Ajahn Naniko: Monasticism, Lifestyle, Buddhism

my name is neon echo we're at a bio Giri Buddhist monastery Redwood Valley California 2016 I guess you could say our mission statement is it's a place where people can come and ordain and follow the Buddhist path in the tarapada tradition in the lineage of ajahn Chah we call long par child and par as a word that means venerable father in Thai so in the lineage of Lumpur cha from the Thai forest tradition this this monastery opens up the opportunity for men religious seekers to fully commit themselves to the Buddhist path of practice and training a monastery specifically a Buddhist monastery in the Tara vada tradition would have to follow some basic requirements one is that people living in the monastery would live on what we call the eight precepts so briefly the five precepts is what the Buddha would have people follow if they wanted to be followers of the Buddha or disciples of the Buddha they would follow the five precepts refraining from taking life refraining from taking that which is not given refraining from sexual misconduct returning from lies and false speech refraining from the taking of intoxicants anybody who lives in a monastery so what would make a monastery is a place where people are practicing what we call the renunciate precepts so it's similar to the five except the third one of sexual misconduct becomes celibacy refraining from any kind any form of sexual activity whatsoever and then there's a sixth precept which is refraining from eating at the inappropriate times which means we only take food between dawn and noon every day then there's the seventh precept which is refraining from entertainment beautification and adornment so not things like not singing and dancing wearing cosmetics going to going to shows and so on and then the eighth precept which is not using high or luxurious sleeping places that means a commitment to simplicity and the way one lives some some people will use just a thermal rest or a yoga mat or a straw mat and sleep on the floor or if it's a bed using a bed that's not higher than eight inches in height and these are all things that are in the Vinaya but also it's it's formulated in various suit does the scriptures of the Buddhist teachings and so the eight precepts if people are following the eight precepts in a place you could call it a place of renunciation and if there's ordination offered in that place then you can call it a monastery because then we have what's called the petit mocha sila the 227 precepts of the bhikkhus and in this in this particular monastery we don't have the Cooney's or nuns because they live in a different monastery the current one that were affiliated with there in Placerville and so that's the way the Buddha set it up is that the male and female monastic communities would be separate in order to try to avoid or ameliorate problems that can happen when you have celibate men and women living together so to keep the monasteries separate takes out a lot of a lot of problems also in terms of problems involving seniority like with the with the bhikkhus there was early rules in the Buddhist vinaya where the buddha had a bikuni even ordained 100 years would bow down to and pay respects to a bhikkhu ordained even that very day so there's there's ultra strict non-egg-etarian rules like that which are even lots of scholars would say controversial scholars of pali vinaya but if those rules are true then it they don't really come up that often if we follow the having separate communities and then each community conducts their affairs separately it takes a takes away a lot of problems but in short I could say that what makes a monastery is that people living there follow the eight precepts as a minimum and ordination as a lifestyle is on offer there yeah the the or the lay community and the ordained monastics there there's a symbiotic relationship that occurs there the form that we follow in the West so here in California we don't follow the same exact form that we follow in Thailand in terms of in Thailand we go for alms around the pali word is pinda pot go for alms around every day in the village and we subsist off of that food that people drop in our bowls in the village in the West we still follow that observance but the city is too far away to follow it here to buy a Giri so we only go once a week we'll go into the local city of Ukiah three monks about a Ukiah two months they'll go to Redwood Valley - amongst we'll go - Willits - we'll just walk out of the monastery and go to a vineyard down the road where they invite us to receive food we do that once a week on the lunar quarters the that alms around is is the thing that creates the relationship between the monks and the laypeople and it's a it's kind of like an upward spiral where everybody benefits because the laypeople we don't ask them to give we make ourselves available for generosity one is it gives it gives the laypeople opportunity to practice generosity and to feel good about it and it gives us the monks the opportunity to continue living as monks without food we can't continue living as monks and if our if our discipline or our practice is dodgy or questionable people will stop supporting us so it helps us to protect our discipline and to protect our precepts and our lifestyle the fact that there were supported by the laypeople so they they show that they have faith in us by supporting us we continue to do our practice of meditation and keeping precepts and developing wholesome wholesome benefits