So this week we've been exploring spiritual friendship.
And the translator Bhikkhu Bodhi defined two types of spiritual friendship.
The horizontal,
Which we talked about on Tuesday,
And the vertical,
Which we'll explore today.
And the horizontal spiritual friendship,
As I described on Tuesday,
Is a friendship between people who are roughly the same level at following the path.
So that's a friendship between companions on the path.
And what unites them as spiritual friends is a common dedication to following this Buddhist path.
So the other aspect that he speaks about and has written about is what he calls vertical friendship.
And this is the spiritual friendship between people who are at widely different levels on the path.
And this type of spiritual friendship is kind of like the bond between the teacher and a student.
And at times,
You know,
We are all teachers.
I think we're all teachers all the time.
And we're all students all the time.
To stop being a student is to be dead,
I think,
Or severely impaired.
So because the relationship between the two is not equal or symmetrical,
If this relationship is to be beneficial,
Different qualities are required of the teacher and the student.
And in a relationship that revolves around the Dharma,
The ideal teacher should have a wide knowledge of the Buddhist scriptures,
And also a lot of practical experience in following the teaching.
So my teachers,
Whom I love and admire so greatly,
Are really humble transmitters of this tradition.
And so this is my intention and my sincere wish to uplift the practitioners on the path by improving their knowledge and practical experience,
So that in a sense,
You become your own teacher.
This is the goal.
Really,
This is the goal.
So that that teacher lives in you more fully.
So sometimes as the person with the talking stick,
You know,
The role of teacher is to point out barriers to the freedom that we're seeking.
You know,
Please spare your friends and family of this role.
It doesn't go well.
So the student in this vertical friendship should have faith and trust and confidence in the person who is further along the path.
This is not blind faith,
But a trusting confidence in the spiritual capacity of the teacher.
Both the teacher and the student are united in this possibility of waking up and truly being free in this lifetime.
And both have a faith in the effectiveness of the Dharma and the teachings on the path to liberation.
So the student is not,
I think the student is,
The responsibility of the student is not to regard the teacher as infallible.
And just accept every bit of the advice the teacher offers.
That would be something that is not along the lines of this path.
You know,
I reflect on the word,
The Pali word that I absolutely love.
It's on my bulletin board.
It's so important to me.
It's the word ehi pasiko,
Ehi pasiko.
And it means come and see for yourself.
Come and see for yourself.
So you may hear something from a teacher,
Myself or another teacher,
And you might question it.
And the teaching,
The Buddha's teaching is to see for yourself how this is true or not.
The Buddha respected the capacity of mature human beings to make independent judgments.
He didn't subscribe to the view held by many Indian religions,
Many religions in general.
But practitioners must regard the teacher's words as an absolute.
I think that was really the appeal for me in this practice.
In the Vinayana,
Which is the Buddhist code of monastic discipline,
Students are authorized to correct their teachers if they see them engaging in improper modes of conduct.
And this principle,
Which is over 2,
500 years old,
Is still valid today.
In a way,
It's sort of like checks and balances.
It's a way of regulating the relationship between a teacher and a student to correct their teachers if they see them engaging in a way that is not aligned with the precepts that we take.
And all of this is done in the spirit of love and mutual respect.
So the practice of the Dharma is aimed really at subduing the ego,
This false sense of self.
And if we act in ways that inflate the sense of self,
It actually defeats the purpose of following the Dharma.
So the vertical relationship between student and teacher really provides the ideal field for both to work at tackling the demands of the ego.
Teaching has been a wonderful vehicle for subduing my own ego.
The spiritual growth in this practice,
In this Dharma,
Is a process of abandoning our,
I guess you could call them faults or maybe hindrances,
The things that prevent us from growth,
Our fixed view,
And replacing them with the opposing virtues of care and loving kindness and gratitude and generosity.
Yet way too often,
We are just so unaware and blind to our faults or unable or unwilling to see them.
So the teacher's role is a mirror.
The person that's higher on the path is a mirror who shows us our faults clearly without deception,
Without like,
There's not a harming element to it.
Just reminding us that the faults that we are continually striving to hide from ourselves are seen.
And it's only when we're willing to see our faults,
When there's a willingness to see how it's not working,
That we can correct them.
If we go on not wanting to hear or just wanting to have a kind of a superficial friendship where you feel belonging,
And that feels like enough,
If we go on denying that we have things that we need to address and work on,
Then what we do is we continually wallow in these hindrances.
So it's through this consistent process of seeing the egocentric tendencies,
Or having someone point to them,
And then seeing them,
That we move in this direction of freedom that the Buddha has laid out for us.
In the Dhammapada,
Which is a collection of sayings from the Buddha,
It says that when the teacher points out a student's faults and tries to correct them,
The student should feel as though the teacher were pointing out a hidden treasure,
A hidden treasure.
So that's the vertical path as laid out by Bhikkhu Bodhi,
And I thank you for your attention and your consideration,
And I invite you to share what you think about that.
