Lama Zopa Rinpoche at Osel Ling Centro de Retiros, Spain, May 2019. Photo by Ven. Roger Kunsang.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche offered this advice on the practice of guru devotion:

Take Guru Shakyamuni Buddha, for example: even after he became a buddha, still some people saw him as having mistakes. Also, Asanga saw a wounded dog and not Maitreya Buddha; and Getsul Tsembulwa saw a lady full of leprosy, but later saw her as Dorje Phagmo. Then there is the enlightened being, Shavaripa, the author of the praise to Six-Arm Mahakala that we recite. Normally he was seen as a hunter, killing animals, when actually he was liberating the animals and sending them to the pure land. In reality Marpa was an enlightened being, but he appeared like a farmer with a wife and children. His head wrapped in cloth; he looked like a very ordinary being, drinking chang and so forth. Then there is Tilopa, who was a great yogi, the actual Vajradhara, but people in the area saw him as a beggar who was burning fish alive and eating them. Then there are also Naropa and Milarepa. An ordinary person would see Milarepa as very skinny and pathetic. There are many other stories as well.

If you don’t know how to view the guru correctly, it affects you for so many lifetimes, and it can really endanger you, so that you don’t find a guru, a virtuous friend, for eons.

It’s important to relate to the Buddha’s teachings on karma, the results of virtuous and non-virtuous actions. The greatest fear and the biggest mistakes you can make in your life are in regard to making mistakes in regard to the virtuous friend.

Of course, by coming to know all the points, you can then come to regret any mistakes you have done. This is positive regret, and confessing to the guru then causes you to achieve enlightenment. If the guru is not alive, you then confess to his relics or even his clothing or to his close disciples. Also, if you haven’t done a deity retreat and so can’t do self-initiation, you can do many tsog offerings.

The main way to understand how to correctly follow the virtuous friend is to read that section of the lamrim, especially the part of the nine attitudes of guru devotion. By studying this well before you look for a guru, you will then know how to act and how to think. Otherwise, if you haven’t studied this and then take a guru, it can be very dangerous. But if you do it correctly, it is most beneficial.

It is mentioned so much in the sutras and tantras to analyze well before making the connection to a guru. You need to analyze the qualities of the guru and then know how to think about the guru. There are ten qualities of the guru from Do De Gyen, Maitreya Buddha’s teachings, and five qualities of the guru who reveals the Mahayana teachings. If the guru doesn’t have all ten qualities, then from those ten, they can have eight or four qualities.

It is so important to check first before you make the connection, but it may be that you then spend your whole life checking the guru so that you then you don’t find a guru in that life. That is another extreme that could happen. You then lose this most precious human life, where you can choose to abandon the lower realms and to achieve enlightenment, to be free from samsara and to achieve nirvana, to not be reborn in the lower realms and to receive a deva or human body in the next life or even to achieve a pure land. In this life you have great choice in regard to what you can achieve. Every year, month, week, day, and even hour, you have so much choice. You can totally lose this most precious human rebirth, and it’s not sure for how long you will lose it: it could be for eons that you don’t get another human rebirth. That is also a great danger.

It looks like you almost have to have omniscient mind before you make a guru-disciple connection and receive teachings. It’s like, before finding a guru, you first have to have omniscient mind to be able to see all the past and all the future or you have to have clairvoyance to see some of the past and some of the future. There will then be no problems: you won’t see mistakes and not see the guru as buddha. According to the present situation in the world, particularly in the West, it starts to look like you need attainment of the first or second bhumi before finding a guru.

Basically, it depends on your karma. Once you find a guru, once you have made the connection, you are supposed to practice correctly, not under the influence of somebody else, of people who you like. You have to CORRECTLY PRACTICE according to what is explained in the sutras and tantras, according to what was originally explained in the Buddha’s texts and then explained in the texts of the enlightened beings, the great yogis and pandits.

By following the present situation in the world, particularly in the West, you lose the root of your path to enlightenment: correctly following the virtuous friend. You then don’t follow correctly what is explained by those great yogis and pandits and other enlightened beings.

Especially in the West, it seems that people look for a guru the way they look for a boyfriend. Of course, looking for a boyfriend is a cause of samsara, but looking for a guru is the cause of nirvana and enlightenment. But in the West it seems it is the same as looking for a boyfriend, which is a cause of samsara.

If you correctly practice as explained in the sutras and tantras, that causes you, in this life and in future lives, to again find a virtuous friend, and from your side you are able to see them as a perfect guru. It creates the cause for that.

Therefore, it is very important to create the cause to find a perfect guru and to be able to see them as a perfect guru. Remember that even with Guru Shakyamuni Buddha, some people still saw him as making mistakes and having faults.

My suggestion is that before you look for a guru or make a connection to a guru, study well what is mentioned in the lamrim as to how to correctly follow and devote to the virtuous friend. Also study how it is explained in the sutras and tantras. Then you will have the understanding of how to correctly devote yourself. Otherwise, if you make mistakes with the guru, it’s like jumping into quicksand. Not only that, it is like jumping into a huge fire with red-hot red flames and being in the middle of that. This is just an example.

