Why don’t I see ya’ll doing nothin? ~ A Guest Post by Andrea

I would be the first person to tell you that if you want to read  an article about the  benefits of Zen for the Black community, you should read “Being Black” by  @changeangel aka Angel Kyodo Williams.  It’s an amazing book that is well worth the read.

I see no point in trying to re-invent the wheel.  Rather I offer a what could easily be classified as a criticism.  And maybe even some whiny finger-pointing.  I am also going to take my personal observations and experiences, and apply them to Black people in general.  Yeah I know.  Just take what is useful and leave the rest. 

I lived most of my life in misery and fear.  All the people I knew were barely scrapping by.  Constantly on the brink of losing everything.  There was never a question of if something bad would happen, it was only a question of when.  I honestly believed that my problems only plagued me and people who looked like me.  No one else could ever understand.  As I continued to gain more education, I was surrounded by people who didn’t look like me and could never understand my pain.  I was numb and depressed.  I didn’t know it.  There was no talking about my pain.  I swallowed it and kept pressing forward.  My depression was masked as anger and a bad attitude. 

I didn’t realize I was stumbling around in a small dark room until someone turned the light on.  And for me that light was Zen.  I realized people are more alike then we are different.  Most people live lives of quiet desperation.  Fear, anger, betrayal, inadequacy, failure, depression, loneliness, longing, and suffering are part of the human condition.  I learned a simple truth that made life very complicated.  It was the worst and the best thing that ever happened to me.  Ready?  Here it is: I and I alone was responsible for my happiness and my suffering. Not my circumstances, not the stuff I have or don’t have.  Not the people in my life or out of it.  Not my God or lack thereof.   I save myself.  I have the answers to all my questions, the solutions to all my problems.   Happiness and suffering don’t just happen to me, I choose them.  That was some transformative shit.  That simple, yet complicated truth saved my life.  Literally.

Buddha by Slick on Garey St., LA Arts District

People who live desperate lives, can’t conceive of such a thing.  At least, I couldn’t.  What good is all that meditation stuff when you are constantly on the verge of catastrophe? Or when you have lost everything and you and your family of five must move into one room in your grandmother’s already crowded apartment?  The answer is that suffering is the mother of Buddhism.  Ending suffering is why that skinny dude went and sat under that tree in the first place.  Yet sitting is contrary to everything Black folks know and believe.  When the going gets tough, the tough get going.  You dig in and press on.  Carrying all your baggage with you.   

Typically, when  Black folks have problems, we don’t sit and we don’t go to therapy.   Some drink, some use drugs, some sit around hating the world.  But we almost always end up in church.  We’ve learned generation after generation to look up, not in. The church is like going home after a long vacation.  My momma, her mamma, their grand mamma and all them, go to church.  Everybody knows and it doesn’t have to be explained.  And if your next question is ‘knows what?”, that is exactly my point.  People who look like you, care about you, and sometimes gossip about you,  welcome you with open arms.  This home away from home is usually in the middle of  a neighborhood that people move out of as soon as they can.  They are not just in the neighborhood, they are a part of it.  From feeding the hungry to neighborhood legal clinics. 

Banksy’s Injured Buddha, London

I’ve yet to come across a “help the local community,”  “grassroots” type of activity organized by Buddhist.   I am unaware of any Zen centers in a neighborhood where I can guarantee there is a church. So how exactly are my fellow sufferers with no money, nothing but problems and no inkling  of the world outside of their own neighborhood going to discover this trans formative shit called Zen?

Honestly, I don’t know.  I’m about as good of a Buddhist as I was a Christian.   But I think the answer lies somewhere in where we sit.

Buddhist temples are not very inviting.  And they are certainly not filled with folks that look like me.   Often they are set far off.  You don’t just ride past or walk to them.  And, granted I have never been in one, like I said – not too inviting.  But I’m willing to bet there’s a lot more involved than just walking in and sitting.  My perception may be wrong, but it is not unwarranted. 

What I love about Zen is there is no special equipment needed.  Zafus can be expensive on a tight budget.  But you can use a towel or couch pillow or even a chair.   Just sit, count your breathes.  When you stop trying to figure it out, you’ll figure it out. (<——– I love when we talk like that).  We can and do practice anywhere.  We don’t have to restrict ourselves to far off temples.  But because of this we can easily practice in isolation (<— guilty)  or restrict ourselves to more affluent places. 

LA. Art by El Mac & RETNA. Photo by Robyn Franckowiak.

We can cultivate compassion on a cushion, but we need to go further.  I think if Buddhism was all about sitting in caves and keeping your own counsel, then there would be no Buddhist.  Siddhartha  would have just been some half-dressed weirdo  who abandoned his family and sat under a tree.  Stop being selfish with your Dharma.

[Andrea is a Vegetarian Buddhist, who has made a mess of her life and is slowly picking up the pieces.  She thinks it sucks that she is responsible for her own happiness.  She loves yoga, running (turtle speed), writing, cursing and crochet. She lives in Central Florida with her 5 crazy dogs.   Because she is not nearly as interesting in person, you can find her on twitter @grumpyzen. ]

American Buddhism: Reflected, Revisited and Rejected

I have a story—as we all do—about how I came to find my bodhi tree. I have a story of its leaves that cool, its roots that stabilize and its trunk which protects.  Mine started perhaps differently than yours— in a small (but old) temple on the outskirts of a Chinese metropolis— a place of refuge for me; a quiet moment in the hectic and loud city around.  I was 16 and would often sneak out of my apartment, take the number 8 bus downtown and slip through the large gates and enter the temple. I had no idea what Buddhism even was at the time. All I knew was that in here was peace. It was found in the old, leaning pagoda, in the dancing incense smoke and in the intrigued smiles of the old monks who shuffled around.

My Chinese, I regret to inform, was lackluster. I wanted to understand Buddhism so with my limited vocabulary I asked one of the monks, “What do I do?”

                “Sit in quiet. Be here.”

I am sure he said more, but that was all I understood. Confused I replied, “That’s all?”

