A metaphor for Amitabha Buddha

I have a devotion for Amitabha Buddha. I imagine him in front and above me. I chant “Namu Amitabul” and receive his blessing which comes as golden light filling my entire being with peace, bliss, and healing. After five minutes, I feel happy, at ease, relaxed. I continue a round or two of the mala — Namu Amitabul. This practice can be done anytime, anywhere. I often do it while driving the icy roads of northern Michigan.

Sometimes I think this practice is childish. And it is, kind of. I’ve realized that I’m childish, weak, and as I am getting older (35 now) I notice it’s becoming more difficult to change bad habits.  I find some solace in the fact that the Buddha during his lifetime recommended “recollection” of the Three Jewels, Five Precepts, and Generosity. Recollection of the sangha always provides a huge source of joy for me, especially luminaries like Thich Nhat Hanh, the Dalai Lama, and countless others, both past and present.

I thought of a metaphor to answer the question “does Amitabha really exist and do you actually receive anything from him?” I’d answer that in the following way.

Do you receive anything when you watch a Harrison Ford (you can think of your favorite TV star) film? Yes, you do. You receive certain emotions, states of mind, feelings, thoughts, etc. These can be for beneficial or harmful.  Is Ford really there when you experience him? No. He’s an image on the TV, which happens due to certain circumstances colluding in a specific way, i.e., TV, electricity, correct channel, time, eyes to view TV, brain to process information, etc. In other words, Ford is not really present, but nevertheless “he” is experienced and that experience will create effects, which will in turn create future effects/causes. This process is a basic description of karma and interdependent causality/emptiness.

The same is true when recollecting Amitabha Buddha or any other devotional spiritual practice. Due to a collusion of events, the loving and healing nature of Amitabha is experienced. The practioner receives the benefits of this practice which will build up postive merit and/or purify the mind. These events are *really* happening. The mind reacts to imaginations the same or almost the same as real events. Therefore, believing that Amitabha is really there is akin to him being there. This is excellent news!

If you look for the “real” Harrison Ford behind an Indian Jones film, you won’t find him. You’ll find an old gentleman reclining next to a pool side outside his Malibu mansion. He will bear little or no resemblence to the character in the film. Which one is the real Harrison? If you ask that, you might as well continue inquiring: which Harrison Ford is the real one: the six-month old, the schoolboy, the renegage in Star Wars, or the senior citizen reclining by the pool?

Trying to find the “real” anything is tricky. There may very well be a real Amitabha somewhere in the universe. But it doesn’t matter. Just as you can experience the excitement and joy of watching Indiana Jones without worrying about a real Harrison Ford, you can enjoy the peace, compassion, and love of Amitabha Buddha at any time, day or night.

I hope that this essay using pop culture to illustrate the basics of Buddhist emptiness theory in support of doing devotional practice was of some benefit. May we all experience peace and happiness.

Filed under: Buddhism, Pure Land, Uncategorized

Buddhism and Christianity: a Christian Contemplative Perspective

Here’s an excerpt from an excellent interview with a Christian “contemplative” regarding the differences btw. Christianity and Buddhism. I found he or she did a nice job giving the Christian perspective while adequately describing the Theravadan Buddhist view.

The interview was found here. It’s nice website, representing a sincere, traditional Catholic perspective.

Buddhism is a very popular substitute for Christianity nowadays. It has a robust moral core and a demanding contemplative discipline. It has proven attractive to many who look for a “spiritual” alternative to Christianity without the trappings of Christianity. Could you comment on that?

Yes, I can. But this will take some elaboration. The core claim of Christianity derives from the one in Judaism: that the source of creation is Personal: “I am that I am” the Lord told Moses. His very Name (“YHWH,” commonly pronounced “Yahweh”) points to this reality. The Bible designates Moses as the first receiver of this revelation. We may speculate that Moses, having received the traditional belief in One God from the people of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, saw his understanding completed through his own contemplation of the mystery until God, in his utter freedom, revealed Himself to Moses in that Name. Moses’ contemplative journey sets an example for all of us: as all the external noise and internal cacophony quieted in Moses, he was able to hear but one voice, the One that then said “I AM.”

