A perennial favourite, this question.

Last year, I said I wasn’t going to stay at Wat Thai, any Wat Thai, and now here I am in Thailand about to go to a Wat Thai board meeting to talk about starting a meditation department at Wat Thai. See, they bought a piece of property near Wat Thai recently and have been talking about building a meditation center there. The general consensus is for me to stay there, but it’s still not clear whether they actually intend to give me any authority over the place, or whether they expect me to take orders from the current meditation head, an astrologer who supports the “Red Shirt” revolutionaries in Thailand. In case of the latter, I’ll probably be checking out in May, just after my birthday, to find a new place to live.

In that sense, I’m at somewhat of a crux right now. If they really are open-minded about having a non-Thai monk take over a department of the “Thai” monastery, then there’s really no problem. Otherwise, maybe it’s time to try a real American Tudong. We’ll see on Sunday, I suppose, but it may just as likely turn out that nothing is decided and I’ve traveled all this way for nothing more than extended jet lag and undernutrition (no food for the 30 hr night in transit).

Anyway, that’s all future for now; off to almsround soon, the one thing besides meditation that gives a routine to my life these days. Just thought I would share the latest update with those who are interested in such things.

Heard there was some sort of athletic contest going on back in Canada recently. Don’t really understand what the fuss was all about, but here’s my last post before the eight-day gauntlet trip to Tai Pei, Bangkok, Chiang Mai, and Chom Tong. Hoping for some golden news to bring back. I get tired of hearing myself say it, but… maybe we finally have a meditation center.

‘Brethren, if outsiders should speak against me, or against my teaching, or against my disciples, you should not on that account either bear malice, or suffer heart-burning, or feel ill-will. If you, on that account, should be angry and hurt, that would stand in the way of your own self-conquest. If, when others speak against us, you feel angry at that, and displeased, would you then be able to judge how far that speech of theirs is well said or ill?’

‘That would not be so, Sir.’

‘But when outsiders speak in dispraise of me, or of my teaching, or of my disciples, you should unravel what is false and point it out as wrong, saying: “For this or that reason this is not the fact, that is not so, such a thing is not found among us, is not in us.”

- DN 1 (Brahmajala Sutta)

I was recently alerted via twitter to a Bill Maher article in which he does some pretty serious Buddhism-bashing. The alert came from this Buddhist blog, in the form of an open letter to Mr. Maher. I think the letter was quite well written, but not exactly how I would address this issue.
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Just a note that I’ll be in Thailand from March 2nd to 10th. Almost twenty-two hours in transit, eight days to attend a board meeting, visit students in Bangkok, fly to Chiang Mai to see my teacher, and recover from jet lag just in time to fly back. From Chiang Mai to LA should be about twenty-two hours in transit as well. Call it masochistic, but I’m looking forward to the challenge.

I was recently asked whether the word Ajaan can be used for people who are not ordained, and rather than limit the answer to one person, I thought I would share it with all of you who might be interested in the subject.

The word Ajaan, or actually “Aajaan” (อาจารย์) as the Thais pronounce it, comes from the Pali word “ācariya” which comes from the verbal root “car” with the prefix “ā”. The various meanings, according to the Buddhist texts, could be:

sissānaṃ hitam ācaratīti = one who acts for the profit of one’s students

ādito cāreti sikkhāpetīti = one who causes one’s students to behave and train from the beginning

ādarena caritabbo upaṭṭhātabboti = one towards whom students should behave well and care for with affection.

ā bhuso sissānaṃ hitasukhaṃ caratīti = one who acts for the great benefit and happiness of one’s students

abhimukhaṃ katvā caritabboti = one towards whom students should behave in such a way as to set in front (ie one whom they should follow).

āpāṇakoṭikaṃ katvā caritabbo upaṭṭhātabboti = one towards whom students should behave well and take care of for their whole lives.

(From ศัพท์วิเคราะห์, พระธรรมกิตติวงศ์)

In brief, ācariya means “teacher”, and so anyone can be called ācariya if they teach. In Thailand, the word aajaan is used for anyone who is a teaching position, whether they teach worldly subjects or Buddhism, and whether they are ordained or not.

Buddhists are all about letting go, not clinging to things, it is true. But we’re also all about understanding things, which we believe is what leads us to be able to give up clinging. If you don’t really take the time to understand something, you can’t really expect to give up clinging it. So, it shouldn’t come as a really big surprise to see the Buddhist blogverse seeming to beat this story to death. And I’m not about to give up, of course. Here’s some more in the way of understanding Tiger Woods.
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Great to hear, though I’m a bit skeptical… I’ve quoted him before as saying he didn’t believe it humanly possible to follow the Buddha’s path, which is perhaps the reason he fell off it in the first place? Anyway, here’s the quote of the day:

Part of following this path for me is Buddhism, which my mother taught me at a young age. People probably don’t realize it, but I was raised a Buddhist, and I actively practiced my faith from childhood until I drifted away from it in recent years. Buddhism teaches that a creation of things outside ourselves causes an unhappy and pointless search for security. It teaches me to stop following every impulse and to learn restraint. Obviously, I lost track of what I was taught.

Source

From the Pat-Yourself-On-The-Back Dept.

Please let me be excruciatingly clear that I am not trying to pat myself on the back with these posts… honestly, I’m just parroting what I’ve learned from others in these videos, so it’s not much of an ego boost at all. It’s terribly encouraging, though, to get such overwhelmingly positive feedback, and that’s the real reason I’ve gone so far with these videos. I’m posting these here and on the sirimangalo.org website because I think it will help more people see that these meditation techniques are truly a positive influence on people’s lives, and encourage more people to try them. So, without further ado, here’s a collection of most of the feedback I’ve received on YouTube and via email about the meditation videos and DVD we made. Thanks all for your feedback, and let us keep practicing together. Continue reading →

“In sooth to every man that’s born
A hatchet grows within his mouth
Wherewith the fool whene’er he speaks
And speaks amiss, doth cut himself.”

– AN 10

Something interesting I found today at:

http://www.palikanon.com/english/timetable.htm

THE SPREAD OF BUDDHISM 

Chronological Table of Important Events

Prepared by Olcott Gunasekera – Director,
Buddhist Information Centre. 

There are many problems in preparing a
chronological table for a period of 2525 years. The fixing of the actual year of
occurrence of an event is the chief among them. For example, although the
historicity of the Buddha is now well established, there are several views
regarding the year that is ascribed to the Parinibbana (demise) of the Buddha,
which is the beginning of the Buddhist era. The year 544 B.C. was taken as the
date of Parinibbana and the chronological table was constructed on this basis. 

Due to scantiness of information, certain
events are placed by historians within broad periods, running into sevral
centuries. In such cases the event is included under the first year or century.
As far as possible, the dates occurring in standard books were taken in
preparing the chronology. 

 

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