[Buddha-l] Review of a review

[Richard Hayes]

On Jun 28, 2010, at 11:20 AM, Franz Metcalf wrote:

> I share your disturbance at this idea. And yet, how can a Buddhist  
> teacher *not* be an embodiment of the Dharma? Any teacher worth a damn  
> in any performative field must have mastery in it and must be able to  
> actualize that mastery and communicate it to students. If that field  
> is Dharma-holding, then surely the teacher must embody that Dharma.  
> (Of course that doesn't mean the teacher doesn't embody a whole bunch  
> of other crap as well. I reckon this view puts me in the camp of the  
> bracketers.)

That states very well how I see things. There is no shortage of people who exemplify the Dharma pretty darn well quite a bit of the time. It's just that most people also manifest other stuff. I guess this is why I feel so comfortable with organizations that are as disorganized as Quakers are. Nobody claims to be uniquely good at being a Quaker, and nobody claims to be good at being a Quaker all the time, and nobody expects anyone else to be a good Quaker all the time. A lot of religious organizations would be like that if only they didn't have a teacher or master.

Richard