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by Alan
22 comments
Lost in Translation
I’m only five satsangs in to my teaching career, but I think it’s time for a course correction.
In the past I‘ve always considered the irreverence for authority prevalent in the West to be a good thing. Authority is prone to abuse, and is often faked; respect should only be forthcoming when genuine authority is demonstrated.
In the past I’ve found the offense Eastern teachers take from the Westerner’s failure to acknowledge position and status a quant example of culture shock. I’ve also considered Westerner teachers who bemoan our irreverence to be suffering from their own power trips.
But then I had never tried to teach before; I had never encountered how easily people’s issues can co-opt a session (to their complete ignorance); how the failure to honour a teaching hierarchy (especially on my part) can allow others to sabotage the time with their own lack of integrity by holding forth with their opinions; how a student first needs to recognise the teacher’s function and their own reason for being there before any real teaching can commence.
I’ve experienced all of these things (and more) in my very short time as a teacher. And all of this is due to my own naivety!
My plan was simple: I would adapt a traditional Eastern method of teaching by holding a weekly satsang, where those wishing to explore enlightenment could come and ask me questions as a means of facilitating their own enlightenment. It would be relaxed, open and informal. As I was just starting out, I thought adopting a donation model would work best: the room was cheap, and maybe if everyone gave a couple of pounds, I could cover the room hire and perhaps save a bit of cash that could eventually go towards hiring a bigger and better venue, or perhaps allow me to buy a few cushions for our sits, or even organise a weekend retreat.
But the sad fact is very few people are interested in enlightenment, many cannot and do not recognise the function of a teacher, and some couldn’t care less if the cost of the room is covered if they don’t really have to pay.
I’ve come to the conclusion that we Westerner’s only really respect one thing: what we have paid for.
About turn
I like to think of myself as a quick study rather than a failure, but the truth is I have come realise that I am doing my students or the attendees to my teaching sessions an incredible disservice by not honouring the fact they are Western, thereby failing to offer them:
a). a structured, easy to digest teaching (perhaps in modules or stages).
b). a structured, formal teaching environment.
c). the facility to pay a set price for a given service. Let’s face it: you’re only going to pay for something you actually want, and if you’ve paid for it, you’ll definitely try and get all you can out of it!
So I’ve cancelled my forthcoming satsangs, and I hope in a short while to return with a series of talks/workshops that will cover my teaching in a structured, easy to understand manner, and with a set ticket price. I hope this will naturally follow on to weekend and week long retreats.
I have gained a few formal students in this period (and I will continue to accept prospective students) with whom I maintain frequent, personal contact on a 1-2-1 basis (which is a bonus as no money is involved). If you were intending to come to one of the cancelled satsangs, and you are genuinely interested in enlightenment, feel free to e-mail me: alan at (replace with @) openenlightenment.org (no spaces) and we’ll see where we go from there.
I believe Gurdjieff used a similar tactic by booking a session at the very last minute, meaning anyone who wished to attend had to cancel what they were doing/about to do. Needless to say, only the serious showed up.
The problem with a satsang or workshop is that I can’t get on anyone’s case about their practice or their view of awakening, because it’s really an introduction to the teaching. If I really want to set up a lineage of awakened westerners, I need something a lot more selective and much more explicit about the value of the teaching, as you suggest. So I’ve adopted a screening process for formal students, where prospective students are asked to complete a minimum of 6 months of daily recorded sits (I’ve got a few people doing this at the moment, and they all seem to love the idea!). That way I know they are serious about their own practice and that what I have to teach will at least be aimed in the right direction. Hopefully more and more prospective students will come along and make it, and some of these formal students will go on to become awakened, hopefully to go on and set up a branch of their own…
lol. reminds of this kung fu story: this weenie little novice goes to the temple and begs to learn kung fu from the master. the master says: fine, but you have to go and rip that sapling out of the ground first, to prove you’re fit enough!
of course the weenie is not strong enough to even budge the sapling, and spends years working on it, trying to rip this thing out of the ground that is now becoming a small tree.
finally after years of exertion and discipline and conditioning, the prospective student rams his fingers through the wood itself and tears this tree out of the ground with his bare hands. he parades himself over to the master and demands to be taught the secrets of kung fu!
the master replies: teach you? what could I possibly teach you? you can rip trees out of the ground!
w/zac: hehheeha
there are plenty of reasons why enlightenment hasn’t taken off in the west…
though i have no doubt that you will meet with success
find enough students
and even make a living from it…
i believe this will become a lot easier once a culture change has taken place
and for that to happen
i am taking a
minimal alignment
rather than a
maximal enlightenment
stance with respect to our progress…
i am amused that of all the enlightened people on this planet
with the advent of internet et al
haven’t got it together yet
for the benefit of all human beings
and as a consequence
all sentient beings
be well!
