Spiritual Teacher-Student Relationship Guidelines (Buddhism 101), Ken McLeod

Responsibilities and realistic expectations in the spiritual teacher-student relationship are subjects that everyone seems to take for granted but they're rarely examined in a Buddhism 101 or Buddhism for Beginners manner. Esteemed translator and scholar, Ken McLeod does exactly that in this video.
Ken received traditional training mainly in the Shangpa Kagyu lineage through a long association with his principal teacher, Kalu Rinpoche, whom he met in 1970. He is the author of The magic of Vajrayaya, Wake Up to Your Life, and a commentary on the Heart Sutra called An Arrow to the Heart. This interview was conducted in Los Angeles, California.
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[@loveyourself_first]

This teaching really moved me. Thank you for posting it. I really admire Ken McLeod.

[@e.c.4590]

This is an inspiring and vitally important topic, focus and issue, worth deeply considering from a number of vantage points--as you have conscientiously and effectively done. Thank you! Might other valid perspectives of looking at such a spiritually focused “student-teacher” relationship include perhaps some bits of the following? 1) Thoroughly assessing and addressing from the start, how this relationship cannot conform to the constraints of: that of a weak, dependent, scared or anxious child trying to please or gain love from a “parent figure”; that of a wounded or sick patient to a presumed healer-doctor or therapist; or even that of a blind-faith outwardly pious, emotionally driven submission to a superiorly knowledgeable, vastly revered and experienced teacher, or charismatic, reincarnated lineage holder, holy or even “totally enlightened” individual? 2) Consistently making a top priority of deferring to and incarnating the single-minded orientation, motivation, attitude, Spirit of Bodhicitta/PrajnaParamita [Including “Emptiness” of student; “Emptiness” of teaching; and “Emptiness” of teacher]; bearing witness moment to moment to nothing more or less than simple, all-embracing “Wholehearted Presence”, “Tathata” or “This”? 3) Consistently stressing and pointing out a here-now, present moment inter-subjectively and interpenetratively “loosing and losing of the mind” (a “Middle Way” between analysis/ thought and non analysis/thought); rather than allowing interposing, mediating and determinative, occluding “contents” of thought, knowledge, methods, techniques, [fit for application for a “later time”] to dominate, sway, orchestrate, contextualize or otherwise, distract, weaken and/or dilute the “present moment wholeheartedness” which is the “Key” to not only relationship but to the quintessence of “Practice”? 4) Consciously and explicitly establish and maintain a mutual wholehearted commitment and contract agreeing to participating in a radical ongoing inquiry involving mutually equalizing, unifying and confessionally disavowing/repenting, [“clearing/emptying/voiding”] all delusions and illusions of: roles; expectations; images; identities; strategies; plans; and judgments involving one or both participants? E.C.

[@DharmaTime-is-now]

E.C., thanks for your very thoughtful feedback.I have a video up where Alan Wallace talks about troublesome psychologic profiles that some students bring into their dharma pursuits (along the lines of the issues you describe in pt 1). I pursued this avenue of inquiry for a number of years so I actually have a substantial backlog of teacher and scholar commentary about the many issues people can get perilously wrong or concepts that are commonplace in Buddhist conversations but their referents are anything but obvious. I hope to post a weekly video clip for the foreseeable future. The other points you brought up are all good ones for people to individually contemplate in their participation in these sorts of relationships. They're also along the lines of various questions I posed to members of all 4 of the major lineages (elders born in Tibet and the post Tibet generation) as well as senior Westerners,

[@e.c.4590]

@@DharmaTime-is-now Thank you! It seems that you have a wonderful and rare access to teachers, scholars and spiritual leaders! I wonder if you might consider, in the future, asking them or anyone, perhaps Alan Wallace [most of whose books and many of his talks I am familiar with] to start with--something I have been concerned about for years, especially in light of the glib, growing and rampant popularity of "mindfulness" and "power of now" fascination and publications? "If it is true that "practice" and "meditation" and "realization", "dharmadhatu" occur in a present /timeless moment, then why do the great majority of "dharma talks", "instructions, lectures, conversations, dialogues, etc. seem to put more accent and value Not on the moment of their occurrence/presentation but on what their words, contents, abstractions point to in the future or have meant to great practitioners in the past? If we were to grade 1000, 100 or even 10 talks on a scale of 1-10 with "10" meaning "this talk or presentation was mainly aimed directly and immediately stimulating of profound self-inquiry, evoking the deepest nature of my mind, awareness, consciousness and its "empty" nature, beyond words" and "1" meaning "this talk was "about" mind, truth, Dharma and great practitioners or texts, and a lot of wonderful even inspiring things the sum total of which, just didn't evoke profound inquiry, stir or touch my depths"--what percent of talks and presentations would be above 7? If a majority of talks and presentations are below 7, I suggest that is a result worth seriously considering by anyone who would speak of such things! Please correct me if I am misapprehending here, but it seems that the "time" or "temporal" issue is widely talked about from a "meta", abstract, ideal position, but it is not, or very rarely, demonstrated and prioritized in interactions and communications! Isn't this "all talk about Now--for later" potentially problematic, paradoxical or even hypocritical if not counter-productive for teaching/demonstrating Dharma? If a "teacher", lama, guru says "the teachings and enlightened ones say that you must or can only realize Emptiness directly, immediately" but then goes on to spend the majority of time and effort laying out all kinds elaborate Lam Rim steps and stages, detailing practices like: preliminaries; Lojong Mind Training; Shamatha and Vipassana and their union; Chan/Zen; Mahamudra, Dzogchen etc. is there a missed "potency", and transformative opportunity in the present presentation? This seems to be more than just a matter of the dispute between Zen "sudden" and "gradual" schools. It is a matter of Dharma "witness", example, "presence" and pregnant, consistent pedagogy. Even more concernedly so, it might be a matter of a bastardized Dharma pedagogy being led by the nose by the "partial", splintering mind, with its vaunted god-like idolized thought and concepts, rather than the "totalistic" inconceivable form/formless Sunyata, Tathata or Bodhicitta! Buddhists as well as Christians tend to lead with concepts, ideas, teachings, doctrines, which they assume will "later" at some other "time" come to fruition through their intellectual understanding, psychological digestion and practice--provided there is a proper "teachers--provided that the teacher-student relationship is healthy and strong--provided...etc. I have likewise challenged conventional Christian "homiletics" and preaching to pneumatologically and soteriologically [rather than merely doctrinally, dogmatically or theologically] "preach a practice" here and now that would "point out" and establish "Metanoetically" salvational liberation; not just quote saviors, saints, church fathers, mystics, contemplatives and scriptures in the "past" tense. But even Christians whose scriptures extol Kairos time and not Chronos time have chronically and perennially fallen prey to common chronological linear, dualistic time! What would it look like if Buddhist teachers didn't so much, similar to conventional Christians primarily "talk about": truths, Buddha, lamas, teachings, traditions, but rather spoke as if all suffering and delusion "could" and not only "could" but emphatically "must" in fact, in Truth, be ended this very instant, here and now, not "hopefully somewhere down the road" after years of disciplined "practice", by means of will, concepts, intellect, abstraction, faith, trust in tradition or religious authority or other great practitioners' testimony, but rather by means of direct unmediated by thought, apprehension, by means of a "wholehearted presence"? It seems that I might have veered quite a bit from the focus of the "spiritual" teacher-student relationship. But perhaps not if you consider that the concern for not a "later", but a "present time", an "all in", "wholehearted", "interpersonal immediacy" "here and now", "direct" heart/mind to heart/mind communication might be, the most crucial and necessary, and yet easily ignored of all "Dharma" Upaya/Skillful Means! If you do ask anyone about any of this [if any of it you deem worthwhile to consider] please let me know how they respond. Pleased to hear from you E.C.

