Mary in the new world

We went to the New Mexico History Museum to see paintings of the divine. They have a book: Painting the Divine: Images of Mary in the New World. I wondered if you could consider Mary a Kuan Yin, but then I decided we did not need to reduce one tradition to another. You could says the archetypal giving female divinity, the divine mother, but they are rather distinct traditions with different stories.

The imagines that got Ananadi crying were at the Verve Gallery, where pictures of oil spills and the consequences of our fossil fuel hunger are evident.

Views and clouds are fun to see:

The mountains that end her are called the Sangre De Cristo.

I'm reading a book about the Pueblo Revolt in 1680, and lasted for 12 years: The Pueblo Revolt: The Secret Rebellion That Drove the Spaniards Out of the Southwest  

Coronado Historical Site

The Coronado Historical Site is a multicultural settlement, that has round Kivas and a square kiva. You can go into the kiva with a ranger. The ranger Ethan was very knowledgable and communicated very well. The little bit sticking out of the square is the air shaft, and faces east, where the sun rises. We need a spirituality that reveres nature, does not see it as something to exploit and master.

You can't take pictures inside because they are sacred. I compared the Tibetans, who when they were driven out of their country by anti-religious Chinese, began to spread their wisdom because they were dispossessed, and like the Jews, became nomads, people without a country.

The ranger said the natives were originally open and shared their spirituality and it was used against them. Reminds me of work a little. I remember once I asked a woman what she was renouncing during lent, and she said that was private. I respect that. So I think thinking about that today I felt more respect for the desire for privacy in spirituality.

Inside the square kiva there's a hole, and I can't help but think that there are spiritual rebirth ceremonies, among other things. It's a sacred space. They did all this complicated taking of the wall stuff, and peeling off the layers. There was a book that was printed in 1963 that has photos of all the murals: Sun Father's Way. The Kiva Murals of Kuaua. Beautiful amazing stuff.

My boys put on some conquistador armor. There was a beautiful barrel cactus in bloom.

You could see the Sandia mountains that are next to Albuquerque:

And the Rio Grande.

climate justice

There's a really good section in Mind in Harmony about hatred, and how it's a confusion. Seems to hit it right on the head. This book is amazing to me, I savor it, I can't just plow through it.

I'm also enjoying Time to Stand Up: An Engaged Buddhist Manifesto for Our Earth -- The Buddha's Life and Message through Feminine Eyes (Sacred Activism). She talks about her experiences of trying to blaze a trail into the Dharma, in a tradition that does not have female teachers.

I was reading Tricycle. There's a fascinating interview of Naomi Klein. Her suggestion is that since narrow viewpoints have not stopped the climate crisis, we need a larger view, one that eliminates systems of exploitation. We have to care about everyone to address the climate crisis. We won't solve the climate crisis if it's OK for some people to suffer, and others not to suffer. Climate Justice is the concept she puts forth.

Santa Fe

Off to visit my parents (half of them) in Santa Fe. There are three books I have read that give me a feel for Santa Fe:

Banana Rose: A Novel is by Natalie Goldberg is perhaps the most famous novel set there in recent times.

Savage Pilgrims: On the Road to Santa Fe is a quirky memoir by a guy who really like D.H. Lawrence.

The crown jewel of book, perhaps not about Santa Fe, but by an author who spends some of her time in Santa Fe is The Fruitful Darkness: A Journey Through Buddhist Practice and Tribal Wisdom. This is basically a modern Buddhist sutra that cannot be missed. I love this book.

And if you'd like a historical potboiler, I've enjoyed Santa Fe Passage.

Please add some books in the comments, I need books to read about Santa Fe.

Silence by Shusaku Endo

"It's easy enough to die for the good and the beautiful; the hard thing is to die for the miserable and corrupt" p.38 Silence.

I picked up this book by the Japanese Graham Green because Stephen Batchelor recommended it on his Facebook page. It's about missionaries in Japan in the 17th century when Christianity was forbidden.

Shusaku Endo died in 1996.  Reading in the age of the internet is fun, I've looked up a lot of things to learn more about Japanese culture. I did not know about the twenty six martyrs of Japan, for instance. I've got a hard copy, which I enjoy the feel of, but I am coming to appreciate the ability to look something on my reader without having to switch devises. Is that lazy or what?

My mother was born in Japan during the occupation, and there were always Japanese prints in my grandparent's homes. I have read quite a bit about Japan, and have always been fascinated by other countries outside of the USA. The USA seems so provincial sometimes, it's a huge country and many people don't even bother to get passports. I love living in NYC where the world comes to live.

