Thai Buddhism and Ordaining Women as Nuns.

The Bangkok Post, Dec 30, 2009

Bangkok, Thailand -- The forest monks of Wat Nong Pah Pong want the Council of Elders and the Office of National Buddhism to impose stricter controls on Western monks to stop them from ordaining women. They also want the properties of Thai temples in the West to come under the ownership of the Thai Sangha to ensure complete control. The monks are seeking the changes after the recent ordination of two women at Bodhinyana Temple, a branch of Wat Nong Pah Pong in Perth, Australia. The Ecclesiastic Council is opposed to female ordination. The Wat Nong Pah Pong clergy have excommunicated the dharma teacher Phra Brahmavamso, popularly known as Ajahn Brahm, for sponsoring the ordination.

They are also unhappy about alleged negative comments Ajahn Brahm has made about Thai clergy and Thai Buddhism in his talks overseas. If action is not taken, the council fears that more women could be ordained in the West. "Sooner or later, we'll see female monks everywhere," said Phra Kru Opaswuthikorn. He added that the introduction of the Siladhara order, or 10-precept nuns, which was set up by the most senior Western monk, Ajahn Sumedho, as an alternative to female monks in Thailand was also unthinkable. It would be difficult for the Thai public and the clergy to accept the Siladhara order, he said, because the presence of women creates unnecessary problems for the monks' vow of chastity.

James: I'm not a Theravada Buddhist or an ordained monk or teacher, nor am I a Thai. So I'll try to step lightly here and I hope I do not offend anyone. That said, I need to say something about this issue because it has bothered me for some time that there is still a taboo about ordaining women to be nuns in some Buddhist schools. Perhaps it's my western cultural influence but it seems antithetical to the accepting and open minded nature of Buddhism to deny women monastic status. One of the excuses used in this article and heard elsewhere is that having nuns around would tempt the monks too much. Well, monks need to learn how to master their desires regardless of whether women are physically present or not.

They can just as easily engage in sexual misconduct by masturbation or even sex with another monk. In addition, they are tempted with various other desires in their current situation with the temptation to lie or speak ill of a fellow monk or teacher. The desire for theft, anger or even murder can brew in any environment. And what do they do when they have to go out for their alms rounds and happen to see women? Do they run the other way? I'm not trying to mock these monks but I'm just really perplexed. Couldn't they see a women on their rounds and then go back to the monastery and masturbate while thinking about that woman?

We lay practitioners are surrounded much more by the opposite sex than monks and yet most of us are able to avoid sexual misconduct. So why can't monks resist? Isn't that part of their intensive training to learn how to avoid desire? Isn't it kind of impractical and discriminatory to basically say that the only way that this can be achieved is by denying women entrance to monasteries? In a way, it's a statement that men can't control themselves when around women and so women must be denied access to a deeper understanding of the Dharma. Why should women have to sacrifice a chance to learn the Dharma in a monastery simply because they were born with female body parts? And what does it say of men -- That we can't control ourselves enough to live around women without raping them or whatever the case may be? Isn't that kind of blaming the women for existing? Because if monks can't even resist sexual misconduct by even the sight of women then isn't that kind of a false sense of mastery of your desires? If the only way you can resist attaching to desire is to close yourself up in a box and avoid any contact with women then is that real mastery or one that was created by self-imposed isolation alone?

Another point is that despite some initial reluctance the Buddha himself set up orders for nuns (Bhikkunis). Also, other traditions have allowed the ordination for nuns (such as in my tradition of Vietnamese Zen master Thich Nhat Hanh) without any major, systemic problems. As well as Catholic nuns. The sexual temptation excuse seems to be a thin layer of justification covering a deeper issue of sexism. At least from my western perspective. As I said before, I'm not use to Thai culture so perhaps I'm missing something but if the Buddha himself established female orders then I have to question this reluctance by some in the Thai sangha.

