World's most famous Irish Buddhist (video)

Dhr. Seven, Pat Macpherson, Amber Larson, Wisdom Quarterly; UCCIreland

Prof. Brian Bocking, The Study of Religions Department, University College Cork, Dec. 2010

Los Angeles' Big Irish Fair Music Fest

The entire Irish population of Los Angeles has drained into the seaside shantytown of once bucolic now industrial Long Beach City, made famous by Snoop Dogg as "The LBC!"

It is the site of this year's Big Irish Fair and Music Fest. The Moon hangs high, and songs of auld are sung.

Few in this Buddhist town -- full of Cambodian and Bangladeshi Theravada, Tibetan Vajrayana, Chinese and Vietnamese Mahayana temples, and even an American Zendo and yoga studios galore, now overflowing with Ireland'ers, Irish expats, and the massive diaspora -- will know that the most famous Irish Buddhist in history is Ven. Dhammaloka from Dublin.

He was the first Westerner to ordain in the Buddhist tradition of Asia.

A tiny island of magnificent world import

Who was this "hobo," this wanderer, world traveler, spiritual pioneer, the most famous Occident in the old Orient who blazed a trail for us all? Ignored by history, this enigmatic freethinking Dubliner used various aliases, with the Buddhist name Dhammaloka ("Dharma World"), the "Irish Buddhist," who came before Brits Alan Bennett and H. Gordon Wallace and other credited as the first Westerners to explore Buddhism as monastics.

He converted from Catholicism to Theravada Buddhism around 1900, and became widely known throughout Asia in the process. He managed, as a good Irishman, to eventually fall afoul of the colonial establishment and its Christian missionaries.

Uncovering Ven. U Dhammaloka's unique story has taken some inspired detective work on the part of UCC's Prof. Brian Bocking and his colleagues. But their efforts have not been in vain. The Lost Irish Buddhist emerges after all these years as one of the earliest Western Buddhist monks, pre-dating many others who have claimed the title. Prof. Bocking takes us through an amazing odyssey.

Emerald Isle: sunset across Lower Lough Erne Fermanagh, Ireland (ayay.co.uk)

 

The First [Western] Buddhist monk

John L. Murphy (Fionnchu)

I drove out to UC Riverside [on May 16, 2011] to hear a professor in from Cork, Ireland talk about perhaps the first Irish Buddhist monk -- at least the first one we know of, who took robes in Burma fighting Christian incursions [British hegemony], defending the Dharma after his ordination, appointing himself "the Bishop of Rangoon," Burma.

His birth name is unclear because of the aliases he used in life, so his birth and death, to date, remain speculative (1856-1914?). He's a predecessor, combative if genuine, of more refined and less cantankerous Western converts. His appearance, suddenly in 1900, and his fading out by 1914, makes up a rather Zelig-like "hobo" bohemian character in Asia, where he covered considerable territory. He garnered fervent press -- some generated by his alter ego/nom de plume "Captain Daylight." He's a character worth getting to know.

The 2011 issue of Contemporary Buddhism featured Prof. Brian Bocking's article alongside scholars Thomas Tweed, Alicia Turner, and Laurence Cox (see his initial research). They hosted a UC Cork Dhammaloka Day Conference on Feb. 19th 2011 highlighting their research. More

• VIDEO: "The Man Who Lost Ireland"
• VIDEO: "Buddhist Porn" (lol Jakemitra)

"Unlawful Sexual Practices"

Maya, Ashley Wells, Wisdom Quarterly; "Ask Maya" with commentator Jeffery Kaung

Sex is bad? Don't look at it. Don't think about it. And whatever you do, don't wish for it. That's what our parents teach us, but that's not what the Buddha taught lay Buddhists.

  

According to an abbot in Theravadan Burma, the words "unlawful sexual practice" would be more clear and effective than simply "sexual misconduct" for defining the Pali term kamesu micchacara.

In the Pali discourses expounded by the Buddha, he described altogether 20 types of females [not 10, Jeffery Kaung?] with whom males should avoid having penetrative sexual intercourse.

• See Buddhism's "Sexual Misconduct" Defined for the ten types of females who are off limits, at least from the perspective of ancient Indian society and possibly universally. We are awaiting Kaung's list of 20.
  

