September-October 1996

By Adele Hulse

You know how they say if you criticize vajra brothers and sisters, that is, people you have taken initiations with, then that is the worst karma and what’s more it will kill your guru – well I ask you, is that fair?

Here we all are with our minds full of maggots and forming these sub-cultural groups of people who see each other regularly, well of course we’re going to criticize each other. What’s the point of getting all steamed up about someone you don’t see – no juice in that.

Critical judgment of others is one of the pinnacles of Western intellectualism. If the wisdom aspect of Buddhism is pursued at the expense of compassion, then critical judgment of others scales new and exciting heights. Without compassion, the point of the exercise can only be to win territory for oneself.

There is plenty to do with Buddhist territory, plenty of jobs around the world for professionals – academics, authors, social scientists and there will be more as the huge Western demographic bulge dies off over the next 30 years. We’re so very good at death and becoming more accessible as government programs shrink. The slack end of this is that it’s not that hard these days for just about anyone to put up a slate as a Buddhist counselor of some sort and that risks degeneration.

Hold the phurba – I am not saying all professional Buddhists lack compassion and are degenerate. Because the wisdom teachings of the Buddha are incomparable, one quickly progresses in logic and debate, but unless it is balanced with true compassion, practitioners become competitive and Buddhism becomes commodified in a strong market.

Who is best qualified for these jobs? Who is going to say? I guess it comes down to résumés and the international who-do-you-know. The thing that scares me is that I am a professional Buddhist (I get paid for some of the Buddhist things I do) and have almost no compassion. I’m not bad at theory, I can talk the talk, but gosh – if I had a wet fish in my face for every time I mentally attacked my vajra sisters and brothers it would empty the Pacific.

I’m nicer to strangers and animals than I am to some of my Dharma friends. In a family siblings usually fight, so I guess it just reflects samsara – miserable stuff but made so much worse by the karmic weight. How can my tacky bitchiness be so dangerous?

It has been said that there are very few teachers who can give pure initiations nowadays and very few students capable of fully taking them. I know I’ve slept and daydreamed through most of the ones I’ve taken. One student I know keeps a diary with a photo of the initiating lama, one of the deity and the date – he says it is the only way he can remember.

So here I am lining up for my second Kalachakra and I will take lots of notes and sit bolt upright (I have learned to sleep bolt upright) and try try try to get something into my heart. The head is already a seething mass of “knowledge” but the heart – ah. I pray that this Kalachakra in Sydney “takes” in my mind like some kind of dye, that the blessings of His Holiness the Dalai Lama and Lama Zopa Rinpoche actually make some internal organic change and I am finally able to look at all my vajra brothers and sisters not with jealous aggression, nor with soppy sub-cultural sentimentalism but with some new clearer eye, some new balance of wisdom and compassion. Because it’s true: charity begins at home. The rest is all just talk.