Actual Buddhist monk here (Ajahn Subharo), in the Theravada Thai forest lineage. Khemarato Bhikkhu - who is much more junior a monk than me, and is not formally any sort of Ajahn (teacher) yet - and myself both have Computer Science degrees, which are rare things for Buddhist monks to have.
So take his authority to run a "university" with a huge grain of salt. He would get roundly mocked in subtle ways by senior Buddhist monks if he thinks he has the seniority to be the "dean" of a "university". It's only once you have 10 years seniority that one, as a Theravada monk, earns the title of "Elder" ("Thera", an ancient Pali word in the Pali Canon), or an "Ajahn" (a Thai word simply meaning teacher, roughly corresponding to that same 10 years seniority).
I've never met him in person, but have cordially chatted with him a few times in the internet. We're both on Mastodon:
I would note he’s not claiming to be a teacher or a dean or claiming anything other than:
Khemarato Bhikkhu (Chief Librarian)
I’d note also he’s not written anything of his own “teaching” but instead provides a curated set of texts.
I think the wise thing to do in these situations is to carefully review what you’re going to criticize publicly to be certain your accusations are merited.
As a lay student of Buddhism for the past 30 years I find these resources well selected and presented and find no cause to diminish the contribution towards informal dharma education.
I also have never been a huge fan of the implicit and explicit hierarchy of the sangha. Buddha detailed how a huge range of students became enlightened and began teaching, including students who were otherwise very dumb but immediately grasped his teachings and became profoundly influential teachers. IMO, the entrenchment of status and hierarchy impedes the practice and shows a system of institutionalized attachments. In my practice I’ve found wisdom in anyone who has wisdom that helps me understand what distracts me from nonthinking and non attachment to self and unacceptance of what is. The sangha deserve the respect they earn by pursuing the path and being the keepers and teachers of the buddhas teachings. But I sometimes think that respect translates into deviation from those same teachings in the sangha itself (not withstanding the luxury cars and wives and things you see outside forest).
...well then, it would make more sense to me, that he call his collection of very likeable, commendable Dhamma resources a "library", rather than a "university".
It’s just a title to a web page meant to be interesting. Regardless, he didn’t represent himself as a teacher. He didn’t teach. He represented himself as a curator of a webpage, and the tittle of the page I don’t think it meant to be misleading just compelling. It’s a bit of a stretch to take it any other way, and a shifting of the goal posts. I think if you agree he didn’t do as you said he did, it isn’t self diminishing (after all the self is an illusion!) to simply state there was a misunderstanding.
Come now. Clickbait would be “You will never believe what the Buddha did when…”
This is just a title. “Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy” turned out to just be a book about a rather boring Englishman and his friend, not actually a pan galactic travel guide. Titles are allowed to be compelling as long as they aren’t outright BS. No one really thinks there’s a Buddhist university with degrees and graduation ceremonies and the promise of enlightenment with every degree. When I clicked on it I expected to see pretty much what I got.
> Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy” turned out to just be a book about a rather boring Englishman and his friend, not actually a pan galactic travel guide.
It is about the travelling guide. The Englishman is there just to vitalize the story. /s
That doesn't sound like a very Buddhist thing to say? I thought Buddhists were supposed to be about "no ego", not "don't listen to this guy because I'm more senior/got more titles than him".
Spending 5 years in Thailand I've learned that Buddhism while funamentally different from other religions in the best ways operates just the same in practical reality. It's almost like classification and status is inherit to any group activity and not in a good way unfortunately.
To give perspective on the "dark" side of Buddhism I highly recommend "Come and See" documentary on Netflix which is hard to explain without spoilers but it's a great illustration of how everything evolves into a crab eventually.
The idea of collections of humans without hierarchy is beyond delusional.
I am a Buddhist but it is hard to say I am serious or I would be living alone in the woods.
Nearly all Buddhist teachings IMO are bullshit and just enforcing natural hierarchy.
Sogyal Rinpoche telling his female students he is going to give them a dharma lesson by sleeping with him. In a metaphorical sense though I think that is what most students are looking for actually too and of course they find it.
For me personally, I don't want to wake up yet. I am still enjoying this dream.
Seems like it's only available on Netflix in Thailand. So you'd need a VPN that has a server in Thailand or find it somewhere else. Here's the IMDB page though: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt10985730/
Actually, the Buddha was critical of other teachers and practices when he felt those teachers and practices were not teaching what leads to the end of the suffering. Some people misapprehend Buddhism to be a kind of wet mop that just sort of sits there.
