I feel like it might be time once again to address one the most frequent questions that comes to me:
Can you be my teacher?
I have addressed this before. I’m not even sure how many times. Maybe I should make it an annual thing. Or, given how often I’m asked, maybe I should just make one definitive post and put it up every three months.
The short answer is this:
No.
But if I left it at that I’d just sound mean. I don’t intend this in a mean way at all. It’s more like you’re asking me if I can make monkeys fly out of my butt. The answer to that is, unfortunately, also no. Like making monkeys fly out of my butt, my becoming your teacher is something I cannot possibly do even if I wanted to.
If you live in Northeast Ohio, or if you want to brave the snow and ice and come here, I will be starting a regular zazen class on Sunday evenings at 7pm at the Akron Shambhala Meditation Center at 133 Portage Trail in Cuyahoga Falls. This will begin on January 15th. If you show up, we can sit together and maybe talk a little bit. I’m also working on setting up a religious nonprofit in Los Angeles. The group I started there still meets every Saturday morning at 10 AM at 237 Hill Street in Santa Monica. You can find out about them by going to dogensanghalosangeles.org. Chances are good I will be attending the regular sittings there starting in the Spring. If I can get it together, that is. Meanwhile they still go on without me each and every week without fail.
But most of the people who ask me about my becoming their teacher live in places far from me. So I really have no idea what they imagine would happen if I said “yes.” Perhaps they imagine I have a center somewhere that they can run off to and escape their dreary humdrum lives into a world of beautiful Zen.
I understand that dream very well because I had that dream myself for a long time. I used to imagine that there were places out there somewhere — if I could only find them — where I could run away from all my troubles and just immerse myself in the wondrous dharma. But there are no such places anywhere.
Tassajara Zen Mountain Monastery is about the closest thing I’ve ever seen to what I used to dream about. It’s beautiful, it’s isolated, it’s dedicated to Zen practice, it’s not a brainwashing cult. Tassajara is nice. But it’s also not a place you can run away to in order to escape your real life. Real life will hunt you down and find you even there. Some people try to escape their real lives by going way, way far away like to India or Japan. But real life always catches them. It caught me even in the mountainous wilds of Toyama Prefecture, Japan.
What I wanted when I dreamed of those places was really just to return to childhood. I wanted to have a new mommy and daddy who would look after me and deal with all the serious shit while I got to play. But, see, even my actual childhood wasn’t like that. My actual childhood was pretty miserable in a lot of ways. I was bullied and hassled and bored. So even saying that I dreamed of returning to childhood isn’t right. I dreamed of going to a dreamland that never existed because it couldn’t possibly exist.
I imagine some people out there who ask me about me becoming their teacher are offering themselves as submissives. They want to submit to me so I can be their master and they my slave. If you want that you can go to Genpo Roshi or Andrew Cohen. They take on submissives, I hear. Me, I wouldn’t get into a van with either of those guys. I don’t want any submissives. Not as Zen students anyhow.
Maybe the folks who ask about me becoming their teacher imagine we can create some kind of on-line teaching relationship. There are Zen teachers these days who take students on-line. To me that sounds like pure nonsense. But rather than speak in generalities about the concept of Zen teaching on-line, I’ll just tell you why I, Brad, do not do it.
I don’t do on-line Zen teaching because I really don’t like the on-line experience that much. I’m not that into sitting in front of computers typing things. And yet I’ve fallen into a line of work in which I am constantly sitting in front of a damned computer. It’s rare that I spend any less than four to six hours a day in front of this god forsaken machine. That’s pretty much the minimum requirement in terms of keeping up with my own books and other writing projects. Then I also have to answer emails from people I know personally, answer emails from people I don’t know from Adam who write to me, keep up the correspondence necessary to get speaking gigs and things and find cute animal videos on YouTube.
If I were to try to develop any on-line teaching relationships that would add at least another six hours a day of staring at a computer screen on top of what I do already. Plus I really have a bad memory in general. I have a hard time even recognizing people I know when I see them. People I know well are fine, but I’m constantly embarrassed when people I know just a little bit come up and start talking to me and I can’t recall who they are to save my life.
When it comes to people I know only as names on the top of email messages I am totally hopeless. I’d have to work out some kind of weird organization system just to keep up with who was who and what they said to me last time and what I replied. Just getting that together would be a couple hours a day. And would I get paid for any of that? Nope. So when am I going to be able to do the things I need to do to earn a living?
