The teacher/lineage system in Buddhism (and other spiritual traditions) has continually been getting exposed as the corrupt and harmful spiritual circus it is. However, to dismiss the concept of teachers, or even lineages, altogether is just as harmful to genuine spirituality. 1/
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Teachers also need to have the resources to know what to do when something goes wrong (e.g. if a student requires professional mental health support). That way we have a complete and nuanced system for human psychological development. 6/
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I have no idea what such a system would look like, let alone how to achieve it. But this is something Western Buddhists absolutely need to be discussing and exploring (and thankfully many are, though sadly not many in the mainstream spiritual community). 7/7
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Ah, you want a cartel. A meditation teacher cartel. Not in the cartel? You can't teach! Want in the cartel? Pay up!
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Yes, I want a cartel much like the one that makes sure witch doctors don't get as much funding and promotion as actual doctors :)
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Of course this assumes the human ability to create a relatively well-functioning system like this for meditation teachers. That assumption may very well be naive. But maybe we can keep experimenting and find out.
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You would make an excellent meditation teacher Have you considered it? The money sucks, but you might one day get a write up in Tricycle or Lion's Roar.
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I'm nowhere near qualified to be teaching.
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Although pretty much anyone is qualified to write for Tricycle.
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Tricycle is the Daily Mail of spiritual journalism
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Let’s talk sometime about my tentative solution to this: mapping the pre-existing network of learning connections. Google did this with PageRank by mapping in-bound page links. Same could be done with spiritual networks so that we get network-validated teachers. AwakeRank?


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That sounds awesome. I was really impressed by http://PragmaticDharma.Network when I saw it a while back. Looks like the map is not public anymore. Can anyone join the network, or is it meant for particularly high-profile teachers/community leaders?
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It was a simple prototype that I had to put on the back burner. It was meant to be for anyone who identifies with the pragmatic approach.
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I see. FWIW I think it's a really great idea. Hopefully it finds a place on the front burner one day.
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