What did the Buddha teach any why? (HSUN)

Every male who is engaged in these forms of sexual relations with any of these females was said to be guilty of dire misconduct that results in the worst kinds of karmic consequences.

But for females, not every female from the given group of 20 is similarly guilty. In other words, only 12 women from the group are guilty for engaging in sex, and most of these females have already been married off or become "owned" by a particular male and his family. [It should not come as a surprise to Western readers that women were treated like chattel in European marriage contracts until very recently, and the practice is followed to this day in many places including Asia and India in particular.]

The rest of the females in the classification are not guilty since they are not married or have no contractual "owner" yet. Besides, in some of the Buddha's sutras, he encouraged most lay disciples to practice celibacy. 

Believe it or not, females have sexual agency

[We do not know of a single discourse that encourages lay celibacy except as an occasional practice for uposatha lunar observance days and periods of intensive Buddhist practice, such as meditation retreats, temporary ordination, or as the natural consequence of spiritual attainments such as the blissful absorptions and the permanent liberations beyond stream entry and once returning. Please specify, Kaung. We would be very happy to examine these sutra references.]

However, the Buddha said that if one fails to be completely celibate, because s/he is already married, then one should always refrain from "unlawful sexual practices" in his/her everyday life -- as a person with clean feet [avoids a puddle of urine on the road].

Besides, the Buddha also described four (4) features that lead a sexual relationship between a male and a female to be "unlawful conduct." In fact, the Buddha had already mentioned in his discourses how it was "noble" [enlightened] for one [with noble attainments] to stay celibate. However, he said that if one could not practice celibacy because he/she was already married...

[Kaung, if you cite these sutras, we can respond and clarify. Maybe the Buddha wants everyone to be happy, and maybe celibacy is the supreme (brahma-acharya) vehicle/teaching toward that, but it's not something he said lay Buddhists should do or had to do.  Living beings are reborn into this Kama Loka, Sensual Sphere, because of their sensual cravings. Denying them or forcing celibacy on people is not the way to transcend craving. To be reborn into the more blissful Fine Material Sphere, the Immaterial Sphere, or the supremely blissful attainment of ending rebirth (enlightenment and nirvana) requires seeing things as they really are, seeing sensuality as it really is, penetrating the disappointment (dukkha) articulated in the Four Ennobling Truths. We want living beings to be happy, the Buddha wanted people to be happy, and you probably want people to be happy. Truth is the way to that, not oppression and imposing rules on how people have to live. If we are wrong, please show us. We can show how open minded the Buddha was, how the Dharma is a path that avoid extremes, and leads beyond sensual craving to supersensual bliss and then insight and liberation from the bondage of craving, aversion, and delusion. We arrive there step by step, not by behaving like ascetic renunciants. There is a much easier way to let go than brute force and self-denial -- and it is "calm and insight," blissfully happy absorptions and systematically contemplating the 12 links of Dependent Origination. "There is no path to happiness; happiness is the path!"]

 

Males, Females, and Sex

Dhr. Seven and Amber Larson, Wisdom Quarterly (COMMENTARY)

The Buddha, Battambang, Cambodia, S.E. Asia (Kim Seng/captainkino.com/flickr)

 

We have already been responding to Jeffery Kaung's letter in brackets. But let us go more deeply.

Kaung, everybody should always avoid "unlawful sexual practices." One need not avoid sex; yet, one need always avoid misconduct in regard to satisfying one's sexual desires. And that is easy to do... except in a repressive society that denies one sexual access. Our societies, East and West, now deny us, or try to deny us, legitimate avenues of sexual expression outside of marriage. That may make sense in conservative parts of Asia, as in rural or small communities, but it does not make a lot of sense in urbanized city environments which emphasize the individual to the detriment of extended familial affiliations.

This has to apply to females just as much as males even if India was already a patriarchal and sexist society that assumed sexual agency only for males. Females have the same agency and, therefore, are liable to get in the same sort of karmic trouble as males. Who can believe that when, for example, a man has sex with a married woman, only she is guilty of cheating on her husband? From a literal and closed minded reading of Buddhist texts (i.e., AN X.206), only he would be guilty. She would be said to have seduced him into a great deal of karmic trouble, but no mention is made of her infidelity to her husband, presumably because she has no agency and therefore no ability to make an intentional choice to cheat, which of course is ridiculous.

