dharmatalks

It was something that drove Ani Prema Jaya crazy! All the arguing about how qualified this teacher is because of their “lineage”, while that teacher is questionable, because their “lineage is uncertain”.  At best, it is a passive-aggressive form of condescension… “my pedigree is above reproach, how about yours?” At its worst, it degraded into an all out pissing contest.

Don’t get me wrong, having worked much of my adult life for the preservation of the Tibetan culture, and as a Buddhist contemplative, whose practice draws heavily from the traditions of Tibetan Buddhism, I appreciate the place lineage has in our tradition. Lineage, from a Buddhist perspective is supposed to ensure that the Dharma has been transmitted accurately and fully, in unbroken succession, from teacher-to-disciple, all the way back to the Buddha Sakyamuni.

And so, because a particular high lama from one school has recognised so-and-so as a tulku, and ordained them, enthroned them, consecrated them or initiated them into that particular tradition, we can be reasonably sure that the Dharma transmission in that person’s sect is accurate, clear and able to lead a student to realisation.

Similarly, within the Catholic traditions (which include the Roman Catholicism, Greek, Russian, Syrian, Byzantine and other Eastern Orthodox, Anglican/Episcopalian and certain Lutheran churches), there is a tradition of lineage known as “apostolic succession”, which claims that its bishops hold, in unbroken succession, the lineage and teaching authority, which traces back to the original apostles and to Rabbi Jesus himself.

This claim is easily traced within the Thomasine (Indian) Catholic lineage, the Johannite Church, and within the Orthodox sects, where clear records have been kept, documenting the succession, from the historic apostles to the present-day lineage holders (patriarchs, bishops and certain abbots). The sect which makes the loudest claim to apostolic succession – the Roman Catholic Church, however, is actually the one sect least able (and least likely) to possess bona fides to that effect. That is because the church bases its claim to succession upon certain questionable mythos, rather than a carefully documented lineage. No lineage of succession exists in the Roman Catholic Church, which can be traced fully back to the alleged first bishop of Rome, Simon Peter (who was likely never in Rome, let alone recognised as its first bishop). Now it is very possible that lineage could have been established from Clement onward, but the Church simply didn’t keep such records for some reason.

I’ve often taught that reliance upon such things as lineage is risky at best, and frankly a fool’s endeavour, since it does not really guarantee anything whatsoever.

To shed some light on the topic, I wanted to share a portion of the transcript of an interreligious dialogue that occurred at the Naropa Institute, in 1985. As many of you know, the Naropa Institute, part of Naropa University, was founded by H.E. Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche, the exiled Tibetan tulku and lineage holder in the Kagyu and Nyingma traditions. In this particular panel discussion, Eido Roshi, Father Thomas Keating, OSB, and moderator Reggie Ray are discussing lineage.

The moderator asks Father Keating, a Benedictine monk whose work with Monastic Interreligious Dialogue helped create pioneering cooperation between Buddhist, Hindu and Catholic monastics, what role, if any, lineage plays in the Catholic tradition.

Keating’s reply follows:

Well, I think that is a question that really has never been asked, and should be. I think those of us who are Christian are challenged by this concept in Buddhism of the transmission of enlightenment or spiritual experience.

And I think what lineage means for a Christian is the gift of contemplation.

In Buddhism, the teacher is able through his own enlightenment to communicate something of the Buddha nature and to awaken the disciple to his or her own experience of the deep self. Is there something similar in Christianity?

I don’t offer here a final answer to that question. Please recall that Roshi distinguishes two lineages. Well, we have, at least in the Roman Catholic Communion, the concept of apostolic succession. The ordination of bishops is believed to empower or communicate to them the tradition which was begun by Jesus Christ. This tradition, over the centuries, has tended to be largely an administrative one…

But, and this is just a personal reflection, it seems to me that in the Christian Community Christ is always the Master, the Teacher. As he said to his disciples, “Only one is your Master”—you shouldn’t be called Father or Teacher! Not that out of respect you can’t do that once in a while.

He was trying to communicate the fact that a Christian teacher is communicating the experience that Christ had of the “Abba” — his consciousness, in  in other words, of the Ultimate Mystery, whom he called Abba or Father. And that experience is communicated by the Christian liturgy in symbols and hopefully by the leaders of the Church—the priests, bishops and religious superiors.

The lineage then is the contemplative experience. The contemplation of the Mystery of Christ that is experienced within us through the unfolding of the spiritual journey. This involves the diminishing of the false self and the opening of the true Self, in faith and contemplative experience.

So, the lineage is the communication of the experience of Christ in some way. And it is tremendously varied in each person. But this is obviously the purpose of the liturgy. If you think of the sacraments, baptism is a sacrament of transformation. The Eucharist even more so. And hence, it seems to me, when the Christian community is gathered together celebrating the mystery of Christ and the Risen Christ is believed to be present then, when his presence is perceived, the transmission takes place. And each person receives it or experiences it according to his or her own level of spiritual development.

