Friday, September 27, 2013

the lineage of ego

In Buddhism, there is an assertion of lineage -- that chain of Buddhas or teachers stretching back further and further into the past... reaching, for some, "all the way back to the Buddha" ... which seems an incomplete stretch to me, but taste is taste.

I too have literally wept tears of gratitude for those who went before me, working hard and achieving, as it seemed, much that nourished my garden. Literally, wept -- god, how generous they were! How helpful! My Zen teacher too. Wept!

But for those who credit such things as Buddhist lineage, I would suggest that the teaching of lineage is the teaching of ego... relying on something else, however true or helpful or compassionate or beloved.

And is that the best those very good teachers could do -- teach ego ... the very same flummoxed ego that set anyone on a spiritual path in the first place?

If so, they couldn't have been very good teachers, could they?

Maybe remembering the past is OK. But denigrating the teaching of very good teachers is a bit over-the-top in my book.

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