Advice to my young self

This has turned into a bit of a TL:DR. You have been warned.

It is 50 years since I first formally took refuge in the Three Jewels and so became a Buddhist, receiving the name Karma Yeshe Dorje from Lama Chime Rinpoche. If I had but known then what I know now! Or if I had been blessed with a mentor who knew what I know now!

But no. My karma was to grope. And grope I did, starting from no more than an adolescent sense that there must be something more. I hunted through supposedly occult magazines in a corner of the newsagent’s kiosk in the subway by Birmingham New Street Station, spent hours requesting musty copies of works on Theosophy, Spiritualism, mysticism, works by Gurdjieff, Ouspensky and Brunton in the reading room of Birmingham City Library. I was familiar with those shelves in the back basement of Hudson’s University Bookshop that carried works on yoga, travelogues of central Asia and the pioneering translations of Evans-Wentz, though it was near Foyles in London that I first stumbled on Anagarika Govinda. There was much more, a lot of it fascinating, much of it tosh, and some that was nothing more than trash.

Hindsight tells me that in my university years I could have dug deeper. Yes, I continued to poke around in the shadows of the hard-to-explain, but – oh – the distractions: study (a bit, anyway); girls; blues guitar; science fiction, rock music, roof climbing... all the heady delights of mixing with some of the brightest minds of my generation. Then, and in the next few years, I looked, mostly briefly, into the Hare Krishna movement, Douglas Harding’s “headless way”, the Divine Light Mission, Sufism, and subscribed to “The Middle Way”, the journal of the Buddhist Society. Based in London, this highly respectable institution is one I never actually joined or even visited.

But the journal carried small ads! I had been toying with the idea of trying to visit Samye Ling in Scotland, but here I found an announcement about what was then called Kham Tibetan House, now known as Marpa House. Much closer! Groping as I was, this criterion was enough to send me to Essex rather than Dumfries, and before long to the refuge ceremony I mentioned above.

Here is a gathering of the great and good outside Kham Tibetan House in (I think) 1974 during the visit of HH Karmapa XVII. I recognize a dozen faces - I'd be glad to hear from anyone who recognizes more.

Well that’s already a lot about me, and I’m not trying to write an autobiography. But I was not home and dry.

Chime Rinpoche was an inspiring teacher. With his help I undertook preliminary practices – the “four hundred thousands” – and encountered some truly great teachers. But concrete guidance? That, for whatever reason, was thin on the ground.

Facilities for serious study were not like they are today. I did what I could, anchoring the work with an MPhil in the History and Phenomenology of Religion. I wrote a thesis on Initiation in Tibetan Buddhism, a process that taught me more about the nature of academia than about the Tibetan Buddhist initiations that were the focus. Over the years I have continued to study a bit – my personal library has grown to some size! I practised a bit, and took wonderful teachings and empowerments from some amazing teachers, high and famous as well as lowly and scarcely known. At a later stage I found myself changing horses, from a very non-sectarian Kagyu to a very non-sectarian Nyingma, which is where I am now at home.

And now, as I tell myself that I have the resources and the perspective to really, finally, at last, and about time too, start practising PROPERLY, I look back over what has paid off and what just wasted my precious time. I think about what I would tell my younger self if a time-warp were to allow me to send a couple of pages back through the decades. 

§ § §

My Dear Young Man, 

I have, of course, read every single piece of science fiction that you have, so we both know that the tiniest influence from the future can change everything. So I can’t give you detailed advice. If I tell you not to order your favourite No. 17 from Wing Yum’s Chinese Takeaway next week because it will make you ill, the advice will be pointless. You may arrive at a different time and be served from a different pot. A bizarre chain of irrelevant chance stemming from this letter may result in Wing Yum having a new cook with a different recipe. Hey, you might go to the Dildunia for an Indian instead! But maybe, just maybe, I can drop a few lines of wisdom on you. The best bits will, it’s true, be borrowed, but I’ll only pass on what I have myself weighed. (Or should that be “pass back”?)

The time-tunnel is just 50 years long, so I know you’re at the point of taking refuge. Well done! It should change your life. But how are you going to make it count? 

The draw of the dharma is too strong for you to be happy as just a notional Buddhist, reading the occasional book by the Dalai Lama, visiting your nearest centre every few weeks and saying a few mantras now and again. On the other hand, you rather missed the boat for throwing in the western towel and spending years in Kathmandu, Darjeeling or Dharamsala, studying and practicing as a monk or layperson. A few people have made that life choice work very well indeed, but most have merely wasted a lot of time. And you have family responsibilities – to abandon them would poison you. So don’t fret, swallow that pill, and work with where you are. 

That much should already be obvious. What I say to you now is that while a path inbetween could be a feeble compromise, it does not have to be. With a will, it can be a golden opportunity. Here are some tips.

