Tag Archives: Order of Engaged Buddhists
What Does Buddhism Mean To You?
By: David Xi-Ken Astor
I get ask frequently to explain the basics of Buddhism. This is normal for a teacher and Buddhist monk. I’m use to it. But it is never an easy question, because I don’t have easy answers. When I’m ask, I try to quickly determine what the person “really” wants to hear. What is their perception? Because you see, everyone has some sort of idea of what they think Buddhism may be. After all, Buddhism has been in the West, and especially in America, for over a century now. Words like Zen, Tibetan, Dalai Lama, mindful meditation, karma, rebirth, and causality have been in the English language for quite awhile. Not to mention the iconic images of the Buddha. Buddhism is not a foreign word. It is one of those words that you think you know what it is until you are ask to explain it.
For years now I and my dharma brother, Wayne Ren-Cheng Shi, have been at this task as is evidenced in our effort on our EDIG site, my teaching here on this site, in our public speaking, our interfaith outreach, and our published works. We work hard each day to help others to understand Buddhist thought and practice. We learn much along the way that nourishes our own practice too.
Now it is your turn to give us feedback by posting a comment in a few sentences of what Buddhism means to you. We are most anxious to hear from you as we get energy from our readers open dialogue. If you have personal questions, or wish to speak privately, you may email me directly at orderengagedbuhhdists@gmail.com.
We don’t get many comments posted on this site although we have many subscribers. We would really like to hear from you as it gives us a chance to know what your interests are and how we may offer teachings that address your interests and concerns.
Thank you, and I send positive thoughts your way.
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A Pragmatic View Of Dualism
By: David Xi-Ken Shi
When we apply a rigorous study of contemporary pragmatic philosophy to Buddhist thought we find a new way of reconstructing notions the ancient mind had of their worldview. Chief among some of these ideas was the tendency to interpret the world and personal experiences in terms of dualism. These included not only the idea of mind and body functions but also to objects, nature, actions, and human essence, to mention just a few. Their belief was that all these concepts of what was happening around them involved two fixed entities that, when clearly understood, totally excluded each other. The Buddha applied a pragmatic frame of reference and saw the error in their approach when he came to realize that the elements of these so-called pairs all coexist with each other both in the world and in our validated experiences, so that thinking of them as mutually exclusive makes this actual coexistence into a kind of mystery. When we apply the Buddhist doctrine of Dependent Origination (or Dependent Co-arising), as well as the modern lessons science provides, it helps clear up some of this ambiguity.
What is needed, from a pragmatic point of view, is a reexamination of dualism for the purpose of overcoming this mystery. A useful approach is to consider first that thought and conscientiousness are not individual elements of brain function and that the concrete reality is that human beings think in a single stream of functionality as a living organism. Ideas of a dualistic nature of the thought process are no more than abstractions taken out of their physiological context and turned into fixed and independent parts. A second step in undermining dualism is to shift attention away from understanding objects, nature, actions, human essence, and so on in terms of their having a fixed essences that defines them in terms of the characteristic ways in which they function, and the roles they play in the concrete processes of the intent of their actions. We learn not to make distinctions. Take the act of thinking for example. There is no idea devoid of a thought and no thought without some conscious content. Concept of thought and its subject become a dualism when they are abstracted from the thinking process and each is viewed only as a separate entity excluding the other.
The Buddha came to the pragmatic reality that even the nature of our human expression is devoid of a dual nature. The doctrine of not-self recognizes that there is no permanent and everlasting nature that is know as ‘self’. Although, as expressions of the Universe, the elements that define our form return to express themselves in new ways. This is the interconnected and interdependent nature of the Universe which is void of any dualistic aspects. Name and form have no self-nature and are void of a duel-nature. This is what is meant in the Heart Sutra as emptiness. (I now prefer to use the term “unity”) We can say that this world comes out of Universal unity and eventually returns to that same reality. Viewing the foot as separate and distinct from the body is not logical. So why do be try to find the duel nature of what we see as individual things. Our Buddhist practice ultimately comes to awaking to the reality that everything is the all encompassing.
