"You're supposed to observe a teacher for 10 years before becoming a
vowed disciple."
This is not possible, even if the Dalai Lama has said it. Here is why.
Spending all that time observing a teacher means you will, without
any awareness, let your guard down and lose your objectivity.
You'll tell yourself you've kept your critical thinking alive and well,
but that's just an alibi.
Underneath, you'll bond to the teacher and group
while seemingly being objective.
Anthropologists know all about this. It is called "going native"
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We are social mammals. Spend lots of time
in the same environment and you feel at home
after awhile.
Once you feel as though a place and a group is homey and familiar --
you don't want to imagine that anything or anyone unsafe could
be there.
If you spend 10 years (or even 2 years) "observing a teacher" this means
you must do the following:
* Spend years in a sangha observing the teacher. This means you are
attending lectures, paying for and attending classes, 'teachings', volunteering.
Travelling to the sangha and empowerment teachings, paying for parking space, arriving on time so you get a seat, becoming friends with
sangha members, bowing, prostrating, chanting -- all of this will
bond you to the teacher and sangha.
Hours spent waiting for a teacher or visiting dignitary train you in docility.
You get accustomed to rationalizing bad behavior from lamas
that you'd never tolerate from anyone else. A non Tibetan Buddhist who shows up late, who wiggles and giggles and scratches himself during lectures, gives childish and unsatisfactory answers to serious questions -
you'd feel disgusted, say 'Fuck this!' and leave. Not if the person is a lama, guru, rinpoche.
* You spend all this time in a social setting where you must, to participate, follow the etiquette ('forms and ceremonies'). You sit, stand, bow, prostrate. When the teacher makes stupid jokes you laugh with the group. When the teacher
giggles and wiggles, you laugh along with the group.
You socialize and make friends in the sangha. This means listening to miracle stories about the teacher and or other teachers in the lineage. Tales of
paranormal events begin to seem normal. People who are fluent in Tibetan, who are gossiped about has having received permission to do ngondro, while others
are still waiting for the same permission after years of loyal service --
all this will influence your sense of what is normal, what is valuable.
As a newbie, you are told only the encouraging stories. No one wants to
give the dharma a bad name. Because you are a newbie, it is likely you
will be kept in the dark. Older students do not want to lose merit by
discouraging someone.
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/17/2017 09:47PM by corboy.