of the lifestyle whereas the laypeople continue to make more and more if it for themselves through the practice of generosity until it develops into strong faith and inspiration for them and they take up the practice as wells and so everyone benefits in this upward spiral and that's like a symbiotic relationship the Buddha was a genius in setting these things up in terms of the relationship between the monastics and the laypeople and there's even one teacher who said that it's as if everybody gets enlightened together because the monks are able to continue their practice and the laypeople gain so much superlative benefit from the practice of generosity that they also gain insight knowledge --is and wisdom in that through that way of practice as well the monasteries tend to will especially here at a bakery we never closed so we don't have like a gate that we lock and people are welcome to come here for day visits although if to stay overnight or to or to really join in with the practice we have a guest monk who who people contact usually through email or telephone and they'll they'll stay for anywhere from a few days up to a week for their first stay and once they've once they've stayed one time and then they can stay longer when they come back again and so people are able to tap in with the daily schedule there's no special practice for people who come and stay in the monastery as guests other than that they just know the same they know the schedule the monks are following and they just tap into the same schedule so they'll help out in various ways they might do few things the monks can't do such as cook or drive they may help with like we have precepts against digging the earth or cutting plants so they might help with trimming trees or limbing trees or whatever else might be needed in the monastery for to take care of the grounds so like here we have we have 250 acres of land here so there's a lot of grounds maintenance to do people can help out with that although we don't we don't work all the time we have a work period in the morning from 8 a.m. to 11 a.m. 11 a.m. we have our our main meal and that's really two and a half three hours a day that's really all that's expected of people who come to come to visit here and so people just join in it gives gives people an opportunity also to be around the monks in their daily life I'll just go through the whole day like a 5 a.m. there's the morning chanting and meditation that goes until 6:30 a.m. when we have a short 30-minute morning short period sweeping up cleaning up around the main cloister area down below we have 7:00 a.m. which is a light breakfast usually oatmeal sometimes cereal sometimes like a like a bread breakfast but it's pretty basic then and that that's a that's a difference from Thailand too in that in Thailand they would just have one meal there would be no breakfast but but in the West here to buy a Giri we have the breakfast on offer people want it also then there's a work meeting at 7:30 so like someone one of the monks the work monk will assign chores for that morning he'll be looking after who's in the kitchen who's doing what in the monastery and then there's a morning Dhamma reflection given so kind of a kind of a precious moment in the day when a morning Dhamma reflection is given that's the beginning our day talk so that's every morning after the after the work is assigned and people are going to go off to do their chores before people go off they have a short reflection usually around write speech or mindfulness or how to harmonize with each other how to live in community in a way that's beneficial and skillful then we go do the do the work period which is could be anything from carpentry work to wood work or like right now in the workshop we're making a shrine out of out of madrone slabs we're making a shrine for our new meditation hall could there's also like computer maintenance or website maintenance there's like I explained before like some of the guests might be working on trimming trees or or just cleaning up or if you know sometimes it's just as basic as raking trails just sweeping trails or cleaning cleaning cabins that are not lived in currently things like that eleven we come together for the for the meal this is when we eat out of our bowls it's very formalized the way we do this we the meal is formally offered by the people and we we take our meal and then for the afternoon period after the meal and dishes are cleaned up then P then everybody has the chance to go back and live in their cabin their dwelling place in Pali we call coot D so that's a monastic dwelling place and even the lake us will stay in this place the women will stay over at Casa Sorina and the women's area where we also have two cooties but a lot of them will dwell in the house there at the women's area a bio Giri has about 25 cooties altogether so there they're placed throughout the land and so that's our opportunity to practice solitude and be in seclusion and take up the practice of sitting and walking meditation alternating sitting and walking meditation through the afternoon in order to cultivate solitude and get in touch with the monastic lifestyle so the Buddha the Buddha said that pret the practice of solitude is the practice of a monastic and so we're retreating to the forest at least for the afternoon time and partaking of our solitude and getting in getting in touch with with ourselves of their own mind through the afternoon at 5:30 p.m. there's a tea time which is optional people have the opportunity