It’s just not gonna happen. I’m sorry. I know you’ve got serious issues and I know you like my books. I appreciate that you read what I write. I’d like to help. But I just can’t.
Then there’s all the issues I have in general with the whole notion of teachers and students. It isn’t always an abusive relationship of the type that Genpo Roshi and Andrew Cohen advocate in the link I provided above. But it’s so easy for it to devolve into that sort of thing. And this isn’t just because evil manipulative teachers evilly manipulate their innocent students into becoming mindless slave zombies while they sit back and go “Mwah-ha-ha-ha-HAAAAA!”
In fact, there is a whole great class of people out there who desperately want to be turned into mindless slave zombies. Anyone who takes on the role of a spiritual teacher has to invest tremendous time, effort and energy in dealing with these kinds of people. Some of them will insist upon becoming mindless slave zombies no matter how hard you try to tell them not to. Here is a perfect example of how that works:
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve felt just like Brian in this scene from Life of Brian. There are people out there who are exactly like the mob that follows him. And no matter how often you tell them not to follow you, they so desperately want to be led that they’ll follow you anyway. It can be really stressful. I actually admire the honest people out there who take on the role of the teacher because I know what they have to deal with. All the people who want to be turned into mindless slave zombies think they’re being very sincere and devoted. Which just makes it that much worse.
Watch that clip from Life of Brian again and pay close attention to the character played by John Cleese. He’s the guy up front who says, “I should know (you’re the messiah)! I’ve followed a few!” He takes on the guise of a follower. But he’s really not. He wants to lead the movement. But he hasn’t got the right sort of personality or charisma or whatever magic it takes to actually have people consider him to be the messiah. So he latches on to someone who has a following and offers to help that person maximize his potential.
This is very tempting because guys who do the sorts of things that get them followings are usually not really good at management type stuff. Plus it’s a lot of work to have students. This means it’s nearly impossible to take on students and have a normal paying job. So guys in Brian’s position who want to try to be teachers need to find someone to help them get butts in seats and keep the donations rolling in and so on. So people like the character John Cleese portrays here can be very attractive.
But those guys will destroy everything. And they’re everywhere. Almost all of them think they mean well. Some are very convincing. Oy! The stories I could tell you…
Anyway, this desire people have to be led is a really tremendous and very basic problem for humanity in general. This desire ends up causing all sorts of terrible tragedies like Naziism, Terrorism and the phenomenon of lousy boy bands and hair metal acts.
So that’s why I can’t be your teacher.
It’s not that I don’t like you or that I don’t think your problems are serious. It’s just that I can’t do it. I’m flattered that you asked. But you’re asking for something impossible, so I have to refuse.
******
Here’s an interview I just did. Maybe you’ll like it.
Oh! And my friend David Sango Angstead designed a new T-shirt/Hoodie/Bumper sticker etc. for me that you can get on my Red Bubble page. It’s a very cool design. I need to order one for myself!
But Brad a beautiful mystical
world is all around us.
But you're teaching.
OK, that's been done in the Blue Cliff Record, and while it may be an oldie, it's still a goodie.
Seriously, though, I know what you mean, & you're largely right, but your problem is you're quite legit, overall.
If you don't want to teach, why start a new group? Why not just sit with your old pals a few miles down the road in Kent?
Perhaps you should put up some kind of Hardcore Zen FAQ which addresses these frequent questions you get, like being a teacher or shooting monkeys out of your ass?
I’m thinking like a page, with a link to it at a very noticeable place in the site, which addresses every question in a few sentences and then links to a blog post which explores the issue and your answer in detail.
As for the "being a teacher to someone who doesn’t live close by", what do you think of the long distance teacher-student relationship in general? Like there isn’t a qualified soto zen teacher in a thousand miles from where I live (I know, I’ve checked). But I hear there are some groups who sit together and some of whom are students of a teacher who lives in another country.
Never heard of Andrew Cohen, so I checked his wiki page. It says his freaking mother left his organization and wrote a book against him. Yikes! Funny, as in the video he sounds (just a little bit) more reasonable than Gempo.
