Bhante Dogen

Uposatha Dhamma

2010-04-28T06:44:00.003+06:30

By bhikkhucintita

Uposatha, a Pali word, is often translated as “Sabbath.” In Buddhist lands this traditionally follows the phases of the moon such that every time the moon is either full, empty (new), or half way in between (first or last quarter) we get an uposatha day. That is pretty cool in itself, but wait til you hear what Uposatha days are for! Anyway, they are generally seven days apart but sometimes six or eight.

Uposatha days are normally in Asia times for special Buddhist observances. Lay people will often spend the day at a monastery communing with monks or nuns, meditating, chanting,generally listening to a Dharma talk, offering to the Buddha or to the Sangha, and will also take eight or so monastic-style precepts for the day. Monks and nuns recite the Patimokkha every other Uposatha day, on full and new moon days, the hundreds of rules that they follow every day. This is pretty cool, but wait til you hear what you get to do on Uposatha days! Anyway, in Burma Uposatha days are like weekends; people do not have to go to work so that they are free for Buddhist observances. (more)

Moving Bhante Dogen to New Web Site

2010-04-19T05:47:00.003+06:30

There are 27 subscribers to the Bhante Dogen blog that I set up prior to my travel to Myanmar. I would like to move this blog to my new Web site called Through the Looking Glass. I invite you to subscribe to the blog located there; just look for "blog" in the directory at the right side of any page. I have imported my previous Bhante Dogen blog entries to the new location. I hope that the new blog becomes more interactive, now that I can actually see posted comments (the government in Myanmar blocks access to blogger.com, so I was posting blind by email when I was there).

Announcing New Web Site

2010-04-15T23:40:00.002+06:30

I would like to officially announce my New Web Site as a home for various essays, some of which are reworked from postings from Burma to the present blog. It will also provide space for discussion and its own blog. Some of you have probably visited an earlier version of the site.

Please note that this site is still under construction. I hope to add a substantial number of essays now in progress by the end of 2010. Please subscribe to the blog to receive announcements about new additions as they happen.

The central theme of this site is the birth of Buddhism in America. I am an American monk and a self-appointed midwife in the birthing process. Karl Marx was once asked what the role revolutionary was, given his view of the inevitability of future social history. He explained that it is that of a midwife: the birth is inevitable, but it is good to have a midwife to make sure things go smoothly. I don’t know how positively Marx would value the birth of Buddhism in a Western land, but the analogy is apt in the present context. We are still engaged in the birthing process, I am as thrilled as any to be a part of this historical event, but I often fear the birth is not going smoothly. We certainly want to see a happy, healthy bouncing baby, and not to end up with one that is deformed, crippled or traumatized. I hope the essays you will find here will contribute in some small way to ensuring that the birth proceeds smoothly.

Let me explain what I have in mind. I have organized the essays into the following sections, each with a specific function that I will state here:

Monastic Life. I place this before the next, introductory, section in order to stress its critical importance, rarely appreciated on this side of the Pacific. The future of the monastic Sangha will be the key determinant of the future of Buddhism in America. It is similar in importance to getting the head properly positioned in the birthing process; once the head goes through, everything else generally proceeds generally without much problem.

Buddhism in America. These essays assess and advise the process of giving birth to Buddhism in America. The challenge is to retain the integrity of the Buddha’s project while adapting it and making it relevant to the American cultural context. An important part of this is to save Buddhism from the American propensity for tinkering.

Topics in the Dharma. These essays take up various aspect of Buddhist philosophy and practice. I see my role here as that of an interpreter, as that of making understandable and relevant to the Westerner teachings that evolved in quite foreign environments in the context of unfamiliar word views. Often this involves a new spin on traditional teachings.

Life in the Dusty World. This serves as a counterpart to the first section, that on Monastic Life. It is for the vast numbers of Buddha’s disciples who will bring their practice and the values they represent to bear on the mundane everyday world. My hope is that profundity of Buddhist teachings and practice have a strong and lasting transformative impact for the benefit of the broader American society.

Venerable Cintita. I have deliberately tried to assume a very personal perspective in these pages, a perspective already natural to the blog which I established for friends and relatives before my year of living adventurously in Burma and which is the precursor for these pages. Even as a monastic seeks solitude, his or her life becomes public and even as a monastic trains in no-self he or she serves as an example, hopefully an inspiration, to others. That is why we are required to distinguish ourselves with our fluffy robes and bald heads. This section is largely biographical, and also provides a point of contact for the projects and activities I invite others to participate in.

Still in Minnesota

2010-04-14T02:49:00.003+06:30

I may be in Minnesota until June! Recall that in the last episode I left Austin 13 days after returning from Burma in order to fill in for the resident monk, Ashin Nayaka, at the Burmese temple in Maplewood, MN. I would stay here about one month until Ashin Mahasadda Pandita Sayadaw of Baltimore, a senior monk, could replace me after his trip to Europe. Unfortunately the latter has suffered a stroke before leaving to Europe. So I have agreed to remain here as long as I am needed.

Ashin Ariyadamma, the abbot of the Sitagu Buddhist Vihara in Austin, is here for a week. He came up in order to ordain a young Burmese man as a monk. The picture I've attached is from the ordination. An ordination requires five monks; the three monks in the foreground are from the local Karen monastery. Punnananda, as the new monk is called, has ordained for a one week. Temporary ordination is very common in Burma and Thailand.

For those of you in Austin, on Saturday, April 17, and interview with me is supposed to appear in the Austin American Statesman. Eileen Flynn conducted the interview during my short 13 days in Austin.

Cintita's Ordination, March 10, 2009.

2010-03-27T06:26:00.001+06:30

Burmese Government

2010-03-27T05:22:00.001+06:30

When Myanmar makes the international news it almost invariably is in the context of government oppression. In September, 2007, it was the Saffron Revolution, the brutally suppressed monks' uprising. This last year it was the implications of John Yettaw's intrusion into Aung San Suu Kyi's house arrest. While I was in Myanmar I followed a deliberate decision to be mum about political affairs, including discussion in this blog in order not to get anyone in trouble. Email is undoubtedly monitored by the government. Now that I am back, let me report what I observed.

Before going to Myanmar I informed myself of the political situation in Myanmar, about the nearly 50-year-old military dictatorship, about the landslide victory of the opposition in the 1990 election, the results of which the regime simply ignored, about the courage of Aung San Suu Kyi, daughter of the “George Washington” of Burma and leader of the opposition, about the huge network of government-employed spies reporting conversations of common citizens, about the continual insurrection in the ethnic states. I had expectations before I arrived in Myanmar of endless identity checks in which passports, visas and other personal documents are scrutinized with gestapo-like attention, of huge posters proclaiming the merits of government policy. What I found was quite different.

The government is not as ubiquitous as I anticipated, in fact it keeps a very low profile. There are no posters praising the governments ideology or accomplishments, I think because it has neither. The military is rather reclusive and has simply given up trying to sell itself to the people. You see some soldiers and police in uniform in Yangon, hardly any in upper Burma, that is, in Mandalay or Sagaing..

In many ways security, for instance, at the airport, is rather haphazard. When our pilgrimage group entered the country at the Yangon airport. I expected an ordeal as we moved with the other disembarking passengers toward customs with luggage bloated with many things we were conveying to Myanmar on behalf of friends and associates. To my surprise a little man in what I would later recognize as traditional Burmese (civilian) garb waved us to the side where we passed through a gate and bypassed customs with our copious luggage altogether. Most of the time I was in Myanmar I did not have a passport in hand, because I was waiting for months for each of two visa extensions. But that is OK, a xerox of your passport including your last now expired visa was all the documentation anyone ever required at a checkpoint, and usually that was not checked. To make sure, a letter from a well-known Buddhist sayadaw seemed to bestow permission to do whatever it is one is doing.

Another way in which the government is almost completely invisible is in the scarcity of social services. I never heard the siren of an ambulance, of a fire truck or of a police car. I never saw anyone stopped by a policeman for a traffic violation; drivers seem to follow the honor system, which they seemed to do honorably, as far as I could see. I don't know how a crime would be reported or investigated. I never saw a traffic accident, but I would imagine that people would put the injured in taxis or horse carriages then look, perhaps in vain, for a doctor or a health clinic. The government schools to the extent they exist at all are reportedly very bad and many children have no opportunity for education. It seems monasteries provide most of the education in Myanmar, but cannot keep up with the need. There are private schools for those with resources. Health care is very sparse, with many infections diseases in circulation, such as malaria and typhoid. The government is simply out to lunch, a neocon's dream.

The government's and military's relationship to Buddhism is particularly interesting. The Saffron Revolution gave the impression of a government at war with the Buddhists. In fact the generals are themselves Buddhists for the most part. Monks are actually treated with quite a lot of respect at military check-points. When a bus passes through such, generally everyone must get off the bus and pass single-file through a gate and show their identification. The exception is the monks, who are allowed to remain on the bus; an officer will come into the bus to inspect their papers, and actually often neglects to even do this. On a couple of occasions some of us were riding in a car that was clearly marked as belonging to the famous Sitagu monastic organization and we were just waived through. When visiting Buddhist sites sometimes pictures will be on display of very pious-looking military officers in full uniform from previous visits, often sitting on the floor at the feet of some sayadaw.

At the same time there is a pervasive sense of fear and anger toward the government. The fear is reflected in how rarely anyone mentions the government or politics at all, the anger in how caustic their comments are when they do. Having heard that the government employs many people to spy on their associates, even monks, I never tried to encourage people to speak about politics. When they did it was always when they were among family members or alone with me; I don't suppose I fit anyone's profile as a government spy. Burmese are an astoundingly even-tempered people, but they seem to be incapable of mentioning the government without turning red in the face. An elderly man once implored me to do whatever I can to get the United States to intervene on behalf of the Burmese people, and entertained the hope of some great Asian war spilling over onto Burmese territory and removing the existing government. Another woman who I had encountered frequently who knew almost no English told me in plain English, “They are killers.” Her brother in law, who I also knew, had been arrested for political activities and had spend 3 ½ years in jail. The most common complaint about the government was that it just does not care about the people. I began to imagine the government as something like a dangerous snake living in the sofa, something that could be very quiet for long periods of time, then suddenly strike when you least expect it. The abruptness of government actions applies not only to physical violence, such as the violence against monks in 2007, but to many changes in policy over the years, for instance, making it illegal to teach English at one point, since reversed, declaring all currency in certain denominations void, making all new currency in denominations divisible by 9 for numerological reasons, and most recently building a new showcase capital city, Naypyidaw, in a remote area at enormous expense.

Much of the international criticism of the Myanmar government concerns the conduct of wars against the ethnic states of Myanmar, about which people in the ethnically Burmese areas of Myanmar have little direct experience. Our mostly American pilgrimage group was once refused permission to continue in the direction we were traveling by car at a military check-point because we were venturing too close to an area of insurrection. Here in Minnesota there is a large ethnic Karen population, and I have had the opportunity to talk with some of them about their experiences.. The Karen State is the area of greatest insurrection at present. The tactics of the Burmese military remind me of those of the American military in the Vietnam war, including destruction of villages and crops and indiscriminant laying of landmines, forcing villagers to flee into the forest or across the border into Thailand. Karens, as citizens of Myanmar, are permitted to travel in Myanmar, but if they are stopped at a military checkpoint even in the middle of the country, many are routinely drafted into the army on the spot. The villagers are often used to perform labor for the army without pay.

So, what is the government for? Outside of the “Unity of the Union of Myanmar,” it seems never to try to justify its existence. In fact, it is a kind of mafia, with no goal beyond personal enrichment of an elite group of military officers. These officers extract money from the general economy through taxation, through tolls and fees and through other means. They then involve themselves in a variety of business deals and enterprises, including opium production, but also running hotels, an airline and other businesses in competition with the general economy. And often they give generously to Buddhist causes or start new projects. Like the mafia, the government uses various methods of coercion to give their enterprises an edge. Rumors abound. For instance, there have been a series of arson in Yangon of marketplaces which everyone seems to know are perpetrated by the government in order to clear land for some enterprise, I never understood what kind. Apparently at the most recent, the government fire department showed up (as I say, I never saw evidence that there was such a thing), proceeded to stand by, then when people tried to douse the fire themselves turned their fire hoses on the people to prevent this. Ironically they seem to use such heavy-handed tactics in gaining merit through the Dhamma. I heard of one incident in which some generals founded a Buddhist university then hired (apparently no one dares refuse a job offer from the government) the principle staff from an existing non-government Buddhist university.

Minnesota Monk

2010-03-21T08:16:00.004+06:30

I have been asked to fill in at the Sitagu Dhamma Vihara in St. Paul, Minnesota for a month, and flew up here on Thursday.

The monastery here plays a very active role in the life of the Burmese community. Frankly I'm surprised there are any Burmese in Minnesota at all; it's gets so cold. Generally only has one monk, Ashin Nayaka, a young guy. He is going to India for two months to finish his Ph.D. Normally a very senior monk, Ashin Mahasaddhapandita Sayadaw, based in Florida would fill in, but he has a trip to Europe planned. So they asked me to pop up here for one month; I guess they were desperate.

My main duty is to receive food offerings. As luck would have it, eating is something I've always been good at. However I need to chant certain things and offer short Dharma talks, as well as make myself useful in many practical ways. There is a rather steep learning curve, so my stay is overlapping with the departing Ashin Nayaka, so he can show me the ropes; he leaves on Tuesday.

I've met most of the families who are active here. There is almost no Western representation here, just Burmese, and one other woman who I saw once. I am going to visit other Buddhist temples and maybe make some Western contacts. I will also continue writing.

The picture I've included has nothing to do with Minnesota, except to remind me of how warm weather feels. It was taken February 28. I think we have the look for a great punk rock band. We just need a name. Any ideas? The nice thing is that we don't actually need to learn to play instruments: We're monks and are not supposed to play music.

I think I'm back in the USA

2010-03-06T21:04:00.001+06:30

Evidence that I Am. I distinctly remember being on three different airplanes and in four different airports. I remember seeing my luggage in progressive stages of decay, at departure, at customs and on arrival. I even remember the plot of an in-flight movie, "2012." I look out the window and see the shrubby grey and brown of Texas foliage in contrast to the soft round green of the Burmese. This Internet connection is blazingly fast.

Evidence that I Am Not. Everyone around me speaks and looks Burmese. I feel like a minority of One. The food monks receive is Burmese. There are monks. I still receive mail at the address I set up in Myanmar, bhikkhu.cintita@gmail.com.

Those who have followed this blog religiously will know where I am. Others should come visit me anyway (see sitagu.org), ... if you are in or near Austin, Texas.

Hanging out with Bhikkhus (and Bhikkhunis)

2010-02-07T06:05:00.000+06:30

An important aspect of the Buddhist tradition is the intercourse between monastics and lay people, which is a powerful devotional and ritualized practice that might be compared to a dance between lay and monastic partners. In the West it is hard to appreciate that this has been a cornerstone of Buddhist practice for 2600 years because, well, we just have't had enough monastics to illustrate it. I'm doing my part to change that. Now, you can do your part!

I would like to provide the following link for those who would like to learn more about the tradition of lay-monastic intercourse. This is by of inviting you to join me and others in enacting what we can of this after I am back in Austin. It is a wonderful practice opportunity, and very beautiful as I see enacted here in Burma.

"Discipline and Conventions of Theravada Buddhist Renunciate Communities"
http://www.buddhanet.net/budsas/ebud/ebdha116.htm

This is a very accessible and short presentation on this topic. Much of what it says about "Theravada" conventions carry over to Mahayana, and in fact can be recognized in Japanese Zen.

For those who like to get the full story:

"The Bhikkhus' Rules: A Guide for Laypeople"
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/authors/ariyesako/layguide.html

Postcard from Burma

2010-01-31T18:26:00.000+06:30

CINTITA BACK IN THE STATES

I will return to the USA in one month, leaving Yangon, Myanmar on March 2 and arriving in Austin March 3 at 11:35am. This time my flight will be through Taipei, rather than through Moscow. I will arrive on AA 1182 from Los Angeles.

I am looking forward to being home among my own people, and of course seeing friends and family, and bringing a little bit more Buddhism to America, which suffers so much. At the same time I know I will miss Burma, which has quite captivated me.

Though traveling half way around the work I will still be living at a Sitagu center, the Sitagu Buddhist Vihara, which you can visit at http://www.sitagu.org/home/, or come out and visit me!

The Third Refuge

2010-01-29T15:20:00.001+06:30

All Buddhists know the Three Refuges, which are... (All Together!), "Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha." These are said to be the elements of Faith (saddha) in Buddhism.

Many Western Buddhists do not like the word "Faith" when applied to Buddhism, because they think of blind faith, the requirement that you believe a bunch of stuff for irrational or unscientific reasons, and prefer the word "Confidence." Myself, I prefer "Faith" because "Confidence" seems far too rational for what is meant. One way I like to think of Faith is as follows: There is always a gap between what we know and what we need to know. We know really very little, but we function in a very complex world in which we must make constant decisions often of critical importance, and therefore we need to know a lot. Faith is that which bridges the gap between what we know and what we need to know. Faith is not entirely rational, otherwise it would be in the domain of what we know. Yet it would be irrational to be without it, otherwise we would be frozen in a state of inactivity. But in Buddhism Faith is never meant to be blind, the Buddhist is always encouraged to investigate the basis of Faith, to move it toward Confidence, toward the rational or the known.

Another way to look at Faith is as a home, a place of calm abiding, where you are not engaged in constant struggle with the elements, where you can let down your guard. This is the same Faith, but with emphasis on the mental quality of Faith, the peace that comes with decisiveness, of letting go of nagging uncertainty. The word "Refuge" captures this aspect of Faith. As Thich Nhat Hanh wrote, "I have arrived, I am home." The Pali word for Faith, "saddha," actually comes from a verbal root that means, "put the heart on."

So, the three elements of Faith in Buddhism are, the Buddha, the enlightened teacher; the Dharma, what the Buddha taught, or the Truth that became clear to the Buddha; and the Sangha. The Sangha is the most misunderstood of these in the West, and I have to say I have come to understand it much differently in Asia. In fact here I get to BE the Third Refuge. It is quite remarkable experience to be right at the heart of the Faith of others, to experience it from the inside.

The misunderstanding of the Refuge of Sangha in the West begins with the notion that Sangha is the or a community of undifferentiated Buddhists, for instance, that the members of Austin Zen Center or the Dharma Punx are a Sangha. The Sangha is in fact the community of monks and nuns as distinguished from lay people. This is how the Buddha most consistently used the term. It also makes sense in terms of the Refuges, since the Buddha, before his death, refused to appoint a successor, did not want Buddhism to have a Pope, but rather made the community of monks and nuns the caretakers of the Dharma. This community is more than a group of people who live according to certain standards, it is a group organized by a system of governance, a concensus democracy. Its responsibilities are laid out in the Vinaya. It is said that as long as the Sangha lives and practices in harmony the Dharma will flourish. So, the Buddha gave the Sangha the central role in preserving and propagating Buddhism.

(As an amateur historian, I've been trying to track down at what point the word "Sangha" took on its more inclusive meaning. I thought, maybe in the Mahayana rather that the Theravada, maybe in China, maybe in Japan, which until recently has been the primary source of Western Buddhism, or maybe someone just made it up in the West. It seems the last is the case. In China, for instance, the Sangha is understood to mean the community of monastics. I wrote Prof. John McRae, a Buddhist scholar now living in Japan whether the Japanese use "Sangha" in an inclusive way. He said, No, they don't use the word except to refer to monks and nuns., and concluded, "... the western usage of 'sangha' to include ordained and lay practitioners/believers is unusual, or idiosyncratic." If anyone has any idea of where the more inclusive usage originated, please let me know. Its use in the West is understandable: The virtual absence of a monastic community in Western Buddhism has made the term an orphan looking for a referent. Unfortunately assigning it one has led to a possibly perpetual misunderstanding of the very important Third Refuge.)

Now great abiding Faith lends itself to physical expression, to bodily enactment, perhaps most commonly as caring for or relating to, in various ways, the objects of faith. This is a mysterious quirk of human psychology. Of the Three Refuges, the Sangha is the one that is most physically present. In Myanmar, wherever you go, you can see it walking around, often with alms bowl, often on some other errand. The Buddha died years ago, so the best we can do is show reverence either to relics of the Buddha, or more often perhaps, purported relics of the Buddha, or to an image of the Buddha. These objects of reverence receive much care, and are often provided with flowers and even food offerings. But although this provides means of enacting one's Faith physically, it is still pretend; the Buddha statue is just stone or plaster; the Buddha is not actually there, and people know that. The Dharma is more difficult, though the faithful try. Traditionally Buddhist texts are treated with reverence in the various branches of Buddhism. In Zen or Theravada, for instance, one should not place a chant book or other scripture directly on the floor, or throw it in the garbage when it is worn out. Nichirin Buddhism actually makes a a particular scripture the primary object of reverence, the Lotus Sutra. It is interesting to observe that in early Buddhism there were no depictions of the Buddha for many centuries, nor were there physical Buddhist texts since these were memorized. Yet the bodily expression is a means of strengthening Faith, the Buddha recognized as powerfully nourishing for his disciples. The Sangha, on the other hand, has been continually physically present throughout the history of Buddhism in every land in Asia to which Buddhism has spread.

I've never been in a country as thoroughly religious as Burma, and sure enough, every means of physical expression of Faith in the Three Refuges is utilized. Buddha statues are ubiquitous, and every Buddhist home has an rather elaborate altar, generally part of the architecture of the building, to which offerings are made daily. Reverence to Dharma, the Second Refuge, remains the most difficult to enact physically, though many short texts are memorized by many laypeople in Pali, here thought to be the original language of the Buddha. And in me personally, as well as in each of 499,999 other monks, people see a object available for expressing reverence in the Third Refuge, the Sangha.

The Third Refuge is enacted in bows, sometimes placing palm to palm as a monk walks by, or should one spot a sufficiently stationary monk, performing a full bow with forehead to the floor or ground. It is enacted by feeding monks, giving them alms on their daily rounds, or attending to other needs they might have, whether it is a glass of water or a new robe. It is enacted by sitting on the floor at the feet of monks. It is enacted simply by gravitating toward monks, by trying to be in the presence of monks. It is enacted by the language used when talking with monks, not only vocative forms of respect, but even a specialized vocabulary for referring to the acts of eating and drinking by a monk. I've described my experience of my treatment as a monk variously in this blog, as being like that of a movie star or of an animal in the zoo, the latter since so much ado is made about feeding monks and watching them eat. Of course monks individually can be like the Buddha statue, mere stone or plaster. There is something pretend about the behavior of monks. No one really thinks, except in some very rare cases, that these are being of superhuman qualities. Everyone has a nephew or an uncle who is a monk and so knows better. Many lay men have been monks in their younger days. In fact another way that a woman can care for a monk is not to sit or stand too close, acknowledging the fragility with which the monk maintains his vows. So, it's pretend, but it is still as meaningful or more so to the laity as making offerings to a plaster Buddha.

The experience of being the object of reverence can go in different directions. I imagine that for some it goes to the monk's head, makes them feel like they personal are someone special. But that is hopefully offset by the practice of living as a monk, which is to live with almost no personal footprint, to enact throughout one's day the state of being a no-Self. Perhaps the respect shown monks is even a lifeline to monks who would otherwise float away into Emptiness. Besides, Burmese are such a humble people, it is hard for this to be an issue here. The other direction comes with the realization that it is the Sangha, not the individual monk, that is the object of Refuge. This Sangha has existed continuously since the days of the Buddha, has carried Buddhism into new lands, has memorized the scriptures, studied and and practiced and taught the Dharma and preserved the integrity of Buddhism century after century, and occasionally even gave rise to an Enlightened being. That is as an individual a lot to live up to.

What is most moving about being the Third Refuge is it places me right inside the enormous Faith of the Buddhist laity. Ever wonder what it would feel like to be a Buddha statue? It feels like being in a bowl of split pea soup. I can feel the calm abiding in the Third Refuge. People sit at the feet of monks, or give them a tube of toothpaste. Even though it's pretend, they are utterly at peace. It is quite a joy for them, which makes it quite a joy for me.

Bhikkhu Cintita Dinsmore
Sitagu International Buddhist Academy, Myanmar
Blog: http://www.bhantedogen.blogspot.com

Postcard from Burma: Alms Rounds

2010-01-12T21:00:00.001+06:30

I have settled into life here in Yangon, Pali lessons with Bhante
Pannyasiha, morning and evening walks in the neighborhood and the dogs
that greet me, the wonderful two meals each day at the Sitagu
Missionary Center, my afternoon classes on English pronunciation,
study, reading, getting attacked by mosquitoes. With only 7 weeks left
in Myanmar and with in-room wireless access (as I say, this is a
5-star monastery), I find myself increasingly drawn through the Web
and toward what is happening in the States, enjoying insights from
Noam Chomsky on the state of American politics and reports from Eileen
Flynn's blog on religion in Austin and beyond. Of course I pop in
regularly to the site I once created at austinzencenter.org to watch
its continuing unfolding.

I have been going on alms round with Bhante Pannyasiha three mornings
a week, on the days I do not teach, that is, on Friday, Saturday and
Sunday. I am finding this not only a very valuable experience, that
will be difficult to duplicate in the USA, but also very enjoyable. We
follow the same route each day, in formal robes, that is, configured
to cover both shoulders, bowls carried with two hands in front, straps
slung under our robes over our right shoulders, walking barefoot,
silently and mindfully, me as the junior monk behind U Pannya (agewise
he's about 25 years my junior), generally visiting the same families
each time (a new family asked to be added to our route a couple of
days ago). Generally we receive a scoop of rice and some curry at each
house. The monks here bring in their bowls various small metal
containers for receiving small portions of curry. In some stricter
traditions everything would just get mixed up together in the same
bowl.

Alms round gives me a better opportunity to see how people live.
People are generally poor by any American standard. Houses are for the
most part leaky shacks with plank walls, almost on top of each other,
small alleys in between, electricity but no other amenities. But I
don't get the sense that most people think of themselves as poor or
deprived; they live with a sense of dignity. And every act of
generosity toward monks reminds them that they have wealth to share.

Generally we are invited into homes where there is conversation and
where Bhante Pannya answers Dhamma questions. Chairs are provided for
the two monks, while the lay people sit on the floor where they
perform three full bows before and after, sometimes to each of us,
sometimes to the two of us together. A young woman who would be a nun
except for her obligation to care for her mother always has a burning
question and many follow-up questions. All who are listening hold
their hands in anjali the whole time. Women traditionally place a
shawl over their right shoulders while talking to monks. Men do not do
this.

