Chingu Sangha

The Hermit Kingdom: All about Korean Buddhism

2005-06-08T10:31:00.000-05:00

http://www.buddhapia.com/eng/index.html

Buddhist Centers in Minnesota

2005-04-22T23:50:00.000-05:00

Sam-bul Sa (Korean Budd. Assoc)
8301 W. River Rd.
Brooklyn Park, MN 55444
Phone: 763-561-7014
Buddhism

Sri Lakaramaya Buddhist Temple
2345 Stone Creek Ln
Chanhassen, MN 55317
Phone: 952-314-4862
Buddhism

Midwest Buddhist Association
774 Mill Path
Eagan, MN 55123
Phone: 925-688-2889
Buddhism

Lao Temple of Minnesota
22605 Cedar Avenue South
Farmington, MN 55024
Phone: 651-469-1692
Buddhism

Cambodian Buddhist Society
2925 220th Street East
Hampton, MN 55031
Phone: 651-463-3101
In the News
Buddhism

Dharma Field Zen Center
3118 West 49th Street
Minneapolis, MN 55410
Phone: 612-928-4868
Website: www.dharmafield.org
Buddhism

Ganden Cho Ling Dharma Center
8 E. 25th St.
Minneapolis, MN 55404
Phone: 612-623-3474
Buddhism

Gyuto Wheel of Dharma Monastery in Minnesota
4011 Polk St. NE
Minneapolis, MN 55421
Phone: 763-789-4478
Center Profile
Buddhism

Karma Thegsum Choling Meditation Center
4301 Morningside Road
Minneapolis, MN 55416
Phone: 952-926-5048
Website: www.kagyu.org/centers/usa/usa-min.html
Buddhism

Ming-ni Su-lien Fo-Hsueh she
425 13th Ave. S.E. #607
Minneapolis, MN 55414
Buddhism

Minneapolis Shambhala Center
304 University Ave., NE, Suite 303
Minneapolis, MN 55413
Buddhism

Minnesota Zen Center
3343 East Calhoun Parkway
Minneapolis, MN 55408
Phone: 612-822-5313
Website: www.mnzenctr.com/
In the News
Buddhism

Minnesota Zen Meditation Center
3343 E. Calhoun Parkway
Minneapolis, MN 55408
Phone: 651-822-5313
Buddhism

Niem Phat Duong Thien An
c/o D.H. Dong Truc, 7732 Unity Ave. North
Minneapolis, MN 55443-3021
Buddhism

Twin Cities Dharma Study Group
3314 Emerson South
Minneapolis, MN 55408
Buddhism

Wat Lao Minneapolis
1429 NE Second Street
Minneapolis, MN 55413
Phone: 612-789-9382
Buddhism

Northfield Buddhist Meditation Center
313 Division St
Northfield, MN 55057
Website: www.northfieldbuddhists.org
Buddhism

Laotian Buddhist Society
7327 13th Ave. S
Richfield, MN 55423
Buddhism

Chua Phat An Buddhist Temple
475 Minnesota Avenue
Roseville, MN 55113
Phone: 651-482-7990
Buddhism

Phat An Buddhist Temple
475 Minn.Ave, Box13682, Market Place
Roseville, MN 55113
Phone: 651-482-7990
Website: www.phatan.org/
Buddhism

Sakya Thupton Dargye Ling
1615 Bruce Ave.
Roseville, MN 55113
Phone: 763-633-0019
Buddhism

Clouds in Water Zen Center
308 Prince Street
St. Paul, MN 55101
Phone: 651-222-6968
Website: www.cloudsinwater.org
Buddhism

Soka Gakkai International (SGI)-USA, Minnesota Community Center
1381 Eustis Street
St. Paul, MN 55108
Phone: 651-645-3133
Buddhism

St. Paul Zendo
136 Amherst
St. Paul, MN 55705
Buddhism

Triple Gem of the North
PO Box 323
St. Peter, MN 56082
Phone: 612-227-8188
Fax: 952-314-4863
Website: www.triplegem.org
Buddhism

Excerpt from Comfortable with Uncertainty by Pema Chodron

2005-04-17T00:57:00.000-05:00

Selection 86: Six Ways to Be Lonely

Usually we regard loneliness as an enemy. It’s restless and pregnant and hot with the desire to escape and find something or someone to keep us company. When we rest in the middle of it, we begin to have a nonthreatening relationship with loneliness, a cooling loneliness that turns our usual fearful patterns upside down. There are six ways of describing this kind of cool loneliness:

Less desire is the willingness to be lonely without resolution when everything in us yearns for something to change our mood.
Contentment means that we no longer believe that escaping our loneliness is going to bring happiness or courage or strength.
Avoiding unnecessary activities means that we stop looking for something to entertain us or to save us.
Complete discipline means that at every opportunity, we’re willing to come back to the present moment with compassionate attention.
Not wandering in the world of desire is about relating directly with how things are, without trying to make them okay.
Not seeking security from one’s discursive thoughts means no longer seeking the companionship of constant conversation with ourselves.

Bell Hooks Interviews Pema Chodron

2005-04-17T00:54:00.000-05:00

Pema Chödrön & bell hooks talk over life and all its problems
—from the Shambhala Sun magazine

Initially when I enter the classroom, I share with my students that we are there to think critically—to engage the world we live in—the world of ideas, fully, deeply, with our whole heart. Pema Chödrön's work gives me this gift. Consistently she challenges me to think beyond someplace where I have erected boundaries—where I've allowed myself to become stuck—attached—full of defences.

When I first read her, the writing irked me. I was disturbed by what I began to call its "strategic open-endedness." I wanted to be offered solutions, ways out. Instead, she kept extending an invitation to me and everyone to move into that enchanted space beyond right or wrong—to journey to the heart of compassion. And when you have stepped out on faith, straight into the heart of the matter, loving kindness appears less like a utopian dream. It becomes concrete—a place to practice wherever you are.

Beyond the challenges she makes to the stuck places within us, Pema is most seductive and exciting when she urges us to revise our notions of safety, telling us: "Real safety is your willingness to not run away from yourself." She urges us to risk, to embrace rebellion, disruption, and chaos as a beloved site for transformation. Talking with her enabled me to bring issues that trouble my heart out in the open. My hope was that she could and would shed light on the matter. Those bits of light are here in our dialogue. May their radiance reach you.

—bell hooks

bell hooks: Pema, one of the ideas in your work that really challenges me is abandoning the hope of fruition. That's really hard for me.

Pema Chödrön: The way I understand it is that we rob ourselves of being in the present by always thinking that the payoff will happen in the future.

The only place ever to work is right now. We work with the present situation rather than a hypothetical possibility of what could be. I like any teaching that encourages us to be with ourselves and our situation as it is without looking for alternatives. The source of all wakefulness, the source of all kindness and compassion, the source of all wisdom, is in each second of time. Anything that has us looking ahead is missing the point.

bell hooks: Much of the work I do revolves around racism and sexism, and on one hand, I want to start right where I am in the now. But on the other hand, I also have to have this vision of a future where these things are not in our lives. Do you think that's too utopian?

Pema Chödrön: Personally, I work with aspiration. The classic aspiration is "Sentient beings are numberless. I vow to save them." That means that I aspire to end suffering for all creatures, but at the same time I stay with the immediacy of the situation I'm in. I give up both the hope that something is going to change and the fear that it isn't. We may long to end suffering but somehow it paralyzes us if we're too goal-oriented. Do you see the balance there? It's like the teaching that Don Juan gave to Carlos Castenada, where he says that you do everything with your whole heart, as if nothing else matters. You do it impeccably and with your whole heart, but all the while knowing that it actually doesn't matter at all.

bell hooks: Yet it seems very hard for people to fight this racism and sexism without hope for an end to it. There is so much despair and apathy because of the feeling that we've struggled and struggled and not enough has changed.

Pema Chödrön: The main issue is aggression. Often if there's too much hope you begin to have a strong sense of enemy. Then the whole process of trying to alleviate suffering actually adds more suffering because of your aggression toward the oppressor. Don't you see a lot of people who have such good intentions but they get very angry, depressed, resentful?

bell hooks: Yes, you're talking to one! I get so overwhelmed sometimes.

Pema Chödrön: Well, doesn't that get in the way?

bell hooks: Yeah, it does. I'm on tour right now talking about my book about ending racism, and I hear people say things like, racism doesn't exist, or, don't you think we've already dealt with that? And I start to feel irritable. This irritability starts mounting in me, and I notice how it collapses into sorrow. I came home the other day and I sat down at my table and just wept because I thought, it's just too much.

Pema Chödrön: Well, isn't that the point? That other people and ourselves, we're the same really, and we just get stuck in different ways. Getting stuck in any kind of self-and-other tension seems to cause pain. So if you can keep your heart and your mind open to those people, in other words, work with any tendency to close down towards them, isn't that the way the system of racism and cruelty starts to de-escalate?

The thing is, once we get into this kind of work we are opening ourselves for all our own unresolved misery to come floating right up and block our compassion. It's a difficult and challenging practice to keep your heart and mind open. It takes a lot to be a living example of unbiased mind! But when you see, bell, how you feel towards these people, you can begin to understand why there is racism, why there is cruelty, because everyone has those same thoughts and emotions that you do. Everyone feels that irritability and then it escalates.

bell hooks: Is it simply a choice of will to have an open heart?

Pema Chödrön: I think it begins with the aspiration to connect with open heart, the knowledge that cultivating openness is how you want to spend the remaining moments of your life.

Openness actually starts to emerge when you see how you close down. You see how you close down, how you yell at someone, and you begin to have some compassion. It starts with compassion towards yourself and then you begin to extend that warmth to the rest of humanity. It begins to dawn on you how it could happen that people are yelling at others because they're oriental or black or hispanic or women or gay or whatever. You begin to know what it's like to stand in their shoes.

bell hooks: How do you develop compassion towards yourself?

Pema Chödrön: A big part of compassion is being honest with yourself, not shielding yourself from your mistakes as if nothing had happened. And the other big component is being gentle.

This is what meditation is about, but obviously it goes beyond sitting on a meditation cushion. You begin to see your moods and your attitudes and your opinions. You begin to hear this voice, your voice, and how it can be so critical of self and others. There is growing clarity about all the different parts of yourself.

Meditation gives you the tools to look at all of this clearly, with an unbiased attitude. A lot of having compassion toward oneself is staying with the initial thought or arising of emotion. This means that when you see yourself being aggressive, or stuck in self-pity, or whatever it might be, then you train again and again in not adding things on top of that—guilt or self-justification or any further negativities. You work on not spinning off and on being kinder toward the human condition as you see it in yourself.

bell hooks: The idea in your work I find so moving is the unconditional embrace of one's being, which allows you to embrace others at the same time. But if I unconditionally accept myself, then what's the motivation to practice further?

Pema Chödrön: That willingness to stick with yourself is just another way of saying that you stay awake. It seems what blocks seeing things truly is our tendency to self-denigrate, to disassociate continually, to edit continually. When you don't close down and shut off, then insight begins to come. This insight is the wisdom that completely cuts through the conventional way of seeing.

So when you see clearly, the motivation to practice becomes stronger and stronger because you begin to have insights that are totally refreshing and powerful. The motivation to practice becomes stronger because you are discovering your true nature and it's painful to block that in any way. It's painful to see yourself being totally neurotic, selfish, all these things, and you can't stand to do that to yourself. You don't want to cover over your openness anymore. Plus you can't bear to see the suffering it causes other people when they do the same thing.

On one level, our suffering is caused by bigotry and dogmatism and all these things, but ultimately we suffer because we don't understand how limitless we are. You could say that we live in a fantasy, that what we call reality is actually a dream. This is an important truth—that this whole thing is a fantasy and we're totally completely caught up in it. We limit what is limitless. We condition what is unconditioned, and it makes us miserable. When you begin to understand that, you can't bear for other people to keep hurting themselves that way, and you can't bear to keep hurting yourself that way. Then you are really motivated to practice.

bell hooks: You have commented that we can't smooth out the rough edges, yet as I was listening to you I was thinking, isn't she describing a sense that the rough edges get smoothed out.

Pema Chödrön: No they don't, actually. What you realize is that there's enough space to accommodate all of it. There's enough space in your own being, enough space in the whole of creation, to accommodate all of it. All of it. It's because we pick and choose, because we have biases and prejudices, because we prefer smooth to rough and then react for and against, that we suffer.

bell hooks: Can you talk about the difference between blame and accountability? Because I feel, like you, that blame isn't very useful. But you have said, for instance in reference to men teachers who abuse their powers, that you feel the issue of accountability is real. How does one maneuver between giving up blame and being able to embrace the idea of accountability?

Pema Chödrön: This is the message of the first noble truth. You are willing to see suffering as suffering.

Obviously the less that you are caught in your own hope and fear, the more you can just see suffering very straightforwardly and without aggression. So accountability seems to mean you can be honest, incredibly honest. You see that harm is being done. You see someone harming a child, an animal, another human being. You see that clearly and your strongest wish is to de-escalate that suffering. Then the question is, how do you proceed so that the person you see as the problem becomes accountable, becomes willing to acknowledge what they're doing?