What about setting up monasteries that are just for women? Wouldn't that work if the monks aren't willing to share a monastery with women? The only male could be the abbot and if he's older then his chances for a rampant sexual desire would be low. It just seems like there's another way than to just simply ban women from a chance for deeper study that is found in monastic settings. I hope I haven't offended anybody and if I have I sincerely apologize. I am honestly trying to figure out in my mind why this is happening and how we can achieve some kind of middle-ground. After all, Isn't treading the middle-ground the core of much of the Buddha's teachings?

If I'm missing something here please let me know. All thoughts and comments are welcome so long as you remain respectful of others.

---End of Transmission---

Shopping

Once every couple of years or so, Ellie manages to talk me into a shopping expedition for new clothes. I'm hard on clothes. When I get new ones, they look good for a while, but pretty soon I begin to look like my sloppy old self again. And I don't need to look like one of those models in the New York Times Men's clothing supplement. But I understand the value of looking reasonably well put together--especially now that I'll be venturing out into the world to spread word about "Persist."

So yesterday was the day. I had promised before Christmas that I'd spend an afternoon at Fashion Island (!) and take advantage of the seasonal sales. We drove up the coast in unpromising weather, a slow, steady rain of the kind that makes driving in California hazardous. It's well-known that Californians have no idea how to drive in the rain. The invention of anti-lock brakes is a blessing for all those who have never learned that you drive into a skid, not against it... But that's another story.

We started out at one of the (very) slightly down-scale department stores, where prices are more or less reasonable--and the products of correspondingly inferior quality. I have always preferred shopping in these stores: Mervyn's, while it lasted, was my major supplier, and Target does me pretty well, too. See, what a shopping snob I can be? I had expected the stores to be mobbed. This one was virtually empty--as bereft of staff, it seemed, as of customers. The only place where actual people were visible was at the check-out counters, where solitary employees struggled to keep up with long, impatient lines of those wanting to make purchases. Actual help was out of the question. I found some things that I liked, but naturally every one of them was in the wrong size. Try to find someone to ask if they had the right fit... well, forget it. (We did, in fact, finally find a woman who seemed anxious and ready to help--but who informed us that "everything was out," and if we couldn't see the right size, it wasn't there.)

So we trudged over to a definitely more up-scale store, also less than crowded with eager shoppers. And here we found--miracle of miracles--the best "sales clerk" we had ever encountered. This was a young man who was helpful and polite; friendly in exactly the right measure, not overly anxious to please; efficient and thoughtful. When asked for suggestions, he listened seriously to our attempts to explain the "look" we were after, and came up with useful and appropriate ideas; when asked for his opinion, he took his time to look carefully and offer an honest appraisal as to what worked and what didn't, what fit nicely and what needed adjustment. He was willing to spend the time that it took to get things right. And he sold us a whole bunch of stuff. I shouldn't say that: he sold us some excellent outfits, exactly what we had been looking for, selected with care and nicely co-ordinated.

Turns out, this young man is an actor and a dancer! Should have figured that out from the balance and poise of his presence, his clear articulation, his alert and imaginative approach to this audience of two. Toward the end of our two-hour session, he allowed himself a few personal revelations, including that he had spent time traveling the world in his "other" profession--a sure way to expand the horizons of one's life. I told him about my new book and its theme--the predicament of the artist in a culture that worships celebrity and money--and his response was that of virtually every creative person I speak to: that's something I need to read!

I left with thanks for his help, and contact information, should he wish to receive the copy I offered to send him by way of appreciation for his fine work. I look forward to hearing from him, and will be delighted if that happens. David, if you read this, you have my card...

Early Morning Buddhist Inspiration - 12/31/2009

Total negation is the essence of the positive. When there is negation of all those things that thought has brought about psychologically, only then is there love, which is compassion and intelligence.

~Jiddu Krishnamurti

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I Haven't Been Kidnapped.

