[Buddha-l] Re: Just checking

[Benito Carral]

On Sunday, July 23, 2006, Mike Austin wrote:

> Based  on  a  particular  text or topic, we have good
> discussions.  We are joined in these discussions with
> our resident Geshe. I wonder how many of us have this
> opportunity as well?

   I don't live near good masters or Dharma friends, so
when  I  have  some  question,  I ask my Dharma friends
around   the   world   (including   masters,  long-term
practitioners, and scholars in several traditions).

   What  I  find most stimulating is to see my students
struggling  to  incorporate Dharma in their daily lives
and help them to do it.

   For  example, last week I met a 19-year-old girl who
is  studying  with me since one year ago--as we talked,
she  quoted  some  Master  Linji's  teachings  we  were
dealing  with  during  the  last weeks--as the Zhaozhou
bridge's spirit, what I found most pleasant.

   She is an adolescent idealist who is now starting to
discover how the world really works (for example, she's
discovering  that Buddhism doesn't is like she imagined
it is), but she's doing it from a Buddhist pov, which I
think  it's  great.  It's a great responsibility for me
because I know that, as her Dharma teacher, I'm helping
her to develop a long-term world view.

   For  example,  she  always  wanted to be a publicist
(she  studies  audiovisual communication at university)
and  now  she  doesn't want to work for the advertising
industry anymore but to be a investigative journalist.

   There  is  an old Jewish saying that goes like this,
"I  learned much from my teachers, more than that did I
learn  from  my  colleagues,  but  most  of all from my
students!"

   That's exactly right for me. I only miss taking root
in  a  tradition and I'm working in order to handle it.
It's  not  easy,  but  I  consider  it my main practice
nowadays.

   Best wishes,

--
Benito Carral
   Asturias, Sepharad (Spain)