No Dharma, no Sangha
No Dharma
Dharma is not the production of one to one and a half A4 paper length of Buddhist text per year in a fairly unclear Nepali translated by an American that contain enough times the words guru, maitri, compassion, peace and other keywords. It is not a few sessions of blessings per year. Speeches and so-called teachings, alone without any exchange or explanations, is just a mere make-up or thin paint to make it look like Buddhist, or look like Dharma. Add to this the various layers of incompetence, lack of any merit, switched off consciences of the inner circle of groupies, it breaks apart all the very letters of the word dharma, and throws the meaning of the word to a giant pit of futility.
There can be no Dharma, where women or men are detained. There can be no Dharma that is imposed by force, manipulation or lies. A puja which is unfolding while someone is chained, journalists are being attacked, is not a puja, it’s just a deceiving spectacle which hides a cruel and tragic flip side.
Pretending that it didn’t happen is not Dharma. Disregarding the suffering of those victims is not Dharma.
No Sangha
A Sangha is not the count of Facebook likes, or of followers on Social Media. A Sangha is not the recitation of Maitri Mangalam added on comments online. A Sangha is not about pretending the existence of branches all over the world with no one any where that has the capacity and merit to transmit a Dharmic teaching. A local Nepali Sangha is not the appointments of political or influential people at the head of local committees which are operated without any review or verification process.
Monks that receive no training, no education, no teaching, are just merely individuals wearing the clothing of monks. When monks are not real monks, and we have a Sangha that is not really a Sangha, a teacher that doesn’t really teach but rather keeps showing us what not to do, and where there is no Dharma, what do we have then? Let’s a cat a cat, it seems there is only ‘Facebook likes’, Followers of the virtual sphere of the Social Medias. Some call it just marketing, others might call it propaganda, some could even call it a business. Repeating the same sentences, and uttering more or less the same jargon doesn’t define any more this loose community as a Sangha.
What are the available definitions of a Sangha
On the website ‘Access to insight, the following definition is given:
In the suttas the word sangha (lit. “group, assembly”) is usually used in one of two ways: it refers either to the community of ordained monks and nuns (bhikkhu-sangha and bhikkhuni-sangha) or to the community of “noble ones” (ariya-sangha) — persons who have attained at least stream-entry, the first stage of Awakening. Link
The definition of ariya-sangha, according to the Mahanama Sutta:
“The Sangha of the Blessed One’s disciples who have practiced well… who have practiced straight-forwardly… who have practiced methodically… who have practiced masterfully — in other words, the four types [of noble disciples] when taken as pairs, the eight when taken as individual types — they are the Sangha of the Blessed One’s disciples: worthy of gifts, worthy of hospitality, worthy of offerings, worthy of respect, the incomparable field of merit for the world.” – AN 11.12
Conclusion
Can anyone among the inner circle of management claim to have attained any of those levels of practice? Has there ever been anyone taught by Mr Ramlal Bomjon who has achieved any level of Awakening that might be qualified to teach others in his turn? In the last nine years, a profusion of promises for the writing of a book, for teachings, for learning a mysterious Maitri language, for building a big Therthup Hall Temple, for Maitreya Statues, for saving the Halkhoriya forest, so many unfulfilled promises, which have not taught anything to anyone.
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