Questions and Answers
Let’s begin with any questions you might have from the previous lecture concerning how we work to benefit all beings and what type of relationship we establish with anyone that we encounter while striving to be a bodhisattva. How does that affect our close relationships with family and friends?
What would be the state of true relations with others when they complain and speak angrily with us? How can we correct issues and heal so to have a true relationship? How will this manifest in our behavior?
When we are working to try to benefit all beings, in terms of the psychological dimension, we have hopefully developed a great deal of patience so that we don’t get angry when somebody criticizes us. With a level mind, we can examine if the criticism is correct or incorrect. If it is correct, we thank them for the criticism and try to correct ourselves. If their criticism is unfounded, again we apologize if they are offended; we didn’t mean to offend them. Still, we practice patience and don’t get angry. It is helpful to remember that Buddha didn’t please everybody. Not everybody liked the Buddha, so what do we expect for ourselves? Of course, there are going to be people that will criticize and don’t like us. There is nothing special about that.
We can really only help those who are receptive to our help. The main point of bodhisattva behavior is that we have the wish, the intention to help everybody. We aren’t yet Buddhas. We try to help others; we try our best. Sometimes there are people that we realize are beyond our ability to really help.
For example, there is a schizophrenic woman in Berlin where I live who has been stalking me for more than ten years. She calls in the middle of the night and knocks on the door; she insists that I am Kalachakra and that she is my consort. She is completely schizophrenic. I have told her many times that I am not capable of helping her and that she needs professional help. She refuses to accept that there is anything wrong with her or that she has a problem. There really is nothing that I can do. If she calls at three o’clock in the morning, I just pick up the phone and hang it up again. She obviously doesn’t know that I’m not going to deal with her but she calls. Still, I don’t get angry; I wish her well, but really there is nothing that I can do. It is beyond my ability. Sometimes I joke with my friends, when I feel nobody loves me, that at least my stalker loves me.
What are the criteria to recognize that our help really benefits others and doesn’t hurt or harm them?
It’s very difficult to determine what type of benefit our help will have. If we look in terms of short- and long-term benefit, we should always aim for long-term benefit. For instance, in order to get our children to stop crying we don’t always give them candy. That’s a short-term benefit not long-term. Sometimes the short-term effect may be painful for the person; however, the long-term benefit is like when a doctor might have to give us a painful injection in order to cure a disease. The effects of what we do with others isn’t limited to just that person. It will also affect everybody else that this person interacts with. That’s one of the main reasons we aim to become a Buddha with bodhichitta so that we would know all the consequences and results of any help that we try to offer to somebody and all those they interact with.
This is why it’s very important in any relationship that we develop that we don’t have preconceptions and make judgments, but that we try to take in as much information as we can about the other person and their situation. We need to try to understand the pattern of behavior that they have, to recognize their individuality and not view them as yet another case of this or that syndrome. We need to take into consideration all the factual and psychological variables and try to offer advice in a way that fits with all of that. In that way, it’s very much like a doctor.
Is it alright to look at the text Thirty-seven Bodhisattva Practices from the point of view of contextual therapy? Are there any considerations?
I think that would be a very fruitful thing to do. When working with my colleague Dr. Catherine Ducommun-Nagy to finish this article, we completed it in only five days before coming here to lecture. My Russian translator on the website translated it into Russian very quickly in these five days. This is a very new area of collaboration and it’s just begun as the fruit of many years of discussions. This is the first time that we collaborated on writing and analyzing something. I hope that there will be many more opportunities to go further and we both have many more ideas. Certainly looking at the Thirty-seven Bodhisattva Practices would be very beneficial.
Buddhist teachers aren’t therapists and it’s a mistake to expect that a Buddhist teacher will be one. The Buddhist teaching method is that the teacher gives us material and instructions and we have to work on it by ourselves. The responsibility is always given to the practitioner themselves. It’s not that every week we have a session with our teacher. That doesn’t happen. However, there are many methods, particularly analytical tools in Western psychology that could help to expand the Buddhist presentation and vice-versa.
