Buddha-Dharma-Sangha in the West. An Inquiry. Part One of Two

Michael met Christopher on a retreat in Spain in October 1992. After that retreat, he and his partner Gwyneth moved to Totnes where they lived and practiced for four years. He arrived in Plum Village in 1996 inspired by Thay’s (Thich Nhat Hahn) book Peace is Every Step. Michael ordained as a novice monk in February 1997, receiving his full ordination and the 14 mindfulness trainings in 1998. He lived in Plum Village and the monasteries in the United States and travelled with Thay in his teaching tours. Michael took a sabbatical in 2011 and returned to lay life in 2012. He is now a lay Dharma teacher.

A transcription, edit and adaption of a 90-minute audio recording  in Totnes, Devon, England.

Part One of Two. A Summary

• This dialogue underscores the timeless relevance of the Dharma in addressing both personal and global challenges. CT offers reflections on death and the importance of mindfulness, inquiry, and wise action in transforming anger and suffering into empowerment and liberation.
• CT advocates a more radical approach within the Sangha, encouraging practitioners and teachers to speak out against global issues like environmental degradation, corporate greed, and political corruption.
• Liberation, as taught by the Buddha, is not the end of exploration but the freedom to continue discovering profound truths. CT emphasises that insights and realizations unfold over time, not just in a single moment of enlightenment.

  

  We face formidable challenges in the Dance of Life. Let us never forget to Dance. It too belongs to life.

  THE INQUIRY

  MS. Thank you very much for this opportunity to ask you questions. There has been an important generation of teachers who brought the Dharma to the West, which has had a significant impact on many people. We experienced the teachings/practices due to teachers and managers creating the conditions for retreats in the West. I don’t think I would have survived your experience in the monastery in Thailand. I went to my first retreat in Spain with you in 1992. I felt you brought something special from the East to the West. You spoke to us in a way that made sense.

In many ways, your talks were transformative. Some teachers of your generation have passed away, such as Ram Dass and Venerable Thich Nhat Hanh. Something is lost when they passed away. I feel it is important to acknowledge their contribution. Do you prepare for death or for the relationship with death? What is your relationship to death? How personally do you see it?

CT: Thank you for your kind words. This is a good point to start with. Yes, a generation of teachers, East and West, have left this world. I will include in the 1990s Ajahn Buddhadasa, one of my two major teachers from the south of Thailand, and early in this millennium the death of Ajahn Dhammadharo, with whom I spent three years in his monastery engaged in the disciplined practice of Vipassana (Insight Meditation), also in the south of Thailand. Other teachers, seniors, East and West, have also come and passed during the past 50 years. I receive every year messages from friends informing me of people I knew, both in the East and the West, who have died.

I recall in the Vipassana monastery, the corpses brought into the monastery, placed on the fire in the middle of the area where we meditated. We chanted Sabbe Sankhara Anicca – All Formations are Impermanent. Ajahn Dhammadharo took several of us monks to nearby Nakornsridhammaraj Hospital to witness the naked corpses on stones slabs in the basement. For an autopsy, the examiner used a surgical knife to peel back the skin of corpses for an examination of the organs. We receive such first-hand teachings to witness death. Dying and death also occurred in the monastery. It was not always easy. Authentic and valid perceptions made it a necessity to keep in touch with the reality of death, not avoid it.

MS: What was your intention when you returned to the West in 1977?

After a decade in the East as a Buddhist monk for six years, I wished to remain faithful to the tradition of the Buddha and his body of teachings. This meant I focussed on offering the teachings in a valid, insightful way, respectful to the Buddha and the Buddhist tradition. This meant I kept a mindful eye on the past, especially the words of the Buddha and what Ajahn Buddhadasa and Ajahn Dhammadharo taught me.

Both said the same. “Go to the West and teach.” Ajahn Buddhadasa encouraged me to teach emptiness and dependent arising. Ajahn Dhammadharo encouraged me to teach liberation through Vipassana using the four postures of sitting, walking, standing and reclining. That was it in terms of what they said. End of story.

