Spirituality? Wash your mouth out with soap!

I write this a lot on various forums, social media, etc. 

And I'm going to expand a little on it today, based on, yes, another Brad Warner blog post.  But I mean the "target" of this post to be a little bigger than Ven. Warner, because I think there's too much "spiritual" quackery in the world generally, and because this "spirituality" is pretty deeply infested in American Buddhist communities in particular.  As for "spiritual" quackery in the world, I was going to write "America," then I realized, no, it's in Europe too, I've seen it first hand.  Then I realized it's in Russia, with some pretty strange crackpotty Christian sects.   And it's in Japan of course.  South Korea? Land of Sung Myung Moon? And which took to a proliferation of Christian sects as a duck to water?  And Africa?... 

You get the point. "Spirituality" is a whole lot bigger than Western Buddhists' take on it.  It's bigger than the 12 Step movement's take on it.  And so, you may ask, what would I, a practicing Zen Buddhist of about 25+ years now, have against "spirituality"?  Uh... well, let's go to the dictionary, at least that which comes from Google:

spir·it·u·al·i·ty

noun

the quality of being concerned with the human spirit or soul as opposed to material or physical things.

"the shift in priorities allows us to embrace our spirituality in a more profound way"

So, first off, as a Buddhist of the Mahayana variety, there's no notion of human spirit or soul separate from form, feeling, thought, volition and consciousness.  So "spirituality" as defined by Google connotes a false dichotomy, and as I point out, it's really in essence theological kitsch, as Milan Kundera would call it, and as others have.  I sure as hell am not the first person to point out the relationship of "spirituality" to kitsch;  google around and you'll see.

Now this isn't a matter of philosophy or semantics,  but instead goes to the very marrow of what is in Zen practice - to practice is to be really present, amidst the shit, amidst the pain and suffering amidst the loss, and not at all being separated from the shit, the pain and suffering, loss, and what have you.  It's all here, right now.

Secondly, "spirituality" as is commonly conceived is really at its heart a religious position, and yet many people are reluctant to embrace the idea of religiousness and religious positions, but are just OK with embracing "spirituality."  This is especially true in 12 Step groups, which are, for all intents and purposes, religious groups, but refuse to identify themselves as such.  

I think we should call ducks ducks, if we're speaking English.  Maybe I'm funny that way, but a duck is a duck, it's not a "bird, but not a duck."

Now,  if you can accept the above, at least as I see it, a whole bunch of corollaries and conclusions fall into place with a big SNAP!

• Guru shmuru.  Really, they may have taken different paths in life and have had different circumstances, but that "spiritual" teacher isn't any different than you on a fundamental basis.
• It's unnecessary and a category mistake for Buddhist publications to frame the misdeeds of Buddhist teachers as having consequences for  "spirituality."
• Brad Warner is not a Perfect Master and he didn't have to write a book about it, but OK.
• All religions have dirt.  You can't have a religion without the dirt.  Or, as Leonard Cohen put it, "There is a crack in everything. That's how the light gets in."
• That's why practice amidst the shit of daily life is so critical.  'Cause that's the only place it happens.
• Chogyam Trungpa died of alcohol misuse but that didn't invalidate at least some of what he said.
• Everyone is a hypocrite.  Some are dishonest though.

I could go on, but I do wish "spirituality" as a word to describe religious practice and orientation were dropped,  just the same as I wish no wait staff would ever use the word "perfect" in response to a mean I'm ordering.  Maybe I should write a book of aphorisms based on this, William Blake style. 

But maybe that's just me. Your mileage may vary.

Buddhism, Martial Arts, 書道/書法 and Cultural Appropriation

I could have sworn I'd written about this already but recent stuff I've been reading on social media leads me to believe that Certain Things Need to Be Written Down.  I know I commented on this elsewhere because there was a spate of "cultural appropriation in yoga" stuff a while back.  What motivates me today is not yoga critics but  recent critiques of cultural appropriation such as this.  Now the originator of that Twitter bit often has content worth one's attention, and is often rather witty.  But Certain Things Need to Be Written Down.

And with that a few words about "yoga appropriation" ought to be said first. I thought yoga appropriation as cultural appropriation rather absurd, as yoga as New Agey Thing has been a thing for a lot longer than the last decade and a half or so when it really took off.  And I thought if people didn't get peeved at New Agey yoga appropriation, what's the deal with cultural appropration?

And the trajectory by which the yoga meme (the Dawkins meaning,  folks) went from Indian thing to New Agey Thing to commercial thing to appropriated thing to alleged intellectual property is interesting because in some ways it mirrors the martial arts memes (without the New Agey step more or less), and in my view, despite the capitalist appropriation of yoga and martial arts, really damns the view of cultural appropriation of these disciplines i.e., the outcome of colonization and oppression of people of color by dominant white culture. NB: my examples here do not mean there is no such thing as cultural appropriation. Of course there is.  Yeah, Elvis Presley, white idiots who dress up like Native Americans and so forth.  But my point is not all instances of white people - or any other people - taking up a discipline "outside" their culture is stealing, is cultural appropriation or is wrong. And these "not all instances" are not "corner cases" - isolated instances which prove the general rule. They are, in my view vital for the survival of humanity in fact, at least when it comes to Buddhism.  They can be vital to the survival of the disciplines, too!

In a nut, the processes by which white people were introduced to yoga and martial arts  wasn't cultural appropriation at all.  It was cultural dissemination.  Yes, that's what it was. The same is even more true (and more important) for Buddhism, as I'll show. And it's also true for 書道/書法. I will readily and quickly grant that there is capitalist appropriation of yoga and martial arts just as there is capitalist appropriation of mindfulness.   But it was cultural dissemination to be sure.

Somewhere in my house I have this book. This lady trained for many years with B.K.S. Iyengar.  She didn't take it from him; he willingly taught it to her.  So it was with the Catholic nun who wrote the first book on yoga I ever read 46 or so years ago (though there were bits in there about being careful when you meditate, because Satan or something, if I recall correctly.) Point is, they learned it from those willing to teach it, and those willing to teach it thought it important to teach it to white people.

