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When the student is ready....................................
Shoshin
No one in particularNowhere Special Veteran
No doubt most here have heard this saying (Often attributed to Buddhism)
When the student is ready the teacher will appear !
In what form will this teacher make its appearance ?
A human being ? A sentient being ? A situation ? An experience ?
Are we both the student and the teacher ?
Is this teacher a shape shifter ?
Is the teacher "Buddha" ? (Ones own Buddha Nature)
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Comments
Every incident is an opportunity for learning. It's just a question of how receptive we are, to learn at the required moment.
As they say:
"He is not a fool who makes mistakes;
He is a Fool who does not learn from them."
It's also a question of what you choose to do with that new-found knowledge....even bad and bitter lessons are worth remembering....
Perhaps it's about developing a spacious mind, more openness to the possibilities in every moment. There is no teacher.
Human Dharma teachers are very beneficial and necessary tools when battling defilements ...
I find that when a situation/lesson presence itself and the actions one takes leads to a beneficial outcome for all parties involve, the situation itself is the teacher of which I guess karma plays a significant part...
Like everyone, I've had some teachers come in unexpected forms.
With this definition of teacher, a blocked toilet fits. Or what I came home to find my parrot had chewed up in my absence (one day, it was half of my laptop's keyboard. He played with the broken tabs for days).
In my case the teacher needs to be extremely OBVIOUS and concrete, very in my face, I'm afraid.
Need directions to Mr Cushion?
The video won't work/teach ...I guess I'm not quite ready yet..
I love that scene... (unfortunately, ruined by this movie.... scroll down the quotes...)
now THERE was a 'Life Lesson'.....
I know war films aren't everyone's cup of tea but "The Thin Red Line" is worth a look.
Visually stunning and a great soundtrack.
Sorry, back to topic!
I've always had a strong curiosity about what things mean, and Buddhism seemed to have a good set of methods to explore the nature of....well, reality, I suppose.
Including whether reality is what we think it is....
I observe my attitudes, opinions, views and tendencies and find that all of them need constant review.
The lesson there is one of letting go and letting be, and I think fundamentally, therein lies the main Teacher, and the main Lesson.
In all things, first of all, Let go and Let be.
Then: Question whatever remains.
I would suggest that there will be very little there remaining, TO question....
There is this beautiful quote from the Upanishads that has accompanied me for a lifetime:
Sometimes we're not ready to learn certain things.
Until we are.
The most important thing is the student as @DhammaDragon says.
I have known people who have been in the company and environment of great teachers for years. No effect. Water off a ducks back.
Other people with a few books, minimum instruction but determined practice, start to do something . . . change. Why? Because they realise they will have to change in order to change . . . funny that . . .
Hope that makes sense
I think that is mostly referring to an actual learned Buddhist teacher, like an actual zen master guy or something like that. Or lady!
When I was younger, for me it went something like this. I was reading about the long zen retreats that they have at the providence zen center. They have 3 month retreats in the winter every year. I thought it would be really cool to go for like a week or two. I wanted to go I just didn't have any spare money. Couldn't afford the plane ticket, etc. About a week later I got rear ended in a car accident. No one was hurt but my car was! A week after that the insurance company wrote me a big check! I was supposed to use the money to fix the car. Ha! I went to the retreat instead and met a fine teacher.
So just by sheer coincidence, the money I didn't have, just appeared! Coincidentally, just in time to go to the retreat. And coincidentally, the retreat was being led by a good teacher that I really liked.
Interesting string of "coincidences". Ha!
I can't remember where I saw this . . . damn! But it was a video about cosmology, or physics (for laypersons), where one of the scientists described the Buddha and his message as being a 'scientific method'. Not THE scientific method we learn of in fifth grade, but a scientific method, and a very worthy one.
Naturally this was very inspiring and (of course) agrees with what I already sense. Therefore I'm biased, alas. If nothing else, to quantify and explore our inner experience as humans. We have terms and facts and theories about the 'outer' world but avoid applying these strategies to the inner world lest the scientist be called unscientific.
Taken to where the Buddha apparently went, the inner and outer are not separate, but for now, a provisional separation is a helpful idea. The Pali Canon could be considered one of the first factual maps of the human experience. This makes Buddhism entirely different from other religious paradigms in that it rests upon self-discovery rather than swallowing whole the dogmas and doctrines of the religion (and stamping out any hint of self discovery, which will lead you astray . . .)
