Four Right Efforts for 2011

So it’s that time again when many are making their resolutions for the New Year. I pity them as most will be unable to make good on their resolutions before the end of the first week. But I also have pity for those who succeed on these resolutions because of their clinging to this notion that their success will make them an overall better person. In fact, to the entire concept of making New Year resolutions I say screw it.

Every day is an opportunity to practice the Dhamma with greater skill than the previous day. And every day holds the potential of being our last. Jan. 1 is no more special a day in this regard then March 12, or Aug. 7. Every day is an opportunity for us to better ourselves and to be of greater service to others. Every day is a chance to wipe away a bit more of the film of delusion that covers our eyes and sedates our mind, to rattle our helter skelter actions and bring them out of the self-induced soporific trance of false comfort, to open our eyes and see things for how they really are, not what we wish them to be.

That takes effort; four of them to be precise. And to correctly apply these four efforts, we need to be well-grounded in the present moment.

There are many sayings that reflect to a degree the importance of remaining focused on the present. There is “One day at a time,” perhaps the most common and very effective at reminding us that we shouldn’t dwell too much on the future. But this axiom can be used for selfish ends; for some it is a more palatable form of “eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow you may die,” because it can make us sound like we’re being more responsible. It would be something like spending your life in a gay disco, dancing away the days with all the hot go-go boys, waiting for that moment at the end of the night when all the studly men and boys take off their shirts.

There is “carpe diem,” or “seize the day,” which is a much more aggressive way of reminding us that today may well be our last, so we ought to get as much out of it as we can. This does, however, allow hedonism to run amok in our life because this saying tends to give permission for unrestrained indulgence in sensual pleasure. It would be like spending your life in a gay sauna where you aren’t so much seizing the day, but turgid appendages of flesh.

This adage gets closer to the heart of the matter: “If yesterday is a canceled check, today is cash, and tomorrow a promissory note, go with the cash and spend it today.” But even this allows for personal indulgence in empty spending purely for immediate gratification. It’s like throwing away all your credit cards and using cash only, but you’re still acquiring objects that have no real value and bring you no closer to true happiness as there will always be some new item you don’t and must have.

No, living in the present moment is simpler than that, and yet it’s more difficult to achieve. In the Theranama Sutta, we hear about a solitary monk named Thera who brags about the virtue of living alone. When the Buddha hears about this, he tells Thera that there is his (Thera’s) way of “being alone,” but there is a better way.

“And how is living alone perfected in its details? There is the case where whatever is past is abandoned, whatever is future is relinquished, and any passion & desire with regard to states of being attained in the present is well subdued. That is how living alone is perfected in its details.”

The Buddha relays this message in a slightly different form in the Bhaddekaratta Sutta as well.

“You shouldn’t chase after the past
or place expectations on the future.
What is past
is left behind.
The future
is as yet unreached.
Whatever quality is present
you clearly see right there,
right there.
Not taken in,
unshaken,
that’s how you develop the heart.
Ardently doing
what should be done today,
for — who knows? — tomorrow
death.
There is no bargaining
with Mortality & his mighty horde.


Whoever lives thus ardently,
relentlessly
both day & night,
has truly had an auspicious day:
so says the Peaceful Sage.”

So there it is. Living in the present moment means to avoid dwelling in the past because the past is gone. It also means that we recognize that where we are right now is because of what happened in the past. The past is important because it brings us to the here and now, but to dwell on the past cripples us. Pining for the future, or even just thinking about the future, is of no use as well because the future is not here. But recognizing that our future is built upon our present actions is very important. It is only by behaving skillfully in the present can we erase the kamma we created in the past and build a happier future for ourselves.

To help us accomplish this, the Buddha gave us the Four Right Efforts. They are:

To prevent unskillful qualities from arising.
To denourish and remove unskillful qualities already present.
To strengthen and further develop skillful qualities already present.
To nurture and develop skillful qualities not present so they may arise.

There are bad actions that we already don’t do, and that’s good. But we need to make sure that these bad actions never manifest themselves. For example, if we’ve never smoked, then it’s wise that we make sure that we don’t start.

