Category: Uncategorized

MEALTIME

The monks at Sitagu eat in the dining hall, generally around 5:40am
then again around 10:45. Since our vows do not permit us to eat after
noon, except for certain things considered medicinal, we have to
finish eating our second meal by then. Someone hits a big bell
outside with a mallet to tell us that it is time to eat. Every time
this happens all of the dogs that roam around Sitagu, including
Wigglet, take this as cue to point their chins skyward and howl. From
my room I hear the dogs better than I hear the bell and sometimes
Wigglet is right outside my door.

The monks sit on the floor, actually raised platforms about a foot
above the main floor, around round table, five or six monks to a
table, and the food is place in the middle of the table. Food is
always supposed to be formally offered to monks, so this is done by at
least one monk and one staff member or lay donor lifting the table
together. Once food is offered to one monk it can be shared freely
with any other monks who might come late without additional formality.

Most meals are simply cooked by the Sitagu kitchen staff. Sometimes
the same beans or the same fish dish is served day after day. But
generally about four or five meals each week are offered by donors,
usually a family, I think, or two families, or a group of friends.
This is a big deal for them. They sometimes travel many miles to be
able to make the offering. They wear their fanciest cloths (I assume),
often bring cameras, of course bring food, and sometimes bring other
offerings (last week a group of donors brought new sandals for all the
monks; someone searched out the biggest they had for me, but they were
still way too small). The food is always especially good if provided
by donors, and sometime very good. The overstaffing of the kitchen for
donor meals leads to a lot of turmoil, such that meals take longer to
serve.

The donors are always so happy to be there; this is the great merit of
dana. They are very respectful of the monks, very humble and very
attentive. When they are not serving or making themselves useful, they
sit on the lower part of the floor, so that the monks on raised
platforms are above them. Donors are generally astonished to see me,
a big Western monk. Sometimes they take turns posing for pictures next
to me, sometimes a lot of donors at a time all, in anjali (gassho)
paying their respects.

NEWLY OLD

I've gotten some feedback from readers concerning my turning 60. You
might recall that I entertained three approaches to handling this
circumstance: denial, despair, and acceptance. The first is the
American way, the second the way of the multitude, and the third the
Buddhist way. I was kinda leaning toward denial, but my daughter
wrote, "I don't think the skateboard is a good idea. After all, you
are 60." That took the wind out of my sails. I also realized that
denial always slides gradually into depair. So, I've been turning over
in my mind the possible advantages of the second approach, despair. I
would probably make a really great bitter old man. I can do a great
Bodhidharma frown. I'll wager within a short time I could strike fear
in the hearts not only of children, but even of dogs and cats. And it
would just get better as I get older and older and older, and more
and more bitter. What do you think? This would be the last resort
before I need to get serious about (gulp) Buddhist Practice.

TROPICAL DISEASES

Petra, the German lady who has been staying in the Guest House, became
very ill a couple of weeks ago. She had an extremely high fever. Since
there is a Sitagu hospital, medical care was not far away, but they do
not provide all of the services a Western hospital would. For
instance, they do not draw blood and analyze it. So there was no
diagnosis for several days. Petra used to live here for a couple of
years, and was at one time ordained as a nun, and speaks fluent
Burmese, so she had many people, especially nuns, to look after her.
After the fever subsided, but she was still not eating, and feeling
lousy, she was finally diagnosed … with typhoid! Luckily she has
survived, and on the mend. Typhoid is communicated in food and water
under unsanitary conditions. She says she has been eating many places,
including restaurants and nunneries. Sitagu generally has a pretty
good record in the kitchen, though I know they sometimes serve certain
dishes for too many days in a row, which results in stomach
complaints. This reminds one that infectious diseases are very common
here. I had a bunch of vaccinations before I left home, including for
typhoid. But it makes me even more cautious about what I eat.

On September 27 I will turn 60! In Buddhism we have this Self thing,
or rather don't have it. To be a Self requires the view that there is
something in or around this body that is unchanging, besides a Social
Security Number. That unchanging Self is what is known in Buddhism as
"a mental formation," which in my case arose many years ago complete
with many wonderful unchanging characteristics. So it is not
surprising that that Self is someone much younger than me. The
landmark event of turning 60 puts me once again face to face with that
unchanging youthful Self, and gives me three choices:

One, I can try all the harder to convince myself that I AM this
youthful unchanging Self. After all, I have the still unchanged energy
to be an international globetrotter, like I was in my 20's, and
without depending on Youth Hostels. My health is excellent, except
when I'm sick or pulled a muscle. I can always grow my lush head of
hair back (I think; I haven't actually checked for a while). I've had
many more years of experience being young than any of the young of
today — the whippersnappers — so I should be really good at it.
Why, I just might buy me a skateboard when I get back to the States,
and what I think they call a "Walkman" so I can listen to the latest
disko music. Monks don't have hats to speak up that they could wear
backwards, but maybe I'll express my youthful rebellion by wearing my
robe over my RIGHT shoulder.

Two, I can lament the unfairness of the universe for not being the way
it is supposed to be, for failing to respect who I really am, for not
according me what was promised to me, for being like a fancy
restaurant that has inexcusably lost my dinner reservation or a hotel
that has put me next to the elevator. I might even try to organize
something to do about it, like a protest. Or I might just quietly
experience the despair.

