What Is Buddhism, Anyway?

Thanks be to the Resident for first sharing this article.

Lately I have been wondering: What is the Dharma? If the Dharma is not a "thing," what is it that happens in temples? What is Dharma practice apart from meditation?

I guess I'll get to investigate these questions this summer, when I'll attend a three-week residential intensive at San Francisco Zen Center. It focuses on modes of practice; teachers from other traditions will come to share their practices and perspectives.

Enjoy the article.

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Buddhism With a New Mind-Set

Western spiritual seekers who have focused on meditation have fueled a remarkable growth in Buddhist practice in the United States. So what to do if you are part of an ancient Buddhist tradition that is huge in Asia but has failed to catch on in the United States, in part because it has no real place for meditation?

Change the tradition.

That is what the Rev. T. Kenjitsu Nakagaki of the New York Buddhist Church and other leaders of the Buddhist Churches of America, one of the oldest and most established Buddhist movements in the country, are doing.

The 65 temples across the country that make up the church network are part of a school of Buddhism known as Pure Land that is one of the most widespread in the world and was once a thriving part of the Japanese-American community. Over the last few decades, however, the movement has lost two-thirds of its United States members as a result of assimilation and the diminishing numbers of Japanese coming to this country.

Spurred by a new reform-minded bishop, Koshin Ogui, a growing number of the movement's temples have abandoned their traditional lack of interest in meditation and are offering the practice as a way to survive by reaching out to non-Japanese adherents.

In some ways, the story line is familiar. Religious traditions have long adapted to fit changing cultural circumstances. Consider how Hanukkah, a relatively minor holiday on the Jewish religious calendar, has leaped in importance among many Jews in the face of the crush of attention surrounding Christmas in this country. But while Zen and Tibetan Buddhism -- the Buddhist forms that have largely driven the religion's surge among Western practitioners -- focus on meditative practices as a way to achieve enlightenment, Shin Buddhism, the Pure Land school that the Buddhist Churches of America embraces, teaches that meditation is ultimately useless because of the inherent human limitations.

But the Rev. Marvin Harada, of the Orange County Buddhist Church in Anaheim, Calif., who started a Sunday meditation service several years ago, sees an interim use -- to calm the mind so it can receive Buddhist teaching.

''It's really something that's needed in our modern lifestyle,'' he said, because that lifestyle ''is so hectic, so fast-paced, we have a shorter attention span.'' Only by renouncing all self-effort in attaining enlightenment and trusting in what Shin Buddhists call ''Other Power,'' embodied in the form of the Amida Buddha, revered by Shin adherents, can a believer attain birth in the transcendent realm of Pure Land. That is a place -- similar to the Christian concept of heaven -- where nirvana can be achieved.

''Shin Buddhism defines itself as a form of Buddhism that does not rely on meditation,'' said Matthew Weiner, a Buddhism analyst for the Interfaith Center of New York. ''It's not just a stylistic difference. That's why this is so kind of radical, in a sense.''

The growing incorporation of meditation into Shin Buddhism also offers an intriguing study of how white converts, who are actually outnumbered by their Asian immigrant counterparts in the United States but have driven the rising profile of Buddhism here, are reshaping Buddhist practice.

As a minister in Cleveland and Chicago, Bishop Ogui said he began offering meditation several years ago because 60 percent of the people who called his temple were asking about it. Any venture that turns away that many potential customers, he said, is bound to close.

Clergy members ''are supposed to respond to the needs of the people,'' Bishop Ogui said. ''Any program, including meditation, tai chi, yoga, anything which makes people feel comfortable, or willing to step into the temple, should be offered.''

At the New York Buddhist Church, on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, Mr. Nakagaki has been leading meditation classes and incorporating the practice into his Sunday services for years. On a recent Wednesday evening, for example, Mr. Nakagaki, seated on a mat, led a small group of followers, most of them non-Asian practitioners, in an extended period of sitting quietly and concentrating on breathing

It is a familiar scene to those accustomed to the Buddhism that has come into vogue among white spiritual seekers, many of whom have jettisoned Buddhism's other tenets to focus exclusively on meditation.

Colin Anderson, 47, a regular participant in New York Buddhist Church's class, drops in on meditation centers all over the city.

''I don't see it as a religion,'' he said. ''I see it as more of a science of the mind.''

