—Gampopa

It seems to me that in looking at how to structure an American Buddhist “clergy,” the particular tradition in which one is working needs to interact with a functional analysis, and that the result will be very different depending on the character of the tradition.  By “functional analysis,” I mean both looking at the culture in which one will be “clerging,” and also looking at who one’s “flock” is likely to be and what they are interested in and capable of achieving within the tradition’s range of possibilities.  In looking at different Buddhist traditions, one thing that seems to vary a huge amount is how much stuff—in terms of doctrinal knowledge, experience and personal “realization”—it is necessary to learn and integrate in order to function at the level of “clergy” in the places from which the traditions have come.  In that respect, categories like “monk” and “householder” can be a little misleading, and can imply a similarity among different traditions and context that might not really be accurate.

Looking especially at the Tibetan traditions as they operate in America, it often seems as if “monk” is more a matter of dress code and hair style than a substantial limitation of conduct.  On the other hand, “lama” frequently has a more rigidly defined meaning.  Mostly, one has to successfully complete a three-year retreat to the satisfaction of the retreat master, although occasionally someone is publicly recognized as such by an especially respected teacher and accepted by the teacher’s community.  Except for displaced Tibetans, though, the position of “monk” as resident of a monastic institution without having to pay rent is practically nonexistent.

A lot of things that the Western lamas are expected to do don’t require a three-year retreat.  They give public talks and write pieces introducing Buddhism to people who don’t know much about it, they often give teachings on the exoteric intellectual framerwork of Buddhism, they do “pastoral counseling,” and they serve as community leaders.  But some of the things they are expected to do really do require a three-year retreat.  They teach practitioners advanced meditation techniques and help those practitioners get past obstacles and wrong turns, which means that they need to have gotten far enough with those techniques themselves so that they know what they’re talking about and can earn credibility with the practitioners.  That means that they have to have had certain experiences and signs of attainment that are fairly well-defined in the traditions, and that experienced teachers can recognize with a high degree of reliability.  I’ve met enough Western retreat graduates to be convinced that the traditional process works very well in this regard.

So, I think that Tibetan traditions in America could probably do without an emphasis on the monk-householder distinction, but not without the standards and training system for producing lamas.  Since the latter seems to be a functional requirement, it makes a lot of sense to organize the larger community around supporting and preserving it.  That also means that “clergy” in a Tibetan Buddhist context is probably going to be an uncomfortable fit with the potential to mislead as often as it explains, because the word comes out of a context that has widely different expectations of the kinds of activities and qualifications it covers, whereas “lama” is very clear and well-understood.  Whether this kind of thing applies to other Buddhist traditions I don’t know.

I do think, though, that Tibetan Buddhism in the West has created a niche for scholars that is new.  Traditionally, the scholars are khenpos and geshes, and they are also practitioners and lamas.  Traditionally, they start preparing for this when they are 8 or 10 years old, too, which is not practical in the West, and indeed, might be considered child abuse under some circumstances.  But lots of Ph.D. scholars in the West are active in practitioner communities, are able to provide many of the same services as khenpos and geshes to practitioners, and are recognized by the lineage hierarchies as occupying special and respected positions.  Some of this is because of the continuing need for translators, and some is because a lot of the important ideas are highly complex and difficult to understand without years of study.  This kind of thing is certainly a role of “service,” but not really something that falls under “clergy.”  Having downed a fair amount of cabernet with some of these folks, I think that’s probably all for the best, too, because these are not always people you would want to go to for help fixing your marriage or curing alcoholism, say.

I tend to agree that the “Dharma Franchise” is not an especially functional model.  Quite often, it tends to be a handle for ego, which undercuts what Buddhism is all about.  It also gets annoying and depressing when a scene seems to center more around fundraising than practice, as it does when a community gets tied up with building elaborate, traditional-type structures.  At least within the Tibetan tradition, this can be as much a shortcoming of the Tibetan teachers as their Western students, since they don’t seem to be emphasizing the models in their traditional system of self-supporting (not to say non-supporting) practitioners.  This is an area in which it wouldn’t be a bad thing for more Westerners to push back.

I’m still undecided on the whole matter of “socially-engaged” Buddhism.  On one hand, I’m not convinced by the rejection of social activism as entirely an ego-based distraction; the reason there are so many good teachers here is that Western political philosophy has created a much better environment for practice here than currently exists in, say, Tibet and China.  But on the other hand, the most useful thing to do in Buddhism is meditate a lot, and American Buddhists seem to spend a lot of time and effort looking for something—anything—to do besides meditate.  I wouldn’t much like the idea of a “Liberation Buddhism,” for example.  Among other things, accomplishing things politically most often means putting together enough power on one side to force one’s way of doing something on people on the other side who don’t want to do things that way, and that’s a pretty karma-creating activity.

So, I’m for taking a lot of care in trying to craft modern “clergy” roles, to insure that the substance that caused us to choose Buddhism over Unitarianism, for example, is preserved.  But we are reasonably good at functional analysis in the West, and we shouldn’t be afraid to do something we’re good at.

W.B.

I have been pondering what it means to be Buddhist clergy in America and the 21st century lately.

