Buddhist privilege

"A bhikkhu who has left behind all action,

Shaking off the dust of former deeds.

The stable one, unselfish, steady,

Has no need to address people."

I used the "find a random sutta" function at Access to Insight, and this is where I landed. It's ironic because for a while I have been frustrated with self-professed Buddhists who far too frequently share what I view to be a rather elitist attitude.

Particularly when it comes to issues such as race and sexuality. And recognizing the risk in me saying this, I find that it's most often white people who express unconsciously (and I do believe that for the most part it is unconscious) this elitism in their Buddhist practice.

But the danger within this elitism is indifference. The above passage, the Kamma Sutta from The Udana, I believe feeds this notion of indifference.

"Are you saying the Buddha was wrong?" "Are you saying Buddhism is elitist?" "Are you suggesting I lack compassion?"

These are often the responses I get whenever I bring such matters up. It's a defensive reflex because most of us don't want to think of ourselves as being, well, wrong.

But if you're a lay practitioner and you think the above passage represents what Buddhism is all about, then I say, yes, you are wrong.

The Buddha had a wide variety of audiences. He was also extraordinarily skilled at speaking to his various audiences in ways that allowed his listeners to hear what they needed to hear.

In the Kamma Sutta, we are reading about a monk deep in meditation confronting the physical pain he's experiencing while sustaining his meditative state - undisturbed and persistent. It is something this monk faces on his own, there can be no others to lead him on this journey. The very nature of this journey requires one to remove oneself from the distractions of lay society. A monk in these circumstances does not need anyone else, has no need to address other people.

But that's a monk. And I doubt I have more than just a few monks among my readers. The majority of you are like me - lay people struggling to do our best to be as harmless as possible.

The Buddha was not speaking to us in the Kamma Sutta. We can listen to what he is saying here, but it must be with skillful ears. Because I am not a monk, have no intention of becoming a monk, I must live in this world. I cannot become withdrawn from this world because that would make me indifferent to the suffering of others.

I need to feel the world.

And this is why I become frustrated with people who say things with intellectual import such as, "Race is a fabrication, a construct that is empty." They say this with a conviction that this is how we become a non-racial society, how we go beyond racism - just keep repeating that it's only a construct of the mind and all we need to do is realize that and it goes away.

It doesn't work like that. Because racism and homophobia and sexism and patriarchy and white privilege are all real. They are real because not enough people are willing (or don't know how) to dismantle the institutions that sustain them, because not enough people recognize how they benefit from the continuing existence of these institutions, because too many Buddhists view the practice as an academic exercise rather than a way of living and thinking.

And breathing.

It's been a long time since I've written anything in this blog. There are many reasons why, some of which remain hidden from me. But I am going to ease myself back into this. I hope I can regain some of my irreverent wit that made my blog enjoyable for others to read. I know I enjoyed it.

The reason I started this blog was I wanted an open venue to process my journey with Buddhism, to share my thoughts and experiences from a somewhat different perspective that I thought might not just benefit me, but others also. I wanted it to be fun and not pedantic.

I'll get there. It's time I come back. So look out bitches.

Bid adieu to your ennui

It has been months since I posted something, and even before that last post, my contributions to this blog have been sporadic. And to some extent, uninspired. There was something creeping into my life. It's called ennui.

I knew it was there, but last night as I walked through Boys Town feeling morose and unwanted (I was totally channeling Linda Ronstadt), I overheard a couple gay boys at least half my age chatting behind me: "We're celebrating our six-year anniversary," said one.

Bitch.

Then I read a message from someone I've been texting with and whom I was planning to meet in a couple weeks: "I hope you aren't expecting anything more than conversation when we meet."

Double bitch.

And this all leads me to recall a conversation I had earlier in the evening. I was dining at a vegan restaurant in Old Town with a colleague from work. She and I had a wonderful time: the food was excellent, I brought a fabulous wine to share, and our conversation was bright and happy and thrilling. Being the social media fanatics she and I are, we both checked in on FourSquare and we got a special - free desert.

When dinner was over and we examined the desert menu, I suggested the blueberry cheesecake because I thought the blueberries would go well with the remaining wine. My mind was totally in the realm of cheesecake and all that word means to me. So when the cheesecake was delivered to our table, its appearance immediately struck me as odd. And when I tasted it, the texture was not at all what I expected.

I was disappointed. I said as much, noting that it was good, but it was not what I expected at all. My friend gently reminded me that we were dining in a vegan restaurant, so traditional cheesecake would not be served. I said to her, "You know, it's funny how it is most often our expectations about something that create our disappointment, not the thing itself. This cheesecake is really quite fine, but because I had expected something creamy and smooth and decidedly not vegan, I was unhappy."

Yes, our expectations. Not the thing itself. This is so basic Four Noble Truths kind of stuff that I feel like I should cancel my subscription to the Dhamma and quickly find a bed of nails to lie on. It's just as my friend Curt recently said: "We've got to get you out of this rut you're in, Richard."

And that word "rut" was so apropos. I had been in both a mental and sexual rut, honing in on deliciously young men whom I was successfully converting into a series of trysts. It was making me feel adequate because look at me! I'm a 54-year-old man and see this cute 20-something with me? But the trouble has been most 20-somethings aren't ready to settle down into anything long-term; they want to play just as much as I do. And the ones that say they do want something long term, well, have you ever tried having a conversation with someone who is less than half your age? I often can't even find any musical interests that we share in common.

So there it is - ennui staring me in the face. And it's because I've been spending a lot of time on the outside of me. I've been kicking my ass in a good way at the gym, losing weight and toning up. I've started attending a yoga class that has really helped my flexibility and my overall sense of health. And while I have been chanting and meditating, it's not as regular as I feel it should be. And frankly, I haven't read any Dhamma since ...

My friend Curt is right. I need to find a way out of this rut of endlessly pursuing younger men with whom I have nothing in common other than an overactive libido. Because that day will come when I no longer got it going on. Maybe it's because of my stroke earlier in the year. You'd never know just by looking at me that I had one. But there may be a thought nugget inside my mind that is telling me to live it up as much as I can because I may not be so lucky with the next one. It's as though I'm Jack Nicholson in "Five Easy Pieces" when he attempts to reconcile his relationship with his father who's been incapacitated by a devastating stroke.

So there it is. There it is, really, for all of us. Because in some manner, we are all creating our own disappointment with everything, our own dissatisfaction, and we're doing it via our expectations.

Three-legged stools everywhere!

Riding public transportation in a metropolitan area can be at times – how shall we describe it? – interesting, to say the least. In Chicago, my most frequent mode of public transportation is the Brown Line. The majority of my rides are exceedingly uninteresting. But there are occasions when even I, my dear reader, have to shake my head in dismay.

Recently I boarded the Brown Line at Rockwell on my way to Lakeview. As I was perusing some of the notifications on my iPhone, I became aware of the fresh scent of beer. I looked over to my left and sitting across the aisle from me was a middle-aged man slurping beer from a quart bottle. I glanced at the time on my iPhone and thought to myself, “Well, I guess it’s not that bad. He waited until after 11 a.m. to start drinking.”

Perhaps my beer-drinking fellow passenger had a poorly developed sense of virtue.

On another Brown Line ride a woman boarded while speaking on her cell phone. A plethora of expletives tumbled out of her mouth with an ease that would shame the feistiest drag queen dealing with a broken heel on her pump while traipsing through the rain in Uptown. As I eavesdropped on her conversation – she was speaking so loudly on the phone that it was difficult for anyone in that car to ignore her – I began to learn that she was speaking to her son, who apparently didn’t want to go back to school (I’m presuming back to college). As she cursed her “encouragement” for him to get off his lazy effing ass and go to school to “make something of himself,” I heard her then admonish her son for using the F-word with her. “How dare you talk like that to me,” she said with complete seriousness.

I couldn’t help but smile as I thought of the irony that such a fine role model of a mother would be offended by a son who used the F-word. Perhaps she had a poorly developed sense of discernment.

Last night was perhaps the best Brown Line ride in a while. After I had finished my workout at the gym (lost 12 pounds so far!) I boarded the Brown Line at Belmont for my return home. Oh joy, there was a nut case on the car I boarded waxing ineloquently as he admonished his captive audience, ridiculing them for ignoring him and being heartless during this most wonderful time of the year. With a heavy sigh I took my seat and with eyes cast down, pulled out my iPhone to do something, perhaps slip into the gay first jhana where I find rapture and withdrawal in directing my thought to who’s on Grindr right now.

