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How do you tell a real Buddhist teacher from a fake one? What if you are interested in secular meditation and do not believe Buddhism or other religions are tr

How do you tell a real Buddhist teacher from a fake one? What if you are interested in secular meditation and do not believe Buddhism or other religions are truthful?

eurasiantiger 5y ago
Buddhism is not a religion per se. I’m sure there are cults around it, but as Dalai Lama put it: if science shows Buddhism to be wrong, then Buddhism must change. Good luck finding that sentiment in any actual religion. If you require more proof, make it a priority to seek understanding of ”Buddha-nature”.
- denton-scratch 5y ago
  > make it a priority to seek understanding of ”Buddha-nature” Seriously? Buddha-nature teachings are regarded as heretical by many Buddhists. They assert that all beings have this buddha-nature innately, and that it is indestructible, because it does not arise dependent on causes and conditions. That is very much a religious view, and in direct conflict with the traditional teaching that ALL phenomena without exception arise dependent on causes and conditions.
  - qwerty456127 5y ago
    Regarding anything as heretical is a religious view. Discard it and check yourself through experiential practice and logical exercise. There are many Buddhist/Bön teachers who will never insist on you accepting any idea/dogma nor judge you for thinking different and only guide you to how to actually see it, without harming yourself. Needless to say, as a rather-rational thinker, this is the kind of gurus I prefer. Orthodox dogmatists are there for a different kind of minds. People are different and there are to be ways and teachers optimal for all kinds of them.
    - denton-scratch 5y ago
      > Discard it and check yourself through experiential practice and logical exercise. Discard what? I have said elsewhere in this thread that I am a lapsed Buddhist. I hold no religious dogmas. It's not me that considers buddha-nature teachings to be heretical. And what are "experiential practice" and "logical exercise"? These sound like some kind of private jargon you are using to support your "rather-rational" approach.
      - qwerty456127 5y ago
        I mean you don't have to agree to dogmatic and mystical parts of what a practitioner teaches to still consider and use some techniques and/or philosophical ideas you can also find in their teachings. Experiential practice is when you do something and experience the result. Rub your hands and feel warmth appear - this is an experiential practice of experiencing warmth in your hands. Meditating a certain way you can experience a particular state of mind. This is important because some things are either impossible or useless to describe - you have to experience them and a particular practice may trigger the experience. Logical exercise is when you exercise logic and come to conclusions.
  - eurasiantiger 5y ago
    > They assert that all beings have this buddha-nature innately, and that it is indestructible, because it does not arise dependent on causes and conditions Yes. > in direct conflict with the traditional teaching that ALL phenomena without exception arise dependent on causes and conditions With all due respect, make it a priority to seek understanding of ”Buddha-nature”. Try the Koans.
    - denton-scratch 5y ago
      Studying koans is not a very good way of gaining understanding of something like Buddha Nature; they're designed to create confusion. I wasn't in a Zen tradition, and I'm no longer a Buddhist; I appreciate your respect, but I'm not about to start trying to figure out koans. [Edit: aren't you supposed to have a master, when you're working with koans?] Note that I'm not declaring Buddha Nature teachings to be heretical; in general, I think the really deep divisions between the various Buddhist philosophical positions were (are?) more political than anything else, and I've never considered them important. I've studied both the Uttaratantra and the Uttaratantrashastra, under the direction of a western academic who specialized in the subject (and also happens to be an ordained Buddhist nun). I've also done meditation practices designed to deepen understanding of Yogacara-style thought. I think I have a reasonably good understanding of the subject, for a lazy, lay practitioner. The accusation of heresy is because it's very easy to misinterpret Tathagatagarbha teachings as monism.
      - eurasiantiger 5y ago
        > aren't you supposed to have a master, when you're working with koans? Buddha is my master, teacher and guide, etc. This is all sorts of hilarious from a Zen perspective; interpreting Tathagatagarbha as monism, or Buddha as anything, heh.
        rtikulit 5y ago
        “A teacher when one is required, no teacher when one is not required,“ or something like that. :) The Buddha is an existence proof of the possibility of direct independent observation and understanding.
- simiones 5y ago
  > if science shows Buddhism to be wrong, then Buddhism must change. Good luck finding that sentiment in any actual religion. This is actually not that uncommon, despite some popular image problems. For example, catholicism has a long history of scientific thought being used to change the common understanding of their scriptures. Even the infamous treatment of Galileo's asssertions about the Earth moving around the sun were more a question of scientific debate and politics than any religious dogmatism: a lot of powerful people in the church simply considered the heliocentric model better science and a settled matter, and used their political power to silence opponents. In fact, today most christian churches regard the scientific understanding of the world (big bang theory, evolution, geological times etc) as correct, and consider the biblical accounts to be metaphors and reflective of a deeper truth about God's involvement in creation. I believe the same holds true for most muslims, though I am not sure; and I have no idea if it does or not in hinduism. Young Earth creationists and other groups taking the bible as literal truth (6000 year old earth, literal 6 days of creation etc) are a small but vocal minority.
  - Y_Y 5y ago
    The Vatican runs a research observatory that produces good scientific output. Also they have a mega-rare tld: http://www.vaticanobservatory.va/content/specolavaticana/en.html http://www.vaticanobservatory.va/content/specolavaticana/en....
    - User23 5y ago
      Alas, the world may never see yeshi.va and di.va, to name a couple.
