A True Teacher?

A true Mahayana teacher should be someone who enjoys simplicity, yearns to be anonymous, and as Tibetans would say, hides in solitude like a wounded animal.
-Dalai Lama ( from my desk top calendar for February 27, 2019...Andrews McNeil publishing/Kansas City)

Funny this should come up for today after I wrote what I did yesterday about teaching. Funny that my superficial self would automatically interpret it as something meant for 'me'.  lol  Still got a big fat ego, don't I?

Let's cut 'me' down to size using the above quote from his holiness.

Teacher?

I do like to think of myself as a teacher.  It is a role I identified with long before I began to awaken so it is a part of my personal history and therefore a part of the little 'self'.  As I have mentioned before, I believe we are all teachers and therefore I do not claim any 'special' status. So yeah, on a  superficial level and on a deeper level  I am okay calling myself a teacher.

Am I a 'true' teacher?  What is a true teacher lol?  I like to teach truth but I don't know truth yet...still learning.  I am not sure where that puts me.

I am not a Mahayana teacher. That is, I (as the little self)  am not a Buddhist trained in the Mahayana tradition.  So I definitely can't own that one. I greatly respect the years of training and devoted practice that a trainee goes through to establish that expertise.  I also love to listen to such teachers in the Mahayana and Zen traditions. But...I cannot pin those credentials to my chest. Besides, I look at Buddha's teaching as a philosophy and wonderful way of healing the mind. I don't seek the religion in it.

Simplicity?

I do enjoy simplicity.  I really do.  I am so tired of all the drama and the chaos...the busyness this world demands. I want the quiet, the solitude and the peace of simplicity.  I am not a renunciant, however. I haven't given up all my materials....but luckily for me, my income and a lot of material assets have been removed from my life by circumstance.  I can live without.

Anonymous?

Do I yearn to be anonymous?  Hmm...I don't want to be famous or even popular...not really.  As a teacher, I want the message I offer to be read and  heard.  As a writer, I do want publication.  There are times in the height  of feeling bad about myself ( when  ego is in charge)  I do look to redeem myself with my writing and think  ego things like "When I get published, they will see that I had something to offer...they will understand me .  I will redeem myself " etc. Silly I know. 

I may never get that and that is okay.  The true writer in me just wants to write and I can usually push both shamer and redeemer ego off my computer chair when I do sit down to write.  So I do not write to be famous. I write to write.  In fact, most of my writing is done using a pen name...so I do remain partially  anonymous. I am a fairly shy person by nature, so I don't like to put myself out there too much lol.

I do, however, have an ego like I mentioned before and my ego likes to see  readers on my stats.  I do not feel comfortable with a lot of readers though...but anything around 30, 40 or 50 a day makes me think, " yeah I am getting through to somebody somewhere".  (Actually, I am okay with ten or more) I question the statistic calculations on this site...so I never truly know just how many readers I am getting.  I went so far at one point of adding Google analytics to ensure proper tracking.  Silly ...ego stuff I know.  Obviously, I do not wish to be that anonymous if I am doing that.

Hiding?

I love the last part lol.  I do hide in solitude like a wounded animal.  I am forever using the analogy that I am off hiding in a corner away from society licking my wounds.  So that applies.  I do like to hide here in my reclusive healing comfort zone.  I know I can't stay here but for now, until I am healed, I hide away like a wounded animal.  :)

So I don't know what that makes me.  And does it really matter because it really isn't about 'me' anyway, is it?  It is about the Deeper I...the greater Self that lies beneath all this superficial stuff.  Now that part of me is a true teacher.  That part of you is a true teacher as well.

All is well in my world.