Hence, the liturgy is not enough by itself. It has to be reinforced by the whole of life and by some discipline. The Christian discipline, especially of fraternal love, enables one to bring to the liturgy the enlightened and purified conscience that can experience the mystery of Christ in oneself. The resurrection is your experience that Christ is risen in you. It’s not just a historical event. That’s the take off point!

The disciples were not awakened by finding an empty tomb. They were awakened by experiencing the Christ rising within them. And that is the Christ nature. And that is lineage as far as I can see, in Christian terms seems to imply that the bishop should be a man of prayer and able to communicate the spiritual life to the people of his diocese (that is, the Christian community for which he is responsible), in a way somewhat similar to that understood in the East.

I was delighted this morning, while I had been working on this post for the past few days, to find that a contemplative brother of mine, whom many of you heard on my radio program, Bishop Craig Bergland quoted the same piece in an article for his ChristEnlight.org program.  It seems to me that the time has arrived for those of us on a spiritual path to realise some common and important distinctions, and clarify some issued than have previously become stumbling blocks for many of us. And this is one fine example.

Now, when I read what Keating said, I was immediately stricken by the universality of his observation. He was, of course, focused on lineage from the Catholic perspective, and framed his response beautifully, in a way that explains the nature and value of the sacraments as points of transmission and transformation.

But for me, what really stood out is the realisation that we too often focus on lineage as something that occurs strictly in a ritual and administrative way. While I am grateful for the lineages of my teachers, I am not really that concerned with it.

Those students, monks and teachers who focus so much of their attention on lineage always make me wonder if there is something missing in their Dharma practice. Shut up about your teacher’s lineage already! If you cannot demonstrate to me that you have mastered the Dharma teachings by the way you live, teach and serve, then your sophomoric claims to supreme lineage are meaningless chatter.

Days before she passed, Mother Prema Jaya and I had some interesting conversations about lineage, throne holders, tulkus and the future of our contemplative Order. She expressed to me some concerns that it might “make things easier on us”, particularly when it came to garnering financial support, by formally affiliating ourselves with a “higher pedigree of lineage”.  And the group Ani-la was recommending happened to be one I hold in high regard, and which occupies a special place in my heart for the work that they do.

But I explained to her that one of the main reasons I have not sought a “higher form” or more prestigious ordination/empowerment/initiation into another Tibetan sect, and the reason the Sangha has repeatedly supported my decision not to do so, is quite simple.

I don’t wish to communicate to anyone that it’s necessary to belong to this group or any other in order to realise enlightenment. I don’t want anyone to believe that they must subscribe to a particular sectarian identity and ideology in order to “get there faster”. Such ideas are not useful at all.

When I teach, I teach in the tradition of my Refuge Guru Abishiktenanda-ji, my Root Guru Tenzin Yanchen Ma, and the three Tibetan teachers on whom I rely for guidance, insight and a direct experience with living Buddhas: His Holiness the Fourteenth Dalai Lama, His Eminence Tsem Tulku Rinpoche, and His Eminence the Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche. And those teachers have always made their teachings accessible to everyone, without exception, and without “hawking” membership in the exclusive lineage club.

I have resisted using my Tibetan name for more than fifteen years now, because I did not wish to create the appearance of division or fuel rumours that were going around, which claimed that I sought the empowerments and ordination from one particular teacher over my own Root Teacher, for this reason or that. Such things were not even remotely a consideration for me. I sought ordination into that tradition because it would more richly, deeply and fully inform my practice, so that I could more effectively help others to alleviate their suffering and the suffering of those around them.

I am not interested in what people call me. When it became an issue for certain traditional Buddhists that our contemplative community was unwilling to draw lines in the sand, and could see no reason that the pantheon of Hindu and Catholic Bodhisattvas, Saints and Holy Ones could not be honoured along side the Tibetan Bodhisattvas and Buddhas… and when many of those same groups began to criticise our community for not following a more fundamentalist and literalist interpretation of the vinaya, I insisted that members of our Sangha stop publicly referring to me as their lama . And I stopped wearing traditional Tibetan robes, returning to the custom of wearing my white Benedictine/Franciscan habit with the burgundy zen (shawl). Now, I reasoned, there would be no reason for discomfort among traditionalist Tibetan Buddhists.  Out of respect for our late and beloved Ani-la, I agreed to allow the community to refer to me as the Dharm’acharya.

My preference has always been for the simple title, khenpo, which is Tibetan for abbot. That is, after all, what I am… no matter which tradition happens to be your perspective. I am the abbot of a group of men and women who live a contemplative life. Lojong Ladrang also serves as the physical starting-point for Lojong Abbey – an abbey which is without walls, and which encompasses the entire world.