He smiled, shook his head and walked off. I was confounded and slightly perturbed, “Stop being so mysterious,” I mumbled, “I have no idea what I am supposed to do here, buddy! You can’t just walk off!”

Even though I was confused, I did what he said. I found a stone step under an eve, leaned back against a wall and sat in quiet. I breathed in the moment and breathed out the moment. Simple, I know, and possibly not even Buddhist, but in that time frame something clicked. There was no beautiful angels, no shining bodhisattvas that came down to bless me; no glory hallelujahs sung by a gospel choir, just a quiet understanding. Personally, that was good enough for me.

It began to rain as I sat there, and as much as wanted to stay, I realized it was time to go. Walking out of the temple I found myself in an “everything is so pretty and let’s all hug one another” mindset when I tripped over the bottom of the door frame and stumbled out of the temple.

                Buses, cars, bells, people- noise, noise, noise.

I was knocked out of my mindset quickly as the boisterous city reminded me that it was still there, still loud and still very, very dirty. 

                Hello, World. You do tend to make quite the entrance.

I was 18 when my family moved back to the States. I can’t say that I was too excited about the move but I was ecstatic about the prospect of being able to gather information on Buddhism. I had spent two years retaining all that I could from the little English literature I could find on the subject. It felt a little like trying to dig through all of the cereal bits in Lucky Charms to find the marshmallows. I can’t begin to tell you how many magazines and books I bought on the subject. Reading was my sanctuary and I adored every simple and complex thing my mind mulled over.

The problem came when I realized I was the only Buddhist in my area. When I say area I mean that I was the only Buddhist for roughly 65 miles. No temples, meditation centers, robes or mala beads. Just some jacked up 18 year old and her books.  I learned a lot from them but the truth was I needed some help and guidance. I needed to go out and search the American Buddhism scene.

                The rabbit hole was big and had a warning sign and yet I jumped into it.

I don’t know what I expected. I suppose half of me expected the quiet monks in the Chinese temple while the other half expected Cylon’s and Dalek’s. I did not think that Buddhists would float about on clouds of enlightenment tossing out petals of peace and wisdom to weary souls. I am sure I expected something…I just didn’t expect this. I was unaware that as a Buddhist I was supposed to do yoga, be a vegan, have $85 mala beads (made by Tibetan nuns, of course), hate Republicans, live in Boulder, and be a hipster. Apparently the Buddha had gone from chilling under a tree to slugging around a grenade launcher of harsh words and drinking Pabst (with his lululemon mat strapped to his back). I think I missed the sutra that expressed this side of him. 

The Buddha’s words, which were once a refuge, had turned into to a product to sell, a large outlet mall where one could pick and choose the easy bits and leave the contemplation behind. American Buddhism reminded me a lot of that moment when I stumbled over the door frame and tumbled into the city.

            It was noisy, loud and scared the hell out of me.

I had twelve different people screaming twelve different ways to enlightenment in my face, and others who would scold me over my meat eating habits while being drunks themselves and still yet others who tried to convince me that the Buddha really wanted me to do a Hero’s Pose and buy those yoga pants. I once had the pleasure of listening to a man my own age (22) explain in a coffee house that he was a Buddhist and completely understood the Dharma. I also had the pleasure of scoffing loudly and leaving.

Where was I? What was this place? It was overwhelming, deafening and did not resemble anything I had ever seen before. There was no respect for one another, no listening and no wisdom. Just very, very loud people who said so much that ended up being nothing more than dust. I tried to course my way though the words and opinions but I only found more. Along the way I met a few Buddhists that I respected and adored. I found the same peace and wisdom in their words that I did in the words of the monks in China. But I felt as if I were on a river;

            I tried to get close to the rocks of their sanity but the current pushed me down.

After two full years of being wholly frustrated by it all, I had enough. I was angry, sad and hurt. I pulled off my mala beads (made for me by a friend) and let them gather dust on my windowsill. I took my books and magazines and shoved them into a tidy corner of my closet. I shook The Buddha’s hand firmly and said, “Listen. I know it’s not fair. I adore your words; they are just hard to find in the screams here.”

            And I walked away.

It’s been close to 8 months now and honestly I still feel lost. Buddhism was, and still is, my path. It is the one I want to follow but the one I cannot find. I get upset when I see pseudo- hipsters with their mala beads and sandals telling me how easy it is for them. My blood boils and all I want to do is beat them with their hair gel. Buddhism was never easy and it never will be, at least for me. It’s a struggle to look inwards and see all that I am. It’s a struggle right now.

What do you do when you’ve lost the one thing that made sense? What do you do when you can hear the words of truth but get lost in the maze of opinions? I’m not sure if I will ever wander back to my path because I am not sure if I can find it. I suppose that could make me weak or even petty and perhaps I am.  One day I hope to find my old, sturdy tree. I hope to sit underneath its green leaves and listen to the wind. I hope more than anything I am finding my way out of the rabbit hole and back into peace.

This was a guest post by Brianna Ecklid. Brianna lives on the cold shores of Lake Michigan. She reads far too much for her own good, writes short stories, and geeks out about comic books. Someday she’ll own a cute hobby farm and mess up people’s brains with her words but for now she is content with spring and crocheting. You can contact her at brianna.ecklid@gmail.com or on twitter as @absentbree.

Contemplation of Sutra as Practice ~ Jiken Anderson

Or “When you need a crowbar, use a crowbar.”

Thus have I heard—in some corners of the English-speaking Zen world: 

Study of the sutras is an obstacle to practice.  “Dogen said just sit,” it has been said, “so just sit.”   Our transmission is outside the sutras, not about letters or words.  And we know perfectly well what this means, right?

I do not know if this resistance to study and thought (and, concomitantly, to ritual) represents a traditional tendency in Japanese Zen or even a coherent reading of Dogen, or is a reflection of an uncritical embrace of the rhetoric of the Patriarchs of the ninth century, who rightly rejected the hegemonic and constipated piety of their own moment as counterproductive. 

