teachers vs diy

http://www.buddhistgeeks.com/2011/09/bg-230-the-internet-is-not-your-teacher/

The above talk hits so many interesting points about working with and without a teacher, trying to "do it yourself" and dabbling in multiple traditions. I am finding it a fascinating read.

Good talk. But it's so carefully nice! Nobody need to change anything and they can still find it nice.

What he's saying is "turn off your computer" but then he immediately qualifies "for a moment - you can turn it on again later".

What he's saying - figuratively - is "burn all the glitzy accessories and find out what the smoke smells like" but then he says "but only if you want to, because it's also OK to accessorize forever".

He's saying "pay attention" but of course "to a teacher". You don't have to do it yourself.

But yeah. Maybe I'm too rash. Maybe it really is possible to crack the shell by throwing tasselled silk handkerchiefs at it real hard for long enough. Maybe doing it yourself is a skill and people have to learn how to do it properly, from having it done for them at first. I'm not convinced of that at all, though, because you have to draw a line somewhere between having things done for you and actually doing them yourself. You can only draw that line yourself. I don't see how you can learn that by imitation and much less how you can guide someone's hand in drawing that line.

Maybe it's the kind of thing to say at a Dharma conference, I've never been to one. But I have meditated with real-life people.

So it's a good talk. It's like Kornfield's "A path with heart". There's real substance in there, but it's completely optional, and you don't have to feel bad about not eating your metaphorical veggies.

Or maybe "doing it yourself" has a subtly different meaning (such as "not doing it yourself") I'm not aware of. Since I'm not a native speaker, that's entirely possible as well.

Cheers,
Florian

Florian, I adore your posts. Really. A delightful balance of insightful and snarky (and hilarious).

One point about teachers he mentioned, I think, is that they can (if you listen to them) push you to deal with the stuff you are trying to avoid. Some people can spot that tendency themselves. Others benefit by having someone point it out to them. Others can have it waved in their face all day long and won't pay any attention to the pointer. I suppose a teacher is pretty useless if you aren't going to actually follow their guidance or apply the practices they are suggesting.

Having a teacher can also be interesting in forcing you to think about issues of trust and authority.

And also, Florian specifically - who was teaching you? Yourself? Your intuition? God? Life? How do you think about that? Just curious.

Hey, this was a difficult message to deliver at a conference called "Buddhist Geeks." I was there and I heard it in person, and I really appreciated the delivery... live, in person. Very honest, without artifice.
JMHO


-cmarti

Yes, I listened to the recording. It is, as you say, very honest and without artifice. And maybe there's a culture gap there as well: from an European perspective, Americans, and Californians in particular, can be irritatingly non-confrontational in conversation (making up for it in foreign politics... erm). So maybe I'm being too hard on the "have your cake and eat it, too" aspect of the talk.

But "geeks" - aren't they people who like to pry things open to see how they work? Or is it "geek" as in "teacher's pet"?

Cheers,
Florian

And also, Florian specifically - who was teaching you? Yourself? Your intuition? God? Life? How do you think about that?

-ona

I had a lot of teachers: my parents, school teachers, dharma friends, and yes, life, the universe and everything as well - gravel paths along the river, hospital wards, empty plastic coffee cups, and bathroom doors, and weird mystic entities as well, yes. I got a lot out of listening to and reading from spiritual teachers as well, I just never "worked with" a spiritual teacher closely. That's an individual thing, I know, how to interact with teachers.

I think it's unfortunate, however, that Ethan chose to use "diy" to mean "getting lost playing with ever new shiny toys", because then, what's he going to call "doing it yourself"? Ultimately, it *is* about "doing it yourself", isn't it? You can't have someone else be self-honest for you. You can't have attention be paid for you. You have to do it yourself.

So by saying "stop doing it yourself and listen to the teachers more", I can't help but wince a bit at the implication that self-reliance is something shallow and being spoon-fed is the way to go. Which he didn't imply at all by the thrust of his message, but very much so by his choice of words. And if he was going to reach people playing in the shallow end, which aspect of the message is more likely to get through - the surface words or the deep meaning?

Cheers,
Florian

And maybe there's a culture gap there as well: from an European perspective, Americans, and Californians in particular, can be irritatingly non-confrontational in conversation ...


-florian

Finally someone explains the mysterious tendency of Europeans you've never met before to launch into opinionated tirades on world affairs or the failings of American culture during lunch at a film festival or other unrelated event...

But seriously, I have rarely heard anything too hard-hitting at a public conference. The toughest stuff I ever heard in a "public" presentation was at a series of private talks among invited documentary filmmakers at a workshop, where the claws came out and people were harsh on each other. In front of a paying general audience you try to make things accessible and encouraging I guess. You want people to listen to the talks and say "I can do this. I can practice. I can try harder." Americans (at least) don't necessarily respond well to being told they are failures and not doing it right.

I'm making sweeping generalizations with no data to support them, so feel free to suggest it's bullshit.

I had a lot of teachers: my parents, school teachers, dharma friends, and yes, life, the universe and everything as well - gravel paths along the river, hospital wards, empty plastic coffee cups, and bathroom doors, and weird mystic entities as well, yes. I got a lot out of listening to and reading from spiritual teachers as well, I just never "worked with" a spiritual teacher closely.



-florian

That was true for me too, despite also formally working with one human teacher in particular. Except the bathroom door part.

I always liked the way at the Tendai Buddhist center I sometimes attended one always thanked one's cushion after sitting. That pointed me to thanking so many things. Every moment is your teacher if you pay attention.

There's Buddhists in the bathroom

And Christians in the closet.

A yogi sits in an ashram

While geeks posit --

How to get the dharma,

While promising not to harm ya.