So it is with martial arts.  My Sifu, at his age (75 or thereabouts) wants me (60) to learn Wing Chun well enough so that I can teach others, and also so his lineage doesn't die out! Now, thankfully for Sifu, there's students in the class much younger and better than I! On the other hand, there's Tae Kwon Do, which is in several ways cultural appropriation of kung fu albeit as a  white and Korean cultural appropriation, but that's a whole other tangent. Here I should make the obligatory point that it is said that at least some of Ip Man's students had some resistance to Bruce Lee's studying of Wing Chun because of his mixed race background.  But I think I just made my point again.  I will make the point again shortly!

The difference between appropriation and dissemination is an order of magnitude more salient when it comes to Buddhism, especially in the Zen school.  Now I have heard some advocates for people of color make some ridiculously ignorant complaints about Western Convert Buddhists, which is used often as a signifier for white Western Convert Buddhists.  (NB: Read Arunlikhati's Angry Asian Buddhist blog for legitimate critiques of white Western Convert Buddhists.  Arunlikhati is a saint in my book.)   These ignorant complaints about white Western Buddhists often, but not always, come from Asian Americans with a Christian background.   So let me dispel a few myths that I've seen straightaway:

• YES, we know it's "awakening" and "understanding" and seeing into one's nature and not "enlightenment."  And some of us, unlike some of you, can read Chinese and Japanese.
• YES, we know it's asinine to go to places like Thailand sporting Buddha tattoos.  At least most of us do.
• YES, we know there are mistranslations of some texts.
• Many Buddhist texts were written in an Indo-European language before they were written in Sino-Tibetan languages.
• No, we don't all revere the Dalai Lama.
• YES there are quite a few frauds and hucksters and degenerates (white and Asian) in the White Western Buddhist Convert area, and YES, we've worked hard to try to deal with that issue. And YES, similar stuff goes on in Asia.
• NO, we're not all vegan/vegetarian.
• We're not all liberals. Heck, I'm not a liberal.

Anybody who's read about Bodhidharma knows that Zen was transmitted by cultural dissemination; this is emphasized in  the Platform Sutra.  And anyone who's read the Lotus Sutra knows that Buddhism is supposed to be universal.

But more importantly, one practices Buddhism to try to grok suffering, disillusionment, dukkha. This is about freakin' living one's life to deal with the fundamental human condition, and to help others to do so! If someone's going to call me out for "cultural appropriation," so be it!  But I would hope that such a person develops enough skill to be able to be a better practitioner than me.

Ditto for martial arts, at least in so far as they are taught to develop authentic 功夫.  I would wish that everyone be disciplined and accomplished.  This strictly speaking can't even be culturally appropriated for the same reason that Kierkegaard railed against the notion of "Christian nations." 功夫 happens at the individual level.

I could write a book on this. Perhaps I should.  One point I should make before I close is the same is true for 書道/書法; the author of the Twitter stream I referenced earlier took umbrage at a font.  I imagine he may not be happy at my practice of 書道/書法, but that may be again, like Asian Americans with a Christian background complaining about white Western Buddhists, due to a lack of familiarity with what 書道/書法 even is.  I hope not, but suffice it to say, 書道/書法, like 功夫 happens at the individual level.  When you see a work of  書道/書法, you are in fact seeing someone's mind.  How could anyone culturally appropriate that?

Alliance, from a European-Descended Male Buddhist Perspective...

First, I'd put other qualifiers in if I could...but I can't, because I don't think I can abide those other qualifiers frankly, whatever they are.  I really can't.  And that's a subject for a whole other post dealing with leftist moral panics. And I'll use the term "European-descended" here because I think it's  a) more accurate, and b) is not based on outward appearances leading to a dualism.  I haven't even started writing this and I'm digressing.  I'm like that.

In the course of recent social media discussions on gender and ethnicity,  and what seems to be to me to be characteristic of what has been called a moral panic,  I came across this article by Rachel Safeek, which I found rather helpful to engage in a conversation.  I am grateful to her for a reasoned view of the situation.  I have stated earlier that I am ready, willing and able to ally with those who are ready to empower themselves, and will offer help if needed based on what I've learned.  I have also said to her that I would have more comments, so here goes.

Rachel writes:

When members of minority/oppressed groups call out allies for being insensitive, overshadowing minority groups, or overlooking certain things because of their privilege, allies can oftentimes become offended and get defensive...

It happens - it has happened in my case - that despite my background, and my immersion into Asian society and culture (maybe more than some of my critics; I can point out sexism in the structure of  East Asian languages some of them can't read, and I've probably lived in Asia longer than they have ), and other things (see my reservations about other qualifiers), that I've been reduced to a category.  In fact, I was reduced to a category into which I can't rightly put myself, in fact.

Sorry, but that is offensive.   

I note with understanding that of course I have been the recipient of privilege.  But I also note that I have been marginalized, as have people in my family.

Rachel tweeted:

Listen to the group you are allied w/; learn from yr mistake. A true ally will listen. Defensiveness makes the issue about you. NOT ABT YOU
— Rachel Safeek (@RachSafeek) February 17, 2014

I agree with the profound importance of listening.  Listening is hard work. Let me repeat that: Listening is hard work.  Whether you read what someone is saying or listen to what someone is speaking you should listen in the same sense that you might "listen" to fine incense.  It's the only way peace and harmony can be approached. I'm being serious as a heart attack here.

Now let me say something else: Nobody, but nobody, is exempt from listening.

If you, as  a relatively privileged group are not listening, of course you will offend the less privileged group, hurt them, hurt yourself, propagate division, give fodder to rightists who want to continue the game and thus be extremely counterproductive.   But if you as a rightly perceived less privileged group are not listening to someone you believe is from a more privileged group, and you respond with a mapping of that person to the "Other," you're no better than those to whom you're trying to ... to what? To get them to convince you to join them in a fight for equality? OK, let's say that.  But...it just might be that your supposition is wrong.  There are so, so many variables that might demolish one's preconceptions about things.

I was aghast at some of the things I was reading on Twitter recently; a complete ignorance of how, for example,  at least one of the (IIRC)  #notyourasiansidekick tweets might be seen by Asians who were adopted or have step-parentage of European-descended folks.   This is not theoretical; being in my position in society I know some of them well.  That was disgusting, and there's no sugar coating or justifying it.  They are part of the oppressed too.

