Are the ethics really being practiced?

[xenolith]

Xeno, anyone that believes he could pay for wisdom would be sadly mistaken. I agree that it is absolutely borne of experience. But I'm not paying to try to get wisdom, I'm paying to learn training methods that will help me on my path. We're all walking paths, and if I want to buy better boots, crampons, harnesses, ropes, then perhaps I might have a few more paths show themselves. Its the travel along the path that is important. We're all responsible for the navigation of our own path, after all

A well made point joe. My experience has taught me that the freely offered boots are of much more value than the one's bought. YMMV.

 

The truth is that the path to Dao can only be yours. You can't walk others path and paying people won't get you further down the road. Hard work and commitment wont even get you there. Because when you get it, you will realise it was there all along. It was just your mind playing tricks on you.

 

Exploring zen has helped me in this realisation.

And this is why. Another well made point. Imagine buying boots when while wearing wonderful ones. We're all wonderfully equipped to know the Tao.

 

Peace Friends.

[宁]

So tell me, Wu Liu, how Ethical is to take something and not Pay for it?

 

If you belive in Karma, how can you not belive that everything that has been hard worked for, deserves some form of recompensation.

 

Also, money is not the only method. You can pay by time and hard work. A lot of stories tell about students spending years in row practically being servants at their master's house.

 

We need to have an asset that allows us to earn something.

 

If we lack the discipline and skillfulness of aquiring Material and Visible assets and skills, do we think you will ever be ready for Difficult and Less Visible tasks like Energy and Spirit and liberation...

 

Please take this friendly, i am not to deffend anyone here, but the idea of Reciprocity is valid, everywhere

Edited February 7, 2008 by Little1

[Hern Heng]

i know FIRST HAND from the mouths over various old school Taiwan and Beijing masters that there are PLENTY of LEGITIMATE teachers who venally take money from Westerners and teach them VERY basic shit. They see most Westerners as having a perverted obsession with stealing knowledge from cultures that they wish to suppress or destroy. They often make an over generalization, but they take the money, and send the students on their way with nothing special but a happy experience of being a Westerner who got the opportunity to learn the "Ancient Chinese Secrets."

 

To them, you (those falling for it), are a joke. The Westerners they teach are those who prove themselves through time and effort and do not shell out buckets of money for things that they have already learned in class at home. i'm come across a LOT of lines like this. They see you - as the Daojing says - as "straw dogs" to be used then discarded and burned. You fall for it so you prove your stupidity.

 

Charge to cover your expenses. Do not charge excessive amounts or the filthy karma of these actions is on you. Charging to weed out is ineffective as it only allows the rich to advance. Neither Wang nor Chang were charged a dime (nor could they have paid much). Should they have been weeded out?

[joeblast]

HH, it is up to each one of us to determine the veracity of what is put before us. That some teachers have done what you say doesnt mean it is acceptable to use as a blanket statement for anyone that teaches or gives seminars and accepts money to do so.

 

We've all got to live with the karma we create.

[WuXingQi]

In the book "Opening the Dragon Gate" Wang Li Ping is depicted as being being very modest in his earthly possessions and material needs. If the point of asking money for instruction is to demonstrate dedication by sacrificing your own material possessions, I would gladly give the sum requested away, but would rather give it to the needy and poor to demonstrate my dedication and lack of attachment to material wealth. If this is indeed the intention, then they should be willing to instruct as long as I'm giving the money away... just a thought.

[林愛偉]

In traditional Chinese Daoism, including modern day versions here in Taiwan, charging money (oftentimes lots of money) is the norm. There is no idea that Daoist teachings or training or Daoist services (i.e. exorcisms, purity rites or membership initiation fees into the various lineages) is "on the house".

 

You pay, and you pay a lot. The idea that Daoism is free or should be free, is an idea generated by people who saw one too many Kwai Chang Caine Kung Fu t.v. shows.

 

take care,

Brian

 

 

I'm very sure Patriarch Lu Dong Bin didn't have to pay a dime to learn what his teacher taught him.

Asking for money is the norm in modern society. Capitalism is all over the world.

 

The actual OFFERING of finances, or treasured possessions, in Daoist and Buddhist schools was to show your genuine intentions. If you had a lot of money and were willing to give it up to help people, a family member, friend, etc...that is considered good merit.

 

Some people haven't much money, and so give what they can, even though they are poor. That merit is even greater.

 

So, the giving of possessions, money, wasn't a charge, but an offering with the funciton of getting the intended result realized.

