On Catholic Popes, Buddhist Teachers, and the Organizations that Uphold Them

So, there's a new Pope at the Vatican. Pretty exciting for a lot of folks. Depressing for many others. And for the majority of the world, it's news that has little or no importance for them at all. I long had a fascination with Popes and papal history. There's something quite different about their place in the world from other religious figures. Perhaps it has to do with the hordes of money and political influence they've had for nearly 2000 years now.

Anyway, fellow Buddhist blogger Justin Whitaker seems to have won the race for the first Buddhist blogosphere Pope post. He suggests that Pope Francis might be a shift for the better, given some elements of his track record. Maybe. Hell if I know. The guy is also linked to some fiercely anti-gay rhetoric (more so even than the average conservative Catholic), aided the Argentinian dictatorship during the 1970s, and generally seems to hold the standard Vatican line on all things sex and reproductive rights.

But honestly, I don't care much anymore about parsing Papal biographies. It seems to me that instead of hoping for something of a savior figure, it's time for something more radical: institutional collapse and regeneration.

Why such bold words? Because the whole relationship between religious leadership and everyday members needs to be deconstructed and re-imagined.

I write this not just about the Vatican, but about organized religion in general, including Buddhism. The seemingly endless number of power abuse scandals amongst North American Buddhist communities speaks to one side of the issue: namely that when people place spiritual leaders on too high of a pedestal, at the expense of their own agency and wisdom, all hell breaks loose. On the other side of the coin is the fact that all over the "Buddhist" world, younger folks (and some older folks as well) are either turning away from, or simply uninterested from the start, in organized Buddhism. In Buddhist sanghas. In traditional forms. Longtime readers may remember this post about a Japanese monk opening a bar in order to try and connect with more young folks and teach the dharma. It may not be as bad here in North America, where Buddhism and meditation in particular is still fairly fashionable in a certain sense. However, anyone involved in sangha leadership would probably concur with my feelings on the issue. Plenty of people come through the doors. Some of those people stay for awhile. But it's a fairly small percentage that actually stick around and become rooted in the community.

The problems of the Vatican and the Catholic church are in many ways different and probably greater than what Buddhists face. And yet, it's hard for me to not see some similarities, beginning with patriarchy. How leadership is constructed, what it means to be a "follower" or student, and how the organizations are built and run: these things seem marked by patriarchy. Even often with women in leadership positions. You may see fewer power abuse scandals with women leaders, but I don't think it's a great shift when an all powerful and knowing father figure is replaced by an all knowing and powerful mother figure. For years, I watched issues come up in my own sangha around our head teacher, who wouldn't fully step into that powerful mother figure role some of the students seemed to desire. Whenever she attempted to move in that direction, there was backlash. And, often at the same time, there was suggestions that she wasn't a "strong enough leader." Seems to me that this back and forth was about much more than a conflicted teacher and her conflicted students. It represents the binary set up by patriarchal leadership models. You either have a powerful top dog or someone who's always facing questions about their strength and leadership skills. And you either have an obedient, mostly passive flock of students/community members, or you have a rebellious bunch filled with conflicting desires.

Several members of the staff of my former workplace were nuns of the School Sisters of Notre Dame, one of the groups under constant watch during Benedict's years as Pope for their progressiveness. When I look back on conversations I had with my co-workers about the church and their position within it, it wasn't all that different from what I described above about my own Zen sangha. Like us, they were decidedly in the "rebellious" camp, fighting against what they felt was crappy leadership while continuing to have some lingering sense of loyalty to the institution and spiritual teachings as a whole. Obviously, what they faced was - and continues to be - much more troubling and serious than anything I and my fellow sangha members have been dealing with over the past half decade or so. But at the root of it, in my view, are the very notions we've had about what a priest's "job" is, what it means to be a spiritual student, and how it is that we construct and maintain community containers to support these two interdependent roles.

Instead of spending a lot of energy on parsing Papal biographies, and hoping for change like so many did when Obama was elected (both bloody times), it's time to inspire reorganization and renewal. To uphold groups that have broken new ground without abandoning most - if not all - of the past in process (like the secular meditation folks, or ex-Catholics who have adopted science as their new savior). Note: there's nothing wrong with either of these diverse groups of people, but I don't find their conclusions particularly inspiring. Much of the New Age community feels equally uninspiring for different reasons - although all of these groups seem to be variations of the theme. Either made up of rebellious individuals who have rejected the whole notion of spiritual leadership and communities, or who have simply recreated the father/mother dynamic in a new form (plenty of New Age guru scandals to go around, to cite one example of that).

