“Fit”

Within a major religion such as Christianity or Buddhism, there are hundreds of lineages or sects to choose among.

In Western religion, seeking a spiritual home is often thought of in terms of truth. One looks for the right sect that has the true answers.

Finding a home within Buddhism is a matter of individual “fit” rather than ultimate correctness. Buddhism is a pragmatic religion. It is concerned mainly with methods, rather than truth. Because we are all different, different methods will be useful for us.

I believe that all Buddhist sects are valid. However, they offer different teachings and practices, and have different styles or “flavors.” What matters is finding one that offers what you need, as a unique individual, to move in the direction you want to go.

This typically takes several years of exploration. It involves finding out:

• What style of teaching and practice do I find inspiring? What motivates me to practice?
• Where am I at, spiritually? What am I currently capable of? What are my strengths and weaknesses?
• What are the different directions I can go from here? Among those, which direction do I want to go?
• What tools are available to take me from where I am to where I want to go?
• Which Buddhist teachers and lineages offer those tools? Where do I feel a heart connection? What do I like?

I will discuss these questions further in the next few pages. But you might like to stop now and spend a little time thinking about your current answers.

It could be helpful to write them down, perhaps in a diary, and save them. When you read them again in a few months or years, you will learn something about yourself. You will see that your answers have changed. You will have moved, in a direction. That will help understand where you want to go next.

How I approached Aro

This web site is about “approaching” religious traditions. That is the gradual process of learning about different lineages—and about oneself—to eventually find a spiritual “home.”

This page tells how I came to the Aro lineage of Tibetan Buddhism. My story is neither typical nor atypical. Everyone comes to a religious tradition in their own way. There are some themes and phases that most people experience. It is useful to know about these, and my story includes them. I will write more about those themes on the next few pages.

Approaching spirituality

I had religious experiences starting early in childhood. However, I was raised in a non-religious family, so I had no way of making sense of them. These experiences seemed important, but were not something one could talk about. Instead, I looked for books that had something to say about religious experience. I read about Eastern religions, and a great variety of non-mainstream spiritual paths. I started practicing a muddled mediation partly based on books and partly made up as I went along.

the sacredness of all phenomena

Neopaganism provided my first meaningful experience of organized religion. It had much to offer. It had inspiring ritual practices, group and solo. It celebrated the divinity of all sentient beings and the sacredness of all phenomena. It taught oneness with nature. It upheld the central importance of the feminine. It used romantic love and sex as routes to enlightenment. It provided a religious community and had very little dogma. All these remain important to me. They are on my “must have” list for a spiritual path.

What I could not find in Neopaganism was serious teachers. No one seemed much ahead of me. After a couple of years, I was leading large group rituals. People were looking to me for spiritual teaching. I had enough sense to realize that I was a confused twenty-five-year-old with no spiritual insight whatsoever. If people were looking to me for guidance something was badly wrong. I left.

Over the next few years, I learned a lot from a wide variety of spiritual paths and organizations. Each offered practices and teachings found valuable. Each also had pieces missing, or things I strongly disliked. It was always clear that none of these was “home.”

Shambhala Training

no way could I be a Buddhist

Meditation continued to be important to me. To go further, it seemed I would need to approach Buddhism. That was a problem. From books, parts of Buddhism seemed very right. Unfortunately, other parts seemed quite wrong. Most of it seemed just irrelevant and boring. No way could I be a Buddhist.

Then I discovered Shambhala Training. It was a system of meditation classes developed by Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche. He described it as “secular,” meaning that it was not part of Buddhism or any other religion. (Later it was converted into Buddhism by others, however.)

rigorous, detailed meditation instructions

Shambhala was exactly what I needed at the time. It provided rigorous, detailed meditation instructions. Those greatly deepened and strengthened my sloppy daily practice. And Shambhala gave me a great blessing: the opportunity to work one-on-one with a skilled and inspiring meditation teacher. (The Aro Members program did not exist then. It provides similar training, and does not require that you be a Buddhist.)

What I found missing in Shambhala was detailed conceptual explanation. That might be more important to me than to some others. I find I need to balance meditation with reading and understanding. So as I progressed with Shambhala I read more and more Buddhist books and attended more and more Buddhist teachings.

