Online Zen Priest Ordination?

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

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

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

British Petroleum Declaration

Brad Warner posted the link to this photo on Facebook. It was spotted at a BP station in Ohio. I chuckled a moment, and then that sick feeling I've felt for the last month returned.

Here is a collection of photos covering the oil spill from the New York Times, for anyone interested.

And here is another volunteer opportunity for anyone who has time and a car. I find it terribly ironic that cars are needed to transport sick, oil covered animals, but that's how it goes. Maybe people with buses or other large vehicles could go and lessen gas usage. Sure shows how trapped our society has become when we have to use more of the very thing already causing such great misery.

May this be the wake up call we need to change course on energy use, and recognize that interdependence means with everything, and not just other people.

The Future of Buddhist Practice

As I was sitting in a staff meeting this morning, feeling like something had changed even though nothing had changed, I wondered how many times the things we were talking about had been discussed before. A few minutes ago, I stumbled upon Chong Go Sunim's current post, and a similar experience occurred. Take a look at this...

I spoke about this before, but you have to make up your mind, tie your belt tightly, and put your understanding into practice. If you do this, then without any lectures or advertising, Buddhism will naturally prosper and spread. As you know, everyone has Buddha-nature, thus it all depends upon making up your mind and making an effort. Anyone can become a follower of Buddhism. There’s no reason why Buddhism shouldn’t prosper. It is just that people are so busy these days that practice isn’t easy, and they often forget about it. However, if you can just remember (about spiritual practice), then it’s possible for you to apply and experience, wherever you are, whether you’re working, standing, or sitting.

No doubt, discussions about the future of various spiritual practices, including Buddhism, are familiar to you. In our hyper-speed, high tech, globalized world, it's easy to wonder if most of the ancient wisdom and traditions will be buried under layers of pop culture and excessive demands on our time.

The above comments seem so simple, don't you think? Just practice sincerely, and more people will join you. I think there's some validity to this, no matter how saturated our world gets with "non-essential distractions."

Here's the fascinating thing about this simple teaching: it was delivered by Korean Seon Master, Hanam Sunim, in 1935.

Life is constantly changing, and yet staying the same in so many ways.

Hunter Clarke's Surprising Buddha

Who is Hunter Clarke? Well, she's a fairly young artist whose work I just discovered, and also the painter of the above image.

This watercolor is from a series of paintings entitled "Bestiarius" that involve various animal heads attached to nude, mostly pregnant, female bodies.

The author of her circle ezine, a web journal exploring "the feminine experience in the world community," wrote the following about Clarke's series in 2008:

Clarke is comfortable with her ties to traditional aesthetics. And, like many symbolic representations, her work conveys universal themes while at the same time, are connected to her personal experiences. Her fascination with flight, for example, changed when she became pregnant and her attention seemed to take a natural turn toward more “grounded” subject matter as represented by the egg.

Her own experiences during pregnancy influenced the themes of “Bestiarius”, connected to changing responses and feelings that began to surface, and an awareness of more “Instinctive, primal” feelings as a pregnant woman: her sense of protection, of the relationships between nurturing and predator behavior, the strangeness of having a life growing inside. All of these feelings made their way into the series, as did that desire to continue representing women with a presence of strength.

Being a man, I'll never know these experiences quite so intimately. I have to rely on stories, poems, music, and paintings like this to get any real sense at all.

But what initially struck me about this image is that it's very Buddha-like. And yet, also not. Personally, I love when someone deliberately makes an effort to disturb the accepted, commonplace, or traditional in a way that doesn't destroy the disturbed, but certainly displaces it. I have no idea if Hunter Clarke has any interest in Buddhism, or had any thoughts at all about Buddha images when she painted this. But this entire series of paintings is certainly about disruption of commonplace images, which is why I felt all the more that this one was worth sharing with you all.

What do you think?

*Check out more of her work here.

Everyone's Folly: The Eight Worldly Winds

Jeanne over at the Dalai Grandma recently received a short teaching from the Dalai Lama about the Eight Worldly Winds. In her post today she writes the following:

Oddly, the Dalai Lama's subject is called, as in my title above, "The Eight Worldly Concerns," though to my mind there are four concerns, each of which encapsulates wishing not to get its opposite. But when it comes to understanding the human mind, I bow to him. Here they are, more interesting stones that mark the Buddha way:

* wanting to be praised and not wanting to be criticized,
* wanting happiness and not wanting suffering,
* wanting gain and not wanting loss, and
* wanting fame and approval and not wanting rejection and disgrace.

"We all experience these, don't we?" he writes. "Even animals probably have them in some slight measure." Sheba reminds me that dogs' desire for approval is itself a disgrace. Her own ambition is small and appropriate: she wants to be up on the kitchen table while we are eating.

Who among us can claim to be totally immune from these pairs of opposites? If any of you raised your hand, I sentence you to twenty hours of zazen, followed by a long look in the mirror at yourself!

A lot can, and has been said about the Eight. What I'd like to add this morning is this: the very thing you fear might actually be exactly what's needed.

For example, being a political animal whose views are rarely mainstream, I have had to learn how to handle ample amounts of rejection, criticism, and yes, even some lost connections with people. However, what's interesting about it is that seeing the world as I have had provided me with an almost endless opportunity to live with the impermanence of views and reputation. One minute, I'm a good friend. The next I'm some crazy guy who isn't supporting "the cause." Then, sometime later, what I stood for is considered right and all is forgiven. Or I was completely wrong, but all is forgotten.

Fifteen years ago, when I was a young adult who refused to own a car and who bicycled most of the year, the vast majority of people thought I was either ridiculous, rebellious, quaint, or kind of foolish. Now, a lot of people think these practices are cool and hip. What I'm doing is still the same, but the winds have changed.

