When I set out on this path I decided that I would only read the original nikayas, first to end my own suffering and then to try to help others end theirs.
It seems obvious that the Sangha have failed in their mission. The Buddha created two things: the dhamma and the sangha. This was a two-pronged approach for alleviating suffering, with the dhamma focusing on the individual neural network and the sangha focusing on the social network. He chose not to become a ‘private buddha’ but to teach; he chose to step back into the world rather than just bask in his liberation, as did the 24 before him and the 1 to come.
The Buddha himself taught monarchs and householders; he guided them using the language that suited the audience. He spoke of the wheel turning monarch and right livelihood. He explained how householders can retain and enjoy their earnings and how kings can rule an empire so that suffering is kept to a minimum.
The sangha was supposed to be the vehicle which continued this work: it was supposed to preserve the dhamma but also to preserve the social influence. As well as helping an individual with their own kamma, it was supposed to help a society with its collective karma. It was supposed to preserve and transmit the neurolinguistic hack of the dhamma to end individual suffering, but in a way which was as accessible to as many as possible.
This is precisely what the Buddha spent his life doing, and why he has a million-and-one similes - tailored to the individual, be it a wealthy monarch, a housewife or Angulimala, the serial killer who he talked down and who joined the order.
In modern times, Siddhartha Gotama would certainly have been a neuroscientist or a business leader; maybe a politician or a celebrity. He would have taken whatever tools were necessary for easing the suffering of the masses and he would have used them to spread the message of the dhamma.
The sangha, in its present form, is still pre-stream-entry. They are so attached to their rites and rituals, their ‘dhamma in the literal’, that they have become unfit for purpose. They gate accomplishments behind people who are still clinging to the raft of the dhamma and do not try to change the language to the modern day or heal those who will not bend to their rigid form.
The dhamma was a way to end individual suffering. By doing so, the Buddha tried to end societal suffering. He and Sariputta would teach in the language necessary for the individual, whoever they may be, in the same way that Jesus would help the lepers and the slaves. There was no ‘Buddhism’ in the day of the Buddha; he taught the way to end suffering and nothing more.
Now we have senior monks who are clinging to their raft saying that something isn’t a legitimate ‘fruition’ just because the person has not been indoctrinated enough. This is not how psyches work, and a fruition is merely the explosion of maladaptive learning so that it can be reconstituted into something which produces less pain for the individual, and as such less pain for the society. They should take any such explosion and guide it toward wellbeing.
The Buddha did *not* gate his teachings to a specific sect. He used the language of the Brahmins because that was the language of the day. If he were alive today he might use the language of memes and gifs. He was not attached to these things - he viewed them as tools.
And the dhamma itself was but a raft. The first thing to lose is the rites and rituals and the last thing to see through is the dhamma itself. The sangha seem to cling to both.
You see that the dhamma is but a formation, which implies that the real world is also a formation. You see that these are two perceptual frameworks which we have running in tandem and which can reprogram each other. Then you look through them both and see that it is all formations, and that the world is a mirror of how you behave and think toward yourself and others.
The dhamma is just a tool; the devas were the language of the day. If Siddartha were around now, he would not be using that language. He would not be gating accomplishments behind words; he would be trying to figure out ways to approach liberating the masses using technology and modern neurolinguistic hacks.
He would be using AI and EEG and fMRI and electrical stimulation. He would be using pharmacology - remember that he only banned alcohol, which is a neuroplasticity suppressant, and did not explicitly ban anything else. He would be using money and social media and whatever else necessary to get the job done. He would be studying the jhāna and figuring out the underlying mechanisms so that they could be replicated in an easier manner for people who can’t sit and focus on their breath for hours on end. His right-effort is basically just modern trauma therapy, for crying out loud.
Siddhartha was a pragmatist. He knew that the two worlds were both fabrications, and he figured out how to use the second world - his nighttime world of devas and gods - to program his waking world perceptual framework. He knew that it was just a tool, and he told his followers that their own enlightenments would be identical to his. They will each have had their own second world which was different to Siddhartha’s, and he knew that well.
The sangha has failed the Buddha.
The purpose of the sangha was to improve the global neural network of which we are all a part. Every person in the world is part of this global web of communication. Books and AI and art and music are all middleware between our consciousnesses.
The dhamma was taught to heal individual consciousnesses, but the sangha was made to heal the collective consciousness. It was NOT made so that they could gate achievements and stick to archaic language which was inaccessible to the masses.
I would argue that the dhamma has been forgotten by those who were entrusted with preserving it, and it’s time that it was rediscovered by independent thinkers who are more in-tune with the times. We do not live in a world of Brahmins and sacrifices. We live in a world of mass media and technology.
It is time that the dhamma was rediscovered and made accessible to all.
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* obviously talking in generalisations here; there are plenty of people within the sangha who have not lost the message. can’t talk about a group without generalising though, and i want to spur some discourse. if this article angers you, please view it as skilful means and be grateful that it has highlighted a taint you can work on.