We’re all sleeping until we reach supreme enlightenment, but most are really sleeping in a very profound way. In that coma, they are not even able to say, “I want”. They merely act out, and they act out in different ways.
While we are still asleep and until we achieve supreme realization, the fact that you are here listening to teachings is the evidence to know that you have felt that longing. You should find it and relate to it purely. You should encourage it in that it is a dynamo of energy by which to really touch the nature that you are seeking, that the bliss that you want, the union between the student and the teacher.
But you are so ashamed to feel that feeling directly, because you’re so macho, you’re so tough, or you’re so cool or you’re so advanced. You are so ashamed to feel that feeling that you want to say, “Oh, the longing for the Teacher is only me longing for my own nature”. Well, yes, it is that, but you should face directly the longing for the teacher on the deepest level. You should not be ashamed of that. You were ashamed of it as a child and you were taught not to feel it and this longing created a lot of mistakes for you. You should not be ashamed of that now.
I have that longing. I have it, it is the strongest longing, I cannot imagine another longing like it. I live with that longing constantly. I use that longing to provide the means by which I can accomplish Dharma, or I can accomplish kindness for all sentient beings. I realize that the true longing is the longing for the Guru, it’s the longing for my Teacher, for the Guru on all of the different levels, on the apparent level as well as the deepest, most primordial level. And I realize that I will only find that longing satisfied so long as I try to live the qualities that are my Guru.
So, if I were to turn away from students and say, “Oh, I don’t want to do this anymore, I’m tired,” or, “I’m lonely doing this. I don’t want to do this anymore.” If I were to do that, I would never find my Guru. I would never be with my Guru, because those are the qualities of my Guru. My Guru never leaves me. He cannot turn his face from me. And so, that being the case, if I were to turn my face away from anyone that had hopes of me, it would be hopeless. I would never find the Guru. The longing would never be satisfied, because I would have turned my face away.
You must begin to practice in such a way that the face of the Teacher is understood in everything that you do. No matter what you experience, whether it is loss or whether it is having, whether it is joy or whether it is sadness, whether it is life or it is death, whether it is sickness or health, poverty or wealth, whatever you experience, you should think that everything you experience is a blessing from the root Guru.
Copyright © Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo. All rights reserved
This is powerful. Thank you, Guru a million times.
Thank you Jetsunma.