"So, your best friend wants to be a Buddhist monk?" [REAL TALK]

I got a sincere question from a viewer
about Buddhism and Buddhism is one of many topics I cover here on my channel before I even get to the question and before I even get to why I would be the person to answer this question well my background is why this question was sent to me in really broad brushstrokes we can say that white people approach Buddhism relate to Buddhism and convert the Buddhism in a way that's fundamentally different from Asian people now these are broad brushstrokes these are broad categories and some people might rightly complain that the category of white people does not include for instance black people I mean I'm not saying all Westerners but if you do the research it's remarkable the extent to which white people from Russia really do relate to an appropriate Buddhism in the same way as white people from Scotland it's a it's a pan-european pattern from you know California to Eastern smolensk you tell me I'm now gonna have to check in a map where Smolenski all right my girlfriend by the way is not a specialist in Buddhism at all I had her come on camera because she might ask some the same kinds of questions or much of some of the same I know confusion as the person who wrote to me asking well but broadly speaking white people convert to Buddhism appropriate Buddhism blade that wasn't getting immersed in Buddhism thinking about abstract concepts first as a philosophy first and foremost as an ideology first and foremost and they leave it to the very end to think about institutions or to think about management if you put it that way if you really spend time with serious Buddhists whether it's in sri lanka or japan people who either are buddhist monks themselves are aspiring to come buddhist monks or any really serious layperson whether they're a scholar or otherwise he thinks the man you'll find that asians who are serious about buddhism across all of asia again the difference reach real inca and japan is amazing it's a huge diverse continent demonstration scotland in some ways is amazing but you'll find what they get excited about is they know a particular temple that has a good monk in charge where the quality of discipline is good with the conditions are and you know it's it's no joke i mean and also they talk about those things they change like oh you know this temple in the south of Sri Lanka it used to be a good place to really study the Dharma to really practice as a but his mother but then some of the senior administrators died and new monks took over and now it's not good anymore they really watch those things closely and carefully so again this is a broad generalization but already it sets up you know the type of answer I need to provide to this question if you are concerned because a loved one a relative a friend is converting to Buddhism or is taking the further step of actually becoming a Buddhist monk which is not becoming a light person but joining the religion at an elite levels is be committing their life or committing some years of their lives to to Buddhism it's interesting because I think from an Asian perspective the response to be oh what temple what order who's his preceptor like you know what's the what's the chain of command and within any one of those Asian societies people who care about Buddhism people know what's going on would be able to recommend that he talked to a particular monk that he look at a particular location the last one I heard something really positive about I opened this tab here it was in Sri Lanka the great cloud a temple if you want to search for it in English the English name is the great cloud temple and in modern Sinhalese that's a Muhammad na wa I'm pronouncing Sinhalese as if it were pally that was a pal a scholar but it wasn't a modern Sinhalese scholar um but it really was kind of sincere excitement people telling me what this temple and this particular tell in particular when we talk about the kind of diversity that exists in Buddhism as a religion part of it is because it's a very very ancient religion and at any given time modern traditions superstitions that exist in the world today may have diverged from the ancient tradition to an amazing extent it's part of this way it is possible for modern Buddhism to be as different from ancient Buddhism as Santa Claus is different from Jesus Christ within Christianity there's no real resemblance from modern Christmas with Santa Claus and coca-cola and Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer you can't open up the Bible and find Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer or the to the the reindeer song I are there any reindeer in the Bible at all are there flying reindeer in the Bible flying reindeer you know it can be that different and now I have to follow that up with a caveat that doesn't mean that what's in the ancient text is completely rational and philosophical and perfect or that it doesn't contain superstition it's a different superstition however there is that kind of diversity within Buddhism so if someone came to me and right now that's the kind of question I'm gonna answer someone comes to me and says look my brother or my friend or my son or my daughter or someone I care about is converting to Buddhism or in this case becoming a Buddhist monk should I be concerned there's so much diversity within Buddhism that you know of course the easy answer is it's a yes it's off it always helps to be concerned you know uh but but it's true you know people are not alarmed in the same way that they're alarmed with a I wouldn't be as alarm as it would be if someone were even joined in the Catholic religion let alone Islam or Judaism or what have you but it's true there's so much diversity within Buddhism that immediately you have to press for it say okay what what kind of Buddhism are we talking about the person who sent me this message mentions that she is an atheist and she may or may not know ithi ism is compatible with Buddhism now it is completely false to say that Buddha himself was an atheist or that the the Buddhist monks who wrote the original canon who were alive at the same time as the Buddha and for a couple