I’ve developed a very narrow view about the value of teachings. I’m convinced that most teachings are not valuable for their content but for the validation they give to my personal experience. Most teachings do not convey much intellectual content, but they can validate what I experience.
Teachings seldom offer something that I want to yield to. However, they can provide an intellectual framework that gives permission for me to accept and follow my own experience. I do not pay attention to teachings that contradict what I experience. But I do value those teachings that validate my experience, perhaps put my experience in a helpful framework.
Even when I am reading an instruction manual for assemblage or operation of some item, I always examine the item carefully after reading the directions. I check whether the instructions, as I understand them, make sense. I follow the directions only after examining the piece of furniture or the mechanical tool I am trying to figure out. If the instruction makes sense, based on that examination, I follow the instruction.
Even teachings on theoretical things have limited instructional value. Teachings are useful because they help me to trust and rely on my own experience without resistance from my mind. For me to accept it, the teaching has to make sense to me, and that means correspond to my experience.
I carry a whole lifetime of cultural and academic teachings that I am constantly examining, sometimes challenging based on my experience. Especially when I was in theology classes, I was often told “You just want to have it your way.” I was told that often during my training, and I think that is true. I do want to accept only that which corresponds to my experience, or at least validates it.
Even the Buddha is reported as saying about his teachings, “don’t take my word for it; discover it yourself.” I suppose that I follow that way of thinking, and challenge even the teachings of the Buddha. I will accept only the teachings that correspond to my experience. I trust my experience, which is not something I can say about all teachings.