Internalizing the seeker and the teacher

When we go to a good university, we assume that our teachers are top notch.  We can trust them to be on the cutting-edge, so to speak.  Eventually, many of us find out that our teachers were not so smart.  Their main advantage over us, when we first began our class, is they’ve read a lot more books on the subject than we have.  These same teachers were also, at the time, better at explaining the subject.

When Buddhists say they have a ‘teacher’ they are assuming a great deal, perhaps too much.  When I first began to study Zen with my teacher, like a tyro (which I was!) I made huge assumptions about his knowledge of Zen.  He wasn’t even the Buddhist equivalent of a Christian seminary graduate.  What he did know is how to conduct Japanese funerals and do rituals.

Why, as beginners, we are credulous probably has more than one answer—in fact, many answers.  In a way, being credulous is not a positive path to learning.  It is almost being downright block headed.  The only way to overcome this—and I know it sounds a bit strange—we, ourselves, have to internalize the role of teacher and student.  One has to be a seeker, and a teacher who has the ability to find the adequate answer and know also what the inadequate answer is.  Again, it may sound strange to say this, but we also need to cultivate our non-knowledge of Buddhism so as to ask the right questions, hopefully, to find the adequate answer.  In this respect, an external teacher is of limited help.  Some can point the Way, others are not so good at it.

The only advantage with having a teacher (and it’s really no long term advantage), we can defer our lack of wisdom to our teacher.  He alone knows everything about Buddhism; we know nothing.  This is a dangerous position to fall into.  One can easily become a Zen center Buddhist who has reverence for the teacher but much less reverence for the Buddha’s words even though the Buddha is supposed to be the supreme teacher.  This situation easily becomes  a cult.

It really means nothing to have a Buddhist teacher if all one can manage to do is sit on a zafu, do a ritual or two, and have little or no background knowledge in the Buddha’s discourses which includes the Nikayas, the Agamas, and also Mahayana Sutras.  Following and defering our ignorance of Buddhism to a teacher, really not learning anything of what the Buddha actually taught, leads inevitably to failure.

 

Comments

[thezennist]

QuoteDispenser: Sweet!

[QuoteDispenser]

"I've noticed that recently a lot of young people are really keen on practicing Buddhism or cultivating the Tao. It makes me worry. I always say to them: You are so young. Why do you want to practice this? I don't want to upset anyone by asking this, but there are two reasons why I do ask. The first is that most worldly pursuits can be accomplished with a little effort, while studying Buddhism, on the other hand, is by far the most difficult thing one could pursue. The second reason is that, "if one's life drawing of a tiger is unsuccessful, one can always change the subject to a dog." If your Buddhist pursuits are unsuccessful, what will you then turn to? What I hope that you young people will do is first learn to be good people and take care of worldly affairs; then study Buddhism. However, if you insist on going down this path, then you must very seriously beware of dwelling in form. If you dwell in form, you will not succeed at any practice."

Nan Huai-Chin