I know I haven't been writing here much lately but it's not a permanent trend. I'm simply overloaded with holiday stuff and have been spending a lot of time with my family. The big thing though that has taken up most of my time is a new project I'm working on. It's a new blog but it has nothing to do with Buddhism -- well, it does but it's not the main theme there. I just wanted to write a quick note to let you know that I haven't abandoned you and I'm not getting bored with this blog. I'm just spreading myself too thin. After the first of the year I'll have stuff squared away and can devote more time here as I want to do. In the mean time, thanks for your patience. May this message find you well.

-James

~Peace to all beings~

Early Morning Buddhist Inspiration - 12/30/2009

When man becomes aware of the movement of his own thoughts he will see the division between the thinker and thought, the observer and the observed, the experiencer and the experience. He will discover that this division is an illusion. Then only is there pure observation which is insight without any shadow of the past or of time. This timeless insight brings about a deep radical mutation in the mind.

~Jiddu Krishnamurti

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My Grandfather

I woke this morning thinking about my paternal grandfather--the one I didn't know. Well, I did know him if you count that picture of me sitting on his knee, aged about one. Here he is:



a distinguished-looking man, and a man of no small distinction. I have always felt sad to have been deprived of his presence in my life. Grandfathers are important to their grandchildren, and it saddens me, too, now that I am myself a grandfather, to be so far from my own three grandchildren, who live in England. Henry William Clothier was an electrical engineer, an inventor of systems that made high voltage switchgear safe for industrial use. His Wikipedia biography includes this version of a story I heard frequently from my father as a child:

In those early days, the electrical manufacturers of England held exhibitions of their products at Olympia. The highest voltage available was 20,000 volts, and even 11,000 volts was then a high and awe-inspiring potential. There were a number of high-voltage switch-panels on show, with white porcelain insulators and red, white and blue painted bus-bars; and their manufacturers gloried at hanging notices on these panels “20,000 volts – DANGER”. But Clothier, with his protective metal-clad switchgear in place, hung up on his panel “20,000 volts – NO DANGER”.

My father's mother died when he was just a lad--an early teenager. His father died years later, in 1938, at what was then a great distance, in New Zealand. I have no recollection of him, other than that single photo of me as a baby sitting with my older sister on his knee. From this and other pictures, I imagine him gentlemanly, kind, perhaps a little formal in that old British way. He was also, as the Wikipedia biography notes, a brilliant and creative man:

Those that worked closely with him were impressed by Clothier's ability to convert a germ of an idea into freehand sketch design which could readily be made into a working drawing. His colleagues can confirm that by the aid of these sketches it was often only a question of hours between the first conception of the idea and the completion of the manufactured article.

And a generous one:

Socially and communally he always took an active interest in the life of the district. He was at one time a member of the congregation of St. Peters. His energy was unbounded and his enthusiasm for doing good to others extended far beyond his professional life.

I wish I had known him, and feel the poorer for that loss. I know that my father, who lived on into his eighties, was deeply wounded by his mother's early death, and that he regarded his father with a kind of awe and perhaps a sense that he could never quite live up to his example. I also know that I owe my years in private boarding schools--during which I received an excellent education but failed utterly to grow up--to the relatively small financial benefit my grandfather managed to reap from his inventions.

It's not clear to me why Grandfather popped into my head this morning. I opened up a little space and he just arrived. Perhaps it's a matter of age. I'm much aware of the reach of generations through time, from my grandfather down through my father to myself, and on down to my sons, my daughter, and my grandchildren. On the masculine side--and I will confess that this has a particular significance to me, as a man, even in this post-feminist age--that's Henry, Harry, Peter, Matthew and Jason, Joe... Not a preference, I hasten to add! It's just something in the male gut!

If this doesn't scare you...

... nothing will. This link was sent to me by my friend, the artist Gary Lloyd, along with his wishes for the new decade. The speed and quantity of information coming at us in this twenty-first century is astounding--more, perhaps, than the human mind can tolerate. It was T.S.Eliot, wasn't it, who wrote that "mankind cannot bear too much reality"? What would he have had to say about virtual reality? I plan to introduce each of my forthcoming speaking engagements with a poem. I plan to invite participants to close their eyes and slow down their minds enough to hear the words and see the images, to create space for the poem to simply be. I plan to contrast that endless flow of superfast information with a single breath, fully experienced... Thanks, Gary.