No one is a saint, so there are negative actions we engage in that we need to identify and remove. If we smoke, it would be wise to stop smoking. This example oversimplifies matters, so don’t be beguiled by its apparent simplicity. We all exhibit many subtle negative behaviors that we may not immediately recognize. When we do, we need to strive to remove them.

We all have good qualities. We don’t want to lose them, so we need to strengthen them, just as we would strengthen our body through exercise. If we don’t, we may lose these good qualities, and that would be a bad thing.

Then there are the qualities that we wish to have, that we want to develop. Qualities that we admire in others and wish to emulate. We must work at developing these qualities, because they don’t spontaneously arise. We cannot become more compassionate toward others unless we practice compassion daily. We won’t become more empathetic unless we seek to understand others around us. Our concentration during meditation will not improve unless we work at mindfulness in everything we do and say.

This takes work; that is why they are called “efforts.” And frankly, there are many who call themselves Buddhist who don’t bother to put forth any effort. Even well-known teachers fall into this trap, this “thicket of views” that beguiles one into thinking he or she is following the path. They are like wolves in the coyote stories told by American Indians, an animal capable of rationalizing anything in its own mind (I’ll have to do a post soon about this particular coyote story, it’s an excellent one), or like the eel-wrigglers the Buddha speaks of in the Brahmajala Sutta.

And this is why I have no use for New Year resolutions. Of course, the Buddha did teach that it is alright to use common turns of phrase when speaking with others, provided that we clearly understand the emptiness of these phrases. In particular, the Buddha talked about the self, that it was alright to speak to others about our “selves” as long as we understood that it was just a term of common use and has no real meaning. New Year resolutions fall into this category. In which case, perhaps a skillful resolution to share with others would be to strive toward being more focused on what I am doing right now and how it will shape my future.

Forming a skillful response

We Buddhists have recently been faced with a challenge of faith, so to speak. Public figures from all across the globe have publicly commented on Buddhism in ways that many of us consider, to put it mildly, ignorant. There was the Rev. Rony Tan in Singapore of the Christian evangelical group Lighthouse, who used the dubious example of an allegedly former monk as an opportunity to denigrate Buddhism; there was Brit Hume of Fox News who inarticulately suggested that Tiger Woods ought to abandon his Buddhist practice and turn to Christianity where he would find the type of forgiveness that Hume suggested Buddhism did not have; and more recently we had Bill Maher who used Tiger Woods’ adulterous activities as an opportunity to bash Buddhism so clumsily that the normally erudite Maher sounded like a 12-year-old who asserts he’s an expert on sex after his first orgasm from masturbating.

We Buddhists who also happen to be gay are quite familiar with this type of ignorance. We’ve heard it from the people who like to lump homosexuals with pedophiles, suggesting that the terms are interchangeable; who assert that allowing same-sex couples to marry will surely lead down a slippery slope to humans marrying animals, that the institution of marriage will be so irreparably harmed that no decent straight person would want it; who stridently fight to deny us equal protection under the law, wrongly asserting that our “condition” is voluntary and chosen, failing to recognize that their protected religious affiliation is also voluntary and chosen; and who, when these straw men are knocked down, finally resort to that last refuge for those who have no rational argument by saying that homosexuals are sinful deviants who are despised by their deity because the Bible tells them so.

How do we respond to such ignorance? Should we respond to such ignorance? What could happen if we fail to respond to such ignorance?

John over at Sweep the Dust, Push the Dirt, recently asked these questions, which provoked a lengthy discussion in the comments to his post. You should take the time to read the responses if you haven’t already. Very interesting.

There are several passages in the Buddhist canon – from both the Pali texts and Mahayana sutras – that provide us clear guidance in this matter so we don’t need to debate when or how to respond to these situations.

First, there is the Brahmajala Sutta, in which the Buddha guides monks how to respond when someone misrepresents or disparages the Buddha, the Dhamma, or the Sangha.

“Bhikkhus! If others should malign the Buddha, the Dhamma and the Samgha, you must not feel resentment, nor displeasure, nor anger on that account.

“Bhikkhus! If you feel angry or displeased when others malign the Buddha, the Dhamma and the Samgha, it will only be harmful to you (because then you will not be able to practice the dhamma).