And with regard to child molestation, which is a severe form of "sexual misconduct" or "unlawful sexual practices," a female can certainly molest just as a male can. Would anyone in this day and age think, "Oh, she's a female, she has no sexual agency, so she can't possibly be guilty of intentional sexual conduct, how much less misconduct"? It's preposterous. Wisdom Quarterly speculates that it was the sexism influencing the Dharma, and not the Dharma itself, which left us with this one-sided set of rules for males only. We hear precious little about the nuns, Buddhist females at the time of the Buddha, or Buddhist girls and women today. 

That is our era's sexism continuing to diminish women aided and abetted by the sexism of the past, and the male Monastic Order, the Bhikkhu Sangha, has much to answer for keeping this unequal state of affairs in place. The status quo, which the Buddha did so much to overturn, was quickly set back up and given legitimacy as if the Buddha had participated in oppressing females when he was the first world-teacher to elevate them to equal status. 

If one says that the Buddha didn't go quite that far, but instead subordinated them to the Monastic Order, then one has not read the Bhikkhuni Vinaya (The Nuns' Code of Discipline with its origin stories explaining each rule), which enumerates ahistorical garudhammas or "additional nuns' rules" that could NOT have come from the Buddha (see the scholarship of Ayya Tathaaloka). 

• The Extra Rules for Nuns Ven. Tataaloka (Ayya Tathaaloka) on the eight "Principles to be Respected" by nuns (garudhammas) and the formation of the female Buddhist Order (bhikkhuni-sangha). The additional monastic rules for women are a "definite historical impossibility." (See also The Buddhist Nuns of California)

But we are all taught that he offered eight or more additional rules to his stepmother, Maha Pajapati, the world's first Buddhist nun, who gladly accepted them to wear like a beautifying head dress or hair piece. Someone, likely sexist male monastics, inserted those to ensure the supremacy of the male Monastic Order. The abbot from Burma you quote without naming is neither likely to realize that nor admit it if he does.

Sylvia Boorstein on Enlightenment (video)

Amber Larson, CC Liu, Seth Auberon, Wisdom Quarterly; Buddhist meditation teacher Sylvia Boorstein (Spirit Rock), It's Easier Than You Think: The Buddhist Way to Happiness

Marriage ceremony in Phuket, Thailand (Ted Richardson, Esq./flickr/thaiembassy.com)

 

Fischel's wife was a devi glowing in the dark (WQ)

When I started to practice meditation in the early seventies it was hip. Everybody was meditating; every weekend you could take a workshop in another form of meditation. The advertisements for the workshops usually suggested that at the end of the weekend you'd be totally enlightened.

I remember once going to a party that looked like a regular party -- people talking, visiting, and laughing -- and in the middle sat a woman with a strange look on her face, eyes closed, face serene, totally tuned out from the whole scene.

Somebody leaned over to me and said, "Look at her, she's enlightened," and I thought to myself, "If that's what enlightenment is, I don't want it."
 

Meditation for levitation (Ruwan_W/flickr)

What I did want, at least for a while, were exotic powers. I heard extraordinary stories of people who could bilocate or levitate. Sometimes, as I sat on my cushion and experienced an unusual lightness in my body, I imagined I was about to levitate. I hoped I would. I thought it would be a far-out thing, rising up off my cushion and floating in the air.

I think I was also influenced by a story my grandfather told about my grandmother -- a woman who died when I was nine years old. I knew here as a sickly old woman, but my grandfather remembered her as the very beautiful woman he had married when she was 18 years old. He told me she was so beautiful that "she glowed in the dark." I asked him if he really meant that, and he said, "Yes, she really did." 

He said, "At my nephew Murray Fox's wedding, the hall was lit with gaslight because it was before electricity, so it was quite dark, and everyone said, 'Look at Fischel's wife, she shines in the dark!'" I held that as a wonderful, luminous memory and as an ideal. What I wanted to achieve from my meditation practice was to shine in the dark. I think a lot of us in the early days wanted magic.

My Buddhist meditation teachers, whom I met in 1977, talked about enlightenment but not about magic. They talked about "seeing clearly" and how it could mean happiness and the end of suffering. That sounded like the kind of magic I wanted most. More

• It's Easier Than You Think (sylviaboorstein.com)
• Quotes: It's Easier Than You Think (Goodreads.com)

The Avatars Are Coming?