Application to the Buddhist Relation with a Spiritual Teacher
Let’s continue now with the application of the five dimensions to the relationship with the spiritual teacher. This won’t include the more advanced Buddhist practice of seeing the teacher as a Buddha. That’s a very advanced practice that is often misunderstood. Putting that aside, we’ll analyze the general student/teacher relationship in Buddhism. Relating to our teacher in a healthy manner is considered the “root of the path.” That’s what it’s usually called. Like a root provides stability and nourishment to a plant, the teacher provides stability and nourishment to our practice through guidance and inspiration. This point of inspiration is the essence of the relation with the teacher. The teacher serves as a role model in terms of how we behave and how we deal with others and so on. As a role model, the teacher inspires us to try to become highly developed.
There are many different levels of Buddhist teachers and students. There may be a teacher that just delivers a lecture at a university and we go simply to gain information. We may not be very serious in our commitment to the Buddhist path; we’re just sort of what is called “the Dharma tourist.” It can be all the way from that level to the level in which we are very serious. We have examined the teacher and the teacher has examined us and we make the commitment to actually follow the guidance of this teacher.
The word in Tibetan used for the relationship that we establish with a spiritual teacher is the same word used with respect to a doctor. It has the connotation of someone that we trust. We trust ourselves to the guidance of this person like we would to a doctor. It’s based on confidence and respect, having really examined the person. We’ll use the five dimension framework to see the optimal way for the student and teacher to relate to each other and what are the obstacles that may arise.
Dimension of Factual Variables
Optimally, the biological facts such as those related to age, gender, health, family situation, etc. enable the students to attend the teachings. If the person is three years old and attends the teaching, it doesn’t really work. If the teacher is sick and in the hospital, it doesn’t really work. The actually facts about the student and the teacher have to be conducive to studying with each other. If an entrance fee is required to travel to or participate in a teaching and we don’t have the money, we can’t study with that teacher. It’s unfortunate when that happens, but it happens. The geographic situations of the two have to align and be conducive. If they live in two different parts of the world and aren’t able to travel and see each other, then the relationship doesn’t work. Or it can be that the teacher is traveling all the time.
The teacher and student need the ability to communicate with each other, either directly or indirectly through a translator in a way that is sufficient for the studies. If we can’t understand each other’s languages and there’s no translator, we can’t study. These are the factual variables.
Conventional and Deepest Obstacles
The conventional obstacles would be the difficulties or conflicts in any of the variables. For instance, the example of the student and teacher not speaking the same language and there isn’t a translator; or it could be that we can’t afford to travel to where the teacher is teaching.
The deepest obstacles would be either the teacher or student identifying concretely with the factual variables that pertain to them and feel that the other one is too different for them to be able to relate to. We find this at times, that Western people feel that they can’t possibly learn from a traditional Tibetan teacher; or it could be that a traditional Tibetan teacher thinking that a Western student isn’t serious and they can’t possibly teach them. That happens. Each side feels that the other is just too different.
That’s the dimension of factual variables.
Dimension of Psychological Variables
The optimal situation would be that each side had the necessary cognitive abilities, the intelligence and so on, and the appropriate psychological balance and emotional maturity for a healthy relationship. We have this saying that if we have two students, one very intelligent but with a very bad temper and difficult personality, and another student who isn’t very intelligent but has a very kind temperament and personality, the one that is less intelligent but kind and helpful, will be the better student. This is the one we should focus on. If the less intelligent but kind student doesn’t learn, it is our fault as the teacher. We should be able to explain in a simpler way so that this person can understand.
I remember once I had a student who was unable to understand things conceptually. If visualization was explained in words, she simply couldn’t understand. The only way to get her to understand was to have other students in the class act out how someone comes into the mandala and sends out rays of lights. If we actually showed it visually, then she could understand, and she actually became a very serious practitioner. A teacher needs to be very flexible and creative in terms of how we communicate.
