How to Choose a Buddhist Teacher: Six Things to Consider

- Reflections

Note: this is a draft. Please forgive typos, etc.

For those seriously interested in following the Buddha’s Way, arguably the single most helpful thing you can do is find a teacher who is both trustworthy and a good match for your particular personality and history.

In my case, the history involved clergy sexual misconduct and working actively for 20+ years with the denominational leadership. When I finally left that denomination and returned to Buddhism, I was so wary of all clergy and religious communities that I aimed to re-establish a practice using only books and the Internet. However, after five months of fairly diligent efforts, it was clear I needed a teacher I could trust. Thus my question became where might I find a safe and wise one?

Fortunately it turned out that over the years I’d learned quite a number of techniques and within six weeks I found my teacher — now of 10 years — who has made all the difference. Perhaps most importantly, after working with him a few years I also learned to trust his community — the Sangha. Now, to my surprise, I understand why the Buddha told Ananda that “good friendship, good companionship, good comradeship” is the “entire spiritual life.”

One final note before I begin this list. It’s predicated on looking for a teacher in well-established, larger Buddhist groups. While I’ve no doubt there are excellent teachers flying solo or close to it (in the tradition of Bodhidharma) it’s riskier to go this route — particularly for those who, like me, have suffered at the hands of benighted religious leaders, yet still somehow long for a nourishing spiritual practice.

Where to Start

A. Read Highly Regarded Books

Start where you are. If you know very little about Buddhism, then begin with a solid overview such as Huston Smith & Philip Novak’s Buddhism: A Concise Introduction. This will hopefully give you a sense of which type of Buddhism most attracts you — the big three schools I’m aware of being Zen (Chan), Tibetan (Vajrayana), and Vipassana (Insight). With that established, you can then go on to reading about that tradition — and then exploring the Web to find these authors and the centers they’re affiliated with.

B. Listen to Audio Recordings (Podcasts, YouTube, etc.)

Once you’ve found some well regarded authors and Buddhist Centers, these days you can usually find some of their Dharma talks online and start to get a better sense of them. For example, after reading Gil Fronsdal’s translation of the Dhammapada, I discovered his podcast and, even though he’s not in my tradition, I still often listen to him.

Criteria for Choosing a Teacher

Listed more-or-less in order of usefulness.

1. Are They Arrogant or Proud or Self-Important?

What you’re looking for is a teacher who is truly humble, but this can be very hard to discern. It took me years to first understand and then believe that my teacher, who is clearly a Zen Master (authoritative, confident, expert in his knowledge) is also humble. But he was approachable and in his workshops was clear about how to choose a teacher — not pushing any of the teachers at his Center, including himself. Instead he said (and still says) to look for a teacher who is not interested in money, sex, or fame/name.

Initially all you can do is make sure they aren’t a show-off. But that’s all you need to know. If they are a show off or full of themselves, etc., avoid at all costs. The irony here is that a good teacher, in the Buddhist sense, is “self-less” — i.e. aspires to No Self (Anatta).

2. Research Their Lineage

Do a careful (and I do mean very careful) search on the Web of teachers you are interested in. This is particularly in finding Centers with a history of poorly addressed sexual misconduct. While it’s likely that any given well-established Center will have some history of misconduct, the thing to look for is how was it addressed?

This is a one case where you absolutely have to avoid Generative AI. Search engines, etc., badly garble this information. Instead you have to look in places such as Wikipedia and reputable Buddhist magazines.

One thing I always to is review the teachers of a given teacher. So, for example, I used to never read anything by Pema Chodron, since she would not speak out about the rampant sexual misconduct in her lineage. Then in 2018, to my amazement, she apologized for just this. And now is she among my most trusted Tibetan Buddhist voices.

3. Pay Attention to Your Inner Alarms

I don’t know if this is true for all ages, genders, and sexual orientations, but the middle-aged and older women I know all seem to have some inner alarm that goes off around teachers and ministers who misconduct themselves. I had it going off around the minister who misconducted himself with me. He flirted too much for my comfort, but I disregarded those bells when I was desperate for someone to talk to when giving confidential evidence against a tenured boss who was embezzling.

Never again! And that promise to myself stood me in good stead when finally picking a teacher. Even the smallest alarm bell listening to a teacher was enough to cross them off my list. It’s good to be extremely picky in choosing a teacher.

4. Meet Them

Before finally settling on a teacher, it’s critical to meet them individually or as part of a small group to get a sense of your affinity with them.

If at all possible it’s best to do this in person. There’s a chemistry in person that I don’t think is possible with online services such as Zoom. At the very least, on Zoom and the like it would take a good deal longer to build trust and have a solid sense of mutual respect. And in person, you can also closely observe their behavior in a variety of contexts.

It’s also advantageous to live reasonably close to a Center that works for you. But it’s not critical. I actually don’t. I’m 800 miles from the Center I belong to and while I go there at least twice a year, I mostly rely on Zoom for contact with my teacher. Having a now long-established relationship, this works surprisingly well.

5. Then Talk with Members and Senior Staff

In the initial phases of finding a teacher, if you have a chance to visit their Center, also watch their senior staff. How do they interact with each other? And you?

You might even see if members, especially senior staff, tell the truth about the community’s history. Speaking the truth means owning past issues — not allowing secrets to fester. As one minister whom I worked with on addressing clergy misconduct put it: “There are two types of congregations. All of them have their garbage, but one tries to bury it, while the other digs through it. Always choose the second type.”

6. Review Their Policies and Procedures

This step isn’t for everyone, but if policies and procedures do interest you, look for substantial ones — especially covering harassment and abuse of power. Good ones are carefully tailored to the circumstances, reviewed and updated regularly, and most important, enforced with compassion. Here’s an example of a procedure that speaks well for its leadership.

About My Background in This Area

Having gone on at such length about the necessity of being careful in choosing a teacher, I hope you also question the authority of people like me spouting off on the Web (let alone AI). Here are two relatively recent online pieces of mine which hopefully will give you a sense of my background.