Another Online Buddhist Temple

I found the following on the Lotus in the Mud blog. Although they apparently have never heard of Treeleaf, this is still really interesting - especially the bilingual aspect.

Keisuke Matsumoto, a Buddhist priest, is the mastermind behind Japan’s first online Buddhist temple called Higanji Temple.

If you’re looking for a building with Buddhist alters in Tokyo, you won’t find it at Higanji’s Temple’s Web site.

The temple is connected to today’s world and social media sites such as Twitter, YouTube and FaceBook.

“Our temple’s online presence in English and Japanese offers something for everyone regardless of their religious beliefs, background or age,” said 32-year-old Matsumoto. “This is the first Buddhist site that I know of that offers something for people to weigh in their mind or get spiritual help online.”

The temple has a counseling service in which Buddhists priests advise people on ways to solve their problems or listen to them. He says it is important for Buddhist priests to find the cause of people’s problems and help work out a solution for them.

At any time of the day, people can click on the temple’s site.

If you look at the website, it's a bit sparse at this point. Perhaps the Japanese version has much more content.

I continue to believe the internet will play an increasing role in our spiritual lives, and as such, it's vital that we remain mindful of what we are doing online. It's become another dualism - online vs. "meatspace." And those of us who spend a significant amount of time in both are especially in need of facing that dualism head on.

If you have a moment, go check out the blog posts on Keisuke Matsumoto's site. They offer a small window into the life of a young Buddhist priest.

"Spiritual Libertarians"

Our entire society, in the words of Generation X, has become very DIY. Do-it-yourself. The interesting thing about this term is that it started as an anti-consumerist phrase but it actually means you get to consume in the way you want. So there seems to be a strand of dharma, a huge strand of dharma, where we all want to become spiritual libertarians. We want to do the teachings in the way we do them. My teacher a lot of times says if you’re going to ask a teacher for advice you should actually do what they say. Chances are they’re going to tell you to do something you didn’t want to do in some small way. That’s what doing something good for you is, right? You have to do something that’s outside of the framework of your habitual apparatus, which means it doesn’t feel immediately good.

So I always think of this conundrum of our DIY consumerist culture, especially in the United States of America which is possibly the most libertarian society on Earth today in terms of freedom is that we all really proclaim our individual freedoms. And the way we express this freedom is by doing whatever everyone else is doing. So we don’t really want to submit ourselves to a community, which is the sangha, or a teacher, which is the Buddha principle, that’s beyond our ability to control what feels good in the present moment. And this is one of the big dangers of the superficiality. And I don’t mean superficiality in a bad way. I mean in the surface way of internet dharma, of podcast dharma, and Wikipedia dharma.

The above is a quote from Ethan Nichtern, from a talk he delivered at the recent Buddhist Geeks conference. Laying aside for now the various issues people had with that conference, I want to consider what Nichtern is speaking about.

During the first year and a half of the existence of this blog, I wrote a lot about what seemed to be an emerging "online Buddhist sangha." Numerous other blogs also took up the idea of a virtual sangha, considering the various pros and cons to such a "thing." It was, in other words, a pretty hot topic. The big three North American Buddhist mags expanded their online presence during this time, while also stirring up some controversy in the process, most notably Tricycle, with it's infamous "Dharma Wars" article.

Needless to say, things have appeared - at least to me - to have died down around the idea of "virtual sanghas" and "online Buddhism." Perhaps this is because it's become a bit more normalized, something that exists in an ever-changing form, but which amongst a swath of practitioners and dabblers anyway, is basically a given. Or perhaps, in some ways, the current limits of "going virtual" have been hit, thus limiting the amount of interest in such discussions. Perhaps enough disappointments have been had around the fickleness of the online world to have tempered the enthusiasm and nearly missionary zeal with which some folks once pushed the potential of "online practice." In any event, it just doesn't seem to be as "hot" of an issue as it once was.

Let's consider, though, Nichtern's term "spiritual libertarian" a little closer. I think he's on to something with it. However, I would actually argue that it's almost as easy to find this kind of attitude within "brick and mortar" Buddhist sanghas as it is to find online. Plenty of folks attend services, take classes, and do other forms of practice in sanghas without really doing anything else to demonstrate either a sense of responsibility to the sangha, or a willingness to let go of personal preferences.

