Vaishak Puja & Dharma Talk at Dhammasala Forest Monastery May 17, 2008

In what I write here, first I describe the morning puja and the monks' rounds of receiving alms (pindapata) and our meal. Then I summarize my memories, reflections, and experience of Venerable Bhikkhu Ajaan Kemasanto's afternoon Dharma Talk . In the Dharma talk the Venerable Bhikkhu Ajaan addressed these topics: bowing, good friends, prayer, living with the intention of mutual benefit, nature and intelligent design, the analogy of the lotus flower, and how one might orient oneself to the question of one's destination in the afterlife.

In the morning, just after 10 a.m. the Thai lay people offered food which they carefully arranged on trays on top of colorful straw mats before the shrine. The three monks and one of the lay people then led beautiful chanting. The lay person chanted short phrases so we could follow after him.

Then we went outdoors where we were able to pick up bags of snacks for a donation (and to give the monks the donation of presenting them with snacks in their bowls. Outdoors the monks made ceremonial rounds (pindapata ) so that we could place offerings in their bowls. We were a group of at least 50 people and we lined up in a semi-circle and placed our offerings in each of the three monks' bowls. (Selected temple assistants and lay people stood behind the monks with bigger baskets so the monks could transfer the snacks and re-empty their bowls to receive our offerings.)

Then we ate lunch. I loved the rice noodles with peanut sauce, the mixed vegetables with chicken and the fried bananas and sweet potatoes. After a short walk on the forest paths and the now-larger pond near the tent -- the rains have blessed the earth, we went inside for a Dharma talk.

True to Dharma talk form, the Venerable Bhikkhu Ajaan Kemasanto took questions. (I have understood from my academic Buddhist mentor, Roger Corless, that the Dharma is only taught when someone asks.)

The first questioner asked about the bowing. The monks and the lay people had bowed three times in the direction of the Buddha shrine (it's a shrine, Ajaan had pointed out last time, not an altar) and then performed a fourth bow toward the monks. The first three bows honor the Buddha, the Dharma (Teaching and Practice) and the Sangha (the community. Ajaan explained that bowing is a simple act of honor in cultures (e.g., Indian and Thai) in which one bows to one's parents, elders and teachers. Also, since in these cultures people use less furniture, and typically sit on the floor, bowing resembles our acts of honor and respect such as handshaking and doesn't connote worship.

Ajaan then spoke of the need for good friends (kalyametta) and that one needed to choose friends of equal level ethically and spiritually. He suggested it was unwise to think you would pull people up to your level. Using the example of a particularly beautiful-smelling leaf in Thailand, he said, if you wrap a dead fish in that beautiful smelling leaf, which smell do you think will prevail?

Returning to the question of bowing, Ajaan said you can't pray to Buddha (a very Theravadan teaching) because he's gone (Tathagata) and can't do anything. He can't hear, see or act. (This idea is also a typically Theravadan perspective and distinct from Mahayana orientations.) Ajaan emphasized that the Dharma is a path of self-responsibility.


Ajaan reiterated three or four times that the key to Buddhism is very simple: You ask yourself, "Is this thought to my benefit and the benefit of others?" You ask yourself: "Are these words going to be for the benefit of myself and others?" And you ask yourself: "Will this act be for my benefit and the benefit of others?" He stressed that here was the whole Dharma as if on your thumbnail. But of course he said, most people don't do this. I imagine that behind that observation he might have been implying, the need for meditation.

As a more Mahayana-minded Monotheist I found this very difficult. So I asked him, "Don't lay people pray for their desires, and what do you tell those who want to?" He said, "Oh people pray to the Hindu gods, the ancestors and the spirits." He also repeated a point from the earlier questioner on the closeness of Buddhism and native American practice. Ajaan said the attitude of asking forgiveness of creatures that one kills for food or other needs. (He mentioned the trees cut down in Mt Pleasant -- near the Bordon Building, I have heard.) When I asked Ajaan, "What about the fact that prayer works?" he and a lay person cited a study (praying for other' healing) that showed it didn't (One of my students, Vanessa Brown, who has done much research in this area recently told me that Duke Medical Center's M.A.N.T.R.A. studied proved no results from prayer on healing.). I was glad Ajaan explained the the anthropological dimension of everyday Buddhist culture, in which Thai Buddhists pray to gods.

The gods are samsaric beings, but they have power. In some traditions they are also called Dharmapala, protectors of the Dharma. In Japan Buddhists call the deities they pray to shoten zenjin, "buddhist gods," which are the deities of the host culture. I remember seeing photos from one of the Wats (temple-and-monastery complexes) in Thailand, showing that standing inside the Wat were statues of the Hindu deities Hanuman and Garuda.

Focusing on the question of prayer, I asked Ajaan what he would do if his cousin, Father John, was ill. Wouldn't he pray for him? Ajaan said, No I'd give him a dharma talk on accepting the inevitability of the body's aging and decay. Ajaan also told a story about being invited to a clerical council at a hospital where each minister expressed their concerns that patients would be assured of being ministered to by their own clergy. When it was Ajaan's turn to speak, he said this was not a concern to him, that in terms of the Dharma, there was no need to guarantee that a Buddhist didn't receive a "non-Buddhist" ceremony or ministering from someone of another tradition.


Then we got into a really good tangle: I asked about "intelligent design." Ajaan said, what's intelligent about it? As a Buddhist, he focused on the infinite and eternal perspective that everything is inherently decaying and dying, impermanent, insubstantial. He pointed out the pains humans experience related to design flaws (backache because we're not yet fully designed for standing, tooth decay, etc.) So I pointed to the beauty of nature, esp. the tree outside the window. he turned and looked and said, "That tree?!" And he told the story of that [beautiful] five-year old tree that had not grown a bit since planted and was plagued by mites.

I asked, "So why did the Buddha use analogies from nature to teach dharma?" Ajaan asked me for one so I gave the analogy about a meditator resembling a lotus sitting in purity and beauty above the pond. He corrected me by quoting the full passage in which the Buddha taught that many lotuses don't reach above the murky water; some do not successfully live and thrive in that way. And so, he said, while its a sweet fantasy that everybody is going to be saved (I think he meant Mahayana models), it's not going to happen. Very few will be saved. I wanted to ask more about nature's harmony (as taught in the verses of the Qur'an) and the healing balm of bees from the honey that they make and what he thought of the disappearing bees. Ajaan was clear, bright, funny and lucid as before. I find him very compelling and compassionate. Both times I've been awed. The sky & forest were beautiful.

Ajaan emphasized that the Buddha was only interested in what we could know and what diagnosis and treatment would solve our condition. Ajaan told us not to worry about or speculate on heaven and hell because the key lay in good karma, in how you live, in thoughts, speech and action that benefit self and other. He said, if you live in that way then wherever you are going to go to next will be a place with those qualities.

Dhammasala Forest Monastery is located in Perry, Michigan at 14780 Beardslee Rd. 517 675 1010 / www.dhammasala.org