Frequently Asked Questions by Charles Carreon - 2
Q. As far as Vajrayana goes, unless you receive empowerment from someone, that person is not your guru, so you are under no obligation to hold them in any kind of regard; however, once you've received the empowerment, you are constrained by the first vow from criticizing that person if in fact that person has given you a valid transmission; but if that person is not authorized to give empowerments, or does not have the blessings, one has simply made a mistake and is under no obligation to regard that person as a valid Guru.
A. Problem is when a person doesn't know whether all of the ifs and buts add up to yes or no then they just wanna jump offa cliff.
Q. Is it possible to excommunicate someone out of compassion, or will it always be due to prejudice and hatred?
A. Probably 90% of all lynchings, etcetera were committed with the best of intentions. Some of the perpetrators may have even experienced sincere regret about the necessity of burning a neighbor to save her soul. But what faith demands, believers will provide, even making ordinary decent people into monsters. The power to "excommunicate" is repellent in its very conception. It is a gross arrogation of power that should never be conscioned by anyone who thinks to practice Bodhicitta.
Q. I think a student needs the teacher, but at what point does the teacher say adios to the student?
A. If you feel you need to meet a carnal representation of pure wisdom, you might be disappointed. You might meet some people worth spending time with, but, since you'll be working through one of these sticky-wicket sangha political setups, it'll be hard to really get "face time" with your guru, which most of the Tilopa/Naropa type relationships are grounded on. You'll read their books and venerate their insights and photographs.
More important, you'll adopt a religious routine because it gives you a sense of psychological "traction." By knowing what road to walk on, you can direct yourself in that way. Your teacher will inspire you because he/she is following the path, too. When you see that they still put their pants on one leg at a time, eventually you realize that being inspired by a teacher and overtly venerating them are perhaps contradictory. A teacher's ability to inspire is valuable. Whether they teach geometry or meditation, they're good if they communicate enthusiasm for the subject and equip their students with the tools to explore on their own and develop a personal wealth of experience. While there may be more exalted levels of teaching, I haven't experienced them.
Given that viewpoint, I no longer place much stock in the idea that I will be protected and borne along to enlightenment by my association with a particular individual. I operated under that belief for a long time, because that is what I was taught, and as a theoretical matter it might be possible; however, my experience has been like one awaking from a delusion that was in part self-imposed. I was adapted to it for twenty years, of course, so there must have been some compensations, but not enough to warrant continuing the charade.
But the good news is, your mind works just fine without a large statue of the Buddha posted in the middle of it. And you have a clearer view.
Q. Some teachers say it takes millenniums for a person to reach enlightenment.
A. Yes, but they also thought the universe was flat, with a large mountain at the center. If their spatial speculations were so erroneous, why should their temporal ones be better? The karmic cranking out of enlightened beings always seems a little horrific to me, as an image. And really, on a practical level, if something doesn't happen in my present lifetime, it's apparently going to be someone else's job to experience it.
Q. Does enlightenment resonate?
A. Trungpa Rinpoche said the Buddhist gives up God by giving up oneself -- the existence of God, being based on the existence of self, disappears along with the self.
More important than God or Enlightenment is the self, and closer, too.
In another, more poetic vein, I might wish to tune my spirit to the harmonics of perfection along with the mad Sufis. And often attempt it.
Chuang Tzu and other tao masters reminded us to look at the maps of energy and patterns of matter appearing in the swirls of clouds and water, the cracks in ice and stone, the curves of wood and fingerprints. Is there resonance? What is it we hear?
Somehow I think the sun is singing. And without the sun's song, no voices anywhere else on this big planet. The sun, winding up the chemical motors of insects and allosaurs and moving the ages of time along as if turning the earth with the gentle wind of passing days. Certainly it is singing our song.
Bring the sky right down to me so we can kiss and ...
Q. Dzogchen and Mahamudra could not exist without receiving the pointing out instructions, so I guess you let a guru slip in the back door.
A. Yes, through the back door.
Dudjom Lingpa got his teachings from visions he had of Avalokiteshvara, Orgyan Tsokyey Dorje, Rigdzin Duddul Dorje, Longchenpa Drimed Odzer, Saraha, Vajrapani, Dorje Drolod, Vajradhara, Hungcchenkarma, Manjushri Vadisimha, Orgyan Tsokyey Dorje, Ekazati, Srhr Simha, and Zurchhung Sheyrab Dragpa.
None of them were alive.
Q. Why are Vajrayana Buddhists so angry?
A. Perhaps because they believe more nonsense, try harder to conform to the doctrine, and give away more cash to buy empowerments and teachings than do other Buddhists, and it annoys them that they're not getting free of suffering any faster than the average Hinayanist.
Then again, maybe it's just all the reciting prayers in a foreign language that makes them wonder if they're perhaps looking silly.
Of course, it could be a lot of other things, too.
Q. Shouldn't you be meditating or something?
A. We thought we'd start with something easy, and as soon as we're done, we'll get to that. But one problem is, people aren't really sure how to do it. The description of what the pre-enlightenment Buddha did under the Bodhi tree in order to greet the dawn in a different condition is very vague. Studying Zen koans doesn't make it any easier. Rajneesh, Dudjom Rinpoche and Iggy Pop all endorse staring into space, however, and that sounds like a ringing endorsement to me. What say we all take a break and look at the sky?
Q. What about marketing the dharma and all the glitzy bullshit that is designed to make Buddhism fashionable?
A. You don't have to worry about this too much, unless you deliberately begrudge others the right to purchase the Dharma that suits their taste. There will always be lamas offering "true Dharma in the original wrapper," "country style Khampa Dharma," and the other brands you find most palatable. The soccer moms have just as much right to appropriate Vajrayana chic as anyone else. If you feel that simply preserving the particular format of old-school Vajrayana guarantees the efficacy of the tradition, you are putting more faith in the wrapper than the contents. Forms will change, and some changes are necessary, even though traditionalists fight all change as a matter of policy.
Q. If dharma is free, people will treat it like junk mail.
A. This is exactly what motivates people to fund raise, charge money at the door, and interfere with simple efforts to make tapes and copy transcripts. The story says that Buddha almost didn't bother to teach, the likelihood of real interest seemed so remote. Since he chose to teach, he assumed the risk that when repeated, his teachings might be treated like junk mail. If you try to fix that by putting price tags on it, you will only make Dharma for people who want to spend money on it. That will be even less valuable than junk mail, because the rich have everything already, and once they acquire the attention of the lamas, the poor little folks lose heart. And heart is all poor folks have.
Q. Traditionalists are mainly concerned with those who change the inside of Dharma not those who change the outside of dharma.
A. That assumes that traditionalists can see inside the place where no one sees, the home of Dharma, the practitioner's heart. They can't see there, so they judge clothes, names, prayers, posts, websites, etcetera.
Q. What is important is whether the teachings and teachers are efficacious. This is best judged by observing whether the sanghas practicing these teachings become kinder, saner, happier, deeper people.