Three, I can regard this situation as a good practice opportunity.
This is the Buddhist Way! It goes something like this:

If I am not this unchanging youthful Self, then who is this guy, and
who am I? I seem to have his memories of who he is supposed to be, so
we must have intersected at some point, maybe that time in 1965. If he
is not me, he must be around here somewhere, since he is unchanging.
And I must be another Self, so two Selves. And if there can be two
Selves that I identify as me, aren't there likely to be more? But I
know that guy used to be me, so what happened? The mind not able to
wrap itself around any of this, exhausted, all the Selves shatter and
what is left is nothing but the recognition of change, a continual
relentless morphing of the whole universe into new forms. Even as the
idea arises that THIS IS ME, all the parts and their relations are
already morphing into something else. Any Self that tries to hold onto
itself does not fit into the way things really are, is no more than
the product of a very active imagination trying to find something
solid in an ocean of change. It is silly to try to hang onto something
I never was and could not possibly be.

Thinking this way gives me the ability to lighten up, … and to sound
very philosophical while I'm at it.

Just when I had not only resigned myself to no longer being a youth,
or a Self, but also thought I was joyfully present with this reality,
one of the monks here told me he thought I was already 70! That
suddenly breathed new life into option (1). If you see someone zipping
around Austin on a skateboard wearing full burgundy robes next spring,
that will be me.

As a Buddhist monk I take on a large set of vows which if followed
scrupulously give very little opportunity to feed a Self. They don't
guarantee that I won't entertain a Self secretly, and they allow for
the basic requirements for well-being of the body and mind that the
Self also sometimes wants, but they divert almost all of my life's
time and energy to purposes other than keeping a Self alive. This has
two benefits. First, protecting or enhancing that Self is always a
losing battle. That becomes easier to see as I become older; it will
all end up in the rubbish bin. Second, a self is insatiable. It could
easily drain all my life's time and energy, and leave no room for
worthy projects. There is an enormous sense of liberation that comes
with monastic vows, there really is. (Not that all monks experience
this: the vows Don't Mean a Thing if You Don't Have that Swing.)

So what are my selfless worthy projects? More than ever I intend to
devote my remaining years to the cultivation and flourishing of
American Buddhism. I say, "more than ever," because I am enormously
inspired by what I see of Buddhism here in Burma, and at a distance
dismayed at what I know of the spiritual state of my own country. I
also have great fears about the direction of Western Buddhism in
America, much of which has become a form of New Age Feel-Goodism. It
will take selfless wisdom, energy and patience, on the part of
countless dedicated disciples of the Buddha to see Buddhism firmly
planted in American soil. But Burma has taught me it can be done and
shown what a difference it makes when it is done. That is where my
heart is as I join the ranks of the newly old.

“The Alley”

The Guest House where I live is situated along the South side of the Sitagu grounds, actually just outside the monastery fence, but inside an outer wall that also encloses within its perimeter housing for staff, a small lumber yard, and other infrastructure facilities. Behind the Guest House, in the direction my back door faces, and on the other side of Sitagu’s outer wall, is a narrow street, more of an alley, on the other side of which are nothing but more monasteries and nunneries.

Most of the traffic on the alley is monks and nuns. A large group of about fifty novices heads west each morning after daybreak with their robes covering both shoulders, and with alms bowls in hand, single file walking silently without looking from side to side (except for the very young monks, who can’t help it; some of the novices look to be as young as six or seven years old). Then this group returns a couple of hours later, looking just the same, but this time walking east.

There are more novices in Myanmar than there are fully ordained monks. One incentive for becoming a novice is education. It seems that most of the education in this country is supported by the Buddhist temples, usually the construction of schools and hiring of teachers is spearheaded by monks. Schools are often few and far between, so they often end up providing kids with a place to sleep and try to work out a way to feed them. Essentially the schools become monasteries. There is a school of this kind very near here that supports about 100 boys.

Nuns, who do not seem to do alms rounds (they follow a different set of precepts), traverse the alley frequently. They are very colorful, generally wearing an orange skirt and a clashing pink robe with sleeves over that, and a small brown robe folded into a banner over the left shoulder. They usually travel in a group in which all nuns typically wear identical hats or carry identical umbrellas.

The lay traffic in the alley consists of a woman who each day carries a very large tray of snacky foods for sale, who shouts in to announce her wares as she walks; cows; some cars and horse carriages that often have trouble getting through the alley if the cows don’t feel like moving. Often lay people walk or ride motor bikes up the alley, and then go into one of the monasteries or nunneries.

The alley is recently paved; I am told was dirt until the mother of an American nun who was visiting her daughter at one of the nunneries here offered to make a donation to pave the alley. The alley was the site of a tragedy a couple of years ago: That year Sagaing was drenched with rain and the Sitagu Academy was flooded in a heavy storm. The double walls all around the Academy acted as a damn and water build up against the wall on the south side. Suddenly the wall gave way releasing the water into the alley as an instant river. A nine-year-old nun was drowned; they found her in a tree.

A few days ago one of the nunneries right across the alley began a recitation of the Pattana, the last book of the Abhidhamma, the third basket of the Pali scriptures. The Abhidhamma is very intensively studied in Myanmar; I read recently that Burma has been the center of Abhidhamma studies in the Theravada tradition since the Fifteenth Century. The recitation of its final book takes about five days and nights without break. I know about this because the recitation was piped through one of Burma’s ubiquitous loudspeakers. I think the nun who was in charge of the volume control must have been in a Heavy Metal band before she was a nun, because in this case it was especially loud. I think they started at 3am, a few mornings ago because that is when I was awakened. I needed to wear earplugs every night during the recitation in order to sleep. The recitation is one continuous voice, but with a new voice swapped in every hour or so, day and night.  It is inspiring to hear them work their way through the very long text, hour by hour, day by day without stopping. The way the Burmese intone a Pali texts can be very beautiful, but the skill and experience of the various nuns varied a lot.