centuries thereafter that they were all atheists it's very clear the majority of them believed in quite a variety of superstitious things the existence of demons and ghosts and heaven and hell and reincarnation of the afterlife and supernatural punishment for evil deeds they will and they believed in teleportation and super powers not so different from comical characters like flying through the sky like Superman there's a lot of supernatural stuff in the ancient scriptures and a lot of people will never honestly say to you but I just said you there's a lot of dishonesty about that fact at all levels their religion and all forms the religion however the religion is compatible with atheism you can be an atheist and be a member of the Buddhist faith you can be an atheist and be a prominent Buddhist monk be a courier put asthma so to speak and of course that's not true of Catholicism you can't really be an atheist and be a Catholic priest or Cardinal or something yeah can't get very high up in the ranks of Catholicism if you're openly saying you believe there's there's no God and you say Islam I think it's on this on the same page on that what if not even more so I mean you know a pistachio son that doesn't have that kind of that kind of wiggle room so that in some in some ways that would be impressive to were shocking to Europeans compared to the religions more Europeans are are familiar with yeah Buddhism has this core philosophy I can I can say it to you right now from heart to live is to suffer this is also phrased as life is suffering this is also phrased as all this is suffering in reference to though all this being the world you can see an experience around you part two is there is no soul and part three not necessarily in this order by the way is that all is impermanent right so all is impermanent in that historical context meant very things includes by the way that the gods they believed in which are more like demigods in ancient Greece that they also were not immortal so even the gods would die of old age even the gods could go to hell after they died interestingly so I don't I don't know any other religion that's like that I don't know another religion which God can die and go to hell for his sins but whether you think of them as as gods or demigods you know gods like Indra in ancient India they were seen as eventually yes yes no you're right so the most ancient period of Judaism what's called first temple Judaism was actually a polytheistic religion good luck getting a rabbi to be honest you thought that and that is actually still recorded in the most ancient parts of the Bible where there wasn't just one God many and yeah so the the role of angels and archangels and that men giants because the the ancient parts of the the Bible have these other kinds of demigods that are not so different from ancient Greece and it has a Council of God sitting together in the plural so yeah there was this proto Jewish period we can go first temple Judaism where the idea of divinity and cosmology was was quite a bit different and where angels and archangels played a significant role and were part of the fall from heaven was that there were there was interbreeding between angels and humans giving rise to what you might call Titans or I don't know some kind yeah some kind of demigods so that's a whole drama of gods that were with gods which is again not so different from what you get in polytheistic religions in in ancient Europe and as you can imagine there are a lot of Jews and Christians who are very uncomfortable with that that kind of evidence the Bible this is another topic but you know still today still in the normal King James Bible in normal mainstream Bibles God does not say of mankind let us make him in my image he says let us make him in our image thousands of pages have been written about the use of the plural there that it was that would that it was referring to gods and the plural and fragments of that this is jerk okay anyway back back to back to Buddhism and should you be concerned so good talk with this in a shower level when it's evident profound level I think I've already alluded to the fact there's tremendous diversity in what Buddhism really is today in terms of what they believe what they practice it does include some of the most extreme and terrible cult-like practices imaginable if you just look around you can read about Buddhist monks ordering their followers to go out in the desert and starve themselves and then people die in you know I've read examples of that of you know obscene self-harming meditative practices where people stab themselves or burn themselves and that also has a long history that's not brand new it's not part of the most ancient period but it's not part of original or pure but isn't what I want to say but we do have more than a millennium of that that kind of interpretation of Buddhism I mention you an especially corrupt form nish ear and Buddhism you know well that's way out in Japan and so on yeah yeah so that there is this diversity that can include terrible and cult-like performs Buddhism and you may ask how do you start off with three such simple principles life is suffering you know all is impermanent and there is no soul how do you start off with those three and end up with these terror prices how do you start off with the Bible and end up with Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer it's a long story you don't have you got two thousand two thousand five hundred years of history and a lot of people do kind of lament that lament that Buddhism hasn't remained true to its philosophical moorings but on this shallow level yeah you can easily get bogged down in the details of what order and what kind of practice it is I assume based on the email I got that I am talking about a modern white Western person not an Asian person so they most likely are approaching this conceptually where they're starting with the philosophy they're starting with the core beliefs they start with the core ideas of Buddhism some of them already mentioned and then they're committing to that and then they're citing okay I'm gonna deal with whatever tempo I can deal with I'm gonna deal with the