I only saw them once, and that was at the local mosque. A local Muslim group hosted the monks for a kind of religious dialogue. I thought that was an interesting, if not absurd, idea, so it attracted me all the more.

The event began with a meandering, unfocused talk by the imam, who did his best to find common ground between Islam and Buddhism. He used the word “spiritual” a lot, which is a good word to use, because it means nothing, or it means whatever you want it to mean. Don’t get me wrong: I like the imam. He’s a nice guy: humble, polite, and friendly. And praise be to Allah, he doesn’t pepper his sentences with “inshallah” and “Alhamdulilah” as many Muslims are wont to do, as if trying to prove their piety. (I downloaded one lecture by an Imam and couldn’t get through the first 30 minutes due to this very annoying pseudo-pious, linguistic tick.) By the way, if you don’t know what those two words mean, you will someday — as Islam spreads throughout the western world, and it is, and it will, those words will become part of the English language, just as sure as Muhammad is the most popular name in England now.

The one American monk among the troupe of Tibetans gave the presentation on Tibetan Buddhism. The talk was on the eight worldly concerns. This topic finds common ground between all religions; namely, don’t be affected by praise/blame, riches/wealth, loss/gain, and good/bad sensual experiences. Little was said about what Buddhists actually believe or do. I believe this was a wise course to take, given the composition of the audience.

My two favorite parts of the evening were the monks performing the evening prayers along with the rest of the Muslim congregation. In all, eight rakats, or sets of prayers, were offered. The monks joined right in. I was delighted to be bowing to Allah with a high-ranking, authentic geshe just to my right. To be honest, I spent much of the time trying ascertain their energy, as if I had some kind of enlightenment meter (kind of like gaydar) in me. I remember when I met Thich Nhat Hanh, he had the most amazing presence I’d ever experienced, like a mountain and cloud simultaneously.

After the prayer, the monks did a dedication chant in Tibetan, during which my daughter, who had just learned the word Buddha, was yelling “Buddha” at them. I was a proud daddy.

I’ll stop here for now. Part 2 will discuss some comparative aspects of the two faiths, for those who are more philosophically-minded.

All traditions have warnings about these teachings. In Buddhism, it is said that one becomes stuck in emptiness, which is the most dangerous place to be. Pure Land Buddhism and Zen contain warnings. Traditionally in Tibetan Buddhism one wouldn’t be introduced into such teachings until after years and years of diligent practice and insight.

While all that is very interesting, as for myself, I simply need more structure. I need practice, motivation, goals, devotion, and improvement. I need community, a teacher, and the teaching (buddha, dharma, and sangha). FWIW, the Buddha didn’t teach what we call nondual teachings. His teachings were always grounded first in sila, ethics, and there was always something to “do” — namely, be mindful of some object. One has to develop concentration to a high level in order to see the three aspects of existence.

It’s funny: in Pure Land Buddhism teachers maintain that we live in a dark age, full of foolish beings, who don’t have enough merit and diligence to attain liberation. Thus, calling to Amitabha Buddha is their prescription for us. However, in our arrogant and DIY society, we believe we’re superior to our ancestors; they were a bunch of knuckleheads, but our “consciousness is blooming” as Eckhart Tolle likes to say. Everyone has access to nondual teachings. They’re appealing because they require no belief, committment, teacher, community — all of aspects of traditional religion that we moderns dislike.

If someone with false thoughts dismisses hard work, seeks leisure day in and day out and does not consider practice important, he will be confused until the Year of the Donkey. Anyone who thinks that laziness and false thoughts are enjoyable is not misleading himself in this life alone; even at the end of many kalpas he might still be in confusion.

From Pure Land of the Patriarchs by Zen Master Han Shan.

I’ve been reading my Pure Land books again, which you may obtain for free at www.budaedu.org.  They’re full of practical wisdom and inspiration. And when I write about Pure Land, it’s the Chinese variety which stresses practice. I don’t feel much affinity with the Jodu Shinshu version. I’m a lazy person, and without some kind of impetus to do something, I won’t purify this chaotic, defiled mind.

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.

1. If there were a truth or set of truths that could only be conveyed  in words or concepts, you’d miss it/them.

2. “Truth can never be conveyed or given in words” is itself a concept and therefore self-defeating.  Moreover, it’s a concept which denies the possibility of there being other truths out there or separate from This-Now, which may only be known through thought. Mathematical equations are another example of truths outside the scope of this-now.

3. Isn’t it possible that the ability to conceptualize was given to us  for a reason beyond mere survival and proliferation — in other words, given to us to know something, some important truth? If you deny this, you’re denying the possibility of a Supreme Creator, which is a kind of leap of faith, again, using thought.

4. Doesn’t this quest of enlightenment, of seeing through the separation of “self” seem a little narcissistic and self-absorbed? Doesn’t it strike you as a little self-concerned vs. other-concerned? Is it possible to be happy and be totally self-concerned?

5.  God is what-is: Coined by Byron Katie.  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.

6. What makes you sure there is no self, no “you”? If the soul were real, you wouldn’t find it. Therefore, just because you cannot experientially or via meditation find it, does not mean that it’s non-existent. It would akin to an eye searching for itself, not seeing itself, and then concluding that there must not be an eye.

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.

http://janakisstory.wordpress.com/

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

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!

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.