the new hippies' series: (5) spiritual materialism

There's a Tibetan author who has lived for quite some time in the U.S. and has put a name to it: "spiritual materialism". It means not only a certain crave from spiritual stuff and a tendency to collect and accumulate small (unrelated) pieces from this and that Eastern tradition; also, according to the author, there would an egoistic approach on every Western person when trying to acquire or apply the new knowledge -even with a teacher, no matter what they were shown, the students would imitate it externally, being careful not to sacrifise or loose anything inside.

The guy puts an example that I really enjoy: he talks about a sort of Zen meditation of a certain Japanese tradition, in which the students are confined and they have to take care of their tools and the way to eat the food and drink the tea, and the whole point is to get people immensely tired so that the process might help them to get a "better understanding of the self" (or whatever is the point of the Zen, I must say I don't know much about it). Anyway, there's been of course Western students trying this technique but finding it completely useless: by following the procedures and the ceremonies they don't get bored and tired, the contrary, they get amused since they're doing Japanese stuff in a Japanese way which is so exciting!


First time I read a book from this one author I was in North India in a Buddhist area and it looked to me he was describing so well most (not all) the hippies around who where half spirituals and dressing that way of theirs (see previous posts) and bowing in front of the Buddha images when visiting the monasteries.

It seemed quite reasonable to me when the writer was recommending to everybody who had honest interest in spirituality to put themselves on the hands of a teacher and follow him/her and the teachings and techniques all the way through, leaving no room for "materialism" anymore.


Afterwards I read more about the guy, about his schools in the U.S., and eventually (there's reports and at least one essay on the subject) I learned they made big parties on the premises and the teacher encouraged sexual exchange among his students, and was he getting laid himself with some of the female students -maybe he just wanted to make sure they would follow their advice.

(It was denounced by some of the novices who attended to one of the parties and were not so happy with it; however it does not matter much, who would believe they did not know anything about it until they were asked to get naked?)


It's a pity, because I used to like the writings of this monk, I found them precise to the point and refined and awesome, but now to my eyes he has lost all his credibility. Regardless, there's still a lot to learn from this author, since it seems he was so good and understood the minds of his Western students fully, and knew how to get lots of hippies to apply to his courses!

the new hippies' series: (4) working the least

Not that I'm going to criticise anybody who does not like working, of course not. Old and new hippies and myself.

Some of them find their way through, they work a few months in overpriced Europe while they are living humbly (even in a squat), and during the rest of the year they go abroad anywhere cheap and make good value of their money. Others are just stingy and think twice before spending every cent.

My flatmate last summer, for example, she was a bit like that. We were not really organized when we had to buy something for the house (e.g. soap, toilet paper); one of us just got it whenever either she or I found it was missing. Gradually I realised she would not find anything missing, she just waited. I wanted to be sure and I devised a stupid experiment.

In India I learnt toilet paper is not really necessary -there's billions of people in Asia who do not use it. (There was this Israeli guy I met who asked the key question: if you found you had some shit on you forehead, how would you clean it?) Which method is best I'm not sure, regardless I got used to the other one in India, and in particular I didn't mind at all if I was sitting (as I always do) before my shower. However in Europe there's toilet paper and I use it (besides it's usually the jar which is missing). Some people find this whole subject is just digusting; that's not the point though. My experiment was: I would stop using paper if as usual I was in need just before my shower. Just to see what would happened.

What happened? The paper got finished and everything seemed fine for a few days. She was unemployed at that period (I was working like hell by the way), and I checked she went to the shop at least once to buy food. I don't know exactly how she was managing (I guessed she was using tissues). Finally, on Saturday mid morning, I realised I was having loose bellows and I went to the shop and I got the effing paper.

I would have talked to her if all the mess was about anything, not about a couple of euros. If I was not about to leave. And anyway my objective was to understand if she was as stingy as I had imagined. It seems she was.


This girl was taking short-term contracts very happily (the ones that others would take only because they cannot get a better one), so that at the end she could live from unemployment benefits for a while afterwards. She only looked for a new job when the time would come the state stopped paying. Which is not so bad, in my opinion, unless you make it a way of life. Unless you make it as if you are holding a day more waiting for your flatmate to get the paper (instead of you getting it).

There's hippies and hippies, there's the ones with the nice arrangements, and there's the stingy ones.