Because I know so little Burmese I cannot report much of the
conversations. However, more people speak some English here in Yangon
than in Sagaing. Yangon was part of the British empire for a much
longer period, and it also is much more cosmopolitan; it's a big city.
Also U Pannya interprets for me. Naturally people are very curious
about me, an ungainly American monk. The most common question they
have for me is, Are you a temporary monk or a lifelong monk? In
Thailand and in Burma a man will often ordain for one or two years for
the experience, then return to lay life, or even ordain for one or two
weeks for the photo ops. My answer is, Lifelong. The second most
common is, Why did you become a monk? On one occasion I was informed
that a daughter of one of the lay families, generally away at school,
would be there to meet me the following Sunday because she wanted to
(1) practice her English and (2) ask this last question.

I came to Buddhism mid-life. I did not have a religious upbringing,
and conducted my life largely according to common wisdom, or rather
common lack-thereof. My life had its ups and downs but would be
regarded as fairly successful, but never satisfactory. Armed only with
a meditation practice, and some limited observations about what didn't
seem to work in life (abundant money, for instance), happiness and
harmlessness always eluded me. I began looking within religious
traditions for a Handbook of Life, a source of wisdon, advice on what
my life should be. I always knew I must have come with an instruction
manual, but my parents must have lost it at some point. I found that
Handbook in Buddhism.

About 12 years ago Buddhism had became the main focus of my life, 9
years ago I retired from my professional life to live in a monastery
(Tassajara), 7 years ago I ordained as a Zen priest where I lived and
served at the Austin Zen Center for 6 years. The utter simplicity of
the monastic life draws many to Japanese Zen. I discovered though that
much of what is still remembered of this wonderful tradition was
largely lost before it reached American shores, tragically due to
political interference, and that I could not find the support for my
monastic aspirations within most of its current Zen schools (I don't
want to discourage others from finding a home in what has become a
beautiful and very powerful laicized practice tradition in the USA)
and decided to reordain where the full monastic tradition as defined
by the Buddha remains intact. This did not have to be Theravada, but
given my connections it turned out to be so.

So, why did I become a monk? First, so that life would not be a
problem for myself or for the many others whom my misguided actions
would otherwise harm. Second, so that I could bring the fruits of life
and practice to my people: America is spiritually crippled; its people
by and large are lack inner fortitude, they live desperately, often in
the midst of wealth and splendor, encountering the world with fear all
the while seeking any bit of personal advantage that might make it all
right. I believe Buddhism will be a positive force in America's
future; the people of Myanmar have much to teach us. But history shows
Buddhism never exists long or healthily, and never ever enters new
lands, apart from its Sangha, its third Jewell, the monastic community
. I want to dedicate myself, on behalf of Buddhism in the West, to the
development of an American community of nuns and monks, and what
better way ... than to be one!

The alms round was for the Buddha a key feature of the monastic life.
The Buddha has a lot to say about alms rounds in the Vinaya. It was
not simply a way to feed the monks and nuns; it had a much greater
role to play in realigning the values of both monastic and lay. Even
when food was close at hand, the alms round was not to be disregarded.
When the Buddha returned to visit his princely home after his
alms-financed Enlightenment, he continued his alms rounds in the
streets of Kapilavastu much to the distress of his aristocratic
father. He criticized one of his disciples, an arahat who could
meditate for seven days at a stretch without food, for neglecting his
daily alms rounds. He did not permit monastics to grow, cook or even
store food, but to eat what was duly offered from a lay hand on a
daily basis. The monastics were not allowed endear themselves to the
lay in the hopes of gain, or actually even to ask for anything
directly except in an emergency. Traditionally monastics don't express
thanks for gifts received and receive without establishing eye
contact.

The result is an absolute and vulnerable state of dependence on the
laity. Why? Humility is certainly a part of it. The lay folks have the
key to the car and the nuns and monks don't go anywhere without them.
Accepting the generosity of the lay graciously, having no resources at
all of one's own, even one's robes, that are not donated, puts the
monastic in an uncommon frame of reference, but also does the same for
the lay donor. Remarkably, every time the monastic accepts the lay
donor receives a gift. This is paradoxical, but believe me, you see
the sugar plums dancing in their eyes. The relationship is unlike what
one finds in conventional human intercourse, one's values are
reoriented. This is the economy of gifts that provides the context of
the most fundamental Buddhist value-practice, dana.

Postcard from Burma

2009-12-28T21:37:00.001+06:30

Postcard from Burma

On December 23 I left Sagaing and took the overnight bus to Yangon. I
will live in Yangon for the next two months, until I return to Texas.
Sitagu Sayadaw, my preceptor, had made arrangements for me to study
with Ashin Pannyasiha, a teacher at the Sitagu International Buddhist
Missionary Center. Here is a picture of the center:
http://atbu.org/node/54 with a short article.

By the way, it is not the case that the various Sitagu centers are
named after Sitagu Sayadaw, rather it is the other way around. Sitagu
Sayadaw's name is actually Dr. Ashin Nyanissara. Some time ago he
became the abbot of the Sitagu monastery in Sagaing Hills, so he is
called Sitagu Sayadaw, distinguished teacher of Sitagu. Similarly Pa
Auk Sayadaw acquired this name when he became the abbot of the
existing Pa Auk Forest Monastery where I lived March - June. From the
original Sitagu monastery grew the Sitagu Academy, established on the
other, western, side of Sagaing Hill, the Yangon center, Austin's
Sitagu Buddhist Vihara, and some other centers. The original Sitagu
monastery is under direction of a new abbot, who I don't think uses
the name Sitagu Sayadaw; at the Academy we always called the original
Sitagu East. It is quite a beautiful monastery overlooking the
Irrawaddy River, and mostly trains young novice monks.

I had known U Pannyasiha earlier in my trip; he traveled a bit with
the pilgrimage group last February. He is 36 years old, ordained at
20, and lived in Nashville, TN for 1 1/2 years. He is known as a good
teacher, and is a serious, smart, dedicated and enthusiastic monk, who
smiles a lot. Also his English is excellent. His name is cool, it
means Lion (siha) of Wisdom (pannya)."

U Pannya goes regularly for alms rounds. Most of the monks I have hung
out with are student and teacher monks, often known as pariyatti monks
or village (as opposed to forest) monks. Their lifestyle is often a
bit less traditional than the patipatti or meditating monks. At the
Sitagu Academy and at the Yangon center, as at many large monasteries
of both kinds, you only have to find your way to the dining hall for a
food offering. Many large monasteries, like Pa Auk Tawya (forest
tradition), keep the form of the alms round: you stand in line with
your alms bowl, robe covering both shoulders, and people drop food
into your bowl but it's all done in one spot. At Sitagu we do not use
the traditional alms bowl at all; food is formally offered by monks
and lay people lifting a table together on which food has been placed.
U Pannya eats breakfast and lunch at Sitagu each day, but goes on alms
round at 9am, then brings the food back to contribute to the Sitagu
kitchen or to other monasteries. He does this because this is what the
Buddha wanted monks and nuns to do; the point of alms round is not
just to feed the monks and nuns, it is also to bring them into contact
with the lay people so that the latter will have the opportunity to
learn Dhamma from the former, and otherwise benefit.

Anyway, U Pannya asked me if I would like to go with him on alms
rounds while I am living in Yangon, and I immediately said, "Yup." So
we went out for the first time this morning, single file, silently,
mindfully, alms bowls slung over our shoulders held in front but
concealed under our robes. He always follows the same route, visiting
the same families. He says in Yangon you have to learn the families
that give to monks and nuns; in Sagaing it's much easier: everyone
does. With U Pannya the process is more intimate than I understand it
normally to be; he knows the families well and likes to teach Dhamma
if they have questions. At every house we enter and sit down, and
someone brings generally rice and curry. Everyone does bows to the
monks, of course. Apparently other monks keep a lot of little
containers for curry in their bowls. I did not have any so people kept
donating them to me. We were offered tea and coffee at one house, to
drink there. Everyone was curious about me; I heard U Pannya say,
"Ameyika' pongyi," American monk, at each house. Sometimes he
explained my relationship to the Sitagu center in Austin. People asked
me, through U Pannya's able interpretation, "Are you a temporary or a
permanent monk?" "Can you speak any Burmese?" ("Bama zaga ma pyo da;
pu," the one thing I know how to say well) "Is your family Buddhist?"
"Are your children now Buddhist?" "Why did you become a monk?" and of
course, "How old are you?" All of these families are very poor, very
devout and very happy in their generosity. Most of the families have
cats, sometimes several, living inside. One family had two pet
rabbits, a white one and a brown one named Obama.

The Sitagu center is a 5-star monastery. It serves as a school and as
a transit center, given its location in the hub of international
travel. The rooms are very Western. The food is outstanding. The
reason is that many families make meal donations to the monastery. I
think it works like this: Donating a meal to a monastery, for all of
the monks or nuns, is a common practice, especially for the
well-to-do. Yangon has 4 million people, so a lot of such donations
must be made like this in the city each day. In a list of the many
monasteries in Yangon, "Sitagu" jumps out, because of the fame of our
Sayadaw. When they make a donation to the Sitagu center, they probably
have a cost in mind, but generally discover, if there is no great
event bringing transit travelers through, that there are only about
six monks to feed. Therefore, they can afford to donate something
really good, and do so multiple times. Anyway, we eat to square meals
a day here, both before noon.

Bhikkhu Cintita

Photos

2009-12-26T20:24:00.001+06:30

I haven't had many photos to show you. However, when someone inquired I found this site on the Web. There are some very good shots. Click on "Sagaing" for the area I have spent the most time. You probably won't find me in any of these photos, but let me know if you do.

http://www.myanmars.net/myanmar-photo/

--
Bhikkhu Cintita Dinsmore
Sitagu International Buddhist Academy, Myanmar
Blog: http://www.bhantedogen.blogspot.com

Postcard from Burma

2009-12-20T14:56:00.001+06:30

Postcard from Burma

Dog Update. Tiny Tim, the scrawny lame puppy I've been feeding, is still holding in there. He is not growing as fast as his siblings, but his lameness is gone. I was worried for a couple of days when there was no sign of him, but only of his two siblings.

Village Trip. Last week I was invited by one of the teacher monks, Ashin Issariya, to visit his home town. His teacher, 80, had just received a major recognition by the government and a major festival was organized to welcome their favorite son home. We had a car and a driver provided by U Issariya's donor, which plowed through the pigs, bicycles toting housewares and building supplies, dogs,ox carts and women carrying precariously balanced things on their heads. We visited U Issariya's family, ate with the monks at the monastery where U Issariya had once practiced, and slept at a pagoda nearby. The monastery has maybe 200 monks. The pagoda has little built-in outdoor meditation niches, each with a little altar, and a lot of space for walking meditation, in a beautiful area with many trees. We had a lot of time to kill overnight and U Issariya was catching up on things with two sisters, one of whom is a nun, who also stayed at the pagoda. So I meditated very happily for about two and a half hours in the evening then for another two and a half hours in the morning. The festival was at the monastery and was a huge affair, with live music, booths where food and toys were sold, and a lot of chit-chat. And of course a religious observance and words from the senior monks.

I witnessed my first altercation since arriving in Myanmar: I was standing on a second-story balcony of the monastery building watching families arrive and situate themselves in front of the outdoor stage. Someone had marked out a checkerboard pattern with chalk, each square labeled, and families arrived to claim their squares. Each family laid out a grass mat that was too big for their square, but they overlapped them and that was fine. On either side families had set up wooden platforms, about the same size as the squares, which would raise the family up about two feet. These platforms are ubiquitous in Myanmar, used where we use picnic tables. Their main function, I suppose, is protection from snakes, but at the festival they could afford a view over the heads of those sitting on the ground. The altercation concerned two of these platforms. Apparently the previous day one family had set up their platform, then left, then a second family arrived and set up their platform in front of the other family's platform. The day of the festival the first family arrived again first, and the father was furious. He took his platform apart, shoved the offending platform into the place his platform had occupied and reconstructed his platform in the place the other platform had occupied. In the middle of this the other family arrived, and now the father in that family was furious. Both of them began yelling at each other and each armed himself with a 6' slat from his respective platform, ready for battle. Each was immediately engulfed by a wave of bystanders, led by the respective wife, to restrain the father's unskillful intentions. This incident surprised me, because Myanmarians are so invariably even-tempered. What's more, this happened at a Buddhist monastery!

One other thing was unusual at this monastery: almost all the monks smoke. I had noticed that at Sitagu U Issariya is about the only monk who smokes. Actually not many people at all seem to smoke in Myanmar. At U Issariya's home monastery, not only do the monks smoke, but lay people make offerings to the monks of cigarettes after meals. It makes me wonder if there are designating smoking monasteries in Myanmar; when somebody wants to ordain, they are asked, "Smoking or Non-Smoking?"

Goodbye to Sagaing. I'll be leaving Sagaing, and the Sitagu Academy, in a couple of days to study in Yangon for a couple of months. I will be studying with Ashin PannyaSiha (Lion of Wisdom), whom I know and who has lived in the USA. My intention was to return to Sagaing for Sayadaw's birthday, February 27, which is a huge event, but word is out that it will not be in Sagaing this year, but in Sayadaw's hometown, near Yangon. So I may not return to Sagaing at all. I'll fly from Yangon to Austin starting on March 2.

Picky Eaters in the Land of the Fork.

2009-12-05T20:05:00.001+06:30

Picky Eaters in the Land of the Fork.

The reception committee of the Springdale Buddhist Center and Ping
Pong Club held a lavish banquette for its Buddhist members, and
offered the Whole Buddhist Fare, from Embodiment to Realization. To
their great dismay, no one seemed to eat much. The committee (Bob,
Carol and Skipper) realized some adaptation of the Buddhist Fare
might be necessary for the next year's banquette. However, they soon
discovered that most guests who were failing to eat well, were doing
so for what they felt were all the wrong reasons. "Is this what is to
shape the future of Western Buddhism?" they thought collectively.
Anecdotally they identified the following feeding patterns:

Some guests are simply uninformed about food. Some people, Bob
observed, would not eat things simply because they do not know what
they are. They might have thought that a bagel was a napkin ring, or
that a clear soup was for washing one's fingers. Or, having
identified something as actual food, they might not have known the
correct manner of eating it, so they didn't. They could have asked but
most of the people around them didn't seem to know either. Or they
would mistake the foods available for foods that they don't like, for
instance burritos for egg-rolls or meat pie for something sweeter.

Some guests are happy with bread and butter. Some people, Carol
noticed, will not eat things because they are afraid they will not
like some things, or they might upset their stomachs. Fish eggs or
lychees, or octopus make them cringe. These people simply don't
understand why people want to eat unusual things in the first place,
and so they themselves end up eating rolls, cold cuts, and cole slaw,
because these are safe, and they feel comfortable with this as long as
they cover all of the basic food groups.

Some guests have already eaten. One or two people, as Skipper
identified, will not intend to stay long, but will maybe take a slice
of tiramisu or something particularly exotic or appealing. They often
share the recollection of their experience with friends the following
day.

Some guests seem more analytical than daring in their approach to
eating. These people, Carol explained, are always quite informed of
recent incidences of salmonella poisoning, tainted shellfish,
misidentified mushrooms, typhoid. They know all about trichinosis,
cancer, and how all of these relate to the food we eat. They also
carefully calculate calories; fat, protein and carbohydrate levels;
the amounts they are getting of each vitamin and mineral. They eye
unidentified foods with great suspicion. All of these are terribly
skinny.

Some guests can only stay long enough to grab something to eat in the
Porsche. Bob observed that some people always partake of something
like a sandwich or couple of egg rolls because they have to rush to
put in some overtime at work, or they are on their way to the opera,
or to a lecture on the situation in Myanmar. They have also generally
just came from a workout at the gym, which they already had to shorten
at the other end to meet with their interior decorator or stock
broker. And even in the buffet line they talk on their cell phones.
These are busy people, people with life-styles.

And, of course, some guests try everything. Skipper pointed out, there
are still rare individuals who come with big appetites, know their
foods, have let go of all destructive preconceptions and are curious
and daring about the what they've been invited to enjoy, capable of
savoring the sublime and valuing the simple. Furthermore these people
generally give themselves ample time to spend enjoying food and
company. "They have a fork and they know how to use it," added Carol.

The following year the reception committee of the Springdale Buddhist
Center and Ping Pong Club met to consider again holding a Second
Annual Buddhist Banquette. The main question brought to the floor was,
What To Offer, and there were different opinions about this.

At one extreme was Bob's suggestion. Bob was rather upset at what he
interpreted as a lack of gratitude or respect shown by the guests the
previous year, in picking at the food the way they did. Bob's proposal
was to offer the Whole Buddhist Fare, from Embodiment to Realization,
exactly as they had done last year. However, this time there would be
some changes: Before the banquette they would send out abundant
information on the various foods, along with detailed descriptions of
how to eat lobster and some of the more difficult dishes, with
photographs and diagrams. Guests would be asked to arrive by 5:00 pm,
after which the doors would be locked from the outside and not
reopened until all the food was eaten. Also pocket calculators,
cell-phones and other electronic gear would be collected at the door.

At the other extreme was Carol's suggestion. The other two members of
the committee could not determine if Carol was more forgiving than Bob
or not. Her proposal was to offer spaghetti, marshmallow salad and
dinner rolls. And beer. "The greatest common denominator," she called
it.

Like the lavish banquette, Buddhism is an array of various dishes.
These include meditation practice, on and off the cushion; bringing
mindfulness and awareness into everyday situations; cultivating
skillful mental factors, such as loving-kindness, and minimizing
unskillful, like envy; studying the teachings and commentaries;
attending Dharma talks and classes; cultivating penetrating insight
into the nature of reality; practicing generosity and renunciation;
taking refuges; following Precepts; ordaining as a monk or nun;
seeking the company of the wise and avoiding the company of the
foolish; paying homage; chanting or reciting; attending ceremonies and
observing special days of practice; and so on.

Now, in Buddhism these many elements are integrated into a working
whole, like the parts underneath the hood of your car. Let's take an
example and follow some of the interworkings: Buddhism values
selflessness as a skillful attribute. Selflessness is difficult to
learn and train in, and must be conveyed, supported and encouraged at
many levels. Buddhism gives us the philosophical teachings of no-self,
that the self that we tend to prize so dearly is a delusion and does
not exist in the way we conventionally think it does. Until this
difficult thesis is understood, however, faith in this premise is
necessary to keep one on track, while practitioners are encouraged to
experience no-self by seeing things directly as they are with the
support of a meditation practice, in particular, to observe the
reality being described philosophically in the rise and fall of
everyday phenomena. Also, through meditation practice one learns to
let go of unskillful emotional states, greed and aversion, that
according to the teachings are based in the concept of a self, thereby
undermining much of the functionality of the belief in that self. In
Asia almost from infancy, the practitioner will have learned the
practice of embodying selflessness through ritual, including through
bows and expressions of respect, then later through the practice of
generosity and through observance of the Precepts. Throughout, one's
faith in developing selflessness is nurtured through the powerful
example of monastics, who follow a set of vows for outward behavior
that almost completely precludes doing anything, owning anything or
being anything on behalf of a Self, and who depend in turn for its
support on lay Buddhists, who then have this opportunity for
practicing generosity, already mentioned above. Their respect for the
monastic sangha is encouraged through reciting the Refuges as the
articles of Buddhist faith. And so on.

In summary, the Buddhist path is supported by a complete package of
interrelating and cooperating factors, and has been so since the most
ancient times. These factors include teachings at the conceptual
level, empirical investigation and direct experience of causality both
in nature and in mind; meditative absorption and calm, clarity and
purification of mental factors; ethics and rules of conduct, faith and
devotion.

So, lets consider the needs and habits of the guests of the Buddhist
Banquette, not as diners, but as Buddhist practitioners.

Simply uninformed. Buddhism is a rather elaborate and sophisticated
meal, the required understanding of the various courses is not
trivial. Unfortunately, most of who are regarded as teachers in the
West, the Land of the Fork, are not completely in the picture
themselves. Much of the Buddhist Path is virtually unknown in the
West, for example the Buddha's extensive teachings on community. Often
the simply uninformed will misinterpret certain elements in Buddhism
negatively because they are confused by their root religions, for
instance, seeing bowing to an altar as worshiping a graven image or
"faith" as "blind faith" not realizing that the Buddha always
encouraged investigation. The information most broadly missing in the
available teachings is often selectively the elements most challenging
to Western mainstream culture.

Happy with Bread and Butter. Those happy with bread and butter
recognize a common core that many religions, "the Great Religions,"
share in common, then conclude that the rest can be dispensed with.
While embracing our sameness they become intolerant of our
differences. They may be attracted to Buddhism for a kind of
simplicity, but eschew the exotic in Buddhism. They fail to recognize
that the differences among religions can be crucial to realizing their
commonalities. Let me give an example: Like Buddhism, much of
Christianity values and attempts to cultivate selflessness. But where
Buddhism refers to the doctrine of no-self, Christianity refers to
God; rather than eliminating a self, it introduces something greater
than the self. Commonality and difference. Removing the difference
weakens the commonality; you might still have selflessness as a common
value, but you lose the ability to cultivate it.

Already eaten. Those who have already eaten attend a Buddhist lecture
one weekend and a Sufi dancing seminar the next. They never miss the
opportunity to hear a famous spiritual master speak, of whatever
faith. They also have an appreciation for the value of many religions,
but unlike those who are happy with bread and butter, they
particularly value religious diversity, always seeking a novel
experience. Now, we have seen that Buddhism, like your washing
machine, includes many cooperating elements. Those who have already
eaten are like a centipede who is unable to coordinate its myriad
feet. The many practices they experience cannot work together; they do
not have a history of working together. And often the neglected
mundane practices are critical in the Buddhist path.

More analytical than daring. The analytical, or skeptical, actively
find rational bases for removing individual elements from Buddhism.
They are often attracted to Buddhism because it by and large appears
refreshingly rational, much of it is almost scientific. It also values
personal investigation and seeing things as they are, and fairly well
avoids metaphysical speculation. However, many elements are
unacceptable for them, either because they appear in spite of the
general trend to be irrational, or because they resemble elements of
Christianity that have not survived the European Enlightenment fully
intact. Sometimes the rejected elements include faith, devotion,
hierarchy, ceremony and ritual. I've started writing another essay
called "Buddhist with Beliefs" in which I will point out that many
areas of the secular life, including Science, have these exact same
elements, and that big difference between Buddhist on the one hand,
and Christianity and Science on the other, is that the Buddha
establishes a rational basis for these elements. Ethics or morality
has gotten bad press in the West and Near East. It does indeed seem
that those who talk most of Good and Evil turn out to be the latter.
Buddhism is ethical to the core, but its ethics have an entirely
different, and more rational, basis than that of the Abrahamic faiths.
Other factors are rejected as simply un-forklike, or at least a hard
sell in the West. My own feeling is that if Buddhism fails to
challenge the West, there is no point in bringing it to the Land of
the Fork.

"Religiosity," as much as it is necessary, often scares people; it is
the world of terrorists, hypocritical opportunists, pedophiles,
blindly faithful suckers, and people who knock on your door to tell
you stuff, won't go away and keep coming back. These are scary things.
"Religiosity" (with scare quotes) sometimes might also remind the more
analytical than daring too closely of the root religion they thought
they put behind them. They often advocate a "secular" approach to
Buddhism.

Grabbing something to eat. The busy are particularly challenged fully
to embrace a Buddhist way of life. They can't build a new foundation
while so many rooms are already under construction. Instead they add
Buddhism as another room, another area of busy-ness, nothing
fundamental.

Trying everything. In Asia one finds the Whole Buddhist Fare
functioning both in the practice of the individual and in the life of
the Buddhist community, in both the Land of the Fingers (Theravada
lands)and in the Land of the Chopstick (Mahayana lands). For them,
it's so much easier; they are born into a Buddhist Society. In the
West many are inspired by what they have learned of Buddhism, of the
Wisdom of its teachings, of its Compassion, of its Serenity and
Peacefulness, and how they experience the presence of well-known
people like Thich Nhat Hanh, the Dalai Lama and Steven Segal, and
other exemplars of Buddhism they might have encountered. However there
is little opportunity to see the Whole Buddhist Fare in the Land of
the Fork. People come with differing motivations, and expectations and
are for the most part timid in enjoying the Buddhist Banquette when
the opportunity arises. The person open to trying everything is very
rare. "A rare bird indeed," says Carol.

People bring a lot of different perspectives to the Buddhist
Banquette. But the upshot has been the slow development in the West of
a radically pruned down Buddhism when compared to what is found in
Asia or to what the Buddha taught. To a large extend, Buddhism has
become meditation. "That's what I mean by Spaghetti," exclaims Carol.
Almost all Western Buddhist centers focus on meditation and many offer
nothing else in the way of Buddhist practice or teaching.

Why meditation? Why should it be the single element with the widest
appeal in Western Buddhism? For "Simply Uninformed" meditation is
recognizable. Western yogas have meditated for years, the Buddha
almost always sits in meditation posture. For "Already Eaten"
meditation is the most reliable source of peak experiences. For "Bread
and Butter" meditation is a commonality with many religious traditions
at some level, or is at least similar to prayer and to many other
other contemplative practices. For "More Analytical Than Daring"
meditation has some solid science behind it, verifying certain
beneficial qualities, physical as well as psychological. Direct
benefits of other aspects of Buddhist are more difficult to quantify.
For "Grabbing Something To Eat" meditation fits well with the
structure of the Busy Life: It can be scheduled in a consistent way,
requiring little or no restructuring of the rest of one's life. It
generally requires a commitment of time, but "Grabbing's" life has
probably become busy in the first place through the repeated
willingness to add yet one more time commitment; it's how "Grabbing"
attained membership in a gym, for instance. For "Trying Everything"
meditation is perhaps less than what is desired. At the same time,
meditation in and of itself is a very sumptuous dish and can keep
one's fork active for a long time. But "Trying Everything" will
probably look for opportunities for something more complete.

Neglected are, for instance, the following:

The Buddha divided the program of learning and practice that he
advocated into three trainings: Virtue, Meditation and Wisdom, and two
of the three are critically neglected and the third is significantly.
Almost the whole area of Virtue (aka Ethics, Morality, Right Conduct)
is missing. (Some centers offer Buddhist Precepts but there seems to
be very little expectation that the relatively few people who take
them will actually follow some of the more challenging ones.) The
area of Wisdom is critically compromised. For the Buddha this
consisted of accepting a number of teachings provisionally, belonging
to Right View, as a foundation for focused investigation and insight,
in conjunction with meditation practice. But relatively few in Western
centers seem to know these provisional teachings, even those regarded
as Buddhist teachers. "What's left is marshmallow salad," explains
Carol. Although meditation is the most developed practice in the Land
of the Fork, my impression is that Right Effort is not practiced well,
the cultivation of skillfull mental states and the weeding out of the
unskillful.

The Refuges and other articles of faith and commitment are poorly
developed. Many Buddhist centers, perhaps most, do not offer the Three
Refuges, which are traditionally the initiation into the Buddhist
life. Elements of ritual and respect. Bowing and other traditional
rituals of respect have made some headway in traditional Zen Centers;
I'm not sure they have elsewhere. Many other centers have removed the
perceived "religiosity" of altars, chanting and bowing completely, for
instance, as in the Goenka-style Insight Meditation centers.

