It seems remarkable that anyone could practice a discipline for more than 20 years and fail to achieve anything. Yet Tara Carreon claims in her article, 'Is Buddhism Working in the West', that although she 'was extremely devout, did my practice compulsively' and was generally 'immersed in Buddhism', all she found was self-abasement and humiliation. Perhaps it is that word 'compulsively' that gives us the first hint at where her problem may lie. Would it be possible to practise playing the piano for over 20 years and fail to achieve anything? If one diligently engages with a learning method over such a long period of time, then surely one must achieve some level of competence, whatever relationship one has with one's teacher. One can only question whether practice was actually engaged in. Did Tara Carreon understand the method and practice correctly? Did she know what she was practising and why? Had she asked questions that would further her understanding? Or did she actually just join an interesting Buddhist club, adopt insider Buddhist language and ritual practice, without any clear understanding of what she was doing or why she was doing it? There may be another reason for abandoning a spiritual path. We can all be a little afraid of the goal we say we seek. Perhaps Tara has had a real glimpse of what it would mean to be a truly liberated lady, and found it was not to her liking after all. It was not what she thought she was seeking. She found she could not carry on. When faced with the actual possibility of escape from our hole, suddenly we find that its really rather a cosy hole, and we like the design we have made in the walls with stones. We know it is a hole - but it's a hole we know. We're so used to digging that we no longer notice we are doing it. We start to think that maybe after all, the hole is the thing we should be working on and developing. These scientific experiments on the constituents of the soil we are moving are just so interesting. That glimpse of the vast sky above was amazing - but I just want to move this pile of earth today...
Carreon says that she 'received the entire transmission of Nyingma teachings from beginning to end', but tells it like this is an achievement rather than a starting point. I wonder if she understood the rest of her sentence: 'at the end, my teacher declared that I needed no further teachings, and should simply practice what he had taught me.' I suspect that Tara Carreon has failed to develop any clear, fundamental understanding of Tibetan Buddhism - despite her many years of involvement.
She warns us that 'we should be careful about adopting a world view that equates the outer world with ugliness and evil (samsara).' Such a view is rooted in the sutric path of renunciation. It is the view of the method that leads us to the realisation of emptiness, the fruit of the Sutric path. It is not intended to be regarded as truth, but as view. Buddhism offers method, not truth. It does not claim to offer truth. We cannot approach Tibetan Buddhism with a Judæo-Christian mind set. It simply doesn't make any sense to replace the word 'Buddha' where 'God' has been intended. We cannot replace heaven with a distorted fairytale image of enlightenment, like some sort of glossy god-like Disney realm where our farts turn into butterflies.
Tara Carreon correctly expresses the fundamental basis of Buddhism as 'form is emptiness and emptiness is form', but appears to fail to comprehend that therefore everything else is method. At another point she says: 'Is individuality not the beauty of our unique existence in this universe?' Yes - if one is practising Inner Tantra and understands the language of Inner Tantra, but no - if one is practising Sutra, or practising Tantra using the language of Sutra. Practice needs to be founded in a true understanding of the base, path and fruit of the vehicle in which one is engaged, whatever Buddhist lineage and tradition it comes from. Practice needs to be founded on a true understanding of the principle and function of method. The Buddhist Lama does not deliver 'their belief into the hands of others', but offers the method of practice that they have tried and tested and found to be valuable, and that countless beings have tried and tested before them and passed on through a continuous line of transmission.
Whether one accepts this method and enters into its practice, should be based on one's confidence in the Lama as a human being and a source of wisdom. One should take time to know the Lama and develop this confidence. The budding practitioner engages in the method in order to discern the efficacious power of the method. The aspirant mixes with other practitioners to discover whether they are inspiring, genuine, and honourable people. This is the process of checking that is encouraged by Shakyamuni Buddha and advocated in Buddhist texts. If the aspirant seeks 'inner peace and self-understanding', it might be assumed that these qualities had been observed in the Lama before the relationship began.
How did Buddhism begin in the West? Lamas arriving in the West continued to practice as they had in Tibet, and continued to be the extraordinary people they were before they were robbed of their homeland, their families, and the structure of their religion. Westerners were inspired and impressed by the presence of these people, by their openness and merriment. They wanted to learn how to be like these Tibetan Lamas. They asked for teachings and this gradually evolved into setting them up in centres and surrounding them with a Western version of Tibetan Buddhism. If Westerners thus created a monster, this is because that initial spark of inspiration became distorted by a lack of understanding, imitative behaviour, and active suppression of common sense.
Charles Carreon, Tara's husband, asks 'should we pay for dharma' and decries the market approach to receiving and publishing teachings. Marketing Tibetan Buddhism may be an American phenomenon which does not exist in the same way in Europe - yet - but although Dharma is free, paper and printing cost money. The hire of venues costs money, and so it is a false argument to cite paying for these things as having to pay for Dharma. There is not a Church in Britain that does not have a collection box; or a vicar without a stipend. Having stated that this 'marketing approach' is undesirable, distorts Dharma and prevents it being available to genuine aspirants, the Carreons advocate new, free, democratic, scientific American Buddhism, stripped of the Lama and Tibetan cultural aspects. This is a contradiction. It is both the Americanisation of Tibetan Buddhism that is objected to, and the American cultural approach to spirituality that they wish to adopt and call a new form of Buddhism.
