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.

Drama Wars: Are Online Humor and Irreverence Just Paths to Samsara?

Humor. Iconoclasm. Stirring the pot to get some attention. When it comes to making fun of religious and spiritual traditions, symbols, and stories, the lines between these three blur quickly.

Yesterday, John over at Sweep the Dust, Push the Dirt stepped into the center of all this with a post taking shots at the 32 Marks of a Buddha list from the Pail Canon. The story itself was fond in the Hindu Vedas, is from before the time of the Buddha, and so it's place in the teachings might represent more a cultural appropriation on the part of early Buddhists than anything else. John's original post, as I remember it, was playing around with the image created when you add up all the marks into a single "human" body.

I have to say I basically glanced at the post and moved on. But others didn't and 40 comments later, there has been much said about humor's place or non-place within spirituality.

Here are a few of the more "choice" comments. Rejecting what John presented as humor,

Bitterroot, the Buddhist Badger (Yes, we seem to have a lot of animals in the Buddhoblogosphere), wrote,

Yes, there are said to be 32 major and 80 minor marks on the body of one who is in his final rebirth to awaken as a buddha, or a ‘Chakravartin’ king, a universal emperor. These originally were recorded in the Vedas. As the longer Buddhist sutras in which they are described explain, each mark is a symbolic indication of countless lifetimes accumulating acts of compassionate sacrifice for the benefit of others. Let’s take a look at the content of our own lives by comparison to see if we’re in any position to mock this.

And then NellaLou commented:

Let me get this straight then.

If Brit Hume and Bill O’Reilly belittle Buddhism that’s a huge travesty but if someone claiming to be Buddhist does it that's ok? ...

It is one thing for Ikkyu to piss on a statue that he had been asked to consecrate and quite another for everyone involved in Zen to think they have both his iconoclastic attitude and level of understanding.

Supporting his position, John responded:

It seems strange that when I make fun of my own religion people assume that I am making myself more than I am. I purposefully didn’t include references to burning sutras and knocking down statues for that reason.

And then Buddhasbrewing, (Yes, beer and Buddhism sometimes mix), said this in regards to the 32 marks story:

I think Sakyamuni Buddha was great, don’t get me wrong. The signs are nothing more than purest attachment and badger’s reaction proves it. As soon as you start thinking of the Great Physician as holy, you are walking down the road to delusion.

The debate goes on from there, delving shortly into the lack of scientific evidence for such signs among other things. It's an interesting conversation, but in the end, it leaves me feeling kind of empty. And I don't mean an awareness of emptiness, although that could be applied here as well I imagine.

On any given day, I can look around the Buddhoblogosphere, and see dozens of heartfelt posts, some very personal in focus and some very much public in focus (see yesterday's post for more on the public/private divide). While the content of these posts can range from a struggle with fear during meditation to an expression of gratitude for a group of Buddhist peace activists in Sri Lanka, the sharing of an expression of Buddhist practice is often clear, even if it's muddy and fumbling at times. However, with rare exceptions, these posts do not garner a lot of attention, at least in the form of comments. Granted, some of these posts probably don't lend themselves to comments, and are probably well read, but not commented on. But others, ones that seem to be worthy of discussion, even debate, are simply left to the blog archives. Even Brad Warner, who could post the word "Nothing" and probably get a dozen comments, seems to get less attention when his posts aren't contraversial. Which leads me to this: I think it's kind of telling that the posts which routinely recieve a pile of comments are dramatic, irreverent, or deliberately contraversial.

Like flies to shit we seem to flock to what ends up being, a lot of the time, just another pit of samsara. I see it in myself when I'm in a sour mood. I'm looking for it in my everyday life and when I come online - somewhere to drop a few snarky lines or to watch a good pissing match. And yet, what good is any of it? Does any of this do anything to help build a more ethical, compassionate life?

I'm all for humor, and I'm all for critical commentary that's done in the spirit of making the world a more healthier place. But I also think it's very important to take a look at your motives for doing either. It's pretty easy, if you lift that hood of yours, to find a motor running on self-righteousness and attention seeking.

Awhile back, I noticed a tendency in myself to want to be right. In fact, it was so strong at times that I sometimes got into shouting matches about politics and social issues with people who disagreed with me. So, I've taken up the practice of watching myself, noting the arrival of self righteousness in particular, and then working to shift it. In addition, I've admitted to people at times that I just wanted to be right, or at least that I have wanted to be in past conversations. This is part of the reason I have tried to steer clear of long, extended debates online.

Attention seeking can be tied to self righteousness, but it also comes out in other forms. Now, I've posted a few humor pieces over the time I have been blogging, and sometimes have had a few funny lines in other posts. I like being funny, but find that for the most part, being funny online either falls flat or simply becomes a spectacle.

