I am between stories so I thought I’d dazzle you with a free flowing essay on basically nothing but my limited observations.

I like to think I’ve had a fairly interesting life. Starting as a globetrotting teenage backpacker that developed into a life long love of budget travel, I’ve seen pretty much most of the world. I’ve also seen the world from the lower socio-economic scale than your average traveler. I’ve lived in tents from the Caribbean to Moorea, lived in huts in Africa and slept behind blast curtains in Bosnia. I’ve had the pleasure of staying with elderly pensioners in Estonia to students in Moscow. Yes I’ve stayed on boats in Viet-Nam to farms in Ireland. I’ve been threatened by British soldiers in Northern Island and Israeli troops in Hebron. I’ve seen the wrong end of an AK from Senegal to Mostar. I think it’s fair to say I’ve been around this block called earth a few times.

In employment I’ve driven trucks, buses and cabs. Pounded nails, paved roads and cleaned shit. I worked in parks and morgues and bathed the living and the dead in Saratoga Hospital. Funny I’ve also found a common decency among the working classes of the world. I guess you would say I believe in the dignity of honest work. These people and their families represent to me the greatness of the human spirit. I met a man, a Croat in Bosnia whose face showed the scars of a brutal life of menial labor capped off by a brutal war that killed half his family, but still he loved god and was grateful for life. He drew a long pour of Armenian Brandy and drinking a sip he looked at me with a weary smile and said that drink was a simple gift from god and he was content.

That brings me to the second part of my little essay. See my Croatian friend had found contentment in spite of witnessing unspeakable horrors in wars and still facing an uncertain future with the grave being the only guarantee in his life.

Then I come home to Saratoga and I drift through the spiritualist swamp in this town with swamis and gurus. One store on Broadway can put me in touch with my guardian angel or wave a wand above my abdomen and cure the cancer in me, all for a price of course.

We have god knows how many Yoga shops along with a different Massage Therapist for every day of the month. Mind you I’ve got nothing against a good massage and I understand Yoga helps many people and god knows one of my favorite things is a mineral bath at the State Park. But here in a City of 28,000 we have mediation clubs with nightly seminars on miracles, chi, and transcendence. I wonder what my Croatian friend who had buried half his family after their murder by Serbian Chetniks would say to a mind-body-spirit healing?

I believe that idleness and tranquility bring dissatisfaction of the soul. The more one is removed from the struggle of existence and the suppression of conflict the more dismal the aesthetic consequences. Struggle,friction, anxiety, fear– such things are all, quite literally the quantum test of one’s soul.

When people have attained all they need such as wealth and any pleasure is available to them their existence becomes empty and with no belief in god they turn to pseudoscience and shamanism such as Keith Raniere and NXIVM. Go beneath the beads and incense and Ayn Rand you will find empty people searching for something, anything to fill the emptiness that their unearned income has provided.

Next I look at the really COOL people who turned to Buddhism.

Down in Woodstock, NY there is a Buddhist monastery nested up a mountain (Karma Triyana Dharmachakra, or KTD) The monastery is also the official seat of the Karmapa, the traditional leader of the Kagyu lineage (also called the Black Hats). For those of you who don’t know these are the really cool Buddhists that celebrities like to flock to. To many cool people it’s like a heavenly world of happiness.
The more I’ve traveled there I see it as a brew of un-Buddhist behavior. A lot of people
{Saratogians} who are interested in Buddhism or have become Buddhist have a hard time accepting the dark side of Tibetan Buddhism.

In Thailand and Viet Nam I’ve always been struck by the parade of Saffron robed monks going out in the streets every morning to beg for alms. I’ve been even more moved to see the poor peasants share their meager incomes with the monks. Buddhism in Thailand and Viet Nam is largely of the Theravada school. The trendy and cool in this country tend to flock to Tibetan Buddhism such as this monastery.

Tibetan Buddhism has monasteries with hierarchies, titles, churches, inner and outer circles, financial dealings and political plays. What I am seeing is that people do not really understand what Buddhism is about. There is a big difference between the Buddhist traditional teachings and the Buddhism hierarchical structure in the form of monasteries, monks, lama's etc. I like many Buddhist teachings. They have a lot to offer and are very helpful to many people. I certainly have learned a lot from Buddhism, as well as from Christianity {Catholism}.But there is a dark side to the Buddhist monasteries.

