I've never chosen a student, and I don't look upon myself as a teacher. I feel I'm a co-learner. People bring different strengths and gifts to me and if we are able to work together, something beneficial might arise for us both. Sometimes I don't feel I have the skills to work with a particular person. I'm also not comfortable with the notion in some Buddhist schools that says teachers deserve special devotion.
Devotion is something everyone deserves.
No, it unfolds. I m a kitchen table Buddhist, and a woman. I'm interested in relationships where there is mutual transparency. In working with dying people and people on death row, there's something about the direness of those individuals' lives that opens transparency. Part of that happened at Auschwitz.