Ah, such a killjoy you might say. And I'd say "Maybe." However, there's quite a difference in my view between joy and a cheap laugh, and also a quite a difference between genuine, intelligent and heartfelt debate and a pissing match like I saw in 2008 between now U.S. Senator Al Franken and then U.S. Senator Norm Coleman. Cheap jokes and cheap shots were the name of that game, and everything of substance was tossed out, drowned out, or pressed firmly to the margins. It was for me, as a well informed and active member of the American electorate, not only angering, but also an experience of sadness. Reflecting on trends I see online feels no better in some ways, but it does confirm for me how difficult it is to uproot the three poisons, and transform suffering in the process.

If you view this post as a condemnation of all religously-themed humor, or of all irrevent statements, you've sorely missed what I've been writing about. In fact, if you see my post as a condemnation of John's post, you've sorely reduced your lenses.
I could have made either of those arguments in a few paragraphs, and then moved on.

"I beg to urge you
life and death are a great matter.
Awaken, Awaken, take heed,
make use of this precious life."

The Telling, Not Telling Line

One of the things I learned from writing an article about Buddhist blogging (which is on the Tricycle editor's desk right now), is that a lot of us really enjoy reading about the details of each others' practices. The ups and downs of everyday life. The sutras, koans, and other teachings being studied. The ways in which we make breakthroughs and also stumble and fall. All pretty compelling.

Mumon over at Notes in Samsara commented about his resistance to speaking too intimately about his own Buddhist practice online. It struck me, and I started thinking about the balance point between telling and not telling. Where is it in any given moment? And what does blogging about intimate experiences do for us, and to us?

Here is Mumon's take on why he stays out of the realm of public disclosure of the personal:

So, for myself, there are several reasons why I do not wish to share my practice:

* It leads those reading this with a practice to want to compare their practice with my practice, and that's just adding more things about which to be attached.
* It also leads to want to compare understanding or development. This would quite naturally lead to division in a meat space sangha, and I have concerns that this is true in cyberspace as well. Moreover, sometimes cyberspace meets meat-space.
* It's natural for one with a good student teacher relationship to leave such matters in the province of the student and teacher, out of mutual respect. (I think therefore I lean towards getting a teacher, but not one who's a guru, but more like an accountable tutor.)

I find the comparison issue compelling because I've seen it myself in comments made on my blog and on the blogs of others. It reminds me of this guy I know who reads too many self help books, and who knows I'm a Buddhist. Every time he sees me he says "Oh Venerable one," and "Oh, wise one." Dude struggles to connect with people, but that's not really the point. He's heard a little bit about my practice - not much really - but he seems to equate whatever I've said to him with being much better than anything he's doing.

However, at the same time, if Shakyamuni had decided to keep everything to himself out of concerns of comparison, we'd be somewhere else today, wouldn't we? Of course, if you read Mumon's post, he's not speaking about teachers. However, what we've seen of the Buddha in the sutras is that he taught collectively, delivering his teachings to groups, not individuals in private sessions - at least, that's not what is presented to us anyway. And this is true of many Buddhist teachers throughout history - that a lot of their teaching was, and continues to be done in groups. That's not to dismiss private teachings between a single student and a teacher, but I don't think that method, so emphasized in Zen for example, represents the majority.

Beyond this, though, I think if you spend a fair amount of time in a Buddhist community, it's pretty difficult to keep everything about your practice to yourself. In fact, part of your practice IS the community, and how you interact within it. People get to know your edges, the teachings that inspire you, and those you dislike. Sure, you can hide a lot, but definitely not everything. And even in highly silent Zen groups there's still some talking, some sharing, even if it's how to do something during work practice or during a ritual. And do you really think your body doesn't give you away, at least in a general sense? How you move, how you look at people, how you bow: it all says something, even if you say nothing.

It might be worth asking, "What is private anyway?" We North Americans, especially, seem to believe very, very strongly in a division between public and private. And yet, how much of that division is simply our own clinging to a place to hide away from the world when we don't want to deal with it?

Even though it may seem like I don't, I actually agree with Mumon that some things in one's spiritual practice are probably better left unsaid, or at least carefully doled out.

I'm actually less concerned than Mumon about comparison mind than I am about being a spectacle for voyeurs to be attracted to. Comparison mind might be a living hell, but it sometimes sparks people to make the changes they need in their lives. Voyeurs, on the other hand, simply waste time gawking, and those who do things that attract voyeurs end up dealing with that and losing their focus on what matters. Of course, you never know what's going to get people's attention, so maybe you end up dealing with a peanut gallery of gawkers anyway.

What do you think? How do you navigate the telling, not telling line?