Grettings from Missouri

[dennis60]

Hi All,
I participate on a couple other Buddhist forums. Someone mentioned this forum so here i am. I have been practicing Buddhism for about 23 years. That started when i entered a small Buddhist monastery, of which i am still a resident. I claim no lineage other than the atmosphere of Chan/Zen that is our preferable style here. Here is a piece written about our monastery by one of the monks.....

Now for the movie:


There was a guy who lived about 2489 or so years ago, who did an
interesting and remarkable thing with his life. He invented psychology
and a "way" that differed from the Brahaminists and their religion around
him. He came from a family in the northern part of India (Nepal). Legend
has it that he came from a 'royal' family and was a prince. So this guy
called Gottama , well these days was what we would call a white bread
boy, Certainly he wasn't from the hood. Daddy was rich and with the
sangha, ran the place. But the kid, over-protected as he was, wanted to
amount to something spiritually, and do something besides ruling over
everyone in the area. There are all sorts of legends about the man who
was to become the buddha, but then there are lots of whispers and stuff
about Michael Jordon. Who knows how many of them are true, except
for Michael. And so tales were told about the buddha's origin, none of
which have anything to do with his achievement, that of mastering his
own mind in a new creative way, still unmatched (mostly) in the world
today.

So, he sneaked out of this father's palace and went off to find
god, or himself, or the universe, and began to practice in the ways of
the saddhu's around him. It was fairly common for men (in what was to
become the hindu culture) after they had raised their families and had a
son to take over the household, to leave their possessions, go the
jungle, with a sheet wrapped around them and they lived by begging for
their food. Buddha was just starting the process a little early, but
since he had a son, it was fairly typical...no big deal.(although his son
was still an infant.)

Wow, try living like that in America today. Not only would you probably
starve to death, you would even get hassled in many places for begging
and not meeting America's standard of the work ethic.( And get arrested
for child abandonment)
And he didn't get anywhere. He tried starving himself and doing all
sorts of weird stuff. Stuff the bramhin priests told him and stuff the
Jaine saddhu's were doing, and none of it did anything for him.(except
make him very thin and he almost starved to death) So he invented
his own way through his meditation and practices of his own devising.
And in the process, dropped the god-idea and the soul-idea. Really a new
view. And he said, everything you know is or can discover, is
determined by how your mind works and how it is constructed. Stop
fooling around with other stuff and start investigating mind stuff. And
he taught people who gathered around him for the next xxx years. Then
he died at the age of 60 or so. Some say from a meal of suckling pig,
which poisoned him, and there are lots of stories about that subject too.
Too many to quarrel about anyway.But he did say some interesting things
about how if you chose this path, you had to go upstream, against the
tide of common thought.
You have to find your own way. And he taught that we should not accept
anyone elses word for a truth, but should investigate it for itself.
Wow, if he could see how Buddhism is practiced today. With all of it's
versions, and truths and entanglements.

So today, we have all these suttras written in Pali and Chinese and
stuff, and scholars argue endlessly about what they mean. I mean it is
fairly obvious from the writting, that a lot of different folks had a
hand in writing this stuff and we can only infer what it means. But we
can practice what he taught.

We can stop mentation and still the mind and eventually if we are doing
it correctly, we come to understandings and can reach nirvana (although
there are myriads of quarrels about that too).

Now the philosophy of pragmatism was invented in America, and some of
that philosophy sounds very much like what the buddha said and taught.
But what the buddha said and taught was not only a new philosophy
for it's time, but it was also the invention of psychology. He said it
wasn't so important to know why something was true about the mind, but to
simply stop doing stuff that made us neurotic and ill, i.e. that
caused suffering in our lives. He said," stop mentation". No checking to
see what you think about things.

Or to check constantly "how you feel" about something. Just still the
mind of all that nonsesense. Think when you need to think, but stop
making a bad habit of it. No stopping to see how you feel about this or
that. Still the mind and it will change the way you see reality in a
major way. The world won't change, but the way you look at things will.
And the buddha taught that the secret to this changed view, besides
stilling the mind, was to rid oneself of the "illusionary self." See the
"SELF" for what it is, and go on with your life.