  - User23 5y ago
    > a lot of powerful people in the church simply considered the heliocentric model better science and a settled matter, and used their political power to silence opponents It's good to remember that human nature hasn't changed and the same thing is almost certainly happening today too.
- pmoriarty 5y ago
  "Buddhism is not a religion per se." There are many types of Buddhism, and some types are definitely very religious. Take Pure Land Buddhism[1][2], for example, one of the most popular forms of Buddhism in Japan, believers of which essentially pray to the Buddha for salvation and hope to be reborn in a heavenly land. It has some interesting similarities to Christianity. Buddhism as it's actually practiced in parts of Asia has many magical, "superstitious" components, like believing that a red string connected to a statue of the Buddha can transfer magical power from the Buddha to what the string is tied to. Believers pray to Buddha all the time for protection, luck, or even wealth. Some Buddhists believe in magical effects from tattoos made by Buddhist monks or that a Buddhist funeral would bring an auspicious rebirth. Speaking of rebirth, the belief in reincarnation (which is central to most forms of Buddhism) is certainly religious in nature. Same with the belief in karma. Also, one reason that Buddhism has been so successful around the world is that it can co-exist with and even absorb local religions to such an extent that many people who consider themselves Buddhists still believe in all sorts of gods, demons, or spirits, and for them Buddhism is not seperable from such beliefs. It's only certain types of Buddhism in certain contexts which have been desacralized. "as Dalai Lama put it: if science shows Buddhism to be wrong, then Buddhism must change" He might have said it but I'm skeptical as to just how much change he'd be willing to subject his version of Buddhism to. Anyway, the Dali Lama is a representative of just one form of Buddhism: Tibetan Buddhism, which is far from representative of Buddhism as a whole, and one that's pretty far from being secular compared to, say, Zen or Chan. Even when focusing on just the more secular forms of Buddhism, at what point does veneration of the Buddha become worship? Is faith in the effectiveness of the Eightfold Path, the Buddha, and the Sangha all that different from Christian faith in God or in the effectiveness of works, faith, or grace (depending on one's denomination) in being saved? There's been a concerted, conscious effort to desacralize Buddhism to make it more palatable to Westerners, but if you look at how Buddhism is actually practiced in the places where it came from before it got to the West it's pretty clear that it's a religion. [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pure_Land_Buddhism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pure_Land_Buddhism [2] - https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/japanese-pure-land/ https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/japanese-pure-land/
  - qwerty456127 5y ago
- denton-scratch 5y ago
  The Dalai Lama was regurgitating The Buddha. "Do not accept my words simply because I have said them; test them yourself, to see if they are true."
denton-scratch 5y ago
> How do you tell a real Buddhist teacher from a fake one? This is notoriously difficult. Buddhist teachers are extremely reluctant to criticise one another; you won't get a straight answer if you ask "Should I go on a retreat with teacher X?". Ultimately you have to rely on your own intuition, which makes it a bit of a game of dice. > What if you are interested in secular meditation and do not believe Buddhism or other religions are truthful? Good luck finding a secular meditation tradition with more than about 20 years of accumulated knowledge underlying it. Find a real teacher with a lineage; if your inclination is secular, discount the religious elements of the teaching you receive. A secular mindfulness teacher has no lineage support-structure to support their teaching activity. And generally, they don't have the experience and insight that comes from practising a wide variety of techniques in addition to mindfulness. Vipassana has been mentioned, in the article, and here in comments. Vipassana is a set of techniques for destroying the belief that you have an independent self. Not believing you have a self is itself a mark of psychosis. Vipassana is a form of mindfulness; but it's a big mistake to think that Vipassana practice can be secular. It's entirely founded on the (religious) view that belief in an independent self is the root of "suffering".
- pmoriarty 5y ago
  "Vipassana is a set of techniques for destroying the belief that you have an independent self. Not believing you have a self is itself a mark of psychosis." This way of looking at it reveals a clash between Buddhism and mainstream "Western" psychology. If one experiences the self as unreal, the world as unreal, others as unreal, according to some forms of Buddhism you're on your way to enlightenment (if not already there). But according to mainstream Western psychology you're mentally ill. Which is it?
  - denton-scratch 5y ago
    In Western psychiatry, the loss of a sense of self is dissociation, and is a mark of psychosis (to diagnose psychosis, you'd need some other marks, especially delusions or hallucinations). I was over-simplifying when I said "destroying the belief that you have an independent self" - the cause of suffering is attachment to the sense of an independent self. Attachment in general is seen as a cause of suffering, but attachment to the sense of self is the hardest attachment to get rid of. The term "ego" is used in Western discourse about Buddhism, as a cipher for the attachment to the sense of self. That is not what is meant by "ego" in Freudian or Jungian psychiatry (basically, the focus of consciousness). I wish Western Buddhists would stop using that word. Western psychiatry doesn't pretend to address anything like the state of nirvana. It's mainly concerned with curing pathological conditions. I don't think any reputable psychotherapy traditions propose to take you any further than a condition of being free of the most-obvious kinds of hang-ups (Jung and his followers might be exceptions - I'm not sure - Jung's views were very expansive). The Abidharma is the closest thing in Buddhism to psychology; it presents a detailed, practical (for meditators) way of thinking about the mind and how it works. It doesn't resemble Western psychology at all.