I have studied religion for most of my life. I’ve read the Holy Qur’an the Torah & Nevi’im, the bible of course, but also the Tipitaka{ The Teachings of the Buddha}

Without boring my readers with technicalities the Monastery in Woodstock is the Karma Triyana Dharmachakra, the North American seat of His Holiness the Gyalwa Karmapa, head of the Karma Kagyu school of Tibetan Buddhism. Founded in 1976, the monastery features traditional teachings as transmitted by Kagyu lineage meditation masters since the 10th century. Got that? GOOD.

The Monastery is gorgeous, a Tibetan master painting adores the main temple, which houses a large statue of Buddha, among smaller statues and scrolls. The large shrine room is a marvel of art. It's what goes on behind the scenes that is disturbing to me .The staff, which live in the hotel building, consists mainly of people who have become homeless. At the monastery they have a place to live in return for work on the monastery. The Monastery has taken all their worldly goods which they freely gave. Fine that is their business. They are basically serfs

But what I don't like is the attitude that they have, like so many other people/visitors have towards the monks and lamas. The three lamas of the monastery and their family members have separate tables, and those tables had a special elaborate dining set. This fork had to be exactly positioned this way, and that spoon that way. Like the Queen of England came to visit. When they come into the dining room, everybody is overly polite to them, treating them as royalty. This is a bit much for me. Lamas and monks, regardless of their self-proclaimed ranks, are just like everybody else, human beings on the path to the discovery of the divine self or some crap like that.
The Buddhist teaching say that we are all the same, we are all equal. Isn't it part of the Buddhist teachings to be detached of the ego and worldly affairs? To live in simplicity? Instead they are being treated preferentially, what is mostly the fault of the do good Westerners. I notice that some people who visit the Buddhist monastery look at the lamas as if they are semi-gods. This is a pitfall for most authority figures, like priests, swamis, gurus, Keith Raniere etc. The lamas of course like it, it is their power.

Being treated like medieval masters, they take advantage of their simple minded disciples who they see as cheap labor. They voluntarily become medeval serfs.

In the Lamas sleeping quarters they have hand-made special cabinets from the finest wood. Well, Buddha gave up his wealth and luxurious living in his palace, and lived a basic, simple life. Is a Wal-Mart closet not good enough? On the door that gave access to the stairway leading to the second floor where the lamas private quarters there is a sign. "Absolutely forbidden to go there!" Dare to peek into the corridor and you will see it has fancy carpeting and many very nice beveled glass chandeliers. Isn't there a better way to spend that money? Like helping hungry people in the community? Meanwhile the staff in the old hotel sleep in bunk beds, up to six in a bare room. I’ve been told there is only enough warm water for about three people to take a shower in the morning, the rest got cold.

Ask yourself is that what Buddhism is about? Westerners who idolize the Buddhist monks and lamas who still cling to their hierarchical positions, getting preferential treatment and cashing in on a lot of money and labor. While many of the self-impoverished workers receive government welfare checks amounting to $550 to $700 per month along with Medicaid. Why does the Woodstock government approve of this?

By the way, Buddhist monasteries in Tibet were not unfamiliar with accumulating wealth. Until 1959, when the Dalai Lama last presided over Tibet, most of the arable land was still organized into manorial estates worked by serfs just like Woodstook.
These estates were owned by two social groups: the rich secular landlords and the rich theocratic lamas. Even a writer sympathetic to the old order allows that “a great deal of real estate belonged to the monasteries, and most of them amassed great riches.” Much of the wealth was accumulated “through active participation in trade, commerce, and money lending.” Drepung monastery in Lhasa was one of the biggest landowners in the world, with its 185 manors, 25,000 serfs, 300 great pastures, and 16,000 herdsmen. The wealth of the monasteries rested in the hands of small numbers of high-ranking lamas. Most ordinary monks lived modestly and had no direct access to great wealth. The Dalai Lama himself “lived richly in the 1000-room, 14-story Potala Palace. At present, Buddhist monasteries are still rich. The Karma Kagyu sect has assets worth over 1.2 Billion dollars. When the Dalai Lama comes to Los Angeles, he stays in the Presidential Suite at the Huntington Ritz-Carlton Hotel, which normally rents for $3000 a day.

Well forgive me these simple observations by a uneducated blogger. But if by now you have lost track of what it is all about, look at the historical Buddha. He left his wealth, political power and palace, and lived in utter simplicity. In the end money or Guru’s like Keith Raniere can’t make you happy

Happiness is in yourself.

Goodnight