Looking for a lama

There were parts of Buddhism that had seemed wrong. In my reading, I sometimes discovered alternate interpretations that made sense. These came mainly from Dzogchen texts. (A later page explains why Dzogchen appeals to me so much.) However, you really cannot learn Dzogchen from books. As I approached the end of the Shambhala Training curriculum, it seemed that to go further I would need to find a Tibetan Buddhist lama. I was quite reluctant to do that. (I will explain the reasons later.) Still, meditation was important enough to me that I had to persist.

Over a year or two, I attended talks, classes, and retreats with about twenty different lamas. I was lucky to live in a place where many famous ones taught often.

no generic lamas

I discovered that lamas are all quite different. There is no such thing as a generic high-quality lama. Each lama appealed hugely to a particular audience and might leave others bored or annoyed.

• Most bored me. They did not seem to have anything to say. I could learn more, quicker, by reading a book.
• One lama insulted her audience. I did not think she was a good person, never mind a good lama.
• A few were exceptional teachers in the same style as my best university professors. They led a group through a complex intellectual subject clearly and precisely. I respect this greatly, but it was not what I was looking for.
• Chögyal Namkha’i Norbu Rinpoche inspired me hugely. He teaches authentic Dzogchen. (I was learning that this is hard to find.) It was obvious that he teaches from personal realization, not from book learning. He is funny and deadly serious and compassionate and unattached and wild and sane. I attended two retreats with him. There was one hitch. He has thousands of students. It was not realistic to hope to receive detailed one-on-one instruction from him.

After that, I actually gave up. What I wanted did not seem to be available.

Approaching Aro

Then accidentally I read that some lama was teaching on vajra romance at the local Shambhala center. Although I was no longer looking for a lama, I was curious. “Vajra romance” seemed such an odd thing for a Tibetan to talk about. I had to check it out.

electric, eccentric, hilarious

The lama—Ngak’chang Rinpoche—wasn’t Tibetan. He was English. He taught on Dzogchen men-ngak-dé. This was just what I wanted to learn—but hardly anyone would discuss. And he was electric, charmingly eccentric, and very funny.

I still had reservations about Buddhism. So I was not in a hurry to apply to become his student. However, I went to all Rinpoche’s classes and retreats over the next eighteen months. And I read practically every page on the Aro web site. (It was not so gigantic then!)

I started attending the local weekly Aro practice group. I found I really liked the sangha (community). They were dedicated meditators. They were kind and open to me as an outsider. They were funny. They didn’t make a fuss about being “serious Buddhists” and holier-than-thou.

Then I had a private conversation with Ngak’chang Rinpoche in which I explained my reservations about becoming officially Buddhist, and my mixed feelings about becoming an Aro apprentice. He clarified for me several points about what it means to be a Buddhist. That was very helpful. He recommended that I spend at least the next six months thinking more about whether I wanted to become an apprentice, and also that I talk with current apprentices about their experiences of apprenticeship.

Six months later I applied for apprenticeship and was accepted.

as sure as the color of my socks

At my first apprentice retreat, I took Refuge as a Buddhist. I had been resisting that for years. But the reality was that this was simply a public statement of what had long ago become true. I was confident that the basic principles of Buddhism are accurate. As confident as I am of the law of gravity or the color of my socks. And I was confident that this confidence would never change.

Mixed feelings

Everyone, when approaching a spiritual tradition, feels a mixture of attraction and repulsion. We feel a pull toward it at the same time we experience resistance and doubt. Every religious system seems to have delightful aspects and irritating ones.

It is important to allow this ambiguity. However, mixed feelings are uncomfortable. We would rather know: is this tradition the right one or not? So it is tempting to jump to a definite conclusion. But to really discover whether there is a good fit takes months or years of investigation. So any quick judgment is likely to be wrong. On the one hand, giving up at the first signs of trouble risks abandoning a system that could work, with more effort and understanding. This results in wandering from one spiritual group to another, always frustrated that none is quite right. On the other hand, suppressing feelings of doubt risks wasting time with a system that isn’t right in the long run. And it is likely to cause emotional upset when the bad fit can no longer be ignored.