How do you tell a real Buddhist teacher from a fake one? What if you are interested in secular meditation and do not believe Buddhism or other religions are truthful?

eurasiantiger 5y ago

Buddhism is not a religion per se. I’m sure there are cults around it, but as Dalai Lama put it: if science shows Buddhism to be wrong, then Buddhism must change. Good luck finding that sentiment in any actual religion. If you require more proof, make it a priority to seek understanding of ”Buddha-nature”.

denton-scratch 5y ago
> make it a priority to seek understanding of ”Buddha-nature” Seriously? Buddha-nature teachings are regarded as heretical by many Buddhists. They assert that all beings have this buddha-nature innately, and that it is indestructible, because it does not arise dependent on causes and conditions. That is very much a religious view, and in direct conflict with the traditional teaching that ALL phenomena without exception arise dependent on causes and conditions.
- qwerty456127 5y ago
  Regarding anything as heretical is a religious view. Discard it and check yourself through experiential practice and logical exercise. There are many Buddhist/Bön teachers who will never insist on you accepting any idea/dogma nor judge you for thinking different and only guide you to how to actually see it, without harming yourself. Needless to say, as a rather-rational thinker, this is the kind of gurus I prefer. Orthodox dogmatists are there for a different kind of minds. People are different and there are to be ways and teachers optimal for all kinds of them.
  - denton-scratch 5y ago
    > Discard it and check yourself through experiential practice and logical exercise. Discard what? I have said elsewhere in this thread that I am a lapsed Buddhist. I hold no religious dogmas. It's not me that considers buddha-nature teachings to be heretical. And what are "experiential practice" and "logical exercise"? These sound like some kind of private jargon you are using to support your "rather-rational" approach.
    - qwerty456127 5y ago
      I mean you don't have to agree to dogmatic and mystical parts of what a practitioner teaches to still consider and use some techniques and/or philosophical ideas you can also find in their teachings. Experiential practice is when you do something and experience the result. Rub your hands and feel warmth appear - this is an experiential practice of experiencing warmth in your hands. Meditating a certain way you can experience a particular state of mind. This is important because some things are either impossible or useless to describe - you have to experience them and a particular practice may trigger the experience. Logical exercise is when you exercise logic and come to conclusions.
- eurasiantiger 5y ago
  > They assert that all beings have this buddha-nature innately, and that it is indestructible, because it does not arise dependent on causes and conditions Yes. > in direct conflict with the traditional teaching that ALL phenomena without exception arise dependent on causes and conditions With all due respect, make it a priority to seek understanding of ”Buddha-nature”. Try the Koans.
  - denton-scratch 5y ago
    Studying koans is not a very good way of gaining understanding of something like Buddha Nature; they're designed to create confusion. I wasn't in a Zen tradition, and I'm no longer a Buddhist; I appreciate your respect, but I'm not about to start trying to figure out koans. [Edit: aren't you supposed to have a master, when you're working with koans?] Note that I'm not declaring Buddha Nature teachings to be heretical; in general, I think the really deep divisions between the various Buddhist philosophical positions were (are?) more political than anything else, and I've never considered them important. I've studied both the Uttaratantra and the Uttaratantrashastra, under the direction of a western academic who specialized in the subject (and also happens to be an ordained Buddhist nun). I've also done meditation practices designed to deepen understanding of Yogacara-style thought. I think I have a reasonably good understanding of the subject, for a lazy, lay practitioner. The accusation of heresy is because it's very easy to misinterpret Tathagatagarbha teachings as monism.
    - eurasiantiger 5y ago
      > aren't you supposed to have a master, when you're working with koans? Buddha is my master, teacher and guide, etc. This is all sorts of hilarious from a Zen perspective; interpreting Tathagatagarbha as monism, or Buddha as anything, heh.
      - rtikulit 5y ago
        “A teacher when one is required, no teacher when one is not required,“ or something like that. :) The Buddha is an existence proof of the possibility of direct independent observation and understanding.
simiones 5y ago