Unfortunately I still can understand almost no word of Pali as they pronounce it in Burma, so the content of such recitation is lost on me. I’ve downloaded some chanting in Pali from Thailand and other countries, and I understand many words just fine. Listening to many people use Pali words here, I’ve come to realize that no original Pali sound is preserved in Burmese Pali if that sound does not also occur in Burmese. Imagine trying to speak French using only sounds found in American English (“Gee Swee Enchant-ee Madam-moyzul”). Then in addition many of the original Pali sounds that do occur in Burmese are changed anyway. I’m trying to do Pali “the right way,” for instance, making a double-length aspirated cerebral voiceless stop involves basically tying your tongue into a knot, keeping it there for a moment, untying it then putting a little puff of air after it, where the Burmese just say “tuh.” The Burmese have made Pali entirely their own. They have another word for the Pali they hear Sri Lankans and Thais, and presumably me, use: Sanskrit.

“Bhikkhu Cintita’s Plans”

I have not forgotten the “Mahayana and Theravada” series of blog postings. I’ve been writing a piece about doctrinal differences, and what that means for one’s faith, but have revised it a couple of times. Now that I have continual use of a computer I should make some progress. That will be the last posting in that series, number four.

I thereafter plan to begin a series on “The Buddha’s Teachings on Community.” This is the primary topic of the Vinaya, the first basket of the early scriptures. For the Buddha this topic was as important as, or maybe more important than, such things as the Four Noble Truths or the teaching of no self, and yet his teachings in this area are all but ignored in the West (and then we wonder that our Buddhist communities are not a little more harmonious). Before I came to Myanmar my first priority for study was the Vinaya. I’ve now read virtually the whole thing and several commentaries.  I don’t recommend each of you do this (it’s not easy going), so I thought I would summarize what I’ve discovered for the readers of my blog.

I plan to continue my studies here until the end of the term, to return to Austin the first week of March, in about six months time. But I will not be leaving Sitagu at that time, just moving the Austin branch.

Bhikkhu Cintita

Postcard from Burma

(Think of these postcards as very big, or as the writing on them as very small.)

Wigglet is in heat. I’ve described Wigglet is “my dog,” though she now bounces between my place and that of Petra, the German woman who is living in the guesthouse about ten apartments down. It turns out that Petra and Wigglet have known each other for years. Wigglet is a smart dog: she knows to hang out with the Westerners, who all like dogs. She was Venerable Sopaka’s dog after Petra’s previous tenure (U Sopaka is the American bhikkhu who moved down to Sitagu-Yangon just as I moved in here). Anyway, we will probably see a lot of drama around the Guest House in the coming days. The male dogs are starting to hang out in masses. Often when I open my back door, where Wigglet never goes, there is a dog on the other side. I sympathize with the male dogs: they are all so miserable, and Wigglet keeps chasing them off. I can tell they are going through the total range of emotions that human males go through in corresponding circumstances.

Observing the male dogs is a good reminder for me of why one becomes a monk (or nun), that is undertakes a life of renunciation. Buddhism is to look from outside the box, then to think, “This is crazy. Why do people make themselves and others so miserable?”  There is joy outside the box and  much more opportunity to benefit others. Ajahn Tate writes that teaching the Dhamma is nothing more than pointing out the afflictions and flaws of worldly life.

One of the ironic things I’ve discovered in Myanmar is that often the quality of manufactured wares is better here than in America. Myanmar is a very poor country,  Africa-poor according to the statistics, so people in general do not own much. However, people do use razor blades (especially monks), flashlights, clothing, and sometimes even little motor bikes. For probably a very small part of the population there are cars and cell-phones. (At the Sitagu Academy we seem to have a lot of computers.)  All of my clothing is manufactured either in Myanmar or Thailand; it is Theravada monks’ clothing; I don’t even own a pair of pants anymore. But most manufactured goods now come from China, or less often Thailand, much as in the USA. What surprises me often, though, is the availability of good quality.

Everybody here seems to use rechargeable LED flashlights. LED lighting does not seem to have caught on in the USA. Scott, a member of our original pilgrimage team to Myanmar, who is a lighting technician for movie sets, commented that LED lighting is very expensive in the USA. I have a rechargeable LED flashlight that I bought before I ordained for 25000 Kyat ($2.50) for use when the electricity goes out. It works great. It plugs into a wall outlet to recharge. I think it might even recharge with American electricity; I may bring it back.

 In my last few years in the USA I was working out ways to have as small a consumer footprint as possible. This is a good practice, not only for monks and nuns but for all Buddhists. I no longer owned a car or a house, so I was dealing on the level of things like razor blades. In the USA razor blade technology has made great strides, now offering many high-tech options at high-tech prices, such as three parallel blades encased in a plastic housing. It occurred to me that in my younger days shaving was relatively inexpensive. In an economy that grows primarily through the growth in inefficiency, finding a more labor- or resource-intensive way to do whatever it was you were already doing before, this is hardly surprising. In fact the most economical solution would seem to be the old Schick double-edged blade. The blade must be easy to manufacture, since no assembly is needed. Also you have two blades in one, like the double-edged sword that allowed you in days of olde to fight a much longer battle before your weapon became dull. And when both edges become dull you flip it over for additional mileage. I began experiencing nostalgia for my old double edged razor. After I discovered that you could buy double edge blades at CVS, but not the full razor, a fellow Zen priest, Korin Anita, found me an antique razor on e-bay, and I was in business. Although I found that I cut myself more often with the CVS double edge blades than with the high-tech alternatives  the extreme cost differential induced me to stick with the double edge, and before I came to Myanmar I stocked up on CVS double-edged blades.

