Who are your Spiritual Teachers?

[Rob_Heathen]

Re: Who are your Spiritual Teachers?

But in my mind a great spiritual teacher is a live person, not a book. And I give great nods to the spiritual teaching of nature and the universe, etc.. But WHO helped you through all the great DOUBT that comes with growing up spiritually? That's what I'm curious about. It's about an person to person interaction.

Exactly my point, I have had many a book lead me from one direction to another via my DOUBT however I have not yet really had that guy/gal tell me to stop hitting my head cuz there happens to be a wall there and I'm getting blood all over... A book will never do that. Sorry I am not really adding constructive points to your thread Al, more just criticizing. Gassho to you for a cool thread none-the-less. Thanks.

Gassho,

Still only Rob.

[Hogo]

Re: Who are your Spiritual Teachers?

But WHO helped you through all the great DOUBT that comes with growing up spiritually? That's what I'm curious about. It's about an person to person interaction.

I have not yet grown up spiritually, I'll let you know how it turns out.
I am really not trying to be facetious here, I can say that until recently I have not followed any kind of spirituall path, aside from a minor experiment perhaps now and then. Sure I have developed something based on all the interactions I have had over the years with family, friends...etc. but no one really stands out.

Having just made the commitment to myself (and to all of you) to participate in this years Ango, and Jukai, I suppose that would make Jundo, and Taigu my first.....ummm "formal??" teachers. I have not developed too much doubt yet, but it will come I suppose, and I know you all will be here when I stumble.

I have already learned much and found so much new to see here reading all the postings by everone here. Perhaps not face to face but person to person interaction in our own way, so today I consider you my spiritual teacher.

Alanla, Cyril, Taylor, Rob, Stephanie, Fugen, Don, Shohei, Hans, Chet, Chugai, Luis, Will, Fuken, Kyrillos, Rick, Ghop, Kelly, Adam, JohnsonCM, Craig, zak....on and on.....names at random from my head and all great teachers in my days here at treeleaf and with everyone else that post.

Thank you everone, and Jundo, and Taigu for it being.
Gassho.
Dave.

[AlanLa]

Re: Who are your Spiritual Teachers?

Looking back on this today, I think i came down a little too hard on books as teachers. Books have taught me a lot, so I think they are legit teacher candidates, but my worthless opinion is that people are better. And this forum is a great teacher also, for it's somewhere between a book to read and a live person to interact with.

Oh, the other thing is that for most of us our greatest teachers were our parents. Sometimes the lessons aren't what you want or expect, but it's hard to deny the strength of their influence. I am being reminded of that lately.

[Govert]

Re: Who are your Spiritual Teachers?

When I look back at the buddhist teachers :, I would say that my first encounter with buddhist practice was by reading a book of Lewis Richmond, "Work as a spiritual practice", I had some issues at work and had no idea this book was about buddhism so I have read it, thank you Lewis for bringing me on this path. The numerous people that have crossed my path are thanked here as well, being buddhist or not doesn't matter, I would say.
My formal teachers are Jundo and Taigu, many bows as they keep me guiding on the track,


Gassho

Ensho

[Martin]

Re: Who are your Spiritual Teachers?

So many great spiritual teachers.

My mother, who taught me that it's ok to have doubt. Donald, a Methodist lay preacher, who taught me that it's fine to ask questions. Stephen, a Cambridge University professor, who taught me that words are just that; words. Jane, my first wife, who taught as she left me that winning an argument is a pretty sterile achievement and that listening could be worth a whole lot more. My three boys, who taught, and teach, me that (a) the universe does not revolve around me; and (b) that this is a rather liberating, not to say entertaining, state of affairs. My four cats, who are attempting to teach me that the universe does actually revolve around the Cat Treats in the cupboard. Karen, my dear wife, who teaches me that wanting to be enlightened and spiritual is the surest way not to be. All the people whose disputes I earn a living mediating, who teach me the truth of the Buddha's words that the judgement of right and wrong are like the serpentine dance of a dragon. Norwich City Football Club, who teach me the First Noble Truth that life is suffering. Over and over again, every season. Jundo and Taigu, my Teachers, who teach me (amongst so many other things) the value of generosity with their time and wisdom. Everyone at Treeleaf, who teaches me the value of community. The next person I meet, who teaches me that nothing is ever quite as I expected, and that I have much to learn.

I owe a deep debt of gratitude to my teachers, all.

Gassho

Martin

[Heisoku]

Re: Who are your Spiritual Teachers?

I have not yet grown up spiritually, I'll let you know how it turns out.

