Verse 8: The Characteristics of the Guru to Follow
Fifty Verses on the Guru • Day One
12 March 2025
His Holiness the 17th Karmapa, Orgyen Trinley Dorje, welcomed everyone to the 9th Arya Kshema Spring Teachings and offered his greetings to the teachers, nuns, and everyone else listening online. Then, he continued the teachings on The Fifty Verses on the Guru (Skt: Gurupañcāśikā) that he began last year.
1. The Importance of the Guru
Both sutras and tantras emphasize the importance of gurus and spiritual friends. In the secret mantra tradition, it’s said that without following a guru, you can’t meditate on a guru or recite mantras. Without a guru, most practices of the secret mantra are impossible. Entry to the path of secret mantra begins with requesting empowerment. You ask for empowerment, enter the mandala, and receive the empowerment. But without a guru, there’s no one to give this empowerment.
After receiving empowerment, there are many vows and samayas that all come down to the guru. As you practice the creation and completion phases and progress along the path, if you don’t have pith instructions from a guru, you won’t know how to practice. Even when you eventually awaken to Buddhahood, your former guru becomes the lord of your family. For example, Amitabha is the lord of Avalokiteshvara because Avalokiteshvara followed him as guru during his training.
In the beginning, middle, and end of Vajrayana practice, the guru is extremely important. For this reason, the Short Text on the Root Downfalls of the Vajrayana (Skt: Vajrayānamūlāpatti) by Master Aśvaghoṣa states, “Because the accomplishment of the vajra holder depends on the master.” As this says, supreme and ordinary accomplishments depend on how you follow the guru. In our Kagyu tradition, the blessings of the guru are considered extremely important. Whether one develops realization or not depends on the guru, and the root of blessings is the guru.
As it says in Gampopa’s Garland of the Amrita of Advice (Tib: གྲོས་འདེབས་བདུད་རྩིའི་ཕྲེང་བ།) even if you’ve spent eons practicing generosity and discipline, developed infinite clairvoyance and miraculous powers, or achieved a lifespan as long as the sun and moon, these are just causes of Buddhahood. To transcend samsara, you need to realize the nature of your mind. For this, spiritual instructions alone are insufficient; you need to receive the blessings of a guru who has realization. It’s not just the lineage of the words, but the lineage of meaning that is important. A guru who has realized their own nature of mind can, through their blessings, help you realize your own mind.
The same text also states that if you have not received the guru’s blessings, you will not see this mind essence by looking. You will not catch it by grasping or stop it by blocking it. Also, your perceptions will not be discarded by abandoning them or demolished by destroying them. Therefore, those who wish to gather the accumulations, purify the obscurations, pacify obstacles, develop realization in their beings, overwhelm appearances, and perfect the benefit for themselves and others, they have one thing that they need to do, and that is only to serve the guru, and to respect the guru. There is nothing else to do other than to supplicate. Therefore, you need to make devotion to the guru the central aspect of your practice.
Those who have developed realization must supplicate the guru over and over again, and without distraction nurture their realization. Through this, they’ll recognize their mind as free from all obscurations, seeing it like a display or illusion, and realize they have no hopes or fears in samsara or nirvana. For this reason, if we look at the words of the Buddhas in the treatises, and the life stories of past masters, particularly the lives of the Kagyu gurus, we can see how following a guru is a crucial point. In addition, the characteristics of an authentic guru and how to follow them is something we need to understand. For this reason, many secret mantra texts explain that once you have received an empowerment, you should first study the Fifty Verses on the Guru. This is because all the common and supreme siddhis depend on properly following a guru.
Unfortunately, many don’t understand what “lama” or “guru” means. For example, people often call anyone wearing red robes a “lama.” In particular, people don’t know how to distinguish between good and bad lamas, which is harmful to the teachings and sentient beings. Today, many people have titles such as “Rinpoche” or “tulku” (His Holiness says he includes himself here), but don’t have the ability to take on the responsibilities of a lamas even if they have the title. In addition, many receive empowerments, teachings, and transmissions from gurus, but cannot maintain samaya. Those who live with a guru and see them frequently may see them as ordinary people rather than as buddhas, bodhisattvas, or spiritual masters, and then disrespect or criticize them.