Conventional and Deepest Obstacles
Conventional obstacles would be when the student or teacher lacks any of these qualifications, either cognitive or emotional. For example, this is when either the student or the teacher has inappropriate projections, such as over or underestimating each other’s abilities. It can often happen that we assume that the students can understand and we go way over their heads; or we think that they can’t understand and we explain in too simple a way. Different teachers are more able to explain one topic than another. To assume that a teacher can explain something that they aren’t that well versed in or are somewhat uneducated about, this can create problems.
For example, if a teacher has specialized in tantric rituals, to expect that this teacher will be able to teach us logic and debate when they haven’t studied that and are not able to do that, then we can get very disappointed and disillusioned about the teacher. We want to avoid this. We need to know what the teacher is good at and what they may not be particularly well versed in.
There can also be over-idolization of the other. The student idealizes the teacher and thinks they are a Buddha and know everything. They feel they don’t need to explain their problem or confusion because the teacher can read their mind and give them the solution to everything. That’s ridiculous. Also, the teacher can idealize the student, thinking that this is the disciple that he or she has been waiting for all their life who will carry on the lineages and so on, but this doesn’t fit the disciple at all.
Also, very serious is the conscious or unconscious emotional issues that can lead to inappropriate needs or expectations such as emotional, sexual or economic exploitation. This often happens in abusive relations that develop with abusive teachers. For example, if the teacher has unresolved sexual issues and looks to exploit the student in order to satisfy their sexual needs. This can also apply to the student having unresolved sexual problems and tries to seduce the teacher. These things happen unfortunately and are big obstacles whether in the sexual or financial areas or concerning power and control. That’s why it’s so important for both the student and the teacher to have a good level of emotional maturity and stability. They shouldn’t enter into the relationship, especially the teacher, with unresolved emotional issues. Unfortunately, this happens.
There are some teachers who are sent out from India and perhaps have completed their monastic academic training or have done a three-year retreat and learned all the rituals. They are sent out to be a teacher at a Dharma center; however, they really have some emotional difficulties that they haven’t actually addressed. There they are and everybody is looking to them as the teacher. That’s why the instruction of seeing the guru as the Buddha is very dangerous especially when practiced with teachers who are really not very well qualified. The advice is always to examine the teacher very carefully over a long period of time before we really entrust ourselves to the teacher’s guidance. After an examination, if we find that the teacher still has emotional issues and problems, we can gain information from this teacher. That’s not the problem; however, we might not want to entrust ourselves to close guidance from this person.
The deepest obstacles are the student identifying concretely with being inadequate compared to the teacher, such as a student giving up, thinking that they can never become as highly developed as the teacher. It can also be the teacher concretely identifying with their own level of understanding and projecting it onto the student. This would be like saying, “I understand this, why don’t you?”
I am thinking of a positive and helpful example from my own teacher, Serkong Rinpoche, with whom I studied very closely for nine years until he passed away. I was his secretary and interpreter for dealing with foreigners and so on. He was one of the teachers of His Holiness the Dalai Lama. I was studying with him and translating for someone else at the same time, and there was a word that I didn’t understand. He always encouraged me to ask him any time I didn’t actually understand something. I asked him “What does this word mean?” – and he replied, “I explained that word to you seven years ago. I remember; why don’t you?” This was actually very helpful advice to pay more attention and try to remember everything. That is part of being trained to be a translator, to train to have good memory.
Dimension of Systemic Variables
In this dimension, optimally, the teacher and student interact in societies, families and environments supportive to studies. This is why many Westerners find it very helpful to study with a teacher in India or Nepal in a society where Buddhist practice is very widely accepted. There are many other people practicing and monks and nuns around. The social setting is much more conducive than in a busy Western city, having to go to teachings when tired, after a long day of work.
