Insurgent Heart: A Vipassana Manual for the Guerrilla Yogi — {10}
The Guerrilla Unit: Comrades / Community
Table of Contents
~ Preface
2. Indigenous Knowledge: Bhavana
3. Contact: Aim /Attack / Harass
4. Mobility: Bases / Fluidity / Agility
5. Distrust: Suspicion / Investigation
6. Medicine: Metta / Divine Abodes
7. Retreat: Encirclement / Escape
8. Diversion: Distraction / Misdirection
9. General Strike: Invisibility / Cessation
10. The Guerrilla Band: Camaraderie / Community
11. Independence: Responsibility/ Self-Retreat
12. Intelligence: Education / Reporting
13. The Revolutionary Spirit: Discipline / Determination / Faith
14. Protracted War: Land Reform / Regular Army / International Support
15. {Afterword} Mindfulness: A Balm or a Bomb for Babylon?
~ CHAPTER 10 ~
How many guerrillas work in a guerrilla unit?
The ideal number is between ten and twenty. The fewer the men, the greater the mobility.What is done with guerrillas who cannot withstand long marches?
They are brought together to form slower units within which, however, everyone has to keep up.How should guerrillas treat one another?
Everyone should be friendly or at least cooperative. Practical jokes and tricks are considered bad taste. They cause enmity among the men, weaken the unit’s strength, and therefore are forbidden in our organization.~ Alberto Bayo Giroud
When it comes to the nature of the relationships with those they fight alongside, the guerrilla fighter generally finds themselves in a distinct position from the soldier in a regular army. The bonds within the guerrilla unit are more dependent upon a sense of shared world-vision and solidarity than their siblings in the professional army whose dynamics of camaraderie are a mandate imposed from above. The regular conscript is forced into military service and so often lacks philosophical alignment with the cause, and therefore with their unit, which translates into ambivalence on the battlefield. Even as volunteers, these soldiers are likely to be more motivated by mainstream social pressures in their community or family, or even directionless with the army representing something stable that provides needed discipline or professional opportunity. The guerrilla tends to volunteer because of a deep wellspring of concern for their society, of frustration with the social conditions in which their people live. They volunteer based on an ambition to manifest a transformed society. While both systems have a degree of hierarchy, the guerrilla fighter tends to find themselves with a greater degree of autonomy and responsibility, and their band finds itself with greater autonomy from the larger movement.
It is traditionally believed that a Buddha is the extremely rare being who can achieve true freedom on their own. The rest of us need guidance, friendship, camaraderie, relationship, community — to one degree or another — at various points along the path. The Way can be so difficult, so long, and so perplexing that at various times we need to rely on the confidence and care of others to offer us shelter in the surging storm of the mind. The bonds generated by this dynamic inspire faith and energy. They are nourishing and encouraging if also challenging and demanding. True spiritual friends hold us accountable and capable of our deepest spiritual ambitions. The nature of these connections for the guerrilla yogi is often not well understood — particularly the qualities of spiritual camaraderie that are distinct from everyday samsaric friendship.
There is no prescription, no formula, for spiritual friendship. The Pali term kaliyana mitta has become popular in the west as the broad and general container of this ideal: as an expression of teacher/student relationships and as wide as basic egalitarian principles between yogis and their community as well. Because the ubiquity of its use and generality of its meaning, some of the value of what it points to may have been lost.
Much of people’s affection for the notion of spiritual friendship is rooted in the appreciation of part of an exchange between Ananda and the Buddha in the Upadda Sutta[2]. Sitting beside the Buddha, Ananda comments, “This is half of the holy life, lord: having admirable people as friends, companions, & colleagues.” To which the Buddha responds,
Don’t say that, Ānanda. Don’t say that. Having admirable people as friends, companions, & colleagues is actually the whole of the holy life. When a monk has admirable people as friends, companions, & colleagues, he can be expected to develop & pursue the noble eightfold path.
