Longtime practitioner and psychotherapist Rob Preece says even though as students we may be devoted to our teachers, we can’t afford to idealize them anymore.
In 1973, I found myself seated before a colorful brocaded throne in a meditation hall in a small Tibetan Buddhist monastery near Kathmandu, Nepal. I was among a large group of young Westerners waiting with some excitement for a Tibetan lama to enter. The atmosphere was electric with anticipation. After a few minutes there was a whisper: “Lama’s here.” We all stood up, and most people bowed respectfully as a relatively young man entered the room, made prostrations, and rose to the throne. When he began to speak, I found myself immediately enthralled by his presence and playful humor. This man was to become an essential focus of my spiritual life from that point onward. He became my guru.
Like many Westerners at the time, I was somewhat lost spiritually and very wounded emotionally. I would have given almost anything to find someone to guide me and give me a sense of meaning and direction. I believed and trusted that this Tibetan lama would do so. I also really wanted to be seen, so that I might have a sense of affirmation about my value and my nature. Part of this relationship to my guru was therefore a huge emotional investment. I became devoted in a way that was akin to falling in love and had a very idealistic view of how special he was. I recall sitting with other students, talking in a kind of romantic haze about all the qualities we felt he embodied.
When I apply a Jungian psychological view to this relationship, I can see that at its heart was a massive projection. That isn’t to say the lama was not extraordinary, but that extraordinariness was the hook for my projection. Jung saw that what we are unconscious of in ourselves, we tend to project onto someone else. In the case of someone who becomes our guru, we project an image of our “higher Self” onto a person who can act as a carrier of that unconscious quality. When this begins to happen, it is as though we become enthralled or beguiled by this projection. In the case of the projection of the Self onto a teacher, we give away something very powerful in our nature and will then often surrender our own volition in order to be guided.
More problematic in this experience was that, like many of my peers, what I had projected was not just the “inner guru”; I had also imbued him with a quality of the ideal parent I dearly needed. In doing so, I gave away other significant aspects of my power: my own volition and my own authority and discriminating wisdom.
Looking back, I can see that I had a lot of growing up to do. My desire to idealize the external teacher was actually supported by teachings I received on guru devotion, which said explicitly that we should try to see the guru as the Buddha and that he (or occasionally she) was essentially perfect. My idealism not only blinded me to my teacher’s human fallibility but was also reinforced by the teachings. I was even given the message that to see flaws in the guru, or to criticize him, would lead to dreadful suffering. In retrospect, I see how I was tied into a belief system that acted as a powerful snare using very skillful rationale.
The danger with indiscriminate idealized devotion to the teacher is that we are trusting that he or she will hold a place of complete integrity and will have no personal agendas. I feel fortunate that with most of my own teachers, this has actually been the case. But what happens when we start to discover that the teacher is human, with issues, flaws, and needs? Do we just dismiss this as our own delusion or his crazy wisdom, since he is after all Buddha?
In the forty years that I have been involved in the Buddhist world, it has become very clear that while there are some extraordinary teachers with great integrity, they are seldom if ever flawless. They may have extraordinary depths of insight, but they also make mistakes and sometimes behave badly. As a psychotherapist, I would go further and even suggest that a few of them actually have significant psychological problems. It is possible for a teacher to have deep insights but also struggle with the stability of their personal identity in the world. The exalted, almost divine status of certain teachers such as incarnate lamas, and the way they’re brought up, can cause them to become self-centered or narcissistic. Occasionally this can lead to bullying and even cruel and abusive behavior with students. It does not then serve any of us to simply ignore this behavior or to go into a kind of naive denial that says, “It is my obscuration; the teacher is perfect.”
This dynamic can lead to a kind of masochistic intoxication with a teacher’s abusive behavior, with the devotee justifying it as something that is all part of his or her path. I am sometimes shocked when I hear students describe how the critical, bullying way in which they are treated is a necessary part of the destruction of the ego. So often this reflects the narcissism of the teacher rather than some kind of enlightened skillful means.
