In my ongoing effort to find ways to adapt Buddhism to modern American life, I have long been influenced by the example of Vimala-Kirti, the "householder sage" of ancient India (pictured). According to the Vimala-Kirti Sutra ("sutra" means scripture), Vimala-Kirti was a wealthy layperson or householder who was one of the Buddha's leading lay disciples. Even though he was a householder, however, his wisdom was said to exceed that of all of the Buddha's leading monk disciples. Much of the Sutra is spent recounting arguments between Vimala-Kirti and the monk disciples about Buddhist doctrine -- disputes which Vimala-Kirti invariably won. The notion of a layperson's wisdom excelling that of a monk is only one of many radical notions put forward by the Sutra.
There are several English translations of the Vimala-Kirti Sutra; the one I like best is by Dr. Robert A. Thurman, entitled The Holy Teaching of Vimala-Kirti. Dr. Thurman 's translation is from the Tibetan, as the Sanskrit original has been lost. Like the better-known Heart and Diamond Sutras, the Vimala-Kirti Sutra was an important text for the Zen traditions of China and Japan. In many Japanese Zen monasteries even today there is an alcove with a statue of Vimala-Kirti, wearing the hair and clothing of a layperson, expounding the teaching. In Zen, Vimala-Kirti is best known for his "thunderous silence," referring to the time when Vimala-Kirti ended a long debate about the essence of wisdom by saying nothing at all. Vimala-Kirti was a popular figure among the ruling classes of ancient China, who could identify with Vimala-Kirti's role in society. The highest spiritual stage in Zen is called "return to the marketplace," in which the spiritual adept, after long years of spiritual training, returns to society to live as an ordinary person and teach others. Vimala-Kirti is traditionally seen as the embodiment of this highest stage.
Here is how the Sutra describes how Vimala-Kirti lived:
He wore the white clothes of the layman, yet lived impeccably like a religious devotee ... He had a son, a wife, and female attendants ... [and] made his appearance at the fields of sports and in the casinos, but his aim was always to mature people [there] ... He engaged in all sorts of businesses, yet had no interest in profit or possessions ... To develop children, he visited all the schools ... He was honored as the official among officials because he regulated the functions of government according to the Dharma.
Quite a fellow, this Vimala-Kirti! This passage shows a composite picture of an engaged person of power and influence, appearing in every walk of life for the sole purpose of turning people away from greed and vanity and toward the virtues of the spiritual life. While Buddhism has always had a strong monastic component -- after all, its monasteries have preserved the texts and the teachings for 2,500 years -- it seems to me that today's world is ripe for the message of Vimala-Kirti. Certainly, this vivid description of his daily life seems strikingly modern.
Though the Vimala-Kirti may be the best known Buddhist text extolling the integration of wisdom and the worldly life, it is by no means the only one. I am indebted to Buddhist translator Joshua Eaton (M.Div., Harvard), for pointing out other Buddhist texts with a similar message. Here is a passage from the Mahamangala Sutta :
Broad knowledge, skill,
well-mastered discipline,
well-spoken words:
This is the highest protection.Support for one's parents,
assistance to one's wife and children,
consistency in one's work:
This is the highest protection.Giving, living in rectitude,
assistance to one's relatives,
deeds that are blameless:
This is the highest protection.
It is unclear how the Vimala-Kirti Sutra came to be. Gil Fronsdal, Ph.D., Buddhist scholar and founder of the Insight Meditation Center in Redwood City, Calif., suspects that it was written, at least in part, as a kind of satire. I myself wonder if it was compiled by lay teachers in ancient India. However it was forged, I feel that it speaks to today's world and today's spiritual needs. We do not live in Medieval Europe or T'ang dynasty China, where spiritual renunciates lived behind cloistered monastery walls, but in a web-wired planet where the world's best spiritual teachings are as close at hand as a Google search or a Twitter feed. Were Vimala-Kirti or his ilk alive today I have no doubt that he/she would have a Facebook page, a blog and a keen interest in using every available means to bring the benefits of the spiritual path to as many people as possible.
I'm not sure this modern-day Vimala-Kirti would identify him/herself only as a Buddhist. The Vimala-Kirti archetype is endlessly creative and flexible. Besides, the spiritual needs of human beings are universal and timeless. Everyone wants to belong, to have a secure livelihood and be treated with basic dignity. Everyone wants to be able to express themselves without hindrance or the threat of harm, and forge their own path to material and spiritual fulfillment. Above all, we all want to love and be loved. Vimala-Kirti is best known for his essence wisdom teachings, but he also speaks eloquently about love. When the monk Manjusri asks him why he exerts such efforts on behalf of ordinary people, Vimala-Kirti replies:
Manjusri ... [I] generate the great love that is truly a refuge for all living beings; the love that is peaceful because free from grasping ... the love that is firm, its high resolve unbreakable.
