It’s like asking the Buddha to come into a toilet.

Perhaps the greatest talk on the Buddha ever given. Tsem Tulku makes me feel like I’m in good company for possible re-incarnation as a cranky old goat. I want to hug him, but I fear he might shame me.

Not yet for sale: Giant Dalai Lama Heads.

Buddha head with my beloved Kat in the background. Boston, October 2008.

A good MetaFilter post about controversy surrounding the Dalai Lama and his detractors has turned into an interesting discussion of “Shopping Mall Buddhism” and the phenomenon of decorating your home with giant Buddha heads from Pier One. (My username = grapefruitmoon)

For the record: I don’t want to harsh anyone’s mellow, but this trend cheeses me off. No one decorates their home with giant crufixes if they are not Christian (though the Blessed Virgin does get passed around as kitsch these days). Buddhism isn’t really seen as a serious religion and is seen as “cute” or “trendy.” It’s Asian! It’s exotic! It’s got a big laughing fat guy! He’s like Santa! “Zen” has become a synonym for “peaceful,” which again, boggles my mind for its dismissiveness. 

That said: I have coveted Ganesh nightlights. How can you not? You wake up in the night and are guided to the bathroom by an elephant deity! That’s just awesome.

Serendipitous Syncretism.

Photo by Flickr user annamatic3000

After posting a very long ramble about Buddhist/Christian syncretism, I came across a great piece about an inter-faith Catholic/Buddhist Dialogue in Los Angeles. Really fascinating stuff; covers the foundations and similarities of the two faiths far better than I could. 

A short summary by way of an excerpt:

Looking for common points of reference has turned out to be more difficult that one could imagine. But, in view of the compassion central to each tradition, a concern for the welfare of all beings stands out.  Each tradition seeks to draw people towards a greater, purer more loving reality than that found in the ordinary human context of life, so that they may realize their full potential.

Lama-Rama.

I posted earlier about my pilgrimage to see His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama at Foxboro – since then, I’ve been on Lama overload. First, I bought (and read voraciously) The Art of Happiness; then while at the library using the internet, I walked past a DVD of a talk that the Dalai Lama gave at Radio City, so I had to get it. I’m becoming a Dalai Lama fan girl over here – I’ve even subscribed to the official Dalai Lama RSS Feed! Currently, I’m reading The Universe in a Single Atom, which discusses the convergence of Buddhism and modern science. It is honestly one of the best non-”new age” contemporary introductions to Buddhism that I’ve ever read. 

Dalai Lama Lego by Flickr user Dunechaser

In return for my going to watch Star Trek with him, my partner watched the Dalai Lama’s Radio City talk with me. I was really shocked and thrilled at this. Even more shocking and thrilling is that he’s asked me to come up with material for him to learn more about Buddhist philosophy. (!) Now, my life is kind of like Dharma & Greg. I’ve been raised by hippies. My partner… just quit working at a hedge fund and not only was raised Catholic in a society where everyone is Catholic, but his high school was run by Opus Dei. To say that he’s not familiar with Buddhist thought would be like saying that dogs aren’t generally good at math. 

The problem that I’m running into is that most “Intro to Buddhism” books that are written for a Western audience are really watered-down. Not only is the “new agey” kind of language pervasive, but there’s the constant, CONSTANT association with Christ. If I read “Buddha (or Christ)” in one more book claiming to pertain to Buddhist thought, I don’t know, but it’s going to put me a few steps backward on the path to Nirvana, that’s for sure.  Now, books that are exploring the parallels between Buddhist and Christian philosophy – no problem! But reading a book that purports to be about the history of Tibetan Buddhism and finding every reference to Buddha to include (or Christ) drives me mental. It’s insulting – not only to Buddha, but to Christ – to imply that Buddhist ideas can be freely substituted at will with ideas from other religions. It’s very “feel-good” kind of stuff. 

