My Buddha is pink

What about only on Tuesdays?

2012-02-05T19:37:00.000-08:00

So I laid it out in my previous post, I made the assertion that monogamy was more skillful than polygamy or polyandry. And I asked if anyone disagreed to challenge my assertion.

And someone did. And it was successful. At least I cannot see any legitimate retort.

The counter argument came from Shane Hennesey, who authors Zenfant’s Home for Dirty Dharma. If you haven’t read his blog, you ought to. The brother is a righteous writer. But Shane’s rebuttal wasn’t on his blog. He’s still working out the details for that. Rather, his retort was posted as a comment on this blog’s Facebook page. And here’s what he said in part:

“first off, i disagree that a monogamous situation is better than a multiple partner situation. they are both just situations, neither good or bad. they both have their stories we give them and they are just that…stories. Both situations can be done with skillful means on in unskillful ways. People can thrive in these situations or crater or something in between. One is not better than the other. Why be limited by these two situations? What about celibacy by choice? What about only sex with toys and only on Tuesdays?”

Shane is very persuasive here. Because if I’m honest in my self-evaluation – and what does Buddhism teach if not to evaluate what is self? – I must recognize that my preference for monogamy may be a form of rejection of my own behavior of going through multiple partners to “find the one.” By stating that monogamy is better, am I not merely trying to prettify my own life, to rationalize how I go through other guys ostensibly to find the perfect partner? And what if it is? What’s wrong with that? And if I feel uncomfortable with that, isn’t that discomfort coming from within me rather than from the rubric of multiple partners in and of itself?

However, I also acknowledge this line of thinking does lend itself to a slippery slope. There must be legitimate consent involved here. But by and large, where consent is involved and all those participating are granting informed consent, sex is sex, whether with one or many, all at once or one at a time. After all, I have to admit that I met a couple one time involved in a happily monogamous and committed relationship that had gone on for years, and you know where they met? In a bathhouse. At least that's what they told me, and I have no reason to disbelieve them.

I do want monogamy for myself. But that doesn’t make it superior to anyone else’s situation or preferences. And for me to assert that was pretty damned arrogant.

Regardless of what you do, it’s about skillfulness. It’s about not doing harm. And I’d be a liar if I were to say I’ve never harmed someone through living a “superior” lifestyle.

Thanks Shane for setting me “straight.” Now would you get on with writing your freaking blog?

Is one too many and a hundred not enough?

2012-01-31T18:36:00.000-08:00

First, let’s get the abject apology out of the way. Seriously, I haven’t been blogging lately. And maybe you’ve been wondering, “What’s that My Buddha is Pink dude been up to? He hasn’t posted anything in, like, for-ever!” And you’d be right to wonder that. But I have to admit, I’ve been stymied.

I ran into a discussion on my Facebook page (and if you haven’t visited, please do and help me get some discussions going, I mean seriously, all day I’m talking to people about successful use of social media and my Facebook page is a black hole for silence) that positively left me clueless as to a response. And it was about sex for goodness sake! Me clueless and unable to give a response about sex? I may have to give my toaster back! (you may only get that last reference if you were a diligent viewer of Ellen DeGeneres’ ill-fated TV series, you know, before she became the talk-show goddess that she is today)

Ellen, can you hear me? Can you feel me near you? Ellen, can you feel me? Can I help to cheer you? Ooo-oo-oo, Ellen, Ellen, Ellen.

OK, enough references to 1960s rock operas (but seriously, don’t you think Tommy was just a tad gay?)

Someone had posited that having multiple sex partners was fine and within the intention of the Third Precept as long as everything was consensual. Why would there be a preference inferred within the Third Precept for monogamy over polygamy or polyamory? And I have to say when this question was asked, I had no easy response. Instead, I asked more questions. And one of the questions I asked was whether this individual (who I know will read this because it will be posted to my Facebook page) had read any of the Buddhist literature, such as the Pali canon.

His reply was he had not.

His position that as long as one was behaving through proper social norms, having multiple sex partners would be within the intent of the Third Precept; just don’t be possessive of another and make sure that it’s consensual. I have to admit it’s a very beguiling argument, but my gut told me it was specious nonetheless. But what to say?

Look, I’ve never presented myself as an “expert” on Buddhism. I’ve “studied” a lot of the literature, and while my grounding is in the Thai Forest tradition, I’ve read a great deal of other publications in the Mahayana sphere. But I’m no academic, and I’m certainly no monk. Although, I have to admit that I’ve met some monks that my initial reaction was to think, “How can I get this monk to disrobe?” And I mean that both metaphorically and literally.

But I digress.

I had to agree that if one remained uncommitted, multiple sexual partners under the rubric of everything being consensual was probably not necessarily a violation of the Third Precept. But was such activity skillful? That was what was troubling me. Because my gut said no, it is not skillful, and it holds tremendous potential for future pain, suffering, anguish, misunderstanding, mistrust, and – not to forget – some nasty little diseases that may crop up.

Having said that, I needed something to back me up, to support my conclusion. Because sometimes the trouble with Buddhism is there are a lot of people who will identify as Buddhist who really don’t know much about what the Buddha taught. And it just seemed prudent to me that if you are going to identify as Buddhist, it would be wise to know something about the subject before deciding what is considered skillful Buddhist behavior.

I’m just sayin’.

And finally, I found my response. All it took was me picking up my copy of the Majjhima Nikāya and start reading it again. You see, I had stopped reading it regularly. In fact, I had stopped reading any Buddhist doctrine or literature on a regular basis. My practice had become irrelevant. It was time to make it relevant.

And what I found was the Ratthapala Sutta! Oh yeah, this guy Ratthapala had it goin’ on! While I’m sure there are other suttas that will address this question more specifically, I found Ratthapala’s discussion on the four teachings of the Buddha that attracted him to Buddhism very, how shall we say? – Enlightening.

The first: The world is swept away. It does not endure.

The second: The world is without shelter, without protector.

The third: The world is without ownership. One has to pass on, leaving everything behind.

The fourth: The world is insufficient, insatiable, a slave to craving.

When I read these, I was like, whoa! And the fourth item is what really clicked with me regarding my dilemma over multiple sexual partners.

When asked what he meant when he said, “The world is insufficient, insatiable, a slave to craving,” Ratthapala asked King Koravya if he was informed of another rich country that he could conquer and add to his own kingdom, what would he do? The king replied he would attack and conquer that country. And if another? He would conquer that too. On and on and to what end?

So, for someone who believes it’s OK to have multiple sexual partners as a regular lifestyle, someone comes up to you and says, “Hey, I know this hot dude who’d love to meet you.” Would you want to meet him? And if so, what if someone else comes along and says, “Hey this hot dude wants to get with you?’ Hey, why the heck not? And then maybe even this hot dude says, “Hey, I know this really hot guy who’d love a threesome.” Are you gonna go for it?

It’s all well and good except for one thing: you remain a slave to sensuality. You remain a slave to sensual indulgences. You think you’re free, but in reality, you’re a slave.

The other issue is the lack of intimacy in these relationships. I know someone who fits this, who told me he thinks he found someone he could “make a relationship with,” although it was clear to me there was no love. It was a matter of convenience. And even after saying he was interested in this guy, he was still sleeping with other men.

Now, lest you think that I am some holier-than-thou puritan of gay sex, let me make clear I am not. But I am seeking someone who can be a true partner. I don’t want multiple sex partners as much fun as it is. I’m like Hedwig. I seek my other half. And even as I say that, I realize that the fact that I am searching for that, for that man, means I still cling to sensuality.

But I accept that. I am fully aware that my desire to be with someone – one man – to share what’s left of my life means that I remain bound to the cycle of birth, life, and death. Despite that, this is how I believe a skillful lay person should live, even if you’re not getting laid much.

As I said earlier, I’m not a monk. Don’t even want to be one. And maybe my sentiment is condescending to those who accept a polyamorous lifestyle. But don’t you think there is more skill in wanting to make up your mind than in refusing to make up your mind?

Challenge me. I like it.

Three-legged stools everywhere!

2011-12-21T10:00:00.000-08:00

Riding public transportation in a metropolitan area can be at times – how shall we describe it? – interesting, to say the least. In Chicago, my most frequent mode of public transportation is the Brown Line. The majority of my rides are exceedingly uninteresting. But there are occasions when even I, my dear reader, have to shake my head in dismay.

Recently I boarded the Brown Line at Rockwell on my way to Lakeview. As I was perusing some of the notifications on my iPhone, I became aware of the fresh scent of beer. I looked over to my left and sitting across the aisle from me was a middle-aged man slurping beer from a quart bottle. I glanced at the time on my iPhone and thought to myself, “Well, I guess it’s not that bad. He waited until after 11 a.m. to start drinking.”

Perhaps my beer-drinking fellow passenger had a poorly developed sense of virtue.

On another Brown Line ride a woman boarded while speaking on her cell phone. A plethora of expletives tumbled out of her mouth with an ease that would shame the feistiest drag queen dealing with a broken heel on her pump while traipsing through the rain in Uptown. As I eavesdropped on her conversation – she was speaking so loudly on the phone that it was difficult for anyone in that car to ignore her – I began to learn that she was speaking to her son, who apparently didn’t want to go back to school (I’m presuming back to college). As she cursed her “encouragement” for him to get off his lazy effing ass and go to school to “make something of himself,” I heard her then admonish her son for using the F-word with her. “How dare you talk like that to me,” she said with complete seriousness.

I couldn’t help but smile as I thought of the irony that such a fine role model of a mother would be offended by a son who used the F-word. Perhaps she had a poorly developed sense of discernment.

Last night was perhaps the best Brown Line ride in a while. After I had finished my workout at the gym (lost 12 pounds so far!) I boarded the Brown Line at Belmont for my return home. Oh joy, there was a nut case on the car I boarded waxing ineloquently as he admonished his captive audience, ridiculing them for ignoring him and being heartless during this most wonderful time of the year. With a heavy sigh I took my seat and with eyes cast down, pulled out my iPhone to do something, perhaps slip into the gay first jhana where I find rapture and withdrawal in directing my thought to who’s on Grindr right now.

He went on and on about how everyone on the car would be enjoying Christmas, opening presents, while some friend of his – who must have been hospitalized – was facing certain death because of the overwhelming lack of generosity of those of us on the train. He even had photographs.

I bit my tongue, because the Buddha said that even true speech should not be spoken if such truth will likely lead to a – how shall we say? – more uncomfortable situation. I wanted to tell this idiot that not everyone on the train was going to be opening Christmas gifts or was even buying Christmas gifts and that, oh, by the way, we all are going to die, and you know why? Because we were born.

Nonetheless, I remained silent, thinking about how this kook had a poorly developed mind.

My, aren’t I the queen of all that is perfect and good! Because here I am, dealing with my own poorly developed mind, my poorly developed sense of discernment, and my complete lack of virtue.

Well, maybe I don’t have a complete lack of virtue, but saying my virtue is poorly developed would be an understatement; it would be like saying the Pope was merely a confused man.

But I digress.

The point is that we face constant distraction in the world around us and everywhere we turn, we see ourselves as we are now, or how we might become, if we lose sight of the three basic goals of Buddhism: the development of virtue, wisdom, and concentration.

Some of us may get overwhelmed by all the lists, rules, gathas and discourses within the Buddhist canon and think, “Whoa girlfriend! This is bunching up my panties, I can’t deal with all this! I need to de-stress with a cosmo.” But as the Buddha suggested to monks who were becoming overwhelmed with all the rules in the Pātimokkha, everything can be boiled down to three essential trainings.

The Buddha explained it again to a group of Brahmans, saying that if we pay attention to how we act, how we speak, and how we think, we can avoid a lot of problems later on. Evaluating our selves under these three areas is really what Buddhism is all about. The key, however, is to develop our virtue, wisdom and concentration simultaneously so our practice is balanced.

Think of a three-legged stool, where each leg is wisdom, virtue or concentration. To develop concentration (focus in meditation) our mind needs to be free from distraction, which is accomplished by being virtuous. But to be virtuous, we need the wisdom to know what is skillful and unskillful. But to have wisdom, we need to have the concentration to investigate phenomenon to be able to discern how things really are. And on and on.

If we over-emphasize one of the legs of the stool, we will metaphorically fall off our perch, like a barely-legal Boystown newbie who slides off his barstool after trying out his first Long Island Tea at Sidetrack. Yet I see many practitioners go running off toward jhana like a dazed mo with his first credit card dashing across Michigan Avenue toward the shrine of Ermenegildo Zenga.

Not that I am the epitome of Buddhist practice. I am far from it. But isn’t Buddhism about living rather than thinking? Isn’t the practice about how we behave rather than what level of self-absorption we think we have achieved and brag to others as if it were a bhodi badge of spirituality?

Perhaps the path is like riding the Brown Line in Chicago, filled with opportunities for self-reflection.

Successful dating and Right Effort

2011-12-07T07:44:00.000-08:00

The single life can be so dreary and stressful at the same time – alas, what is a poor gay boy to do? Striking the right balance can be so difficult. Endlessly checking Grindr or Jack’d for new cute faces more frequently than not leads to disappointing meetings and meaningless hookups that, when looking back, really weren’t very satisfying.

It’s enough to make you renounce the dating life altogether and retreat to the solitary life of, what? Perusing Internet porn? Watching episodes of Glee? Fantasizing that you’re in the Amazing Race? Maybe there’s a new Vietnamese restaurant I could check out. I got it, I’ll go buy something!

It’s like being on the dance floor between songs, during that period when there is no real melody and the back beat is transitioning. Do I just stand here and wait for the song to start? Do I dance a bit to the backbeat, uncertain of where it might go? Do I just go get a drink?

Actually, I think it’s more I am like a guitar with strings that are either too loose or too tight, never playable or in tune. Wait, that sounds so familiar, like something the Buddha would say.

Don’t faint or start thinking that I’ve lost my mind. I know what you’re thinking: What has the Buddha ever said about the gay dating scene? Nothing specific perhaps, but if you take a look at the Sona Sutta, the Buddha uses a very interesting metaphor.

Sona was a monk who exerted himself so intensely in his meditation practice that one time he had done walking meditation for so long that the soles of his feet were cracked and bleeding. He sat for some more meditation when the thought occurred to him something like this: “You know, I’m not getting much out of this monastic scene, there are still so many things I want. Why don’t I just chuck it all and go back home? I can still support the Sangha, plus enjoy a more comfortable life.”

Well, the Buddha became aware of this so he teleported himself to Sona’s side where he asked the monk, “Dude, what are you thinking?”

The Buddha then uses a metaphor involving a vina, a stringed instrument, to help Sona understand how to balance his efforts. If the strings are too tight, the instrument is unplayable. If the strings are too loose, the instrument is unplayable. Only when effort is exerted to find just the right string tension will the instrument be playable.

If you noticed, this sort of Goldilocks state of tension with the vina strings is right in the middle: not too tight, not too loose, but just right.

OK, I know what you’re thinking – what has this got to do with finding a boyfriend? Probably not much. Or maybe everything. But the real point is when our lives feel out of sorts, it may be from a lack of proper concentration, and to regain proper concentration, we must put forth the Right Effort.

Wow, aren’t I clever? I managed to turn the topic of gay dating into one about the Noble Eightfold Path!

But seriously, just about every time I feel like my life is a bit disconnected, I can trace the problem back to my meditation practice. While I seldom have gone to the extreme of meditating so much that my ass is sore, there are times when my practice becomes so lax that I go for days without even getting 10 minutes in. And what the Buddha was telling Soma was the right method, the Right Effort, was in the middle.

The notion of Right Effort is part of the concentration group in the Noble Eightfold Path. Among the key elements of Right Effort are the Four Right Efforts. These are:

1. Develop skillful actions that one does not already possess
2. Further develop skillful actions one already possesses so they become more refined
3. Abandon unskillful actions one already has
4. Prevent the development of unskillful actions that one does not have

In other words, strengthen whatever qualities you have that make you a decent person and a good date, work on developing other qualities that would make you an even better person and date, work on getting rid of those qualities that annoy people, and make sure you don’t develop any new negative qualities that limit your dating prospects.

Think of it this way: if you’re not aware of the things you do that bug people or make you less attractive to people, you’ll continue to lose on the dating front. And on a more serious note, if you’re always worried about what you do, how others perceive you, or continuously worry as to why people don’t want to date you, then you will be distracted and restless whenever you attempt to meditate.

Right Effort is required to develop disciplined concentration, and our most serious impediment to our efforts at concentration is all of the unskillful things we do that bring us regret or confusion, or just plain restlessness. It goes back to thinking about our practice as if it were a three-legged stool: each leg represents either Wisdom, Virtue, or Concentration. We need to refine our virtue to be able to concentrate during mediation without distraction by the things we’ve said or done, and when we achieve proper concentration, we start to develop wisdom that helps us further strengthen our virtue. Of course, before any of that is possible, we need at least wisdom enough to know what virtue is and how to get started.

So it’s back to the cushion for me with a bit more regularity. Remember, overdoing it can be just as bad as not doing it at all. And finding that balance in anything takes effort – the Right Effort.

Requiem for a true friend

2011-11-28T13:28:00.000-08:00

On Thanksgiving Day before my brother and his wife and my sister and her husband arrived for the weekend, I got in a workout at the gym and then met a friend afterward for lunch. We went to Chinatown on the north side in Uptown and ate at Pho 777 where Stephen filled me in on how his medical internship was going.

Stephen speaks English very well. He’s from Taiwan and here on a visa completing a medical residency/internship program that has been really difficult for him at a Chicago hospital. Although he speaks English very well, his listening comprehension isn’t quite as good, particularly if the English speaker is a non-native English speaker. It’s been very stressful for him; at one point he was ready to give up and go back to Taiwan where he is already a licensed radiologist. But he selected internal medicine for his residency program in the U.S.

Anyway, we had lunch and I listened to him, encouraged that his really difficult rotations were about to end. He was optimistic that his next two rotations won’t be as difficult.

After lunch I returned home knowing that I would need to feed Symba again. Following the surgery in early October that removed a horrible infection in his mouth – and which revealed that he had a very aggressive form of cancer – he could only eat soft food from a can. The surgery removed most of his teeth and he needed to gain weight. His appetite was voracious, and he managed to keep the food down as well. His coat was gradually getting shinier, although he wasn’t grooming himself. However, brushing him we both enjoyed as it gave me some quality time with him. I knew his days were numbered.

When I returned home Symba was snoozing on his usual spot – a small pile of brown grocery sacks on the kitchen table. He perked up when he saw me, anticipating his feast as I got the canned food out as well as some dishes. He meowed nosily as usual. When he jumped down from his spot on the table I noticed some dried blood on his right front leg. There was no injury to the leg, but it looked like he may have been bleeding from the mouth. This happened before and the incident was brief despite being quite alarming. It was a small amount of dried blood, so I just made a mental not to keep track of these incidents.

Symba wolfed his food as usual. It was quite obvious there were no issues with his appetite, not that there ever was really. I gave Tazz some soft food also, although just a tiny amount as Tazz was able to eat the dry food left out for him. I then went to clean up some new hairballs Tazz had hurled on the carpet. I had returned to the kitchen where I was rinsing out the rag I used to clean these spots up when I noticed Symba at the kitchen doorway.

Although sitting on his haunches, he was very unsteady, his body teetering side to side, and there was bright red blood dripping from his mouth. He then took his paw and furiously pawed at the side of his head as if there was something crawling all over his face. I crouched down next to him to get a closer look, to try and determine what happened, what I should do. I petted him as I examined his mouth – he immediately sensed my petting and responded with affection – and saw with this incident there was a lot more blood than before.

And he was still bleeding.

Then the most extraordinary event occurred, something I will find hard to forget. Symba’s entire front end, his front legs and all just collapsed as he fell face-first to the floor, his hind legs still up. His body was stiff and he uttered a baleful meow that was quickly followed by his back end falling sideways to the floor.

Alright, I’m not sure of the exact sequence of events, but somewhere in all this I got my phone and called my vet, who I knew wouldn’t answer, but I also knew the message at the office would have the phone number for the pet emergency hospital. Symba seemed to recover somewhat. He sat up, shook his head, which nearly knocked him over because he was so unsteady, and then he got back up on the kitchen table to be on his pile of grocery sacks just like he always did after eating. The hemorrhaging had abated, but there were drips of blood coming from his mouth. Symba looked really out of it.

I got the pet emergency hospital on the phone and began describing what was going on. When Symba collapsed, it was just like the videos I had seen in the past of farm animals when they founder – the collapse begins at the front of the body with the back end falling 2 to 3 seconds later. I got directions to the hospital, then went to get the travel cage as I called my brother to find out where he and his wife were. It was about 3 p.m. I think and I was expecting them around 5. He said they were in Indiana, so they weren’t that far. I told them I might not be home when they got to my apartment, so would they mind waiting in the street until I got back?

“I think Symba is dying,” I said.

It was difficult for me to drive at first. Seriously, I was freaking out and starting to cry. Symba was starting to bleed again. But I told myself it wouldn’t do anyone any good if I crash the car because I’m blubbering and couldn’t see the road or wasn’t paying attention. So I pulled it together and began the drive. One thing nice about Chicago on Thanksgiving: traffic is not a problem. Symba traveled as best as can be expected, but I think he went through another one of those collapses about half-way to the animal hospital.

The pet emergency room was a bit busy when I arrived with at least a dozen other people there. I put the pet carrier on the counter as I told the receptionist I was there and that I had called just a bit ago.

“And what is Symba’s problem?” The receptionist kindly asked. Consternation is such a mild term, but it described her expression as she looked at the pet carrier while I spoke.

“He’s hemorrhaging from the mouth and I think he’s been seizing.”

I didn’t have to wait; she took me to an examination room and called for a physician. They began examining Symba as I retold the sequence of events. When they went to weigh him, he seized again as he was being placed on the scale. They took Symba to another examination room where they sought to raise his body temperature and observe him. The doctor came back and we talked options. She explained that she believed that he was almost blind, that he saw motion, but it didn’t appear that he could clearly see forms. The size of his head and the shape of his skull suggested that the cancer was not just in his jaw, but very likely in his brain. There were tests if I wanted them done …

I had heard enough.

They brought Symba back to me. He was wrapped up in soft blankets to keep him warm. I held him in my arms and gently stroked the back of his head. I was left alone with him for a while. He responded affectionately to my petting, pushing his head against my hand as he always did. But one thing I noticed right away: he wasn’t purring.

After a few minutes the doctor returned and explained the procedure. I requested that I be allowed to hold him when it happened. They took Symba for just a few minutes to insert a catheter into his left foreleg, then returned him to my lap. First they sedated him. He quietly went limp in my arms. Then they injected him with propofol, the same drug that killed Michael Jackson.

I kept petting Symba as I told the vet about how I had Symba since he was a kitten, that he was rescued from the pound when he was 6 weeks old. I then handed Symba to her. Would I like to take his ashes home, she asked?

I shook my head. “Symba’s gone. That’s just a body.”

They did make a paw print, however, and gave that to me. A very cute Asian boy cleaned the blood out of his carrier for me. And then I drove back home to meet my brother and his wife. We later went out to eat dinner.

So why am I telling you all this? It’s not for sympathy. I guess it’s partly to get things out of my head in a thoughtful, cogent way. But it’s also to talk about kamma.

Yes, I created some kamma that day when I agreed to have Symba killed. You can call it euthanasia, “putting him down,” “putting him to sleep,” whatever pretty little name or phrase you like. It doesn’t change the fact that Symba is dead because I killed him. You can rationalize all you want, but Symba died at the moment that he did die because I authorized someone to kill him. You can say he was going to die anyway, but that can be said for all of us. We’re all going to die. In this case I deliberately and with forethought had Symba killed.

But here’s where I think many are wrong. Some may say that it was the compassionate thing to do. Perhaps. Some may say that by my doing this, I’ve interfered with Symba’s experiencing his own kamma. Maybe. I say the truth lies somewhere in the middle.

Symba’s kamma and my kamma are not isolated from one another. Just as the Buddha taught, kamma is not linear, but involves multiple feedback loops over time and even lifetimes. With the simile of the Salt Crystal the Buddha teaches us that even with very bad things that we’ve done, we have every succeeding moment to work through and eliminate the kamma we create.

But we don’t create kamma alone. My own kamma and Symba’s kamma were intertwined. We were both suffering. While one may say that to kill him would be interfering with Symba’s kamma, one may also say for me to allow “nature to run its course” could potentially interfere with my kamma. It’s simply not black and white.

No living creature wants to die. Even the tiniest spider will do all it can to preserve its life. Heck, even an amoeba will flee from pain. Which is why, when given the opportunity and even the advice to kill Symba earlier on as soon as cancer was even a possibility, I rejected the idea of killing Symba despite most advising it. If that’s really how we’re going to manage life, then my parents should have killed me when I was 2 years old and stricken with pneumonia. We’re all going to die anyway, right? Why go through all that suffering?

Symba didn’t need the power of speech to tell me he didn’t want to die. And it’s not difficult to conclude that I didn’t want to see him suffer any longer. What I wanted to avoid for both my own and Symba’s sake was turning this event into a matter of convenience.

Some may say my decision was still ultimately made around a notion of convenience. I do not disagree. Just remember, you weren’t there.

Symba: May 1, 1996 - Nov. 24, 2011

Do Buddhists worship idols?

2011-10-30T07:25:00.000-07:00

Ajahn Yuttadhammo addresses the issue of idol worship in Buddhism, pointing out that while ostensibly Buddhists do not worship idols, many Buddhists do, in fact, worship idols (and not just Madonna or Lady Gaga). The fact that many Buddhists do worship idols is a central issue with why many Muslims and Christians are so hostile toward Buddhism and Buddhists.

Yuttadhammo

Yuttadhammo has a series of videos "Ask a Monk" that are interesting and informative. They're worth checking out.

I have used the explanation that Yuttadhammo mentions of my possessing a Buddha statue and the creation of an altar is not idol worship, but a point of focus in my endeavor to develop mindfulness. And the Buddha didn't really say no to idols, just as he didn't completely rule out rites and rituals, as long as the practitioner was mindful that rites and rituals (and presumably idols) were empty and held no significance in and of themselves. If such objects or practices were helpful for developing mindfulness, then fine, they are useful as tools (I do believe somewhere in the Tipitika the Buddha warned of relic worship following his death). But the Buddha was not, is not, a god.

But it's easy to understand how some non-Buddhists are confused, particularly when many practitioners talk about "praying" to the Buddha, etc. (Again, someplace in the Tipitika I believe the Buddha is quoted as saying something to the effect that there is nothing to pray for because there is nothing to pray to)

I hope you take the time to investigate Yuttadhammo's other videos, particularly the ones on meditation. They're very informative and helpful.

Does success lead to indifference?

2011-10-27T13:53:00.000-07:00

About a week ago a horrific incident in China spread across the interwebs with videos popping up showing the world the unbelievable – a hit-and-run crash in which a truck runs over a toddler in a Chinese market. But it wasn’t just the hit-and-run itself that was so shocking. It was the nearly two-dozen people who walked by the toddler as she lay injured and bleeding in the alley. Of all people, it was an immigrant woman collecting trash who saw the child and came to her aid.

There was plenty of U.S. media coverage of the incident; this particular video is stunning, although there are more graphic videos out there that show the actual collision between the truck and the child. An article in the Chinese newspaper Xinhua revealed how quickly Chinese and the world shared the story across the Internet. But perhaps much more revealing was this statement in the Xinhua article:

“The incident has left many people to wonder if China's rapid economic development has had an effect on ethics and morality in the general public.”

This particular incident in China may recall to some a similar event that occurred in the U.S. in 1964, the Catherine “Kitty” Genovese murder. The lead in the New York Times article about the murder, published two weeks after the killing, present an ugly and horrifying picture of fear and apathy:

“For more than half an hour 38 respectable, law-abiding citizens in Queens watched a killer stalk and stab a woman in three separate attacks in Kew Gardens.

“Twice their chatter and the sudden glow of their bedroom lights interrupted him and frightened him off. Each time he returned, sought her out, and stabbed her again. Not one person telephoned the police during the assault; one witness called after the woman was dead.”

This literally became a textbook example in many schools – I know we talked about it in a high school class of mine – of how people become numbed by fear and no longer show any interest in their fellow human beings.

How do people become so insensitive to others? It’s a natural question to ask, but it’s not really the right question to ask, the skillful question to ask. We can examine why people become insensitive, why they lack compassion or are unwilling to show compassion toward others, until we have what we might consider a definitive answer. But finding that answer won’t ensure we become compassionate ourselves, it does not lead one to being more compassionate.

