Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 31-minute session, Lama Ribur Rinpoche establishes guru devotion as the essential foundation of all spiritual practice, comparing it to the root of a tree—without it, no realizations can flourish. He opens with a sūtra passage on the precious human rebirth and the need to climb the spiritual path gradually, then anchors the argument in Lama Tsongkhapa’s assertion that the spiritual teacher is the root of all attainments. Rinpoche explains why the West emphasizes guru devotion less than Tibet does—partly caution about misinterpretation by newer students—yet stresses that once you have genuinely contemplated and practiced guru devotion, you hold the entire path in your hand. He walks through the benefits of proper relation to the teacher and closes with the analytical and concentrative meditation method: first examine the advantages through multiple angles, then stabilize the mind on that understanding. Suitable for those beginning tantra training or deepening their relation with a spiritual teacher.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 02 GD.mp3
UUID: d766f981-48a9-4d10-a5c6-1e0974e6b3ec
Teacher: Lama Ribur Rinpoche
Collection: Guru Devotion (Lama Ribur Rinpoche)
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 31.0 minutes
Words: ~1,588
Let me just start with a quote from the sūtra saying we are involved in this round or cyclic existence since beginningless time and right now we have found this real precious opportunity this boat that can carry us out of the ocean of suffering of saṃsāra, and this boat is the precious human rebirth, so we should try to take the essence of this So, in order to do that, we should know how to, accomplish our task in a gradual manner. So just like we should train ourselves in doing like climbing stairs and knowing how to put the first step in order to be ready to put the second step and so forth, and we should be we should train ourselves in the spiritual path understanding clearly what we should do in the beginning, in the very beginning so what it should be contemplated and what should be experienced at the very beginning of the path is what the Lama Tsongkhapa expresses in verses saying the root of all the realizations and the root of all these is the spiritual friend or the Guru. So just like trees, just like the branches, fruits and flowers of the tree and leaves are all depending on the root and without root all the leaves, branches and so forth are not going to be, are not going to exist in the same way if your aim is to reach Buddhahood and to improve your spiritual practice, your spiritual level, so the root of all these, the essential root of all these is the relation with the spiritual teacher.
So because being so important, the correct relation with the Guru, we should understand clearly what are the advantages of having a correct relation and what are the faults, or shortcomings of breaking that relation or having a bad relation with this spiritual teacher So what is the first again, what’s the first step of this stairs is the of this, like, spiritual stair is the guru devotion, and so it should be really emphasized, what are the benefits in order to generate a genuine genuine reverence or a genuine devotion towards our spiritual teacher, and we should also contemplate what are the shortcomings or the disadvantages of not having that relation because in this way we are going to enhance even more our respect and our devotion in the in in actions and in thoughts towards our spiritual teacher. This is all because if your aim, if your task is the Buddhahood, so then the first step of of the spiritual stairs is the guru devotion. So there’s no other way and like there’s no other way around. So the devotion to guru is really important during, like, during the beginning, the middle, and the end of our, practice, and, is is very important during sūtra, during sūtra like training, and but it’s much more important during tantra.
During tantra training training or instructions, it is like absolutely necessary or is absolutely necessary to have a great relation towards the spiritual teacher because that is the source of all your attainment and because of this because of this reason Dalai Lama, during one of the Maha Anuttara Yoga Tantra initiations,, one of these great initiations, he gives always, after the preliminaries — let’s say the preliminary initiation — the complete explanation of the fifty stanza of the Guru devotion by Ashvaghosha, and this is because after receiving an initiation becomes absolutely necessary to devote yourself in mind and in thoughts and actions to your spiritual teacher so because of this His Holiness is giving a detailed explanation of the main text of the Guru Devotion which is actually this fifty stanzas of Guru Devotion by Ashvaghosha. Guru devotion was a topic very well explained in Tibet. The lamas like Kyabje Pabongka Rinpoche, Kyabje Trijang Rinpoche or His Holiness Himself was used to explain in a very detail, in a very extensive manner this subject, especially because being so important and now the difference is that here in the West is not really emphasized, I mean the students know that it’s very important but it’s not as emphasized, it’s so emphasized like it was in Tibet and it actually should be because you’re receiving a lot of lower tantra initiation as well as highest tantra initiation, so it becomes very important for you to understand how you should relate in the right way towards your spiritual teacher.
One reason that the lamas usually don’t emphasize a lot the guru devotion is because Dharma in the West is a very new thing, the people basically are beginners and the lamas as the teacher they should be very careful in how do they explain the Dharma to the beginner because if for example they emphasize a lot about guru devotion then it can be misunderstood the student being new, can misunderstand the teaching as a form of self-serving by the side of the Lama. They can understand that the Lama wants the student to be devoted to himself and to give the offering to him. Actually, this may be one of the reason why the lama didn’t give such a detail and vast explanation of the Guru devotion, but it’s absolutely necessary to to understand which is the proper way of relating to the spiritual guide and especially during Tantra because then you have to you have to apply or to superimpose the the, like, the understanding of your lama being the Buddha himself, especially during the tantra during the tantra training, you should see your teacher as being the Buddha himself. So and that is like the peak or the top of the Guru devotion.
So all this should be explained in a very very well way, like in a very detailed way. And so it’s very important to do that because once you have practiced, once you have contemplated and practiced the guru devotion, then you have a hold of the entire path, like you have the beginning of the path in your hand, and from that moment, from that point on, whatever you accomplish is just a matter of training, it’s just a matter of putting the practice, putting to practice, putting instruction into practice and there’s no real sense, there’s no much sense in trying to achieve different tasks, practicing something like high or lower and trying to get something in the left or in the right, but instead of especially regarding spiritual path, should do everything very gradually from the base up, from the bottom up to the top. So first you should first you should really emphasize what is the beginning of this spiritual path, which is the spiritual which is the devotion to the spiritual guide. So so you should you should meditate on the guru devotion in in a gradual way in order to rise, in order to generate the right feeling towards the right feeling of devotion towards the spiritual guide.
So you should do this in a gradual manner and what you should do is that you should apply first the analytical meditation on the various point of the Guru devotion and then when you reach a certain understanding, when you reach a certain feeling, then at that time you stabilize your mind, you place your mind on that feeling, on that understanding, utilizing concentration meditation or concentrative meditation. So what you should do for example at the beginning is that you should understand which are the benefit of the correct relation towards the spiritual guide and which are the shortcoming of not having that proper relation. And you should meditate over and over all the various points, and the moment you feel that you you grasp the essence of the Guru devotion and then at that moment you place your mind on this. For example, the first point which is the first benefit of having a proper relation to the Guru says, if you relate properly to your spiritual guide, then Buddhahood will be closer and closer or you are going to achieve very quickly the Buddhahood. So this it can be divided in two points this analysis.
The first reason because you’re going to reach very quickly the Buddhahood is because he says that training yourself or practicing as your teacher explains to you to do, this is going to lead you direct and straight towards the final goal, the Buddhahood. And this is because understanding the way or understanding the way the path is structured, the way how the path starts and the way how it ends, you’re going to you can practice just as the teacher instructs you to do and in this way you’re going to achieve very quickly without any mistake, without any error, you’re going to achieve very quickly all the realizations you want to achieve and Buddhahood itself. The other reason why it is very easy or why if you have, how it is that if you have a very proper relation towards your teacher, then the Buddhahood comes closer and closer. That is because he says that the teacher is the highest of the objects of refuge and is the highest of all the offering object, so object of offerings. It says that because the Buddha is the representation, the embodiment of all the Buddha, Dharma and Sangha refuges, so the Lama becomes the highest