Eleanore Langknecht
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Eleanore Langknecht
ParticipantOne of my strengths as a teacher is my inherent curiosity. Teaching is learning. I am always learning from students, and revel in the ways in which my work grows and changes simply through the act of engaging with others on it. I don’t hang very comfortably in the place of sheer authority, instead, I always view teaching as a collaboration, a shared experience which changes us all. It seems I share this with many in the class.
One of my difficulties as a teacher is that I have a hard time doing things entirely on my own, or self-motivating in that way. I bristle at the word “self-starter,” a characteristic so often sought in the work world. I *can* start something on my own, I have before, and I know that sometimes getting anything to happen at all requires taking a personal creative vision and pushing it inch by inch into reality. But I struggle to keep things afloat entirely on my own energy. As I look toward what teaching opportunities I want to have, I know that they will need to have coconspirators built in (not just students)!
Eleanore Langknecht
Participant“There is an important non-parity between student and teacher. It has nothing to do with superior/inferior or enlightened/unenlightened, obviously. I am absolutely no different than any of them. However, for various reasons … at this moment and for these people, I happened to hold the seat of teacher.”
I have always felt a sort of magical momentum while teaching that is hard to explain, but I felt it was well reflected in this piece. There is a sort of subconscious agreement between teacher and student that equality is not the necessary premise for learning or leading. For a short time, we agree that one person holds more space, guides the boat so to speak. That trust, from a student, is such a gift. It’s what makes the magic work.
Even knowing just how good that feels, there are times when that little bit of magic alludes me. Sometimes when teaching, especially when I’m working with other adults, I stumble into hyperawareness of my own humanity. For a moment, the absurdity of what Susan refers to as “nonparity” rears up like a cliff face I’ll smack into, or a precipice I’ll tumble off. It’s as if, for a moment, I see the “classroom,” and the expectant faces, and in front of them ME, just another silly human. It’s a different set of emotions than the sort that are described in the piece, but a set nonetheless. To counter this, I’ve tried to remind myself that I am not bequeathing knowledge, but sharing in discovery. My job is to shepherd curiosity, joy, and pleasure. And, I try to remind myself that I need to keep up my role a bit for the magic to work. The unspoken agreement of the space, that magic of it, necessitates my commitment to the bit. Sharing my own doubts or feelings wouldn’t honor that agreement, and those feelings and my place as a teacher aren’t mutually exclusive.
Watching Susan teach over the past few weeks, I have been admiring this exact thing. There is such a deliberate balance and an intense, palpable present-ness that I so appreciate.
Eleanore Langknecht
Participant“Therefore it is important to have the fourth karma, which is destruction, the quality of destruction, so that compassion doesn’t become idiot compassion, but it evolves into the process of destroying whenever destruction is necessary, creating whenever creation is necessary. That is a very important point: that the process of action or karma is connected with something real, the reality of the situation rather than some imaginary quality.”
I was particularly drawn to the idea from the reading that “the process of action or karma is connected with something real, the reality of the situation rather than some imaginary quality.” I think sometimes that meditation is depicted or imagined as stillness or inaction, and that as an extension, people who meditate are viewed as disconnected or floaty. There’s certainly a stereotype, and having met people that perhaps towed that line a bit, a sensation of almost dishonesty one can feel. A lack of groundedness and connection.
I love instead looking at this practice through the lens of the four karmas as such an active, engaged thing. I’m grateful for this reading (and course!) for offering an alternate to the idea of idiot compassion for me. I really appreciate the balancing act or relationship between the karmas and the maras. It reminds me a bit of breath, a constant action that grows and recedes and is always in motion, balancing. In action, but not proactive. Observant but not obsessive.
I particularly like that this distinction, of true compassion vs idiot compassion, arises through the discussion of the necessity of destruction, or pruning. True compassion is not somewhere you arrive and are done. It doesn’t hold the moral highground. It is something that’s constantly in motion, like a breath.
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This reply was modified 8 months, 3 weeks ago by
Eleanore Langknecht.
Eleanore Langknecht
ParticipantAs I try to build my meditation practice, I’ve found the times when it’s hardest to sit are the times when I feel sad or overwhelmed. Not out of conscious fear of sitting within my feelings, but more out of a general malaise or sluggishness. Every day when I do sit, I definitely feel a difference–an extra little bit of grace for my own feelings. The sort of ambiguous squeezing sluggishness that lingers before I sit is countered by an equal and opposite openness. I don’t think I’ve gotten to the point yet where I’ve moved “through” something with meditation as a part of that process, it all still feels so new to me. But, I’m working on letting that feeling guide and encourage me, reminding myself that even that little bit of openness and perspective holds a corner of a much bigger truth. Taking it step my step, or should I say: sit by sit.
