Where are All the Young People Again

Having brought up the issue of a lack of young adults in North American Buddhism several times over the past few months, it was a pleasure to see the issue come up somewhere else. Jiryu over at No Zen in the West took up the issue in a current post:

It would be one thing if Buddhism seemed esoteric or fringe (come to think of it, that would probably help), but part of what gets me is that Buddhism is everywhere. It’s penetrating the culture, the language. Basic knowledge of the Dharma, and contact or experience with meditation, seems more widespread among young people now then fifteen years ago when I was first in college. I visited my old college a couple of years ago to lead some meditation, and I was surprised how many people had “sat once or twice” or at least knew someone who did. People even knew who Nagarjuna was! But why doesn’t that translate into young people commiting? Is it because the Dharma can’t tweet? (Apologies to you Dharma tweeters…) Or has the fact of the Dharma having a place in the mainstream blown the mystique, leaving us exposed as just another group of people trying to do right by some Lord?

One friend has wondered if younger people are more anxious about money and making it then even the whatever-we-ares between the Gen Xs and Ys. Less willing to break away, to adventure and take risks. Is that true?

I have written a lot about issues of classism and racism, and how the frequent lack of focus on these in dharma centers not only is a concern, but also a way in which they get replicated within the sanghas themselves. We cannot escape from the troubles of our society - they slip in the door with each of us, and are begging to be paid attention to more closely.

Commitment is an interesting word, isn't it? I sometimes wonder if we're all on a different page with this word, but believe we think the same about it. What does commitment look like for a young adult? For a married mother? For a single retired person? For a wealthy practitioner who doesn't have to work? People love to point to the practice as being the same for everyone, but that's trapped in emptiness my friends. In the everyday, relative world, each of the practitioners above will have slightly, and maybe greatly differing practices (in form). One might sit long retreats, be a monastic in training, and rise up the leadership ladder. Another might chant for five minutes in the morning before the child wake up crying and everything turns to chaos. Notice that privilege plays a role here, which doesn't mean that those who are privileged shouldn't make the effort to dive into meditation and dharma study, but it would be greatly flawed to tell everyone they have to do the same thing all the time.

Maybe this was one of the weaknesses of those wonderful teachers who brought the dharma to North America. Not seeing and/or questioning the economic and social disparities present in these countries that have such vast wealth and ease present on the surface. And maybe the same might be said of teachers going back centuries in Japan, Korea, China, Tibet, and other nations. As the hierarchies developed, and teachings and approaches became established as the way, questions about socio-economic disparities hindering people from gaining access to, and/or developing their spiritual lives were set off to the side. I don't have a list of evidence for this, but I can imagine it has happened at least some of time. The U.S. and Canada can't be unique in that way.

Here is an interesting take from another Jiryu in the comments section:

At 31, I’m generally considered the baby in the room. I practice at the Village Zendo, which is overwhelmingly folks in their 50s. When people around here ask “where are the young people?”, they all seem to be looking at me.

I know two places that attract young folks. First is Tenshin Roshi’s gritty monastery, Yokoji Zen Mountain Center in SoCal. It had a lot of young men when I lived there. It doesn’t surprise me that Daigan, above, says that the other monasteries have young folks, too. I propose that young folks are largely interested in monastic Zen or nothing at all. The relaxed, community-oriented Zen of lay sanghas has trouble holding us.

But second, Ethan Nichtern’s Interdependence Project here in lower Manhattan is succeeding. Look at Ethan to see what the rest of the sanghas are missing. It may not be that hard: start with a core group of young leaders, write some blogs, teach the dharma in an college-style curriculum with texts and a clear sequence of intellectual learning. But don’t neglect meditation. Get out into the streets regularly to meditate in public. Take action: tutor ex-prisoners, work in soup kitchens. Take a political stand and include local politicians in your meetings.

