OneSangha

Here is a timely article (PDF). I think (hope) it is the trend……

http://www.urbandharma.org/pdf/BDSpring10Unaffiliated.pdf

Chana

Whenever there is an organization, there will be folks who want to destroy it. Just human nature, I suppose. There are all sorts of imagined evils and some real ones, from time to time. I don’t understand it really. If someone doesn’t want to practice in an organized, traditional group, they are free not to practice with them. Unfortunately, it usually turns into “I think (hope) it is the trend……”

Hi Keith,
you say “Whenever there is an organization, there will be folks who want to destroy it.”
Of course this is not true. Many people enjoy the organizations and institutions they are involved in. I find that that they can be stifling, self-limiting, and even repressive. Especially religious institutions. They limit one’s choices, and activities usually. They guide groups of people rather than responding intimately by a case to case basis. This is not always true, but the bigger the institution the more true this becomes. Presently there is a trend to learn on ones’ own in America. I do not think this trend is going to diminish. For those that are involved in a group or sect/school of religious belief, it would wisest to not try to “sell” their beliefs to others, it will simply push them away. It is fine that one is involved in a group/institution and practices ritual. Unfortunately for them, their membership will begin to diminish and they will be left only with true-believers, who are usually fairly narrow minded about their practice and beliefs. Usually people who need these religious institutions are at a phase in their awakening process that needs support from other people of like mind. The Buddha said he gave teachings for this phase of worshipers. Here is a part of a Sutra that explains the levels of teaching and understanding.
The Buddha’s use of upaya-kosalla is illustrated in the Upali Sutta:
“Then the Blessed One gave the householder Upali the gradual Teaching starting with giving gifts, becoming virtuous, about the heavenly states, the dangers of sensuality, the vileness of defiling things, and benefits of giving up. Then the Blessed One knew that the mind of the householder Upali was ready, malleable, free of hindrances, lofty and pleased and the Blessed One gave the special message of the Enlightened Ones: Unpleasantness, its arising, its cessation and the path to the cessation of unpleasantness. Like a pure, clean cloth would take a dye evenly. In that same manner, the dustless, stainless eye of the Teaching arose to the householder Upali, seated there itself. Whatever rises has the nature of ceasing. The householder Upali, then and there mastered that Teaching, knew and penetrated it. Doubts dispelled become self confident attained that state where he did not want a teacher, any more, in the Dispensation of the Blessed One. He said.‘Venerable sir, we will go now, there is much work to be done.’‘Househoder, do as you think it fit.’”

Chana

Hi Channa,

You wrote: “I find that that they can be stifling, self-limiting, and even repressive. Especially religious institutions. They limit one’s choices, and activities usually. They guide groups of people rather than responding intimately by a case to case basis. This is not always true, but the bigger the institution the more true this becomes. Presently there is a trend to learn on ones’ own in America. I do not think this trend is going to diminish. For those that are involved in a group or sect/school of religious belief, it would wisest to not try to “sell” their beliefs to others, it will simply push them away. It is fine that one is involved in a group/institution and practices ritual. Unfortunately for them, their membership will begin to diminish and they will be left only with true-believers, who are usually fairly narrow minded about their practice and beliefs. Usually people who need these religious institutions are at a phase in their awakening process that needs support from other people of like mind. The Buddha said he gave teachings for this phase of worshipers. Here is a part of a Sutra that explains the levels of teaching and understanding.”

I don’t know what to say…the words above reflect exactly my point. They are all just incorrect generalizations and negative stereotyping and really just reflect a profound misunderstanding of the Dharma. Of course, that is just my opinion, feel free to ignore it.

