dharmatalks

As the holiday season approaches, we’ll soon find our senses flooded with images of bright-eyed children, opening their gifts, under brightly lit and extraordinarily decorated trees.

I had to borrow money to pay this month’s rent, and may not be able to even buy my parents and grandmother a gift this year. A dear friend was let go from his job, with little notice and no severance compensation, leaving him with possibility of not being able to provide for his children either. Another close friend is recovering from debilitating infections in his legs, caused by diabetic complications, making his ministry as a priest difficult at best, at a time when he knows people will need him to be present for them.

We all a choice. We could allow the images on the television and other media to drive us into depression, create anxiety, or cause us to lose hope; or we can adopt a healthier attitude, and allow ourselves to let those images remind us of the wonder with which a child experiences the world around them.

In dharma practice, we refer to something known as the “beginner’s mind” — a non-striving, non-judgmental perspective, freed from distraction, attachments and fear. The beginner’s mind acknowledges thoughts as they come up, and gently lets them go.

When the doctors tell me that my t-cell count is dropping dangerously low, I immediately remind myself that what they are saying is that from their perspective my t-cell count is dangerously low. And since I know that perspectives change and are unreliable, I can gratefully acknowledge their contribution to the conversation and my medical care, and release the temptation to feel anxiety over that.

When my employer told me on Friday that my shoes were unacceptable, and that she expects me to have new ones by Wednesday, I could have responded with defensiveness or anger. I could have said that it would be nice if the salon were busy enough for me to afford new shoes. But I chose to acknowledge that in her business, she is entitled to have expectations of how she wishes her employees to dress. Her request was reasonable enough, and not intended to be hurtful. Again, I had to let go of the tendency to become defensive.

I dream of being able to return to teaching and writing full time, and to be able to use my background as a pastoral counselor to sustain myself. If I adopt a beginner’s mind, I am open to the limitless possibilities that I might otherwise miss.

“Be still and know…” the religious texts tell us. Only when we quiet the mind, can we find the peace that comes from realising it’s all impermanent.

Santideva, an eighth century Buddhist scholar, who wrote the Bodhicaryavatara (The Way of the Bodhisattva), a long poem describing the process of spiritual enlightenment wrote:

Regardless of one’s spiritual path or religious affiliation, it seems to me that the common ground we share is a desire for clarity and an interest in becoming free from suffering.

Every path has its own way of arriving at that place, and the seeker must be able to cultivate an open mind, a discerning awareness and a willingness to recognise the difference between traditions, context, mythos and truth.

The traditions and context of a path may be rich and engaging, but they are not the way to end suffering or gain clarity, in and of themselves. The mythos and narratives of the path may be useful to various extents, so long as we recognise them as mythos and narratives, and do not allow fundamentalism to distort our focus; yet these are not the truth either.

There is an old Taoist adage which teaches that the three levels of truth are “experience, reasoning and knowing”.

Once we have experienced something, we often arrive at conclusions that convince us that we “know” that thing. It may be very difficult to persuade us otherwise. Several years ago, I attended the film The Passion of the Christ with several of my students. Their focus was to be on the Aramaic dialogue, which Gibson employed throughout the film. This Aramaic was taken from the original written forms of the Christian mythos, the Peshitta — an Aramaic/Syriac pre-cursor to the Greek and Latin scriptures, which is still used today in the Maronite and Syrian Catholic Churches.

As my students watched the film’s depiction of the Last Supper, their jaws dropped. It was the first time these young, bright, Catholic students realised what I was teaching them was true — that Rabbi Jesus did not imply, intend or infer that the matzot bread and wine had magically become his body and blood at all. His words, in the Aramaic, were not “This is my Body,” or “This is my Blood,” as has been the corrupted interpretation on which the Christian context of “Holy Communion” was developed. Instead, my students heard for themselves (what they could have read for themselves in the Peshitta): “This represents my flesh sacrifice,” and “This is the cup representing my blood sacrifice.”