> if science shows Buddhism to be wrong, then Buddhism must change. Good luck finding that sentiment in any actual religion. This is actually not that uncommon, despite some popular image problems. For example, catholicism has a long history of scientific thought being used to change the common understanding of their scriptures. Even the infamous treatment of Galileo's asssertions about the Earth moving around the sun were more a question of scientific debate and politics than any religious dogmatism: a lot of powerful people in the church simply considered the heliocentric model better science and a settled matter, and used their political power to silence opponents. In fact, today most christian churches regard the scientific understanding of the world (big bang theory, evolution, geological times etc) as correct, and consider the biblical accounts to be metaphors and reflective of a deeper truth about God's involvement in creation. I believe the same holds true for most muslims, though I am not sure; and I have no idea if it does or not in hinduism. Young Earth creationists and other groups taking the bible as literal truth (6000 year old earth, literal 6 days of creation etc) are a small but vocal minority.
- Y_Y 5y ago
  The Vatican runs a research observatory that produces good scientific output. Also they have a mega-rare tld: http://www.vaticanobservatory.va/content/specolavaticana/en.html http://www.vaticanobservatory.va/content/specolavaticana/en....
  - User23 5y ago
    Alas, the world may never see yeshi.va and di.va, to name a couple.
- User23 5y ago
  > a lot of powerful people in the church simply considered the heliocentric model better science and a settled matter, and used their political power to silence opponents It's good to remember that human nature hasn't changed and the same thing is almost certainly happening today too.
pmoriarty 5y ago
"Buddhism is not a religion per se." There are many types of Buddhism, and some types are definitely very religious. Take Pure Land Buddhism[1][2], for example, one of the most popular forms of Buddhism in Japan, believers of which essentially pray to the Buddha for salvation and hope to be reborn in a heavenly land. It has some interesting similarities to Christianity. Buddhism as it's actually practiced in parts of Asia has many magical, "superstitious" components, like believing that a red string connected to a statue of the Buddha can transfer magical power from the Buddha to what the string is tied to. Believers pray to Buddha all the time for protection, luck, or even wealth. Some Buddhists believe in magical effects from tattoos made by Buddhist monks or that a Buddhist funeral would bring an auspicious rebirth. Speaking of rebirth, the belief in reincarnation (which is central to most forms of Buddhism) is certainly religious in nature. Same with the belief in karma. Also, one reason that Buddhism has been so successful around the world is that it can co-exist with and even absorb local religions to such an extent that many people who consider themselves Buddhists still believe in all sorts of gods, demons, or spirits, and for them Buddhism is not seperable from such beliefs. It's only certain types of Buddhism in certain contexts which have been desacralized. "as Dalai Lama put it: if science shows Buddhism to be wrong, then Buddhism must change" He might have said it but I'm skeptical as to just how much change he'd be willing to subject his version of Buddhism to. Anyway, the Dali Lama is a representative of just one form of Buddhism: Tibetan Buddhism, which is far from representative of Buddhism as a whole, and one that's pretty far from being secular compared to, say, Zen or Chan. Even when focusing on just the more secular forms of Buddhism, at what point does veneration of the Buddha become worship? Is faith in the effectiveness of the Eightfold Path, the Buddha, and the Sangha all that different from Christian faith in God or in the effectiveness of works, faith, or grace (depending on one's denomination) in being saved? There's been a concerted, conscious effort to desacralize Buddhism to make it more palatable to Westerners, but if you look at how Buddhism is actually practiced in the places where it came from before it got to the West it's pretty clear that it's a religion. [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pure_Land_Buddhism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pure_Land_Buddhism [2] - https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/japanese-pure-land/ https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/japanese-pure-land/
- qwerty456127 5y ago
denton-scratch 5y ago
The Dalai Lama was regurgitating The Buddha. "Do not accept my words simply because I have said them; test them yourself, to see if they are true."

