Irreverence on the spiritual path: a survival guide of sorts

“You cannot beat the living transmission from teacher to student, and from student to teacher”

-Junpo Denis Kelly Roshi

The revered Rinpoche

A few years ago, I went to a retreat centre in the leafy southeast of England. The Rinpoche leading the retreat delivered powerful and elegant practices throughout the 5 days of meditation. He (they are nearly always a he) also gave a series of talks, instructions really, on how to apply his teachings in the world at large.

Here’s where it became, for me, a problem.

Without going into too much details (I’m not one to name names) it quickly became apparent to me that his worldview was replete with male power, hierarchy and entitlement, and whilst he gave us much to think about in terms of meditation, his knowledge of current political and economic affairs was very poorly informed and his secular ignorance was shocking.

In the refectory later, I brought this up with 3 retreatants who were closer followers of the Rinpoche. I told them that whilst I found his delivery of meditation quite exquisite, I found his secular world view a problem. The retreatants eyes widened and all said “you don’t question the Rinpoche; he knows much more than all of us-you wait until what he says, you understand.”

At that point it felt I was trapped: either revere the Rinpoche and swallow a message of male power, entitlement and uninformed instruction or disagree and look like an egotist full of disrespect.

What to do?

At this point in the 21^st century we have more access to information, knowledge and growth that ever before: we’re literally just a click away from thousands of articles, papers and books that promote personal development. The internet is truly a world-wide tool of access which means more folk that ever before-especially those who hold positions of authority in the public domain-have a responsibility for growth and a responsibility to check, explore and reflect on what they are propounding with the tool that helps: you can’t hold high office without having high responsibility.

Shadows on the spiritual path

It behoves us not only to wake up within the spiritual path, but-as Ken Wilber says in his book Integral Mindfulness– to grow up, too. This means we have a responsibility to do emotional, psychological and socio-political work on ourselves as well as contemplative. I recall Wilber once saying (and I can’t recall where) when asked “what can you do that the Buddha couldn’t? replying “I can drive a jeep”. As with many of Wilber’s comments, this is profundity in flippancy; he’s pointing out that what we do spiritually also has to work in the world and we’re limited by the history and contexts we find ourselves in.

Junpo Denis Kelly Roshi writes “but in my experience, there were moments where there was so much psychological shadow in a monastery I was stunned. Some of the American students were desperately trying to get away to find themselves. They had self-institutionalised, because they could not function in the world outside the temple gates [    ] there was enough of this kind of behaviour to make me question if insight alone-spiritual insight-was enough. [    ] some people, I suspected, need to go to a therapist to work out old childhood wounds, to do shadow work”

The spiritual writer John Welwood calls this spiritual bypassing, when we have not explored the dark, denied and shadowy aspects of ourselves and our socio-political contexts well enough. Perhaps it is time that the days of unreflective reverence come to an end: is it time to look every Rinpoche, guru and teacher in the face and question them?

Irreverence on the spiritual path

The Cambridge dictionary defines irreverence as “not showing expected respect for official important or holy things” but the notion of irreverence that I want to introduce here is one that I have been adopting for years as a systemic therapist. I have adapted it here as my survival strategy on the spiritual pathway.

In 1994 Cecchin, Lane and Ray published a slim but powerful book called Irreverence: a strategy for therapist Survival which allows therapists to free themselves from the limitations of their own theoretical schools of thought and the familiar hypotheses they apply. Cecchin et al write that irreverence is being “slightly subversive against any reified truth” and the irreverent practitioner need “never feel the necessity to obey”.

Four of its components I have adapted to the spiritual path include:

• Discourses of power: what narratives are presented as truth that in turn work to disempower participants voices?
• Doubt as asset not hindrance: employing a reflective, doubting state of mind to explore other narratives that might be more enabling; checking out the teachers experience and secular-as well as spiritual-experience
• Curiosity: keeping my own questioning spirit of inquiry alive and open towards the teachings
• Context and position: what is/was the socioeconomic context that the teacher was embeded into and might, to a greater or lesser extent still embody?

This means that I can work to increasingly take more personal responsibility for the beliefs, expressions and actions I embody on the spiritual path. Hopefully I am less likely to became seduced, reduced and wedded to a particular text of teaching but respect the teachings as facets in an overall “spiritual diamond” so to speak.

Revving up irreverence

However, on the other side of the nondual coin Is the issue of my ego: in what way can I be certain this is not my arrogance playing out a game with the guru? (Not that they might care, but it’s essential that I do. Care, that is.)

Perhaps one way I might stay reflective and grounded here is to turn the 4 points to myself:

• What narrative or preferences do I embody, and am I embedded into?
• To what extent to I get lost in the echo chamber of my own preferences?
• Can I positively doubt myself?
• Can I turn my curiosity inwards?
• What is the impact of my own context as a white, male, Anglo Saxon born of a certain privilege and position?

Cecchin et al write “prejudices are heat seeking missiles”-and and it is ourselves as well as others who are the targets. Prejudices might just be our juiced-up preferences or our unaware biases. The spiritual path is not one of primrose and pleasantry; it requires rigour and discrimination to embody a path with heart, authenticity and depth. Staying respectful, reflective and irreverent is just one way of doing this.

“we must be willing to sit, unblinking, in the face of our ego, the thousand-faced demon we project out into world as the so-called evil we see out there” Junpo Denis Kelly Roshi

Sources

Cecchin, Lane and Ray Irreverence: a strategy for therapist’s survival

Marina Kaplan Eyes Wide Open: cultivating discernment on the spiritual path

Junpo Denis Kelly Roshi The Heart of Zen

John Welwood Towards a Psychology of Awakening

Ken Wilber Integral Mindfulness