I think perhaps you’ve gone from one extreme to the other in your thinking, based on very little experience of teaching. Instead of totally anti-authoritarian, now you appear to be adopting an overly-authoritarian role.
Did you set up expectations for the events clearly in terms of what the students should do as well as what you would do? Were the roles clear? Did you clearly ask for money to pay for the space, asking for a suggested donation amount? Was the format obvious in terms of time, etc.?
Instead of assuming that “people only care about what they pay for,” perhaps it’s that people only take seriously that which is serious, which means clear and obvious how to behave and why to take the event seriously.
I just read your comment to Zach re: setting up 6 months of daily recorded sits. I think this is a great idea, and not necessarily overly authoritarian (as my previous comment stated). Let us know how this works.
Oh, and here’s something for contrast from my local Boulder, Colorado, USA:
http://www.boulderintegral.org/2009/10/senshi-meditation-mindfulness-practice/
Fundamentalist regression or much-needed hierarchy?
Alan, I watch your efforts with keen interest because I have a lot of respect for someone so willing to try stuff, think about the results, course correct, and then try again. I’m not surprised at your latest findings (we in the West value what we pay for) though it was a bit depressing until I realized “paying” might mean something other than the exchange of money – like effort. I, too, like that model.
So thanks for being so open and public about your failures as well as you successes, and please keep us posted. It’s possible that in the end you will arrive, genetic algorithm-like, at a brand spanking new West-centric teaching model.
Best!
- Chris
Six month recorded daily sit? Good idea. Where’d you get it?
Seriously, you know I belong to a magical organization which charges no fees but demands shitloads of hard work from prospectives before they’ll contemplate letting them in. So maybe it’s not necessarily about the money, but IS necessarily about ‘getting with the program.’
Good luck and good hunting.
Kite
@Zac: I forgot to mention: if they miss a day, they have to start the six months over again…;)
@Duff: Yes to all of your questions, but it’s more about the appropriate approach rather than issues of authoritarianism. My approach wasn’t appropriate!
@Chris: Cheers!
@Kite: You would be surprised (or maybe not) at what else is also turning out to be very useful in regards to teaching. It’s all beginning to make sense now…
The fact is that you are a fast learner.
As an example, Nisargadatta Maharaj held satsangs almost every day for more than 30 years in his small attic. During his last days, his regret seemed to be that only a few got just a small fraction of what he had to offer.
He should have sought inspiration from the IOT 
I have a couple of unsorted comments about teaching:
1. One problem will always be the disparity between your knowledge, abilities, attainments, etc., and those of anyone likely to study with you;
2. Your knowledge of the subject you’re teaching is not the same as (and will never magically turn into) pedagogical ability as such;
3. The only way to attain pedagogical ability is (in the words of a gloomy Romanian teacher of mine) to bang your head against a wall for 20 years.
No. 1 means that you will have to invest considerable energy in imagining what you were like when you were a clueless, insecure, inconsiderate, undeservedly arrogant beginner in your chosen discipline, and realizing that these attributes are a function of where students are in their course of study. It also means you can’t really take their nonsense personally, though it is often hard not to.
No. 2 means that, pedagogically speaking, *you* are the clueless, insecure, etc., beginner. I don’t mean “you,” Alan Chapman; I mean all teachers in who are starting out. Again, it’s hard to take this personally when you realize that it’s not you, it’s the stage you’re in.
No. 3 means that there’s no shortcut to bypass nos. 1 and 2; you just have to keep coming back, day after day, trying new things until something works. Sooner or later, something will. Getting to that point means maintaining a generous and open-hearted spirit even when teaching totally sucks, which it does much of the time.
Oh, and no. 4: have some rules. It doesn’t matter so much what they are so long as they make your life easier and everyone knows what they are. If you don’t make up some rules, you students will make them up for you, and they’ll be bad ones. But it appears from this post that you already know this.
Ha ha! You know, Dunc said more or less the same thing last year, but did I listen…?
Love the honesty, openness and transparency Alan 
… also had a great giggle over the “boot’s on the other foot” … reap what you sew and all that.
For sure in qigong culture it is said that respect is shown for the benefit of the students not the master … takes time to spot that and it is abused of course where the teacher has ego-needs.
I think big pic here tho’ is in learning any skill one is ham-fisted in both directions … first stamp on the accelerator, then stamp on the brake, then stamp on the accelerator etc. Ultimately one learns to manage a dynamic balance of dualistic forces.
