An excerpt from a teaching called Viewing the Guru: The Seven Limb Puja by Jetsunma Ahkon Norbu Lhamo on October 18, 1995
The next posture that we maintain constantly is that of rejoicing. Constantly rejoice. This posture of rejoicing actually isn’t like, “Walk around being happy!” That would be like putting on a false face. You have all this samsaric past in you and yet you’re putting this happy face on it. That’s not what we’re talking about.
We’re talking about rejoicing in the accomplishments of the Buddhas and the Bodhisattvas, of all those who have achieved realization. We’re talking about rejoicing in the accomplishments of others. In the face of the Guru, as the Guru’s child and inseparable from the Guru’s nature, instead we say, “Oh, this one has crossed the ocean of suffering,” and rejoice in the accomplishment of the Guru. The accomplishment of the Guru reflects on one’s own karma, if you think about it. “I rejoice in the accomplishment of the Guru, and now I am in the presence of the Guru, and now the accomplishment of the Guru then becomes available to me, as well.” How do you think the accomplishment of the Guru could ever become available to you if you do not rejoice in that respectfully, if you do not give rise to the recognition of the joy of that? If you say, “Well, I wonder what she really has accomplished? I mean, let’s think about it. I mean she really doesn’t pay much attention to facts. She doesn’t know any of those lists.” You know those lists that you all have to know? So you might be saying to yourself, “She doesn’t know any of those lists, so how good can she be?” So that’s the kind of thought that you might have about your teacher, and maybe in this case you would be right. But in this case you would be wrong for you, because it doesn’t help you to think like that! If you find fault in the face of your Guru, you will never achieve realization. Period. That’s it. If you don’t recognize the nature of the Guru, you cannot recognize your own nature. It simply will not occur. So instead, we recognize the qualities of the Guru. We see that this is the very extension of Guru Rinpoche’s miraculous compassion, that this is primordial empty nature and luminosity, non-dual, expressed in the world in a form that I can understand. This is beyond flaw. Because that’s what it is. It is not a human being. It is not a samsaric being. It is not a prop. It is not a thing. It is not ‘out there.’ It is the very display of our nature, in a form that we can recognize. So we rejoice in that.
That’s how it’s relevant to our practice, but in general, rejoicing in the welfare of those who have accomplished Dharma includes rejoicing in the Buddhas who have crossed the ocean of suffering and returned for the sake of sentient beings: rejoicing in the Bodhisattvas who hold back from the brink of nirvana for the sake of sentient beings; rejoicing even in practitioners who have accomplished, who are now accomplishing, Dharma in order to benefit sentient beings. When you hear that one of your peers has completed Ngondro or completed some other practice, or had a really profound relationship with their practice or they are really going into it and they are really moving on it, the faulty human tendency would be to say, “Well, I could do that.” Or, “Well, yeah, but they’re not taking out the garbage! I mean, they’re practicing all day, but you never see them take out the garbage.” That’s the kind of tendency that we have.
Instead, we are talking about constantly rejoicing in the achievements of others. That is a way to increase your own accomplishment as well. But in terms of practicing with the Guru, you should think that, in fact, we are looking at the face of primordial nature, we are looking at the nature of emptiness, at the display of luminosity. The Guru appears in the world, and we are rejoicing in the accomplishment of the Guru, rejoicing in the magical, mystical and miraculous appearance in the world, for the sake of sentient beings. We are constantly rejoicing in that to where there is no room for grasping and clinging and judging and all those things that we normally do.
© Jetsunma Ahkön Lhamo