I have not detected any traces of how Buddhism effected the efforts to spread Christianity in the east yet in the novel, but that's why I'm reading it. I'm struck at how sexy it is to smuggle something in, and how suffering for your religion has it's appeal. It kind of informs my buddhist practice in a Christian country. NYC is more than Christian, there's a holy war with Islam and Judaism, hedonism and materialism as well. It's easy to make fun of the spirit of multiculturalism and tolerance, but that is what I love about NYC. Unfortunately multiculturalism is often boiled down to food, and my favorite Sushi place is Kyoto in Kew Garden Hills. I haven't been to the new Sushi Yasu since it moved to Austin Street, but I bet it's the same.

looking into the sun

It's not easy to see yourself clearly. There's a kind of confidence one needs in oneself to connect with the Sangha, to go for enlightenment. Pureland Buddhism feels foreign, feels like you're relying too much on other power, hoping to reborn in a pureland just because of your devotion to a mantra. I believe more and more in mappo more and more as I go along. It's hard to read Pureland texts. There's one free on Amazon that I downloaded: Wisdom of the East Buddhist Psalms translated from the Japanese of Shinran Shonin. There is so much free Dharma it's hard to feel like paying for a book. Reading this book I have tried to go past my knee jerk reactions to Pureland. This is a major tradition in Buddhism and I'm curious about it. I'm still not super connecting with it. I've been exploring the idea of faith in Buddhism after reading about it in the lovely book of Subhuti's: Mind in Harmony. I can't gobble it down, I need to savor it and chase all the trails of thought as I read though it. And one of those detours was into Shinran. I prostrate to Shinran when I do the refuge tree prostration practice, which is an maximalist practice that is about faith in the tradition. I need to learn more about the TBC refuge tree. You can read more about the practice in Teachers of Enlightenment: The Refuge Tree of the Western Buddhist Order.

Simplicity

I'm at once impressed and feel like I could never do what the Amish do in rejecting technology.

Lancaster County is a center in Pennsylvania of Amish. The Amish are similar but different then the Mennonites. These Pennsylvania Dutch speak a Swiss-German, and aren't Dutch but are German or Swiss in origin. They probably don't have more than a quarter of a million people in the USA. Their rules for order is the called the Ordnung. Their relationship to technology is supposed to be following the will of god. Anyway, in our modern world it's a curiosity that such a community can exist. You can see the simplicity of their lives in the signs they have. A wonderful book to see that is Signs of Lancaster County: A Photographic Tour of Amish Country.

Security

Watching that documentary on Chogyam Trungpa, I thought it was silly that he created a kind of military unit, for a Buddhist community. But I know someone who is involved in the famous church in Brooklyn and he's part of the security team there. He talked to me about the bible study group in South Carolina, where a guy sat for an hour with people studying the bible and then shot everyone but a witness that he spared out of a sadistic desire for someone to tell the story of everyone being shot. This is the world we live in here in the USA. Where you need security at your place of worship.

In the show The League, one of the wacky characters Taco, thinks Security is a football team. He says he's a fan and chants "go security" when ever a security guard goes by. But he doesn't help out a woman when she is being robbed even though he's wearing a security jacket. I love absurdist humor because I feel the world can be so absurd. That a beloved community needs security breaks my heart.

Quote

"Without taking the humble journey of inclusiveness, our spirituality will tend to be idealized, disembodied projections and immature escapism." p. 19 Time to Stand Up by Thanissara. 

Quote

"We need to see how easy it is for us to be manipulated by the media toward prejudice against others whom we designate as nonhuman with no right at all, or less than human and unequal. We need to understand how when we objectify and denigrate those "outside" ourselves we find an easy receptacle for our unacknowledged fears, aggression, and pain; how in that process we miss so many opportunities for more consious solutions to conflict." p.19 Time to Stand Up: An Engaged Buddhist Manifesto for Our Earth -- The Buddha's Life and Message through Feminine Eyes (Sacred Activism)  

ordinary

Reading The Making of Buddhist Modernism, there was lot of talk about enchanting and re-enchanting, losing meaning and valorization of the ordinary.

Then I started watching Daredevil on Netflix. The ordinary is something that the hero sees past, deeply into even though he's blind. His super power is his hearing and focus. He can sense so much that he's unstoppable. It's just the ordinary that he senses more deeply. The fight for justice is portrayed in comic book simplicity, and then with moral ambiguity and confusion. There is an interplay between enchantment and disenchantment, ordinary and extreme.

Sherlock Holmes sees past the ordinary and collects information to create penetrating insight (into a crime).

James Joyce has a layer of the ordinary and the mythic in Ulysses. The interplay between sacred and profane is a very modern dance.

I can choose to be bored by my commute home, or find all the mystical opportunities.

You don't hear people use the word profane that much, as an opposite of sacred. "I had a profane day." I'm trying to dip into The Sacred and The Profane: The Nature of Religion, but I haven't gotten that far. 

Engaged Buddhism

Reading Time to Stand Up: An Engaged Buddhist Manifesto for Our Earth -- The Buddha's Life and Message through Feminine Eyes (Sacred Activism) feels somehow important. Thanissara is articulating an engaged Buddhism that makes sense to me. I need things articulated, it's hard to articulate everything for yourself, we really stand up on our civilization that supports us.

She presents an alternate imagining of the Buddha's life to The Buddha's Wife: The Path of Awakening Together, where the Buddha consults with his wife before he goes off. She imagines that to be more compassionate, they were partners.

She focuses on how there is a strand of Buddhism with leads to quietism and withdrawal from the world, and that that might have worked in the past, but today our world is in danger. Samsara is burning. Why get involved in the illusionary world? But Nirvana is the same world. We are living in climate change, and we can see a kind of momentum that is suicidal. We need to consciously change that momentum together.

