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.

More on the Cultural Provincialism of Buddhist Geeks

All of this means is that Vincent Horn has work to do.  Hopefully he takes his Buddhist Geeks project to a better place as a result of this.

Anyway, I was looking at some of their material yesterday, and was struck by a few things:

• The Buddhist lineage holders they have represented ...are...just who? There's Diane Hamilton.   Is Shinzen Young a recognized lineage holder? I know, I know, he's trained in this and that, and maybe he does have some authentic lineage recognition.  I think he's a decent enough teacher from what I've seen.  Ken McLeod has some training though. But Rinzai seems largely missing (with one exception I'll get to shortly). South East Asian: absent. Asian teachers from Asia are scarce except perhaps for a Tibetan teacher. Yes, yes, they had Martine Batchelor.  But still...

• There is a huge over-representation of those "Integral" folks.  "Integral," for those of you who read this blog and don't know about it, is a philosophy as crafted by someone who didn't really know what was going on in philosophy at the time.  I can't really put it more politely than that, and I can be substantially less polite, so I should leave it there. (But for a hint as to why I'm so negative, let the thing speak for itself, so to speak.)  To a Buddhist, a Mahayana Buddhist, a Mahayana Buddhist that's read Nagarjuna and the Lotus Sutra,   "Integral" "philosophy" which purports to "explain/address everything" is not simply redundant  - it's not even wrong, as the physicist (Pauli?) said.  (You can go back and read that sentence in your best Christopher Walken impression, if you want.) Teachers associated with "Integral" in Buddhist Geeks include Diane Hamilton, Keith Martin-Smith, David Frenette,  Hokai Sobol and others.  Remember the overwhelming majority of Buddhist teachers in the US have no connection with "Integral" whatsoever.  "Integral" is not anything that professional philosophers  work with in any degree that I'm aware of.  "Integral" has been roundly and justly derided in more than a few places (including this place) for its arrogant claims.  Why this over-representation?  Why no critics of Integral, of which there are more than a few, not the least folks who do have at least an introductory understanding of Western and Eastern thought?  This I think is related to why BG have been so reluctant to respond to Arun's points about the lack of Asian representation in BG. Implicit in Arun's comments (not to mention Barbara's and mine) is that there's something missing from BG.   But Integral folks would claim their philosophy has "nothing missing,"  which is kind of absurd because it doesn't contain its annihilation or synthesis. (Take some Hegel with some Nagarjuna and call me in the morning.) At any rate a decent portion of the Buddhist blogosphere, Brad Warner included, regards these Integral folks as spiritual hucksters.   That these folks have a prominent place at any Buddhist conference raises some questions, to say the least. 

• Regarding the things of technology, Buddhist Geeks is again highly provincial.   I can't expect them to be exposed to the breadth of technical folks that I have.  But just as one point: with the exception of a few folks dealing with computers/communication (and most that I've seen not in any deep sense) what other technical areas have been represented?  By whom?  I deal with folks who approach this subject much more deeply, and yes, that means these folks are not doing the difficult work, generally. And more to my point, environmental, biological, defense/security sciences, etc. are all left out of BG, as far as I've been able to tell. 

• Oh, yes, they have "meditation  as technology."  This is rather problematic from a Buddhist standpoint, unless it's simply a bad expression.  Technology relates to the use of tools. Tools are used for purposes,  and meditation neither needs tools, nor, strictly speaking, is itself a tool. 

On project proposals, start-ups, and heck, life

I often think that a useful attitude to getting things done, Buddhist though it may not necessarily be in its effects (that's for another post, but it involves right speech and right livelihood), is to approach any task with the determination and confidence of Vo Nguyen Giap.  He's 102 now, Wikipedia asserts. Moreover, as you can see in the interview embedded,  his language is simple enough that if you have a even a smattering of high school French, you can understand him.

I bring up Gen. Giap for another reason about project proposals, life, the universe, and everything.