While a clear vote for the value of spiritual friendship, most people fail to read beyond that point, to where the Buddha continues,
And how does a monk who has admirable people as friends, companions, & colleagues, develop & pursue the noble eightfold path? There is the case where a monk develops right view dependent on seclusion, dependent on dispassion, dependent on cessation, resulting in release. He develops right resolve… right speech… right action… right livelihood… right effort… right mindfulness… right concentration dependent on seclusion, dependent on dispassion, dependent on cessation, resulting in release. This is how a monk who has admirable people as friends, companions, & colleagues, develops & pursues the noble eightfold path.
~ The Buddha, Upadda Sutta
How is it that seclusion, dispassion, cessation, and release are strengthened by spiritual friendship? This points to another paradox in the practice that we encounter over and again in our lives as guerrilla yogis: we operate independently and take full personal responsibility for our liberation and yet our practice is undeniably dependent upon the quality of relationships in our lives. Clearly, a friendship that supports seclusion it is not just any old friendship. The Buddha points to himself as the prime example,
It is in dependence on me as an admirable friend that beings subject to birth have gained release from birth, that beings subject to aging have gained release from aging, that beings subject to death have gained release from death, that beings subject to sorrow, lamentation, pain, distress, & despair have gained release from sorrow, lamentation, pain, distress, & despair.
Socially-minded and extroverted Buddhists love to highlight the Buddha’s honoring of spiritual friendship (kalyana mitta) and community (sangha). But the Buddha did not support friendship or community unequivocally. He supported them to the degree that they helped individuals incline toward seclusion, dispassion, cessation, and release. Which is to say, very rare and particular — even peculiar — friendships and forms of community. To the degree that we seek mechanisms of relationship and community toward other ends, like social change or social revolution, Buddhists must accept that we may need to look outside the Buddha’s teachings for guidance.
This quality of friendship in Dhamma has characteristics that are not found in common human relationships. Anyone who has practiced under the authority of a Buddhist monastic understands well that what is meant by “friendship” in this context is hardly recognizable as the friendship in mainstream society. The degree of emotional distance — of boundary — is met by profound care and trustworthiness that can be confusing to some people. Ultimately it is the boundaries that makes the relationship safe and this goes against so many of our contemporary ideas about what friendship should be: open, equal, intimate. While our heads may resist more boundaried relationships, our hearts can learn to deeply trust the experience.
In his translation of the Nikayas Bhikkhu Bodhi translates the Pali word sampavaṅka as “comrade,” and while surely the socialist connotation is not inherent in the ancient meaning of the word, as guerrilla yogis it is perhaps more valuable. Comradeship denotes a particular kind of bond between people, a special and rare one that points toward a faith and trust we can share with someone well beyond personality or character differences: a solidarity, an egalitarian acknowledgement that no matter how far along the path we are, we are all yogis trying our best and there to support one another in joys and hardships of the path.
For the guerrilla yogi, the sampavaṅka can take the shape of a typical friendship, of intimate partners, of a teacher-student relationship, but also what we might call an “intimate unknown.” Often these powerful forms of friendship don’t fit into the mold of mainstream society. This remembrance should help us keep a broad perspective on the nature of the sampavaṅka as we stay open to the spectrum of nourishing dhamma relationships. Dhamma comrades may be closer or more distant than what a society tends to recognize as friends. These friendships are trying to get us past society, out of its gravitational pull, and so it is only natural that they may not fit into the traditional forms generated by and generating of mainstream society.
The guerrilla fighter must never for any reason leave a wounded companion at the mercy of the enemy troops, because this would be leaving him to an almost certain death. At whatever cost he must be removed from the zone of combat to a secure place. The greatest exertions and the greatest risks must be taken in this task. The guerrilla soldier must be an extraordinary companion.