Even if, you don't exist --

Unless your Mac is turned on ... now.

Listening to it now...

I think the overall message was a good one.

- Continue to challenge yourself.

- Cultivate actual relationships with real people, including "dharma" buddies.

- Don't settle for surface level dharma only.

- It's about practice, and about experiencing differently. It's not only about thinking about things differently.

Perhaps this talk should have been titled "Wikipedia is not your teacher."

So by saying "stop doing it yourself and listen to the teachers more", I can't help but wince a bit at the implication that self-reliance is something shallow and being spoon-fed is the way to go. Which he didn't imply at all by the thrust of his message, but very much so by his choice of words. And if he was going to reach people playing in the shallow end, which aspect of the message is more likely to get through - the surface words or the deep meaning?

-florian

This reminds me of a Ajahn Chah story I heard Jack Kornfield tell. Jack complained that Ajahn's instructions were contradictory and inconstant, "one day you tell me to do one thing and a few days later you tell me to do the complete opposite!" Ajahn Chah explained that all he does is try to keep his students on the path: I watch a student walking down the path. Sometimes he strays too far to the left so I yell "Go Right! Go Right!" then he may stray too far to the right so I shout "Go Left! Go Left!" All I'm trying to do is to keep them from falling off into the bushes.

I think what Ethan was doing in that talk was a little bit in the same vain. He was reacting to a tendency he saw among many people who become Internet Buddhists (internet buddhist is the new coffee-table buddhist, btw) and trying to get them to correct course before they stray too far into the bushes (or in this case: getting lost in the dharma supermarket).

Maybe doing it yourself - which I did for a long, long time, is less efficient that working with a teacher.
Just a thought.


-cmarti

I think that's probably true IF the teacher is good and IF the student listens.

The interesting thing about this talk is that the only real distinction he makes is between, as they say, meatspace and cyberspace. He explicitly includes both working with a sangha and working with a teacher in his superficial, internet dharma example—he even includes himself as such a teacher. So I think the dichotomy of by-oneself vs. with-a-community-and-teacher is a bit off the mark. Indeed, the internet dharma culture that he's describing is absolutely TEEMING with forum posts, facebook groups, skype conversations, and the like. That is, thousands of ways for people to connect and learn from each other online.

And yet, I still think what he's saying has real value. The fact is, I *do* think that the cyberspace/meatspace division is a really powerful one. And I think the fact of being present with a teacher or with a group in the same room, face to face, where every act of body speech and mind is included in the social sphere and is a mechanism for communication and transmission, does indeed provide a deeper, more nuanced space for learning and for deepening one's practice. The fact is, as valuable as I find this forum, if we all got together in a room for an hour and a half every week, I think we'd be 20 times as powerful. My real-life sangha is not nearly as learned as many of the people here, and yet the service it has provided for me has been utterly invaluable.

Hell, just this fact alone—that when you sit down with 20 people in the room and meditate, you can't just open your eyes and wander away if you get bored—is worth the price of admission.

There's Buddhists in the bathroom
And Christians in the closet.
A yogi sits in an ashram
While geeks posit --
How to get the dharma,
While promising not to harm ya.
Even if, you don't exist --
Unless your Mac is turned on ... now.



-michaelmonson

Keep up the poetry, Mike.

What is the dharma that will help
Get me girls?
We are taught the Buddha was
A handsome man;
But surely no one can see
My serene smile and my auspicious
Thighs like a royal stag
Through the ignorance and delusion
Of my webcam.

Forty teeth I have;
A teacher, surely, I must find—
Though over mountains, maybe—
To find a teacher,
A sage with full-sized heels
And a preternatural ability
At the cold approach, and
At pulling a number.


PS, I wrote this on
The john.

We may just have to start a poetry thread.

In my lineage, every thread is a poetry thread. Or at least it contains the seeds of its own poetry within it.

DIY isn't just a product of the internet culture, though I think it is correct that because of digital technology DIY is most likely a more and more common way of having a spiritual practice.

However, there is also, I think, a DIY core to all people who take this stuff seriously. A need to utimately test things out for themselves, to come to insights that are right and correct and accurate because they are original to them whether or not the discoveries ultimately jive with an existing tradition or teacher.

The Buddha's "be a light unto yourself" is probably the ultimate DIY-inspired statement. Now, how that goes with and compliments "buddha," "dharma," and "sangha" is still, at this point, a complete mystery to me.

Now, my light has shown me things that so far at least seem in opposition to and in disagreement with what most of the sangha I've been around sees as the dharma taught by the buddha. I often suspect that this is a case of me needing more practice, but the do-it-yourselfer in me refuses not to be always at least attempting to be actually honest about how things look to me right now.

I do wonder, of course, how many buddhists take the basic tenents of the dharma on faith rather than upon investigation.

Well, yes and no. I think in this case the "geeks" terminology is more a reference to technology. Computers, specifically.

-cmarti

Apple cult geeks, or rather those who like to pry things open and see how they work?

But yeah, that's another sense of "geek" I was overlooking. Thanks, Chris.

Cheers,
Florian

Finally someone explains the mysterious tendency of Europeans you've never met before to launch into opinionated tirades on world affairs or the failings of American culture during lunch at a film festival or other unrelated event...

-ona

They are making polite conversation. The correct response is to point out how America saved Europe from the Nazis, or to grab their iPhone and look up a good lolcat movie.

Americans (at least) don't necessarily respond well to being told they are failures and not doing it right.

-ona

Ethan essentially told them they were doing it wrong.

Cheers,
Florian

They are making polite conversation. The correct response is to point out how America saved Europe from the Nazis...


-florian

ROFL - I bet that leads to deep and abiding friendships.