The concept that is taught at many meditation centers -- that controlling one's mind can lead to better controlling one's actions -- which might lead to being reborn into a better life, makes sense to him.

''You're in control of your own life with your own karma,'' he said.

But that idea directly contradicts what Shinran, the founder of Shin Buddhism, taught some 800 years ago. Shinran came to Pure Land after growing frustrated with meditation and other practices taught by other Buddhist schools. He advocated that believers not pursue any specific practice but instead trust in the Amida Buddha's infinite wisdom and compassion for liberation from the endless cycle of life, death and rebirth.

''Shin is based on entrusting, entrusting in the idea that we as human beings are limited, and we're incapable of cultivating ourselves,'' said the Rev. Fumiaki Usuki of the West Los Angeles Buddhist Church, who described himself as wary of the growing use of meditation among his fellow Buddhist Churches of America ministers.

''Just because we have meditation doesn't mean these people are going to stay,'' he said. ''They're driven by this Hollywood aura of meditation. They're supermarket shopping.''

Nevertheless, on Sundays at the New York Buddhist Church, which is now about 70 percent non-Japanese, Mr. Nakagaki begins services with five to seven minutes of meditation.

The meditative practices are a bridge to usher the curious into a Buddhist tradition that can be difficult to grasp, Mr. Nakagaki said.

''My way of thinking, it is a form of kindness, a form of compassion to help them understand Pure Land Buddhism better,'' he said.

The growing use of meditation has sparked a debate within the Buddhist Churches of America about whether its priests are going too far in catering to the whims of an audience that many Asian Buddhists see as dabblers.

''I am maybe more conservative than some,'' said the Rev. Gregory Gibbs of the Oregon Buddhist Temple, who came to Shin Buddhism after years of Zen practice. ''We don't want to obscure our fundamental teaching.''

The debate has also highlighted fissures among Asian practitioners, who tend to be more traditional, and Western spiritual seekers.

''There's a split between converts and so-called ethnic Buddhists,'' said Jeff Wilson, a contributing editor to Tricycle, a Buddhist magazine, who is working on a doctorate on Buddhism in America at the University of North Carolina and has followed the debate over meditation in Shin Buddhist circles closely. ''The people in the so-called ethnic component tend to think of the converts as very elitist, that they're taking over Buddhism and changing it.''

Shin Buddhist leaders in Japan, worried about doctrinal purity, have also questioned the changes Bishop Ogui is encouraging.

''Whatever people worry about in Japan does not make sense most of the time here,'' Bishop Ogui said. ''In America, we have to understand the American culture, and we have to go along with these unique differences.''

In some ways, Pure Land Buddhism has always been at a disadvantage in this country because its teachings about the Amida Buddha make it appear similar to Christianity. During World War II, Shin Buddhist practitioners also started calling their temples ''churches'' and holding regular Sunday services as a way to appear more Christian in the face of anti-Japanese discrimination. Many Westerners looking for the exotic, or an alternative from their Judeo-Christian upbringing, have gone elsewhere. Now Shin Buddhist leaders are hoping to lure them back.

At the New York Buddhist Church, the meditation classes, along with other changes that Mr. Nakagaki has incorporated, including shaving his head and wearing a robe to look more like monks from other Buddhist branches, appear to have had some effect.

Mr. Nakagaki's congregation has grown to about 50 people on Sundays from fewer than 20 when he first started, a little over a decade ago. But attendance is not his primary concern, he said. He merely wants to bring Buddhism to the American people.

Would Someone Please Open the Door

A Little Mysterious Gift
Originally uploaded by Shugetsu.

In the world that appears to be Outside--the world which has been such a trial lately--a flower appears.

I am so ready to see flowers, and the grimy hallway carpet on which they appear, as somehow external. So ready to feel as if there is something I must *do* in order to administrate a life that feels safer and more certain.

Then the barriers soften. The division between Inner and Outer loses substance. There are impossible coincidences; there are meetings that make me cry; there are things breaking apart so suddenly that I come apart along with them. All along, there is some understanding developing, but I can't put it into words.

I read Ismail Kadare's The Palace of Dreams in two sittings, yesterday and the day before. His books give substance to the symbolic world of the unconscious. They're tragic, and they shine with a soft understanding. Reading them, I become more whole.

I won't say what I dreamed last night, but it was truly strange and hopeful. The flower, coming after that, is no great surprise.

