No Prescriptions

The world is in love with the notion of how. Students love to ask for it. Teachers love to dispense it. But the student who asks this is not a true seeker. And the teacher who dispenses it is not a true teacher.

Why?

Because how asks for a prescription. How asks for a method. How asks for a template. How asks for a recipe. How asks for THE WAY. And those who ask the how question, ask the question precisely because they are ready to follow the how answer. And if a person is willing to follow the way indicated by another it is only because he believes that there is, in fact, a path that is ready for him to tread. He has not yet come to the realization that a path is not a road, but an experience. And that experience is not something to join or walk toward. It is something that is continually and incrementally unfolding before him as a function of his way of perceiving his place in the world.

In some ways, the very act of teaching is to misunderstand and to underestimate the nature of the human machine. As teaching is largely about the dispensation of information. The human brain does not respond to another’s words. It responds to its perception and translation of those words. In this way, the teacher and the student are forever speaking a different language.

The teacher teaches the how, not only because he feels it is the only way or the best way. But because he simply loves to do so. He gains something from it. Emotionally and financially.

The student asks the how, because he seeks a quick resolution to his problem. And though it may only work temporarily, he becomes accustomed to this chase.

The true seeker is consumed with the WHAT. For him, the how is like the remora fish that rides the belly of the great shark.

The great teachers are not teachers at all. They are seekers. They are not so much interested in their student’s development of technique, as they are in the development of his understanding.

Teaching technique will lead to an enhancement of one’s technique. But never to the realization of one’s potential.

Asking for the how does not make one great. It makes one dependent.

Seek understanding. Not instruction.

For the ultimate technique is devoid of conscious action.

And the ultimate understanding is devoid of thought.