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Is the guru relationship abusive in Tibetan Buddhism? Inherently or some? NOT discussion of tantra
Jeffrey
Veteran
ok we need to separate these issues.
0
Comments
I think modern psychology might help the Tibetan buddhists to design their programs such that they discourage rapid guru worship. I don't imagine the worship is helping their students. It is the positive love that makes the opening to difficult world. I think that is why the guru yoga. Guru yoga is actually an antidote from addiction to jhana. In a limited number of cases.
"Guru yoga is actually an antidote from addiction to jhana."
do you have any proof for this?
in my practice, there has being no need for a guru to use as an "antidote" to jhāna.
what? I said, I didn't needed a guru to get "unadicted to jhāna". you have to prove that "Guru yoga is actually an antidote from addiction to jhana."
I have read no arguments for saying such.
Remember everything has a context. Dependent origination. We are not dealing in absolutes.
replacing an attachment for jhāna for an attachment to "holy gurus"... now, THAT is useful! /sarcasm
it reminds me of a junkie that replaced drugs for attachment to sex.
Generalization.
Speculation.
The lam rim path is a gradual method to overcome clinging which naturally turns you towards your experience of suffering to perceive it directly. Release the vexation as you transform avoidance into immersion in life.
The vajrayana (in contrast to the slow lam rim) is the upadesha direct pointing out instructions of a yogi to their student. The yogi has trust in his/her wisdom mind and operates from that level rather than from conditioned ego. The intention is that the yogi is free from greed, anger, and illusion to a greater extent than is possible with a misunderstanding of the nature of mind. If such is not the case then the guru student relationship is false. Much like if I gave you a cherry pie and said it was apple it would be false. It remains to be seen if true cherry pies are possible. Perhaps there is no enlightenment and there have only been apple pies other than buddha?
During jhana addiction the disgust of the practitioner from base experience is great. The love of the guru helps such a person go back down into samsara and see directly. In the mahayana one does not escape samsara into nirvana. Moving from one into the other. Rather in samsara one mistakes reality for something solid that they may grasp onto to hold. Samsara doesn't exist because it is a misunderstanding. Like in a dream you are trying to tie your shoes and vexed. Then you wake up and you don't have shoes on.
Jhana is not solid and one may not hold onto it. The love of the guru gives the practitioner support as they open to the nature of the mind. The kleshas are made of the same awareness as love. The kleshas are just mistaken understandings based on grasping. Their energy is primordially pure and can be used for the path. The practitioner doesn't even start the vajrayana until they at least have a thorough intellectual understanding of emptiness of kleshas AND they have purified their dedication vastness of vision.
Rather than climb to the mountain top the practioner climbs down the mountain! At the mountains base is the river of bodhicitta which is made of the same substance as the mountain top.
jhana is not something that is accessible to most... if one is already in that level, gurus seem (and are) unnecessary.
...at least they were unnecessary for me.
if someone is clinging to jhana, it is better to keep going forward... not to cling to a samsaraputra (child of suffering) just because an institution says so.
one can ask for advice to someone that has being trusted, but guru worship is far, FAR away from a simple an honest advice.
I think I experienced some kind of bliss one time I meditated. It was surprising like I was wincing at the pleasure and started having thoughts about what to do about the feeling. Then my mom came downstairs who was grieving over her fathers death and I had coffee with her.
by guru yoga, is there some type of worship required? or is it more a general advice. if it is more as advice and visualisation it is a healthier approach than worship... but it sounds so "un-buddhist".
if someone is reaching jhana but is becoming attached to it, my advice will be:
"just keep moving forward! you already know what to do."
there is no such thing as doing everything the guru says without question. please read my teacher's response again
I have not heard her opinion on beings above morality. I suspect there is a chasm between what we and they conceive of as morality.
I agree with the point on the historical buddha. I asked about that as well.
Anyhow I don't think its true that in guru yoga the student ceases questioning. That would be impossible wouldn't it?
seems more like two samsaric wanderers digging a deeper hole of dukkha.
I recall a comment from a member who said he was an "advanced practitioner" when this topic first came up, months ago. He said that if his teacher had asked him to jump off a cliff, he would have done it. But of course, the teacher isn't supposed to demand anything like that.
That being said I'm not really sure how appropriate it is anymore with so many would be charlatans and well-meaning but imperfect teachers.