management of the tabla they're leaving that until many stages later they may even not be thinking that much about the historical tradition or the discipline the actual list of rules you have to live by as a monk and how they're enforced and other practice it may sound like a joke now but whether or not you're allowed to wear shoes matters you know whether or not you're allowed to only eat out of one bowl max you know whether you're allowed to drive a car or ride a bicycle you know for Buddhist monks you know which which kind of buzzing me signing up to these these rules really restrict your your life in some obvious ways both what the rules are on paper and how they're how they're really put in practice and obviously you know there's living in celibacy and not in the most strict forms of Buddhism you are literally not allowed to touch money so you have nothing to do with money you don't have a bank account you never buy anything you don't touch money if you're really living by the code in the most corrupt forms of Buddhism some of the monks are billionaires and some of them drive a drive a Lexus or drive a Ferrari to drive expensive cars and they're totally corrupt and they're actively soliciting though so yeah on that level on that level of diversity however given that this is basically advice for a you know a white Western audience approaching this ancient religion the question itself named the issue of Nirvana and I think it probably is on this person's mind the concept of Nirvana is Nirvana real is it something to live for it something to die for or is it a reason to live by this this discipline or what have you now I've got to tell you so I haven't gotten into my own background I was a scholar of Buddhism for more than 10 years I don't want to get into a length of if I tell you about what I did in the more than 10 years I studied what is them some much longer video but I have met with and studied with some famous monks and been to famous monasteries as well as famous modern Western secular scholars academics what-have-you I had a really diverse deep background Buddhism I've got to tell you from my perspective no Nirvana is not real when you're talking about Nirvana you're talking about something which long story short is the product of hallucination and it's very clear I think reading the original texts in the original language that what you're reading are descriptions of hallucinatory experiences and you can read exactly how people induced it had the solution to our experiences and even the debates between monks because it's not going to be consistent you know not everyone's gonna have the same kind of hallucination what their different elucidation mean and how they relate to this philosophy so already there you've got a pretty good idea of the basis for an ancient religion you've got a monastic discipline you've got a philosophy and then you also have a set of what we now call meditative practices but even you have to really stop on question what do we mean by the word meditation it's a very modern European Western concept ultimately and we mostly known as a Catholic concept and then partly through ancient ancient Greek and Latin sources a pataga meditation the meditations of Marcus Aurelius that's where the the word comes from however you know we have these practices that are linked to hallucinations which include for example the flu sensation of remembering your former lives remembering your former incarnations so for a lot of people that is a religious experience under whatever conditions may be starving themselves in City in a cave then they induce this loosen to our state and they see the thousands of years in the past that they in the past they were incarnated as this person in that person they see the futility of continuing the cycle of birth which very explicitly this comics means of having your own children of having sex and of you know reproducing that way they see I mean in classical the terms of classical Buddhist philosophy at ethics and cosmology they see that good deeds and bad deeds lead to punishments in your reincarnations whether that means going to hell or sling bad happening to you or being recruit being reincarnated as a monkey or something being reincarnated as an animal this this kind of thing there is a cosmology and so on and in very explicitly Buddhism both in ancient times and today is based on seeing these things many people forcibly misinterpret those texts as if they're talking about empirical experience all the texts talk about seeing for yourself knowing these things for yourself that's based on the confidence that you will actually have the solutions or experience you will you will see these things and then you'll believe and Buddhism very actively claims that it's different from other religions because Buddhism doesn't require you to believe in things that are unseen it doesn't require you to have faith in supernatural things that are unseen but that's very clear the reason for that is that ancient Buddhists were confident you would actually see these things for yourself and for most of human history human beings thought they saw ghosts like you know we see this in all cultures including Europe people routinely saw things like ghosts and demons you know what they were actually seeing you mean from my perspective I'm a nihilist you know I don't believe in that stuff but I believe human beings have dreams I believe that hallucinations you know I believe sometimes they over interpret it you know seeing a shadow or you know whatever it was they they really saw our experience they put this sort of religious significance on so this is part of the answer the question the other part of the question was positively why would someone want to do this already implicit in my what I've said so far there are some reasons why you wouldn't want to do this one reason why you wouldn't want to do it is that the vast majority of Buddhism exists today is unbelievably corrupt that's how hard you've been kind of alluded to another is that the core religious experience is hallucinatory and incompatible with reality keeping all the way real here people you know sorry so you know no Nirvana is not something you