Bodhicitta, Gratitude, and Generosity

This morning I had a good therapeutic conversation with Lynn and Mimi at breakfast. It started with Mimi talking about her family, and the topic led to how distressed I have been lately because of my verbally abusive relatives.

I told Mimi and Lynn about my mother and her siblings, and how I’m only just starting to confront the situation and try healing from my childhood, and that only in the past few years I’ve stopped being in denial about what my relatives are really like. I told them that my most poisonous relatives were victims of incest when they were children, and I described the way they ganged up on my nephew as if they were a gang of playground bullies, and I said, “Seeing them treat him that way, I realized that they have treated me like that hundreds of times. And I figured out that they pick the youngest person, because they believe that the younger you are, the more powerless and the more abused you deserve to be.”

Mimi was outraged and said, “You feel so helpless when you witness things like that.” That’s very true, and I neglected to mention that I had just done five or six weeks of intensive metta meditation before that family reunion and was therefore remarkably equanimous. We talked about healing, and I mentioned the book by Alice Miller called The Drama of the Gifted Child, which I read shortly before this trip, and Lynn is familiar with the book. They pointed out that the healing process takes a long time. Mimi said, “If even just one person begins to heal, it is healing the previous generation and the next generation.” That was very encouraging, although she also said that it’s highly unusual, very hard, to recover from child abuse.

I said, “Who knows how many generations this has been going on.”

After breakfast, we gathered into the courtyard of Cloud’s End, where some plastic patio chairs had been set up in a sort of circle. I spread out my straw mat in front of some chairs and settled down on it, taking off my boots and sitting cross-legged.

The Mindfulness Trainings Ceremony was the reason we gathered in the courtyard; it had been such an exciting and joyful experience in the Jetta Grove last year, and yet this time it seemed to me like a meaningless ceremony. During the ceremony, I was in the center back and going through the motions but lacked last year's enthusiasm. The ceremony last year had been such a great inspiration.

Stacy and I had already done the Mindfulness Training Ceremony previously, so Shantum didn’t call us up and give us the certificate, which seemed a little anti-climactic but to be expected. However, he later asked me what my dharma name was, and I told him “Fearlessness of the Source.” He seemed in a cheerful mood when he asked and even smiled at me, but I didn’t feel like smiling. I really do have to wonder if it’s possible for me to coexist with humans at all, since everywhere I turn I get rejection. A little later he gave me a fresh Mindfulness Training Certificate, and I remembered that the one from last year is slightly dog-eared.

Shortly after the ceremony, Shantum gave an instruction in mindful hugging and demonstrated with Inge, and there was hugging going around in the courtyard. I went back to writing depressive thoughts or whatever in my journal, and it looked like everyone would ignore me. But Samaya approached me and I grudgingly agreed to a mindful hug. Mimi also gave me a mindful hug and afterwards whispered to me, “You’re beautiful.”

The sangha settled back down in chairs and on the lawn to have a talk. We discussed the topics of generosity and privilege, since generosity was such a huge topic in the Dalai Lama’s teachings and so significant to issues we encountered outside the teachings, such as the decision to donate to the Tibetan Children’s Village and the Tibetan Nuns Project.

One of the things for which we should be grateful, and that came up in conversation, is the gift of nonfear: fear, fear of death, how the person who died an hour ago is gone and a new person is there. This includes your work, karma, with mind and body stream not dying but continuing beyond physical death. One can experience nonfear in facing the basic fear of death.

Mimi gave a long list of examples of privileges: she was able to get education and go through college, she has the privilege of being a woman in America, to live in a country where you can be a feminist and not be persecuted for it (which just goes to show that the Midwest isn’t part of America!), having plenty to eat, money, the ability to travel and go from place to place and do many things, being able to go, the privilege to have silence and solitude. Shantum or someone said that you can make a gratitude list comparing yourself to the rest of the world. Someone else pointed out that white skin is a privilege in racist society. That proves that privileges are not a deserved sort of thing. Someone mentioned the privilege of travel and of being here. Gary said, “The privilege of being a human being.”

