Hotbutton Political Issues and Buddhism

The two political issues in the U.S. that seem to be most hot button right now are the War in Afghanistan and health care reform. One thing I have always found strange, and extremely sad, is that the debate on health care has been riddled with commentary about cost, while cost is almost never brought up in the debate about the war. When I contemplate Buddhist teachings about suffering and the first precept of non-killing, I can't help but view the manifestations of these separate, but linked debates as terribly wrongheaded. Let's face it: health care has been reduced to a cost/benefits analysis, while any talk of ending either the war in Afghanistan, or it's counterpart in Iraq, has been taken off the table and labeled crazy talk by both major political parties.

Over at his blog, Algernon posted the following about a series of protests occurring on October 15th. There is a grassroots effort developing in response to the Congressional shutout of any government-run options, as well as in direct response to the outrageous greed being displayed by the insurance industry.

As for the war, I stumbled across this post at the blog Breathe about self-identified Buddhists in the U.S. military. I'm not sure how accurate the study is, but it reports just over five thousand self-identified Buddhists currently serving in the military. A tiny number amongst 1.4 million total people in the military.

I think it's faulty to assume that Buddhists would be less interested in serving in the military because of the tenants of the religion. Indeed, there are strong peace teachings in all the major religions, not just Buddhism. But I do wonder about that small number. Is it a miscount? Does it reflect the fact that until recently there was no Buddhist spiritual guidance and support available? In recent years, there have been claims and lawsuits suggesting a heavy, oppressive Christian bias in the military. Does it have anything to do with this?

Although everyone who has read my blog for awhile probably knows that I am ardent pacifist, I have always tried to show respect for my fellow Americans who have chosen to serve in the military. Over the years, I have heard stories of soldiers who felt that joining the military was the only chance they might have to get a better education, or to support their family. I've heard others tell of how they initially felt joining the military was a way to give back to their country, and then realized that the government in power lied to them. Still others continue to view their work in the military as honorable, even as they might question some of the specifics. It's complicated, damn complicated. And I have always felt a strong sense of frustration with the failure of many peace activists to separate out their disgust for war and violent political policies from their views of people who are in the military.

I feel that both of these issues are calling us in the varied and diverse Buddhist community to offer up some of the wisdom of our tradition. Why? Because in both cases, the debates are stale, and the rhetoric used is so often anti-humane and highly suffering producing for people on all sides.

A few questions to ponder.

What does it look like to both support a shift to non-violent approaches, and also to recognize the buddha-nature of our brothers and sisters serving in the military?

Why do we collectively continue to allow political and corporate leaders to frame discussions about health care primarily in terms of cost, while also allowing those same leaders to frame military issues almost solely in terms of national defense?

What is the point of talking about interdependence if it doesn't also apply to large scale social issues?

How can our practice help us take a long range view of these kinds of issues, while also inspiring us to not be complacent in the present?

As far as I'm concerned, our practice is about penetrating the whole works of your life. If you have family members, friends, or colleagues in the military, that issue is part of your life. If you know anyone that has been killed in war, or who has served in a war and been effected by it, it's part of your life. If you feel strongly about the first precept, it's an issue in your life, no matter what you believe about any given conflict. And health care, well, how could it possibly not be an issue that impacts you?

We really can't turn away, even when we try. Eventually, social issues come knocking at your door just like everything else. It can be overwhelming; it's often overwhelming. So, then what? Is this not the pivot point of practice? To work with, to live with, completely, whatever is present?

If you view the political, the social, the collective-scale, as separate from your spiritual life, I'd like to ask: how so? How is it possible? This isn't about endorsing a particular political view, or suggesting that everyone become a social activist. This is about seeing your whole life, all of it, from the most intensely "personal" emotions to the most intensely "impersonal" political decisions that impact us all. If you look hard enough, I'll bet you will start to see that even the divide between the "personal" and "impersonal," between that which is in "my" sphere and that which isn't, is itself nothing but a fiction of self-protection.

Same old Same old

I woke up this morning to falling snow: the second time in a week this has happened and it's not even the middle of October. And yet, as it is in Minnesota, by the end of the week it could be sunny and 70 degrees out. Predictability isn't a strong suit when it comes to the weather in the Land of Ten Thousand Lakes.

What about your life? How is what actually is happening different from how you see it?

I'm often either in conversations, or overhearing conversations that go something like this.

A: Hey so and so! How are you?

B I'm fine. You?

A: Yeah, me too. What have you been up to?

B Not much. You know, the same old same old."

A: Yeah, it's about the same here, expect for..."

Unless something dramatic enters into our lives, we seem to be very good and missing the smaller changes in life.

A fresh coat of snow in early October is kind of dramatic.

The slow fade of the large, green garden squash plant leaves - not so dramatic.

A cancer diagnosis is dramatic. The shift from mild sore throat to mucus-filled nose not so much.

