What can you do without a teacher?

[BearlyTao]

Title says it all really.

[ChiForce]

Is a lot easier if you have some real emotional and psychological issues because your entire path would be guided by those issues and the resolutions of those issues. There are Taoist immortals. They will appear to you when the time comes. After all, many immortals appear to the realized cultivators in their sambhogakaya forms (dream visitations) to transmit their teachings. If you see nothing is wrong with yourself and the world you are living in.....well, your path is going to be not so extraordinary. You may become one of those new age practitioners who dabble with some Eastern philosophy and religion and once in a while you may impress few like-minded practitioners. Hehehe.......

[Wells]

.

Edited February 11, 2015 by ZOOM

[Leif]

Advance greatly or destroy your health. It depends.

 

Apart from other factors, also depends on what you are into.

 

Daoist philosophy, diet, some basic medical qigong.... not that big risks.

[woodcarver]

I'm not sure because I don't have a teacher but there are animals and plants everywhere.

[idquest]

Growing number of good teachers now teach online and this will increase. At some point of development a student will need some personal interactions, but online studying can advance you to a pretty good level.

[Daeluin]

Do you know how to walk? Yes? Good.

Do you know how to walk in a straight line? Good...

Wow, you even know how to turn at specific angles accurately. Amazing!

 

Now, let me place you on this mountain trail, place a blindfold upon you and away you go, I'll be waiting at the top!

No peeking now.... what, you don't know where the trail leads? OK, here's a map. You memorized it already, incredible!

 

Wait, even with the map you still have trouble here and there? OK, let me watch over your progress and nudge you here and there. Take good note of when and where I do the nudging - this is where you have a blind spot in need of repair.

Edited January 19, 2015 by Daeluin

[Daeluin]

I believe much can be done without a teacher, and everything needs to be done on one's own anyway. As has been said once we get far enough to communicate with our spirit guides, we find teachers aplenty. I believe the trouble is in actually getting that far blindfolded. With training methods that work for us, humility, sincerity will go a long way, and if we let it, our energy will sometimes guide us naturally.

 

Yet most of us are off-kilter just a bit without knowing it. A classmate once asked me: why is it when I do improvisational qi-gong it always feels so good, but when I do taiji there are places where I feel stuck? The answer that came to me was this: the stuck places in the taiji form likely represent blockages, or blind spots - working through them slowly may enable one to become comfortable with them. I believe this is how uses the form to enter the formless - if one plays at formlessness from the beginning, how does one know if it is complete? And yet all too often many of us want to feel confident that we actually get something. The example set by society would have us believe we are reaching the highest of the heights, and just how much has that mentality set in to our own subconscious workings?

 

So, I believe one should set out with humility and sincerity, aiming to do the work on their own. And as they progress the tao will bring them teachers - it is up to one to determine if this or that teacher reaches the root one's heart is bent upon, and if that teacher's methods allow the proper amount of freedom for one to progress on their own path. If not simply maintain sincerity - another teacher will appear, in one fashion or another. Patience is paramount, even as one must be wary of stagnation.

 

As far as online teachers go, I doubt the internet is the best medium for spiritual transmission. IMO the best teachers don't lean on words. Edit: this is pretty much what idquest already said. The Internet is changing as fast as we are changed by it, and words drive it less and less...

Edited January 19, 2015 by Daeluin

[Spotless]

You do not need a teacher and the world has many waking up right now who have "done nothing in this life" in terms of traditional viewable practice, but it is easy to become well established in fear along all sorts of lines and hiding in all sorts of proclivities within which you defend yourself and cage yourself.

 

Group dynamics and a teacher can be a great benifit on all things - and the obvious is to help disengage from the blind spots mentioned above.

 

All that said - truely understanding that your body is a great vehicle that can with your help as spirit soar beyond your wildest dreams.

Learn to dream and see in your minds eye - exercise your thinking skills - learn about diet - and set aside competition.

 

Fear nothing including the humility to foster a healthy relationship with your body - don't override it, shame it and beat it with a whip.

 

Breath in the whole world as you.

Edited January 19, 2015 by Spotless

[silent thunder]

absolutely everything around me is a teacher

that said...

I still specifically seek a plumber when the pipes break...

[Ish]

What is your aim or what do you really want to achieve?

 

Whether you need a teacher or not depends on what it is you are aiming for, really.

