By George Draffan
NaturalAwareness.net

The mission of the Northwest Dharma Association is to support Buddhist teachings and community. NWDA fosters a network of friendship and support among Buddhist groups and individual Buddhists from all traditions. NWDA promotes communication among Buddhists and with the larger community. NWDA sponsors activities of interest and benefit to Northwest Buddhists.

NWDA serves as a clearinghouse of information about the Buddhist community in the greater Pacific Northwest: Oregon, Washington, British Columbia, Idaho, Montana, and Alaska. NWDA publishes the bimonthly Northwest Dharma News. NWDA's website includes information on over 400 Buddhist temples and practice groups in the region, and an online calendar of Buddhist retreats, classes, and programs. NWDA sponsors semiannual gatherings of Buddhist teachers from around the region, as well as nonsectarian educational and community events. In 2002 NWDA became a representative membership association open to any Buddhist organization in the region. NWDA currently has more than seventy organizational members from a range of Buddhist traditions.

In response to questions regarding the training and qualifications of Buddhist teachers, the NWDA board of directors adopted and published the following policy in 2005:

While NWDA cannot assume responsibility for the programs and actions of its member groups, much less the 400 Buddhist organizations in the region, it does take seriously the question of teacher training and ethics. The history of religions, including Buddhism, includes reported and unreported instances of abuse and corruption. NWDA cannot prevent these events, but it can provide information about how teachers are trained in the various Buddhist traditions, and guidance on how to find a trained and ethical teacher and a healthy organization, so that students are better able to make decisions about getting involved with organizations and teachers.

What follows is an introduction to (a) the role of teachers in Buddhism, (b) Buddhist teacher training and credentials, (c) questions to ask and things to watch for in choosing a teacher, (d) the role of the Northwest Dharma Association, and (e) additional resources including an essay by Leland Shields, a Buddhist practitioner and a counselor to people who are dealing with the problems arising from their involvement in cults.

NWDA will be pleased to expand its offering of information about Buddhist teacher training and authorization. We are especially interested in posting teacher standards and registries as the various lineages adopt and publish them. Information may be sent to the NWDA office.

There are many different Buddhist traditions, each with many lineages and institutions. The basic classification of Buddhism into Thervada, Mahayana, Vajrayana, Pure Land, etc is a great simplification of what are essentially hundreds of lineages that practice and teach thousands of methods. Because of the diversity, and the many different cultures and languages, there is no single comprehensive source of information that explains their training methods or credentials.

Most traditions have a formal training process but have also engaged in quite informal methods of transmission as well.

In addition, most Buddhist lineages are now being spread across the world, and new institutions are being established, each with their own methods, and each with their own standards and criteria (or lack of standards and criteria) for teacher training. What used to be a clear and limited title of authority indicating completion of a specific course of training may now be used as an informal title of respect. And new programs of teacher training are being organized that may not be recognized by the traditional authorities of that tradition.

It may be helpful to consider how Buddhism is organized and taught. One classification that might be useful is to realize that there are

• monks and nuns ordained in various lineages, who may or may not teach ,
• monastic or lay teachers who have been trained in a particular lineage and have been authorized to teach ,
• lay teachers who do not have authorization or credentials from a lineage or institution,
• leaders of meditation groups who are not officially "teachers" but who give meditation instruction or other guidance.

 Teachers are regarded differently in various Buddhist traditions, and by different students within those traditions:

• as a spiritual friend,
• as a preceptor in the monastic traditions,
• as a ritual master for certain practices,
• as a minister of people's needs,
• as a examplar of scholarship, of moral behavior, or as a living Buddha.

To some extent in all Buddhist traditions, the teacher should be at least to some extent an exemplar of ethical behavior, an inspiration for training in meditation methods, and an embodiment of the understanding that is the fruit of Buddhist practice.

Alexander Berzzin's book Relating to a Spiritual Teachers: Building a Healthy Relationship (Snow Lion Publications, 2000) provides a detailed discussion of the traditional and modern issues involved in the student-teacher relationship. While his discussion is based on the Tibetan Buddhist tradition, most of the issues and dynamics also apply to the other traditions.

There are many different terms used for teachers and elders in the various Buddhist traditions. Many are informal honorifics used out of respect; some are indicators of seniority in monastic systems; a few are titles of authorization bestowed upon exceptional students by their teacher, or credentials earned by completing a program of training. Different lineages use terms and titles differently, and the meaning of terms has evolved over time.

The wide variation in how teachers are trained and authorized makes it difficult for a student to judge the legitimacy of a teacher. Perhaps the first step is to have a basic undestanding of the terms used in different Buddhist traditions. Here is a preliminary list:

Since the teacher training and certification of the different Buddhist schools and lineages vary so greatly, and in the absence of an agreed registry of qualified teachers, the sudent is left on their own to decide who to study with. Fortunately, there are numerous articles, books, and other resources that offer guidelines and guidance for choosing a teacher and for differentiating legitimate spiritual groups from cults.

 You are responsible for yourself as a student of a particular Buddhist teacher or as a participant of a Buddhist group. Observing a teacher and their students before getting too involved with them is the ideal, but even if you have been involved for a while, and feel something is not quite right, ask yourself, the teacher, and their students some questions.

• Has the teacher been trained and authorized to teach by a recognized Buddhist lineage?
• Does the teacher refuse to discuss his background and training?
• Is the group open about its methods and activities?
• Does the group make unreasonable or manipulative demands on the students' time or money?
• Is there sexual, financial, or other abuse of power going on?
• Is the group isolated from the community and from the students' families and friends? Does the group allow outside relationships?

