11/22/2025
🙏
Blessed to be with Dzongsar Rinpoche after ages. I had attended a few of his teachings long ago here in Nepal, and meeting him again brought back many memories and lessons.
There was a time when I struggled to feel devotion in Chinese, Japanese, or Korean temples. The Buddha statues looked so different from the images I grew up with, and somehow my heart couldn’t open in the same way.
Then, during one of his teachings, Rinpoche recited the line:
གང་ལ་གང་འདུལ་དེ་ལ་དེར་སྟོན་པའི།
(“You who teach each and every one of us according to our needs.”)
He explained how the Buddha manifests in countless forms—appearing in whatever way beings most need. Hearing this, something shifted deeply within me. I have listened to this quote hundreds of times before and had always accepted the Buddha’s ability to appear as animals, men, women, and all beings… yet I was still attached to a single physical form of the Buddha I grew up with.
Rinpoche’s teaching dissolved that last bit of attachment. Since then, whenever I see a Buddha image—no matter the style, the features, or the culture—my heart fills with the same devotion, the same recognition, the same refuge.
For this precious shift in my mind and heart, I feel eternally grateful. It is a teaching that felt perfectly timed, as if spoken directly and solely for me.
