Lesson 6 from A Comprehensive Commentary on the Words of My Perfect Teacher deepens the teaching on proper listening conduct, opening with Padampa Sangye's five similes for the stages of hearing, contemplating, meditating, action, and fruition — the deer entranced by music, the nomad shearing sheep, the mute tasting food, the hungry yak eating grass, and the sun breaking through clouds.
The lesson then elaborates extensively on the first simile: concentrated listening. Every other meritorious activity — reciting mantras, turning a prayer wheel, counting beads — must be set aside during teachings, because the merit of hearing the Dharma surpasses them all. A senior Khenpo is cited: at the moment of death, it was not his hundreds of millions of mantra recitations but his years of hearing Dharma that gave him certainty.
The lesson also clarifies the true nature of the teacher-disciple relationship: the teacher's sole responsibility is to transmit Dharma, and the disciple's is to remember and practise it — not to run errands or offer blind service. It closes by returning to the three defects of the vessel, warning that wrong motivation transforms nectar into poison.