Stop putting concepts between you and reality, like a soul, or a god, or
gods. See it the way it is. (raw sensation) And be careful to stay open
and free. And stop believing in ideas and things. In fact, some think
he told us to give up believing anything. And develop your mind by
meditation. (A form of discipline) And don't check to see often what you
have stored in the closets of your mind, dump the closets that you don't
know are there. Those categories that govern your behavior without your
being aware of it. True then, true now.
And be truthful with yourself and others, it's easier to live a truthful
life cause you don't have the burden of remembering the lies you have
told.
This idea was 'against the stream' in those days, and it remains 'against
the stream' today. No one lives like that, except some buddhists. It
is such a startling idea that the Brahaminists who came after the buddha
co-opted his ideas and inculcated them back into Brahaminism.(The hindus
are very inclusive in their religions.) They asorb everyone's idea and
make it all part of Hinduism. Not a bad idea for religionists,( but
it is questionable whether what the buddha did has anything to do with
religion.) And the reasorbtion of buddhism back into Vedanta, turns
buddhism back into what the buddha rebelled against in the first place.
The Hindu's are still doing this...claiming the buddha to be one of the
pantheon of indian gods.(a Khrisna incarnation, as it were) The buddha
fought against Brahaminist ideas in his time...he would turn over in his
grave if he knew how his message has been largely corrupted today by
Brahaminists, some of whom call themselves buddhists.
We think some of the buddhists found today have been corrupted in major
ways. Now we don't claim to be pure and the rest impure. Such
speculation is meaningless. But be very careful what you accept as having
come from the buddha. The Buddha said everyone has to do the work
himself, don't take our word for any of this, Search it out for yourself.

We are not reinventing buddhism, we are merely doing as the buddha did,
doing it ourselves. We are thankful for the lineages and past buddhas for
preserving the buddhas' words for us. Thanks guys. We will take the
words and leave out the all the other stuff.
We are truely indebted to the ancient Ch'an practitioners of old northern
China. If we were to homage to anyone, it would be to the ideas expressed
in the story of Layman Pang.

So somewhere in the middle west is this small monastery (inspired by
gotama) with rotten-falling-down buildings and a small creek running
through it and bordered by high hills on one side and a rural highway on
the other. It's peopled by folk, who like the buddha guide themselves in
practices and meditation in a way perhaps like the buddha( or as close as
we can get, depending on our understanding of the dharma he taught. Do we
care that we are not 'certified' buddhists? Not really?
Are we real buddhists as opposed to REAL buddhists? Who cares?
We are more interested in stopping mentation than names and
certification.

We don't want to convert you, or take your money, or absorb your sons and
daughters into a 'cult'. We will answer some questions once.
Tourists are not welcome. Drop-in's are left standing at the gate. Phones
are answered infrequently.

At this small monastery, we think the message that the buddha left is that
you can do it too. If you meditate and practice and read all the books
and ignore them and practice and practice, you too can find freedom, you
can unlearn the social,familial, cultural and religious conditioning and
discover your own way to nirvana. The dharma will unfold from within.
And if it doesn't, you ain't doing it, i.e. stilling the mind. So we
don't have any resident teachers or gurus, we have spiritual friends who
will make a contract with you to assist you in your search. Actually all
that really means is that the monk who contracts with you, will make sure
hat while you are fighting your invented demons, you don't wander onto
the highway or fall into the creek and forget to wade out of it.
We call our selves Buddhists, or Pod people, or whatever and those who
live on the grounds take vows of poverty and obedience to the community.
We have a tuliary abbot, but he is asleep and it is best to conduct
your business in a way so as to not awaken him. Our cat is a tulku.
We work to understand the imaginary self and thus we find the illusion of
"we" spaces equally confusing. One of our monks, a few years ago, told a
newcomer to the place the most memorable thing we have ever heard
said about the place. Bro. Mark, affectionately called the dead monk,
said,"It is not easy to simplify your life, although at first it would
eem so."
Currently the media and fashion are all agog over Buddhism, as recent
movies have made it fashionable. People tend to think of buddhism as
something from the east, but it has been a part of the American Scene
since the 1800's. Though most American buddhists tend to be fairly
invisible in their community.

An Announcement:

The leader of Tibetian buddhists is the head of state. He is probably a
nice man, but he in no ways speaks for even a small portion of the
buddhists in the world. And the situation is that he is the leader of the
exiled government of Tibet. Mixing politics and spirituality is probably
not a very workable idea for most of us.
Buddha was a prince, and he chose to leave that environment and become a
saddhu. We question the value of having a buddhist pope, but that is the
situation and choice of the Tibetian people. We hope it was their choice
and not the holdover of a feudal system in which only the titled and
wealthy chose.
However it came about, it is not our choice.

