Gnarly individuals have given me some of the greatest dharma lessons of my life. By doing so I have acknowledged my own inner gnarliness and just let it be. Oddly it continues to diminish when no attempt to beat it down is made.

makes me think of the slogan: ‘be grateful to everyone’; altho the newbie… wouldn’t know it yet, necessarily. i used to think that too, ‘you want me to aspire to that?’ but as i was just reading it… i recognized the invitation to patience that the ‘elder’ presented to the new one… albeit-likely unconscious- in a way, being a bodhisattva and offering up his need to be any different than the way he was being in the moment…

makes me think of the slogan: ‘be grateful to everyone’; altho the newbie… wouldn’t know it yet, necessarily. i used to think that too, ‘you want me to aspire to that?’ but as i was just reading it… i recognized the invitation to patience that the ‘elder’ presented to the new one… albeit-likely unconscious- in a way, being a bodhisattva and offering up his need to be any different than the way he was being in the moment…

Thanks for this Lodro. I have certainly met some eccentric and perhaps even “gnarly” practitioners in contemplative communities. But they almost always seem to have a deeper kindness, and some form of insight beneath their more thorny facade. Of course, it might not be the best thing on a representational level to meet one of these more wacky characters as a brand new beginner to the center in question, but they do always teach patience, and that everyone has something to offer.
I have met very few genuinely MEAN people at meditation centers – at least the percentage is much much lower than the rest of the society at large, in my humble opinion. And even in that society, maybe the mean people aren’t really that mean. Maybe the patience we learn from these sangha members helps us have enough patience to learn to appreciate others as well.
But yeah, sangha eccentrics are for real.

This is an interesting discussion.
I have met a few eccentric crazies or gnarly experienced meditation practitioners also and I’ve been the annoying sangha member to other people, Im sure.
And reading this all, I agree that the sangha is there to teach us (patience, or whatever it may be), in forms or ways that we may or may not like or recognize.
However, I often wonder: What is the balance between (A)’being yourself’ at whatever moment, working with your gnarliness, not completely beating yourself up all the time, and not hiding feelings,etc AND (B), being rigorous about your behavior and not using too many excuses?
I’m not sure what I’m saying, but I think I find this important. There is something there. Anyone have a comment?

what if the sangha are just jerks? no problem. do home-based retreat instead http://basicmindfulness.org
i’m doing a home-based retreat this weekend with Shinzen Young. will post a review on my blog soon as i’m done.
~C

what would I do without my beloved Bengali tea boys?!
and whose Bengali Tea Boy am I? (rhetorical question people)
“When the world is filled with evil, all mishaps should be transformed into the path of Bodhi” (Lojong slogan)

From my understanding of the teachings, I thought ‘sangha’ generally refers to arya beings or bodhisattvas/teachers who have attained some realisation of emptiness? In fact, HH Dalai Lama recently taught young Tibetans that is what is meant by ‘sangha’ and nothing else. Isn’t the problem that people think the sangha is us ordinary, unenlightened Buddhists? Leads to a lot of confusion and disillusionment that way. Far safer to perceive the sangha as noble beings or teachers.

through many years of yoga classes with teachers of various skill levels, I’ve learned that it’s up to me to see what I can learn from an elder. it’s my job to find value in an interaction, not their job to be unannoying. doesn’t mean they don’t annoy me — just that I try to approach it from the perspective of “what can I learn from this?”
the bigger problem I have is new members who tend to turn dharma discussions into group therapy — as in, “I’m really having a hard time having compassion for my ex because he’s such a bastard and on Wednesday he did…” I appreciate learning how others apply the dharma to their lives, but I really don’t want to know quite so much, and I feel like the discussions get highjacked.

also,I thought gnarly was generally a positive term. urban dictionary.com says: Gnarly is when you’ve gone beyond radical, beyond extreme, it’s balls out danger, & or perfection, & or skill or all of that combined. 2nd definition is extreme, either bad or good, and the 3rd is extremely good. Merriam Webster does says it means difficult, but this is the first time I’ve heard it used that way.

