30/11/11
Dear Ajahn
Enclosed are the survey forms for a survey of the Forest Tradition that I was under taking when we last met.
The return of these documents marks the ending of my involvement in Theravada Buddhism. I knew upon my return home in July that I had had my last visit to Bodhinyana.
There are many reasons for my leaving Theravada. I feel that I have gone about as far as I can go in my practice using Theravadin methods. Unless you can point me towards a technique of practising Metta that is more suited to my personality than the ones I have already found in Theravada, the only way for me to deepen the practice is to leave Theravada.
There is also the simple and undeniable facts that I am a loud, emotional and sexual personality. The idea that I might have at some point actually ordained in the Forest Tradition now seems laughable. Only my ex-wife and my intense weariness and unhappiness with and within that marriage made that idea seem remotely reasonable.My new path is more suited to my personality. I can now be loudly joyous and sexual.
I am of the opinion that the vast majority of Theravada monastics in the West have ordained for entirely the wrong reasons. Most of them are to do with a clear failure to have successful sexual relationships. Not being able to succeed, there is a petulant rejection and denunciation of what they have failed at. This denial is demonstrated in the very low retention rate. Having ordained because of failure, there is nothing deep enough to sever the tie to Lay life. They fail in their attempt at escape and thus end up having to return to the very thing they tried so desperately to escape.
I also find the outright rejection of Lay life and a practice based on raising a family by those who have never tried it more than merely irritating. How can you people know? You’ve never tried it. You’ve never had the joy of seeing your child grow. Never had to practice the equanimity of being a parent. Never practised the Compassion of when your child is in pain from teething. Yet so many of you are expert enough apparently in this life to dismiss it as being unequal to the celibate. I personally think that collectively you guys just need to get laid and stop being so fucking precious.
Witnessing just how wrapped up Ajahn Brahm is with the collective arse kissing was just saddening. He loves the attention. He has to be right on all things. He wants and needs the adoring eyes and adulation. Unless you are willing to accept the Ajahn Brahm way...there isn’t any room you. This is a personality cult.
Theravada is a complete vacuum when it comes to new ideas. The absolute absence of original thinking is a genuine cause for concern. How can you people be so content with this? Theravada is also anything but tolerant. Oh, the noises are there, but the practice isn’t. After I had the audacity to end a marriage that was so unhappy I had attempted suicide over, and found happiness with someone else, I was effectively ostracised from Theravada here. The blatant hypocrisy still takes my breath away.
I could write a lot more, but I won’t. I just want to close this chapter of this lifetime and to pursue the new
path I have already embarked on. And yes, I’ve become a Tantrika
Regarding our friendship with a gentleness, I wish you every success in your practice.
Russell.
I try to reply to comments and can't.
I am in complete agreement about the Brahmavamso Bhikkhu sideshow and the serious need for an outbreak of humility.
Hope you found a real Tantra partner and not just a curious overly sexed person.
ReplyDeleteYou are right - Ajahn Brahm has unfortunately become attached to the adoration of his followers, and can't deal with anything less than a worshipful attitude.
ReplyDeleteIn spite of his ordination of women, I believe he can't deal with confident, intelligent people who may have an opinion of their own about life, based on experiences he has not had, or other things not related to dhamma.
He goes in to a narcissistic rage at not being treated as an all knowing godlike figure, and becomes really disparaging and quite cruel. I would not write this if I had not experienced it for myself.
Ajahn Brahm's talks I have found helpful in the past, but now I have noticed that they are mainly about himself and his achievements, and knowing he does not "walk the walk" I am no longer interested.
I imagine his 'personality cult' will die with him, as he does not like to empower other people to take his place.
I have had more time to reflect since I wrote the post above. There is nothing there I would retract, and I would just add this, in relation to Ajahn Brahm and sexuality.
ReplyDeleteI have since begun reading a lot of Thich Nhat Hanh and his comments (in the book 'Living Buddha, Living Christ) are very beautiful when he talks about the wise, tender, loving and caring sexual expression that is part of a committed relationship. He invariable speaks very tenderly of children, and how they look to us for a loving smile.
He doesn't promote the monastic life as superior to others, indeed, he doesn't promote Buddhism as superior to all other paths - though it is the one he has chosen. He shows great respect, interest and a desire to understand and to connect deeply with practitioners of other religions.
By contrast, Ajahn Brahm doesn't really offer much room to move, or much genuine love and regard for family life, or the genuine challenges it raises, and the maturity and unselfishness it it forces us to develop.
Ajahn Brahm frequently boasts that he has had girlfriends and "good sex" when he was a lay person, and that "jhana is better than sex". I am unable to comment on that, but only on the inference that sex is all about one's own pleasure, and not about a deep and loving relationship with another human being. It is obvious he can't talk about that, because it is something he has never experienced.
We now know that a significant percentage of Catholic priests are homosexual, and use the celibacy rules to hide that fact, either from themselves or others, and to avoid the challenges of 'coming out' and forming functional adult relationships.
I would not want to reject the whole Theravada tradition on the basis of one practitioner, Ajahn Brahm. From what I have read of Ajahn Chah, he does not have the habit of painting himself as a person who has not suffered, or had difficulties along the way.
When a lay person complained of not having time to meditate, he replied, "Don't you have time to breathe?". Very practical and down to earth, and not full of his own Jhana talk.
Ajahn Brahm sets himself above others, speaks as though he has attained all the jhanas, thereby indirectly leading people to believe he is fully enlightened.
After the obvious anger, need for control and dis-missiveness with which he treated my concerns, I can say with 100% certainty, he is not.
I wish you great happiness in your search, I wish great happiness to all beings, to Ajahn Brahm also, and hope that one day he will be freed from all pretence, and experience full liberation, what ever that might mean,