The practices of generosity and renunciation are not only rarely
understood, but seem rarely to be recognized as fundamental Buddhist
practices. Members of Buddhist centers generally have little
encouragement to simplify their lives. The centers are normally run
with at least a partially as part of the exchange economy with fees
for various programs and services, rather than on the model of giving
freely. Of course the community of renunciates, the Sangha, a
consistent and significant part of Asian Buddhism, is only beginning
to sprout in the West.

Since these various aspects function as a whole, even meditation
itself will always be inadequate without the other elements. Ajahn
Suwat from Thailand, leading a meditation retreat in the USA, once
commented, "I notice that when these people meditate they're awfully
grim." He soon attributed this to the lack of preparation of the
meditators in the other Buddhist teachings, in particular, in
Generosity and in Virtue, which in Asia would generally precede
training in meditation, and as Thanissaro Bhikkhu suggests, develop a
sense of spaciousness and happiness as an appropriate context for
meditation.

In the discussion of the Second Annual Buddhist Banquette of the
Springdale Buddhist Center and Ping Pong Club, Skipper represented the
Middle Way and prevailed. They decided as a group to provide a variety
of dishes very similar to the Whole Buddhist Fare, from Embodiment to
Realization, of the previous year (and again not to serve beer or
anything other spirits --- "Shucks"). In addition, they decided also
to put effort into educating people beforehand about what they will
find at the banquette. They hope that if they are steadfast in
offering the same each year, maybe they will gradually become a
community of Non-Picky Eaters in the Land of the Fork.

"It's going to be a long haul," suggested Carol.

Postcard from Burma

2009-12-04T14:35:00.001+06:30

Postcard from Burma
Electricity Update. Now that the Rainy Season is over we seem to have
electricity only about half of the time. It has generally been out in
the early morning, most of the afternoon, and on and off, but mostly
on during the evening. With a good battery in my computer, a
rechargible flashlight and candles I am not particularly
inconvenienced. There is no longer a need for the A/C. Often the
electricity goes out during my 4:00 English class. That's OK, except I
generally show a documentary DVD in English (they have a few here) one
day a week. Sometimes it gets postponed or we watch it a bit at a
time. I like to make tea with my little water heater; sometimes I have
to wait, or start it only to have the electricity go out.

Weather Update. It has been quite chilly in the morning. We are now
one month into the Cold Season, in which the prevailing winds come
down from Tibet. During the night temperatures plunge to below 60. All
the monks, including me, wear shawls to breakfast, wrapped around both
shoulders, and sometimes over the head as well. I like it, but many of
the monks seem to think it is a hardship, they look like they are
trudging in a blizzard through the snow. A different idea of what cold
is. It warms up during the day to a nice temperature. Since there is
no such thing as hot running water in Burma, except in international
hotels, I now take my shower in the afternoon.

Dog Update. Wigglet never became pregnant. Recall that she had been in
heat a couple of months ago. Wigglet's mom has become a regular
visitor to my apartment. She is very friendly, but very greedy (she is
the chubbiest dog anywhere around) and stubborn. One morning as I was
leaving to breakfast, it was still fairly dark out and the electricity
had gone out, she slipped unbeknownst into my apartment and I was
surprised to find her in an obscure corner when I returned maybe half
and hour later. She decided thereafter that she was my roommate, and
would practically force her way in every time I opened the door. I
would have to forcibly drag her out but then she would whine at the
door. One day in her distress she decided to chew my sandals, which
until that time I would leave outside the door. She has relaxed a bit
now but I still keep my sandals inside the door just in case. There
are three new puppies living with their mom around the side at the far
end of the Guest House. One of them has a lame leg and is scrawnier
than the others, so I've been giving it some pieces of meat after
lunch.

Cintita Update. I will be moving down the the Sitagu Center in Yangon
at the end of December and remain there for my final two months in
Myanmar. Sitagu Sayadaw had asked me to stay until March so that he
could continue to teach the Mahasatipattanasutta. But he has been so
busy, he has not been in Sagaing very often. In December he will
travel to India, then to Hawaii, then to Minnesota and Austin. His
last excursion took him to Israel for an Interfaith conference, among
other places. So he has made arrangements for me to study with another
monk in Yangon. Maybe I can find someone in Yangon to make a trip to
India with during those two months; it will be easier to get there
from Yangon. I will pop back up to Sagaing for Sayadaw's birthday,
February 27. Moving to Yangon means I will have to halt my English
class earlier than anticipated

Mahayana/Theravada Finale: In the Land of the Fork.

2009-11-23T18:52:00.001+06:30

Mahayana/Theravada Finale: In the Land of the Fork.

This is the last in the series on Mahayana and Theravada Buddhism. I'm
sorry I have not been able to say much about Vajrayana or Tibetan
Buddhism, because I know little about it. Although it is normally
classed as a branch of Mahayana, it has its own unique properties as
well. Let me summarize what we've discussed so far:

The Theravada and the Mahayana differ in geographical and cultural
distribution, in doctrine, and in practice. The Theravada is found in
Southern Asia, primarily in those countries historically within the
Indian sphere of cultural influence, the Land of the Fingers. The
Mahayana is found in Northern Asia, primarily in those countries
historically within the Chinese sphere of influence, the Land of the
Chopsticks. Both are found in the West, in the same countries, in the
same cities, often on the same blocks, in the Land of the Fork.

Doctrinally, beginning in India the Mahayana has shown a greater
tendency to differ from the original teachings of the Buddha, as we
understand them. Although some common themes and concepts are
characteristic of the Mahayana, such as Buddha Nature and the
Bodhisattva Ideal, it is actually hard to define the Mahayana clearly;
it is not monolithic. The Mahayana seems to be heir to a creative
period of Indian Buddhism that partially predates the name "Mahayana"
while the Theravada was forming in remote Sri Lanka. This creative
period actually represents a variety of doctrinal perspectives, many
of which might be fairly conservative, but have later been claimed as
Mahayana. In China the Mahayana came under the influence of Chinese
religious influences, especially Taoism, and other aspects of the
Chinese world view.

There appears never to have been a substantial schism in India around
the development of the Mahayana schools as distinguished from the
Hinayana, including Theravada, in spite of traditional claims. Rather
Mahayana and Hinayana monks lived together in harmony, as reported by
Chinese pilgrims to India. A schism is when one group of monks goes
off in a huff to practice on their own.

Today there is a tendency for Theravada and Mahayana Buddhists to
disparage each other, particularly in Asia, where there has been
geographical separation between the two groups for many centuries.

My recommendations for those in the Land of the Fork are as follows:

We should not worry about the question of which Buddhism is most
appropriate for the West, Theravada or Mahayana: It is in the long run
moot. Most of the substantial differences between Theravada and
Mahayana have arisen from differences in the cultures of India and
China. The West is yet another culture, out of which a merging of the
two great traditions will arise. By the way, many in the West
anticipate a radically new form of Buddhism as Buddhism leaves Asia. I
think it is important to bear in mind that the cultures of India and
China are probably at least as far apart as Western culture is from
either of them. We should not anticipate that Western Buddhism will be
in a different ballpark.

On the other hand, the Buddhism of the West needs to regain its
moorings. It has been set adrift on an ocean of eagerness to build a
comfortable religion. Fork People have been pruning away at it without
knowing what it is they are pruning and what it was they had in the
first place. It is like removing the safety cover on an electric saw,
not understanding its function, because it makes it more difficult to
see the board you are sawing. Buddhism is a whole system of
interlocking parts: Practicing generosity and virtue; understanding
the teaching of non-self; training the mind to distinguish wholesome
and unwholesome intentions, and to free it of the latter;
renunciation; the task of monastics in propagating and sustaining
Buddhism; faith in the Buddha, Dharma and Sangha; and so on. You can't
just start removing parts from under the hood of your car to make room
for luggage unless you are very very sure you know what those parts
are. I'm afraid that is what we are doing to Buddhism in the Land of
the Fork.

It seems to be more difficult for Westerners to find one's moorings in
the Mahayana tradition. I think this has at least two causes. First,
the scriptural basis is so fluid. Different schools of Mahayana
subscribe to different sutras and shastras. The Vinaya is the most
common foundation, but that is largely ignored in the West. One does
not know where to go for a complete picture. Second, Buddhism in the
Land of the Chopstick has been leaning on Taoism and especially
Confucianism for hundreds of years. When that prop is removed, it
collapses. For instance, Zen Buddhism puts very little emphasis on
following Precepts, in fact in Japan taking precepts is often
considered to be a purely symbolic act. But traditional Chinese
culture is permeated with Confucian ethics, rendering the Buddhist
ethical system rather redundant. In the West we've imported Buddhism
from the Land of the Chopstick, but not the Confucian ethic to
complement it.

The Theravada tradition, on the other hand, is generally much more
clearly moored in the original teachings of the Buddha in their
entirety than the Mahayana. This does not mean one should abandon the
Mahayana tradition one has been trained in. But at this juncture, as
Buddhism makes its historic move to the Land of the Fork, it is
appropriate to study the Core-pus, the Suttanta and the Vinaya, or
derivative literature. This is the historic foundation of all of
Buddhism. Of course not all of you have the time that, say, I have,
to make a careful study of this corpus, but your teachers should. It
will be a useful exercise, not necessarily to change your current
views, but at least to understand what they are.

At the same time, I think it should be appreciated that all Buddhist
do not have to conform to a strict orthodoxy, to have exactly the same
understanding as everyone else. In fact debate and consideration of
alternative viewpoints is probably much more likely to give rise to a
more proper understanding than simply adhering to orthodoxy. It often
happens that an erroneous understanding becomes orthodox, and without
differences in viewpoint and debate it is impossible for the orthodoxy
to recover from the erroneous viewpoint. A simple example is the
Theravada view, not represented in the Core-pus, by the way, but in
the Commentaries of Buddhaghosa, that the language of the Buddha was
Pali. The best scholarship indicates that that is almost certainly
not the case, but the view persists, even among Asian Theravada
scholars.

The Mahayana tradition is much more one of innovation and trying out
novel means of expression. Zen is even playful with orthodox teachings
and has a reputation for iconoclasm. Dogen is well-known for turning
even Zen teachings that had become orthodox by his time on their head.
But I think it is important to recognize how Zen has kept its moorings
through the years. First, it has been a rather intense monastic
tradition, in which practitioners were in an ideal position to find
verification in their own experience. Second, my impression is that
the study of very traditional teachings actually was fairly thorough
in spite of what Bodhidharma was later reputed to have said about
"Without Reliance on Words and Letters." I predict that Buddhism will
retain much of this spirit of innovation and debate in the Land of the
Fork. Consider that science, now a very old tradition, thrives on
innovation and debate.

That said, it is remarkable to me how on-the-same-page most of the
various sects of Buddhism actually are. Throughout Buddhism there is
the idea that humans get ourselves and each other into trouble because
we misperceive reality, from which liberation is possible through our
own contemplative effort to purify the mind. This and considerable
more detain is found in schools of Buddhism that had no communication
for many hundreds of years. If you compare Christianity to Buddhism,
for instance, I don't think you find as great a degree of doctrinal
agreement, even though Christians at least, by and large, agree on
what the scriptures are. What holds Buddhism together? There is an
orthodox Theravada teaching about that, and that is that as long as
the monastic sangha is living in harmony according to the Vinaya, the
doctrine will be preserved just fine. (Why that should be so, will
await the series of postings I have planned on Buddha's Teachings on
Community.)

Let me end this series on Theravada and Mahayana on a personal note,
and with maybe a few more conflicting metaphors than necessary. (I've
also been in the Left-Wing all my life, so I find it strange to
suddenly view myself below as a conservative.)

Ten months ago I ordained as a Theravada monk after living as a
Mahayana Zen priest/monk for six years. I have an enormous love for
the Mahayana scriptures and the quirky Zen stories and in general for
the creativity of the Mahayana tradition. But I personally decided to
set a more conservative example in my own life, to be a representative
of the original wonderfully profound teachings of the Buddha, to live
the way the Buddha thought the Sangha should live. The reason is that
in the West everybody wants to be an innovator; but someone has to
worry about the moorings. I fear that the ship of Buddhism is already
floating aimlessly in the Ocean of the Fork. I hope that the readers
of this blog will join me in making sure that we assemble and drive
the whole car before we decide what parts to remove or modify.

NOTE: I cannot view this blog directly from Myanmar. If anyone is
posting responses I am not seeing them. However, please feel free to
respond to me directly at bhante.dogen@gmail.com.

Postcard from Burma

2009-11-22T18:09:00.001+06:30

Postcard from Burma

Well, it's been a quiet month at Sitagu Buddhist Academy. Sitagu
Sayadaw was away for about a month, and returned yesterday for about a
week. He is a busy guy. He will be back in Austin, Texas sometime in
December, then again in March, when I will also be returning to
Austin. I have no idea where he has been for the last month.

It is interesting what a flurry of activity accompanies Sayadaw when
he returns. Visitors, mostly lay, but some monks and nuns, start
checking into the Guest House, where I live, in the days before his
arrival. I don't know who all of them are, but generally they seem to
be people who need to meet with Sayadaw while they have the chance.
Donors start providing more of the meals, for all of the monks, which
means the cuisine takes on a couple of extra stars, and monks start
gaining weight. This morning we had Mohinga for breakfast, which is a
specialty in Myanmar, made of noodles under a thick soup, with various
toppings to choose from (eggs, fried bread dealies, parsley, lemon).
Mmmmmm. A lot more lay groups start showing up presumably from the
immediate area, filling the parking lot, many of them apparently not
on business, but just to look around at the Convocation Center and the
various statues and altars, apparently at the same time wishing to get
a glimpse of the famous sayadaw. This flurry of activity presumably
follows sayadaw wherever he goes, to Mandalay, Yangon, Bangkok, Korea.
It would explain why sayadaw is so chubby. I wonder if he even knows
that the flurry of activity leaves each place when he leaves.

Monastics are renunciates, which means that their lifestyle leaves
almost no channels for sensual pleasures or accumulation of stuff, or
for all of the problems that accompany these. The effect is that we
settle into a state of quiet contentment, of not struggling with the
world. This makes absolutely no sense to most people, but there is
actually enormous joy in this kind of life, if your passionate
impulses don't get the better of you. The one channel that is open to
the monastic for enjoyment of sense pleasures, at least until noon
each day, is enjoyment of food. So don't be surprised when monastics,
including me, express dismaying enthusiasm for food or even start to
get chubby. What's more, lay people here, who take as great an
interest in doing things for monks as you do in the welfare of your
cat, recognize this one channel as a way to please monks while
ingratiating themselves, so they like to excite monastic passions even
more through the culinary arts. This is probably better for lay
practice than for monastic practice, but it sure can be yummy.

The lay people who come to visit SIBA are always upbeat, whether or
not Sayadaw is present, in a festive way. Happy voices working in the
kitchen or gardening, or just looking around. Often people come for
one reason, maybe to meet with one of the monks, then while waiting or
afterwards pick up a broom, or take one away from a monk, for some
habitat cleaning while they are here.

The weather is getting cooler. It is quite nice, a little chilly in
the morning, a little hot in the afternoon, bright and sunny during
the day. It's quite beautiful. I saw a big snake behind the Guest
House, near the gopher holes, a couple of days ago, maybe four feet
long. One of the monks explained to me that if you whistle it attracts
snakes. But he said you don't want to do that because most of them are
VERY poisonous. There are still a lot of mosquitoes; I'm hoping the
cold weather will reduce their numbers.

I am still teaching English five or six days a week, following the
lunar weeks, with two days off for every uposatha day, before and on.
I've started showing documentary that are available here in English
once a week. So far I've shown two: One was on Egypt, and had Omar
Sharif in it, more of a docudrama. One was on the Mayan civilization.
Tomorrow I will show one on the American Civil War. There are also a
few on nature: Some National Geographic films, some films about
geology, and profiles of different countries. Most of them have rather
difficult narration, most of these with an American accent, which the
students find more difficult than a British accent. I chose the first
two films because they also had English subtitles. I've been teaching
geography and some other subjects mixed in with English lessons. Most
of the students are amazingly uneducated. Some cannot find Europe and
Asia on a world map! One of the great tragedies about this country.
They are very eager to learn though.

My friend Venerable Jitamaro, from Laos, has been expressing a strong
interest in coming to the USA for a long time. He is interested in
being a missionary for Western Buddhists. I think he will be very good
at this. He is my main English student. We've been exploring ways to
bring him over as a monk, most viably to live at an ethnic temple.

Postcard from Burma

2009-11-02T19:59:00.001+06:30

Postcard from Burma

Kathina Day.
Last week was Kathina Day, a time when lay people make donations of
robes to monks. Not that they don't at other occasions throughout the
year. Kathina Day is always scheduled after the Rains Retreat (Vassa)
has ended. The original tradition, as described in the Vinaya,
involved a lot more work for the monks. In the old days donations were
often in the form of robe cloth rather than finished robes. Monks
would accrue pieces of cloth until they had enough to sew a robe. On
Kathina Day all of the monks at a monastery would, as a joint project,
sew a single robe from scratch and donate it to the monk who was
considered most worthy or most needy. Here is the catch: the robe
would have to be sewn by the following morning , by hand of course.
Everyone would pitch in regardless of seniority, and stay up all night
sewing. Nowhere in the scriptures does it explain why the Buddha would
institute such a silly practice, but the reason would seem to
encourage solidarity among those who shared the Rains together. Isn't
that cool? With time and modern industry, robes have lost the value
they had at the Buddha's time. Certain forest monks keep the old
tradition alive, but by and large Kathina Day has become a kind of a
festival at which purchased, manufactured robes are simply donated,
along with toothpaste. Today's Kathina involved also a Dhamma talk by
Sitagu Sayadaw and a very good lunch, prepared by a lot of lay people,
both for the monks and for themselves, monks eating first, before
noon. Then this evening the monks met together for a brief ceremony.
English Classes.
Petra, the German woman who was living here for a couple of months has
left for a new job in northern Myanmar, teaching meditation to
tourists at a hotel. She had started an English conversation class
while she was here, alongside my English pronunciation class which was
largely preempted by Sayadaw's lectures. I am continuing her class
daily 4:00 – 5:30 pm, except for Uposatha Days and the days before
Uposatha Days. Uposatha Days are full, new or quarter moon days when
many laypeople visit monasteries and monks recite Precepts. The
afternoon before an Uposatha Day is temple cleaning for the monks.
Cold Season.
November 1 was full moon, therefore an Uposatha Day. I believe this
also marked the beginning of the Cold Season. The Cold Season lasts
four months, as does the Rainy Season (just ended) and the Hot Season
(which will start just before the beginning of March, I think). The
weather has been getting cooler, still warm in the middle of the
afternoon, but a bit chilly when I get up at 4am. I no longer take a
shower first thing in the morning, but wait til it is warmer, sometime
before lunch. There is no hot water, of course. In about a month is
is supposed to be quite chilly. I don't think this means freezing
temperatures; I've never seen anything like a space heater in Myanmar
and many buildings don't have real windows. But I think I have
adequate blankets and enough layers of robes to cope.
On this full moon I was invited with the other two foreign monks to a
nuns' monastery, right across the street from Sitagu. Another unknown
senior monk was there who seemed to be a regular. Quite good food. The
various laypeople and nuns took a lot of pictures, as usual featuring
the exotic Western monk. About half an hour after I returned home
about ten people from the monastery showed up at my apartment guided
by the senior monk who proceeded to give them a tour, showing them the
little bathroom and all. They just showed up and let themselves in;
knocking is not customary in Myanmar, then all did prostrations not
only to me, but also to my altar with its $2 gold Buddha. Of course as
usual they were all delightful people.
Later that evening three children showed up at my apartment (I usually
do not get so much traffic) asking for money. That surprised me, since
there is very little begging in Myanmar (unless you count the monks),
and only in public spots, and it is odd to expect a monk to give you
something besides the Gift of the Dhamma. I wouldn't give them
anything. I learned later that this full moon day is a special day
each year in Myanmar when children are allowed to ask for small things
like money and cake. In a way, it is like our Halloween, but not as
scary. OOPS!!! And I did have some Kyat (Burmese $$) in small bills
that I could have given them.
India
A monk who lives in Yangon invited me about a month ago to tour the
Buddhist sites in India with him. This was U Pan~n~asiha, who used to
live in Minnesota, and has a new doctorate from an Indian university.
He suggested this rather casually, but when he comes through here
again I've decided to try to pin him down. Sitagu Sayadaw has
suggested about three times that I go to India while I'm here, and
once that I go to Thailand. If you look at a map you will see that I,
here in Central Myanmar, am not at all far from the area in which the
Buddha lived. I probably can live in monasteries, travel maybe three
weeks. Hopefully my visa will allow me to leave the country and get
back in.

Mahayana/Theravada 4: The Authentic Teachings

2009-10-12T21:31:00.000+06:30

Mahayana/Theravada 4: The Authentic Teachings

If you poll the followers of the various schools with the question,
"Which is the True Buddhism?" you will probably find a very consistent
answer: "Ours Is!"

Zen, for instance, is traditionally held to be a special transmission
independent of words and letters that was kept under wraps in India,
but can be traced directly to the Buddha, through Bhikkhu Mahakassapa,
who as only one out of myriad disciples understood what the Buddha
meant when, instead of delivering a conventional discourse, he simply
held up a flower, and Kassapa smiled. Soka Gakai, a Japanese sect
whose main practice is revering the Lotus Sutra, not part of the
earliest scriptures, often claims to be the one "True Buddhism."
Theravadins often claim that theirs is the one authentic school
because, they say, it has not added or removed a single word from what
the Buddha taught.

The various schools of Buddhism (Theravada and Mahayana, the latter
with much more variety than the former) do differ in their doctrines,
though my own feeling is that except for some runaway schools, the
differences are not as great as many people seem to think. And almost
no school contradicts a certain set of core teachings, which can be
attributed to the Buddha with a degree of certainty, though all
enhance them, either a little or a lot. In this posting I want to
consider how to pinpoint what the Buddha taught and then in very
general terms consider how that has been tinkered with. This is a bit
of history, as I understand it from my studies. (By the way, I'm not a
Buddhist historian, and do not intend this blog posting as a scholarly
treatise. I welcome hearing any corrections to what I write here).

What Did the Buddha Teach?

We actually do not know for certain what the Buddha said or did not
say. But there is a corpus that we can be reasonably certain fairly
well reflects the Buddha's teachings as they were understood shortly
after his death. This is the Eartly (Not Mahayana) Suttas (Sutras, or
Discourses, I will use the Pali word Suttas to refer to this corpus)
and the Vinaya (Books of Discipline), which correspond to two of the
three baskets of the Theravada Pali Canon and to similar parts of the
Agamas that survive in Chinese translation from Sanskrit. I'll call
these the Core Corpus, or, if you will, the Core-pus.

The argument that the Suttas and Vinaya, the Core-pus, mostly date
back to the Buddha, comes from reconstructing their history. It is
recorded that the teachings of the Buddha, quite extensive after a
45-year teaching career, were first recited from memory in their
entirely at the First Council of 500 monks shortly after the
Parinirvana. The words were not yet committed to palm leaf, but
retained in memory, different parts by different members of the
sangha, and preserved in that form for hundreds of years, eventually
in many different regions in India and beyond, and in different
languages, and by the different early schools that began to form. The
idea of memorizing such a huge corpus seems daunting to modern
Westerners, but it seems to have been common at the time. After living
with Burmese monks, who continue this tradition of memorization, this
no longer seems at all infeasible to me. Many monks here can recite
very long texts word for word, such as all 227 rules for monks. There
was a famous Burmese monk who won a place in the Guinness Book of
World Records for being able to recite the entire Pali Canon,
basically the entire Core-pus plus the huge Pali Abhidamma, all by
himself, which is like 28 thick books! The texts were eventually
written down at different places and times and in different languages,
apparently first in Sri Lanka, where the Pali Canon was recorded about
400 years after the death of the Buddha. Today the Theravada school
refers to this Pali version, and this is the easiest to find in
English translation. In India the Sanskrit versions became most widely
known, and were inherited into the Mahayana schools. However, these
various versions of the Core-pus, preserved in different places and
recorded at different times, turned out to be in remarkable agreement,
and in no way account for the doctrinal differences of various later
schools. So, in China virtually the same range of discourses and
stories and rules of discipline were available as in Sri Lanka or
Burma. This is evidence that the various written versions probably
accurately represented the original recited version of the Core-pus.

Although there versions of the Core-pus agree remarkably they don't
entirely. Spurious changes can be found, and in fact editing of these
versions probably went on for hundreds of years. For instance, in the
Pali Vinaya there is an account of the Second Council, reported to
have occurred 100 years after the death of the Buddha. For the most
part scholars can detect spurious edits by comparing the early written
texts, but apparently there are cases in which this does not work,
because the editors of different versions have adopted the same
changes from a common third source. For instance, some scholars now
believe that many of the Jataka (previous lives of the Buddha)
stories, along with references to the concept of the Bodhisattva,
first mentioned in the Jatakas; and the teachings of the Paramitas,
recognized with some differences by virtually all modern schools of
Buddhism, were all absent in the original Core-pus, i.e., the Buddha
never taught these things. Rather all of these seem to have
originated in the Sarvastivada (early Hinayana, i.e., non-Mahayana)
school long after the Buddha, which then added these to their
scriptures. Apparently these modifications were a good idea, since
other schools, including the Theravada, then made these same changes
to their versions of the scriptures. But by and large scholars seem
generally to have a degree of confidence that the Suttas and Vinaya
reflect the teachings of the Buddha.

Different Interpretations.

The Christian Bible, as far as I can tell, was written by many
different people who had quite diverse and contradictory views. This
may partially account for why there are so many doctrinal differences
within Christianity. The Buddhist Core-pus, on the other hand, is
largely the product of one mind, or of the Buddha and a handful of
disciples who were in intimate contact with that one mind, and as such
is very consistent in its approach. However, even the Core-pus seems
to lend itself to alternative interpretations, some of which may
underlie later doctrinal differences within Buddhist. For instance,
what is meant literally, and what is meant metaphorically, what is
essential and what is incidental? For example, the Core-pus has a lot
of colorful imagery, and often makes reference, quite matter-of-factly
to devas and deva realms, i.e., godly beings and their living
arrangements. These may be embellishments for dramatic or comic
effect, but sometimes seem to have systematic roles in the exposition
of the Dhamma, as in the case of rebirth in the various non-human and
non-animal realms. In the Pure Land School of Mahayana Buddhism, the
Pure Land is one of these godly realms, in which a buddha (not THE
Buddha, who is sidelined), Amitabha, plays a critical role. I
understand that the basic premises of this school actually have
support in the Suttas and Vinaya, if you look for them. Yet the Pure
Land school is often criticized in the Theravada as deviant in its
doctrine in making rebirth in the Pure Land a fundamental goal. (The
Pure Land is, I believe, also the largest modern school of Mahayana
Buddhism, so this critique is sometimes assumed in the Theravada world
to apply to all of the Mahayana.) This may (I am speculating) be a
question of whether a particular passage of the earliest corpus is
taken to be essential or incidental.

