Substance Teaching

 

Thirty years ago I met someone named Paul who was facilitating a local Buddhist meditation and discussion group. Shortly after joining I had the powerful sense that he had something very special and different, a different way of engaging life. I knew without any doubt that this was tremendously important and that I must find out what it was and make it part of me.  It was the beginning of a wondrous lifelong journey for me.

About fifteen years later I had a similar experience at the first-day-orientation for a ten day retreat at a Buddhist monastery in California.  One of the monks was doing an orientation for a group of about 15 retreatants—dealing with meals, chores, taking care of your personal living space, and so on.  And again there was something very different about him. I was transfixed and couldn’t take my eyes off him.  Again, it was obvious that he had something that was profound without any doubt, something very special and utterly life changing and I knew I wanted it.  And I knew I was willing to put in the work to make it happen. I was totally energized. 

I’ve since learned that this powerful desire to change to a new and better way of engaging life is crucial for making that change.  Buddhism is often mistakenly viewed as teaching that desire is the root of all suffering and that we therefore need to get rid of it.  But desire is really just a kind of energy, and Buddhism teaches that there are two kinds of desire.  There are wholesome desires, such as the desire for wisdom or to be of service, and there are also unwholesome desires such as the desire to have power over others or accumulate huge amounts of wealth when others are starving.   A strong desire to engage life in a positive way is essential for a successful effort to change ourselves at the deepest level.  As one teacher once said, without this desire the car never gets out of the garage.

Of course the other essential ingredient for profound change is the belief that it is possible to change.  If I think I can’t change, or I’m too screwed up to change or only a few special people can change or I have to be less stressed out before I can change… then it will never happen for me.  How to work with this issue can be saved as a topic for another blog.

The two profound experiences that I had are examples of what Buddhism calls substance teaching.  Substance teaching is contrasted with image teaching, which is teaching that uses words, ideas, and concepts.  Substance teaching is nonverbal and occurs simply by being in the presence of someone who shows us, through their manner and behavior, a different way of life.  This is an extremely powerful way of teaching.  Jesus said this when he said “I am the way.”  He meant that we should observe his way of engaging life to truly understand how we are to live.  Gandhi said the same thing when he said “My life is my message.”

I have had many substance teachers in my life, though in the beginning I did not realize that I was being taught in this way.  Probably they didn’t know they were doing it, either.  My tenth grade social studies teacher in high school showed me the possibility of a being a different kind of male.  He never said a word about gender roles in class, but on some level I knew he was different.  He was kind and caring, a good listener, related to students with respect, compassionate, could change what he believed and graciously admit it when he was wrong about something, collaborative rather than competitive.  And in a different sort of way, he was also strong:   he could take risks, he stuck to what he thought was right even if it was inconvenient or unpopular, he was able to speak out against injustice, and much more.

Several of my philosophy professors taught me simply by allowing me to witness how a powerful and well-trained mind could cut through a tangled philosophical question by sharing his or her thought process right in front of me in class.   

Lois and Charlie were friends of my parents, and for many years of my childhood I wished I could resign from my family and join theirs.  In their family I saw: family members who actually listened to each other, respected each other’s beliefs, values, and feelings; they had fun together.  Lois and Charlie never said a word to me about how their family worked, but their family just felt radically different from mine when I was with them. Without that, I likely would have thought that the dysfunctionality that was going on in my family was just the way all normal families operated.  This instance of substance teaching let me know that my family was not the only kind of family that was possible.  My feeling that there was something wrong was actually reasonable—it didn’t have to be this way.

And then there was Harry, a 40-year old school principal who taught me that adults can play and have imaginations—we both shared a strong interest in model trains.

As someone who chose college teaching as his life’s work, I learned that no matter what subject you were teaching—philosophy, chemistry, art, psychology, coaching a sport—you were also teaching how a person should engage life.  This happened through my manner of being in the world.  How do I answer questions, do I get defensive when challenged, am I patient and kind with “dumb” questions, do I take joy in my work, am I willing to change my mind about something and admit I’m wrong, or go the extra mile to help someone…?  These lessons about how to engage life are almost always much more important than the official subject matter of a class.

This doesn’t just apply to people who choose teaching as their profession.  Like it or not we are all teachers all of the time.  A fellow faculty member used to stand at the bottom of the stairs to the library and smoke a cigarette every day.  He’s not teaching a class while smoking, but isn’t he teaching the students who pass by that even educated people smoke and so it must be an ok thing to do?  And if a parent hits her child because she doesn’t like the way the child is behaving, won’t the child learn it is ok to hit her friend when she doesn’t like how her friend is behaving? 

In any action that you take, the very fact that you are acting this way says something to other people whether you are aware of it or not.  First, your action may create a choice for someone that would otherwise never have occurred to them:  “Until I saw Mary cut out unneeded purchases to allow herself to reduce her work hours, it never even occurred to me that was an option for dealing with my own situation.”    

Second, our actions give others our permission to act in the same way.  If Mike always keeps his credit cards maxed out, it tells others that he must think there’s nothing wrong with that.  Mike’s action says that he endorses this habit, that it has his seal of approval.  This makes it easier for others to do the same thing. Giving permission, combined with making people aware of a new choice, may explain the fact that the incidence of suicides always undergoes an upsurge shortly after a celebrity commits suicide.

These kinds of considerations may well prompt us to investigate deeply what it is we really want to be teaching to others when they are in our presence.  And we might also want to give some attention to whom we want to be in the presence of, and the impact that their presence has on us.

 

Note:   My intention is to add new posts to the blog approximately every 2 to 3 weeks. If you would like to receive an e-mail notification each time a new blog post is made, please let me know and I will add you to the list of recipients. This notification will also include the title of the new post.  Some of the material that appears in this blog is copyrighted, but in keeping with the Buddha’s teaching that the dharma is not to be sold, the contents of this blog may be freely copied and given away, but not sold. 

            If you have questions, comments, or ideas for new Blog topics please contact Dale at ahimsaacres@gmail.com.