I, myself, feel like a hybrid - having an independent streak around Zen practice (including frequent experimenting with forms and incorporating yoga), but also a long standing devotion and service to my home sangha. Although I sometimes question that "libertarian" streak, I have to say that I really can't imagine what my life and practice would be like without that devotion and service to the sangha. Especially over the past few years, as our sangha's head of the board of directors, I have had to let go of personal preferences, check the ego at the door, and develop a trust in dependent co-arising over and over again. Something I'm really not sure would have been possible if I had chosen a mostly DIY approach to practice.

In the meantime, I have noticed how difficult it seems to be to establish and maintain something resembling sangha online. Discussion boards wax and wane weekly. Niche communities have come and gone. Google+ is, it seems, a hot box currently - but for how long? The speed of innovation seems to add to the rootlessness that occurs online. Leaping to the hot new program or digital space is often given a priority over maintaining some kind of consistent community where people are currently at.

Treeleaf sangha seems to have had some success at keeping people around, and developing some sense of community amongst people scattered across the globe. However, I can imagine that even they would have something to say about the challenges and limitations of the online Buddhist world.

None of this is to say that the "project" of online practice and/or online sangha is a waste of time. I wouldn't be writing on here if I thought it was. Furthermore, I believe that Zen practice calls each of us to develop a certain kind of independence, but unlike the American notions, it's an independence tucked within interdependence. It's relational in other words, and requires a dance between form and emptiness, between loyalty to a larger sangha of "excellent friends" and an independence to fully discover/uncover yourself.

Interactive Blogging

Hi Everyone,

I thought I would write today's post in the form of a letter. A recent post by Peter over at Moment by Moment got me thinking about blogging, audience, and what it is we're doing here anyway. I say "we" because my writing and your reading (and commenting) go together. They aren't separate. People like to talk about "my blog," but actually there is no "my blog" anymore. The moment I started putting it out there, and the first of you started reading it, it became something else.

This morning, I read several blog posts that I could have offered commentary on, or simply shared with you all. There's some "hot button" stuff about race and Buddhism out there right now, as well as a few lovely posts contemplating the planet and practice, just to name a few places I might have gone.

But what I keep going back to is the participatory nature of blogging. The shared experience that too often, we fail to acknowledge. Although I haven't joined in on it, I have always admired the "post swaps" that Nate from Precious Metal has organized. And others, like Al who created The Zen Community, seem to understand the interactive quality of blogging, and are interested in elevating the "community" element of what we are all doing.

So, in the spirit of that, I thought I would open the floor to suggestions from the readership.

Is there any burning topic you'd like to see me address on Dangerous Harvests?

Are there any past posts you'd like to see revisited and maybe updated on here?

Is there anything else you can think of that might enliven the general experience for readers here?

As I stated above, I had plenty of things I could have written about today. Although I don't away have a ton to say, the well certainly hasn't run dry. In fact, I'm considering some ideas behind the scenes that might expand what I'm doing online, but would enjoy hearing from you all as well.

Happy Friday! All the best,
Nathan

Learning About Buddhist Practice Online

Two personal notes, the second leading into today's post. First, I quit my job yesterday. It's a scary leap, but I was tired of the spinning I have been doing over the past few years about it, and feel that the move will open up the space for what's next. Luckily, I've lived frugally, so I can handle a period of joblessness right now.

Second, both drafts of the article I wrote for Tricycle, and which about 20 of you provided generous interviews for, were rejected. I'm going to publish parts of the first draft on my blog, while continuing to work on the second draft for submission elsewhere. Today's post is part overview of blogging and part discussion about the question "Have you learned anything online about your life and Buddhist practice?” Feel free to leave comments about what your response to this question is.


Among the many online features available to Buddhists, the blog appears to be especially popular amongst practitioners across the world. In the English language alone, there are hundreds of Buddhist-centric blogs regularly maintained by both individual practitioners as well as groups of practitioners. The diversity is astounding, spanning across political and social boundaries that rarely are traversed in established Buddhist sanghas or practice communities. Even the group-run blogs are unusual in their breadth, from the Buddhist Military Sangha, a blog maintained by Buddhists in the U.S. military, to the Zen Community which showcases over 20 Buddhist bloggers, ranging from beginning Zen practitioners to well established Zen teachers like James Ford and John Tarrant. In fact, there has been so much activity by Buddhist bloggers over the past several years that a term for us has been coined: the Buddhoblogosphere.