Semjase space devi

(NYC812) Odd narrator speculates that the sun is affecting human DNA causing the emergence of human-star-people hybrids. They are incarnating into avatar bodies birthed by ordinary terrestrial parents. Why? A mother who gives birth to such a baby will love her child no matter how different that child is. In this way, extraterrestrials arrive integrated into the fabric of the existing society. So if a black couple gives birth to a blond, blue-eyed, classically Eurocentric "angel" baby, that baby will be loved. Who can explained such children being born to Asian couples? "The wife cheated" is the rational if harsh conclusion. But then an Egyptian couple has twins, one white one not. How could beautiful, non-albino children be so white they practically glow in the dark?

The Golden Triangle Buddha (photos)

CC Liu (Berkeley), Wisdom Quarterly; UrsulasWeeklyWanders.com (instagram, facebook)

Small gecko under the Buddha's gorgeous middle finger sits protectively (Ursula/UWW)

 

There is a golden Buddha in the center of the infamous Golden Triangle, the former crossroads of nefarious activity between mountainous Thailand, Burma, and Laos. Where Theravada Buddhist cultures now meet and mingle, drug lords once ran Chinese money in exchange for opium, heroin, human trafficking, and sundry warlord activity like Southeast Asian and CIA money laundering.

Jogging in Lumpini Park, Bangkok (UWW)

It was a den of iniquity, a big den, the size of a jungle. When Axl Rose first sang "Welcome to the Jungle," he probably had this triangular patch in mind as a counterpart the ruined asphalt grid called Los Angeles and in particular its concrete capital HollywoodLand. But intrepid traveler and photographer Ursula_in_Aus (Ursula_Bkk when in Bangkok) has a backstory to accompany these beautiful pictures.

Golden Triangle

Ursula_in_Aus (edited, abbreviated by Wisdom Quarterly)

...Google “Golden Triangle.” One of the entries that pops up relates to Euclidean geometry and a golden ratio that forms the hypotenuse of the golden or sublime triangle: a magical isosceles with “divine” proportions. It is the basis for perfect pentagrams and logarithmic spirals.

 

But Asia's Golden Triangle is 950,000 square kms of mountainous jungles that, until the early 21st century, was responsible for most of the world’s heroin production.

Novice at Shwe Yan Pyay, Burma (UWW)

The contradictory “divine” heart of this triangular region is a golden Buddha, joyfully and soberly sitting at the at confluence of the Ruak and Mekong rivers, the intersection of three countries that form the triangle.

 

The first time I visited this giant marvel, it struck me how imposing the image was, sitting so serenely, facing and overlooking Thailand, apparently oblivious to the gambling casinos across the waters behind it (gambling being the least of the area's vices). More

S.N. Goenka passes away at 90

Roshi Albrizze, Wisdom Quarterly; Michael and Juliet (insightcenter.org)

The great S.N. Goenka (dhamma.org)

Famous vipassana (Buddhist insight meditation) teacher S.N. Goenka -- who formed a worldwide network of free 10-day meditation retreats -- passed away today at his residence in Mumbai (Bombay), India. He was 90 years old.

Funeral services were held on Tuesday, October 1, 2013. Goenka-ji, as he was known, was a leading lay teacher of vipassana meditation in the tradition of Sayagyi U Ba Khin. He trained more than 800 assistant teachers, and each year more than 100,000 people attend Goenka led vipassana courses, according to Wikipedia.

Insight Meditation

(Wiki) The technique S.N. Goenka taught represents a tradition which is traced back to the historical Buddha. Goenka emphasized that "The Buddha never taught a sectarian religion; he taught Dharma -- the way to liberation -- which is universal." He presented his teachings as universal truths open to people of any and all faiths. Goenka called vipassana meditation an experiential scientific practice, through which one observes the constantly changing nature of mind and body at the deepest levels, a profound understanding that leads to a truly happy and peaceful life.

 

Mrs. and Mr. S.N. Goenka (right)

Although Indian by descent, Goenka was born and raised in Burma, where he met his teacher. He was an industrialist until he had the good fortune to come into contact with U Ba Khin, from whom he learned the vipassana (or dry insight) technique. After receiving training from his teacher for 14 years, Goenka settled in India and began teaching vipassana in 1969.

