A Good First Step In The Process Of Refreshing Buddhism

books:

	• What the Buddha Never Taught Tim Ward Celestial Arts, 1993 - 242 pages average customer review:based on 12 reviews
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highly recommended

Book exposes hypocrisy and literalism

Everyone can be a fundamentalist. This "problem" is not limited to Christians, however much we Buddhists would like to think so. Tim Ward shows how Theravada Buddhism, with its stress on the "perfect Dhamma" and hundreds of rules, can be corrupted in practice. Example: monks seem to take advantage of ignorant laypeople. Not surprising; monks are people, too. Example: cliques form in the monastery, and monks can be catty and nasty to each other. Not surprising, of course, but you never hear about it. Example: monks aren't allowed to kill anything. So, they take a layperson with them into the jungle, and say, "Get rid of this", pointing at weeds or whatever needs to be cleared. This is not consistent with the spirit of the rules, but it follows the letter of the rules. Thus the problems of literalism raise their head. Tim Ward is a gentle, well meaning traveller who does all Buddhists a favor by showing that Buddhism can fall victim to the problems of all religions.

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Tim Ward: THE MAN

If you are new to the path, or have been on it for a while... READ THIS BOOK. If your the average Western thinker looking for insight into the life of a monk and one man... READ THIS BOOK. For me, the average American, this book spoke volumes to me, it was smart, clever, humorous, and very benificial. So please READ THIS BOOK

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A Good First Step In The Process Of Refreshing Buddhism

More than ever, Buddhism requires a good old fashioned spring-cleaning. Every school of Buddhism has its own biases, problems, hypocrisies and sheer nonsense...all are now tending to stray further and further away from the original point. Theravadan Buddhism is no exception.

Tim does a good beginner's job of highlighting some of the obvious question marks about Theravadan monastic life. Since Tim never professes to be an expert in Buddhism, one should read the book from this point of view. His views are not "expert" but neither should his views be dismissed out of hand.

I was very fortunate to get my hands on a used copy prior to going to Wat Pah Nanachat myself last summer and thought it provided an interesting if dated observation (his stay was back in 1985). I stayed at WPN and another Theravadan monastery in Thailand for a few weeks and was able to compare notes, 20 years on.

While I concur with many of Tim's observations and questions (such as the almost excessive degree of veneration that the Thai people tend to show these mostly Western monks, many of whom were dropouts or ne'er do wells in their society), I felt that he may have spent a bit too much time observing and writing notes and not as much time practicing the Dhamma in such a conducive environment. WPN is extremely spacious, both in the physical sense and spiritual sense. It really gives one the feeling of silence and emptiness, at least when I was there.

I was expecting a very exciting and dangerous environment after reading his book. Instead, I found WPN to be extremely clean, empty and very still. There was little chance to speak with the monks or other lay attendees (except at the beginning with the Guest Monk); in fact, excessive speaking and interaction were discouraged and frowned upon. I felt the atmosphere was quite strict in terms of practice, not unfriendly, just a solemn serious tone. The days were pretty routine...there was some structure, but most of the time was for individual practice. Boredom, loneliness and sexual desire were the main manifestations or "defilements" that came up right away. The food quality at WPN was first rate ("temple food"), even for lay visitors at the end of the line at the morning meal.

I walked the full length and breadth of WPN, both on and off the paths and in the jungle areas. I found no evidence of cobras, scorpions or other dangers as mentioned in Tim's book. There were a few mosquitos, but not many. The temperature was in the mid to high 20s and much less than the 38C I had just come from in Taiwan. I really didn't feel the environment at that time was harsh or austere. The facilities and kutis at WPN were first class...nothing compared to the grass shacks that I had imagined.

This is not to say that in fact Tim was lying or exaggerating to make his account sound more interesting than it was; as mentioned, he stayed at WPN at the tail end of the Ajahn Chah era when things may have been quite different, more bustling, energetic, and still a bit Wild West. My experience and impressions of WPN were quite different, but then again, I am a practicing Buddhist, who had a lot of foreknowledge of the Thai Forest Tradition and was visting 20 years later.

I think the real value of this book is that it offers a rare challenge to the often stagnant conservatism and at times outright elitism of Theravadan Buddhism. It also highlights the challenges that Theravadan Buddhism faces if is to make inroads into Western society and be taken seriously. A lot of the other forms of Buddhism nowadays in the West are either packaged as attractive relaxation meditation pablum or seductive worshipping of some charismatic guru or lama in technicolour robes...nonetheless, these forms of Buddhism seem to have much greater appeal than the relatively dour and backward-looking Theravadan approach.

As Ajahn Chah has said, there are many roads to enlightenment; the Theravadan Thai Forest tradition at WPN is one of them and for my money one of the best and purest, despite it's limitations. Nevertheless, many now feel that Theravadan Buddhism desperately needs an overhaul; Tim's book is one of the first to dare to suggest this.

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reviews: page 1, 2, 3

An engaging, often humorous account of a young, well-traveled journalist's intitiation into the Pah Nauchet monastery, deep in the jungles of Thailand. By turns iconoclastic and inspiring, What the Buddha Never Taught takes readers on a remarkable pilgrimage, in which author Tim Ward took his vow, shaved his head and eyebrows, and struggled to obey the 227 precepts originally set down by Buddha over 2,500 years ago.

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