~ Ernesto “Che” Guevara
Maha Kassapa, one of the great “fathers” of the early Buddhist sangha had ambitions for the holy life long before he joined the monastic order. As a layman, Pipphali Kassapa, had little interest in the house-holder life but was forced by his family to marry Bhadda Kapilani, a woman from a neighboring clan. Baddha also had a profound spiritual calling and entered this matrimony equally reluctantly. For several years they supported each other as best they could in their spiritual quest: living in celibacy and going to sleep each night with a garland of flowers between them in their bed.
Upon the death of their parents, both Kassapa and Baddha had unsettling visions of the karmic impact of the householder life. Separately, they were awakened to the horror of birds killing insects in their fields, called by the plowing and planting therein. They made a pact to depart the lay life together and wander as ascetics in search of a teacher. Both these dedicated seekers came upon the Buddha in their travels and both ordained in his monastic order. Both soon became fully enlightened arahants, true inheritors of the Buddha’s dispensation. It was said that they had spent many lifetimes supporting one another in their spiritual journey and only in this lifetime had their efforts been completely fulfilled.
The great Chinese poets Tu Fu and Li Po considered one another to be their best friend, though they only met in person a handful of times. As they were both wanderers in times of war, they wrote poems and letters to one another they never were sure would ever reach their friend. Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony were dynamic comrades in their shared struggle for women’s suffrage. The great Sufi poet Rumi had a beloved named Shams, to whom he was so devoted, it is said, that Rumi’s own students killed his muse out of jealousy. Karl Marx and Frederich Engels collaborated in every aspect of their lives and were deeply dedicated to one another via financial, philosophical, and emotional support. Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas enjoyed a companionship that interwove all facets of their artistic, literary, culinary passions. Helen Keller and Anne Sullivan shared a sense of mutual interdependency that strengthened them both. These were all relationships of vital importance for these people as they negotiated the work of their lives to the world around them — the totality of which doesn’t seem to be comprehensively described by the word “friend.”
In the Burmese language there is a phrase, ye ze soun de, or “water-drop connection” that is used to describe the intuitive sense of connection between people who may hardly know one another. It is an experience that can feel mysterious but is explained by the idea that a pair have spent countless lifetimes as meaningful companions and have now joyously come together again. The image is meant to suggest that we have been part of a current of being and rebirth for countless generations and only now find ourselves again as momentarily separate drops of water. The more open we are, the more people for which we can feel this is true.
Frederick Engles wrote that “freedom is dependency acknowledged.” Our sampavaṅka can provide for us spiritually and materially, and we them. The solidarity economics of free-flowing dana is one way to strengthen the bond of a true sampavaṅka. As we deepen in our commitment to meditation practice, sometime the guerrilla yogi needs to find living arrangements, retreat, and livelihood that are non-traditional. From some angles these collaborations may look odd but a guerrilla yogi must always ask themselves what they value more: the connection or the social impression? Are they willing to risk foregoing the utterly rare experience of true camaraderie because a friendship does not fit into the bounds of samsaric society?
Our sampavaṅkas may have these same qualities, if not always to such a degree of perfection. These comrades may be people we see rarely, people very different from us. Certainly they need not be Buddhists. They may be of a different age, class, race, gender, even someone we barely know in practical terms. Perhaps we don’t even share the same language. It is common on intensive silent retreat for yogis to find the beloved nature of the people around them, without knowing nearly anything about their lives or their stories. The purity of this connection is real and valuable, even if it dissipates once we begin to speak, and all of our personality and conditioning remerges and gets in the way. These are friendships that transcend friendship. Because of this we see the potential to have important and deep spiritual comrades everywhere — at the gas station, the bus stop, on journeys, or in our daily routine.
Human relationships are often so stewed in history that we may rarely feel them as being supportive of real rest. We must always remember the non-human beings in our lives that provide us so much potential for sampavaṅka and for community (sangha). In every moment we are part of a sangha but we may not recognize it or benefit from it if we do not recognize the beings around us available for relationship. In fact, the non-human community may be a more important sangha foundation for the guerrilla yogi as they wrestle with the tension between culture and practice.
