Is Kenneth Folk a "major" Western Buddhist Teacher? Findings of Fact:

I can see why those Speculative Non-Buddhists don't think Justin's being completely nonpartisan in their critique of folks like Folk:

1. Justin S. Whitaker ‏@Buddhistethics8h

   "Kenneth Folk vs the Speculative Non-Buddhists" - A major Western #Buddhist teacher takes on critics http://ow.ly/oV2UA 

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2. 無門　Mumon7 ‏@Mumon78h

   @Buddhistethics Really I'd refer to @KennethFolk as a Western #Buddhist "Teacher" with other terms entirely, but that's just me.

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   2:04 PM - 18 Sep 13 · Details

Really? Kenneth Folk is a major Western Buddhist teacher?

From Mr. Folk's site:

Q & A on Private Instruction:

Q: Can I get personalized meditation instruction with Kenneth?

A: Yes! Working one-on-one with real people is my favorite thing to do. I’ve been teaching meditation via live video since 2008, and I find it a particularly effective way to coach meditators. My students make progress beyond what I would have thought possible even a few years ago.

Q: Which live video platform do you use?

A: I use the video teaching platform Popexpert.com, which allows students to schedule sessions and make secure payments all in one place.

https://www.popexpert.com/kennethfolk

Q: How much do you charge?

A: My standard fee is $125 for a 45-minute session. Use this coupon code for a 20% discount: partridge-346

(The coupon sets the fee to $100 and you can use it as many times as you want, or until further notice.)

I look forward to working with you!

Kenneth

Now I'd be curious as to why Justin would characterize Mr. Folk as a major Buddhist teacher. OK, the Buddhist part, I get, because anyone who self-identifies as a Buddhist, yada yada yada.  And I kind of agree with that.  But a major teacher? Because he got a write up in Wired and was on Buddhist Geeks (see "Spy Magazine" and "Logrolling in Our Time.")

But $125???

Let me not go at this from a Marxist angle, but rather from the angle of the consumer who has choices about what he can buy.

Kenneth Folk is selling meditation coaching, which you probably don't need  because you can learn how to meditate from any number of other sources.  On the other hand, if you do feel the need to have some kind of teacher of meditation, a Buddhist teacher of Buddhist meditation, you'd come out far ahead by swinging by your local Buddhist temple.   The local Chinese Buddhist temples here, even those that are Pure Land focused, generally have literature that teaches some basics of Cha'an meditation (and in fact one head monk at a nominally Pure Land temple in the Portland OR area is trained in the Cha'an tradition).  

Did I mention he was from Taiwan?

Is Kenneth folk a major Western Buddhist teacher because he's not from Taiwan? 

Is that a selling point?

Kenneth Folk charges $125 ($100 with coupon!) for a 45 minute session.

By contrast:

• My son's violin teacher is Concertmaster - a real master - of the Portland Columbia Symphony Orchestra.  She gets $80 for at least an hour. She's the real deal; you can see her play.  And she's also a wonderful teacher, who teaches kids something tangible.

Sorry Kenneth, she's not taking on any new students.

• My Wing Chun sifu gets $100 per month.  He trained under Jiu Wan, who was a close associate if not exactly a descendent of Ip Man, who trained Bruce Freakin' Lee.  He tells us that he trained 4 hours a day, every day, back when Kenneth Folk and I were dealing with acne. Trust me, my sifu sells tangibly beneficial training you cannot get elsewhere within hundreds of miles (unless you manage to find his students, who charge about the same, from what I've gathered).

• The Osho in my local very small Rinzai sangha is a direct 8th, 9th, or 10th - I forget which - descendent of Hakuin himself.  He's a 3rd generation descendant of Soyen Shaku, the first guy to bring Zen to America.   He doesn't charge anything but accepts donations.

You've never heard of these people (or anyone like them) unless you've went out of your way to find them. Those are among the best teachers in the way we have them in the United States.  There's probably people like this all over the place in the US, except, perhaps, in some parts of Alaska.   There's certainly such folks in and around Silicon Valley.  They may not have good PR, but that's not where their interest lies. 

And heck I could show you the basics of Zen meditation gratis. But  I ain't no teacher.

I've already written about my grave reservations about the ethical propriety of teaching meditation for money here, and the liability of the mystification of experience that can result therein, especially from some snake-oil salesman who claims to be enlightened.  That's got ethical warning lights flashing red, as far as I'm concerned, and in most Buddhist traditions, Western or Eastern, it'd be an ethical warning sign, as far as I am aware.

It's understandable why Folk is engaged in this schtick; like Genpo Merzel, there's things that have to be bought, and the advance of age is inescapable.

So, what else could make him a major Western Buddhist teacher? Market share? Really?  I don't think so, and I doubt he has any significant market share amongst Western Buddhists, let alone Buddhists who practice in America in Asian sanghas.

Thus it is my considered opinion that Kenneth Folk is not a "major Western Buddhist teacher," but rather a low-rent Genpo Merzel with good PR.

Justin, feel free to do some 'splaining.

Mysticism and its Mystification with respect to Enlightenment.

I would like to say a bit more about some of the ideas of the Speculative Non-Buddhists and Tutteji in particular, this time on enlightenment.  I am not necessarily talking about the Soto "practice as enlightenment" per se  below, as I come at this mostly from a Rinzai perspective, but on the other hand, I don't wish to have it understood that I'm trying to invalidate the Soto position either.  In what follows, as far as I'm concerned, I'm mainly talking about experiences of kensho  (見性) and satori (悟り) rather than the Dogen practice enlightenment, but I don't necessarily wish to exclude Soto's position.  

People like Kenneth Folk or Daniel Ingram or that other guy whose name I can't remember at the moment are really visible straw-men for their critics, especially because, at least to me, their "practice" does not seem in any way deep or authentic. Those are polite words for something else. Folk and Ingram, if I understand correctly, readily admit they're "enlightened" but they also readily admit  they might not "be enlightened the way the Buddha was," but their use of the word is a transparent attempt to hijack all the meaning involved in the Buddha's enlightenment to their particular projects.

As a technical guy, the fact that they bandy words about like "neuroscience" and other pseudo tech words,  is, I guess, their attempt to sound hep to the techie set they understand exists in The Valley Where the Money Is.

And then they use words like "pragmatic." 

It invites the charge that all enlightenment accounts and experiences are hoaxes or delusions, and in particular with respect to accounts from those such as the self-professed charlatans above, fraudulent.

