Some resources for recovering Shambhalians

The Buddha at Sarnath

Some Resources for Recovering Shambhalians

I was an early (1974-1982) student of Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche, who left the community not long after Thomas Rich was appointed Vajra Regent, but who's continued to have friends in the community and to practice under other teachers in both the Tibetan and Theravadin traditions. 

My approach has always been to strive to balance practice and study. 

What's been most helpful to me in recovering from some of not just the challenging social experiences but also imbalanced ways of practicing I developed while involved with Vajradhatu/Shambhala has been to look afresh at the very earliest teachings and practices of the historical Buddha, seeking to ground the exalted practices of Vajrayana in a much deeper “in the marrow” living of the 4 Ennobling Truths, Eightfold Path, the 4 Establishments of Mindfulness (Satipaṭṭhāna) and so on. 

I reference Vajradhatu/Shambhala since that's the Tibetan group I'm most familiar with, but these resources should be of equal benefit to those who've left Rigpa and indeed to anyone wanting to get a sense of just how different the Buddha's teachings and approach were from the many forms of Buddhism that came later. To be clear, this is not to say that the early teachings are better or purer, but rather that they're the foundation for all that came later. 

An additional benefit of some exposure to the earliest strata of teaching and practice is that one gets a strong sense of the ethical, experiential and eminently pragmatic flavor of the Buddha's approach. As with Jesus (but perhaps to an even greater degree) one realizes just how much time and effort has gone into blunting the radicalism of the founder's teachings (starting right after his death and continuing up to the present), and that much of what's popularly represented as being his teachings is in fact diametrically opposed to them. 


Foundational Reading

An essential first step for those who missed it (most practitioners, in my experience) is to understand where Tibetan Buddhism fits in in the broader Buddhist context.

Foundations of Buddhism, by Rupert Gethin: a concise college text that is the best overview of Buddhism I've found. It's a standard college textbook - skimming some sections is just fine. If time is tight, substitute Buddhism:A Very Short Introduction by Damien Keown. Tricycle magazine also offers a good Buddhism for Beginners site that's a more-than-worthy alternative to (or supplement for) such books. 

Next, please read Freedom from Buddha Nature by the eminent Thai forest tradition scholar monk Thanissaro Bhikkhu to get a sense of just how different "basic goodness" (aka Buddha Nature) is from the teachings of the historical Buddha. A related article by the same author on the oft-quoted (but rarely read and even more rarely undestood!) Kalama sutta is also strongly recommended for the way it contrasts the Buddha's careful and pragmatic ideas for what constitutes authority and trustworthiness with the reverence for "lineage" that's so pervasive in Tibetan Buddhism. 

The Issue at Hand by Gil Fronsdal is a short introduction to the core practices and teachings of the Buddha. Available in numerous formats and languages here. It's the single best concise, practice-oriented introduction to Buddhism I've found.  

Equally valuable is the very concise Steps to Liberation : The Buddha's Eightfold Path. These two books together are a kind of "pith essence" Cliff's Notes summary of foundational Buddhist teachings that are meant to be put into practice with immediate benefit. 

A Meditator's Life of the Buddha by the great scholar-practitioner Bhikkhu Anālayo uses the key events of the Buddha's life to inspire us to truly walk in his footsteps. His Satipaṭṭhāna Meditation Practice Guide with its accompanying guided meditations is the clearest and most profound meditation manual I've found. 

Good Kamma, Bad Kamma - What Exactly is Kamma? by Bhante Dhammika is a concise yet complete guide to perhaps the most thoroughly misunderstood teachings of the Buddha: those on karma. 

Diving into the Suttas

In the Buddha's Words, translated and introduced by Bhikkhu Bodhi. Very few Buddhists have read much of the Buddha's own teachings, which is understandable given the ancient language and intimidating size of the Pali canon. Bhikkhu Bodhi, the most eminent translator of these teachings, offers this concise and accessible collection, organized by topic. The Buddha's clear-headed pragmatism and wisdom shine through on every page. 

The Big Picture/Seeing the Traditions in Context

What the Buddha Thought, by Richard Gombrich, sheds light on the unique genius of the Buddha while also making it clear how later traditions accidentally and willfully misconstrued his teachings. Illuminating, fascinating and essential. 

