Don’t Ever Take a Reliable Teacher as Your Employee

 

Don’t Ever Take a Reliable Teacher as Your Employee

 

How can you tell who is a genuine reliable teacher? Don’t judge by appearance. Don’t mind how he looks and what his social status is. As long as he is able to lead you to enlightenment – even if he is a beggar or a garbage picker – he is your root guru. Luipa’s root guru is an old beggar woman who advised him to eat rotten fish guts.

 

Liberation has to do with the reliable teacher, but not anyone with the name and appearance of a guru is a reliable teacher. A genuine reliable teacher must be an achieved one, rather than an unenlightened person with a guru’s appearance but not a guru’s achievements.

 

An unenlightened one has countless ropes tied around his body and mind; such a person has a lot of defilements, he has never seen the illumination of his own nature, he can never achieve freedom. Some people are like stones, even very filthy ones. Even if they look as exquisite as statues of the Buddha, stones are stones. Stones cannot light up other people, for you must be a torch before you can light up others.

 

In order to achieve thorough liberation, you must be patience and you must find a real reliable teacher and then take refuge in him and believe in him devoutly. How can you tell who is a genuine reliable teacher? Don’t judge by appearance. Don’t mind how he looks and what his social status is. As long as he is able to lead you to enlightenment – even if he is a beggar or a garbage picker – he is your root guru. Luipa’s root guru is an old beggar woman who advised him to eat rotten fish guts.

 

You can also observe people around him. For example, someone asked me why there are so many enlightened ones among my students. I replied that birds of a feather flock together and that a torch can set a whole forest on fire. But if a teacher is not a torch, he can’t light up the minds of his students. For it is useless for an unenlightened person to pretend to be enlightened. In my novel Curse of Xi Xia, there is a diligent practitioner who hasn’t shattered attachment yet. As he has no compassion and too much hatred, the more conscientiously he practices, the more attached he becomes and the more easily he falls into the existence as a hungry ghost.

 

However, there is another situation in which a disciple does not have pure faith in his root guru so that he can’t achieve enlightenment or retain the state of enlightenment. For example, some people don’t know how to practice and lack right views. They get close to reliable teachers with a view to acquiring mundane returns such as fortune. I said a guru is not his disciple’s employee; your guru is not obliged to help you make a fortune simply because you take refuge in him. Some people will bother reliable teachers with mundane things and ask about dreams and omens. I say there is no need to take the false for the true and take the illusory for the real. Samsara and nirvana are a big illusion and not worth being obsessed with, not to mention dreams. Have pure faith and make offerings, and great merits will come naturally. If a person is full of desire and wants to get ten times more than he gives, like a businessman, then it can’t be said that he has pure faith and make offerings. Of course he can get some returns because of his offerings, but they can’t be compared with great offerings, in which there is neither doer nor recipient and to which there is no attachment.

 

So you shouldn’t expect your master to satisfy every one of your requests. And you shouldn’t think that, if he doesn’t do so, he is not a real reliable teacher. No, it’s not so. There are some wicked guys who have made friends with bad guys and thus suffered misfortune. However, they hurl harsh words at their root gurus, saying, “You are my master; who else should I ask for?” Their eyes are always fixed on their masters, or they take advantage of their masters and are bent on tapping resources and getting worldly gains. Such people are, in fact, no longer disciples; they are wicked guys in disguise.

 

You know, an achieved reliable teacher has no attachment. If his mind is filled with worldly things, how can he be counted as an achieved teacher? A reliable teacher certainly can give powerful blessings, but he won’t deal with worldly things for you simply because you have made some offerings to him. Blessedness and merit are the natural result of pure and clean offerings, rather than things for worldly exchanges. Don’t ever take a reliable teacher as your employee.