He went on and on about how everyone on the car would be enjoying Christmas, opening presents, while some friend of his – who must have been hospitalized – was facing certain death because of the overwhelming lack of generosity of those of us on the train. He even had photographs.

I bit my tongue, because the Buddha said that even true speech should not be spoken if such truth will likely lead to a – how shall we say? – more uncomfortable situation. I wanted to tell this idiot that not everyone on the train was going to be opening Christmas gifts or was even buying Christmas gifts and that, oh, by the way, we all are going to die, and you know why? Because we were born.

Nonetheless, I remained silent, thinking about how this kook had a poorly developed mind.

My, aren’t I the queen of all that is perfect and good! Because here I am, dealing with my own poorly developed mind, my poorly developed sense of discernment, and my complete lack of virtue.

Well, maybe I don’t have a complete lack of virtue, but saying my virtue is poorly developed would be an understatement; it would be like saying the Pope was merely a confused man.

But I digress.

The point is that we face constant distraction in the world around us and everywhere we turn, we see ourselves as we are now, or how we might become, if we lose sight of the three basic goals of Buddhism: the development of virtue, wisdom, and concentration.

Some of us may get overwhelmed by all the lists, rules, gathas and discourses within the Buddhist canon and think, “Whoa girlfriend! This is bunching up my panties, I can’t deal with all this! I need to de-stress with a cosmo.” But as the Buddha suggested to monks who were becoming overwhelmed with all the rules in the Pātimokkha, everything can be boiled down to three essential trainings.

The Buddha explained it again to a group of Brahmans, saying that if we pay attention to how we act, how we speak, and how we think, we can avoid a lot of problems later on. Evaluating our selves under these three areas is really what Buddhism is all about. The key, however, is to develop our virtue, wisdom and concentration simultaneously so our practice is balanced.

Think of a three-legged stool, where each leg is wisdom, virtue or concentration. To develop concentration (focus in meditation) our mind needs to be free from distraction, which is accomplished by being virtuous. But to be virtuous, we need the wisdom to know what is skillful and unskillful. But to have wisdom, we need to have the concentration to investigate phenomenon to be able to discern how things really are. And on and on.

If we over-emphasize one of the legs of the stool, we will metaphorically fall off our perch, like a barely-legal Boystown newbie who slides off his barstool after trying out his first Long Island Tea at Sidetrack. Yet I see many practitioners go running off toward jhana like a dazed mo with his first credit card dashing across Michigan Avenue toward the shrine of Ermenegildo Zenga.

Not that I am the epitome of Buddhist practice. I am far from it. But isn’t Buddhism about living rather than thinking? Isn’t the practice about how we behave rather than what level of self-absorption we think we have achieved and brag to others as if it were a bhodi badge of spirituality?

Perhaps the path is like riding the Brown Line in Chicago, filled with opportunities for self-reflection.

The day I knew Buddhism was right for me was…

I posed this question a few weeks back on Twitter and I got some great responses. He are some of them:

@MrsCapra: When I read the book “Buddhism is not what you think”

@Zenfant1969: When I saw what I already knew had been written down 2k yrs ago

@ZenDirtZenDust: The day the bottom fell out of my pail

@checkbak: The day I broke 20 years of resistance and walked into a meditation center

@ruralhybrid: When I saw Lama Yeshe say calmly on video, “check it out for yourself”

@bodhichittah: The day I lost everything around me but glimpsed (gained!) a new world within

@Bohicitta3000: When I knew I have to be the carrier of my own banner and not blindly follow one

@ShojinRJB: The day when I learned no discrimination on the zafu

@mindonly: I remember reading a little "basics" book & thinking 'wow, I've always thought that' & 'that makes perfect sense'.

I thought it would be an easy question for me to answer as well, but I found that I really struggled with defining a single day, a single moment or epiphany when I knew that Buddhism was right for me. I guess for me it was really a process that took approximately two years.

If I had to pick a single statement, however, I think I would go with @ZenDirtZenDust’s response: The day the bottom fell out of my pail.

Buddhism is a path, and like any other path, we decide to follow it because something about the path’s beginning appeals to us. Along the way we see and experience different things and at some point we make a decision, conscious or unconscious, that we chose the right path.

My first experience with Buddhism was going with a former boyfriend to a Buddha’s birthday celebration at a temple in the Lansing, Mich., area. During that visit, the monk’s Dhamma talk really struck home with me. It was welcoming, but also presented boundaries that made sense. A seed was planted. Because it was at least another 18 months before I found myself at that temple again, this time alone and feeling like I had lost control of everything, including myself.

The bottom had fallen out of my pail, and when it did, the first thing that came to mind was that evening Dhamma talk. Without hesitation, I got into my car and drove 90 minutes to the monastery where I began walking the path.

But when did I know, when did I become aware, that I had made the right decision? I’m not sure, but I know I did.

Is it just a job or Right Livelihood?

So maybe you’re in a gay club admiring the twinky go-go boy gyrating on the bar and you’re just about to stuff a fiver into the guy’s aussieBums when suddenly your mind is penetrated with a keen thought: Is this Right Livelihood?

OK, so maybe you’re not thinking that. Maybe you’re focused on the likelihood you’ll get a chance to brush your hand against the supreme package and maybe even get a kiss out of it. Forget it, he’s got a boyfriend already. His kiss means nothing.

But what is Right Livelihood? Just some more oppressive rules to restrict us homos into a box of moralistic confinement? I mean sheesh, look what a lot of them try to do to us with the Third Precept!

Susan Elbaum Jootla writes that our serious consideration of what Right Livelihood means and how it applies to us is a natural step to take after one has been meditating for a while. It is so natural, in fact, that it may not be us who begins to take a closer look at this issue, but our own doubts about what we do may begin to bubble up in our minds as we become more aware of how our lives are interconnected with social fabrications that continually bind us in the state of samsara.

“OK, whoa dude! WTF are you talking about? Does this mean my job as a clerk in a sex toy shop doesn’t qualify as this Right Livelihood thing?”

You may laugh my fellow queerlings at my simplistic example, but consider this. Suppose you work for an online company that caters to the gay community that is filled with important information for that community about politics, social issues and self-help? And suppose it is also a site that actively seeks advertiser money from companies that sell sex toys, pornography and glorify, as well as promote, large circuit party activities that play upon the notion of free and easy sex, or takes money from clubs and bars whose primary source of revenue is through the sale of alcohol. All you do is edit content, or maybe you work in the billing department. The lines are blurred now, aren’t they?

It’s probably wise to start at the beginning – what did the Buddha say? And in the Anguttara Nikaya, there is a very short passage in the Book of Fives known as the Vanijja Sutta:

“Monks, a lay follower should not engage in five types of business. Which five? Business in weapons, business in human beings, business in meat, business in intoxicants, and business in poison.


“These are the five types of business that a lay follower should not engage in.”

What does this mean? Jootla explains that the activities “prohibited” to lay followers include “those in which the disciple would be directly, on his own responsibility, involved in breaking one or more of the Five Precepts, which are the very basic moral rules for the Buddhist layman.”

That appears simple enough, but Jootla goes on to inject a bit of specific morality into her explanation that may strike one as being absolutist. For example, does this statement go too far?

“Breeding animals for slaughter as meat or for other uses that may be made of the carcasses is not allowed because this obviously implies breaking the First Precept: I shall abstain from killing. Similarly, anyone trying to follow the teachings of the Buddha should avoid hunting and fishing, nor can he be an exterminator of animals.”

And what about it when Jootla says that, “to help others directly in breaking any of (the precepts) is certainly wrong livelihood.”

Well now, what of the earlier example of our modest gay boy who is an accountant with our fictitious website? He’s not directly involved in assisting others in breaking the precepts, but he also knows that if the website is not successful selling ads, and if the advertisers believe that visitors to the site aren’t clicking on those ads for their products or services, then revenue dries up and our modest gay boy might be laid off, and that’s not the good kind of being laid.

In general, we must acknowledge the world we live in and do our best to emulate the practice. Absolutist positions are seldom helpful. We might have been deeply involved in our careers before we began practicing Dhamma. And through our practice, doubts may begin to arise within us regarding our profession and our career path. If we begin to feel troubled about what we do to earn our living and other options are available, then we ought to pursue them. But that isn’t necessarily something that all of us can easily or readily do.

