Why do masters keep secrets?

[Pietro]

This is actually false. Why don't you look up some statistics.

because I was too busy.

I have a talk in 3 hours, a work meeting before, one after. And this morning I passed part of it on the phone with a friend whose father blew up his head just because they had a loaded gun in their house.

 

Please start digging up those statistics. I will join you in the next days.

[goldisheavy]

because I was too busy.

I have a talk in 3 hours, a work meeting before, one after. And this morning I passed part of it on the phone with a friend whose father blew up his head just because they had a loaded gun in their house.

 

Please start digging up those statistics. I will join you in the next days.

 

Weak.

 

Timing is right.

 

But it's not just a matter of the student shutting out the teaching.

 

When we study math as children, do our teachers give us a problem only to directly answer it for us? Of course not, learning to solve problems is, after all, the point of education. The actual answer is pointless.

 

Secrets are answers.

 

And if you're simply handed the answers right away then what have you done? In Quanzhen Daoist cultivation (and I'm sure other systems as well), it is important to learn the practice first, and through practice, discover the inner workings. This is called separating reality from lies. Communication with the teacher is important because he/she will know if you're on the right or wrong course and can give you further instruction. If you knew what results to expect, your mind may easily create these sensations in lieu of actually practicing them into reality.

 

This is the dumbest thing I've heard.

 

Let's take the study of mathematics as a perfect example. First graders have complete access to calculus books. Sure, the teacher will not introduce calculus in class, but it is emphatically not a secret. Right away, if a certain student asks, an answer can be given pointing to the calculus material. It's not a secret at all! It's there for the taking. How many first graders want to learn calculus though? Aha! There is your answer. None! Pretty much none. It's not that it's a secret. The teacher would be happy to teach calculus to anyone who asks, but the students have to be forced to learn basic arithmetic, and never mind higher maths! The students have no interest in the material.

 

However, those gifted students that can study calculus in the first grade have complete, full and enthusiastic access to it. Not in the closet. Not in some secret hidden cave. But right in the open where everyone in society can see. No secret at all.

 

Right now I can pick up a topology book. I don't know topology and I am probably not ready to learn it. It's NOT a secret though! I can get it and try to understand it. If I succeed, more power to me. There is no bullshit artificial barrier between me and a complete mastery of topology.

 

This is our way. And this way handling knowledge in an open manner is worth protecting. The Eastern way of secrecy is utter piece of crap. I am happy to borrow wisdom from the East, but I don't have to borrow crap along with the gold. I will let the Chinese and Indians keep the crap parts of their culture, while I benefit from the good parts. Thank you very much.

Edited November 25, 2009 by goldisheavy

[Pietro]

Weak.

but true

[markern]

Guns are not legal in many countries, and where they are legal the number of people dying because of them is much higher. You might agree or not that guns should be legal, but you have to admit that the argument against having guns for free is a valid one. Here is the same. You might not agree, you might think there are other reasons as well. But to speak about the true reason is childish.

 

 

Norway I belive has a very high percentage of gun owners. A ridiculous amount of people have hunting rifles and AG3 the, armies standard machine gun, are found, I belive, in several hundred thousand homes. We still have on of the lowest rates of murder anywhere in the world. Canada also has abount as much guns as the US and a low number of murders. I still belive in limiting access though. There would be less muders if access was less and there are no important reasons for guns to be very easily accesible although I do not belive in banning them (except perhaps in the US where you don't seem able to handle them at all).

[minkus]

They keeps secrets because we need to learn from ourselves and not be spoonfed.

[Old Man Contradiction]

They keeps secrets because we need to learn from ourselves and not be spoonfed.

 

I believing in questioning yourself and your teacher's teaching, and independantly thinking about what you are doing and ways to improve. Whether you are taught "secrets" or not, this is required to become an extraordinary martial artist or "cultivator".

[manitou]

Maybe it's that there are some things that are not communicable through verbal teachings. A master may infer the way, point in the direction, allude to truth. The truth must be internalized by the process of realization, the inner gulps of 'Aha!'that set a knowledgeable man apart from a self-realized man.