MS. Has anything changed for you as the years went by?

CT. Yes. I found the role of teaching natural and organic as time went on. I felt at home with the role. This led to exploring the relationship between the teachings in the present and into the future, rather than from the past to the future. This includes exploration of death in the future at the personal level. I give a short reflection regularly on death. I appreciate the ease in relationship so far with death.

I regard the Sangha of practitioners as fine in their dedication to the Dharma. There are plenty of insightful teachers in the Sangha who show integrity. I am happy to make a contribution to the development of the Sangha. I can say the same with my family, Nshorna, my daughter and my four grandchildren, one of whom lives with me since 2021. I can die knowing the Sangha and family will be fine.

The most important truth lies beyond Sangha and family, beyond friendships. A deep love of the deathless matters most. The deathless confirms the heart of the Dharma teachings. The meditations, reflections and understanding of the deathless puts my modest experience, as a human being, through the journey of existence, into a proper perspective. I say we are small waves in the great ocean and made of the same stuff as the ocean. Knowing the deathless, the timeless, confirms a great liberation. Liberation reveals itself, ending any exaggeration of the significance of dying and death.

MS: Some people in the Sangha feel overwhelmed with the prospect of death. What do we take refuge in? The Buddha mentioned taking refuge in the Dharma. You spoke about the deathless. Is the deathless a refuge?

CT. The Buddha points out the harsh realities of change from birth to death. We need the diligence of keeping up the inquiry and exploration, as well as meditating on the significance of an authentic refuge. This means taking refuge in the supreme Dharma of the deathless beyond the ordinary.

Sometimes we hear it said of the importance of taking refuge in oneself. The Buddha did mention that. There is an important contextual reference here. Sometimes people around us appear trapped in greed, hate and delusion. The tradition regards these mind states as ‘three poisons of the mind.’ We may need to step back from all that stuff of the reactive mind of others and go for refuge in ourselves. To go for refuge in a place within free from greed, hate and delusion.

I sometimes remind people of this. Perhaps they live in an abusive, aggressive environment with no Sangha friends, nearby and no Dharma teachers available. Then the person must rely on their own being. That is the reality for a few people. The majority go for refuge in Awakening, Dharma (teachings/practices) and the Sangha, as the three jewels to support our existence Sangha refers to any group of people engaged in waking up and the teachings/practices for knowing a fulfilled life.

The larger picture of the Sangha refers to the noble Sangha of the wise, whose voices, past and present, can make an enormous significance in our daily life. In the conventional world, we go for refuge as well in other ways. We endure sickness, an accident or a major health crash that requires a visit to see doctors and nurses, where we go for refuge in their knowledge, observation and diagnosis. We go to other for their knowledge and expertise to give us support. I like this big sense of the Sangha, a network of those abiding with a liberated wisdom to support the welfare of people.

MS: I have been thinking about the life of the Buddha and the time before he became a Buddha. What was Prince Siddhartha looking for in his quest? Texts and teachers express different versions of the goal. Was the goal to transcend suffering or the search for the truth? How can we relate to that search? What are the goals? Where do we want to go? How can we relate to his awakening? The awakening or liberation is huge. How can we relate to that? Can the Buddha inspire our life and guide us?

CT: Until the age of 29, we read the story of Prince Siddhartha. He trained to become the King, the Raja, of the nation of the Sakyan people. Something deep stirred in Siddhartha. He looked around him at this world of old, sick and dying people facing death while living trapped in pleasure and power. He needed to get away from all of that.

I am not sure he knew what he was searching for. He experienced an existential crisis while living in luxury in the three palaces, one for the summer, one for winter and one for the monsoon season. Rahula, the birth of his son, also became a trigger to get away. He could not handle the long-term responsibility of becoming king and father. He did a run. His flight from the reality of being a royal put him into contact with yogis. His personal story has become one of the most famous stories of any human being on Earth.

2500 years later, the story continues to resonate in dramatic and modest ways. Some human beings still engage in the quest for an enlightened and liberated way of life. There is much to discover, profound and deep, not offered in secular society, not in science, nor a conservative religion. The search for authentic living can reveal freedom from craving and wanting in the socialised mindset. Liberation does not mean the negation of the search since liberation includes the freedom to explore, to discover.