You realize how hard it is for you to acknowledge what you are doing in your own life. You see what it takes to become accountable yourself, and you begin to try to find the skillful means to communicate so that the barriers come down rather than get reinforced. It has everything to do with communication: how can you communicate so that someone can hear what you're saying and you can also hear what they are saying?

bell hooks: One of the issues that I've had with the students in my American literature classes is my sense that we're all accountable, that while I as teacher am a certain kind of center from which things radiate, everyone is accountable. They were very distressed last week because I said to them, you know, these papers are really boring. And they came back this week and they said, you were really mean, you were just so raw. And I said, excuse me, was I the only one thinking these papers were boring? Am I the only person who's accountable here?

Although I did not have the pleasure and pain of meeting Trungpa Rinpoche, I've always been moved by his teaching. I have always felt myself to be embodying in my own teaching and habits of being a certain wildness of spirit that's experimental, that's willing to push the boundaries. That's why my book on teaching is called Teaching to Transgress.

Pema Chödrön: Accountability, as you're talking about it, is my understanding of the spiritual path. With Trungpa Rinpoche, my feeling was that all he was doing was getting people to take responsibility for themselves, getting them to grow up. He was a master of not confirming. Talking to him was like talking to a huge space where everything bounced back, and you had to be accountable for yourself.

Personally I feel that the role of the teacher is to wean the students from dependency, and from taking the parent/child view of life altogether. That's what I think of as non-theism. Theism doesn't just have to do with God; it has to do with always feeling that you're incomplete and need something or someone outside to look to. It's like never growing up.

To me, theism is feeling that you can't find out for yourself what's true. You take the Buddhist teachings, or any teachings and you just try to fit yourself into them. But you're not really finding out. You're not grappling with it. You're not really digging into it and letting it transform your being. You are just trying to live up to some ideal. You are still looking for the security of having someone else to praise or blame.

So accountability is pretty groundless. There is no hand to hold. It's like the lojong slogan that says, "Of the two judges, trust the principal one." No matter what other people say, when it really comes down to it, you're the only one who can answer your own questions.

bell hooks: You have taken radically different paths at different moments of your life. I'm interested in how we can use mindfulness as a way of illuminating vocation, of knowing when we need to let one path go and move towards another. Do you still grapple with those questions?

Pema Chödrön: Oh, all the time. I mean, isn't that the way? The more you really get into it, the more you grapple. Life is such a stunner. It's always humbling you and showing you how little you know, how little you understand. It continues to inspire you to go forward, but wow, it's a pretty humbling experience. I don't know if that's really what you mean here.

bell hooks: It's a part of what I mean, but I was asking more concretely how we practice in a manner that illuminates our everyday life choices.

Pema Chödrön: What do you think, bell?

bell hooks: I was thinking about work in America and work as a place of suffering for lots of people. So many people spend their lives working in jobs where they feel miserable and I am certainly one of those who feels somewhat miserable in her own job.

Pema Chödrön: Well, there's always the simple answer of moving into a different field. There's nothing wrong with that. But just changing the outer situation doesn't get at the root of the discontent. This gets down to the truth of suffering again. As human beings, we need to look directly at suffering, at what causes it, at what makes it escalate, and at what allows it to dissolve. So the first thing is to acknowledge, with a lot of honesty and heart, that no matter where we go or what we do, there are always going to be both positive and negative feelings and that this is a fertile situation.

My own experience is that I've been a nun going on twenty-three years or so, and as the years go on my life gets in some ways simpler and clearer. But you know, bell, these feelings of worry, of not enough time, still come up. Then you realize how much of it is in our minds. Whether we're in a totally overwhelming work situation or a very simplified one, we still have to work with our minds.

That's why some teachings say that no matter what is happening in your life, it's always showing you the true nature of reality. No matter what movie you're in, no matter what the plot is of the current film you're starring in, it is the vehicle for showing you the true nature of your mind.

So I feel the whole thing comes down to being very, very attuned to one's emotions—to seeing how one is attached to the pleasant and has an aversion to what is painful. You work again and again on trying to discover how to get unhooked, to open and soften rather than to tighten and close down. It comes down to realizing the wisdom and compassion that are contained in this life that we have, just as it is. No matter how simplified or complicated life gets, it can make us miserable or it can wake us up.

bell hooks: One of the things I've been thinking about a great deal is poverty. I feel very strongly that in our society people have been made to feel that you can't lead a meaningful life if you are poor. So much of the agitation in the lives of the poor in this society has to do with this disdain.

Pema Chödrön: The question is how to help people, no matter how desperate their lives are, to realize that they are worthy to live on this earth, that they do not have to feel inferior or be ashamed of themselves. And the question is how to help people to get smarter about what causes suffering to increase and what causes it to decrease.

There is a famous saying that from great suffering comes great compassion. Well, from great suffering can come great compassion, or from great suffering can come great hatred. Maybe someone like you could really work on that message right there. From great suffering can come great openness of heart, a great sense of kinship with others, or from great suffering can come hatred, resentment and despair.

bell hooks: But it isn't an automatic thing. It isn't because you suffer that you will have compassion. In the past people have felt that this is some kind of reward for your suffering, that you will have compassion.

Pema Chödrön: People need a lot of support for suffering to turn into compassion. What usually happens to people when they don't have teachers and guides and the support of people who care is that great suffering leads to more suffering. You have mothers who don't have the money to care for their kids and on top of that they get completely lost in drugs, not to mention that their kids are getting into deep trouble. So the nightmare escalates and escalates.

The fundamental question is not whether there is or isn't suffering. It is how we work with suffering so that it leads to awakening the heart and going beyond the habitual views and actions that perpetuate suffering. How do we actually use suffering so that it transforms our being and that of those that we come in contact with? How can we stop running from pain and reacting against it in ways that destroy us as well as others? This is a message that people can hear, but they have to hear it a lot, and with great heart, and from people who really care, not from somebody who is just passing through to make a few dollars.

That's why I love the lojong teachings, because the lojong slogans are accessible. Basically, they teach how we can take difficult circumstances and transform them into the path of compassion. That's the kind of teaching we need these days, that difficult circumstances can be the path to liberation. That's news you can use.

bell hooks: Well, that brings me to my final issue. I have written it in big block letters: DON'T EVEN THINK FOR A MOMENT THAT YOU'RE NOT GOING TO DIE.

Pema Chödrön: Right. "Don't even think for a moment that you're not going to die." Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche said that to a friend of mine who had cancer and was close to death and was having trouble accepting it. And instead of it coming across to her as cruel, it came across as immense kindness, that someone was telling her the truth.

bell hooks: It does seem that so much of our longing to escape has to do with the sense that the closer I am to suffering, the closer I am to death.

Pema Chödrön: For me the spiritual path has always been learning how to die. That involves not just death at the end of this particular life, but all the falling apart that happens continually. The fear of death—which is also the fear of groundlessness, of insecurity, of not having it all together—seems to be the most fundamental thing that we have to work with. Because these endings happen all the time! Things are always ending and arising and ending. But we are strangely conditioned to feel that we're supposed to experience just the birth part and not the death part.

We have so much fear of not being in control, of not being able to hold on to things. Yet the true nature of things is that you're never in control. You're never in control. You can never hold on to anything. That's the nature of how things are. But it's almost like it's in the genes of being born human that you can't accept that. You can buy it intellectually, but moment to moment it brings up a lot of panic and fear. So my own path has been training to relax with groundlessness and the panic that accompanies it. Training to allow all that to be there, training to die continually. That seems to be the essence of the lojong teachings—to stay in the space of uncertainty without trying to reconstruct a reference point.

We can stop looking for some idealized moment when everything is simple and secure. This second of experience, which could be painful or pleasurable, is our working basis. What makes all the difference is how we relate to it.

bell hooks: Pema, I want to say how much I have wanted to speak with you, and I thank you for giving me this opportunity.

The Shambhala Sun is a lively, contemporary magazine inspired by the wisdom of Buddhism and the world's great contemplative traditions. You can e-mail the Shambhala Sun at magazine@shambhalasun.com, or write them at 1345 Spruce St., Boulder, CO 80302-4886, or call them at 902-422-8404, or pick up a copy at your local newsstand.

Shambhala Sun Magazine — http://www.shambhalasun.com
E-mail: magazine@shambhalasun.com
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Voice: (902) 422-8404 Fax: (902) 423-2701

“On one level, our suffering is caused by bigotry and dogmatism and all these things, but ultimately we suffer because we don't understand how limitless we are. You could say that we live in a fantasy, that what we call reality is actually a dream.”

Buddhist Studies Virtual Library

2005-04-17T00:34:00.000-05:00

http://www.ciolek.com/WWWVL-Buddhism.html

The School of Buddhist Studies at Geumgang University

2005-04-17T00:24:00.000-05:00

The School of Buddhist Studies offers a B.A. in Buddhist Studies for students interested in the culture and history of Buddhism. Buddhist thoughts will be illuminated from a modern standpoint, and programs for implementing those thoughts into practice will be sought on the basis of modern methodology.

Buddhism and New Age Orientalism

2005-04-15T09:47:00.000-05:00

Buddhism and the New Age
Vishvapani

ON MAY 25TH 1880 Madame Helena Petrova Blavatsky and Colonel Henry Steel Olcott, took the three refuges and the five precepts from a Buddhist priest in a temple in Galle, a coastal town in Sri Lanka, before a large crowd of Sinhalese. 'When we had finished the last of the Silas and offered flowers in the customary way', Olcott wrote in his diary, 'there was a mighty shout to make one's nerves tingle'.1

He and Blavatsky were the founders of the Theosophical Society, one of the most influential religious movements of the late 19th Century and in this ceremony Olcott became the first American and Blavatsky the first European 2 formally to convert to Buddhism. The twin legacies of Theosophy are the introduction of Buddhism to the West and the amorphous set of beliefs and practices which have come to be known as 'the New Age'.

Buddhism and the New Age have been associated ever since, converging spectacularly in the counter-cultural movements of the 1960's. In a recent paper Denise Cush concludes that 'there is a close, entangled and ambiguous relationship between British Buddhism and the New Age' which 'can be traced back to a common ancestor in Theosophy'.3 This entanglement has led to popular identifications of Buddhism as a part of the same movement as the New Age; the assumption on the part of many 'New Age' people that Buddhism supports their views; and the subtle influence of New Age attitudes and assumptions on Buddhists' understanding of their own tradition.

Nonetheless, Buddhism and the New Age are very different. They have emerged from very different histories, travelling on different historical trajectories and based on different philosophical assumptions. Cush identifies a changing relationship over the last two decades between British Buddhist groups and New Age activities from 'closeness to a conscious differentiation, followed by a diversification of approaches'. The initial closeness derived from the influence of the counter-cultural trends of the 1960s is thrusting both Buddhism and the New Age to prominence. The period of separation occurred as Buddhists sought, in the 1970s and 1980s to establish their own identity. But by the 1990s alienation from conventional religion, party politics and the conditions of consumer-capitalist society have generated renewed interest in both movements throwing them together once more. With the increased size and confidence of Buddhist movements in the West, Buddhists are in a position to explore ways of working alongside others and the last few years have seen a number of Buddhist initiatives in New Age venues. But what are the issues involved in this renewed encounter?

1. THE NEW AGE

THE INDEFINABILITY OF THE NEW AGE is at the heart of its nature. Is it a coherent entity, or simply a catch-all phrase describing essentially separate developments? There is no definitive set of beliefs or practices which are held in common by everyone to whom the term may be applied, but something is clearly happening. What are the distinguishing characteristics of the phenomenon we call New Age? What are the underlying attitudes and assumptions of which New Age practices are expressions?

Most commentators date the emergence of a distinctive New Age philosophy from the work of the American Theosophist Alice Bailey (1880-1949) which blended occultism, spiritualism and apocalyptic vision with the prevailing Zeitgeist. As Dell deChant comments

'The New Age is the product of mid-20th century America. It becomes noticeable in the late sixties and ever more pronounced since then as its chief carrier, the 'baby-boom' generation' continues to experiment with beliefs and ideologies which are, at best, distinct from those of capitalism, mainline Christianity and participatory democracy. Its most obvious origin is found in the work of Alice A Bailey'.4

Many New Age activities found in Britain have their origin in the USA and the UK has, in any case been subject to similar trends. But rather than attempting to account for the forms the New Age has taken or comparing New Age activities with Buddhist ones it is more important to discern their respective philosophical bases and underlying attitudes. A British New Age Creed is offered by William Bloom of St. James Piccadilly, which gives a starting-point for deducing these.