Now that I write this, it seems brainlessly obvious what young folks want in a dharma center. So: Why do the middle-aged lament the lack of young people, without being able to implement the obvious next steps?

I disagree about the proposed split between monastic training and more community oriented centers. Young adults want community as much as anyone. We long for people to talk to, share with our spiritual lives, as well as just our everyday experiences. I also know that many of us long for a healthier, more grounded social engagement and activism, driven less by rage and burnout, and more by patience, kindness, and intelligent creativeness. You can't do it alone, just as you really can't raise a child alone, or make a business run alone. Even those who do it alone for the most part, get help from somewhere at sometimes. Spiritual communities can lift some of the burden in all of this, and help each of us create space, lightness, and joy within our current work. But that only happens when people feel like they have a sense of home in a community. If that's not there, the rest won't come.

The other reason I disagree about the proposed split for young people is that, despite it's current lack of young adults, I love my zen center. The support I have received from countless people there has been wonderful, and the dedication to the dharma I experience has been invaluable. I'm not sure where I would be without these years I've spent in my sangha. That's why I'm so passionate about all this because more of us could have that experience, and I truly think the multi-generational model is where it's at - we need each other to stay fresh and light, but also stay grounded and patient.

One more point from the comments above. I'd argue that the college-style dharma course appeals wonderfully to us college educated types, but really doesn't do much for the plumber down the street, or the restaurant manager up the road. So, that's another place to take a look at because that 20 something struggling in a low wage job, trying to figure out what to do to make his or her's life less hectic might love to experience Buddha's teachings too!

Finally, here's a comment from Will Sherwin, who spent time in the San Francisco Zen Center system:

I felt there was a lot of untapped wisdom and energy in the young people who were already involved in SFZC.

It also goes back to the hierarchy issue. If you have to wait 20 years to get a voice and power in the community than there aren’t going to be any young people with voice and power and that is not that appealing to many young people.

This is a tough issue. Calls for empowering younger people can bump up hard against issues like dharma transmission and legitimacy. Is it watering down to develop lay leaders who are younger, and don't have 20, 30, 40 years of experience? What happens when the Boomers, who make up the bulk of dharma teachers in North America, die off? How do we maintain the integrity of the dharma, while also developing a more diverse leadership?

Big questions. I'm always full of big questions it seems. I suppose that's enough for you all to chew on for now. Enjoy!

Not Dismissing Anything

Another warm, sunny afternoon here in Minnesota; spring is cracking through every remaining pile of snow and ice as far as the eye can see. I was out walking in a park with some friends, enjoying the sight of people in sweatshirts passing the remaining cross-country skiers. Convergence of seasons; overlapping images. The squawking of crows craning from atop bare branches.

Even though there is half a foot of snow on the ground in some places, we still stumbled upon a fresh patch of creeping charlie - everyone's second favorite lawn nemesis after my beloved medicinal dandelions. Tucked beneath an old oak tree, the sight of this perennial weed made me smile. There's no way to know just exactly where new life will appear, nor anyway to know what will come of the seeds planted in the past. Every bird that snacked the previous summer, and dropped crumbs as it flew off, added to this. Every inch of rain, inch of snow, shining hour of sunlight added to this. Every cloud; every human that ignored this place also added to this appearance.

It's so easy to dismiss something like early spring weeds as "not interesting," or of "no concern," and yet they are reminders to each of us about our own cycles of life. And they are, in themselves, tiny, green buddhas containing the entire universe. Actually, I prefer the word "multiverse," which I first heard years ago from a Native American man being interviewed about his spiritual life.

Apparently, the term itself was coined by the American philosopher William James, but I don't recall ever making that connection when I read his works. A more likely connection, though, would be the science fiction I was stepped in during my late teens and early twenties - especially the novel The Coming of the Quantum Cats by Frederick Pohl.

Here's a plot summary from Wikipedia:

The novel hinges around invasions from alternate Earths in alternate universes. None of these universes are quite like our universe; however, they all have some element or other in common, many of which Pohl develops to satiric effect.

