Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!stanford.edu!eos!data.nas.nasa.gov!news
From: esot@uhura.cc.rochester.edu (Eric Sotnak)
Newsgroups: soc.religion.eastern
Subject: Re: Gurus
Message-ID: <1991May28.173120.13014@nas.nasa.gov>
Date: 28 May 91 17:31:20 GMT
References: <1991May22.193018.17384@nas.nasa.gov>
Sender: news@nas.nasa.gov
Organization: University of Rochester, Rochester NY
Lines: 68
Approved: prabhu@amelia.nas.nasa.gov


A few words in response to Tom Simmonds:

--   A teacher is important in Buddhism, not because she is
necessary in order to lead you by the hand from ignorance to
enlightenment, but because an enlightened teacher is able to help
you avoid falling into error.

--   It is very common to find people who, having begun
practicing some form of meditation or other "spiritual
discipline", describe in glowing terms some profound experience
they have undergone.  More often than not, people justify their
attribution of "genuineness" to such experiences on the basis of
the ineffability or uniqueness of the experiences (e.g., "There's
no way to describe it in words,"  "It defied rational thought," 
"It was unlike anything I had ever felt before,"  etc.). 
Experiences of this sort may, indeed, even have transforming
effects.  Nonetheless, it does not follow that the experience, no
matter how powerful or (seemingly) profound is an experience of
enlightenment.  One function a teacher can perform in the
Buddhist tradition is to identify such experiences for what they
are -- and for what they are not.
     Notice, too, that it is not the EXPERIENCE of enlightenment
that is of importance in the buddhist tradition, but the STATE of
being enlightened.
     (Sub-note:  In some important respects, enlightenment is not
completely beyond words.  It is possible to attribute a "content"
to the enlightenment "experience", viz., the realization /
understanding of the essencelessness / emptiness / dependently
originated "nature" of phenomena.  But understanding these words
or descriptions of enlightenment is not, automatically, to
understand reality AS essenceless / empty / dependently
originated, and it is this latter sort of understanding that
makes possible the transcendence of grasping / attachment.)

--   A teacher is not, indeed, necessary in order to make one see
Reality "as it really is."  The enlightened sage perceives the
very same reality as the ignorant person.  What is different is
the WAY in which (one and the same) reality is perceived.  Again,
a function of an enlightened teacher is to lead one away from
ways of seeing reality which are colored by one's pre-existing
cognitive structures in such a way that they (the cognitive
structures) interfere with one's leading a life of liberation. 
The Buddha taught an anti-metaphysical middle way, i.e., a middle
way between the extreme of (various forms of) absolutism, on the
one hand, and the extreme of (various forms of) nihilism on the
other.  The Buddha was not a metaphysician who was concerned to
defend some particular philosophical / metaphysical view.  On the
contrary, the Buddha taught that holding any metaphysical view,
even one prescribing ways to eliminate afflicitons, could easily
become an affliciton in its own right.  A function of a Buddhist
teacher, therefore, is to help the student / seeker avoid
becoming attached to a metaphysical view.

--   The buddhist path is often characterized, in the mahayana
tradition at least, as having two facets, viz., wisdom and
compassion.  Enlightenment, as such, is traditionally associated
with the attainment of wisdom.  But Buddhist wisdom is useless
unless it finds expression in the exercise of compassion. 
Compassion, on the other hand, must be exercised in the right
way.  In other words, compassion must be informed by wisdom, and
wisdom must manifest itself in compassion.  Only by balancing
each against the other is the buddist path manifested.
--
********************************************************************
Eric Sotnak                   |  "No absurdity is too fantastic
esot@uhura.cc.rochester.edu   |  to gain support"
                              |             - Antoine Arnauld