I was also aghast at how some of the situations I've dealt with first hand were dismissed as irrelevant, which I've had to respond to facts on the ground first hand,  were minimized; these were situations involving my wife and son and mother in - law.  I don't need to be given a primer or lecture on how "insensitive" I am to certain groups frankly, when I have fought for them (with at least one success)  against the strongest political force on earth, and they're doing... what, "hashtag activism?"

On the other hand, there are ethnic groups, for whom I have not had nearly enough interaction and sensitivity...until recently.  But with regard to that, let me put it this way: I think some of those hashtag activists would have a real epiphany  practicing a sparring-centered martial art with an African American or Latino.  I have, and when I did I realized how profoundly deep my own inclinations to  racism are, and how profoundly important it is to overcome it, and how grateful I was to have a space where I could practice overcoming it.

I have spoken before as well that I have been "in-between" in some way or another, excluded some way or another, all my life.   Yeah, I've been privileged,  but marginalization is ubiquitous.  Reification of people who are perceived as privileged to ethnic classes categories, and using denigrating language to describe such people is harmful; it's harmful to all, and it's harmful to overcoming oppression.   If someone wants to overcome oppression I can help, but if someone's engaging in (especially unwarranted)  personal attacks they're not achieving their objective.  To put it politely, they're wasting their lives.  We should be working towards overcome oppression, rather than reifying others.

Like I said, I will gladly ally myself with anyone willing to consider and study themselves, to cultivate themselves to develop the power and skill to help themselves and others. And I will help if asked, and I won't provide help if not asked.  If one wants to ignore people because of perception, or disconfirm or mystify people because of their perception as being in a category, they are hurting us all, and (preview of future post) engaging in a leftist moral panic about it only plays into the hands of the real problem.   It is foolish and disempowering to think that listening is a one way street.  It sure as hell is not.

Sometimes I think some of these Buddhist teachers really don't get it.

Via Tricycle (I was bored ) I found a link to that David Loy and Ron Purser article decrying "McMindfulness."  (It was also the one mentioned by Justin Whitaker.)  I normally don't cite either Tricycle or the Huffington Post in my blog, but in this case I'll make an exception, and you'll see why as you read through this.

First, having had the time to read what Loy and Purser wrote I have to say they just don't get it.  Really. 

I'll explain.

I've been doing some math lately as part of my work.  I have to set up a problem in math to verify that an algorithm we're designing will work. If I run the output of my problem through the algorithm, the algorithm should identify the problem. 

The problem involves generating a type of "coin flipping" process.  Now you can't use just any coin flipping process because there are cases where different coin flipping processes are statistically the same.  But if you tweak the problem just a little and put in some "memory" into the process (future flips depend on past flips) the problem becomes quite easy to solve.

In other words, if you introduce just enough structure and complexity into a problem representing reality, reality becomes easy to represent.  But if you don't have enough structure and complexity,  you're stuck.

That's what David Loy and Ron Purser don't get.  They're worried about "mindfulness" being used to promote consumer capitalism,  commoditize something, blah blah blah. It can't happen, because mindfulness alone is self limiting in its effects, and thus won't in any way marginalize the rest of Buddhism.

This is because existence, being so densely interdependent as it is, needs the other parts of Buddhism to go along with it. While Purser and Loy indicate that this is the case, they don't seem to get the implications of it.  Mindful murderers will still be murderers AND will be all the more aware of their suffering.  Mindful minimally regulated production for profit will still be inherently unstable economically and disruptive to millions of people. 

And besides all that we've seen this before! And ironically  the "spiritual mentor" of the founder of the Huffington Post is a case in point for what we've seen before!

Remember the "human potential" movement? Esalen Institute and est and its derivatives? One of  them was I think called Insight Seminars, led by a rumpled looking guy who later founded something called MSIA who had meetings of a sort that were later attended by Arianna Huffington, who became a righty scold and now is some kind of a pseudo-progressive media baroness who doesn't pay her bloggers, at least as of the last time I checked.  The MSIA - Arianna Huffington thing was documented in something called "Life 102," by one Peter McWilliams, which led to what McWilliams might have termed a SLAPP suit by the founder of MSIA (who would have characterized it differently no doubt, probably with lawyers), ...but that's all history. 

Existence is pretty dense and it's difficult or nearly impossible and often useless to isolate one part of it from another (then again there's science but I digress). But I read "Gestalt Therapy" by Frederick Perls back in my teens, and I have to say it was that which led to my interest in Buddhism, via existentialism.

Point is, McMindfulness is probably a gateway to the real thing; its predecessors were too.   But I think it's sort of ironic that 2 guys are using the Huffington Post, in part enabled by Arianna Huffington, whose experiences were shaped by MSIA, which was informed by the Human Potential Movement, which is based on Zen Buddhism, to decry the secularization of Buddhism!

I wonder if they were paid by Huffington. 

What *is* American Buddhism anyway?

Justin Whitaker writes,

The story of Buddhism has always been one of adaptation and transformation. This month I am inviting a discussion about how Buddhism has adapted to and transformed America (that is, the Americas) with optional special attention to climate and climate change. 

Given the ongoing heatwave in the southwestern United States and the tragic consequences of a fire in Arizona yesterday, it only seems appropriate that as we reflect on our nations and Buddhism here, that we also consider how Buddhist principles and practices can go toward solving this growing crisis.

I'll be honest: I'm not sure what exactly is the discussion here.  Yeah, there's certain trendy things in psychology based on mindfulness bouncing around...that's a Western-besides-the-Americas thing, no? And regarding climate change and other political/environmental issues, I think American Buddhism is no less marginally useful per se in defining one political stance contra another.   Really, what do you think Edward Snowden's allegedly espoused Buddhism is why he's sort of stateless right now?  Isn't that a bit grandiose? How about Ted Kaczynski's brother's Buddhism? 

If I give you a testimonial about how "Buddhist practice helped me with X, and it can help the world with Y," I'll be doing a disservice to all concerned, despite the fact that yeah, it is a better path than the alternative, and worthy of dedicated practice.

I'm doing American Buddhism not-as-well-as-I'd-like in my own life, and those in my sangha are doing their own American Buddhism, and those in related sanghas are doing their own American Buddhism.

