You Never Know

I sent the following e-mail to Mark Dunagan, a church leader at the Beaverton Oregon Church of Christ, in respose to an article he wrote about Zen Buddhism that his congregation uses to study from. Brad Warner had posted a link to the article in his blog yesterday, saying someone had sent it to him. He called it a "funny" article; I laughed a bit too, but also felt it missed the mark so badly that it was worth a shot to write the author with my concerns. Here's the letter.

Dear Mr. Dungan,

I have been a zen practitioner for nearly a decade now. I came across
your article about Zen Buddhism in a post on the blog for zen teacher
Brad Warner.

It is definitely your right to believe what you wish, including to
elevate your spiritual tradition above others. However, you have no
idea what the living tradition of zen looks like, and your article
spreads falsehoods about our beliefs and how we live as zen
practitioners.

Most of your sources are from writers during early days of zen in the
West - people like D.T. Suzuki and Alan Watts - who placed a great deal
of emphasis on the inherent emptiness (or lack of unchanging qualities)
that accompany our lives. This is only part of the story.

We are not nihilistic, nor do we "lack morals" as you suggest. Buddhism
has throughout it's history had a strong set of moral/ethical
guidelines called the precepts. Again, those early writers rarely
talked about the precepts because they were appealing to Westerners who
didn't like Christianity anymore, and who wanted to step away from the
moral grounding of many Christian institutions. I'm not interested in
defending their reasons for running away from Christianity, nor do I
care to debate whether they were right or wrong.

"Soikie-an stated: "Though all day long you are speaking, raising your
eyebrows, standing, sitting, walking and lying, nevertheless in reality
nothing has happened". If this is true, then there never has been any crime or any
good deeds. We have accomplished absolutely nothing. If nothing has
really happened, then Zen would have to deny all human suffering, every
crime, every war, the holocaust, and so on. What possible comfort does
Zen have to offer to the person who has just lost a loved one or has
been the victim of a terrible crime?"

Do you really believe that I, and my fellow zen Buddhists, deny human
suffering, deny war, deny the Holocaust? How could you possibly say
this and keep a straight face? We cry like everyone else. We grieve
like everyone else. We suffer, and most definitely recognize that there
is suffering, like everyone else. And we find comfort and solace in our
teachings, as you do in yours.

My basic goal in writing this letter is to ask that you actually visit
a zen temple, actually talk with living teachers and students, actually
experience who we are as people. I have no desire to convert you to my
beliefs, nor to say that your faith is wrong or lesser than mine,
because I don't believe that. But spreading lies about other religious
systems to covert people, or to tell people that they are the best,
most righteous people, is wrong. And I frankly can't imagine Jesus
telling his disciples to spread falsehoods in his name, so that people
will drop what they believe, and come to him. In the end, it's just
fine wi
th me if you don't feel the tradition I follow is on par with
the tradition you follow. That's your right. But for the sake of your
church members, and out of respect for being truthful, get a better
sense of zen before writing essays to teach others about it.

Sincerely,

Nathan G. Thompson


I had no idea if I would receive a response at all. However, I got the following e-mail fairly early this morning. Even if nothing else comes of it, it's always helpful to suspend your assumptions and keep the possibility of dialogue open.


Dear Nathan:

Thanks so much for taking the time to write me. I have no desire to
misrepresent Zen Buddhism and the article was the result of researching this
faith, including talking to individual believers and reading various Zen
sources. You could help me if you gave me a list of fundamental Zen
teachings. For example:

* What would be considered to be the final authority according to Zen? Is
it objective or subjective?
* Are there any "absolutes"--that is, absolute right or wrong, or is truth
relative?
* Is there a Zen publication or book that most would consider to be an
accurate portrayal of this faith? What book, or the works of which teacher
would you recommend?

Again, thank you so much for writing.