* In one universe Nancy Reagan is the President of the United States and her mostly-disregarded husband Ronald is known as "The First Gentleman". John F. Kennedy is a Senator from Massachusetts who is married to a woman called Marilyn.
* In another universe, America's political spectrum has shifted far to the right, and Ronald Reagan is regarded as dangerously left-wing.
* In the past of some of the worlds, the young revolutionary Joseph Dzhugashvili (not known in these worlds as Stalin) had escaped from Russia to America in the 1900s, taking with him the proceeds of a bank robbery conducted on behalf of the Bolsheviks and using the money to set himself up as a big American capitalist.

The book presents multiple versions of three characters -- Dominic DeSota, Nyla Christophe, and Larry Douglas -- and their interactions as different versions of the characters travel from one Earth to another. Dominic DeSota is the main character, with most of the book told from the divergent viewpoints of three of his avatars (see following), with brief glimpses of numerous additional Dominic DeSotas scattered throughout the novel as anything between a nuclear scientist and a hunter scrabbling for bare existence in the ruins left after a nuclear holocaust.

I remember loving how these characters ran into alternate versions of themselves, and also how their alternate selves frequently appeared together, but never making the connection between each other. Beyond the wonderful speculative quality of the story, it also seems to be a mirror onto our lives. How, you might be asking? Well, first of all, you could view the many Dominics, for example, as comprising the impermanent, shape shifting "thing" we call our self. However, on a larger scale, the way in which tiny shifts in events in any of the different worlds of the book have an impact on all of the others. No action is a throw away action; sounds a lot like the law of karma, doesn't it?

The seeming insignificance of a patch of creeping charlie discovered in early March can be placed into great perspective here. If any of the causes and conditions had been changed, there might have been no creeping charlie in that spot. And thus no smile from me, which then flowed to my friends. This is a small example, but it points to the importance of not dismissing anything. Because every time we do, we are failing to see our own precious life.

Image from Cosmos Magazine

Grasping Ice

In Chapter 19 of the Diamond Sutra, Buddha says to Subhuti: "the past mind cannot be grasped, neither can the present mind or the future mind."

Thich Nhat Hanh, in his commentary, follows up on this line with a question:

"How can we have as true understanding of the mind if we keep going after different psychological phenomena trying to grasp them?"

Take a look at the photo above. It was taken a few weeks ago along the Mississippi River. Isn't that how your mind works much of the time? You imagine there is something solid you need to get a fix on, and so your thoughts spin around and around like the ducks around that slab of ice. Perhaps, there comes a time when you step onto the ice, or even take a hold of it with your hands, or some other part of your body. But no matter what you do, the ice isn't going to be here long. It's already melting, and soon will return completely to the water. In fact, before it was melting, it had been growing, thickening to become a slab of ice. Yet, never did it leave the river, even if one of those ducks ingested a piece of it and then flew off into a field.

So much effort put into trying to confirm a separation that isn't there. Even when we believe intellectually that everything is interdependent, how often do each of us still act like a cold duck, reaching for that slab of ice as if it were the thing that will hold us up, and keep us from drowning?

Passive-Aggressive Buddhist Moralists

For some reason, I'm enjoying engaging the posts over at Gniz's blog about Brad Warner's blog. (Ha! That's a mouthful, isn't it?) Anyway, I wrote the following comment on Gniz's post yesterday, and then returned today to find myself lumped in a group entitled "passive-aggressive Buddhist moralists" in Gniz's current post. Mind you, he didn't call me out personally, but you read what I said below, and then Gniz's post, you'll find I fit in pretty nicely.

without sustained, deep attention to the precepts or other ethical teachings of Buddhism, meditation practice probably won't do anything in terms of kindness, compassion, and beneficial action.

