So many books so little time.

Tricycle magazine is awesome. It's launched the desire to read 4 books.

I loved the excerpt on boredom from Sangharakshita's latest Living Wisely: Further Advice from Nagarjuna's Precious Garland.

I read his first book on Nagarjuna's Precious Garland, and I want to read this one. Sangharakshita is my root teacher, to whom I'm eternally grateful for.

I enjoyed reading an excerpt by Shozan Jack Haubner from Zen Confidential: Confessions of a Wayward Monk.

What I liked about the excerpt was that it was genuine, authentic and honest. Nothing special.

I want to read Kyra Phalen's novel Siddhartha The Warrior Prince.

I want to reread Herman Hesse's novel, too. To compare and contrast the two books would be interesting for a book club. Maybe.

I want to read the poetry of Marie Howe, like in her last book The Kingdom of Ordinary Time: Poems.

I found the 3 poems quite good, in the magazine. In the interview she talks about taking care of her brother during his sickness unto death. She's supposedly the poet laureate of New York, my adopted home state. The Empire State. Not sure what that means.

And I enjoyed the teaching from Thanissaro Bhikkhu and Pema Chodron, two A list Buddhist teachers.

I'm grateful for this issue to arrive. The previous one didn't and it seems there's no amount of e-mails that can be written to fix the matter. This modern world; all kinds of technology with little glitches.

There's a lot of articles about technology in this issue that I haven't read.

I have to say that for me the experience of technology is at once empowering, intoxicating and frustrating. It seems like you can do things, but at the same time requesting the issue they never sent seems like an impossibility. Reminds of the movie Brazil where a fly causes the wrong man to be sent to jail.

I don't mean to whine about not getting the issue, I think I could replicate this experience countlessly. I have a swank car that somehow leaks inside. It's never been the same since someone smashed a window and stole my airbags, and a tire went flat.

My laptop has broken countless times, most of it my kids spilling water on it or dropping it.

My iPhone has had problems at times, I wasn't getting crucial text messages for a while there for no reason I could understand.

The wifi in my apartment goes out inexplicably, and you don't know whether it's the host server, lots of traffic on the internet, my provider having heavy traffic, my modem having a problem, my router having a problem, the airport in my computer or my computer. When it doesn't work, I've just mentioned 6 possible weak links, and there's probably others, like my battery dying on me, or the human element that I've just done something wrong--but I inherently feel that technology should work for me, not the other way around, that I have to work for it.

And my work life has been computerized somehow. When I first got into social work it was hand written files. Now it's all computer programs: EPIC, CONNECTIONS, PROMIS

I remember when the mother of my children was giving birth there was a nurse who sat in the room inputting stuff into a computer. She never even really looked at us, she was just there to tend to the computer's needs.

Technology just seems so inevitable, like that's the way it's got to be, the whole shebang is a runaway train that you just need to step off the tracks, do not try and stop it.

Yet I'm so bewitched I'm writing a blog.

The Bliss of Inner Fire

I just reread my review of The Bliss of Inner Fire, thought it was interesting. Wrote that a while ago with a really good editor helping me shape it.

The Bliss of Inner Fire: Heart Practice of the Six Yogas of Naropa by Lama Thubten Yeshe
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

My review from Wildmind:

I have the fantasy that there is a perfect book out there for my next spiritual step. A book like The Bliss of Inner Fire by Lama Thubten Yeshe complicates things. It’s the kind of book that spawns a list of other books to read: First off, Tsongkhapa’s Having Three Convictions, or The Six Practices of Yoga by Naropa, which Lama Thubten Yeshe refers to quite a lot because they are his root texts.

The Bliss of Inner Fire by is based on Lama Yeshe’s talks on the last two intensive retreats that he gave before he died in 1984 at the age of 49. He chose to talk about tummo, one of the six yogas of Naropa, which is explored in Tsongkhapa’s Having the Three Convictions. Tummo is the practice of inner fire. It’s the practice where you can sit outside in the winter and not feel cold — but that’s the exciting magical explanation. Lama Yeshe isn’t into these exotic claims, he’s a real Buddhist. It turns out that it’s like every other practice — it’s designed to move you towards enlightenment. The sense of concentration and insight of deep meditation has a kind of convergent tendency.

Lama Yeshe is from the Gelugpa school, but appreciates the Nyingma, Sakya and Kagyu schools, which are the four main schools of the Tibetan Tradition. You probably know this but it’s worth repeating: while the Dali Lama is a world spiritual leader, he is also from the Gelugpa school.