In her post, Jeanne brings up the NY Times list of 20 fiction writers under 40 "worth watching," then speaks about all those thousands of others out there who want to be on that list. When I was younger, a part of me wanted to be on such lists for poetry. Or for essay writing. Maybe even a novel or two. But the idea of being a famous anything does nothing for me now. I want to be published, sure, but it's really more about providing something that benefits others in some way or another that motivates me now.

When you look at the struggles most of have with these Eight "winds," so much of it is tied to believing that whatever we are experiencing is both permanent and representative of who we are. Am I that crazy biker or a cool and hip cat? Neither, really. So wanting one, and not wanting the other, is kind of foolish, don't you think?

Gaza Flotillas, Borders, and Living with Grief

Feeling pretty melancholy this morning. I'm sitting next to a pair of middle aged white guys talking about how we should set up a demilitarized zone all around the United States to stop undocumented immigrants. They've even brought up the idea that maybe imposing marshal law across the U.S. might be a good solution. These are two well dressed, business guys sitting in an urban coffee shop - not some armed militia members doing training exercises in the woods.

Yesterday, I had a discussion over Facebook with a Jewish friend and her father about the situation in Gaza. They are defiantly pro-Israel, to the point where her father was speaking about "those terrorists" on the flotilla and how "Arabs" just don't want peace. I didn't take the opposite stance. There was some back and forth about the specifics of this current situation, and then I finally said:

I guess I'm more troubled about how quickly sides get chosen when it comes to Israel and Palestine, and how people rarely move from their positions once sides are taken. Every action gets placed in the wider context of being attacked by the entire other group (i.e all actions by any Palestinians or friends of Palestinians are attacks against all of Israel, or all actions done by Israelis are an attack on all of Palestine (and by extension Islam)). Both statements are false. And this kind of all or nothing thinking is why there hasn't been peace over there for decades. Something has to change.

And the response was more of the same about how Israel is constantly under attack.

There's nothing more I could say. And nothing I could say to the guys in the coffee shop here, who have moved on to discussing something else.

I'm realizing that when these kinds of situations come up, I often am responding out of grief. Grief from an awareness that I can't fix things right now, can't offer the magic words that will help people see things in a larger context. That all I can do is sit and bear witness to the misery of greed, hatred, and delusion around me.

It's a good lesson in conserving energy for a time when something I can do or say might actually have a beneficial impact. But it's painful when you become aware that the walls present aren't coming down right now. That you just have to hang with your grief and sadness, as well as the words and actions around you which are creating more suffering in the world. And yet, this is a major part of our practice, an opportunity we get fairly often to rediscover our true place in this world.

*photo of flotilla activists following their release.

Foolish Buddhas

Kyle over at Reformed Buddhist brings up a few interesting points in his current post I'd like to consider further.

I received an interesting email yesterday from a person that was rather upset by my use of profanity and ‘dark’ sense of humor.

“Your lack of respect for religion, by the example of your excessive profanity and potty mind, shows you aren’t really a Buddhist at all. Stop using that name, you disrespect it!”

Since when did becoming a Buddhist mean that one is magically changed into something other than what one was? Does taking the precepts change someone's sense of humor, likes and dislikes; does it make one’s personality drastically different? No, of course it doesn’t. Buddhism or better yet, religion in general, does not somehow unseat the conditioned mind, and replace it with something others may consider perfect or pure.

I've seen these kinds of comments floating around the internet before. In fact, I've even heard similar things at my zen center a few times. There's no doubt that people struggle with what it means to be on this path.

Anyone who reads Kyle's blog regularly knows he likes to cuss, goof off, and play the Buddhist clown. The guy also displays the marks of a sincere practitioner who is willing to examine the challenging questions that come up within a Buddhist life. Sometimes, his goofing off probably goes too far, but more than a few times, I've seen him apologize or modify his views based on comments coming in. So, I'm not in agreement with the letter writer's statements concerning him.

But there is a larger issue here. Namely, what people believe a Buddhist "should" look like. I get the sense that the letter writer is fixated on a stereotypical image of a Buddhist (i.e. someone who is always calm, always friendly, always saying pleasing sounding things. etc.) This is a terrible hindrance because no one is like this, nor would anyone probably want to be. I remember a sangha member coming back from a retreat with Thich Nhat Hanh a few years ago and saying "A few days, we got to see grumpy Thay." When I heard that, I thought "Oh, good, he's not perfect!" By perfect, here, I meant more that he isn't some pure angel flying in from the sky.

Kyle mentions taking the precepts. I formally received the precepts in 2008. It was a powerful experience that has, I believe, instigated major shifts in my life. Committing to and actually working with the precepts does change how you approach likes and dislikes, what matters and what doesn't, and even how you act in the world in general. But there's no fixed image of what this looks like.

To anyone who is thinking about the imagine of a Buddhist, maybe it's better to consider how a Buddha acts in the world. Specifically, is what you are doing or thinking causing harm to others? This isn't always easy to discern, but I think people often get tripped up on the difference between "hurt" and "harm." Talking about farting and swearing in a blog post might hurt someone's feelings for a minute, but probably isn't causing long term damage to anyone. It might be a foolish use of time, but frankly a lot of things we do are foolish - and I have yet to meet someone who isn't foolish at least a little bit of the time.

Foolish Buddhas we are. Myself, Kyle, the letter writer, you all reading this post. Being foolish isn't something shameful, nor is it something to flaunt. It's the very ground for our awakening, this foolishness.

What does it look like to step into it fully, again and again? That is what it looks like to be a Buddha on the path.