You Teach Me

In this edited recording from a Iive event I invited the audience to teach me anything they'd like be it from the spiritual journey, inner work, everyday life, work, play, groups, family, friends, enemies, frenemies, relationships, etc. While I don't include what the audience taught me I share how to approach teachers and others for information, wisdom, knowledge, teachings, etc.

Transcript

A quick intro here to say if you're going to listen to this it's gonna be minimally edited so you're gonna have to put up with a lot of my so's and so's um's and uh's and I'm editing out the live caller to save time if you're interested in that in the full unedited podcast check the link in the show notes to the wisdom app recording. Wholeness and welcome this is Josh Dibble integrating presence again and maybe I'll come up with a new intro sometime other than that it's become a habit now. Today's event you teach me and the description I have for this is a brief experiment where you the audience teach me anything you'd like it could be from the spiritual journey, Inner work, Everyday life, Work, Play, Groups, Family, Friends, Enemies, Frenemies, Relationships, Etc. And I may fill in gaps with how to approach teachers and others for information, Wisdom, Knowledge, Teachings, Etc. So I added a little bit to the description of what I had written. So this is your time where you can jump in here and teach me something what have you learned not just to teach me but what you could do specifically or I mean with that you could teach other people as well so it could apply to me it could apply to the audience actually it could apply to nobody if you want to just if you think that you would be better off talking to a wall and you feel brave enough to share you can do that. I guess to jump in here to what I had prepared I wanted to mention that there's some related posts to this and if I publish this as a podcast I'll throw in the notes but the if you just search my website for these articles you can find it how to find meditation teachers and then the ask anyone anything live with whom minor ask us anything restart that post that long title that I did a live on includes links to the following blog post to wisdom snippets inquiry and investigation and why and why not to question and inquire or question slash inquire so this big quote that I felt was relevant for this is something along the lines of probably paraphrasing here is when the student is ready the teacher or master will appear and when the student is really ready the teacher or master will disappear you know basically meaning probably you're not gonna find the right teacher or master or even material if you're not ready for it right so that's kind of a built-in safeguard to information and teachings we're really not ready for but when we're really ready then you know it's kind of like graduation the student or the teacher or master will disappear right this kind of relating here that I'll do is to basically addressing these Buddhist groups that I have joined so these are like zoom groups that I've joined and they're fairly prominent teachers on there and especially ones that I had really kind of admired and joined and asked questions I've got a couple on a couple of these instances on my website I think a John Amaro and Athena Sarabiko kind of Athena Sarabiko is a prolific translator of early Buddhist texts but also a profound like practitioner and lots of wisdom too so I think one of the big things to anytime we're going to ask for teachings and information and knowledge wisdom from folks it is our intent I feel it starts with our intent you know is our intent genuine is it sincere interest like I mentioned earlier and it's not just to look smart or gain merit this kind of thing so it really I mean it doesn't always have to be done but it's really worthwhile I feel to reflect on one's intent for seeking knowledge and wisdom it could be it doesn't have to be right or wrong it's just being aware of that intent also the audience and time allotted involved in these particular things so it depends like who's the audience for who's the audience present if it's on zoom how much time is allotted for questions and answers I know I've kind of went overboard with with my questions I feel a little bit it was about being clear and concise I feel that's important to is it pre whether it's pre formulated or not questions and is it am I showing the appropriate level of honor and respect not too much and not too little sometimes it can be overboard just kind of like fawning and really not feeling worthy to talk and this kind of thing or just going on and on overboard but then there's the opposite where it's just like not being respectful or showing any honor at all hardly if at all prioritizing questions and requests for the maximum benefit of all so this is just like icing on the cake I guess if one can prioritize their questions that they have asked you know depending on the time amount allotted and if everybody can benefit from the question I think that might factor into which ones to ask and what kind of wisdom to go after too and are if you're gonna tell any relatable antidotes are they necessary helpful and appropriate I know I had one antidote ready to go kind of relating a certain teaching from a teacher in real life but I got cut off probably thankfully because it probably wasn't I don't either appropriate it probably wasn't necessary depending mostly because the time allotted wasn't there and there was other people wanting to ask questions to viewing kind of Eastern Buddhist lay audience as a Westerner the pros and cons of that kind of some observations about Eastern lay audiences as a Westerner so here's some of the pros of what I've noticed about this and these are actually a lot of these are also in Western cultures I guess at least in my limited very limited experience Western cultures and spiritual traditions maybe some religious traditions so of course the pros that I've noticed in Eastern lay audiences Buddhist audiences is there's a bunch of respect and honor and appreciation for the teachers it's inspiring to see so many practicing and studying the value it's very valuable as well people find lots of great things and help in their lives there's also plenty of humility as well and there's a display of order and cohesiveness and harmony in the community and a big sense of community and it's also like functionality like certain people have certain roles it just seems to kind of all work well together when it works well together you know what I mean so some of the I guess cons of this I'll start off here by one of the teachers that I sat down and had tea with and kind of a more formal tea ceremony and I've never done anything like that and later when I was meeting with him I said you know I mentioned that and I said I didn't know how to act and then he said me either and so that immediately made some cool rapport and just kind of brought everything back down to earth and yeah it was that was a time to be formal and kind of figure out how to do formal things and and then when I was chatting with him more informally and then it wasn't so also you know this is one of the things that's helped me a lot is this saying what other people think about me is none of my business at the same time we're trying to be respectful and follow culture and protocols and things like this so sometimes can't help but wonder am I being perceived as the opposite of those aforementioned wonderful great qualities beautiful qualities I just mentioned and maybe also disruptive for not being able to do so and why would this be important this perception well like I say sometimes the feeling that you don't follow it then it might be disrespect disrespectful I know in the Zen tradition few times that I've been involved with that I kind of shy away from strange and formal formalities which is actually a good flag that of the importance of training in that so in the Zen tradition from what I understand at least the Soto Zen very few times that I've sat formally with a community like that there's