Now that I cannot abide.

Just because there's boys in High School claiming all sorts of sexual exploits doesn't imply that in High School there are no boys getting any.

The only way you'll have to legitimately answer the question though for yourself is to pay your own dues. 

I think there are genuine enlightenment experiences, and attempts to deny or marginalize those experiences are themselves a form of mystification,  just as the charge is spot-on that people like Folk and Ingram are themselves mystifying enlightenment. The critics' mystification exists to advance their own ends, I would posit.   But the fact that there is mystification does not in any way invalidate anyones experience of the transcendent.  In addition, it doesn't make one perfect in any way at all.  

I also think there are enlightenment accounts that are not attempts to mystify the experience; these accounts exist because, people have the experience, that dammit, something did happen. It's what people impute to that something that did happen, though that I think makes the difference.  And these accounts, I think, are instructive in yet another way with respect to the charlatans: the charlatans are saying you'll benefit from an awakening experience, but most of the accounts I've seen from people whose later results seemed benevolent indicate that nothing changed.  And indeed nothing should change because you've got to put something in motion for interdependent phenomena to arise.

A response is in order! RE: Kenneth Folk, some critics of Western Buddhism, et al.

First, go read Justin Whitaker's post on Speculative Non-Buddhism, Tutteji.org, and you know what? I'm not going to link to Kenneth Folk. 

If you read Whitaker's post, you ought to realize why: in Whitaker's post Folk revealed himself to be who he is, and I wouldn't want to direct traffic on this blog to a guy that charges money for what ought to be free.

The stuff outside of Justin's site above is especially eye opening, and points up some of the criticisms I've had of Buddhist Geeks (and I suspect from Tutteji's site, "Integral" hoo-hah and all as well.)

In particular, look at this thread.

I could do without much of the Marxist critique on the thread; not that I'm without sympathy to parts of it, and in fact it is kind of catalytic to what I want to say here. What profoundly impresses me is the impression given by Folk that he is a "teacher" of something and therefore somehow different and more skilled than you or I. 

Here's some bits worth quoting (letting the formatting by Blogger fall where it may), firstly:

Kenneth.
Do not take it so personally. The article in Wired is all about enhancing productivity via meditation techniques. My point is not so much about you.
I admit, the phrase of someone being
absolutely politically unaware
is a bit misleading. But not in the way you might think. To make it clear: I am not a leftist, marxist or something equally esoterrifying.
What I mean with “unaware” is about one central assumption of Speculative Non-Buddhism I just mentioned to Vince Horn: We are not aware (enough) about what make us think as we think!A central term which leads into thinking about this problem (in my case, as differentiated from Tom Rinzai Pepperspray and HH Glenn Wallis) is Society of Control.
I have written about it. You may google about it. You may familiarize yourself with this thought. Then and only then I am willing to have, as you say
something emergent in this discussion.
But for the time being, what I just wrote to Vince goes to you as well: Neither you Kenneth, nor Vince for that, took it upon you to go into the SNB-material. At least I never saw anything in this regard. But still we are asked in such discussions to discuss “topics in a more transparent way”. It is there. If you are interested: Read!The point Tutte the One and Only is making is really a great one. You Kenneth do not get the irony of, for example, saying that you experienced “a fundamental shift in consciousness“. Tutte makes visible that this declaration ultimately is an irony (a kind of semantic territory-marker, a kind of dharmic currency, which does not say anything substantial at all) whereby suddenly Tutte’s irony makes a real fundamental shift into being a true critique – a critique that goes to the heart of your being as a awakened one.
The crazy thing here is: you know it. It is visible from your reaction and a lot of other dharma-teachers – however they may address themselves. You know it. That is visible when you admit that Tutte’s visionary irony is working.

A term like "fundamental shift in consciousness" indicates that the one who has had it is somehow different than you or I.

THAT'S WHY YOU SHOULD NOT "STUDY" UNDER "TEACHERS" WHO SAY THEY'RE "ENLIGHTENED." THAT'S WHY THERE ARE NO TEACHERS, AT LEAST IN ZEN.

And double plus underscore (I don't know what those last few words mean, frankly, but I hope it's for emphasis) as to why nobody should be teaching things related to mindfulness for money.  Really, the teaching of such things presumes that the "teacher" has better insight into the "mindfulness" of the "student" than the "student?"  

Now the folks critiquing Folk et al. come at this, if I understand correctly, that such teachers in fact don't address the alienation of the "student." Yeah whatever. 

Now it may indicate fundamental problems with the Tibetan guru- style thing, but this is the core of the atom at the center I think of all the ethics problems we see in much of Western Buddhism. 


Naturally I disagree with this sentiment:

 [I]f you believe that Kenneth Folk (or Vince Horn) are interested in any genuine dialog you miss a fundamental point: They are players in a world of delusion who want to stay ignorant about what makes us think as we think. It is a mistake to think they have any interest in this just because they name themselves Buddhists. If you look for genuine dialog about thinking the rules of thinking by the search term “Buddhism” you only get crap. It’s simply the wrong signifier.

There are practitioners of the Way,  there are those that aren't, there's snake oil salesman, and there are those that aren't.  What this critic above wrote is a version of the "No True Scotsman" fallacy.


But I also can't help but see this bit by Kenneth Folk as patronizing, disingenuous,  and bereft of humility, a sense of humor, or any kind of 功夫:

Thinking aloud:
- I find the NSB critique valuable. I have been influenced by some of the ideas I’ve heard/read from Glenn and Matthias.
- Glenn and Matthias, you often seem bewildered by the fact that no one wants to “engage” you in discussion. It is not a mystery; ad hominem attacks, boorish condescension, and an unwillingness to consider other points of view are not traits highly valued in discussion partners. Your opinions about how the world “ought to be” don’t matter here; it is a purely pragmatic issue. If you want people to engage you, don’t alienate them.
- Matthias, your repeated insistence that you find “x-Buddhists” [sic] uninteresting is not consistent with the observable fact that you follow us around the internet trying to get our attention. It reminds me of a little kid throwing rocks at the big kids in the schoolyard, all the while telling everyone that he wouldn’t play with the big kids even if they were willing. I am holding up the mirror for you. Are you a big enough kid to take it in? If you and I compete for who can be less interested in the other, I will win. Let’s not go there.
- Glenn, Matthias: You have something valuable to say. I am glad you are saying it. But you seem to believe that the lens you are looking through is the only valid lens. This displays a lack of sophistication. Check out Robert Kegan or Suzanne Cook-Greuter for an understanding of how the ability to embrace multiple points of view is the leading metric on a continuum of psychological/emotional development. The level of group think and confirmation bias within your group is high. I haven’t seen much evidence that you are individually or collectively aware of this. Your critique will be more effective if you are also able to turn the mirror back on yourselves. People I have spoken to, almost without exception, find you easy to dismiss, largely due to their perception that you are lacking in self-awareness. Can you prove them wrong? Tutte, this goes for you, too. When you pretend to know how this emergent discussion should be, you appear naive and brittle to the people you wish to influence. Drop the arrogance and condescension, and show some vulnerability. (I’m talking not about your parody, which is well-done, but about your conversational tone in the comments sections here and on Facebook.)
- Here then, is the mirror, in all its bright harshness. How honest should I be? The Speculative Non-Buddhists are generally perceived as angry, bitter, socially inept, mean-spirited, and frankly irrelevant. Is this how you want to be perceived? Think about it carefully, because no matter how important your message, no one will hear it if they have already dismissed you as unworthy of their attention. There is a way for you to become relevant to the culture you so wish to influence, and it is much more challenging than anything you’ve done so far. You are going to have to turn the light back on yourselves. Whatcha gonna do, little brothers? Level up or step off.

But this is where real problems arise for Folk:

The Power of Potty Training is meant to de-mystify meditation practice. I believe at one point I say that meditation and awakening are no more holy or mystical than bicycle riding, guitar playing, or potty training. This is the basic theme of the talk. I also use the potty training metaphor to introduce Maslow’s four stages of learning, pointing out that at the fourth and final stage, “unconscious competence,” a skill that was hard-won over time suddenly becomes second nature. While it is tempting to think of this as some kind of magical or transcendent moment, it does not have to be seen that way; this is just the way this organism integrates learning, “burning it into the hardware,” as David Eagleman would say, at which point it no longer requires conscious effort. With this in mind, we can think of the process of human development commonly known as awakening or enlightenment as a thoroughly mundane affair. Thus stripped of it’s magical or holy status, it is no less valuable than before; the ability to see experience as process allows levels of wellbeing that were impossible before.

Not sure if I covered this in the talk, but I would add that this personal wellbeing can set the stage for better relationships, and although this is speculative, maybe even advances at the cultural level. An optimistic scenario would include a more humane and just society. It does not seem to me out of the question that this simple training in meditation might have such far-reaching effects, although I have no evidence for this. What I am confident of is the personal transformation that predictably results from effective meditation practice, and this is what I focus on.
“This involves a rhetorical suggestion that some sort of special, wonder-working knowledge is on offer. Sure the figure in the parable claims to be offering the shit-stained fools something that is as accessible as it is obvious. But still, the fools need him to tell them that.” -GW
Maybe. On the other hand, most people need a piano teacher in order to learn to play piano, and there is no need to posit wonder-working.
“Extrapolated out into the real world, it is you, of course, who are the dharmic thaumaturge. So, you commit what Matthias calls the ‘esoteric fallacy.’” -GW
Yes, good point. I have, at times, allowed or encouraged people to project upon me a special status that I do not feel, believing that this would enhance their motivation or somehow jump-start their meditation practice. As you point out, this is common practice among meditation teachers. I have in recent years been increasingly reluctant to allow this kind of projection, and I find it an interesting challenge to teach meditation and awakening without recourse to the esoteric fallacy. One of my ongoing projects is to offer a definition of awakening/enlightenment that does not involve holiness or perfection. While some have suggested that it would be better to drop such charged language altogether, my contention is that there has always been awakening for those who trained to that level of contemplative excellence, and it wasn’t any holier then than now; it is and was a natural process of human development.

As I think Folks critics point pout, if you're selling "enlightenment" a non-tangible, non-verifable (except as mutually authenticated by the parties concerned) you can't guarantee the quality of your service to those to whom you're selling it.  Implicit in the quote above is Folks is more skilled than you are. 

Is he? 

That's one of the critics' points.  And his response is, "For the enlightenment I'm selling, you get wonderful  prizes in the form of "personal transformation" and "better relationships" or something like that. 

I must be really lucky or something, but here's my conclusions:

1. The critiques of Folk, Horn, et al. have very valid points, especially with regards to ethical issues.

2. The real problem, though is there is a need to develop 功夫, savoir faire, call it what you will.   And you won't get it from those guys.  You probably won't get it from Folk or other "mindfulness for money" guys.

Is a 公案 a "trick question?"

Brad Warner, back from a retreat, wrote a blog entry, in which, describing shikantaza (只管打坐 ) he says,

Being in Dogen’s lineage, the folks up at Tassajara practice shikantaza style zazen, just as I was taught by Tim McCarthy and Gudo Nishijima. It’s propless meditation. There’s no goal to the practice. There are no mantras to recite. There are no trick questions to answer. Nobody tells you you’re doing it wrong. Nobody asks you to assess the relative success or failure of your meditation afterward the way they often do in other Buddhist lineages. You just do it and then do something else. But you keep on doing this pointless thing and years later sometimes, if you’re lucky, you notice the point to it. Which is precisely that there is no point to it. And, goofy as that sounds, it makes perfect sense.

Now, maybe it's me, but I detect a teeny tiny bit of boasting here, and a teeny tiny bit of passive-aggresiveness, in not naming the specific other practices to which he is obliquely referring. 

There's actually a lot in Brad's post on which to comment on, and I might have another post on the role of belief in ritual.

But back to the point of this post.  I think it might help to clarify, though I've written before, just what kōanzazen (公案座禅)  is, and how it compares with 只管打坐.

Now first of all, yes, I suppose there is a wrong way to do 公案座禅, and that is to try to give an answer that attempts some discursive approach to the 公案.  But I'd find it hard to believe that this happens a lot in 参禅.  The reason I find it hard to believe is you're in a zendo.  If someone in a Rinzai zendo hasn't figured out that this isn't about finding a narrative but being awake and in the world - showing up - well they probably took a wrong turn at Albuquerque.

