McDonalds Memo 2

[tariki]

This second memo prompted by a discussion on the purpose of monks.....

 

I think if we simply judge according to how anyone contributes to the GDP then the "purpose" of any monk is questionable. but if we have some sort of trust/faith/belief in any form of "salvation/enlightenment" then the question takes on added dimensions.

From way back I always had a suspicion of monks, of anyone who sought "salvation" simply by seclusion from the world. It implied - at least to my mind - the pursuit of a pseudo enlightenment, maybe the production of a cultured pearl rather than one produced by the natural environment.

Yet the reality has been that two of my greatest mentors and influences, those who have spoken most sense in this mad confusing world, have been Thomas Merton and Nyanaponika Thera, both monks. One a Catholic and one a Buddhist Theravada Elder. Me, I'm pretty "low church" as far as any pre-adult influences go, so the pomp of the Catholic Church is more Monty Python to me, but Merton is simply something else entirely. And Nyanaponika Thera, born a German Jew, was the one who first made me truly hear the heartbeat of the Dharma.

I have gravitated away from Theravada (which is very monastic based) towards the Mahayana, and particularly Pure Land Buddhism. Pure Land, ideally, knows no "masters", is very egalitarian, and holds that our Dojo (training ground) is around the kitchen sink, immersed in this world, not any secluded or even monastic environment.

Anyway, maybe a key verse from any text ("holy" or not......) can be found in the Christian New Testament, from Romans:-

And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God

Fortunately (maybe unfortunately, who knows?) I can transpose words, bend them, place them in various contexts. The heart of that NT verse is of relevance to anyone who seeks something other than the often accepted ways of our world. Whether a theist or a non-theist.

I certainly have faith in the whole idea of "enlightenment", that there is a way out, that it can be found. And yes, that the various monks of our world can offer great insight and support.

But to finish, just to confuse, mentioning the Mahayana. It is a quagmire. One of its many dictums is that Samsara (our world, as known, of birth and death) is Nirvana. So when I speak of "escape" then such has to be kept in mind.

As Thomas Merton has said, in his introduction to his translations of Chuang Tzu:-

For Chuang Tzu, as for the Gospel, to lose one’s life is to save it, and to seek to save it for one’s own sake is to lose it. There is an affirmation of the world that is nothing but ruin and loss. There is a renunciation of the world that finds and saves man in his own home, which is God’s world. In any event, the “way” of Chuang Tzu is mysterious because it is so simple that it can get along without being a way at all. Least of all is it a “way out.” Chuang Tzu would have agreed with St. John of the Cross, that you enter upon this kind of way when you leave all ways and, in some sense, get lost.

What I love about the Mahayana is that at heart it does not betray this world, the only one we have known. Most Religion, at least as I see it, is simply a betrayal of this world for some imagined "other".