Now, in an economy like Myanmar’s that has yet to grow into inefficiency one would expect that the optimal solution to the razor blade question would be widely recognized and practiced. And indeed, everyone uses double-edged razors, with blades of exactly the size that fits into my antique razor. In fact, a common offering people make to monks is double-edged razor blades; all monks use the same kind. In America, I’ve noticed, people offer monks disposable razors, because there is no telling what kind of razor the monk might possess. As a result, my supply of double-edged razor blades has steady grown since I’ve been in Myanmar.

This is a long story, but now I get to the point: The razor blades in Myanmar are much better than the CVS blades I bought in the USA! I almost never cut myself. In fact I now enjoy a closer, smoother and more comfortable shave with less loss of blood than I used to with

Postcard from Burma

We are finally getting some rain here in Sagaing. This is the Rainy Season, one of three official four-month seasons, the others being the hot season and the cold season. (The Burmese do not recognize, or even seem to know about, our four three-month seasons.) We are also observing Vassa here at Sitagu, and at almost all Theravada monasteries, which means the Rains Retreat. But the fact is, it really does not generally rain very much in Sagaing, and this year has been very dry so far. In Yangon, on the other hand, I hear they been having huge storms. The last couple of weeks it has rained here most days, but not hard or long. I’ve noticed that it seems to make a big difference in the temperature. It’s gotten quite a lot cooler.

Mosquitoes have grown in population, however. And the insect world in general seems to be thriving. I have to be careful or I get zillions of ants in my apartment. I often fortify myself with lemonade in the afternoon; my kappiyas (lay sponsors), U Htay Mint and Ma Doo Doo, bring me lemons or limes every Uposatha  Day, once a week, and keep me supplied with sugar. (Fruit juice is allowed for monks even after noon, according to the Vinaya. Actually, it is supposed to be filtered fruit juice and to be offered by a lay person on each occasion, but people don’t generally seem to know it, and I’m not the monk to teach it to them.) If I don’t clean up right away ants show up in droves.

They have very impressive ants in Myanmar. They show up out of nowhere in masses as soon as an opportunity arises, often completely covering a large surface, then disappear very quickly when the opportunity has been consumed. They seem to have a sixth sense (hmm, I wonder if ants have all the other five senses) about where the eating is good. I observed a long line of ants at Pa Auk Tawya one day marching single file but densely packed. I followed the trail backwards, toward where they were coming from and lost them after a few yards in the underbrush, then followed the trail the other way and discovered that the whole column was simply led by one very confident and determined ant, with the second ant in his immediate rear. There were no scouts or any hint of how the leader knew where he was going. I’ve had gained a new respect for ants since seeing the latest Indiana Jones movie when I was still in the States. The ants here are small, but very aggressive. I’ve been bitten numerous times.

There are some huge butterflies here, like with 8 inch wingspans, and very beautiful. Interestingly there are very few bees or wasps, or anything I’ve seen that looks particularly dangerous. A large wasp happened to fly in the doorway a few minutes ago while I was writing about ants, which is what made me think of how few there are here. Not like Texas. I’ve never seen anything like a scorpion or the famed deadly centipedes. There are six-inch millipedes all over the place, but they don’t seem too threatening.

Flowers seem to be in constant bloom, though I haven’t experienced the Cold Season yet. Cold in Myanmar, by the way, is not very cold. I understand that it is the most comfortable season. Winds bring cold air down from Tibet, on Burma’s northern border.

I’ve been teaching English quite a bit. I have a group that meets in my apartment  to study vocabulary at 1:00 Monday through Friday, generally about five monks and two young women who take classes at Sitagu. (Classes may be attended by lay people, but I think all the lay students live outside of the Sitagu monastery wall.  Some of the monks that attend classes also live in neighboring monasteries.)

On Saturday and Sunday I teach four classes on English pronunciation. I was trying to resurrect the rather modern language lab that was built here some years ago, and actually used it a few times. It is quite substantial, with fifty student stations, each with a computer screen, headphones and a button to call the instructor for personal assistance, and a consol that allows the teacher to listen in an each student separately (for instance, when repeating phrases together) and that allows the piping recorded audio to the students and the use of a computer to display to student screens and the ability to talk to students individually, which comes through the student’s earphones like God. Unfortunately, a lot of it does not work very well. At most half of the student computer screens have power and that number fluctuates as fuses blow out and take days to replace, and a lot of the buttons for one-on-one communication stick in place. Other screens have power but cannot get a video signal, and of course the power for all of Sagaing simply fails at least a couple of times a day, sometimes for hours. People here are in awe of the West, largely because they hear that things actually work the way they are supposed to. I’ve abandoned using the language lab in favor of a regular classroom. An unusual feature of all the classrooms here is a PA system for the teacher. I find this useful,  it enables the students to hear my pronunciation almost as clearly as in the language lab.

As I’ve reported before, I am generally the lone Westerner here at the Sitagu Academy, or anywhere in Sagaing as far as I know.  However, we have had three visits from Westerners since I returned here from Pa Auk Tawya.