And one more thing -- what the Buddha's 'map' reveals is that on the inside, people are not all that different. The 'laws of physics' are going to be the same on an exoplanet as they are on our own, in spite of orbiting a completely different kind of star 1200 light years away from us.
Humans, on the inside, operate according to a set of 'laws' that is consistent from individual to individual. Sure, there are unique differences that result but the laws themselves are the same.
Yes.
“Knock and the Door will be open to you,” it says in the Bible (book)
Rabia she say: “What are you talking about, the Door has never been shut”
Door = self
Shut = self
Open = ?
Yes, there is something different about Buddhism, and I like the map analogy. It provides the methods for an inner exploration. Somebody called Buddhism the "science of the mind", and I think that's an apt description because there is a continual questioning of experience, an effort to understand the way things really are.
Yes, I always feel that Buddhist psychology is uncannily accurate when I look at the way I actually experience things.
Question...to anyone/everyone..
Does the teacher leave when the student is ready?
Simple answer "No"
In the sense you mean it, to a degree.
Most of us are 'experts on enlightenment', in fact 'teacher mode' is something we have to leave behind and listen to the real presence of a teacher.
So the teacher can only appear once the expert/teacher in us leaves and we are prepared to study the enlightened teacher. Not study from but literally observe the subtlety of the teacher, their being. Many teachers are just libraries of knowledge, not quite real teachers.
This is what you meant?
@Vastmind
A teacher is supposed to help the student see that there is nobody to leave
by getting out of the students way when they are ready.
Here,
delineations between teacher and student subside making the idea
that there is a teacher to leave or a student that is ready...a moot point.
Exactly so. See Buddha in way? Kill Buddha . . . as they abruptly advise some Zeniths.
Too many professional dharma heirs are demonstrating co-dependent collusion . . .
Me Master, You Jane . . . that sort of 'ape-man dharma' goes on for too long . . .
So to go back to the original question. Not how does the master appear but perhaps, 'how does the enlightenment unfold . . .'
http://www.tomblock.com/shalom_tales
and now back to the ready . . .
Yes, that's important, and in my experience there needs to be an intuitive and emotional connection. It's not what teachers say, it's how they are.
I think it's good that we have a lot of teachers available in the west, the sense that there really is somebody to suit every taste. The down-side to that is maybe people giving up to easily when a particular teacher challenges them, it can get a bit like shopping around for a nicer product, that western consumer mentality.
Much better way of putting it. Many thanks
When I was doing my Shiatsu course, there was one relatively abrasive tutor; not to everybody's liking, but I got on with him very well (probably because I gave back as good as I got, but anyway) however, one pupil made it known that she wanted to change classes as she simply could not tolerate him.
She began moaning in class one day about how he kept picking on her (he didn't) and kept being rude to her (it honestly was perception) and at one point, he said to her:
"Is there anything wrong with what I'm teaching you?"
"....No..."
"Am I teaching you the right things for the course?"
"..ye-es...."
"So it's just me you can't stand?"
"(Pause).... yes....."
"Well get over yourself. You're not here to like, you're here to learn.
Right everyone, page 75: Stomach Channel..."
After that, they actually got on better....
Sometimes you just have to pinpoint PRECISELY what - doesn't gel....
I like that comment @federica as it is a very good teaching point...
I think you answered the question at the beginning. Many ways a Teacher appears. Everything depends (isn't that what Buddha Taught?). Human Teachers/Guru/Lama/Zen Master is absolutely necessary, so it could mean that. But if one is working with a Teacher, a life situation/lesson can be the Teacher. Ultimately, the Teacher is the Nature of one's own Mind, the Inner Guru, so to speak. Usually one needs to rely on a QUALIFIED outer/human Teacher to realize the True Teacher/Inner Guru/Ultimate Nature of Mind.
I think it's about pain and suffering. That's what makes a student ready; when we've had enough of doing the same old things and getting the same old results.
And teacher's appear in all kinds of forms. Before my 'spiritual journey' I may have viewed Mrs Tosh as someone who is determined to destroy my happiness. Now - 'that I am ready' - I may see her as a teacher of patience and tolerance.
Happy people dont want to investigate, so if you suffer much, that can be a good thing and a good teacher, because yoou want to finde the cause of it. And then you are looking for answers...so suffering its a kind of an angel, leading to a path of goodness and metta for some people or to the opposite direction, like suicide drugs and so on...It depends on each person (student) how they deal with dukkha in this life.
Yes, good point, like some insight into the First Noble Truth.