By: Linda Modaro, satisangha.org
*Throughout this piece, I will refer to Dharma and meditation teachers as “the professionals”. While each profession has its own unique aspects, there is also significant overlap, which is why Marilyn Peterson addresses them together.
Marilyn Peterson opens with this statement in her 1992 book, At Personal Risk.
“For centuries, the conduct of society’s most trusted servants was deemed above reproach. Physicians, attorneys, clerics, and teachers were assumed paragons of wisdom, morality, and excellence. Today, such blind faith is fast disappearing from the landscape… In the student’s eyes, the core of the connection with a trusted servant has a spiritual dimension. Boundary violations occur in part because our society is increasingly minimizing this dimension.”
Teaching Dharma and meditation is one of the most cherished and sacred roles you may have in a person’s life. Meditation is associated with spiritual practice, at times even in a secular setting. As a Dharma and meditation teacher, you are the epitome of a trusted servant, and yet, you are in a powerful role. While you can’t personally be all things to your students, it is likely you will embody the Buddhist teachings for them, and at times it will be difficult for them to separate you from those teachings. In fact, there will be times that your role will require you to hold their projections, no matter how uncomfortable you are in doing so.
The role of spiritual teacher and guide implicitly carries within it the assumption of trustworthiness and ethical behavior, as with other trusted servants. Peterson describes this in the opening quotation, written thirty years ago. How applicable Marilyn’s words still are today. Of particular interest to teachers of meditation and their students are boundary violations, power dynamics, the teachers own needs, and owning our mistakes.
BOUNDARY VIOLATIONS
“Boundaries are defined as limits that respect the place between the teacher’s power and the student’s vulnerability…” Boundary violations are one of the most significant and current issues in Buddhist sanghas. These violations happen within the sangha, not just between individual teachers and students. The culture that allows them is often invisible to members, and rarely reflected upon and critiqued. Boundary crossings, which may or may not lead to violations, are inevitable. Repair must always be undertaken by the teacher, within the guidance and ethical rules of the community. In the past, spiritual communities have rarely spelled out ethical behavior nor held teachers accountable for their actions. More often, such events are hushed up and/or ignored. This is changing. Whether you are teaching within a spiritual community or on your own, you should have clear ethical guidelines which you adhere to, can discuss with students, and which you are accountable in consultation with a colleague, mentor, or team.
POWER DYNAMICS
“The difficulty we Dharma teachers have in owning our full power is the primary psychological gateway that ushers in and permits boundary violations. If we accept our authority, we have to alter our position of feigned equality; we have to concede that the teacher-student relationship is not democratic, that we have more power than our students, and that we make intentional choices that influence their lives.”
You are in a position of power when you lead a sangha, teach meditation retreats or classes, and/or work with students individually. The power role can often feel like you have a ‘power over’ the students’ lives. Even if your intention is to relate to your students as spiritual friends, peers, or equal human beings, the role of leadership needs to be acknowledged. You are responsible to set boundaries, keep the group on track, and make decisions. The feelings and reactions that come with boundary setting can be difficult to tolerate. At the same time that you are responsible for the power in your role, you are powerless. Powerless over how your students choose to live and practice. Powerless over how they adopt and enact the teachings into their lives in a wholesome and ethical way. And powerless in how they project their issues and concern onto you. No matter how hard you try, you cannot teach outside this bind. “Marilyn calls this living in the ‘eye of the storm’…” Only when you own and own up to your power as a teacher, can you begin to see the possibility and likelihood that you can and may actually abuse that power.
ACKNOWLEDGING THE TEACHER’S OWN NEEDS
“The charge to Dharma teachers is… to show only those parts of themselves that are significant to their students’ growth [and for teaching Dharma]… The invisibility of the Dharma teacher’s needs created for student’s growth tends, therefore, to cultivate an unreal world that colludes to block the ability to see what is really happening.”
When you are teaching and being of service to your students, you will appropriately re-prioritize and sublimate some of your own needs for the student’s benefit. If you are anything like me, you might have become very skilled at this! Here is a dilemma from my teaching: I live in Santa Monica, CA and for ten years have been traveling to San Diego to teach a monthly daylong retreat. We have had difficulty keeping a space for practice due to limited choices and high expenses so have had to move our sangha several times. The last space was with another Buddhist sangha, and while it was a pleasure to share, it had no heat. I am very sensitive to cold, and for many months the room was colder inside than out. My habit to try and get past my physical needs played out by wearing more clothes and bringing more blankets, all the while thinking I should be beyond this need for warmth and I don’t want to disrupt the group with this preference. When I realized this was not just a preference and it was competing with an ethical value [to come from my best mental and physical form in order to teach Dharma well], I knew I had to bring this as a dilemma to the group. In this case, the situation was solved by the pandemic (we are now meeting online) before I became resentful and developed ill will in ways that would affect my Dharma teaching.
OWNING OUR MISTAKES
“I have long believed that … mistakes are common. We all make them. Unfortunately our demand for perfection and the shame we experience blocks us from acknowledging and learning from them. Therefore we must learn both to hold ourselves accountable and to accept the reality of our human fallibility.”
You may find as a Dharma teacher, trusted friend and support to others, that at times it might seem almost intolerable to face your own mistakes or misunderstandings that lead to overstepping boundaries or not taking up your leadership role; this may well lead to ethical misconduct. Knowing this comes with the role of teacher can be helpful, but it does not take away the angst and anxiety when it arises. It is so easy to get caught in a loop of high expectations and demand something more than human from yourself. So, how to hold yourself accountable in the teaching role is a pertinent question for all of us at this time.
CONCLUSION
Teaching Dharma and meditation is a profound, deeply satisfying and humbling experience. We would like you to consider that it is an ennobling pursuit to look more deeply into your teaching role and accountability, whether you teach independently or within a sangha you inherited or created. Your teaching answers a deep calling within yourself and is the legacy you will leave for others.