Let Your Life Be the Message
One way to teach is to teach. Another way is just to live your life.
“I have no intention to teach meditation,” I told a perplexed friend explaining why I was going to a forest in North Carolina to sit a retreat. That retreat last week was the final chord of a two year meditation teacher training course I took under the guidance of Emily West Horn and Vince Fakhoury Horn from Buddhist Geeks.
My friend was right to be perplexed. Why would I spend two years training for something I don’t plan on doing?
But to teach what exactly? How to sit still with your eyes closed for prolonged periods of time? Okay, I can sit crosslegged like a rock for two hours — so what? Who cares?
No, the point of all this meditation business, Buddhists say, is the total elimination of suffering. Well, in that case I’m not qualified to teach it because I have not eliminated my suffering. I don’t doubt it’s possible, but I haven’t done it myself yet, although I experience less suffering than before I started to meditate. In any case, how do I teach things I haven’t mastered?
Modern Western culture more or less reduces the Buddhist path to meditation and meditation to mindfulness, that is, being present to what’s going on right now. However, the subject of meditation is far vaster than mindfulness alone, and the Buddhist path of elimination of suffering involves eight different disciplines, of which mindfulness is but one.
If I take a step back and look at what the meditation industrial complex actually teaches, it’s even bigger than that eightfold path. Psychology, trauma healing, self-actualisation, personal growth, ethics are but a few topics that are often covered by anyone setting out to teach meditation.
Needless to say, I’m not much of an authority in any of these fields and an absolute nobody if I think about them all taken together. There’s no hope whatsoever for me to master them that to the point of feeling like I know what I’m talking about.
Maybe I’m looking at it wrongly. The way I’m framing it, the only person maybe qualified to teach meditation was the Buddha, and he’s no longer with us. This can’t be right.
But how do I teach what I don’t know? What is it like to teach from the ‘don’t know’ perspective? Don’t all teachers do it in some respect?
Maybe one way to look at it is to recognise that there isn’t a single right way to teach meditation. Some meditation teachers teach finer aspects of concentration. Others focus on mindfulness. Yet others emphasise the inquiry into the nature of self. This list is endless.
It is also a shared journey. Sure, we might have more or less experience with the territory but what’s far more important is that we’re figuring it out together. Then teaching becomes just teamwork.
Yet another perspective is to give up the idea of teaching and let your life be a message. Not in some grand way of imagining yourself a role model for others to emulate — that’s quite a bit delusional — but simply living your life without trying to teach anything to anyone. Dancing like no one’s looking.
If a meditation practice is indeed meant to transform every aspect of our life, it will inevitably touch everyone we interact with regardless of us trying to make it happen. It’s important to understand that it doesn’t mean people will suddenly like us more — it if happens, great, but don’t bank on it — but how we show up in the world will change thanks to our meditation practice.
And that’s pretty much why I have no intention to teach meditation and have no issue with anyone who does. It’s not either/or, it’s simply two equally valid ways to approach the question.
If anyone ever has any questions about my meditation practice, I’ll answer them freely. If anyone ever asks to sit next to me on a meditation cushion, they’ll be most welcome. If anyone decides to call me their meditation teacher, it’ll be their bad call, not mine.
My job is to live my life to the best of my ability. If there is one thing I’d like others to learn from me, it’s the importance of living your own life, whatever that looks like, meditation or not. The best message you can send to the world is to make the most out of the brief time each of us has here.
Whatever your idea of a good life is, let your life be the message.
PS If there’s a topic you’d like me to write about, reply to this email or leave a comment. Many of my essays come from conversations I had with someone that week.
PPS Best wishes from India! I’ve no idea what I’ll write about next time but it’s got to be some reflection on my first ever visit 🇮🇳
Lovely essay. +1 I hope you are enjoying India.