Individual Clinging - Yes! Collective Clinging, Not My Department!

The late Brazilian bishop Dom Hélder Câmara once said: "When I give food to the poor, they call me a saint. When I ask why the poor have no food, they call me a Communist." Oh, how painfully true this statement is. I have been reflecting on how resistant we are, collectively and individually, to change. How we will come up with any excuse, no matter how outlandish and out of touch with reality it is, to keep from making changes in our lives. And even when those changes end up coming anyway, because they always do somehow, we'll still concoct stories about how nothing has happened, or how we'll hold on to whatever if it kills us.

It's all pretty crazy, and the end result is an enormous amount of suffering. Individual clinging and it's impact are constantly talked about by Buddhist practitioners, no matter what their background. I've noticed, though, that at least amongst "covert Buddhists" in North America, there's a fair amount of resistance to going beyond the individual, and addressing these same clingings on a broader, social level. I, myself, have been called a Marxist and a Communist, for standing up for a single payer health plan here in the U.S. - by other Buddhist practitioners.

Brooke over at Wandering Dhamma has been researching modern Buddhist writings in Thailand Focus on Benefits, and has discovered that a lot of them focus on the practical benefits of meditation for individual practitioners. Although "socially engaged Buddhism" has been gaining steam over the past few decades, and includes "famous" Buddhist teachers like Thich Nhat Hanh, there still seems to be a strong gap for some between individual practice and the application of Buddhist teachings to large-scale social issues.

One of the criticisms I have heard of Buddhism by members of the "big three" monotheistic traditions - Judaism, Christianity, and Islam - is that there doesn't seem to be a visible social justice component in our practice. At first, I felt like they were simply misunderstanding Buddhism, and still do so to some extent. However, the longer I have practiced, the more I have started to see that there is some validity to their concerns.

I, personally, have a difficult time with arguments along these lines: 1) if I practice and become a kinder, more enlightened person, that benefit will be the best thing I can offer others. 2)getting too involved with social and political issues is too much a distraction from the "real" work of meditation and sutra study. 3) I don't have my own life in order enough to truly help others.

These are all positions of privilege. Saying these statements requires, in my opinion, that a person has a certain level of stability and opportunity in their lives. Reflect for a moment on the monks who took to the streets in Burma in 2007. Or the monks and nuns of Thich Nhat Hanh's community currently struggling in Vietnam. Do they really have a choice to be fully disengaged? Can they just sit in their temples and do their practice as they always have? I don't think so. Even though both of these groups are doing what they can to maintain their way of practice, they also are including the social element as part of that very practice. No separation. And why? Because circumstances have compelled them to do so.

I would consider myself a member of the "burned out on anger driven protests" method of engagement. My entrance into Buddhism coincided with the beginning of the Bush Administration here in the U.S., and I spent those early years marching and chanting and getting enormously upset. And eventually, I grew tired of it - not the engagement, not the efforts to build a more just and compassionate society, but the brutal negativity and enemy-making that often happens in groups claiming to stand for peace and justice. It's easy to go overboard, and jump into action in ways that actually add to the problem. I've been there; I understand that. But frankly, I find too many, in the "convert Buddhist world" at least, unwilling to upset the apple cart of their middle and upper class lives enough to say something, or do something beyond vote in political elections or give money to charities (both of which are important, but also primarily passive, not too threatening acts). If you live in Afghanistan or Zimbabwe, for example, then voting takes on a whole different meaning. But how many "convert Buddhists" live in nations like those two?

A few days ago, I wrote about not needing to know what to do before getting involved in something. I think that message applies here. Most of us, myself included, don't really know what to do exactly about the many social ills going on. We get overwhelmed by it all; the suffering is just too much to get a handle on. And yet, how can those Bodhisattva vows remain solely in the realm of ourselves, our family, and maybe our friends and a few well-liked neighbors? To me, it's too much of a leap into the absolute to say "well, if I become enlightened, that will benefit the entire world." Sure, in some ways, that's absolutely correct. However, if the Buddha had stuck with that, he would have just continued to wander the forests, enjoying his clarity. There would have been no community of practitioners, no teachings, none of that. Just one guy giving out what amounts to trickle down enlightenment.

I can imagine some of the comments now. I don't have time. I have a family to raise. I don't have any idea what to do.