First, Dr. Patrick Franke, from USA, a professor of Religious Studies who specializes in Burmese Buddhist texts. He has been associated with Sitagu Sayadaw for about twenty years and speaks fluent Burmese. He stayed a couple of days and gave a talk in English, which relatively few students here were able to actually follow.

Second, about two weeks ago a German woman, Petra, arrived, probably for about a month. She has lived in Burma for twelve years. She came here to study Buddhism and fell in love with Burma. Of course she also speaks fluent Burmese. She seems to have had various occupations. She lived at the Academy for some time, and was ordained as a nun for a couple of years. She taught English here during that time (of course like that of all educated Germans her English is excellent). She was a travel agent for a couple of years. She now works in the relief effort in the Delta and lives in Yangon, but had a chance to come up here to get out of the rain. She likes the peacefulness of Sagaing.

Third, an English-born Swiss nun in a Korean Zen tradition passed through here for a couple of days. Her name is Venerable Mujin and she is involves somehow with Sitagu Sayadaw in the Delta relief effort. I find I easily miss the company of Westerners; it is always a delight to have one visit.

My studies are going quite well. Sitagu Sayadaw has been teaching a class in English on the Great Foundations of Mindfulness Sutta, for foreign students, all four of us. Unfortunately he is away most of time. For instance, he was in the USA for four weeks in July. He returned but then made a trip to Thailand. On Wednesday he is going to the Delta region to dedicate a new school his organization has built there. He is often invited to give Dhamma talks various place, and various countries. And so on. But when he is in town to teach it his class is quite a treat. He is very inspiring, is a very skilled speaker, and provides a good model for me of the Burmese style of understanding and study.  

The standard way to study Buddhism in Burma begins with memorization of original texts, usually suttas, in the Pali language. At the same time, this is how one learns Pali. It is not important to know what the text means in order to memorize it. One then reads the Commentaries, texts that have near canonical status in Theravada, but were generally composed, or compiled also in Pali about 900 years after the Buddha, generally in Sri Lanka. Buddhaghosa is the best known author of commentaries, and Path of Purification is the best known of his many cross-indexed works. These generally attribute a lot of supplementary content to the original text.

I don’t have as much faith in the value of memorization as the Burmese have; it seems to have been largely discredited in the West. Also, I don’t expect to develop the skill of memorization that most Burmese monks have been generally cultivating since they were very young novices; these monks are amazing. However, what seems to be working for me is to take any original Pali text, look up and learn the most important words and then go back to the text and read it aloud repeatedly. This reinforces the Pali vocabulary I am slowly developing and gives me examples of Pali grammar, and of course gives me the Buddha’s teachings in very slow motion. I then read modern commentary on the side. I am also identifying certain Pali texts for memorization, because they are often chanted. I am working on the Metta Sutta, for instance. The Suttas are actually a lot of fun to recite or chant, first, because Pali is a beautiful chanting language, and second, the Suttas are so repetitive, which lends a fluidity to the enterprise.

Burmese do not so much chant as recite individually. When they recite as a group they make little attempt to stay together, some reciting faster than others, but then at the end of a stanza pausing so that everyone can catch up. It is difficult to learn Pali texts through group recitation when people are  not on the same syllable at the same time. However, you often hear monks reciting by themselves, which often has a beautiful pattern of intonation (aka singing). Sitagu Sayadaw has a very good voice for this and like most monks simply recites long suttas from memory. Dhamma talks seem always to stick to a Pali texts, which the speaker intones in sections, discussing in Burmese the meaning of each section.

I have a computer! At least I get to use it in my room for the duration of the stay. Aside from preparing for classes this will allow me to write to my blog more conveniently and therefore more frequently.

Mahayana/Theravada  IV: The Cultural Dimension.

Many good Theravada Buddhists in Myanmar seem to feel that there is something mistaken in Mahayana Buddhism. There are differences, as I’ve described, including doctrinal differences that can be traced to ancient India and differences in style and garb. I would like to suggest that these differences are not so much divergence of doctrine and discipline as they are the awkward re-encounter of diverse cultures: Indian and Chinese. This is particularly important to consider now that we have thrown a third culture into the mix, the Western culture.

Look at a map of Asia and consider: first, in which countries is Theravada Buddhism practiced; second, in which countries is Mahayana Buddhism practiced; third, in which countries have people traditionally (before European colonial influence) eaten with the hands; and, fourth, in which countries have people traditionally eaten with chopsticks. Hopefully you will notice this correlation: Theravada Buddhism dominates in countries which have traditionally been part of the vast Indian sphere of influence, and Mahayana Buddhism dominates in countries that have traditionally been part of the vast Chinese sphere of influence. Tibet and Mongolia, I think, are exceptions, forming an additional cultural area as well as what many consider an additional school of Buddhsim, Vajrayana.

I speculate that two things are going on here: First, the local culture has selected the form of early Buddhism that has most appeal to that culture. Second, the local culture has exerted influence on the Buddhism that it has adopted.

For instance, it has been suggested that Mahayana Buddhism had great appeal in the Chinese because it was so colorful, and had a rich mythology, in contrast to the indigenous Taoism and Confucianism, as well as to the more austere Theravada school of Buddhism. The conditions to which Buddhism then had to adapt were different from its indigenous India: The weather was colder, the emperors were divine beings, there was no tradition of wandering mendicants, family relations were all-important, Pali or Sanskrit was hard to get the tongue around.