Lama Thubten Yeshe was born in Tibet in 1935. At the age of six, he entered Sera Monastic University in Tibet where he studied until 1959, when he was 24. He had to flee the Chinese invasion. His main teacher was Lama Thubten Zopa Rinpoche. When he finally got to the Tibetan community in exile in India, he resumed his studies. These studies are rigorous and involve much debate, study and even all night sessions. He’s a favorite of the Gelugpa tradition perhaps because of his young death; he’s a kind of James Dean of the Gelugpa tradition.

One theme of the book is the importance of practice over “book Buddhism” — a kind of dilettante Buddhism. Lama Yeshe says, “These days we have no shortage of intellectual information, but I truly believe there is a shortage of fertilization. We collect so much information, but we do very little with it. This is why we have so little success in our spiritual practice.” The dharma lives in people, not just in books. Books represent people in a way, but they are not fully embodied, not interactive. A book is circumstantial speech; it just goes on and on regardless of the reader and the reader’s needs.

Lama Yeshe has encouraging advice for people who regret the time it took to finally find Buddhism, “Try to be reasonable in the way you grow, and don’t ever think it is too late. It’s never too late. Even if you are going to die tomorrow, keep yourself straight and clear and be a happy human being today. If you keep your situation happy day by day, you will eventually reach the greatest happiness of enlightenment.”

The book is based on talks, and so once you get past the three introductions, it reads like smooth encouraging advice for the most part. Then it gets into more complicated visualization practices, where it seems like it would be better to see these teachings live, and be able to seek clarification for yourself.

Lama Yeshe makes some interesting distinctions about western thinking. Lama Yeshe says, “In the West, desire seems to refer to sense gratification. However, in the Buddhist view, desire is not a craving of the senses but the mental concepts and projections that we build up on an object, thereby bring us problems.” And, “If you know the nature of desire, you can really control your mind because you are able to question and to understand your own view of desire’s object. Otherwise, you cannot see the mind’s trick. With it’s constant “I feel, I want,” desire plays tricks on you, leading you to a constant restlessness that can mess up your life.”

He seems to be saying that desire as we know it, wanting the latest electronic gadget, or a new DVD or whatever, isn’t how to think about desire. Noticing how we add on to the story of our desires, is his point. Like “I need to maintain my status,” or, “My life is so difficult I deserve some pleasure and a DVD is the most efficient route to pleasure,” on top of the whole pleasure story. Having pleasure itself is not problematic; it’s our relationship with the pleasures. It’s not the gratification itself, but the story about it. “Ah, now I can relax now that I have a whirlpool bath.” Or, “Now that I am married, I can get on with the business of life” as if these projects truly make us happy. Not that you shouldn’t get a whirlpool bath or get married — just don’t center your story on stories of gratification so superficially.

He also says, “Even though it is sometimes said that something is nonexistent because it is like an illusion, a dream, or a reflection in a mirror, this is not philosophically correct. It is speaking loosely to say, ‘This phenomenon does not exist because it is an illusion. It is just one of my projections.’ In fact, the reverse is true. The phenomenon exists precisely because it exists as an illusion, which is independent. A reflection in a mirror is also interdependent; it exists because of the mirror.”

What he seems to be saying here, is that these illusions we build up are part of our life, you can’t just do an “illusion extraction,” because they are based intimately on your life. In a way it’s our whole world view that’s needs the liberating reorientation of a deeper understanding in Buddhism, the cultivation of insight.

At times he makes intriguing statements without explaining, like “ordinary exercise increases superstition”. Perhaps what he’s saying is that exercise is likely to distract one into the cult of the beautiful body — but we’ll never know because he didn’t expand on it.

For me, this book has too much talk of practices I don’t do, so it was difficult for me to read. Nonetheless, it’s a book worthy of a Buddhist library, for the contemporary section of one’s Tibetan Buddhism section, an informal but useful commentary on Tsongkhapa’s Having Three Convictions, which is itself a commentary on The Six Practices of Yoga by Naropa. If The Six Practices of Yoga is your root text, or you are interested in the Gelugpa tradition, you shouldn’t ignore this book.


View all my reviews

The Buddha's Apprentice at Bedtime

I came across this awesome book. I read a story from it to my 7 and 9 year old son. They said it was good. Maybe they could read it themselves, too. I like to read to my sons even though my 9 year old has to read for an hour each day for school and he keeps a log of what he's read and must turn it in to his teacher. That's a lot of reading in my opinion, but times are changing, people are growing up faster. I think it's cool they spend so much time reading. I just wonder about making it compulsory. When I read as a kid it was because I wanted to. I totally love reading now, it brings me so much joy. And I didn't have awesome books like The Buddha's Apprentice at Bedtime. I have reviewed many awesome children's books that were Buddhist.