That's because they have done literally no research into Buddhism, they just have some kind of orientalist stereotype of it that they got from watching kungfu movies and expect reality to conform to that idea
Buddhism is concerned with truth. That's a hard problem! But it ends up with the same solutions as in science: you DO in fact need to listen to experts, and you need to take peoples education into consideration, but it might not be the end of the conversation.
The actual doctrine is closer to “not-self” but it’s still a part of the teachings that one should not compare oneself to others. It’s such a shame that some of the representatives of the Buddhist tradition don’t practice that, which leads to the perception that “it’s all the same,” as someone else commented here.
Who's decision was it to call the website a "university"? Was that my decision, or his? The decision to call it a "university" is what makes me want to clarify what peer-perceived credentials he might have to that extent.
If you were considering enrolling in a university, would you look into the reputation of that university? I'll bet you would. You'd want to know what it's reputation is like. Well, I'm offering insights into that, and yes his seniority got pulled into that description. He's quite a junior monk to be running his own website. In the Theravada world, this would be almost universally discouraged (it isn't just me who feels this way): trying to run a website while still quite a junior monk. There's no way my own teacher would have approved of it. Theravada culture is conservative - guilty as charged there.
As to his wisdom: I've never actually lived with him, so I can't comment on what he's like. He seems astute enough from my dealings with him. No complaints from me, other than that choice of the word "university". These sorts of things - someone's wisdom - can only be seen with time. As to his choices of what he curates on his website: I agree there's a lot of great resources listed there. My tastes and his are a little different - which is to be expected - and I wouldn't say there are any "red flags" to speak of. It's a solid website. Please don't be discouraged from checking it out. I'm not trying to stop anyone from going explore it. Thanks for taking the time to check out Theravada Buddhism. :)
PS: I have a personal little indie website here:
https://bhikkhu.ca/
...but I don't go so far as to call it a "university". It's a personal website, which doesn't make itself out to be anything more than that.
I'd expect a buddhist teacher to be a lot more chill. You took issue with him calling himself a "dean" while he only called himself a librarian. The website is called a "university" but obviously he's not pretending to be a real credentialed university, it's just a cute website title.
Here you had a good chance to reflect and backtrack. But no, he's quite a junior monk to be running his own website. Well, I'm not even a monk and run my own website, how about that?
Probably every culture has something to say about pretentiousness, false prophets, stolen valor, etc.
I think this is just a case of friendly fire.
u/esbeeb got fluffed up, commented in public, and is now in a public food fight.
Better would have been to keep this private. Now his best PR/diplomatic move would be to say he'll confer with the "chief librarian" offline and he's sorry for all the fuss.
We've all been there.
PS- Yes, I know, this koan is most often interpreted to mean one should tackle one's own preconceptions. I'm making a point. Before getting dramatic, first get curious.
He seems so full of hate and preconceptions that it almost sounds like a troll.
Also who calls himself a monk and spends time on social media? Not that it’s supposed to be forbidden but social media is basically the death of attention…
I’m not teacher, but my interpretation of Buddhism isn’t to not say “damn!” When you stub your toe. But rather to question why you said “damn!” When you stubbed your toe.
Let me give you a really good piece of spiritual advice: Don't harsh other people's yum.
Secondly, Buddhism isn't a corporate ladder with annual promotions, it's a set of understandings. 10 years or 10 hours, it's not the time that matters, it's the understanding. Maybe examine why you're really putting down this guy's effort? Is it really about him, or is it about how you feel about yourself?
Also: don't allow yourself to be goaded by this comment, or by this situation, everyone's intentions here are positive. If they are wrong, let them be wrong. With that in mind, my final word: Give yourself the validation you need, or give up on the need entirely.
There are no rules against publishing or teaching dhamma in the vinaya except for the (outdated) rules about which specific persons cannot be taught.
“Monks, do not wage wordy warfare, saying: 'You don't understand this Dhamma and discipline, I understand this Dhamma and discipline'; 'How could you understand it? You have fallen into wrong practices: I have the right practice'; 'You have said afterwards what you should have said first, and you have said first what you should have said afterwards';[1] 'What I say is consistent, what you say isn't'; 'What you have thought out for so long is entirely reversed'; 'Your statement is refuted'; 'You are talking rubbish!'; 'You are in the wrong'; 'Get out of that if you can!'
