Rig’dzin Dorje - Dangerous Friend: The Teacher-Student Relationship in Vajrayana Buddhism

A vibrant, provocative work.

Tricycle

ABOUT THE BOOK

Although Tibetan Buddhism continues to grow in popularity, the crucial relationship between teacher and student remains largely misunderstood. Dangerous Friend offers an in-depth exploration of this mysterious and complex bond, a relationship of paramount importance in Tibetan Buddhist practice.

According to Tibetan Buddhist tradition, the student must have complete trust in the teacher (the dangerous friend) if he or she is to achieve any understanding. It is the teachers responsibility to uphold the integrity of the tradition, the basis of which is compassion for all beings, by transmitting it properly to an appropriate student. Likewise, it is the students responsibility to meet the challenge of carrying on the lineage of teachings. By entering such a relationship, both teacher and student accept the burden of protecting those teachings by understanding them completely and correctly, by practicing them fully and faultlessly, and by transmitting them without omission.

Dangerous Friend includes discussions of the following topics:

RIGDZIN DORJE is a practitioner and teacher in the Nyingma School of Vajrayana Buddhism. He is currently spiritual director, in the lineage of the Aro gTer, of Buddhist centers throughout Europe, and he spends much of his time traveling and teaching. He lives in London with his wife and son.

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D ANGEROUS F RIEND

The Teacher-Student Relationship in Vajrayana Buddhism

RIGDZIN DORJE

SHAMBHALA

Boston & London

2013

S HAMBHALA P UBLICATIONS , I NC .

Horticultural Hall

300 Massachusetts Avenue

Boston, Massachusetts 02115

www.shambhala.com

2001 by Rigdzin Dorje

Cover art: Detail from a nineteenth-century Tibetan painting of Padmasambhava. Courtesy of www.himalayanart.org, used with permission of the Shelley and Donald Rubin Foundation.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Rig-dzin-rdo-rje.

Dangerous friend: the teacher-student relationship in Vajrayana Buddhism/Rig'dzin Dorje.Ist Shambhala ed.

p. cm.

Includes index.

eISBN 978-0-8348-2926-8

ISBN 1-57062-857-2 (pbk.)

1. Spiritual lifeTantric Buddhism. 2. Teacherstudent relationshipsReligious aspectsTantric Buddhism. 3. BuddhismChinaTibetDoctrines. I. Title

BQ8939.5 .R55 2001

294.361dc21

Dangerous Friend is dedicated to the long life, good health, and unimpeded activity of my root lamas, the Holders of Khyungchen Aro Lingmas Aro gTr lineage: Ngakchang Rinpoche, the incarnation of Aro Yesh, and Khandro Dchen, the incarnation of A-y Khandro.

It is dedicated also to their root lamas: His Holiness Dudjom Rinpoche, His Holiness Dilgo Khyents Rinpoche, Kyabj Knzang Dorje Rinpoche & Jomo Samphel, gTrtrl Chhi-md Rigdzin Rinpoche, and Khamtrl Yesh Dorje Rinpoche. Finally, although I have never had the great good fortune to meet them, I especially dedicate this book to Dungs Thrinl Norbu Rinpoche and Chgyam Trungpa Rinpoche.

May the authentic lineages of Vajrayana and their glorious lineage holders prevail over the minions of spiritual materialism and the four philosophical extremes for the benefit of everyone and everything everywhere.

Amongst my greatest Lamas I include a butcher, a prostitute, and a bandit.

Kyabj Knzang Dorje Rinpoche

A paranoid dogs loud barking is disrespectful to thieves but respectful to its master.

Dungs Thrinl Norbu Rinpoche, Magic Dance

The physician becomes wild, which is terrifying. We do not want to trust a wild doctor or surgeon. But we must.

Chgyam Trungpa Rinpoche, The Myth of Freedom

The Lama is none other than your own vajra nature, so yes: the ultimate vajra commitment is to your own vajra nature but only when you recognize that your mind is inseparable from the mind of your vajra master.

Khandro Dchen, Roaring Silence

The Lama is the terrifyingly compassionate gamester who reshuffles the deck of your carefully arranged rationale.

Ngakchang Rinpoche, Wearing the Body of Visions

One thing to find a guide. Another to follow him.

Ted Hughes, Badlands from The Birthday Letters

Questions are never dangerous until you answer them.

John le Carr, The Secret Pilgrim

CONTENTS

To acknowledge the influence of Ngakchang Rinpoche and Khandro Dchen on this book would be so inadequate as to be ridiculous. This book was written at their urgent request, to help counterbalance the writings of those who misguidedly seek to modify the essential structure of the Vajrayana. My root lamas are deeply concerned with what they describe as the perfidious publicity machine of a group of highly vocal western buddhist teachers, and their antagonism to authentic Vajrayana and its lineage lamas. They feel that, although vastly superior material on the role of the vajra master is available to the Buddhist public, much of this material could prove difficult reading for the majority of people most easily influenced by the smooth words of those who attempt to discredit the role of the vajra master. They also feel that a statement from a western disciple of western lamas would provide a cogent point of view; that is to say, I am not defending a culturally Tibetan position at the behest of a Tibetan lama. That I am a happily married man with a son and a family life serves to demonstrate the vivid appropriateness of the vajra master role to the west. Far from being an eastern mode that is inapplicable to western people, the traditional role of the vajra master is the very heart of all spiritual paths. The efforts of my root lamas to preserve the authentic Vajrayana in the west is expressed best by Dungs Thrinl Norbu Rinpoche in his colophon to a long-life prayer he wrote for Kyabj Knzang Dorje Rinpoche and Jomo Samphel, at the request of Ngakchang Rinpoche and Khandro Dchen:

Thus the world of the five great continents resounds. Residing in the western continent of Europe, an honorable holy hero, Ngakchang Ch-ying Gyamtso Rinpoche, and his consort holy heroine, Khandro Dchen Tsdrp Rolpai Yesh, who have unshakable, reasonable faith in the general teachings of the Buddhas and especially the priceless teachings of the great Vajrayana and their lineage holders, are fearlessly shooting the cannonball of logic with great compassion in order to annihilate and put on the correct path of enlightenment all those wild beings who are misunderstanding, with a reverse point of view and with intent, the teachings of the Buddhas and lineage holders of the teachings of the Buddhas. From their request through the path of letters, I, Thinley Norbu, immediately wrote this in front of dakas and dakinis.

The forbearance of my lamas with the time it has taken me to write this book has been humbling. It has been a time within which their own fertile productivity has been astonishing by contrast. My dilatoriness must be added to the debt I owe them for the entire content and quality of the life I now lead. This is a debt which, in the nature of Vajrayana, cannot be less than total. It will always remain beyond the possibility of repayment. This is a typical Tantric paradoxa debt that buoys me up rather than weighing me down. Wherever I go to teach, I have the opportunity to repay the kindness and insight which my lamas have painstakingly invested in me for so long by being sure to bring Ngakchang Rinpoche and Khandro Dchen to the awareness of others, as the constant focus of my gratitude. I wrote this book as a specific practice, as a servant of the Ngakphang sangha of the Nyingma tradition. Any credibility it may possess derives from the authenticity of my root lamas, whilst its inadequacies represent the gulf between my ability and their example.