The "answer" given in the 公案 is an expression of the student's "understanding" ("apprehension," not in the fearful sense may be a better word [On edit: even "understanding" and "apprehension" are pretty inadequate, here because of a presumed subjective/objective relationship between the student and the 公案, but thankfully I put quotes there])  and being in the relation of the Relative and Absolute, that relationship certainly doesn't lend itself  to discourse in a conventional sense. In 参禅 the "point" of feedback from the oshō ( 和尚) is to help the student drop the discursiveness and deepen the answer.   And similar to 只管打坐, there is no technically right or wrong answers per se, because the student will do what the student does. So no, Brad, there's no real trick questions per se in 公案座禅.

So in this sense it's somewhat similar to  独参, except for the fact that there's the 公案 and there's the watō (話頭), which I and others have written about elsewhere (e.g., here.)

I suspect that there may be differences as well, and at least in my case, those differences tend to militate in favor of 公案座禅.  Some Rinzai folks have said one of the issues with 只管打坐 is it may be possible to become complacent in one's practice.  The Soto folks can and do answer that one, and usually the answer is about using dokusan (独参) to spice up practice or something like that.  But I think the difference can be viewed in another aspect as well: it's not about complacency that might be an issue for 只管打坐, but rather I can't see how 只管打坐 trains one necessarily to be responsive,  that is, I don't see how it trains one  to realize moment to moment  this:

事存函蓋合    Phenomena exist; box and lid fit;

理應箭鋒拄       principle responds; arrow points meet.

I'm sure the Soto folks have an answer for that,  but I'll let them answer that.  I will say that this particular point as caused lots of colorful literature to exist on the Rinzai side, that's for sure.  But I'm not convinced the Soto response is completely adequate here. One of the things my teacher mentioned a while back is the relationship between Rinzai zen and martial arts, and the fact that there was the closest affinity between Rinzai zen compared to other schools.   Although he mentioned this within the context of breath practice,  I have found it goes much deeper than that.   That is to say there's not a great deal of difference between the issues I see in 参禅 versus when I practice 詠春券, and those issues are the issues I need to continue to bring to the totality of my life. 


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

Consciousness, Mind, and Evolution

On vice.com  there's a good article dealing with scientific observations regarding consciousness, and it certainly has import to Buddhists.  But I think the writer gets some of the religious implications wrong regarding at least Buddhism.

According to Princeton University neuroscientist Michael Graziano,... Our brains create models of the world around us, including our bodies, in order to be attentive to the various signals we get from our senses. So in the Pinocchio Illusion, your brain creates a model of what your body looks like and the model falls apart due to the conflicting stimuli. Our brains might be exceptionally good at making models, but they’re never perfect replicas of what’s happening in the world, just fast and loose sketches to make sense of things. 

There’s a funny consequence to our brains’ proficiency in model-making, Professor Michael Graziano argues in his book Consciousness and the Social Brain, which came out this month. That consequence is what we call consciousness, the ineffable ungraspable “I,” the magic sauce of Being that defines our essential humanness. From Descartes’s “Cogito ergo sum,” to Kant’s theory of a priori forms, to Taoist, nondualist Vedantic whatever, the origin of consciousness has been, you know, a real head-scratcher. And Professor Graziano’s theory proposes an exceptionally clear explanation of what’s going on in our domes’ pieces every day of our short little lives.   

So to the question: Are we ordained by our divine creator or are we just delusional lumps of carbon and guts? Professor Graziano concludes something closer to latter. But it’s not delusion that makes our brains aware. It’s a highly functional adaptive strategy. 

Graziano is quoted in the article as saying:

So let’s think about what the physical project of attention is: there’s an agent, a brain, a being that’s focusing its processing power on a particular set of signals that neuroscientists call attention; the signals might pertain to the sandwich you’re holding. There’s an agent and there’s a sandwich, and there’s a relationship between the two: that is, the agent is focusing its resources on the sandwich. That’s attention. 

So when you build a model of that it will have a large amount of information about the agent—who you are, where you are, your memories, your information about yourselves—that model should contain information about the sandwich, and it should contain information about the relationship between the two. And, crucially, the model will have information about what it means for an agent to focus attention on a thing. What I’m saying is that there is information in the brain, a large dossier with lots of descriptive information that there’s a you, and there’s a sandwich and a specific relationship: you are aware of the sandwich.

I don't think this is particularly shocking or new, and despite what the author implies I fail to see how it has any particularly damaging implications to Buddhism.  If our small-m mind's awareness is indeed a manifestation of what the brain does to model sensory phenomena (including awareness of awareness), that awareness is indeed interdependent and co-existant with the myriad things.  It is not separate, and is separate from them.  Moreover,  we know that this awareness is modulated in ways that are specifically dependent on other life forms besides "ourselves," even if we're doing the solitary hermit thing.

Moreover, at least as far as practice is concerned, which pretty much sums up the whole thing for Buddhists,  the fact that this biochemical physical process is going on intimately related to awareness isn't particularly relevant unless you're a Buddhist neuroscience researcher and your right livelihood consists of work in that area.

This is not to say that any old, new, or random metaphysical system is true or false, but as far as can be observed, a great many of them are irrelevant to practice in the world, if practice in the world can be realized without appeal to those metaphysical systems.

I have taken Buddhist precepts; I consider myself a Buddhist.  I understand that the Lankavatara sutra places great emphasis on Mind as the "most real" existence.   On the other hand, Buddha nature pervades the whole universe, we chant.  It is revealed right here and now. It's not that the Buddhist precepts requires belief in the "truth" of the Lankavatara Sutra or any sutra, per se.  But clearly the little-m mind does have, at least as is physically observable, a pervasiveness in the universe.  As to the Big-M Mind (trademark  that, Mr. Merzel), if you've had experience of it, I don't see a need to doubt that experience even if it is co-dependent/co-existent with specific biophysical chemical phenomena.  The writers of the Sutras, the Patriarchs, etc. were describing, what seems to be co-dependent/co-existent with these specific biophysical chemical phenomena.  So what?

There's no need to invalidate the experience because of that, and in fact, I would say that an attempt to invalidate that experience by claiming it wasn't real because "the biochemistry and physics did it" is itself a mystification of experience.  The reason I say this, is because through practice we're attempting to have a mind that is not holding on to anything. Anything.  And that includes the infinite fun house mirror logic of not holding on to not holding on to...etc. 

It seems to me as that the author in making his claim might be implying "Hold on to the physical world!"  But, outside of the practice of neuroscience I think the author misses the point of experience and practice.  

