I'm reading my final Bill Porter (Red Pine) travel book: South of the Yangtze.
Bill Porter has 6 amazing travel books in China, from when he traveled there in the 1989 to 2006:
Road to Heaven: Encounters with Chinese Hermits 1993
Zen Baggage: A Pilgrimage to China 2008
Yellow River Odyssey 2014
South of the Clouds: Travels in Southwest China 2015
South of the Yangtze: Travels Through the Heart of China 2016
The Silk Road 2016
There's one book called Finding Them Gone (2015), where he goes to poets gravesites, and it's so disappointing to go visit famous poet graves, and nobody knows who they were. I'm not sure if I'm going to read that one, but it's a 7th book. I realize I've miscounted. There's potentially one more to read. That happens a number of times in the 6 books I've read. He talks about going back to places he's already been before, and he's quite a traveler in China, retracing his steps at times.
I've loved his poetry translations of Stonehouse, Cold Mountain and others. Thought I would link my past blogs on Bill Porter:
Discussing Zen Baggage: That blog post had a lot of Porter links:
“For many decades, I’ve felt that it was my responsibility, together with my hundreds and thousands of colleagues, to address and change the trajectory of climate and biodiversity in order to bequeath a much safer planet to future generations,” she said. “When you have that self-imposed responsibility on your shoulders, it makes the work very, very hard because there are so many things we don’t control.”
From: "What Christiana Figueres thinks the climate movement can learn from Buddhism: Figueres, the architect of the 2015 Paris climate agreement, has been helping people around the world understand the teachings of Buddhist monk and peace activist Thích Nhất Hạnh." at Yale Climate Connections
"Thích Nhất Hạnh often used composting as a metaphor for transformation. He summarized the idea with a pithy aphorism: “No mud, no lotus,” referring to the idea that the lotus flower only roots and blooms in the mud. He taught that people spend much of their time in the mud, wading through complex, inescapable, emotional experiences." (op cit)
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I'm sunsetting this blog, going for refuge. Follow me at Friendship with Shams, my new Buddhist blog.
The Chengling Stupa, also known as "Green Stupa", was built in 867 and has been rebuilt numerous times since then. the stupa is multi-eaves style brick stupa with 9 stories. It has an octahedral shaped hollow tiers and is 30.47-metre (100.0 ft) high. It is composed of a stupa base, a sumeru throne and a dense-eave body. The sumeru throne and banisters were engraved patterns of various flowers and birds.
Linji was an iconoclastic teacher who used shocking language in vernacular Chinese to disrupt the tendency of his listeners to grasp at concepts such as buddhas, patriarchs, bodhisattvas, stages of practice and levels of attainment. He famously said, "If you meet a buddha, kill the buddha."
Linji traveled to Jiangnan where he met Chán master Huángbò Xīyùn, at some point between 836 and 841. He likely stayed with Huangbo at Mount Huangbo for about three years until he had a great enlightenment. Linji questioned Huangbo three times about the central meaning of Buddhism and Huangbo struck him three times. Then Huangbo sent Linji to meet the reclusive monk Dàyú. After exchanging some words with this monk, Linji attained an awakening. He then returned to Huangbo and told him what had occurred. Huangbo slapped Linji, saying “You lunatic, coming back here and pulling the tiger’s whiskers!” Then Linji responded with a loud shout.
Slowly studying the Mūlamadhyamakakārikā of Nagarjuna. Reading very slowly. Watching a bunch of videos around him in the hopes it provides more of a bed to place my understandings.
Some scholar names: Jay L. Garfield, David Kalupahana, and Geshe Ngawang Samten, Joseph Walser, McClintock, and Dunne.
I'm listening to Dr. Jan Westerhoff on YouTube today.
Fascinating talk about rebirth. The argument for rebirth is this. When you start a fire, and then fire burns down the neighbors field, you don't say, that wasn't my fire, my fire was over here. Another example is if I say jalapeno pepper, my mouth just waters. There was no physical cause except the physical cause of thinking of jalapeno, so it's considered that rebirth is similar to that (from Richard Hayes).
The conceptual problem of not having rebirth is that then when we all die, everyone goes to nirvana.
He goes in Nelson Goodman's constructivism. I read his Ways of Worldmaking (1978). Causality is complicated.