Early Morning Buddhist Inspiration - 12/29/2009

Freedom is not a reaction; freedom is not a choice. It is man's pretence that because he has choice he is free. Freedom is pure observation without direction, without fear of punishment and reward. Freedom is without motive; freedom is not at the end of the evolution of man but lies in the first step of his existence. In observation one begins to discover the lack of freedom. Freedom is found in the choiceless awareness of our daily existence and activity. Thought is time. Thought is born of experience and knowledge which are inseparable from time and the past. Time is the psychological enemy of man. Our action is based on knowledge and therefore time, so man is always a slave to the past. Thought is ever-limited and so we live in constant conflict and struggle. There is no psychological evolution.

~Jiddu Krishnamurti

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Back to Work

So, yes, I will confess that I'm addicted. It feels all wrong to have spent these past few days--yes, even including Christmas--pretty much neglecting my daily writing practice, namely these Buddha Diaries. Last night I had two back-to-work dreams. In the first, I was anxious to show up on time for a fictional job, something I have not had for the past twenty-five years, since quitting academia in the mid-eighties. Getting there involved taking a small elevator from the shabbiest depths of some back alley, where a gang of aggressive louts took pleasure in beating people up. Waiting for the arrival of the elevator, I was aware of their lurking presence and waiting to be set upon. As one approached, I grabbed the nearest weapon, a gleaming, roundish metal object--but it proved to be covered with oil and slipped out of my grasp. Still, I managed to adequately defend myself and eluded my attacker... that one time. The next assailant was a hefty woman who, weirdly, approached me later in the dream to apologize...

The second dream took me back to the USC campus, where I taught many years ago. I had received a small envelope with my assignment of two classes, and showed up for the first at the appointed place. It was an unfamiliar and not entirely pleasant feeling, to be back in the classroom. Most of my first hour was devoted to the attempt to persuade one of the students, a rather ugly young man, that my class was not about facts and how-tos, but rather about the internals of the psyche. He was not having this, and had decided by the end of the session to withdraw from the class. I noticed, now that I looked carefully at his face, that he had no month--or rather than his mouth was misplaced, somewhere down below the jaw. I worried that the rest of the class--mostly, I have to say, attractive young women!--would follow his example and withdraw.

Leaving the classroom, I checked my envelope for details of the second class I was to teach and puzzled over the fact that there were only two. Was this a mistake? My full teaching load, I thought, should be three classes. I was quite relieved. But then, examining the reverse side of the envelope, I realized that I must have received the wrong one. This one was addressed to a Mr. Baines. (The bane of my life!) I would have to find the English office to seek a corrected version. But the campus was so much changed since my time there as to be unrecognizable. I had no idea where the English office could be. I tried consulting my I-Phone, but it proved unhelpful. I was still wandering around the campus when the dream ended.

I do feel the need to get back to work. There is much to be done. I'm happy, this morning, to be back to my writing practice. But my meditation was distracted by a thousand other things to do. I have neglected my email, and piles of messages have been arriving from new LinkedIn contacts, from Facebook, from Twitter. I have, perhaps foolishly, jumped into all these things in order to have means to spread word about "Persist." I do not know how to put these vehicles to best use, and feel obligated now to spend time getting familiar with the protocols and etiquette of each, and with their possibilities. I have review copies of the book to get into the mail, many of them to fill long-outstanding promises--I had expected to receive copies from the printer somewhat earlier than their actual arrival.

