|
||||
|
My first groupies deserted me… Here’s a note from WeLoveMonk: Hi yuttadhammo! We’re fans, as you can tell. Sorry about the kiss mark. :P We really couldn’t find clip art of a heart, so we figured a silly lip mark will communicate our admiration. (I mean, we don’t wanna kiss you on the lips [...] The following letter was printed in today’s issue of the Moorpark Acorn, without the “Dear Citizens of Moorpark,”. Instead, there is seen the heading “Buddhist Monk Says He’s Harmless”. Dear Citizens of Moorpark, I am writing to introduce myself as a new resident of your city. I am a Buddhist monk and I teach [...] Today I got sidetracked into taking part in “Life In A Day“, via YouTube. I’ve been filming since 12:01 AM and have gone through most of the following list already (the four questions are part of the requirements, not something I thought up): • 12 AM – Pre-day – thoughts, reasons, intentions • 4 [...] This Wednesday, July 7th, 5 PM, at the Los Angeles Metropolitan Detention Center, see the monk go back to jail. I’m volunteering with Religious Services at the Federal Detention Center in downtown LA. Not quite sure what I’ve gotten myself into, but thinking back over the mental anguish of imprisonment, a once-a-week chaplaincy [...] A word on some of what has happened recently. I imagine news of the nature of my thoughts on this weblog has garnered me some new and unexpected audience members, hungry for at the least an explanation of the events leading up to what became an unfortunate misunderstanding between myself and a certain group of fellow human beings. I am sorry to say I will not satiate this desire; sorry only in the sense that one might wish to do one’s best to oblige the thirsts of others. But this story will have to lay unwritten. I was asked, ordered even, to at the very least post a revised version of my thoughts on the proper role of a Buddhist monastery in regards to the rest of human society and the proper every day attitude, behaviour and comportment of a Buddhist monk; revised, that is, from a recent post I put up briefly and quickly took down, though not quick enough. Meeting today accomplished a few things. First, I managed to confuse the board members as to why I wouldn’t want to wear day-glow robes. Crazy Farang, I know. But they are supportive, and confident that they can figure out a solution to our dilemma. On the plus side, it sounds like by May there [...] Buddhism is certainly the hardest pill to swallow. Everything about us screams out against the middle way, trying always to find some way to make things permanent, satisfying or controllable. We push and pull, trying to make things go our way, never realizing that we are but dust in the wind, tossed about by storms of our own making. The middle way forces you to give up everything about who and what you are. This is the hardest pill to swallow. It is hard not because it is wrong, but because you are wrong. Everything you cling to is painful, everything you stand for falls over, everything that has meaning to you is meaningless. It is the ultimate test of selflessness. All of that is very dramatic, I suppose, when relating to the events of today… we did manage to compromise on the issue of opening a new center in North Hollywood under Wat Thai. I think the solution is really the best… it didn’t seem right anyway to make such a young monk the head of the meditation department at such a big monastery with such big and powerful monks, and a couple of times at the meeting I suggested that the best thing for me would be to just leave and find a place more suited to my way of practice. So, we swung back and forth, me trying to explain how difficult it is to run a meditation center when you are nothing more than a resident teacher under the authority of people who know very little about meditation centers in general, and they trying to tell me that everything would be just fine doing exactly that.
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. 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. |
  |
|||
|
Copyright © 2010 Truth Is Within - All Rights Reserved |
||||
Recent Comments