The odds are against you.

The odds are against you because you lack experience, you're getting older, because things work until they don't because you're never fighting the last battle, because history never repeats itself, because there's a zillion others in competition, because capitalism is inherently unstable and the markets for your products are decreasing because of increasing concentration of wealth, because time, money, equipment, and staff is limited, etc. 

The odds are against you and there's simply no point in worrying about it.  Rather you have to find yourself where you are, and act properly, and effectively where you are. 

And even monkeys fall from trees.

You will make mistakes. They will cost. The two most common reasons for failure by any organization are poor management and under-capitalization.  (Do you need a guru to tell you that?)  That is, people are living their lives in the work world as they do in the rest of their world. (I just realized that we need a part of speech that is like a fractal property, rather than a simile or metaphor, but I digress. A simile comes close enough for the purposes herein.)

All of the above is to say that the First Noble Truth permeates the work world, including the start-up technology work world.  And by realizing that one can start to dwell and to flourish amidst this world has the First Noble Truth and start to transcend it. 

And the only way to keep going is to realize that that you're either going to learn a lot and fail along the way (the most likely outcome for many new projects) or you're going to win by a combination of getting lucky and, through attrition, surmounted as many obstacles as were in your path and then some. Kind of like the approach that the North Vietnamese army took, but naturally their conduct was in the same category, morally, as those of any other war-making entities. They killed many people. As did the US.  But if you're too attached to the outcome of your project, start-up, etc. etc.,  you probably will not understand and learn from your mistakes, and probably get attached to the obstacles in your path.

So,  with right livelihood, and with an ethical approach, there's nothing wrong with borrowing the motivation for the morale of Gen. Giap, and not the nasty violent bits of war.

And one other thing to point out, which I'm pretty sure permeated the NVA's morale is this: You're pretty lucky already if you're involved in some high tech project or start-up or what-not.  Most folks don't get that far. And, hopefully, you've been exposed to real work so there's an understanding that what you're doing is far, far more easy on you than most people working in the world. 

Now I don't know if the guru of Silicon Valley had similar advice, but if not, I have no idea what he's peddling.

Will meditating help you "get ahead" in such an environment permeated by First Noble Truth chaos and the fog of economic war?  If you're asking that question in the hopes of getting an answer then you're too attached to the outcome.  Your meditation practice is of immense value in the conduct of your life for many reasons, but if you're trying to get something out of it,  please, if you are in the Zen school, consult somebody competent in a lineage and discuss your practice with that person. Please.

Coming soon: Buddhism and Technology: The Convergence...

In doing an admittedly not too deep dive on Buddhist Geeks, the name of one Jerry Colonna, "Yoda of Silicon Valley" came up.

And I thought...this guy gets money for this? 

And I realized that maybe a post or two on Buddhist approaches to technology and business might be useful.  And if you want that I should profit from this, well, I promise I'll make less money than that guy from this, and I won't object.  But it's not really my point, which is that this information should be available, and it's not magic, and besides you can, if you wish, compare Yoda's wisdom to mine. 

It might save folks a bunch of money.  

Heck open-sourcing some information on that topic might accelerate better quality content and services from other Yodas. (I assume that's the plural of Yoda.)  But as a minimum it might de-mystify how a  Buddhist might approach those issues that come up day to day in businesses, especially technology companies.  Those issues need not - and won't - have me deal with any specific information related to my current work, of course.   But there's some general things I've learned over the years that could probably be of use to others.

Here's some ideas bouncing around in my head:

• Your project/proposal : what is the reality and what to do about "No."
• The impermanence of technology, dreams, existence
• The right time to do something.
• The right people with whom to work.
• Resources are finite.  Just do your best.
• Every organization is dysfunctional and that's OK.

I could go on...but I think this is a good example of what I might be able to provide in this area. 