Looming ahead of me, too, are those speaking engagements I have been lining up. I have mentioned before in The Buddha Diaries that I don't consider myself a speaker, but a writer. Generally, in the past, when I have had to speak, I have written the words down and read them. With these coming events, I am determined to get past the hang-ups around speaking without notes. I can speak well. My voice, with its remnant English accent, seems to appeal to an American audience, and it remains a less-than-fully explored medium with which to reach out and touch people. As most of us, I suspect, I want my life to have had some meaning beyond the purely personal satisfactions, of which I have been blessed with many. I want to make a contribution of some kind to the lives of those with whom I'm fortunate to share this planet, and I see the challenge of this new medium as a way to expand my reach.

Has anyone noticed that the descriptive line below the title of The Buddha Diaries has changed from the one that used to evoke "the vicissitudes of life"? It's now simpler, more concise, more active in intention: "...getting to the heart of the matter." For me, it's an important statement of purpose about my writing. I can take it, also, as the motto for the practice of this new medium I'm approaching. I'll be reporting on it, I'm sure, in the first couple of months of 2010, as I begin to see how it all turns out.

Early Morning Buddhist Inspiration - 12/28/2009

'Truth is a pathless land'. Man cannot come to it through any organization, through any creed, through any dogma, priest or ritual, not through any philosophic knowledge or psychological technique. He has to find it through the mirror of relationship, through the understanding of the contents of his own mind, through observation and not through intellectual analysis or introspective dissection. Man has built in himself images as a fence of security - religious, political, personal. These manifest as symbols, ideas, beliefs. The burden of these images dominates man's thinking, his relationships and his daily life. These images are the causes of our problems for they divide man from man. His perception of life is shaped by the concepts already established in his mind. The content of his consciousness is his entire existence. This content is common to all humanity. The individuality is the name, the form and superficial culture he acquires from tradition and environment. The uniqueness of man does not lie in the superficial but in complete freedom from the content of his consciousness, which is common to all mankind. So he is not an individual.

~Jiddu Krishnamurti

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Early Morning Buddhist Inspiration - 12/27/2009

Because most of us operate on partial or particular senses. We never move or live with all our senses fully awakened, flowering. Because as most of us live, operate and think partially, so one of our enquiries into this is for the senses to function fully and realize the importance and the illusion that senses create - are you following all this? And to give the senses their right place, which means not suppressing them, not controlling them, not running away from them but to give the proper place to the senses. This is important because in meditation, if you want to go into it very deeply, unless one is aware of the senses, they create different forms of neurosis, different forms of illusions, they dominate our emotions and so on and so on. So that is the first thing to realize: if when the senses are fully awakened, flowering then the body becomes extraordinarily quiet. Have you noticed all this? Or am I talking to myself? Because most of us force our bodies to sit still, not fidget, not to move about and so on - you know. Whereas if all the senses are functioning healthily and normally, vitally then the body relaxes and becomes very, very quiet, if you do it. Do it as we are talking.

~Jiddu Krishnamurti

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The Magic of Winter.

Snow descends upon Earth from the Buddha realms cascading softly to surround the bustling humanity in tranquility. Methodically it falls, bringing with it the silence of a morning meditation at a mountain temple. Winter offers the jewel of reflection, which allows us a vivid and stark yet peaceful reminder of impermanence. The snow doesn't ask why it falls or why it melts -- It is at peace being snow, water or vapor. May peace be upon you regardless of the moment.

~Peace to all beings~

A Boxing Day Card

My friend, the artist Stuart Rapeport, sent me a link to this snapshot of his Highland Park neighborhood, which I found to be quite delightful, and so much in keeping with what I have been saying recently on The Buddha Diaries about lifeboats. A neighborhood like this one is a lifeboat, too. Stuart's brief film gives a real sense of community, a particular kind of love in its loving attention to detail. The voice-over narrative is another plea for community, for a sense of common--and mutual--responsibility for each other as human beings sharing the plight and the joys of our human predicament. Please accept it, with my thanks to Stuart, as a Boxing Day card.