to go have tea with the abbot or another senior monk they'll be available at that time down in our meditation hall and that's a time to ask questions or or stimulate some sort of Dhamma discussion then at 7:00 we have evening meditation and chanting usually by about 8:30 or 9:00 we're back at our at our cooties in order to either continue practicing or have a rest so that that's like the daily schedule and that's that's kind of kind of what's on offer here it's easy looking from the outside in that a life of solitude or a life of the recluse could be a life of a lazy person or someone who's just trying to escape from society and that's that's completely understandable that someone would have that that view or that perception but this this now comes back to the fact that the were we're supported by the lay people with food and that perhaps you could be lazy if we could just gather a whole bunch of food and store it but like we have a van Eyre rule against storing food overnight so we can't you know take a bunch of food back to our Hut and store it and just sleep all day or whatever even if you do sleep all day it's it's kind of kind of miserable just sleeping all day everyone's tried it at least a couple times but there's there's difficulties associated with living in a solitary lifestyle I like to think of it as you have a license to live this way if you're willing to give up sex eat one meal a day and endure all sorts of privations then you can try living in solitude and quote unquote be lazy but almost nobody will be willing to give up all sorts of sensual desires and sensuality and to live this way it's and so actually it's okay if people do have the perception that it's that it's for lazy people we don't try to go around fixing people's perception of that but but anybody who comes to live here finds out for themselves that it's a difficult lifestyle which helps us to see our own desires we use the precepts in order to learn how to see our own desire systems in order to contemplate and reflect on them and eventually gain insight to them into them and overcome them and it's also a difficult lifestyle which which builds character and causes one to be very have a have a sense of wholesome pride and dignity in that one has no doubt that that what one is doing is is really good and you start to see that over the years with like the upward spiral of being supported by the lay people for myself like I benefit from being supported by the lay people and at the same time they you see over the years the benefit that the lay people get one they they come together themselves and become fellow practitioners and people who support each other and they also delight in giving relinquishing generosity which is really generosity is the beginning of the Buddhist path learning how to give things up and relinquish start with material things but eventually that leads into a relinquishment of views and opinions for example or a relinquishment of a sense of identity or a sense of self on the ultimate level if you just take one monastic value say like non-harming like the first of the five precepts not killing any living beings and if anybody wonders what the benefit of that would be just imagine if nobody in the world killed anybody so if nobody in the world just kept that first precept and just didn't even keep any of the others just imagine it would just be world peace there will be no more war so just that first precept of not killing or getting others to kill then just that is something to to think about sometimes sometimes we think if that is the first rule of Buddhism non-harming is a principle the precept is not killing the principle is not harming and the principle is an offering of safety also those those five precepts if we take those as a teaching there's a suto where the Buddha talks about how those five precepts are five great offerings to the world and so they're not just things that people keep because they've been forced to or whatever but it's a gift or an offering to the world in terms of when one doesn't kill living beings then the merit that or the benefit that one gains from that is that one is giving an offering of fearlessness to all living beings all living beings have no doubt that that one person keeping that one precept is not going to take their life somebody else might but that at least that person keeping that precept isn't going to so and then refraining from stealing or taking that which isn't given is an offering of safety to all living beings at least all human beings because you know that person is trustworthy they're going to take anything of mine I can invite them into my house I don't have to feel the slightest bit apprehension or protective of my of my possessions around this particular person and sexual misconduct that would be like not cheating on one's wife or one's partner it's the same just this trustworthiness and and just the benefits of the wholesome benefits that come from just being straightforward and living in a way that that is not completely under seat 'fl and then there's the precept against lying or harsh speech or false speech divisive speech this is something which which creates unity and Concord between people and also follows the principle of truth and honesty a very deep honesty within giving rise to a sense of inner dignity and happiness and then the not taking of intoxicants just leading to mental clarity a sense of uprightness and so all these all these precepts have principles behind them which are which are a part of