Edited January 19, 2015 by Ish

[Brian]

Nobody "needs" a teacher because nobody "needs" to learn anything.

 

Now, if you want to learn something... Well, that's very different.

 

Almost everything is learned faster and with greater fidelity when guided by a teacher. Some teachers are better than others and different students learn better via different learning modes.

 

Applies to potty-training, calculus, qigong, brain surgery, etc.

 

Personally, I sometimes find it helpful to be able to ask questions and receive feedback.

[Wells]

.

Edited February 11, 2015 by ZOOM

[Brian]

"Self-taught" would be if he dreamed the entire topic up on his own and developed the whole thing in q vacuum. If he read books from which he learned the topic, or studied manuals or read help files or perused web forums or watched YouTube videos, those information sources were instructions from his teachers. Whether he knew any of them or had an opportunity to interact with them in any meaningful way is irrelevant except in as much as that lack of feedback almost certainly prolonged his learning curve.

 

I have encountered many egoistic people -- particularly in tech fields -- who share that same "self-taught" delusion. I generally don't try to burst their bubbles, though, as they have so much of their identities wrapped up in it.

[Brian]

Some topics lend themselves better to self-study than others, and some people are better equipped to pick quickly pick up on one topic versus another person or another topic, but there is a significant difference between homework and invention. Self-study is the former while self-teaching is the latter.

[joeblast]

I tend to equate "self taught" with "I went out and searched out the information necessary to arbitrate my own education on the matter." As opposed to "I went to a class and was taught this or that curriculum." The astute student will flourish in either scenario, but the self taught imho has a greater potential for.... either superlative greatness, or exquisite failure, depending on how steady his mind is.

 

 

 

haha....yeah, you have to do your homework before you have the understanding necessary to design something...but it helps being able to read a schematic and pick out options that werent on the model you have, even though the options are hidden there in the schematic...

Edited January 19, 2015 by joeblast

[Brian]

I tend to equate "self taught" with "I went out and searched out the information necessary to arbitrate my own education on the matter." As opposed to "I went to a class and was taught this or that curriculum." The astute student will flourish in either scenario, but the self taught imho has a greater potential for.... either superlative greatness, or exquisite failure, depending on how steady his mind is.

Self-taught is "I found this hollow stick with holes in the side. After using it to whack rabbits for a while, I discovered that it makes a noise if I blow on the top of it just right. Took a while but later I found it made different-sounding noises if I covered one of the side-holes with my finger."

 

Self-taught is NOT "I bought a 12-DVD 'Learn To Play The Recorder At Home' instruction set, complete with a Carnegie Hall Edition recorder, and I learned it all on my own by carefully following the step-by-step instructions."

[Brian]

As a real-life example, when I was 14, we moved to the mountains. I really wanted to learn to ski but lessons and equipment rental was too expensive so I bought an old pair of 200-cm skis with boots which were a size too big. I checked out an old "basics of alpine skiing" book from the school library and I started practicing on the old pasture behind my house. There was a lot of "invention" going on but my teachers were the guy who wrote that 20-year-old book and the guys I saw on Wide World of Sports every weekend. The next year, I had saved up enough money for a couple of lessons at the near-by French-Swiss Ski College Jean Claude Killy ran and I discovered how much of what I had learned was woefully out-dated. It wasn't all bad, mind you -- I learned to ski on long sticks right off the bat and learned to carve before I learned to snowplow...

[dust]

I tend to equate "self taught" with "I went out and searched out the information necessary to arbitrate my own education on the matter." As opposed to "I went to a class and was taught this or that curriculum." The astute student will flourish in either scenario, but the self taught imho has a greater potential for.... either superlative greatness, or exquisite failure, depending on how steady his mind is.

 

I kinda wish I wasn't getting involved but sometimes just can't help myself.

 

We could get caught up in semantics all day. Someone going out to search for necessary info might decide that the best way to learn is to enroll on a university course. If this person gets teachers, it is still up to him to decide whether or not to listen to them. etc etc.

 

I see a difference between

 

learning something by accident through experimentation

learning something by accident, by accident

learning something by accident from an endeavour forced upon one

 

learning something from a book one intended to read

learning something from a book one stumbled across in a coffee shop

learning something from a book one was forced to read

 

learning something from a person one admires

learning something from a person one met at random in a bar

learning something from a teacher

 

etc etc

 

Different ways of learning will yield different results for different people in different circumstances over different periods of time. In any case, it's up to the student to absorb a lesson and be able to apply it in the future.