As Jootla writes, “… we have to keep a balanced perspective and not keep running after the perfect work — part of the dukkha of the householder's life is the necessity to function in an immoral society while keeping one's own mind clear.”

To see how confusing this can get, take a look at this collection of Dhamma excerpts regarding Right Livelihood. It includes one from the Samyutta Nikaya regarding the Buddha’s response to a warrior’s questions about the correctness of killing in battle. It would seem that soldiers and even police officers are not off the hook. This, of course, is clouded by some Mahayana teachings that suggest that warriors can “kill with compassion,” but this passage raises serious doubts about such a perspective. Does it mean if you are already a solider or police officer that you should abandon immediately your avocation?

And what of the Buddha’s description of acting as a form of intoxication? What do we take away from that? Richard Gere certainly hasn’t given up acting since becoming a follower of Tibetan Buddhism, and Tina Turner and Herbie Hancock haven’t given up their careers as entertainers since finding Soka Gakkai and Nichiren Buddhism.

To further complicate matters, Ajaan Suwat Suvaco strikes are rather absolutist chord in his explanation of how practicing Right Livelihood is critical to developing Right Concentration”

“As for Right Livelihood, you set your mind on providing for your livelihood exclusively in a right way. You're firm in not making a livelihood in ways that are wrong, not acting in ways that are wrong, not speaking in ways that are corrupt and wrong. You won't make any effort in ways that go off the path, you won't be mindful in ways that lie outside the path. You'll keep being mindful in ways that stay on the path. You make this vow to yourself as a firm determination. This is one level of establishing the mind rightly.”

What Ajaan Suwat Suvaco is saying is correct, but I don’t think he’s saying that one must completely and immediately abandon all forms of Wrong Livelihood with the snap of a finger. Buddhism is not, in my experience, a Big Bang; the Buddha was quite deliberate in describing it as a path. And as a path, as we follow it, we do change, we mature, we gain deeper understanding.

What of you and your career? Are there occasions in your job when you realize that maybe your actions or someone else’s actions in the company don’t quite comport with the practice, even though the action is completely legal and ethical from a business perspective? If you do have those moments of doubt, that is a good thing; it means you have been faithfully practicing. But it doesn’t mean you must immediately quit or look for other work. It does mean, however, you have something to contemplate during your next meditation session.

Don’t forget to visit my Facebook page and Like it. I could use some help initiating and sustaining conversations there as well as here.

Practice makes perfect

I recently asked folks on Twitter how they sustained their daily practice, what were the core elements that kept them active in their practice. I got some good responses and tips, because sharing what works for us can be helpful for others. Developing a routine within your practice is helpful, even if it does seem repetitious, even ritualistic. The Buddha generally didn’t have a lot of positive things to say about rites and rituals other than they can be important and useful tools for developing mindfulness.

Danny Wilson is a young man who lives in Sheffield, England, which is south of Leeds (on Twitter he’s @Danny_789). Danny says he recently starting waking up earlier to meditate and read. He’s been doing this for about a month. This may not sound like much to others, but what Danny has begun is very important. Establishing the simplest of routines provides us with structure and discipline. This is important for any practice, whether you are a musician, a doctor, a carpenter, a poet, a singer, or even someone’s lover. Heck, even being a good parent, son or daughter, brother or sister, or friend takes practice. And establishing a routine to develop that practice is critical.

It relates in many ways to what the Buddha identified as the Four Right Efforts: developing and nurturing good qualities that we currently do not posses but wish to; developing and nurturing good qualities we already posses to ensure they are sustained; removing negative qualities from our actions; preventing negative qualities we do not have from ever arising.

Adam, who goes by the moniker @flylikeacrow (he has a blog by the same name as well), said he sets aside time at work for short moments of meditating on the breath. That was an eye-opener for me, as this is something I really ought to add to my own practice. As the First Noble Truth tells us, life is often unsatisfactory because of all the stress that confronts us, and our work, our professional life, is often a prime source of this stress. And what a wonderful and simple thing to do to take just five minutes out of our work day to sit quietly, close our eyes and focus on our breath.

Adam also likes listening to chants, such as the Heart Sutra and the Faith in Mind poem. Listening to monks chant in Pali was something I really enjoyed. And there are some Pali chants that I regularly do as well. Again, some might view this as a ritual that makes Buddhism look like some archaic faith that requires people to pray to some mystical deity. But chanting can function just like silent meditation as it brings focus to our mind, targets our thinking into single-pointedness. In fact, if my mind is particularly rattled so that silent meditation is difficult for me, I will switch to chanting.

Jim Johnson, aka @pixelsrzen, gets his meditation in – “even a few minutes worth is important” – but he also recites the Bodhisattva vow daily, something he was gracious enough to share with me.

“With a wish to free all beings, I will always go for refuge to the Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha until I reach full enlightenment. Enthused by compassion and wisdom, today in the presence of the Buddha, I will generate the mind for full awakening for the benefit of all beings throughout limitless space. As long as space remains, as long as sentient beings remain, may I too remain to dispel the misery of this world.”

Reciting things is not quite the same as chanting, but it can yield similar results. It takes concentration when reciting something, focus to be sure that you are saying the words correctly as well as a sort of open awareness so that over time, the meaning of the words penetrate your mind to give you new understanding. For example, my understanding of the opening verses of the Dhammapada is very different today from when I first read them.

Having said that, droning on with chanting, or repetitiously reciting gathas or other verses, is a complete waste of time. These aren’t secret codes to a special cosmic cash machine of merit and good karma. Rather, these are techniques to build mindfulness.

Someone who has a very diverse practice is Marnie Louise Froberg, aka @NellaLou. Daily study and sitting meditation makes up the core of her practice, but she also adds variety with actions like walking meditation and making prostrations on an almost-daily basis. I love walking meditation, and I really should make the effort to do it more often.

Prostrations are one of those activities that some may view with disdain because it looks like obeisance. But just like chanting, making prostrations is another effective means for developing mindfulness. When bowing or making a prostration, you’re not just “doing it.” Again, it takes concentration on and awareness of your body while doing this, ensuring it is being done correctly and that your mind is fixed on the activity. It’s just another technique for honing single-pointedness of mind.

So here’s the core of my “routine.”

Daily morning seated meditation for 15 minutes. I precede the silent sitting by first chanting three times “Namo tassa bhagavato arahato samma-sambuddhassa,” which translated from Pali is, “I wish to revere with body, speech and mind that Lord apportioning Dhamma, that one far from defilements, that One Perfectly Enlightened by himself.” I chant this primarily because the sound of my voice reciting the words is soothing, the tone eases my mind and makes it tranquil before I begin focusing on the breath. I also strike a chime bowl as I repeat each line. Again, the sound of the bell fading helps calm my mind.

When I’m finished with the silent meditation, I then recite both in Pali and English, a variation of the Loving Kindness chant: Aham avero homi (May I be free from hatred); Aham abyapajjho homi (May I be free from oppression); Aham anigho homi (May I be free from troubles); Sukkhi attanam Pariharami (May my happiness be protected); Aham sukhito homi (May I be happy) – Sabbe satta avera hontu (May all beings be free from hatred); Sabbe satta abyapajja hontu (May all beings be free from oppression); Sabbe satta anigha hontu (May all beings be free from troubles); Sabbe satta sabba dukkha pamuccantu (May all beings be free from suffering); Sabbe satta sukhita hontu (May all beings be happy).

Reciting the Loving Kindness chant is not praying. I’m not praying for these things to occur on their own. Rather, by reciting them I fill my mind with compassion, first by planting the seed into my consciousness, and through the daily recitation, nurture this compassion and empathy for others so that it begins to be reflected in how I interact with others. I will not behave with compassion and kindness toward myself and others unless I first develop a compassionate mind. And yes, we need to show compassion and kindness toward ourselves first if we ever hope to share this with others.

After this, I finish my session by reciting a variation of the Five Remembrances: I am of the nature to grow old, I have not gone beyond aging; I am of the nature to be sick, I have not gone beyond disease; I am of the nature to die, I have not gone beyond death; All that is mine, beloved and pleasing will change and vanish; I am the owner of my kamma, heir to my kamma, born of my kamma, related to my kamma, abide supported in my kamma – whatever kamma I create, skillful or unskillful, light or dark, to that I fall heir.