When I was 10 or 11 years old, I was with a buddy of mine and his mom as we walked through downtown Midland, Mich., for the annual carnival days and sidewalk sales. It was such a gay time, but as we walked along I saw how people were making way for something. As we got near we saw a man lying on the sidewalk, blood streaming from his nose. Apparently he had been in a fight right there and was knocked down, his assailant nowhere to be seen. I’d never seen that much blood come out of a person’s nose before. He was conscious, but just lying there. My friend’s mom without hesitation, with not a shred of shock or dismay on her face, took her handkerchief out of her handbag and offered it to the man. I can still picture her in her slim dress, probably a Jackie O kind of thing that all the women were wearing at the time, it had to be about 1968, just as prim as can be offering her clean white lace-trimmed hanky to this brute on the ground with blood forming a pool just below his face. He at first declined her offer. She insisted, said it wasn’t doing her any good and it would likely do him some good. He acquiesced. Could she get some medical help? No, he wanted to be left alone. So be it, and we moved on. All during that episode, dozens of other people just walked by, taking only furtive glances before hurrying on. As we walked on, a couple medics were apparently on their way to help.

There were a lot of other children around that day. For most of them, the lesson was don’t pay attention, don’t get involved, pretend it doesn’t exist.

We don’t need to understand why people lack compassion. We simply must instill it within ourselves and express it to others. Unsurprisingly, the Buddha had plenty to say about this because even monks are not immune to indifference.

In the Kucchivikara-vatthu, the Buddha encounters a sangha where there is a monk seriously ill with dysentery, fouled with his own urine and excrement. But none of the other monks are attending to the sick monk. The Buddha asks the sick monk why.

"I don't do anything for the monks, lord, which is why they don't attend to me."

Now, the Buddha is a level headed guy, not given to extreme fits of emotion. Nonetheless, I have to think that when the Buddha heard this, he was freaking fucking mad. But the first thing the Buddha did was to immediately start attending to the monk, bathed him and put him to bed. After that, the Buddha went to the rest of the monks and asked them why they hadn’t been attending to the ailing monk. Their answer?

"He doesn't do anything for the monks, lord, which is why (we) don't attend to him."

Being the level-headed guy that he was – I mean really, getting all angry and bent out of shape accomplishes nothing – the Buddha firmly reminded the monks that they have abandoned their homes, which means they have no mothers or fathers or siblings or anyone else to attend to them. That means they must attend to each other.

It’s part of the Four Right Efforts when you think about it: Remove negative behavior and thinking from ourselves that already exists; prevent new negative behavior and thinking from arising in us that doesn’t already exist; further develop positive thinking and behavior that is already developed in us; and nurture and encourage new positive thinking and behavior in us that doesn’t already exist. We don’t need to understand why; we just need to do it because the benefits of such self-directed action will be readily apparent.

That’s not to say that there aren’t many obstacles out there that actively discourage being compassionate. As the title of this post suggests, new-found prosperity can lead to callousness, even without us being aware of it. We live in such a litigious society that we may fear aiding others because we might get sued. And particularly with children, men – especially gay men – need to be extra careful. If I see an obviously lost or distressed child, I don’t help the child. Instead, I seek out a woman and ask her to help the child, because if I do it, someone will carelessly accuse me of being a child molester.

But I think the most dangerous and destructive mental attitude we must be alert for is this line of thinking: This doesn’t pertain to me, it’s none of my business.

That Chinese toddler died from her injuries. Had she received help promptly, it might have been a different outcome. Then again, she might have died anyway. But all those people who ignored her? Oh, the kamma they have made.

The image with this post is not mine, but was given to me with permission to use. However, I can't recall whose image it is, so let me know so I can give you proper credit.

Selfishness disguised as compassion, or kamma can suck

2011-10-16T08:30:00.000-07:00

For the past several days I’ve been struggling over what to do with my cat, Symba. He’s been sniffling and sneezing and losing weight, which I largely attributed to some type of severe allergy or sinus infection. However, there was a key symptom I wasn’t paying attention to: Symba’s breath was awful smelling, like rot. Everything else was beguilingly normal; all his other body functions were operating, shall we say, unimpeded. And he was especially perky whenever I fed him and Tazz, my other cat, soft food.

When I finally took Symba in to see the vet, the news was dire. It wasn’t merely nasal congestion or some allergy going on. It was an infection, but it was in his mouth. He had already lost several teeth, his breath smelled rotten because of all the pus building in his gums and even the roof of his mouth, which was starting to look like maggot-ridden hamburger. The swelling from the pus on his right cheek was so intense it was ready to burst through the outside of his cheek; the vet showed me the spot where hair was starting to disappear. That’s why he was constantly rubbing and grooming that side of his head with a paw. And that’s why he showed excitement when I brought out the soft food, because his mouth hurt so much to eat dry food.

I was overwhelmed with sadness, but it wasn’t for Symba – it was all about me. I hadn’t recognized it fully, however, at that moment. Oh, I knew I felt guilt for not paying closer attention to Symba’s symptoms. And I felt guilt over not listening to a vet 8 years ago who told me that Symba was developing gum disease that ought to be taken care of. But when he told me that it would cost $150 to clean his teeth when I hadn’t gone to a dentist in years to take care of my own teeth, I said no. Now I was looking at major surgery for Symba to the tune of at least $900, potentially more.

There was the possibility, the vet told me, that Symba’s problems were entirely restricted to this awful – and I mean AWFUL – mouth infection. She said there was a possibility he may have bone cancer in the jaw as well. If that were the case, she recommended putting him down. But there was a catch. She would need to begin the surgery on his mouth before she could see and determine if cancer were present. And even then, it may not be immediately obvious, which would then necessitate a biopsy. Biopsy results could take a couple days, meaning the mouth surgery would be completed and a few days after his return home, the biopsy result would be available.

This all meant that I could end up spending more than $900 only to learn later that Symba’s days were over. That bugged me. Really bugged me. But a voice inside reminded me had I listened to that vet 8 years ago and paid the $150 then, I wouldn’t be faced with $900 now.

This was all on Thursday. The vet told me she couldn’t do the surgery until Monday. If all went well, Symba could be home that evening. If it were just the mouth infection, she said his prognosis was actually excellent. Symba wouldn’t have any teeth, but should fully recover. They had a plan, also, that would allow me to pay for the surgery over time, interest free. I qualified, so I agreed to schedule the surgery for Monday with the knowledge that I still had the weekend to think things over.

That evening I had dinner over at a friend’s house. He gave me very practical feedback. I don’t have $900, this would add to my debt load, even if only temporarily, he told me. Symba was 15 years old, he’s lived a good life. I gave him an excellent home, took care of him and loved him. I shouldn’t feel guilty over not addressing the gum disease issue in the past. I also had my own life situation to consider. My cat food costs would like go up after this because I would need to buy soft food more frequently, so long term my expenses would rise. I needed to think about myself in this situation as well.

It was all very persuasive. My friend made excellent and valid points. I didn’t have any money, no savings at all, and Symba was 15 years old, at the high end of a cat’s normal life span. Even if the surgery was successful and there was no cancer, how many more years would I be giving to Symba?

Friday I worked at home, although frankly, I was not very productive. I struggled with my decision. I couldn’t ignore the cost and the impact that would have on me.

Symba seemed to sense something was troubling me. He came out of his corner where he’s been spending his days, the lower shelf on a small case where I keep grocery bags, and came into my home office. He looked at me, meowed loudly (I think he’s deaf now, and that may be the result of the infection as well), then jumped into my lap. I reclined back into my chair and he laid his frail body against me and began to purr. I understood now why his fur was so ratty looking; he wasn’t grooming himself because of the mouth infection. I knew why he had lost weight; because it hurt his mouth to eat the dry food. I was overwhelmed with sadness and guilt. I apologized to him. I did this to him. I had failed. And the decision to have him put down was beginning to take shape.

But it was still all about me.

I was ready to take him to the animal hospital that moment and have it done. But there was somebody else I wanted to talk to first. Benny. So I left a message for Benny to give me a call. While waiting for Benny’s call, I drove to Whole Foods to pick up some items with the idea that I would park my car on the street when I got back, making it easier to bring Symba down to the car to take him to the vet. But when I returned from Whole Foods, there were no street parking spaces, so I drove back to the alley to my garage.

Back inside, I tried to do a little work, responded to some emails, and then Benny called. We chatted for a bit and he said something that surprised me. Benny’s known about my Buddhist practice, I even tried to teach him meditation but he didn’t stick with it. He said that my dilemma sounded like something I should meditate on.

Duh. When was the last time I meditated? My practice had really gone to shit. It must have been weeks, perhaps months, since I last mediated. What was up with that? After my call with Benny, that’s exactly what I did, I went to the cushion.

It was a struggle. My mind was all over the place. Rather than attempt to “think” about anything, my decision or whatever, I just brought my mind back to my breath. Over and over it would run wild into this or that thought, and I would each time bring it back to the breath. By then end of the session, I had achieved some semblance of mental calm. I then began my normal routine of chanting some Pali verses after the silent sit. Needless to say I got a bit choked up when I said out loud, “May all beings be free from suffering.” But what really got to me was reciting the Five Recollections.

“I am of the nature to grow old, I have not got beyond aging.
“I am of the nature to be sick, I have not got beyond disease.
“I am of the nature to die, I have not got beyond death.
“All that is mine, beloved, and pleasing, changes and vanishes.
“I am the owner of my kamma, the creator of my kamma, born of my kamma, related to my kamma, abide supported in my kamma; whatever kamma I create – skillful or unskillful, light or dark – to that I fall heir.”

My voice trembled as I recited this, but something was coming up. Something was rising.

I went back to my computer and began a search with the terms “euthanizing pets Buddhism.” The discussion was all over the place, but I began to see a common thread. And in particular, it was discussion on how our sense of compassion may not really be compassion at all, but a mask to cover up selfish intentions. We tell ourselves that our beloved pet is suffering and so we seek to end that suffering. At the other extreme is the notion we should never euthanize our pets because they have their own kamma to work through and by euthanizing them we’re interfering with that. I found that argument to be bullshit, largely because it presumes that we “know” what kamma the animal has and must deal with. Now that is ego to the extreme. Plus, such a position logically leads us never to intervene when anyone is sick because we might be interfering with their kamma. That’s just crazy.

But the notion that the option of euthanizing an animal was merely a smoke-screen covering up our own discomfort with disease and death was resonating with me. The more I began to re-evaluate Symba’s symptoms, the more I began to see that the likelihood he also had cancer was extremely low. I’ve had pets that were on death’s door because of either feline leukemia or another terminal illness. It was clear that they were close to death because they weren’t eating, some couldn’t even lift up their head and they could barely respond to any type of affection.

Beyond the fact that he had a horrible mouth, Symba was still Symba. He remained affectionate and even playful, particularly if he knew I was preparing soft food for him.

We all get sick. Sometimes really, really sick. But we don’t die from every illness. Not every illness is fatal. In fact, we recover from really major illnesses all the time.

And so do animals.

I do have responsibility for Symba’s illness. After all, I cannot ignore the fact that I did not heed the advice of that vet 8 years ago. Symba’s and my kamma are connected. And this got me thinking of the simile of the salt crystal. I can’t erase my negligence and selfishness entirely all in one sweep, but I do have an opportunity to remedy this and eliminate not just my kamma but Symba’s as well. And when I came to that realization, this burden I had been feeling was completely lifted. I felt light and at ease, like a shadow that never leaves.

So I will be bringing Symba in on Monday morning, but it will be for the surgery. Certainly there is the possibility that he has cancer and in that case, we’ll put him down. But I truly believe that is a slim chance. Despite that, I am comfortable with my decision. Symba doesn’t want to die and he doesn’t need to now. For me to think I would be doing him a favor by euthanizing him was delusion.

This time the decision was about Symba.

Observing the past, then walking away

2011-09-25T10:46:00.000-07:00

Saturday I returned from a week in Arizona where I visited places I hadn’t seen in 30 years. Yes, things change, but how things change can be interesting. While the Bhaddekarrata suttas (MN 131, 132, 133, 134) wisely instruct us to avoid living in the past, such guidance does not equate to ignoring the past nor refusing to peruse it to discern any secrets it might reveal.

For example, one of the places I visited was Red Rock Crossing near Sedona, Arizona. I like to call Sedona the chic epicenter of new-age ethnocentrism and self-inflated egos, the home of the harmonic distortion, er, convergence. Seriously, Sedona is a beautiful place, but not my favorite spot in Arizona. It is where mysticism dies to become commercialized.

Red Rock Crossing is to the south and east of Sedona and is home to one of the most photographed views around, Cathedral Rock at Red Rock Crossing. Thirty years ago my journey to Red Rock Crossing took me along a lonely gravel road to a small park where folks brought their kids and picnics. The crossing had a gorgeous view of Cathedral Rock and was a hugely popular swimming hole. The red sandstone making the creek bottom was covered with a slick moss, which made the rock excellent for sliding along, letting the current push you through small chutes and into deep pools.

Today, the location is a state park surrounded by multi-million dollar homes all huddled together to get that “view.” Instead of a gravel road, it’s paved. The place had changed so much it was difficult for me to find the spot where we used to swim. The water wasn’t clear any more, but ruddy, the current carrying various flotsam and jetsam discarded by an egotistical society that believes that views can be owned. Joni Mitchell’s “Big Yellow Taxi” came to mind. I managed to finally reach the spot, but it wasn’t the same; the creek was lower, likely because of all those seven-figure homes with wells that were sucking the water out of the underground stream. The final insult was the new age “sorceress” there smudging a man by the waterside, undoubtedly for a hefty fee. The tone of her Tibetan chiming bowl was divine.

Other places I visited were still great. I love the atmosphere of Jerome, Arizona, and the mystical aura of the various Sinagua ruins in the national monuments that can be found in the vicinity. One spot in particular was important to me, Walnut Canyon National Monument east of Flagstaff. Here is a photo I took of my parents (both now dead) circa 1980 as they rested along the Island Trail in the park.

And here is a photo of me sitting in what I believe to be the same spot roughly 30 years later.

The former photo was taken with a Konica TC Autoreflex (which I still have) using a 50mm lens. The later was taken with a Nikon D70 with a wide-angle lens, hence the different perspective.

My homage to the past is merely that, a nod of respect toward what has happened. It is not a longing for the past, for as the Buddha taught us, the past is gone. To say that I feel nothing in terms of the past would be a lie for certain. But I don’t need to cling to it and any desire to do so is gone. Each day I capture a drop of water, and each time I give it back to the sea.

There’s a Little Wayman in all of us

2011-08-27T09:09:00.000-07:00

What can a Jataka tale about a dullard novice whose brother attempts to expel him from the Buddha’s Sangha teach us about our own potential as gay practitioners? Quite a bit, it seems, as long as we persevere even when facing what seems to be the darkest of times and we allow ourselves to be guided by the calling that comes from within our own hearts rather than the admonitions and even shouts from the world around us.

This isn’t always easy, particularly when stories like this continue to occur.

The Buddha taught that how we live our present life will determine the condition and circumstances of our rebirth. The simplistic way of looking at this leads us to conclude that living a good, moral life will not only bring us happiness now, but also greater happiness in our next life. But kamma isn’t so simple, not so linear. And it’s easy for us as gay people to fall into a line of thinking that the fact we are born gay is a negative consequence for something we may have done in a previous life – that is if you accept the notion of rebirth. Not all Buddhists do.

In some instances within the Tipitika, the Buddha explicitly states that living a good life now will lead to a good or better next life, but these situations usually involve the laity and times when the Buddha crafted his teaching according to his audience. When one considers the entirety of the Tipitika, however, one sees that what the Buddha was more likely attempting to convey was that living a good moral life would bring one closer to Nibbana, to total release, with each successive rebirth, regardless of the specific circumstances one was born into each time.

Humans in general have many hang-ups regarding sex, so it stands to reason that many Buddhist teachers – even very well-respected teachers – have hang-ups not just about sex in general, but about homosexuals in particular. Many of these teachers suggest that being homosexual is a consequence of our previous lives, the results of kamma. I agree with this, but not the same way as these teachers suggest. This is because I don’t subscribe to a linear notion of kamma and rebirth, that not every successive existence is necessarily better than the last even when the prior existence was an exemplary life. And I offer the Cullaka-Setthi-Jātaka to explain this.

In this Jātaka tale, we have two brothers, Wayman and Little Wayman, who come from humble beginnings. The elder Wayman joins the Buddha’s Sangha and, finding the monastic life to be fulfilling, entices his younger brother to become a monk as well. But Little Wayman proves to be a dullard, unable to learn the teachings and fails to remember even the simplest of gathas. So Wayman takes it upon himself to expel his brother from the Sangha.

Being omniscient, the Buddha becomes aware of this and intercedes. There are some really wonderful passages in this story, but I don’t want to bog things down, so I will skip over many of the details. But the Buddha gives Little Wayman a clean cloth for the novice to wipe his face and head. When Little Wayman does this, he sees how the cloth becomes soiled and eventually comes to realize that it represents how he is removing the soil of his delusions and expelling them from his mind. This young novice was ready for this teaching and became an arahant. The Buddha explains to the others how this happened by revealing what he knows about Little Wayman’s previous lives.

In a previous life, Little Wayman was destitute and poor, but, as a young man then, he overheard a wealthy treasurer make a statement about taking an opportunity and profiting from it. That young man took that advice and within four months became extraordinarily wealthy. He returned to the wealthy treasurer (who was the Buddha in a previous life) who gave the young man a job and allowed him to marry his daughter. In this previous life, Little Wayman was no dullard, but a very apt pupil with the potential to realize great things as long as he persevered. But here’s an interesting twist.

Despite rising to be a wealthy merchant in that previous life, Little Wayman was re-born poor to parents of mixed parentage. His mother came from wealth, but she married a slave, bringing shame to her offspring. So Little Wayman was not reborn into steadily rising social circumstances; rather, he was reborn into circumstances that prepared him for his eventual enlightenment.

As homosexuals we aren’t reborn gay as a negative consequence for something that we did in a previous life. And heterosexuals aren’t reborn straight as a positive consequence. It just simply is. But the circumstance of our present life is the result of what has happened before and probably reflects our growing ability to “hear” the Dhamma with the right ears. We are where we are because of the path we took, regardless of whether we are conscious of how far we have traveled over the eons. Those who sit in a self-exalted state to proclaim they know why we were born gay are only revealing their stubborn clinging to delusion.

Little Wayman almost gave up because he believed his older brother who told him he failed. As a result, they both were about to fail by giving up not only on each other, but on themselves. The cycle of their rebirths, fortunately, brought the two of them to the Buddha who helped them see release despite their humble beginnings.

The photo with this post is not mine, and I want to express thanks for the permission to use it.

Chicago temple gets some unwelcomed attention

2011-08-22T11:35:00.000-07:00

Well drat, I missed an opportunity this weekend to join a group of protesters rallying outside of a Chicago-area Theravada temple, bringing attention to allegations that a monk at the temple had sexually assault a girl there. I only found out about it via Barbara O’Brien’s blog the day after the demonstration. Had I known about this event, I would certainly have gone.

There was also a related demonstration in Long Beach, Calif. I love the quote from the Orange County Chapter of SNAP, Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, which organized the two demonstrations: “It’s a different religion, but it’s the same story.”

I wrote about this situation not too long ago, and my conclusion then remains the same: There needs to be some type of oversight of these temples, regardless of whether they be Theravada, Zen, Tibetan – whatever. But the reality of the situation remains true as well, because these organizations do have members, and these members are the ones who should be raising hell about this.

As mentioned in my earlier post, I had contacted some monks I know for their thoughts. Two replied to my queries with the same message: While the monk’s action is deplorable, these “ethnically oriented” temples are not interested in outside pressure to police monks and we “outsiders” should just leave them alone and let them figure out how to deal with this on their own.

Now this is where my reaction could easily be taken out of context to portray me as a reactionary anti-immigration xenophobe, because to that notion of just “let them deal with it themselves” I say a loud and forceful, “Fuck that!”

We are in America, not Thailand or Cambodia, or anywhere else where the locals might sheepishly avoid confrontation with their religious leaders. And while I have no problem with immigrants bringing with them their homeland culture to add richness and diversity to our American culture, when that culture is one of silence and fear, then fuck that. You can send that attitude back on the boat.

Regardless of what this monk told his Sangha, regardless of what the Vinaya says about this, there is the Third Precept, which in numerous places throughout the Tipitika identifies inappropriate sexual contact with a child as constituting sexual misconduct.

This monk doesn’t need to go back to Thailand. He needs to go to jail.

BTW, the photo with this post is from Bali and has nothing to do with the temple in Chicago. It's just a nice photo of some cute boys with slingshots. Yes, they had slingshots. Hunting for rats maybe?

Whittling away at anger

2011-08-15T09:23:00.000-07:00

Recently while on my commute to work, a taxi driver in the lane to the right of me decided he wanted to make a left turn at the intersection I was about to proceed through. He waved at me for letting him go through while I cursed loudly at him. I had no choice but let him through as he cut me off.

Immediately I chastised myself for losing my temper like that. I practice what the Buddha taught his son Rahula, and that was to immediately cultivate a sense of shame at my own behavior.

Alas, I do that often, because anger remains a major issue for me. And as evidenced by some recent bloggers, it is an issue for others as well.

I am ashamed to admit that words like “moron!” and the f-bomb frequently flow effortlessly from my lips while I am driving. Unlike with other activities, the anger button is easily pushed while driving. I can be doing a lot of other things and never reach that fast flare of anger that seems to instantly arise when I’m behind the wheel. And the reason is very simple, despite my apparent inability to sufficiently deal with it: it’s ego.

You see, when I’m driving, all the rest of you are in my way. I’m quite perfect. I leave well-enough ahead of time so I don’t have to be in a rush, so it’s not that I’m in your way, it’s you haven’t planned enough time for your drive. And when you do get in my way, it’s because you’re a rude and pathetic self-centered bee-atch!

Well, maybe it’s not everyone else on the road.

The Buddha was consistently clear on how poisonous anger is for us. When he describes the Big Three – I’m not talking automakers – of greed, hatred and delusion, anger is right in there tied up with hatred. Anger is a form of hatred, it is an expression of hatred, and it sullies our kamma every time we allow its expression. Contrary to many pop psychologists, venting anger does not make us feel better; it does not relieve us of our anger. Rather, venting anger gives our mind fodder for justifying future anger so it is sure to reappear again.

Remember the Bhaddekaratta Sutta and the lesson it has for us? We must pay attention to what we are doing right now because what we do right now shapes what is yet to be.

An entire chapter of the Dhammapada is devoted to anger and our need to rid ourselves of this. Anger is described as wretched, causing one to appear ugly and drive away his friends. The Samyukta Agama simply guides us with, “Not being angry is always better than being angry.” And if that wasn’t enough for you, anger is identified as one of the Five Hindrances to one’s practice, more commonly labeled as ill will.

Face it, anger’s got to go.

Granted, the examples of what gets me angry are rather petty. Many of you may believe that what gets you angry is so much more important, so much more meaningful. But I think it’s safe to say that the allegedly “important” things we get angry about are generally infrequent. Most of us get pissed off by really stupid things.

I hope that I am less angry today than I was yesterday, and last month, and last year, etc. But it requires effort, something I don’t always remember and even when I do sometimes remember, it’s effort I want to avoid. I like being angry. I must, because there are so many things I do to nurture it. And if you have issues with anger, I suggest that you must like it as well. If you didn’t like being angry, you would rid yourself of this venomous emotion like you would dispose of a Ted Nugent recording.

When I do cultivate the necessary awareness of my anger, there are a couple tricks I employ. One I mentioned earlier, and that is to immediately create a sense of shame within myself for reacting with anger. I remind myself that the object of my anger, usually another person, is suffering like I do but I have no idea of what they are dealing with. Rather than react with a knee-jerk response that my woes are so much more important and overwhelming than anyone else’s, I attempt to develop a bit of compassion and empathy for my fellow human – even if he or she is an asshole. Whoops, did I say that?

Another trick I use when this option is available is to quickly find a mirror and look at my face. Have you ever really looked at your face while you are angry? Believe me, it’s not as pretty as David Oldham’s maniacal face in Harry Potter. And this really works, because even if you really try, you can’t stay angry while looking at your face in a mirror. It wouldn’t surprise me if you started laughing.

And a final trick, also quite simple, is to immediately be aware of your anger and ask yourself, “what is this? Where does this come from?” By immediately focusing on the origin of your anger, you quickly and cleverly shift your mind’s attention from self-indulgence into healthy investigation.

Granted, this takes effort and practice. But let’s look at the three types of anger as expressed in a simile I once read. There is anger like a line scratched into stone: this line can take years to be erased. There is anger like a line drawn in sand: the line remains for a while, but is eventually removed by the wind. And there is anger like a line drawn in water: so brief and fleeting, no trace of it is left behind.

While I remain quick to anger over the silliest things, my anger is much more like the line drawn in water. Before I found the Buddha, I had a lot of scratched rocks in my mind.

Speaking of anger, the photo with this post is from the memorial in Kuta, Bali, Indonesia, that now resides on the location of the former Paddy's Pub where a bomb exploded on Oct. 12, 2002, killing 202 people and injuring 240 more.

Who will watch the watchers?

2011-07-31T14:36:00.000-07:00

A recent story in the Chicago Tribune has rightly outraged many. The specter of clergy sexually abusing minors has revealed itself in the Sangha, as well as the pernicious practice of enabling the monk perpetrators through “sending them away” to places where they wind up re-offending. The sad thing, in my mind, is that you could substitute “priest” wherever you see “monk” and “Catholic Church” for the temple’s cited. It’s the same enabling behavior: rather than directly dealing with the offender, he is shuffled off to re-offend.

But don’t get carried away with that analogy.

Our reactions to this story, which by the way is not “new” because even this specific event has been developing for more than a decade, reflect both our bewilderment and our anger. But while for many of us our initial reaction is to “rage against the machine,” where does it get us? Is that our best response?

It is easy to see parallels in this situation, which I repeat is nothing new, with what’s happened in the Catholic Church. Both have traditions in which the clergy take vows of celibacy and both are dealing inappropriately with violations of that vow through secrecy and shuffling clergy around. But the similarity ends there.

The Catholic Church is a world-wide organization with a central authority. Its entire administrative structure is based upon this authority, and while the Vatican moves agonizingly slow, it is an authority to which congregants can turn to petition or seek to influence. There is a dearth of similar administrative structures or hierarchies for Buddhism in America, and with Theravada, there are none.

This is not a “Theravada” problem as it is not an institutional problem. Theravada, or the way of the elders, is not broken. Theravada is no more broken than Zen is broken, the latter of which has also seen its share of sexual misconduct among its clergy. To say that there is a problem within Theravada that needs to be addressed is no different from the one made by the editors of “Buddhist Warfare,” that Buddhism has a problem with violence.

There is a problem, yes, but not with Theravada per se.

With the Catholic Church, it is an institutional problem because the failure of appropriate response lies within the institutional hierarchy of the Roman Catholic Church. But there is no “institution” of Theravada. All the individual congregations have their own boards that answer to no higher authority. Proclamations of “Theravada, fix yourself” are specious and meaningless.

Whose problem is it then? Because clearly this is a problem that requires our attention. While I knew how I felt, I didn’t know how to respond. So I asked four monks who reside both in the U.S. and Southeast Asia. What can a layperson do? Are there oversight organizations that can be pressured? Reasoned with?

While I have not heard back from all of them, the responses I did receive were simultaneously unsurprising and vexing. It goes back to the culture issue: many of these congregations are based upon an ethnic community that doesn’t have the same tradition of openness and confrontation that we have in America in particular and in the West in general. And the other issue is what ecumenical or administrative organization is there that exists to exert pressure on? When you’re angry, who do you shout at? Who has authority over these sanghas?

Shravasti Dhammika replied, in part, to my query with the following: "I have long been an advocate of the idea that ultimately, to move ahead, Western Buddhists will have to gently and politely ‘part company’ from traditional Asian Buddhism. The values, assumptions and attitudes of the two are just too different...We Westerners have enough problems of our own, getting involved in ethnic Buddhists’ wastes energy, leads to resentment and changes nothing. Let’s walk our own path."

While I do not subscribe to the notion of Hinayana – the Lesser Vehicle – when describing Theravada or the Thai Forest Tradition, the way it is manifested, the practices that it adheres too, certainly make it come off as a teeny-weeny wagon mired in twisted and misogynistic doctrine.

And after viewing the vibrant and at times acrimonious discussion at Sujato’s blog regarding secular Buddhism versus traditional practices, I am increasingly of the mind that Buddhism in America needs a Reformation of its own.

This is an important question for American and other Western Buddhists as more and more Westerners adopt Buddhism while at the same time its various iterations are increasingly co-existing literally closer to each other: Thai and Cambodian Theravada temples within blocks of Tibetan meditation centers that are close to Zen groups operating in store fronts and SGI groups meeting informally in homes in many neighborhoods. No longer are the various schools and vehicles physically separated by countries or other much larger geographic divisions. For crying out loud, I bet 90 percent of the non-Buddhist world thinks that the Dalai Lama is the leader of all Buddhists!

Many of us may rebel against the idea of a “centralized” Buddhist structure that oversees congregations and establishes parameters, and there is merit in their worry. But if Buddhism is allowed to gradually erode into a populist practice in which anyone who writes anything and gets it published is suddenly a guru who doesn’t know or care a whit about Dhamma, then we all might was well start dropping acid right now and walk the road of hedonism and nihilism, because that’s where such a road leads.