A. Of course, kindness, sanity, happiness, and depth are quite desirable. I like to be around such people; however, I've found it has little to do with their doctrinal views, and a great deal more to do with temperament and inclination.
Unhappy people tend to stay that way. Happy people the same.
Religion sometimes makes unhappy people claim to be happy, but that makes them even stiffer, and they lose the charm of being a genuine grump. Some happy people get religion and try to appear dour and serious; unfortunately, this effort sometimes results in the practitioner becoming genuinely depressed.
Some people act "sane" and "calm" when they have solid beliefs. Solid beliefs give these people a point of reference. While their thoughts orbit chaotically, they feel discontent; when they return to their solid beliefs, they feel comforted.
Then there are some who experience calmness when considering that they do not know anything for certain. It is a matter of going backwards.
Q. What are Prayer Flags good for?
A. Prayer flags are pretty, and if you get enough of them up in a windy area, they make a lot of noise. I am unaware of any specific miracles attributable to their use, but generally they seem to be used for a sort of feng-shui purpose to ward off obstacles, etc. I noticed them used extensively in the movie, "The Tao of Steve."
Q. Is HHDL a legitimate front man for the entire Tibetan organization?
A. Yes, it appears to be so. HHDL brokers agreements among the lamas so they can present a consistent story for Americans, who really get confused if you tell them that the whole setup is a free-for-all of titles, lineages, and competing family retainers that goes back to old arguments over lost yaks and missing barrels of chang. When the top Nyingma spot was left in doubt, HHDL blessed the appointment of Pednor Rinpoche to that position, which had previously been held by HH Dudjom Rinpoche. He did this by ratifying an election of other top Nyingma lamas, even though he is not a Nyingma lama himself. It seems unlikely that the question of who has the supreme level of spiritual insight is even addressed in these elections -- most Nyingma lamas will privately expatiate on which lama is the most enlightened, and their picks are never the big names, unless they're in front of the big crowds.
Q. Why is it that Tibetan Eminences are always dying under mysterious circumstances and squabbling over lineage and financial inheritance? Is this enlightened activity, or petty squabbling?
A. Reminds me of an old Sufi story. There was a blind man who had a kind companion, a child, who had described the whole world for him in a beautiful way. Suddenly, he regained his sight, and saw it all for the tawdry thing it was. The child felt like a betrayer, but he consoled her, saying it was all right, because now they could work to make the world as beautiful as she had imagined it for him.
Perhaps our hopes exceed the world's ability to fulfill them, but in the words of Robert Browning, "If a man's reach does not exceed his grasp, then what's a heaven for?"
Let's keep aspiring, notwithstanding the defects of our idols.
A. The first stage of the practice is to "catch a dream," i.e., notice that you are dreaming. The lamas emphasize that the techniques are secondary -- the point is to think "Duh, I'm dreaming right now." The book "Lucid Dreaming," by Stephen LaBerge, has excellent, simple techniques that stimulated some of the only lucid dreams I ever had within a week or two of using those simple methods. I never achieved the same success on nights when I tried the more traditional methods.
The goal as taught to me is incremental: 1. catch a dream, 2. remain in the dream, 3. explore the dream awareness, 4. utilize the dream to explode the dream.
The first part is accomplished by noting the difference between dreams and waking life. You will often catch a dream right about when you realize that something you are dreaming is "impossible." Eg., you notice something totally anomalous that would not occur in physical reality. At that point you go, "Wow, a dream!"
And what's even better is that one of the best ways to stimulate that reaction during dreaming is to go around all day asking yourself: "Am I dreaming right now?" Then look around at your world, and scrutinize it for weird details. Like check to make sure the table legs reach the floor. See if there are images behind the glass, look at clouds closely to make sure they aren't turning into cotton candy, etcetera. That habit of scrutinizing appearances will transfer somewhat into the dream state. Then, when the habit of asking "Am I dreaming now?" pops up, you will say, "Duh, I sure am!" And there you have it.
The second part is much subtler. As soon as you think, "Wow, this is a dream!" you are also apt to awaken or drift back into non-lucid dreaming.
The third and fourth parts I understand as being a journey, during which one is free to experiment with the radiant, pliable mind that experiences spontaneously-arising, non-physical appearances. It is liberating to experience, for even one brief moment in a lucid dream, the knowledge that what you are seeing is not "real."
I hypothesize, without any actual experience, that when the lamas instruct one who has maintained stability in lucid dreaming, to explore their circumstances and locate a river of light, big enough to jump into, then to contemplate the river and jump in, that this is going to be some dissolution into light, formless awareness. That's what I call "exploding the dream." Entirely hypothetical, of course, based upon some wonderful teachings from Gyatrul Rinpoche.
The techniques of Western lucid dreaming do work. In my opinion, they open the door that you have to walk through to practice dream yoga. Once in the door, you might want to utilize the traditional practices.
Q. The orthodoxy behaves according to the rules, whereas the upstart opponents break the rules. The fact is, new methods must be shown to be valid, and that takes time.
A. John Stuart Mill observed that the orthodoxy will always use their superior position to berate the beliefs of their upstart opponents. The orthodox will accuse the upstarts of intemperance, while using dirty tricks of fallacious logic and accusations of heresy to score low blows.
It does take time for methods to be shown to be valid, and even after the time passes, the devotees of one sect will not acknowledge the siddhis of the guru of another sect. All the mutual back-scratching that goes on among the "Four Lineages" of Vajrayana is pretty skin deep, and has more to do with presenting a united front while dealing with the Westerners than of real mutual respect. Teachers compete for students, and while doctrines may mix, terma traditions and specific sadhanas integrate poorly.
There will never be any solid basis for agreement as to who has siddhi until someone comes up and stabs a phurba into a rock, or flies away on a fiery cloud while engaged in karma-mudra with a low-cast consort.
Let's take this back to first principles, and then we can all admit we're just wankers in the first degree!
Q. The battles we see between various Buddhist sects are the same kind of religious fanaticism that start and maintain wars in northern Ireland, Israel, etc. Could we simply seek the truth using our hearts? The muck of attachment to lamas gets in the way of awareness and compassion.
A. Different strokes for different folks. Churchgoers are not generally mystics. Generally they can agree to burn the mystics, and will take a break from killing each other to accomplish that mutually agreeable goal. Just check the unified response from the left and right whenever AmBu pops up!
Additionally, one student's muck is another's happy nook! To feel revulsion is natural, with respect to others' follies; with respect to our own, it is atypical. Even so, looking eye to eye, seeing humans everywhere, we can still feel good about ourselves and our nutty family of heretics and true believers.
Q. We should believe in past lives based on the asserted testimony of the Buddha.
A. Evidence is that which makes an assertion more likely to be true. A person comes to a conclusion about what is true by considering evidence. Evidence must have "convincing force."
If the jury is not convinced by the evidence presented to support a position, then the evidence has not been sufficient to compel a conclusion. That is life. It won't help to beat on the jury to accept the conclusiveness of your evidence by urging that the testimony was provided by a really great person like the Buddha.
