Dangerous Friend: The Teacher-Student Relationship in Vajrayana Buddhism by Rig'dzin Dorje

Author:Rig'dzin Dorje [Dorje, Rig'dzin]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Publisher: Shambhala Publications
Published: 2013-09-30T22:00:00+00:00

4

A TIME OF TRANSITION

The seductive ideal of freedom of choice is the dominant myth of our society, encouraging people to remain essentially adolescent up until retirement age or even death . . . It’s more important to follow your feelings than to actually arrive at any particular goal. We have become more interested in process than result.

Over the last century, the tide of Vajrayana transmission has crossed the enormous geographical and psychological ocean from the east to the west. But it appears that there are some mismatches between traditional Vajrayana and current western cultural norms. We often fail to realize how much we are affected by the conceptual assumptions and psychological style of our native culture, because these appear as part of the neutral background of what we assume to be reality. However, western ideals of democratic egalitarianism and liberal humanism are fundamentally at odds with the Vajrayana, in theory and in practice. Some crucial messages of our Judeo-Christian heritage, such as the story of Adam and Eve being evicted from Paradise for eating from the Tree of Knowledge, make no sense in a Buddhist context. In addition, many of the particular qualities of common western neuroses such as depression, dependency, and eternal adolescence, present obstacles to forming a healthy relationship to the vajra master. We are all greatly affected by this, and our only defense against it is awareness.

We live in an age of quite unprecedented access to Buddhist culture: on the internet; in books; from world-traveling teachers; in databases; in every language, ancient and modern; from every angle of interpretation, application, and critique. A vast panoply of Buddhist teachings from a wide variety of cultures, all periods of history, and all phases of development can be summoned up instantaneously almost everywhere. This is certainly supportive to study, which may account for the continuing growth in popularity of “Buddhism of the intellect.” From the Dzogchen perspective, however, this would be classified as Sutra.

It is probably no coincidence that Sutra rather than Tantra is what is usually practiced in the west, even when Sutra is presented to look somewhat like Vajrayana. The Sutric relationship with the lama is a method of study that superficially seems to harmonize with the liberal humanist values of many of the educated intellectual westerners who develop an interest in Buddhism. It is a style of practice in which the autonomy of the student is believed to be safeguarded. Ultimately, this can only reveal itself to be a paradox, because the peak of the Sutric path is the experience of emptiness—and in that experience one discovers that this “autonomy” is also empty of definable existence. The Buddhist/humanist parallel lines converge at that point.

Contrary to our cultural concepts, the liberal humanist is actually the victim of blind faith—faith that human reason is the ultimate cognitive tool in the universe. Any disciple of any lama in any Vajrayana lineage with sufficient experience of meditation practice knows otherwise. This is not well understood among western buddhists because for the most part we would prefer not to believe it.

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