Your path is not quite standard. Like a singer who can only be fulfilled through singing, or a dedicated sportsperson, you must take time out for formal practice, both daily and in retreats. You must study. Sometimes you must go away to receive teachings, transmissions, empowerments. The point here is that your close companions, your partner, need to know this. It is only fair on them to make it clear that it’s not personal, that you are not undervaluing them by investing a good slice of your time in the dharma. Make sure they know. They have the right to choose not to accept it and move on if it doesn’t suit them.

As we grow up it’s easy to feel that we have fallen in love, that we have met our one-and-only destined mate. It’s natural, and it’s almost always wrong – nothing new there. In the same way, don’t assume that the first qualified teacher you meet is your karmically destined guru, and that,  since you have met this person, the universe must have wanted this to happen. Only time and experience will give you that answer. 

Tibetan religious culture is extraordinarily rich and varied, and while your teacher, now that you have one, may offer you guidance, you will still be groping your way forward for a long time yet. Some people may genuinely benefit from putting on blinkers, following one line, and not looking out of the window. If, however, the teacher insists on such a restricted approach, it may be time to move on: you are a thinking person, and it would not suit you. On the other hand, these teachings are deep, so simply flitting from one teacher or system to the next will not be useful either. So here are a few warnings that might help you to spot some bad roads in good time. Not in any particular order. 

Hierarchy! Tibetan culture is so, so much more hierarchical than you yet imagine, and also very opaque. Tibetans hate passing critical comments, above all about those of a higher social standing. By western standards they may therefore appear two-faced. Things do – and don’t – happen for reasons you won’t always be able to figure out. Be curious, of course, but don’t worry about it. Know that spiritual or religious disputes are most often the outward expression of political power-struggles – be slow to get sucked in.

But you must stay true to yourself, and be prepared to pay the associated price. When you are aware of sexual, financial or other abuse perpetrated by someone with a place in the hierarchy, many Tibetans will suggest that you should maintain “pure view” by thinking that – in some way that is hidden to you – the perpetrator not actually guilty. Maintaining pure view generally means keeping quiet and pretending there is nothing wrong. This is a crude misuse of the important concept of “pure view”, and it is poisonous. Not everyone will be happy if you speak up, but you will be damaged if you turn a blind eye.

Very “high” lamas, those with responsibilities for large numbers of monastics, colleges and so on, need large centres, generally in Asia. Western centres are different. They may be warm, dedicated places, developed organically out of a genuine spirit. That is sure. But some centres and organisations are the fruit of a less wholesome mechanism: students raise enough enthusiasm (and money) to found a centre “for the lama”, “for the teachings”, or “for the sake of all sentient beings”. Great, yes. The lama is then installed as the visiting or live-in, more-or-less willing spiritual director. The original band of enthusiasts now find themselves as an inner circle, gatekeepers to the lama. The temptation to then lord it over the outer circle is obvious. And because their position is only based on having been there at the beginning, and is only underpinned by the lama’s favour, the temptation for backstabbing and all the rest of standard small-time politicking is also obvious. Beware. 

You know this already, so I won’t spend long reminding you that a depressingly high proportion of self-advertised, would-be gurus are somewhere between over-inflated and outright fake, with “qualifications” that melt under any scrutiny, while their “teaching” is somewhere between pointless pablum and toxic tosh.

So yes – eyes open, head screwed on. I’m sure you can do that, so let’s move on to more positive advice. The tradition has been home to many truly great teachers, so good advice is also out there already. You will find tosh-merchants and abusers, but you may also find saints and magicians.

To improve on our first pass through this time-loop you should commit to your practice soon. Seek out teachings with real clout. Find a proper teacher, one who will let you get on with the preliminaries – all the way from reflections on suffering through to guru-yoga. Look hard, hard, hard at that teacher – NOW is the time to check the teacher’s background, compassion and teaching qualifications. No doubt you’ll collect a few empowerments: keep an eagle-eye out for the ones that will open the door to the deeper practices. People may advise you not to be grasping or grabby – but remember the fortunes that others have both gained and given up to obtain higher teachings. Don’t be a wimp just to demonstrate how prissy, how patient and how non-grasping you are!

You won’t be starting your practice life with heavy-duty tantric rituals, and that’s a good thing. But they may well come, so take the chance to receive precious empowerments when you can. And even though they may be on the back-burner for a while, treasure them, respect them, and be sure to keep any commitments that came with them. 

Bit by bit your relationship with your teacher will mature. It is now, even while you may be thrilled to have found what you believe to be “your” teacher, that you must keep checking and asking. Does this teacher have a good heart? An authentic lineage? Is he/she open about what he/she can teach, can’t teach, and about his/her background and experience? How about confident humility? And if that’s all good – don’t let them down!

Don’t let yourself down, and don’t let the famous “all sentient beings” down either.

Good luck to us all!