Maybe the senior meditator sensed what I have sensed. That you are really acting licentiously in the way you are presenting your views.
It is not your place to critique Buddhism. You can either follow it or not. But critiquing Infinity is not for the finite.
If you think that only ornery people can disagree with you…what is that saying? Is that not saying that you will refuse to entertain any possibility that are mistaken?
The way you write, it seems that you think you know what Buddhism is.
Real seekers, very quickly and humbly realize the opposite, the truth of Socrates statement – “I know that I know nothing.”
That is where wisdom lies and starts, in the recognition of our limitations, that we don’t know everything, that we don’t and can’t know Buddhism, until we become the Buddha. Then we can grow.
When Buddha said things like, everything is in front of you, or it is all here…he was talking about the potential. Not that the simple human mind and moods we experience are the sum total of spiritual experience. They are not. Nirvana is an infinite experience…that only a very very small number of human beings have access to…maybe 10 or 20 people in the entire world.
You are really trying to water down Buddhism to nothing but ethical humanism. It isn’t. If you want to be an Ethical Humanist, then just join the Unitarians or something…but don’t try to dictate to Buddhists that Ethical Humanism is Buddhism. That is pure hubris.

below is a quote from your blog..
“Before Siddhartha Gautama attained enlightenment at age 35 he was a confused twenty and thirty-something looking to learn how to live a spiritual life. He had an overbearing dad, expectations for what he was supposed to do with his life, drinks were flowing, lutes were playing, and the women were all about him. Some called him L.L. Cool S. I imagine close friends just referred to him as Sid.”
maybe the simple reason this senior monk, to whom you could have showed some deference and respect….maybe the reason you found him annoying…was that he thought you were insincere.
You write above that the Buddha had been an overbearing dad, implied that he was getting drunk and laid – none of which was true…and all of which is just diametrically opposite to what he was. How is that not offensive? How is that not extremely offensive?????
The literature itself states that he was extremely pure. There is a specific reference to a type of Yogic state that he was in…in which all his sexuality was withdrawn…at his will and command. And that, before he even started to meditate. Again, it is a sign of a very high soul. Have you ever, through meditation or spirituality not had a single thought of lust for a month straight?
If you have not had that experience, then you don’t know what is possible. Sri Ramakrishna said, “I have never enjoyed a woman, not even in a dream.” That is the kind of height that beings like the Buddha have. Beyond all lust, anger, greed, selfishness, jealousy…beyond it all. You really are watering them down to nothing.
But, again, why deal with the truth, when it interferes with the fun you want to have.
Fun is the only truth. And anyone who interferes with your fun is a jerk. Even if your fun undermines Buddhism and helps prevent people from getting liberated…still, your need for fun supercedes the need of people’s souls to be saved and achieve liberation.
And anyone who dares suggests that you take a different course, is just an old fogie who “doesn’t get it?” right?
I used to be a performer. I even did stand-up comedy. I get jokes. I tell jokes. There is a place for that.
You are the one who is off here. A Tibetan Buddhist came on here and told you so, I have my insight confirmed and I am telling you so…perhaps your annoyance with this older meditator was because he told you so.
That should at least give you enough pause, to really call some Dharma centers and find out if they feel that your words are representation of Buddhism.
I don’t think many will think the above paragraph (joke or not) is appropriate.
Do you want to follow Buddhism? Then, learn some humility, act nobly and honestly inquire whether or not this course of action is appropriate. I have submitted to the wisdom of others when I did not agree with what they said. Everyone has to at some point. That is not failure, it is the beginning of growth.

Thanks, Anon:
After reading your post, I feel that I truly HAVE gained something.
I would rather be an ethical humanist or whatever, just someone who believes in treating others the way I’d like to be treated, than profess to be of any religion where people go around thrashing others. I’ve seen it in different flavors of Christianity, and now thanks to you, in the name of Buddhism.
I love the teachings of Buddhism and will continue to do my best to live by the ethics laid out in the teachings. I’m done with religion of any flavor. The teachings of all of those I have examined are great, but boy does in break down when someone in one of them “tells it like it is” as you have done.
Thanks for giving me something to consider.

Anan not all the sangha are monks. Also I’m pretty sure Lodro was answering the question someone else posed. You need to read these more carefully before just critiquing things yourself. I don’t know what chip you have on your shoulder but these posts all seem Buddhist to me. Keep up the good work Lodro! And Anan check out the link Ethan posted in response to you last week. It’s pretty clear the Buddha had lots of lust before he began meditating. It’s weird you can’t look to him as someone who once was a human being like yourself: confused.