Once a week I spend time reading from the Tipitika. Lately this has involved reading a chapter from the Majjhima Nikaya, which I read prior to my sitting meditation. On weekends, I strive to sit for longer sessions. Also, I shake things up a bit on weekends by chanting the Daimoku (Nam myho renge kyo) for about 15 minutes, which I follow sometimes by reciting the Nichiren liturgy. Again, I do this to fix my mind and relax it. When I struggle with silent sitting, I will switch to chanting the Daimoku instead.

That’s the core of my practice. Please share with us some of the core parts to your practice as well.

What does it mean to be good?

Overheard talk: “So what does it take to be a good person?”

“Well, a good person doesn’t do anything harmful, he doesn’t say evil or hurtful things to others, he doesn’t want to do bad things to others, and he doesn’t earn a living by screwing people over.”

“Yeah, that’s sounds reasonable. I guess that makes me a good person because I don’t do any of those things.”

DANGER, WILL ROBINSON, DANGER! MASSIVE DELUSION APPROACHING OVER THE HORIZON!

Ok, so that was a bit melodramatic. Let’s dial it back a bit.

“Holy cream cheese cupcakes Batman! That is so delusional that it makes my ridiculously colorful costume look like normal business attire!”

“Yes, I’m afraid you’re right, Robin. That is so delusional that it makes our relationship look platonic.”

“Oh, Batman, our relationship could never be that way!”

Erm, sorry, got carried away again. Hmm, what would the Buddha say about that? Perhaps something like, “If that were so, carpenter, then a young tender infant lying prone is accomplished in what is wholesome, perfected in what is wholesome, and ascetic invincible attained to the supreme attainment …”

And that is exactly what the Buddha said, according to the Samanamandika Sutta (MN 78).

We all want to be a good person, right? Well, except maybe Boris Badenov. Natasha’s no sweet pea either. And besides, they’re cartoon characters, not even real. But the rest of us, we want to be good, right? So it’s natural for us to want to know what it takes to be a good person.

Many of us reach the same conclusion that my “overheard” conversation reveals. If we do no evil, say no evil, desire no evil and don’t make money off evil, then we’re square with our kamma and good to go. This works for many of us homo-hedonists, or so we tend to think. So maybe we do a little Ecstasy at the club while we’re dancing. So maybe we like to indulge a little in our porn collection. So maybe we like to cruise the gay sauna from time to time. It’s all good, right? Maybe we like to head to the bushes for a little while after the Dunes closes in Douglas, no harm there, right? No one gets hurt, it’s all in good fun, and everyone leaves with a grin.

But this is a specious rationalization, which the Buddha quickly points out to a lay follower.

The carpenter Pancakanga, ran into this wandering aesthetic with a really long name – OK, I’ll tell you his name: It’s Uggahamana Samanamandikaputta (and if you can pronounce that, I’ll give you a kiss in public, even if you’re straight) – who told Pancakanga what he believed were the four qualities that made an “aesthetic invincible attained to the supreme attainment.” You know, the four qualities I mentioned earlier: do no evil, say no evil, desire no evil and don’t make money off evil. Our friend the carpenter doesn’t say anything to the guy with the really long name; he just gets up and politely leaves to go tell the Buddha what he just heard. When Pancakanga tells the Buddha about this, that’s when the Buddha replies with what I quoted earlier. The Buddha tells the carpenter that there’s no skill in merely avoiding the four things the aesthetic with the really long name identifies because a baby can do that. And why can a baby do that? Because a baby hasn’t developed a mind yet, a mind that is the source of all our troubles.

Being a truly wholesome person is a lot more complicated, skillful and difficult than merely avoiding bad speech, bad intentions, bad desires and bad employment. Don’t get me wrong, as these are great places to start. But if that’s all it took, then everybody would be pure and happy. Instead, the Buddha tells us that it requires the skillful application of the Noble Eightfold Path along with relentless execution of the Four Right Efforts. You really should read the sutta, as I won’t go into all that detail here. Because what I found really interesting in this sutta is that a key element of developing this skillfulness is once we realize that we are living a moral and wholesome life, we relinquish any attachment we might have to behaving that way.

Think of it this way. Initially, we do good things because it makes us feel better as well as makes others feel better. And this is great! But the Buddha tells us we must get beyond that quid pro quo manner of thinking and make skillful actions so much a part of our normal daily life that we no longer do things with the anticipation of feeling good about it. We just do it. And that’s not very easy. In fact, it’s pretty damn difficult.

Then again, that is, perhaps, why they call Buddhism a practice, and practice makes perfect.

Just be a mensch

As I continue to research the Tipitika and the writings of other significant Buddhists on the issue of racism and bigotry – a trending topic from time to time in the Buddho-blogosphere – I thought I would take a bit of a diversion and address a question Terasi posed here.

The gist of Terasi’s question is what does Buddhism offer in terms of practical daily applications? I’ve heard from others about how Buddhism strikes them as being very esoteric, with lots of talk about how to attain Nibbana. But if a person is struggling with their job, or without a job, can Buddhism help with that? Can Buddhism help someone who needs to develop the motivation to stick with an exercise regimen? Can Buddhism help you get out of debt? Can Buddhism get you a salary raise or a promotion at work?

The answer to these and similar questions is yes, but Buddhism won’t get you these things in a direct way. Rather, developing a skilled Buddhist practice that focuses on your personal development into a decent human being will create an easier world around you through which you can maneuver. The problems you face in the world will diminish (but not disappear) as you develop a skilled Buddhist practice because you won’t be creating so many of them anymore. And when that happens, you are better able to help and assist others.

But that’s all high-brow holiness, you’re thinking. I just want to get a better paying job so I can find a better place to live for my family and have our needs met, you say.

Actually, it’s not high-brow at all. It’s very practical. Let’s start in the Digha Nikaya with the Sigalovada Sutta: The Layperson’s Code of Discipline (DN 31). This portrays an encounter between the Buddha and a young man named Sigala, the son of what we would probably call a very middle class father. The Buddha instructs Sigala on proper behavior that will not only protect his reputation, but preserve and expand his family’s wealth and status.

There are four vices that Sigala must eradicate from his behavior and character: killing, stealing, lying and adultery (sexual misconduct). As the Buddha tells Sigala, “These four evils the wise never praise.” By avoiding these vices, others who may be able to benefit you take notice and are willing to assist. But if you exhibit any of these vices, then those who may be able to assist you will withhold their aid when you need it.

Next, the Buddha tells Sigala that he must be sure that his actions are not being led by desire, anger, ignorance and fear (Right View and Right Intention). If our motivation for acting is rooted by desire, anger, ignorance or fear, we will do something that we may later regret; we will bring harm to ourselves, to others, or perhaps both ourselves and others.

This is followed by the Buddha’s description of the six ways we lose our money and good reputation: heavy partying, hanging out late at night, frequenting nightclubs and discos, gambling, associating with companions who are no good, and being lazy.

My favorite part of the sutta is when the Buddha describes to Sigala the four types of people who act like your friends, but who are really enemies, followed by the traits of true “warm-hearted” friends. The former will ruin you and lead you to make wrong decisions, while the latter will protect you and encourage you to make good decisions. There’s even some advice on money management.

The wise and virtuous shine like a blazing fire.
He who acquires his wealth in harmless ways
like to a bee that honey gathers,
riches mount up for him
like ant hill's rapid growth.

With wealth acquired this way,
a layman fit for household life,
in portions four divides his wealth:
thus will he friendship win.

One portion for his wants he uses,
two portions on his business spends,
the fourth for times of need he keeps.

In the last section the Buddha describes the qualities of good parenting, followed by the qualities of being a good son or daughter.

While the Sigalovada Sutta is overtly directed at lay followers, all the suttas – even the ones that are focused on the Jhanas – contain information and guidance that have practical application in our daily life. A good one on this point is the Bhaddekaratta Sutta: An Auspicious Day (MN 131).

In this sutta from the Majjhima Nikaya, the Buddha delivers the most basic guidance of the Buddhist practice: Do not dwell on the past, do not live in the future, pay attention to what is happening right now. The past is over, but what you did in the past is why you are where you are right now. Worrying about the future will not improve your future, nor deliver you to a more desirable future. Rather, by paying attention to what you are thinking, saying and doing right now so that you act skillfully will bring you good results and deliver you to a future filled with happiness.