I do know that we do things differently in the milieu of Tendai Buddhism among English-speakers.  And I have reason to think that a Tendai approach to practice and to the teachings offers a sensible, workable third path between two untenable positions: a nihilistic rejection of the sutras as Asian Puff from the Ancient Past Irrelevant to Us on one side; an eternalistic, uncritical, or fundamentalist veneration of the sutras as the Summum Bonum of the One True Faith and Mystical Wisdom Heritage on the other side. 

To get at what I am proposing, you need to have a handle on two interrelated concepts:  that of upaya or skillful means, and that of Buddha-garbha, or enlightened nature.  These are treated together in the Lotus Sutra, which is the central text of the Tendai tradition.  Buddha-garbha means that all beings, even you, have the potential to attain enlightenment and, further, will inevitably do so; upaya means that all the actions of the Buddhas, including the recorded texts of the sutras, are moments in which enlightened mind reaches out and meets deluded beings where they are, with whatever tool, trick, or gimmick is necessary. 

“Gimmick” is not too strong a word for this method:  in chapter four of the Lotus Sutra, for instance, we see an analogy made between the teaching situation of the Buddha and the disciple to that of an employer (hilariously in my view) tricking a man into shoveling shit for decades in order for him to feel better about himself and, ultimately, attain something that was already his from the start.  One might say upaya is about mitigating stupidity, specifically the stupidity of deluded beings who do not see their own inherent dignity and divinity, the stupidity of avoidance.  Upaya is the means by which Buddha-garbha is realized; Buddha-garbha is the rationale for upaya. 

Buddha Shakyamuni is credited in the Lotus Sutra (chapter two this time) with coming on out and describing this situational pedagogy:

“The Tathagathas save all living beings
With innumerable expedients.
The cause all living beings to enter the Way
To the wisdom-without-asravas of the Buddha.
Anyone who hears the Dharma
Will not fail to become a Buddha.
Every Buddha vows at the outset:

‘I will cause all beings
To attain the same enlightenment
That I attained.’

The future Buddhas will expound many thousands
Of Myriads of millions of teachings
For just one purpose,
That is, for the purpose of revealing the One Vehicle.”  Lotus Sutra p. 43.

And the One Vehicle, or Ekayana, is the Buddha-Vehicle (Buddha-yana):  the doctrine that all beings, here described as those who hears the Dharma, inherently have the potential to Buddhahood, with no exceptions, and that Buddhist practice amounts to eliminating defilements and drawing forth or manifesting from oneself enlightened qualities.  This is about the Buddha within. 

The purpose of the written Teaching is to give a pointer or, if you like, to create a situation or context in which one might have some insight into this.  It is a poke, a prod.  Brook Ziporyn describes it as being like the punchline to a joke:  first a context is established, and then undercut with a surprise that transforms the context.  The transmission is not in or of the words anymore than the laughter a good joke provokes is identical to the words of the joke.  This is not about making meaning, or having a meaningful life; this is not a semiotic or semantic game.  It is, in short, about practice.

There is a way in which the question of whether the claims made in sutras are objectively true or false is irrelevant.  Consider the hyperbole:  does it really matter how many kotis of nayutas of kalpas passed before the sky stopped spontaneously showering mandarava blossoms?  Only to such a one who seeks to understand Stravinsky or Bartok by measuring the mass and volume of a symphonic score.  No:  the written text is itself a series of upaya, or gimmicks, just as a piece of music is constructed serially to kick you here, caress you there, and achieve (if successful) a particular affective impact on the observer. 

Can the orchestration Stravinsky devised for the Rite of Spring be proven true or false?  No, but it can be understood nonverbally, transmitted outside the “words” or notes, if taken on its own terms and in an appreciative attitude.  This means stop jibbering your overconfident jabber and listen to the music, open up to it, let it work on you.   Another analogy:  if you are trapped in a cage, and someone offers you a crowbar with which to work your way out, does it matter if the crowbar is “true” or “false”?

The rest of the prescribed practices in post-Ekayana Buddhism, inclusive of Japanese Zen streams, are also upaya.  There is nothing singularly special about the effective but arbitrary practice of sitting on a zafu staring at a wall until your hips heroically turn arthritic.  That, too, is a device, something that works in a particular way under particular conditions.  Chanting?  A device.  Walking in the woods with an open heart?  The same, and just as authentic.  In short, quit worrying and contemplate the teaching in a meditative spirit, just the same as washing the dishes or shoveling the shit.  In all seriousness, why not?  Who are you to avoid the dirty work? 

This is the truth, not a lie:  this literature reaches people because it directs attention to a fundamental reality of our situation, in any situation.  With an open mind, you may also get in on it.  Namo Buddhaya!

“Those who do not study the Dharma
Cannot understand it.
You have already realized

The fact that the Buddhas, the World-Teachers, employ expedients,
According to the capacities of all living beings.
Know that, when you remove your doubts,
And when you have great joy,
You will become Buddhas!”
Lotus Sutra, pp. 49-50

Works Cited and Suggested

• Murano, Senchu (trans).  The Lotus Sutra.  Tokyo, Japan:  Nichiren Shu Shimbun, 1974.
• Ng Yu-Kwan.  T’ien-t’ai Buddhism and Early Madhyamika.  Honolulu, HI: University of Hawaii Press:  1993.
• Swanson, Paul L.  Foundations of T’ien-T’ai Philosophy.  Berkeley, CA:  Asian Humanities Press, 1989.
• Ziporyn, Brook.  Being and Ambiguity: Philosophical Experiments with Tiantai Buddhism.  Chicago, IL: Open Court Publications, 2004.

Other Upaya:

• Tendai Buddhist Institute 
  California Tendai Monastery  
  Tendai Buddhism in Europe 

Jikan Anderson leads the Great River Ekayana Sangha in Arlington, Virginia.  Find more of his material at DC tendai. Follow him on twitter under the handle @JikanAnderson.

Practicing in a Holy Place (plus slideshow)~ Tammy

McleodGanj. Home of His Holiness Dalai Lama. Capital of Tibet in Exile. I arrived at the end of November 2009, fleeing the culture shock of a first visit to India. A 12 hour overnight bus ride from Delhi.

