Installing the portrait of His Holiness the Dalai Lama in the Kopan Gompa. Lama Yeshe and Lama Zopa with other monks offering prayers, Kopan Monastery, Nepal, 1972. Photo courtesy of Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive.

In the early 1970s, Lama Thubten Yeshe (1935–1984), who founded FPMT with Lama Zopa Rinpoche, gave Sunday afternoon lectures to foreigners at Kopan Monastery in Nepal. These mostly young people would come from where they were staying in the immediate vicinity (very few people were able to stay at Kopan at the time) or Kathmandu to hear Lama Yeshe teach.

The following teaching excerpt comes from one of these Sunday afternoon sessions with Lama Yeshe. This teaching, which took place on January 2, 1972, is an example of how early Western students experienced Lama Yeshe, who was thirty-six years old at the time, and of his remarkable ability to connect with them.

So I think you people have gained enough intellectual understanding but have not yet actualized the teachings to the point of gaining realizations. Therefore, at this stage you need to say, “I understand that I’ve been following my old habits for countless lives. I no longer want to go on like this; I want to stop following the interpretations of my wrong conceptions.” If you begin to experiment and act in accordance with your intellectual understanding then you’ll really affect your mind.

Otherwise, you might know all the words, but when real trouble comes you go berserk, the same as you always have. If you don’t change your mind, you will continue to react in the same old way, no matter who you are—a lama, a yogi, a meditator in a cave— arrogantly thinking, “I’m special.” If you get down and depressed when difficulties arise, that shows you have no understanding.

The ancient Mahayana practitioners of India and Tibet would first listen to teachings and study deeply. When they felt they had gained enough knowledge, they would go into solitude and, avoiding all contact with other people, look completely within and experiment with inner realizations. It’s now necessary for you people to do the same thing.

What’s the point of listening, listening, listening to teachings, collecting words, but then not integrating what you’ve heard with your mind or gaining realizations? You’re not here to learn language from me! Your English is much better than mine. You’re not here just to listen and collect words; don’t believe that it’s only through listening to words that you can gain realizations. That’s a wrong conception.

You have to integrate into experience whatever you understand. Once you have gained experience and realization of one topic you need to go on to the next, which takes you further down the path. Without moving forward step by step, it’s impossible to progress; you can’t simply collect high-sounding words while leaving your actions down here on the ground. Collecting words that talk of flying to the moon doesn’t mean you fly to the moon; with words alone you remain earthbound. It’s the same if you think arrogantly that you can get higher realizations simply by listening to Lama’s words. Without actualizing that which you understand and integrating it within you, you can’t.

We think we learn from people: “I spent a long time with him and learned a lot.” What did you learn? I don’t think you learn from somebody by spending time with that person. You learn from yourself, from what your own mind says—everything’s in there. For example, the thoughts of everybody in the universe are already within you, so you can learn from your own mind; others’ expressions are already within your mind; if you listen to yourself, to your mind, you’ll find others’ expressions are there. So you might say, “I’m learning from him,” but I don’t think you are. Listen to your own mind; check yourself—that’s the way to learn and solve your own inner problems. I don’t think it’s so beneficial to always be looking, listening, and searching outside. That’s just externalism.

Check up, for example, why you can’t stay alone for a week without seeing or talking to anybody. Why can’t you? What makes it difficult? The difficulty comes from your own mind.

You should realize that all such experiences—happiness, peace, good, bad—completely depend on the interpretation of the individual wrong conception mind. If you realize the teachings beyond words, you’ll really be able to solve your inner problems.

Edited by Nicholas Ribush. You can read a full version of this teaching as a PDF from Mandala July-December 2019.

You can also find this teaching and many others like it from Lama Yeshe in The Enlightened Experience: Collected Teachings, Volume 1, an ebook by the Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive (https://www.lamayeshe.com/). The ebook is a compilation of teachings given by Lama Yeshe in the 1970s and 1980s, when he traveled the world extensively with Lama Zopa Rinpoche and taught at many courses, seminars, and public talks.

Through timely advice, news stories, and update, FPMT.org and Mandala Publications share the wisdom culture inspired and guided by the teachings of FPMT founders Lama Thubten Yeshe and Lama Thubten Zopa Rinpoche.