Conversely, Buddhism cannot be and never really was a fixed doctrine. Frankly, most of the Vinaya the Buddha made up as he went along, reacting to certain situations that arose at the time. Now that the Buddha’s gone, however, the Vinaya and Tipitika are treated like some sacrosanct text that cannot be changed and even contemplating a review of it would be considered heresy.

Yet it is this blind allegiance to doctrine that gives us a Thai Forest Tradition that can’t come to grips with ordaining women, a Zen culture in which the teacher is considered infallible, a Mahayana sentiment filled with bodhisattvas that can’t pay their own bills but they’re gonna save every sentient being, and a Tibetan culture that deifies superstition.

Things have changed in the monastic community and many of us may not be aware of that. Arun from Angry Asian Buddhist reminded me of an excellent point. In the past, families in Asia sent their children to the Sangha for education, but nowadays, education has been largely secularized. Trips to the Sangha are less frequent. In fact, it is losing support in some regions. Add to this the growing desire and pressure to succeed in life, to get a professional degree; in the past those motivated to learn, think abstractedly and were of high intelligence were attracted to the monastic tradition, but has that attraction disappeared? And if so, how is that affecting the quality of those who do enter the Sangha to seek ordination? If all the smart and ambitious ones are going to graduate school, what does that leave for the Sagha in terms of new recruits?

Granted, the Sangha has done great things for young men who made poor decisions, drank excessively, gambled, used drugs, etc. But some of these men are also being ordained and sent off to the U.S. to guide their own community of immigrants and do so on their own without guidance or support. These young men are placed in positions of authority to watch over a devout and, most likely, naïve congregation.

Who is watching the watchers?

In the meantime, young women and boys are preyed upon by those whom they thought they could trust.

Perhaps it is time that Buddhism in America takes a look at how physicians are managed. Medical doctors who received their degree overseas, but who desire to practice in the U.S., are treated just like residency students and required to go through a residency program before being licensed here. I know two medical doctors, one who received his degree in the Philippines and the other who received his degree in Taiwan. Both are licensed physicians in their home country, but for them to practice in the U.S. they must go through a residency program here just like someone fresh out of an American medical school.

But someone trained to be a Buddhist cleric and ordained in Thailand, Nepal, Japan, or anywhere else can come here and start a congregation with virtually no oversight.

Maybe that needs to change.

A minor meditation challenge

2011-07-25T12:56:00.000-07:00

I realize it is a bit late to get in at the start seeing how the Rains Retreat “officially” began a week ago, but a post I happened to see on the fancy new Google+ alerted me to an opportunity I thought I couldn’t pass up. It was an invitation to join Patrick Henry, who on Twitter goes by the handle @MishapPatricio and Tumbles here, and others in a commitment to meditate for 30 minutes daily for the duration of the Rains Retreat.

If you want a little background regarding the Rains Retreat, this article is a decent start. It also explains that if you decide to make a commitment to sitting for 30 minutes each day, you don’t have to do all 30 minutes at once. I break up my sessions into two 15-minute sits.

But I would also recommend that you read this about the Lay Buddhist Practice. It’s an excellent guide to a variety of activities you can add to your practice. Granted, these practices are mostly from the Thai Forest Tradition of Theravada. But several of the chants I recite every time I sit; it’s part of my practice just as much as breathing.

Some may balk at these activities because they appear ritualistic. And there’s been a lot of discussion about dumping the rituals and seeking a new Buddhism that is more focused on – well, I actually haven’t quite figured out what this “new Buddhism” is supposed to be. I’ve read several posts about this rebellion against traditionalism within Buddhism, both from the pro and con. I’m reserving judgment at the moment. But I will say this, as I have said it before.

Rites and rituals, in and of themselves, are empty behaviors that have no meaning and to attach meaning to them is to foster delusion. Having said that, these rites and rituals are excellent methods for developing mindfulness, without which Buddhism merely becomes a glamorous excursion into self-gratification – a supreme hand-job if you will.

Start slow, however, if you decide to add any of these activities to your practice. If you seek to develop mindfulness, you will fail if you try to add too many of these activities to your overall practice all at once.

Please let us know how you are doing with your 30 minutes a day for the next 90 days by leaving a comment here occasionally. And don’t forget to visit the My Buddha is Pink Facebook page!

Making a chai tae out of a kathoey, or real man out of a fag

2011-07-16T14:15:00.000-07:00

Got a sissy-boy child? Send him to a reparative therapist who attests he or she can “straighten” your boy out. Even if it kills him. Literally.

These types of “clinics” and “therapists” were fairly common in the not-too-distant past in the United States, but for the most part have been professionally ridiculed as not only ineffective, but as psychological quackery and mental torture. There remain a few who still push this dangerous fake therapy, the most infamous being the laughable George Rekers.

More recently, similar clinics have turned up in Malaysia, which is led by a homophobic Islamic (is that redundant?) government that has for years been trying to convict a dissident of sodomy. These clinics were for “sissy boys” and asserted they could turn your sissy boy into a real man. Unsurprisingly, many reparative therapists took up the torch – oh, how ironic – to practice this voodoo psychology in Malaysia where they found a willing client: The Malaysian government, which allegedly forced boys into the treatment centers. Despite international condemnation, the Malaysian government essentially replied with a hearty “fuck you.”

A side note: To really understand Malaysia’s antipathy toward gays, you need to know the history behind the government’s attempt to denounce and prosecute dissident Anwar Ibrahim. The government wants to get rid of him so badly, but the only thing they can come up with is an accusation of sodomy.

But I digress. Because that’s not the end of it. While it may not surprise you that conservative Christian groups and Islamic groups continue to support efforts to change one’s sexuality, it may surprise you to learn that Buddhist organizations, teachers and even various Sanghas have been involved in reparative therapy as well. And a recent news report of a particular Thai Sangha’s involvement in treating so-called “ladyboys” infuriates me no end, as this strikes me as a complete corruption of the Dhamma as well as some of the worst kind of homophobia I’ve seen.

To get a good grasp about how this issue operates in Thailand and most of Southeast Asia, one needs to understand both how the Sangha fits into Thai culture, as well as understand the history of the kathoey, or ladyboy, both in Thai culture and Buddhist history. For this explanation, I’m going to rely heavily on a work by Peter A. Jackson called “Male Homosexuality and Transgenderism in the Thai Buddhist Tradition.” Granted, this work dates back to 1993, but it nonetheless presents excellent background on this issue.

There remains a very strong link between the Sangha and lay community in SE Asia, where families in Thailand, Laos, Myanmar and Cambodia send their boys to the Sangha for short periods where they learn Dhamma and live as a novice monk. Some decide to stay. Most return to their families and lay life. This is such a strong tradition that a recent survey revealing that many Thais no longer support the Sangha like they had in the past has made headlines in the local press.

Many may have a perspective that Thais are generally very tolerant and accepting of homosexuality. After all, sex clubs have been ubiquitous in Bangkok and Pataya (not as much so in Phuket), and if you type the search terms “ladyboy” and “Thailand” into Google, you’ll get a plethora of results for various websites offering a variety of services performed by such ladyboys.

True, there are no laws against homosexual activity in Thailand as there are in Malaysia to the south, but to conclude that homosexuality is widely accepted in Thailand would be very unskillful. It’s not uncommon for Thai police to raid gay bars just for the hell of it, much like police did in the U.S. during the 1950s and 1960s. What made the attitude different in Thailand from that in the West, Jackson points out, was the Thai attitude toward homosexuality was largely diffused: it lacked a specific target. The AIDS epidemic in Thailand changed all that; it gave people who initially harbored vague feelings of antipathy toward homosexuals an opportunity to target aggressive hatred.

But where did this seed of homophobia come from? Believe it or not, it came from several Thai Buddhist teachers from the past whose homophobic interpretations of the Tipitika have been carried forward by more recent members of the Thai Sangha. As was largely the case with Christianity and Biblical texts, the Buddhist canon contains sections referring to certain, specific sexual activity and attitudes. But given the fact that there was no Western concept of homosexuality 2,500 years ago in Asia, modern Buddhist “interpreters” have tended to force the concept of homosexuality onto Pali terms and descriptions of activity that appear similar to what the Western mind labels as “homosexual.”

Another thing to keep in mind is the Pali canon, and Thai Buddhism in particular, contains a very strong anti-sex message directed specifically toward monks.

“That which is called methunadhamma is explained as: the dhamma of an unrighteous man (asattapurisa), the conduct of the common people, the manners of the low, dhamma which is evil and crude, dhamma whose end is but water, an activity which should be hidden, the dhamma which couples should perform together.” (Vinaya, Vol. 1, p.49)

While the message was strident, it did not differentiate between forms. All types of sex were covered: it didn’t matter what a monk stuck his penis into, such activity always carried the same result – the monk had failed and was usually expelled from the Sangha. But a distaste for all forms of sex, even among the laity, found its way into the commentaries of many Thai Buddhist writers. Jackson writes:

“Significantly, contemporary Thai Buddhist views on laypersons' sexual behaviour are often more proscriptive and extreme than attitudes reflect in the Pali canon or in traditional or popular Thai accounts of Buddhist doctrine and ethics. Phra Buddhadasa's work has been especially influential among educated and middle class Thai Buddhists. However, his views on sexuality are at variance with Thai Buddhism's traditional distinction between lay and clerical ethical conduct. The ethical extremism of Phra Buddhadasa and other contemporary Buddhist reformists in Thailand such as Phra Phothirak results from a clericalising trend whereby ethical demands traditionally made only of monks are now increasingly also being required of laypersons.”

This anti-sex attitude remains to this day not only in the Thai Sangha, but to a large extent within general Thai society among the laity in the form of homophobia.

The term "kathoey" in Thai loosely translates as "ladyboy" and has a somewhat interesting history in Buddhist literature. The term has been translated to include everything from hermaphrodites to being a descriptive term for a weakling or eunuch. The Pali term pandaka has been used to describe virtually any sexual deviant, but was most frequently used to describe homosexual activity. Jackson writes:

“But whether or not Buddhism has been instrumental in influencing the development of the popular Thai notion, a very similar mixing of physical and psychological sex, gender behaviours and sexuality occurs both in the Pali terms pandaka and in the Thai term kathoey. Both terms are parts of conceptual schemes in which people regarded as exhibiting physiological or culturally ascribed features of the opposite sex are categorised together. If Buddhism was not the source of the popular Thai conception of kathoey then at the very least it has reinforced a markedly similar pre-existing Thai cultural concept.”

Jackson further states that the term kathoey has largely transformed in general Thai vernacular to be used to describe any gay man, whether a cross-dresser or straight-acting, so nowadays it essentially translates as "fag."

It is unfortunate that so many Thai commentators and their subsequent followers developed and promoted such anti-gay sentiments as there are some very interesting references in the Pali canon to the Buddha showing great tolerance toward those whose sexual identity did not follow the norm.

There was Ananda, the Buddha’s cousin and personal attendant, who allegedly was born a kathoey in many previous lives and who became an arahant shortly after the Buddha became enlightened. And there is the story of Vakkali, who was enamored with the Buddha. The Buddha rebuked Vakkali for constantly staring lustfully at the Buddha, but his rebuke was not a “stop looking at me that way gay boy,” but rather, stop falling into the trap of sensual attachment. Nonetheless, the Buddha told Vakkali to go away. Jackson writes:

"Vakkali was so shattered by this command that he attempted to kill himself by jumping off a mountain. But deva or spiritual beings informed the Buddha of Vakkali's dejection and he quickly went to the monk's aid in time to save him from committing suicide. With an extremely brief exposition of the dhamma, 'The eyes see dhamma,' the Buddha gave Vakkali the insight he needed in order to attain enlightenment and he immediately attained arahantship."

Nonetheless, there is a proscription against ordaining a pandaka that is attributed to the Buddha based on a tale in the Vinaya about a monk who was running around the Sangha asking the young monks to “fuck me, fuck me.” When they didn’t oblige, the pandaka went to the elephant stables and again pleaded with the men there to “fuck me, fuck me.” When the Buddha heard about this, he expelled the pandaka because he was concerned what the lay community might think about the Sangha. This has created considerable controversy today over whether openly gay men should be allowed to be ordained.

Now we arrive to the year 2011 when effeminate boys are being sent to Sanghas where monks are attempting to transform them from being pandaka or kathoey into real men, or chai tae. At work here is probably centuries of indoctrinated homophobia.

The renunciation of sexual desire, whether same-sex or opposite-sex, is for the monastic community and has everything to do with renouncing sensual pleasure of all types. For the monks to teach these “ladyboys” to become "real men" would mean guiding these boys in the ways of hetero sex. The fact that monks would even venture into that territory at all with young novices strikes me as a serious corruption of Dhamma, as well as a particularly virulent form of homophobia sustained by reactionary abbots who don't know what to do with the ordained ladyboys in their midst.

And again we come back to the psychological trauma such reparative therapy can create in young minds. This isn’t the ending of suffering, this constitutes the nurturing and encouragement of suffering. Many of these boys will simply reject the efforts and return to their previous ways after they leave the Sangha. But others may likely be so traumatized that they commit suicide or develop seriously self-destructive behaviors. From being happy, these boys are “transformed” into miserable waifs.

Shameful. Shameful. Where is Rahula when you need him? Where is the water dipper?

The day I knew Buddhism was right for me was…

2011-07-15T10:16:00.000-07:00

I posed this question a few weeks back on Twitter and I got some great responses. He are some of them:

@MrsCapra: When I read the book “Buddhism is not what you think”

@Zenfant1969: When I saw what I already knew had been written down 2k yrs ago

@ZenDirtZenDust: The day the bottom fell out of my pail

@checkbak: The day I broke 20 years of resistance and walked into a meditation center

@ruralhybrid: When I saw Lama Yeshe say calmly on video, “check it out for yourself”

@bodhichittah: The day I lost everything around me but glimpsed (gained!) a new world within

@Bohicitta3000: When I knew I have to be the carrier of my own banner and not blindly follow one

@ShojinRJB: The day when I learned no discrimination on the zafu

@mindonly: I remember reading a little "basics" book & thinking 'wow, I've always thought that' & 'that makes perfect sense'.

I thought it would be an easy question for me to answer as well, but I found that I really struggled with defining a single day, a single moment or epiphany when I knew that Buddhism was right for me. I guess for me it was really a process that took approximately two years.

If I had to pick a single statement, however, I think I would go with @ZenDirtZenDust’s response: The day the bottom fell out of my pail.

Buddhism is a path, and like any other path, we decide to follow it because something about the path’s beginning appeals to us. Along the way we see and experience different things and at some point we make a decision, conscious or unconscious, that we chose the right path.

My first experience with Buddhism was going with a former boyfriend to a Buddha’s birthday celebration at a temple in the Lansing, Mich., area. During that visit, the monk’s Dhamma talk really struck home with me. It was welcoming, but also presented boundaries that made sense. A seed was planted. Because it was at least another 18 months before I found myself at that temple again, this time alone and feeling like I had lost control of everything, including myself.

The bottom had fallen out of my pail, and when it did, the first thing that came to mind was that evening Dhamma talk. Without hesitation, I got into my car and drove 90 minutes to the monastery where I began walking the path.

But when did I know, when did I become aware, that I had made the right decision? I’m not sure, but I know I did.

Buddhist Warfare, Chapter 6

2011-07-01T11:40:00.000-07:00

Chapter 6 presents another excellent example of really interesting history on how the Chinese Communist Party set out to re-shape Buddhist doctrine to get practicing Buddhists to follow the party line and willingly enlist with the Red Army to help defend Korea from the Americans.

In other words, it’s another example of fine scholarship that contradicts what the editors of this collection assert – that Buddhism rationalizes violent action and warfare – by clearly showing that Buddhists succumbed to the pressures of the prevailing hegemony either through acquiescence or through intentional action to curry political favor.

Buddhists in China at this time didn’t become soldiers because Buddhist doctrine condoned it; rather, the Chinese Communist Party beguiled Chinese Buddhists into believing that by helping the North Koreans defend themselves from American forces, they would be practicing the Bodhisattva path.

This was a clever ruse by the Chinese Communist Party achieved by co-opting Buddhist terms and concepts and re-packaging them in terms that would benefit the party. And in part, it was also a reaction by Buddhists there to secure preservation of their practice under the Communist regime.

For example, the author, Xue Yu, writes: “Many Buddhists believed that, by positively responding to the government’s call and undertaking socialist transformation, they would in return receive sympathy from the government, which would then protect Buddhist institutions.”

But the Party was also much more direct in coercing cooperation from monks and nuns:

“Monks and nuns were advised to closely follow government policies or be considered enemies of the people within the framework of the people’s democratic dictatorship. To a large extent, these campaigns successfully transformed monks and nuns, physically as well as mentally.”

The results of these efforts can still be witnessed in China today as the Party prepares for its 90th anniversary, as evidenced by this article.

Using Orwellian speech tactics, the CCP mounted an aggressive propaganda campaign to malign the intentions of America while portraying Chinese intentions as pure:

“We Buddhists uphold peace, yet America is the deadly enemy of peace. Therefore, we must reject American imperialism in order to safeguard peace… Now, the people of Korea have been severely tortured by the imperialist America; assisting Korea will safeguard not only the nation and the world, but also Buddhism.”

By using the language of the bodhisattva, the pure and good intention of the Chinese and efforts to support the underdog Korea were made palpable to a Buddhist constituency. Never mind that it was the North Koreans who started everything by invading the South and that America only ventured into the fray following the North’s aggression and near occupation of Seoul.

This chapter, “Buddhists in China during the Korean War,” is an excellent read and bit of history. But as an article to support the editors’ thesis that Buddhism in and of itself it “warlike?” Sorry, not a chance.

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High Plains Dhamma

2011-06-19T09:51:00.000-07:00

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Who’d of thought that a Clint Eastwood movie would provide an excellent medium for teaching and exemplifying Right Livelihood and the consequences of Wrong Livelihood? It was probably not Eastwood’s intention when he made “High Plains Drifter,” but while watching the movie last night it struck me as excellently portraying what happens when we even tangentially are associated with Wrong Livelihood.

Consider the story line.

Operators of a mining company contract the murder of law enforcement official who discovers the mine lacks the proper permit for being located on federal land. Those hired to commit the murder are later framed as thieves to be sent off to prison.

While the original murder was fashioned by those directly affiliated with the mining company, everyone else in the town silently accepts it because their livelihood is dependent on the town continuing to thrive. Everyone from the barber to the storekeeper and saloonkeeper, even the church minister know that if the mine is closed, the town disappears, and so does their own livelihood.

As a result, the townspeople are suspicious of everyone and of each other. They blame “the stranger” for causing them to turn against one another, but it is their own doing. They’ve created their own Hell, which is so aptly shown when “the stranger,” Clint Eastwood, has them paint the entire town red and he rename’s the town.

Even a “proper” job or profession can be an example of Wrong Livelihood if one knowingly and willingly allows his or her income stream to be connected with another’s Wrong Livelihood. Folks can escape this, however: this is also shown in the movie with the innkeeper’s wife realizing and voicing her own doubts and desire to remove herself from all connections with the town’s kamma. It’s not a painless extraction, but it can be done.

If you’ve never watched the movie, I urge you to do so. And even if you have, do it again, but this time with your Dhamma eyes watching.

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Are they all wicked little towns?

2011-06-15T08:40:00.000-07:00

Some of you may be surprised, but we gays know all about “going forth,” but I bet most of us don’t realize it.

The Buddha talked a lot about leaving the householder life behind, about “going forth” to follow the path to release. Hence, “going forth” became a euphemism for leaving the lay life and becoming a monastic. The person taking up the robes was “freed” from the constraints and distractions of lay life despite the fact it often meant taking up a regimented life in the sangha. There were so many new things to learn, new rules, new expectations, new ways of behaving.

Kind of like coming out of the closet, isn’t it? Very similar to leaving all those wicked little towns we grew up in to find freedom in the larger gay community. But, just as I wrote in my very first post, it doesn’t take long for our new-found sense of freedom to be overwhelmed by all the games, rituals and shallowness we encounter within the gay community: instead of being a refuge, it turned into another fetter.

That’s not to say there is no refuge in the gay community. There’s plenty of refuge for us to find. But there are plenty of thickets to become ensnared by as well – thickets of views.

Many of us come from “wicked little towns,” like those portrayed in the movie “Hedwig and the Angry Inch.” I remember while living in West Yellowstone, Montana, someone warning me about the town. “Be careful about this place,” he said to me. “It will swallow you up and you’ll never get out.”

I know when I graduated from high school, which was located near a town with a population of about 800, I couldn’t wait to get as far away as I could. “They’re pious, hateful, and devout, you’re turning tricks ‘til you’re turned out, the wind so cold it burns, you’re burning out and blowing ‘round.”

Not everyone escapes. Remember Jonah Blechman’s character, Arthur Gayle, in “This Boy’s Life”? But despite his realization that he may spend the rest of his days in Concrete, Arthur helped Leonardo DiCaprio’s character escape.

The thing is many of us create new wicked little towns, and they reside in our heads: “You’re running up and down that hill, you turn it on and off at will, there’s nothing here to thrill or bring you down…”

Often, when I listen to this song, I can picture the Buddha (or maybe Rahula cuz he was such a hottie!) singing to me the refrain. “And if you’ve got no other choice, you know you can follow my voice, through the dark turns and noise of this wicked little town.”

There’s always refuge to be found.

The video is Tommy’s version of the song, sung to Hedwig near the end of the movie. I love the line, “There is nothing you can find that cannot be found.”

Tommy sings to Hedwig

Photo is courtesy of my friend Jimmy Huang

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Is it just a job or Right Livelihood?

2011-06-05T08:36:00.000-07:00

So maybe you’re in a gay club admiring the twinky go-go boy gyrating on the bar and you’re just about to stuff a fiver into the guy’s aussieBums when suddenly your mind is penetrated with a keen thought: Is this Right Livelihood?

OK, so maybe you’re not thinking that. Maybe you’re focused on the likelihood you’ll get a chance to brush your hand against the supreme package and maybe even get a kiss out of it. Forget it, he’s got a boyfriend already. His kiss means nothing.

But what is Right Livelihood? Just some more oppressive rules to restrict us homos into a box of moralistic confinement? I mean sheesh, look what a lot of them try to do to us with the Third Precept!

Susan Elbaum Jootla writes that our serious consideration of what Right Livelihood means and how it applies to us is a natural step to take after one has been meditating for a while. It is so natural, in fact, that it may not be us who begins to take a closer look at this issue, but our own doubts about what we do may begin to bubble up in our minds as we become more aware of how our lives are interconnected with social fabrications that continually bind us in the state of samsara.

“OK, whoa dude! WTF are you talking about? Does this mean my job as a clerk in a sex toy shop doesn’t qualify as this Right Livelihood thing?”

You may laugh my fellow queerlings at my simplistic example, but consider this. Suppose you work for an online company that caters to the gay community that is filled with important information for that community about politics, social issues and self-help? And suppose it is also a site that actively seeks advertiser money from companies that sell sex toys, pornography and glorify, as well as promote, large circuit party activities that play upon the notion of free and easy sex, or takes money from clubs and bars whose primary source of revenue is through the sale of alcohol. All you do is edit content, or maybe you work in the billing department. The lines are blurred now, aren’t they?

It’s probably wise to start at the beginning – what did the Buddha say? And in the Anguttara Nikaya, there is a very short passage in the Book of Fives known as the Vanijja Sutta:

“Monks, a lay follower should not engage in five types of business. Which five? Business in weapons, business in human beings, business in meat, business in intoxicants, and business in poison.

“These are the five types of business that a lay follower should not engage in.”

What does this mean? Jootla explains that the activities “prohibited” to lay followers include “those in which the disciple would be directly, on his own responsibility, involved in breaking one or more of the Five Precepts, which are the very basic moral rules for the Buddhist layman.”

That appears simple enough, but Jootla goes on to inject a bit of specific morality into her explanation that may strike one as being absolutist. For example, does this statement go too far?

“Breeding animals for slaughter as meat or for other uses that may be made of the carcasses is not allowed because this obviously implies breaking the First Precept: I shall abstain from killing. Similarly, anyone trying to follow the teachings of the Buddha should avoid hunting and fishing, nor can he be an exterminator of animals.”

And what about it when Jootla says that, “to help others directly in breaking any of (the precepts) is certainly wrong livelihood.”

Well now, what of the earlier example of our modest gay boy who is an accountant with our fictitious website? He’s not directly involved in assisting others in breaking the precepts, but he also knows that if the website is not successful selling ads, and if the advertisers believe that visitors to the site aren’t clicking on those ads for their products or services, then revenue dries up and our modest gay boy might be laid off, and that’s not the good kind of being laid.

In general, we must acknowledge the world we live in and do our best to emulate the practice. Absolutist positions are seldom helpful. We might have been deeply involved in our careers before we began practicing Dhamma. And through our practice, doubts may begin to arise within us regarding our profession and our career path. If we begin to feel troubled about what we do to earn our living and other options are available, then we ought to pursue them. But that isn’t necessarily something that all of us can easily or readily do.

As Jootla writes, “… we have to keep a balanced perspective and not keep running after the perfect work — part of the dukkha of the householder's life is the necessity to function in an immoral society while keeping one's own mind clear.”

To see how confusing this can get, take a look at this collection of Dhamma excerpts regarding Right Livelihood. It includes one from the Samyutta Nikaya regarding the Buddha’s response to a warrior’s questions about the correctness of killing in battle. It would seem that soldiers and even police officers are not off the hook. This, of course, is clouded by some Mahayana teachings that suggest that warriors can “kill with compassion,” but this passage raises serious doubts about such a perspective. Does it mean if you are already a solider or police officer that you should abandon immediately your avocation?

And what of the Buddha’s description of acting as a form of intoxication? What do we take away from that? Richard Gere certainly hasn’t given up acting since becoming a follower of Tibetan Buddhism, and Tina Turner and Herbie Hancock haven’t given up their careers as entertainers since finding Soka Gakkai and Nichiren Buddhism.

To further complicate matters, Ajaan Suwat Suvaco strikes are rather absolutist chord in his explanation of how practicing Right Livelihood is critical to developing Right Concentration”

“As for Right Livelihood, you set your mind on providing for your livelihood exclusively in a right way. You're firm in not making a livelihood in ways that are wrong, not acting in ways that are wrong, not speaking in ways that are corrupt and wrong. You won't make any effort in ways that go off the path, you won't be mindful in ways that lie outside the path. You'll keep being mindful in ways that stay on the path. You make this vow to yourself as a firm determination. This is one level of establishing the mind rightly.”

What Ajaan Suwat Suvaco is saying is correct, but I don’t think he’s saying that one must completely and immediately abandon all forms of Wrong Livelihood with the snap of a finger. Buddhism is not, in my experience, a Big Bang; the Buddha was quite deliberate in describing it as a path. And as a path, as we follow it, we do change, we mature, we gain deeper understanding.

What of you and your career? Are there occasions in your job when you realize that maybe your actions or someone else’s actions in the company don’t quite comport with the practice, even though the action is completely legal and ethical from a business perspective? If you do have those moments of doubt, that is a good thing; it means you have been faithfully practicing. But it doesn’t mean you must immediately quit or look for other work. It does mean, however, you have something to contemplate during your next meditation session.

Don’t forget to visit my Facebook page and Like it. I could use some help initiating and sustaining conversations there as well as here.

Pink Dot 2011 promotion video

2011-05-18T15:00:00.000-07:00

The Pink Dot organization in Singapore has always produced high-quality videos to promote its activities. I've posted one in the past. And this year's video promoting the event is exceptionally well-done. Take a look for yourself.

pinkdotsg

I'm such a sentimental slob, videos like these make me tear up all the time. And the boys are so cute!

If you plan to attend this year's event, or you know anyone who will be attending, please share with me your experiences or ask your friends to share their experiences. I would love to hear from you.

This year's event is June 18 in Hong Lim Park in Singapore. Apparently, foreigners and expats are not allowed to participate, but may observe. The permit is restricted to Singaporeans and those with permanent resident status in Singapore.

And be sure to stop by the My Buddha is Pink page on Facebook! Join our conversations, or at least help them move along!

Buddhist Warfare, chapter 5

2011-05-16T14:17:00.000-07:00

Brian Daizen Victoria provides a refreshing counterpoint to the previous essays in his “Buddhological Critique of ‘Soldier-Zen’ in Wartime Japan,” in that he pulls no punches when he flatly states that nowhere in the basic tenets of the Buddha’s teachings is violence condoned or justified. In fact, he admits that he is attacking the concept that Buddhism is innately violent and that the teachings support violent actions under certain circumstances. His target – Japanese Zen.

“I come to the conclusion that, by virtue of its fervent if not fanatical support of Japanese militarism, the Zen school, both Rinzai and Sōtō, so grievously violated Buddhism’s fundamental tenets that the school was no longer an authentic expression of the Buddhadharma.”

