Honouring the teacher
Jeroen
Luminous beings are we, not this crude matterNetherlands Veteran
So I have been reading about how Buddha said that it was not about him, but that it was about the teaching. That he went to great lengths to avoid being made more than what he was. Similarly there is a sutra which says, "test the teachings", again putting emphasis on the individual's judgment, not the importance of the teacher. Later there was a Zen saying attributed to Master Linji which said, "If you meet the Buddha, kill him!", which has been interpreted as thinking in the same vein.
Now, I am noticing that my local Tibetan Buddhist centre has a day which includes prayers for the long life of the Rinpoche. It seems to me that there is a thin line here between well-wishes and institutionalised veneration of the figurehead of the school, something which the Buddha himself spoke against. Somehow it grates on me... I am not against honouring the teacher, but one should honour all of one's teachers equally, be they the single monk who is teaching the basic concepts course or the Dalai Lama via YouTube.
I would be very interested in all your opinions on this delicate subject. Is too much veneration straying from the path? Where is the line?
Comments
@Kerome -- The short answer, from where I sit, is YOU are the line. Be as respectful as you are comfortable being and if others want to dissolve into a bowlful of adoring Jell-O, that's their problem.
I was pretty wowed/Jell-O-ized by the first man I considered a teacher. Wise-wiser-wisest ... zowee, Mr. Wizard! Fast forward several years and there were what some of us came to call the Fuck Follies -- teacher getting involved with female students without being willing to acknowledge it and simultaneously treating his paramours in a shoddy manner. That didn't call into account his financial high jinx. It was very, very upsetting to the sangha and messing with the sangha is a no-no in Buddhism.
Finally, I gave up, quit and found another Zen teacher who was not shy about assessing the first teacher: "Too much ego," he said. The relationship I had with this second man was pretty enjoyable if not precisely intimate. One of the things I always was willing to honor him for was that, despite the fact that he was the abbot of a Japanese monastery, he never did designate a Dharma successor. To which my heart said a hearty, "Right on!"
Along the way, I met several heavy hitters in the world of Buddhism and each of them had some effect for which I am grateful enough so that today, so many years later, I can say without reservation, "I wouldn't wish my training on my worst enemy, and I wouldn't trade it for all the tea in China."
@Kerome, My teacher teaches in that tradition and talks in detail about Sangha structure involving a teacher. The idea of prayer for long life is to hope they can continue to give teachings. I think 'figurehead' is a wrong idea. Some teachers like mine are really not famous at all and some are quite famous. My idea of who to honor is that it's up to you. Maybe I am moved by one teacher and not another. Maybe I am more moved by someone giving simple teachings or maybe not. It's up to me. The veneration should always be of your own choice same as donations etc.
From what I've heard from my teachers message about sangha structure and detail is that it is not all mysticism but actually very realistic. If you have a school class the teacher has quite an effect from kindergarten and on up. The teacher is like the center of a wheel with spokes going outwards. It can (analyzed) be rational in some cases without hysteria or manipulation. And then in some sanghas like advaita vedanta of Papagi and Mooji and Gangaji there is quite a bit of veneration but from what I've seen of those teachers it ends up a good kind of veneration that is very calm and loving. I could say the veneration is used in a good way without manipulation.
I couldn't find a talk (of my teacher Lama Shenpen Hookham) that specifically talks about the teacher and mandala principle and spokes of a wheel etc but I found one about the 7 branches of prayer which might present some ideas and you can get the vibe of my teacher. The seven branches include hoping the guru lives and asking them to teach you. 7 branches: prostrations, offerings, confession, rejoicing, asking to teach, asking to live, dedication of merit.
My advice is to go where you feel comfortable but maybe risk going out your comfort zone. And if something is not your thing then keep an open mind and pay attention to if harm is being done to people or if rather it is just unreasonable to you. For example I am comfortable with my teacher 7 branches of prayer but I am a bit uncomfortable with the sect of Buddhism that focuses on the Lotus sutra so much I think it's called Nichiren. But to each their own as long as people are not being harmed.
Also with Linji his own school was structured and seems the teachers would grill the students. At the same time there is an idea that sometimes the student is the teacher (ie they are flashing wisdom in that moment). But that doesn't take away that there is a teacher in front of you grilling you. I read about that not in a book opposing Linji but rather in Thich Nhat Hanh's book about Linji which talks about some of the koans. You can read exactly how the teachers talk to the students as translated to English and recollected or recreated from history in TNH book. And also in the Zen tradition I cannot remember which masters story this was but the story was that when he first went to a school to study you know they leave him outside in the cold and give beatings for a few days to make sure they are serious! Marpa just made Milarepa build 7 towers and destroy them! And Milarepa at one point said to Marpa he was thinking of killing himself if Marpa continued to be hard on him and he couldn't get the teachings!
@Kerome
I tend to see most practitioners riding mainly in one of four Buddhist vehicles.