The first thing I noticed was that people were smiling, unlike the other places I’d gone in India. Strangers greeted me politely.

Hundreds of red robed Tibetan Buddhist monks and nuns roam the streets. Tibetan elders in traditional dress stroll with spinning prayer wheels in hand, muttering prayers, counting mantras on their malas, under thousands of prayer flags fluttering in mountain breezes.

Here, His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama presides over public ceremonies, when he’s not touring the world promoting world peace. To me, these seem like mystical, magical events, where throat-chanting, conch-shell horns and clashing cymbals shifted the fabric of the universe. Offerings to the Buddha are distributed to the crowd, and everyone shares, smiling and talking, their words seeming to make sense, even though few actually speak the same language.

My experiences there over the next few months inspired me to become a Buddhist.

One of my English conversation students, a monk in his mid-30s, told our class that the thing he most regretted in his life was “I did kill a bug once, a long time ago”. Another student, a former political prisoner in his late 30s, once described his time in prison, during which he was frequently tortured, as “So much suffering. So many ‘Om Mani Padme Hum’.”

Four months later I returned to the States, convinced I’d had some kind of holy experience. It seemed like the only reason Tibet-in-Exile had survived as Tibetan was due to Buddhism, and that if Tibetan Buddhism had THAT kind of power, I absolutely needed it in my sorry life. I’d already bought a small hand-held prayer wheel, traditional Tibetan incense, a “yak bone” mala, and altar cards, although I didn’t understand how to use them.

At “home”, I read magazine articles and webpages on Buddhism, and bought a dozen dharma books. I struggled horribly with establishing a routine of mantras and offerings and prostrations. I drove myself crazy trying to adhere to the Precepts and follow the Noble Eightfold Path. I tried to help others become kinder and gentler and prayed for peace and healing for the world. In a sea of conservative “Christians” spouting anti-Islamic slogans and ranting about hunting season, I felt like a freak.

Eight months later, I returned to McleodGanj, intending to study Buddhism, Tibetan language, and promote awareness of Tibet-in-Exile to my social network in the US/Europe. I was sure I’d find a guru, sure everything would pick up where it had left off.

Almost immediately, the “rose-colored glasses” were ripped off. A former student who’d often tried to explain Buddhist principles to me tried to force himself on me after walking me home under the guise of protecting me. Monks I’d taught the previous year were now writing love letters on facebook to the beautiful young European volunteers who came after I left. I witnessed alcoholism and drug use first hand in the bar scene.

Within a month of my arrival, His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama gave a 3 days teaching at his main temple. On the days preceding the teachings, attendees went to the temple to reserve seating. I watched them fight over preferred locations, tearing up one another’s markers and moving chairs, based on who had been in town longest or attended the most teachings or had the highest rinpoche. Ignoring His Holiness’ teachings to attend the teachings.

Where were the transcendent qualities I had witnessed previously, the ones which had motivated me to study and practice in the first place?

McleodGanj is a place of contradictions and complications. People offer prayers for all sentient beings and help caterpillars cross the path before straightening up to throw stones at street dogs and go home to mutton for dinner. Men meditate and make offerings at the temple in the afternoon and get into bar fights after midnight.

There are gurus, though most do not speak English, are not accessible to beginners, or leave for warmer climes around the same time I arrive. After much disappointment, I discovered that practice does not have to mean having a set routine of meditation, knowing the prayers, making appropriate offerings at just the right time. Practice has come to mean surviving each day. Surviving the same way the Tibetan exiles and local Indians do.

My practice is keeping a level head when my western expectations of the way things (cleanliness, service, common courtesies) “should be” are repeatedly let down. My practice is not judging dirty ragged roadside beggars, even giving them a few coins if I have extra. My practice is reminding myself that things are exactly what and how they are, that wishing for them to change only increases my suffering.

Is it a holy place? Hard to say. Powerful energies have been at work on me since my arrival, although not always positive ones. But it is a REAL place, with real lessons, and a real beauty despite (or perhaps because of) all the filth and pain.

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Everyday Exile Project (founded 2010) is a platform which allows Tibetans in exile anywhere in the world to share their personal stories, in words and images, with an online readership with the eventual goal of sharing these stories in print format. In 2009, Tammy came to McleodGanj, India, capital of the Tibetan government in exile and home to HH the 14th Dalai Lama. She became involved in a small non-profit where she volunteered as an English conversation teacher and helped plan events to broaden awareness of the Tibetan situation. While in McleodGanj, Tammy became acquainted with numerous Tibetan exiles, including former political prisoners, monks and nuns. Their personal stories moved her deeply. When she returned to the US and spoke about her experiences, Tammy realized that a surprising number of people have little or no knowledge of the Tibetan situation. She soon began to develop Everyday Exile Project, a way to bring the Tibetan situation to a wider audience. It quickly developed into an on-going internet outlet for Tibetan exile voices.

Visit Everyday Exile on Facebook.

Addicted To Attachment ~ S.A. Barton

Preface:

I am an alcoholic who has recovered from alcoholism in a 12-step program.  As many of you are aware, 12-step recovery involves a spiritual solution, the finding of a higher power.  The spirituality I found was in Taoism, I call my higher power the Tao.  As a Taoist, I feel right at home writing a guest post for a Buddhist blog.  I think most Taoists at the very least think that Buddha was a great guy who was very close to the Tao.  As many of you may know, when Buddhism came to China, one branch of Buddhists intermingled the two strains of thought very strongly: the Ch’an, which is known as Zen Buddhism today.  So whether you think Zen Buddhists are close to the Tao, or Lao Tzu and Chuang Tzu were very close to the Buddha, what’s the difference really?  They’re all close to reality, and that’s a great place to be.  That last statement is a halfway decent lead-in to what I’m writing about here, a concept that is at the root of both Taoist and Buddhist thought, as well as those in recovery: attachment.