 

Put down everything, cast aside all calculation and profit, and have pure faith in your soul guide, your root guru, and then spread your love for your root guru. In your daily life, treat your family members as your root guru and show due respect; treat your neighbors as your root guru and show due respect; treat everyone as your root guru and respect them, love them, and take care of them. Treat everything you do daily as the best practice, and train yourself in the state of illuminating emptiness. Regard the world before your eyes as a tool, and see if your mind is affected by it or if your mind is really like a bright mirror. Cast off your attachment to the world, stop calculating, put down all obsessions in your life, and, in this way, you can achieve liberation.

 

Many practitioners are not aware of the preciousness of the root guru They only know the importance of practice, but they don’t know that practice is useless if they have no faith in their root guru. This is where the secret of practice lies. Without such knowledge, no matter how long you practice, what you get is external and not terminated. Likewise, a literary youth who is constantly honing his writing skills but who neglects the cultivation of his character and mind can’t produce a really great work, no matter how long he has practiced writing.

 

By contrast, some disciples are guileless and as innocent as children. They may look silly, but they are likely to be people of superior capacities. As long as he keeps faith in his root guru, when his time has come and his root guru gives him directions about his mind-nature, he will be enlightened immediately. Such people may have completed their practice on qi, nadis and bright spots in their previous lifetimes; in this lifetime, therefore, as soon as they start esoteric practice or meet their root guru, qi will enter the central chakra and they will enlighten their mind and see their own nature.

 

I measure a practitioner’s capacity by his faith in his root guru: one with great faith in his root guru has superior capacities; one with little faith in his root guru has dull capacities; one with no faith in his root guru will never see his true mind by means of his root guru’s instructions. Some disciples have faith in their root guru at first, but later they have wrong views – in this case, they are people of rotten capacities, and they are not likely to achieve buddhahood. Suppose the roots of a tree get rotten, wherever it is replanted, it will die eventually. So, once I find out this sort of practitioners, I will stay away from them. Of course, there are some double-faced people. A former disciple of mine, a monk in appearance, had his root of faith destroyed because of evil influences. On the one hand, he flattered his root guru in his presence and, on the other, defames him behind his back. Such people have debased themselves so low as not to be called human beings. No matter what kind of clothes they may wear or what kind of dharma they practice, it is impossible for them to achieve enlightenment.

 

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附录：聆听智慧的声音

 

善知识不是另一种打工仔

 

怎样分辨谁才是真正的善知识呢？你不要看那外相，不要管他是个什么样子，是什么身份。哪怕他是个乞丐，或是捡垃圾的人，只要他能让你证悟，就是你的根本师。卢伊巴的根本师就是那个叫他吃腐烂鱼肠的“乞丐婆”。

 

解脱跟善知识有关，但并不是有着导师名相的人就是善知识。真正的善知识必须确实是证悟者，而不是一个只有导师外相却没有成就的凡夫。

 

没证悟的人身心上扎了无数道绳子，他自己就是个非常烦恼的人，根本没见过自性光明，也得不到自在。有些人本身就是块石头，甚至是非常肮脏的石头。哪怕这个石头看起来非常精美，像释迦牟尼佛的雕像一样，它仍然是块石头。它是点不亮别人的。因为，能点亮别人的人，自己首先得是火把。

 

所以，想要得到彻底的解脱，就不能心急，一定要找到真正的善知识，再皈依、虔信之。怎样分辨谁才是真正的善知识呢？你不要看那外相，不要管他是个什么样子，是什么身份。哪怕他是个乞丐，或是捡垃圾的人，只要他能让你证悟，就是你的根本师。卢伊巴的根本师就是那个叫他吃腐烂鱼肠的“乞丐婆”。

 

再者，你可以看他身边的人大多是个啥样子。举个例子，有人问我，为什么你的学生中有那么多明白的人？我说，物以类聚，人以群分，一个火把可以点燃一个森林。但老师不是火把的时候，就怎么也点不亮学生的心灵。因为，不明白的人无论怎样装模作样都不起作用，根本没有意义。在小说《西夏咒》中，我写了一个修行很精进、但没能破执的人。因为他没有慈悲心，嗔恨心也太重，修得越精进，执著就越重，就容易堕入鬼道。

 

