Dear Helen,
Because we've been close friends for a long time, this letter is difficult to write, and extremely painful. Little by little and then all at once, I find that I can't let my old worldly sympathies stop me from responding any longer when I see a Lama being publicly insulted, particularly when
the Lama is my teacher, which is why I'm writing in this way, and why it's my intention to make this letter public. We may have a history of friendship, but this isn't a friendly disagreement
We've known each other since around the time that His Holiness Dudjom Rinpoche first came to New York twenty-three years ago. We both took Refuge with him then, and we both subsequently became students of his son, Thinley Norbu Rinpoche. It's because of this long connection with these extraordinary Lamas that I'm particularly upset and offended by the direction Tricycle has taken, and since you're the boss, you're the one I have to take it up with.
In the early days, Tricycle had a certain sweetness of intention, it suggested a standard of non-sectarian equanimity, and if it came in time to often resemble a directory of New Age goods and services, it was at least harmless. This is no longer true.
I was really repelled by your 'disclosures' regarding Kalu Rinpoche a couple of years ago. (You might remember that we talked about that so-called story at the time, before and after you ran it.) Since then, the early promise of Tricycle has hardened into increasingly political and divisive agendas, with a rather blatant and toxic view of Tibetan Buddhism, which has gone from casual disparagement to a real and systematic malevolence. I wasn't aware either that the Dharma required muckraking, or that you were qualified to do it. I've never felt that it was appropriate for a Buddhist magazine to be provocative, let alone "controversial". It's becoming more and more some kind of sanctimonious journal of sexual politics, and shockingly opportunistic. That this is being done at all is upsetting; that it's being done by a friend is much worse. It's flagrant disrespect towards great teachers, and I think that this is serious. I take all of this very seriously now. I wouldn't be writing to you otherwise.
Obviously, I'm talking specifically about the Thinley Norbu Rinpoche interview, and my real concern with it; with the vulgar and mindless editorial that accompanied it, with the abrasive and distasteful questions you addressed to him, with the decision you made, "in fairness to your readers", to edit and reduce that interview, (you also justified this on the grounds that Rinpoche attacked you personally in the interview, although I have to say that I don't think Lamas get personal, ever; only very particular) not to mention the sleazy layout - those police-style photographs of Rinpoche, cropped so that the top of his head is cut off - and the general anti-Guru drift of the whole enterprise, of the magazine itself. But what finally made it impossible not to write to you was that stacked deck of letters in response to the interview, that you've published in the current issue - five-to-one supporting your viewpoint, which is so unabashedly hostile to Tibetan Buddhism in general and the Vajrayana in particular - all under the unbelievably coarse heading of Lama Drama - to say nothing of the quality of those letters, which I can only characterize as infantile, faithless, and, as I think you knew when you chose them, ignorant.
Putting aside for the moment any consideration of Dharma, and purely in terms of the social and aesthetic standards and assumptions we both grew up with, the old cherished, lamented liberal-humanist view of the world as a possible repository for elegance and truth, I find that Tricycle has become as embarrassing and silly as the fabulous Buddhabus itself, The Shopper's Special, Spiritual Materialism-On-Three-Wheels, no driver, going absolutely nowhere fast. It's turned into a half-baked, nihilist compound of the worst kind of discursive and contentious journalism, cosmeticized by pretty pictures and hollow reflexive pieties. It could all almost pass for tasteful, if it weren't about the Dharma. Purely in terms of intellectual display, it's merely undistinguished. As a Buddhist Review, an authentic forum for discussing Dharma, even 'American Dharma', it's become a disaster. If a Buddhist magazine hasn't got equanimity, even in its secular version, it hasn't got anything at all.