 

In a country still sharply divided by differences of caste and religion, the courses offered by Goenka have attracted thousands of people from every part of society. In addition, many people from countries around the world have come to join courses in vipassana meditation.

He was recently conferred the Padma Bhushan, the third highest civilian honor in India, for social work on the occasion of India's 63rd Republic Day.

The Insight Center, whose founders have sat more than a dozen 10-day courses between them, mourn the loss of this great lay Buddhist teacher. A special session will honor Goenka's work and passing at 10:00 am, Saturday, Oct. 6, 2013.

Institute preserves the Dharma (cartoon)

Amber Larson, Dhr. Seven, Wisdom Quarterly; Chancellor Ashin Nanissara, S.I.B.A., Burma 

(Bemineto99) Looking down from the Tusita world, the Bodhisat decides to take rebirth on Earth, strive for enlightenment, and establish the Dharma to relieve beings of suffering.

 

Burmese monastic (Perakman)

Siddhattha Gotama (Sanskrit, Siddhartha Gautama) was born in approximately 623 B.C.E. He achieved buddhahood (maha bodhi) at the age of 35. He freed himself from all rebirth and suffering by attaining final nirvana in 543 B.C.E. at the age of 80. 

During the intervening 45 years he taught, toured the “Middle Land” (Northeastern India) -- expounding the Dharma (Doctrine, sutras, Conventional Teachings), Abhidharma(Ultimate Teachings), and Vinaya (Disciplinary Code) for the benefit of all humans and devas.
 

Dharma forms the guiding light of daily practice. The Abhidharma is the systematic treatment of Buddhist psychology and physics in language more precise than the discourses. The Monastic Disciplinary Code is a collection of rules, their origin and explanations, etiquette guidelines, and disciplinary (parliamentary, democratic) procedures for monastic living.
 

Long after the Buddha made an end of suffering, the Dharma, Abhidharma, and Vinaya live on to guide others wishing to also make an end of all suffering. As long as they remain in practice, we to that extent a supremely wise teacher with us. The Buddha taught by extraordinary perception, revealing what he directly saw as helpful and harmful on the path to enlightenment (awakening from delusion) and liberation (nirvana).
 
This is of great benefit to all humankind and to beings on adjacent superior and inferior planes of existence. To promote the quality of conceptual understanding of sometimes very subtle teachings, he and later commentators taught the Abhidharma, which are the Ultimate Teachings abstracted and systematized from the conventional language of the discourses (sutras).
 
To help all who would help themselves overcome disappointment and misery and gain satisfaction and peace, the Buddha taught a path-and-practice we now call the Dharma [always capitalized to distinguish it from the multivalent Sanskrit term dharma]. Most of what we know about what the Buddha taught comes from ordinary discourses -- surviving in standardized form appropriate to oral transmission and memorization rather than writing and reading.

BotanischerGarten Hamburg, Germany, KleinFlottbek Buddha (JinxHH/flickr)

  
These sutras -- recorded in Pali, Sanskrit, and Prakrit (Magadhi) -- often appear to us as stilted, artificial, and redundant tautologies more than actual instructions or natural threads (sutras, sutures, i.e., strings of related ideas). This is because they were never meant to stand alone the way a book might today. They were chanted, explained, and studied; they make sense as shorthand reminders of the teachings, which are much broader and detailed instructions the Buddha and early disciples provided.
 
The Nuns' Teachings

Most of what the nuns taught does not seem to have survived or been preserved following the lapse of their Monastic Order. (Or it is only temporarily lost to most scholars, hidden away in the origin stories accompanying the Bhikkhuni Vinaya, where few male scholar-monks seem intent to search. Or it may be found in Central Asian storehouses (and treasure troves in and around Afghanistan, formerly Gandhara, Greater India) where Buddhism flourished before moving north and east to China). But there are a few scraps to be found in the Bhikkhuni Samyutta and inspired utterances (Therigatha). 
 
This is a tragedy because the Buddha designated two chief female disciples, Khema Theri and Uppalavana Theri, who must have taught just as his chief male disciples Sariputra Thera and Maha Moggallana Thera did.