Is it inevitable that I drive to work, instead of take mass transit or walk or bike? I suddenly thought about the carbon imprint of my next vacation. My partner has been into the local food movement, locavore for quite a while, but we still shop in our plush supermarkets where everything is always in season.

I like the way Thanissara connects colonialism, slavery, and all the various forms of exploitation are part of the equation as we scramble at the crumbs of our dying earth. The book I'm dying to read after reading interesting reviews is Between the World and Me. There is such a dismissal of race in this society by the dominant culture, that is utterly startling.

I think of Danny Fisher, who blogs and writes and tweets about various global issues, I'm sure there are other blogsattvas, but he's one I've read a fair amount of.

Joanne Macy's Mutual Causality in Buddhism and General Systems Theory: The Dharma of Natural Systems (Suny Series, Buddhist Studies) was an empowering revelation. I might feel puny in this world, but I'm also not without ability to impact others.

I grew up with a connection to the natural world. I was on my bike and in trees from an early age. I live in NYC, and feel a bit alienated from nature, but at least I'm not like some of my relatives building a house where there was none, further decreasing unsettled land. I think one of the most environmentally friendly things you can do is move to the city, use mass transit, don't have a single family dwelling. And yet paradoxically that causes my children not to be as connected to nature as I was. There is hope for them yet, hopefully the hikes and camping and explorations of the world give them a sense of the world and it's complex and interlocking systems that are currently in great peril. They seem so smart and capable, full of potential.

Watching Jupiter Ascending, there are aliens that harvest earth's energy, because life is about consumption. There are larger universe problems than earthlings exploiting the earth. It's hubris to think we're alone in the universe.

Anyway, I read a lot of books at once, and I've just started Time To Stand Up, but I am finding it quite interesting and recommend it based on what I've read so far.

First chapter of Buddhism for Couples.

One of the many gifts of mindfulness is that as you get older, there can be a feeling that you've seen it all before. Surprisingly Buddhism for Couples: A Calm Approach to Relationships had some information that I had not read before, and I have a little quibble after reading the first chapter. My quibble was that "studies after studies" show that a two parent family is the best. For a writer who uses footnotes, it was curious that she didn't footnote that.

I think better than the nuclear family is the extended family and a support network and friends who help out. I moved to NYC to help out my aunt and uncle with her twins and it was quite a wonderful experience. Sure there were times it felt like drudgery. It's also quite a good birth control. There are quite enough children in the world, go help someone else out. Why do they have to be yours? The responsibility of your children is that you're the last line, when nobody else cares. I think the best and simple way to be a good parent is to be present. From there all else unfolds.

But beyond my little quibble that it's more the support network, there were many interesting insights that I won't give away in the first chapter. I enjoyed it.

Mindful Driving

Mindful Driving

The other day I tried to drive mindfully after meditating. I've had a series of reflections after that.

I know people who don't drive because they are scared. It's the risk taking adolescent that helped me to get into this guided missile that could kill someone very easily. So the first tension I feel is between safety, and thrill seeking. Smokey and the Bandit was a formative movie in my tween years (I was 10 when it came out). I like the phrase "petal to the metal".

But that part of me that speeds through dicy traffic situations is also the part of me that sometimes gets almost in accidents. New York City is pretty crowded, and to drive here is not an easy thing. It's not for shrinking violets. But we can become intoxicated with the impatience of NYC, where someone can give you a pre-emptive honk just before the light changes, so you look up from your phone to see it. The powerful beast of a car that in Montana would give you great power to travel distances, in NYC is reduced to a slow crawl, that can be beat by pedestrians and bicyclists. The beast is leashed, and though the speed limit was recently lowered from 30 to 25, I don't see any evidence that this rule is being followed. When there is open road ahead of you, it's not hard to get up to 60mph before awareness creeps in. You often see cars shooting down a road and think "that's too fast." It's all that pent up energy and power being unleashed for a second.

But I'm not that adolescent any more, in fact I'm dealing with the sequelae only, ghosts and residue, not that person. I would absolutely feel terrible if I ever hurt someone with the car. I have been in a few fender benders,  but nobody was hurt, and of course insects are killed. I'm not sure if I've killed a rodent, I know I've wondered a lot if I killed something, but there's been no confirmation.

So after thrill, safety, there is the question of fuel efficiency. How you drive a car can really matter. I had one co-worker who had a very heavy foot. I enjoy the excitement of acceleration sometimes. You can accelerate to a low top speed to get a flavor of the excitement in the city. But once again thrill is the opposite of fuel efficiency as it is for safety: To lift my foot from the accelerator when I see a red light. Sometimes car will go around you with annoyed irritation. Accelerating to the red light seems like a waste to me. There are times when I drive with the best fuel efficiency and I see the mile per gallon go up on the fancy readout. But then I feel too much pressure, and I can't sustain that attitude for very long. It's a deeper state of driving and my resolve and concentration are not yet good enough. I know there is room for growth in my mindfulness, and that reminds me of the surprising depth that keeps me on this path.

