Bhikkhu Cintita

Category: Lay practice

  • American Folk Buddhism (4)

    New Moon, Uposatha, April 21, 2012

    4. Burmese Folk Buddhism (1)

    I want today to use Burma as an example of the difference between, and interrelatedness of, Essential and Folk Buddhism. I choose Burma primarily because I’ve gained quite a bit of familiarity with it, but also Burma provide a particularly good example of a very traditional strong Folk Buddhism happily coexisting with a markedly well maintained Essential Buddhism.

    Essential Buddhism is evident in Burma in meditation practice, in the large proportion of monastics in the population, in the high standards in much monastic education, in the widespread familiarity with the Pali texts (there are monks who can recite thousands of pages from memory), in the ubiquitous practice of generosity throughout the culture, as well as the practices of precepts, of listening to Dhamma talks and discusing the Dhamma and of expression of faith in the Triple Gem. A number of Burmese in recent years have been widely regarded as arahants (they won’t actually tell you). Burma is particularly well known abroad for its many teachers of Vipassana meditation since meditation has undergone a massive revival since the middle of the Twentieth Century such that farmers and otherwise employed lay people now crowd 10-day meditation retreats. Burmese Vipassana schools are in fact well-represented in America today. Aung San Su Kyi through her many years of house arrest sustained a strong daily meditation practice; she is a follower of Pandita Sayadaw, a now elderly disciple of Mahasi Sayadaw, with whom people like Joseph Goldstein and Sharon Salzburg studied many years ago. Essential Buddhism is clearly not the exclusive domain of monastics in Burma.

    Nevertheless, the average Buddhist, though perhaps devout, knows little of meditation, nor of the basic teachings of Buddhism, but is informed instead by a vibrant Folk Buddhism. Burma is a land of pagodas, solid structures that evolved architecturally from the burial mounds that originally held parcels of the Buddha’s relics after his parinirvana. Statues of the Buddha abound before which people bow fully touching their foreheads to the ground in reverence and to which they offer flowers and food. This average Burmese Buddhist inhabits a world of tree spirits, miracles and magic, largely of pre-Buddhist origin but blending seamlessly with Buddhist practices and doctrine, for instance, calling on the presence or actions of monks to work invisible forces in a more favorable direction. This trails into Folk Buddhism, which is clearly not the exclusive domain of the laity in Burma.

    A couple of months ago we held a rite at the Burmese monastery where I live in Texas to appease three angry tree spirits (nats or devas) dwelling here. It seems that in our extended community, which apparently extends to relatives in Burma and in Houston of people living here, there had been three mishaps in one week, Someone was even grazed in the head and critically injured by an out of control, in fact airborne, race car. We had in the months before this fateful week been constructing many new buildings, particularly meditation cottages, which we had always tried to locate in the spaces between standing trees. Occasionally we had had to cut a tree down of one of the two kinds of common trees on our property, favoring an oak to a cedar when one or the other was to be spared. Nonetheless we had had to cut down exactly three oak trees.

    One morning the abbot announced to me the necessity of performing this rite. The monks would visit each of the three crime scenes, we would chant the Metta Sutta (Loving Kindness Discourse) then the abbot would speak to the offended spirit to ask forgiveness. This was up until then outside of the realm of my familiarity, so something like the following exchange ensued.

    “We have cut down several cedar trees as well. How do we know that devas weren’t living in those trees as well?”

    “They only live in oak trees.”

    “There aren’t any oak or cedar trees in Burma, how do you know which trees they live in in America?”

    “They like oak trees.”

    “OK. Are you going to speak to them in Burmese? These are Texan devas. They are more likely to understand English … or Spanish.” (They are also likely to have names like “Clem” or “Dusty.”)

    “I think devas can understand any language, but just in case I will speak to them in Burmese and then you speak to them in English!”

    And so it was, three little ceremonies in turn with my full participation. It was kinda fun I have to admit.

    The Buddha once sneezed. I’ve been looking for the source of this story; I believe it is in the Vinaya.

    A nearby monk said, “Bless you!” Apparently this was also the custom in the Buddha’s time and place.

    The Buddha asked, “Wait a minute. Do you think that saying that will have an effect on my future health?” He had after all in his teachings replaced the idea of appropriate rites and rituals as a determinant of future well-being with the idea of purity of intention in one’s own actions, the Buddhist meaning of “karma.”

    The monk replied, “Well, no, actually.”

    “Then don’t say it!”

    And thereby a new rule was put into circulation that monks were expected to follow. The problem was that lay people began to complain about how rude all the monks had suddenly become.”

    “I sneezed and there was a monk standing right there and he didn’t even bless me!”

    “How rude! The impudent cad”

    When this was reported back to the Buddha the Buddha rescinded the rule that he had established.

    “People need monks to say ‘Bless you’ to them.”

    This little story is indicative of the Buddha’s tolerance and willingness to adapt to common cultural preferences. Except where a particular practice flies in the face of Essential Buddhism as I understand it, I personally try to follow his example.

    Much of Burmese Folk Buddhist practice and understanding is only about one step removed from Essential Buddhism. We mentioned in an earlier episode the importance of the Triple Gem, refuge in the Buddha, the Dhamma and the Sangha, as a bridge between Essential and Folk Buddhism and common to both. I described the function of the Triple Gem in terms of deference to the experts, but in every Buddhist culture I am aware of it takes on layers of meaning. The Burmese express their relationship to these with particular exuberance.

    Pagoda under construction in Austin, Texas.

    The Buddha authorized in the Parinibbana Sutta the practice of honoring him after his death through pilgrimage to the places of his birth, awakening, first teaching and death. He probably did not anticipate the devotion and reverence his disciples would slather on every reminder of him. Chief among these, and prior to Buddha statues, were his relics, the bits of bone, teeth, sometimes hair, that survived his cremation. The Burmese also honor the relics of arahants, which generally take on the form of crystals, and which reproduce like bunnies, that is, left overnight the next morning they will have increased in number and mass. A museum has been built in a temple in Burma where a local arahant had lived and died. Pictures in the museum reveal he had very intensive eyes, which died and was cremated, did not burn but were found among the relics! Moreover, the concrete ground floor one story below the bed in which he died has continually cracked and burst open since its last occupancy.

    Relics are often said to have special powers. Kyaik Tiyo, the golden rock (actually gold-leaf enhanced with a little pagoda on top), is a huge boulder, maybe 40 or 50 feet in diameter, perched on top of a sheer cliff, at the very top of a tall mountain, in such a way that it has been just about to roll off for maybe the last several hundred thousand years or so. Inspection of this amazing site from below invites one to try to pass a string, an accomplice holding the other end, under the rock all the way across; it looks like it would work, maybe by rocking the rock a bit. From higher up, one can see that its center of gravity does keep it from rolling off the cliff, but golly it seems that by now an earthquake or a clumsy dinosaur sometime in the last innumerable millennia would have toppled it. It is certainly a wonder of nature.

    In Myanmar all such phenomena are miracles that have to do with Buddhism. The story is that some of the Buddha’s hairs are contained inside of the rock and that the rock remains in place by the power of the Buddha. Once upon a time, some non-Buddhists tried to push the rock off the cliff in order to undermine people’s faith in the Buddha, Dhamma and Sangha, but they were turned into monkeys. That’ll show them! In an inspiring, hopefully not foolhardy, display of faith, there is now a nunnery directly below the rock, exactly at the point of first bounce.

    The reverence for relics and the attribution to them of special powers seems to be universal throughout Buddhist Asia. A particular expression of this is the pagoda, originally representing a burial mound for the Buddha’s relics but now takes on wildly varying forms. The Burmese are particularly fond of pagodas, which there follow a squat earth design common also in India and suggestive of their original function. Burma is known as the Land of Pagodas; they must consume a large part of the small national income. A 70′ pagoda is currently under construction here in Texas substantially supported through donations from Burma.

    A common observance in Burma and perhaps in all Buddhist countries of Asia is the ritual offering to a Buddha statue, of food, water, flowers, incense and light. In Burma it is generally understood that the Buddha is no longer able to receive those offerings. Rather the offering is made as a kind of enactment in which the offerer’s wholesome qualities are developed. The view however seems to be widespread that some kind of unseen power adheres to Buddha statues and other representations of the Buddha once these have been properly consecrated ceremonially by monks.

    The Dhamma is most commonly represented by recitation and by listening to Dhamma talks. Great value is placed in the ability to memorize the scriptures and enormous veneration of what are known as Tipitaka Monks, those who pass a state examination that exhibits rote knowledge of the scriptures, including memorization of at least two of the three baskets and a substantial part of the third, roughly twenty volumes. Only eight monks have passed this examination since it was instituted sixty-four years ago. Monasteries in Burma often have enhanced loudspeaker systems to broadcast recitations to the world. Many undertake once a year to recite the Pathana, a long chapter of the Abhidhamma Pitaka, which takes several days and nights and is done in shifts. Where I once lived in central Burma a neighboring nuns’ monastery undertook to broadcast such a recitation day and night. I strongly suspect the nun in charge of setting the volume control had once belonged to a heavy metal band. Burmese often report the occurrence of miraculous phenomena during such recitations, for instance, water offerings to the Buddha will begin to boil. Burmese recite (chant) together typically with great energy.

    The Sangha is represented by the monastic community, upon whom great reverence is bestowed and who are doted upon much as house pets. Traditionally in Burmese culture one is expected to show special respect for four categories of people: (1) monastics, (2) parents, (3) teachers and (4) the elderly. This respect finds its most visible expression in full prostrations, generally in groups of three, representing the Buddha, the Dhamma and the Sangha. A rite of passage for boys is to ordain as novice monks for short period, sometimes for a week, sometimes at the age of seven or eight, but generally as teenagers, having their heads shaved, wearing the traditional robes and taking the precepts. One of the moving aspects of the ceremony is that once immediately following the ordination the parents will perform full bows to their sons, reversing the order that had obtained until that time. Burmese will generally try to sit at a lower level than monks, for instance offering the monks chairs then sitting on the floor themselves.

