2

A Plain Buddhist Manifesto (I):

An Overview

Welcome

Spiritual friends, fellows and companions, lend me your ears.

Content

Welcome to talk number one in a series of eight entitled “A Plain Buddhist Manifesto”. Tonight’s talk will be an overview of the guiding principles behind a form of Buddhism which I call “Plain Buddhism”.

Talks two to seven will describe how to transform the foundations of civilisation using the principles of Plain Buddhism – that is, we shall cover the transformation of food, clothing, shelter, medicine, community, education and Buddhist monks and nuns.

Talk eight will provide a practical vision, a battleplan if you will, for transforming the region into a collection of islands of enlightened local resilience based on Plain Buddhist principles.

By islands of enlightened local resilience, I mean a model of society which runs against the stream of the world. One that sees progress in terms of spirituality instead of materiality, love and forgiveness instead of hatred and violence, renunciation and contentment instead of greed and selfishness, wisdom and common sense instead of denial and propaganda, and local sovereignty instead of centralised power.

Manifesto

These talks are daringly presented as a “Manifesto” to rouse you to the reality that we live in an age where the Buddha’s dispensation has lost its way. Confused and harmful misrepresentations of the Buddha’s teaching have become the norm. And people are practising in a way that conduces to illness in body, mind, society and ecology.

3

We also live in a global civilisation in terminal decline. We need not wait until the next decade to see the signs, and it is no use leaving things for the next generation to fix after we die, for the collapse is happening now.

We are in ecological overshoot. Our soils are depleted. Our oceans are nigh empty. People are unhappy and sick. Families and communities are falling apart. The global economy is a basketcase that lurches on on the basis of wishful thinking and propaganda. The god of democracy has failed. And the drums of war are beating in the distance.

The terminal decline of human civilisation and the dysfunctionality of the Buddha’s dispensation run in parallel. Both can be attributed to the disappearance of plain, common sense. So what happens when we bring back plain, common sense to Buddhism and apply it to the lives of ordinary people in 2015? We get a Plain Buddhist Manifesto.

We need a Plain Buddhist Manifesto because nothing short of a radical departure from the madness that is mainstream culture is capable of leading us to safety. This Manifesto is a Noah’s Ark made out of plain, common sense Buddhist ideas for a world that faces crises that far exceed the Great Flood described in the Bible.

To the rEVOLution

The Plain Buddhist Manifesto is a call to revolution and an invitation to evolution. It is no ordinary revolution. Ordinary revolutions are ever the offspring of the evil twins of hateful violence and greedy selfishness. Such revolutions are revolutions because they are like dogs chasing their own tails. They are circles that turn unto themselves leading nowhere.

Evolution on the other hand is a great spiral that leads upwards and inwards with every turn. The motions of evolution are driven by the noble engines of, wisdom, compassion and renunciation.

Purpose of life

4

Now you should know the purpose of the Buddhist version of evolution before you take up the invitation. In other words, what is the point and purpose of this thing we call life? That is the question. A question so fundamental and seemingly impenetrable that most of us fear to utter it.

But, actually, our fears are misplaced. For the answer to that question is plain enough. It is as plain as the light of day that all beings wish to be happy and free from suffering. This wish is the common wellspring of action and decision-making in all living beings. Therefore, clearly the purpose of life is to attain happiness and freedom from suffering in higher and higher degrees, in wider and wider circles, even the ultimate degree and ultimate circle.

All people who give this even a moment's reflection will agree that this is the case. Thus the sticking point of human life is not the purpose of life, but what needs to be done to attain that purpose.

While it is natural and good that different people should have different ideas about this, ultimately, the proof of the pudding is in the eating. We need to ask ourselves whether the ideas we are sold about the way to attain happiness and freedom from suffering actually work.

So let me cut to the chase. The idea of garnering happiness for all by universalising middle-class affluence through consumer culture is a pernicious fantasy. Money, status and shiny stuff can’t buy a good night’s sleep, let alone happiness, let alone freedom from old age, illness and death. It was okay to walk down that road while it seemed it might work. Now, we know it does not.

To make things worse, our communities are fracturing for a lack of agreement on what does work. And because of this lack of agreement about viable alternatives we roll on to our own dooms declaring “business as usual” in upbeat tones.

5

Because we have lost our moral compass, we prefer to distract ourselves with trivialities than face up to the danger we are in.

The Noble Eightfold Way and Four Noble Truths

Is there another approach to human life that might actually work?

The Buddha’s reply was characteristically clear and concise. It is just this Noble Eightfold Way, consisting of Right Worldview, Right Motivation, Right Speech, Right Action, Right Livelihood, Right Effort, Right Composure and Right Integration.

The Buddha was a master of language. He knew how to cut right into the heart of things. When he also taught the Four Noble Truths - that is, suffering, the cause of suffering, the ending of suffering and the way to the ending of suffering – he summarised with grace and pithy precision both the purpose of life and the way to that purpose. That is, because there is suffering, the purpose of life is the ending of suffering. Because suffering has a cause there are things we can actually DO to bring suffering to an end.

By bringing the Four Noble Truths and the Eightfold Noble Way into the everyday context of food, clothing, shelter, medicine, community, education, and Buddhist monks and nuns, the Plain Buddhist Manifesto seeks to empower us with a concrete vision of what we can do in ordinary everyday life, both as individuals and collectives, to bring suffering in all its manifestations to an end.

The Plain Buddhist Manifesto seeks to emancipate us by describing how the power to change our lives and societies really is in our hands.

The Plain Buddhist Manifesto seeks to give hope in a disillusioned world by describing how we need not resort to promoting violence and/or self-indulgence in order change the world for the better. The Buddha promised that there is a way to live life that is good in the

6

beginning, good in the middle and good in the end. A way that is perfect in intention, execution and fulfilment.

And finally, the Plain Buddhist Manifesto seeks to demonstrate that the historical Buddha taught a path designed to bridge Samsara and Nibbana. A way of life that makes the world a better place and which leads to full enlightenment in this very life, at the same time.

Plain Buddhism

But before we get to the Manifesto, I need to give you a feeling for how Plain Buddhism is different to orthodox Buddhism. ‘Plain Buddhism’ is a term I’ve coined to describe a Buddhism with three factors:

1) what I believe were the texts of the early Buddhists and

2) what I believe is a common sense approach to interpreting the texts of the early Buddhist; and

3) what I believe are five thematic undercurrents of early Buddhist practice which are particularly apt to meeting the challenges of life in the modern world.

Personal opinion

You can see that from the outset I’m owning-up to the highly subjective nature of these teachings. As a properly homeless Buddhist monk, my practice and understanding of the Dhamma do not rest on the authority of any current tradition or orthodoxy. In fact, I think that Buddhism has been misunderstood and incorrectly practiced by most Buddhists for over two thousand years.

A history of corruption

So the question here is why should a wise person give weight to the personal opinion of this junior monk over the authority of thousands of years of tradition? Because of this: a simple pattern which neatly encapsulates human history in every field -- Good ideas lead to popularity -- Popularity leads to power and wealth -- Power and

7

wealth leads to corruption -- Corruption leads to changes to the original ideas to justify corruption.

When we read between the lines, Early Buddhist historical records point towards the time of King Asoka, over two thousand years ago, not as a glorious period of development in the Buddha’s dispensation, but the beginning of a great decline. The lavish support provided by King Asoka to Buddhist monks and nuns led to a swelling of Sangha numbers. The problem was and has ever been, quantity is no substitute for quality.

What actually increased was the numbers of monks and nuns who wore the robes for the sake of an easy livelihood, and over the last two thousand years, such monks and nuns have come to drown out the genuine monks and nuns of the world.

In this way, the shelves of Buddhist monasteries, temples and libraries have filled up with commentaries upon commentaries written by monks and nuns, who have not lived and behaved in accordance with the Buddha’s instructions.

There is nothing controversial in saying that the teachings of a carpenter who has never seen wood are to be doubted, nor that the teachings of a charioteer who has never seen a horse are suspect. So too it is merely a matter of plain speech and common sense to say that the writings of a monk or nun who has not lived the homeless life can say little of worth about the true fruits of the homeless life.

Homeless Life

This is a standard passage from the Pali Suttas about what it means to be a monk or nun:

A householder or householder's son or one born in some other clan hears that Dhamma. On hearing the Dhamma he acquires faith in the Tathagata. Possessing that faith, he considers thus: 'Household life is crowded and dusty; life gone forth is wide open. It is not easy, while living in a home, to lead the holy life utterly perfect

8

and pure as a polished shell. Suppose I shave off my hair and beard, put on the yellow robe, and go forth from the home life into homelessness.' On a later occasion, abandoning a small or a large fortune, abandoning a small or a large circle of relatives, he shaves off his hair and beard, puts on the yellow robe, and goes forth from the home life into homelessness.

Clearly, from the example of the Buddha’s own life and the lives of all the great monks and nuns found in the Suttas, when the Buddha recommended going forth from the home life into homelessness, he meant that literally.

From the texts we know that the Buddha slept happily under trees and on the side of the road and praised those who did the same. The happy experience of waking up in the middle of nowhere on the side of the road simply cannot be simulated in sedentary life in a temple or monastery.

Also, it is a plain but inconvenient truth that monasteries and temples Buddhist or otherwise, in the long run becomes centres of power, wealth and corruption. Monks and nuns forget to struggle against their own minds and turn instead to struggling against each other for control over power and wealth.

The Buddha understood well that power and wealth lead to corruption and strife. That is why he chose to live as a homeless man for his entire life, to walk barefooted and penniless onto his very deathbed. When a person is homeless, she cannot accumulate wealth and power. And thus she dwells in conditions that promote purity and wisdom.

So why should the opinions of this junior monk be given more weight than those of the traditions? Simple. Because quantity is no substitute for quality. And thus, the opinion of even a single monk who has lived the homeless life in accordance with the Suttas should be given more weight that the opinions of even ten thousand monks who have not.

9

My story

Out of faith in the plain and common sense meaning of the Suttas, out of love for the Buddha and the way he lived, I have walked thousands of kilometres with little more than three robes, a bowl and a blanket. With no money, no organised support and no shoes, fuelled by a single meal per day, regularly sleeping in groves and empty dwellings found at the side of the road.

This life of asceticism and contentment described in the Suttas, I have lived for over three years now with faith and integrity. And I can tell you with the confidence of personal experience that it is good, and that so long as these two legs will bare me up, I shall do it until I die. It is a way of life that is wide open and free. And I have compassion for all who choose to live lives that are crowded and dusty, whether in homes or temples or monasteries.

Trust me

So with all of this in mind, I invite you to trust my take on the Buddha’s teaching. I am confident that I know what I’m talking about. Of course, it is one thing to be confident, it is another thing to be correct. Thus while I advocate myself as a person worth listening to and following, I’m not one to insist.

The Buddha taught if you want to know a person’s wisdom you need to engage him in discussion over a long period of time with careful attention. If anything I say or recommended doesn’t sit right with you, then you should question me about it. The delusion of the mind is a great labyrinth, so I am grateful to be questioned or corrected by those who reasonably believe that I what I say is incorrect.

So that’s enough on the subject of subjectivity, let’s get back to Plain Buddhism.

Pali Suttas

10

Plain Buddhism is a take on the Buddha’s teaching that mimics the practices and understandings of the Early Buddhists, the Buddhists in and around the time of the Buddha. I think the practices and understandings of the Early Buddhists are described with a high degree of accuracy by the Pali Suttas.

To cut a long story short, I’m not going to delve into the strong reasons provided by text critical studies for thinking this is the case. Instead, I will simply say that based on the reasons given by text critical studies, I personally decided, even before I became a monk, to commit to the Suttas as the textual basis of my practice. And this commitment has paid off in spades.

I should note, however, that when I say the “Pali Suttas”, I’m referring to the Digha Nikaya, the Majjhima Nikaya, the Samyutta Nikaya, the Anguttara Nikaya and only parts of the Khuddaka Nikaya such as the Itivuttakas.

I reject the Jatakas because they are a collection of ancient Indian fairy tales. I also reject Abhidhamma because it is a form of sectarian commentary. And then, just to be sure I’m not accused of discrimination against Theravada, I also reject Mahayanan canonical literature because it’s also a form of sectarian commentary. I don’t refer to any of these texts at all when deciding how I ought to practice.

I refer from time to time to the Vinaya Pitika, but always with a grain of salt. But I’m very loyal to the Patimokkha, minus the sekhiyas, because the sekhiyas were made up after the Buddha died.

Having stated what texts I reject, I want to make it clear that I think that all these texts have much to offer in many different ways. It’s just that life is short, and I’m only interested in one thing, that is making an end to greed, hatred and delusion as soon as possible. And thus I’ve made the conscience decision to narrow the scope of my reference literature. It’s worked for me so far, and I recommend this approach to you

11

because I see no reason why this approach would not work for you as well.

Interpreting the Pali Suttas

Now, that we’ve established that out of all the Buddhist texts we should go to the Suttas, what is a Plain Buddhist approach to interpreting the Suttas?

First I want to point out the common sense fact that interpretation is necessary and inevitable. And yet, it is often said that an enlightened being does not interpret anything, because she just sees things as they are. And therefore, the way to enlightenment is to practice not interpreting anything, seeing things with bare awareness in terms of impermanence, suffering and not-self.

This approach fails to acknowledge that to be aware of experience in terms of impermanence, suffering and not-self, in and of itself, is to interpret experience - and therefore that awareness is not bare. Actually, enlightenment does not consist of the absence of interpretation, it consists of the presence of the fully developed ability to consciously interpret things with wisdom. Arahants deliberately interpret things wisely without greed, hatred and delusion. Thus, arahants are not characterised by an absence of interpretation, but by the absence of greed, hatred and delusion.

Interpretation and consciousness are inextricably entwined. Except when experiencing the ninth jhana, it is impossible for a person to stop interpreting. However it is possible and very common for a person to interpret, and be in denial about the fact that he is interpreting. And this denial will prevent a person from discerning the difference between wholesome and unwholesome interpretations. This is a very dangerous thing.

Let me give an example. Just say a foolish, badly trained monk is walking down the side of a busy highway. He has been instructed to “just see things as they are”. And thus he deludedly thinks he’s not interpreting anything.

12

This monk strays onto the road. A very large truck bears down on him. As per his trained habit, he interprets this very large truck as just another example of impermanence, suffering and not self. And thus, this foolish monk is soon no more.

Compare this to a wise and well-trained monk who deliberately interprets with wisdom. When faced with a speeding truck he also interprets the truck as impermanent, suffering and not-self, but at the same time he also deliberately and wisely interprets the truck as a threat to his life and his practice. Thus he quickly and gracefully steps out of the way and goes on to live a fruitful life and eventually attains full enlightenment.

Plain approach to interpretation

After accepting that interpretation is necessary and inevitable and a skill to be trained, a Plain Buddhist approaches interpretation in a plain and straightforward way. We start with literal interpretations. We apply literal interpretations to our practice and we see what happens. If the result is a long-term reduction in greed, hatred and delusion, then we take it that the literal interpretations are sound. If the result is a long term increase, or neither increase nor decrease in the defilements, then we pursue more metaphorical interpretations. And then, we test each interpretation in the same way until a sound interpretation is found. In other words, we go with what works in real life. We consider real-life results to have priority over theoretical assertions.

Now to undergo this process with integrity, we must be willing to entertain the possibility that the Suttas are wrong. It would be blind dogmatism to assert that the Suttas are right simply because we believe in them. That is, we must be willing to entertain the possibility that the Suttas are an incorrect recording of the Buddha’s teaching, or that they are a correct recording, but the Buddha was wrong.

13

Fortunately for us all, my experience has been that the Suttas are right, and that in most cases literal interpretations are sufficient. I’m not fully enlightened by a long shot, but my levels of defilement are definitely lower than they were before and they are constantly and consistently going downwards. I take this to be strong evidence that the Buddha was fully enlightened and that the Suttas are a good enough recording of what he said.

The five thematic undercurrents

When we take this straightforward approach to interpreting the Suttas, we find that the five thematic undercurrents to teachings in the Suttas that make them particularly well suited to dealing with the problems of the modern world:

1) concreteness and reviewability2) integrity and consistency3) renunciation and humility4) deep cooperative community and5) belief in kamma and rebirth

Let’s go through each of these one by one.

Concreteness and reviewability

Plain Buddhism is characterised by concreteness and reviewability. When we are concrete in our practice we are “ujupatipanno”. That is, we are practicing straightforwardedly.

We call a spade a spade. We are not mysterious, esoteric, cryptic, academic or airy fairy. If something waddles like a duck, quacks like a duck and moults like a duck, we call it a duck.

Thus when reviewing practice, when trying to work out whether we or others have made progress in practice, we should follow the Buddha’s instructions in the Ambalatthikarahulovada Sutta, Vimamsaka Sutta and Canki Sutta. That is, we should make common sense inferences

14

about progress in practice based upon careful observations of concrete behaviour in body and speech.

Thus, if someone is shouting and screaming, then it is correct to infer that she is angry. If someone is ogling food then it is correct to infer that she is lustful. It is not possible to shout and scream without anger. It is not possible to ogle food without lust. Plain Buddhists do not go for crazy wisdom. That which is crazy is not wise. And that which is wise is not crazy.

When we allow ourselves to measure and review concrete behaviours like how truthfully, forgivingly, beautifully and meaningfully a person speaks; like how compassionately, modestly and faithfully a person behaves; like the precision and depth of a person’s memory, then we are empowered to discern for ourselves the difference between the foolish and the wise.

It is too often the case that foolish teachers get away with misbehaviour and negligent practice by claiming that concrete evidence of progress does not matter and thus their behaviour cannot be reviewed. That is not what the Buddha taught. The Buddha praised reflectiveness and review as essential to the path.

In sum, a Dhamma that emphasises concreteness and reviewbility empowers us in everyday life by arming us to cut through all the propaganda and misdirection in the world.

Integrity and consistency

Plain Buddhism is also characterised by integrity and consistency. Plain Buddhism does not make excuses for hypocrisy. A Plain Buddhist actually abandons the unwholesome and does not merely talk about it. A Plain Buddhist actually develops the wholesome and does not merely talk about it.

A Plain Buddhist does not buy into excuse making like, “It’s too hard to follow the Buddha’s instructions in the modern world, so we won’t try.” Or, “I’m just an ordinary person and my kamma and paramis aren’t good enough, so I

15

won’t try.” Or, “We need to wait for Metteya Buddha, so I won’t try.”

A Plain Buddhist holds onto the faith that the Buddha was right when he said that if a person practices the Noble Eightfold Way then it is impossible for her to not become enlightened. As per the Dhammacakkapavatana Sutta, a Plain Buddhist really believes that the Wheel of the Dhamma cannot be stopped by anything in the universe except our own negligence.

In sum, a Dhamma that emphasises integrity and consistency empowers us in everday life by arming us to cut through all the hypocrisy of the world.

Renunciation and contentment

Plain Buddhism is also characterised by renunciation and contentment. Today, Buddhism is renown for being a religion of wisdom and compassion. This, however, is a misrepresentation of the Buddha’s teaching. Buddhism is not a religion of wisdom and compassion. It is a religion of wisdom, compassion and renunciation.

We need not be surprised that renunciation has dropped out of mainstream accounts. It is because we want our cake and to eat it too. We want wisdom and compassion without having to give anything up.

Just as Jesus’ original message of renunciation and contentment has been corrupted so that now people say that if you believe in Jesus, he will help you get rich. So too the Buddha’s original message of renunciation and humility has been corrupted so that people meditate to manifest Porsches and attract large real estate portfolios.

It is neither wise nor compassionate to walk further down the path of materialism, consumerism and sensual indulgence for they lead to chronic mental and physical illness, social breakdown and environmental ruin. Thus, wisdom and compassion without renunciation, is fake wisdom and compassion.

16

One cannot claim oneselves to be a follower of the Buddha while walking in the opposite direction that he walked. To walk in his direction, one should have the attitude that just enough is more than plenty. And furthermore, whether one is a nun, monk, laywoman or layman, one should have the aspiration to keep increasing our skilfulness in body, speech and mind, so that one can keep reducing one's material things. Buddhists should keep giving up their material things until, this life or the next, they have little more than three robes, a bowl and, perhaps, an optional blanket – just like the Buddha.

In sum, a Dhamma that emphasises renunciation and contentment empowers us in everyday life by arming us to cut through all the greedy materialism of the world.

Deep cooperative community

Plain Buddhism is also characterised by deep cooperative community. Buddhism often gets a bad rap for being a selfish religion, a teaching for the Me-Generation and the I-Generation, a religion for the middle-class and comfortably retired, a religion in which community does not really matter.

Nothing could be further from the truth. In the Suttas both the laypeople and the monastics are living communally. The laypeople are living communally in old-fashioned clan-based villages, and the monastics are living communally as bands of spiritual nomads. Indeed, the Buddha did teach that we can and should live happily together by sharing and caring for each other.

Of course, the Buddha also emphasised the importance of seclusion. But he only did that after training his followers how to live harmoniously and joyfully in community, blending like milk and water. It must be emphasised that it is impossible for a person who cannot live harmoniously and joyfully in community to practice true seclusion. Such a person is capable of practising only selfishness.

17

A Dhamma that emphasises deep cooperative community empowers us in everyday life by arming us to cut through the selfish and fractious individualism of the world.

Belief in kamma and rebirth

Plain Buddhism is also characterised by belief in kamma and rebirth. According to the Suttas, denial of the literal truth of kamma and rebirth is a form of Wrong Worldview.

Is there really kamma and rebirth? I don’t personally know. I haven’t developed my practice to that level yet. Suffice to say that I personally do believe in kamma and rebirth and by holding to this belief as the very foundation of my practice, I have been able to do many difficult and wholesome things which I would not have been able to do if not for this belief.

A worldview rooted in kamma and rebirth helps get life into perspective. When we believe that this is more than our billion-billionth rebirth, the highs and lows of life do not shake us. Believing in kamma and rebirth also makes us contemplate and take personal responsibility for the long-term effects of our actions on others. Believing kamma and rebirth is the truest foundation for the good life because to do what is right in the long-term requires that we have the resilience to sacrifice short-term gains. Thus, it is the absence of this belief that causes societies and cultures to slide down the slippery slope of selfish and short-term thinking.

Now, while I agree that it is possible to be a resilient and responsible person with deep foresight without believing in kamma and rebirth, I think it is nonetheless the case that a worldview based on kamma and rebirth will take a person much further along the road of resilience, responsibility and foresight than any other worldview.

In sum, a Dhamma that emphasises belief in kamma and rebirth empowers us in everyday life by arming us to cut through all the short-term and selfish thinking of the world.

18

Conclusion

In summary, Plain Buddhism starts with the Pali Suttas. We bring a plain, straight-forward and direct approach to interpretating the Suttas. And then, we emphasise five thematic undercurrents to the Suttas that make their teachings particularly well suited to dealing with the problems of the modern world: that is, reviewability, integrity and consistency, renunciation and humility, deep cooperative community, and belief in kamma and rebirth.

This is what I call Plain Buddhism.

Now that you know what Plain Buddhism is, over the coming weeks we will build a Plain Buddhist Manifesto by describing all the essentials of enlightened human civilisation from a Plain Buddhist perspective. That is, we shall cover the transformation of food and clothing, shelter and medicine, family, community, education and Buddhist monks and nuns.

And so, spiritual friends, fellows and companions, welcome to this Plain Buddhist Manifesto, may it illuminate the way in this time of great darkness.

And that is my Dhamma offering to you this evening. Let us sit together in silence for a few moments to contemplate what has been said. May all beings here, whether seen or unseen rejoice in the goodness and merits of this Dhamma talk, and may it lead to the long-term happiness and harmony of all living beings.

Sadhu. Sadhu. Sadhu.

19

A Plain Buddhist Manifesto (II):

Food and Clothing

Spiritual friends, fellows and companions, lend me your ears once more.

Welcome back to talk number two out of eight in this series entitled “A Plain Buddhist Manifesto”.

Review

To recap: last week’s talk was an overview. Therein, we set out the overall context. That is, a world where orthodox Buddhism has lost its way, and where global civilisation is in terminal decline. And we proposed Plain Buddhism as a powerful response to both of these problems.

We set out the difference between Plain Buddhism and orthodox Buddhism. Plain Buddhism starts with the Pali Suttas. We bring to the Suttas a plain, common sense and direct approach to interpretation. And then we emphasize five thematic undercurrents to the Suttas that make their teachings particularly well-suited to dealing with the problems of the modern age: that is 1) concreteness and reviewability, 2) integrity and consistency, 3) renunciation and contentment, 4) deep cooperative community, and 5) belief in kamma and rebirth.

Plain Buddhism becomes a Plain Buddhist Manifesto when we describe what happens when we apply the principles of Plain Buddhism to transforming the foundations of civilisation: that is, food and clothing, shelter and medicine, family, community, education and Buddhist monks and nuns.

This Plain Buddhist Manifesto describes in everyday terms, what the Buddha meant his teaching to be, a concrete way to both make the world a better place and attain full enlightenment in this very life, at the same time.

20

Tonight I will talk about food and clothing from a Plain Buddhist perspective.

Meditation is not a panacea

To get the ball rolling, however, I want to say a few words about the importance of sila. One of my life goals as a monk is to stop most Buddhists from meditating so much. Or, if they aren’t meditating much, at least, to save them from feeling guilty about the fact that they are not doing as much meditation as they think they should be doing.

This is because most people aren’t ready for large amounts of meditation. Thus, while I do teach the basics of meditation after each Dhamma talk, I don’t want to give you the impression that meditation is the answer to everything. A maximum of forty-five minutes in the morning and night is more than enough, even for experienced lay meditators.

Sila

Actually, in this world of corruption and decay, the more important thing is sila. When a person’s life is not well purified through sila, large amounts of meditation promote the growth of greed, hatred and delusion.

Sila means virtue, in a broad sense: the ethical character of our everyday activities. So today’s talk will be about how to practice sila in relation to food and clothing. By the end of this talk I want everybody here to be looking at every morsel of food and every item of clothing as an opportunity to practice sila.

Sila is so wonderful. I wish people would start sila clubs instead of meditation centres. I wish people would recommend sila as the cure to chronic mental and physical illness. I wish people would turn to sila as the way to win friends and influence people. If only the scientists would make an effort to show the way sila shapes the brain, wards off dementia and fights heart disease.

21

Alas, sila isn’t sexy enough. It is not a magic pill or a magic bullet or magic diet recommended by Oprah. It can’t be done for just ten minutes in the morning and ten minutes at night. It calls us to undertake whole life transformation. It takes effort to apply, and quite often it means missing out on things that we really want.