I think in some spiritual traditions there's a lot of stuff for children, so you can begin them early. While some take a real spiritual turn at a young age, for me the turn towards spirituality came 11 years ago when I was 34.

My kids are learning two spiritual traditions. Their mother is Catholic. They have sunday school where they can teach the children the traditions. In a way, I see sunday school as a kind of cultural thing, a family thing. Learning about religion at a young age isn't a bad thing, even if it's not my tradition. As a Buddhist in America, I am very aware of other spiritual traditions.

I do like to share my tradition with my kids. Last night we watched Little Buddha for the first time. I've been waiting to show that to them. I think they were OK with seeing it at age 7 and 9. This movie splices the story of the life of the Buddha with a narrative about a boy who has been recognized as a Tulku in the Tibetan tradition. The family is skeptical because they are not Buddhist, but they go on a journey of discovery too. I've learned a lot about the Tibetan flavors of Buddhism, but I don't practice in that tradition, so in a way it's a weird kind of introduction. I'm like the guy in the movie who ends up wishing he believed in reincarnation.

My son's first communion

My youngest son had his first communion in the Catholic Church. I am a Buddhist, but I believe learning about other traditions isn't bad, and that my sons will choose their paths.

I’ve always felt that I wouldn’t oppose my ex’s bringing of my son into her tradition. Tolerance and even celebration of other traditions is important to me. She wasn’t so into the church when we were together, but that might have been in deference to me.

My only fear is the culture of shaming present in some religions, but I can’t claim my own spiritual community is absent of that. I feel secure in my spiritual tradition, therefore I am happy for kids to learn another. I will teach them what I feel is appropriate about mine. I have done that.

I had many thoughts during the Catholic mass. The children looked so cute. I love bringing families and community together. The rituals were very evocative for me.

I loved the rituals and efforts to evoke spiritual feelings, the rapture and joy of connecting with the transcendental. I wondered though if it’s dualistic to create spiritual, because then it creates non-spiritual, or mundane. I think spirituality is everywhere and nowhere. Do we really need to try to be spiritual?

But then I thought it’s more about community in church, shared efforts, or in Buddhism, sangha. Gathering together in shared spiritual goals. The rituals are intense--taking in the body of Christ, into your body, becoming one. You can feel how the rituals are designed to foster intensity. I honestly don’t feel a connection with Jesus beyond the human Jesus. I can admire him and see why others see him as their spiritual hero, but I just don’t feel that. The concept of God does not make sense to me, and I don’t have a felt sense of it either.

I spent my time translating things into something I understand; my higher power, as I understand it, or a common spirituality that is independent of any sect or even religion, the transcendental. I like the desire to improve ourselves, a non-materialist appreciation of what life gives. There are so many forces in our society pulling us towards accumulation of things. But what really makes us happy is experiences, connecting with others, to take a spiritual journey is real fulfillment.

No me falta means “I shall not want.” It feels Buddhist in it’s pointing out that our desires create our unrest, and not wanting is a kind of good place to be.

The preist crossed his head, his mouth and his heart, and I thought “body, speech and mind.”

I thought about the emphasis on “other power”. I’ve come to appreciate that, but I still like self-power and community power, that feels more real to me. I am willing to strive for the personification of an ideal, to merge with a spiritual hero, or archetype.

I think what I object to most is the hard sell, the primordial marketing that says I have to accept someone else’s revelation, that this is the only one true religion. But there does seem to be some recognition that we need to test it in our own experience.

There is anger towards me for divorcing my ex, as I sat amongst the family, and so even as they preach forgiveness and embracing people, I felt the icy shoulders, even the restraint as they reached out and shook my hand. It’s a high aspiration to really forgive people who have hurt you. I can’t blame them; I was not skillful at times during the divorce. I could feel them trying to be forgiving. I felt remorse at hurting them, I missed being part of the family.

My ex-mother-in-law has been nothing but kindness and has been gracious towards me. I thought about how I used to judge her high spirituality as a symptom of her powerlessness as an immigrant. But today I just felt like she’s awesome. I really respect her. She does exemplify the ideals I admire in her tradition. And a beautiful tradition it is.

