One would think that after hearing the Dalai Lama lecture on Buddhism, I’d warm up to the religion. Let’s just say I’m not exactly sold on it yet.
The Dalai Lama gave public lectures on three days, the last three days we were in town. On the first, he lectured on "The 37 Practices of a Boddhisatva," a text outlining the practices of ideal Buddhists, available here: http://viewonbuddhism.org/resources/37_practices_bodhisattva.html. This was somewhat similar to a college lecture, both in it being mentally stimulating and in its ability to be cool despite its fundamental bogusness (according to Corel, bogusness is a word). The next day was a bunch of vows, which I skipped for reasons I’ll explain, and the third day was over my head. So most of my takeaway was from the first day.
The 37 Practices includes a lot of advice that’s pretty jarring to a western audience. Things like Practice 3, "Withdrawing completely from things that excite us, our mental disturbances slowly decline. And ridding our mind of directionless wandering, attention on virtue will surely increase. As wisdom shines clearer, the world comes in focus, our confidence grows in the Dharma we have learned. Live all alone far away in seclusion - the Sons of the Buddhas all practise this way." See also Rule 33, advising abandonment of family.
The Dalai Lama discussed these rules in surprising detail, from the ground up. He actually started with the Big Bang, but I saw most of that as window dressing to make the rules seem more scientific than mumbo jumbo. Ultimately, it all stems from reincarnation and the idea that our bodies are prisons for our souls. Any pleasure we gain in this life is meaningless, but the pain we experience is not, as it detracts from our ability to meditate and achieve Nirvana. Ergo, live your life to minimize pain, even at the expense of minimizing happiness.
I see several problems with this. Largely, it’s just that this is a huge sacrifice to take on faith, but that’s a theological argument. I think Christianity is more forgiving about keeping the faith without sacrificing much. But, in Buddhisms terms, I see a glaring hole. Several of the rules (see, eg, 11) focus on charity and improving the lives of others. You sacrifice your own meaningless happiness for the betterment of others. But isn’t that betterment a waste of time? Isn’t that pleasure fleeting too? Why give ephemeral happiness to others, while you, yourself, are declining it as harmful? It seems to me that this whole thing dissolves when applied to society, and only works in small doses. You wind up with a double standard: one set of rules for the monks, and another for everyone else. But I could go on for a while on this. For far longer than is interesting on a blog. So I’ll just say that I quickly found holes in this Buddhism thing.
At the end of the first day, there was a public vow, the Pratimoksha Vow. Anybody in the audience could take it. It consisted of five rules: don’t kill, don’t steal, don’t lie, don’t rape, don’t drink. Four of those are pretty easy. The Dalai Lama even clarified that once, a guy said he wanted to take the vow, but that he couldn’t give up alcohol. He gave him some leeway: just don’t abuse it. I didn’t want to quibble by saying "what if I only get really ripped once in a while, and am chill when I do it?" That seemed intrusive. So I did not take the vow.
In researching the vow later, though, I got to thinking how similar Buddhist monastic life is to Christian Monastic life in the Dark Ages. See this list of rules here:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patimokkha. These are rules describing every aspect of life. Join the monastery and have every decision made for you–rules govern everything. Compare this to The Rule of St. Benedict, a bizarrely similar set of rules for Dark Ages monks. There’s a reason why we use the term "monk" for eastern religions, too. It’s the same thing–a bunch of people who were living in a chaotic, depressing society who found refuge in the order and predictability of religious asceticism. Christianity also has similar tenets on the body being a prison, and about happiness on Earth being ephemeral. The difference is that Christianity didn’t take this to the extremes. It didn’t say that true Christians would live solitary lives. That would never have worked. Christianity was always a practical religion, whether that meant caving to Roman demands, surviving the Dark Ages, reforming the Vatican’s systems, or looking the other way when Catholics support abortion. Buddhism, by my judgments, is more strict. When pressed, it has simply said "you outsiders can do what you wish. We don’t care. We’re Buddhists." And Tibet gets conquered and its citizens either marginalized or eradicated. How’d that hopey-changey stuff work out for ya?
Anyway, the second day was more vows. And while that list of vows was neat, in practice it was like 20 minutes of untranslated chanting (we got an English feed on FM radio). The second day was a whole lotta that, so I skipped it to explore town. The third day was half over my head, and half only for the Russian pilgrims (no English feed). So I only got one real day with His Holiness. I think that was enough. I can say I met him and listened to his lectures. I don’t need to say it was spiritual.
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