We have to make the effort to pay attention to moral/ethical issues - to pay attention to how we interact with others and the impact those interactions might have. I see a lot of bitching and moaning online about this and that - Warner's comments section is a veritable dukkha train in itself - and seeing all that, I have to wonder how many of these people just meditate, and really have little interest in the ethical teachings.

Ok, so I'll admit it - I think the ethical teachings are important. Very important. Gniz has the opposite view:

See, this other moral code called the 10 commandments also hasn't made people behave any better over the last few thousand years. In fact, I'd say the success rate of the Ten Commandments is pretty abysmal. There's been all kinds of wars and killing and rapes and thievery by Christians, Buddhists, and just about any other group of humans you could name.

If trying to adhere to a strict moral code such as the precepts makes you feel better, great. I'm not going to tell you to stop adhering to them. But this insistence on the value of precepts is actually rather silly, in my opinion. I've been saying this for years. We've got plenty of examples of why and how the precepts simply don't work. In fact, on the whole they clearly don't make a bit of difference.

Morality and ethics are more a function of community than they are of religion. A list taped to your wall isn't going to make you a better person.

First of all, it seems to me that much of what Buddha taught had to do with community. What the hell point is there to awakening to this life if it has nothing to do with how you function in this world? If Buddha's goal was to teach a completely solitary path, he would have skipped the whole sangha part, and maybe the whole teaching part as well. He had that option, according to every version of his biographical story I have ever seen. Upon awakening, he thought "What now?" and wondered if going around talking to others would be fruitless. That he chose in the end to teach and have a community should say a lot about the direction and orientation of his teachings, all solitary cave dwelling monks aside.

The comparison Gniz makes between the Ten Commandments and the Buddhist precepts is a false one. The precepts are not black and white directives. They are supposed to be subtle guidelines that shake our attachments to wanting what we don't have, and not wanting what we do have. In addition, they are mindfulness trainings for our interactions with others, reminding us again and again to take another look at what we're doing, saying, and thinking about others and ourselves.

As for the precepts not working, and all the terrible, horrible examples of failures out there - well, how does anyone know for sure what it is that comes from "working"? Anyone who reads this blog knows that I am firmly in the camp of non-violence and have never supported any war in any place at any time. However, I also believe that any moment of beneficial, caring action that occurs within any setting is an awakening. If a solider is able to break through the us-them paradigm for even a single moment, that's a "working" in my opinion. It may be tiny, and surrounded by a ton of misery, but it's still there.

Here's another interesting section from Gniz's post:

Religious moralizing breeds arrogance. People that are very religious believe that they are somehow behaving better than everyone else, even though there is absolutely NO EVIDENCE to show that religious folk on average behave better than non-religious.

I totally agree with this. In fact, I know a fair number of people who are atheists and/or secular humanists who are doing just fine without religious codes. However, most of them would probably tell you that they are plenty interested in ethics, and reflect often on how to be a more ethical person in this life. If you don't believe me, pick up any humanist publication, read it thoroughly, and then try and tell me these people aren't deeply considering ethics. Good luck is all I have to say that one. Religions may highly promote the value of ethics, but the value of ethics is way beyond any religion.

Ultimately, although I disagree with much of Gniz's conclusions, I have to say this: he is right in that neither the precepts nor any other ethical teaching make anyone "a better person." None of these teachings are "out there" creating anything. They only function within our lives, moment by moment, to the extent that we engage them - otherwise, they are just lists taped to the wall.

Buddhism Doesn't Make You Nicer

Does Buddhism make you a nicer person? Gniz over at Reblogging Brad Warner thinks not. Citing his own experience, the many ugly scandals throughout the history of Buddhism, and the current wild west shoot out going on over at Brad Warner's blog, Gniz concludes that it's foolish to assume that our practice will make us behave better than anyone else.

Here's what I'd say are the central points of his post:

expecting Buddhists to behave better than Catholics or better than non-Buddhists is just silly, and clearly it's not the case. Why should it be, really? Let's just say that the practice of Zen makes us happier. Well, is it true that only unhappy people are assholes, act immorally, etc? Is everyone involved in war or criminal activities an "unhappy" person? I don't believe so. Not at all.