–S. A. Barton ~ on twitter as @Tao23 , and I blog at The Tao Of Chaos

Addicted To Attachment:

            Attachment is something that every human being deals with.  We become attached to all sorts of things.  We become attached to material items, to people and our relationships with them, to ideas and habits and… you get the idea.  Attachment is an attempt to root something in an undeveloping state, to prevent change in both ourselves and in the thing we are attached to.  As we all know from our own experience, doing this leads to suffering.  Does this seem awfully basic, not a terribly refined thought?  Good.  One of my weak spots as a pointy-headed intellectual is for baroque flights of complex thinking.  I need to remind myself of basic things often. 

            So, back to suffering.  As someone who has experienced addiction, I think looking at addiction is a great way to look at how attachment works.  Addiction is a deep, raw, powerful form of attachment and suffering.  It is easy to look at someone who has an addiction and say “you’re an alcoholic, you’re attached to alcohol.”  Well, that’s true.  It’s also a superficial observation; it’s looking at the flower and not the fruit, at the leaf and not the root.  I was attached to control, not alcohol.  When I was a child, my family life was chaotic.  I felt adrift, without power, without control.  As I grew up, I flailed around, trying to find something to hold on to, something unchanging which of course did not exist.  I became attached to the idea of controlling my life.  At first, I tried to do so by being exceptional.  But this required me to be the best at whatever I tried.  I quickly discovered that I could not be the best.  As large as this world is, there was always someone who surpassed me.  As varied as the things people can do are, when I surpassed someone, there was some other pursuit in which they surpassed me.  If I couldn’t be the best, what good was it to try, I thought.  I was quickly a disappointed perfectionist; I saw that I could not have control over the results of my own pursuits.  All I could control was the  amount and quality of effort I put in, and that was not enough for me.  But I am stubborn, this realization did not stop me.  Instead, I found another way. 

            I would be a drunk.

            No, I didn’t make a bold decision just like that, saying, “and now, I will be the best alcoholic ever.”  Like many of the decisions we make about our own lives, this one was made as the result of many smaller decisions, and even more, of times when I did not make a decision, but refused and let inertia and whim rule the results.  It is very easy to do that when one lives an unexamined life as I did.  The end result of my decisions and non-decisions and willful refusal to examine my own motives, though, was that I became alcoholic.  Because that’s real control.  Remember, what can be controlled is the effort you put into a thing.  And I could definitely down a bottle of bourbon.  It worked every time.  I opened the bottle, I drank, I found refuge.  Refuge, because what addiction to an intoxicating substance brings is a relinquishing of control.  Control over my own perceptions, my own thoughts, my own fears, my own body, of others’ behavior, of my own life.  Everything goes on autopilot when you drink addictively.  And that’s a huge relief, giving up control.  The only problem is, sooner or later you sober up, and it is very easy to see that when you spend your time being drunk instead of dealing with your own life, autopilot is not a good pilot.  Being drunk is what we in 12-step recovery call “an easier, softer way”.  And it doesn’t work.  It’s like the dark side in the Star Wars mythos.  It looks like it’s working at the moment, but in the long run you find that somehow everything has gone awry.

            Recovery from addiction, on the other hand, is exactly the same thing.  As is living any life mindfully whether you have had the experience of addiction or not.  It is about relinquishing control, giving up perfection, and finding refuge.  When you do these things in a mindful way (and that’s the difference between addiction and spiritual practice), you find the proper use of the will… another phrase from the 12-step playbook.  More importantly, finding those  proper uses, you accept what they are and what they are not.  I cannot control the words of another, but I can control mine.  I cannot control what another person does, but I can choose my own actions.  I cannot take responsibility for what happens in the world, but I can choose what I do about those events.  Letting go is not about drifting, though many people unacquainted with Taoism and Buddhism make the mistake of thinking so.  Sometimes those of us who are make that mistake too.  Relinquishing an attachment is more like a boat drawing up an anchor; it is now free to travel with a destination in mind.  Where does our spiritual practice come into play here?  Extending the metaphor, it is the map, the compass, the knowledge of how to tack into the wind.  Doing those things effectively requires one to see clearly, to understand the behavior of the wind and the sea.  Tao and Zen are all about seeing clearly.  And that brings us right back to basics. If our boat is to carry us to experience and learn about new lands and peoples, we must see and understand the sea and the wind, or the basic foundations of our own lives.  Only by avoiding the illusion of controlling the uncontrollable, by relinquishing that very basic attachment, can we be free of the suffering we bring to ourselves.  With every bit you let go, your vision becomes clearer, and the more you can let go of.

            Living a life as a recovering alcoholic, or just living a life, boil down to the same thing.  They’re both done the same way.  An addiction is just another attachment, and a life touched by addiction is just another life, and living mindfully is just living mindfully, whatever it is that you personally need to be mindful of.  So, no matter who and what you are, ask yourself:  is this attachment I see the flower, the outward seeming?  Or have I truly reached the root?

The Reluctant Buddhist ~ via Peter Clothier

It took me forty years to come to Buddhism, if you count all the time since I first became aware of it as a burgeoning religion in this country.  Had I been less frozen by my crippling intellect, back in the 1960s and 1970s, I might have listened to a different part of me than that which responded with a kind of haughty rejection to what I was hearing about the great wave of Eastern religious practice arriving in the West.  Had I been able to listen to my heart instead of my head, I might have been less dismissive of people like Alan Watts and Ram Dass, whose voices back then were already so strong and clear.  Even the Beatles, for God’s sake!  But no.  I was above all that.  It was a fad, I complacently concluded.  My brilliant mind would not be fooled by such simplicities. 

It would be a while before I came to understand that such strong aversions are always an important clue to precisely what I should be looking at. This was exactly the door I most needed at the time to throw open and walk through; had I done so, I might have learned all those years ago that my heart is a more profound and more reliable guide to life’s mysteries than my head.  But I chose not to.

