Teachers, teachings - our heart

Written by P. Rosemarie Komossa

When it comes about teachers, about teachings, each heart has to speak individually... And: What IS a teacher? What IS a disciple? Is this really "needed"? Should one rebel against a master-student relationship? What is it about this? And: Should one change teachers - or not? Should one stay a lifetime long? Is there at all really a " need " for an external teacher? Who can say - our very own heart will let us feel... May you feel your heart speaking - for whom ever it is - and may it be life itself... Here is a bit from the Buddhist tradition about all this... May it bring the feeling to your heart - this way or that way, in each case "your" very individual way... In all freedom... In the One Heart... Rosie Mari Janée Ducky (...i learned the way of Sogyal Rinpoche and Christine Longaker how to accompany the dying, not bound to any religion; the following text is from Sogyal Rinpoche...) __________________________ "(...) I remember vividly being with a master whom I know when he asked his students what had drawn them to him, and why they had trusted him. (...) A woman in her late thirties confessed: "I´ve tried to make you into my mother, my father, my therapist, my husband, my lover; you have calmly sat through the drama of all these projections and never turned away from me." (...) It cannot be stressed too often that it is the truth of the teaching which is all-important, and never the personality of the teacher. This is why Buddha reminded us in the "Four Reliances": Rely on the message of the teacher, not on his personality; Rely on the meaning, not just on the words; Rely on the real meaning, not on the provisional one; Rely on your wisdom mind, not on your ordinary, judgemental mind. (..) The most important things is not to get trapped in what I see everywhere in the West, a "shopping mentality": shopping around from master to master, teaching to teaching, without any continuity or real, sustained dedication to any one discipline. (...) When you go on searching all the time, the searching itself becomes an obsession and takes you over. You become a spiritual tourist, bustling about and never getting anywhere. As Patrul Rinpoche says, "You leave your elephant at home and look for its footprints in the forest." (...) So when you have explored the mystical traditions, choose one master and follow him or her. It´s one thing to set out on the spiritual journey; its quite another to find the patience and endurance, the wisdom, courage and humility to follow it to the end. You may have the karma to find a teacher, but you must then create the karma to follow your teacher. For very few of us know how truly follow a master, which is an art in itself. So however great the teaching or master may be, what is essential that you find in yourself the insight and skill to learn how to love and follow the master and the teaching. This is not easy. Things will never be perfect. How could they be? We are still in samsara. Even when you have chosen your master and are following the teachings as sincerely as you can, you will often meet difficulties and frustrations, contradictions and imperfections. Don´t succumb to obstacles and tiny difficulties. These are often only ego´s childish emotions. Don´t let them blind you to the essential and enduring value of what you have chosen. Don´t let your impatience drag you away from your commitment to the truth. I have been saddened again and afain, to see how many people take up a teaching or master with enthusiasm and promise, only to lose heart when the smallest, unavoidable obstacles arise, then tumble back into samsara and old habits and waste years or perhaps a lifetime. (...) And so what the world needs urgently to know is as clear as possible an understanding of what a real master is, what a real student or disciple is, and what the true nature of the transformation is that takes place through devotion to the master, what you might call "the alchemy of discipleship". Perhaps the most moving and accurate of the true nature of the master I have ever heard comes from my master, Jamyang Khyentse. He said that although our true nature is buddha, it has been obscured from beginningless time by a dark cloud of ignorance and confusion. This true nature, however, our buddha nature, has never completely surrendered to the tyranny of ignorance; somewhere it is always rebelling against its domination. Our buddha nature, then, has an active aspect, which is our "inner teacher". From the very moment we became obscured, this inner teacher has been working tirelessly for us, tirelessly trying to bring us back to the radiance and spaciousness of our true being. Not for one second, Jamyang Khyentse said, has the inner teacher given up on us. In its infinite compassion, one with the infinite compassion of all the buddhas and all the enlightened beings, it has been ceaselessly working for our evolution - not only in this life but in all our past lives also - using all kinds of skillful means and all types of situations to teach and awaken us, and to guide us back to the truth. When we have prayed and aspired and hungered for the truth for a long time, for many, many lives, and when our karma has become sufficiently purified, a kind of miracle takes place. And this miracle, if we can understand and use it, can lead to the ending of ignorance forever: The inner teacher, who has been wiith us always, manifests in the form of the "outer teacher", whom, almost as if by magic, we actually encounter. This encounter is the most important of any lifetime. Who is this outer teacher? None other than the embodiment and voice and representative of our inner teacher. (...) I pray that all of you may taste, in this life, the joy of this most perfect kind of friendhsip. Not only is the master the direct spokesperson of your own inner teacher, he or she is also the bearer, channel, and transmitter for all the blessings of all enlightened beings. That is what gives your master the extraordinary power to illumine your mind and heart. He or she is nothing else than the human face of the absolute (...)." "The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying", Sogyal Rinpoche