What Was Taught After the Buddha?

Buddhism has a vast set of scriptures that do not belong to the
Core-pus, many of which are important to only specific schools of
Buddhism. Many of these are claimed to have originated with the
Buddha, often with a transmission story to explain why they were
unknown earlier on; these stories often involve either devas or
dragons preserving these scriptures secretly for a period, sometimes
until the world is ready for these teachings. In addition, there exist
commentarial traditions and philosophical schools within Buddhism that
have enjoyed quite a lot of original thought and debate. In many
Mahayana schools of Buddhism the Suttas, although part of the history
of these schools, are all but ignored in favor of these later works
(though significantly the Vinaya is an important part of almost every
tradition outside of Japan).

Let me review some things that are clearly post-Core-pus:

(1) The Abhidhamma. This is regarded in the Theravada tradition as the
third basket of the Pali Canon. In Burma this is not only attributed
to the Buddha, but regarded as the highest teachings of the Buddha. It
also has a transmission story, which has the Buddha reciting it to his
mother, reborn as a godess, in Tavatimsa Heaven. Unlike the other two
baskets the Pali Abhidhamma does not correspond to anything preserved
in other traditions. There are at least two other versions of
something called "Abhidharma" that arose in other traditions,
including the Sarvastivadin Abhidharma, but these are clearly separate
works and also not a part of the Core-pus. The Theravada Abhidhamma
(which I am engaged in studying right now) is a thorough
systematization of the Buddha's teachings as presented in the Suttas
with regard to the nature of reality and of the mind, but also seems
to add some original detail, For instance, it provides a detailed
accounting of the mechanisms of rebirth, which does not seem to be a
major focus of the Suttas.

(2) The Theravada commentarial corpus. This includes, for instance,
The Path of Purification and other works of Acariya Buddhaghosa. This
corpus, compiled about 800 years after the Buddha, in Sri Lanka in
Pali, is considered by nobody to have originated with the Buddha, but
is claimed to have been based on writings of his early disciples.
Nevertheless, it has something close to scriptural status in the
Theravada school, playing an important role in the current shape of
Theravada Buddhism. The Path of Purification is a meditation manual
and is pretty definitive of Vipassana meditation, though a number of
Theravada meditation teachers, including Ven. Buddhadassa of Thailand,
point out that the Buddha's approach to meditation as presented in the
Suttas is really much less elaborate.

Doctrinally Theravada Buddhism might not be identical to the Buddhism
of the Core-pus, but on the other hand, it never lets the Core-pus out
of its sight. The Suttas and the Vinaya are widely studied, and so the
parallels with the commentary and Abhidhamma are clearly in mind.
Students are instructed in Burma to study with the Suttas (or
Abhidhamma) in one hand and the commentary in the other. This pretty
much ensures that there can be no large unfounded deviation from the
original teachings of the Buddha.

(3) All of what are commonly regarded as Mahayana sutras. These
include the Prajnaparamita Sutras, the Flower Ornament Sutra, the
Amitabha Sutra, the Vimalakirti Sutra, the Lotus Sutra, Indra's Net
Sutra, and so on. All of these Sutras appear to have been composed in
the early centuries of the Christian era, primarily in India, though
apparently scholars are now discovering that many are of Chinese or
Middle Asian origin. Many of these works are attributed to the Buddha
and often have some of the formal structure of the early Suttas, but
the colorful imagery of the early Suttas, including gods and
supernatural powers, really comes into its own in many of the Mahayana
Sutras. These Sutras introduce a host of characters not found in the
Core-pus, such as the Bodhisattvas Manjushri, Avalokiteshvara,and so
on. They also focus on some themes that are absent or more marginal in
the Core-pus, such as the bodhisattva ideal and compassion,
realization of emptiness as the heart of wisdom, Buddha nature and the
transcendent nature of the Buddha. However, taken as a whole the scope
of the Mahayana Sutras is much narrower than that of the earlier
Suttas; they usually focus on higher stages of wisdom, whereas in the
Core-pus there is a Sutta for virtually any occasion or listener, so
that they cover meditation instruction, ethics, metareligion (such as
how to evaluate religious teachings), care of parents, etc., even the
proper way to hang up robes to dry, in addition to higher wisdom.

(4) All of what are commonly regarded as the Mahayana commentaries
(shastras). This includes works of philosopher-monks such as
Nagarjuna, Vasubandhu, Asanga, Shantideva, etc. In the Mahayana the
name of Nagarjuna, sometimes called "the Second Buddha," is
particularly prominent, and there are even origin stories for his
teachings, involving special access to secret works from the time of
the Buddha that were preserved by Nagas (dragons) under water (notice
that his name accordingly begins with "Naga"). Commentaries and the
Sutras seem to have been composed throughout the early centuries of
the Christian Era, most scholars agree, by monastics.

Notice I have hedged calling the Sutras and commentaries "Mahayana."
This word was first applied after most of these had been composed, so
after the fact. Rather, there seems to have been a period of free
Buddhist inquiry and debate in northern India in the early centuries
of the Christian Era, roughly that was perhaps comparable to the
intellectual milieu of post-Enlightenment Europe, in which monastic
universities flourished and scholars could examine Buddhist ideas
creatively from a variety of perspectives. Sanskrit became the primary
language of this world. Because Theravada Buddhism developed primarily
in Sri Lanka it was largely cut off from this rich intellectual world.
For a period Sinhalese was its primary language of discourse, then
later Pali.

When the word "Mahayana" was introduced it seemed to have been to
applied to a variety of seemingly orthogonal teachings, including
Emptiness, the Enhanced (almost godly) status of the Buddha, the
bodhisattva ideal in opposition to seeking personal enlightenment,
etc. "Hinayana" was used to refer to schools or monks that do not
accept this variety of teachings. In general the Mahayana never
criticized the Hinayana, or the Core-pus, for being in error, but for
being incomplete. Somehow there seems to have been a long-standing
dissatisfaction with the original teachings that provided a constant
pressure toward a variety of innovations during this very creative
period in northern India. The interesting question is why was that? A
weakness in the Buddha's teachings, a change in the demographics of
the Buddhist community, a need for more devotional practices or a more
colorful mythology? In any case, the Mahayana-Hinayana debate in no
way split the monastic community; as Chinese pilgrims who visited
India during this period testified Mahayana and Hinayana monks lived
side-by-side in the same monasteries perfectly happily, apparently
with a high degree of tolerance for doctrinal diversity.

Now, many of these innovations can be found in the schools called
"Hinayana." For instance, the "Hinayana" Sarvastivadin school seems to
have originated the bodhisattva ideal early on, which was partially
adopted by most schools, including Theravada. On the other hand, the
"Mahayana" focus on Emptiness may have been a reaction to the
Sarvastivadin Abhidharma, which seems to have reintroduced something
like an enduring Self. Theravadins criticize the Sarvastivadins for
this. David Kalupahana argues that Nagarjuna's contribution to
Buddhism was not a new doctrine of emptiness, but a further exposition
of profound teachings that the Buddha first introduced, that his views
were conservative, very much in the spirit of the Core-pus, though his
style of exposition was brilliant. I think Nagarjuna actually never
touched on any of the other "Mahayana" themes, and lived before the
word "Mahayana" was coined.

Proponents of the Mahayana may have simply claimed many of the most
creative thinkers and their works as representing Mahayana after the
fact. But also, notice that all the other Hinayana (non-Mahayana)
schools of Buddhism eventually died out, as Buddhism died out in
India. I suspect that Mahayana simply became the heir of all of the
products of this creative period in norther India. This might explain
why Mahayana is difficult to pinpoint doctrinally. We might say,
Mahayana = Core-pus + Creative Innovations.

(5) The Teachings in China, Tibet and beyond. As Buddhism died out in
India, the scholar and university tradition primarily continued in
Tibet. In China the teachings took on radically different forms,
primarily under the influence of Taoism. For instance, in the Zen
tradition the koan corpus acquired scriptural status, quirky little
stories or dialogs that pointed to higher wisdom, while little direct
reference was made to the teachings of the Suttas, for instance to the
Four Noble Truths. It is very difficult to compare Zen to the Core-pus
point by point for consistency, because its language is quite
different.

Folk Embellishments.

In addition to deliberately composed teachings, there are in every
Buddhist country a lot of folk embellishments to the Buddhism of the
Core-pus, often resulting in a blending of indigenous beliefs with
Buddhism, in a way that locally it becomes difficult to distinguish
the two. It is interesting to observe that in Myanmar: I've reported
in past postings to this blog on a lot of the ways in which anything
of interest to the normal tourist has become a pagoda after some folk
story has lent it special Buddhist significance. Here is another
example of the blending of folk beliefs in this country: The Burmese
cherish their arahants and generally attribute posthumous supernatural
events to them. There is a widespread belief that an arahant can
choose to become a mummy, that is, with no preparation they can choose
not to decay after death, and to thereby remain as a Protector of
Buddhism should the need arise. Somehow I have trouble picturing how
this would actually play out. I have seen such a mummified arahant at
a pagoda near here, and he did not look like he would be very healthy,
or particularly useful, if he arose from death with some noble task in
mind. He would scare a lot of people, Buddhist and non-Buddhist alike.
In East Asia there is a lot of blending of Buddhism with ancestor
worship, as well as with Taoism and Confucianism.

Although the direct teaching of the Suttas has largely been displaced
in most of the Mahayana schools by later Sutras, commentaries and
other works, this does not entail that the spirit of the Suttas has
been lost in this transformation. The one part of the Core-pus that is
still widely referenced in almost all Mahayana schools is the Vinaya,
the Books of Discipline, that define the lives of monks and nuns, and
the governance of the Buddhist community. Thus more than the the
Suttas, the Vinaya is the common thread that runs throughout almost
all of Buddhism in Asia. This may at first seem strange, but this is
very important to consider in the West, especially since this text is
virtually unknown in Western Buddhism. The Vinaya was created by the
Buddha as the instrument though which the integrity of the Buddha's
teachings would endure and through which the Buddhism would flourish.
In fact in Theravada Buddhism it is taught that as long as monks and
nuns follow the Vinaya, the Dhamma will take care of itself. The
history of Buddhism seems to bear this out. If this is true, then
those Mahayana traditions that respect and practice the Vinaya can not
be doctrinally too far off base.

I intend to make one final posting to the Theravada/Mahayana Series,
in which I draw conclusions that are hopefully useful to Western
Buddhists for planning their practice lives. Then I will begin a
series called "The Buddha's Teachings on Community," based on the
Vinaya, that often dry and in the West neglected work, that has
nevertheless proved to be critical in the history of Buddhism and that
will be essential for its future growth in the West.

Postcard from Burma

2009-10-11T20:35:00.001+06:30

Invitation Day.

The vassa, or rains retreat, ended on the last full moon day, October
3. The tradition as defined by the Buddha is to stay put at a
monastery for three months during the rainy season, rather than to
travel from monastery to monastery. On the last day of the retreat,
is Invitation Day. On virtually every full moon day bhikkhus and
bhikkhunis recite the Precepts, but not on the last day of the rains.
Instead the Buddha set it up so that on that one day each year each
monk invites criticism from every other monk, basically, Where Have I
Failed in My Actions During the Last Year? It is a good idea, but this
has become rather perfunctory in Burma; no one here likes to
criticize anybody else (Can you imagine that?). And in fact, to
perform the ceremony, the eighty monks from Sitagu walked to another
monastery where over four hundred monks convened.

Newly Old.

In the last episode, Bhikkhu Cintita was still pondering the Three
Responses to Old Age. He had rejected the originally favored Hang onto
Your Youth, as foolish and ultimately futile, in favor of Old and
Bitter Despair, which he looked forward to doing With Flair, with a
Penetrating Frown and a Horrifying Glare. Bloggers from around the …
uh … Austin sat at their computer screens saying, "Don't do It,
Bhante, don't become a Bitter Old Man," and "No, Not Bhikkhu Cintita."
As we visit Bhikkhu Cintita today he is imagining How It will Be.
Let's listen in:

I've been practicing my Frown and Glare since I posted my last blog,
and it is working! Wigglet is no longer coming to my door, relieved
instead by the mangiest mongrels of Sagaing, MY kinda dog . By next
month I should be able to peal paint and wilt flowers as I walk by.
Haha. If I have to be a Bitter Old Man, I'm going to do it right. By
next vassa my mere presence will pop meditators right out of Samadhi
into a thicket of unwholesome impulses.

… but wait, what am I thinking? Am I not just replacing one Self with
another, the Young with the Old, then clinging equally to the new
(Old)? Do I really think I can find satisfaction with the Old (new)
Self, any more than I could with the old (Young )? Is not the new
(Old) equally subject to dissolution? Oh, Impermanence, What Vexation
Have You Wrought? And what would the Buddha say? One of his monks
turning into a modern (new but Old) Mara. Besides, I can see that this
Bitter Old Man bit will wear thin pretty quickly. "Oh, Wigglet!
Wigglett!"

And thus does Bhikkhu Cintita reject the Second along with the First
of the Three Responses to Old Age, leaving only the Third, The Middle
Way. … to be continued.

Lao Monk.

I have been helping my friend Ven. Jitamaro in his ambition to become
a missionary in the West. Jitamaro is from Laos, and has been my
primary English student. He comes to practice with me every day, and
has been my assistant in my teaching activities. He is 31 years old,
but has completed 10 vassas. He is interested in contributing to the
development of Buddhism in America, and in learning English more
thoroughly. I am interested in seeing monks like him come to America
to help establish a stronger monastic sangha and to become teachers.
"Like him," means young and personable. I think he could learn to
communicate the Dharma well to Westerners. Anyway, I discovered that
for a monk to come to the USA he needs a Religious Worker (R) visa,
which can be granted if a religious institution (monastery) invites
him to come. He is sending email inquiries to the Lao temples in the
USA we have scared up on the Web, and will then try Thai temples (he
speaks Thai as well), the Vietnamese (he doesn't speak Vietnamese) and
Sri Lankan (… nor Sinhalese).

Postcard from Burma

2009-10-01T15:19:00.001+06:30

MEALTIME

The monks at Sitagu eat in the dining hall, generally around 5:40am
then again around 10:45. Since our vows do not permit us to eat after
noon, except for certain things considered medicinal, we have to
finish eating our second meal by then. Someone hits a big bell
outside with a mallet to tell us that it is time to eat. Every time
this happens all of the dogs that roam around Sitagu, including
Wigglet, take this as cue to point their chins skyward and howl. From
my room I hear the dogs better than I hear the bell and sometimes
Wigglet is right outside my door.

The monks sit on the floor, actually raised platforms about a foot
above the main floor, around round table, five or six monks to a
table, and the food is place in the middle of the table. Food is
always supposed to be formally offered to monks, so this is done by at
least one monk and one staff member or lay donor lifting the table
together. Once food is offered to one monk it can be shared freely
with any other monks who might come late without additional formality.

Most meals are simply cooked by the Sitagu kitchen staff. Sometimes
the same beans or the same fish dish is served day after day. But
generally about four or five meals each week are offered by donors,
usually a family, I think, or two families, or a group of friends.
This is a big deal for them. They sometimes travel many miles to be
able to make the offering. They wear their fanciest cloths (I assume),
often bring cameras, of course bring food, and sometimes bring other
offerings (last week a group of donors brought new sandals for all the
monks; someone searched out the biggest they had for me, but they were
still way too small). The food is always especially good if provided
by donors, and sometime very good. The overstaffing of the kitchen for
donor meals leads to a lot of turmoil, such that meals take longer to
serve.

The donors are always so happy to be there; this is the great merit of
dana. They are very respectful of the monks, very humble and very
attentive. When they are not serving or making themselves useful, they
sit on the lower part of the floor, so that the monks on raised
platforms are above them. Donors are generally astonished to see me,
a big Western monk. Sometimes they take turns posing for pictures next
to me, sometimes a lot of donors at a time all, in anjali (gassho)
paying their respects.

NEWLY OLD

I've gotten some feedback from readers concerning my turning 60. You
might recall that I entertained three approaches to handling this
circumstance: denial, despair, and acceptance. The first is the
American way, the second the way of the multitude, and the third the
Buddhist way. I was kinda leaning toward denial, but my daughter
wrote, "I don't think the skateboard is a good idea. After all, you
are 60." That took the wind out of my sails. I also realized that
denial always slides gradually into depair. So, I've been turning over
in my mind the possible advantages of the second approach, despair. I
would probably make a really great bitter old man. I can do a great
Bodhidharma frown. I'll wager within a short time I could strike fear
in the hearts not only of children, but even of dogs and cats. And it
would just get better as I get older and older and older, and more
and more bitter. What do you think? This would be the last resort
before I need to get serious about (gulp) Buddhist Practice.

TROPICAL DISEASES

Petra, the German lady who has been staying in the Guest House, became
very ill a couple of weeks ago. She had an extremely high fever. Since
there is a Sitagu hospital, medical care was not far away, but they do
not provide all of the services a Western hospital would. For
instance, they do not draw blood and analyze it. So there was no
diagnosis for several days. Petra used to live here for a couple of
years, and was at one time ordained as a nun, and speaks fluent
Burmese, so she had many people, especially nuns, to look after her.
After the fever subsided, but she was still not eating, and feeling
lousy, she was finally diagnosed … with typhoid! Luckily she has
survived, and on the mend. Typhoid is communicated in food and water
under unsanitary conditions. She says she has been eating many places,
including restaurants and nunneries. Sitagu generally has a pretty
good record in the kitchen, though I know they sometimes serve certain
dishes for too many days in a row, which results in stomach
complaints. This reminds one that infectious diseases are very common
here. I had a bunch of vaccinations before I left home, including for
typhoid. But it makes me even more cautious about what I eat.

Bhikkhu Cintita Joins the Ranks of the Newly Old

2009-09-22T14:24:00.001+06:30

On September 27 I will turn 60! In Buddhism we have this Self thing,
or rather don't have it. To be a Self requires the view that there is
something in or around this body that is unchanging, besides a Social
Security Number. That unchanging Self is what is known in Buddhism as
"a mental formation," which in my case arose many years ago complete
with many wonderful unchanging characteristics. So it is not
surprising that that Self is someone much younger than me. The
landmark event of turning 60 puts me once again face to face with that
unchanging youthful Self, and gives me three choices:

One, I can try all the harder to convince myself that I AM this
youthful unchanging Self. After all, I have the still unchanged energy
to be an international globetrotter, like I was in my 20's, and
without depending on Youth Hostels. My health is excellent, except
when I'm sick or pulled a muscle. I can always grow my lush head of
hair back (I think; I haven't actually checked for a while). I've had
many more years of experience being young than any of the young of
today --- the whippersnappers --- so I should be really good at it.
Why, I just might buy me a skateboard when I get back to the States,
and what I think they call a "Walkman" so I can listen to the latest
disko music. Monks don't have hats to speak up that they could wear
backwards, but maybe I'll express my youthful rebellion by wearing my
robe over my RIGHT shoulder.

Two, I can lament the unfairness of the universe for not being the way
it is supposed to be, for failing to respect who I really am, for not
according me what was promised to me, for being like a fancy
restaurant that has inexcusably lost my dinner reservation or a hotel
that has put me next to the elevator. I might even try to organize
something to do about it, like a protest. Or I might just quietly
experience the despair.

Three, I can regard this situation as a good practice opportunity.
This is the Buddhist Way! It goes something like this:

If I am not this unchanging youthful Self, then who is this guy, and
who am I? I seem to have his memories of who he is supposed to be, so
we must have intersected at some point, maybe that time in 1965. If he
is not me, he must be around here somewhere, since he is unchanging.
And I must be another Self, so two Selves. And if there can be two
Selves that I identify as me, aren't there likely to be more? But I
know that guy used to be me, so what happened? The mind not able to
wrap itself around any of this, exhausted, all the Selves shatter and
what is left is nothing but the recognition of change, a continual
relentless morphing of the whole universe into new forms. Even as the
idea arises that THIS IS ME, all the parts and their relations are
already morphing into something else. Any Self that tries to hold onto
itself does not fit into the way things really are, is no more than
the product of a very active imagination trying to find something
solid in an ocean of change. It is silly to try to hang onto something
I never was and could not possibly be.

Thinking this way gives me the ability to lighten up, … and to sound
very philosophical while I'm at it.

Just when I had not only resigned myself to no longer being a youth,
or a Self, but also thought I was joyfully present with this reality,
one of the monks here told me he thought I was already 70! That
suddenly breathed new life into option (1). If you see someone zipping
around Austin on a skateboard wearing full burgundy robes next spring,
that will be me.

As a Buddhist monk I take on a large set of vows which if followed
scrupulously give very little opportunity to feed a Self. They don't
guarantee that I won't entertain a Self secretly, and they allow for
the basic requirements for well-being of the body and mind that the
Self also sometimes wants, but they divert almost all of my life's
time and energy to purposes other than keeping a Self alive. This has
two benefits. First, protecting or enhancing that Self is always a
losing battle. That becomes easier to see as I become older; it will
all end up in the rubbish bin. Second, a self is insatiable. It could
easily drain all my life's time and energy, and leave no room for
worthy projects. There is an enormous sense of liberation that comes
with monastic vows, there really is. (Not that all monks experience
this: the vows Don't Mean a Thing if You Don't Have that Swing.)

So what are my selfless worthy projects? More than ever I intend to
devote my remaining years to the cultivation and flourishing of
American Buddhism. I say, "more than ever," because I am enormously
inspired by what I see of Buddhism here in Burma, and at a distance
dismayed at what I know of the spiritual state of my own country. I
also have great fears about the direction of Western Buddhism in
America, much of which has become a form of New Age Feel-Goodism. It
will take selfless wisdom, energy and patience, on the part of
countless dedicated disciples of the Buddha to see Buddhism firmly
planted in American soil. But Burma has taught me it can be done and
shown what a difference it makes when it is done. That is where my
heart is as I join the ranks of the newly old.

Postcard from Burma

2009-09-15T02:17:00.001+06:30

"The Alley"

The Guest House where I live is situated along the South side of the Sitagu grounds, actually just outside the monastery fence, but inside an outer wall that also encloses within its perimeter housing for staff, a small lumber yard, and other infrastructure facilities. Behind the Guest House, in the direction my back door faces, and on the other side of Sitagu's outer wall, is a narrow street, more of an alley, on the other side of which are nothing but more monasteries and nunneries.

Most of the traffic on the alley is monks and nuns. A large group of about fifty novices heads west each morning after daybreak with their robes covering both shoulders, and with alms bowls in hand, single file walking silently without looking from side to side (except for the very young monks, who can't help it; some of the novices look to be as young as six or seven years old). Then this group returns a couple of hours later, looking just the same, but this time walking east.

There are more novices in Myanmar than there are fully ordained monks. One incentive for becoming a novice is education. It seems that most of the education in this country is supported by the Buddhist temples, usually the construction of schools and hiring of teachers is spearheaded by monks. Schools are often few and far between, so they often end up providing kids with a place to sleep and try to work out a way to feed them. Essentially the schools become monasteries. There is a school of this kind very near here that supports about 100 boys.

Nuns, who do not seem to do alms rounds (they follow a different set of precepts), traverse the alley frequently. They are very colorful, generally wearing an orange skirt and a clashing pink robe with sleeves over that, and a small brown robe folded into a banner over the left shoulder. They usually travel in a group in which all nuns typically wear identical hats or carry identical umbrellas.

The lay traffic in the alley consists of a woman who each day carries a very large tray of snacky foods for sale, who shouts in to announce her wares as she walks; cows; some cars and horse carriages that often have trouble getting through the alley if the cows don't feel like moving. Often lay people walk or ride motor bikes up the alley, and then go into one of the monasteries or nunneries.

The alley is recently paved; I am told was dirt until the mother of an American nun who was visiting her daughter at one of the nunneries here offered to make a donation to pave the alley. The alley was the site of a tragedy a couple of years ago: That year Sagaing was drenched with rain and the Sitagu Academy was flooded in a heavy storm. The double walls all around the Academy acted as a damn and water build up against the wall on the south side. Suddenly the wall gave way releasing the water into the alley as an instant river. A nine-year-old nun was drowned; they found her in a tree.

A few days ago one of the nunneries right across the alley began a recitation of the Pattana, the last book of the Abhidhamma, the third basket of the Pali scriptures. The Abhidhamma is very intensively studied in Myanmar; I read recently that Burma has been the center of Abhidhamma studies in the Theravada tradition since the Fifteenth Century. The recitation of its final book takes about five days and nights without break. I know about this because the recitation was piped through one of Burma's ubiquitous loudspeakers. I think the nun who was in charge of the volume control must have been in a Heavy Metal band before she was a nun, because in this case it was especially loud. I think they started at 3am, a few mornings ago because that is when I was awakened. I needed to wear earplugs every night during the recitation in order to sleep. The recitation is one continuous voice, but with a new voice swapped in every hour or so, day and night. It is inspiring to hear them work their way through the very long text, hour by hour, day by day without stopping. The way the Burmese intone a Pali texts can be very beautiful, but the skill and experience of the various nuns varied a lot.

Unfortunately I still can understand almost no word of Pali as they pronounce it in Burma, so the content of such recitation is lost on me. I've downloaded some chanting in Pali from Thailand and other countries, and I understand many words just fine. Listening to many people use Pali words here, I've come to realize that no original Pali sound is preserved in Burmese Pali if that sound does not also occur in Burmese. Imagine trying to speak French using only sounds found in American English ("Gee Swee Enchant-ee Madam-moyzul"). Then in addition many of the original Pali sounds that do occur in Burmese are changed anyway. I'm trying to do Pali "the right way," for instance, making a double-length aspirated cerebral voiceless stop involves basically tying your tongue into a knot, keeping it there for a moment, untying it then putting a little puff of air after it, where the Burmese just say "tuh." The Burmese have made Pali entirely their own. They have another word for the Pali they hear Sri Lankans and Thais, and presumably me, use: Sanskrit.

"Bhikkhu Cintita's Plans"

I have not forgotten the "Mahayana and Theravada" series of blog postings. I've been writing a piece about doctrinal differences, and what that means for one's faith, but have revised it a couple of times. Now that I have continual use of a computer I should make some progress. That will be the last posting in that series, number four.

I thereafter plan to begin a series on "The Buddha's Teachings on Community." This is the primary topic of the Vinaya, the first basket of the early scriptures. For the Buddha this topic was as important as, or maybe more important than, such things as the Four Noble Truths or the teaching of no self, and yet his teachings in this area are all but ignored in the West (and then we wonder that our Buddhist communities are not a little more harmonious). Before I came to Myanmar my first priority for study was the Vinaya. I've now read virtually the whole thing and several commentaries. I don't recommend each of you do this (it's not easy going), so I thought I would summarize what I've discovered for the readers of my blog.

