“This picture has been a reminder that my teacher knows my heart.”

I received this on my 24th birthday. At the time, I was living at the Madhyamaka Buddhist Centre in York, England, and was very much caught up in Tibetan Buddhism and its whole Shangri-la image. But I was becoming aware of some conflict between various Tibetan traditions; I was confused, questioning, and, in hindsight, perhaps experiencing some healthy disillusionment.

As it happened, I was going to see my teacher, Geshe Kelsang Gyatso, who had gone into three-year retreat in the wilds of Scotland. When I arrived, we sat down to tea and somehow through the course of our conversation, just naturally, it felt like he was addressing a lot of the concerns I’d been having. Later, as we were about to leave, someone said, “Oh, it’s Morten’s birthday,” and Geshe Kelsang jumped up, ran into his shrine room, and came back with a brown paper bag, which he handed to me. I pulled out this photograph and he said, “It’s Buddha; it’s all you need.”

That kind of stayed with me, almost like a mantra.

For 30 years, this picture has been a visceral reminder that my teacher knows my heart—and of his encouragement to focus on the essence of Buddha’s teachings and not on the conflicts people bring to it. But getting attached to the photograph would be a misunderstanding of its nature: An image of Buddha is simply a representation of an actual state of mind—enlightenment—that we all have the potential for. My intention with this, and with everything I have, is that sooner or later I’m going to give it on.

~ Morten Clausen, Eastern U.S. national spiritual director and resident teacher, Kadampa Meditation Center, New York, NY