But maybe I ought to get to a comment that Thomas Armstrong wrote on my blog in response to the post on authenticity, because I think it bears examination, especially in regards to the above questions.   There's people in American Buddhism who are  nice.  They can be rather blissful.  There's also people in American Buddhism who aren't always nice.  Both groups of people though are certainly wounded, and perhaps like all of humanity, wounded deeply and condemned to be mortally wounded, whether it be through violence, sickness, or old age. 

I don't want bliss, or  nice in my practice.  It would be, um, nice, though,  in the midst of seeing into the nature of self that there was  just some authentic improvement relaxation and equanimity in the face of the inevitable.   And actually, "American" Buddhism didn't go there that much in that aspect (I had to learn some of that via other means that aren't strictly "Buddhist" at all, but not at all incompatible with it.) American or not, I, myself, had and have  to learn how to not give a hoot so much despite the Big Wound (whatever it is, and regardless of whether it merits the name, it's there).  But regardless of my degree of relaxation and equanimity or lack thereof, regarding practice, it is indeed what it is. 

But yet, yeah, that's American Buddhism.  One of many. Including "the Asians'" American Buddhism.

To return briefly to the climate change topic: humanity might or might not respond appropriately, and I'm not sure Buddhism has so much to do to with it potentially as the exercise of naked political power.   Japan, Buddhist and Shinto, reforested itself because it had a powerful aristocracy that could do so.  Spain did not, despite another powerful aristocracy.  Was it because Japan was Buddhist and Shinto and Spain was not? 

I doubt it, but what I don't doubt is that as the orders went out to reforest, the guys who transmitted the orders weren't nice and peaceful and blissful. I also don't think the orders to to deal decisively with Christian missionary imperialists were transmitted in a nice, peaceful and blisssful way either. 

Fantasy in Buddhism (or the lack of it) and the role of "inventive pretend" in children's activity

There is a strange op-ed by T. M. Luhrmann in yesterday's NY Times about C. S. Lewis, religious belief, and the role of fantasy, at least from a Western perspective. Here's a bit of it:

In “Mere Christianity,” Lewis wrote that to pretend helps one to experience God a real. In “Narnia” he offered a way to pretend — by depicting a God who is so explicitly not a God from an ordinary human church. Aslan keeps God safe from human clumsiness and error. 

What does it mean that our society places such a premium on fantasy and imagination? “No culture,” observes the child psychologist Suzanne Gaskins, “comes close to the level of resources for play provided by middle-class Euro-American parents.” In many traditional societies, children play by imitating adults. They pretend to cook, marry, plant, fish, hunt. 

“Inventive pretend,” in which children pretend the fantastic or impossible (enchanted princesses, dragon hunters) “is rarely — if ever — observed in non-industrialized or traditional cultures,” Gaskins says. That may be because inventive play often requires adult involvement. Observing the lack of fantasy play among the Manus children in New Guinea, Margaret Mead noted that “the great majority of children will not even imagine bears under the bed unless the adult provides the bear.” 

Westerners, by contrast, not only tolerate fantasy play but actively encourage it, for adults as well as for children. We are novel readers, movie watchers and game players. We have made J. K. Rowling very wealthy. 

This suggests that we imagine a complex reality in which things might be true — materially, spiritually, psychologically. Science leads us to draw a sharp line between what is real and what is unreal. At the same time, we live in an age in which we are exquisitely aware that there are many theories, both religious and scientific, to explain the world, and many ways to be human.

Much has been written about the role of ritual in Buddhism, and that might be where it comes closest to the "role of fantasy" described here, but I think it's a false analogy nonetheless. I think it's a false analogy because, at least in my experience, the role of ritual is performative.  The chants are chants, and to put anything more into the chant other than the chant itself is to make it into something it's not and to distract from it.  Chanting the Heart Sutra  - especially in the way it's been given to us via China and Japan and Viet Nam - is to put its "meaning" into a different category than what we in the West might commonly give it.  It is not pretending by any stretch of the imagination, nor is it strictly speaking any kind of literalist assertion - but it winds up being true nonetheless.  Maybe I'll get back to this regular blogging thing by writing 10 posts or so just on the Heart Sutra, because it could be done.  But I digress.

No, I don't think Buddhism has any kind of this fantasy stuff at all; in some forms of Buddhism, there are some particularly elaborate metaphors, and yes, there are Buddhists that take Bodhisattvas and Buddhas to be actual beings, and at least some are.  But we don't "pretend" this to experience something as real, but rather we try to experience experience on its own terms, I think. 

So that brings into question this whole "inventive pretend" thing for kids, because clearly it's not needed for any kind of religious or moral or skillful training in and of itself.  Inventive pretend probably is some kind of double edged sword - inventive pretend might be useful for children incorporating social memes into their consciousness, but it might also be that the social memes which are inculcated also exclude certain unpleasant aspects of the culture, and that these aspects might be excluded to the detriment of the children and society at large. What sort and degree of "inventive pretend" is needed to create a suicide bomber?

My son did not spend long in this phase of life.  Though he did watch Barney too much, until, like every other kid, he was repulsed by that kind of media. 

Evangelical Churches and ...Cognitive Behavioral Therapy?

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy is somewhat related to Buddhist practice because in certain forms of CBT the client is encouraged to be mindful of harmful thoughts and activities, and to replace them with better ones.

So it was kind of strange to read this article in the NY Times about evangelical churches and CBT like therapy...

One way to see this is that the books [evangelicals use] teaching someone how to pray read a lot like cognitive behavior therapy manuals. For instance, the Rev. Rick Warren’s “The Purpose Driven Life,” one of the best-selling books of all time, teaches you to identify your self-critical, self-demeaning thoughts, to interrupt them and recognize them as mistaken, and to replace them with different thoughts. Cognitive-behavioral therapists often ask their patients to write down the critical, debilitating thoughts that make their lives so difficult, and to practice using different ones. That is more or less what Warren invites readers to do. He spells out thoughts he thinks his readers have but don’t want, and then asks them to consider themselves from God’s point of view: not as the inadequate people they feel themselves to be, but as loved, as relevant and as having purpose. Does it work? In my own research, the more people affirmed, “I feel God’s love for me, directly,” the less stressed and lonely they were and the fewer psychiatric symptoms they reported.

Because these churches seem to market themselves like Coca Cola it seems they latch on to any trend and "Jesusify" it.

Obviously the NY Times author is rather shallow not to have seen this.  Obviously too the folks who need this "evangelical CBT" are themselves hurting. 