It is known that Buddhism denies the existence of any substantive personal core in human beings, or behind the cosmos. Their disciplines to quiet the senses and the mind conform to a relentless teaching insisting on the depersonalization of the adept’s consciousness and on its ability to become a detached observer of manifold perceptions and mental states, each one independently analyzed as to its origin, duration, and end, and labeled as such. Buddhist teachers also stress that the “Devas” (or “gods” in Hindu religion) are also subjected to this tight law of causality and the Buddhist adept is trained to observe their chatter and learn to dismiss it as part of the contingent nature of things. I posit that Buddhist contemplatives reject the existence of one personal God because they can’t tell His voice apart from their own voices; the voice of God that Moses heard would be for a Buddhist practitioner just another subjective mental state to be detached from in order to avoid suffering or dukkha.

So you are saying that, when confronted with the voice of God, Buddhist practitioners basically chose to deny the objective existence of the voice of God within and with it the relevance of a personal God.

Pretty much, yeah. They choose consciously and pretty much for the same reasons that a Western atheist denies the existence of God: any claim made in this respect is merely subjective, ultimately illusory, and the product of deluded mental states held by people attached to a wrong view of reality. This is also why so many Western agnostics and atheists embrace Buddhism because Buddhism allows them to be “spiritual” without turning to God. But, unlike Western skeptics, Buddhists don’t arrive to their convictions by mere theoretical formulations; they claim a direct insight into the nature of reality, one in which the willful denial of the existence, importance, relevance and dismissal of a personal God is central to their method. The differences between Buddhism and Christianity and between their schools of “contemplation” are as deep as they are fundamental: an honest Christian can’t be a Buddhist and an honest Buddhist can’t be a Christian. One affirms “I AM” while the other one affirms “everything is emptiness and emptiness is all.” God, being the gentleman that He is, bows before the insistent effort on the part of the Buddhist adept to dismiss Him from his inner sanctum once and for all, and so He leaves. In this tragic sense, the Buddhist contemplative experience as one without God corresponds to their claim. God remains quiet on their soul, but He never really leaves, thankfully. He awaits patiently the invitation to come back in and talk.

Filed under: Uncategorized

For all the Byron Katie fans out there…

Have a gander at this.

http://janakisstory.wordpress.com/

Also, make sure to read my earlier “Critique of Byron Katie, Part 2″

Filed under: Uncategorized , Byron Katie

Going back to grade school

I’ve been away from this blog for awhile. I might start writing more from time to time. I’ve been involving myself more heavily into Korean Buddhism, especially chanting sutras and studying. I’ve found chanting to be a suitable practice at this point. My mind is too restless to pursue vipassana or zazen.

Lately I’ve been enjoying studying the ancient Chinese of the classic East Asian Buddhist sutras: Amitabha Sutra, Heart Sutra, and Thousand Hands Sutra. The Chinese is so terse and poetic. It allows for one to develop a deeper appreciation of the text and to delve into various shades of meaning. I’m learning the Chinese from my wife, who’s Korean. Koreans study the Chinese characters in grade school. 

My favorite sutras at the moment are the Amitabha Sutra and the Thousand Hands Sutra. I occasionally skim through the Diamond Sutra, but I find my mind isn’t attuned to the emptiness teachings at this point. I feel like I spent much of my twenties immersed in the nondual and emptiness teachings, so much so that I almost became trapped in it, which according to some Buddhist sources, is the worst teaching to be attached to!  At any rate, I find satisfaction in the simple, devotional teachings. In some ways it feels like I was a twelve year old attending graduate school classes, grasping what a child could grasp, distorting the information, and forgetting that there was a lot important stuff I was missing which I could’ve learned in middle and high school.  Almost all of the Buddhist schools agree that a practitioner should start with the basics: a solid base of refuge, the five precepts, and a hearty engagement with the six perfections before one moves onto the “graduate school” teachings of shikantaza, dzogchen, and mahamudra, all of which are quite similar and difficult. I’d throw vipassana in that graduate school mix too. The Six Perfections and Five Precepts soften the mind for the more advanced practices. I heard this many times and thought it was a load of rubbish. I learned the hard way, the way in which I usually choose to learn.