Them’s fighting words coming from a self-identified Zennie himself: Victoria states that he is a Mahāyāna Buddhist in the Sōtō Zen tradition.

Victoria’s basic critique is that the dharma was corrupted by teachings that came to be known as “warrior Zen.” At the root of this is the idea that the warrior must extinguish the self completely and be totally devoted to the emperor. Victoria cites what Yamazaki Ekijū (chief abbot of the Buttsūji branch of the Rinzai Zen sect) wrote at the end of a book by Zen-trained Lt. Col. Sugimoto Gorō.

“Buddhists say that one should have faith in the Buddha, or Mahāvairocana, or Buddha Amita, but such faith is one that has been captured by religion. Japanese Buddhism must be centered on the emperor; for were it not, it would have no place in Japan, it would not be living Buddhism. Even Buddhism must conform to the national structure of Japan. The same holds true for Śākyamuni’s teachings.”

Victoria reveals that this line of reasoning is more than just ethnocentrism, because at the heart of this notion is that one group of living, sentient beings is superior to another group of living, sentient beings.

“To purposely inflict pain and suffering, let alone death, on one segment of beings under the guise of benefiting another part, however defined, can never be a part of a Buddhism rooted in the teachings of its founder.”

An important distinction ought to be noted here. What Victoria exposes is more than just a mere twisting of the Dharma to justify violent acts. The entire concept of warrior Zen, and other similar schools of thought, is a corruption of the Dharma so severe that it justifies identifying entire nations as enemies worthy of slaughter.

Victoria notes that this is based on a flawed interpretation of the Buddhist concept of no-self, which I hear often repeated by many others, to mean that there is no self at all. Victoria quotes scholar-priest Walpola Rahula to explain:

“According to the Buddha’s teaching, it is as wrong to hold the opinion ‘I have no self’ (which is annihilationist theory) as to hold the opinion ‘I have a self.’ Why? What we call ‘I’ or ‘being’ is only a combination of physical and mental aggregates, which are working together independently in a flux of momentary change within the law of cause and effect … there is nothing permanent, everlasting, unchanging and eternal in the whole of existence.”

A simple Buddhist concept – there is no permanent self – is corrupted into there is no self at all, and if there is no self at all, imagine what heinous acts can be justified? Not long, as Victoria reveals with an excerpt from the Rinzai Zen master Takuan addressing a patron, the highly accomplished swordsman Yagyū Tajima no Kami Munenori:

“The uplifted sword has no will of its own, it is all of emptiness. It is like a flash of lightning. The man who is about to be struck down is also of emptiness, and so is the one who wields the sword. None of them are possessed of a mind that has any substantiality. As each of them is of emptiness and has no ‘mind,’ the striking man is not a man, the sword in his hands not a sword, and the ‘I’ who is about to be struck down is like the splitting of the spring breeze in a flash of lightning.”

Gee, seems like a lot of people forgot about the Kalama Sutta, which guides us to test assertions to determine if they are true and comport with the Dharma. And as Victoria points out, it appears that many have forgotten the Buddha’s words in the Dhammapada:

“All men tremble at punishment, all men fear death; remembering that thou are like unto them, do not strike or slay.

“All men tremble at punishment, all men love life; remembering that thou are like unto them, do not strike or slay.”

But this didn’t happen specifically or uniquely to Japanese warrior Zen; this corruption of the Dharma began much earlier in China with the Ch’an school that preceded Zen, which Liang Su criticized in the eighth century:

“Nowadays, few men have true faith. Those who travel the path of Ch’an go so far as to teach the people that there is neither Buddha nor Dharma, and that neither good nor evil has any significance. When they preach these doctrines to the average man, or men below average, they are believed by all those who live their lives of worldly desires. Such ideas are accepted as great truths that sound so pleasing to the ear. And the people are attracted to them just as moths in the night are drawn to their burning death by the candle light (italics added by Victoria).”

Victoria also flatly denies that a bodhisattva could possibly kill any other living being and have that killing justified. Victoria acknowledges the Mahayana concept of expedient means which seems to create loopholes for “compassionate violence.” To portray this, he cites the Lotus Sutra and the story of the burning house in which a loving father deliberately lies to save his children’s lives. What is interesting about this parable is that instead of it being used to explain how telling a lie may be necessary to save a life, it is used to show that the Buddha was a liar! The “lesser” vehicle really wasn’t true at all, asserts the Lotus Sutra; the Buddha only taught it as an expedient mean to bring believers to the “greater” vehicle.

Victoria concludes this chapter with a dire warning to we Westerners as we adopt Buddhism into our culture.

“As Buddhism continues its spread in an easterly direction (i.e., to the ‘West’), one critically important question is, how much of Buddhism’s historic proclivity to condone warfare as a function of the Buddhadharma will spread with it?”

A Coyote Tale - The Wolf

2011-05-15T07:59:00.000-07:00

As mentioned on the Facebook page for this blog, I am working on a post about karma and its relevance to being gay. A lot of stuff to read about that first, and life is filled with distractions. But another distraction of sorts that has been on everyone’s minds of late is the use of violence as a means to accomplish a goal, such as ridding the world of someone like Osama bin Laden.

It is ironic that I’ve been reading “Buddhist Warfare” at the time all this discussion arises, at the very time of bin Laden’s assassination, because regardless of your point of view on the matter, I think we must recognize that his death was via assassination. It was an extra-judicial killing, an act that we as Americans have loudly condemned when committed elsewhere in the world by other governmental regimes.

And in reading “Buddhist Warfare,” I get it that Buddhists have over hundreds of years found ways to justify violent acts through what I call suspect interpretations of the Dhamma. Even I, as pacifistic as I believe myself to be, am realizing that total resistance to violence is not always the right path to take.

Kyle, who writes The Reformed Buddhist, left a comment on the Facebook page for My Buddha is Pink that has been oft repeated by many, and that is if we act with true compassion, then a violent act may be committed because the act, in fact, was committed with Right Intention.

That idea just drives me freaking crazy. It bugs the hell out of me because on one level, I see the truth in that assertion; but it also freaks me out because such a statement can be so easily misunderstood and abused. We all suffer from greed, hatred and delusion, and of the three, delusion is the most difficult to deal with because how does a deluded mind understand that it is deluded?

This recalls for me a legend told by many Plains Indians among a canon that is known by American Indians as Coyote Tales. In this case, it is the story about The Wolf, which I shall present as follows.

Old Many Coyote was wandering about the plain when he saw The Wolf up ahead loping about the prairie. Knowing that The Wolf was a difficult character to deal with, Old Man Coyote turned and hastily retreated.

Old Man Coyote next encountered a rabbit. Feeling benevolent, Old Man Coyote warned the rabbit that he should take shelter and hide because The Wolf was near.

“I am not afraid,” replied the rabbit. “I will befriend The Wolf and he will let me be.”

“You are wrong,” said Old Man Coyote. “He is The Wolf, and he is what he is.”

Shortly after Old Man Coyote left the rabbit, The Wolf arrived and pounced upon the rabbit. As The Wolf was about to eat the rabbit, the rabbit began to plead for its life.

“Oh, Mr. Wolf, you are so strong and intelligent, please have mercy upon me and spare me my life,” said the rabbit. “Why eat me? I am such a small morsel. I have never done anything to harm you nor have I ever said anything bad about you.”

The Wolf paused and considered the rabbit’s words. He then replied, “It may be true that you have not said anything bad about me, but it is also true that you have never said anything good about me.”

Just before The Wolf swallowed the rabbit, the rabbit cried out, “Old Man Coyote was right! The Wolf can justify anything with his mind.”

Death waits for no one

2011-05-02T19:29:00.000-07:00

When the news was released, crowds spontaneously gathered at the critical spots, some sooner than at others. The obvious first location was the White House from where the news came – Osama bin Laden was dead. Finally dead. Finally. Dead.

As I write these words, I am struck by the thought of how we view death. That it really isn’t there. That somehow, we and others escape it. Because when it does occur, we respond with shock, horror, dismay, and sadness.

Or if we harbor hate, then with glee. The water dipper couldn't look any clearer now.

Not with equanimity, not with mere observation. Death waits for no one.

Except when it is someone we collectively revile, who has come to stand for a communal feeling of being so deeply wounded that we cannot see the reason or the rhyme.

Gradually, people began gathering at other critical spots: Times Square, Ground Zero. More slowly did they congregate in Shanksville, Pa. I wonder what they did inside the Pentagon.

It was revelry. It was celebratory. It was, like it or not, human. Yes, I let out a brief “whoop!” when I heard the news. But that was it. It was gone. Spent. I did feel a bit of shame at the exclamation. But I am, after all, an imperfect human. And despite what Susan Piver says, and she says many wonderful things, it’s not a problem. It just is.

And I have often pondered what drives a person such as Osama bin Laden to scheme such violence, to nurture such hatred.

And I also often think about what makes us so blithely ignorant of how our actions impact others.

My favorite verse of the Dhammapada is right up there at the right, and it says it all. Everything begins with a thought, followed by a word or deed. Intention arises and we decide whether to act on the intention. But many of us are so automatic that we don’t even understand how the intention arises – we just act.

And actions, mind you, bring results.

Yes, Osama bin Laden was an evil and twisted man. He created great evil in this world. Like a true megalomaniac, he had no thought for others: it was all about him and his vision. Seriously, there are great parallels between bin Laden and Hitler. Hitler at first thought he could do something to elevate Germany, which had been seriously done a major wrong by the Western powers following WWI. But he became obsessed with mind, a mind that sought only to satisfy its cravings. Bin Laden was no different. The narrative quite similar.

And our reaction to the “end” is also eerily quite similar.

There is nothing new. It’s all the same being replayed over and over and over. And each time it happens, we have a choice. Will it be to respond automatically just like always? Or to intellectualize everything, to speak in platitudes so far removed from any actual emotion that we become dead inside while at the same time patting ourselves on the back for saying the right thing, the correct thing, the Buddhist thing.

Or will it be to say, “Wait, not this time. I want this to end.”

Many thanks to Nathan at Dangerous Harvests, to Justin Whitaker who told me about Susan Piver, for William Turner at Being Buddhist, Kyle at The Reformed Buddhist, Adam at Fly Like a Crow, and Maia Duerr at the Jizo Chronicles (Jesus was a very wise man).

Join the discussion on Facebook!

2011-05-01T07:14:00.000-07:00

I’ve created a Facebook page for My Buddha is Pink. While I will continue to blog here the way I have been, I think the Facebook page will allow for greater flexibility to cover other Buddhist and gay-related topics. More discussions, links to news and events, and just plain sharing and socializing.

I hope you take a look here at the page and become a fan. And when you do, join the discussion! I’ve already asked a question about the individualistic nature of the Buddhist practice and how to balance that with a need to develop a community of practitioners that identify together as more than just Buddhist. It’s been a topic from time to time throughout the Buddhist blogosphere.

What’s happening in Singapore is a gay Buddhist group called Heartland is feeling pressure from local Christian groups that create social activities to not only attract new members, but to strengthen relationships between current members.

In Asia, Buddhist practice in many places is very ritualistic and individualistic. People come to a temple to make offerings, pray, chant, meditate and make prostrations. But seldom are there regularly scheduled activities to bring congregants together for social activities.

Many ethnically-based temples in the U.S. do create social activities for members, but often these are centered on sustaining the members’ cultural identity.

Certainly we have discussed throughout the various blogs the “Westernization” of Buddhism and what that means. Does it mean Anglifying it? Or does it mean blending the practice American culture that makes the practice relevant and attractive without crushing the core concepts under the weight of commercial superficiality?

Stop by my new page and let’s get the discussion rolling!

Buddhist Warfare, chapters 2, 3, and 4

2011-04-25T14:46:00.000-07:00

I know that I said that I would write a post about each chapter in “Buddhist Warfare”, but as I am reading the collection, I’m realizing that I’ll never get through it if I stick to that. So there will be times, such as this one, when I combine various chapters into one post and others when a post will be devoted to a single chapter.

One of the book’s editors, Michael Jerryson, mentions in the Introduction two key questions critical to how a reader interprets the contents of the book: “How can Buddhist scripture be interpreted for warfare? And how is it interpreted for warfare?”

Chapters 2, 3 and 4 readily follow this line of thought by focusing in rather specific ways. Of course, the danger with such specificity is that the argument gets lost in the larger context: do the examples cited in these chapters represent fairly the core teachings of the Buddha? In my opinion, they most certainly do not.

Chapter 2, by Stephen Jenkins, is titled “Making Merit through Warfare and Torture According to the Ārya-Bodhisattva-gocara-upāyyavisaya-vikurvana-nirdeśa Sūtra,” which means the conclusions of this chapter are based entirely on this single sutra. It is essentially a sutra filled with rationalizations, but it is worth pointing out the connection this sutra has with earlier writings in the Pali canon.

This sutra presents the dialogue between an ascetic named Satyavaca Nirgranthaputra and a king. Satyavaca also appears in the Majjhima Nikaya as the ascetic Saccaka. Jenkins says the two suttas in the Majjhima Nikaya in which Saccaka appears describe him as “a clever and aggressive anti-Buddhist debater.” When he engages the Buddha in debate, Saccaka asserts that his material form is self, perception is self, formations are self, and consciousness is self. The Buddha’s reply to Saccaka shows the connection to the later Mahayana sutra, which is to ask Saccaka if a king has the authority to execute those who ought to be executed; Saccaka replies that a king has this type of authority.

However, the Buddha asking this question doesn’t necessarily mean that the Buddha agrees that a King should exercise that authority. He is merely developing an argument using terms familiar to Saccaka to refute the ascetic’s assertion that body is self, that perception is self, that formations are self, and that consciousness is self. The trick gets Saccaka to agree that a king has such power, but then the Buddha asks Saccaka whether he has such power to control or determine his own form. Saccaka is silent and remains silent despite the Buddha repeating his question three times. The Buddha even warns Saccaka that to refuse to answer results in one’s head being split into seven pieces, whereupon a thunderbolt-wielding spirit shows up with the obvious intent of doing just that if Saccaka fails to reply.

Is this then an example of the Buddha forcing Saccaka “under threat of death,” as Jenkins suggests, to admit that a king has the power of execution? Or was the Buddha seeking to have Saccaka realize that his body is not self because he doesn’t have the authority of a king to demand what form he shall take? That he has no control, like a king, to direct his feelings, etc.? And is not the language used by the author of the sutta, written well after the Buddha’s death, reflective of the imagery associated with rural south Asia at the time? Was there really a thunderbolt-wielding spirit threatening to split Saccaka’s head open? Or was this colorful language added to add drama to the sutta?

Granted, run-of-the-mill people at the time, and to a large degree today still, believed these spirits to be real entities capable of interfering with their lives. To suggest that the presence of such language is evidence of a violent nature within Buddhism is more than a bit of a stretch in my view, however.

Jenkins then goes on to extrapolate from the later Mahayana sutra evidence of how a king is guided in the proper method of war and use of violence. There are some fairly twisted rationalizations here in my view, particularly the concept of “compassionate killing,” which Jenkins notes that the Buddhist scholar Michael Zimmerman writes is “incompatible with basic Buddhist ethics.”

The conclusion of this essay is particularly problematic. It starts with, “General conceptions of a basic Buddhist ethics broadly conceived as unqualified pacifism are problematic. Compassionate violence is at the very heart of the sensibility of this sutra.” (italics mine)

With this paragraph, Jenkins makes a broad statement and backs it up with one sutra, a sutra that in fact is not considered authentic in the Theravada tradition despite the effort Jenkins took at the start of his essay to describe the sutra’s history, influence and importance within Mahayana.

Chapter 3 is filled with some very interesting history about Tibet and Mongolia. In “Sacralized Warfare: The Fifth Dalai Lama and the Discourse of Religious Violence,” Derek F. Maher examines the historical writings of the Fifth Dalai Lama and shows how they were constructed to support the violent war mongering of Gushri Khan. I don’t doubt for a minute the historical accuracy of the essay. What I doubt is its suitability as evidence of an innate violent nature to Buddhism.

This chapter details quite excellently what happens when politics is mixed up with religion - you get a holy mess. Because that’s what you have with Tibetan Buddhism for the most part: religious leaders who are also political leaders. And the fact that certain Tibetan schools fought wars against other Tibetan schools only demonstrates how rampant religious chauvinism was in Tibet; it by no means offers credible support that the Buddha’s teachings allows for such militaristic behavior.

In fact, the Buddha was quite clear just before his death when Ananda asks him who will lead the sangha after his passing. The Buddha said he would name no leader because there was nothing to lead. Buddhism is all about examining and knowing oneself, controlling oneself, of being harmless so that one can attain release. It's about being a better person so other living beings can be at ease. It was never about becoming the top dog school or sect and waging war against contrary opinions. But people are people and humans have a penchant for violence.

Buddhism, however, does not.

Chapter 4, “Legalized Violence: Punitive Measures of Buddhist Khans in Mongolia,” provides more evidence of the politicization of the dhamma. As Vesna A. Wallace clearly states in this essay: “By legislating social and ritual practices that were in accordance with Buddhist teachings and monastic rules and by introducing penal measures for the infractions of both monks and laypeople, Mongolian legislators converted Buddhist teachings and practices into state law.”

This isn’t evidence of a violent nature to Buddhism; rather, its evidence of how a theocracy was established in Mongolia around Buddhism. Wallace also provides examples of class division within Mongolian culture.

“The Russian ethnographer Pozdneyev, who visited Mongolia in the late nineteenth century, mentions a case in which a Mongol noble punished one of his serf’s sons for not making adequate progress in his studies as a Buddhist novice by tying him naked outside the tent during a winter night. When the boy died as a consequence, the nobleman was merely fined eighteen animals.”

Mahayana writings such as the Golden Light Sutra were seized upon by rulers because they provided an excuse for ruthless rule. “The Golden Light Sutra is perhaps the most adamant about the king’s duty to destroy evil deeds and inflict penalties on the evildoers in conformity with their crimes. If a king were to ignore any evil deed and neglect his royal duty, lawlessness and wickedness would increase, unfavorable asterisms and planets would rule, meteor showers would fall, evil demons would arise, and natural disasters, diseases, and foreign armies would ruin his kingdom.”

Now, if I were and king and that was my spiritual guidance, of course I would do what I thought would prevent evil demons from arising and foreign armies ruining my domain! And I, as such a king, would also like the ambiguity of the Golden Light Sutra, as it would allow me wide interpretation.

“(I)t leaves room for multiple interpretations concerning the degrees of punishments the ruler may implement in his task of upholding the law. It indirectly suggests that punishment enforces not only the law of a given society but also the laws of nature. For these reasons, the Inner Mongolian author Rashipuntsag referred to the Golden Light Sutra in his work ‘Crystal Rosary,’ declaring that Dharma laws do not prevent one from punishing criminals. He argued against Confucians who claimed that the state could be ruled only by means of secular laws because the law of Dharma was too weak to punish criminals, because it advocates compassion.” (Italics mine)

I’m looking forward to writing about the next chapter, because in that one, the author flatly states that any sect of Buddhism that justifies violence in any way is a false teaching and a corruption of the Buddha’s words.

Practice makes perfect

2011-04-11T12:43:00.000-07:00

I recently asked folks on Twitter how they sustained their daily practice, what were the core elements that kept them active in their practice. I got some good responses and tips, because sharing what works for us can be helpful for others. Developing a routine within your practice is helpful, even if it does seem repetitious, even ritualistic. The Buddha generally didn’t have a lot of positive things to say about rites and rituals other than they can be important and useful tools for developing mindfulness.

Danny Wilson is a young man who lives in Sheffield, England, which is south of Leeds (on Twitter he’s @Danny_789). Danny says he recently starting waking up earlier to meditate and read. He’s been doing this for about a month. This may not sound like much to others, but what Danny has begun is very important. Establishing the simplest of routines provides us with structure and discipline. This is important for any practice, whether you are a musician, a doctor, a carpenter, a poet, a singer, or even someone’s lover. Heck, even being a good parent, son or daughter, brother or sister, or friend takes practice. And establishing a routine to develop that practice is critical.

It relates in many ways to what the Buddha identified as the Four Right Efforts: developing and nurturing good qualities that we currently do not posses but wish to; developing and nurturing good qualities we already posses to ensure they are sustained; removing negative qualities from our actions; preventing negative qualities we do not have from ever arising.

Adam, who goes by the moniker @flylikeacrow (he has a blog by the same name as well), said he sets aside time at work for short moments of meditating on the breath. That was an eye-opener for me, as this is something I really ought to add to my own practice. As the First Noble Truth tells us, life is often unsatisfactory because of all the stress that confronts us, and our work, our professional life, is often a prime source of this stress. And what a wonderful and simple thing to do to take just five minutes out of our work day to sit quietly, close our eyes and focus on our breath.

Adam also likes listening to chants, such as the Heart Sutra and the Faith in Mind poem. Listening to monks chant in Pali was something I really enjoyed. And there are some Pali chants that I regularly do as well. Again, some might view this as a ritual that makes Buddhism look like some archaic faith that requires people to pray to some mystical deity. But chanting can function just like silent meditation as it brings focus to our mind, targets our thinking into single-pointedness. In fact, if my mind is particularly rattled so that silent meditation is difficult for me, I will switch to chanting.

Jim Johnson, aka @pixelsrzen, gets his meditation in – “even a few minutes worth is important” – but he also recites the Bodhisattva vow daily, something he was gracious enough to share with me.

“With a wish to free all beings, I will always go for refuge to the Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha until I reach full enlightenment. Enthused by compassion and wisdom, today in the presence of the Buddha, I will generate the mind for full awakening for the benefit of all beings throughout limitless space. As long as space remains, as long as sentient beings remain, may I too remain to dispel the misery of this world.”

Reciting things is not quite the same as chanting, but it can yield similar results. It takes concentration when reciting something, focus to be sure that you are saying the words correctly as well as a sort of open awareness so that over time, the meaning of the words penetrate your mind to give you new understanding. For example, my understanding of the opening verses of the Dhammapada is very different today from when I first read them.

Having said that, droning on with chanting, or repetitiously reciting gathas or other verses, is a complete waste of time. These aren’t secret codes to a special cosmic cash machine of merit and good karma. Rather, these are techniques to build mindfulness.

Someone who has a very diverse practice is Marnie Louise Froberg, aka @NellaLou. Daily study and sitting meditation makes up the core of her practice, but she also adds variety with actions like walking meditation and making prostrations on an almost-daily basis. I love walking meditation, and I really should make the effort to do it more often.

Prostrations are one of those activities that some may view with disdain because it looks like obeisance. But just like chanting, making prostrations is another effective means for developing mindfulness. When bowing or making a prostration, you’re not just “doing it.” Again, it takes concentration on and awareness of your body while doing this, ensuring it is being done correctly and that your mind is fixed on the activity. It’s just another technique for honing single-pointedness of mind.

So here’s the core of my “routine.”

Daily morning seated meditation for 15 minutes. I precede the silent sitting by first chanting three times “Namo tassa bhagavato arahato samma-sambuddhassa,” which translated from Pali is, “I wish to revere with body, speech and mind that Lord apportioning Dhamma, that one far from defilements, that One Perfectly Enlightened by himself.” I chant this primarily because the sound of my voice reciting the words is soothing, the tone eases my mind and makes it tranquil before I begin focusing on the breath. I also strike a chime bowl as I repeat each line. Again, the sound of the bell fading helps calm my mind.

When I’m finished with the silent meditation, I then recite both in Pali and English, a variation of the Loving Kindness chant: Aham avero homi (May I be free from hatred); Aham abyapajjho homi (May I be free from oppression); Aham anigho homi (May I be free from troubles); Sukkhi attanam Pariharami (May my happiness be protected); Aham sukhito homi (May I be happy) – Sabbe satta avera hontu (May all beings be free from hatred); Sabbe satta abyapajja hontu (May all beings be free from oppression); Sabbe satta anigha hontu (May all beings be free from troubles); Sabbe satta sabba dukkha pamuccantu (May all beings be free from suffering); Sabbe satta sukhita hontu (May all beings be happy).

Reciting the Loving Kindness chant is not praying. I’m not praying for these things to occur on their own. Rather, by reciting them I fill my mind with compassion, first by planting the seed into my consciousness, and through the daily recitation, nurture this compassion and empathy for others so that it begins to be reflected in how I interact with others. I will not behave with compassion and kindness toward myself and others unless I first develop a compassionate mind. And yes, we need to show compassion and kindness toward ourselves first if we ever hope to share this with others.

After this, I finish my session by reciting a variation of the Five Remembrances: I am of the nature to grow old, I have not gone beyond aging; I am of the nature to be sick, I have not gone beyond disease; I am of the nature to die, I have not gone beyond death; All that is mine, beloved and pleasing will change and vanish; I am the owner of my kamma, heir to my kamma, born of my kamma, related to my kamma, abide supported in my kamma – whatever kamma I create, skillful or unskillful, light or dark, to that I fall heir.

Once a week I spend time reading from the Tipitika. Lately this has involved reading a chapter from the Majjhima Nikaya, which I read prior to my sitting meditation. On weekends, I strive to sit for longer sessions. Also, I shake things up a bit on weekends by chanting the Daimoku (Nam myho renge kyo) for about 15 minutes, which I follow sometimes by reciting the Nichiren liturgy. Again, I do this to fix my mind and relax it. When I struggle with silent sitting, I will switch to chanting the Daimoku instead.

That’s the core of my practice. Please share with us some of the core parts to your practice as well.

Ching chong, it means I love you

2011-03-24T17:42:00.000-07:00

My life has recently been filed with violence and the rationalizations for it – er, well in a rhetorical sense. I have been bemused by many of my fellow Buddhist friends who believe that one can act aggressively if one does so out of compassion. At least they recognize there will be consequences for such action and there are actions to take to mitigate the karma created.

But I’ve also been reading an anthology of articles that examine how Buddhism carries and Buddhists practice a violent doctrine. It completely befuddles me that there are some who believe in “compassionate retaliation.” Intervening to stop violence or aggression is one thing, but engaging an aggressor on equal terms is simply more violence. That’s my view. If you truly have compassion, you would be unable to respond with aggression, no matter what the outcome.

I began to wonder if my point of view was just a bunch of Pollyannish hokum until I heard an interview with Jimmy Wong on NPR, and then saw a video of him being interviewed on MSNBC. The MSNBC video is below.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

This bright young man realized that his initial response to the “Asians in the Library” video was infused with anger. So he waited to craft his clever song, which has become a viral hit just as much as the offending video that started it all.

I guess my point is retaliation doesn’t change anything. All it does is make us feel better for the moment. So maybe a bullied person finally gets fed up and retaliates. The bully stops bullying that person. But did punching out the bully change the bully? Will the bully stop bullying others? Not likely. All the aggressive response did was make the bullied person feel better. And a person who in the past would not act violently suddenly has. An unskillful condition that did not exist now exists. Remember the Four Right Efforts?

For me, it recalls the opening scene from the Daniel Craig version of “Casino Royale.” You know, when the bad guy tells Bond that killing a person gets easier the second time, and Bond replies, “Yes, considerably.”

Here is the original “Asians in the Library” video that created the stir.

AsiansInTheLibrary

And here is Jimmy Wong’s reply.

JimmyWong

Thank you Jimmy for a wonderful video and a wonderful song. And gawd, is he ever cute!

Buddhist Warfare, Chapter 1

2011-03-19T09:43:00.000-07:00

In the song, “With God on Our Side,” Bob Dylan sings of how peoples and nations rationalize war against each other, that their aggression is necessary and justifiable because they have God on their side. This notion of having God on your side is an important concept when looking at the first essay in “Buddhist Warfare,” a piece written by Paul Demiéville titled “Buddhism and War.”

Demiéville correctly points out how the Dhamma has been rationalized throughout the centuries following the Buddha’s death. One of the simplest rationalizations, he notes, is that life is suffering and if killing ends life, then it also ends suffering. This rationalization, Demiéville shows us, is at the heart of many Mahayana traditions that largely developed in China where a militaristic culture already existed and which was ready to co-opt Buddhist doctrine to lend legitimacy to its politics (kind of sounds like the Republican Party in the U.S.).

The author points out how China, Japan, Korea and other parts of East Asia already had well-established warrior cultures that were largely supported by Confucian thought. The rulers and warlords adopted Buddhism to gain a military advantage, rationalizing and altering the teachings to show that their actions were right and good and their enemy’s actions were wrong and evil. At the same time, Buddhist monks were looking for political favoritism and weren’t shy about re-interpreting the Dharma to please their kings. Even the Buddha walked a delicate line regarding this issue (which is covered a bit more in the next article in the book).

During the first thousand years CE in China, for example, we see may Buddhist cults arise each with militaristic behaviors and practices led by charismatic monks who professed to have supernatural powers. This made these monks very attractive to the rulers and warlords who saw befriending and supporting such monks and their followers as politically astute.

