Payment for Teaching

[Limp Budgie of Mellowness (Franca)]

An issue has been raised as part of a more general discussion on choosing a path: should people be paid for teaching dharma? If yes, on what basis: a set fee, a sliding scale, "suggested" donation, or completely open and voluntary donation? If a set fee or suggested donation, what criteria should be used for determining the amount? If on a sliding scale, what criteria should be used to determine where on the scale?

[Leslie Ellestad]

I think it is wonderful to have this vigorous debate and respect the experiences of everyone who has written before me on this topic. A few questions have come up for me as I reflect on the differences in outlook.

Part of the issue may be that we are moving into a model where buddhism is being practiced possibly at as deep a level by lay people who are trying to maintain family life as it was once practiced by monastics who had the privilege of relying on dana and having no personal financial responsibility. The buddha abandoned his family, which gave him the freedom to have fewer dealings with money. The current practitioner is both practicing deeply and dealing with all the challenges of material life. This seems to me to be a progression. After all, one thing we know for sure is that karma passes on through our families.

Is it not generous to pay the teacher?

Is it not generous to allow the teacher to be able to focus her time and effort on being available to her students instead of having to spend most of her time and effort doing something else so that she can support her family?

I have been to therapists who have perhaps 9 years of training and had less benefit than I have experienced with my spiritual teacher. Why would I not attribute at least the same value to my time spent with my teacher, who has more years of training, as I do to speaking with a therapist?

Is it not generous to attribute the same economic value to matters of the spirit as we do to physical health? Is not a skilled dharma teacher who can help us remove the obscurations of the mind as valuable to us and as deeply trained as a neurosurgeon who can remove a brain tumour?

What does it mean that a society attributes less monetary value to the work of those who teach the dharma, work as artists, muscians, etc. than it does to people who know how to buy and sell?

I tried to bring this point out in what I said before... what is the impact of giving dana to an institution vs paying the teacher directly?

A bigger question arises... historically religious institutions have wielded a great deal of power and have amassed large amounts of money(Is the Catholic Church one of the wealthiest institutions in the world?). What is the impact of this institutionalization of spirit? Do we want this for buddhism in the west?

I would suggest that Christianity, Islam and Judaism have a mixed record. Once anything becomes institutionalized a whole lot of other outcomes follow. It seems the charitable work can come with strings attached when it is tied to religion. There are many other venues for charitable work and many people who practice buddhism are charitable in their activities.

More specifically to answer Franca's question, I do think that in the spirit of the teachings that a suggested fee range, rather than a set fee is best. The impulse of generosity arises naturally as one practices and students have variable capacity to pay. As part of the deep nature of the relationship between student and teacher, the monetary issues will naturally unfold over time. I feel quite differently having chosen to compensate my teacher at the rate I do than being told there is a particular fee I have to pay. The teacher will also have to work with her responses to the capacity/readiness of her students to pay and this will likely be a productive venue for developing deep equanimity.

Thank you to our teachers for so generously passing on this amazing tradition and for providing this opportunity to debate the issues of our time in relationship to this tradition.

May the debate continue!

[Sister Logchain of the Short Path]

Leslie, a lovely, measured and thoughtful response, a delight to read. I will read it carefully and reflectively, as it deserves, and perhaps comment again. Meanwhile, thank you.

[Chou Dog of Dis-illusioned Allegory]

This is a challenging discussion. I've already written two long comments--and deleted them. Just now I've been turning the question on its head (I think). The original inquiry was, should people be paid for teaching dharma? Some think not. Some think it's okay, but then the issue of 'how much' arises.

I don't think I can make any judgment about people who charge for teaching. If they do so, that's their choice. No teacher can force me to pay him or her money for teaching. If a teacher chooses to charge $150/hr, that's her or his business. I can choose not to pay it. It's my money, not hers/his. I decide how/whether to spend it.

So the question I'm asking myself is not, Should this teacher be allowed to get away with charging $x for teaching the Dharma? but rather, What is the Dharma worth to me?

[Sister Logchain of the Short Path]

I was helped by this perspective, and it also raised a question for me.

I have concerns for vulnerable people who want help, but are discouraged from asking for it because they can't afford it. They are like poor children looking through the candy-shop window at all the goodies. They see the rich kids getting candy and the shokeeper smiling benevolently, patting their sleek heads, and opening the door for them as they leave. They see the glossy advertisements: "Wonderful delights for good kiddies, please call in, you deserve them! Just bring your bill-fold with you."

I think all kids should have things they need, at the highest quality, from the best providers, not just kids who can pay. (OK, candy was a bad metaphor but I'll press on).

