01.19.2024 For the Dharma Student in You Whether you have (or are!) a dharma teacher or not, if you consider yourself a student of Buddhism, you won’t want to miss the new Winter issue of Buddhadharma: The Practitioner’s Guide, available now in print, online, and in the Buddhadharma mobile app.  Its theme is The Teacher & The Student, and it’s all about this most crucial of dharma relationships—from how to know if a teacher is right for you and how to be their student, to how individuals and communities are working through breaches of the teacher-student relationship, to appreciations of great contemporary teachers by great contemporary teachers. (Also in this issue is the first installment of Buddhadharma on Books by our fine new dhama-book reviewer, Constance Kassor!)  This Weekend Reader shares three selections from the Winter Buddhadharma. May they intrigue you, inform you, and inspire your life as a dharma student.  Thank you for your practice! — Rod Meade Sperry, Editor, Buddhadharma: The Practitioner’s Guide The Treasure of the Teacher Norman Fischer offers an overview of the issue’s theme, The Teacher & The Student. You do the practice, you realize the way. No one else can do it for you. And yet you must begin by finding a teacher you can have faith in. That teacher illuminates the dharma and the sangha for you. They open up the Great Road. Trust in the teacher is the magic, the secret sauce, of the Buddhist path. The path begins with it and, perhaps, ends with it. ADVERTISEMENT Samaya As Symbiotic Relationship   Damchö Diana Finnegan on the guru–disciple bond in Vajrayana Buddhism, and how to navigate it in healthful, beneficial ways.   For a long time, I thought of samaya as the intimate bond of care in which students agree to entrust themselves entirely to a teacher, and the teacher agrees to act entirely in ways that benefit the student. [...] The idea that two individuals could make this sort of commitment to one another seemed beautiful and inspiring to me. Then, some years ago, as I began serving as an ally to survivors of abuse by Vajrayana teachers and hearing their stories, it became clear that the notion of samaya has been one of the principal mechanisms of coercion in these cases of abuse.   A Meeting of Minds Anne C. Klein (Rigzin Drolma) on the importance of listening, relating, and actively engaging with our teachers as the foundation for a genuine, transformative connection with them.   I am grateful for the many wise ones who are thinking or writing about this with grace and intelligence. Complementing that perspective, I focus here on what is possible when these relationships go well, and the kind of teaching it is to be in the presence of such beings.