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Dharma is the path to freedom, available to every being by nature of their being Buddhas from the very beginning. Although no one should have to obtain the Dharma from some source outside themselves, sometimes we need guidance. So there are teachers and students, and all teachers are students themselves, with the presumable exception of the fully accomplished Buddha. It's a given that students should respect real teachers for the knowledge they share, but that doesn't answer our fundamental question: who owns the Dharma? SHOULD WE PAY FOR DHARMA? Aside from respect, is something more required? Teachers give teachings. But it's really hard to get a teaching from a Tibetan lama (or anyone besides a Christian preacher) without parting with some cash, unless you deliberately crash the gate. We're told, and it seems to be true, that the tradition of paying to receive teachings has long and honorable precedents in the Indian and Tibetan history of Dharma. Dharma is worth more than any amount of money, but that doesn't mean it can be bought. Maybe there's some point to forcing people to make the comparison -- you will pay good money for a diamond ring for your girlfriend, or for a nice tie for your husband, so what's the Dharma worth to you? That might've been Naropa's point when he demanded gold from Marpa for the teachings. Of course, it's also necessary to raise the money to pay for travel and food and lodging. Without providing these things, it would be a lot to expect a teacher to show up and teach. It might happen, but it would be more likely to happen if you provided at least a modicum of support. So if you want to be taught, you should expect to kick in something to make it happen. YOU GET WHAT YOU PAY FOR Given that we live in commercial society, however, the habit of paying for what we want may cause us to think that we're actually buying dharma. But the teacher doesn't own it, and we can't buy it. No one owns it, and it doesn't change hands. You don't have to get anyone's approval to practice Dharma, and you aren't prevented from practicing because your name is not on the membership list, although people can make you feel lonely and ostracized. RICH DHARMA FOR RICH PEOPLE Creating an apparent "market for teachings" could be a problem. We don't have to merely imagine, because we can simply remember times when worthy students couldn't get teachings because they couldn't scrape up the money. Some events involving Tibetan lamas are becoming so costly that they are clearly targeted toward the wealthy, and go on so long that they exclude all but the leisured. In a market economy, we expect these things to happen, though. You don't have two hundred bucks, you don't get your Playstation II. That's life. Play your Nintendo 64. Once we've got a market for teachings, the same rules apply. Go study a cheaper path -- this one's only for people with plenty of cash -- of course it's very nice, but you really can't afford it. ` Of course that sort of market-talk is not likely to escape the lips of a Dharma center coin-collector. Being less flippant, and more pious, Dharma-dealers will tactfully suggest that you may have to sacrifice to acquire their product. Of course it is no sacrifice for the well-off to part with money, particularly to participate in a gala event! The colorful brochures that announce the spiritual benefits of attending some of these empowerments and teachings are filled with promising rhetoric: "really special lamas will perform really secret, powerful rituals to change your life." DHARMA AS INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY Our situation cannot be fairly compared to the situation faced by Marpa, who had to pay Naropa in gold for the teachings. First of all, the relationship between these two was intimate and personal. Marpa could look Naropa in the eye and know that there was no deception taking place. He wasn't forced to deal with a crass situation such as we currently see, in which entrance to empowerments is handled just like paying to see a rock concert or a movie. Second, Naropa was truly unattached to the money. When he got the gold, he treated it like dirt. The only purpose for the money was to challenge Marpa's preconceptions. But neither Marpa nor Naropa have been seen in this country, and while Marpa's tendency to hoard books might make him one of the first Dharma-dealers, American business has taken the whole thing to another level. Copyrights, trademarks, and other intellectual property markers are recognized as sources of tremendous wealth. Disney came back virtually from death's door in the late seventies to become a towering cultural and financial presence, because its managers began mining its vast media archives, and harnessed images to endow ordinary consumer objects with iconic power. Pepsi is trademarking "its" shade of blue. Intellectual property is king. Similarly, Dharma is being disseminated in this environment. Today, the Buddhist message circulates like a minnow among whales, but not for long. The popularity of movies like Seven Years in Tibet and Kundun shows what can be done with a little skillful marketing. My "Free Tibet" t-shirt garners compliments from middle-aged women every time I wear it. This is no slur on the complimenters, or on the moviemakers. I just remember the days when the only thing anyone asked about such a shirt would be "What's Tibet?" or "Isn't it free?" The Dalai Lama is a stellar media figure. Sogyal Rinpoche's books are bestsellers. Tricycle has plenty of muscle. The day of Dharma is coming, and with it the scent of money to be made. This financial environment tempts many Dharma group leaders to think like publishing tycoons, who see teachings as intellectual property. At a nearby temple, people aren't allowed to audiotape teachings anymore, a policy that alters twenty years of past practice. Why would this be so? For years people have made their own tapes, and listened to them in their cars and living rooms, made notes and transcripts. All this was good. My wife transcribed, completely without anyone's prompting or direction, a long teaching that eventually became a book, because someone had made the tapes, and she wanted a transcript. Such freedom to hear, record, and study the teachings is disappearing. The lamas, of course, have no idea what's going on, in the vast majority of cases. They don't understand why the higher-ups in the organization won't let the rank and file members run their tape recorders. And the rank and file are too intimidated to speak up. Soon most of the young lamas will understand that every time they start teaching, they are potentially producing copyrightable material that could produce a substantial revenue stream. I don't know what that will do to them, or to their teachings. Some won't care. Some will. Probably everyone who runs a Dharma center wants to see it grow and prosper, and that makes sense. The question is how to measure success for the organization. Success can be measured in the popularity of the teachers, the sales of publications, and the amounts collected at teachings and empowerments. Many centers seem to have implicitly adopted this model for success. Personally, I am not comfortable with it. FREE DHARMA - FREE PEOPLE We could buy the argument that we have to copyright Dharma texts and prevent unlawful copying, because this will encourage their creation and dissemination. However, we would be adopting a commercial philosophy that is primarily espoused by the Recording Industry of America, just as mistakenly, and for the same reason. The entire Tripitaka and innumerable tantras were composed, preserved, and remain with us today, without the benefit of copyright laws, just like the works of Shakespeare, Darwin, and Mozart. Why? Because they had something to say that humanity needed to hear. Limiting the dissemination of Dharma and charging to receive it are monetary decisions, not spiritual ones. Free people need free Dharma, or it is of little use to them.
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