Sangha

Online Non-Sanghas

| arun

I had been planning to write about “virtual sanghas” but Dogo Barry Graham beat me to the punch. Predictably, his words are much more precise than what I would have written.

So it will probably surprise no one that I think there is no such thing as a virtual sangha. A bunch of people, one of whom may be a Dharma teacher, typing on keyboards is not a sangha.

A sangha practices together. Practice means the hard, inconvenient work of getting up and getting to the sangha meeting, sitting zazen, having dokusan, doing zazenkai and sesshin, and, day-to-day and week-to-week, working with your teacher to unravel the conditioning and core beliefs that run your life. It means engaging and interacting with the sangha, doing whatever tasks you are assigned to keep things working efficiently.

I’m not suggesting that there’s no point to blogging about your practice, or that the internet isn’t the great resource it is. But it’s no sangha substitute.

Just Another Monk’s Story

| arun

Bhante Yuttadhammo’s case is over. Charges dismissed. (Congrats!) He writes:

At this point, I have to express my appreciation for the people who have supported me over the past five, six months. There’ve been a lot of people upset or at least unsupportive of my choices in life, but in the end, when the chips are down, it’s amazing how people can just come together and pitch in to help a guy out of a jam… even a monk-guy. Thanks everybody, you know who you are.

You can read his entire account on his blog. If you want an American Buddhist story, then look no further!

Teachers of Imperfect Reputation

| arun

A few lines from Nathan on Dangerous Harvests caught my eye.

I’ve been reading Sogyal Rinpoche’s Tibetan Book of Living and Dying before my bedtime meditation. I’m aware that Rinpoche was the subject of multiple scandals during the 1990’s, so his reputation isn’t so good I suppose. But regardless of reputation, and issues with his “in the flesh” teaching, this book is filled with practice gems, and it’s illumination of the Bardo teachings for modern practitioners is extremely important.

He didn’t dwell on this thought, so I’m expanding on it from my own perspective. Words are not necessarily false because the speaker is imperfect, but likewise nor do wise and truthful words imply the speaker’s perfection. In building new Buddhist institutions, we often have to wrestle with teachers of less-than-desirable reputations and even contradictory teachings; this dilemma applies almost everywhere. Regardless, I tend to believe that if you have well-fitted teachers, they will help guide you to be a better person, and those close to you will notice this change.

Investigating Buddhist Sectarianism

| arun

Over on Dharma Folk, an illuminating post by John takes a truly marvelous quote from Ajahn Sujato regarding mainland Southeast Asia’s ‘conversion to’ Theravada Buddhism:

When these areas ‘converted’ to Theravada (which mainly occurred around the 11th-12th Centuries), it is impossible that all the monks took new ordinations. Of course, the official histories will assert that when the religion was reformed that all the monks conformed to the new system. But the practicalities of this are absurd: sending city administration monks wandering through 1000s of miles of tiger-stalked, bandit-infested, ghost-haunted jungle tracks seeking out countless little villages, trying to persuade senior monks that their ordination is invalid or improper and must be done again, all on the basis of some political compromise in a far-distant capital, in a region of ever-shifting borders and allegiances. As history this is sheer fantasy, and the reality must have been that the reforms would directly affect only certain central monasteries.

This book looks like it has a lot to say about tradition, especially in the context of the Theravada bhikkhuni lineage. Definitely a book I’ll be checking out soon: Sects and Sectarianism: The Origins of Buddhist Schools.

Kathina Time is (Almost) Here

| arun

Abhayagiri Buddhist Monastery has announced its celebration of the Kathina holiday this fall. Click on the link and you’ll find a description of the festival itself.

If you haven’t attended a Kathina celebration before, you’re in for a treat. I’ve come to think of it as the equivalent of all our lay holidays rolled into one. There is the abundance of Thanksgiving with gratitude for the completion of a long retreat and for having monastics in this country. The chance to gather together with gifts resembles the winter holidays of Hanukkah and Christmas, combined with a kind of birthday anniversary marking another year of monastic life. It’s a particularly joyous time to show appreciation for those who have gone forth into the homeless life and who provide support and inspiration to lay practitioners. It’s especially timely as fall and winter draw nearer, when visitors become less frequent and a full storeroom of supplies is so valuable.

Some close friends and I have for several years now been recontextualizing Kathina in the giving spirit of Hanukkah or Christmas as another opportunity to bestow gifts on friends, temples and 501(c)(3)s. Since this degeneration of Kathina into a Christmas-clone is (so far as I know) practiced only within small and isolated circles, I’m not too worried about the potential dilution and commercialization of what was once a mighty and precisely meaningful Buddhist holiday. I can’t shake the guilt though—I’m an Asian Buddhist kid whitewashing a perfectly fine and ancient Buddhist tradition with commercialized Western cultural values. But I like it this way.

Sangh as Your Managed Care Organization

| arun

Via DailyKos via Shambhala Sun Space, Andrew C. White writes about how Buddhism can inform the United States’ current healthcare debate.

Without going too much deeper into Buddhist thought which traverses the borderlines between western philosophy, psychology and religion, let’s see how the eightfold path might clear some of the muddle going on in Washington, DC as well as the deep fog enveloping the traditional media reporting on the debate.

But I think the healthcare system also has much to teach us about our own Buddhism. If Lord Buddha is your doctor and the Dharma is your medicine… then the Sangha is your managed care organization. All three of these metaphors can only be stretched so far, but I’m interested in the broad themes. Does your dharma center provide services on a fee-for-service basis, or is it more like a free clinic? How do you bolster access for the poor and disadvantaged? Or is your center designed to pander to bougie elites, erecting social, cultural and economic barriers for the rest?