Questions like, are you a certified teacher? seem almost tantamount to asking, where can I find a Buddha to teach me Buddhism? The specific problem with this kind of question is that the asker is a worldling (prithagjana) which bluntly means the seeker is spiritually dumb, who cannot actually discern who is the right teacher.
The background for this is made abundantly clear in both the Pali canon and the Mahayana canon: that worldlings lack any capacity to distinguish between aryan and non-aryan which raises not a few problems for today’s seeker given that the aryan category includes the Buddha and Bodhisattvas (real Bodhisattvas not people aspiring to become Bodhisattvas who recite the vow of a Bodhisattva).
In the example of somebody today going to a Zen center to find a good teacher they will most likely find a worldling teacher since they are themselves worldly by nature. It doesn't matter if the prospective teacher is wearing robes, has a shaved head, and smiles a lot—chances are this teacher is worldling.
We need to keep in mind that during the time of the Buddha there were both worldling monks and aryan monks (P., ariya). The former could not tell if they were in the presence of an aryan monk or not. More importantly, for the Buddha it didn’t matter if you were a monk or not. What counted is being aryan. An aryan could be a lay person, male or female.
“He is called, monks, an ariyasavaka [aryan-sravaka] who possesses (right) view, who possesses vision, who has come to this true Dhamma, who see this true Dhamma, who is endowed with the knowledge (ñânena) of the sekha (i.e., a sotapanna, sakadagamain or anagamin), who is endowed with the wisdom (vijjaya) of the sekha, who has attained the Dhamma-ear, who has the ariyan insight of revulsion, who stand having arrived at the door to the Deathless" (S. ii. 43, 44, 58, 79; cp S. ii. 80).
In the aforementioned, the Buddha is addressing some monks. He is describing to them the aryan who might be a lay person such as a young woman or an old farmer who has more fingers than teeth in his head. If we met this young woman, we would be wise to study with her than with some worldling monk who may be well respected and loved by the villagers but, nevertheless, is spiritually dumb.
A great hurdle for any beginner is discerning who can really teach them. Does the beginner go for the guy with the robes, the teaching certificate, the huge organization or, let us say, the Japanese-American who owns a gas station with a small picture of Amida Buddha in the back of his garage over by the tires?
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