The Dalai Lama wrote in his book The Path to Enlightenment:
The problem with the practice of seeing everything the guru does as perfect is that it very easily turns to poison for both the guru and the disciple. Therefore, whenever I teach this practice, I always advocate that the tradition of “every action seen as perfect” not be stressed. Should the guru manifest un-dharmic qualities or give teachings contradicting dharma, the instruction on seeing the spiritual master as perfect must give way to reason and dharma wisdom. I could think to myself, “They all see me as a Buddha, and therefore will accept anything I tell them.” Too much faith and imputed purity of perception can quite easily turn things rotten.
Sadly, unquestioning devotion toward teachers has indeed sometimes turned things rotten. While we can hope the majority of Eastern and Western teachers are genuine in their integrity, there are a few who do not behave skillfully, and their students are extremely vulnerable to being abused and taken advantage of. It is therefore necessary for us to wake up and not be beguiled by charismatic teachers and our own need to idealize. In our devotion to a teacher we can have a strong sense of respect, appreciation, and indeed love, but not in a way that blinds us to their human fallibility. We need to retain our sense of discernment that recognizes and faces when things are not acceptable or beneficial. If this means a level of disillusionment, then so be it. At least we will end up with a more realistic and genuine relationship. To quote the Dalai Lama again, “Too much deference actually spoils the guru.”
Possibly the most critical issue that arises in relationship to the teacher is the potential loss of appropriate boundaries. For a relationship between a teacher and student to be healthy psychologically and emotionally, ethical boundaries must be clear. I have seen in my work as a therapist and mentor that students who have encountered a teacher’s confused or loose boundaries suffer greatly. And because there is a taboo against criticizing the teacher, students may then find they have no one within their community to speak to about it. They may also find that their community does not really want to know. In the end, the very heart of the student’s spirituality has been betrayed.
Our teachers need to hold clear boundaries around their emotional and physical behavior so that it does not become harmful to students. In some case, Eastern teachers may not fully understand what this means in the West. Boundaries were often implicit in the world in which they lived, be it the monastery or Thai, Japanese, or Tibetan culture. Once they move to the West, having clear boundaries is totally dependent upon their own integrity. Sadly, this integrity is sometimes lacking, and teachers—both Eastern and Western—can become a kind of law unto themselves, creating their own culture with boundaries that are arbitrary or absent. This culture can become like a dysfunctional family; a teacher becomes an all-powerful parent whose needs and wishes are paramount.
Who then can provide the safe and trusting environment within which students can practice and grow?
Over the years, it has been a privilege to be taught by some extraordinary Tibetan lamas and to practice what they have given me. They have been the holders of one of the most profound paths to wisdom that has ever existed. They have brought this to the West in the hope that we may benefit from their knowledge and find our own experience. However, I have also come to recognize that we must begin to grow up and take more responsibility for our role in the integration of Buddhism in the West. This includes taking more responsibility in our relationship to our teachers.
We may put our trust in teachers and express our devotion, but if things go wrong, then it is for us as students to take responsibility for how we respond. If our teachers make mistakes, it is up to us to address and even challenge them when necessary. If teachers do not maintain appropriate boundaries in their relationship to students, then it is for students to hold the ethical ground when teachers do not.
Our teachers need us as much as we need them. They need us to be honest, straight, and real with them, not blinded by a haze of deferential idealism. They can then be real people with their own challenges and difficulties but also with a great deal of wisdom to offer. If we can skillfully navigate this, then the Buddhist traditions have a chance to flourish in the West with integrity. We can offer respect and even devotion to our teachers but with a real capacity for discernment and personal responsibility.
I appreciate this article more than you can imagine. Whether it is a religious leader, a boss, parent, or spouse I believe their is more abuse of power in this country than most realize, or admit too. We always hear the question, “why didn’t you come forward and speak out” well, I do not believe that is so easy, as you say, many will not want to hear anything negative about their idol, some have been quieted by shame and humiliation, and I do not imagine for a moment that it is easy for a victim to be verbally attacked by the public and victimized again. Unfortunately, it is the silence that allows the abusive behavior to continue, and for far to long abusers have come to expect that silence.