Then there is driving taking into account the emotions of the people you're driving. I know sometimes I've been too close to another car, or went to fast for the comfort of the person in the front seat. Sometimes people are impatient with my show safe driving. Taking into account the passengers, but not getting carried away is another axis of mindfulness for me.

Then there is the kindness, a kind of opposite of road rage. You let someone in, you don't get irritated at their selfishness. You don't get angry at someone driving erratically, you worry about them and give them a wide birth.

I like to give people rides. Transportation is a real issue in NYC and giving someone a ride can be a small kindness that helps one move toward the gladdening.

The question of destroying the planet with car exhaust is a real one. Fossil fuel dependence is a significant problem. I love that character in I Heart Huckebees. Tommy Corn. I have faith that humanity will find a solution when the fossil fuels run out, and I hope it's not a Mad Max kind of world. The dystopia movies warn us against what might happen, as resources become more scarce. The dependence of fossil fuels is of concern. I accept it that I'm using them and have a level of dependency. As someone who rode my bike through high school and college, I have a lot of biking under my belt, but not recently. I yearn to go back to the days when bikes were so convenient. The crazy traffic in NYC does not make me feel very safe riding a bike, even where there are bike lanes. Maybe that's where I need to rechannel my thrill seeker, my risk taker. I don't like being sweaty when I get to work, that's another barrier. Sweat was pouring down my shirt once on the subway and I felt really embarrassed. It can get hot in NYC in the summer. I love it when the 5 borough bike ride goes past and you seen tons of bikers. I've always yearned to live in a carless city. Until that day, I will try to drive mindfully.

Mind In Harmony

I am consciously reading Mind in Harmony slowly, savoring it. It is the deep kind of book that hits me very deeply, inspires, shows a way forward and also helps one to see all the work I need to do and the importance of resolve in that journey. I know book reviews that bow down to a book that is very profound are often not helpful. What you want is the why to that, but unfortunately when something is much deeper than you, it's hard to articulate why. It's the emotional bowing down that feels significant to the reader. There is too much to express about it. I'm not even half way done with the book, but I know it will be my favorite book of the year, maybe my favorite book of the decade. I've quite enjoyed trying to wrap my mind around Know Your Mind by Sangharakshita. I have not so much delved into the Abhidharma tradition that this book is based off of, and the 51 mental events. This book finally boils this all down so that I can understand the importance.

Mythology

Reading A Short History of Myth, Armstrong talks about how rocks are imbued with the divine. I have rocks on my shrine. I fancy myself some who is modern and fights against the inflation of meaning at times. I've been asking about sacred and profane in this blog, at times.

The book The Buddha's Wife: The Path of Awakening Together reimagines the story of Yashodra, sees the Buddha and his wife as a couple, not as a solo journey, and provides a flourishing of alternative opportunities for the transcendent principle. Yashodra is probably not historically true, but it is part of the mythology of Buddhism.

Do I need a mythology to help me get to work? Do I need a mythology as a parent? New York City is packed with psychoanalytic institutes. Why is the Jungian one the most expensive?

I've been working to be more practical, I think about the Monty Python skit where there is a philosophers soccer game. Nobody is kicking the ball because they're all thinking and then one of the philosophers stops thinking and starts kicking the ball, dribbles down and scores a goal.

I think about a painting at MOMA I saw once called "The indifference of Sisyphus". Instead of the drudgery of rolling a rock up a hill just to roll back down, Sisyphus is having fun, enjoying the process.

This morning I've been thinking about the great mother and the great father. It was father's day, and I think about all my male ancestors over one shoulder and all my female ancestors over my other shoulder. I think about someone in my life that I lost, and the cycle of life.

And the sky. There is talk of "big sky mind" in Buddhism. Armstrong talks about the sky being a connection to the divine. As a non-theist, for me the divine is the transcendental principle, the three jewels are my higher power. I love the sky, I think it's the most reliable source of beauty in my life. If you get a sadhana practice, you imagine your special Bodhisattva in the sky, connecting it to this special place.

There is a vastness in the sky, which can lead to reverence. Bowing to my shrine, bowing to the refuge tree, bowing to the Buddha, Kuan Yin, Manjushri, I open myself up to the wonder.

Many Dharma Doors

There was an idea in the introduction of The Buddha's Wife: The Path of Awakening Together, that there are many Dharma doors. I sometimes are concerned we've adapted Buddhism too much to our modern times, we don't need to be monks, we can meditate, we can pick and choose what we want. At some point the Buddha's got to be saying, "you've gone too far." But the idea that you can go for enlightenment with others challenges the notion that there's one Dharma door. Yashodra and Pajapati both became arhants and therefore the path of not going forth, living at home, could also possibly work. Maybe the path is very different for everyone. It's almost as if the Buddha's discovery means we have the information but we don't have to go to his extremes. We can learn from other's experiences. To some extent we can tailor the path to what works for us. There may be many Dharma doors. That feels like a good teaching to me, opens up possibilities. Of course you've always had permission to follow your own spiritual path, nobody needs to give that to you, but there are also prescriptions if you want to follow a certain path. We never give up responsibility for the choices we make, but sometimes we take on recommendations from one kind of source because there's a kind of promise involved. Just do X, Y and Z and you will get A, B and C. I've always thought the path justifies itself along the way, but there is also the dark night of the soul when it doesn't reward you and you have to see a larger gratification, and not smaller ones. I used to believe more in paths and formulas and whatnot, but I think you have to make it up the best you can.

