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In
Northeast Thailand, Sumedho Bhikkhu was ordained but was still without a
teacher. He spent a year trying to practice on his own but was aware of
his inability to govern his own mind and behavior葉o change his tendency
to climb on conditions and take advantage of situations熔n his own.
Eventually he met a teacher of the dhuta (ascetic) tradition whom he felt
was immediately responsive to his needs and became a disciple. His
teacher, Venerable Chao Khun Bodhinyana Maha Thera, known as Phra Achaan
Cha, believed in the benefits of simplicity, and the monastery was run in
a primitive way, part of the daily life involving such tasks as sweeping,
carrying water, and begging for food. Of this alms custom, Bhikkhu Sumedho
speaks in some detail:
The
Thai people usually wake up before dawn to cook rice for the bhikkhus, who
go begging right after sunrise. From our temple about 60 monks went out in
groups to various villages and towns walking in lines with bare feet and
bear heads bowed. We did not look at or speak to the donors, who, in the
Northeast of Thailand were still very respectful and would kneel or squat
to offer their food for our bowls. It was an impressive custom葉his
silent act of giving.
When
the Buddha set up this discipline it was to make the Buddhist monks so
that they were in no way a burden to society and to make them, as members
of the Sangha, available to the laity, to act as "fields of blessings"
for them, so they could amass merit from their acts of giving to the
Triple Jewel.
Ordained now for 14
years, Bhikkhu Sumedho discusses his life as a monk:
During
these years in robes sometimes I would get bored or discouraged or
depressed and then I would try to think of other ways that one could live.
But I always knew that this was for me the finest way that I could live
out my life as a human being. Living your life by giving yourself up to a
moral discipline cuts through so much suffering, that the accumulation of
years of practice has very wonderful results.
I
saw the necessity from the beginning of giving myself to it rather than
just trying to do it as an experiment. So many people come to Thailand and
ordain just to accumulate another kind of experience in their lives.
They go to the famous teachers in Thailand, learn the methods, get the
information they want, and then leave, disrobe, and become meditation
teachers in the United States. In coming back to the states now and
meeting all these people, I begin to see the results of having done that.
Compared to my own choice to stay a monk, remain faithful to the
tradition, the vinaya, and the teacher, their choice to expose themselves
briefly to ordained life and then renounce it, leaves them wrought with
problems which are not my problems. Things fall apart for them because
they have not given themselves up, they just acquired more kinds of
information to increase their egotistical yearnings, rather than letting
it all go.
In
the practice, it's all in this letting go of self, of emptying out, of not
being attached to what you experience through your senses葉hrough your
body and mind. In the Theravada practice, the emphasis is on seeing the
characteristic of change in all the conditions we are experiencing here
and now. It is seeing the impermanｭent nature of the body, the
consciousness, and all experiences thereof, no matter what the qualities
might be: pleasant or painful, high or low, inspired or depressed,
wonderful or miserable The qualities of the conditions make no difｭference,
we just observe: they are not self葉he Pali word "Anata" 預n
that begins and ends is not self.
At present Bhikkhu
Sumedho resides in England, where, by the direction of his teacher, Phra
Achaan Cha, he makes the teachings available to those who are interested.
He teaches meditation at the Hampstead Buddhist Vihara, and travels by
invitation to Buddhist groups throughout the country. At present Bhikkhu
Sumedho is helping establish a monastery in West Sussex with the help of
the English Sangha Trust, an organization which acts as stewards for the
Sangha. |
