filthy Shudra wrote:My contribution was personal experience - why do you say "theoretical"? I am not saying that people should do what I do - just that this is what I did and found helpful. ... Buddhist meditations do not insist on early sleep deprived disciplines that must be adhered to for brownie points. ... Dieties are understood by Buddhists to be symbolic, prayers are proof of misunderstood teaching because no one can do for you, only you can do for yourself. Most westerners who come to Buddhism come with cynical and skeptical mind and usually ignore the religious practices and go to the heart of the teachings.
I felt that your post was a little disrespectful of what had been written by me and enlightened. I appreciate your points but felt I had to reply - based on my experience and not theoretically.
Argue away, please, this is not the BKWSU. My apologies in advance for stroking my ego in public here. The practical recommendations are at the bottom.
I think I react against any grand, sweeping, generalised statements. I think everyone should and ask others to be specific. If you had simply said, "I did this and got that ... I met this one and they led me to this" then I would a have accepted it. If someone told a Buddhist monk, "I have studied Theravada and Mahayana and Vajranaya and Zen!" I think the monk would think they had studied nothing. I would guess it takes years ... if not a theoretical 'lifestimes' to get anywhere with them.
In the UK, I would offer that Buddhist was initially colored very much by the English intellectualism of the Theosophical Society and occultic Golden Dawn, and individuals such as Allan Bennett and Christmas Humphreys, and then later adopted and infused by 60s counterculture/Beat society; commune, drugs, homosexuality ... I am talking, of course, of the early FWBO days ... and adoption and remarketing by the New Age and Post-New Age commercialism.
Since the Exodus of at first Tibetan monks and then the immigration of Thais, other more traditional forms of Buddhism have come to Britain. I think pretty much the same patterns have happened elsewhere in the West. Any influence that Martial Arts have brought in have been a little tickle to the side ... not so much outside of Karate Kids generation, and their nice middle class relatives, the Aikido players.
Therefore you have a widespread of Buddhist traditions to pick, from everyday Thai Bhakti culture (there is a great temple near Wimbledon) to esoterics influences such as Buddhistically influenced Dzongchen traditions.
Within the traditional schools, there is a bit of a divide between those who seek to 'pickle the tradition in aspic' the way it always was (even if it does not work or makes people crack up) ... the business of selling picturesque "bottled lamas" ... and those who seek to take the principles and teachings and apply them to the Western condition (far, far fewer). There are those that want to turn it into a business cult and screw their adherents (Chögyam Trungpa), there are those like the BKWSU who want to beat up smaller groups (Dalai Lama's Yellow Hards persecuting the Shugdens sect), there are individuals monks having affairs with both male and female followers (everyone in the West according to the Dalai Lama), there are homosexual activist inside and outside homosexualizing it ... then you make a statement like "Buddhists do not sleep deprive followers" and I offer you the so called “marathon monks” of the Tendai sect on Mount Hiei who take the body beyond its natural limits of food, water, sleep deprivation and exercise.
In short there is no such thing as Buddhism, there is only the person sitting in front of you and what their game is (for good or bad). Eastern Buddhists would equally accuse you of not getting the faith element. Of course, the gods are real.
Most of Buddhist practise in the UK and West is either mindful awareness ...
little more than watching one's breath and thoughts ... and is pretty much utterly safe, although most teachers are beginners themselves. It could even be good for ex-BKs to see and watch if they get sucked into old Brahma Kumari practises. This is really just a preparatory practise. Usually the next level is called something like "expanding metta" which, against, is hard to criticise. It is just a practise of expanding one positive thoughts, love, forgiveness to others, all others, even people with whom you have had negative experiences. Off the back of this, there is now a Buddhist approach to psychotherapy that I think ex-BKs might warm to ... The Karuna Institute in the UK being one such school.
If I was to express my negative prejudices, I would skip many of the American teachers of which many come across as full of themselves and commercial to me. Sadly, I did not like the ambience of the FWBO because I felt it was too young a tradition, mixed with sexually and politically, and did not recognise older or other authorities ... Urgyen Sangharakshita strikes me as a corrupter of the Buddhist tradition who has broken his vows (having and encouraging sex with young boys, kept out of India for it too), refused to accept other authorities and, to some degrees, his followers do too.
My warmest experiences though was with Chán practise, though this might be down to the teacher Dr John Crook and the
Western Chan Fellowship.org. I felt it lacked some of the austerity, obscurity and emptiness of Japanese Zen adherents. It is not so big business and so I feel it is quite simple and sincere.
I think that there is quite a lot of con going on with the way Japanese Buddhism/culture is sold and when they say it is empty ... it really is empty. There is nothing going on. It is all just external aesthetics and doing things that have always been done. Appealing aesthetics but nothing more. In Japan, 99% of Buddhism is just a family business passed down Father to son, a temple with an inn attached round the corner or over the road from a brothel. One services one end, the other services the other end ... death mostly. I think the whole koan thing sucks now. It has become an out of place, out of time ritual ... but that might be my prejudice talking.
I would avoid Vajranaya practise which is the quasi-mystical, ultra-symbolic stuff because it does not clear work on Westerns who have no idea what the symbolism and ritual is all about. Something that the priest and monks might not admit. That is, basically, most of the Tibetan stuff and Japanese schools like Shingon. Again, very pretty and visual ... but I find not even the followers know what it is all about, they are just so busy learning it all by rote and repetition and following unreasonable lifelong apprenticeships.
On the other end though, there are the Dzogchen and if you are interested in the more weird, wonderful, spiritualistic and healing aspects of Buddhist, seek them out. Chogyal Namkhai Norbu is Italy is probably one of the best starting points in the West. I have no idea about any of his followers. They tend to have a more open, "you want it we got it" approach and many of them live by practising traditional medicine which can help too but their stuff is dynamic. Norbu Rinpoche is recognised as a tulku, catch him whilst you can and he is still alive. I would say he is probably one of the most real examples of his tradition and not so full of BS. But it is hard core not for simple, easy practises.
One of the key things I took from looking at Buddhism was the concept of ""transmission" .. the passing on of a something from teacher to student. Often it is called, for example in Chan as a ""transmission beyond the scriptures" which would appeal to ex-BK not wanting a head full of more crap to wade through. "Transmission" is also what is happening in the Brahma Kumaris ... but a transmission of what? That is the big question.
In my opinion, it is transmission of something not very clean and not very cool as its expansion proves. I might even go as far to say it is the transmission of something at a "darker" and lower spiritual level.