This book that I’m referencing that really stuck in my craw also did a “dissection” of Buddhist scripture that totally watered everything down to “Imagine the Jewel Tree of the world and you can have everything that you want!” Too much of this is cutting out the meat of spirituality to “new age” palatable garbage. The type of people who read this are the type who ask the Dalai Lama questions like “If you could ask every person in the world one question, what would it be?” Questions that he laughs at, refuses to answer, and refers to as “silly.”  Spirituality can certainly do a lot to enhance your life, but you have to work at it. This kind of microwave instant-gratification ready-on-demand feel-good putting a Buddha statue in your living room THING is just paying lip service to what is, in reality, a beautiful and intensely thoughtful tradition that really IS open to you if you would just put down your attachment to your cushy “right now” lifestyle and exchange it for the more real “in the moment” world view. 

Photo by Flickr user h.koppdelaney   

The Dalai Lama’s teaching are tremendously accessible – even to quantitative scientist Catholics. I would highly, highly recommend that anyone read his works or watch one of his teachings. While the DVD didn’t do justice to the warmth that he emanates in person, it showed the absolute reverence given to the Dalai Lama by the monks in the audience, a respect he truly has earned through his lifetime of working for peace.  He truly does a tremendous job of giving talks that discuss philosophy and spiritual issues from a Buddhist perspective without being limited to Buddhism specifically and yet, not dumbing-down what Buddhism is really about. 

Since immersing myself in the Dalai Lama’s teachings, my own life has already changed. I’ve stopped wearing headphones everywhere to actually experience my own inner world in relation to the world around me. I’ve stopped immediately looking for flaws in everyone that I see. (Why do we do that, as people? I know I’m not the only one who notices something to criticize about everyone. Flipping that around, it’s just as easy to notice something positive.) I smile more. Someone on the T thanked me for smiling the other day and honestly believed that I must be a “morning person.” Nothing could be further from the truth. 

I’ve really become more peaceful in all situations, to the point where my partner can no longer predict when I’m going to have a seizure because my previous aura involved irritability and irrational behavior, but now, I’m reasonably relaxed even when my brain is operating at sub-optimal levels. I don’t believe that the Dalai Lama as a person changed me in anyway, but the teachings that he has given and my willingness to absorb them have fueled positive change for me. 

Photo courtesy of Official Dalai Lama Photo Gallery

City Dharma.

I picked up City Dharma: Keeping Your Cool in the Chaos on a whim while browsing the library for books to take on my trip to Indiana. I had high hopes that it would address some of the issues that I have with Buddhist classics such as The Dharma Bums that mostly address Buddhism in a solitary and/or rural setting. 

Some of my own most profound Buddhist moments, my own little satoris, have been a result of living in the city.  Being on the T has reminded me many times that we are all one consciousness; I’ve been nearly overwhelmed with a feeling of wholeness in my heart, a literal swelling in my chest.  Walking around the city, looking at all of the windows and trying to imagine the lives of the people living in those houses, the lives of the houses themselves, reminds me that we are all living our own stories – there is no one plot, and it is not about me. 

Disappointing, the book is more a feel-good sort of self-help book about being mellow than it is any reflection on any actual Buddhist teachings.  Though there is a sort of tangential relationship between the Second Noble Truth (attachment/greed is the root cause of suffering) and the materialism that is pervasive in cities, I think that the relationship could have been explored more deeply. 

What really, really irritated me about the book is that whenever it references “Buddha nature,” it does so in terms of being “like Buddha or Christ.” Now, I know that the West is predominately a Judeo-Christian area and this book is being written for a primarily American audience, but it bothers me that so often to get anything of a religious or spiritual nature published, a writer has to bend to a Christian audience. Now, I think that Buddha and Christ did have similar philosophies in the “relaxed and groovy” area, but I really would prefer to read Buddhist commentary from a Buddhist perspective unless I’m specifically looking for a pan-religious view. I don’t think that Buddhist ideals need to be watered down in order to be palatable; I feel that it’s part of their beauty that they truly stand on their own as an “easy” world-view to adopt.

In the end, I would recommend the book for someone living in a city looking for an easy-going perspective on urban life, but not to anyone looking for a good background on Buddhist philosophy.

The Dharma Bums.

