Zen communities commonly take the form of one or more experienced and trusted Zen Teachers leading a group of less experienced Zen students. The distinction between these two classes of people is usually treated as a Big Deal. But what is the nature of this distinction?
Anyone familiar with Zen philosophy will agree that, from the perspective of emptiness or the Absolute, there is no difference at all between a Teacher (I’m using the upper case T to denote formal lineage authorization) and a student. That is because within the Absolute there are no differentiations or dualisms, period: no self vs. other, no past vs. future, not even good vs. evil. Applied more specifically to Teachers and students, this means that both are part of the same (both vast and empty) unity. Everything is 100% Buddha nature.
Yet emptiness and the Absolute are not the totality of reality: their flip side is the world of form and the Relative. You, me, and every human Zen Teacher is also 100% human. As humans, we were born different from cats and oak trees, and for that matter also from deities, angels, or devas. We were also born different from each other, in genetics and situation, and develop differently as we age.
Zen math doesn’t follow the rule that percentages need to add up to 100%, just as it doesn’t follow the logic that says that emptiness and form can’t be the same reality. Eihei Dogen, for one, hammers this point in repeatedly, and especially with his metaphor of the moon in a dewdrop: The entire moon (of enlightenment) is reflected in a single drop of dew (the smallest being), yet the moon doesn’t hinder the dewdrop or vice versa.
In our everyday understanding of teachers (lower case t, meaning anyone who teaches anything) and students, the teacher has some kind of knowledge or skill that the student lacks. As the student progressively learns more and more, their knowledge and skills may gradually come to match (or exceed) that of their teacher. When the subject is English Literature or Auto Repair, this is all very straightforward. The idea that the teacher is somehow other than an ordinary human being would never even cross our minds.
Unfortunately, the case is often quite different when it comes to spiritual teachers. Unlike with English Lit or Auto Repair, the goal is much more mysterious and intangible. Some religious groups use terms like “redemption,” “salvation,” “holiness,” or “liberation.” In Zen we talk about “awakening” or “enlightenment.” So, working from our common understanding of teachers and students, it’s natural to think that our priest, guru, or Teacher is someone who “has” attained that “thing,” which we conceptualize as some sort of elevated or divine nature. We see their possession of this thing as what makes them different from their student. The student needs to work with a Teacher precisely because the student doesn’t yet “have” it.
From here, it’s very tempting to try to apply ordinary math to Zen: We may think of a beginning student as being 100% deluded human being while a senior Teacher is 100% Enlightened Buddha. (Or perhaps 95%, acknowledging a seed of bodhicitta in students and a modicum of clay feet in Teachers.) Senior students or junior teachers may be regarded as having achieved some level in between. Certainly there are religions in which the guru is worshiped as a divine being, and others in which priests are explicitly said to be closer to the divine. Certainly there are Buddhist traditions that teach that the Path to enlightenment progresses through well-demarcated stages, encouraging an image of progression up a Buddha-meter. The notion of “transmission” in Zen also may invite us to imagine teachers pouring something into particularly promising students that causes them to levitate up the scale. To use a different metaphor, we may imagine that ordinary dewdrops get magically turned into illuminated moons.
But this isn’t Zen, as I understand it. Just because a student hasn’t yet intimately realized that they are 100% Buddha nature doesn’t mean that they aren’t. Just because a teacher has had some intimate realization of the fact that they are 100% Buddha nature, doesn’t mean they are not still 100% human.
Enlightenment is not “thing” that one can “have.” It’s not a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. One does not progressively self-improve until one turns into a permanently Enlightened Being. Enlightenment is seeing through this whole mental concept that says we are separate beings who possess a distinct self that exists within clearly delimited space and onward-moving time. Enlightenment is something that we can live in any moment, when that moment is one in which we touch into (or glimpse, or taste) emptiness and act in accord with this realization in the world of form. And because most of our moments are driven by habit energy rather than enlightenment, we steadily practice. As we practice, focusing on becoming more aware of our delusion is actually much more useful than daydreaming about achieving some holier state.
This opportunity for waking up now is true for both students and Teachers. So what makes Teachers different?
In terms of function, teachers teach. In my experience as a Zen practitioner, I have been taught by several very helpful authorized Zen Teachers. I’ve also received important teachings from non-Teacher sangha-mates, by non-practicing friends and family members, by trees, rocks, and airplanes. As I see it, the whole universe is constantly jumping up and down in front of us, encouraging us to let go of all the drama going on inside our little heads and realize who we really are. Although I now have authorization as a Teacher, if I ever stop also being a student—if I ever lose “beginner’s mind” and stop learning from all these sources—please shoot me (metaphorically speaking). I don’t believe there is any core teaching function that is exclusive to teachers, or core learning function that is exclusive to students.
Instead of function, we might look at external indicators and the specific accomplishments they may represent. Traditionally in Zen, Teachers can be identified by formal authorizing documents and accoutrements such as special robes, sticks, and titles (such as Sensei or Roshi). Such things do, I think legitimately, generally signal the following four things:
- A Teacher has gone through more training in the practices, forms, teaching techniques, and philosophy of Zen than someone in their early years of practice.
- In order for them to have received formal authorization from their own Teacher, there also had to have been what Keizan Jokin called “mutual recognition in the room.” That is, their authorizing lineage Teacher has sensed (correctly, we hope) that their student has, indeed, at some point, intimately experienced awakening, whether sudden and dramatic or more gradual and subtle. This means that if they later become a Teacher they can potentially bring experience and originality, not just learned forms and academic philosophizing, to their teaching. The formal ceremony of teaching transmission, most Teachers will acknowledge, does not magically transfer something, but rather ritually acknowledges that this “magic” (along with more mundane training) has already happened.
- The fact that training as a Teacher takes many years or even decades usually signals that a Teacher has intimate knowledge of some of the sorts of traps and hardships that lie along the Way, and so may be able to guide students through them. An enthusiastic 25-year-old may have done lots of reading and retreats and report dramatic kensho, but has not yet had a chance to mature by working through many spiritual (and psychological) challenges.
- The Teacher has the inclination, dedication, time, and energy to engage in teaching activities on a regular basis.
Intermediate sorts of teaching-related accoutrements and titles within a Zen community can also be helpful. They let newbies identify those to whom questions about Zen might more beneficially be addressed. They create opportunities for teaching by senior practitioners who have a number of the above-mentioned Teacher qualification but are not willing or able to take on the full traditional Teacher training and role—often because they are already fully occupied with day jobs, raising a family, or other worthwhile activities.
Yet it’s very important to note what is left out in such a list of distinctions between Teachers and students. The Teacher is not an Enlightened Being, free of all their human psychological knots and habit energies, and in possession of a special direct line into Divine Wisdom. There is no guarantee that the Teacher is awake in this moment (as contrasted to some past, remembered moment). Some Teachers receive training in ethics and maintaining healthy boundaries, but others don’t—or the training doesn’t “stick.” Teacher training per se doesn’t involve learning about best practices in personnel management, budgeting, dealing with sexual harassment, real estate negotiation, interpersonal communication, or similar dimensions of community leadership. Nor does it qualify Teachers to engage in the sorts of psychotherapy or marriage counseling that overly-trusting students may expect.
I believe that a good Teacher, just like a good teacher (lower-case t), is worthy of respect and attention when acting within their unique role. Sometimes, though, both students and teachers come to believe it is proper to revere them and defer to them in too wide a span of personal and community decisions. This, to my mind, is not Zen. And I’ve seen it lead to serious harm.
Really, there is no Buddha-meter. Nobody here but us dewdrops. And the moon.