Keith

Hi Al,
I have been in many religious groups. I do not think i am biased. I think i am being realistic. And as I posted there is some benefit to being involved in religious institutions, as the Buddha said. Wondering about where Buddhism would be without the myriads of sects/schools of Buddhism, is entirely speculative, they have been, they are now, and they will continue in the future. Just the way it really is.
you ask “Do you really think that religious institutions all devolve to negative control mechanisms and group think?” It is like all phenomena. It has its’ beginning, its middle ( or fixed phase of identity ), and then it dissolves. All phenomena does this. I think we are entering the dissolving phase of relying on Asiatic teachings, and teachers. It has been 100 years of Buddhism coming to America. There is no need to be copying what they brought here. If you can not tell others in plain English what your practice is, then I think one is stuck. For me practice is very simple, and it never stops. It is not just meditating. As soon as we come to grips with taking responsibility for our lives and can practice 24/7 then we can be active in creating a living Sangha that is involved with not living the “American Dream”. Most people who claim to be practicing Buddhism, think that they are referring to meditating or being loyal to their religious institution. They have not experienced their own mind as of yet. This going to kill Buddhism in America. A bunch of people going around expressing that they know what Buddhism is, and yet having no experience of realizing their own mind. That is why i think these institutions and organizations are repressing actual Buddhist understanding. As you said in your last post Buddhism is about awakening. Can i ask you what that means to you? Does it mean that you are now assured that you are on a proper path? That you are supported by others who are still searching for their own mind? Remember the Buddha left everything behind, family and possessions, and I think this is necessary to realize your own mind and awaken as you say. Have you done this? Or are you mixed in with a lot of people who are just compromising…thus living a life of spiritual materialism?
If one is truly seeking they will find, and the teacher will appear. There is no need to get with a group of half hearted Buddhist wanna-bees. They will only support a type of spiritual materialism, and repress your inner drive to know your own mind. Only you can find out what is your way. Relying on someone else to tell you is bound to fail.
If you have needed teachers to tell you what to do, and learned more from that, than learning by yourself, you are faking your Buddhist understanding. The teachers at your organization are complacent and are probably not awake themselves. I would leave that place and begin to seek earnestly on your own. If you are constantly looking for guidance then that is what you will get, not awakening.
It doesn’t matter if you are a westerner or European or whatever. You have to clearly want enlightenment more than anything else. If you do, then you will find the right path for you. If you just want a social group to hang out with, you could join the YMCA and get as much benefit from it.

[I started writing this yesterday, but I haven't had time - and have had, perhaps, too many words - and the conversation got ahead of me. Still, I am stubbornly posting it here now.]

I liked the article and its generally welcoming tone. But I feel like the comments here are wandering a bit into an unnecessary dichotomy.

I know a lot of people have out of, or been exposed to, environments in which there is a clergy laiety separation in which there is a small group of people granted some kind of spiritual authority, who are often typified as being the ones who take an active role of spiritual work, and take charge, and a larger group of people who are mostly passive and receive direction. (The actual situations are generally more complex.)

From what I’ve seen – and my exposure certainly is limited to a few groups – this doesn’t have all that much to do with Chan / Zen*. Your own practice is paramount. It is going to be paramount whether you practice with other people as well or not. So yes, you should be a light unto yourself. Absolutely. I don’t think you’d get much out of being totally passive.

Should you avoid practicing with others? Avoid joining groups? I think that’s a far more individual question. There is room, I’m pretty sure there always has been room, for people to practice on their own. And some people thrive in that environment. (And some people do poorly in any other environment.)

I think there is a lot to be said for community as well. I came of age in the neopagan community, which is a community, or overlapping set of communities, I still have a great deal of fondness for. In those communities, people practicing alone or in small groups without any formal training and with only the barest modicum of organization was the norm. There are definitely people doing very good work there… and at the same time, the frequent aimlessness and lack of rigorous practice really wore on me. (I’m sure my general enthusiasm for spending a lot of time in meditation and then heading out into the woods wore on people too.)

I didn’t come to Chan for discipline (I am halfway tempted to drop a note to the members of my order asking if they prefer I be more disciplined, or maybe mellow out a little…hm.) I came for the community of people who had worked with similar issues. After spending several years pretty cheerfully writing, doing a lot of Taiji and working with my direct master in that setting, and otherwise mostly being on my own, it was an incredible relief to find a group of people who were working with very similar issues in a very similar way… and had an institutional history full of heuristics and useful techniques going back thousands of years. Some things you have to work out on your own, I think – but trying to work everything out on your own is really hard. I found a Sangha long before I was ready to think of myself as Buddhist. It’s kind of amazed me that it’s all worked so well – I rather figured that I was crochety and set in my ways enough that I was pretty much done with groups, however much I’d valued the experiences I’d gotten from them.

Am I saying that I’ve luckily stumbled into an unusual paragon of a Buddhist organization? Well, I did wonder… but the more I meet people from other parts of the larger community, I’m rather thinking not. We’re unusual, maybe, but not particularly paragons! Am I saying that there aren’t any interpersonal conflicts or weird group politics? Again, they do exist. Some people feel really strongly about them. I’ve gotten caught up in a couple, too.

