Question

This is a question which I should not perhaps even ask you, because it is related with another Master, but I will nevertheless. I will skip the details, too long. However, today, after not seeing him by a deliberated choice, I have only one desire: to go and sit with the one I consider as my Master. For different reasons, I am going through a stage with him in where I only want to do one thing: to slap him. I do not want to judge if it is alright or not, this feeling is in me, and along with this desire, coexists a great love, perhaps a more important one than for my father. Then yes, I am afraid of this visceral desire for slapping him. I know that it is part of the history of certain old Masters, and I do not want to imitate them. But I cannot fool myself, nor him either, no more than I do not want to break this bond.
My major question is: to slap the Master is another way of doing sampai in front of him, and the capacity of this Master to receive it is what makes possible to recognize an authentic transmitter of The Dharma??
Thank you

Answer from Master Kosen

would say that this kind of relationship between Master and disciple is a little neurotic, I understand that we can feel some love and some respect for the teacher who passes on so generously his precious knowledge, I understand that we can hope that he notices us and gives us some signs of recognition. But if you give him your own power and wish to maintain a relationship of dependence to him, you are on the wrong way and he has to correct you in a skillful way. And if he keeps this kind of relationship with his disciples instead of revealing them their True Nature, as it is often the case, it is also the wrong way and deserves a slap in its mouth. Very rare are the authentic Masters who have for only concern the recognition of the others, I do not even know if I deserve to be put into this category.

Mondo On the same theme : Relation Master-Disciple





The attachment to the Master.

I met in a sesshin people who followed a Western Master, panicked at the thought of being separated from him, losing it or being rejected. Eventualy, they've found a new family and a new attachment... which is reinforced with time; is it an insoluble contradiction!! It is annoying, isn't it?
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