Guru devotion
Venerable Shangpa Rinpoché

This teaching is an edited transcript condensed from two talks which Rinpoche gave on Guru Devotion; the first at the KKBC, Singapore and the other at KKDS, Kuala Lumpur, in May 2002. The two Question and Answer sessions that followed the talks are reproduced here after the main talk.
 
Good evening everybody. For tonight I chose the subject of this Dharma talk to be on the qualities of the Guru and the devotion of the disciple. This is because we have just celebrated the birthday ceremony of His Holiness, the 17th Karmapa. As His Holiness’s birthday was not very long ago, I thought that the subject would be beneficial, since we have all entered into the lineage of the Karma Kagyu, and are followers of the Karmapa.
The Karma Kagyu places a lot of emphasis on Guru Devotion - it says the Guru is just like a mould, and if the mould has a very clear carving and design inside, whatever you put in and print comes out very nicely and very beautifully. If the mould doesn’t have any design inside, then when you print it, it just comes out as a shape only, and you can’t see the beauty of the design.
Therefore, for the person who practices Mahamudra and the preparation for Mahamudra, it is essential to find a qualified Guru. A qualified Guru means a Guru who has all the knowledge and is able to teach you the Mahamudra, from the very basic level to the very advanced levels. The Guru is also one who is able to show you the nature of the mind and from there one can start to attain Liberation. All these have to be linked to the Guru - the disciple has to link up with the Guru, and the Guru’s knowledge has to be transferred to the disciple. The disciple must also be the perfect vessel to receive the teachings.

Meaning of Guru
When you say the word, “Guru”, what do you think it means? I think many, many races, even Malays, also use the term “Guru” which refers to the teacher. In Hindi, “Guru” also means teacher; in Sanskrit as well. In Tibetan, they call it “Lama”, while in Chinese, we call him “Shi Fu” or “Fa Shi”. The meaning of Guru, if we just simply translate or interpret it in ordinary life, is just “teacher”. The person who teaches you how to cook, or how to read or anything relating to worldly knowledge is also a teacher, and he or she can be identified as a Guru to you.
But does anybody know what Guru literally means? In Sanskrit, “Guru” literally means something very heavily loaded; a person who is heavily loaded is called a Guru. What does that mean? It does not mean that his physical body size is big; it is not that he is carrying a big stone, but the load refers to his knowledge, his abilities or skilful means, and to his compassion - all of his good qualities. So therefore these knowledge and qualities are very heavy, heavier than anything in this world.
And usually, we are lacking in these good qualities - we are not fully loaded with them, and that is why we need to find someone who is fully loaded with these. The Guru is loaded with these because of his life-time’s practice and development which gradually lead to his accumulation of such large qualities of knowledge and other qualities, such that an ordinary person cannot be compared to him.

Looking for the Guru
That is what “Guru” means. And we need to look for these qualities in a Guru; we shouldn’t look for a Guru whose appearance is nice, handsome, or who is sweet-talking, because although someone may possess these qualities, he may not have the qualities of being loaded with knowledge and compassion. So sometimes, judging the Guru fails if we just choose a Guru based on his appearance, his expression, the style of his talking, and then we take that person as the Guru straightaway, and develop a Guru-disciple relationship on the basis of feeling very nice and positive about these qualities.

Knowledge
But that shouldn’t be the way according to the Dharma. According to the Dharma, how do we look for a Guru who has these qualities? We should look for a Guru who firstly, has the knowledge, who is well-versed in the Sutras and Tantra, and who is well-versed in his practice. Of course, you cannot find one who is completely like the Buddha, because you have to find the Guru from humans. And humans cannot be a Buddha, because they are not full of perfections. But somehow, if you look into the positive side of a person, you are able to find quite a lot of good qualities. Even the worst person, if you look into the positive side of the person, has some good qualities somewhere. Therefore, you have to look at the positive side and what knowledge or achievements the Guru has. Judging from that, you find that the Guru is well-versed and knowledgeable-- not only knowledgeable-- but who is also a practitioner. On top of that, the Vajrayana Guru also needs to have an unbroken lineage; that means the Guru must have received initiations from his Gurus that continue up to where it started. The lineage is alive and unbroken. Also, that Guru must master each and every Tantric ritual, Mudra and visualization. He must be a master of all these in order to be a Vajrayana Guru to his disciple. That is the first part in looking for a Guru - the knowledge part.

Compassion
Secondly, if a person has that much knowledge, but does not have enough compassion, then it will not benefit others. Therefore, we must also look at the level of compassion; whether the Guru is very compassionate with all his disciples and to all sentient beings, because compassion is a very important quality of the Guru - not only with the Guru, but with everyone. When we are lacking in compassion, we need a lot of training in compassion from the Guru. To do that, the Guru himself must have great compassion so that he is able to train and influence the disciple. In that way, to choose a Guru, the second quality we must also look for is whether that Guru is compassionate or not; whether the Guru has the qualities of knowledge and compassion or not.