Comment on "We’ve Been Here All Along" by Ajahn Amaro

[mikenz66]

Hi Bhante,

As usual, you bring up some very deep issues.

@sujato

But we have to be careful not to dismiss the reality of people’s experience. If someone says, “My guru is better than your guru”, well, whatever dude. But if someone says, “My guru is better than your guru. And he says that gay people deserve to get AIDS because of the bad karma in a past life”*, then this is seriously harmful and must be countered. Not with anger or sectarian silliness, but with reason and kindness based on the Dhamma.

This whole area of gurus, and traditions based on gurus, is one of tremendous difficulty and contradiction. On one hand, Dhamma practice should be judgeable by it’s results. On the other, it’s not so easy to actually verify the results, as we see hinted about in discussions such as the following:

Was Ven Maha Boowa an arahant and why?

Continuing the discussion from Mae Chee Kaew's anagami fruition: you think Ven Maha Boowa was an arahant? did he exhibit any signs of that or is it just popular opinion? and why specifically an arahant, why not a noble disciple of lower levels? they’re quite rare and reputable too i have a feeling that populace is very generous in conferring sainthood

So if we follow the ideas of Ajahn Maha Bua, or Ajahn Chah, or Mahasi Sayadaw, or Bhikkhu Nanananda, or students of those teachers, is our practice more likely to be successful? Or perhaps we should try some Vajrayana practices - those are said to be very quick…

Ultimately, short of taking our own practice all the way to stream entry, we have no conclusive way of assessing the efficacy of how people are practising, which is where I agree with Ajahn Amaro that one should not be too quick to dismiss certain aspects as “baggage” without an adequate exploration.