I was brought up in England in the family of an Anglican priest, in awe of a father who read the gospel from the lectern, preached from the pulpit, enacted the ritual of Holy Communion at the altar.  I was an altar boy, a member of the choir.  I was sent to boarding schools which required attendance at Christian services twice on weekdays, three times on Sunday.   I was confirmed, went to confession to atone abjectly for my eminently excusable juvenile sins.  But there was always some part of me that never believed in any of it; not in the heart, not in the gut.  At the age of eighteen, leaving school and home, I left the church, too, and never returned, except when visiting my parents.  I’m quite sure that my father knew of my rejection of his faith, but we never dared bring the subject up between us.  I simply went to church when I was home, and he went along with the pretence.  It would, perhaps, have been too painful for both of us; and, for him, an open challenge to his own beliefs—about which he himself had sufficient agonizing doubt to keep him busy and, often, sick with physical pain.

So I had my own quarrel with religion.  It was in part, as I’ve suggested, an intellectual quarrel: even as a child, my mind could simply not accept the stories I was told as “truth.”  I could not believe, for example, in the story of the resurrection from the dead, or in the idea of a heaven awaiting us.  Nor, especially, hell.  It was beyond belief to me that a supposedly all-knowing, all-merciful God would punish even sinful people with eternal damnation.  And if he were so powerful, I reasoned, did he create our species simply for his sport, that he allowed us to behave so badly with our mutual cruelty and wars?  These arguments, while admittedly hackneyed when recalled in hindsight, were no less persuasive for that to my growing skepticism. 

But it went deeper than intellect.  That quarrel gripped me at the deepest levels of memory and consciousness.  It took a crisis and an epiphany to begin to turn me around.  The crisis?  A life-threatening illness, back in the early 1990s, that threatened our family’s happiness and security.  The epiphany?  Ironically, it took place in a church.  I was born on the date in the Anglican calendar that is set aside as the Feast of St. Peter’s Chains, and was given my name for that reason; it was a bolt of lightning when I came upon my namesake’s “chains”—remember the Bible story, how Peter was freed from prison by the angel of the Lord?—preserved in a glass reliquary in the Church of San Pietro in Vincoli (St. Peter in Chains) in Rome.  The realization, at that moment of revelation, was that I had too long been constricted by the chains of my own skepticism and pride. 

The search was on.  The search, that is, for freedom.  It started with some badly needed self-examination—a process I had long resisted on the grounds that it was mere self-indulgence.  That self-examination led to the surprising discovery that I had a heart as well as a head!  And to the recognition that, in abandoning religion, I had glossed over the fact that in addition to head and heart there was a dimension to my life best conveyed by the word “spirit.”  It took me a little while, even then, to discover that these qualities all came together in the Buddhist teachings—and that Buddhism required of me not belief, nor blind adherence to faith, but rather a process of questioning and practice.  It required me to continue, precisely, on the path to freedom.

It has been more than fifteen years now since I first sat down, with guidance, to meditate.  It took me another couple of years to arrive at the understanding that it needed to be a daily practice, if I was to keep moving forward toward ever greater freedom.  My blog, “The Buddha Diaries,” became the daily writing practice in which I sought to track the path to which I now found myself committed.  The blog is not, strictly, about Buddhism; it is about the events in my life, what I see and hear and think about, the struggles I go through, the observations and insights I occasionally arrive at as I follow this path.  It is, essentially, who I am.  And even though I started writing “The Buddha Diaries” some years ago now, I continued for a long time to be reticent about acknowledging the religion for my own.  Old fears, old prejudice… Much to unlearn, much more to learn.  So it is only recently that I have been able and willing to respond, when asked if I am a Buddhist: Well, yes, I am.

PETER CLOTHIER is known chiefly as a writer about art and artists, having published for many years in national magazines.  He is the author, most recently, of Persist: In Praise of the Creative Spirit in a World Gone Mad with Commerce (Parami Press, 2010.)  His two blogs, “The Buddha Diaries” and “Persist: The Blog” have an international readership.  Peter also lectures and leads workshops teaching the relevance of meditation practice and persistence to creative people of all kinds.

A Clear and Present Danger to a Buddhist Free Press ~ Bill Schwartz

Thanks to Bill Schwartz for his guest post.  For my commentary on this controversial topic check SLAPP threats to Buddhist Bloggers.

Three months ago I decided I wanted to write a blog for my publisher, Elephant Journal, on the subject of Kunzang Palyul Choling, a Tibetan Buddhist franchise founded by a controversial Palyul lineage tulku.  I’m a 2010 Blogisattva Honorable Mention for Political and Opinion blogging by a Buddhist. As a journalist I thought it would make it an interesting column.

Unfortunately, before I was able to even finish my blog I was notified by Waylon Lewis, publisher of Elephant Journal, that he had received threatening phone calls from Kunzang Palyul Choling. Even a law suit without merit could put his magazine out of business. This was no idle threat. So advised, I was in the process of finishing my blog when Waylon notified me that he had received a cease and desist letter from KPC’s lawyer.

This is not a squabble between Buddhists. It is a threat against our fundamental right to a free press. Fortunately for Kunzang Palyul Choling, Buddhists don’t care about free speech. KPC can threaten to put a publisher out of business to block the publication of a blog about them with impunity. I wouldn’t have believed this to be so, but this has been the response from Buddhists to date.

The Palyul lineage (of which KPC is a nominal affiliate because its founder was recognized by His Holiness Penor Rinpoche as a tulku and enthroned as such) can do nothing even if it were so inclined. As a Buddhist franchise, KPC does not accept the authority of the present head of the Palyul lineage, His Holiness Karma Kuchen. The founder of KPC does not answer to HHKK.

When Travis May published a blog on Buddhadharma about the KPC SLAPP Scandal the editor removed it. Was KPC threatened? No, it wasn’t threatened. Worse, it simply doesn’t care. Why? It doesn’t care because Buddhists don’t care. None of the glossy Buddhist magazines is willing to cover this story. Buddhists don’t believe in a free press.