Coincidentally, I have also been involved with Tibetan Buddhism for about 22 years. In my experience, Tibetan Lamas respond well to challenging and intelligent questions presented in a respectful way, where those questions are relevant to practice. It has to be understood that everything exists within the context of practice for a Lama. A Lama's whole being is an expression of method. Many Western practitioners do succeed in understanding why and how they practice, and establish a continuing thread of inspiration and transmission. They do discover the sparkle of enlightenment growing through their practice. That Tara Carreon did not, says more about her than it does about Tibetan Buddhism. To have failed is something to be faced and regretted, not a reason to thrash around for someone to blame and wish to destroy the structure of a religion that works for others. Why can't these people simply walk away and establish their new religion without recrimination, and why does their new religion have to include the word 'Buddhism'?
Tara Carreon suggests that Tibetan Lamas have become comfortable and dependant on generous Westerners. I have no shadow of a doubt, that if we destroyed all the Western Buddhist centres tomorrow, and all the Western Buddhist students left, our Lamas would simply continue to practice Dharma. Isn't this what they did when Tibet was invaded and they had to flee? Isn't this what inspired us and started the establishment of Tibetan Buddhism in the West? Their practice is not dependant upon our support. It is arrogance in the extreme to think this could be so. Our Lamas simply practice. Tara Carreon talks about Western achievement and suggests names of Westerners to be regarded as Buddhas, quoting the inspiring writings of Thomas Paine. That such writings exist in our own culture is given as a reason to support Western Buddhism and reject Tibetan Buddhism. However from the perspective of Tibetan Buddhism, it is not surprising that we can find such sources of wisdom and inspiration. We are taught that our beginningless enlightenment will sparkle through. Each of us is capable of flashes of primordial wisdom. Tibetan Buddhism doesn't have sole rights on such insight, and would never make such a claim. The question, however, is this: how much use is that spark of inspiration or insight into enlightenment if we have no path or method to help us understand what we have experienced and learn how to develop it further? Method is the rare gift that is offered to us by the Lama through Tibetan Buddhism.
I do not doubt that there will be Western Buddhas - I suspect four already, but they were not included in Carreon's list.
Buddhism is a growing, living, changing religion that has the capacity to embrace the culture in which it finds itself. It is adaptable and fluid - but this will take time. At the moment, Tibetan Buddhism has many Tibetan cultural references. How could it be any different at this point in its history? We are still in the first generation of the arrival of Tibetan Buddhism in the West. Once Western practitioners gain realisation through traditional Tibetan practice and lineage, they will begin to be able to offer method with less of the specifically Tibetan cultural material - but this cannot be achieved by disgruntled ex-practitioners who have failed to grasp that view is not truth, and that practice is method. Perversely, those Western Lamas who have been recognised as incarnations, and are teaching in a Western style, are often rejected by Western practitioners and not regarded as the genuine (i.e. Tibetan) article. It would seem that Westerners want it all ways and simply refuse to be satisfied.
When we asked the Tibetan Lamas to teach us, it was because we had understood something at a deep, non-cultural level about the nature of these incredible people through the direct communication of inspiration. These people have not let us down. It is Westerners who back-pedal into the rational, conceptual pettiness of projection and expectation, and lose sight of inspiration and their request for teachings. Culture is actually completely irrelevant with regard to Dharma.
Tara Carreon talks of her involvement with Tibetan Buddhism in terms of imprisonment, and yearns for the freedom of democratic free speech. She would exchange the liberating parameters of the Lama's vision, objectivity, and reflection for the inward-spiralling loop of her own self-referencing rationale. She demands freedom, but to do what? To continue to shuffle the pieces of the jigsaw of samsara for another æon? Her new faith in self-created American Buddhism and 'optimism about the prospects for a good life for humanity on earth' are naïve in the extreme. Her confidence in 'scientific method' ignores its limitations and the atrocities committed in its name. 'Objective, empirical reality, as revealed through scientific knowledge' is more shuffling the pieces of samsara. Science does not have the vision to step outside of its own referentiality. Only the Lama can offer us this. Yes we do 'have everything we need to realise our true nature inside us, because we have our minds and our individuality', but without the objective reflective capacity of the Lama it is of no benefit to us.
Tara Carreon sums up the West's problem - apparently unaware of the irony of her statement - as 'the West burns through yet another religious fad'. The religion of Tibetan Buddhism is not a fad. It has existed for generations, and it will continue. It will change, because it is a living tradition, but it will retain the thread of transmission through the wisdom of the Lama. How sad that Tara is lost to that and has turned to an actual religious fad - the fad of self-created Western Buddhism.