How to judge your meditation master.
A few days ago, I read an article in the paper which made me see the
need in talking about this issue to my students. The headline was Meditation
cult "drove my son to his death". It was about a 34 year old
freelance photographer who committed suicide. His mother believed that her son
was pushed over the edge by his involvement with the mystic cult,
Transcendental Meditation. The son had spent the last five years seeking to
reach a "higher level of consciousness" through the movement led by
Maharashi Mahesh Yogi, the guru consulted by the Beatles in the sixties.
The following was the speech I made in my Tai chi class yesterday:
We all know that nowadays there are so many organisations set up that claim to help people to
reach enlightenment. The Tai chi class that I am running now, is no different.
I am claiming exactly the same thing. But when there is news about different
cult leaders doing awful things to
their followers, we need to investigate
what we are doing. The ultimate malpractice among those cult movement
has to be persuading their
followers to commit mass suicide which has happened from time to time in the
past; the recent ones were those led by David Koresh which ended in the most
tragic incidents in Waco Texas and caused much death. The last one was the
group called the Solar Temple which called their followers to commit suicide in
Switzerland and Canada one day after another. And the article cutting I am holding in my hand right now is
another tragic incident resulting from another meditation cult movement. However, the investigation over both
David Koresh and The Solar Temple revealed the more frightening fact; the
followers might not have agreed with the suicide pact; they were murdered after
all. It is quite noticeable as well that most members in those religious sects
were middle class and upper middle
class people who have money and are very intelligent but why and how could they be so easily led and end up in such tragedy ?
This kind of incident
doesn't only happen in the west where people incline to find refuge in
spiritual activity nowadays. It happened in the east too. In Thailand we hear
of Buddhist monks, who had millions of followers, behaving very badly such as
becoming involved in sexual conduct, raking money from their faithful followers
and so on. This has been all too familiar in Thailand during the past decade.
Buddhism as an institution has almost fallen to its lowest ebb. Many Thai
people have refused to have anything to do with the monks anymore.
All these incidents made me learn. I am learning from other people's
mistakes as well as my own. I won't be surprised if you all wonder whether I
might lead you to another disaster like those I mentioned. In fact, I want to
urge you to question the
competence of your meditation teacher and always have some reservation about
what they say. Be careful of your first step into anything.
You all need to have some kind of indication which can be used as a
ruler to judge your leaders so that you have some idea whether you should stay
and learn more from him or her or you should walk away as quickly as you can.
What has gone wrong ? From
what I can gather, I want to believe that those cult leaders may have even
started on the right track. They could
genuinely have wanted to help people to begin with. It was probably just
like what I am doing now and from
a few people, it began to grow bigger and bigger. If the leaders do not observe
any moral codes and most importantly do not have the right kind of wisdom which
leads towards the right objective, anything can go wrong. A devil named Greed is waiting to join in; a Satan named Self-delusion
is also desperate to take over.
One can only teach
according to what one knows. The knowledge about the path to the ultimate enlightenment is something
one cannot pretend or even teach from a book. That is because a real teacher
will teach from his or her own experience only. The real teacher can only use
the first level of language and not the second level. Though he or she quotes
the words of their masters, those words would be made new once again by the
real teacher, those words would be repeated with great conviction.
Those
who do not follow the true path to
ultimate enlightenment may easily experience mental delusion. When we
have physically lost our way in a forest, we can easily tell and find our way
out. But being lost in mental labyrinth is another matter altogether. One life time is not long enough
to get us out of our mental jungle. As far as spiritual development is
concerned, we all need to have some guided wisdom from someone, the question
is how can we find an honest and
genuine person who truly has compassion as well as the right knowledge ?
The easy way to judge whether your master is real or not is by looking
at the ego or the self-centredness of the person. If
you know how, it will be quite easy to judge. A lot of people don't know what
kind of quality they should look
for in their masters. Therefore, people would incline to follow someone
who is famous and has lots of followers.
Normally the famous one would have charisma along with its distinctive
ingredients such as: good looks, charm, high confidence, a persuasive way of
talking, talent, convincing, etc.
Most people can be easily charmed by this kind of leader. Otherwise, they could not lead hundreds
and thousands of people to follow them. Many followers might have the
experience that this was the best thing that had happened to their lives and it
sounded such a right thing to do at the time. However confidence must be
balanced with the right kind of wisdom. If any leader had been misled by
errors, they could easily become demons in the appearance of saints and
disaster is imminent !
