The only person who can make you a teacher are students who come to study with you.

So it wasn’t my doing—it came completely out of the collective community, and out of people’s experience of how wonderful, beneficial and transformative their retreat practice and meditation practice had been. And then committees and board were formed, and people starting to look for land and so forth. But it was very much a collective effort and it was the fruit of ten years of a lot of people’s work and practice. I hardly did anything.

In many ways that’s really the way the Dharma unfolds. It’s rare that it’s an individual, it’s really much more sangha and community. The Dalai Lama said at one point, when we were having a series of teacher meetings with him, “I cannot make you a teacher. No one can make you a teacher. The only person who can make you a teacher are students who come to study with you. If no one becomes a student, even if he Dalai Lama says you are a teacher, you are not.” And so it’s always interdependent. In this case it’s not so much teacher-student, but it is a collective dedication of so many people who benefited from their Dharma practice

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