Yep, I hear that. It's very clear that not everybody, or even the majority of people will be front-line, devoting their lives "in the trenches" types of people.

The reality also might be that you are doing something already, but see it as separate from your spiritual practice. Well, why is it separate? How is your work at the homeless shelter being informed by your spiritual practice, and in what ways are you resisting that cross-over? How often do you resist asking questions about the causes and potential solutions of problems like homelessness, and instead opt out for the much easier action of volunteering at the soup kitchen once a year?

I'm not interested in creating guilt and shame. If that were the point of my writing, I'd really just be adding to the problem by pressing people into more self-absorption - the "why am I a bad person" or "I'm sorry I'm no good" types of ruminations that make it even harder for a person to engage their actual lives.

No, that's definitely not my goal.

If anything, I'd like to spark some questioning about your practice, why it is as it is, and how it might be different.

You don't have to know what to do

Last night, I opened the new issue of Yoga Journal and began reading the editor's little essay. (If you haven't noticed, I'm a bit of a magazine junky - not an out of control, can't see my floor because of the piles magazine junky, but I do like my mags.) Anyway, the editor wrote about an experience she had while driving. She came across a wounded bird, and thought to herself "I don't know what to do with a wounded bird." But she stopped anyway, and as she got out of the car, another car came along and she waved the driver down. The woman in the car got out, and the editor said "Do you know what to do?" And the other woman picked up the bird, said "yes," and got back into the car with the bird tucked in her coat.

What was most interesting about this story was the editor pointed out that we don't need to know what to do in order to be of service. We can step in and offer ourselves as we are, and that in itself might be enough to bring about the wisdom the situation is calling for.

So, what a surprise it was to be on my bicycle this morning, not twelve hours after reading that story, and find myself in a similar situation. Almost exact actually. I started crossing a busy street near my apartment, and passed a little bird that was parked just far enough into the road to be in danger. The bird should have flown off - I was definitely that close to it in passing. But it didn't. And instantly, I thought of the editor's story.

I got off my bicycle and looked down the road. A truck was coming. I didn't know what to do, so I stood there and watched the truck go past, missing the bird. Then I looked again, and saw nothing coming on either side. So, I started toward the bird, still not knowing what the best course of action was. I stuck my hand out fairly close to the bird, and it twitched a bit. I leaned in a little closer, not enough to get bit, but almost. And to my surprise, the bird took off into a tree along the street. Getting out of the street, I saw the traffic coming again.

You don't have to know what to do to be of service to others.

You Never Know Where Wisdom Will Appear

I've been a baseball fan nearly my entire life. Growing up, I prowled the outfield for several rec teams, dreaming like many Minnesota kids back then of becoming the next Kirby Puckett. For several of those years, my neighbors were a trio of boys with the last name Mauer. Summer days, when weren't with our teams, we'd take over the alley, and proceed to get in trouble with any number of adults who were broken from their TV sets and conversations by the sound of a tennis ball smashing against a back door, or window. It was a magical time for us, and now one of those boys, little Joey as I will always call him, is the star catcher for the Minnesota Twins.

So, I still follow the game. And this morning I came upon the following article, about the successful, but aging pitcher John Smoltz. Smoltz Regains Identity The basic story is this. For 21 years, John Smoltz pitched for a single team, the Atlanta Braves. His career began around the time his team, and ours - The Twins - both had amazing turn around years, going from last place to first in a year, and landing in the World Series against each other. The Braves were an easy team to root against. Smug owner. Racist nickname. And "the Tomahawk Chop," which boils down to being a stadium full of people participating in a fake Native American war chant, complete with arm chops. John Smoltz was a member of the young, very talented pitching trio that led Atlanta for a good decade or more of success.

Fast forward nearly twenty years to early spring, when Smoltz received a call from the general manager of Atlanta, saying he was being released. To say Smoltz was upset would be an understatement. He soon signed with another team, the Boston Red Sox, determined to show his old team that they had made a mistake, a big mistake. He had a big grudge, a chip on his shoulder, any and all the usual cliches would apply to what he was being driven by. Anything but clarity, and a focus on the present moment.

