It looks as though an Arizonan temple I blogged about previously has received a permit to resume Sunday services. They’re looking for a new location to serve the large local community. I’ll be keeping an eye to see how the situation progresses.
Month: September 2009
A Comment on the Fifth Precept
I was going to weigh in on the fifth precept debate, but I don’t have anything new to add to the discussion that hasn’t already been said by many others somewhere else. Instead, I’m including a (lightly copy-edited) comment I’ve seen Marcus leave on several sites that seems cool, thought out and conciliatory.
This has been a huge discussion both here and across various blogs, a discussion which – now the dust has died down – has led me to re-examine those sentences of mine that started it off:
“The fact is, if you are serious about Buddhism, you don’t drink. The Buddha’s words couldn’t be clearer.”
I certainly stand by the second sentence. Perhaps now, in hindsight, I should have re-phrased the first to say “The fact is, if you are serious about Buddhism, you ASPIRE NOT TO drink.”
My original point was not to try to say a sip of alcohol makes you a non-Buddhist, which is clearly nonsense, rather, it was written in response to those who think that excessive drinking can somehow be an integral part of a Buddhist lifestyle.
In contrast to this I continue to stand by the words of the Buddha and look towards Master Thich Nhat Hanh: “To persuade one person to refrain from drinking is to make the world safer for us all.”
May all, drinkers and non-drinkers alike, be safe and well.
I myself don’t drink, but I can honestly admit that I’m not serious about Buddhism in the same way that Marcus is. That’s fine, because we’re both in good company.
Core Scriptures
So today’s just-for-fun question is, if you were asked to create a lesson on Buddhist scripture for Texas public school children, how would you go about it? Although there may be sutras equal in number to the sands of sixty thousand Ganges, I find there’s very little in them that makes sense “out of the box” to people with no knowledge of Buddhism. The entire Mahayana canon is way too metaphysical for children, in my opinion, as is much of the Pali canon. You have to keep in mind that the educators teaching the classes probably won’t know any more about Buddhism than the kids do. Further, while the Buddhist scriptures may present incomparable wisdom, most are a slog to read. Sorry, but it’s the truth. There are always the Old Reliables — the Metta Sutta, the Kalama Sutta, the Dhammapada, and the the Jataka Tales for the younger ones. Anything else?
By what criteria are the Metta Sutta (which Metta Sutta?) the Kalama Sutta, the Dhammapada and the Jataka Tales the Old Reliables? Restrict your purview to this set, and certainly they are old and also the reliable way to understand how the Buddhist neophytes of the West view Buddhism. Just remember not to read the whole texts or to think about them in context.
Investigating Buddhist Sectarianism
When these areas ‘converted’ to Theravada (which mainly occurred around the 11th-12th Centuries), it is impossible that all the monks took new ordinations. Of course, the official histories will assert that when the religion was reformed that all the monks conformed to the new system. But the practicalities of this are absurd: sending city administration monks wandering through 1000s of miles of tiger-stalked, bandit-infested, ghost-haunted jungle tracks seeking out countless little villages, trying to persuade senior monks that their ordination is invalid or improper and must be done again, all on the basis of some political compromise in a far-distant capital, in a region of ever-shifting borders and allegiances. As history this is sheer fantasy, and the reality must have been that the reforms would directly affect only certain central monasteries.
This book looks like it has a lot to say about tradition, especially in the context of the Theravada bhikkhuni lineage. Definitely a book I’ll be checking out soon: Sects and Sectarianism: The Origins of Buddhist Schools.
Old School Buddhism
The Dharma Mirror blog presents a snapshot contrast between Theravada and Mahayana. There is one particular sentence that stands out for me, and which I deeply appreciate:
It is often thought that Mahayana developed out of the Theravada tradition, but this view is not quite accurate, as both traditions have developed over history.
The reader is then pointed to an article by Ron Epstein, “Clearing Up Some Misconceptions about Buddhism.” I’ve generally considered myself a non-denominational Buddhist, but I realize that this term has loaded connotations. As a result of both historical/cultural accident and personal affinities, I’ve mostly grounded myself in the Theravada tradition. I like to translate Theravada as “Old School Buddhism.” Far from the most appropriate translation, but it definitely appeals to my local English dialect and also to an age-old Theravada tradition, where we like to see ourselves as upholding the timeless customs of the Enlightened One. The truth behind this sentiment is very much open to debate. Sometimes “being traditional” is itself a practice of reinterpretation.
White Privilege Isn’t a Bad Thing
I tend not to read long blog posts, but I often mark them with a star and sometimes sift through them on weekends. Over on My Buddha is Pink, a couplesuch posts from early August really resonated with me this morning. Richard Harrold writes about how as a journalist, he got involved with the local Lao Buddhist community in Michigan.
Richard reached out to help and get involved in the community, even though he didn’t share a common ethnic or cultural background. He helped teach English, and offered to assist with challenges involving the local township board. Even when his overtures were declined, he still managed to publish articles highlighting the local Buddhist Asian community. He spoke directly with the township attorney about specific issues that may have underlain miscommunication with the Lao temple board. I imagine none of this was smooth riding. Indeed, Richard expresses his personal ambivalence with regards to the linguistic and cultural differences, especially on the topic of sexuality.
Some of what Richard was able to accomplish was due to resources available to him by virtue of his white privilege. Importantly, he was able to bend his privilege to the benefit of others who were relatively disadvantaged. Being white gives you an edge when talking with white administrators, when writing to a majority white audience, and even to the extent of being involved in the publishing industry.