Animals are beings of often more easy connection of lovingkindness and trust. Birds, insects, squirrels, etc — pets or wild — are all around us. Tree beings, plant beings, and fungi are everywhere, are alive, and are available for relationship. Rivers, oceans, ponds, fields, forests, deserts, are all relatives that we can find a sense of sanctuary with in our hearts and minds.
The spirit world is also available and open to be in relationship with the human world, yet these days it is disregarded by many. In the Buddha’s time the spirit world was much more discernible — with its devas, brahmas, petas, and other non-physical beings — though people throughout those lands still build relationships with the spirit beings of their areas. This is, in fact, one of the fundamental qualities of Buddhist expression over the millennia — its integration with and incorporation of animist indigenous practices.
Wherever you live in the world, there were indigenous people who maintained that land and cared for those spirits long before the current society. Many still do. Maybe you are one of them, or their ancestor. Everyone has indigenous ancestry somewhere on the planet. Over millennia traditional people developed methods and tools and languages for the sake of these spirit relationships. In any geographic region these spirits are accustomed to certain ways, certain traditions, certain languages, certain people, and so it is important for the guerrilla yogi to learn as much as they can about them and relate appropriately.
If you do build the human relationships necessary to learn these methods — whether from your family or from people you do not yet know — remember your precepts: Don’t steal. Don’t co-opt or bend a practice or tradition you have been taught without authorization. Don’t go hunting for knowledge out of a sense of accumulation. Offer help. Don’t expect to learn in the western way. Be respectful. Practice on their terms, not on yours — or even the Buddha’s.
Relationship with the spirits is everyone’s responsibility, not just that of native people, though these communities often still have the most intact practices and traditions. Whether you are indigenous or not, it is important to build a relationship with the spirit world because these beings are worthy of our relationship, because they can be of great beneficial support for us, and we can be of benefit to them. In the end, method is least important. All spirits, all devas respond to metta, to offerings, to acknowledgement in any language. The most important thing is a pure heart.
COMMUNITY / SANGHA
The column should be able to live and fight on its own for a long period of time…without help from any quarter. And it does the following:
(1) Picks its own targets except when acting under direct orders of higher command.
(2) Co-ordinates its activities with other columns through higher command.
(3) Gets its reserves and replacements from the local population.
(4) Is responsible for its own security, intelligence, arms, equipment, supplies, and propaganda among the people.
(5) To operate outside its allotted territory it must get the sanction of higher command, Also it passes along all intelligence data collected to higher command.~Handbook for Volunteers of the Irish Republican Army
People in the west often profess to be desperate for community but do not even value the potential and rarity of a single good friend. Just as the qualities of spiritual comradeship are not well distinguished from samsaric friendship, the differences between Dhammic and samsaric community are also not well understood. Community is both necessary to secure the Buddha’s liberation path and is also fraught with obstacles and threats to our practice. Fortunately the Buddha — our comandante — gives us a wide field of options with which to explore and navigate these tensions.
The Buddha created a very powerful structure for his community of followers, the monastic sangha. Traditionally, it is revered as a refuge equal to the Buddha and the Dhamma. But it is important to remember that he was not interested in building community for its own sake, or to change or takeover the larger society, but to create, on a small scale, the supportive social conditions for the pursuit of individual liberation.
We must start by acknowledging that amid all this efforts to build the sangha, the Buddha appeared ever-vigilant against the down-sides of community, its tendency to lead toward conditions that are not suitable for practice. There are numerous examples from the suttas where the Buddha admonishes large groups of monks for their rowdiness, for their conflicts, for their wayward behavior, and he personally finds solace and comfort wandering alone or else encourages monks and nuns to live alone or in very small groups living in seclusion and simplicity.
In the Upakkilesa Sutta, the Buddha discovers a group of monks is embroiled in conflict, “have taken to quarreling and brawling and are deep in disputes, stabbing each other with verbal daggers.” He tries to intervene, encouraging them to put down their disputes but is ignored, and “a certain bhikkhu” even tells him not to get involved. After going on his alms round and resting, the Buddha then offered these words,
When many voices shout at once
None considers himself a fool;
Though the Sangha is being split
None thinks himself to be at fault.
