By Shepherd Hoodwin

I was listening to the audiobook of Old Path White Clouds, stories about the life of Buddha, by Thich Nhat Hanh, when Nhat Hanh passed over. This is not the first time I’ve been reading or listening to a book by someone during the time of their passing. Maybe I’m drawn to witness their crossing over. In any case, it got me to thinking about the Buddha.

In the Michael teachings, we say that he was an Infinite Soul (IS) during the last thirty days of his life (like Jesus, Krishna, and Lao Tzu). That means that the incarnate soul stepped out of the body and a representative from a high-planes soul came into it, vastly amplifying the vibrational impact. The reason the IS only lasts about thirty days is that human bodies aren’t designed for that kind of wattage and burn out. It’s a way for the Tao to stir things up among humans who have become spiritually stagnant. Decades ago, it was channeled that Thich Nhat Hanh was a candidate for the next series of IS’s, but that didn’t happen. As time went on, he became too old to physically handle that. But those that high planes souls consider as an IS vehicle are invariably great teachers in their own right. Thich Nhat Hanh was the most famous Buddhist after the Dalai Lama, and is clearly a very fine soul.

It’s never certain whether anything reported as history is accurate. Throughout most of it, it was rare to write things down and for many people to be able to read. History was mostly transmitted orally. The game of telephone is widely familiar: people who repeat things keep changing the story so that by the end of the chain, it may be unrecognizable.

Throughout history, when stories were written down, authors often had no compunction about adding their own spin to them in order to make a point. Accuracy and authenticity were not as highly valued as they are today. The Bible is full of stories altered over time to reflect the writers’ preferences. Accounts of the life of Jesus were not written down until at least a century later. It’s likely that much morphed or was forgotten. Accounts in the Gospels don’t all agree.

When I was in elementary school, the story that George Washington said, “I cannot tell a lie. I chopped down the cherry tree.” was taught as real history, but it was made up in his first biography to help sell books and appeal to readers’ love of simple moral lessons. This was seen as being perfectly okay.

This is reminiscent of how, in the 1970s, filmmakers started to care more about things like casting in racially accurate ways, with hair styles, costumes, sets, and accents more true to the period and locale. In older movies, they were just trying to entertain and were insensitive to many issues.

All this is to say: Who knows if the stories that Thich Nhat Hanh retells in Old Path White Clouds are accurate? However, many of Buddha’s precepts were compiled into concise lists. Some of his monks were required to publicly recite them every two weeks. So at least some of them are likely to have come down to us as Buddha intended. And maybe the stories of his life are also pretty accurate. In any case, they are what people believe today and can be addressed as such.

It’s liberating to understand that even the greatest among us are and were imperfect. In fact, all beings on all planes of creation are evolving. So it is not denigration to suggest that the Buddha and Jesus may not have gotten everything right. As much as they transcended the strictures of their times, it’s unrealistic to think that they were not also men of their time. Who can entirely transcend all commonly accepted assumptions about life? We always build on the past and hopefully take it in positive new directions. Beethoven built on Bach’s achievements rather than somehow starting with something entirely new. Jesus was a Jew brilliantly but inevitably imperfectly responding to the stagnation of the society he lived in. The story of him overturning the money changers’ tables in the Temple sounds like he might have lost his temper, although maybe he was just making a point about the spiritual corruption of his time. One cannot pass judgment, especially without knowing the facts for sure, but neither can one assume infallibility in even the highest vibration souls among us.

It is often said that it was not the intention of the great spiritual teachers to start religions, with rigid dogmas. I think that’s true, but it’s also true that they generally wanted their teachings to be spread to benefit as many as possible. The problem is that once the teacher isn’t around physically to clarify and correct, to engage with students directly, distortions and dogma inevitably creep in. People tend to lack understanding of the original intent, even it was correct to begin with.

Like Jesus’s Sermon on the Mount, much of what comes down to us today of the Buddha’s teachings holds up very well. No one can argue with the value of loving kindness, honesty, compassion, mindfulness, and living in the present moment. He taught the spiritual practice of being aware of one’s breath, which is now beneficially used in many modalities.

However, there is also ample evidence of sexism. It took a while for the Buddha to finally allow women to become nuns, and only with the proviso that they would have to defer to the monks. In Old Path White Clouds, Thich Nhat Hanh finesses this for modern feminist sensibilities by depicting one woman addressing the objections of others by saying that it would be temporary, just until people got used to the then-outrageous idea of women leaving their homes to focus on enlightenment. However, early in his ministry, the Buddha invited an untouchable, a member of the lowest Hindu caste, to join him, in violation of the law. He was making the point that the caste system was invalid, that all men are equal. He didn’t care about the outrage of the public then, but he didn’t choose to go out on this limb for women. Although he believed that women could also reach enlightenment, he felt that women were in some ways inferior to men. No doubt he was influenced in this case by highly entrenched norms rather than by divine revelation. We’ve all had lifetimes as both men and women.