However true this may be, I am troubled by the way Demiéville portrays these histories as being “Buddhist,” laying the groundwork for the assertion that Buddhism itself is at fault for the arising of these warlike doctrines. These histories are no more “Buddhist” than Cromwell’s attacks were “Puritan” or even “Christian,” despite the fact that religious beliefs and doctrines played a key role in Cromwell’s war mongering. Demiéville’s citing the rise of the Shaolin and other warrior monks is not evidence of “Buddhist violence,” but rather evidence of people who identify as Buddhist being violent.

Demiéville also makes a few really weak assertions by drawing connections so vague as to be rightly ridiculed with uncontrolled laughter. For example he writes: “We know that the Boxers who rose up against foreigners at the end of the nineteenth century, and besieged the Peking delegation in 1900, were part of a secret society with more or less Buddhist origins.” Italics are mine. When I read that, I was like, WTF?

What I really found interesting was Demiéville’s mentioning of Yi-hiuan, a ninth-Century Chinese monk who is credited with the ubiquitous phrase, “Kill the Buddha.” It was revealing enough that he would cite the founder of the Lin-tsi sect to lend credence to the concept that Buddhism inherently lends itself to the arising of violent doctrines; but what really caught my eye was all the attention this part of the book garnered on the Internet. When you Google “Yi-hiuan” the results are dominated by a review of “Buddhist Warfare” by Katherine Wharton. Her referencing this particular item in Demiéville’s article was in turned referenced multiple times by many others, including an article by Marin E. Marty in The Christian Post, whose comments also get reprinted all over the Web. Kyle at The Reformed Buddhist had plenty to say about Wharton’s review, thanking Barbara O’Brien for her dissection of Wharton’s review and sophomoric conclusions.

I found this discussion interesting because of how it reflects something the Buddha warned Ananda about just before his death. Ananda asks the Buddha who will lead the Sangha after the Buddha dies, to which the Buddha replies that there will be no successor because there is no position to be succeeded. He directs Ananda and the others to be “islands unto yourselves, refuges unto yourselves, seeking no external refuge…”

It is worth pointing out that transmission of the Buddha’s Dhamma was initially oral. The Buddha knew that writing down the Dhamma would present problems and he cautioned against those that would come in the future and change his teachings. And when things get written down, they can suddenly take on an undeserved credibility.

This seems to be what happened with Katherine Wharton’s review, which if you read it closely seems to suggest that the only part of “Buddhist Warfare” that she read was the chapter penned by Demiéville. Her words get picked up by others, such as Marty, and are spread about the Web and get read widely despite the suspect nature of her conclusions.

Even Demiéville shows how this happened with the development of Zen in Japan, which began as a very well-cultured and educated school of Buddhism that required strict discipline in the practice. These very traits were used by militaristic individuals, including Zen priests, to train soldiers in the correct use of weapons. This is cited as another example of the alleged warlike nature of Buddhist doctrine. These elements of Zen were in turn bifurcated into other schools and doctrines. Ryogen encouraged the preservation of the “real law,” or Mahayana, against the lesser counterfeit laws of the Lesser Vehicle, or Hinayana, that of the pratyeka-buddha, which he likened to be weed-like akin to underbrush that cannot rid itself. Nichiren advocated ignoring the precepts because if an action is protected by the Greater Vehicle, it was justified. Ergo, we see the development of the line of thought that killing and war can be justified as means to reach a higher, nobler end.

In the end, what Demiéville demonstrates are numerous fine examples of how individuals twisted the Dhamma to create their own lineage and to justify the elimination of enemies. These efforts were rewarded and protected by the rulers and the powerful of the times. But to use these examples to support the assertion that Buddhism condones violence, that it rationalizes violence, is in my opinion just plain wrong. Yes, there are “teachers” and those who founded new schools of Buddhism long after the Buddha’s death that advocate, condone and rationalize violent behavior, but to suggest that these new lineages are correctly interpreting the Buddha’s guidance on such matters is weak.

Yes Virginia there is right and wrong

2011-03-18T13:13:00.000-07:00

Within Buddhist circles, you eventually hear someone say that there is no right and wrong, that these terms merely represent a dualistic form of thinking that creates imaginary categories that are empty.

On one level, I believe that to be true. On another level, I believe such talk is total nonsense. And it is this type of Wrong Thinking that in my view leads others to conclude that Buddhism is amoral.

There is right and wrong in Buddhism. In fact, the Buddha made a list to show us that there is right and wrong. He called this list The Noble Eightfold Path. Because in order to have Right View, you must abandon Wrong View; if you want to develop Right Intention, you must abandon Wrong Intention; if you want to develop Right Speech, you must abandon Wrong Speech; to develop Right Action, you must abandon Wrong Action; to engage in Right Livelihood, you must abandon Wrong Livelihood; to develop Right Effort, you must abandon Wrong Effort; to develop Right Mindfulness, you must avoid Wrong Mindfulness; and to achieve Right Concentration, you must abandon Wrong Concentration.

That’s the Buddha’s rap folks – there is Right and Wrong.

These items in The Noble Eightfold Path are further categorized by the Buddha pertaining to how an item in the path relates to one of the three basic elements of the Buddhist practice: Panna, or wisdom; Samadhi, or concentration; and Sila, or virtue. That’s right! Virtue is a key element of the Buddhist practice. It’s what following the Five Precepts is all about – developing virtue!

Where the confusion arises is in the way we Westerners tend to view these terms right and wrong. While these terms are synonymous with “correct” and “incorrect,” when speaking about human behavior, these terms are generally imbued with moralistic tones that derive from our shared monotheistic background. Something is morally right or morally wrong because an action is considered morally right by the assertion that it is a directive from a higher power or that it pleases a higher power, and if an action is contrary to that higher power’s directive or displeases that higher power, then that action is deemed morally wrong.

But that’s not the way these terms work in Buddhism. Whether an action or other phenomenon can be consider “right” or “wrong” is not determined by a third-party entity, but rather by the results created by that phenomenon. The phenomenon is “right” when it results in the alleviating one’s own suffering, the suffering of others, or one’s one suffering and the suffering of others. The phenomenon is wrong when it results in increased suffering for self, increased suffering for others, or increased suffering for both self and others. And yes, the Buddha also spoke of morally neutral actions, actions that neither alleviate nor cause suffering for self or others.

Results are not always just immediate. We can engage in actions that bring us the immediate result of diminishing our own suffering. But actions set in motion many things, and there may be later results that lead to us suffering more. So while an action may look “right” in the short term, that same action may later be revealed to be quite wrong.

It’s not that difficult to grasp. The Buddha taught his son Rahula this when the boy was just 7 years old. But again and again, discussions about morality veer way off into the very highest limbs and the remotest leaves of the tallest simsapa trees.

Now granted, it is important for us to understand why a wrong action is a wrong action. It’s important to understand why it’s wrong so that we can stop committing that action. But not understanding why something is wrong should never hinder us from stopping that action. And even if I never fully understand why something is wrong, if I’m convinced it is by other reasons, then I am doing something very skillful by ceasing that action. I will get good results regardless of whether I understand why a former action was wrong. And for many people, that’s good enough.

While Buddhism is pretty simple, it is also quite subtle. While a wrong action will often bring immediate or near term bad results, the Buddha taught a theory of karma that diverged significantly from the dominate theory in India at the time. Despite the fact we may commit a wrong act in the present, we have the opportunity to diminish its continual negative influence over time through engaging in Right Action. While the Buddha, for example, told soldiers that by developing proper mental attitudes during battle would reduce the karmic impact of their actions – killing people – he was quite clear that the soldiers would never escape those karmic consequences. With the simile of the salt crystal, the Buddha explains if we’re lucky enough and have enough time, we can correct and change future outcomes for previous bad acts. He says this also to Angulimala when he tells the former robber and murderer to quit his whining: by suffering now Angulimala can avoid the torment of eons in a hell realm.

This is why I have lately said that there is no moral right to do anything, but there are consequences for everything. We may feel that we “deserve” to react to someone or something in a particular way, and we may opt to follow on our impulse or belief. As Clint Eastwood classically said in “The Unforgiven,” “Deserves got nothing to do with it.”

But no matter how we rationalize our action later, no matter how vehemently we seek to justify our action, our action creates consequences, both short and long term. We could, for example, feel great at the moment, but later feel remorse and guilt for years. Do what you will, but you shall reap what you sow. You are where you are because you went there.

Buddhist Warfare, the Introduction

2011-03-10T19:12:00.000-08:00

A little more than a year ago I shared my knee-jerk outrage over a book of articles collectively titled “Buddhist Warfare.” My first blog post on the subject was prompted by the cover image on the soft-cover edition of the book, which I have scanned and provided with this post. I followed up with a second post further explaining my reaction to the book while at the same time admitting that I had not read the collection: rather, I had only read blurbs about the book as well as a description written by one of the editors.

I wrote the following in my first post: “The author (Michael K. Jerryson) states that the West has a faulty perspective of who Buddhists are in Asia and the daily struggles they face, and in response to these struggles, sometimes violence is employed by even the most meek.”

How interesting that a Westerner points out that the West has a “faulty perspective” about Buddhism in Asia, and that he and other Westerners are setting out to correct this “faulty perspective,” because by gosh, they know what they’re talking about. While one cannot be absolutely positive of one’s ethnicity based upon one’s surname, of the 11 writers contained in this anthology only one appears to be Asian. So what we have in this book is what is so common with European Anglo scholarship – white folk telling us how to understand the yellow folk’s culture and religion, all from a white folk perspective.

I accepted the not-always-so-subtle suggestions by some that perhaps I ought to read the collection before lambasting it and I vowed that I would. And I am. My intention was to write one post as a follow-up, but it’s become clear that, in my view, the content of this publication is much more complex than I originally surmised, so I’ve opted to write a post on each chapter. Having said that, I remain deeply troubled by the packaging and the presentation of this volume, a feeling reinforced when I saw the quote at the top of the first page of the introduction.

That’s right: I couldn’t even get past the first page of the introduction without heaving a great sigh of frustration.

In reading the first article in this book I realize that there is some extraordinary history that I am quite certain most Buddhists – whether Western, Asian, white or whatever – are simply unaware of. There’s good stuff here. But it’s beguiling because packaged together like this, one might reach the very unskillful conclusion that what passes as Buddhist doctrine today – or even hundreds of years ago during post-Buddha periods – is a bunch of hooey. And frankly, a lot of what does pass as Buddhist doctrine today is complete bullshit. Maybe that’s why I prefer to follow the so-called “lesser vehicle” because it is often the purveyors of the alleged “greater vehicle” who are handing out the most bullshit.(Don't misunderstand my bitch here. There's plenty of bullshit to go around)

I Tweeted recently that “I went seeking bullshit and I found bullshit, but the bullshit I found was not the bullshit I sought.” So it is with many things.

I frankly admit that headed into this venture I had a bias just as profound as what I accuse the authors’ of having. And I readily admit that these erudite ladies and gentlemen have spent a great deal more time in scholarly study of Buddhist texts and Buddhism, as well as Asian culture, than I have. Compared to their academic stature, I am a nobody. But one does not become a Buddhist merely by reading about or studying Buddhism, just as one does not become a surgeon by reading books about surgery. One is a Buddhist by practicing the Buddha’s teachings, and warfare is not among the Buddha’s Four Noble Truths, nor the Noble Eightfold Path. It’s simply not part of the practice. And yet, that does not protect the Dhamma from the Wrong View of others. So here goes.

Title and cover image

My first issue is with the title, “Buddhist Warfare.” Titles to any composition are important; they should reflect what the content is about. In this case, “Buddhist” is an adjective. By placing “Buddhist” ahead of “warfare,” it becomes the modifier of “warfare.” In other words, this isn’t about any type of warfare, but specifically about “Buddhist warfare.” This implies that “Buddhist warfare” is different from other forms of warfare in the same way that nuclear warfare is different from conventional warfare, that there is something about this type of warfare that makes it Buddhist. But when you read the contents of the book, you realize that is not what the book is about; rather it’s about Buddhists engaging in warlike activities, and how Buddhism has been corrupted to justify acts of violence. That makes the title inappropriate. “Buddhists At War,” or “The Violating of Buddha,” would have been much more appropriate, because such titles would also be connected to the general thesis of the works within the book, and that is to dispel the misconception that all Buddhists are pacifist; that a variety of Buddhists have twisted the Buddha’s teachings to justify violence and war, or merely to glorify their own knob.

My next issue is with the image on the soft cover edition. It depicts a novice holding a pistol. To me this is an obviously staged photo. The novice isn’t even holding the pistol properly. One could interpret from the image that the novice is in fact uncomfortable holding the weapon. But the photographer, one can easily presume, more than likely asked the novice to hold the gun for a photo. With the photo in hand, the publishers now have a “shocking” image to place on the book’s cover. I find such a scenario completely reprehensible. If I am incorrect in my conclusion, I would hope the photographer Brenda Turnnidge would clarify.

Introduction

The introduction opens with a quote from 1891 attributed to Dutch Sinologist J.J.M. de Groot (A couple of brief bios about him can be found here and here). The problem with this quote is twofold. First, de Groot, like many 19th century European Christian ethnographers writing about Eastern religions, uses the Christian vernacular to describe Buddhism referring to the First Precept as a “commandment,” the violation of which constitutes a sin.

The second problem is with the quote’s context. De Groot comes off speaking as if he is revealing a dastardly lie of Buddhism in that despite the First Precept, there are Chinese texts that speak about monks who engage in warfare and killing, “leaving no room for doubt that warfare was an integrate part of their religious profession for centuries.”

It is reasonable for a reader to view these opening quotes as providing a sort of synopsis or insight regarding the theme of the chapter – what the point is. So it is reasonable to presume that with the introduction, the writer (in this case one of the editors) is laying the groundwork to show that Buddhist teachings make room for violence and condone it. This is evidenced by the two questions the writer establishes as critical to how a reader interprets the contents of the book: “How can Buddhist scripture be interpreted for warfare? And how is it interpreted for warfare?”

This, in my view, qualifies as a set of unskillful questions, questions that the Buddha would refuse to answer because attention to them diverts one from understanding the truth. It’s akin to describing one of those Texas or Louisiana Baptist snake cults and calling them representative of Christianity.

The writer I think astutely begins to speak of “Buddhisms,” recognizing that Buddhist traditions are quite varied and often incorporate rites and rituals indigenous to whatever region a particular variety of the “Buddhisms” arises. Understanding this regional variety is important, but what the author fails to impress upon the reader is that these various rites and rituals found in different geographic locations and which vary according to ethnicity of the practitioners isn’t Buddhism. In fact, the Buddha mostly ridiculed rites and rituals, approving of them only as a means to maintain social order and to develop mindfulness. On their own, rites and rituals are superfluous to following the path.

The author next brings up examples of how “Buddhisms” are involved in creating and fighting wars. But what is really being described here is Buddhists at war, not Buddhism causing or creating war. While there are many examples in Asian history of Buddhists fighting wars, most of these wars reflect ethnic and religious chauvinism, a state of mind that existed in those who wage the war, not a quality found within the religious system itself. (The obfuscation of what is really going on in Bangladesh recently is an excellent example of how religion is incorrectly identified as a causal factor for the current strife) If it is, it was added later by the particular group and does not represent the Buddha’s teaching. As the Buddha warned, unenlightened minds would corrupt his teachings. Just because an unenlightened Buddhist rationalizes an unskillful act doesn’t mean Buddhism justifies the act.

The example used by the author of how Aum Shinrikyo found inspiration in the Lotus Sutra to release poison gas in a Tokyo subway, killing many people, is suspect as well. Such a perspective would divert personal responsibility away from the actors and place it on the scripture; it would be like blaming the Beatles for Sharron Tate’s murder.

Despite this introduction and the apparent overall premise of the book, the individual articles are really interesting. However, they contain what I consider significant flaws as well. Which is why I will periodically address each chapter individually.

If you’ve read this book, I would welcome your comments, but please stick to the specific chapter I am writing about.

What matters more?

2011-03-08T07:31:00.000-08:00

I’ve been visiting Boston and on Monday, I was hanging out in a Starbuck’s on Central Square drinking coffee and reading “Buddhist Warfare,” about which I will soon be blogging. I found a spot by the window and settled in to read and jot down notes. A few seats over was a young woman reading the Bible and jotting down notes as well.

She eventually initiated a conversation with me, asking whether I was “studying” Buddhism. She was interested in Buddhism and wanted to know more. I said that I was studying the book I had because I needed to know what was in it so that I could be fair in criticizing it.

“But, yes I am Buddhist,” I told her.

She appeared somewhat surprised and asked me how long I had been Buddhist and when I answered, she then asked what had brought me to Buddhism.

“Pain,” I replied. “Seeking a way to end suffering.”

She nodded and said, “I see.” She agreed there was a great deal of suffering in the world. I realized my response came off as a bit vague and esoteric, so I went on to say that “suffering” in the Buddhist sense covered a lot of territory, and included things like when we’re happy, it doesn’t last, or that we try to avoid feeling unhappy, we try to avoid people we don’t want to be around, etc. That, in short, life was a ride of sorts filled with ups and downs and in general was unsatisfactory. “We desire things and even when we get them, we want more, we’re never satisfied.”

That seemed to make a bit more sense to her, and she answered with how her faith – she identified as being Seventh Day Adventist (I think I threw her off as well when I said that I knew what a Seventh Day Adventist was because I had dated a man in the past that was one) – helped bring her hope, that the Bible stories filled her with awe and wonder. That was her remedy, it seemed, for suffering. So I asked her, “What if you avoid doing things that cause suffering or pain in others? Would your own suffering be lessened?”

A puzzled expression immediately occupied her face. “I’m not sure what you mean by that?” Well, I guess I’m not as clever as the Buddha, I thought. So I explained that the Buddha taught that we create most of our own suffering through our actions, often by adding to someone else’s suffering. So if we avoid doing things that bring suffering or pain to others, would that not in turn reduce our own pain and suffering? “If I go outside and call someone and awful name, that person might hit me, right? There are consequences to our actions.”

“Oh yes, there are consequences,” she said. “In fact, sinning brings us death.”

I knew where she was going with this, so I played dumb. “How does sin cause death?

She started flipping through her Bible and I could see she was in Romans (do I dare tell her I think Paul was a misogynistic kook?). She asked if she could read something to me, but I said why does she need to do that? I was very familiar with the Bible, having read several versions, everything from the King James to the NIV. “I’ve also read the Book of Mormon. Although I’m impressed that you’ve read some of the Koran because I am very ignorant of Islam.”

I could tell she was disappointed that I didn’t want her to recite the Bible to me. I said that I knew the passage she was looking up, that it was about “the wages of sin is death.”

“But what if I said to you that birth is the cause of death?” Again, that puzzled look. “Surely you can agree if one is never born, they will not die. So being born causes death. After all, there are people who do not sin, and yet they still die.”

“Hmm, there are people who do not sin but still die,” she murmured. “That’s interesting. Can you name some?”

“Sure, how about Jesus? And what about Mary? They were without sin, weren’t they?”

I’m surprised she didn’t bring up the notion of Original Sin. Instead, she asked whether I believed that Jesus had really lived. Of course, I said, I believed that he lived and he was an important teacher. That, in fact, there are parallels in what Jesus taught to what the Buddha taught. But I also believed that much of what Jesus said was manipulated by others for political reasons. “They needed someone like him, because they wanted to get the Romans out of Palestine.”

I also told her I had a great deal of respect for the Gospels, although the rest of the Bible I considered fantasy. Oh, but the Old Testament was filled with examples of prophesies coming true, she said. An old trick, I replied. Anyone can write a history hundreds of years after an event and make up connections and quotes to show that someone “saw it coming.”

I thought she would counter me with the belief that the Bible was written by God and therefore could not contain factual errors. Instead, that frown of confusion returned. She did in a round-about way ask whether I believed in God.

“It’s not important,” I said. “If I live a moral life and behave well toward others, I will ease my own suffering and the suffering of others, I will increase my happiness right now. And when I am about to die, I won’t fear death over things I might have done in the past, so my dying will be with ease. And if there is an afterlife, I can be assured of a pleasant afterlife because I behaved correctly right now. But believing in the afterlife won’t make it happen on its own. What matters is how I act right now, because that sets up what will happen to me next. So if there is an afterlife, I’m OK. And if there isn’t one, I’m still OK. I don’t need to believe in a heaven. I don’t need to believe in a God. What matters is what I do right now.”

Again, that pondering frown. I was prepared for a reply about facing the wrath of God if I was wrong about whether there was a god. Surely, I would say, her god was a bit more emotionally stable than a spoiled 4-year-old. Instead, she returned her focus to her mini laptop to look something up. The conversation was over. Just like that.

Later I began to wonder why she closed up. Had I created doubt within her about her own beliefs? No, I don’t think that was the case. My conclusion is more cynical. I believe she viewed me as a waste of time. Her interest from the start was more likely to evangelize, to convert me to her way of thinking. When she saw she would fail, she merely stopped engaging me. There was a time when she asked me what type of Buddhism did I follow; I told her the Thai Forest Tradition, or Theravada. She asked me to spell that and she did a Google search. Lord knows whatever she might find in her search results, but at least I can count on the Access To Insight website showing up in the top.

When I left Starbuck’s, I told her that I enjoyed our discussion and hoped the rest of her day went well. Our discussion was pleasant; whether I was skillful I’m not certain. But I always think that it’s a good thing when I don’t piss someone off and they don’t piss me off.

We're running out

2011-03-02T15:29:00.000-08:00

Adam over at Fly Like a Crow has an excellent post that is mostly political in nature in that it deals with Republican efforts in Congress to gut existing environmental law. But he also shrewdly points out that the assertion that Republicans merely want to reduce government spending is a specious one. But then again, when hasn't the GOP been specious in its talk and pandering in its agenda?

As a break, I thought I'd post the following Scissor Sisters' video of them performing the song "Running Out" from their new album. I chose it because it seemed fitting to what Adam was saying, that we are running out of things like clean air and clean water. And these are things worth preserving.

And besides, I'm really excited that I am going to see Scissor Sisters with Lady Gaga next week in Boston!

God, I sound like such a fag.

RunningOut

Four Noble Truths for Lesbians

2011-02-28T17:52:00.000-08:00

After crafting the Revised Four Noble Truths for gays, I thought I’d take a stab at a similar post for the grrls. It’s a tough crowd, one not afraid to express itself (did you notice how I capitalized 'Lebsian' but left 'gay' lower case for the boys?). But no matter who we are, if we take ourselves too seriously, nobody pays attention. So here it is ladies, unabashed and audience tested.

Now this – all you lipstick lesbians, diesel dykes, cat-women dominatrix, flip-flop wearing Peppermint Patties, matronly moms, stressed-out bodybuilders, long-legged beach queens, beehive homemakers, grease-pit goddesses, and thin-lipped librarian types – is the noble truth of stress:

Having a middle-aged man call you “honey” is stressful; having a gorgeous young girl call you ma’am is stressful; being repeatedly asked by straight people if you own a motorcycle is stressful; learning your girlfriend really does want a penis is stressful; running into a bi guy at a gay bar is stressful; having arm-flailing gay men in front of you at an Indigo Girls concert is stressful; meeting a really super nice straight girl who likes you a lot but isn’t going to sleep with you is stressful; broken carburetors are stressful; having to change a tire for a gay man is stressful; finding out your date hasn’t got a clue about what Scissor Sisters is a reference for is stressful; having someone ask you if you’re lipstick or diesel when if they’d just open their fucking eyes they’d know is stressful; getting a breast exam is stressful; getting a PAP smear by a gynecologist that sniffles is stressful; being constantly asked if you hate men is stressful; being mistaken for a boy is stressful; being mistaken for a girl is stressful; having to be asked yet again whether Annie Leibovitz is a lesbian is stressful; trying to figure out why Willa Cather mostly wrote about men is stressful; being asked about Chastity Bono when you don’t even like Cher is stressful; not having enough candles is stressful. In short, the entire glamorous life of a lesbian is stressful.

And this, my sensational sisters, is the origination of stress: Expecting male sexist pigs to treat you with respect; forgetting that you’re not 22 anymore; failing to understand that body art can at times give the wrong impression; wishing you had watched “Boys Don’t Cry”; under-appreciating gamblers; stubbornly sticking to the idea that there are some places you can still keep us out of; failing to appreciate that you are a likeable person; not buying a car with fuel injection; not realizing that changing the tire is the source of the stress rather than for whom you are changing it; thinking that Internet dating service profiles are truthful; expecting others to have the same level of awesome awareness that you have; failing to appreciate the real First Noble Truth; refusing to acknowledge it was your decision to accept the job with the lame-assed health plan; allowing yourself to continue to be shocked whenever you encounter ignorance; continuing to allow your self-worth to be determined by others; see previous; not taking it seriously how many people get their information from Fox News; yeah, that’s a tough one to figure out; forgetting that most people – including gays – just don’t get the transgendered thing; yeah, what is it with you grrls and candles? This is how you stress yourself.

And this, my sisters in saintliness, is the noble truth of the cessation of stress. That which is the letting go of the desire to control how others think, the freeing yourself of trying to be someone other than who you truly are, the embracing of the present moment in all its roughness and ambiguity, the understanding that the value of you as a person is not determined by external factors but rather by the generosity in your heart and your willingness to protect Nellie queens from gay-bashing morons, and the abandonment of the condescending mind that drives you to seek fulfillment at Home Depot.

And this, my sardonic scissor sisters, is the path leading to the ending of all that stress, the Noble Queerfold Path which leads to inner peace and multiple orgasms: Right Spending, Right Friends, Right Self-value, Right Sincerity, Right Honor, Right Compassion, Right Love, and Right Restraint.

Of course, the items in the Noble Queerfold Path, while laudable, are not the same as the Noble Eightfold Path. And certainly, anyone serious about following the Buddha’s path should pay more attention to the latter than the former. But whether you’re a pixyish boy with blue hair or a big-boned mamma laying roof shingles, there is value in the Queerfold Path. And peace as well.

It’s official, The Last Airbender sucks

2011-02-27T15:18:00.000-08:00

Last March in one of my posts about racism and white privilege, I wrote about how the then-upcoming film “The Last Airbender” was another example of a whitewashed version of a popular cartoon populated mostly by Asian characters. The movie release had white actors playing roles that in the cartoon were clearly Asian. Despite the cartoon being hugely popular with kids of all races, Hollywood in its infinite wisdom decided that a movie with white actors would be more palatable with the public.

Fast forward to this weekend when “The Last Airbender” was recognized as the Worst Movie of 2010 by the Razzies. It was also honored as having the worst director and the worst screenplay.

In an Associated Press article, Razzies founder John Wilson said that many people who loved the television series “The Last Airbender,” including his own 14-year-old son, hated the movie.

What I wrote back in March – “The film industry has a long history – despite the diversity of those who work within that industry – of deliberately pandering to the prejudices and bigotry of its audiences” – remains true. “The Last Airbender” wasn’t a complete flop at the box office, which means the film’s creators won’t understand why the movie is being ridiculed.

That’s too bad. Because that means we will continue to be subjected to more films that pander to the ignorance of bigotry and racism. Particularly, it seems, when it comes to American films about Buddhism or Buddhists. There have been a few decent ones. But when Hollywood churns out crap like this, it gets a bit disheartening.

Silence = Death

2011-02-20T09:16:00.000-08:00

Martin Niemöller was a German protestant pastor with balls. Niemöller is probably best remembered for the following quotation:

“First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out – because I was not a Socialist. Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out – because I was not a Trade Unionist. Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out – Because I was not a Jew. Then they came for me – and there was no one left to speak for me.”

Over time, the quote was embellished to include Jehovah’s Witness, Catholics, Communists, and homosexuals. Niemöller was late finding his balls, because during the rise of Nazism in Germany, he remained silent and eventually spent 7 years in a concentration camp. But his quote is instructive nonetheless to show how ignorance and persecution gains strength and influence when good people remain silent.

Eighteenth century Irish writer and historian Edmund Burke famously made two very prescient observations: First, “All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” And second, “Among a people generally corrupt, liberty cannot long exist.”

Both Nathan at Dangerous Harvests and Kyle at The Reformed Buddhist have brought to light a bill under development in Arizona that seeks to ban the use of “foreign law” within the state under the penalty of impeachment. Among the usual suspects in the litany of “foreign law” is Sharia law. As if that wasn’t stupid enough, the bill also seeks to ban “karma.”

That’s right – they want to ban “karma” and anyone citing “karma” or allowing it to be introduced as a legal strategy could be impeached.

Who are these people? Do they really think that karma is a statute written on paper somewhere and that it has legal precedence in certain “foreign” courts? Karma is no more a statute than the “law” of gravity. The sheer ignorance of it all would be laughable if it wasn’t so fucking scary!

Then Arun at Angry Asian Buddhist, as well as John Pappas with an article at Elephant Journal, reveal how residents in Johnson County Kansas are seeking to block a Buddhist group from moving its temple because they fear animal sacrifices will go on there. I’m not kidding – animal sacrifices!