I agree wholeheartedly that it’s very difficult for the person who is abused to come forward. Sadly, they are too often revictimized in the court of public opinion and by the judicial process. We need to start supporting those who come forward. We can do that by believing rather than doubting them.
The sexual abuse of women by men is not something that happens to students because teachers are just making “mistakes.”, or because of human fallibility. Let’s remember, when we are talking about abuses of power, at least that is what I think this article is addressing, I assume we are talking about everything from coercion, and emotional abuse, to inappropriate touching to attempted rape to even rape, broadly termed in Canada sexual assault. Yes? Can we name it? Teacher abuses of power, as many reports have shown us, when it has occurred, has been systematic and premeditated. In specific instances it went on for as long as it did because no one stopped them. No one wanted to “fan the flames” or “get involved”. Sexual assault of any kind is a criminal offence that should be taken as seriously in a spiritual community as it is in any professional or secular context. Any discussion of abuse of power might recall the historical undermining and oppression of women that has existed in nearly every era and culture of Buddhist history, indeed, of human history. Abuse of women is allowed to happen because of the larger cultural context, including our own western cultural context, that sometimes choses to devalue a woman’s life (i.e. turn away) in favour of “keeping the status quo” (i.e. male dominance over communities and resources, and a veiled acceptance of male entitlement to women’s bodies). Thank you for acknowledging that the women who came forward are our true heroes. They did so initially with very little support from their communities or the media, and we can only imagine the enormous toll that must have taken on their valuable lives. They should not have had to carry that burden alone.
Well said! Pam Rubin’s introduction to the Forum on Confronting Abuse of Power echoes the points you raise (there’s a link to it in the article above). This is not just a Buddhist problem, it’s a societal one. It’s important to recognize that we’re not immune to the forces in our culture that facilitate abuse, particularly of women and young people and anyone who is disadvantaged in our society because of race or social class. Change will only come if we stand together. I sense that more and more people are wanting to talk about the issue of abuse and are willing to take a stand. I hope it’s not just a passing interest because of some high profile cases in the media right now, but actually reflects a change in view that is here to stay.
Thank you for a well-written, researched and thoughtful article on a difficult set of topics. I especially appreciated the quote from the Dalai Lama’s book. Your descriptions of your own experience, the sangha’s interactions and discussions and the energy around a powerful Buddhist teacher in the Tibetan tradition all sounded all-too familiar. I have been around meditators and sanghas since 1972, and lived in and around Tibetan and other Buddhist communities since 1988. I have seen several fall apart due to teachers’ misconduct.
While I haven’t been part of a sangha in which the main teachers were serial sexual predators, I have seen other types of abuse of power, including breaches of confidentiality, exploitation of favoritism, promulgation of distorted ideas of “right” and “wrong,” and physical abuse of students that should never have occurred much less been accepted. Some of the lamas have abused their power to gain sexual favors or relationships, but mostly they just abuse power itself. These damaging behaviors and misuse of authority continue, fueled by the students’ misguided applications of the teachings about Guru Yoga and Pure View.
I believe we are in a lot of trouble because we have tried to import or establish an culturally bound form of Buddhism from another country’s implementation of it and overlay it onto Western life. It just does not work. We can follow the forms: put teachers on hierarchal thrones or seats, wear the colored clothing, grow or shave our hair, keep the odd and grueling schedule, eat the food or fast, play the musical instruments or keep the silence, prostrate/bow, make offerings and such, for a while. We can even defer our own judgments and intuitions. But, as many sanghas have found, it all crumbles into dust (as it should) when the forms contain rottenness of motivation, selfish and ego-ridden leaders and secrecy that hide these tragic flaws.
When women or all students are disrespected, faith is misused and teachers fail us, we must step up and take over. Class and caste systems infuse hierarchies and leaders with mystical properties and enlightened qualities they do not deserve; these must be dismantled and exposed for the fakery they are.