We can observe in the Catholic Church how distorting forced long-term celibacy can be. This is also what Buddhism requires of its monks and nuns. Vows of chastity and poverty can be a powerful discipline, but for most, they are better as a temporary rather than permanent practice, helping to rebalance one’s values. Developing the capacity to control sexual impulses and release attachment to externals can help us find peace and centering in the eternal.

There’s an argument that once you attain enlightenment (a term defined differently by different teachers), you’re in such bliss that sexual union with others and external things in general are not of interest. I haven’t experienced that so I can’t speak to it. But I do believe that everyday life has value and is full of lessons. It is spiritually worthwhile to engage with human life while, to the best of one’s ability, maintaining the union with the eternal attained through profound spiritual practice. Spiritual teachers who have attained bliss through long and deep meditation do not necessarily have good psychological or emotional understanding, or good life skills in general. Some also don’t demonstrate high ethics, although the Buddha’s emphasis on loving kindness somewhat mitigates against that among his followers.

I can understand why people were motivated to give up so much to study with the Buddha. He must have had an amazing presence that would make any seeker say, “I want to learn from you and I’ll do whatever it takes.” Maybe they didn’t question the costs, just assuming them to be necessary. For example, both Buddha and Jesus promoted the idea of people leaving their families to follow them and focus on spiritual practice. In some cases, did that leave their families in hardship? I can understand leaving if possible for, say, a year to focus on spiritual growth. Returning after that could bring great long-term benefits to the family. But leaving permanently may have been insensitive to the needs and feelings of others—for example, leaving young children without their father.

There were few rules for his early followers, but as the number of bhikkhu grew, it became necessary to have more rules to keep things in control. Rules need to be flexible to make allowances for complex situations.

Nhat Hanh told the story of a monk who went home to visit his family. They were upset because, although he had been married, he had never had an heir, and he was an only child. They wanted someone to inherit their business. So he let them talk him into having intercourse one more time with his wife in hopes of impregnating her. That seems like a practical solution to the problem, but he was drummed out when word spread.

On the other hand, there were two monks engaged in a petty squabble that had created much discord as others took sides. That might have been a teachable moment about stubbornness and attachment to being right, about the need to let go and forgive. Instead, the Buddha (as the story goes) just left for six months. Finally, they worked it out. But that seems more egregious than having sex with your wife to give your family an heir.

The Buddha emphasized having direct experience of the eternal rather than theories about it. Right on! At the same time, the precepts he left behind can become theories, too. Sure, why not try them on for size if one is drawn to them? But if they don’t fit well, it’s okay to make adjustments. As the Michael teachings say, self-validate—find what works for you.

He also apparently refused to answer questions about metaphysics, such as the survival of the soul after death, much to the consternation of many. He wanted his followers to get out of their minds and focus on spiritual practice. But can’t we have both intellectual understanding and spiritual attainment? Cannot understanding aid spiritual attainment? That’s the premise of the Michael teachings—that having greater understanding of why things are as they are can help us to more easily find unconditional love. I find that to be the case. I wonder whether the Buddha was being rigid in this matter.

This is what is on my mind as I’m halfway through Thich Nhat Hanh’s lovely book. And I honor the beautiful, humble monk who brought us so many excellent teachings and poems. Here is a gorgeous example of the latter:

Please Call Me by My True Names
By Thich Nhat Hanh

Don’t say that I will depart tomorrow—
even today I am still arriving.

Look deeply: every second I am arriving
to be a bud on a Spring branch,
to be a tiny bird, with still-fragile wings,
learning to sing in my new nest,
to be a caterpillar in the heart of a flower,
to be a jewel hiding itself in a stone.

I still arrive, in order to laugh and to cry,
to fear and to hope.
The rhythm of my heart is the birth and death
of all that is alive.

I am a mayfly metamorphosing
on the surface of the river.
And I am the bird
that swoops down to swallow the mayfly.

I am a frog swimming happily
in the clear water of a pond.
And I am the grass-snake
that silently feeds itself on the frog.

I am the child in Uganda, all skin and bones,
my legs as thin as bamboo sticks.
And I am the arms merchant,
selling deadly weapons to Uganda.

I am the twelve-year-old girl,
refugee on a small boat,
who throws herself into the ocean
after being raped by a sea pirate.

And I am also the pirate,
my heart not yet capable
of seeing and loving.

I am a member of the politburo,
with plenty of power in my hands.
And I am the man who has to pay
his “debt of blood” to my people
dying slowly in a forced-labor camp.

My joy is like Spring, so warm
it makes flowers bloom all over the Earth.
My pain is like a river of tears,
so vast it fills the four oceans.

Please call me by my true names,
so I can hear all my cries and laughter at once,
so I can see that my joy and pain are one.

Please call me by my true names,
so I can wake up
and the door of my heart
could be left open,
the door of compassion.