But I’m hoping that you, good friends, who have made the effort to attend this Dhamma talk by a junior monk on a Saturday night on a small farm at the edge of Maitland aren’t fly-by-nighters. I’m hoping that you are the types who are willing to strive to transform your lives in radical ways in line with the Buddha’s teaching.

Food

And what better place to get started with that transformation than the thing that most people spend the bulk of their lives either preparing, consuming or watching on reality tv: food.

Sariputta once said that all beings have this one thing in common: “All beings subsist on food.” Food is so fundamental to life and society, that if we get our attitude and relationship to food right, then our whole lives and societies are turned around towards creating a fair and equitable world and towards the attainment of Nibbana.

Not for taste

This is the standard passage from the Suttas about the right attitude towards food.

Wisely reflecting, a monk takes almsfood neither for the sake of amusement, intoxication nor beauty, but only for the support and continuance of this body, for getting rid of affliction and assisting the holy life. Considering thus, ‘In this way I will abandon old feelings of hunger, and not give rise to new feelings of bloating.’ And thus, I will abide blameless and in comfort.

This statement is aimed at monks and nuns. But it applies to laypeople as well, in the sense that it describes an

22

ideal. It is good to start with ideals, even if they cannot be reached immediately. Ideals give us a sense of direction in life.

Ideally speaking, a person does not give any importance whatsoever to the taste of food. The purpose of food is nutrition, and the purpose of nutrition is the living of the holy life. The holy life is a life that is harmless, makes the world a better place and leads to Nibbana, all at the same time.

Magandiya Sutta

The Buddha was a very radical man. He taught that food is neither for amusement, intoxication or beauty as a part of his wholesale rejection of all sensual pleasure as a scorching fire. This is what the Buddha said in the Magandiya Sutta:

“Suppose, Māgandiya, there was a leper with sores and blisters on his limbs, being devoured by worms, scratching the scabs off the openings of his wounds with his nails, cauterising his body over a burning charcoal pit. Then his friends and companions, his kinsmen and relatives, brought a physician to treat him. The physician would make medicine for him, and by means of that medicine the man would be cured of his leprosy and would become well and happy, independent, master of himself, able to go where he likes. Then two strong men would seize him by both arms and drag him towards a burning charcoal pit. What do you think, Māgandiya? Would that man twist his body this way and that?”

“Yes, Master Gotama. Why is that? Because that fire is indeed painful to touch, hot, and scorching.”

“What do you think, Māgandiya? Is it only now that that fire is painful to touch, hot, and scorching, or previously too was that fire painful to touch, hot, and scorching?”

“Master Gotama, that fire is now painful to touch, hot, and scorching, and previously too that fire was painful to touch, hot, and scorching. For when that man was a leper with sores and blisters on his limbs, being devoured by worms, scratching the scabs off the openings

23

of his wounds with his nails, his faculties were impaired; thus, though the fire was actually painful to touch, he acquired a mistaken perception of it as pleasant.”

“So too, Māgandiya, in the past sensual pleasures were painful to touch, hot, and scorching; in the future sensual pleasures will be painful to touch, hot, and scorching; and now at present sensual pleasures are painful to touch, hot, and scorching. But these beings who are not free from lust for sensual pleasures, who are devoured by craving for sensual pleasures, who burn with fever for sensual pleasures, have faculties that are impaired; thus, though sensual pleasures are actually painful to touch, they acquire a mistaken perception of them as pleasant.

“Suppose, Māgandiya, there was a leper with sores and blisters on his limbs, being devoured by worms, scratching the scabs off the openings of his wounds with his nails, cauterising his body over a burning charcoal pit; the more he scratches the scabs and cauterises his body, the fouler, more evil-smelling and more infected the openings of his wounds would become, yet he would find a certain measure of satisfaction and enjoyment in scratching the openings of his wounds. So too, Māgandiya, beings who are not free from lust for sensual pleasures, who are devoured by craving for sensual pleasures, who burn with fever for sensual pleasures, still indulge in sensual pleasures; the more such beings indulge in sensual pleasures, the more their craving for sensual pleasures increases and the more they are burned by their fever for sensual pleasures, yet they find a certain measure of satisfaction and enjoyment in dependence on the five cords of sensual pleasure.

This passage makes it clear that, actually, sensual pleasures are not good for us. Thus one of the main ways we can mitigate the damage done to us by sensual pleasures is to cultivate a preference for plain flavours. The good life is not lived by feasting like a king, but by eating like a peasant.

Plain food

24

This brings us to what I call plain food. Plain food emphasises the joys of plainness and the happiness of ethics. We should not think that plain food is a form of self-mortification or self-deprivation. Actually, if we buy real foods, that is, produce that is fresh, local and organic, every food has its own subtle flavour. These subtle flavours are drowned out when we add lots of herbs, spices, sugar and salt. We lose our appreciation of subtlety and refinement, and our minds incline towards vulgarity.

To test the validity of this teaching, I invite you to conduct this experiment. Sometime in the next week, please cook yourself a very plain meal consisting of fresh local and organic ingredients. Make, perhaps, a garden salad, lightly steamed vegetables, boiled split peas, pan fried onions and potatoes, and steamed brown rice. Drizzle all of the above with olive oil and season with salt and pepper. Go to a quiet place, and chant this passage from the Suttas:

We soak the east with a heart filled with appreciation, so too the south, so too the west, so too the north. So above, below, around and everywhere, to all as to ourselves we soak the whole wide world with a heart filled with appreciation: abundant, expanded, without judgment, without anger, without hate.

Eat quietly, savouring the experience like a connoisseur -- a connoisseur of plain flavours and gratitude. That is, taste the plain flavours in that meal with a heart full of appreciation.

By the end of the meal you will feel satisfied and peaceful in both body and mind. If you master the art of creating this feeling then your digestion will improve. With improvement in your digestion your overall health and resilience will also improve.

Plain eating environments

In this exercise we eat alone. However, one foundation of social unity is the act of eating peacefully together

25

with others. So if we want to create peaceful and resilient families and communities, we also need to eat together with others in plain eating environments.

Plain eating environments are environments that are conducive to families and communities eating together either in silence or with a modicum of peaceful and civilised conversation, something I like to call ‘serene conviviality’.

If you live in a quiet place, then don’t play any music while preparing or eating food. If you live in a city with lots of rowdy traffic and activity, play some soothing music with no lyrics. Ban all computers, televisions, DVD players, mobile phones and mp3 players from the dining room and kitchen. In other words, creating plain eating environments involves getting rid of anything that distracts human beings from engaging peacefully and fully with each other.

Plain eating habits

Ideally, Plain Buddhist families and communities should also create a peaceful context for eating by cultivating plain eating habits. Actually, this is just a different way of saying that we should revive old-fashioned meal traditions.

1) Families and communities should quietly and peacefully cooperate with the preparation of meals.

2) We should always sit down to eat. 3) Families and communities should share at least one

meal per day together at a set table.4) Before eating, families and communities should enact

some kind of grace, for example, Plain Buddhists might chant the earlier passage on appreciation.

5) Families and communities should eat gracefully, adhering to the basic rules of table manners and avoiding conversation about upsetting or vulgar matters.

6) We should ask to be excused before we leave the table.

26

7) Families and communities should quietly and peacefully cooperate to clear up and wash dishes with their own hands.

Parenting with moral conviction

If you’re a parent with young children, you’re probably thinking that this monk knows nothing about children today and this is never going to happen. But nothing could be further from the truth. This monk understands how children think and behave much better than most parents.

Getting children to do anything is hard. And the hard becomes the impossible when parents don’t have moral confidence in their own instructions. The loss of moral confidence due to the modern-cult of “personal-preference” is the number one cause of parents becoming slaves to their children.

What is moral confidence? It is the confidence that comes with knowing that something is good in the long-term even though other people don’t see it or like it. We need to get out of the habit of thinking that things are good simply because people have a personal preference for them. This is common sense. That is, out of lack of wisdom, people tend to like things that are bad for them in the long term.

Because children, and many adults are incapable of clearly perceiving long-term outcomes, it is important for those who can, to have the moral confidence to do a bit prescriptive leadership. That is one of the jobs of well-trained Buddhist monks who have enough wisdom and experience to know how behaviour plays out in the long-term.

Thus, my recommendation to the parents of young children here is this. If you are persuaded that Plain Buddhism is good, just tell your kids that this is how things are from now on, and peacefully wear the whining and the whinging without budging in your resolution. Tell them that these are the concrete rules of family life that

27

everyone in the family must live by. Do it with peace and unflagging moral confidence rooted in your faith in the Buddha, Dhamma and Sangha. Then rinse, repeat and hold the line.

Trust me. If you keep it up, you will be pleasantly surprised by the result. Your family life will have a centre. And that centre will be composed of the happy memories of thousands of meals eaten together in peace and contentment. Your family life will have a refuge. No matter what happens elsewhere, you will all know that your daily family meal will be a time of peace, sharing and love.

Ethical food

So the first aspect of plain food is the joy of plainness. The second aspect is the happiness of ethics. There are many dimensions to the ethics of food. Tonight I will focus upon being an ethical consumer. Ethical consumption covers principles two, three and four of plain food.

Buy organic

So principle number two of plain food is: buy fresh local and organic.

Basically, we can split all food into two types: industrial and organic. Industrial farming depletes soils, destroys ecosystems, wastes water, pumps toxic chemicals into our food-systems, takes away jobs, and put us all at the mercy of transnational food companies. And to top it all off, the food produced from industrial farming is nutritionally deficient.

In a word, industrial farming is very good at making money for rich people and very bad at supporting everybody else.

Organic farming, done properly, regenerates soils, builds ecosystems, conserves water, goes without toxic chemicals, provides work and brings resilience to local communities.

28

In a world of food insecurity due to ecological and economic decline, organic farming is our greatest hope. We need to support it now buy choosing to buy organic even though it is more expensive. Money is energy. It has no inherent value. It is only valuable if we direct it towards useful things.

At the baseline of life, there is nothing more important than having proper food to eat made in ways that ensure that future generations will also have proper food to eat. To keep on buying industrial produce is to poison ourselves and future generations simply for the sake of saving a few bucks. It makes no sense. Let us change our ways

And for similar reasons, that is, to build resilience into the natural environment and our local economies, we should also buy fresh. That is we should buy fresh food instead of processed foods. And then we should also buy local. That is we should buy food made locally instead of food made internationally.

Stop buying meat

Now, principle number three of plain food is: be as vegetarian as possible given health constraints

This is the bit when I talk about one of the oldest controversies in Buddhism: should Buddhists be vegetarians? For those who don’t already know, the reason for the controversy is that the Buddha’s evil cousin, Devadatta, a man so evil that he attempted to assassinate the Buddha three times, advocated that the Buddha make it compulsory that all monks be vegetarian, and the Buddha refused.

The resolution to the problem is as simple and concrete as this. The Buddha did not make it compulsory for anyone to be a vegetarian, because everyone has a different condition of health, but given that he taught the importance of acting with compassion towards all living beings, and that he taught that trading in meat is a form

29

of wrong livelihood, Buddhists should make the effort to be as vegetarian as possible given health constraints.

The reality is that quite a lot of people don’t need to eat meat at all to be healthy and strong, and no one needs to eat large quantities of meat to be healthy and strong. The reality is that the only reason we eat large amounts of meat is because we like the taste or because we like having big muscles or because we’ve been hooked into a fad-diet.

According to the law of kamma and rebirth, we’ve all been animals before and may well become animals in the future. The Buddha did not treat animals as mere machines that human beings have the right to exploit. Animals are living beings who suffer and do not wish to suffer just as we suffer and do not wish to suffer. And just as we would not have them do us harm, we should not do them harm. Especially not for reasons as frivolous as lust for taste, personal vanity and dietary fashion.

Meat Industry

The real issue here, however, isn’t really vegetarianism, the real issue is the meat industry. The Buddha didn’t make vegetarianism compulsory, but he did in no uncertain terms say that trading in meat is wrong.

So, in an ideal Buddhist civilisation, how would the allowance for meat-eating go together with the complete disappearance of the meat industry? Simple. Meat would come from wild or domesticated animals that have lived well and died of natural causes. The main source would come from domesticated animals employed for farm work, like horses, who have died of old age. Meat in such a civilisation would be scarce (and very chewy), but it would be available. Furthermore, it would not be sold for money or bartered for other goods, but simply given to those in need of it for health reasons.

Once meat becomes an item of trade of any sort, then eventually animals become a mere commodity in the eyes of human beings. Their suffering is ignored in pursuit of

30

profit. When this way of thinking takes its natural course, we set up the factory farms of today.

Factory farms

Factory farms, in essence, are enormous torture chambers wherein countless animals are imprisoned, tortured and murdered for the sake of human greed for meat and money. The largest slaughterhouse in the world, operated in the US, can butcher over 32,000 pigs a day. And in the US alone, 270 chickens are slain every second or about 8.5 billion chickens a year. And that’s in the US alone. And that’s what happens in one year. Human civilisation has a lot of blood on its hands.

But we should be as vegetarian as possible not only out of compassion for animals, but out of compassion for those employed by the meat industry. It’s really awful kamma to be imprisoning, torturing and murdering living beings at all, let alone on a daily basis as a form of livelihood. This kamma leads to serious consequences after death. It leads to the animal realm, the ghostly realm, even to hell.

Furthermore, this brings great suffering in this very life. Imprisoning, torturing and murdering living beings drives the mind insane. Abattoir work is degrading and repetitive. It exhausts workers physically, emotionally and spiritually. When one knows how gruesome the work is it makes sense to find out that many serial killers were former abattoir workers.

Buddhists claim to have compassion for the suffering of living beings. Buddhists should be people of integrity. We should not just talk about compassion. So let us stop buying meat unless we really need it and keep encouraging others to do the same. If do need it, let’s buy humane organic meat. This way we need not be complicit in oppression, torture and mass murder, save the lives of countless animals, and provide peaceful alternative occupations for many human beings as well.

31

The fifth precept

Now, our discussion on plain food would not be complete without a reminder of the importance of the fifth precept. That is, “I undertake the training precept to abstain from taking alcohol and intoxicants.”

It has become very common for Buddhists to say that because modern society considers drinking alcohol in moderation to be acceptable, the fifth precept can be relaxed. The usual justification is that the Buddha didn’t have access to modern research on the benefits of tannins in red wines and so on and so forth.

I retort that we are talking about a man who could see whole universes expand and collapse over and over and over again. I’m quite certain that he knew that alcohol can be beneficial in certain circumstances.

My view is that the Buddha chose to lay down the fifth precept because whatever the benefits of drinking alcohol in moderation, the danger that moderate drinking might turn into alcohol abuse is too great. Everyone thinks that alcoholism will never happen to them. But alcoholism is widespread. It rips holes through individual lives, families and societies. The benefits of drinking alcohol are so pathetic and so easily gained in other ways, it’s just not worth the risk.

While I think it would be foolish to force people to abstain from alcohol as a matter of law, I think that those who have faith in the Buddha should make every effort they can to completely abstain from alcohol out of compassion for society. That is, Buddhists should be leading examples of how to live peaceful and happy lives without needing to resort to the use of alcohol.

Furthermore, we should have compassion for ourselves. It is impossible to properly practise the Buddha’s teaching if one drinks alcohol. Conversely, one who properly practises the Buddha’s teaching gains so much peace, happiness and social confidence, that he neither needs nor wants to drink alcohol.

32

Plain clothing

Now let’s move onto plain clothing. This is the standard passage from the Suttas about the right attitude towards clothing:

Wisely reflecting a monk uses the robes only for protection from the heat, for protection from the cold, for protection from contact with mosquitoes, march flies and creeping things, and only for the concealment of the private parts.

So the Buddha’s instruction here is that we wear clothes for protection from the elements and as a social grace, not for the sake of vanity. Once again, this statement is directed towards monks and nuns, so it describes an ideal attitude. Nonetheless, lay people can aim for and move towards that ideal gradually.

Life uniform

In practice, monks and nuns fulfil this instruction from the Buddha by wearing a ‘life-uniform’. That is, a set of clothing that leaves them looking more or less the same day after day.

The robes are a monk’s life-uniform. In my case, I wear three pieces of cloth, each of which is six by nine spans of my own hands. This is the uniform prescribed by the Buddha in the Bhikkhu Patimokkha, the ancient monks’ rules.

The idea I'm suggesting here is that a Plain Buddhist layperson wears a life-uniform of her own personal choosing. One common one I’ve seen laypeople adopt is blue jeans and a white top. A layperson might have a summer uniform, a winter uniform and a spring and autumn uniform. Whatever the case, the purpose is to minimalise the amount of clothes we buy and retain, and to completely remove the impulse to keep up with fashion.

A life uniform needs to be composed of high quality materials in a classic style. Life uniforms need to age well and look like they have “gained character” when they

33

are repaired. Plainness should not slide into shabbiness. Plainness should always be dignified.

Another aspect of plain and dignified clothing is making an effort to not incite lust in the minds of others. Plain Buddhists, whether they are male or female, should make an effort to dress in a way that inspires thoughts of purity and spirituality. We should dress in a way that points towards the beauty of a noble mind, not in a way that points towards the vulgarities of the body.

Today there are plenty of second-hand clothes that meet these requirements which are just waiting for owners at your local op-shops. It is important to buy second-hand so that the mountains of second-hand clothes out there do not simply go to waste in this already resource depleted world.

And just as a Plain Buddhist takes delight in plain food, she also takes delight in looking plain. Again, the key here is inclining the mind towards the appreciation of subtlety. When our minds are exposed to all the sensuality and proliferation of the fashion industry, it becomes clumsy and unable to detect subtle changes. For example, who would even suspect that these simple monks robes, these rectangular pieces of cloth can be worn in at least 28 different ways.

Now, a Plain Buddhist never fears that they might lose their individuality by wearing a life-uniform. When the mind inclines towards subtlety, a person is able to indicate and assert her individuality without needing to stand out from the crowd. For example, I essentially wear the same thing as other monks, and if I were to walk into a crowd of monks, it would be difficult for the untrained eye to pick us out, but to my eyes monks look completely different to each other.

Boycotting the fashion industry

A Plain Buddhist also gains happiness at the thought that their clothing is ethical: that is, they are not participating in a fashion industry which is highly

34

wasteful of the earth’s resources, generates large amounts of toxic chemicals and which employs people in degrading and oppressive conditions.

Talking point

Another advantage of wearing a life uniform is that it becomes a talking point that helps us meet people and gives us opportunities to share the Buddha’s teaching. Plain Buddhists should be known throughout general society as people who are willing to wear their religion on their sleeve and who are able to speak confidently and peacefully about why.

Lighthouses

And, last but not least, if a wisely practising Plain Buddhist layperson wants to upgrade his practice in relation to plain clothing, he can do what the deeply faithful lay Buddhists in the Buddha’s day did: wear a life-uniform composed of all white clothing, thus becoming a symbol of light, hope and purity wherever he goes. A living, breathing stupa.

Summary

In summary, Plain Buddhist food and clothing consists of food and clothing that emphasises the joy of plainness and the happiness of virtue.

A Plain Buddhist does not eat for amusement, intoxication or beauty but only for nutrition to sustain her practice. She eats healthy food with plain flavours, in plain eating environments with plain eating habits. She also chooses to buy food that is fresh, local and organic. She is as vegetarian as she can be given health constraints. And she abstains completely from taking alcohol and intoxicants.

A Plain Buddhist does not wear clothes for vanity, but for protection from the elements, and as a social grace. Ideally, he chooses a life-uniform for himself which is long-lasting, high quality, dignified, second-hand and which maintains individuality in subtle ways. He delights

35

in his non-participation in the highly unethical fashion industry and the opportunities to share the Buddha’s teaching set up by his unusual clothing habits. He may even choose to dress in white all the time.

Of course, there are many more things that could said about food and clothing from a Plain Buddhist perspective, like the importance of Permaculture, fermentation, composting, humanuring, exploring the viability of indigenous plant varieties as crops, using hemp and other alternative natural fabrics, growing our own food and making our own clothes and so on and so forth. But I trust that I have said enough to set you on new journeys. And, indeed, courses at Purple Pear are an excellent place to start.

Conclusion

In conclusion, I want you to think about the sila of food and clothing like this: our lives are made up of the choices that we make. Sometimes the choices we make are small. Sometimes they are big. But they all matter. Particularly the small ones that we make over and over and over again. The choices we make in relation to our food and clothing belong to this category. Please use those choices. Use them to make the world a better place. Use them to pave the path that leads to Nibbana.

And that is my Dhamma offering to you this evening. Let us sit together for a few moments in silence to contemplate what has been said. May all beings here seen and unseen celebrate in the goodness and merits of this Dhamma talk, and may it lead to the long term happiness and welfare of all living beings.

Sadhu. Sadhu. Sadhu.

36

Plain Buddhist Manifesto (III):

Shelter and Medicine

Welcome

Spiritual friends, fellows and companions. Lend me your ears once more.

Welcome to talk number three out of a series of eight entitled “A Plain Buddhist Manifesto”.

Review

To recap: Talk number one was an overview. Therein, we set out the overall context. That is, a world where orthodox Buddhism has lost its way, and where global civilisation is in terminal decline. And we proposed plain Buddhism as a powerful response to both of these problems.

We set out the difference between plain Buddhism and orthodox Buddhism. Plain Buddhism starts with the Pali suttas. We bring to the suttas a plain, common sense and direct approach to interpretation. And then we emphasize five thematic undercurrents to the suttas that make their teachings particularly well-suited to dealing with the problems of the modern age: that is 1) concreteness and reviewability, 2) integrity and consistency, 3) renunciation and contentment, 4) deep cooperative community, and 5) belief in kamma and rebirth.

Plain Buddhism becomes a Plain Buddhist Manifesto when we describe what happens when we apply the principles of plain Buddhism to transforming the foundations of civilisation: that is, food and clothing, shelter and medicine, family, community, education and Buddhist monks and nuns.

In talk number two we spoke about a plain Buddhist approach to food and clothing. We said that the Buddha taught that food is not for taste but for nutrition. The four principles of plain food are: 1) eat food with plain flavours in plain eating environments with plain eating

37

habits, 2) eat food that is fresh, local and organic, 3) be as vegetarian as possible given health constraints and 4) abstain from alcohol and intoxicants.

We said that the Buddha taught that clothing is to be worn for protection from the elements and as a social grace, not for vanity. The four principles of plain clothing are: 1) develop and wear your own life uniform, 2) wear clothing that is high quality, long-lasting, dignified and ideally second hand to avoid getting involved with fashion, 3) take advantage of the opportunities to share the Dhamma created by your plain clothing, and 4) move towards a life uniform composed of all white clothing.

Now, tonight’s talk shall be about a plain Buddhist approach to shelter and medicine.

Preface: sensual pleasures are bad

Food, clothing, shelter and medicine are known as the four requisites. They are the four material things that are necessary to the good life. However, we live in a pathologically materialistic world where over-consumption and consumer culture are destroying individual lives, societies and the natural environment. Clearly, when we have the wrong attitude toward the four requisites and use them in the wrong way, then great suffering is the result.

To live well, we need to be established in the right attitude towards material things. Simply put, although mainstream culture teaches that “more and bigger is better”, the Buddha taught that “small is beautiful” and “less is more”. Buddhism is a teaching of renunciation and contentment.

In the suttas, the term “material things” is more or less synonymous with the term “sensual pleasures”. Last week we introduced with the Magandiya Sutta the idea that all sensual pleasures are actually painful and addictive.

Over the last two thousand years, this teaching has been watered down. Today, most people think that the Buddha

38

taught that the problem is not in sensual pleasures themselves but in attachment to sensual pleasures only. Thus, the unwise say that sensual pleasures are like a drink that is pleasurable and non-toxic but highly addictive. They say, drinking such a drink is unproblematic so long as one does not become addicted.

I would like to correct this misrepresentation of the Buddha. According to the suttas, the problem is both in sensual pleasures themselves and in attachment to sensual pleasures. Thus, the wise would say that sensual pleasures are like a drink that is painful and toxic and highly addictive. Drinking such a drink is problematic even if one does not become addicted.

The Magandiya Sutta emphasises how sensual pleasures are actually painful and addictive. And now, in the Shorter Sutta on the Mass of Suffering, the Buddha points towards the wider, long-term harmful consequences that come with the pursuit of sensual pleasures:

And, what, monks, is the danger in the case of sensual pleasures? Here, monks, on account of the craft by which a clansman makes a living – whether checking or accounting or calculating or farming or trading or husbandry or archery or the royal service, or whatever craft it may be – he has to face cold, he has to face heat, he is injured by contact with gadflies, mosquitoes, wind, sun, and creeping things; he risks death by hunger and thirst. Now this is a danger in the case of sensual pleasures, a mass of suffering in this very life, having sensual pleasures as its cause, sensual pleasures as its source, sensual pleasures as its basis, the cause being simply sensual pleasures.

If no property comes to the clansman while he works and strives and makes an effort thus, he sorrows, grieves, and laments, he weeps beating his breast and becomes distraught crying: ‘My work is in vain, my effort is fruitless!” Now this too is a danger in the case of sensual pleasures, a mass of suffering in this very life, having sensual pleasures as its cause, sensual pleasures

39

as its source, sensual pleasures as its basis, the cause being simply sensual pleasures.

If property comes to the clansman while he works and strives and makes an effort thus, he experiences pain and grief in protecting it: “How shall neither kings nor thieves make off with my property, nor fire burn it, nor water sweep it away, nor hateful heirs make off with it?” And as he guards and protects his property, kings or thieves make off with it, or fire burns it, or water sweeps it away, or hateful heirs make off with it. And he sorrows, grieves, and laments, he weeps beating his breast and becomes distraught, crying: “What I had I have no longer!” Now this too is a danger in the case of sensual pleasures, a mass of suffering in this very life, having sensual pleasures as its cause, sensual pleasures as its source, sensual pleasures as its basis, the cause being simply sensual pleasures.

Again, with sensual pleasures as the cause, sensual pleasures as the source, sensual pleasures as the basis, the cause being simply sensual pleasures, kings quarrel with kings, nobles with nobles, Brahmins with Brahmins, householders with householders, mother quarrels with son, son with mother, father with son, son with father, brother quarrels with brother, brother with sister, sister with brother, friend with friend. And here in their quarrels, brawls and disputes they attack each other with fists, clods, stick, or knives, whereby they incur death or deadly suffering. Now this too is a danger in the case of sensual pleasures, a mass of suffering in this very life, having sensual pleasures as its cause, sensual pleasures as its source, sensual pleasures as its basis, the cause being simply sensual pleasures.

Again, with sensual pleasures as the cause, sensual pleasures as the source, sensual pleasures as the basis, the cause being simply sensual pleasures, men take swords and shields and buckle on bows and quivers, and they charge into battle massed in double array with arrows and spears flying and swords flashing; and there they are wounded by arrows and spears, and their heads are cut off

40

by swords, whereby they incur death or deadly suffering. Now this too is a danger in the case of sensual pleasures, a mass of suffering in this very life, having sensual pleasures as its cause, sensual pleasures as its source, sensual pleasures as its basis, the cause being simply sensual pleasures.