"All life-all existence-is the manifestation of Spirit, of the Unknowable, of that supreme consciousness known by many different names in different cultures.
The purpose and dynamic of all existence is to bring Love, Wisdom, Enlightenment into full manifestation.
All religions are expressions of this same inner reality.
All life, as we perceive it with the five human senses, or with scientific instruments, is only the outer veil of an inner, causal reality.
Similarly, human beings are two-fold creatures-with an outer temporary personality and a multi-dimensional inner being (soul or higher self).
The outer personality is limited and tends towards materialism.
The inner personality is unlimited and tends towards love.
Our spiritual teachers are those souls who are liberated from the need to incarnate and who express unconditional love, wisdom and Enlightenment. Some of these beings are well-known and have inspired the world religions. Some are unknown and work invisibly.
All life in all its different forms and states, is interconnected energy-and this includes our deeds, feelings and thoughts. We therefore work with spirit and these energies in co-creating our reality.
Although held in the dynamic of cosmic love, we are jointly responsible for the state of ourselves, of our environment and of all life.
During this period of time the evolution of the planet and of humanity has reached a point when we are undergoing a fundamental spiritual change in our individual and mass consciousness. This is why we speak of a 'New Age''.5

The Religion of the Self

Bloom's creed is characterised by its emphasis on 'inner reality' as the source of meaning and value. But in what sense, one might ask, is this reality 'inner'? It must be that it pertains to experience and in this way it overlaps with the 'inner personality'. But experience has been universalised and, with the substitution of a capital letter, love becomes 'Love' and wisdom, 'Wisdom'. This implies a substratum of existence which is 'Unknowable' and indescribable, but at the same time is crucial to the philosophy which follows (which is the cause of the vagueness and indeterminacy of so much New Age discourse). These are mystical beliefs which are neither rationally elaborated nor theologically defined, but which may-possibly-be experienced. 'Spiritual' qualities are separated from the 'outer' world of actions and ethics except where that world is redefined in spiritual terms: 'All life-all existence-is the manifestation of Spirit, of the Unknowable, of that supreme consciousness'. In a similar way 'all religions are expressions of this same inner reality'.

This, then, is the 'religion of the self'. At its heart is a Rousseau-esque sanctification of 'Inner being' which is outside history, innocent, pure, but nonetheless authoritative. And there is plainly no question of examining the assumptions out of which 'inner being' might be constructed. In practice, this results in a recurrent concern with personal experience. In psychological terms, the New Age speaks the language of individualism while in philosophical terms it speaks the language of immanence, at times implying a monistic metaphysic. These characteristics underlie its remaining features.

Eclecticism
The variety and all-inclusiveness of New-Age activities is perhaps its most remarkable feature. Organisationally there is deep mistrust of institutions and a preference for non-hierarchical models of operation. This is informed by a bias against rational thought or systems of belief and towards intuition and 'holistic paradigms'. But in practice the extent of New Age eclecticism suggests that the particular activity a New Ager chooses to participate in is secondary to the question of what they get from it, what it does for them, how it makes them feel.

New Age as a Market Sector
Another factor influencing the eclecticism of the New Age is its role within consumer society. Ethnic art and music, traditional medicines, handicrafts and clothes expand the range of consumer options. Markets exist in ideas (which can be obtained via books, magazines and seminars) and in experiences (which can be bought through workshops, therapies and retreats). And market forces will define as 'New Age' whatever can be sold as such (or alternatively, whatever cannot be sold as anything else).

For the consuming New Ager these phenomena offer the prospect of perpetual novelty on one's own terms. If you don't like the goods, you find another supplier. Where there is an acknowledgement that commoditisation means a qualitative erosion there is a compensatory stress on compression and intensity:

Enlightenment in a weekend workshop.
Carrying this a stage further, one branch of the New Age discards counter-cultural orientations in favour of 'prosperity teachings' (money as energy, life and empowerment; poverty as self-hatred). As the Sanyassin slogan had it 'Jesus saves, Moses invests, Bhagwan spends'. This is spiritualised materialism masquerading as materialised spirituality.

Neo-Paganism-the Decontextualisation of Tradition
New Age-ism is predicated on dissatisfaction with Christianity and an attempt to find alternative forms of spirituality. It is informed by the revival of non-Christian spiritual traditions such as Wiccan, Rosicrucianism, alchemy, Egyptian religion and the Eastern traditions of Buddhism, Hinduism, Taoism and Sufism all of which are cheerfully added to the eclectic mix.

But eclecticism should not be confused with openness. The self-orientation and spiritual consumerism of the New Age impose their own agenda and its approach to paganism as natural religion and animism is informed by modern perspectives. Thus the sense of the sanctity of the natural world augments both ecological concerns and the view of the self as natural and pure. The pagan notion of the immanence of gods, powers and spirits coheres with modern (and sometimes quasi-scientific) interest in psychic phenomena. Ancient mythologies inform psychologically derived 'personal myths' and the cult of the Goddess provides feminism with a deity. Gaia does all these things for everyone.

The New Apocalypse
A final strand is the belief that mankind is or may be entering a New Age-a golden age of spiritual awakening governed by new paradigms of thought. This can be seen as an outgrowth of Christian apocalypticism shorn of the Christian eschatological imagery-Armageddon, the return of Jesus and images from the Book of Revelation. In its place are symbols from (for example) astrology (the Age of Aquarius), biology (the evolution of the human race), parapsychology (harmonic convergence), occultism (the influence of the spiritual masters of Theosophy and Scientology who preside over the world) and science fiction (where the spiritual masters may inhabit UFOs)

. Some of the judgmental qualities of traditional eschatology live on in the notion that we are faced with a choice between a New Age and ecological or nuclear catastrophe. For the most part, however, there is a utopian and optimistic sense that the movement into the next phase of mankind's development is inevitable. In this respect the New Age is reminiscent of the Marxist and socialist utopias and indeed they have historical roots in common. However, the New Age has turned against the Marxist philosophy of revolution and socialist engagement. Alienation from conventional politics has been one of the principal factors in its development which displaces its idealism into an inconceivable future to be attained, in Bloom's words, by 'a fundamental spiritual change in our individual and mass consciousness' rather than through tangible reforms. In the UK the political movements which have influenced the New Age have mainly been concerned with protest and opposition-especially CND, Animal Liberation and the environmental pressure groups.

Philosophical Underpinnings
Christian theology distinguishes between immanence and transcendence as ways of describing the manner in which God is related to the world. Immanence denotes God's indwelling and omnipresence in the world while transcendence indicates a God who is infinitely above and beyond it. As Bloom's concern with 'inner reality' suggests, New Age discourse tends to be expressed in terms of immanence. 'Self-religion' finds meaning within; paganism sees the world as ensouled while apocalyptic utopianism envisages a variation on the theme of heaven on earth.

2. BUDDHISM AND THE NEW AGE

THEOSOPHY AND ITS NEW AGE OFFSPRING have been central influences in the construction of Western views of Buddhism which Mme. Blavatsky favoured as 'incomparably higher, more noble, more philosophic and more scientific than any other church or religion'7. In particular the esoteric interests of the Theosophists underlie the contemporary attraction of the tantra and Tibetan Lamas-whose true progenitors are perhaps the Mahatmas who communicated telepathically with Mme. Blavatsky. As AP Sinnet wrote in true orientalist fashion in Esoteric Buddhism (1883), 'Ceylon concerns itself merely with morals, Tibet, or rather the adepts of Tibet, with the science of Buddhism' 7. The Buddhist Society of London was founded in 1924 as a lodge of the Theosophical Society and Christmas Humphreys, its president, retained a commitment to Mme. Blavatsky's teachings throughout his life.8 Sangharakshita, too, was decisively influenced by Theosophy through his reading, at the age of fourteen, of Blavatsky's Isis Unveiled which brought him to a realisation that 'I was not a Christian-that I never had been and never would be'. However, enthralled as he was by the book, its effect was 'almost entirely negative' 9 and it was overwhelmed by his reading of Buddhist texts on which he realised 'that I was a Buddhist and always had been' 10. This set him on an Eastward trajectory, to encounters with Buddhism in the land of its origin.

When Sangharakshita and other experienced Buddhist teachers arrived in the West in the 1960s they had been preceded, and in some respects pre-empted, by the Theosophically-influenced versions of Buddhism popularised by Humphreys and Alan Watts and enthusiastically travestied by Lobsang Rampa and the Beats. In these ways, Buddhism overlapped with the New Age which, in many respects has continued to support its spread. Buddhist books are sold in New Age bookshops, Buddhist teachers frequently appear in New Age magazines and meditation has become widely popularised. In return Buddhism has provided New Age thinkers with a wealth of images, terms, concepts and texts.

The two movements were also connected by their counter-cultural principles. This association was deeply invigorating for British Buddhism and enabled the FWBO, for example, to cast off the staid and middle-class character of the previous generation of British Buddhists and distance itself from the ossification of much Eastern Buddhism. Buddhism is intrinsically 'alternative' in the West in that it offers an alternative to Christianity and to the many forms of materialism. For this reason a kinship exists between Buddhists and the world-views and counter-cultural experiments of the New Age. But 'identity is the vanishing point of resemblance', as Wallace Stevens says, and this kinship should not be allowed to obscure the profound differences. In an atmosphere of eclecticism, minorities can thrive: vegetarians are no longer considered cranks and neither are Buddhists. But Buddhists should beware of being added to the New Age soup-vegetarian or not.

If it is difficult to define the New Age, it is perhaps no less difficult to define Buddhism, but unless we can be clear what is distinctive about Buddhism we will be at the mercy of endless compromises and obscurations. I suggest that at the heart of the many expressions of the Dharma is a concern with the Truth, the full realisation of which is conterminous with Enlightenment. This emphasis runs contrary to the common Western perception of Buddhism as a path of progressively intensifying spiritual experience. That is to say, Buddhism is seen as a form of mysticism and mysticism is understood in terms of experience. In an address to a conference of 'scientists and mystics' Sangharakshita was at pains to stress that he identifed himself with neither party:

'To me as a Buddhist, terms such as 'mystic' and 'mystical' are in fact quite strange, even alien, not to say repugnant, and in speaking and writing about Buddhism I prefer to avoid them'11

This does not mean that Buddhism is not concerned with experience, but it does not see experience-even mystical experience-as an end in itself. When mysticism is turned into a philosophy it becomes monism-the belief in an underlying unity between all phenomena within the context of a metaphysical absolute, mysticism being the personal experience of such an absolute. Buddhism seeks to avoid all such absolutisation and reification and to understand experience in a broader, non-dualistic context:

'One might say Science represents an extreme of objectivity and reason whereas Mysticism represents an extreme of subjectivity and emotion... Science seeks to reduce the subject to the object, Mysticism to absorb the object in the subject. Buddhism, following here as elsewhere a Middle Way, represents a dissolution of the subject-object dichotomy in a blissful non-dual Awareness wherein... 'that which is exterior coincides with that which is interior'.12

In a similar vein, in a lecture on 'Enlightenment as Experience and Non-Experience' Sangharakshita proposes that we think of the spiritual life not in terms of experience, but in terms of the metaphors of growth, work and duty.13 The 'Truth' to which a Buddhist aspires has to be lived, felt and seen and it is likewise the Truth of his or her experience, but this is not the same as saying that it is experience. This is a crucial point of divergence from the New Age, as 'the religion of the Self'. For Buddhism there is no abiding Self or soul which is not subject to change.

The Buddhist concern with Truth is fundamentally at odds with the eclecticism and relativism of the New Age and Buddhists have to make distinctions between teachings and traditions which the New Age is happy to mix together. 'Truth' here does not refer to the various doctrinal expressions of the Dharma which Buddhist tradition does not consider to be ultimately 'true' in themselves. But such expressions are nonetheless considered indispensable means to Enlightenment and for this reason Right Understanding is the starting point of the Eight-fold path. It is therefore incumbent upon Buddhists to clarify their own views and to distinguish which of the views they encounter are compatible with the Dharma.

Thus a Buddhist cannot agree that 'all religions are essentially expressions of the same inner reality'. Sometimes this stance is urged on Buddhists with the coercive pressure of a theological correctness, but Buddhism does not even regard itself as 'an expression of reality'. It sees its own teachings and practices as means of creating conditions which conduce to the perception of reality and Buddhists will judge other teachings by the same criterion. Where there are differences of belief and practice Buddhists need to ask (in the ample spirit of friendly dialogue and tolerance) whether other religions, philosophies and spiritual paths are based, ultimately on one of the two essential 'wrong views': nihilism and eternalism. For example, in his belief in 'spirit' and 'the Unknowable' Bloom proposes a metaphysical substratum underlying and uniting all phenomena. A Buddhist analysis will see this, like Bloom's belief in a 'soul or higher self', as a form of eternalism-not to say as disguised theism. Alternatively, some manifestations of the New Age proceed on the assumption that true happiness is possible if we can but change to this diet, use this ethnic medicine, align these energies using those crystals, amulets, or charms, or take up a particular form of alternative medicine, martial art, or therapy. The suggestion that ultimate satisfaction can be found in a physical training or a particular form of therapy is essentially materialist and a Buddhist analysis will interpret them as a form of nihilism.

Similarly problematic is the belief that all religions are simply differing forms of 'spirituality'. Such an approach will see the Buddhist tradition as one resource among others from which an individual can draw. But why should one chose Buddhist spirituality rather than Christian, feminist or 'earth' spirituality when they are all just different kinds of experience and are all equally true/false/useful? If we simply take what we want from Buddhism we are in danger of ignoring the aspects which are uncomfortable and challenging-in other words, those parts of the tradition which will force one to change.