I think humanity is longing for something beyond the patriarchal binary. And I think there are examples out there on a smaller scale of "communities" that exemplify that something beyond. Something more holistic that incorporates the best of the past with the creative spirit of today. The Pope is a ghost leadership figure in my opinion, as is the "traditional" Buddhist priest and teacher. They're dead, but haunting us because we haven't figured out what to do now in this modern, changed world of ours.

Some of us cling and defend, and others rebel and hope. But none of that will put the ghosts to rest.

Embracing Change

I seem to be in the middle of giving birth to a vision. It's built upon the merger of my spiritual practices and the social activism and community service work I have long been involved in.

Last week, I shared the fundraising campaign I am doing to support my current work in the community. Since then, I have found myself envisioning something bigger. Something that isn't quite formed yet, but feels vital and alive.

Today, I started a new page on Facebook that I hope will become a digital community for people interested in doing social change work in new, more creative ways than simply working for non-profits or volunteering in their off hours.

Are you driven by social justice? Passionate about the health of the planet? Has your spiritual path led you to community service or activist work? Do you want to move beyond the practices and constraints of the 9-5 workplace?

If you answered "YES" to any of these questions, then the Community Changemaker Collective is a place for you. Here, you'll find like-minded people decided making their communities better places to live. You'll find writings, weblinks, and other resources to inspire you. You'll also find discussion, story sharing, and support.

Join the revolution! Together, we can build a better world, one community at a time.

Here is the link to the new community page. If you are on Facebook, and are interested in seeing what unfolds, I invite you to like the page, comment on posts, and add your own. Furthermore, share it with your friends and family as well.

*Image is Frida Kahlo's The Love Embrace of the Universe, the Earth (Mexico), Diego, Me, and Senor Xolotl. 1949.

Microfinancing a Community Change Maker Revolution

These are challenging times economically. With official unemployment rates hovering around 8% in both the U.S. and Canada, and millions more either unaccounted for, or severely underemployed, struggling to make ends meet is becoming more the norm. More and more, the promise of getting a college education and then moving up the corporate ladder is disappearing. Not only is it so much less possible in this age of de-unionization and regular corporate layoffs, but for many people, myself including, it's simply not the story of a fulfilling life.

My entire adult life has been dedicated to being a community leader through grassroots service and organizational development. When given the choice between making more money and potentially making the world a better place, I always have chosen the latter. I live my life by the motto "Serve locally; transform the world!," believing that it is both easier to have a deep impact in one's own community, but also that those benefits have ripple effects across the planet. And given how consumerism and privatization have eroded the majority of our communities, there is really no shortage of opportunities to serve locally.

While it may seem like things are dire, the current economic crisis is also an amazing opportunity to reassess how it is that we work and live together. To challenge the stories we have about what is valuable and what isn't. And to learn to come together in renewed, more interconnected ways.

Having spent most of my adult working life employed in various non-profits, I have come to recognize the benefits, as well as the limitations of such work. In some cases, they are the same. Getting a steady paycheck, for example, is often both a blessing and a curse. It's a curse because it can hinder a person's ability to take proper risks and do the right thing for others. What often comes first, at least to some extent, is personal job retention and/or maintaining the reputation of the organization one works for.

And so, a few days ago, I started a month long fundraising campaign. It is based upon the idea of being an independent community re-development worker. Instead of being tied to a single social service agency or non-profit organization, I have been freely investing time in three different communities that I am passionate about. It is an experiment in giving that I hope will inspire others.

I am seeking your help to continue to do this work. If any of what I have written here has inspired you, or caused you to pause and reconsider some aspect of your life, please consider donating to my campaign and/or spreading the information about it to others. The beauty of microfinancing is that no one person or organization needs to foot the bulk of the bill. Just as we are all naturally interconnected through space and time, through mircofinancing, the work we are all doing becomes a more visible demonstration of that interconnectedness.

