Online Sangha

I've been gratified over the years to encounter a small but steady circle of fellow hermits on social media. It's always encouraging to meet others on the path – a particular challenge that distinguishes our practice from that of our cœnobitic (collectively practicing) brothers and sisters.

However, the quality of our experiences, while less frequent, can be notably higher.

Because hermit monks meet on rigidly equal ground. We're ordained by no-one except our similarly equal mothers. Therefore we share, compare, and contrast from a position of parity.

And as none of us can invoke rank to overrule or silence another, we tend to do all of this freely, in sincere respect and gratitude.

Just having someone to talk to. Just that, leads us to cherish each other.

This is radically different from the way companionship works inside, where dominating "lesser" sangha is the defining role of teacher or senior student.

The obedience and hierarchy that are necessary in the monastery or Zen centre are pointless – impossible, actually – on our path; and as a hermit's teachers are often impersonal, we're in little danger of miring up in an obedience fetish.

Obedience to whom?

Throw in our civilian clothes, and layfolk are liable to be a bit mystified about what it is we "do". In such situations, it's natural to cite first what we don't do.

• We don't teach.
• We don't preach.
• We don't accept supervision from those who do.
• And we seldom practice in groups.

Most incisively, we cleave to our founder's insistence that enlightenment is not conferred. It's yours for the taking, and can't be refused or rescinded by anyone else.

Thus, the blog and social media component of my practice isn't about claiming authority I don't have. My efforts here aren't meant to teach others or arbitrate their enlightenment.

Rather, they help fulfil my duty of sangha. Supplying, for the most part, but receiving as well, when I'm lucky.

I greatly empathise with and appreciate my brothers and sisters on the path. This is a lonely calling, hard to triangulate, because our mistakes are made in solitude. Which means I'm frequently enlightened within minutes of encounters with other seekers.

A conundrum that's tormented me for 40 years, they resolved long ago.

Shackle struck, ego eluded.

Advance one step.


For those interested, my coordinates are:

https://universeodon.com/@RustyRing
https://bsky.app/profile/rusty-ring.bsky.social
https://twitter.com/Rusty_Ring

(My timeline on these platforms is rather more political these days than I'm comfortable with, but don't be intimated; I prioritise good conversations about Zen and practice, and related topics.)

Maximum Illumination

Enlightenment is the stated goal of Buddhism, possibly the only doctrine all denominations share, though variously defined.

As far as I know, all Zen lineages, diverse though we are, uphold the conviction that enlightenment is possible in this life; that it comes irrespective of social and material distinctions; and that meditation is the fundamental discipline of enlightenment practice.

In theory, we also hold our leaders to a "maximum illumination" standard; that is, the teacher must be the most enlightened person in the zendo. The old Chàn chronicles preserve accounts of itinerant peasants summarily unseating exalted abbots in dharma combat. And if that martial art has now mellowed to ritual sparing between genial sanghamates, in those old Chinese records it's presented as deadly earnest.

All of this goes to the strength with which the Ancestors cleaved to a central principle. To wit: if we're going to dropkick the Buddha's explicit orders for an egalitarian sangha, then the brother or sister monk we perch precariously on that perilous peak must at minimum embody awakening.

And it's at this point that we slam smack into the Christian concept of antinomianism.

For among the many commonalities our two religions share is an insistence on the possibility – nay, obligation – of attaining a superior spiritual state in this life. We call it enlightenment, they call it salvation, but though our understandings of those states differ in important ways, our certainty that they exist prompts coreligionists to announce themselves special and demand extra-scriptural privilege.

Specifically, they declare themselves leaders.

And this is where the antinomianism comes in. Because upon their ascension to secular power, two unproductive phenomena abruptly co-arise:

1. Their conduct becomes demonstrably unenlightened.

2. They insist this unenlightened conduct is in fact the height of enlightenment; it's just that the sangha are too pedestrian to grasp their higher wisdom.

And that second one is antinomianism. You see, it's really very simple: treating others like doormats is the soul of bodhisattva practice. It's just what arhats do, and if you were one, you'd get that

And there-in lies a crisis. Because it's not.

Not that defining enlightenment isn't hard. How can you tell if a person has attained a state that can't be comprehended, or even defined?

As the ancient Zen joke would have it: how do you eff the ineffable?

I've thought about this a lot. I've scrutinised my own experience; what's happened on the cushion, where my heart moves during and after kensho, what's changed in my personality in two decades of mindful practice.

I haven't become enlightened, but I've grown measurably, and the Buddha said that's evidence of nascent awakening.

So becoming a better person than you were pre-zazen is the test. Are you less judgemental now, more empathetic? Less uptight, more patient? Calmer? More loving, less ambitious?

Has your ego diminished, or inflated? Are you supple or brittle? Do you fret more in social contention, or less?

How do you measure up on the 8 Worldly Dharmas Illumination Indicator?

If these lights aren’t green, why waste your life becoming an even bigger ass than you already are by being boss?

In the end, I've gained one practical insight into the quandary of human limitation:

–––> It's what you do with it.

(NB: Not a new concept on these pages, but a new application of it.)

Annoyance, impatience, disappointment, despair, frustration; what do you do when they happen?

Do you use or manipulate others? Do you make cutting remarks or determine to get even?

Do you apologise when you've behaved in an ignorant, superior, or abusive fashion?

These are universal human challenges, but a moral authority must own and publicly grapple with them. And by this standard, you can see the risk you run to your own practice when you set yourself up as a guru.

Which is why my brotherly counsel is not to.

Of one thing I'm sure: selfish, inconsiderate, preëmptory behaviour is not a sign of enlightenment. And refusing to confess, apologise, and atone afterward indicates you're not even on the road.

It's not that I don't yet know enough about enlightenment.

It's that I know too much.


(Photo courtesy of Unsplash.com and a generous photographer.)

