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!