While a good part of me wants them to see the "real" ways in which suffering is transcended (not to mention a better way to deal with theodicy), it's good that they're being helped at all, to the extent they are.  

I just wish they were helped more to transcend the whole strange evangelical thing.

A confluence of things leads to a pretty sober conclusion...

• Yoga is really, really popular.  It's so popular that the NY Times has to go all Judith Miller about the whole thing.  It also requires conveniently very little overhead and capital investment relative to many other enterprises. (Would you get sued for Warm Yoga?)
• An iOS app on meditation is selling well.  I mean, it's very popular.
• The economy, and its effects especially on younger people.

 The fish don't see the water in which they swim...I read that in Dogen somewhere, so it must be true. Now  I'm mashing up critics of Dogen with Sarah Silverman now. Go figure.

No seriously, my point is it's amazing how many people with influence in the world are not quite devoting ourselves to making real, tangible things, and all the skills that flow from that; even in the Zen-inflected sub-culture in which we live.  I mean, my whole career has been directed toward the monetezation of ideas...though in my case the do wind up in products that make the other stuff possible.  But it seems we're not quite aware of that odd position in which we find ourselves, kind of like city-dwellers of ancient times who'd forgotten how to hunt.

"Somebody else" is doing the farming, the tool-making, the hunting, the defense, the medicine prescription and administration, the educating of the young and the whole host of other things that actually make life feasible in this world as we know it.  Or at least that seems to be the case, if you'd read what is generally considered in the Buddhist blogosphere.  It's not overall true of course, but umm...living the way is not 80% of what you find written and talked about in the Buddhist blogosphere.  It's there in bits and pieces, though...military Buddhist bloggers, Barbara's occasional forays into everyday living as a Buddhist, Shokai's exploits,  etc.  But like I said, what's written about is largely what's not lived and done and made: the expression of being born as suffering, growing is suffering, growing old is suffering, dying is suffering, and there's a cause to all that suffering, and its transcendence and its way of transcendence.

Forgive my impudence, but I think there's no app for that.

I don't know if that's winter blues talking, but it's interesting to me that the dearth of opportunity itself in the economy and our unwillingness to discuss it is manifesting itself this way that removes the real everyday from the agenda for discussion.

 I'm no survivalist by any means, but I think it's important that people know how to do some basic things: like cook and clean, teach their kid math and science and some kind of art (I am woefully inadequate and fall short in the art department), how to take care of their body, etc., and perhaps even to make tangible things, and grow vegetables or something like that.  

Everything of course can be taken away, and will be eventually, but even so, given the resources we have, maybe we as a society are becoming too dependent on stuff other people make.  I mean, somewhere in that is the "Right Livelihood" ethic, right?

Bruce Lee: A re-assessment of sorts ...or, an appreciation

In my recent study of Wing Chun - in anyone's study of Wing Chun - the name of Bruce Lee is bound to be mentioned sooner or later.

In most folks of my era, the name connotes movies with bad dialog, extreme violence, overly punchy soundtracks, and all the cliches of grindhouse cinema to which  Quentin Tarantino paid homage in his recent movies. One particularly egregious example of this is Fist of Fury, which as it happens, is the Hong Kong version of Zorro or Zatoichi, and is in fact related tangentially to a real life person, Huo Yuanjia, which Jet Li portrayed in Fearless.  Fist of Fury was recently remade as Legend of the Fist: The Return of Chen Zhen.

Yet the utter crappiness the production values of Fist of Fury, or a movie like Way of the Dragon obscures the fact that the guy making - and in some cases, writing, and directing these movies - was highly talented beyond physical prowess, and much of the reason for the production values has to do with how Asians were cast in movies at the time and their overall opportunities in world media then, and the fact that movies in the west were (and are) heavily censored, as witnessed by how, say, Michael Moore's recent movies received much more revenue per screen than those really crappy Hollywood "blockbusters."  If you watch Fist of Fury after watching Legend of the Fist: The Return of Chen Zhen, then first you will think, after watching the later made movie, that the Chinese are being hard on the Japanese; but then after watching the Lee movie you will be astonished at how the Japanese aggression in China is almost completely airbrushed out of the Lee movie!

People just aren't aware of how propagandized they are, even via those Hollywood "blockbusters."

I can't believe how much money Johnny Depp gets for portraying a pirate with makeup.  But I digress. Slightly. It's an interesting comparison - Depp versus Lee.  Maybe there's aspects of Depp's career where he influenced later films, but I'm not aware of them...but even in a movie such as Fists of Fury/The Big Boss,  Lee was able to do things as a director which changed the way such films are made.

But enough of that...if you go searching around Youtube, you'll find links to a 1970s interview Lee did with one Pierre Burton.  In it, Lee talks about his own teaching style as that which is done not to get his students to become good fighters, but to express themselves.  In so doing, he goes around, as best he can, to explain the concept of non-duality; it is simply amazing that he is speaking this language in the 1970s, and doing so completely without the Buddhist narratives that undoubtedly influenced his own studies (either implicitly or explicitly).  But it is undeniably non-duality  of which he's speaking, and it's telling that this non-duality permeated who he was.  It should give us something on which to ponder.

He knew what he was after.  It's a pity he died so early; the successors in the movie world from the West are more second rate it seems...as somebody else somewhere wrote, Lee practically invented the role of the "action hero."   It is sad that we got the future governor of California instead of more non-duality from Lee...

It says something about Americans...

I am finally 1 week + back from my travels & am able to write a blog post; there were "intervening things" that sucked up some of my time in the interim. 

The place where I usually go in Japan was strangely normal, except in places along the sidewalk, where it was crystal clear where the earth moved - and it moved enough to upend the sidewalk for several inches. But the buildings were completely intact. Score one for Japanese civil engineering.

Now it's close to Halloween.  I've not been scared, truly scared, in a movie in decades.  I don't expect to be.  My nephew in law, about 25, explained to me that he didn't watch violent movies because he found them disturbing.  Me, I find real, pointless violence disturbing.  And I'm not that much interested in pretend horror.  But this  says something about Americans - and evidently a good slice of American culture:

The challenge is not size or money. Universal spends millions to stage and market its Halloween Horror Nights, which this year include eight haunted houses and multiple “scare zone” street parties on 25 nights. No, the scarce resource is ideas: coming up with new ways to entertain a “been-there, screamed-at-that” customer base raised on torture movies like “Saw” and bloody video games.