For a discussion of these questions, see Do You Need a Teacher? and The Teacher-Student Relationship by Ken McLeod.

Not every unqualified teacher, or even every charlatan, is operating a cult. But the consequences of getting involved in a cult can be so serious, and the psychic and emotional damages so difficult to repair, that the cult phenomena deserves close consideration.

We don’t need to get lost in the various criteria for whether a group is a cult, and an organization doesn't have to be seen as a cult by everyone to be experienced as a cult by an individual. Michael Langone, editor of Cultic Studies Journal, has compiled a Checklist of Cult Characteristics that covers includes these danger signs:

• The group displays excessively zealous and unquestioning commitment to its leader and regards his belief system, ideology, and practices as absolute. Questioning, doubt, and dissent are discouraged or punished. The leader is not accountable to any authority.
• The group is elitist, claiming special status for its leaders and members. The group has a polarized us-versus-them mentality
• Mind-altering techniques are used in excess and serve to suppress doubts about the group and its leader(s).
• The leadership dictates how members should think, act, and feel. The group teaches or implies that its exalted ends justify whatever means it deems necessary, resulting in members participating in behaviors or activities they would have considered reprehensible or unethical before joining the group (for example, lying to family or friends, or collecting money for bogus charities).
• The leadership induces feelings of shame and/or guilt in order to influence or control members. Often, this is done through peer pressure and subtle forms of persuasion. Subservience to the leader or group requires members to cut ties with family and friends and radically alter the personal goals and activities they had before joining the group.
• The group is preoccupied with bringing in new members.
• The group is preoccupied with making money.
• Members are expected to devote inordinate amounts of time to the group and group-related activities. Members are encouraged or required to live and/or socialize only with other group members. The most loyal members (the "true believers") feel there can be no life outside the context of the group, and often fear reprisals to themselves or others if they leave (or even consider leaving) the group.

Other observers have observed similar behaviors by cults. Arthur Deikman identifies four basic cult behaviors:

• coercive compliance
• dependence on a leader
• avoiding dissent, and
• devaluing the outsider.

As Deikan explains, it is not necessarily easy to identify a cult, and many organizations that would not typically be identified as cults exhibit some of the same manipulative and coercive traits (see Arthur Deikman's website and his book The Wrong Way Home: Uncovering the Patterns of Cult Behavior in American Society). The bottom line is that it is the student's responsibility to decide when an organization has crossed a line with which the student is not comfortable.

Robert J. Lifton's eight criteria for thought manipulation include:

• the control of information and communication
• manipulation of "mystical" experiences
• demand for purity in a world that is viewed as black and white
• the induction of guilt and/or shame, and confession either to a personal monitor or publicly to the group
• insistence that the group's doctrine or ideology is the ultimate Truth, beyond all questioning or dispute
• use of jargon such as thought-terminating cliches
• denying or reinterpreting members' personal experiences to fit the ideology of the group, and
• rejecting those outside the group as unenlightened.

These are discussed in Lifton's book Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism. See an excerpt at the REVEAL website.

Tobias and Janja Lalich define a cult as "a group or movement exhibiting great or excessive devotion or dedication to some person, idea, or thing, and employing unethical manipulative or coercive techniques of persuasion and control (e.g., isolation from former friends and family, debilitation, use of special methods to heighten suggestibility or subservience, powerful group pressures, information management, suspension of individuality or critical judgment, promotion of total dependency upon the group and fear of leaving it), designed to advance the group's leaders, to the actual or possible detriment of members, their families, or the community" (from Captive Hearts, Captive Minds: Freedom and Recovery from Cults and Other Abusive Relationships, by Madeleine Landau Tobias, Janja Lalich, and Michael Langone).

Nor does a group have to satisfy all of the criteria of any one of the systems proposed. What if it satisfies half, but does so really strongly? Again, the student's judgement is the ultimate criterion.

The Northwest Dharma Association (NWDA) is a nonsectarian nonprofit organization that supports the large and growing Buddhist community in the greater Pacific Northwest.

There are now over 400 Buddhist temples, organizations, and meditation groups in Oregon, Washington, and British Columbia. They are based in the practices and traditions of many Buddhist schools and lineages that arose in the contexts of different cultures, including Tibetan, Thai, Japanese, Chinese, Burmese, Sri Lankan, Cambodian, Lao, Vietnamese, Korean, and others. There are also many new forms of Buddhism evolving in the West that practice nonreligious meditation, social service, or political action.

NWDA does not ordain monks, does not authorize or certify teachers, and does not promote one Buddhist tradition or lineage over the others. Many of the traditional Buddhist orders and some of the new organizations ordain monks and nuns and authorize teachers. Each lineage has its own rules and structures, and the lineages use teachers' titles and terms in different ways. Each tradition that thrives has adopted rules and practices that meet the needs of its own culture.

We are in a unique time and place where all the Buddhist traditions have come together for the first time in history. There is a lot of cross-fertilization and a lot of creativity. There is also some confusion and territoriality, which is to be expected whenever cultures encounter each other. With enough time, usually measured in generations, the different cultures learn from each other, and the Dharma eventually takes root.

It is NWDA's mission to support all the traditions of Buddhism. One of the ways NWDA fulfills its mission to support the Dharma is to serve as a clearinghouse of information on areas of concern to the community. Clearly, the training of teachers is one such area, and NWDA will publish additional information as teacher training and authorization programs are developed by the various lineages.