In Buddhism, there is a deeper point: ambiguity is an essential aspect of experience. Learning to accept ambiguity is a key Buddhist practice.

Approach gradually

Every religious group has some series of stages that allow increasing involvement as your interest and understanding deepens. (For the Aro lineage to which I belong, these are described as “phases.”)

It is important to move from one stage to the next only when you are ready. Mixed feelings are inevitable at every stage—but each requires a greater level of confidence. Or, put another way, the feeling of repulsion needs to be less at each stage.

It is tempting to “bull our way through” feelings that things about the lineage are not right for us.

• We like the feeling of attraction and dislike the repulsion. We hope we can get rid of the bad feeling by pretending it isn’t there, or shoving it away.
• We want the teachers and students of the tradition to accept and like us. We worry that expressing our doubts will make us unattractive to them.
• Finding a tradition that is a good fit can be time-consuming, hard work, and anxiety-provoking. It is almost like searching for a spouse. We want to believe that we have succeeded.

But this risks harm not only to ourselves, but also to the group we approach. They may invest considerable time and emotional resources in a new student who appears unusually enthusiastic. If the student suddenly leaves upon finding that they can no longer deny their frustrations and fears, it can be wrenching for everyone involved. Students who try to go too far, too fast are likely to become hostile and leave with bad feelings when they finally acknowledge that the group is not exactly what they wanted.

discuss mixed feelings with members of the tradition

It is important to discuss mixed feelings with members of the tradition—lamas, other teachers, and longer-term students—as you approach. They should understand and accept that mixed feelings are inevitable, and not inherently a problem. (I would call it a big red flag if a group did not recognize this, and had an attitude of “accept everything immediately or go away.”)

This conversation needs to start in a respectful and open way. Suppose you say “I like some things about your system, but practice X is obviously wrong.” The only possible reply to this is “I’m sorry you feel that way—but as you know, we do practice X, so maybe you will be happier elsewhere.” Keep in mind that, in Buddhism, we are not searching for the one sect that has the truth but for a tradition that is a good fit personally.

A better approach is “I like some things about your system, but I am bothered about X, because it conflicts with Y. Am I missing something?” Useful replies to this may be: “Yes, it appears to conflict with Y, but actually it doesn’t, because . . .” or “Yes, it conflicts with Y, but Y may not be essential, for this reason” or “Yes, it conflicts with Y, but that isn’t a problem, because we only do X when Y doesn’t apply.” After discussion of this sort, you may realize that X truly won’t work for you, so it would be better to look for another tradition. Or, you may realize that X is not really a problem for you after all.

A discussion of this sort also leads naturally into discussion of the nature of attraction and repulsion, and of ambiguous feelings in general. These are central themes for Buddhism. Discussing specific mixed feelings can be a springboard for profound teachings on the essence of Buddhist view and practice.

Opinions and curiosity

Not-knowing is uncomfortable because it is a kind of emptiness. We try to fill that emptiness by jumping to conclusions. Once we have an opinion, we don’t need to wonder any longer—the matter is closed.

I offended someone recently by admitting that I can't remember which Karmapa is which, and have no opinion about which one is real. I think she was disappointed that we could not establish rapport by violently agreeing about them. She also felt that anyone who cared about Tibetan Buddhism ought to know all about the Karmapa controversy, and to oppose the fraudulent one. Only some “very dubious” Lamas, and their deluded followers, support him, she said. But since the Karmapas do not affect me in any way, I see no reason to oppose either.

Many people feel that they have the right (or even the duty) to “take sides” and express intense opinions about things they are ignorant of. Internet Buddhist forums are full of this. People who clearly know nothing about some lineage feel compelled to express their opinion that it is the cult from hell.