On Buddhist Geekery, Gravitas and Ageism

Barbara, of all people, seems to have initiated a  bit of an animated conversation in the Buddhist blogosphere of late, with a post on the Buddhist Geeks conference, and  noting Arun's expected response to its cultural homogeneity.  Barabara thought that the people involved didn't really have that much to say, because of the fact that there wasn't a lot of age and experience. Maybe it's age, maybe it's ageism, but it seems to be something deeper.

Vince Horn remonstrated to Barbara, as you can see in the comments.

I then had a rather lengthy Twitter discussion with him.

Anyway, I think a point of difference exists at least between myself and Mr. Horn, on the point raised here:

1. 無門　Mumon7 ‏@Mumon723h

   @VincentHorn RE: @mahabarbara 's latest post maybe you should interview her or me for that increasing demographic of older Buddhists.

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2. Vincent Horn ‏@VincentHorn16h

   @Mumon7 @mahabarbara : In my experience there are already plenty of older Buddhists engaging with #buddhistgeeks.

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無門　Mumon7‏@Mumon7

@VincentHorn @mahabarbara Do you think #buddhistgeeks is already culturally broad enough?

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2:48 PM - 30 Aug 13

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1. Vincent Horn ‏@VincentHorn15h

   @Mumon7 @mahabarbara : broad enough for who?

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2. 無門　Mumon7 ‏@Mumon715h

   @VincentHorn @mahabarbara How 's "broad enough to contain what/how/why Buddhism is, will be, and needs to be practiced?" No pronoun there.

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3. Vincent Horn ‏@VincentHorn14h

   @Mumon7 : I don't assume to know how Buddhism "needs" to be practiced, nor would I take personal responsibility for all that. #jeez

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4. 無門　Mumon7 ‏@Mumon714h

   @VincentHorn Me, I took vows to save all beings, end all delusions, understand the Dharma, attain the unattainable . But that's just me.

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5. Vincent Horn ‏@VincentHorn14h

   @Mumon7 : I'd call that a "literalist" interpretation of the bodhisattva vows. I'd also call it grandiose and potentially arrogant.

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6. 無門　Mumon7 ‏@Mumon714h

   @VincentHorn When you start to try to get it into the marrow of your life, you find it's terribly difficult; it's humbling, until you relax

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Before I begin, I'd like to point out that Mr. Horn's exchange with Genpo Merzel a few years ago was extremely valuable, as it unintentionally exhibited those aspects of Mr. Merzel that showed who he was.  Western Buddhism actually owes Mr. Horn a debt of gratitude for that.

If I had a place called Buddhist Geeks, I'd endeavor to use it as a vehicle to rightly communicate Buddhism, including its practice in day to day life, in the Mahayana flavor in which I practice.

If I understand Mr. Horn correctly he doesn't know how Buddhism needs to be practiced, and moreover an attempt to pointedly endeavor to practice the Boddhisattva vows, to cultivate it into the marrow of one's bones is grandiose and potentially arrogant.

I think this is indeed the point of difference between at least he and I, and it speaks as well to Barbara's, and probably Arun's points made before.

Not that it really matters that much.  But there really is a significant cultural difference here. And it's not, I submit, due to any kind of "literalism" or fundamentalism.

Way back in college I had a professor, Professor Y.  He was almost unique in my school's faculty in that he was one of the few faculty members who lacked a Ph.D.; it was said when asked he would say "Who would teach me?" It was also said that he once did try to do a Ph.D., but he wound up telling his advisor to go f*ck himself. (Nobody knew for sure if that was true. I doubt it, but wouldn't be surprised if it was true.) His manner of teaching was to manically fill up the two long blackboards in the classrooms with equations, completely from memory. None of that Powerpoint stuff they do nowadays.  His manner of expression was pure Brooklyn gangster, albeit with a knowledge of mathematics you could only aspire to have one day.  He never used the faculty recommended textbook,  and instead always handed out Xeroxed notes, written in beautiful cursive handwriting.  He wasn't above saying (literally) "I'll kill you" to someone who might have been in a position to be cheating (but wasn't).