On the subject of generosity: give what you can. I am not open to hugs and to showing emotion, which could be seen as a sort of generosity. But I donate money and food and things, regardless of how uncomfortable (and/or incompetent) I am about displaying emotion or showing that I have a heart. You should give of yourself; it doesn’t have to be a big thing.

The discussion also covered the subject of generosity with money: supporting causes, supporting people, supporting yourself. I do all of those things, certainly, for all my seeming worthlessness. As Gary pointed out, “Some people have huge amounts of money but are poor in their outlook;” plenty of very wealthy people don’t give to the poor. “The world has abundance. Generosity for me is about connecting with the abundance of life.”

“You can’t keep it unless you give it away,” David said.

Etiel said, “The Jewish tradition of generosity. You’re obliged to pick up and carry someone who’s ill.”

“The generosity of affection is liberating,” someone said. Great, I don’t experience much of that, and I have to accept the fact that I never will…except from cats. I can’t forget cats, but for most people they’re not enough—you need affection from your own species.

Mimi or someone also spoke of giving money and saying, “It’s not ours to keep.” We don’t own anything.

Shantum said, “Current governments have invented property to keep track of what’s there, separation into categories.”

Sheila said, “Generosity to yourself—giving yourself time, space, and quiet to help others do the same.”

In the midst of this conversation, I said nothing but wrote in my journal: “Is there such a huge difference between the street beggars in India and my begging for travel money from my dad?” At least street beggars are poor and therefore have better reason to beg. I on the other hand have begged for money from my dad for the luxury of traveling to the other side of the world. And of course it’s easier to beg from your dad (at least, if you have a dad like mine) than to beg from a stranger whose reaction could be just about anything.

We also experience generosity of the sangha with each other, often in the form of small gestures. That addition to the conversation reminded me how so many people in this sangha have, in effect, been my mother. It has reminded me of the Tibetan saying that everyone has been your mother in a previous life.

The topic of generosity next led to the support of certain organizations, in particular some of the places that the sangha visited. The group that has been traveling for over a month went to a girls’ orphanage. Of course the Tibet Nun’s Project and the Tibetan Children’s Village came up, and I definitely want to donate to the latter and possibly also the former. Mimi earlier had discussed this with me and had asked why I wanted to support the nuns but not the Children’s Village, and I had said, “Well, maybe I’ll support the Children’s Village also, but I knew about the Nuns Project beforehand and have read a lot about Buddhist nuns and how unappreciated they generally are, so it’s a topic close to my heart.” It might have been more to the point that women’s issues are invariably close to my heart. Of course, I think of peace and revolution--and therefore education that emphasizes peace, nonviolence, and good communication skills—to be close to my heart and relevant to feminism, and I have been bringing it up in petitions, surveys, and letters, even though I’m certainly not a teacher.

Shantum mentioned his volunteering with the U. N. for a dollar a year to run a whole program on his own. Self development—the U.N. didn’t get it and, didn’t appreciate his attempts to reform the system. He had mentioned this in the taxi on the way from the Norbulingka Institute, and I thought it was no wonder he had concluded that the U.N. is useless. It seems to me that although he’s been so much more distant and brusque on this trip, he has opened up about his own past more than he had on the pilgrimage. His employment is a part of practice, it’s hard to give, especially to himself.

Mimi said, “To quote Helen Boyle, ‘I love my money because I can give it away.’”

2
For lunch, we ate on the balcony at Chonor House. I picked up a Tibetan Independence Movement brochure that included a post card inside, to send to the Chinese government. I would have to hide it in my suitcase before going to Tibet and refrain from mailing it until I got back the States, because I didn’t want to get in trouble with the Chinese government until after I left Tibet. It wouldn’t do to be kicked out of the country. I hoped no authorities would notice that I have a panda bear with a Tibetan flag on its back; I hadn’t thought of that when I purchased the toy for my nephew.