But surely Buddhist bloggers care? Nope. One Buddhist blogger informed me he wasn’t interested. It would be too much work. It’s much easier to write about wisdom and compassion instead. His audience will just eat that up and ask for more. There is no upside to a Buddhist blogger in harshing the mellow of his audience over something of such little or no interest to Buddhists as a free press seems to be.

The response of individual Buddhists has been even worse—unsolicited dharma advice on Tonglen, sending and receiving. We are to exchange our attachment to our right to free speech for the peace of mind that comes with caring only about ourselves. I kid you not. That’s what Shantideva taught. This is the path of the bodhisattva. The Buddhist response has been that it’s perfectly acceptable what KPC has done.

We are two weeks into this scandal. I thank John Pappas for providing me the opportunity to share with you this breaking story. This is but the beginning. Until the Palyul lineage issues a public statement in support of press freedom, until Buddhist bloggers step up and make their voices heard on this subject, and until Buddhists consider the slippery moral slope we now find ourselves upon, I have only yet begun to fight.

Unbelieving the Buddha ~ A Guest post by Robert McClure

Photo taken by Hirekatsu

Bouncing down the rutted dirt road heading towards Bodhgaya, we are a traveling Sangha thrown together in a bus by  pilgrimage and the desire for adventure. This journey in Bihar state, the poorest, most politicized Indian state and home to the Dalits, is a Buddah Path tour with teachers Shantum Seth, Stephen Batchelor, and Martine  Batchelor. We, a mixture of Westerners, are there to see the sites of the Buddha’s life and learn about the history of the places associated with the life of Gautama Buddha. We may have been seeking devotion and history, but Stephen Batchelor was there to understand the connection of the Buddha to our times.

Stephen is a controversial author and teacher, who has espoused “agnostic Buddhism”, but who now proclaims Confessions of a Buddhist Atheist, the title of his latest book. He describes the spirit in which he tries to understand the Buddha in a quote by theologian Don Cupitt, “Religion today has to become beliefless. There is nothing out there to believe in or hope for. Religion, therefore,  has to become a deeply felt way of relating yourself to life in general and your own life in particular.”

Taking science and secularism as the value culture of the 21st Century, Batchelor questions traditional Buddhism. Challenging the truth and the relevance of doctrines of reincarnation and karma, he seeks a dharmic expression free of Indian cosmology and metaphysics. But he also asserts that to reject organized religion in favor of an eclectic spirituality is not a satisfactory solution. Doubt, therefore, and the spirit of inquiry become essential tools for finding the meaning of the Buddha’s teachings for our secular times. Batchelor states the challenge,  “The point is to not abandon all institutions and dogmas but to find a way to live with them more ironically, to appreciate them for what they are- the play of the human mind in its endless quest for connection and meaning- rather than timeless entities that have to be ruthlessly defended or forcibly imposed.”

In that spirit in 2005,  our band of pilgrims followed the Buddha path, visiting the worn stupas and dusty mounds of dirt considered sacred places by millions for two thousand years. With the lense of modern science and anthropology, Batchelor suggested that much of what is presented as Buddhism today are doctrines and practices that evolved long after the Buddha ‘s death. His conclusion was that no single form of Asian Buddhism is  “likely to be effective as a treatment for the particular maladies of a late-twentieth-century-post Christian secular existentialist” like himself.  Nor will it ultimately resonate with a secular society whose paradigm is science.

What spoke to him most directly in the Buddha’s teaching were not those ideas derived from classical Indian thought, but four core elements of the Dhamma that cannot be derived from the Indian culture of his time: the principle of conditioned arising, the process of the Four Noble Truths, the practice of mindful awareness, and the power of self- reliance. Batchelor says, “These four axioms provide sufficient ground for the kind of ethically committed, practically realized, and intellectually coherent way of life Gotama anticipated.”

For me this pilgrimage in 2005 began as an exploration of history and a search for devotion and ended as a lasting journey inward. Batchelor’s spirit of inquiry and doubt, and his challenge to contemporary orthodox Buddhist religion continues to infuse my practice and life as a Buddhist. Renouncing consolation by giving up the hope of belief allows me to continue to walk with the Buddha.

Connect with @RobMac_ on Twitter by clicking on image

The Practice of Attachment ~ A Guest Post by Rev. Ishu Windwalker

Rev. Talon Ishu Windwalker, NHD, is an engaged, eclectic, Zen minister of the Order of the Boundless Way.  He serves as a hospice chaplain, bioethicist, and cultural consultant in Colorado where he is also an avid ultramarathoner, endurance cyclist, duathlete, snowshoer, and single dad of two boys.  He is currently organizing the Blue Lotus Sangha in the metro Denver area for those wanting to practice in a less rigid environment.  He may be contacted at bluelotuszen@gmail.com.

My spiritual journey has been a very diverse endeavor.  I remember when I decided to return to practicing Zen beyond just zazen, I searched for a sangha in my local community and found a Zen center.  I was thrilled and contacted them right away.  I was informed I would need to attend a mandatory class before I would be able to attend and sit with the group.  Thinking that was for people unfamiliar with zazen, I let them know I had been practicing meditation for a minimum of 20 years.  “It doesn’t matter.  You have to come to the class, and we aren’t doing another class for a couple of months.”  I wondered what could be so incredibly critical about sitting as to require such deep instruction.  Had I crossed into the Twilight Zone of Buddhism? I wondered.   Through the years I have heard similar stories from many frustrated zenners.  “I was so panicked about making sure I was doing everything just right that I couldn’t meditate!” 

I also remember the time when I was doing my chaplain training in a hospital in central Texas and was called for a “Buddhist consult.”  It turned out to be a pregnant woman who was about to have a C-section.  She was concerned because of the precept that “forbids clouding one’s mind,” and she was concerned that she would be “violating the precept” if she allowed herself to receive spinal anesthesia.

An attachment is more than an addiction, more than an unhealthy connection.  It is anything that inhibits our growth and progression.  When one is more concerned about bowing correctly, if they’ve faced the correct direction, if they’re in the correct order of entry than they are about being fully immersed in the moment, in zazen or kinhin, than I would call that an attachment.  Something the Bible summed up nicely as choking on gnats.