Early Morning Buddhist Inspiration - 12/26/2009

Now is it possible - this is part of meditation, what we are doing now - is it possible for the senses to operate as a whole; to look at the movement of the sea, the bright waters, the eternally restless waters, to watch those waters completely, with all your senses? Or a tree, or a person, or a bird in flight, a sheet of water, the setting sun, or the rising moon, to observe it, look at it with all your senses fully awakened. ... if you observe this, if you observe this operation of the whole senses acting you will find there is no centre from which the senses are moving. Are you trying this as we are talking together? To look at your girl, or your husband, or your wife or the tree, or the house, with all the highly active sensitive senses. Then in that there is no limitation. You try it. You do it and you will find out for yourself. That is the first thing to understand: the place of the senses.

~Jiddu Krishnamurti

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Early Morning Buddhist Inspiration - 12/25/2009

So we are asking now: what is the movement of meditation? First of all we must understand the importance of the senses. Most of us react, or act according to the urges, demands and the insistence of our senses. And those senses never act as a whole but only as a part - right? Please understand this. If you don't mind enquiring into this a little more for yourself, talking over together, but all our senses never function, move, operate as a whole, holistically. If you observe yourself and watch your senses you will see that one or the other of the senses becomes dominant. One or the other of the senses takes a greater part in observation in our daily living, so there is always imbalance in our senses - right? May we go on from there?

~Jiddu Krishnamurti

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Early Morning Buddhist Inspiration - 12/24/2009

'Meditation is a movement in and of the unknown ... it is that energy that though-matter cannot touch. Thought is perversion for it is the product of yesterday ... Everything put together by thought is within the area of noise, and thought can in no way make itself still ... thought itself must be still for silence to be. Silence is always now as thought is not. Thought, always being old, cannot possibly enter into that silence which is always new. The new becomes the old when thought touches it ... Love can only be when thought is still. This stillness can in no way be manufactured by thought ... this stillness can never be touched by thought. Thought is always old, but love is not ... the flowering of goodness is not in the soil of thought'

~Jiddu Krishnamurti

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Himalaya, Where the Wind Dwells (2009)

Beautifully shot film, a little low on plot however.

Himalaya, Where the Wind Dwells (2009)
Kim is on the way home after divorce procedure. He feels obsessive, watching TV news about suicide in the subway of an illegally staying labor of Nepal, Sham. He sleeps, returning home. As he dreams a small mountain village of the Himalayas, he wakes up. He goes to Sham’s funeral home. He asks people of a human rights organization in charge of the funeral arrangements to take Sham’s ashes to his family in Nepal. As Kim arrives in Zomsom, mountain region in Nepal, asks around about Sham’s home. He leaves for Jharkot with a map and a bag. Kim walks long, dry and winding roads. Climbing highlands, he suffers from nasal haemorrhage and headache because of mountain sickness. It’s in two days that he arrives in Sham’s hometown, which is located on the top of a mountain in the Himalayas with snow. There are Sham’s ill mother and his three sisters living in a ragged house. As Kim gives Sham’s ashes to the first sister of Sham’s, Sunita, she gulps down tears, but runs to a hill outside, and cries out loud in sorrow. Sunita asks Kim not to tell her families about Sham’s death. While Kim stays a night in Sham’s, he suffers from serious illness from fatigue and stomach-ache. He stays more under Sunita’s careful nursing.

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Early Morning Buddhist Inspiration - 12/23/2009

"You have to find out what meditation is. It is a most extraordinary thing to know what meditation is - not how to meditate, not the system, not the practice, but the content of meditation. To be in the meditative mood and to go into that meditation requires a very generous mind, a mind that has no border, a mind that is not caught in the process of time. A mind that has not committed itself to anything, to any activity, to any thought, to any dogma, to any family, to a name - it is only such a mind that can be generous; and it is only such a mind that can begin to understand the depth, the beauty and the extraordinary loveliness of meditation."

