fulfilling his advice.
Whatever else the guru has advised us to do, such as retreat or to teach the Dharma, is also
service to the guru. So we do not have to be with the guru. We can be far away, on another
planet or wherever.
In general, anything that benefits sentient beings and helps liberate them from suffering is
service to the guru because that is exactly what he advises. That is fulfilling the guru’s wishes.
We also need to recognize any physical or verbal action of the guru, even dancing, as an
action of the buddha’s holy body. Whatever the guru does is the holy action of a buddha;
whatever the guru says is the holy speech of a buddha.
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