He pitched poorly, very poorly, and found himself sitting on the bench in early August after a terrible outing against the Red Sox hated rival, the New York Yankees, reflecting on what could be the end of his career.

“I sat there for four more innings,” Smoltz said. “Just sat there. And I said to myself, ‘This is it.’ My career was ending. I needed to watch it. Not because I thought I deserved it, but I wanted to take it in and see who I am.”

How many of us have been in this place in our lives about something? An ending relationship, a failing career, the death of a loved one ... these moments that something is clearly changing, but before there is clarity as to what exactly is coming next.

Smoltz reflected on all that had happened in past several months, and as he did, he realized that what he was being driven by, anger at his old team for releasing him, was destroying the remainder of his career.

“Not only was it {the grudge} a joke,” he said, “it was not who I am.”

It was not who I am. A moment of awareness of the buddhanature we all have. We are not the many emotional disturbances that float through us through the course of a lifetime. True, they are included as part of our life. But they are not who we are.

“The self-inflicted strife that built up wasn’t what I needed to pitch,” Smoltz further said. “I wouldn’t call it anger. I just didn’t let go. That chip on my shoulder didn’t get me results. On that mound, you have to be clear-minded. I didn’t handle it well.

I just didn't let go. Isn't that the truth. Every one of us have said this line. Have felt the misery of what this line means. And at the same time, when we finally say it, that saying it is the letting go. I've come to see how letting go of anything that has caused suffering in the past is usually a process of little shifts, little letting gos. Until finally it's not an issue any more.

Since those initial reflections, Smoltz has lost his job with the Red Sox, been signed by a new team, the St. Louis Cardinals, and has proceeded to regain his good pitching form, all in less than a month.

You never know where wisdom will appear. So keep you eyes open, ears unplugged, and heart ready - it's all around, all around.

Hurricane Katrina and Impermanence

Today is the fourth anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, one of the most destructive and deadly storms to hit the United States in the past century. Although completely dwarfed by the tsunami that devastated South Asia less than a year earlier, Hurricane Katrina, which struck the Gulf Coast on Aug. 29, 2005, killed more than 1,600 people in Louisiana and Mississippi and left behind more than $40 billion in property damage.

For the past four years, the people living along the Gulf Coast have struggled to rebuild their lives. They have repeatedly been ignored or shafted by the local, state, and federal governments that supposedly represent them. Corporate interests, including housing developers and for-profit charter schools, have swarmed in on the city of New Orleans, making millions off the suffering population there. Private citizens initially flooded to help in the aftermath, and money and supplies generously flowed during the first months after the storm. However, like most disasters relief efforts, the rest of the world moves on, and mostly forgets about what happened and the continued needs present.

Many of those who died in the aftermath of the storm were stranded in the city of New Orleans, unable to flee. Mostly poor and working people, predominantly people of color, these folks often didn't have access to vehicles to get out of town the way the rest of the population did. And while there were the stubborn few who wouldn't leave even when offered help leaving, the media over emphasized these examples, and under reported on the struggles of the others.

Despite all this, there has been a lot of progress, primarily as a result of grassroots efforts on the part of everyday residents and their allies. Disasters seem to bring out both the best in humans and the worst. People who never knew each other, who maybe lived on the same block in the same city for years, now can't imagine not working together to make a better life. Even though I have never been to the Gulf Coast, since the storm happened, I have tried to keep tabs on the whole thing. If anything, doing so is a reminder that such devastation can happen rapidly, and that impermanence is everywhere, bringing changes we often never imagined possible.

My guess is that many who live along the Gulf Coast have a greater appreciation for their lives. It reminds me of the zen message that is often called out to the assembly after a session of zazen - "Take heed! Take heed! Make use of this precious life!" I don't think you need to lose everything in a hurricane to wake up to the meaning of this call.

Why "Western" Buddhism, among other terms, often fails

We humans love to make distinctions. We really want to have things put into nice, tidy categories that we can then employ whenever a situation arises that seems to call for category x. This is what our mind likes to do, sort and tidy, sort and tidy. But the problem is that every category, every label we make up is always at best partial, and usually not very accurate at all. A well thought out label may point at the truth, but it can never actually account for all the complex mixing and intermingling of our lives each moment. This doesn't mean we should toss out labels all together; that's a complete impossibility really. However, it does mean that we should pause when employing words that may generalize, stereotype, marginalize, or just plain misrepresent that which we want to speak about.

