Comments on “Accessing Vajrayana”

I am basically thrilled that you are writing this blog. I participated in the small group discussion (as a newbie) at the BG conference and left with a lot of questions and desire to know more.

One thing I keep thinking since the conference is that there needs to be online conversation and information about vajrayana, which is what is exciting about this blog. For me as someone just starting out with both a lot of interest and a lot of skepticism, I have found it very difficult to find places or people to go to with my questions. Practitioners seem to know a lot about their teachers, but not so much about the world of vajrayana as a whole, so there is definitely this feeling of going virtually “door to door” to get little bits from a lot of different communities as I try to find my place. That is not necessarily a wasteful exercise, but it would be nice to have some folks to talk to about it all.

To break up the potentially clique-y nature of vajra sanghas, it would also be awesome to have additional forums where practitioners of different backgrounds could come together to talk in real time…on a hangout in the BG community or something similar.

Lama Tharchin Rinpoche told us that realization can come at any time and is not dependent on age or doing long retreats. And it can not come for those who do engage in long term retreat. That being said, he emphasized long term retreat for those who can.

As much as I love to network, ultimately Vajrayana is about one’s relationship with one’s vajra master and your closest siblings in that environment (or environments, if one has more than one lama.) I have found that too much comparative talk between Vajrayana students of various lamas is really not helpful. Lamas teach in all kinds of ways, there is no consistency. If you have traveled from one Dharma center to another you know that the atmosphere and focus is quite different between them. Our center, for example, is generally cheerful, affectionate, artistic, very oriented to the Vajrayana and Dzogchen, traditional, and informal when not in puja. We would totally look like slobs at Nalandabodhi!

Vajrayana is going to appeal to a minority of Buddhists in the West. The problem I see is that there are too few groups teaching accessible authentic Mahayana. Thank goodness for FPMT, but there is room for many more centers, or programs, for people who want to practice the Bodhisattvayana.

Do you agree, or am I unneccesarily alarmist? I don’t really know. Where I live (NY Mid-Hudson Valley) Vajrayana at the mid-level is becoming more accessible. At least four major teaching centers within a two-hours drive. There are mid-level teachers (a lot of so-called retreat Lamas) and some high-level ones. But this is a very superficial measure.

Have you personally found Vajrayana Buddhism accessible or not? I found an excellent teacher 40 years ago - highly accomplished, very accessible to his students, and he taught in English. So from this viewpoint it was accessible. The real problem for me at least lay within myself. I find this very hard to articulate - and I’m sorry I can not say it well - but here goes - Vajrayana is something very complex and not familiar within our own culture (speaking as an American.) To really practice in a Vajrayana tradition means to integrate into a process that is profound and ongoing - ultimately self-sustaining. What makes it inaccessible to newcomers I think is that this nature as a process is not explicit or visible at the start even though everything one learns feeds into it. As a beginner, one has to assemble a lot of stuff - dharma, ritual, practice - and put it all together with no real understanding of what the result will be. Words can’t really express it. At some point the process ignites, becomes a real process - and I think it is more understandable after that. I hope this makes some sense. A crude metaphor might be that we are given the task of building a car but have no real idea of internal combustion engines. Someone kindly gives us a heap of parts and tools, and stands by to label each piece and tell us how to put them together. I could extend the metaphor ad nausium, but for me the main point is the dividing line between the period when one is gathering all the parts and the time when they start to come together and actually work. That first phase is very difficult -

Hey Rin-Tin: great to see you blogging. Suggestion: mention your name in the post and in the opening section of the “About” tab and tell us something about this author! :-)

Concerning your accessibility question:

I thought I found a compatible, excellent teacher but was blocked by his students.

Oddly, when approaching the group, in casual conversation with two long-term students of his, while walking down a street said with a giggle: “You don’t even know how weird we are.” When I told them that I already learned something of their sangha and what he probably meant by “weird”, they were shocked I knew about the practice – which they felt should be kept secret until people are already in the group. The word was spread and other students were disappointed with my initial response about that weirdness.

So I got blocked from that group with the rationale: “It is more than the teacher, you have to get along with the Sangha.” Well, I had gotten along well with the Sangha until I let them see my thoughts.

So Vajrayana, from my one Western experience, probably invites Americans of a certain type, with the side pleasures they get for such association have nothing to do with Dzogchen viewpoints, which clog up inclusions of anyone but students similar to themselves. In a word: cliquish (as others have mentioned above).

Unfortunately, vajrayana may continue to exist in America because of personalities who are drawn to the foreign and weird and cliquish so as to have an identity they find comfortable with their temperament and situation. That is my cynical take.