For this reason it is important that Buddhism is presented in a way which makes it clear that it cannot be incorporated into a life which is otherwise unchanged or subsumed innocuously into a New Age mix. Like the New Age, Dzogchen, Tantra and Zen tend to use the language of immanence: the doctrine of Buddha nature, the idea that we are already Enlightened-and the approaches to practice which follow from this-are all examples. In a cultural context which asserts subjective experience above universal values and where consumption is a primary mode of being such teachings are open to misinterpretation. An alternative approach-using the language of transcendence-asserts that we are not presently Enlightened (and, in fact that we are primordially deluded), that we need to change ourselves if we are to become Enlightened and that Buddhism is a path from delusion to Enlightenment, from Samsara to Nirvana. Some approaches will work and others will not, but one cannot say, with the New Age, that all approaches are equally valid.Buddhists cannot agree that they are helping to prepare for the Golden Dawn and the Age of Aquarius. A Buddhist approach to politics and society has to rest on pratiitya samutpaada, the principle that 'all things arise in dependence upon conditions'. Speaking of the FWBO Subhuti writes in Buddhism for Today

'there are... no millennial illusions. No golden age is at hand. The modern world is too complex and too pluralistic to be transformed in that way'. 14

However, Buddhists can work for meaningful change. As at any other time in history it is possible to create conditions which are more conducive to human well-being and allow the possibility of spiritual development. But this development takes place individually, not en masse in the manner of a totalitarian state or imperial expansion. As Subhuti says, 'empires deny individuality and breed their own expansion'. There is a Buddhist saying that 'Samsara is endless' and any belief that a utopian full-stop can be placed at the end of history will strike Buddhists as naïve escapism, speaking more of the fin de millennium fear of social collapse than of spiritual aspiration.

In spite of this the theosophical heritage lives on among contemporary Western Buddhists in the continuing idealisations of Tibet and Tibetan Buddhism, which Donald Lopez dubs 'new age orientalism'. He has in mind the fantasy version of Tibet:

'exalted as a surrogate self endowed with all that the West lacks. It is Tibet that will regenerate the West by showing us, prophetically, what it can be by showing us what it has been. It is Tibet that can save the West, cynical and materialist, from itself. Tibet is seen as a cure for the ever-dissolving West, restoring its spirit'.15

This Tibet is shrouded in snows and mystery in equal measure, secreted behind the Himalayas in the most inaccessible region of the world: the last abode (now cruelly displaced in its turn by the Chinese shadow of Western materialism) of legendary beasts, magical powers and perennial wisdom. To the extent that Western followers of Tibetan Buddhism perceive it in this way they merge into New Age appropriations of that tradition. The Dalai Lama, the Bardo Thödol and, to a lesser extent, the idea of tantric initiation all figure prominently in New Age mythologizing.

As an articulation of fantasy compensations for psychic inadequacy the New Age movement is not a cure so much as a symptom. Over fifty years ago W.H. Auden prophesied a New Age apocalypse in a long work called 'For The Time Being'. Herod is contemplating the impending massacre of the innocents. He does not want to issue the order because, as he says 'I am a liberal. I want everyone to be happy'. But civilisation is already crumbling:

'I have tried everything. I have prohibited the sale of crystals and ouija boards; the courts are empowered to sentence alchemists to hard labour in the mines; it is a statutory offence to turn tables or feel bumps'.

What he fears is a future where:

''Reason will be replaced by Revelation.... Knowledge will degenerate into a riot of subjective visions-feelings in the solar plexus induced by under-nourishment, angelic images generated by fevers or drugs. Whole cosmogonies will be created out of some forgotten personal resentment, complete epics written in private languages, the daubs of school-children ranked above the greatest masterpieces.... Idealism will be replaced by Materialism. Life after death will be an eternal dinner-party where all the guests are only 20 years old... Divine honours will be paid to silver teapots, shallow depressions in the earth, names on maps, domestic pets. The New Aristocracy will consist exclusively of hermits, bums and permanent invalids'.16

This is the icy hell of subjectivity whose inmates, relativizing truth, can speak only to themselves or of themselves to each other. Is it a portrait of the New Age? So elusive a phenomenon can never be adequately defined, but the characterisation I have suggested implies an ideology of underlying assumptions-the religion of the self, eclecticism and social fantasy-whose influence extends far beyond the many-tentacled reach of its institutions and organisations. Buddhism, too, contains underlying assumptions and has a distinctive approach which derives from them. These distinctions must be insisted upon however useful Buddhism and the New Age may be to each other and however much certain formulations of Buddhism may conceal the differences. This is not to say that the people one meets in New Age contexts are necessarily definable in its terms: the New Age is where people start looking when they want an alternative to conventional society. There may well be ways in which the two can live together. Buddhists might see the New Age as a kind of contemporary ethnic religion which can co-exist with Western Buddhism as tribal and national traditions co-exist with Eastern Buddhism. But Buddhists must retain a sense of the universality of their own tradition and of the extent to which it surpasses the New Age frameworks which will seek to define it. One has only to think of the absorption of Indian Buddhism by Hinduism to see how such a relationship can break down. Denise Cush suggests that the New Age, needing to be grounded in a tradition, 'could root itself in a Western form of non-sectarian or Mahayana Buddhism'.17 One sees something of the sort already taking place in the USA. However, Buddhists will insist that what passes as Buddhism is true to its name.

Finally the New Age is not paganism. It is a modern (or even a post-modern) phenomenon; it is a symptom of rootlessness, not a restoration of roots. The New Age seeks to consume traditions such as Buddhism as resources for personal experience. In these respects it embodies a reductio ad absurdum of contemporary liberalism in the realm of religious belief and practice. A New Age Buddhism would be a reductio ad absurdum of Buddhist tradition; it would be a Buddhism constructed from Western fantasies of the East and post-Christian yearnings for salvation. As Stephen Batchelor comments:

'Today the fear of invasion is more one of psychological and social breakdown than of external invasion. instead of Theosophy, there is now the New Age, another resurgent Gnostic/Romantic fantasy that claims Buddhism as its own, just as Mani did in the Third century and Mme. Blavatsky in the 19th. But the Dharma will remain unheard as long as its voice is drowned out by the clamour of these irrational and eclectic yearnings'.18

Buddhism in the West is growing out of old traditions, but it should not simply consume those traditions according to modern agendas and discard them as worthless husks. Western Buddhists are attempting to create a new tradition - a tradition of Western Buddhism within which individuals can develop beyond subjective experience, can grow through activity and engagement and finally come not just to follow the Truth, but to embody it.

VISHVAPANI is the editor of Dharma Life magazine.

Journal of Buddhist Ethics

2005-04-15T09:44:00.000-05:00

A Review of American Buddhism. Methods and Findings in Recent Scholarship

" Despite this incompleteness, Asai and Williams' observations that "a kind of parallel world between Asian-American Buddhism and primarily Euro-American Buddhism" (p. 30) exists, and that "the members of Japanese-American Zen temples expect that the temple will provide them with familial and cultural identity rather than with a space to meditate" (p. 32) underscores the different understandings of Buddhist institutions according to the different strands. "

American Buddhism. Methods and Findings in Recent Scholarship. Edited By Duncan Ryuken Williams and Christopher S. Queen. Richmond: Curzon Press, 1999, xxxvii + 329 pages pages, ISBN 0-7007-1081-7, £ 40,00 (cloth)

Reviewed By Martin Baumann

University of Hannover
Germany

martin.baumann@uni-bielefeld.de

Buddhists in the United States are vigorously hammering out adapted forms of American Buddhism. A bewildering garden of Buddhist schools and traditions has taken root in North American cities and rural areas. Their adherents are Asian immigrants, some having come recently as Vietnamese or Laotian refugees, others now bringing up a fourth or fifth generation as Chinese or Japanese Buddhists. A second strand is made up of converts from Protestant, Catholic, Jewish, or "non-religious" backgrounds who practice Zen or vipassanaa meditation or participate in Tibetan Buddhist liturgical rituals. Only on rare occasions do the strands of convert, "white" Buddhism and family-socialized "ethnic" Buddhism meet and merge. Nevertheless, as the grounding of the Dharma occurs in the United States and Canada, this heterogeneity is subsumed under the label of "American Buddhism." The book under review is both a stock-taking and a mirror of the work-in-progress of adapting Buddhist teachings and practices to North American society.

American Buddhism assembles thirteen essays of varying lengths and strengths, half of which were presented at a conference on Buddhism in America held at the Harvard Divinity School in 1997. A nicely-written foreword by Diana Eck, a brief preface by co-editor Duncan Williams, and a sophisticated introduction by co-editor Christopher Queen precede the contributions. As Queen points out, choosing the main title "American Buddhism" instead of the conference's noncommittal "Buddhism in America," reflects the findings "that recognizable patterns of American Buddhism are emerging in every quarter" (p. xvi). Queen arranges these "recognizable patterns" into the three broad categories of democratization, pragmatism, and engagement. The range, depth, and emphasis attributed to these three touchstones or "three marks" (Paali tilakkha.na) are pointed out by Queen in a clear and very helpful way with regard to the chapters that follow.

The first of the volume's four parts is devoted to Asian-American Buddhists. Kenneth Tanaka describes and analyzes issues of ethnicity in the Buddhist Churches of America. This Joodo-Shinshuu tradition came to North America from Japan in the last century, taking its current name in 1944, a time when most of its leaders and priests had been placed in internment camps. Based on information gathered from a questionnaire survey, Tanaka interestingly points out that in contrast to prevalent immigrant integration theories, the Japanese-American third generation did not and does not take a deepening interest in its cultural heritage. Instead, a high rate of out-marriage, of dropping-out and abandoning cultural values, is recognizable among the sansei (third generation). So far, as presented in the paper, the author's results methodologically cannot claim representative status and have to be judged as impressionistic, although instructive, hints. In a somewhat similar way, the chapter by Senryoo Asai and Duncan Williams on cultural identity and economics in Japanese American Zen temples could be stronger in combining new methodological approaches and interpretation. Whereas the idea of and approach to examining temple economics is innovative with regard to Buddhist temples in the West -- though it is not new in other fields and disciplines -- the authors in the end make too little use of the multitude of data and figures collected. Unfortunately, the tables with their many numbers and percentage rates are very rarely discussed and interpreted in the text itself. Despite this incompleteness, Asai and Williams' observations that "a kind of parallel world between Asian-American Buddhism and primarily Euro-American Buddhism" (p. 30) exists, and that "the members of Japanese-American Zen temples expect that the temple will provide them with familial and cultural identity rather than with a space to meditate" (p. 32) underscores the different understandings of Buddhist institutions according to the different strands. The chapter by Stuart Chandler on the Taiwanese Hsi Lai Temple (in California) and its political entanglement in the mid-1990s provides an interesting report on the "donation scandal" and the role of the scholar's responsibility and involvement as mediator. Penny van Esterik's essay on the approximately 100,000 Laotians resident in the United States gives a condensed description of a personal ritual and a collective festival, followed by a few thoughts on adapting Laotian Buddhism in the United States.

The book's second part, on convert or "new" Buddhists, is introduced by Thomas Tweed's critical and straightforward reflections on how religious identity and belonging is defined by scholars. Abandoning essentialist definitions of religious identity by way of adherence or non-adherence to a specific religious traditions, Tweed opts to include a third category for scholarly investigation, that of "sympathizer." "Sympathizers are those who have some sympathy for a religion but do not embrace it exclusively or fully" (p. 74). The self-identification of a person as a Buddhist (or as a member of any tradition) should also be taken seriously by scholars. Suffice it to say that this fact alone should alert scholars to pay attention to these people instead of neglecting them in research. Despite the valid critique of the essentialist/normative approach concerning what kind of people have been considered for research, one could ask whether this suggestive nominal approach does not take the opposite one-sided stance. Possibly a middle way (sounds quite Buddhist!) of combining the two approaches might serve best, although on theoretical levels quite a number of problems remain. The next two chapters, by James Coleman and by Philip Hammond and David Machacek respectively, are preliminary presentations of current empirical studies on Buddhist groups and converts in the United States. Although they indicate that research has in no sense come to an end despite the current wave of studies on Buddhism in America, the results presented thus far are not really new or path-breaking.

In contrast to this, the contribution by Paul Numrich on local inter-Buddhist associations in North America breaks new ground, both with regard to the scope of research and analysis. Starting from the description of the Buddhist Council of the Midwest, Numrich develops the types of pluralist, fusionist, and assimilationist models of inter-Buddhist relations. Whereas the first type acknowledges the diversity of Buddhist schools and traditions, gathered under the umbrella of the council, the second model aims to fuse the heterogeneity into one larger body. The assimilationist model attempts to synthesize the diversity further according to the dominant or leading voice in the council. Rather than confining himself to the Midwest or to North America, Numrich treats inter-Buddhist associations in other regions, such as Australia and Germany. In addition, he also sets such inter-Buddhist activities in historical perspective, referring to instances in Buddhist history such as the reign of the Indian emperor Ashoka (third century B.C.E.) or Buddhist universities in North India (300-1200 C.E.). He convincingly analyzes these early instances of inter-Buddhist meetings according to the models developed in his essay. Charles Strain then offers an interpretation of Gary Snyder's environmental ethics and Richard Hayes provides impressions from Internet and e-mail discussion groups gained during his many years of involvement. These three papers form the section on "Modes of Dharma Transmission."

