Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche - one of the great lamas around these days - speaks of the future of Dharma in the West in this short video-clip of an address he gave at his foundation's board meeting this summer. Do go watch the clip ( <-- click it) - very relevant to our efforts to establish Urban Dharma.A few especially relevant excerpts from this talk:
"You know sometimes, there is some very, very important work that we have to do. And there is another very very important thing we have to do also. And then this becomes an obstacle to this one.... So, we have all the Tibetan stuff, Tibet as a whole country, Bhutan... and then the monasteries, and all of that. And then we have what I just told you - this young, modern, all these people who are coming, who are really interested in Buddhism. And we have this... and I understand... this paranoia... that Tibet, the culture, the monastery, the rinpoches, is so important, and of course it’s important. But this is hijacking, kind of hijacking our attention from this, sort of the modern, the young generation’s, interest in Buddhism."
"Among the younger lamas, there are some really good ones, but there are lots of not so good ones, really, really dodgy ones, I have to say. Few good ones but unfortunately, they are so tied up, actually myself included, tied up with something back home, in India, you know, they have monasteries to take care. So even when they come to the West, on every level, they are looking for some kind of support, that will go to the east, the monastery, so what these Croatians, Bulgarians, Chinese - what they think - is not the priority so to speak. They are more the sponsor and helper level.... I can understand that... so there is that.... But there is also so much interest in Buddhism (here).... but not enough teachers. So we have to really begin to think, to train the instructors."
Rinpoche went on to briefly mention the problem of teachers in the West who - though many with very good intentions - don't know what they are doing, don't know what they are teaching and so end up creating lots of confusion. In the face of this, he emphasized the importance of seriously starting to train teachers locally.
Urban Dharma is primarily a place for Dharma to take roots locally. It is not that we are trying to churn out teachers - that would be a mistake, to make that a goal. The focus is on letting the Dharma be firmly established in our backyard so to speak. For this to happen, we need teachers and we need students. We need workers, we need dreamers. But most importantly, we need people who are grounded in and committed to building sangha, building a Dharma-centered community, people who do Dharma not just for our own sakes, not only so that I can feel better supported - as important as that might be. But we need to realize that what we are embarking to do is no less than bringing benefit to all sentient beings. This is not some sort of messiah complex that I am trying to encourage. But this is a reminder that we cannot and in fact, will not be able to actualize Urban Dharma if we only think about: "what am I getting out of this?" or "how can I feel better about myself by signing on to this?" This I gets in the way.
To build Urban Dharma is to manifest bodhicitta. And to actualize bodhicitta is to be buddhas.
This really is quite an excellent excerpt. I think that this is really one of the trickiest issues with Tibetan Buddhism; and maybe the meat and potatoes of what we face with Urban Dharma, and perhaps the reason it is so pertinent. Unfortunately, the transition of Tibetan Buddhism will take some time. Khyenste Rinpoche does an excellent critiquing what is wrong on the side of Tibetan lamas and Tibetans, and I see no reason to reiterate it.
ReplyDeleteI think this re-enforces our own responsibility to practice like our hair is on fire. Really working day and night to understand the meaning of these texts.
I think we really need to find the culture context and what is not being said in the texts as well. Its hard to do or some up in one post all the things that I have noticed about Tibetans that isn't in texts, but seems to ooze dharma. Things like value of family, taking care of house guests, joking around and having a relaxed attitude, studying and contemplating really hard the meaning of texts and never fully accepting anything until it has been really examined and taken apart. Milarepa, speaking to an audience of Tibetans who probably had many of these tendencies probably didn't feel the need to point these things out; but to say these things are not part of Buddhism I think is also misguided.
Basically, there is a lot of interpreting to be done as the tradition establishes itself in the west. Khyentse Rinpoche makes very clear the faults of the Tibetan community, and I wholeheartedly agree with him. On our end, I think we need to consider this very deeply before we venerate someone as a root lama, and even for those of us who have one or many root lama(s) I think we should still understand these points in the context of the vajrayana view of purity. A complex thing to do.
In order to understand these things, like the purity of lamas and of all phenomenon, we must have a strong basis in bodhichitta and refuge. In order to establish these things we must really take the teachings to heart. In order to take the teachings to heart we need a strong community and a set of guides or guides which can help us bring these things into our own experience in a practical way. I think we are very fortunate that we really have this opportunity. It is now our responsibility to examine these teachings fully, practically thinking about the meaning and how it can be realistically applied in our daily life. Especially the qualities of moral ethics and bodhicitta. With these two and our refuge practice we can strongly and powerfully examine the teachings, slowly increasing the meditation practice and finally really integrating the experience of vajrayana into our beings.