The times are calling for us to re-place volunteering and community service back in the center. To cease seeing helping others and giving back as something some people do to fill in their time after work, or on the weekends. Please join me, and spread the word, as we together create a new revolution.

Social Dukkha - Addressing Suffering on a Global Scale

Working with people from all over the world, whose ideas and ways of living are often very different from my own, has definitely helped to jar the sense of self I have.

In addition, the discussions I have had with these same learners in my classes have shown me as much as anything how constructed our views of the “good life” or “proper life” are.

Here’s a simple example of that from a recent class:

A woman originally from Somalia is pregnant, which sparked a discussion about family size and also happiness. She was asked by another learner how many children she would like to have. I believe she said “maybe four” although I may be misremembering that number.

Another woman, a very joyful Ethiopian woman in her fifties, asked, “Why not more?” She went on to talk about her eight children, how she loves big families, and would have more children if she could. Recently, her son graduated from college, the first degree in her family, I believe, and she’s been walking around beaming about his accomplishment, telling anyone who will listen about it.

A few other learners, including ethnic Karen from Burma, gasped upon hearing the desire for very large families. One said something to the effect of “three is enough, thank you very much.” There were other expressions from this group about the hard work and difficulties large families create for mothers. This brought us to economic issues in the U.S. and a short conversation about how expensive it is in the U.S. to have a lot of children. But the woman from Ethiopia didn’t stand down – she still felt that there was more joy in a bigger family.

I have had other learners in the past, from other nations, express very similar views. Yet, even within groups, as should be expected, there is a fair amount of difference of opinion about this question. However, despite wide differences of opinion within any group, it can be said that the culture and social structures of a given society have an influence on how people think and act in the world. Because of this, I believe there has been a failure on the part of many in the covert western Buddhist world to see beyond individual practice, and individual “enlightenment,” as a way to address the suffering of the world.

Dukkha is the Pali term which is usually translated as suffering. It is often viewed as the sense of dissatisfaction or disease a person feels with the world as it is presenting itself in one’s life now. Of dukkha, Buddha said that all of us experience it in our lives – many of us so much so that we are consumed by it.

Yet, as Buddha himself experienced, there are ways to be liberated from it. In terms of Buddhism, these ways are expressed as The Eightfold Path. (Other spiritual traditions have other methods which I would argue also can be gateways to liberation, but discussing those would lead us off track today.)

Returning to the classroom discussion above, the Ethiopian woman seems have pinned at least some of her happiness in life on having a large family. Although I don’t know for certain, it seems that larger families are more common in Ethiopia than they are here in the U.S. When you think of the droughts, famines, wars, and other difficulties that have plagued Ethiopia over at least the past century, it’s very understandable that an emphasis on procreation might be promoted not only in individual families, but much more broadly, as a social or cultural value.

Since she has a larger family, the woman in my class might be viewed in a positive way by others in her cultural group, and she might internally view herself more positively because she has manifested what has value within the larger group.

Of course, many individual factors play into this as well. Her family seems to work together well. Her children are doing well academically, and unlike other learners I have had in the past, she doesn’t come to class with a heavy burden of problems her children are having at home, or at school, or elsewhere. So, it’s very much possible that her emphasis on “big families” is as much, if not more, tied to her personal experience than to cultural or social values or constructs.

Yet I think it’s foolish of us, especially if we believe in the view that there is no solid, fixed self or “I,” to place all our eggs in the individual basket. Any one person’s suffering or joy is a product of a complex uprising of causes and conditions, some of which one might be personally responsible for, but which also include others that are much bigger than any one person.

No one person, no matter how powerful, is responsible for bringing about war, for example. Or environmental destruction, or patterns of patriarchy, or racism, or sexism, heterosexism, or any other number of social ills that infiltrate and effect our lives on a daily basis.

In his excellent book The Great Awakening: A Buddhist Social Theory, David Loy spends a lot of time examining these kinds of larger patterns. Using the term “social dukkha,” he argues that Buddhist teachings — the precepts, emptiness, compassion and others — can be applied to broader social issues as a means of potentially reducing suffering on a larger scale.

Now, Loy certainly isn’t the first to say any of this, nor is he a lone wolf crying in the wilderness. But it strikes me that until there is a critical mass of us speaking and acting in ways that might address these larger scale issues, no amount of individual effort on spiritual practice will be enough to greatly reduce suffering in the world.

