Beneath the conglomeration of rites, doctrines, and observances that permeate all religious traditions lies devotion, as an intensive love of the sacred. Without this, religion loses its vibrancy and morphs into mere theories; it may sooner or later even die out. When religion goes from percept to concept, it will lose its life force and become dead. “Percept” in this case means perceiving through direct experience, while “concept” is theory and ideology. Devotion is the direct experience of loving something that is much bigger than ourselves, which is also purer and holier than the humans tendencies of greed and malice. While we can totally succumb to the lowest urgings of the ego, there is also an authentic impulse to be free from those tendencies. Devotion is the full expression of that impulse. It is our desire to be emancipated from them as well as to be in union with the sacred, whether that might be divinity or a state of reality that is intrinsically pure and free from all human flaws.
Devotion can often have an object of its focus and is totally individual. It has a variety of expressions that can differ from one person to another. When you go to India, there is an energetic field of devotion—not only in ashrams but also in the streets of cities along with shops, restaurants, and all the imperfections of the human world. In the same way, if you walk in Mexico City, you might find altars to Mother Guadalupe, who is so loved by many in Mexico.
Devotion can be found in all the Buddhist cultures, from Sri Lanka to Tibet. People in all these cultures have deeply rooted reverence for the Buddha that has been a big component of their tradition. The temples and statues often serve as a medium through which people can let go of their mundane affairs and immerse themselves in the transcendent impulse. This is why people visit temples to bow and offer incense to images of Shakyamuni Buddha. Visiting Bodh Gaya can allow someone to witness the full expression of that devotion, which transcends culture, identities, and politics. Buddhists from all corners of the world go there to pray and meditate at the most holy site where the Buddha attained awakening.
Devotion is often used in Vajrayana as a direct method to experience a non-egoic state of mind, such as rigpa or dharmakaya mind. For example, in the Dzogchen tradition, meditators often practice guru yoga, a devotional practice in which one visualizes a deity or guru and that allows one to feel love and reverence toward the deity or guru. Meditators are also reminded that the ultimate guru lies within oneself as one’s true nature. And yet the devotion toward the outer guru becomes a powerful doorway to see one’s own true nature that is already Buddha.
There are numerous anecdotes about people experiencing inner awakening through such practices. For example, the great Dzogchen master Adzom Drukpa from the 20th century developed unshakeable devotion to Rigdzin Jigme Lingpa, who lived in the 18th century. Adzom Drukpa always said that Jigme Lingpa was the kindest person to him, even more than his own living guru. On one occasion, he had a vision in which Jigme Lingpa appeared, laughing hysterically and so loudly that Adzom Drukpa fainted. When he came to, he glimpsed rigpa, the pure nature of his own mind. That’s why he felt such a connection; he attributed the catalyst for his awakening to his devotion to Jigme Lingpa.
The object of devotion is not always a guru or deity in the Buddhist tradition. It can also be the nature of reality or the ultimate truth. Therefore, a Buddhist can have absolute love toward a notion such as emptiness. They can even feel that they are in love with emptiness. This devotion is very powerful—so powerful that it can motivate one’s whole being to direct one’s love and attention to the ultimate truth. Eventually, it can lead to spiritual awakening. When we think of the great Buddhist masters of the past who are regarded as awakened, they all had one thing in common: that intense devotion, whether to the Buddha, a guru, or emptiness.
In modern days in the Western world, the word “devotion” can sometimes scare people. At least in some people’s minds, it is associated with dogmatic religion. Personally, when I look around and see many people who are practicing Buddhist meditation in the West, I feel that there is a subtle danger of rejecting devotion because of aversion to it or misunderstanding it. This could be a huge loss. Then we are simply walking the spiritual path with the intellect, and the heart is missing. I coined the term “devotion deficiency,” like a vitamin deficiency. We might like to check our own spirituality to see if we have a “devotion deficiency.” We may find resistance to devotion.
In deep introspection, our resistance to devotion comes from the fact that our ego doesn’t want to let go of all the defenses that it has built to close our heart; it is a form of self-protection for the ego. I was at a retreat recently and one of the Western meditation teachers said that at one point, at the beginning of her journey, she did not know why people bowed in the temple. She had a visceral resistance to do it herself. Finally, one day, that resistance simply fell away and she found herself bowing in the temple, and her heart opened with a beautiful experience of sacred love.
There are many traditional practices, rituals, and hymns that can help someone experience devotion. The way to overcome our resistance to the path of devotion is to understand the liberating power of devotion. Then we may be able to put aside all of the ego’s defenses. Once our hearts taste the liberating power of devotion, all its defenses will begin to melt, and it wants to experience it again and again. It comes with a profound sense of joy, which is not mental but ecstatic at a visceral level. That joy washes our heart of all its troubles so it can see the sacredness and beauty of all things.
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