Hermit Nation

For some years I've enjoyed sporadic correspondence with a fellow Zenner in England. After a few less-than-uplifting experiences with her Zen teacher, she's decided to try the hermit path, and asked me for a little sanghic perspective. Inevitably, the exchange ended up clarifying some things in my own mind as well. (Hence the value of sangha. As any teacher will tell you, helping others helps the helper.) So I thought I'd excerpt a bit of that conversation here, to spread the support around.

The sister in question is feeling the pull of her nature, though uncertain she can sustain a solitary practice, or that it will prove as fulfilling as the organised model. At the same time she feels like the institution doesn't respect her – that it views her as an isolated failure that must be repaired, or in extremis, rejected. That has led her to question her teacher's "never hermit" stance on alternatives.

As always, I didn't advocate any path to her, since I lack comprehensive knowledge of the facts and entities in play, and anyway, it ain't my karma at risk. But on this issue of only-ness, I felt compelled to give witness.

And so I wrote the following, with allowance for judicious editing:

As is frequently the case, I've been struck by the similarity of our life paths. We are, as I often say, a nation. This is very hard for the gregarious to grasp.

Although the neo-traditional Zen institution views people of our nature as unevolved or learning disabled, the fact is we are and always have been a demographic. One unserved by the innovated monastery model.

The same one that gave us the Buddha and Bodhidharma, to name just two.

And we seem to be coming out of the closet in greater numbers since the Boomers – great believers in authority, their market stance notwithstanding – began their slide into irrelevance.

Hermits don't necessarily seek isolation from others – I don't – but most of my adult life I've lived in rural areas; was raised in one, and have chosen to live in others when choice was mine.

But we live in a time when the rural areas that used to be despised by the urban and urbane have become chic, and they're clearing us rednecks away so they can take our land. It's a big topic, and for me, a painful one. Reminds me of the age of enclosure, and the segmenting of the European countryside into landed estates, which was the driving force that colonised the New World. 'Cept there's no place for us peasants to go this time.

From a practice perspective it doesn't matter much; you can be a hermit anywhere. But my preference is to be comfortably buffered from the rest of my species, and to be in daily contact with what remains. And that's harder to achieve in town.

As for your musings on Zen, I quite agree on all of them. Most of us find, when we encounter each other, that we've had similar experiences, received similar openings, and have much to offer each other in the way of teaching and support. We're the Buddha's only given monastic model, but formal Zen teachers (as well as those of other faiths) are great ones for saying that an unsupervised monk will quickly go off the rails and begin spouting bizarre, self-serving nonsense.

Which happens, of course, but not more often than it does in the Institution. And the result isn't crazier or more dangerous. From where I'm standing, it's clear that ordination is a risky state that few survive. Whereas my formal eremitical practice of assuming I understand nothing, mixed with a disciplining lack of social acceptance, has done a pretty good job of keeping me in my lane.

Anyway, when you mention Zen masters who run their monks as servants, that's my immediate thought. As a hermit, I can't imagine anybody cleaning up after me. Aside from the presumption, there's the fact that cleaning up my own messes is central to my practice; confronting chaos, accepting the necessity of soiling and breaking things, understanding how entirely I participate in universal entropy.

I suspect teachers who don't settle their own accounts have forgotten how unimpressive they are; given their working conditions, they can't help it.

As for me, "I'm nobody" has been my breathing mantra for twenty years. And I still think I'm the lead character in a movie from time to time; that tells you how much harder ordained types must have it.

Any road, society creates us, through a sort of petty terrorism, and at some point we just shrug and pull on the robe, to its great indignation. It's one reason I won't accept spiritual authority from other humans. I'm sometimes asked to address groups about Zen, and I always start by pointing out that I've never been ordained by anyone but my mother, that I have no unique understanding of anything, and that the next Zenner they meet will probably tell them I'm wrong about everything.

And I finish by telling them that anyone who says different about themselves is lying.

We hermits are a very diverse crowd – if we can be said to be a crowd – but I suspect all of us would agree with that last statement, at least.


Robin

(Photo courtesy of Matt Sclarandis and Unsplash.com.)

Street Level Zen: Instruction

"A mariner always casts the blame on his compass."

Henry David Thoreau


(Photo courtesy of Bernd Fiedler and Wikimedia Commons.)

The Busless Bus

Chàn fascinates me. Founded in China during the 6th century CE, it's the parent tradition to the three current national schools of Buddhist dhyana practice – Seon, Thiền, and Zen – as well as to China's own recently reconstituted Chàn movement. Every time I dip into these waters, I find new challenges to my own assumptions and to those that contemporary gatekeepers insist are fundamental to Zen. It's a deeper and more braided source of these than anything else I've found except the historical Buddha and primordial Buddhist practice models.

Case in point: I lately learned that the early Chinese chronicles sometimes affixed the label "One Vehicle School" to the amorphous movement that would eventually coalesce into Chàn. This in reference to the Buddhist concept of ekayāna, a Sanskrit term that also translates as "one path".

Seems shockingly doctrinaire for a loose affiliation of fellow-travellers, scattered throughout the then-existing Chinese Buddhist denominations, whose defining practice was to sit on their backside and cast off delusion.

Until you realise that their "One Vehicle" has rather a lot of seats.

Specifically, it has all of the seats.

For the essential tenet here springs from the Buddha's own teaching that we all eventually attain enlightenment, whether in this life or another. It therefore follows that all paths lead to the summit.

And therefore all paths are valid.

And therefore condemnation of others' practice is not.

Ekayāna doesn't get much ink in the Buddhist press these days, for reasons any incisive student of religion can grasp. As comforting as it is – we all make it through one day, regardless of the errors that occasionally set us back a thousand years – One Path is a lousy business model.

How can you profit, in gold or glory, if all you're selling is something folks can get for free somewhere else?

But this early doctrine of proto-Chàn does tend to explain all those ancient accounts of illiterate hermits coming down off the mountain and besting the local master – and also the continuing Zen strain of "you're not the boss of me" that current-day teachers' pets so haughtily deride.

As a hermit, I might be expected to cleave to the ekayāna viewpoint myself, and of course it has always been a keystone of my perception and practice, even though I only just learned the word for it. However, like all truth, it becomes false when distilled into dogma.