• The Buddha brought people to the Path, then newly ordained monks were brought to stream entry by Sariputra and arhatship by Maha Moggallana. It then makes sense that the wise nuns Khema and Uppalavana served these functions for female disciples. 

The Vinaya, or Monastic Code of Conduct, was taught for self-discipline and the peaceful coexistence of intensive practitioners on the Path.

 

These three major collections are known as the “Three Baskets” (Tri-Pitaka). These divisions have, in the absence of the Buddha, been rightly viewed and regarded as teacher, trainer, mentor, and guide to enlightenment (bodhi) and the final end of suffering (nirvana). They may be likened to the invisible presence of the Buddha as a universal teacher existing wherever these three are preserved and put into practice.
 

Those who esteem the Buddha are therefore well versed in these three main divisions of the teaching.

The Six Buddhist Councils

Studying monk (ChristyB30/flickr)

Three months after the Buddha's final nirvana, the First Buddhist Council was convened in Rajagaha (Rajgir, India). The congress was attended by a large number of monastics, all fully enlightened (arhats) with the additional analytical knowledges (patisambhida). Maha Kassapa led this Council of Elders (theras and theris). He offered three major points:

1) Teachings (Doctrine or Discipline) the Buddha not taught should not be offered by monastics. 2) Those teachings taught by the Buddha should neither be deleted, augmented, nor edited by monastics. 3) Those teachings the Buddha taught should be followed by monastics.

Therefore, the knowledge, belief, and practice of strictly following the historical Buddha's Doctrine and Discipline became known as Theravada (“Teaching or School of the Elders,” the “Elders” being the enlightened monastics of the time. The Noble Sangha is, of course, composed of many accomplished laypeople as well, but these are not considered elders since they have not gone forth into monasticism).
 

The Second Council was held in 100 B.C.E. in Vesali and was attended by 700 monastics. It was co-led by Sabbakami Thera and Yasa Thera.
 

The Third Council took place in 236 B.C.E. in Pataliputra (which Dr. Ranajit Pal places much farther to the west) and was attended by 1,000 monastics. It was led by Tissa Thera.
 

The Buddha, Indonesia (Luxquarta/flickr)

The first, second, and third of these councils were held in greater India and were attended exclusively by enlightened "Indian" monastics. (How far did Greater India extend, did it encompass modern Iran or only come up to its eastern border?)
 

The Fourth Council was held in Sri Lanka in 540 B.C.E. and was attended by 500 monastics. It was led by Dhammarakkhita Thera. Another significant difference between the previous councils and the fourth one was that up until this time, the monastics had put the Tripitaka (Three Baskets) down in writing on bundled ola palm leaves.
 

In 240 B.C.E., the Fifth Council was held in Mandalay (Burma) and was attended by 2,400 monastics. It was led by Jagara Thera. The outstanding fact was that there was no Sangayana for 2,000 years between the Fourth and Fifth Councils. During the Fifth Council the three divisions of the Dharma were carved on giant marble slabs, filling 729 of them, each measuring six feet by four feet.

The Fourth Council had been attended only by Sri Lankan monastics. The Fifth was attended only by Burmese monastics.
 

Most of the modern literature that attempts to explain the Buddha’s teachings is merely the interpretation and inference of respective a author(s). This is a great loss for those who have never tasted the “authentic” teaching.
 
Consequently, Sitagu International Buddhist Academy (S.I.B.A.) has Romanized and translated the authentic Three Baskets of the Sixth Council, in which learned monastics from five Theravada countries participated along with monastics from some Mahayana countries. This has been done for worldwide dissemination for the benefit of those interested in tasting the essence of the Dharma.

Sabbadanam Dhammdanam Jinati

"May knowledge, belief, and practice of the truth shine forth in every corner of the world!"

S.I.B.A. - Sitagu International Buddhist Academy

S.I.B.A. formed a governing board, a Board of Admonishing Masters, consisting of 15 Burmese monks to provide spiritual guidance: U Sobhita, U Kumara, U Vimalabhivamsa, U Supannindabhivamsa, U Pandita, U Vimalacara, U Acinna (the most venerable Pa Auk Sayadaw), U Janinda, U Agghiya, U Sumangala, U Sajjanabhivamsa, U Samvarabhivamsa, U Narada, U Jotikabhivamsa, and U Kavisara.