~Jiddu Krishnamurti

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Breathing in the Buddha

Here's a fine new publication by the documentary photographer Alan Brigish. Breathing in the Buddha is "a photographic exploration of Buddhist life in Indochina," and it documents a journey that takes Brigish through thee major cities in Thailand, Laos and Cambodia, and at greater length through city and countryside in that elusive country, Burma. (The old name has a resonance for me personally that the new one, Myanmar, seems to lack. Perhaps it's the bad old British Empire genes, but I go with Burma.)

Brigish sets out with his camera, "curious about how Buddhist daily life works" in these four Indochinese countries. His lens is then appropriately directed toward two points of interest: the faces and activities of the people--most of them living in states of economic deprivation--and the serene beauty of the Buddhist temples and the stunning artifacts that grace their often opulent interiors.

It is, frankly, at once a compelling and an uncomfortable contrast. The photographs are absolutely gorgeous, reflecting the beauty of their subjects--first and foremost the faces, young and old. The young are fresh-faced, bright-eyed, their emotions close to the surface, whether in child-like joy or, sometimes, pain, suffering and sadness. The old reflect the hardness of lives lived in circumstances far less comfortable that those in which we live here in the West; and, in the case of Burma, in a society repressed by a tyrannical regime. In this context, the aesthetic opulence of the temples reminds me inevitably of the disparity between the architectural grandeur of the medieval church and the real lives of people living in the shadow of the great cathedrals. The monks, saffron-robed and smiling, seem a bit removed from the social circumstance, protected in their spiritual cocoon; and yet their omnipresence clearly provides solace, along with their reminder of values that transcend the suffering of the daily grind.

What Brigish is anxious for us to see, I think, is that human beings can find fulfillment and contentment in their lives, a kind of happiness, without those things that have come to seem essential to the Western mind; property, convenience, comfort--material well-being. The text of his book is the narrative of his journey and his observations along the way. Its subtext, importantly, included at intervals throughout the book in font that mimics the handwritten word, is the Buddha's fundamental teaching of the Four Noble Truths and the Eightfold Path. It's a point-counterpoint strategy, image and text, narrative and teaching, that creates the rhythm that moves the reader through the book.

Brigish is wise to have hewed to the photo-documentary format here, and to have insisted as much on text as on image to convey his story, as well as on a modesty of scale. I'm sure it could have been tempting to go for a large-format, coffee table book replete with the kind of full-page, sumptuous images his photographs could have lent themselves to; but that would have been to introduce another, more damaging contradiction--the condescending Romanticization of hardship, the beautifying of the deprivation and suffering of others. Brigish has managed to avoid this trap with the commendable restraint of his presentation, a desire to share his observations without fanfare or eclat.

In the same context, I was happy that Brigish kept his story personal. It reads like a journal, the intimate record of a journey and of the meanings he himself discovered. His inclusion of the Buddhist teachings feels more like an act of personal realization than a need to preach some pre-established dogma or illustrate a point. Rhyming with his images, they offer themselves for reflection and establish a perspective through which the reader/viewer is invited to share the experience in a meaningful way, to "breathe in" the pages as they turn.

Not having visited any of the countries through which Brigish leads us, I am grateful for the opportunity of this glimpse into a world that was previously unknown to me--which is, after all, the familiar pleasure of all good books.

"The Magician of Lhasa," a Book Review.

It is rare to find a book of fiction based on Buddhism and even rarer still to find one worthy of reading. Well, "The Magician of Lhasa" by David Michie. The first 50 pages are kind of slow but keep reading because after that the story explodes into an exciting, fascinating, mysterious, suspenseful literary ride. Upon receiving the book I was dreading to hear how Buddhism would be presented and used in a novel as in the past many fiction writers have badly misrepresented Buddhist philosophy.

However, this books does a pretty good job of staying true to the teachings while offering up just enough mystery to keep you turning the pages. The book not only does a good job of explaining the Dharma it also teaches actual, helpful, applicable lessons mixed in with a entertaining story. What more could you want in a book? I don't want to say much more for fear of spoiling the secrets and plot of the book but It's a very fun book to read and suggest it highly. It is as good as any Dan Brown novel and I'd say is actually better than Brown's current book, "The Lost Symbol." I give "The Magician of Lhasa" a 9 out of 10 stars -- 10 being best.

