The Heart of the Path: Seeing the Guru as Buddha by Lama Zopa Rinpoche & Ailsa Cameron

Author:Lama Zopa Rinpoche & Ailsa Cameron
Language: eng
Format: azw3
ISBN: 9781891868214
Publisher: Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive
Published: 2009-02-15T00:00:00+00:00

Like a person with jaundice sees a white conch as yellow,

Because the veils of my evil karma and obscurations are so thick,

I see the faultless as having only faults.

How is it possible that in fact they have faults and vices?

As I have mentioned a couple of times before, Sunakshatra was Guru Shakyamuni Buddha’s attendant for twenty-two years but during all those years he always saw Buddha as just an ordinary being. Even though Guru Shakyamuni Buddha had become enlightened an unimaginable time before, Sunakshatra never looked at him as a buddha; he didn’t see a single good quality in Buddha during those twenty-two years and instead saw only faults. He saw Shakyamuni Buddha as only a liar. Why did he see Buddha as a liar? Because he looked at Buddha as only a liar and not as an enlightened being. Since he looked at Buddha as only a liar, that is how Buddha appeared to him. Sunakshatra said, “I served Shakyamuni Buddha for twenty-two years and I didn’t see in him a good quality even the size of a sesame seed.”

When Buddha went begging for alms and people made offerings to him, Buddha would explain the result of that karma. In a small village one day, a girl offered a handful of grain in Buddha’s begging bowl. Buddha then predicted that as a result of her offering, in the future she would be reborn as the arhat Supranihita. Sunakshatra couldn’t believe what Buddha told the girl. How could someone become an arhat just from offering a handful of grain? He generated heresy toward Buddha, thinking that Buddha was simply flattering the girl because she had made an offering to him. It didn’t occur to Sunakshatra, who didn’t have omniscience or clairvoyance, that Buddha was making a prediction. He didn’t see Guru Shakyamuni Buddha as even sincere.

Buddha then asked him, “Do you know that from planting a small seed a huge tree that can cover five hundred horse-carriages can grow?” Sunakshatra said, “Yes, I know that.” Buddha replied, “No, it doesn’t exist.” Sunakshatra said, “Oh, yes, it exists, because it is my experience. I know it exists.” Buddha then said, “It is also my experience that by giving one handful of grain this woman can achieve arhatship.” Sunakshatra then had nothing to say.

If, from our side, we don’t look at our guru as a buddha, we won’t see him as a buddha. If we look at only the faults, we will see only faults in our guru. We will look at him as an ordinary being and will then always see him only as an ordinary being, as Sunakshatra did. By looking at our guru as a buddha, by training our mind in this pure view, we will then see him as a buddha.

Even if our guru is a buddha, we don’t necessarily see him as a buddha because what we see accords with our own karma. If we have a pure mind and pure karma, we see a buddha; if our mind is obscured by impure karma, we see an ordinary being with faults.

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