Finding Your Guru
Not Necessarily a Given
It is a matter of trust. The deepest trust.
These days, I have found it to be a given: every book about the way, about meditation, about the path agrees: You cannot do it on your own. These books then go on to stress that even though they will attempt to detail and explain the meditation practice as best they can, and tell you how to walk the path, you will need a qualified teacher; a person who you, by searching, investigating and comparing to others, feel comfortable about or are convinced is the right teacher for you.
It seems firmly settled. You need a guru (from Sanskrit guru ‘weighty, grave’; compare with Latin gravis, hence ‘elder, teacher.’)
In all fairness, these books do not entirely rule out the remote possibility that you might, with truckloads of positive Karma and lots of luck, make it on your own, but don’t hold your breath is the unmistakable message.
Nothing, they go on to emphasize, nothing will ever take the place of a good (sometimes they add the word accredited) teacher. Some even add the requirement enlightened.
Which leads me to ask, accredited by whom? By someone I’d trust?
Enlightened according to whom? The truly enlightened rarely if ever announce that fact. Can others tell, and if so who? Someone I’d trust?
The Dalai Lama, bless him, when asked whether you absolutely had to have a personal teacher, a guru, smiled and said, “No, you don’t. But it will speed things up considerably.” And you get the undeniable feeling that by “considerably” he was talking about years versus many, many lifetimes.
The advice to search for and find your guru is all well and good for those who live in urban areas where there are teachers to be found, investigated, and compared. But for those of us who live more rurally, and far away from Buddhist or Zen centers and their teachers, the books themselves have to shoulder the mantle of Teacher and Guru and lead us out of the darkness and into the light on their own.
This has been a long-standing problem for me. Living in a small northern California town, just south of the Oregon border, there are no prospective gurus to be found, so I have had to resort to books or online guidance.
But then, as I put each book down, or leave an online discourse, I arrive at the same — almost inevitable, it seems — conclusion: that no matter how sage he appears, I would not leave my life in his hands; no matter how well-read she seems, I would not stake everything on her. This is my trust falling short.
For various reasons.
Some teachers speak derisively of other paths, say Mahayana looking down upon Theravada, which seems to be some sort of genetic Mahayana affliction. This, for me, is a sign that dogma, not love and light steers that teacher.
Some teachers contradict other teachers. The I-am-right and they-are-wrong syndrome. I give those a wide berth.
Some teachers beat their own drums; one teacher even announced his own enlightenment.
The Buddha once called such teachers “an empty gourd.” What he means is that if you shake an empty gourd, it’ll rattle and make a lot of noise. If you shake a full (as in enlightened) gourd, you don’t hear a sound.
The slightest whiff of self-drumming and I turn away and look elsewhere.
Now, there have been teachers who have touched me deeply through their words and actions; teachers I could see myself entrusting my life to, but, alas, these teachers are mostly dead (Ramana Maharshi, Krishnamurti, Shankara, and Hongzhi among others), or otherwise beyond my reach.
So, onto more books.
Now, this is not to say — and I really want to stress this — that I do not find these books useful, informative, or even enlightening, for I read, absorb, and apply all that I learn from them in my own meditation, on my own path. But books are not live teachers, online seminars ditto, and I resign myself to the possibility that I will not find my guru this life — and if that’s the case, well, so be it.
However, when it comes to teachers, here’s a point I have encountered in some books, and one that I agree with, the most important teacher of the path is none other than you. All other teachers are assistants. You are the one who has to listen or read and evaluate and try and experiment and reconcile and put into long-term practice the approach you have found to work for you.
No teacher can do this for you, not a flesh and blood one, not the most brilliant “book” teacher — such as Richard Shankman or Shaila Catherine. For as the Buddha said, teachers (including Gotama himself) just point at the moon, you have to do the looking — you have to read (or listen), absorb, reflect, reconcile, and put into practice your understanding of both the teaching and of your own uniqueness in order to fashion your path.
Some time ago I considered writing a book documenting my path, the books I have read, and the choices I have made. I was going to name it “Before I Go.” In it I would introduce my assistant teachers, my evaluations, my choices, and my path; but then I realized that I might be doing a reader of such a book a disservice for it could tempt him or her to follow the same path, or try to follow the same path.
A disservice, because my path is not another’s, a reader’s path.
No two individuals are the same.
No two individuals follow the same path to liberation. Every being is unique. Every being fashions his or her path based on the best guidance available to them. So, “Before I Go” will not see the light of day.
And it does go without saying that it is up to each one of us to find our own books, to do our own reading, reflecting, and evaluations, and then draw our own conclusions.
All this said, and certainly from the heart, a while back, I encountered someone who held promise. And the more I read, the more I listened, and watched, the more promise he held.
The other morning, after reading another chapter of his, I looked deeply within myself and realized and then said, aloud, smiling, “I trust him.”
His name is Burgs, yes, just Burgs, and I don’t even know if that’s his first or last name or neither. For me, the vital point is that he is honest. He admits shortcomings where there are any, and he talks about abilities without boasting.
He stresses virtue as the opening gate and both Samatha (Concentration) and Vipassana (Insight) Meditation as the path. He is widely traveled and an experienced retreat teacher.
He has written several books (available on Amazon) and he has an online presence both through a website (https://theartofmeditation.org/) and on Patreon (https://www.patreon.com/BurgsArtOfMeditation).
These days, I am too old to globetrot and he is too far away for me to meet him in person, but what he gives me through books and recorded discourses (on Patreon) helps me tremendously and might see me through all the way.
Yes, he might be my guru.
And you may find him to your liking.
© Wolfstuff
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