Before I sat down, we saw a large, beautiful black-faced monkey in a tree by the balcony. Of course, I had to get as close as possible and watch the monkey, or specifically the Hanuman langur, climbing and swinging, before I sat down and got out my radio.

We listened to the English version of the Dalai Lama’s teachings on our radios all through lunch; I remembered to bring the radio this time. I felt nonetheless crappy and kept blowing my nose, and Stacy passed me a packet of a vitamin C and honey supplement in pink powder form; you put it in a glass (or teacup) and it fizzles and bubbles. Very interesting. It didn’t taste gross, and I drank it down quickly.

The Dalai Lama talked about generosity and altruism, different forms of enlightenment, and different forms of bodhicitta. He spoke at some length of bodhicitta, the “ultimate altruism to benefit all sentient beings.” When your everyday state is like your meditative state, you’ve reached Buddhahood. The Dalai Lama spoke about reciting a bodhicitta mantra on a daily basis; I think that’s a lot like practicing metta (lovingkindness) meditation.

I gathered up my stuff and headed for the temple shortly after two pm. I wanted to get a look at the Dalai Lama before his dishy translator’s four o’clock teaching. I got through security and moved up the steps, where Westerners stood with radios. I stood behind someone and arranged my radio. The reception, I discovered, was much better at Chonor House, and it was rather less comfy to stand there with my bag hanging from my neck rather than sit on a mat, but I didn’t mind. I did get a look at the Dalai Lama as he went by, and again I smiled back at him glowingly.

I then hung out at the temple and people watched until the translator’s teachings. It is definitely quite a place to people watch, with all the Tibetan pilgrims with different regional dress. I remembered that there wasn’t a lot of point in leaving the temple, even though I had a full hour. I first waited for the crowd to die down while I stood in the courtyard and people-watched. As there came to be more elbow room, I slowly made my way up the path to the temple, and next I stood at the front of the balcony and looked down at people. I saw an old lama blessing people by taking a large rolled-up thangka and gently touching them on the foreheads. When it was close to four o’clock, I turned and headed up to the Kalachakra Hall for the final time.

The translator talked about bodhicitta also, and he pointed out that if you want to be famous, you should be famous for being altruistic, for being like, say, Gandhi. If you try to be famous like Michael Jackson, your voice and your dance moves aren’t going to last forever.

With Mimi, Arturo, and David, I sneaked out of the hall early, so that we could pile into a taxi and get to Cloud’s End in time for the talk with the Dalai Lama’s brother. I’ve been feeling terrible—it’s a cold, I’m sure, not just allergies. By the time we gathered into the little sitting room at 5:30—actually, some of us got there earlier—I was exhausted and yawning. During the discussion, I couldn’t help yawning widely, even though I felt terribly guilty about doing it and was genuinely enjoying listening to Tenzin. Hopefully he could tell I was sick; I blew my nose enough.

We gathered into the living room at Cloud’s End to have a talk with the Dalai Lama’s brother, Tenzin Choegyal. He was also identified as a reincarnate lama at an early age, but he ditched the post because it didn’t suit him. I was one of the first people in the room, and I plopped down on the floor; I always sit on the floor because it seems to me appropriate for the youngest person in the group, and because I’m more comfortable sitting that way than sitting up in a chair and not knowing what to do with my legs. Shantum walked up to the dais in the bay window and pulled up a seat for our Tibetan visitor, but Tenzin Choegyal mischievously plopped down in the center of the couch next to David and grinned.