We Buddhists of course don't have a divine creator, and I'm sure some Taoists and more than a few Hindus would object to the implicit privileging of of a monotheistic framework for discussing the metaphysical implications of awareness.  I do wish people that write this stuff, and for that matter, some of the New Atheists would be more acknowledging of the nuances of thought involved in non-monotheistic religions and their outlook. More than a few of us reject magic and hocus-pocus and woo. (And some of us, including practicing Hindus that I've met, are atheists.)  But then again,  most of the New Atheists I've read about  are intellectual descendants of Bertrand Russell rather than Jean-Paul Sartre or Nietzsche.  As William Barrett wrote in Irrational Man: A Study in Existentialist philosophy:

I love reading Russell's History of Western philosophy (just as I love reading Dawkins). And I share the general direction of where Sartre and Nietzsche were going, as it leads I think, to a Buddhist emptiness.,  However I think as the above paragraph shows, they were still rather attached to the notions of monotheism, their atheism as attached, as it were, to monotheism to a certain extent, as was Russell.  But Russell was all too human, as were the other Europeans mentioned in this paragraph, as am I.  But I'm practicing.  

A quick reply to the Zennist...

Regarding this post:

1.  Nobody who might be in anyway concerned with what you're writing ("Because of such darkness, on the Internet I have become Peck’s Bad Boy, the guy some Buddhists love to hate for trying to bring them a Bic lighter’s worth of Mahayana light...") is that important.  Including everyone.  

2. You're aware that Sheng Yen did a bit of training in Japan, right? 

3. The real issue with all concerned, not the least of which is illustrated in your post - is that your post indicates issues that are the result of misreading certain texts.

4. I think you're not interpreting the Awakening of Faith correctly, which is not surprising since you seem to have rather eclectic readings of certain texts.  Moreover, using  a text like that is a peculiar one to use to attempt to disparage  millions of other Buddhists due to your projections of their  religious incorrectness.

5.  I've already spent too much time with stuff like this.

Narratives and Buddhism, Zen Buddhism in particular

In recent days I've blogged a lot about the so-called "Integral" movement, which I think will be remembered as a spectacularly failed  fin de siècle attempt at making New Age stuff ...umm...I really don't how it will be remembered other than the I will find it hard to believe that anyone who's understands what  a Lebesgue Integral is won't remember it as beneficial in any way.

The lack of understanding of science and mathematics though is only pointing to a bigger issue around, an issue at times which I probably bear some responsibility as well.  I suppose I've meant well.  And I suppose there's no way out of it, if you're going to be asked/describe/put into everyday practice a Zen Buddhist practice.  

You're going to have to talk about it. 

In one of Genjo Marinello Osho's recent podcasts (I think it was "The Great Death") he mentions what is said  often - to the point where it's almost a slogan with some Zen texts: if somebody says he's the Buddha, he's not.  If someone says he's enlightened,  he doesn't know what enlightenment is.

The issue in communicating a narrative of Zen Buddhism has always been that to do so one has to express their understanding such as it is or isn't.  So a lot of physical activities that seem potentially harmful are reported in the records of the early practitioners and masters.

And what have we got today?

This blog? Don't believe this blog.  This blog will not help, just as you'll have to do more than look at a web page in Wikipedia to really understand the motivation and uses for measure theory.

You have various other narratives as well.  Some are, I think, rather helpful - I think Genjo Osho's work has been helpful, and there are others as well, including some folks from the Seung Sahn lineage, and some of the Soto folks.   Hsu Yun's lineage also looks particularly interesting to me, at least from the folks I met in China in this lineage.  (Can't really speak to some of their reputed acolytes' their web presence though.)

But even those websites/areas must be taken with a grain of salt, because ultimately they're not going to enlighten you either.

What I think is more problematic, though is the attempts by people to "add" stuff to Zen based on psychotherapy, Large Group Awareness Training (google it), etc.   Similarly I think attempts to create a narrative of "Western" versus "Asian" or "Immigrant" Buddhism ignore the fact that these categorizations are not fixed in any way.

And it is hard to see what that all has to do with the project of Buddhism.  It is true that often immigrant communities aggregate together.   American ex-pats in foreign countries do the same.  But does that mean that a Western Buddhism is fundamentally different from an Asian Buddhism?

Does it have any relation to the question of how you are to realize your original face or everyday mind  moment to moment in your everyday life? 

Note: when it comes to Buddhism and technology, I don't think there's much of an issue there at all; Buddhist can, do,  and will make use of technology.  But it's really a stretch to think this is "adding" anything to Buddhism (and Zen in particular).

It's easy to make narratives out of anything, to try to make declarative, authoritative assertions about Buddhism, the state of Buddhism in time t, in location x, but like that guy said in Pulp Fiction,  that might be pride talking.  

Yeah, this post is a narrative too, and I hope my purpose was to help all beings rather than say, "You're wrong!" for the sake of feeling better about myself.  That's not to say there's no snake oil salesmen out there.  There are; there's questionable teachers and there's teachers that have been authorized to teach by questionable teachers.  Some learn in spite of their teacher, it is hoped.

Science? Buddhism?

I think one reason I had had this blog quasi-moribund was because one is never going to stop the flood of ignorance.  It's good to try to do one's best though not to be a part of it.  Here now comes the Zennist, with more of that "scientism" stuff.

Western Buddhists seem to want Buddhism to embrace their religion called “scientism” which is the belief that empirical science constitutes the most authoritative world view....

These Western Buddhists don’t seem to understand that science, when you boil it all down, is just a huge kettle of metaphors which still can’t answer, “What is the universe made of?”  One such metaphor is the universe is like an encyclopedia of mathematics.  But the universe doesn’t speak mathematically.  The general theory of relativity doesn’t speak about a universe that we can observe.  Another metaphor concerns light.  Is it like a particle or is it like a wave?  Particle and wave are just metaphors.  The help us to understand light, but at the same time, they also hide the real nature of light.   Particle and wave are also fictions being limited in that respect.  There is scarcely any difference between metaphors and fictions.  Both can be apt and very useful—both are, undeniably, fabrications of the mind.

When we compare old religions with modern science they are no different when looked at through the notion of metaphor.  In one extensive metaphor, God creates heaven and earth.  In a more modern one there is a big bang.  God, a creator-builder, is a metaphor for the mystery of creation.  The big band is an explosion metaphor for the mystery of creation.  Both are also fictional which means they are both artful fabrications of the human mind. 