One of the categories that has been causing a lot of angst lately is that of "Western Buddhism." Sub-labels that have been spawned from the larger one include "convert Buddhist" and "Western Buddhist," and then, in an attempt to differentiate groups, the labels "Ethnic Buddhist and Ethnic Buddhism" and also "Traditional Buddhist and "Traditional Buddhist" have appeared. I'm not sure which came first, but they all seem to be tied together, and none of them really have a clear meaning when you start to dig below the surface.

I always find digging up some history to be a good approach to beginning to understand what is happening today. Usually, the more I trace historical events linked to a particular issue, the picture becomes much more nuanced and harder to pin down. This isn't a bad thing; it's our life.

First Arrivals
The first arrivals in modern history to arrive from Asia into the United States came around 1820. More significant numbers, especially from China, began arriving after the California Gold Rush in 1849. The first Buddhist temple in North America was built in San Francisco not long after in 1853 (Buddhism in the U.S.). So, in terms of Buddhism in North America, we are looking at a period of a little more than 150 years at most. In Canada, where the first temples were established in Vancouver around the turn of the 20th century, the history is only a little more than one hundred years. There is also a small Buddhist community in Mexico - about 100,000 total in a nation of over 100 million - but I haven't been able to find any historical records about it.

Great Depression of 1873
Back to the United States, where during the 1870's, several events changed the landscape and began to set a direction for both Buddhism in America and for Asians in America. The first event was the Great Depression of 1873, which lasted nearly six years, caused the economies of several nations to tank, and elevated unemployment rates to at least 14% in the U.S. as a whole. It was much worse along the West Coast though, where railroad jobs were at a premium and where white migrants were often in competition with Chinese immigrants.

Here's an interesting quote from an article about that period, which gives some parallels between that economic crash and the current one.

Another factor setting off the crash was the implosion of the Jay Cooke & Company. This was a major component of the banking establishment. It collapsed when it found that it was unable to market several million dollars in Northern Pacific railway bonds (does this sound familiar?). At the time, much of the investment banking establishment was salivating for railroads much like our recent investment banks went off the edge with real estate. When the funding source dried up or too much over building occurred, multiple external forces collapsed the market.

After the Civil War many people found employment in the railway boom. Outside of agriculture it was the largest employer and also had the most money at risk. In fact, there are many parallels with our current employment situation and how many people are dependent on the finance and real estate industries. Once that industry imploded, many people found themselves out of work.

See:The Long Depression of 1873

So, what does this have to do with Buddhism or with the Asian communities in the U.S.? Well, first off, there was a huge backlash against Chinese laborers, who were blamed for driving down wages and causing the economic collapse. (Never mind that it was the rich, white male bankers who bought into the rich, white male railroad owners speculative deals. And never mind that the same white railroad owners deliberately drove down the pay for their workers to make more profit, and hired Chinese immigrant laborers because they could pay them significantly less.) This backlash spread across the nation, and into the halls of Congress where, in 1875, the first of the Chinese Exclusion Acts were written into law. This is really the beginning of U.S. immigration law in many respects, and the fact that it began by excluding based solely on race and country of origin says a lot about the problems we still have today when it comes to immigration law and racial biases. A similar, if slightly less harsh act was declared in Canada in 1885, which set a financial penalty on any Chinese immigrant coming into Canada. All of this points to the fact that Buddhism, which originally was transplanted in North America by these same immigrant communities, already had a strike against it.

Efforts to "fit in" from the start
Beyond the issues of race and immigration, Buddhist communities had to deal with the perceptions of their religion by Christian majorities in both the U.S. and Canada. Following the Parliament of the World's Religions, held in Chicago in 1893, and during which Buddhism became more "on the radar" for the average North American, the first Jodo Shinshu priests arrived in San Francisco. Six years later, their first temple was built, and the Buddhist Churches of America formed.

Why the use of the word "Churches"? First, the white public backlash that had began during the Depression years extended into the next century, targeting the "invasion" of an "alien" religion. Newspaper accounts regularly used phrases like this. Here is an example, taken from an otherwise fairly respectful (for the times) article on the first temple, from the Atlanta Constitution, July 1901.