Met a guy on the street

A monk on the streets of Jamaica Queens tried to get $20 for a  wrist Mala, but for a lesser donation I was given this amulet that has an image of Kuan Yin, that supposedly helps with work and lifetime peace. I gave to Anandi.

I read later that they may be fake monks.

intension in meditation

My errors in life, have often come at times when I wander away from my intensions because I haven't been meditating. I don't consciously think about what is important to me when I'm following the breath, but when the noise of life dies down in meditation, there's an inner voice that can be heard, I see more pure vectors of action, my brain just produces better fixes for my behavior and intension.

The famous cliche that the road to hell is paved with good intensions points out that actions are pay dirt, and that often times intensions only get you so far. I am an unintegrated person who has cross currents and undertow. So many times I set out to do one thing, and do another. And quoting Whitman about being larger, and containing the multitudes has become an excuse for me, not in the spirit of inclusiveness that Whitman intended. I think it points out that psychology isn't always consistent. Even so integration and integrity are something that just naturally happens when you meditate frequently. It's one of the many benefits--and I don't need science to articulate them for me, thank you, I know they are there, I have that confidence. 

And yet sometimes I don't have a regular meditation practice. Why don't I always act in my own best interest? I have that book on my shelf, Menninger's Man Against Himself. It's a very evocative title for me, I see in myself and other self confounding behaviors all the time.

Teaching children to meditate

I taught my son the 4 stage mindfulness of breathing. He is 11 years old. He wakes up early like me, and I was going to sit and meditate so I asked him if he wanted to join me. He did. So I explained the 4 stages and reminded him at each bell.

I have taught my sons and some cousins to sit once for 5 minutes. And I have sat for 5 minutes here and there with my boys. But this felt more serious and real to sit for a full 20 minutes with my son.

I read in One Breath at a Time: Buddhism and the Twelve Steps that one of the ways to teach children to meditate is to tell them to pretend to meditate. You can kind of sheep dog them over time towards what you want.

Next step is to teach him Metta, and get my younger son involved.

Reflections while reading The Buddha's Wife

I have been asking myself if this book, The Buddha's Wife, is good enough to be a modern sutra. How much is there a clang historically, how true does it feel, versus how it seems like setting a good intension. So that is what I decided. It's OK not to be totally historical, that setting the intension is just as important as being realistic historically. The danger in adapting the teaching to our modern times, is that we will lose the full intention of the teachings.

You don't really know if the Buddha said some of the things attributed to him, through the years. I remember reading in The Heart of the Buddha's Teaching: Transforming Suffering into Peace, Joy, and Liberation some examples that show the tradition has clearly reversed the teachings. And yet I know how self serving and rationalizing I can be in my own life. My "theories" have the stink of ego. That is why I loved the book The Philosophers: Their Lives and the Nature of their Thought even though it would never be assigned in my undergraduate philosophy degree because the American philosophers pretend to be beyond psychology, they're so afraid of subjectivity, unlike their continental brethren. The answer is patience. Time will tell. A friend said that to me, and I've always thought that friend was very wise, and that was the apt response to my questions.

There's also that quote from Rilke about living the questions: "Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books that are now written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer.”

And that always leads me to Keat's negative capability.

The other question I'm asking while reading this book is whether you need solitude to progress in the spiritual life? I have done several solitary retreats, and I have very fond memories of them, and know that I went very deep into my meditation, and it felt really good to get away from it all and have the space. It's not either/or. You can do both. A week of solitude does not preclude being in relationship. I think the Buddha left in part to get the teachings. Why he could not commute from home, I do not know. Why he could not stay in relation with the family on his journey, I don't know.

On the going for refuge retreats that I've been on, you can talk about "going forth" metaphorically. You can go forth from cruelty to animals by becoming a vegan. You can go forth from fossil fuels by not owning a car, riding a bike to work. You can go forth from the TV or from romantic relationships, or whatever, without leaving. I think think that was the unspoken lesson, that books like The Buddha's Wife draw out.

Maybe the Buddha had to do his journey that way, and it's our job to understand why, or maybe that's just a legend to try and sell the ideas. I wonder if he has to be a prince, why he can't be poor. Religious people always exaggerate to sell their ideas. Is the legend of the Buddha a well intentioned lie to try and lead people to the truths? Like parables in the Lotus Sutra, the house is on fire and there are toys outside. You get outside and the toys are not really what you think they are but actually they a pretty good if you open up to them. Again we're in the "ends justify the means" kind of space, which I usually don't agree with. Benevolent duplicity doesn't take into account people's process, and the importance of coming to one's own conclusions. You're going to get less malarkey in a religion where the prophet says, "don't take my word for it, test it in your own experience." That is a safety valve that is always there.

The Buddha's Wife

The Buddha's Wife: The Path of Awakening Together is a fascinating book.

