by Tom Simmonds
Tom Simmonds was a regular voice on soc.religion.eastern in the spring of 1991, posting from Siemens Corp. Research in Princeton, New Jersey. His contributions to the group were distinguished by clarity, intellectual honesty, and a consistent non-dogmatic inquiry — he was genuinely thinking in public, not defending a position. This post, written in May 1991 in the context of ongoing discussions about teachers and the transmission of enlightenment, is his clearest statement of where he stood.
It is a defense of spiritual self-reliance: an argument that reality is not a secret requiring expert access, that teachers can help one get unstuck but cannot give what one must find for oneself, and that no lineage or transmission substitutes for direct seeing. He ends with two quotations that frame the teaching from opposite directions — the Zen saying "If you meet the Buddha, kill him" and John Lennon's "There ain't no guru who can see through your eyes."
I know that most of the religious traditions from the East emphasize the importance of an enlightened teacher. Even Zen has a tradition of the "mind seal", which is supposedly passed personally from master to student. Maybe I'm too cynical, but I've never been able to believe in that.
First of all, it seems to me that, if there is some Truth or Reality to be seen, I should be able to see it for myself. I don't believe that any person is superior to others in that respect. If there is a Reality, it's there for all to see. If you want to see it, you will; and nobody can see it for you.
Secondly, the belief in the need for someone to guide me to the Truth/Reality implies that reality is some secret and mysterious thing, hidden behind a dark veil, very difficult to find, and revealed only with the aid of the best experts. That just doesn't make sense to me. What reason is there to believe that reality is such a mysterious and difficult thing? After all, it's right here, all around and everywhere, right now and always — so, what's the big difficulty? There's nothing else to see. All I have to do is look at it. What could be simpler?
I think that the only thing that stands in the way of seeing reality is preconceived notions of what it is or isn't, how it should or shouldn't behave, etc. All a teacher can really do for you is to help you expose, and dispose of, the conceptual artifices that you get stuck on. It is you who must drop the attachments to those ideas; and it is you who must do the seeing. The teacher can't give it to you, like some kind of zap from a magic ray-gun.
Sure, a teacher can help you get unstuck, but if you're serious and persistent you can do that yourself. Maybe some guidance is necessary in the beginning, so that you learn to recognize when you're stuck and what to do to get unstuck; but it seems to me that, as long as you're relying on someone else to do the seeing for you, you'll never see for yourself. You'll never be free until you realize that the teacher can't give you anything.
I don't think you can get enlightenment from some external source, even if it's Buddha himself. The only place to find reality is in your own experience. If you can't find it there, you can't find it anywhere.
It's not necessary to sit on a mountain somewhere. The sun shines just as brightly here as it does in Tibet. There's no more reality in an ashram or a zendo than there is in your own living-room. You don't need any magic words, secret rituals, mystical zaps, "mind seals", or other forms of snake-oil. You already have all the reality you need, right here and now. Just sit back and let it go.
"If you meet the Buddha, kill him." (from Zen Flesh, Zen Bones)
"There ain't no guru who can see through your eyes." (John Lennon)
Colophon
Written by Tom Simmonds ([address removed]) at Siemens Corp. Research, Princeton, New Jersey, and posted to soc.religion.eastern on 22 May 1991. Simmonds was a persistent and thoughtful presence on the group throughout the spring of 1991; this post captures his characteristic position with particular economy.
Preserved from the UTZOO Usenet Archive (University of Toronto, shiftleft.com mirror) for the Good Work Library by the New Tianmu Anglican Church, 2026. Original Message-ID: [email protected].
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