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Lama Yeshe teaching at Olinda, Australia, July 1976. Photo courtesy of Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive.
Lama Yeshe, who founded FPMT with Lama Zopa Rinpoche, had a remarkable ability to connect with Western students. What follows are questions and answers from a teaching Lama Yeshe gave in July 1976 to Australian students on how we exist in the world. In these teaching, Lama Yeshe also spoke on karma and willpower:
Question: It seems that Buddhism revolves around shunyata. Could you please explain what that is, what absolute nature is?
Lama Yeshe: Modern science has discovered that all matter—different colors, different objects and so forth—may appear differently, but there is some essential energy, some quality, that embraces all existent matter equally. Buddhism says the same thing. There is an absolute reality, shunyata, that equally embraces all existence. But our relative mind, our mundane thought, cannot see this. It is obscured by superstition.
Therefore, when you meditate or contemplate on your mind, your consciousness, as your concentration deepens this relative perception vanishes. You can release all superstition and relative appearances and experience universal reality. Is that clear? It’s a difficult thing, but the human problem is not understanding the reality of what we are.
Q: Is it possible to discover absolute nature without a guru?
Lama: Sure. It’s possible. When we talk about a guru we’re not saying you need one in this life. Some people are born having already discovered absolute nature. Therefore you can’t say you need a guru to discover it. Even among us here, some people are quite advanced, others have a long way to go. So you cannot say “that-this” exactly. It depends how developed your intelligence is.
Actually, we talk about both relative guru and absolute guru. The relative guru is the person who shows you the path and puts your mind into the right channel. The absolute guru is your own wisdom. Therefore, the absolute guru is more important than the relative.
Q: Lama, do you feel a sense of “I,” and if so, could you explain its nature?
Lama: Do you mean do I feel I have an “I”? [Yes.] Of course I have an “I”—a big “I”! Yes, for sure!
But that’s a good question. I have a big “I,” but you have to be careful. Whether we’re a buddha or a sentient being, we all, equally, have a relative “I.” But we sentient beings paint our relative I over and over again, layer upon layer, coat upon coat. Although deep within, the I is completely nothing, Layer upon layer, we build up a huge, hallucinated world, “This is me.” Then, when somebody says to us, “You are bad,” we get terribly hurt. Actually, nobody can make us bad, nobody can make us good. Our goodness or badness is our own experience. But the intellect is too much, too much. That’s the way it is.
You may read the complete teaching in the Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive’s July 2020 E-letter. Lama Yeshe gave this teaching in Olinda, Victoria, Australia, 30 July 1976. Archive #776. Edited by Nicholas Ribush. See Big Love: The Life and Teachings of Lama Yeshe, Volume 1, Chapter 15, “Melbourne: The Olinda Course” for the context of this teaching.
Through timely advice, news stories, and updates, 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.