I've read speculative books before, one where Thomas Jefferson was counseled by a Buddha like figure. That book felt a little forced. The Buddha's Wife feels more necessary. There is a kind of anachronism, even though it is necessary for our time, it doesn't feel like it was necessary for that time, even though it's written in the style of the ancient texts. And what a wonderful thing that it has become needed in our time. We live in a time of multiple narratives, not just one. We live in a time where the female is valued as much as the male in most people's minds.

There is no such thing as blasphemy in Buddhism. The worst that can happen is that this book would be ignored. I've often felt that modern texts have a sutra in the future feel to it. Most recently I felt Joan Halifax's book (The Fruitful Darkness: A Journey Through Buddhist Practice and Tribal Wisdom), but I also think the The Essential Sangharakshita: A Half-Century of Writings from the Founder of the Friends of the Western Buddhist Order also had that feel. I don't quite feel that with The Buddha's Wife. But I still feel like it is an important book. Why can't you get enlightened in relationships? Why do you need to seek solitude. In Reginald Ray's book Buddhist Saints in India: A Study in Buddhist Values and Orientations he discusses how monastics preserve the tradition and it's possible they leave out non-monastic paths. The Buddha's Wife points out a similar discrepancy that being with and in relationships is also valued, and not solitude. The women's side of the story of enlightenment. Or even, is there a path that doesn't hurt others? Many people think the legend of the Buddha is apocryphal, that he was always spiritual and that he was not a prince or married or fathered a child. The clang in the story of the compassionate one is part of why it doesn't fit. Or maybe that's a modern projection as others suggest. Even so Yashodhara becomes an arhat, what is her story?

The Teragatha is a lovely collection of female stories, but there is no poem on Yashodhara. You can find it on line also here. Neither are complete. I read a hard copy while on retreat at Aryaloka from their library. Pajapati was the Buddha's step mother, and she has a teragatha.

Male identity is forged often in rituals that hurt the young man, and he can't go cry to his mommy. I'm hoping that is changing some and that males can be in relationship while they mature. The days of the solitary stoic hunter are gone, in our overpopulated postmodern civilization, being in relationship is important. The lone wolf is extinct in many ways.

Sometimes when people bring out new laws, people often say that the old laws imply what people want written into law. Does not the third jewel sangha imply the "right relationship" that the authors suggest is the 8th part of the path? Maybe but it's worth highlighting and exploring something that is applicable to modern existence.

You can see in a way that if the Buddha lead these women to enlightenment they might forgive him of the pain in the past. The ends justify the means. I don't usually think that is true, but I'm willing to make an exception in this one case.

Perhaps right relationship is something so obvious that it doesn't need to be commented on, and is cover in the other precepts. Sometimes something important is assumed and not even articulated in a culture. In ancient times I imagine people to be more connected. Technology hasn't alienated and isolated them. The suggestion was that to subtract the Buddha from his son's life, would not be as serious as it would have been now. In the modern nuclear family, there are perhaps unnatural pressures on the mother and father to be the be all end all. Aunts, uncles, grandparents, cousins, friends of the family are all lost in the modern nuclear family. Even so, you can't say subtraction is negligible, and the unspoken grief of Yashodhara is seen and heard in this narrative.

The authors are of note. Janet Surrey is a clinical psychologist with ties to the Stone Center. Sam Shem wrote House of God, about the internship of a doctor, a book I read when my friend was going through it.

I'm only on page 28 but those are my thoughts so far on this wonderful book. Because this is a personal blog, I don't write necessarily polished finshed-the-book reviews, instead I express myself on the journey of reading, as the thoughts come up. A kind of book review in process, a little more messy but a little less constricted. I used to love reader responses when I was in school.

Spiritual

There is an interesting article in the NY Times about spirituality. It is a good article but it doesn't settle the matter for me.

An old high school friend writes about spirituality: Spiritual Side: Trust God even if you are going through a difficult time - Ahwatukee Foothills News: Columns. I'm not convinced by quoting the bible to prove something, but if you are in that tradition it can prove things. (Ahwatukee is next to the "Wonder Rift", southeast of Phoenix.)

It's not clear whether spirituality is transcendent or worldly. It's both and neither. Is it a force that pushes you away from egoism? Altruism is the road to happiness, so even if you're an egoist, being kind to others is the way to go. Nothing is other worldly alone. Is spirituality expanded consciousness? An inner and outer journey that brings out the best in us? Is it about rooting oneself? I dislike the phrase "higher" power, because it could be below you. I guess "other power" is the form that most appeals to me. That there is something outside you, that you don't know it all. I think sometimes people are willfully against other power out of a misguided self esteem, that they are skeptical of the obviously wrong misuses of religion, and therefore there is no higher power.

I have to say I'm so befuddled by the word. Is it an ineffable feeling that may or may not be connected to something more?

I'm reading the second step in One Breath at a Time: Buddhism and the Twelve Steps. It seems like there's a kind of humbling and trust in things you can't fully understand to explore what a higher power means, "as you understand it."

