[Buddha-l] Re: H.H. The Dalai Lama vs Geshe Michael Roach

[Richard Hayes]

On Saturday 19 August 2006 20:47, Piya Tan wrote:

> It would also be interesting to see what happens to the WBO/FWBO
> when Sangharakshita dies.

Yes, that will be interesting. Even while he is still alive, a 
number of very important changes have taken place. There are three 
in particular that I find very healthy. If I may run the risk of 
boring everyone to tears, let me discuss them briefly.

First, a number of senior and influential members of the WBO have 
openly declared that they find Sangharakshita's actions in the past 
lamentable and unskillful. The WBO is not a monastic order and 
therefore does not require a vow of celibacy. Many, perhaps most, 
order members are sexually active and quite open about it. So it is 
not Sangharakshita's being sexually active that worries people. 
Rather, it's the fact that he never formally disrobed. He continued 
to call himself Mahasthavira Sangharakshita and still wore his 
robes on ceremonial occasions. To this day, many order members call 
him Bhante, knowing full well that that is a term of address 
usually used for monks. This strikes many of us as hypocrisy. If 
one chooses not to wear robes and follow the code of a bhikshu, 
that is fine. What is NOT fine is confusing people by acting in 
many respects as a bhikshu but not following the vows and not 
participating in pratimoksha ceremonies of confession when one has 
broken minor vows. 

Second, there was a time when seeking out instruction from Buddhist 
teachers outside the WBO, or attending non-WBO retreats, was 
strongly discouraged, almost forbidden. That policy led my friend 
Stephen Batchelor, and many other observant people, to see the WBO 
as more of a cult than a sangha. Fortunately, it is no longer the 
case that WBO members are perceived as somehow disloyal if they 
broaden their Buddhist horizons. It is now fairly common for WBO 
members to attend retreats, and even form relationships with 
non-WBO teachers, without feeling conflicted and without feeling 
they have to somehow make a choice between "my way or the highway."

Third, there was a time when there was a more or less official WBO 
attitude that if one did not regard Buddhism as absolutely the best 
teachings on earth, and therefore regard Christianity, Judaism and 
Islam as forms of delusion, then one could not sincerely go for 
refuge to the Buddha, the Dharma and the Sangha. Interfaith 
dialogue was usually regarded with deep suspicion. Many influential 
and vocal members of the WBO now openly explore other religions and 
feel as free to learn from Jewish, Christian, Muslim and secular 
teachers as from non-WBO Buddhist teachers.

> There was a time when I thought Sangharakshita was right about
> needing a new approach (or "new society") in the West and
> westernized communities.

I still think he was right about that. (I think it may be putting 
things too strongly to say anyone NEEDS a new approach; I'm content 
to say this new approach is welcome to many people.)  I still think 
that many of the features of the WBO approach to Buddhism are 
useful and productive. Many of us in the WBO still feel that way 
and are determined to try to make the WBO what it should have 
become instead of what it did become. To do that, of course, 
requires serious reflection on one of Sangharakshita's many 
maxims: "One cannot become what one should be merely by closing 
one's eyes to what one is." This is as true on the collective, 
institutional level as on the individual level.

> One of the reasons we have to keep the precepts is out of
> compassion for the suffering others who are seeking the way, and
> so that those approaching it do not lose faith. 

As you know, following the ten precepts has always been deemed 
extremely important within the (F)WBO. Precepts should not be 
confused with monastic vows. They are not equivalent. One can break 
monastic vows without violating any ethical precepts. And one can 
keep all the monastic vows and still manage to violate some of the 
precepts, especially the speech precepts and the mental precepts. 

One could argue (as Sangharakshita has done) that monastic vows are 
based on the precepts, and I suppose that is broadly true. As Curt 
has observed, however, it is not at all obvious that all of the 
vinaya rules have something to do with morality or with the virtue 
of compassion; many seem to be aimed at what we would now call 
public relations and keeping up the sort of appearances that people 
in 5th century India needed to keep up if they wanted make a 
livelihood as religious beggars. Most scholars of the vinaya rules 
whose work I am familiar with seem to think that a good many of the 
vinaya rules were all about "image" and only secondarily about the 
cultivation of inner virtue.

Back to the WBO attitude toward precepts just for a moment, there 
has been considerable discussion about whether Sangharakshita's 
sexual conduct during the years when he was sexually active could 
better be described as sexual misconduct. To this day, he seems to 
believe that his sexual adventures were meant to help people and 
that his intentions were pure. Many, perhaps most, of us in the WBO 
feel that Sangharakshita is naive and deluded in thinking that his 
only intentions were spiritual. The consensus within the WBO, I 
think, is that sexual relations between a person who perceives 
himself as a disciple and a person whom he perceives as a master 
are potentially very damaging, and that it is dangerous not to be 
aware of this potential damage. And when one is aware of the 
potential damage, then acting in a way that risks doing that damage 
can only be seen as foolish and irresponsible. It is disappointing 
that Sangharakshita does not at least acknowledge the psychological 
harm that some of the disciples with whom he had sexual relations 
have suffered. Being in denial is so virtue. Ironic, but probably 
not at all unusual, that the man who wrote "One cannot become what 
one should be merely by closing one's eyes to what one is" seems so 
blind to what he is (or was).  

> Well, at least these "monastics" are not molesting thousands of
> little children in the shadows of Pope Alexander "Medici".

Do we know that for sure? It may be better not to assume anything 
these days. We live in troubled times when counterfeit virtue far 
outweighs genuine virtue. It is the age of fool's gold.

> May we grow as lotuses in the mud heading for the sunshine.

There has been an unprecedented amount of rainfall in New Mexico 
this summer. Vegetation is so lush that most local old-timers are 
saying "This is no longer New Mexico." Interestingly enough, one of 
the plants that grows most abundantly in the damp soil here is 
Datura, a beautiful plant with a beautiful flower. If eaten, it 
makes people (and cattle) paranoid and psychotic. My feeling is 
that a hell of a lot more people are growing as datura out of the 
mud than as lotuses and that datura-eaters are more plentiful than 
lotus-eaters.

-- 
Richard Hayes (alias, in the WBO, Dh. Dayamati)
http://home.comcast.net/~dayamati/