    Often magical powers are attributed to senior monks of great attainment. The presence of monks is commonly regarded as good luck and making offerings to monks, particularly offering a meal to monks, is karmically meritorious. This is often done on auspicious occasions such as weddings and birthdays, as well as periods of misfortune when people feel they need a karmic boost. A Burmese doctor in Austin, a specialist in sleeping disorders, was pleased to be able to offer her services for free to a visiting Burmese monk who suffered from sleep apnea, which required that he stay overnight in a specially outfitted room hooked up to various machines. She was particularly pleased with the auspiciousness that he was the inaugural patient of a new room they had just added to their lab. A frequent visitor to our monastery, who like to come on weekends to prepare food for the monks, was up late one night and spotted a monk standing in the air above one of the new buildings near where the new pagoda was beginning construction. She called to other people who indeed verified the presence of this monk in the sky, only now he was meditating. It was generally assumed that this monk had teletransported from Burma. A couple of weeks later I heard the story retold such that the monk in question had become our own founder, Sitagu Sayadaw.

    Next week I will continue to discuss Burmese Folk Buddhism with a focus on how generosity, merit and the object of Buddhist practice are understood in the popular culture. Then I will look at the influence of Essential Buddhism on the popular practice and understanding.

  • American Folk Buddhism (3)

    Last Quarter Moon, Uposatha, April 14, 2012

    3. Folk Buddhism

    Essential Buddhism is the corn, the Buddhism that sustains and is most directly sustained by the adepts. Folk Buddhism is the undergrowth that nourishes far more beings. Last week we considered Essential Buddhism, this week we look at Folk Buddhism.

    Against the Stream. Essential Buddhism is radical in any culture. It extols Awakening as the highest attainment, a state most can scarcely conceive of, one that entails not only the complete eradication of personal desire and aversion as motivating factors but the elimination of intentional action altogether. It defies common sense in holding that well-being lies in renouncing the quest for personal advantage and is attained exclusively by no one in the conventional sense. It finds well-being to be quite contrary to the most natural human impulses learned and unlearned.

    The primary motivating factors for the mass of people in any culture in the meanwhile are substantially based in greed, hatred and delusion and many of the cultural, economic and social influences serve to magnify these very factors. Rampant suffering is the result. Buddhism “goes against the stream,” as the Buddha described it. Essential Buddhism mixes with common culture as oil with water.

    It is the rare person who can totally see the contradictions in the assumptions that prevail in her own culture, or observe that their application fails spectacularly to achieve the well-being anticipated by their adherents. Such a person might embrace Essential Buddhism rather quickly … if she just happened to come across the teachings. How do those teachings gain a toehold in the culture in the first place and what makes them accessible to anyone perhaps a little less astute that this rare perceptive individual? More generally, what is the dispersant that allows Essential Buddhism to penetrate the water, to make a large-scale difference in providing some relief from the excesses of a suffering dominant culture?

    Folk Buddhism as Popular Understanding. Folk Buddhism is the popular understanding of Buddhism in a particular Folk culture. It may contain aspects of Essential Buddhism, the Buddhism of the adepts described last week, and as we shall see must contain at least three aspects. But it also contains aspects that either simplify aspects of Essential Buddhism or are properly extraneous to Essential Buddhism. For instance, it is common in Folk Buddhisms to think in terms of a soul, a fixed self, that acquires merit through good deeds in order to be reborn in a felicitous realm, or as a true inner self that is released through Buddhist practice from learned inhibitions or social constraints. It is common to think Nirvana is a particularly felicitous realm where that self can dwell forever. It is common to equate the well-being achieved through practice with material well-being or reputation and to confuse Awakening with a kind of celebrity status. It is common to read particular powers into ritual objects, even to the extent that Buddhist practice becomes primarily a shopping experience. It is common to find Buddhism residing in special experiences and then to expect instant gratification from Buddhist practice. It is common in Folk Buddhism to seek protection from outrageous fortune in amulets or in special chants or in the presence of monks. It would be difficult to find evidence of any of these things in Essential Buddhism, for instance, as attested in the Pali Suttas.

    Folk Buddhism is always largely conditioned by the embedding culture. For instance Asian (pre-Buddhist) culture has many animist and shamanic influences and we can expect these to find expression in Asian Folk Buddhism. East Asian culture is very ritualized and Ancestor worship is common, and therefore these factors are expected to be found in their Folk Buddhism. American culture emphasizes individualism and consumerism, it glorifies celebrities and has marked influences from Protestant Christianity, from the European Enlightenment, and from later European Romanticism. Therefore these factors can be expected to find their way into American Folk Buddhism.

    The advantage of Folk Buddhism in general is that it is a much easier nut to crack than Essential Buddhism. Much of its content is based on factors present and easily understood and appreciated in the general culture, often assimilated by the individual at a very early age. It tends to avoid the most difficult teachings of Essential Buddhism, such as non-self or emptiness or (for Westerners) rebirth, and downplay the most demanding practices, such as meditation and renunciation of sensual pleasures. In general it is much less challenging to the common culture or the impulsive behaviors of the individual than Essential Buddhism and more reassuring to people’s lifestyles as they are currently constituted. Nonetheless it can help people over time gently ease toward the path of liberation as it conveys values and practices that reflect or support parts of Essential Buddhism.

    The disadvantage of Folk Buddhism is that it is itself subject to absorbing the personal and cultural factors of the wider society that cause so much distress and suffering in the first place. Rather than following the direct path advanced by Essential Buddhism the followers of Folk Buddhism may come under distracting influences or unsavory influences inimical to the teachings, practices and values of Essential Buddhism. For instance, Folk Buddhism might begin to assume much of the materialism, acquisitiveness or intolerance of the embedding culture, then represent this as belonging to the Buddha’s teachings. It may acquire features that enhance the ego or endorse an unconscionable status quo. It may also come under manipulation of special interests who exploit Folk Buddhism, for instance, for commercial interests or as a means of controlling public opinion.

    In brief, Folk Buddhism is a middle way between Essential Buddhism and the general embedding culture. It has a natural tension with each, but also serves as a path of access to each. It has a natural tension with Essential Buddhism which is far too strict and inscrutable for its tastes, but which is at the same time tolerant of its looseness, like a kindly wise grandmother. It has a natural tension with the embedding culture. Its task is to highlight certain values and bring in new perspectives that challenge the culture at large or challenge the cultures influences for the Buddhist practitioner. If it does not engage in this challenge, what is the point? At the same time a Folk Buddhism provides access to Essential Buddhism; it provides a welcome mat for beginning to learn more of Essential Buddhism. And it communicates Buddhist values and perspectives to the embedding culture in the way Essential Buddhism in its obscurity is unable to do effectively.

    The tensions between Folk Buddhism and Essential Buddhism and between Folk Buddhism and the general culture are however nothing compared to the tension between the Folk Buddhisms of distant lands. Dependent as they are on diverse cultures, one such Folk Buddhism is not going to look particularly Buddhist or even sensible from the vantage of another such Folk Buddhism. Asian Folk Buddhisms are distinctly odd to Westerners, ours are bound to be equally odd to Asian Folk Buddhists.

    Maintaining the Integrity of Folk Buddhism. Folk Buddhism as a culturally determined phenomenon is fine and necessary. The biggest danger to a Folk Buddhism is that it just dissolve into the embedding culture altogether, losing its identity as Buddhism. It is imperative that Folk Buddhism be anchored to Essential Buddhism, that Essential Buddhism have the power to shape and correct Folk Buddhism. For instance, a snapshot of a Folk Buddhism at one point in time might have factors related to Essential Buddhism in the following ways:

    1. Factors found in Essential Buddhism.
    2. Factors that approximate an Essential Buddhist understanding. These may be naïve understandings derived from Essential Buddhism or factors present in the local culture that happen to have a close affinity with Essential Buddhism.
    3. Extraneous factors present in or derived from the embedding culture.
    4. Factors present in or derived from the embedding culture that are inimical to Essential Buddhism. These are particularly manifestations of greed, hate and delusion in the common culture.

    (It seems to be common, by the way, for cultural factors with an affinity for Essential Buddhism to be incorporated eventually into Essential Buddhism and this is probably a primary driver of the evolution of Essential Buddhism. In this way many originally Taoist and Confucian elements seem to have come to characterize much of East Asian Essential Buddhism.)

    To develop a healthy beneficial Folk Buddhism we would want to encourage the first two types of factors and discourage the last. How does all of this happen?

    Buddhism in fact has a mechanism for this, which has to do with acknowledging the authority of Essential Buddhism even when the Folk Buddhist might not be clear about what it has to say. This is much like the popular relationship to science. For instance, if I don’t have much of an understanding of how the weather works I might have some odd notions about it and even communicate these to other people. If someone disagrees with me generally we have a ready way to resolve the conflict: look it up or ask an expert. If I am not to be informed or corrected by those that I understand to be the experts my understanding along with that of the people I talk with about the weather will quickly lose its tenuous mooring in science and float off into supposition and superstition bearing even less relationship to science than it does now. It is normal to defer to the scientist, the historian, the physician, your own real estate agent, to put faith in the experts. This allows us to correct our misunderstandings and improve our understandings, to loosely anchor ourselves.

    Buddhism’s mechanism is the Triple Gem, the Threefold Refuge, the basis of Buddhist faith and considered the beginning point of all Buddhism. Where my knowledge and understanding might be insufficient I entrust myself to the Buddha’s understanding. Where my knowledge and understanding might be insufficient I entrust myself to the teachings of the Buddha. Where my knowledge and understanding might be insufficient I entrust myself to the Sangha’s understanding. The Sangha is the adepts we met last week whose task it is to maintain Essential Buddhism through their study, practice and attainment.

    For instance, I may naively believe that paying daily respect to my Buddha statue will erase the karmic results of any misdeeds I commit out in the world. If I am unwilling to be corrected by the adept who points out that I am heir to all of my deeds, my understanding a practice along with those of the people I talk with about such matters will quickly lose its tenuous mooring in Essential Buddhism and float off in a wildly devotional cultic bubble having even less relationship to Buddhism than it does now.

    Summary. Once again our goal is not to weed out Folk Buddhism from under the corn of Essential Buddhism; that would withdraw Buddhism from most of the population in favor of a very small exclusive elite of monastics and lay people who have the time, energy and inspiration to explore the depths and heights of Buddhist practice, to fix their feet firmly on the Noble Eightfold Path and set their sights on Nirvana. Rather our goal should be to create a healthy Folk Buddhism, one that is consistent with a healthy Essential Buddhism, the two together providing both depth and breadth and in the end the most benefit for the most people and the option of intensive study and practice to produce the adepts of tomorrow.