Some people have a lower standard of proof, that is all. People who have lower standards of proof often think they know things that other people are uncertain about. Everyone in medieval 14th Century Europe and 20th Century Tibet, for example, "knew" the universe to be flat. That was good enough for them. But for people who really cared what shape the earth was, it wasn't good enough. Why? Because for Columbus it was more important to be right than to be sure. His contemporaries were sure -- so sure they thought they could sail off the edge of the world.
But Columbus had a good reason for wanting to know the true shape of things. He wanted to do things that would be impossible if the world was in fact flat. In fact, he apparently preferred to be dead than to live in a flat world.
But at least the flat-earthists had some evidence for their belief. Everybody can see that the earth is flat. Reincarnationists have a tougher row to hoe. The only evidence of reincarnation is testimonial, and that evidence cannot be corroborated.
Also, reincarnationists suffer from an image problem, in that many unsavory charlatans and spiritual trivializers have espoused the doctrine of rebirth. The Ascended Master jokers provide an excellent example.
Additionally, some people seem to have no need to believe in reincarnation in order to have a healthy interest in meditation. Some worthies, like Trungpa and basically the entire Ch'an lineage, simply appear to not address the issue.
The now is the focus of all higher level, i.e., Ati-level practices. The gaining achievement that is spawned by attention to successive lifetimes is not the achievement of Ati.
To those who fear that abandonment of the doctrine of rebirth will dispose people to lawless, inconsidered hedonism, I would again ask, "where's the evidence?"
Q. Deity practice is more {{Wiki|psychologically]] complex and deep than it appears. Some people take to it right away, others gradually start to relate, and others never do.
A. Deity practice is performed for the purpose of cleansing misperceptions about reality and eliminating grasping to appearances.
Deities can also be part of the folk-religion that provides comfort to the illiterate and gives them a moral grounding.
Deity contemplation can give the mind a rest from endless discursive thoughts by providing an aesthetic and experiential focus.
The most important parts of deity practice are the practices of de-concretizing by: 1) Reflecting upon the emptiness of all appearance before the deity arises, 2) Remembering the emptiness of all appearance while maintaining the visualization, and 3) Dissolving all attachment to the visualization when concluding. In other words, always strip your idols naked after use.
As a practical matter, can you gain enough experience with these methods to get where you want to go? I would hesitate to answer with certainty, because you could be luckier than I, and even I have been in some degree lucky.
One thing I can say, however. If you feel that your projections about the deities are constricting your awareness, causing you anxiety or fear, or otherwise working you into a lather, then it is entirely okay to say, "Not for me, at least not now." Like many other activities that may be beneficial, like river rafting, rock climbing, or reading poetry, these teachings are options, not requirements.
What are the requirements for basic Buddhism? Even this question is probably too constricting, since the question we really want answered is: "What are the requirements for basic humanity?" And, "What is truly best for me?"
Q. The search for what is best for Me is the primary tenet of the dualistic delusion.
A. If you are assuming that this Me whose welfare I am seeking is the self-concept, of course you are correct. This is not the Me I'm referring to, however. The Me is more like what Trungpa Rinpoche calls the "soft spot" in us that is indefinite and vulnerable. Just very pragmatic, direct, honest presenting of the question to oneself: "What is best for me?" Probably good food, good work, good friends, a mental challenge, and hope for the future. First things first, and let's be honest about our vulnerabilities and our needs.
Q. Isn't the practice of "vajra pride" where you integrate the experience of yidam practice into the rest of your life ?
A. This description of "post-meditation practice" should be applied very gently. Vajra Pride does not result from self-inflation. Rather think as Trungpa Rinpoche suggested: "You are the emperor of the universe because you are a grain of sand."
Whenever you engage in visualization, simultaneously train in emptiness. Otherwise, say the teachings, you fall into eternalism, i.e., the mistaken belief that something really exists, like a deity or a mandala.
Vajra Pride does not grow from spinning self-impressed fantasies based on self-visualization, e.g., "Wow, I really kick butt with six arms while engaging in mystic embrace with my leopard-skin wearing, sky-blue colored consort. I am seriously hot with these snakes draped all over me, and my skull crown is the envy of the entire Dharmadhatu. Samsara is handily crushed under my four world-flattening feet, and I think I will have time for a break shortly after I liberate the last sentient being slightly ahead of schedule. The other deities will know who's boss!"
Now how could I tell you how that feels like? Candid admission or what. Avoid that type of "vajra pride" and you will truly save yourself some effort. Like the cloud dissolves in the sky, like the grain of sugar dissolves in tea, allow that sense of self to melt away at the close of your visualization. Then, when you regenerate yourself before the dedication of merit, experience that as a spotless appearance for that initial instant. Then just back off. Don't expect too much from yourself, and don't try and be too chummy with God. Just disappear and reappear and disappear and reappear, not stuck existing or not existing ... Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha ...
Q. Whatever the buddha teaches is always for the benefit of sentient beings; otherwise the buddha would not have taught it.
A. The power of a good tautalogical statement cannot be refuted; however, it does not derive its force from logic, but rather from appeal to authority.
Q. "American Buddha" is a complete reversal of the Buddha's teachings.
A. Perhaps the Buddha's teaching is palindromic, i.e., it works in both directions. They say time runs in both directions.
Q. The First Noble Truth is that Life is Suffering.
A. Surely we agree that it is merely our view of life that causes suffering. The Buddha continued to live on earth. Was he then not free of suffering until death? Of course not. His freedom from suffering began at enlightenment, so mere existence on earth is not the same as existence "in samsara." Nor does "leaving samsara" require rejection of appearances.
Q. The Third Noble Truth is that there is a transcendental state beyond suffering.
A. Do we not agree that this "state beyond suffering" is here in nowness? Does anyone contend that something "really changes" besides our attachment to selfhood?
Q. The Buddha's original message was about finding the way out, not learning to live with samsara.
A. Do we not agree that this "way out" is also a "way in" to non-attached, ego-purified existence? Surely you don't think some actual change in outer appearances is required to realize freedom from samsara.
Q. To the Buddha, your "endless opportunities in abundance" are all hollow, marked by the characteristics of impermanence, suffering and emptiness.
A. Surely we agree that the Buddha used his own mind to gain realization -- and access to our own mind is of course one of the opportunities I refer to. Clearly the Buddha did not reject his own intelligence, but rather used it to his benefit.
So you must think it is "mere sense pleasures" that need to be discarded. Perhaps you think the Buddha held roses in contempt because they fade? Consider however, the limiting and ungracious character of the thought, "These stupid flowers are of no use to me because they wilt and die." Or, "this food is useless, because even after I eat it, I will be hungry again."
One who thinks in this fashion is just having a snit. This is amateur inspiration for people who are attached to what they can't have. As soon as the Buddhist excitement calms down, they'll be back picking flowers and eating beans.
No, what really needs fixing are not the flowers and the food, it is the goddamned customers, who have unrealistic expectations. Of course food has to be eaten repeatedly to continue living, just as breath must be drawn incessantly. Do you resent your breath because it is impermanent? You just want to take one breath and that's it?