Conventional and Deepest Obstacles
Conventional obstacles are when we are in societies, families or environments that aren’t conducive or supportive for spiritual practice. For instance, this would be living in countries that have repressive religious or governmental policies concerning the practice of Buddhism. I’m sure I don’t have to explain this to those here who grew up during the Soviet period. There can be opposition from family members who don’t want us to study with a teacher.
From the teacher’s side, there can be a large number of students, a lot of traveling, and also duties in the monastery that leaves little time for us as individual students. Another conventional obstacle that I actually face as a teacher is mixing up several roles with students. With some students I am a father figure, but also a friend. We socialize, perhaps going to a movie; and with some of them I am also the employer. I pay them to work on the website. In addition, I am their teacher; this is definitely mixing up different roles and can be very confusing for the student as to which role we are in now.
This is a serious issue when it comes to Western teachers relating to Western students. With Tibetan teachers, we aren’t their friend. We don’t hang out with them and socialize and so on. However, with Western teachers, some isolate themselves completely from their students and if they don’t have any other support group of people to relax with, it is very difficult. If it’s easy from the side of the teacher to play different roles, it’s not necessarily easy from the side of the student. It’s a different situation from being a school teacher with students who are very young. I don’t actually know a good solution to this.
The deepest obstacles are when the student or teacher identifies concretely with the system with which they live and projects that everyone should have the same values and expectations. For instance, a Western student projecting onto the Buddhist teacher that they also have the role of a pastor and expect to be able to go to them about marital or sexual problems. This is completely inappropriate to ask of a monk or nun. They might go to the teacher and expect that the teacher will be a therapist for them and start to discuss all their personal issues.
From the side of the teacher, the deepest obstacle would be that they identify concretely with their own tradition and insist that Western students strictly follow all the protocols that are listed in the classical texts. There is an enormous list of behavioral protocols of how to behave with a teacher such as not sitting with our feet pointing at them, wearing no hats, walking behind them, not stepping on their shadow, not sitting on their seat and many other items. If the teacher insists that the Western students follow all of this, it becomes very difficult.
Dimension of Relational Ethics
In the dimension of relational ethics, optimally the student and teacher treat each other in accordance with the Buddhist ethical principle concerning giving and receiving. The teacher would be very generous, give appropriate teachings, guidance and their time. The student needs to be generous in terms of helping the teacher with whatever is needed. Both sides need to show respect to each other and not make unreasonable demands. They need to be considerate of each other. The teacher also needs to not burden the student with personal issues.
Conventional and Deepest Obstacles
The conventional obstacles are tendencies coming from past experiences of injustice leading to blindly seeking an inappropriate compensation in the relationship. For instance, a student may have unfortunately experienced a parent dying when they were very young and hoping that the teacher will substitute for the lost parent, making decisions for them and providing the missing affection and so on. The teacher might hope that the student will act like the devoted son or daughter that they never had. Sometimes what happens is that in the past the teacher was very poor and celibate as a monk and a nun; psychologically they feel that it was unjust and want compensation for that from the students. In this case, they want the students to be sexually or financially available to them to make up for their past difficulties. People can feel that they have sacrificed so much as a poor student, giving up any relationships to complete all their studies and now think, “I’ve earned the right to make as much money as I can and to have as many affairs and so on because I’ve paid my dues.” This is an unconscious mechanism that does occur and explains very often the misbehavior of teachers.
The deepest obstacle would be when the student or teacher concretely identifies with their respective roles. Additionally, the teacher might demand that the student prioritize them over any other personal relationships and always be available to serve. In other words, the teacher goes on a power trip over the student. The teacher might also demand loyalty and becomes very possessive of the student and feels betrayed if the student studies with other teachers. On the student’s side, they might relinquish any responsibility to hold the teacher accountable in the case of unethical behavior. “It’s the teacher, so the teacher can do anything,” this type of attitude. The teacher becomes exploitive and abuses students sexually and financially, hits them and so on, and the students justify it by saying it’s the teacher and “crazy wisdom.” They don’t hold the teacher accountable or responsible.
