Modern teachers and money
Jeroen
Luminous beings are we, not this crude matterNetherlands Veteran
The day before yesterday I came across the website of Mark Coleman, self described as a “mindfulness teacher, wilderness guide and author” (see here). I had a look at the year-long mindfulness teacher training online courses at $6900 plus retreat costs, the speaking engagements, all the areas where he was giving guided meditations, his various books. And it struck me, he is basically a paid spiritual teacher, making money from various gigs.
I couldn’t help but make a comparison with Buddhist monks, who go on alms rounds and often don’t handle money. In India too there are many teachers who don’t charge. Take Nisargadatta Maharaj, he owned a small corner shop but all his spiritual talks were free. It seems to me very much cleaner and better.
What do you all think of modern spiritual teachers and their attitudes to money?
Comments
This is not new. Such religious/spiritual vampires have plagued the poeple for uncountable generations.
I feel that true spiritual teaches are not reaching into your pocket or purse.
Peace to all
One of the reasons I settled on the practice that I did was that it was mainly funded by donations that were optional.
Many Mahayana-leaning schools favor more moneyed business models and while it might initially reach more people, I am not convinced that it reaches them in a way that is ultimately more beneficial.
I see where some students today might take a teaching more seriously when their own dime is on the line, but I think it also flirts unnecessarily into the murkier realm of appropriation & expectation over renunciation as the basis of a path.
Too often this seems to result in students whose practices stall out over egos that have been superficially gifted with a more pleasing make-over, as opposed to those who understand that this too is just another attachment in need of being let go of.
I think it fundamentally alters the relationship between teacher and learner if there is money involved. There is an expectation of value for money, a commercial transaction, which I feel uneasy with.
I admire your stance in this @how
I'm ok paying for my Empowerments and retreats. But I find it goes against the teachings if there are exhorbitant fees. I'm happy to make a donation for lessons but mandatory fees reek of ickiness to me.
I agree that a donation based model is cleaner and the relationship purer. It is pretty difficult in the west to support oneself as a teacher purely off donations though. Many western monks have had to disrobe because supporting themselves was too difficult. There are western teachers that do support their efforts off of donations though, I'm thinking specifically of Josh Korda of Dharmapunx NYC. Buildings require rent to be paid and retreats have food and utilities to be paid.
That said, something funny I've heard Joseph Goldstein say, western Buddhism is the upper middle path. Basically that the expense and free time needed to involve oneself in the dharma in the west greatly selects for people who have wealth, education, free time. Making the culture and inclusivity of western Buddhism fairly homogenous.
I think I live in a fairly fortunate area for Buddhism. My metro area has the second largest Tibetan population in the US and there has been a TB temple with qualified teachers and monastics supported by the Tibetan population. There is also a western Theravada center that operates off of donations. There are others too that I don't have experience with. As Buddhism in the west grows it should become more and more possible to support teachers off of donations rather than fees.
I’m a bit torn on this one. When I first encountered buddhism and meditation you had to pay and that was normal to me. In the culture I’ve grown up in, there’s no such thing as a free ride! In fact it almost creates suspicion when someone offers something for free.
On the other hand, now that I stay at a donation based monastery, I’ve had the monastics lament the fact that Western people come and stay there and offer nothing because they’re told it’s free.
It’s just a misunderstanding in Western culture. We’d almost prefer it if someone just tells us you need to pay $x for this class or $x for staying three nights.
The publishing houses not only offer lectures and courses by people who have been certified by a Master or Lama and validated by him to go out and make a living out of it, but now they also open the door for their relatives to do the same.
They all have something supreme to say or comment on, and they will charge you for telling you.
These people are overwhelmingly from the Chosen People (above all other peoples of the world) of the one God.
In an affluent society, a teacher should pay a student for learning. Obviously most teaching and students are not ready for such a radical approach.
Teachers and students are often under the delusion, that they can transmit or receive. If that were true we would have a more enlightened society.
Some of us learn from our mistakes. We learn our and others real motivations and capacity. We have to be exposed to the nature of this situation in a variety of ways …
https://www.lionsroar.com/the-life-of-milarepa/
It seems a very harmful myth to me…
I thought that Throssel Hole Buddhist Abbey in Scotland where I once stayed for two weeks had a very nice system. Donation based but with a clear "suggested donation".
That way (I assume) most people can just pay the suggested donation and those on either extreme of the affluence ladder can either support others or be supported themselves.
Now that others have said that some monks complain that donations do not come often enough, I wonder what proportion of people donated to the Abbey and how much. It might make for very interesting economics research - whether it might be possible to implement such a system elsewhere in the wider economy.
I think in the western world, the phrase "you get what you pay" is unfortunately embedded in people's minds. New Buddhists who know no better sometimes get taken by flashy fanfair and corporate practice jargon and they are impressed. They shell over thousands and come away feeling a sense of reward. But this reward is hollow much like going to Disneyland or a blockbuster movie, the hype is there but fades because the "thing" they paid for isn't always present; when actually all they needed was a Sangha close to house and a grounded practice based on their own findings and experience. Sharing with others and learning by doing. As it is said "rely on no one for your salvation, for only YOU can save yourself".
I was the treasurer for a few decades for another one of Jiyu Kennetts' sister priories to Throssel Hole Abbey but in Canada and can attest to their donation-based economics. Although this made for a less than certain economic security, there was an attitude that the real basis of the priory was best represented by the practices of its members, and not by the bank account.
