Spiritual Teachers...

[z00se]

Ok, so just came back from a spiritual gathering with a group that teach meditation and has a head of the organisation in the capital city. They were nice, it was a free weekly event, and they had free tea and cake which looked quiet nice although i didn't have any. It was quiet big and therefore i had concerns, or thoughts about it.

 

My question is... Can you 'teach' spirituality? Is it not something that is an individual path? Is finding a teacher any help at all or is it just a crutch, that sidetracks you?

 

I can understand a nei gong / neigong / yoga teacher much the same way somebody learns martial arts or something like that or even a meditation intensive class that teaches you the techniques then you go away to do it by yourself, returning every few weeks to learn some new techniques and teacher to ask questions of.

 

But when the head person at the gathering goes through scriptures, or even the head teachers book which are not their own ideas which they don't even fully understand is this morally right? I wouldn't feel right preaching what i thought or learnt about spirituality unless i experienced it directly. Infact i wouldn't want to preach at all, i would like to teach exercises that can let people experience it themselves, then discuss it with them. Preaching is using the mind to lure the people to what they all naturally crave - that enlightened / happy state, but the mind can never finally grasp it because it is the mind that is actually getting in the way!

 

However... I have heard of people reading scriptures and becomming enlightened or reaching that state but i can't comprehend it since the reading is feeding the mind, which is the very thing you want to lose. Generally i don't think scriptures or texts are useful in a spiritual journey. I'm not talking about qigong/neigong/kundalini/yoga which all lead to a spritual destination, but they are in essence mainly physical, mental and emotional.

 

The scriptures seem to deal mainly with spiritual with a little bit of emotional and mental.

 

Wonder if some of the great minds on here can offer some insight

[eye_of_the_storm]

Who was the first Teacher?

 

Who was the first Master?

[Jetsun]

From my own experience I found it very beneficial to meet a somewhat realised and spiritually purified person just because it showed me that all of this stuff is actually real and can lead somewhere genuine, which gives you the motivation to keep going with your practice and gives you hope.

[thelerner]

No great mind here, but instead of a crutch a teacher is ... a teacher; a sensei, one who has gone before, knows the route and can guide you around obstacles that might make you quit or bash your head against for a long time. A great teacher is priceless as long as the student is diligent and open.

 

I agree with you, Books feed the intellect, unless they cause a mental leap they're unlikely to lead anywhere profound with out real life practice to back them up.

[Ish]

If they havent got the experience but are trying to teach others, then yes i think its morally wrong.

However if its like sharing between aspirants rather than a master/student relationship then i would think its ok.

[Rishi Das]

[Informer]

I think it is the same when trying to clump a bunch of people together regardless of the label. (In this case "Spiritual Teachers") There is not really much you can say that will apply to them all, other than they are most likely human and prone to mistakes. We all are (I think).

[Informer]

I think our being prone to mistakes is why we have eachother, to help us find them. In this sense a student and teacher is no different, one just makes less mistakes (generally). If you can help to find a mistake, the teacher should be thrilled, as for that moment he was the student, and once again learning.

[z00se]

I think our being prone to mistakes is why we have eachother, to help us find them. In this sense a student and teacher is no different, one just makes less mistakes (generally). If you can help to find a mistake, the teacher should be thrilled, as for that moment he was the student, and once again learning.

 

Yes very good point.

 

Thanks alot for your insight everyone.

[Apech]

I think you can have teachers just to learn beneficial exercises and so on. That just teach you things that you can then go away and learn for yourself. I think most of the time this is the best arrangement.

 

There are also people you meet who can teach you at a deeper level ... something more challenging and fundamental about who you are and the nature of reality. For these kinds of relationships there has to be a genuine connection, a feeling of confidence for the other person. Often the mistake is to want this to happen when it hasn't ... so people fabricate a guru ... or follow someone for spurious reasons not because of a genuine connection. Good high level teachers do not allow you to become dependent, in fact they throw you back on yourself all the time.

 

I would say spirituality is a matter individual expression and not conformity. Listening to scriptures can be useful if you take something from them which you can use to apply to you and your own life.

[thelerner]

And then there are people who don't teach, but just there presence is a lesson.

[Mark Foote]

 

I wouldn't feel right preaching what i thought or learnt about spirituality unless i experienced it directly. In fact i wouldn't want to preach at all, i would like to teach exercises that can let people experience it themselves, then discuss it with them. Preaching is using the mind to lure the people to what they all naturally crave - that enlightened / happy state, but the mind can never finally grasp it because it is the mind that is actually getting in the way!

 

However... I have heard of people reading scriptures and becomming enlightened or reaching that state but i can't comprehend it since the reading is feeding the mind, which is the very thing you want to lose.

 

 

Sobering, the things that folks on this thread have not said. & all true!