    Now the individual Buddhist is commonly some mix of Essential and Folk Buddhist. Even an adept if born a Buddhist probably retains much of Folk Buddhism inculcated since childhood, but is unlikely to retain those aspects that are inimical to Essential Buddhism. A casual Buddhist may nonetheless take an interest in some particular teaching or practice of Essential Buddhism such as mindfulness meditation. The communication the two enjoy will generally make Essential Buddhism accessible to the Folk Buddhist who might then decide to go deeper into Essential Buddhist practice.

  • American Folk Buddhism (2)

    Full Moon, Uposatha, April 6, 2012

    Essential Buddhism

    Last week I introduced but did not fully explain the distinction between Essential Buddhism and Folk Buddhism. In brief, when people criticize Asian Buddhists as not being real Buddhists or as caught in a mesh of superstition and religiosity, they are probably talking about Asian Folk Buddhism; Asian Essential Buddhism is generally just fine. When people criticize American Buddhism as being watered down Buddhism, they are probably talking about American Folk Buddhism; American Essential Buddhism is developing just fine, thought it is not yet as firmly planted here as in most of Asia. Most of Buddhism as it is lived and practiced by millions of people is Folk Buddhism, it has always been that way since Buddhism expanded beyond the Buddha’s immediate disciples and will always be that way. Folk Buddhism is fine too as long as it is kept wholesome. We will begin to look at what “wholesome” means next week.

    The reason why Folk Buddhism is so overwhelmingly popular is that Essential Buddhism is so incredibly sophisticated and subtle that it will inevitably be understood substantially (let alone fully) by the relatively few. Essential Buddhism is rooted in the most ancient teachings of the Buddha while Folk Buddhism is a generally culturally conditioned more naïve popular understanding of Buddhism, or sometimes a complete misunderstanding, or sometimes an accretion of elements that have no historical relation to Essential Buddhism at all but are nevertheless thought of as Buddhist in a particular culture.

    This is much the situation with science, music, philosophy, engineering or many other areas wherever popular interest and narrow achievement exist side by side. A professional physicist, for instance, has a very sophisticated understanding developed through education, training and perhaps personal research that the rest of us fall far short of. Yet we are all physicists at at least a naïve level insofar as we must deal with the world of mass and motion, light and liquids. Try asking some naïve physicists things like: What keeps the moon and airplanes up but us down? Why is the back of the refrigerator so warm? How can radio waves carry sounds and pictures? What makes water freeze? … and you may receive in return some astonishing examples of naïve understandings. Beyond naïve understandings folk science trails off into misunderstandings, superstition and “wive’s tales.” Buddhism is no different, never has been since the early days and never will be.

    Elements of Essential Buddhism

    So what is this more sophisticated Essential Buddhism?

    The easiest and obvious answer would be that it is the Dharma-Vinaya taught by the Buddha, as somewhat reliably attested by the early Pali Suttas, but also in the Chinese Agamas and the Vinaya in many languages. I take care to tack “Vinaya,” monastic discipline, which carries most of the institutional aspects of Buddhism, onto “Dharma” in this context, first, because the Buddha normally used “Dharma-Vinaya” to refer to the entirety of his teachings, and secondly and more importantly, because the Vinaya is directly relevant to the relationship of Essential and Folk Buddhism.

    Essential Buddhism defined in this way includes a variety of understandings, practices and institutions that include, for instance, the Noble Eightfold Path, the Four Noble Truths, Nirvana, Samsara, Dependent Origination, the Marks of Existence (impermanence, suffering and no-self), karma, meditation practice, renunciation, kindness, generosity, the Three Refuges, the monastic lifestyle and obligations, and so on. “Understanding” here is much deeper than intellectual understanding but rather depends on the direct experience of these elements on the basis of deep and prolonged practice.

    I want to qualify this definition. First, there was probably already a vibrant Folk Buddhism even in the Buddha’s day, cobbled together from elements of essential Buddhism along with popular folk beliefs and this Folk Buddhism is also probably reported in the earliest scriptural sources, for instance, in the Buddha’s discourses to village people as opposed to those spoken to his closest disciples. So this definition may be a bit too broad.

    Second, and more importantly, Essential Buddhism itself has gone through a historical process of evolution, particularly as it has been transmitted into novel cultural contexts, and is evolving in the West as well. This Essential Buddhism, though expressed in different ways has retained its functional integrity in very diverse schools. One of my interests has been in assessing the claim with regard to Zen Mahayana Buddhism in which I was ordained for a number of years before ordaining in the Theravada tradition. In practice and understanding Zen is actually very close to the Theravada Forest Tradition even though its language and teachings are heavily influenced by Taoism and Confucianism. In my recent series on meditation I compared Zen shikantaza and modern vipassana techniques both favorably with Buddha’s original teachings. So the definition of Essential Buddhism as first stated above may also be too narrow; anyway it is not the unique property of a single school of Buddhism.

    Maintaining the Integrity of Essential Buddhism

    Essential Buddhism is only able to maintain its integrity in spite of evolution because of adepts. In particular, without the involvement of strong practitioners with, or who develop, deep understanding of its essential functions, who are able to at least glimpse Nirvana and experience the Path of development that heads unwaveringly in that direction, the sophisticated teachings of Essential Buddhism will not make full sense, are likely to be misinterpreted, will probably shed their most head-scratching aspects and will be unable to recover from past misunderstandings. Traditionally the adepts with this level of attainment are called stream enterers, and as a group are called the ariya sangha (noble community). With adepts practicing sincerely, false or incomplete understandings cannot survive and the integrity of Essential Buddhism will be upheld. For an example, in my blog series on meditation I described how Buddhist meditation in particular seems to have retained its integrity or even to have self-corrected when it has deviated functionally from the Buddha’s original intention, even as the way it has been taught and described has changed.

    A primary function of the monastic institution is to ensure a steady stream of new stream enterers. This is much of the reason that the Buddha included the Vinaya as a critical aspect of Essential Buddhism. Monastic practice not only enforces a personal discipline fully aligned with Dharma, that supports progress on the Path, but also creates a social and economic context that protects practice from aspects of common samasaric life that would otherwise suck the monastic back into self-centered responsiveness. Because it entails a strict renunciate practice that most cannot sustain and many cannot fathom without a great deal of affinity for the Buddha’s Path, it effectively provides a means of self-qualification. The mutually supporting community of those in the monastic path is the monastic sangha.

    In short Buddhism supports the monastic sangha institutionally to provide the ideal context for Buddhist practice, thereby also producing most of the adepts who will ensure the survival of Essential Buddhism. The monastic sangha is the institutional, and visible, counterpart of the ariya sangha. Not all monastics are ariyas, but an ariya is most likely a monastic. In a number of Theravada sources it is maintained with great confidence that as long as monastics are following the Vinaya, the integrity of the Dharma is assured, because these are people who are living wholly according to Dharma. This has in fact preserved Essential Buddhism for many centuries throughout Asia.

    Science works much the same way. Maintaining the integrity of science would be practically impossible without a community of adapts. Science is simply too sophisticated to be sustained by amateurs and hobbyists alone. Institutionally modern societies support a class of professional scientists who are qualified and then given the support, academic appointments and leisure to pursue their disciplines. Not all scientists produce great breakthroughs, but if someone produces a great scientific breakthrough she is most likely a professional scientist. There are exceptions to this: Einstein’s earthshaking early work was produced as a kind of hobby without the support of an academic appointment, yet he was one step away from the professionals who trained him. Similarly non-monastics become ariyas, yet they are seldom if ever far removed from the influence of monastics.

    Essential-ish and Folk-ish Buddhisms

    I have been describing Essential Buddhism and Folk Buddhism as two distinct things. This is actually a simplified model of the reality. First, there may be different Folk Buddhisms existing side by side. More importantly any Buddhist’s understanding will probably fall somewhere between pure Essential Buddhism and pure Folk Buddhism and probably nobody’s will actually be pure Essential Buddhism or pure Folk Buddhism. We can actually envision within any culture an indefinite number of hybrid Buddhisms varying in their mix of Essential and Folk elements.

    For instance, it is very common for very learned Burmese monks, who can discuss the Suttas at length and even recite many of them for you, to also share many beliefs, say, in miracles associated with Buddhist religious objects, relics and Buddhists of high attainment, with the bulk of the Burmese population. Maybe they are right, but these beliefs are not a part of my thinking and I do not feel I am less of a Buddhist for it. It is hardly surprising that learned monks have these beliefs since they first grew up as Folk Buddhists and only later overlaid their early understanding with the study of Essential Buddhism.

    Another possibility that I suspect has happened in some schools of Asian Buddhism is that an Essential-Folk hybrid has become authoritative, that is has displaced Essential Buddhism. This might be the case, for instance, if the most adept in that school have lost sight of Nirvana as the goal and have set their sights on a lesser goal, such as felicitous rebirth in a deva realm. Still another possibility is that Folk elements may become integrated into Essential Buddhism, that is, may come to fulfill an essential function. For instance, ritual aspects already present in Chinese culture before the arrival of Buddhism seem to have been integrated as effective aids to developing mindfulness and in that context are a part of Essential Buddhism.

    Although the relationship of Essential and Folk Buddhism is more complex than initially portrayed, the simple model of regarding Essential and Fok Buddhism as two distinct things will serve, I think, for the purposes of this series. I just want to caution that when it comes to examining certain elements of your practice, for instance, they may be difficult to classify. Since I don’t advocate expunging Folk elements, only bringing them in line with Essential Buddhism, this should not be a problem.

  • American Folk Buddhism (1)

    First Quarter Moon, Uposatha, March 30, 2012

    Introduction

    How did it happen that Western Buddhists so quickly gained a monopoly on real Buddhism? We in the West certainly don’t seem to have gained much of a handle on Christianity over many centuries, and the average citizen of my country is pretty clueless about science., history, and almost everything else outside of popular entertainment. Yet we meditate and study Buddhist philosophy while people in Asian temples burn money and appease spirits through elaborate rituals. How were we the ones to arrive at this precise understanding of something as sophisticated and refined as Buddhist thought and practice?