If there is hope for Vajrayana, it is in folks like you and many other practitioners who see through this and will break it using something which undoes this strange Westernized permutation.

I mainly suggested a BG hangout to ensure that a wider audience would know that it was happening. But you could also host a regular Google hangout (outside the community) that would be open to anyone. You would just sent out a link to join. (Participants would have to create a Google user if they don’t have one already, but that is going to be the case with any software platform.) I would be interested in any version of such a hangout. :)

Authentic Vajrayana is transmitted through authentic wisdom lineage. We can yack about what might bridge the gap for people in our home culture, but it is really up to the lineage-holding lamas how they want to teach. Each lama will make his or her own choices. I am not qualified to present the Vajrayana on the internet or in person. If I were, a lineage holder from the Dudjom Tersar or the Longchen Nyingthig tradition would come to me with a silk scarf and ask me to teach. They know my address. I know I do not have realization. Until realization (at least the first bhumi) much of the time we try to help sentient beings we cause more harm than good. We cannot see past, present, or future lives–so how can we know?

Or, as Lama Tharchin Rinpoche used to say, would you trust someone who said he could make you rich with a wealth ceremony (I guess this is the Tibetan equivalent of an Infomercial for how to get rich) who lived in poverty himself? We need to be honest with ourselves about the level of our practice.

I was not at the BuddhistGeeks retreat (I’ve only recently discovered the awesomeness that is BG) but was really happy when I read your blog. I have been an “in-the-closet” Buddhist for over 20 years; I’ve done a lot of reading, meditating two or three times a day everyday, and just generally trying to live as gently and compassionately as I can. Recently, I have started seeing an Ani who is a chaplain at the hospital where I work because of issues I’ve been having with people I work with. The Ani is fantastic - the problem is that she goes to a temple that is close to the hospital but because I commute in by train, it would be about a two hour drive one way, something not feasible. I have looked around my area and threre are no temples or masters that I can find; as much as I would love to have a master, given these restrictions, I find it “inaccessible”. I am also the type who prefers more intimate conversation - being very shy, I tend to sit and the back and not engage when it is a large group. Having a Master, who is also teaching another 30 - 50 people at the same time, I would feel that by asking questions or trying to talk to him one-on-one would take away from other people’s practice. I am the type of person that constantly puts other’s needs ahead of my own, prefering to go off and learn on my own. Learning Vajrayana from a master, with all it’s “secret teachings”, would be difficult because I wouldn’t have anywhere else to go to - it’s communicated through the oral tradition, as you mentioned, so I would only end up frustrated.

Anyway, I have rambled enough - thank you so much for the post, and I look forward to future posts!
CB

CB–there are actually good lamas who have a small number of students because they do not promote themselves. In my own life, for example, I think of Lama Pema Dorje, and Lama Tsering Gyaltsen, who live in the U.S and do not have many local students. What I also think of when you write is that sometimes how we are in the world changes. One never knows what we will be comfortable with in the future.

Gee - last night I spent about two hours composing and posting a comment here (I’m a very very slow writer) - I even saw it posted. And now it’s gone. What happened? I can repost if it got lost....

Hmmm, I don’t think Wordpress.com has a “preview” capacity or am I missing something? I wish it did.

My suggestion, ALWAYS compose e-mail in a simple note or txt file then cut and paste so you don’t lose them. It is very hard to write something a second time and it sounds like Susan put a lot of good energy into her first note.

Thanks for checking Rin’dzin - and Sabio, good point - I learned that lesson a long time ago - so here is what I wrote last night :)

Rin’dzin Pamo - Here’s a reply to one of your questions.

You asked re beginners needing to assemble ‘a lot of stuff’ - “does a beginner really have to assemble a lot of it? Maybe it’s just as useful to familiarize one or two simple practices and get to experience something of how they work first.” For practice, yes, starting simple is good, as you say. But what I was talking about has to do with the amount a student will have to learn - it’s a whole world view and one that is pretty unfamiliar to most of us. It’s a complex and sophisticated understanding of how reality works. It does not always fit well with the general 20th - 21st century view of reality. Take the law of karma for example - there’s a lot of resistance to that. Quite a few western Buddhists reject it, yet, as far as I can see, what we learn as students of Vajrayana traditions just falls apart without it. Another example is how we view intention - westerners mostly learn that good intentions are good, but only when carried to fruition. Vajrayana students (and those in other Buddhist traditions) learn to use intention in itself as a driving force to enable progress on their path. There are so many such issues. For the beginning student it is a very difficult situation because it’s very hard to get a coherent idea of the world they’re moving into. This makes it all too easy to develop misunderstandings, put forth projections rooted in their own needs and problems, etc. It takes time, practice, study, reflection to resolve this. At some point things begin to fall into place - but until then.....what holds it together?

