Monday, November 1, 2010

THOUGHTS ON THE CHURCH

PART I

Resignation

Recent events at the gonpa – a Tibetan Buddhist retreat center - where I lived for 12 years have inspired me to write about a topic which I am calling “the church.” It is a topic which I have contemplated for many years. 

Until he resigned recently, Lama Drimed was the Spiritual Head and Chairman of the Board of Directors of Chagdud Gonpa Foundation.  He had been named by Chagdud Rinpoche as his dzogchen lineage holder and had been given Rigdzin Ling as his seat.

He was never comfortable with running things and preferred the lifestyle of a yogi or hermit.  After his traditional three year retreat which ended in 2008, he found he that he was not happy to continue with “business as usual” and began to explore new directions in response to the needs of his students.  He said at one point that he felt that despite years and sometimes decades of traditional Tibetan Buddhist practice, there were often psychological blocks or habitual patterns which held students back from making real progress.  In his exploration of various ways to facilitate real spiritual growth - techniques developed by western teachers, therapists, and healers - he began to deviate from the traditional pattern of teaching in the centers founded by Chagdud Rinpoche.

One of Rinpoche’s outstanding contributions was his focus on the motivation of the bodhisattva, the one who lives to benefit others and uses all skillful means to do so.  I feel that it was with this motivation that Lama Drimed began to employ alternative methods of inquiry and alternative “yogas” to assist his students in their development.

This deviation from the traditional path and the practices shared by all the Chagdud Gonpa centers was upsetting to many of the other Chagdud Gonpa lamas and administrators and the ensuing controversy has resulted in a transition, in which Lama Drimed will move out of the gonpa but may continue to lead traditional drubchens and other programs from time to time at the gonpa, in addition to continuing his teaching independently outside of the gonpa. 

Growing Pains

While there are fears, hurt feelings, anger, sadness, indignation, confusion and all of the reactions that come from change, I feel that this inevitable transition will ultimately benefit those involved.  This does not diminish in any way my feelings of appreciation of and compassion for the suffering involved. Such transitions are always opportunities for soul-searching and for adjustment, an essential aspect of the path.

As a source of inspiration and blessings for so many, it seems to me that Lama Drimed will be able to do this most successfully and powerfully if he is free to follow his inner inspiration, to continue his exploration and to develop his own style of benefiting others.  The difficulty comes for those who have loyalty to or connection with both sides of the matter.  It is most difficult for the students of Lama Drimed who live at the gonpa. 

I can understand and sympathize with the feelings of those who want Chagdud Gonpa to continue as a beacon and source of support for all the dharma students whom Chagdud Rinpoche touched and taught.  Many feel inspired to preserve his legacy by ensuring that people will be able to visit any CGF center and find the same programs and practices done in the same way, providing continuity and support for the practice of so many. 

The Church

There is a place for the aspect of the spiritual path which I call the church.  An organization or structure which can continue to help others after a great spiritual light has left his or her body is one of the fruits of such a being’s path and attainment.  While the organization can provide guidance to later generations, it can also be a source of difficulty and of the darkening of the light.  This can happen when originally fresh and spontaneous enlightened activity becomes codified and encrusted by all the aspects which form and structure entail, particularly power politics. 

At the beginning of my spiritual life in Baba’s ashram I never even thought of the existence of a church, the organizational aspect of life around the guru.  In Siddha Yoga, the church grew slowly and the early stages were invisible to me.  As foreigners in India in the early 70s, we had nothing to do with the running of the ashram and we just lived at Baba’s feet - meditating, serving and basking in his presence.  I was with Baba many years before the creation of SYDA Foundation. 

Organization became necessary during the Second World Tour in 1974, when there was an evening program to put on every night as well as weekend intensives and retreats.  This entailed roles, jobs, departments and more separation of public and staff.  Of course there were jobs and departments even in the early days, but it felt then as though we all related directly to Baba without the interface of department heads, managers, and security guards. 

When Baba sent Shankarananda and me to Ann Arbor to start an ashram, the process was quite informal.  We just copied the Ganeshpuri ashram and created a reproduction.  During our time there, the Foundation was created and we lost much of the direct connection to Baba in the necessary interface with the Foundation. 

Disillusionment

While I recognized the need for organization for Baba’s work, I did not enjoy it.  From the beginning I was not the kind of person who gravitated to membership in a church.  For example, in my courses in anthropology in graduate school, I had studied the evolution of culture and found that I resonated much more with small and primitive groups with undifferentiated structure, a more democratic feel and a closer connection to spirit.  Although I never got to the stage of doing fieldwork, I had already decided to select a more primitive culture. 