I sometimes read the “yes he is / no he isn’t” arguments about Lama X on a web forum—and my opinion is that I don’t need an opinion. If I am curious enough about Lama X, I read something he or she has written. If I like that, I go to see him or her. Then I may form an opinion—but often not even then. Coming to a meaningful, informed opinion might take a lot of work. There is no need for one unless I am deciding whether to become a student. Otherwise, all that matters is curiosity—or lack of it.

we fill the emptiness of not-knowing with cynicism and blind faith

Fear of the emptiness of not-knowing gives rise to cynicism and blind faith. Although these seem like opposites, they are really the same thing. They are personal rigidity, as a defense against uncertainty. Both are dysfunctional. They cut us off from ambiguous situations.

Non-dual vision—rigpa—enlightenment—is the essence of ambiguity. It is the goal of the Buddhist path. To approach rigpa, we gradually abandon “reference points.” Those are our fixed ideas about ourselves, about others, and about the relationship between self and other.

Curiosity is allowing ourselves to be open to ambiguity. It is enjoying the mixture of form and emptiness: knowing and not-knowing. It means actively seeking uncertainty. It is inviting things to be as they are, and dancing with them. In curiosity, we soften our boundaries, to allow wonderment.

Buddhism in the West

Through its history, Buddhism has traveled from country to country. Each time, some aspects of it have changed to suit the new culture.

Every Buddhist teacher, wherever they were born, now agrees that some aspects of Buddhism will change in the West. However, there are sharp disagreements about what should change, and about how to decide.

The position a Buddhist group takes on this question is one of the most important aspects of “fit”—that is, whether the group will work well for you personally. So I think it is important to understand the spectrum of options. For those interested in approaching the Aro lineage, it is important to know where Aro is placed on that spectrum.

There are two ends of the spectrum. At one end, there is “keep as much as possible of what is done in Asia, because we know that works.” At the other end, there is “keep only what can easily fit into the Western world-view.”

Both of these approaches have much to recommend them. Each is a good fit for some students. However, both also are potentially problematic.

The “take as much as possible” approach may create unnecessary obstacles. There are aspects of Asian Buddhist practice that are inessential. They just reflect Asian secular culture, and cannot function in Western cultures. For Westerners, learning and practicing them is alienating, difficult, and in the end a waste of time.

Also, this approach depends on Buddhism “working” optimally in Asia. I am not convinced of that. Buddhism “working” means that it produces personal spiritual progress—ultimately, full enlightenment. Much supposedly Buddhist practice in Asia does not even attempt that. It serves practical, political, social, and entertainment purposes, not religious ones.

The “take as little as possible” approach risks throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Some fundamental principles of Buddhism conflict with some fundamental principles of the Western world-view. Without its fundamental principles, Buddhism may be reduced to a technique used in psychotherapy or progressive politics. It might be useful there. But this loses the radical transformative possibilities that Buddhism offers. To realize those possibilities, we have to be willing to give up our unquestioned allegiance to some Western values.

So, for me, the best fit is to be found in a “middle way” between these extremes. My guess is that some middle position will be the most useful for most students of Buddhism. Many Buddhist teachers agree. Most Buddhist groups in the West are to be found at some point along the way between traditionalism and assimilation. The Aro lineage, to which I belong, is an example.

Being in the middle can be uncomfortable. You may get flak from both sides.

Traditionalists may call you “inauthentic.” They may say that your group is no good because it doesn’t teach some practice they think is critical. And that you are not really a Buddhist at all, because you do things somewhat differently than they are done in Japan or Thailand or Tibet.

If you are in the middle, Westernizers may make fun of you for adopting some Asian principles and customs. “Why should Westerners pretend to be Asian?” They say that ordained Western monks and tantrikas are “playing dress-up” when they wear traditional robes. They think it is silly to play Asian musical instruments in religious ceremonies. They may find Buddhist concepts of teacher-student relationships uncomfortably authoritarian. They may say that your Buddhist ideas about negative emotions conflict with principles of psychotherapy and so are unacceptable.

I have a “live and let live” attitude toward ideological conflicts in Buddhism. I think all approaches are valuable for some students. I am not interested in arguing about which is “right” or “best.” That means that I can politely ignore rude comments about my lineage being too traditional or too Western. I guess I do have an opinion about this, though. My opinion is that it would be better if everyone did their own thing, and let other Western Buddhists get on with theirs.