I plan to continue my studies here until the end of the term, to return to Austin the first week of March, in about six months time. But I will not be leaving Sitagu at that time, just moving the Austin branch.

Bhikkhu Cintita

Another Postcard from Burma

2009-09-02T16:20:00.001+06:30

Postcard from Burma

(Think of these postcards as very big, or as the writing on them as very small.)

Wigglet is in heat. I've described Wigglet is "my dog," though she now bounces between my place and that of Petra, the German woman who is living in the guesthouse about ten apartments down. It turns out that Petra and Wigglet have known each other for years. Wigglet is a smart dog: she knows to hang out with the Westerners, who all like dogs. She was Venerable Sopaka's dog after Petra's previous tenure (U Sopaka is the American bhikkhu who moved down to Sitagu-Yangon just as I moved in here). Anyway, we will probably see a lot of drama around the Guest House in the coming days. The male dogs are starting to hang out in masses. Often when I open my back door, where Wigglet never goes, there is a dog on the other side. I sympathize with the male dogs: they are all so miserable, and Wigglet keeps chasing them off. I can tell they are going through the total range of emotions that human males go through in corresponding circumstances.

Observing the male dogs is a good reminder for me of why one becomes a monk (or nun), that is undertakes a life of renunciation. Buddhism is to look from outside the box, then to think, "This is crazy. Why do people make themselves and others so miserable?" There is joy outside the box and much more opportunity to benefit others. Ajahn Tate writes that teaching the Dhamma is nothing more than pointing out the afflictions and flaws of worldly life.

One of the ironic things I've discovered in Myanmar is that often the quality of manufactured wares is better here than in America. Myanmar is a very poor country, Africa-poor according to the statistics, so people in general do not own much. However, people do use razor blades (especially monks), flashlights, clothing, and sometimes even little motor bikes. For probably a very small part of the population there are cars and cell-phones. (At the Sitagu Academy we seem to have a lot of computers.) All of my clothing is manufactured either in Myanmar or Thailand; it is Theravada monks' clothing; I don't even own a pair of pants anymore. But most manufactured goods now come from China, or less often Thailand, much as in the USA. What surprises me often, though, is the availability of good quality.

Everybody here seems to use rechargeable LED flashlights. LED lighting does not seem to have caught on in the USA. Scott, a member of our original pilgrimage team to Myanmar, who is a lighting technician for movie sets, commented that LED lighting is very expensive in the USA. I have a rechargeable LED flashlight that I bought before I ordained for 25000 Kyat ($2.50) for use when the electricity goes out. It works great. It plugs into a wall outlet to recharge. I think it might even recharge with American electricity; I may bring it back.

In my last few years in the USA I was working out ways to have as small a consumer footprint as possible. This is a good practice, not only for monks and nuns but for all Buddhists. I no longer owned a car or a house, so I was dealing on the level of things like razor blades. In the USA razor blade technology has made great strides, now offering many high-tech options at high-tech prices, such as three parallel blades encased in a plastic housing. It occurred to me that in my younger days shaving was relatively inexpensive. In an economy that grows primarily through the growth in inefficiency, finding a more labor- or resource-intensive way to do whatever it was you were already doing before, this is hardly surprising. In fact the most economical solution would seem to be the old Schick double-edged blade. The blade must be easy to manufacture, since no assembly is needed. Also you have two blades in one, like the double-edged sword that allowed you in days of olde to fight a much longer battle before your weapon became dull. And when both edges become dull you flip it over for additional mileage. I began experiencing nostalgia for my old double edged razor. After I discovered that you could buy double edge blades at CVS, but not the full razor, a fellow Zen priest, Korin Anita, found me an antique razor on e-bay, and I was in business. Although I found that I cut myself more often with the CVS double edge blades than with the high-tech alternatives the extreme cost differential induced me to stick with the double edge, and before I came to Myanmar I stocked up on CVS double-edged blades.

Now, in an economy like Myanmar's that has yet to grow into inefficiency one would expect that the optimal solution to the razor blade question would be widely recognized and practiced. And indeed, everyone uses double-edged razors, with blades of exactly the size that fits into my antique razor. In fact, a common offering people make to monks is double-edged razor blades; all monks use the same kind. In America, I've noticed, people offer monks disposable razors, because there is no telling what kind of razor the monk might possess. As a result, my supply of double-edged razor blades has steady grown since I've been in Myanmar.

This is a long story, but now I get to the point: The razor blades in Myanmar are much better than the CVS blades I bought in the USA! I almost never cut myself. In fact I now enjoy a closer, smoother and more comfortable shave with less loss of blood than I used to with

Postcard from Burma

2009-08-25T14:35:00.001+06:30

Postcard from Burma

We are finally getting some rain here in Sagaing. This is the Rainy Season, one of three official four-month seasons, the others being the hot season and the cold season. (The Burmese do not recognize, or even seem to know about, our four three-month seasons.) We are also observing Vassa here at Sitagu, and at almost all Theravada monasteries, which means the Rains Retreat. But the fact is, it really does not generally rain very much in Sagaing, and this year has been very dry so far. In Yangon, on the other hand, I hear they been having huge storms. The last couple of weeks it has rained here most days, but not hard or long. I've noticed that it seems to make a big difference in the temperature. It's gotten quite a lot cooler.

Mosquitoes have grown in population, however. And the insect world in general seems to be thriving. I have to be careful or I get zillions of ants in my apartment. I often fortify myself with lemonade in the afternoon; my kappiyas (lay sponsors), U Htay Mint and Ma Doo Doo, bring me lemons or limes every Uposatha Day, once a week, and keep me supplied with sugar. (Fruit juice is allowed for monks even after noon, according to the Vinaya. Actually, it is supposed to be filtered fruit juice and to be offered by a lay person on each occasion, but people don't generally seem to know it, and I'm not the monk to teach it to them.) If I don't clean up right away ants show up in droves.

They have very impressive ants in Myanmar. They show up out of nowhere in masses as soon as an opportunity arises, often completely covering a large surface, then disappear very quickly when the opportunity has been consumed. They seem to have a sixth sense (hmm, I wonder if ants have all the other five senses) about where the eating is good. I observed a long line of ants at Pa Auk Tawya one day marching single file but densely packed. I followed the trail backwards, toward where they were coming from and lost them after a few yards in the underbrush, then followed the trail the other way and discovered that the whole column was simply led by one very confident and determined ant, with the second ant in his immediate rear. There were no scouts or any hint of how the leader knew where he was going. I've had gained a new respect for ants since seeing the latest Indiana Jones movie when I was still in the States. The ants here are small, but very aggressive. I've been bitten numerous times.

There are some huge butterflies here, like with 8 inch wingspans, and very beautiful. Interestingly there are very few bees or wasps, or anything I've seen that looks particularly dangerous. A large wasp happened to fly in the doorway a few minutes ago while I was writing about ants, which is what made me think of how few there are here. Not like Texas. I've never seen anything like a scorpion or the famed deadly centipedes. There are six-inch millipedes all over the place, but they don't seem too threatening.

Flowers seem to be in constant bloom, though I haven't experienced the Cold Season yet. Cold in Myanmar, by the way, is not very cold. I understand that it is the most comfortable season. Winds bring cold air down from Tibet, on Burma's northern border.

I've been teaching English quite a bit. I have a group that meets in my apartment to study vocabulary at 1:00 Monday through Friday, generally about five monks and two young women who take classes at Sitagu. (Classes may be attended by lay people, but I think all the lay students live outside of the Sitagu monastery wall. Some of the monks that attend classes also live in neighboring monasteries.)

On Saturday and Sunday I teach four classes on English pronunciation. I was trying to resurrect the rather modern language lab that was built here some years ago, and actually used it a few times. It is quite substantial, with fifty student stations, each with a computer screen, headphones and a button to call the instructor for personal assistance, and a consol that allows the teacher to listen in an each student separately (for instance, when repeating phrases together) and that allows the piping recorded audio to the students and the use of a computer to display to student screens and the ability to talk to students individually, which comes through the student's earphones like God. Unfortunately, a lot of it does not work very well. At most half of the student computer screens have power and that number fluctuates as fuses blow out and take days to replace, and a lot of the buttons for one-on-one communication stick in place. Other screens have power but cannot get a video signal, and of course the power for all of Sagaing simply fails at least a couple of times a day, sometimes for hours. People here are in awe of the West, largely because they hear that things actually work the way they are supposed to. I've abandoned using the language lab in favor of a regular classroom. An unusual feature of all the classrooms here is a PA system for the teacher. I find this useful, it enables the students to hear my pronunciation almost as clearly as in the language lab.

As I've reported before, I am generally the lone Westerner here at the Sitagu Academy, or anywhere in Sagaing as far as I know. However, we have had three visits from Westerners since I returned here from Pa Auk Tawya.

First, Dr. Patrick Franke, from USA, a professor of Religious Studies who specializes in Burmese Buddhist texts. He has been associated with Sitagu Sayadaw for about twenty years and speaks fluent Burmese. He stayed a couple of days and gave a talk in English, which relatively few students here were able to actually follow.

Second, about two weeks ago a German woman, Petra, arrived, probably for about a month. She has lived in Burma for twelve years. She came here to study Buddhism and fell in love with Burma. Of course she also speaks fluent Burmese. She seems to have had various occupations. She lived at the Academy for some time, and was ordained as a nun for a couple of years. She taught English here during that time (of course like that of all educated Germans her English is excellent). She was a travel agent for a couple of years. She now works in the relief effort in the Delta and lives in Yangon, but had a chance to come up here to get out of the rain. She likes the peacefulness of Sagaing.

Third, an English-born Swiss nun in a Korean Zen tradition passed through here for a couple of days. Her name is Venerable Mujin and she is involves somehow with Sitagu Sayadaw in the Delta relief effort. I find I easily miss the company of Westerners; it is always a delight to have one visit.

My studies are going quite well. Sitagu Sayadaw has been teaching a class in English on the Great Foundations of Mindfulness Sutta, for foreign students, all four of us. Unfortunately he is away most of time. For instance, he was in the USA for four weeks in July. He returned but then made a trip to Thailand. On Wednesday he is going to the Delta region to dedicate a new school his organization has built there. He is often invited to give Dhamma talks various place, and various countries. And so on. But when he is in town to teach it his class is quite a treat. He is very inspiring, is a very skilled speaker, and provides a good model for me of the Burmese style of understanding and study.

The standard way to study Buddhism in Burma begins with memorization of original texts, usually suttas, in the Pali language. At the same time, this is how one learns Pali. It is not important to know what the text means in order to memorize it. One then reads the Commentaries, texts that have near canonical status in Theravada, but were generally composed, or compiled also in Pali about 900 years after the Buddha, generally in Sri Lanka. Buddhaghosa is the best known author of commentaries, and Path of Purification is the best known of his many cross-indexed works. These generally attribute a lot of supplementary content to the original text.

I don't have as much faith in the value of memorization as the Burmese have; it seems to have been largely discredited in the West. Also, I don't expect to develop the skill of memorization that most Burmese monks have been generally cultivating since they were very young novices; these monks are amazing. However, what seems to be working for me is to take any original Pali text, look up and learn the most important words and then go back to the text and read it aloud repeatedly. This reinforces the Pali vocabulary I am slowly developing and gives me examples of Pali grammar, and of course gives me the Buddha's teachings in very slow motion. I then read modern commentary on the side. I am also identifying certain Pali texts for memorization, because they are often chanted. I am working on the Metta Sutta, for instance. The Suttas are actually a lot of fun to recite or chant, first, because Pali is a beautiful chanting language, and second, the Suttas are so repetitive, which lends a fluidity to the enterprise.

Burmese do not so much chant as recite individually. When they recite as a group they make little attempt to stay together, some reciting faster than others, but then at the end of a stanza pausing so that everyone can catch up. It is difficult to learn Pali texts through group recitation when people are not on the same syllable at the same time. However, you often hear monks reciting by themselves, which often has a beautiful pattern of intonation (aka singing). Sitagu Sayadaw has a very good voice for this and like most monks simply recites long suttas from memory. Dhamma talks seem always to stick to a Pali texts, which the speaker intones in sections, discussing in Burmese the meaning of each section.

I have a computer! At least I get to use it in my room for the duration of the stay. Aside from preparing for classes this will allow me to write to my blog more conveniently and therefore more frequently.

Mahayana/Theravada IV: The Cultural Dimension.

2009-08-07T16:52:00.001+06:30

Mahayana/Theravada IV: The Cultural Dimension.

Many good Theravada Buddhists in Myanmar seem to feel that there is something mistaken in Mahayana Buddhism. There are differences, as I've described, including doctrinal differences that can be traced to ancient India and differences in style and garb. I would like to suggest that these differences are not so much divergence of doctrine and discipline as they are the awkward re-encounter of diverse cultures: Indian and Chinese. This is particularly important to consider now that we have thrown a third culture into the mix, the Western culture.

Look at a map of Asia and consider: first, in which countries is Theravada Buddhism practiced; second, in which countries is Mahayana Buddhism practiced; third, in which countries have people traditionally (before European colonial influence) eaten with the hands; and, fourth, in which countries have people traditionally eaten with chopsticks. Hopefully you will notice this correlation: Theravada Buddhism dominates in countries which have traditionally been part of the vast Indian sphere of influence, and Mahayana Buddhism dominates in countries that have traditionally been part of the vast Chinese sphere of influence. Tibet and Mongolia, I think, are exceptions, forming an additional cultural area as well as what many consider an additional school of Buddhsim, Vajrayana.

I speculate that two things are going on here: First, the local culture has selected the form of early Buddhism that has most appeal to that culture. Second, the local culture has exerted influence on the Buddhism that it has adopted.

For instance, it has been suggested that Mahayana Buddhism had great appeal in the Chinese because it was so colorful, and had a rich mythology, in contrast to the indigenous Taoism and Confucianism, as well as to the more austere Theravada school of Buddhism. The conditions to which Buddhism then had to adapt were different from its indigenous India: The weather was colder, the emperors were divine beings, there was no tradition of wandering mendicants, family relations were all-important, Pali or Sanskrit was hard to get the tongue around.

The more conservative Theravada Buddhism had a natural base of appeal in the Indian cultural area, but presumably so did early Mahayana. After all, both grew up there. However, cultural conditions would not have been more of a constant, requiring relatively little adaptation over time. Even if Mahayana had come to dominate, which in fact it did in much of the current Theravada area for a long time, it would have been, one would expect, a much more conservative Mahayana than found in the Chinese cultural area. I suggest that the great divergence in Buddhism began when Buddhism reached China. And something similar is now in the process of happening in the West.

How did Buddhism change in China? This is a mix of my understanding and speculation:

First there was the weather: Monks and nuns needed to wear more layers of clothing and daily alms rounds were more difficult.

Then there was the royal family: The emperor was a god. Monks bow down to gods; gods do not bow down to monks. For instance, kings in India were willing to comply with the Buddha's requirements in the Vinaya that prohibited monks from bowing to anyone but more senior monks. Also, some of the colors that Indian monks used to dye their robes were reserved for royal use.

Then, there was Confucianism: The Confucian code of ethics was almost universally observed, I understand, whether or not one was a Buddhist. This provided a framework that to some degree made Buddhist ethics redundant, and to some degree contradicted Buddhist ethics. For example, the family had a dominant place in Confucian culture, while leaving home to become a monk or nun was valued in India. Buddhism adapted by making the family a model of the Buddhist sangha, in which lineage was highlighted. Begging for food was denigrated in China, so the monastic sangha turned to other livelihoods, such as farming and land ownership.

Then there was the government: organizations were distrusted and regulated. More hierarchy was imposed on the monastic sangha, and the simplicity of consensus democracy was diminished or lost.

Then there was Taoism: this provided a new language for Buddhism, well known in Zen, and probably a doctrinal bias toward nondualism and mistrust of conceptual thinking, though this was certainly not entirely new to Mahayana thought in India. More generally the Chinese favored a more synthetic and less analytical approach to doctrine.

Buddhism adapted in China, and in the greater Chinese cultural area, including Japan, Korea and Vietnam, but was not defeated there. It thrived there and in its adaptations discovered new forms of teaching and practice. It is significant that much of what for a long time was considered part of the corpus of Indian Mahayana sutras was in fact composed in China or adjoining areas. The great Zen tradition began in China, in spite of the attribution of a mind-to-mind transmission through Kassapa and Bodhidharma in India. Whereas the bhikkhuni tradition (full ordination for nuns) died out centuries ago in all Theravada countries, it has flourished continuously in Mahayana lands since Sri Lankan nuns brought it to China, around 350 AD.

What are the lessons here for those who traditionally eat with forks? The first is that Buddhism will make many many adaptations to Western culture, making it unlike what we understand now as Theravada or as Mahayana. The culture of West is distinct from both that of India and that of China, though perhaps sharing elements of each. The second is that Buddhism does not thereby have to lose its integrity if we do not lose sight of what Buddhism is all about and if we do not let our very persuasive consumer culture overwhelm Buddhism.

In America, Western Buddhism first sprouted from the Mahayana tradition. A danger in importing Chinese Buddhim is that we thereby accrete adaptations. For instance, Chinese Buddhism has adapted family lineage into Buddhism, but the recitation of the Zen lineage in Western temples I think fails to instill the intended faith in a land where family is probably of less importance that in India or China. I think it is important as Buddhism comes to the West to take stock and understand the history of the tradition. It is particularly important at this juncture to understand as best we can the roots of Buddhism, the teachings of the Buddha as intended for the cultural context in which he lived. But we should not stop there. The Mahayana innovations are partly a result of creative and productive practice, partly a result of cultural necessity, and we should try to understand which is which.

Ultimately the differences between the Theravada and the Mahayana may not really matter so much in the land of the fork, any more that the differences between eating with one's hands and eating with chopsticks. We will develop a Buddhism that is appropriate to our culture, distinct from Indian and Chinese cultural influences, but hopefully retaining what is valuable in both of these ancient traditions.

Two Sides to Any Story

2009-07-28T18:33:00.001+06:30

Sitagu International Buddhist Academy is square, with a 620-foot wall running along each of the four sides. I live in the Guest House, which runs the entire length of the South wall, just on the outside of the monastery proper. The Guest House has 32 rooms, all in a long row, used mostly for lay guests. For instance, a very old and eminent sayadaw died in Sagaing recently and people from out of town came and stayed in the Guest House. Two monks are situated long-term in the Guest House: me and U Issariya, at opposite ends. Most monks live in 'hostles," a few people to a room, within the monastery walls. I was accorded a room in the Guest House, maybe because I am a Westerner, the only one at SIBA at this time, and maybe because I am older than most of the other monks. Living here is a consideration, because it has a modern flush toilet. I've used squat toilets, but not easily. I do, however, share my quarters with a family of gekkos and sometimes a dog.

My appartment is three rooms, including a bathroom. I use one room to meet with students and one to sleep in. The latter originally had two beds, but U Issariya, I and a woman staff member, disassembled one and stored it in the corner of the meeting room to give me sitting space in the bedroom. The meeting room has two doors to the outside, one in the front to a 620-foot balcony, and one in the back. I can get a breeze through this room by opening both doors, at which point "my" dog Wigglet often comes in and lies on the fllor. If it gets too hot I can close up and flick on an A/C in the bedroom, if there happens to be electricity.

I use a seven-foot two-by-two, part of the dissassembled bed, to prop open the rear door. The Guest House is built on piers, rather high at my end, and outside the back door is a narrow conrete staircase leading down to shrub and grass and often cows. Often I throw mango rinds out the back, left over from what my kappiyas bring every week, and seem to have encouraged a gopher to take residence right below my door, or some kind of rodent. I have to take care when I set the two-by-two prop to the side lest it fall through the door. One day this is exactly what happened. It summersaulted down the stairs with an awful clatter and came to rest at the bottom, so I climbed down and dragged it back up.

Also outside the main monastery wall, along the West side, is housing for lay staff, and the kitchen. The children of staff play on both sides of the monastery wall. Actually there are many people about, only a small fraction of which seem to be employed by SIBA. There are often strange people lounging about, or engaged in various forms of work. I see older women collecting large wide branches that fall, or are about to fall, from trees, bundle them up and carry them off, balanced on their heads. The children and some monks are continuously involved in gathering mangoes and coconuts from the trees for the kitchen. People often burn rubbish. Often someone will be tending cattle, often mooing right outside my appartment. Dogs are always yapping and geese and chickens run around.

One day a man, about fortyish, was sitting on a log directly under my appartment; who he was and for what reason he was there I have no idea, but this is common. Suddenly he was startled by the loud noise of wood against concrete, not fiteeen feet away. Someone had thrown a heavy piece of wood out the back door of the Guest House. Apparently the intent was not to discard it, because steps followed the piece of wood down the stairs. The lower burgundy hem of a monk's robe appeared from above. Monks usually do not throw heavy objects down stairs. But this was not an ordinary monk; this was a giant! And pale as a goose! As I picked up the door prop I happened to glance up and see the kind of expression only Steve McCurry or someone like that can capture on camera: eyes like dinner plates, a jaw wide open, and a body ready to bolt.

Some pictures of me in my red Theravadan robe

2009-07-24T02:12:00.007+06:30

I no longer look like that guy with the cat.

Here I am sitting under a bohdi tree.

Mahayana/Theravada III: The Great Schism

2009-07-20T15:37:00.001+06:30

Mahayana/Theravada III: The Great Schism.

The Buddha was very concerned with schism in the sangha. He defined schism very clearly, warned about its arising in no uncertain terms, and put many policies and procedure in place to avoid. The sangha here is understood as the community of monks and nuns, and the Buddha is reported to have averted a serious attempt at schism on the part of his cousin Devadatta, who had ambitions for leadership of the sangha.

Many accounts of the Mahayana trace its origins to a schism in the sangha reported to have occurred around 100 years after the death of the Buddha. The assumption is common that Theravada and Mahayana therefore have had irreconcilable differences ever since. I would like to show here that there probably never was an historic schism that separated Mahayana from Theravada or any of the other "Hinayana" schools, and to caution that assuming that there was might effectively induce one.

The great schism of about 350 BC reportedly resulted in a group of monks called the Mahasanghika walking out of the Second Buddhist Council and forming their own order, by some reports for reasons of doctrine and by others for reasons of discipline. Doctrine here means Dharma/Dhamma and discipline means Vinaya, principles of conduct for the monastic community. In fact, from the period 350 BC to 100 BC (I'm looking at a book here by Nalinaksha Dutt, Buddhist Sects in India), there seems to have been three principle factions of Buddhism, a forerunner of Theravada, the Sarvastivadins and the Mahasanghika, along with many minor ones. These three sects seemed to have doctrinal differences, but also influenced each other. For instance, the Theravadins and the Sarvastivadins composed competing Abhidharmas during this period. Dutt reports that the idea of the Bodhisattva first arose in the Sarvastivadin school during this period, as something that had particular appeal lay practitioners, then spread to the other two schools. Apparently most of the Jataka stories found in the Pali Canon were in fact composed by Sarvastivadin authors to illustrate the ideal of the Bodhisattva, then incorporated by the Theravadins into the Pali scriptures. The Mahasanghika advocated a higher status for the Buddha than that of a mere omniscient, psychically powerful human. However, Dutt considers all of these schools to be Hinayana.

Mahayana apparently developed centuries later in India and its exact connection to any of these schools is obscure. The bodhisattva ideal (Sarvastivadin) became a central feature of the Mahayana, but at the same time the equally important emphasis of the Mahayana on emptiness and the perils of conceptual thinking is considered by some scholars to have developed in direct opposition to the radical Sarvastivadin idea that gave the school its name, the idea that things in fact exist. The Mahayana produced, or later claimed for itself, a line of brilliant and creative thinkers, and a very rich mythology, populated by such figures as Avalokiteshvara (Guan Yin), Manjushri and Samantabhadra.

When considering doctrinal variation in Buddhism, we can ask, "Is it true?" or "Did the Buddha say (something like) that?" But before we do that, we might ask, "Does it matter?" I'm not convinced, for instance, that belief in a transcendental Buddha either brings one closer or brings one further away from liberation. However, the question here is, "Are the doctrinal differences between the Mahayana and non-Mahayana schools great enough to cause a schism?"

Apparently not: Chinese pilgrims traveled to India in the Fourth to Sixth Centuries AD. These were Mahayana monks who knew that they might encounter "Hinayana" Buddhists in their travels. To their great surprise they found Mahayana monks living in the same monasteries, eating the same food, with Theravada monks, sacrificing no harmony over doctrinal matters. They lived like modern roommates one of whom reads mysteries and one of whom reads science fiction. It is not something one fights over.

The pilgrims returned to China, Buddhism eventually died out in India, Theravada Buddhism came to dominate the South of Asia, Mahayana thrived in the North, and for many centuries there was little opportunity for contact. However, this geographical dispersal of the schools of Buddhism was never, as far as I can see, the result of a schism in the sangha. It is more like a family separated for many generations through immigration, now divided even by language, but now reunited. Or maybe like a family reunited, but now with a lingering rumor of an ancient family feud. What will its future be?

We have not one, but two strong traditions each of which preserves essence of the Buddha's tradition (sometimes in its own way). That's great: we have someone we can swap leisure-time reading with.

Mahayana/Theravada II: The Pa Auk Tawya Encounter

2009-07-17T17:59:00.000+06:30

Theravada/Mahayana II: The Pa Auk Tawya Encounter

This Spring I spent almost two months at the Pa Auk Tawya meditation center in Mon State, with about four hundred other monks. This is, of course, a Theravada monastery, and it has a very famous Burmese abbot, who teaches a particular and very systematic method of Vipassana meditation based on the commentaries of Buddagossa, The Path of Purification. It was a good opportunity for me to consider the differences between this style and the radically unsystematic (Mahayana) Soto Zen style of meditation I grew up on. Also significant was the great number of monks from Mahayana traditions, probably about forty or fifty, who had traveled to Myanmar to practice meditation at this Theravada center.

The first thing that struck me about the Mahayana monks is that they looked just like me in a previous life, about two weeks earlier. Well, not just like me: They were primarily from Korea, with some from China and Taiwan. Interestingly there were also ordained Theravada monks from traditionally Mahayana countries, like Korea and Taiwan, and also one from Japan. But it was interesting to discover in me a kind of identification with Mahayana that I did not know was there. What reminded me of "my kind of people" is the deportment and attire of the Mahayana monks.

Mahayana clothing evolved in China as layers of clothing were added underneath the traditional Indian clothing, and then the traditional robe on top as abbreviated. Theravada represents something closer to the Buddha's tradition, consisting of the triangular lower and upper robes, and generally nothing else. Different Theravada countries now wear robes of the same size, but differing color, and seem to have only one style in common of the many ways the upper robe may be worn. I understand that scholars really are not entirely certain how the upper robe was worn in the Buddha's day, nor how big it was. Apparently, though, it was smaller than it is now, so maybe the Mahayana upper robe is not so great an abberation.