Wheel of Becoming

A thousand-word commentary on my life:



Attachment, attachment, attachment.
Aversion, aversion, aversion.

Is there anything more than this?

(Wikipedia on the Bhavachakra.)

Monks on Ice

Zen Boys fall too. This adorable video shows how.

As with Life (and all forms of Practice), the importand thing is not that you fall down, or how many times you fall down--or how many times you fall down compared to someone else. The important thing is that you get up, again and again.

(Presence of Sangha member with video camera is optional.)

Four Words

There is an article in the New Yorker magazine about aging. It is beautifully written by Atul Gawande, one of my favorite writers.

Why we age is the subject of vigorous debate. The classical view is that aging happens because of random wear and tear. A newer view holds that aging is more orderly and genetically driven. Proponents of this view point out that animals of similar species and exposure to wear and tear have markedly different life spans. The Canada goose has a longevity of 23.5 years; the emperor goose only 6.3 years. Perhaps animals are like plants, with lives that are, to a large extent, internally governed. Certain species of bamboo, for instance, form a dense stand that grows and flourishes for a hundred years, flowers all at once, and then dies.

The idea that living things shut down and not just wear down has received substantial support in the past decade. Researchers working with the now famous worm C. elegans (two of the last five Nobel Prizes in medicine went to scientists doing work on the little nematode) were able to produce worms that live more than twice as long and age more slowly by altering a single gene.

"...and age more slowly..."

Those are my words.

From 1997 until 2001 I did PhD research at UCSF in one of the leading labs studying aging in C. elegans. We had long-lived mutant worms, but the link between their long-life and aging was unexplored. I explored it, finding simple markers for aging, and identifying a rapid-aging mutant. Of all the paths I explored, this one paid off best and soonest. So I published a paper and went off into the land of Zen.




Four years. Four words. Some imperceptible mark upon the world.



Dauers
Originally uploaded by dhavalsubhaspatel.

Tools of the trade (III)
Originally uploaded by md&r.

Surrendering the Self

A quote that illustrates 1. the interpenetration of Taoism and Zen--the unity of Truth-- and 2. the disconnect between romanticized views of practice, and Reality.

I took minor liberties with the language in the final stanza.

Accept disgrace willingly.
Accept misfortune as the human condition.

What is meant by “Accept disgrace willingly?”
Accept being unimportant.
Do not be concerned with loss or gain.
This is accepting disgrace willingly.

What is meant by “Accept misfortune as the human condition”?
Misfortune comes from having a body.
Without a body, how could there be misfortune?

Surrender your Self humbly; then you can be trusted to care for all things.
Love the world as your true self; then you can wholeheartedly care for all things.

Tao Te Ching Verse XIII
adapted from the translation by Gia-fu Feng & Jane English

The Inner Massacre

Over Hung
Originally uploaded by OmMane.

On the day that thirty people died at Virginia Tech, many more died in Iraq.

What happened in that dorm and those classrooms could have spurred a call for more and better mental health services, for more accountability on the part of institutions, or for some sort of respite from the violent imagery that suffuses our society. Unfortunately, the advocates of these social movements were not as ready with their talking points as the NRA were.

Or perhaps we all wanted to listen to the gun advocates. Perhaps we all wanted to flirt with the notion that, if everyone were armed, the tragedy would have been averted. Perhaps imagining ourselves with guns is more interesting that imagining ourselves in a society that does not glorify gun violence.

Obviously, life would be different if we were all armed. But I don’t think that would be a better life. In case we have any doubt, Iraq looms before us, for our information, a ghastly demonstration of where universal firepower will lead. Guns are commonplace, and so even more firepower is necessary. Improbably enough, what results is not order, but mayhem.

But, you say, we are not Iraq. We have a government that imposes order, provides services, and enforces laws. This is not a chaotic society. And I agree. We are comparatively peaceful—and Iraq is not—because we are accustomed to order and justice. We believe that if a crime occurs, justice can be served at the end of the day in an appropriate and sane manner. Not by vigilantism. But in Iraq—in the Wild West, in a universally-armed state—anybody with a vendetta against anybody else has the power to act on it.

And so it is that, in Virginia, a state where guns are easy to obtain, and many people have obtained them, a person more unbalanced than the rest can amass an arsenal, and use it. The mission: some idea about justice. Some suicide mission to show the world—something. And to kill as many people as possible in the process. If the unbalanced person knew that everyone was carrying a gun, his strategy would adapt to serve his destructive fantasy: school shooters will become school bombers.