"Why should you not do this? Such talk, monks, is not related to the goal, it is not fundamental to the holy life, does not conduce to disenchantment, dispassion, cessation, tranquillity, higher knowledge, enlightenment or to Nibbana. When you have discussions, monks, you should discuss Suffering, the Arising of Suffering, its Cessation, and the Path that leads to its Cessation. Why is that? Because such talk is related to the goal... it conduces to disenchantment... to Nibbana. This is the task you must accomplish”
One thing that I have heard many times from Ajahn Brahm here in Oz was that when it comes to Buddhist stories, professors are generally seen as negative. That would explain why so few Computer Science degrees. ;)
Ok here is my go to Buddhist computer joke.
You do know that Buddhist are not forbidden from using email, only they can have 'no attachments'.
> So take his authority to run a "university" with a huge grain of salt.
What does "authority" mean in a Buddhist context? From what little I know about it, Buddhism isn't like the Catholic church, where everything is a hierarchical pyramid with a single individual at the top, through which authoritative declarations can be made. Plus, schools like Theravada and Zen seem to differ quite significantly from each other, so an authority according to one might be a heretic according to the other. So how is authority assigned in practice, and is it universally recognized among all people who call themselves "Buddhists"?
>What does "authority" mean in a Buddhist context?
That's a fantastic question, and the short answer is: "given my expertise is in the Theravada world... how authority works is complicated". An overly simplistic answer is: the number of years of a monk's seniority is the easy and fairly-reliable gauge of a monk's authority.
It would take a good 1-hour Dhamma Talk for me to explain what I know. Most people would be bored, and possibly even uninspired after hearing the non-tldr answer. Do you really want the non-tldr answer?
My experience is in a Tibetan tradition. In that context, "authority" derives partly from lineage, i.e. who your teacher's teacher ('s teacher, etc.) was. It comes partly from their training and experience; and it depends partly on what you are hoping to learn.
Some "senior" Tibetan monks derive their authority from their birth-family; being the nephew of a very senior monk conferred "authority" on the discredited Sogyal Rimpoche. Other monks are authoritative because they've spent decades meditating in a cave.
But really, I don't think authority is a good guide for choosing a teacher. They usually say you should try a few, and see which one works for you. But that's risky. In general, choosing a teacher is laden with risk, because you're going to commit a lot of time to that relationship. It's probably best not to start :-)
> the number of years of a monk's seniority is the easy and fairly-reliable gauge of a monk's authority
Authority, or expertise?
Authority requires either enforcement, or widespread recognition, or both. The government has authority because it has the ability to use violence. Doctors have authority because most people view them as authority figures.
Does the average Buddhist say "that monk has X years of seniority, so I'm going to take him by his word"?
It's great that he's able to build such a useful resource despite the lack of seniority then. I guess some elders who try to protect themselves from the winning enthusiasm of youth can be found in many environments.
your comment is involuntarily funny for some reason, not because anything you say, but because of the tone :) you talk of buddhism like a computer scientists would do, HN-style
Wow! I mean it's good to know that he has only a few yrs of experience but to say that take his website with a grain of salt is definitely not the most Buddhist way.
I don’t know… I think talking from a point of authority with a year or twos experience is very HN-ish of the OP, and if someone’s dedicating their life to a spiritual journey then they are going to rightfully want to make sure people know a ‘university’ is possibly wrong on those topics. Could have been said with more tact for sure
With respect, Bhante, it is not fitting of a monk to criticize another monk in this way in public.
I do not know venerable Khemarato, nor his teachings, but I would humbly suggest that if you’re concerned about people being misled in the Dhamma by that website, it’s better to focus on the content.
I don't know much about Buddhism, but that thing sure is no University. However, maybe this is missing the point. As you are qualified, what do you think about the content? Would this be a good place for me to learn about Buddhism?
I've taken a look at only a small portion of all the things which he's posted on his site. So I can't vouch for everything there, giving all the content of the site a wholehearted endorsement or not.
From what I saw, yes, it seemed quite solid, and doesn't misrepresent Theravada views.
> Would this be a good place for me to learn about Buddhism?
It wouldn't hurt, as a start. If you want to learn more about it on an experiential level, I would suggest going on a meditation retreat, ideally one which is 10 days long, run by an organization with a good reputation.
I've taken a look at only a small portion of all the things which he's posted on his site. So I can't vouch for everything there, giving all the content of the site a wholehearted endorsement or not.
From what I saw, yes, it seemed quite solid, and doesn't misrepresent Theravada views.
