How Good Spiritual Teachers Go Bad
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- Опубліковано 24 лип 2024
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Keep rockin’ and telling it straight!
I think there are three additional dynamics: 1) Its really hard to turn down sex when it is being thrown at you no matter how deeply you have seen into emptiness. That gets alot of people in trouble. 2) Just because someone has had some insight doesnt mean that they dont still suffer. When everyone is telling you that you are awesome that covers up the suffering a bit. It becomes like a drug. 3) Some people are just natural CEO types and like being the boss and growing things
That's all true, I think. Thank you!
No, it's not true. If sensual desire has been eliminated, bodies appear disgusting. No chance for sex.
this is brilliant. Thanks for so clearly explaining (and for delving into it at all) a phenomena that is happening right under our Zen noses in zen centers around the US... and *without* the conscious awareness of its tenants. Sometimes with contentious opposition to the mere suggestion that anything has gone awry. Eek! Humans gonna be humans. I saw it happen in the first zen center I lived in, to the detriment of the purity and beauty of the sangha
I come from a Vedantic background. I got snotty looks for bringing this concern up at my temple. And they even asked us "what do you think our temple could do better?". Its all good though. The human ego understandably makes itself known anywhere. I'm no exception.
I know it’s a very old post, your perceived truthfulness caused me to increase my Patreon donation.
Salutations and praises to the glory of Brad!!!
If only I could see his face when he reads this.
Yay! You have understood the Secret Truth! Send $19.95 for further information.
:):( !!!
This is insightful
I can tell you there is one less copy of "Hardcore Zen" at my local B&N. I was doing really well with it too, then I got to the chapter about the heart of wisdom sutra and that whole form is emptiness thing now my head hurts. I hope the rest of the book helps.
It gets easier!
I'm waiting for your novel to be completed, now :D I love these vlogs, btw. They seem to me like a natural extension (limb?) to Hardcore Zen, for some reason
Thank you. I appreciate what you said. I think this may be how some major religions and denominations came to be. Continue to stay cool :)
Brad there is an excellent movie called Kumari which addresses this subject directly in commentary and in an experiment, I recommend if you have yet to watch
I love that movie!
Could you tell me which year the movie was released? And in what language it is? I can't seem to find it :(
Vishnuprasad .T yes of course. I misspelled the title in my earlier comment. Was referring to Kumaré a 2011 English language film by Vikram Ghandi. Enjoy!
Elie Landesberg thank you so much!
Here is the imdb listing www.imdb.com/title/tt1865425/
Disciples corrupt those that point the way. They don’t want teachers but masters. And then there are those that feign to help the master to gain importance. He who knows speaks not, he who speaks knows not. Keep sane Brad and learn a craft to keep yourself. All the best
Honestly Brad, just keep doing what you are doing. One of your old blogs 2008 showed up on my Facebook feed today. It's a bizarre thing that happens that when I'm wrestling with a problem, something shows up in my feed from someone I'm following (like you) or from one of my friends that helps me sort it out. In this case it was "Free Speech About Berkley" (hardcorezen.blogspot.com/2008/01/free-speech-about-berkley.html) and the passage you wrote that stood out to me was this:
"It may be that because of the terrible things committed in the names of our Western religions in their quest to destroy all unbelievers, we Westerners tend to read intolerance where it does not exist. "
Then a little further down this:
"In the Lotus Sutra the Buddha gives a talk and a bunch of people who don't like what he's saying turn and walk out on him. Somebody, I think it's Ananda, says, "Hey Buddha, everybody's walking out on you!"
Buddha says, "That they leave is also good."
If you leave my place and I think you're a butt-face for doing so, ask yourself why you even care if a guy whose teaching you don't like thinks you're a butt-face. It's an important question. If you don't care, fine. If you do care, maybe there's a reason for that. As there was a reason I cared about Nishijima even though I hated his teaching when I first encountered it. As Shunryu Suzuki once said, "Any teaching that doesn't seem to be forcing itself on you is not good teaching.""
Thank you, I needed to see this today as I'm wrestling with whether or not to keep hanging around someone online who's making me uncomfortable with their views on one subject, but who's views on others I really like.
Also just added you to my Patreon donations. Along with Rachel&Jun and Paul Taylor who does the "Wapsi Square" web-comic.
Thank you! I appreciate that.
i found a 30$ stereo the other day. dual cassette desk, equaliser, radio, and record player. I'm gonna hook it up to my 20$ technique speakers.
livin' large!
I'd totally read that novel, BTW.
Thanks. I might write it.
I had a thought in watching this - I'd really, Really like to be a fly on a wall of you and Henry Rollins having a discussion. And, hopefully, by putting this thought into the universe, that can happen.
Oh...I get your vlog now....
It's a powerful piece. I certainly agree. My experience is the arts. Say getting a teaching job in art at universities. It's as Brad relates. You have to suck and climb the academic ladder, agree on what's good in art and turn up to the shows and carry on like that. I suppose the issue is autonomy in a capitalist system. Monks have to market themselves, social media etc and now politicians who spend as much time on their twitter messages than dealing with problems.