I reread an old blog post on spirituality. I seem so certain, even though I'm groping in the essay. Is spirituality becoming unsure? It can be sometimes, but sometimes skepticism is pathological in my case. I remember once asking a friend on retreat, "what if there is an uncaused even in Alaska?" How would we know that causality is the one true law? He asked me what was going on? I think I push skepticism too far sometimes, because I think you need to have a reason to push the skepticism. Do I have any evidence there are uncaused events? You can be skeptical about skepticism. So skepticism can be spiritual but it can also be misapplied.

I like the whole "love" angle, because you can be a real jerk and still love someone, so it's a pretty elastic concept. Do we love other countries by creating peace keeping missiles to make sure they stay in their country? Love implies a thinking about the other is a real positive way, not to subjugate them or exploit them.

How do I account for why some Christian hymnals appeal even to this Buddhist? Is it because there's a deeper spirituality that even a non-Christian can appreciate?

I've been reading Circling the Sacred Mountain : A Spiritual Adventure Through the Himalayas. In it Thurman uses the The Sharp Wheel of Mind Reform to explore the Bodhisattva Ideal. There are free translation of this shorter sutra on line. The peacock likes to neutralize the poison of the challenging world, like a Bodhisattva. Thurman thinks about the craziness of the world with it's global warming and wars and all the insanity. Why participate in this world? The bodhisattva thrives amongst the chaos because of their strength, and they share that with the world out of generosity.

A friend did a Ph.D in theology and he talked to me about what we put into spirituality. Perhaps spirituality is what we make it. It is a self fulfilling prophecy. There is an element of striving in it, whatever ideals we strive for. Muslims strive for this, Christians strive for that, and Buddhist strive for enlightenment.

I started reading Mind in Harmony: The Psychology of Buddhist Ethics. As usual Subhuti cuts through all the nonsense and says he prefers to speak about the Dharma life.

How do I spiritually bypass?

I've made mistakes in my life, and when I feel bad about myself, I don't think I have the self esteem to look at my mistakes. But any self esteem ebb is never permanent, and underestimating myself isn't permanent either. When my mind allows me, I can reflect in a kind and useful way.

In what ways have I used the "spiritual practice" to avoid growth? Kevin Griffith (One Breath at a Time: Buddhism and the Twelve Steps) pointed out one, and that's that I don't always talk about what is going on with me with my close ones. I have to have a sense of what I need to talk about. I can't endless hope for an archaeologist to be digging to find them for me. I am that archaeologist.

Mistakes are fruit that helps you see that you're missing something. Wishing things were otherwise just doesn't work. Not allowing yourself to see your shortcomings is a mistake.

On problem with putting the petal to the metal, "going for it", really trying hard, is if you take your foot off the petal and coast. You can try to hard, get exhausted, and coast. That's the whole lute strings lesson. Pressing as much as you can consistently is a skill, not binging in effort, but being consistent day after day.

Spiritual bypassing implies that you've missed something along the way.

Reflecting today I got an appreciation for vigilance and constancy. I think of Charlotte Joko Beck's idea of "nothing special"(Nothing Special). Not getting too excited by the peak meditation experiences, the sangha highs, the pleasures of intellectual discourse. Theoretical pyrotechnics can be pleasing, but do they really help you to be more aware and kind to others? It can be an intoxication of sorts for me. Sangharakshita warns about spiritual indigestion from eating such rich teachings. We have an open source Buddhism now, to some extent, but we need a teacher who points us to the teachings we need at that moment, or we need to just be mindful of this phenomenon, be our own best teacher. My spiritual heroes often had to do so much themselves, there were no good teachers. The Buddha spent time with two teachers whom he learned as much as he could from, and they had very high attainments. It's so amazing that he somehow knew there was more.

I can get through a lot of meditation on the high of thoughts. Other ground me, and help me see when I've walked over towards a ledge. The sense pleasure hinderance of thinking is a real hinderance for me. (Wet cat noses are not too much of a hinderance.)

Another thing that excites me is buildings, real estate, space. Every "for rent" sign I see, I wonder if I could set up a Dharma center. I need to be grounded in reality and know when I am ready for that. The desire to share the dharma outstrips my ability to effectively communicate it, and really embody the teachings. It's my narcissistic grandiosity to think I could do so, but it's always a huge leap to think one could lead, and yet we need leaders in the world. Pointing oneself in a direction is what is needed. You launch yourself out there, and it becomes a self fulfilling prophecy.

I've binged on the teachings, and I'm not doing that any more. I'm digesting them and not projectile vomiting them back out. Patience is required, you can only eat some much. Being in tune with your body helps you to not abuse yourself, to not try too hard. So looking at past mistakes can make you get a sense of progress. I'm no longer doing that any more.

The forever dilemma of a latch key child (me) is wanting more support, and then being too isolated and "independent". Working with others the right amount is a challenge. Even the story that I'm a latch key child is something I can loosen my grip on, that was so long ago. Growing up is such a challenge. I don't like it when people shout "grow up!" at others, but others can be frustrating. Even said gently and sweetly it's not easy to grow up.