I keep hearing about these "Western Buddhists"who subscribe to "scientism"  but I have yet to actually see the writing of any of them.  I tend to think that the charge of "scientism" is made by woo advocates, who themselves hardly have any idea of what science is or what the scientific method is. 

Scientists attempt to derive an ordered, logical explanation from phenomena that are observed.  In one sense you could say the "universe doesn't speak," but on the other hand, a hell of a lot of things are well explained by appeal to the Central Limit Theorem.  Science is not at all concerned with "the real nature" of light, but only phenomena associated with it. 

And yes, the General Theory of Relativity not only describes a universe we can observe, it describes a universe we have observed. 

The Big Bang is not "an explosion metaphor for the mystery of creation," it's a limit implied by running the state trajectory of the universe backward.

While of course this is all encountered by scientists, woo-advocates, and others through their mind,  regarding observable phenomena science has proven useful in its ability to describe phenomena. Metaphysics is still outside the range of science and is irrelevant to it.

If Buddhists wish to speak about science, I would hope they would engage in right speech in discussing it.  It might help for them then to learn about science, at least enough to understand what science is and what it is not.

Is "Meditating to Get Ahead" a good answer for Yun-men?

Again by way of Buddhist Geeks I became aware of this article about the Silicon Valley mindfulness fad.  "Fad?" you say? 

Yeah.  I call it the tech version of the magazine cover indicator.  The magazine cover indicator is related to the fact that a company's stock price tends to go down not long after its CEO appears on some magazine cover lauding his wisdom,  etc. etc.  I never put much stock in Wired or Fast Company, because the world tends to be very different from what they promulgate, at least in the issues that have made it into my hands.

But maybe, hopefully even, I'm wrong.  Mindfulness is obviously very useful, but still...

It’s not just Google that’s embracing Eastern traditions. Across the Valley, quiet contemplation is seen as the new caffeine, the fuel that allegedly unlocks productivity and creative bursts. Classes in meditation and mindfulness—paying close, nonjudgmental attention—have become staples at many of the region’s most prominent companies. There’s a Search Inside Yourself Leadership Institute now teaching the Google meditation method to whoever wants it. The cofounders of Twitter and Facebook have made contemplative practices key features of their new enterprises, holding regular in-office meditation sessions and arranging for work routines that maximize mindfulness. Some 1,700 people showed up at a Wisdom 2.0 conference held in San Francisco this winter, with top executives from LinkedIn, Cisco, and Ford featured among the headliners. 

These companies are doing more than simply seizing on Buddhist practices. Entrepreneurs and engineers are taking millennia-old traditions and reshaping them to fit the Valley’s goal-oriented, data-driven, largely atheistic culture. Forget past lives; never mind nirvana. The technology community of Northern California wants return on its investment in meditation. “All the woo-woo mystical stuff, that’s really retrograde,” says Kenneth Folk, an influential meditation teacher in San Francisco. “This is about training the brain and stirring up the chemical soup inside.”... 

But Googlers don’t take up meditation just to keep away the sniffles or get a grip on their emotions. They are also using it to understand their coworkers’ motivations, to cultivate their own “emotional intelligence”—a characteristic that tends to be in short supply among the engineering set. “Everybody knows this EI thing is good for their career,” says Search Inside Yourself founder Meng. “And every company knows that if their people have EI, they’re gonna make a shitload of money.” 

Meng has had quite a career himself, joining Google in 2000 as employee number 107 and working on mobile search. But for years, his attempts to bring meditation into the office met with limited success. It was only in 2007, when he packaged contemplative practices in the wrapper of emotional intelligence, that he saw demand spike. Now there are dozens of employee development programs at Google that incorporate some aspect of meditation or mindfulness. And Meng—who was born in Singapore and was turned on to Buddhism by an American nun—has slowly ascended to icon status within the company. More than one Search Inside Yourself student has asked Meng for his autograph. 

There is in fact little data to support the notion that meditation is good for Google’s bottom line, just a few studies from outfits like the Conference Board showing that emotionally connected employees tend to remain at their current workplaces. Still, the company already tends to its employees’ physical needs with onsite gyms, subsidized massages, and free organic meals to keep them productive. Why not help them search for meaning and emotional connection as well?

Because "making a shitload of money" is what it's all about, right?

Geez, Google really could use me I guess. But I digress...slightly...

First of all companies like Google, Facebook and Twitter are capitalist enterprises.  Their fiduciary duty is to return money on their investment to their stockholders.  That is their koan　(公案);  that is their prime directive.

Their prime directive is not to help you transcend your suffering or to even make it feasible or enable you to easily do so, dear cube-dweller.  That's not to say there's not people in those organizations who want to do so, but rather, the corporate DNA prioritizes the return on investment to stockholders above all else.

On the other hand, there's Yun-men and Case 16:

雲門曰、世界恁麼廣闊。 

Unmon said, "The world is vast and wide. 

因甚向鐘聲裏披七條。 

Why do you put on your seven-piece robe at the sound of the bell?"

 Mumon's Comment 

無門曰、大凡參禪學道、切忌、隨聲遂色。 

In studying Zen, you should not be swayed by sounds and forms. 

縱使聞聲悟道、見色明心也是尋常。 

Even though you attain insight when hearing a voice or seeing a form, this is simply the ordinary way of things. 

殊不知、納僧家、騎聲蓋色、頭頭上明、著著上妙。 

Don't you know that the real Zen student commands sounds, controls forms, is clear-sighted at every event and free on every occasion? 

然雖如是。 且道、聲來耳畔、耳往聲邊。 

Granted you are free, just tell me: Does the sound come to the ear or does the ear go to the sound? 

直饒響寂雙忘、到此如何話會。 

If both sound and silence die away, at such a juncture how could you talk of Zen? 

若將耳聽應難會、眼處聞聲方始親。 

While listening with you ear, you cannot tell. When hearing with your eye, you are truly intimate. 

Mumon's Verse  

頌曰會則事同一家   With realization, things make one family;
不會萬別千差         Without realization, things are separated in a thousand ways.
不會事同一家         Without realization, things make one family;
會則萬別千差         With realization, things are separated in a thousand ways.

If you're meditating "to get ahead" your practice is probably going to be very difficult.  If you are having a mindfulness program to "adjust the EI of the employees to increase their productivity" every last one of them will be miserable.

The practice Yun-men describes above is a deep practice that simply isn't concerned with material outcomes.  You might get some good fortune over time as a result of them,  but if you're doing any mindfulness practice for the outcome you will miss the mark.

