About
friendship and boundaries in dharma
>Not
as a student lecturing his teacher but as a Dharma friend sharing his
observations to a Dharma friend.
-This is going to be long and
winding... The word friendship gets used a lot nowadays but I think
the concept of friendship has lost a lot of its depth and meaning.
When people start to practice guru yoga and are trying to figure out
what it is, who this guru is and so on, I always tell them to look at
it as if they were getting to know a new person. It makes sense in
the context of guru yoga too that it takes time to know the guru, not
to even mention developing trust and faith. A friendship does not
develop overnight but in my experience takes years and many shared
experiences to build it on. This is one big reason why online sanghas
and online dharma is so problematic because people don't even meet
physically. Basically, you don't get to know a person through online
exchange.
I've been blinded by my own western democratic
conditioning and it has made my life and my work a lot more difficult
that it could have been. Through many years of inventing "pragmatic
tantra" I've learned that some principles of pragmatic dharma
(as defined by Ingram and others) cannot be applied to tantra and
just makes everything problematic and even conflicting.
They
knew all about this in Asian dharma traditions. By setting up forms
and norms, they set up boundaries. Personally I never had problems
with boundaries because I've learned the traditional ways (incl.
etiquette, code of respect, senior-junior, methodology and hard
training) since I was a child but in my lack of understanding spiced
with the Western spirit of invention (arrogance?), I questioned if
dharma could be boiled down to the bare essentials. It worked great
but then I started seeing the cracks, actions and decisions by my
students that seemed stoopid, immature and disrespectful. At first I
had no idea what was wrong but then I started realising that they
lacked the context. My students had realised emptiness, traversed
through all the bhumis but their "realization" looked only
partially like mine. That's because most of you were never exposed to
the above mentioned traditional ways.
It is true that I never
formally taught a course entitled "The six paramitas". I
never gave you a list of them or other similar expositions, and
explained to you how all things in life can and should be tied
together in the context of dharma practice. Having said that, I've
spoken about all of it all the time. I've taught about ethics,
lifestyle, work, family-life, patience and generosity. I've even lead
pointing out sessions where you tie all these things with one's
recognition of the natural state. And yet, I can say that none of my
students got and understood what I've pointed out, told them and
first and foremost exemplified with my daily example, be it online or
in person. When I've said that my students haven't been listening,
this is what I've meant. You heard some, the bits about meditative
practice but missed most of the rest. Ay yay yay, you missed a lot.
I'm not blaming anyone, I'm just stating what you got and didn't get.
I've told my students for many years to go and study with
other teachers, especially if you/they have hard time getting my
teaching. I've said that I don't teach the very basics and of course
I don't teach the dharma like most other teachers do. But now that my
style, in my view, has turned out to be so insufficient and
incomplete, the method needs to be changed quite significantly so
that students get taught and develop understanding from those
traditional or Asian aspects of dharma, or what you might call the
other paramitas than meditative (dhyana paramita). Yeah, despite of
having more than a dozen students who've realized the full scope of
emptiness, I don't see the perfection of wisdom (prajna paramita) in
you because you say and do things that in my view are stoopid,
immature and disrespectful. I am not calling anyone stoopid, I am
just saying that your realization doesn't look like mine and you
don't feel the same as I do, except partially. I admit that at this
stage of my dharma work, I feel I have failed but fortunately there
is still time to rectify these mistakes and better the method before
I die.
Back to your comment.
Reg making dharma
friends. I have learned the hard way how westerners misunderstand and
misinterpret their relationship with a western master. Again, I could
say that this happens because you're not hearing me well, and
additionally because you're not meeting me in person (or do so too
rarely) or living with me. Karl, the Lion of Norway, is still the
only one whose ever lived with me and because of that he knows my
pulse the best.
My view of friendship is like I described
above. If you don't meet me and get to know me in person, friendship
between us won't develop. I would even say that not meeting my
students in person sabotages my dharma transmission (again) because
dharma transmission is much more than just pointing out the nature of
mind.
As a person, I am not above you. As people, we are
equal. In dharma, mutual respect between teachers and students is
essential. Just like in all relationships, one might feel uncertain,
doubtful or scared to say something but it is only a sign of
understanding what a true friendship is when you speak your mind even
when you might not feel that comfortable doing that. You've seen me
do that so many times. I'm not going to have my students be
disrespectful or offensive towards me anymore (one of my problems
because of my western democratic mind) and I am learning to set my
boundaries as a teacher of tantra, but if I sense your sincerity and
honesty, it will be OK.
Baba, 25.10.22
