Of Robots and Altars.

We've been in the process of moving over this past month into our first house and the packing has dislodged all our "possessions" from their "right" place and thrown them into a mixed soup of items. As I was dutifully sorting and wrapping up our materialistic karma into the appropriate boxes, I noticed that during the churning maelstrom of the process that my toy, "Robot B-9" from the 1960s, American, science-fiction, t.v. program, titled, "Lost in Space" had found its way to the altar. Anyway, at first glance my conditioned mind saw this clunky, garish, pop-culture refugee, toy as a blight on my otherwise serene, elegant and meticulously designed, altar.

Yet as I questioned this initial reaction from my mind I began to see the cheap, plastic, robot in a different light. I questioned myself, "Why do you see the Buddha differently than the robot?" In a flash my newly focused mind replied, "me." By their nature, the Buddha statue and robot are inanimate objects made unique by their artists yet still of the same nature or essence. It was my mind that was labeling one as "beneficial" and the other as "clutter."

So, just to shake up my habitual mind I've decided to replace the Buddha statue on the altar with the robot for a few days as a kind of koan to contemplate. Religious paraphernalia can be a powerful reminder of what it means to follow the Dharma. However, it can quickly turn to spiritual materialism where we start to think that the items have some sort of power that improves our spirituality; and that without them we're somehow less of a practitioner. Surely the first time I go to bow to Buddha before meditating and instead see that goofy robot I will laugh out loud at my silly mind. Perhaps in a different world in a different part of this universe Buddha takes the form of a robot!! If you find that idea sacrilegious then perhaps you have some of your own spiritual materialism to shed?

---End of Transmission---

Is Buddhism a Religion? Yes, and No. How's That for a Koan?

We often talk about Siddhartha, the young man who became known as the Buddha, as if he were a god. The fact is that he was just a simple Indian guy, a human being like you and me. We think of him as some kind of super-genius for having attained complete spiritual awakening, but in fact his real genius was in showing how any one of us can attain the same awakening as he did. We describe him as a prince and a member of the elite royalty of his time, and we think that must have given him an advantage over us -- but the reality is that most of us today are probably better off, in material terms, than Siddhartha was. The point is, we shouldn't mythologize Siddhartha's life and think that his spiritual awakening was due to his special circumstances. Most of us today actually live in conditions very similar to Siddhartha's, in terms of our material situation.

James: This is something that many in the West don't understand. They think we worship Buddha when we bow to his statues. I think a segment of this misunderstanding stems from the Western idea of what a religion constitutes. The main religions practiced in the West all have the common denominator of a belief in an omnipotent being that rules over all humanity--a "God." Combine that with a relative cultural isolation of many Americans and you have a recipe for misunderstanding Buddhism and other non-Western belief systems.

Siddhartha was a truth seeker, nothing more. He wasn't looking for religion, as such -- he wasn't particularly interested in religion. He was searching for the truth. He was looking for a genuine path to freedom from suffering. Aren't all of us searching for the same thing? If we look at the life of Siddhartha, we can see that he found the truth and freedom he was seeking only after he abandoned religious practices. Isn't that significant? The one who became the Buddha, the "Awakened One," didn't find enlightenment through religion -- he found it when he began to leave religion behind.

James: I don't think this means that we should abandon monasteries, temples and teachers but it is a necessary caution in reminding practitioners that these things are tools to help us along the path that only we can walk. For example, I think we deify our teachers a bit and lean upon them sometimes too much like a crutch. Yet Buddha was clear that we can know the Dharma like the back of our hand but all that is worthless unless we set out on our own and put them into practice. No one can walk the path for us. No teacher can cure us of our suffering--regardless of how enlightened and talented they may be. So, in that sense Buddhism isn't a religion in the Western sense but rather, perhaps, a spiritual school. Let me be clear, however. It doesn't hurt to practice with others in a physical sangha because it offers us support and encouragement but just remember that Buddha had none of these things. And if he can do it, so can we.

After all, what would you do if you were the last Buddhist on Earth? Would you stop practicing because there were no more teachers, temples, statues and sanghas? Of course not. These things are maps but they aren't the path itself. Spiritual materialism and attachment to it's trimmings is just as sure a pitfall as falling into the delusional hole that we don't need any teaching or guidance at all. Ironically, fittingly and beautifully we come back to the conclusion that Buddhism itself should be approached with the middle-path mindset. The way we view it should be balanced between traditional practice and freelance adaptation to an individuals particular karma.

Neither wrong to attend a temple or monastery nor wrong to be more of a hermit Buddhist as Buddha initially was. Some teachers I have read will actually recommend certain students leave the monastery to study on their own as a hermit. So, there are many paths but only one Dharma. That said, neither I, nor Rinpoche are advocating we do away with Buddhism as a religion but rather to go beyond Buddhism as a religion. This means having the structural integrity of the Dharma as our foundation but we shouldn't let organized religion hold back our practice to where we simply copy someone else's practice. In my years of practice I have found that mimicking the path of someone else is simply yet another delusion.

