On risk taking in spiritual practice
Openness can be dangerous - but maybe precisely the danger we need
A new kind of courage is required for this path. In place of the Kantian courage to resist the madness of crowds, we need the courage to leap in and experience it. Sometimes, as with Martin Luther King on the Mall, things will turn out extraordinarily well: paradigms will shift and the culture will come to understand itself in new and more shining and meaningful ways. Sometimes, by contrast, one dances with the devil. Like Ishmael being drawn into the contagious mood of Ahab’s monomaniacal quest, one can only survive its fiery darkness if one learns by experience the dangerous world it reveals. Only by having been taken over by the fanatical leader’s totalizing rhetoric, and experienced the dangerous and devastating consequences it has, does one learn to discriminate between leaders worth following and those upon whom one must turn one’s back. Developing any skill necessarily involves risk. Whether it is the skill of fielding ground balls or making coffee, or the meta-skill of bringing out physis at its best, one does not become a master without taking chances and learning from the consequences of one’s mistakes.
Hubert Dreyfus, Sean Kelly. All Things Shining: Reading the Western Classics to Find Meaning in a Secular Age
This started out as an essay on how to select a teacher, drawing on Ken Mcleod’s excellent section on this topic from Wake Up to Your Life (fabulous book)1. But as I started writing, something else struck me — that there is inherently some risk in any spiritual path, and that by denuding the path of all risk, you are also draining it of potency. Power and shadow are intimately related - that can’t simply be wished away.
Of course, there’s nuance here. Reducing objective risks (e.g. by looking for warning signs a teacher is sketchy) may or may not have an effect on the subjective perception of risk. What’s needed for practices to work is a kind of courage and risk-taking (alluded to in the above quote) — that’s about feelings and not about objective facts. In other words, it’s not a mistake to be critical or discerning, and of course we should be on the lookout for grifters2. Being discerning doesn’t mean the practices won’t work.
But if you try to reduce that risk to zero, what I think you end up with is a totally bloodless and ineffective practice - something like secular mindfulness. Sure, it might reduce some stress (which is great! I’m not knocking that!), but it will likely lack the possibility for true transformation. Maybe you aren’t looking for metamorphosis - that’s ok. But from what I’ve seen, the practices work on those of us who are desperate to change - and most willing to take a leap into the unknown. A paradox lurks here, however - often for such people, the bigger risk by far is to do nothing. So in some sense, the leap might actually feel safer, even if the path is risky for them too.
Here are some teacher red flags to watch out for from Ken:
A group feeling it’s special or has the one true teaching
Students restricted in the use of their intelligence or judgment
Restricted questions or topics for discussion
Escalating fees, donations or service required
Exploitation of students for a group’s functioning
Students showing no appreciable progress over the long term
Requirements to sever connections with long term relationships.
As I write this, I think about Bill Hamilton, a legendary teacher who influenced the Pragmatic Dharma folks and created Dharmaseed. He wrote a memoir of his spiritual journey called Saints and Psychopaths where he documents many of his missteps and encounters with bad spiritual teachers. I can’t say for sure, but my hunch is his openness two-sided in precisely this way.