Mark

Engaged Buddhism

Well, I stumbled upon the blog Tengu House because of a post about President Obama and Buddhists that I felt compelled to comment on. And then I noticed a few articles on Engaged Buddhism, and decided to take a look. Needless to say, the posts got me a bit riled up, and so I give you my response below. I'm pretty sure that the use of the word "lobby" in terms of Buddha's actions with prominent figures of his day is probably not correct, or maybe too strong. But anyway, here's what was said.


The author of Tengu House wrote: "We can protest private corporations, government agencies, elected officials and media outlets until we’re out of oxygen and our arms fall off from holding our signs. All of this may have the effect of making us feel better, momentarily, but this isn’t what the Buddha taught us. The Buddha taught us to find the peace that is already within us, and then to teach others to find the peace that is already within them, if they want."

And I responded, "Actually, I disagree. Why suggest practice is only one way? It's possible to discover truth about life, about the moment as it is, right in the middle of a protest, or negotiating a piece of legislation with a legislator, or coming together as a community to clean up a toxic waste site. I've experienced this myself, and it's been beyond whether or not 'my side' of an issue 'won' or was the 'right' one.

I think you're tossing the baby out with the bathwater.

Yes, it's disappointing that Buddhists are pigeonholed as all 'liberals' who support in the case of the U.S. the Democrats. That's false. And it's unfortunate when people toss out their sitting practice, and/or fail to keep digging into their own greed, hatred, and delusion because they are too busy working on political causes. But I take very seriously the teaching that there are 84,000 dharma gates - anything and everything can be a point of awakening for us. And I'd argue that, in working on a collective scale to change something, you learn a hell of a lot about your life - about where you are attached and where you have been freed - by being in the middle of such group efforts.

And the Buddha himself, for the record, often lobbied political leaders, military people, and business people who were not members of his sangha. He directly attempted to stop conflicts between warring groups in his home region at least twice, the second time having to watch as his efforts failed (at least in the short term). Now, this was not the lobbying or intervention we know of today, but it, along with Buddha's teachings in the Pali Canon on 'good governing,'
suggest that Buddha felt the social/political world was not outside of his teachings.

As for someone chaining themselves to a tree - how do you know for sure that this is not Buddhist? How do you know for sure that this act is not upholding the precept of not killing? What is Buddhist anyway?

Do you know the koan about Nansen cutting the cat in half?

Nansen saw the monks of the eastern and western halls fighting over a cat. He seized the cat and told the monks: `If any of you say a good word, you can save the cat.'
No one answered. So Nansen boldly cut the cat in two pieces.

That evening Joshu returned and Nansen told him about this. Joshu removed his sandals and, placing them on his head, walked out.

Nansen said: `If you had been there, you could have saved the cat.'

Was it Buddhist to kill a cat? Is it Buddhist to cut off any part of life and say it's not practice?"

Here's the link to the original post. (Sorry it's not easier to use - I can't seem to figure out how to paste a link in so you can just click it.)

http://tenguhouse.typepad.com/tengu_house/2009/03/activism-and-engaged-buddhism.html

I'm very interested in others views of Engaged Buddhism, or simply Buddhist practice and "activism" in its myriad of forms. Feel free to drop a comment if you're inclined.

God, Guns, and the Good Ole US of A

The photo above is from the New York Times of Pastor Ken Pagano getting ready to use a Heckler & Koch MP5 submachine gun at a shooting range. (Click on the picture for the full image; sorry it got cut off somehow.) This is probably not the first thing you think of when you imagine a church leader, but I suppose a reality check is always helpful for all of us who might suffer from wishful thinking.

Yesterday, the Pastor invited the members of his church in Louisville, Kentucky to bring their guns to the service, which he called a "celebration of our rights as Americans," and considered a prelude to the upcoming Fourth of July Independence holiday. In an interview with the New York Times Wednesday, Pastor Pagano is quoted as saying "Guns and God were part of the foundation of this country."