I'm making a judgement here, against the commercialisation of dharma, and those who promote it. I defend that judgement on moral grounds, even though I know it irks others who think Buddhists shouldn't judge, or shouldn't moralise.

What's dharma worth to me? It's worth defending against exploitative means by greedy individuals. Buddhism is by no means immune to such people, is it?

[Limp Budgie of Mellowness (Franca)]

(Sorry to those who've read this before, but someone found a typo which I fixed and now I've reposted)

Clearly there are many different practical responses to this issue: everything from teachers who ask for a set hourly rate to teachers who eschew the use of money altogether, making their way in the world, literally, with a begging bowl. I personally know exemplars of both poles, and many in between. And yet what strikes me right now is my own unconscious assumption that there is a "correct" answer: it was encoded right in my original question, when I used the word "should"!

Each possible response to the challenge (and we have surely not identified all of them) seems to answer one set of difficulties while engendering another new set of challenges. It seems to me that individual teachers tend to respond according to their own set of skills and experience, the environment, and their own cultural orientation.

I will add some of my own experience on this issue as someone who has been studying and teaching a while. For ten years I studied with a woman who was not sponsored by any institution or sect — she was and is a householder with children. Although her husband holds a reasonably good job, putting three children through university was a major investment. Teaching was and is her sole contribution to the family's income. When she originally relied on dana to support her efforts, many evenings she actually came up short as the dana offered did not cover the tea and cookies she provided. People were well-meaning, but since most of her students were young undergrads who considered themselves to be in abject poverty, there was a continual need to point out that she was a householder with expenses like anybody else, and that not donating when attending dharma teachings was not an appropriate way for them to save money. More and more time would be devoted to what began to sound like nagging pleas for funds. Students who gave began to resent those who didn't. Those who didn't, resented the lectures, and resented the resentment.

At the time I wrote an essay responding the the challenge of dana for teaching. This essay still stands on her centre's website: click here of you are curious to read it.

The teacher consulted with her core students (including me) and, as a group, we decided to set straight-up fee levels, with the explicit message that nobody was ever turned away for lack of funds. The default was no longer to skip the donation bowl: from that point on the default was to pay a fee, and if someone needed an exception, that was fine, but it had to be done with awareness rather than just a forgetful "I'll catch up when I can afford to".

My own response, now that I teach, follows that direction. My fee for private consultations is based on that for psychotherapists in my community, and my fee for classes is based on that of other classes that go on in the community centre where I teach. All rates are explicitly negotiable if there is financial difficulty.

I don't believe that I am doing it the "right" way... as I said, it's a ongoing response to the challenge. At this time I find the advantages, for me, outweigh the disadvantages. Finances are brought into the field of attention promptly in a way that is understandable to people with little or no experience of religious institutions. I find that people tend to pay attention to what they pay for: when they pay for 10 classes up front, even a relatively small amount, they tend to show up for all 10 classes, or at least as many as they can make. And I'm not undercutting other teachers who rely on this for their livelihood.

It is a significant disadvantage that there probably are people who feel they can't afford it and don't wish to negotiate a rate with me. They do, however, have other options. For example I have one colleague who, for reasons of his own, chooses not to charge a fee, and there is a link to his website on mine. No, it is not labeled "If you don't want to pay go here" — the link is there simply because I recommend him. However anyone following that link will see that he charges no fee. And I do refer people to him if they can't or don't want to come to my classes for whatever reason (could be geography, timing, teaching style...).

Certainly this discussion has been extremely interesting and, despite my non-participation so far in the responses, the ideas and questions raised here continue to my mind quite fruitfully. Thanks everyone.

[Lekshe]

Why do we never ask this about plumbers and garbage haulers?

[Limp Budgie of Mellowness (Franca)]

What they do is much more valuable!

"When you need a qualified teacher, contact your local Mr. Dharma. There's never an overtime charge. Mr. Dharma Teachers are clean and professional, and your practice gets fixed right the first time. There is no extra charge for nights or weekends, and you know the price before any teaching work is performed. Mr. Dharma Teachers guarantee workmanship and parts."

Or how about:

"You want to remove the rubbish from your mind or clear the clutter from your karma. You want it done fast. You want it done right. You want to save money. We provide fast, efficient, low cost bad karma and discursive thought removal services to lay, monastic, and retreat clients in the Metropolitan area. We have helped many clients save at least 30 to 50% by doing the work effectively and professionally. We can save you money, too. Click Here for our Guaranteed Lowest Price or It’s FREE! Why bother Shopping Around?"