One person writes in the comments: "The problem is these arguments for rebirth are so complicated and speculative. Why not just accept rebirth teachings as skillful means and be done with it?"
My response is, why even comment? Why not walk away with your blissfully uncomplicated life? Would you like more people like you? Would you like to be seen as witty and wise without really putting in any work, just declining to see complications?
Westerhoff has studied philosophy in general, not just Buddhist philosophy and he brings in modern developments into the understanding of karma.
Prof. Asanga Tilakaratne on YouTube. Sound quality gets bad at 21, sorry, couldn't listen any more.
Thupten Jinpa's introduction on YouTube in a short 7 minute video.
"You must also “guard the doors of the sense faculties” lest “evil unwholesome states assail” you. This does not mean you don’t look, you don’t hear, and so forth; it means you do not get carried away by what you see, hear, sense, and cognize. Can you walk past a bakery, with its door open (of course), smell the wonderful aroma of the goods on offer, enjoy that smell, and yet not be tempted into entering and buying something? That’s guarding the door of the nose faculty. The senses are totally necessary for navigating our environment—but they are not an amusement park, at least not if you are intent on developing the higher mind needed for liberation. It’s perfectly OK to enjoy the pleasures that come via the senses—but don’t let your enjoyment of them lead you to becoming even more entangled in the world of delusion. It’s perfectly OK to respond to unpleasant sense contacts by dealing appropriately with the situation. But in neither case should the sense contacts lead to craving and clinging; if they do, then the sense doors are unguarded, and progress on the spiritual path is hindered."
Right Concentration (2015) by Leigh Brasington
Statues of Mahasthamaprapta and Avalokitesvara on lotus pedestals. China, Northern Qi dynasty, 6th century AD
Not published in 2024, because I didn't get to any of those. Closest I got was 2015, I started trying to read Right Concentration by Leigh Brasington recently. Can't say if it's good or bad yet, still grinding.
Four books were free:
Empty Cloud by Xu yun. This is an amazing biography set in China.
Mindfulness with breathing by Buddhadasa. This is a guide to anapanasati by a Theravada monk who doesn't believe in reincarnation. Had to really delve into anapanasati to appreciate this book. No two teachers teach it the same, but it's fascinating to read all the different versions.
Venerable Ācariya Mun Bhūridatta Thera: A Spiritual Biography by Ajahn Maha Bua. This is an amazing biography of a man who maybe gained enlightenment while on a train. I turn this book on when I can't fall asleep sometimes. You can listen to this one and the next one here.
Mae Chee Kaew was a Thai woman who finally was released from marriage by her husband and could go to a monastery.
I really like the travel books of Bill Porter, but I think these two stand out for people interested in Buddhism in China:
The Silk Road by Bill Porter
Zen Baggage by Bill Porter
I found his books so fun to read, and to research some of the place he went. He's got a lot of other travel books, about south China, and other places, and I'm reading his one along the Yangtze river at the moment.
Dale DeBakcsy has an article entitled "The dark side of Buddhism" in The New Humanist from 2013.
Karma "gets insidious is in the pall that it casts over our failures in this life. I remember one student who was having problems memorising material for tests. Distraught, she went to the monks who explained to her that she was having such trouble now because, in a past life, she was a murderous dictator who burned books, and so now, in this life, she is doomed to forever be learning challenged."
I don't disagree, that is pretty wack. Not every Buddhist believes in that kind of stuff.
Consider a false idea of karma I didn't believe destroyed. You can find all sorts of strange ideas in people. Buddhists aren't exempt.
1. Found this talk on Dhamma Talks at Dhammagiri, and thought to create a post where I collect them.
This one is based off Mahanama Sutta SN 11.12
He refers to a previous talk about the Buddha. The name of the monk isn't given in the video text.
This is from Goenka's outfit in India.
He talks about the 6 recollections, the 3 jewels, your generosity, your virtue and the devas.
I have a progression where I do the Brahma Viharas, anapanasati for 4 days, one day of 6 element, and then I do Buddhanasati. I do just sitting for my second meditation, and sometimes I throw in a contemplation of the 10 precepts, and sometimes I throw in a contemplation of the 12 nidanas meditation. I'm looking to keep my practice as vibrant and dynamic as possible. I sort of see others priming it, but I don't really like led meditations. Listening to things and I incorporate them when I'm no my own when appropriate.
