Showing posts with label Bhante G. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Bhante G. Show all posts

Friday, July 15, 2011

Buddhist monk's "Hippie History" (video)

Seven Dharmachari (Wisdom Quarterly)


How does one go from college to drugs to a search for nirvana?


Bearing an uncanny resemblance to Buddhist monk Ven. Rahula, Rev. Jim* (Back to the Future star Christopher Lloyd) from "Taxi" explains his roundabout path from Harvard University (with Tom Hanks), to peer-pressured premarital sex, to Woodstock, to the garage.

American (Sri Lankan Theravada) forest monk Ven. Rahula ()

The author of one of the most surprising and candid books on the "Buddhist" spiritual quest one may ever read (One Night's Shelter) is by Ven. Rahula. He is a former resident of West Virginia's Bhavana Society. He was once in line to succeed as its abbot when the noted elderly Sri Lankan scholar-practitioner Bhante G (author of Mindfulness in Plain English) stepped down. But he returned to the call of the open road after many years.


Meandering down from Afghanistan to the call of Acid (LSD) Full Moon Parties in Goa, India


Bhante Rahula recounts the "Hippie History" that led many in the West to seek a deeper spirituality through the Dharma (Pali, Dhamma) rather than the spiraling senselessness of sex, drugs, and rock 'n roll.
Baby boomers evolved from being fed up with endless American wars -- with Vietnam destroying the illusion that we were killing and conquering for any noble or humanitarian reason whatsoever -- via drugs towards interest in sharp mindfulness and blissful meditation.

The real renunciation of drugs is as much mental as physical


*Explaining the character of Jim on "Taxi"

Drugs Are Bad
Embodiment of the Sixties
Jim attended Woodstock ("500,000 people... Lucky for them I went, or it would have only been 499,999"). He said he kept finding God everywhere -- except "he kept ditching me." He spent a year of his life making a macrame couch. He was once traded from his commune to another commune for two goats and a Donovan record. Jim once claimed that instead of finding NIRVANA, his 1960's experiences only left him with recurring flashbacks of the original Mouseketeers appearing as visions hatching out of seedpods.

The lesson here is best summarized by South Park's Mr. Mackay: "Drugs are bad, m'kay?"


Final word: Children, drugs are bad. M'kay?

Thursday, May 5, 2011

How to Know? (MP3)

Wisdom Quarterly, Wikipedia, Bhante G


There is a word most of us never hear but that occupies us almost every waking minute -- epistemology. It is the investigation of, in brief, "how we know what we know." How do we come to conclusions about what is true and what is not? We have implicit theories of knowledge whether we like it or not. By bringing them to the surface and making them explicit, we can see if it is a sensible process likely to lead us to truth.
Epistemology comes from the Greek epistēmē, meaning "knowledge or science," and logos or -logy, meaning "the study of").

Epistemology is the branch of philosophy concerned with the nature and limitations of knowledge. It addresses the questions:

  • What is knowledge?
  • How is knowledge acquired?
  • How do we know what we know?

In short, it is the search for truth. Much of the debate in this field of study has focused on analyzing (taking apart, breaking down, or deconstruction) the nature of knowledge and how it relates to notions such as truth, belief, and justification. It also deals with the means of production of knowledge, as well as skepticism about different knowledge claims. How does the Buddha and Buddhism approach this search or quest. The highest good is finding truth, and the highest truth is nirvana. But nirvana is not a thing (noun) so much as a process (verb). It is not to be found by thought but to be experienced. How do we find the way to nirvana or a teacher?

The Canki Sutta
Bhante Gunaratana (BhavanaSociety.org)
In this discourse, the Buddha gives the student Canki (pronounced "chunky") instructions on investigating the truth and anyone who claims to be a teacher of the Dharma: looking for states such as greed, hatred, and delusion in them. This path of training is explained as leading from placing verifiable-confidence in a teacher -- by visiting and paying respect, to listening and hearing the Dharma, to memorizing it and examining its meaning -- which leads to gaining reflective acceptance of the teaching. Then comes the arising of zeal, the application of will, scrutinizing, striving, and finally, realizing and seeing the ultimate Truth by penetrating it with wisdom.

"I do not perceive even one other thing, O recluses, that when undeveloped and uncultivated entails as much suffering as the mind. The mind when undeveloped and uncultivated entails great suffering”
- The Buddha (AN 1:9).

File Size: 22 MB
Duration: 1:30:00
Recorded: 9-28-07