“Bhikkhus! If you feel angry or displeased when others malign the Buddha, the Dhamma and the Samgha, will you be able to discriminate their good speech from bad?

“No, indeed, Venerable Sir!” said the bhikkhus.

“If others malign me or the Dhamma, or the Samgha, you should explain (to them) what is false as false, saying ‘It is not so. It is not true. It is, indeed, not thus with us. Such fault is not to be found among us.’”

In the chapter titled Fortitude within the Lotus Sutra, the Buddha’s followers acknowledge that there will be times when they shall encounter people who “shall have much overweening pride and shall covet offerings, though their unwholesome faculties shall increase and they shall be hard to teach and convert, yet we, rousing the strength of great forbearance, will read and recite this scripture, bear and preach it, write and copy it, and in a variety of ways make offerings to it, not begrudging even bodily life.”

The chapter on Fortitude goes on with the many bodhisattvas proclaiming their understanding that an “evil age” will come when “…ignorant men … that revile us with foul mouths, or attack us with knives and staves … Men of twisted wisdom, their hearts sycophantic and crooked, (who) say they already have attained what in fact they have not yet attained, their hearts being full of pride.”

Faced with such calumny, the bodhisattvas proclaim, “Out of veneration for the Buddha, we will endure all these evils. By them we shall be addressed with derision … Such words of derision as these we will all endure with patience… We, venerating and believing the Buddha, will don the armor of forbearance and, to preach this scripture, will endure these troubles.”

This forbearance is anchored in the Four Ways of the Bodhisattva, which Thich Nhat Hanh describes as first being able to “dwell in a place of action.”

This means, “practicing patience and seeking harmony with others in everything that you do. If you are patient and tolerant of others, then you can create peace and joy for yourself, and thanks to that, those around you will also feel peaceful and joyful. Patience is not a weakness, but a stance of moderation and restraint. You do not try to force people to adopt your views,” says Thich Nhat Hanh in his book, “Peaceful Action, Open Heart: Lessons from the Lotus Sutra.”

Thich Nhat Hanh goes on to say that we shouldn’t directly engage “those who have worldly power, who practice wrong livelihood, or who have wrong intentions. This does not mean that you reject such people, but you do not seek them out to try and convert them.”

Developing and sustaining such restraint so that our responses are skillful is no easy task. We can be easily duped by ego into believing our intentions are correct and, subsequently, our actions are skillful. Which is why it is helpful to consider the Buddha’s teaching to his son Rahula on the importance of clearly reflecting on our intentions and actions not just before we engage in them, but during and after, discerning if what we are doing is, in fact, skillful and beneficial.

So out of all this, we see that responding to these and other events can be done skillfully, that we needn’t be silent doormats. But our response needs to be tempered and evenhanded for it to be skillful, something I struggle with all the time. Because what is the Dhamma? It is merely a raft we use to carry us across the river of samsara to the side of freedom. Once we cross that river, we abandon the raft. So if we become passionate about the Dhamma, that results in us clinging uncomfortably to something that we must ultimately let go.

Speak with a calm, bright heart

Perhaps you are aware of recent news out of Singapore where a Christian evangelical group produced and published a video with an interview of a man who allegedly was a Buddhist monk and had converted to Christianity. I say allegedly because what the man says about his experiences as a monk is extremely suspicious. But I am not writing specifically about that. John over at Sweep the Dust, Push the Dirt has a post that includes the video clips produced by the Lighthouse Christian group in Singapore, as well as news about the Pastor Rony Tan’s apology for the video’s content.

What I want to bring to everyone’s attention is a brilliant response written by the National University of Singapore Buddhist Society that was published in the Kent Ridge Common, the student publication at the NUS. It’s an excellent point-by-point retort to what was asserted by the Rev. Rony Tan; brilliant because it was made in the spirit of the Buddha’s teaching found in the Brahmajala Sutta. I strongly urge anyone to read the response, but I particularly suggest those who are new to Buddhism, or who are curious, to read it.

Religion is a touchy subject in Singapore (the photo is of a statue of Sir Stamford Raffles, founder of Singapore). The city-state is ethnically and religiously diverse, with a population made up of Chinese, Indian and Malay people, as well as a significant white European population. There are Buddhists, Hindus, Christians, Muslims, and Taoists. The city has a history of ethnocentric conflict that was successfully managed by its founding father, Lee Kuan Yew and his People’s Action Party.

