Shardrol wrote:To quote a typical Buddhist teacher: "Now, Dharma practice, meditation, is much, much more deeper [than purely intellectual learning], and these spiritual realizations that we are trying to cultivate, trying to accomplish . . . it is very profound and delicate. Therefore we do need master or teacher or lama or guru who can show us how to do the practice properly and correctly."
Now this is actually wrong. Pure and simple. For the truth is that one does not necessarily require a physical teacher to help with such things.
I would say that one does in fact require a physical teacher to practice methods which make use of a physical teacher.
Yes, that would be a logical necessity - a truth by definition. But the "guru" I quoted (a Tibetan Buddhist) was saying that a guru is needed just to achieve profound spiritual realizations - which is wrong.
And there is a problem, since teachings that
require the existence of a physical teacher are plagued with the problem that there is no way we can verify for certain that the physical teacher exists, even if we think we might have found one.
Sure, it would definitely be a help to have, say, a fully fledged Buddha or bodhisattva to converse with, but it is not a necessity.
Why would it help?
They might decide to try to influence us in certain directions which might lead us towards enlightenment.
And in ages of darkness, such as the one that we are currently in, proper teachers/gurus are virtually impossible to find.
Age of darkness? Surely you don't accept all that superstitious mumbo-jumbo about the Kaliyuga?
No, I wasn't speaking of the Kaliyuga, it's just my own observation. Over recent centuries the human race seems to be progressing into deeper and deeper spiritual darkness. The light shone probably twice as brightly a century ago than it does today.
Why do you say proper teachers are virtually impossible to find? I think one could learn something from anyone who has some degree of wisdom, even if they are not a perfect Buddha.
Certainly. I often get interesting spiritual morsels from, say, service station attendants or shop assistants. But as for guides to advanced spiritual realizations, they are extremely rare.
They only require a guru if they want to practice Vajrayana, where guru yoga is the central method (what I mean by guru yoga here is unifying with the mind of the teacher, usually through some sort of symbolic practice but also directly).
You don't need a living, physical teacher to be able to unify your mind with the teacher. For example, if you have a book by, say, the Zen Master Hakuin, it is possible for a gifted student to unify his mind with Hakuin, even though Hakuin no longer exists, and may never have actually, physically existed. "Hakuin" is really just an idea in the mind. This is the way it must necessarily be with
all gurus. They are ideas in the mind.
Ultimately there is only one guru, and that is Nature, Buddha, the Dharmakaya (Buddha-body) - which can be physical or spiritual, depending on how you want to think of it.
People have to use their own judgment to discern who is or is not a proper teacher for them - if they want a teacher. There's no reason why they can't do this in the same way that they make other decisions about which books to read or how to spend their time. There are no guarantees - we have to take responsibility for our own choices.
All the same, while people have to take personal responsibility for their mistakes, they aren't at all helped by the kind of bad instruction given by guru I quoted. He is encouraging people to make bad decisions, just like the businessman who encourages people to spend money on tooth-whiteners.