a whole there's there's lots of bowing and there's a certain I guess container or protocol of things that go around it's not just sitting in meditation there's other things involved bowing in a certain order I guess I don't know how to put it exactly in of course walking and then bell ringing possibly chanting Suta reading but it's it's orderly in the thing about it is in one way I immediately jumped oh that's restrictive that's you know too stifling it's too ritualistic it's it's like a habit however this is where one's meditation practice could possibly go to the next level the nice thing about Zen practice is it gives kind of a regimen a strict a stricter schedule so where a lot of unnecessary kind of needs in things that don't have to be done don't have to be done anymore because it's laid out the practice session the way things go people know what kind of expect kind of get in a routine so anything unnecessary can fall away also within those containers in those movements and going through the movements and kind of rituals and habits can pay very attention to the slight changes in those you know how far you bow the timing of the bows the reaction of other folks my reaction to the other folks is reaction of how they're doing it either the same or differently or perception so even though it does create kind of a limiting container in one sense it also can draw attention to very slight minute changes in details which can help heighten perception and awareness I feel so some of going back now to some of the cons of this I wonder if it's a simulation in hive mind sometimes when I view some of the Eastern cultures and in lay Buddhist things and by that I mean even though there's a tradition of open inquiry sometimes people are afraid to speak up and ask questions and that's okay too and then I was also wondering how are the hierarchies different compared to a kind of Western traditions and also the comparing and contrasting Eastern and Western perceptions of you know oh I'm not as good as this person or I'm better than that person or I'm just as good as that person these these conceits we have and you know I think conceit runs across all boundaries so no matter what walks of life we go in it seems like either we and our others that we are encounter will have these conceit of oh I'm better than that person but also the inferior conceit of I'm not as good as them and then the most subtle one is oh I'm just as good as you know of course there's equity and equality that we should strive for especially in that everybody deserves more love not less right but this subtle conceit of or and at the same time the subtle conceit of oh I'm just as good as that person well I often say well I could never match your unique brilliance nor could you match mine and it's it's good that way because if we were all just the same you know it would there would be no diversity would all be like a gray blob hive mind and now the paradox of unity though sometimes we get too steeped in diversity and we forget the unity that we're all the commonalities between us as well so I think one of the one teachers I've heard it's like yes we're all kind of one but we're all different expressions of that oneness even though I'm not too fond of oneness I like interdependence interconnectedness okay so that out of the way now we can also ask others friends and teachers for recommendations based on interest and intents and goals so this is pretty pretty much everybody's heard this before right if you're interested in certain teachings or whatever you you have your intents and your goals and what you want to learn or what you might want to learn and you just ask friends and teachers and other people you bump into what their recommendations are you know maybe based on your mutual interest or just your own interest what you and they might know what you'd like to study and also if you're going to a teacher I guess or some expert I'm not fond of that either or somebody you want to study with or potentially study with and they it's not a and if somebody's body of work is really large like they've written a lot of books given a lot of talks do a lot of stuff and you just discovered them you know and it's not immediately apparent to you just you can ask you know where do I start with your material what's a good jumping-on place maybe in general or for me also if you're going to someone to learn stuff one thing that's overlooked I feel is informal methods so they're informal methods stuff that's not recorded stuff they really don't do up in front of groups and audiences how did their informal methods differ from their formal ones and how could you find this out this is kind of where you go up at the end of a talk and maybe get to talk to them one-on-one you can take a retreat possibly with them maybe ask if they have some time later to chat and then you can kind of see them away from the limelight and get it maybe a little bit different picture different idea of how they are how they might teach informally and also kind of notice any consistencies or inconsistencies when they're not in the public eye versus when they are so what about mentoring anything you've learned about working with mentors anything you've learned about mentoring others now this is something that I would like to learn from you guys because I haven't really done this formally you know I don't really consider anyone a mentor per se at least in real life right and mentoring usually implies an active process I would think mostly for me it's just teachers and teachings maybe trainers trainings also depending on their workload it's a good sign if you go and seek someone out and they asked to take you on without you asking them first I feel that's a pretty decent idea decent sign anyway that you guys are a good match is if they ask you to be mentored by them without you asking first so what about and then probably going on the homestretch here information gathering so let's say you just want to gather some information it doesn't have to be anything like spiritual related I mean it could just be everyday life you need to know something you're curious about something maybe you want to stick your nose into something you probably shouldn't be sticking your nose into so I was just wondering how do you ask for information and I'll just give some examples here so is it like the FBI or our CIA are you approaching people and situations and in your reality like that to get information or is it like asking for directions what about are you going in like the mafia and demanding to know stuff or you'll break some kneecaps or something are you gathering information like you're buying something like you will just pay for it and get it you know I got the money I'll just go get it or the opposite of where I'm gonna go get information like a handout I'll just beg for it is it kind of friendly like you're getting information from a friend you treat other people like friends and when you're in need of information or like family think about if you're curious about things from family members some information you'd like or maybe some information you wouldn't like from friends and family members do you approach information gathering like you need help so kind of asking for help from people or the opposite of that or the other polarity of that or wanting to help so you're gathering information in order to help others help yourself what about small talk so you're just kind of talking about the weather and something happens to come up and either start there or that's the information and that's how you do it so the last one here I've got or do you connect with people on mutual interest in connections so a lot of people love to talk about what they have in common and also the folks they have in common connections that way kind of build rapport and with that I think I will wrap this up may all beings everywhere be safe in an inside and out may all beings everywhere be happy and joyful may all beings everywhere be healthy and strong may all beings everywhere live knowing ease and may all beings realize awakening and be free