Then you asked, “Experience of the result only comes with practice, but having some explanation of the purpose and its intended effect is a part of the understanding and is necessary up front, in my opinion. (I think that’s probably what you were saying, and would agree?)”

From what I’ve said above perhaps you can see why this is not quite was I was getting at. Maybe some practices can be clarified, partial explanations given, some details made clear. But I don’t think the path as a whole can be made really clear at the beginning. It’s like a paradigm shift - before the shift happens, the final view is simply not visible. And I think a real difficulty in Vajrayana is just this -

I’m glad you liked my metaphor - just dawned on me that it involved building a vehicle.

Here’s another metaphor that I like - it’s like the birth of a star - great clouds of inert dust, swirling, drawn together, compressed until something ignites.....

As a person interested in the phenomena of religion, I think a blogging on Vajrayana, which is not sect specific, faces a classic challenge present in all religions:

The Variety of Vajrayanas
It is obvious from the comments alone the variety of vajrayanas. People could talk past each other if they try to discover what “real” vajrayana is or should be. It is drastically important to lay out the varieties – not so much in terms of the names of groups, but the various component that make up what people consider “vajrayana” and then the various positions on each component.
For example, views of karma, lineage, empowerment, secrecy, and much more.

Christian has many sect each differentiated by their positions on authority, hermeneutics, sacraments, view-of-outsiders and much more. Understanding those difference helps understand the challenges on inter-denominational dialogue.

People can get side tracked on defending the word “Vajrayana” just as they can “Christianity”. Without up front letting go of defending the right use of language but instead seeking understanding of the variations and their components, must time can be unproductive.

Well, that is my suggestion. By delineating carefully the several components that vary between the various forms of Vajrayana in the USA, Europe and Asia – as conversants join the dialogue – may be extremely helpful.

I have a chart called, “Christian: Share Thyself” for Christians and one for Philosophers too.

Vajrayana practitioner may find this analytically stifling to consider the components such, but I contend that this endeavor is consistent with watching the mind and the agglutination of thought. You may remember this chart I did back in the day when I approached Vajrayana (albeit unsuccessfully) – it may offer a beginning for undertaking differentiation of the Vajrayana positions.

@Rin’dzin,
Indeed, I smiled when I read your excellent comment. I look forward to your coming posts.

1. Do you agree, or am I unnecessarily alarmist?
   I lack good enough coherent picture to make personal assessment of the situation. However, it seems that as Vajrayana is transmitted from teacher to student, the situation can be fragile. Everything appears to be much dependent on individual practitioners. Such systems are sensitive to chaotic instabilities.

2. Have you personally found Vajrayana Buddhism accessible or not?
   I had actually a quite long time zero interests towards Buddhism. I had more background within magical practices connected to certain currents of western esotericism. When my personal experience, interests and goals developed over time, I started to pay more attention particularly to the Buddhist Tantra. At that point, Vajrayana was pretty available. Today, I am an apprentice within the Aro gTér lineage. (@Rin’dzin: I am that big red-bearded Finnish man you have met during some retreats in Finland.)

However, I could say that I have had my own period of “searching for something”. It just happens that it occurred outside Buddhist groups as such.

1. How could we be more accessible?
   Looking from my particular background, I could say that there are people within the loose circles of pagan/occult scene who could be potentially very interested in Vajrayana - more so than in Sutric Buddhism. However, most of them have not paid attention to Buddhism very much, as it is often considered to be both too disconnected from ordinary lives and too nihilistic. For those kind of people, having clear, practically minded (but not too secular) information on Vajrayana could be helpful.

I think that David has done some good job of “popularizing” some tantric principles. However, pagan/occult scene includes a lot of young people that are neither particularly happy about either secular rationalism or monotheistic eternalism. David’s style is a bit too secular for these people - I often get the feeling he is mostly talking to math nerds. Different kind of voices would be useful.

I still maintain some presence Finnish pagan/occult scene. However, that is mainly because I have still some good friends there, I am absolutely not there to “convert” people. Regardless, some people have shown a little curiosity.

Vajrayana appears to have assimilated many Hindu deities, practices and rituals from Bengal, Orissa region. The emphasis on ‘Guru’ may have come from vedic guru kula system.
http://www.patheos.com/Library/Vajrayana-Buddhism.html
http://www.tricycle.com/blog/social-media-guidelines-vajrayana-students
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vajrayana