The Tibetan Book of the Dead:A Biography and Prisoners of Shangri-La by the eminent scholar Donald Lopez are invaluable for understanding the “lenses” of preconception, Romanticism and sometimes fanciful thinking through which the tradition has made its way to the West. These are scholarly books that read like compelling mystery novels. 

The Making of Buddhist Modernism, by David McMahan provides an erudite yet accessible overview of the key ways ancient Asian traditions have interacted with and been changed by their encounters with modernity. As with Gombrich (but to an even greater degree) this book will be a revelation to anyone immersed in one or more forms of Buddhist practice about the broader context of their practice and the often hidden assumptions and biases inherent in all forms. 

American Dharma:Buddhism Beyond Modernity, by Ann Gleig, builds on McMahan's work but is much more up-to-the-minute in illuminating generational differences and current hot topics in a diverse range of Western Buddhist communities. Truly essential reading for anyone practicing Buddhism in the West. 

The Trump Bump

"All men should strive to learn before they die, what they are running from, and to, and why."

 - James Thurber

I'll bookend this post with two recommendations for those who are either already living as expats in México or considering doing so. One is to download and read the survey of expats found at this link.
The other is to read the book above (available from Amazon on Kindle) by long-time San Miguel de Allende resident John Scherber.

Scherber's book profiles expats who've chosen to live in areas of México that don't have much of an expat population. To his credit he doesn't generalize from their experiences and goes to considerable lengths to find and interview people who are deeply invested in and knowledgeable about the places they've chosen.

The reason I recommend reading the expat survey and Scherber's book back-to-back is that together they do a great job of living up to James Thurber's advice. In the past 12-18 months there's been a phenomenal exodus of newbie expats moving to all of the well-known expat havens and my best guess is that this tsunami of newcomers is still in its early phase. Across the board I'm seeing a great deal of "running from" but without much sense of the "to" part of the equation. People are fleeing an America they no longer recognize run by a sociopathic moron, are entering retirement age with minimal savings and realizing they need to move where they can live on Social Security alone, or have done a few hours of research on the internet and have come to the conclusion they can live better for less while still in their working years by becoming a digital nomad south of the border.

Into the Heart of Mexico, meanwhile, is about the exact opposite sort of expat: one who is running towards engagement with Mexican culture with all of its challenges and contradictions. About half of the expats profiled are married to Mexicans but all of them are wedded to not just the country as a whole but the particular place they've chosen in a way that couldn't be more different from the asterisked presence ("I'm here for the winters; or for good until I have a medical emergency or my kids need me; I'm here but just as home base since I travel to the U.S. and elsewhere as often as I'm "home") that is the rule rather than the exception at Lake Chapala or San Miguel de Allende.

Another thing that comes through loud and clear in Scherber's book is that the "heart" of México is found in those states with the strongest indigenous presence, Oaxaca and Michoacán in particular, but also of course including Chiapas and Puebla. Living in these places means not just learning Spanish but dealing with a dominant indigenous culture that looks at both light-skinned descendants of the conquistadors and white tourists as "gringos," while also dealing with the systemic poverty, lack of infrastructure and frequent political instability that go hand-in-hand with choosing to live in the parts of the country that are richest in culture and cuisine but poorest by every other metric.

My prediction at the moment is that most of those who are fleeing to places like Lake Chapala and San Miguel de Allende will end up returning to the U.S., but probably not before they've ruined the local real estate and rental markets and caused local's resentment of their antics to do serious damage. At Lake Chapala in just the past year we've already seen the rental market so distorted by newbies who get all of their notions of what to pay from Facebook groups and avaricious realtors rather than on-the-ground exploration that one of the key motivators for making the move - lower cost of living - has already gone by the wayside except for those cashing out of real estate in one of the coastal "bubble" markets. Lake Chapala and San Miguel are already well on their way to becoming inland versions of San Jose del Cabo or Cancun, except that the latter two places were tourist traps from inception.

In our particular case we have always loved México (Oaxaca and Chiapas especially) but never wanted to be full-time residents. We did so anyway (along with many others) as health care and insurance refugees pre-Obamacare. We have a handful of friends who are as gaga about Mayan ruins and mezcal, 3 p.m. comida and all-night fiestas as we are about the villages of Haut Provence or the porticos of Bologna and they are the ones whose example we'd try to emulate if we had it to do over again.