Photo by (Waltzing) Mathilda Lorre

I wrote earlier about my love for/obsession with Kerouac and briefly mentioned my re-reading of The Dharma Bums; prompted by the 50th Anniversary edition of the book. (Yes, I bought it when it came out…back in September. Six months is about right for the amount of time that new books ferment on my shelf since there is always a backlog of books to be read.)

This book was perhaps the most important book of my adolescence. I remember reading this the summer after I graduated from high school and feeling like it was speaking specifically to me. I grew up in a Buddhist household; as a kid I remember going to UU Sunday School in a shed (literally) and coloring in pictures of the Buddha. One of my favorite books as a kid was a picture book of Prince Siddhartha. Another favorite was The Mountains of Tibet, a kids’ story about reincarnation. So, The Dharma Bums was not an introduction to Buddhism so much as a real “adult” connection to it as a way of life. Certain books come along at just the right point in our lives, and upon re-reading this now at 27, I realize that 17 was exactly the right age for my first encounter with The ‘Bums. 

Photo by DanAllison

Thought dear ol’ Jack has plenty of beautiful little spiritual nuggets, the feeling of it is so adolescent than I wonder if I could connect with this at all were it my first reading.  Kerouac writes about Buddhism with a convert’s zeal, a zealousness that he himself sees – via the persona of Japhy Ryder – will not last given his continued reverence for the Catholicism of his childhood and his original saint, his brother Gerard.

Reading this now, I feel more and more sympathy and less and less tolerance for Japhy Ryder – who continually commits the sin of self-righteousness.  At one point, Japhy doesn’t even let Ray speak, assuming that he himself is more enlightened and automatically knows whatever it is that Ray might have to say. Even more than Ray’s passive misogyny, Japhy views women with less reverence than trees on the path to Buddha-hood. Japhy Ryder will extoll the Buddha-nature of a mountain and proclaim that a woman should only be used for a man’s sexual explorations (via “yabyum”) because women can not become Bodhisattvas. (And since they all “know” this, clearly this arrangement suits them.) A typically wrong-headed opinion.  Any woman understands that she, in her embodiment of the “life force” is already one with the “Buddha-nature” of the universe.

Other than Ray’s total idolization of Japhy, the other aspect that strikes me as completely adolescent is the need to experience Buddhism by completely checking out of life.  While there is plenty to be said for solitary meditation and removing one’s self from the endless cycle of consuming to work and working to consume, it’s naïve to think that “ordinary” life can’t be holy.  It’s easy to devote yourself to meditation being totally devoid of responsibility – much more challenging to be a Bodhisattva of the modern world bringing your Buddha-nature to work. If all the saints checked out, then where would the world be – suffering the endless samsara of the 21st century with no one to point us toward peace. 

Not only do I believe that we need our holy “bums” in daily life for the common good, but I don’t believe that it’s totally possible to achieve enlightenment in a vacuum.  Buddha himself eventually returned from under the Bodhi tree.  I truly believe, as Kerouac states, that “Buddhism is getting to know as many people as possible.” Not only does a life of hermitude lead to the mistake of righteousness, but it’s selfish to insist on peace gained by forsaking the holiness of every day life. Truly, our karma is worked out through other people – we can not erase the pains of our lifetimes or attain the Bodhisattva goal of helping all creatures reach enlightenment by checking out of human interaction in the long-term.

Still, the book is magical to me and Kerouac’s earnestness brings home my own painful earnestness at seventeen. Even if that self embarrasses me a bit by how self-important she was, I need to cherish her as part of who I’ve been on this crazy journey called life. Kerouac’s words have guided me on that journey more than any other writer, and for that, I feel like while I may out-grow him, his work will always be a touchstone for me. 

Here, this, is It. The world as it is, is Heaven.  I’m looking for  Heaven outside what there is, it’s only this poor pitiful world that’s Heaven.  Ah, if I could realize, if I could forget myself and devote my meditations to the freeing, the awakening, and the blessedness of all living creatures everywhere I’d realize that what there is, is ecstasy.