    There is a common kind of hubris in the West that often goes as far as trying to save Buddhism from Asian misunderstanding. I began wondering about this some years ago after many years of training in the Western American context. Often Americans who come to Buddhism are dismayed at what gets included in Buddhism in Asia, and yet American Buddhism sprang out of the Asian communities and was inspired by Asian teachers. This does not add up. What gives?

    It is true that if we try to accept the whole package things get muddled in our Western way of thinking very quickly. Meditation is widely acclaimed and the Four Noble Truths and the Refuges are broadly accepted, but then there are choices to consider: when to blend in Tantric elements, whether to walk the Bodhisattva Path or the Path of the Arahat, which precepts to follow, not to mention the daunting plethora of meditation techniques. OK, that goes with the territory. But then there is this renunciation thing, ritual with a lot of bowing, community and social functions where a go-it-alone individual endeavor would seem preferable, devotional practices, gaudy garb, ancestor worship, appeasing tree spirits, appealing to bodhisattvas or simply the power of Buddha to save us from misfortune, gaining merit to attain a felicitous rebirth and blaming misfortune on one’s past karma. Some of this is certainly over the edge, … isn’t it?

    For a Western newcomer and many a seasoned practitioner Buddhism as a whole appears as a tangle of bushes with a few edible berries but in general no clear path or order. Unfortunately the individual or collective Western response has often much like that of the landowner who discovers an overgrown but still potentially productive corn field on his property and with limited understanding of both corn and non-corn dauntlessly hacks away with a machete only to destroy half of the corn and to leave half of the undergrowth, then plants one row of Monsanto super-corn and row of squash to make it look right. It looks pretty good, so we call it Western Buddhism.

    To make better sense of this historical process in which we Western Buddhists participate I want to suggest that we are actually in a process of developing two distinct Western Buddhisms, and that when we look at any particular Asian tradition we are actually looking at two distinct Asian Buddhisms. The two Buddhisms in each case exist in a symbiotic relationship. Often we confuse the two.

    Essential Buddhism is like the corn in the simile. Although it is generally regarded as authoritative in a Buddhist community, it is so sophisticated that it is understood only by the adept few, often fully understood by the none.

    Folk Buddhism is like the undergrowth. It represents the popular understanding of Buddhism. Individually we each feed on Essential and Folk Buddhism to varying degrees, but Folk Buddhism is the most nibbled and gnawed.

    The super-corn and the squash represent new innovations, of Essential and Folk Buddhism respectively. Of course hacking away with a machete is also innovative as well. Essential Buddhism tends to be the more conservative, yet is still subject to innovation and culture-specific understandings. Folk Buddhisms on the other hand tend to vary wildly.

    Understanding the difference between Essential Buddhism and Folk Buddhism is by no means intended as an aid for elimination of the undergrowth in favor of the corn. Buddhism has always been ecologically more sustainable than that; Roundup is eschewed. Undergrowth is a universal and inevitable part of Buddhism and already characterizes American Buddhism though I don’t think this is generally recognized. In fact it already feeds more critters by far than Essential Buddhism will ever feed.

    Understanding the difference between Essential and Folk Buddhism is to bring the two into a proper and mutually beneficial relationship. First, our corn should grow straight and tall. Maintaining the integrity of Essential Buddhism is for the adepts and those with adept tendencies and it is for future generations. It also serves to protect the undergrowth and plays a corrective role, to ensure that Folk Buddhism thrives is a wholesome and beneficial form. Second, our undergrowth should bring wholesome values and practices into the lives of Buddhists. It should serve to bring benefit and remove harm. It should also take refuge under Essential Buddhism, to remain consistent in expression with the teachings, wisdom, standards and advice of the corn. The power of Folk Buddhism is in its immediate appeal to the largest masses of Buddhists through its simplicity and cultural consistency, but if it escapes the influence of Essential Buddhism it becomes a marginal cult of Buddhism at best.

    Understanding the difference between Essential and Folk Buddhism is to recognize where our relationship with our Asian big brothers and sisters goes askew. Folk Buddhism is strongly bound to the local culture, one land’s Folk Buddhism is unlikely to made sense to the Folk Buddhists of a distant land. Moreover Folk Buddhists generally do not understand the extent to which they are Folk Buddhists. Yet the Essential Buddhism of a distant land, while not identical, is likely to accord with the local Essential Buddhism.

    Parenthetically let me note that I will use “American” and “Western” almost interchangeably, preferring “American” where, as a North American “convert” Buddhist, I am a little unclear whether what I am about to assert really carries over to Europe or Australia, or Costa Rica. And even “Western” could generally be swapped with “Global” to apply to the cultures of not technically Western countries like modern India in which Buddhism is on the rise among an educated class, or even certain Westernized classes in some of the traditionally Buddhist countries, like iPod-toting Thais.

    Today I am beginning this series on American Folk Buddhism. Next week I will try to get clearer about what Essential Buddhism is and how it can vary, particularly with culture. After that I will develop the theme of Folk Buddhism taking as my primary examples the two Folk Buddhisms that I am most familiar with: American and Burmese. In the end I will show what the implications of this are for thinking about and participating in the development of Western Buddhism.

    Sound reasonable?

     

     

     

  • The Art of Lay Life 11: Lay and Monastic (cont.)

    Uposatha Teaching for the Last Quarter Moon (Index to Series)

    In this series I have been careful to distinguish the monastic lifestyle from the being an ordained monastic. The monastic lifestyle is adopted as a matter of degree, an ordained monastic is something you either are or are not. The two do not necessary coincide.

    Ven. Pema Chodron (USA)

    This is an important distinction because it helps us understand what kind of attainment a layperson is capable of or might expect from Buddhist practice. In particular I hope I have dispelled the notion that you must be an ordained nun or monk in order to become enlightened. Your potential derives not in being ordained but from adopting to some degree a monastic lifestyle. I hope I have clarified in this series both why the monastic lifestyle is a huge aid to practice and how the monastic lifestyle can be integrated with the elements of a lay life as a primary factor in that life. So the monastic life style is a desirable development for both the layperson and the ordained monastic, and a challenge for each, albeit in general more of a challenge for the layperson.

    Last week I began discussing the role of actual monastic ordination. This is important to consider lest everything I had written before last week give the impression that monastic ordination is unnecessary or unimportant in Buddhism. In fact it is of critical importance for laypeople as well as monastics. Last week I described why it is immensely useful to ordain as a monastic as an immediate way of developing a monastic lifestyle. Monastic ordination, in short, is something that has enjoyed the support of monastic communities throughout Buddhist history without interruption. As an ordained monastic I, to take the most immediate example, am supported by laypeople in my aspiration to live a monastic lifestyle, as well as to have the time for meditation, teaching and being of benefit to others that complement that.

    Ven. Buddharakkhita (Uganda)

    So, why does the laity support monastics so willingly? Is there a tangible benefit for the laity? The answer is … yes! In fact I would probably not be a monastic if this were not the case.

    First, many believe in what monastics are doing and want to support it selflessly, without thought of personal gain. Interestingly it seems that the laity are generally particular eager to support meditating monastics, by all appearances the most idle, but generally held in very high regard .

    Second, the monastics set an example that inspires laypeople in their own practice. This might be compared to the inspiration that professional athletes give to amateur tennis players, cyclists, joggers and so on. The example they set is that of the monastic life, toward which lay practitioners lives most beneficially will lean. Of course individual monastics might fail to be strong examples, but by and large the monastic sangha will provide examples in high concentration. A key part of the example these monastics will set is in providing a reality check to the notion that personal excess leads to happiness; my own experience is that monastics as a class are, contrary to any unexamined common sense, the happiest people in the world. Each is a kind of very visible walking science experiment, a test tube in which the ingredients of the monastic life have been poured and then stirred with results open to inspection.

    Ven. Thubten Chodron (USA)

    Third, the laity probably get the cheapest clergy in the world. A monastic’s needs are very modest, they do not have to have a fancy house with a two-car garage, do not have to support a family and send kids to college, unlike, say, a Protestant minister. Also since as a group they are very immersed in Buddhist practice, ideally living that practice 24-7, Buddhist monastics probably include within their ranks some of the most qualified spiritual teachers on the planet.

    I should point out parenthetically that some Buddhist traditions also have a non-monastic clergy, sometimes alongside the monastic. Most of the Japanese clergy is now non-monastic, which is why we generally talk about Zen priests in the West rather than Zen monks, and much of the Korean, even though these ordain in a fashion once historically reserved for monks and nuns. In the Tibetan tradition there are some lamas (teachers) who are not monks. And of course in the West it is rare to find a qualified teacher who is a monastic, but also common to find teachers with no recognizable qualifications. However non-monastic clergy generally have specific training that qualifies them as clergy, sometimes very rigorous, very often including a long period of living as a monastic, or simply in extreme seclusion. But non-monastic clergy do not continually share the monastic lifestyle, and so most of which I report here about the advantages of monastic ordination does not carry over to them.

    Ven. Bhikkhu Bodhi (USA)

    Fourth, the support of the monastic community encourages selflessness by making practice not just a personal concern but a community concern. Supporting monastics is traditionally a focal point for the the joyful and selfless practice of generosity (dana). It is a natural focal point, because it involves these people who are essentially helpless without lay support and yet who inspire that support for reasons other than being cute like kittens or puppies. However, it quickly spills over into other areas, which can be more readily observed in Asia than in the West. Generosity is the life-blood of the Buddhist community.

    Ven. Brahmavamso (UK/Australia)

    For instance, traditionally if you, as a layperson, want to devote a month to meditation, you could expect, in Asia, to be fully supported in that aspiration. You would be given a hut in a meditation center, meditation instruction and one-on-one meetings with a teacher, a schedule and a place to meditate with others, and meals, all at no cost to you. Why? Because laypeople have contributed to the material needs of the center, and the monastics or laypeople have come forward as instructors. Why do they do all this? For almost all the same reasons monastics are readily supported. The sustainers of a meditation center believe in your aspirations, they value you as a stronger practitioner living in their community, they believe your efforts are worth supporting.