that precept and so as far as like principles that people can can take into the world just contemplating those five precepts gives gives a lot of a lot of food for thought in order to apply to oneself and bring benefit to oneself in others how about in terms of deepening or benefiting in terms of wisdom non conventional wisdom absolute reality yeah wisdom and ultimate reality well you know anyone who commits long-term to practice and reads a lot of the Buddhist teachings will see that the Buddha didn't talk much or even really at all about the ultimate goal of practice or describing what that ultimate goal is like other than using words like true happiness the end of suffering no more birth and death things like that but because it's by the very nature of the conceptual mind it can't be conceived of the goal of Buddhist practice there is a very clear goal but at the same time we focus more on the path with the Buddha saying just a heap a psycho just come and see for yourself and and the great thing about it is there's been so many people who have gone and seen for themselves that we can have faith that following them is going to bring that it's going to is going to bring benefit coming back to the precepts though the benefit in terms of long-term practice of precepts and meditation and the cultivation of insight and wisdom discernment it seemed it you start to think that like all living beings can actually sense it you take like the deer here for example at first they're really skittish when we came here and then after a few years once the baby deer had been born and grown up with the monks then they no longer feared monks so they know we're not going to harm them and then you could see more and more skittish animals calming down around us I would say the rabbits the Jackrabbits here are more skittish than the deer but a few years ago the Jackrabbits stopped being afraid of us and they'll just come up and hop around us and come say hi and then I would say the quails are more skittish than the Jackrabbits and and the quails will even if you're meditating for example the quails will just come up hanger hang out with you so it's a offering of offering of security offering of security to the world in terms of the ultimate goal of the practice we don't yeah we don't need to talk about that so much because it's it's more in the rel it's just in the realm of speculation and it's more focusing on the the path and we don't really need to focus on the goal to practice either because there's so many joys that come from following the path and you realize that even if you don't reach the goal of practice you're still leading a really excellent life and we also see things in terms of multiple lifetimes so if someone sees that if someone sees in a way that they think only this life is what exists then it's going to be pretty difficult to say commit your life to precepts why would you want to do that if this is all there is and I just get annihilated when I die why not be a hedonist why not just follow all kinds of sensuality but then if one starts to gain faith and the teaching of the Buddha and one starts to see the teaching for oneself then start to gain faith in that well yeah I could I could just give up one life just one life for this and come what may and that's that's the renunciation and the determination that people who come to ordain tend tend to make out of out of a faith in seeing the truth of the Buddhist teachings and then also out of a sense of gratitude that we're able to take the opportunity to live in this way in 21st century in America the Buddha refused to take payment for his teaching and also we refuse to take payment for our teaching now just just like in the time of the Buddha you know in this terawatt of tradition and the thing is is you can't put a price on the Dhamma so receiving receiving money for a teaching as almost it's so it's an insult to the Dhamma and or and nothing can be no price could be put on it and also it just frees us up in a practical way in so many ways we just don't have to think about money we don't have to worry about money people like at a big monastery like a by eageriy there is a donation box people can come and give donations but we're not allowed to go out and do fundraising we're not allowed to ask for donations if there's a donation that comes in that we asked for that a monk asked for we're not according to vinaya we're not supposed to make use of that money and you can see also in in Buddhism in the wider circles of Buddhism if if monks do go out and do fundraising and asking for money it just it just starts to get tainted from that point on and it's it's not beautiful and and so we're really just coming back to simplicity and a sense of being aloof around around money that in itself is a great offering because we've been here for 20 years now and proven that it's possible to live in this way not even touching or carrying money at this day and age in the world yeah that that is a bit of a conflict in there are ley Dharma teachers who make their livelihood out of out of teaching teaching the Delmon you just have to look at it in a what are the practical implications of doing that and so not you know sort of whatever metaphysical or whatever karma type things aside just looking at what happens practically when when when you're thinking of getting money for teaching or leading a retreat what happens is of inevitably the teaching will be tailored to just say what's nice and pleasing to people so that they don't feel like they