I follow a gay Buddhist discussion group on Yahoo! that is based in Singapore called Heartland where the issue of Christian evangelicals comes up occasionally. Christian proselytizing and efforts to convert others is very aggressively done in Singapore; I have read reports (unverified I admit) of evangelicals making the rounds in Singapore hospitals where they move in on a dying Buddhist and scare them into converting on their deathbed. If an individual’s family is present, some resistance may be mounted to the conversion effort, but if the sick and elderly patient is alone, he or she is reportedly often scared into conversion, renouncing their Buddhist faith.

Much of the discussion at Heartland has been about formulating a skillful response to these conversion efforts. So when the video from the Lighthouse organization in Singapore surfaced, it unsurprisingly annoyed many people, particularly Singaporean Buddhists and Taoists. Whether the Rev. Tan’s public apology is sincere is debatable, but it is worth pointing out that the apology was prompted by the Singaporean government demanding he make one. As I said, the peaceful coexistence of the various ethnic and religious groups in Singapore is a major concern of the government.

Knowing the right questions to ask

People love to talk. And people love to debate. Often the debate, however, really isn’t an effort to persuade the other to your side; rather, it’s really a mild argument, just a simple game of “I’m right and you’re wrong” done for an audience with the hopes of gaining acolytes.

Monks love to talk. And monks love to debate. There’s a grand tradition among many Sanghas, particularly in Asia, of monks debating Dhamma when they gather together for festivals and other events. And monks within an individual Sangha debate each other to test their knowledge of the Dhamma. It is often a method of teaching other monks who may be listening to the debate, because there are times when someone has an incorrect view, they will hear that view expressed by another during a debate and then witness that view fall apart against the superior understanding of someone with correct view.

Monks, however, are also people and as a result, are not immune from having a debate devolve into pettiness. The Tipitika has many examples of a monk who stubbornly clings to wrong view. It is through these examples that the Buddha exposes a wrong view, contrasts it with right view, and corrects the monk’s misunderstanding, or course to everyone’s delight. This pedagogical technique is simple and timeless, but perhaps more importantly it is also effective: it brings about the desired results.

To say that there has been recent discussion within the iSangha and Twangha about what is the proper way to practice Buddhism is a bit misleading. Granted, the debate has taken form around the point of whether one can really have an effective practice if his or her absorption of the Dhamma is primarily through “discussion” via the Internet, which ostensibly would make such a debate appear to be “new.” Maybe even “different.” But it’s not any different from any other debate that has occurred within the Buddhist community, because at the heart of all this is the assertion that “my practice is the correct practice, your practice is false.”

For newcomers to the Dhamma, for those who have come to Buddhism with the hope that it will offer them something they could not find in other practices and faiths – inner peace and guidance on how to live a happy life that in turn promotes equanimity in all – encountering such debates within the Buddhism community can be disheartening. Because what I fear newcomers perceive when seeing these debates, which often are nothing more than flame wars in the old style of USENET, is that Buddhism is ensnared within the same political sniping and posturing that seems to dominate the monotheistic religions, as well as the general political culture of the West. To be skillful doesn’t seem to mean exemplifying the Noble Eightfold Path; rather, it seems to be clever in how you use your ad hominem – use just enough sarcasm, make your criticism just biting enough so that it doesn’t cause complete offense, but so that it creates an emotional rather than rational response.

The irony in all this is that the Buddha completely understood this, because, as he taught, at the root of all our suffering is ignorance – failing to see things as they really are. And the reason we fail to see things as they really are, as I understand his teachings, is that we have deluded minds. And because of our deluded minds, we fail to ask the right questions. Yet, cultivating the skill to ask the right questions is so simple that the Buddha taught it to a child, to his son Rahula (MN 61).

What the Buddha taught Rahula also seamlessly fits with what he told the Kalamas as well (AN 3.65). At the heart of these suttas – one given to a child and the other to an elite group of intellectuals – is guidance on asking the right questions. And a skillful question, as I understand the Buddha’s teachings, is one that seeks to honestly reveal our intentions.