Morality has nothing to do with happiness.

Although I will agree that I tend to be nastier when I'm feeling unhappy and down, I'm not necessarily a model person when things are going well for me, either.

So my point is, there's almost nothing Zen or any kind of meditation can do to make us better people. Yes, you'll get practitioners TALKING about how much nicer, kinder, more tolerant they've become. But I'm not sure I buy it. Listen to Born Again Christians sometime. They'll tell you that Jesus did the same thing for them. Made them better, changed them.

And yet, from my POV, so many of these religious true-believers are just deluding themselves about how nice they've become, how compassionate they are, etc.

I'm inclined to agree (with some reservations) with Gniz's comparison between convert Buddhist self-assessment speech and that of born again Christians. There's definitely a segment of people who call themselves Buddhists who have simply placed the sheet of Buddhism over their crappy, old bed of the self. And even people who have practiced a long time, with deep sincerity, are still fooled some of the time by the languging they have adopted to describe their behavior. (I consider myself part of that second group.)In other words, you act a certain way, label it through a Buddhist frame, and then move on, failing to see the actual reality.

However, I do think people change. I've seen people in my sangha become more open, more outwardly caring about the basic details of life. I think I have changed too. Others would probably agree with me that I have changed. Not that I've become some saint, or anything, but I don't react and fixate on many things that arise in my life the way I did in the past.

In my opinion, Gniz's focus on niceness is actually a mistake. Being "nice" and behaving "better" aren't really helpful, nor are they really the drive of Buddhist practice. Take the paramitas, for example.

We Zen types tend to focus on the following six, but there are others, depending upon the school of Buddhism.

1. Dāna paramita: generosity

2. Śīla paramita: virtue, morality, discipline

3. Kṣānti (kshanti) paramita: patience, tolerance, forbearance

4. Vīrya paramita: energy, diligence, vigor, effort

5. Dhyāna paramita: one-pointed concentration, contemplation

6. Prajñā paramita: wisdom, insight

Neither being nice, nor happy - which Gniz and so many others have said is a main goal or outcome of Buddhist practice - are really focal points in the paramitas. And as far as behaving "better," based on what criteria? And who's judgment? A few weeks ago, I questioned the origin of a new requirement for us teachers and got half a dozen responses in return. Some felt I was being obstructive. Some thanked me for asking the question. One thought I was brave. Another seemed to be annoyed that the conversation was evening happening. The way I see it, speaking about "better or worse" is usually about narrating the surface of life, without any connection to the wisdom lurking beneath that surface.

Now, anyone ready to dismiss Gniz's questioning and doubts best be careful. I think he's pointing us towards the many ways in which we confuse the surface appearance of things for the whole of reality. I think it's very true that a person can emanate a certain amount of happiness and still commit horrible acts. I remember seeing a collection of photos recently of Nazis in their "off hours" having a wonderful time singing, dancing, and playing with their friends and family. The people captured in those photos did not fit the image most of us have of Nazis working in concentration camps, but there they were, offering a more complex view for anyone wishing to look. That's an extreme example, but think about your own life, how you probably have acted unskillfully at times even when you were happy. One might call this a happiness without wisdom.

Another thing I notice, though, about Gniz's commentary is a certain streak of perfectionism coming through. I don't think Buddhist practice is about being or becoming a "model person." That sounds a little too much like those good old Catholic saints that never touch the ground or take a shit after eating a meal. Again, what constitutes a "model person"? It seems to me to be just another construction to get fixated on.

Now that the snow is melting around here, I'm enjoying looking at the photos I took when there were piles of it. What's under that snow pile in the photo above? There's an easy answer, of course, but are you sure that's the only answer? Look closely. Be patient. Doing so won't make you nicer, but that probably wasn't your deepest intention anyway, was it?