haven't gotten their money's worth sometimes some of the more hardline teachings of the Buddha where he's pointing out people's defilements and faults people might be taken aback or or think oh I paid for that why why did I give my money to just be criticized and so so one thing is like you'll see it's pretty rare to talk about death or suffering things like that in in in like a paid and a paid retreat type setting it might be more common to talk about universal loving-kindness or like supreme happiness but not not facing up to difficult issues so there is something that gets lost when money is asked for for Dhamma teaching but it still has some benefit I think of a place like Spirit Rock has a great benefit in terms of being like a you could say like a gateway drug or or a place that's a bit closer to the city yeah people have to pay to go on and retreat there but still people get benefit from it the drawback is that poor people can't be involved or even lower middle class might not have enough money to pay for one of those retreats or the time I know my sister was in New York one time and my younger sister and she heard there was going to be a Dhamma talk given by by a monk there and she was going to attend it and then she got there to the door and they walked there was $150 at the door to listen to the evening talk and so she wasn't able to go she just didn't have that much money so it does block people from from hearing the Dhamma whereas they could maybe poor people could benefit from it as well so that's that's the benefit the monastery lives in a different paradigm than then that in terms of giving hopefully with the until really the the intentions of the monks won't be the purest possible intentions until enlightenment when the intentions will be totally pure but hopefully we can keep in mind the intention of compassion and the intention of genuinely wanting to help others and not having an intention of getting some sort of gain or fame from from the giving of a Dhamma talk yeah I myself Buddhism more because coming out of childhood I was 19 I I've been going to university but I dropped out just just really confused having a lot of questions unanswered and started studying spirituality things like Krishnamurti and listening to talks of His Holiness the Dalai Lama but I just kind of was was questioning a lot and not really knowing what I was going to do with my life and at the same time was going diving into kind of a depression not really not really knowing who I was or what kind of direction I wanted to go in my life and so I discovered it's actually just books and Tibetan Buddhism the time so I got really interested and inspired by that but then in my search for a monastery or a place to practice this was really one of the first places I contacted I contacted a few Tibetan centers and they didn't they said they didn't offer like commitment if somebody wanted to become a monk or a long term practitioner it was there wasn't really that on offer but this this place here to buy a Giri they had it on offer I could come as a guest or I could to make a one-year commitment as an ant agaric wearing white so and also at a buy a Giri there was no previous retreat experience or practice experience required yeah so people who don't have faith in the Buddha's teaching or who come here perhaps even against the teaching of the dumb or the views of that are taught by the Buddha maybe one of two things will happen one is they won't benefit at all because they won't be open to the ideas and already a previous idea of what's right in their mind like if if somebody doesn't we don't ask the people buy into some party line of Buddhism but all we ask is that people come here with an open mind so it's like is if the glass is already full then nothing nothing can go in from here but if if people are able to come here with an open mind with a intention to learn something then then they'll be able to benefit from being here but if but if somebody has already decided that even Buddhist even if a Buddhist comes here thinking they know what the Buddha's teaching is and the monks don't really know it and I have the right way and the monks are kind of they're kind of off they don't have kind of have it right and even then they won't benefit from coming here even though they're quote-unquote Buddhist so it's really if people come here with an open mind that's one reason that I think we don't require that somebody has previous retreat or meditation experience on a certain level that's the people who are the most open because they haven't already decided I know the right technique I know the right way to practice and they don't and that's that so come here with an open mind you'll you'll benefit and be able to take something back with you and also the last thing that could be said is that the real the real skill then is once you come here and learn about the Buddhist teaching with an open mind than to keep emptying it out so that more refined knowledge can keep coming in and keep refining the knowledge it's not just about getting the right knowledge and then you have it and then it's over it's you keep keep emptying the cup out over and over again keep getting keep getting more and more fresher views and perspectives

Channel: Lifestyle Choices

Views: 18,216

Rating: 4.9477806 out of 5

Keywords: Ajahn, Naniko, Abhayagiri, forest monastery, Ajahn Chah, Buddhist monk, buddhism, monasticism, theravada, Thai buddhism

Id: qcajox_TSA8

Length: 34min 47sec (2087 seconds)

Published: Tue Jan 10 2017