[33865_1494798762]

I was wondering if you've heard any stories, or rumors, regarding why masters withhold secrets from students? Grandmaster Wang Xiangzhai was kind of on the forefront of freeing knowledge to the public, but yet his influence only extended into his students, who later taught with the same philosophy (hopefully). Anyway, do you know why some masters keep secrets?

Concider this - how can you know that your master is keeping a secret? What is it you want?

[Pietro]

This is actually false. Why don't you look up some statistics.

 

Let's look at the murder with firearms pro capita.

 

US:-------------------------------- 0.042802 per 1,000 people

Canada: --------------------------0.0149063 per 1,000 people

France: --------------------------0.0173272 per 1,000 people

Germany: ------------------------0.0116461 per 1,000 people

United Kingdom: ---------------0.0140633 per 1,000 people

Italy: ----------------------------0.0128393 per 1,000 people

 

Source: 7th UN Survey of Crime Trends and Operations of Criminal Justice Systems.

 

So it looks like according to those very old statistics (the only raw data I could find on crimes) the US is on top of all the other G8-western nations in terms of number of firearm murder. (Russia is actually higher, but the point is that the situation in Russia is so different that it is hard to make any comparison)

 

Of course you can claim that correlation does not imply causality, but this is not the point. The point is that there is a correlation, or at least some statistical data show a correlation. And this is enough for some people to genuinely belief that there is a causal relationship. Which is all it takes to prove my point that some people will support gun restriction as a form of prevention against firearm killings. More than this I do not need to go.

 

Regarding firearms in Canada and in Norway, I would claim they fall out of the example, because generally firearms are there used in wild settings. Very different from having a gun in the middle of a city. My understanding is that also in Canada and in Norway you are not allowed to carry a gun in the middle of a city, say Toronto, with the same lightness that you have in carrying it in the US.

[Apech]

So if the master in question is packing a sidearm - then he can keep all the secrets he wants (?).

 

Why is everyone discounting the idea that some teaching is one to one, personal and relies on the right conditions to make the 'secret' revealed have any impact on the student. This would be a good reason for keeping things secret until the right time. Mysticsm isn't some kind of democracy in which freedom of information has any meaning (is it?).

[Marblehead]

Let's look at the murder with firearms pro capita.

 

 

Actually the data looks the way it does only because we in the United States have a lot more people who need to die. If you didn't count all the people who needed to die our rate would be lower than anyone else's.

 

Peace & Love!

[宁]

a secret is just a seed if i remember correctly,

the character for secret is written with a character for seed, or rice...

[33865_1494798762]

Edited November 26, 2009 by Guest

[Marblehead]

[33865_1494798762]

Edited November 25, 2009 by Guest

[松永道]

This is the dumbest thing I've heard.

 

Let's take the study of mathematics as a perfect example. First graders have complete access to calculus books. Sure, the teacher will not introduce calculus in class, but it is emphatically not a secret. Right away, if a certain student asks, an answer can be given pointing to the calculus material. It's not a secret at all! It's there for the taking. How many first graders want to learn calculus though? Aha! There is your answer. None! Pretty much none. It's not that it's a secret. The teacher would be happy to teach calculus to anyone who asks, but the students have to be forced to learn basic arithmetic, and never mind higher maths! The students have no interest in the material.

 

However, those gifted students that can study calculus in the first grade have complete, full and enthusiastic access to it. Not in the closet. Not in some secret hidden cave. But right in the open where everyone in society can see. No secret at all.

 

Right now I can pick up a topology book. I don't know topology and I am probably not ready to learn it. It's NOT a secret though! I can get it and try to understand it. If I succeed, more power to me. There is no bullshit artificial barrier between me and a complete mastery of topology.

 

This is our way. And this way handling knowledge in an open manner is worth protecting. The Eastern way of secrecy is utter piece of crap. I am happy to borrow wisdom from the East, but I don't have to borrow crap along with the gold. I will let the Chinese and Indians keep the crap parts of their culture, while I benefit from the good parts. Thank you very much.

 

Wow.

 

You completely missed the point. Settle your ego for a minute and read it again. You got completely absorbed into two sentences without even reading the whole comment.

 

So this time I'll cut out any metaphors or examples and just say it plainly.