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A Homeless Practice
By: Xi-Ken Shi
The Buddhist say “homeless” to mean a monk (or in Japan a priest) using the word SHUKKE which literally means “out of the house”. It refers to a person who has supposedly left the householder’s life and the temptations and obligations of the secular world behind. Another phrase, “leaving the world,” means getting away from the imperfections of human behavior, particularly as reinforced by urban life. It does not mean distancing yourself from the natural world. For some it has meant living as mountain hermits or members of religious communities or living as a monk within one’s own community acting upon the responsibility of a social self. Enlarging the scale of the homeless world, the fifth-century poet Zhiang-yan said the proper hermit should “take the purple heavens to be his hut, the encircling sea to be his pond, roaring with laughter in his nakedness, walking along singing with his hair hanging down”. The early Tang poet Han-shan is taken as the very model of a recluse — his spacious home reaches to the end of the universe:
“I settled at Cold Mountain long ago, already it seems like years and years. Freely drifting, I prowl the woods and streams and linger watching things themselves. Men don’t get this far into the mountains, white clouds gather and billow. Thin grass does for a mattress, the blue sky makes a good quilt. Happy with a stone underhead let heaven and earth go about their changes.”
“Homeless” here means “being at home in the whole universe” another expression of unity. In a similar way, self-determined people who have not lost the wholeness of their place can see their households and their regional mountains or woods as within the same sphere.
When I was in China I attended a ceremony at a shrine in the mountains not far from my monastery. The path through the jungle needed brushing, so rarely did people go there. I and my interpreter-monk went as helpers for three very old senior monks. We spent the morning cutting overgrowth back, sweeping the ground, opening and wiping the unpainted wood altar-structure and then placing some offerings of sweet potatoes and fruit (if my mind servers me correctly) on the shelf before the blank space that framed the mountain in front of the alter. No candles, no Buddha, just the mountain view. One of the old monks then faced the peak and made a direct perfunctory personal speech or prayer in a dialect that my interpreter could not translate. We than sat on the ground sweating and cut open a watermelon and drank some of the strong tea, while the old guys told stories of other days in the monastery and on this mountain when they were young. Tall, thick and glossy green trees arched over us, roaring with cicada. It was not trivial at the time and in my memory now. The domestic parallel is accomplished in each household with its photos of family, familiar objects in the home we live with all our lives, maybe a family pet to keep us company, as we sit around the table talking about old times. But for these three old men, it was this spot, this mountain and these trees. It was where they felt at home and together.
Then the literal “house” when seen as just another piece of the world, is itself impermanent and composite, a poor “homeless” thing in its own right. Houses are made up and heaped together, of wood, brick, cement, steel and other materials to make doors, windows, walls, floors, a roof, knobs from K-mart if you are poor, made up of the same world as you and me and mice.
Mountains are neither sentient nor insentient. You are neither sentient nor insentient. At this moment, you cannot doubt the blue mountains walking.
Not only flower blossoms and clouds or monks or priests — but chisels, bent nails, wheelbarrows, and squeaky doors are all teaching the truth of the way things are. The conditions of true “homelessness” is the maturity of relying on nothing and responding to whatever turns up on the doorstep. Dogen encourages us with the words: “A mountain always practices in every place.”
Where is your house? Are you ready to have a “homeless practice” in order to find your mountain?
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A Pragmatic Approach To The Search For Reality
By: David Xi-Ken Astor
Philosophy and truth is not that tightly linked. Its important to remember that seeking and identifying truths without correspondence to reality is not understanding that any philosophical view is only a tool which can result in varying conclusions depending on ones worldview, ability for conceptual thinking, and personal presuppositions, among other dispositions. It is interesting that many individuals come to expect a more significant connection between their philosophical thought and knowledgeable references to “how their world seems to be” than a more rigorous self validation of personal experiences that can expose the actual nature of universal realities as they are. There is a big difference between reality and appearance.