The more conservative Theravada Buddhism had a natural base of appeal in the Indian cultural area, but presumably so did early Mahayana. After all, both grew up there. However, cultural conditions would not have been more of a constant, requiring relatively little adaptation over time. Even if Mahayana had come to dominate, which in fact it did in much of the current Theravada area for a long time, it would have been, one would expect, a much more conservative Mahayana than found in the Chinese cultural area. I suggest that the great divergence in Buddhism began when Buddhism reached China. And something similar is now in the process of happening in the West.

How did Buddhism change in China? This is a mix of my understanding and speculation:

First there was the weather: Monks and nuns needed to wear more layers of clothing and daily alms rounds were more difficult.

Then there was the royal family: The emperor was a god. Monks bow down to gods; gods do not bow down to monks. For instance, kings in India were willing to comply with the Buddha’s requirements in the Vinaya that prohibited monks from bowing to anyone but more senior monks. Also, some of the colors that Indian monks used to dye their robes were reserved for royal use.

Then, there was Confucianism: The Confucian code of ethics was almost universally observed, I understand, whether or not one was a Buddhist. This provided a framework that to some degree made Buddhist ethics redundant, and to some degree contradicted Buddhist ethics. For example, the family had a dominant place in Confucian culture, while leaving home to become a monk or nun was valued in India. Buddhism adapted by making the family a model of the Buddhist sangha, in which lineage was highlighted. Begging for food was denigrated in China, so the monastic sangha turned to other livelihoods, such as farming and land ownership.

Then there was the government: organizations were distrusted and regulated. More hierarchy was imposed on the monastic sangha, and the simplicity of consensus democracy was diminished or lost.

Then there was Taoism: this provided a new language for Buddhism, well known in Zen, and probably a doctrinal bias toward nondualism and mistrust of conceptual thinking, though this was certainly not entirely new to Mahayana thought in India. More generally the Chinese favored a more synthetic and less analytical approach to doctrine.

Buddhism adapted in China, and in the greater Chinese cultural area, including Japan, Korea and Vietnam, but was not defeated there. It thrived there and in its adaptations discovered new forms of teaching and practice. It is significant that much of what for a long time was considered part of the corpus of Indian Mahayana sutras was in fact composed in China or adjoining areas. The great Zen tradition began in China, in spite of the attribution of a mind-to-mind transmission through Kassapa and Bodhidharma in India. Whereas the bhikkhuni tradition (full ordination for nuns) died out centuries ago in all Theravada countries, it has flourished continuously in Mahayana lands since Sri Lankan nuns brought it to China, around 350 AD.

What are the lessons here for those who traditionally eat with forks? The first is that Buddhism will make many many adaptations to Western culture, making it unlike what we understand now as Theravada or as Mahayana. The culture of  West is distinct from both that of India and that of China, though perhaps sharing elements of each. The second is that Buddhism does not thereby have to lose its integrity if we do not lose sight of what Buddhism is all about and if we do not let our very persuasive consumer culture overwhelm Buddhism.

In America, Western Buddhism first sprouted from the Mahayana tradition. A danger in importing Chinese Buddhim is that we thereby accrete adaptations. For instance, Chinese Buddhism has adapted family lineage into Buddhism, but the recitation of the Zen lineage in Western temples I think fails to instill the intended faith in a land where family is probably of less importance that in India or China. I think it is important as Buddhism comes to the West to take stock and understand the history of the tradition. It is particularly important at this juncture to understand as best we can the roots of Buddhism, the teachings of the Buddha as intended for the cultural context in which he lived. But we should not stop there. The Mahayana innovations are partly a result of creative and productive practice, partly a result of cultural necessity, and we should try to understand which is which.

Ultimately the differences between the Theravada and the Mahayana may not really matter so much in the land of the fork, any more that the differences between eating with one’s hands and eating with chopsticks. We will develop a Buddhism that is appropriate to our culture, distinct from Indian and Chinese cultural influences, but hopefully retaining what is valuable in both of these ancient traditions.

Sitagu International Buddhist Academy is square, with a 620-foot wall running along each of the four sides. I live in the Guest House, which runs the entire length of the South wall, just on the outside of the monastery proper. The Guest House has 32 rooms, all in a long row, used mostly for lay guests. For instance, a very old and eminent sayadaw died in Sagaing recently and people from out of town came and stayed in the Guest House. Two monks are situated long-term in the Guest House: me and U Issariya, at opposite ends. Most monks live in 'hostles," a few people to a room, within the monastery walls. I was accorded a room in the Guest House, maybe because I am a Westerner, the only one at SIBA at this time, and maybe because I am older than most of the other monks. Living here is a consideration, because it has a modern flush toilet. I've used squat toilets, but not easily. I do, however, share my quarters with a family of gekkos and sometimes a dog.

My appartment is three rooms, including a bathroom. I use one room to meet with students and one to sleep  in. The latter originally had two beds, but U Issariya, I and a woman staff member, disassembled one and stored it in the corner of the meeting room to give me sitting space in the bedroom. The meeting room has two doors to the outside, one in the front to a 620-foot balcony, and one in the back. I can get a breeze through this room by opening both doors, at which point "my" dog Wigglet often comes in and lies on the fllor. If it gets too hot I can close up and flick on an A/C in the bedroom, if there happens to be electricity.