It isn't true that all paths are valid, even if we do ultimately survive them. You can build a cage of freedom.

But it's a cogent corrective to the invalid paths the Great Sangha, chasing worldly objectives that have little to do with saving all sentient beings, collectively stumble down.

May we each strive to practice more and preach less.


(Photo of ancient sculpture of Bodhidharma – founder of Chàn – courtesy of Buddha Tooth Relic Temple [Singapore] and Wikimedia Commons.)

Meade's Conundrum

In my university days I T.A.'d for a professor whose insights would have an enduring effect on my understanding of the Path. (Shout-out to Dr. Robert D. Meade, professor – and now sadly, human being – emeritus, who parlayed his position as ostensible psychology instructor into a successful conspiracy to overclock young minds.)

Among his many maxims – always delivered straight-faced – the following was a favourite with his gung-ho squad of student teaching assistants:

"Half of what I'm telling you is lies, but you don't know which half."

I think this is a foundational koan for Zen students, one we should hold in mindfulness. It comes into play whenever the old Zen centre vs. free range practice question is broached, or when I'm asked to discuss Zen with interested others, or when conflicts within the Great Sangha overspill their partitions.

I do believe you can't practice Zen effectively without accepting and practicing this teaching.

By the way, when transmitting Meade's Conundrum to my own students, I always appended Henderson's Corollary:

"…and neither do I."

I'm certain Dr. Meade would applaud.

My very best to the very best: those who are determined to do their very best.


(Photo of the hallowed halls courtesy of Andrew Kvalheim and Wikimedia Commons.)

Source Buddhism

I've been rereading The Heart of the Buddha's Teaching, the succinct little Thich Nhat Hanh book that amounts, so far as I'm concerned, to our Bible.

Non-Buddhists may be astonished to learn we lack one of those. Instead, we maintain a libraryful of sutras – pamphlet-sized documents that more or less quote the Buddha – along with three or four additional libraries of epistolary commentary. And we Zenners tend to bust even that down to the Heart Sutra (a short summary of the Buddha's insights), four koan anthologies, and, in Soto, Dogen's Shobogenzo. (Other schools swap that last out for their own founders' teachings.)

But for my money, Heart satisfies the hunger for a source of record, something to tell us in no uncertain terms what we're supposed to be doing here. Heart was the book that made me a monk, and the one I return to in moments of despair and confusion. And it never lets me down, though each time I find I've never read it before.

Among insights gained this time is TNH's reference to "Source Buddhism", one of three streams he sorts modern Buddhism into, by way of understanding the differing perspectives. The other two are Many-Schools Buddhism, notable for its didactic nature, and the Mahayana, which emphasises the responsibility of practitioners to their species and world (the famous "bodhisattva principle").

And though my own tradition – Zen – sits squarely in that last camp, I find I'm a bit of a Sourcer.

Quite a Sourcer, really.

Source Buddhists insist on the primacy of the Buddha's teaching over all other authorities. What he said, is Buddhism. Anything else… might not be.

I think this is an important fixation, because humans compulsively pile everything they like under the rubrics they've already adopted. If they're pacifists, they define even their most bellicose conduct as perfect pacifism. If they're conservatives, each innovation they make becomes the soul of conservatism. If they're feminists, their every impulse reflects pure disgust for sexism – highest of all, their purely sexist ones.

Nowhere is this fatal flaw more evident than in religion.

And in no religion is it more evident than in Zen.

So it's comforting to know that in my instinctive sourcery, I'm paddling an Original Stream – perhaps the original stream – of Buddhism.

Because the path of the Buddha isn't always the smoothest, but I do believe it's the most effectual.

And in case you're wondering: yes. My own meandering improvisations thereupon do constitute "original Buddhic teaching".

Seriously; have you ever met a human?


(Photo of the 6th century Teaching Buddha in Ajanta Cave 16 courtesy of Wikimedia Commons and a generous photographer.)

Afterlife Kyôsaku

"One of the most powerful teachings that [Thich Nhat Hanh] shared with us before he got sick was about not building a stupa for him and putting his ashes in an urn for us to pray to.

"He strongly commanded us not to do this.

"I will paraphrase his message:

"'Please do not build a stupa for me. Please do not put my ashes in a vase, lock me inside, and limit who I am. I know this will be difficult for some of you.

"'If you must build a stupa though, please make sure that you put a sign on it that says, "I am not in here."

"'In addition, you can also put another sign that says, "I am not out there either," and a third sign that says, "If I am anywhere, it is in your mindful breathing and in your peaceful steps."'"

Senior student Phap Dung, on his teacher.


(Photo of a second century BCE frieze of Buddhists worshiping at a Shunga dynasty stupa courtesy of the Freer Gallery of Art, Wikimedia Commons, and a generous photographer.)

Zen At War... With Itself

'Way back in March of 2012 CE (how strange to have such a deep vault) I reviewed Zen at War, Brian Daizen Victoria's exposé of Japanese Buddhism during the Second World War.

And now, these many years gone, while looking up the book's Amazon link for a friend, I happen to glance at the reader reviews.

Some of them are disheartening.

While most commenters shared thoughtful, supportive responses, I rate it worthwhile to meet two others, not by way of defending Daizen's work – it's self-defending – but to survey some dangerous internal trends in our incipient Western religion. Especially here, where our grasp of Buddhist history (and our own) is tenuous.

First to catch my eye was a one-star rating entitled "Very disappointing":

This guy [Daizen] must have a terrible background, probably tried to escape all that trauma by moving to far east and becoming Buddhist etc., the classic story. It's ok as long as one does not try and contaminate beautiful Zen with a messed up mind. Avoid this book especially if you're a new Zen learner as it will ruin the whole experience for you.

There's something simultaneously amusing and infuriating about a self-professed Zenner who has no idea what a human being is. While I assume First Honoured Sangha is a sojourner, I've also met so-called "masters" who lack any greater insight.

So to protect any fragile new Zen learners who may stumble upon such spluttering, Ima lay down some tough-dharma. (Ten thousand apologies, pro forma trigger warning, how's your father.)