There is a lot of talk and lamas teach frequently about *motivation,* repeatedly saying that motivation is the most important aspect, the center of all analysis of anyone’s behaviors. Apparently, ANYTHING can be justified, even murder, if the murderer’s motivation was “pure” (there are several stories of Guru Rinpoche’s/Padmasambhava’s having murdered others). However, some of the lamas who teach this aspect and some of the stories we hear are coming from or depicting those whose motivations are deservedly suspect and whose behaviors can do/have done a lot of damage. Do we then doubt the teachings, the doers’ motivation, the teachers, or all three?
“Crazy wisdom,” i.e., a realized teacher who displays enlightenment via absurdity and extreme behavior, is extremely rare and usually not what is occurring. Instead, under the guise of that label, students experience a teacher’s ordinary drunkenness, sexual misconduct, lying, stealing and other mundane behaviors that aggrandize the leaders and ruin the sangha, pervert the teachings and destroy students’ self-regard and faith are/have been occurring without being checked for far too long.
What should we do when the leaders we’ve set up/who have allowed themselves to be held up as role models, thought to be embodying the ideals of Buddhism, fail so completely to live up to these standards? The challenge I and many other students face is not to toss it all out just because some teachers mess up.
The dharma is not suspect; the people who teach and practice it sometimes are. We have to learn how to assess what we are experiencing without giving it up entirely.
I’m so glad to read and hear more and more that more students are standing up, disallowing, publicly calling out, impeaching and causing these teachers to resign. Students are not the ones who should leave: the failed teachers are.
Open the doors, fling out the detritus of the old ways, stop blindly following or sheepishly allowing bad behaviors and actually be mindful. THEN decide, incorporating more wisdom, which of these skillful (or unskillful) means to accept and which to reject.
The Buddha himself said in a myriad of ways that we should not include anything in our practice or believe anything that does not ring true for us. Likewise, we should not uphold forms, rules, protocols or secrecy or follow teachers who ring false.
We can only be as disempowered as we allow ourselves to be; we can only be misled for so long before we’re doing the misleading ourselves. I like it that you mentioned that we have to “grow up” and take responsibility for our own lives.
Yes. Seek and learn from teachers, Ask for guidance, information, support. Then, take what we receive and see and utilize it with discernment. Ask questions. Be alert. Believe each other when things go sour. Be the grown-ups we are.
Best to you all.
Thank you for your thoughtful comments. Indeed, we must never forget that our teachers are human beings. I want to highlight your closing remark: “Seek and learn from teachers, Ask for guidance, information, support. Then, take what we receive and see and utilize it with discernment. Ask questions. Be alert. Believe each other when things go sour. Be the grown-ups we are.”
Rob Preece’s article says many good things we should take into account. What I would like to add is that for the person who enables bullying or oppression, there is also work to be done. As Pam Ribin mentioned in her article on ‘Abuse of Power,’ all it takes is a feminine type response of submission and self criticism to match a masculine type behaviour of over riding boundaries to create an imbalance. Both men and women can be in either roles. What is not emphasized enough is the brave, hard work the victimized person needs to do. It is of equal importance.
My own experience of being bullied within a Sangha was because of disrespectful, oppressive and arrogant behaviour on the part of the person who bullied me. My own part was of not hearing the self-critical voice well enough even through 9 months of therapy and by not permitting myself to abandone secretly submissive thought patterns and behaviours. This takes time to see and understand. But once the work is started it is only onwards and upwards for someone who enables bullying through self-criticism.
Essentially both neurotic behaviours are moments of arising wisdom. The behavious of the Bully and the Victim.The extent to which we can experience openness no matter what voice is playing for us, that awake, compassionate presence is never out of reach and this is the only way to emerge from the fog of the abuse of power. In the moment of neuroses you can retrieve your sanity. This needs to be exercised by the person who has been victimized as much as by the person who has bullied.