And then we come to the argument, is buddhism a religion as practiced by
some, or is it a "way"as practiced by others or is it best seen as a
psychology. We don't know or care, and people of all persuasion are
welcome, as long as you don't push your views into others lives. After
all, if coping with the illusionary self is an aim, having strong opinions
would seem to be boxing one's self in rather tightly.
But we recognize that it is necessary to check periodically to insure that
we are walking the walk, and talking the talk, without falling back into
he habit of mentation. And that we are not espousing views that would
cause the buddha to denounce us, were he living today. So if you have
ome complaint or comment on our statements here, write us with your
comment.
A lot of our how we try to live is expressed in the concepts of the
Ch'an/Chan of old north China. Their records indicate to us that most
buddhism as far as we are concerned is mostly about waking and stilling
the mind.
The way we work:
One of the monks living here, might contract to help you teach yourself,
meditation, skillful means, humor,insight, how to seek self wisdom, cook,
garden, play guitar or to run a computer, etc. There is never a fee for
any of our assistance, for we have learned that the exchange of material
goods merely lends itself to unnecessary complications when it comes to
spiritual understandings. If you ask any of us the most important thing in
each of our lives, it would be practice, practice,practice. (And stop
mentating) If you don't know what we mean by practice, it is time for a
long search within and begin the practice of insight into the illusionary
self.

Our first question is always, to see if you can still the mind. That
should always be the first goal of your practice, if your are silly
enough to listen to us. One of our monks has spent many years of research
on dreams and inquires of each monk in the morning, "Did you dream?"
Another has researched astrology and all of it's spiritual
ramifications.(And discarded quite a lot of this, but it is a body of
knowledge that goes back 3000 years.( A lot of junk, but some good stuff
too.)

Monk is a generic term and does not refer to male or female in this place.
If you have questions about buddhism, spirituality, or anything else that
you think one of us might answer,you are welcome to send e-mail to this
page. However, don't expect us to do your research for a school paper or
your college video class, or wash your dishes, or clean your room. We
gave give annual lectures at the local highschool and at the local
Catholic school about buddhism.
You don't even have to be a buddhist to live here.
Traditionally monasteries in old china and other countries had people of
other persuasions living in them. They enjoyed the stimulation that this
custom provided.

We live by contract in this community. Mad monks and
native-american-backwards people are welcome here. That means we
are tolerant, not slack. You would be expected to help provide an income
for the monastery and work around the place. This place is not
glamorous, but it is kept free from neurosis, romantic ideals, passions,
and preaching. Escapees from life need not apply. Seekers are welcome.
We stay as invisible as possible.
The Monastery is supported by the monks cleaning house as a team. They go
most mornings to all sorts of homes and clean. All monies collected go to
the monastery community, and each monk is given a small stipend each week.
e earn enough to feed ourselves and keep the wolf from the door, but we
never seem to get enough to remodel the old buildings on the grounds into
livable quarters for more monks.
The monastery is located on 28.8 acres of creek bottom and surrounding
hills. The creek floods periodically and we are awash for a while, but the
skys clear and once again life goes on placidly. Our hope is to
eventually put small one -person huts in the surrounding hills to allow
retreats for folks who need such.
These would be for time spent pretty much alone except for an
evening meal for some.
We have refused donations in the past, since we got the money for the land
by buying older houses, remodeling them and selling them. However, our
skill level is dying out and we don't do home repair for money any more.

After a discussion that has gone on for years, we have decided to
accept donations for the remodeling of the buildings in order to allow us
to accept more people. Our intention is to use the money only for
remodeling and repairs and to keep up the housecleaning as our main
source of support.
We have been a registered not for profit
organization (church) under the laws of the State of Missouri for about
30 years.

[retrofuturist]

Greetings Dennis,

Welcome to Dhamma Wheel.



You may also be interested in Dharma Wheel, the Mahayana/Vajrayana forum linked to in my signature.

Metta,
Retro.

[Ben]

Hi Dennis
Its a pleasure to have you here!
metta

Ben

[bodom]

Welcome Dennis!

[Anicca]

Greetings from a next door neighbor in Oklahoma! You wrote a great introduction.