What if everyone was my teacher? What if not only those I respect, but everyone had something to teach me? What if the lover who just left me, the person who cut me off while driving, the people who irritate me, the ones who make my face crunch up and cuss words stream from my mouth… What if I looked at everyone as my teacher? It would mean that I would have to sit into the humility required to be the student.
I am not, by nature, a humble person. I jokingly refer to myself as an ‘Alpha Bitch’ – and I’m one of those people who can do a lot of things well… unfortunately, what this often looks like is a conviction that I can do things better than others. I know – it’s an annoying monster ego. And while taking this position shores up my ego, it also disconnects me from others. It elevates me into a kind of hard over-confidence, rather than surrendering me into the yielding place where learning can actually occur.
Only a thing that risks falling down is a thing that needs shoring up. Nobody braces a wall that is sound. The part of me that thinks it knows better than the room is not strong, it is load-bearing, and it is holding up something behind it that was unsupported enough that standing on its own was dangerous.
There is an old saying, usually called Buddhist, that says, “When the student is ready, the teacher appears.” If I am perpetually a student, then there will always be a teacher nearby. I tend to orient towards a practical spirituality, and Buddhism carries with it a lot of practical tools for living that make sense. It also carries within it the guru principle, as do many religions, which I always find disturbing. I’ve seen far too many people relinquish their own wisdom for some supposed Guru/teacher. I’ve seen far too many Gurus become corrupted with power. But, if everyone is my teacher, then I am not raising one person above me or abnegating my own wisdom, instead, I am willfully softening my reactivity to other people, so that I may learn.
That is the whole distinction. Humility handed down from a teacher is obedience wearing a better coat. Humility spread evenly across every person you meet cannot be obedience, because there is nobody in particular to obey. Everyone gets the same small bow, which means no one gets a throne.
Perhaps I need to learn patience, well then, of course it makes sense that someone will come into my life that I find frustrating. Perhaps I need to value myself more, then perhaps someone will come into my life who will not treat me well and I will have to learn to be an advocate for myself.
Of course, being the student does not mean that people are no longer responsible for bad behavior. It just means that I have a choice in how I receive that bad behavior and what effect it has on me. I can become righteously incensed, or I can soften into the humility of student, and ask myself, what is the lesson here for me?
Like all wisdom teachings, this one has to be balanced, and its shadow is this. If everyone is your teacher, it is a very short walk to deciding that whatever is being done to you must be a lesson you needed, and from there to staying somewhere you should have left years ago. The frustrating colleague is a teacher. The man who hits you is not. The test is whether the learning is happening in you or is being extracted from you. When someone else is setting the curriculum and you are paying the tuition in your own body, that is not a teaching. Leave, and learn from it afterwards, from a distance, on your own terms.
There is a physical tell for the softening, at least in me. Something across the shoulders lets go, and my jaw, which I had not noticed was set, comes unset. I only ever find out it was clenched in the moment it stops. Your body is the authority on your body. Try it on, and if it isn’t yours, go looking for your own, because the hardening is much quieter than the release.
Everyday we are given at least a handful of opportunities to deepen, grow, learn. It is up to us to decide what to do with those opportunities.
May we find humility to enter into the role of perpetual student.
May our learning be of service to others.
May we be worthy and humble teachers.