The Danger Of Putting Others On Pedestals

In this talk, we explore the teachings of Master Linji -- who famously told his students, "If you meet the Buddha on the road, kill him." He means that when we are tempted to idealize anyone, it is important to see them as simple human beings, to take them down from the pedestals we create. We will explore how to practice with the mind's tendency to seek perfection outside of ourselves -- to find saviors in our personal and public lives.

Transcript

Tonight,

I chose for one of the readings the Nothing to Do by Master Lin Ji,

Who was a ninth century Chinese Zen master,

And he was the founder of one of the two great schools of Zen,

The Rinzai school,

The school that brings us the Koan curriculum and Koan practice.

And he was famous for jarring his students out of their complacency.

He was famous for actually hitting his students.

He'd hit them with sticks when they came in to meet with him.

He'd shout at them,

Not because he was a violent person or an abusive person,

But because he was hoping to help students wake up to get out of their stuck places,

Stuck in words and concepts.

And I'll just read you a bit of his teaching again.

He's telling his monks,

There is no Buddha,

No Dharma,

No practice,

No realization.

What is it you seek in others?

What is it you lack?

It's as though you want to put another head on top of the one you already have.

At this very moment,

Your own wonderful function is no different from the wonderful function of the masters and the Buddhas.

It's only because you lack confidence that you seek something outside of you.

So,

9th century China,

Some young boys who are monks,

Not so relevant to us now.

But in fact,

What Linji was teaching about hundreds of years ago is our tendency to look to others for what we don't have,

To put another head on top of another,

And then hope to get that same head to put on top of our own,

To become different people,

To become like these other people who seem to have it all,

And have it all figured out.

I mean,

In our political life,

There's the recent famous statement,

I alone can fix it.

And it's not just politicians,

It's Zen teachers,

It's professors,

It's anyone who wants to claim that they have it all figured out,

And how much we long for someone to have it all figured out.

And what Linji is inviting all of us to do is to notice that,

To notice the longings in our own hearts,

Please,

For somebody to have reached the place where they've got it all.

And what Linji says is that it's simple.

If you have self-confidence,

You'll be fine.

Much more easily said than done.

We find ourselves today looking to sources for inspiration,

For input from people who seem to have it all.

In fact,

Entire social media platforms thrive on this human longing.

We turn to blog posts.

There's even a TED Talk that claims that if you just stand in a certain confident posture,

You'll be more confident.

And Linji says that if we devour these blog posts,

These stories,

These 10 secrets to have more self-confidence today,

It's in his words like trying to make rice by boiling sand,

That we're looking in the wrong place.

The most vivid example that I recall of seeing this process played out,

Of looking to another person to have it all,

Putting another head on top of their head and wanting to put another head on top of our own,

It came at a conference where the Dalai Lama was present.

It's the only time I've ever seen the Dalai Lama in person.

It was a conference put on by Harvard Medical School,

And it was chaired by the Dean of Harvard Medical School,

And there were hundreds of people,

And on the stage was the Dalai Lama,

His translator,

The Dean,

And then a whole group of experts from Harvard who wanted to each ask the Dalai Lama a question and have a discussion.

So it began with the Dean of Harvard Medical School introducing the Dalai Lama with enormous fanfare.

He just went on with this litany that he was reading from a prepared document about all of the Dalai Lama's accomplishments,

And what was so striking was that the Dalai Lama,

Sitting there in his great comfortable armchair on the stage,

Began to fidget.

He began actually to play with his robes,

And he was kind of reaching in and adjusting things while the Dean is giving this formal introduction,

And then at one point the Dalai Lama started reaching into his ear,

And I realized he pulled out some earwax and he then made it disappear into his robes,

And I thought,

This is so rude.

What is he doing?

And then each of these Harvard professors asked their question,

And each of the questions was carefully prepared.

One of them was,

How do the templates and schemas laid down by childhood experience constrain the ability to engage in spiritual practice?

And the translator would translate,

And the Dalai Lama would answer to the best of his ability,

But he was clearly not engaged,

And he was not having a good time.