To take these things just as they are, and yet to apply oneself to finding the mind that depends not upon these things, but merely upon its own nature, that is the Middle Way.
Q. If you insist on seeing humans as "bio-computers," the idea of transcendence makes no sense and the goal is reduced to one of consolation and reconciliation with the mundane.
A. As to biocomputers -- I said we use biocomputers, not that we are biocomputers. These biocomputers give us access to the universal mind-medium, which we all use according to our dispositions. (Lao Tzu called it Tao -- the mother of duality and all things.) Of course, our biocomputer limits how we can use mind. If you doubt it, go have three shots of vodka and tell me how you're feeling. Or give a tulku or a zen master brain damage, and see how enlightened he is.
Nevertheless, when the biocomputer is in proper order, I believe that we biocomputer-users can understand the truth of our existence with complete clarity and accuracy. That means knowing one's identity with mind, and being free from all imputations such as "selfhood" and "otherness."
Q. There is a project underway to install a statue of Maitreya Buddha in Bodhgaya. When it is complete, it will be the largest statue in the world. The wonderful thing about holy objects is that venerating them creates positive karma in proportion to the size of the holy object.
Answer 1:
Well, this will help replace the hole in the Dharmakaya left by the destruction of the Bamiyan Buddhas in Afghanistan. What is it with Big Buddhas? Consciousness scaling?
Hmmmm. Does "Easter Island" ring a bell? Obsession with creating large statues resulted in the complete demise of the culture and probably a reversion to cannibalism, because as they exhausted the supply of large trees, they became unable to create sturdy rafts, and their island became a prison.
The deforestation and air pollution that have made the Kathmandu Valley were caused by people congregating in what they believe is an oasis of spirituality.
So it seems the search for heaven can turn earth into hell.
In making decisions about how to use the earth, we should apply earthly standards, the same type of standards we apply when choosing whether to board a plane. We want to fly on a safe, well-maintained airplane piloted by a trained person in good health. Magic will not keep the plane in the sky, nor will it cause a large pile of concrete and steel heaped into the shape of a Buddha to emanate vibrations that will cure poverty.
In order to be able to think about the world in a reasoned way, we make one, very reasonable assumption: That the world now works according to the same rules that applied in the past, that those rules will apply in the future, and that they apply everywhere, wherever we may go.
If we begin to think that somewhere, in some time or place, or under certain special circumstances, the world operates according to different rules, then any true reliance upon reasoning is impossible. Once true reliance upon reasoning is impossible, we have lost, almost, our true common language.
But there are good reasons to jettison reasoning if one wishes to pursue the religious path. Reason does in fact constrict the universe of possible answers to certain obvious questions. People who agree to rely upon reason lose the freedom to re-declare the rules of life whenever it serves their purposes. They cannot claim that Bigger Buddhas are better than smaller buddhas. Which would make it harder to raise money to build The Biggest Buddha. So, "Where 'tis folly to be wise ...."
Answer 2:
This statue business seems to be all about making money selling Dharma. Gyatrul Rinpoche used to tell a story about how he explained to the Dalai Lama that the Americans had taught him to sell the Dharma using marketing methods that priced higher lamas at higher prices. The Dalai Lama laughed, but it wasn't really a joke -- it was a conundrum that Gyatrul Rinpoche never transcended. The lesson seemed to be that, whatever it takes to get the Dharma out there, that's what we'll have to do. But there was this other aspect to it -- this concern that maybe selling the Dharma wouldn't work out so well.
My experience seeing America gobble up dreams and crap out bubble gum causes me to fear that Buddhism may lose going and coming. It may lose itself in a headlong rush toward acceptance and commercial survival. It may also lose the opportunity to adapt developmentally to this new environment.
What Buddhism should take from America is precisely what it avoids: a collision with hard-headed empiricism. Buddhism should reject from America precisely what it accepts: gullible acceptance of a new fix for anxiety.
The world is always in need of physical upkeep and spiritual replenishment. The construction of schools for human development and monuments to spiritual leaders is a reasonable way to provide both. But notions about magical effects deriving from religious monuments deserve to meet the empirical locomotive head on. Kaboom! Then we'll be left with an ordinary world and the Bodhisattva railway.
"Even if the sun were to rise in the West, the Bodhisattva still has only one way." Shunryu Suzuki.
Q. Only Mantra has the special method for achieving the form body by cultivating paths that are similar in aspect to a Buddha's Form Body.
A. I AM the Way, the Truth, and the Light. No man cometh unto the Father but by me.
Q. Since Tantra is not based on sutra, it has nothing to do with Buddhism proper.
A. Yah, so yer all heretics with yer mantras and yer tantras. Meet ya' at the canteen. We'll plan a breakout.
Q. I've heard that some Teachers steal other Teachers' students.
A. Funny story about headhunters. When I was in LA, as a young associate lawyer in the late-eighties, I had lots of invitations to change jobs. I retained a couple of headhunters. My kids said years later that sometimes they heard that "the headhunter called for Dad." This actually caused them to think that there was somebody looking to cut my head off. Now if you can imagine how they were able to reconcile this with day-to-day reality in downtown Santa Monica, you will understand something about the flexibility of a child's mind.
But on the chosen topic -- teachers poaching for students -- it's a breath of fresh air to have it discussed openly. I saw Gyatrul Rinpoche lose his influence over one young Swiss woman with $$$ who had made a few extravagant promises. She went off to see Chakdud Tulku, seduced by Chakdud's magical way with clay and paint, etcetera. Whoa, you coulda ironed your pants on Rinpoche's forehead, he was so steamed! Never introduce her to your best friend until after things are snug!
Truth is, Gyatrul Rinpoche had whole centers whisked out from under him time and again, and his graciousness in every one of those circumstances endeared him to us more and more. He lost a center in Berkeley to a student-led coup, and in LA we repulsed two takeover attempts. Finally, the craziness of the mid 1990's eviscerated even the Tashi Choling sangha, leaving a skeleton crew to practice chod together.
As my dear old dad said, "It's dog eat dog, and hell if you're a puppy."
Q. Instead of focusing on conflicts, it would be better if we put our best foot forward so the newbies won't be turned off.
A. Good point! Put your best foot forward, make a good first impression, etc. Makes sense, but not for the Siddhas who hung out in the equivalent of junkyards lit by trash can fires prowled by crazy, mangy dogs. Anti-marketing. But what do we do when our neurosis appears? Straight to the closet with it. Lest it be seen by the newcomers.
Q. It is written that one should not drink from the same well as a vow breaker.
A. In the movie Labyrinth, there are some large talking stones with ponderous voices that try to discourage the heroine on her way through the maze to (compassionately) rescue her little brother from the Castle of the Goblin King (David Bowie), who has been snatched away because she selfishly wished that the goblins would take him.
These large talking stones say things like, "Go Back!" and "This is Not the Way!!!" As well as my favorite "The path you follow will lead to Certain Destruction!!!"
They really are quite scary until one of the denizens of the Labyrinth silences them with a simple "Oh, shut up!"
