Do You Actually Need a Meditation Teacher? (My Honest Opinion) with Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche

On the spiritual path, do we need a teacher? What if we are just beginning, or perhaps further along the path? How should we relate to a teacher? In this month’s teaching, Mingyur Rinpoche shares the qualities we should look for in a teacher, three styles of relating to teachers, and the four different types of teachers.

🔗 Joy of Living Meditation Program: Learn meditation under the skillful guidance of Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche at your own pace.

🔗 Vajrayana Online: Study and practice of the Tibetan Buddhism with Mingyur Rinpoche.

[angad]

I can feel the transmission of presence through the video. I'll never understand how that works, but it's really cool. Thanks for the wisdom🙏

[iamflartebartfarst]

Thank you Rinpoche. I first encountered your videos many years ago, in 2012 or 2013. Maybe 2014. Ever since 2012 I have been teaching myself to meditate. For some years I meditated and chanted for most of the day, chanting silently in my head. I was reading books, and having conflicting information, as you say I was confused. Also I am a Christian. I feel somehow I know that God made me, and God sent me here. I have known ever since I was a tiny child, maybe 2 years old. One day I panicked. I was aware of my mind and in that moment I was not a small child but I felt much, much older. I was aware of my mind and thinking, "Wait! Wait! Where am I?" and then I looked around at the world, and relaxed, and I thought, "Ah, I am back here again." And I felt as though God had put me back here, although my understanding of God was that of a small child, I felt his loving kindness and I was content and the panic left me and I went back to being a 2 year old. I have never forgotten that, nor the way I could make all time stop if I wanted to, or slow right down. When I began meditating in my early twenties, time stopped for me again for the first time like when I was a child. I watched a bird hang motionless in the sky, half way through flapping. I read the book of the Monks of Ramakrishna. I read Zen Mind, Beginners Mind, but I did not understand it. Eventually I came to read the Tao Te Ching, and I would meditate on each verse, every day. This helped me a lot, but still I was lost. It was not until a few weeks ago I found your videos again, and began your meditation school Joy of Living, that it is all starting to come together. My mind was a mess because I had abandoned meditation and as the Lord Buddha warned, I lost my powers. I think the problem was that I was the bee, from flower to flower, when I needed to be the sheep. Anyway all this was to say thank you. Your tradition's methods of meditation works for me. It solves my problems. Before I was too tight, it was not enjoyable. Now I often meditate. Small time, many time! Your teaching that my true nature is love and compassion and wisdom is so helpful to me. It helps me be loving and compassionate and kind. In Christianity we are told we are sinners, that foul thoughts will rise and foul deeds be done and we can only repent. In a way this is true, I am fallible, I am only human. But I know too that it is true what you teach, that my true nature is not sin but goodness. Sin is only the stain of the world upon my mind, but I can clean that stain away, and see my own mind clearly. Thank you for teaching me and helping me to learn Rinpoche.

[stevenl]

Sam harris is another "flower" I've found

As always thank you 💪

[phatpurrly]

Westerners in particular must be wary of moving between teachers and techniques. Novices may make some progress and unearth uncomfortable truths and decide, “this technique isn’t for me” and cast about for another method and then yet another method or teacher. A lifetime can pass and all they have done is dig myriad shallow wells. At some point we must find a suitable technique, commit to it and approach the final goal.

[C_journey_home]

Who is it Rinpoche talked about that only met his root teacher 3 days?