Seems to me that you found that completely liberalism has its flaws … and you are now embarking on finding by direct experience what are the fatal flaws in the more authoritarian model
I could tell you but you seem to like to let your subpersonalities find out their own limitations directly 
On a more constructive note why not just learn from those with experience? There are plenty of satsangs in London by awakened folks [I didnt realise how many until i got into the non-dual section of conscious.tv ... eg Parsons, Spira, Linden etc]. … and you did name this place *open* enlightenment (not just alan and duncans enlightenment]
Good luck with the new model army!
@Duff – tx for the BoCo read … very entertaining.
“Fundamentalist regression or much-needed hierarchy?”
Someone choses to teach in a certain way … this attracts a certain type of student … as with any method they get certain results and certain blockages/lack of break-throughs.
I think the act of labelling it is a completely conceptual operation (and the act of deciding its (a) or (b) is even worse … interpretation is something I add to the simple way things are (prior para)).
But for sure I would be curious to know what a psychoanalysis of the teacher would come up with … what is it in a man’s subconscious that leads him to want to teach in such an authoritarian way? Freud would have had a field day
There’s no guaranteed way to wake anyone up … folks sell recipes selected from bits of things they did which they decide will work generically … this process is flawed (1) as its hard to see what was cause and effect and awakening is acausal and (2) you dont know where another persons “stuckness” lies … your medicine may or may not fix them.
Anyway back to the ultra-hard core … your CO dude is a wimp compared to the old days. Wang Liping – the head of the Dragon Gate sect of the Complete Reality Branch of Taoism was taught meditation by his masters typing him up with ropes and throwing him in a pit where he was left for hours :-O … gulp … think I’ll go and buy some crytals and pink angel cards
Kindest.
H
I think it speaks volumes that people consider me overly authoritarian by expecting students to meditate – for half an hour no less – everyday. Surely if I was going from one extreme to the other, I’d now be asking students to give me all of their possessions, to shave their heads, chant my teachings at sunrise and sunset, and sit for 10 hours a day while I hit them with a stick.
Another example of the problem discussed in the post?
Thats true
I think all these terms are relative to a certain cultural context … what might be perceived by liberals now as ultra-authoritarian in the 21stC would be perhaps wishy-washy liberalism in 5thC BC Sparta
You also raise an interesting point that a “lineage” (esp. one carrying a big brand name like Buddhism) can reasonably be expected to ask much more than an individual guru.
Speaking for myself I think I was seeing the 6mts, daily requirement as “somewhat strict” (compared to the par of the average London satsang (and not ancient Sparta/Kyoto)) and the danger being of creating “followers” [both of the teacher and a certain technique] … much nicer and easier for a teacher at first but later they can be like limpets and if they just learn to follow can be very hard to get them to stop following and find themselves. Seen it myself many many times. Actually also seen that often its the intelligent rebel who is most likely to “get it” … most hassle for the teacher of course.
But words are just words … recipes are just recipes … there are many types of students, many ways to teach, no one right answer and the proof of the pudding is in the eating (not in having loads of chefs discuss a recipe ).
Good luck old boy!
H
ps you missed out the perennial favourite (I am reliably informed still rife in the Zen community) of “sexual favours” from the nubile
How much do you charge for the stick hitting?
30 min a day isn’t extreme in the least. Goenka says 2 hours a day and at least one 10-day intense silent retreat a year. This is pretty heavy-duty, but still doable if one is committed. In the end Goenka is too conservative for me (“one practice only” etc.), but I appreciate his willingness to ask people to practice intensively.
@Cole: For you, I’ll gladly do it for free…:-b
Stick hitting is a Zen art, like tea ceremony or calligraphy. I give free lessons for those interested.
On a more serious tone, any student-teacher relationship implies a form of commitment on both sides. Even for mundane things, like learning to play the piano, one is expected to practice at least 30 minutes every day if not one hour. My eight years old son can do that, and loves it. His teacher is far from being an authoritarian fascist, and I can see that his main motivation is the joy of sharing his passion with a committed young student.
hmmm…interesting discussion…from this perspective…it sounds like the first step in selling enlightenment…101…a lot of trying to get…bound in expectations…resulting dissappontment…first you must decide whether or not you want to be a teacher or a salesman…
from my current level of awareness…there seems to be a lack of understanding of vibratory energy…the students that show up are the very students that the teacher attracts…the teacher and the student are teaching…
what you need is a screening process. make em sit outside in the rain for a couple days, or sit in zazen for hours doing nothing for a couple hours.
my teacher’s approach was kinda simple: he’d schedule a class and then periodically cancel it for no reason, or make an appointment with a new student and just not show up. if they kept trying, or kept coming even though there might be an unannounced cancellation, he knew the people who were there were at least somewhat serious.
the duplicity of it made me angry when I first figured it out, but it also made me contemplate the value of what he was showing and whether it outweighed the dubious nature of his screening process, so it still had the desired effect.