Goodbye Urinals and Hard Shell Tacos(Letter fr. Venerable Sean Dhammiko)

Hello Everyone,

One month ago, I joined thirty Buddhist brothers from seventeen countries to participate in a one month Buddhist monk ordination program at the Dhammakaya Temple in Thailand. It's been a wild ride – one that I wouldn't trade for unlimited bowls of fruit. Eight monks remain. Seven plan to disrobe after three more months of intensive meditation sessions. I still plan to stay for life.


The first two weeks of the training program were essentially boot camp. All day everyday we cleaned toilets with our hands, manually cleaned each other's laundry, mopped floors, studied Buddhist teachings, sat on hard floors (we never sat in chairs), meditated, chanted, wore skirts (without underwear), ate everything with a fork and spoon (no fingers or knives), slept six hours per night, sat down to pee, and did not talk about anything that was not virtuous in nature. Many people wanted to quit after the first week. The motto is "Stopping the mind is the key to success". This does not mean that wisdom cannot guide you. It just means to rid yourself of illusion, fear, greed, doubt and ego.



Days before the ordination, my head, armpits and eyebrows were shaven. I am now supposed to shave these myself at least every 15 days for the rest of my life.



The actual ordination day was the best day of my life. My family came to witness the ceremony, as did two friends from Beijing, a friend from Canada and several friends from Chiang Mai. One of the two spiritual advisors to the King ordained me as an official monk, which is a great honor indeed. My official Buddhist monk name is Venerable Sean Dhammiko. Dhammiko means "The One Whose Faith Lies Solely in Dhamma". Dhamma means The Truth, the teachings of the Buddha, human's essential nature, and can also mean the Buddha himself. Photos of the ordination will be sent shortly.



After the ordination, we took a bus to the mountains of Northern Thailand to meditate and to practice the life of a monk for two weeks. We lived relatively lavishly, as we were provided with our own rooms, mattresses, western food and followed a less strict daily regimen. Our meditation experiences began to see great progress, so most everyone was happy, generous and peaceful at heart. My meditative abilities progressed nicely - faster than most - a sign that I have probably been a monk in previous lives. The great Abbot of the Dhammakaya Temple spoke about my meditation experience on television which was broadcast around the word in at least three languages. It was a great honor to be a part of his mission for world peace through inner peace.



On the last day of the one month program, we boarded another double-decker touring bus to return to Bangkok. Our driver was in a hurry, so he sped through the windy mountain turns dangerously, narrowly escaping cliffs that dropped hundreds of meters down into a river. But the last turn proved too twisty for our driver, so our bus fell off of the road and rolled down the mountain. I thought we were done for. We all did. Fortunately, a big tree at the edge of the final precipice stopped our momentum. If the tree wasn't there, I would not be alive right now.



Once the bus stopped rolling, panic ensued. I found myself lying on the ceiling of the bus wedged against a side window. People tried to break the glass windows and find open doors. Diesel fumes started to fill the air inside the bus. In time, most of us found escape routes, climbed out of the bus and tried to rescue others still trapped inside. To make a long, emotional story short, one person died, one is still in ICU, and many have broken ribs, shoulders, arms, legs, etc. I have been to 3 hospitals and 1 medical center, but I am ok. X-rays and CAT Scans have all confirmed this. Nonetheless, I had glass in my feet for 3 days, contusions on two points of my head, a bruised back, cuts on my right arm and two sore hips. I experience vertigo every once in a while, but it's nothing that Dramamine and an IV can't handle. For everyone who survived, it is a great lesson that life is impermanent. We should cherish every second that we are alive and remain positive in spite of heavy obstacles.



I am writing this from a hospital right now. The nurses want me to get some more sleep, so I need to sign off. Photos will be on their way in the coming days.



May you find eternal happiness and peace inside,



Venerable Sean Dhammiko



FYI

The ordination program overview: http://www.ordinationthai.org/docs/en/index.html

The Dhammakaya Temple's television channel is accessible online at: http://www.dmc.tv/en/

Escaping Desire(Consentration Meditation Practice)