Also it isn't appropriate to call it guru worship, you aren't worshiping anyone you are trusting in someone.
Here is what my teacher said: "However, I am very careful about who I take teaching from and what transmissions I receive and my teachers are very careful about their motivation and the motivation of those they are teaching. If they have ever acted in a way that has been impure then they will suffer the karmic result of that. They have never displayed that kind of behaviour to me."
basically:
"it reduces resistance (to use and abuse), but our gurus are ethical! they will never abuse such reduced resistance! and if they did, they will be punished by karma!"
samsaraputra (child of suffering) nonsense trying to rationalise a practice that feeds ego and tanha.
Dukkha is the greatest opportunity to realize renunciation. If you perceive dukkha fully that would be a buddha. One definition.
lets just agree in that I don't think it is the best approach
from "Ornament for the Essence", by Manjushrikiri
"Distance yourself from Vajra masters who are not keeping the 3 vows,
who keep on with a root downfall, who are miserly with the Dharma,
and who engage in actions that should be forsaken.
Those who worship them go to hell and so on as a result."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddhist_Tantra
Note that he does say "worship".
I don't know how to square this with the DL's perspective, as reported by S. Batchelor, from their meeting on abuse. But I like this quote.
that is consistent with what my teacher advised. She recommended to be sure of the purity of motivation of both yourself and your teacher. If the motivation is pure then the only obstacles are errors (I reason), rather than being lead into an alley to be robbed.
I thought Kalu Rinpoche was abbott of a monastery, not sure. That's why secrecy was needed. Trungpa and Sogyal didn't worry about secrecy, they weren't monks.
This isn't about breaking celibacy vows, it's about abuse of power, like you implied, person. Some people defend Sogyal, saying, "it's ok, he wasn't a monk". It's not ok. It's not about being a celibate or not.
How do you view men and women in the sangha hooking up who are not a teacher/student? Is that ok? Suppose Jill has been in the sangha for 3 years and then Jack joins. Jill gets friendly with Jack. Real friendly.
Is that ok?
Is that ok?
Q 2: According to the teacher ethics rules in place at Spirit Rock and other centers concerned with potential abuse, Jill would have to drop out of the sangha to pursue a personal relationship with Johnny. Just like at the university: if Prof. and student are mutually interested in pursuing a relationship, they have to wait until the student completes the course before starting anything, dinner, or whatever.
In some churches, it's ok for clergy to pursue a sincere relationship with a parishioner, but clergy has to inform higher-ups. So clergy that turns out to have a habit of pursuing relationships with parishioners would be investigated.
You missed an important Q, Jeffrey. If Jill gets really friendly with Johnny, the sangha teacher, what does he do? He's supposed to give her a talk, and tell her to keep to herself. If she persists, he's supposed to recommend that she go to a different sangha. That's how churches tell clergy to handle it. Spirit Rock left that one out, too.
worship: to render religious reverence and homage to.
7.
to feel an adoring reverence or regard for (any person or thing).
By the time you find out your teacher is a scoundrel it may be too late. you have already surrendered to him/her. Surrendering is a big part of the guru/disciple relationship. It isn't easy getting out unscathed after you have been with a lama for a long time. By the time you find out you may have feelings of deep betrayal, which then require psychiatric care. I knew a lot of people that loved Paramahansa Yogananda, just to learn certain things about him, and then become depressed and in need of help. And these people had never met the real person since he had died before they accepted him as a guru.
Women in Tibetan Buddhism, and men for that fact, can find themselves in this same situation.
So are the lamas in TB abusive. Some are. I have no idea how many are, but there are enough people out there who have been hurt and have talked about it, and have then found that few believe them, which is a double whammy.
June Campbell hasn't been believed by many TB. And I can only imagine what she has gone through since publishing her book.
The fact is this: Power corrupts and absolute power absolutely corrupts. In the guru system the guru/lama has absolute power. I consider myself stupid for having believed another guru, in this case, lama, after my run ins with gurus in the Hindu religions, but at least I left when I learned what was being taught. This is not something that I would have been able to do in my youth because I was too naive. Most people are in their youth. And I can give a case of this: In the 60s and 70s the youth thought that they could practice free love without getting hurt, and it didn't work out that way; many were deeply hurt.
Dakini, I think that would be VERY difficult for a monk who had never had sex if he received a come on to resist. He/she wouldn't be experienced with the opposite sex at all and would not be familiar with those feelings.