Why the interest in blogs? What is this writing activity about, and what does it have to do with the Buddhism? As a main part of the research for this article, I interviewed over 20 members of the Buddhoblogosphere to find out what drew them to blogging, why they think it’s important, and what they believe the impact of the internet will have on Buddhist practice in the coming years. All blogging in English, these writers represent six nations and at least half a dozen different branches of Buddhism. Among their commonalities was an expressed enjoyment of writing and a general belief that the internet is proving to be a great vehicle of access when it comes to Buddhist teachings and resources. Beyond that, there is much disagreement as to what all this online activity means, and how it might benefit or hinder our spiritual lives.

There were a wide variety of answers to the following question: “Have you learned anything online about your life and Buddhist practice?” Among those answering in the affirmative was Marcus Laitinen, author of the blog Zen - The Possible Way and a teacher in the Dogen Sangha Finland group in Helsinki, Finland. He spoke of his affinity with the teachings of the founder of Soto Zen, Dogen, and how he struggled at first “because in Finland we didn't have anything related to Soto Zen.” The internet, especially e-mails between him and his teachers, Nishijima Roshi and Peter Rocca, provided him the opportunity to both develop his own practice, as well as the sangha he currently helps to lead. Another member of the group who said he had learned a lot online was Adam Johnson, author of the blog Home Brew Dharma. Unlike Marcus, though, Adam specifically cites blog reading as a major source of benefit to him Buddhist practice. Not only has he developed friendships with other bloggers, but he says that reading the blogs of other practitioners “provides real life lessons in the dharma,” which gives him “a new way to look at” his life and Buddhist practice.

Others, however, weren’t so enthusiastic. Justin Whitaker, who began his blog American Buddhist Perspective as a student in England, said there’s nothing he has learned online that he hasn’t also learned in “real life.” And James Ishmael Ford, whose blog Monkey Mind chronicles his dual path as a Zen Priest and Unitarian Universalist minister, commented that he has “seen little directly affecting my practice out of my online experiences.”

Blogging Retreat

Here's an interesting experiment to consider: a sangha doing a blogging retreat. Tsem Tulku Rinpoche and some of his students in Malayasia did just this over the past few days. One of his students, Jamie Khoo (aka Paris), wrote the following on her blog about the retreat:

We've had a special past week, full of everything I love - writing, blogs, pizza and air-conditioning.

Inspired by Rinpoche's blog a big bunch of us have been engaged in a special one-week retreat to study the many teachings and posts on the blog, write comments and create dialogue within the blog. It seemed a shame really that so much goodness should just stay within the blog and collect cyber dust. We felt it was time to shake things up a bit and get some dialogue and interaction going on within the blog. If we weren't going to do like Pabongkha Rinpoche and enter Lamrim retreats, then this would be the closest we'd ever get to it. It may look all shiny and sleek, pulled up my very splendid 15inch Macbook pro screen, but every post in Rinpoche's blog finds at its heart a profound Dharma teaching - it is all Lamrim, beautifully packaged for our attached and desiring 21st-Century minds.

There was a dual purpose - first, to expand our own minds and challenge us to think about the teachings on a deeper level, especially how we can apply them to our own lives. Secondly, to promote the teachings to other people; to bring more awareness to both Rinpoche and Kechara, thereby building the platform for KWPC in the future as both become more well-known throughout the world.

After a year and a half of blogging, I have learned that when you actually pay attention to what you write, how you write it, the responses that come in, and how you choose to respond to them, there is much to learn. Take a particular teaching you've been studying and try and write something about it in an engaged way that might inspire or provoke others. It's not that easy. Take a discussion you've had within your "brick and mortar" sangha and try to convey it to the world. Again, it takes some effort. Take something you've read online and try and write something else that isn't just rehash or snarky reaction. All of this is an extension of practice as I see it.

Does this replace established practices like meditation retreats? No. But I do think that there will be more of these kinds of practices developing in this 21st century digital world, and I for one think we shouldn't be afraid of such innovations, especially if they are offered along side the "tried and true" methods we already have. Frequently for me during the weekdays, it's blogging in the morning and zazen and/or dharma class in the evening.

What do you think of the idea of blogging retreats?

*photo of bloggers at work from Jamie Khoo's blog.

Locating "Good Buddhists"

Wisdom or dharma candy? This post has nothing, really, to do with the above book, but it definitely does have to do with this question.

Marguerite over at Mind Deep had a recent post about determining who is a "good Buddhist" practitioner worth following on Twitter. Now, full disclosure - I have no Twitter account, and don't really feel compelled to open one. However, her post could easily apply to other online writers, or even to people in one's "regular" life I suppose. I started writing a response to her on her blog, and then realized it kept going on and on like a blog post, so I just moved it over here for others to consider.

