Finding a Teacher and what to expect

Swanny

I know to prgress the way I want I will need a teacher. Everything I read tells me this, and based on my personality I believe that.

I'm curious what a teacher/student relationship entails. Do I need to find a temple/sangha and become a member/donator? I know each is different and I can call them, but I'm just looking for what others have found in their experience. Do I formally say hey, your my teacher? Are you normally able to call your teacher and say hey this is happening, what do you think? Or is it usually a weekly thing you go there and discuss things? Just looking for some ideas to help me choose which best fits me.

There are several temples in Chicago. A couple Zen and a couple Tibetin. And some that just feel wrong right off the bat. I seem to be drawn more to the more traditional Tibetin at the moment. All of them are about an hour away, in the city, and the traffic is crazy, so who knows.

I also found a bit of a drama between two groups both claiming the Karma Kagyu tradition. This first one http://www.chicagoktc.org/index.shtml is actually listed on the KTD (http://www.kagyu.org/kagyulineage/buddhism/int/int00.php) site. The other is Diamondway (http://www.diamondway.org/chicago/) but they are not listed on KTD's site...

Hopefully someone with experience with either can help clear up what I am probably missing.

Thanks for any input...

FoibleFull

I'm sure you're right ... that the way it works depends on the teacher, on the centre.

I attend a Tibetan centre. The resident teacher is a monk, originally from Tibet, from the Dalai Lama's Namgyal monastery. He tells us that it should take a long time, years even, before you take a teacher as "your" teacher. The Lam Rim teachings go into some detail about the qualities of a good teacher, and you must observe and weigh how the teacher behaves before you accept that person as your teacher. He suggests that we attend the classes and we will know if, and when, we accept him as our teacher. There is no formal ceremony ... we just realize at some point when someone is our teacher. It took me 5 years before I felt that certainty.

As far as the teaching aspect goes ... at my centre, you attend class. There is a Q-&-A session at the end of class. If you have questions that you do not wish to ask in front of the while class, you can approach him in the classroom after class, although this is only slightly less-public than asking in class. If your question is very personal and you want to ask him privately, you ask for a personal session outside of the classroom ... and when you have that personal session, it is common to offer $20 in an envelope with a folded katah on top of the envelope.

Swanny

Thank you. This was a big help...

Dazzle

FoibleFull wrote: »

... and when you have that personal session, it is common to offer $20 in an envelope with a folded katah on top of the envelope.

Whenever I have attended interviews with Tibetan teachers in the UK, people have never been expected to offer the equivalent of a fee of 20 dollars ! One gives a katah - and possibly something else if one can afford it - perhaps some money in an envelope, or incense, or flowers, or a little gift that one thinks might be nice for the teacher. There's no set rule of offering.

Perhaps things are done differently in the USA.




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FoibleFull

Dazzle wrote: »

Whenever I have attended interviews with Tibetan teachers in the UK, people have never been expected to offer the equivalent of a fee of 20 dollars ! One gives a katah - and possibly something else if one can afford it - perhaps some money in an envelope, or incense, or flowers, or a little gift that one thinks might be nice for the teacher. There's no set rule of offering.

Perhaps things are done differently in the USA.


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Thank you, Dazzle. If you did not understand my posting, others may not either. So I will clarify:

There is no set rule for offerings at the centre I attend, and the teacher has never addressed this issue. Not knowing what people were offering, I asked around at the centre, I found that the majority were offering $20. But not all: some offered less, some more, one offered a peacock feather, one offered some saffron, and one offered a large bag of basmati rice. But $20 is the most common offering made by people at this particular centre.