Some people’s minds are filled with doubt and vacillation, doubting that they can ever come to certainty , and they waste their lives by repeatedly traveling to many lands. Some are carried away by viewing their teacher’s counsel as being wrong, and they fall into false views. Others take their own meditative practice to be harmful, and they constantly feel regret and wonder what to do. They think that if they were to go to some other famous spiritual teacher, that might help. Nowadays there is not a single spiritual teacher who is well versed in the nature of this path, the manner in which meditative experiences arise, and so forth. Thus, fearing that their reputation will decline, they cannot admit they do not know and are not familiar with those things. Some of them teach things that are their own mental fabrications, then tell others that their meditation is wrong. Others say, “Your guru doesn’t know how to teach, so you have been proceeding on a false path. Do this instead…” Teaching that their own level of instruction is all you need, they heap praise upon it. There are a great many who pompously declare that they can transfer their realization to others, saying, “I shall grant you my realization, our minds will merge, and you will simultaneously perfect all grounds and paths.” If that were possible, the buddhas would have transferred their state of realization to sentient beings, and samsara would already be empty. Specifically, if the minds of all the buddhas’ sravaka and pratyekabuddha disciples received the buddhas’ realizations by having their minds merged with the buddhas’, why would they be drawn far beyond the Hinayana? Do not place credence in pretentious assertions about transferring one’s realization.
— Dudjom Lingpa
BEATING THE POISONED DRUM 