My orientation in this sense is in the non-monastic traditions of clergy. These are largely derived from the Buddhist traditions of Japan but are also present in the Tibetan traditions. Japanese ordination is not derived from the Vinaya, the traditional monastic vows that date from the Buddha’s own life and followers. For a variety of reasons, some of which were clearly political, Saicho, who founded the Tendai school in Japan, promulgated an ordination system that was based on the Bodhisattva Vows and that considered the Vinaya to be “Hinayana” vows. Because of this, the “monks” that one meets from the Japanese traditions are, from the point of view of other Buddhist traditions, not monks at all. In those traditions, monks are Bhiksus (or Bhiksunis if nuns) and that requires that one has received the Vinaya and held to its vows appropriately. This is why a number of Buddhist groups derived from Japan call their clergy “priests” rather than “monks” in an attempt to reduce confusion. In Tibet and the Tibetan disapora, the monastic tradition is intact but there is a long tradition, especially with the Nyingma sect, of family lineages of dedicated practitioners. These practitioners are often trained in monastic schools and are even monks for a while but return their vows and function as dedicated householders with wives and children. The chances are that if you have met many Nyingma lamas in the West, at least a few of them have not been monks. In spite of this, they are clearly still clergy.

In my life, I am clearly a householder. I have a full-time job (thank you, Mozilla!), a wife, and a daughter from my previous marriage. I am also some sort of academic (quality to be debated) looking at studying to receive a PhD focusing on Buddhist religion, especially Japanese esoteric Buddhism and its rituals. I am also a seminarian, as discussed in my post the other day, through the Five Mountain Order. As a seminarian and a practitioner within our school, it is likely that I will be ordained at some point. That is part of the point of a seminary, after all. What does ordination mean here in America in this current time, especially since I won’t be a monastic in the very longstanding Buddhist model? This is the question that I’ve been returning to, off and on, over the last couple of years.

As former Neopagan, this has come up in other contexts before as well. In the past, I’ve functioned as lay clergy and done so in order to serve others. This was the context of my volunteer work at a state prison in Washington state for the pagan inmates incarcerated there. It was also part of my work in smaller, more intimate, circles of people in the past within the pagan community. While I do expect to work with inmates again, in a Buddhist context this time, I’m not much of a minister as people in the West think of their reverend types. Some people in my position, including priests within the Five Mountain Order, seek advanced psychological degrees in order to help other people with their pain and difficulties in this life. I’ve seen this with clergy of other traditions as well. It has become clear at various points that, at least in this time of my life, I’m really not called to that sort of work nor would I likely be very good at it. At the root, I’m not really a “people person” that would be energized or fulfilled by that sort of work. This would make the result of my attempting to do so unlikely to be extremely beneficial to others and akin to smashing a square peg into a round hole. My calling, in some sense, has also been much more on the scholastic end of things. I started down this path because of my own unease with life and questioning of the meaning of things. I study and practice, on one level, to address this. Over time, the Mahayana goal of helping others became clear to me as defining this study and practice but, at the end of the day, I need to practice and study for a variety of reasons.

One of the questions is: if you aren’t going to follow a very Western Christian pastoral model of clergy and you aren’t working within the context of established Buddhism, as in Japan or elsewhere, what is the role for clergy here? We do not live in a Buddhist nation that will support monasticism easily. This is part of why I think that the Japanese model of householder clergy (which is also, in many ways, the Protestant model) will be the strongest here in America. It is very hard to be a Vinaya holding monk in the West, as conversations with those who have previously been such or current are has shown. Our culture simply does not support people who are not self-supporting to a great degree.

For some clergy, their path is obviously a role of service through counseling and other therapeutic work to directly relieve the suffering of others. This also provides a career that is self-supporting and clearly follows right livelihood. What is the role of the scholar who is clergy? Is it simply to be a secular professor in the possibly diminishing Humanities in the University system? It has to be more than the simple translation of Buddhist texts. We have had decades of that, giving us the important Buddhist texts in English, and their are scholars (Buddhist and secular) who are gifted in languages and have dedicated their lives to this task. On a purely practical sense, I expect that if I achieve my doctorate, I’m likely to work in academia (if I can find a job). I’m going into the doctorate without a real plan on how I will shift careers at the end of it. I finally embraced the ambiguities of this because I decided that not following this path was intolerable and something that I would regret in later years.

I do not see the role of ordained clergy to be the setting up of a “Dharma Franchise” of creating their own temple, gathering students, etc. etc. This clearly works in some circumstances where there is need but in many places, such as here in the Bay Area, there is no lack of existing temples, churches, Dharma centers, or whatever you want to call them. Is there really a need for another? Even if there is, setting such things up as a financially self-sustaining enterprise is difficult and often distracting task.

It seems to me that there is some sort of role to be played by Buddhist clergy in society outside of pastoral work or the running of temples. How that will work in practice is something that Buddhist clergy will need to explore over the next few generations. I really am not sure how it will play out. I think this is part of what has driven some of the “Engaged Buddhist” groups that have intermixed their practice with social causes but I am not sure that getting involved in politics in that manner is really an example of skillful means. There is a reason that Buddhists are generally admonished to stay out of politics and worldly affairs. It is quite easy to slip down the slope into compromising ourselves or Buddhist principles by playing politics with causes.

In any case, I would appreciate any thoughts that people might have on this issue. I have no answers, obviously, just the questions that have been occurring to me.

Does the post have a Buddha nature?