Traditions, Teachers, and the Will to See
Tradiciones, Maestros y la Voluntad de Ver
A question about whether different spiritual schools (Tantric, Zen, Advaita, and others) point to the same truth, and how the relationship with a teacher shapes the path. The conversation moves into devotion, dependency, and the student's own honesty as the deciding factor.
Traditions, Teachers, and the Will to See
A question about whether different spiritual schools (Tantric, Zen, Advaita, and others) point to the same truth, and how the relationship with a teacher shapes the path. The conversation moves into devotion, dependency, and the student's own honesty as the deciding factor.
My question is about the different schools. I don't mean to reference every single one, but some of the main ones: Tantric, Zen, Advaita, other forms of Buddhism. Are they really talking about the same thing, but one school or even one teacher might be more helpful for a particular person, because people are confused or blocked in different ways?
I don't feel I have a complete answer, but I have a strong sense of one. My sense is that not all schools point to the same thing. But there are subsets of different traditions that are closer. There are subsets of Hinduism, of Buddhism, of Christianity, where they are pointing to the same truth of freedom in different ways. They have recognized it, and the tradition is still alive, carrying that truth forward in a way that is real. It has been recognized, and it continues to be recognized.
The way it's pointed to is bound by the tradition. It has a flavor, a group of metaphors, a particular collection of pointers. In that sense the traditions are different, but they are also the same, in that all metaphors are just metaphors, all pointings are just pointings.
Resonance and its trap
So it does matter what resonates with you. The kind of pointing, the style, the language, can be more appropriate for one person than another. But it can also work the other way around: you could be drawn to a tradition precisely because it favors your conditioning or your beliefs. A tradition that approaches truth more through the mind, like the jnana path in Hinduism and Advaita, versus something more tantric: it could be a perfect fit because that's how you function. But it could also be exactly what you don't need. You might need a more tantric approach because it takes you out of your habitual way of functioning.
My sense is that all true traditions and all truly awake teachers can work with anyone. But to go all the way, one might need to change approaches. In my experience, that's what happened. I needed a very deep, long tantric approach, and then a briefer, direct jnana approach. If I hadn't done all of the deep tantric work, the jnana approach would have just taken me into thought forever, because that was the nature of my conditioning.
This is why the direct path has traditionally been reserved in secrecy until the student is ready. Traditionally, the approach is first ethical. It has to do with growing up. Everything I've been talking about is around waking up, but every tradition also has an aspect of growing up. That aspect is culturally biased, and there's no right or wrong there. It's just whatever helps growing up.
If I hadn't done all of that work on growing up first, the rest wouldn't have landed. Traditions used to approach ethics first, the growing up, and then begin teachings that were more non-dual, and lastly the direct approaches. Today it's all out in the world, mixed up, without much of a progression. So it depends on the student and the teacher to find what's appropriate in the moment for where the student is.
Intuition versus habit
I would say: trust your intuition, trust what resonates. And at the same time, question deeply whether this is real intuition or whether you're just being drawn to the same habitual conditioning. I would have been tempted to ponder very deep philosophical approaches to non-duality, thinking I was working on waking up, when it was just pure intellectual pondering. If that is carried through deeply with proper guidance from a true teacher, it could work. But without a commitment to a teacher, I could have pondered those questions for a long time, thinking I was working on waking up, when it would have stayed merely intellectual. Does that address the question?
Yes. There's another piece I'm trying to catch. So the tantric school is basically what you're calling a progressive or growing-up path?
No. By tantric I mean a path that is much more inclusive of the body, and by extension the world. Much more about going into experience and into life as part of the inquiry, versus an approach that's just about looking at the reality of experience, which is more the jnana approach.
So the drawback or danger in a jnana approach is for somebody who might already be resistant to going into life.
Yes. Someone very comfortable in pondering things intellectually, philosophically, and resistant to life: if there isn't a teacher and a commitment to that teacher who can point it out, it can become a pretty endless loop. And vice versa: someone resisting looking at truth and reality, resisting looking through their beliefs, taking a very directly tantric approach can also become an endless exploration of experience.
The devotional path
There's another approach, which is devotional. The path is more through the heart and through love with an object. The object could be the universe, or specific divine figures, or teachers themselves. That can be a very powerful process where one opens to love, and something very true and real can come of it. The risk is that one is always expecting that love in relationship to something, and not discovering it without the condition of the object: without the teacher, the guru, the divine figure, the world.
It's a trickier path, because many teachers have invited that path, and there needs to be a lot of clarity in the teacher for it not to become a dependency.
So you have to kind of trust the process, or trust life, that you'll go where you need to go.
More than trust life, trust your intuition and what resonates. And at the same time, question yourself deeply. Look for the little tricks of self-deception, the denial, the places where one is not really wanting to see, not really wanting to know. Catching that in yourself, being honest and transparent with yourself, is something a teacher cannot fully do for you. If a teacher challenges that too much and you don't want to see it, you'll just go to the next teacher or the next tradition that confirms and validates your conditioning. It really matters that one is deeply committed to knowing, to seeing through illusion. Even what draws you to a tradition or to a teacher: you can look and see, "Oh, this is really just some habitual avoidance," or, "This is something true and real that resonates deeply." Nobody can really teach you that. It's a wisdom you have with yourself, a deep commitment to truth and waking up.