They have forgotten thoughtful speech,
They talk obsessed by words alone.
Uncurbed their mouths, they bawl at will;
None knows what leads him so to act.
‘He abused me, he struck me,
He defeated me, he robbed me’―
In those who harbor thoughts like these
Hatred will never be allayed.
For in this world hatred is never
Allayed by further acts of hate.
It is allayed by non-hatred:
That is the fixed and ageless law.
Those others do not recognize
That here we should restrain ourselves.
But those wise ones who realize this
At once end all their enmity.Breakers of bones and murderers,
Those who steal cattle, horses, wealth,
Those who pillage the entire realm―
When even these can act together
Why can you not do so too?
If one can find a worthy friend,
A virtuous, steadfast companion,
Then overcome all threats of danger
And walk with him content and mindful.
But if one finds no worthy friend,
No virtuous, steadfast companion,
Then as a king leaves his conquered realm,
Walk like a tusker in the woods alone.
Better it is to walk alone,
There is no companionship with fools.
Walk alone and do no evil,
At ease like a tusker in the woods.~ Buddha, Upakkilesa Sutta
The Buddha then leaves this group of monks and wanders to a nearby area where he encounters a small group of only 3 monks, “living in concord, with mutual appreciation, without disputing, blending like milk and water, viewing each other with kindly eyes.” He inquires as to the method by which they have achieved such stability, and to what end that stability has led them in their practice and finds very simple and powerful answers.
Venerable sir, as to that, whichever of us returns first from the village with alms-food prepares the seats, sets out the water for drinking and for washing, and puts the refuse bucket in its place. Whichever of us returns last eats any food left over, if he wishes; otherwise he throws it away where there is no greenery or drops it into the water where there is no life. He puts away the seats and the water for drinking and for washing. He puts away the refuse bucket after washing it, and he sweeps out the refectory. Whoever notices that the pots of water for drinking, washing, or the latrine are low or empty takes care of them. If they are too heavy for him, he calls someone else by a signal of the hand and they move it by joining hands, but because of this we do not break out into speech. But every five days we sit together all night discussing the Dhamma. That is how we abide diligent, ardent, and resolute. ~ Anuruddha
There is a simplicity to this explanation that is something I have valued over and over again in my relationship with the Dhamma. The world is so full of strife and mayhem and a preponderance of methods proposed to address these troubles. That a group of strangers can come together for ten days or three months and get along, and cultivate beautiful qualities of mind and heart side by side in harmony, only by observing the five precepts seems little short of miraculous.
Other times, the behavior of the sangha was too much and Buddha sent the monks away, abandoning them. When five hundred monks arrived at Catuma and cause a ruckus, The Buddha asked Ananda “…what is that loud racket, that great racket, like fishermen with a catch of fish?” before sending them off to be alone. In that instance, a great Brahma deity eventually had to come to intervene and beg the Buddha to allow these monks back into his favor,
If they do not get a chance to see the Blessed One, they would change their minds, like small plants that die in want of water. Venerable sir, if these bhikkhus recently come to the dispensation do not get a chance to see the Blessed One they would change their minds. Like the calf that would be disturbed not seeing the mother.
The Buddha finally acquiesced.
While the sangha was one of the Buddha’s greatest accomplishments, it was also fraught with the frailty and imperfections of all human institutions and conditioned phenomena. Even during his lifetime he was questioned about the nature of these imperfections when he was asked by bhikkhu Mogallana about why was it that when the Buddha first began to teach there were few monks, few rules but everyone was getting enlightened and now there are many monks and many rules and very few are getting enlightened? His answer was essentially “That’s the way it is” with human endeavor, that the decline of the dispensation was inevitable and that it was harder and harder for larger groups of people to get together and blend “like milk and water.”[4]
THE GAHAPATIYANA
Western lay Buddhist communities that are rooted in Theravada practices are in a critical time. As householders (gahapati) without a traditional religious model of community to follow, we are left largely to our own devices about how to create and structure spaces for practice and community support. For communities of practice, trying to determine the appropriate boundaries of method, of program, of responsibility and approach can be very challenging, and in some cases can cause overwhelming tension within a unit.