The Dimension of Relational Self/Other Establishment
In a student/teacher relationship, because of the understood “contract” with the teacher, there is an I/it element in that relationship. The teacher is like an object up there giving teachings. Optimally, this doesn’t prevent occasional I/you, real personal contact with the teacher. A good example of this was mentioned in an interview with Michelle Obama. She described an audience that she and President Obama had with the Queen of England. In that meeting, Michelle Obama is the self and the Queen of England is the object; however, at one point in the interaction, Michelle Obama said to the Queen, “My shoes are really tight; my feet hurt.” The Queen replied, “My feet hurt too.” That was a moment of I/you human-to-human communication. Optimally, the teacher should be able to maintain an I/you relationship with the student, free of projections, preconceptions and judgments about the student regardless of the student’s ability to do that as well.
From the student’s side, optimally the student would be able to merge themselves with the teacher to become a “we” in the sense of having integrated the teacher’s way of acting, speaking and thinking with their own. In other words, the student is inspired by the way that the teacher deals with others and tries to integrate that. This is called guru-yoga. When we integrate the teacher’s behavior into our own, in this sense we can become a “we” with the teacher. Also, in addition, ideally when the teacher is absent or has died, the student has the ability to maintain an inner dialogue with the internalized teacher to receive direction when dealing with difficult situations in life. For example, our teacher has died and we’re faced with a difficult problem, we think about how our teacher would deal with it. In a sense, we get the answer that our teacher would act like this or like that. This is an internalized mode of establishing a self similar to when a person speaks with their conscience.
Conventional and Deepest Obstacles
The conventional obstacles are when for either the student or the teacher the I/it aspect of the relationship dominates and prevents an I/you type of encounter. The student only looks at the teacher as a source of information, like an encyclopedia in a sense, and treats the teacher as an object, an “it,” as if the teacher wasn’t a human being with feelings, emotions or anything. For example, I have sometimes served as a liaison officer for some of His Holiness Dalai Lama’s travels when he toured in foreign countries. One of the things that I always ensured was handled is that the organizers are reminded that His Holiness also has to use the toilet, just like everybody else. Usually, this is never part of any schedule. He is to get into the car, go to the appointment, give the lecture, get back in the car and go to the next destination. They need to be reminded that this is a human being, and occasionally he might need to use the toilet. Don’t treat him just as an “it,” but as a “you,” who is human.
A conventional obstacle on the student’s side is when merged with the teacher, blindly adopting all the irrelevant habits and idiosyncrasies of the teacher. For instance, we have to drink Tibetan tea, speak in a certain way and so on. This is silly.
The deepest obstacles of a student are when they concretely identify as a “we,” having merged with the teacher and assuming that they have reached the same level of understanding as the teacher. The teacher can concretely identify as being merged with the student, and blocking the student from individualizing. This sometimes happens in monasteries, particularly a Western monastery that has a very strict traditional Tibetan teacher who doesn’t allow for any individual creativity on the side of the Western monks. It’s just a community of “we,” and the monks and nuns belong to this and there is no allowance for individual ideas and so on.
Balancing Personal Relationships with a Buddhist Teacher-Student Relationship
The last topic is dealing with close relationships while also in a Buddhist-style teacher-student relationship. This is very delicate. How do we balance our commitments to the teacher with our commitments to our family or to our business or profession?
Optimally, the student-teacher relationship should enhance the student’s ability to establish and maintain healthy relationships with others and it shouldn’t interfere with their commitment to family, profession and so on. For instance, I traveled a great deal with my teacher, Serkong Rinpoche. He was an elderly man at the time, quite overweight and he required help getting into and out of a car, and assistance with many things. Because of the respect I had for him I was always watching out for his welfare and comfort, I learned and was trained, in a sense, to do that with other people as well. By developing this type of attitude in helping our teacher, we also develop skills that we can transfer to helping everybody. In that way we are able to treat our close relations with as much respect and kindness as we learn to do with our teacher.