Maybe if all of us all took up meditation practice and stuck with the practice diligently, there would be some massive change. But I still wonder, even then, if oppressive social structures would simply fall away, or if, in spite of our efforts, we’d still be facing the problems these structures create.

I have a hard time believing that racism, sexism, and heterosexism would simply vanish as a result of all of us individually — or even as collectives of individuals — doing meditation practice. This is not at all to denigrate meditation – I love it – but to suggest that given where we are at on a global scale today, it seems additional, more collective approaches to the dharma are being called for.


*Note: I wrote this last year for the Life as a Human webzine, but given the influx of grassroots, social movements that have sprung up over the past year (all over the world it seems), I thought this article was worth another look.

Mindful Community Building

What we let fear do to us. The list is endless, isn't it? Petteri has an excellent post on the topic, of which I'd like to take up the following:

I read a bit of news reporting a few months ago where they had interviewed three people, one born in the 1950's, one in the 1970's, and one in the 1990's, in a certain part of Helsinki. They'd asked them to map out the physical territory they roamed as children below the age of 12. The 1950's kid was all over the place, shooting rats at the harbor with a BB gun, climbing the rocky vacant lots in Kallio, getting into scraps with the kids from the neighboring neighborhood, taking long walks to Seurasaari, and so on. The 1970's kid's map covered the general quarter of the town pretty well, but had none of the 1950's kid's expeditions. The 1990's kid went to school, some friends houses nearby, and was driven by his parents to do sports and other hobbies. His map had a few disconnected spots on it.

It's really similar here in the States. And there are many reasons behind this shift. A heavy emphasis on the privatized, nuclear family model as the "best" way to raise children. A huge increase in reporting about child abductions and like situations, to the point where people think there's a bad guy lurking behind every tree, waiting to take their kids. Another factor is the increased reliance on cars and other motor vehicles, to the point where our towns and cities are constructed to compliment motor vehicles, and often at the expense of safe places to play, bike, and recreate.

Petteri goes on to say that while Helsinki is a safer city now than it was in the 1950's, people live as if the opposite were true. Which is something I've seen here as well.

And like Petteri, I also feel that there are various fears underlying these attitudes, some maybe legitimate, but also some completely concocted and reinforced socially.

However, I can't help but think about, for example, the ways in which how we choose to structure communities impacts our heart/minds. Or how we choose to group ourselves, such as our family structures, and how that also impacts our heart/minds.

Actually, when I read Petteri's post, the first thing that came to mind is something I have thought about off and on for years.

How do we mindfully build communities? How can we shift both physical and social structures in order to live together in a more awakened way?

Because having more and more people living in securitized, suburban-styled places where the only safe way to move in and out is by car is a recipe for disaster. And while there are signs of different models of community development gaining traction, it's amazing how much fuss putting a single bike lane on a city street causes, or how much resistance there is to efforts to create a park out of a stretch of a shoddy freeway access road (both things I've seen here in St. Paul, Minnesota). Because so many people have structured their lives around driving quickly between various points, that still seems to trump nearly everything else, even in this age of higher gas prices and assumptions that the oil age is slowly (or even quickly) on it's way out.

Over the years, I have watched the planning processes unfold for a series of inner city bike trails, for a light-rail train network, and for creating more "green space" within our two cities (Minneapolis-St. Paul). And while some great strides have been made, I have noticed that even the planners are at odds with themselves. On the one hand, sharing the visions they have for what probably would be a healthier, more integrated community, and on the other hand, saying and doing anything and everything to appeased the pissed off people that show up complaining about reduced speed limits, reduced car parking, and any general loss of ease in getting around quickly.

And yet, as someone who has never been a car driver, I look at wonder when people claim to "know their community." How can you truly know your community when you spend the majority of your time whizzing through it in a plastic and metal bubble? When you don't even know your neighbor's name?

Again, I know this doesn't describe everyone. I can even think of counter-examples in my own community here, like the highly connected block where my mother lives. I also think of all the community gardens that have sprung up in the past decade, sometimes bringing together large parts of entire neighborhoods. However, these examples haven't really translated for the most part into how we collectively handle the larger communities we live in. Big business, the whims of building contractors, and car-centric design still rule most of the day, even in fairly progressive places. It's like there are these little enclaves tucked away here and there within a sea of people living in the same space, but sharing little if anything else.