As mentioned in the lamrim text The Essential Nectar:

The purpose that is difficult to accomplish
In tens of millions of eons or even numberless eons,
Enlightenment, is given by the guru in this life in the quarrelling time (such a difficult time)
To such thick-skulled minds.

My suggestion is first read well what is mentioned in the lamrim and in the sutras and tantras on how to correctly follow the virtuous friend. Read what is explained by Lama Tsongkhapa and also by many other lamas, such as what Shabkar Tsogdruk Rangdrol, the non-sectarian lama, explained on the nine attitudes of guru devotion. Read and study well about how to correctly follow the virtuous friend, and with that understanding, you then look for a guru. Also study well advice from His Holiness the Dalai Lama. If you study the scriptures well for two or three years, you will then definitely have a better understanding and you will want to follow a guru. You then request someone to be your guru and follow them.

You may not find any mistakes after three years, but then maybe you still have to check further, the whole life, and still that would not be enough. Even if you live for a hundred years, it may not be enough. Maybe you would still find mistakes much, much later than a hundred years, a thousand years or even longer.

The main thing is, from your side, knowing how to correctly follow the guru. You can understand this by reading and studying well what is explained in the lamrim, which is condensed from the sutras and tantras. Then, from your side, follow the guru correctly. That is the most important thing. Otherwise, you might have to wait 100,000 lifetimes or 100,000 eons, and still you might find mistakes.

The five qualities of a perfect guru are 1) having great compassion and 2) having stable devotion to the Mahayana teachings. This means that whatever conditions happen, there is no change in devotion to the Mahayana teachings; it remains stable. Otherwise, sometimes conditions are very good and sometimes they are very bad, and you then lose faith in the Mahayana teachings and think that they are not true.

I think this is like what happened when Tibet was lost to China. At that time people who hadn’t thought about karma didn’t understand that karma is created from beginningless rebirths and there are many karmas that are still not finished, and that this is the ongoing result. When something bad happens to them or their country, people lose faith in the Mahayana teachings or in Buddhism. Even when an earthquake happens, some people lose faith, thinking that Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha didn’t help them at all, and then give up Buddhism. There was one family in Malaysia who had had many different lamas stay at their house. When their son suddenly died, they thought that Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha didn’t help them and then threw all their Buddha statues on the floor. The mistake was that they didn’t think about individual karma, their own karma and their son’s karma. There was the karma for their son to die, even if it was an untimely death.

By realizing the correct view of emptiness (the Prasangika view), by developing direct perception of emptiness, you then remove the seed of delusion and karma, which is the cause of samsara. It is only then, when you have actualized the path, that are you free from death. Without actualizing the path, how can you be free from death, rebirth, old age, and sickness?

The other qualities of a perfect guru are: 3) understanding well the particular teachings of the vehicles and at least the sutras. (This means the lesser vehicle and great vehicle teachings; the sutras and tantras.) 4) Being wise in bringing disciples, the objects to be subdued, into the graduated path. 5) Having subdued senses through having abstained from vices of the three doors (body, speech, and mind).

In very simplified terms (and not relating to tantra), the qualities of a guru are: someone who cherishes others more than self; someone who emphasizes nirvana and liberation over being in samsara (samsara is to be abandoned and nirvana is to be achieved); and someone who emphasizes the next life’s and future lives’ happiness over this life’s happiness (this life is to be renounced and future lives’ happiness is to be obtained). That is a simple definition of the qualities of a guru.

From Gyu Trul Darwa:

There are also qualities of a disciple, a receiver of initiation for practitioners of tantra, such as having a straight mind, which means not following something that you like according to attachment and personal interests. The mind is straight and not curved, which means following one’s own interests, attachment and self-cherishing thought. Then, the disciple should be one who likes virtue and meditation; always has devotion and respect to the guru; and always makes offerings to the enlightened deity.

This is like the life of the initiation. It is something you cherish very much and protect well, with clean samaya vows, by not giving up all the transmigratory beings, which includes one’s enemies, friends, and strangers, and having bodhichitta. Even if one doesn’t have actual realization of bodhichitta, at least one should have a good heart.

The disciple should not have a two-pointed mind, but have a mind only in the nature of the secret mantra. The disciple should also have unwavering devotion to the guru-deity and the holy Dharma.

These four things definitely support the generation of the path in a disciple’s mind. If you are missing one of these, then you can’t achieve tantric realizations.

It is said in the tantric text Dom Jung: “If you desire to achieve sublime realization, even if you have to completely give up your life, or even at the time of death, still always protect your samaya.”

It is said in the tantric text Semo Lay: “If one directly attempts the practice for hundreds of eons, with these four things, one won’t achieve realizations: not generating bodhichitta, having doubts about tantra, not acting according to the guru’s advice, having no pure mind (devotional mind).

Scribed by Holly Ansett, edited by Ailsa Cameron, Institut Vajra Yogini, France, May 29, 2019.

FPMT Education Services has created a lamrim resource page where students may find advice and materials to support their practice:
https://fpmt.org/education/prayers-and-practice-materials/lam-rim/

Lama Zopa Rinpoche is the spiritual director of the Foundation for the Preservation of Mahayana Tradition(FPMT), a Tibetan Buddhist organization dedicated to the transmission of the Mahayana Buddhist tradition and values worldwide through teaching, meditation and community service.