In the 21st century we are greatly influenced more then ever by scientific explanations of how universal realities are being understood and explained that gives an opportunity for us to pause and examine our own beliefs that drive how we see the world around us. This is especially relevant to our spiritual convictions, but not limited to just the interior life either, as all elements of human flourishing can/should be examined through the lens of modernity. If we are honest with ourselves we will acknowledge that a large part of the “realities” we take for certainty are still those based on concepts considered truths and given language developed centuries ago before a clearer understanding of the human condition relative to the dependent nature of universal expressions as is now being reflected in ongoing research and discoveries. We should also keep in mind that the sciences are very good at explaining how and what something is, but has limited language to explain why something is the way it is.
This, in my view, calls for a pragmatic approach to the study of the self. If Buddhism is anything, it is pragmatic and has as one of its key principles the need for self-study in order to understand the self, and with that refinement of practice, we have the chance for deeper insight into the world around us. Our higher state of consciousness is awakened. If there is anything distinctive about the pragmatic nature of Buddhist thought and practice, it is the ability to substitute the notion that humans will evolve toward a better future for the notion of reason, goodness, unity and reality. This calls for a new metaphysic of man’s relation to the universe. Yet we must resist trying to define all aspects of transcendent realities at the same time. Siddhartha himself stopped at the wall of unknowing, and focused on the realities that promoted human flourishing as is reflected in establishing a life of harmony, health and happiness.
There is no one way to understand the world around us, and thus no one way it is to be accurately defined. But there are many ways to intentionally act to realize human expectations for happiness. Therein is the human challenge. From a pragmatic perspective, we can realize that thinking about how we come to understand something and gain knowledge makes truths as certainty unlikely. To avoid this paradox we must resist the need to define what we/others consider universal certainties as absolute Truths. We must be extremely careful when we make distinctions between scientific fact on the one hand and metaphysics, ideology and religion on the others. Having faith in something without validating them with our own experiences can be a quick path to delusion. In science the distinction is made between the theoretical and the experimental.
Validated realities is what is supposed to distinguish knowledge from well grounded opinion. Else those truths are only justified beliefs. But a “true” reality differs from one that is merely justified. Justified truths are only relevant to a specific audience and generally targeted toward a specific social or cultural agenda. While making these distinctions between justified beliefs and “validated” truths can be an interesting philosophical debate, it does not get us to a better place either. Science and religion are both respectable paths for acquiring a deeper spiritual wisdom, yet beliefs which are good for quite different purposes. There is no human thought or activity that can be called “knowing” which has a unique nature for us to discover. Although critical reasoning skills we posses is apart of what makes us human. When we speak about justified truths we are really speaking about a set of beliefs that are rules for action rather than an attempt to represent a set of realities. Although those that hold such beliefs most likely see them as absolute truths, thus universal realities too. One that believes will always be able to produce justification for their beliefs that also adheres to the world view of the community of followers. Justification for a specific set of beliefs has many mutual aims, but may not have an overarching aim called reality.
As a dedicated practicing Buddhist, where does all this leave us? It focuses us on how we come to understand how we know something, and how we care to define that knowledge. Siddhartha pointed the way when he spoke often on the need for us to “trust but verify” what he was teaching. He admonished his formal students to not just take his word for something, but to first work to understand the concept of what he was speaking about, then contemplate in quite mental thought its usefulness and then work hard in practice to validate what he was teaching through our own experiences. In that way we come to realize its true meaning. Just don’t take the Buddha’s word for something, or a specific sutra, or a venerable teacher. In other words, we are challenged to think for ourselves and not rely on trust or faith alone. We either make it our own or not. Of course, in the beginning of study we must trust our sources. As we begin to validate the lessons as constructive and real we step on the path to Wisdom. And that path gets us ready fore awakened moments. We stand on the shoulders of our teachers that acts as support to see beyond the horizon we could not experience until we become ready.
