As a person who has followed a guru for over two decades, I don’t resonate with the idea of finding my own way and understanding my life only through hypotheses. But if I stopped there I would miss out on how much we actually have in common underneath that headlining difference.
Take my guru, for example: he is an extraordinary man, so much so that I usually hold back in how I describe him to people who don’t know him. I’m afraid I would sound like a sycophant. But he doesn’t carry himself with some kind of anodyne perfection. I was just discussing with a friend how goofy he can be, how if he weren’t teaching Dharma he’d probably be making a lot of dad jokes. Another person once said their first impression of him was of a bookworm.
And other people who have been my teachers: knowing that they have had struggles, that they know what it’s like, that helps me to relate to them and it doesn’t diminish my respect for them.
My guru also doesn’t tell me what to do, he gives me tools. It’s up to me to use those tools. He’s not going to build the house (or whatever tool-based metaphor you want to choose) for me. (I’d use the “teach a man to fish” saying, but as a Buddhist it’s an uncomfortable metaphor.) He teaches me how to dig deep inside myself and find truth.
So I appreciate our commonalities underneath the headlining differences. Thank you for sharing from your heart.
As a person who has followed a guru for over two decades, I don’t resonate with the idea of finding my own way and understanding my life only through hypotheses. But if I stopped there I would miss out on how much we actually have in common underneath that headlining difference.
Take my guru, for example: he is an extraordinary man, so much so that I usually hold back in how I describe him to people who don’t know him. I’m afraid I would sound like a sycophant. But he doesn’t carry himself with some kind of anodyne perfection. I was just discussing with a friend how goofy he can be, how if he weren’t teaching Dharma he’d probably be making a lot of dad jokes. Another person once said their first impression of him was of a bookworm.
And other people who have been my teachers: knowing that they have had struggles, that they know what it’s like, that helps me to relate to them and it doesn’t diminish my respect for them.
My guru also doesn’t tell me what to do, he gives me tools. It’s up to me to use those tools. He’s not going to build the house (or whatever tool-based metaphor you want to choose) for me. (I’d use the “teach a man to fish” saying, but as a Buddhist it’s an uncomfortable metaphor.) He teaches me how to dig deep inside myself and find truth.
So I appreciate our commonalities underneath the headlining differences. Thank you for sharing from your heart.