Goodbye

Many years ago, there was a guy who was wooing my roommate. He was a bit portly, not the greatest looker, but he was kind, thoughtful and because he wasn't so good looking, he didn't get caught up in a lot of the shenanigans people get caught up in. My memory is of him getting amused at the stupid things people do. One thing he had in common with the roommate was a kind of critique of how silly others live, poor decisions others make. He did eventually woo my roommate, and even though she denied nothing was going on with him. One day we got a wedding invitation. He'd worn her down. I can't say he was friend because we never chose to hang out together, just him and me, and it was circumstances that we were in the same room. He was friends with my ex's brother, they had a chum group we occasionally joined in on. I did quite like him. We drifted away, as lives go separate ways, but I always liked him, and enjoyed his presence when I shared it. Yesterday I found out he passed away. Life is short. Life is precious. Goodbye. You had qualities I admired and I will miss you.

Not In Portland

In season 3 episode 7 "Not In Portland" of Lost, Jack and Kate are trying to get off the island. A mysterious woman offers her boat, but not before they rescue her boyfriend. They discover him in a kind of re-education chamber, with the message "Everything changes" and "we are the cause of our own suffering" and other messages that are quasi Buddhist, or maybe Buddhist cliches flashing on the screen. The name of the company running the experiments on the island is called Dharma Initiative.

So is brainwashing someone with Buddhist cliches and calling the malevolent company Dharma Initiative anti-Buddhist?

I don't think that just because "bad guys" use Buddhist words, that doesn't make the show over all anti-Buddhism. It's not clear, so we'll have to see how things end. But there was a moment where I thought the "bad" people were a kind of Buddhist cult gone wrong. I'm not more than half way done with the show.

There's certainly a lot of Buddhist symbolism. 108 is the number of minutes before it resets. With the obscurity of Buddhism in America, it's a tribute to just include some ideas in a popular show.

I wonder what I would feel if there was a show that was anti-Buddhist. I suppose I wouldn't like it. Usually negative comments about buddhism are oblique like when Brit Hume thought Tiger Woods should convert to Buddhism because of redemption.

One writer things Lost supports Buddhist insights. Here is another. You can google for further examples. Lost certainly has a bunch of commentary.

Lost has a whiff of Kalfka, you never quite know what is going on. What is that black blob? Why does everyone see hallucinations? What is really going on? Pressing the button seems like a odd commentary on the meaninglessness of current society work, it's so abstracted from meaning. But just when you think you've nailed something down, it switches. Twists and turns are the hallmark of a good drama and this was a wildly popular show. I'm just getting around to it on Netflix.

You clearly see people jumping to wrong conclusions. They act out of reactive tribal minds, seeing the others as all bad. It shows how deluded we can be.

I enjoy the survivalism, I like sort of back to nature narratives, without technology. I like ensamble shows, with large casts and lots of character development. And I like the Dharmic themes and references.

Dark Night of the Soul

Ingram in his Mastering The Core Teachings of the Buddha, talks about the "dark night" of the soul.

This is an idea from Saint John of the Cross. He talks about a time when the sensuality of spirituality wears off, and there's nothing positive that pulls one to the routines of the spiritual life. I don't know what he means by meditation, but there is also prayer and good works. It's in the dark night of the soul when the seeker is really tested. God is notorious in the Bible for testing people.

Now in Buddhism there is no creator god, so there's nobody testing the seeker, but there could be a time when the joy of dhyana is no longer available for the next phase. According to Ingram that is.I've been around a lot of people with dhyanic smiles. I'm not sure I've wallowed in the joy of the dhyanas enough to enter into the dark night of Ingram, but like most people, I have experienced a loss of the sensual joys and lost my way at times. Ingram says the only way is through it, and that you need someone to help you through it, a spiritual community, friends.

I don't pretend to know enough about Saint John of the Cross, nor do I know enough about Ingram's use of the concept, but I am interested in it, and I wonder why he has to borrow something from Christianity when Buddhism does have a rich rich history. Well, he's just trying to articulate his experience, so he's free to choose from whatever tradition he pleases.

By the way, Saint John of the Cross is really good at articulating spiritual immaturity. I need to do some translation into a more universal spirituality for it all to be useful for me, but I find it very interesting. I find myself uncomfortably described in the traits of spiritual immaturity at times.

Quote

There's a lot of good quotes from Sex and the Spiritual Teacher by Scott Edelstein, but here is one where a teacher has committed a breach:

"If the spiritual community chooses to hire a lawyer, the lawyer may initially advise leaders to close ranks, withhold information, or further victimize the teacher's accuser(s) by challenging their claims and/or their motives. The lawyer may even urge community leaders to try to eject the accuser(s) from the community. Any of these actions will of course make matters worse. Yet the lawyer is simply doing their job, as they see it: protecting their client from liability. To prevent such a pernicious turn of events, community leaders need to tell their lawyer from the beginning, "Our goal is not to minimize the organization's liability. It's to heal the community's wounds, keep or make it healthy, resolve whatever legal issues arise, and keep people safe. We will not harm or disrespect any human being in order to protect this organization. The interest of community members comes before the interest of this nonprofit entity." Because attorneys are rarely asked to think this way, leaders may need to remind their lawyers this again and again. At times they may need to remind themselves as well."