The fourth and last section of the book considers the scholar's place in American Buddhist studies. In a detailed and rich paper, Charles Prebish reconstructs and documents the development of the discipline of Buddhist Studies in America. He not only surveys the current state of affairs, but through the use of a questionnaire provides a painstaking analysis of the field. In a manner similar to Numrich's heuristically fruitful method, Prebish reverts back to Buddhism's early times from a historical perspective and compares the "scholar-monks" (gantha-dhura) of the past with the contemporary Buddhist "scholar-practitioner": "In the absence of the traditional 'scholar-monk' so prevalent in Asia, it may well be that the 'scholar-practitioners' of today's American Buddhism will fulfill the role of 'quasi-monastics,' or at least treasure-troves of Buddhist literacy and information, functioning as guides through whom one's understanding of the Dharma may be sharpened" (p. 208). This point is also echoed by Hayes earlier in the volume when he urges that "we have a duty not only to study American Buddhists but also to inform them" (p. 177). Although the idea of an "impartial, neutral" observer and scholar itself is a fiction, one nevertheless should be cautious of not throwing the baby out with the bath water, that is, engaging in proselytizing and missionary activities. The line to be drawn is also considered in the paper by Robert Goss, who discusses the Naropa Institute. The Institute was founded by Chogyam Trungpa in 1974, and offers courses on Asian languages, Buddhist Studies, "Contemplative Psychology," and quite a number of other subjects. Whereas there is no doubt that a normative Buddhist point of view is basic to the institute, Goss does not shy away from comparing the Institute with long-established divinity schools (p. 233). While attributing similar functions, roles, and aims to the establishment of the Institute as "non-exceptional," he indicates to what extent Buddhism has gone mainstream in contemporary North America. The final contribution by Richard Seager is a strategically well-placed concluding chapter. This sophisticated American historian not only looks back on existing studies of Buddhism in the United States but also surveys the "Buddhist worlds in the U.S.A." From a bird's eye view the reader again is presented with the plurality of Buddhist expressions and traditions current in North America. Once again, as Numrich and Prebish did by delineating the developments and "Americanization" of American Buddhism's development in historical perspective, Seager concludes his chapter by stating that "it is too early to make a call on what American Buddhism is. And historical precedents in Asia suggest that there is a great deal more yet to come" (p. 253). Finally, Seager's references and notes provide a welcome list of existing studies and a multitude of specific internet addresses of respective Buddhist organizations and centers.

The volume's appendix contains a list of North American dissertations and theses on American Buddhism (77 of them up to 1997) and on topics related to Buddhism in general (some 850 up to 1997). This is an admirable compilation undertaken by co-editor Duncan Williams. Notes on the contributors and an index round out the book.

The book is clearly arranged. Queen's introduction is reinforced by Seager's concluding chapter, the two papers providing a frame within which a kaleidoscope of varied studies, projects, and observations is presented. Outsiders rarely become aware of the reasons why papers given at a specific conference were not accepted and why certain others had been solicited, and at times I wondered why condensed ritual descriptions or preliminary project reports had been included. On the other hand, as indicated at the beginning of this review, the book thus becomes a reflection and mirror of current developments and works-in-progress and suggests new methods being applied in Buddhist Studies and to studies of Buddhism in America in particular. For example, database sampling and survey-based studies are proven to "work" in relation to this "object" and thus suggest fruitful ideas for further related research. However, set in a broader sociological and anthropological perspective, these are in no way new and innovative methods, as pointed out by some of the contributors. Nevertheless, the editors have assembled a collection of interesting -- a few even superb -- papers which provide rich insights into the current state of a new sub-discipline in the making: American Buddhism.

Tensions in American Buddhism

2005-04-15T09:39:00.000-05:00

"PROFESSOR IMAMURA: I think when the term "American Buddhism" is used, most Asian-American Buddhists feel outside of the dialogue."

MARY ALICE WILLIAMS: Buddhism is the world's fourth largest religion, founded about 2500 years ago in India. The Buddha taught that life is suffering and the way to overcome that is to get rid of attachments. Widely practiced across Asia, Buddhism has attracted many converts in this country. They are developing forms of Buddhist practice that are often very different from the practices of Asian-Americans. Some observers believe there is a growing ethnic divide in American Buddhism. Correspondent Kim Lawton has our cover story.

KIM LAWTON: In Chapel Hill, North Carolina, Pat Phelan is being installed as abbess, head of the Red Cedar Zen Temple. She has taken the name Taitaku Josho to demonstrate her acceptance of Buddhist precepts. She is being elevated to her new position in a symbolic "Mountain Seat ceremony," attended by the Zen Center's members. Like Phelan, all of the Center's members are converts to the Buddhist tradition and its sometimes puzzling exchanges.

A few miles across town there's another Buddhist temple, which people often mistake for a Chinese restaurant. Here Vietnamese Buddhists gather to worship in what's known as the "Pure Land" Buddhist tradition. Some members of this sangha, or worship community, have been in the U.S. for more than 20 years; others have arrived more recently.

The two Buddhist centers are in the same Bible Belt community, but virtually separate, largely unaware of each other. That's a situation increasingly common as Buddhism takes hold across America. The forms of practice are diverse, with numerous traditions. But many believe the biggest divide may be an ethnic one.

LOPON CLAUDE D'ESTRÉE (Chaplain, George Mason University): There is an Asian Buddhist community, and there is a Western American Buddhist community, and they don't often mix.

PROFESSOR RYO IMAMURA (Buddhist Priest and Professor, Evergreen State College): I think we co-exist peacefully, probably not interacting a whole lot.

HELEN TWORKOV (TRICYCLE magazine): There's definitely some divides, and I think we could call it a racial divide. I do not think it's a racist divide.

LAWTON: Buddhism has always traced a wide cultural path. From its beginnings -- 2,500 years ago -- in the Himalayan Mountains to its spread across Asia, Buddhism has adapted to and ultimately shaped each culture it has encountered.

Buddhism first came to the United States more than 150 years ago with the arrival of Chinese and Japanese immigrants. Even in those days, there was interest from non-Asians.

PROFESSOR STEPHEN PROTHERO (Associate Professor, Religion, Boston University): There was a sort of Buddhist boom in the late-19th century, and there was a second one that began in the '50s with the Beat generation and those kinds of people.

LAWTON: In the '60s and '70s that boom became a virtual explosion of non-Asian conversions, among them a relatively large number of Jews. Many of those converts now lead their own Buddhist communities, also mostly non-Asian converts.

Precise figures are difficult to come by. Experts say there are between three and four million Buddhists in the United States today. About 75% of them are of Asian heritage. But despite their numbers, many Asian Americans say they don't feel sufficiently acknowledged in this country's Buddhist landscape.

Hollywood and the media have perpetuated the impression that the American Buddhist community consists of mostly-white practitioners who follow charismatic Asian leaders such as Thich Nah Hahn or the Dalai Lama.

PROFESSOR IMAMURA: I think when the term "American Buddhism" is used, most Asian-American Buddhists feel outside of the dialogue.

LAWTON: Ryo Imamura is an 18th-generation Buddhist priest and a third generation Asian American. His grandfather ministered to the Buddhist community in the early-20th century in Hawaii, and in the '40s and '50s, Imamura's parents began a Buddhist Study Center in Berkeley, California. The Center attracted some non-Asians. Imamura says those times have largely disappeared. He says while Asian teachers may have started Buddhist groups here, white converts now lead them.

PROFESSOR IMAMURA: Racism has to play a role because of the times. I think most Caucasian Americans have not interacted with Asians, certainly not in ways that put Asians in more authoritative roles, or roles of respect. And I don't know if you want to characterize this as racist, but I think they are much more comfortable looking up to a white, male authority figure, or maybe a female one.

LAWTON: Many say there are clear reasons that Buddhist groups tend to divide along racial lines. In addition to obvious language barriers, there are differences in practice. Most convert Buddhists focus on meditation. Their communities tend to be more lay oriented, with more women in positions of leadership. For some converts, Buddhism is more a philosophy than a religion.

For Asian Americans, the temple has more congregational importance, playing a key religious, social, and cultural role in the community.

LOPON D'ESTRÉE: In a sense, we have two different agendas or maybe cultural agendas. The Asian tradition is based on something they have grown up with and has more ritual aspects. Coming to a service on Sunday is like coming to church anywhere else. Western Buddhists tend to be more interested in learning how to meditate and Buddhist philosophy. So there is somewhat of a clash of cultures.

LAWTON: Cultural divides also exist within Asian-American communities, with little interaction across those ethnic lines either.

MS. TWORKOV: In some cases, you have communities of these people. I mean they really came out of the killing fields. They came to this country traumatized by the wars in Southeast Asia. Their needs are not only very different [from the] needs of white middle-class Americans, they're very different from the needs of very well educated middle-class Japanese Americans.

LAWTON: Tworkov's magazine, TRICYCLE, focuses on the needs of the diverse convert community.

MS. TWORKOV: By nature, the immigrant relationship to religion is conservative. You want to conserve your culture, your values, your heritage, your language. And that is done primarily through the church, the temple, the religious value system. We came along in the '60s and we wanted to transform everything, so everything was about, really it was like an opposite direction.

LAWTON: Experts say ethnic divides aren't unique to Buddhism.

PROFESSOR PROTHERO: It needs to be admitted that this is the normal course of things in American religion. We have had a history of Lutheran groups in the U.S. who are Finnish or who are German, who don't particularly interact with one another. [The same can be said about] the Orthodox, Russian Orthodox Christians, and the Orthodox from Greece, for example, the Greek Orthodox.

LAWTON: But Prothero admits with Buddhism the definitions are more fluid, leading some to wonder whether all the differing strands can still be kept under one umbrella.

PROFESSOR PROTHERO: There is no central authority in Buddhism. There is no Buddhist pope, as much as some like to position the Dalai Lama as the sort of pope-designate for the American scene. There isn't anyone who can excommunicate you if you have a goofy idea of what Buddhism is all about, or if you try to define Buddhism in a way that is unorthodox.

LAWTON: Some Buddhist leaders believe all of American Buddhism would be enriched by more dialogue and interaction.

KEN TANAKA (Co-editor, THE FACES OF BUDDHISM IN AMERICA): I certainly feel an excitement in the fact that you do have virtually all the Buddhist groups represented here. And not only for a conference, but living in a same community. Given that, it is always going to be a minority religion, that there ought to be much more interaction, mutual support,... to survive for one thing.

LAWTON: But others on both sides of the divide say that shouldn't be rushed or forced.

MS. TWORKOV: There's a lot of concern about bringing the groups together. But frankly my own view is it's always coming from a place of being politically correct, and there's not necessarily a good reason for it. There's no reason why people should not be developing their own kinds of practice and their own forms of practice and working according to their own needs.

PROFESSOR IMAMURA: I think because of the realities of our society, our diverse society, and the need of we, who are called racial minorities or ethnic minorities, to maintain our identity and our pride in our communities, I think we need that racial divide in a way.

LAWTON: Many say the fact that this is even an issue at all shows the extent to which Buddhism has taken root and is maturing here in America.

I'm Kim Lawton reporting.

Asian American Buddhism Bibliography

2005-04-15T09:38:00.000-05:00

www.pluralism.org/resources/biblio/as-am_buddhism.php

A Mandala for Minnesota

2005-04-15T09:27:00.000-05:00

www.artsmia.org/arts-of-asia

Preserved for the future, a Tibetan sand mandala defies time and gravity to become an artistic representation of a culture in peril

By Kira Obolensky

Tibet has been called the roof of the world–indeed, this ancient kingdom is at such high altitude that the clouds float not in the sky but on the ground. So physically close to the heavens, it seems appropriate that Tibet should develop one of the world's most esoteric systems of spirituality.

Buddhism, an import from India, arrived in Tibet in 700 A.D. Based on the spiritual teachings of an Indian philosopher and teacher, it took hold in the remote mountain kingdom and melded with a local religion called Bon to become Tantric Buddhism. The religion penetrated all aspects of Tibetan daily life and culture, influencing everything from art to politics.

Until the 20th century, Tibet's ancient customs were preserved by its physical remoteness; its mystique filtered to the West through accounts written by poets or mountain climbers defying death on such prospects as Mount Everest. In 1950, the People's Liberation Army of China established Communist rule in the ancient theocracy. Tibet lost thousands of its magnificent temples and monasteries to the random destruction of China's so-called Cultural Revolution. Monks and nuns were slaughtered; approximately 1.6 million Tibetans were killed or imprisoned in forced labor camps. The Dalai Lama, the spiritual and temporal ruler of Tibet, fled to northern India in 1959. Monastic groups took up worship and study in the provinces of northern India. An ancient system of thought and ritual was driven into permanent exile.

