Jundo wrote:
This was never really a part of Zen practice, although sometimes many traditional Indian-Chinese-Japanese views of the "master-disciple" relationship were about the same. These were traditional and feudal societies, so it was not just in Buddhism ... but all through the "
top-down/lord & master vs. slave, servant and serf" society. In Japanese "samurai" society, the image was that if a "master" tells his disciple to fall on one's sword ... the disciple falls on one's sword unquestioningly (
Ah, sometimes I wish we had some of those "good ol days" more around here at treeleaf! :twisted: ). On the other hand, if one reads the old Zen stories of students and teachers slapping each other, questioning and teasing each other ... well, maybe the relationship of Zen teacher and student even in the "old times" was often closer to a mutual wrestling match (
pretty much describes my relationship with Fugen and Mongen :roll: ), a dancing school where two must tango, "tangled vines" twisting in and around each other ... in which the teacher is a guide/coach pointing out the way ... but the student must ultimately do all the climbing of the mountain for his/herself.
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! :? ) 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 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").
Gassho, J