This is an interesting book that I recommend to anyone in administration of a spiritual community.

Here is a video of an interview of the author.

Backpacking is meditive

Equanimity

I saw an upsetting image of a marathon runner who'd had his legs blown off in the bombing yesterday. It's haunting me. (Here is the Wikipedia article.)

I've run 3 marathons, and I have about the ages of the child who died in Boston because of the bombing at the finish line of the marathon. Maybe that's why I was so deeply affected.

Meanwhile lots of people are dying in countries where there are more active wars. So multiply that horror times a hundred, a thousand, and that's what's going on in the world every day. That thought doesn't so much make me feel better, but it does give me a sense of reality.

I can categorize deaths, and some are more "natural" from old age and body failings. Man made deaths are harder to take, though I suppose it's "natural" for humans to be violent.

All life if precious to me, we don't need to kill anyone for anything, and we need to work to support and enrich life.

Somehow I was able to skate past the shooting in Connecticut several months ago without it getting to me too much. It seemed remote, I saw no images. I read and heard people talk about it affecting them, but somehow I wasn't too drawn into it.

Seeing the image triggered off the memory of other images. There's that "love story" of a wounded soldier who comes back missing most of his limbs and rehabbing and sitting in the sunset with his wife.

There's not much to understanding the angry rage that stikes out like that. It's like an impotent kid who knocks down the blocks someone is trying to set up. Surely we won't hear any message from the people who did this beyond the method of their communication, inarticulate anger.

I spent the morning volunteering at a food pantry, processing and organizing food to be given away. I've volunteered 8 times, at various things over the past several months. I want to put positive energy into the world.

There is a real issue of maintaining equanimity at such times, for me. I was perhaps too remote with the elementary school shootings, and I'm too engulfed with the Marathon bombings. I read about focusing the other day, and one technique was to put all your problems in a room, and push them aside so you can have some room to think, and stack them up in order of intensity, order them. I'm got lots of fish to fry in my life, so to speak, and the disturbing images and the horrors and violence going on in the world is something I have limited control of. I only want to be a little in touch with it so that I'm not burying my head in the sand, but not so much so that I'm engulfed. I like the image of a circle touching a line. Put the line through the circle and you're engulfed. Put the circle away from the line and you're too remote, not connected.

I like positive beautiful images to help me maintain my equilibrium. There is no one strategy and everyone is different.

The astronomy picture of the day is one awesome resource.

Ambedkar

"Tomorrow - April 14th - sees the 122nd anniversary of the birth of Dr. Ambedkar, inspiration to many millions of India’s ‘Dalits’ and leader of their mass conversion to Buddhism in 1956." This was from Triratna News. There's a movie there about Ambedkar.

Couples as spiritual friends who challenge

There is an article about Colleen Saidman Yee, a yoga teacher.

In the quote, Rodney Yee, a retired yoga teacher, is speaking first.

Regarding the disenchantment some of their students felt after their affair went public, he said serenely: “It’s good to get the pedestal kicked out from under you constantly. And not only is it good for you, but also for the practice we’re involved in. You get this glorified view of yourself.”
  “I don’t think that happens to me,” Ms. Saidman Yee said quietly.
  “Oh, honey, give me a break.”

This is from the NY Times.

Seven Wonders of the Buddhist World

I watched Seven Wonders of the Buddhist World on YouTube. It's by Bettany Hughes and BBC.

It's quite amazing to see these sacred sites. All sorts of amazing footage.

It starts out exploring some of the ideas, and she goes to Bodhgaya (1).

It goes to Nepal where there are many Tibetans, and she goes to the Boudhanath Stupa (2). There is the signing female monk who also takes in girls from negative families. There's a bit about Ashoka.

She goes to the Temple of the Tooth in Kandy Sri Lanka (3). You can't see the tooth, but you can get some holy water from ritual bathing of it. She trots out the superficial idea of karma, as a kind of metaphysical retribution, instead of the ideas of conditionality that are not necessarily punishing or rewarding. Not that there isn't some sort of wisdom in there, but I just worry people have some kind of weird metaphysical add on. Buddhism for me has parsimony. It doesn't add on a bunch of stuff. Sri Lanka has been in a civil war for many years.

Then she goes to Thailand and Wat Poh and the golden reclining Buddha (4). She points out it's opulence.

