Transcript of the Heart Sutra Teaching by G. Kelsang Wangmo

Thank you, Jeff.

Should I ever write a transcript then I will send it to you.
It might be useful for the people who participated in the teaching.

Geshe Wangmo speaks quite fast and it is worth it to go through each word and its meaning again and again.

Hope to go on a brief retreat to Kopan Monastery end of June.

Tamara

That was a really neat recording, Tamara, thanks for posting the link. Dan said he liked it as well. I could not quite make out the name of the person talking, the student of Trungpa Rinpoche. Did you catch his name?

Thanks, Tamara. No, I understood it was something you found online. Even though the recording is in the format of a story, like, "the First Time We Met Rinpoche," it ended up being a very good and succinct teaching, don't you think? I am always very impressed with the students of Trungpa Rinpoche who went on to become teachers, such as this Rigdzin Shikpo and Pema Chodren. That more than anything impresses me about Trungpa Rinpoche. His own story is a little depressing. I believe even realized beings can exhibit poor judgement and self-indulgent behavior. I don't simply assume it is all "Crazy Wisdom." I mean I say this knowing everything that happens is ultimately the display of enlightenment, but that kind of recognition applies to everyone and everything, not just Tulkus like Trungpa Rinppche. But I believe he did know the essence of what he called Maha Malti and managed to pass it on to several students who themselves have a lot of students and so forth. So that is wonderful, his Dharma work is really bearing fruit.

I found the recording very helpful. Mostly as a good reminder, but it also brought back some things my first Lama told me, that were hard to understand at the time.

Tamara wrote:


Just to expand on what Tamara says--or what I think she is saying--this is from Dzongsar Jamyang Khyentse's Not for Happiness(pp83-4):

"...Our world is a judgmental one and we all know that when the U.S. president or a multimillionaire sportsman is caught doing something remotely fishy, a big deal will be made of it by their rivals and particularly by the media. This same kind of judgmental mind is often directed at a guru as students attempt to assess his value based on their own versions of how a morally upright and dependable person should behave. The problem is, though, that the more spiritually mature that a student becomes, the higher the truths they seek, and over time a guru must necessarily be able to provide them with quite different kinds of inspiration. Beginners are often inspired by a guru's humility and simplicity. Later on, though, when the time comes to start smashing concepts apart, if a guru is stuck with the appearance and character of a 'moral' renunciate, he will be unable to be challenging enough to break down the barriers inhibiting a student's progress.

"A willingness to be inspired and a tendency to be turned off are both relative reactions: some people are inspired by the sight of a serene monk with a begging bowl; others by a half-drunk, half-naked yogi. Certain vajrayana students derive far more inspiration from the sight of a bizarrely dressed guru sporting a good deal of gold jewelry and breaking all the rules of social etiquette than a perfect monk, which, again, shows that the sources of our inspiration are both relative and subjective. Not only does each one of us find inspiration in different places, but what inspires a fifteen-year-old will no longer have the same effect once that person hits forty.

"So, however close our scrutiny of each guru, however many ways we try to evaluate his worth, and however logical and reasonable our arguments may be, it's important to bear in mind that all methods are limited and to trust our own logic and analysis 100 percent would be extremely foolish."


Also, there are the four reliances:


I was reminded in this review of Chogyam Trungpa's The Profound Treasury of the Ocean of Dharma series--three volumes covering the three turnings of the wheel of Dharma--that "Chogyam," itself, means "ocean of Dharma."
melong.com/?p=1253

May your journey to Kopan be fruitful for your dharma practice, Tamara.