Deer Park Monastery, Escondido, CA

Dogma:
I need to be able to balance my critical mind with negativity. The critical mind is a good thing to have, the negativity is not. And if anyone told me that my critical mind is not a good thing to have, the cult-behavior red alerts should go off like smoke detectors any time I cook.

Exhortations that practitioners need to practice with a community is right at the doorstep of cult-like behavior. If they say you should practice with a community, that’s a little better, but not by a whole lot. First of all, I don’t like anyone telling me what I need. I also don’t like the suggestion that someone who practices alone is somehow inferior to people who find, have, and practice with a community. There definitely are benefits of practicing with a community, but I reject those value judgments. Besides, why should an individual need a community if the community doesn’t need the individual? I’ll need this community when it needs me, otherwise where’s the equanimity? I’m complete without a community, and anyone who tells me different is trying to sell me truth and love through tofu.

There is also a danger in the Five Mindfulness Trainings becoming dogmatic if not viewed critically. As I’ve mentioned, the Five Mindfulness Trainings are like precepts, but they aren’t proscriptions on behavior or commandments. They aren’t meant to be strictly “followed” and they are not “broken” if they aren’t followed. They are trainings in mindfulness, being mindful about life and living beings, the way we use speech, our consumption, sexual relations, and possessions and exploitation/social injustice. Actually, I think the Five Mindfulness Trainings are trainings in being critical, and the value in developing that critical mind is more important than the substance of the trainings which can easily fall into dogma.

There’s also a requirement that the Five Mindfulness Trainings be read or recited once a month, preferably with a community. That encouragement of a community I think is reasonable, because for the Five Mindfulness Trainings, it’s a matter of support or there being a witness to impress the responsibility needed to take the trainings seriously and diligently (already the danger of falling into dogma). And the trainings absolutely must be read or recited once in three months or the transmission “is lost”. These requirements are about being mindful, more so than any ephemeral, ethereal, mystic “transmission”. Without this requirement nagging at you once a month or within three months, it’s easy to let them slip and forget about them. The substance in the transmission is more a skillful means to get people to treat them seriously.

I think once people have taken the Five Mindfulness Trainings and developed a critical mind about them and their function, they should be encouraged to refine the trainings to apply specifically to themselves and what they know about themselves that needs work. I even think much of the substance of the core mindfulness trainings can be ejected, as most people couldn’t follow them strictly anyway. Coming back to them every month or within three is more symbolic and ritualistic to re-energize the practice and training. Not to suggest they should totally be ejected except for symbolic, ritual value. They still have great substantive points which I think can help people if they can be mindful of them.

I’ve mentioned before that there’s an explicit training against alcohol in the one about consumption. I haven’t had a drink in the two months I’ve been at the monastery, I might go away for the three coming months and not have a drink, but I’m not going to say that I’m not going to. As I’ve mentioned, I take issue at that singling out of alcohol when unmindful fossil fuel consumption is a much bigger problem.

Now negativity is my specific issue that I need to train myself to be mindful about. To catch my negative trains of thought and not allowing them to harm others or myself. I could probably use the Five Mindfulness Trainings as a template to write out a whole mindfulness training on negative thinking and thoughts.