Were we to live in Malaysia, there is no question that a more formal relationship with Tsem Rinpoche would exist, just as would be the case with His Holiness the Dalai Lama, if we lived in Dharamsala. But that would not change our lineage… our succession… our relationship to our Root Teacher and primary satsang. This notion of an “either/or” mentality is bullshit and has no place in the Dharma. Period.

There are times when I begin to think that we could find an easier, more inclusive and less bitchy place among the community of Zen practitioners, from which we also draw a good portion of our community’s practice. But then I come back to what Father Keating said, and what others of his peers in the Monastic Interreligious Dialogue, including Thich Nhat Hanh, Thomas Merton, and Bede Griffiths, OSB had to say, and I realise our path is uniquely ours.

It is our responsibility to create, as Buddha did, a more authentic, culturally relevant and intact expression of the Dharma practice for the West. In our community, that expression will draw deeply from our Tibetan and Eastern Orthodox roots. It will honour the timeless, changeless and perfect truth of the Dharma, while interpreting with proper perspective, cultural understanding and awareness the traditions (including particular sadhanas, the interpretation of the vinaya, and other aspects of the Vajrayana vehicle), integrating these with Zen and other contemplative liturgical practices.

Why do we do this?

Some may imagine that the reason for a spiritual community or Sangha is to network with one another, learn from each other or benefit from the common identity of a particular group. But these are not the best reasons, or even necessarily appropriate reasons for associating with community. We come together as community because our path is a personal path, and the work to be done is personal work. We realise that when it’s someone else’s turn to light the butter-lamps, and prepare the seat for the khenpo or guru, we might be tempted to stay home or stay in our rooms and rest. But we come out and sit with our Sangha, and show our support and appreciation for the fellow contemplative(s) who took care of arrangements for that night, because doing so helps us establish a new habit. We’re coming down to practice for them – doing out of love and respect for another member of the Sangha, what we are not willing to do for ourselves. But eventually, that habit will give rise to greater awareness, and we will begin to do for ourselves what we should have been doing all along.

The Contemplative Order of Compassion isn’t going anywhere. We’re here to stay. Perhaps we don’t fit into the traditional view of Buddhism. Perhaps there are those who will choose to dispute whether or not we would be better off associating with this guru or that. That’s their business, not ours.

It may be that we cannot garner the kind of financial support we need to survive without conforming to another sect’s path. There are many in the community now who believe that is so. And to those sisters and brothers, I say, “Go, and be happy!” Their departure from our midst won’t change our love for them, nor theirs for us. If that is their path, then we should honour and celebrate it. It is not my path, however.

For those who are saddened that I will not use my Tibetan name, know this… when my Root Guru or any of the three principal teachers on who I rely decide that it is important for me to step into that role and adopt the new Dharma name for the sake of the community, I will do so without reservation. For now, my concern is not to cause division, argument or hostility within the greater Buddhist community, especially among some of the more “territorial” Tibetan communities, who are so proud of their “lineages”, and need to talk incessantly about them. I will not cause them or their teachers distress or anxiety.

And more than anything, while my Tibetan name remains something I cherish deeply, even though it is something I keep private for now, I am also deeply grateful for the names given to me by my Refuge and Root Gurus, and so I remain “the servant of the Guru” and mindful of  “the bliss of emptiness” – Gurudas Sunyanatanda.

Practice whatever you can, so that the teachings of our lineage holders and dharma acharyas will not have been in vain, but above all, practice compassion, loving-kindness and mindfulness with every step.

Namasté

gurudas sunyatananda

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“Chenrezig, Treasure of Objectless Compassion;
Manjushri, Lord of Stainless Wisdom;
Vajrapani, Destroyer of all adversarial forces;
O Je Tsong Khapa – Losang Drakpa —
Crown Jewel of the Sages of the Land of Snows,
Humbly at Your Lotus Feet I ask your blessing.”

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Drawing on the essential teachings of the great spiritual teachers, philosophers and freethinkers throughout time, Dharm’acharya Gurudas Śunyatananda (retired Archbishop Francis-Maria Salvato, O.C.) has been regarded as a provocative, revolutionary “voice of reason” within the field of religion and spirituality, since 1983. Having the distinction of being one of the few openly non-theistic, openly-gay and post-denominational thinkers ever to serve as Bishop-Exarch and spiritual leader of the autocephalic Eastern Catholic Franciscans in North America, Gurudas is the author of more than 600 articles, eight books and currently serves as the spiritual advisor for a non-theistic, intentional spiritual community, The Spiritus Project. He can be reached at: http://dharmadudeunplugged.com

Copyright ©2008, His Eminence Dharm’acharya Gurudas Sunyatananda (The Most Reverend Dr. F. Francis-Maria G. Salvato, M.Sc., O.C.). All rights reserved. This material may be reproduced, blogged, quoted or distributed, provided the entire copyright including contact information remain intact. It may NOT be altered in any way, without express written permission.