Dangerous Friend by Rig’dzin Dorje

June became a month of returning to Rig’dzin Dorje’s Dangerous Friend: The Teacher–Student Relationship in Vajrayana Buddhism, a book I first discovered during a difficult period in March 2025. At the time, I was searching for clarity around experiences I could feel deeply but could not yet fully understand. More than a year later, I found myself reading the same pages with a different awareness, shaped by recovery and by encounters with teachers who have shown me that guidance can feel entirely different.

Dangerous Friend: The Teacher–Student Relationship in Vajrayana Buddhism, Rig’dzin Dorje, 2001.

Dangerous Friend explores the complex relationship between teacher and student in Vajrayana Buddhism, where trust in a teacher holds a central place in spiritual practice. Rig’dzin Dorje reflects on how an appropriate teacher is recognised, the seriousness of entering such a relationship and the responsibilities carried by both sides. The student approaches the teachings with openness and commitment, while the teacher is entrusted with preserving and transmitting them with compassion and integrity.

On my first reading, I was looking for permission to question authority. This time, I noticed something quieter: discernment is not the opposite of trust. It is what makes trust responsible. A student’s openness does not remove the obligation to examine the person to whom that openness is offered.

As time passes and my own experiences become clearer, I keep returning to the same pages. The words have not changed, but they no longer feel as distant as they once did. I had read them before; I simply had not yet lived what they were asking me to understand.