According to secret mantra texts, disrespecting the guru makes one incapable of receiving blessings or qualities in this life and leads to rebirth in the incessant hell in the future. Therefore, it’s important to understand what is meant by an authentic guru; how should we respect and follow them? How do we establish a good connection with them? It’s very important to understand this.
As mentioned earlier, when entering the secret mantra Vajrayana, the first text one should study is the Fifty Verses on the Guru. Therefore, His Holiness will continue teaching this text today.
2. Following a Guru
There are characteristics of gurus to avoid and characteristics of gurus to follow. Last year, His Holiness taught the characteristics of gurus to avoid. Today, he will begin teaching the characteristics of gurus to follow.
The most important point is that in general, in secret mantra, one should regard the guru to be an actual Buddha. We should consider the guru’s words to be authoritative and view what they do as excellent. This is important, but we need to think about it.
When we say “Buddha,” it might seem something far away from us. None of us has met the historical Buddha who passed away 2,500 years ago, and we weren’t born then. We didn’t have that excellent fortune. Even our ancestors weren’t born then. We have an idea of what the Buddha is like, based on statues and thangkas that we see. But the Buddha who was actually born 2,500 years ago was a prince, and if we had been there, we might have met the Buddha. If we looked at the Buddha, we would have probably seen an actual person, and as a person, we might see him as handsome with a beautiful face. But we probably wouldn’t have seen him the way we think about him, for example with an invisible ushnisha (uṣṇīṣa) on top of his head. Therefore, the Buddha in actuality is like a spiritual friend, a human spiritual friend, rather than an incredible being that we think of. He was a little different, and people saw him differently based on their capacities, but in general, he would have appeared as a lama, or a spiritual friend. We need to think about this. Actually, there is no difference between spiritual friends and the Buddha. That’s because whoever teaches us the spiritual path is like the Buddha.
In the secret mantra Vajrayana, it says to see one’s spiritual friend as a buddha and take whatever they say to be authoritative. However, if someone has the title “lama” it doesn’t mean we have to see them as a guru and do whatever they say. Just because someone is called a “lama” doesn’t mean everything they do is good or authoritative.
First, we need to examine whether an individual has the qualifications that make them worthy of being a guru as taught in the Secret Mantra. If someone introduces a person as a good lama, we must also verify this ourselves and check if this person has all the qualities that make them worthy to be a lama. We can’t just follow what other people say.
Even if we can’t find the greatest of gurus, a guru must have certain minimum qualities. From the perspective of those of us who hold titles like “lama” or “tulku” (and His Holiness includes himself), we must examine if we possess these minimum qualities of a guru, and if not, we have to see how to develop these qualities for ourselves. From the perspective of a student, we have to look at those who are called “lama” impartially and see if they have the characteristics of a guru taught in the texts.
3. The Nine General Characteristics of a Guru
The characteristics of lamas or spiritual friends are taught in the Foundation Vehicle, the Mahayana, and Vajrayana. In the secret mantra tantras, descriptions of these characteristics are scattered throughout different texts. The combined essence of these texts is gathered in the Fifty Verses on the Guru.
According to the Textual Commentary on Serving the Guru (Skt. Gurvārādhana-pañjikā Tib: བླ་མའི་བསྙེན་བཀུར་གྱི་དཀའ་འགྲེལ།), the commentary translated from Sanskrit into Tibetan by Gö Lotsawa Shonnu Pal, Fifty Verses on the Guru first teaches the general characteristics of a guru in stanza 8 and then teaches the specific characteristics in stanza 9.
[Ed. The commentary that His Holiness is using for these teachings is the Gurvārādhana-pañjikā, There is, however, a slight difference in meaning between the text’s name in Sanskrit and its name in Tibetan. In the Sanskrit Gurvārādhana-pañjikā, the term pañjikā denotes a word-by-word gloss of the text, and it translates best as the Textual Commentary on Serving the Guru. Its Tibetan name means the Difficult Points on Serving the Guru. In addition, the Karmapa often refers to this text as ‘the Sanskrit commentary’. Previously, all three of these names have been used interchangeably, creating some confusion. They refer to the same text and so for clarity, we will use Textual Commentary on Serving the Guru in future or its abbreviation Textual Commentary.]