Well, part of me vehimently wants to argue against that, citing the fact that most of the "founding fathers," for example, were not members of Christian churches and/or had very ambivilent relationships with organized religion in general. And while it's true that symbolically, at least, our government gives a strong nod to Christian-based images, holidays, and sayings, it's also true that from the beginning, there was a strong emphasis on freedom to practice or believe what one wanted to. This is pecisely because people like George Washinton and Thomas Jefferson felt it was important to support a diversity of spiritual beliefs, and even those who had no belief in spiritual life.

But I have to say at the same time that this brazen display of gun support by Pastor Pagano and the members of the New Bethel Church actually represents an important, if very sad, part of U.S. culture. We are a nation that began in violence, often with the use of Christian teachings as retorical underpinning. We continue to be a nation that too often resorts to violence as a means of dealing with conflict. And we believe that it is our right not only to own the weapons that help us commit those violent acts, but also that it's essentially a God-give right to use violence whenever we are, or feel, threatened.

When the leader of another church spoke against Pastor Pagano's efforts, here's how he responded "When someone from within the church tells me that being a Christian and having firearms are contradictions, that they’re incompatible with the Gospel — baloney. As soon as you start saying that it’s not something that Christians do, well, guns are just the foil. The issue now is the Gospel. So in a sense, it does become a crusade. Now the Gospel is at stake.” Sure sounds like fightin' words, doesn't it? I'm not intending to suggest the Pastor is out to shot anyone who disagrees with him, only to point out how quickly this issue turns from an exchange of opinions to strong willed, almost militant defense. I've seen this happen in discussions with members of my own extended family, who really don't have time for talk of peace or compassion.

I find myself at a bit of a loss when facing this reality. Every year, countless people in the U.S. are murdered over trivial things or during trivial arguments. Every year, we have more than our share of home grown terroristic acts by men (almost always men) driven over the edge by their own anger, intolerance, as well as some series of issues in society that effected them personally. By no means is the U.S. the worst off place when it comes to violence, but we have such a profound disconnect between how we see ourselves and portray ourselves to the rest of the world - as a nation of freedom, peace, and democracy - and how we actually behave as a nation, and as individuals.

Sometimes, I reflect on words like the Buddha's from the Dammapada:

In this world
Hate never yet dispelled hate.
Only love dispels hate.
This is the law,
Ancient and inexhaustible.

And I wonder if they are too simple or unrealistic to address the complicated mess we have when it comes to guns and violence, and the ways in which we have collectively and individually supported or rationalized that violence over the centuries. I am personally one that really thinks it's important to apply our spiritual learnings to the issues in the greater community, and world as a whole. Just sitting isn't enough for me, even though I feel so tremendously supported by that sitting practice. And yet, even on the individual level, it's no small task to whittle away at those seeds of violence within. Hatred seems to have endless masks, some easy to recognize, others very difficult to.

Even though I often find myself tripped up by the violence present in the world, and in my own life, I continue to feel it's essential to work on both edges - to be tempered by the fires within and without (to use our familiar, dualistic language markers). Just being an "activist" trying to change gun laws or address the violence in our culture is a recipe for burnout and arrogance. And just sitting while the house burns down all around us seems a bit foolish.

I suppose a good place to start is to not demonize the Pastor and those who follow him. That doesn't seem to hard. At least it's a beginning. You gotta start somewhere.

Eckhart Tolle's New Alliance

I got this video from over at the Zen Mirror blog (see my blog list for the link). Now, I like Eckhart Tolle's work. He's aware, insightful, and clear enough to get into the minds and hearts of many who will probably never step the door of a zendo or other spiritual community. Although he often gets lumped in with other New Age types, like Deepak Chopra, I don't think it's a fair assessment.The one criticism I have had of Tolle's work is that the sangha seems to be missing, as is a deeper reflection on social issues and how our spiritual lives might help address the societal ills of the day. However, unlike many of the New Age superstars, who sell sugar coated positive thinking, Tolle does his best to get us to break down our ego attachments, and to see what is actually present right now in our lives. He's not always soft, and easy to digest, and I appreciate that.

But I have to say I find this new alliance with the Queen of Pop television - Oprah - troubling. Sure, some may say that this is a good way to get his teachings out to an even wider audience, and I suppose that's true. And yet, as you'll see in the video, there's a hell of a lot of consumerism behind this project, which is always the case when Oprah is involved. Oprah's rise from poverty may be inspiring, but her promotion and excessive indulgence in material goods, materialistic viewpoints, and western capitalist solutions to national and world problems has always left a bad taste in my mouth. A great example of this is the elitist girls school she founded in South Africa in 2007. Not only has the school had a pair of sex scandals, but it also is an example of the soft colonialism that continues to occur in Africa. In other words, the school is well meaning, but it really doesn't take into account the cultural and community dynamics at play, nor the impact of taking a small group of girls from their homes and placing them in a very materially rich, closed environment for months or even years at a time.

As for Tolle and Oprah working together, it's difficult for me to believe that the bit of "edge" Tolle has will continue to be present. And will this become just another money making, ego inflating enterprise for both of them, despite their best intentions? Already, Tolle's workshops are out of reach financially for a lot of people. But add to that the selling drive of Team Oprah (i.e. her corporate backers), and you have a recipe for the feel good spiritual product of the century.

I can imagine a fair amount of readers on here already view Tolle as watered down and lacking depth. But regardless of how you view his work, I do think that what he has done up until now, and what he does in the future has some impact on how the dharma sets itself in the West. Why? Partly because I've personally met a fair number of people who have become zen practitioners at some point after reading Tolle's books, and can imagine this is true in other places as well. In addition, although Tolle doesn't claim a spiritual tradition, his emphasis on the present moment, deconstructing our personal stories, and letting go of attachments are easily linked to Buddhism and Buddhist teachings.

Is all this something to loose sleep over? No. But at the same time, I do think it's worth reflecting on, not only in terms of how money and materialism effect spiritual teachings, but also in terms of how celebrity can influence what is being taught and how.

Thoughts on "this fleeting world"

I woke up this morning and checked my e-mail before heading out to work. The headline on Yahoo read "Farrah Fawcett dead at 62." Now, I barely follow anything about celebrities, and didn't quite place her as one of Charle's Angels,but I seemed to have some vague recollection of her. Then, arriving at work, I was told that the 6 year old son of a student had drowned in a lake last night. Again, I never met the boy, and the student was not in my class - but there was a lot of sadness at work today regardless. And questions. Where were the teachers? How could he have been underwater 20 minutes without anyone noticing? It's sometimes hard to fathom a little boy dying, even though it's not all that uncommon in a lot of places around the world. And finally, late this afternoon, my sister called to tell me that her favorite singer as a child - Michael Jackson - had died. I still remember the on-fire hair from that Pepsi commercial, and can't tell you how often I tried to do the moonwalk. Sure, Michael had some "issues" in later years, but he was 50 years old, barely past the mid-point for some people.

No matter what, this precious life is going to go by quickly. There is no way of knowing when the end will be for each of us. And even though we speak of there really being no birth and no death in Buddhism, there's still this body and this mind which will go at some point, not to return in the same form again.

The Diamond Sutra reminds us that it's not only the "great death" of your body and mind, but also that every moment is its own death. Nothing is standing still, and everything in its own way is fleeting. Even rivers. Even mountains. I'm reminded that Lake Superior and everything around it, was completely frozen less than 20,000 years ago. Less than 200 years ago, vast parts of my home state of Minnesota were covered with thick forests of pine and deciduous trees. And I remember the summer twenty five years ago when nearly every tree along my grandparent's block in St. Paul was chopped down, victims of dutch elm disease.

At the end of the Diamond Sutra are these words, which I have posted on my wall to keep me in check on day when I'm obsessing over some little problem, or generally being cranky and ridiculous.

"So you should view this fleeting world
a star at dawn
a bubble in a stream
a flash of lightning in a summer cloud
a flickering lamp
a phantom
and a dream."