It may not be all about power dynamics, though. Take your average Midwestern teen/adult who is sick of church, hates pretension, and still wants to find a way in this old world. They hear about Buddhism and, hell yeah!, it sounds awesome. Then they find most of the books are written by weepy new agers and feel disillusioned until Brad comes along with his books and blog. They know they need a teacher plus they definitely want to avoid the dullards on the one hand and the manipulative pricks on the other. Ergo, they send emails to Brad because there's no one else (they think).
In the end, I doubt craven self-loathing has much to do with it, though of course there is some of that too. It's probably the growing pains of a new generation of zen practitioners who want to be challenged rather than coddled.
Brad,
Will you please be my teacher?
xoxox
Brad,
I am having an identity crisis. Can you please tell me if I am actually John Stossel?
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Anonymous said:
In the end, I doubt craven self-loathing has much to do with it, though of course there is some of that too. It's probably the growing pains of a new generation of zen practitioners who want to be challenged rather than coddled.
I didn't realize what I wrote could be taken that way. I didn't mean it as an insult. I was just trying to convey some of the stuff that goes thru my mind when people ask me this.
"So many unfortunates want to "turn their lives over to some authority" and then not have any remaining responsibility for their own lives. Sorry, but many/most republicans are like that."
Sorry mysterion, The truth is that Republicans tend to want less government control in their lives, while Democrats want more and more government involvement, i.e. a big Daddy to look after their needs. I have no use for either party but you have it ass-backwards.
Another Anonymous said:
As for the "being a teacher to someone who doesn’t live close by", what do you think of the long distance teacher-student relationship in general? Like there isn’t a qualified soto zen teacher in a thousand miles from where I live (I know, I’ve checked). But I hear there are some groups who sit together and some of whom are students of a teacher who lives in another country.
There are long distance teacher/student relationships in Zen. There's a longstanding tradition, in fact. Dogen's famous Genjo Koan was originally written as a letter to a student who lived far away.
I think it's fine if the relationship is established somehow in person and then continues long-distance. Sometimes it can work out if the teacher & student have never met.
But a long-distance Zen relationship may be even more challenging and difficult than a long-distance lover relationship.
The other thing is that the Internet has made this far too easy. Whereas Dogen may have had a handful of long-distance students, it's now possible for an on-line teacher to have hundreds or thousands and to acquire new ones nearly every day. There is no way such relationships can have the kind of depth that the traditional type of long-distance teacher/student relationships did.
Oh and as for groups established by teachers who live elsewhere…
This also goes on a lot and is perfectly legit. Usually such teachers visit their students on a regular basis. It's not necessary to see the teacher all the time.
If you don't want to teach, why start a new group? Why not just sit with your old pals a few miles down the road in Kent?
I still sit with them whenever they're in session. But lately they haven't been meeting very often.
Anonymous said, "The truth is that Republicans tend to want less government control in their lives, while Democrats want more and more government involvement, i.e. a big Daddy to look after their needs."
Except that the Republicans want to be in every bedroom. Some freedom, that.
And… Andrew Cohen needs to google "porn stache". (shudder)
This is an off-topic comment, to be sure, but how else could I share it with you?
I'm an art student, and last semester an assignment was to do a book cover, so I chose your first book Hardcore Zen If you're curious, you can take a look here:
http://michaeltgirardi.blogspot.com/2012/01/book-cover.html
Cheers!
I think there's also some professionalism in folks wanting to become a student of a verifiable lineage holder. A verified lineage holder can, after all, confirm the understanding of the student and authorize them to teach, and that person authorized to teach can claim authority based on the lineage transmission.
You do leave the door open to persons accessing your wisdom when they belong to the same sitting group as you for an indeterminate period.
I think it's not required that a teacher pass along the authorization to teach to anyone, but it would have been a great loss to the Zen community on the West Coast if Hoitsu Suzuki had not seen fit to give transmission to Shunryu Suzuki's students. And on the other hand, I know that at one time if not at the present, Kobun's principal dharma heir Vanja Palmers gave up being a Zen teacher. I suspect that simply means Rev. Palmers felt himself called to do other things.
I, too, feel a deep sense of gratitude to the Zen teachers who came to this country, and to some of the teachers who became authorized to teach here and have kept the practice going for anyone who is interested. The real question is how do we inspire ourselves to sit the cross-legged pose for thirty minutes or forty, once or twice or several times a day? I guess one way that it's been done in the past, intentionally or not, is with the promise of the respect and authority of the title of lineage holder, and unless you can communicate very clearly why anybody would want to practice, this will be your problem.
