Watch a person training a dog. When the dog does the right thing, the person says "Yes!" or "Good dog!" and gives the animal a treat. Watch a parent and child: when the child does something great, the parent smiles, and his or her body language reflects pleasure and pride. Watch a meditation class. When people report breakthrough experiences, does the teacher smile and show appreciation? When people report problems, does the teacher frown and look concerned? What kind of reports get attention? Are the students working for treats?
Some classes "treat" positive meditation experiences. But any kind of attention can be a "treat": sometimes the sheer drama of a big problem can capture the teacher's attention for long periods. Interestingly, the rest of the class can support this. If the class is discussion-based, as mine are, when a student reports unpleasant or frustrating experiences, other students may start offering sympathy and advice. I have noticed that some people experience this extra attention as a reward; others experience it as a punishment. Either way, the patterns are being activated and running unconsciously. Nobody benefits.
We all want to measure success. It's natural to feel happy when people have breakthrough experiences, and to give extra attention when they are suffering. But it is a mistake to allow these responses to unconsciously influence what gets raised in class. The effect may be to create an increasing sense of fakery, or to cultivate narcissism, or to drive some students completely underground.
You may have noticed some odd behaviour on the part of teachers to avoid this. Many teachers have the same response to everything: they say something like "Yes, yes, very good," or "Keep going," or "Hmmm," or just grunt in a neutral way, no matter what the student reports. But people are very observant, and will pick up the tiniest sign.
The best thing, as always, is to cultivate awareness. If I feel pleasure as a teacher at a breakthrough report, I try to be aware of the pleasure as my own reaction, not as something I need to reflect back to the student. If, as a student, I feel inhibited about raising an issue that I suspect will make me look stupid or a failure to the class, I try to be aware of my insecurity as my own reaction, and raise it anyway. And if, either as a teacher or a student, I feel discomfort at another's suffering, I try to be aware of the discomfort as my own reaction, and refrain from acting on the impulse to "fix" the problem with sympathy or advice.