Again, with sensual pleasures as the cause, sensual pleasures as the source, sensual pleasures as the basis, the cause being simply sensual pleasures, men take swords and shields and buckle on bows and quivers, and they charge slippery bastions, with arrows and spears flying and swords flashing; and there they are wounded by arrows and spears and splashed with boiling liquids and crushed under heavy weights, and their heads are cut off by swords, whereby they incur death or deadly suffering. Now this too is a danger in the case of sensual pleasures, a mass of suffering in this very life, having sensual pleasures as its cause, sensual pleasures as its source, sensual pleasures as its basis, the cause being simply sensual pleasures.

Again, with sensual pleasures as the cause, sensual pleasures as the source, sensual pleasures as the basis, the cause being simply sensual pleasures, men break into houses, plunder wealth, commit burglary, ambush highways, seduce other’s wives, and when they are caught, kings have many kinds of torture inflicted on them. The kings have them flogged with whips, beaten with canes, beaten with clubs, they have their hands cut off, their feet cut off, their hands and feet cut off, their ears cut off, their noses cut off, their ears and noses cut off ... and they have them splashed with boiling oil, and they have them thrown to be devoured by dogs, and they have them impaled alive on stakes, and they have their heads cut off with swords – whereby they incur death or deathly suffering. Now this too is a danger in the case of sensual pleasures, a mass of suffering in this very life, having sensual pleasures as its cause, sensual pleasures as its source, sensual pleasures as its basis, the cause being simply sensual pleasures.

41

Again, with sensual pleasures as the cause, sensual pleasures as the source, sensual pleasures as the basis, the cause being simply sensual pleasures, people indulge in misconduct of body, speech, and mind. Having done so, on the dissolution of the body, after death, they reappear in states of deprivation, in an unhappy destination, in perdition, even in hell. Now this too is a danger in the case of sensual pleasures, a mass of suffering in the next life, having sensual pleasures as its cause, sensual pleasures as its source, sensual pleasures as its basis, the cause being simply sensual pleasures.

In the suttas, the Buddha really knows how to make a point. It all comes down to this. There is much danger to be found in the pursuit of sensual pleasures.

Thus when attempting to orient our relationship towards food, clothing, shelter and medicine, the general principle is that because sensual pleasures are painful here and now, and lead to further pain in the future, and because they are highly addictive, we should use them only to the minimal extent necessary to maintain the holy life: that is, a life that is harmless, makes the world a better place, and which leads to full enlightenment, all at the same time.

Levels of practice

This does not mean, however, that the Buddha thought that everybody should just give up all material things now and become homeless Buddhist monks and nuns. The true position is slightly more nuanced. That is, the Buddha thought that each individual should, at her own pace, give up her material things in a gradual way so that eventually, in this life or in a future life, she may become a Buddhist monk or nun.

According to the Greater Sutta on Vacchagotta there are three levels of practice. 1) the level of a layperson dressed in white enjoying sensual pleasure; 2) the level of a layperson dressed in white leading a life of renunciation of sensual pleasure, but still with a home;

42

and 3) the level of Buddhist monk or nun living a life of renunciation of sensual pleasures while homelessly wandering place to place.

Renunciation

Unless we are already fully enlightened, we can all do more to move in the direction of renunciation. In an extravagantly wealthy country like Australia, whatever we have is already enough, and we need to train ourselves to live with less -- less material things, that is, but with more happiness. Simplifying our material things means we get more time to develop the things that really count in life, like our relationship with our families, our communities, our natural environments and our Dhamma.

So if one claims to be followers of the Buddha, one needs to ask oneself what direction am I going? After all, it is dishonest to chase after more money, status, gain, fame, big houses, share portfolios, investment properties and international luxury cruises and at the same time call oneself a follower of the Buddha.

But, even if one is not a follower of the Buddha, it is still wrong to pursue these things because they do not lead to long-term happiness for ourselves, nor for others. It is all a marketing trick. Just because models and actors on television look glamorous and happy from having material things and sensual pleasures, doesn’t mean they’re actually happy. That’s perhaps the most disturbing thing of all. 1% of the world’s population owns 50% of the wealth, and yet even that 1% aren’t happy.

It’s all a part of Mara’s script, you see. Sensual pleasures can only ever lead to short-term happiness and long-term suffering whether in the form of personal lamentation, out-and-out warfare between nations or a thousand years in hell.

The ethos of renunciation and simple living can be summarised by the motto: “Just enough is more than plenty.” Furthermore, what is “just enough” goes downward

43

as we become wiser and stronger through the practice of the Dhamma.

Plain shelter

We need to keep all of this in mind as we move onto talking about plain shelter. This is because, the sad truth is that John Howard was right when he said that Australians are “aspirational”. And sadly, the aspirations of middle-class Australians revolve around real-estate, particularly in Sydney.

This is what the Buddha taught about the right attitude to shelter.

Wisely reflecting, a monk uses a shelter only for protection from the heat, for protection from the cold, for protection from contact with mosquitoes, march flies, wind, sun and creeping things, and only for warding off the perils of climate and simply for seclusion.

In the Buddha’s view, shelter is only for protection from the elements and for seclusion. We note that the Buddha did not think that shelter is for the sake of keeping up with the Joneses, making rental income, entering into leveraged investments or for getting tax breaks through negative gearing.

Wrong View re shelter

It is because we have mistaken the purpose of shelter that young people today can only afford to buy their own home if they are willing to take on twenty or thirty year home-loans, which are actually decades of indentured servitude to big banks. Wrong attitudes towards shelter have perversely inflated the value of real-estate, so that the rich can skim more and more money off ordinary people who are simply looking for a place to live and raise their families. This has widened the gap between the rich and the poor to perverse and unsustainable levels. It has also led to the massive destruction of natural habitat for the construction of instant suburbs for young families fleeing unaffordable cities.

44

Why do we put up with it? Because we have been told that there is no alternative. We have been told that greed is an inextricable part of human nature and that it is good to run our economies and societies based on the idea that only greed can motivate people to properly produce and consume.

But that story is just a part of Mara’s web as well. We can be free if we realise that the most important factor holding this whole Ponzi scheme together is the fact that we foolishly and sheeplike, willingly believe the lies, and march on to our own dooms.

We need not believe the lies anymore. There are alternatives. There are wise people out there who are already proving that the alternatives are possible and good.

The alternatives

Plain shelter is shelter that is sufficient for protection from the elements and seclusion. For a well-trained monk, a cleft in a rocky hill, enough to keep the rain off the knees while seated cross-legged is enough. An empty garage or veranda made available by kind lay friends is pure luxury.

Of course, for families caring for young children, the sick and the elderly, more comfortable conditions are necessary. But we should not go too far. Children do not need McMansions to grow up strong. The sick do not need waterfront views to recover from illness. And the elderly do not need five star resorts to age with grace.

What people need, more than anything else, to dwell happily at home is peaceful and harmonious family and community life. Whereas before we had small houses but healthy hearts. Now we have big houses and heart-attacks. I won’t say too much in this talk, because in talks numbers four and five I will focus on how to create peaceful and harmonious families and communities. Suffice to say for now, when we do live in harmony with others, many alternatives appear.

45

Live with your parents

The first principle of plain shelter is to create multi-generational households by living with parents. It’s so obvious, but most people don’t even consider it because they don’t get along with their parents.

But, let us assume for now that it is possible to get along with Mum and Dad and live with them, even when married with children. Then, my recommendation here is to turn the family home into a clan compound. If you make use of existing space wisely -- especially by decluttering -- and if need be, by building extensions modestly, then you will soon find yourself with a secure roof over your head and with a solid network of family support both financially and emotionally.

I should pause here to note that it’s important to avoid living with parents as an adult simply out of laziness. A person living with parents should work just as hard as any other person. A Buddhist should work even harder, because the Buddha’s teaching is all about hard work and being a creative contributor to family and society.

The point is rather that living with parents frees us to do meaningful work, even if that work does not pull in a large income. We shouldn’t have to do unmeaningful work just to keep up with mortgage repayments.

Small houses

The second principle of plain shelter is live in a small home. Many people have already realised the silliness of our enormous suburban fortresses, and they comprise a movement known as the “tiny home movement”. This movement is predicated on the idea that one’s shelter isn’t really where one lives. The land is where one lives, but a shelter is just a place one goes to get out of the rain and to sleep with a sense of security.

After all, we don’t have to be inside a big house to cook, eat, study, make art, socialise or contemplate. Even if it’s a bit chilly, these things can be done just as comfortably outside next to a camp-fire or in a simple

46

a shed after we’ve put on a woollen jumper. We can be content to incorporate a few basic functions into a small house, the kind of basics that make real inroads into the discomforts of life, like running water, strong insulation and a woodstove.

There are at least six advantages to having a small house, 1) it’s much cheaper than building a McMansion; 2) maintenance costs are low; 3) you won't accumulate clutter; 4) you’ll spend more time outside; 5) you will get to know your family; 6) you won't worry about whether your house will be taken by fire, flood or unloved heirs.

Recycled and natural materials

The third principle of plain shelter is that we should build with recycled and natural materials.

In this world of consumer extravagance and wastage, it’s amazing what excellent building materials a wise person can find at the local tip. And then, there are thousands of second-hand shipping containers out their just waiting to be converted into tiny homes.

This may seem undignified to some, but this advice is in line with what the Buddha taught in the Kula Sutta, the Sutta on Family. There he told Anathapindika that families who want to maintain their wealth should retrieve what is lost and repair what is old. In other words, the Buddha may well have been the first person to advocate recycling as a financial strategy.

We should also build using natural building materials like mudbrick, adobe, rammed earth and hay bales because these materials are simply superior, cheaper, more accessible and kind to the environment. But the best part is that shelters built of natural materials create deep connections between people and the land. This is the opposite effect to most ordinary houses, which alienate human beings from the natural world outside.

Natural materials trump synthetic materials in every way but one: synthetic materials are better at making cheap

47

and dirty architecture like ugly apartment blocks, soulless skyscrapers and instant suburbs.

Intentional communities

The fourth principle of plain shelter is to move to intentional communities. If we live in village environments where people share resources with each other, then we don’t need to incorporate so many functions into our own shelters, even if we’re partial to creature comforts. And, of course, by buying or leasing in communal arrangements, land becomes much more affordable.

Before we object with too much skepticism, we should keep in mind that intentional communities of today are much more sobre and mature affairs than those of the flower power era. We’ve learned a lot from the mistakes of the past. There’s plenty more to learn, but we can't let fear of failure hold us back. In a world of increasing economic and ecological fragility, intentionally building village environments is the future of humanity.

In talk number eight I will describe our plan to help lay people start Plain Buddhist Permaculture Villages in the Hunter Valley. So please mark out your calendar for that talk.

Plain medicine

Now let’s move onto plain medicine.

This is what the Buddha taught about the proper attitude to medicine.

Wisely reflecting a monk uses medicinal preparations for the sake of sickness, only for protection from arisen feelings of affliction, for the maximisation of good health.

As this description comes inside the context of the four material requisites, here, the Buddha is really only talking about physical medicines. That is, things we swallow, put on our skin. There are many other kinds of

48

medicines, medical procedures and medical treatments out there, but a full discussion of a plain Buddhist approach to the whole field of medicine will need to wait for another day.

The Buddha taught that we should take physical medicinal preparations for protection from the pain of sickness to maximise good health. I interpret this statement to mean that we should not take pain killers that lead to long-term decline in health.

Pain killers

So rule number one of plain medicine is: “take less pain-killers”. We should wisely reflect before, while and after taking pain-killers about whether the pain-killer is actually making the sickness worse in the long term, by hiding symptoms.

If we are honest to ourselves, this is very often the case. The body and the mind are capable of rather extraordinary feats of healing if they work together. The problem is that they are often at war. When there is pain, an untrained and unskilful person usually uses that pain as a reason to ignite conflict between body and mind. The mind gets angry and scared and resentful at the body for the pain it produces, and of course, the body responds to all these unskilful emotions with even more pain. So, most people think that the best way to create peace is to just cut off the pain.

Unfortunately, cutting off pain with pain-killers, in most cases, is the equivalent of ignoring the dead canary in a toxic coalmine. According to the Buddha’s first discourse, Dhammacakkapavattana Sutta, the first Noble Truth of pain and suffering is something to be fully experienced. Our suffering is there to point out that there are problems that need to be dealt with. When we take pain killers without wisely reflecting, then we only gain the short-term peace of delusion, not the long-term peace of intelligent action.

49

The Buddha provided an alternative to popping pills to deal with pain. He taught the satipatthanas, the four fields of composure: composure of body, composure of feelings, composure of mind and composure of essential patterns. Now the key point for modern Buddhists is that actually this does not mean maintaining bare and choiceless awareness. According to the Suttas and my own experience, the Buddha did not teach that awareness alone is enough to reduce pain and create healing.

Awareness needs to be combined with intelligent self-control to create healing. I call this combination of awareness and intelligent self-control ‘composure’. I think ‘composure’ is a much better translation for the word ‘sati’ than ‘mindfulness’. If we are properly composed our pain thresholds go up, our pain levels go down and our ability to heal ourselves improves.

Drugs

Now, rule number two of plain medicine is: use more herbal medicines. Again, the Buddha advised that we take medicine that actually improves our health. Pharmaceuticals have become the weapon of choice in the modern world because they work so quickly. The problem is that they wreck our bodies and minds in the long term. Thus we’re better off rediscovering the slow acting medicines provided by nature. Every culture has its own herbal law and it is imperative that we encourage their revival and further development by turning to herbal medicines as much as possible.

Old-age and death

Now, the third principle of plain medicine is: stop looking for medical cures to old-age and death. The only real cure to old-age and death is the practice of the Noble Eightfold Way, and even if you become fully enlightened in this life, you will still need to go through old age and death one more time.

Medicine gets messy, unaffordable and cruel when we push it to do the impossible. Thanks to geriatric medicines,

50

the lives of human beings are being stretched out like too little butter on too much toast. It is better to live a shorter life naturally, than to live a longer life like a ring-wraith.

It is better to learn from the start, as a wise disciple of the Buddha that we are all fated to get old and to die. It is better, knowing this, to live a meaningful life every day so that we may face old-age and death with dignity, courage and grace.

Old age and death are like the bogey-man that children imagine lives under their beds. When we turn on the light and invite children to look directly under their beds for themselves, then over time their fear fades away. In the same way, to overcome this pathological fear of old age and death, we need to look old age and death in the eye, we need to spend more time with old and dying people and talk openly about the inevitability of old age and death.

Of course, old age and death are often very painful things. But please have faith that it is possible to endure pain peacefully. Indeed, I know for I live a life of constant asceticism. I do it because I’m preparing for my old-age and death. Knowing clearly that I am fated to grow old and die, I am training myself so that I may bear that pain peacefully when it comes and so that I may fully understand it when it comes.

Not-for-profit medicine

Now, the fourth principle of plain medicine is: Don’t make profits out of medicine. Medicine is not for the sake of making money. Medicine is for the sake of healing the sick. I see no reason why doctors should be paid large salaries. If we engage the healing arts, we should do it for the love of humanity, not the love of the dollar.

When large amounts of money get mixed into medicine, then too often doctors lose their interest in healing people. In fact, many, at least subconsciously, become interested in promoting sickness. After all, the sicker people are,

51

the more likely they are to fork out money for whatever medicine is on offer. Money corrupts and distorts many doctors into being cronies to drug companies -- high status and high salaried drug dealers.

Summary

In summary, the Buddha taught that sensual pleasures in of themselves as well as attachment to sensual pleasures are causes of great suffering.

Plain shelters are shelters that simply protect us from the elements and provide seclusion. And there are four principles of plain shelter: 1) live in multi-generational households, 2) live in a small home, 3) build with natural and recycled building materials, and 4) join an intentional community.

Plain medicines are medicines that help us overcome pain and make us healthy in the long-term. And the four principles of plain medicine are: 1) take less pain-killers, 2) use more herbal medicines, 3) stop looking for medical cures to old age and death and 4) don’t make profits out of medicine.

Integrating Simple Living and Buddhism

To conclude, I should say that I am conscious that a lot of what I’m saying is old-hat to many of you, that is, those of you who are into the simple living movement. What is significant here is that Buddhism is an ancient spirituality that affirms all that is good inside the simple living movement and is capable of binding it with deep spiritual insights that lead not just to ecological sustainability, but social harmony, and profound individual health and happiness. In a sense, the mission of this Plain Buddhist Manifesto is to introduce Buddhists to simple living and to introduce simple lifers to Buddhism.

The synergies between Buddhism and simple living need to be explored, harnessed and pressed into service. There is a whole new world waiting to be created. Let us get moving on the job at hand. Let us not wait even a single

52

breath in hesitation and negligence. For the times they are a’changing, but more importantly, death it is a’waiting us all.

And that is my Dhamma offering to you this evening. Let us sit together in silence for a few moments to contemplate what has been said. May all beings here seen and unseen rejoice in the goodness and merits of this Dhamma talk and may it lead to the long term happiness and harmony of all living beings.

Sadhu. Sadhu. Sadhu.

53

Plain Buddhist Manifesto (IV):

Family

Welcome

Spiritual friends, fellows and companions. Lend me your ears once more.

Welcome to talk number four out of a series of eight entitled “A Plain Buddhist Manifesto”.

Review

To recap: Talk number one was an overview. Therein, we set out the overall context. That is, a world where orthodox Buddhism has lost its way, and where global civilisation is in terminal decline. And we proposed plain Buddhism as a powerful response to both of these problems.

We set out the difference between plain Buddhism and orthodox Buddhism. Plain Buddhism starts with the Pali Suttas. We bring to the Suttas a plain, common sense and direct approach to interpretation. And then we emphasize five thematic undercurrents to the Suttas that make their teachings particularly well-suited to dealing with the problems of the modern age: that is 1) concreteness and reviewability, 2) integrity and consistency, 3) renunciation and contentment, 4) deep cooperative community, and 5) belief in kamma and rebirth.

Plain Buddhism becomes a Plain Buddhist Manifesto when we describe what happens when we apply the principles of Plain Buddhism to transforming the foundations of civilisation: that is, food and clothing, shelter and medicine, family, community, education and homeless wandering Buddhist monks and nuns.

In talk number two we spoke about a Plain Buddhist approach to food and clothing. We said that the Buddha taught that food is not for taste but for nutrition. The four principles of plain food are: 1) eat food with plain flavours in plain eating environments with plain eating

54

habits, 2) eat food that is fresh, local and organic, 3) be as vegetarian as possible given health constraints and 4) abstain from alcohol and intoxicants.

We said that the Buddha taught that clothing is to be worn for protection from the elements and as a social grace, not for vanity. The four principles of plain clothing are: 1) develop and wear your own life uniform, 2) wear clothing that is high quality, long-lasting, dignified and ideally second hand to avoid getting involved with fashion, 3) take advantage of the opportunities to share the Dhamma created by your plain clothing, and 4) move towards a life uniform composed of all white clothing.

In talk number three we spoke about a plain Buddhist approach to shelter and medicine. We said that the Buddha taught that shelter is for protection from the elements and seclusion, not for the sake of financial investment. The four principles of plain shelter are 1) live in multigenerational households, 2) live in small homes, 3) build using recycled and natural materials and 4) live in intentional communities.

We also said that the Buddha taught that medicine is for the mitigation of the pain of illness for the maximization of good health, not for the sake of mere short term relief. The four principles of plain medicine are 1) use less pain-killers, 2) use more herbal medicines, 3) stop looking for medical cures to old age and death and 4) don’t make profits out of medicine.

Tonight we will discuss a Plain Buddhist approach to family life.

Why family is important

Tonight I want to begin with a few words about why family is important. Only a handful of decades back, such a statement would have sounded absurd. “Of course family is important!” the audience would have retorted. But the reasons were never made clear in a rational and transparent way. It was just taken for granted. And thus,

55

when modernity started to question the importance of family, the advocates of family failed to provide strong rational replies.

So let us here cure that shortcoming. To question the importance of family is to question on what basis we should hold certain people more dear to us than others. In the past, we took for granted that blood relations should be held close because we lived in a world of limited social and geographical mobility. Simply put, we had no other choice.

But the world has changed. We now have the option to fly to the other side of the world at the drop of a hat. And the work that we do is not determined by the spelling of our last name. Technology is constantly making it easier for us to live according to our own personal preferences. If we can customise our houses and cars, and change our careers and countries so easily, why can’t we customise our family unit? Doesn’t it make more sense to view those with common interests and beliefs to be more like family than blood-relations?

To reply “Yes” to this question, appears good and unproblematic on paper. And so that is the direction that our society is headed. And many people would say that this is a good thing. They would say that we are transcending our animal instincts and cultivating a more rational way of living.

And yet, the chambers of the human heart rebel. We lose something precious when we start thinking and living in that way. Is this feeling anything more than primitive sentimentality that fades away forever once the friend-counters on our Facebook accounts tick over one thousand?

I would like to give a Plain Buddhist response to that question. The answer is ‘No.’ The reason we can’t just get-up and leave family behind is kamma and rebirth. That is to say, it is not just in this life-time that we have lived with and known our family members.

In defence of Kamma and Rebirth

56

“Hang on!” I hear you thinking. Wasn’t I supposed to be providing a rational account for why family is important? One might object that to say that family is important because of kamma and rebirth is no more rational than saying that family is important because Allah says so.

So here is where I enter into another one of the greatest controversies of Buddhist history. Did the Buddha teach rebirth and is rebirth for real? I’m not into complex and academic discussions about these sorts of things, so I will attempt to give you a cogent and plain answer to both of these questions in less than two minutes.

The first question, actually, isn’t a genuine controversy. The answer is simply, “Yes. The Buddha did teach rebirth.” It’s impossible to read the Pali Suttas with a sense of respect for the meaning of words and come to any other conclusion.

Of course, to do that we need to assume that the Pali Suttas are a decent recording of what the Buddha actually taught. But this is a reasonable assumption as the historical evidence that the Pali Suttas are authentic is very strong. Furthermore, I always personally invite people to believe in the authenticity of the Suttas, because more than anything else, that belief has transformed my life for the better.

As for whether rebirth is real, the simple reply is that out of all the explanations as to what happens after death, it has more evidence backing it up than any other explanation. I invite you to go online and have a read of the research done about children who claim to remember past lives by Professor Ian Stevenson, Francis Story and Jim Tucker. It’s very compelling reading. I recommend you start with a recent interview of Jim Tucker by Bhantes Sujato and Brahmali.

Special link between parents and children

So with that controversy behind us, my evidence-backed faith in kamma and rebirth, makes me think that there is

57

a special link between family members, especially between parents and children.

According to the Suttas we are all billions and billions of lives old. This life is just the continuation of an unfathomably ancient journey. The Buddha taught that, we’ve been reborn so many times, it is difficult to come across a being that has not been a close family member one time or another, in the ancient past.

Because of kamma and rebirth, there is no such thing as pure coincidence. We are born to our parents because, for better or for worse, we have associated with them deeply in recent past lives. Thus the relationship between parent and child is foundational to the psychological well-being of both.

Because of kamma and rebirth, what has happened before tends to happen again. History, indeed does repeat. Thus if our relationship with our parents or children is icy or difficult, it is even more important that we not simply run-away, but we make an effort to heal that relationship. This is the blessing of being a human being. We can choose to do things different to how we did things before. We have the power to break the cycles of history.

Deep in our hearts, we know that we have unfinished business with our parents and children. That business is always going to be a major part of any human being’s life-work. We cannot shirk it simply because it is inconvenient. The more we try, the emptier we feel on the inside.

Family and society

And, of course, family is not just important on the level of the individual. That is to say only societies built upon strong family values have a chance of long-term survival and success. Simply speaking, but for the distractions of bread and circuses, societies cannot function when they are comprised of people with hearts that are withered and dry.

58

Deep cooperative and communal behaviours are fostered best inside good families. When we have grown up in a good family, it is more likely that we will have the emotional strength and moral integrity to sacrifice short-term personal rewards for the sake of the long-term welfare of society at large and, indeed, all living beings.

We live in a world that thinks that family can be replaced by material things and sensual pleasures and friends who happen to like the same material things and sensual pleasures as we do. This is not the way to be human being fully alive in a humane society. Indeed, this the way to be a consumer trapped in an economic machine.

Truly humane society is actually a network of harmonious and peaceful families. So tonight I will share with you what the Buddha taught about the foremost foundation of harmonious and peaceful family life: good relations between parents and children. This is from the Sigala Sutta:

Thus have I heard. On one occasion the Blessed One was dwelling in Rajagaha in the Bamboo Grove, the Squirrels' Sanctuary.

Now on that occasion, young Sigala, a young householder, having risen early in the morning, having departed from Rajagaha, worshipped with joined hands these various directions with wet clothes and wet hair — the east, the south, the west, the north, the nadir, and the zenith.

Then, when it was morning, the Blessed One dressed, and taking his bowl and outer robe, he went into Rajagaha for alms. Now he saw young Sigala worshipping and spoke to him thus:

"Why, young householder, having risen early in the morning, having departed from Rajagaha, do you worship with joined hands these various direction with wet clothes and wet hair — the east, the south, the west, the north, the nadir, and the zenith?"

59

"My father, Venerable Sir, while dying, said to me: Dear son, you shall worship the six directions. And I, Venerable Sir, respecting, revering, reverencing and honoring my father's word, having risen early in the morning, having departed from Rajagaha, worship with joined hands these six directions with wet clothes and wet hair."

"It is not thus, young householder, the six directions should be worshipped in the discipline of the Noble Ones."

"How then, Venerable Sir, should the six directions be worshipped in the discipline of the Noble Ones? It is well, Venerable Sir, if the Blessed One would teach the Dhamma to me showing how the six directions should be worshipped in the discipline of the Noble Ones."

“Well, young householder, listen and bear it well in mind; I shall speak." — "Very good, Venerable Sir," responded young Sigala.

And the Blessed One spoke thus:

“And how, young householder, does a disciple of the Noble Ones cover the six directions?

“These should be looked upon as the six directions. The parents should be looked upon as the east, teachers as the south, wife and children as the west, friends and associates as the north, servants and employees as the nadir, samanas and priests as the zenith.

“In five ways, young householder, parents should be ministered to by their children as the east: Having been supported, I shall support, I shall do their duties, I shall maintain the family traditions, I shall make myself worthy of my inheritance, also I shall make offerings to the departed.

“Young householder, the parents, ministered to by their children as the east in those five ways, show compassion in five ways: they restrain them from the bad, they encourage them in the good, they train them in a craft, they bind them to a suitable partner, and at the proper time they hand over their inheritance.