Because Buddhist sanghas in the west tend to be comprised of liberal and progressive people, there is a strong momentum to move away from models that are considered hierarchical, homogeneous, and disengaged from the world. Instead, they incline toward ones that support shared leadership, diversity, and social engagement. People see the flaws of patriarchal leadership that has been the model of Buddhist religious life for millennia and are trying to undo those histories and mechanics of oppression. They see the violence of white-supremacy, of settler colonialism, of capitalism, and don’t want to create communities that re-enforce those traits. They recognize patterns in spiritual communities of corruption and abuse of power, of narrow-minded dogmatism, of reactionary views and oppressive policies — often associated with a guru mentality — and want to learn how to create human systems that are free from these tendencies.
On the other hand, in the effort to rid ourselves from these oppressive forms, people can begin to hold all forms of structure, of boundary, of authority as inherently oppressive and in that view undermine any possibility of creating safe space for the profoundly sensitive nature of the exploration of the mind and body.
When is comes to leadership models we find that both ends of the spectrum have strengths and weaknesses. Strong individual leadership can provide clarity and direction, the possibility of the sense of quietude and protection, but also can provide a haven for corruption or abuse that is not addressable because of the centralized and worshipful nature of the guru’s power. Collective leadership models can provide a more full sense of community participation, of values alignment and cultural vibrancy, but can also become easily embroiled in process and conflict and can lose the protective conditions necessary for the mind to progress in the practice.
Guerrilla movements tend to be organized as a blend of these models, with varying spectrums of autonomy and authority. Different kinds of leadership can be appropriate in different contexts. If we are going to have a rich and sustainable Buddhist culture, we need to be able to support a variety of approaches, and have mechanisms by which we can learn from one another.
A skillful guerrilla organization makes it possible for people of all walks of life — men and women, old and young, intellectual, peasants, workers, traders, etc. — to take part in all activities: fighting the enemy, supplies, reconnaissance, liaison, propaganda, etc. In short, everyone has a chance of serving his Fatherland.
~ Ho Chi Minh
Buddhist leadership in the west has largely been rooted in teachers: people who have been authorized to teach meditation, having the greatest authority in all forms of Buddhist community. While not as fixed as it is in most monastic contexts, this locus and spectrum of authority needs to shift. I believe we are at a point in the historical and spiritual development of society where spiritual teachers should no longer be given total authority over the life of the sangha, where they can so easily replicate the unhealthy patterns therein. There is too much potential for abuse while trying to impose these ancient frameworks on modern social relations. The mechanics of power in lay Buddhist sangha need to be more democratic in a large swath of its parameters.
Most teachers are good at their teaching because they are not very social. They have developed the spiritual skills of an introvert to a high degree and understand the need for seclusion and have spent great amounts of time in those settings. They are not as trained in inter-personal dynamics, in social skills, in community building. Their sphere of authority should reflect their sphere of understanding. Surgeons should be trained in bedside manners, in human-relation skills — it will make them better at their jobs. But we primarily want them to be good surgeons. When it comes down to it we would always want a good surgeon over a nice one.
The same is true of Dhamma Teachers. They ought to be developed beyond their social conditioning but they should foremost be trained and skilled in the important work of Dhamma insight. And they need a high degree of authority in the context of intensive teaching containers where the most subtle work of spiritual endeavor is being carried out. Without any willingness to submit to the authority of a teacher, yogis will make no progress. This authority should be valued but also boundaried around a specific field of engagement for a specific period of time.