    Fifth, the ordained monastic sangha was charged by the Buddha with maintaining the integrity of the teachings, and has historically succeeded in doing just that. It is the primary channel through which the Buddha’s teachings have passed through all these centuries down to you, and will be the primary channel through which it will be passed to future generations. Why is this channel necessary? There are certainly many religious traditions that have nothing like this; Quakers do not even have a clergy of any kind. Islam is supposed to be the same way, though it has developed an informal clergy. However, Buddhism has more stringent requirements.

    Ven. Dalai Lama (Tibet)

    Buddhism is an unusually sophisticated religion. It doesn’t need to be for everyone; many people approach it in terms of devotional practices, some ethical guidelines and the practice of dana, for instance. But at its most refined it entails a detailed program of practices and studies or understandings, which fall under the various parts of the Noble Eightfold Path. One can spend years in practice and study and not yet reach the depths of the teachings. Moreover study and practice is depends on the availability of teachers and adepts because the teachings are easily subject to misinterpretation. Before the Buddha began his teaching career he doubted that even he could correctly convey the teachings and the early suttas are full of stories in which he corrects incorrect understanding.

    Ven Cheng Yen (Taiwan)

    The ordained monastic sangha, as long as it thrives, practices diligently and follows the monastic code, ensures that there is always a concentration of adepts who devote their lives full time to practice and study, and teaching. It does not ensure all ordained monastics will be adepts, nor entail that all adepts are ordained, only that there is a concentration of adepts that will keep the flame of Dharma burning. And since monastics are required to wear robes, that flame is easy to locate. The laypeople who become exceptional practitioners are those that stand close to that flame; very few of them are more than one or two steps away from monastics who shaped their practice and understanding, even among Western teachers.

    This is comparable to the role of the academic community, for instance, in ensuring the progress of science. Science also involves a core of adepts, those who are credentialed or have academic appointments, supported by the greater society, even when individuals produce no tangible benefit to the society (in fact often the most respected scientists are the “pure” scientists who have the least concern for practical results, just as the most respected monastics tend to be those who meditate all day). Just as in the monastic sangha, individual scientists may sometimes be poor examples of productive research, and individuals outside of that core may produce exceptional research (remember that Einstein in his most brilliant early days was an amateur scientist, and a “pure” scientist), but that core does represent a concentration of talent that keeps Science alive, and keeps it from dissipating into pseudo-science and wild speculation. A productive amateur scientist will have stood close to the flame and rarely been more than a step away from professors who shaped their ability to do research and the urgency to report results with integrity.

    Noble Lay Practitioners of the Dharma

    With this I conclude this series on the Art of Lay Practice. I hope this has given readers a lot to work with as you navigate the many threads of your life. The key concept I hope I have conveyed is: Simplicity! Make your personal footprint, the domain of your own affairs, what you choose to have a personal stake in, as small as you possibly can. Next year reconsider and try to make your personal footprint even smaller, and so on. People have such huge footprints for such little feet. This will supercharge your practice. Our footprints are outward projections of our sense of self. Buddhist practice is about letting go gradually over time of every manifestation of that sense of being a substantial self. Our lifestyles display the most tangible manifestations and are therefore the most obvious place to begin. When that sense of self vanishes altogether, that is Liberation. And Liberation is possible within the parameters of a lay life.

  • The Art of Lay Life 10: Lay and Monastic

    Uposatha Day Essay for the Full Moon

    Index to Art of Lay Life Series

    Over the last nine weeks I have presented the Art of Lay Life. Summarized in brief the ideal is to live a life that includes those elements, aside from recognized Buddhist practices, that you just have to include, but otherwise is as much like a monastic life as possible. This is an ideal in that I do not expect any readers to take this principle to heart absolutely; lack of conviction, lack of discipline, overwhelming impulses and all of these things conspire against the ideal. An ideal practitioner is a rare thing. However each of you can lean toward the ideal and study your own life to gain conviction that what I write might have some merit.

    The Art of Monastic Life is to renounce and simplify, hanging on to nothing, most especially not any sense of personal identity but also not any of those things that sustain and gratify a special person. Now I have made a big distinction between living a monastic life and being an ordained monastic. The reason is most ordained monastics also only approximate the ideal of a monastic life and in this way are not much different than devout laypeople. It is certainly possible for a devout layperson to sustain a more monastic life than most ordained monastics, and accordingly realize great benefit in practice. This raises the question, Why do we have monastics? The answer, it turns out, is very important to the lay Buddhist.

    First, although an ordained monastic may be imperfect in living a monastic life they vow to do so and have a social obligation to do so. These vows and obligations can be compared to marriage vows and the obligations of being a husband or life, which are also commonly kept imperfectly, and yet generally do make a big difference in sustaining the marriage as a cycle of transgression and repentance  serves to keep a spouse within the understood boundaries. Ordained monastics take a set of vows laypeople generally do not. Moreover just as the wedding ring marks the spouse’s obligations in a way that invites public scrutiny, the robes and the shaved head mark the ordained monastic’s.

    Second, a monastic has a clear blueprint for life more detailed than I could insist on in this series. A monastic’s vows have the form of hundreds, of precepts which specify in detain how to Select, Reject, Balance and Simplify. They leave very little wiggle-room. If you examine them carefully you find that systematically they prohibit virtually every opportunity for seeking personal advantage, for self-enhancement, for self-gratification. Most fundamentally they are based on simplicity, renunciation, and sensual restraint. Celibacy is generally taken as definitive of the monastic. The monastic is not allowed to beautify herself, is not allowed to engage in any normal livelihood, like farming, is not allowed to barter or trade, must strictly curtail sensual pleasures. The monastic is not even allowed to purposely endear themselves to laypeople in the aims of receiving better offerings of food and clothing. In this way the pure ordained monastic becomes the ultimate renunciate, and is likely to progress rapidly on the path. This does not mean the monastic cannot live comfortably, it means that it is, except in crisis situations, it none of her business.

    Third, the monastic has the institutional support necessary to lead a monastic life uncompromised by life’s many contingencies. The institution is that of monastic ordination/vow and of lay support. A lot of people balk at the very idea of religious institutions or organized religions.  (My adult daughter has always maintained that she does not believe in organized religions. She used to often come to the Austin Zen Center, where I used to live as a priest, particularly if some event like a potluck was underway. I would point out to her that someone had to organize that. Ajahn Brahm likes to describe Buddhism as the most disorganized religion.)  The importance of monastic institution to Buddhism is evident in the importance the Buddha attached to it. Consider that the Buddha consistently referred to the entirety of his teachings as the Dharma-Vinaya. The Vinaya, half of this compound, specifically defines the monastic institution in its behavioral, procedural and social aspects. So it is important to understand what functions this institution serves, for both monastics and laity.

    The immediate reason the ordained monastic requires institutional support is that in letting go of seeking any personal advantage she puts herself in an extremely vulnerable situation, and so is totally dependent on the goodwill of the laity, who must take an interest in the welfare of the monastics if they are to survive as monastics. Monastics are like your cat, who would also have a hard time surviving by herself. With that support monastics are in a unique position to fully embrace the monastic lifestyle with virtually no distractions. Thus institutionally Buddhism provides exceptional support for an exceptional lifestyle, for those who are able and willing to vow to pursue that lifestyle. A Buddhist community, in effect, commits itself to offering this opportunity to those able and willing to take advantage of it, thereby enabling a significant numbers of its members will advance far along the path of Buddhist practice.

    This often raises eyebrows in the West, perhaps particularly in a culture like America’s that values individuality and independence. The question arises, Why would lay people trying to progress in their own lay practice support monastics so they can progress in their own?

    Before answering this, consider the following.  The monastic who takes sincere advantage of the opportunity provided by the Buddhist community, when her mind falls in line with the monastic lifestyle, that is, when any thoughts of personal advantage are totally frustrated, has an enormous reserve of time and energy. These can go in any combination of three directions. First, into contemplative practice and study. Second, into activities that directly benefit others. And third, sleep.

    Unfortunately many monastics like to sleep a lot, but it is discouraged, and many spend most of their time in meditation, and many engage themselves not only in teaching the Dharma and providing pastoral counseling (expected clerical functions), but also in general education, founding of hospitals and other social services and public works. This engagement in public welfare is often unrecognized in the West; I was amazed to observe what a significant factor it is in Burmese society. The reason is we tend to think of monastics as pretty idle. They must be idle when it comes to acting on their own behalf, but there is nothing in the monastic precepts that keeps them from being as active as they possibly can on behalf of others. Monastic practice is not about escape from the world, only about escape from self-centered engagement in the world. Ven. Walpola Rahula, author of the classic What the Buddha Taught, wrote another book in which he traces the history of social engagement by monastics in Sri Lanka in the pre-colonial and then colonial times and argues that the idea that monastics are idle came about as the colonial powers disenfranchised the monastics of their traditional social roles as a means of reducing their powerful influence in the society.

    So, why does the laity support monastics? This will be the topic of next week’s essay on the Art of Lay Life.

  • The Art of Lay Life 9: Simplifying

    Uposatha Day Teaching (Index to Series)
    Layman Pang is the very model of the enlightened layman from Eighth Century Chinese Zen (or Chan) lore. He had been a wealthy merchant with a wife and daughter who studied the Sutras and aspired to progress along the Buddhist path. His wife and daughter shared the same aspirations. In fact his daughter is the very model of the enlightened woman, since she all along had a deeper understanding than her father. Layman Pang is the one however who is most often referred to in patriarchal China.

    The first substantial step the three of them took was to gather all of their wealth together in a boat, row out to the middle of the lake and drop it all overboard so that it would not be a burden. They then supported themselves by making and selling utensils of bamboo and traveling from place to place, often visiting monasteries.

    Select. The Pang family whole-heartedly embraced Buddhist teachings and practice. However they also valued each other and their life as a family. They selected little, but clearly family was something they valued independently of the concerns of Buddhist practice. In this sense they were not candidates for monastic ordination.

    Reject. Whether or not their merchant life was always honest is not said. But they took up a livelihood that easily lent itself to virtue and integrity. They are not reported to have spent time drinking or partying, going to shows, gossiping.

    Balance.  Family and their small bamboo manufacturing and selling activities are their primary activities outside of Buddhist practice. We can imagine that they readily brought these within the fold of Buddhist practice by engaging in these activities skillfully, mindfully and with devotion. It is often said that Buddhism does not distinguish the sacred from the secular. Balance is the reason; our practice is, insofar as we are able, to treat the secular as sacred. This is the practice of Balance.