Suddenly, the students understood that despite the fact that Gibson mistranslated those two phrases into the typical “This is my Body, this is my Blood” in the English subtitles, the context and intention of that meal was to teach something that Rabbi Jesus would have learned in his studies in Kashmir and India — the practice of ahimsa or non-violence. Instead of having to sacrifice a lamb for Pesach (Passover) as a means of giving thanks to their God (eucharistia in the Greek), Jesus demonstrated that he was giving thanks in the breaking of bread, and the drinking of the wine. Bread would become his substitution for flesh (lamb). Wine would become his substitution for shedding the animal’s blood. And in that, he instituted a new covenant, which supplanted the old tradition of the Israelites, and required them to kill an animal superstitiously to satisfy an external “god”.

My students also began to realise that it made sense now… That the scriptures in which Rabbi Jesus taught, “The sovereign power of the Divine is within you,” (mistranslated in the Latin to mean “The kingdom of God is at hand…”) was pointing to the truth that it was an indwelling Power that was the source of Life, not a jealous, pissy and temperamental god, with lots of wives and a tendency to send floods and order those who didn’t please him to be killed. And since the Divine was within, the offering need not be bound by the laws of the “old covenant”, but could become a new, mindful and non-violent way of living. That beyond the illusions of separateness, they could realise that they are all One, “even as You and I are One”.

My students began to apply their reasoning to what they had just seen and heard, and entered into the second relative aspect of truth.

Yet as they watched the film, the intermingling of reasoning and experience still convinced them that the revolutionary rabbi was crucified as the narrative tells, and at least half of them still believed that the truth was that he mystically rose from the dead, three days later.

Experience and reasoning, while certainly better means of discovering truth than blind faith, still include a range of validity, because they are relative to our interpretation, wisdom, skills and opinions, and may be susceptible to our beliefs, superstitions and desires.

The third means of arriving at truth is a direct spiritual knowing, which can only be arrived at by turning inward, emptying the mind, and allowing the perception of spiritual certainty to replace the suppositions of experience and reasoning.

This, I explained to my students, is why I have no difficulty teaching the stories of Rabbi Jesus’ journey to Kashmir and India during his formative years. It’s why I have no difficulty with the traditions and scriptures which arose in Tibet, India, Kashmir and Egypt about Jesus’ traveling to those lands after he was assumed to have died on the Cross. In fact, it’s why I am not bothered by the narratives of Jesus’ adventures in South America, espoused by Joseph Smith either.

The reason is that by making the progress of first applying my direct experiences to what I learned as an anthropologist, I was able to reason that the stories of the scriptures, like all religious texts, are intended to be mythos — not literal or historically true accounts. I could recognise that the entire story of Jesus’ life and death were plagiarisms of the earlier accounts of the life of Horus, Dionysus, Mithra, Krsna and Buddha. (cf: http://zeitgeistmovie.com)

I personally suspect that a revolutionary spiritual teacher, a rabbi and guru, by the name of Yeshua (Jesus/Issa) lived in the first century of the common era. I believe that it’s plausible that his radically different spirituality and commentary on social justice were developed in his growing up in Alexandria, where Buddhism was certainly already being taught, or that he could have indeed traveled with his twin-brother, Judas, and other disciples to Kashmir, India and Tibet, where a number of the “lost tribes” of Israel were thought to have settled, and there learned the dharma from any number of Hindu and Buddhist sages.

Beyond that, I don’t invest much time or thought. Whether he was put to death, or if his followers, familiar with Tibetan and Hindu herbology, “drugged him” to make it appear that he died, only to revive him in the Garden Tomb makes no difference to me — indeed, if any of it ever happened at all.

And the reason is because I know that my spiritual pursuit is not about finding the historic Jesus, or knowing whether Krsna really was blue, or if Guatama Buddha was really born of a virgin. My spiritual pursuit is to discover the truth about suffering, and to devote my lifetimes alleviating suffering, until no sentient being ever suffers again.