Cultural.................where the practice is a maintenance of a family/tribal Buddhist tradition.
Scholarly study..... with the practice being the study of the Buddhist teachings.
Faith devotional.....where a teacher represents the focus of ones practice.
Meditation ............where some form of navel gazing leads the way.
Here, is where folks usually claim multiple rides.
While every practitioner likes to think that they have more than one vehicle at their disposal, they can just about always be observed riding around in the same particular one whenever I've checked.
The point of my post is not to say that any one vehicle is superior to another but
to suggest how easier a spiritual journey can be when you figure out which vehicles deserve to be your main ride and which are for back ups or spare parts.
And I would claim multiple rides not quite so aware of which I 'owe my true allegiance to' at this point. I would say that teachers themselves do die though you might believe you formed a timeless connection with one or more. Meditation never dies, but there's more to life than sitting and indeed a particular 'special' state of meditation might not be able to access if you have discomfort from a disease etc. Written Buddhist teachings are endless but you can get confused because different writers might be even defining words diffently (based on their tribal representation). Also there is endless writings pretty much. And for my tradition the guru is quite important and some people even do 'guru yoga'. But the teacher wouldn't be a teacher unless they were teaching something. And they are teaching about awareness. And that is right there in your meditation. I can't imagine how it could be split apart myself.
Most of us worship ourselves.
( or is that just me again 
)Trump level is too far. 
One of my sat-gurus was a red and white streetlight, that made me aware that 'everything is an expression of its nature'. Realizing this means one should venerate everything for its potential message/medicine/teaching/revelation. Ay caramba!
However in the sense of a mythological or manifest human ...
My first teacher was probably the Catholic eucharist/body of Christ, offering a feeling of sanctity when I was confirmed.
My last physical teacher was a 'hidden teacher', known as a 'private Buddha' in dharma. Very difficult person to quantify or explain. If anything he venerated, rather than the other way around ...
Teachers - They themselves are students. My best teachers never stopped learning. Buddhist or otherwise, I would often encounter teachers who told me they learned as much or more from those they taught then they themselves could teach.
Good teachers should be honored, but not venerated.
As Sakyamuni (the Buddha) said, We must follow the Law (teaching) not the person (teacher).
A bad teacher will lead both the teacher and the student astray.
A good teacher has the goal of the the student equaling, even surpassing him/her.
I honor all my teachers, even the accidental ones (yes, even the clawed one).
I honor and venerate the (Buddhist) Law.
But it is not blindly.
Thinking back, one of my first teachers was in fact a cat, a black cat.
Enough babbling already, bring on the hot cocoa!
Peace to all
It's easy to look at things from an egotistical point of view, but it often is not intended that way. That is just how we see it because of our conditioning. Most of the focus is usually on the teachings, with respect given to those who hold them and offer them to the rest of us, whatever their "level" might be.
In some ways, just like regular life, those who have done the most work command the most respect. But not because they demand it, only because their students offer it. It doesn't mean the 90 year old teacher is better than the 20 year old monk, but chances are his experiences have a lot of credence to lend the teachings rather than simply reciting versus from memory. If you are dealing with a very complex disease, are you going to choose the 24 year old who hasn't done a surgery yet? Or the 50 year old who has done your surgery 100 times? No disease is as complex as samsara, lol.
In my experience of the Tibetan tradition their practice is very devotional. This can be quite powerful and acts in the sense of the direct transmission line of teaching, so in my view it is more of a method of practice rather than a straying from the teachings. The problem is that its really easy to leave one's critical faculties at the door and be led astray by faulty teachers.
They also have a rich tradition of philosophical/scholarly teaching and lots of meditation practices, so if the devotional aspect of it doesn't suit you mention it and ask for instruction in one of the other lines.
Thank you all, some really interesting and useful contributions!
I honour all teachers/sentient beings, even the ones who may have strayed from the path...I see them as a blessing, an opportunity to practice empathy, compassion and forgiveness...As sentient beings, we teach each other valuable lessons...for example what to do & what not to do.....
But....... "Don't mistake the finger that points to the moon for the moon !"
Feel free to venerate us but don't mention it, may go to our (ego) heads ...
On the whole I tend to venerate yidams, dead teachers, boddhisattvas and such. The dangers of veneration in Tibetan Tantra/teacher/monk bowing cultures are very obvious. We often end up with spiritual celebrities for the FazeBook generation to worship, follow the spiritual tittivator and befiend (mindless befriending).
What is a gal to do?
Discernment and prostrations. Would I bow to a mirror? Yes. If only to know the Buddha is present ... and a schmuck if my reflections are anything to go by ...
A lot of this is cultural, but one can respect a teacher without having to worship them.
I feel respect in some cultures manifests as worship type behavour.
In the Sufi and Zen traditions the people of highest realisation, 'teach without teaching', in other words they have entered the realm of 'ordinary, again. How would we know them? Fortunately they become apparant when insight opens ...