..续本文上一页teacher, you don”t run away when you”re insulted or uncomfortable, and that”s the real value. You hang in there and they help you through it.

　　Elizabeth Namgyel: Since having a teacher is such a unique relationship, what attitude should students take toward a teacher

　　Pema Chödrön: In It”s Up to You, the primary focus is self-reflection. Rinpoche has said that whether you have a teacher or not, the key is self-reflection. You need to be interested in reflecting on yourself, and also willing not to bail out. Because when you look at yourself closely, you will see not merely your wisdom-mind, you will also see your craziness, neuroses, and lack of kindness.

　　To obtain enlightenment you need a deep heart-connection to someone whose sole motivation is waking you up. Without the strong connection, when your buttons get pushed and it”s really tough, you”re automatically going to feel betrayed and disliked. Just when you think the teacher is your best friend, they don”t look at you, they don”t call on you. Yet, it is a relationship of the deepest intimacy, because all of your secrets are exposed, to yourself if not to anybody else.

　　What I”m describing is devotion. It”s a relationship you stick with, through thick and thin, in order to obtain enlightenment. And it”s based on a love that can withstand strong challenges.

　　Dzigar Kongtrül: There are teachers you meet with whom you feel a very strong connection. You feel quite moved by the teacher”s qualities and presence, their sense of accomplishment. This is the nature of devotion at the beginning of one”s path.

　　Over time, though, being a student involves training in the path of dharma. One learns not merely in the academic sense of knowing what the teachings are, but also in the sense of learning how to integrate your mind with the teachings. As a result, a transformation may take place in your mind, such that you have more freedom from conflicting emotions, which in the past may have left you completely clueless. You may not be successful in overcoming them every time you are challenged, but at least you have some positive results in working with them.

　　This causes you to be grateful to the teacher, and you can extend that gratitude to the lineage masters, and ultimately to the Buddha. The gratitude can also extend to appreciating difficult circumstances you face, because they can transform you. You can feel that kind of appreciation toward people who cause you pain or difficulty. You can feel quite free to have that kind of widespread gratitude because you are not being oppressed by your own mind and the unpredictable mess you had been trapped in.

　　This gratitude is important, because it undercuts self-importance—the sense that it is me who has these great qualities and me who has worked so hard to achieve them—which threatens to destroy all that one accomplishes or cultivates.

　　Pema Chödrön: Can you say something about your own teacher, Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche, challenging you, in the way I was talking about

　　Dzigar Kongtrül: I quite often felt challenged by my teacher”s command or simple presence, or what I perceived as displeasure. Sometimes it was just silence, or the teacher looking at me with a certain deep penetration. Yet, I wonder whether it was actually the teacher”s intention to challenge. I think my own mind was projected onto the teacher. I would hold a judgment and project that onto the teacher. In fact, I was dealing with my own mind and its habits, including negative habits that I was not ready to give up, despite the fact that they were dragging me down. There was a dualism going on in my mind: I wanted to be good and then found myself not so good. I wanted to impress the teacher but was not able to because I could not be free of certain thoughts…

《Let’s Be Honest》全文未完，请进入下页继续阅读…