1. First Honoured Sangha has no calling to judge others or analyse their lives, or to declare their fate foregone. (Gotama; Dogen; Jesus.)

2. First Honoured Sangha knows nothing about Daizen's "classic story". We all have classic stories. Even First Honoured Sangha. (Gotama; Claude Anshin Thomas.)

3. First Honoured Sangha has no authority to give permission, or withhold it. (Gotama; Jesus.)

4. First Honoured Sangha has not been asked to guard the supposed "honour" of Zen. Zen is clean by its nature. Others soil it. (Bodhidharma.)

5. If First Honoured Sangha can't put down the burden of piety, then First Honoured Sangha can haul his or her prodigal backside back to the Church. If we must speak of contaminating Zen, piety is certainly the ultimate pollution. Mindless fear and shame are what authentic Zenners strive to overcome.

In an oddly similar vein, consider this (ostensibly favourable, five-star) review:

The shock value is not so great, as I've been aware of the basic contents for sometime. Japan is an island and the Japanese are an insular people. The emphasis in their culture is group conformity. Zen is not the transformer of personality as it was once marketed, and it should not surprise us to learn that Zen leaders in Japan followed the lead of the Japanese government and Army into widespread war.

The endemic racism and ethnocentrism of Western Zenners never ceases to dumbfound me. It's not just that we dissuade those of African or Hispanic or Arabic origin from joining us; we even freeze out Asians! With the exception of a dwindling handful of deified Asia-born teachers, you see damn few Asian faces in Western Zen centres.

Seriously, brothers and sisters. We have a problem.

One that won't go away until we drive it bodily from the zendo and kill it with ferocious blows from our monk sticks.

Apart from the sort of blanket condemnation First Honoured Sangha called down on another entire vaguely-defined demographic, Second Honoured Sangha neatly excuses Westerners from suffering any angst over Daizen's thesis. The demon, we're assured, isn't the Sangha; it's the Japanese.

With respect, Second Honoured Sangha is mistaken.

The demon is the Sangha. All of us. Then and now. There and here. Present and future.

You and me.

Nor am I alone in my discomfort with the unBuddhic habit of associating practice with submission to dictatorial authority – and then absolving ourselves of the evil we do under it. Thus, Third Honoured Sangha:

What I don't like, is the way it is almost impossible to discuss [enthusiastic Buddhist participation in Japanese fascism] in the Zendo, and I've tried.

Word.

And a final Fourth:

As a Buddhist, it was a reminder that we must be ever looking at our own practice. Do read this book.

Zen is important. We must resist the urge to turn it into a church.


(Photo courtesy of Serg Childed and Wikimedia Commons)

Brad Warner on Religion vs. Practice

A few months ago I happened upon this excerpt from Brad Warner's latest book, Letters to a Dead Friend about Zen. I haven't read it, or any of his books save the first. But Brad and I are the same age, from very similar backgrounds, and have come to comparable conclusions on many points. So it's perhaps not surprising that his work often speaks to me.

Nor that he catches a lot of blowback. From people like me, for starters, because he has okesa and makes money off it. (In case it matters, I care frak-all about the first charge. As for the second, yeah, that's dangerous. But as long as he's not claiming a patent on enlightenment, or declaring by word or implication to be the only authorised dealer, I'm listening.)

The linked text starts with a lot of throat-clearing, but beginning with this passage:

It’s like there’s a little Enlightened Beings Club. […] Some guy says he’s got enlightenment. He has a story to back him up about the wonderful day when he finally understood everything about everything. Another guy, his teacher, certified him as a member of the Enlightened Beings Club. And now he’s ready to help you learn to be just like him.

… the pace picks up briskly.

Essentially, Brad uses the book's introduction to address the difference between religion, which serves our craving for temporal power, and practice ("faith", in Christian terms), which rejects human authority and aspiration. The two have always been at each other's throats, as they always must be.

He doesn't delve into the matter in this excerpt; I suspect that's the rest of the book. But in good Zen form, the unanswered questions he poses might serve as a rudder for your own exploration.

Makers Make Makers

So I'm reading Adam Savage's Every Tool's a Hammer, an elaborated meditation on "making", that thing that makers do. (I only recently found out I'm one of these. Before that I was just, you know, making things.)

It's an engaging read; Adam's a philosopher of creativity, and his thoughts on the process of bringing inspiration from concept to object are sangha at its best. Scattered amongst the useful bits of shop protocol, such as the necessity of clamping your work securely so it doesn't kill you, are mindful contemplations on more fundamental topics. Of these, the one that struck deepest is his misdoubt of the "scarcity model".

I've touched on this subject before, but Adam's understanding of it is more concrete. Essentially, he says, some makers work in the assumption that resources are inherently scarce. Therefore, a prudent person hoards them, restricts their distribution, declines to admit surplus or divulge where it is. Adam suggests such people do this from fear that they will run out of whatever they need unless they stop others from getting some.

Nor does he limit his definition to the material. In fact, he scarcely – see what I did there? – mentions physical wealth at all. What mostly aggravates him is spiritual avarice: refusing to help, teach, respect, credit.

I too have often smacked up against this. A classic example is the person who won't share a recipe, on the belief that equipping others to prepare the same dish will steal his thunder. (Note that this excuse rests on two fallacies: that such people won't change the recipe, thereby protecting the author's "patent", and that a cook incapable of outdoing himself is master of anything.) You run into these blocked heads rather often in the work world, were they refuse to teach you their profession, or share trade secrets, or defend your beginnerhood from critics, on the alibi that they're nipping competition that would complicate their lives.

Not that competition doesn't result from a more generous view. But I've yet to see a situation where you can really quash it by cynical means. Childishness on that level, though our culture implicitly endorses it, fences you off from the very resources you yourself must have to compete successfully.

At base, this scarcity model is the origin of the transmission hang-up in institutional Zen. That's the policy whereby only certified "dharma transmitted" gurus are allowed to teach Zen. By extension, all talking about Zen then becomes "teaching", so the rest of us just have to shut up.