Lord Tsongkhapa’s commentary on the Fifty Verses doesn’t distinguish between common and particular characteristics. He probably hadn’t read the Sanskrit commentary, which might not have been translated at that time. He says that the characteristics of the guru taught in the Fifty Verses are according to the intention of the Tantra of the Net of Illusion (Skt. Māyājāla-tantra). Jamgön Lodro Thaye says that the first two lines teach the common characteristics and the rest teach the specific characteristics.
There are also different ways to count the characteristics taught in the first verse. For example, Tsarchen Losal Gyatso’s commentary on the Fifty Verses on the Guru titled Opening the Gateway to Precious Siddhi (Tib དངོས་གྲུབ་རིན་པོ་ཆེའི་སྒོ་འབྱེད།), and Jamgön Kongtrul’s Treasury of Knowledge (Tib: ཤེས་བྱ་ཀུན་ཁྱབ་མཛོད།) say there are six common characteristics and nine specific ones, for a total of fifteen. But in brief, a master of the secret mantra must have all these characteristics, even if we don’t distinguish between the common and specific characteristics.
Verse eight of the Fifty Verses states:
A master should be steadfast, subdued,
Intelligent, patient, upright, honest,
Skilled in the use of mantra and tantra,
Compassionate and learned in treatises.
According to the Textual Commentary on Serving the Guru, the nine common characteristics of a guru mentioned in this verse are that a guru ought to be (1) steadfast, (2) subdued, (3) intelligent, (4) patient, (5) upright, (6) honest, (7) skilled in the use of mantra and tantra, (8) compassionate, and (9) learned in the treatises.
i. Steadfast
From the Textual Commentary on Serving the Guru, “Because they hold strongly with their intentions and minds, they are steadfast.” This is similar to what Jetsun Drakpa Gyaltsen writes in his commentary: “They are imperturbable in body, speech, and mind.” They are stable, not dependent on conditions. They are someone you can trust; they are not upset by circumstances. They are solid. If they are a refuge in this and future lives, we need someone who is stable. It’s the same in business—we need someone whom we can trust, not someone who gives us difficulties. The guru should be someone with a stable character, and in terms of the Dharma, they should have stable faith, and a stable wish for liberation, and their affection for their students should be stable. They shouldn’t be fickle.
Gampopa says in The Garland of the Amrita of Advice that in the past, when Rechungpa went to India and returned, Rechungpa asked his guru Milarepa, “How are you doing? Have you had any obstacles in your spiritual practice?” Milarepa replied, “How could I have any obstacles?” Rechungpa wondered, “how could the guru not have any obstacles?” And Milarepa responded, “I just don’t listen to what people say, so how could I have any obstacles? I never let myself get fooled or deceived by other people, I just don’t worry about it. I don’t listen to their gossip or follow it.” Therefore, a guru or spiritual friend has to have a steadfast, stable character. They shouldn’t be influenced by others or easily fooled.
ii. Subdued
According to the Textual Commentary, this means that they live in accordance with the Vinaya. They appear peaceful and subdued. Jetsun Drakpa Gyaltsen writes, “Subdued means that their mind is trained, so their mind is subdued.” It says in the Ornament of Mahayana Sutras (Skt: Mahāyāna-sūtrālamkāra-kārikā by Maitreya/Asaṅga), “The spiritual friend is subdued, peaceful, and pacified.” The main point is that the guru must be subdued in their own being. They should be able to tame their own being. If they cannot subdue themselves, how can they tame others? They should be able to direct themselves, rather than following their afflictions in all directions.
Shabkar Tsokdruk Rangdrol wrote:
If you have not tamed your own being, bad thoughts, internally,
A few little words will increase greed and aversion.
This is because of the afflictions.
Bless this beggar to subdue the afflictions.
If they haven’t tamed their own being, if someone just says a few words, their blood pressure immediately rises and they get angry. What this shows is they are unable to subdue their own character or tame their own afflictions. From the Blue Annals (Tib: དེབ་ཐེར་སྔོན་པོ།) it says that when Gampopa’s nephew Dakpo Gomtsul was teaching dharma to the public in a place called Nyamokha, two sponsors had an argument and shouted. Gomtsul was despondent and told a student of Gampopa, Dakpo Dulzin, “Come here! From now on, I shall not teach dharma in public. I confess what I did in the past. In the future, take my seat.”