Again, the sheer ignorance of these people would be hilarious if it weren’t for the fact that they scare the shit out of me. That they believe or even think they can get away with lying that Buddhism includes animal sacrifices among its rituals is so astounding that I wonder if the end of the world really is coming soon. Because the tide is evident when you consider that the governor of Wisconsin is trying his damndest to gut the unions in that state and set back more than 100 years of labor law and advances that began in Wisconsin to the benefit of workers everywhere in the country.

I’m all ears. Someone guide me on what to do. Who do I need to send a letter to? Who do I email?

Silence = Death.

A revised Four Noble Truths for Gays

2011-02-10T18:57:00.000-08:00

Adam over at Fly Like a Crow has an awesome post about the Four Noble Truths of Parenting. His post was so inspiring – and girls you better read it! – that I had to come up with a new Four Noble Truths for Gays. True I had written about such a litany in the past, but let’s update it a bit and get a bit cheeky, shall we?

And so here they are, the Four Noble Truths for circuit partying homos and other “sexual deviants .”

Now this – all you go-go boys, bears, twinks, muscle queens, leather daddies, angora queens, closet cases, dragalicious divas, nerds and straight-acting-total-bottoms – is the noble truth of stress: body waxing is stressful, pyramid workouts are stressful, cold sores are stressful, smegma stench is stressful, Christina Aguilera is stressful, a sold-old Scissor Sisters concert when you don’t have a ticket is stressful, a Cosmo with too much lime is stressful, new leather chaps are stressful, dance floors so crowded you can’t move are stressful, finding out the dude you just hit on is underage is stressful, having your credit card rejected is stressful, not being carded at the door is stressful, learning that you can’t buy “The Pool Boy” anymore because Brent Corrigan was only 16 when he made it is stressful, finding out it wasn’t just a cold sore is stressful, genital wart removal is stressful, returning home to find out that you already have the shirt you just bought is stressful, finding out your liaison doesn’t like to kiss is stressful, worrying that you perspire too much in light clothing is stressful, waiting for your HIV test results is stressful, pushing on a Marine's bellybutton and his legs don't go up in the air is stressful, seeing your date in pleated trousers is stressful. In short, the entire glamorous life of being gay is stressful.

And this, my fellow moes, is the origination of stress: desiring a hairless body when your genes come from a gorilla, wanting a chiseled body that that will turn to flab when you retire, needing to look flawless before you go out, not paying attention to body odor before you decide to sniff the swarthy saber, not having better taste in music, waiting too long to buy your ticket, knowing the bartender doesn’t know how to make a fucking Cosmo but you order it anyway because you want to be seen with it, not knowing about Bick leather conditioner, wanting to flail about like an unhinged dancing queen, forgetting that interest in you is not always genuine, because you’re unwilling to live within your means, forgetting that yes we do get old, you should have bought “The Pool Boy” while it was still available, having a sexual appetite that overrides reason and prudence, see previous clause, you’re getting old, expecting a casual sex encounter to be the same as doing someone you really care about, failing to know how to dress, failing to accept the fact that multiple partners means multiple risks, reading too much into the repeal of Don't Ask Don't Tell, thinking you can find happiness in an online dating service. This is how you stress yourself.

And this, my brethren moes, is the noble truth of the cessation of stress: The letting go of the compulsion to be someone other than who you are, understanding that your worth as a person is not defined by how much you spend, nor is it defined by how others view you, and realizing a craving for sex is connected with your self-perceived value as a person (you are attempting to reproduce the affection you missed as a child), and a failure to pay attention to common fashion magazines like Details.

And this, my fellow queens and moes, is the path leading to the ending of all that stress, the Noble Queerfold Path which leads to inner peace and an intense orgasm: Right Spending, Right Friends, Right Self-value, Right Sincerity, Right Honor, Right Compassion, Right Love, and Right Restraint.

Oh shit, I just realized that now I will have to blog about each of these in the true Noble Queerfold Path. But you know what, I think I will have fun doing that.

Gradients of kamma

2011-02-06T11:02:00.000-08:00

The other night at dinner a friend of mine was asking me about kamma, which led to me explaining that kamma was often misrepresented even by those who call him or herself Buddhist. People tend to think of kamma as the result of an action. For example, “Don’t do that, it will bring you bad karma.”

I tend to use the Pali term kamma rather than the Sanskrit term karma because my Buddhist education is grounded in the Thai Forest Tradition. Either term will work, however.

Anyway, I told my friend that kamma isn’t created by the action, but rather the intention behind the action. One creates kamma via his or her intentions. He then asked me about light and dark kamma, and that’s when I had to admit ignorance. I had an idea of how to explain bright and dark kamma, but I didn’t want to misstate something. So I told my friend I would study the matter first.

The best expression of what bright and dark kamma is can be found in the Anguttara Nikaya. The particular passage can be found in Thanissaro Bhikkhu’s Beyond Coping in the section on Heedfulness. And while not dealing specifically with the concepts of bright and dark kamma, the story of Angulimala also provides some excellent insights into the workings of kamma.

In the Anguttara Nikaya, the Buddha lays out four types of kamma: “There is kamma that is dark with dark result; kamma that is bright with bright result; kamma that is dark & bright with dark & bright result; and kamma that is neither dark nor bright with neither dark nor bright result, leading to the ending of kamma.”

As the Buddha explains each of these four types of kamma, it’s important to note the language used. “And what is kamma that is dark with dark result? There is the case where a certain person fabricates an injurious bodily fabrication...” The Buddha uses the phrase, “a certain person fabricates…” The concept of fabrications is pretty important in Buddhism; trouble is most people have the wrong idea of what it means.

Many people think that when something is a “fabrication,” it means that object or construct is not real, that it doesn’t exist at all. In my view, that’s not at all what the Buddha means when he talks about fabrications. On one level, fabrications are not real in and of themselves, but the object or event to which we attach the fabrication is real. In the Buddhist sense, a fabrication is merely a mental construct created by our mind to give some object or event a characteristic that we wrongly view as permanent. Think of it like the line Juliet speaks when thinking of Romeo's family name: “What’s in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.”

A rose is a rose no matter what we call it. As a collection of matter, a rose simply is. The name “rose” is the mental fabrication we create to ascribe to a plant that has certain physical characteristics. Go to a different country where a different language is spoken and the mental construct has a different pronunciation, but the rose is still a rose.

When the Buddha describes kamma, it is associated with the mental fabrication associated with the intent to commit an act of either speech, body, or mind. So in the case of dark kamma, that fabrication begins with wrong intent, with an intent to cause harm. The consequences that manifest after an intention of dark kamma are the results of kamma, the fruits of kamma, not the kamma itself. Bright kamma, hence, begins with a fabrication that causes no harm. Hence, the fruits of bright kamma are pleasant.

We often get confused when we seem to get mixed results from our actions because we think we have a good intention. This is what the Buddha refers to as kamma that is both bright and dark. As Thanissaro Bhikkhu explains here, we may think we have good intentions, but if we really examine our intentions, they are often unclear and confused; hence the outcomes of our actions bring us confusing or mixed results. This happens a lot in interpersonal relationships, particularly among we moes.

Remember the film “The Broken Hearts Club” and how Dennis befriended the cute newby Kevin (oh god, Kevin was such a darling!)? Dennis clearly had the hots for Kevin, but he wanted to appear more virtuous than the callous Cole, so Dennis concocts this idea that Kevin needs a true friend when Dennis’ real intention is to get Kevin in bed. All of Dennis’ friends see this for how it really is, but Dennis chooses to believe in his false intention. While the outcome is not completely messed up, the results definitely are mixed.

Most of our lives are filled with this combination of bright and dark kamma because for most of us, we really don’t understand our real intentions, either intentionally or because we just never really took a close look at our actions and the motivations behind them.

This is why we meditate. To stop the chatter in our minds so that we can see the truth behind all our thoughts, words and deeds.

Angulimala ran into this problem even after the Buddha accepted him into the sangha. At first, Angulimala couldn’t get anyone to offer him food during his alms rounds because he remained feared and despised for all of his past murderous actions. Even after the Buddha set up an act of truth to show others Angulimala’s new noble birth and he became accepted by more villagers, there remained a group who refused to believe that Angulimala was nothing more than a murderous monster. Whenever he went for alms, these holdouts threw rocks and sticks at him. One time he comes to the Buddha, his head bleeding, to show the Buddha what had happened. The Buddha tells Angulimala to buck up and endure this because he is lucky to be suffering this torment now as the continuing fruits of his past actions rather than to suffer those consequences by spending eons in a hell realm.

The final type of kamma is what the Buddha describes as being neither dark nor bright. This is when we abandon all kamma and we are free of any other intention other than to liberate ourselves from the cycle of birth and death. I haven’t a clue as to what that must be like. My days are still mixed with brightness and darkness, a muddle of intentions that I am barely able to discern.

Why couldn’t I help you Lance?

2011-02-04T11:22:00.000-08:00

I would not normally write about and identify any of the children I used to work with, but in Lance’s case I’m going to make an exception, because, you see, Lance is dead.

The details are hazy as it happened many years ago, but as I recall, Lance took a pistol and shot himself in the head. I think he was 15 at the time. The specifics are immaterial, and when one doesn’t know all the facts, the facts become mixed with rumor until truth can no longer be separated from fiction.

All that matters for now is Lance is dead. And while it remains speculation, I have a pretty good idea as to why.

Lance was a handsome, energetic, athletic and mischievous boy from Texas. His smile was infectious. He honestly tried to please others, but like many boys his age diagnosed with ADD, his mouth and actions often got ahead of his brain, leading him to say and do things he quickly regretted.

He was a student at the private boarding school where I worked as a cabin counselor. The school, up in the mountains of Northern New Mexico, was for teens diagnosed with learning disabilities. It was a beautiful natural setting that offered tremendous opportunities for outdoor activities in the surrounding national forest. I took students on many hikes and backpack trips into the mountains there and not just for recreation. I’ve always believed that the wilderness is an effective teacher of many things; it will humble the most arrogant teen and in the flash of a moment, will show you death for what it really is.

I liked Lance. I remember on a hike one day up the steep slope of a ridge by the school, we encountered a rock outcropping that was about 12 feet high. You could walk around it, but it was an excellent opportunity to do a little free climbing without any serious risk. I was amazed at Lance’s agility as he easily climbed up the rock face, finding the right handholds and swinging his body up to another tiny ledge where he paused briefly horizontal to the ground before using his wiry strength to pull himself to the top of the outcropping.

It really was a beautiful and awe-inspiring site.

Later in the year there was hushed talk about an incident between Lance and another boy in his cabin. Lance’s normally bright demeanor was subdued and gloomy. The once loquacious boy had become taciturn and morose. I was just 24 years old at the time, struggling with my own sexuality. Intuitively, I sensed a similar struggle within Lance. So I took a risk.

Lance’s cabin counselor agreed to let Lance come over to my cabin after lights out to chat. Talk about an uncomfortable meeting. I let Lance know I knew what occurred between him and the other boy. I also let him know I wasn’t going to tell him that there was something wrong with him. Rather, I wanted to find out what he thought about the situation. How was he going to deal with it? What happened, I said, didn’t mean he was gay. But the incident wasn’t going to go away.

There was one other time I approached another boy, also from another cabin and at the request of his counselor. (Was it that obvious to others? “Send the kid to Rich, he knows how to deal with that kind of thing.”) In that situation, I made an obvious mistake. The boy’s reaction to my inquiries, despite how oblique they were, clearly let me know I was making a mistake.

With Lance, however, I believed I was right. He gave me the non-denial denial, never clearly denying what others were saying had happened, nor clearly denying that he had sexual feelings for other boys. But he remained closed up. Never had I seen someone suppress their tears so effectively. He wanted to tell me something, but he couldn’t bring himself to say it. I told him that anytime he needed to talk about anything, I would be there.

That was late in the school year. Lance brightened up a bit and finished the year on a good note. He opted to return to public school the following fall, so he did not come back to our school.

About six weeks into the next school year, I was doing something in the office when someone grabbed me and said, “Hey, Lance is on the phone, he just called and asked if you were there.” At the time, I thought it was odd for Lance to call like that. But I shrugged it off. I took the phone and asked Lance how things were going at his new school. Not so well, he said. He was calling from home, he had just been suspended. His parents weren’t home yet. He was worried how they might react.

I think I asked Lance what had happened at school to get him suspended, but I can’t remember whether he again evaded my question or gave me an answer. I remember telling him he would get through this. And I remember telling him thanks for calling and asking for me. I told him I liked him, he was a good kid.

A week later I heard the news. Lance had shot himself dead. He did it on the same day that he called the school. He must have shot himself shortly after the phone call.

Long pause because I’m crying right now.

I don’t blame myself for what happened to Lance. But goddamnit, what a fucked up situation that was. It was the 1980s when everything said about gays had AIDS connected to it. I was in my 20s, confused about my own sexuality trying to talk to a 14-year-old who was just as confused. I was deathly afraid of anyone finding out. My position at the school would be ruined. Even though I had never done anything in the least inappropriate with any of the boys at that school – and while I worked there I had personal knowledge of at least three other counselors who had sex with students, two involving male counselors with female students and the third a male counselor with a male student (and there are a couple other instances that while I didn’t have personal knowledge, I have strong evidence, a lot can happen in five years) – I knew that if someone were even suspicious of me being gay my life would be ruined. Or at least, that’s how I thought.

Lance must have been thinking the same way.

So much suffering, and what the fuck for?

Much of this came to me during my morning meditation today. Normally when I finish meditating, I always recite the Loving Kindness chant. But today, I just couldn’t get through it. Not only couldn’t I remember the verses in the right order, I was weeping as I tried to say them. And when I went through the Five Remembrances, I was struck by the last line.

“I am the owner of my Kamma, made of my Kamma, born of my Kamma, related to my Kamma, abide supported in my Kamma. Whatever Kamma I create, wholesome or unwholesome, light or dark, skillful or unskillful, to that I fall heir.”

It’s the part “… related to my Kamma, abide supported in my Kamma …” I asked my original teacher long ago what that meant. He said that being related to your Kamma literally means my relatives are manifestations of my Kamma, and the last part had to do with all my personal relationships. My friends, the jobs I had and the co-workers I have, that also is my Kamma. And as we continue to create more Kamma with our present actions, we constantly create for ourselves situations and relationships that allow us opportunity to undo past Kamma.

When you look at Kamma this way, you see how we are all in our own personal version of Bill Murray’s “Groundhog Day.” This endless cycle of rebirth plays on and on until we get it right, until we stop making Kamma and find release.

There are a lot of us in this world who behave like oxen, dragging a wagon full of woes behind us. And instead of unhitching ourselves from these carts, we spend our time throwing more shit onto someone else’s wagon. We protect our own wagons, having become fond of our woes, rather than abandoning them. I do the same thing. I want to stop. I want to help others stop.

I don’t know how to finish this post, so I’m just going to stop.

"These four things, monks, I have taught you..."

2011-01-30T07:02:00.000-08:00

I recently have been struggling with depression. Not my own. Somebody else’s. And I find it truly uncanny how a person with depression can find the gloomiest part in everything, how easily he or she can focus and latch onto even the merest bit of negative element in even the most beautiful things.

Those of you who have suffered with depression in the past, who are dealing with it now, must admit something that is very clear: you people can be very manipulative. It’s as though you treat those around you who seek to help as if they were balloons – you suck the air right out of us until we have nothing left to give.

Don’t get me wrong, I fully understand that depression is a serious matter. I don’t blame you for draining my enthusiasm; after all, it was my decision to be involved, to offer help. I am the owner of my own kamma. But the refusal to see how one’s own distorted thinking feeds and nurtures one’s depression, and that this distorted thinking is often deliberate, absolutely astounds me. Finding the right mix of being blunt and supportive is difficult. Yet to abandon someone suffering a mental health issue is precisely what the illness desires. If we think of depression like a parasite that has latched onto a vulnerable host, it wants others to abandon the host, to give up on the host. So the depression feeds the mind with distorted logic to confuse, frustrate and even anger anyone who tries to help.

I don’t think there is a clearer example of the First and Second Noble Truths than a person with depression. Maybe I don’t get it. Maybe I’m not showing compassion or empathy. Maybe I need to work a little more on my loving kindness.

I showed my friend how to chant the Daimoku and that has helped. He feels some relief with that. However, it’s difficult to ensure he is really doing it. OK, we haven’t met face-to-face. Our communication has strictly been by email, text message and phone. While I think his depressive thinking had been developing for a while, it only recently became acutely severe because of a harsh breakup he went through with another man. While I want to help, offer support and even love, I am worried that a personal meeting with this man would just lead to him latching onto me as a new boyfriend. He is very cute and admittedly, my initial attraction to this young man was based pretty much on his appearance. So already, I cannot trust my intentions. And yet, I am afraid that it is too late for me to walk away without making matters worse. I have reason to believe he has already made one attempt on his life; the gesture was really quite superficial. He also admits that he is afraid of dying, that he doesn’t want to die.

I Am a Rock

So what to do? I ask you, my readers. If you’ve ever suffered with depression, or if someone close to you ever suffered with depression, your insight would be very helpful. Maybe all I need is patience and to work on my compassion and loving kindness. But knowing how to communicate with such a person without falling for their manipulative traps would be very helpful right now.

Teach your children well

2011-01-16T11:19:00.000-08:00

A former colleague recently asked me to come up with an outline of how to teach the Four Noble Truths to children ages 4 to 14. It was going to be part of a presentation at his Unitarian Universalist congregation. I did a quick search for some online material, but was surprised at how scant the resources were when it came to teaching kids about Buddhism.

A monk once told me that in many Thai families, for example, the first thing parents teach their children is how to hold their hands when bowing. Then the parents move on to teaching the correct way to do the three bows before a Buddha image. Do they teach these prostrations and gestures because they are part of the rites and rituals of Buddhism?

Not really. While that does play a part, doing the bows and holding your hands correctly takes concentration. It requires that you pay attention to what you are doing. And rather than teach a very young child something as esoteric as cause and effect, Thai parents teach their children how to concentrate so they can do something correctly. Concentration is, after all, one of the three legs of Buddhism: Concentration, morality, wisdom.

I know there are others who despite their own Buddhist practice refuse to “indoctrinate” their children. Frankly, I find this attitude a bit self-serving. For most of us Buddhist converts, we came to Buddhism because we rejected our (most likely) Christian upbringing. The reason goes, I suppose, is that our children can “find” their own way just as we had. But this, to me, is a very flawed way of thinking.

For example, let’s consider all the people who accepted their Christian upbringing and continue practicing a Christian faith. Likely they did so because as children, their parents made sure they attended church, probably attended religion classes also because to truly know one’s faith, one ought to study its texts. And these children participated in many Christian rituals, no doubt – everything from saying grace at the dinner table to participating in activities at the church where the family attended.

The children accepted this and continued to hold on to their “religion” into adulthood.

We converts were undoubtedly raised this way as well, but along the way we began to question the doctrines and the practices. Supplied with unsatisfactory answers, we sought something else. For many of us, it was Buddhism. Now, ask yourself this: would you have found Buddhism if initially you hadn’t felt satisfied with your Christian upbringing? If you hadn’t been exposed to Christian practices within your family, would you have likely searched for something else? Maybe, maybe not.

The point I’m trying to make is that your childhood exposure to one religion prompted you to search for something else. However, let us not forget that a much larger group of people raised in similar circumstances found comfort and peace in the same religious practice as their parents and never developed a need to search elsewhere.

Yet, for some Buddhist converts, there is this odd desire to deny their children this same opportunity. Why not teach your child about Buddhism? Why not “indoctrinate” them? Teach and let go. If they accept your guidance, then they will be happy. And if they are unsatisfied, they will search for something else, just as you had. And maybe they will join an evangelical Christian church and be happy. Isn’t that what we want for our children, for them to be happy?

Some of you refuse to “force” your children to learn Buddhism and develop a practice because you don’t want to be like your parents who “forced” you to practice Christianity. But teaching your children Dhamma doesn’t need to be a “forced” activity.

The Buddha used the very common image of a mirror to teach his son Rahula when the boy was just 8 how important reflecting on our actions is to our welfare. Paying attention to what we do is critical to our Buddhist practice. And there are many ways to teach that to our children without “forcing” a doctrine on them. If you teach your children the cause and effect relationship between their actions and the outcomes those actions create, then you’re teaching them Buddhism.

One of the Five Recollections is: I am the owner of my kamma, born of my kamma, made of my kamma, related to my kamma, abide supported in my kamma…” Being related to your kamma is literally just that: your children are representations of the fruits of your kamma. They’re your children for a reason. Contemplate that during your next meditation session and see what bubbles up in your mind.

Anyway, below is what I came up with after finding this site. It’s very basic, but it’s a start. Feedback is welcomed.

Four Noble Truths for children

1. We aren’t happy all the time; there are times when we are sad, angry, frightened, or lonely.
2. We feel sad, angry, frightened or lonely mostly because we can’t get what we want, or we’re told to do something we don’t want to.
3. It’s our fault that we feel this way, and we can stop it when we learn how to want the right things.
4. The Buddha gave us Eight things to remember to help us learn how to want the right things and accept that life doesn’t always go the way we want it to.

The Buddha’s Noble Eightfold Path essentially tells us there are right ways to do things and wrong ways. Doing the right thing is much more than being moral. Doing the right thing brings us a happiness that causes us to feel at ease, unworried and unafraid of what may happen next. It’s a happiness that doesn’t go away. The Buddha compared this type of happiness to a person’s shadow: it’s always following you but you can’t tell it’s there unless you look at it.

Doing things the wrong way is what brings us those feelings we don’t like. If we say mean things, we’re going to make someone else angry, and what do most people do to someone who has made them angry? They get even, they do something to harm the other person. So it starts with us. We create our unhappiness, and this can cause us to feel hopeless, like we’re stuck dragging a heavy weight all the time. The Buddha described how our wrong actions create burdens by using a simile of an ox dragging a cart. The cart is heavy and burdensome. It’s as if with each wrong action we take, we are tossing another heavy rock into a wagon we are tugging along behind us. If we’d just stop putting heavy rocks in the wagon, it would be easier to pull.

I used to hate drag queens

2011-01-05T18:27:00.000-08:00

I really did. I called them freaks, mentally ill, made fun of them. I did not want to be around them. When I went to a gay bar and a queen was coming my way, I went the other way. Effeminate men irritated me too. It was like, why do you have to be so gay? I mean really gay?

But then it dawned on me: Why do I have to be such an asshole?

My discomfort with drag queens and effeminate men/boys was really about me, not them. It was all tied into my fear of being associated with that type of gay man. I was afraid of them. I was homophobic and I was gay!

Man, did I need to get over that shit. And I did. Now I’m irritated by gay men who complain about gay stereotypes. Some have posted comments to my blog. I’ll get over these dweebs too someday, but again, I just want to scream, “Get over it! We’re here, we’re queer, get a freaking hobby!”

Anyway, I wanted to share this video about the Princess Boy. I love this! It makes me cry every time I watch it. Shit, I am such a fag.

tvjares

By the way, I found this video on the blog Gay Andy. This is a blog written by a 17-year-old Hispanic boy that has proved to be an enthralling read. I must admit that at times I have doubts as to whether Gay Andy is real. But then again, these doubts are mine, and one day I will understand their origin.

Four Right Efforts for 2011

2011-01-01T08:38:00.000-08:00

So it’s that time again when many are making their resolutions for the New Year. I pity them as most will be unable to make good on their resolutions before the end of the first week. But I also have pity for those who succeed on these resolutions because of their clinging to this notion that their success will make them an overall better person. In fact, to the entire concept of making New Year resolutions I say screw it.

Every day is an opportunity to practice the Dhamma with greater skill than the previous day. And every day holds the potential of being our last. Jan. 1 is no more special a day in this regard then March 12, or Aug. 7. Every day is an opportunity for us to better ourselves and to be of greater service to others. Every day is a chance to wipe away a bit more of the film of delusion that covers our eyes and sedates our mind, to rattle our helter skelter actions and bring them out of the self-induced soporific trance of false comfort, to open our eyes and see things for how they really are, not what we wish them to be.

That takes effort; four of them to be precise. And to correctly apply these four efforts, we need to be well-grounded in the present moment.

There are many sayings that reflect to a degree the importance of remaining focused on the present. There is “One day at a time,” perhaps the most common and very effective at reminding us that we shouldn’t dwell too much on the future. But this axiom can be used for selfish ends; for some it is a more palatable form of “eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow you may die,” because it can make us sound like we’re being more responsible. It would be something like spending your life in a gay disco, dancing away the days with all the hot go-go boys, waiting for that moment at the end of the night when all the studly men and boys take off their shirts.

There is “carpe diem,” or “seize the day,” which is a much more aggressive way of reminding us that today may well be our last, so we ought to get as much out of it as we can. This does, however, allow hedonism to run amok in our life because this saying tends to give permission for unrestrained indulgence in sensual pleasure. It would be like spending your life in a gay sauna where you aren’t so much seizing the day, but turgid appendages of flesh.

This adage gets closer to the heart of the matter: “If yesterday is a canceled check, today is cash, and tomorrow a promissory note, go with the cash and spend it today.” But even this allows for personal indulgence in empty spending purely for immediate gratification. It’s like throwing away all your credit cards and using cash only, but you’re still acquiring objects that have no real value and bring you no closer to true happiness as there will always be some new item you don’t and must have.

No, living in the present moment is simpler than that, and yet it’s more difficult to achieve. In the Theranama Sutta, we hear about a solitary monk named Thera who brags about the virtue of living alone. When the Buddha hears about this, he tells Thera that there is his (Thera’s) way of “being alone,” but there is a better way.

“And how is living alone perfected in its details? There is the case where whatever is past is abandoned, whatever is future is relinquished, and any passion & desire with regard to states of being attained in the present is well subdued. That is how living alone is perfected in its details.”

The Buddha relays this message in a slightly different form in the Bhaddekaratta Sutta as well.

“You shouldn’t chase after the past
or place expectations on the future.
What is past
is left behind.
The future
is as yet unreached.
Whatever quality is present
you clearly see right there,
right there.
Not taken in,
unshaken,
that’s how you develop the heart.
Ardently doing
what should be done today,
for — who knows? — tomorrow
death.
There is no bargaining
with Mortality & his mighty horde.

Whoever lives thus ardently,
relentlessly
both day & night,
has truly had an auspicious day:
so says the Peaceful Sage.”

So there it is. Living in the present moment means to avoid dwelling in the past because the past is gone. It also means that we recognize that where we are right now is because of what happened in the past. The past is important because it brings us to the here and now, but to dwell on the past cripples us. Pining for the future, or even just thinking about the future, is of no use as well because the future is not here. But recognizing that our future is built upon our present actions is very important. It is only by behaving skillfully in the present can we erase the kamma we created in the past and build a happier future for ourselves.

To help us accomplish this, the Buddha gave us the Four Right Efforts. They are:

To prevent unskillful qualities from arising.
To denourish and remove unskillful qualities already present.
To strengthen and further develop skillful qualities already present.
To nurture and develop skillful qualities not present so they may arise.

There are bad actions that we already don’t do, and that’s good. But we need to make sure that these bad actions never manifest themselves. For example, if we’ve never smoked, then it’s wise that we make sure that we don’t start.

No one is a saint, so there are negative actions we engage in that we need to identify and remove. If we smoke, it would be wise to stop smoking. This example oversimplifies matters, so don’t be beguiled by its apparent simplicity. We all exhibit many subtle negative behaviors that we may not immediately recognize. When we do, we need to strive to remove them.

We all have good qualities. We don’t want to lose them, so we need to strengthen them, just as we would strengthen our body through exercise. If we don’t, we may lose these good qualities, and that would be a bad thing.

Then there are the qualities that we wish to have, that we want to develop. Qualities that we admire in others and wish to emulate. We must work at developing these qualities, because they don’t spontaneously arise. We cannot become more compassionate toward others unless we practice compassion daily. We won’t become more empathetic unless we seek to understand others around us. Our concentration during meditation will not improve unless we work at mindfulness in everything we do and say.

This takes work; that is why they are called “efforts.” And frankly, there are many who call themselves Buddhist who don’t bother to put forth any effort. Even well-known teachers fall into this trap, this “thicket of views” that beguiles one into thinking he or she is following the path. They are like wolves in the coyote stories told by American Indians, an animal capable of rationalizing anything in its own mind (I’ll have to do a post soon about this particular coyote story, it’s an excellent one), or like the eel-wrigglers the Buddha speaks of in the Brahmajala Sutta.

And this is why I have no use for New Year resolutions. Of course, the Buddha did teach that it is alright to use common turns of phrase when speaking with others, provided that we clearly understand the emptiness of these phrases. In particular, the Buddha talked about the self, that it was alright to speak to others about our “selves” as long as we understood that it was just a term of common use and has no real meaning. New Year resolutions fall into this category. In which case, perhaps a skillful resolution to share with others would be to strive toward being more focused on what I am doing right now and how it will shape my future.

Dukkha isn’t always a drag

2010-12-31T09:48:00.000-08:00

There’s a saying that I often find instructive: If you want to make god laugh, make some plans.