Of course intellect has always been seen by the great teachers as an obstacle to Dharma, since it so often leads to intellectualism, and intellectualism without intelligence is one of the most unfortunate combinations imaginable. Even without Buddhism as the object of this intellectualism, purely in terms of Western tradition, it is a kind of violence against reason and moderation. But there's more, and worse: the Dharma is not an Equal Opportunity Employer, nor is it a democratic institution, nor is it an arena for affirmative action. It's about karma, not consensus, and as a Buddhist, you presumably believe in karma. If you don't any longer believe in Wisdom Lineage and the sanctity of lineage holders, there's still the matter of samaya.
There were vows we made more than twenty years ago in all ignorance and innocence, right off the street and exposed to the highest teachings, because (my projection) Dudjom Rinpoche knew that the clock was ticking, the belt was moving, and Americans were in urgent extreme difficulties, parched and sick yet somehow not unworthy of his compassion and wisdom. At the very least he planted the seed in everyone who met him, nobody's skin was thick enough to prevent it, and just because some of us may have become disaffected or even disappointed, these vows can't just be walked away from like some youthful indiscretion. (For one thing, we weren't that young, even then.) I happen to believe, since I have good reason from personal experience to believe it, that if you bring even the least devotion to Dharma, it is a field of utter equality, of incorruptible democracy, of affirmations not conceivable in material terms. In other words, Dharma is not a political organization, whether Vertical or Horizontal, nor are the Lamas social scientists, psychiatrists, or community activists. They may be, and in fact I think certainly are, your friend, but they're not your elected representative, they're not your caseworker, and they're not your mama. All they seem to be able to do, although apparently not fast enough or materially enough to satisfy Tricycle, is to work day and night for the benefit of all sentient beings, including their enemies.
Maybe most upsetting of all, though, is your apparent belief that the Dharma seems to be in need of some kind of sexual consciousness- raising. You should think about changing the name of your magazine to Obstacle In the physical world of the five senses, the difference between male and female consists of a single chromosome; an amazing chromosome, I'll admit, but still only one. In Dharma, certainly in Mahayana and Vajrayana Buddhism, for which you seem to hold a particularly rancorous disregard, there is no difference between male and female; since we've all been both many times, and will be both again, and Wisdom Dakinis are in no way lesser deities. Yet you persist in claiming to believe that Tibetan Buddhism is phallo-centric, patriarchal, misogynistic, politically incorrect and somehow inimical to women. I understand that many of your readers are not Buddhists, and under the circumstances it disturbs me that so many people will only come to hear of the Dharma at all through your auspices, via your agenda. But you yourself, as a former student and as the editor of a self-styled Buddhist Review, really should either know better, or, if you don't, or don't want to, at least cultivate some measure of respect, or, if you can't manage that, at least the appearance of respect. That's what I would call politic.
As for the much-vaunted "collective wisdom of the Sangha", I really think this is an idea that belongs strictly on afternoon television. It's that American, that much steeped in fantasy, in impetuous perverse stunted childish self-love of the most deluded kind. Buddhism without Buddha, guru yoga without a guru, enlightenment without tears, a sharing caring pseudo-sangha that says we can do it ourselves, our wonderful selves... As if we all haven't been indulged enough in this culture, spoiled rotten and made half- crazy by our minds and the lies it tells us when all the terms are always strictly material. Virtually every spiritual impulse in America is made material in some way; would you prefer that the Dharma be utterly materialized too, reduced to the hopeless level of just another mental distraction? Are you really offering these pathetic secular empowerments and exhausted feelgood liberations as a way out of our confusion and suffering? Do you really think the answer is political, or are you cynical? Can you really claim to have faith in the power of a group of teacherless students, with no attainments and less faith, rather than in the Guru, that "endangered species", as you so unwholesomely call them? I personally don't see any evidence of this endangerment on the ground in front of me, and only a nihilist could wish it. We look to the Guru to lift us out of the hapless negativity of our mental habits, unless, of course, we don't look to the Guru at all because of our sad attachment