Whereupon one of the stones looks sheepish and responds, "Oh please, it's been such a long time since we said it."
And the denizen replies, "All right, but don't expect a big reaction."
I loved this scene, because it shows how words, uttered with convincing force, can undermine our confidence and will when we most need it. To see frightful appearances turn into harmless illusions is so skillful. Didn't the Buddha teach something about that?
Q. What is the point behind the divisions we see in Buddhism? Why the rift between Theravada, Mahayana, and Vajrayana? Is this a real internal distinction, or simply an artificial division to roughly group Buddhists?
A. Darwin might have something to tell us about the origin of sects, in his theory of "adaptive radiation." Adaptive-radiation explained the diversity of finch-species in the Galapagos islands.
Here's an apposite quote:
"Adaptive radiation is a biological term that describes the way organisms evolve to take advantage of new environments. The most famous example is Darwin's finches. A single species of finch blew off of the west coast of South America and landed on the Galapagos Islands, and as these birds took advantage of the new ecological niches offered by the islands, they evolved into several separate but closely related species.
Adaptive radiation requires new environments not already crowded with competitors and organisms adaptable enough to take advantage of those environments."
Interestingly, the author who wrote the above is explaining how Linux, a software language, will conquer the software universe through adaptive radiation: " So it is with Linux–after a decade of computers acting as either clients or servers, new classes of devices are now being invented almost weekly–phones, consoles, PDAs–and only Linux is adaptable enough to work on most of them."
Similarly, Dharma is a form of software for the human mind. It too radially adapts to different cultural environments. It cannot adapt by keeping doctrinal elements which, however useful in the former environment, are now dysfunctional for the new software users. On the other hand, it has to keep its core features, or it can't be said to have adapted successfully.
So what are the core features of Buddhism? And to what extent can we be sure that the core features were designed by Buddha Software-Muni himself, and not actually engineered by generations of hackers? The obvious fact is that this Buddha-ware project is an open source project. Only code that is opened up and exposed to use and improvement will survive and replicate. The system administrators can opt for priestcraft, and try to keep secrets, or they can open up their systems to analysis.
Meanwhile, anyone with a nervous system is free to begin working with the vast corpus of published code on the operation of the human mind. What they will be amazed by is how many words there are, and how few answers. A thousand sales pitches, and so few refrigerators delivered to the Eskimos.
Q. The three-fold presentation of hinayana, mahayana, vajrayana is just a way of saying that the Vajrayana is superior to other forms of Dharma.
A. My response, back in 1978, was that it was the most blatant, ridiculous, self-serving and unlikely-to-be-true piece of own-horn-blowing that I had ever heard. At least fundamentalist Christians had the good grace to look dorky while they claimed their capital-G God was the only way to everlasting happiness. The lamas did it with a straight face.
Eventually, I fit it all into my Mexican-Catholic-Tibetan-Buddhist conception of the universe with Tara of Guadalupe as my central deity, her brown feet nestled in an abundant heap of mescalito buttons, surrounded by a halo of night-blooming, lemon-scented datura flowers with the white pallor of the moon itself. Truly Vajrayana is the best of all religions.
Q. You seem to view things from a decidedly material angle. In my view, the material world doesn't provide its own basic foundation. It's seems derivative of a spirit world in which reside both physical, natural law as well as what we call moral law. The latter can be known when we delve into our inner soul-being, just as we access the former through our relation with the world without.
A. Our perceptions, thoughts and feelings create the substance of our experience. We don't have to add any mystery, just look at the equation. Which may be more than the sum of its parts -- after all, the equation may not be an addition problem.
But still an equation. Nothing coming out that didn't go in.
When we feel short of understanding, that's natural. Still, if we supply the lack from imagination, that's questionable.
Q. Isn't it true that all we need is love?
A. Well, if the tantric icon for enlightenment is sexual union, then sex is the tantric microcosm of enlightenment.
If Darwin is consulted, it seems like the pleasure generated by sex is a mechanism that enforces desired behavior.
In society, favorable mating is a status marker.
Growing children is the ultimate self-fulfillment project.
By giving birth to successive generations, we create a field of potential rebirth for ourselves (if we think we're coming back).
Continuity of the species is a good in itself, because it perpetuates the existence of beings like ourselves.
The perpetuation of ourselves is a self-evident good, since few willingly commit suicide.
Q. I trust that the future of Buddhism will transcend intellectuals arguing about how many dakinis can dance on the tip of a vajra.
A. I sometimes think it takes a while to realize that spoken doctrine is like a lagoon, and truth is like the sea beyond. It is easy to speak of the attributes of water in the lagoon, while omitting much that is true of the sea, with its huge waves and unfathomable depths.
Since some believe human minds cannot fathom "the truth," they design conditional doctrines to protect their believers. These conditional doctrines are like lagoons.
Still, the sea is out there, and can be traversed, studied and known. It does not even take great bravery to go there, since the waves of that unknown realm are just the waves of our mind, and cannot destroy us.
And yet, people are afraid to leave the lagoon.
Q. People are always going to be fascinated by the mysteries of Tibet.
A. Once there was an author named Lobsang Rampa who became infamous among Tibetan Buddhists as a rank pretender. He wrote books that seem, in retrospect, to be obviously fictional, but at the time, Rampa claimed they recorded historical facts about a brotherhood of which he had once been an initiate.
Similarly, Madame Blavatsky safely dreamed up tales about Koot Hoomi and the Ascended Masters, complete with iconographic images of these imagined saints from the Himalayas (cloaked in violet haze). Her pal Leadbetter kidnapped poor Krishnamurti and tried to turn him into a Messiah with a Tibetanoid lineage. Yogananda posited Babaji, the timeless sage of the Himalayas, as the founder of his lineage.
Yes, off in those mountains, mysteries abide. People can dream about those mountains, huge fastnesses where the mind is free to roam the frozen wastes.
Some say Traktung Rinpoche walked out of this mythical realm, cloaked in the mysteries of an oral tradition, hitched to dreams and visions.
Tibet will always be a tremendous resource for spiritual teachers.
Q. Aren't you suffering from privation due to having no guru, no sangha, and no practice?
Early Psychedelic Practice
I've been "practicing" since I was around twelve years old, if self-consciously attempting to delve into the depths of my own mind is practice. In 1968 I ran away from home and started doing blotter and windowpane with my pals. By sixteen my mind was hammered thin as gold foil, and I began trying to reassemble my understanding of the world. After about six months in the Children of God fundamentalist Christian cult that I hooked up with in Denmark and Sweden, I actually believed that the world was created in six days! But after my parents pulled me out of the COG, I turned to 3HO Yoga and a wholesome peyote lifestyle back in Arizona. AmBu met me shortly after I returned to my denim and cactus roots.
Neo-Hindu
Eventually we ran into Ram Dass and I decided to lotus-ize my life. I studied chakras and asanas very earnestly, doing yoga about half the day and reading sacred books the rest of the time, and feeling terribly earnest all the time.
