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What is the function of a zen teacher in a lay practice? Just koan work? When we practice with a teacher and the times get tought when the relationship feels like a heavy burden and no communication is possible how do we know if it is not the time to look for another teacher?
November 4, 2014, 9:30 am
Actually I do not know how a lay teacher works with students in lay life. I myself have only been training in a professional monastery, and there the teacher is representing the Buddha since he is in the straight lineage, having awoken to the same truth as the Buddha. So we see our teacher as if he were Buddha himself. Koans are only tools that guide us to a deeper understanding. How many koans you have passed has no meaning. This is also true as to how I guide my students.