While it’s good to have a plan, an idea of what you hope to do or accomplish, experience tells us that our plans seldom go as designed. If our plans aren’t flexible, when things go awry we can become confused, frustrated, even angry. Often we are the cause of our plans falling apart, but there are occasions when the world around us can throw a kink into things.

My recent trip to Boston revealed much to me in terms of how things can go and how my attitude influences outcomes. Originally planned as an arrive Thursday, depart Monday itinerary, a blizzard arriving Sunday night completely shut down Logan International Airport, stranding not only me, but thousands of others. Attempting to contact a travel agent at American Airlines to find out when I could fly back to Chicago was unsurprisingly frustrated. Sunday night, when I learned my flight on Monday had been canceled, I was on hold with American for 1 hour and 27 minutes before I finally gave up. I called again Monday morning and was on hold again for nearly an hour before I was able to talk to an agent.

Before the agent answered, I made some key decisions about how I was going to behave. First, I put myself in the agent’s shoes. By the time he or she would speak to me, the agent undoubtedly had spoken with hundreds of other stranded travelers who were tired, confused, angry and perhaps even hostile over their predicament. I told myself that I wasn’t going to add more by being a complaining drama queen. So when the agent answered, I said hello to her, and let her know I was sympathetic to her situation. After telling her I was aware that she had probably been dealing with a lot of angry and frustrated people, all I wanted to know was when I could return to Chicago. The earliest flight she could get me on was Thursday, Dec. 30. I said that was fine, I completely understood the situation. She told me she couldn’t get me a seat assignment, but a notice would be emailed to me shortly. I thanked her and wished her a happy new year, then hung up.

When my email arrived confirming my booking, I saw that I was assigned a seat in first class. That won’t happen, I thought to myself. But I did have three more days in Boston to explore, so I made a decision I would enjoy myself.

I took some good photos, persisted in my search of a good used book store until I found one, and had a wonderful chat with a taxi driver in a pub in Cambridge. There were other events that I had hoped would occur, but which did not. Oh well, here I am, the moment is now, where does it go?

Equanimity isn’t always so easily had. But it is critical to following the “middle way.” There’s a sutta in the Anguttara Nikaya Book of Fives on subduing hatred, but really it’s about how to deal with an annoying person. Step two was the most useful for me in my situation in Boston: “When one gives birth to hatred for an individual, one should develop compassion for that individual. Thus the hatred for that individual should be subdued.”

I didn’t hate the travel agent, but by developing compassion ahead of time when I was rearranging my travel I was able to be a pleasant person with her when she had probably already been dealing with rude people. I wasn’t going to add to her dukkha by sharing my own dukkha.

In Wings to Awakening, Thanissaro Bhikkhu describes equanimity as “an attitude of even-mindedness in the face of every sort of experience, regardless of whether pleasure and pain are present or not.” He explains that there are three steps to developing what he calls the “equanimity dependent on multiplicity.”

1) development, or a conscious turning of the mind to equanimity in the face of agreeable or disagreeable objects;
2) a state of being in training, in which one feels a spontaneous disillusionment with agreeable or disagreeable objects; and
3) fully developed faculties, in which one's even-mindedness is so completely mastered that one is in full control of one's thought processes in the face of agreeable or disagreeable objects.

The weather did more than just disrupt my travel plans. My two cats back at home were going to run out of food before I could return. This was a situation ripe for me to get all bent out of shape over, largely because I was practically powerless to do anything about the situation. Isn’t it funny how the situations we have the least control over freak us out the most? It was my acceptance of the fact, I believe, that I was completely powerless over the demise of my cats that helped me develop the equanimity to deal with the situation. A phone call to my landlord, who luckily was back in town, to coordinate letting someone into my apartment to check on the cats, plus the willingness of friends to help combined to easily solve my dilemma.

Of course, what would I have done had my landlord not been in town? No one else had a key to my apartment even if they were willing to check on my cats. What would I have done then?

This type of questioning is pointless, really. Because it did work out. And why did it work out? I would dare say that it was the result of my past actions, my kamma. Had I behaved like a prick with the people I know, had I been an awful or even just a disagreeable tenant with my landlord, then when I needed help from others, things would likely not have worked out so well.

Which emphasizes how important it is for us to consciously develop equanimity – we have to make the conscious effort to view both the good and bad in our life with a dispassionate perspective. A pleasurable event may lead us to an unhappy situation later on if we allow the pleasure of the moment to distract us from making skillful decisions. Just as an unhappy event may actually lead us to a better situation in the future if we avoid wallowing in self-pity.

Oh yes, and another thing; the first-class seating on my return flight was not a mistake.

Are you too sexy for your body?

2010-12-22T16:46:00.000-08:00

Even though the Buddha renounced a lay person’s way of life, he remained a good father and did an outstanding job teaching his son, Rahula. We can conclude by the results that Rahula was probably an apt pupil, but that may only be because the Buddha was swift enough to re-focus his adolescent son’s mind on the proper topics for contemplation, or Rahula might have been a Brahmin-style Right Said Fred.

Rahula was hot, and he knew he was hot. Or at least that’s how the stories go. For example, in the notes to the Maharahulovada Sutta (MN 62), also known as The Greater Discourse of Advice to Rahula, we learn the reason why the Buddha directed his then-18-year-old son to perfect the meditation technique of contemplation of the body as body.

“According to (Majjhima Nikaya Atthakatha) … While Rahula was following the Buddha, he noted with admiration the physical perfection of the Master and reflected that he himself was of similar appearance, thinking: ‘I too am handsome like my father the Blessed One. The Buddha’s form is beautiful and so too is mine.’ The Buddha read Rahula’s thought and decided to admonish him at once, before such vain thoughts led him into greater difficulties. Hence the Buddha framed his advice in terms of contemplating the body as neither a self nor the possession of a self.” (Notes are from the hardbound text, not the online text)

So dang! Rahula was a hottie twink thinking he had it goin’ on, but the Buddha was wise to that nonsense and immediately re-directed his son before he started wearing Daisy Dukes and dancing on a box at a backwoods discotheque.

Contemplation of body as body is also a technique I use from time to time when I have difficultly remaining focused on my breath. It’s just a different focus point and it is very effective. Besides being a necessary step in meditation – if all you do is focus on your breath, you’re in a rut – when you learn to see body as just body, you come to realize that body isn’t so glamorous. As my teacher once said: “Isn’t it funny that the items we attribute beauty to on our body are dead – like the outside of our skin, our teeth, our hair – but the living parts of our body – internal organs and such – we describe as gross.”

Rahula learned well and became a significant member of the Sangha. A section of the Theragatha is attributed to him where Rahula explains how the root of sensuality has been cut out of him: “Cooled am I, unbound.”

I’ll say so.

OK this is scary

2010-12-20T17:00:00.000-08:00

Not really a Buddhist topic, unless you wonder about rebirth at times. But did Donny Osmond have a twin brother that died young? Is Justin Bieber the reincarnate of Donny Osmond's brother? Is this scary?

I think it's scary.

What does it mean to be good?

2010-12-18T13:17:00.000-08:00

Overheard talk: “So what does it take to be a good person?”

“Well, a good person doesn’t do anything harmful, he doesn’t say evil or hurtful things to others, he doesn’t want to do bad things to others, and he doesn’t earn a living by screwing people over.”

“Yeah, that’s sounds reasonable. I guess that makes me a good person because I don’t do any of those things.”

DANGER, WILL ROBINSON, DANGER! MASSIVE DELUSION APPROACHING OVER THE HORIZON!

Ok, so that was a bit melodramatic. Let’s dial it back a bit.

“Holy cream cheese cupcakes Batman! That is so delusional that it makes my ridiculously colorful costume look like normal business attire!”

“Yes, I’m afraid you’re right, Robin. That is so delusional that it makes our relationship look platonic.”

“Oh, Batman, our relationship could never be that way!”

Erm, sorry, got carried away again. Hmm, what would the Buddha say about that? Perhaps something like, “If that were so, carpenter, then a young tender infant lying prone is accomplished in what is wholesome, perfected in what is wholesome, and ascetic invincible attained to the supreme attainment …”

And that is exactly what the Buddha said, according to the Samanamandika Sutta (MN 78).

We all want to be a good person, right? Well, except maybe Boris Badenov. Natasha’s no sweet pea either. And besides, they’re cartoon characters, not even real. But the rest of us, we want to be good, right? So it’s natural for us to want to know what it takes to be a good person.

Many of us reach the same conclusion that my “overheard” conversation reveals. If we do no evil, say no evil, desire no evil and don’t make money off evil, then we’re square with our kamma and good to go. This works for many of us homo-hedonists, or so we tend to think. So maybe we do a little Ecstasy at the club while we’re dancing. So maybe we like to indulge a little in our porn collection. So maybe we like to cruise the gay sauna from time to time. It’s all good, right? Maybe we like to head to the bushes for a little while after the Dunes closes in Douglas, no harm there, right? No one gets hurt, it’s all in good fun, and everyone leaves with a grin.

But this is a specious rationalization, which the Buddha quickly points out to a lay follower.

The carpenter Pancakanga, ran into this wandering aesthetic with a really long name – OK, I’ll tell you his name: It’s Uggahamana Samanamandikaputta (and if you can pronounce that, I’ll give you a kiss in public, even if you’re straight) – who told Pancakanga what he believed were the four qualities that made an “aesthetic invincible attained to the supreme attainment.” You know, the four qualities I mentioned earlier: do no evil, say no evil, desire no evil and don’t make money off evil. Our friend the carpenter doesn’t say anything to the guy with the really long name; he just gets up and politely leaves to go tell the Buddha what he just heard. When Pancakanga tells the Buddha about this, that’s when the Buddha replies with what I quoted earlier. The Buddha tells the carpenter that there’s no skill in merely avoiding the four things the aesthetic with the really long name identifies because a baby can do that. And why can a baby do that? Because a baby hasn’t developed a mind yet, a mind that is the source of all our troubles.

Being a truly wholesome person is a lot more complicated, skillful and difficult than merely avoiding bad speech, bad intentions, bad desires and bad employment. Don’t get me wrong, as these are great places to start. But if that’s all it took, then everybody would be pure and happy. Instead, the Buddha tells us that it requires the skillful application of the Noble Eightfold Path along with relentless execution of the Four Right Efforts. You really should read the sutta, as I won’t go into all that detail here. Because what I found really interesting in this sutta is that a key element of developing this skillfulness is once we realize that we are living a moral and wholesome life, we relinquish any attachment we might have to behaving that way.

Think of it this way. Initially, we do good things because it makes us feel better as well as makes others feel better. And this is great! But the Buddha tells us we must get beyond that quid pro quo manner of thinking and make skillful actions so much a part of our normal daily life that we no longer do things with the anticipation of feeling good about it. We just do it. And that’s not very easy. In fact, it’s pretty damn difficult.

Then again, that is, perhaps, why they call Buddhism a practice, and practice makes perfect.

Finding the Right Action

2010-12-11T09:31:00.000-08:00

It’s been a while since I’ve addressed the Queer Eightfold Path, or the Noble Eightfold Path as Dorothy might have presented it to Oz .

Or would that be how Rahula would have presented it at Harvey Milk Memorial Plaza in the Castro? You know, Rahula was quite the hottie when he was 18, and the Buddha knew it; that’s when the Buddha instructed his son on the meditation technique of mindfulness of the body, except that the Buddha’s mindfulness of the body meditation isn’t all about, “Oh Jeezus I’m so Hot!” But I digress.

The nice thing about the Eightfold path is that it helps us understand better the nature of our actions as well as shows us how our actions are connected to immediate and future consequences. Another thing to keep in mind with each of the factors of the Eightfold Path is that they are dependent on each other. In other words, you cannot develop Right Intention without first having established Right View. And developing Right Speech can’t happen until you’ve developed Right Intention. Once we’ve established a sense of Right Speech, we’re ready to work on Right Action, because after all, speech is a form of action.

So what is Right Action? Let’s first get out of the way what it is not.

“No, no, don’t do it that way, do it like this, yes, like that, oh yes! That’s the right action! Woo-hoo!”

Erm, that’s not what we mean.

“Well, yeah, he’s cute. But he’s got all that hair crawling up out of his shirt and up his neck. I don’t need that kind of action.”

Uh, no, that’s not it either.

Let’s start first with what the Buddha said about Right Action in the Maha-cattarisaka Sutta (MN 117).

"Of those, right view is the forerunner. And how is right view the forerunner? One discerns wrong action as wrong action, and right action as right action. And what is wrong action? Killing, taking what is not given, illicit sex. This is wrong action.

"And what is right action? Right action, I tell you, is of two sorts: There is right action with effluents, siding with merit, resulting in the acquisitions [of becoming]; and there is noble right action, without effluents, transcendent, a factor of the path.

"And what is the right action that has effluents, sides with merit, & results in acquisitions? Abstaining from killing, from taking what is not given, & from illicit sex. This is the right action that has effluents, sides with merit, & results in acquisitions.

"And what is the right action that is without effluents, transcendent, a factor of the path? The abstaining, desisting, abstinence, avoidance of the three forms of bodily misconduct of one developing the noble path whose mind is noble, whose mind is without effluents, who is fully possessed of the noble path. This is the right action that is without effluents, transcendent, a factor of the path.

"One tries to abandon wrong action & to enter into right action: This is one's right effort. One is mindful to abandon wrong action & to enter & remain in right action: This is one's right mindfulness. Thus these three qualities — right view, right effort, & right mindfulness — run & circle around right action.”

Yeah I know. That was some pretty esoteric stuff. Let’s simplify it.

The Buddha is telling us that there are two categories of Right Action. The first one he identifies as being “with effluents.” This is just what could be called mundane Right Action because it’s tied to everyday activities in normal lay life (Um, and that doesn't mean the life of getting laid). It’s connected to the effluents because all this type of Right Action assures us is that we are good people who can expect a reasonably happy and productive life, as well as a peaceful and easy death. In our next life, we can expect to be reborn into a pleasant existence.

The Right Action that is “without effluents” includes those actions associated with someone who is actively seeking liberation, actively seeking release: in other words, someone who wishes to attain Nibbana and end the cycle of rebirth. This more than likely would include monks and nuns.

For most of us, the mundane Right Action applies, which is fine. Mundane Right Action is not lame or unimportant. It’s very important. It’s just that most of us do not live a monastic life nor have any desire to do so.

The Buddha then identifies three key factors that describe what mundane right action includes, and what he identifies is three of the Five Precepts. Don’t kill, don’t steal, and don’t be a whore dog. Just in case you’re not clear what “illicit sex” or the Third Precept means for we moes, read this and this too.

The Buddha then talks about developing the proper frame of mind necessary to abandon wrong action and replace it with Right Action. Part of this includes Right Effort and Right Mindfulness, which, ironically come later in the Noble Eightfold Path. This might appear to contradict what I said earlier about how each step on the path is dependent on the preceding steps. But it doesn’t really, because the development of Right Action is accurately described as being a prerequisite to Right Effort and Right Mindfulness. If you don’t know what constitutes Right Action, how will you know what the Right Efforts are needed to develop it? And if you haven’t developed Right Action, how will your mind be at ease so you can develop Right Concentration?

Look at it this way. If your meditation is a struggle because you’re worried about who you slept with the previous night and what might happen with that trick, then you haven’t developed Right Action. And if you’re withholding your HIV status from your sexual partners, then you haven’t developed Right Action either. And all of these examples can be traced back to a failure to establish Right Intention and Right View.

Once we develop a clear idea of what is Right Action, we start to practice it and evaluate our outcomes. We develop skillfulness by paying attention to what happened before, during and after a particular action. What was our intention as a situation developed? Did our action in that situation result with pleasant consequences for ourselves and for the others involved? Will how the relevant situation was resolved lead to more pleasant consequences in the future, or might it lead to an unpleasant situation?

That’s a lot of thinking. But it’s precisely a lack of this type of thinking that we can always trace our mistakes to. If something went wrong with a situation, or the results we expected didn’t happen, it’s because we didn’t think about these factors or we lacked the proper frame of mind – we lacked Right View and Right Intention. So when you want to get the right action, you need to employ Right Action.

Was he a bodhisattva?

2010-12-08T20:30:00.000-08:00

As I "imagine" whether John Lennon was a bodhisattva, I have to conclude if he wasn't, then he was awfully damn close. At the least, he is a Deva.

"Imagine"

That which we touch remembers.

The referees are winning the game

2010-11-28T07:59:00.000-08:00

Over the long weekend I learned that a former colleague and friend had died of lung cancer. Dick Bolton was a photographer extraordinaire, but more than anything else, he was a compassionate human being. I worked alongside Dick right around the turn of the century while I was working at The Morning Sun, a smallish daily newspaper in Mt. Pleasant, Mich. It’s right about smack dab in the middle of the Lower Peninsula.

Dick loved to talk, but he also had a knack for directing conversations where he wanted them to go. Not because he wanted you or anyone else to reach the same conclusions he had, or agree with his perspective; in fact, Dick would slyly take positions contrary to his own personal view just to watch how you would react. Dick wanted people to communicate. He sought to understand rather than to be understood.

He was also a bit of an imp, whose sly comments at times cut so deeply to the reality of a situation or person, you could easily miss his point. Another former colleague of mine, Lisa Yanick Jonaitis expressed it best when she described a particular trait Dick had when he was out at a high school football game shooting photos for the paper. The sports writers would call him and ask who was winning the game. “The referees are,” he would reply and say no more.

Dick knew I practiced Buddhism, but rarely would directly ask me anything about it. And when he did, after hearing my response, he would lament out loud that he wished some of the Christians he knew had followed such guidance. He also had a somewhat annoying habit of talking to me about women. He would go on about something about women in a vein that was clearly the type of conversation that two straight men would have, and after he would finish, I would look at him with this annoyed expression, wondering why isn’t he talking about this with the guys at the sports desk?

My most memorable experience with Dick was on a road trip assignment he and I took to the wine country of Northern Michigan. We visited three wineries: I did the interviewing while he shot the photos. They were beautiful photos. We had a room at a tiny hotel in Leelanau that was along the river right by a weir. The roar of the water going over the fall provided a constant and soothing white noise. Across the river we had dinner at a restaurant that started off with three or four martinis and led to a bottle of wine to go with a couple of massive steaks. We barely were able to stumble back to the hotel room, which required that we walk across a walkway over the top of the weir.

The next morning, before driving back to Mt. Pleasant, we drove out to Frankfort to the Lake Michigan shoreline. The beach at a small park was empty – it was mid-September – but just to the south we saw a group of college kids – two girls and a guy – walking along the edge of the waves as they broke upon the shore. We both gasped when we saw all three disrobe to begin frolicking naked in the surf. I remember Dick saying to me, “Well now, there is something for both of us.” We both cursed the fact that we didn’t have binoculars, but we got a decent look using the telephoto lens on his camera. We sighed, then went to his van to begin the drive back to Mt. Pleasant.

It was only within the last year that I had re-connected with Dick via Facebook. That was also when I began to realize he was battling cancer. As one of the phrases in the Five Remembrances states, we are of the nature to be sick, we have not got beyond disease. And of course, this is followed with death.

Death really isn’t so bad and doesn’t worry me much. It’s the dying part that really sucks. But from my perspective, Dick Bolton managed dying very well. And that counts for a lot.

The more things change

2010-11-20T09:26:00.000-08:00

The more things stay the same.

Thought this video had some very striking images, all of which have parallels to today.

MerryClayton

Merry was the singer that accompanied Mick Jagger on the original release of this song.

Riding the bicycle of meditation

2010-11-07T09:06:00.000-08:00

My understanding of what is really supposed to be going on during meditation has gone through many transformations. Initially, I interpreted the notion of “stilling” or “quieting” the mind to mean I was supposed to stop thinking at all, that I needed to turn off the internal chatter within my head. But that was only half right. The result of that was I would be so focused on my breathing in an effort to force out all other thoughts that meditation became such a chore; it was like trying to push a giant boulder up a mountainside. The endeavor was so exhausting that I often fell asleep during a sit.

Then I learned to quit fighting my thoughts, just let them pass by like a float in a parade. This helped immensely with the ever-present song or jingle that would pop into my head during meditation. In fact, I am seldom bothered any more by a song stuck in my mind while I sit. Staying focused on my breath is much easier.

But it just doesn’t seem like I’m getting anywhere. Some of my most satisfying sits involved some very specific thinking going on in my mind. It wasn’t when I was floating in the absorption of my breathing. In fact, this buoyant state of my mind remaining aloof from other mental activities was bringing on the sleepiness problem I had in the past. Rather, my most insightful moments in meditation actually involved me fixing my mind on a thought or concept and following that thought through in what seemed like logical increments. On the rare occasions when this occurred, I reached a level of understanding about whatever it was I had been thinking about that was very satisfying. I might even say it was euphoric.

Having said that, my mind does tend to grasp onto thinking paths that are self-indulgent and irrelevant. Yet, increasingly I have become intrigued by how the Buddha describes the first Jhana, as a state of “deliberate and sustained thought.”

And then I read this extraordinary post at the Theravadin. He uses two very vivid – for me – metaphors to describe the functioning of meditation.

In the first metaphor, the Theravadin uses a common behavior to describe how we develop the mindfulness necessary for effective meditation: learning how to ride a bike. When first learning to ride a bike, we are very focused on maintaining balance so we can move forward, so focused on this single element that often – at least I remember doing this – we aren’t looking ahead at what’s coming and we run into other objects, like curbs or trees. But with persistence, we develop the balance necessary to keep our bicycle upright. When that happens, we ride with ease, able to look around us at the scenery as we peddle along. We’re still riding the bike, we’re still doing everything we need to do to maintain balance, but we are no longer “aware” of that – it’s automatic now.

It’s such a brilliant metaphor because developing the balance necessary to ride a bicycle with ease is very much like developing a fixed mind in meditation. Finding the balance needed to ride a bicycle with east is just like remaining fixed on a meditation object, such as the breath.

“Developing the jhanas is like learning how to ride a (mental) bike. When learning how to ride a bike there are two important things involved: First of all, you see others on the bike and see how much fun they have. You want that too. Secondly, almost everyone you see did learn it, so you are thinking: I can do it too. Third, when you are up on the bike, you learn to intuitively avoid falling – but that takes lot of practice. You know now, that the falling was actually part of the game, and it taught you how NOT to fall. In order to develop the skill to keep your balance your mind had to learn to avoid extreme movements away from the center. You also realized that eventually, once you started to keep going, the balance was easy to hold and the fun bike ride started.”

And what do we do when we have learned how to balance ourselves on a bicycle? We ride along and enjoy the scenery, never “forgetting” what we need to sustain doing to keep our bicycle upright.

Then the Theravadin introduces another powerful metaphor that really got my mind alert. Imagine being carried along by the powerful currents of a wild river. Out of sheer luck, you are able to grasp onto a rock. What are you going to do? You are going to cling to that rock with every ounce of energy you can, and if you are able to, you will pull yourself out of the raging river onto the rock.

“The attainment of the jhana, according to this simile, is achieved by a “not-floating away” or “not-drifting-away”. This is similar to a person in a wild river pushed along by the current who would try to hold on to a stone – long enough to pull himself out of the water and step on that stone. Such a temporary break (because he has not yet crossed the river but is still caught in the middle) on the steady rock in the middle of a wild river means also that no effort is necessary to maintain that calm position and one feels calmness and aloofness while the river/stream of the senses retreats.”

Once up on that rock, what would you do? You have a moment of relative ease to collect your breath, re-focus your thoughts and contemplate your next move. You can’t stay on that rock forever. At any moment, the raging river could send you a wave that will knock you off your perch. But it is, temporarily at least, a safe haven that allows you to determine how to extract yourself from this predicament.

So developing concentration is vital to meditation, but it isn’t the end. Once you learn how to ride the bike, you need to learn how to enjoy the ride. And once you’ve pulled yourself out of the river onto the relative safety of a rock, you must contemplate your escape to complete safety. Standing on that rock forever is not the solution. It is merely the vantage point.

Kumbaya you white-skinned devil!

2010-10-23T11:21:00.000-07:00

Racism in our sanghas Part 1. Part 2 is here. Part 3 is here.

In the past I’ve written about my experiences with a Lao temple in the Holland, Mich., area, about how subtle issues of race and white privilege played a significant role. I’ve written posts about racism that have explored a variety of issues within that larger topic. But recently I’ve wanted to dive into this very complex subject and explore its impact on our sanghas, plus investigate what the Buddha said about what is simultaneously – at least for me – a fascinating and uncomfortable topic.

But how to begin?

I’ve come to realize that this subject cannot be covered in a single post: the issue of racism and white privilege, even when limited to how it manifests in our sanghas, is far too intricate a subject to be glib about. And I have written about it in the past. What was this new interest, this new drive, to write more?

Buddhism is a lot of things, but one thing that I believe often is forgotten about the Buddha’s teachings is that they are a guide to investigation. The First Noble Truth tells us that life is unsatisfactory, that despite our wish to be happy all the time, there is suffering and unhappiness. To end this suffering, the Buddha told us that we must investigate phenomena so we can see how things really are. At the root of suffering is delusion – we lie to ourselves about how things really are.

And what my investigations are revealing to me is not only that racism is a manifestation of delusion, but that the delusion at the root of racism is our notion of race. This is a bothersome conclusion for me because I hate the Pollyanna-ish retort that all notions of race are abandoned by the enlightened mind. More on that in a moment. First, please watch the following Led Zeppelin video of a live performance of “That’s the Way” before reading further.

LedZeppelin

While in Holland, Mich., I was covering a celebration at a Lao temple. The president of the group showed me around and talked about the congregation’s plans. I had already been visiting the temple because I was teaching conversational English to the resident monk who liked me very much. But after my tour, the president left me alone. I walked around, the only white person among close to 100 Lao people who would not look at me or speak to me. I went into the community room where a ping-pong tournament was in progress. I stood in the corner and watched and felt completely invisible. I contemplated trying to strike up conversation with someone, to meet others, but instead, I gave into a feeling of frustration and discomfort and went home.

I felt isolated, alone and powerless. I was keenly aware that I was “different” from those around me and the fact that I was deliberately being ignored by everyone else there was painful. But for me to say based on this I had experienced oppression because of my race is ridiculous. For me to say I “understand” what it means being an oppressed minority based on that afternoon’s experience is childish. Because what I experienced was temporary. I was able to leave that group and return to the larger world surrounding me of white European influence, an hegemony in which I was privileged. That experience in no way was the same as feeling different, isolated and powerless every day, all the time, wherever I go.

Unfortunately, some white people think that when they experience something like this that they suddenly have earned some sort of racism awareness card. This attitude, in fact, is often viewed with disdain by people of color, as a writer from the website Resist Racism posts in an entry titled “Why I hate white ‘anti-racists’.”

“So if you want to call yourself a white anti-racist, start by giving up your privilege. Of course, this is a trick request. Because the privilege isn’t even visible to you. Yet it, and you, are sucking all the air out of the room.”

The problem with this is that it suggests that the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. got it wrong when he said, “History will have to record that the greatest tragedy of this period of social transition was not the strident clamor of the bad people, but the appalling silence of the good people.” The writer from Resist Racism castigates whites for sitting back and resting on their privilege, while at the same time chastises them for even thinking they could do anything to challenge racism. It’s as though he/she is singing a variation of a Lesley Gore song, “It’s my racism and I’ll be bitter if I want to.”

What is at the root of this? A tenacious and even unhealthy clinging to the notion of race and that it must be protected. But alas, I am white, so I shall always be accused of being disingenuous by asserting this notion that race is a fabrication because I am a member of the “privileged class.”

Dealing with the subtle and blatant manifestations of racism in our sanghas, let alone in society, is necessary. But at the same time, identifying this problem and working on solutions to it while acknowledging that it exists is, in fact, a hindrance to our practice. Members of an oppressed minority who cling to the notion of being a member of an oppressed minority and who develop anger and resentment over being repressed are holding sacred a delusion.

Having said that, I become the white-skinned devil because people of color can retort with the fact this is easy for me to say because I am a member of a privileged race, that I do not experience the oppression they do every day. Which is true, I am a member of the privileged race. I do not experience on a day-to-day basis the oppression people of color do. Any individual, isolated instances that I have experienced being the “different one” are transient. I do experience daily the oppression lesbigay people experience, but I don’t necessarily have to reveal that to others. And besides, because I am white, I believe that my being gay is more easily tolerated by others than if I were Asian or black or Latino.

But that doesn’t change the fact that one’s obsession with race as a political issue is a hindrance to one’s Buddhist practice. The fact that I am white doesn’t make this any more or less true than had it been said by an Asian, an African American, or a Latino/Latina. I do realize, however, that those of you who have read this blog closely may sense a contradiction. And you would be correct. As I wrote here, I admitted that I am bothered by a particular common dismissive statement. In an enlightened mind, the fabrication known as “race” is abandoned, but so are all other fabrications. And this issue exists in our sanghas and in society because of unenlightened minds. This sophomoric retort is not a solution, it is not an argument. It avoids the problem through condescension.