60

“In these five ways, young householder, children minister to their parents as the east, and these five ways parents show compassion. Thus the east is covered and made safe and secure.

This is one of my favourite suttas. I can almost feel the cold morning air that Sigala must have been chilled by as he went about with wet clothes and wet hair. I am touched by the faith and love that Sigala had for his deceased father, and by the gentleness with which the Buddha used his encounter with Sigala to teach him the principles of happy and secure lay-life.

The Buddha, with a single graceful stroke, transformed a well-meant but ultimately futile superstitious practice into a concrete and reviewable guide to good behaviour and good relationships in family and society.

A life of responsibility and service

The Buddha, with dexterity and plain speech explained to Sigala that the world is protected, made safe and secure, by conceiving life in terms of compassionate responsibilities, duties and service to others. This is a far-cry from the modern perspective that social equity is won through the creation and protection of rights and entitlements.

Simply put, if everyone is always looking to help everybody else get what they need then, everybody gets what they need. On the other hand, if everyone is always looking to get whatever they can for themselves, then the devious and the aggressive get more than what they need, and the naive and the meek live in deprivation.

We may object that emphasising rights and entitlements is precisely the way to stop the devious and the aggressive from getting too much. The problem is that solutions based on rights and entitlements still buy into the assumption that we live in dog-eat-dog world of intrinsically competitive interests. With such a wrong-worldview as a basis, eventually the rights designed to protect victims from abusers, will simply create another

61

set of victims and abusers. Instead of solving inequity, we shuffle the deck chairs on the Titanic.

The Buddha taught in many different ways how the good life comes out of a worldview rooted in faith in the teaching of kamma and rebirth. With conviction that we live in a moral universe that can produce win-win outcomes in the long-term, we do not fear living a lives of generosity, service and sacrifice. The reciprocal duties described in the Sigala Sutta are just a description of fruitful ways to be generous. There, the Buddha assured us that so long as we live lives devoted to giving in the right way, then we will always be safe and society will be secure.

The duties of children

Now, before we get onto the duties of children to their parents, it cannot be emphasized enough that we are raising children the wrong way. We have come to believe that the way to show love to children is to give them whatever they want. But children, being children, tend to want material things and sensual pleasures. Those who remember the Magandiya Sutta and the Shorter Sutta on the Mass of Suffering recited in previous talks will remember that according to the Buddha, sensual pleasures and material things are toxic and highly addictive.

Thus, if we give into our children’s materialistic impulses, then we are poisoning them and turning them into addicts to money and material things. Weak-minded addicts are incapable of personal happiness and are parasites on society.

We need to wake up to the fact that happiness is won through wisdom, discipline and hard work. None of these things can be learned without a revival of the art of tough love. That is, love that is constantly aimed at giving our children independence and strength and which is uncompromising in the face of the childish and short-sighted tempers of children.

62

In other words, it is high time parents stopped pandering to their children’s sense of entitlement and gave them serious responsibilities.

Supporting parents

Now, the first responsibility of children is to know gratitude towards parents, thinking to themselves “Having been supported, I will support.” Children should support their parents through their entire life, not just in old age.

This responsibility points towards the need for modern people to make more of an effort to stay close to parents for life. The honeymoon is over for modernity. Now we are all feeling the long-term negative effects of family-dislocation. Our families are scattered all-over the world, and we’re not getting the physical, emotional and spiritual support we used to get from family. We are missing the clan, because clans can only aggregate if children make an effort to stay close to their parents.

And, of course, this is particularly important when our parents get old. It is simply wrong that so many elderly people today live out their dotage in institutions.

Doing parents duties

The second responsibility of children is to take interest in their parents' roles in society and to do their parents’ societal duties. Children should go to work with their parents regularly and help out with whatever they can so that they can learn about the world outside of home and school. Also, the more active parents are with societal duties outside of paid work like looking after relations or doing charitable activities, the more opportunities children will have to participate.

Children need to regularly take part in activities that have real consequences for real people. This is the best way to foster in them a sense of responsibility, empowerment, belonging and self-esteem.

Maintaining family tradition

63

The third responsibility of children is to know respect for elders and to maintain family traditions. This duty is often misunderstood as meaning that children should not think or speak for themselves. This can’t be correct, because the Buddha lived a life of constant rebellion against the unwholesome traditions of his day and exhorted his followers to swim against the stream as well.

We need to cultivate a middle-way relationship with tradition. We should neither blindly kow-tow to it nor blithely throw it away. Our responsibility as children is to maintain our family traditions by maintaining and further developing what is good therein and carefully abandoning what is bad.

Now, on the other hand, this approach is also far away from the idea that younger generations should be allowed to say whatever they want. Indeed, it is no good to speak with disrespect or at the wrong time no matter how old we are. This approach takes as self-evident that a life of right starts with an attitude of respect and gratitude towards elders and ancestors. This is because the wisdom to know the difference between the good and the bad cannot be built upon attitudes of conceit and arrogance.

When we are respectful, we put ourselves in a position to benefit from all that is good in our traditions, and to show the greatest gratitude of all, by improving on what our elders and ancestors have left behind for the welfare of all living beings.

Being worthy of inheritance

The fourth responsibility of children is to live lives of virtue so that they may make themselves worthy of their inheritance. We should not be looking at our inheritance with greedy eyes and a sense of entitlement. The inheritance bequeathed to us by our parents is a privilege and a responsibility, not a right and entitlement.

64

It is a heavy burden that we must train ourselves beforehand to bear, so that we may carry it with rectitude when the time comes. We can only consider ourselves to be worthy bearers of the fruits of our families, if we are willing and capable of using those fruits for the sake of the proper maintenance and further development of our families.

Making offerings to the departed

The fifth responsibility of children is to make offerings to the departed. Given the context, I assume that the Buddha was talking about making offerings to deceased parents specifically, as opposed to all of the departed in general.

Please note that there is no mention of only giving to Buddhist monks or nuns here. Also note that because of ambiguities in Pali grammar we don’t know if the Sutta means to say we should be making offerings for the departed or to the departed or even of the departed.

In the past, I thought that the third variation was the most likely, in the sense that children should dutifully distribute gifts as executors to their parents’ estates in line with their parents' wishes.

But now I think that the first and second variations are just as valid. That is, children should either do charitable deeds on a regular basis and dedicate the merits to their parents, and/or make small symbolic offerings to shrines set up for their deceased parents on a regular basis.

Why should we do these things? Aren’t they just remnants of superstitious Asian culture? While doubtless, traditional Asian culture often takes these things way too far by worshipping deceased parents and ancestors, I think these things are worth doing as a way of practising respect for past generations.

Furthermore, there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt in our philosophy. In the rebirth cases investigated by Professor Stevenson and Jim Tucker, the

65

median time between death and rebirth is around 16 months. So when our parents die, there is at least some chance that they are hanging around us before they move on. Thus, just to stay on the safe side of things, I think it is a good idea to make offerings to, for and of departed parents. This way, we may dwell at ease, our parents can dwell at ease and our society can be founded on a culture of respect for past generations.

The duties of parents

Now, let’s roll onto the duties of parents to children. Attitudes to parenting have changed a lot in recent times. I think that we can be sure that the Buddha would have given his thumbs-down to childcare centres. The relegation of the role of parent to provider of money, toys and entertainment is a tragic thing to witness. Once, when a young child learned that I live without any money, he asked, “But how does he buy stuff for his children?”

When we human beings decide to have children, or even if it happens through negligence, we take on a heavy responsibility that should not be outsourced to others even though it’s difficult to resist because of government subsidies and the normalisation of the double-income family.

Unless we make a strong effort to re-own our human responsibilities to our human children, then we have nothing to complain about when we are being treated like cog-wheels in a cold and heartless economic machine. And we should not be surprised when our children leave us in aged-care, in the same way we left them in childcare, while we were too busy doing more important things.

Restraint from bad and encouragement in the good

The first two responsibilities of parents are to restrain children from the bad and to encourage them in the good. Of course, everybody likes doing the second one, but the art of doing the first one has been lost. Children need to hear the word “No” said to them peacefully and

66

confidently, on a regular basis from the moment they leave the womb. They must not think that “No” is a dirty word. The quicker they understand that life is not about getting what they personally want, the better.

There are five things that children will say to emotionally blackmail their parents into capitulating to their unwholesome demands, and five proper ways to restrain them.

1) They will say: “But I want it.” The proper response is: “No. I don’t give you what you want. I give you what you need.

2) They will say: “But all the other kids have one.” The proper response is: “No. I don’t give you what the other kids have. I give you what you need.”

3) They will say: “But I’ve been good.” The proper response is: “Yes you have been. And thank you. But I don’t reward you with material things. I reward you by spending time with you and teaching you how to be a good person. So come with me now, I’ll teach you how to adjust the brakes on your bike.”

4) They will say: “You’re the worst Mummy in the world. You don’t love me.” The proper response is: “That’s not true. I’m a good mother and I love you. And you are now on your first warning for speaking disrespectfully to me.”

5) They will say: “Please ...” (with a cute smile). The proper response is: “No.”

Punishment

Parents must also be willing to punish their children. Of course, the punishment must never involve any kind of violence, physical or verbal, and ideally, not involve even a millisecond’s worth of internal anger. Because children usually do not appreciate the long-term suffering that comes from unwholesome behaviours, parents must inflict immediate painful but non-violent consequences on them so that they understand the connection between bad actions and painful results.

67

The classic non-violent punishments are: not being allowed to leave the naughty chair, being sent to their room, having nothing served to them but bad tasting food, missing out on dessert, or missing out on whole meals. Believe me, there is no child in the world who is so stubborn and recalcitrant that they can stand up to their own hunger for long.

Choices have consequences

It is imperative that parents calmly communicate in unambiguous terms the difference between good and bad behaviour, so that children are left in no confusion about how to make good choices and avoid making bad choices. Children thrive when they are told the rules and they feel that the adults will peacefully and assertively enforce them.

And then, when rewarding for good behaviour or punishing for bad behaviour, parents should calmly communicate to children that all choices have consequences, and that they are simply receiving the fruits of their own choices.

The sooner children internalise that they are not being rewarded or punished according to the preferences of their parents, but rather it is all happening because of the choices they have made for themselves, the sooner they will realise that they live in a universe with immutable moral structures based on the law of kamma. A child who realises this, no longer needs her parents to punish or reward her. And such a child is destined for happiness and success in life.

Such a child will not be driven by the need for approval from or the fear of punishment from anyone in the universe with its gods, its Maras, its Brahmas, its samanas and priests, in this population with its princes and its people. They will be able to direct themselves independently according to their own moral compass.

Training in craft

68

The third responsibility of parents is to train children in a craft. In accordance with the Sutta on the Blessing where the Buddha says that a supreme blessing is “practical knowledge and craft”, I want to warn parents off insisting that their children be academic superstars.

It comes down to this: we should educate children to become meaningful and creative contributors to society. The problem is that this hard to do that when the global economy treats profits as more important than people and when the modern technocratic education system is part and parcel of this system. Its task is to construct the next generation of functional psychopaths to be the new captains of industry and government, as well as to assemble the next generation of sheepish workers-cum-consumers to grease their perverse economic machine.

When our children become academic superstars they get into the habit of giving the answers the system wants to hear, and then they just become a part of the system that is degrading and destroying us all. So, I ask the parents here to please reconsider.

I highly recommend home-schooling and teaching the young about Permaculture and other forms of sustainable and regenerative agriculture and industry, so that the next generation is equipped with the practical skills they will need to live in and heal this deeply damaged world.

Now, I’m a monk who puts his requisites where his mouth is. I am in the process of developing an alternative approach to education that synergises the homeschooling movement with the Buddha’s insights into the functioning of the mind. Please come back for talk number six for more on that.

Giving a child’s hand in marriage

The fourth responsibility of parents is to bind their children to suitable partners. To fulfil this duty we need to know what makes for suitable partners to our children in the first place.

69

Now, the idea that another person is a suitable partner for one of our children simply because they harbour sentiments of romantic love for each other is clearly wrong. This now entrenched cultural meme has been a blind disaster for society. It would have collapsed years ago if not for our addiction to watching ditzy and delusional Hollywood RomComs. Whether by music, literature, film or theatre, we have it beaten into us that love will find the way.

Well, romantic love will not find the way – as is demonstrably the case from the fact that the rising rates of expensive romantic weddings are matched only by the rising rates of divorce.

On the other hand, true love, the Brahmaviharas, that is universal goodwill, compassion, appreciation and patient understanding will find the way. But true love is not something we fall into. Nor is it natural or God-given. It is something that we must practice and master. Because romantic love is something we fall into, it is something that we just as easily fall out off. Therefore, building a marriage on romantic love is like building a castle on sand. Marriage based on the Brahmaviharas, on the other hand, is like building on a divine rock that gets even more stable with age.

So the first thing to look for in partners for our children, are those who understand the difference between romantic love and the Brahmaviharas.

After that, parents should be involved in the process of choosing life-partners for children because, most people only gain the maturity to properly understand the complexities of human relationships when they hit their thirties. Now, given the constraints of biology, getting married after thirty is not ideal. Thus, young adults in their twenties are in a position where it is time to get married, and yet they lack the personal wisdom to choose an appropriate life partner on their own.

But, of course, if the relationship between parents and children is strong, then parents can and should chip in

70

with their life experience, helping their children find partners who complement them in both qualities and skills. More specifically, the Buddha taught that the best marriages are made of two people who are in tune in terms of the spiritual faculties of faith, virtue, generosity and wisdom.

Passing on the inheritance

The fifth responsibility of parents is to pass on their children’s inheritance at the right time. I think the right time is always well before we die. This way we can instruct our heirs in the proper way to use their inheritance for the welfare of all beings, and to ensure, at the very least, that it does not become a source of conflict between relatives.

Also, it is good to go to death having loosened our sense of clinging to material things. If we are too weak in faith and wisdom to live simply while young, we should at least do so when we are old. It’s never too late.

And then, we will have time to develop a different kind of wealth: the wealth of the Buddhadhamma. And if as older people we can pass even a little of this to the young before we die, then we may die knowing we have left some true wealth behind.

Summary

In summary, family is important because kamma and rebirth are real and we have unfinished business with family from past lives. Peaceful and harmonious family is created by maintaining our duties towards other family members. The most important duties inside the family are those between parents and children.

Children have five duties to their parents: 1) to support them, 2) to do their duties, 3) to maintain family traditions, 4) to be deserving of their inheritance and 5) to make offerings to the departed.

Parents have five duties to their children: 1) to restrain them from the bad, 2) to encourage them in the

71

good, 3) to train them in a craft, 4) to bind them to a suitable partner and 5) to pass on their inheritance at the right time.

There are, of course, other relationships to be attended to inside the family as well, such as the relationship between husband and wife and between siblings. But the Buddha’s advice about these will need to wait for another day.

Conclusion

In conclusion, the equation in Plain Buddhism is as plain and simple as this. Money, material things and sensual pleasures cannot bring us lasting happiness. Peaceful and harmonious family life can. Thus and furthermore, money, material things and sensual pleasures cannot create successful societies, but happy and harmonious families can.

That is my Dhamma offering to you this evening. Let us sit together for a few moments in silence to contemplate was has been said. May all beings here whether seen or unseen rejoice in the goodness and merits of this Dhamma talk, and may it lead to the long-term happiness and harmony of all living beings.

Sadhu. Sadhu. Sadhu.

72

Plain Buddhist Manifesto (V):

Community

Welcome

Spiritual friends, fellows and companions. Lend me your ears once more.

Welcome to talk number five out of a series of eight entitled “A Plain Buddhist Manifesto”.

Review

To recap: Talk number one was an overview. Therein, we set out the overall context. That is, a world where orthodox Buddhism has lost its way, and where global civilisation is in terminal decline. And we proposed Plain Buddhism as a powerful response to both of these problems.

We set out the difference between Plain Buddhism and orthodox Buddhism. Plain Buddhism starts with the Pali Suttas. We bring to the Suttas a plain, common sense and direct approach to interpretation. And then we emphasize five thematic undercurrents to the Suttas that make their teachings particularly well-suited to dealing with the problems of the modern age: that is 1) concreteness and reviewability, 2) integrity and consistency, 3) renunciation and contentment, 4) deep cooperative community, and 5) belief in kamma and rebirth.

Plain Buddhism becomes a Plain Buddhist Manifesto when we describe what happens when we apply the principles of Plain Buddhism to transforming the foundations of civilisation: that is, food and clothing, shelter and medicine, family, community, education and homeless wandering Buddhist monks and nuns.

In talk number two we spoke about a Plain Buddhist approach to food and clothing. We said that the Buddha taught that food is not for taste but for nutrition. The four principles of plain food are: 1) eat food with plain flavours in plain eating environments with plain eating

73

habits, 2) eat food that is fresh, local and organic, 3) be as vegetarian as possible given health constraints and 4) abstain from alcohol and intoxicants.

We said that the Buddha taught that clothing is to be worn for protection from the elements and as a social grace, not for vanity. The four principles of plain clothing are: 1) develop and wear your own life uniform, 2) wear clothing that is high quality, long-lasting, dignified and ideally second-hand to avoid getting involved with fashion, 3) take advantage of the opportunities to share the Dhamma created by your plain clothing, and 4) move towards a life uniform composed of all white clothing.

In talk number three we spoke about a plain Buddhist approach to shelter and medicine. We said that the Buddha taught that shelter is for protection from the elements and seclusion, not for the sake of financial investment. The four principles of plain shelter are 1) live in multigenerational households, 2) live in a small homes, 3) build using recycled and natural materials and 4) live in an intentional community.

We also said that the Buddha taught that medicine is for the mitigation of the pain of illness for the maximization of good health, not for the sake of mere short term relief. The four principles of plain medicine are 1) use less pain-killers, 2) use more herbal medicines, 3) stop looking for medical cures to old age and death and 4) don’t make profits out of medicine.

In talk number four we spoke about a Plain Buddhist approach to family. We said that the Buddha taught that peaceful and harmonious family life is won through the maintenance of reciprocal responsibilities between family members. We focused on the most important set of responsibilities, that is those existing between parents and children.

Children have five responsibilities to their parents: 1) to support them, 2) to do their societal duties, 3) to maintain the family traditions, 4) to make themselves

74

worthy of their inheritance, and 5) to make offerings to departed parents.

Parents have five responsibilities to their children: 1) to restrain them from the bad, 2) to encourage them in the good, 3) to train them in a craft, 4) to bind them to suitable partners, and 5) to pass on their inheritance at the right time.

Tonight we will discuss a Plain Buddhist approach to community. Plain Buddhist communities are islands of enlightened local resilience where people live together in material simplicity and deep cooperative community based upon the teachings of the Pali Suttas.

Plain Buddhist communities use spirituality to overcome materialism, love and forgiveness to overcome hatred and violence, renunciation and contentment to overcome greed and selfishness, wisdom and common sense to overcome denial and propaganda, and local sovereignty to overcome centralised power.

Preface

Why do we need Plain Buddhist communities?

Many of you will have noticed that the world today has gone absolutely crackers. We do, indeed, live in a global civilisation in terminal decline.

We are in ecological overshoot. Our soils are depleted. Our oceans are nigh empty. The climate is changing. We are in sociological overshoot. People are unhappy and sick. Families, communities and nation-states are falling apart. The global economy is a basketcase that lurches on on the basis of wishful thinking and propaganda. Democracy has failed. And the drums of war are beating in the distance.

So it is time for the naive people of coal-rich Hunter Valley to wake up to the dangers that the inhabitants of debt-ridden Greece already breath. The dream of garnering happiness for all by universalising middle-class

75

affluence driven by consumer culture has mutated into a howling nightmare.

Thus, we need to create alternative communities, and we need to take well-contemplated, serious, committed and practical measures to create them now. In this monk’s learned opinion, the Buddha was the wisest being there ever was and ever shall be. So it makes sense to me that we create alternative communities based on the Buddha’s teaching.

But, the first mark of a wise person is that she has realistic expectations. The centre of global civilisation as we know it cannot hold. Mainstream society has gone too far down the wrong road. The critical period wherein we might have turned the crisis into a peaceful gateway to a Universal New Age has passed. It is too late to turn the global tide.

When fools go mad with greed, hatred, delusion and fear, and there is nothing more that can be done, wise Buddhists, walk away. It is time we gave up on having our cake and eating it too. We need to leave mainstream society behind us. There is no point in trying to transform the machine from the inside. The Titanic cannot be saved. The best we can do now is build up islands of enlightened local resilience that will ride out the rising tides of suffering as they come.

Sutta on the Imperfections

The Buddha found himself in a similar situation in the quarrel of Kosambi. A part of that episode is related in the Sutta on the Imperfections:

Thus have I heard. On one occasion the Blessed One was living at Kosambi in Ghosita’s Park.

Now on that occasion the monks at Kosambi had taken to quarrelling and brawling and were deep in disputes, stabbing each other with verbal daggers.

Then a certain monk went to the Blessed One, and after paying homage to him, he stood at one side and said:

76

“Bhante, the monks here at Kosambi have taken to quarrelling and brawling and are deep in disputes, stabbing each other with verbal daggers. It would be good, Bhante, if the Blessed One would go to those monks out of compassion.” The Blessed One consented in silence.

Then the Blessed One went to those monks and said to them: “Enough, monks, let there be no quarrelling, brawling, wrangling or dispute.” When this was said, a certain monk said to the Blessed One: “Wait, Bhante! Let the Blessed One, the Lord of the Dhamma, live at ease devoted to a pleasant abiding here and now. We are the ones who will be responsible for this quarrelling, brawling, wrangling, and dispute.”

For a second and third time the Blessed One said to them: “Enough, monks, let there be no quarrelling, brawling, wrangling or dispute.” When this was said, for a second and third time that monk said to the Blessed One: “Wait, Bhante! Let the Blessed One, the Lord of the Dhamma, live at ease devoted to a pleasant abiding here and now. We are the ones who will be responsible for this quarrelling, brawling, wrangling, and dispute.”

Then, when it was morning, the Blessed One dressed, and taking his bowl and outer robe, entered Kosambi for alms. When he had wandered for alms in Kosambi and had returned from his almsround, after his meal he set his resting place in order, took his bowl and outer robe, and while standing uttered these stanzas:

“When many voices shout at onceNone considers himself a fool;Though the Sangha is being splitNone thinks himself to be at fault.

They have forgotten thoughtful speech,They talk obsessed by words alone.Uncurbed their mouths, they bawl at will;None knows what leads him so to act.

‘He abused me, he struck me,

77

He defeated me, he robbed me’ –In those who harbour thoughts like theseHatred will never be allayed.

‘He abused me, he struck me,He defeated me, he robbed me’ –In those who do not harbour thoughts like theseHatred will readily be allayed.

For in this world hatred is neverAllayed by further acts of hate.It is allayed by forgiveness:That is the fixed and ageless law.

Those others do not recogniseThat here we all must die.But those wise ones who realise thisAt once end all their enmity.

Breakers of bones and murderers,Those who steal cattle, horses, wealth,Those who pillage the entire realm –When even these can act togetherWhy can you not do so too?

If one can find a worthy friend, A virtuous, steadfast companion,Then overcome all threats of dangerAnd walk with him content and composed.

But if one finds no worthy friend,No virtuous, steadfast companion,Then as a king leaves his conquered realm, Walk like a tusker in the woods alone.

Better it is to walk alone,There is no companionship with fools.Walk alone and do no evil,At ease like a tusker in the woods.”

78

Then, having uttered these stanzas while standing, the Blessed One went ... to the Eastern Bamboo Park....

Then the Venerable Anuruddha went to the Venerable Nandiya and the Venerable Kimbila and said: “Come out, venerable sirs, come out! Our Teacher, the Blessed One, has come.”

Then all three went to meet the Blessed One. One took his bowl and outer robe, one prepared a seat, and one set out water for washing the feet. The Blessed One sat down on the seat made ready and washed his feet. Then those three venerable ones paid homage to the Blessed One and sat down at one side, and the Blessed One said to them: “I hope you are comfortable, I hope you are not having any trouble getting almsfood.”

“We are keeping well, Blessed One, we are comfortable, and we are not having any trouble getting almsfood.”

“I hope, Anuruddha, that you are all living in concord, with mutual appreciation, without disputing, blending like milk and water, viewing each other with kindly eyes.”

“Surely, Bhante, we are living in concord, with mutual appreciation, without disputing, blending like milk and water, viewing each other with kindly eyes.”

“But, Anuruddha, how do you live thus?”

“Bhante, as to that, I think thus: ‘It is a gain for me, it is a great gain for me that I am living with such companions in the holy life.’ I maintain bodily acts of goodwill towards these venerable ones both openly and privately; I maintain verbal acts of goodwill towards them both openly and privately; I maintain mental acts of goodwill towards them both openly and privately. I consider: ‘Why should I not set aside what I wish to do and do what these venerable ones wish to do?’ Then I set aside what I wish to do and do what these venerable ones

79

wish to do. We are different in body, Bhante, but one in mind.”

The Venerable Nandiya and the Venerable Kimbila each spoke likewise, adding” “This is how, venerable sir, we are living in concord, with mutual appreciation, without disputing, blending like milk and water, viewing each other with kindly eyes.”

“Good, good, Anuruddha. I hope that you all abide diligent, self-controlled and resolute.”

“Surely, Bhante, we abide diligent, self-controlled, and resolute.”

“But, Anuruddha, how do you abide thus?”

“Bhante, as to that, whichever of us returns first from the village with almsfood prepares the seats, sets out the water for drinking and for washing, and puts the refuse bucket in its place. Whichever of us returns last eats any food left over, if he wishes; otherwise he throws it away where there is no greenery or drops it into water where there is no life. He puts away the seats and the water for drinking and for washing. He puts away the refuse bucket after washing it, and he sweeps out the refectory. Whoever notices that the pots of water for drinking, washing, or the latrine are low or empty takes care of them. If they are too heavy for him, he calls someone else by a signal of the hand and they move it by joining hands, but because of this we do not break out into speech. But every five days we sit together all night discussing the Dhamma. That is how we abide diligent, self-controlled and resolute.”

Ten Principles of the Sutta on the Imperfections

While this is a Sutta about war and peace inside the Sangha, lay-Buddhists of today can look to ten principles found in the behaviour of the Buddha and Venerable

80

Anuruddha’s group for guidance about how to establish and maintain Plain Buddhist communities.

It’s ok to leave

Principle number one: Just as the Buddha had no qualms with leaving the monks of Kosambi behind him, lay-Buddhists need feel no qualms about leaving mainstream society behind them.

Decentralise

Principle number two: Just as the Venerable Anuruddha’s group was able to live in peace and harmony because of the decentralised nature of the Sangha, so too lay-Buddhists should extract themselves from the centralising mechanisms of mainstream society by going off-the-grid as much as possible so that they may live, as unmolested as possible by the rising chaos and inequities in the mainstream society.