For this museum, the opportunity to witness an ancient and sacred aspect of Tibetan life came in the winter of 1991-92 when a group of monks from the Gyuto Tantric University in northern India arrived in the United States. Their mission was entirely in the Buddhist tradition–to educate people about their culture. The timing was not coincidental. Two hundred Tibetan heads of families would be resettling in Minnesota later in the year. The monks would help educate Minnesotans about Tibet's rich heritage and to its plight.

When Robert Jacobsen, the curator of Asian art at the Institute, learned of their visit to Minnesota, he immediately recognized a tremendous opportunity for the museum. The monks had just been in San Francisco, where they had made a sand mandala at the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco. Jacobsen knew that such an activity would generate a great deal of interest in Minnesota, and that it would function as an educational extension to an exhibition of Ch'ing dynasty imperial silks, which included Buddhist silks of Tibetan origin.

Made from sand, paint or even sculpted yak butter, mandalas are visual prayers, celestial renderings of Buddhist symbology. The painstaking process of making a mandala–literally grain by grain–is met at completion with a lesson on the impermanence of life. After it has been properly blessed, the mandala is traditionally swept up and deposited in the nearest body of flowing water.

When Tibet's precarious position in the world is considered, the mandala becomes a kind of rare species, high on the list for extinction. Jacobsen, along with his friend Wynn Binger, a local engineer who is involved with the Tibetan community, began to speculate about how to preserve the mandala. They had heard that an attempt to preserve a sand mandala had been made in Japan. After contacting the gallery involved with that failed attempt, Jacobsen determined that the answer might be closer to home. In his words: "If 3M can't do it, then it isn't possible."

Binger, himself an engineer, enthusiastically agreed to act as a liaison between the monks and his contact at 3M, Warren Langstraat, the laboratory operations manager for the Construction Materials division. Langstraat, acting as a facilitator, put Binger in touch with Donald Williams, an engineer in product development, and George Tiers, a senior scientist. Tiers and Williams began an intensive search for the correct kind of sand, permanent pigments and an adhesive to bind it all together.

The sand traditionally used in mandalas is made from crushed limestone, which provides a particle that is fine enough for exquisite detail. The problem with using the crushed limestone in the Minnesota mandala was that it would not hold a permanent pigment, necessary to withstand both light and the eventual onslaught of an adhesive. In the end, scientist George Tiers discovered a silicate particle perfect to the task in an unlikely place: asphalt shingles. The same technologies used to create the colored roofs for American suburban development were put to a more esoteric test: could they hold pigment, and would the color meet with the monk's aesthetic approval?

In a kind of scientific relay race, Tiers handed the silicate particle to Donald Williams, who began to experiment with bonding synthetic pigments by firing them at high temperatures. Williams's role was critical: he essentially created the palette, a range of ten basic colors which could be thinned with white sand to create the full spectrum.

By the time the monks took up residence in the museum, the materials and the method were in place. After a ceremony blessing the space, the monks began to draw a blueprint for this rendering of the schematic diagram of the Buddhist cosmos. The monks determined to make a mandala dedicated to Yamantaka, the lord of death. A mandala is essentially a diagram for the Buddhist hierarchy. Yamantaka, rendered as an abstract symbol, occupies the central position. He is surrounded by four celestial gates, which mark the cardinal directions. Various aspects of spiritual and human existence ring the celestial palace, ranked from the sacred to the profane.

There is no artistic ego at work in the creation of a mandala. Each monk might have a specialty, but this unique artistic event is ultimately a collaboration. The Gyuto monks worked for four weeks on the Yamantaka mandala. The monks marked its completion with a consecration, and then the mandala, though a sacred object, became once again the province of science.

Curator Jacobsen and Binger had been experimenting with spraying small sand paintings with adhesive. The sand surface is so delicate it shows the tracks of an insect, and Jacobsen discovered that the adhesive, when it is applied in too thick of a stream, pitted the sand. A fine mist of adhesive was in order, and Institute facilities staff Al Silberstein and Ed Peterson began to construct a tent over the mandala to contain the spray. The initial spraying was a success–-the adhesive hardened the sand, bonded it to the base and dried without leaving a shiny surface. But all of the three-dimensional surfaces needed more glue. At this point, Ed and Al (both artists themselves) took to the surfaces with an eyedropper, meticulously reinforcing the initial layer of adhesive.

Beginning June 6, 1992, the sand mandala defied both gravity and time. Featured in an exhibition, "In the Shadow of Everest: Buddhist Art of the Himalayas," a sand mandala was hung like a painting on the wall for the first time. This extraordinary event became an artistic representation of a culture in peril.

From ARTS Magazine, June, 1992.

www.artsmia.org/arts-of-asia

Minnesota Buddhist Centers

2005-04-15T09:25:00.000-05:00

Buddhist Temples and Centers in Minnesota

Clouds in Water Zen Center
St. Paul Soto Zen center, in the lineage of Dainin Katagiri Roshi, offers a complete Zen practice schedule.
Common Ground Meditation Center
Practice meditation with companionship at this Minneapolis center. Lists schedule of events and offers a newsletter.
Compassionate Ocean Dharma Center
Offers weekly zazen and periodic retreats in Minneapolis. Teaches in the traditions of Thich Nhat Hanh and Soto Zen; and Jon Kabat-Zinn.
Dharma Field Zen Center
Minneapolis Zen community offers meditation sessions, classes, retreats, dharma talks, special events, and volunteer opportunities.
Minneapolis Karma Thegsum Choling
Practice Tibetan Buddhism at this Minnesota center. See pictures of the center and find out when classes are happening.
Minnesota Zen Center
Learn about this center in Minneapolis that serves the Zen Buddhist community with daily meditations, retreats and lectures and classes.
Northfield Buddhist Meditation Center
Founded in 1996, this Minnesota center provides a location for Buddhist meditation and classes.
Twin Cities Vipassana Cooperative
Minnesota Buddhists offer group meditations and retreats to encourage Eastern spirituality.

Join the Zeal community and help build the "Buddhist Temples and Centers in Minnesota" Directory Category.

Four Truths and Eightfold Path

2005-04-15T09:24:00.000-05:00

Tibetan Buddhism*

The Buddha was born at Lumbini in Nepal. His words were not recorded during his life, but it’s believed that he based his teaching on a simple set of four truths:

1. In this world there is suffering. Suffering is both physical and mental. But the existence of suffering does not mean there is no happiness.

2. There is a cause for all suffering: it is desire. Not only the desire for material wealth and sensual pleasure, even someone who wishes to do good deeds is expressing a desire. Desires are what propel us on the wheel of life, taking us from one moment, from one life, to the next.

3. Suffering can be ended by releasing ourselves from our desires. We can end our suffering and desires and even take a path that leads us right off the wheel of life to the condition called Nirvana.

4. There is a method for ending suffering. There are practical steps which will enable us to leave behind our desires and lead us toward Nirvana. These practical steps are listed in the Eightfold Path below:

Right Understanding
Right Thought
Right Speech
Right Action
Right Livelihood
Right Effort
Right Mindfulness
Right Concentration

POC Buddhist retreat scholarship

2005-04-15T09:22:00.000-05:00

http://www.spiritrock.org/html/diversity_1give.html

Back to DIVERSITY

Giving and Receiving
The Voices of Recipients of POC Scholarships

By William Poy Lee

(William Poy Lee is co-chair of the Spirit Rock Diversity Council. William oversees the People of Color Scholarship Fund (415-488-0164, ext. 312). Comments in the spirit of dialogue may be e-mailed to William at VDragon@ix.netcom.com.)

From the sutras, we know that the Buddha modeled the practice of mindfully spreading the Dharma to all peoples and as wide and as far as possible. Jack Kornfield quotes the Buddha as saying to his first 60 followers:

"Go now, O Bhikkus, and wander, for the gain of the many, for the welfare of the many, out of compassion for the world...Let no two of you go the same way. Teach in the language and vernacular of the people you meet." The Buddha.

In this way, Buddhism traveled by foot and on beast from Northern Indian throughout out what was the then known, yet very strange and inaccessible world: Tibet, China, Japan, Mongolia, Sri Lanka, Siam, Cambodia, Myanmar, as well as the rest of India and other places.

Today, we at Spirit Rock enjoy the fruits of all the different practices that developed from this big-heart spread of the Dharma.

In the establishment of his first sangha, the Buddha emphasized the equality of all people in the sangha and maintained a through critique of all forms of social, racial and religious inequality, according to Gil Fronsdal, in his paper Dharmic Democracy (1975):

"The facts being what they are, the people of all four classes (or castes) are absolutely equal (samasama) and I do not see any difference between them at all in these respects... there are no characteristics indicating differences... among human beings." The Buddha.

Yet our sangha does not match the ethnic diversity of the Bay Area. Is this truly a surprise given the legacy of centuries-long historic racism that still haunts so much of our interactions?

This is why the Diversity Council was established – to mindfully spread the Dharma to all peoples. The Bay Area is an apparent oasis of different peoples living easily side-by-side. But often, we are not in communion with each other outside the workplace environment. Spirit Rock found ourselves in this very typical bind, even with all the good intentions of a spiritual community.

We can dialogue intimately about childhood abuses, family tragedies, sex lives and financial difficulties. Yet, there is often an uneasiness around racial interactions. This seems especially acute between black and white Americans. The Buddha’s words indicate yogis would not passively allow this type of separation to stand, but rather, would take a deep in-breath and mindfully move towards inter-connectivity, with full awareness of the socially sanctioned barriers and our mutual suspicions and fears.

To begin to make Spirit Rock more accessible, we created the People of Color Scholarship. It’s making a difference, as the testimonials and gratitude of many recipients affirm. This article contains but a sampling of the many who have benefited from our fledgling initiative to walk in the footsteps of the Buddha in this way. They are starting to grace our sangha with their presence.

But are we giving or are we receiving? Or both? From speaking to the many who have contacted us on the POC scholarship line, it is clear that the gifts are not all going outward. As our sangha diversifies, we will find that the many we are inviting will bring precious gifts to us. By their presence, their wisdom, and their unique cultural sensibilities, they will in a very natural way give back more than whatever we think we may have given them. Our lives and our sangha will undoubtedly be enriched and rewarded abundantly and in ways that we cannot even imagine at this time. The POC Scholarship is but one of many ways we are preparing our house to receive new guests.

Here are some of the voices of yogis of color who have benefited from our scholarship fund:

Ina Chun. Attended the Joanna Macy and Wes Nisker retreat. Ina is a fundraiser and development coordinator for an AIDs related non-profit in Santa Rosa. In her forties, Ina received her BA from the University of California at Berkeley.

I appreciate greatly the vision of the Spirit Rock community for outreaching to people of color and attempting to bring some much-needed diversity into the sangha. This scholarship opportunity made my attendance possible and I'd like to send my gratitude out to all those who put together the resources to create this program.

The retreat was exceptional and memorable, a very deep experience of personal discovery and connection with fundamental ideals that help anchor my life and my work. I also experienced a very touching communion with an extended family of kindred spirits. I came away with a much-needed reaffirmation and clarification of the guiding principles I want embedded in my life and the restoration of commitment and motivation for continuing with my work as service.

Elena Aguilar and Stacy Goodman. Attended the Sylvia Boorstein retreat for couples.
Elena is a Ph.D. candidate and Stacey is a middle-school teacher with a Masters of Fine Arts. Elena and Steve live in Oakland and are in the thirties.

When I noticed that Spirit Rock offered a scholarship for People of Color, I was really touched by the conscience behind the scholarship--the recognition that in the US, Buddhism has been something for mostly white people and wealthy people. And what the scholarship really said to me was that Spirit Rock is aware that this needs to be changed and that people who traditionally haven't had the means or access to such practices need to be attracted and given such a possibility. I have been searching for a sangha for years and finally feel that I may have found one where I feel comfortable and where there is a commitment to offer the dharma, or offer the teaching of the dharma to everyone--regardless of race or economic level.

The retreat was wonderful! This last year has been really hard on our marriage--my mother died of cancer in January and before she died, I lived with her and cared for her. Our marriage (which is fairly young) has really been under strain and we needed a reminder of another way to connect and relate to each other. So this workshop was incredibly appropriate and timely, and has given us tools to use to deal with our stress and grief that we really needed.

For Stacey it was really his first introduction to Buddhism and the first time he'd been to Spirit Rock and it inspire him to start meditating and to attend other retreats. We both felt really inspired to pursue this practice and learning and to return to Spirit Rock.

This was a first retreat. I have been interested in Buddhism for years, but every time I looked into retreats at various places, the cost always prevented me from attending. But even more than the cost was the philosophy behind the cost (and lack of scholarships or even work-exchanges) which made me feel that Buddhism and mediation were only for people who could afford it. The few times I went to a mediation class or a talk by a prominent Buddhist teacher I always noticed that 95% of those attending were white and I often felt alienated.

