On Finding Effective Dhamma Teachers by Ajahn David Dale Holmes

On Finding Effective Dhamma Teachers
by Ajahn David Dale Holmes

I began my studies as an Honours Student, in the Department of Philosophy, at McMaster University, in Canada, starting at the end of the 1950’s, where they gave me a sound foundation in the history of philosophy, particularly in metaphysics and epistemology. 

Like many another youth of the so-called “beat generation,” I also owned a copy of Alan Watts'  The Way of Zen,  without fully comprehending what the author was trying to say. 

In due course, after graduate work in Germany with the double major of philosophy and literature, with a focus on existentialism, I became a lecturer at the University of Maryland, Munich Campus, where I served for 25 years, before joining the faculty of Chulalongkorn University, in 1992, in Bangkok, Thailand. 

During all this time, I had been following  my interest in the study of Buddhism which I began, under Prof. George Grant, the Head of the Department of Comparative Religion, in 1960, at McMaster University.

While still teachig in Munich, for the University of Maryland, I had the opportunity to participate in a seminar with Alan Watts, who was enjoying a final European speaking tour, just a few months before his untimely death. 

Whilst listening to Alan's attempt to summarize western man’s epistemological endeavours in the history of philosophy, I had a sudden illumination on the questions of “nothingness” and “non-self.” After having experienced fifteen years of existential fear and trembling, I unexpectedly passed through  a gateless gate with hardly an “Ah  Ha!”,  and my existential anxiety fell away, just like that!

"I've  got it!  I've got it!",  I told Alan.

"Don't hang on too hard.", he said with an ironic twinkle in his eye. That was good advice. He was a keen Zen teacher with a sharp intellect.

After that, I read a bookcase full of books on Zen, Japanese and Mahayana Buddhism, but I still found the readings largely cryptic,  inaccessible and jumping all over the place. I realized I needed to progress, but I didn't quite know what path to take. The problem was that my approach and understanding were still  too intellectual and too theoretical.   

In the early 1980's, I owned a 40 foot, blue-water sailing yacht, in the South of France, and did a lot of cruising about the Mediterranean, mostly single-handed, often a hundred miles from shore, in an attempt to be at one with the universe. It was a good life, but it was  only a stage. 

That kind of aloneness is not the ultimate answer.  Something was still missing.

One day, in 1985, in Corsica, in the port of Bonifacio, by coincidence (or was it?), I met an older couple from Holland, who owned a sturdy ketch and who talked knowledgeably about Buddhism, and I told them I had always wanted to go to Asia to learn more, first hand.

"Go to Sri Lanka," the Dutch-Indonesian wife said.  "My friend Tissa will take care of you.  Just write and tell him why you want to come."  She and her husband gave me Tissa’s address. The husband, a retired sea-captain with the air of a man who knew the world, smiled kindly.

About a year later, I found myself waiting in the airport in Colombo for Tissa to pick me up.  It was my first journey to the East, and I was tingling with anticipation. That was 1986, and as Ven. Ampitiya Sri Rahula Maha Thera, who was later to become one of my teachers, remarked to me, I was still very "raw."  

I knew what I was looking for, but I  not still not on the  right path.

Tissa Amarasinghe was the first to help me change that.  By way of introduction, we visited many temples in the South of Sri Lanka,  and then one day he took me to a withdrawn Meditation Center, where the monks lived in caves, and where there was a skeleton hanging out in the open air as a meditation object on the transience of life.

I was received by the head monk, who was seated in retreat in a hollow, under a great overhanging rock. I could actually see radiant energy emitting, upward and outward, from around his shoulders and upper body. He spoke to me with quiet reserve but gave me an English translation of the Buddha's Discourse on the Breathing Meditation and directed me to go and pay respect to an elderly German Monk in the Forest Hermitage at Kandy, called Ven. Nyanaponika, who could answer my further questions. Little did I know what kindness I had been shown. 

I was fortunate in having Tissa's guidance. Had I turned up in Sri Lanka on my own, just another western quester in search of Shangrila, I wouldn't have known where to go and who to talk to, and I would not have gained access in the places that I did. 

Tissa opened doors everywhere. He even arranged for me to gain admittance inside the Inner-Sanctum of the Temple of the Holy Tooth at Kandy, one of the most sacred shrines of Theravada Buddhism. I don't know how he managed that, but, out of a sense of well-meaning generosity, he probably felt that my just being in close proximity to the Sacred Tooth Relic would bring spiritual blessing to me. 