Lay-Buddhists should start by cultivating islands of Dhamma inside themselves, and at the same time make efforts to turn their nuclear families into islands of enlightened local resilience, and at the same time make efforts to create archipelagos of enlightened local resilience by banding together with other such families whether they be Buddhists or Buddhist sympathisers.

Food security

Principle number three: Just as the first question the Buddha asked Venerable Anuruddha was in regard to food, lay-Buddhists should make food security their highest priority. Lay-Buddhists should become versed in sustainable and regenerative food-growing practices by doing Permaculture Design Courses, simple living courses and participating in Permaculture and simple living circles, in order to grow and share as much of their own food as possible.

Social harmony

81

Principle number four: Just as the next question the Buddha asked Venerable Anuruddha was in regard to social harmony, lay-Buddhists should make training in the skills that lead social harmony, blending like milk and water their highest priority as well. Lay-Buddhists should do so by regularly attending Dhamma talks by good Buddhist monks and nuns so that they may properly understand what the Buddha actually taught, and by participating in Plain Buddhist Tent Villages to gain concrete experiences of the ins-and-outs, and joys of Plain Buddhist community life.

Goodwill in action

Principle number five: Just as Venerable Anuruddha and his friends created concord in their group by practising goodwill, lay-Buddhists should also practice goodwill to create concord in their communities. This point deserves expanding upon as I want to make it clear that successfully practising goodwill is not as simple as just reciting, “May all beings be happy and well.”

Goodwill in worldview

Goodwill or metta, in Pali, has several aspects. The first is the development of Right Worldview. At the initial stages of practice, the most powerful thing inside the Dhamma is in the realisation that we can train ourselves to deliberately hold onto the Right Worldview that all beings wish to happy and free from suffering. By dwelling on this common desire we can see all beings as friends, grow in goodwill and live in concord.

One of the fallacies of theistic religions is that they each refer to a version of an all-powerful Creator God as the common thread between peoples. This leads to conflict because while it unites all those with the same God, it bitterly divides those with different Gods. Thus believing in an all-powerful Creator God is a wrong worldview that leads to ill will and conflict.

The Buddha’s teaching on the other hand creates peace between those of different beliefs. This is because the

82

commonality that it refers to is the empirical observation that all beings wish to be happy and free from suffering. The Buddha turned everything on its head by replacing a wrong worldview based on a groundless metaphysical assertion with a Right Worldview based on concrete and reviewable observations that everyone can make for themselves.

The desire to be happy and free from suffering is the fundamental desire driving all the actions and choices of all beings. It connects not just human beings with each other but humans and animals and ghosts and gods and demons. Thus, thinking in this way is a Right Worldview that leads to goodwill and concord.

Now, if you have ever tried to practice goodwill on the cushion or in everyday life and been left feeling like a fake, it will be because of this first reason. Many Buddhists have been taught for a long time now, to just wish “May all beings be happy and well!” without being taught about how to change their underlying worldview so that they can actually mean it.

To change your worldview, keep your eyes peeled in everyday life for the way living beings both great and small actually behave. By doing this, you will see for yourself and become thoroughly convinced that all the birds in the sky and the bugs in the ground and everything in between and beyond wants to be happy and free from suffering. Eventually, you will come to see that even when your boss screams at you at work, he is doing it because he wants to be happy and free from suffering.

If you keep making an effort to notice these empirical facts and to connect these with the fact that you too want to be happy and free from suffering, then the goodwill in you will grow and grow.

Win-win outcomes & kamma and rebirth

Or if you still find yourself feeling like a fake when thinking, “May all beings be happy and well,” it will be

83

because of this second reason. Even if we are convinced that everyone wants to be happy and free from suffering, it is difficult to genuinely wish it if we hold onto the wrong worldview that the wish is futile anyway. That is, even if we agree that we all want to be happy, we will still hold onto ill will and fight with each other if we think that happiness is a limited resource that we must compete for; that life is a zero sum game where winners must beget losers, where the happiness of some must be built on the suffering of others; that realistically speaking, we can only be happy by acting out our ill-will and aggression in order to come out on top. This is a wrong worldview that leads to ill will and discord.

It is no surprise that many people have such a worldview. When we look at the state of the world, it is all too easy to come to that conclusion. When we only look at this life, then it appears that the aggressive and the devious are rewarded and the honest and the gentle are punished. This is why the common view is that greed is good, aggression is empowering and ignorance is bliss.

Right Worldview, on the other hand, holds that long-term win-win outcomes for everybody are possible through the practice of universal goodwill, contentment and wisdom as integrated parts of the Noble Eightfold Way. It’s just that it doesn’t look that way because kamma bears fruit, non-sequentially over many life-times.

In other words, Right Worldview built on faith in the Buddha’s teaching on kamma and rebirth protects our Right Motivation to practice goodwill.

Concrete guidelines

Now if you’re wishing may beings be happy while holding the Right Worldview that all beings want to be happy just like you and that it really is possible for all beings to be happy through the practice of the Dhamma, and yet you’re still feeling like a fake, it will be because of this third reason. That is, you need concrete guidelines for how to manifest your goodwill in everyday action.

84

This is dasa kusala dhamma, also known as the ten principles of the good life. There are three principles regarding bodily action, four regarding verbal action and three regarding mental action, making for ten principles in total.

1) Is to abandon the killing of living beings, and to live compassionate for all living beings instead;

2) Is to abandon taking what is not given, and to be content and generous instead;

3) Is to not commit sexual misconduct, but to be faithful and even chaste instead;

4) Is to not speak falsehood, but to be a reliable and trustworthy person instead;

5) Is to not speak divisively, but to speak words that promote friendship, forgiveness and unity instead;

6) Is to not speak harshly, but to speak words that are gentle, pleasing to the ear and go to the heart instead;

7) Is to not speak idle chatter, but to speak words that are timely, meaningful and beneficial instead;

8) Is to not have a materialistic and covetous mind, but to have a mind of renunciation, generosity and simplicity instead;

9) Is to not have a nasty mind, but to have a mind of goodwill instead; and

10) Is to not deny the teaching of kamma and rebirth, but to investigate and affirm it through investigation instead.

So that’s enough on how to practice goodwill. Let’s move onto the next principle underlying the Sutta on the Imperfections.

Material simplicity

Principle number six: Just as Venerable Anuruddha and his friends were able to live in deep cooperative community because of their material simplicity, lay-Buddhists should also strive to practice material simplicity in everything that they do. In particular, it means cultivating plain food, clothing, shelter and medicine.

85

Simply put, less stuff means less stuff to fight about, less inequality and more motivation for cooperation.

Self-control

Principle number seven: Just as Venerable Anuruddha considered cooperative living as a way of being diligent, self-controlled and resolute, lay-Buddhists should have the same attitude to community life. That is to say, lay-Buddhists living in community should not behave as lazy hippies. A deeply authentic Buddhist way of life is not a holiday. It’s meant to be hard work. And the joy that comes from it whether as monks, nuns, laymen or laywomen should always be the joy of hard but meaningful work. In this way, Buddhists work hard and have fun at the same time.

Respect for elders

Principle number eight: Just as Venerable Anuruddha and his friends accorded to the Buddha the highest honour by preparing a seat for him and setting out water for washing his feet, lay-Buddhists should make respect for elders a central part of their culture. However, in Buddhism, a person in not made an elder by their biological age or by the years they have been in the robes, after all the Buddha was venerated by many who were older than him and who had been ascetics for longer than him. In Buddhism, one is an elder to the extent that one has mastered the qualities of faith, virtue, generosity and wisdom.

Regular meetings

Principle number nine: Just as Venerable Anuruddha and his friends met every five nights to speak about the Dhamma, lay-Buddhist communities should have regular assemblies based on the Dhamma. For example to hear Dhamma talks, to discuss the Dhamma or to resolve issues within the community based on the principles of the Dhamma.

Homeless wandering Sangha

86

Principle number ten: Just as the Buddha wandered about without considering himself a part of any particular community of monks and was thus able to advise and instruct them as an impartial observer, homeless wandering monks and nuns should never stay in any particular place for too long and wander from lay-community to lay-community as impartial outsiders with three functions: i) to teach the Dhamma; ii) to receive offerings; and iii) to act as an informal Buddhist judiciary, by giving opinions about how to resolve conflicts within lay-communities without enforcing their opinions, but simply leaving it to each community to act on their opinions in accordance with their own conscience and respect for the Dhamma.

Summary

So there are Ten principles to be drawn from the Sutta on the Imperfections, that is 1) don’t be afraid to leave mainstream society behind, 2) decentralise, 3) prioritise food security, 4) prioritise social harmony, 5) practice goodwill, 6) live in material simplicity, 7) expect deep cooperative community to be joyful and hard work, 8) respect the elders 9) hold regular meetings and 10) know that it is a duty of the homeless wandering Sangha to assist laypeople maintain peace in their communities.

Great disruption

My views on what needs to be done in this burning and bubbling world are very radical. Whether you agree will depend on how bad you think things will get. My view is that the complacent and luxurious lifestyles that Western countries have grown used to since the end of World War II will hit major disruptions within the next decade and the ensuing international chaos will be worn by at least one or two generations to come.

But the real problem is this. The danger that the true Dhamma will not survive such a storm, given that it’s already only hanging on by a bare thread, is too strong for a good monk to ignore. Once the true Dhamma is lost, then it may well be another billion lifetimes before we

87

get another shot at the door of the Deathless. And who knows what unwholesomeness we may indulge in during that time. Who knows what forms of rebirth we may take as a consequence. If that idea doesn’t frighten you, it should. It scares the willies out of me.

Archipelago of enlightened resilience

So to protect the true Dhamma, we are working towards creating a network of islands of enlightened local resilience in the form of a network of intentional Plain Buddhist Permaculture Villages in the Hunter Valley. We envisage that each village would be a home to around forty to sixty people of all ages, ideally from three or four multigenerational households, all living in accordance with Plain Buddhist principles, and working the land in accordance with Permaculture principles enhanced by Buddhist ethics and insights.

This is more than doable technically. Actually, from a technical perspective, we can green the deserts and transform the entire world into a network of more or less self-sufficient local economies that sustain and regenerate the land and all its creatures. The stonewall to progress is not technical deficiency, but good old human greed, hatred and delusion.

Sustainable and regenerative agriculture is very human-labour intensive, and unfortunately most modern people have developed allergies to doing hard yakka with their own two hands. Because of greed, hatred and delusion, given a choice between a better, but simpler and more manually intensive life and a deranged life filled with consumer entertainments and conveniences, the great masses can only be expected to take up the latter.

But, that’s ok. We can be content to leave the masses behind. Slowly but surely, this homeless Sangha is building up a solid congregation of faithful and wise Buddhists and Buddhist sympathisers to help do the work that needs to be done.

Tent Villages

88

As an intermediate step towards the establishment of permanent Plain Buddhist communities, we will be running fifteen day Plain Buddhist Tent Villages on organic farms around the Hunter Valley. We will be holding the first such Tent Village in July. These will be led and tutored by experienced homeless wandering Buddhist monks and nuns.

And then, in order to run Tent Villages on a regular basis, we will need more homeless and wandering Buddhist monks and nuns. In one month's time, another monk will join me, and perhaps in another four months time, there will be another two on top of that.

The Buddha went back

In closing, I want to share one aspect of the quarrel at Kosambi that is not related in the Sutta on the Imperfections. That is, eventually the Buddha returned to Kosambi and helped the monks resolve their dispute.

I consider myself a creative realist. That is, we neither have the power to defy the momentum of history completely, but nor are we abject slaves to fate. I think we’re in for quite a ride over the coming decades, but my faith is that if Buddhists and Buddhist sympathisers work together, the power of the Dhamma will see us through. We can’t halt the slide of the whole world, but we can create islands of enlightened local resilience. And, in time, many will come to those islands. My faith is that just as the Buddha returned to Kosambi after things had settled down a bit, after the turmoil of this era wanes, Plain Buddhist communities will become the seed for the next phase of humane and enlightened civilisation, and the Buddha Sasana will live to deliver a few more generations from Samsara yet.

The Dhamma is founded on the capacity of human beings and gods to set ideals, hold them in mind and achieve them with determined striving. Here is a vision of what community life can be like when the Dhamma is strong.

89

So please close your eyes and imagine: … a country region revitalised not by the force of the dollar but by communities of real human beings drinking deep from the wells of harmony in individuality, society, ecology and spirituality. Communities led and composed by people who have not forgotten that the real purpose of life is the development of long-term happiness and freedom from suffering for everyone.

The people here are driven, discipline and hardworking; courageous and respectful; compassionate and generous; frugal, virtuous and wise. Husbands and wives, children and parents and grandparents live together in harmony. The people look after the land and the land looks after the people.

Families, businesses and farms are strong. The children are safe and well educated. And there are plenty of peaceful, healthy and long-term jobs for everyone. We know our neighbours well, but we’re not drowning in gossip.

We have what we need and are content, reminding ourselves always that just enough is more than plenty. Thus, debt stress is a thing of the past. So too are depression, anxiety, ADD, chronic fatigue and a host of other modern diseases of civilisation. We no longer rely on pharmaceuticals and alcohol to get through the day.

We are a happy people, well versed and trained in the deep culture of plain living taught by the Buddha. Of course, not everything is perfect. But things are pretty darned good. And we do remember the days before the homeless Buddhist monks and nuns wandered into town, the dark days when the sky was dusty and our hearts were hungry, and we all agree that we shall never return to a life lived for the sake of the dollar and we shall ever live for the sake of cultivating happiness, peace and freedom for all living beings.

That is my Dhamma offering to you this evening. Let us sit together for a few moments to contemplate what has been said. May all beings here both seen and unseen

90

celebrate the goodness and merits of this Dhamma talk, and may it lead to the long term happiness and welfare of all living beings. Sadhu. Sadhu. Sadhu.

91

Plain Buddhist Manifesto (VI):

Education

Welcome

Spiritual friends, fellows and companions. Lend me your ears once more.

Welcome to talk number six out of a series of eight entitled “A Plain Buddhist Manifesto”.

To recap: Talk number one was an overview. Therein, we set out the overall context. That is, a world where orthodox Buddhism has lost its way, and where global civilisation is in terminal decline. And we proposed Plain Buddhism as a powerful response to both of these problems.

We set out the difference between Plain Buddhism and orthodox Buddhism. Plain Buddhism starts with the Pali Suttas. We bring to the Suttas a plain, common sense and direct approach to interpretation. And then we emphasize five thematic undercurrents to the Suttas that make their teachings particularly well-suited to dealing with the problems of the modern age: that is 1) concreteness and reviewability, 2) integrity and consistency, 3) renunciation and contentment, 4) deep cooperative community, and 5) belief in kamma and rebirth.

Plain Buddhism becomes a Plain Buddhist Manifesto when we describe what happens when we apply the principles of Plain Buddhism to transforming the foundations of civilisation: that is, food and clothing, shelter and medicine, family, community, education and homeless wandering Buddhist monks and nuns.

In talk number two we spoke about a Plain Buddhist approach to food and clothing. We said that the Buddha taught that food is not for taste but for nutrition. The four principles of plain food are: 1) eat food with plain flavours in plain eating environments with plain eating habits, 2) eat food that is fresh, local and organic, 3)

92

be as vegetarian as possible given health constraints and 4) abstain from alcohol and intoxicants.

We said that the Buddha taught that clothing is to be worn for protection from the elements and as a social grace, not for vanity. The four principles of plain clothing are: 1) develop and wear your own life uniform, 2) wear clothing that is high quality, long-lasting, dignified and ideally second hand to avoid getting involved with fashion, 3) take advantage of the opportunities to share the Dhamma created by your plain clothing, and 4) move towards a life uniform composed of all white clothing.

In talk number three we spoke about a Plain Buddhist approach to shelter and medicine. We said that the Buddha taught that shelter is for protection from the elements and seclusion, not for the sake of financial investment. The four principles of plain shelter are 1) live in multigenerational households, 2) live in a small homes, 3) build using recycled and natural materials and 4) live in intentional communities.

We also said that the Buddha taught that medicine is for the mitigation of the pain of illness for the maximization of good health, not for the sake of mere short term relief. The four principles of plain medicine are 1) use less pain-killers, 2) use more herbal medicines, 3) stop looking for medical cures to old age and death and 4) don’t make profits out of medicine.

In talk number four we spoke about a Plain Buddhist approach to family. We said that the Buddha taught that peaceful and harmonious family life is won through the maintenance of reciprocal responsibilities between family members. We focused on the most important set of responsibilities, that is those existing between parents and children.

Children have five responsibilities to their parents: 1) to support them, 2) to do their societal duties, 3) to maintain the family traditions, 4) to make themselves

93

worthy of their inheritance, and 5) to make offerings to departed parents.

Parents have five responsibilities to their children: 1) to restrain them from the bad, 2) to encourage them in the good, 3) to train them in a craft, 4) to bind them to suitable partners, and 5) to pass on their inheritance at the right time.

In talk number five we spoke about a Plain Buddhist approach to community. We said that Plain Buddhist communities are islands of enlightened local resilience where people live together in material simplicity and deep cooperation based upon the teachings in the Pali Suttas, and we pointed out ten principles drawn from the Sutta on the Imperfections for the establishment and maintenance of Plain Buddhist communities: 1) do not fear leaving the mainstream, 2) decentralise, 3) prioritise food security, 4) prioritise social harmony, 5) practice goodwill and love for each other, 6) live in material simplicity, 7) expect community life to be hard but joyous work, 8) respect the true elders, 9) meet regularly based on the Dhamma, and 10) know that homeless wandering monks and nuns have a duty to help lay people maintain harmony within their communities.

Introduction

Tonight we will discuss education from a Plain Buddhist perspective. Plain Buddhist education is for the sake of teaching the skills necessary for living meaningful and happy lives that lead to the attainment of Nibbana. Plain Buddhist education is a multifaceted, all emcompassing and integrated process aimed at the cultivation of wisdom, known as panna, which I define as well-rounded and deep intelligence that leads to Nibbana.

Plain Buddhist education works on three levels at once. On the first level, monks and nuns receive teachings from the Pali Suttas and from fully enlightened monks and nuns. On the second level, lay people receive teachings from monks and nuns. And on the third level, children

94

receive teachings from parents and lay-teachers with the support of monks and nuns.

Level One

In the first and highest level of Plain Buddhist education, monks and nuns consider themselves to be students of the Pali Suttas and of other monks and nuns who are fully enlightened. But we won’t say anything more about that tonight as we will speak about that in next week’s talk.

Level Two

In the second level of Plain Buddhist education, laymen and laywomen learn from monks and nuns about how to live meaningful and happy lives through the cultivation of saddha, sila, caga and panna, that is, faith, virtue, generosity and wisdom.

Teaching Faith

All true education starts with saddha, faith, that is the ability to trust that someone else understands things better than we do. Thus, in order to effectively take on the role of educator, monks and nuns should first inspire laypeople with faith that we actually do understand the way to live meaningful and happy lives better than lay people do. We should do this by 1) the concreteness and reviewability of our teachings, 2) the consistency and integrity of our behaviour, 3) our commitment to renunciation and contentment, 4) our ability to live happily in deeply cooperative community with each other, and 5) our unflagging advocacy of the Buddha’s teaching on kamma and rebirth.

Teaching Wisdom

Faith must always come together with panna, wisdom. If it does not, then faith robs people of the ability to live happy and meaningful lives by depriving them of the ability to think for themselves. So monks and nuns should promote wisdom by teaching lay people the good life in a rational and reviewable manner.

95

Mainstream society is completely irrational and perverse in its understanding of the good life. The mainstream understanding of good and bad has degenerated into this: more money is good and less money is bad.

Every mainstream element of our society has fallen under the sway of this childish thinking, including mainstream education. In fact, mainstream education is at the forefront of this fall: it is used as a propaganda machine to indoctrinate people into the Gospel of the Dollar.

This is achieved by systematically cutting people off from real life, by cloistering them inside classrooms, by drumming them with useless academic learning, by compartmentalising them through overspecialisation, and by sanctioning them for thinking or acting outside the square, all the while, brazenly proclaiming that the system is supportive of critical independent thinking.

This turns human beings into unintelligent and pliant sheep, albeit sheep with phDs and impressive salaries, unable to think for themselves and bound by a superstitious faith in materialism and the pursuit of money as the solution to all ills.

But from time to time, common sense is awakened, and we ask ourselves with wisdom, “What’s the point of making money when the cost is individual, social, ecological and spiritual breakdown and misery?” In other words, we ask that thundering and wise question, “What is the point of life when it only leads to more suffering?”

And when people start waking up in this way, it is the job of monks and nuns to encourage further growth in that wisdom by pointing out that, actually, because all beings wish to be happy and free from suffering, rationally speaking, the good life must consist of creating long-term happiness and freedom from suffering for all living beings, whether or not it makes money.

Monks and nuns can speak with authority on this matter because of the way we live. Because of our homeless and

96

ascetic lifestyle, we know without a shadow of a doubt that after a surprisingly low threshold, money and material things don’t bring happiness, and furthermore surprisingly soon after that threshold is crossed, money and material things are poisonous to true happiness. Actually, we need very little in terms of food, clothing, shelter and medicine and should spend the bulk of our time and energy on the cultivation of family, community and education.

So when we think about the good life rationally, wisdom restrains us from making choices on the basis of the dollar, and frees us to act in accordance with moral conscience. Morality cannot be separated from education and wisdom. A key to education which is not appreciated at all by the mainstream is that wisdom cannot flourish unless supported by clear moral conscience.

So wisdom grows best by way of Plain Buddhist education. This is because homeless and wandering monks and nuns live with sufficient freedom from money and material things to authoritatively teach the beneficial effects of renunciation and moral conscience. When there are no monks and nuns devoted to living without money and home, then the mainstream education system can be expected to fall into darkness, and it has.

Thus, the mainstream fears those who think and teach in terms of conscientious spirituality because the resulting wisdom is revolutionary and empowering.

But, before we get too excited about this revolutionary approach to education, we should note that we need have more than just abstract faith and wisdom to create lasting transformation both individually and collectively. To create lasting transformation, we must act on and manifest our wisdom and faith in our everyday life.

Generosity

Thus, monks and nuns should also teach laypeople to practice caga, generosity. We monks and nuns should

97

instruct laypeople to lives of giving, sharing, service and sacrifice, discipline and creativity, taking only what you need to maintain yourselves, your dependents and to carry out your proper societal duties.

Furthermore you should ensure that whatever income you do generate is generated in the right way, through the sweat of your own brows and strength of your own arms, not by way of passive income skimmed off the hard work of others.

And then, you should give the rest away to those who are in need. And you should do so fearlessly, because kamma and rebirth are real, and thus please have confidence that wise generosity is the best way to create long term security in this life and the next.

Virtue

And then, monks and nuns should also teach laypeople to practice sila, virtue. In the main, this means keeping the ten principals of the good life:

1) To abandon the killing of living beings, and to live compassionate for all living beings instead;

2) To abandon taking what is not given, and to be content and generous instead;

3) To not commit sexual misconduct, but to be faithful, chaste and even celibate instead;

4) To not speak falsehood, but to be reliable and trustworthy instead;

5) To not speak divisively, but to speak words that promote friendship and forgiveness instead;

6) To not speak harshly, but to speak words that are gentle, pleasing to the ear and go to the heart instead;

7) To not speak idle chatter, but to speak words that are timely, meaningful and beneficial instead;

98

8) To not have a materialistic and covetous mind, but to cultivate a mind of renunciation, generosity and contentment instead;

9) To not have a nasty mind, but to cultivate a mind of goodwill and compassion instead; and

10) To not deny the teaching of kamma and rebirth, but to investigate it and affirm it through investigation instead.

Then monks and nuns should also teach laypeople to be virtuous by abandoning the six ways of ruining wealth: that is by not

1) Taking alcohol and intoxicants2) Haunting the streets at night3) Frequenting parties and festivals4) Engaging in gambling and intoxication5) Associating with bad friends and6) Being lazy.

And then monks and nuns should also teach laypeople to not engage in the five kinds of wrong livelihood:

1) Trading in living beings2) Trading in weapons3) Trading in meat4) Trading in intoxicants and5) Trading in poisons

And, of course, there is much much more that was taught by the Buddha in relation to virtue. But that will do for now.

So, by practising virtue and generosity in everyday life, a person becomes sensitised to the fact that, long-term outcomes of actions that are virtuous and generous are qualitatively superior to the long-term outcomes of actions that are unvirtuous and stingy. Furthermore, we also become sensitised to the fact that the quality of the happiness that comes from practising the Dhamma is more subtle, pure, beautiful and stable than the happiness of sensuality and material things. This is like

99

the difference between the pleasure of drinking water from a pure mountain spring and the pleasure of skulling a can of Coca Cola.

Over time, a person sees and understands for herself that, in line with the Buddha’s teaching, there are timeless and universal principles of behaviour that can define in rational and concrete terms what leads to long-term happiness and what leads to long-term suffering. To understand the good life in this way is to grow in both wisdom and faith simultaneously. Thus wisdom and faith lead to virtue and generosity and virtue and generosity lead to wisdom and faith. These factors blend into each other to create a stable and self-amplifying learning cycle.

The five hindrances

To further empower laypeople to live meaningful and happy lives, monks and nuns should also teach lay people that wisdom and memory are not predetermined and set by genetics, brain chemicals and age but can be improved upon by all people no matter how young or old, talented or untalented, by abandoning the five hindrances.

This is from the Sangarava Sutta:

Thus have I heard. On one occasion the Blessed One was living in Savatthi in Anathapindika’s Park in Jeta’s Grove. Then the brahmin Saṅgarava approached the Blessed One and exchanged greetings with him. When they had concluded their greetings and cordial talk, he sat down to one side and said to the Blessed One:

“Master Gotama, ... What is the cause and reason why sometimes those hymns that have not been recited over a long period recur to the mind, let alone those that have been recited?”

“Brahmin, when one dwells with a mind that is not obsessed by sensual desire, not overwhelmed by sensual desire, and one understands in real life the escape from

100

arisen sensual desire, on that occasion one knows and sees in real life one’s own good, and the good of others, and the good of both. On that occasion even those hymns that have not been recited over a long period recur to the mind, let alone those that have been recited.

“Suppose, brahmin, there is a bowl of water not mixed with lac, turmeric, blue dye, or crimson dye. If a man with good sight were to examine his own facial reflection in it, he would know and see it in real life. So too, brahmin, when one dwells with a mind that is not obsessed by sensual desire not overwhelmed by sensual desire, and one understands in real life the escape from arisen sensual desire, on that occasion one knows and sees in real life one’s own good, and the good of others, and the good of both. On that occasion even those hymns that have not been recited over a long period recur to the mind, let alone those that have been recited.