Which just leads me back to the question: how do we mindfully build communities?

Convenience Zombies

I have written about this topic before, but found the following article fairly compelling. As someone who has a foot in the technological world, but who readily chooses substance over convenience, I found these words to ring very true:

Convenience seems to come at the price of interaction — the sort of day-to-day interactions that make us a part of our communities. Instead of chatting with the person at the grocery store check-out we do battle with the automated self check-out machine. Instead of going to a teller at the bank we find any old ATM to do our banking. Jobs that involve serving the public are quickly disappearing as they are replaced by machines and internet-based services. And I can’t help worrying that the increased lack of human interaction is going to be socially detrimental and isolating.

I really believe that these daily interactions mean something, and I believe that they add richness to my life. I’ve recently heard that Blockbuster is going under and that NetFlix will soon be our primary movie procuring option, and I have to say that I’m very sad about this. In fact, my regular Sunday night trip to the local Blockbuster to pick out a movie with my husband has become something that we both cherish. After dinner we set out on a short walk to the store and hope that “Movie Guy” will be there.

“Movie Guy” is our most trusted Blockbuster employee who can always be counted on to provide excellent recommendations for movies both new and old. It seems that he’s seen every movie ever made and has detailed opinions about all of them. I’m not going to invite Movie Guy to my next birthday party, but we have a relationship nonetheless. It’s a relationship based on similar taste in films, on a shared sense of humour, and on one person doing his job really well and other people benefiting from that person’s expertise.

Ironically, it wasn't too long ago that Blockbuster was the convenience store of movies, putting independent after independent out of business. In fact, some of those Movie Guys had been, at one time, owners of their own rental places, which served not only as businesses, but gathering places for movie fanatics. So, one might view Blockbuster as an intermediate step on the process of moving towards full privatization and individualization.

This is one of the reasons why I have withheld complete support for a view that suggests a person can rely solely on internet resources or books to fuel their spiritual practice. Even a tiny group of people meditating together, yoga together, or studying sacred texts together has an effect one really can't come by doing it all "alone."

Beyond that, though, the larger issue is really the general struggle with community many of us have. Perhaps it won't be a big deal if, for example, Netflix takes over the movie rental industry. In and of itself, it's not terribly important. However, it does play into a trend of ease, that is coupled with isolation and a "checking out" of formerly everyday interactions.

A few months ago, I stepped up to the check out counter at our local library to borrow some movies. The woman behind the desk said, "Have you tried our individual check out yet?" I turned around and saw the row of computer check outs that are rapidly replacing interaction with a live person in our libraries. I wanted to say "Yes, but I prefer working with you." Instead, I just said "Yes" and she proceeded to pull the movies out of their covers, while saying "we're trying to get our numbers up on the check out machines."

The first thing I thought was "Aren't you concerned about your job disappearing?" Although it is the case that librarians are diversifying their skill sets these days, which is a positive, it's also the case that budgets are getting cut routinely. Underwriting billionaires to build new football stadiums seems to be more important than keeping libraries open and filled with intelligent, friendly staff folks.

After that initial thought, I felt a bit of sadness, noting how these kinds of interactions are slowly being whittled away by computerization, and unfortunately, we aren't doing a great job of shifting to a different mode of interacting with each other.

Again, I think it's more the general shift going on that's alarming, as opposed to any specific interaction. I have seen some librarians, for example, spending more time helping people locate information and resources vital to their well-being - so perhaps there a lag I'm witnessing there, which in the end, will result in much more interactive community libraries.

But I'm not sure it's a lag that can be generalized to the broader picture.

The world is obsessed with connectivity. Everyone needs an iPhone, instant access to email and text messages, instant access to products and information and yet I get the sense that we’re all more disconnected than ever. Sure, we can get 60 text messages a minute from our closest friends, but we avoid human beings in public like lepers. We plug up our ears, glue our eyes to our phones, and block out the random people who fill our days. We reject them thoroughly, then go back to our concrete boxes to eat dinner in front of TVs instead of with our families. We know a thousand methods for keeping in touch but we’ve forgotten how to reach out. We’ve forgotten how to say saying hello to the person sitting next to us on the bus simply because they’re sharing our space for awhile.

