Quote:
Matthew Story wrote:
I suggest, though, that, rather than judging and condemning a man many of us have never even met, we allow Mr. George to teach us one last lesson: that no level of mastery, no amount of authority, and no number of good intentions will make us morally invincible.
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In point of fact, it is usually quite the opposite. While the spiritual path is admirable, it is not in any way a "normal" one. When a young person gets that focused, that early in life, it does not result in a fully developed.person. Virtually every major spiritual system that came over from the East had major problems with scandals. This was true in the Zen, Tibetan Buddhist, and Yoga communities as well as the martial arts community.
Jack Kornfield, one of the senior Vipassana teachers in the US, talked in one of his books about the fact that when he came back from his years of training in the forest monasteries of SE Asia, the first thing he needed to do was do ten years of therapy. The high level spiritual insights gained from the training did not mean that he had dealt with childhood issues or become an integrated personality. He had relationship problems, etc. just like any other person.
Joko Beck,one of the amazing female Zen teachers here in the states wrote about the lack of connection between "enlightenment" and being a well integrated and balanced personality. You simply cannot assume one leads to the other. I think that people have not really understood this well. Her believe is that the training should perhaps incorporate some work that would address this issue.
Not only does an Aikido teacher get
NO training in ethics, transference, etc in preparation for being in his or her exalted position (as any doctor, lawyer, mental health practitioner or other professional, even a massage therapist) but often, the roles models upon whom he might base his behavior were bad. Ellis Amdur writes about this in his book Dueling with O-Sensei at length.
People need to look at their teachers for what they are and no more. Don't assume that just because the person has mastered a certain degree of technical proficiency, this has much bearing at all on his proficiency at being a human being. Don't assume that just because the teacher is a fantastic human being, their Aikido is very good. Technical expertise does not in any way equate to wisdom nor does wisdom necessarily infer technical expertise. Only occasionally do we find a teacher who has both.
Folks need to look at themselves and understand how they try to make their teachers in to something they badly want them to be but really are not. Aside from the devastation when the teacher turns out not to be what you had constructed in your mind it simply isn't good for your own training to put anyone above you in that way. It leads to an acceptance of being below them, technically and as a person. No matter how amazing ones teacher is, the entire point of your own training is
when you are going to decide to be amazing yourself...
So, explanations are not excuses but they are needed to understand what and why something happens. That understanding is needed to be able to see what is before you and what is inside you. Only in that way can one not get caught up in the whole web of delusion which causes these types of problems.