- Table of contents
- Introduction
- Approach
- Buddhism, Dzogchen, and Aro
- Approaching teachers
- Aro teachings
- Terma
- Aro history
- “Controversy”
- Aro “controversy” F.A.Q.
- Opinions and curiosity
- The Aro “controversy”
- Trolling
- Uncontroversial Buddhist lineages
- Buddhism and football
- “Aro students must be clueless”
- Turnstiles and urban legends
- A dangerous cult
- The Dalai Lama and Aro
- The Drubwang Rinpoche photograph
- Ngakpa, Ngakma, Ngak’phang
- Hui Neng on controversy
- Ngak’chang Rinpoche
- Statements of support
Buddhism and football
Sometimes people express strong opinions about things they know almost nothing about. Where do they get these opinions? Why do they seem to care so much? And if they do, why don’t they learn more about whatever it is?
Some people have passionate opinions about what kind of bag you should ask for at the supermarket check-out. If you ask for the wrong kind, you are a bad person. You probably whack endangered baby seals for fun.
I don’t have an opinion about which kind of bag is the right one. Paper and plastic bags both have environmental impacts, of different sorts that are hard to compare. Coming to a meaningful opinion would be difficult. The difference also seems insignificant relative to the environmental effect of other lifestyle choices. Still, these points don’t stop everyone. Fervent advocacy of paper or plastic is not usually based on knowledge, nor are advocates interested in learning more.
So why do some seem so sure? Because paper-versus-plastic is a way of proving that they belong to a particular social group, and that they are good people according to the standard of that group. As with so much in Buddhism, it comes down to anxiety about anatman—the fact that we do not exist in any definite way. We insist on the right kind of bag to prove that we are that kind of person. We demand paper (or plastic) to be accepted by a particular group. Being a member of the group defines us—as a member—and thereby proves that we do actually exist.
This is a big part of football fandom, as far as I can make any sense of it. (Pro ball has always been pretty mysterious to me.) It is intrinsically meaningless which team wins. Fans give it meaning by cheering their team and booing the other guys. Being on the side of the Snorklewacker team defines you as a particular sort of person. Supporting the Capital City Snorklewackers and hating their rivals makes you a good guy—among Snorklewacker fans. This is not too harmful, as long as fans recognize (at some level) the emptiness of their feelings. Occasionally, when that emptiness is misunderstood as form, violence erupts
Unfortunately, people do this with religion, too. It is not enough to be happy with your sect. Dissing the members of other sects proves that you are a fervent and upstanding member of your own.
For some religions, this might possibly make sense. In the case of Buddhism, it is silly and self-defeating. Buddhism isn’t football. Recognizing that I am not any particular sort of person is one of the most important aspects of the path. Bearing good will to all sentient beings is one of the most important aspects of the path.
It is intrinsically meaningless which team wins
Enthusiasm and denigration (i.e. negative enthusiasm) are both intrinsically meaningless, whether, as you point out, the enthusiast is an ignoramus or alternatively an expert. They are meaningless in the sense that any karmic response is fundamentally empty.
On the other hand, this means that therefore they can be liberated. This View transfigures any inchoate upswelling of emotion into a fabulous wealth of practice opportunities. Which means you could find a tantrika at a football match yelling as much as anyone else, though whether able to practise with that at the same time would be a moot point of the individual's capacity.
The ability to practise would be reflected in respect for the matching enthusiasm of the opposition. This would be the Mirror-like Wisdom of the Water element, in which one recognises one's 'enemy' as none other than the image of oneself, and any potential for aggression self-liberates *in* that clarity and *into* that clarity. The palpable sense of difference and sameness coinciding is a wide-open window of opportunity into the non-dual state.
Between Buddhist lineages one might reasonably expect to find that understood as a principle sooner than between rival football fan clubs.
Of course the *good* thing about football is. . .
I was taken to San Francisco when I was 7 by my parents on a holiday in 1980. I was given a 49ers T-shirt, and four years later I was watching TV at home in Britain and saw that the NFL was on British telly. The 49ers won, and I remembered that holiday and that T-shirt - remembered seeing Candlestick Park from across the water and being impressed by the effort, the engineering, the passion made manifest in that sporting cathedral. I became a Niners fan that day in my living room. I guess I was born one. That is to say, I didn't really apply any great logic or comparative criteria to my choice - in particular I didn't find out which side was the 'most popular', or who played the most 'authentic' brand of football - maybe back then if I had I would have been a Cowboys or Redskins fan. Back then I made a kind of promise - to be a 49er, whatever happened. Regardless of how I got here, every weekend during the regular season ever since, I follow the team - watching when UK TV permits. And, regardless of how I feel after the final whistle - I'm a Niners fan. When I sit with my Football friends and talk about the game, we compare our various favoured teams - their similarities, their differences, what inspires us, what confuses us - but, I remain a Niners fan. Joe Montana was the best QB ever to play. Bill Walsh was the most clinical head coach - and inspiration to generations of coaches ever since. Roger Craig revolutionised the HB position. My friends disagree - because they and I support different teams, but we don't fight or brawl - we all recognise that we each in our own way keep the faith. We recognise that our faiths differ in form, but not in their essential nature. No idea if I'm a good guy, or a bad one, but I'm a 49er. I was born a Niner - and I'll die one - and any sports fan anywhere in the world will recognise and support that kind of commitment. So, the *good* thing about football - about any sport - is that commitment is absolute, and is respected as such. Shame that doesn't seem to happen so often in people who purport to be religious. Certainly doesn't appear to happen on e-sangha.
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the emptiness of fandom
Thanks – I learned something from that!
I hope I have not broken the relevant Root Vow by denigrating your faith :-)
It occurs to me that supporting a team might actually be valuable as a means of tantric transformation – as long as one was aware of the arbitrariness of it. Then one can maintain the form, and the emotion, while still seeing it as empty. That's the essence of tantra... And maybe you could then extend this to other emotional situations. (Probably this is the same was what you were saying.)