|
Thursday, September 30, 2010
In this day of the internet and social networking websites and search engines, it is not always easy to define what organization may be ‘for real’ (as my grandkids would put it) and which sites are a scam or who is a teacher and who is not.
Yesterday, on one of the social networking sites, I posted a little teaching – it was funny, and really applicable to the Western way of thinking – but I had some doubts about the ‘Lama’ (as did a friend) because of the information about online classes and need for funds. But, being new, how do you know who is a really qualified teacher and which organization or group is a truthful one?
Far be it from me to be able to define what works for someone else – but if you find (as I have) that you have a need for guidance in something like the above situation, here are some suggestions:
`1. Check out the teacher the individual follows
2. Read between the lines – being asked for money, money, money?
3. If you are still in doubt, check it out with a well known
teacher or group – a suggestion of where you might find
information like this is on the viewonbuddhism.org website
under the ‘controversy’ tab. There is a list there of
questionable teachers and groups, as well as comments.
In my own situation, twice now I have nearly gotten involved with a group that I would not want to be involved with – including the “Lama” whose teaching I posted on the social website. It was a funny and basically sound little work, but the teacher is very questionable. (Well, I had no intent on becoming a student of his, but I wouldn’t want to promote his business anyway.)
And remember the bottom line: peace, loving kindness, compassion, The Four Noble Truths, the Path – these are all for free.
This is the first entry, the first time, and my first blogsite (and probably my only blogsite) and the site is limited to those who are invited to read and write here.
Bhavana is an idea that has been growing. There are many questions about this new direction in my life, the practice, the readings, the teachings.
In my life, all 67 years of it, there have been many contacts with ‘religion’ and philosophy. The first contacts with Buddhism came with reading the ‘Beat Poets,’ writers like Gary Snyder and Phillip Whalen and Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg, and in courses in comparative religions at college.
There was more exposure in San Francisco Sausalito
I married and divorced (several times over, with children from each marriage) and continued to search and read writings by different philosophers and of differing religions.
It could be that from the sunrise to the sunset of this precious human life, what I was looking for was always there, always in the background, always waiting. Contact with an old friend led to reading Soygal Rinpoche’s ‘The Tibetan Art of Living and Dying and this led to other books and contact with Sravasti Abbey, a Western Buddhist Abbey in the hills near where I live, and the pieces of a lifetime came together to form a clearer picture – and the taking of the Precepts.
So bear with me, I am only a student, a learner without a teacher yet, but with many good influences and markers on the Path. Please feel that you may comment and leave messages and anything you feel the urge to write here …
Susan
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)