    Simplify. The primary symbolic act of this is the dumping of their wealth in the lake. Practically speaking it would have made more sense to give their wealth to a charitable cause, but this step lends drama to the imperative of ridding themselves of all complications and distractions.

    Now, simplifying was implicit in my discussion of Selecting, when I suggest that you prioritize your values and be sparse in your Selecting. I repeat it as the final step because it cannot be emphasized enough. Even if you have Selected a small set of things you intend to sustain aside from Buddhist practice, Reject everything that is karmically unwholesome and therefore does not sit comfortably in a Buddhist life, Balance what you have Selected by integrating it into sound Buddhist practice, you will probably, if you are at all like most people, still manage to accumulate new complications, hardly knowing it.

    An apt analogy is the way people accumulate home furnishings. If you go into a museum there is a lot of space between artifacts. The artifacts might be paintings or sculpture, but actually might be home furnishings, such as Paul Revere metalware and King Louis’ furniture. If you go into an antique shop everything is packed tightly together and it is hard to walk around. Which is your home like? Most people move into a home with something like the museum in mind, but quickly their homes become more like the junk shop. Often they do not notice the change until they move their place of residence and wonder why they need such a big Ryder truck. It is not a factor of the nature of the artifacts, rather how many they accumulate. More is generally not better. It is the same with the activities they take on, and with the activities of our mind. Clutter keeps them endlessly confused, makes mindfulness difficult, leaves little space for practice or for what is really important, and tends to be a manifestation of a certain level of craving and desire for distraction. Let me repeat my advice of a few weeks ago: If you are serious about simplifying your life, study Voluntary Simplicity, either on line, or the few books on the topic.

    The aim of a Buddhist lifestyle is renunciation. Renunciation is not deprivation, but rather the removal of those aspects of the ordinary life that are self-serving, that seek personal advantage, gratification and enhancement, that serve as the Self’s playground. Selection makes room for aspects of our lives that may not fit this requirement, yet are either valuable to us or a matter of obligation. The other three steps aim to strip away the Self. Rejecting removes the most obvious of the Self’s excesses, or those conditions that lead to the Self’s excesses. Balancing shifts our relationship to the elements in our lives so that our attitude is not that of a master to a servant. Simplifying removes the distracting clutter.

    Now, all this does not entail that a Buddhist life cannot be busy. If you spend your time shopping and channel-surfing this is clutter. If you spend it teaching kids to read or volunteering to plant trees in a park or protesting against a war, this is wholesome, generous, not self-serving and is to be encouraged as a manifestation of kindness and compassion, as well as renunciation. (Caveat: Just as we can shift or relationship  toward selflessness, we can shift our relationship the other way. It is easy to make charity self-serving, using it as a means to garner reputation, for instance).  We simplify in order to make space for the calm abiding which blends into contemplative Buddhist practice, and for all the good we can be doing in the world with the time and energy we save.

    All this does not entail that a Buddhist life is somehow an escape from the world. A common misconception is that laypeople practice in the world, while monastics practice apart from the world. This is at root a license to change nothing in the outward circumstances of your life, to continue living your life exactly as you have been doing, but maybe do it more mindfully. You can presumably slaughter animals mindfully, get drunk mindfully, blow up at your office mate mindfully, sell unneeded insurance mindfully. Nobody escapes from the world. The essence of the Buddhist life is to live in the world responsibly, to finally grow up, to reform those parts of life that lead us astray, that are karmically unwholesome so that the overall trajectory of your life is toward Nirvana.

    The advice I have given in this series is to incline your lifestyle toward the monastic lifestyle. The extent to which you do this is up to you, but it will be a primary determinant of your progress along the Path. This is exactly the same as meditation practice: You can learn to meditate, but then how much you meditate is up to you, but it will be a primary determinant (secondary to lifestyle!) of your progress along the Path. The early scriptures attest to the ability of laypeople to progress along the path, to even reach the Big E. But this arises not casually. The great thing about the Art of Lay Life is that in general it does not preclude what you really have already taken to heart in your life, for instance, family. It just builds around it.

  • The Art of Lay Life 8: Balancing Elements (cont)

    Uposatha Day Essay for the New Moon (Index to Series)

    We started last week to look at ways to start to empty what we normally think of our secular or lay-life values and activities of the self. Since the sense of self is the root of all suffering, this brings these elements more in accord with Buddhist practice. One way of doing this is to learn to treat these elements with Devotion, that is to learn to serve these elements rather than using them to serve us. We already have Devotion as a primary component of any religious practice, including Buddhist. This makes the most of it. I want to take up two categories of techniques for emptying out the self, first Ritual and Mindfulness, and second, Welfare.

    Ritualization and Mindfulness. Mindfulness is something we here a lot about in Buddhism. It is one whole factor of the Noble Eightfold Path, it is the driving force in meditation and a part of almost all other practices. It has two closely associated meanings: One is to remember moment by moment what your task is and to return to it if you’ve deviated. The other is simply moment by moment awareness. Now in meditation it is common for your task to be to keep the mind on the breath. If it deviates, for instance, if you start thinking about bills or work or a funny joke, mindfulness is want remembers to return to the breath. Mindfulness has the property of awareness, but also encourages acute awareness, as most people experience in meditation.

    Now, the same principle can apply easily to many daily activities. For instance, if you are brushing your teeth, keep the mind at the area of contact between tooth and brush. If you are chopping carrots, keep the mind on the chopping, on knife meeting carrot. In either case if something arises that is not tooth-brushing or carrot-chopping, bring it back to the task at hand. This works best with physical tasks, even driving. Now Mindfulness empties the self quite markedly, because the self is sustained in what has passed and what is yet to come, in our patterns of behavior that define our individual personalities and in our aspirations for the future. Mindfulness keeps us in the present moment in which only our moment by moment decision to do this or that is present. This is not where the human mind dwells when left on its own.

    Mindfulness is hard enough when all you have to do something simple like sitting and following the breath. It gets more difficult with more complex tasks, for instance when two people are talking to you at the same time while you are chopping carrots, or even while you are measuring amounts in your mind and checking the recipe while chopping. The reason is that it is harder in the complex cases to pinpoint what your task is moment by moment. What this tells us is to cultivate situations in which your task is clearly defined, and then practice Mindfulness in those situations. In particular you should try to find strategies for doing this for every activity that is a chosen element of your life. Here are some suggestions:

    • Avoid multitasking. This includes listening to music while cutting carrots, or driving, drinking coffee, smoking, talking on the cell phone and listening to music at the same time. When you chop wood just chop wood.
    • Divide tasks or interests into well-defined subtasks and do them.
    • Impose routine. That is, have conventional ways of doing things, do a set of tasks always in the same order, always do a certain task in a certain context. Basically this is a matter of avoiding decisions, which are just more tasks to compete with the physical task at hand.

    Like Devotion, and like Faith, a lot of people misunderstand the role of Ritual in Buddhism. The Buddha, for instance, considers clinging to rites and rituals a “fetter,” but on the other hand the Suttas a full of ritual observances. What gives? The Buddha was criticizing teachings of the Brahmas that endowed rites and ritual with some kind of special efficacy, as a means to work magic and control the future. We actually have many rituals in our everyday life that for the most part we accord them no such powers, for instance, shaking hands, hugging, performing a high-five, ringing a door bell or knocking before entering, saying “thank you” and “please.” Rituals are simply, conventionalized behaviors in certain contexts that are or can become  highly habituated. They are the logical extreme of routine. Rather than say, “Impose routine,” we can say, “Ritualize your tasks.”

    If you practice at a Zen Center, such as the San Francisco Zen Center or one of its offshoots, or the Zen Mountain Monastery, you have probably learned a complex set of rituals just to get you from the front door onto your cushion in the zendo. You may have learned oryoki, ritualized eating. Of course the Tea Ceremony is highly ritualized. You may have even discovered the selflessness of ritual, if you have gotten past the insecurity of not knowing the ritual well, or the tendency to show off once you do know it well. This is the point at which in Zen parlance, the bows do themselves, the appropriate foot knows when to take a step. There is nothing for the self to do, so it vanishes, quite noticeably and quite remarkably. In fact Zen meditation, zazen, is often described as simply the ritual of sitting like a buddha. But of course these practices are all in the Buddhist context. Dogen said that ritual conduct is the entirety of Zen practice! Even following the Precepts can be thought of as ritual, conventionalized behaviors.

    There is no reason you cannot ritualize life’s other tasks, from getting up in the morning, through bathing to changing diapers and checking email. Develop conventions for ordering tasks, such as when done with one task, clean up completely before starting the next task. In Zen “Leave no Trace” is a common maxim. In fact cleaning and putting things into order are opportunities for ritualization. All of these things set up a context in which the mind can learn not to wander off and scatter, that is to practice mindfulness in your everyday activities. Life becomes  routine matter of doing what is to be done, rather than constantly grappling with desires and decisions and seeking some bit of personal advantage. Sound boring? This is what people also think about meditation, yet meditation is the only chance many people have for experiencing joy in their lives.

    A good source on ritualizing your tasks is Dogen, both the Eihei Shingi (Pure Standards of the Zen Community) and the Tenzo Kyokun (Instructions for the Cook). Although these are manuals for monks, they are about housework and adminstration and how to make these into Buddhist practice. These are actually rewritings of traditional Chinese manuals, and I was surprised to find a long chapter in the Vinaya, from the Buddha, on how a junior monk cares for his teacher’s living space, that has much of the same flavor as the Zen manuals. This is worthy of study by all Buddhists.