The Mahayana monks, on the other hand, enjoy the many benefits of sleeves! The most commonly worn Mahayana robe is like a large bathrobe. In the early days of Austin Zen Center Flint Sparks was the first to begin wearing a robe to early morning zazen; I thought that because of the early hour he had become to lazy to get properly dressed in the morning. None of the Mahayana monks at PAT had the voluminous sleeves that the Japanese seem to prefer however.

Most of the Mahayana monks had some smaller version of the Theravada upper robe, worn over the left shoulder and under the right, but hanging very smoothly and evenly with little overlap and no slippage. (Japanese Soto has managed to put the slippage back into robe wearing.) Most Mahayana monks generally dispensed with this robe altogether except on formal occasions and some did not seem to possess such a garment at all. Many were also wore monastic work clothing, something like the Japanese samu-e, or like a karate outfit, and some even wore t-shirts, into the meditation hall. I am sure that this seemed quite inappropriate to the Theravada monks (who uphold the tradition in their own very casual way, wearing their robes only in a technical sense as the weather became very hot), and even to me with my Zen training which included Dogen's instructions always to wear Buddha's robe into the zendo.

The Mahayana monks, I notice, uniformly sit with a very deliberate posture in the meditation hall, just as the Zennies in the States learn: They sit with their butts on raised cushions, very erect, generally in full or half lotus. Their erect posture also carries them outside of the meditation hall with a certain kind of dignity. The Theravadins, on the other hand, tend to sit any way they want, on very thin mats. Many of the older Theravada monks seem to have habituated a lopsided posture, that the younger monks are just in the early stages of developing. In Zen, of course, posture is everything.

As an aside, it has struck me how much Burmese nuns' attire resembles that of Mahayana monks. Burmese nuns are not fully ordained bhikkhunis, they actually take only eight precepts. This does not seem to entail any less dedication to the Buddha's Way, but it means that they are free of many obligations described for bhikkhunis in the Vinaya, including what to wear. Modesty is the norm for women in Myanmar, and much more so for nuns. So nuns are always well covered, wear robes with sleeves and wear the upper robe more ornamentally than as functional clothing.

In both Mahayana and Theravada traditions seniority is generally associated with ordination date. The Theravadins are particularly clear about this, as was the Buddha, in seating for ceremonies, in walking with a group on alms rounds and so on. (I am still the baby monk at Sitagu, though my physical age and my exoticness seem generally to give me a degree of undeserved status.) Now, it is very common, I have discovered, for Theravadins to question the validity of the Mahayana ordination. I don't know what the basis of this is; Mahayana monks never, as far as I know, question the validity of Theravada ordination. In every Mahayana country except Japan, and a bit in Korea, monastics undertake the rules of the Vinaya, like Theravada monks, with varying degrees of success, like Theravada monks. Maybe the Mahayana monks just don't look like professionals in Theravada eyes for reasons described above. Anyway, it is interesting how Pa Auk Tawya deals with this mixed set of monks for alms rounds: First, they put foreign monks and Burmese monks in separate blocks, and allow the foreign block to precede the domestic. Since there are no domestic Mahayana monks, this seems graciously to honor the Mahayana monks. However, this is a slight of hand: Within the foreign block they order all Theravada bhikkhus first, by ordination date (putting me at the end of this group, for instance), then all Theravada novices (I was actually followed by an elderly Korean Theravada novice; he apparently did not want to take all 227 precepts), and finally by Mahayana monks from the most senior to the most junior.

In the end, at Pa Auk Tawya is a large group of monks, differentiated in various ways but living together and sharing a deep dedication to the practice of liberation.

Pictures!

2009-07-01T18:07:00.001+06:30

The following link will take you to some pictures from the Burma pilgrimage. Scott, who took the pictures, may already have posted them to the blog, in which case I apologize for the second posting.

http://picasaweb.google.com/conn.sr/Burma1?feat=email

Notice, that although Scott uses my new name (U Cintita) in the captions, he in fact returned to Texas before I acquired that name. That is why I am not wearing burgundy robes in any of the pictures. However, Scott is a great photographer and has included some wonderful shots that represent Buddhist Myanmar quite well. Enjoy these.

Postcard from Burma

2009-06-30T15:38:00.001+06:30

Classes are in full swing at Sitagu International Buddhist Academy (SIBA). The place is full of resident monks, and monks and nuns from the densely monastic environs come to SIBA to attend classes as well.

My schedule is much as it has been, with a heavy emphasis on study. I generally meditate for an hour in my room before the 5:30 breakfast bell. For the two daily meals I sit at the foreigner table. Four of us are actually there to help put the "I" in "SIBA": a Lao, a Cambodian, a Vietnamese and myself. Two of the four speak Thai, two of the four Cambodian, often better than English.

After breakfast I sweep the 630-foot long balcony of the 32-unit Guest House, in which I live at the far West end. I generally connect up with "my dog," Wiglet, at this time, who has totally adopted me, especially since I've started bringing her scraps from meals. Then I have a long gap for study until lunch. I've been meeting with one of the Burmese monks, U Kittimara, most mornings 8-9 for a Burmese lesson. Mostly I study Pali.

Yesterday was Uposatta Day, every week according to the moon. Generally a lot of lay people come to SIBA, and to all monasteries, and it is a holiday from classes. My kappiyas, or sponsors, U Htay Myin and Daw Too Too, a couple from Sagaing, come to visit me on Uposatta Days. A kappiya is someone who tells a monk, or presumably a nun, "If you ever need anything, just let me know." I did not fully understand how this system works before I came here. Most monks have a kappiya; I have two, it turns out, counting Htay Myin and Too Too as one joint kappiya. The other is U Tin Hliang, a bachelor who lives in Yangon. None of these speak a word of English. When I receive a visit from Htay Myin and Too Too I feel like a college freshman whose parents have dropped by: They bring things they think I might need and ask repeatedly and eagerly what else I might need. I never need much (through SIBA of basic needs are taken care of.), but I know I can count on them if something major comes up (I've asked Tin Hliang to provide me with a new suitcase, as the one my daughter Kym lent me before I embarked on this trip is falling apart). A very helpful monk in many ways, U Issariya, helps interpret, while I try to think of a few phrases in Burmese to interject. It is a very upbeat encounter; they are always happy when they leave.

Bhikkhus, of course, depend entirely on the goodwill of people like Htay Myin and Too Too, for the food we receive in the dining room, or more traditionally for alms, for our robes, for our housing. Often we do not see who the contributors are in an organization like SIBA, but seeing who they are and particularly having a familiar relationship with a sponsor reminds us of the immediacy of this dependence. At first I thought that this "adopt a monk" system was a modern Burmese innovation, but in studying the Vinaya I've come to realize it is very ancient indeed. It is one part of the "Economy of Gifts," the basis of the Buddhist community.

So what am I giving in the Economy of Gifts? That is a koan that people like Htay Myin and Too Too remind me to engage. The answer is not simply, "Monks give the greatest gift of all: the Dhamma." Like the best koans it can be turned this way and that and never quite settles. For instance, I can see that just the opportunity to give is an enormous gift to my sponsors. In fact I feel I would serve them better if I could think of something more to ask for! But also I understand that they have an interest in my meditation practice, my studies and my plans for the future. Yesterday they expressed their hope that I continue to wear the robes when I return to America, which I could happily report is my intention. Even this is a gift.

The lunch bell sounds around 10:30. Often other donors are present for lunch. They bring most of the food, sometimes very fancy indeed, and are involved in serving and offering it to us monks. They are always delighted and continue being so as they wash up dishes after the meal and sit down to enjoy whatever the monks have not finished. Yesterday we seemed to have as many donors as monks and the food would have made even Charles Ball (AZC president) envious (and we each got toothpaste to boot).

We join in a meal chant for the beginning of each meal, which is part of the Pali Reflections on Using the Requisites: "... not for enjoment, nor for intoxication, not out of gluttony, nor to become attractive, but only for the continuation and nourishment of this body, for keeping it unharmed, for helping the brahmacariya life, ..." When we have donors for lunch we generally also recite the Metta Sutta, which I do not yet know in Pali. I must say that not eating after noon has made me very mindful of what and why I eat. It is difficult to eat abundantly, and there is less opportunity to make up later for what you might have failed to give your body earlier. I find that I am very aware of the nutritional value of what I am taking in and whether it will sustain me until the next morning. It is a wonderful practice. I am, by the way, saying quite healthy in this way. I've lost weight but not more than I should.

After lunch I have a lot of free time for studying, washing robes, etc. I also have been teaching English to a group that meets in my room, every day at 1:00. The Lao is the most regular student and has actively recruited most of the other 3-4. At 4:00 Monday through Thursday, Wiglet in tow, I teach fifteen minutes of English pronunciation to a large formerly scheduled class otherwise devoted to English grammar.

There seems to be a difference between vision and reality in the role of English at SIBA. The vision, as I understand it, is that SIBA is "International," both in offering instruction in English, the most international of languages, and in attracting students from many countries. In fact, most students' English is very poor, and there are only four of us internationals (and I'm not a formal student, but a "guest"). As a result, classes begin with a short lecture in English, followed by a long discussion that becomes increasingly Burmese as more people join. From my own attempts at teaching to a large "Intermediate English" class, I've found that most people have little notion of what I am saying unless I speak very slowly, which I had thought was a talent that comes naturally to me.

At 7:00 in the evening the monks gather for chanting (recitation). Afterwards I generally study Vinaya. Recently I have decided to add a little more spice to my routine: a bedtime novel. There are a very few in the English library here. I started with George Orwell's "Burma Days," his first novel, written after having spent five years in Burma. I am currently rereading "A Tale of Two Cities," which as I recall makes little reference to Burma.

2009-06-27T03:13:00.000+06:30

At a temple near Mandalay

2009-06-27T03:07:00.003+06:30

Hi. I've set up a google gallery of some photos from our tour of Myanmar. This is the site:

http://picasaweb.google.com/conn.sr

I have been subject to sloth and torpor getting this up. But here it is, and I will be adding to it.

Peace, harmony, and metta,

Scott

Mahayana/Theravada I

2009-06-23T19:09:00.001+06:30

In my recent bhikkhu ordination I've crossed the divide between the two major modern branches of Buddhism, Mahayana and Theravada. This was anticipated in the name of this blog: "Bhante" is the Theravada title for a monk or nun, and "Dogen" is a reference to the founder of Japanese Soto Zen Mahayana Buddhism. It feels indeed like I have one foot in each branch.

The Mahayana distinguished itself in India as a separate movement within Buddhism India by about 300 or 400 AD, and the early users of the name "Mahayana" (Great Path) used "Hinayana" (Small Path) to refer to the numerous non-Mahayana schools. Mahayana is almost the exclusive school of Buddhism in the north Asian countries of China, Japan, Korea, Tibet, Nepal, Bhutan and Mongolia. For many centuries Theravada has been the only remaining school originally designated as "Hinayana." It is almost the exclusive school in the the southern Asian countries of Myanmar, Thailand, Sri Lanka, Laos and Cambodia. I believe Vietnam is the only country in Asia in which both schools substantially exist side by side.

Centuries of separation have not fostered understanding between these two major schools as they re-encounter one another in modern Asia and in the West. For instance, last Summer I read a (very inspiring) book, The Banner of the Arahants, written by an early British Theravada bhikkhu, who therein details the history of the monastic sangha from the time of the Buddha, through the spread of Buddhism as an international religion to modern times, and never once acknowledges that there is a monastic sangha north of Himalayas. A Zen priest, on hearing that I would be traveling to Myanmar to reordain, responded, "Theravada?!? I don't get it." In our pilgimage travels before I ordained I was repeatedly introduced as the Mahayana monk who was about to ordain in Theravada; the responses were informative. The abbot of one monastery we were visiting suggested that I read the Buddha's discourse on wrong views (of which none of those enumerated can be said to characterize the Mahayana). A different reaction was elicited by the ninety-two year-old leader of the large Shwe Gyin sect of Burmese Theravada, who expressed his high regard for the Mahayana tradition. Many monks I've talked with here think of Mahayana monks as not following any precepts.

Many on both sides trace the divide to the Second Council, 100 years after the Buddha's parinirvana, which, so it is recorded, resulted in a serious schism because of differing views, according to the Theravadins with regard to discipline, and according to the Mahayanists with regard to doctrine. However, this was hundreds of years before even the rudiments of the Mahayana school has arisen.

I would like to explore many of differences and similarities of the Mahayana and Theravada in a series of blog postings. I think this is an important topic for Western Buddhism as we individually go shopping among the various sects of Buddhism now present in the West and as as we collectively develop a Buddhism that works for the West. My plan is two write seven more blog postings as follows:

Mahayana/Theravada I (this posting)

Mahayana/Theravada II: The Pa Auk Tawya Encounter

Mahayana/Theravada III: The Great Schism?

Mahayana/Theravada IV: Will the Real Mahayana Buddhism Please Stand Up?

Mahayana/Theravada V: Carrying the Torch

Mahayana/Theravada VI: The Cultural Context

Mahayana/Theravada VII: What Makes Buddhism Thrive?

Mahayana/Theravada VIII: The Future History of Buddhism in the West

Languages

2009-06-13T12:25:00.001+06:30

Languages

A priority for the next months is learning Pali language. At the same time I am a rare resource for this "English-media" institution: a native speaker of English and a trained linguist; teaching English will be an important task for me. Still the language most spoken here is Burmese, and among foreign students Thai seems to rival both English and Burmese as the language of choice.

Pali

Pali is, of course, the most traditional language of Buddhism. The wide-spread belief among Theravadins is that it is the language of the Buddha. I think modern scholarship casts some doubt on that claim, though the Buddha most likely spoke a language, or maybe several languages something like Pali. The early Buddhist scriptures say nothing about this. However, after being preserved orally for many generations, the early Buddhist scriptures were first put into written form in Pali.

Pali is closely related to Sanskrit. I think of it as Sanskrit with the r's, e.g., Skr "Dharma" is Pali "Dhamma," "Karma" is "Kamma" and so on. Pali and Sanskrit are, along with Greek and Latin classical languages in the huge Indo-European family of languages, which also includes modern English. So like Latin, Pali has lots of declensions and conjugations along with many irregularities. The family resemblance to English is slight.

Pali is to Theravadins as Latin is, or used to be, to Catholics. Almost all chanting in the Theravadin tradition is in Pali and children in Sri Lanka, Myanmar and Thailand begin learn Pali in school. Most bhikkhus are quite proficient. This is another area in which I am playing catch-up.

English

The academy naturally attracts students who want to learn English. I've asked some monks why they would like to learn English and hear two answers: First, it opens up a much larger world to some bhikkus who have grown up in relative isolation. Second, many would like to teach Buddhism abroad. I like this last answer, because I think there is certainly a great need for competent teachers of Buddhism in America, where anyone who has read a few books and has public speaking ability is ready to hang a shingle. English language is the most important skill to acquire for a Burmese monk to teach in America, though I think classes in American culture and American comparative religion would be important as well. I could see some of the young monks thriving in America.

I am trying to arrange an advanced class on English pronunciation. I think this is where I can be most effective, starting with articulatory phonetics and a comparison of the English and Burmese sound systems, then zeroing in on the problem areas, such as syllable-final consonants, consonant clusters and intonation patterns. I just learned that there is a language lab here that has never been used. I'm trying to get the keys to get into it to see what might be helpful. We may have to make our own recordings; I can get two other American voices in Yangon, male and female.

Burmese

My plan before coming to Myanmar was not to put much energy into learning Burmese, so that I could focus on Pali. I am a dabbler when it comes to language. I've studied probably fifteen different languages at one time or another, sometimes for just a week, including three American Indian languages and an African language. The only language besides English that I ever learned really well is German, and that is has now been rusting for about 20 years. I can see Burmese sitting on top of the pile.

However, I will probably be here a whole year (my visa just got approved, finally, for a full year), I will probably have a affiliation with the Burmese Buddhist community in the States when I return, and there is a lot of incentive to learn Burmese while here. A lot of staff and kids know no English, and people are curious about me wherever I go. Most of the monks here are supposed to know English, but are uncomfortable actually having to use it, and are therefore a bit afraid of me. Besides it is impolite to be in a country and not at least try to speak the language.

I've spent about 4 hours going over the sound system/pronunciation of Burmese with two different monks, one from Upper Myanmar (where we are here), and the other from Lower Myanmar, the two major dialect areas. I've got a good handle on how the sounds work, which will help me in teaching English. Burmese is easy to start using because almost everything in a Burmese sentence is optional. So, there are no declensions are conjugations (required parts of words in languages like Pali, and to a lesser extent English). You don't even need pronouns for "I" and "you" if they can be inferred. If you enjoyed a meal, just say "sa: gaun: de" (eat good past-or-present). No matter what you put together it seems to be perfectly understandable Burmese. When you do want to use a pronoun it gets a bit complicated, however. For instance, your choice of pronoun depends on if you, the speaker, are a man or a woman. Also, very relevant for me, if you are a monk or speaking to a monk a different set of pronouns is used for "I" and "you."

So, this excursion seems to be almost as much about language as it is about Buddhism, which is fun for me.

Pictures from Myanmar

2009-06-08T15:29:00.001+06:30

This link should take you to some pictures that have been posted of
the pilgrimage tour to Myanmar:

http://manatphyan77.blogspot.com/

I cannot actually visit the site from here to give you any tips for
navigating the site. I think there may be a massive number of pictures
here.

I should appear in a good percentage of them, especially group shots.
The pictures probably cover the period February 2 to April 20. I might
potentially be in any picture from February 2 to March 18. I will be
in robes only from March 10 to March 18. My ordination was March 10 at
Sagaing, if that helps.

Good luck exploring these. Let me know if you have any navigation tips
for others (email bhante.dogen@gmail.com).

Cintita

Burmese Miracle Stories

2009-06-06T15:22:00.001+06:30

Outside of us monks, two things that help sustain Buddhist faith here
are (1) really big buddhas and pagodas, and (2) miracle stories. Both
are exemplified in Kyaik Tiyo, Golden Rock, Pagoda. This is the last
site the pilgrimage group visited before dropping me off at Pa Auk
Tawya Meditation Center on March 18.

The miracle of Kyaik Tiyo is the golden rock, a huge boulder, maybe 20
feet in diameter, perched on top of a sheer cliff, at the very top of
a tall mountain, in such a way that it has been just about to roll off
for maybe the last hundred thousand years. It is amazing. Inspection
from below invites one to try to pass a string, an accomplice holding
the other end, under the rock all the way across; it looks like it
would work, maybe by rocking the rock a bit. From higher up, one can
see that its center of gravity does keep it from rolling off the
cliff, but golly it seems that there must have been an earthquake or a
big dinosaur sometime in the last innumerable millennia that would
have toppled it. It is certainly a wonder of nature.

In Myanmar all miracles have to do with Buddhism. The story is that
some of the Buddha's hairs are contained inside of the rock and that
the rock remains in place be the power of the Buddha. Once upon a
time, there were some non-Buddhists tried to push the rock off the
cliff in order to undermine people's faith in the Buddha, Dhamma and
Sangha, but they were turned into monkeys. That'll show them! In an
inspiring, hopefully not foolhardy, display of faith, there is now a
nunnery directly below the rock, and the point of first bounce.

A huge pagoda and tourist attraction has been built at Kyaik Tiyo. A
bus (or actually truck) takes you up the mountain, and one needs to
walk for about 40 minutes up a steep path to reach the top and the
rock. We stayed at a hotel near the top. Hundreds of people were
milling around, looking at the rock, doing prostrations, lighting
incense and candles, and chanting when we arrived. We got up the next
morning around five-ish, before dawn, and I'll be darned if there
still weren't hundreds of people around. A group of around 20 Thai
monks did some marvelous chanting.

Many miracle stories have to do with relics that remain after an
arahant is cremated. There are many samples to view in Buddhist
museums here. The relics usually take the form of crystals. In one
museum they are kept in a jar and it is reported that they keep
multiplying by themselves. They can give samples away and the samples
will continue multiplying. A museum has been built in Amarapura, near
here, in the temple where a local arahant lived and died. Pictures in
the museum reveal he had very intensive eyes. Anyway, after he died
and was cremated, his eyes did not burn!

2009-06-02T21:51:00.002+06:30

Ashin Cintita before an image of the Buddha made of bamboo covered in gold.

The Bhikkhu's Robes: a Short Introduction

2009-05-27T07:39:00.001+06:30

There is a steep curve for the new bhikkhu who comes from a land that provides little opportunity to observe the attire, deportment and activities of Buddhist monks. Shucks, I never even saw monks on alms round until I came to Myanmar. In this short essay, I would like to highlight The Robes of the Bhikkhu, in particular The Upper Robe.

Ahem ... The upper robe is about the size and shape of a queen bed sheet. In Myanmar it is most commonly burgundy in color. I have three sets of two robes (upper and lower) in my possession, as well as one of the less-often used (for cold weather) outer robe. They are all burgundy, in color. Now, the Theravada robe is quite archaic. Apparently the principle is not to involve any clothing- or fastener-technology developed after the Buddha's parinirvana. This seems to allow belts and knots, for instance, but not the belt loop or the buckel. This seems adequate for keeping my lower robe in place.

The upper robe is quite versatile: It can easily become a blanket, a hood, a curtain, a sunscreen. Should the bhikkhu find himself stranded on a desert island, it could provide the sail for a driftwood craft. In its primary function, as clothing, it proves no less versatile, providing a variety of options to ensure fashionable attire for any occasion.

For instance, for informal occasions the bhikkhu positions the robe over the left shoulder and under the right, throws the right corner over the left shoulder and folds the left edge over the left shoulder. This turns the previously topless bhikkhu into the casual monk about town, ready, for instance, to receive an offering of a coke and fries.

Alternately, the exact same robe provides attire for formal occasions, such as meeting dignitaries, collecting alms, or (can I suggest?) the opera. It's all in the folding.

The basic principle of the formal robe is to construct a sleeve for the left arm. Miraculously the leftover material drapes smoothly and evenly over the rest of the body, covering both shoulders. I will describe the Burmese variant of this technique; the Thai is a bit different. The Burmese gives a stylish ruffled neckline. (Remember turtle-necks?)

Now, to construct the sleeve, the bhikkhu makes two seams, consuming thereby three of the four edges of the robe material. A couple of zippers would make this easy, but nooooo, that would be beyond the state of fastener technology at the time of the Buddha. Instead, the bhikkhu forms a seam by rolling two edges together. To understand the principle, you may experiment with your bed sheet. Go ahead, take one off your bed! Now try to make a "sleeping tube" by rolling two opposing edges together. It doesn't exactly work, does it? However, in a remarkable piece of ancient engineering, rivaling that of the modern, uh, zipper, some monk or nun discovered that if you cinch the rolled edges at certain points and create lateral tension, the edges do not come unrolled! ... at least not as readily. In this case, the cinch points are the left elbow and under the left arm. This effectively immobilizes your left arm, except for a claw-like hand. Also, one wrong move causes the long seam to unravel, as I discovered on an early alms round at Pa Auk Tawya, much to the delight of a perfectly attired twelve-year-old novice, who rushed to my aid.

The rest of the garment drapes nicely. The bhikku's head pops out through one end of the first seam, providing the monk with the capability to see where he is going, as well as to be recognized by others. The second seam extends from the hand, up the left arm, cinches in the back under the arm, then continues over the left shoulder and down the front to below the knees, inconveniently unraveling about waist level enough that the right hand can communicate with the outer world, should it be needed, for instance, to open a door, or receive a filtered juice drink (permissible after noon).

Now, the formally attired bhikkhu is quite the dapper fellow indeed, ready for many formal occasions. However, lest the bhikkhu lest this go to the bikkhu's head, let me point out that the robe is best worn in situations where no fun is involved. The robe has a way of enforcing the practice of disenchantment with sensual pleasures. For instance, consider ballroom dancing. In this situation, if the bhikkhu, in his excitement, lifts the left arm even slightly, the next dance steps -- ONE two three ONE two three -- will likely waltz the bhikkhu right out of the better part of his clothing, and also, create a situation of burgundy entanglement for others on the dance floor.

Life in Sagaing Hills

2009-05-24T16:32:00.001+06:30

I arrived here at the Sitagu International Buddhist Academy, my home base, once again on May 12, and have now settled into a routine I can report to you.

The Academy is still closed for the hot season, until the third week in June. It is very hard to acquire any information about the schedule here, or what classes will be offered when the Academy reopens. I had to ask a lot of people to get the information, "third week in June," after being told at one time that classes on June 1.

Anyway, the academy is closed, but there are about ten or twelve monks here. I think most of the foreign monks have arrived. I had thought that Venerable Sopaka, an American who had lived here for two years would be here for the duration of my stay, but he has relocated to the Sitagu Center in Yangon. I saw him there as I was passing through. That will make me the only native English speaker for the coming term, as far as I know, and in fact the only Westerner. In fact as far as I know, I am the only Westerner in Sagaing.

The academy is officially closed, but I have access to the library and worked it out so that I can get into the computer room to send notes like this, be means of a hidden key. When I left Sagaing, after ordaining in the morning, this place was teaming with people. Now it is quiet, the convocation hall where I ordained is locked up.

U Sopaka was worried about his dogs when I talked to him. Burmese do not usually befriend dogs, but of course Americans do, and he had a small group of dogs, generally three, that followed him around everywhere. Well, they have found me. Two particularly, Wigglet and Nibblet (Wendy named them when she was here), are always close at hand. However, one Burmese monk has actually started feeding the dogs every day, so he gets a lot of attention now too.

I am occupying one of the rooms in the guest building, which I had stayed in previously. The guest building has 32 units, each with three rooms: a visiting room and bedroom with two beds and a bathroom. They also have A/C, but the electricity is usually working only about half of the time.

My schedule typically looks like this:

3:30 Wake up.
4:00 Meditate in my room.
5:30 Breakfast for monks.
7:00 (4 days per week), Vinaya, Pali tutoring.
9:00 Burmese tutoring.
10:30 Lunch for monks.
12:00 English class.
6:00 Evening walk.
9:00 Beddy-bye.

There is not much community practice here. In Burma there is often a clear distinction between practice Buddhism and scholarship Buddhism, and the academy represents the second of these. I think a lot of the monks meditate regularly, I see them doing walking meditation outside and hear them chanting inside. But practice is pretty much self-directed. I've set up an altar in my room.

Breakfast is generally offered to the monks by the lay staff here, and is fairly informal. We sit on the floor at a low table and eat, with little conversation. There is a foreigners' table where I sit. The food is generally about the same each day: rice with sauce, vegetable, soup and meat dishes to mix in. Sometimes a meal is donated, a couple times by lay families and a couple times by nuns. The food is generally more interesting on those days, sometimes noodles!