At the University of Michigan in the late 60s, the study of peasants was all the rage and Ann Arbor was a hotbed of liberal politics.  I was accused by my fellow grad students of having no political awareness.  It was truer than they even knew.  Although I was certainly more liberal than conservative, my leanings did not spring from a political view, but instead from a spiritual orientation which I was not yet even aware of. 

The first group I ever really joined, heart and soul, was Baba’s.  I was moved by Baba’s work of helping people - by blessing them, awakening them and giving them teachings on higher consciousness.  In order to facilitate his reaching as many people as possible, a structure and organization were necessary.  I applauded the creation of more than 60 ashrams all over the world and the initiation of more than 60 swamis.  I was happy to be part of what I believed would be a sublime and enlightened world movement.

The politics, various scandals and difficulties that transpired shattered my idealism and created a great disillusionment.  This phase was also the source of maturity and wisdom - but that came later.  During the period of disillusionment, I clung to my faith that if I hung in there, I would grow and the path would bear fruit.  I felt that my only hope was my own spiritual development and that nothing else mattered.

After ten years with Gurumayi, however, I knew that I was not growing and became filled with the desire to get away from a situation which seemed to be holding me back rather than spurring me forward on the path.  Actually, I cannot truthfully say why I left.  All I really know for sure is that I had to go. 

New Directions

The same kind of feeling arose for me when I decided to leave the gonpa.  I can point to all kinds of movements which led up to it and which synchronously attended the shift in direction, but I cannot truly say what the cause for it was.  Perhaps I felt in Lama Drimed’s new direction, a cosmic hint for me to also take a new direction. 

In any case, I support his new direction even though I do not personally resonate with the specific approaches he is taking.  While the tools he is using are wonderful and incredibly useful, they are not my tools - at this moment.  What I feel very enthusiastic about is the fact that he is adding western tools which engage the body, the psyche and the inner energy of the student.  I had often felt that the traditional practices did not totally address my needs. 

These days I am practicing what I could call “following the thread.”  It is a bit like unraveling a big and tangled ball of string.  It entails just paying attention to what arises - both inside and outside - and applying awareness and compassion.  It can even involve following an apparently wrong direction - following a thread of karma that seems to be somehow encoded in my program for this lifetime.  My rule is to follow whatever arises in my being.

It is like exploring a maze rather than focusing on solving it, or finding the way out.  In this game the point is to go down every pathway so that the entire field is explored - the field or maze being my own karma.  As each dead end is explored, there is a kind of blessing conveyed as it is seen with acceptance, with neither grasping nor rejection.  The idea is to leave no thread unexplored. 

Purification

This is similar to what Baba described once the kundalini is awakened.  He taught us that the awakened shakti moves through the system purifying karma on all levels.  The movements and changes in one’s body and mind are all manifestations of that purificatory action.  They are called kriyas and we were instructed to surrender to them with faith in the process.  Baba recommended that we read Devatma Shakti, which describes this process in great detail.

In the “awakened kundalini” model a conscious energy moves throughout the subtle body -our energy body - getting rid of disharmony, obstructions, and imbalance on every level allowing our true nature to manifest in Self-realization.

Another metaphor for this process is to bring the light of consciousness to all the dark places in one’s psyche – to all the unconscious aspects of ourselves.  It is like sitting in Awareness and then carrying a lighted torch of that awareness to all the dark basements, dusty hidden rooms, forgotten closets and even sub-basements in our “house.”

In the early days around Baba, I was fascinated by the kriyas I saw and desperately wanted to have them.  We were told that these spontaneous performances of mudras,  hatha yoga asanas or the uttering of Sanskrit mantras were all movements of the awakened kundalini.  Some of these kriyas were quite exotic.  We saw people roaring like lions or slithering across the floor like snakes. 

In spite of the fact that we were taught that whatever arose after the kundalini awakening (shaktipat) was a purificatory kind of kriya, I still regarded my negative emotions and thoughts as my own.  I made a distinction between “spiritual” kriyas I observed and my own ordinary egoic reactions and upwellings.  I only began to dissolve this distinction and to regard all arisings as part of the spiritual process during long solitary retreats in the late 90s.

This practice of following inner inspiration is a far cry from what happens in a church.  I spent many decades in church - which is one way that I think of my time living in spiritual community.  This was absolutely necessary for me and in many ways a wonderfully rich and gratifying experience.  It served my process and could not have been otherwise.  In a way, it was a thread I had to explore and live out completely.  I am not in any way devaluing the existence of such organizations with their rules and regulations, but merely pointing out that there are other phases and other ways one’s spiritual growth can be served. 

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