WHEN I FIRST SHOWED UP at the Minnesota Zen Center forty five years ago and met its head teacher, Dainin Katagiri, I was full of misapprehensions and naive expectations about studying with a spiritual teacher.
Eventually I discovered that most people, when they first consider working with a spiritual teacher, have many of the same misapprehensions and expectations.
This isn’t foolish or dysfunctional; it’s normal. When we begin any potentially important relationship, we can’t know exactly how it will evolve. We can only live into it—and, if necessary, back out of it—as mindfully as possible.
Most authentic student–teacher relationships start out simply and productively. As these relationships unfold, however, many of us eventually experience some shock, surprise, confusion, and disappointment. We discover that the relationship is at least partly not what we expected. Much of what we learn through that relationship may be equally unexpected. All of this, too, is normal.
If we stay with this process rather than attempt to flee from the dukkha, we may find ourselves at a place of reappraisal, integration, reorientation, and renewal.
There’s no way to circumvent this process. It’s a necessary part of many folks’ spiritual journeys.
However, it’s possible to post some signs along the route. These signs can help people who walk the path to stay on it; to traverse it more swiftly; to stumble less often; to get up more quickly when they do; and to not lose sight of why they’re on the journey.
What follows are nineteen such signposts.
If they weren’t, how could we possibly follow in their footsteps,
