A Note from Matty Weingast on The First Free Women

Viveka · June 2, 2021, 7:39pm

Dear Sabrina, thanks for your post. I’ll try to answer the questions you pose below

Sabrina:

However, I get the impression that the poems are still seen as problematic by many here on this forum. And that is something I don’t understand. Why are the poems seen as in contrast to the Dhamma and not as some kind of commentary by a serious practitioner who sat with these poems for a long time to see how they resonate for him and then put his meditative understanding of them in contemporary form? Why is is seen as a corruption of the teachings and not a contribution, just like those of any Buddhist teachers teaching in this day and age?

In my opinion, these poems are not some kind of “feel-good, anything goes, good vibes only” fluff, but they do speak about renunciation, about letting go, about observing the arising and ceasing of everything, about dealing with sexual abuse, with grief, about how to see the body and mind clearly without attachments etc (and even mention rebirth which was doubted by some). I cannot imagine that the ancient nuns would have a problem with that if it clearly comes from a place of respect for the scriptures and the Dhamma.

In part it is exactly because they are still dealing with the issues (suffering), it becomes hard to distinguish where they veer off track so much - this is what makes them so very destructive. It is like a demonstration of Ayoniso Manasikara (unwise attention) because it focuses attention on the wrong things, and diverts or erases the salient parts from a Dhamma perspective.
Note: if these were just independent poems and not presented as either the direct or even ‘re-imagined’ versions of the Therigatha, there wouldn’t be this problem, then it is just a person giving their take on life …like any one of the thousands of authors writing in this field.

Here is an example Bhante Sujato provided

First Free Women, a bogus translation of Buddhist scripture

Comparison

Here is a typical example showing how little Weingast’s work has in common with the Therīgāthā. This is the verse of Saṅghā Therī from the Therīgāthā (Thig 1.18, translation is my own).

Therīgāthā Weingast

I gave up my home, my child, my cattle, and all that I love, and went forth. And now that I’ve given up desire and hate, dispelled ignorance, and plucked out craving root and all, I’m at peace, I’m quenched. When I left the only home I’d ever known, I thought I’d left everything behind. But I was still carrying all the years of running back and forth and around in circles after this or that. Just sitting still, those circles have broken apart and been carried away by this simple wind blowing in and out. All your old thoughts like snow falling on warm ground. Just sit back and watch.

Let alone a translation, it is not an adaptation, a re-envisaging, or a re-imagining. It’s an original poem bearing no more than a superficial resemblance to the Therīgāthā. The clear song of awakening has been replaced by a muddle of metaphors. In my twenty-five years of studying, practicing, teaching, and translating Pali texts, I have never met such a disturbing deception.

It is precisely because the focus has moved, from the process of Liberation and penetration of delusion, to the ‘suffering’, that the Dhamma quality has been removed.

One of the tragic things about watering down or adapting the Buddhas teachings to make them more ‘palatable’, is that the very purpose of the teachings and training is removed. If the Buddhas teachings are like a map of samsara, it is like someone has gone in and kicked over and removed the EXIT sign. But that is the whole purpose - Liberation from samsara, and how to realise it… Instead it is glorifying/romanticising all the obstacles and the difficulties of the journey - but removing the destination , the end, the cessation of suffering.

It might be easy to relate to the suffering, as the Weingast poem focuses on the

and ends with a vague statement perhaps referencing mindfulness? This isn’t challenging, it is just a vaguely empathetic expression for how tough it can be…

But it doesn’t tell you how to solve the problem, which the Therigatha does

Now this is challenging, and difficult (each word references specific practices outlined in detail by the Buddha in the suttas) - but it is the solution. It’s no coincidence that the Buddha is often compared to a surgeon… the process may be difficult, but it is the medicine that will cure the disease. By substituting the medicine with candy/lollies one is simply being given a placebo and kept in ignorance.
This is what moves it from Dhamma to ADhamma.

And I’m pretty sure the Enlightened Nuns would indeed have quite a bit of a problem with this

I hope that this clarifies the issue a bit more

With Metta