Saturday, November 7, 2009

Excommunicating Brahmavamso

You would have heard by now that the English/Australian monk Ajahan Brahmavamso has been excommunicated by the Ajahn Chah organization and the senior monks of Wat Pah Pong and censured by the Thailand’s monastic hierarchy. I imagine Thai monks and the Thai expatiate community will start distancing themselves from him. The reason for this? No, not because he keeps telling the same jokes in his talks. Rather, it is because he has given ordination to a group of woman. Most better-informed and intelligent Western Buddhists have described this act as ‘courageous’, ‘an historic step’ and ‘laudable’ and I agree completely. However I see the courageousness, the historical significant and the laudability of this ordination somewhat differently. It affirms the Buddhist ideal of gender equality and that is important. It allows women to share with men the benefits (and challenges) of the monastic life, which is only right. But I doubt that simply having properly ordained nuns is thereby going to advance the Dhamma in the West. ‘Proper’, ‘legally valid’ ordination ‘in conformity with Vinaya’ is one thing – genuine renunciation, spiritual commitment, learning, humility, openness, etc, is another thing altogether. None of this is transmitted through a ‘valid’ ordination.
No, to me, Ajahn Brahmavamso's ordination of these woman is significant for other reasons. Without putting a too finer point on it, Theravada Buddhism in its traditional homelands is, for the most part, spiritually moribund, tradition-bound and retrograde. If Western Buddhists continue to conform to Asian traditions, if they keep depending on it, if they consider it the ideal to emulate, if they wait for it to make reforms, they will simply be held back. Sooner or later there has to be a parting of the ways. Ajahn Brahmavamso is certainly not the first Western Buddhist to make a break and whether being now persona non grata with the Thai Sangha will give him the confidence to make other reforms and innovations remains to be seen. But his high profile and the respect he has, may give others the encouragement to begin more robustly evolving a Buddhism relevant to the West.
Nearly ten years ago I wrote of a possible new approach to Buddhism which I called ‘Buddhayana’. Concerning this new Buddhism’s attitude to the ordination of women I said: 'Even when open-minded Theravadins discuss the possibilities of reestablishing the nun’s Sangha the deliberations always seem to revolve around how to reconcile doing this with what the Vinaya says. Such discussions could go on for centuries. Whatever the Buddha said or is supposed to have said, Buddhayanists would believe that it is wrong to exclude woman from the monastic life, that it is inappropriate in the 21st century to require them to always take second place to a male and that it is degrading to treat them as if they had some sort of contagious disease. They would take as their guide on this and several other issues the Kalama Sutta in which the Buddha says: ‘Do not go by tradition…do not go by the sacred text … But when you yourself know that certain things are right, good, skillful and when followed or practiced results in happiness and benefit, then follow them’ (A.I,188). If no other solution to the problem could be found the first women candidates to the monastic Sangha would be ordained by monks and all subsequent ones would receive the double ordination. If these women were not accepted as real nuns by traditional Theravadins they would not lose too much sleep over it. In Buddhayana nuns and lay woman teachers would have respect, recognition and opportunity in accordance with their commitment and achievements, just like anyone else’. The Broken Buddha, p.151.

Friday, November 6, 2009

Grandpa Rampa

I've just finished reading Donald Lopez's Prisoners of Shangri La, an interesting and informative account of Tibet as it exists in the Western imagination. One whole chapter is devoted to Lobsang Rampa; in fact it's the fullest account I have found of old Lobsang's strange life. Now he and I go back a long way. The first book I ever read on Buddhism was John Walters' The Mind Unshaken which I found in our local public library. It appealed to me straight away and when I went back the next week to return the book and get another on the same subject I found only one, The Third Eye by Lobsang Rampa. Wow! What a book! What a story! But as sometimes happens, disillusionment was not long in coming. A second and third Rampa book convinced me that he was a crank and a fraud, and of course I was right. I gave up on Lobsang Rampa and refocused on 'real' Buddhism. But Lobsang Rampa was not just a fraud, he was an amazingly successful one. He made several million dollars from his books and they can still be found in the 'Buddhism' or the 'Spirituality' section of most bookshops even today. Donald Lopez points out that Western adherents of Tibetan Buddhism today, scoff at and deride Lobsang Rampa’s books as inauthentic and fantastic nonsense. But then he makes what I think is a rather interesting point. What fakes like Lobsang Rampa claim about Tibet is bizarre in the extreme. But is it any more bizarre and unbelievable than what some genuine Tibetan monks teach and claim to be able to do? I'm thinking of rimpoches taking rebirth in two or more bodies, state oracles, prophetic visions and dreams, fierce protectors, 'rainbow bodies', miraculous relics, lung-gom, nasty old Dorje Shugden, etc. Interesting point!