Retreat is not a democracy nor should it be. It is a “Temporary Autonomous Zone,” where specific forms of authority are agreed upon for discrete periods of time. Teachers need to be open to critique and comment and there must be strong protocols in place that protect students from harmful teacher behavior. Yogis should try to take responsibility for their emotional mind state and protect the sanctity of the container and the minds of their fellow yogis, but teachers should not be so fragile that they cannot handle a challenge.
Robust teacher authority is appropriate in the contexts of intensive retreats. But in places where the container can safely be more flexible, it is necessary for leadership to come from people who have training in community spaces — forms of dialog, conflict resolution, facilitation, training in understanding the dynamics of privilege and oppression — and can accommodate the many needs of the sangha. Lay Buddhist sangha should be a place where all kinds of leadership, authority, and respect are encouraged because a community needs guidance in many realms beyond meditation and tools beyond the ones the Buddha offered.
A weariness of the desert was the living always in company, each of the party hearing all that was said and seeing all that was done by the others day and night. Yet the craving for solitude seemed part of the delusion of self-sufficiency, a factitious making-rare of the person to enhance its strangeness in its own estimation. To have privacy, as Newcombe and I had, was ten thousand times more restful than the open life, but the work suffered by the creation of such a bar between the leaders and men. Among the Arabs there were no distinctions, traditional or natural, except the unconscious power given a famous sheik by virtue of his accomplishment; and they taught me that no man could be their leader except he ate the ranks’ food, wore their clothes, lives level with them, and yet appeared better in himself.~ T.E. Lawrence
Because the role of the teacher is so unique, and the responsibilities so intense, it can understandably necessitate a great degree of psychic, physical, and community distance from students. If so, then it is also understandable that the community might need forms of leadership that are more intimate and involved.
Some will say that “there is no place for politics in the sangha” but in many ways, that is all that sangha is. Where three or more are gathered, there are politics. But it is also true that that the momentum of group process, of argument, of views can undermine the conditions for meditation practice. It can even do much more than that. Schisms in the sangha can lead to all kinds of harm and most importantly is the loss of faith the path for yogis. As mentioned above, yogis can become like plants without water, calves without their mothers. Sangha must be a safe-enough place to provide conditions which are compelling, inviting, encouraging, and inspiring.
Our women are normally home 24 hours. At first we were afraid to pick up a weapon with our hands. But we like the friendship, the interactions. We hope the project of Democratic Autonomy will have an effect throughout Syria.
~ Berivan, YPJ fighter
Many centers, temples, and sitting groups feel the pressure to fill all needs of the community. There may be times where this is appropriate but we can also see that the liberation path of insight requires very rare conditions in order to thrive, conditions that the Buddha recognized could be very easily sabotaged by other priorities. Interpersonal power-politics can easily take over a community, and consume all of the energy that would otherwise be fed into practice. The Buddha had such an extremely strict and comprehensive set of rules for his monks and nuns, to help them avoid the pitfalls of unethical behavior that could threaten the bhikkhus’ progress but also the legitimacy of the sangha in the eyes of the broader public. To be seen as acting in an inappropriate way is just as problematic as actually acting inappropriately. But he also lived in a time where his authority was largely unquestioned and so he could create rules as time went on as a response to destructive behaviors.
There are elements of the formal monastic tradition that may not be appropriate for our time and place, and as lay people living largely outside of the influence of these institutions, we have an incredible degree of discretion regarding our choices and observances.
Recognizing the need for support from the institutions, from the tradition, from the sangha — wanting to hold it as a refuge — is an important source of tethering for our experiments while we also honor the contemporary discomfort with institutional religion that may keep us at arms length.
If you are not already in relationship with a traditional monastic Buddhist institution, it is worth beginning one. If you were born into this tradition or have family ties to a temple or monastery, the details will be different but the encouragement is the same: take care. Go to services, offer dana, build relationships but also take care not to betray the deepest truths you are uncovering about yourself through the practice. In all likelihood there will be parts of your thirst for community that will not be fulfilled in these places. If so, it is fine to seek those elsewhere without rejecting the value of what is to be learned by staying in relationship with the monastic sangha. Stay connected in a way that feels appropriate. You can honor the heritage without being beholden to the weight of all its shadows.