But while there are groups that are certainly difficult environments, and especially difficult places for some people at a certain time in their lives, I think it can be far too easy to blame a group for the problems a person has with a group. I think most of us have more capacity to take what we can use and shrug off the rest when it comes to such groups than we use. I can’t count the number of times that someone has told me, about some context in which I was involved, that they couldn’t handle it because of politics, interpersonal conflicts, power dynamics, or whatever… while I found most of such things fairly ignorable. Was the problem the group, or the sensitivities of the person?

I’m not claiming any perfection here. Actually, let me give an example of my own ineptitude: There’s one guy in our order who often strikes me as striking a pretty authoritarian note. He’s higher ranked than I am… but practically speaking this doesn’t mean anything other than that I ought to treat him with respect, and since I think I ought to be treating everyone with respect this is pretty much a non issue. The last couple of times I’ve dealt with this individual, and he’s done things that I perceived – note that this is only my perception – as a little arrogant, I found myself wondering if he was insecure and whether he had the skills and experience to fill the role he was trying to fill.

Here’s the thing. Some of this guy’s areas of study are things I am also interested in, and there is absolutely no doubt in my mind that I could learn a lot from him. Really, the rational, useful thing to do would be to ignore the parts of his presentation that I don’t like, and learn from him what I can. If, instead, every time he does some minor thing that grates on me, I’m going off and getting wrapped up in my own fantasies about what he thinks he’s doing and is trying to do, I’m disengaging from the real things he can teach me, so I’m both irritating myself and depriving myself. That’s just dumb.

Even if everything I’ve occasionally wondered he might be thinking is true – who cares? He could decide he was, as my preschool students once put it, the boss of me… but he has no power to compell me other that the social obligation I might feel to treat him decently. So I’m *trying* to have some self awareness here, but it’s still sometimes work.

* I use the term Chan preferentially because I speak Chinese and belong to an order with recent origins in China. It’s probably fair to treat it as a personal eccentricity.

Hi Catherine,
You sound like a very sincere person, and a true seeker of truth. you said in your post….”I’m not claiming any perfection here. Actually, let me give an example of my own ineptitude: There’s one guy in our order who often strikes me as striking a pretty authoritarian note. He’s higher ranked than I am… but practically speaking this doesn’t mean anything other than that I ought to treat him with respect, and since I think I ought to be treating everyone with respect this is pretty much a non issue. The last couple of times I’ve dealt with this individual, and he’s done things that I perceived – note that this is only my perception – as a little arrogant, I found myself wondering if he was insecure and whether he had the skills and experience to fill the role he was trying to fill.”
What is this “higher rank” business. There is no such thing, and if your religious order has ranks then it is not following Buddhist principles. Next time this person pulls or acts with superiority with you, call him on it. Ask him what is doing. What gives him the right to speak and act the way he does. Maybe he truly is trying to bring you to your own enlightenment, but this hazy kind of ranking and hierarchy and lineage, and levels is only the samurai Zen of Japan. Zen was dying in Japan in the 50′s so they came over here and started the temples which have now turned into pop zen centers. A lot them are just as corrupt as the one’s in Japan. Read the history of Soto Zen in Japan and you will understand. Buddhism is about waking up to your original nature, which is empty, and unborn. You are already enlightened, it is only that you let doubt and other discouraging thoughts and emotions take over , and then the ego gets going, and off-balance we go. Chan has its’ roots in Taoism. Non-action being a major way to know the Tao. It is acting a part like an actor that we fall into the different realms…animal, hungry ghost, and even the hell realm.
Confront anyone you feel like, there is no one judging you, and that is the way you self-initiate. No one can do it for you.

Chana

Chana, it seems you’re practicing something different than everyone else here. Maybe you say it is real Buddhism or maybe you call it something else. In any case, I do not feel you are in a position to tell anyone with any authority that what they are doing is not Buddhist or Buddhism.

You said “No one is a “Buddhist” but I am very much a Buddhist. How do you deal with that contradiction in a *useful* manner without simply informing me that I am wrong or the like?

You also said “Don’t give up so easily, this is a forum, and you need to defend your religious belief.”

No, I don’t. No one here needs to defend anything. This is a polite conversation. As the administrator of the site, I’ll remind you to keep it that way as well. If you can’t, well, there are other places you can go to tell people what they are or are not.