2. My standby was by Kamalashila. I've always visualized walking up to the Buddha and joining him, but K asks permission to join the path and is given it. I like that.
“This Dhamma that I have attained is deep, hard to see, hard to realize, peaceful, refined, beyond the scope of conjecture, subtle, to-be-experienced by the wise. But this generation delights in attachment, is excited by attachment, enjoys attachment. For a generation delighting in attachment, excited by attachment, enjoying attachment, this/that conditionality and dependent co-arising are hard to see. This state, too, is hard to see: the pacification of all fabrications, the relinquishment of all acquisitions, the ending of craving; dispassion; cessation; unbinding. And if I were to teach the Dhamma and if others would not understand me, that would be tiresome for me, troublesome for me.”
Muqi is a 13th century Chinese monk who was also an artist. Pronounced /moo CHI/ by Professor James Cahill. Also spelled Muxi.
I thought of 6 Persimmons, when my cousin was feeding one to his son. (Tricycle on Archive). Here's a lecture by Professor James Cahill on YouTube.
I like this one:
There's a plastic tarp caught in a tree. Some painters were loading up their truck and it flew away and they were not able to retrieve it. It's kind of ugly, and I like watch what my mind does when I see it past my Manjushri statue, that is also imperfect because it was blown down and broke.
I think about impermanence in the 13th stage of anapanasati, and I saw today that the tarp broke, it's now in 3 sections, more likely to fall off the tree. The leaves have fallen off in winter time in North America. I miss the green leaves, but the colorful goodbye was spectacular. Days are shorter, it gets dark early.
I was listening for rapture, makes me slightly manic, hypomanic, and I saw the broken tarp and I laughed and cried. Things are a little intense before they consolidate into happiness, or sukha. It's that vital transition that makes up Buddhism, makes it different than a Dionysian cult. Cult can have a positive connotation where it whips up devotion and energy for the spiritual practice. The joy of a goal, my children hugging me, sex, drugs and rock and roll. The poets might see it as drunk on spiritual rapture.
Impermanence might be obvious, but I contemplate it, and I've worked on calming the selfing done in the skandhas, the 5 heaps in stage 8, and I contemplate what happiness really is in stage 10, but I look at how I'm still subtly clinging to samsara too, in stage 13. I imagine I would feel better if that tarp wasn't in the tree.
There's a guy who used to have a long grabby things in Brooklyn for taking the plastic bags that get caught in the trees, he just fixes the reality instead of coping with the mental situation, and that's a valid approach. They made bags need to be bought in grocery stores, so now there are fewer bags flying around in New York City, but I still get the bags for takeout, and use them for small garbage cans.
I've started a blog about my personal experiences in a dharma friendship, this blog was more objective experience and reports of culture. I feel like this blog may have run its course, we'll see what I do with it.
"I here find myself compelled to dissent from a typical response I often encounter among Western Buddhists. This is the response which says that, in any conflictual situation, we must adopt a stance of detached neutrality, that we shouldn’t take sides but should try to see the good and bad hidden in both sides. That’s a style of Buddhist rhetoric I don’t want to accept. I also don’t want to accept the familiar line, “Everything is impermanent, so don’t worry.” It’s true that everything is impermanent, but by the time this regime ends, millions of lives may be lost and damaged and the entire ecosystem of the earth disrupted beyond repair."
From "It's No Time To Be Neutral" 11/8/24
Yesterday was Dia de los Muertos is a remembrance of ancestors, a holiday from our Mexican brothers and sisters.
Yesterday was Halloween is a day when you can dress up in an alternate persona, or hero, and beg for candy. I never really got into it, though of course I did it as a kid for the candy haul. I went around with my daughter who was dressed up like a bat. She says next year she wants to dress like a witch with her mother. I sometimes think about getting a Cat in the Hat hat. Lots of amazing costumes on social media, some people are the opposite of me, and make it really happen.
Today is Diwali is the triumph of light over darkness. My friend voted yesterday to get that out of the way, hopefully light triumphs over darkness politically. I've been reading about Zoroastrianism, because I'm studying Iran, and they have a specific take in the fight of light over dark. Jainism and Hinduism also celebrate Diwali. My Buddhist friend is part of a leading team for a Diwali retreat.
My favorite holiday is Thanksgiving. A feast and a positive attitude.
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