I thought this interesting, right up till the end when you kinda fell into the trap of the question and commentary leading in.
If Siddartha were still a confused 20 – 30 something, still into getting loaded and laid, and walked into a sangha and met such an individual…from where would he be drawing such deep compassionate understanding of that individual? Those qualities came later, after realization.
While I agree that inhospitable beings are good practice, and present us with opportunity to deal with our own responses…seniors in Western sanghas often go a little overboard with this, justifying rudeness and ego trips of their own by dumping responsibility on the rest of sentient beings to “deal with it for their own growth.”
All that is required of them to alleviate this, is to be kind to others, no matter their degree of training or tenure with sangha.
Kindness is such a basic quality, and perhaps rather than these types feeling it is ok to treat new pracioners roughly, they should be attempting kindness toward others at all times, thus the problem never arises.

How can we explain the way the military discipline in each country? Will they say things smoothly?Will those new soldier learn if an officer is smooth?If you’re in Afghanistan,in Iraq aren’t you going to equip yourself with all the necessary weapons to win the battle?
in the Bible it says,for we wrestle not in the flesh but by principalities,bad spirits….

@ Anan:
Did you just equate Lodro’s writing to smoking pot??

Anan: Really? The best you could do in regard to defending the Buddha’s purity is to cite a quote by Sri Ramakrishna of all people, that he never never enjoyed a woman, even in a dream? There was a reason he never enjoyed a woman and it had nothing to do with “purity”.
Maybe you should take the time to read Jeffrey Kripal’s book “Kali’s Child”, but only after you actually study the early life of Siddhartha Gautama.

Hello all,
Thank you for so many good comments. I always enjoy reading them.
Anonymous person, I’d love it if you chimed in on the topics of these posts rather than insulting the very premise and people who write in questions for this blog. If that’s what you would prefer then I’ll ask you write to me directly at my e-mail address instead of on a public forum. Also, I think all of the points about my/beliefnet’s credentials and so on were covered by Ethan’s response to your comments from last week; I’m not sure if you checked that out but it might be worth looking into.
The real inspiration for my comment tonight is kindns’ post. It reminded me of an exchange I had when I was the Executive Director of the Boston Shambhala Center. There was a senior student whose wisdom I respected but for the life of me I couldn’t get along with her.
We went out for coffee one day and she brought up the topic of new students. She said, “When a new person comes in our doors I feel that it’s my duty to give them an experience where we cut their trip.” I thought for a minute and responded that I thought that was interesting because I thought it was my duty to make them feel at home there. It was a slight difference between relative and absolute bodhicitta but both of us thought we were being kind. We had a moment of connection and became quick friends after that. I still consider her a dear spiritual friend years later.
The point I’m trying to make is that in my experience that level of communication opens up the space around these situations and we can see where one another are coming from. If we don’t experience other practitioners to be kind then we might need to step out of our comfort level to engage them and explain how we view the situation.
Thanks again to all of you who are writing from personal experience. Those posts really add a lot to this weekly column. I see the comment section as a place where everyone has the chance to share their personal view on the topic. Let’s all try to remember though that someone did ask the question and we should be kind to them too. They don’t need to be insulted, they need our advice.
Best,
Lodro

Don’t know why I thought of this when I saw this article (maybe it was the photo of the Dalai Lama at the top of the page), but….
I heard someone talking the other day about a cartoon they saw. It had a husband and wife arguing with each other. The husband was angrily responding to something the wife said:
“YEAH?!! Well, the Dalai Lama never had to listen to your whining!”

The cartoon was by Bruce Kaplan and appeared in the New Yorker –
http://www.cartoonbank.com/product_details.asp?mscssid=3V2P399N9TE88PR77KM5KR44TAN3A7B5&sitetype=1&did=4&sid=68332&pid=&keyword=Yeah%2C+Yeah&section=prints,%20prints&title=%2Chttp%3A%2F%2Fwww%2Ecartoonbank%2Ecom%2Fdirectory%5Fcategory%2Easp%3Fsitetype%3D1%2C+&whichpage=10&sortBy=popular

@Adele
You raise an important point, and one that I’ve come thought about a bit in my own experience practicing. It is true that traditionally Sangha refers to those that are monastics within a Buddhist community, as opposed to lay practitioners. The traditional term that includes both of these groups is Parisa.
As someone who runs a meditation group with the word “sangha” in our name, I’ve definitely felt conflicted about the place of this word in contemporary Western Buddhism. Part of me is definitely a traditionalist. When we take refuge in the Sangha as one of the three gems, traditionally we are taking refuge in the idea that there are those that are practicing the path to the nth degree, that know the dharma as a way of life, and that these are people that are a refuge and support for us when we encounter challenges in our practice.
At the same time, in the context of contemporary buddhism in the West, where we lack a monastic community (with some small exceptions), this refuge as it was traditionally defined has largely been taken away. What we do have though is a fairly sizable community of lay practitioners, many of whom are indeed practicing to the nth degree, know the dharma, are “upright” as the traditional texts say, etc, and these people, and even the ones that are not fully practicing the way or know the dharma, are now what we have available as refuge in terms of Sangha. And this is no small thing, it is not “worse”, just slightly different in the way that we need to relate to it as a refuge. The important thing is that we don’t conflate the way that the Buddha meant sangha from the this variation on the theme. If we think that we can take refuge in the traditional sense in someone who really isn’t practicing sila, as opposed to taking refuge in the opportunity that they provide for practice as we’ve been discussing here, then we’re going to stray on the path. Just a matter of being really intentional with what we mean when we say Sangha.
I know some traditionalists won’t agree with me on this, and that’s cool. Just my two cents.