    Welfare. With all his talk of renunciation, the Buddha’s principle discovery that led directly to his Awakening was that you cannot lean to far in the direction of deprivation. This is the Middle Way. For the monastic this is the expectation of the basic requisites necessary for maintaining health. For the Lay Life this means you should take care not to live on the edge, not to move from one crisis to anothers. You should be reasonably successful in what you undertake, in your marriage, in your business and so on. If you aim too high you will become entangled in self-enhancement and be miserable. If you don’t aim high enough, you will be caught in a self-protective mode and be miserable. Either puts the self in focus. If your life is relatively comfortable and secure you are in the best position for development on the Path. Plan your affairs to avoid crises, to establish a constant modicum of welfare. Here is some detailed advice of the Buddha from the Vyagghapajja Sutts (AN 8.54):

    “Four conditions, Vyagghapajja conduce to a householder’s weal and happiness in this very life. Which four? The accomplishment of persistent effort, the accomplishment of watchfulness , good friendship  and balanced livelihood.
    “What is the accomplishment of persistent effort? Herein, Vyagghapajja, by whatsoever activity a householder earns his living, whether by farming, by trading, by rearing cattle, by archery, by service under the king, or by any other kind of craft — at that he becomes skillful and is not lazy. He is endowed with the power of discernment as to the proper ways and means; he is able to carry out and allocate (duties). This is called the accomplishment of persistent effort.
    “What is the accomplishment of watchfulness? Herein, Vyagghapajja, whatsoever wealth a householder is in possession of, obtained by dint of effort, collected by strength of arm, by the sweat of his brow, justly acquired by right means — such he husbands well by guarding and watching so that kings would not seize it, thieves would not steal it, fire would not burn it, water would not carry it away, nor ill-disposed heirs remove it. This is the accomplishment of watchfulness.
    What is good friendship? Herein, Vyagghapajja, in whatsoever village or market town a householder dwells, he associates, converses, engages in discussions with householders or householders’ sons, whether young and highly cultured or old and highly cultured, full of faith, full of virtue, full of charity , full of wisdom. He acts in accordance with the faith of the faithful, with the virtue of the virtuous, with the charity of the charitable, with the wisdom of the wise. This is called good friendship.
    “What is balanced livelihood? Herein, Vyagghapajja, a householder knowing his income and expenses leads a balanced life, neither extravagant nor miserly, knowing that thus his income will stand in excess of his expenses, but not his expenses in excess of his income. Just as the goldsmith,[5] or an apprentice of his, knows, on holding up a balance, that by so much it has dipped down, by so much it has tilted up; even so a householder, knowing his income and expenses leads a balanced life, neither extravagant nor miserly, knowing that thus his income will stand in excess of his expenses, but not his expenses in excess of his income….
    “The wealth thus amassed, Vyagghapajja, has four sources of destruction: (i) Debauchery, (ii) drunkenness, (iii) gambling, (iv) friendship, companionship and intimacy with evil-doers. Just as in the case of a great tank with four inlets and outlets, if a man should close the inlets and open the outlets and there should be no adequate rainfall, decrease of water is to be expected in that tank, and not an increase; even so there are four sources for the destruction of amassed wealth — debauchery, drunkenness, gambling, and friendship, companionship and intimacy with evil-doers.

    Modern society in many regions tends to create lives that in many ways are more secure than in centuries past, for instance in which sudden illness and death from infectious diseases, or starvation from drought is not a constant threat. On the other hand it creates conditions in which economic welfare can be very precarious. For instance, loss of availability of a functioning car, through accident, age or inability to make payments can result in immediate loss of livelihood. Illness when it does arise can result not only in loss of livelihood but in indebtedness or bankruptcy.

  • The Art of Lay Life 7: Balancing Elements

    Uposatha Day Essay for Last Quarter Moon (Index to Series)

    I hope in the last few weeks the advice I have conveyed has been useful in examining the elements of your life, what is or is not appropriate in the context of Buddhist practice, but at the same time what is or is not important to you. I would be interested in hearing from anyone who might have been inspired already to make some significant changes. However, in general this examination will be ongoing; what changes you make should be considered carefully and you will certainly come up with different answers at different times. And the answers should be satisfying to you before they are embraced. In the Dighajanu Sutta (AN 8.54) a group of laypeople approach the Buddha, and this is what they say:

    “We, Lord, are laymen who enjoy worldly pleasure. We lead a life encumbered by wife and children. We use sandalwood of Kasi. We deck ourselves with garlands, perfume and unguents. We use gold and silver. To those like us, O Lord, let the Exalted One preach the Dhamma, teach those things that lead to weal and happiness in this life and to weal and happiness in future life.”

    In response the Buddha does not dismiss them as unworthy, nor does he try to talk them out of what to them is important. Rather he respects that they are free to make their own choices, and uses what they have communicated as the parameters within which a Buddhist life can be built. This week I take up the third step in the Art of Lay Life, which I have called Balancing Elements. I will assume there is a set of elements that are important to you that have a potentially questionable relationship to Buddhist practice, then discuss how these are best integrated into a Buddhist life.

    Let’s suppose, just by way of example, that the following are fixed elements for you:

    • Watching Dr. Who (or some other weekly T.V. show)
    • Drinking wine with friends
    • Playing chess, or a competitive sport
    • Oh, and Raising a family and hanging on to a Spouse

    You can substitute your own list. These are important to you for reasons other than Buddhist practice. If you were a monastic you would be asked to give up these and things like them, at least substantially, sometimes at great sacrifice. But you are not, because as a lay Buddhist you choose to juggle these or things like them in your life along with Buddhist practice. It would seem that in making this choice you have bifurcated your life into life of practice + rest of life, thereby becoming a half-time or quarter-time Buddhist. However this need not be the case: You can turn almost any wayward elements into a Buddhist-like practice! The guiding principle is to empty each of these elements of the self, at least insofar as it is possible. Emptying of the self requires a shift in our relationship to things. Our human tendency is to use things with an eye to personal advantage, even our friendships and family relationships, to have a personal stake. We can even do this with Buddhist practice. But this is generally not necessary except for those elements which we have already tagged for rejection in the last two weeks. I’d like to consider three ways to help empty and element of the self: Devotion, Ritualization and Mindfulness, and Constancy.

    Devotion. Devotion shifts your relationship to an element from that of it serving you to you serving it. It turns that element into a hobby.

    Family and especially spouse provides a good example. If you have a husband or wife, there are two quite distinct aspects to your marriage and one or the other might predominate. One is rather self-centered and calculating. Your spouse serves as a sink for sexual drives, is a hedge against loneliness, takes on some of the burden of maintaining a household and raising kids, is possibly a show-piece to enhance your own reputation, and so on. If this aspect predominates then the marriage becomes very dispensable: If you run across a more attractive, younger, healthier, less burdensome, harder-working or better-cooking man or woman, you might well abandon the old marriage in favor of enhancing personal advantage. This is because the marriage serves you. The other is selfless and faithful. The marriage is a refuge, a treasure, something you have chosen to bring into your life, preserve and enhance. It becomes meaningful in itself and personal advantage becomes beside the point. The marriage becomes an end in itself rather than a means to some other end. Of course selfish motives may threaten this attitude, very commonly sexual attraction to someone new, but a selfless and faithful marriage will withstand even this, maybe with a bit of fudging.

    Form the perspective of Buddhist practice, devotion is great. It is a primary means of letting go of the drive for personal advantage, which contrary to the justification for that drive, never results in happiness anyway. Devotion is what we bring to the table when we begin Buddhist practice, devotion to the Buddha, the Dhamma and the Sangha. I think of devotion as the mind of the hobbyist: the fly fisherman, the knitter, the bird watcher, the string collector. Have you noticed how useless most hobbies are, how hard they are to explain to the uninitiated, and when they have some use, how much incidental it is? A marriage is based on devotion when it becomes thoroughly a hobby. I think what attracts people to hobbies is that they provide quite palpable release from the tension of dealing with the relentless drive for personal advantage with which most of us are endowed.

    Now, most things can be approached with devotion, even if that is not the original motivation, even drinking alcohol! How do you make wine drinking into a hobby rather than a greedy guzzling indulgence? Well, a lot of people do just that: They become connoisseurs. The learn all they can about the variety of wines, about the manufacturing process, they visit wineries and sample the bouquet and taste of each kind, they buy special bottles of wine which they place on special altars called wine racks. They take very seriously the ritual of pulling the cork out of the bottle, and often have very specialized equipment for doing so, then carefully aerate a red wine, chill a white wine, drink red wine with red meat, white with fish or chicken and so on. (I understand that the cork serves no practical function in preserving the taste of wine, the modern screw top actually works better. But the screw top lacks the ritual and therefore the cork endures as the seal of choice for the connoisseur.) One of the interesting things about all of this is that it holds the impulse to guzzle in check, that greedy impulse is actually frowned upon by the cultured wine connoisseur, even while a moderate buzz is appreciated.

    Another interesting thing is that within our culture, particularly in “high society,” there are many practices similar to this and they are seldom considered religious practices, yet I think their motivations are identical. They are religious practices. As a generalization of this, I should point out that there is a big difference, which can be characterized as devotion, between the way a musician listens to music, the way a film maker or aficionado watches a movie, and so on. For most music and movies are matters of personal consumption, for the devotee they lose much of that quality.

    So, how do you develop an attitude of devotion toward some element that you would like to include in your life? Religion, not just Buddhism, makes common use of these elements: Vows, Duties, Expressions of Reverence and Reminders. There may be others, but these occur to me just now.

    Vow is an explicit statement of intention. The word has the same root as devotion. Commonly a marriage begins officially with the recitation of a set of vows:

    I Bifford B. Bup take you Myrtle Quaddlebottom to be my wedded wife. To have and to hold, from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness or in health, to love and to cherish ’till death do us part. And hereto I pledge you my faithfulness.

    Interestingly Buddhism does not provide much structure for these kinds of lay vows. I don’t know why. Practically your whole life can be fixed in terms of vow.

    Duties enumerate ways to realize devotion or a vow. For instance, in the Sigalovada Sutta (DN31) the Buddha gives a short list of the duties of a husband to a wife:

    “In five ways, young householder, should a wife … be ministered to by a husband: by being courteous to her, by not despising her, by being faithful to her, by handing over authority to her, by providing her with adornments.

    Notice the last one. The Buddha also gives a short list of the duties of an employer:

    “In five ways should a master minister to his servants and employees … : by assigning them work according to their ability, by supplying them with food and with wages, by tending them in sickness, by sharing with them any delicacies, by granting them leave at times.

    Even your relationship to employees can be substantially one of devotion rather than personal advantage.

    Expressions of Reverence play an important role in Buddhism particularly in the form of bows and the gesture of anjali/gassho, and to standards of care to representative objects of devotion. These are not so developed in Western culture. The Sigalovada Sutta begins when the Buddha runs across someone doing prostrations and inquires:

    “Wherefore do you, young householder, rising early in the morning, departing from Rajagaha, with wet clothes and wet hair, worship, with joined hands these various quarters — the East, the South, the West, the North, the Nadir, and the Zenith?”