“These people are paying to get the bejesus scared out of them, and every year it gets harder,” said Patrick Braillard, a show director for the park. “We look at each other and say, ‘What’s left to do?’ ”

It’s no small worry. This movie-centered theme park, owned by Comcast’s NBC Universal, would not provide Halloween-related financial details, but the revenue appears to be considerable. Entry to Horror Nights starts at $42 (although discounts are available), and analysts estimate that as many as 500,000 a year have attended. Add in sales of beer, food and merchandise, and substantial profits are at stake.

Desperate to increase their off-season business, theme parks started circling Oct. 31 on their calendars in the late 1990s, led by Universal on the East Coast and Knott’s Berry Farm in California. It was a smart call: America’s obsession with Halloween as a cultural event was just starting to spike, and even in a stagnant economy, the growth shows few signs of slowing. The National Retail Federation estimates that total Halloween spending in the United States this year will total $6.8 billion, up from $3.3 billion in 2005.

Along the way, theme parks have played a major role in globalizing the holiday. Universal Studios Singapore is holding its first Horror Nights this year, for instance, while Disney now mounts Mickey’s Not-So-Scary Halloween events at its parks in Paris, Hong Kong and Tokyo, as well as the United States.

By the way, it would seem to me that the scariest thing should be the most ordinary: it would seem that putting ordinary people - confederates of the show -  mixed in with the paying customers - who either get violently ill, go crazy, etc. and then engage in staged violent acts against each other pretending their part of the crowd- now that might be really scary. 

But it says something, I guess, that these extravaganzas don't go there.  Probably people just want escape.   Maybe their own world is scary enough for real. Maybe their own death is scary enough.  I don't know. I'll almost certainly be engaged in practice that night.

My Buddhist reponse to the demise of Osama bin Laden..and other Buddhist reponses.

My first thoughts on the subject were summed up as "Osama bin Laden is dead.  The greatest threat to your freedom is still right between your ears."

And I'm sticking with that response.

I kind of agree with Kyle's bit here (nobody could sensibly, to me, argue that bin Laden dieing the way he did was in any way not related to the self defense of the forces involved and the self-defense interests of this country).  And while yeah, we're to practice compassion even for the likes of bin Laden, given that we are all in some nexus of responsibility for each other.   But the guy and his henchmen were trying to kill folks to establish their view of "heaven" on earth. Or whatever.

But the fact is the media uses this whole TERROR thing - continues to use it - as an excuse to distract you from whatever it is you need to do in your day to either propagandize you or sell you junk or both.  And the fact is you distract yourself with this whole TERROR thing (or this whole THE BAD PEOPLE ARE USING THE TERROR THING TO EXPLOIT YOU! or the whole THOSE PEOPLE ARE ACTING OUT OF UNBRIDLED IGNORANT BLOODLUST!) because the crap you've got to do to get through the day is bo-ring! Or not fun enough. Or too painful. It's, you know, dukkha, right?

If you were Echō speaking to Hōgen, and if you'd asked him What is Buddha, Hōgen would have replied, "You are Echō." 

I do find it odd that there are a few who, when asked which "r" do you feel (yeah, we're all thinking like Tarantino now) that it is neither relief or regret that some folks feel, but remorse.  I could understand relief, for obvious reasons.  I could understand regret, because bin Laden wasn't brought to trial, and because al Qaeda #2 and #3 are still out there.   But "remorse" at this stage is odd.   Yeah, I heard there was screaming and chanting of USA! USA! USA! Ah, so? Is that you? Does that not scream, "Don't be distracted?"

I felt remorse when Katrina hit and I was in the UK, and how people were telling me how sorry they were for a largely preventable tragedy.  I felt remorse for all the indignities that non-Europeans had to suffer in the wake of 9/11. I felt some remorse (but more frustration and outrage) at the invasion of Iraq,  Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib, etc.    That was stuff we could do something about.  But when al Qaeda went to war against the US (I felt remorse that there wasn't a declaration of war),  the moral and ethical action was to fight him and his cohorts until they lacked the ability or will to fight any further, and no more and no less. It's the principle of  武道 - būdō - the way of war, you know? 

But geez - if you want to act effectively, compassionately, and wisely  in a world of ignorance and hatred and terrorism and pitifully narcissistic responses to the  misery in which we find ourselves,  how can you do that if you are not acting out of complete sincerity moment to moment; how can you do that if you have decided to ignore the soundless sound, your true face before your parents were born,  or to put it still another way, that you are you?

It's the 45th annniversy of his death, not the 55th

But otherwise, this article in the Japan Times on D. T. Suzuki is well worth reading. I am amazed at how great his influence was - I am impressed that Abraham Maslow, one of the bright lights of the more human ways of organizing workers of the twentieth century, was influenced by him, according to this article.

The postwar era marked the heyday of American Freudianism and its humanistic offshoots — and Suzuki, teaching Zen Buddhism at Columbia University in the 1950s, was at the epicenter of creative psychological thought. Only months before Horney's death in 1952, she accompanied Suzuki and colleagues on a tour of Japanese Zen monasteries and emphasized the importance of his notion of "whole-heartedness" as a vital feature of mental health. Fromm became close friends with Suzuki, and in 1957, sponsored him as a guest speaker for a conference on Zen and psychoanalysis held in Cuernavaca, Mexico. Several years later, the two coauthored an influential book on this topic; like many others, Fromm was greatly touched by Suzuki's personal warmth and kindness.

Abraham Maslow, guru of motivational psychology, was another humanistic thinker inspired by Suzuki during these years. Maslow, who pioneered in studying what he called "peak experiences" — that is, sudden moments of joy and meaning — was excited by Suzuki's concept of sono-mama or suchness, as an element of mystical awareness. Sponsoring Suzuki's lectures at Brandeis University, Maslow also regarded Suzuki's Zen teaching of muga, or total absorption, as vital for a psychology of well-being and growth.