Sitagu Sayadaw asked a senior monk and scholar (Ph.D.) here to look after my scholarly needs. So we have been meeting four times a week to discuss, so far, Vinaya. Two foreign monks have decided to join our sessions, one Cambodian and one Lao.

The last couple of days a Burmese monk has started giving me daily help with Burmese. We have been going over the Burmese sound system. Before I came, I thought I would not put much energy into learing Burmese, because this is an English-speaking (International) academy and I want to focus on Pali language. However, not very many monks speak English well; I don't know how they actually conduct classes; I guess I will soon see. Also Burmese is more immediately useful, for speaking with the laypeople here, who are without exception very friendly and have little English, or getting about outside of the academy.

I have been offering an English language class in my room. So far the Lao has been coming, and the Burmese monk who is helping me with Burmese, and is also the one who has taken to feeding the dogs. I have also just invited a guy from the kitchen, Thanton (sp?), who has been very interested in learning English.

You will notice that there is a lot of free time in my day. This gives me the opportunity to study. I spend about two hours a day just memorizing Pali words, and additional time studying Pali grammar and learning to recite texts. I have already read about one quarter of the Vinaya in English translation, and have been studying some Dharma materials. Then I have time for exercise and keeping my room clean, contributing to this blog and taking an evening walk. I also sweep the porch of the guest house every morning, the whole extent of the 32 units.

It's a good simple life and I am enjoying it. I love the time to study. I plan spend the next several months basically like this.

Pa Auk Tawya: Contacts

2009-05-23T14:30:00.001+06:30

I know there are a lot of readers who do meditation retreats. I would highly recommend Pa Auk Tawya to readers who may be considering a retreat on the basis of my experience, though my experience is limited to the monks' wing. The center in Myanmar is certainly used to handling foreigners, and also can help with the sometimes difficult process of obtaining a meditation visa. Pa Auk apparently also has some centers outside of Myanmar, and is in the process of establishing one in Northern California. Let me give some contact information. Here are two Web addresses:

In USA: www.paauk.org
In Singapore: www.paaukforestmonastery.org

Presumably you can discover your options at one of these sites. Also I have an email address in the USA: Brian Johnson, upasako@paauk.org.

Pa Auk Tawya: Surroundings

2009-05-20T15:35:00.001+06:30

Pa Auk Tawya Meditation Center covers a large range of forest (maybe it's classified as jungle). After being there seven and a half weeks, I was surprised driving out at how much there is of it: the lay sector and the nuns' sector in addition to the monks' sector in which I was housed, plus a lot of infrastructure for maintenance and bringing in supplies. As I mentioned before, at the time I checked in there were altogether 700 people living there, most of them in the monks' sector. The landscape is very hilly with creeks and valleys, densely wooded and underbrushed. The monks' sector largely occupies a small valley and the surrounding ridges, that form a horseshoe shape. The Sima Hall, used for meditation, is located near the top of the upper end of the valley. From there you can see right down the valley to the flat lands to the West, and a body of water, that might be a river or the ocean. I can't identify the trees, a lot of big thick leaves, often as big as a pillow or even a couch. There is, however, a Bodhi Tree right up the hill from my kuti. The canopy is about 40 or 50 feet high. The landscape is dotted with little kutis, huts in each of which one monk lives. My kuti was on the South ridge, and because the hill drops off sharply at that point I actually had a view through the canopy to the North. The access road is at the bottom of the valley, and the Pindipata Hall (pop quiz: What is that?), a library and a couple of offices where you could ask things are along the road.

One climbs stairs a lot. The walk to the meditation hall from my kuti entails walking down 115 brick stairs, turning right to a level path that skirts along the side of the valley to where I would drop off my sandals at a big rack for that purpose. From that point I would walk up 110 marble steps up into the meditation hall. I made this trip back an forth a number of times each day. To reach the Alms Hall (pop quiz: answer), I would walk down the same 115 stairs, but then turn left to take 84 more stairs to the access road, which I would stay on for a quarter mile. For the first month I made a habit of walking barefoot to the Pindipata Hall; I was a tenderfoot before I came to Myanmar.

The sky sure is different at Pa Auk: the sun rises and goes straight up from the horizon until it is directly overhead then goes straight down to the opposite horizon. None of this slanted trajectory stuff. I could see the Big Dipper from my kuti each night, but when I followed the line to the North Star it took me into the trees near the horizon. I looked on a map and Pa Auk Tawya is about 16 degrees north latitude.

The valley is thick with wildlife. Frogs are great: They are about half a quart in size. There are a lot of lizards of different shapes and sizes. Luckily I ran across only one snake, and that one a very small one. A couple of people have told me that cobras are "common" in Myanmar, and in each case with a grim expression, more like informing me of a national problem than an interesting fact of natural history. Squirrels are huskier and meaner-looking that the ones back in Austin, and louder. Butterflies were abundant, seemingly after the rains started about the middle of my stay. One evening there suddenly were fireflies, and these ones glowed almost constantly, not like the ones back home that disappear and then reappear 20 feet away.

The forest is full of songbirds, layers and layers of bird calls: "Holy Moley," "Looking for a Good Time," "Wait a Minute, Mr. Smith," "Prickly Prickly," "Gee, Willikers," "[nyuk, nyuk,] Whoo whoo whoo whoo," "Wheeeeeeew, Bo Derek, Bo Derek," "Let's Go to Wheatsville," and of course, "Cheep Cheep." There was a bird that sounded the first four notes of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony. There also was what I thought to be a single bird that sounded like two cats fighting. Because of the denseness of the forest one could hear the birds much more than see them.

A group of ground foraging birds would often hang out around my kuti that I was particularly fond of (not attached to, just fond of). They looked something like kingfishers, but were not water birds. They had large crested heads. The bodies were brown, the faces white with black masks and the crest grey. They made little quail-like noises as they pecked around on the ground. One day I discovered that they are the ones that sound like cats fighting; they all join in to what I suspect is a distress call.

Another bird Is a virtuoso: He has zillions of calls, something like a mocking bird, though I couldn't determine if he learned them from other birds. He even has its own audience, what seems to be an approving female bird voice between his calls. One day I discovered that he is the source of the "Wheeeew, Bo Derek, Bo Derek" call. Now, as I remember, Bo Derek was an American actress who made a couple of "B" movies, like in the seventies, and her appeal was not in her acting ability. Why a Burmese bird would know about Bo Derek, or even care, especially given the species differential, is anybody's guess. One day I actually spotted this bird; it is all black, even the beak, except for white cheeks.

Another bird seemed to be constant practicing. It had a call that sometimes extended to nine notes, but that it would interrupt constantly at the third, fourth, etc., note, and then try another note. I thought at first that it was a beginner bird, which I could sympathize with as I was myself in a steep learning process. But then it occurred to me: Maybe this is a composer bird. Birds must get their material from somewhere. I could hear Cole Porter picking out a tune at the piano then trying another note, much like this bird. It did concern me that this bird over almost two months never made any progress with that one tune, much less moved on to another tune. But I trust that other members of its species are more prolific. Maybe one of them wrote the Bo Derek song!

My favorite bird is what I call the Ruffled Feathers. It proved to be incredibly elusive; I never saw one, even though there seemed to be at least one almost constantly outside of my kuti, as well as outside of the sima hall. Its call is something like, "Wrrrrrrrrrr Wrrrrrrrrrrrrrr WRRRRRRRRRR! Unh Uh Unh Uh Unh Uh ... Uh Uh Uh." The first part expressed anger, increasing anger. The second refusal; each "Unh Uh" had the intonation patter of the English interjection. The third resignation. This bird would perform this little radio drama any time of day or night, and generally seemed to be right outside the window, although you could also hear them in the distance. It was as loud as a goose, so I pictured it as being at least as big as a duck. But I will be darned if I could spot one, though I tried.

Pa Auk Tawya: Practice

2009-05-16T13:32:00.001+06:30

Life at PAT is very familiar for someone who has been to Tassjara Zen Mountain Center and has done Zen sesshins. Life is centered around meditation practice with emphasis on silence and minimal social interaction. Some differences exist as well: First Tassajara is more self-sustaining, with monks keeping things running and doing the cooking. At PAT there is more dependence on lay people to do these things, which they happily do here as dana. Some monks, those who have a long affiliation with PAT do some work, mostly office functions, but occasionally even construction work. Next, there is little enforcement of rules around silence at PAT, or for showing up on time. In the Zen context one is always closely watched. There is also no expectation that you will not move during meditation. Someone does take attendance in the meditation hall. The monks are pretty much self-regulating though, even if fuzzy around the edges by Zen standards. Another difference is there is not the least visible hint of interpersonal strife or competitiveness at PAT. People just do what they are supposed to be doing.

The sima hall is used for meditation, and it is huge, two stories, each story about half of the size of a football field. People sit in a grid pattern facing forward toward the altar, on each floor. There would be plenty of room for 1000 meditators.

The meditation periods are long: one and a half hours. I found that this was manageable by shifting from left foot forward to right foot forward then back again during the period. The Burmese monks sit often in positions that are inconceivable in Zen, but the standard cross-legged position is ... (you guessed it) the Burmese position; no one sits half or full lotus, except for foreign monks. The monks are very diligent in their practice. Many of them sit in the afternoon right through the walking meditation period, so from 1 – 5pm, four hours, often without moving. PAT is the sittingest place I've every been. Of course they're professionals: they're monks! Very inspiring. The Burmese claim to have produced a few arahants in the last century, and it is easy to imagine that this could well be true. Most of the monks at PAT are working with teachers of the Pa Auk Tawya method, which is basically that of Buddhaghosa in the Path of Purification (6^th century AD), with particular emphasis on concentration prior to vipassana.

Once when I was meditation the thought came into my head of Western teachers that facilitate no-effort enlightenment experiences in a pleasant seminar context, and what the Burmese monks would think of that. I imagined the hundreds of them having enlightenment experiences like popcorn, but thinking that this is a pretty frivolous way to spend the time.

Meditation hardware is sparse at PAT: Everyone has a 2' x 2' x 1/2" piece of foam plastic to sit on, on top of a hardwood floor. About half of the monks just lay their bowing cloths over that. Sitting cushions are available; they are rectangular, about 2" high and stuffed with straw. Most are pretty dilapidated. There are a few thinner cushions and people like me use towels are whatever they need for knees. There are no chairs or special arrangements at all; everybody is on the floor.

One of the things that we probably need to reconsider in the West is the advisability of forcing people into Eastern sitting postures. We really are a chair culture. Burmese, as Japanese, grow up on the floor, and sit completely comfortably there. They have a wider range of postures they can assume. In Burma squatting is considered almost the most comfortable posture; they do it with both fleet flat on the ground, which is beyond my capability. In the West people are often advised to sit through the pain, a practice whose benefits are less available to Easterners, then we end up injuring ourselves. On the other hand there is something very grounded about sitting on the floor.

Once when I was meditation the thought came into my head of Western high-tech multi-layered, adjustable meditation cushions, and how the simple monks at Pa Auk Tawya would react to such consumer products.

There were a number f Mahayana monks at Pa Auk Taya, mostly Korean and Chinese. This was interesting for me because they look more like I looked a couple of months earlier. Most of the Mahayana monks observe almost the same precepts as the Theravada monks, and an additional set to boot. But their attire and style is quite a bit different, reflecting the development of the school over many centuries in the Chinese cultural area. They have robes for formal occasions, but generally wear monastic work cloths (in Japan this would be samu-e), for instance, for meditation. I noticed also that the Mahayana monks always have a much more deliberate, and for me much more familiar from Zen, posture in meditation, very erect, generally in lotus, and sitting on a raise cushion. There is a stronger emphasis on physical deportment.

Pa Auk Tawya Meditation Center: Alms Rounds Part II

2009-05-14T13:26:00.001+06:30

(Electricity came back on again, this is a daily occurrence anywhere in Myanmar.)

Bhikkhus line up for alms in order of seniority, that is, how long since ordination, with bhikkhus before samaneras (novices). This would generally put me way down the line. However at Pa Auk Tawya they conventionally put foreigners ahead of Burmese. They also put Mahayana monks after foreign samaneras.

The monks have a choice of where to sit for lunch. Many eat in their kutis. There is a room downstairs in Pindapata Hall reserved for foreigners where I generally ate. A spoon is the only instrument used for eating. I think most Burmese monks just eat with their fingers, as in the Buddha's time.

There are a lot of rules for monks around eating. Foods must be offered by had. Most foods must be consumed by noon the day they are offered, so cannot be saved for a snack or for the next day's meal, except to return them to a layperson. Filtered fruit juices may be offered and consumed after noon, until dawn the next day. "Tonics" (sugar/molasses, honey, butter and a couple of other things) may be consumed any time and save seven days after being offered Medicines can be kept forever.

Sitagu handles meals quite a bit differently. Here there is no formal alms round. The staff here simply places food in dishes on the table, family style), then offers the whole table to the monks, by means of members of both lay and monk groups holding the edges of the table and lifting it.

The food at Pa Auk Tawya is nutritious. It is also vegetarian; Sitagu is definitely not vegetarian. I had some difficulty with the food at Pa Auk Tawya: After I arrived I did not seem to have much appetite, which is rare for me, without feeling at all sick or feeling the food was inadequate. Then after about a week and a half I got sick (both ends) for about a day, after which my appetite returned completely. Then about a week and a half before leaving Pa Auk Tawya, I got even sicker for about two days, after which my appetite never recovered until I left Pa Auk Tawya. Go figure.

Coming Soon: Practice at Pa Auk Tawya, Wildlife of Pa Auk Tawya, Wearing the Robes.

Pa Auk Tawya Meditation Center: Alms Rounds

2009-05-14T12:44:00.001+06:30

The monks were offered two meals a day, at about 5:45 AM, and shortly after 10:00 AM. Monks, of course, cannot eat after noon, except for certain things that have medicine or tonic status. In the traditional alms round (pindapata, which colorfully means "dropping a lump [of something into the alms bowl]" monks leave the monastery to walk into a village and them from house to house. This can be seen every day in any village in Myanmar. However, this does not work so well for a large monastery with 400 – 600 monks and no substantial village in the immediate vicinity. Instead, lay people come to the monastery to make offerings, and also the local staff prepares food supported by lay offerings, and the pindapata is staged at the monatery. This is a common arrangement, and in fact before I ordained I was able, with our itinerant pilgrimage group, to participate from the other perspective. There is a special building, Pindapata Hall, constructed with this in mind.

Otherwise the form of the alms round is very traditional. Monks wear their robes covering both shoulders (an art I will describe in a later post), each with alms bowl in hand. What the bhikkhu actually carries is a rather large bowl, a lid for the bowl, a covered cop and a cloth napkin. The lid was added sometime after the Buddha; I can imagine to scenarios that might have motivated this, both involving birds.

One walks through a gauntlet of people offering food. The first generally offers rice. Poper deportment is to focus on the food and avoid eye contact or any kind of interaction, including no acknowledgement of thanks. Most of the offerings go in the big bowl; the bhikkhu just lifts the lid to the side: noodles, sauces, beans, cooked vegetables, ... However, by leaving the lid, turned upside down to form a tray, on the big bowl, one can receive something in the lid which you might have trouble envisioning as part of the stew accumulating in the big bowl: mango slices, cookies, soap, razor blades (some non-food items are also occasionally offered), candles. The napkin is necessary to hold under the big bowl in case someone offers a soup or sauce that is really hot. The cup stays in the lid and is filled with a drink, generally coffee or tea. Once we received milk shakes. One must be very mindful in carrying the bowl.

The electricity just went out (for the fourth time today). I'm running on UPS, so I am going to go ahead and send this.

Pa Auk Tawya Meditation Center

2009-05-11T13:24:00.001+06:30

My 52-day stay at Pa Auk Meditation Center represents phase II of my adventures in Myanmar. In the six weeks of Phase I our pilgrimage group (varying in size and composition with time) of Burmese monks and American lay people traveled through much of Myanmar and met many people from all walks of life, focusing mostly on Buddhist culture and monastic life. In the final days of the pilgrimage I joined the monastic contingent of group. Many photos were taken, but I understand that none have been posted yet to this blog. The group disbanded, as Aung Ko and Wendy returned to the States, and now Ashin Ariyadhamma a month later. Phase I was very busy and very informative. For me it was overwhelming to be in such constant contact with so many new people and to be on the road so much. Phase II was just the opposite.

The pilgrimage group dropped me off at Pa Auk Tawya on March 18. The hot season had begun in Myanmar, which will end with the coming of the rainy season in June. It is particularly hot and dry in Mandalay and Sagaing, so the Academy virtually shuts down. Quite a few people, including Sitagu Sayadaw, had recommended that I just take this time to attend a meditation retreat in a cooler part of the country. So, at the last minute, I heeded their advice.

Pa Auk Tawya Forest Monastery, in Southeast Myanmar near Moulmein, is very famous for its founding teacher, now known as Pa Auk Tawya Sayadaw for the monastery he leads, as is the custom in Myanmar. At the time I showed up there were 700 people living and practicing there, including 400 monks, a large group of nuns and a large group of lay people. These three contingents are located in separate sections of the 500-acre (as I recall) property, so I joined the monks' practice. Of the 400 monks, 76 were non-Burmese, including a number of Mahayana monks from China, Taiwan, Korea, etc., and a number of Theravada monks from the above named Mahayana countries. Most of the rest of the internationals were from Theravada countries. There were about ten of us Westerners: one other American, a Dane who looks like Reb Anderson, a Dutch guy, a French guy, three Germans. Oh, and a Ugandan, who has been ordained for about 20 years.

The daily schedule looks like this:

3:30 am - Wake up.
4:00 – 5:30 am - Morning chanting a group sitting.
5:45 – Pindapata (alms round).
7:00 am – 7:30 am – Cleaning and personal time.
7:30 – 9:00 – Group sitting.
9:00 – 10:00 – Interview, walking meditation, personal time.
10:10 – Lunch pindapata.
1:00 pm – 2:30 – Group sitting.
2:30 – 3:30 – Interview and walking meditation.
3:30 – 5:00 – Group sitting.
5:00 – 6:00 – Interview, work period and personal time.
6:00 – 7:30 – Chanting and group sitting.

7:30 – 9:00 – Dhamma talk (in Burmese).

The schedule is almost the same everyday, no special days off, or skit nights. The only exception is that every full and new moon afternoon we recite the Patimokkha, bhikkhu precepts.

The bhikkhus live in individual kutis (huts) scattered through the forest. In general silence and relative isolation is encouraged. The feel is very familiar to me from Tassajara Zen Mountain Center and from sesshins I've attended. If you relax into it, and can stand spending so much time with yourself, it is a very easy lifestyle. All you have to do is show up for meditation and for meals and keep your kuti clean

More to follow …

Cintita Back On Line

2009-05-10T13:50:00.001+06:30

Readers of this blog my despair of not receiving postings from me since early March. I decided to enter Pa Auk Tawya meditation center on March 18, from which I emerged 52 days later, on May 9. I write from Sitagu Center in Yangon and will be back in Sagaing in about two days, where I should be in more regular contact for the duration of the year. I will offer a full report of my experience at Pa Auk Tawya presently.

Wearing the Robes

2009-03-16T08:52:00.001+06:30

Our group has been doing some more traveling, me sporting my new robes, before most of us (not me) return to the USA on March 20.

The monks' robes carry a deep symbolic significance in Burma. People pay respect through bowing, often three times all the way floor, and these are often complete strangers acting quite spontaneously. Burmese people are well-informed about the lifestyle and rules of etiquette around monks, for instance, what monks are allowed to eat when, and how things, especially food, are properly offered. For me it is for me a lesson in what it must be like to be famous: I can't just go out for a stroll without anticipating interactions that I otherwise would not have. Readers who know me will not have missed that I am by nature reclusive, so this is a challenge for me, and at the same time a profound responsibility.

Then, being a Wester monk seems to carry an additional charge. Any Westerner is exotic here, but a Western monk elicits particular interest, usually starting with a double-take. People seem to appreciate that a Westerner would embrace something so dear to the Burmese culture as I have. I think many Asians are somewhat in awe of Westerners in general (probably for all the wrong reasons) and this is probably all the more so in a country that is so far from achieving First-World status as Burma is. I imaging Western monastics must be seen as a striking and very full endorsement of the predominant Burmese faith.

The proper mindset for the monastic is always to remember that he or she is only plaster that happens to have assumed the shape of the Buddha. I'm sure the Burmese are quite aware of this, given their tradition of temporary ordination and the close personal connection everyone has with monastics, often as family members. It's particularly easy for me to feel like a lump of plaster as I struggle with learning to wear the robes, learning the etiquette, and learning the Pali chants that I've heard six-year-old children recite by heart. Much of what I've learned through Zen practice simply does not carry over. It's very awkward, but the awkwardness is not unexpected or new, reminding me of the beginning of my tenure at Tassajara.

Mostly I am pleased as I could be with the step I've taken. One of the Burmese monks with good English, U Suntara, aked what felt different to me after ordination. I replied, "I know what I am!" He seemed to understand and be pleased with my answer, but after thinking about it, I realized it does not quite get to the heart of it:

A monastic is someone who makes a choice, a choice that few others see clearly they have the freedom to make. That choice is what the shape of his or her life will be. Specifically for the Buddhist monastic it is the choice to live, as a matter of vow, as if the Buddha's teachings were true. This is the mold that gives the plaster a recognizable shape. The value of exercising the freedom to live a life of vow was something I learned through years of Zen practice and through my reading of Dogen, that I was reenacting here in Burma.

What is different after ordination is that now for the first time more than a few others, in fact an entire culture, recognizes the shape of my life. So, it's not so much that I know what I am --- I've chosen to be it, after all --- but that others know who I am. Not only that, but through their expressions of respect for the robes they show that they fully endorse my faith in this way of life. My gratitude for receiving this kind of support is boundless.

U Chintita

Bhante Cindita

2009-03-11T18:11:00.001+06:30

Theravada ordination happens in two stages: (1) novice ordination, (2) higher ordination. Most typically novice ordination is undertaken by youngsters under the age of 20 and full ordination occurs at the age of 20. However after the age of 20 (like me) both can happen in quick succession, at least in the Burmese connection.

Novice ordination involves shaving the head, donning the robes and taking the refuges and ten precepts. It requires only one monk to perform. Since full ordination for nuns died out in Theravada countries, novice ordination is the only option available for nuns in Burma, at any age. At the last minute it was decided that I should take novice ordination on the day before my full ordination was scheduled, in order to simplify a very busy March 10. A small ceremony was planned with Wendy and Aung Ko or our itinerant group in attendence along with two donors and U Lokanattha (from Jamaica), and with U Ariyadhamma giving the Precepts. We went outside to a large community outdoor bathing facility, basically a well-like structure common in Burma, where I got my hair wet and let U Loka shave my head. Of course, I have been shaving my head since April, 2003, when I ordained in Zen, but I had let my hair, or what was left of it, grow for about 3 weeks for just this occassion. The procedure attracted many curious Burmese of all ages, who were of course quite familiar with the procedure, but not so much with the nationality of the main participant. Back inside U Loka helped me put on the lower and upper robes in a side room after U Ariya had ceremonially offered them to me. In the main room the refuges and Precepts were administered in Pali. Tradition requires that this be pronounced precisely. Luckily I and a few others had been studying Pali with Bhante Sumedha back in Austin, but still U Ariya had to correct me a few times, then made me say them in Burmese pronunciation of Pali to boot.

After novice ordination we reported to Sitagu Sayadaw, who would be my preceptor the next day, with me sporting my new burgundy outfit, just like U's Loka and Ariya, as well as Sayadaw. At this time Sayadaw came up with my name as follows: He asked me how long I had been thinking about this reordination. I answered, "For about four years." Then he said, "Usually if someone has a little name they do great things. If they have a big name they do little things." Then he pondered and came up with "Cindita," pronounced "Chin Dee Teh" in regular Pali or "Say Dee Tuh" in Burmese Pali. He says this means, "Great Thinker," sub subsequent research indicates that it means "One who has thought it through." So now approprate things to call me are: "U Cindita" or "Ashin Cindita" (both common forms in Burma), or Bhante Cindita or Venerable Cindita (which mean the same thing), or "Cindita Bhikkhu" or "Hey you, with the peculiar garb." My kids have permission to call me either "Daddy Cindita" or "Ol' Cindita."

I felt like Lawrence of Arabia that evening, testing out my new clothing, except tht mine is much more primative, much like waring a beach blanket in public ... all the time ... forever. Apparently such fasteners as buttons, straps, zippers and velcro just didn't exist at the time of the Buddha, so the outfit stays on more by willpower. In the evening a Burmese family came to the room I share with Aung Ko and immeditately did full prostrations when I walked in. I discovered what it feels like to be a Buddha statue: just plaster but the recipient of so much reverence.

Full ordination involves acceptance into a sangha, a group of at least five monks. (In Theravada "sangha" always specifically refers to a monastic community), after examination of qualifications, and then instruction in the basic parameters of one's vows. One's "instructor" does most of the talking and presents the candidate to the preceptor and sangha. The candidate takes on a set of 227 vows, though only the first four, those that can get you permanently kicked out of the sangha, are explicitly mentioned. My higher ordination was at 7 AM, March 10. Many people had mentioned that this timing was auspicious: It was a full-moon day; it was Sitigu Sayadaw's birthday, and it was the first ordination held in the newly built and magnificent conference center and ordination hall at SIBA. Sitagu Sayadaw acted as preceptor, Ashin Ariyadhamma as instructor, a group of about 110 monks including the students of SIBA as the sangha, and Cinitita in the role of "The Candidate." Also about 30 lay people were present, including all of the Americans and the Burmese in our pilgimage group. I hope that pictures will be availalble on or through this blog after my fell pilgims return Austin on March 20.

Bhante Cindita

Big Theravada Conference

2009-03-09T14:19:00.001+06:30

March 5-8 I attended the 2nd conference of the Association of Theravada Buddhist Universities here at SIBA in Sagaing Hills. This was very much like many of the academic conferences I used to attend in the United States is format and feeling, bringing together a huge international set of scholars for general sessions and simultaneous panel sessions an a variety of topics.

There were hundreds of participants, perhaps 60% of which were scholar-monks and nuns, and 40% lay people. Many participants, both lay and monastic were professors or advanced graduate students. Countries represented, in approximate descending order of number of participants, were Manmar, Thailand, Sri Lanka, Cambodia, India, Napal, Laos, USA, Indonesia, Singapore, Vietnam, Malasia, Australia, Uganda and Mexico. From the USA were Burmese monks and our group from Sitagu-affiliated centers, and the famous Bhante G. (Gunaratana, author of Mindfulness in Plain English; I've been a big fan for a long time). There were also a couple of Mahayana monks. Everyone was interested to meet a monk from Uganda, the only one. People are also very interested in Buddhism in the other frontiers of Buddhism, the USA and Mexico.