Tissa came from an old family. His father had been a respected Buddhist, with a large personal Buddhist library, and his grandfather had renovated the great Temple at Tissamaharama at his own expense, while he was a ranking government official there, three generations earlier. 

Tissa’s family had expected that  he would enter the monkhood at Tissamaharama, but he later decided to remain a layman. As we toured the country by car, Tissa would talk with me for days on end about the precepts and core principles of Theravada Buddhism. 

In due time, Tissa  took me to the Forest Hermitage, in Kandy, to pay respect to the Ven. Nyanaponika Maha Thera, who was, indeed, a most renowned monk, a Pali scholar, and thre author of The Heart of Buddhist Meditation, plus a whole shelf of other books and translations of Pali texts. He was the head of and spiritual force behind the Buddhist Publication Society (BPS), in Kandy and had been a delegate from Ceylon representing the Theravada Tradition at the Sixth World Congress of Buddhists, together with his teacher – the Ven. Nyanatiloka Maha Thera (1878-1957) -- who was a most-eminent Pali scholar and the author of The Word of the Buddha and The Path of Deliverance plus numerous texts and translations which guided and influenced generations of Theravada Buddhists world-wide.

At the Forest Hermitage, I had the good fortune, as well, to meet Bhikkhu Bodhi, an American monk and scholar,  who was assisting Ven. Nyanaponika to edit the many books of the Buddhist Publication Society.  Bhikkhu Bodhi was the author of The Noble Eightfold Path and numerous other excellent explications of difficult Pali texts. The Forest Hermitage was another Inner-Sanctum, a haven of knowledge and wisdom.

They received me with an open warmth and loving-kindness which was a lesson in itself.  Very much in awe, after some scattered questions, I asked how I could find the heart of Theravada Buddhism.  

They said to start with the Ven. Nyanatiloka's translation of the Word of the Buddha and then go on to practice the discipline outlined in his Path to Deliverance.  They stressed that the emphasis must be on actual practice of the Path, as opposed to theory, and that I would find it extremely difficult, not just at first but all the way along, even into an advanced stage, but if I followed the word of the Buddha and the practice, I would make progress.

In summation, when I asked them where I could discover the core-meaning of Buddhism, they answered, "Why look anywhere but in the actual words of the Master?" That's what Theravada Buddhism is all about and, to my amazement, the Buddhist Publication Society (BPS), in Kandy, had made it all available, in English, and there was nothing cryptic or inaccessible about it.  I just hadn't known where to look and what to read and how to put it into practice. 

So I read another bookcase full of BPS publications, this time perhaps for the right reason, and, finally, realized that the path I had missed and neglected was the one of practical application and discipline,  applied in the thoughts, feelings and actions of everyday life, as opposed to pure intellectual pursuit. If the mind is tuned but not in harmony with the body, then advancement would be impaired or even blocked. 

The starting place was Ven. Nyanatiloka's translation of the Word of the Buddha, which outlines the Four Noble Truths and the Noble Eightfold Path .It’s a wonderful paradox that once you understand the book, you no longer need it.

In due course, on subsequent visits in subsequent years to Sri Lanka, I also had the honor and privilege of staying, in retreat, at the Peradeniya University Forest Solitude, in the mountains above Kandy, at the invitation of the eminent teacher, Ven. Ampitiya Sri Rahula Maha Thera, to whom I also owe the deepest debt of gratitude for his kindness, understanding and guidance. The Ven. Sri Rahula guided me to apply and put into practice what I had learned from the books.

At that time, I also had the opportunity, also, to discuss fine points of the Dhamma with Ven. Dhammavihari (formerly Prof. Joyiya Dhirasekera, of the Dept. of Pali and Buddhism, at the University of Peradeniya, in Kandy) which also helped to deepen and strengthen my understanding of the path. 

Finally, I must add that I am also thankful to Prof. Lily De Silva, the highly respected Head of the Department of Pali Studies, at the University of Peradeniya, who always received with gracious attentiveness and inspired me with helpful advice on how to practice on the path. 

She was the one who told me that even a lay man or a lay woman could become an Arahant. 

Photos of Venerables Nyanatiloka, Nyanaponika and Bhikkhu Bodhi.

31 May 2023