I am reading a wonderful book about the teacher student relationship in Vajrayana Buddhism. These are my favorite quotes:
"The vajra master is dangerous in the sense of the danger a vaccuum cleaner poses to a carpet, or that a bath poses to body odour. The Lama is dangerous to our dualistic conceptions-but beyond that, he or she is the compassionate surgeon who saves our lives. The surgeon's knife cuts us open-but if there's a cancer to be removed, then the operation is to be welcomed." Trungpa Rinpoche
"The Lama is the ecstatic, wild, and gentle figure who short-circuits your systems of self-referencing. The Lama is the only person in your life who cannot be manipulated. The Lama is the invasion of unpredictability you allow into your life, to enable you to cut through the convolutions of interminable psychological and emotional processes. The Lama is the terrifyingly compassionate gamester, who re-shuffles the deck of your carefully arranged rationale. To enter into vajra commitment is to leap from the perfect precipice. To find yourself in the radiant space of this choiceless choice, is the very heart of Tantra. To leap open-eyed into the shining emptiness of the Lama's wisdom display, and to experience the ecstatic impact of each dynamic gesture of the Lama's method display is the essential luminosity and power of the path." Ngak'chang Rinpoche
"Among the false tertons there are many who are harmonious with people, who seem to have disciplined conduct, and are fortunate and charismatic. At the same time, among the authentic tertons there are many who are loose in speech and behavior and who, without the least hesitation, get involved in many activities that people will condemn. In that way the tertons take many grave obstructions of the doctrine on themselves in the form of infamy and ill repute and they use them for the practice of taking every experience in the great equal taste. One cannot judge tertons as inauthentic because of their imperfect mercurial character, even to to the slightest extent." Do-drupchen Rinpoche
"If those who lack realization form a committee which sets up standards to which their teacher must conform, then what could such teachers teach that such students could not teach themselves- without the necessity of having a teacher? If the committee is composed of realized beings, why should they dictate the behavior of other realized beings-when they understand that realized behavior is unbounded? If they do not understand that realized behavior is unbounded, then they are evidently not realized and therefore disqualified from making any comment on those who are." Ngak'chang Rinpoche and Khandro De'chen
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