Zen Clapdoodle and the Coo Coo Cachoo

[Jundo]

I just posted this at the Soto Zen Facebook group. I thought to get it off my chest here too. It was in response to a student who is feeling a little off about his unnamed teacher, and can't get what the teacher says ... (I reprint here because publicly posted) ...


My teacher seems to often dodge, avoid or otherwise ignore many of my questions. He usually punctuates this with a sly smile, as if to say "There's more to my silence than a simple inability to answer your question"; suffice to say, I am beginning to think about 70% of what he says is bullsh*t. Is this all my own projection and neuroses? I know that the relative truth of the concepts we're working with can only take us so far [towards the absolute] but what can/should I expect from my teacher in this regard?

I wrote ...

Some Zen folks say weird stuff because, well, the "logic" of Zen, Huayan and much of the rest of the Mahayana is not our ordinary logic (e,g, for us "when Charles catches cold, Mary sneezes" means something like the Beatles "I am he as you are he as you are me and we are all together" and actually makes sense beyond ordinary sense!) Sometimes, we try to say things beyond words to express the inexpressible ... so all that drawing Enso circles in the air and MUing. Sometimes someone like Dogen said wild stuff because he believed in the power of certain words and images as turning words ... that the words were not only "the finger pointing at the moon" but that the moon was shining forth from the very finger tip itself.

And sometimes, too frequently, some Zen teachers (and other experienced folks who should know better) talk total obscure bullshit and psyho-babble because they don't have clarity themselves and say such weird stream of consciousness new agey Koany clapdoodle to cover their tracks or because they feel that just saying that kind of thing is Truth (I can point out any number of podcasts and essays from some surprising sources I will not name, and a fool is born every minute. Sometimes a robe and a little charm cover up many failings. But let me just say that if someone is saying weird wacko stuff about a Koan ... sometimes it is wise and sometimes it is just weird wacko,).

Nobody can tell you about your own Teacher. In fact, some of the problem may just be lack of chemical resonance between Teacher and student and, what is helpful and insightful for student A can't be fathomed by student B. . Also, how you feel today may not be how you feel next week or next year (like a marriage or any relationship that way).

In the end, as many wise teachers say, the teacher is not to tell you anything, and just point the way (moon and finger). You need to do your own heavy lifting. Also, sometimes the most imperfect teachers are the best. Why? They help us get past the need for perfection in all things, which is a BIG important lesson of our Way. Coo coo cachoo.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/SotoZenGlobal/permalink/10155053890475692/

Gassho, J

SatToday

[Michael Joseph]

Jundo,

Thank you for this very wise post. I agree that "the teacher is not to tell you anything, and just point the way." Since each student needs a different kind of pointing--and sometimes a different finger--the difficulty of teaching is knowing how to point for each student. When I sit down with my composition students to go over papers, I find that some need and respond to lovingkindness while others respond to jokes and still others respond best to a more direct approach. In front of the class, I yet again choose different strategies from one-on-one teaching, and even that varies from class to class, depending on group personalities. As a student (I'm always a student :)), I respond differently to different styles. As I've become more experienced, I tried to recognize that teaching and learning are "not two." It's funny, but, as I've begun to study Zen more seriously, I have developed great compassion for my students and their frustration with me and the material; I only wish that they would respond to that frustration more productively, which seems to be at the heart of the OP that you responded to: how do we respond to the frustration of the learning experience, especially when that experience has us wandering in very alien territory, driven only by a desire to understand. This is where the teacher-student relationship reaches its limits: ultimately, learning is up to the student. Too often students sit back--or even earnestly work--and want to be told what their supposed to know or do or understand without realizing that HOW they learn is the most important part of learning, and that is the one thing a teacher can't teach. It reminds me of the story (I forget all the details) about the young monk who approaches his teacher and asks about the secret of the Tao. The teacher responds, "I would love to tell you, but right now, I have to relieve myself. It's such a small thing, and yet I must do it myself. Can you do it for me?" It's a messy, inconvenient, and frustrating task, and yet, we must do it (learn) ourselves.

Gassho,

Michael
SatToday

[PClark1]

Thank you for this.

Gassho,
Paul

Going to sit now

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[Jishin]

Hi,

I would say you are not listening to your teacher (you).

My 2 cents.

Gasho, Jishin, _/st\_

[Hoko]

Thank you, Jundo!