    “My father, Lord, while dying, said to me: The six quarters, dear son, you shall worship. And I, Lord, respecting, revering, reverencing and honoring my father’s word, rise early in the morning, and leaving Rajagaha, with wet clothes and wet hair, worship with joined hands, these six quarters.”

    Rather than admonishing the young householder for practicing empty ritural, the Buddha gives him a useful interpretation:

    “It is not thus, young householder, the six quarters should be worshipped in the discipline of the noble. . . The parents should be looked upon as the East, teachers as the South, wife and children as the West, friends and associates as the North, servants and employees as the Nadir, ascetics and brahmans as the Zenith.

    Other expressions of reverence are taking care of and cleaning people or objects of devotion, or giving gifts. It is interesting that in Western culture such reverence is largely reserved for objects of material attachment, especially cars. When properly interpreted expressions of reverence are powerful means for maintaining a devotional attitude, one that empties the self.

    Ritual reminders are things like wedding rings and golf keychains.

    Continued next week.

  • The Art of Lay Life 6: Rejecting Elements (cont)

    Uposatha Day Teaching for the Full Moon (Index to Series)

    Last week we considered the Precepts and Right Livelihood, both of which advise us not to engage in certain behaviors, primarily out of ethical considerations. We have seen that the significance of Right Livelihood is that our livelihood tend to lock us into certain behaviors for which we accrue the karmic consequences, that is, our livelihoods mold our character, just as our Buddhist practice molds our character. Right Livelihood makes sure the two are not at odds.

    This raises the question: Can a Right Livelihood be found in modern America? Even to be a clerk at Walmart will require selling pesticides and booze. Advertising generally violates of Right Speech, sales as well, including trickery, cajolery, insinuating, dissembling, inducing people to buy things they don’t need with money they don’t have. Much of the finance industry … well you know about that. Actually much of our modern economy more than ever falls under the rubric “wealth creation” which does not seem to involve the production of any tangible product or service at all. It seems to me that wealth creation without creation of a tangible good or service can only be wealth redistribution, since it does not grow the pie but gives investors a bigger slice. Financial instruments are so complex it is hard  to actually assess how they work or what their consequences are, the Invisible Hand playing a shell game. Much profitability where there is a good or service produced seems to come through creating monopolies or cartels that raise prices, or through misleading customers or sneaking fine print into contracts. Corporations have become very adept at externalizing costs such that others end up paying much of the cost of production against their will, for instance, as taxpayers or as owners of bodies vulnerable to environmental toxins. There was a time when it was a moral outrage to profit off of war while others are dying fighting it. Now profitability alone is sufficient reason for going to war. Much of this is clearly taking what is not given by others. Most farmers deal with large qualities of poisons such that something as noble as producing a tomato has a cost paid by the environment and public health.. In short, finding a proper livelihood is not straight forward in the moder economy. Perhaps the more traditional occupations, like those of candle-stick makers, cobblers or masons, are the least problematic. Please consider your livelihood carefully and what precepts you might be habitually overstepping in its discharge. Options are particularly slender in this depressed economy. But what you do for a living inevitably makes a big difference in your Buddhist practice.

    Outside of livelihood there are habits that should be avoided in a Buddhist life because they tend to be detrimental to the well-being of self and family, both physically and mentally. In the much  recommended Sigalovada Sutta (DN31) the Buddha identifies “the six channels for dissipating wealth.” They are:

    Indulgence in intoxicants which cause infatuation and heedlessness;
    sauntering in streets at unseemly hours;
    frequenting theatrical shows;
    indulgence in gambling which causes heedlessness;
    association with evil companions;
    the habit of idleness.

    If sauntering in streets at unseemly hours, for instance, is on your short list of values you would like to uphold in your Lay Life, the Buddha recommends you rethink that. For each of these six channels he lists specific disadvantages. He who saunters, for instance, experiences the following:

    He himself is unprotected and unguarded,
    his wife and children are unprotected and unguarded,
    his property is unprotected and unguarded,
    he is suspected of evil deeds,
    he is subject to false rumours,
    he meets with many troubles.

    Most of the six channels for dissipating wealth will be familiar as distractions from responsible life. Let me highlight theatrical shows, since the modern equivalents are so prominent in our culture.

    There are, young householder, these six evil consequences in frequenting theatrical shows. He is ever thinking:
    where is there dancing?
    where is there singing?
    where is there music?
    where is there recitation?
    where is there playing with cymbals?
    where is there pot-blowing?

    This does not seem to involve any physical danger at all, but rather dissatisfaction, restlessness and distraction, manifestations of the craving mind. We are ever thinking the same things in the modern habit of channel-surfing/Web-surfing, though the art of pot-blowing my be currently in an unfortunate state of neglect. In short, an number of common habits should be avoided by the layperson as a matter of protecting the mind.

    I would like to consider the role of modern media — TV, radio, Internet, CDs, movies, video games, magazines, etc. — in all this. The media, unknown at the Buddha’s time, is so pervasive in our culture as to rival livelihood. The media therefore need careful consideration, primarily with regard to protecting the mind. Thich Nhat Hanh, for instance, includes mindless entertainment, such as most TV shows, as a form of intoxication and extends the precept concerning alcohol. We could just as well extend the Right Livelihood to include Right Media. Of course not all media is problematic; I am writing and broadcasting these words using a computer, and I hope they are of benefit. I will focus on the overall trend in the media.

    First, the media tends to be a distraction. That is to say, it has the disadvantages the Buddha attributes to theatrical shows. However, this unwholesome influence is magnified many times over when people watch TV or play video games six, seven or eight hours every day, at all times of day, and turn to it whenever there is a lag in the conversation or a danger of experiencing serenity. Its ease of access contributes to multitasking, combining the use of media with other activities, such as playing music while cooking. This undermines mindfulness and concentration.

    Second, the media tends to have all of the qualities of what is translated as an “evil companion” above. Now, the Buddha set great store in spiritual friends, once defining it as the entirety of practice. It follows that poor spiritual friends can undermine our practice completely. The media tends to set a very poor example of Right Speech, gossiping, back-biting and outright lying. Through images of sex and violence it deep-fries the mind in in a pot of Greed, Hatred and Delusion. Its view of the world and its responses to them are simple and ignoble. It is often pointed out that children, by the time they are five, have seen so many thousands of violent deaths. Without understanding the deeper motives behind the behaviors, they learn that violence is how grownups resolve disputes, over and over again. With later  access to deeper motives, generally involving a simplistic battle of good and evil, they learn to abstract the humanity out of people and reduce them mere instruments of benefit or harm. When they get old enough to watch the news they find that the news also explains human motives in similar terms. They become judgmental and unforgiving.

    Third, much of the media is intent on manipulation. It is bad enough to have a friend who slanders, drinks too much and passes out on the floor and makes racial slurs. A friend who tries to embroil us in bad business deals or sell us insurance, and who seduces our wives or husbands or steals our valuables is that much worse. Much of the media is complicit in a pernicious carefully crafted mass manipulation of the choices made in purchasing, voting, and social attitudes by the viewing public. We turn on the TV and pretty soon it has us dancing to a tune of lust, envy, fear, hatred, anger and fantasy, provoking in us every unwholesome mental factor that our practice otherwise tries to moderate, in order to get us to do its bidding, or rather the bidding of marketing and public relations people, or rather the bidding of powerful interests who hired them and who want us to behave and think in certain ways. We sit in front of the TV long enough and pretty soon our minds are molded into believing in baseless wars, trusting the good intentions of polluters, ignoring the many piercing cries of the world, ignoring our own suffering, and spending like there is no tomorrow (which as a result of the above there might not be). Of course one of the ways we are manipulated is to keep us glued for as many of our waking hours as possible, missing no opportunity to cultivate addictive behaviors in us.

    Our karmic activities are actions of body, speech and mind. Much of our interaction with the media is passive, which is to say is limited to actions of the mind. These take the form of feeling the protagonists anger, hoping he will “take out the trash” with his oversized weapon. Unfortunately the media is becoming more interactive, particularly in the sphere of video games, which often train in killing, in fact probably give us a leg-up if we want to become drone pilots. The karmic consequences are probably enormous.

    In short, the media tends to be a very poor companion for Buddhist practice. I am convinced that significant progress in Buddhist practice is not in the cards for someone who has normal American viewing habits, it will simply be overwhelmed by unsavory influences. Now, certainly not all of the media is harmful in this way. There is a difference between, say, watching Sylvester Stallone in Rambo, for instance, and Jack Lemmon in Missing. The media can be instructive, thought provoking; it can present great wisdom. It can be a good spiritual friend. You are reading this through the media. The task in the Art of Lay Life is to discriminate what is beneficial from what is harmful and by all means minimize what is harmful to your practice, and to your family’s mental health.

    My advise with regard to the media is, not surprisingly,to simplify. Try to minimize media exposure. Have a favorite program, maybe, but don’t spend every non-working,  non-sleeping hour being entertained.  Try driving without the radio, try jogging without the earphones. Furthermore, avoid entertainment that is gratuitously violent or sensual in favor of entertainment with merit and intelligence. Of course this might mean giving up things that are appealing and you might not want to hear this advise, but that is why someone (me) has to point out the downside in terms of Buddhist practice. Avoid news commentary that is tinged with hate, which does not observe standards of Right Speech or simple civility, that engages in name-calling and personal attacks. Avoid news and commentary that lies. (If you follow a program or personality for a number of years you might catch contradictions of find old statements thoroughly discredited. It is astonishing how many modern commentators have little regard for the truth.) The biggest rule of thumb might be to avoid media tinged with corporate-influence in favor of starving artists and starving journalists; people who enjoy some independence from the profit-motive tend to have more integrity and want to give the world something of value.

    We have now considered steps one and two of the Art of Lay Life, Selecting Elements and Rejecting Elements. I hope these give a lot to think about in shaping the broad contours of your life. Remember, the Buddha and Buddhist teachers can nudge you in a certain direction, but all of these elements are a matter of your own choice. You are bound to disagree at certain points, but the main thing is to keep examining and reflecting and make changes where you are moved to. Next week we will turn to step three, Balancing Elements of the Lay Life.