Tantric practitioners are not really worshipping a guru because of his personality, his achievements, his charisma, or his reputation. It’s nothing personal at all. A tantric practitioner has to see everyone as the guru. Not only that, a tantric practitioner has to see everything as the guru’s form, every sound as the guru’s voice, and every thought as the guru’s mind. So eventually all your idealizing, sycophanting, and ass kissing of a guru will mature so that you will do that to everyone, even those who irritate you the most, and everything that enters your consciousness. When that starts to happen, you are beginning to subdue and outshine appearance and existence instead of existence and appearance subduing and outshining you, which is probably what is happening in your experience of phenomena now.

Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche

from the book The Guru Drinks Bourbon?

Read a random quote or see all quotes by Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche.

Further quotes from the book The Guru Drinks Bourbon?:

• Skillful Guru
• Modern Buddhadharma
• Guru
• Look beyond titles and hats
• Cultivating trust in simplicity
• Outer display of guru devotion
• Dharma without devotion
• Abundance and variety in the teachings is so important
• Check how the guru handles criticism
• Peeling of our patches of samsara
• Guru devotion and pure perception
• Hearing the Dharma
• Teachings don’t just rain down
• The authentic guru lineage is indispensable
• A proper guru-student communication
• A different interpretation of austerity
• Going beyond Rational and Irrational Devotion
• Pure perception
• Devotion
• Never opt for the easy way out