to those habits, our belief that they're distinguished and desirable because they are ours. Anyone who doesn't realize the principal of attachment-to-suffering hasn't looked very carefully at the history of our century. I'm fairly familiar with what I'd call the collective pathology of the sangha, but the only real wisdom I've seen from sangha has only happened when that sangha is united in devotion to the teacher, and it's usually far away from any Dharma center. I'm perfectly aware that "submission" and "surrender" really are dirty words in the nihilist vocabulary, so I can see where the whole concept of Guru Yoga, the absolute heart of the Vajrayana, is anathema to the allegedly sophisticated material mind. Anyone who finds the idea of making prostrations to a Lama humiliating probably should be looking elsewhere for spiritual answers. Still, you've known me a long time, and I can't help but ask you, if a guy like me doesn't find it impossible to vaguely visualize himself as Vajrayogini for a few minutes every day, what's the problem for a woman like you? I can only project, and further conceptualize, to come up with an answer; namely, that you are not a Buddhist at all, (no blame), but the editor of a "Buddhist Review" (some blame, more with every new issue). I realize that you love Tricycle more than you love the Dharma, but I don't think this requires or justifies an aggravated assault on a stainless reputation. I also realize that the target of this disrespect, Thinley Norbu Rinpoche, couldn't care less about any of this, except perhaps that it was perpetrated by a former student whom he still loves. But as a friend of the target I care very much. I can't maintain an unconditional friendship with him and with his enemy at the same time.
Rinpoche is my teacher, or to put it bluntly, my beloved teacher, whom I have feared and/or loved for twenty-two years now, who is the best friend I ever had, who has never been anything but kind and loyal to me in all those years, and this in spite of my carelessness. This is not to say that he's never busted me, only that as far as I'm concerned he can bust me all he wants, I'm not afraid of him anymore. You make references to his "wrathful" style, as if this is some personal temperamental crotchet of his, a liability, while you pay the slightest lip-service to the inseparable component of that wrath, his compassion. But consider that he has taken us on, Americans, the most sophisticated, worldly-accomplished, miserable-material, intelligent, attached, habituated, hungry, gossip-driven and devious sangha imaginable. Rinpoche wants to show us our minds, he must show us our minds, and because Americans generally don't want to do anything hard, not too many of us want to look. How would you handle us, if you were a teacher? How would you subdue those egos? How would you find the skill and the subtlety and the patience, not to mention the compassion, and how would you employ it?
Of course it always all comes down to faith, and I'm certainly in no position to throw rocks at anybody for not having it; my own has been shaky enough, flaccid and distracted, a problem compounded by the obstacle of good circumstances. Maybe it really is as simple as You Either Have It Or You Don't, although I don't think so. The first thing they tell you in all the Buddhist disciplines, so basic as to be pan-sectarian, is that we've all got Buddha-nature, it can be cultivated, strengthened and realized, but never easily. In this culture, we have some reason to be nervous when anybody talks about faith and blessings, about being blessed, secretly suspecting derangement, religious mania. Personally, whatever faith I happen to have accumulated, and clearly came to me through the medium of my teachers and their blessings. And you've had the same blessings, you carry them around with you all the time. The possibility that you don't know this doesn't change anything.
You've been asking me for eight years now to write something for Tricycle, and I've always declined. I've changed my mind. I'm making this letter an offering, mostly to Rinpoche, for all the reasons I've mentioned and some that I needn't mention, but also to your readers, who can only benefit by a view of the teacher that is so very far from your own.. Publish this uncut and unedited as An Open Letter To The Editor, or anywhere else you like. Put this out there in the public air too, where I think it belongs. As I know you're aware by now, I'm not the only reader, or former reader, of Tricycle who feels this way. If you really value dialogue, as you claim, make this a part of it. If you don't want to, I'll offer it someplace else. Once you've read it, it's primary purpose will have been fulfilled anyway. I've tried to make it a practice to live without "hope" for many years now, so I'd rather pray than hope that this letter goes from my heart to your heart without too many obstacles. The clock hasn't stopped ticking, and the belt is moving faster than almost anybody can imagine.