So while Buddhism doesn’t provide a direct route to achieve material and worldly goals, by following the path faithfully and earnestly, we experience good results more frequently and negative results less frequently. And when opportunity knocks, we find ourselves more aware of the opportunity and better prepared to take advantage of it.

Buddhism 1-2-3

Expanding upon my previous post – on how we can overdo our practice, particularly when we’re a new convert – I began recalling something my original teacher said one time. Whenever I feel like my practice is losing focus, I return to his simile of the three-legged stool.

I’m sure my teacher hadn’t originated this simile. The essence of this image can be found in Bhikkhu Bodhi’s writings, and that of Thanissaro Bhikkhu as well. But its simplistic beauty is worth sharing, because it had a profound impact on my practice.

Because, you see, Buddhism in America tends to attract intellectual types, and intellectual types tend to over-think just about everything. And when it comes to Buddhism, well, their seemingly erotic fascination with esoteric passages and the nuances of the Pali language often comes off as if they were preparing a dissertation on what the Jhanas symbolize within 21st Century life for the North American heterosexual male.

Sheesh. It’s just Buddhism folks. Yes, it’s profound; yes, it can radically change your life; yes, it can lead you to a sense of happiness unlike anything you can think of or anticipate – but it doesn’t require you to stand on your head while chanting an archaic language from memorized texts in an effort to subtly dissect the mind into its components parts, if there are any component parts to begin with.

All Buddhism requires of you is to be fully aware of what you are doing right now, and understand the consequences of those actions, because out of what happens right now your future arises.

It’s your movie; it wasn’t written for you; you write it as you go along.

Enlightenment doesn’t just magically happen because you belong to the right temple and chant all the right words with all your heart until your voice feels raspy and weak. Enlightenment is not delivered by Santa Claus because you’ve been a good boy or girl and followed all the precepts by rote without a shred of comprehension about what the precepts mean. Shit, happiness doesn’t even come that way. Skip the enlightenment part – how many of us are really invested in achieving total release? Come on, anyone out there? If you are, then you are wasting your freaking time reading this blog or anyone else’s blog.

I want to be a good person. I want to be beneficial to others. I want to avoid actions that harm others. I want to be happy. And when I die, I want it to be without fear.

What about you?

What my practice has taught me is that over-intellectualizing hides the truth. Buddhism will reveal the truth – if you let it. But to have that happen, keep it simple; which brings me back to my teacher’s simile of the three-legged stool.

There are three parts to a successful Buddhist practice: Sila, or virtue; Samadhi, or concentration; and Panna, or wisdom. Now think of each of these three parts as a leg on a stool. If each leg is the same length, then the seat of the stool – that’s you – is level and useful for comfortable sitting. When you sit on such a stool, it is stable and you feel secure, comfortable; you are so comfortable that you can do other things while sitting on that stool without ever thinking about whether it might tip over or you might fall off.

In other words, you are safe to be around.

Given that image, imagine what that stool might look like if all you do is read the suttas. You’ll be able to quote the Buddha like some Bible thumping idiot on a city street corner, but you won’t have a clue as to why people don’t like you. Or if all you do is meditate. You’ll have one hell of a tranquil mind, but you won’t be using its potential; when people go to a dictionary and look up the word “boring,” your photo will be there as the definition. Or if all you do is follow the precepts. You’ll be one unhappy celibate sonofabitch with spiders and cockroaches and rats all over your house, wishing you could join your friends for a beer now and then (I will spare all your delicate sensibilities about the sex part, but let me assure you, it ain’t pretty).

Yet, I’ve met people who I can quickly tell either do nothing but meditate, or do nothing but read the suttas, or who do nothing but blindly follow the precepts and then criticize everyone else for not following them. In fact, that was one of my turn-offs about Zen Buddhism; almost every Zennie I met did nothing but meditate and enthusiastically proclaimed that they needn’t do anything else. I can happily say that my respect for Zen has been enhanced by many of the Zennies you can find in my blog roll.

To be able to develop wisdom, you need to know the Buddha’s teachings; but before you are able to really grasp the teachings, you must develop your concentration through meditation so that your mind is focused; but to effectively develop a focused mind, you must follow the precepts to develop the virtue necessary to have a mind filled with ease, knowing you haven’t done something to bring about bad kamma; but to properly follow the precepts, you must have the wisdom to understand what they mean and how to apply them in your life; but to have that wisdom, you need to know what the Buddha taught and ….

Wisdom is knowing what is worthy of your mind’s attention, not memorization; concentration is having the ability to use your mind to investigate the way things really are, not how you think they are; and virtue is having compassion toward others by developing the Right Actions that lead you to be harmless, not refraining from an action because someone said it is wrong.

When my teacher shared this, my brain was like – duh! This led me to attending the weekly guided meditation sessions he conducted, and to me setting aside 20 minutes every day for meditation at home. It led to me attending his weekly Dhamma class when we methodically went through the suttas and talked about what they meant in today’s world. I still read the suttas over and over. And it led me to come to the dhammasala to work. I helped build the new meditation hall, helped set up and clean up before and after special occasions, and I also started hosting Dhamma study sessions at the library in the town where I lived, because the dhammasala I was attending was a 90-minute drive away and I could only go once a week, sometimes twice if I was fortunate.

That was 10 years ago. And for the most part, that remains my practice today. Am I successful? Depends on your measure. Am I happy? You betcha, but that also depends on how you measure happiness. Am I happy that my partner Benny had to leave the country to go back to Hong Kong? No. Am I happy about the fact I don’t know when or if we’ll ever be together again? No.

But am I happy that today I know my actions were honorable, beneficial and compassionate?

You betcha.

Love you Benny.

You give me fever

There was a time in my practice when I wanted to do everything. I would meditate, chant, follow the eight precepts during an Uposatha day, design a very special shrine with all the proper objects, and read the Dhamma so I could have meaningful discussions with others about the Buddha’s teaching.

Yeah, I know. That lasted like maybe a month. And I almost gave this whole Buddhist thing up. After all, I like to drink and eat meat and I wasn’t too keen on giving those up. And sex? Even meaningless serial sex?

But I always came back to the fact that Buddhism saved me.

“Wait a minute, saved you? Isn’t that what Jesus freaks say? Born-again Christians? That’s what they say.”

You’re right, that’s what they say. But that’s not what I mean. Someday, I will go into the sordid details of what brought me to Buddhism, but not now. All that I need to say is that Buddhism did save me. It saved me because it showed me how I fucked up my own life, AND it showed me how I could fix it. It was my responsibility. And unlike the born-again Christian, there wasn’t a Santa Claus out there to fix things for me; I had to do it on my own.

Disclaimer alert! I’m still trying to fix things. But I digress.

I believe that many of us find something very special in Buddhism that immediately connects with us, and that is what draws us to the teachings. But I also understand how many get burned out by their practice. I was almost there. Because it’s easy to slip into this mode of doing everything Buddhist to the point that, by god, I’m gonna let everyone know I’m a goddamned Buddhist and they ain’t gonna give me any shit about it.

It’s very much like coming out. In my early out-of-the-closet years I wore a pink triangle lapel pin on my suits (there was a time when I dressed in a suit and tie every day for work, and let me tell you, I was very stylish!). On National Coming Out Day one year, I wore a T-shirt to work with my blazer that proclaimed “Nobody Knows I’m Gay.”

Nobody at work said anything about the shirt either.

But that didn’t stop me. I turned into a dancing circuit boy who bought all the right clothes (even if I couldn’t afford it – hey, that’s what credit cards are for) and who marched in all the right parades. I attended a vigil on the day it was revealed that Matthew Shepard was brutally beaten and left for dead tied to a split rail fence in the cold dark expanse of the Wyoming prairie. I gave the right speech. I spoke at an alternative school about being gay. And I wrote columns for a local newspaper advocating for gay rights. I decorated my apartment with all the right gay symbols and icons. And I finally accepted the fact that, yes, I really did like Barry Manilow.

I’m not saying any of those activities are bad or were a waste of time. All I’m saying is that I caught the fever. I caught the fever when I found Buddhism too, just like a lot of folks. And just as I mellowed in my gay world, I mellowed out in my Buddhist world too. And what happened was I began to practice in a manner the Buddha describes to Bhaddali in the Bhaddali Sutta (MN 65).