To read the rest of Rinpoche's insightful article, simply click on this sentence.

~Peace to all beings~

Moving Mountains.

There may be people who could move mountains
with their heartfelt beliefs.
Zen wants the mountains to stay where they are.
It is not the task of Zen to rearrange the mountainside.

-Unknown author.

James: I take this as teaching us not to fight up stream nor to fight against nature. Like the temple pictured above we need to work with nature, not destroy it. They don't try and dominate nature they simply build their temple in compliment to it. I also think it is talking about avoiding arrogance when discussing Buddhism with non-Buddhists. No one wants to be preached to about how "Enlightened" you profess to be regardless of your progress along the path. That refers to the verse about "moving mountains." Perhaps we might think or say, "I feel so 'enlightened' that I could move mountains!!"

That's spiritual greed wrapping itself around our practice like a boa constrictor does. The ego-mind is a powerful thing and loves to keep us entertained with delusions of grandeur attempting to use greed as a way to maintain the feeling of "self" and self-importance. It's easy for the ego/mind/self/voice that's in the back of our thoughts to believe, "It's o.k. to be greedy about status as long as it's status as a Buddhist" or "I'm not being mean. They just don't understand how "enlightened" or practiced I am."

So with this ego-mind we sometimes try to convince everyone else to become Buddhist or to remind others that they're not doing such and such as exactly how the Buddha taught in the Tripitaka. It's not the business of Zen or our personal business to try and move people toward what we we personally might think (with a heartfelt belief as the verse above says) is how they should practice Buddhism. The mountains move only when they want to move just like people. It is not our task to proselytize door-to-door as missionaries for Buddhism. It is equally not our task to be the Dharma police.

Leave people be, leave the mountains where they are. As the saying goes, "When the student is ready, the teacher will appear." A person has to come to Buddhism of their own commitment for it to mean anything authentic and to see any meaningful progress. Rearranging the deck chairs on the titanic didn't keep it from sinking and constantly drilling someone in the ears with the Dharma over and over isn't going to keep them from falling away from Buddhism if their heart isn't in it. As I said, mountains only move when they want to move. In order for the Dharma to be sincere in our lives and in the lives of others it has to evolve for each person in their own time.

UPDATE: I wanted to add an addendum to expand a bit upon an aspect to this discussion that Lorem Ipsum brought up in the comment section about being open to sharing the Dharma but not until others are ready and approach us about it. It's a further explanation of what I wrote above. I thought it was an important thought that I had overlooked a bit in the post. I'd add my own twist to it by saying that I talk about Buddhism a bit with non-Buddhists but very sparingly and not in-depth unless questions are asked of me. If people want to know about it then I will gladly discuss it with them but as the verses say it's not our job to move mountains. I usually won't go into any great depth unless someone asks specific questions about Buddhism and what it means to be a Buddhist. I try and emphasize that I'm not an ordained teacher or Dharma scholar. So when my knowledge is exhausted I urge them to seek out a teacher and read books if they have further questions. Especially books from ordained, experienced masters like Thich Nhat Hanh, Ajahn Chah or the Dalai Lama.

~Peace to all beings~

The Way of the Hermit.

I've been contemplating lately on the role of so-called, "Hermit monks" which can still be found in remote areas of the world. We know that monasteries are the traditional venue for Buddhist monks looking to further dedicate their lives to studying and living the Dharma but what of the role of hermit monks? Well I found an excellent documentary on the lives of Chinese Buddhist, mountain, hermit, monks titled, "Amongst White Clouds." It's about an hour and a half but so worth it:Traditionalists might argue that these monks are going "rogue" from the historic path for monks and are thus misguided. However, consider the quote from one of these hermit monks "There are many hearts in this world--the Buddha has a teaching for the heart of every being." This was spoken by a Buddhist Master said to be on the final leg of his liberation who resides in the Zhongnan mountains of China in near solitude.

The majority of these hermits appear to be well practiced in the Dharma and veterans of monasteries and thus able to better practice in a solitary environment. They are not aesthetics in the traditional, pre-Buddhist sense of total denial of food, etc., which Buddha advised against. They eat just enough to remain healthy like most monks, maintain a shelter and do from time to time visit other hermit monks to bolster each other's practice. I hesitate to say that this path is for the average Buddhist who isn't well practiced in the Dharma. For as one of the hermit monks on the mountain states, "Most of the monks here already understand the practice methods, they don't make mistakes. But you must understand the practice. If you don't, you make mistakes and that's nothing but torture."

