Conscious Choice Seattle: Your Guru, Your Self

September 2006 | Art & Soul

Your Guru, Your Self

The spiritual teacher/student relationship

By John Kain

There are an infinite number of reasons for wanting a spiritual teacher, some as clear as an alpine stream, others as blurred and haunting as an inscription on an ancient tombstone. We might come to our desire through suffering—the piercing loss of a loved one, or the all-too-pervasive sense of numbing isolation in the modern world, for instance. Perhaps, though, we’ve experienced particularly ecstatic and fleeting moments of insight, where in a quick flash we see it, the extraordinary beauty of the world, the absolute miracle in the most daily occurrence—Haze breaking over fir and bamboo/Clears and concentrates/The mind and spirit, said the Chinese poet Chien Chang. In the first circumstance we want a teacher to show us the way out; in the second the way back in.

Yet in wanting a teacher to illuminate the lush and tangled undergrowth of our interior we inevitably step into a paradox. As the late Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche, the gifted Tibetan teacher said, “When you hear of someone who possesses remarkable qualities, you regard them as significant beings and yourself as insignificant.” In other words, our perceived inadequacy—that feeling that often got us looking for a teacher in the first place—is reinforced when we look upon someone or something as “more advanced,” “wiser,” “more enlightened,” and wrongly think that we need to “get” what they “have.” The spiritual teacher-student relationship, however, is based more upon subtraction than addition. In reality there is little a teacher—be they Buddhist, Hindu, Jewish, Muslim or Christian—can give us in the most essential sense, but they can certainly help disabuse us of a multitude of false notions and attachments. It is quite easy throughout our spiritual wanderings to lose track of our main purpose—to find our true nature, to find the truth in all its particulars, not to wallow in spiritual abstractions.

The Hasidic master Rabbi Zusya told his disciples who had gathered around his deathbed, “When I get to the world to come they will not ask me ‘Why were you not Moses?’ they will ask me, ‘Why were you not Zusya?’”

The spiritual teacher-student relationship is very subtle and often requires delicate metaphysical surgery, which places both the student and the teacher in a vulnerable position. The exchanges of power in these situations can do considerable damage if not held in balance. Recent history—from Jonestown to the Branch Davidians to 9/11 and untold religious scandals—is filled with this traumatic and bloody power play. If teachers think that they have personal power, that the “I” is teaching, then they are just transmitting more self-centered and diseased ways of being and should be vehemently avoided. “I cured with the power that came through me. Of course, it was not I who cured. It was the power from the outer world, and the visions and ceremonies had only made me like a hole through which the power could come to the two-leggeds. If I thought that I was doing it myself, the hole would close up and no power could come through. Then everything I could do would be foolish,” said Black Elk, the renowned Lakota elder.

Each tradition has its set of “tools” to help the disciple unpack his/her load. As such there is not just one type of teacher-student relationship; the permutations are endless. Students can (and do) view their teacher as a parent, as a lover (both figuratively and literally), as a friend, as an enemy, as a god and as a demon—perhaps all within an hour’s time. The psychological pitfalls of the relationship are complex and varied. Transference and projection run rampant, and there’s plenty more where that came from, as they say. Alexander Berzin, in his book about Tibetan practice, Relating to a Spiritual Teacher: Building a Healthy Relationship, describes six different attributes of the student-teacher relationship: (1) Almost all spiritual seekers progress through stages along the spiritual path. (2) Most practitioners study with several teachers during their lifetimes and build up different relationships with each. (3) Not every spiritual teacher has reached the same level of accomplishment. (4) The type of relationship appropriate between a specific seeker and a specific teacher depends upon the spiritual level of each. (5) People usually relate to their teachers in progressively deeper manners as they advance along the spiritual path. (6) Because the same teacher may play different roles in the spiritual life of each seeker, the most appropriate relationship each seeker has with that teacher may be different.

This list is filled with sober insights and common sense; it’s a good reference point. Yet for some mysterious reason students often check their common sense at the door, like an overcoat at a fancy restaurant, when entering spiritual practice. The best thing teachers can do for their students is to convince them that such notions are fantasy. If a teacher is sleeping with a student, nine times out of ten it’s a bad idea. If a teacher is an alcoholic, that teacher is an alcoholic. Some things are exactly as they appear. In the book How to Meditate: A Guide to Self-Discovery, an early work on spiritual practice (published in 1974), the author, Lawrence LeShan, gave some practical and sage advice about choosing a spiritual teacher—“Watch how they treat their spouse.” At the same time teachers do make mistakes, all of them, and if we think otherwise we’re on the wrong track.

There’s a razor-fine line between taming the ego—and thus unearthing compassion—and taming the person. A sense of self as an entity intricately connected to the web of the universe—a selfless self—is a healthy thing. A sense of self as the center of the universe around which everything revolves—me, me, me, me—is, other than being ridiculous, unhealthy for everyone concerned. It’s a touchy process, then, negotiating the building up of one and the softening of the other. Every teacher and student, no matter the tradition, has struggled with the tension between the two.

Many students want their spiritual teachers to “magically” bestow upon them a “godly, holy, gentle, pure” nature but that rarely happens. Often, however, we start on the spiritual journey with these ideas in our heads. It’s quite natural, actually. The intentions we begin with often change. In other words, we mature.

“I woke up one day and I wanted a teacher,” a friend told me. She’s been a student of a Tibetan lama for seven years. “I’d just seen the movie Seven Years in Tibet with Brad Pitt and I wanted a spiritual ‘thing’ in my life. It was like I wanted a new necklace, something shiny I could wear out on the town. I liked the thought of being able to say, ‘I have a teacher.’ It’s silly but that’s how it started. Still, here I am seven years later—something stuck. The necklace is long gone.”

Having a profound experience is not a prerequisite for entering the spiritual path—a flat tire, a love affair, throwing your back out while working on a tractor, an invitation to a concert and food poisoning are a few examples of serendipity that led students to their teachers. The universe, it seems, has a sense of humor. There needn’t be a central spiritual figure in our lives for us to practice in the spiritual realm. In fact, some people think no teacher is the best teacher of all or that teachers are everywhere. Once again the key is the seeker’s sincerity.

The spiritual teacher-student relationship is an alchemical process. It is predicated on change and not a little risk. Spiritual practice is not an escape and there are no hard and fast rules—how can we navigate something that is essentially a mystery without embracing mystery? We are, all of us, a community that can help each other. And there will never be any more perfection than there is now,/Nor any more heaven and hell than there is now, said Walt Whitman. No sense in waiting.

John Kain is author of A Rare and Precious Thing: The Possibilities and Pitfalls of Working with a Spiritual Teacher (Bell Tower), www.randomhouse.com, www.johnkain.net

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