Thanissaro Bhikkhu explains this very well in the essay “The Road to Nirvana Is Paved with Skillful Intentions.”

“At first glance, we might think that continual self-reflection of this sort would add further complications to our lives when they already seem more than complicated enough, but in fact the Buddha’s instructions are an attempt to strip the questions in our minds down to the most useful essentials. He explicitly warns against taking on too many questions, particularly those that lead nowhere and tie us up in knots: ‘Who am I? Am I basically a good person? An unworthy person?’ Instead, he tells us to focus on our intentions so that we can see how they shape our life, and to master the processes of cause and effect so that they can shape our life in increasingly better ways. This is the way every great artist or craftsman develops mastery and skill.”

Grasping this, I come to understand that most of my embarrassing moments of misstatement, or incidents of provocation on my part, can be traced to either one of two things: I either deliberately deluded myself about my real intentions for an action and as a result ignored the outcomes they would create, or I was careless because I failed to fully evaluate my intentions and the likely outcomes they would produce.

I would suspect that one of these scenarios was in operation in the production and publication of a recent article in Tricycle Magazine, an item that has created some angst among Buddhist bloggers, to be putting it mildly. Granted, the article “Dharma Wars” does reveal something that is true: there are some Buddhist teachers who become bullies as they become ensnared with dialogue over whose methods produce results. Recently, I attended a Buddhist gathering where the question was asked how was what this group believed and practiced different than what was practiced in other schools of Buddhism. The answer dismayed me. The respondent said it had been her experience that other “vehicles” tended to denigrate other methods, that the monks or teachers within these schools would disparage other teachers or schools. This was a “turn-off” for the respondent. I was dismayed because the answer, I thought, was unskillful in that the respondent’s answer was motivated by the same intention she was criticizing. Rather than answering the question asked – how is your practice different from others – the respondent answered a question that was unasked: how is your practice superior to others. The respondent was doing exactly the same thing that she found to be a turn-off: she focused on what she believed to be the negatives of other practices to place her own practice in a more positive light.


Similarly, it seems to me the Tricycle article failed to deliver on its supposed premise because the author asked the wrong question. The article’s summary asks this question: “What is it about the Internet that turns Buddhist teachers into bullies?” This question presumes that Buddhist bullies are not responsible for their bullying behavior because the Internet made them be bullies. It’s the old, “the Devil made me do it,” argument, a premise that conveniently absolves one of any personal responsibility. The other flaw with this premise is that it’s based on the notion that there is something about the written word appearing on the Internet that provokes disharmony, that it is more likely to encourage unskillful discourse by virtue of the fact that it appears on the Internet, which seems rather odd to me because after all, a written word is nothing more than a written word, and whether it’s placed on parchment or a computer screen is moot. It all comes back to who wrote that word and what were his or her intentions in writing it and was his or her action skillful? If a Buddhist teacher behaves like a bully, it is because the seeds of a bully were already present; the Internet did not create that seed. So it would seem the more appropriate question to ask is, “Are Buddhist teachers who respond with anger and behave like bullies worthy of receiving attention?”

Interestingly, the Buddha had an answer for that question: No. In part of the Lohicca Sutta (DN 12), the Buddha describes three types of teachers that should be avoided and who, in fact, ought to be criticized. Lohicca then asks the next logical question:

“But which teacher, Master Gotama, is not worthy of criticism in the world?”

“There is the case, Lohicca, where a Tathagata appears in the world, worthy & rightly self-awakened. He teaches the Dhamma admirable in its beginning, admirable in its middle, admirable in its end. He proclaims the holy life both in its particulars & in its essence, entirely perfect, surpassingly pure.”

But criticism in the Buddha’s view does not mean malign those who proffer wrong view. Skillful criticism is outlined by the Buddha in the Brahmajala Sutta (DN 1):

“Bhikkhus! if others should malign the Buddha, the Dhamma and the Samgha, you must not feel resentment, nor displeasure, nor anger on that account. Bhikkhus! If you feel angry or displeased when others malign the Buddha, the Dhamma and the Samgha, it will only be harmful to you (because then you will not be able to practice the dhamma). Bhikkhus! If you feel angry or displeased when others malign the Buddha, the Dhamma and the Samgha, will you be able to discriminate their good speech from bad?

