Behaving Normally – Good Advice for Us All

I just read the latest post (Relying Upon the Spiritual Guide in Modern Times) on the New Kadampa Truth blog. After reading it, I posted a comment about the teacher – student relationship and finding the middle way between behaving cultishly and being disrespectful toward my teacher and I received a wonderful reply from someone named Jimmy.

Below is the reply:

Thanks for a great blog article. I really think this could help not just people outside the NKT, but also some mid-level management inside the NKT who still behave a little bit too authoritarianly (is that a word?!) or bossily — not out of a bad motivation, but just lack of people skills and not really understanding or taking these teachings to heart.

Wisdomfire, it seems to me that all the advice we need for behaving “normally” is there in the books and teachings of Geshe Kelsang and that Geshe-la has been emphasizing this for several years now. Sometimes, it seems, in any tradition, people can go a bit overboard, but Geshe Kelsang is trying to show everyone how to respect the teacher and gain from their teachings without going mad or extreme — while he has also been encouraging the teachers to be respectful and humble with respect to their students. Most Kadampas these days seem to be getting this! It makes for such a lovely friendship between teachers and students, just like that between close friends who cherish and respect each other without anyone getting on their high horses. Geshe Kelsang has talked many times about teachers helping students but also students helping teachers to improve.

Over the years, the NKT has become more and more “normal”, for want of a better word. My personal experience of the NKT over many years is that it is a wonderful organization, full of warm, kind and interesting people, and that the teachings are sublime. However, I cannot deny that there have also been a few examples of unskilful students, teachers and managers not really understanding the teachings on Guru devotion and acting like the average Tibetan acts around the Dalai Lama e.g. managers putting the teacher on a pedestal, bowing and scraping around them, or bossing others around. That kind of behavior simply won’t translate to the West — westerners can only sustain it for a short time before they get disgusted with themselves! We can see that it hasn’t translated insofar as the NKT has been criticized for it in the past. Luckily, the worst examples of this are long gone.

This behavior can be and is found at any Tibetan Buddhist Center (believe me, I know, i’ve been there), but Geshe Kelsang is trying to wean Kadampas off it entirely. I hope they all read this article and take note!

Also, I think it is significant that the Resident Teachers have now been in a way demoted in the NKT — they are not supposed to run things at the Centers, just teach and give spiritual advice; and their main job is to keep a “light and happy mind” by practicing Dharma and humility, according to what Geshe Kelsang said to a KMC teacher recently. Nice job! Perhaps we could have an article on that too?