Post #6: My Beggar’s Buddhism

2 May 2023

The other day I was talking to a friend over coffee, and I mentioned my “beggar’s Buddhism” to him. It was just a casual line, meant to give him a sense of how unprepossessing my practice felt to me. But he liked it and said it would make for a great book title (thank you, Kevin!). The heading of a blog may have to do…

To speak in such terms of one’s practice may invite suspicion: is this guy being falsely modest, inversely pretentious in the manner of those who pride themselves on their great humility, or does he perhaps hope to associate himself with the venerable mendicants in all the world’s religious traditions? Not at all, nor does he aspire to the glories of the “blessed poor” about which a certain Jewish Buddha preached to such momentous effect. Let the kingdom of heaven be theirs; he has other plans, for now.

I was thinking of something altogether less spiritually glamorous than all that. I meant to evoke a hardy beggar’s banquet—a few moldy slices of bread, a spotty apple or two, an overcooked egg—a kind of meditator’s Three Penny Opera staged around the robust realities of life on the Path for the rest of us, as opposed to the transcendent riches that more illustrious spirits might be able to spread before the wide eyes of an adoring public.

Not that what I had in mind was the Zen of the gutter either, as exemplified by such lumpen-luminaries as Henry Miller and Charles Bukowsi. They could riff impressively on the body-fluid aspect of things, no question; but morality matters, as does kindness and ordinary decency, and mental hygiene too, not just sponging and loafing all day long or stuffing your face and marching, smug and well-fed, under the red banner in the manner of Bert Brecht. Man bleibe mir vom Leib mit solchem Kleister.

So why talk of poverty in one’s practice at all? Can anyone really tell how well one is really doing on the Path, from the outside especially? I doubt it, and that’s not an invitation for someone to set me right. We do enough judging and comparing in our lives, surely, and I don’t see how bringing this worldliest of habits to the mat would do much to speed up the journey for anyone, or make it more beautiful and worthwhile in any other way. The temptation to pay lip service to non-judgment and then go right on striving and comparing as before, be it with an eye to oneself or to others, may be devilishly hard to resist, but resist it we must. The Path is meant to be a refuge in this sense too—and all the more so in light of how inescapable our invidious ways look in the rest of our lives. Let this little corner be left in peace, at least.

No doubt my musings about beggary on the mat are also meant to keep expectations down, my own as well as those of others. Or maybe it is the sense of operating with limited, even strained, resources that resonates so much with me. Such scantiness might help to sharpen one’s priorities, I suppose, and to prevent wasting oneself too much on distractions, what with all the “shrinkage” that is anyway unavoidable. But I certainly wouldn’t mind a little more ease and comfort, whether in my practice or in anything else. The two have a way of converging, it seems.

Not my favorite thing in the world, begging; alas, I’ve done more than my share of it. I console myself that it is said to build humility, and community too. May it be so. It means a chance for the givers to practice generosity, and the takers, due gratitude—no trifling matter, on either side. So let me thank again all those who have supported me along the way, who have helped me out and shared with me in a myriad ways. What I am I owe to you all (you don’t have to answer for it). Bless you.

Two of my favorite readings from the Pali Canon come to mind. In the first, Ananda, the Buddha’s cousin and assistant, proudly announced his recent discovery that good friendship was half the spiritual life. “Not so, my dear Ananda, not so,” the Awakened One answered him: “Good friendship is the entire spiritual life!” In the second reading, the Buddha simply points out that if we properly understood the benefits of giving and sharing, not just to the recipient but to the giver too, then we would never want to eat another meal without finding a way of sharing it with someone.

It is in this light-hearted and amicable spirit, not to arrogate to myself the prestige of the world’s mendicant orders or to pretend to their worthiness, that I have put up my “begging bowl.” I am getting by fine these days, thank you for asking, so there is no great danger of my pen drying up on account of starvation. If you feel like dropping a little something in the box, be it to encourage my labors or to show your appreciation, or for any other reason that feels right to you, then please do; it is always welcome. But it is certainly not expected.

Readings: Samyutta Nikaya 45:2 (good friendship), Itivutakka 26 (giving and sharing)