Given what the U.S. is going through at the moment we feel that it's impossible to plan ahead more than a year or two. Politically and health-care wise things seem sure to get a whole lot better or a whole lot worse over that time frame and so for us the best option given our love of solitude in nature on foot and by bicycle (things that simply aren't possible in México) is to live in a low-cost U.S. locale within an easy drive of a border crossing, keep our footprint light and our options open. Should circumstances force us to return south for the duration we'd make sure to choose a place far removed from the newbie invasion.

Oaxaca reflections

Nuestra Señora de la Soledad, Oaxaca

“No one behind, no one ahead.

The path the ancients cleared has closed.

And the other path, everyone's path,

easy and wide, goes nowhere.

I am alone and find my way.” 

― Octavio Paz

We returned to Oaxaca for the first time in nine years, though truth be told most of my memories of both the city and state are far older and mostly concern coffee farmers and coffee buying. In retrospect how fortunate it is that the best Mexican coffees are grown in Chiapas and Oaxaca, which are for me by far the most interesting parts of México.

Our visit this time was far too short - just five days after a long stint in Mérida and Valladolid. More traffic and more people of course but the biggest thing I noticed was the proliferation of chef-run restaurants offering daring and often world-class fusions of native recipes and ingredients with European techniques, as well as an absolute explosion in other artisanal food and drink, with mezcal and coffee leading the charge and microbrewery beer not far behind.

The highlight of not just our time in Oaxaca but our entire 2+ week trip was connecting for the first time "in the flesh" with a Facebook friend who is a professional translator, language teacher and devout Mexico-phile. I'd had high expectations of Jody based on her acute and often hilarious online observations but they were thoroughly blown away by her depth of perception and utterly contagious love of México as experienced in the moment.

Jody has lived all over this country going back decades and visited much of the rest. She describes herself as an immigrant not an expat and one of the things she pointed out to us is that expats who do choose Oaxaca tend to not only live there year-round but also to really identify with their new home as home. This is certainly in quite sharp contrast not only to our own ambivalence about being full-timers in México but what we have seen time and again both at Lake Chapala and in San Miguel de Allende: Mexican residency with asterisks. Not only are more than half of those in these expat havens snowbirds who live elsewhere for six or more months, but even among the full-timers there are many who constantly fly back to the U.S. or Canada or who return home for good as soon as the first health crisis or plea from grandkids makes itself known.

For a prospective expat resident the allure and challenges of life in Oaxaca are pretty easy to discern. Culturally and culinarily there's endless depth but not the kind of breadth one takes for granted at, say, Lake Chapala. There are a zillion moles and other Oaxacan specialties but nary a cheeseburger or jar or box of a foreign "must have" food to be found. Functional Spanish is a necessity from the get-go (just check out all of the whining on TripAdvisor about how even the hotel and restaurant staffs usually don't speak English). Running out of water from time to time, dealing with the incessant protests called bloqueos that frequently shut off access to main streets and turn the central square into what looks like a  homeless camp and embracing the literal groundlessness of living in a highly earthquake-prone zone are other factors to be considered.

On the other hand, this is a place that attracts expats who really love México and who want to embrace to at least some extent the challenges of being in a state where indigenous people are the majority. That is where the artistic, culinary and cultural richness comes from, and of course it is also the source of the poverty and discrimination that fuel the state's deep-rooted political activism. Trying to live in a gringo "bubble" anywhere in México is ultimately going to be a lost cause but in  Oaxaca it's a non-starter - just ain't gonna happen. Learn enough Spanish to function, maybe even become semi-fluent and you'll start to notice the sound of clicking consonants flowing out of the mouths of the people selling produce or cooking your meal at the comedores in the mercado: they're speaking one of the 16 or more primary native languages - making you realize that you'll truly never do more than scratch the surface when it comes to understanding where you now live.

Trio of moles at Las Quinces Letras

I've often referred to living at Lake Chapala or San Miguel de Allende as "México with training wheels." This is particularly true at the lake, since not just the gringo scene but the local Jalisco culture are very "white bread" (or meat-and-potatoes, hold the mole and chapulines) by comparison to, say, Oaxaca, Puebla or Chiapas. I find myself haunted once again by a comment from our Oaxacan guide Jody (paraphrasing here from memory): "why go through all that it takes to live in this country without really living in it?"

Much to think about. I don't know that we have what it takes to live in such a large city but I do know we'll be back to hike the Sierra Norte and spend not just weeks but months soaking up the riches of this incredible part of México that challenges and inspires us like very few other places we've been.