Rebel Buddha in Halifax
by Dennis Hunter (Check out Dennis's blog: One Human Journey)
Posted 21 November 2010
The student-teacher relationship is only as complicated as we make it. At a gathering with his students and members of Nalandabodhi in Halifax on Wednesday, Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche explained that we humans are experts at making simple things complicated.
This relationship is, first of all, a human one, and human relationships generally involve emotions and expectations -- the first layer of complication. It is also a spiritual relationship, said Rinpoche, into which we tend to bring whatever baggage we may (perhaps unwittingly) be carrying from previous experiences of religion and spirituality -- adding a second layer of projections and expectations. And thirdly, it is an educational relationship, which means that our previous experiences of being a student and relating to teachers in a mundane sense -- at school -- also come into play.
When we get beyond all these layers of complication, the role of the teacher, said Rinpoche, is that of kalyanamitra -- the 'spiritual friend,' someone who can give us a positive influence on the path of awakening.
On this path, we shouldn't be looking for something grandiose or special -- whether in our teacher or in our mind and meditative experience. If we're looking for something grandiose, said Rinpoche, we are looking for samsara. Awakening is nothing special -- it's ordinary. Awakening becomes complicated when our ego gets involved and we have an agenda, such as self-improvement. And we should never shut our minds to the possibility that awakening might happen today. It could happen anywhere, anytime.
The next evening, Rinpoche brought the "Rebel Buddha" experience to a packed audience at Dalhousie University's McInnes Room. After entering the stage on the musical cue of the Rolling Stones' "Sympathy for the Devil," Rinpoche began by describing his own journey: how he was educated in the monastery about traditional Tibetan Buddhist cultural forms, and how he eventually began to question these forms and look for their underlying meaning and wisdom. His search for a deeper wisdom also led him to begin really examining the life of Siddhartha, whose heroic and rebellious quest for truth was the spark that started the fire of Buddhism.
After leaving the comfortable life of the palace, said Rinpoche, Siddhartha engaged in years of rigorous ascetic and religious practices -- but he failed to find enlightenment that way. Siddhartha finally attained awakening after leaving religion and asceticism behind. He was just sitting in the jungle under an ordinary tree, probably looking at another tree. There was no golden statue in front of him, no incense burning. It was just Siddhartha and his own mind.
All these accoutrements we tend to see as being so crucial to our awakening, said Rinpoche -- our gomdens and zafus and zabutons, our incense and bells and statues -- are not really crucial at all. Exploring truth and waking up doesn't require any kind of religious set-up. "Awakening is nobody's property," said Rinpoche, "it doesn't belong to any 'ism' or culture." Most Buddhists these days, he said, view themselves as liberals, but when it comes to the cultural forms of Buddhism, they are often quite conservative.
Genuine truth can only be discovered, said Rinpoche, with an open, innocent, inquisitive mind -- one that is not caught up in a preconceived version of the truth. This is the meaning of the word "rebel" in "Rebel Buddha" -- the true heart of bravery and inquisitiveness that leads us to question and challenge the authority of our own delusions and habitual patterns.
Rinpoche's talk was followed by a panel discussion between Rinpoche, Mitra Tyler Dewar of Nalandabodhi, Carolyn Gimian of Shambhala, and Scott Wellenbach of Nitartha Institute, moderated by Barry Boyce, senior editor for the Shambhala Sun and Buddhadharma. The conversation focused on the evolution of Western Buddhism, and Barry's opening question about Buddhism and its cultural forms: "What is the baby and what is the bathwater?"
Tyler quoted Viktor Frankl: "Happiness cannot be pursued; it must ensue." Similarly, he said, we cannot consciously pursue a new form of Western Buddhism in a very theoretical way; it must ensue naturally from our practice and from relating to our experience moment-to-moment, so we shouldn't get lost in the "meta" level of theory about it. Other panelists went on to note that the term "Western" itself, like the term "Asian," is so broad as to be almost meaningless -- so perhaps Swedish Buddhism and Mexican Buddhism and Canadian Buddhism will not end up looking exactly the same. Perhaps what we should really be talking about, said Tyler, is not Western Buddhism, but 21st-century Buddhism, which will evolve as it encounters new cultures both in the West and in the East.
Later the conversation came around to the relationship between teacher and student, and when it is okay for the student to challenge the teacher. There might be different reasons for doing this, noted Carolyn: we might simply be reacting from ego and habitual patterns, but we might also be engaging in a legitimate process of questioning and trying to go deeper into our experience and understanding of the teachings. Rinpoche added that it's okay to question the teacher -- even to offer critical analysis -- but we should not engage in criticism for its own sake. Sometimes people fall into a habit of just disagreeing with everything automatically, and relating to the teacher this way is a problem.
The conversation also touched on the question of monasticism and its role in preserving and protecting the depth of the Dharma. With about a dozen monastics from Nova Scotia's own Gampo Abbey in the audience, this was a question of great interest to some. Rinpoche noted the importance of the monastic tradition and the supportive environment of the monastery, which allows people to dedicate much more of their time to the project of awakening. Carolyn wondered, though, about the future of the monastic tradition both in the West and in Asia; she suspects that monastics could become an increasingly rare species in the Buddhist world.
This visit not only marked the launch of his extraordinary new book, "Rebel Buddha" -- it was also Ponlop Rinpoche's first time back in Halifax in about five-and-a-half years, so it was a very significant and joyous occasion for his students and friends in Nova Scotia. We hope to see Rinpoche back in Halifax again soon!
- Dennis Hunter
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