Trying to take my own advice for a change, and write something positive, I've decided to rap a bit about the things I find impressive or laudable or just plain fun in the spiritual teachers I run into, or in the students who follow them, or in the paths that they represent.
This is a bit of a stretch for me because, unlike many here, I'm not in the market for a teacher or a formal spiritual path. I walked away from the last one a decade ago, and don't really have any interest in finding another. So when I *do* run into spiritual teachers and their students and their paths, it's almost always out of curiosity -- wondering what they're all about and how they do their thing. So with that caveat taken care of, here are a few of the things I've found interesting in the teachers and students and paths my curiosity has drawn me to. And because this could turn out to become a fairly long list before I can post it on Saturday morning, I've even put 'headings' on the different sections, so you can skip to the sections that interest you. :-) Three Little Words After so many years in spiritual trips in which the opposite was true, one of the things that impresses me the most is finding a teacher or a group of seekers who can speak aloud those three magical little words, "I don't know." Those three words speak volumes, about the individual speaking them, about his or her humility and clarity of self-assessment, and about the tradition they represent. Someone who can say "I don't know" is someone I can identify with and learn from, because I don't know, either. Sensayuma I like humor. I like laughter, and those who like it, too. To me the ability to laugh -- and at the silliest things, or at the things that others take Far Too Seriously -- is one of the only valid indicators of someone's place on the scale of evolution or state of consciousness. As far as I can tell, life was designed (whether it was designed or just turned out this way is immaterial to this discussion) to present us with a never-ending series of opportunities to laugh. Laughter, to me, is the sound that the Tao makes when one is in tune with its flow. So I like funny teachers, who laugh and crack jokes a lot. I like funny students, who have learned this invaluable secret from those teachers. And I like paths that value laughter, and see it as an indicator that you're doing something right. No Favorites I like teachers who treat everyone the same, and who have no obvious "favorites" or "best students" or "higher-ups" within their organizations. Everybody's equal, *including* the teacher. Those who strive to get more of the teacher's attention than the other students get don't get any more attention. Those who play the hide-in-plain-sight-and-hope- that-the-teacher-notices-my-humility card get ignored, too, and wind up getting just as much attention as everyone else, no matter what card *they* might be playing. Field Trips I tend to like teachers who get *out* in the world, and who take their students with them. The world has much to offer in terms of spiritual teaching, and I tend to reson- ate with teachers who perceive as many opportunities to teach and learn *outside* the ashram as they do inside it. I particularly like teachers who take their students to places that the students do not necessarily consider "spiritual" -- to the movies, to music events, on power walks through the red light district of Amsterdam, to an elegant restaurant or to Fatburger, to the New York Stock Exchange at the height of trading frenzy. Those places, many of them noisy and frenetic, have *just* as much silence and eternity in them as the ashram does, or as serene mountaintops do, or as cathedrals do, and I like teachers who realize this and attempt to share that realization with their students. Self Sufficiency I like teachers who never apologize for what they are, or try to defend it; they're content to make their own decis- ions in life and then live with them. I like even more those teachers who cultivate that same quality in their students. This often takes the form of refusing to tell them how to live or what to believe or what to do in X situation, no matter how much the students plead with the teacher to do just that. I think that Maharishi was onto something in the early days of his teaching by saying that making a student's decisions for them just makes them weaker, and thus is not in their best interest. So I like teachers who encourage or even force their students to make their own decisions. And who then react to hearing *about* a student's self-made decision -- even if that decision is to stop studying with that teacher -- with equanimity. "You're staying...that's good." "You're leaving...that's good." Walking The Talk I like teachers who walk the walk of their talk. If they teach the value of ethical behavior, they should at least make an effort to be ethical themselves. If they teach the value of selfless giving and of donating some part of one's time and money to others, they should actually do it themselves. If they teach the value of celibacy for their students they should be celibate themselves; if they teach the value of getting laid to their students they should probably be gettin' a little themselves. If in their teachings they make generalizations about the people in the outside world (those who don't study with them) and how they think, they should actually have sat down and talked with some of these people recently. Loving What They Do I like teachers who are in love with teaching. They don't spend much time talking about how tough it is to be a spiritual teacher, in a world that doesn't appreciate or value spiritual teachers. Been there, done that, don't need to hear more about it. I like teachers who have suffered all the slings and arrows that the world has thrown at them and who are still out there in the streets, mingling with the very people who slung the slings and shot the arrows, still teaching *anyway*. I like teachers who put as much care -- or more -- into their introductory talks for begin- ners as they do their advanced lectures for long-time followers. I like teachers who see teaching as a kind of Zen artform, something to be pursued but never achieved, like pouring the perfect cup of tea for the perfect guest. Sensayuma It's important enough to be included twice. If the teacher doesn't crack me up and make me laugh out loud one or two times during his or her talk or satsang or retreat, I'm probably just not going to be interested in attending a second one.
