What the Buddha Never Taught

Les Harding is Reference Librarian at the University of Waterloo.

In 1985 Ward, a young Canadian, journeyed to a remote jungle in
northeastern Thailand, where he entered a Theravada Buddhist monastery.
What made this monastery different from most was that it was very strict
(the stubborn heir to a 2500-year-old tradition) and that most of its
monks were from the West (the abbot was a former jazz musician from
Australia). What the Buddha Never Taught offers a fascinating, earthy,
funny, often wildly irreverent, and unusually realistic view of life in
an exotic religious community.

Ward, a seeker after truth, finds some at the monastery. But he is no
wide-eyed searcher for the “mystic East.” His monks are not always
admirable. They are prey to petty corruption, laziness, jealousy, sexual
misconduct, and material greed. Mars bars were worth their weight in
gold.

Ward’s memoir is, as much as anything else, a travel book—and a
good one. But we also read about a monk who meditates unto death, a
woman who keeps her dead mother’s skeleton on display in a glass case
(as a reminder of life’s impermanence), and the macabre fate of a
former head monk who is kept alive in a vegetative state so as not to
upset the faithful (and their donations).

The title refers to a famous book on Buddhist philosophy by Walpola
Rahula called What the Buddha Taught. If you want to find out what the
Buddha never taught you should shave your head and don an ochre robe.
The next best thing would be to read Ward’s enjoyable book.