‘No, indeed, Venerable Sir!’ said the bhikkhus.

If others malign me or the Dhamma, or the Samgha, you should explain (to them what is false as false), saying ‘It is not so. It is not true. It is, indeed, not thus with us. Such fault is not to be found among us.’ Bhikkhus! If others should praise the Buddha, the Dhamma and the Samgha, you should not, feel pleased, or delighted, or elated on that account. Bhikkhus! If you feel pleased, or delighted, or elated, when others praise me, or the Dhamma, or the Samgha, it will only be harmful to you. Bhikkhus! If others praise me, or the Dhamma, or the Samgha, you should admit what is true as true, saying ‘It is so. It is true. It is, indeed, thus with us. In fact, it is to be found among us.”

Indeed, two bloggers I am aware of who responded to the Tricycle article with great skill were Nathan at Dangerous Harvests, and NellaLou at Enlightenment Ward. There have been skillful responses by others and my omitting them from mention is by no means a commentary on their value, but these two are certainly worth reading.

There’s a reason why Right Speech is part of the Noble Eightfold Path, and that is speech is one of the ways we make kamma. If our speech is unskillful, our results will be unpleasant. As Master Hsing Yun wrote in “Being Good: Buddhist Ethics for Everyday Life,” most of our bad kamma is created by the words we speak.

“Speech is the single most powerful means by which we interact with other people. Our choice of words, our tone of voice, even our selection of subject matter can have the profoundest influence on other people. Intemperate or ill-considered speech often leads to misunderstanding, suspicion and anger.”

Eel-like wriggling

I participate in a Yahoo! group called Heartland, which is a gay discussion group based in Singapore. The reason I joined Heartland is that I’ve found the Dhamma discussion there much more stimulating than at the other Yahoo! Buddhist groups, or Buddhist discussion groups elsewhere on the Internet. I find a lot of “eel-like wriggling” going on at so many of these groups that I feel sorry for someone who is new to Buddhism and thinks he or she can learn something about it by following these discussions.

But there’s some “eel-like wriggling” going on at Heartland as well as participants ponder what it means to be a “real Buddhist,” or whether concepts such as “right” and “wrong” are relative terms that vary based on individual perspective.

This recent discussion led me to find the Brahmajala Sutta (DN 1) because I knew it contained the Buddha’s description of a reaction presented by some folk who hear his principles: The Buddha identified this response as taking the form of four types of ambiguous evasion.

“Uh, gee, I don’t know if that’s true, maybe it is, maybe it isn’t. I can’t say it’s not true because I just don’t know.” Such slippery evasiveness recalls for me the title of a Ministry album, “The Mind is a Terrible Thing to Taste.”

Anyway, while reviewing the Brahmajala Sutta, I was surprised to see how comprehensive it was. And it was also interesting to note that this teaching was directed toward monks. It’s really important to be clear on what audience the Buddha was speaking to when reading the suttas. Sometimes I think people respond with “eel-like wriggling” because they think they’re expected to master everything that was said in the sutta in their mundane lives. When they hear of things like “dependant co-arising,” they blanch, not realizing that there’s plenty in the Buddha’s words that is much simpler and easier to follow, like how to live a life that does no harm, and how to avoid being a slut on the circuit.

But the recent discussion on Heartland had my mind ready for all the other things the Buddha covered in this sutta.

For example, the Buddha cautions against becoming angry toward those that may criticize him, the Sangha or the Dhamma; rather, the response should simply be to point out where the errors are and correct them.

At the same time, the Buddha cautions that if someone praises him, the Sangha or the Dhamma, the monks should not swell with pride.

For those of us in the gay community, this is a very difficult axiom to follow. Much of what we do is focused either on the loud proclamation of our presence – We’re here, we’re queer, get used to it – or shouting down those who conjure falsehoods about who we are – you’re a homophobe. We at times resort to these knee-jerk slogans with such rapidity that sometimes we fail to hear something that might actually benefit us. We’ve played the role of victim so well and for so long that it’s the only role we know. In fact, we know it so perfectly that we even play the part with each other.