Cambodia's wonder of the Buddhist world is Ankor Wat (5). This is where she tries meditation. She's a beginner at meditation and seems positive about it, but doesn't want to take it on. It feels too much for her. She has respect for it. Again Cambodia has been plagued by war, genocide and terror in modern times. There were times when Buddhist were persecuted, so there are small sort of hidden temples. She tries to understand samara.

Next she goes to Hong Kong, to see Giant Buddha overlooking the city. It's also called Tian Tan Buddha (6). She decodes the iconography. She visit a monastery right next to the giant buddha. People meditate in cute little insect nets just the size of a meditator. I never saw water bowl meditation. You walk and try not to spill a bowl of water. She tries to understand Zen.

(7) Finally she goes to California, to Hsi Lai Temple in a suburb of L.A. There are over 10K Buddha statues, and families sponsor them and get to put their names on them (good money making idea). She tries to understand Nirvana. She talks to a California guy who doesn't want Buddhism to be mixed with anything goes new age spirituality, but sees it as a discipline. She sits and watches a yoga class.

She's strong at giving background to the context of these seven wonders in the countries she's in.

I liked seeing Richard Gombrich, I've never seen footage of him. Wish there was more footage of him.

I guess I'd like to see the 8 great places: Lumbini,Bodh Gaya, Sarnath,Kusinara,Sravasti, Rajgir, Sankassa, Vaishali.

It is narrated by Bettany Hughes, a non-buddhist, a popular historian, and therefore has a certain level of superficiality and tries to understand ideas in Buddhism without much depth. Lots of expert talking heads, and local experts give a hodgepodge of ideas. She starts out calling it a philosophy, but expands it later. It was weird her talking while a group of Tibetan monks were chanting in the same room. I could see her trying to "get the shot".

One talking head in this film says that Buddhism is all about personal responsibility. I would agree, but I would also add that there are sects of Buddhism that focus more on other power, mostly the pure land traditions. You need self power, community power and other power.

Thurman says there is no creator god, but there are many gods. I would also say it's possible to believe in them as archetypes, or even mental creations that might be useful.

One commenter wondered why Borobudur wasn't included. I'd leave out the one in California and put that one in. One person noted that the 4 noble truths were not explicitly mentioned.

In the end, it synthesizes a lot of information about Buddhism, the various cultures and sects that spring out of enlightenment experience in 7 different countries, and shows a lot of footage of sacred places, and talks to a bunch of people to get the various takes on Buddhism. What it lacks in depth it makes up for in breadth. At times I was offended by the simplicity, and others I was interested in the footage of practicing Buddhist. I don't know if it would be spiritual tourism to visit these 7 sites. I think you don't need to go anywhere to practice. Many people have been profoundly effected by traveling to the holy sites in India. My impression of people who got interested in Buddhism because they were in one of these countries and they just went to some temple because it's a tourist site, is that they don't really follow it up. But some do, and it works for them. It's a funny old world.

(I couldn't help but notice on the same page was a documentary called Jesus Was A Buddhist Monk. It was done by the BBC.)

Zen in English Literature and Oriental Classics

Many years ago I heard a talk while on an ordination retreat, and I heard about Zen in English Literature and Oriental Classics. I wanted to read the book, but the speaker didn't want to lend out the book. I was on retreat about going for refuge, and like these retreats, there's lots of meditation, and dharma talk. I still think I'm trying to grasp the depths of going for refuge to the three jewels.

I check on line when I got home, and it's almost $200 used on Amazon. That number hasn't changed over the years.

I was on retreat, again on an ordination retreat, in California. We borrowed another order's retreat center. They had a copy. But because I was on retreat, I wasn't really into plowing through a book. At the end of the retreat, I asked if I could borrow it, promising to send it back, but they wouldn't lend it.

I've stalled reading When The Swans Came To The Lake, because it's hit times I feel I know about and it's not as interesting, but there is a bit in there about the book by R.H. Blyth.

So I googled it today. Looks like it's going to be reprinted soon, looks like Welcome Rain Publishers is going to reprint it. On their website they say it comes out in February for $15. On Barnes and Noble it says it's coming out June 16th for $9.99. No mention of this new edition on Amazon.

I thought it was on Kindle, but it's Blyth's book Zen and Zen Classics (vol 1), which looks interesting, but not the same book.

Then I figured out how to read it on Open Library. I couldn't do it on my iPad, I had to do it on my laptop and download Adobe Digital Editions, which isn't simple, but I have a copy on my laptop to read. Now I don't really like to read on my laptop much, but it is free! And you join Open Library for free. So beggars can't be choosers. And there is a way to read it till it comes out.