Indra's Net and Gardening

I've been enjoying the eclectic writing over at the new webzine Life as a Human. You never know what's going to appear, given the wide approach the journal is taking, which is part of the fun. I've contributed about half a dozen articles to the journal, with more coming soon. In fact, I have a new post up right now about abortion and the first precept. Dicey stuff, but definitely important to dig into.

Karen York, in her current Life as a Human post, says the following:

Our health is inextricably bound to the Earth’s health that we have jeopardized. The good news is that, in restoring the earth, we restore ourselves.

The garden, as Peter Harper so eloquently puts it, “provides a unique opportunity to explore the mutual healing between you and the Earth. It is a model of the universe, a microcosm of the biosphere and a metaphor for yourself.”1

I have wrestled somewhat with that word, healing, because for many people — and according to the first dictionary definition — it is synonymous with cure. I prefer the second definition: “to set right,” as in “to heal the rift between us.”

If we grow in understanding and set things right with nature in our gardens, then we too can be “set right,” and the rifts in our lives, whether with our family, our work, or within ourselves, will be healed. There is a third, equally essential definition of healing: “to restore a person to spiritual wholeness.” That is something we can all strive for—and can achieve, despite disease or disability.

As a gardener, and lover of plants and the earth, this resonates with me deeply. As does her struggle with the word "healing," which has become a toss about word found everywhere from doctor's offices to New Age magazines.

Every time I put my hands into the soil, tending to a plant or simply moving the earth about, it's a unique, one time act. In a way, it's beyond any notions about being cured, being set right, or even being restored to spiritual wholeness. Although I have read a lot about the benefits of gardening and touching the earth, when I'm doing so, all that stuff usually falls away and I'm just there. Is this enlightenment? I don't know. I'm not even sure that's worth considering.

Obviously, if you around, the planet is in a lot of trouble. Even for those of you who question global warming, there's really no doubt that ecosystems have been vastly changed by human intervention and exploitation, and I don't think for the better in many cases. It's easy to feel tiny and insignificant within the midst of it all, so much so that planting a tree, growing your own food, or re-seeding a field with native grasses can feel pointless.

I'm trying to recall Indra's Net at such times, to remember that each jewel in the world and it's activity (or non-activity) reflect in all of the others. That my tiny drop added to the ocean of life is the ocean itself, nothing more or less.

Not easy to remember this during difficult times, but when in the garden, when touching the earth as the Buddha did all those years ago, I don't even need to remember - it just is.

*The photo is of Prairie Sage from my garden last summer.

20th Anniversary of Dainin Katagiri Roshi's Death

Twenty years ago today, Katagiri Roshi, a root teacher for so many of us here in Minnesota, died at the age of 62. Even though I was a mere bumbling teenager at the time of his death, and never met the man, I feel his presence deeply in my practice. His teachings pour out of his students, who are now my teachers, and his sincere dedication to Zen shines brightly through both the books and lectures he left us, as well as the attention to details and rituals manifested in my own sangha and others here in the Twin Cities, and greater Minnesota.

I was fortunate to work with Tomoe Katagiri, Roshi's wife and a deep practitioner in her own right, during jukai a year and a half ago. Tomoe's devotion to Zen sewing practice as an expression of the dharma is probably unmatched, at least here in North America, and I credit her repeated firm, but gentle efforts to turn us back to the present moment, just this stitch, for helping me not only enjoy sewing, but also really taking the precepts into my life in a bodily way. I can only imagine what it was like when both her and Roshi were alive together, how they impacted those they worked with, practiced with, in small and great ways.

Dainin Katagiri didn't live a very long life, and cancer made the last period of his life a difficult one. However, his beneficial impact continues through his many students, who are now leaders of their sanghas. Many bows to Dainin for crossing the ocean, leaving your home country behind, and helping us set up Zen practice here in the land of 10,000 lakes.