If you didn't know him well, he came across as arrogant, and pretentiously authoritative to the point of being somewhat insane.  You'd think that, except he was the  goddamned smartest, most exacting, most thorough, most fair (in his own failing 2/3 of the class way) professor I had in all my years of schooling, and that was true of anyone who had him and passed his class as well.  My own thesis advisor was less pressure-inducing,  but even he knew, for example those "pictures" of white noise processes in books were not, and detracted from the beauty of what the process was.  Oh yeah, Professor Y. wrote several - only several - fundamental papers in communication systems theory. He wrote no other papers.   But those he did write were fundamental; they revolutionized the areas about which they were written. He didn't cultivate many graduate students, and those he had were better than I am.  And those of his undergraduate students who got C's knew the material better than other professors' students who got A's.   Professor Y. told me a few years ago that he had more respect for someone that took his class and failed in than someone who deliberately avoided trying to take his class. Professor Y's was well known as a very difficult teacher, but regardless of your grade, if you passed his class you knew the material well.

I go on that little diversion to mention one other aspect of Professor Y.: His exactingness and his attention to getting it right made a profound impression on me.   "It's got to be in your blood!!!" he used to say, because people's livelihoods (and in many cases, lives) depended on your ability to come forward with the right answer.

Now do you see why I'm mentioning Professor Y.?  In some ways he was kind of my first Zen teacher, except that he taught Electrical Engineering courses, and his EE Zen still informs my engineering and zen. He taught me the spirit with which you have to approach an engineering problem,  which was the spirit of a ferocious Beginner's Mind, in fact.  You gotta question everything to make sure it's right, for right livelihood.

That, I submit is the convergence of Buddhism and technology.  It really freakin' is.  Thanks to Professor Y., I got to be around to do a few fundamental things that enabled the wireless internet to take off.  It might be why I often get the feeling that Mr. Horn, and some of the other folks re: Buddhist Geeks,  just don't get it.

Mr. Horn, in his reply to Barbara was mentioning there was nothing about the actual content of the Buddhist Geeks conference. Well, as one of those folks who was otherwise engaged during the time that conference went on (limited to 300 folks as it were), I wasn't there. 

But thanks to Mr. Horn, there's content galore related from Buddhist Geeks from which to comment.

Here's an episode called Meditating to Get Ahead.  I will wait for the transcript, since I generally don't have time to sit through an entire podcast.   Let me point out that as a technologist manager (yep, a real flesh and blood one, with about 50 patents to his name),  I need an elevator speech to devote my time to something. I really am a busy man.   MEDITATING TO GET AHEAD?????  Why would one even ask that question, because going in a direction of a "Yes, and it does because..." answer from a Buddhist perspective it's about as Buddhist as Frederick Lenz.

OK, maybe there was substance in that podcast I missed.   Maybe there might have been stuff in there with which I agreed at some level.  But I still don't have time to listen to an entire podcast.  Especially since I've seen the Way conveyed with a gesture.  Well, let's consider a transcript.  But after I consider this elevator pitch: "Truth is a Red Herring."

I'll just say about that, nobody needs a Mr. Ken McLeod to tell you that  "truth" in the context of "true practice" means  you've got to live your life. You sign on the dotted line.  Your practice truly practiced is carried out, it is your "project" as Sartre would say. There's no good words in English for the right verb, but 行なうis a pretty good word in Japanese for what's meant here. To not try to keep the question of whether one is practicing or not...well...Mr. Ken McLeod might not be teaching a Dharma that should be cultivated in the marrow of one's bones, I guess.  I don't know, I saw his site, and there's lots of theory there it seems. But I don't get not much sense of who he might be as a person who has accomplished his project of being who he is as a person of the  Way (法), or why I might see what he has to say on it, and unfortunately in Mr. Horn's exchange with me, I got no sense of that either. 

