I have been manfully banging my head of the meditation wall for a few years now. I think my next move has to be to identify a local sangha that works for me. My hope is that such a place would give me general encouragment to keep at it, and maybe specific help and advice. I'd appreciate any comments on my thought process so far:
I've whittled down my options to three, based on three factors of interest to me:
- Do they have a strong local presence -- i.e. do they meet regularly, are they known to be open to newbies, etc
- Do they come from a tradition that I trust and find "fits" my approach
- Are there any additional positive or negative factors I find relevant
So I have a shortlist of three. Here they are, with a view on each of the above factors:
- Tibetan, of the Shambhala -- i.e. Chogyam Trungpa-based --subtype
- Local presence: GOOD. They have a local office, with lots of activity, social grouping and so on
- Underlying tradition: MODERATE: If it was straight Tibetan, e.g. Gelugpa, I'd mark this very good. But I mark it only moderate because I don't know how far Shambhala is from the various major Tibetan school/sects. Trungpa was highly unorthodox, but I can't tell if that's good or bad. However, that leads to the next criterion:
- Other points: VERY BAD. The widely reported activities of Chogyam Trungpa, including alcohol abuse,and the activities of his HIV posirive successor, Ösel Tendzin, leave me wanting to give those guys a very wide berth.
- Theravadan, specifically Burmese;
- Local presence MODERATE: There is a Burmese temple in my city, with several resident monks. But they have an offputting neutral response to newbies. Apparently you can do stuff (like give them food while crawling across the floor on your tummy), and they will then deign to teach you. But even that's very unclear.
- Underlying tradition: VERY GOOD. They seem to be Mahasi-style trained, and are fully aware of the debates over samatha and vipassana.
- Other points: NEUTRAL. The only problem is their lack of support or newbies. But that may simpy be because they themselves are new
- Soto Zen, one of San Francisco Zen Center's outreaches
- Local presence EXCELLENT: They sit zazen twice a day, have regular dharma talks, and a host of other community stuff
- Underlying tradition ?????: See below. This is a major issue for this radition
- Other points: NEUTRAL. On the one hand, the sangha seems strong and cohesive. On the other hadn ... well look at the line of "?????" above. What exactly *is* Zen. Is it even Buddhism?
Summing up, my ideal would probably be to have a traditional Tibetan group. But I don't have that.
Next would be a newbie-friendly Therevadan group. But I don't have that either.
But that leaves Zen. Locally, it's a flourishing sangha which is a key requirement. But here's the problem. If I stand back from all three types and consider the extent to which each looks like Buddhism, I'd have to say that Zen looks like it's onw invention. Consider:
- No notion of samaha vs vipassana
- No details maps such as MCTB provides for vipassana
- In general, a needlessly crypic view of things, with teachers reveling in their paradoxes
- From a distance, and in the eyes of a newb like me, it's not hard to suspect that Zen hs little if anything to do with the kind of Buddhism Dan Ingram describes in MCTB
Any comment/advice? Especially, can anyone disavow me of my suspicions that Zen isn't Buddhism? If I could convince myself that it has as much of a useful theoretical background as Mahasi-style Theravaden practice, I'd find it a lot easy to make some kind of commitmment, but as it stands I'm not there yet.
thanx.
