Observing the past, then walking away

Saturday I returned from a week in Arizona where I visited places I hadn’t seen in 30 years. Yes, things change, but how things change can be interesting. While the Bhaddekarrata suttas (MN 131, 132, 133, 134) wisely instruct us to avoid living in the past, such guidance does not equate to ignoring the past nor refusing to peruse it to discern any secrets it might reveal.

For example, one of the places I visited was Red Rock Crossing near Sedona, Arizona. I like to call Sedona the chic epicenter of new-age ethnocentrism and self-inflated egos, the home of the harmonic distortion, er, convergence. Seriously, Sedona is a beautiful place, but not my favorite spot in Arizona. It is where mysticism dies to become commercialized.

Red Rock Crossing is to the south and east of Sedona and is home to one of the most photographed views around, Cathedral Rock at Red Rock Crossing. Thirty years ago my journey to Red Rock Crossing took me along a lonely gravel road to a small park where folks brought their kids and picnics. The crossing had a gorgeous view of Cathedral Rock and was a hugely popular swimming hole. The red sandstone making the creek bottom was covered with a slick moss, which made the rock excellent for sliding along, letting the current push you through small chutes and into deep pools.

Today, the location is a state park surrounded by multi-million dollar homes all huddled together to get that “view.” Instead of a gravel road, it’s paved. The place had changed so much it was difficult for me to find the spot where we used to swim. The water wasn’t clear any more, but ruddy, the current carrying various flotsam and jetsam discarded by an egotistical society that believes that views can be owned. Joni Mitchell’s “Big Yellow Taxi” came to mind. I managed to finally reach the spot, but it wasn’t the same; the creek was lower, likely because of all those seven-figure homes with wells that were sucking the water out of the underground stream. The final insult was the new age “sorceress” there smudging a man by the waterside, undoubtedly for a hefty fee. The tone of her Tibetan chiming bowl was divine.

Other places I visited were still great. I love the atmosphere of Jerome, Arizona, and the mystical aura of the various Sinagua ruins in the national monuments that can be found in the vicinity. One spot in particular was important to me, Walnut Canyon National Monument east of Flagstaff. Here is a photo I took of my parents (both now dead) circa 1980 as they rested along the Island Trail in the park.

And here is a photo of me sitting in what I believe to be the same spot roughly 30 years later.

The former photo was taken with a Konica TC Autoreflex (which I still have) using a 50mm lens. The later was taken with a Nikon D70 with a wide-angle lens, hence the different perspective.

My homage to the past is merely that, a nod of respect toward what has happened. It is not a longing for the past, for as the Buddha taught us, the past is gone. To say that I feel nothing in terms of the past would be a lie for certain. But I don’t need to cling to it and any desire to do so is gone. Each day I capture a drop of water, and each time I give it back to the sea.

There’s a Little Wayman in all of us

What can a Jataka tale about a dullard novice whose brother attempts to expel him from the Buddha’s Sangha teach us about our own potential as gay practitioners? Quite a bit, it seems, as long as we persevere even when facing what seems to be the darkest of times and we allow ourselves to be guided by the calling that comes from within our own hearts rather than the admonitions and even shouts from the world around us.

This isn’t always easy, particularly when stories like this continue to occur.

The Buddha taught that how we live our present life will determine the condition and circumstances of our rebirth. The simplistic way of looking at this leads us to conclude that living a good, moral life will not only bring us happiness now, but also greater happiness in our next life. But kamma isn’t so simple, not so linear. And it’s easy for us as gay people to fall into a line of thinking that the fact we are born gay is a negative consequence for something we may have done in a previous life – that is if you accept the notion of rebirth. Not all Buddhists do.

In some instances within the Tipitika, the Buddha explicitly states that living a good life now will lead to a good or better next life, but these situations usually involve the laity and times when the Buddha crafted his teaching according to his audience. When one considers the entirety of the Tipitika, however, one sees that what the Buddha was more likely attempting to convey was that living a good moral life would bring one closer to Nibbana, to total release, with each successive rebirth, regardless of the specific circumstances one was born into each time.

Humans in general have many hang-ups regarding sex, so it stands to reason that many Buddhist teachers – even very well-respected teachers – have hang-ups not just about sex in general, but about homosexuals in particular. Many of these teachers suggest that being homosexual is a consequence of our previous lives, the results of kamma. I agree with this, but not the same way as these teachers suggest. This is because I don’t subscribe to a linear notion of kamma and rebirth, that not every successive existence is necessarily better than the last even when the prior existence was an exemplary life. And I offer the Cullaka-Setthi-Jātaka to explain this.