 

Every practice is composed of form and substance. The teacher teaches you the form. You, through practice of the form, provide the substance. You then describe your experience and the teacher tells you if you're on the right track or not. Were he/she to simply tell you, "with this form you should feel a tingling move up from your tailbone and curl around your dantian", that's the sensation you'd look for and only that. Moreover, you'd probably create the sensation with your mind and mistake it for the real sensation.

 

Your entire foundation would be fake, you'd be pushing your imagination around and fall deeper and deeper into illusion. This is why separating reality from lies is so important. And in order to do it, you can't know the answer beforehand.

 

 

 

Yes there are selfish reasons to keep secrets as well, especially historically in the martial traditions (after all, technique was their technology), but there are also unselfish reasons, particularly among the enlightenment traditions.

[Taomeow]

I can think of several reasons. I can also think of several reasons why people are resentful of the idea of secret knowledge kept from them. OK, why masters keep secrets:

 

On the level of qi transformations, masters keep secrets because it's the way of yin to keep itself secret. Yin is hidden; yang is on the surface. To share the innermost secret is to violate yin's natural principles. It's like Cesarean birth undertaken when the doctor is ready instead of natural birth when the baby is ready. When the secret is ready, when yin is ready to transform into yang, the master knows, and the student will be informed. This is why so many secrets are revealed "on deathbed" -- spirit that is about to depart is yang, and whatever yin remains inside needs to be transformed so it can do so with lightness -- so confessions to a priest or revelations of buried treasures or of past transgressions or of secret knowledge, the innermost yin of the person, is brought to the surface by the spiritually yang-bound process of death. So if a master feels pretty perky and feels she still has a lot of life to live in her, she won't turn all her secret yin into yang by telling all. Besides, there's a Chinese proverb I heard somewhere, "teacher tell, go hungry." Someone who feels alive enough to envision the need for a "stash" that can be turned into cash if necessary to provide nourishment in the future will stash away a secret or two. I would. I do.

 

Then there's situations when a secret would be wasted on a student who won't get it, so why waste it? Take the frequent full lotus discussion here. It is no secret, it's in the open, and yet its meaning is wasted on whoever is ready to believe something else instead, something less involved or more, well, secret, whatever. So it's one example but there's hundreds of such open secrets students who aren't into that simply don't notice. Another Chinese proverb goes, "one walks knee deep in Buddhas." Do you notice? I do.

 

Oh, and the reason people resent secrets being kept from them is that the power to hold on to a secret is abused since they are little by people who shouldn't keep secrets from them, things are kept from them that should be rightfully theirs, offered freely (e.g., "I love you" from a dad who may or may not show it, tell it, or act it -- is a big secret: does he love me, or does he not?.. I resent not knowing!) To say nothing of the secret governments and their secret agendas. Even those who "don't believe" in "such things" pretty damn well feel, on some level, that this is what is really going on. They are being treated like mushrooms that is. To wit, kept in the dark and fed shit. They rightfully resent it and either dig for the truth or go into denial and assert they already know all the truth there is to know. Which one do you do -- deny, or dig? I dig.

[doc benway]

Anyway, do you know why some masters keep secrets?

 

Because they are afraid.

[Ya Mu]

Maybe it's that there are some things that are not communicable through verbal teachings. ...

[DaoChild]

Two Reasons:

 

A) If you worked hard 10 years just to find out your boss's great secret to success, would you easily give it away?

 

Because regardless of the greatness of the master, there are few great students.

[33865_1494798762]

guys, again

 

Concider this - how can you know that your master is keeping a secret?

 

(so, what is it you want?)

[exorcist_1699]

To me, it is simple .

 

Because Taoist way of immortality is real and honorable, and should only be heard by spiritually noble people .

 

Because with Tao embodied in our body, the power we get will be great. So, there are lot of shallow people who use the pretext of science, psychology...or other excuses, cheaply market it . It always happened in the past , only not under the cover of science; seeing this , some real Taoist masters , in order to maintain Tao's "dignity " , they prefer to speak less .

Edited November 26, 2009 by exorcist_1699

[Old Man Contradiction]

[goldisheavy]

Were he/she to simply tell you, "with this form you should feel a tingling move up from your tailbone and curl around your dantian", that's the sensation you'd look for and only that. Moreover, you'd probably create the sensation with your mind and mistake it for the real sensation.

