On Criticism

I didn't mean to jump on the anti-Merzel bandwagon yesterday - there's plenty of other people doing that - nor was I trying to deflect attention away from the recent criticisms of my teacher, as was suggested to me by some. I was merely trying to illustrate that both criticisms and shortcomings of spiritual teachers are not unique (that, and I was being lazy and allowing 66 Zen teachers to write the day's blog entry for me).

This has been a tough year for many Zen teachers, from Genpo Merzel to Eido Shimano, and even back to Taizan Maezumi. Not that the criticism was always unwarranted. Tough love, and all that.

"One of the many downsides of growing older is that you step on toes more," writes Michael Elliston, a teacher who's received his share of criticism in these parts recently. "One of the few upsides is that it doesn’t matter as much. They are not going to be mad at you for very long."

Criticizing and finding fault with others is to be blind to the buddha-nature in all things. "I do not see the faults of others," Hui-Neng once said. But allowing boorish actions and ignoring abusive practices is not saving all sentient beings.

There is a danger of forgetting that the teacher is not the teaching, but is just a human being like the rest of us, as a good friend said in an email today. "I fear I may have placed too much reliance upon him and his compassion to see other things that were happening to me and to my closest dharma brothers," she writes. When placing a teacher on a pedestal, we can become blind to our own actual experience. When criticizing our teacher, we jeopardize the spreading of the dharma. Either way we lose.

"Teacher" and "student" are both dualistic, one-sided concepts. "When you forget all your dualistic views," Shunryu Suzuki wrote in Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind, "everything becomes your teacher."