Again, I'll wait for the transcript.  But I will point out that we're all in 参禅 (sanzen) with each other all the time.  I know as I write this very post I'm failing many people who might be observing my understanding of the 法, but one must keep trying...

Here's a transcript between Vince Horn and Rohan Gunatillake. 

Vincent:    Well Buddhism is interesting from my perspective cause it is conceived in many different ways. The way that I’ve approached it is as more as sort of an inner technology, a way of transforming the mind. Now that’s a very western and modern understanding of Buddhism. Of course, the roots in the tradition that point to that and yet practicing it in a way where its sort of a little bit removed from those some of the historical cultural pieces is a new thing in a lot of ways.
So I basically approach Buddhism as a model which supports one in transforming certain patterns of mind. So it’s fundamentally focused on the interior subjective experience of the individual. And there are some very important ethical pointers toward how does one live a meaningful life, how does one interact without causing harm to other beings, to other people. And then in a modern context, there’s all sorts of question around how does one interact with the environment, the world, the ecology, etc. And those are big questions as a modern Buddhist I ponder.
Rohan:    I guess Buddhism is interesting as a religion in contrast to some other of the major religions around the world in that there’s always sort an open question. Is Buddhism a religion, a philosophy, a way of life, a practice? Whereas for Islam and Christianity, there’s never a debate whether it’s a religion because of what have been said. It has this focus of this inner work, inner practice which can be, doesn’t necessarily have to come with the more religious trappings but it can do as well. And so it has that flexibility which makes it, the other religion, traditions do that, but Buddhism is one of the most significant which has that flexibility. So it’s totally feasible to say that one is a Jew or Christian or an atheist and have a Buddhist practice of sort and that’s quite interesting.

Huh? Buddhism is a model of an "inner technology?"  With "ethical pointers" to help one live a "meaningful life?"

I realize that with things like podcasts (like this blog) there's things one's said or written that one might have gone beyond.  But if Mr. Horn (and Mr. Gunatillake) subscribe to the views above, I'd submit they really aren't getting anywhere near what Buddhism, as most Buddhists understand it,  is.  They are conflating artificial strawberry flavor with that of a wild strawberry, the kind you can't get except at those higher end food stores we well-off  proto-hipsters keep in business these days.

And it's not a red herring.  People's livelihoods, and in some cases lives, might be depending on it.  I'm going to use a metaphor from the president of the place in which I work though the context is different.  If you had 5,000 years to live, such an approach might be OK.  But you probably don't have much more than 50 years on this planet. In that case you have to move quickly and sedulously to practice the Way, if it is the Way you think has benefit.  

Maybe some folks don't think the Way has benefit.  But if they call "not the Way" the Way, it will confuse folks at best, and at worst?

Your mileage may vary. Thanks for reading this post.

We're all either doing McMindfulness or 功夫

Another Tricycle interview mentioning McMindfulness, if not by explicitly by name...this time via an interview  with Hozan Alan Senuake.

When you worked at the Buddhist Peace Fellowship you had a sign with a quote from Thich Nhat Hanh, “Mindfulness must be engaged.” Mindfulness has now been brought into many different realms of our culture, and that seems generally beneficial. But I recently saw an article about mindfulness being used by the US military. This seems like an odd combination. It is true that all Buddhism is engaged because the precepts and teachings are all about how we are all in relation to everyone and in relation to everything around us. That by definition is “engaged.”

When the Buddha was teaching in North India 2500 years ago, the reality of peoples lives was almost completely socially determined by gender, caste, occupation, and the tribe they were born into. Basically, where you were born was where you stayed, in a geographic as well as social sense. In that context, what the Buddha taught was something that could be seen as a kind of radical individualism. He taught that your actual position in the world and your value in it was not to be based on your birth but on your actions, and that you had to take responsibility as an individual for your actions. Fast-forward to what we have today in the West, a terribly individualist ideology. The greatest threat to Buddhism, or any progressive movement, is that it can be turned into a commodity that is sold back to you. We are constantly being sold this commodity of individualism. I believe that if the Buddha were teaching today he would be teaching a more explicitly social doctrine. He would recognize that we have created systems and structures of suffering and that the suffering is not just about individuals experiencing racism, sexism, and various kinds of oppression; what we have are structures of suffering that also have to be addressed. Engaged Buddhism addresses exactly that intersection of our individual responsibility and individual involvement in the creation of systems of suffering.

