New Kadampa Tradition! Kelsang Gyatso! Dorje Shugden! Dalai Lama Conflict! With some trepidation, and out of curiosity, (and that my dear home The Buddhist Sangha of South Jersey did not have zoom groups), I went for a $10 class at 'MeditateNJ' or the Dharmachakra Buddhist Center in Vauxhall, NJ, an affiliate of the "Over 1200!" centers of the New Kadampa Tradition worldwide.
If you
read this article in Tricycle, you may believe as I do that the NKT hovers somewhere between a cult and an accessible modern Buddhist practice. They have forcefully split from the Dalai Lama and other Tibetan Buddhist traditions, and I have watched them protest the Dalai Lama when he came to Boston. This pleases the Chinese government, who would probably kill the Dalai Lama if it served their ends. I found my evening to be a mix of good practice and evangelical fervor.
Lay leader Nico led the four of us (I was the only visitor) in our class activities. We began with a 25 minute '
Hollow Body Meditation,' which I found esoteric and intense. The instructions included 'Breathe in with a clear light and breathe out all frustrations as smoke.... the light melts the organs and bones radiating out from the heart chakra, the skin is like the surface of a bubble..... from which pinpricks appear and radiate light out to all beings...." Good stuff. I mean why not, I have no need to think of my body as I usually do, a bag that fills up with trouble, which I then tie off so as to not radiate anything negative.
The next hour was spent talking about Karma, particularly from the NKT (Geshe Kalsang Gyatso's translation) version of the
Lam Rim (elsewhere the Great Treatise on the Stages of the Path to Enlightenment). Good thing I did not mention meeting Joshua Cutler at the Tibetan Buddhist Learning Center in NJ (it's the Dalai Lama's place), who probably has the modern definitive translation of the text.
OH Karma..... I find the very thought of discussing it fatiguing. It's always (and it was tonight) presented as "well it's not punishment for bad deeds, it's 'action'," which is fine, but then of course the moderator tries to explain why bad things happen to good people. Nico said that he accidentally hits his head against car doors and cabinets all the time because he hit people in previous lives. Karmic seeds of past action ripen in this life and we have the opportunity to react better.
I could not resonate with Nico's point that thoughts are not Karma, only action is. It may be a fine point, but certainly, our intentions count, if I have a negative thought, I can harbor and inflame it or I can work with it. As the Buddha says: "Intention, I tell you, is kamma. Intending, one does kamma by way of body, speech, & intellect.
For a good overview of Karma, go to Access to Insight. To Nico's credit, he said we must never tell someone they are suffering because of their Karma.
Is Kadampa THE unbroken lineage of true Buddhism? Of course not. Is Buddhism the true way? I think we find the spirit where it resides, beyond what we can grasp. I do so dearly love the Dhammapada;
FLOWERS
Who shall conquer this world
And the world of death with all its gods?
Who shall discover
The shining way of the law?
You shall, even as the man
Who seeks flowers
Finds the most beautiful,
The rarest.
Understand that the body
Is merely the foam of a wave,
The shadow of a shadow,
Snap the flower arrows of desire
And then, unseen,
Escape the king of death.
And travel on.
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