Firstly, it is always safer if the spiritual knowledge taught has a
connection with the well established religions like Buddhism and
Christianity
despise all the troubles and
splits among them. That is because
the real spiritual teachers, who know what they are talking about, will always
have respect and refer to their original masters who gave them the guided
wisdom. They will never ever claim that it is their own spiritual knowledge to
begin with. If they do so, they don't know what they are talking about
whatsoever. Those masters could only be a few persons whom we can truly put our
trust on. They were, Lao Tzu, the person who wrote the Book of Genesis, The
Buddha and Lord Jesus Christ.
Someone might argue that their meditation practice has nothing to do
with Buddhism or Buddhist Truth because what they do is about Christianity,
about God, about Christian's Truth; therefore, it is different kind of
enlightenment. When we talk about
enlightenment, it can only mean one thing and that is our spiritual development
or spiritual journey. It means we talk about the abstract side of human beings
and that can only point to the same thing unless we are talking about different
human species here. If one had
achieved the higher level of enlightenment , that person would also have the
higher ability to relate to things. It is like climbing up a ten-storey
building. The higher you are, the better you can see the view and the more you
can link the places you see from the top. If people cannot link, it means they
haven't gone that far yet. Our life journey is much more complex than climbing
up a ten storey building. The higher level of enlightenment means the ability
to see the whole life map and can offer the most direct route to lead people
out from this gigantic mental labyrinth. And this was what our great saints in
the past have done and thus paved the way for us.
As I wrote in one of the chapters in my previous book, if there is an ultimate Truth at all,
there has to be only ONE TRUTH,
not two or three. Then, I tried to find the link between the ultimate
achievement all the holy persons had claimed and those were: The
Tree of Life, The state of Godhood, Nibbana and Tao. I tried to prove
that no matter whether it was Lao Tzu, the Buddha, the person who wrote the
Book of Genesis or Christ, they all talked about the same thing and that is the
ultimate or the absolute element in nature. There is no such thing that can be
claimed as the Christian's Ultimate Truth which is separate from the Buddhist
Absolute Truth. Those who truly comprehend their saints' teachings and have
reached the profound insight of their own mental development, deep down, they
would not claim to be a Christian, a Buddhist or a Taoist. I can only say that these are only cheap labels ! Lao Tzu, the Buddha and
Christ were born for humanity, not only for the Taoist, the Buddhists or the
Christians. As a matter of fact,
all enlightened people are simply
normal and ordinary human-being.
We have begun our lives as an innocent human-being, we have to end our
lives by achieving the state of an innocent human-being too.
The breakthrough criteria is that the ultimate enlightenment has
everything to do with the extinction of the self or ego. Anyone, who is on the
right path, has to at least show some signs that they have a small ego and less self-centredness. In Buddhism, we
have a role model whom we call Pra Arahant, meaning the one who has
reached the end of all suffering or the ultimate enlightenment. It is a well
known fact among the Buddhists that a Pra Arahant has no self or ego. His self,
his desire and all defilement have totally been irradicated. Therefore, a Pra Arahant can walk along the road totally unnoticed by others because physically
he looks just like the rest of us,
the difference is his state
of mind. They don't walk about
with a halo over their heads ! Apart from the Buddha who proclaimed himself as
the fully enlightened one for the reason of helping people, it isn't the nature of a Pra Arahant to boast
about his spiritual achievement. This is one of the many disciplines the Buddha
has laid down for his followers. During the Buddha's time, the Buddha himself
would be the one who proclaimed which of his followers had reached the
Arahantship due to appropriate reasons only. There were a number of times when
the Buddha and his followers were walking or gathering in a congregation and
people mistook one of his
followers who appeared to have very refined manners as the Buddha.
Anyhow, the point is that the more enlightened one is, the simpler and
the more ordinary one will become. Ego and simplicity will always walk away
from each other. You can only be simple and ordinary because you have a small
ego. A self-absorbed, pompous and arrogant person cannot be any way near the
path to ultimate enlightenment at
all because if they are any way near the right path, they won't be pompous and
arrogant. A real teacher can never boast about his spiritual achievement no
matter what level of enlightenment he has reached. He would feel simple in
himself and he even looks as simple as anyone else walking along the street.
Therefore, any meditation teacher who boasts about himself or herself, cannot be a genuine one. I am
quite certain of that.