Now I don't want to give you the impression I'm like some rare book collector, who makes a fetish out of a book, regardless of it's contents. It's the contents I'm interested in. When I go by specialty book stores that sell expensive collector books, I have no interest. And while I enjoyed the first quarter of the book, it's not the most amazing book in the world. But it's part of the history of Buddhism coming to America, and it's a classic book about Buddhism and English literature, so I'm glad to, after many years, get my eyes on it.

Hunting for a book for years is kind of fun. I guess I'll start at the beginning, because I can't remember what page or chapter I was on, and it's been so long.

Ebert's Religion

"In his 2011 memoir Life Itself, he comes clean: "No, I am not a Buddhist. I am not a believer, not an atheist, not an agnostic. I am more content with questions than answers." In so doing, he inadvertently expressed just how much of a religious person he was. As the astute Catholic monk Thomas Merton once declared, "A man is known better by his questions than his answers," and indeed religious traditions themselves unfold in the oscillation between questions and answers, answers and questions. There is no great person of faith, be it Abraham or Moses, St Augustine or St John of the Cross, Jesus or Muhammad, who did not express doubt, did not ask a lot of questions."

That was from S Brent Plate on Hufpo.

I think his approach is compatible with Buddhism.

There are various definitions of Buddhism. Tibetans sometimes think it's karma and rebirth. Sangharakshita thinks it's going to refuge to the Buddha, Dharma and Sangha. Elaborating in my own words, I think it's the belief that the Buddha actually got enlightened, that enlightenment is a significant thing, and that moving on the path towards enlightenment is worthwhile. While Buddhists might not be the only ones to elucidate the path towards enlightenment, the tradition of text and living people is very supportive on the journey, the living tradition. So when Ebert says he's not a Buddhist, he probably doesn't invest in the tradition.

I've often written my religion on Facebook to be "utmost wondrousness", and I love Keats' negative capability. In the Kalama Sutta, there's a kind of permission to think for yourself, not to just blindly follow what others say. The Buddha supposedly often said essentially, "don't do it just because I said that, test it in your own experience."

(Possibly where the Kalama Sutta was given.)

That's what appeals to me about Buddhism, that you don't have to over ride your experience, and you don't have to swallow someone else's revelations. There are practical teachings on the path towards enlightenment that the tradition has handed down, and it would seem foolish to ignore those. But you can't really blaspheme that, and you don't have to believe it if it goes against your experience. It really has a modern sensibility that is about freedom.

To be sure some religions offer answers. People want answers. It's natural to poll others when trying to figure things out. Sometimes in a kind of ferver people start to do other things, mistaken strategies, that lead to negativity towards spirituality. I can't convince my atheist friend to watch Atheism 2.0, which encourages an appreciation of what spirituality can give. I think it's a mistake to dismiss what is good in the spiritual traditions, true spirituality. Rejecting labels might be one path, and embracing a tradition and community that works for you might also be a start.

By the way, I laughed a lot at this collection of Ebert Quotes form movies he didn't like.

Happy Birthday

Today is Stephen Batchelor's Birthday.

I appreciated his Buddhism Without Belief and read it a few times. It's a manifesto for people who don't feel like adding in weird entities to their belief system and still be a Buddhist. I reread Alone With Others recently enough; It is a synthesis of modern thought, including Hegel, with Buddhism.  I was eying Living With The Devil yesterday, I'm going to reread that soon. And his latest book is another good read, Confessions of an Atheist Buddhist. He's written also an interesting book about Buddhist movements, called Awakening Of The West. Faith in Doubt is an early memoir, probably encompassed in his last memoir, but maybe more detail about his break with the Tibetans because he's not feeling reincarnation. He also has a translation of the Bodhicaryavatara, and Song of the Profound View by Rabten, Geshé. There are other books, but I haven't read them.

Thank you for the amazing unique voice in Buddhist writing!

Samvega

Ṭhānissaro Bhikkhu has this to say about samvega: “Samvega was what the young Prince Siddhartha felt on his first exposure to aging, illness, and death. It's a hard word to translate because it covers such a complex range — at least three clusters of feelings at once: the oppressive sense of shock, dismay, and alienation that come with realizing the futility and meaninglessness of life as it's normally lived; a chastening sense of our own complacency and foolishness in having let ourselves live so blindly; and an anxious sense of urgency in trying to find a way out of the meaningless cycle. This is a cluster of feelings we've all experienced at one time or another in the process of growing up, but I don't know of a single English term that adequately covers all three. It would be useful to have such a term, and maybe that's reason enough for simply adopting the word samvega into our language.”