I don't see what I'm avoiding anymore. In broad strokes, am I avoiding?
No, I don't think you are. In fact, the opposite.
You spoke of commitment and dependency. For someone more heart-based like myself, I'm curious whether a dependency could be valuable on the path, as something that helps strengthen commitment.
Do you mean dependency in general, or a specific kind?
Dependency on a person, on God, on a mantra, on life itself.
My quick answer is yes, I think it can be valuable. There's something in psychology called a transitional object. It refers to a very young child who is completely in need of the mother to be okay. The transitional object becomes something the child can project affection and safety onto, not tied to the mother, so the mother can leave. A typical example is a stuffed animal, a teddy bear, or a small blanket carrying the mother's smell. The child can be wrapped in it and project onto it the sense of safety and love.
But it's transitional, because the question becomes: how does the child eventually have that same sense of love, affection, and safety without the mother and without the object?
The teacher as transitional object
This is exactly the process. If that transitional object is a teacher, the teacher needs to be skilled enough to guide the process. It's not only in the hands of the teacher, but a lot rests there. This is more important and more risky in communities where teachers very much encourage devotional relationships, where there's a flavor of deep love and devotion that almost makes the teacher a god. There are well-known examples of communities like that. There are many. I'm referring to communities where it's all about the teacher, about being close to the teacher, and the teacher starts to become a divine figure. If the teacher isn't working on the transition out of that devotional bond into the realization itself, it becomes risky.
Because then you're sort of lost without him.
Exactly. Completely dependent. My previous teacher had a strong aspect of this. He invited a devotional relationship, and it was very valuable for me. It was probably the only thing that would have worked for me. I was lucky to navigate that with a teacher who was wise in that respect. But I did experience being completely lost when I wasn't near him. Ultimately, it was his death and my relationships with other teachers that finally shifted things.
I'm seeing that if your main method is a teacher, it may actually be necessary to be around him in order to use the method.
I wouldn't say all the time, but I would say that of any true teacher of any style. First, pick a teacher. I have my own recommendations, which includes myself, and I could give a small list. Then what I encourage is not to just say, "These are my teachers," while having very little interaction with them. That's not a wise approach. My recommendation is to work with a living teacher, and to work with a teacher you can dialogue with. Otherwise it's very easy to misinterpret the teaching, and there's no one to point out your illusions.
For example, if I were completely devoted to a popular teacher, read all their books, listened to all their talks, but had no conversations with them and never went to retreats, anything can work. Awakening can happen to anyone at any time for no reason. But that's not an approach I would recommend if we're talking about making oneself more prone to awakening. The conditions are more favorable if you're in direct relationship, having at least somewhat regular conversation.
It's more effective.
Yes, to the degree that the teacher is awake. There are many teachers who are awake, with different degrees and levels of clarity, and different levels of skill in teaching that can be more or less appropriate to each of us in different moments.
Fooling the teacher
But something I do say emphatically: have conversations where a teacher can point things out. The other trick, which I learned from my teacher Rolando, is that one can fool the teacher. You can present something in a way, ask a question in a way, that gets you the answer you want in order to stay in illusion. The teacher then confirms what we want to hear. There isn't a true question; there isn't a transparent wanting to know the truth. You don't reveal the real question or where you really are, and then you get an answer that confirms your biases and conditioning.
And that just strengthens the conditioning.
But now it's validated by the teacher. Some interpretation of what the teacher said confirms that the perspective I already had is correct, but I arrived at that by fooling the teacher.
So it's valuable to have a teacher you can dialogue with and have a close connection with, as well as teachers you can learn other things from in different ways.
Yes, but more importantly, it really comes from you. How honest and committed you are to truth and integrity, and how much you really show yourself in the question, so that the real thing is presented.
It's back to me.
Because ultimately, you could sit with the Buddha, with the greatest teachers who have ever lived, and stay in illusion. The teacher can do whatever they can, and it just won't work, because one wants to stay in illusion. Even if you're sitting, meditating, asking, at a deep level one is wanting to stay in illusion, and there's nothing the teacher can do. The teacher can only guide you to something if you really want to get there, or to see something that is here if you really want to see it. If you don't want to see it, you're not going to see it.
It's hard to see it.
For whatever reason. It's the end of illusion. It's painful, it's scary, it's disillusionment. Some teachers are good at shocking. When there's something you don't want to see, they can shock you into seeing it. I do that a bit, but I'm more careful and tame than some teachers I know who are famously very direct.
You're a very gentle teacher.
And at the same time, people who know me more closely will tell you I can be very shocking. Mostly that happens when I know a person better and have a sense that it's okay, that it's not too much. My point is that some teachers can shatter an illusion in spite of you wanting to preserve it. But then that can become a habit where you don't really want to see, and you're dependent on the teacher to shatter your illusions for you. It all comes down to your own wanting to see.
You see that a lot in day-to-day life, where people hurt each other and accept it as normal. I can be in a relationship, something bothers me, but I don't address it, and that's okay.
Yes. That's the kind of thing that is really up to you. To live in freedom and authenticity, in truth and love. A teacher, a community, or life itself in all its ways can help you along the path of truth, love, and freedom. But if one is not on that path, life will usually take longer. It'll bang you into it, and it might take many lives.
Again and again. Very valuable.