I remember being irritated because a friend/teacher of mine wouldn’t teach me the Madhyamika. I was studying it alone, which is absurd, by the way, and he’s an expert on it. He told me he wouldn’t teach me until I took refuge and became a serious Buddhist, not one of these pseudo-intellectuals trying to add another new philosophy under their belt to impress their friends at cocktail parties. Well, I wasn’t having that, and continued studying on my own. He’s much wiser than I.

In the future I want to write about these sutras that I’m studying and Korean chanting. The bell rang — time to study!

Filed under: Uncategorized , Korean Buddhism, Madhyamika, Refuge

Great Pure Land Shin Blog

I came across an excellent Pure Land blog called Shin Ugly. The writing is clear, to the point, and direct. The author is an uncompromising Amitabha devotee. There’s no fancy philosophical gibberish here, like you’ll find on my blog, just “plain talk” for “plain people.” Highly recommended! Click here.

Filed under: Uncategorized , Pure Land, Shin Buddhism, Shin Ugly

A Follower of the Way Things Are

Driving through Seoul traffic, I found myself reflecting on what it means to be a Buddhist. I have a problem identifying myself as a Buddhist for various reasons, which I won’t go into here, because I want to focus on some of the fruits gathered via reflection.

The word “Dharma” has various shades of meaning. The Truth and the Laware two shades of meaning. One may not be so much a Buddhist as a follower of the Dharma. If the Dharma is the Truth or the Law (of the way things are) then one does not really belong to a particular religion, in this case, Buddhism. One is simply a follower of the way things are.  Of course, this begs the question of who determines the “way things are”.

This brings me to the second contemplation, and that is Buddha, for the most part, didn’t teach anything too controversial, at least not in my opinion. His conclusions square completely with science and the truths we’ve uncovered through the humanities (sociology, psychology, etc.). Many of us have discovered that all things are transient and always changing. We know that things aren’t really thingsat all but rather interdependent processes coming together and disintegrating according to various natural laws. And it doesn’t take a genius to realize that putting all your happiness-eggs into the basket of transient, disintegrating “things” will inevitably lead to suffering and unhappiness. Furthermore, psychologically it’s clear that the more we cling and desire, the less peace we have.  You can investigate for yourself the next time a desire arises for anything. How does it feel to desire? What sensations appear? Desire is experienced as a proverbial thorn in the side. When you don’t want anything, you’re happy and at ease. This is fairly clear after spending some time observing the process of desire arising, desire being fulfilled, and the absence of desire at all.

The moral precepts, which are the foundation of the Buddha’s teaching, are hardly controversial, and as such, qualify as being the Law. According to the Law, when you break the precepts or law you suffer, and so it goes that breaking the five precepts almost always leads to suffering. On the flipside of things, cultivating the opposite of the precepts, namely: generosity, kind speech, preserving lives, ingesting healthy substances, and treating the sexual impulse with respect brings one a lot of happiness and peace.

Karma is one of the Buddha’s key teachings as well. Karma, from the perspective of this life, is blatantly obvious. It’s obvious that where you stand now is the direct result of all the choices you’ve made in your life. How you react to your current situation will determine your future status. This is karma. As far as past and future lives are concerned, this teaching is not obvious and one needs to use reasoning and faith to come to a conclusion about whether or not the Buddha was correct in his teaching about rebirth.