The word “sangha” is ambigous, as it refers to a general assembly of disciples, Buddhist or otherwise, and not specifically the to the ordained or unordained, but those who undertake the discipline in question.
For example, the “Bodhisattva Sangha” refers to both ordained and unordained, the four-fold sangha, an understanding also shared in common within Jainism, as both have ordained and lay members, whereas if a particular tradition only has ordained members (or intitated disciples) they are the de facto sangha.
To say otherwise would be an attempted retraction of historical fact, not simply a reaction by fundamentalists, but by anyone who attempts to place a particular sectarian tradition above historical fact.

In other words, if lay members have an obligation to the welfare and discipline of ordained disciples, then we are talking about an inclusive sangha of both, no different in the West when we’re talking about oblates of a religious order, where “oblate” means one who has made an obligation to life and practice of the ordained.

In response to Anna’s earlier query in this thread…
“However, I often wonder: What is the balance between (A)’being yourself’ at whatever moment, working with your gnarliness, not completely beating yourself up all the time, and not hiding feelings,etc AND (B), being rigorous about your behavior and not using too many excuses?
I’m not sure what I’m saying, but I think I find this important. There is something there. Anyone have a comment?”
This is my basic battle also. I find it useful to remind myself that the person that annoys me today may not annoy me tomorrow.

@Empathetics:
Thank you for your comment. I agree, we need to make a distinction between the Sangha (big “S”) made up of the ordained living the monastic life and practicing to the “nth degree” and the sangha (little “s”) made up of lay practitioners that we sit and work with on a regular basis. In a way, I think we take refuge in both but in different ways. The Sangha represents the ideal of dedicated practice that we can respect and appreciate while the sangha represents the community around us that gives us an opportunity to practice.
@Anna & Michelle:
I know what you mean, it can be a quandary. For me, it’s the fine line between “keeping it real” and “when keeping it real goes wrong” (shout out to my Dave Chappelle fans out there). I used to fall into the trap of trying to keep it real all the time and freely express my “real” emotions, no matter who I offended or ticked off in the processes. Afterall, I was just trying to be honest right? I think this sort of mindset can result in that “gnarliness” the question referred to. Now after taking the time to practice with this, I’ve come to realize that sometimes its just not skillful to express yourself in this way, no matter how strongly you feel. I’ve noticed that just taking the time to be quiet for a while before I “keep it real” helps to soften that gnarliness. I think it is important to acknowledge whatever gnarly feelings we may be having but we need to apply some wisdom when it comes to letting that stuff out.
Bottom line: Pause and consider before you express yourself. Is the statement your about to make skillful? Is it beneficial? If not, maybe you should just keep it to yourself. I’m pretty sure the Buddha taught this but I can’t recall the quote.
Don’t get me wrong.. I say this stuff but I’m still an infant in the Dharma, (one of those “novices” Anan loves so much) I’ve got a long way to go. I’m trying to not be too gnarly but sometimes trying to keep it real goes very very wrong.

Just a blogger’s note to everyone: We like to keep discussion fun and friendly here. Anan and others, it makes no sense to question the credentials of bloggers when their bios are available next to their posts, so all can see where they come from. Also, all should recognize that we are not taking a monastic position in general on this blog (though in the future perhaps we will have a monk/nun blogger).
Ad hominem and abusive attacks in comments will be moderated from here on out, as well as comments which attack the credentials of a blogger when those credentials have already been presented (which isn’t really useful).
Just a heads up.

Dear Anan:
I have studied much buddhism, and have literally never come across a place where it says: Do not question Buddhism.
So where are you getting this thread of reasoning?
Do you come from a more fundamentalist background?
It really seems like you are on a crusade, and the exploratory and more open-minded realm of dharma does not quite suit your fancy.