This is all pretty awesome. However, with regard to search, the zero latency is indeed fast, and this is because it is client-side entirely. It appears to be hand written for this site.
I think the quality of search recall and ranking could be improved though. It has zero tolerance for misspelling for instance, and cannot match partial words while you are typing the terms. Still, it is pretty cool. And open source too, which is even cooler.
Looks like a static site built with Jekyll. Not sure which search plugin they're using here (it may be one of the default Jekyll plugins rather than bespoke code), but I've seen Jekyll sites that use Algolia for search results that are smokin' fast and extremely accurate.
It's kind of neat that they did hand write it in a way. A fun project I'm sure. And they even made it run in a worker to keep things even more quick and responsive.
"Zero latency search" sounds nice, but searching for either "prajñā" or "pāramitā" (with or without diacritics) yields 0 results. FYI, those are absolute basic terminology of Mahayana Buddhism (Mahayana texts constituting a massive part of the Buddhist corpus).
After a quick glance I would say it is a Therevada "University" with a few texts (but no courses) on other Buddhist schools.
I’ve learnt that every religion is a framework (school of philosophy) and even as an atheist I have benefitted from learning some mental models a few religions offer.
I would never brand myself or be a part of the cult though (claiming that one is better than the other or that everything said is holy). Even though one of things religions are good at is to also be to give people a sense of belonging to a community with similar virtues.
One of the mental models that has been particularly beneficial for me is the EightFold Path (also called Dharma Chakra or Dharma Wheel) that comes from Buddhism.
It basically says have the right view, thoughts, words, concentration, effort and action. Practising this keeps me in a virtuous cycle and makes feeling good feel like a self-fulfilling prophecy.
I received a blessing from his holiness the Dalai Lama in the mid 90s when I paid $80 a ticket with 2000 other fools to listen to an hour long, nearly incoherent speech about being nice to people.
$160,000 in revenue for an hour of work for the pious Dalai Lama.
It really was a blessing though to realize in that movement what complete fools and suckers we are for authority in this area.
There is really nothing more than one Linji Yixuan/Rinzai Gigen quote to read and "learn".
"There is no Dharma outside the heart, nor anything to find inside. So what are you looking for?"
Of course, that doesn't really work when trying to build your Buddhist brand and get bunch of "followers".
Existence is a funny term in Buddhism. The end goal of development stage practice is the recognition that the deity is inseparable from one’s self because the nature of any given deity is equal to our own in an absolute sense. After all, everything is empty of inherent existence and are all self arisen manifestations from a primordial ground of being, hence no you and no I as separate.
So some people do see them as external things to ask things of but others see them as mind created and used as supports for meditation to realize our own true nature. Depends on lineage and teacher.
I love that this doesn't require any account to sign up for, and that lectures are available as direct downloads. I wish more online courses worked this way.
I strongly recommend Insight Meditation center and specifically Gil’s introduction to meditation series, which he has reprised many many times and each one is a gem of new insight. He also leads daily meditations on YouTube starting with the pandemic and they plus the corresponding dharma lesson before and after are absolutely the best resource I’ve ever encountered. He imparts his wisdom in a remarkably clear and direct way, without lecturing or referring to canon, but instead constructing a easily understood framework that’s intuitively accessible. He layers the lessons daily throughout a week, and every week more or less stands independent, yet the more you follow the deeper the interconnections of his lessons go. He has clearly devoted a considerable amount of thought and time and energy to formulating his style of teaching and it’s clear by reviewing old audio dharma (extending back to 1995) his lifetime arc as a teacher.
That's how Upload Academy plan on doing it - small Go app you download and it pulls down all our content in a non-DRM protected format for you to consume however you like. Even the (forthcoming) cybersec labs, programming labs, etc., are just binaries you can run locally.
Thank you for this resource. I am a software engineer and Buddhism-curious, but I've never taken the plunge into full on practice. I think I would like to though. Over many years of reading about Buddhism, contemplating the teachings and listening to various teachers, my conviction is growing.
I wish you success on your journey, wherever it takes you.
Six years of practice for me, first in Mahayana Buddhism, then into Advaita Vedanta. Can recommend teachers like Rupert Spira, Francis Lucille, and the late Alan Watts.
The two monks have both been ordained for over 10 years, youngish (30s), intellectual, progressive, and deeply compassionate. They are in the process of creating the monastery, and it's amazing and inspiring to watch the community grow.
Best wishes on the path! It's a beautiful and healing training for the mind.
