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44 EASTERN HORIZON | FACE TO FACE
Finding the True
Guru in our Practice
By Venerable Stephen Carlier
Steve was born in Benny: Can you tell us how you first encountered
Surrey, England, in Buddhism, and what motivated you to become a
1956. After Lancaster monk?
University he moved
into Manjushri Steve: This takes me back a long time. Many years. Yet
Institute in the English those experiences are somehow with me all the time.
Lake District in 1978, I was studying at Lancaster University. It would have
and became a monk been late 1977. I had joined a society there that invited
Buddhists of various persuasions to give talks. Looking
in 1979. He has been
back I found that quite surprising. Why did I do that? I
a monk ever since. In
wasn’t at all interested in religion. So I went to a couple
1982 he moved to
of those talks, but I didn’t follow up. Then one day my
Nalanda Monastery friend Sam and I were walking through campus on our
in the south of France, where he studied with the way to a party and he saw a hand-written notice saying
late Khensur Rinpoche Jampa Tegchog, eventually that there would be talks on Tibetan Buddhism. Sam
becoming his translator. He accompanied this had heard good things about Tibetan Buddhism, and
great master to Sera Monastery in the south of said we should go. Which we did. The speaker was
India when he was appointed Abbot there in 1993. Dieter Kratzer, a German monk in the Tibetan Buddhist
He stayed on till 2005, following the traditional tradition. Not that long after, Sam and I visited The
curriculum, attending debate, prayers, and so Priory, in the Lake District, where Dieter was living at
on. Since 2005 till the present he has been based the time.
at Land of Medicine Buddha, initially for the
After that I visited a few more times, and then in 1978,
purpose of translating for the same Khensur
after the last of my finals, I moved in. That Summer
Rinpoche. For the May issue of EH, Venerable Steve
Lama Yeshe and Lama Zopa, as we knew them then,
kindly consented to an interview with Benny Liow
escorted their teacher, Kyabje Zong Rinpoche, for a
regarding how he first encountered the Dharma,
course at The Priory. Zong Rinpoche was a great master.
taking refuge in the Three Jewels, role of the He conferred initiations and taught the Dharma. One
teacher in the Tibetan tradition, and how to find of the initiations was into the practice of Lama Tsong
the right guru. Khapa Guru Yoga. Lama Yeshe gave a few talks on this
practice, and left us all with the commitment to do an
18-day retreat. During that retreat, which I did that
Winter, I decided I wanted to devote my life to this path,
and decided that to do so I would have to become a
monk, which I did the following year---1979.