[@DharmaTime-is-now]

@@e.c.4590 As usual (;-) you're making very good points regarding the emphasis areas or predominant themes of talks and practices being geared towards realization in the future rather than now. From my own exposure, I've heard the themes of You can do it right now from Nyingma lamas who talk about "short periods, many times" and are encouraging of weaving formal practice into the fabric of student's days. I'm not currently interviewing teachers but if I were, I'd definitely bring some of your points into those conversations. I have this large backlog of interviews I did 10 some years that I'm chipping away at to post here. I haven't seen the content myself in many years, so it's interesting to open up the time capsule. Feel free to share the channel information to others who you think may find this material of interest.

[@e.c.4590]

@@DharmaTime-is-now Thank you for the gift of your consistent ("as usual") thoughtful and insightful validating consideration. Yes indeed "short periods many times"! I call it SIWP, "Spontaneous Intervals of Wholehearted Presence"--which may be as brief in time as it takes to say SIWP as fast as one can! Ha! Yes many "talk about it" and some offer samples of it from time to time. It boils down for me to something like this: "Can "I "serve two masters? Which master do "I" honestly and factually serve"? Which master truly frees the "I" from all positionality, all servitude to all "others"? Do "I" clearly and consistently serve and bear witness to "unknowing, here and now, without disturbing, interfering mediation by thought, thinker or contents of consciousness"? Or do "I" [though formally and piously giving outward obeisance and lip service to Unknowing and thought transcendence-liberation] attempt a compromise or for all intents and purposes effectually sell out to the natural worldly current of thought, contents, reassuring myself as others around me seem to do that if "I" think and swim in these religious colored currents enough, with enough study, discipline, practice, and with recognition by others who carry the mantle of "Spiritual Authority" [could this ever be valid?], then, then I might actually swim "Free" of swimming, fighting currents and be liberated from even being a swimmer"! How shall I live? Shall my mind and thought be "my" "default program"? How shall I understand? Shall "my" analytical and or intellectual powers be primarily depended upon to adequately provide enough light for any authentic wholehearted Enlightenment? If all meditation and spiritual cultivation is ultimately about "life" and living then why is its application, in everyday situations so often found to be one of the last cars on the train and not the first? Perhaps because too many get onboard "The Train of Thought" that leads over time, to lands of more and more refined and "higher" metaphysical thought and ever more "spiritual" and psychologically soothing contents of consciousness?Such passengers therefore cannot do more than merely conceive of, imagine, idealize there being a "No Train of Thought" that always arrives at where it begins in an instant! For me this is a critical situation. Perhaps what is needed [and I speak a little tongue in cheek here, but not entirely] is a new expression of Buddhism--A "Charismatic Buddhism"! No not one that speaks in tongues, but one that is not so "heady", so full of stuff (stuffy), rather one that stresses first and foremost moment to moment in the midst of all circumstances and conditions "The Spirit of Awakening" (Bodhicitta) in a more dynamic, holistic, "short periods, many times" fashion? Well thank you again for your patience and kindness and good work! Yes I certainly will recommend your channel to others who might find it of interest! I also will go over many more of your previous videos and if you don't mind, will occasionally leave comments. E.C.

[@bell10877]

So clear!

[@DharmaTime-is-now]

Mr McLeod is remarkably clear in all his work. We have a number of other videos with his commentary on the channel. Tnx for your interest

[@priyajain6137]

Terrific and Inspiring Video

[@nazmulhassan770]

Thank you for posting it.

[@nasrinaktershapla3044]

I liked this video a lot. I hope you’ll post more from Ken McLeod.

[@mdrabiulislam9669]

👍👍👍👍