Liberation reveals a non-difference between the search and the end of the search. This freedom reveals the ongoing benefits of exploration. The Buddha taught for 45 years from the age of 35 to 80. I am 80 years old. I have an extra interest in this age. Expansion of the teachings takes place over the decades. Insights and realizations do not come on a single night of enlightenment, despite full realisation of the goal. The ongoing exploration comes through listening, learning and experiencing depths of insight. This way we stay close to an immeasurable truth. Questioning, meditations, reflections continue for the Buddha and all of us. Why? Because we know the freedom to explore and continue with it.

MS: You have been teaching for a long time. The mindset in the West seems at times different from the Asian context. There seems to be more complexity in the West. Have you seen a progressive change in your teaching, or do you touch on different facets of it? Is it like a diamond with different sides?

CT. I lean towards the latter view of the diamonds rather than progressive change. Let me take a conventional view. Just over a year ago, I began taking more interest in Indie music, listening to the lyrics and the sounds. I explored the depths of the lyrics, giving me the opportunity to share the understanding with others. I would take specific interests in certain singers and the essence of their insightful songs. I have had the privilege of teaching for the past 50 years. Exploration of Indie music confirms freedom rather than a step towards freedom.

MS. In essence, have your teachings stayed the same?

CT: People have asked me this question several times. My immediate response is that I have kept trust in the liberating ultimate truth and acknowledged and recognised the everyday world and the issues with it. The teachings have never strayed away from ultimacy and the exploration of the relative, socialised, conventional views and values.

MS: You mentioned the Buddha’s insights. Don’t we need new insights to shed light on the world today? What are the insights into the reality of people’s contemporary existence?

CT. Let me take a step back 2500 years. People then experienced the whole mess of suffering in countless ways – sickness, pain, conflict, greed, blame, delusions, corruption and wars. In ancient India, people ate healthy, organic food, giving them potential for a long life. There was no social media, nor a bizarre parallel world of alternative realities, disconnected from the real world of elements and consciousness.

We live in a vulnerable world with the depletion of resources, pollution, environmental destruction, frequent wars, depression, widespread unhappiness and a fearful future awaiting humanity. These threats and realities to our species require insights and understanding so that we face this world at a global, environmental, social and personal level. The Buddha did not have to address these global issues. I sometimes have the view he had it easy compared to what we have to live with. Yes, wars took place, and a brutal system of justice existed in India. The psyche, the personality of citizens of the Sakyan kingdom of the Buddha’s time and today has not changed much.

MS: Suffering is much the same?

CT: Yes. We believed we have evolved is a social myth. Our irresponsible behaviour continues in the same tragic way. Currently, we live in this 18th century ideology of the Age of Enlightenment. This reveals another level of self-delusion. We only look around us to see countless expressions of suffering in the lives of citizens worldwide.

MS. Issues seem so much larger.

CT: Dharma teachings remind us of the immediate need to understand the Four Noble Truths, the exploration of suffering, causes for it, resolution and the way to resolve the suffering. This includes understanding the dependent arising dynamics which bring about suffering. We, the Sangha, teachers, practitioners, must continue to express insights about the world and the impact of our states of mind.

MS. Do the teachings/practices need to become more radical because of the present situation revealing environmental degradation, destruction of the natural environment and increasing temperature of the Earth? In a sense, our lifestyle supports this destruction. What would it mean to engage in radical action?

CT: Thank you. I like the word radical. The word has the same root as radish, the vegetable. Radical means to get to the root of things. We need a radical perception to dissolve shadows in the Sangha. There is a shadow in sections of the Sangha fearful of speaking up to express a radical voice. Buddhist practitioners often want to be pleasing, nice and sound non-judgmental. Timid voices form a kind of culture in the Sangha. Asian teachers often express loving kindness (metta in Pali language). Practitioners want to appear like these revered teachers. One cannot imagine any fierce criticism from such revered teachers or their Sangha.

