the.com/lama

means A title for a Tibetan Buddhist spiritual teacher or master, especially one recognized as a reincarnated or highly accomplished practitioner.

from From Tibetan 'bla ma,' often explained as meaning something like 'highest one' or 'none above' — a term of deep respect, built from roots pointing upward in status. It's a distant linguistic relative to the Sanskrit 'guru,' both landing on the same idea of a weighty, elevated teacher. The word has nothing to do with the woolly South American animal 'llama' — that's just an unrelated collision of spelling, with the double-L of Spanish doing none of Tibetan's work.