LAMA YESHÉ

Back in the 1970’s, Lama Yeshé was known as the Hippy Lama. His first western student Zina Rachevsky introduced him to the scruffy travelers with whom he practiced English, and who in turn congregated eagerly around him. However, there was much more to Lama Thubten Yeshé than colorful language. He wasn’t afraid to wander away from traditional Tibetan explanations, and was genuinely fascinated by the western mind, particularly the illusions of consumerism. Lama Yeshé had a passionate – and among the early Tibetan refugees highly unusual – interest in things non-Tibetan. My first encounter with him was in 1975, in Kopan Monastery, Nepal, during the annual one-month meditation course.
The following account is extracted from preliminary drafts of The Novice.

We made three head-to-ground bows and settled down as Lama Yeshé chanted a slow mantra. The monks and nuns joined in, and the rest of us mumbled along. Lama then lapsed into silence, his face losing all expression. When he finally opened his eyes he looked around curiously and rocked from side to side. The silence was so prolonged, and he seemed so content to look at us, that any sense of expectancy faded. We sat patiently. Only then did he begin to talk, picking his words carefully.
    “Meditation that clarifies who we are,” he began, “is worthwhile. But … if it makes you more confused, then it’s not.” He stared at us enquiringly. “If you come looking for academic explanations of Buddhism you’ll be disappointed. The purpose of this course,” he stated firmly, “is to see our own minds for what they are. This is simple, not complicated.” He smiled mischievously and the crowd rustled.
    He fell silent, rocking back and forth, fingering his rosary and scrutinizing us. The audience fidgeted. He continued with a theatrical arsenal of words, gesticulations and facial expressions. He went over each thought thoroughly, like a writer working a paragraph, sometimes discarding whole metaphors and starting over. He smiled and laughed often, fully engaged in his task.
    “All goodness and badness, highness and lowness, samsara and nirvana come from mind.” He meandered, adding civilization, houses, philosophy and doctrines to the list. “Everything comes from mind,” he said. “All causation is mind – your self, your senses, your sense organs, your physical and mental energy.”
    “You know,” he said, “They say the East is more superstitious than the West, but in my opinion…,” he paused for dramatic effect, “the West is far more superstitious. For example,” he grinned, “Supermarkets!”
    There were a few hesitant chuckles.
    In shaky English but with faultless command of his audience he elaborated a hilarious metaphor, parodying consumerism and the cycle of branding, advertising, desire and money. He reminded us not to take his ideas at face value but to draw on our own experience and figure things out for ourselves. “You check up,” he admonished repeatedly.
    He reminded us that we’d left the comforts of home to come and sit cross-legged for hours at a time in the hope of finding something to believe in. “People in the West,” he commented, “are led into desiring objects that just increase their need for more. But these things aren’t satisfactory,” he said. “Otherwise once you get one, you wouldn’t want more – you’d be satisfied. But the more you’ve got, the more you want. Right?” he demanded emphatically. “Dissatisfaction is on the increase, not satisfaction!” He laughed.
    “Superstition makes you act, leaving an imprint in the mind that produces its own fruit – another action. Superstition is like the air moving over the ocean, causing waves, altering the shape of the planet, casting up landmasses. Just like that, superstition shakes the mind and creates shapes, colors and all kinds of different things. This is karma.”
    He described the superstitious mind as deluded and unclear, and made a motion of stirring liquid in a pot. “Your minds are like this, you know? The unclear mind perceives an unclear vision which has nothing whatever to do with reality, yet the superstitious mind still believes in its object.”
    Our sense of an unchanging self is illusory. We even think it’s in control. But the mind is a rushing stream of conscious moments, bumping into each other like billiard balls. A small act, especially a habitual one, provokes a stream of karmic fruits that overwhelm us and make us act in spite of ourselves. That’s why meditation’s so tough.
    He continued, “The uncontrolled energy produced by the deluded mind activates other karmic imprints, because karma is governed by the mind. Each time you act you make karma. You have a billion, billion karmic seeds,” he threw his hands in the air, “because every movement of mind is an action, a karmic movement. You understand? In one hour you make a hundred karmas. It doesn't matter if your body is sitting this way,” he moved into an exaggerated meditation posture. “Your mind is still moving, shaken by superstition.”
    “You’re driven by karmic seeds, by the force of your own accumulated actions, and still you think you have freedom of choice! But how do you know what kind of life you’ll have tomorrow? You think you can choose your life? What an ego-trip!” He pursued his advantage. “Why do you even want this kind of life? No one really knows what they want! Most decisions in your life are made by the uncontrolled, superstitious mind.”
    He was now leaning forward eagerly, snapping his fingers in the air and saying, “Buddha’s teaching is simple. You understand? Simple!” He looked around. “Especially in the West, you think the mind is something permanent. This is the worst superstition. You don’t remember how short and impermanent life is. You never remember! You can become a kind of social outcast by questioning life’s permanence – mentioning the unmentionable. And from your sense of permanence you make life plans that are impossible. They can never succeed.”
    He frowned, watched our response and pieced together his next words. “Maybe you don’t understand what I mean by impermanence. Some people say it’s the process of birth, then life, then death. But Lord Buddha explained impermanence as momentary change.” He gestured to the tent and the surrounding buildings. “We see last year’s Kopan like this year’s – it’s still there, so we treat Kopan as permanent, but it’s not. You hold this misconception because you don’t see the subtle, momentary changes.”
    He grabbed a roll of tissue, tearing off pieces and saying, “Permanence … I want this stuff. I want to use it, but I want to keep it.” He grasped his head comically, “I’m losing it!” He paused. “Understand? I want more, more, more, more!” He tapped his breastbone. “It leaves me with an unpleasant feeling, here. Grasping at permanence makes me want to have this toilet paper always. Understand? Desire produces uncontrolled action in the mind.” His eyes were wide as saucers. “How could you think anything else?”
    “You know, everything you learned in school made you more complicated. The teachers meant well. They tried to give you a profession, so you’d make money and be happy.” He paused and looked around, “but this is just more superstition.” A nervous shuffle ran through the audience. “Superstition colors everything. If Buddhism makes you happy you might pursue those happy feelings through meditation, but this is just another form of grasping, just another ego-trip. Now, checking up in your own mind to see what’s really true – that’s meditation.”
    He showed how we responded to Buddhism as consumers, with exaggerated desire. “When you hear about Kopan and the fantastic meditation, you say, “It's too much! It’s incredible! Far out!” He was delighted by his choice of words. “Ya, Western culture’s incredible. That’s why you come, isn’t it? But it won’t help if your contact with Dharma just increases superstition. Even when we talk about reality, you like to hear fancy Buddhist words like ‘sunyata,’ but you don’t want to see that your vision, all your vision, comes from mind! If you don't realize that, it’s impossible for you to realize sunyata!”
    “That's why Lord Buddha's teaching is so simple. Simple! You understand? Simple!” He snapped his fingers and watched us attentively. “You don't need to believe anything, just go into your own mind and check up, right now. Right now you can experience meditation. Enlightenment is realization that comes from the mind. That’s all.”

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LAMA YESHÉ