can attain or experience it's not real it's a myth and most religions are built on myths and I think we can say to give Buddhism credit the myth of Nirvana is probably more interesting and more philosophical than the myth of Hercules I'm if millions of people believe in a religion for many years or in my opinion the myth of Jesus rising from the dead I'm not really gonna plan my calendar around Easter because there's this story or the myth of Noah and the Ark I can't Belov that Christians just go nuts without knowing the ark thing I don't know why it's not that great a story but I mean it's just a myth right but let me tell you on the positive side if you become a Buddhist monk again this is across all traditions from Japan to Sri Lanka um you can get a lot done in a day if you're at a good monastery not even gonna unpack what I mean by good let's say heard a good monastery you wake up every day at 5:30 in the morning you maybe have one hour of chores to do during that day things like sweeping the floor cleaning the toilet but you don't cook you don't worry about cooking you don't worry about making money you don't worry about what you're gonna do tomorrow you don't worry about the future you don't have worries you wake up at 5:30 a.m. you're living this totally sober totally disciplined you know lifestyle in a monastery that enables you to do so if you're into poetry and historically many many Buddhist monks were you can study ancient poetry you can write your own modern poetry if you're into philosophy of course that would also be rewarded you can study ancient philosophy you can write original new philosophy if you were into history and archeology you know as a Buddhist monk you know obviously the history archaeology of Buddhism or of Buddhist countries you could be pouring your time and energy into that and although it is not as common obviously if what you're interested in was humanitarian work whether that's helping elderly people or children or people starving or people in an area destroyed by a by an earthquake whatever those inclinations you have scholarly or humanitarian you have an ocean of time you have a great opportunity to devote yourselves to those things entirely and I've lived enough of that lifestyle I mean remember we're living at one Buddhist monastery in particular where I would walk down the mountain to the website to the library at the end of the path so wake up in the morning when I was first there I did it to attend the morning rituals that they did a morning meditation and chanting in front of the in front of the statue that got repetitive quick after a couple days I think I just woke up and went straight to the library you know I didn't say that but you wake up you wake up early you maybe have some trivial duties you know in terms of cleanings up but you can devote yourself to the life of the mind to an unbelievable extent and still have enough free time to become a master of kung fu at that same monastery I remember one little old man who picked out the the wooden staff and was doing you know kung-fu with the Rising Sun you know as a lifestyle believe it or not there's a lot that's appealing about it including the enormous potential to do positive and good things for people like you know you read a Buddhist temple someone comes in they're heartbroken because they're their father just died you know they're arranging for the funeral you tell you people come in because they're anorexic and they're trying to get over anorexia are there they're an alcoholic and they're trying to quit drinking people come in with all kinds of human problems and there's that element the same as being a pastor and Christian there's that element hope you'll visit us but sure whether it's on a scholarly side or on a humanitarian side it is a lifestyle supported by this religion with all its superstition and all its contradictory history you know sometimes preaching non-violence and sometimes hypocritically preaching violence and there's all kinds of contradictions and problems mystery of Buddhism but this question was basically this question from a tea suppose why would my friend choose to convert us why would they commit to being a Buddhist monk until they died even with everything I've just told you in this video I can think a lot of a lot of good reasons I can think a lot of compelling reasons why any person of substance would choose to make their peace with Buddhism to say okay I understand this religion I understand what's wrong with it what's right with it the advantage of disadvantages and say this is the way I'm gonna make my mark in the world especially at a time when so much of organized education and so many career paths are just a ripoff you know compared to taking the next eight years alive and getting a PhD or even going to nurses college or something but when you combine this I've been to Buddhist monasteries that are attached to a teaching hospital where Buddhist monks can actually study and become you know for humanitarian work can become nurses or paramedics what-have-you so even that's not not mutually exclusive you know but compared to so many career paths if you want to make a positive difference in the world this is when we can get started right away and the only price is your soul question yeah one of my friends from high school we don't really actually talk anymore I just noticed that he recently converted to Buddhism but he's not a Buddhist monk so what are the benefits to just being just yeah I mean you know the promise oh so this is a white Western person right well I mean not too long ago there was this hilarious moment you know livestream where I talked to Ryan from happy healthy vegan so Ryan lives in California is a Western person he described himself as Buddhist but when I asked him people what what temple are you a part of many butts of what lineage are you a part of I think I was said to him like well what tradition you part of his only answer was like the internet you know he has no connection to a real Buddhist establishment nobody that's I think that's the step is you know are you part of Buddhism as an actually existing religion you know a some kind of temple some kind of tradition or