Topics for lecture included scriptural teachings (pariyatti), practice (patipatti), Engaged Buddhism, monsticism, current development of Theravada, and current Pali literatures. All talks were in English, except for the sessions on Pali literature, which were in Pali. One of my tasks over the next year is to master Pali, but I see I am just starting. One of the things I've discovered is that the Burmese have their own pronunciation of Pali (e.g., sadhu becomes thadu, with English-like "th," paccaya becomes pissiya, etc.). But I learned during the conference that while the Burmese call their version of Pali "Pali," they call the standard pronunciation, found for instance in Thailand and Sri Lanka "Sanskrit"! I'm not sure what they call Sanskrit.

An Indian scholar gave a talk on the role of Vipassana (Insight) meditation in Theravada. He declared it the heart of Theravada Buddhism, and stated that the Buddha's primary contribution in the area of insight or wisdom is the recognition that mere intellectual understanding of the nature of reality does not suffice, that one must go beyond conceptualisation and meet reality at the level of direct experience. This sounds exactly like Zen to me.

Bhante G. gave practical talk about Buddhism in the USA. He came to the USA in 1968 (from Sri Lanka) and has founded the Bhavana Society, so spoke directly from experience. Some asked him how he sees the future of Buddhism in the USA. He said he thought the future looked "very bright," pointing out how many Buddhist groups are sprouting almost everywhere. But, he warned, that there is a lack of teachers and as a result a lot of misinterpretation of Buddhism. He said this is a very dangerous thing, comparing it to grabbing a snake by the wrong end. I had an opportunity to have a long talk with him yesterday morning. He was very encouraging of my intentions here.

The conference also incorporated a lot of pomp and circumstance (the prime minister of Myanmar was here for the opening ceremony, for instance) and entertainment. The "cultural program" included chanting from Myanmar, chanting and dancing from Nepal, and music and dancing from Thailand. A group of about 20 young performers from a Buddhist university took a bus from north Thailand to come here. Their music was an interesting blend of traditional Thai and modern elements, for instance with very strange looking electric "guitars" and various percusion instruments, bamboo flutes, etc. The dancing, all be women, seemed completely traditional, very slow and graceful, moving in unison. The Thai's were a huge hit. Many normally constrained monks, many with cameras, seemed to take a lot of interest in the female dancers. (sigh.)

My ordination is set for tomorrow morning. After that, our group will make a final trip, to Rangoon and the Mailay peninsula, bringing me back here to SIBA about March 20.

English Lessons

2009-03-03T17:27:00.001+06:30

The upcoming conference of the International Association of Theravada Buddhist Universities is almost underway here in Sagaing Hills. Many of the about three hundred visitors are beginning to arrive. Bhante Gunaratana of the Bhavana Society and author of Mindfulness in Plain English arrived yesterday. Originally only about 100 delegates were expected, preparations have gotten very busy. My ordination date has changed til after the conference, to the morning of March 10 here or the evening of March 9 in real (Texas) time.

The conference is almost entirely in English, except for a smaller Pali language session. Some of the senior monks at Sitagu are busy preparing and rehearsing their talks, which for many is quite challenging. Many have much difficulty with pronunciation, even though the vocabulary is there, so I have been helping some of them to prepare. Although English is widely taught here, and Burma is a former British colony, few Burmese have contact with native speakers of English or with foreigners in general. I noticed in our travels to smaller villages that most Burmese have never even seen a foreigner outside of TV or movies. This made the native American component of our party very exotic indeed. It was interesting to be stared at so much, expecially by kids who would crowd around our car when we stopped and press their noses right up against the windows, then get very excited if we so much as waved, or if one of our party took their picture.

I intend to offer a course focussing on the pronunciation of English as Sitagu. Sitagu Academy is supposed to be English-language speaking, but I understand that I will have to try to learn more Burmese than I intended to be able to communicate with people here. I was helping one of the monks whose rehearsal presentation I had attended without understanding more than a few words. While we were re-rehearsing I asked him who was currently teaching English at Sitagu. He answered that he was! People, kids and monks, are very eager to learn English or anything else, and work very diligently. So teaching English here should be a rewarding experience.

One of our party, Scott Conn, has returned to Austin already. If he has not done so already, he intends to post some pictures to this blog so that you can see what it looks like around here.

Peculiarities of the Burmese

2009-02-27T17:45:00.001+06:30

Our itinerent group has taken two more trips since the last posting without enough time between for me to get a post off. The first was to Taunggyi and Lake Inwa in Shan State. Shan State seems to be the most prosperous in Burma and Taunggyi is very clean. In Burma a vacation trip is a pilgimage and vice versa, since anything worth seeing includes a pagoda as the dominating feature. Near Taunggyi we visited a very deep cave... containing over 8,000 Buddhas. The second trip was to Monywa, the home town of U Maho, the leader of our expedition. We stayed at his old monstery, at which he has recently founded a new grade school. Near Monywa there is what is reported to be the world's largest Buddha: 400 feet high, with stairs and windows all the way up. From Monywa we made an excursion to near the border of India, Kassapa National Park. It is deep in the jungle, and we rode elephants for the last couple of miles. It is reported to be the site of MahaKassapa's (MahaKashyapa's) demise. Kassapa is known for leading the First Council after the Buddha's death, and is also considered to be the second ancestor of the Zen lineage, right after the Buddha.

Let me record a number of impressions I have of the Burmese:

Most Burmese and slender and attractive in appearance. They exhibit a lot of racial variety; you can see Chinese-looking faces, Indian-looking, characteristic Burmese with rounder eyes than the Chinese, and sometimes European characteristics. The women are so attractive, it makes you wonder why there are so many monks (or what I am doing).

Almost all Burmese, men and women, wear longyi, long skirts that wrap around and constantly have to be retied. In wealthier areas a certain proportion of Western-style clothing is found.

Most women and many children wear thanakha on their faces. This is made from a tree bark, protects the skin and is supposed to be cooling. Its color is an off-white. Some women wear it stylishly symmetrically on each cheek, others just cover their whole faces (and bodies, I am told), giving them a ghost-like appearance.

A lot of Burmese, mostly men, young and old, chew betel nuts, which are a mild stimulent. This turns the teeth red, lending a vampire-like appearance to the consumer.

Burmese are very playful and smile a lot. This is even true of people hawking small items at tourist sights. They take their profession as a kind of game and generally feel no resentment when turned away; for instance, they will be glad to give you directions thereafter.

I suppose Westerners are disorganized in their own ways, but it is more noticable in a foreign culture. Schedules change constantly. Some may recall that our group was originally going to embark on our trip from Austin on February 14, then this changed twice. This seems to be quite normal here. For instance, I have been scheduled to ordain on March 5 for some time now, right between two other events. Now I notice that the two events have been merged without notification (I don't know what that means for international travelers to the second event who have already made travel arrangement). Another thing I observe constantly is that no one seems to paint a wall or ceiling without dribbling paint on the floor. Sometimes beautiful wood or marble floors are impaired by this. I am not sure what they are thinking; they do have newspapers here.

People tolerate and feed cats and dogs, which are abundant, but rarely claim ownership of are particularly fond of these animals. One reason, it occurs to me, might be that monks provide an outlet for their affection, and may be even more good natured and loyal.

The hardest thing for me to understand is that people seem to be completely insensitive to noise. Americans get mad when a neighbor plays the stereo too loud or too late. To the Burmese this seems to be a kind of offering; they even set loudspeakers outside for the benefit of their neighbors, full blast, and this can be any time, even at 3:30 in the morning. People just don't seem to care. Buddhist temples often plan Pali chants full blast, sometimes throughout the night. Weird.

People seem to have a completely different sense of personal space than we. Their houses tend to open directly to the outside. They don't care if people peek in on them. On tours of hospitals we have been surprised at the places we were allowed to visit. Men have a lot of freedom to wear as little as possible, and often bathe outside. Monks too. Women always maintain a high degree of modesty, even if bathing outside.

I'm getting to understand traffic patterns, or lack thereof, a bit better. Initially I interpreted the inceasant honking and meaning "get out of my way!" and wondered why no one who was targeted in this way appeared in the least angry. I now see that there is part of an interactive process. I honk means, "I'm right behind you." The response is typically to look ahead, determine if it is safe for the honker to pass, then to turn on the left blinker to signal the go ahead. After passing there are usually a couple of seemingly friendly hand gestures involved. Right of way seems to depend entirely on relative size of vehicle, even when a car is entering the street from a driveway as a bicycle is passing. There seem to be no traffic laws, no traffic police and no auto insurance.

Myanmar has some light industry, and manufactures a couple of different cars, from, I understand, 65% domestic parts. One of these is a kind of Jeep. Another is a little blue truck, hardly bigger than a skate board, that apparently comes in a kit for home assembly. Most of the economy is agricultural, and seems not to have changed through the centuries. Farmers work with little more than hoes and sometimes oxcarts. Even highway construction is very primitive, with large numbers of people hauling rock and sand by hand, and heating asphalt in barrels with wood.

There is for the most part little protection of the environment. Most cities have no garbage collection; people simple burn trash wherever they want, producing some awful smells. Exceptions are Taunggyi, in which I was surprised to find garbage trucks. The air seemed very clean there. People dicard rubbish rather indescrimately. Kassapa National Park is another exception, in which the forests are well preserved. Apparently the park was endowed with a huge grant from the Japanese.

Electricity is very unreliable here. We have power at SITA about 70% of the time, with daily outages. If you get a very abrupt email from me, it is probably because the power has just gone out and the computer is running for a short time on battery.

Public health is an issue. I've seen little evidence of emergency care. Most health clinics are run by monasteries at very little cost. We have been very careful about the food and water we consume; it is easy for Westerners to get sick here. It is lucky that we are traveling with Burmese monks who have lived in the USA for a time, since they are concerned that they have lost their immunities. Sitagu Buddhist Academy, where I am now, is very careful about food and water. I read that the life expectency here is about 53 years.

Burma is a country where, working through Buddhist organizations, a little help from abroad can go a long way. We visited a new school in Monywa, two stories tall, with classrooms and housing for teachers, that was built through a donation from one person in Baltimore for $20,000. Health care and education are to two biggest concerns of Buddhist organizations, though I would like to see orphages and nunneries also better supported. At the same time, Burma in turn has a lot to give the West; though not materially, it is certainly spiritually much stronger.

Kojin

Buddhism in Burma

2009-02-16T21:30:00.001+06:30

'Sattvas,

I'm back at Sagaing Hills for a couple of days, which will be my home base I feel at home here because in a lot of ways it reminds me of Marin County in California, where I grew up, only not so upscale. Sagaing Hills is very hill, often with very steep hills, and heavily wooded and is full of narrow winding roads. But even though there is a lot of Buddhism in Marin County by American standards, here there is one temple, pagoda or monastery after another.

I am impressed that Buddhism is seamlessly part of the culture here. I think that experiencing this is one of the primary reasons Ashin Ariyadhamma encouraged me to come to Burma. This really is a culture of generosity even tempers. I've never seen a public display of anger, I've never seen a bicycle with a lock on it, and this in spite of possibly the highest level of poverty in Asia. There is quite a bit of begging, but it is never pushy. People are not self-assertive or trying to distinguish themselves. People understand the teachings around moha and dosa and seem rather consistently to exhibit amosa (generosity) and adosa (compassion). Quite remarkable people.

People exhibit quite a lot of reverence for monks. Unfortunately less for nuns (who for historical circumstances are not fully ordained). At the same time monks mix freely with the general population. Often you see one riding on the back of someone's bicycle or hanging off of a truck. Most males in the country have been monks at some time, at least for short periods, and have received the same reverence during those periods, even from their own parents. I think this reinforces the idea that the reverence is for the robes, or for the Dharma, not for the individual that inhabits the robes. The monks make themselves totally dependent on the offerings of the lay people, yet give more than inspiration in return. I am impressed how many monks are involved in public services, like establishing schools, hospitals and orphanages. Ashing Punnobassa, who I've seen a few times now, and whom some people in Austin will remember, is involved in providing schooling for 100 novice monks (ages ~5 to 19). The arrangement is an economy of gifts which I think must inspire the pervasive generosity of the culture.

Temples seem often to accrue a lot of physical wealth, and this can be found in the Catholic-like extravagance of many of the pagodas. Gold leaf spires are very common. Many of the older more obscure monasteries at the same time can be quite run-down. Monks for the most part live very modestly, even older monks and abbots.

I've accrued most of my requisites toward ordination simply through spontaneous giving. To ordain as a bhikkhu one traditionally needs eight thing: the three robes plus a belt, an alms bowl, a needle, a razor and water filter. (At a hotel I realized I could take home two of the eight requisites: a sewing kit and a disposable razor. But I couldn't find a shower cap or shampoo on the list. We visited an old teacher of Ashin Ariyadhamma's, Ashin Suriya, who is a 100 year-old meditation master. As we are preparing to leave, he said to the three monks in our party (this was interpreted for my be Aung Ko, the Burmese American in our group), "I wish I could give you all robes. But there is someone I can give robes to." He had a young monk fetch something from the other room and he came back and handed me a set of robes. The very next day we visited another monastery, whose 80-year-old abbot gave me another complete set of robes, plus a bowl.

I see very small traces of commercialism creeping in to the culture and it makes me shiver. This shows up in billboards with oriental men and women trying to look sexy or distinguished and owning stuff. This is in start contrast with the apparent attitudes of most people.

Kojin

Travels

2009-02-12T21:09:00.001+06:30

Our group (3 monks, 3 lay and me), ison a pilgimage to Buddhist pagodas and monsteries, but we've also had the opportunity to visit some parks and look around some cities and towns. The Sitagu organization, a network of monasteries and public service establishments, all founded by Ashin Nyanissara, has taken us under its wing, so wer feel well cared for. On a couple of occassions our group has been invited to a meal by lay supporters of Sitagu, once on board a boat that took us up and down the Irrawaddy River. We have stelpt in Manday, in the middle of the country; in Sagaing Hills, which will become my home base, just across the Irrawaddy from Mandalay; Maymyo, east of Mandalay, on the road toward China; and Taungoo, in South Burma, where we just arrived today. We've stayed mostly in monasteries.

Mandalay is a very busy, largely impovershed city that was once the capitol of King Mindon, but captured by the British in 1885. An interesting sight is the world largest book: the entire Pali Canon on marble slabs, each slab housed under a tine pagoda. It goes on and on. Maymyo was developed by the British as a resort, since at 3000 feet it is much cooler than most of Burma. There are many solid British colonial buildings and the city is visibly much more posperous than Manaday. Ashin Punnobassa, whom some readers might remember as the monk who took the Nagarjuna class at AZC, works in Maymyo at a training monastery for 100 novice monks. We offered them all breakfast one morning. Taungoo is near Ashin Ariyadhamma's home. We met his preceptor on arrival, and will meet his teacher, a 100 year old meditation master, tomorrow.

People here a very friendly and smile a lot. Almost everyone is a devout Buddhist. We really see that when traveling with monks; people spontaneously start doing prostrations when they pass. Life here is very bare-bones. A typical house is basically a wicker box, with a thatched roof, a garage-sized opening for a door and large shuttered windows, no glass just holes. Many of the roads are good, but there is nothing like a bicycle lane or even a sidewak. Bikes, scooters, pedestrians, cattle, pigs, cars, semi carrying goods from China, horse carts, ox carts and dogs all share the same space. To drive a car you just plow through this and honk a lot. Bikes and scooters typically carry multiple passangers, and sometimes large loads of various wares, including lumber.

At meals, in a monastery, restaurant or house, each person almost always receives a plate of white rice and sometimes a bowl of soup. Then various things like fish, chicken, pork, cooked and raw vegetables and spicy condiments cover the table and people mix what they need in which the rice. The food is quite good, though Scott, an American in our group, got very sick today, apparently from something he had eaten. Monks almost always eat separately from lay people because they must eat their last meal before noon. Today we visited a family for lunch. After the monks had eaten, seated at a low table on the floor, the family simply picked up the whole table, with lots of uneaten food, and moved it to where the lay people were sitting and replaced it with a table full of tea and desserts.

We will return to Sagaing Hills in two days, after which I should be writing more regularly.

Kojin

I'm Here!

2009-02-07T21:06:00.001+06:30

I arrived in Burma the day before yesterday. We flew from Yongon (Rangoon) to Mandalay the first day and attended part of an enormous Buddhist conference at a temple in Mandalay. We've been visiting quite a few temples, and even and hospital and a hospice. Things are very interesting here, the people are incredibly friendly and people are sure Buddhist. It is amazing how many monks there are, how big the temples are and how many temples there are. We came to the Sitagu International Buddhist Academy yesterday. The facilities are very good, as is the food. There is one other American monk here, I was glad to see. Someone here will post some pictures on this blog in a couple of weeks.

Contact Information while Kojin is in Burma

2009-01-27T18:03:00.003+06:30

'Sattvas,

I will leave for Burma in one week. There is still some time to ask to
have tea with me before I go.

I will foreseeably be in Burma for a year or more, primarily at the Sitagu
International Buddhist Academy in Sagaing Hills near Mandalay,
a small monastic college. Unfortunately there is no international
postal service to/from Burma! However, I will be using the email
account, below and will be posting to the blog below:

Email: bhante.dogen@gmail.com
Blog: bhantedogen.blogspot.com

Many people have asked if they can make contributions. In fact I'm
quite overwhelmed by people's expressions of generosity. My livelihood
after March 6 will depend entirely on people asking that question.

My personal needs will be small while I am in Burma, barring an
emergency. I will be fed by the good laypeople of Burma and will have
free medical care (not up to Western standards). An AZC sangha member
will purchase my new robes and alms bowl, and feed the monks at the
Academy on the day I reordain to boot. I will never own much. I will
have some future needs when I return to Austin and am living at Sitagu
Vihara (Burmese temple).

I may have an impersonal need, for a project, however. I will probably
be teaching English as a Second Language while at the International
Academy in Burma and I understand that they do not have adequate
textbooks. I would also like to review the English-language part of
their library, which I understand does not have many Western volumes,
because the cost is prohibitive. I would like to be able to have books
purchased and shipped to Burma depending on needs. The abbot at Sitagu
Vihara knows how to get books over there. I think Burmese monks'
education in English would be a very worthwhile thing for people over
here to support, as many of them would like to teach the Dhamma in the
West.

Gwyn (Gwyndows) Waterfield will act as my steward (kappiya in Pali),
that is she will coordinate donations for me. Please contact her if
you would like to make a donation. You may either donate directly
(checks may be written to John Dinsmore), or pledge contingently
(e.g., "If Kojin needs anything I'll donate up to $200"). You may also
earmark your donation (e.g., "If Kojin needs to buy books, I'll donate
up to $100"). For contingent donations please indicate a time frame.
(The Vinaya specifies that if someone makes an offer without a time
frame like, "If you need something, just let me know," then by default
the offer is good for four months. Bhikkhus are not supposed to
initiate a request.)

Please, a donation to me or my projects should not be in lieu of a
donating to the Austin Zen Center. Austin Zen Center needs your full
support in this time of transition.

Here is Gwyn's contact information:

Gwyn Waterfield
2900 W. Anderson Ln. C-200
Austin, TX 78757
(512) 576-3597 (cell)
(512) 444-1954 (office)
gwyndows@yahoo.com

In the Dharma,
Kojin

Pilgrimage

2009-01-25T11:03:00.002+06:30

This is the announcement of the pilgrimage at the beginning of my stay
in Burma, from Sitagu Vihara (Burmese temple in Austin). The other six
participants will return to the USA on March 20, while I stay on at
the Sitagu International Buddhist Academy near Mandalay.

Feb 3, 2009 to ?, Burma (Myanmar Trip), Austin Pilgrimage Group
1. Sayadaw Ashin Mahosadha Pandita (Aggamaha Pandita) (Vejayanta
Vihara, Maryland)
2. Sayadaw Ashin Ariyadhamma (Sitagu Buddhist Vihara, Austin, TX)
3. Sayadaw Ashin Nayakalankara (Sitagu Dhamma Vihara, St. Paul, MN)
4. John Kojin Dinsmore (Austin, Zen Center)
5. Miss Wendy Bixby (Volunteer Coordinator, Hospice, Austin, TX)
6. Oscar Aung Koe (Secretary of Sitagu Dhamma Vihara, St. Paul, MN)
7. Scott R Conn (Austin, TX)

To participate following programmes:

1. Shwe Kyin Nikaya General Assembly (Samgha Council) which is going
to be held in Mandalay Hill on Feb 6 to 8, 2009.
2. Opening Ceremony of Primary School, Library, Computer Room and Pure
Drinking Water System at Kyaung Gone Village, Toungoo which is going
to be held on Feb 14, 2009.
3. Venerable Sayadaw Ashin Mahosadha Pandita (Aggamaha Pandita)'s 67th
Birthday Ceremony which is going to be held in Sagaing Hills on Feb
16, 2009.
4. Great Opening Ceremony of Mahasaddhammajotika Sima (Ordination)
Hall and 1st Convocation Ceremony which is going to be held in Sitagu
International Buddhist Academy, Sagaing Hills on March 5, 2009.
Following by - Ordination Ceremony of John Kojin Dinsmore
5. International Buddhist Universities Summit, attended by over 100
delegates from 21 Buddhist Universities and colleges of 18 countries
which is going to be held in Sitagu International Buddhist Academy,
Sagaing Hills on March 7 to 9, 2009.
6. Venerable Sayadaw Ashin Nyanissara (Sitagu Sayadaw) (Aggamaha
Pandita, D. Litt., Ph.D)'s 72th Birthday Ceremony, which is going to
be held in Sitagu International Buddhist Academy, Sagaing Hills on
March 10, 2009.
7. Pilgrimage Tour to very ancient and historical sites of Myanmar
such as Bagan, Mt. Poppa, Mandalay, Maymyo, Sagaing, Mingun, Monywa,
Alongdaw Kassapa, Inlay, Toungoo, Yangon, Kyaik Htee Yoo (Golden Rock Pagoda), Chaung Tha, etc:

May the Dhamma prevail in its pristine purity.
Sitagu Buddhist Vihara
Theravada Dhamma Society of America

Leaving Austin Zen Center

2009-01-21T02:21:00.003+06:30

AZC Sangha Members,

People have been asking if I am leaving AZC. The answer is yes ... and no.

I've recently made some fairly radical decisions about my practice career, that I very quickly communicated to a number of people. As these things happen, a wider group of people have then heard about my decisions and begun to interpret them in not completely accurate ways. I think it is time for me to announce my plans publicly bring people up to date and to clear up any potential confusion about my motivations.

Alongside various shortcomings, I've gained a reputation at AZC for steadfastness. I am a founding member of AZC, I practiced in the Clear Spring Zendo, the precursor to the Austin Zen Center, I've been here longer than Seirin, I was one of that first group of four who took the Precepts after Seirin arrived, and the second person to leave here for practice and training at Tassajara, the Soto Zen monastery in California, abandoning a lucrative and stimulating career for this practice. I was ordained as a priest by Seirin on April 19, 2003 in our zendo. I've lived in a Zen community, primarily here, but also at Tassajara, since the Fall of 2001. I've served this center as janitor, remodeler, board member, Web master, ino (in charge of zendo practice), tenzo (cook), teacher, lecturer, shoso (head student) and practice leader. I've represented this center at many interfaith gatherings, panel discussions and classroom settings, and even on TV. I am as familiar with the sometimes obscure works of Dogen, founder of our tradition in Japan, as anyone here. I am sure I have clocked more hours in our zendo, ever present physically, if not always mentally, than anyone else. I've ridden the ups and downs of this center's history. My heart has been in this center, in this practice and in this tradition, and it continues to be to this day. I hope I have inspired others in this direction. Word that my status at AZC may soon change has caught some people by surprise.

As many of you know I've been interested for many years in Buddhist monastic practice, and in the question of what it means to be a monk in the world, rather than cloistered in a monastery. This was, after all, the original model of the Buddhist life, one that allows engagement in the world while at the same time maintaining the monastic container. It is also a model that suits my particular aspirations, and is furthermore, I feel, critically underrepresented in fabric of American Buddhism. As much as I love our tradition, it no longer provides, neither here nor in Japan, the peer support for, nor full understanding of, this aspect of practice. For that reason, after much research, I have decided to seek a second ordination, in fact in the Theravada tradition. This should not be interpreted as a rejection of the teachings or practice of Soto Zen, nor of dissatisfaction with the mission of this center, but is rather specific to seeking the peer support for the discipline necessary in the practice lifestyle I have chosen. My teacher, Seirin, is fully supportive of this decision.

So, what are my plans?

My immediate future involves Sitagu Vihara, the Burmese temple in Austin, and its abbot, Ven. Ashin Ariyadhamma. At the end of February I will travel with a group from Sitagu Vihara to Burma, then Ven. Ariyadhamma will give me full bhikkhu ordination at a new international Buddhist academy at Sagaing Hills, on March 6. I will remain in Burma foreseeably for about three months, for training and observing Buddhist life in its traditional setting, then live back in Austin at Sitagu Vihara for at least several months, all the while sporting a more colorful outfit than heretofore. (In all of this I have the sense of stepping off the top of the hundred foot pole, as one of our koans describes. For instance, as a bhikkhu I will agree, essentially, not to be a part of the exchange economy. This allows engaging in the world in beneficial ways, but only as an offering, and at the same time makes me totally dependent on the unsolicited offerings of others.)

After I return to Austin, since I will not be living close to the Zen Center, I will no longer steadfastly warm a seat in the zendo; however I intend to remain on the Zen Center board, and to continue to be active in teaching here, both in the classroom and one-on-one. Moreover, I hope to be more active than ever in the prison project, to do a lot of writing and to be engaged in inter-Buddhist dialog. I will continue to be ordained as a Soto Zen priest (a kind of Thera-Zenny hybrid), but will wait at least a year before working out with Seirin whether it makes sense to complete my training toward Dharma transmission. I hope to continue my studies in the writings of Dogen Zenji.

I realize that the extent to which I will be less involved at AZC leaves a gap, and at a critical transitional time in the history of our center. I hope that my pulling back in this way will inspire others to come forward as owners of this center, to recall the value of having a strong practice center like AZC in Austin and difference it can make in their own lives, to make zazen a routine part of every weekday morning or evening, to learn to ring bells and hit the han and to volunteer for some of the many tasks that keep this center running. That is my hope. (It is the eve of a new practice period; what better time to renew or extend one's commitment to this wonderful practice and to this center.) I also hope that the perspectives I bring back from my explorations, not only on individual practice but on sangha, will benefit the center in the long run.

I know that my practice decisions will be perplexing to many, and make sense for others. I know of one other sangha member who is exploring following a similar path. If anyone would like to learn more about the background of my decisions, please come talk with me any time.

Above all I want to reassure the sangha that I steadfastly continue to endorse the mission of this center. I think relatively few realize the enormous value of a practice center like ours. I, for one, will continue to support this center in every way I can within the new parameters I am setting for myself.

In the Dharma,
浩仁放川 (Kojin Hosen)