“Again, brahmin, when one dwells with a mind that is not obsessed by ill will, not overwhelmed by ill will, and one understands in real life the escape from arisen ill will, on that occasion one knows and sees in real life one’s own good, and the good of others, and the good of both. On that occasion even those hymns that have not been recited over a long period recur to the mind, let alone those that have been recited.

“Suppose, brahmin, there is a bowl of water not heated over a fire, not bubbling, not boiling. If a man with good sight were to examine his own facial reflection in it, he would know and see it in real life. So too, brahmin, when one dwells with a mind that is not obsessed by ill will , not overwhelmed by ill will, and one understands in real life the escape from arisen ill will, on that occasion one knows and sees in real life one’s own good, and the good of others, and the good of both. On that occasion even those hymns that have not been

101

recited over a long period recur to the mind, let alone those that have been recited.

“Again, brahmin, when one dwells with a mind that is not obsessed by laziness and sleepiness, not overwhelmed by laziness and sleepiness, and one understands in real life the escape from arisen laziness and sleepiness, on that occasion one knows and sees in real life one’s own good, and the good of others, and the good of both. On that occasion even those hymns that have not been recited over a long period recur to the mind, let alone those that have been recited.

“Suppose, brahmin, there is a bowl of water not covered over with water plants and algae. If a man with good sight were to examine his own facial reflection in it, he would know and see it in real life. So too, brahmin, when one dwells with a mind that is not obsessed by laziness and sleepiness, not overwhelmed by laziness and sleepiness, and one understands in real life the escape from arisen laziness and sleepiness, on that occasion one knows and sees in real life one’s own good, and the good of others, and the good of both. On that occasion even those hymns that have not been recited over a long period recur to the mind, let alone those that have been recited.

“Again, brahmin, when one dwells with a mind that is not obsessed by over-stimulation and anxiety, not overwhelmed by over-stimulation and anxiety, and one understands in real life the escape from arisen over-stimulation and anxiety, on that occasion one knows and sees in real life one’s own good, and the good of others, and the good of both. On that occasion even those hymns that have not been recited over a long period recur to the mind, let alone those that have been recited.

102

“Suppose, brahmin, there is a bowl of water not stirred by the wind, without ripples, without swirls, not churned into wavelets. If a man with good sight were to examine his own facial reflection in it, he would know and see it in real life. So too, brahmin, when one dwells with a mind that is not obsessed by over-stimulation and anxiety, not overwhelmed by over-stimulation and anxiety, and one understands in real life the escape from arisen over-stimulation and anxiety, on that occasion one knows and sees in real life one’s own good, and the good of others, and the good of both. On that occasion even those hymns that have not been recited over a long period recur to the mind, let alone those that have been recited.

“Again, brahmin, when one dwells with a mind that is not obsessed by moral confusion, not overwhelmed by moral confusion, and one understands in real life the escape from arisen moral confusion, on that occasion one knows and sees in real life one’s own good, and the good of others, and the good of both. On that occasion even those hymns that have not been recited over a long period recur to the mind, let alone those that have been recited.

“Suppose, brahmin, there is a bowl of water that is clear, serene, limpid, set out in the light. If a man with good sight were to examine his own facial reflection in it, he would know and see it in real life. So too, brahmin, when one dwells with a mind that is not obsessed by moral confusion, not overwhelmed by moral confusion, and one understands in real life the escape from arisen moral confusion, on that occasion one knows and sees in real life one’s own good, and the good of others, and the good of both. On that occasion even those hymns that have not been recited over a long period recur to the mind, let alone those that have been recited.

103

“This, brahmin, is the cause and reason why even those hymns that have not been recited over a long period recur to the mind, let alone those that have been recited.

So here abandoning the five hindrances is described as the key to developing an outstanding memory and the wisdom to understand what is truly constitutes the good life. So if we want to systematically and deliberately develop a mind that is truly outstanding, beyond the ken of ordinary people, the mind of a polymath, a mind that is deeply retentive, balanced and intelligent, then the key is to abandon the five hindrances on deeper and deeper levels.

Now here is how to abandon the five hindrances. The escape from sensual desire is contemplation of the unattractive side of sensuality. The escape from ill will is contemplation of goodwill, compassion, appreciation and patient understanding. The escape from laziness and sleepiness is contemplation of one’s life mission and the brevity of human life. The escape from overstimulation and anxiety is contemplation of the peaceful and serene side of things. The escape from moral confusion is careful investigation of the difference between right and wrong, that is the difference between what leads to long-term happiness and what leads to long-term suffering.

When I say “contemplation”, I simply mean the cultivation of peaceful, calm and deliberate thinking. This can and should be done in everyday life as well as on the meditation cushion. For example, we should contemplate how all drivers suffer while stuck in peak hour traffic instead of brooding on ill will. We should contemplate the way animals live and die in factory farms while eating meat instead of delighting in the sensual pleasures of the meat. We should contemplate how much we want to achieve in this precious and short human life when waking up in the morning instead of giving in to laziness and sleepiness. We should contemplate how peaceful the earth looks when seen from the moon, when reading the politics section of the newspaper instead of

104

becoming shaken by over-stimulation and anxiety. And we should contemplate and investigate the probable long-term results of this or that action when making difficult decisions instead of being paralysed with moral confusion.

Many of you have been taught that meditation is to stop thinking. You have been taught incorrectly. That’s something that can only be done safely by well-practising monks and nuns. It is not necessary at the level of ordinary lay-practitioners and not feasible. What lay practitioners should do is stop thinking in unwholesome ways that inflame the hindrances and take up thinking in wholesome ways that abandon the hindrances. In other words, keep thinking, but in the right way and not in the wrong way.

Also, please always remember that these contemplations can only be undertaken deeply by a person who has dedicated their whole life to the cultivation of faith, virtue, generosity and wisdom in accordance with the Buddha’s teaching.

So that’s enough in relation to the second level of Plain Buddhist education. Let’s move onto level three.

Level Three

In the third level of Plain Buddhist education children learn from parents and teachers with the assistance of monks and nuns. Monks and nuns should never be the primary carers of children. This is for the sake of both children and monks and nuns. Children should be brought up in families, not institutions. And monks and nuns should be homeless wanderers devoted to attaining Nibbana, not administrators of institutions.

Lead by example

First, we all should lead by example. Just as monks and nuns need to conduct themselves in inspiring ways in to earn the faith of lay people, so too parents and teachers should conduct themselves in line with the Buddha’s teaching to earn the respect of their children.

105

To be a lay follower of the Buddha is no ordinary thing. Laywomen and laymen comprise two parts of the fourfold community of the Buddha, the rightly and fully-awakened one, the greatest and wisest being there ever was and ever shall be. Lay Buddhists should consider themselves, alongside monks and nuns, the upholders of all that is good and worth treasuring inside of human civilisation. I invite you to strive to not just be good people, but the very best people that society has to offer.

Parents and teachers who proudly identify with being Buddhists in this way, and who act virtuously by practising the ten principles of the good life, abandoning the six ways of ruining wealth, abandoning the five forms of wrong livelihood and abandoning the five hindrances, cultivating faith, virtue, generosity and wisdom, will have no trouble garnering the respect of children. Once you have their respect, they will learn many wholesome habits by exposure and imitation alone.

Direct instruction from parents

However, parents should not only lead by example, they should give direct and unambiguous instructions to children about the basics of faith, virtue, generosity and wisdom in line with what you have understood for yourselves from Dhamma talks by monks and nuns and from personal practice and study.

If your children are still infants, you should get them used to being taught the Dhamma by you. Do this by regularly giving tasks of real relevance to family life. Patiently give them direct instructions about how to perform the tasks in line with the Dhamma, supervise, give feedback and answer questions. For example, three year olds can be taught to sweep leaves in the garden without hurting the ants.

The trick to parenting and teaching is the art of gentle and patient speech. Most parents do not realise that they speak with frustration and impatience when they give instructions to their children, and thus over time, their children build up aversion to being instructed. But if

106

instructions are always given patiently and gently, children take great joy in being instructed.

Another trick for parents is do not ask children to carry out tasks. Instruct them to carry out tasks. That is, don’t say, “Jonny, can you please do the dishes for me?” Say instead, “Jonny, I want you to do the dishes, please.” Never start your sentence with the word “Can ...”. It’s disempowering. When work needs to be done, don’t give children a choice. Trust me, your children will be happier when they just know what you expect from them. Also, they will feel safer knowing that you feel comfortable wielding authority over them.

Teenagers

Now what should you do if your children are already teenagers or even older than that? Exactly the same thing, except you should expect much more resistance and must make an even stronger resolution to never break into anger or harsh speech. Also, it is important to ensure that the tasks you create are truly relevant to the life of the family and constantly communicate to them that the family is a team and that the whole family needs everyone to play their part.

From time to time, you will need to demonstrate to recalcitrant teenagers that their part is actually essential by deliberately allowing things to become dysfunctional when they don’t pull their weight. For example, if you make paying the gas bill a task for your daughter, and she fails to do it. Then let the gas get cut-off.

The most important thing here is that the parents as the adult leaders of the family stay calm and peaceful as it happens. If there is more than one child, then the other children must be instructed to not get angry as well. They will, of course they will. They are children. The point is this: Don’t you, the parents, act like children too. The job of adults is to restrain themselves and to teach children to restrain themselves.

107

This is the best way to teach children personal responsibility. That is, punish children by allowing the consequences of their own actions to fall on their own heads, and on the heads of those they love – but, of course, without anger or resentment. Everyone in the family should think of it as noble growing pains that the family must go through together in order to help the recalcitrant child and to grow stronger as a family.

Schooling

Now, in relation to schooling of children, Plain Buddhist schooling is best done outside the mainstream state or private school systems. Both of these systems prioritise money over humanity and are just going to teach your children unwholesome behaviours and confused ideas about what really matters in life. Thus, at least for now, Plain Buddhist schooling means homeschooling.

Here, in brief, are five essential principles of Plain Buddhist Schooling.

1) Small classes are beautiful. Education is about cultivating wisdom, all- round and deep intelligence. This is a necessarily organic process. It simply cannot happen properly inside large institutions. It can only happen through vibrant master-apprentice relationships. There has to be lots of face-to-face interactions between master and apprentice and that means small classes of no more than fifteen students per teacher.

2) We need to teach what’s actually relevant. We need to understand the future that our children will be living in and give them the skills they need to survive and thrive. Their future will be one of great economic contraction and political instability where food security will be issue number one.

So we must teach them how to grow food using sustainable and regenerative agricultural methods like Permaculture. And we must teach them how to use their own two hands to do it, because we are entering into an era of drastic energy descent. There is nothing to be gained by learning

108

how to solve complex differential equations to get university places that probably won’t exist in another ten years time.

And even if we were not living in such dire times, schooling should always be limited to teaching students the general skills that will enable them to teach themselves whatever they need to know, in all the different stages of life, as they go. That way we avoid the massive levels of redundancy in the current schooling system. Actually, a person only needs to master six general skills in order to learn everything else: 1) respect and humility, 2) self-discipline, 3) functional literacy, 4) functional numeracy, 5) good memory and 6) being well-spoken.

3) We need teachers who are willing to teach on very low wages. Education is only effective when it is conducted by teachers that teach as a labour of love. There is no better way to drive up the numbers of mere pretenders looking for a livelihood and drive out the teachers who actually care about the welfare of future generations than paying teachers too much money. Indeed, in my opinion, anything above the taxable threshold is too much.

Teachers, like monks and nuns, are the proper leaders of society. Thus they must be the very best society has to offer, and they must honour their position by living lives of purity. They need to live in deep material simplicity to do this. Of course, not as simple as homeless wandering monks and nuns, but the simplicity of Gandhi is highly recommended. In recompense, they should be afforded the highest respect and offerings of in-kind material support so that they need never worry about their own material needs or those of their dependants.

4) We need to invest in building up the children, not the equipment and infrastructure around the children. Today, we are just filling up classrooms with expensive toys and spoiling the children. All of these so-called “educational” toys simply inflame the five hindrances.

109

Teaching at schools has degenerated into “edutaining” and “baby-sitting” because the five hindrances prevent students from learning and the teachers from teaching. Thus we have a mad situation in education where parents are paying through the nose to give their children access to fluoro-coloured plastic junk and electronic screens that dumb them down.

Plain Buddhist schooling, in contrast, requires very little equipment and infrastructure at all, because it is based on the understanding that once trained in how to abandon the hindrances, almost all the equipment that a student needs to flourish is to be found inside her own body, voice and mind.

And the fifth principle is that teachers must reclaim moral authority over their students by being shining examples of rectitude, patience, compassion and wisdom. True learning can only happen in environments based on respect. Thus, moral authority must precede technical competency as the basis for teacher-student relations.

Summary

In summary, there are three levels of Plain Buddhist education: 1) monastic to monastic, 2) monastic to layperson and 3) layperson to layperson.

What happens in the first level will be elaborated upon next week. In the second level, monks and nuns teach laypeople about faith, virtue, generosity and wisdom. In the third level parents and teachers teach children and students about faith, virtue, generosity and wisdom and give them formal schooling based on five principles: 1) small classes are beautiful, 2) teach what is relevant, 3) teachers should be on low wages, 4) invest in students not in equipment, and 5) reclaim moral authority.

So that is education from a Plain Buddhist perspective, education that teaches how to live meaningful and happy lives through the cultivation of wisdom, all-round and deep intelligence that leads to Nibbana.

110

And that is my Dhamma offering to you this evening. Let us sit together in silence for a few moments to contemplate what has been said. May all beings here both seen and unseen celebrate the goodness and merits of this Dhamma talk, and may it lead to the long term happiness and welfare of all living beings.

Sadhu. Sadhu. Sadhu.

111

Plain Buddhist Manifesto (VII):

Monks and Nuns

Welcome

Spiritual friends, fellows and companions. Lend me your ears once more.

Welcome to talk number seven in this series of eight entitled “A Plain Buddhist Manifesto”.

Review

To recap: Talk number one was an overview. Therein, we set out the overall context. That is, a world where orthodox Buddhism has lost its way, and where global civilisation is in terminal decline. And we proposed Plain Buddhism as a powerful response to both of these problems.

We set out the difference between Plain Buddhism and orthodox Buddhism. Plain Buddhism starts with the Pali Suttas. We bring to the Suttas a plain, common sense and direct approach to interpretation. And then we emphasize five thematic undercurrents to the Suttas that make their teachings particularly well-suited to dealing with the problems of the modern age: that is 1) concreteness and reviewability, 2) integrity and consistency, 3) renunciation and contentment, 4) deep cooperative community, and 5) belief in kamma and rebirth.

Plain Buddhism becomes a Plain Buddhist Manifesto when we describe what happens when we apply the principles of Plain Buddhism to transforming the foundations of civilisation: that is, food and clothing, shelter and medicine, family, community, education and homeless wandering Buddhist monks and nuns.

In talk number two we spoke about a Plain Buddhist approach to food and clothing. We said that the Buddha taught that food is not for taste but for nutrition. The four principles of plain food are: 1) eat food with plain flavours in plain eating environments with plain eating

112

habits, 2) eat food that is fresh, local and organic, 3) be as vegetarian as possible given health constraints and 4) abstain from alcohol and intoxicants.

We said that the Buddha taught that clothing is to be worn for protection from the elements and as a social grace, not for vanity. The four principles of plain clothing are: 1) develop and wear your own life uniform, 2) wear clothing that is high quality, long-lasting, dignified and ideally second hand to avoid getting involved with fashion, 3) take advantage of the opportunities to share the Dhamma created by your plain clothing, and 4) move towards a life uniform composed of all white clothing.

In talk number three we spoke about a Plain Buddhist approach to shelter and medicine. We said that the Buddha taught that shelter is for protection from the elements and seclusion, not for the sake of financial investment. The four principles of plain shelter are 1) create multigenerational households, 2) live in a tiny home, 3) build using recycled and natural materials and 4) move to an intentional community.

We also said that the Buddha taught that medicine is for the mitigation of the pain of illness for the maximization of good health, not for the sake of mere short term relief. The four principles of plain medicine are 1) use less pain-killers, 2) use more herbal medicines, 3) stop looking for medical cures to old age and death and 4) don’t make profits out of medicine.

In talk number four we spoke about a Plain Buddhist approach to family. We said that the Buddha taught that peaceful and harmonious family life is won through the maintenance of reciprocal responsibilities between family members. We focused on the most important set of responsibilities, that is those existing between parents and children.

Children have five responsibilities to their parents: 1) to support them, 2) to do their societal duties, 3) to maintain the family traditions, 4) to make themselves

113

worthy of their inheritance, and 5) to make offerings to departed parents.

Parents have five responsibilities to their children: 1) to restrain them from the bad, 2) to encourage them in the good, 3) to train them in a craft, 4) to bind them to suitable partners, and 5) to pass on their inheritance at the right time.

In talk number five we spoke about a Plain Buddhist approach to community. We said that Plain Buddhist communities are islands of enlightened local resilience where people live together in material simplicity and deep cooperative community based upon the teachings in the Pali Suttas, and we pointed out ten principles drawn from the Sutta on the Imperfections for the establishment and maintenance of Plain Buddhist communities: 1) do not fear leaving the mainstream, 2) decentralise, 3) prioritise food security, 4) prioritise social harmony, 5) practice goodwill and love for each other, 6) live in material simplicity, 7) expect community life to be hard but joyous work, 8) respect the true elders, 9) meet regularly based on the Dhamma, and 10) know that homeless wandering monks and nuns have a duty to help lay people maintain harmony within their communities.

In talk number six we spoke about a Plain Buddhist approach to education. We said that Plain Buddhist education is for the sake of learning the skills necessary to living happy and meaningful lives through the cultivation of panna, well-rounded and deep intelligence that leads to Nibbana. It operates on three levels at once 1) monastic to monastic, 2) monastic to laity and 3) laity to laity. In level one, monks and nuns receive teachings from the Pali Suttas and other monks and nuns who are fully-enlightened. In level two, the laity receives teachings from monks and nuns about faith, virtue, generosity and wisdom. And in level three, children receive teachings from parents and teachers with the assistance of monks and nuns in the background about faith, virtue, generosity and wisdom. Children also receive formal schooling based on five principles: 1)

114

small classes are beautiful, 2) teach what is relevant, 3) teach on low wages, 4) invest in the children not in the equipment, 5) reclaim moral authority in the classrooms.

Tonight we shall speak about a Plain Buddhist approach to the monastic life.

Introduction

Buddhism has changed significantly over the past two thousand five hundred years. In this talk we will give a no-holds-barred, plain-talking, call-a-spade-a-spade account of how Buddhist monks and nuns should behave. In this talk I will mostly chant passages of essential importance from the Pali Suttas. These are passages that straight-forwardly and unambiguously describe what lay people ought to expect from their monks and nuns and, of course, what monks and nuns should expect from themselves.

Those of you who know the Suttas will recognise many of these passages. Most of you here will be hearing these passages for the first time. So, I want everyone to sit up straight, and listened well, and hear with fresh ears.

I invite everyone to assume that the Buddha was not a fool with words. I ask you to assume that he was not a liar or deluded when he said that he taught Dhamma with “the right meaning and phrasing”. Let us not assume that the Buddha would use the word “dog” to describe a cat or the word “black” to describe white or “homeless life” to describe life in a home or “austerity” to describe luxury.

And as you hear these passages, I also invite you to be inspired by this possibility: “What if these words recorded in the Suttas are true in a concrete and reviewable way that is 100% possible to enact in the twenty-first century?”

We start with a conversation between the Venerable Ananda and a layman recorded in the Sutta on Moggallana the Guardsman, the Gopaka Moggallana Sutta.

115

“Is there, Master Ānanda, any single monk who was appointed by Master Gotama thus: ‘He will be your refuge when I am gone,’ and whom you now have recourse to?”

“There is no single monk, brahmin, who was appointed by the Blessed One who knows and sees, accomplished and rightly and fully awakened, thus: ‘He will be your refuge when I am gone,’ and whom we now have recourse to.”

“But is there, Master Ānanda, any single monk who has been chosen by the Sangha and appointed by a number of elder monks thus: ‘He will be our refuge after the Blessed One has gone,’ and whom you now have recourse to?”

“There is no single monk, brahmin, who has been chosen by the Sangha and appointed by a number of elder monks thus: ‘He will be our refuge after the Blessed One has gone,’ and whom we now have recourse to.”

“But if you have no refuge, Master Ānanda, what is the cause for your concord?”

“We are not without a refuge, brahmin. We have a refuge; we have the Dhamma as our refuge.” ...

“Brahmin, the Blessed One who knows and sees, accomplished and rightly and fully awakened, has prescribed the course of training for monks and he has laid down the Pātimokkha. On the Uposatha day as many of us as live in dependence upon a single village district meet together in unison, and when we meet we ask one who knows the Pātimokkha to recite it. If a monk remembers an offence or a transgression while the Pātimokkha is being recited, we make him act in accordance with the Dhamma, in accordance with the instructions. It is not the worthy ones that make us act; it is the Dhamma that makes us act.”

So, Buddhism is not a guru teaching. When people ask me who my teacher is, I don’t say my teacher is the Dalai Lama, because that would make me a Dalai Lammist. I don’t say that my teacher is Ajahn Brahmavamso, for that would

116

make me a Brahmavamsist. I say that my teacher is the Buddha. And because the Buddha is my teacher, that makes me a Buddhist.

Nonetheless, many say, the Buddha has passed away, and therefore someone alive today needs to stand in his shoes. So to make things perfectly clear, we should recall these words of the Buddha uttered by him just before he died, words recorded in the Great Sutta on the Final Release, the Mahaparinibbana Sutta.

Then the Blessed One said to Venerable Ananda, "Now, if it occurs to any of you — 'The teaching has lost its authority; we are without a Teacher' — do not view it in that way. Ananda, whatever Dhamma and Discipline I have taught and formulated for you, that will be your Teacher when I am gone.

The question then, is where can we find accurate recordings of the Dhamma and Discipline that the Buddha taught and formulated for us? The answer is simple. The record that is backed by the most historical evidence, which is most complete, is the Pali Suttas. The Pali Suttas are not perfect, but clearly, they’re the best we’ve got. And furthermore the experience of at least this monk is that the instructions in the Pali Suttas really work.

So for a Plain Buddhist monk or nun, the teacher is the Pali Suttas.

Then, we may ask, do the Suttas leave any room for following living masters? As to that we return to the Venerable Ananda’s replies as recorded in the Sutta on Moggallana the Guardsman, the Gopakamoggallana Sutta.

“There are, brahmin, ten qualities inspiring confidence that have been declared by the Blessed One who knows and sees, accomplished and rightly and fully awakened. When these qualities are found in anyone among us, we honour, respect, revere, and venerate him, and live in dependence on him honouring and respecting him. What are the ten?

117

(1) “Here, brahmin, a monk is virtuous, he dwells restrained with the restraint of the Pātimokkha, he is perfect in conduct and resort, and seeing danger in the slightest faults, he trains himself by undertaking the training precepts.

(2) “He has learned much, remembers what he has learned, and consolidates what he has learned. Such teachings as are good in the beginning, good in the middle, and good in the end, with the right meaning and phrasing, and which affirm a holy life that is utterly perfect and pure—such teachings as these he has learned much of, remembered, mastered verbally, investigated with the mind, and understood deeply from an all-round perspective.

(3) “He is content with his robes, almsfood, resting place, and medicinal requisites.

(4) “He obtains at will, without trouble or difficulty, the four jhānas that constitute the higher mind and provide a pleasant abiding here and now.

(5) “He wields the various kinds of supernormal power: having been one, he becomes many; having been many, he becomes one; he appears and vanishes; he goes unhindered through a wall, through an enclosure, through a mountain as though through space; he dives in and out of the earth as though it were water; he walks on water without sinking as though it were earth; seated cross-legged, he travels in space like a bird; with his hand he touches and strokes the moon and sun so powerful and mighty; he wields bodily mastery even as far as the Brahma-world.

(6) “With the divine ear element, which is purified and surpasses the human, he hears both kinds of sounds, the divine and the human, those that are far as well as near.

(7) “He understands the minds of other beings, of other persons, having encompassed them with his own mind. He understands a mind affected by lust as affected by lust and a mind unaffected by lust as unaffected by lust; he

118

understands a mind affected by hate as affected by hate and a mind unaffected by hate as unaffected by hate; he understands a mind affected by delusion as affected by delusion and a mind unaffected by delusion as unaffected by delusion; he understands a contracted mind as contracted and a distracted mind as distracted; he understands an expanded mind as expanded and an unexpanded mind as unexpanded; he understands a surpassed mind as surpassed and an unsurpassed mind as unsurpassed; he understands an integrated mind as integrated and an unintegrated mind as unintegrated; he understands a liberated mind as liberated and an unliberated mind as unliberated.

(8) “He recollects his manifold past lives, that is, one birth, two births, three births, four births, five births, ten births, twenty births, thirty births, forty births, fifty births, a hundred births, a thousand births, a hundred thousand births, many aeons of world-contraction, many aeons of world expansion, many aeons of world-contraction and expansion:

'There I was so named, of such a clan, with such an appearance, such was my nutriment, such my experience of pleasure and pain, such my life-term; and passing away from here, I reappeared elsewhere; and there too I was so named, of such a clan, with such an appearance, such was my nutriment, such my experience of pleasure and pain, such my life-term; and passing away from there, I reappeared here. 'Thus with their aspects and particulars he recollects his manifold past lives. (9) “With the divine eye, which is purified and surpasses the human, he sees beings passing away and reappearing, inferior and superior, fair and ugly, fortunate and unfortunate, and he understands how beings pass on according to their actions.

(10) “By realising for himself with direct knowledge, he here and now enters upon and abides in the deliverance of mind and deliverance by wisdom that are taintless with the destruction of the taints.

119

“These, brahmin, are the ten qualities inspiring confidence that have been declared by the Blessed One who knows and sees, accomplished and rightly and fully awakened. When these qualities are found in anyone among us, we honour, respect, revere, and venerate him, and live in dependence on him honouring and respecting him.”

Unfortunately, I don’t know any monks or nuns who actually possess all ten of these qualities. Thus, there are no living monks or nuns that I turn to as authoritative teachers for guidance on how to interpret the Suttas. So, for me, the most practical thing is to practice with deep authenticity myself to become a monk with these qualities, so that future generations of monks and nuns will not face the same problems we do.

It is also sensible to support others, like Kilian here, in their aspiration to become such a monk as well, so that should he attain these characteristic before I do, then I may turn to him for guidance. And, of course, if we should attain these characteristics in or around the same time, then we may rejoice in our mutual good fortune.

