[Buddha-l] Sense and sensibility was: American Mahayana/British Theravada?

[Richard P. Hayes]

On Wed, 2006-01-18 at 11:15 +0100, Joy Vriens wrote:

> When walking into a 
> meditation hall, experienced oldtime meditators could be recognised by 
> the sages they closed doors on, marked on their robe.

The Unitarian church I regularly attend (note that I did not say
"faithfully attend" -- Unitarians don't do faith) has little name tags
for everyone, and each name tag has information about one's status in
the church, such as "member for twenty years" or "friend since summer of
2005" or "deceased member now attending as a ghost" and so forth. When I
was in Japan I noticed that Buddhist temples usually have placards
posted in very public places that tell the name of donors and the amount
of the each donor's donation. These seem like excellent practices to me.
Wearing name tags and announcing to the whole world how much your gave
to the temple are clearly designed to help you deepen your spiritual
practice and attain powerful experiential familiarity with non-dualism.

It has long seemed to me that Western Buddhist practitioners need
incentives to achieve higher stages of the path. I am thinking of
something like merit badges that Boy Scouts wear. When someone attains
stream entry, for example, why not sew a colourful badge on the sleeve
of their meditation garment (ever noticed how Western Buddhists can't
meditate unless they have the right attire?). Zen people could get
badges for attaining various levels of kensho. Not only would it give
the stream entrants and the kenshovinists the recognition they so richly
deserve, but it would help other people know how seriously to take them.
So if someone starts talking about compassion, you could quickly look on
her meditation jacket sleeve (or perhaps a sash, for those who have lots
of merit badges to display) to see whether she is a fifth-bhumi
bodhisattva. Those who attain deep realization of nondualism, I propose,
should get two 

Your suggestion that one get a badge for closing doors on sages is a
good one, Joy. In fact, I think one should get a hat for that. In fact,
though I hate to boast of my achievements (or would hate to boast of
them if I had any), I can't resist pointing out that the hat in the
photograph you say is my official sage-door-closing hat. 

> That would be my dream, walking into a meditation hall with assistants 
> that take off my robe before I sit down after a bit of warming up 

If you meditate robelessly, you will be wanting the sash (or the badge-
festooned loin cloth) for sure. Otherwise, how will anyone know which
level of insight you have attained?

-- 
Richard