I just started reading Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism by Chögyam Trungpa and so far there's a lot of stuff in the first few chapters about the relationship between the student and guru. Notably, when one has expectations of what that relationship "should" be that sets things up for inevitable disappointment. So according to Trungpa "surrender" is necessary. But that sounds very dangerous because surrendering one's own authority is not the same thing as surrendering one's expectations! Allowing the student-teacher relationship to be as it is might just mean disappointment. But as Jundo has said elsewhere the best Zen is SO disappointing! Trungpa says "disappointment is the best chariot to use on the path of the Dharma". 😁 And in accepting the situation as it is without giving up on trying to fix it, we fix it. When "situations" or "life" become our teacher then the finger pointing to the moon and the moon itself are one.

As for imperfect teachers it only took a brief perusal of Trungpa's Wikipedia page to understand that prajna can come from imperfection. I'm no authority on the man but before he even came to America he plowed his sports car into a joke shop in Scotland while under the influence! He ultimately died as from complications of alcohol abuse. It's easy to judge his actions as unworthy of a "good teacher" but by looking past our concept of what a good teacher "should be" and finding some value in his teachings we are, in fact, doing exactly what he recommended we do. Without excusing his behavior we can still learn from him and in a bizarre way this may be another form of teaching in and of itself. All things considered equal it's probably better to be a "good example" than a "cautionary tale" but then again, that's just another form of picking and choosing, right?

Trungpa presents an analogy from his education in Tibet where he says that knowledge is like gold. It must first be purified, concentrated and hammered into shape before it can be worn as an ornament. We can seek for gold in many places but ultimately we have to do the concentration, purification and hammering all by ourselves. (While at the same time together with all the Buddhas, ancestors and the whole of Indra's Net!)

Gassho,
Hōkō
#SatToday while in the car as my wife drove us from Colorado to Rocky Mountain National Park...



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[Risho]

Thank you Jundo - very good stuff. I think that is the key; to echo what you said, just because your teacher isn't giving you the answer you want doesn't mean you should just go reject everything and stop practice. We have to practice for ourselves and keep asking questions and practice until it does resonate. Sometimes it's bullshit, sometimes not. Sometimes what resonates may be completely different from what the teacher thought would resonate. Communication is hard, and so is practice. They take time and patience.

Gassho,

Risho
-sattoday

[Meitou]

I thought both the post and your reply ( and the replies to your post) were very interesting - finding the 'right' teacher, then understanding what that means is a complex subject fraught with difficulties, simply because we are all human beings with our own hang ups and failings and good days and bad. Sometimes it seems that students forget this about their teachers, or rely on them too much, expecting them not only to have all the answers but to formulate the questions too.
It's interesting that Hoko has talked about Chogyam Trungpa - I posted about him this week on FB as it's 30 years since he left us and here's a great example of someone who was, in my humble opinion, one of the greatest teachers of our age - and yet as Hoko points out, he had his fair share of human failings ( for want of a better expression). Did that make him a bad teacher? Well that depends on what people expected of him - even his aberrations are a teaching if you like, his life, so precious for the rest of us, lost thanks to alcohol dependency is a teaching in itself. I once read about a student asking another teacher if he himself should 'imitate' Chogyam Trungpa ( in relations to Trungpa's life style) and the teacher replying 'Only when you can imitate his mind'
I think there does have to be surrender, but I've always seen it as surrender of all of my previously held assumptions about, well just about everything and having confidence in and trusting the teacher - for some people perhaps this takes time to develop, for others, myself for example, this can happen immediately. As soon as I saw my teacher of Tibetan Buddhism, I instinctively knew she was 'right' for me. The same when I listened to you Jundo for the first time. This instinct, this intuition, can't be explained, which is fine, and touches each of us in different ways or not at all, which is also fine. And coupled with this confidence and trust in the teacher, I think we also need to have some confidence and trust in ourselves and a healthy dose of common sense too as regards expectations.
Jundo I also liked your previous post on FB about 'Content, Peaceful, Fulfilled'. FB groups can be awful and instructive in equal measure - all human life, in all of its best and worse manifestations, is there. And cats of course :D
Gassho
Sat with you all today

[treebeard]

Even monkeys fall from trees.
Saru mo ki kara ochiru.

We shouldn't expect teachers to be perfect as no one is. I think though that if what you are getting from a teacher doesn't pan out, or is even damaging, it might be time to move on. The trick is knowing when it's time to pull the plug I guess. Myself, I have no expectations of Jundo and thus far he has exceeded all my expectations! (At least from my view in the bleachers :) ).

Gassho,
Paul
Sat

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[Jundo]

I just started reading Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism by Chögyam Trungpa and so far there's a lot of stuff in the first few chapters about the relationship between the student and guru. Notably, when one has expectations of what that relationship "should" be that sets things up for inevitable disappointment. So according to Trungpa "surrender" is necessary.