Learning from other traditions

Reading in other traditions

I find it important to keep a balance between meditating and reading Buddhist books. There are times when I am greedy for one or the other. Then I either practice for hours a day, or gobble down every book on Madhyamaka I can find. But it works best when I both read and meditate. Books supply both understanding and inspiration. Without clear understanding of a practice, it’s possible to miss the point. Hard work with the wrong approach goes nowhere. On the other hand, intellectual understanding of a practice without thorough experience like reading the menu without eating the meal.

For Aro students, the books of our own lineage are the most important. But they are still few, and they can cover only a fraction of the ocean of Dharma. All Aro students read widely in other traditions as well. The recommended books page on our public web site includes authors from three of the four major Tibetan Buddhist Schools, plus Zen and Bön. These books are excellent starting points for anyone interested in Vajrayana Buddhism, and especially Aro Friends, Members, and anyone attending our weekend public retreats.

Not only do these cover topics for which Aro books are not yet available, they describe the same material from a different perspective. Aro recommends Lama Yeshe’s Introduction to Tantra, and Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche’s Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism, even though they say much the same things about many of the same topics as Ngakpa Chögyam’s Wearing the Body of Visions. It is valuable to read all three because they provide (respectively) Geluk, Kagyüd, and Nyingma perspectives. Each also shows its author’s intense, brilliant, and utterly unique personality display. Each one deepens the understanding provided by the other two. (It is only by coincidence that the Sakya School is not represented on our public reading list; it is included in the list of books recommended for Aro apprentices.)

Classes and retreats in other traditions

For more committed students, such as Aro apprentices, receiving intensive teaching individually and in small-group situations is even more important than study. We attend retreats with our Lamas for most of a week, twice a year. That takes a substantial fraction of time off work for many of us, and it is often not practical to attend any other teachings.

However, classes and retreats with teachers of other traditions can again provide a useful alternate perspectives. The Aro Lamas recommend that their apprentices check with them before receiving such teachings, to clarify in advance possible confusions about apparent yana conflicts. From point of view of Dzogchen, all Buddhist teachings are equally valid; yet they may appear to contradict each other. Once a student has a sufficient grasp of principles and functions, truth and methods, this is no longer a potential problem.

Last week (early May 2008), I attended a retreat with Traga Rinpoche organized by the Drikung Dzogchen Community of Vermont. Traga Rinpoche is a master of the Yangzab Dzogchen lineage of the Drikung Kagyüd. I had been curious for some time about these teachings, because the Drikung Kagyüd are the closest “cousin” tradition to the Nyingma. I found descriptions of their presentation of Dzogchen intriguingly different from and similar to the Nyingma presentations I was familiar with from experience with Chögyal Namkha’i Norbu Rinpoche and with Aro. My Lamas encouraged me to attend a retreat with him to learn more. Although I found the intellectual content familiar, it was inspiring to see the different style of presentation. I will carry that inspiration into the “open retreat” I have planned for the rest of this month.

On quite a different note, for months now I have been attempting to attend classes or retreat with Brad Warner, an unusual Zen master whose blogs I admire. His Soto perspective is quite different from the Nyingma one. Yet, at a deeper level, the two schools seem to point in the same direction. He always manages to be where I am not; but I will catch up with him eventually.

Lama as surgeon, Lama as spouse

How to choose a Lama? People advocate different criteria. Here I’ll give some analogies that are a bit silly, but help explain how I chose my Lamas. I hope they may be helpful if you think you might want to find a Lama and are unsure how to go about it.

As with almost everything in Tibetan Buddhism, how to find a Lama depends radically on the yana you apply. In fact, each yana could almost be defined in terms of the relationship one has with a teacher in that yana. I’ll talk about Lamas as school teachers, as surgeons, and as spouses.

I’ll talk also about how we know Lamas are qualified. “Qualified for the job” is interestingly ambiguous in English. It can refer to formal qualifications—such as a university degree, training courses taken, or number of years of work experience at a certain level. It can also refer to capabilities such as skills and personality traits. Both may be relevant to selecting a Lama.