Got this from a blog post called SENSITIVITY, SAMVEGA, BUDDHISM AND ALCOHOLISM.

Lankavatara Sutra

The Queens Public Library in New York City is awesome. They have a copy of The Lankavatara Sutra: Translation and Commentarywhich is one of my favorite sutras. The only downside is that because of how it's classified, I can't renew it on line, and have only 2 weeks at a time with it.

(Guess I'll have to concentrate on it. I like to read where my whims lead me.)

Pine writes in the introduction, "Just as the Diamond Sutra teaches detachment from dharmas, and the Heart Sutra teaches the emptiness of dharmas, the Lankavatara teaches the non-projection of dharmas, that there  would be no dharmas to be empty or to be detached from if we did not project them as existing or not existing the first place." (p.4)

Pine also writes, "the Lankais not a text that welcomes the casual reader."

I found the Suzuki translation very interesting. Suzuki translated from the Sanskrit. Pine translates from the Chinese, which is from the Sanskrit edition.

Metta

(credit)

I wouldn't say I struggle with metta, because I do it, but I do think sometimes beginners might be harsh on themselves when wellsprings of metta don't just gush out of them. This is an attempt to build up from what's there.

Metta is sometimes translated as universal lovingkindness. A pretty high ideal. The amazing thing is that you can move towards that ideal. I find it useful to move towards that idea.

(I had a friend confronting some friends about places in America where you can't run for office if you're not a Christian. One person said, "if you're not a Christian I don't know your values." I would argue you don't really know someone's real values even if someone calls themselves a Christian. The idea that we can't have a secular or a non-Christian ethics, is Christian presumptive. Like they're the only ones who have developed morals. And even if you know someone's ideals, you don't know how successful they are at moving towards them. Even so, I think the use of ideals is important is being something more than a materialist or a nihilist.)

I like it that people are honest, when I am honest, and don't ape a spiritual personality by pretending that you are full of metta. Getting really close to the bone and seeing what's there is so important. A friend's recent reporting in impressed me in expressing the struggle to find a deeper metta.

I suppose it doesn't exactly feel triumphant to notice when you fall short, but in a way, metta practice can be about that. Reframing things in a positive way can avoid a heavy negative load.

In the first stage, I connect with just a basic desire to survive, if metta doesn't gush out, and I build on that.

In the second stage, I notice how in someone it's easy when you really like someone to have sticky affection--what do I get from them? I want to move more to a thou relationship, so I listen and hope for that.

In the third stage, I notice how I split. Either you're for me, or against me. I appreciate the various levels in which I do that, and appreciate the fact that I don't always do that, and I can take the larger perspective.

In the forth stage, I think about how I don't appreciate the circumstances enough to have seen why a person would be cast as an enemy. I resist reality in so many ways, and this is another example.

The fifth stage is the hardest for me, because spreading a lack of something, well, it's like trying to butter toast without enough butter. I can line all 4 people up and see if I can equalize the metta. I can also think about ever widening circles. Me, my household, my floor, my apartment building, my block, my neighborhood, my borough, my city, my metropolitan area, the surrounding states, the region, the nation, the continent, the other continents, the whole planet, the solar system, the cosmos. That feels like an academic exercise, but I do appreciate that there might be life outside of earth, and to just beam whatever positive feeling I can out into it. I can also think about all the different species on the planet, from the ones most related to me and beyond. (There's a funny and NSFW account of rebirth by Andy from Weeds.) I also notice how I get lost in this stage, that I have really found what really works for me in this stage, and that this is such a rich practice and that 11 years of practice doesn't really even begin to plumb the depths of it.

And as always when things get so airy fairy, I can also use that stage to reconnect back in with myself, how I'm feeling, and feel the fruits of the practice.

End note: For just sitting there, I think a lot about my todo list. Refining my todo list isn't the purpose of meditation, but it is a fruit, in my opinion.

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(Note: Sometimes it's hard to trace back to who actually posted a photo because people reblog things a lot on Tumblr. I'm working harder to credit the photos I post, and not post when people don't want their photos used by others. That would be taking the not given.)

Dying Traditions

The new translation of the Bardo Thodol had got me thinking more about my culture's traditions that help guide us into death.

Francecsa Hampton's last story gives us something. While it's not as rich and fantastical as the Bardo Thodol, it felt more true, more of my culture. You can read her wonderful stories in Buddha on a Midnight Sea - Short Stories.

As Buddhist Fiction Blog has pointed out, there is Buddhist fiction by Buddhists and there is fiction about Buddhists. Hampton's stories are both.

Hampton is a student of the late Lama Yeshe, who was a Gelugpa.