There are 5 kinds of desire that attack, confuse and seduce people. Colour, Voice, Fragrance, Taste and Attachment.
1, Desire of colour- Beautiful goods, beautiful clothes, beautiful jewelry, beautiful paintings, beautiful faces, leave this kind of desire alone.
2, Desire of voice- melody can attack people and confuse the mind.
3, Desire of fragrance- the fragrance of male and female bodies, delicious food and wine, incense, trees, nature. Fragrance can wake up sleeping desire from deep within us.
4, Desire of taste- all kinds of delicious things cause ordinary people’s grasping desire to grow, it also can also awake bad habits.
5, Desire of touch- comfort, softness, smoothness, warmth, coolness, all these things attack humans, the ones that are not wise will find themselves caught in their web and fall in love with them.
All of the 5 kinds of desire, if you beg for them, will come to you, but they will never cease, they are relentless and will attack you time and time again. The grasping of desire can grow uncontrollably like adding petrol to fire. It’s like a dog eating a bone, there’s no taste. It’s like running with a torch against the wind, it burns. It’s like keeping your foot on a poisonous snake, it’ll bite.
The 5 desires are like a dream, they are not the truth, we cannot get anything from them, they are just artificial like a dream, like a spark which lasts for a split second.
Desires are unfriendly, cunning, their aim is to attack us, injure us, lure us into following them (it’s oh so easy to follow them), but these desires drive us to do bad things and then off to hell we go. They act as managing directors ruthlessly ordering around their groveling staff, making us jump to their every whim.
Don’t be a slave to these desires.
As a trainee of Zen, don’t be blocked by these kinds of desires. They should be thought of as gangsters and should be left far away. By doing this, good luck will surely ensue.

1,Take disciplines(Consentration&Meditation Training)

Before we start training concentration meditation we need to make a firm decision, manifest a great wish to do so. Our reason to train must be completed. We must take discipline firmly and seriously to control all our bad habits. After time, discipline can be taken quietly and softly, there is no need for firmness because the bad habits have already gone.
It is written in scripture that all kinds of Zen Samadhi come from discipline. Discipline also lays the path for wisdom which can overcome our afflictions.
The trainee who takes the rules, practices concentration meditation and practices Buddhism is like the clean cloth which can be dyed with the greatest of ease. But…………if a trainee takes a vow to be disciplined but after time breaks his vow, what then? Like cloth which is stained, before you go ahead with the dying process you need to wash out the stain, in the same way, someone who has broken his vow needs to wash himself clean before continuing along his path, this is so-called regret and promise.
Below are 10 ideas to be considered with regard to regret and promise;
1, Understand and believe in karma, we should constantly remind ourselves of the implications of our actions.
2, Keep a fearful mind, because we are aware of the sins we have committed.
3, Feel regret and shame for our actions.
4, Let the sins go, ask for a way to overcome them, leave them far away from us, let them be nothing.
5, Confess our sins.
6, Stop sins from continuing, use the mind to stop sins from being committed in the future.
7, Make a mind to service the dharma, stand firm and protect the teachings.
8, Make a determined promise, to help all beings get relief.
9, Miss all the Buddhas,
10, Meditate on the fact that sins are just artificial, they have no truth, no nature, in fact they are nothing at all.
We should practice regret regularly- it’s a good idea to set ourselves a specific period of time in which to whole-heartedly practice regret i.e. a week or 10 days.
Regret and promise are just a teaching, not the goal.
By frequent sitting and agreeing with the dharma teaching, our sins will stop, Zen Samadhi will become a truth. After the sins disappear the trainee will know, the sins will leave away from him and the practice of regret and promise will become unnecessary. After that, the trainee keeps the principles, keeps concentrating, keeps controlling the mind, keeps sitting practice and admiring and worshipping the Buddhist teachings, through this, all the serious sins will be overcome and at last Zen Samadhi will become a truth.
2, Get enough clothes and food
Take enough clean clothes as you need. The word ‘enough’ here should be understood to mean not too many. In the modern world it’s very easy to get ‘things’ and it has become a modern past time of the masses to go shopping, buy! Buy! Buy! No money? No problem! We have our flexible friends, plastic fantastic, loans, store credit, obliging bank managers eagerly tallying up all those little red numbers. This craving to accumulate seems to be spreading like wild fire, but as a Zen practitioner it needs to be avoided. Accumulating means grasping and it can disturb and make a serious block for our Zen practice.
As for food…….this will be discussed in a later section, but for now it will suffice to say that food should be simple and easy.
3, Live quietly
‘Quiet’ here means not doing anything, but in the modern world, the impracticalities of this may soon be noted. We should take the word ‘quiet’ to mean not doing unnecessary things, it’s up to the trainee to judge which things in his life are necessary and which are not.
4, Stop relationships
This applies to both personal and business, but again the emphasis should be placed on unnecessary, the trainee needs to evaluate which relationships in his life are deemed essential for a continued smooth and happy life.
5, Keep your good friends close
What is a good friend? The 1st kind is someone who supplies the trainee, but lets him be quiet. The 2nd kind is someone who trains alongside the trainee but doesn’t disturb him. The 3rd kind someone who directs, protects and helps the trainee get happiness from the dharma.