Shahara Godfrey. Attended the People of Color retreat in September 1999. Shahara is a 46 years old grandmother with a beautiful daughter and two precious grandchildren. She is a doctorate student at CIIS. Shahara works part time as a child psychotherapist in Contra Costa County and full time as a mixed media artist focusing on soft sculptured dolls.

I received information about the POC scholarship through the Women of Color Sangha in Marin City. My practice is about 31/2 years old. I'm such a child!

I attended the first POC Vipassana retreat at Spirit Rock. What can I say about such a moving and transformative experience? As always on a retreat, I receive a greater understanding of my spiritual practice and myself. However, the process was truly heightened through other people of color’s attendance. Every single moment was profound. Every time, I looked up or looked around or shared a table or did a yogi job, each person's reflection was my own. What makes this experience unique is that it happened. For now it’s an anomaly (a first at Spirit Rock) but in my heart of hearts I believe a tradition has been planted and will continue to bear fruit.

The practice of mediation is not foreign to many People of Color's spiritual practice. It's part of our everydayness. The coming together of so many folks with so many traditions that were accepted, acknowledged, validated, and appreciated was very humbling and uplifting to share.

At some point and time in the universe, the transcendence of "race issues" will evolve into loving unconditionally. The People of Color retreat at Spirit Rock has given me the opportunity to know it is possible.

Tadeo G. Ilarde. Attended the Gay Lesbian-Bisexual-Transgender Retreat. Tadeo is an administrative assistant working towards his bachelor’s degree. Tadeo is in his mid- twenties, lives in San Francisco, and has been practicing for one year.

This was my first retreat and it was life-changing and life-enhancing. I would not have changed anything that took place in those five amazing days. I do not have the words within my vocabulary to express my gratitude. The retreat was immensely transformational and healing. It greatly enhanced my sobriety as well as spirit. I am deeply thankful.

Charlie Johnson (Charlie). Attended the People of Color and Yucca Valley retreats.
Charlie is an Engineer with a BS in Chemical Engineering. Charlie is in his fifties, lives in Vacaville and has been practicing for 15 years.

Both retreats were great. The People of Color Retreat especially. There were a lot of very personal experiences shared. By the end, many of us had made contact on a very deep and significant level...a more profound understanding of our humanness. Even the difficulties that ensued because there was no Asian-American instructor served to show me how alike we all were. I would have likely had similar feelings. In an odd sort of way, the sharing allowed me to investigate more of the parts of me that I often hide from myself but that I saw reflected in many of the others in attendance.

The spring retreat was quite different. The structure of the retreat did not allow for the same sort of sharing as in the People of Color retreat. However, some warm connections were made.

I’d like to share a quote from the Different Drum by M. Scott Peck: "Confrontive, even angry communication is sometimes necessary to bring into focus the clear reality of the barriers that separate us before they can be knocked down." If you agree with the quote, the sort of difficulties experienced at the People of Color retreat may be quite necessary and constructive. Please do not let anything keep Spirit Rock from continuing their efforts to get us together.

Anon. Attended the People of Color and the Yucca Spring retreats. Retiree with a BSEE (electrical engineering) and MBA. She has been practicing for three years, is in 50s, and lives in San Rafael.

I am grateful for an opportunity like the POC Retreat. It has been wonderful in my spiritual development. There was fellowship, trust, and compassion with lots of empathy. I am now part of an established sangha, sitting with others I met at the POC Retreat. There is great commonality and community.

Carol Cano. Attended a retreat with Eugene Cash in September 1999. Carol is a Spirit Rock staffer with the family program. She also sees private clients as a peer counselor, masseuse and workshop leader on meditation and women spirituality. Carol has a BA of Liberal Arts in Transformative Learning and is planning to start an MA program in Cultural Anthropology and Social Transformation at CIIS. She is in her thirties, lives in San Francisco and has been practicing for 14 years.

Without the POC scholarship I might have missed out on an opportunity to attend a retreat at a time of need. I felt very supported by the program and the consistent follow-up on my scholarship request. I hold so much gratitude for the POC scholarship. It allowed me to take the time I needed to arrive back to myself, since all of the last year was about finishing school. It allowed me the space necessary to practice gentleness and to listen deep into my body wisdom.

In contrast to other retreats, Spirit Rock stood out for the cross cultural perspective of Dharma. I found that although there is a strong male presence, our American culture gives space for the voice of women. My previous retreat experience has been in other countries, where sometimes there was inner conflict around Western culture and Eastern culture, especially around gender.

The retreat at SR was quite a peaceful experience. It was my first retreat with Eugene Cash. I didn't have any expectations.

Back to DIVERSITY

On Race and Buddhism

2005-04-15T09:21:00.000-05:00

http://www.bpf.org/tsangha/senaukerace.html
On Race & Buddhism Rev. Alan Senauke

Zen Master Dogen wrote "Gourd with its tendrils is entwined with gourd." This means we are all intimately bound up, wound up with each other. Truly inseparable. So this morning I would like to speak about the complexities of diversity, race, zen practice, and our community. Something we've been talking about at Buddhist Peace Fellowship, San Francisco Zen Center, here, and more and more around sanghas and centers in the United States. This is not just about "political correctness," it is about practice and awareness. I must confess that my own thoughts are not entirely clear, but I will try my best not to mislead you. If I sound critical, it is a voice of self-criticism. My own efforts have fallen short and I think we need to work on this together. So I will leave some time for discussion at the end.

After six years of practice, homeless among householders, wayseekers, and teachers, the Buddha sat under the Bodhi Tree with the firm intention of awakening. After seven days of zazen he perceived the true nature of birth and death, the chain of causation and awakened to realization with the morning star. At that moment he spoke these words: "Wondrous! I now see that all beings everywhere have the wisdom and virtues of the enlightened ones, but because of misunderstandings and attachments they do not realize it."

Allowing his understanding to ripen, allowing Bodhicitta, the mind of compassion to ripen, he took up the responsibilities of teaching, sharing his experience in a way that unlocked the mystery of our own experience. As the Buddha came to express it, "I simply teach about the nature of suffering and the end of suffering." This is a radical teaching, true to the meaning of radical, getting to the root. And his understanding that all beings everywhere have the wisdom and virtues of the enlightened ones leaves us with a great responsibility. As the wheel of Mahayana Dharma turned , our own Zen vehicle, that responsibility was further clarified by the Bodhisattva vow to save all beings. We constantly affirm this vow.

And yet this vow was there from the beginning. Why else did the Buddha rise from the comfort and joy of enlightenment and freedom to teach? Why else did he offer teachings like the Metta Sutta,where he says:

May all beings be happy.
May they be joyous and live in safety.
All living beings, whether weak or strong,
in high or middle or low realms
of existence, small or great, visible or invisible,
near or far, born or to be born,
Let no one deceive another, nor despise any being in any state;
Let none by anger or hatred wish harm to another.
Even as a mother at the risk of her life watches over
and protects her only child,
so with a boundless mind should one cherish all living things,
suffusing love over the entire world, above, below,
and all around, without limit;
so let one cultivate an infinite good will toward the whole world.

And true to that teaching, he offered refuge to everyone he met on the path. Kings and paupers, ascetics and householders, people of all castes, brahmins , outcasts, and criminals. After some strenuous convincing, he even offered refuge to women. That's a long story in itself, not unrelated to the issue at hand today, suggesting that patriarchy has deep roots running through many if not most cultures.

Taking refuge means committing your life to waking up, to taking on the problem of suffering and the end of suffering for all beings and ourselves. This is what zazen is about. Sitting upright in stillness to see oneself in complete interdependence with all beings, with the rocks and trees and ocean and sky. The emptiness we so often talk about is not some kind of negative space. It is total interdependence. "Gourd with its tendrils entwined with gourd." True reality is empty of any one thing, empty of self because all things, all people co-create each other.

Seeing through and beyond dualistic thinking is the direct experience of zazen. I undescore the word experience, because if it we are just caught by an idea or an idle wish, we slip back into the tide of duality. All of us have such experiences from moment to moment, time to time. A moment of merging with someone or something we love, a moment of doing something completely, a moment of losing oneself in just sitting. And at times in zazen we settle fully into the realm of nonduality and recognize that this is our true mind, our true state of being. All the great spiritual traditions express an understanding of this natural way of life.

But the way we often live, by habit we see a world thoroughly conditioned by duality. Driven by doubt and fear, by a lack of trust in our true Mind, we see things as self and objects, as us and them, as other. It seems so hard to recognize the truth that Tibetan Buddhists preach: that every being was at one time my own mother. The root of racism is denial of this truth. It is about seeing people as other in a systematic way that is such an entrenched habit we are not usually aware of. I would underscore the word systematic, because as ideas like a virus in society they have a power that goes beyond individual like and dislike. Racism is a system of domination that is economic and political as well as personal. It runs deep in the oppressor and the oppressed alike, though the damage caused is different.

Even though I have the privilege of a good education, middle class male upbringing, white skin, I find in myself deeply ingrained and systematic survival responses as someone born Jewish. Several years ago at a meeting of international Buddhist activists in Thailand I realized that in the first day I had figured out who (among the westerners) was Jewish. And even stranger I realized that all the Jews were doing the same thing and had "signified" to each other. We knew who each other was, and we were more comfortable for it. This, I am sure, is a pattern that goes back through centuries of being ghetto-ized, of being the other. It's not a genetic thing. I can remember my mother telling me how to watch out for myself. That some people would exclude and threaten me just for being Jewish. It's so deep that sometimes I find myself looking around the zendo and counting those I think are Jewish. Some of you may find yourself making a similar census. From talking with them, I know that people of color do this.

And yet, let's where our Buddhism come from. Our ancestors come from India, China, and Japan. In June I visited Suzuki-Roshi's temple, Rinso-in and I walked in the graveyard where the old priests of the temple were buried. How amazing it is for Zen to leap oceans and cultures and be so generously offered to us. We should accept it humbly, recognizing the price of suffering paid to plant the Dharma seed here. And we owe it to our teachers and ourselves to share this practice with the same generosity and openmindedness. Keeping in mind that most Buddhists even in America don't look like me. They are Chinese, Japanese, Thai, Vietnamese, and so on. I come to Buddhism out of suffering. They come to Buddhism as a birthright.

So how does it feel to come to Zen practice as a person of color? And they will come; they do come. My friend Sala Steinbach says an African-American woman at SFZC says, "If it is about liberation, people of color will be interested." They are. The Dalai Lama draws stadiums full of people in Mexico. In South America there are Zen and Tibetan teachers with very strong lay sanghas. So I ask my Asian, and Latino, and African-American friends about how it feels to come here, to San Francisco Zen Center or Spirit Rock. And I ask myself what feelings come up. Dogen suggests we take a step back to turn one's light inward and illuminate oneself. What I see there in myself is then reflected back into the world.

The answer to how it feels to anyone largely depends on two further inter-related questions. First, does one feel safe and seen in the community? Are the conditions of your life acknowedged, welcomed, explored in the sangha? I suspect that this is sometimes yes, sometimes no. Thoughtless words can turn people from the temple and from the practice. I have seen this happen here and elsewhere. An offhand comment is made about the white, middle class makeup of the community with people of color sitting right there. Again, through the unintended eye of white supremacy (hard words, I know) people are made to feel invisible and uncounted. Maybe I should say something about white supremacy. It is a building block of racism, part of my blindness to my own privilege as a white man. It is at once personal and systematic. If one wants to see it, the practice of individual mindfulness, of turning our light inward needs to be blended dialogue with friends and sangha members who don't carry this very particular privilege.

The same kinds of painful things happen if you are homosexual, or if because of injury or fact of birth you can't get up the steps of the temple. These blindnesses hurt and turn people away. That's what it might feel like from one side.

On the other side, the Buddha's understanding is "all beings have the wisdom and virtues of the enlightened ones, but because of misunderstandings and attachments they do not realize it." This understanding is so precious that we are obligated to share it. I don't mean proselytizing, but keep in mind, the Buddha never stopped preaching Dharma. But now we have centers and institutions. To make zazen and Dharma available, we need to tell people they are welcome and invite them to practice with us. Already we are taking practice to jails and hospitals, to people who might not be able to come to us.

The next obvious step is to find ways to open our doors to those who can come to us. I hear that some San Francisco churches have created a kind of covenant of "open congregation." This means that in their literature and at their services, classes, and events they make it known that they welcome people of color, gays and lesbians, and so on. Being pro-active rather than passive on questions of diversity and inclusion.

This is necessary because in America, passivity means white supremacy. It's subtle and pervasive, conditioned by and conditioning our magazines, movies, tv, our clothing, all the things we buy. It is a virus infecting my mind as a person with so-called privilieges, and the mind of someone who might not have such privileges. Last week I was invited to talk about Buddhism and race to a diverse group of teenagers doing an interfaith social action internship in San Francisco. Now maybe I did a good job talking to them, but I was the first Buddhist choice that came to mind for the organizers. There is some irony in that. Buddhism in America gets defined as and by people like me. I have to watch myself carefully not to buy into this.

