I liked the Korean Zen teacher. She was very focused on the paramitas and on meditation.
I also liked the Tibetan teacher. There were a lot of teachings that my western mind just couldn't accept (Tulkus, for one, possibly reincarnation all together) but he didn't seem to care if we believed those things or not. He wanted us to focus on compassion, and watching the mind to root out seeds of behaviors that lead us to cause suffering to others.
...then I moved for my current job, and things weren't so good anymore.
There was a Soto Zen teacher who put a lot of focus on the Heart Sutra, and seemed to believe no-self was the answer to every question. He also taught that thinking tended to mislead us into delusion, and that we should not trust our thoughts, just our meditation. He's a very kind and patient man, but I always left the temple confused and frustrated.
There was also a Theravada teacher who placed huge emphasis on the three dharma seals and that most people who called themselves Buddhists were fakes, that if you couldn't accept the core teachings of Buddhism you shouldn't be calling yourself a Buddhist.
Since I wasn't enjoying my time at either of those temples, I started looking for dharma talks on YouTube, but that no-self thing just keeps coming up everywhere, and I cannot believe it... even when people teach the Two Truths, they often seem to consider conventional reality as somehow lesser, or a "delusion"...
I somewhat like the idea of re-interpreting the Bodhisattva vow in a non-reincarnation context... that instead of renouncing conventional reality for emptiness and non-self, we stay focused in conventional reality to help other beings. But that's my own thought, not something I've ever heard a teacher say, and it feels like I'm making excuses to run away from Buddhist doctrines that make me uncomfortable.
...and it will sound silly, but as a fairly serious arachnophobe, the idea of not being allowed to kill spiders bothers me a lot... I used to catch spiders and let them go outside, until I found out that most house spider species can't survive outdoors. So I decided since I couldn't tolerate the idea of sharing my living space with them, and it would be wrong to release them in the hallway and make them my neighbors' problem, and wrong to release them outside where they'd die a slow death, the best thing to do was to kill them as quickly and humanely as possible. |