Conventional and Deepest Obstacles
The conventional obstacles are when the commitment to the teacher interferes with the responsibilities to families and friends. As explained before, we can make special times that we can be with family or friends. If there’s a scheduling conflict, for example, we can discuss with our partner how we can’t go on a holiday at this particular time because there is a special retreat, but we can make a plan for another time that works well for everyone. We make compromises and in this way, we don’t just abandon our personal commitments with friends and family.
Our partner, family or friend might feel hurt. They might be disappointed; this could be part of their psychological profile. We can’t expect them to be able to not be disappointed; however, if we offer something in exchange and aren’t just throwing them in the garbage, ignoring them or abandoning them, it helps alleviate the disappointment.
The deepest obstacles are concretely identifying with being the student of the teacher and this prevents us from establishing close relationships with other teachers or other people in general. On the teacher’s side, the deep obstacle would be concretely identifying with their role as a teacher in these types of relationships and not being able to establish close personal relationships because of imposing their role as a teacher on anybody that they meet. For instance, the teacher would try to give advice to everyone that he or she meets, even when they don’t want it. The teacher is unable to establish friendships, let alone a family. This, however, doesn’t just occur with teachers. Some mothers concretely identify with being mothers and they try to mother everybody that they meet, telling people to go to sleep early, to not eat too much and so on.
This concludes the presentation on the teacher-student relationship and how the analysis of these five dimensions can help us to identify problems that can arise and the optimal way of dealing with such a relationship.
Questions and Answers
If I understand correctly, there are three types of relations: I/you, I/it, and I/we. I don’t totally understand the last one.
Actually, there are six types of relationships that are described in this system. It isn’t I/we, it is actually just “we,” in which the people are just merged together. There is I/it, it/I and I/you. There are also two more internalized, without the external other. For example, a person just relates to some project, ideal or just talks to him or herself. The other one is when a person has dialogue internally, like talking with one’s conscience and the conscience talks back telling the person “Don’t do that; you’re stupid.”
Could you further explain the “we”?
Yes, sorry. The “we” isn’t something that is good or bad. It depends on how that merger takes place. In the case of a mother and an infant, it’s very healthy. The mother protects the infant, carries it around and so on and the bond is very strong. They become a “we.” This is especially true when a woman is pregnant; there is eating and resting for two. The woman has become a “we” with the unborn child as opposed to feeling that there is an alien “it” that has invaded her body, which obviously isn’t very healthy. It’s like these horror science fiction movies.
In certain situations, becoming a “we” with others can be helpful for building a community in which all the people follow the same rules. This would occur when in the army or any other type of community with a strong discipline that everybody needs to follow. Then, the people become a “we.” The danger is when people lose their individuality within that group or it isn’t allowed to be themselves. Sometimes in families, the patriarch of the family will assume the whole family is a “we” and sets rules that everybody in the family should do. For example, “We don’t do that in this family.” This type of attitude can be quite destructive.
The articles about relationships with a teacher are available on the website in the corresponding section so people can familiarize themselves with this much more. I think what is very helpful with these five dimensions is to use this analytical tool to investigate our own personal relationships. We have many of them and in each we can examine what is going on. This fits very well with the Buddhist teachings of dependent arising in terms of our understanding of ourselves and other people, and the understanding of the relationships that we have between us. All of this arises dependent on many factors and variables that are changing, evolving and growing all the time.
We need to not make our relationships into solid things and then argue when we don’t think someone is behaving supportively of that solid relationship. “You don’t take our relationship seriously.” It’s not as if it’s some solid unchanging thing. There are issues that arise when we don’t understand the dependent nature of relationships.