Genuine Devotion

IdleChater

Devotion is the head of meditation, as is taught.
The guru opens the gate to the treasury of oral instructions.
To this meditator who continually supplicates him
Grant your blessings, so that genuine devotion is born in me.

This is a verse from the Kagyu Lineage Supplication.

The term "Genuine Devotion" is one that often occurs in Kagyu writings. I was fortunate to be granted an interview with the man who would later become my Root Guru, Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche. There were several of us in that meeting, and we were each allowed a question of Rinpoche. I wasn't sure what that term meant. So I asked. Rinpoche thought about it for a minute and said, "An open heart".

Lionduck

I can not speak to Kagyu's writings. However, as I perceive it, "Genuine Devotion" is not blind devotion. It arises from both experience and education (study). Experience through practice of whichever form of meditation is involved. Education is to understand the practice from an historic, theoretical, philosophical and cognative perspective.
Of course, all meditative practice is tentative in the beginning. Eventially, through practice, open minded study - listening to the teacher, reading the materiel (scripture, commentary, references), steadily applying what is learned and experienced, Genuine Devotion arises, not hopeful, rather, confident and aware with, as your teacher, Rinpoche, said, "an open heart".
Buddhism is, after all, a practice of Mercy, Compassion and an Open Heart (also sometimes called and Open Mind).

Peace to all