Is Having a Teacher Important? Part 1: Finding a Teacher

 

Substance Teaching 

                One important kind of teaching involves the use of words, concepts, and explanations.  This is the teaching we are most familiar with.  A second kind of teaching, equally important, happens just from being in the presence of someone who is at peace and engaging life in a totally different way.  This is called substance teaching, and it is the most valuable thing in having an in-person teacher.  Just being in the presence of such a person shows me how to live differently and inspires me to commit myself to attaining what this person has attained.

                Another big plus from an in-person teacher is the ability to get questions answered about your practice and what you need to be doing.  The fact that the teacher is interacting with you “live” means that the teacher has the ability to see your entire presence of self—mannerisms, voice inflection, facial expressions, posture, way of moving—which can provide invaluable information to the teacher regarding what you need in order to progress.

Qualities to look for in a teacher

                What do I look for in a teacher?  For myself, the first thing I look for is their manner of being in the world; particularly I look for someone whose behavior is consistent with the teachings—someone who “walks the walk,” someone strongly manifesting the teachings in their own life.  I want to be inspired by the teacher.

                After that, I look for clear explanations of teachings, willingness to answer questions and consult, and someone who is able to say “I don’t know” when they don’t know.  A lack of personal ego is also very important—a lack of defensiveness, no need to be the center of attention, or to argue, be competitive, or be personally right.

                It is also important to me to have a teacher who is not involved in selling the dharma.  This last one is often not considered, but should be.

Selling the dharma

                The Buddha would teach anyone who had a sincere interest in the dharma.  He also said that the dharma is not to be sold—it is to be given away freely. 

                In my experience, it seems that a very large impediment to the highest quality teaching is the charging of money for teachings.  This can take many forms: payment for teaching at retreats, books, CD’s, videos, speaking engagements, certificates, classes, workshops, and soliciting donations.  When the dharma is used to generate an income stream, teachers can experience subtle pressure to try to create a “feel good experience” to keep people coming back and buying more retreats, certificates, etc., and to gain new followers (customers) via positive recommendations from present students who had feel-good experiences. 

                There is nothing wrong with feeling good.  However, sometimes a good teacher needs to say something that a student does not want to hear but absolutely needs to hear in order to make progress.  Doing the real work of personal transformation requires looking deeply at your thought stream, emotions, reactivity, and response patterns.  This can be shocking, disconcerting, messy, and unpleasant—but also quite necessary in order to uproot the underlying causes of your suffering.

                Consequently, the various ways of selling the dharma can interfere with the central goal of helping students transform themselves and end suffering. The key thing students need is a teacher who helps them move forward in their journey toward personal transformation—in their journey of learning how to stop causing suffering for themselves and for others.  The pressure to give “customers” a pleasant experience and keep them coming back for more interferes with this and tends to corrupt the teachings.

                As a little thought experiment:  Can you imagine the Buddha ever saying to anyone “I will help relieve your suffering but only if you purchase my three day workshop for $500.” 

Some Personal Experiences with Teachers at Retreats

                Some of my own retreat experiences as a student may be useful in illustrating some of these issues. I attended a retreat some years ago, and on the last day we gathered to break silence and ask the teachers questions.  A student asked “Do you have to be a vegetarian to be a Buddhist?”  The teacher then said, as if it were an absolute fact:  “The Buddha ate meat.”  When this happened, an audible ripple of relief swept through the room.  If the answer had been a more accurate and complete explanation (See End Note) of the Buddha’s teaching on practicing reverence for life, students might have been disturbed enough to look at this issue more deeply and perhaps questioned their own behavior.

                But in disturbing the students in this way, they might have lost some of their “feel good, relaxing retreat experience,” which in turn might have resulted in a smaller end-of-retreat donation,  maybe not coming back for a future a retreat with the teacher, or not recommending the teacher to friends.   Where a form of payment is involved, an uncomfortable truth that students need to hear may be sacrificed.   

                In another situation, in receiving instruction in metta (lovingkindness) meditation, we were taught to repeat silently to ourselves phrases that included “May all beings everywhere be happy” and “May all beings be free of suffering.”  But at the same time, I noticed that both teachers wore animal skins and said at the end of the retreat that they ate meat when not at a retreat center.  This is a good example of “talking the talk but not walking the walk,” and it undermines a teacher’s credibility and ability to inspire.  So does giving an end-of-retreat “pep talk” to students about the importance of donations for the teachers.  A gift is not really a gift if there is a sales pitch involved.  If we look for personal details in a teacher such as these, they can be quite revealing and helpful in answering the question:  “Do I really want this person as my teacher?”

How Can Teachers Support Themselves?

                At some point in all this, a question may have come up regarding selling the teachings:   “How are Buddhist teachers supposed to live if they don’t charge for anything—they have bills to pay just like the rest of us?”  Good question!

                I believe that today’s teachers have several options.  There is a long tradition of Buddhist teachers—both married and celibate--living in monasteries or retreat centers supported by donations from the local community and/or an international organization such as the Thich Nhat Hanh Foundation.  A teacher’s need for food, shelter, and other necessities is taken care of by the retreat center or monastery.

                Another option is to follow the model of the early “volunteer” politicians in the U.S.   Holding political office was viewed as important work, but government office holders received no payment for it. They went back to their farm, blacksmith shop, or law practice when their term was up or when Congress was not in session.  They were performing public service.  Likewise, teachers of the dharma can support themselves by working at a trade or profession:  carpenter, lawyer, psychotherapist, college or high school teacher, farmer—anything consistent with the teachings of Right Livelihood.  This is the path that I have adopted.  Adopting a simple, low consumption lifestyle helps greatly with this!

How to Find a Teacher

                And finally:   How does one go about finding teachers of Buddhist dharma?  You can search on-line for Buddhist centers and monasteries; read their websites and see what they offer and what their approach to Buddhism is.  Ask friends for recommendations. 

                Many colleges and universities offer noncredit (and sometimes credit) classes in Buddhism.  This can be a good place to get started.  If you are considering going this route, it is important to find classes that emphasize the practice of Buddhism, rather than just theory or historical development.  There are also on-line resources that list Buddhist sanghas (groups of people practicing together) all over the country.  The Buddhist Insight Network, and Mindfulness Bell both provide listings of sanghas, including locations, and contact information.  You can also check your local phone directory!

End Note:  A more complete answer given by the teacher might have mentioned The Dhammapada, a very old and central Buddhist text, which makes it clear that the teachings on reverence for life apply to all living beings:   “One is not noble who injures living creatures.  They are noble who hurt no one. (1)  …They are not following dharma who resort to violence to achieve their purpose.  (2)  …Him I call a Brahmin [wise person] who has put aside weapons and renounced violence toward all creatures.  He neither kills nor helps others to kill.” If I buy meat, I am helping others to kill by making it profitable for them to do so. (3) Quotations are taken from The Dhammapada, translated by Eknath Easwaran, Tomales, California:  Nilgiri Press, 1985. (1) is Chapter 19, line 270  (2) is Chapter 19, line 256, and (3) is Chapter 26, line 405.

 

Next post:“Is Having a Teacher Important?  Part 2: Walking the Dharma Path Without a Teacher”