"the outpost in San Francisco is not all of the invasion. Already the founder of the mission here, Sonoda, is in Berlin, where on April 7th, Japanese officers, legation attaches and travelers joined in the celebration of Buddha's birthday. Nishijima, who came as Sonoda's assistant, is in the interior of California, paving the way to the establishment of missions at Sacramento and Fresno. At Sacramento a temple is about to be erected, $6,000 having been raised already for buying the ground. In London is the Right Reverend Kozui Otani, son of the titled High Priest Kioto, who will return to Japan after a long tour of the world, devoted to close study of social and religious conditions." See: First Japanese Temple

Even though the Christian majority viewed the small Buddhist minority with great suspicion, what's fascinating is that Buddhist Churches of America, from the very beginning, attempted to open their doors to non-Asians interested in Buddhism. In addition, they deliberately modified their temples and services to fit in more with the greater, Christian dominant communities they had moved into. Writing about the founding period nearly 100 years later,the Rev. Masao Kodani comments:

An important part of this was the growing Buddhist temples and Christian churches. Following the example of the Young Men's Christian Association, the Buddhists formed the Young Men's Buddhist Association. Buddhist gatherings took the form of the chanting of sutras followed by sermons, informal talks, or more formal lectures. Study classes were conducted on Saturday nights with services and more formal lectures on Sunday. With growing non-Japanese interest in Buddhism, services and lectures for "non-Asians" were conducted on Monday nights. From its very beginnings, Jodo Shinshu Buddhism was purposely adapted to Christian America. This can be seen in the format of its "services," its lectures, and in the name of its temples as "Buddhist Associations (bukkyokai)" or "Buddhist Churches (bukkyo kyokai)" rather than the more proper title of temple. This ambiguity would have greater implications in the future when later generations, whose understanding of Jodo Shinshu was not as great and whose inability to access the Japanese language resources that helped explain the doctrine, would take over. It was not, for example, until the 1970s and the growing publication of English materials explaining the doctrine of Jodo Shinshu that these Buddhist Churches began to change their names to Buddhist Temples.

See:The History of the Buddhist Churches of America

Early White American Interest
In addition to the issues presented during the establishment of the Buddhist Churches of America, another interesting trend occurring during this period (approximately 1870-1920) was the growing interest of white North Americans in "Eastern philosophy and religion." The Theosophical Society, dedicated to the study of Hinduism, Buddhism, and mysticism of all forms it seems, was founded in 1875. The first fairly well known white American to publicly convert to Buddhism, Henry Steel Olcott, a former U.S. army colonel during the Civil War, also occurred around this time. And even before this, such prominent figures as Henry David Thoreau and Ralph Waldo Emerson gave large nods to both Buddhism and Hinduism in their writings.

A little later, in 1905, the first Zen Buddhist priest, Soyen Shaku, was invited to stay in the United States by a wealthy white American couple. One of Shuku's students, Nyogen Senzaki, came over from Japan soon after, and in 1922, began giving dharma talks in English. Another zen priest linked to Soyen Shaku, Shigetsu Sasaki, eventually settled in New York and established what would become the First Zen Institute of America. Among those who would become active in this group were Ruth Fuller Everett, and her son in law, Alan Watts, both prominent figures in the rise of interest in Zen amongst future white converts in the 1950's and 1960's. Ruth Fuller Everett eventually married Sasaki, and spent most of her later years hopping between Kyoto and New York, doing Zen training, and translating Zen texts into English.

So, the blurring of lines began well over a hundred years ago, long before the arrival of what are often considered to be the first "convert" focused Zen Buddhist communities in the late 1950's. Who is a "Western Buddhist"? What is "traditional"? Can the terms "The West" and "The East" have any meaning, given this kind of history? These are just a few of the questions that should come to mind after reflecting on this history.