Now, if you were to meet a good monk or nun, would you as an ordinary layperson be able to recognise them? Yes. The Buddha certainly thought so. This is from the Canki Sutta:

“Here, Bhāradvāja, a monk may be living in dependence on some village or town. Then a householder or a householder's son goes to him and investigates him in regard to three kinds of states:  in regard to states based on greed, in regard to states based on hate, and in regard to states based on delusion:

“‘Are there in this venerable one any states based on greed such that, with his mind obsessed by those states, while not knowing he might say, “I know,” or while not seeing he might say, “I see,” or he might urge others to act in a way that would lead to their long-term harm and suffering?’ As he investigates him he comes to know:

120

‘There are no such states based on greed in this venerable one. The bodily behaviour and the verbal behaviour of this venerable one are not those of one affected by greed. And the Dhamma that this venerable one teaches is profound, hard to see and hard to understand, peaceful and sublime, unattainable by mere reasoning, subtle, to be experienced by the wise. This Dhamma cannot easily be taught by one affected by greed.’“When he has investigated him and has seen that he is purified from states based on greed, he next investigates him in regard to states based on hate: ‘Are there in this venerable one any states based on hate such that, with his mind obsessed by those states, while not knowing he might say, “I know,” or while not seeing he might say, “I see,” or he might urge others to act in a way that would lead to their long term harm and suffering?’ As he investigates him, he comes to know: ‘There are no such states based on hate in this venerable one. The bodily behaviour and the verbal behaviour of this venerable one are not those of one affected by hate. And the Dhamma that this venerable one teaches is profound, hard to see and hard to understand, peaceful and sublime, unattainable by mere reasoning, subtle, to be experienced by the wise. This Dhamma cannot easily be taught by one affected by hate.’

“When he has investigated him and has seen that he is purified from states based on hate, he next investigates him in regard to states based on delusion: ‘Are there in this venerable one any states based on delusion such that, with his mind obsessed by those states, while not knowing he might say, “I know,” or while not seeing he might say, “I see,” or he might urge others to act in a way that would lead to their long-term harm and suffering?’ As he investigates him, he comes to know: ‘There are no such states based on delusion in this venerable one. The bodily behaviour and the verbal behaviour of this venerable one are not those of one affected by delusion. And the Dhamma that this venerable one teaches is profound, hard to see and hard to understand, peaceful and sublime, unattainable by mere reasoning, subtle, to be experienced by the wise. This

121

Dhamma cannot easily be taught by one affected by delusion.’

In other words, you can judge the character of your monks and nuns in the same plain and straightforward way that you can judge the character any other person: that is, by carefully observing their behaviour of body and speech and by making reasonable inferences.

But to give you a head start in your investigations you should know the essential behaviours of a good monk or a nun. As to that, the Buddha taught this in the Lesser Sutta on the Simile of the Elephant’s Footprint, the Culahatthipadopama Sutta.

A householder or householder’s son or one born in some other clan hears that Dhamma. On hearing the Dhamma he acquires faith in the Tathāgata. Possessing that faith, he considers thus: ‘Household life is crowded and dusty; life gone forth is wide open. It is not easy, while living in a home, to lead the holy life utterly perfect and pure as a polished shell. Suppose I shave off my hair and beard, put on the yellow robe, and go forth from the home life into homelessness.’ On a later occasion, abandoning a small or a large fortune, abandoning a small or a large circle of relatives, he shaves off his hair and beard, puts on the yellow robe, and goes forth from the home life into homelessness.

Noble virtue

“Having thus gone forth and possessing the monk’s training and way of life, abandoning the killing of living beings, he abstains from killing living beings; with rod and weapon laid aside, conscientious, merciful, he abides compassionate to all living beings. Abandoning the taking of what is not given, he abstains from taking what is not given; taking only what is given, expecting only what is given, by not stealing he abides in purity. Abandoning incelibacy, he observes celibacy, living apart, abstaining from the commoners practice of sexual intercourse.

122

“Abandoning false speech, he abstains from false speech; he speaks truth, adheres to truth, is trustworthy and reliable, one who is no deceiver of the world. Abandoning divisive speech, he abstains from divisive speech; he does not repeat elsewhere what he has heard here in order to divide those from these, nor does he repeat here what he has heard elsewhere in order to divide these from those; thus he is one who reunites those who are divided, a promoter of friendships, who enjoys concord, rejoices in concord, delights in concord, a speaker of words that promote concord. Abandoning harsh speech, he abstains from harsh speech; he speaks such words as are gentle, pleasing to the ear, and loveable, as go to the heart, are courteous, desired by many and agreeable to many. Abandoning idle chatter, he abstains from idle chatter; he speaks at the right time, speaks what is fact, speaks on what is good, speaks on the Dhamma and the Discipline; at the right time he speaks such words as are worth recording, reasonable, well-defined, and beneficial.

“He abstains from working with plants and trees. He practises eating only one meal a day, abstaining from eating at night and outside the proper time. He abstains from dancing, singing, music, and theatrical shows. He abstains from wearing garlands, smartening himself with scent, and embellishing himself with unguents. He abstains from high and luxurious beds.

“He abstains from accepting gold and silver. He abstains from accepting raw grain. He abstains from accepting raw meat. He abstains from accepting women and girls. He abstains from accepting men and women slaves. He abstains from accepting goats and sheep. He abstains from accepting fowl and pigs. He abstains from accepting elephants, cattle, horses, and mares. He abstains from accepting fields and land.

“He abstains from going on errands and running messages. He abstains from buying and selling. He abstains from false weights, false metals, and false measures. He abstains from accepting bribes, deceiving, defrauding,

123

and trickery. He abstains from wounding, murdering, binding, brigandage, plunder, and violence.

“He becomes content with robes to protect his body and with almsfood to maintain his stomach, and wherever he goes, he sets out taking only these with him. Just as a bird, wherever it goes, flies with its wings as its only burden, so too the monk becomes content with robes to protect his body and with almsfood to maintain his stomach, and wherever he goes, he sets out taking only these with him. Possessing this aggregate of noble virtue, he experiences within himself a bliss that is blameless.

Noble restraint

“On seeing a form with the eye, he does not grasp at its signs and features. Since, if he left the eye faculty unguarded, evil unwholesome states of covetousness and grief might invade him, he practises the way of its restraint, he guards the eye faculty, he undertakes the restraint of the eye faculty.

“On hearing a sound with the ear, he does not grasp at its signs and features. Since, if he left the ear faculty unguarded, evil unwholesome states of covetousness and grief might invade him, he practises the way of its restraint, he guards the ear faculty, he undertakes the restraint of the ear faculty.

“On smelling an odour with the nose, he does not grasp at its signs and features. Since, if he left the nose faculty unguarded, evil unwholesome states of covetousness and grief might invade him, he practises the way of its restraint, he guards the nose faculty, he undertakes the restraint of the nose faculty.

“On tasting a flavour with the tongue, he does not grasp at its signs and features. Since, if he left the tongue faculty unguarded, evil unwholesome states of covetousness and grief might invade him, he practises the

124

way of its restraint, he guards the tongue faculty, he undertakes the restraint of the tongue faculty.

“On touching a tangible with the body, he does not grasp at its signs and features. Since, if he left the body faculty unguarded, evil unwholesome states of covetousness and grief might invade him, he practises the way of its restraint, he guards the body faculty, he undertakes the restraint of the body faculty.

“On cognizing a mind-object with the mind, he does not grasp at its signs and features. Since, if he left the mind faculty unguarded, evil unwholesome states of covetousness and grief might invade him, he practises the way of its restraint, he guards the mind faculty, he undertakes the restraint of the mind faculty. Possessing this noble restraint of the faculties, he experiences within himself a bliss that is unsullied.

Full awareness

“He becomes one who acts in full awareness when going forward and returning; who acts in full awareness when looking ahead and looking away; who acts in full awareness when flexing and extending his limbs; who acts in full awareness when wearing his robes and carrying his outer robe and bowl; who acts in full awareness when eating, drinking, consuming food, and tasting; who acts in full awareness when defecating and urinating; who acts in full awareness when walking, standing, sitting, falling asleep, waking up, talking, and keeping silent.

In other words, outstandingly high levels of virtue, integrity and consistency, renunciation and contentment, self-control, restraint and full awareness, should be considered the minimum levels of practice among Buddhist monks and nuns. For example, eating only one meal a day is not a special ascetic practice for hardcore monks, it is a minimum standard of good behaviour for all monks and nuns.

125

In fact, from the Bhaddhali Sutta, we know that, in the Buddha’s day, monks who ate more than one meal per day were considered recalcitrant monks, not just by the Buddha and other monks and nuns, but by lay followers as well. Given that this is the case, we can be sure that the Buddha would have severely disapproved of monks and nuns ignoring his instructions in the Lesser Sutta on the Simile of the Elephant’s Footprint by becoming farmers, taking money, acting as big-men, landlords, and politicians.

Therefore, those among you who would protect the Buddha’s dispensation, please never encourage monks or nuns to dilute their practice and live like lay people. Please, for example, never say to a monk who eats only one meal a day, lives without a temple and wanders long distances barefooted with no money that he should stop practising the extreme of self-mortification – given that this is how the Buddha himself lived, to say that this is to slander the Buddha.

Furthermore, please know that in relation to those monks and nuns who say that it is acceptable for monks and nuns to behave in the manner of lay people, because becoming more like lay people is the most compassionate and effective way to spread the Dhamma -- such monks and nuns are worthy of your compassion but not your reverence.

We should have compassion for those monks and nuns who heap much demerit upon themselves by misrepresenting the Buddha, and who further infect the Buddha’s dispensation with the disease of luxury and devotion to material things and sensuality, and we should have compassion for ourselves by not following them.

Please help heal the Buddha’s dispensation from thousands of years of misunderstanding and confusion. Help us rebuild the Sangha in the image of the Sangha we find in this Sutta -- the Sutta on Monuments to the Dhamma, the Dhammacetiya Sutta.

Then King Pasenadi entered the dwelling. Prostrating himself with his head at the Blessed One's feet, he

126

covered the Blessed One's feet with kisses and caressed them with his hands, pronouncing his name: "I am King Pasenadi of Kosala, Bhante; I am King Pasenadi of Kosala, Bhante."

"But , great king, what reason do you see for doing such supreme honour to this body and for showing such friendship?"

"Bhante, I infer according to Dhamma about the Blessed One: ‘The Blessed One is rightly and fully awakened, the Dhamma is well proclaimed by the Blessed One, the Sangha of the Blessed One's disciples is practising the good way.'

Ordination for Life

“Now, Bhante, I see some samanas and brahmins leading a limited holy life for ten years, twenty years, thirty years, or forty years, and then on a later occasion I see them well-groomed and well anointed, with trimmed hair and beards, enjoying themselves provided and endowed with the five cords of sensual pleasure.

“But here I see monks leading the perfect and pure holy life as long as life and breath last. Indeed, I do not see any other holy life elsewhere as perfect and pure as this. This is why, Bhante, I infer according to Dhamma about the Blessed One: 'The Blessed One is rightly and fully awakened, the Dhamma is well proclaimed by the Blessed One, the Sangha of the Blessed One's disciples is practising the good way.'

Living in Concord

"Again, Bhante, kings quarrel with kings, nobles with nobles, brahmins with brahmins, householders with householders; mother quarrels with child, child with mother, father with child, child with father; brother quarrels with brother, brother with sister, sister with brother, friend with friend.

But here I see monks living in concord, with mutual appreciation, without disputing, blending like milk and

127

water, viewing each other with kindly eyes. I do not see any other assembly elsewhere with such concord. This too, Bhante, is why I infer according to Dhamma about the Blessed One: 'The Blessed One is rightly and fully awakened, the Dhamma is well proclaimed by the Blessed One, the Sangha of the Blessed One's disciples is practising the good way.'

Happy and healthy

"Again, Bhante, I have walked and wandered from park to park and from garden to garden. There I have seen some samanas and brahmins who are lean, wretched, unsightly, jaundiced, with veins standing out on their limbs, such that people would not want to look at them again.

“I have thought: 'Surely these venerable ones are leading the holy life in discontent, or they have done some evil deed and are concealing it, so lean, wretched , unsightly, jaundiced are they, with veins standing out on their limbs, such that people would not want to look at them again.'

“I went up to them and asked: 'Why are you venerable ones so lean, wretched, unsightly, jaundiced, with veins standing out on your limbs, such that people would not want to look at you again?' Their reply was: 'It is our family sickness, great king.'

“But here I see monks smiling and cheerful, sincerely joyful, plainly delighting, their faculties fresh, living at ease, unruffled, subsisting on what others give, abiding with mind [as aloof] as a wild deer's.

“I have thought: 'Surely, these venerable ones perceive successive states of lofty distinction in the Blessed One's Dispensation, since they abide thus smiling and cheerful, sincerely joyful, plainly delighting, their faculties fresh, living at ease, unruffled, subsisting on what others give, abiding with mind [as aloof] as a wild deer's.'

“This too, Bhante, is why I infer according to Dhamma about the Blessed One: 'The Blessed One is rightly and

128

fully awakened, the Dhamma is well proclaimed by the Blessed One, the Sangha of the Blessed One's disciples is practising the good way.'

Loving and being disciplined by the Dhamma

"Again, Bhante, being a head-anointed noble king, I am able to have executed those who should be executed, to fine those who should be fined, to banish those who should be banished. Yet when I am sitting in council, they break in and interrupt me. Though I say: 'Gentlemen, do not break in and interrupt me when I am sitting in council; wait till the end of my speech,' still they break in and interrupt me.

“But here I see while the Blessed One is teaching the Dhamma to an assembly of several hundred followers, there is not even the sound of a disciple of the Blessed One coughing or clearing his throat. Once the Blessed One was teaching the Dhamma to an assembly of several hundred followers and there a disciple of his cleared his throat. There upon one of his companions in the holy life nudged him with his knee to indicate:

“ 'Be quiet, venerable sir, make no noise; the Blessed One, the Teacher, is teaching us the Dhamma.' I thought: 'It is wonderful, it is marvellous how an assembly can be so well disciplined without force or weapon!' Indeed, I do not see any other assembly elsewhere so well disciplined. This too, Bhante, is why I infer according to Dhamma about the Blessed One: 'The Blessed One is rightly and fully awakened, the Dhamma is well proclaimed by the Blessed One, the Sangha of the Blessed One's disciples is practising the good way.'

Converting magic

"Again, Bhante, I have seen here certain learned nobles who were clever, knowledgeable about the doctrines of others, as sharp as hair splitting marksmen; they wander about, as it were, demolishing the views of others with their sharp wits. When they hear: 'The Samana Gotama will visit such and such a village or town, 'they formulate a

129

question thus: 'We will go to the Samana Gotama and ask him this question. If he is asked like this, he will answer like this, and so we will refute his doctrine in this way; and if he is asked like that, he will answer like that, and so we will refute his doctrine in that way.'

“They hear: 'The Samana Gotama has come to visit such and such a village or town.' They go to the Blessed One, and the Blessed One instructs, urges, rouses, and encourages them with a talk on the Dhamma. After they have been instructed, urged, roused, and encouraged by the Blessed One with a talk on the Dhamma, they do not so much as ask him the question, so how should they refute his doctrine? In actual fact, they become his disciples. This too, Bhante, is why I infer according to Dhamma about the Blessed One: 'The Blessed One is rightly and fully awakened, the Dhamma is well proclaimed by the Blessed One, the Sangha of the Blessed One's disciples is practising the good way.'

"Again, Bhante, I have seen here certain learned brahmins, ...

“... I have seen here certain learned householders ... [who do the same and] ' They go to the Blessed One, and the Blessed One instructs, urges, rouses, and encourages them with a talk on the Dhamma. After they have been instructed, urged, roused, and encouraged by the Blessed One with a talk on the Dhamma, they do not so much as ask him the question, so how should they refute his doctrine? In actual fact, they become his disciples. This too, venerable sir, is why I infer according to Dhamma about the Blessed One: 'The Blessed One is rightly and fully-awakened, the Dhamma is well proclaimed by the Blessed One, the Sangha of the Blessed One's disciples is practising the good way.'

“Again, I have seen here certain learned samanas who were clever, knowledgeable about the doctrines of others, as sharp as hair splitting marksmen; they wander about, as it were, demolishing the views of others with their sharp

130

wits. When they hear: 'The Samana Gotama will visit such and such a village or town, 'they formulate a question thus: 'We will go to the Samana Gotama and ask him this question. If he is asked like this, he will answer like this, and so we will refute his doctrine in this way; and if he is asked like that, he will answer like that, and so we will refute his doctrine in that way.'

“They hear: 'The Samana Gotama has come to visit such and such a village or town.' They go to the Blessed One, and the Blessed One instructs, urges, rouses, and encourages them with a talk on the Dhamma. After they have been instructed, urged, roused, and encouraged by the Blessed One with a talk on the Dhamma, they do not so much as ask him the question, so how should they refute his doctrine? In actual fact, they ask the Blessed One to allow them to go forth from the home life into homelessness, and he gives them the going forth.

Becoming arahants

“Not long after they have thus gone forth, dwelling alone, withdrawn, diligent, self-controlled, and resolute, by realising for themselves with direct knowledge they here and now enter upon and abide in that supreme goal of the holy life for the sake of which clansmen rightly go forth from the home life into homelessness.

“They say thus: 'We were very nearly lost, we very nearly perished, for formerly we claimed that we were samanas though we were not really samanas; we claimed that we were brahmins though we were not really brahmins; we claimed that we were arahants though we were not really arahants. But now we are samanas, now we are brahmins, now we are arahants. 'This too, Bhante, is why I infer according to Dhamma about the Blessed One: 'The Blessed One is rightly and fully awakened, the Dhamma is well proclaimed by the Blessed One, the Sangha of the Blessed One's disciples is practising the good way.'

Fearless faith

131

"Again, Bhante, Isidatta and Purana, my two inspectors, eat my food and use my carriages; I provide them with a livelihood and bring them fame. Yet in spite of this, they are less respectful towards me than they are towards the Blessed One. Once when I had gone out leading an army and was testing these inspectors, Isidatta and Purana, I happened to put up in very cramped quarters.

“Then these two inspectors, Isidatta and Purana, after spending much of the night in talk on the Dhamma, lay down with their heads in the direction where they had heard that the Blessed One was staying and with their feet towards me. I thought: 'It is wonderful, it is marvellous! These two inspectors, Isidatta and Purana, eat my food and use my carriages; I provide them with a livelihood and bring them fame. Yet in spite of this, they are less respectful towards me than they are towards the Blessed One. Surely these good people perceive successive states of lofty distinction in the Blessed One's Dispensation.' This too, Bhante, is why I infer according to Dhamma about the Blessed One: 'The Blessed One is rightly and fully awakened, the Dhamma is well proclaimed by the Blessed One, the Sangha of the Blessed One's disciples is practising the good way.'

"Again, Bhante, the Blessed One is a noble and I am a noble; the Blessed One is a Kosalan and I am a Kosalan; the Blessed One is eighty years old and I am eighty years old. Since that is so, I think it proper to do such supreme honour to the Blessed One and to show such friendship.

"And now, Bhante, we depart. We are busy and have much to do."

"Now is the time, great king, to do as you think fit."

Then King Pasenadi of Kosala rose from his seat, and after paying homage to the Blessed One, keeping him on his right, he departed.

Then soon after he had left, the Blessed One addressed the monks thus: "Monks , before rising from his seat and

132

departing, this King Pasenadi uttered monuments to the Dhamma. Learn the monuments to the Dhamma, monks; master the monuments to the Dhamma; remember the monuments to the Dhamma. The monuments to the Dhamma are beneficial, monks, and they belong to the fundamentals of the holy life."

That is what the Blessed One said. The monks were satisfied and delighted in the Blessed One's words.

This Sutta is known as the Sutta on Monuments to the Dhamma for a reason. In last week’s talk, we spoke about how we need to invest in building our children instead of the equipment and infrastructure around our children. In the same way, this Sutta is reminding us to invest in building up the fourfold community of monks, nuns, laywomen and laymen, not the temples, stupas and other buildings around the monks and nuns.

According to this Sutta, Buddhists should be monumental figures in the life of society. We should stand together more prominent than the Statue of Liberty. Monks and nuns, should stand tall by 1) ordaining for life, 2) living harmoniously with each other in monastic community, 3) attaining to glowing health in both body and mind, 4) loving and being disciplined by the Suttas with all our heart, 5) being able to persuade people from all sections of society to take refuge in the Three Treasures, and by 6) becoming rightly and fully awakened. And lay Buddhists should stand tall by having so much faith in the Three Treasures that they are willing to offend even the Queen of England for the sake of showing that faith.

Conclusion

In conclusion, I believe that we can build such a Buddhist community. But we have a lot of work to do. And that’s the good news, because there is nothing better than a life filled with meaningful work. Let us do this together. Let us rebuild together the Buddha’s dispensation in a plain, straightforward and common sense way.

133

For concrete ideas on how to join the Plain Buddhist revolution, please come back next week to hear the final instalment in this Plain Buddhist Manifesto wherein I will present a step-by-step battleplan for how to revive the Buddha’s dispensation and create a network of islands of enlightened local resilience based upon Plain Buddhist principles in and around the Hunter Valley, Newcastle and Sydney region.

And that is my Dhamma offering to you this evening. Let us sit together for a few moments in silence to contemplate what has been said. May this Dhamma talk lead to the long-term well-being and happiness of all living beings.

Sadhu. Sadhu. Sadhu.

134

Plain Buddhist Manifesto (VIII):

Battleplan

Welcome

Spiritual friends, fellows and companions. Lend me your ears once more.

Welcome to the final talk in this series entitled “A Plain Buddhist Manifesto”.

Review

To recap: Talk number one was an overview. Therein, we set out the overall context. That is, a world where orthodox Buddhism has lost its way, and where global civilisation is in terminal decline. And we proposed Plain Buddhism as a powerful response to both of these problems.

We set out the difference between Plain Buddhism and orthodox Buddhism. Plain Buddhism starts with the Pali suttas. We bring to the Suttas a Plain, common sense and direct approach to interpretation. And then we emphasize five thematic undercurrents to the Suttas that make their teachings particularly well-suited to dealing with the problems of the modern age: that is 1) concreteness and reviewability, 2) integrity and consistency, 3) renunciation and contentment, 4) deep cooperative community, and 5) belief in kamma and rebirth.

Plain Buddhism becomes a Plain Buddhist Manifesto when we describe what happens when we apply the principles of Plain Buddhism to transforming the foundations of civilisation: that is, food and clothing, shelter and medicine, family, community, education and Buddhist monks and nuns.

In talk number two we spoke about a Plain Buddhist approach to food and clothing. We said that the Buddha taught that food is not for taste but for nutrition. The four principles of plain food are: 1) eat food with plain flavours in plain eating environments with plain eating

135

habits, 2) eat food that is fresh, local and organic, 3) be as vegetarian as possible given health constraints and 4) abstain from alcohol and intoxicants.

We said that the Buddha taught that clothing is to be worn for protection from the elements and as a social grace, not for vanity. The four principles of plain clothing are: 1) develop and wear your own life uniform, 2) wear clothing that is high quality, long-lasting, dignified and ideally second hand to avoid getting involved with fashion, 3) take advantage of the opportunities to share the Dhamma created by your plain clothing, and 4) move towards a life uniform composed of all white clothing.

In talk number three we spoke about a Plain Buddhist approach to shelter and medicine. We said that the Buddha taught that shelter is for protection from the elements and seclusion, not for the sake of financial investment. The four principles of plain shelter are 1) live in multigenerational households, 2) live in small homes, 3) build using recycled and natural materials and 4) live in intentional communities.

We also said that the Buddha taught that medicine is for the mitigation of the pain of illness for the maximization of good health, not for the sake of mere short term relief. The four principles of plain medicine are 1) use less pain-killers, 2) use more herbal medicines, 3) stop looking for medical cures to old age and death and 4) don’t make profits out of medicine.

In talk number four we spoke about a Plain Buddhist approach to family. We said that the Buddha taught that peaceful and harmonious family life is won through the maintenance of reciprocal responsibilities between family members. We focused on the most important set of responsibilities, that is those existing between parents and children.

Children have five responsibilities to their parents: 1) to support them, 2) to do their societal duties, 3) to maintain the family traditions, 4) to make themselves

136

worthy of their inheritance, and 5) to make offerings to departed parents.

Parents have five responsibilities to their children: 1) to restrain them from the bad, 2) to encourage them in the good, 3) to train them in a craft, 4) to bind them to suitable partners, and 5) to pass on their inheritance at the right time.

In talk number five we spoke about a Plain Buddhist approach to community. We said that Plain Buddhist communities are islands of enlightened local resilience where people live together in material simplicity and deep cooperation based upon the teachings in the Pali Suttas, and we pointed out ten principles drawn from the Sutta on the Imperfections for the establishment and maintenance of Plain Buddhist communities: 1) do not fear leaving the mainstream, 2) decentralise, 3) prioritise food security, 4) prioritise social harmony, 5) practice goodwill and love for each other, 6) live in material simplicity, 7) expect community life to be hard but joyous work, 8) respect the true elders, 9) meet regularly based on the Dhamma, and 10) know that homeless wandering monks and nuns have a duty to help lay people maintain harmony within their communities.

In talk number six we spoke about a Plain Buddhist approach to education. We said that Plain Buddhist education is for the sake of learning the skills necessary to living happy and meaningful lives through the cultivation of panna, well-rounded and deep intelligence. It operates on three levels at once 1) monastic to monastic, 2) monastic to laity and 3) laity to laity. In level one, monks and nuns receive teachings from the Pali Suttas and other monks and nuns who are fully enlightened. In level two, the laity receives teachings from monks and nuns about faith, virtue, generosity and wisdom. And in level three, children receive teachings from parents and teachers with the assistance of monks and nuns in the background about faith, virtue, generosity and wisdom. Children also receive formal schooling based on five principles: 1)

137

small classes are beautiful, 2) teach what is relevant, 3) teach on low wages, 4) invest in the children not in the equipment, 5) reclaim moral authority in the classrooms.

In last week’s talk we spoke about a Plain Buddhist approach to monastic life. We relied on essential passages from the Suttas to establish a number of principles that go against the stream of monastic life today. 1) The Buddha specifically appointed no one to lead the Sangha after his Parinibbana but said that the Suttas are to be considered the Teacher in his absence; 2) We may all still live in dependence on this or that monk or nun, but only if she is virtuous, learned, content, a master of the jhanas and the psychic powers, and has the three knowledges of a fully enlightened arahant; 3) lay people are supposed to investigate their monks and nuns by carefully observing their behaviour and drawing reasonable inferences about their purity from greed, hatred and delusion, 4) the Buddha set outstandingly high levels of virtue, integrity and consistency, renunciation and generosity, self-control and self-restraint and full awareness as the minimum levels of behaviour for all his monks and nuns; and 5) the Buddha wanted us to build up the fourfold community as monuments to the Dhamma, not big buildings, stupas and temples.