Intresting to see your live teachings next week in Finland.
In the sense I am wondering is it possible to really be representative or follow of any tradition without compromising at least a bit? I guess that it is very easy to human to create identity connected to certain tradition or following certain teacher / guru. Could one just use tools of certain traditions very calm way without any indentity building.
It's hard to say for sure. Anyone who tries to be part of a tradition brings their own personality into it, even if they try not to. One could call that "compromising."
Hardcore Zen would your teachings be even more uncompromising if you were just teaching without even zen term there and just from your insight? Or why you gravitated to be zen teacher?
I see great wisdom in many traditions and their techniques and see no reason to dismiss any explorer of this mystery called life that came before us.
On the otherhand I feel that everyone should / could feel themselves to be pioneering on the edge explorers of this mystery called life. Everyone have same authority to do their experiments and explorations and really there is no label, tradition or thought that anyone could hide behind... but I come to your retreat with empty cup to see what your exploration revealed to you... but to truly be true I am not sure if you are just part me who talk entertaining zen talks and do zazen... =9 and I might be part of you who makes questions and might be "politically" incorrect...
Suzuki Roshi said something relevant. Let's see: from Saturday, January 31, 1970
San Francisco: (I slightly edited the transcript to remove some of the "you knows", which are wonderful in the tape but can get in the way of the text! Of course it's best to hear the tape, go to cuke.com, sit on your cushion and just listen!)
I suggest the title "This is our very unfortunate destiny, maybe. " !! Here goes:
Our effort in our practice is quite different effort you make in our
usual life. This point should be very clear for you, or else,
you know, your practice doesn't work.
And spiritual effort is very poisonous for
us. Spiritual attainment
sometime will result ecstasy or sometime will result arrogance.
And in this kind of, you know, spiritual arrogance or ecstasy is worse
than materialistic arrogance. You can easily [be] fooled by
people by talking about something
“spiritual,” you know.
”This is very spiritual thing.” If you say so, that is already very
powerful, you know.
And there is no need for you to give any evidence to it.
If you practice zazen you will understand
it, or else you cannot
understand it. "I practiced zazen for many years, so I understand
it. But you may not understand it!
But this is true!” [Laughs, laughter.]
You know, this kind of, you know, danger is always with us. So
Buddhist is very strict with this point. That is maybe why we practice something difficult.
In our usual life-- materialistic world-- we have enough difficulties
[laughs]. So in spiritual world,
there should be, you know, more difficulties because not
only we have to make
effort to make progress in our practice, but also we have to keep
ourself from various pitfall
[laughs]-- various desire-- danger. So we have maybe much more difficulties in our spiritual effort.
But if you do it step by step, step little by little, then there is
not much danger. As if you save money: 5 cent, 10 cent [laughs]-- as
if you walk from here to downtown step by step,
then there is not much danger.
When you want to achieve something all at once, you have various
danger. We say “spiritual effort”
or “materialistic effort,” but it is not different thing. Especially
in Buddhism, we deny,
you know, materialistic world. Why we deny it is to find out new meaning in materialistic world.
So Buddhism started by Buddha. He started his practice when
he saw our human world which is very restless, which is very
evanescent, where you cannot rely on anything. So he, you know,
he deny it. It looks like very good, but actually it is not so good. This world is not so good.
I think most of us, most of our students here realize this point. The
main reason for you to come here is because you, you know, gave up or
you resigned to make effort in this world. It doesn't make much sense,
you felt.
So you wanted to find out some meaning in our life. That is why you
came here. And you came here denying this usual world.
But to deny this world does not mean to escape from this world. That
is not possible for you, you know. As long as you are human being, as
long as you are physical body, that is not possible.
Even though you make a space trip, that [laughs] is not possible. You
cannot escape from this world.
(This talk was soon after the first man had walked on the moon!)
But still you deny it, you know. You don't satisfied with it. This kind of dissatisfaction bring you to find out new meaning of life.
to find out some new world means to find out another new meaning to
materialistic world. So actually what you will do is the same,
but meaning of it different. To find new meaning in our life, we
practice zazen.
Why we cannot practice real
practice is because we are so deeply, you know,
deluded by our materialistic way of effort. Whatever we do,
even though you make spiritual effort, actually
is
materialistic way. This is our very unfortunate destiny, maybe. Even
when we practice
Zen, we are practicing our way with
wrong idea.
Before I explain this point clearly I want you to make your confidence
sure, you know. That is maybe the more appropriate.
I tell you, you know, most of you will not have enlightenment
experience. You may have, but I don't know-- one out of ten or out of hundred will
attain enlightenment--
will have so-called-it enlightenment experience. But if
you continue our
practice, even though you don't know [it], you make a big progress in your
practice, and your character will change. That is, you know, one thing I can assure you.
(It is so wonderful to hear the warm twinkle in his voice as he says
all this on the tape!!)