And then there was question and answer,

And during the question and answer,

A woman stood up and said,

Your Holiness,

My son died in a car crash this year,

And I can't bear the grief.

And suddenly the Dalai Lama came alive.

Suddenly he stopped fidgeting.

He sat completely still.

He was absolutely present for this woman,

And they engaged in a real dialogue.

He was right there hearing her cry and responding wholeheartedly with compassion,

And I realized that what had come before wasn't the Dalai Lama being rude.

He didn't mean to be rude.

He simply saw that the dean was speaking in his role as dean to the Dalai Lama in his role as Dalai Lama,

And that the other luminaries up there in suits and dresses were doing the same thing.

They had put heads on top of their own heads,

As Master Linji would say,

To talk to the head that they had put on top of the Dalai Lama,

But when he and this woman spoke,

It was just as two human beings,

Two persons of no rank,

As Linji was also fond of saying.

They weren't dressed in fictions.

They were just two people having the most genuine exchange that I had seen during the entire conference,

And that genuineness was absolutely riveting.

Think about your own life,

And think about the times when you have found yourself longing to put another head on top of your own,

And looking to someone else who seemed to have that great head,

If you could just get some of that.

I think of myself as an eight-year-old.

I had a Superman costume,

And I used to run around the house with my cape flying,

And I'd jump off the bed and hope that I would eventually be able to fly,

And I realized that,

You know,

Our fascination with superheroes,

Certainly as kids,

But also as adults,

All these wonderful Marvel comic movies are about this longing.

Linji famously said to his students,

If you meet the Buddha on the road,

Kill him.

What did he mean?

Well,

He was talking about exactly this.

If you meet some exalted person on the road who you are prepared to put on a pedestal,

Knock that pedestal down in your own mind.

No violence needed in the real world,

But beware of your own tendency to put anyone on a pedestal,

Because anytime we reach outside of ourselves in this way,

We lose the ability to just show up as we are,

And we lose the ability to see other people for who they really are.

But what then?

What about this issue of confidence?

Because I don't know anyone who hasn't at times felt that they lack something,

And that they need to find it outside of themselves.

And,

Of course,

This is a place of practice,

That we can investigate this.

We can ask ourselves,

What is it that I don't feel confident of?

And really look,

And really try to understand what that feels like,

What it feels like in the body,

What our minds go to when they think about what we supposedly lack.

To bring in another quote from Linji,

He said,

As far as this speaker is concerned,

Every place is a place of arrival.

Every place is a true home for the practitioner.

That means that even our lack of confidence is a place of coming home,

Of exploring,

Of investigating,

Of really becoming intimate with it,

And seeing beyond ideas of good enough and not good enough.

To just this,

To just what is,

Including all the mistakes we make,

All the messiness of our lives,

The joys,

The sorrows,

Every place,

A place of arrival.

Every moment,

Coming home.

When we look throughout our history as human beings,

We notice this longing arising again and again.

And there are times,

Of course,

When this longing prompts us to imagine that someone else really has reached a place of perfection,

That someone else really can do no wrong.

That,

Of course,

Is dangerous.

That's what Linji meant when he said,

If you meet the Buddha on the road,

Kill him.

Kill that image of anyone who claims perfection.

And practice with your own sense of not being perfect just as you are.

Remember Suzuki Roshi's famous teaching to his students,

You're perfect just as you are,

And you could use a little improvement.

It's not that there is not work to do,

But this sense of lack,

This sense of imperfection,

Can drive us to dangerous delusions about ourselves and the world.

Back to Linji,

He says,

Make no mistake,

There's no dharma outside you to run after.

There's no dharma within to attain.

Rather than seeking it,

It would be better to hear these words,

Rest,

And practice having nothing to do.

And with that,

I will close and hope that we have an effortless Dharma Dialogue.

Thank you.

Reviews

Wow this has been so helpful to me! Thank you for sharing your insights into that which cannot ever really be explained! I felt like I really saw the Dali Lama... through your eyes in your description of him and his behaviors/ responses to others in the story. I feel more confident after listening. And I feel that there is nothing to do. I am at peace.😌