This knowing is wholly interior. It is the result of learning the meditative and spiritual practices taught to me by my teachers. It is the direct result of teachings that stretch back to the Indian “St. Issa”, who may have been the historic Jesus, and to his twin-brother, Judas (Mar Thoma). It traces back to a lineage from Ma Jaya Sati Bhagavati, and her teacher Maharaj Neem Karoli Baba, who learned at the Lotus Feet of the Buddha and Hanuman-ji. There is no doubt, or need for investigation on my part, because this knowledge is beyond descriptions, words, concepts and rationalisation. And while I dedicate my life to teaching this path, the essential truth is that ninety percent of what I now know remains “secret” or private. Others will come to know it, but only by turning inwards themselves.

That is why I can no longer say that I have a religion, and have modeled my response after than of my spiritual father, His Holiness the Dalai Lama, who says, “My religion is compassion.”

I am not an Enlightened Being, and so I cannot bring enlightenment to anyone else. My path is just that, my path. I can share from the Bodhisattva Heart, what I know and the steps to interior discovery of truth. But I can only compassionately lead others to that place. There, they must discover that truth for themselves.

Some will find that moment of truth as followers of the Way of Christ — by extricating the Message from the religious dogma and doctrine which obfuscates it. Others will discover it in the ancient traditions of Wiccan, Druidism, Hinduism, Sikhism or Romany Craft. For some, it will be the religions of the “Word” — Judaism, Kabbalism, Islam and Christianity. Others will not need religion at all, and as practitioners of Science of Mind, Gnosticism, Agnosticism or Aetheism may discover the truth in the words of the philosophers and scientists.

For me, it is found in the Dharma of Compassion — the teachings of Rabbi Jesus and Guatama Buddha — ordinary human beings, who lived extraordinary lives of compassion, mindfulness, non-violence, gratitude and awareness.

My desire isn’t for all of those who read my writings to become Buddhist. Instead, I hope that you will find the seeds of truth in my teachings, and apply those to your journey, wherever that path happens to be, so that awareness, renewal, transformation and liberation can become possible everywhere, and adapted to every culture and tradition.

In the words of my guru, Ma Jaya Sati Bhagavati (Tenzin Yangchen): ” Don’t settle for the smallness that you have made of your life; concentrate on the bigness of it all.”

Namast

Many years ago, Geshe Langri Tangpa received the transmission of Sakyamuni Buddha’s teaching on the Transformation of Thought (Lojong Tsigyema), from his teacher, Drom Tonpa.

He was only one of a very small number of students to receive this teaching, just as Drom Tonpa was one of even fewer to receive the transmission from Buddha’s student, Atisa.

These ancient teachers recognised that very few would be ready to grasp and accept a teaching, which calls for the student to learn to accept the sufferings of others as their own, and to fully engage themselves in the interest of freeing others from suffering. For that reason, they only passed on the teaching to those students they knew were ready.

Gesha Langri Tangpa, upon receiving the teaching, was overwhelmed by the possibility that one day, this profound message could be lost, if it were not preserved. Until that time, the transmission of Buddha’s teaching was done by oral tradition. Gesha Langri Tangpa recorded this transformative teaching in written form, in what we now are privileged to know as the Eight Verses of Thought Transformation.

Some time after his death, the written verses were discovered by another monk, who received intensive training on the precepts of the Eight Verses from one of the other monks to whom Drom Tonpa originally transmitted the teaching. After that, the teaching became widely disseminated in monastic and lay settings, reaching as far as the leper colonies throughout Tibet and India.

On the night I was given my spiritual name by my Guru, Ma Jaya Sati Bhagavati (who was given the name Tenzin Yangchen by His Holiness the XIV Dalai Lama), one of the senior monks at the ashram shared with me the teaching as he has received it from our Guru, not long before. Since then, it has been part of my morning reflection every day.

This morning, few students came for liturgy and dharma talk, and so I invited the three who came to join me for a walking meditation in Atlanta’s Piedmont Park, where I explained to them the meaning of the Eight Verses on Thought Transformation.

When I returned to the hermitage, I read a reflection by a very good friend, written on another blog, which showed the depth of his concern and compassion for those who suffer. I wished it were possible for my friend to sit down with me for over coffee tonight, and for me to share with him what I taught this morning, and that inspired me to attempt to put into written words the essence of that teaching here.

The first verse of the Lojong Tsigyema says:

With determination to accomplish the highest welfare for all sentient beings, who surpass even the most incredible wish-granting jewel, I will learn to hold them supremely dear.

This first verse affirms our desire to learn to view every sentient being as the most valuable concern in our world, and makes them, not us the priority and focus on whose account we seek enlightenment.

The second verse continues:

Whenever I associate with others, I will learn to think of myself as the lowest among all, and respectfully hold others as being supreme, from the depths of my heart.

This verse is not about egotistical self-deprecation or the pretense of humility. It is an aspiration to embrace true humility through right mindfulness. This is the mind of the great teachers, who put the needs of others first. It was the example of Sakyamuni Buddha, and the Christ. It was the example of Francis of Assisi, Gandhi and Mother Teresa of Calcutta. It was the kind of humility which gave Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Sister Dorothy Stang the courage to speak out for social justice, despite knowing the possible cost to their safety.

In verse three, we read:

In all actions, I will learn to search into my own mind, and as soon as an afflictive emotion arises, endangering myself and others, I will firmly face it and let it go.

We recall that the Four Seals tell us that our emotions cause suffering, and that the way to end suffering is to move through the experience, recognising it as maya — illusory. When we engage in this practice, we understand what His Holiness the Dalai Lama meant, when he taught the crowds in Atlanta recently that the only real path to nuclear disarmament was to embrace personal, interior disarmament first. If we confront the interior enemy, and with a compassionate heart, release the delusional thoughts as powerless misconceptions, fears and assumptions, we empower ourselves to positively affect our experiences and the lives of others.

The fourth and fifth verses tells us:

I will cherish beings of bad nature, and those oppressed by strong negativities and sufferings, as if I had found a precious treasure very difficult to find.

When others, out of jealousy, mistreat me with abuse, slander and so on, I will learn to take all loss and offer the victory to them.

We’ve all experienced difficult, negative and abusive persons in our lives. The boss who takes advantage of us, or the co-worker who is a whiner… the neighbour, whose disdain for your anti-war bumper sticker seems to inspire her to make snide remarks about “freedom” and “communist sympathisers” at every community association meeting… or those who just seem to go through life with a rain cloud overhead.

Or maybe there are those who, for whatever reason, seem to “have it in for you” and malign your name, interfere with your job or relationships, and just seem bent on hurting you.

It’s easy and great virtue to show compassion to those who love us… those who are kind to us and easy to be around. And while it is good to be compassionate and kind to them, the experience of doing so does not teach us anything really. It doesn’t cause us to grow.

Unless an oyster is infiltrated by an irritating grain of sand, it cannot make a pearl. And it takes two years of enduring that abrasion, and the abrasion of other grains of sand, before the experience culminates in the creation of something of beauty.

Similarly, the dharma teaches us to regard such abuses and abrasive relationships as though they were a treasure, because that experience has the potential to push us to grow in compassion, patience, kindness and forgiveness.

These are not lofty admonitions, my friends… not something we can “aspire mildly” to follow, and then dismiss when the heat of the moment arises. I know. I did that for many years myself.

I thought I’d overcome those childish needs for retribution, and imagined myself to have grown significantly. The ego puffed-up over the fact that I’d forgiven the four Haitian men, who raped and beat me in 1983, not only causing me physical pain, but infecting me with the AIDS virus. Such an achievement in turning the other cheek, and generating bodhicitta… or so I thought!

However, from 2001 until 2005, I was attacked by a group of Catholic clergy and a few imposters, pretending to be clergy. Their attack, however, was subtle. No weapons were visible, and instead rumour, innuendo and patent lies were spread, attempting to discredit me. As their assaults unfurled, I painted to be the greatest heretic of the modern world, a controlling, narcissistic leather boy, and emotionally disturbed fool. And I lashed out, responding to every one of their accusations with documentation, refutation and a greater mastery for the written word than even the most literate among them could muster.

So much for compassion! So much for humility! And remember, every morning during this time, I read the Eight Verses before beginning my morning liturgy! Such a hypocrite!

But for me, the turning point came in late June, 2005. My life-partner, Dean, had just successfully beaten cancer, after a long and difficult series of chemotherapy, and was finally bouncing back from AIDS complications. He was in the hospital to get IV nutrition, and to rebuild his immune system, before coming home, and had some minor surgery to release a minor adhesion in his intestines. His caregivers, oncologist, infection disease doctors and nurses were AMAZING.

But one night, a rotating nurse was covering the regular nurse’s shift, and early that morning, Dean lost control of his bowels, and had an accident. He called for her to come help him change his bandage and his clothing, and to help him clean up, since he was too weak to do so himself.

The nurse was rabidly homophobic, and did not come to help him. And so, for two hours, he lay there in his feces, with that bacteria covering his surgical incision, and covering most of his back, until I got there and with the charge nurse’s help, immediately cleaned him up.

By that evening, he had an infected decubitous wound, which became aggressive and ate an orange-sized hole clear down to his tailbone in a matter of days. And on July 1st, at 4:34 in the morning, he died at home, in our bed, under hospice care.

Now it was time to decide if this spiritual path I was on was for real, or just pious bullshit. There was an opportunity for retaliation at its best… the mother lode of all lawsuits for wrongful death. His doctors encouraged it, in their own anger toward the hospital and that nurse. Friends and family all agreed.

And I just couldn’t do it. The love Dean and I shared was a love deeply rooted in the Dharma and the example of Francis of Assisi. It was time to honour that love in the most appropriate way, and set the stage for the rest of my life as a monk — the victory would be given to those who hurt me in the most profound way possible, and I would not sue.

And in that moment, another transformation occurred, and I finally conceded the victory to all of those who attacked me, including the imposter bishops, the Tridentine and Orthodox fundamentalists, the ill-formed clergy and the Roman patriarchs. It took two years for the healing to occur, but when it did, I finally saw how wrong I had been for all those years.

This realisation was largely born out of an interior-digesting of the sixth verse of the Lojong Tsigyema:

When one whom I have benefited with great hope unreasonably hurts me very bady, I will learn to view that person as an excellent spiritual guide.

No longer was it acceptable to expect those for whom I had done much to repay my service or kindness with respect, love or goodness. Instead, I had to cultivate compassion toward them, realising that they were responsible for pushing me again toward growth, and real forgiveness.

Verse seven states:

In short, I will learn to offer everyone without exception all help and happiness directly and indirectly, and secretly take upon myself all the harms and suffering of my mothers.

In other words, from the moment I offer and commit myself to these verses, my practice should never be influenced by any temporal motives. I vow to treat each sentient being as if they were my mother.

The Lojong Tsigyema ends with a verse about the practice of Ultimate Bodhicitta:

I will learn to keep all these practices undefiled by the stains of the eight worldly conceptions, and, having understood their relative nature, may I be freed from the binding knot of self-grasping attachment.

We recognise that all phenomena are illusions, even though they appear real. When a circus clown twirls a torch in the darkness, the flame appears to create a circle, and yet we know that circle is an illusion. So too are the appearances of all other things in our experience.

This philosophy is echoed in the tradition of the followers of Christ as well, whose scriptures relay the words of Rabbi Jesus: “If the world hates you, know that it hated me as well. For if you were of this world, it would love you… but you are not of this world.” Here, Jesus clearly understands that we are not part of the illusory world around us, and that freedom from the bondage of worldly attachment is the key to release oneself from suffering.

The great Indian sage and Buddhist scholar, Santideva wrote: