Buddhist Prayer

We had a ceremony this morning at zen center commemorating the Parinirvana, or physical death day, of the Buddha. It was a short ceremony, attached to our regular children's precept ceremony, but I noticed that, at one point, the doan (basically a chanting leader), spoke in language that could be called a prayer. He said something to the effect of "May Shakyamuni Buddha continue to support and lead us through our lives." Now, it's important to note that there isn't a belief here of a deity hovering over our world, determining what is happening and what will happen in the future. If anything, a statement like this is calling forth the buddhanature - enlightened energy - within each of us to continue to manifest in our lives.

About a week ago, there was a post over at Barbara's Buddhism Blog about prayer in Buddhism. She basically takes the stance that we Buddhists do not pray because prayer assumes a petitionary stance towards some outward deity or spirit. In the comments section that follows the post, there's a fascinating set of exchanges between Barbara and a commenter named Jeff Wilson. Wilson brings up that many Japanese Zen practitioners, in everyday life, make petitionary prayers in daily life to such figures as Kwan Yin, Jizo, and other bodhisattvas, while at the same time, believing in the core Buddhist doctrine of interdependence. He parses this activity out as an example of working within the relative or practical world, while at the same time, maintaining the ultimate view that there is nothing separate in this world. Barbara was having none of that, and defended her position, getting snotty at the end in my opinion.

All of this, though, raises the question for me of why such unconfortability with the word "prayer" and activities that would fall under it's domain? I don't get it. Possibly it's tied up the definition Barbara seems to give, that prayer is basically done towards the outside, suggesting a belief in a supernatural being having an ability to control some aspect of your life. Well, maybe. But does it have to be? Can one not pray, even petition for something or some quality, but from within?

I'd answer a resounding yes! Look at the old Sufi poets, who spoke constantly of God, but were often, if not exclusively "praying" to wake up what was already within them. I "pray" to Jizo fairly frequently, especially to call from within me that equanimity that seems to disappear when I am biking in traffic.

The fuss I have seen when it comes to prayer - and I've seen it in people in my own sangha, as well as people writing online - seems curiously limiting to me. Because those monotheistic folks do prayer, we Buddhists better eschew it. Or because it sounds like a petition to a deity, we better say we don't do it. Or because Buddhists are about meditation, we don't pray. Honestly, I can only guess at the myriad of reasons for eschewing prayer in all forms, but it all seems like a reaction to other traditions, an act of separating Buddhism from other spiritualities, which seems like a waste of time and energy to me.

In her post, Barbara suggests that Zen folks don't pray, but we do "invoke." The main definitions of invoke are "to petition for help or support," or "to appeal to or cite as authority." Sounds like prayer if you ask me. And I see no issue with it at all. My petitions to Jizo do not change my view that there is no separate God out there. And I can imagine that plenty of Buddhists around the world can invoke, or pray, to any number of deities and still maintain a similar understanding. And maybe some do think there are separate bodhisattvas floating around out there, protecting and helping people. I guess I'm not all that interested in judging these folks as "wrong practitioners" for believing in such things.

*Jizo image from the Michigan Aikido blog.

Deportations to Burma; Connections Half Way Across the World

Maia over at the Jizo Chronicles posted the following article about Thai government efforts to deport Karen refugees back to Burma. This is just the latest for the Karen, an ethnic minority group that has been long been persecuted in their native Burma. Their story, as well as the stories of other ethnic minorities of Burma, tend to get lost in all the general coverage about the Burmese dictatorship's crackdown on Buddhist monks, as well as the nearly two decades long house arrest of democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi. Karen communities, for example, were hard hit during a cyclone that hit in spring 2008. That cyclone killed over 200,000 overall, and left over 1 million people homeless. And the Burmese dictatorship's efforts to keep out international aid was a horror for all those involved, but especially for ethnic minority groups already living under layers of oppression and threats to their lives few of us living in countries like the U.S. have any concept of.

I have a deeply personal connection to the Karen. Over the past three years, the majority of my English as a Second Language students have been Karen. I have had the privilege of learning about their lives, attending their New Years' celebrations, meeting their families, and making fumbling efforts at learning their language. A group of women in my classroom have taken to feeding me nearly everyday, as I have written about on this blog in the past. And for various reasons, I have found myself more touched, more connected, and more drawn to these people and their lives, personal stories, and history than any other group I have worked with over the years. I can think of students from countries all over the world that have been amazing members of my classroom, and who have entered my life and become teachers to me, as I have been a teacher for them.

But for some reason, my connection with the Karen has gone beyond individuals, even as it has been individuals who have made that connection possible. Kind of an interesting paradox. You only truly learn about any group through individuals of that group.