I have seen a number of Asian temples in the US offer space and time for small, mostly white, sanghas to hold their sitting groups. I have almost always seen the small sanghas long for a space of their own, rooted in their own culture, etc, and I have almost always felt it was a mistake to end the relationship with the temple, as awkward and challenging as it may be at times. The western lay vipassana scene is already a little bit like a rebel movement: leaderless, made of independently acting cells with some basic coherence of vision. General coherence around the tool of mindfulness is about all that can be claimed. Some are interested in revolution of the mind, some in bourgeois acquiescence, some commit to dana, some are charging and making a lot of money, some still preserve the quality of ethics, some do not, some are rooted in lineage, some are a hodgepodge of method. Keeping a link to the mothership of our tradition, the monastic sangha, is a fundamentally important way to ensure that all of these adaptations are happening in relationship to the tradition, even if they stretch it one way or another.
If we can embrace the call to diversity to the degree that we accept a diversity of approaches it will ultimately lead to stronger models that can create a rich, vibrant, and functional field of culture. The space of practice and of Dhamma must be as safe as possible for all, and as guerrilla yogis we must see that they need to be rooted in a culture outside of the dominant one. But if we try to make every sangha fit all needs of every community member, or force all members to fit the standard model (a pressure that partly exists because many areas cannot sustain more than one sangha) we will encounter overwhelming pressures.
We all have to make individual choices about what kinds of groups we become involved in and be willing to live with the repercussions of that. Sometimes it means not getting involved in groups and in these cases, individual spiritual friendship is of primary importance.
Right now in the west we also experience a broad dismissal of a so-called “individualistic” approach to practice, where people insist that en emphasis on community is the fundamental way to pursue the Buddha’s teachings. Given that the Buddha taught in a village culture that was much more coherent than our own society, already so steeped in individuality, this view has a logic to it. On the other hand, as guerrilla yogis we should be suspicious of all attachment to views: whether it is resistance to change or the impulse to change. We need to realize that the insistence on “community” or “the world” can also be the result of resistance to practice, to silence, to responsibility, and to acknowledging that there are conditions that support development of mindfulness practice and ones that distract from it, and that community dynamics can fall on either side of that. All people will find the most righteous excuses to prevent themselves or those around them from getting quiet. The effort and courage it takes to go on retreat — to leave the world behind — and then to go beyond our conditioning is greater than what it takes a rocket-ship to escape the gravitational pull of the earth. There are a lot of forces in your life — internally and externally — that don’t really want you to leave for the fear of losing you entirely.
Successful guerrilla operations involve the people. It is the quality of their resistance to the enemy and support for the guerrillas which in the end will be the decisive factor. The guerrillas are the spearhead of the people’s resistance. In fact, a guerrilla force will be unable to operate in an area where the people are hostile to its aims. And it must be remembered always that it is the people who will bear the brunt of the enemy’s retaliatory measures.
~ Handbook for Volunteers of the Irish Republican Army
While past eras of Buddhist lineage have been described in some places by terms like Hinayana (lesser vehicle), Mahayana (greater vehicle), Vajrayana (thunderbolt way), defined by their various approaches and scope of their impact, we might consider that we are living in the era defined most significantly not by lineage or method but by the fact of being taught and practiced primarily by householders: a “Gahapatiyana” (the householder vehicle), if you will. This is quite significant in the history of our Buddhist traditions and should be taken up with the utmost care and dignity by all those involved. We are in a delicate time where the boundaries and methods of our inheritance are being tested, changed, and tested again and we have an inconceivably profound responsibility in aiming for the highest standards so what we create and set in motion for the generations that follow will have the integrity and durability of a bonafide liberation lineage.
Click here for Chapter 11 (Independence: Autonomy / Self-Retreat)
Click here to for Chapter 9 (General Strike: Stillness / Cessation)