 

I was introduced to zazen practice ("seated zen") by a book, "Three Pillars of Zen", by Kapleau. Kapleau had pictures in the back of the book, and I went from there. Years later a friend took me down to the Santa Cruz Zen Center, and someone who was able to sit the lotus without pain and without numbness told a roomful of people that they should "take their time with the lotus"; that was Kobun Chino Otogawa, in 1971.

 

This morning I sat 40 minutes in the lotus without pain and without numbness.

 

The Burmese posture, the half-lotus, and the lotus have been my teacher. I mostly couldn't sit without some pain and numbness, and I did not think I was a good candidate to become a Zen student as a result. So I sat on my own.

 

I have a Western understanding of what the sitting practice entails, and I have tried various ways to share my understanding to help others learn to sit the lotus. I have one person who was able to discover the heart of my practice from my description, yet so far as I know that person doesn't sit zazen.

 

The idea as I understand it is to attend to where I am, and allow what I feel to enter into where I am, including what I feel with regard to my own thoughts. Interestingly, when I attend to where I am, I wake up or fall asleep to where I am from moment to moment.

 

I have written about the position of the hands in zazen, and how a relaxed presence where I am contributes to the position of the hands, in particular to the way the little fingers rest on the abdomen, the way the elbows bend, and the way the shoulders round. You can find that towards the close of the essay here, if you're interested. I think that pretty well sums up what I've learned from the lotus, it's waking up and falling asleep to where I am and what I feel from where I am.

[Harmonious Emptiness]

Ok, so just came back from a spiritual gathering with a group that teach meditation and has a head of the organisation in the capital city. They were nice, it was a free weekly event, and they had free tea and cake which looked quiet nice although i didn't have any. It was quiet big and therefore i had concerns, or thoughts about it.

 

My question is... Can you 'teach' spirituality? Is it not something that is an individual path? Is finding a teacher any help at all or is it just a crutch, that sidetracks you?

 

I can understand a nei gong / neigong / yoga teacher much the same way somebody learns martial arts or something like that or even a meditation intensive class that teaches you the techniques then you go away to do it by yourself, returning every few weeks to learn some new techniques and teacher to ask questions of.

 

But when the head person at the gathering goes through scriptures, or even the head teachers book which are not their own ideas which they don't even fully understand is this morally right? I wouldn't feel right preaching what i thought or learnt about spirituality unless i experienced it directly. Infact i wouldn't want to preach at all, i would like to teach exercises that can let people experience it themselves, then discuss it with them. Preaching is using the mind to lure the people to what they all naturally crave - that enlightened / happy state, but the mind can never finally grasp it because it is the mind that is actually getting in the way!

 

However... I have heard of people reading scriptures and becomming enlightened or reaching that state but i can't comprehend it since the reading is feeding the mind, which is the very thing you want to lose. Generally i don't think scriptures or texts are useful in a spiritual journey. I'm not talking about qigong/neigong/kundalini/yoga which all lead to a spritual destination, but they are in essence mainly physical, mental and emotional.

 

The scriptures seem to deal mainly with spiritual with a little bit of emotional and mental.

 

Wonder if some of the great minds on here can offer some insight

 

Personally, I think scriptures are of immense value -- if read wisely. In other words, one needs to know when they are looking for the scripture to do the work for them, or to "figure out" the answer like it can be written down on the chalk board.

 

Scriptures mostly don't hide that they are sign posts pointing in a particular direction where the reader might run into the answer and discover it for themselves. Having a teacher with you who can say "turn left, turn right" is definitely good IF they really have their eyes open and know where to go.

 

So scriptures can't say "turn right, turn left" since they can't see where you're facing (so to speak), however they are the words of some of the greatest teachers who have ever lived, and the words they write are what they thought to be the most fundamental things which everybody must first understand, imo, so these words can be often be of huge benefit.

 

There is a saying "he who sees from the outside in sees with 8 eyes." However, sometimes you might know better than a teacher as to exactly where you are and the obstacles that are most obstructive to your current progress, and you can look for guidance in scriptures.

 

I think, if someone is looking for an answer they probably won't find much, but if they find a way to practice and they practice diligently then they have found a teacher. In my opinion, the most important job of any teacher is to get a student to become so interested that they no longer put the responsibility or fate of their learning on a teacher and basically start to teach themselves.

[Boy]

...

Edited October 11, 2012 by Boy

[z00se]

I know I'm embarrassingly late to this party, but I'd still like to add my problematization (what's that..? cries of fear?). There are some impressively intelligent thoughts on the matter here, and I can add nothing. But you could also say that pretty much all of these thoughts are preconceptions. And those, well... It's of course the ego's doing, sort of a preemptive strike, made in panicky fear of you backstabbing him with the helping hand of a bloodthirsty and cunning teacher.

