Who Needs Experience?

It seems that senior meditation teachers within the Triratna Buddhist Community are being sat on for teaching from their own experience. Sangharakshita is not known for being a meditator, being more at home with his head in a book. Yet his emphasis on bhavana, on Will if you like, prevails.

A number of those who, unlike Sangharakshita, have actually practised meditation for years have been moving towards formless meditation.This, it seems to us, is a natural progression within any spiritual discipline. You begin by practising a method, and then you let go of it; you find your own way in, you follow the creative aspect of your own mind. Form, useful at the start, becomes an imposition.

A teacher worth his salt knows this, and encourages his pupils to make their own discoveries and connections. Otherwise what you have is religion, a bunch of people who never leave spiritual primary school.

Sangharakshita’s enforcer is his head disciple, Subhuti, who recently wrote to one meditation teacher, accusing him of being the cause of a lot of confusion within the TBC for not sticking to Sangharakshita’s system. Like Sangharakshita, Subhuti is not much of a meditator either. But when you’ve got a position of power and influence, who needs experience?