Karma Dorje wrote:Huseng wrote:
Imperfect as the vessel may be, Buddhist institutions, made up primarily of monks and to a lesser extent nuns, have been responsible for transmitting Buddhist traditions from generation to generation for the last twenty-five centuries. What you propose here sounds rather arrogant and individualistic to me. The outward form of celibacy and monastic living is a hell of a lot more reflective of renunciation than a bunch of middle class people reading Dharma books in Starbucks while doing their practice on the weekends in expensive retreat centers.
Wow, and you call my suggestion arrogant? And these are the same people you want to sponsor your monastic lifestyle? This is the sort of disdain you feel your celibacy entitles you to? How unfortunate. The reality is, many of us have been practicing along with raising families for nearly as long as you have been on the planet. We are raising a generation of children with profound understanding of the importance of the teachings and the importance of acting with loving kindness. We have contributed tremendous amounts of money to teachers, their monasteries, retreat centers, schools and hospitals. All of this is necessary if we are ever to have sustainable monastic institutions in the West.
Yes your view is very arrogant and ignorant. I have lived in both eastern countries and western countries for the better part of the past two decades and I understand how people in both spheres think.
The typical westerner is brainwashed into thinking that "freedom", "equality", "rights" are the epitome of life so when you ask a Westerner to suffer in the quest for enlightenment by cutting off his material desires to sensual pleasures, they will suddenly start screaming that it is their "right" and "freedom" to enjoy life and why should it be a barrier to enlightenment?
Well first of all, let's define enlightenment? What is enlightenment? Is enlightenment simply all about living with unbounded love for everything and everyone? Or is enlightenment all about evolution of the human race from a lower life-form to a much higher life-form?
You are not enlightened simply because you love everyone, you love food, you love sex. First of all, the love and compassion in buddhism and other major spiritual traditions around the world exist free from selfish desires and greed.
If you have true love and true compassion, you will feel love for your worst enemy even though he puts you through the worst most painful hellish time of your life.
If you have true love and true compassion, you will offer your body up for food to a tiger because that tiger is starving for food and you will rather suffer than to let another being suffer.
If you have true love and true compassion, you will look upon the woman whom you love most in the world shagging with your most hated enemy and you will feel happy for this woman and your worst enemy because they have found happiness in each other's arms.
True love and true kindness/compassion doesn't exist just because you are in love with a thing a concept an object which makes you feel good. That is not true love or true compassion/kindness. That is called selfish greedy desire!
Unbounded pure compassion and love is the first step to enlightenment but it is hardly the only step. Don't be naive!
Both monasteries and lay traditions have passed on the Dharma successfully in many countries. The simple reality is that right now the lay traditions are more successful because they are more in tune with life in the West. Until there is a really secure base of lay support, we may never get the monastic institutions that they have in India and Tibet. Not unless you can manage to make Buddhism the state religion in a Western country.
Money is not the main reason why monastic institutions don't exist in the West. Motivation is. There are thousands of monks who live in the forests and mountains without any income at all. They grow their own food or beg for food from laymen. They construct their own shelters from chopped wood or lived in caves.
If you are a true monk, you wouldn't be afraid of living without food or shelter or medicine or whatever. You surrender to the Buddha or God or the Tao or whatever name the Divine has and trust that the Divine will take care of you regardless of whatever obstacle which comes up in your way.
And let me give you a warning. If you are a true seeker on the spiritual path of enlightenment, the Universe, the Gods, Life itself will throw all sorts of problems, obstacles and temptations on your path just to test you. Test your heart. Test your faith. And if you fail, start over. This is the harsh reality we call enlightenment and not some new-agey bs about how enlightenment is about love and abundance and all that.
Ask the true spiritual seekers in here. Ask them if they have never been tested by the gods by the buddhas in the past.
However, that doesn't mean everything is on hold until the monasteries are here. Look at the all of the great masters of the many traditions who were not celibate monks: the eighty-four mahasiddhas, Marpa, Milarepa, Khyungpo Naljor, the Sakya royal families, all of the many great married Nyingma masters, etc. There are many role models, regardless of your outward circumstance. If you are inspired to be a monk, great! If you are inspired to be a married ngakpa, wonderful! Both to me are equally wonderful if the motivation and diligence is the same
The married masters got married not because they wanna indulge in the pleasures of life. They got married because their blood carried the spark of buddhahood/divinity in them and they have been instructed by the buddhas/devas to have descendants so their descendants can pass on the teachings of enlightenment to others. The Sakya royal family for eg descended from gods and devas and if their line was terminated because they refuse to have descendants, who is going to spread the teachings?
Are your ancestors descended from gods and devas? Do you have a spark of divinity/buddhahood in your blood? Are you instructed by the gods and devas themselves to have descendants so that your descendants can transmit the teachings of enlightenment to others?
The common man got married because he wanna have a taste of the pleasures of married life. The masters got married because they need descendants to spread the teachings of enlightenment.
If given a choice, I can assure you those masters would rather not get married because to have descendants is pretty much guaranteeing that you would be reborn again on this earth which most masters would not want to if given the choice.