I left Zen behind
decades ago, and yet I still feel there is something sacred about Zen
lineage. Perhaps this is why I'm so annoyed as I notice, more and
more, how half-baked teachers from other traditions —or perhaps
from no tradition—apply the term “Zen Master” to themselves.
Even someone who has practiced and taught Zen for years is not a Zen
Master, or Roshi in Japanese,
unless that person's own Roshi has designated him or her as a
successor. Certainly, then, someone who has scarcely, if ever,
set foot in a Zen center is not entitled to this designation.
My own teacher,
Adyashanti, who comes from Zen, doesn't call himself a “Zen
Master,” or any other kind of “master,” for that matter. But
after a series of awakenings inspired by his presence, there was a
period almost a decade ago now when I researched the various American
Zen lineages. It seemed—and still does seem—that something
incredibly precious was transmitted, and that it didn't start with my
teacher but went back hundreds or even thousands of years. Maybe it's
this sense of the preciousness of transmission that causes me to feel
that it's a travesty for someone who has only the vaguest familiarity
with Zen, or even with Buddhism in some cases, to refer to himself as
a “Zen Master.”
Still, even those
with a little knowledge of the history of Buddhism in America know
that those who are legitimate dharma heirs—successors to the
lineage holders in their tradition—have sometimes behaved in less
than enlightened ways. Thus, people may well ask, “What does it
even mean, anyway, to be a Roshi? Does it really guarantee
that a person is a completely enlightened teacher? It seems that it
doesn't. So if the purpose of lineage is to help potential students
decide if a certain teacher is genuine, maybe it isn't that helpful a
guide.
This brings up the
whole question of teachers and their role. In an interview in
Dialogues with Emerging Spiritual Teachers, by John W. Parker
(Sagewood Press, 2000), Eckhart Tolle concluded that teachers who are
awake sometimes experience return of their ego because of all of the
projection from students (p. 122). In other words, when everyone
thinks you're a god, it's hard not to buy into that view eventually.
Christianity doesn't have that problem because the earthly
manifestation of its god came to earth over 2,000 years ago and never
since. But for seekers in Eastern traditions, the teacher often
unconsciously represents the inner, unmanifest Buddha that is only
consciously realized in awakening. This is natural but also causes
much confusion.
In response to the
quandary over how to find spiritual leaders of integrity, some
communities based in Eastern wisdom have decided to elect their head
teacher through democratic process. But this solution also raises
some questions: Given that we don't know what enlightenment is ahead
of time, how is it possible to select the right person to lead us to
a goal of which we are ignorant? And how can we choose someone who
will not succumb to the egotistic temptation of believing him/herself
to be a great master? I continue to think we in the West need to
grapple with this issue until we find the right structures through
which the teachings transmitted from the East can flourish.