There can be too much of an attachment to the cultural trappings of the practice of Buddhism.  The Buddha, before his enlightenment, shaved his head as a symbol of releasing himself from worldliness and attachments.  Today some question why a monk doesn’t shave their head.  Some quibble that we are “watering Zen down” when someone dares wear a robe of a color other than black.  Others are so firmly attached to the concepts of lineage and dharma heirdom that they lose sight of the key components of Buddhist practice:  Compassion and wisdom. 

When Siddhartha Gautama sat beneath the bodhi tree, I highly doubt he worried about if he bowed to the earth appropriately.  He extricated himself from all that he possibly could and opened himself to this breath, this second, until he discovered how to unshackle all sentient beings from suffering.  If we look at the Eightfold Noble Path, we do not find instructions on the incense ceremony, on prostrations, on the correct pattern for walking into the dojo.  Practices, ceremonies, etc., are tools.  They can help us focus, help us settle into a special space, but when we place them above or equal to all other things, we tighten that which binds us to samsara.  This moment, this breath.  This is truly all that matters.

Why don’t I see ya’ll doing nothin? ~ A Guest Post by Andrea

[Andrea is a Vegetarian Buddhist, who has made a mess of her life and is slowly picking up the pieces.  She thinks it sucks that she is responsible for her own happiness.  She loves yoga, running (turtle speed), writing, cursing and crochet. She lives in Central Florida with her 5 crazy dogs.   Because she is not nearly as interesting in person, you can find her on twitter @grumpyzen. ]

I would be the first person to tell you that if you want to read  an article about the  benefits of Zen for the Black community, you should read “Being Black” by  @changeangel aka Angel Kyodo Williams.  It’s an amazing book that is well worth the read.

I see no point in trying to re-invent the wheel.  Rather I offer a what could easily be classified as a criticism.  And maybe even some whiny finger-pointing.  I am also going to take my personal observations and experiences, and apply them to Black people in general.  Yeah I know.  Just take what is useful and leave the rest. 

I lived most of my life in misery and fear.  All the people I knew were barely scrapping by.  Constantly on the brink of losing everything.  There was never a question of if something bad would happen, it was only a question of when.  I honestly believed that my problems only plagued me and people who looked like me.  No one else could ever understand.  As I continued to gain more education, I was surrounded by people who didn’t look like me and could never understand my pain.  I was numb and depressed.  I didn’t know it.  There was no talking about my pain.  I swallowed it and kept pressing forward.  My depression was masked as anger and a bad attitude. 

I didn’t realize I was stumbling around in a small dark room until someone turned the light on.  And for me that light was Zen.  I realized people are more alike then we are different.  Most people live lives of quiet desperation.  Fear, anger, betrayal, inadequacy, failure, depression, loneliness, longing, and suffering are part of the human condition.  I learned a simple truth that made life very complicated.  It was the worst and the best thing that ever happened to me.  Ready?  Here it is: I and I alone was responsible for my happiness and my suffering. Not my circumstances, not the stuff I have or don’t have.  Not the people in my life or out of it.  Not my God or lack thereof.   I save myself.  I have the answers to all my questions, the solutions to all my problems.   Happiness and suffering don’t just happen to me, I choose them.  That was some transformative shit.  That simple, yet complicated truth saved my life.  Literally.

People who live desperate lives, can’t conceive of such a thing.  At least, I couldn’t.  What good is all that meditation stuff when you are constantly on the verge of catastrophe? Or when you have lost everything and you and your family of five must move into one room in your grandmother’s already crowded apartment?  The answer is that suffering is the mother of Buddhism.  Ending suffering is why that skinny dude went and sat under that tree in the first place.  Yet sitting is contrary to everything Black folks know and believe.  When the going gets tough, the tough get going.  You dig in and press on.  Carrying all your baggage with you.   

Typically, when  Black folks have problems, we don’t sit and we don’t go to therapy.   Some drink, some use drugs, some sit around hating the world.  But we almost always end up in church.  We’ve learned generation after generation to look up, not in. The church is like going home after a long vacation.  My momma, her mamma, their grand mamma and all them, go to church.  Everybody knows and it doesn’t have to be explained.  And if your next question is ‘knows what?”, that is exactly my point.  People who look like you, care about you, and sometimes gossip about you,  welcome you with open arms.  This home away from home is usually in the middle of  a neighborhood that people move out of as soon as they can.  They are not just in the neighborhood, they are a part of it.  From feeding the hungry to neighborhood legal clinics. 

I’ve yet to come across a “help the local community,”  “grassroots” type of activity organized by Buddhist.   I am unaware of any Zen centers in a neighborhood where I can guarantee there is a church. So how exactly are my fellow sufferers with no money, nothing but problems and no inkling  of the world outside of their own neighborhood going to discover this trans formative shit called Zen?

Honestly, I don’t know.  I’m about as good of a Buddhist as I was a Christian.   But I think the answer lies somewhere in where we sit.

Buddhist temples are not very inviting.  And they are certainly not filled with folks that look like me.   Often they are set far off.  You don’t just ride past or walk to them.  And, granted I have never been in one, like I said – not too inviting.  But I’m willing to bet there’s a lot more involved than just walking in and sitting.  My perception may be wrong, but it is not unwarranted. 

What I love about Zen is there is no special equipment needed.  Zafus can be expensive on a tight budget.  But you can use a towel or couch pillow or even a chair.   Just sit, count your breathes.  When you stop trying to figure it out, you’ll figure it out. (<——– I love when we talk like that).  We can and do practice anywhere.  We don’t have to restrict ourselves to far off temples.  But because of this we can easily practice in isolation (<— guilty)  or restrict ourselves to more affluent places. 

We can cultivate compassion on a cushion, but we need to go further.  I think if Buddhism was all about sitting in caves and keeping your own counsel, then there would be no Buddhist.  Siddhartha  would have just been some half-dressed weirdo  who abandoned his family and sat under a tree.  Stop being selfish with your Dharma.