So anyway, I want you to continue zazen practice. Don't give up zazen
practice. You know, zazen cannot be materialistic practice. So when
you want to give up your practice, it means that your
practice became already
very materialistic [laughs].
So because you cannot see any progress by your five senses, because you
are not conscious of your progress, you think it's better to give up. It means that danger is there.
So that is a big warning for you.
And another thing is try to do everything without waiting for
someone's instruction.
You should find out what you should do here. That is our way of
practice.
By yourself you should find out what you should do. This is maybe
difficult
for you to understand, but there is reason why you should not depend
on some other's instruction. You should know, or you should find out your
way by yourself, or else you will be involved in wrong practice.
This is great stuff! Thank you for sharing!
Many things are like this if not all. I can't figure anything other than you just have to be willing to take less and remain reflective and open. Then there's the huge task of not believing your own copy, or anyone else's. How do you stay straight? How do you not allow your fans OR detractors to cloud you? How do you not become cynical?
Addiction to power. A true spiritual teacher doesn't need power.
It's weird though. I mean if you have some kind of realization shouldn't that free you to some extent?
You'd think so. I guess it does. But you still have free will.
You nailed it bud. Money is a huge corrupting factor and is probably the reason most spiritual teachers get in to the trade in the first place. There's also nothing wrong with making good money, having a large following and being a shill for yourself, as long as you really believe in what you're saying.
I don't know. Some people who believe in things kind of scare me.
That's true. My point really only makes sense in the context of staying true to yourself. If the things you believe in are terrible then it doesn't work as well :)
You mean there is no afterlife!?!?! :O
I don't know. Maybe. Send me $24.95 and I'll give you further information.
How much will enlightenment cost me?
@@AarmOZ84 I'll give you enlightenment for $10,000. First put in all ones and carry it to my bank and deposit it. Afterwards, I promise you'll feel so much lighter.
no out
cause the me we think we are is not
What Nishijima roshi did for a living? What does Tim does? Living shouldn't be so difficult, every animal does it and there is no money involved.
Btw, I don't recall how I met you, but three of your books have come to the bottom of the world (Chile)
Nishijima was an employee of Ida Soap and Cosmetics company all of the time I knew him, until he retired. Tim teaches at a bunch of colleges as an adjunct professor.
Thanks for your compliments!
I wouldn't write a book about it.
idk actually. I've met a lot of ppl who like your books.
Maybe when listening to facilitators it is better to just listen to what they are pointing, and whether that is of any use, rather than sidetracking into judging them which isn't the subject being discussed. Have noticed in discussing with commentators if you have any admonition to their favorite guru they may go off on a tangent into an illusory personal battle which isn't the subject being discussed anyhow. So then you have to make it crystal clear to them the context. To be on point with what your talking about is just that and requires no humility as notions of position are an irrelevant different subject.
With the accusations brought against Noah Levine this month, if they are found to be valid whether he sabotaged himself as a teacher.
I wouldn't try to guess about anyone else. Not specifically. I just see how I have wanted to sabotage myself and I think that may happen to others in similar positions.
He doesn't seem to want to give up at all. In fact it looks like he has doubled down. I watched his 'explanation' talk. He was adamant his sexual shenanigans did not go against the precept. I beg to differ. He said 'they weren't students' as if that made any difference.
Can I earn money by explaining stuff I don't really understand?
I do! Maybe you can too!
I think SGI already has the mantra-get-stuff thing.
I have a better mantra. For $15.75 I'll whisper it to you!
Charles Martin I like their chant, and the way they chant. I kinda like SGI. But their followers kinda freak me out. But, how do control what ppl say, think, and interpret a praxis? You can't.
Well what a decent fella you are. In my opinion greed motivates many of these self proclaimed spiritual teacher. Good luck to you. Eckhart tolle charges over £200 for his events. His wife charges over £100. Lol. To me, these types are fake.
$300 is nothing. That's one hotel night in LA
Worst guru ever...lol
I sometimes wonder if your weird, myopic, stuck-in-1993 mode of political discourse isn’t a half-unconscious attempt to undermine yourself in this way. Particularly as your open, thoughtful approaches to talking about Buddhism and your closed, reactionary approaches to talking about politics feel so much at odds with one another. This is not to say that your critiques of white-guilt-Buddhism aren’t spot on; they are. (“Meditating on whiteness” instead of doing zazen is so, so dumb and utterly misses the point.) But the language you cloak your political points in generally seems to be responding to things more than 25 years gone, and frustrated that the political landscapes have changed. Like you want to pretend that things haven’t changed. It’s weird.
And, sure, it does undercut you. The obvious disconnects between your approaches to Buddhism and your approaches to politics certainly make me question your credibility as a Zen teacher, even though I still enjoy reading / listening to you discuss Buddhism. Maybe just stick to Buddhism for a bit? And listen to the folks who give talks at the ACZC as you could learn a lot from their general approaches to politics: they seem actually engaged with what’s going on in front of us right now, without straying into ridiculous, white-guilt-(or fill in the blank-guilt)Buddhist territory.