NyanasaraThero wrote:
I feel this would have great value to people studying the teaching of the Buddha in the west, by showing how Buddhism is practiced in the context of Buddhist culture. The forest tradition is much talked about but actually little known outside of Sri Lanka and rural Thailand. It would have been very helpful to me to have this knowledge when I was approaching the teaching of the Buddha. What do you think?
Hi Bhante
It's not my place to tell you what you should do with your time, so I won't, I'll just say what I would/will do myself. I think in the same situation I would wait until I had a few years under my belt as a Bhikkhu, a good grasp of what it takes to stick it out over the years long term before I took to teaching, or to making videos of others teaching, but that is a personal decision. Making videos of talks of other monks and sending them through your self described factory sounds like quite an involved process, and personally, it's something that I feel would greatly detract from my meditation and satipatthana time, which again as a putthujana one can never get enough of.
As much as I enjoy giving back and helping others to learn (that's in essence my day job) I love solitude just as much, and I think that when I ordain I have a duty to become an Ariyan so that I'm not, as the Buddha says: Eating the almsfood of a nation as a debtor. I think that when I decide to teach or to help others in a way as you describe, I want it to come not from craving (which is inevitably the lot of the non-ariyan, albeit a skillful craving), but only from stainless aneja compassion.
I think back over the bast 8 or so years that I've been doing this, and I can remember more times than I can count on one hand where I thought I'd made it to stream entry or beyond, when in fact I had just been led astray by deep concentration. My first inclination when that had happened was to start trying to share the goodness so to speak, I felt like I'd won it all in the lottery and I had so much to give. But in the end even though unlike being a monk, there is no rule against lay people making declarations of such achievements, I didn't do so publicly ever, and even then, when I came to my senses so to speak - I felt very foolish for having been so certain, but then again good concentration does supress the hinderances to an extent that they do feel like they're absent, and in that headspace it's not hard to be fooled by it. At any rate I feel I have long since come to the conclusion that declaring one's supposed attainment to anyone other than very close and trusted friends, is actually a hindrance not only to what one might wish to achieve in future, but to one's current life and ease.
As for transitioning to the Buddhist monkhood, I note that you expressed frustration about being treated as "the new boy" by some senior monk, when in your previous religion and tradition you were a 'guru' with your own followers. I feel it's too important to let this one go (in respect to the potential for a positive resolution) and I will only be able to judge in retrospect whether it will be right speech or not:
The truth of the matter is that when it comes to ordaining in the Buddhist sangha, no matter what position one has held in one's previous life, be it a king, or a minister, or a guru, compared to those who ordain you, the elder monks, the majjhima monks, and even those who have been a monk only a day longer than oneself -
One IS the new boy. One isn't entitled to be respected as though they are a senior teacher, one must be humble and suck it up, and bow to everyone and nip any egoism in the bud - Because that's a very importance facet of the training that the Buddha laid out. That's our tradition, the way it's been since the Buddha's day: Brahmins (which is a comparible position to your own in your former occupation) in the Buddha's time quite often converted to his Dhamma, but they were told that they had to give up any notions of seniority or elder status, and start again fresh. Back in those days (and most of the time today) followers of other sects had to be put on probation for a good while before they were given the higher ordination. This in part was so that they learned the importance of the fact that in the Buddha's dispensation, they were like newborns again. This has so many benefits, not in the least is that it is so easy for humility to translate into concentration and wisdom. So if it were me converting, I'd try and see the submission as a good thing, not an affront
Again, do not think I am suggesting anything about your own situation or preaching to you because that's not the case, but since you asked for our thoughts, that is how I feel about my own, and my own if I were in your shoes (as for a bit of background info, I read your blog and the statements contained within it).
So anyway, It's not my position to judge you on your claims or to suggest to you what you should do - I'm just a fool, albeit one conscious of his own foolishness, which I guess as the dhammapada has it, is the lesser of two evils - So you can take what I have to say or leave it, and I have a feeling it'll be the latter, but that satisfies my urge in any case to offer what I can
With metta
Jack