Thursday, November 5, 2009

Manasarovra's Legendry Geese

It’s true as the sutras, sastras and kavyas say that Manasarovar is the abode of all kinds of strange and wonderful creatures. We saw hawks, marmots, wild asses, antelope, hares and numerous small mice-like animals that darted into their holes when we came near. True, I didn’t see Kesara lions there, but let’s not be too pedantic. But I did see the hamsa and the cakkavakas which are nearly always mentioned as two of the most beautiful natural adornments of the holy lake. Kalidasa, Bana, Asvaghosa, the Divyadana, etc, all mention these birds living around the lake. The Sanskrit and Pali word hansa is often incorrectly translated as ‘swan’ but swans are not native to India and were unknown to the ancient Indians. The hamsa is the Bar-headed Goose (Anser indicus) and the cakkavaka is the Greylag Goose (Anser anser). I saw both these beautiful birds in the channel that links Raksha Tal to Manasarovar. The cakkavaka got its name from the way the male and females (they are always seen in pairs) call to each other, the male gently honking, the female responding, the male replying, and so on; a circle or ‘wheel’ (cakka) of song. This gentle, musical ‘aang aang aang’ is widely acknowledged to be one of the most enchanting call in the natural world. To both see these birds and here them was absolutely captivating. I’ll never forget it. The other bird, the Bar-headed Goose, sometimes raja hamsa in Pali, is the most celebrated bird in the Tipitaka. In Ganden Monastery I saw a painting of the world as imagined in Indian (Buddhist) cosmology and in the depiction of Manasarovar were geese swimming and diving.The Buddha said that householders are like the peacock in that they are beautifully colored but a clumsy flier while monks and nuns are like the goose, drably colored but able to soar into the sky (Sn.221). Vangisa addressed the Buddha saying: ‘Quickly send forth your melodious voice, Oh Beautiful One. Like geese stretching out their necks, honk gently with your soft sonorous voice’ (Sn.350). Bar-headed geese are often seen in India during the winter, feeding in swamps and fields until mid-March when they fly off to nest in around Manasarovar and other Tibetan lakes. To the Buddha, this migratory behaviour was suggestive of detachment. He said: ‘Mindful people exert themselves. They are not attached to any home. Like geese that fly from their lakes, they leave one abode after another behind.’ (Dhp.91). ‘Geese fly the path to the sun, sages fly by their psychic powers. Having defeated Mara and his army, the wise are led away from the world’ (Dhp.175). Pingiya used the geese’s arrival back in northern India in October as a metaphor for the coming of something wonderful. ‘Just as a bird might leave a small grove to dwell in a forest full of fruit, so do I, having left narrow-minded teachers, come to He of Wide Vision, like a goose arriving at a great lake.’(Sn.1134).

