An Extract from Volume V of ‘Goodbye Forever’ by Ngak’chang Rinpoche

Published by Aro Books worldwide. Edited by 'ö-Dzin Tridral and Nor'dzin Pamo.

Kyabjé Künzang Dorje Rinpoche looked at me intently.
“You are not like this doing — but many are like this doing. Studying with Lama must—not—like ‘deer killing — and musk extracting’.”
To kill a deer to extract musk and then leave the corpse to rot is an act of extreme greed and callousness. There are people who act like this toward the Lama because they think that it is the Lama’s information which is important. They go always to the highest Lama asking for the rarest teachings.
This is what traders do when they go to foreign countries looking for what is best. They want the best to bolster their mercantile reputations — and so they sell at a greater profit.
Such people want to get special information from the Lama in order to possess it. They want to impress other people by telling them of the secrets they have learned. They want to say that they have ‘this secret’ and others do not have it.
Information however, is worthless without transmission. If a person does not understand that devotion is indispensable for transmission, then what they receive will merely be words. The Lama’s teaching cannot be separated from the Lama.
It is similar to when a lover says ‘I love you’. What do the words ‘I love you’ mean —— if they are not genuinely connected with the one who speaks them?
These words could be uttered in a play or a film — and although they seem real, they are only the words of an actor.
No matter how skilful the actor, the emotion portrayed cannot leave the context of the play or film.
What does ‘I love you’ mean, if you do not also love the person who utters the words? The words are merely sounds.
It is the same when receiving a teaching. If you have the direct insight into the fact that the Lama completely lives what is being taught – then what is taught will have an extraordinary power. You will give these words absolute attention.
If you believe that the Lama’s teaching is information which you can possess as words – then you might not even write them down accurately.