I looked up at Tenzin Choegyal from about three feet away and couldn’t help but stare: the Dalai Lama was in disguise! I thought he looked remarkably like the Dalai Lama, except he had short hair instead of a shaved head, and instead of red robes he wore Western pants, an oxford shirt, and a brown jacket with the message “SF San Francisco” on the upper left side. He wore squarish glasses like the Dalai Lama’s. Shantum had said something to the effect that Tenzin Choegyal isn’t very sociable and spends a lot of time in retreat, so I had visualized a crazy, stern, cave-dwelling yogi with long braided hair and traditional Tibetan clothing. In the course of the discussion, we learned that he’s sixty-one years old. He does look a lot younger than his brother and still has totally black hair.

Shantum introduced Tenzin by saying, “This is my teacher. Well, a friend.”

Tenzin said, “A friend who led him astray!” He even sounds a lot like the Dalai Lama! Well, his voice isn’t that deep, and his English is more fluent. Members of the sangha asked him questions, and he happily, eagerly, answered.

“Some people think Buddhism is pessimistic, because it talks about suffering. All spiritual traditions talk about suffering. If you mention spiritual traditions, people automatically think of fighting,” he said. He mentioned that religions become political parties, for there is tremendous division instead of uniting, and this is a big challenge we have at this age. It’s a great time to make amends, to transform. He condemned political parties as being about selfishness and imposing one’s view on others, including through money. It’s no wonder I now refuse to even try associating myself, limiting myself, to a political party.

Shantum introduced Paula as the rabbi who took the Three Refuges, and Tenzin said, “Should we throw a party?”

Tenzin Choegyal is so not a fan of blind faith, which is something people have if they don’t examine or analyze things; I think that is connected to fundamentalism.

“May I ask a question?” Richard asked.
“No, you may not,” Tenzin joked.
“Is the empowerment ceremony appropriate for householders, or just monastics?” (The Dalai Lama did the empowerment ceremony for at least a couple days, in addition to teachings.)
“The empowerment ceremony is OK for householders.”

“I’d like to ask you a personal question,” Etiel said.
“No personal questions!” Tenzin joked with a grin.
“Why didn’t you remain a monk?”
“I wasn’t up to the task. It was like wearing the skin of a tiger.”

Tenzin Choegyal told us a lot about himself, about his life, and about how different his views are from his brother’s. While he’s a big fan of nonviolence and dialogue, he’s not so serious a fan of the monastic system, which has a lot of power. While he does believe in reincarnation, he doesn’t have faith in the Rinpoche system of identifying little kids who are supposedly reincarnations of specific lamas. As he pointed out, everyone’s reincarnated, not just lamas.

“Our community still suffers from following rituals and not looking at the creed. It’s not about religion but psychology.” He mentioned that meditation is about attempting to lose negative thoughts. What a challenge, given the conditioning we grow up with!

“I have no authority except my big ego.”

“Identifying with religion gives you pressure to identify yourself,” said the David who’s from Florida.

“Labels are very misleading. If you identify with the label, attachment comes,” Tenzin Choegyal said. He talked quite a bit about labels, including money, which is just paper, but we’ve labeled it and given it the meaning of currency, so we accept it. “How do you remove the label? If you skillfully handle it, it’s OK. Nonself of the self, all names are labels. Even a label is subjective. All depends on how we handle it.” He said, “I think I’m talking like a wise person, but I’m not.” But he wasn’t done with labels yet, saying that “I” and “myself” are just labels; “it’s functional, but it lacks all substantiality.”

“We tend to return to events that are pleasant and block out unpleasant events. It goes to things not being the way we want.” I guess that’s how people are nostalgic; they remember a vacation and focus on the good parts.

He said, “I don’t like rituals…I don’t like temples.” At some point in the conversation, he said, “I’m kind of a nut, you know.”

John said, “All of us are in some continuity of mental balance.” Mine certainly is drastically off kilter.

Richard asked about depression and meditation, and Tenzin said to embrace it. “Probably it’s grounded in self-centeredness.” Tenzin experienced depression during the winter (seasonal affective disorder). Depression is physical and mental, interdependently between the physical and spiritual. He went to doctors, was diagnosed as bipolar, which is both depression and mania. A doctor treated him with lithium. “Incidentally, the greatest deposit of lithium is in Tibet.” It helped and people were encouraging. Depression is what drove him to a regular meditation practice, and he’s feeling so much better because of it. Now he’s focused on studying the dharma.