These hermit monks seem to have reached a point in their practice where they really can't help but wander off into the woods. Historically it was quite common in Buddhist traditions (especially Tibetan Buddhism and Chinese Ch'an or Zen) for monks to wander off to a cave or isolated hut for long periods of deep contemplation. In some branches of Tibetan Buddhism this occurs, however, after about a decade of traditional, monastic Buddhist practice. In some branches of Tibetan Buddhism it is required of monks to do solo retreat for three years and three months.

There are rare cases, however, where younger monks have been recognized as unique in their knowledge, karma and practice of the Dharma to where monastery life is not much of a challenge. In some rare cases it is a distraction for them to further their practice. So sometimes the abbots of those temples send them off to do a solo retreat. This usually is done with an older hermit monk at first but just long enough to get acclimated to the environment/way of life and then they're on their own. Thus the quote about Buddha having a teaching for the heart of every being whether they are an abbot, a senior hermit monk, a younger hermit monk, a novice monk or a lay person.

These men (and one woman--a nun) in this documentary have come to the place where solitude is required to enable their level of near constant meditation and mindful living. Isolation is a very strict, strong and effective teacher in that it forces one to confront that in the end you can't rely upon anyone else for your liberation. Even your fellow monks and practitioners. In practicing the Dharma in isolation one is forced to be with one's thoughts with nothing much to distract oneself from them day and night. The neurotic mind has little to manipulate out of the hermit monks life as silence and raw, naked, confrontation of nature exposes it's futility. Everyday actions take on new meaning when one has no one or no thing to rely upon to distract one from not just practicing Buddhism in general but total, complete, consuming submersion in mindfulness.

Some say they they wander off because they are near enlightenment and therefore where ever they go they are where they need to be. The lessons of mindfulness, of total immersion into mindfulness have carried them outside the monastery walls to reside in the monasteries of old--the forests and mountains. These locations are Earth's first sacred sites and some of the most pure, inspiring and liberating places. It was under a tree, in solo retreat after all where Buddha finally realized liberation.

For these practitioners the spirit of the monastery/sangha travels with them where ever they go. The monastery is everywhere to them including deep in nature where birds, monkeys and other animals are their teachers and fellow practitioners. As well as the trees, caves, waterfalls and rivers. And from time to time many of these hermit monks meet up with one or more other hermit monks in the area to discuss their practice with each other and stay on track. In this documentary the monks in these Chinese mountains are roughly an hour and a half to one day's hike away from each other.

I don't see them as radicals, rebels, misfits or heretics but rather as highly evolved spiritual beings who have reached the point of no return in their quest for final liberation. They seem to have come to the conclusion that monasteries can sometimes become havens for stagnation where it can be easy for some to become lulled into a state of spiritual materialism and spiritual laziness. Not unlike the tendency for some students at universities to stay in school for the socializing and status instead of the learning and growing aspects. So It's as if monasteries are universities for Buddhism where most monks are working on their undergraduate degree.

Whereas hermit monks are doing graduate and post-doctoral work, which is often undertaken independently that usually involves study outside of said universities, in the field so to speak and that means these "students" don't interact with the undergraduate students as much. I would venture to guess that a good majority of these hermit monks come back down after a few years of solitary practice to teach at a monastery. Not unlike a post-doctoral graduate returning to their university to teach undergraduates as a professor. Some, however, have been up their for numerous decades are will most likely die on those mountains and in doing so merge into parinirvana.

In "Amongst White Clouds" I really was inspired and educated by the hermit nun up on the mountain who quoted the Lengyan Scripture, which says in part, "Though there are words to speak, none of these are real. Talk and talk, like flowers falling from heaven--It's all worthless. So there is really nothing to say." This was an appropriate statement because it seemed many of the hermit monks didn't have much to say but their shining eyes and broad smiles sure did. One monk said after the camera man asked another question (and I'm paraphrasing a bit) "I've been talking all day with you and still you want more words?"

This same nun said, "All of the great masters, if they hadn't endured some hardship they wouldn't have opened their wisdom gate." I really connected with that particular insight as my hardship with mental illness is in large part what led me to Buddhism. Of course I'm not a Buddhist master but either way there is great wisdom to be adopted by all who follow the Dharma in that statement. No creation, no destruction.

Finally, consider these thoughts from the man [Red Pine] who wrote the book on these hermit monks, which inspired another man to do this documentary, "Amongst White Clouds":

I’ve never heard of any great master who has not spent some time as a hermit. The hermit tradition separates the men from the boys. If you’ve never spent time in solitude, you’ve really never mastered your practice. If you’ve never been alone with you practice, you’ve never swallowed it and made it yours. If you don’t spend time in solitude, you don’t have either profundity or understanding — you’ve just carried on somebody else’s tradition.

~Peace to all beings~