In this Jātaka tale, we have two brothers, Wayman and Little Wayman, who come from humble beginnings. The elder Wayman joins the Buddha’s Sangha and, finding the monastic life to be fulfilling, entices his younger brother to become a monk as well. But Little Wayman proves to be a dullard, unable to learn the teachings and fails to remember even the simplest of gathas. So Wayman takes it upon himself to expel his brother from the Sangha.

Being omniscient, the Buddha becomes aware of this and intercedes. There are some really wonderful passages in this story, but I don’t want to bog things down, so I will skip over many of the details. But the Buddha gives Little Wayman a clean cloth for the novice to wipe his face and head. When Little Wayman does this, he sees how the cloth becomes soiled and eventually comes to realize that it represents how he is removing the soil of his delusions and expelling them from his mind. This young novice was ready for this teaching and became an arahant. The Buddha explains to the others how this happened by revealing what he knows about Little Wayman’s previous lives.

In a previous life, Little Wayman was destitute and poor, but, as a young man then, he overheard a wealthy treasurer make a statement about taking an opportunity and profiting from it. That young man took that advice and within four months became extraordinarily wealthy. He returned to the wealthy treasurer (who was the Buddha in a previous life) who gave the young man a job and allowed him to marry his daughter. In this previous life, Little Wayman was no dullard, but a very apt pupil with the potential to realize great things as long as he persevered. But here’s an interesting twist.

Despite rising to be a wealthy merchant in that previous life, Little Wayman was re-born poor to parents of mixed parentage. His mother came from wealth, but she married a slave, bringing shame to her offspring. So Little Wayman was not reborn into steadily rising social circumstances; rather, he was reborn into circumstances that prepared him for his eventual enlightenment.

As homosexuals we aren’t reborn gay as a negative consequence for something that we did in a previous life. And heterosexuals aren’t reborn straight as a positive consequence. It just simply is. But the circumstance of our present life is the result of what has happened before and probably reflects our growing ability to “hear” the Dhamma with the right ears. We are where we are because of the path we took, regardless of whether we are conscious of how far we have traveled over the eons. Those who sit in a self-exalted state to proclaim they know why we were born gay are only revealing their stubborn clinging to delusion.

Little Wayman almost gave up because he believed his older brother who told him he failed. As a result, they both were about to fail by giving up not only on each other, but on themselves. The cycle of their rebirths, fortunately, brought the two of them to the Buddha who helped them see release despite their humble beginnings.

The photo with this post is not mine, and I want to express thanks for the permission to use it.

Chicago temple gets some unwelcomed attention

Well drat, I missed an opportunity this weekend to join a group of protesters rallying outside of a Chicago-area Theravada temple, bringing attention to allegations that a monk at the temple had sexually assault a girl there. I only found out about it via Barbara O’Brien’s blog the day after the demonstration. Had I known about this event, I would certainly have gone.

There was also a related demonstration in Long Beach, Calif. I love the quote from the Orange County Chapter of SNAP, Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, which organized the two demonstrations: “It’s a different religion, but it’s the same story.”

I wrote about this situation not too long ago, and my conclusion then remains the same: There needs to be some type of oversight of these temples, regardless of whether they be Theravada, Zen, Tibetan – whatever. But the reality of the situation remains true as well, because these organizations do have members, and these members are the ones who should be raising hell about this.

As mentioned in my earlier post, I had contacted some monks I know for their thoughts. Two replied to my queries with the same message: While the monk’s action is deplorable, these “ethnically oriented” temples are not interested in outside pressure to police monks and we “outsiders” should just leave them alone and let them figure out how to deal with this on their own.

Now this is where my reaction could easily be taken out of context to portray me as a reactionary anti-immigration xenophobe, because to that notion of just “let them deal with it themselves” I say a loud and forceful, “Fuck that!”

We are in America, not Thailand or Cambodia, or anywhere else where the locals might sheepishly avoid confrontation with their religious leaders. And while I have no problem with immigrants bringing with them their homeland culture to add richness and diversity to our American culture, when that culture is one of silence and fear, then fuck that. You can send that attitude back on the boat.

Regardless of what this monk told his Sangha, regardless of what the Vinaya says about this, there is the Third Precept, which in numerous places throughout the Tipitika identifies inappropriate sexual contact with a child as constituting sexual misconduct.

This monk doesn’t need to go back to Thailand. He needs to go to jail.

BTW, the photo with this post is from Bali and has nothing to do with the temple in Chicago. It's just a nice photo of some cute boys with slingshots. Yes, they had slingshots. Hunting for rats maybe?