Social media lineage

I saw a thing on social media today. Looking at it one way, it was just a dumb marketing message. Looking at it another way, it was a teaching from my teacher’s teacher on the three things that make a good teacher:

• A lineage connection – A good teacher is part of a lineage and has acknowledged their own teacher and has been blessed by their teacher to teach.⁠
• A regular practice – They practice regularly, most often daily. This consistent practice informs their teaching; they practice what they teach. A yoga teacher lives an exemplary life, following the precepts of yoga.⁠
• A sincere liking for people – A teacher must sincerely like people and make themselves available. A good teacher will even place the welfare of their students above their own. A good teacher always comes from a place of compassion; they are able to put themselves in the place of the student, to know the appropriate teachings to give.⁠

And then this bit of advice:

“Once we have found a qualified teacher it is up to us to keep that precious teacher in our lives with the techniques of discipleship. We plant the karmic seeds of our experience with our students in the future by how we treat our teachers today. Our students will treat us in the same way as we have treated our own teachers. We become good teachers by being good students.⁠”

This made me feel pretty rubbish. I am a yoga student failure unable to keep my own precious teacher in my life since he recently decided to stop teaching me. And social media seems to tell me that not only am I missing out on his teaching, it’s my fault, plus I’m karmically destined now to be a bad teacher myself…!

I don’t really believe that this applies to my situation, but it didn’t help today.

And then I had to teach my own private student. My head was all over the place: feeling abandoned by my own teacher, as well as recalling all the wonderful experiences and understanding of yoga I learned with him, and wondering how on earth I can offer anything like that to my own students…

I felt a mess.

So I swept the floor. Always my ritual before teaching.

My student arrived and told me what was going on in her life, some big stuff she’s dealing with and she asked for help within the framework of her own yoga practice. I did my best for her, and all the miseries in my own life immediately fell right into the background. As they should when you’re teaching. I kind of feel proud that I experienced so much (even if I wouldn’t call it ‘transmission’ in the real lineage sense) with my own teacher that I can offer something on to others now. He taught me so much and I am grateful for that.

And I still feel sad.