It was no longer a question of 'whether or not bicycle riding on a saddle causes erectile dysfunction.' Instead, [Schrader] said in an interview, 'The question is, What are we going to do about it?'Ouch.
The case: Nanchuan saw the monks of the eastern and western halls fighting over a cat. Seizing the cat, he told the monks: "If any of you can say a word of Zen, you will save the cat." No one answered. Nanchuan cut the cat in two. That evening Zhaozhou returned to the monastery and Nanchuan told him what had happened. Zhaozhou removed his sandals, placed them on his head, and walked out. Nanchuan said: "If you had been there, you would have saved the cat."
November 2000: "We've lived by the crystal ball and learned to eat so much broken glass tonight that we're in critical condition."
November 2004: "We don't know what to do. We don't know whether to wind a watch or bark at the moon."
Because of the long preparation and training required to become a master of the demanding Zen training, Fr. Hunt's achievement is one that we can all celebrate in thanksgiving to God ... Jesuits and other Christians have found Zen to be a valuable instrument for progressing in the spiritual life. ... By coming to focus on the present moment through the practice of the techniques of Zen meditation, the Christian can become aware of God's immediate loving presence.I believe it was in Kennedy Roshi's book Zen Spirit, Christian Spirit: The Place of Zen in Christian Life that he quotes something Yamada Roshi said to him:
I am not trying to make you a Buddhist, but to empty you in imitation of your Lord, Jesus Christ.
While the 1960s saw Zen emerge in the United States as a countercultural religion under the guidance of Japanese teachers, today American Zen practitioners are a growing influence in religious life. Although no hard numbers exist, many Zen centers report seeing their membership increase substantially in the last decade, and new centers are popping up across the country. Much different from the male-dominated, hierarchical and highly monastic zendos in Japan, these centers have blended elements like lay participation, female leadership and social activism to create an American form of an ancient practice.Will the lotus take root upon the rock?
.... I realized what a source of happiness turning toward pain actually is. Our avoidance of pain keeps us locked in a cycle of suffering. The Buddha said that what we take to be solid isn't really solid. It's fluid. It's dynamic energy. And not only do we take our opponents and obstacles to be solid; we also believe ourselves to be solid or permanent. In the West, we add the belief that the self is bad. That night I spent meditating, I discovered that there is no solid, bad me. It's all just ineffable experience.I'm adding Comfortable With Uncertainty to my reading list...
They're planning to break new musical ground by borrowing western hip hop rhythms to promote traditional values and persuade an increasingly westernised generation back to its roots.Yup: "Dharma Rap."
"The number of Buddhist followers in Vermont is far above 'what's normal for New England or the United States,' said Stephen Prothero, a professor of religion at Boston University who has analyzed the numbers.In Caledonia County, 15.5 percent of the residents "who practice religion describe themselves as adherents of an Eastern religion and that Buddhism is the dominant religion practiced within that subset," according to the Globe. Barnet, located in Caledonia County, is the home of Karmê Chöling, the oldest of six year-round retreat centers founded by Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche, so, perhaps, that accounts for a bit of an uptick. But Prothero says in the Globe piece that Vermont is far above "what's normal for New England or the United States."
"'Of all the states in the Northeast, Vermont has been the most accommodating of people who want to do their own thing,' said Garrison Nelson, a politics professor at the University of Vermont. ''There is less orthodoxy.'
the answer to a single question given by a teacher. Far from secular distractions, each spent the winter contemplating such questions as ``What is nothingness?'' ``Where do I come from?'' and, perhaps the most elusive of all, ``What is it?''Rev. Kosan, the abbot of the monastery, was quoted in a piece The Korea Times as observing that "During Tongango, clerics face two obstacles. One is sleepiness and the other is daydreaming." I can identify with that!...
"With the iPod, the Buddha is in the details. The finish and feel are such that you want to caress it. And when you do, wonderful things happen."The Buddha is in the details??!! I have absolutely NO IDEA what this literally means, but how weirdly wonderful to see it, and in USA Today of all places. I'm now on the look out for more headlines from them..
In American pop culture, he said, Buddhism is indistinguishable from modern New Age spirituality that promises meditative insight, happiness and self-fulfillment, yet demands nothing in return such as attendance at church, participation in ritual, moral restraint or study.Well, I'm just back from a weekend sesshin, and I felt it was demanding, but... well, that's another story. It's a long'ish, and provocative press release actually. I wish I had a deeper grasp of Buddhist history. Perhaps someone who does will post here. Most intriguing to me is the contention that the Japanese teachers who brought Zen to the U.S.:
[P]ackaged Zen for export in a manner that rendered it appealing to Western intellectuals interested in religion but alienated from the church. As a result, many of the ideas that Americans consider central to Zen -- the centrality of spiritual experience for example -- are actually lifted from Western thinkers such as the philosopher William James. Sharf concludes that Buddhism was made to order for a Western audience hungry for "spirituality" but wanting little to do with rituals, moral precepts or institutions.And as far as rectifying what he sees as misunderstandings, Sharf said, "Most (Buddhist studies) academics don't even try to reach a lay audience because they feel the gap between the scholarly and the popular understandings of Buddhism is simply too great."