To be honest, if it weren't for that second assertion, I'd have no problem with it. "Teaching Zen" puts others at risk, while endangering the teacher's own karma, which is why I'd advise anyone considering it to stop considering it. (And while we're up, if anybody out there takes this blog for "teaching", knock it the hell off before we both get hurt. )

Basically, the fear is that free agents would muddy the water, obscuring access to enlightenment. Trouble is, this scarcity dogma bulldozes 99% of our wealth into a big pile and sets it on fire. So Adam's right: such "scarcity" is manufactured.

It also undervalues sangha, as it posits that without certified instruction, students will fall willy-nilly for false and/or abusive authority. I'll see that and raise you this: when the Sangha replaces blind faith with caveat emptor, fools and scoundrels will find us barren ground indeed. Because dharma-transmitted fools and scoundrels abound, shielded by the Confucianism that's crept into our religion over the centuries.

Adam further suggests that far from establishing security, such attitudes actually impoverish. He's right. There is no scarcity of wisdom, insight, or compassion in Zen. We enjoy boundless wealth, in the millions who have trod and are treading the Path in earnest determination. What mind could reject such a windfall?

The essential quandary is not simply that no-one has a patent on the Dharma; it's that all of us are still not enough. We must have what everybody brings to the zendo. Bare minimum.

In biographical passages, Adam recounts many mentors, of various walks and origins, who put up with his beginner pestering, or calmly watched him make mistakes and then told him why his stuff didn't work, and one senior technician whose elliptical teaching method, by Adam's telling, was as koanic as any Ancestor's. All of which has inspired him to give in kind, now that he's a lion of the maker world.

The fact is, the most important thing makers make is makers.

(Photo courtesy of Richard Greenhill, Hugo Eliasand, and Wikimedia Commons.)

Street Level Zen: Attainment

« Croyez ceux qui cherchent la vérité, doutez de ceux qui la trouvent. »

André Gide

(English translation here.)

Used-To-Do Zen

I often meet people who "used to do" Zen.

Many were deeply engaged, once; some were students of famous teachers. It's an inherent weakness of institutionalised practice. Where Zen is a social act it becomes a lifestyle, and like all lifestyles it demands a weighty sacrifice of time, money, and freedom. Your whole existence becomes Zen Centre. And Zen Centre always wants more: more time, more money, more obedience.

That wears people down, uses them up. And when they reach the end, they don't just drop the kowtowing and the koo-koo-ka-choo. They drop Zen.

Hence the risk of the ordained path. It can displace real Zen, at the cost of old suffering unhealed and new suffering inflicted.

It doesn't always end that way, of course; many find a healthful home in the zendo.

But wherever my hermit path leads, it guarantees one thing: I will never used-to-do Zen.

There's nothing for me to stop doing.


(From my notes for 100 Days on the Mountain, copyright RK Henderson. Bodhidharma painting courtesy of Sojiji Temple and Wikimedia Commons.)

Good Video: Sickest Buddhist

Isn't this dude on the cover of this month's Lion's Roar?

The Middle Way

I recently encountered this graphic on Facebook. Sums up the situation nicely, though I might have called the right wing of Integrity "puritanism", or maybe just "being that guy". Note that the Buddha made this principle central (no pun intended) to his teaching 2500 years ago.

These days I seem to encounter the moral right more often than the moral left. (I'm not talking about the political right and left; the moral right includes organic-insisters, McDonald's-shunners, business sceptics, and Christmas re-labellers, as much as is does Red baiters, Second Amendment Witnesses, and guru-worshipers. Interestingly, sexual conduct fetishists are equally represented on both sides, though their preferred targets differ.)

It's hard for some to grasp that decency means living with complexity. The ethically lazy skirt such heavy lifting by sidling down one of two side aisles: refusing to recognise the need for regulation -- the hippy-dippy, whatever-dude leftist response -- or shooting down challengers to one's glorious Easy Answer with a silver bullet -- the dogfaced, procrustean prejudice of the right.

Both represent ego run amok. The Buddha's programme to bring it back under control boils down to "doing my best". Doing nothing is doing nothing, and therefore not doing your best. And doing just one thing over and over is not doing most of the full spectrum of things you're capable of. And therefore not doing your best.

Moral extremists tend to reproach centrists (which includes all authentic Buddhists) as shiftless and weak-willed, but in fact, that's them. They adopt one simplistic principle and refuse to do any dead reckoning thereafter. As the Buddha pointed out, they veer immediately off-course, and will never sail straight again until they abandon the delusion of self and get back to the relentless, inescapable work of triangulation.

'Cause there ain't no here nor there in the real world. You calibrate your moral sextant every minute of every day, or you run onto the rocks. (Then there's the karma you incur convincing others to follow you onto the rocks, but that's another post.)

Anyway, the person who created the graphic gets it. If you don't cleave to the channel, you founder.

Are Teachers Necessary?

This is a long post. It needs to be. If you're a Buddhist, or just a fan of the Buddha, please read patiently; the topic is of importance to the worldwide Sangha.

Regular readers know that "no need for teachers" is one of my refrains. That's a given; I'm a hermit. Some of my ilk want all ordination – all teachers – abolished. In the words of one brother: "Burn down the monasteries. Flush 'em into the sunlight. Make 'em walk The Path."

But I have nothing against teachers, as such, or cœnobite practice. Too many of my friends have pledged their lives to it, taken rakusu, and credit it with their salvation. A central tenet of my own Rule is that apostasy doesn't nullify practice; hypocrisy does. The Buddha said that our paths are all our own. Earned over ten thousand lifetimes; bespoke to each of us; necessary to our enlightenment. Criticising the gait of others is a waste of Sangha, at best; at worst it's a kind of murder.

That said, I regularly run into monastery rats who are entirely comfortable telling me, with blunt satisfaction, that my hermit path is a conceit; that I'm not a "real" monk; that the word "Zen" necessarily means submission to a (living, human) master.

Then they smile indulgently, slap up a gassho, and bow deeply, murmuring something about "the Buddha".