On the other hand, if you can communicate very clearly, maybe nobody would listen unless you had the title and authority. But then, if you were really trying mostly to communicate to yourself, it probably wouldn't matter. ta-dah!
Would you be mine…
Could you be mine…
I have always wanted to have a teacher just like you
I have always wanted to live in a sangha with you.
Won't you please, won't you please, be my teacher and/or dom.
All my internet friends are in my head.
I appreciate what you do, dude. That said, all I want to know is, who in their right mind would ask you of all people to be their teacher? Whoa…
Hello,
I think a person becomes your teacher, when you make that person your teacher.
When you attend a retreat with some teacher, and you feel you can work with that person, he or she might become your teacher.
After also attending activities with other teacher's to experience the difference between teachers. When you find yourself coming back to one particular teacher
Maybe only once or twice a year. And you also started a lively e-mail based relation, this person can be considered your teacher. But this is an organic natural development. In a way the teacher does not know I am his student, I made him my teacher, because somehow he appeals to ME I made him my teacher whether he likes it or not : ) And when I get to attached to his guidance he just reacts a little harsh or even tells me to grow up.
Is "eye science" contagious ? Like syphilis?
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Mysterion do you do zazen? lol
Hey Brad, what about teaching by phone? I've been conversing in such manner with a teacher (whom I've never met in person, long story) for about 12 years, and it works just fine. I call less than I probably should, every month or so, usually when I'm particularly lost about something. At this point I pretty much know what he'll say, I just appreciate the support and challenge.
Brad, I was wonder what the helper types, the John Cleese supporter folks, have spun out that you feel is such a problem? I'd like to know more, because I'm trying to hold open a sitting space, not trying to keep students, and I've found, without some sort of crowdsourcing, that the workload for lay practicioners is really rough, if you don't crowdsource some of it. I'd assume, with your schedule, there is someone serving as Ino in your absence at the groups you lead. Where is the line?
Dead teachers and teachers on the other side of the globe are the best. They never can have any real insight into what is going on and are therefore a great way to make sure your practice remains nonthreatening and neutral.
I could teach a course in, like, Advanced Sandwich Preparation… or Great T-shirts of th' Western World..
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uh oh, don't let gene see that t-shirt design!
IMO this is the most responsible, well writ screed you've almost every come up with, Brad. Bravo. Well put.
Damn, Mysterion, you better sit yourself some zazen awhile longer, if that's example of your sharp wit, it must have been one short ass log!
Shojin said:
Brad, I was wonder what the helper types, the John Cleese supporter folks, have spun out that you feel is such a problem? I'd like to know more, because I'm trying to hold open a sitting space, not trying to keep students, and I've found, without some sort of crowdsourcing, that the workload for lay practicioners is really rough, if you don't crowdsource some of it. I'd assume, with your schedule, there is someone serving as Ino in your absence at the groups you lead. Where is the line?
What is "crowdsourcing"?
At Hill Street Center a guy named John Graves is leading up the group now. I don't know if you'd call him an "ino" really.
I hate to name names about who I feel caused problems. But maybe if I stick with one everybody knows that'll work.
Richard Baker did lots and lots of good things for Suzuki Roshi's organization. He may not be precisely the type of person John Cleese portrays in the clip. I wasn't there, so I don't know. But I suspect he had some commonalities with that kind of character.
He was a much more effective organizer than Suzuki. Suzuki wanted Tassajara. But Baker figured out how to actually get it. Suzuki couldn't have accomplished that. This is just one example.
But Baker also turned SFZC into something very very big, whereas what Suzuki had going was very small. Perhaps this was Suzuki's wish and the reason he picked Baker as his successor. But most of SFZC's problems stemmed from the fact that they grew very big very fast.
That's the sort of thing I was talking about.
Oh! Shojin I reread the last part of your question. Now I get it.
I don't have any full time group. So nobody leads anything in my absence.
Buddy said:
Hey Brad, what about teaching by phone? I've been conversing in such manner with a teacher (whom I've never met in person, long story) for about 12 years, and it works just fine. I call less than I probably should, every month or so, usually when I'm particularly lost about something. At this point I pretty much know what he'll say, I just appreciate the support and challenge.
If this works for you, then fine. Why ask me?