Yes, that’s an important point that there is work to be done on both sides. We need to examine our habitual patterns and any attitudes we may harbor that make us feel lesser-than. Hopefully, this can be done within an atmosphere of support and compassion. The dharma can be a wonderful path for this exploration.
Hi Catriona:
Thanks so much for sharing your experience and reflections here. The experience of abuse can often be a catalyst for personal growth, if we are supported and survive!
I do feel that we have to be careful of even more self-criticism that repeats messages that we could have, should have, been able to avoid the abuse. Personally and professionally, I am very careful about placing particular expectations on the targets of abuse, to end it or address it, or to heal from it in a particular way.
I tend to see abuse as a community problem that needs a community solution. Predatory and also bullying people often carefully assess communities for the cues that tell them whether their abuse will be tolerated or not, before joining and before abusing. Are other abusers enjoying impunity? Are women and youth devalued by misogynist jokes, rigid gender roles, lower status or exclusion from leadership? Are community members afraid to communicate with each other about difficult or embarrassing issues? Are children supervised or unvalued? Are other vulnerable people supported or marginalized? These are some of the bases on which abusers make their choices.
If as a community we are inhospitable to the patterns of abusers, they will either change or move on.
Often, abusers choose people that they expect to be disbelieved and abandoned by the crowd: people who may have disabilities or lower status than they. They often spend a long time grooming and disempowering their target before the abuse or bullying begins. If this takes place in a weak community, the experience of abuse is more that of being caught in a vortex, rather than of an individual’s choice to resist or accept abuse. I never characterize abusers and their targets as equally responsible for the pattern of abuse.
I appreciate enormously the growth, bravery and peace that we who have experienced abuse can realize – otherwise I would not be a trauma counselor! However, I also think we as a society have just begun accepting the message that sexual abuse and other forms of abuse and violence are the choice of the abuser, and that targets are not to blame for what they wore, what they had to drink, for loving and reuniting with an abuser, or for any of their feelings – none of that means that someone ever deserves, wants or is responsible for the chosen abusive actions of another.
Thanks for your thoughtful article. I have noticed that confusion arises when absolute teachings, such as those on the perfection of the Lama, are give by or to people who still relate to them in a relative way. A relative way of relating to “perfection” would be a teacher who deploys “perfection” to manipulate students or to relinquish responsibility for her or his behavior. For students, the relative way of relating to “perfection” would be to relinquish clear seeing, or on the other hand, to view the Lama as a menu of “perfect” and “not-so-perfect” characteristics. These are attitudes based on dualistic experience. So we have relative teachings to work with this, such as what the Dalai Lama has to say as quoted in your article. If we are still operating largely from this View, at least we can be more skillful about it.
However, the View of perfection is an absolute teaching, not a relative one. It relates to the total equality of all phenomenon. All phenomenon are “perfect from the beginning” as they all arise with total equality from enlightened essence nature. The Lama who can really claim to be able to give this teaching must first be able to *transmit* it, that is, she or he must be able to create a situation in which at least some students are able to experience it for themselves.
In this situation, it is the primordial perfection of everything that the Lama is revealing, and this revelation is of the nondifference of the nature of the Lama and the student. So there is no basis for manipulation or anxious analysis. All of that aggression subsides.
The revelation of actual perfection, nondual, comes along with blazing clarity. At the same time the self-referential urgency about correcting oneself and others abates. The process of waking up becomes a little more playful than that and is revealed to be just nature accomplishing itself. We participate, but there is nothing to get all exercised about.
Love, Shambhavi
Well said Shambhavi, well said.
If we need to go searching for a teacher to point this out to us in the first place it’s good for us students to be clear eyed about the role of the teacher is in the process. We shouldn’t jump into a Vajrayana style relationship unless we have some insight into and experience of the energetic play of phenomenal reality. Ideally we can wake up on our own and not need to involve a teacher in instigating our own enlightenment. If we are on a psychoanalytic Mahayana path we should take our time and work through our issues before getting carried away by our projections about being someone’s “student”.
Cheers