Yeah, about that…

To take a page from my Christian brothers and sisters, "What would Gautama do?" Well, we can't know. We can know what he did, but even that we'll have to know in the koanic sense, because the answer is mu. Fact is, teachers were so important to the Buddha's enlightenment regimen that he never mentioned them, according to my unscientific, non-exhaustive survey of the sutras. (Note: I'm aware that some sutras aren't the authentic words of the Buddha. I'm also aware that the Buddha gave hundreds of sermons that haven't survived to our time. But if we insist on pitching legalities at each other, the sutras are all we've got. And you started it.)

So. Truth.

Almost all sutric occurrences of "master" or "teacher" refer to Gautama himself. (And Ananda, in at least one case.) In parables, "master" usually refers to an employer or householder. In any case, there are very few references to "Buddhist masters", and essentially none to what monks might "owe" them.

But the Buddha himself did have masters – two that he was willing to own – in his seeking days. One was Uddaka Ramaputta, a Brahmanic meditation teacher; the other was Alara Kalama, a hermit monk (oh, snap!). And in his first-ever teaching, he dismissed both as unnecessary.

Moving forward, in the Pratimoksha – regulations for Buddhist monks – he says:

All of you Bhikkhus [monks]! After my Nirvana, you should revere and honor the Pratimoksha. […]You should know that it is your great teacher, and is not different from my actual presence in the world.

Human teachers are not mentioned, even though he's literally laying down the law.

In a even more poignant moment, the sutras have this to say:

1. Now the Blessed One spoke to the Venerable Ananda, saying: "It may be, Ananda, that to some among you the thought will come: 'Ended is the word of the Master; we have a Master no longer.’ But it should not, Ananda, be so considered. For that which I have proclaimed and made known as the Dhamma and the Discipline, that shall be your Master when I am gone. [Emphasis mine.]

Oddly, the sutra then claims that he said:

2. "And, Ananda, whereas now the Bhikkhus address one another as 'friend,' let it not be so when I am gone. The senior Bhikkhus, Ananda, may address the junior ones by their name […] but the junior Bhikkhus should address the senior ones as 'venerable sir' or 'your reverence.’

Let me get this straight: this bizarre command ("after I die, stop following my lifelong example") was important enough for the Buddha to deliver on his death bed, in his final words to his sangha? Yeah. Bullshit. Just as the Gospels were trafficked to serve worldly interests, this document has been hacked. And not even skilfully; check out the very next line:

3. "If it is desired, Ananda, the Sangha may, when I am gone, abolish the lesser and minor rules.

So let's sum up these three paragraphs: "We have too many rules. My teachings are all you need. Oh, and some dictators, too." I'll say it again: Bullshit.

In fact, just in case somebody wants to set himself up as a dictator, the Buddha goes on in the fourth paragraph to make a very pointed last request, entirely consistent with his lived teaching:

4. "Ananda, when I am gone, let the higher penalty be imposed upon the Bhikkhu Channa."

"But what, Lord, is the higher penalty?"

"The Bhikkhu Channa, Ananda, may say what he will, but the Bhikkhus should neither converse with him, nor exhort him, nor admonish him."

Ouch! Why all the hate on this dude Channa? Well, Channa (Chandaka in Sanskrit) was charioteer to the young Gautama. It was he who took the adolescent outside the family compound, against his father's orders, to witness human suffering and ultimately abdicate his aristocratic position in favour of monastic practice.

According to tradition, Chandaka later became a disciple of the Buddha, whereupon, because of his personal relationship with him, he began to lord it over the other monks. As the Buddha's health failed, Chandaka let it be known that he intended to assume authority over the sangha after the Master's death. The Mahaparinibbana Sutta records the Buddha's reply: "As if." (Note also that the worst punishment the Buddha can conceive is simply not responding. Far cry from the shunning and vituperation some contemporary teachers call down on their critics.)

Another version of the same scene omits specific commentary on the Chandaka matter and cuts straight to the chase:

The Buddha further explained: "If there is anyone who thinks [after my death], 'It is I who will lead the brotherhood', or 'The Order is dependent on me, it is I who should give instructions', the Buddha does not think that He should lead the order or that the Order is dependent on Him."

Alright. But seriously, could there really be no sutra passages (besides the suspect Paragraph 2, above) that recognise the master-disciple relationship?

Well, here it says that those who tread the path of Enlightenment should support Dharma masters materially (the modern Buddhist notion of dana), "making sure they lack nothing". So such masters apparently exist. Yet they aren't owed obedience; that's a Confucian notion, foreign to the Buddha in every sense. It's also worth pointing out that of 36 instances of the word "master" in this translation, the other 35 refer to the Buddha himself.

In yet another sutra, the Buddha praises a Master Sunetto – who died long before his lifetime – in the Sermon of the Seven Suns. But again, he draws no parallels with his own programme.

In the Suda Sutta he compares the monk to a cook, who

…takes note of his master, thinking, "Today my master likes this curry, or he reaches out for that curry, or he takes a lot of this curry or he praises that curry. Today my master likes mainly sour curry... Today my master likes mainly bitter curry... mainly peppery curry... mainly sweet curry... alkaline curry... non-alkaline curry... salty curry... Today my master likes non-salty curry, or he reaches out for non-salty curry, or he takes a lot of non-salty curry, or he praises non-salty curry." As a result, he is rewarded with clothing, wages, and gifts. Why is that? Because the wise, experienced, skilful cook picks up on the theme of his own master.

This sounds thunderously similar to exhortations in Zen literature on the deference and service a monk owes his teacher. Ah, but there's more:

In the same way, there are cases where a wise, experienced, skilful monk remains focused on the body in and of itself... feelings in and of themselves... the mind in and of itself... mental qualities in and of themselves -- ardent, alert, and mindful -- putting aside greed and distress with reference to the world. As he remains thus focussed on mental qualities in and of themselves, his mind becomes concentrated, his defilements are abandoned. He takes note of that fact. As a result, he is rewarded with a pleasant abiding here and now, together with mindfulness and alertness. Why is that? Because the wise, experienced, skilful monk picks up on the theme of his own mind.