Again the role model like Pra Arahant do not need many material items to
live on. The four basic necessities as food, clothing, medicine and shelter,
are enough for them. According to the Buddhist disciplines, Buddhist monks are
allowed to posses eight items: 3 pieces of saffron, a bowl, a knife, a kettle,
a piece of cloth to sieve water and a box of needle and cotton. Buddhist monks are supposed to live on food which
is offered by laypeople and they are not allowed to keep any food after midday.
If the Buddha could come back to
see how the monks in Thailand live today, he would certainly have a shock !
The real teachers always help their followers to be independent from them and not the
other way round. It is true that initially all beginners have to find guidance to guide their way through but
a good spiritual teacher will always reveal the practice which can be applied
into people's way of life. During the Buddha's time, there was a man who was
infatuated with the look of the Buddha. He was ordained into monkhood so that he could follow the
Buddha everywhere. In the end, the Buddha had to shout at him and told him to
go away and never be near him again. The Buddha had to proclaim that: Whoever
sees me will see dhamma. Whoever sees dhamma will see me. Those who cannot see
dhamma, even though they are touching my robe, they cannot see me. That
monk reached Arahantship after that. (The word dhamma in general terms
means the teaching of the Buddha. In the above sense, it means the enlightened
state of the mind.)
The above indication are
very clear and distinctive. You can easily use them to judge any
spiritual teacher you want to follow. If the leader has become too rich and
leads a luxurious way of life, that person cannot be spiritual let alone being enlightened.
The next indication is sexual conduct; a highly enlightened person no longer needs sexual pleasure
because they have found something else which is much more refined and
enjoyable. Those who practised meditation before would know about this fact and
this has become the drive for the practitioners to pursue further. Sexual misconduct commonly happens to some cult leaders.
Female members were sexually exploited by their well respected masters. The
following two things do not mix. They are: the enlightened person who claims to
be a spiritual teacher and an obsession with sex. Normally, sexual exploitation of the female members would have to go hand in hand with
intimidation. For example, if a cult leader says that you'll be cursed into
damnation if you don't give him money and sex and so on. Such intimidation cannot possibly come from
a real teacher. You have to be strong enough to judge him or her and get away.
We should not have any fear at all on the path to the ultimate enlightenment.
We should feel good from the very beginning when we hear about the good news,
feel good while we are in the process of walking along the path and feel good
still when we experience the end result.
I don't want to think that
those people started their spiritual work with every intention to
exploit people or kill their members in the end. I want to believe that they
were on the right track to begin with; they genuinely wanted to help people to
be enlightened. Otherwise their organisations wouldn't have grown that much.
Nevertheless, no one is safe as long as he or she hasn't reached the state of
Arahantship. Only a fully enlightened one is safe on this path. As far as the
cult movement is concerned, the
downfall occurs when the organisation grows too big with too many members.
"Power corrupts" is always true. A person who can successfully do a
big job is the one who has the smallest ego as well as always taking refuge in
the state of sanity. A sensible person who does not trust his or her own ego,
that it might flourish when power comes, would not enter into any work that may
bring too much power and high status. They would know that it is dangerous !
When money begins rolling in from the faithful and loyal members, power and
status begin to bloom; a spiritual leader, who hasn't gone very far on this
path, will be weakened by temptation. Once power totally takes over a spiritual
teacher, he is just another person like the rest of us who finds it difficult
to control greed, anger and delusion.
Ajarn Khemananda said that: "When there is only one person bowing
to us, we can feel quite normal. When there are ten people bowing to us, we
feel rather good about it; when a hundred people bow to us, we begin to
convince ourselves that we must be really good in whatever we do. The more people
bow to us, the more abnormal we begin to feel. If there are millions and
millions of people bowing to us, we can easily be trapped in our self-delusion
unless we have "The Real Truth" or the state of sanity with us."
We can easily see that power corrupts nearly everywhere in our society.
How many decent people who enter into the realm of power, who have wealth, fame
and status, can cope well ? Most
of them are destroyed terribly either mentally by having a nervous breakdown or
even physically by committing suicide. Only a real spiritual teacher will run
away from all these false values that people in general mostly adore. Money is nothing but a
pot of worms. People can make good money but money cannot make good people.
I
have known a Thai monk who followed exactly this pattern. From being a simple
and hard working monk with some
good looks and charm, he attracted a great number of female followers. Money,
status and fame rolled in endlessly for a good twenty years. When he emerged
from the departure lounge at the airport, foreigners thought that the King of
Thailand was there because waves of people bowed their heads down
simultaneously. When the truth was revealed three years ago, Yantra was a
father of a ten-years old girl; he had been having affairs with a number of
women; he was violent to one of his faithful female senior followers who didn't agree with what he had
done; he copied the poem of other writer and claimed it was his own and many
more ugly things. He had brought shame to the Buddhist institution and to
Thailand. In the end, doctors revealed that his behaviour proved that he was more or less insane.