In those days, about roughly 20 of the regularly participating laity on average donated between $10.00 and $150.00 a month to the priory that had a none profit tax status. Yearly totaled tax receipts were offered to all donors. Most of the regular laity eventually committed to monthly donations to provide some consistency to the chances of the priory's day-to-day financial obligations being met. Organized public retreats where a larger public building would be rented might have a suggested donation of $10 to $25:00 but no one batted an eye at the few who paid nothing.
All of the monies collected went to the rent of a house for a temple, food, utilities, travel fees, and general upkeep as well as a small stipend for the prior. Although the monk/s had a pretty humble financial existence, no monk that I met ever complained about any lack thereof.
As long as the finances are truly related to as one would relate to anything offered in an alms bowl, money is unlikely to become a limiting factor in the Dharma it affords.
If any of you have Paramount, the documentary about the Hillsong Church by the Betoota Advocate is worth a watch.
The worse example of actual grifting from a "spiritual" organization came from a client of mine who although she was poor said she had cobbled together $4,000 dollars for a course on invisibility and the same again for another one on levitation.
Seeing me pale when she mentioned this, said I know what you're thinking and I thought the same until they pointed out that if I couldn't afford $4,000 to make me a better person, then I had a real problem with money.
When I couldn't resist asking how the courses turned out, she said that she preferred the invisibility course where people around her started to look a bit opaque after a while but was more suspicious of the levitation course where folks only seemed to learn how to hop a bit up and down from a meditation posture.
It would seem the only thing which actually levitates is the money being lifted from the bank account...Now that's real levitation practice and some so-called teachers are really good at that....
I would be more interested in what the guru or teacher does with the money that they received. As for personal gifts, whether they use them or give them away isn't so much of an issue. After all they are not bound by the Vinaya rules of Theravada monks which forbid having anything other than the 4 requisites of food, clothing, shelter and medicine.
I think some people use spirituality as a means of making money in an exploitative way. And I think Western culture and capitalism have made it even worse. But in the West, where there's less of a gift giving economic and mendicant culture, it does cost money to have a center, print books, etc., so I think reasonable charges are ok and unavoidable. That said, I would personally avoid $6,000 retreats.
Tee hee @Jason
… gonna have to sell my sardine tin collection and go on a reality cheque in the post …
Lobster sponsored exclusive retreats coming soon:
😇
I don't mind center dues, or paying/offering to see/hear a teacher that I'm interested in.
There have been times when money becomes an issue. That's when the push for funds gets to be a bit too much for me and the discussion becomes uncomfortable. I belonged to a Sangha where the national President used to travel around to all the centers and give a talk - about half of the time discussing money needs of the organization and how we should all have a good look at what we are offering giving in dues each month.
Uncomfortable.
I would eventually leave there and landed in a better place. I would go on to help on the finance committee and there I learned something. Every year, my local Sangha would send Rinpoche a sum of money as a teaching offering and to help support him. It wasn't a lot, but wasn't a pittance, either. Every year he sent the check back. Book royalties and teaching honorariums were enough.
My kind of Guru.
My sangha has been mostly virtual, but I have been wanting to do a sesshin/retreat for quite a while.
The closest thing I ever got to one was in august 2021 with Muho Nölke (Soto Zen) in Germany. It was 300 euros for 2 day intensive practice and feast. I wonder what a Zen feast is....In the end it was cancelled due to COVID restrictions.
My wife was relieved: "You were going to spend 300 euros to just sit and face a wall?!"
I did however my "own" retreats thanks to Birken Monastery. They offer them completely online and you require only some preparation and a stable internet connection. I know an in-person "real" retreat must be a completely different experience (to the better, and maybe to the worse too!), but I also appreciate how they are donation based and never insist in astronomical fares. I think this was one of the reasons I liked Ajahn Sona and his project in Birken: transparency, honesty and a clear absence of greed.
Instead of these kinds of funding “pushes” I like to see transparency reports, where funds inflow and outflow is clearly discussed and people can see what contributions have been like and where the money goes.
This group actually publishes an annual report, as any reputable NPO, should any member choose to read it. It's the push that bothered me, and still does.
When I was on my current sangha's finance committee, I could see, first hand, where the money was coming from, and where it was going. It was all legit. It's why I've stayed, although not actively. I moved to where we have no groups or centers. Sucks.
So yesterday a girl who assisted to the same class we took at university (Psychology of Thought) told me that our teacher, who seemed to be one of those secular mindfulness teachers, invited her to meditate together one day, like transmitting to her that "we" as a group could sit together, also like telling her that I would be coming.
Well, after one sit... He said to her that if she was interested...next time she would need to pay him 395 euros for a daily one hour session for 2 weeks. If not... They could not meditate anymore.
Talking about transparency.... Trying to fish. It is time I show her the amount of free materials and good teachers available. Also this was to simply learn anapanasati... Or... "Full attention of the breath" as they call it....
😵
Teachers have, historically, required something of value from students. A good example is the relationship between the yogi, Milarepa, and his teacher, Marpa. Milarepa pursued Marpa to receive Dharma teaching. Marpa refused for a time. Finally, he told Milarepa, to build a tower of stone. He made the tower as Marpa ordered. Marpa looked at it and told him to tear it down and build another. They went through several rounds of building and then Marpa accepted Milarepa as his student.
Mila's time and effort was as valuable as money, but he didn't have any money. Marpa, wisely, relied on the next best thing.
Milarepa would go one to become a founder of the Kagyu lineage - a great Yogin, holder of Marpa's lineage handed down from Tilopa and Naropa, maker of songs of realization, and teacher of Gampopa.