Reading this, I realize once again how incredibly lucky I have been to meet and practice with Tenshin Reb Anderson, Rev. Shohaku Okumura, and Edward Espe Brown. And to sew my rakusu with Zenkei Blanche Hartmann. It all seems so improbable that I would even meet them, living as I do here in the Great Lakes region. Thanks, Brad, for the reminder.
mysterion said, "I think Zazen sharpens my wit by keeping me in the moment."
Can you even imagine it.. Can you imagine how miserably dull mysterion's wit must have been before Zazen?
It boggles the mind.
Mysterion, were you practicing judo in the Bay Area, then? I was one of Moon Watanabe's students at the Menlo Park Rec Center in the late 60's, though I didn't come to zazen that way. That was a friend who loaned me Three Pillars of Zen, so I learned zazen out of a book. God it was hard to sit ten minutes with my legs crossed, when I started out. I recall one of Kapleau's successors I exchanged correspondence with, assuring me that Kapleau never intended that anyone should think they could learn zazen out of a book, and then another on the web spoke up and said, "yes he did!". Life.
Jiden Lynne, you did have some wonderful teachers, I think. Anderson and Brown have been inspirations to me, Hartman too. Never met Okumura, but I have read some of his translations, very fine I think. Up on Sonoma Mountain Bill Kwong and Laura Kwong are amazing inspirations to me as well.
Hard to be where we are, sometimes. Tempting to think we're somewhere else, or should be. Thanks for the conversation, all- thanks, Brad, for writing cogently and inviting us all to sit, even if it's without a teacher.
Hey Brad,
If extensive Zen practice allows a person to shed attachments, and gain awareness and insight towards approaching shit more wisely, why do you think that Allan Watts remained an alcoholic until he died despite decades of sitting zazen?
Hey Mysterion,
You mean to tell me you've been sitting for 52 bloody years? Got dayum…
I know everyone's gonna tease me and laugh at me for this question, but… are you… enlightened? lol
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Why do you do Zen? And cut the silly-talk please. I DESPISE silly-talk.
Brad said 'If this works for you, then fine. Why ask me? '
Geez, defensive much?
Just a helpful suggestion, an option that hasn't been mentioned.
anonymous anonymous wrote:
Can you even imagine it.. Can you imagine how miserably dull mysterion's wit must have been before Zazen?
It boggles the mind.
When asked what Zazen had done for him, Nishijima replied "It has made me a little bit better".
A friend of mine once said "You know, you're a bit less annoying since you've been practicing zazen."
So, what Mysterion writes is quite acceptable.
Korey said…
Hey Brad,
If extensive Zen practice allows a person to shed attachments, and gain awareness and insight towards approaching shit more wisely, why do you think that Allan Watts remained an alcoholic until he died despite decades of sitting zazen?
But Watts considered that sitting Zazen was perfectly useless!
Brad,
I might have read a couple of your books and like the way you think, but that doesn't mean that I'd follow you blindly. I just want to boot some head too.
Unwise
With the abandoning of pleasure and pain, one remains in the fourth jnana: purity of equanimity and mindfulness, neither pleasure nor pain.
Brad said, 'If this works for you, then fine. Why ask me?'
And buddy said, 'Geez, defensive much? Just a helpful suggestion, an option that hasn't been mentioned.'
Hi buddy,
It's short, isn't it – the answer? But that doesn't necessarily mean it's defensive, or unhelpful.
I've analysed: The first part of the answer can easily be read as an encouraging confirmation of your situation. The second part of the answer strikes me as a pretty good question – if you pause to think about it, instead of reacting defensively, as I most likely would…at first.
There again, Bradley might have been in petulant mood, misread your helpful suggestion, your option that hasn't been mentioned, and decided you weren't worth a moment of his valuable time. Grr.
How I take what someone else says to me is more usefully considered as an indication of my state than as an indication of the state and intention of whoever wrote it. Hardly a novel observation, and not so easy to do, but one worth bearing in mind, I think.
…And, I guess, this is just the kind of reply you might get from Brad if he taught via skype. Hey! It is exactly the kind of answer you DID get from Brad, 'teaching' via his blog!
…well there we are then. What does a Zen teacher teach to begin with! Posture? Zazen instructions? How to sew an old robe? What's a Zen teacher good for?
Brad said, "Suzuki couldn't have accomplished that."
How the fuck do you know that Brad?