Dakpo Dulzin told him not to speak like that, and not to give up teaching in public, but Gomtsul did not accept. Before long, Gomtsul passed away. His nephew, Dakpo Gomchung, held the seat for two years and likely passed away after that. Then, students gave the seat to Dakpo Dulzin. Dulzin faced great difficulties and many monks went elsewhere. He thought to himself, “Because I have not practiced, this is happening.” Then, he spent eight years practicing one-pointedly in retreat, and monks gathered once again. Drikung Jikten Sumgön also praised him highly. This is what Dulzin thought about himself: he thought, the monks aren’t listening to me not because of their own faults, but because I haven’t tamed my own being. Therefore, he tamed his own being, and only then was he able to tame others.
iii. Intelligent.
In the Textual Commentary on Serving the Guru, it says, “Intelligence means discernment. That is prajñā, and they have it, so they are called intelligent, meaning they are discerning.” Lord Tsongkhapa says, “The intelligent have great prajñā.” The Seventh Karmapa Chödrak Gyatso writes, “They have the prajñā to examine good and bad.”
In the common vehicles it states that spiritual teachers should be both subdued and learned. Being stable means practicing the Vinaya, while being learned means having intelligence. In his commentary, Tsongkhapa explains, “The steadfast are restrained in body, and the subdued are restrained in speech. Because they are intelligent, they are free of guile and thus restrained in mind.” In this way we can understand steadfast, subdued and intelligent as referring to restraint of the body, speech and mind.
iv. Patient
According to the Textual Commentary on Serving the Guru, patient means forbearing. There is the patience of disregarding suffering, the patience of accepting others’ harm, and the patience of contemplating the dharma. Even when students are unruly or disrespectful, a teacher should not become angry.
In describing the characteristics of a Mahayana spiritual friend, The Ornament of Mahayana Sutras (Skt: Mahāyāna-sūtrālamkāra-kārikā by Maitreya/Asaṅga) says, “Follow someone with a loving character who has given up weariness.” Because they do not consider offerings and worship but teach dharma from compassion, they are loving in character. They don’t tire of explaining things repeatedly and remain patient with anger. They are able to accept what happens. In brief, a spiritual friend should be able to endure difficulties when doing things for their students’ sake and be able to accept what happens.
v. Upright
In the Textual Commentary it says, “They have a view with no guile.” Jetsun Drakpa Gyaltsen says, “Upright presents it as in the positive, while guileless presents it in the negative.” Upright presents the affirmative, while guileless (below) addresses the negative aspect.
vi. Guileless
The Textual Commentary says that to be guileless means having no guile. Guile refers to hiding one’s faults, a mind that is not honest. This is called deceit. Jetsun Drakpa Gyaltsen explains that guile is the guile of a mind that tries to hide one’s own faults, while deceit is trying to fool others. The opposite of these is to be honest, guileless, or upright. Guileless is presenting it in the negative, and honest in the positive.
vii. Skilled in the Use of Mantra and Tantra
The Textual Commentary talks about the three types of mantra: root mantras, extracted mantras, and essence mantras. The tantras are such as the Wheel of Repulsion and so forth, and their usages are the activities of pacifying and so forth. Because of knowing those, they are skilled in the activities of mantra and tantra. Drakpa Gyaltsen says, “Mantra means the four activities and so forth, and tantra means the activities of the tantras with the six extremes, six instructions, five aspects, and so forth.” Lord Tsongkhapa states that in Kunga Nyingpo’s commentary on The Net of Illusion, to be skilled in mantric and tantric activities means they are skilled in the activities of mantra and medicine, so they are able to block obstructions. In his commentary on the thirty-second chapter of the Vajraḍāka-tantra (Ḍākārṇava, “Ocean of Ḍākas or Heroes”) tantra, Bhavabhadra explains that mantras are used for accomplishing activities by peaceful, enriching, magnetizing or wrathful means.
viii. Compassionate
The Textual Commentary says that to be compassionate means having compassion for all sentient beings. In general, being compassionate is taught from the sutras and Vinaya all the way up to the tantras as an essential characteristic of a teacher. Three Hundred Verses of the Vinaya (Skt: Triśatakārikāvyākhyāna) emphasizes compassion for the sick. The Ornament of the Mahayana Sutras also says, “Follow someone with a loving character who has given up weariness.” it is extremely important for a guru and spiritual friend to have compassion for any sentient being, no matter who they are, and especially for their students.