 

People, of course, will be people and create a superstition around it in order to impose fear in people's minds, and or create a market. Thus the outcome of give much, get great quality, give little, not much received. Its quite a shameful act.

 

The function of offerings is simply to confirm one's word to the intended outcome. Shows sincerity, humility and compassion. This is good merit, and an offering made with this mind is far from superstitious; so the method of making offerings was simply to show sincerity, not arrogance. And cultivators and monks of all faiths created a marketing scam for it. Not all, but many.

 

It was thus that in the old days a highly cultivated master, a good and wise knowing adviser, would simply offer their abilities, and knowledge to those who were capable of cultivating it with sincerity. An offering by the student was made if he had money, out of respect, but it was more of a motion of acknowledgment, not a required mannerism.

 

 

 

Peace,

Lin

Edited March 23, 2008 by 林愛偉

[松永道]

My teacher has never asked for money, though I have given it. When I started studying with him I was embarrassed by this imbalance I perceived in our relationship so I asked, "what can I do to repay you?"

 

He said the best payment would be to study well and master what I learn. This is the compensation for a real teacher.

 

Now he works as a doctor and is not having financial troubles so that eliminates the "overhead." It makes perfect sense that a teacher must charge for this. But I'm still not sure what to think of turning teaching into a livelihood. In the past, full time teachers were supported by their students as a family would support their elders, however this was still a different paradigm. Students weren't buying the teaching, they were supporting their teacher. And they gave generously within their means, the rich gave more and the poor gave less.

 

I'm not sure what to think of capitalist cultivation. It all seems so impersonal.

Edited March 23, 2008 by 松永道

[Stigweard]

There seems to be a common belief that money and spirituality don't go together. That in some way money is 'dirty,' and impure. I would recommend the following books:

 

The Secret Life of Money

 

The Soul of Money

 

The reality is that money and its systems are part of the modern Tao, it is part of the human sphere of life. If the three treasures are Earth, Heaven, and Humanity then, as Taoists, we must find peace, harmony and integration with humanity's contemporary expression.

 

My understanding is that three foundation principles of Tao are naturalness, balance and no waste. So in my mind if you can become wealthy naturally (meaning to be true to one's own nature), harmoniously and without waste then by all means be wealthy. Same goes with fame, or social influence.

 

The only ethical problem I see in charging students money is when the teacher depends upon the student's money for survival. When this happens the teacher can no longer be an effective teacher because they have an unnatural attachment to the student. If, for instance, the best thing for a student's learning is to send them away or send them to another teacher then the teacher would be doing the student a disservice by keeping them around because they need their money.

 

So in my opinion a teacher should always be financially independent of their students.

 

I accept donations from my students informing them to simply donate in accordance to how much they value my instruction and in accordance to how much they can comfortably afford. To someone of low income donating $5 is a big thing ... to someone with a higher income then $15 or $20 seems to be appropriate (I don't make a suggested donation. If they say they don't know what they should donate I tell them that $5 - $10 is most common and then let them work it out themselves.) If someone is totally cash strapped then they are more than welcome to come around and weed my garden if they feel like they need to recompense my time.

 

In saying this though there is a story in Ni, Hua-Ching's I Ching, The Book of Changes about a rich business man who is on the quest for enlightenment. He eventually finds an old sage who demands that the rich man must place twelve large fish made of pure gold and other offerings in a sail boat. The boat would set sail and be secluded from the worldly life of people. Only deaf sailors and servants would be allowed to help in the boat.

 

The teacher and the pupil set sail out to sea where they made offerings to the Heavenly Realm. Then, to the amazement of the rich businessman, the teacher took the golden fish and threw them one by one into the ocean. The pupil's first instinct was to stop him, but he dared not since the fish no longer belonged to him.

Finally, he gathered his courage and asked the master, "May I venture to ask the meaning of this?"

 

The teacher's answer was simple: "I just wanted to see the fish swim again."

 

"I'm afraid that probably cannot happen."

 

"Why not?"

 

"Lifeless gold cannot be made into living fish."

 

"Is it that your gold is not good enough?"

 

"All gold is lifeless, venerable sir."

 

The teacher then smiled and gently said to his pupil, "I am glad you also know that."

 

At first the rich pupil was stricken, realizing what an expensive lesson he had just been taught, but he immediately said to his teacher, "Thank you sir. Hereafter, your pupil will not value lifeless things. I will maintain single-mindedness in order to learn Tao from you."