Gassho to this Dave.
I guess my greatest teachers are those people and events where my stupid ego-mind has been taught a proper lesson, particularly in the surf at Kujukuri beach where the rides caught did not teach me as much as the waves missed or the poundings recieved.
A sincere gassho to you all at Treeleaf and the Pacific Ocean.

I hope Jukai will be a kind of starting point.

Nigel

[Engyo]

Re: Who are your Spiritual Teachers?

Jundo wrote:
"I often say that I try (without having to try hard) to be a very disappointing teacher ... because in this practice life is frequently "disappointing" ... the world is frequently "disappointing" ... we frequently "disappoint" ourselves ... and if we can see through "disappointing" to how sacred it all is, then we are really on to something! (I really am not just joking there). So, as a greatly disappointing teacher of great Wisdom and Compassion in disappointment, I rarely fail!
As a Klutz in everything from bowing to putting on my robes ... I also am a great teacher of the perfection of imperfection!
Truly, learn from babies, trees, stones, stars, enemies and friends, the hard and easy, ringing telephones ... they are all the "teacher".

Very true. Life is frequently disappointing. It is as it is. I admit to thoughts of being both disappointed and discouraged in this moment, at the same time knowing "this too shall pass". So, then, how am I to receive this present teaching? For if everything and everyone is to be my teacher, a teaching it surely must be.

I will sit with all buddhas and take life as my lineage. I will watch closely the lessons its nature provides. The sun, moon and stars will illuminate my journey. Rivers will show me the path. All creation will elucidate the meaning revealed on the way. I will receive my precepts in this manner. Living all this will be my Jukai. I will ask the wind, water and the waves of Northumberland's shore to explain the Dharma, when I am in doubt about other shores and whether they exist. The mountains will teach me how to just sit. When the elements are severe, I will take refuge in the trees; the rocks; and all who pass my way; both enemy and friend. In ceremony following my precepts and vows, I will touch the earth in solemn gesture and claim it as witness to my intent, as one called Gautama did before me. My temple shall be the sky. The seasons will provide my altar. I will sew my rakusu and kesa of white cloth, for it is written this is not a colour but the presence of all colours; as black is their absence.The back panel of my raksu will read, "This was given to this one by the cosmos". I will ask the thunder to speak it and the rain to sign it. My kechimyaka will be of my own design; as my ancestors I will list all the things in the order of the universe which taught me.
...and when the passing wolf's eyes ask me, "Who are you? What brings you to my domain?". I will say, "I claim the Dharma Name "Eka" and the Zen Priest named "Jundo" sent me here; a teacher of the sacred ways; "disappointment' and "perfection of imperfection".

I have no way of knowing for sure, but I think the wolf will smile.

Gassho,

[Taigu]

Re: Who are your Spiritual Teachers?

Beautiful words Don, so true, just no need to write "I will". Please, just do it ( and I am sure you do).

The teacher?

This. Always this.


gassho


Taigu

[Engyo]

Re: Who are your Spiritual Teachers?

Thank you, Taigu.
Gassho,
Don

[Stephanie]

Re: Who are your Spiritual Teachers?

Thanks to Alan for starting this thread and to everyone who has participated, it's led me to think of the people who have shaped my life and my spiritual development... and the interesting thing I've realized is that even though I have worked personally with official "Buddhist teachers," my spiritual teachers have more often been someone who is not in any official capacity an ordained teacher. I would define a spiritual teacher as a person whose feedback really shapes and changes the direction of your life as relates to your deepest and most persistent questions about life... and when I reflect on that, the people that pop up are surprising.

A couple of folks that I only corresponded with via the Internet had a profound influence on my spiritual development. The most significant is Dave, with whom I've been corresponding for almost the entire time I've been on a spiritual path. He offers his own spiritual teaching and practice that is basically, IMO, "Zen without the Zen," or, "a practice of awareness and looking firmly rooted in the modern era with no reference to Buddhas and patriarchs and the like."

The biggest foundational influence in my Zen development has been without a doubt John Daido Loori, with whom I only did one dokusan, but his way of teaching and expressing the Dharma, everything I experienced at Zen Mountain Monastery... When I was first trying to figure out this Buddhism thing, I was working at Omega Institute in upstate New York and started going to the Sunday morning services at ZMM, so this was my first taste of Zen outside of books. And I'm grateful it was because over the years I've only become more appreciative of that man's fiery insight and practical wisdom about how to make Zen practice function in my life in modern America.