I use a seven-foot two-by-two, part of the dissassembled bed, to prop open the rear door. The Guest House is built on piers, rather high at my end, and outside the back door is a narrow conrete staircase leading down to shrub and grass and often cows. Often I throw mango rinds out the back, left over from what my kappiyas bring every week, and seem to have encouraged a gopher to take residence right below my door, or some kind of rodent. I have to take care when I set the two-by-two prop to the side lest it fall through the door. One day this is exactly what happened. It summersaulted down the stairs with an awful clatter and came to rest at the bottom, so I climbed down and dragged it back up.

Also outside the main monastery wall, along the West side, is housing for lay staff, and the kitchen. The children of staff play on both sides of the monastery wall. Actually there are many people about, only a small fraction of which seem to be employed by SIBA. There are often strange people lounging about, or engaged in various forms of work. I see older women collecting large wide branches that fall, or are about to fall, from trees, bundle them up and carry them off, balanced on their heads. The children and some monks are continuously involved in gathering mangoes and coconuts from the trees for the kitchen. People often burn rubbish. Often someone will be tending cattle, often mooing right outside my appartment. Dogs are always yapping and geese and chickens run around.

One day a man, about fortyish, was sitting on a log directly under my appartment; who he was and for what reason he was there I have no idea, but this is common. Suddenly he was startled by the loud noise of wood against concrete, not fiteeen feet away. Someone had thrown a heavy piece of wood out the back door of the Guest House. Apparently the intent was not to discard it, because steps followed the piece of wood down the stairs. The  lower burgundy hem of a monk's robe appeared from above. Monks usually do not throw heavy objects down stairs. But this was not an ordinary monk; this was a giant! And pale as a goose! As I picked up the door prop I happened to glance up and see the kind of expression only Steve McCurry or someone like that can capture on camera: eyes like dinner plates, a jaw wide open, and a body ready to bolt.

I no longer look like that guy with the cat.

Here I am sitting under a bohdi tree.

Mahayana/Theravada III: The Great Schism.

The Buddha was very concerned with schism in the sangha. He defined schism very clearly, warned about its arising in no uncertain terms, and put many policies and procedure in place to avoid. The sangha here is understood as the community of monks and nuns, and the Buddha is reported to have averted a serious attempt at schism on the part of his cousin Devadatta, who had ambitions for leadership of the sangha.

Many accounts of the Mahayana trace its origins to a schism in the sangha reported to have occurred around 100 years after the death of the Buddha. The assumption is common that Theravada and Mahayana therefore have had irreconcilable differences ever since. I would like to show here that there probably never was an historic schism that separated Mahayana from Theravada or any of the other “Hinayana” schools, and to caution that assuming that there was might effectively induce one.

The great schism of about 350 BC reportedly resulted in a group of monks called the Mahasanghika walking out of the Second Buddhist Council and forming their own order, by some reports for reasons of doctrine and by others for reasons of discipline. Doctrine here means Dharma/Dhamma and discipline means Vinaya, principles of conduct for the monastic community. In fact, from the period 350 BC to 100 BC (I’m looking at a book here by Nalinaksha Dutt, Buddhist Sects in India), there seems to have been three principle factions of Buddhism, a forerunner of Theravada, the Sarvastivadins and the Mahasanghika, along with many minor ones. These three sects seemed to have doctrinal differences, but also influenced each other. For instance, the Theravadins and the Sarvastivadins composed competing Abhidharmas during this period. Dutt reports that the idea of the Bodhisattva first arose in the Sarvastivadin school during this period, as something that had particular appeal lay practitioners, then spread to the other two schools. Apparently most of the Jataka stories found in the Pali Canon were in fact composed by Sarvastivadin authors to illustrate the ideal of the Bodhisattva, then incorporated by the Theravadins into the Pali scriptures. The Mahasanghika advocated a higher status for the Buddha than that of a mere omniscient, psychically powerful human. However, Dutt considers all of these schools to be Hinayana.

Mahayana apparently developed centuries later in India and its exact connection to any of these schools is obscure. The bodhisattva ideal (Sarvastivadin) became a central feature of the Mahayana, but at the same time the equally important emphasis of the Mahayana on emptiness and the perils of conceptual thinking is considered by some scholars to have developed in direct opposition to the radical Sarvastivadin idea that gave the school its name, the idea that things in fact exist. The Mahayana produced, or later claimed for itself, a line of  brilliant and creative thinkers, and a very rich mythology, populated by such figures as Avalokiteshvara (Guan Yin), Manjushri and Samantabhadra.

When considering doctrinal variation in Buddhism, we can ask, “Is it true?” or “Did the Buddha say (something like) that?” But before we do that, we might ask, “Does it matter?” I’m not convinced, for instance, that belief in a transcendental Buddha either brings one closer or brings one further away from liberation. However, the question here is, “Are the doctrinal differences between the Mahayana and non-Mahayana schools great enough to cause a schism?”

Apparently not: Chinese pilgrims traveled to India in the Fourth to Sixth Centuries AD. These were Mahayana monks who knew that they might encounter “Hinayana” Buddhists in their travels. To their great surprise they found Mahayana monks living in the same monasteries, eating the same food, with Theravada monks, sacrificing no harmony over doctrinal matters. They lived like modern roommates one of whom reads mysteries and one of whom reads science fiction. It is not something one fights over.

The pilgrims returned to China, Buddhism eventually died out in India, Theravada Buddhism came to dominate the South of Asia, Mahayana thrived in the North, and for many centuries there was little opportunity for contact. However, this geographical dispersal of the schools of Buddhism was never, as far as I can see, the result of a schism in the sangha. It is more like a family separated for many generations through immigration, now divided even by language, but now reunited. Or maybe like a family reunited, but now with a lingering rumor of an ancient family feud. What will its future be?

