12.11.2004

If Buddha is On My Side, Then....

When does spiritual practice cross the line? Who is the Self that I am Self-Helping?

Hard Wired for God

I'm probably the last person in the Northern Hemisphere to be catching up with the discussion about The God Gene: How Faith is Hardwired Into Our Genes, but here's a good background piece for anyone else not quite up to speed. I think the subject of how human physiology affects our experiences of religion is fascinating. Another facet of this written about of late is a UC David ongoing study of how elastic -- how open to change -- the brain systems that human regulate attention and emotion are.
With electroencephalogram (EEG) caps, attention measurements, emotion testing and a form of meditation practice called Shamatha, researchers hope to answer a key question about the brain systems that regulate attention and emotion. How much can those systems change with effort, how much - in the Silly Putty neuroscience term applied to our malleable brains - is plasticity at work?
At root, the researchers understand that, "The act of paying attention to something, picking it out of the stream of sensations that bombards our brains, is critical to remembering it, said Ewa Wojcuilik, a UC Davis assistant professor who specializes in visual attention. But paying attention can be tough. Give people something simple and boring to do, and their distractibility zooms."

Indeed, I was thinking about that in great details last week through my 90 minutes on the mat at the zendo. Some folks, though, have far greater -- and scientifically measurable -- success.

The UC David project sounds like one part sesshin and one part TV's Survivor. Perhaps the regular updates will be available here.

Don't Loan Money to People Who Don't Have Much To Lose

Members of my family are reminded of my constant habit of news foraging -- (which was truly unleashed with the advent of the Net...) -- as I send them emails with links to Truth is Stanger than Fiction Updates throughout the week. This news update from Ephraim, UT, was too wonderful to pass up. A bank realizes some significant earnings offering very speculative loans to a 9,000-member polygamist sect that believed civilization was about to end. Ultimately, though, Ultimately, as the piece notes, "the bad loans -- along with the embezzlement of nearly $5 million by the bank's head cashier -- would lead to the collapse of the 99-year-old bank." End Time might actually not be the Right Time to leverage your income.

In a wonderful bit of understatement, the article quotes a banking supervisor:

The Bank of Ephraim had profited for many years from higher-interest loans to the sect, whose members live in the twin cities of Hildale and Colorado City astride the Utah-Arizona state line. But eventually the bank ``got in too deep,'' investing heavily in increasingly risky ventures with sect members who ``didn't have much to lose,'' Utah Banking Supervisor Jim Thomas said.
As for me, I just want a gift toaster.

Been Away...

Binge Blogging ... After staying up way too late the first few nights of setting up Buddhapada, I scribble a few notes for possible postings, and then fall into radio silence. I suspect that putting off any postings until I can tighten up the prose in a draft is not the blogging way. On sesshin a few years ago a teacher reminded me that sitting 5 minutes every day was far preferable to sitting for extended periods only once or twice a week... I shall discuss this with my good friend Sam Sara.

12.05.2004

You Should Read Real Live Preacher

Well, it might be a little light on the Soto, but there's a lot of good writing and thinking in the blog Real Live Preacher. I actually discovered the blog through the publication of the collection of entries entitled -- ta da! -- RealLivePreacher.com. The blog's author is Gordon Atkinson, and the book is published by Eerdmans. Atkinson is the pastor of a small church in San Antonia, Texas. What I've read so far is probing, honest, and articulate. A nice balance between immediacy and eloquence. Definitely a bookmark of note.

Do All That You Can

The death of a remarkable young man. Xolani Nkosi Johnson is the subject of Jim Wooten's book We Are All the Same: A Story of a Boy's Courage and a Mother's Love. His mother was HIV-positive, and he was born HIV-positive. He survived past his second birthday -- not the usual case -- and became a well-known figure when he addressed the international AIDS conference in Durban.

At the conclusion of his speech he said:

"When I grow up, I want to lecture to more and more people about AIDS. And if Mommy Gail will let me, [I want to lecture] around the whole country. I want people to understand about AIDS, to be careful and respect AIDS. You can't get AIDS if you touch, hug, kiss, or hold hands with someone who is infected.

Care for us and accept us--we are all human beings.

We are normal. We have hands. We have feet. We can walk, we can talk, we have needs just like everyone else. Don't be afraid of us. We are all the same!"

In the NYT piece, Wooten said, "I'm now 67, and here's this kid from whom I learned several valuable lessons and was reminded of lessons I had learned early in life and overlooked."

Wooten noted that Nkosi had a mantra: "Do all you can with what you have in the time you have in the place you are." And he declared, "I don't think he was the same. He was a very different kind of human being. I regard him as superior to me."

Is that who a Bodhisattva is?

Come to Katonah

For anyone who can make it to Katonah, NY, before January 9, 2oo5, there is a small gem of an exhibit entitled, Eternal Presence: Handprints and Footprints in Buddhist Art. In 2 medium-size rooms, there is a extraordinary exhibt of Buddhist art, much of it Tibetan, but also from India, Pakistan, Burma (Myanmar), Thailand, and Japan, from the 2nd century BCE through the 20th century. Much of the exhibit has never been seen publically before -- and I think that, even though the show will travel to other cities, all the piece in Katonah might not be in the traveling show. Go, go. go.

Lone Star Zen

Here's a piece from the Ft. Worth Star-Telegram about The Quang Chieu Zen Monastery in Rendon, Texas, about 20 miles SE of downtown Ft. Worth. The piece notes that "A year ago, Zen Buddhist monks and nuns from around the world, plus hundreds of lay Buddhists from the United States, dedicated the majestic new temple of the Quang Chieu Zen Monastery." Now, it sounds as if they have a growing sanhga, including "North Texas engineers, postal workers, homemakers, insurance agents and their children."

Raised a Roman Catholic, it was interesting to read in the piece about a Roman Catholic and Vietnamese construction company owner -- who apparently had not had any introduction to Zen -- who now sits zazen at the temple and attends Mass on Sundays. As he notes:

"'Can you be this and that at the same time? Why not?' the man said one night after an evening meditation service. 'You can have burgers and soup at the same time. You can have chop suey and tacos. I'm not here to find Buddhism but to find myself. Now, when I read the Bible, I read it with a clear mind.'"

When I come back from sesshins, I'm always struck by how many Catholics I have met. One, a short, determined, and very funny nun (I'd guess in her 70s) told me over lunch at the end of a sesshin 2 years ago, "You know, by Saturday night my legs hurt so bad that I was saying my rosary, and I said, 'Jesus, you'd better get him to ring that damn bell!'" There was nothing about Pat to make you think that she was a big one for daily rosaries, but I didn't ask her then. I think I was nervous the entire week-end about the impressions I imagined I was making on everyone.

My back and shoulders hurt so much on a recent sesshin that during a break before the final evening's zazen I went to my car and retreived a rosary that I hadn't held in at least a year. I used each bead to signal a breath. No joyful or glorious or sorrowful mysteries. Just a breath. There are already enough mysteries as to why I am walking the direction I am. But at lunch at the end of sesshin I told my friend that I had remembered her exhortation to Jesus and had held my rosary tightly. She laughed and gave me a big hug.

More Talk???!!

Chatter, chatter, chatter... could the world need more talk? And about Zen? Still, indeed, I'm opening a (very) modest page to hold links to interesting articles or whatevers, and perhaps to post a few thoughts, with the hope that others may enjoy the reading, and offer some thoughts of their own. I have a good deal less than even a beginner's mind with blogging; so, these might be a shaky few opening days. But I hope it grows more interesting!