Taoist disciples asked me what is devotion? as this concept is quite foreign to them. Vajrayana mentions about devotion quite a lot. I remember a conversation or a matter a fact, a teaching by a short story that Tsewong Sitar Rinpoche talked about during lunch when he was here in Penang 2 weeks ago.
It's the story of Naropa and Tilopa. Naropa was an abbot in famous Nalanda university. He was very knowledgeable in all the sutras. One evening he had a vision of Vajrayogini a dakini that asked him to seek out Tilopa at the East as his teacher. He went to East and asked many places looking for the Mahasiddha Tilopa. He had many ideas in his mind, what a mahasiddha would look like and how one would behave. When he arrived in a village on the Eastern side of the country. He asked around whether anybody knows of this enlighten person named Tilopa.
Many told him "there is no enlighten person named Tilopa here, but we have one Tilopa the Fisherman. He lived by the river". So Naropa excitedly went straight to the river in hope of finding his guru. When he reached the river banks, he saw an almost naked man, with scruffy hairs catching fishes and roasting some fish by the river. At that moment, Naropa thought to himself, this can't be my enlightened guru. Naropa in his mind already have a fixed set of expectation what his guru or an enlightened being would look like and behave. This is by no means matches any of his expectation.
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| Naropa |
He asked the fisherman "Are you Tilopa?" Tilopa nod his head. Naropa then told Tilopa of his vision and asked whether Tilopa can teach him. Because of Tilopa's outlook, Naropa did not even prostrate when he met him. Tilopa told Naropa, I have nothing to teach you, I am just a fisherman. And he asked Naropa "Would you like some fish?"
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| Tilopa |
As Naropa sit by the river and watch Tilopa eats his fish, then he saw something he cannot explain. When Tilopa puts the fish to roast, he snaps his fingers and those fishes were liberated spiritually. Then Naropa realized that Tilopa is a real Mahasiddha.
From that moment onwards, Naropa devotion grew. Where ever Tilopa went, Naropa would follow. He gave up his abbot status and became a yogi like Tilopa. Although Tilopa did not give him official teachings, more like many gruelling test along the way. Naropa succeeded in achieving enlightenment in one life time due to his unshakeable devotion towards his guru Tilopa.
There are 3 methods of teaching dependent on the capacity of the students. First is through mind transference, this is for students who have very strong potential and very smart in which the teacher/guru just transfer whatever he/she knows via the mind. And the student would instantly be enlightened. Second is through strong devotion, the student of medium capacity - does not receive much teaching but each action of the guru becomes a teaching in itself. Due to their strong devotion towards the guru they would also achieve enlightenment. Whereas the Third way is like everyone else nowadays, receive some teachings slowly practice, arise some devotion practice further, and receive more teachings.
The above is about Vajrayana and the crucial key of devotion towards guru, buddha, dharma and sangha because without it none of the practice one does will make sense.
In Taoism however, we do not have to see the teacher as embodiment of Deities. However deep respect and some form of devotion should be within us, if we were to expect to learn anything.
Nowadays, the term Shi Fu 师父 is being used and called loosely. Some would call you Master, because they expect to receive some benefits now and or in the near future. They are not interested to learn about Taoism. The main interest is WIIIFM - What is in it for me? When a Master points out the student's fault. Their ego is hurt, and they will find many ways to justify their action. Automatically the student suddenly becomes an expert in Taoism and Buddhism.
They will try to Google hard and long to find the exact write up and post to essentially 'remind' the Master how they should act instead of inspecting themselves on what should they reflect upon. Because all these time they are with the master, it is not because of learning it is because what can I get - their ego is full no amount of learning can go into the mind anymore. They would only like to think - give me some 道法 Tao Fa, so I can do things what other people cannot do. Again actions to feed the ego.
When reprimanded by the Master, their ego will jump to justify - 'how come you said you are cultivator, but you have no Bodhicitta?' Because their ego cannot be reprimanded, innately viewing themselves as enlighten beings instead of viewing the master has something to teach them.
If a Taoist student has already had an impression in their mind how a teacher would behave and act. That is part of the delusional ego on how they should be treated and how the ego must not be pointed out at any instances. If a Master is only nice to their student, never point out any faults of the students that master can see, that is not a master disciple relationship - that is a transaction customer/vendor relationship when each hoping to get some materialistic benefit from the relationship.
Because we live in a modern world and everything in our society are geared towards feeding the ego. To put down or reduce the ego temporarily for any forms of teaching maybe the hardest things. Tao Fa once had quite a number of practitioners few decades ago, but nowadays the number is very low. Largely due to seniors seeing the degrading attitudes of each generation of people, which is why they essentially gave up receiving any disciples or give any transmission. I attribute it to the lack of devotion.