I still remember the day we had a discussion about religion in class. Although a mixed group in terms of spiritual beliefs, including indigenous traditions, Buddhists, and Christians, the vast majority of my Karen students have been Baptists (most 3rd to 5th generation of the original converts). Their perceptions, as I was to come to find out, were that white Americans were mostly Christian, so my "coming out" as a practicing Buddhist was something of a surprise to them. It might have been especially a surprise given that the majority of my co-workers are Christian, including have a dozen School Sisters of Notre Dame who speak freely about their faith.

We had an interesting discussion that day, one which reminded me religion and spirituality differences need not be the roadblocks we often make them into to. In fact, one of the women who seemed to be most surprised by my Buddhist practice later looked me straight in the eyes and told me, when I said I meditate almost everyday, "You meditate everyday. Everyday! Ok?" She'd be a good Zen teacher, don't you think?

I wish there were an easy solution for the remaining Karen refugees in Thailand, but I don't think there is. And the Thai government, over the past decade, has made it increasingly clear that their goals are in favor of ending refugee camps, and sending people on their way. Moving beyond refugee camps is probably something most people, in principle, can agree on. But what that looks like, and what it means for those who live in them currently, is a completely different issue.

Forced repatriation to countries where ethnic cleansing and terrorist campaigns are going on certainly isn't the answer, and this is unfortunately what the Thai government has started to do, both with the Karen and Hmong refugees in camps on the other side of Thailand.

May enough hearts and minds shift to bring about a compassionate solution for all.

*The photo above is from the birthday party my class gave me last year. The Karen woman in the photo, Mi Mi, is a long standing student of mine. She's short, sweet, and sometimes really giggly. She was a medical lab technician in her refugee camp in Thailand, and someday hopes to get back into the health field here in Minnesota.

New Buddhist Online Communities

Thanks to Arun and Danny. Check out the links to a new Queer Buddhist community, and a community for Buddhists of color and allies. Seems there are new groups popping up all the time. I've given up trying to keep up - a good thing :) - but it's great to see such activity.

Rebirth Can't Possibly Be True Based on What I know Scientifically!

We've been studying the Diamond Sutra for the past few weeks, and will continue to do so as a sangha for the next several weeks. It's a sometimes confounding teaching, filled with efforts to undercut just about every idea you have about your life and the world. Personally, I'm enjoying wrestling with it again, and plan on writing a few posts about it in the coming weeks.

One thing I'll say now, though, is that this is one of those Buddhist texts that is easily irritating to anyone who works with it too rigidly or literally. I can imagine it's probably been tossed out of consideration by more than a few people who have come across it, saying that it has nothing to do with their everyday experience. And maybe that's true, but like the easy rejections of rebirth and other aspects of Buddhism I sometimes see and hear, I question any quick tossing out of the Diamond Sutra.

It's not terribly often that I agree with The Zennist, but his post this morning resonates in a way that surprised me. Seeing the title, "Rejecting Buddhism based on Personal Knowledge," got my juices going for some reason, and I was, (laughing now), ready to reject his post before I even read it. Instead, I opened it up and found this:

It has become accepted in modern circles of Buddhism, particularly in the West, that the doctrines and teachings of the Buddha shouldn't be accepted just on the basis of belief; rather one should follow one’s own personal knowledge when deciding which doctrines are to be accepted and which ones are to be rejected.

All this sounds great. But is it? Not to mince words, and cutting to the chase, it is a flawed methodology that decides which doctrines and teachings of the Buddha should be observed and which should be rejected based on one’s personal knowledge.

Now, I'm a bit tired of his heavily negative commentary on "modern, Western Buddhists," but that's not the point of this post, so let's move on. What's important to note is that it's not about accepting teachings with blind faith - I don't think even The Zennist would say that. It's more about the way in which we place our personal experience and perceptions ahead of teachings that have functioned in the lives of millions of people for centuries. The kind of thinking that says, Based on what I know scientifically, rebirth can't possibly be true. Or all these teachings about renunciation don't apply to me because I live in the "real" world, not in a monastery.

Here's The Zennist doing what he seems to do best, writing a line that is similtaneously insulting and worthy of considering.

"In fact, the huge majority of people that populate this planet live most of their lives without accepting or rejecting things or ideas based on any degree of personal knowledge."

One the one hand, the stench of elitism is like a rotting corpse in the midday August sun here.

On the otherhand, if you shift it a little bit - say instead of the "huge majority of people," you say "nearly all of us spend a lot of our lives" it's probably fairly accurate. Think about it. How often are you running on auto pilot, accepting common views of things without examination, and letting others (government officials, spiritual leaders, parents, cultural norms) guide your life? How often are you "too busy" to examine anything that's going on? How much of your Buddhist practice is confined to your sitting, chanting, and/or sutra studies?

I think most of us think we know enough to pick and choose what to "believe in," when the reality is that we barely even know ourselves, let alone the world around us.

"Who" is it that knows, for example, that rebirth is a false teaching from a superstitous past? Who is it? And where did such an understanding come from?

My experience (snicker, snicker) is that a lot of what I think I know ends up being full of holes, like the telephone pole above. Lately, I'm putting much more faith in the questions that appear in my life than any definitive answers. And maybe The Zennist, in his own, overly confidently way is pointing us back to the questions as well. What do you think?

The "Problem" with Good Habits

Genkaku made an interesting post this morning that I think highlights the way many of us obsess about what we perceive as "bad," but seem to forget the impact of what we perceive as "good."

Your good habits will come back to haunt you and require a hard, sometimes hellacious, effort to clarify. This is not just some sissified theory or philosophy.
Habits by their nature leave traces and shadows. Bad habits, good habits ... traces and shadows remain.

Seems to me the operative word here is "habits." I'm reminded of my yoga teacher's frequent comments about "choosing the path of least resistance" and how, that might be the easiest way, but what does it teach us? He often comes up with new approaches to age-old yoga poses, and I think this is in part because he's witnessed how all of us, himself included, get stale and mindless about our lives. I'm also reminded of the times we have changed the translations of chants at our zen center, and how, in both situations, we're offered the opportunity to hang with the confusion, irritation, and not knowing that arises.

I don't think the above means we have to toss out positive habits. But maybe it's an invitation to break the groove, any groove, at least once in a while. Isn't that what Buddha taught us when he said the teachings are to be let go of once we cross the river?

A Little More on Children and Buddhist Teachings

I just received a comment on my post on Buddhism and raising children from a friend in my sangha. It's worth reading in full, so here it is.

Nathan says:
“It does seem a bit strange to me that a lot of Buddhist parents seem skittish about talking directly with their kids about their own spiritual life. I don't understand that. It doesn't matter to me if you call it Buddhism or mindfulness or whatever—but passing on the teachings is important in my opinion, and it can't be done by just loving our children in my opinion.”

Related to this, I heard a sangha member speculate that the present aimlessness of her grown children resulted from her failure to provide a spiritual framework for them as they grew up. (I presume she came to Buddhism later.)

The same regret nags me. I felt I had nothing to offer my children spiritually. I myself was struggling to find meaning in life and did not wish to contaminate them with my deep doubts. I struggled to "figure it out" so that I could pass on to them what I had found. Funny thing: it turns out there's nothing to figure out. Too late.…

We haven't heard from our oldest son in ten years. I try to soothe myself with the fantasy—and I have at least some evidence to support this hypothesis—that, like the prince who leapt over the palace wall, he's on his own spiritual quest. Anyway, this is better than thinking that he's into something harmful to himself and others. So I think Nathan's right—just loving our children isn't enough.

About a week ago I was engaged in conversation with a group that included a brother and sister (maybe 13 and 16 years old) who are growing up with Buddhist teachings. Their emotional maturity amazed me, even humbled me. It seems to me they're on the right path. Learning how our minds work does not to me equate with indoctrination.

For an idea of how children's practice works at Clouds in Water Zen Center, check out past issues of the Dewdrop Digest.

For those of you interested in learning a little more about how a sangha approaches working with children, check out the link above to the newsletters. You'll get an idea of the topics my zen center covers with children, as well as the practices we work with together. And if you're a skeptic, check it out anyway. Never hurts to learn what others are doing.

*The image above is an example of the artwork component featured in Clouds in Water Zen Center's children's classes.

Life As a Human Magazine

I'm now writing for a new online magazine, Life as a Human. Out of British Columbia, Canada, Life as a Human just started publishing a slate of international writers yesterday. Here's a little more about the magazine from it's mission statement:

Life As A Human is a social hub for all aspects of the human experience. We cultivate good writing that illustrates our humanity in unique ways through compelling stories that defy categorization. You’ll have a hard time labeling our articles – but you’ll want to share them with everyone.

We are an intercultural gathering place for writing that moves and inspires; a venue for the authentic voice, regardless of that voice’s age or perspective. Sure, we will feature topics like running, gardening and business, but our writers bring to light fascinating insights about their subject matter to reveal – the essence of life in all its layers.

The website has wonderful photography, a clean, engaging layout, and lots of interesting articles already. Check out my work, and the rest of the writing available there.