Emptying the Cup
After about five years of this, living in the hippie mecca of Ashland, Oregon, AmBu and I met Gyatrul Rinpoche. At that point, I began to stop practicing. Slowly I realized that, like the man in the famous zen story, I too needed to empty my cup. I learned that I was getting zero credit for all of my past meditative achievements. I didn't know Tibetan, I didn't know Kye Rim, I didn't know anything.
After that, my quest for spiritual states of mind sort of tailed off. If my ego wasn't going to get anything out of it, I wasn't really that interested. I was more interested in organizing my family and economic life, and creating domestic harmony, which Rinpoche always encouraged as my first priority.
Conversion II
Starting law school, I experienced a meltdown. I experienced true nihilism after a couple of years, and by the time I got done with law school, I didn't think about Dharma at all. Then Arya Tara (yeah, the female Buddha, not my wife) came into my life. I began the Mexican-Catholic phase of my Vajrayana journey. I realized that I had a huge obstacle to venerating male deities. Vajrasattva and Guru Rinpoche gave me the willies. One day I remembered a peyote vision I had once had, of a chrome-helmeted face with eyes like the sun, called the Censor, and I realized that I was just too afraid of my father, and male authority figures, to expect any kindness to come from them.
I was raised Mexican Catholic, and found that I actually could, and needed, to set up a devotional focus in my life. Each day I faced challenges that scared me shitless. I was terrified by the enormity of being a lawyer, manipulating lives, truth and money, but I had to do it. Lawyers will get right in your face, they’ll tell you what you don’t want to hear, and leave you to finish the job. So I found myself, 17 floors above the smoggy basin, behind a desk piled high with the scrum of paper warfare, surrounded by Barbie-like secretaries, looking for the unity of Samsara and Nirvana.
But the “woe is me, I’m stuck in samsara and need to renounce” doctrine was useless. Start whining that stuff to yourself and you’ll cultivate a psychology of “retreat,” i.e., surrender, that will not hold you in good stead as the father of three trying to pay off $70K in educational debt. And “confession” as a practice was just a roller-coaster of good intentions and quick reversions.
One day it hit me, as I was driving down the 10 Freeway to work, reciting a Tara mantra, that She, and all Bodhisattvas, are truly like a huge tree that gives shelter and nourishment to all beings. However unfortunate sentient beings were, I realized, they were fortunate to have this source of refuge and benefit. I inhaled a fresh lungful of devotion, and began to actually have a practice.
Relying on Arya Tara was not so difficult, and helped tremendously in staying away from the deep ravines of ruinous desire, and avoiding being consumed by the blazing gas-jets of anger that fuel the legal profession. When I tried cases, I recited Tara mantra while the jury was out (a time period that is an excruciating agony for client and lawyer alike), and in reliance on her kind features, I was able to accomplish many things I would have feared to try.
The wonderful thing about practicing Tara, is that you know that she is not judging you (you are not judging yourself). If you make a mistake today, no need to agonize for long. My motto became “Do something right!” Day after day I recited the 21 Taras from memory. When I took the California bar exam, her power came to me in a dream. When I told Rinpoche about it, he laughed, telling stories of miracles done by Tara that were more incredible than passing a paper test.
Like my mother before me, I credited the Deity with every power. My mother never said, “We will do such and so tomorrow,” but rather “If God wills it.” So too, I prefaced every statement, at least mentally, with the reminder that, “If Tara will be so kind.”
Eventually, though, I must say, my conversion became so entrenched that my devotions were rather perfunctory. I began to take my spiritual sincerity for granted, I suppose. And while this was happening, our daughter Ana was developing by leaps and bounds, while AmBu became more and more disenchanted. In the fall of 1998 all of this came to a head.
Out of the Frying Pan
After about six years in Colestine Valley, I had no desire to get out of the frying pan. It happened because AmBu’s faith cratered. She had never stopped trying, and had always maintained the hardline: “Renounce Samsara, Remember Death, All Glory to the Lamas and the Lineage!” style of practice. When I dumped the patriarchal imagery, I think it made it a lot easier for me. But AmBu’s a bit of a literalist. She tried to claw her way through, and when she failed, she was {{Wiki|psychologically]] bereft.
Into The Fire
When we blew out of Colestine Valley with our reputation on fire, I was put to the test. I had to find my red shoes, remember the trick, and click my heels together pretty quick to make sure the family landed on its feet. Having made few friends in “the world,” and now having no friends in the Dharma, I felt like Saraha’s bird, flying between sea and sky until, having nowhere to alight, it inevitably returns to its place on the ship’s mast.
Amazingly, by working ceaselessly for many months, and following my own best intuitions, I managed to put together a new economic life, built around the Sex.com lawsuit. I focused on taking care of the business. Meanwhile, AmBu and Ana took off for Nepal, to try and see how it really gets done at ground zero.
While they were gone, I read a book called Heaven’s Harlots, by Miriam Williams. Subtitled, “My Fifteen Years as A Sacred Prostitute in the Children of God Cult,” the book captivated me for three days. I realized that I’d been in the COG, and barely got out before the sex cult stuff began. I knew the language, the places, and the people in the book. I realized that my parents had pulled me out of one cult, but my own inclinations had drawn me into another, where I had remained for over 20 years. What a shock!
I was both exhilarated and devastated. For the first time, I realized that I had become self-indoctrinated into a system that severely limited my view of myself. I grew very tired of the numerous wrathful thangkas that decorated my bedroom, but I was afraid to take them down, for fear of the consequences. To the extent I still prayed, I realized, I did so from a sense of obligation and paranoia. I wasn’t really healthy, I realized. Thanks to Miriam Williams, who had the courage and talent to put her story into a book, I was able to look at my mixed-up, self-restricted condition.
When AmBu returned from Nepal, she had for the first time begun to authorize herself to interpret Dharma for herself. She was thoroughly disappointed with the Lamaism she’d seen in Kathmandu, but still wanted to make Buddhism her focus. But her emotions betrayed the serenity she hoped to adopt, as we discovered that, due to some legal machinations by our former Sangha friends, we could not sell our land in the Valley. (I believe these legal problems are in the process of resolution, but are far from over and still cause us great detriment.)
One day I got up early in the morning and hacked out a website for Tara using some cheap online program. (I’m still trying to learn real web-authoring.) That became American-Buddha.com. Tara began to articulate her ideas. They were outrageous. From her rage and sense of (self-)betrayal emerged a weapon of clear sight that targeted and destroyed idiotic doctrines with deadly accuracy. I trimmed the extreme ferocity out of her arguments and gave them a lawyer’s sense of logical cohesion. We ended up with the “Another View” article – a comprehensive critique of our former cultic obsession.
We made all these new friends on the Trike Boards. Meanwhile, our former Sangha-mates reeled in astonishment. Great Samaya-breakage! (Delicious gossip shared among the faithful to flavor the dry bread of their renunciation, and a mythic-sounding cautionary tale for newcomers: “Charles and Tara” becoming the very epitome of the depths to which pride will cause one to fall.)
