the Trouble with Teaching

THIS, I hope, will get to the crux of the problem I was trying to address with my last post. TEACHING and preaching is the issue, not meditation.

This could pertain to any form of religion, or any teaching actually, but I'm going to use Buddhism as the example, since I continue to wrestle with these concepts and labels within this particular philosophy. Let me begin with what happened today as an example of how the problem unfolds.

I posted a link, innocently enough, on Facebook. I thought it was interesting and pretty neat actually, that Bill Clinton was meditating and chanting. What caught my eye was that he had "hired a monk" for instruction. I wondered from what lineage or school. There are far more sects and schools of Buddhism than there are branches of Christianity. Buddhism is older so there has been more time to fuss and fight over the texts and teachings. The fussing itself is one of the points I've wanted to blog about. How we react to the fussing is the other.

But first, let me finish with the incident at hand. So I posted the link. I had never heard of the site "theBuddhism.net" and a bit of reading explained why. It was "hinky" (my friend Adam's word) at best. From Sri Lanka? Mahawela, Mathale?? I couldn't really determine where they were from or what their message was (but they wanted donations.) I didn't want to promote their cause on my page so I removed the link -- end of story, right? Not exactly.

I had posted the link, which meant a few of the Billion Fbook users saw it on their phones and devices before I deleted it. I didn't have much time to explain, so I quickly composed the post below and linked that to Facebook before leaving for (of all things) my Monday Dharma study group at the local KTC Buddhist center. When I got back, there was already reaction. One person, Dorothy, misunderstood my point and thought I was trying to say that meditation is only for "committed Buddhists." Adam, who posted a comment on the previous post, knows exactly what my concerns are. But, even so, he was ahead of me there. I wasn't really thinking that the former Prez was using tantric techniques, but on second thought... (ha!!)

Wow, this is convoluted and I still haven't even touched on the point I wanted to make about teachers and gurus. Since this is getting long and even my brief comments cause so much confusion, I think I'll save part three for Tuesday to delve into my thoughts on the dangers and pitfalls of teachers. Concern with teachers isn't new or limited to Buddhism. Look at the scandals with priests, preachers and teachers of all kinds. I wasn't even thinking about sexual misconduct this morning. I was simply thinking of the example we set any time we attempt to teach (or say) anything!