 

You really have to question this. If it's pretty much impossible to distinguish "fake" mind-created signs from the real ones, this really should teach you something. Instead you learn nothing. Instead of understanding emptiness, you just think you need a more reliable detector of authenticity. This means you don't understand the nature of mind and you don't understand how convention is formed and reformed. And if that is the case, you have to wonder: what is the teacher doing for you? What secrets? What are those secrets doing?

 

From each situation you can learn many lessons.

 

For example, if I get caught on a test cheating, what's my lesson? Some would say, my lesson is that I should study next time. Others would say, I need to get better at cheating. And still others (like yours truly) would say, what is the point of the test (because if the test is aligned with your intention, you'd never cheat on it)?

 

So in your case, let's say you get some signs that you think are mind-made and false. The lesson you are learning is that you need to rely on the teacher. But that's not the only possible lesson you can learn from this. In fact, this might actually be a very dumb, sheep-like, low-level lesson to learn. What else can you learn?

 

How about your teacher? Does he verify his experiences too? You can say "yes", but in that case, there is a number of problems. I will list those problems.

 

1. Who is your teachers verifier? Is he alive or dead?

 

1a. Alive: why don't you learn from the source then? The more intermediary links you get the more broken the telephone becomes.

 

1b. Dead: then how can you be certain your teacher hasn't derailed himself in the absence of the original verifier? After all, there is a damn good reason why lineages get constantly watered down and lose power and why there is always talk about the "good old days" when teachers could levitate and walk through walls, but their retarded students can't do even 1/100th of that. Either it's all bullshit from the getgo and the original teacher never did any of that stuff, or the new teacher has deviated even though he had the "benefit" of the verifier. Either way it's a problem for you (or an opportunity, if your name is "goldisheavy", which it is not, so a problem then).

 

2. Was there a first person in the lineage? Usually lineages DO claim such first person. For example in Buddhism it is Buddha and while Buddha has 2 teachers, Buddha's wisdom is original and not exactly dependent on what those 2 teachers taught him. Or if you take Daoism, then you go back to either Lao Zi or Yellow Emperor or Fu Hsi, but either way, Daoists do seem to consider some guy to be the first one. Then the question arises: how does this first one gain confidence in the absence of the verifier? This presents a problem.

 

3. And then there is a question about confidence in general. Since you only verify certain aspects with your teacher and not literally everything about your life, where does confidence about the other stuff come from? Why can you be confident at all, about anything, without a teacher? Why need more than one teacher? Why can't your biology teacher give you confidence in maths? Why do you need separate teachers for bio and maths? Or if you have a biomath teacher, then you lose anthropology or some other field. Basically no teacher knows it all. So if confidence is fractured among many sources, who is the overseer of this fracturing? If you touch your knows, how can you be certain you are doing that? Why don't you ask your teacher? Of course you don't ask that! You assume you know it beyond doubt. Where does this confidence come from? Not even your parents taught you about your nose... you just know it from birth. This presents a real problem. If the teacher was the sole source of all confidence, it would be easy and simple, but as you can see, we have more primordial and more important sources of confidence than teachers... like how we know where our noses are, for example, that's more important than what your teacher teaches. Why? Because without your teacher your life is only mildly worse, but if you don't know where your nose is, you are fucked up beyond repair and your life must be hell. Simple and basic knowledge is always more important than the specialized knowledge and at the same time we never verify such knowledge externally.

 

Something to think about.

[xyz]

"The title of this thread reminded me of a story.

 

An exceptional student of a great master decided to challenge the master in order to show off how well he had learned what the master had taught.

 

The exchange lasted only 30 seconds. The student was flat on the floor.

 

The student said, "I thought I had learned well everything you had taught us."

 

The master replied, "Ah, yes, indeed. Although you have learned well and now know everything I have taught you it does not mean that I have taught you everything I know."

 

Peace & Love!"

 

 

that story is similar to another story i have heard.

 

 

the tiger wanted to learn how to fight so he asked the cat to teach him. when the tiger grew strong he turned on the cat and chased him across the field untill the cat hid utop a tree. that is one of the skills that the cat never taught the tiger

 

 

not word for word but it goes something like that =)