Based on their survey conducted in 2002-2003, they found that one out of every seven Americans has had at least a fair level of contact with Buddhism, and that one out of eight Americans reported that Buddhism had influenced their religious life. Those are staggeringly high numbers. To put it in perspective, there are about four million Americans who actively identify as Buddhists. But if we ask how many Americans include Buddhist elements—a little or a lot—in their personal spiritual lives, the number appears to be about 12.5% of the population: that’s 26,125,000 adults. The number who say the Buddhist influence has been significant is almost the same: at 12%, that’s 25,080,000.I find that a very hopeful figure, but would Robert Sharf say that all these "nightstand Buddhists" (a term that historian of American religions Thomas Tweed coined to describe those who read a Buddhist book before bed or, perhaps, meditate in the morning or evening) are merely deluting the Dharma?
"I would like to take this time to tell you a little about myself. I am 24 years old. I have spent my entire life trying to escape from reality and obtain some type of acceptance...my biggest fear came true when I was sent to prison...It wasn't long before I started taking my own self-hatred out on others and was placed in solitary confinement. I was in a cell 24 hours a day, seven days a week. All day I lashed out more by breaking and burning everything I could...
"This happened six different times during that eight-month period. The last time I was covered in pepper-mace with no way to wash it off. I've heard it said that it is darkest before the dawn. I believe that because that last trip to the hole broke me down to nothing. I didn't want to live and I didn't have the courage to die. All I can remember thinking is that there has to be a better way to live."
"NBPS has developed a series of training manuals which explain the basic teachings of Zen, instructions of zazen (meditation), liturgy, and how to work with the moral and ethical teachings of Buddhism, all directed toward those practicing in prison. Volunteers also make regular visits to local prisons for zazen, Buddhist holidays, and retreats."Better to hear what practice means to a prisoner. For words from practitioners, go to a wonderful online newsletter, Prairie Wind, published by the Nebraska Zen Center.
has just published the results of a survey that serves to make the point. Support for compromise on issues that involve religious principles is diminishing among all Americans. It is diminishing most rapidly among the most religious of us -- self-described evangelicals, for instance, and people who attend religious services every week.When shown the statement Even elected officials who are deeply religious sometimes have to make compromises and set their convictions aside to get results while in government the percentage of those surveyed who agreed with the statement fell 10 percentage points, to 74 percent, from the results of a 2000 survey. Further,
evangelicals and weekly service-goers, the support for compromise was down to 63 percent. This represents a decline in just four years of 16 points for evangelicals and 19 points for regular worshipers.On specific issues: The willingness to support compromise among weekly service-goers (numbers for the general public are in parentheses) was down 19 points since 2000 (-six) on abortion, minus 18 points (-six) on gay rights and down 10 points (-five) on the death penalty. The pattern for Catholics was close to that of all respondents who regularly attend church.
"There is a saying in Buddhism, 'pecking in and pecking out,' and in a certain way this is happening in film," says Wenger. Pecking in and pecking out is a koan about a mother bird pecking from the outside of an egg and a baby bird pecking from the inside. Each is pecking away, trying to get rid of the eggshell, an image that reflects how a teacher and a student each work in their own way on the barriers to wisdom.
"We have a visiting Tibetan teacher who is now doing full-length films, and there are other western Buddhists who are now using film. Many of us who have studied film find it is a very good way to talk -- it is a good expression of Buddhism because it is a series of flashing stills, which in some ways is what life is like. Suzuki-roshi once said the most important thing about film is the empty screen because it can accommodate anything."
The films featured include rare footage of Suzuki Roshi, and
Among film highlights are a Fresh Look presentation of Jim Jarmusch's "Dead Man" (starring Johnny Depp, with a soundtrack by Neil Young); the San Francisco premiere of a little-known Giuseppe Tornatore ("Cinema Paradiso") classic, "A Pure Formality" (starring Roman Polanski and Gerard Depardieu); the U.S. premiere of "Beyond the Mountain," by Korean director Chung Ji-young; the San Francisco premiere of "Hi! Dharma," by Korean director Kwan Park; and the U.S. premiere of a Thai feature, "Angulimala," by Suthed Tunnirat.But, here's the thing, the greatest Buddhist film is Groundhog Day. No debate. And if you don't believe me, here's a bit more the consider. Or here. It's just a suggestion.....
Took a chance ran toThat's a selection from Bill Heyen's poem "Sake Gold," part of a new anthology, American Zen. Here's an update from the Cleveland Plain Dealer. I think the first intimation of what Zen might be came to me in the Beach Park branch of the Tampa Public Library, when I picked up a copy of One Hundred Poems From the Japanese, translated by Kenneth Rexroth. I still have the copy I bought a few days later. It's somewhere in my younger daughter's room. A few days ago, she asked me for some interesting books of poetry to read, and the Rexroth was among the titles I gave her. The words move onward.
My cabin through lightening -- odds
Against satori.
"In previous studies, mental activities such as focus, memory, learning and consciousness were associated with the kind of enhanced neural coordination found in the monks. The intense gamma waves found in the monks have also been associated with knitting together disparate brain circuits, and so are connected to higher mental activity and heightened awareness, as well."This seems to me a finding full of hope. The world, so bleak looking, the result of all our actions, and, perhaps, a way to affect the root of all our actions.