I would like to think we are in a transition period, where people are still trying to find the balance point working with the new technologies we have. But so much seems accelerated these days, and it takes more effort to be ok with not keeping up with it all. I see it even with people who are dedicated to slowing down, to practicing meditation and other spiritual practices, to prioritizing paying attention over production and speed. All of that is at odds with the demands of their workplace, or their families, or some other vital part of their lives.

In fact, I can see it in myself, having spent the past three or four years advocating with others that our Zen Center get more "online" and "connected with the outside world." It's not that this is a bad thing, but that it has forced a few folks, including our head teacher, to plug into technology in ways they might have not chosen to without the pressure coming from us. And while I believe we are correct to be moving in this direction, it has brought up all sorts of questions about how to apply the ancient teachings that are supposed to guide our lives to what we are doing online.

While my own experiences and learning probably makes me more optimistic than the author of the article I am quoting above, I do think there are more and more people who have become "Convenience Zombies." You even see it amongst people coming to zen centers and yoga studios. "Just teach me how to meditate. Just tell me how to move my body. No ritual. No archaic texts. I want to feel better NOW."

It's all a cause for pause. Because those disappearing "Movie Guys" are symbolic of a larger trend, one that we really might want to reconsider, even if it means slowing things down a bit.

Buddhist Children? - Thoughts on Children in Buddhist Families and Communities

Over at Cheerio Road, Karen Maezen Miller has a post entitled "not teaching children to meditate" that kind of gets under my nerves. I actually agree with some of what she's saying, and appreciate the experience she has had leading a children's program at a Zen Center, and also as a parent. I'm not a parent, so I sometimes feel like stepping in on issues like this aren't my territory.

At the same time, I have had multiple jobs working with children, spent three years as a teacher in our zen center's children's program, and am currently in the middle of a lot of discussions about the place and role of children and youth within our sangha. All of this gives me a small window of perspective. I'm not expert, but I'm also not someone who has no experience with kids, and just wants to pontificate. So, whatever I will say is coming from a somewhat outsider position, and I'd encourage parents who are Buddhist practitioners to chime in on this issue.

Of the comments in the Cheerio Road post, these are the one's I probably most bristle at:

About the spiritual training of young, my view is a bit of the same. How you behave in your home is their spiritual upbringing. I think we have to be careful with all forms of ideological indoctrination, and that is what spiritual training is in children: the imposition of a set of abstract beliefs and ideals. Children will take these from of us, but I don’t think dogma serves anyone for long. After all, I was a very good Sunday School student, the star of my confirmation class, and yet I had my own spiritual crisis to resolve later in life. We all do.

I always remind myself that I’m not trying to raise a Buddhist child. I’m trying to raise a Buddhist mother, and it’s taking all my time! Not only my family, but also everyone everywhere will be served by my devoted discipline in my own training. Not because I’m self-important, but in recognition of the one true reality: no self. We are all interdependent, which means we are all one.

Before I speak about my disagreements, I will say that above all, the behavior of adult mentor figures, whether parents, extended family, teachers, or others, IS of most importance. So, we agree there.

Now to the areas of contention.

1. The Sunday School example - it's no secret that many convert Buddhists grew up and/or had significant contact with Christian or Jewish communities. They have parents and/or grandparents who are, or were, devout Christians or Jews, and who forced them to attend regular religious instruction as a child, instruction that was often about feeding children a worldview that had to be accepted as true. So, there's an understandable desire to not repeat those experiences with their kids. However, how much of this concern over indoctrination valid, and how much is a reaction to what they experienced in Judeo-Christian settings?

2. Uber-Individualism - Buddhists in the "West," especially convert Buddhists, struggle with building long lasting, sustainable communities. Children and teens aren't always welcome, let alone considered vital members of the sangha. But beyond Buddhism, community in general is quite challenged in places like the U.S. Whereas in the past, friends, neighbors, and community elders were all to some degree or another considered part of the extended parenting family, today for most children, these people are often viewed with suspicion. Teachers, spiritual leaders, and other community leaders are also viewed as much with suspicion as being potentially good influences on children. Now, certainly there are valid reasons for some of this suspicion, and I think it's quite important for parents to be careful and minimize risks, but how much of the breakdown in community in general is due to obsession with the nuclear family, and an excessive focus on individuality?