The unstable young men of the hypothetical firearm-rich future will abandon their twisted execution-style gun-based fantasy, in favor of a suicide-bomber fantasy. The seeds are certainly planted; that’s how really serious people wreak havoc in an overly-armed society. All that is needed in middle America is a slight shift as to what constitutes the glorious revenge of the wronged. So will gun-toting students feel safe in that golden future time? Or will they live in fear of commencement, of keggers, of any crowd situation?

If everybody were mentally healthy and had the same ideas of right and wrong, universal gun ownership might actually promote order—or at least not destroy it. But in that utopia, with everybody sane and clear-headed, having the power to end others’ lives would be unnecessary.

The fundamental problem here is thinking that more power can save you, that there the way to outwit the violence of the human heart is by means of more violence. Packing a gun is a cause and a consequence of being afraid, paranoid, on-edge. The legions of us who could apply for a concealed weapons permit, and do not, know this intuitively. I do not wish to be the kind of person who would carry a gun; I do not wish to become the kind of person that carrying a gun would cause me to become. Despite the dire misfortunes that might happen to my cute little self, I know I have a vanishingly small chance of meeting a brutal end in our still-decent society. Armed, I am certain to live in fear, to be constantly forced to weigh whether or not I would use my weapon should circumstances turn foul.

Perhaps some disagree; I guess they must. But even the most ardent gun proponent would agree that the massacre at Virginia Tech should be a wakeup call. I say it is not a call to perpetuate the problem that Cho embodied; it is not a call to value violence; it is not call to take enforcement of our own particular opinions about who should to live and die into our own hands. Keeping the raving lunatics in check by arming the marginally more sane is not the answer.

Instead, let’s wake up to how people get that way: let’s think about mental health services, university emergency procedures; let’s wonder why gun violence is promulgated as a solution to problems.

Look at Iraq. And the blessings and the safety of our own lives, as long as they last. Because even with all the guns in the world, or all the mental health services, we will die, we will get old, we will sick. And occasionally, we will fall as the innocent victims of another’s delusion. Or be killed by an automobile, a medical mistake, or a freak accident. For every day that we are well, and safe and free, we have the power to make the world a kinder place. Or a more fearful one.

The holocaust survivor who barred the door—his students said—lived every day with great energy. Since he was twenty-two, he had known his life to be a gift.

And ours is too. Life is gift now. Don’t build a wall around that gift. Don’t collapse in fear, cursed and rendered immobile by its incredible richness and promise. Become something beautiful. Become the world.



Disclosure:

I do own a gun. I think it is in a box somewhere. I like shooting guns, and I am an excellent shot. I grew up with guns, which were used to shoot coyotes animals that threatened our livestock. But now the farming days are over, and when I talk to my dad about what all his guns are actually “for,” I have found nothing particularly wholesome or encouraging in his response. It seems to be about firepower covering up fear. (I say this with great respect for my dad, knowing he will probably read this.)

I am not some peace-and-love Hippie. I am much more interested in the darkness of the human soul, and in the truth that transcends all notions.

The gun you keep in your house is 163 times more likely to be used against a resident of the house, rather than an intruder. I’m pretty sure those numbers are still true.

Startled Awake

"When we are most intensely alive--startled into alertness by love or pain or fear--we perceive with an added acuteness too often forgotten or lost to distraction."

Jane Hirschfield, Nine Gates p 86

Becoming One With the Way

What our ancestor describes a thousand years ago can only be done now, in this moment:

"Can you coax your mind from its wandering
and keep to the original oneness?
Can you let your body become
supple as a newborn child's?
Can you cleanse your inner vision
until you see nothing but the light?
Can you love people and lead them
without imposing your will?
Can you deal with the most vital matters
by letting events take their course?
Can you step back from your own mind
and thus understand all things?

Giving birth and nourishing,
having without possessing,
acting with no expectations,
leading and not trying to control:
this is the supreme virtue."

Tao Te Ching, Verse X
trans. Gia-fu Feng & Jane English

The Life of the Self

Looking at the SF girl's blog today, I realized: There is something wrong with Me and Blogging. Yes, it's good to post a picture, or a link to an article somewhere that provokes thought. But what I want to do--what I consider good blogging to be--is a discussion of what's important. What opens the heart? What clouds the vision? How shall I live this life?