There is a tendency to desire to be diplomatic, not offering a straightforward critique of global situations and those who support the destruction of the Earth and sentient life. Kindly and wise teachers, past and present, contribute beautifully to the wellbeing of our species. They do not have it in their DNA to be radical, critical and outspoken. They come across as gentle people, gentle in spirit, in voice and their teachings. East and West, these teachers offer a thoughtful, mindful way of life.

I regard such teachers and practitioners as angels or gods in the Sangha. They also serve as a resource, a refuge and comfort for vulnerable, wounded people. Practitioners know they will not get criticised. Gentle and spoken shows one kind of voice. They receive approval and appreciation.

This is one voice. There are not enough voices who, frankly, could not care a stuff about what people think of them. We need voices who will speak up openly and criticise the political system, obsession with economic growth, slavery of scientists to their masters, corporate abuse of customers, media manipulation of public opinion and authoritarian leadership, frozen and self-serving.

Dharma teachers need to be clear and straightforward with people in the Sangha. It is important to point things out and encourage practitioners to look deeply rather than accept shallow responses.

Such fearless voices in the Sangha and outside of it will find themselves accused of being judgmental or reactive. The Buddha consistently offered fierce critiques of the power of the royalty, political leaders, religious authority, selfishness, the caste (class) system and war. The Sangha has the potential to become an important voice, providing we remain willing to take risks and endure rejection. Practitioners must encourage their teachers and themselves to take the risk of speaking up front and writing with passionate conviction.

Sometimes people say to me: “Christopher, you sound angry. You come across as judgmental.” The person in the audience needs to express such a view in the public talk or via email or an online response on social media. I appreciate it. If I become inhibited due to faults found with my tone or words, I will experience a contraction inside, a submission to the passive voice. Sometimes, I run the edge between being fiercely critical, a valid response, and being judgmental and sounding angry. The feedback has a value.

I reflect. I can change the communication, spoken or written, without contracting into the horror of niceness. I must trust in the voice, unwavering with conviction, and know its difference from anger. Anger is a negative, hostile state of mind, an unresolved issue, due to its pressure from the past.

MS: This is a huge subject. Westerners often have a problematic relationship with anger. Is it destructive? Or is it empowerment? There is also the internal criticism, the internal judge. You spoke of an epidemic in society, of being self-judgmental. This is an impediment for us. We need to explore the roots of self-reactivity. I remember when the French government tested nuclear tests in the Pacific, I felt so angry. It felt like it was more than a sense of injustice or the sense of destruction. I guess Westerners can relate to that. Am I feeling empowered or is it destructive?

CT: You make a valid point with authentic concern. A mindful human being wishes to live with wisdom looks at these issues to distinguish destructive anger from a powerful energy which brings empowerment. Dharma language makes it clear. Anger is a problem. Anger expresses an outcome of suffering in the past or present, which cannot contribute to wisdom, nor clarity. The recipient of anger usually finds it the most difficult emotion or language to deal with. They feel others made them angry or withdraw. The background of anger includes rejection, contraction and pressure building up in time.

It only takes one incident for the anger to come out in the emotional life or becoming utterly detached from empathy with no emotion, nor feelings. We see with our political leaders and authorities mirroring this emotionless anger. One speaks or thinks with a cold, dry, heartless language. Our political masters claim they have no choice in the violent decisions they make. They continue to advocate everybody has a choice, claiming we live in a free society. But rulers say they have no choice to but to go to war, to exploit resources and so on.

MS: What’s the difference between anger and passion when voicing criticism?

CT: The Dharma explores our behaviour, whether anger in its emotional expression or a detachment from emotion. We employ our mind to engage in reflection and analysis. The Buddha endorsed practices to distinguish clarity from anger. Practice includes being mindful of body/speech/mind, meditating on blame, and negativity. What conditioning leads up to endorsing hostility, revenge and conflict? The early outbursts of negativity, if unexamined, contribute to a loss of authentic, intelligent empowerment. Anger perverts clear empowerment.