This sutta primarily is concerned with how the monastic code was developed, but within this text is the simile of the young thoroughbred colt. In general, this simile describes how a skilled horse trainer is very methodical when training a colt. The trainer takes very concrete and deliberate steps, and does not advance the colt until it has sufficiently adapted to the current step. For example, the trainer puts a bit into the colt’s mouth. The colt rebels against this initially, but eventually comes to accept the bit and calms down.

Our practice is like that. When we attempt something like meditation for the first time, our mind rebels; it doesn’t want to sit still. But with determined practice, eventually it does. And just like the unbroken colt, if we try too many things at once with our practice, we will fail, just as the colt will totally freak out and the horse trainer will be forced to give up.

So when I felt like I was being overwhelmed by my new practice, I selected a few very basic behaviors to focus on: A daily meditation practice in which the goal was just to sit for 20 minutes a day, and to do something for others. For the second part, I travelled to my new-found Sangha to help them build a new meditation hall. It wasn’t much, but it was something.

Now my meditation is more focused. I’m actually at a point where I can sustain a deliberate thought. And that is an interesting breakthrough, about which I will be blogging soon.

The Queerness of Dhamma

John over at Sweep the Dust, Push the Dirt has a post with a good list of some of the characteristics of Buddhism that demonstrate well the reasons I believe Buddhism is a much easier faith system for gays to immerse themselves in than other doctrines. John’s intention for the list, however, differs from mine (he compiled it as a suggested list of responses to an Evangelical Christian of how Buddhism differs from Christianity); my intention is to extrapolate and present those characteristics that ought to be considered by gays searching for a spiritual path.

1. “There is no Omniscient God in Buddhism.” I would add that there is also no omnipresent or omnipotent god in Buddhism. The point is there is no one single god for you to petition to save your ass. The Buddha acknowledged that various gods and spirits exist, some of whom can be helpful to you, and others who are bothersome. But rather than teach others to seek salvation and grace through any of these beings, the Buddha teaches us that the key to our happiness and redemption lies within us and within our control – not outside of us in the hands of someone or something else.
   
   
2. “Buddhists do not owe any allegiance to a supernatural being.” There is no angry, self-centered god in Buddhism that you must constantly appease to avoid spiritual retribution. There are two “gods” in particular that the Buddha spoke of frequently: Brahma and Mara. Brahma is the “chief” Hindu god with whom the Buddha debated at times. Brahma paid deference to the Buddha, not the other way around. And there is a passage in the Tipitika (Buddhist scriptures) in which Brahma admits that he does not know where the beginning or the end of the universe lies. Mara, for lack of a better term, is Satan, the devil. But Buddhism doesn’t require you to believe that Mara truly exists; because the Buddha uses Mara more often as a metaphor for the deluded mind rather than a real deity. So for us gays, we don’t have to justify or rationalize who we are to fit in.
   
   
3. “The Buddha is a guide and teacher. Not a savior or incarnation of a God.” We do not worship the Buddha. The Buddha is gone. When we bow to a Buddha statue or image, or burn incense and mutter unintelligible sayings in some cryptic language, we are not praying or making offerings to a god. We are paying respect to what the Buddha left behind after his passing, all his teachings about how to overcome our own suffering and help others to alleviate their suffering. There are sects of Buddhism that come closer to the notion that the Buddha as a god that you can petition, but they are a minority. Despite that, the Buddha did not tell people to not believe in a god or not pray; if doing so helps you to develop kindness for others and better awareness of your own actions and the consequences they bring, then go ahead and believe. It just isn’t required; you can still attain release from the cycle of suffering and not believe in any deity at all.
   
   
4. “We all have Buddha Nature and can realize that through striving to cut our delusions.” Just as Christians seek to be Christ-like, we Buddhists strive to emulate the Buddha. And despite what others may say or think, realizing our own Buddha nature is not some impossible or even improbable feat. The key is, rather, that successful realization of our Buddha nature is in our hands, not someone else’s. It means seeing things as they really are, rather than what we wish them to be. This does not mean we become doormats and let the larger society wipe their feet on us. It does mean, however, that we remain focused on the present and on what we are doing right now, because out of the present our future is shaped. And while we don’t dwell in the past, we recognize that all we’ve done in the past – good, bad, or indifferent – has consequences that will be eventually revealed, sometimes at inopportune times.
   
   
5. “Heavens (other realms of existence) may exist, who knows?” The Buddha taught that it is unnecessary to believe in a heaven; you can if you want. What is important is the clear understanding that you can reduce – even eliminate – the suffering you experience in this life right now by taking complete responsibility for all that you think, say or do. If there is no afterlife, you’re fine because by being responsible and living a moral life, you will be happy and content. If there is an afterlife, then by being responsible and living a moral life, you will have secured a happy existence in the afterlife. The point is to stop worrying about what happens next: focus on what is happening now and you don’t have to worry about what happens next. The same is true of a hell. If you live carelessly now, behaving badly toward others, your life right now will be filled with suffering. You don’t need a hell in an afterlife because you’re already responsible for creating one right now.
   
   
6. “I may or may not be reborn….this has nothing to do with reincarnation.” In Buddhism we talk about rebirth; it is not the same as reincarnation. In reincarnation, the same “person” or “soul” is reborn over and over. With rebirth, it is your actions and intentions that are reborn; what bodily form these actions and intentions – or kamma – take upon rebirth depends on their quality. But that’s all I’m going to say about this rather complex subject, because the fact is you don’t have to accept the concept of rebirth to live your life guided by the Buddha’s teachings. So don’t get hung up on this concept. It’s not important right now. A way to simplify this concept, however, is to think back on some basic science you learned in school: matter and energy can neither be created nor destroyed, but only change in form.
   
   
7. “A balance of Metta, Wisdom and Compassion are the cornerstones of Buddhism.” Actually, compassion falls under metta; it should be metta, wisdom and concentration. Metta translates best as loving kindness or loving friendliness. Wisdom isn’t just smarts, it’s the quality of being able to see things as they really are. And concentration is the ability to control and direct the mind in appropriate directions so that we think, speak and act in skillful ways; it is developed through meditation. Now think of a three-legged stool. If each of the three legs is the same length, then the stool will be stable; you can sit on it without it wobbling, leading you to fall off. Now think of Buddhist practice as that three-legged stool, with each leg being metta, wisdom and concentration. A lot of people spend too much time on concentration and not enough on metta and wisdom, and as a result, their practice becomes lopsided. They get some of the benefits, but not all the benefits. The key is to develop all three simultaneously, as that creates a stable practice that brings good results. Buddhism is about action, not thinking.
   
   
8. “Suffering happens. Deal with it. This is not sin.” It is an easy trap to fall into, the idea of blaming others for our woes. It’s a trap because that type of thinking misleads us into a sense of powerlessness. Yes, there are forces – politics – that work against us gays. They will probably always be there because the world will always be filled with greed, hatred and delusion. But I am in charge of my own happiness, and I can be happy despite the presence of greed, hatred and delusion in others. I do that through cultivating the Noble Eightfold Path, a topic for another day.
   
   
9. No eternal Hell or eternal Heaven. No eternal anything except what is eternal.” And what is eternal? Impermanence; all phenomena have a beginning, middle, and end. Yet, many of us just don’t see this or refuse to accept it. Our refusal to see that nothing is permanent, including emotions, is at the root of most of our suffering. We fall in love with someone and we expect things to remain the same forever. They won’t. And surprise, surprise, we get disappointed about this. How does a couple find each other and remain together for the rest of their lives? By understanding and embracing the fact that their relationship will always be changing, that it will not remain static. That is the key to happiness.

This list is a good place to start with a personal investigation of Buddhism. I do not present this as representative of every school or branch of Buddhism that is out there. But I believe it is a good representation of Buddhism’s essence and why gay people – or anyone searching for a spiritual path – should consider Buddhism and its path to freedom.

I want again to acknowledge my friend Jimmy Huang for the photo used with this post.

Do not go by what is said

Hegemony: (from Merriam-Webster) 1: preponderant influence or authority over others: domination 2: the social, cultural, ideological, or economic influence exerted by a dominant group. (from the Free Dictionary): ascendancy or domination of one power or state within a league, confederation, etc., or of one social class over others.