In a sense, I have nothing against white privilege. I’d just like all of us to share these privileges. One way to move past institutional racism bias is by making use of our privilege—be it of gender, culture, sexuality, race, etc.—for the benefit of others with less privilege. You might want to see what you can do to help bridge cultural chasms in your local Buddhist community. Or say, if you happen to be a regular contributor to Shambhala Sun or Tricycle, then the next time you talk with the editors you might ask them if they’d considered offering more articles to be written by People of Color. Think of it as a democratization of noblesse oblige.
Utilitarian Buddhists
One idea that was repeated frequently in my reading of the stack of books the librarian continued to pile higher and higher at my desk was the ‘practical benefits’ of meditation. The way that contemporary meditation teachers are discussing these more mundane benefits I would say is a kind of reinterpretation. In the early suttas we don’t see a proliferation of writings about how meditation will help with stress at work or managing emotions during complicated family situations. Obviously this has much to do with changing the tradition so it fits into a modern context, but it is more than just updating—there is a reinterpretation here that focuses more on practical benefits. But the question is why? Why is discussing more practical benefits necessary? Why this persuasion? Can the technique and the tradition of meditation within Buddhism speak for itself?
I certainly fall into this group of people who reinterpret meditation in terms of its usefulness. I suppose that this framing of meditation makes it easier to sell because it aligns with themes understood by a broad audience (anxiety reduction, blood pressure, concentration building, etc.) and also is easy to prove. But it’s another thing altogether were our only understanding of meditation to be in the context of simpler utilitarian terms.
Buddhist Bicycle Pilgrimage
The pilgrimage visits four Dharma centers in the North Bay — starting out at the Spirit Rock Meditation Center in Marin and on through the Sae Taw Win center in Santa Rosa for lunch. After camping for the night, the pilgrimage continues to the City of Ten Thousand Buddhas (CTTB) for lunch and then finishes at the Abhayagiri Monastery in Redwood Valley.
You can learn more about the ride over at Dharma Wheels (“Turning Our Wheels for the Dharma”). Even if you can’t join in on the ride, you can still help by supporting the riders! I surely will!
Kathina Time is (Almost) Here
If you haven’t attended a Kathina celebration before, you’re in for a treat. I’ve come to think of it as the equivalent of all our lay holidays rolled into one. There is the abundance of Thanksgiving with gratitude for the completion of a long retreat and for having monastics in this country. The chance to gather together with gifts resembles the winter holidays of Hanukkah and Christmas, combined with a kind of birthday anniversary marking another year of monastic life. It’s a particularly joyous time to show appreciation for those who have gone forth into the homeless life and who provide support and inspiration to lay practitioners. It’s especially timely as fall and winter draw nearer, when visitors become less frequent and a full storeroom of supplies is so valuable.
Some close friends and I have for several years now been recontextualizing Kathina in the giving spirit of Hanukkah or Christmas as another opportunity to bestow gifts on friends, temples and 501(c)(3)s. Since this degeneration of Kathina into a Christmas-clone is (so far as I know) practiced only within small and isolated circles, I’m not too worried about the potential dilution and commercialization of what was once a mighty and precisely meaningful Buddhist holiday. I can’t shake the guilt though—I’m an Asian Buddhist kid whitewashing a perfectly fine and ancient Buddhist tradition with commercialized Western cultural values. But I like it this way.
Customary Perspective
On a topical note, I ran across a couple of articles on nokanshi(“encoffineers”), a central theme in the Oscar-winning movie Departures. One perspective presents the nokanshi as a traditional practice that preserves the spirit of Japan’s cultural artistry—a practice that may seem irrelevant in modern times.
Such an “art” of preparing the dead body seems unnecessary in today’s modern Japan: by law, the body will soon to be cremated, so pragmatism dictates only the minimum preparation. In Departures, even the grief-numbed family of the deceased cannot fully comprehend why this art is taking place. Other funeral directors do not really acknowledge that the occupation of nokanshi even exists in modern Japan.
In the past, encoffination was often a matter-of-fact procedure performed by family members, neighbors and doctors to prepare the body for the wake, funeral and cremation. It wasn’t performed as a formal ceremony or even considered a part of the proper funeral … Two decades ago, a 40-year-old company called Sapporo Nokan Kyokai, based in the northern city of Sapporo, started promoting encoffination as a formal ceremony, for an additional charge. The company had long been performing the ceremony in Sapporo, but it had begun to receive inquiries from people in other parts of Japan, where the ritual was less common. Some of these people had attended funerals in the Sapporo area and liked the proper, personal attention given to the deceased.
These two articles aren’t written in opposing terms, but they offer different perspectives on a “foreign” custom. On one hand, the nokanshi profession stems from a primal artistic urge that is an inseparable part of Japanese culture. On the other hand, the fully ritualized nokanshi is a contemporary phenomenon in its widespread form. Again, these descriptions aren’t mutually-exclusive. They remind us that foreign customs and rituals are not necessarily “traditions” that date back centuries, and yet can still be just as meaningful as traditional customs that do.
In the context of Buddhist Asian customs, it’s easy to get caught up in a romantic notion of a timeless and unchanging tradition. This often mistaken assumption provides the foundation for unskillful conclusions. For example, the false assumption that tradition equals authenticity, or that ancient means irrelevant. Some of these foreign customs have developed to address modern concerns in an urban and industrialized context. It’s a point to keep in mind when we wrestle with terms such as “modern” and “traditional” Buddhist practice.