denton-scratch 5y ago

> How do you tell a real Buddhist teacher from a fake one? This is notoriously difficult. Buddhist teachers are extremely reluctant to criticise one another; you won't get a straight answer if you ask "Should I go on a retreat with teacher X?". Ultimately you have to rely on your own intuition, which makes it a bit of a game of dice. > What if you are interested in secular meditation and do not believe Buddhism or other religions are truthful? Good luck finding a secular meditation tradition with more than about 20 years of accumulated knowledge underlying it. Find a real teacher with a lineage; if your inclination is secular, discount the religious elements of the teaching you receive. A secular mindfulness teacher has no lineage support-structure to support their teaching activity. And generally, they don't have the experience and insight that comes from practising a wide variety of techniques in addition to mindfulness. Vipassana has been mentioned, in the article, and here in comments. Vipassana is a set of techniques for destroying the belief that you have an independent self. Not believing you have a self is itself a mark of psychosis. Vipassana is a form of mindfulness; but it's a big mistake to think that Vipassana practice can be secular. It's entirely founded on the (religious) view that belief in an independent self is the root of "suffering".

pmoriarty 5y ago
"Vipassana is a set of techniques for destroying the belief that you have an independent self. Not believing you have a self is itself a mark of psychosis." This way of looking at it reveals a clash between Buddhism and mainstream "Western" psychology. If one experiences the self as unreal, the world as unreal, others as unreal, according to some forms of Buddhism you're on your way to enlightenment (if not already there). But according to mainstream Western psychology you're mentally ill. Which is it?
- denton-scratch 5y ago
  In Western psychiatry, the loss of a sense of self is dissociation, and is a mark of psychosis (to diagnose psychosis, you'd need some other marks, especially delusions or hallucinations). I was over-simplifying when I said "destroying the belief that you have an independent self" - the cause of suffering is attachment to the sense of an independent self. Attachment in general is seen as a cause of suffering, but attachment to the sense of self is the hardest attachment to get rid of. The term "ego" is used in Western discourse about Buddhism, as a cipher for the attachment to the sense of self. That is not what is meant by "ego" in Freudian or Jungian psychiatry (basically, the focus of consciousness). I wish Western Buddhists would stop using that word. Western psychiatry doesn't pretend to address anything like the state of nirvana. It's mainly concerned with curing pathological conditions. I don't think any reputable psychotherapy traditions propose to take you any further than a condition of being free of the most-obvious kinds of hang-ups (Jung and his followers might be exceptions - I'm not sure - Jung's views were very expansive). The Abidharma is the closest thing in Buddhism to psychology; it presents a detailed, practical (for meditators) way of thinking about the mind and how it works. It doesn't resemble Western psychology at all.