How much of the statement "the same old same old" or ones like it is simply our devaluing of the less dramatic, greater bulk of our lives? Even if you, personally, value those things, I'm guessing a lot of the time, you, too, suppress these things in order to conform to cultural expectations and/or not to bore others. I know I do.
If you bring up the ballgame, or TV show X, or concert Y, then you have something to talk about. If you tell someone about the albino squirrel you saw chasing a half dozen other squirrels up and down an old oak tree, you'll receive many a glazed over looks.

This is part of the separation occurring in our lives. It's just one of the many ways we fail to be present, and to embody being present with others. It's strikes me that often we have a strong preference to have something dramatic to report to others about our lives. Either that, or we just say nothing is new. Which is false - there's always something unfolding, but often we just can't see it. Or we see it, but discount it. Or believe others will have no interest. And living in a society that trains us to not have an interest in a lot of our actual lives, many people aren't interested.

So, given all this, what to do? If you don't start examining your need for the dramatic, you'll miss the bulk of your life, guaranteed.

If You Wish to See the Truth

First off, great bows to John Daido Loori Roshi, who died a few hours ago. Thank you to Barry for delivering the news on his blog. We all have a short time here; what are you going to do with the rest of your precious life?

I am continuing to study and reflect on Master Sengcan's dharma poem "Trust in Mind" or the Xinxinming. Here's another line that caught me, and a few others in my sangha over the past week.

"If you wish to see the truth,
then hold no opinions for or against anything."

Take a look at those first words - "If you wish to see the truth." How often do you truly wish to see the truth? And how often do you do anything in your power to turn away from it?

This line seems to point at the choice that's required of each of us in every moment to want to see the truth. We have to aim ourselves in the right direction - or, more accurately, allow ourselves to be aimed in the right direction by life itself. If we're too busy being obstructionists, propping up sham arguments about ourselves and others, there's no room for the truth to seep in.

In the second part of the line, the word "hold" stands out in my opinion. Last night, I was in a conversation about politics, and felt myself holding on to an opinion about the current leadership here in the U.S. I noticed how there was a tightness in my body, and also an increasing sense of shutting down occurring for the guy I was talking to. So, I decided to pull back, and let go of the point I was trying to make. We continued to talk, and I was very aware of the calming that came to my breath and body after letting go, and how I was still able to talk about what I thought, but in a more open way.

What would it be like to have all opinions be like this? Like birds floating across the mind's landscape, accessible, able to be conveyed, but also free to pass on through at any time?

A powerful aspiration, and one worth working towards realization. Bows to us all for our efforts, however great or small.

Power of Language

The impact of language seems to be constantly surrounding me lately. Or maybe I'm just paying even more attention to it lately. The way I viewed the term "stepping down" when it came to John Daido Loori's resignation as head of the Mountains and Rivers Order. Nothing in the term prepared me for the letter a few days later saying he was dying. The way U.S. President Obama speaks of searching for "a middle ground" when it comes to the war in Afghanistan: a war that was entered into out of hatred and revenge, and has gone on for eight years at the cost of tens of thousands of lives, billions of dollars, and unknown costs to the environment.

So, when I came across these opening words in an otherwise rather convoluted post by zen teacher Brad Warner, I paused.

I've been thinking about compassion lately. People keep asking me about it because Buddhist teachers are supposed to talk about compassion all the time. But I hate talking about things I'm supposed to talk about. Whenever some idea starts wending its way through a culture it very quickly turns into a cliche and dies. Compassion died a long while ago.

I've had similar thoughts on occasion. There seems to have been an explosion of books, classes, and conversations that focus around how to be compassionate. In some ways, that's probably a positive thing. However, what does the word mean? What is it that people are talking about when they say "Compassion?"

Sometimes I wonder if talking about compassion is taking the place of actually doing the hard work of embodying compassion. I also get the sense that the popular definition of compassion is something very warm and fuzzy, which isn't really hitting the mark. Sometimes being compassionate requires a soft, warm touch. Other times it's a hard kick in the ass at the right time. Being compassionate requires Right View - that we have spent time with a person and/or situation, and have seen enough of what's going on to act skillfully. How many of you have had someone come into your life when things are down with overbearing advice or help that only makes things worse? My guess is probably all of us have.

When it comes to words, there is both a power built into them, and also a diminishing returns quality that comes from overuse and misuse. The term "Zen" itself has been bastardized enough in popular culture that it's meaning, when used by those of who actually practice it, often has to be expanded upon or redefined all together. This is probably true of compassion now as well. It's overuse and misuse requires us to be more careful, and to clarify what it is that we actually mean when we say it.

This isn't a bad thing. But maybe if we were more careful in the first place when we speak, we wouldn't have to do so much work at the other end to get our point across.

Impermanence and John Daido Loori

I haven't had much time to post the past two days, but the quick turn of events with John Daido Loori Roshi at Zen Mountain Monastery caught my attention. Recently, it was announced he was stepping down from his leadership position. Seemed like a regular transition, with the elder teacher going into "retirement" - which, of course, doesn't mean hours of sitting in front of the TV and lawn mowing. However, this morning, Rev. Danny Fischer posted the following letter, which basically says that Daido is on his death bed.

I remember early on in my zen practice studying Daido's book Eight Gates of Zen with other newcomers at my sangha. Later, I worked through a few of his koan commentaries, as well as writings of zen and art. He's a gifted artist, and a powerful dharma teacher. If he is indeed in his last days, I wish his community and all those who have studied with him a peaceful mourning period, and blessings in the coming days. And thank you Roshi for your wonderful teachings, beautiful art, and for your part in planting the seeds of the dharma in it's newest home. May you be completely liberated from suffering, whatever happens in the coming days and weeks.

The "Need" to Describe and Define

I'm doing a little experiment today. Instead of a written blog piece, I recorded a few thoughts on what we are currently studying at my zen center - Chan Master Sengcan's dharma poem "Trust in Mind." You can read a translation of the poem by Robert Clarke here.

As part of the current practice period, I'm also chanting a version of Trust in Mind every night before bed. Maybe, by the end of November, when the practice period is finished, I will have chunks of the poem memorized. Having learned nearly a dozen chants by heart over the years, and large parts of others, I have found this internalization of teachings to be most valuable for my practice. No matter where I am, or what I am doing, little pieces of the dharma are always there.

I hope you enjoy the video above. If anything, it allowed me to practice using another feature of my computer, and to try to speak about the dharma through a different format.

Motivation and Illusions in Practice

I really enjoyed reading this post on Brad Warner's blog (Use Your Illusions. Not that I agreed with everything he said, but I found that there were many points in it worthy of considering.

The first one is the old "Is online a good place to study and practice?"

Brad writes:

I spent a lot of one-on-one time with my teachers and that’s how I got to know their character — not through books or blog postings or videos on YouTube. Those tell you next to nothing about a person’s true character. No matter how many of them you read or watch. Whatever picture you have in your mind of people you see on your computer screen is false. Absolutely fictitious. You don’t have a clue.

In some ways, I completely agree with this. Human interaction and connection in person is so essential to our lives, and given that we are in the middle of the digital revolution, we don't really have a full awareness yet of how things like the internet are effecting our relationship, communities, and ways in which we structure our lives. However, I think Brad is a little too dismissive of the written word, and how it does portray parts of people's lives and character. A few months ago, I read the teaching letters of Zen Master Seung Sahn, which you can read here. Now, at least for some of these people, these letters were the primary relationship they had with their teacher. It may be that they had a lot of illusions about their teacher because of a lack of in the flesh experience, but it's also true that many of us in sanghas are filled with illusions about the teachers we see on a weekly, or even daily basis. In my opinion, true character can appear anywhere - in person, in a kind or nasty letter, even in a fleeting glance or word said over the phone.

Another point Brad brings up is the commonplace desire for a perfect teacher, and the man ways in which this ends up not holding up in reality. The upheaval at my own zen center about five years ago broke through the illusion of a perfect teacher for me, and many others there. The downfall of our charismatic teacher, and subsequent period of questioning and searching for a new leader, was extremely fruitful in terms of providing continuous teachings on how teachers are still humans, and how it's essential that you take responsibility for your own practice, and not expect someone else to lead the way for you.

Finally, there's the issue of motivation. I'm definitely familiar with this one. Even though some see me as a pretty dedicated practitioner, my motivation sometimes flags, and laziness sometimes is the tune of the day.

Brad writes:

What our questioner today has seen has convinced her that there is nothing to this Zen shit, that even after 20+ years of practice its teachers are still not perfect people. So why bother?

And it seems to go even beyond that for her. She despairs that she will never find the answers she seeks – even if she understands those answers won’t make her a perfect person.

Why bother? It's actually a damn good question. What is all this sitting and chanting and bowing and reflecting on your life about? Why not just crack a cold one and watch the ballgame?

Well, here's the funny thing. Any answer I come up with seems to crumble like rotten wood. I'd love to give you all an elegant, clear sounding answer that you will all quote for years on end. (Insert wild laughter here.) However, the reality is that I don't know why I bother for sure. Yes, my vows are important to me. Yes, I want to do what I can to lessen suffering in the world. Yes, I want liberation and ease and joy and all that. But somehow even all those things, as important as they are, still feel a bit self-focused to be answers to the question "Why bother?"

The pretty sounding words we Buddhists speak can be traps as well. I'm really noticing this lately. Claiming to want peace or liberation or a bucket of chicken isn't the same as actually manifesting those qualities in your life. How many of us claim to want one thing, but in reality really want a bucket of chicken? (Or chocolate or a pat on the back). I'd argue that a lot of our motivations are mixed, terribly unclear, and littered with the chicken bones of our desires.

Zen teachers often talk about the practice as being a "goal-less" one, which complicates the picture even more. Why bother? becomes a koan under these terms because whatever answer you give, it's probably going to contain a goal. Maybe not every answer, but most.

So, then what? Why do you bother doing all this? Don't rush to answer, or you'll be nothing more than a bucket of burned chicken. I suppose there are worse things, but then again, maybe we're all burnt chickens trying to heal our way back home.