“When people are desperate, thoughts are going everywhere. Then I became interested in Buddhism and it helped. People who become depressed are undisciplined. We are meditating all the time, but not properly.” I have come to the conclusion that I shall have to leave Kansas in order to truly make progress with meditation; as long as I dwell there, I shall make one step forward to every fifty steps back.

“What if you were in that role [Rinpoche], and it was discovered you were bipolar?” someone asked.
“They’d know they made a mistake,” Tenzin replied. “We are all reincarnates from previous lives—identifying reincarnation, it only exists in Tibet, and I don’t know why—this continuity of the practice and to a particular lineage. In history, it became a problem. I personally don’t feel it’s a good idea.”
“Why?”
“Look at me…. There are many loopholes—it is not handled properly, a tulku becomes a symbol of earthly existence. When I talk like this, people think I’m a traitor.”

“Do you discuss this with your brother?”
“He accepts.”

“There’ve been a lot of books written on mindfulness,” Richard said.
“And they made a lot of money,” Tenzin said with a grin. He encouraged us to read root text (as a Theravada practitioner, I translate that as, in particular, the Pali canon, which is more or less the words of the Buddha, passed down for centuries). He added, “We should read more deeply and study more deeply.”

Marsha said, “Your wife is a delight. How did you meet her?”

“I don’t think she’s a delight,” Tenzin said. They met in Darjeeling when she was in college, in 1964.

“Are there arranged marriages in Tibet?”

“It was self-arranged.” He added that they first met in a movie theater; the film was George Scott Flimflam Man. I’ve never heard of it.

Someone asked him about nonviolence, and Tenzin said, “Nonviolence—most people think it’s passive, but it’s active. You’ve got to have the right understanding.”

He went on to talk about attachment and emptiness, and dependent origination, not to mention impermanence and our failure to recognize things as impermanent, which leads to suffering. “If you have tremendous anger, impermanence means it’ll go away.” Rather relevant to his comments about political parties, Tenzin talked about how attachment causes “lots of arguments take place.”

“What are your views on vegetarianism?” Natalie asked.
“I’m strictly nonvegetarian.” He added, “I think it’s very desirable to be vegetarian. But you must get requirements for your body. Among Tibetans—Younger ones are becoming vegetarian, it’s becoming more common. Tibetans subsist on carbohydrates in monasteries, some have overweight, have diabetes, not enough exercise.” Tenzin said. “Three cheers for vegetarianism!”

“In attachment to the Tibetan land, is there a difference between generations?” Paula asked.
“I have walked on the soil of so-called Tibet. Yes, there is a difference. Sons and daughters have not been there, and it’s all a mind thing.”

“I think human beings are going through an evolution. I don’t think one hundred years ago people talked about this,” someone said.
“Jews did—going back to the land,” Paula said.

“Everyone in the world thinks Tibetans are perfect!” Tenzin said with a laugh. “If Tibet becomes peaceful, where spiritual pursuit is encouraged, I’d go for it. Otherwise, I’m happy elsewhere.” Someone asked him why people think Tibetans are perfect, and he said, “I think it’s because of the novel Lost Horizons by James Hilton.”

He mentioned that he thinks a family person has more compassion than a sangha member; if you’re around difficult people rather than secluded, then you have on-hands experience practicing compassion and all. This has certainly occurred to me often enough, but if you’re in such a painful situation that you’re crippled with depression all the time, you’ve got to get out of that unhealthy situation; I don’t think that meditation alone is enough, even though part of my sense of guilt and my staying in Kansas so long is because I read that an enlightened being is happy no matter where they are.

Tenzin is highly critical of the Tibetan monastic system and explained that it’s intellectual understanding rather than practice. (Well, they do practice meditation and chanting, but that’s not the same thing as experiencing equanimity when mean people are attacking you. It’s much more challenging to practice when you’re not in a monastery.) He said some people join the monastery because they get free food. Basically, there are some things he likes about Tibetan Buddhism (otherwise he wouldn’t be so into studying the dharma now), and other things he doesn’t like about Tibetan Buddhism. He would like practice to be more secular.

“Mishandling freedom is a universal problem,” Tenzin said, reminding me how unfathomably hypocritical war-mongering white male Americans are with their talk of freedom, when obviously they don’t even know what it means. “The most difficult thing to do today is how to handle freedom.”

“I can’t resist…” John said.
“Go ahead. Use your freedom,” Tenzin said.
John is critical of the level of monasticism and the Dalai Lama’s support of this. He called it “confinement of thought of the worst kind.” He said, “Isn’t this monasticism a cancer to the Tibetan cause?”
“I share your view,” Tenzin said. “In monasteries we have trouble with discipline. Are these people genuine?” John mentioned that nobody agreed with him about this, but as it turned out the Dalai Lama’s brother agrees with him.
“Shantum, why did you bring him to this kind of teaching?” Tenzin asked with a grin.

“I really know nothing,” Tenzin said. “My ignorance—I’m an exhibitionist. I like to show off. I’m quite sincere in my feeling. I try to call a spade a spade.”

Tenzin said, “The Tibetan issue—it’s a small speck.” This has occurred to me often enough, like when I’ve donated to the International Campaign to Tibet, even though I don’t think that organization is half as important as the Global Fund for Women. “The Tibetan problem comes from carelessness, not caring, so what does it say?”

“Why did the Dalai Lama mostly read from the Dhammapada?” someone asked, and several people expressed dismay that the Dalai Lama did this.

“I think we should go on strike?” Tenzin said. Someone asked if he has discussed this with his brother, but he said, “Since the teachings, I haven’t seen him. I’m a crowd-shy guy.”
He also said, “I think it’s a genuine grievance here.” For those who don’t speak Tibetan, the lack of commentary is not fair.

“He’s teaching primarily for the Tibetan community,” Shantum said. Some Tibetans are illiterate or barely literate, or otherwise have reasons why they won’t ever get a hold of the Dhammapada; Westerners on the other hand can easily get it in English at a bookstore or library.

“But that doesn’t help these people,” Tenzin said. “I’m listening at home on the FM. I thought it was odd that he didn’t explain for two days…in his commentary, tremendously powerful.”

“It’s different when we criticize, different than when you do,” Stacy said.

Tenzin said, “For people who are interested in spiritual tradition, study it, and study it in groups, with no leader.”

After a little more discussion, Tenzin asked, “Any more questions?” He looked around the room, but we were silent. “I think everyone is shocked.”

The discussion went to plans for having dinner at Kashmir Cottage. “Can someone give me a ride?” Tenzin asked.
“No, you have to walk.”

Our lively and enthusiastic discussion lasted at least two hours. Although I enjoyed it, and Natalie was also there, my cold was terrible, and I went to bed afterwards, like around eight, rather than have dinner.

People were leaving and I was in the little hallway outside the living room, where we all put on our shoes. Only a couple of other people were in the room as I slipped into my boots. Since I wasn’t up to having dinner, I said to Sheila, “If anyone asks about me, I’m going to take a shower and go to bed.” She’s had the same cold (or probably the same cold) that I have and said that resting did her a lot of good, so she knew what I was going through. I was so exhausted! I went to bed at about eight o’clock, and a servant guy came with the hot water bottles when I was already in bed. I think I startled him.

“No dinner?” he asked.

“No, I’ve got a cold. I need rest,” I said, and thanked him as I took the water bottle. He apologized, and I think I might have sounded grumpy and regretted it, but I didn’t mean to sound that way. When I’m feeling ill, I say things like that and afterwards suspect I wasn’t polite—this was one of those situations.