Eleanore Langknecht
ParticipantThe last time I had my heart broken felt like a first time, it was so raw and resounding. The feeling of shock, of being blindsided, warred with my vigilant desire to figure out where exactly it went wrong and what I could have done differently. The person who broke up with me had very little grace, and my attempts at closure fell worse than flat, they opened the wound wider and made me feel foolish for having sought it. Heartbreak is so intense that way! So adept at revisionist history.
The beautiful thing about this major dose of heartbreak was that my community surrounded and supported me in the most generous way. For years, I had avoided the vulnerability of dating, and with this attempt top open myself to it, I also opened myself to the love and support of my nonromantic people.
In one of most meaningful conversations of this turbulent moment a friend reflected that, in romantic relationships there is a mirror held up to you, and often in a deeper and more honest way than in other contexts. You see your wants and hopes reflected without filter, you see yourself and are witnessed and it can feel like there’s nowhere to hide.
After years of avoiding this mirror, of staying safely emotionally unavailable and a little bit secretly hopeless about love, looking at myself directly through the context of a romantic relationship and its demise was… one of the most beautiful, revelatory things I’ve ever done. I loved what I saw. I loved my wants and my vulnerability, my joy and my grief. I loved that I longed for love. I loved myself without judgement in a way I really hadn’t ever before.
It didn’t immediately fix my broken heart, but it made me understand and love the person I was doing all this for. I am so grateful for that lesson, and for the heartbreak that cracked me open to it.
Eleanore Langknecht
ParticipantI was really grateful for the small group discussions last week where we circled these same questions. I think, especially as a “newbie” to this practice, the language of lineage can feel both loaded and amorphous to me. I was grateful to hear that classmates with longer practices expressed similar grumblings, discomforts or curiosities about the idea of lineage and teachers. With the permission of a communal space (something i appreciate!), I looked for what sparked internally and one of the ideas that resonated for me was the idea of queer elders. Especially when i was newly exploring and trying to “own” my own queerness, i found having mentors, teachers, and figureheads really grounding and meaningful. They were not always people i directly knew or learned from, but it’s the most meaningful sense of lineage I’ve felt, and taps directly into a sense of shared experience.
When I read “Keeping It Sacred,” I was drawn to the following sentences: “The only thing that seems required is to not quite understand what it is. Whenever anyone seems to know with too much certainty just what this power is, where it lives, what it thinks, and the primary means of access, I become a bit suspicious. Sure, all sorts of explanations make sense. But the only thing I know is that the moment I think I understand the sacred oneness of existence, I’ve stepped outside of that oneness and therefore can’t be trusted.”
This feels so central to my experience of joyous queerness: it flutters, vibrates, and resonates right at the edge of understanding. The teachers or mentors I’ve found myself most drawn to know something about that flutter and vibration, but don’t claim to know it all. When i hit walls, feel like an impostor, or feel excluded from the queer experience, it’s often when i come up against someone or some thing that claims to be (or i assume it claims to be) all-knowing, the true epitome of some queer truth. This is something i can feel in other elements of my life, but for me is most tangible here. Coming back to the idea that my lineage doesn’t have to be one of “knowing” beyond my means, that my teachers aren’t somehow more clued into some hard-earned fact, but more clued into the magic of “not knowing” joyousness, feels really powerful and great space from which to continue growing my practice.
Eleanore Langknecht
ParticipantThis struck me as well! The idea of that community feels very powerful and potent.
Eleanore Langknecht
ParticipantHi Ann, thanks for sharing your perspective on the term, I really appreciate the idea of surrendering to love. Surrender, like devotion, can have a negative interpretation I think, but when doing so to love it feels powerful, and a choice to be open to that beauty.
Eleanore Langknecht
ParticipantOh dear, I’ve just realized my essay didn’t post. In short, I found the framing to this essay (focusing on the final paragraph) interesting, and found myself searching for more of the obvious discussion of Lama in the piece. I think that I have often, especially as a student, treated “correctness” or “perfection” as a sort of guiding force for me, and feel that pull as a student here. But it feels counter to the aim of this class, and in reflecting on the author’s definition of Lama, “water pouring into water,” I am reminded that perfection cannot reciprocate my devotion. I chose then to try again to set my devotion to perfection aside, let the ripples fade on the surface of the pond, and start again.
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This reply was modified 8 months, 3 weeks ago by
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