The only issue I see with this is that it doesn't identify, for each course, which Buddhist school it is based on (or whether it draws from multiple traditions)
The monk who created the site is a Theravada Buddhist and almost every monk featured on the site is of the Theravada (or presectarian/Early Buddhist) school. The Theravada school is the oldest school of Buddhism.
The canonical texts of the Theravada school, in which this website is rooted, are transcriptions the original, actual, oral teachings of the historical Buddha of ~500 BC.
These texts are called the Pali Canon. They are the Buddha's actual words, orally trasmitted by monks for 500 years, and then transcribed in the 1st century AD. Much of the Pali Canon has been translated into English and is available at sites like suttacentral.com and accesstoinsight.com.
It's true that the the Open Buddhist University's solidly presectarian/Early Buddhist foundation isn't obvious if you are not already familiar with it.
The Pali Cannon, while orally transmitted by monks for 500 years before being written down, should not be assumed to be "the original, actual, oral teachings of the historical Buddha".
They are the closest thing we have to what the Buddha might have taught (assuming he actually existed, and like Jesus, there is no evidence outside of religious texts that Buddha did exist).
I'm not up to date on the of historicity of the buddha, but virtually no reputable scholars or historians endorse the "christ myth theory." It is widely accepted across all disciplines that at the very least he existed and was baptized & crucified and there is extensive scholarship around this consensus.
The rest of your comment feels plausible, but confidently being so wrong about such an easy to check fact of scholarship makes it all untrustworthy.
Virtually all mainstream secular scholars of early Christianity agree that Jesus existed. He was mentioned by Josephus and Tacitus, and the Talmud - a religious commentary, albeit not a Christian one, with genuine historical narrative interspersed - mentions him repeatedly. Essentially, based on the sources we have access to today, it’s far more likely that Jesus was a real wandering preacher in the first-century Land of Israel (there were many of those!) than that every mention of him in the sources was fabricated.
My understanding is that scholars also believe that Siddhartha Gautama, the historical Buddha, was indeed historical, but the contemporary sources are weaker.
> My understanding is that scholars also believe that Siddhartha Gautama, the historical Buddha, was indeed historical, but the contemporary sources are weaker.
This is correct and as for which parts of the text are original, philologists such as KR Norman, Gombrich, Vetter and Bronkhorst have come to some consensus (like on the four noble truths and dhyana), excluded some things and some things are still debated.
Then this fact should be showcased in the page. One shouldn't be left wondering.
In any case, when I check out the library https://buddhistuniversity.net/tags/ it clearly makes a distinction between Early Buddhist texts, Therevada texts, Mahayana texts, Vajrayana texts, etc. From this I had the (apparently mistaken?) impression that they represented on equal footing.
If this site is interesting to you, you might enjoy this just-released conversation[0] with Shamil Chandaria, a technologist and academic with multidisciplinary research interests spanning computational neuroscience, machine learning and artificial intelligence, and the philosophy and science of human wellbeing. He's a long time meditator.
I've not yet finished it but so far it's fascinating.
What a great resource for practicing Buddhists! As a front-endy person and Early Buddhist, it's amazing to me that there exist ordained Bhikkus (and Bhikkunis too!) who were previously software people.
As a person practicing Buddhism of a particular school since 18 years, I feel the need to add 2 cents here:
As reading books on Buddhism is for sure beneficial, there is no way to really enter the methods just by using books; one becomes a buddhist by meeting a teacher and following his instructions. At that step books are immensely helpful. Especially if they are the books specialized on particular lineage of methods and teachings.
On the other hand, by reading books alone, like: for years, one can rather become a buddhologist, not a buddhist. That's the statistics, although everything is an illusion, so everything is possible ;)
Access To Insight contains English-language translations of the Pali canon. Bhikkhu Bodhi and Thanissaro Bhikkhu are two of the preeminent Pali translators around, so most stuff with their name on it just means they translated it, not that they're the authors.
So take his authority to run a "university" with a huge grain of salt. He would get roundly mocked in subtle ways by senior Buddhist monks if he thinks he has the seniority to be the "dean" of a "university". It's only once you have 10 years seniority that one, as a Theravada monk, earns the title of "Elder" ("Thera", an ancient Pali word in the Pali Canon), or an "Ajahn" (a Thai word simply meaning teacher, roughly corresponding to that same 10 years seniority).
I've never met him in person, but have cordially chatted with him a few times in the internet. We're both on Mastodon:
Him: https://digipres.club/@obu
Myself: https://mstdn.ca/@sbb