I am grateful for the people who care enough to point me in the right direction, even if they have given up on me in the present. Actions from the past linger and nourish one. I think of all the lessons I've learned along the way and I am grateful. Thanks to all my teachers and all my mistakes and all the awareness and self esteem in myself that allows me to recognize and plot a course. I am grateful for catching mistakes, and seeing things I've missed in my attempt to bypass. It teaches me what short cuts don't work. Reading one's actions and not just fickle intensions is important. Seeing oneself clearly can be difficult for different people in different ways. I hope to have the grace to embrace my real journey.

perceptual healing

The Fruitful Darkness: A Journey Through Buddhist Practice and Tribal Wisdom is like a sutra to me.

Last time I thought a book could be a future sutra was when I was reading The Essential Sangharakshita: A Half-Century of Writings from the Founder of the Friends of the Western Buddhist Order.

Halifax has so many interesting concepts that you just don't hear every day. Or I don't anyway. "Perceptual healing" made me think how when I meditate a lot, my smelling comes back. I think smell is a sense I sacrifice to cope with the onslaught of input. There are so many unpleasant smells in the city. I used to pride myself that I could work with smelly clients because it didn't bother me so much.

Fruitful Darkness is so beautiful. It is poetic. I think my eyes and mind gobble up the words hungrily, I have been starved for this kind of thinking, experiences and writing. Halifax is quite the traveler.

A Zen Life: DVD review

When A Zen Life, came out I asked the Sangha if everyone wanted to pitch in and buy it. Nobody responded to my e-mail. Crickets. Finally got it on Netflix. It's not bad. There are many talking heads and good historical footage, and interesting bits from his history that was filmed, many photos. File under history of Buddhism coming to America. It is How the Swans Came to the Lake type stuff. He really influenced a lot of people, lots of artists and psychotherapists, and if you can imagine a time when it was hard to get information about Buddhism, he was an initial popularizer with over one hundred books in English.

Of course now, there are so many different presentation of Buddhism and Zen, and they can be more precise, or easier to digest, or tied to a movement. I'm not sure how much his books are read these days, but I they aren't things I go back to reread.

The movie has Suzuki as against the war, when we know from Zen at War (2nd Edition) that Suzuki also said things supporting the militarization of Japan. I tend to think that he was probably against the war, but said pro-war things just to get along in that climate, before he felt confident enough express his real opinion. But I could be wrong, and I might be whitewashing it like the film does.

D.T Suzuki was a great writer, and I most appreciate his translation of Lankavatara Sutra: A Mahayana Text (Buddhist Tradition) (Vol 40). I read a lot of his books and got confused while I was in college. But later on when I found a sangha and learned the tradition, Zen makes sense to me. It is a tradition that focuses on the perfection of wisdom aspect of the tradition, and emphasizes meditation. But Suzuki taught at a Shin university for a time, and wrote some books on Shin Buddhism.

He felt at one with nature, and felt he was the trees, experienced satori. I have had that experience, but I also felt I was the wind and the leaves and the trees. It was an amazing experience, and I hope to get back to a place where I can approach that kind of awareness. To be on a retreat for many days after building up to a retreat with lots of meditation and reading and spending time with friends. These peak experiences can't be one's only guide though, you have to keep on plodding along and doing the work even when it isn't glamorous, exciting.

I didn't even really talk about it because I have the two book title slogans rattling around my head: Nothing special and after the ecstasy, the laundry. It's not easy to sustain that kind of awareness for me, and I'm far from that today. Glimpses of what could be can entice one and inspire one, but there is also the dark night of the soul as well, and other times that are not so rewarding. And then life can sweep you up and take you into other areas. Keeping up the circumstances that sustain deeper practice are not that easy in our times.

D.T. Suzuki was someone who wrote books, but did not found a movement. When a friend asked to meditate, he sent him to another friend to teach him meditation. Of all the talking heads in the video only one person asked to meditate with him. My favorite talking head is Snyder. I'm also fascinated by his secretary Mihoko Okamura.

Watching this DVD has been on my list of things to do, and I would urge you my Buddhist friend to put it on your list, if you haven't seen it, even if you're not into Zen, because there are not that many movies about Buddhism. This is an essential one about the history of Buddhism in America. It's on Netflix, so put it towards the top of your queue. There are some used copies on Amazon, but they're pretty expensive. I wouldn't be surprised if this DVD became unavailable soon, life is so transient.

The film also leaves one question (at least). What happened to his son? He adopts a child, and when his wife dies, the movie doesn't follow up and say what happened to him. 

John Cage is interviewed, and I've read a book about how Zen influenced the avant-garde art in America, the name escapes me at the moment.

I would put this movie up there with Crazy Wisdom, about Chogyam Trungpa, who was also a huge chapter in Buddhism coming to America, and early Buddhism in America. Like Trungpa, Suzuki was an imperfect human being, and time has helped us to flesh out the biography and explore the dark sides. Beware the guru that denies the dark side.

What I'm reading

I finally got around to The Fruitful Darkness: A Journey Through Buddhist Practice and Tribal Wisdom. Halifax combines Buddhism with Shamanism, deep ecology and Jungian dream psychology. I was particularly interested in the concept of world wound.

I'm also reading The Noodle Maker of Kalimpong: The Untold Story of My Struggle for Tibet. This book is the memoir of the brother of the Dali Lama, and fills in the picture more of what happened over there in Tibet.