That flash of lightning always gets me. What I find ironic about it though is that the line in the sutra, a thought about a flash of lightning, and an actual flash of
lightning all seem to cause me to slow down and pay closer attention. The world is fleeting, but if you rush, trying to keep up or trying to "do" everything, you miss it all.

So, peace and blessings to all who have died today, and all those who cared about them. May we all awaken, and stop missing out on own precious lives.

Moving George Morrison

My recent visit to Lake Superior got me thinking of one of my favorite visual artists: George Morrison. I'm not sure how well know he is outside of the U.S., or really even outside of "art people" circles, but for me, his life and work was deeply spiritual and endlessly beautiful.

George was born in Chippewa City, Minnesota in 1919. A member of the Grand Portage Band of Chippewa, he grew up and spent much of his life on the edge of the waters of Lake Superior. To say the lake influenced his artwork is nothing short of an understatement. A student of the Minneapolis School of Art and the New York Art Student's League, Morrison was part cubist, part abstract expressionist, part landscape painter, and all George Morrison. I've never really seen anyone else doing work quite like his.

Although I never met him (he died in 2000), I was privileged to work in a museum that owned and displayed one of his amazing driftwood collages for nearly a year and a half. Looking at the poster of it on my wall now, I vividly recall the days I was able to stand before it, trace the dozens of pieces of wood he had glued together to make an almost painting-like surface. The story goes that he would recruit neighborhood children to scour the beaches of Lake Superior, and also for a time those in Provincetown, Massachusetts, where he lived and taught for awhile during the 1960's. The children would bring him piles of driftwood, which he would then sort through, tossing roughly 80% back to shoreline, while the other 20% would be carved, sawed, and shaped, almost like a jigsaw puzzle, into a "wood painting."

One thing that can be said about Morrison is that he was a man of texture. The many, myriad textures of the wood that came together to make the wood paintings being one example. Another being his abstract and semi-abstract cubist paintings, which often contain several overlapping layers of paint.

Another thing about Morrison's work was it's preoccupation with the horizon line, mostly based on that which he experienced living on the shores of Lake Superior. I remember one day my boss came in and said we had to empty out the gallery with the Morrison in it. The museum was moving, and we had spent the previous week packaging the older paintings, as well as a room of sculpture by the local artist Paul Manship. Moving art can be a tedious process, but also one in which every once of mindfulness is called upon, given how easy it is to damage whatever it is you're moving. The day before, I had gotten into an argument with my boss about the proper amount of slowness called for in spinning a 19th century landscape painting around to place on a cart. This, as the two of us held the painting on either end, I turning just slightly faster than he, and his heart beating just slightly faster than mine. It had a fancy, gold flaked frame on it - beautiful to look at, scary as hell to move. As we jabbered at each other, it seems that our hands knew better, and got the painting down to the cart - no problem - while our lips flapped on and on.

None of this prepared us for the Morrison collage.

It was fastened to the wall with four large, very sturdy pegs. The same cart we had used to remove the landscape painting the day before sat between us, positioned in such a way that we just had to remove the collage and set it down on the cart. Or so we thought.

Two of us, including myself, grabbed the top edges of it and began to remove it. The other two got under each edge, ready to grab it as it came off. We were prepared, all except for one thing: the weight. As it came off the pegs, it became clear that George not only had created a beautiful landscape out of wood, but also a very, very, very heavy one. Coming off the pegs completely, it swayed fast, almost tumbling out of our hands altogether. The others quickly ran under it, and raised their hands to meet the center-front of the collage. But it continued to sway for a moment, even with four of us holding - or attempting to hold it up. I recall seeing a line, about two thirds of the way up along the side of the collage - Morrison's horizon line which landed in nearly every abstract piece he did after 1950. It didn't occur to me then that this was a sign to lighten up, to not hold too tightly to either the collage or to the idea that it was going to fall. But somehow, we managed to get it down, flip it around, and fit it safely on to the carrying cart. I imagine somewhere George was watching, laughing at us for not thinking about the weight of the thing, and also appreciating that we cared so much about his work.