It is an historical irony, though, that Suzuki had much less impact on Japanese psychology than on its humanistic development in the U.S. and Europe. Why so? Because during the postwar years, Japanese psychologists were eager to establish their field as a rigorous experimentalist science, akin to biology, and looked askance at philosophical or spiritual thinkers. As the Jungian scholar Dr. Shoji Muramoto of Kobe City University of Foreign Studies comments, "Unlike in the West, Suzuki's relevance to modern psychology has hardly been appreciated in Japan outside of a few journal articles. Nevertheless, he was perhaps the first Zen philosopher to deal with Zen as an object of academic study in its philosophical basis and psychological aspects, as well as its history."

After retiring from Columbia University in 1957, the elderly Suzuki returned to Japan, where he kept up an active, international schedule of writing, attending conferences, lecturing and receiving awards for his lifetime achievements.

Until his death in 1966 at age 95, he influenced a new generation interested in the relevance of Eastern thought — particularly Zen Buddhism — for contemporary civilization. For instance, his writings on Zen meditation later contributed to mindfulness training for health care professionals as a valued therapeutic tool — and now sponsored by dozens of medical schools in the U.S. and elsewhere.

As Suzuki astutely saw, the world was hungry for Eastern spiritual wisdom. His final words? "Don't worry. Thank you! Thank you!"

Right Speech: Carefully Choose Words When Speaking for a Group

There's a confluence of experiences I'm having, which are seasoned slightly with the recent posts of Nathan on Ayn Rand and Brad Warner on folks who write to him asking him to be their "teacher."

First, I never liked Ayn Rand; I never could get past the first few pages of her agit-prop simply because I'm not much of a fiction reader, but also because the more I learned of her life the more I came to see her philosophy as a spectacular failure. If the proclaimer of a philosophy can't seem to get it to work in their own life what good is it outside of one's self?

Ayn Rand was so obsessed with the individual and the oh-so-great things that only they bring into the world that her writing never seemed to convey the gravity, splendor, and power that groups of people have. Individuals do things, for sure, but to say the individual is somehow superior to the group is to be out of whack with whether the master is holding a shippei or not.

To speak and act on behalf of another is something that seems so foreign to Rand that there's good reason I think her writings, to me, seem completely irrelevant, or orthogonal to how real people must really act in this real world. In the real world, the correct action may do more than save a cat that Nansen is holding hostage, and requires one to take risks that pale in comparison to whether or not one is producing the right turning words, or so it might seem.

To act so effectively means for us to step outside ourselves, even though we cannot know for certainty how our words and actions will be perceived. Is Brad Warner's non-teaching on-line ethical or not? It's not for me to answer, and frankly the ways in which I have to speak and act on behalf of groups of people in my own life weigh far more heavy to me than that; though I'd not be surprised if what Warner is writing/doing weighs on him.

This I know: if one is not mindful, one can fall into the mud. If one is mindful, one may still fall into the mud.

My wife and I spent Rohatsu Evening with Leonard Cohen

I am deeply grateful to my wife, my son, the wonderful people who let my son sleep over with his friend at pretty much the last minute, and everyone else important and unimportant, and of course to the Man himself and his wonderful accompanying musicians for what was one of the most amazing concerts I'd ever attended.

The event was billed as, "An Evening with Leonard Cohen," and even though we were in the (2/3 allocated and filled) Rose Garden Arena, even though we were, as you'll see, in the "nosebleed" section, even though we had to struggle to get to our seats in the clouds, I feel as though I really did get to know the great singer, poet, and Rock and Roll Hall of Famer better than I'd ever "known" anyone else at any other concert to which I'd gone.  Mr. Cohen is 76 years old, and though the show was highly staged (all these things are nowadays), I can't believe what a rip-roaring good time I had - I felt privileged to get to see him before he passed away.  Mr. Cohen acknowledge this himself when he said, "I don't know when we'll pass through here again, but tonight we'll give it all we've got."  And they did.

If you can in any way see this while you can, see it while you can.  I was overwhelmed with the grace and humility of the man and his singers and musicians.  Moreover, it was one of the nicest crowds of people I've ever been, one of the most courteous and good-natured audiences.  It was amazing to think this man - who must have had the thought himself - was performing tonight on a night when years ago he himself was undoubtedly in sesshin himself.

Just amazing harmony all throughout.  Here's a (bad image quality) video.  Sorry if  you think the classic guitar solo's too long; I got it just as it started; the song "Who By Fire" follows the solo.  The sound I hope makes up for it.

I believe that song was originally adapted from a Yom Kippur prayer, but it's Buddhist import is obvious.

Travel Reading: Tokyo Vice

Since I travel a lot, and follow my father's tradition of taking "junk reading" where I go, I often read to pass the time in Economy Class.  I heartily recommend "Tokyo Vice" by Jake Adelstein as an accurate snapshot of recent years in Japan, though, frankly, it's a Japan with which I am most decidedly not well acquainted.  I am no angel by a long shot.  But I never liked Roppongi (too much like Time Square before Mickey Mouse infested it), and as Adelstein notes, we foreigners aren't always welcomed in Kabukicho.

That said, it is an amazing read.  It follows the early career of Jake Adelstein, a Japanese language reporter for the Yomiuri Shimbun, culminating in his standoff with yakuza boss  Goto Tadamasa,  head of the Goto-gumi, which was affiliated with the largest Yakuza group in Japan, the Yamaguchi-gumi.

This book has it all for someone who might write a blog like mine. It has organized crime (yes, I often quote Goodfellas and Christopher Walken parts to my co-workers). It has Buddhism (Adelstein evidently studied Zen Buddhism while in college, and  Goto Tadamasa has, according to the latest info, become an osho, at least to my knowledge).

It even has the "Burning House" parable from the Lotus Sutra.

What is most important to me is the sense of loss. You cannot read Adelstein's book without sympathizing with his sense of his own wrongdoing, and his taking the responsibility for it, without hope of a "Get out of jail for free card."  Jake Adelstein moved far and wide from the temple in which he used to stay, but wound up doing great good in exposing the very real issues of human trafficking in Japan while still managing to keep himself from being whacked by the Yakuza that was not widely known. And it's written by an American with Buddhist sentiments.

Anyway this book is a great read; it's part "subculture of Japan" you probably never heard about, (OK, maybe Brad Warner did) , it's part Raymond Chandler, and it's part the honest feelings of someone with a target on his back because he knew stuff about the Yakuza

I still have a very good post about the issues of Chan and Buddhism in general in China, and the amazing story of the people involved. 

Possessions, accumulaton and capitalism: it's not just about not craving stuff

I saw the article on the Tricycle Blog, "Buddhism, Money, and the Recession:  Where to Invest?" and thought it was another column, perhaps, on moral investments that one can make.  I was incorrect...

Nevertheless, as I began working with the experience in my practice I realized that if I can’t let go of some pictures, music, and writings, then how can I possibly prepare for death?! Contemplating this I saw something much more important than anything I’d ever seen on my computer screen. (As for the computer itself, it only took about a month of hard work and thrifty living to replace it.)

When looking back at all this, I feel tremendously grateful to be a Buddhist, and to have been instructed on the dangers of attachment, material and otherwise. I have never invested in stock or property, but instead, in study and practice. For happiness, joy, comfort, and entertainment I look to loved ones and friends—or just the interesting and odd happenings of my neighborhood in Brooklyn, and not to ownership, consumption, or accumulation.

Now before I begin please don't think I'm criticizing the Tricycle blogger or the Tibetan Buddhist nun personally...but rather this is my response to the "stuff" post there, from a guy with my background.

Everyone in society has a form and function.  I make, statistically speaking, a pretty good salary; I'm in my peak earning years. My salary is not stratospheric, but it's not poverty level by any means.   I'm saving both for my "retirement" and my son's education.  There are algorithms for saving and investment; there are procedures, projections.  Given a certain amount of money at a certain amount of time, given spending rates, etc. there will be a result that gives how much will be available.   The algorithm is relatively fixed; at my age it's not something I think about all that much; the algorithm is in play.   I read the Big Picture blog and other economic news.

At work,   I have to act on behalf of all beings, and in the capacity of my particular job, that includes those on my project, my managers, my corporate patrons, my company's customers, and all people in the world. (Yes, we really do think that way.)   That cannot include abjuring all salary increases because it might involve...money!   That is because all the beings above have economic interests too, and if that doesn't look exactly like a zero sum game (i.e., let's put all the competitors out of business so  they starve!) it certainly does not mean that all the folks I work with should be poor either.  The famine relief workers need to be fed first. Of course, once fed, they better damn well relieve the famine!  But, unfortunately, a starving famine relief worker is as useless to relieving famine as one who is morbidly obese to the point of immobility.

I heard this Lama that is linked to in this blog post, and it's giving me the impression, of a person saying, "See how much I've got because I don't have anything compared to those other people?"

Understand what I'm saying?   If you've got responsibilities, it behooves you not to live as an ascetic. It would be irresponsible and egoistic to pretend to such things, and would be destructive to those around you.  The Buddhists, to their credit, leave this aspect of Siddhartha's life relatively intact.  Unless you have an existential trauma that compels you to leave family, friends and responsibilities, dammit, live up to  your family, friends, and responsibilities!

And if you are a monastic, don't think that in some way you've got something that other people don't.  

And if, by age, demographic, and economic circumstances, you make or don't make a certain amount of money,  it's not a virtue; its your age, demographic and economic circumstances!  If you are making what's appropriate to those circumstances, and they are effecting all beings well, very good.   But don't assume that a guy in a trailer or a mansion is fundamentally different.  Or even that he has more or less attachments.

Right livelihood is something else.

The 5 day Buddhist monk diet?

I've no doubt it works. I've no doubt mindful eating works.  I've no doubt that we could all be healthier by eating less meat and animals, but we should avoid any kind of prideful feelings that come from saying "My diet is better than yours."  

A colleague of mine, who has taken up marathon running  told me that the human being evolved because he could do things like expend energy on a long term basis running long distances, and somewhere in the world there are people who still catch their animal meals by chasing their meals until they drop.  I think that's probably true too, but  very non-Buddhist.  As for myself, I've been swimming, using weights and doing some aerobic exercise.

I also think, given my recently renewed exercise regimen, that humans have evolved to expend physical energy.  We simply need to be able to expend energy, in such a way as  our bodies have evolved to help maintain our health as best as our lives and bodies permit.   I think a more unsung issue, in terms of right livelihood  is commuting long distances. How much do you commute?

I have a very short commute, and it affords me more time than I otherwise would have to be with my family.  It also affords me the time to exercise to the point where my body mass index is in the bottom 20% of those my age and height.   If you can structure your life to avoid a long commute I think that will go a long, and relatively painless way to a  better livelihood.

Today's thoughts....

It's been a weird, cool spring in the Pacific Northwest; although it's famously rainy and cloudy here, in spring, by this time, we should have gotten a few more sunny days, and a couple of days in the 80s. Instead, it's been cool to cold and rainy most of the time.

The result of this seems to be, in my case, the mother of all sinusitis complaints, brought on, no doubt, by a bumper crop of pollen.

Ah, sinusitis practice.

In addition, it is the umpteenth time my son was given an "arts and crafts" like assignment for his class; its subject matter, the Amoy tiger, is cool, but we, in our household have no arts and crafts capability...even my attempts at 書道 are those of a rank amateur, though that is the expression of myself and my environment, and so that's the point. And this diorama crap... I'm in my 50s...I did not have to do this in my severe and abusive Catholic school...I guess they never thought of the boring to death kind of abuse...and it occurs to me that the only way to make this interesting is to make a 3rd grader's diorama the equivalent of Piss Christ...that is, something transgressive, something that breaks the rules, something that actually is interesting...'cause I don't know anyone that actually likes to do this kind of thing without some ulterior purpose behind it.  This kind of stuff is the art equivalent of "Lies My Teacher Told Me."

And that somehow brings me back to the post below...Wiley Coyote is an archetype of elaborate folly, usually scored by the genius Carl Stalling. He is an archetype of extreme and elaborate attachment to the point of folly. In the case of South Korea, it's understood they're doing what they have to do to keep the murderous regime to the North at bay.

The Kim family of the North will not be looked at kindly by history, no matter what.

A New Holiday I Can Support

HT: Miaoming

I really want this to happen nationwide: Give Your Stuff Away Day.

No exit?

Heather Havrilesky's kind of got a point: the Sopranos made descent into darker and darker a new plot technique to explore in cable shows, but it seems unrelenting, irredeemable.

I think there's a narrative of change for the positive that will be introduced.

Maybe somebody on the Huff Post blog with LA connections should write a Buddhist themed "Breaking Bad to Better."