Some Current Statistics
Just to muddy the water even more, here are a few current statistics. C.N. Le writes "According to the 2000 U.S. census, Asian Americans make up 4.3% of the total U.S. population -- that's about 12 million people who identify themselves as at least part Asian" Population Statistics. In an article on Buddhism in America, Ryuei Michael McCormick writes the following, attempting to get at the number of Asians, Asian American or Asian immigrant, that practice Buddhism in the U.S.: "The Ethnic Buddhists consist of an estimated 2.2 - 3.2 million immigrants from Asian countries who have established Buddhists temples (or churches) to meet the social, cultural and religious needs of their many diverse communities. This group includes the older Chinese and Japanese communities which go back to the 19th century, and the new waves of immigration from Korea, Vietnam, other Buddhist countries in SE Asia, as well as fresh waves of immigrants from China"Buddhism in America First, it should be noted again noted that there are far more non-Buddhist people of Asian descent living in the U.S. than there are Asian-American Buddhists. Second, the statistics given by McCormick are somewhat flawed, given that, for example, Asian-Americans who converted to Buddhism in adulthood aren't included. In addition, the languaging here focuses in on ethnic community-based religious practice and uses race and national origin as a defining marker of such groups. Yet, this can easily leave out the complex interplay of origin cultures and U.S. cultures, among other things, giving a false impression that what happens today in a Buddhist temple in San Francisco started by Japanese immigrants a century ago is somehow "traditional" and what happens in a Zen Temple founded primarily by white Americans half a century ago in the same city is somehow "Western" or "modern" or whatever label you wish to attach to it.

Among groups that tend to fall into the category of "convert" Buddhist groups, there are probably over a million followers of Zen Buddhism, Tibetan Vajrayana Buddhism, and the Theravadin derived Vipassana meditation practices. Although some efforts have been made at diversifying these groups, they continue to be primarily white, middle to upper class, and highly college educated. Another larger, but lesser known group, the Soka Gakkai Buddhists, have upwards of 300,000 members, and are much more racially and socio-economically diverse. As of 2002, according to their survey, SGI-USA's membership is 42% white, 15% black, 23% Asian, Pacific Islander, 6% Latino, and 15% mixed race (Buddhism in America. Groups like Soka Gakkai on the convert end, as well as the many groups whose predominant populations are people of Asian descent, by and large receive much less coverage in mainstream American media than do the convert groups dominated by white Americans. As such, getting an accurate picture of the many Buddhisms being practiced on the continent is a difficult task, and can definitely be one reason people are relying on terms like "Western Buddhist," which sound nice, but fail to convey clarity.

Provisional Labels
In my opinion, we are just starting to actually sort all of this out, and terms like Western Buddhism will someday be viewed a provisional labels that served as markers of the times, and not as very accurate reflections of what actually is going on. It will be very interesting to watch how Buddhist practice continues to unfold in this newest of its homes: North America. May we find more accurate ways to speak of this diverse path, and may we see all the struggle to uncover those more accurate ways as another dharma gate among the myriad of dharma gates.

Taking Things Personally

There has been a lot of heated discussion about race in recent weeks in the blogosphere. I've been on numerous sites, Buddhist focused and non-Buddhist focused, and similar discussions are there. It mirrors the heated town hall meetings and discussions here in the U.S. about health care, which really have as much to do about race and power as they do about any health care plans.

Much of the talk that I have seen on-line are sincere efforts to bring some clarity to this most muddy of issues. However, there is also some definite talk out of frustration, which is understandable, but given the forum of the internet, usually leads to more talk out of frustration.

Unfortunately, part of the issue tends to be that people are taking things personally. It's the mind of "This something that was written was written directly about me. I have to respond, I have to stand up for myself." Of course, the reality is that it's never really about you. Even when someone is directly saying it IS about you, it's actually some image that person has conjured up about who you are and/or what you have done.

Now, this doesn't mean that we should just let things go all the times. Being passive isn't called for in some situations. But there is a very big difference between responding and reacting .

When we respond to a situation, we are aware of the impersonal quality of what is occurring. Life is occurring, and we are part of that life occurring.

When we react to a situation, we view what is occurring as a personal threat, as an attack, or as a punishment. Life is happening ONLY because I did something, or I am something someone does not like, or I did something that deserves to be punished.

Now think about about, does the world really work that way? Is it really possible that things are occurring solely because of you, and the interplay between you and one other person? It's pretty damn unlikely. There are a myriad of factors that come into play in any given situation. The "you" and "I" are only part of the equation, and usually a tiny part at that.

Thich Nhat Hanh wrote: "When we cannot communicate, we get sick, and as our sickness increases, we suffer and spill our suffering on other people."