Projection: (Merriam-Webster) a transforming change; (a) the act of perceiving a mental object as spatially and sensibly objective; also: something so perceived; (b) the attribution of one’s own ideas, feelings, or attitudes to other people or to objects; especially: the externalization of blame, guilt, or responsibility as a defense against anxiety.

It is important that we understand these two terms in advance because my post (I apologize now for its length) is about how these two terms have been functioning in Buddhism of late; and not just Western Buddhism – I mean all of it.

I was struck by five different posts this month by five different bloggers because I discerned a common thread through them all. But indentifying this commonality has proved more difficult than I anticipated (and when you finish reading this, you may still be struck with a feeling that I haven’t quite nailed it yet). I think that difficultly lies in the fact that what each writer has brought up is a reflection of the essence of dukkha, although it was experienced differently by each person. The blog posts are:

1. Ajahn Sujato’s post on projection.
2. Arun’s post at Angry Asian Buddhist titled “All the Same”
3. Shravasti Dhammika’s post at dhamma musings called “Vandals In Sandals - And Robes”
4. John’s post at Sweep the Dust, Push the Dirt titled “Buddha’s Afterbirth: Organizational Buddhism”
5. Nate’s post at Dangerous Harvests called “Sangha? What’s Sangha?”

What is dukkha? “Now this, monks, is the Noble Truth of dukkha: Birth is dukkha, aging is dukkha, death is dukkha; sorrow, lamentation, pain, grief, & despair are dukkha; association with the unbeloved is dukkha; separation from the loved is dukkha; not getting what is wanted is dukkha. In short, the five clinging-aggregates are dukkha.” (from Setting the Wheel of Dhamma in Motion, SN 56.11)

In other words, dukkha encompasses everything in life that bums us out for whatever reason. And often, the reason we are bummed is results don’t match our expectations.

Sujato’s blog spells it out right from the start:

“I’m struck, again and again, at the vast gap that exists between how the Sangha is seen and the reality of what it is. Not just the Sangha, but Buddhism in its historical manifestations is almost completely unknown, it seems, to almost all practising (sic) Buddhists.”

At the heart of Sujato’s post is the concept of projection; the assigning to another person, group or institution our own concepts and ideas of who or what the person, group or institution is and how he/she or it is supposed to behave. As Sujato indicates, a projected expectation is frequently non-reality based; but sometimes the expectation is appropriate and the target of the projected attribute is failing to live up to a reasonable expectation.

On one hand, Sujato asserts (and I think rightly) that lay practitioners perceive monks as someone larger than life, someone above the rest of us. And to a point, this is an understandable perception given the plethora of monastics who deliberately project themselves as someone superhuman, all-knowing, and the keeper of a practice that is superior to all others.

They might say, “My dhamma is better than his dhamma,” or “Don’t do that, you don’t have to, we do it this way,” or “That group is wrong, we are right,” or “You’re wasting your time with that, all you need to do is this.”

In fact, the Buddha warned about these types in The Greater Discourse on the Simile of the Heartwood (MN 29).

I agree with Sujato that this misperception of the monastic community appears to be more of a problem with what is euphemistically known as Western Buddhism, as there are non-Asian practitioners who are uncomfortable with some of the ritualistic decorum often extended toward monks and nuns. As an example, Sujato describes how the Sangha in Asia had been an integral part of the community, a place that laypeople frequently visited, supported, sent their children to for education and sometimes for temporary as well as permanent ordainment as monks or nuns.

“Now, for the majority of urban Buddhists, contact with the Sangha is far less organic; just occasional ceremonies or teachings,” Sujato writes.

In fact, there has been recent discussion about abandoning the cultural baggage that is often attached to Buddhism, stripping the practice down to its bare essentials of dhamma study and meditation. It seems to me that these folks just don’t want Buddhism to be fun.

This has led to a de facto segregation of the Western Buddhist community with non-Asians creating their own groups and, to some extent, a Buddhist, cultural elite that deigns to control the direction of Buddhism in the West. And that brings us to Arun’s post, as this has been a topic over at the Angry Asian Buddhist for a while.

“When I write about the marginalization of Asians in Western Buddhist institutions and dialogue,” writes Arun, “a common retort is that Buddhism has nothing to do with race—it is about the path to the end of suffering. We all suffer regardless of our race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, and many other factors. The promise of Buddhism is likewise applicable to all of us, regardless of our race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality and many other factors. In this sense, we are all the same in our potential to attain complete liberation. I couldn’t agree more.

“This ‘all the same’ line is, however, a non-response to the issue of the marginalization of Asians (among others) in Western Buddhist institutions. At both the institutional level and at the level of discourse, we aren’t treated the same.”

This is an appropriate time to bring up the other term I presented at the start of this blog – hegemony. In the West the hegemony is based upon that of white, European culture and has at its roots a Christian ethic; but in America, it takes on an additional flare of individualism. In East Asia, I would hazard a guess that the hegemony there is driven by Confucianism, which has a decidedly different social perspective to that of American individualism.

A prevailing hegemony can have the appearance of being racist, but this seldom has to do with the fact that the hegemony is being guided by racist doctrine. The prevailing hegemony in Germany during the 1930s and 1940s – Nazism – was in fact rooted in a racist doctrine. But that’s not the guiding force in present day America. Reactions to non-whites in America can appear racist at times, but that’s not because the American hegemony is built upon racism; rather, it’s because the hegemony nurtures and supports white privilege, a concept Arun has also blogged about in the past. And white Americans can take advantage of the white privilege inherent in our culture without being deliberate or even aware of it.

When I first came to Buddhism, I joined a group that had a Thai majority of members, but which also had a significant white membership. The head monk, in fact, is a white, American-born man. But he was ordained in Thailand, having spent years in the forest monastery culture there, so when he returned to America, he brought with him a practice that had melded with it Thai culture and even Hindu culture. He showed us how to embrace this without giving it meaning; in other words, he showed us how to recognize its significance as well as its emptiness.

He explained that the bowing down before a Buddha statue was not an act of obeisance as if the Buddha was a deity, but rather an act of respect. He used the example of a parent’s or grandparent’s grave. If you had respect for them while they were alive, you often continue to show that respect by assuring that their grave is kept nice. On special days you may put flowers on the grave. If the headstone becomes dirty, you clean it. And you spend silent moments occasionally in reverie at the grave, remembering what your parents or grandparents taught you. If you do not live near the grave, then perhaps there is a special photograph of them you keep, or a photo album. That is what we do, he said, when we pay respect to the Buddha image or a Buddha shrine; we are showing our gratitude for the Buddha leaving for us the Dhamma. When we chant, we are not praying because there is nothing out there to hear our prayers. We chant because it reminds us of the Dhamma and focuses our minds.

After a trip to Thailand, I asked my teacher about the ubiquitous spirit houses I saw there, many of them with rotting fruit left on or near them. He explained that again, this had nothing to do with Buddhism, but represented a blending of Thai and Hindu culture. The Buddha spoke of the devas that live in the forests because he knew that acceptance of these minor spirits was part of the Indian culture. Many Thais also accept that the forests are filled with devas or other minor spirits. When land is cleared to build a house or a business, the forest homes of devas that lived there are destroyed. So a spirit house is placed on the property – its size and how ornately decorated usually related to how much land was cleared and how wealthy the landowner – to appease the devas so they don’t cause the property owner any mischief.

My teacher then made the comment that it would be nice to have a spirit house for the monastery. Later, at an import shop, I found one and purchased it for the monastery.

But many non-Asian Americans are not comfortable with these cultural additions, either because they are suspicious of them through giving them more significance than they really have (for example, many Asians may use the term “pray” to describe chanting because it’s the best English word for them to use instead of the word in their native language, but to non-Asian Americans, the term “pray” has a very specific definition of being an entreaty to a deity or other higher power), or because they don’t understand them and don’t want to bother understanding them because they are alien and “not American.”

Perhaps it would be helpful to use a model from popular culture to further explain the American cultural hegemony. Think of America as being like the Borg from the Star Trek series. The Borg has no cultural identity of its own; instead, it absorbs other species into the collective, retaining only what is considered useful and discarding anything that might contradict in appearance the current state of Borg identity. That is American culture in a nutshell.