So the master here is not a person at all. It's a metaphor for the relationship we should have with our own nature. That is, it's the same theme of personal autonomy that runs through the Buddha's entire teaching.

It's true that I didn't search every sutra in existence, and I'm certain a competent zendo lawyer could find one somewhere to build a case on. But after several hours of research, I found not a single Buddhic statement directing seekers to submit to teachers, masters, or abbots. According to my man Gautama, there are exactly three treasures:

1. Buddha – sole, one-time-only human teacher
2. Dharma – the universal Truth and master, accessible to all through meditation
3. Sangha – the community of seekers

Still holding out for categorical?

Yourself depending on the Dhamma, honouring it, revering it, cherishing it, doing homage to it and venerating it, having the Dhamma as your badge and banner, acknowledging the Dhamma as your master, you should establish guard, ward and protection according to Dhamma. (My emphasis.)

I've now dumped a whole truckful of electrons on this subject. Few readers will have made it this far; the Internet rule is "short and punchy". But this issue needs old-fashioned, grown-up attention. And the conclusion is cogent and irrefutable:

1. Teachers are not Buddhic.
2. Buddhists are not required to have teachers.
3. Those who do have teachers, are not required to marry them.

None of which means that teachers are "bad", in my opinion. I read copiously from the written thoughts of contemporary teachers, and listen to their podcasted teishos. Their wisdom and direction are a pillar of my practice. Further, the innovated master-student relationship that currently passes for mainstream Buddhism is rich and productive for many people. It's not in the sutras. But a thing doesn't have to be in the sutras to be valid; scripture never gets around to mentioning most of life. Finally, I find much in the monastery – itself almost entirely exsutric – that's powerful and effective. More that is, than isn't.

But external direction and ordination aren't necessary. Period.

(Photo of the Buddha in vitarka ["giving instruction"] mudra -- "talk to the hand!" -- courtesy of Aaron Logan and Wikimedia Commons.)

Kyôsaku Kyôsaku

Two days ago I found this teaching in my Twitter feed:

"Treat non-useful thoughts like undesirable smells: don't dwell on them, don't identify with them, don't get attached to them, don't get lost in them - simply let them float away."

It's Zen at its trenchant best: laconic, practical, self-evident. A classic and useful taste of humanity's most down-to-earth religion. I immediately stored the passage for a later Kyôsaku and went about determining credit. (It was attributed only to "tad".)

After some digging, I discovered that "tad" is not a guy, it's a business. Specifically, it's something called The T.A.D. Principle, which is apparently a book, though the advert is coy on this point. It's even coyer about a later product, the 21-day meditationSHIFT Programme, which costs $29 and promises to revolutionise your life, though it too is evidently 15th century technology. (I could be wrong; neither of these "works" is described as a book. They aren't described as anything.)

About here you'd expect me to go off on a rant about New Age self-help hucksters. And I'd like to. But the thing is, I've spent some time perusing T.A.D.'s promotional copy, and found not a word I could dispute. It's all straight-up conventional Zen. Great stuff, in fact. No doubt the testimonials ("Thank you for teaching me how to meditate, and how to get control of my runaway mind! [emphasis original]") are sincere and authentic.

And while that $29 price tag (fair price for a book of this kind, if it is a book) is technically selling Zen – and that's immoral – your local Zen master might put the bite on you for much more. Folks have paid thousands; even tens of thousands. And frankly, if you've reached the place where you can't breathe – from grief, depression, or other forms of world-weariness – a handful of coppers spent on the right book could save your life.

So I guess my only serious objection is the implied claim that the unnamed author or authors invented this stuff. Which he, she, or they did not. If the marketing snippets are representative, this is plain old brilliantly effective Zen. To be sure, the word "Zen" appears nowhere on the site, but so long as the author or authors don't assert some bogus patent, the karmic implications seem moderate.

On the other hand, my patented Crusty Old Hermit Programme is cheaper and quicker than other leading brands. If you click before midnight tonight, you can take advantage of our Special Introductory Offer: to wit, nothing less than the FULL TEXT of our Dynamic Life-Coachment S.E.L.F.-Training Modality:

"Get over yourself."

Free to you, because you look like a nice person. But I wouldn't say no to a cup of tea.

(Portrait of original crusty old hermit Bodhidharma courtesy of Wikimedia Commons and a generous photographer.)

Ajahn Brahm's Five Types of Religion

You gotta love Ajahn Brahmavamso Mahathera. He's a forest monk, albeit not of the hermit lineage. In a West dominated by Zen, Vipassana, and Vajrayana, his dharma is Theravada. He's a working class Englishman with a Cambridge degree in theoretical physics, trained as a monk in Thailand, and teaching in outback Australia. He runs a monastery he built himself. (Seriously. With his own hands.) And he's been excommunicated by his lineage. So he must be doing something right. (Ordaining women, as it happens.)

But the best thing about Ajahn Brahm is his teaching. There's precious little piety about this guru. He'll call out hypocrisy so fast it'll make your incense burner spin. And he starts with his own.

I particularly esteem Brahm's (in)famous Five Types of Religion. (True fact: the original teaching was Five Types of Buddhism, which is how I first heard it. Only when it was pointed out that all religions suffer from these delusions did he rework it for everyone.)

So here they are. Readers who practice a religion, any religion, should copy and paste this list. Then edit out my commentary, and meditate on the rest. Often.

Everybody strapped in?


AJAHN BRAHM'S FIVE TYPES OF RELIGION

1. Conceited Religion: Our religion is better than yours. (And therefore we are better than you.)

This is a Christian stereotype here in the West, but that's only because they're the majority; I run into identical Buddhists all the time. Despite what some would have you believe, triumphalism (the belief that you have a monopoly on truth) is a sin in every religion. In fact, I learned both the term and the condemnation as part of my Christian training.

