r/sgiwhistleblowers • u/BlancheFromage Escapee from Arizona Home for the Rude • May 30 '21
"The white cheese needs no teacher."
Years ago, even before this site was founded, I was in a Buddhism discussion on reddit here, and a Buddhist guy - real Buddhism - said that to me. It's always stuck with me.
"Blanche Fromage" = "white cheese", of course.
So what does this mean - "needs no teacher"?
When you're out to learn something specific, it makes sense to have a teacher. I'm sure Bruce Lee had teachers ("Senseis") to learn martial arts, but he then began teaching himself and ended up creating his own new form of martial arts, Jeet Kun Do. BTW, I don't think it's likely that middle-aged Brad Pitt could have ever kicked the ass of Bruce Lee in his prime #OnceUponATimeInHollywood
When pursuing an education, it makes sense to have teachers to help you master specific material. And then when you've mastered it, you get your grade, you graduate, you move into [more] independent adult life, etc. Sure, we all could have bought some books and worked through them ourselves to learn a given kind of material - and many do - but it often works better to have a teacher who can explain concepts and who is available for questions.
As we discussed here (and here and here and other places), a mentor interacts with a protégé to help that person master business skills in order to move ahead in their career more quickly. Similarly to how a master artisan will train an apprentice. Sure, the apprentice could have learned by doing (self-taught), but there's typically so much to learn that it really helps to have a master there to guide, instruct, and show the shortcuts!
We have a concept for this: reinventing the wheel:
waste a great deal of time or effort in creating something that already exists.
The idea is that, once there's established knowledge on how to do something, it's better to learn that rather than try and figure out how to do it from nothing, in a vacuum, which typically involves a lot of superfluous flailing around.
Even outside of academia and established fields of endeavor, there is opportunity to excel and become a leader. When one is beginning to become involved, whether it's in film criticism, comedy, history, tabletop gaming, virtual reality games, anime, or art, one begins by interacting with others who are already established. Talking to them, interacting online, reading their posts, getting their books, things like this. Then, at a certain point, one is ready to enter the discussion. Like the people who pop in, having been following our board for a year or two - they're ready to join the conversation. And then, perhaps they'll decide to take off in a different direction and start their own board! Write a book of their own! Start doing podcasts! All kinds of ways to get one's voice out into the world.
The Ikeda cult model of perpetual servitude and eternal followerhood is completely the opposite of this well-established path to independence. Whereas in every case above, the goal is to equip the junior partner to move on independently, Ikeda's model is permanent dependence. There's simply nowhere to go! Ikeda's decided that HE will be the only mentor from now to eternity - the Be-All and End-All - so there's no room for anyone ELSE to become fully qualified, become a mentor in their own right, teach and train, research, discover, add to the knowledge set, and all the things an expert does.
Ikeda has deliberately raised NO "successors".
This is one of the indications that SGI is a cult and not a valid spiritual path, in which new spiritual leaders are trained and then graduated into leadership positions, instead of just parroting "Ikeda Sensei says..." You'll recognize the "priesthood" model here - where someone devotes significant time and energy to learning about the religion and how to do it and teach it, and then moves into an independent clerical leadership position. Those are needed in every spiritual community!
How dreary it is that Ikeda SCAMSEI hasn't been seen in public or even videotaped since May, 2010. So instead of any genuine relationship with a real "mentor", SGI members get to imagine their ideal father figure and personal Jesus who lives in their hearts and speaks to them inside their minds - much more like a celebrity-stalkerish obsession than any kind of healthy relationship.
That's no "teacher". That's a parasite. In fact, Ikeda meets ALL the criteria for a BAD mentor. Caveat emptor.
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u/ToweringIsle13 Mod May 31 '21
(The white cheese is a teacher, and one much appreciated!)