How to be a good meditation teacher?

Mindfulness Meditation
#16

Surya,

“I had for about a year also a Gnostic spiritual teacher I saw every week in our local group who taught me dozens of meditation techniques, vowel sound meditations, duality meditation, elimination of ego meditation, focussing on the senses, chakra meditations, third eye meditations”

That is not meditation. It is either concentration or contemplation of the mind. Meditation is not something which one can do as an effort of the mind, it is not a technique. One can become absorbed in it, one can become meditative, but one cannot meditate as a technique anymore than a mirror can reflect itself. Certainly it requires effort, but it is not effort in the ordinary sense. To remain a witness is one’s very nature, whether one does something or does nothing - the current of awareness is unceasing. But the paradox is that one is unaware of one’s own awareness. So all effort is just an attempt to create a space which is prepared for the effortless, all methods are just a means towards the methodless.

#17

Hi The Scales
what is your opinion about how to become a good meditation teacher?
Ivana

#18

[QUOTE=Ivana;59336]Hi The Scales
what is your opinion about how to become a good meditation teacher?
Ivana[/QUOTE]

My guess is that in-order to be good at something you should have a keen interest in the subject.

I think this keen interest will drive your own study and practice.

With the driving force of interest I believe it is your own study and practice which will make you ‘good’.

#19

[QUOTE=The Scales;59340]My guess is that in-order to be good at something you should have a keen interest in the subject.

I think this keen interest will drive your own study and practice.

With the driving force of interest I believe it is your own study and practice which will make you ‘good’.[/QUOTE]

good point:p

#20

Apologies :stuck_out_tongue:

Since you are asking, your current desire to teach meditation is useless.

And, yes, slavery is possible to avoid, if one is not identified with a particular source of insight.

#21

What I would look for in a teacher is solid experience+knowledge and good instruction. As in in-depth studies and personal practice over a long period of time combined with a natural or learned ability to teach.

However I do also know that it is possible to learn from anything and anyone one may encounter in life. Even the teachers that aren’t right for you.

#22

[QUOTE=Nila;59370]What I would look for in a teacher is solid experience+knowledge and good instruction. As in in-depth studies and practice over a long period of time combined with a natural or learned ability to teach.[/QUOTE]

Thanks Nila, I will try it.:wink:

#23

Receiving instruction on how to instruct, does not involve the potential to transmit a direct experience of meditation.

It’s usefulness is as limited as researching and publishing instructions on how to ride a bicycle.

#24

[QUOTE=JenniLeigh;59373]Receiving instruction on how to instruct, does not involve the potential to transmit a direct experience of meditation.

It’s usefulness is as limited as researching and publishing instructions on how to ride a bicycle.[/QUOTE]

Perhaps. But how then does one learn to ride a bicycle?

What I meant in my post was, that if one has

  1. become a teacher after going through teacher training, one would have learned about pedagogy as a tool, which would be helpful in understanding the process of teaching and learning.
  2. become a teacher without going through teacher training, one would probably have practiced and studied for a long enough time to figure out what is and what is not helpful in the process of teaching and learning.

Pedagogy is to me much more than recieving instructions on how to instruct.

#25

“But how then does one learn to ride a bicycle?”

Most efficiently and effectively through sufficient and appropriate practice. If one seeks guidance, an expert may be sought. Valuable expertise, is gained through experience and not study alone.

#26

[QUOTE=JenniLeigh;59392] Valuable expertise, is gained through experience and not study alone.[/QUOTE]

I agree.

#27

[QUOTE=Ivana;59255]Hi folks
I would like to know your opinion about it. I would like to be a good meditation teacher. I suppose that you have own experience that you can reply it.
I know a meditation teacher has to do meditation either. I think a meditation teacher is a really meditation teacher after somebody accept him or her as his or her teacher. Sometimes I heard that if somebody want to do meditation, he can learn by yourself.
Please let me know your opinion.
Take care
Ivana[/QUOTE]

The way I teach…“take a comfortable sit, you can lean against the wall. close your eyes… scan through your body relaxing part by part…and start to focus on your breath…we will meditate for 15 minutes…”

You can not teach it:) just let them sit quiet… this is the essence of meditation… and it might will click in for some…

#28

[QUOTE=CityMonk;59409]The way I teach…“take a comfortable sit, you can lean against the wall. close your eyes… scan through your body relaxing part by part…and start to focus on your breath…we will meditate for 15 minutes…”

You can not teach it:) just let them sit quiet… this is the essence of meditation… and it might will click in for some…[/QUOTE]

:):):slight_smile:

#29

[QUOTE=Nila;59370]What I would look for in a teacher is solid experience+knowledge and good instruction…[/QUOTE]

Nila, I’m just wondering what would be GOOD instruction for meditation?