Another surprisingly influential spiritual mentor was Robin Artisson, a notorious "troll" on Internet Pagan communities who set up camp at the Livejournal Buddhist community and who, despite insistingly describing himself as a Pagan and "Heathen" and emphatically not a Buddhist, seemed to understand the Buddhadharma better than the Buddhists on that community. He and I had a fruitful correspondence for the good part of a year that organized and clarified a lot of my religious thinking even though I was ultimately unable to share many of his beliefs. I still regard him as one of the wisest people I've ever encountered.

The next would be Chet... I don't refer to or think of him as "teacher" because I don't regard him as in a place of hierarchy above me, but nonetheless his guidance has had an immense clarifying effect on my life. I really don't know where I'd be today spiritually if it weren't for him. He was the first person who has really shown me the falseness of my own thinking in a way that has led to its falling apart. He is singlehandedly responsible for reigniting my faith in the Dharma and this Zen way and being able to let go of a lot of the stupid bullshit I was holding on to.

And now, finally, Treeleaf. I relate more and feel more connected with the people who are part of this community than any other Zen group I've been part of. I have learned from so many people here. And Jundo and Taigu have also connected with my life in a very personal way. The very human interactions I've had with Jundo have led to a trust and respect and openness without idealism... In the sense that I've realized that my personal opinions about Jundo and what his flaws may or may not be are irrelevant, as what he says is true and what I need to hear in many cases. Taigu's teaching has deepened my appreciation for the "Soto way" and its immediacy... he has a passion and a way of putting things that shows that the non-doing of this Way is not at all the same thing as passivity.

And of course my parents have been great teachers. My mom has taught me more about compassion, inner strength, and selflessness than any saint or spiritual teacher I've met, and my dad has taught me how to wonder at this beautiful universe and this human life we have. My stepdad has also taught me a great deal about kindness and selflessness and my stepmom about the joy of life. My sister has mirrored back my own wisdom as well as my great foolishness, as has my best friend, who might as well be my blood sister.

I've learned from my peers and teachers at my grad school and current job the unique brightness social workers have to offer the world, and the value and wisdom of respecting every unique individual experience as a source of strength and wisdom and not just in terms of dysfunction.

[Keishin]

Re: Who are your Spiritual Teachers?

every teacher I have ever had was a big ZERO

meaning everything I credited them with or blamed them for cancelled each other out:

they were just people with their own areas of foibles and odditites. Talented, gifted, and blindspots too!

working with a teacher, I have come to see, is like working with fractions--nothing is made more or less of than what it is, but there is converting into sames so that there can be communication.
But there are no parts: wholes and Wholes and WHOLE.
Zero is not nothing, it stands in the place of +/-
for every teacher I thought was such a +, believe me, a - appeared.
And the one who was a royal capital -, there were + moments too.

So....in deep gratitude and appreciation of all teachers past, present, and future!

all of them BIG ZEROS, all of them!


hellos to all posting here--I wrote the above comment for a different blog site.
It is late and I am lazy--I edited it a little--but there it is.
In looking over it, it might appear that I am not courteous to my teachers, and that would not be an accurate
description. I do not seek a teacher's approval or disapproval, I did not say that I am not affected by their approval or disapproval--but that I don't seek it.

by the way, I aspire to be a zero also--yes, I want my 'goods' to outweigh my 'bads,' I want my positives to outnumber my negatives, and if I live that way, then my intended positives and unintended negatives just might cancel each other out as a neutral, as a zero.

So I try to leave things better than I found them. This results in things looking as if I'd never been there: my impact is a -/+ zero (like the bathroom at work, for example--I straighten things up, pick up the scraps of papers on the floor, etc--so that it looks as if no one had been there.

Just imagine--efforts to leave things better than you found them makes things look as if no one had been there!
But, aware of the presence of it, I can feel the effect of zero.

Zeros are my he and sheroes
hope I add up to one someday

[AlanLa]

Re: Who are your Spiritual Teachers?

Stephanie wrote: I would define a spiritual teacher as a person whose feedback really shapes and changes the direction of your life as relates to your deepest and most persistent questions about life...

Great definition! Fits Pastor Hal perfectly, yet I didn't recognize him as a great personal spiritual teacher at the time at all, which is interesting, huh. Sometimes, maybe often or even most of the time, we don't recognize our spiritual teachers when they are right in front of us right now.

[Hogo]

Re: Who are your Spiritual Teachers?

Keishin,
Thank you for being a teacher today. I enjoy your post.
I started to write all the profound things your post made me think of, then I thought it all just amounted to zero :roll:
Gassho
Dave.

[AlanLa]

Re: Who are your Spiritual Teachers?

PS to my post above: I think Stephanie's definition also fits Jundo and Taigu, and I am grateful for being able to recognize that now, although I may realize it even more in the years to come.