When I think of the Karen, Korean, and Vietnamese Buddhist students I have had, all first generation immigrants, the picture is different. The children are cared for by extended family and neighborhood elders, they regularly attend Buddhist services with their families, and they are considered to be an important part of the sangha. This doesn't mean that these children have perfect lives - sometimes far from it - but whereas native born Americans struggle with community, immigrants and refugees tend to have thriving communities, religious and otherwise.

3. What does a healthy lay practice look like? One of my favorite questions these days. Adam over at Fly Like a Crow also has children, and his commitment to practice looks quite different than Ms. Miller's. I don't think one is right, and the other wrong. What I'm more interested in is about the different ways people can manifest deep practice while having a family and/or living in the world. It's wonderful that Karen Maezen Miller is a devoted Zen priest who not only helps lead a center, but also shares writing regularly about her practice with the world at large. But I think devotion will take different forms, just as how people raise children takes different forms. Even if more people examine the issues I spoke of in points 1 and 2, how they decide act on those examinations will look different in each case.

In other parts of Ms. Miller's post, she argues that children have a natural ability to be present. That they already "practice single-minded attention." And about Buddhist practice in general, she states:

The aim of all Buddhist practice is to return to our natural state of wide-eyed wonder and unselfconsciousness that we can observe in our children many times a day.

I don't agree. Childhood openness is wonderful and beautiful, but is it what "the aim" of Buddhist practice is? First of all, when I think of my own childhood, that wonderful openness she is speaking about was there, but sure as hell not always. And sometimes, rarely. Some of the time, at least, I was completely trapped in fear or anger, which stunted any curiosity or openness. I often acted out of convoluted views about both my own life and the world around me because I was - a kid. I didn't know any better. That's what kids do. And when I was in that more open, perhaps "pure or "natural state" - well, I was there, but I had no idea how to bring those experiences to bear on the rest of my life. Perhaps if I had been in a class where things like meditation and basic Buddhist teachings were taught, things would have been different. Or maybe not. But from what I have seen with the children and teens in my own sangha, they're ability to handle life's difficulties, to transfer that natural openness into the areas where they get closed down, is more advanced than what I displayed as a kid without a sangha.

This gets to my final point. In our sangha, we have a children's and youth program that not only teaches meditation, but also some of the basic Buddhist messages, such as the Four Noble truths and Eight Fold Path. The kids learn variations on the Buddha's life story, and have opportunities to explore it all through arts, crafts, discussion, meditation, yoga, and sometimes service projects. Some might say this is indoctrination, but my own experience as a teacher in the program was that it was about exploration, providing some structures and support for exploration.

And that is probably the main reason why I felt compelled to write all of this. Structures like zazen, chanting, and bowing can be offered as opportunities to explore ones life at an early age. Basic Buddhist teachings can be offered in the same way. If you are a Buddhist parent who is more in line with what Ms. Miller says, I'd like offer the following question: What is motivating your views? I don't ask this because I think you are necessarily right or wrong. It's more a question I think is worth exploring.

A few weeks ago, I spoke of our center as developing a "lifespan" practice field. We have always attempted to program not just for adults, but also for children. And in recent years, we have been starting to think more deliberately about what this means, and how we might better support people in all stages of life. So, I'm interested in what parents think out there. How do you work with children? How should sanghas work with children? How does your sangha in particular work with children?


*The image is of the banner of photos for our center's children's program. I thought about finding something else after I saw the distortion, but actually think it fits well as a visual with the discussion at hand.

Are the Blogisattvas About Building Community?

Some of you out there may have noticed that I have said nothing at all about the Blogisattva awards. For those of you who don't know about them, these awards were started in 2006 as a way of highlighting quality Buddhist blogging, writing, and unique voices in the Buddhoblogosphere. Tom Armstrong, the driving force behind the original awards, and blogger over at Sacramento Homeless Blog, is, himself a unique writer deserving of more attention.

Anyway, I'm not one to be terribly concerned about awards. They are certainly nice to receive, but the drive behind this blog is to write about spiritual practice, social justice, and community building. So, I was a sidelines sitter on the Blogosattvas until yesterday, when I took a closer look at the guidelines and felt something was off.