The pragmatic philosopher, Richard Rorty, put it this way, “The only point in contrasting the true with the merely justified is to contrast a possible future with the actual present.”
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Buddhist Lessons From A Christian Monk
By: David Xi-Ken Astor
Some have said that the Christian Trappist monk, Thomas Merton, is the man with rich wisdom and an everyday mind that was seeking a broad and pluralistic dimension to spirituality who caused the Dalai Lama to come to admire Christianity and it’s history of contemplative thought. As a Christian Cistercian monk, Catholic priest, a world renowned spiritual guide and teacher of the contemplative life, Thomas Merton (Fr. Lewis) was not your ordinary religious cleric. In fact, he was agnostic in worldview and philosophically opposed to organized religion of any tradition until later in his twenties when he became spiritually aware. He was a writer, artist, intellectual, political activist at one time, and a man of the world. He was well educated with an over-active curiosity. He even fathered a child out of wedlock while a student at Cambridge in England before moving to New York and attending Columbia University. But something was missing in his life; and he was on a path to awakening, even if he was unaware of the potential at the time. And when it came, it was for him, like being hit by lightening. It was as immediate as was Alice’s experience with the rabbit hole. He became one of the most important spiritual writers of the last half of the twentieth century. And his writing impelled by his monastic life’s interests in the world’s spiritual traditions are recognized as a seminal and continuing catalyst for inter-spiritual dialogue in this twenty-first century. Thomas Merton was a true ascetic and contemplative that constantly challenged his understanding of a spiritual life as his ego driven self kept getting in the way of finding the true self within. He died young in Thailand while attending a world conference of monastic leaders in 1968.
Thomas Merton was his own bridge that fill the gap between religious and secular perspectives. Some believe that he means almost more today to many than he actually did in his lifetime. And I agree. He is becoming an iconic figure who models inter-spiritual dialogue for those who are seeking a common ground of respect for the varied ways in which human beings realize the nature of our world. As you hear me often say, there are many paths up the mountain. And Merton recognized this early on in his contemplative practice. He honored a pluralistic and pragmatic worldview when it came to leading a spiritual life. Perhaps this was made more possible based on how he lived before stepping on a spiritual path. Consider that he entered the riggers of a Trappist monastic life only six months after he received baptism as an adult. His introduction to Buddhism set him on the path to find language to express inclusivity and respect among the various monastic traditions, in order to transmit meaningful change to a contemporary audience. So I wish to explore the lessons that can be found in the way Merton practiced the spiritual dimension of what he came to be awakened to that shaped, and reshaped, his worldview. And see if you can also find that when we step on a spiritual path, and when we learn to remove the filters that often distort our perspective, we awaken to the common elements we all share as humans seeking the spirit and wonder of this life’s journey. Discover, like Thomas Merton did, that it does not always come from our own tradition.
Fifty years ago as a young man the Dalai Lima left his homeland and began a new life in India as a refugee. In general his departure from Tibet and the circumstances that led to it are causes for much regret as he speaks about it. However, these experiences have also inadvertently provided him personally with many reasons to be grateful too. He mentions that among these are the many opportunities he has had to become better acquainted with the world’s major religious traditions. He talks about how he has been welcomed at places of worship throughout the world, and has visited and shared practice at many places of pilgrimage. But while having this pluralistic experience was important, he talks about the more important experience he has had in meeting spiritual teachers and making friends with them. The Dalai Lima has written about the lessons he has taken away from these experiences that all the world’s spiritual traditions have similar potential to help us become better human beings. For centuries, millions of people have found peace of mind in their own religious tradition. But today we find followers of many faiths sacrificing their own welfare to help others, and to find happiness and human flourishing that is an important goal of all spiritual practices.
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Order of Engaged Buddhists 