George Morrison was, among other things, a breaker of molds and stereotypes. At a time when any art - be it art done by Native peoples or done by whites appropriating Native images - that was associated with Native Americans was expected to be filled with teepees, totems, and other stereotypical images, George's work was decidedly his own. He had a foot in the door of the new establishment as an artist who did abstract work, and yet he also had a foot out in the wilderness as an artist intimately influenced by a Minnesota landscape, Ojibwe spiritual and cultural traditions, and the making of art out of driftwood, among other things.

He once told an art critic "We were made to be ashamed of being Indian. In my own way I believe in a lot of the old Indian ideas ... I like the idea of prayer to give strength, to make you well."

It strikes me that his paintings, collages, and other works of art were each little - and not so little in the case of those collages - prayers offered to us as images that might, if we look closely and take them in, make us well. I know that collage has done so for me over the years. Even looking at the poster of it on my wall can restore my calm. Isn't this what art is all about, reminding us who we are when we have become lost?

A few Morrison resources:

George told his life story to Margot Galt in the book Turning the Feather Around

Here's a link to one of George's wood collages - sadly, the museum I worked at doesn't have an image of the one I moved on it's website.

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/98/232058711

And Wikipedia page. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Morrison_(artist)

The One Seat

I just returned from my garden, where I had a bit of a tussle with an old hose and hose carrier that decided they didn't want to behave by my standards. Found myself covered with water and mud, and filled with irritation as I tried to fix the connector hose, which had broken off the carrier. It's long overdue to be retired, just as the chair in the photo above is I suppose. But who decides such things? And why? What is the motivation for rejecting old objects like this, just because they don't fit the pattern we want them to fit?

Bending over to remove the plants I had deemed unworthy of continuing, I thought of how curious it all is - this picking and choosing we seem to love to do. Sure, the now tall, lush tomato bush certainly has more value and appeal to me than the Canadian thistles that kept threatening to snuff it out. But what about those thistles? What is their one seat amongst all this?

I have what most would describe as a very weedy garden. Not that I don't pluck, but that I don't pluck as often as most do. Partly, this is out of awareness of the medicinial value of many of our weeds, as well as the plain beauty of some for which I have no "use" at all. Like those thistles. Unlike their cousins the milk thistle, these Canadian thistles don't seem to of much value to us humans. But take a close look at them sometime if you ever get a chance. I admire their toughness, their resistance to drought and their sheer willingness to grow tall and wide. And anyone getting close won't miss their thorniness, which bends and twists the plant's leaves in all sorts of interesting shapes. Certainly, they aren't what you want your foot to land on when you step, but then again, the poke I received this afternoon was enough for me to drop the fussing about the hose.

So, where do they fit in? Where is their one seat in this world? Or maybe it's better to ask where is our one seat in this world? Your seat? Mine?

When you sit to do your meditation, do you view that place as yours? Or are you one of those who claim to be beyond such thoughts, seeing this seat as a temporary place of being?

I think both of those answers miss the mark a bit.

Back to the thistles for a moment. When I view the garden as "mine," I'm more apt to remove every last "invader" that arrives in the soil. And when I say I'm beyond such thoughts, everything is suffocated by the few plants that can invade well and take over.

There's something about this crusty old chair that reminds me to not be so fast to have an answer. It sits in my garden, year after year, getting rustier and less attractive. Covered with snow in the winter; covered with vines in the summer. Sometimes, I sit on it. Other times, I don't. Visitors aren't so keen on it I think; even the neighbor's cat skips along past it without even a glancing consideration at the seat.

Sometimes, it's the very things that cease to have a function or value in our lives that can most teach us to be present in this world. But even if they teach us nothing, what about that? How can we move past the need for something, or someone else, to be of function or value to us?

I believe that when you are able to take your one seat, then the root of all of these questions will be clear.