Have you ever wondered how to receive meditation teachings from your spiritual teacher properly? It often appears as if simply listening to teachings, attending classes or reading about a specific subject means that we have “received a teaching”. There’s a subconscious belief that the accumulation of one’s intellectual knowledge and superficial types of “understanding” is good enough. This is surely a reflection of our modern day “age of information”. Hunting and gathering information, we consume books and visit different teachers. We compare opinions, follow our moods and juggle with spiritual systems as we please. Getting bored with teachers seemingly repeating themselves we quickly seek new and exiting stuff. We want to experience interesting content and chase entertainment endlessly.
Such an attitude will never lead to a satisfying completion in any spiritual or worldly discipline. In our comfort-culture we tend to systematically avoid what feels unpleasant within ourselves. Thereby we stay stuck on the surface of our being, nourishing only the egoic illusion of “my progress and understanding”. So how can we avoid this error for the sake of going all the way in order to transcend the conditioned prison of “me and mine”.
Associate with the Wise
We seek out those who have accomplished results on the spiritual path and bathe in their presence frequently. Listen to their words or their silence, without feeling superior or inferior – but with an open heart. Applying the practice as the meditation teachings are in progress, sitting quietly, observing ones own mind with diligence. Results within the practice should be contemplated well and shared with the teacher regularly.
Receiving Meditation Teachings
You receive a teaching at the moment when you fully grasp it beyond the intellectual level and when it has become a place of true refuge for you. The teaching has become an important part of your life and experience. It is available in all circumstances and liberates from stress, tension and suffering directly. Your experience should be solid and beyond doubt, thus it doesn’t really require confirmation from an external source. Your intuitive insight will resonate with your teacher and based on this the teachings will unfold for you.
Meditation teachings should go deep
When you have truly received a teaching then this is the beginning of a deepening process in which you will start to hear your teacher on an ever more profound level. The chase for a short-lived intellectual mind game is what blocks so many people from tasting the fruit of authentic practice. You know that you are on the right track when you hear the same meditation teachings over and over again and it feels as joyful as Christmas each single time. “I have heard this before”, “I know this already”… these sentiments are a clear sign that you are becoming immune to the medicine – you are not listening with your heart and you are far from understanding anything.
Understanding this process you will see that one sentence uttered by your spiritual guide will have the power to make you see deeper into your own being. Even if your guide says the same over and over again, you should hear the layers underneath the words as a result of your practice. Once you begin to really “see” the teachings, you start to receive them. Once you receive them, you will quickly notice that your assumed knowledge was both: Superficial and necessary. So with a joyful heart devote yourself to the lineage, the teacher, the teachings and the practice in order to experience fully what the sages of the past and present have talked about.
I have experienced a deeper layer each time I have been open in my heart to the very same teaching as you say. Then at other times, I hear nothing but my own resistance when I judge the teacher or lesson; this is my immaturity in my practice. Regardless of where or how it is being delivered, my deepening practice is an open heart in which I seek. Yes, like the enthusiasm of Christmas presents.
Thank you for the lesson.
Thank you for your wise words Tobi!
Love it, maybe you can share some other teachings to learn from…im interested in what blogs and videos you consume!
I highly recommend the teachings of all the masters that are listed here: https://phuket-meditation.com/recommended-books/
I mostly read books from Ajahn Chah, Ajahn Brahm and Ajahn Sumedho as well as Eckard Tolle. I deeply enjoy these teachings!