We have not one, but two strong traditions each of which preserves essence of the Buddha's tradition (sometimes in its own way). That's great: we have someone we can swap leisure-time reading with.

Theravada/Mahayana II: The Pa Auk Tawya Encounter

This Spring I spent almost two months at the Pa Auk Tawya meditation center in Mon State, with about four hundred other monks. This is, of course, a Theravada monastery, and it has a very famous Burmese abbot, who teaches a particular and very systematic method of Vipassana meditation based on the commentaries of Buddagossa, The Path of Purification. It was a good opportunity for me to consider the differences between this style and the radically unsystematic (Mahayana) Soto Zen style of meditation I grew up on. Also significant was the great number of monks from Mahayana traditions, probably about forty or fifty, who had traveled to Myanmar to practice meditation at this Theravada center.

The first thing that struck me about the Mahayana monks is that they looked just like me in a previous life, about two weeks earlier. Well, not just like me: They were primarily from Korea, with some from China and Taiwan. Interestingly there were also ordained Theravada monks from traditionally Mahayana countries, like Korea and Taiwan, and also one from Japan. But it was interesting to discover in me a kind of identification with Mahayana that I did not know was there. What reminded me of “my kind of people” is the deportment and attire of the Mahayana monks.

Mahayana clothing evolved in China as layers of clothing were added underneath the traditional Indian clothing, and then the traditional robe on top as abbreviated. Theravada represents something closer to the Buddha’s tradition, consisting of the triangular lower and upper robes, and generally nothing else. Different Theravada countries now wear robes of the same size, but differing color, and seem to have only one style in common of the many ways the upper robe may be worn. I understand that scholars really are not entirely certain how the upper robe was worn in the Buddha’s day, nor how big it was. Apparently, though, it was smaller than it is now, so maybe the Mahayana upper robe is not so great an abberation.

The Mahayana monks, on the other hand, enjoy the many benefits of sleeves! The most commonly worn Mahayana robe is like a large bathrobe. In the early days of Austin Zen Center Flint Sparks was the first to begin wearing a robe to early morning zazen; I thought that because of the early hour he had become to lazy to get properly dressed in the morning. None of the Mahayana monks at PAT had the voluminous sleeves that the Japanese seem to prefer however.

Most of the Mahayana monks had some smaller version of the Theravada upper robe, worn over the left shoulder and under the right, but hanging very smoothly and evenly with little overlap and no slippage. (Japanese Soto has managed to put the slippage back into robe wearing.) Most Mahayana monks generally dispensed with this robe altogether except on formal occasions and some did not seem to possess such a garment at all. Many were also wore monastic work clothing, something like the Japanese samu-e, or like a karate outfit, and some even wore t-shirts, into the meditation hall. I am sure that this seemed quite inappropriate to the Theravada monks (who uphold the tradition in their own very casual way, wearing their robes only in a technical sense as the weather became very hot), and even to me with my Zen training which included Dogen’s instructions always to wear Buddha’s robe into the zendo.

The Mahayana monks, I notice, uniformly sit with a very deliberate posture in the meditation hall, just as the Zennies in the States learn: They sit with their butts on raised cushions, very erect, generally in full or half lotus. Their erect posture also carries them outside of the meditation hall with a certain kind of dignity. The Theravadins, on the other hand, tend to sit any way they want, on very thin mats. Many of the older Theravada monks seem to have habituated a lopsided posture, that the younger monks are just in the early stages of developing. In Zen, of course, posture is everything.

As an aside, it has struck me how much Burmese nuns’ attire resembles that of Mahayana monks. Burmese nuns are not fully ordained bhikkhunis, they actually take only eight precepts. This does not seem to entail any less dedication to the Buddha’s Way, but it means that they are free of many obligations described for bhikkhunis in the Vinaya, including what to wear. Modesty is the norm for women in Myanmar, and much more so for nuns. So nuns are always well covered, wear robes with sleeves and wear the upper robe more ornamentally than as functional clothing.

In both Mahayana and Theravada traditions seniority is generally associated with ordination date. The Theravadins are particularly clear about this, as was the Buddha, in seating for ceremonies, in walking with a group on alms rounds and so on. (I am still the baby monk at Sitagu, though my physical age and my exoticness seem generally to give me a degree of undeserved status.) Now, it is very common, I have discovered, for Theravadins to question the validity of the Mahayana ordination. I don’t know what the basis of this is; Mahayana monks never, as far as I know, question the validity of Theravada ordination. In every Mahayana country except Japan, and a bit in Korea, monastics undertake the rules of the Vinaya, like Theravada monks, with varying degrees of success, like Theravada monks. Maybe the Mahayana monks just don’t look like professionals in Theravada eyes for reasons described above. Anyway, it is interesting how Pa Auk Tawya deals with this mixed set of monks for alms rounds: First, they put foreign monks and Burmese monks in separate blocks, and allow the foreign block to precede the domestic. Since there are no domestic Mahayana monks, this seems graciously to honor the Mahayana monks. However, this is a slight of hand: Within the foreign block they order all Theravada bhikkhus first, by ordination date (putting me at the end of this group, for instance), then all Theravada novices (I was actually followed by an elderly Korean Theravada novice; he apparently did not want to take all 227 precepts), and finally by Mahayana monks from the most senior to the most junior.

In the end, at Pa Auk Tawya is a large group of monks, differentiated in various ways but living together and sharing a deep dedication to the practice of liberation.