Wednesday, November 4, 2009

Crackdown In Vietnam

A massive crackdown on a group of Buddhist monks and nuns is underway in Vietnam. The targets are members of the Bat Nha community, followers of Zen master and peace activist Thich Nhat Hanh. The public outcry over the event at home and abroad is turning the situation into a headache for Hanoi. But it doesn’t need to be that way.
On Sept. 27, a mob violently evicted 379 monks and nuns from their monastery in the central highlands. Emergency calls for help to police were ignored, according to reports we have received from the monks and nuns and from witnesses at the scene. About 130 monks were attacked, four were sexually harassed, and monastery buildings were ransacked. Several dozen monks were abducted in vehicles; the remainder were force-marched in torrential rain more than 15 kilometers to the nearest town. More than 200 nuns, barricaded in their residence and threatened by the mob, fled the next morning.
Hundreds of monks and nuns regrouped the next day in the small Phuoc Hue temple in Bao Loc town under the shelter of the abbot, Thich Thai Thuan. But policemen from the villages of these monastics tried to disperse the community by forcing the monks and nuns to return to their homes through intimidation, threats and public denunciations. Twenty-seven monks and nuns were forced to return home and many policemen still roam the grounds.
The government denies any involvement and says this episode is only a dispute between two Buddhist factions, but a leaked government document dating from last year from the Committee of Religious Affairs notes that the Bat Nha community has organized activities without permission and expressed opinions on “political matters.” The document suggests the government could eventually “force those who created problems to return to their hometown,” which is what the government is trying to do now. The “political matters” could mean the Venerable Nhat Hanh’s comments on Hanoi’s religious policies; Hanoi also could fear his popular influence among the intellectuals and youth of Vietnam. Since its founding in 2005, Bat Nha has grown from a small community of only a few monks in the state-sanctioned Buddhist church into a monastery housing hundreds of Ven. Nhat Hanh’s followers. The young monks and nuns, between the ages of 15 and 25, come from all sectors of Vietnamese society. Each month, hundreds and occasionally thousands of Vietnamese flock to Bat Nha for special events and meditation retreats.
Ven. Nhat Hanh’s 2005 return from a 39-year exile was one of many important steps Vietnam took toward freedom of religion and a more open society. This helped to pave the way for Vietnam’s removal from the U.S. State Department’s list of Countries of Particular Concern for violations of religious freedom, and for Vietnam’s accession to the World Trade Organization in 2007. The crackdown at Bat Nha calls into question those earlier achievements.
Meanwhile, the repression is inspiring ordinary Vietnamese citizens to protest. In a country where voicing criticism of the government can mean imprisonment, more than 400 intellectuals, scientists, Communist Party members and ordinary citizens, of whom 200 are inside Vietnam, signed an open letter drafted by writer Hoang Hung on Oct. 5, saying the events at Bat Nha and continued harassment of the monastics are an “urgent situation which threatens the country both domestically and internationally.” They called on the government to take action to investigate the attack and ensure the well-being of these young monks and nuns.
The government of Vietnam now must respond. Will it disband a peaceful Buddhist organization, or move to fully protect religious freedom as required by international covenants and treaties to which Vietnam is a party, such as the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and as Vietnamese citizens demand? Vietnam is currently serving as president of the U.N. Security Council and chair of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations in 2010. There is no better time to show the world its leadership on these important issues of human rights.
The monks and nuns still wish to return home to Bat Nha monastery. If this is not possible, the government, through its established Buddhist church, could at least reaffirm the monks’ and nuns’ legal right to practice together as a religious community at another location. These young monks and nuns want nothing more than to serve their country and humanity and are fine examples of the true beauty and determined spirit of the Vietnamese people.
We call on Hanoi to act now to safeguard the Bat Nha monastics’ well-being and provide legal rights for all Buddhists in Vietnam to worship without restrictions. Such actions can show that economic progress can go hand in hand with spiritual growth and can only increase Vietnam’s standing in the world, and that Hanoi’s fear and suspicion of these young monastics are unfounded.
By Thich Chan Phap Dung. From the Internet.