This is worth a comment ...

"Guru" practice is a key part of many eastern religions, including in much Tantric/Tibetan Buddhism. To make a complex topic too simple: one comes to "pour one's own self" into the person of one's teacher/guru, becoming selflessly one with the guru while dropping one's own ego aside in total self-effacing dedication to the guru. Further, the guru comes to represent and embody in the flesh the god/buddha/teaching that is being practiced. While generally frowned upon the the Western Zen world these days, there has been very similar "Roshi worship" in many modern Zen groups, as well as a kind of "Abbot = Living Buddha worship" in Chan and Zen monasteries of old China, Korea and Japan.

That is actually a very very powerful practice (plus, to each their own) and I am not saying otherwise. However, it also has the ability to create very sick and unbalanced relationships in anything but the most skilled hands, plus can easily cause a dependent or "cult" mentality of total worship of the guru (which at its worst has led to the charges of the excesses of alcoholism, sexual and psychological abuse that sometimes infected Trungpa's group as well as a few cultish Zen groups in the west, most notably those around Eido Shimano and Joshu Sawaki).

Maybe in the West, we sometimes go too far the other way. One can benefit from a piano teacher to learn piano, or a medical skill to learn medicine ... although one ultimately needs to do one's own playing and sewing. Why is Zen different?

Now that Zen has "Come West" to less "top-down" societies, to more so-called "democratic", "equalitarian" and questioning societies ... things may actually have gone too far the other way. I mean, almost nobody listens to the teachers any more or abides fully to the teacher's taught practices (as you can see around this place! :p ) Everyone just wants to "do their own thing", make their own practices and rituals and altars ... choose those practices from the dessert line of the "Buddhist cafeteria" which they find tasty, and leave the bitter spinach practices. The result is -- sometimes -- a great looseness and confusion, a kind of "spiritual materialism" teaching/teacher shopping for fashions and styles that are personally pleasing (not to be confused with finding the medicine among medicines which one truly needs ... a kind of positive "teacher/teaching shopping").

In my view, the Middle Way is again called for here. If one is in a Buddhist school for practice (which is really what a Sangha is, no different from a Karate school for Karate, or a dancing school for dance), one should really try to master what the teacher points to in how to throw punches or do the waltz. However, one does not become a slave of the karate/dance teacher ... and ultimately (once the fundamentals are mastered for oneself) one must fight one's own fights, dance one's own dance.

Something like that.

Gassho, J

SatToday

PS -


But that sounds very dangerous because surrendering one's own authority is not the same thing as surrendering one's expectations! Allowing the student-teacher relationship to be as it is might just mean disappointment. But as Jundo has said elsewhere the best Zen is SO disappointing!

Yes, I still think that lesson is important for me to remember often too quite often:

The BEST Zen is SO DISAPPOINTING!
http://www.treeleaf.org/forums/showthread.php?10535-SIT-A-LONG-with-Jundo-The-BEST-Zen-is-SO-DISAPPOINTING%21

And, boy, are you going to be SO disappointed when I get off the train and we meet in a few weeks! gassho1

[Hoko]

Lol!
How could I possibly be disappointed with a Zen teacher who makes house calls?

I'm currently on a road trip with my family driving from California through Arizona, Nevada, Utah, New Mexico, and Colorado. Right now we're somewhere between Jensen, Utah and Reno, Nevada and my wife is driving. Getting bored with Trungpa's book I decided to flip open the Book of Equanimity which I have been dipping back into as I slowly catch up to where the rest of the Book Club is at. Anyway, call it kismet or fate or Buddha-action or dumb luck: the bookmark was right at Case 53: Obaku's Dregs. What a wonderful coincidence! Obaku cuts right to the heart of the matter. Are there no Zen teachers or aren't there? Do you merely have to "look at the void in front of your eyes" or is a teacher required? Are you eating wine dregs or "putting a head on top of your own"? YES! NO! I DON'T KNOW! Obaku kicks over the jug and all the wine pours out. Now what?

Here's the link to the discussion from the book club:
http://www.treeleaf.org/forums/showthread.php?t=14474

(Hopefully it works; I'm posting from my mobile device while soaring through Utah at 75 mph)

Gassho,
Hōkō
#SatToday while meditating on this:https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20170407/f7caf3a949406f6786072f4100bacb2a.jpg

[Jishin]

4118
[emoji4]

Gasho, Jishin, _/st\_