For Sutrayana (meaning non-Vajrayana), one’s relationship with a teacher is much the same as with a high school teacher. The teacher’s job is to impart information and maybe conceptual understanding. A good teacher knows the subject thoroughly, is kind, explains clearly, and might inspire one to go further in the field. The choice of teacher is not critical; any reasonably competent teacher can do the job.

highly technical, exacting, and critical to spiritual health

For Outer Tantra, a Lama is like a heart surgeon. I think this generally isn’t understood very well. In Outer Tantra, the Lama’s job is to perform esoteric procedures (rituals) which the student mostly does not attempt to understand. These procedures are highly technical, exacting, and critical to one’s spiritual health. One doesn’t have a personal relationship with the Lama. He or she is an higher being whom one holds in awe and visits once or twice a year for a follow-up procedure. This is the way almost all Tibetans relate to Lamas. It’s the way Westerners relate to heart surgeons. It’s also the way many Westerners relate to Lamas, even when they practice Inner Tantra.

In Outer Tantra, what is critical is that the Lama have the right formal qualifications. Unless one is a heart surgeon oneself, one is not in a position to evaluate whether a doctor is properly trained. One must rely absolutely on the approval of the board of certification. Similarly, in Outer Tantra, it is critical to check that the Lama has the right credentials.

In Inner Tantra, particularly Dzogchen, the Lama teaches you how to live, in part by example. What matters is that you be inspired by the way the Lama lives, and that he or she is able to convey that to you. This “conveyance” is not primarily a matter of giving information or intellectual understanding; ways of living are not primarily conceptual. This mode requires a long-term, intimate relationship with the Lama as a unique individual. When I say “intimate” I do not mean that the Lama will take you to bed, any more than in Outer Tantra the Lama will cut open your chest. I mean that you and the Lama need to get to know each other well, and you must find it delightful to spend time together.

I need to get married—can we arrange an appointment?

Searching for a Lama for Inner Tantra is, therefore, like searching for a spouse, not a surgeon. Board certification is irrelevant. That would be like phoning someone you had never met and saying, “Hi! Do you have an ‘Adequate’ or better rating from the New Jersey Spousal Approval Authority? Yes? Good! I need to get married—can we arrange an appointment for sometime this month?” An authority can only say that someone is qualified to perform a generic technical task; an authority cannot say whether you and another person will be a good fit. Your friends might be able to introduce you to someone suitable, based on their knowledge of who you are; but ultimately only you can say whether another person is qualified to marry you.

Aro teachers explain that apparent contradictions in Buddhism are always due to confusions about which yana a teaching belongs to. For instance, if you practice Outer Tantra, separating the sacred and the profane is critical, and you may be horrified by the Dzogchen doctrine that anything can be sacred or profane depending only on how you perceive it. There is no inherent purity or impurity, and no need for ritual cleanliness.

Likewise, for Outer Tantra, the thought that someone might be practicing Vajrayana without a license is anathema. If a clever con man could get away with claiming to be a heart surgeon, collected huge fees, and cut hearts open without knowing what he was doing, it would be a catastrophe. Lots of patients would be taken in—how are they to know if someone is qualified?—and lots would die.

This seems to be the basis for some nervousness, expressed on the web, about Aro and the Aro Lamas. “Has this been approved in writing by the Dala’i Lama?” they ask. “Is it really true that his Lamas gave Ngak’chang Rinpoche permission to teach?” “How can we be sure the Aro gTér wasn’t just made up? In what text was it prophesied by Padmasambhava?”

From a Dzogchen perspective, some such questions are totally irrelevant, and the others are mostly beside the point—like a certificate from the Spousal Approval Authority. What matters is “am I inspired to practice by this Lama?” and “does the Lama give me radical, non-conceptual insights into existence that I could never get from a book?” and “do I find time with this Lama exquisitely enjoyable?”