Tuesday, November 3, 2009

Manasarovar

It is called Anotatta in Pali, Anavatapta or Manasa in Sanskrit and is known today as Manasarovar. According to the Vinaya, the Buddha used his psychic powers to go to Manasarovar to bathe just after his enlightenment (Vin.I,28) and the Anguttara Nikaya says it is one of the last bodies of water to dry up before everything is incinerated at the and of the world (A.IV,101). Pali commentarial literature and Sanskrit literature (Buddhist, Hindu and Jain) say that the four great rivers of India, the Indus, Sutlej, Brahmaputra and Karnali (a major tributary of the Ganges) flow out of the lake. In actual fact, all have their source in the Manasarovar area but not in the lake itself. All Indian traditions hold the lake sacred. The Milindapanha says that just as the water of Manasarovar does not turn back on flowing to the sea, neither does the Bodhisattva turn back from his resolve to become a Samasambuddha rather than a Cakkavatti (Mil.286-7). The Paramatthajotika says that the lake’s water is always cool (absolutely freezing would be more correct, I fact I can testify to) because it is unaffected by the sun (Pmj.407).
My main goal in going to Tibet was to do the Mt. Kailash parikarma and to bathe in Lake Manasarovar. We got to Barga after a long, exhausting and dusty trip of nearly 1000 k from Lhasa and headed straight for Chiu. To see the turquoise-blue waters of the holy lake for the first time as we approached was the thrill of a lifetime. Mt. Kailash’s dazzling-while peak loomed over the horizon behind us and Gurla Mandhata stood sentinel over the far shore of the lake. The undulating plain around us was covered with dry yellow-brown grass and moss making it look like a vast cloth-of-gold, and there was not a cloud in the sky. It is the most pure landscape I have ever seen – silent, spacious and still. We got a room near Chiu Monastery, had something to eat and then drove a few kilometers further on. I went to the shore of the lake and made several important aspirations and vows. Then I did radiated metta to all beings in the world, the oppressed and their oppressors, the virtuous and the bad, those who live by Dhamma and those who do not. I contemplated all those who have ever harmed me and sincerely forgave them. Then I stripped to the bare minimum waded out from the shore and plunged into the crystal clear, icy water. I waded back to the shore to warm up a bit and then plunged in for a second and later for a third time. I felt absolutely wonderful; almost as if I was new, as if cleansed of everything unwanted. With my teeth chattering I them sat in the sun for a while, meditating and slowly warming up.
Later we drove to Rakshasa Tal and while my companions went down to the shore, I stood on the rise some distance away. What an absolute joy it was to see Nanda Devi reaching up into the blue sky and looking as if she was only 20 or 30 kilometers away. In 2006 I had trekked to the foot of this beautiful mountain * and now I could see her from the other side and almost reach over and touch her. A week later on our way back from Toling and Tsaparang, we stopped at Manasarovar again. During our absence it had snowed and we found ourselves in an amazing monotone world – an utterly blue lake and sky and a pure white landscape. The temperature had dropped dramatically and the snow was crisp and sparkling in the bright sunlight. Seeing wild ass (Equus kiang) and the Tibetan antelope (Pantholops hodgsonii) galloping through the snow was another thrill for me. I got up before sunrise to meditate at the edge of Manasarovar but it was just too cold. So I stood listening to the silence and watching the sky gradually fill with light until the sun peeped over the horizon. It was a truly memorable three days.

Still the best book on both Mt. Kailash and Lake Manasarovar is Swami Pranavananda’s Kailash Manasarovar (1949, reprinted 1983). This devote swami visited both places over 20 times. His book is a very readable combination of traditional devotion and scientific curiousity. I read it again before setting off and have gone through it again since coming back in order to know what the mountain and the lake was like and what it is like now.

* Have a look at photos of my previous Himalayan journeys at my posts of August 27th 2008.

Monday, November 2, 2009

A Lovely Anthem

Did you know that Tibet’s national anthem is the only such song from any Buddhist country that mentions the Buddha? The old Laotian national anthem had a reference to ‘protecting the religion of our forefathers’ but there words were deleted after the communists took over in 1975. In 1949 the present Tibetan national anthem, called Gyallu, replaced the earlier one composed in 1745. Incidentally, it’s also the only national anthem you can be executed for singing within the country for which it was composed. Despite this it’s a rather lovely song. You can listen to it and read the lyrics at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ASevhpzcYHE

Sunday, November 1, 2009

Our Tibet Trip

In September/October I and three friends, Cittalaya, Jason and Havai, went to Tibet with the intention of doing the padakshina around Mt Kailash. It was a real adventure – which is another way of saying it was a bloody disaster while remaining positive. No, I’m just joking. For me and I think for my three companions it was the trip of a lifetime. With one exception we did and saw everything we had planned too, we has no accidents or serious illnesses, no delays and everything went smoothly – and I assure you, Tibet is not an easy place to travel in. Much of the success of the trip was due to the company we went with, Eco Trek of Kathmandu. Bimal Naharki organized our trip exactly as we wanted it, skillfully overcame some problems we were confronted with concerning visas, and got us there and back in one piece. After hearing several horror stories of people cheated or left in the lurch by Nepalese tour companies we were very reluctant to leave from Kathmandu. If you are going to Tibet through Nepal I can heartily recommend Eco Trek. They are at info@ecotrek.com.np or info@kailashtour.com
In the coming month I am going to focus on Tibet in my posts and will include my experiences in and impressions of that beautiful land. To start off here are some random images of it.