 

I remember clearly how I used to long for a guru. I think most of us have at one time or another. I think of it as quite similar to the longing for the embrace of a loving mother (if you believe in that Austrian stuff). I had specific requests, though. I wanted him in private, and I wanted him to be more of a helpful handmaid, than a stern drill sergeant.

 

So, consequently, I never found one. And that, I think, cost me many years of completely unnecessary and moronic mistakes. Then again.. what's that they say, the oldtimers..?

 

Ah! "We all make mistakes. It's only human."

 

Lol! Talk about a tired defense!

 

And yeah, I agree that books (not scripture, though) are dangerous. Just like bad teachers they can take you in the complete opposite direction of where you should be going, ...and sometimes they help. Just like bad teachers.

 

Good night!

 

I read the book from YAN XIN a very famous qigong guy. I like his description of the teacher. He is everyone around you, the one who stood on your toe, or the wind you felt as you walked down the street. Everything is your teacher, if you listen to it. If you feel you could learn something from anything then you can and you should. I haven't read many spiritual books, but some where excellent but some were just repeating very basic stuff i already knew... like it was a great awakening. It takes so long to wade through all the crap to find something new but thats the only way to do it. If your teacher is of great accomplishment i think there is lots to learn, but nothing more than what you could learn by yourself. i guess just take everything for what it is. I guess if you look to nature as your teacher you have no limit. If a teacher can continue on the course it is good but this should come from inside not outside. The worst i think is teachers than teach from what they read and think. They have no personal experience and can't know how it was reached and why a certain feeling is so. When a student asks they wrongly reply, because they didn't feel it themselves, then it puts a student off by thinking they should await something that may never be, when they could know it all themselves.

[Boy]

...

Edited October 11, 2012 by Boy

[konchog uma]

My question is... Can you 'teach' spirituality? Is it not something that is an individual path? Is finding a teacher any help at all or is it just a crutch, that sidetracks you?

 

I think those are great questions z00se. A teacher can guide a student's progress and save them a lot of time and energy. They, and the scriptures are like signposts along the way, at intersections, so you know which way to go to get to your destination. They are not the destination themselves, but as signs they help to get there. Like the finger pointing at the moon metaphor.

 

I don't think that the mind is something that one wants to lose, discard or just let atrophy until it is somehow just like an infant's mind. I think thats a misunderstanding of self-mastery. In higher samadhi states, there is the experience of nonduality, which manifests as a dissolution of self and other, so if you are talking to a man or a woman it makes no difference, an indian or a japanese person, no difference, there is just the experience without judgement or discrimination. So that is like an infant in a way, but there are definitely benefits to being able to discriminate and engage the mentality on a high level. This is why lineages of monastics like tibetan buddhism teach logic, debate, and study scriptures. They are not trying to nullify the mind, that is not enlightenment, that is nihilism of a sort.

 

That doesn't mean that all teachers are going to be helpful, but a good teacher can be helpful, and for some things, necessary.

[konchog uma]

I agree with you, Books feed the intellect, unless they cause a mental leap they're unlikely to lead anywhere profound with out real life practice to back them up.

 

generally, scriptures are somehow paradoxical, nonlogical, or beyond conventional logic, or in some way cause the mind to leap beyond the limits of its habitual thinking, so i think that for scriptures to be genuine, they do cause that mental leap you're talking about.

 

so i just say that to differentiate between scriptures and books in general.

[3bob]

Ok, so just came back from a spiritual gathering with a group that teach meditation and has a head of the organisation in the capital city. They were nice, it was a free weekly event, and they had free tea and cake which looked quiet nice although i didn't have any. It was quiet big and therefore i had concerns, or thoughts about it.

 

My question is... Can you 'teach' spirituality? Is it not something that is an individual path? Is finding a teacher any help at all or is it just a crutch, that sidetracks you?

 

I can understand a nei gong / neigong / yoga teacher much the same way somebody learns martial arts or something like that or even a meditation intensive class that teaches you the techniques then you go away to do it by yourself, returning every few weeks to learn some new techniques and teacher to ask questions of.

 

But when the head person at the gathering goes through scriptures, or even the head teachers book which are not their own ideas which they don't even fully understand is this morally right? I wouldn't feel right preaching what i thought or learnt about spirituality unless i experienced it directly. Infact i wouldn't want to preach at all, i would like to teach exercises that can let people experience it themselves, then discuss it with them. Preaching is using the mind to lure the people to what they all naturally crave - that enlightened / happy state, but the mind can never finally grasp it because it is the mind that is actually getting in the way!

