What is different about Urban Dharma?

Right now, I am up in Maryland at the Tibetan Meditation Center annual spring retreat.  TMC is an older, well-established Tibetan Buddhist center, located just outside of Frederick, Maryland. They are an impressive organization: they own a large tract of land, have a main building and shrine hall, a large stupa, and events like this two-week long annual spring retreat (involving about five hours of teaching per day, every day), and also four resident Tibetan monastics.

However, Urban Dharma strives to do something different, to take on a different role and fill different needs than a 'traditional' Tibetan Buddhist center like TMC.  In many ways, we do not aim to be a Tibetan Buddhist center in the same sense.  While the teachings we follow and the spiritual masters we look up to fall within the Drikung Kagyu lineage of Tibetan Buddhism, we ultimately aim to practice Dharma, the truth of the Buddha's teachings, and not necessarily to replicate all the aspects of a traditional Tibetan Buddhist center.

One way this difference manifests, I believe, is in our relationship with monastics.  The vows of a monk or a nun are truly noble; they represent a clear awareness of the sufferings of samsara and a distinct and profound decision to turn away from worldly concerns and to focus on living the Buddha's teachings.  They are a powerful instance of sincere re-prioritization, of putting weight behind our common (and often too quickly passing) thoughts about the truth and preciousness of the Dharma.  However, it seems that in traditional Tibetan centers, from my experiences both in Malaysia and the US, the relationship between the laity and the monastics can sometimes be convoluted.  While monastic vows express an intent of focusing on Dharma, ironically, the monastic office can represent a distraction from Dharma for lay people.

It is in Dharma centers that I become most aware of the 'sneakiness' which our self-grasping and ignorance possess.  In these places, where we truly want to hear the Dharma, contemplate the Dharma, take it to heart and apply it in our lives; that is where our 'failures' to do so become most apparent.  It is good that they become clearer! If we do not recognize the negative in our actions, we won't change it.  But it is not as if we are magically transformed into better, more compassionate people when we pass through the doors of a Dharma center.  We are the same people we are in the rest of our lives (though it feeds our egos to sometimes pretend we are not).  Dharma centers represent a chance to improve our actions and our view.  But, it only obscures the problem if we pretend that we are 'realized' when we are in a Dharma center- these are the places where we can and should try to truly see where we are as clearly as possible.  Because unless we are honest about where we stand on the path now, it won't be possible for us to see the next step.

So, it is in this way that I have observed the monastic office, or the 'glamor of the robes', (along with ritual observances, formalities, cultural fetishes, etc) as providing a foothold for that 'sneakiness' of our impressive ability to distract ourselves: from the Dharma, from seeing clearly, from being totally honest with ourselves in the most uncompromising and unapologetic ways.  It is not, of course, monastics, or robes, or rituals, or formalities that are the problem! The problem is in the way we relate to them, and the way we mistake these traditional observances for the reason we have a Dharma center.

The reason for Urban Dharma, for this community, is to practice Dharma.  And to practice Dharma, I believe, is to practice seeing and acting clearly, and honestly, and truthfully.  Therefore, it makes more sense, to me, to emphasize community (our sangha) as a source of support to cut away at our delusions and to see clearly, than to place our emphasis on formalities surrounding the monastic office.  However, we can of course still practice by respecting the noble choices monastics have made; they can be a reminder of the importance of practicing Dharma sincerely and spur us on in our own efforts to cut delusion, rather than acting as a foothold for distraction and an object of fetishization of 'exotic Tibetan Buddhism'.  But, since it is so easy for us to get distracted from the Dharma, from our goal of seeing clearly, I think at Urban Dharma we want to limit these distractions.  We need to continually remind ourself as an organization along with ourselves as Dharma practitioners why Urban Dharma exists: to practice the Dharma, to practice seeing clearer and clearer, to practice seeing reality as it truly is.