« Ce qui est permis ne nous apprendra rien. »
Ariane, dans Ariane et Barbe-Bleue, opéra de Paul Dukas (poème de Maurice Maeterlinck)
(« What is permitted will teach us nothing. »)
Hors-la-loi/Outlaw
About the Author: zenscribe
Enseignante Zen et poète, Sensei Amy “Tu es cela” Hollowell est née et a grandi à Minneapolis, aux Etats-Unis. Arrivée en France en 1981 pour étudier la littérature et l’histoire, elle y est restée, s’installant à Paris, où elle élève ses deux enfants et gagne sa vie en tant que journaliste.
The Zen teacher and poet Amy “Tu es cela” Hollowell Sensei was born and raised in Minneapolis, but came to France in 1981 to study literature and history and has lived in Paris ever since, raising her two children and making a living as a journalist.
The problem is that when we meet spiritual teachers, sometimes we become uncritical.
All we see is wisdom, beauty and compassion.
Like a person in love, we lose our ability to see what everyone else sees:
Teachers have blind-spots and weaknesses just like all of us. They are ordinary people.
If a spiritual teacher surrounds himself with ambitious and uncritical people, he may lose touch with reality himself and start believing in his own spiritual greatness.
If he goes berserk in such an environment his students can only admire it and follow him there.
People see wisdom in his drinking?
Some mistakes I made, taught me great lessons.
It’s the other mistakes that worry me; the ones I don’t recognise; the ones I don’t want to admit.
It has little to do with permission in my mind.
Aren’t we all, old enough to make our own decisions and to accept the consequences?
So if you steal the candy, that’s okay.
But then if you say, it wasn’t for the taste of it, it was for your spiritual development, it was to liberate all sentient beings, then I would have my doubts.
Look at a guy like Trungpa. I think he used to drink because he was simply a drunk.
The addiction is the same for all and is really something physical.
The wisdom some people see in his (mis)behaviour is a fabrication.