How, then, do we erase the racism – both subtle and blatant – that does exist in our Sanghas and within ourselves? Because make no mistake, it does exist. And for too many, its presence is so palpable that it drives them away from the Dhamma. Let’s not forget that Dhamma translates as Truth, and if our automatic notions of race are driving others away from the Dhamma, then we are driving others away from the truth.

Please take a moment to watch the following video of Neil Young performing with CSN&Y the song “Southern Man.”

SouthernMan

And what do I mean by “automatic notions of race”?

I’m going to break this topic into multiple posts for readability’s sake and will continue with the next post.

You go your way and I’ll go mine

2010-10-23T11:03:00.000-07:00

Racism in our sanghas Part 2. Part 1 is here and Part 3 is here.

In another post, I explained how my investigation into racism and white privilege is fraught with challenge because our very notion of race is often a hindrance to our attempts to overcome racism. These notions are largely automatic, and I ended this other post with the question of how, then, do we overcome these automatic responses?

Again, it comes down to investigation of our own actions and of those around us.

Wakoh Shannon Hickey writes in the very interesting article “Two Buddhisms, Three Buddhisms, and Racism” found in the Journal of Global Buddhism that regardless of the multi-cultural and multi-racial makeup of a Buddhist congregation, not-so-subtle but unconscious segregation often occurs.

“One can indeed observe significant differences between groups catering primarily to Buddhist converts and those catering to people whose cultural heritage is Buddhist. Communities in each category tend to approach practice differently, and serve different purposes for their members.”

“In the temples Paul Numrich visited, he found “parallel congregations” operating side-by-side: one composed of immigrants and their descendants, who engaged in cultural and merit-making activities; and one composed of converts, who were mostly white, and who were interested primarily in meditation and Buddhist philosophy.”

This parallels discussion I’ve read elsewhere that presents an idea that a “Western Buddhism” is needed that is “devoid of cultural baggage.” (link to more writings by the author)

“White people may not notice these characteristics—either because it is easy for us to associate mostly with people who are like us, which leaves our cultural assumptions unchallenged, or because we may be reluctant to face the full, painful implications of white privilege. As Addie Foye, a Jodo Shinshu Buddhist of Scottish and Japanese ancestry noted, ‘In white racist America, there is no way for a person of color to relate to any all-white situation without experiencing racism. This is an unavoidable fact that white people must wake up to’ (Foye, Fall 1994).”

When I read these passages, I realized how that has been my experience in all the sanghas that I’ve been affiliated with.

There’s a temple in Chicago I’ve gone to on occasion whose congregation is predominately Thai. There are some white members, or at least white people who show up for the Sunday ceremonies, and I’ve seen one black couple. Most of the white people group among themselves during the lunch buffet and when it comes to the chanting, it is only the Thai members who participate. After the lunch, one of the monks leads a walking meditation session followed by a sitting meditation session that is almost entirely attended by white people. Instead of the meditation sessions, the Thai members that stay do so to chant with the other monks.

This is what I am talking about regarding automatic notions of race. We don’t even realize how we separate ourselves into our various tribes when it comes down to something as fundamental as how we practice.

Please listen to the following “video” before reading further.

TroubleEveryDay

When people of color attempt to explain their experiences with white privilege and racism within the Buddhist community, it is unfortunate that their words are often discounted by us whites. We tell them that they shouldn’t feel that way. How arrogant is that? To tell someone that their feeling is wrong, that he or she shouldn’t be feeling that way – what makes us think that we know what constitutes a valid feeling? These words, found in Making the Invisible Visible, are extraordinarily humbling and constitute an important call to action:

“The oppressive racial and economic conditioning of our greater society, whether intentional or not, manifests in our sanghas. Practitioners of color face many obstacles of access, as well as of attitude, when attempting to join Western Sanghas in order to develop and sustain their practice. It is extremely difficult and painful for people who are already marginalized in society to then be marginalized again in their spiritual community.”

I strongly encourage you to download and print this 75-page document, as it is filled with important testimonials by both white practitioners and people of color. It is sobering to read their experiences and there are too many for me to excerpt here. But I will include this passage because of its importance as a call to action:

“White people must educate themselves about these issues. Racism in the United States is now and always has been a White problem, and therefore it is incumbent on White people to talk amongst themselves about how they propose to solve this problem. Waiting for people of color to enter White spaces in order to educate White people about their blindness to racism is arrogant, patronizing and disrespectful. Feminists have, for years, called men to task for not taking responsibility for dismantling patriarchy. The same is true for the responsibility White people must take for dismantling racial hierarchies.”

Time for another video I think.

NinaSimone

Although writing about Buddhism and violence, Elizabeth J. Harris makes some excellent points that are relevant to racism.

“In another sermon handed down to us, two men are pointed out while the Buddha is talking to a headman, Pataliya. One of them is garlanded and well-groomed; the other is tightly bound, about to lose his head. We are told that the same deed has been committed by both. The difference is that the former has killed the foe of the king and has been rewarded for it, whilst the latter was the king's enemy. Hence it is stressed that the laws of the state are not impartial: they can mete out punishment or patronage according to the wish of the king and his cravings for revenge or security.”

If we look at racism as a form of institutionalized violence, we can see how different groups, when members rise to power, establish laws that protect the status of members within the group. The Buddha recognized, also, that religious practices can involve violence that is ostensibly justified:

“The austerities practiced by some of those who came to the Buddha were worse than any enemy might inflict as punishment. The Buddha himself confessed to having practiced them before his enlightenment. In the Maha-Saccaka and the Maha-sihanada Suttas there is vivid description of the excesses undertaken. Taken together, the two suttas cover the complete range of contemporary Indian practices, which included nakedness or the wearing of rags, tree-bark fiber, kusa grass, wood shavings or human hair; deprivation of food to the extent of existing on a single fruit or rice grain; self-mortification through lying on thorns or exposing the body to extremes of heat and cold; copying the habits of animals such as walking on all fours or eating similar food. It was the Buddha's view that such practices were a form of violence, although undertaken in the name of religion and truth-seeking.”

And a key element of violent practices among aesthetics included debate.

“In the Kassapa Sihanada Sutta, the Buddha speaks out: ‘Now there are, Kassapa, certain recluses and brahmans who are clever, subtle, experienced in controversy, hair splitters, who go about, one would think, breaking into pieces by their wisdom the speculations of their adversaries.’”

Violence and racism has no place in the practicing Buddhist’s mind set, but because racism is based in delusion, it is often difficult to see it within ourselves. Yet, it must be eliminated if we ever wish to achieve the ultimate goal, or even just get close to it.

“Nibbana is the ultimate eradication of dukkha. It is a possible goal within this life and, among other things, involves a complete de-toxification of the mind from greed, hatred and delusion, a revolution in the way the world is perceived, freedom from craving and liberation from the delusion of ego.”

“Not all beings rally to the call for compassion on the grounds that others have like feelings to themselves or that harmony in society is necessary.”

So what did the Buddha say about race and racism? Read this post to find out.

Know when to hold ‘em, know when to fold ‘em

2010-10-23T10:46:00.000-07:00

Racism in our sanghas Part 3. Part 1 is here and Part 2 is here.

I found this interesting question in Yahoo! Answers about what the Buddha taught regarding racism.

“Did the Buddha or Buddhist doctrine ever specifically discuss the issue of racism or racial prejudice? And if not, is there a mainstream Buddhist position on judging others based on race? I know that in East Asian countries, such as Korea and China, there's a lot of xenophobia and even racism, but I was wondering what Buddhism would say about it.”

And this is what the asker selected as the best answer:

“The real Buddhist will believe that our Body and Mind are borrowed from the Earth. We don't own them. We also suffer from aging, sickness, death, and mental illnesses including greed, anger and ignorant of the true nature of reality. The so-called country, religion, race, sex, land, etc are all man-made. We temporary own this body, land, house and we will eventually give them back to the Earth. If we are all realized about this fact, there should not be any racism, fight or any unnecessary activities.”

So who is this “real Buddhist” the respondent speaks of? True, concepts like race and nationality are fabricated constructs that have no real meaning other than what we assign to these terms. But is the respondent’s answer really an answer? Does it really explain Buddhism’s position, if there is one, on this defilement?

On a very superficial level, I think we can all agree that race is a fabrication, that race really doesn’t exist. And that being the case, racism is a delusion based on a non-existent fabrication. But the irony of all this is that for us to truly understand racism, or any other social ill, we must seriously consider the fabrication upon which it is based. And that means we must accept race as a real construct. It is there, we must deal with it. And simply professing that we are not “racist” isn’t good enough. Sitting back on the presumption that our sangha is open to people of color, that people of color – or gays or disabled people or whatever – would be welcomed isn’t enough. Tolerating such people in “your space” is not acceptance nor is it welcoming. We must take action. It’s a tricky game because the key is to know when to hold on to the notion of race for us to understand it better and when to let it go without appearing to be an erudite, holier-than-thou snob.

Consider these words posted by a white practitioner at the website Resist Racism in the post On race and Buddhism:

“This is necessary because in America, passivity means white supremacy. It’s subtle and pervasive, conditioned by and conditioning our magazines, movies, tv, our clothing, all the things we buy. It is a virus infecting my mind as a person with so-called privilieges, and the mind of someone who might not have such privileges. Last week I was invited to talk about Buddhism and race to a diverse group of teenagers doing an interfaith social action internship in San Francisco. Now maybe I did a good job talking to them, but I was the first Buddhist choice that came to mind for the organizers. There is some irony in that. Buddhism in America gets defined as and by people like me. I have to watch myself carefully not to buy into this.”

Frankly, this is a difficult concept for white folk to handle. The reason for this difficulty, I believe, is that many white people think that to recognize the idea of white privilege and that they may be benefiting from it directly leads to the conclusion that they are racist. It is so much subtler than that, and as a result, so much more pernicious. It is certainly not always as plain as what Me'Shell Ndegéocello sings about in “Leviticus: Faggot,” the next video.

Me'ShellNdegéocello

Fortunately, the Buddha had a lot to say about this topic, although it is framed in his commentaries about the caste system prevalent in India.

In the Assalayana Sutta: With Assalayana (MN 93), the Buddha enters into a debate with a brahman on whether one's worth as a person is determined by birth or by behavior. Although some of the arguments he presents here deal with the specifics of brahman caste pride, many of them are applicable to issues of racism and nationalism in general.

Assalayana was a bright and learned 16-year-old Brahmin who was sent by the other Brahmins to debate the Buddha regarding his teachings on the purity of the four castes. Reluctantly, the youth agrees to seek out the Buddha and debate him. Assalayana presents the Brahmins’ position thusly:

"Master Gotama, the brahmans say, 'Brahmans are the superior caste; any other caste is inferior. Only brahmans are the fair caste; any other caste is dark. Only brahmans are pure, not non-brahmans. Only brahmans are the sons & offspring of Brahma: born of his mouth, born of Brahma, created by Brahma, heirs of Brahma.' What does Master Gotama have to say with regard to that?"

In other words, the Brahmins believe they are top dog, no one else compares with them, and you can’t become a Brahmin if you aren’t already a Brahmin. The Buddha methodically dismantles this wrong view, and with each example the Buddha cites, Assalayana agrees with what the Buddha is saying. Despite that, Assalayana replies each time with: "Even though Master Gotama says that, still the brahmans think, 'Brahmans are the superior caste... the sons & offspring of Brahma: born of his mouth, born of Brahma, created by Brahma, heirs of Brahma.'"

This is the root of all bigotry and class division – an irrational belief stubbornly clung to despite all evidence contradicting the belief as being truthful or as having merit. Anyone who doesn’t believe this type of prejudice exists within the greater Buddhist community – regardless of whether it’s the Asian or Western Buddhist community – is deluded.

Rooting out this notion of difference that exists within us is extraordinarily difficult. Our clinging to it can be so tenacious that we don’t even recognize it. Which is why the Buddha used such dramatic and aggressive similes to describe the process, such as rooting out a defilement the same way we would dig up a palm stump to completely prevent a felled palm tree from re-growing. It literally must be cut out at the root.

With Sunita the Outcaste (Thag 12.2), we see how the sangha truly is a place without regard to anyone’s stature as a person within lay society. Sunita was a member of the lowest caste in Indian society, an Untouchable, yet he was welcomed by the Buddha into the Sangha and with persistent practice, he attained release.

And in the Kannakatthala Sutta: At Kannakatthala (MN 90), the Buddha tells a king that no matter what caste someone belongs to, if a person has the five factors of exertion within them, they live the holy life.

"I tell you, great king, that there would be no difference among them with regard to the release of one and the release of another. Suppose that a man, taking dry sala wood, were to generate a fire and make heat appear. And suppose that another man, taking dry saka (teak?) wood, were to generate a fire and make heat appear. And suppose that another man, taking dry mango wood, were to generate a fire and make heat appear. And suppose that another man, taking dry fig wood, were to generate a fire and make heat appear. Now what do you think, great king: among those fires generated from different kinds of wood, would there be any difference between the glow of one and the glow of another, the color of one and the color of another, the radiance of one and the radiance of another?"

"No, lord."

"In the same way, great king, in the power that is kindled by persistence and generated by exertion, I say that there is no difference with regard to the release of one and the release of another."

Passivity is the enemy. As whites, we must do more than simply rest on the notion that we are “welcoming” and others ought to know that. We must demonstrate our openness, it must be visible and tangible. And people of color must learn that self-identification via race or ethnicity, or gays who self-identify via sexual orientation, is a hindrance as well. As long as I perceive that I am different, I will perceive I am being treated differently.

This is no easy task. It takes vigilance and perseverance. But perhaps more importantly, it takes compassion. And more than likely, we need to start with compassion for ourselves. The Buddha teaches with the Loving Kindness meditations that we first learn to love and accept ourselves. Because if we’ve got any problem with that, we will have problems loving and accepting others.

Hate is never overcome with hate. Anger is never overcome with anger. Delusion is never overcome with more delustion. As simplistic as it sounds, only love conquers all.

DianaRoss

I hope to hear from you and read your reactions to this. The image is from my friend Jimmy Huang.

Gaining momentum

2010-10-14T17:55:00.000-07:00

This really doesn’t have a lot to do with Buddhism, but it has everything to do with compassion. This is a long video, but it is worth watching all the way through. And when you’re done, share it.

ItGetsBetter

To all the homophobes, the bullies, and those who hide behind a religious dogma that they really don't understand - to you I say you are irrelevant.

Coming out day 2010

2010-10-11T10:06:00.000-07:00

“History will have to record that the greatest tragedy of this period of social transition was not the strident clamor of the bad people, but the appalling silence of the good people.” MLK

“All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” Edmund Burke

“The pink triangle was established as a pro-gay symbol by activists in the United States during the 1970s. Its precedent lay in World War II, when known homosexuals in Nazi concentration camps were forced to wear inverted pink triangle badges as identifiers, much in the same manner that Jews were forced to wear the yellow Star of David. Wearers of the pink triangle were considered at the bottom of the camp social system and subjected to particularly harsh maltreatment and degradation. Thus, the appropriation of the symbol of the pink triangle, usually turned upright rather than inverted, was a conscious attempt to transform a symbol of humiliation into one of solidarity and resistance. By the outset of the AIDS epidemic, it was well-entrenched as a symbol of gay pride and liberation.” From the Silence=Death page at ACT UP.

“Hope will never be silent.” Harvey Milk

“It takes no compromising to give people their rights. It takes no money to respect the individual. It takes no survey to remove repressions.” Harvey Milk

"And what other five conditions must be established in himself?

[1] "Do I speak at the right time, or not?

[2] "Do I speak of facts, or not?

[3] "Do I speak gently or harshly?

[4] "Do I speak profitable words or not?

[5] "Do I speak with a kindly heart, or inwardly malicious?

"O bhikkhus, these five conditions are to be investigated in himself and the latter five established in himself by a bhikkhu who desires to admonish another." The Buddha, AN V

“How did you do that?”

2010-10-03T12:03:00.000-07:00

Kyle at The Reformed Buddhist has a very lucid and compassionate post that shares some of his thoughts and observations about the recent attention being paid to bullying and youth suicide. He has bravely shared bits from his own past, speaking about his experiences as being an adult victim of child abuse. It takes guts to do that in the public and anonymous domain of the Internet. And he’s done that without turning his narrative into a self-pitying plea for sympathy.

It’s been a crazy week or so. My own heart aches over the needless loss of life because too many young people see no other alternative but to end their life. There was Tyler Clementi, the Rutgers freshman who jumped from the George Washington Bridge because an encounter he had with another man in his dorm room was surreptitiously broadcast live on the Internet by his roommate and another; Asher Brown, a 13-year-old who shot himself in the head, driven to despair by constant torment over being both Buddhist and gay; Seth Walsh, also 13, another young boy who recently came out as gay and who also endured constant teasing until he went to his backyard where he hanged himself; Raymond Chase, an openly gay sophomore at Johnson and Wales University who hanged himself in his dorm room, although the precise reason why remains unclear; Billy Lucas, an Indiana 15-year-old who hanged himself after classmates said he had been bullied for years over being gay.

There are many others that remain anonymous because their torment wasn’t newsworthy. Because, you see, this is nothing new for gays. This has been going on since the Middle Ages when gay men and lesbians were burned at the stake, the fires stoked with sticks that were identified with the term “faggot,” a word to this day that is used to demean and injure gay men in particular.

It is also not new for us homosexuals that suicide among gay teens is more common than among any other group. Gay teens are more than twice as likely to report being bullied than straight teens. This is already well-known among us. Being a teenager is hard enough as it is, but for many gays life is a nightmare that can at times appear to have no end in sight.

As Buddhists, we recognize that life is filled with suffering. Clearly, the five boys I identified above were suffering. And unsurprisingly, most of us react not just with sorrow, but with anger – anger toward the ignorant bullies that drove these boys, and others, to such desperate ends. But anger is delusion and leads us to forget that the bullies suffer too.

Yes, bullies are in pain too. They experience fear and delusion like all of us. And for the bully, aggression toward others is a simplistic palliative to ease that pain: “I don’t want to be alone in my hurt, so let me share it with you.”

In the Danda Sutta, “The Stick” (Ud 2.3), the Buddha encounters a group of boys who are beating a snake with a stick. Upon seeing this, the Buddha uttered the following gatha:

Whoever takes a stick
to beings desiring ease,
when he himself is looking for ease,
will meet with no ease after death.

Whoever doesn't take a stick
to beings desiring ease,
when he himself is looking for ease,
will meet with ease after death.

Bullying is a part of a cycle that is carried on from one to another. It may be from parent to child, but it can simply be from one child to another unrelated child. When we are targeted by this bullying, or see it occur with others, anger is a common response. But anger is delusion; a mind consumed with anger is a mind possessed with madness. If we take but a moment and let the initial anger pass, better solutions come to mind.

In the Kumaraka Sutta, “The Boys” (Ud 5.4), the Buddha questions a group of boys who are fishing. He asks the boys if they fear pain. “Yes, lord, we fear pain. We dislike pain,” they answer. To this, the Buddha replies with:

If you fear pain,
if you dislike pain,
don't do an evil deed
in open or secret.
If you're doing or will do
an evil deed,
you won't escape pain:
it will catch you
even as you run away.

If we are to have compassion for the bullied, we must have compassion for the bully as well. Admittedly, this is no easy task. But moments do arrive.

When I was in eighth grade, I endured bullying like many others. Being tripped in the hallway, called names, threatened – it was so common that I just shut it out. I also became very gregarious, making friendships with all types of people so that I was in good with the nerds, the jocks, the dopers, the straight-A students, and even the delinquents. This was my method of self-preservation – be friends with everyone. That’s another story.

Anyway, there was a girl a year older than me who was one of my true friends. She was a girl-friend, not a girlfriend. She and I were in the hallway after school by her locker when Billy Babcock walked up to us. Billy Babcock was a well-known bully at the school. He harassed and intimidated other kids constantly, his knuckle-headed minions giggling at his atrocious acts, giving him the praise he desired and which kept them safe from Billy turning against them. The girl and I were both nervous, but Billy was alone, so he had no audience.

“You two guys are friends, aren’t you?” Billy asked us. We both sheepishly said yes.

“How did you do that?” I looked at Vicki, confusion covering my face, as she looked back at me with the same expression.

“Do what?” Vicki asked.

“How did you become friends like that? I see the two of you together a lot. I know you’re not boy-girl-friend, but you are friends.”

Vicki and I sighed with relief, then she answered because, frankly, I was struck dumb. I didn’t know what to say. Here was an opportunity to share healing with someone who hurt, and I failed to meet the moment. She merely said that we enjoy doing things together that are fun and make us feel happy without bothering anyone else.

Billy stood silently there for a moment, mulling over her words. He then nodded, said thanks, and walked away. Billy never bothered either one of us again.

I am human, and like others, I initially responded with anger when I heard and read about the recent news. And I mean really angry. But my anger is no longer like a line drawn on stone, a line that can take years to be erased. It is somewhere between being a line drawn in sand and a line being drawn in water. We all suffer, even the bullies. Every day, I am given a chance to help lessen that suffering. And every day, I strive to be aware of these opportunities.

It’s not easy. But it is essential.

Addendum. I thought this Violent Femmes video was appropriate. Besides, it's a kick ass song.

ViolentFemmes

OMG! Did you hear about...?

2010-10-01T17:52:00.000-07:00

“Obvious is also the harm done to others by deception, by causing dissension and by backbiting. The mark of harming others is also attached to gossip because it takes away what is beneficial and causes to arise what is not beneficial …” Sallekha Sutta: The Discourse on Effacement (MN 8)

“He is a gossip: as one who tells that which is unseasonable, that which is not fact, that which is not good, that which is not the Dhamma, that which is not the Discipline, and he speaks out of season speech not worth recording, which is unreasoned, indefinite, and unconnected with good.” Saleyyaka Sutta: The Brahmans of Sala (MN 41)

“(He) should utter skillful words
that are not untimely;
should give no mind
to the gossip people might say.”

Sariputta Sutta (Snp 4.16)

“Here some person abstains from killing living beings, from taking what is not given, from misconduct in sexual desires, from false speech, from malicious speech, from harsh speech, from gossip, he is not covetous, is not ill-willed, and has right view. On the dissolution of the body, after death, he reappears in a happy destination, in the heavenly world.” Maha-kammavibhanga Sutta: The Great Exposition of Kamma (MN 136)

And then there’s the Dhamma expressed by Kim Wilson, formerly of The Fabulous Thunderbirds.

TheFabulousThunderbirds

Ten things

2010-09-27T03:49:00.000-07:00

"There are these ten things that a person gone-forth should reflect on often. Which ten?

"'I have become casteless': a person gone forth should often reflect on this.

"'My life is dependent on others'...

"'My behavior should be different [from that of householders]'...

"'Can I fault myself with regard to my virtue?'...

"'Can my knowledgeable fellows in the holy life, on close examination, fault me with regard to my virtue?'...

"'I will grow different, separate from all that is dear & appealing to me'...

"'I am the owner of my actions (kamma), heir to my actions, born of my actions, related through my actions, and have my actions as my arbitrator. Whatever I do, for good or for evil, to that will I fall heir'...

"'What am I becoming as the days & nights fly past?'...

"'Do I delight in an empty dwelling?'...

"'Have I attained a superior human attainment, a truly noble distinction of knowledge & vision, such that — when my fellows in the holy life question me in the last days of my life — I won't feel abashed?': a person gone forth should often reflect on this.

"These are the ten things that a person gone-forth should reflect on often."

From the Dasadhamma Sutta: Ten Things (AN 10.48)

Everyday people

2010-09-25T12:42:00.000-07:00

As I continue my research into the amazingly diverse issue of racism from the perspective of the Buddha Dhamma, I am aware that I haven’t been posting much lately. Add to that I have been very busy with work and sometimes on a weekend, I don’t feel like doing much at all.

I am also experimenting with some html code for embedding video players, and for today I thought I’d give it a try with a music video that is relevant to my current project on racism. So let’s see if this works. Enjoy the music too.

SlyandtheFamilyStone

Just be a mensch

2010-09-11T12:56:00.000-07:00

As I continue to research the Tipitika and the writings of other significant Buddhists on the issue of racism and bigotry – a trending topic from time to time in the Buddho-blogosphere – I thought I would take a bit of a diversion and address a question Terasi posed here.

The gist of Terasi’s question is what does Buddhism offer in terms of practical daily applications? I’ve heard from others about how Buddhism strikes them as being very esoteric, with lots of talk about how to attain Nibbana. But if a person is struggling with their job, or without a job, can Buddhism help with that? Can Buddhism help someone who needs to develop the motivation to stick with an exercise regimen? Can Buddhism help you get out of debt? Can Buddhism get you a salary raise or a promotion at work?

The answer to these and similar questions is yes, but Buddhism won’t get you these things in a direct way. Rather, developing a skilled Buddhist practice that focuses on your personal development into a decent human being will create an easier world around you through which you can maneuver. The problems you face in the world will diminish (but not disappear) as you develop a skilled Buddhist practice because you won’t be creating so many of them anymore. And when that happens, you are better able to help and assist others.

But that’s all high-brow holiness, you’re thinking. I just want to get a better paying job so I can find a better place to live for my family and have our needs met, you say.

Actually, it’s not high-brow at all. It’s very practical. Let’s start in the Digha Nikaya with the Sigalovada Sutta: The Layperson’s Code of Discipline (DN 31). This portrays an encounter between the Buddha and a young man named Sigala, the son of what we would probably call a very middle class father. The Buddha instructs Sigala on proper behavior that will not only protect his reputation, but preserve and expand his family’s wealth and status.

There are four vices that Sigala must eradicate from his behavior and character: killing, stealing, lying and adultery (sexual misconduct). As the Buddha tells Sigala, “These four evils the wise never praise.” By avoiding these vices, others who may be able to benefit you take notice and are willing to assist. But if you exhibit any of these vices, then those who may be able to assist you will withhold their aid when you need it.

Next, the Buddha tells Sigala that he must be sure that his actions are not being led by desire, anger, ignorance and fear (Right View and Right Intention). If our motivation for acting is rooted by desire, anger, ignorance or fear, we will do something that we may later regret; we will bring harm to ourselves, to others, or perhaps both ourselves and others.

This is followed by the Buddha’s description of the six ways we lose our money and good reputation: heavy partying, hanging out late at night, frequenting nightclubs and discos, gambling, associating with companions who are no good, and being lazy.

My favorite part of the sutta is when the Buddha describes to Sigala the four types of people who act like your friends, but who are really enemies, followed by the traits of true “warm-hearted” friends. The former will ruin you and lead you to make wrong decisions, while the latter will protect you and encourage you to make good decisions. There’s even some advice on money management.

The wise and virtuous shine like a blazing fire.
He who acquires his wealth in harmless ways
like to a bee that honey gathers,
riches mount up for him
like ant hill's rapid growth.

With wealth acquired this way,
a layman fit for household life,
in portions four divides his wealth:
thus will he friendship win.

One portion for his wants he uses,
two portions on his business spends,
the fourth for times of need he keeps.

In the last section the Buddha describes the qualities of good parenting, followed by the qualities of being a good son or daughter.

While the Sigalovada Sutta is overtly directed at lay followers, all the suttas – even the ones that are focused on the Jhanas – contain information and guidance that have practical application in our daily life. A good one on this point is the Bhaddekaratta Sutta: An Auspicious Day (MN 131).

In this sutta from the Majjhima Nikaya, the Buddha delivers the most basic guidance of the Buddhist practice: Do not dwell on the past, do not live in the future, pay attention to what is happening right now. The past is over, but what you did in the past is why you are where you are right now. Worrying about the future will not improve your future, nor deliver you to a more desirable future. Rather, by paying attention to what you are thinking, saying and doing right now so that you act skillfully will bring you good results and deliver you to a future filled with happiness.

So while Buddhism doesn’t provide a direct route to achieve material and worldly goals, by following the path faithfully and earnestly, we experience good results more frequently and negative results less frequently. And when opportunity knocks, we find ourselves more aware of the opportunity and better prepared to take advantage of it.

It's an auspicious day, pay attention

2010-09-07T18:17:00.001-07:00

There are many songs by Scissor Sisters that I find eloquently connected with the Dhamma, but this one in particular is superb in its rendition of how we can anticipate a particular moment to such a degree that when that moment arrives, it passes us by without us having even experienced it.

The chorus is what really tells the tale:

It can't come quickly enough

And now you've spent your life

Waiting for this moment

And when you finally saw it come

It passed you by and

Left you so defeated

Isn't that how life is? It's a good time to review the "Bhaddekaratta Sutta: An Auspicious Day." (MN 131)

In this sutta, the Buddha reminds us to not dwell on the past, nor become fixed on the future; rather, we must remain focused on the present moment. How we got to this moment is because of what we did in the past, whether we regret our actions or not. And how we get to our desired future depends on what we do now, right here in this moment.

So pay attention; it's a beautiful moment. You're holding your future in your hand.