I have met Yantra in Birmingham about three or four years ago just
before his scandal erupted. I was another person who was conned by his fame.
Though I had some doubt about his behaviour which was very much against the
monkhood discipline, I wasn't strong enough to let that doubt take over me.
That was because to question a Buddhist monk, let alone a very famous one like
Yantra, isn't the nature of Thai people. Living far away from Thailand for such
a long time, I wasn't aware of the gossip that had been going on during that
time. So, I had no reservation about Yantra when I met him. That lesson about
Yantra has taught me a great deal. I can understand why my spiritual teacher,
Ajarn Khemananda wanted to disrobe. Being a famous Buddhist monk in Thailand
always brings high respect from people and that can proved to be quite a burden
for a real teacher. I am not sorry that he decided to resign from monkhood; he
is still my dearest teacher.
I am sorry that I spent
more time telling you all these things today. I must admit that I am
very concerned about what has happened to lots of unfortunate people,
especially young innocent children along with their parents, who had to die in
what they claimed as mass suicide. This kind of tragedy could have been avoided
if people had some guidelines of how to judge their cult leaders. This includes
judging myself as well. You might not know that I have been trying to avoid
using phrases like "please
trust me", "You must trust me because I am leading you on the right
path." I truly think that it
will be safer if you don't trust me. Who am I ? When you think about it, I am a
total stranger to you unless you are in my advanced class and get to know me a
bit better. All the tragedy that
has happened is because people put too much blind trust in their cult leaders.
We got to have some reservations about what these people say.
This is how I got the idea of planning my strategy in teaching Tai chi
here. To make it work, it has to
be a scientific method. The only difference is that both the laboratory and the
test-tube are right here; our own life-form, body and mind. I have to make you understand and see that if
you put in A as a cause, you will have B as a result. Luckily, you can see this
abstract mechanism works rather quickly when you put in the right cause. When I
guide you to develop your high level of sensitivity which is the cause,
towards the end of our Tai chi
session, we can all experience a tranquil mind and all our mental problems
resolve. When you can actually see the link between the cause and the effect
happening within you, there is no need for you to blindly trust me or anyone. On the contrary, I urge you to trust yourself,
trust what you can see like all scientists do. So, if you detect anything at
all in me that indicate my incompetence whether it is now or in the future, I beg you to walk
away from me, please.
As a matter of fact, the Buddha had already prepared for us to judge it
for ourselves whenever we have any doubts. It was a sermon called Kalamasutta which is the name of a
clan of people who were having political dispute with others and various
rumours were spreading. I don't know whether the Buddha's sermon could help the Kalama people to settle their political
dispute or not but it certainly settle
all the doubtful matter in our minds. He said:
1) Be not led by report.
2) Be not led by tradition.
3) Be not led by hearsay.
4) Be not led by the
authority of text.
5) Be not led by mere logic.
6) Be not led by inference.
7) Be not led by considering appearance.
8) Be not led by the agreement with a considered and approved theory.
9) Be not led by seeming possibilities.
10) Be not led by the idea "this is our teacher.".
Not until when one can understand by oneself that the deeds one carried out is meritorious or sinful,
useful or harmful, wise people praise or condemn, then one should know whether
to pursue or abandon those deeds.
The point is that we can follow the above advice only when we know the vipassana-bhavana, learning how to read the "big book" and find the truth hidden within ourselves. Only then can we know for ourselves what right from wrong and can truly not be led by all the things that the Buddha mentioned. Vipassana-bhavana can truly make the practitioners become independent from all doubts.
You all are still quite young. In only a couple more years at the most,
you'll be leaving this university and you have a whole life in front of you.
Some of you after attending this Tai chi class, might want to pursue a bit more meditation practice.
You may bump into another meditation teacher. If there is any element of doubt
about your spiritual teacher, please think of what I have told you today. If
you are not sure about what and why you will be doing, it will be safer if you
can walk away.
Thank you
very much for listening to this long speech. I wish you all the best of luck in
the future. If you wish to write to me, this is my address:
Supawan Green
236 Ryde Park Rd.
Rednal,
Birmingham, B45 8RJ.
UK