A major part of communicating effectively involves coming from a place of non-reactiveness. Being calm enough to take in the jumbled, confused expressions around you without having to defend some territory called "I." It's really not an easy task, and most of us - me included - fall flat fairly often.

But if I'm learning anything from blogging, it's this way of communicating with others. To be who I am without clinging so hard to the I.

Buddhist Army Chaplain - A contradiction of terms?

There has been some interesting discussion over at the Tricycle blog about the U.S. Army's first Buddhist chaplain, Thomas Dyer. You can read it in full here. First U.S. Army Buddhist Chaplain, but I will also provide an excerpt below.

He has left his boots at the door of the temple, but in the temple room he wears a standard Army camouflage uniform. Instead of a cross or crucifix on the right chest his uniform bears the “dharma wheel” insignia as a symbol of the Buddhist faith.

This is a description of Thomas Dyer, 43, of Memphis, Tennessee. Dyer is the US Army’s first Buddhist chaplain, according to the commercialappeal.com (Memphis Online). His conversion to Buddhism at first caused waves in his family, but his wife finally made peace with his decision: “I actually thank God in a way because I wouldn’t have gone as deep in my own faith if I hadn’t been challenged,” she said. “I think each individual’s suffering is personally designed for that individual to lead him to God.”

Dyer, who was at first a Presbyterian and then a Baptist, felt Buddhism addressed questions whose answers had otherwise eluded him:

“The question that arose in my mind is, ‘Why is there so much suffering?’ Christianity did not have a satisfactory answer. I wanted to be happy. The idea that we have to live with suffering until we die just did not make sense to me—the idea that God wants you to suffer so you can then enjoy heaven.” Dyer kept asking, “Is this all there is to life?” As a Christian, he had been interested in mysticism. That led to meditation. Dyer studied Buddhism, then visited the temple near his home in Raleigh [a neighborhood in Memphis]. Right away, he says, “It was like, ‘Whoa, I’m home.’”

Now, amongst the discussion is whether or not being a chaplain in the military is compatible with Buddha's teachings. I think this is a challenging question, especially for those of us who despise war, and aren't all that fond of the military in general.

Here are the comments I left on the post over at Tricycle.

“Freedom isn’t free” type arguments are propaganda, as is the idea of a “just war.” These are fallacies that people buy into to rationalize large scale acts of violence that mostly done to support the “moneyed interests” of society and/or to keep those in currently in power, in power. Although I agree that assuming a completely non-violent approach is probably an impossibility in today’s world, in my opinion, Buddha’s teachings implore us to move in that direction as much as possible. For me, this means rejection of all state sponsored war, any form of terrorism, and all corporate and government efforts to support the continuation of these.

However, I have to say that people like Thomas Dyer, in the role that they are playing, can actually be fulfilling the Bodhisattva vow to liberate all beings. Bodhisattvas are said to be unafraid to enter into any situation in order help others. They don’t “pick and choose.” So, even though I’m not a supporter of many of the actions done by the military, I think people like Mr. Dyer have the potential to benefit others from within a damaging system.

On a related note, I feel fortunate to live in a city where the police chief is also a zen buddhist practitioner. Even though I have disagreed with his decisions at times, I do believe he is much more thoughtful and mindful of the impact of his decisions and words than your average chief. It sounds like Jamie (another police officer who posted comments) may have had similar changes as a result of his practice, and it’s impact on his work.

I think there is a tendency for those of us who support peace, and are against military actions, to leap into demonizing the people who are in the military. Furthermore, we sometimes (me included) fail to see how a person's actions within a damaging system or institution might actually be absolutely essential to transforming the nature of that system or institution. This doesn't mean that someone who becomes a chaplain, for example, can't loose sight of the teachings and become an enabler - he or she definitely could be. But at the same time, maybe that same person is one of those in the tipping point towards a new way of being for the whole group.

Samsaric muck is the fodder for enlightenment, is it not? To me, the intensity of suffering Mr. Dyer faces in working with his fellow soldiers is enormous, and as such, is also that much more of a opportunity for his practice to strengthen and have a very beneficial effect.

I wish for him continued openness, deep awareness, and a willingness to continue to challenge perceptions, as he did when he first converted to Buddhism.