Here is her criteria for locating people to follow on Twitter:

The picture:
Don't weird me out. Don't look too sexy. Smile. Even better, dress as a Buddhist monk (or nun) :)

The bio:
No new age-ish linguo, please. Instead sprinkle one of the magic words like 'meditation', 'Vipassana', 'zen', 'Buddhist', 'Dharma', etc

The website:
I prefer you don't sell stuff. I love it when you blog about the Dharma.

The ratio of 'followers' to 'following':
Greater than one usually tells me you've got something to say. But there are exceptions!

How recent is the activity?:
At least within the past month, and fairly frequent. Otherwise, how can I have a conversation with you?

List titles:
'Dharma', 'Buddhist', 'zen' lists tell me you are interested in the stuff.

The first page:
Do your tweets ooze mindfulness, loving kindness, authenticity, and Dharma intelligence?

And here is my response:

All of this might help I suppose, or maybe not. Honestly, some of those who "appear" to fit what I think constitutes a "good Buddhist" actually turn out to not offer much. And at the same time, I've found writers/bloggers/people who have none of the obvious trappings and might even use languaging that irritates me, but who are real teachers for me all the same.

In fact, on my own blog, I've only barely mentioned my dharma name, and there's no picture of me in my rakusu. If I had a twitter account, it would be the same. Maybe someday, that will change, but I've felt it better to just do my writing, and not worry too much about appearing to look a certain way.

It's funny, but the longer I'm online, the more I'm interested in people who may not always uphold their vows or precepts per se, but who are putting something of their life out there that causes me to stop, reflect, maybe even react strongly. The abundance of great dharma quotes and comments out there actually is weakening the effect for me. It often feels like eating sugar now, reading yet another Thich Nhat Hanh or Dogen or Suzuki Roshi gem. There's so much of it all, and so many people gushing about how wonderful teacher X is, or teaching y is, but I find myself saying "so what" more often than not.

What's fascinating is that the same quotation from great teacher X might, in a different context, jar me awake - I've had that experience of repeatedly running across a line from someone, only to have it hit the twentieth time because it was within some unique context (and I had changed somehow). So, it's not about rejecting often repeated dharma teachings; it's more about the excesses of "good" perhaps.

It's kind of like having shelves and shelves of dharma books. After awhile, it just feels like collecting slightly different perspectives on the same thing. I've always had a bit of academic in me, and love to research subjects at depth, but lately I've felt the need to check that some because I wondered how much it was benefiting my life and practice. I mean, does it matter if I can cite seven different takes on the Heart Sutra? Maybe, under the right conditions, but often not I think.

In some ways, it just seems to come down to what really teaches us to live our lives more fully. If everyone I follow online confirms what I already believe, or appears as I think a Buddhist might appear, then what I will receive is almost the same as what I already am experiencing.

It reminds me when I was in undergrad psychology classes, learning about confirmation bias. I remember that different teachers who were from different schools of psychological thought approached this issue differently. The social psychologist emphasized the role of community, nation, and other groups and how they impacted what we saw. The cognitive psychologist emphasized the way human thinking generally works. The developmental psychologist talked about life stages and common biases within them. In other words, the larger frame impacted the smaller frames contained within it. So, if your frame it too limiting, or too slanted in a certain direction, it might not be all that beneficial.

The thing is, like Marguerite, we all have lists like this playing out in our lives. They aren't a terrible problem, but if you believe in them too much, watch out! But beyond that, though, it's really worth investigating who you think your teachers are, or who you think a good teacher for you would be. Because it might turn out to be someone or something entirely different from what you think.

What do you think about all this?

Online Zen Priest Ordination?

Online Zen priest ordination? Sounds pretty odd, but it's now happening. Jundo Cohen, of the online practice community Treeleaf, will be conducting home leaving ordination for three people online. He writes:

The ceremony itself will be held with the participants in four separate countries, and our Sangha members observing the ceremony from perhaps twenty countries, often separated by thousands of miles, all linked by modern telecommunications. Training too will combine old ways and some very new ways transcending barriers. We expect the training period will require several years, and there is no promise or expectation of the outcome. The “goalless goal” is the creation of priests who have profoundly penetrated into the way of Zazen, who are ethical, who can serve the community and people who come to them for guidance, and who embody the ways of their Lineage.

I have no idea what to make of this, but it's kind of fascinating to think such a thing is possible. What do you think?