 

However... I have heard of people reading scriptures and becomming enlightened or reaching that state but i can't comprehend it since the reading is feeding the mind, which is the very thing you want to lose. Generally i don't think scriptures or texts are useful in a spiritual journey. I'm not talking about qigong/neigong/kundalini/yoga which all lead to a spritual destination, but they are in essence mainly physical, mental and emotional.

 

The scriptures seem to deal mainly with spiritual with a little bit of emotional and mental.

 

Wonder if some of the great minds on here can offer some insight

 

A true teacher is a mirror with eyes that tell no lies.

As for scriptures, it is not wise to sink one's raft or others while crossing the ocean.

[3bob]

.

Edited June 29, 2012 by 3bob

[thelerner]

I'd also add its probably a bad idea to make any blanket statement on Spiritual Teachers. They are too diverse a group. I also think instead of spending years or decades searching out a 'true' master, we can learn much from resources and teachers be they yoga, martial art, tai chi, or any meditative tradition close to us. Our dedication and deepness of our practice sets up our foundation. And without a solid foundation it doesn't matter what 'masters' we meet.

 

Ultimately it makes sense to travel and learn from the best you can, but early on and in the mean time, practice what you know and 'love the one you're with'.

Edited June 29, 2012 by thelerner

[Wayfarer]

Just a different angle - something I have been discussing with Boy of late:

 

If you find that you have experienced deeply spiritual awakenings and they have afforded you an insight into various scriptures that might really help people but you are not a teacher and you don't have a spiritual practice or tradition but you would like to help people - what would you do? What would be your approach - would you start a group yourself and see who comes? Would you align yourself with a religion that seems to best fit what you have experienced in the hope you can learn to become a teacher?

 

Bearing in mind that in Taoism there is the teaching of non-intiation of action - how would you reconcile that with a heart that is telling you to show people?

 

Also fwiw, something thelerner said "And then there are people who don't teach, but just there presence is a lesson." - this is how I would answer my own questions I guess but I would love to know your's.

 

Heath

[Mark Foote]

Just a different angle - something I have been discussing with Boy of late:

 

If you find that you have experienced deeply spiritual awakenings and they have afforded you an insight into various scriptures that might really help people but you are not a teacher and you don't have a spiritual practice or tradition but you would like to help people - what would you do? What would be your approach - would you start a group yourself and see who comes? Would you align yourself with a religion that seems to best fit what you have experienced in the hope you can learn to become a teacher?

 

Bearing in mind that in Taoism there is the teaching of non-intiation of action - how would you reconcile that with a heart that is telling you to show people?

 

Also fwiw, something thelerner said "And then there are people who don't teach, but just there presence is a lesson." - this is how I would answer my own questions I guess but I would love to know your's.

 

Heath

 

I'd like to add my 2 cents.

 

I think that's a great thing about Tao Bums, a lot of people here have had very deep experiences with various energies, healings, and practices.

 

The tradition in Eastern wisdom traditions is to develop a master/disciple relationship, or a teacher/student relationship, in order to learn these things. There's a great deal that is passed in the Eastern teacher/student relationship that is not communicated with words, and there's a real question about whether or not the Eastern wisdom traditions can be learned outside of this kind of teacher/student relationship.

 

A lot of folks on Tao Bums feel that they have learned something others might benefit by. Some teachers use the site to put forward their own workshops and classes, with student testimonials and stories of healing; I think that's great. Lots of folks make bold to communicate something of what they have learned in words, or to compare the explanations of Eastern teachings with the actuality of the practices; oftentimes there's a discrepancy there, and right away the Western scientific mindset kicks in to say there must be a better explanation for what's going on here and we've got to get to the bottom of it if we are to make any real progress.

 

That's what I love about Tao Bums. I discover that I can write my own understanding here, and as long as I reach down for things that are new to me as I write them, then what I write becomes a teaching to me and an inspiration I can take back into my practice. The saying is, "see the change in yourself first, if you would change the world" (or something like that)- I'm going for that!

[Wayfarer]

 

That's what I love about Tao Bums. I discover that I can write my own understanding here, and as long as I reach down for things that are new to me as I write them, then what I write becomes a teaching to me and an inspiration I can take back into my practice. The saying is, "see the change in yourself first, if you would change the world" (or something like that)- I'm going for that!

 

Excellent point thank you

[Cheshire Cat]

I had bad experiences with the so-called Masters and Teachers that spend all their time

in philosophical talk and explanation of the old scriptures.

I had bad experiences with masters who claim to have magical power and the highest spiritual path.

I had bad experiences with masters who claim to be behind this and that and spend their time criticizing others for their faults.

They tend to became megalomaniac, egocentric and I think that even a saint could became a devil in this role.

 

Then I asked to myself "What is spiritual growth?" and "Who is the one who grows?"

 

The real masters teach you a few things... then they go away and you have to struggle to see them again.