Here is the last major paragraph in the guidelines:

Nominations will be taken until November 1st. Upon receiving the nominations, the panel will convene and pick 5 deserving bloggers from each category and will have a run-off vote. This run-off vote will be done by the public, the blogosphere. Our nomination process uses forms built through Excel spreadsheets, which is how the end voting will be put together as well. We believe this is the way to keep things fair and square.

The Run Off vote is what concerns me. Say you have 5 blogs, and two of those blogs are people with several hundred followers, a wildly active Twitter account, and connections to Facebook, MySpace, and whatever other social media outlet you care to name. And the other three blogs are people with few or none of those connections, but whose writing and voice are either just as good or even more worthy of awarding than the former two blogs. What do you think happens with the vote?

Consider it this way. Derek Jeter is the shortstop for the New York Yankees. He's been a great player, and will certainly go to the Hall of Fame when he's finished with his career. But let's face it: the guy could hit .200 and still be elected to the annual MLB All-Star game. Why? Because he plays for the most popular, and most wealthy, baseball team in the world. After a certain point in his career, it really ceased to matter if he was actually THE BEST shortstop in baseball that year. It only mattered that he was Derek Jeter of the NY Yankees.

Now, maybe that analogy is a little ridiculous, but it does point to the potential pitfalls of public votes like the one being proposed for the Blogisattva awards.

So, here's the thing. I'm 34 years old. I've received academic awards. I've even received a few awards in my community for service work. It's an enjoyable, but mostly very fleeting and not even all that tangible experience. However, what I have noticed is how awards can help bring together or divide communities. Even nations and the world. Consider the Nobel Prize, which has really been as much a political commentary tool as it has been about elevating great peace work and bringing together peace-minded people.

So, I guess what I'm interested in how awards like the Blogisattvas might support the broader Buddhist blogging community. How they might foster interest in new voices, unique writing, and authentically expressed practice life. Maybe that's not what all this is about - I guess I don't really know what these awards are really about - but I do know I've seen them written up on enough blogs to understand that people are interested, maybe even excited about them.

But what if all the winners end up being the most followed, most popular blogs? Maybe it won't matter much and like I said, for me, awards aren't a big concern. However, helping to start a non-profit, being an organizational leader for my Zen community, working in immigrant communities - all of this has changed me. I see the ways small things can trigger larger issues in communities, no matter what there makeup, and so when I feel I can say or do something to support said communities, I will. (I've also been learning to shut up and sit (thanks Brad!) when that's called for.)

Anyway, I'd really be interested in what people think about awards and community because it seems like a discussion that isn't happening.

Yoga as Coummunity, Not Commodity

A few weeks ago, I wrote some rather sharp comments stemming from a post with comments from the blog Eco Yogini. As I stated at that time, I thought the blog owner herself was a pretty dedicated practitioner, and that I was mostly focusing on others' comments to her post. So, what a delight it was to read her latest post about starting a free yoga in the park day as way to develop community around yoga practice. No fees. No pristine yoga studios. Just people practicing together, sharing their lives together.

Now, there have been some challenges. They've wanted to have teachers join them, but none have taken up the offer. And the few teachers that showed some interest felt that there should be payments made if they were going to come and offer anything that could be considered teaching.

Unlike the comments section from that previous post, the comments made on this one are informative and thought provoking. Even one writer, who disagreed with some of the post, makes some excellent points about the often real struggles yoga teachers have in terms of earning a decent living. I made some follow up comments after hers addressing what I see as the strong sense of privatization that is occurring with yoga - one of the main reasons why there is such a dearth of "yoga" community, especially when it comes to studios. People arrive for class five minutes before to five minutes after it starts, the teacher teaches the class, and then everyone runs out the door. Maybe a few people stay around to chat for five or ten minutes afterward, but that's about it. I've seen this at three different studios here in the Twin Cities, and I've read plenty of others writing similar stories, so I know it's not just going on here.

This is nothing like having relationships with people for years, where you've shared the best and worst of yourselves, and practiced diligently together like I have experienced in my Zen community. So, it's wonderful that Eco Yogini shared her story, and not only do I wish their group all the best, but I hope that others in other places will read our posts and start their own groups.

*Cat yoga photo from www.yogadork.com