So, in wrapping up this essay, I feel that you don’t have to be religious to be a Buddhist. Even being a Buddhist is a statement fraught with assumptions: the assumption that Buddhism is best classified as a religion, the assumption that there is one, fairly static thing called “Buddhism”, etc. What if you conceive of being one who’s in accord with the way things are? How does it feel to try on that conception? I like it. The Buddha is like a scientist who discovered the way things work and how to navigate through the flow of life without being burned. He showed how to maximize true enjoyment (sukha) and the pitfalls of living an undisciplined and hedonistic lifestyle. On a higher level, he sublimely pointed out the way we create subtle suffering with our ignorance of the three marks of existence and the psychological discomfort of associating any phenomena as “me” or “mine”.

I am one who follows the dharma, the way things are — I like that. It rings more true with me than declaring myself a follower of one of the world’s major religions.

Filed under: Buddhism , Buddhism, Dharma

Thanissaro Bhikkhu’s Study Guides

One of my favorite Buddhist monks and scholars is Thanissaro Bhikkhu of the Thai Forest tradition. I’ve been reading and listening to him via MP3 over the years. He’s American, has a university degree, and is a serious Theravadan monk, heading up a monastery in Southern California.

He’s done some incredible anthologies and study guides which are all free. I wanted to take this opportunity to let my readers know about him and his excellent study guides. You can find them here. His approach is very practice-oriented, down-to-earth, and scholarly.

The one I linked to is called “Merit”.  Here’s the beginning of it:

Of all the concepts central to Buddhism, merit (puñña) is one of the least known and least appreciated in the West. This is perhaps because the pursuit of merit seems to be a lowly practice, focused on getting and “selfing,” whereas higher Buddhist practice focuses on letting go, particularly of any sense of self. Because we in the West often feel pressed for time, we don’t want to waste our time on lowly practices, and instead want to go straight to the higher levels. Yet the Buddha repeatedly warns that the higher levels cannot be practiced in a stable manner unless they develop on a strong foundation. The pursuit of merit provides that foundation. To paraphrase a modern Buddhist psychologist, one cannot wisely let go of one’s sense of self until one has developed a wise sense of self. The pursuit of merit is the Buddhist way to develop a wise sense of self.

Filed under: Buddhism, Theravada , Buddhism, Merit, Thanissaro Bhikkhu

Writing on a different blog

I apologize to any readers who are expecting a new post. I haven’t written much exclusively on Buddhism. I also have a more personal blog, which definitely has a Buddhist flavor to it at http://josesiem.blogspot.com  I’ve written a few new posts there.

Filed under: Uncategorized

Critique of Byron Katie Part 2

My initial critique of BK inspired the most comments of any entry on this blog. Some lauded the criticism, others came to defend. I thought of a couple of other problems with BK’s worldview, all my projection, of course, since according to BK there is no world out there — it’s all in our imaginations.

God is what-is: perhaps one of her most famous quotes. She says she has no concepts about the world, because all concepts are false, but this is one of her favorites, and she uses it as a teaching tool, not as an ontological statement. 

Surprisingly, I bought into this one for awhile. I say surprisingly, because it’s a ridiculous concept. God is normally and meaningfully thought of as the first mover or the first cause. God is also not limited to his creation, happening as it is. God must be something other than what’s happening right now. If God were only what-is, then what moved or caused creation in the first place? And how can a creator only be the creation?

Saying that God is reality is a meaningless statement. It’s actually nothing more than a tautology aimed at making people feel relieved. “Life is life” or “reality is reality” is more to the truth of what BK means. The “God” that’s in her statement is no God at all. I suspect it alleviates people’s guilt or sense of something missing. There’s no God to whom they have to live up or account. Everything’s okay, just relax. The message feels good, which accounts for her popularity; after all, we are probably the most narcissistic, undisciplined, and impatient society that’s ever graced the planet. I should know, I’m one of its prime examples!