Gampopa says, “Individuals who care for you lovingly are rare.” Gampopa explains that out of compassion, a guru must never forsake their students. Dusum Khyenpa explains that, if a guru lacks compassion, when they experience the slightest suffering they will think that they are unable to care for the people around them and they will get discouraged. In general, when a teacher is benefitting many contentious sentient beings, it is quite possible that the moment he or she tries to nurture them with Dharma, they may respond with many unkind words. Then, there is the danger that the guru might feel they can’t bear it. If a teacher has unruly students, and doesn’t have compassion, it’s possible the teacher might think, “I’ve given them Dharma, but these people won’t listen to me. I can’t take care of them at all.” There is a danger the teacher will give up on their students and forget them, even if a student gets sick. When a student has a difficulty such as an illness, the guru might even want to avoid them. But it shouldn’t be like that. A guru must feel such great compassion that even at the cost of their own life they will do anything to prevent the students who place their trust in them from going to the lower realms. This is the sort of compassion a guru should have.
The life stories of the gurus also speak about how the gurus have held their students in their heart, and by doing so, they were able to bless and care for their students. Among our supplications, there are many, such as, “The guru knows,” and “View me with compassion, guru!” or “Care for me, guru!” This shows how important it is for the guru to have compassion for their students. If a teacher has compassion for their students, he or she will naturally be honest and guileless. Without compassion, it’s possible one might want to fool or deceive others. As Eighth Karmapa Mikyö Dorje explained in Hundred Short Instructions (Tib: ཁྲིད་ཐུང་བརྒྱ་རྩ།). In brief, these days, some lamas, wanting to use their students for misdeeds, teach dharma to their students about how they must do whatever the guru says. In the end, they make the student perform misdeeds. They don’t make their students practice Dharma, but instead prepare thread for sewing clothes. The way those gurus think about those who rely on them is completely mistaken.
ix. Learned in the Treatises
According to the Textual Commentary on Serving the Guru, to be learned in the treatises means to be learned in twelve types of treatises. Drakpa Gyaltsen writes that this refers to “knowing either the sutras or treatises of prajnaparamita.” Seventh Karmapa Chödrak Gyatso writes that it refers to “the ten areas of knowledge, three baskets, four classes of tantra, and so on.” Tsongkhapa writes, “Regarding being learned in treatises, the Vajra-Pañjara says, ‘Learned in all areas of knowledge.’ As this says, it means to know the three baskets of Buddhist knowledge and so forth.” In summary, they should know the ten areas of knowledge, and if not, the texts and commentaries of both sutra and tantra. In any case, even though they are teachers of the secret mantra Vajrayana, if the guru does not have a basic knowledge of the ground, path, and fruition of the Great and Foundation Vehicles, it will be difficult for them to care for the student.
When Gampopa taught the characteristics of the guru, he said, “They must guide others along the path with great prajñā.” In explaining that, Dusum Khyenpa said that without prajñā, a master will not know how to teach Dharma that fits the students’ minds. That is because students have many different inclinations and interests. Therefore to be able to benefit sentient beings, the master needs to teach step-by-step the instructions that match the student’s intelligence and interest.
Therefore it is said:
If they do not become learned in the five areas of knowledge,
Even the supreme noble beings will not achieve omniscience.
Lord Atisha said, “In this brief, momentary life of ours, we do not have the leisure to hear many treatises on non-Buddhist subjects such as grammar. We don’t have the leisure to study them. What is most important are the many treatises on Buddhist topics.” When you ask a teacher for a Dharma teaching, it does not help if they say, “I don’t know.” Therefore you need someone who can guide others on the path through great prajñā.
These are the nine general characteristics of a spiritual friend. The specific characteristics will be discussed in tomorrow’s teachings.
This concludes His Holiness’ teachings for the day.