The Trike Boards were such a boon because, and hats off to the webmaster there – they have allowed the marketplace of ideas to open up shop in the Buddhist world. By trading logical salvoes with the neo-traditionalists, exchanging careful replies with the tentatively approving, and even receiving the occasional compliment from those who “never went there,” or are “over it,” AmBu and I have come to realize that all belief systems are mired in relativism. That all constructed doctrines that lay claim to divine origin are equally suspect.
The fire has been more cleansing than the frying pan ever was ripening.
Not Nihilism
Now my mala gathers dust and I rarely recite. Why? I think, and excuse if it sounds like pride, that this old horse doesn't need a bridle any more. Rulebooks aren't relevant now.
It isn't that I see Mahamudra everywhere, or that every moment is marked with the nature of the unconditioned. I can still say these things, but the diction seems tired and doesn't compare with the fresh impact of each day's experiences.
I have no desire to enter a temple. I really never even liked Rinpoche's temple. I often sat on the porch and looked at the hills and clouds that had brought me to the Valley in the first place, while listening to his words over the loudspeakers.
I have no desire to bow to anyone.
I do not desire the company of people whose idea of discourse is to commiserate about how dreadful "samsara" is, alternating with ecstatic references to the sainted lamas.
Post-Buddhist
As to what I really want to do? My friend Michael Weir, a true Colestine Valley hermit, once was waxing eloquent about the power of being totally disciplined, like a faultless horse under the control of a skilled rider. I responded to him, "I do not want to be under any control at all. I want to be the wild horse for whom the endless horizon is the limit of his world, running free, without any restraint whatsoever."
Oh people will say that our world could never be populated by free people. The rule makers of Dharma will laugh at my notion, and the chorus of laughter will swell, as the rule makers from every religion and political creed join in to jeer at my stupid idea. Freedom. How asinine.
But recently I read a story that relates. Apparently there was an English lord who had quite an army, and he went about in the name of the king, demanding of other lords that they show the written title, the "warrant" by which they held their lands. When they couldn't produce the warrant, he'd claim their lands for "the King." One lord, thus summoned and presented with the demand to show his warrant, produced an old sword from the family armory by which his father had held his land, and announced that it was still as good a warrant as ever, should anyone wish to challenge its authority. He kept his land.
The first territory to keep free is the domain of our own mind. I believe it comes to us free, and it is our right and duty to keep it that way. While I love Gyatrul Rinpoche and will respect him the length of my entire life, I place no trust in gods, demons, rituals or prayers. It is action that matters. The action of seeking clarity, honesty, goodness, deep inside the mind. With that sword of action held firm in our hands, we hold ourselves free, and need ask leave of no man.
Shall I argue against the suffering that is the fate of humans and all species? Of course not. I argue that the existence of suffering is not a sufficient reason to lose all faith in life, and that we are not compelled to raise up effigies on thrones to mitigate the fear of death. I argue that the good old sword of reason and self-reliance still will serve to help us make order out of life, to divine right from wrong, and to make our peace with the Universe.
Do you still fear that in the dark places in your mind your psychic teeth will still chatter, that your moral pee will run down your leg, that you will be crushed between mountains and sawed in half by demons? Exactly why you need that sword. Check the ancestral armory. You’ll find it there.
Q. Rajneesh is my favorite teacher.
A. I now view Rajneesh's ouevre as the largest assortment of meditative bubblegum in the known universe, rivaling Sri Chinmoy's output and blowing his doors off with regard to real pseudo-depth.
My favorite Rajneesh story is the one about the zen nun, who had an old bucket for carrying water. It was a really old bucket, but she had just kept mending it over the years. One night, while carrying water and watching the reflection of the moon in the full bucket, the bottom fell out of the bucket. Water and moon disappeared at once, and she achieved an enlightenment that she summarized:
"For years now, trying to keep the old bucket together, Tonight, the bottom fell out ... No water, no moon, Emptiness in my hand."
Q. Where is the way?
A. I once asked a dharma friend, "what is the best vehicle?" He answered, "The one that is easiest to discard."
It's terribly important to know that the way is around here somewhere. In saying that, I think I should be safe from the charge of nihilism.
But we cannot believe in too much. As Suzuki Roshi said, "we must believe in nothing," by which he meant, something that has no form, no shape, no color. We must have "strong faith in our original nature."
In saying "must," do I refer to a categorical, external imperative? No. I refer to what Suzuki Roshi calls our inmost desire. That is an obscure inner calling to experience life as meaningful of itself.
If our deepest inmost desire can only be satisfied by practice, we must practice. Like raindrops, we cannot resist falling. But in practice, we accept our raindrop-nature, and fall without flailing.
There is no joy in locking oneself into a fortress of serenity. Allow yourself to fall, and look about and see us all falling together. The display is uplifting, even for ones who have no idea where the fall will end, or even if it will. The dynamics of falling are our present moment, ever and ever.
Q. What can a beginner expect to experience?
A. Takuan Soho likens the beginning meditator to a tied-up cat. The cat's four paws have been tied together to keep it from attacking birds, but when it is trained, the string is removed and the cat no longer attempts to attack the birds.
Jumping at the birds is analogous to attaching to concepts. Tying up the cat is analogous to exercising some restraint to interrupt the mental habit of attaching to concepts. When the cat is trained and the string is removed, this is analogous to when we trust our mind to do what it wills, because it happily releases its attachment to concepts as they arise. The training has been effective when one no longer proceeds automatically from stimulus (seeing the bird) to response (jumping), and experiences a space between the two.
Obviously, meditators are going to vary in their ability to see that space, and so being a tied up cat may seem like the safe thing to do. But Takuan Soho points out that this is a very beginner beginner thing. Just as in fencing, you absolutely have to release the mind, or, as Takuan notes, you can parry the first strike, but not the second, or you can fight one opponent, but not two. What is fatal in fencing is deadening in meditation. To become a flexible, happy practitioner, it's essential to let go and trust yourself. I bet a lot of people are ready for an unhobbled trot around the track.
So all you tied-up cats, here's what I suggest, just take a pair of scissors and snip!
Don't know how to do it? Just try this. Imagine you're at attention, in uniform, and you can't move. Then your sergeant calls out, "At Ease!" and you are totally free to do any damn thing you feel like.
Whew! What a blast to take that first loping stride. And there's a bird! Now here's the hard part...
Q. My understanding is that there is nothing but a set of causes that continues from moment to moment, in other words no self. I remember a toy that consisted of a line of suspended metal balls and when you pulled one back and let it swing it would hit the line and the ball on the other end would fly out. The energy flowed between the balls. In the same way, a bundle of energies and causes inhabit different bodies and that is rebirth, with no entity passing between the two. Isn't this the standard buddhist view?
A. Okay, so we've got bodies being more real than the energy, is that correct? The energy, on the other hand, has "nowhere to live" and just gets "passed along" helplessly from one ball to the next, fighting a losing war with gravity and inertia and finally expiring with one final click and a final settling into stillness.