2. Ritual Religion: Venerating the container above the contents.

Did someone say "guru worship"? Let's face it, Zenners: we do the hell out of this one. Obsession with rank and form, bowing, chanting, posture, oryoki, lighting this, ringing that, bop-she-bop, rama-lama-ding-dong. None of it's worth a crock of warm spit, and if you forget that, it's a giant waste of time.

3. Business Religion: We're best because we're biggest. Biggest church, largest sangha, highest priest, trendiest teacher-author.

This is the "success" model, whereby we declare the biggest seller the best product. Uh, no. Read your scripture, people. God doesn't like "success". Not least because it instantly becomes an altar to Mara. Worldly religion is no religion.

4. Negative Religion: We gotta GET those [insert group here] !!!

As Brahm points out, this is yin to Type 1's yang: where Conceited Religion says "we're the best," Negative Religion says "they're the worst." I call it Varsity Religion: lots of cheerleaders shaking their pompons and urging us to spend our meagre days on earth beating State. Good thing it has nothing to do with enlightenment; State can't be beat.

5. Real Religion: Doing what your prophet told you to do.

Note that the first four types are not this. Try it. Grab any religion. I like Zoroastrianism. And not just because it has the awesomest name of any religion. (It would be worth it to convert just so you could tell people you're Zoroastrian.)

Thus:

1. Did Zoroaster teach his followers that they were a superior race, and all others inferior?

No.

2. Did he teach that temporal gestures were the main point of faith?

No.

3. Did he teach that the biggest temples or most acclaimed priests were the most godly?

No.

4. Did he teach that life is all about opposing some other group?

Almost. He did say that Earth is a battleground between the godly and ungodly, and that salvation is a matter of enlisting in the correct army. But he didn't identify any earthly group as Angra Mainyu's army, nor did he say that just being a Zoroastrian automatically puts you in Ahura Mazda's. So…

No.

So there you have it. Grand Master Z agrees: "Walk the line, chump."

If you'd like to see Ajahn Brahm teach this truth himself (and I heartily recommend it, he's very engaging), you'll find it on YouTube. For links to many more Brahm talks, check out r/thaiforest's Ajahn Brahm Wiki via Reddit.

And yes, they're all that good.


(Photograph of seeker panning out Oz gold courtesy of WikiMedia and the State Library of Victoria.)

Reality Check Kyôsaku

"I do not say there is no Chàn.
Just no teachers."
                            Huangbo










(Photo of Evasterias troschelii [mottled seastar] fry, on the underside of a rock. The orange guy is about 2 inches long.)

Bite Me, Batman!

Candid portrait of my practice: written and recorded teachings;  twine and rings for making fudos;   mat where my bowl rests;  laptop, sole link with the outside.

I'm often questioned about my monastic practice, since I don't wear vestments or live in a monastery. It's a fair question. Here's a fair answer.

Christ and the Buddha defined monastics in astoundingly similar terms: They answer a unique call and walk a personal path. They reject personal ambition, and family and social obligation. Though encouraged to seek each other out for wisdom and solace, they are self-ordained. Neither Jesus nor Gautama recognised any other clerical model.

Such renunciates are called monks, from the morpheme mono-, meaning "single."

Unfortunately, as individuals who follow a personal call and have no use for human authority or the credentials it sells, we quickly fell afoul of power. As a result, The Man redefined the word as "one who lives in a monastery," that is, a "place where people are alone together." (Hey, don't look at me.) Monasteries are owned and operated by The Establishment, which claims sole right to train and ordain residents. Let's be clear: there is no scriptural basis for this presumption, or this practice.

Today, ordained monastics have all but wiped alternatives from memory, so that an old-school monk like me risks being labelled a fraud for claiming the title. But I do anyway.

Later we stick-and-sandal types took the term hermit, by way of clearing up the confusion, but this too has become problematic. For starters, it calls up images of a crotchety old man who hates people and lives in the woods and never bathes. And I'm not that crotchety.

By whatever name, monastics who live by a rule of their own authorship have been around since the first human suspected there was more to life than the opposable thumb. To my certain knowledge, only the Roman Catholic church recognises us officially today. And the Vatican has been under pressure to ordain us ever since, but so far, successive popes have defended the eremitic vocation.

I confess I'm a bit envious of my Catholic brothers and sisters. Thanks to papal protection, there is now a sanctioned hermit movement within the Church that helps to dampen, if not eradicate, the sniping. Most Catholics I meet have still never heard of us, but the ordained monastics have, and that's huge.

Zen, sadly, is another matter. Although one of the most hermit-bound traditions on earth, the current Zen establishment is largely hostile to free-range monks. It's koanic, really: the Buddha was a hermit; Bodhidharma was a hermit; Huineng, father of all extant Zen lineages, was arguably a hermit; Ryōkan, one of our most beloved ancestors, was a hermit; Ikkyū, whose teachings are an essential antidote to Buddhist hypocrisy, was a hermit. But the Asian cultures in which Zen is rooted have a demonstrable contempt for individual initiative, and that has led us into a cul-de-sac of guru-worship. Today, Zen hermits are often accused of imposture and egotism for living the Buddha's own given precepts. The resentment is mutual and conspicuous, particularly in the West, where autocracy is dimly viewed and self-sufficiency a virtue.

For the record, I consider ordained monasticism legitimate, and even necessary. Alright, it's not scriptural. So what? Stuff doesn't have to come from the sutras to be valid. If it weren't for monasteries, what would I study? Most Zen teachings are generated, and all are curated, by ordained monks. The typical hermit has been inside before. I have done, and am likely to do again. The monastery is an important touchstone, and a weighty counterbalance to the hippy-dippy narcissism of hermitry. I shudder to think what we would become without it. Finally, it's an effective, irreplaceable practice for many who are drawn to that path, as synonymous to their lives as mine is to mine.

In sum, if I had a million dollars, I'd give it to a monastery. What the hell is a hermit gonna do with money, anyway?

But when the ordained sangha dismiss us homeless brothers as heretics or wannabes, or insist that our sacred birthright path leads nowhere but astray, then I just have to say it, loud and clear:

"Yo, Batman! You got a problem, you talk it over with the Buddha. I got more important lives to live."