The second problem: her worldview contains assumptions which she hasn’t noticed and which her followers also don’t notice. I call it immediatism. I don’t think it’s a word; I just made it up. Basically, it means that the only experience possible is this immediate one we’re having now. Anything else is just thought and therefore not as true — or not true at all — as this experience now. Therefore, this now is the only truth. You find this view in Zen, Taoism, and other forms of nondual philosophy. It’s a view that tries to escape having a view. It’s an extreme form of skepticism, quite similar to solipism.

The problem with it is simple. The belief or idea that there is no world aside from this experience now is a belief. It assumes that anything not experienced doesn’t exist. It’s absurdly easy to discredit. Microwave rays don’t exist — because I don’t experience them. When I do experience them, then they do exist. Basically, all phenomena are like this. Their existence depends on this mind co-creating them. There’s no way to prove this nor is there any compelling reason whatsoever to buy into this view.

The fact that BK is living in world with nothing should give people pause. She often viewed as an enlightened being, but it might be nothing more than severe brain-damage or possession by some odd spirit, if you believe in such things. Her change was radical. For years she’s severly depressed, then one day she wakes up and she’s a different person. That’s not normal and one should consider carefully the implications of her teachings. Ideas have consequences. What consequences would occur should a large group of people stop believing that their thoughts meant anything or represented true things or events?

Just some food for thought.

Filed under: Byron Katie, Nonduality , Byron Katie

A Future Classic — A Review of Zen Heart by Ezra Bayda

What a pleasant surprise! A dharma book that’s insightful, well-written, practical, and inspiring. When I picked up Zen Heart: Living with Mindfulness and Compassion, I wasn’t expecting much. I’d read Ezra Bayda’s other two books, worked with him in San Diego from 2001 – 2003, and thought I pretty much knew what he had to say.

I was wrong. Ezra has much to say, all of it insightful and useful in the midst of our everyday lives. The book maps out the spiritual life in a new way and offers a plethora of practice ideas, pointers, and analysis. I feel like someone’s handed me a treasure of useful tips that I can use for a lifetime or more. This is a book to come back to again in one or five or twenty years.

He breaks up the path into three stages: the Me-Phase, Being Awareness, and Being Kindness. Briefly, the Me-Phase is about becoming aware of our conditioned patterns of thought and action. Being Awareness is expanding our perspective in the wider container of awareness, the one mind, you could say, which is where Zen is normally concerned. Finally, Being Kindness is connecting with our true compassionate nature. All three are indispensable phases of the path.

In each phase, Ezra offers practical tips and advice to help us gain more understanding and awareness and urges us to remember that the point of all this is not to change ourselves, but rather to become aware of the manifold ways we cut ourselves off from this life.  It’s not as simple as just “being here now” as Eckhart Tolle might maintain. The ego is tricky, and a lot of the work to be done is psychological in nature.

This is where this book excels — in giving us tools with which we can clue into the ego’s antics, our own particular conditioning. In one chapter he provides three crucial questions to bring us out our own heads and into our bodies: Can I welcome this as my path? What is my most believed thought right now? What is this? He details the ways we can use these questions and why they’re of value.

His primary teaching, if I can sum it up in a nutshell (I can’t), is to reside in the physical experience of this moment, right now, as it is. Much of our suffering comes from being up in our heads where we spin our me-stories and create more tension and suffering for ourselves and others. The more we can be with life as it is, the more clear our lives will be, and we’ll be able to connect to our true heart-mind, that which is known as “our true nature.”

There wasn’t a chapter I didn’t like. In each chapter I felt like I gained something, a new insight, a new way to notice my conditioning, and inspiration. There’s a great meditation in the book too. It’s a structured way to do shikan-taza, which is a kind of nondual awareness meditation popular in Zen and Dzogchen but very difficult to do. I found his instructions helpful and wondered: why didn’t I think of that? The appendices are also excellent, detailing basic meditation instructions, essential reminders (think “slogans” of the Seven Point Mind Training), and Three Vows.

I hope you enjoy and benefit from this book as much as I did.

Filed under: Book Review, Zen , Book Review, Ezra Bayda, Zen Heart