I have been paralyzed, in a way. It has seemed like an act of greatest fortitude to say, "I did this. I felt this way. And I wonder what it means."

I wonder how I can love the kids I tutor so much; I wonder why I can't sleep; I wonder why there are days when zazen is the farthest thing from my mind, even as a mantra decorates everything I do. I wonder why there are days when I sit for hours, hungry for the world inside this one. I can't tell you why.

I notice an increasing sense of my own dignity and boundaries. A palpable sense of no longer accomodating the disrespectful.

Perhaps, where blogging is concerned, I feel I have already said too much. That it is too easy to google my name and find the blog. Or too easy to go blog-->photos-->name. I have a professional self now. There are those whom I would not want to know if I am having a hard time, if I make a grave mistake in my personal life, if I have a deep spiritual insight. Or a shallow one that sounds so good.



Did I mention? I feel single in a very happy way. Realizing how multifacted and intriguing my experience is, I wouldn't be willing to be partnered in a way that didn't magnify the Shu. Without someone else around to please an accomodate--to be derailed by--I feel my own rhythms. Days come when reality thins to a veil and something palpable hovers just..there--just everywhere, borne by glory. Other days are cold, lugubrious, and flat. They're mine, though, my life, the life of this little self.

Living Alone

These were turning words for me today. Many thanks to the friends who pushed them into view.

To live alone does not mean to reject the world and society. The Buddha said that living alone means living in the present moment deeply observing whatis happening. If we do that, we will not be dragged into the past or swept away into thoughts about the future.

The Buddha said that if we cannot live in the present moment, even if we are alone in the deepest forest, we are
not really alone. He said that if we are fully alive in the present moment,even if we are in a crowded, urban area, we can still be said to be living alone.

From Thich Nhat Hanh's commentary on The Better Way to
Live Alone sutra

Thoughts on the Ovine Gaze

For Shugetsu
Originally uploaded by Robby Garbett.

Sheep are underestimated. They do not accommodate; they do not pretend to understand.

This ewe faces a bizarre sight: before her, a man on an otherwise perfectly satisfactory ride home from work has stopped his car. He stands before her, a strange contraption raised before his face. Whatever he’s doing, he’s not stopping. For this man is an artist obsessed with texture and color. He might have stood there all evening, snapping away with no consideration for dignity—the lengthening shadows might have engulfed him entirely—had not the wise ewe decided to declare the photo session ended. Northern Ireland’s rusty cranes and collapsing cottages will hold still forever. But a ewe with two lambs occupies the slightest sliver of time.

By now, those lambs’ wrinkly little skins have filled out; their bellies are growing round; they’re venturing further from the teat to play and nibble grass. The moment is truly gone—not like paint blistering or rust peeling, one layer giving way to another—but like fire that consumes the world.

This photos is posted on Flickr, and so there are comments on this photo. They encompass a whole range of levels of coarseness. Commenters claim to see dinner, or a suggestive look—as if a sheep has ever suggested anything to anybody!

Through the camera, we see something that is not yet dinner: we look, and the sheep turn around and looks unblinkingly back. This is not “stupid” facing us: this is consciousness, awareness, a gaze that meets your own and forces some questions. Do I eat something that looks back at me. Is this meat, or a life? Can I face the life that I destroy in order to live? Can I face meet the life that I destroy—not so much in order to live, as to have the satisfaction and comfort I’ve become used to? Seeing and being seen like this: there is no red meat without a mind.

Much easier to make a joke.

When I say that a sheep has never suggested anything to anybody, I mean this: sheep don’t relate to us, and they don't want to. Dogs want something cats require it. But sheep just don't care. They are not pets; their job is not to connect, but to look. By nature, they are grazers— prey. You are barely relevant, and sheep are in no hurry to ingratiate themselves with you.

We mistake this dignity, this remove, with stupidity. We imagine that animals who relate to us are “smart”; animals that could care less, are not. But perhaps the sheep are the wise ones. They do not enter our dramas with us; they stand apart. And when it is time to move, they move in the wisest way: as a body, en masse. Perhaps we are the ones who should relate to sheep, we who fling ourselves after the latest promise of respite from reality. We who butt heads, and drop lambs, and head for home at the end of the day.

We who stop then, as the shadows draw long, and wonder just what—really—is going on.