Vimala-Kirti believed in the power of this Great Love; it was an important part of his effectiveness as a teacher and spiritual leader. I was so taken with the Sutra's description of "great love" that I wrote an article on it some years back for Shambhala Sun magazine. In that article, entitled "The Great Love," I said:
In ordinary people, attachment and aversion are opposites; that push-pull is constantly confusing us. But when these are cleared up there is ... no sense of separation between ourselves and other people. In that realized state, we can truly love one another without confusion.
I still believe this. I still think that spiritual heroes such as Vimala-Kirti, fashioned from an ancient spiritual imagination, can still inspire us to seek the best from each other, and to strive for a better world. Vimala-Kirti went beyond the monastic life to forge a vocation of full worldly engagement. Why did some number of anonymous Buddhist sages pen this scripture if not to encourage us to follow Vimala-Kirti's example?
Today, as always, each one of us can aspire in our own way to be like Vimala-Kirti, inwardly pure yet outwardly engaged in helping people, whatever their needs or wherever they might be.
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Vimalakirti Sutra - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
They taught me about standing with one foot in the world, for the sake of reaching the people immersed in it, and to avoid becoming attached to renunciation. I was really surprised to see how Buddhism can embrace the form of modern culture and still retain its heart.
To his astonishment and delight, strangers came up to him and dropped cooked rice and vegetables into his bowl and he wondered why they gave so freely without any expectation for payment in kindness or in word or in even a smile. After his noontime meal, the mendicant sat quietly contemplating this great enigma -- this demonstration of selfless gratitude from strangers.
He gazed into a still pond that reflected his tonsured visage and body draped in the saffron robes of a monastic. The image changed into the appearance of a laymen and answered the mendicant's gaze, "I too seek liberation, this why I offer these gifts of nourishment to you. We mirror each other."
At that moment, the mendicant realized the interdependency between the laity and monks. Each required the other. One for instruction and preservation of those sacred threads of wisdom and the other food. And the mendicant wondered, "who offers wisdom and who really offers food?"
"bona na croin"
The Tanya, written by Rabbi Schneur Zalman is a book of Hasidic Jewish moral teaching. Rabbi Zalman distinguishes “love like flaming coals” and “love like tranquil waters”.
“Love like a flaming coal” can be a holy love directed toward God but it shares with other loves an egotistical element. Most worldly loves are, in essence, a love of self: A person loves himself, and for the sake of his self-love, he needs something. Even a love between people can be based on an egotistical need for the love of another.
A higher type of love is “love like water’ or as Scripture calls it, “love of delights.” This is a love in which the lover is not aware of himself at all, only the object of his love. This love is satisfying because it makes no demands; it does not seek to dominate or exercise ownership over the object, it is sustained by the loves very existence.
The “love of delights” is what Manjusri calls the love that is peaceful because free from grasping”…
(Adapted from Adin Steinsaltz’s commentary)
Your analogy of equating unconditional love (Gk.agape) to flowing water reminds me of the tangential impact of group meditation. In the vihara (Skt & Pali) (in particular the meditation hall), each practitioner sits in solitude focusing on his or her mind alone and yet the benefit is felt by all participants. Each person assists the other. Whether strong ow weak, his or her samadhi (concentration) spills over contributing to a pool of intentionality that buoys up each practitioner.
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I have nothing against Buddhism. In fact, were I to practice any "religion", it would most likely be Buddhism. But I wonder why one would make efforts to adapt something ancient to modern American life.
Haven't we had enough philosophers and prophets and gods and volumes after volumes written over the millennia, and theologies and myths to just make a list of lessons learned, and just keep those in mind as we go about our business of advancing knowledge, then using it to do good for our fellow human beings?
As I see it, the implication is that it should be done now because that ancient guy did it. I don't know about others, but I certainly don't make decisions that way.
Well... in my case... I have always thought that "Those who don't remember the mistakes of the past are DOOMED to repeat them!" seemed fitting! (Just because they're "ANCIENT" doesn't make them ANY LESS relevent!
My take on suffering is more the aspect of attachment, wanting something in a form that doesn't change. For example, love, youth, life. If we are attached to any of those three things, when they change (losing love, growing old, dying) we suffer. The cure? Understand the true nature of things and you will still experience some suffering but not the gut wrenching crazy suffering some go through when they are unprepared for dying.
I am however rather startled at the defensiveness and arrogance I have encountered here in simply discussing the risks of chasing the "I who seeks purity" and the inherent paradox of such a pursuit. The impression is that Buddhism is no more immune from such self-certainty than any other religion. There is something about the idea of a truth held hostage to dogmatic concepts such that the communication between human-beings becomes lost to dismissive posturing which is recurrent in religious interpretation of spiritual matters. It is just such an indulgence of individual certainty at the expense of the community of self and the disdain of the world to which I was attempting to draw attention and that you in kindness and respect, thoughtfully addressed. Nonetheless, the responses here by several "authorities" of zen illustrates my point of caution.
I have identified myself as zen for well over thirty years and certainly do not seek to diminish or disrespect the path it offers, but do feel that the risk for religious arrogance is real and, evidently, readily demonstrated.