A lineage of transmission is critical; the capacity to teach Vajrayana accurately is acquired only from a vajra master. But it is that ability that matters, not than the certification of a governing authority. As it happens, the Aro Lamas have both formal qualifications and capacity. I personally care only about the latter—because I don’t have great faith in the Tibetan certification process. Reasonable people may have a different opinion about that.

we risk being swindled

Without a certification, we risk being swindled. For those prone to alarm, that might be alarming. Reality never gives guarantees, though. A Lama with an unquestioned certificate might be safe—and dull—and never inspire you to anything. A famous, universally approved Lama might be the perfect teacher for someone else—but his or her way of explaining things just doesn’t get through to you. An impeccably official Lama may be a con man who fooled the licensing board. Tibetan history is full of Lamas with excellent credentials and execrable behavior.

Ultimately, no one can decide for you. For Inner Tantra, all you can do is to approach a prospective Lama, like a prospective spouse, with a mixture of openness and caution. Read books and articles from many perspectives, attend teachings with many Lamas, and form your own intelligent opinion based on what you observe.

Personality display

“Rely on the message of the teacher, not on his personality.”

This is the first of the “Four Reliances,” which are sound basic advice about approaching Buddhist teaching. The point is that, if what a teacher says is accurate, it does not matter if he or she is an unpleasant or even unethical person. And, a charismatic, well-spoken teacher whose teachings are mistaken is a hindrance, not a reliable source.

This advice is given in terms of the sutric view of a teacher as primarily a giver of information. The goal of sutric Buddhism is emptiness, which is without characteristics. For sutra, a teacher is ideally colorless, devoid of personality. Any personal considerations would only distort the message.

As usual, in relation to sutra, tantric Buddhism says “yes, but”—and goes on to assert almost the opposite. That is because tantra starts from emptiness and returns to form. It is the reverse journey from sutra—except that we bring emptiness with us. In tantra, we seek empty form. We try to see the world as vividly unreal, brilliantly insubstantial, a fabulous display produced by nothing. Tantra is complex and colorful—and the ideal tantric teacher is complex and colorful, too.

Our personalities are form: definite characteristics. We respond to different situations with different combinations of emotions. Ordinarily, these responses are habitual and automatic. We feel that we have no choice but to respond to insults with anger. We are slaves to our feelings.

The sutric approach to emotions is to renounce (abandon) them, so we find the peace of emptiness. We learn to break the link between provocation and response. Ideally, a sutric master meets all situations with equanimity—and so has no personality.

The tantric approach to emotions is to transform them into their enlightened equivalents. We do that by mixing them with emptiness. We take the dark, heavy solidity of rage, find its empty character, and discover that it manifests as mental clarity. We take the bitter pain of neediness, find its empty character, and discover that it manifests as compassion. Rage and clarity are the same energy. Neediness and compassion are the same energy.

personality display communicates and inspires

A tantric master ideally has no personality—no fixed emotional responses to situations. However, a tantric master displays emotions as empty forms. “Displays” means that these apparent emotions are deliberate and purposeful, rather than reactive. The outward display of transparent emotions is a tool. They communicate and inspire. They also demonstrate to the student how emotions can be transformed. Experiencing the teacher’s transformed emotions helps us understand how we can transform our own.

This is “personality display.” Tantric lamas are intensely different from each other in style. They produce the appearance of personalities, even if (ideally) they do not have any. Personality display is a key aspect of a tantric lama’s teaching, because it models the way particular personalities can be transformed. For sutra, one must not rely on the teacher’s personality. For tantra, one must rely on the teacher’s personality display.

Students with particular personalities learn best from teachers whose apparent personalities are compatible or complementary in some way. For example, some students need a teacher who is always supportive and gentle. Others need a teacher with an edge, who may be demanding or even confrontational. Some need a teacher who is dry and academic; some need one who is warm and funny; some need one who is terrifyingly wild.

Because a skilled lama has no fixed personality, he or she may display entirely different apparent personalities to different students. He or she may also display different personalities to the same student at different stages of the student’s spiritual growth. The teacher appears to become whatever the student needs to take the next step in the student’s own transformation.

If you are approaching the possibility of becoming a regular or committed student of a lama, I suggest that you first go to talks or classes or retreats with as many as possible. You may be struck with how different they seem. I have described how I discovered that there are no generic lamas. If your circumstances permit—do not settle for one who is not a good “fit” for you.