Teachers, Conscious and Unconscious

A Story:

There is a story in the Buddhist world, of an old monk who lived in the Buddha's community at the time of the Buddha's death. As the story is told by the Vipassana teacher S.N. Goenka, after Buddha passed away, this monk was openly happy, saying, "Now that the old man's not around, we won't have to stick to all his rules." (The monastic order had a lot of rules.) This was overheard by one of the senior, enlightened monks, who realized that unless the Buddha's teachings were recorded and remembered, the order would break down and the usefulness of Buddhism lost. So he helped initiate a convocation of the most senior monks, to remember and record (in memory) the teachings. And this senior monk was so grateful to the old monk.

I was staying at a meditation center at the time I heard that story, and I, baffled, went to one of the teachers, asking, "Why in the world would you be grateful to such an idiot?"

Apparently, the teacher's answer didn't land at that time, because it's roughly twenty years later that this teaching is starting to make sense. Being: the gratitude of the senior monk was not towards the "idiotness" (or more kindly, the ignorance) of the old monk, but towards the teaching function that came through him. The old monk did not intend to teach anyone; at the level of his personality, he was just expressing himself. But in contact with the right mind--meaning, a mind that was open, receptive, and reflective--then the teaching could find a student in the senior monk.

Conscious and Unconscious Teachers

This can happen because, we could say, there is one "teaching function" (the exchange of information that is internalized by another), but actually two kinds of teacher: the conscious and the unconscious. These are different not in their having something to teach--they both do--but in their skillfulness in the transmission of that teaching, and awareness that they actually are teaching.

A conscious teacher is fairly obvious to us: they know what it is they are teaching, are aware of their students, and are focused on the transmission of the teaching. They might not actually admit to teaching--often these teachers look like tricksters, and their style is a kind of "creative irritation"--but nonetheless, they know what they're doing.

It's the unconscious teachers that are much more plentiful, much more problematic, and require more from us as students. These teachers don't intend to teach, are not aware that they're teaching, and are not skillfully transmitting...and yet, they are teachers nonetheless, if know they're there and let them teach us.

So, as an example, here's a excerpt from Ursula le Guin's The Dispossessed, in which the protagonist, Shevek, a physicist who is working with laborers on a reforestation project, encounters a co-worker:

Don't call me profiteer!" Shevek said, but this wasn't a verbal battle. Shevet [the co-worker] knocked him double. He got in several return blows, having long arms and more temper than his opponent expected: but he was outmatched....Shevek did not call for help, so it was nobody's business but his own. When he came to he was lying on his back on the dark ground between two tents.

He had a ringing in his right ear for a couple of days, and a split lip that took long to heal because of the dust, which irritated all sores. He and Shevet never spoke again. He saw the man at a distance, at other cookflres, without animosity. Shevet had given him what he had to give, and he had accepted the gift.

The antagonist, Shevet (who, ostensibly, was angry about the protagonist having a similar name), did not have learning, or tutored wisdom to impart. What he had as a teaching was his own rough understanding of relationship and it's expression in conflict, but he was not intentionally engaging Shevek as a teacher. He was being himself, and the "transmission" of the teaching was in Shevek's willingness to engage and to receive.

Unconscious teachers and mood

We miss these rough teachings all the time, and in depression and anxiety, we not only miss real teachings (meaning, new and fresh learnings), but make the world conform to old ideas. Basically, because depression and anxiety either shut us down or become always watchful for danger, it's much harder to be open to new experience, to new learning.  Experiences bend towards confirming a futile and scary world.  

It becomes a key practice in overcoming, and recovering from, depression and anxiety, to consciously and intentionally look for these unconscious teachers.  Not an easy practice, certainly. The fear of being open is part and parcel of these moods, so we need help to feel safe enough (friends, family, therapists, spirituality). Nonetheless, if we don't make attempts to see these hidden teachings, the world remains denuded of meaning, bleak and empty.  

Which, surprisingly, when we dare to open and listen, we actually find there's more teachers than we ever, ever thought.

Two common life examples

So, here are a couple examples of unconscious teachers:

Example 1: I'm driving along, minding my own business, and a sports car swerves in front of me, making me lay on the brakes. He laughs and drives off.

The non-teaching: [Expletive] drivers. No one respects anyone anymore. Everyone is so inconsiderate, and here's just another one of the world's idiots, out for themselves. It's just always like that.

The teaching: People can be self-centered and oblivious, it would seem. That being the truth, what there for me to learn from this one? Well, that I need to be more attentive when I drive, that I can't assume courtesy. But I also need to be aware of actually how generically kind most people are on the road, and that this guy is a relative exception. That's what I can actually observe.

Example 2: My supervisor gave the promotion to the other program manager, her friend, even though I've been waiting for a year and have been at the company longer.

The Non-Teaching:  I'm not sure I ever deserved it. I probably am over estimating my value, and just got caught out by her. I shouldn't have ever hoped or worked for the promotion. It's happened before like this, so it's better to just not try.

The teaching: Wow, it's painful to feel this sense of rejection, especially when it's really not a fair decision. But when I look at it, I really wasn't playing the politics well in the company, and have been pretty passive in my career. Huh. So what she's teaching me is that I need to actually decide whether I want to be here and accept and engage the corporate game, or move to something else, and that ultimately that's my responsibility to figure out and decide. That doesn't excuse anything, but there's is something to learn.

Teachings requires openness, and with that willingness to orient openly to, especially, difficult experiences, then those very experiences and people become unconscious teachers. They haven't the intent to teach you, but that's the very real effect when we receive and inquire, essentially asking, "What have I to learn from this?"

And this is not a Pollyanna approach, and it does not at all necessitate passivity. Shevek's lesson was essentially, "Violence exists as part of relationship," a lesson that, accepted as a simple fact of reality, became something he learned and then grew from.

One sees, in time, and with effort and openness, that one's existence in this rangy world really does have meaning, has value, and unfolds and develops. This insight--accumulated by contact with many unconscious (and conscious) teachers--reshapes one's diminished view of life, and, like topping a snowy mountain range and dropping into the lush valley, this change changes everything.