you just someone who read a book or read a lot of cases read a bunch of stuff in the internet and decided to start describing yourself as as Buddhist but yeah there are I mean there are for most it would be the children advantages of being a part of a church oh okay it's different okay number one if you are a Buddhist layperson you have to take a commitment to non-violence seriously in terms of the basic precepts a layperson lives by one is total abstention from alcohol or any you know any kind of my older drug which should we already do and you know it is it is hypocritical Buddhism is not vegan it's not even vegetarianism but there is this incredibly broad commitment to non-violence and the quite a few professions are you know cut out from the way I remember reading an email wasn't to me it was an email sent to a Buddhist monk that I got a copy of Buddhist monks used to say he's got a lot of email from his mugs it also you can spend a lot of time writing email if you're in that lifestyle you know but and this guy was a was a small aircraft pilot in northern Canada where we have a lot of mosquitoes and he was taking the Buddhist precept and all that serious enough that he described going up in the small aircraft and carefully bagging the mosquitoes and black flies because when you get up to a high enough altitude the air thins out and these these insects they drop to the ground they're not dead they drop to the ground and nerve because they can't keep they can't keep flying yeah you put I know I know it's touching and hilarious and you know that's if you take non-violence seriously that's you and he kept them alive in a bag and then when the airplane landed he went out the back they are playing to open the bag and they they flew through free right so I mean you know if if you take non-violence seriously if you take you know some of those those basic concepts seriously then yes it will change your life you know but obviously we're living in a majority Buddhist town and you know I mean what we were recently in Thailand I mean you know we were you know downtown Bangkok Thailand it's hard to see okay I can see I mean I have enough years of expertise I can see the ways in which that society is shaped by Buddhism and downtown Bangkok it still is better then and different than living in Saudi Arabia I you know it's it really is different than living in a Muslim society so Buddhism has shaped everything however yeah yes it's obvious the vast majority of people who describe themselves as as Buddhists don't take any of the presets seriously and certainly I mean a lot of them they can't even answer questions when you ask about cosmology or what it is they they supposedly believe in so I'd say though one funny thing about Buddhism for laypeople you know this is a good question to ask it is a bit like trying to believe in the religion of Socrates try to believe in ancient Greek philosophy in that you're definitely confronted with it with a great many things that are just so ancient nobody can believe in them you know it's like the world map that's in Buddhism same thing with ancient Greece you know I think their idea but what was the shape of the world and you know like you you're looking very similar integration in the ancient Greeks talked about Mount Olympus kind of being at the center of the world and at the top of Mount Olympus were the gods it's the same thing in ancient Buddhism the middle of the world is this giant mountain called mount Sumeru and the gods live at the top of the mountain and they have this idea of the shape of the world and the world is flat and there's this steam coming up below the world and supporting it and if you meditate him properly that can cause earthquakes cuz the whole world is floating and that's you know it's they way it's just a really genuinely ancient and this is really 2500 years ago in India this is how they saw the world I mentioned on this channel before they thought of the Sun is something quite small in the sky so Buddhist monks when they were flying flying like Superman they believed a Buddhist monk could fly through the sky and touch the surface of the Sun with his fingertips so I'm completely incompatible with our view of the solar system we view the Sun as something enormous very far away there's even the Sun is something quite close and tangible you know that that birds could could touch with their wings even you know that was those their idea of the Sun so there are a lot of things like that which are outside of questions of faith you know people who read Socrates are Ariston nobody asks well do you believe in this there are all kinds of elements of Socrates there's any any ancient Greek philosopher that to us are just preposterous they just reflect an ancient attempt to understand what it's like what is the world in the same way so much the material it's outside of any correct at any consideration of true and false but at the same time sure I mean this has a corpus of literature poetry philosophy that people still find beautiful and meaningful I think the challenge for what is lay people long story short is can you make this philosophy in this tradition meaningful in your life today the same way that a director like a movie director would look at a script by Shakespeare and say how can I make this meaningful for audiences today like a large part of what's there in Shakespeare today people can't relate to it's not real to our lives you know people don't just whip out swords and fight duels anymore you know what I mean like there are a lot of things have changed a lot of exhibits as Shakespeare wrote you know a lot of a lot of social and ethical considerations but we can do it it's an artistic challenge it's a creative challenge you say okay this is still meaningful in our life static Shakespeare a lot of people read Shakespeare at funerals Shakespeare gets quoted at funerals and weddings well you know people take out a some poem a Shakespearean quotation for all the time right so in that same way I think there's this challenge of taking something ancient and you know applying it to our lives today and if you're serious about Buddhism then you're serious about taking on the challenge