 

So.. I don't see much value in debating the semantics of "self-taught" vs "taught" vs whatever...

 

edit:

My point being, I suppose, that it's up to the individual whether or not she wants a teacher.. I know that I learn some things much better alone, with a book or my own experience as my teacher, and some things much better from a person pushing me towards information/possibilities I didn't know existed and would never have pushed far enough to see on my own

Edited January 19, 2015 by dustybeijing

[joeblast]

students motivate me more than teachers

[thelerner]

Its not either or. You can be self taught and still seek out lessons, advice, mentorship of advanced teachers or peers who are self taught. Maybe true genius's don't need it, but most others should get some guidance/check ups in all stages of development because we don't know, what we don't know, and that creates blind spots.

[Aetherous]

You have to do everything anyway, no one else including a teacher will do it for you.

But you need clear instruction what to do.

Either from a good teacher (most teachers ar not good) or from another good source (book, DVD, God,...).

 

I agree with this 99.999%. The only thing I can personally say about transmission in any subject matter, is that a lot more information is able to be conveyed when done through real life personal interaction, as opposed to reading words...plus you get personal feedback on your practices that way. It's just really more conducive to learning. We could get mystical and say that it's because the teacher's cultivation reverberates and you tap into that, or other things...regardless of how it's happening, what is happening is that you're learning more through personal instruction.

 

To illustrate this fact...try reading a book on computer programming (if you don't know it already). Then take a class in it. There is a huge difference in the experience of learning between those two methods.

 

But could someone gradually learn all of the required information without in person instruction, from books? Yes...for many things. Think about Daoist texts for instance...there is a reason why those were written. It's not that they're worthless, because a person absolutely can't practice without a teacher...if that was the case, why would those adepts write them at all? They may be confusing in many parts, but at times they are clear enough to do some form of practice from.

[woodcarver]

Have any teachers made any posts in this topic yet?

[ChiForce]

I agree with this 99.999%. The only thing I can personally say about transmission in any subject matter, is that a lot more information is able to be conveyed when done through real life personal interaction, as opposed to reading words...plus you get personal feedback on your practices that way. It's just really more conducive to learning. We could get mystical and say that it's because the teacher's cultivation reverberates and you tap into that, or other things...regardless of how it's happening, what is happening is that you're learning more through personal instruction.

 

To illustrate this fact...try reading a book on computer programming (if you don't know it already). Then take a class in it. There is a huge difference in the experience of learning between those two methods.

 

But could someone gradually learn all of the required information without in person instruction, from books? Yes...for many things. Think about Daoist texts for instance...there is a reason why those were written. It's not that they're worthless, because a person absolutely can't practice without a teacher...if that was the case, why would those adepts write them at all? They may be confusing in many parts, but at times they are clear enough to do some form of practice from.

Your computer programing analogy is flawed because computer programming language isn't innate. We aren't born with the knowledge. For the Tao, it has always been there. Hehehe...... That's why many the so-called self-taught individuals, including myself, can achieve a great deal without physically having teachers. I have encountered countless of beings or immortals in dreams and visions since the day I have my MCO completed some 20 years ago. Sounds hard because it is hard but the merit would be much greater. I am not saying that individual cultivators who are attending classes and getting instructions from the real teachers are of lesser merit. Sometimes, because of your life and your karmic affinity, you just can't find a suitable teachers. Having teachers or no teachers, it is all the same as long as you are on the path and the path to realize the Tao has been shown to you.

 

Before I was awakened the first time to the MCO or kundalini energy rising, I thought I was not worthy. I was an outcast. I was the kid no one wanted to be with. I was the student no teachers would want to touch. The world didn't care for me. I am no longer troubled by these worldly karma because my path has been secured. My path has been realized.

Edited January 19, 2015 by ChiForce

[dust]

Have any teachers made any posts in this topic yet?

 

Teachers will generally be biased towards the idea of teachers being a necessity, no?

 

 

I have been both student and teacher of Chinese, and can attest that for most people, it is experience and practice, rather than tutelage, that is the key. Not sure about other things (qigong etc) though.