But the wondeful thing about what the Buddha taught, what we can experience in zazen, is that each of us can go beyond duality. It can't be done just by reason and talk. We have to get the reality of the world deep in our bones and then bring it back out again into the world. We must make a lot of mistakes. Maybe like this talk. Suzuki Roshi said giving a talk is making a mistake on purpose. Make our mistakes, learn the lessons and go back at it. bell hooks, the African American scholar/practitioner writes about this in "Buddhist Women on the Edge":

In a culture of domination, preoccupation with victimhood and identity is inevitable. I once believed that progressive people could analyze the dualities and dissolve them through a process of dialectical critical exchange. Yet globally the resurgence of notions of ethnic purity, white supremacy, have led marginalized groups to cling to dualisms as a means of resistance....The willingness to surrender to attachment to duality is present in such thinking. It merely inverts the dualistic thinking that supports and maintains domination.
Dualities serve their own interests. What's alarming to me is to see so many Americans returning to those simplistic choices. People of all persuasions are feeling that if they don't have dualism, they don't have anything to hold on to.
If we are concerned with dissolving these apparent dualities we have to identify anchors to hold on to in the midst of fragmentation, in the midst of a loss of grounding. My anchor is love....

I like to think that love and compassion are anchors of my practice. But they depend on mindfulness too. Zazen is rooted in mindfulness, breath after breath, thought after thought. This kind of training carries over into life outside the zendo. I try to uncover my own thought patterns. This is sometimes painful and embarrassing, but it is the essence of saving myself and all sentient beings. It is amazing to see the stories one can make up about other people, and how these stories are conditioned by race, or class, or privilege. Check it out for yourself. When you meet someone you consider different from yourself, do you think you know something about them? Would you think you know the same kinds of things about another white person or someone more like you? This is mindfulness practice, watching one's thoughts about race, or any kind of difference. And it is for our own sake. Not for the sake of political correctness. I think that this is where our personal practice begins.

Then we can take it further into our extended communities. Ask your friends of color how they experience the practice and the community. This is entering the realm of not knowing, a little risky, but ultimately necessary. In the wider Buddhist community, it might mean making some excursions and visits to Asian Buddhist temples. They are friendly places. The same Dharma resides there, though it may take some different forms. We think nothing of going to restaurants featuring Asian cuisine. This is just another form of basic nourishment.

Maybe when we have closely examined ourselves, and begun to look around and share our thoughts with others, then we have created the conditions for change. If our American society could take such steps, it would be the start of a wonderful, hopeful era. Could there be racial peace for the first time in history? This is no pipe dream. It is the Bodhisattva Vow, the working of our Way Seeking Mind.

If each of us and the sanghas we cherish could nurture this process of mindfulness, the change could come much quicker. Compassion and peace could blossom in very surprising ways. And zazen would be a golden wind blowing across a meadow of wildflowers. How can we take up this work together. I welcome your thoughts.

From a talk given at Berkeley Zen Center, Berkeley, California August 23, 1997

Rev. Alan Senauke (Soto-shu)
National Coordinator
Buddhist Peace Fellowship
Berkeley, CA, U.S.A.

Urban Dharma - What does American Buddhism mean for people of color?

2005-04-15T09:13:00.000-05:00

http://www.urbandharma.org/udharma/rainbow.html

American Buddhism:

What does it mean for people of color? Part 1 - Why is a dialogue on American Buddhism Necessary? Part 2 - Are Buddhist people of color separate from American Buddhism? Part 1 Why is a dialogue on American Buddhism Necessary? Experience for yourself whether your local Dharma center or organization represents the diversity of America. If a particular racial group is dominant at the center or organization ask yourself, "What would be the experience of someone not represented by this group, if they were to come here?", "What would someone not from the majority group have to do to fit in?". Perhaps you will find, as I have, that some Buddhist centers in America are racially and culturally segregated. They appear to be segregated for the same reason churches, synagogues, masques, and temples have been segregated throughout the history of America. Segregation by race, culture, or economic affluence is not the mutuality taught by the Buddha. Segregation is not beneficial to any religion or society entering a global community of increasing diversity and multinational interaction. Segregation is attachment to separateness, which is also the root cause of one group believing they are better than another. A belief that, even in the mind of one individual, can be extremely dangerous and threaten peace throughout the world, like Hitler for example. Separatism and mutuality are equally free to emerge in the splendor of freedom in America. For some Buddhists, this causes confusion. Some American Buddhists who believe in the mutuality of all beings conversely find themselves practicing racial, cultural, and economic segregation in their Dharma activities. Mere mention of this contradiction makes them very upset and can cause them to condemn, cold shoulder, reject, and even eject someone from their Dharma center. This happened to my wife and I along with our newborn son at an otherwise liberal California Dharma center. In my opinion, the enigmatic contradiction is based in the history of how early European Americans acquired wealth and power in America. Many of their descendants are embarrassed and shamed by their heritage, to this day. They seek to disengage themselves from the catastrophe of conquest leveled on people of color by their forefathers in the name of peace and justice for all. Their ultimate frustration is similar to a person trying to run from his/her shadow. Diversity, multiculturalism, multiracial, and interracial dialogue cast the light from which their shadow continually emerges to haunt them. I have great compassion for this kind of suffering. Its insidious nature does not liberate those afflicted even though they have majority power in a democratic society, nor is it pervious to economic affluence, gated communities, or media propaganda to its contrary. I know in my heart that some people from the dominant culture, especially our Buddhist brothers and sisters, are deeply upset with their heritage. They are equally disheartened by the travesty of continuing extremist hate towards people of color as well as the murder of same culture women and children in America. Their attempt to position themselves as a distinct pacifist group is understandable. But, for people of color, a segregated pacifist movement is no more inclusive than an extremist enclave. Herein lies the dilemma; our dominant culture peace loving brothers and sisters want to create a distinct compassionate group. In order to do so they must include that which their hateful counterpart does not. Inclusion means engagement with people of color whose presence is a reminder of Euro-American's discomforting heritage. The heritage issue inevitably arises creating the notion in minds of some peace loving Euro-Americans that their cultural past is irrevocably connected to their hate group counterparts. The inseparable connection creates an understandably maddening frustration. In an attempt to reduce the frustration a subtle selection process for Euro-American Buddhist approval has been put in place. The selection process has several criteria: 1) people of color are allowed in as long as they do not bring up the heritage issue 2) people of color who have no connection to the heritage issue, such as Tibetans, are welcome because their preoccupation is with Chinese heritage rather than American heritage 3) anyone, regardless of race or culture who speaks of these issues must subject him/herself to a verbal caution from a dominant culture senior student 4) if, after being verbally cautioned, an individual persists in discussing these matters they must leave the center or organization because they are engaging in 'non-Buddhist' activity, and finally 5) Any public discussion of these topics is expressly forbidden and will result in Dharma center blacklisting as well as going to Buddhist hell. The above criteria is agreed upon by a loosely formed majority consensus among Euro- American Buddhists who happen to finance most Buddhist centers and is comprised of dominant culture Buddhists. Although the intent is to maintain a comfort zone for those struggling with their heritage issues, the result is the creation of segregated worship centers and organizations. In response to discussions about segregation and racism in Dharma centers some Euro-American Buddhists in America create multifarious rationales. They cite business savvy, history, racial politics, economics, peaceful living, and a hodgepodge of ideas from other religious traditions to make their rationale appear 'contemporary' and uniquely suited for "American culture". They say that in order for Buddhism to come to America, as it has spread throughout Asia, Buddhism must naturally reflect 'American' societal beliefs. I believe there is truth in Buddhism's ability to inflect society and culture. But a trend of throwing Dharma brothers, sisters, and their children in the street; rejecting teachers because they are Asian; establishing hierarchies that inherently keep people of color on the periphery of the Sangha, and so on, can only result in confusion, not Buddhism. In my mind, and I think most Buddhists of color will agree there is no reason why Buddhism cannot become fully integrated in America. I love America, I love all my Buddhist brothers and sisters as well as humanity as a whole. But, I also believe the way that Buddhism will merge into America's fabric and what aspects of society it will inflect are matters deserving continuing dialogue among all Buddhists including those who happen to be of color. Part 2 Are Buddhist people of color separate from American Buddhism? Historically, the term "American" has been used as an inference to a particular group. For example, when we speak of "American Presidents" no person of color comes to mind. When we say "American Constitution" it is commonly understood neither was a person of color free to participate in its drafting nor was it intended to benefit anyone outside a certain group at the time. When we consider the "American Revolution" many people commonly imagine Union and Confederate soldiers as depicted in many history books. That is, soldiers on non-African, non-Asian, or non-indigenous American descent. When we imagine the "American West" as depicted on television, a certain group never seems to choose diversity over annihilating the 'savages'. From this point of view a term such as "American Buddhism" raises concern about its diversity and the inclusion of people of color within its scope. Some Asian teachers, new to America, find the concerns of people of color difficult to comprehend. "American History" is foreign to their sensibilities. Why people of color are still demanding equality from their 'conquerors' remains difficult for them to fathom. One must understand that many newly arrived Asian teachers are experiencing people of color for the first time. Their knowledge of non-mainstream culture is usually based on encounters and explanations given them by affluent Europeans and Euro-Americans traveling through Asia coupled with entertainment industry depictions that have been piped internationally through various television, radio, and print mediums. I had one newly arrived Asian teacher tell me he was afraid of me when we first met. He said he had heard that, "black people were violent", and challenged me to a battle of his Asian magic against my black magic. I thought to myself, "Black magic? What the hell is he talking about? Where'd he get that from?" He also said he remembered seeing some black NFL players doing a demonstration of football in India and figured it must be true they are violent based on the way they played football with each other. At some point I got used to the distorted American views of newly arrived teachers. Generally, they mean no harm and are merely repeating what they've heard and responding to images they've seen. I made it a special point to get to know the teacher who was initially afraid of me. I now consider him a very close friend and profound teacher of unerring Dharma knowledge. But still, as he and others become popular icons of the current "American Buddhism", I ask myself why he and many Dharma brothers and sisters from the dominant culture are not talking about the fact that Buddhism has been in America since the mid 19th century. Buddhism, that came among the thousands of Asian Americans who labored to build the transcontinental railroad. Buddhism, among Asian Americans who also labored to develop mining and agricultural industries that continue as part of America's Pacific Coast economy to this day. I know they were here because I've personally seen a 19th century statue of Buddha along with altarpieces in the historical society building of a small desert town in California. It is accompanied by photographs and writing from the period's Chinatown giving it verifiable provenance. With the history of early Buddhist presence in America one is led to ask a reasonable question," Why now?" Why is it important to proclaim, at this time, that there is some new kind of Buddhism in America? Have they now 'discovered' Buddhism, like they discovered America? Who serves to benefit from such a 'discovery' bestowed upon their activity? What purpose could be served by the exclusion of a rich century and a half presence? Yes, the Chinatown I mentioned was burned to the ground by a mob not comprised of people of color. The inhabitants as well as all Asian of the period were also stripped of their right to become American citizens by the Asian Exclusion Act (c.1882). We can't even tell if they were in fact all people from China as in those days anyone who looked Asian was presumed Chinese. What we do know is these Buddhists existed and practiced their religion on American soil. To me, they are as much a part of American Buddhism as the Dalai Lama recently speaking in New York City's Central Park. Considering the above and other historical precedents I think it wise that people of color participate in deciding whether certain terms, and the implications of those terms, fully express inclusion. Even newly emerging terms such as multiracial, interracial, and phrases such as non-European based diversity can only begin to embellish the increasingly panoramic view of a fully integrated 'American Buddhist' experience. Finally, we know history, phraseology, and racial politic are not the quintessence of Buddhist philosophy. Such concepts are merely points of reference through which Buddhists, including those of color, can perceive a favorable outcome of inclusion. An outcome that includes every human being's innate ability to realize the all encompassing equanimity of Dharma. An outcome that does not endorse segregated worship as a common practice. An outcome whose essence is so unsullied the word 'separate' does not exist as part of its expression. I am certain that critics stand ready to argue each and every point I have made. But for any of us to overly dwell on terms and phrases makes no more sense than arguing about a bus schedule as the bus drives off, without us. We cannot reach the destination through disagreement and confusion arising from habitual tendencies of exclusion. Suffice it to say that Buddhist people of color want all of us to be included and fundamentally know that disagreements have no inherent value. At the same time, if labels must be used to express the "American Buddhist" experience then the labels should at least include all human beings that have practiced Buddhism in America in the past, now, and those who are yet to come. Regardless of our superficial differences we, as Buddhists, have agreed to universally believe all beings suffer in the same way and, as such, we are all inseparably woven in the fabric of our common mutuality. Choyin Rangdrol, Founder, RainbowDharma.com

Korean Buddhism

2005-04-05T20:42:00.000-05:00

http://www.hm.tyg.jp/~acmuller/kor-bud/korbud-overview.html

Thich Nhat Hanh

2005-04-05T20:41:00.000-05:00

http://iamhome.org/

Dharma resources

2005-04-05T20:40:00.000-05:00

http://www.dharmanet.org/engaged.html