So some white Americans attracted to Buddhism began to affiliate in groups that dropped the Asiatic trappings of the practice. Some of these individuals became quite expert in the Dhamma as well as in certain aspects of the practice, usually meditation. By virtue of white privilege, the voices these individuals had eventually rose above the rest, and with that came influence. In America, prestige comes with influence, and often with prestige comes snobbery. I may be wrong in this assertion, but I cannot think of a single significant and influential voice in American Buddhism that comes from an Asian American. Every significant Asian voice I can think of is either that of an individual who may be an American citizen now or lives in America, but all were born in Asia.

That, in and of itself, should not be a problem. But as Arun points out, when the editorial boards of the most influential Buddhist publications lack an Asian presence or voice, it’s not unreasonable to conclude that it may be, in fact, a problem. Imagine what our health care services and outcomes would look like for women should the health care industry and Congress be dominated by white men.

Oh, wait, the health care industry and Congress are dominated by white men. And it’s a demonstrable fact that women’s healthcare is not on par with men’s, nor is healthcare among minorities on par with that for white men.

Before I go on, however, I must point out that the marginalization that Arun speaks about is not a one-way street. When it was no longer convenient for me to visit the monastery I had been visiting because I had moved to another area of the state, I began to wonder if the positive experience I had with the former was an anomaly. I’ve written about my experiences in previous blog posts, but portions of these experiences are worth mentioning again within context of some of Sujato’s points.

Unlike the dhammasala I had previously attended, the groups I found in my new locale were overtly organized around a particular ethnic group and seemed to function primarily as isolationist community recreation venues. One was a Cambodian group, the other Lao. While the monk at the Lao temple was very welcoming and encouraged me to visit him, the members of these congregations, while polite and friendly, always treated me like a visitor.

In his post, Sujato talks about how some monks are ill-equipped to deal with the inappropriate expectations placed on them by the lay community as well as poorly equipped to follow the monastic code. As Sujato said, monks are people too with human emotions and desires. I saw that with the Lao monk I mentioned. He was deeply grateful for what Buddhism had provided him. He told me how he was a very reckless young man (when I met him, he was still quite young, in his 20s) who partied and treated his girlfriend badly. The monks in Laos took him in, cleaned up his act and educated him. He was ordained, then brought to America, barely able to speak English, to minister to the Lao community in that area. He was left on his own most of the time. He told me he was lonely a lot, which was why he enjoyed my company so much, besides the fact I was helping him improve his English. But the young Lao man was still very much alive inside this monk. He surreptitiously drank beer. There was another monk that eventually came to join him who wanted me to buy him lottery tickets. All of this conflicted with what I projected as proper monk behavior. Sujato writes that this is a significant problem within the monastic community in Asia and Australia, but he has a perception that it is not such a problem in America.

Shravasti Dhammika provides an extreme example in his blog post “Vandals in Sandals – and Robes.”

“Recently two Sri Lankan Buddhist monks led an unruly crowd to the Jesus Never Fails Good News Centre in Battaramulla on the outskirts of Colombo and after a noisy protest, proceed to smash the place up. The monks were, (I will not use the honorific ‘Venerable’) Athraliye Ratana and Ellawala Medananda, both of who also happen to be members of the Sri Lankan parliament. What on earth, you might ask, are Buddhist monks doing sitting in parliament and inciting vandalism? Well, some monks in Sri Lanka are quite literally ‘looking for a role’.”

Faced with the reality that there were no other non-Asian members of these groups in my new locale, and only the very young spoke any English, as well as the fact that I am gay, I sought a graceful exit. I wasn’t feeling much like Rosa Parks.

The white groups weren’t any better. All they wanted to do was meditate, then talk about Buddhism as if it were an intellectual exercise. They had read a lot about Buddhism, but very few had actually taken the further step of reading any of the Tipitika. And these groups, I found, were often very resistant to any type of discussion that was outside the realm of what their paradigm of Buddhism was all about.

Which brings up John’s post, “Buddha’s Afterbirth: Organizational Buddhism.” I strongly identified with a couple comments John made in response to another’s questions about his “style” of practice.

“Any large Organization Buddhist group that I have sat with eventually put restrictions on practice. Some more so than others but there was always a ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ way… If I walked into a ‘proper’ zendo and asked to practice in a way that was different from but not distracting to the group, I would be told ‘no’. Why? Because it is not the way ‘they’ do it.”

This can be a problem for those of use who feel a stronger affiliation for the Buddha and Buddhism than we do for any Buddhist doctrine or group, as well as those of us who have a deeper understanding of the Kalama Sutta (AN 3.65) than, perhaps, others do.

In my continuing search for a sangha here in Chicago – you would think it would be easy in a city like this as there are plenty of them – I’ve recently started participating with a group that practices the Nichiren method of chanting Nam Myoho Renge Kyo. I really enjoy this activity, as I’ve always liked chanting. It is an exceptional practice to help focus the mind. The group I chant with is also affiliated with Soka Gakkai, which is headed up by a rather charismatic figure in Japan.


Please spare me your warnings. I am well aware of the perception Soka Gakkai projects to some other Buddhists, as well as what some other Buddhists project on to Soka Gakkai. Some have even likened it to the Chinese cult of Falun Gong. But one of the questions I ask as a measure of what this group is all about is do this group and its activities cause harm to its participants? To myself? To others? So far, the answer has been no. Having said that, I remain dubious about further engagement with the group beyond chanting. And it’s not like I haven’t been invited, or even encouraged, or that attempts to tell me that I don’t need to practice any other way haven’t been made. I shared with one woman how I really liked the way the chanting focused my mind so that my silent sitting meditation was more productive. She said that I don’t need to meditate that way anymore because all I need to do is chant Nam Myoho Renge Kyo.

My response was a silence that I’ve learned from hanging around a lot Asians. It’s that Chinese way of expressing, “No thank you,” without having to say anything at all. My message was received, and there’s been no more pressure since. However, I would be naïve not to anticipate future attempts to pull me into the fold. And I’m alright with that. These people are friendly and they are happy. They believe in their practice, and that is how it should be.

Nonetheless, my search for a sangha continues. This raises the issue as to whether a “real” sangha is needed at all. Yes, I am aware that the Buddha attained release entirely on his own by just sitting under a bodhi tree. But he did agree to form a monastic community, and he taught that his path was the Triple Gem of the Buddha, Dhamma and Sangha.

Which brings me to Nathan’s post at Dangerous Harvests, where he asks, “Sangha? What’s Sangha?” Like Nathan, I was struck by the plethora of discussion on this topic. There are those who assert that the iSangha is sufficient, while there are those that hold that only a “real” brick-and-mortar sangha can safely keep the practitioner on the right course. And then there are those who say to hell with it all and, like the solitary person who holes up in a cave on a mountainside, simply sit and seek enlightenment all on his or her own.

There is merit in all of these responses; each method can work for some on their own, and each method can work coordinated with any or all of the others. We have the Buddha’s teaching style as the example to follow, because, while the Buddha was skilled at many things, he was exceptionally skilled as a teacher, providing the right teaching for someone at the right time. While he taught one way to the Kalamas, he used a different technique with the infamous debater Saccaka, and still another method when instructing his son Rahula.

In reference to John’s post at Sweep the Dust, Push the Dirt, Nathan writes:

“John’s definitely poking into one of (the) main problems with organized religion: its tendency to fossilize around a set of rules and regulations that often places troubling limits on individual practice and spiritual understanding. And when you’ve lived through some organizational scandals, or have felt a great lack of support from a spiritual community, then it can be difficult to see how a well functioning group can propel your life in amazing ways.”

So true, so true, so true. Which is why I continue to search for my sangha. Granted, I am very grateful and hold a debt of gratitude for the iSangha I have found (read this post at the Smilin’ Buddha Cabaret about the difference between gratitude and being grateful) and while I have not met any of them personally, I consider each my friend. And the article swap has been a great exercise in sharing our experiences and growing from others’. But for me, it’s not a sangha.

I have a remarkable memory from that first sangha of mine. I had only briefly visited the monastery in the past and was not affiliated with it at those times. But the bottom had fallen out of the bucket of my life, and I instantly knew where to go. When I arrived, the monk was out on a hill with some other people speaking to them as they worked at building a gazebo. I walked out there, introduced myself, and the monk replied, “Yes, I remember you,” and then he walked away. One of the others handed me a hammer and some nails, told me what to do, and then returned to his work. I then sat on the ground in the hot sun and pounded nails.

It was one of the best Dhamma lessons of my life.