March 2, 2003

path of accumulation

It really is my belief that if punk rockers started listening to Buddhist teachings, they would become the ideal practitioners. The first path (according to Lam Rim) is renunciation — absolute disgust with this life. Geshe-la says in the Heart Sutra that any intelligent person has three choices; kill yourself because you see clearly that this life isn’t going to work out, be a “pleasure seeker” and go after material things (i.e. live the Budwieser lifestyle), or try and find a spiritual path. I know a couple people who killed themselves — some of them unintentionally while being pleasure seekers. Both ways don’t seem to make the person any happier, don’t seem to make living this life any easier.

I have this... we’ll say acquaintance, who I know from a few years ago when he was in a band and I was friends with one of the guys in the band. Our paths have crossed a few times since then, but mostly just in passing. A mutual friend of both our ours (who has been advertising the monks visit like crazy!) told him about the event and mentioned that we didn’t have a place secured for them to stay. He works with mentally disabled children and has a huge house — he offered for them to stay there. At first I was hesitant because these aren’t just any monks, these are rinpoches from the Panchen Lama’s monastery. They were invited here by me and I’m responsible if they see, hear or smell anything that wouldn’t be appropriate. Plus, I had this selfishness kick in (”they’re my monks”).

They were going to stay on our floor and we were going to stay in a camper out behind the house. The camper is now broken — no heat or power or water — and we heard from the mutual friend that our acquaintance was really excited about the whole thing and wasn’t going to take no for answer (he did take no, but only because he’s a nice, passive guy — much like myself).

This acquaintance, we’ll call him “Matt”, has been doing these amazing selfless acts for years now. Helping disabled children can’t be the easiest job around, yet he’s stuck with it. His karma is ripe and my fears are silly. This could turn out to be this symbiotic relationship allowing great teachers to have a place to stay while they teach. We’re going to look at the house today and will be making the decision. My guess is that my selfishness will prevail again (sleeping out in a cold camper or sleeping in my warm bed) and Matt will be providing shelter for the monks.

posted @ 9:13 AM

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