Introduction

Tonight we shall present how you can get involved in the Plain Buddhist Revolution by providing a vision and general battleplan for how to revive the Buddha’s dispensation and create a network of islands of enlightened local resilience based upon Plain Buddhist principles.

This Plain Buddhist revolution is for the creation of a Buddhist “country” of the heart: one without borders, one bound only by the common and voluntary beliefs, virtues and practices of its people, whose purpose is peace and

138

freedom in the beginning, peace and freedom in the middle, and peace and freedom in the end.

Is it our job?

But first, let us discuss whether we should make it our business to embark on such a revolutionary mission in the first place. After all, didn’t the Buddha teach that everything is impermanent and suffering anyway? So why bother? Shouldn’t we just forget the world and attain Nibbana by secluding ourselves in monasteries? Or shouldn’t we just forget the world and abide in bare and choiceless present moment awareness?

Unfortunately neither of these responses are what the Buddha actually taught and neither of them are capable of leading us to Nibbana.

For what reason? Because these responses are based upon denial and delusion. We cannot escape suffering by denying it like ostriches with their heads buried in the sand. Nibbana comes from decreasing and destroying delusion, not by fostering it.

On the other hand, there is no doubt that samsara has always been a mess and it indeed always will. So we need to be clear that there is no point getting over- involved with the world by trying to save the whole thing. But to say that because we cannot save the whole world, we should just ignore it completely, is to swing from one extreme to another.

It is not possible to attain the unconditioned state of Nibbana by simply ignoring the conditioned things of this world. Rather, we must cultivate the conditioned things of the world in the right way, with determined striving and wisdom in order to create, fashion and produce the Noble Eightfold Way inside this world. In other words, we must concern ourselves with Samsara to the extent and in the manner necessary to build the way out of Samsara. Stated again, the Noble Eightfold Way is the conditioned path that leads to the unconditioned.

Simile of the Titanic

139

Imagine a wise person is on board the sinking Titanic. He wastes no time on trying to keep the whole ship afloat. He also wastes no time with numbing himself with tranquilisers or vainly secluding himself on the highest deck. Instead he systematically and intelligently prepares the life-boats and invites others to do the same. And by rowing the life-boats in the direction of the far shore, these wise ones become safe and secure.

In this simile, the wise are like members of the fourfold Buddhist community. The Titanic is like Samsara. Taking tranquilisers is like abiding in bare and choiceless present-moment awarenes. Seclusion on the upper deck is like hiding in a forest monastery. Preparing the life-boats is like creating on a local-level the social and ecological conditions necessary for individuals to properly practice the Noble Eightfold Way. And rowing the life-boats is like practising the Noble Eightfold Way as indiviudals. Reaching the far shore is like attaining Nibbana.

Lifeboats and Islands

The Buddha left behind the designs of two models of life-boats. The first model is fast and light and capable of going all the way to the far shore. This is the homeless Sangha of Buddhist monks and nuns who live in accordance with the instructions recorded in the Suttas. The second model of life boat is slow and heavy and cannot get too close to the far shore without getting stuck. This is the community of lay-disciples of the Buddha.

So let’s connect the dots here. When I talk about preparing life-boats, it’s just another way to talk about creating islands of enlightened local resilience based on the principles of Plain Buddhism. That is, small, decentralised communities of lay Buddhists living in material simplicity and deep cooperative communities in both the cities and the countryside. These communities support and are supported by wandering chapters of homeless Buddhist monks and nuns.

140

So if we are to think of the fourfold community in terms of lifeboats, we can think of a large fleet of heavy and slow lifeboats connected and protected by a smaller fleet of light and fast lifeboats. Or if we are to think of the fourfold community in terms of islands, we can think of a group of islands connected and protected by a small navy of brave and hardy sailors.

Cataclysm

As some of you will remember from talk number five, I’m of the opinion that there is nothing that can stop this phase of global civilisation from crashing and burning in the not-too-distant future. This world is going to go through massive changes, and unfortunately we have left it too late to go through those changes smoothly and peacefully. Our natural resources are too depleted, our populations too large, our economies too debased, our governments too corrupt, our cultures too shallow and our peoples too lazy, complacent and greedy to transition towards a sustainable global situation without the massive onset of war, plague, famine and poverty first.

But, actually, even if we weren’t living in an age of cataclysmic decline, the Buddha taught that we ought to behave as if we are anyway. This is because old age, illness and death wait for us all and these things are always cataclysmic if we experience them unprepared. And the dangers that face us as we journey from one body to another after death are greater than most people are capable of imagining. This is why even though the Buddha did not himself live in a cataclysmic age, he still told his followers to practice his teaching as if their hair was on fire, or as if smitten by a sword.

But because we for so long have fallen asleep to the true significance and urgency of the Buddha’s teaching, we might as well use the fact that we do live in a cataclysmic age to wake ourselves up again. That is, if we cannot rouse a sense of urgency in response to the danger lying in our own mortality, we still might be able

141

to rouse it at the prospect of the end of the world as we know it.

Taking refuge

Thus truly taking refuge in the Buddha, Dhamma and Sangha has always been an act of great urgency. If we are to make ourselves safe from all the suffering of this world of impermanence, we cannot afford to plod on to the same old tune of life through debt, over-consumption, material things and sensual pleasures. We are destroying ourselves, corrupting our societies, trashing our environments and debasing our spiritual potentials. It is time to wake up. It is time to change. And this time for real, not just on the surface.

And this time, we need to change together. We can’t just be radical individuals, we need to revolutionise as a group. We need to create a revolutionary spiritual movement. While it is possible to quietly tend to one’s own spiritual practice while general society is chugging along peacefully, because global civilisation is fragmenting, we need to band together or else there will simply be no peaceful places left to quietly practice anyway.

The significance of the Buddha’s teaching that those who keep the five precepts are refuges to other beings has never been so acute. His teaching that moral conscience and compunction are the two protectors of the world has never rung so true.

In this series of talks I have spoken about revolutionary change in food, clothing, shelter, medicine, family, community, education and monasticism. For those who are persuaded of the goodness and righteousness of these ideas, the question becomes: How can we make it all happen? Practically speaking, the first thing we need is spiritual leadership.

Spiritual leaders

Every good movement needs constant inspiration from wise, compassionate and humble spiritual leaders. The modern

142

experiment in replacing wise, compassionate and humble leaders with bureaucratic systems, legal processes and clever machines, has failed. Of course, we can understand why this era decided to move in that direction: wise, compassionate and humble spiritual leaders are thin on the ground.

Sangha reform

That is why we need to reform the Sangha. There needs to be a cache of society that is devoted to and capable of consistently training up the next generation of wise, compassionate and humble spiritual leaders.

To ensure a high percentage of men and women who enter the Sangha actually transform themselves into inspiring leadership material, the Sangha needs to reform itself by going back to the high standards of practice described in the Suttas. That is, the Sangha needs to commit, to at least, these fifteen items for Sangha-reform:

1) The Sangha needs to return to taking the Suttas as the foremost teacher, learning the Suttas both in Pali and in translation, and memorising and investigating the Suttas with common sense and real-life experimentation; and the Sangha needs to abandon treating the commentaries as more authoritative than the Suttas.

2) The Sangha also needs to return to only allowing monks and nuns who are fully enlightened to become Preceptors, that is those who give full ordination to others; and the Sangha needs to abandon allowing monks and nuns to act as Preceptors simply because they have more than ten years in the robes.

3) The Sangha also needs to return to remembering that one is an elder to the extent that one has mastered the qualities of wisdom, compassion and renunciation; and the Sangha needs to abandon automatically conferring more respect upon monks and nuns simply because they have more years in the robes.

4) The Sangha also needs to return to being a fellowship of homeless wanderers; and the Sangha needs to abandon creating stationary communities around temples and monasteries.

143

5) The Sangha also needs to return to being content with the four requisites of food, robes, resting place and medicines; and the Sangha needs to abandon taking money and owning or controlling other assets and seeking out sensual pleasures, fame, praise and power.

6) The Sangha also needs to return to regularly wandering barefooted over long-distances; and the Sangha needs to abandon taking vehicles except when sick.

7) The Sangha also needs to return to eating only one meal per day and regularly collecting food from strangers by going on alms round in the mornings; and the Sangha needs to abandon monastery kitchens.

8) The Sangha also needs to return to building plain and simple Sangha viharas; and the Sangha needs to abandon building complex, expensive and high maintenance monasteries, temples and stupas.

9) The Sangha also needs to return to keeping the Vinaya, monastic discipline, and doing so with common sense; and the Sangha needs to abandon either ignoring Vinaya completely or keeping Vinaya unreflectively, obsessively and superstitiously.

10) The Sangha also needs to return to, every fortnight on the Uposatha, the Holy Day, meeting up with every single monk, or with every single nun, within a single district to recite the Patimokkha, discuss the Dhamma, conduct community transactions and resolve conflicts and disciplinary issues; and the Sangha needs to abandon creating sects by gathering only with those of the same temple or monastery.

11) The Sangha also needs to return to doing things for the sake of real-life long-term consequences; and the Sangha needs to abandon doing things for the sake of mere appearances, traditions, rituals, superstition and fear.

12) The Sangha also needs to return to supporting homeless wandering nuns who are tough and ascetic and

144

encourage them to manage their own communities independent of the monks except for receiving the fortnightly Ovada, that is advice from an enlightened monk, on Uposatha days; and the Sangha needs to abandon all forms of discrimination against women.

13) The Sangha also needs to return to ordaining for life; and the Sangha needs to abandon all forms of temporary ordination.

14) The Sangha also needs to return to ordaining only those who are spiritually mature enough for ordination; and the Sangha needs to abandon recklessly ordaining children and any old Joe who asks for ordination even though they’re not ready for it.

15) And finally, the Sangha also needs to return to encouraging lay disciples to spend much more time and energy practising generosity by establishing and running Buddhist charity organisations, and the Sangha needs to abandon having monks and nuns establish and run these organisations themselves.

By actualising these fifteen Sangha-reforms, we will be able to consistently produce noble and inspiring monks and nuns who attain enlightenment themselves and who can provide society the spiritual leadership it needs to prosper in peace.

Roadmap to Sangha reform

This is how we, together, as a fourfold community, can make it happen.

We ask that you spread the word to those who will hear, that the monk’s life described in the Sutta’s is 100% practicable in the 21st century. Please inspire the community by reporting to them that there are at least two monks who are right here and now, living the holy life complete with all of these fifteen factors, and they are glowing with health and happiness as a result, they are blending like milk and water, and they teach the Suttas in plain speech and with common sense.

Predominantly, please spread the word the old fashioned way: By talking to people face-to-face, and by

145

encouraging your family and friends to hear live Dhamma talks by Plain Buddhist monks.

Transcripts

We will assist the spread of Plain Buddhist ideas by printing ten copies of an edited transcript of this Plain Buddhist Manifesto talk series, for slow circulation around the Hunter Valley community.

We, however, won’t print any more than this and we will ask that you not make electronic copies for sending over the internet. This is because we want to keep the spread of Plain Buddhism at a healthy organic pace. Meaningful movements turn into mere fads when exposed to gushing excitement and when grown too quickly.

We want you to value the wisdom in Plain Buddhist ideas, and not simply take them for granted as just another bit of information to be flicked through over breakfast. If you are reading a very limited edition publication and you know that other people in your community are waiting to read it, it is more likely that you will read it with care, and remember and understanding it, and look after it.

Another reason for keeping the print run of the Plain Buddhist Manifesto small is that we want people to get to know the Suttas. The Plain Buddhist Manifesto will be an abject failure if you become more concerned with my writings than the teachings of the Buddha in the Suttas. We must constantly point back to the Suttas and encourage you to practice what is recorded there as directly as possible.

Suttas

Now, if you want to join the revolution by getting to know the Suttas, I recommend that you get a copy of In the Buddha’s Words by Bhikkhu Bodhi. Also, please recommend this book to your friends and family. It is truly the best introduction to Early Buddhism one can hope to find.

We also invite all people to think of Bhikkhu Bodhi’s translations of the Majjhima, Anguttara and Samyutta Nikayas, that is The Middle Length Discourses, The

146

Numerical Discourses, and The Connected Discourses to be as essential to the Buddhist life as Christians consider the Bible to Christian life.

In this way, the community will be increasingly clear on what they should expect from their monks and nuns. This will lead to increasing levels of support and respect for well-practising homeless monks and nuns.

Building on these foundations, I am gradually inviting other monks to practise with us on rain’s retreats and to take long barefooted journeys with us. We are confident that, over time, as the reputation of the homeless wandering Sangha spreads, good monks will appear even without our invitation, and we will be able to help them emerge from the unwholesome and establish them in the wholesome.

Quiet revolution

If you have a Buddhist background, all this talk of reform and revolution might be a bit frightening. Please do not feel this way. The Plain Buddhist Revolution is a quiet revolution. We are not looking to make trouble for the status quo, we are simply looking to create superior alternatives to the status quo. We do not make it our aim to foment the downfall of mainstream Buddhist practice. However, we will be tirelessly direct-but-gentle in pointing out what is unwholesome in mainstream Buddhism practice. And we will also be tirelessly direct-but-humble in pointing out the wholesome Plain Buddhist alternatives found in the Suttas and in our experience.

As we are not looking to convert every monk and nun in the world to these reforms, creating an alternative Sangha based on them is highly feasible. In fact, that Sangha already exists between Bhante Zen and I. As the Plain Buddhist Sangha grows, the numbers of lay people who gain faith and inspiration in the idea that it is possible to live in material simplicity and deep cooperative community will grow as well. More people will think to themselves, “if these Buddhist monks and nuns can live so happily and virtuously with each other with just three robes a bowl and a blanket each then surely I can change for the better too.”

Plain Buddhist Tent Villages

147

Flowing from this, I am also training lay followers in the art of living in material simplicity and deep cooperative community by running annual Plain Buddhist Tent Villages. You can tell that we are not just pie-in-the-sky dreamers by the fact that this part of the Plain Buddhist Revolution is already well underway.

The first Tent Village will run from Saturday 4th July to Sunday 19th July here, on Purple Pear Farm.

A gathering of around thirty-five people, composed of both Buddhists and Buddhist sympathisers of all ages, some of whom are sitting in this very audience, will live together in tents for fifteen days to create a fully functional but temporary village run in accordance with Plain Buddhist principles, under the guidance of this monk.

The Tent Village will empower participants with the real-life skills that make lives of material simplicity and deep cooperative community possible in the long-term. Thus the Tent Village will be a mirror of ordinary life with adults working on Purple Pear according to Plain Buddhist cooperative principles, and with children being educated according to Plain Buddhist educational principles.

The Tent Village is the first brushstroke for a bigger picture that includes the future establishment of Plain Buddhist Permaculture Villages, Plain Buddhist Urban Cooperatives, Plain Buddhist Schools and Plain Buddhist Micro-finance.

Participation in the Tent Village is free.

The first Tent Village is booked out. But you can still get involved because you can join us every evening of the Tent Village at 7pm for the nightly Dhamma talk. Also, we will open the Tent Village on the final morning, Sunday 19 July, to the general public for a day of Plain Buddhist Celebration. Please come around 11am with a plate of food to share. And then, if you hang around after that, you can also help us bring down the 24 foot tipi we’ll be using as the Tent Village Dhamma Hall.

The Dhamma tipi

148

Indeed. You heard correctly, a 24 foot Dhamma tipi. We should be able to squeeze around fifty people into that space. But the best part is that it is designed to have an open fire in the centre as well. Imagine what it would feel like to sit next to that open indoor fire at night with smoke rising naturally towards the stars and moon that are visible through the chute at the top while listening to Dhamma, chanting or meditating with your spiritual friends.

The Dhamma tipi is the perfect solution to the empty temple phenomena. That is, the phenomena where the faithful invest a great deal of time, money and energy in building expensive temples only to find that one or two generations after it is built, it is empty because later generations are not interested in using it.

The Dhamma tipi solves that problem by being comparatively inexpensive. This one has cost $13,000 all up. Compared to the hundreds of thousands if not millions of dollars that temples in Australia cost to build, the Dhamma tipi is very cost effective. Furthermore, maintenance costs will be close to zero.

Also, we are confident that it is precisely the kind of space that will attract non-Buddhists and young people because it is striking in a simple and elegant way from a distance, and uplifting to be inside, especially at night with the fire lit. Furthermore, every time the Dhamma tipi needs to be put up or taken down, it becomes a good excuse to gather spiritual friends for a celebration, thus strengthening the bonds of spiritual community.

Other long-term stuff

I mentioned almost casually before the future establishment of Plain Buddhist initiatives like Plain Buddhist Permaculture Villages, Plain Buddhist Urban Cooperatives, Plain Buddhist Schools and a Plain Buddhist Micro-finance.

The reason why I was so casual, is that actually, the most important thing is that we learn to live in material simplicity and deep cooperative community through the teachings in the Pali Suttas. When we get the hang of caring for each other and the earth in simple and

149

effective ways, then the Plain Buddhist Revolution will naturally take a life of its own in many ways both imagined and unimaginable.

Also we should not get ahead of ourselves by investing in utopian buildings, infrastructure, land and equipment first, and attempt to fill these with human beings later. Experience has shown that this is a recipe for heartache and bankruptcy. We should first train up our hearts and our culture so that we can and really want to live together in material simplicity and deep cooperative community.

Once we have strong numbers of people who are competent at living in material simplicity and in deep cooperative community, people who know each other through the Tent Villages and through these Dhamma talks, people who are enthusiastic to create these other initiatives, then we can flesh-out these initiatives in detail. But to keep your appetites for alternative models of Plain Buddhist living well whetted, I will give you a teaser about the future we want to create.

Plain Buddhist Permaculture Villages

This is what I imagine Plain Buddhist Permaculture Villages will be like. I imagine farms in the country, each inhabited by a community of about forty to sixty Buddhists of all ages stemming from multi-generational households. They all consider themselves Plain Buddhists, in the sense that they consider the Pali Suttas to be the teacher and well-purified wandering homeless monks and nuns to be their tutors. They all also have the same life ambition: that is, to attain Nibbana themselves and to help others attain Nibbana as well.

They live in harmony with the earth by farming the land using Permaculture principles enhanced by Buddhist insights and ethics. And they live in harmony with each other by keeping in common the five precepts, the ten principles of the good life, as well as by refraining from the six ways of ruining wealth and the five kinds of wrong trade. Furthermore, every Uposatha they practise asceticism by taking on the Eight Precepts.

They are committed to the practice of the Noble Eightfold Way and to living lives of faith, virtue, generosity and

150

wisdom. They are renown throughout the wider district for their spiritual beauty and physical strength. This reputation is earned through their constant giving, sharing, service and sacrifice to each other and the wider community.

They live simply, reminding themselves constantly that just enough is more than plenty. They can provide for most of their own needs from their own land, but they still interact regularly and meaningfully with the wider community. Most adults work on the village land and a few work outside. The children are given a Plain Buddhist education by participating in real-life activities both within and outside the village.

Homeless wandering monks and nuns pass through regularly and the villagers eagerly and joyfully listen to the Dhamma they speak. Also, from time to time monks and nuns help the villagers peacefully and equitably resolve the more stubborn conflicts that have arisen in community.

The overall purpose is to give ordinary lay people a complete social and economic context which encourages rather than hinders the practice of the Dhamma. We can think of it as upgrading to a higher level of practice. On the one hand we encourage monks and nuns to upgrade by leaving the monasteries and temples, and on the other, we encourage lay people to upgrade by moving into intentional Plain Buddhist communities.

Plain Buddhist Urban Cooperatives

Now if country-living is not quite your thing ... yet, then this is what I imagine Plain Buddhist Urban Cooperatives will be like. I imagine a similar set of Plain Buddhists living in material simplicity and deep cooperative community in large urban dwellings in numbers varying according to the size of the dwelling.

Essentially life is lived in share-house arrangements, with a few key differences: instead of being scungy share-houses composed of inconsiderate and undisciplined university students, they are true cooperatives of faithful, virtuous, generous and wise Plain Buddhists. They retro-fit their dwellings to make them as low impact as possible and use Permaculture techniques to grow food

151

in their front and backyards. And they are visited from time to time by homeless wandering monks and nuns.

However, because they live in the city, most of the adults have paid work of some kind. But, at the same time as they live in material simplicity and deep cooperative community, most of the money made is saved so that they can move into the country. This is because, being Plain Buddhists, their minds are always inclining towards quiet and unpolluted environments. Over time most move to the country and join or start Plain Buddhist Permaculture Villages

So the overall purpose of the Urban Cooperatives is to provide Plain Buddhists with places to live in the city without being shackled to multi-decade mortgages, where they can be surrounded by spiritual friends and make preparations for a more Dhammic way of life in the country.

Thus we will establish a chain of islands that lead towards Nibbana. In this way, a Plain Buddhist will be able to “island hop” from city to country and from country to the homeless wandering life and from the homeless wandering life to Nibbana.

Plain Buddhist Schools

Now to prevent the children from getting sucked into the stream of the world by the mainstream education system, we will also create Plain Buddhist Schools.

In brief, Plain Buddhist schools will be schools with small classes that teach what is relevant, through teachers on modest wages, who wield strong moral authority, and who do not resort to expensive equipment and materials.

At such schools the children will learn about:

1) How to abandon the five hindrances, the imperfections of the mind that block the growth of wisdom. That is, sensual desire, ill-will, laziness and sleepiness, overstimulation and anxiety, and moral confusion; and

2) How to develop the six essential skills of independent learners: that is, respect and humility,

152

self-discipline, functional literacy, functional numeracy, good memory and being well-spoken.

Plain Buddhist schools will be based on real life. Instead of supplementing classroom time with a few nominal excursions into real life, classroom time will be supplemental to full and meaningful participation in and contribution to community life.

The first Buddhist schools will be home-schools run by Plain Buddhist parents who have learned the ropes of Plain Buddhist schooling by attending Tent Villages.

Plain Buddhist Microfinance

Now, as more people join the movement, we will also pool financial savings to create Plain Buddhist Microfinance. Despite the fancy name, it’s actually a very simple idea.

Community members will donate their surplus funds to local Plain Buddhist Financiers who have strong reputations for being wise and honest. They will lend at zero interest up to $50,000 at a time to wise and honest social entrepreneurs. They will arrange informal and non-contractual discussions into concrete terms of repayment based solely on respect for the Dhamma.

This system assumes high levels of trust and virtue inside the community, so won’t seem plausible to those who assume the usual economist’s assumptions that human beings are intrinsically greedy and selfish. However, I am confident that such a system can work because I know those assumptions are wrong from having seen myself transform on account of the Buddha’s teaching. But this system will only seem plausible to others when they see with their own eyes how large numbers of people - who have undergo similar transformations – really can voluntarily and spontaneously arrange their daily economic affairs in line with deeply cooperative models.

But the take home message is this. It is not just people in developing nations who need access to wise, compassionate and simple finance. Australian society has become morally, culturally and spiritually bankrupt and we need to create alternative financial systems that encourage investment in wise social entrepreneurs to get us back into the moral, cultural and spiritual black.

153

We can’t rely on the global financial system to do it because the global financial system is unjust and perverted. Essentially it’s a casino and a Ponzi scheme. Its purpose is to turn the vast majority into debt slaves to a handful of rich elite, and this is true whether we live in developed or developing nations.

If we are to transform society so that ordinary people have a shot at a life where they have enough time, energy and headspace to practice the Dhamma properly, a life wherein they are no longer running around like headless chickens to pay off their debts, we need to create alternative financial systems that provide wise social entrepreneurs with access to capital in order to emancipate society, as opposed to enslave it. Such a system, I imagine, would be interest free, contract free and 100% fractional reserve, localised, small and slow. In other words, it would be a financial system which is human in scale and founded on faith, virtue, generosity and wisdom. It would be a win-win-win system where wise donors make a bonanza of good kamma by giving to the wise financiers, and wise financiers make a bonanza of good kamma by giving to wise social entrepreneurs, and the wise social entrepreneurs make a bonanza of good kamma by giving back to the wise financiers.

Symbols

And finally, every revolution needs symbols and banners to inspire and remind its adherents about its principles. We have already spoken about one symbol for the Plain Buddhist Revolution. That is, tipis as Dhamma halls. Dhamma tipis represent simplicity, sufficiency, practicality, being down to earth, harmony and balance, and spiritual community.

And the second symbol that shall represent the Plain Buddhist Revolution is the Dhamma wheel drawn in the shape of an all illuminating sun, like the one you’ve seen drawn on the posters advertising these talks. This represents the pure and direct power of the Noble Eightfold Way which illuminates the world and carries us through all difficulties.

154

We invite you to join the Plain Buddhist revolution by taking up these symbols as motifs for the creation of Plain Buddhist art here and into the future.

Vision

Now we will conclude with a short visionary sketch of that future the Plain Buddhist Revolution is aimed at creating. So please close your eyes and imagine.

… small towns and suburbs revitalised not by the force of the dollar but by communities of real human beings drinking deep from wells of harmony in individuality, society, ecology and spirituality. Communities led and composed by people who have not forgotten that the purpose of life is the development of long-term happiness, peace and freedom for everyone.

The people here are driven, discipline and hardworking; courageous and respectful; compassionate and generous; frugal, virtuous and wise. Husbands and wives, children and parents and grandparents live together in harmony. The people look after the land and the land looks after the people.

Families, businesses and farms are strong. The children are safe and well educated. And there are plenty of peaceful, healthy and long-term jobs for everyone.

We know our neighbours well, but we’re not drowning in gossip.

We have what we need and are content. Reminding ourselves always that just enough is more than plenty. Debt stress is a thing of the past. So too are depression, anxiety, ADD, chronic fatigue and a host of other modern diseases of civilisation. We no longer rely on pharmaceuticals and alcohol to get us through the day.

We are a happy people, well versed and trained in the deep culture of plain living taught by the Buddha. But of course not everything is perfect. But things are pretty darned good. And then, we do remember the days before the homeless Buddhist monks and nuns wandered into our lives,

155

the dark days when the sky was dusty and our hearts were hungry, and we're committed to never returning to life for the sake of the dollar, and we all agree to live ever on for the sake of developing long-term happiness, peace and freedom for everyone.

Finally, we invite you to join the Plain Buddhist Revolution by being willing to dream good dreams and to believe in good dreams. We call you to faith. And we call you to action.

That is my Dhamma offering to you this evening. Let us sit together for a few moments to contemplate what has been said. May all beings both seen and unseen rejoice in the goodness and merit of this Dhamma talk, and may it lead to the long- term happiness, peace and freedom of all living beings.

Sadhu. Sadhu. Sadhu.

156