No, this doesn't sound at all like a human being. In your model, the energy is gradually diffused through all the balls. Each succeeding ball receives and releases less energy. At the end, a finite number of movements will have occurred, and the energy will be all diffused. Selfhood would proceed by fragmentation, through diminution, to expiration. Some people would have very big souls (close to the "first click"), and others very small ones (far-removed from the prime clicker). Too literalistic for you? Well, you asked.
In Buddhist reincarnation, each karmic vector (that's you, partner) generates a sequence of lives in different bodies, strung together like the bands on a coral snake. It's kinda like, "Gotta die now, time to be a grasshopper!" Or, "time to go to hell," more like it. Big public secret -- many Buddhists are more fire and brimstone than Jerry Falwell.
According to the doctrine, you earn your way to nirvana, sometimes with actual donations to large construction projects. (The more things change, the more they stay the same.) But not to worry, or hurry, because according to the Mahayana doctrine, you are about to let everyone cut in line in front of you! And I mean everyone, including Dee Dee Ramone, and he's not hurryin!
Fortunately, there is a short cut through all of this. Push the large button right in front of your face. Your ball will fall through the hole and you will realize the most profound secret of all, the "secret unformulated principle of all the sages." All of the past, present and future will disappear. All of the sentient beings will turn into Buddhas, and you will realize that they have been so all along. You will have to move neither left nor right, up or down, to see everything you desire to see. Your view will be completely unobstructed. And that's what they call direct understanding of the nature of mind. Then you don't have to worry about swinging balls.
Thanks for asking. I always hated those goddamn executive toys.
Q. According to the theory of the Kali Yuga, this is the darkest hour of the dark ages, in which disease, famine, and warfare are raging like the fierce north wind. A large section of the human population is going to be wiped out. Mother Earth is not going to take it anymore.
Answer 1:
Does the fossil record support the assertion that there was ever a golden age, a silver age, a brass age, or now, an iron age?
What were the signal scientific, literary, architectural, philosophical, or other achievements of the golden age?
When was the human life span longer than today?
If lifespans are reduced during the Kali Yuga, how is it that people in western society now live longer than at any past time?
If no physical evidence exists on earth for the existence of a prior, golden age, then did this golden age take place: (a) so long ago that the record disappeared, (b) on another plane where evidentiary traces cannot be discovered, or (c) in a realm of pure analogy and metaphor, similar to that occupied by the Tibetans' Sambhogakaya Buddhas.
The whole theory of degenerating ages is the equivalent of archeology for people who accepted the geography that places Mt. Meru at the center of a flat universe with square, semicircular, trapezoidal and triangular continents. Very ordered and logical in its own way, but wholly without evidentiary basis.
Our planet's ability to survive, and the tenacity of life will astound everyone, not that we cannot extinguish life; however, the Apocalypse is NOT coming to save you. Life is already over for all those who died today. For those of us who remain, the question is how to not turn into chickenshit.
If cuddling up to silly notions is your idea of how to comfort yourself {{Wiki|psychologically]], load up on this stuff!!!
Answer 2:
Yep, it seems we have managed to roil the waves of the ocean at last. Humanity has gotten its own boat to rockin' at last. We have the potential to turn the planet into a cinder long before the sun would do it by going supernova before turning into a white dwarf on its way to becoming a neutron star. We can probably also colonize space, breed mutants on corporate archipelagoes, and use the Internet to race dune buggies on Mars.
Arguably none of these things will help us in the least to get enlightened, but it is now very difficult to find a good space under a fig tree where you can engage in a staring match with the Universe until the Universe blinks. As presumably Shakyamuni did.
Maybe we will just have to float weightless in outer space, peering out the quartz windows into the infinite night filled with far brighter stars than we see here. Maybe we will need meditation teachers when we are out there. And I'm sure the spaceships will have libraries.
Answer 3:
My own romance with an Apocalyptic world-view began when I was a member of the Children of God fundamentalist sect. I studied the Book of Revelations (still have a copy that's all marked up) very carefully, learning the symbolism of the Whore of Babylon, and the Four Beasts, the Seven Trumpets (heavy), and the Seven Seals (badass stuff). An impending apocalypse takes the pressure off. It is a big relief when you're sixteen years old and don't want to have to get a job working for some jerk for nothing instead of hanging out having fun with pretty girls. Which there were plenty of such among the Christians. So where's the problem? Jesus is coming back to blow up all the bad people. Cool. And we'll be princes and princesses in heaven, because Jesus said "I go to prepare a place for you. In my father's house there are many mansions." Better than sleeping in the pool cabana.
Then I got over that apocalyptic view because I came back to my former drug-addled senses, realizing the whole Christian myth was just stupid and it was silly to believe it.
But the economic problems remained. Hard times in the early seventies. High inflation and no jobs. I was a young parent now, and looking for a place to build a house in the woods. Apocalypse would suit me just fine, probably. Raise some goats and such.
After living in Ashland around a year, a town in Oregon that was such a hippie mecca that grocery shopping took two hours and was mostly spent moving slowly through the aisles hugging, playing with kids, and eating from the bins, I noticed everyone was in this apocalyptic state. We were sure the "big cities were going to seize up," and industrial collapse would follow. Audiotapes circulated through our circle, predicting the end with various twists and turns, many involving rescue of the elect with the aid of Space Brothers, usually Venusian in origin. Of course, wanting to pick up as many spiritual people in one spot as they could, we figured the Space Brothers would come straight to Ashland, and probably land on the roof of the Coop food store. Everybody saw spaceships, and people would act like you were an idiot if you claimed they didn't exist. Sheesh!
I had one friend named Steven who went on the ultimate Apoco-bender. A brilliant guy who could squeeze all of the goodness out of hit of acid, he developed strange mannerisms. He started stealing people's "ritual implements," the peyote rattles and such paraphernalia of hippie life, the aids in "making it up as we go along." Crystals, little pieces of fur, porcupine needles, brightly dyed with boiled lemon peel.
Then the truth came out. The space bros were coming out to the Colestine Valley to pick Steven up at the house where he was crashing -- a pyramid-shaped house, as it happened. He developed the conviction that the space bros would take him to the Great Pyramid at Cheops, where he was going to wire up the galaxy for the new millenium. After he installed the new wiring, it was going to be all systems go for a new age of transcendent bliss for all mankind. Because he was, get this, the Great White Brother. (He was Jewish.)
Everyone wondered what would happen when the Space Bros failed to show up. It was like a ticking time bomb. Well, the day came and went, and the next time I saw Steven he looked bad. He was wearing a purple blanket, his fingers were shaking, he looked like he had been given forty lashes. I asked him what was up.
He told me: "I screwed it up. I messed up the wiring of the entire galaxy, and now we're all going to have to go through another entire aeon before we can try it again." Not a twist I'd expected, but then again I've never really been crazy. He was really depressed.
Two months later we met again. He looked much better. His arms were covered with intricate drawings done in ballpoint pen. I asked what was up. He gestured toward his new girlfriend, saying she had healed the whole problem by reversing his polarity, and eyeing his washable tatoos with real fondness. They didn't stay together long, and after that Steven always had a nervous tic and seemed to smoke his cigarettes in a very aware, focused fashion.