不过，也有一种情况是，弟子本身并不净信他的根本师，所以无法明白，或者说无法保任那明白。比如，一些人不会修行，没有正见，他们亲近善知识，是希望自己能得到财富等世间福报。我就说，师父又不是给弟子打工的，不能说你皈依了师父，师父就加持你发财。有的人老是拿世俗的东西干扰善知识，问一些梦兆异象等问题，我说你何必认假为真、执幻为实，轮回和涅槃都是一个巨大的幻梦，不值得执著，你又何必管那些梦境呢？净信供养，得到大福报是水到渠成的事情，但如果像做生意那样，充满欲望，希望供一得十，就不是净信供养，虽然也能得到些福报，但它跟无能供、无所供、亦不执著供这行为的大供养是不能同日而语的。

 

所以，不能觉得，你求这个，师父就得给你办这个；你求那个，师父就得给你办那个。如果不办，就不是真的善知识。不是这样的。有一些邪恶之徒，交了恶友，遭了噩运，却对根本师恶言相向，说：“你是师父，我不找你找谁？”他们的眼睛老是盯着师父身边，或是将师父当成好平台，只想索取资源，得到世间法利益，这些人其实已不是弟子了，是穿着弟子外衣的恶友。

 

要知道，真正成就的善知识心中是了无牵挂的，要是他的心中盛满了俗事，还算成就师吗？善知识当然可以给以证量加持，而不是接受了一点供养，就去给你办俗事。你的福德和功德，应该是以清净心进行供养之后自然获得的东西，这不是一种世俗交易的东西。千万不能把善知识当成另一种意义上的打工仔。

 

放下一切，无计无利，净信你的灵魂导师——根本师，并且把对根本师的那种爱扩散开来。在日常生活中，要把你的亲人当成根本师，去尊重他们；把你的邻居当成根本师，去尊重他们；把所有的人都当成根本师，去尊重、爱护、关心他们；把你每天做的事情都当做最好的修法，安住于明空去修炼，把眼前的世界当做一个道具，就看你的心动不动，是不是真的能心如明镜？你要放下对红尘的牵挂，不要去算计一些东西，放下对今生的所有执著，这样你才可能得到解脱。

 

好多人都不明白根本师真正珍贵在什么地方，他们只知道修法非常重要，但却不明白要是对根本师没有信心，修什么法都起不了作用。修炼的秘诀就在这里。要是不明白这些，你不管修多久，修的都仍是心外的不究竟的东西。就像一个文学青年反复修炼文学技巧，却不修炼人格与心灵，那么不管他修炼多久，都写不出真正意义上的佳作。

 

相反，有些弟子没有心计，像孩子一样单纯，他们看起来傻乎乎的，却可能是上根之人。只要他们对根本师有信心，机缘一成熟，根本师一为他开示心性，他立马就明白了。这类人的气脉明点可能在上一世或是前半生就修圆满了，这一世一修密法，或是一见根本师，就会气入中脉，明心见性。

 

我以对根本师的信心来衡量根器的大小：对根本师信心大者，为大根器；对根本师信心小者，为小根器；对根本师无信心者，是绝不会经根本师开示而得见真心的。有些弟子，初对根本师有信心，后来却生了邪见者，就是坏根之人。坏根之人，是不可能成就的。我打个比方，一棵树要是根坏了，它无论移到哪儿，肯定活不了。所以，我一发现这类人，就会远离他。当然，有时候，还会有一种阳奉阴违的人。我以前有个学生，外相上出家了，因遭遇恶友坏了信根。他一方面当面奉承根本师，背后却又诋毁根本师，这类人，已失去了做人的基本底线。这种人无论披了啥衣服，无论修啥法，都是绝不可能成就的。

 

声明：本文系文化志愿者试译，非专业人才翻译，错误定然不少，如出现疏漏及错误，敬请读者见谅。如有任何翻译上的建议及修正意见，欢迎及时与我们取得联系，我们会加以校对、修改，并希望有专业才能的朋友也能加入我们志愿者群体中来。

 

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