Atomic tests take place in the Pacific Ocean with all the consequences for the people living on the islands and the marine life. We blow up with rage against those who authorise such atomic tests. The blowup of anger affects others around us. Passion, deep feelings of concern and action contribute to irritation but also can support the skilful voice of protest. This leads to a skilful response that’s different from rage against the government, the army, military scientists and others who collude in organised violence and the inflicting of suffering on people and the environment.

Wise reflection and analysis, supported with passion and conviction, shows a way to resolving the dynamics of the conflict. Anger distorts or exaggerates a situation. This ends up as a loss of empowerment to respond. Atomic tests taking place in the Pacific Ocean have consequences so we protest, but we can have an atomic bomb, so to speak, within us, blowing up in anger and rage, which affects the immediate world. Passion and deep concern, including strong irritation, nourish the wise voice of protest towards those who collude in such tests.

MS: Anger often appears related to pain. I feel the pain of a situation triggering the anger. I see the animal suffering, such as the bulls fighting in Spain. I grew up in Spain. Many people feel pain about the bullfight, so the pain then comes out as anger. We rarely have enough awareness to recognize the relationship between pain, anger and fear, which becomes intertwined. It becomes difficult to acknowledge the process of these mental constructs and the emotions. This requires a lot of training.

CT: Agreed. We train our mind, even though the world appears in a complete mess. Practice includes a deep interest in the causes and conditions that contribute to anger and changing or letting go of the conditions. To such a way of viewing, we investigate our prior experiences, perhaps right back into the childhood, to know what went on in our conditioning. Such conditioning can lead to a low sense of self-worth, a common trigger for anger. Anger is not about the issue but about the past.

Buddha-Dharma doesn’t go into all the stories of the personal history but into the recent processes leading up to unresolved reactivity. To give an example, I mentioned my teachers in the Vipassana monastery and in the forest monastery. Neither teacher asked me anything about my past. They knew two things about me. One, I was an Englishman. Two, I had hitchhiked, or used buses and trains, to travel through about 20 countries before taking ordination. My personal stories were not a matter of interest.

Meditation and inquiry took priority. What were the bare conditions dependently arising leading to a problematic state of mind today– contact, feelings, desire, holding onto, clinging? Reflection, analysis, meditating on includes such questions as:

• What triggered the anger?
• What did you ignore?
• What did you neglect to do?
• What built up in the mind?
• What did you suppress?
• What were the prior thoughts?
• Was the anger a compensation for lack of self-worth?
• Was it attention seeking?
• Did the anger show itself in some location in the whole body, or parts of the body?
• What are the necessary changes to make?

We practise to see clearly the bodily sensations, feelings, thoughts, image of the other or oneself triggering the reaction.

Nobody is perfect. I have met nobody who is perfect. Yet, we can live a life free from suffering and have no intention at all to make others suffer.

Thank you, Michael. We share many similar concerns with a mutual deep wish for the Sangha to expand further and deeper.

End of Part One of Two.

An Inquiry into the Buddha-Dharma-Sangha in the West. Part Two of Two

Michael Schwammberger questions the perceptions and views of Christopher Titmuss of the development of the Buddha-Dharma -Sangha in the West.

May all beings live with wisdom

May all beings live with compassion

May all beings live a liberated way of life.

THEMES OF PART TWO (to be posted within a few days)

• Mindfulness in Everyday Life: Practice and action can thrive outside retreat settings, through a Sangha dedicated to a culture of change.
• Ethics and Action: The Dharma calls for clear, compassionate action, especially in addressing global issues like war and environmental destruction.
• Beyond Optimism and Pessimism: Sustained wisdom and compassion, rather than hope or despair, are keys to addressing our relationship of present to future.
• Cultural and Literary Inspiration: Learning from diverse cultures and art forms can deepen our understanding and practice.
• Diverse Paths to Liberation: There are countless ‘Dharma doors,’ and awakening can be nurtured through various practices, experiences and insights.
• Awakening is Unpredictable: Transformation can arise unexpectedly, beyond our control or immediate understanding.