The problem that you point out about mindfulness is important. I feel there is a risk of mindfulness being seen as a technology, presented as a technique, which is sold back to us. What I’m concerned about in terms of this increasingly popular approach is that it’s being psychologized and marketed.

Certainly a lot of it is very good. Mindfulness is now happening in schools and prisons, in settings where it is truly useful. But I worry about it being brought into a corporate context and a military context. In those contexts people are being helped to find ease and suffer less within systems that are causing suffering. Right Mindfulness would be looking at the actual function of that system as well as the freedom that an individual within that system feels. I don’t wish ill to people working in corporations or people in the military; everyone has the right to be at ease and to live without oppression. On the other hand, I think that an Engaged Buddhist perspective looks at the function of that system. That’s the larger, often neglected view of mindfulness.

Well, first of all, what about them samurai?  As I've written before, Zen as we know it would not have existed but for official patronage of governments, including but not limited to their cultivation by militaries.

Secondly,  having militaries practice Buddhist precepts is not entirely wrong.  It gets substantially more than problematic of course when it's used to justify atrocities, as was done in Japan during its militarist period.  I think Senuake gets that ultimately, but it's kind of odd to bring this up at all, I think.  We get that. 

Secondly, it is in part a technique, and there's nothing really wrong with that. 

In fact, cultivation of skill and technique is part and parcel of the practice. You can't get "good" at mindfulness - like martial arts, yes, like martial arts - without seeing its practice in all areas of your life. 

While I share many of the political positions of so-called engaged Buddhism, I remain skeptical of the attempt to fit Buddhism into a political ideology, any political ideology, because the political ideology is usually a shiny object we're using to distract ourselves from something far more important.

So when I see someone go in the direction of political Buddhism,  I tend to be skeptical of the depth and quality of their practice,  given how hard it is to deeply cultivate an authentic practice.

Some of the best practitioners might not be Buddhists...

For Too Much of My Sitting...

I worried over getting it right.   I really did. I would read something...something of the order of roshi so-and-so saying that you had to practice 無 like Christ dying on the cross...and I would berate myself in thought for not being 無  with all the attendant pain and anguish that goes with being crucified.

That's the sort of thing ... like how this blog hasn't been updated in a while...it's supposed to be, right?

The convergence of my Wing Chun with my 公案 practice has helped with that. And I've always been the kind of guy that says "Don't do stuff just because the 'authorities' want you to!" That is, I always subscribed to the Gandhi thing, being revolutionary as a good thing, and so on. 

I just never realized how much we're conditioned to get nervous about it.  We've got lots of nasty stuff conditioned into us that we're not even aware of.

So,  yeah, stuff matters...but don't kill yourself over it.

For example...there's a lot of people who (obviously to you) don't quite get it. (Like this?)  But ...we're all doing to perish eventually,  and genuine practice will continue anyway, and all that will sort itself out...nobody made me judge jury and executioner.  (I sympathize with Arun, on the point made here, and would up him one by saying it's also quite Western-centric too.)  However...

It is not exactly a matter of life and death.  It is not the Great Matter of Life and Death.  Or to put it better, the matter of life and death is realized in how you approach the endless sewage stream thrown your way every day of stuff is mildly (or severely) frustrating, annoying,  often patently obviously wrong, immoral, dangerous, etc. but is not, in and of itself anything but an opportunity for calm, relaxed practice. That's true even if we're angry and have every right to be.

Thanks for reading this.