It's kind of like the magazine cover indicator:  by the time something is over-popularized, it's an indication that whatever people found attractive enough to popularize it in the first place is not accurately rendered; in the CEO's case it's usually over-hype leading to a bubble in the stock price.  In the mindfulness practice situation, it's more of an issue of inaccurate rendering of the practice itself, as reflected in said practices stated goals.  You can already see the outlines of that in what I quoted above from Wired. 

So I guess that means I have to attend much more practice more myself, now doesn't it?  Yes, it does.

I wrote elsewhere that your meditation practice (and I'd broaden that to the entirety of your Zen practice) is of immense value.  It is, but only pursued without the expectation that anything will be derived from it.

Why the "Emerging" Buddhism of the 21st Century is not "Integral"

I had a good discussion on this thread with Al about to what extent the "Integral" influence in Buddhist Geeks has inhibited their ability to represent Buddhism.

That thread notwithstanding,  I think it's a bit useful to explore the question a bit further.  My theses are pretty simple, firstly:

• "Integral" purports to contain everything.
• "Integral" does not contain criticism, deconstruction, annihilation, or other information that would negate or render meaningless the "validity" or, "cash value" (using William James' phrase) of it.
• Such antitheses of "Integral" have truth value.
• Therefore "Integral's" assertion of containing everything, or everything good, or useful is false.

And secondly:

• People who think they have a "belief" system or "philosophy" that is "supreme" somehow, tend to have blind spots that can be difficult for such people to recognize.  This is because they don't need to look at their blind spots, because doing so might call into question their "supreme" outlook.

The latter point is why I prefer Zen actually: I know I don't have it all, I know I have blind spots.   It's also why I think Buddhist Geeks is provincial in its approach to Buddhism.

Now I'd like to illustrate the above points from the Integral folks themselves.  First, consider this "What is the Integral Movement?" page:

Something amazing is happening right now.

All around the world, a new culture is beginning to emerge.

It's a culture of people like you—people who are bringing more beauty into the world, more love to our human family, and more wholeness to lives. People who understand that we are all still evolving, and that growth and self-discovery is a life-long journey.

It's a culture of people who are creating an entirely new vision of who we are and where we are going—a positive, inspiring, radically hopeful vision of the future.

Notice the appeal: people like you are bringing more beauty to the world, more love, - and we're evolving! Aren't you the clever one for having stumbled into this place!

Integral Life is ground zero for this emerging culture.
At Integral Life you will discover everything you need to unlock your own deepest potentials, and will gain access to the most powerful tools, practices, and perspectives on the planet—all designed to help you to upgrade your own health, happiness, and work in the world.

You'll have everything you need, which, in my case, at that the moment might include some works on stochastic processes, measure theory, and information geometry.  Seriously? Seriously? They're saying you can get happiness from some website/social network, etc.! What's wrong with this picture? Do I have to spell it out for you?

Integral Life is home to the most provocative and insightful conversations on the planet. Here we feature some the world's most prominent teachers, leaders, artists, and visionaries—all of whom are part of the emerging Integral Renaissance that is already sweeping across the globe, and transforming every known field of human activity. From art to sexuality, to psychology and spirituality, to politics, business, and leadership, to education, medicine, and personal development, to literally every other corner of the human experience—there is an integral revolution occurring in every single dimension of our lives. And it's growing fast. We know that problems cannot be solved by the same level of thinking that created them. As our problems become ever more complex, more interconnected, and more global, it becomes increasingly clear that we need to find a whole new level of thinking and problem solving in order to meet the great challenges of our time. This is the next level. The next major stage of human evolution

You, too, can be part of the "in" crowd if you join this messianic next "major stage of human evolution."

And you don't need anything else, because they have the most provocative and insightful conversations (and hence narratives) on the planet!

Except, of course, those provocative and insightful conversations won't include any honest discussion of the truth value of the above, which is a somewhat less fact-laden assertion than "50,000,000 Elvis Fans Can't Be Wrong."

What else could people who buy into this stuff be  missing?  Well, a bit of an answer is coming...

Next, I'd like to consider Zen Buddhism and "Integral," simply because Genpo Merzel and Diane Hamilton have conflated the two at times.  To do that I'll quote (somewhat at length so I can't be accused of quoting out of context) from her "Integral Zen" interview she did with Vincent Horn a while back (Note to Vince: it'd be good to explicitly date this stuff, but I guess you did that implicitly via the URL.)  I'll skip the bit about a "trans-lineage practice community" because it's too easy to go there and I don't have enough time; regardless, here's a more telling tidbit:

Vince: Interesting. And have you found that there’re any shadow sides or weaknesses with the transmutation path?
Diane: Yeah. I mean, there are a lot of teachers who come to mind who’ve been criticized for bringing everything to the path including alcoholism, womanizing, not being straight with finances. All of it. In other words, it’s harder, much harder to stay as clear from an ethical perspective when everything is included. It can start to feel as though whatever arises is perfect as it is, when in fact, there are moments when some things should simply be said no to. And so I think that’s the shadow. Either way, even when we talk about renunciation, either way you can start to see that no matter what the type of path we choose, we have to work with something about the underbelly of that path. Which is, by its nature, a transmutation issue. If that makes sense...
Vince:...And I know that the approach of Zen that you’re teaching now, you’re calling it integral Zen?
Diane: Mm-hmm.
Vince: Its concern is with exactly that, what you’re talking about. How to navigate all the complexities of the world and figure out a way to approach spirituality that’s sort of taking into account these things.
Diane: Well, I think that’s what it’s ripening toward. I would say that the original inspiration, because why would you add the word “integral” to Zen, that doesn’t make any sense from a Zen perspective. I mean, nothing can be added, nothing can really be taken away. And particularly, why would you add a conceptual map to Zen? Because Zen is the most radically non-conceptual system and it’s really quite provocative and beautiful in that regard, in how rigorous and relentless it is. And teaching Zen can be a great challenge, just precisely because to use language to teach Zen. Which is why the stories of the famous masters, they do all of these kind of unorthodox behaviors like putting shoes on their heads and walking out of the room because the cutting away of conceptual barriers and the thought that creates a duality between us and reality as it is. That’s its brilliance. So the idea of even adding the word “integral” to Zen is just, from one point of view, sort of stupid. [Laughs]
Vince: But you did it?
Diane: I did… well yeah, because I’m just naturally dumb [Laughs] and I’m a terrible Zen teacher. But the reason I did it really was because there was just a lot of energy within the integral community of spiritual seekers to practice in. So really…I remember saying to my teacher, Genpo Roshi, “What’s Integral Zen?” and he said, “My life.” Because all of our lives in this global time, in this very massively multicultural milieu that we live in, we’re all integral; we’re all borrowing from traditions and participating in different aspects of practice, we’re all informed by science, we’ve all been affected by postmodern critique, we look at culture, feminism matters to us, we care about the environment, we’re all integral. Really.
So for me the inspiration was really to practice Zen in a context, or in a sangha if you will, a community of people who were informed integrally. In a way the inspiration really came from just wanting simply to give the people in the integral world a place to practice where they could relate to each other. And then what’s coming out of that is just some of these deeper questions that integral brings to spiritual practice, like, really, what does modernism and science have to say about spiritual practice?
I remember Ken at one point, Ken Wilber, asking the question: if you found out, for instance, that three hours a day of zazen was really the absolute maximum to deepen realization and that any sitting after that each day was actually… didn’t ripen into anything. Even as I speak that’s not a very good way to frame it from a Zen point of view, but, let’s imagine that there was an efficacy to the number of hours. Would you practice five if you knew that three was, you know, the right amount? So he’s, he’s bringing this question, you know, what does science, research, what does that all have to do with spiritual practice? I mean the research that’s been done on prayer, that prayer actually does seem to have impact, does that matter? And then also the postmodern considerations are brought to the question as well.
So one of the things that we talked about which is a good postmodern question is what’s the difference between the role of teacher and the role of an administrator of an organization? Lots of times within the Buddhist world the head teacher and the head administrator are the same. They may be a rockingly good teacher and a very sad leader. And maybe not actually that good at running an organization, now some of them are and are very talented at that, but not everybody is, and yet we don’t often make those distinctions. So integral would invite us to go ahead and make those distinctions, and work with that and see what comes of that. So, it’s an experiment, but, all of spiritual practice is an experiment in a way.
Vince: And I notice in your teachings, like, there was much more of a sense of a collective exploration that I’d never really experienced on retreats before, and I found that to be interesting, and it seemed related to dharma teaching because you were obviously doing teaching but then there was a sort of interpersonal, I felt like shadow work, going on as well, and at one point I actually had this feeling of like we’re just sitting around talking about being human together, and I know that a big part of that was probably the way that you were framing everything, but it just felt like we were kind of helping wake each other up, and that seemed like a unique thing in some way to me given what I’ve seen in the spiritual scene. Could you say something about that?
[Diane:] Yeah, I would say that I have a tremendous amount of respect for the lineage master and the role of the master in, particularly in Zen practice. The relationship of the master. And at the same time, in our time I also have a tremendous amount of faith in the fellow practitioners. And conventionally it’s said that the sangha or the group of practitioners are actually like stones that rub up against each other and actually help to round each other out. I feel that the recognition of our true nature, it’s our birth right, it’s a attendant to who we are, and having a really skillful person who can help you realize or see who you really are, but that actually can be in the form of somebody who is sitting next to you, it doesn’t always have to be in a vertical transmission, although we need that, but the sangha matters as well. And maybe because I’m a woman, or maybe because I grew up in a large family, or maybe because I’m a Mormon, this again would be an integral question. What influence is it that I put as much emphasis as I do on the sangha? But my guess is if you were to.. I’m imagining there’s just more of that emphasis across Buddha dharma in America than certainly we might have experienced in the past just because of the time that we’re in. And I think spiritual practice is really about becoming a full human being, as opposed to whatever we might think enlightenment means, or whatever it means to be divinely inspired, but actually to integrate that, into the absolute challenge of the flesh and boniness of our experience, if you will.

Because "we're all" borrowing from traditions and "integral, integral, integral" we need an "Integral" zen? Because Ken Wilber asked a question about quantifying a realization?  Because Ken Wilber asked a question that completely misses the point of practice? (And, no, the point of practice is not exactly verbatim what Suzuki wrote in "Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind" either, but Suzuki accurately captured the mindset required, but that's a whole other post.)

Because we're not full human beings if we're not integral, integral integral?

Diane Hamilton, I guess, recognizes that "no matter what the type of path we choose, we have to work with something about the underbelly of that path."  And it's "sort of stupid" to add "integral" to Zen...but...a) I guess she doesn't quite recognize the "Integral" underbelly, and b) the very act of "Integralizing" Zen marginalizes Zen to some degree, and given the messianic pretensions of the "Integral" movement as illustrated above is going to have some distortion of the transmission of Zen (and mutatis mutandis for other traditions).

Now if one calls me a "fundamentalist" for this critique, so be it.  But I'd prefer the term "old school" myself. Lin-Ji or Hakuin would never countenance this stuff, and for good reason. 

I am really grateful to Vince for all his work here, and I mean that sincerely.  I mean that sincerely because I think he did bring an accurate picture of what these "Integral" folks are to light, and what their take on Buddhism is.   It's not particularly useful to practice though for many, and certainly does not reflect the world in which most Buddhists dwell, and is hardly a complete representation of how Buddhism will exist in the foreseeable future.

You could make the same arguments above from Nagarjuna, of course.  

"Integral" ignores the globalization trend

Thanks to the recent Brouhaha about Buddhist-you-know-what, I found out that this "Integral" stuff is still going on. 

I thought I'd written a series of blog posts on why Integral is hoo-hah.  Maybe I did, maybe I didn't.

But if such posts exist, maybe it's due for a rewrite. 

"Western" Buddhism need not incorporate things that were more rigorously handled elsewhere.  Especially when, due to globalization, the boundaries between East and West have been dissolving.  The folks in Japan and Korea (and lately China) making those electronic gizmos are a lot more worldly than the folks who are trying to "Westernize" "Eastern" thought.

I don't remember where I saw it in which airport in Japan, but Buddhists in Japan have been  deep in existentialism for years. 

You learn stuff when you've been to Asia two or three dozen times.  The world is a helluva lot more integrated than you'd imagine.   It's sad that some folks are still stuck in "Western" Buddhism versus "Eastern" or "Immigrant" Buddhism paradigms.  

Well, that's yet another series of posts for another day.

I don't know why lately there's been a surge of posts I've been thinking about for this blog. 

But one thing is clear: the emerging aspects of Buddhism are not the way anyone in the Buddhist blogosphere, yours truly included, imagines it to be.