Maybe I have not learned enough… but for me the only instruction make sense: sit quiet for long period of time, doing nothing, thinking nothing… .

#30

[QUOTE=CityMonk;59561]Nila, I’m just wondering what would be GOOD instruction for meditation?

Maybe I have not learned enough… but for me the only instruction make sense: sit quiet for long period of time, doing nothing, thinking nothing… .[/QUOTE]

CityMonk,

I guess it should be ‘good’ rather than good. My words in that sentence could have been chosen differently.
I tend to gravitate towards teachers who are very “wordy”, I like to be able to ask for super detailed specifics if I have a question. This is a force of habit and not necessarily the best one to keep up. I’m working on balance :wink:

#31

“I’m just wondering what would be GOOD instruction for meditation?”

One who has not come to a certain level of experience with meditation should not be teaching meditation, particularly when different individuals may have to deal with different hindrances, one will have to possess a certain wisdom which is capable of seeing into the heart of the problem, and prescribing a remedy. This requires you to have a thorough experience in the science. It is my own understanding that most of these yoga teachers in the West are absolutely unqualified to teach the yogic sciences, and what they are transmitting is not yoga, but a distortion which is manufactured according to the demand and supply of the marketplace.

The other thing is that one should not teach meditation as a mechanical approach. If you are following any fixed patterns, then what you are transmitting will reflect the same quality. Ones teaching should be natural and spontaneous, and that is only a possibility if you have already come to a state of consciousness which is liberated from the habitual patterns of the mind. The majority of communication is on a non-verbal level, and what is important is not the words, but the space from which the words arising. Whatsoever state of consciousness are presently in - that is precisely what is going to be transmitted to the students. And that is the authentic teaching, one which is of silence.

#32

Hi folks
I am just going through the posts and I did not find a word “authenticity”. (AmirMorad write about “the authentic teaching” but it is not same). I think very important to be yourself for teaching meditation. I know that meditation could help people. But I think first place in my heart it is not meditation but a desire for good relationships with people.
Ivana

#33

“I think very important to be yourself for teaching meditation.”

It is rarely ever the case that one is oneself - because that would require one who has already come to know oneself, through and through. That is why to teach meditation - you yourself must be in a state of meditation. Otherwise what you are teaching is not meditation, but information. Information can be transmitted, but meditation cannot be transmitted through information. There is a teaching which is far more spontaneous, direct, and natural which is a living force of it’s own - but it has nothing to do with words, having nothing to do with knowledge. It is the very presence of the inexpressible. Becoming a vessel for this presence - and anybody who is receptive enough can fall into communion with it. And this is what has been called the mind to mind transmission. Unless such a transmission happens - then one may be passing information, which may be effective to a certain extent, but it can never transmit the spirit of meditation. This is how certain masters - without a single piece of instruction, can just with a glance look at a disciple, and if the disciple sits for meditation at that time, he will be able to enter into meditation almost effortlessly. Because while your intellect may not understand this wordless language, it can be grasped by your intuition. When this happens - the same state of consciousness starts becoming mirrored in you.

Unless one has integrated meditation as a natural expression of one’s being - then one may be passing off information and instruction, but one is not teaching meditation. Because meditation cannot be taught - there is something else which is far more essential, which is a silence that starts happening once you are receptive to something beyond your intellect.

#34

just practice and learn from what you go through then teach others what you have learned

so just keep practicing more and slowly show others what you have done

#35

[QUOTE=AmirMourad;60902]“I think very important to be yourself for teaching meditation.”

It is rarely ever the case that one is oneself - because that would require one who has already come to know oneself, through and through. That is why to teach meditation - you yourself must be in a state of meditation. Otherwise what you are teaching is not meditation, but information. Information can be transmitted, but meditation cannot be transmitted through information. There is a teaching which is far more spontaneous, direct, and natural which is a living force of it’s own - but it has nothing to do with words, having nothing to do with knowledge. It is the very presence of the inexpressible. Becoming a vessel for this presence - and anybody who is receptive enough can fall into communion with it. And this is what has been called the mind to mind transmission. Unless such a transmission happens - then one may be passing information, which may be effective to a certain extent, but it can never transmit the spirit of meditation. This is how certain masters - without a single piece of instruction, can just with a glance look at a disciple, and if the disciple sits for meditation at that time, he will be able to enter into meditation almost effortlessly. Because while your intellect may not understand this wordless language, it can be grasped by your intuition. When this happens - the same state of consciousness starts becoming mirrored in you.

Unless one has integrated meditation as a natural expression of one’s being - then one may be passing off information and instruction, but one is not teaching meditation. Because meditation cannot be taught - there is something else which is far more essential, which is a silence that starts happening once you are receptive to something beyond your intellect.[/QUOTE]

:cool: