dharmatalks

Yesterday, one of my students was chatting with me on Facebook and asked me whether I thought it was necessary for him to begin practicing hatha yoga or kali natha yoga (the yoga style developed by and based on the teachings of Ven. Tenzin Yangchen (Ma), one of the teachers who had the most profound impact on my life.

In response, I told them that for the student of the Dharma, these forms of physical yoga are fine, as means of training and conditioning one’s self to better hold the energy of the practice itself. But I do not believe they are necessary, or even the most effective means of spiritual attainment.

Physical yoga is a very difficult means of raising kundalini energy.

My root guru always taught, as did the Buddha and the Christ, that the more perfect way of raising spiritual awareness and attaining liberation is by serving others: feeding the poor, caring for the sick, providing for those who are in need or hurting. This raises kundalini in a way that no asana can accomplish alone.

Compassion is the highest form of yoga.

From the Dharma talks of Dharmacharya Gurudas Sunyatananda, O.C. – spiritual director of the Contemplative Monks of the Eightfold Path, and founder of The Spiritus Project. He is the author of several books on the Crazy Wisdom tradition of Buddhist dharma, including: The Dharma of Compassion and Awakening (available from Lojong Press).

Namaste, Khenpo! I’ve seen the rather appalling efforts of some “clergy”, who have taken to disparaging and discrediting you as a heretic and demon because of your non-theistic stance. I think their behaviours betray their own lack of compassion and understanding, but would like you to explain in terms that might help your students clarify this matter for others. I’ve heard you express your philosophy as non-theistic, and yet you also clearly identify yourself as a successor to the apostles (exarch and archbishop) and Buddhist monk. Help us understand how you have integrated these things. I know there are some who ridicule your approach as being “on the fence”, but sense there is actually greater wisdom there than we might be realising. Thank you for the work you do.  — Dr. Vishnu Desai (Cambridge)

Namasté, Dr. Desai! I hope this finds you and Elisabeth doing well. And I appreciate the serious concern that you express in your question. Understand too, that some people are simply unable to comprehend how someone can find peace with a non-sectarian approach to spirituality, which embraces the truth of many paths, and recognises all else as non-essentials. This is because those individuals suffer from deeply ingrained dualistic concepts, which are not uncommon among those who have been indoctrinated into superstitious beliefs in religious ideologies and doctrine.

Another difficulty arises in the fact that those who disparage me and attempt to discredit my teaching are all religionists, and mostly of the various institutional Christian sects or cults. They have difficulty because they are attempting to compare apples to oranges. They embrace a religion, along with its doctrines, theologies, superstitions, myths and dogma. But they are trying to find fault in my teaching, which is devoid of religion. I do not embrace any religion. I recognise my Catholic and Buddhist heritage as the foundation of my spiritual journey. And I acknowledge that according to the legends and myths of the Catholic sects, the apostolic succession I hold as the dharma lineage of the Christ is “property of” the Eastern or Western Catholic cults exclusively, so that those who dare disagree with the religionist (and revisionist) version of the their teaching are immediately dismissed as anathema or heretics.

Similarly, among the Theravedans, especially the religionist sects from southeast Asia, my refusal to accept their more dogmatic and religious approach and idolisation of certain texts as “sacred scripture” makes me a heretic among Buddhists.

I tell people that my philosophy is non-theistic, because it does not concern itself with a god-concept. I don’t find belief in personal supernatural beings to be useful, and do not accept the idea that such concepts are necessary or helpful to alleviate suffering in the world. That said, I also understand academically that many people embrace primitive beliefs in these metaphoric gods and goddesses as a means of making the intangible “suchness” – which I think of as Love – more “real” or tangible.

Although my spiritual path is the more fluid and feral, upayayana path, as a Catholic and Vajrayana Buddhist, I see the homage or devotion shown by these traditions to their “gods”, “goddesses” and “saviours” as part of the centering-prayer process, in which we are challenged to remind ourselves that the “devotee” and the object of his or her devotion are ultimately one and the same.

Athanasius, one of the great doctors of the Catholic tradition recognised this immediately, referring to the mythos of the Incarnation of Christ as having meaning because in it “God became man, so that man could become God”. In other words, the true message of the Christ (Rav Yeshua) was to exemplify or reveal to us that we possess both human and divine natures.

Similarly, the Buddhists of the Ch’an/Zen tradition are mindful of the need to identify oneself with the Buddha… to understand that all beings possess the Buddha nature, and that there is no “them”, only “Us”.

I think too that one of the principle reasons that I do not struggle with this seeming disparity is that my first doctorate was in the Science of Mind – a philosophy developed by Dr. Ernest Holmes (which sadly was also sidetracked by one sect, which attempted to turn his philosophy into a “religion” as well). So it is my philosophy, which is called the “mind-only” school of Dharma (or the Yogacara school), perfected by Nagarjuna, which proposes that all phenomena are created in the mind; although a Universal Mind (or Pure Consciousness) exists, which is able to see all phenomena as they really are, and which recognises the inherent emptiness of all phenomena. This Universal Mind is synonymous with Love, and is, in fact, the “God” that the earliest followers of Jesus learned to embrace, letting go of their superstitious belief in the Hebrew demigod, YHVH.

From my perspective, as a dharmacharya and yogacharya – a teacher of the Christ Dharma and Buddha Dharma – all of the devotional symbols such as bodhisattva, saviours, heaven, hell, “three bodies of the Buddha”, “three persons of the Trinity” (both the Catholic and original Hindu versions), crucifixions, resurrections, and miracles are all spiritual fictions and mythos. Such images are only useful inasmuch as they offer a devotee the experience of some sublime mystification or esoteric understanding. These metaphors, myths and symbols also serve as manifestations or illustrations of the “inexpressible truth”. But ultimately, they are not unlike the props and stage furniture of any other illusory play.

I will go further to say that our entire concept of the dharma/gospel, the notions of enlightenment or liberation/salvation, and even the notions of a Buddha or Christ themselves are intellectual constructs, whose only value is metaphorical as well.

Emptiness/Love/Suchness is the ultimate reality, and cannot even be adequately named or explained. (Even expressing this is only a frail attempt and masks the ultimate reality by couching it in words we comprehend in the phenomenal sense.)

So, my dear Doctor, it’s all a matter of our perception. Not long ago, when I was being (very) heavily medicated for pain following the shattering of my arm, I allowed myself to be influenced by individuals who convinced me that I needed to do more to “rescue” those who may have been psychologically manipulated by a certain spiritual teacher. They were aware that I had been concerned, from the perspective of a professional counselor, about some of the behaviours I’d seen among this particular sect, and they manipulated my state of mind to become frantic with concern. Between the morphine and other pain killers, the pain itself, and the genuine concern I had for those who live in this particular community, I was on the verge of cracking!

Months later, I began to realise that there is a constant “dance” that exists between the student and teacher. In Buddhism, we call the employment of these things by the teacher, skilful means, and they are not always as they seem. I may disagree with some of the things I see, and may question why some become so fundamentalist in their “blind obedience” to the hierarchy of a particular sect or teaching, but until I can truly know the mind of the student and teacher, I have no right to cast aspersions.

As my perception shifted, I noticed something much more incredible occur… The things I was most concerned with began to change as well. Rather subtle, but mounting changes were occurring in that spiritual community, and nearly a year and a half later, almost every problem that existed has been resolved.

Of course, that teacher, like me, still has their detractors. And we likely always will.

So my suggestion is to not let those who hate your teacher get you down, Brother! Even those who were far greater teachers than I could ever be: Buddha, Christ, Francis of Assisi, Gandhi, Dr. King, Mother Teresa, Neem Karoli Baba… they all had their detractors, and were much more worthy of love and affection than this simple monk, with all my “colourful language” and non-confirmist, open sexuality.

The best place to get a grasp of who and what your teacher is, is to stay in the moment. Your teacher, like my own, is never anything more or less than a reflection of the wisdom within you.

And as for those detractors, remember, they are nothing more than a reflection of their teachers as well. Those who serve a hateful, jealous and vengeful, judgmental and pissy “God” will always, ALWAYS be a reflection of the God they serve.

Much love!

– dharmacharya gurudas sunyatananda

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“The affairs of the entire world,” His Holiness the Fourteenth Dalai Lama reminds us, “are now internal affairs.”

This was the prevalent thought that returned to me again, and again as I had the privilege of listening to Beyond – Buddhist and Christian Prayers – an album featuring a spiritual message from the legendary Tina Turner, and the vocal talents of Dechen Shak-Dagsay and Regula Curti.

Inspired by the admonitions of His Holiness the Dalai Lama and Swiss-Benedictine Abbot Martin Welin, these amazing women bring to music the potent reminder that interreligious and interspiritual dialogue can deepen our individual spiritual quest, by cultivating a more mindful awareness of the shared values across all cultural and belief systems worldwide.

Regula Curti (a Christian) and Dechen Shak-Dagsay (a Buddhist) began to understand their own spiritual journeys, and recognised a desire to find the commonality between their seemingly different paths, much in the same way that pioneers in the field of interreligious dialogue — Thomas Merton and Thich Nhat Hanh — did decades earlier.

Of course, for me, as a non-sectarian, post-denominational contemplative monk, whose spiritual path is heavily-influenced by my own Buddhist-Camaldolese-Benedictine heritage, I found myself sitting in a pool of grateful tears, as I listened to the interwoven prayers from the Buddhist and Christian traditions — in a music that transcends the traditions themselves and cuts to the core of the Dharma of the Christ and the Buddha Dharma perfectly… and the deepest (non-academic) levels.

Tina Turner, another of my personal inspirations, sets the tone for the work of these amazing women, with a spiritual message that says it all. Drawing inspiration from the work of Deepak Chopra, the ancient spiritual texts and masters from many different cultures and traditions, and interwoven with her own deep, raw and encouraging spiritual experience and wisdom, Tina Turner bowls us over with the reminder:

Nothing lasts forever, no one lives forever, the flower that fades and dies, winter passes and spring comes, embrace the cycle of life: that is the greatest love. GO BEYOND FEAR Beyond fear takes you into the place where love grows, when you refuse to follow the impulses of fear, anger and revenge.

BEYOND MEANS TO FEEL YOURSELF Start every day singing like the birds – singing takes you beyond, beyond, beyond, beyond We need a repeated discipline, a genuine training to let go our old habits of mind and to find and sustain a new way of seeing…

…Sing – singing takes you beyond, beyond, beyond, beyond TAKE THE JOURNEY INSIDE OF YOU.

I heartily recommend adding this amazing work to your personal collection, and encourage you to share in supporting the work of these dedicated and beautiful women.

For more information, visit them at: http://beyondsinging.com

Namasté!

– dharmacharya gurudas sunyatananda

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Taking Ownership is the Key to Healing

Last week, I was talking with some members of the community, and expressed that one of the relatively few hesitations I have about looking toward the Tennessee Cumberlands as a location for our proposed monastic centre is that the area, while offering the opportunity for a more simple, meditative and quiet life, lacked proximity to urban centres, where so much of our work is done.

One of the folks responded, pointing out that there are hungry and homeless people everywhere, and that Knoxville is only 30-minutes from the area we are talking about. So I pulled up some demographics, and showed them that the area we’re looking at is starkly missing some real cultural diversity. The percentage of Black and Hispanic persons in that area is so low, I almost thought we had accidentally pulled up the demographics for a Rhode Island community!

“Well you don’t want the monastery to be in a high crime area, do you?” one woman asked.

Now this is a woman who would seem to be among the most culturally-open, warm and service-oriented people you’ll ever meet. She has taken care of six month-old crack babies with me, whose mothers died or were dying of AIDS. She has helped me deliver meals to the homeless in some of the most underprivileged areas of Atlanta, Miami and Los Angeles. So we would not consider her to be “prejudiced”, right?

This morning, one of my friends and colleagues, Wanda McCrae – a talented New York artist – pointed out the importance of considering that there remains (among other issues we need to address, in my opinion) a subtle discriminatory undercurrent in our societal mindset, which continues to keep people marginalised, based on their colour, their socio-economic status and (I would add) our perceptions about “crime”.

Citing studies that were recently done, to examine the longterm effects of having one or both parents incarcerated, a New York Times article tells us, doubles the chance that child will end up homeless, and increases the likelihood of aggressive behaviours.

Each of us is a potential criminal. Each of us possesses the same potential for allowing our negative emotions and misperceptions to lead us toward making unhealthy and damaging choices. We need to recognise this first and foremost, because criminal behaviour has nothing to do with race or ethnicity, colour of one’s skin or socio-economic status.

Why are there an overwhelmingly large number of Black people in our prisons? Well, anyone who is honest with themselves about this question will have to admit that it has far less to do with a particular group of people being more involved in criminal behaviour than it reflects the inadequacy and prejudices of a system that discriminates against particular groups of people, and oppresses them.

If we want to classify a particular group of people as being more prone toward criminal behaviour, then we need to look at all the data, and it’s not Black or Hispanic people who make up the majority of people in prison, but Christians. Ah! Suddenly, isolating statistics out of context makes us uncomfortable, eh? Well then why doesn’t it make you uncomfortable when someone does the same thing, based on race?

It’s called subtle discrimination…

Those we call criminals have simply succumbed to ignorance, anger, desire and fear – just as each of us has done innumerable times in our own lives, but to different degrees. Speaking on the need for compassion for those in prison, His Holiness the Fourteenth Dalai Lama writes:

“Society should not reject those who have committed mistakes and who are branded criminals. They are full-fledged human beings who are members of society just as we are, and they, too, can change. It is imperative to give them back hope and the will to take a new direction in life.”

I think that we have to look at the fact that the phenomenon of parental imprisonment has only emerged as a pandemic in America – therefore we must confront the possibility that there is something wrong with our criminal justice system – where the burden of justice is thrown on the shoulders of the police officers, the courts and the jails, rather than supporting the men and women who serve our society in these important roles, by working to create a more compassionate, tolerant, non-violent and encouraging society before such unhealthy and illegal behaviours become the only apparent choice for some folks to make.

Statistically speaking, the majority of persons in prison in the United States are from a lower educational background. So why are we not working harder to provide community services to educate and help more folks gain a hand-up?

A difficult economic downturn impacts all of us, but can be devastating to a low-income, uneducated person, whose menial jobs are seen by the wealthier middle- and upper-class as being “luxury” expenses, and are therefore among the first to be cut. When you or your kids are hungry, it’s a lot more tempting to steal a loaf of bread. And when it comes right down to it, the risk of stealing a loaf of bread or a colour TV is about equal… so why not steal the television, so that you can afford 30-50 loaves of bread?

According to the New York Times article, among those born in 1990, one in four black children, compared with one in 25 white children, had a father in prison by age 14. Risk is concentrated among black children whose parents are high-school dropouts; half of those children had a father in prison, compared with one in 14 white children with dropout parents, according to a report by Dr. Wildeman recently published in the journal Demography. This was a significant increase over those born just a decade earlier.

Also cited was the fact that among 5-year-old urban boys, 49 percent of those who had a father incarcerated within the previous 30-months exhibited physically aggressive behaviours like hitting others or destroying objects, compared with 38 percent of those in otherwise similar circumstances who did not have a father imprisoned.

This issue, like many others, which I believe are interconnected, are areas in which we must look within ourselves to see if there are subtle currents of racial, ethnic or social discrimination at work in our own minds, which negatively contribute to our society. Remember, the world we experience is a reflection of what’s going on inside our own “monkey minds”.

To the more simple-minded, my reflections on what was most disturbing in the histrionics and dramatics surrounding Michael Jackson’s death was nothing more than a “rant” at best, and an “unfair characterisation of their poor, unappreciated superhero”. Some even went so far as to stop their own grossly self-indulgent, unhealthy and dramatic activities to delete me from their Facebook, email and LiveJournal “friends lists”, because I dared ask questions that made them uncomfortable. Others simply deleted the tough questions and reflections, choosing to engage in the blogging version of what Fox News calls “reporting”.

But for me, those issues were about bringing to the forefront of my own awareness some of the issues I need to confront myself. The outer experience always reflects what’s going on interiorly. Period. And if there were histrionics and hostilities flying about in the blogosphere, I was certain that there had to be areas of histrionic behaviours in my mind, that needed to be examined, confronted and released. (That was a major factor in my decision to take a few days away, and really spend some quiet time looking at areas that needed to be addressed.)

And it was a major factor in my resolution to try to find a way to return to the Greater Washington, D.C. area – where the work of the Contemplative Monks of the Eightfold Path, and my own personal work, can do the most good toward contributing to the support, education, compassionate care and empowerment of those we’ve continued to oppress for too long.

For the community, it means developing a core group of benefactors and funding sources to provide us with the necessary $4800/month needed for the operation of the Dharma Centre and ladrang (residence) in the heart of the Inner City. And I believe that is something that is very much attainable for us, since it would mean finding just 160 people, who were willing to contribute just $1/day toward the project. It would also be possible for us to find an angel benefactor, who would provide us with the necessary $800 to start the ball rolling for us to do the legal groundwork to make it possible for our community to get necessary grant-funding to support the project – something we’ve avoided relying on for the past 29 years.

And for me personally, it means returning to the areas in which I personally felt the most fully immersed in the work I am called to do spiritually, socially and secularly, while creating an environment in which the ability to focus more on writing and teaching becomes possible.

What about you? Are there areas in your life in which subtle discriminations – maybe not racial discrimination, but ethnic, religious, socio-economic, gender or sexual-orientation based discriminations creep into your subconscious, and contribute adversely to building a better world?

In the Christian mythos, the author of Isaiah notes, “A bruised reed he will not break, nor a dimly lit wick he will not quench.” (Isaiah 42:3)

This metaphoric description of the higher-nature is a useful illustration of what we call “keeping a mindful watch over your heart” in the Dharma. Without this mindfulness and introspection, one could become careless with one’s speech or thoughts. Abba Orsisius of the Desert taught: “A lamp produces light when it has oil and a trimmed wick. One may light the lamp without a supply of oil, but it will burn away and shadows will gradually come.”

It is, at best, tiresome. These so-called “learned men” from the Catholic Church and other Christian cults have little or no problem recognising that the ancient myths of the Persians, the Greeks, the Celts and the Romans were all just that – primitive stories, created by an ancient people to explain various phenomena, of which they were largely ignorant scientifically-speaking.

Yet somehow, when these same “learned ones” are presented with the simple, historic and irrefutable facts:

• That the legends and myths found in their scriptures are simply thinly-disguised plagiarisms of earlier mythos, gleaned from Persian, Egyptian, Celtic and other “pagan” sources – particularly the myths and legends surrounding Moses and Rabbi Jesus the Nazarene.
• That attempting to justify their religion, by ascribing superstitious and spurious “divine attributes” to scientific findings is a sign of serious lack of scholarship.
• That recent studies across the United States demonstrates that our prisons are made up of 65 percent Catholics, 26 percent Protestants, 4 percent Muslin, 2 percent Jewish, 2 percent “pagans” and 1 percent “irreligious” (with 1/2 of 1 percent claiming to be atheists). Therefore, there is clear and empirical evidence that “religion” does not improve morality at all, and may, in fact, contribute to the detriment of society.

Put succinctly by one colleague, attempting to base morality on religion is like using a cap-gun to shoot foxes molesting chickens! All you do is ultimately scare the chickens more, and little is done to effectively stop the problem.

Prejudice and intolerance are two of the organic diseases of the religious – particularly those of the self-described Catholic and Christian cults. By allowing for the increased inculcation of superstition as a substitution for reasoning, these individuals will ignore the simple historical facts and resort to such petty and sophomoric rants as claiming that because someone like me doesn’t subscribe to their immature ideologies, I must be “an immoral, baby-killing, derisive scourge on humanity”.

Interestingly, I cannot recall one time in the history of the world, when an atheist group started a war to prove their spiritual superiority. Yet I have no problem listing hundreds of wars, resulting in millions of deaths, caused by the Catholic Church and other “spin-off” Christian sects, Muslims, and Jews.

Interestingly, I don’t recall a single instance of an atheist blowing up the offices of Pro-Life or Right to Life doctors, and yet can recall dozens of murders of that very nature, done by “Christians”.

My suggestion to those compelled to thump their bibles and rely on their mystical super-heroes as a mainstay of their spiritual lives do so privately and communally, among those inclined to share such beliefs. But don’t imagine for a moment that you can invite me to read your blogs, your articles, and your diatribes, and then expect me not to respond.

And expect, even less likely, that your petty name-calling will result in my backing down from your mindless accusations.

One really does have to get up much earlier than that to fuck with me.

I have no problem respecting and even embracing the spiritual traditions of others. In fact, I celebrate the traditions of the Catholic, Anglican, Quaker, LDS, Unitarian, Hindu, Muslim and Sikh traditions particularly, while actively practicing many of the traditions of the Celtic and Romany esoteric traditions, and living a spirituality that is deeply based on the Buddhist, Native American and Esoteric Catholic mystical traditions.

I do not believe in or recommend the belief in literal “gods” or “demons” – and I never have. I don’t pretend to imagine that such myths as the virgin birth, trinity, or other such nonsense is anything other than the primitive ramblings of an ancient and ignorant people, adopted from older and equally ignorant myths and legends.

One need not accept these ideologies to embrace compassion, and for me, that is what my work as a successor to the apostles and successor to the lineage of lamas is all about.

Before attacking me, however, I would recommend that these ill-formed clerics take a few minutes to read about the work I’ve done for 29 years, while they played church and dress-up. That can be done at: http://dharmadudeunplugged.com

Namaste!