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The Zen Monk

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The Zen Monk Through the Looking-Glass Or How I Became a Buddhist Monk (draft) Bhikkhu Cintita Dinsmore To the people of Burma. © 2011, 2012 John Dinsmore (Bhikkhu Cintita) Table of Contents Preface................................................................................................................5 Book One: A Felicitous Rebirth.........................................................................7 A Mind Turned Inward.....................................................................................13 G.I. Discipline .................................................................................................19 Reflections on Reality......................................................................................25 Reverence of the Adept....................................................................................31 Book Two: “The Young and the Saṃ sāric”.....................................................37 Y·S Episode one: Good friends.......................................................................43 Y·S Episode two: Becoming...........................................................................63 Y·S Episode three: Dissolution.......................................................................91 Y·S Episode four: Poor keepers....................................................................129 Book Three: Zen Days...................................................................................147 Life Choices...................................................................................................151 Dropping Out At Last.....................................................................................177 Priestcraft ......................................................................................................199 The Zen Monk................................................................................................223 Book Four: Burmese Days.............................................................................246 The Burmese Monk........................................................................................249 Four Requisites of a Bhikkhu.........................................................................267 Tales of Burma...............................................................................................281 A Bhikkhu in America....................................................................................299 Preface This book follows the course of my life as a way of clarifying what in Western or American culture needs clarifying: Why does one choose to become a monk or a nun? A monastic autobiography (for there are a few) always raises the question: “What th...? Why would a Buddhist monk, clearly familiar with the Buddha's teachings on Anattā (not-self), and obliged to practice with those teachings if not to embody them, write a book about him-Self?” Before I answer that, let me describe what I hope you will learn from what you are holding. A viable home grown monastic sangha will mark the advent of Buddhism in America. As this sangha is still meager, what we understand as Western Buddhism is yet on shaky ground. At the time (or rather times) I ordained I certainly was doing my part to strengthen Buddhism, but also more specifically hoped that I was helping to set an example for a new, hopefully young generation of monastics. That I am a European American, not enjoying the benefit of birth into a Buddhist tradition, nor for that matter any great aptitude for this manner of life and training, makes my example all the more informative for the Western aspirant. I hope, in other words, to make the option of Western ordination more tangible. With this in mind, I offer this section on me, on my life, particularly how I came to this path, how I am manifesting this path in my current life, and how I might otherwise be available as a resource for others. This book arose from a travel log that I started just before embarking on my adventures in Burma recounted in the later part of this book. I set up a blog before my trip as a means of keeping in touch en masse with family, friends and students from a land with limited means of communication. I found I could not directly access my blog's Web address from Burma because government filters suppressed many domain names, but that I could nonetheless post to it by email for others to view. I posted often about my impressions of Burmese culture, the sights of Burma and Burmese Buddhism. In particular I was interested in conveying my experience in ordaining and living as a monk in very traditional and thoroughly Buddhist culture. Having up to that time only written scholarly works, I think I discovered in the blog sphere a hidden aptitude for discursive writing: First, I received repeated suggestions from readers that I compile my postings into a book. Second, I found I fit Thomas Mann's definition of what it is to be a writer: Someone who finds writing difficult; it certainly takes me time to find the right word or the right sentence construction to convey what others, to my envy, can dash off without a second thought. After I returned to America someone asked me, and I paraphrase, “What th...? Why would a Buddhist monk, clearly familiar with the Buddha's teachings on 6 Through the Looking Glass Anatta (not-self), and obliged to practice with those teachings if not to embody them, have a Blog?” In fact I continued posting to my blog after I returned to Burma, and even entitled it Through the Looking-Glass, but have turned my real or (more likely) imagined literary talents primarily to weekly Uposatha Day teachings of an expository nature that focus with little personal reference on aspects of Dharma that seem to me to be ignored or poorly understood in the West. So, why would a Buddhist monk, clearly familiar …., write a book about him- Self? Well, I hope it is a book not about myself, but rather about what it is to become, as a Westerner and heir to the European Enlightenment, a Buddhist monastic, but an account grounded, as it must be in one way or another, in my personal experience in the matter. My hope is to convey an understanding of a central aspect of Buddhist teaching, history and culture that is yet to be fully appreciated in the West. My very special hope is, for some rare reader, that it will be a book about You, that it will be an inspiration for You to Go Forth, following in the footsteps of one hundred generations of renunciate nuns and monks and thereby become part of the historical process of laying the foundation of a viable and much needed Buddhism in the West. One begins life with a certain innate personality, what Buddhists interpret as residual karma from a previous life, a lump of clay already exhibiting certain surprisingly distinctive qualities. As one grows, makes life decisions and takes on certain behaviors in the world one is slowly but continually, whether one is aware of it or not, shaping and reshaping that lump into a different form, which is typically not an improvement. To commit to Buddhist practice is to undertake to shape that lump of clay into something that will be astonishingly beautiful, something of virtue, serenity and wisdom. To take up monastic practice is commit oneself fully, wholeheartedly and singlemindedly to that one task. Although this book follows the course of my life it is a very interpreted life. I select aspects that illustrate Buddhist themes and when the opportunity presents itself provide a Buddhist-tinged commentary. However much of the content is included simply to sustain the narrative form or because it is deemed interesting, useful or funny. I have taken a minimal amount of liberty with this account to improve readability, for instance, in a couple of places finessing some details, such as names, that I really do not remember or elsewhere combining two events into one. Some flights of fantasy will also be clearly evident. Otherwise this is an accurate account. Book One: A Felicitous Rebirth I write this from my 8 foot by 12 foot hut in which I dwell on a 17-acre Burmese monastery in the Hill Country of Texas, just southwest of Austin. We share our space of oaks and cedar, with deer, wild turkeys, road-runners, coyotes, a fox, those little bugs that pretend to be sticks, and an occasional scorpion or snake. I wear the robes of a Theravada Buddhist monk, and accordingly live a life with four characteristics: First, a monk lives a life of seclusion, ideally close to nature, free from worldly distractions and entertainment, far from the common entanglements of society, the ideal support for a mind serene as a still forest pond. Second, a monk lives a life of discipline, regulated, upright, steeped in virtue in which each day yields little opportunity for the whims of a greedy, angry or convoluted self. Third, a monk lives a life of reflection, contemplative, ethical, in which intentions, actions, consequences, thought processes and the experience of things in themselves are carefully examined. Finally, a monk lives a life of reverence, purposeful, meaningful, with boldly wholehearted commitment, not for the weak of heart. We worldlings live in a looking-glass world in which things, prior to close inspection, are not what they seem. Until this is recognized, the monastic life of seclusion, discipline, reflection and reverence makes little sense, and in fact seems a bit crazy. After this is fully recognized, the monastic life comes into sharp focus to reveal itself clearly as the sanest way to live in a crazy world. But I'm
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