~Peace to all beings~

"The Novice," a Book Review.

Who amongst us hasn't fantasized about a spiritual pilgrimage to for secret, life-changing wisdom. It seems that many of us, (Westerners especially) come to Buddhism with wild imaginations of climbing the Himalayas to get enlightenment from a 200 year old monk. That was what author of "The Novice" Stephen Schettini seemed to set out looking for on his pilgrimage to the East -- mostly India.

He learned, like all of us must at some point that Buddhism can be practiced anywhere in the world and that practicing it in the historical heart of the religion doesn't necessarily give ones Dharma practice an advantage. He also reminds us that Buddhism isn't always perfect or immediate in showing results. It's very much a book about not expecting Buddhism to immediately change your life. The story is mostly a coming of age story of a young man living during the first Buddhist boom in the West during the 60s and 70s. It was a chaotic, exciting and confusing time for Westerners studying a religion that was very new in their culture and reading about it is a fascinating view into the early days of Western Buddhism.

Reading about his travels on the way to India are just as interesting as his time training in the monasteries. He has some unique and curious stories to tell as he goes from Europe to Turkey to Iran to Afghanistan to Pakistan and then into India herself. It is fascinating to read about the people he meets along the way and how he views the cultures that he comes into contact with. He traveled very light and with little concern for safety, which would be near impossible today. As you read the book you can't help but feel a pull toward desiring your own adventurous journey to personally meet the world. It is a serious book reflecting on the difficulties of this life and the struggles we have in seeking to liberate ourselves from suffering, which is often done in humorous ways throughout the book.

It's a fast and interesting read with the exception on the long, drawn out description at the beginning of the book about the author's childhood. Though even that had some funny, interesting spots. I just think it could be a bit shorter as I wanted more written about the actual monk hood period but that's a minor quibble with an otherwise interesting book. I'd highly recommend this book for anyone interesting in reading first hand experiences of Westerners discovering Buddhism. I give it a 7.5 out of 10 -- Ten being best.

---End of Transmission---

Happy Belated Winter Solstice to my Pagan Friends.

Yesterday, December 21st is winter solstice, otherwise known as Midwinter. This is the shortest day and longest night of the year, which is the last blast of darkness before the sun rises slowly but surely to offer longer and longer days and increased sunlight. So it is a day of rebirth, which is very much in-line with Buddhist beliefs. I welcome the suns rebirth with great happiness. So, Happy Solstice everyone!!

PHOTO CREDIT: Winter Solstice occurring at Stonehenge in Great Britain.

~Peace to all beings~

Early Morning Buddhist Inspiration - 12/22/2009

"The flowering of meditation is goodness, and the generosity of the heart is the beginning of meditation." "You cannot meditate if you are ambitious - you may play with the idea of meditation. You your mind is authority-ridden, bound by tradition, accepting, following, you will never know what it is to meditate on this extraordinary beauty."

~Jiddu Krishnamurti

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An Unexpected Pleasure

Here's how it went: on returning from my usual Sunday morning sit at the Laguna Sangha yesterday, I found a message on my Facebook page from a regular Buddha Diaries reader, to say that she was spending a few days in Laguna Beach on a visit from Europe, where she lives. She had been hoping, she said, to run into Ellie and George and me on one of her walks, sure that she would recognize us from our pictures on the blog. So far, though, no luck. I wrote back to her Facebook page to say I'd be delighted to meet her, and to suggest the best way to contact me.

Meanwhile... Ellie, who had chosen this particular morning to take a long walk instead of joining the sit, returned with George to say, You'll never guess... But of course I already had: this woman had approached her up on the cliff in Heisler Park with a tentative, "Ellie...?" She had recognized George first--George being the most recognizable of the three of us...

... and Ellie next. So a little later she called and we invited her round for afternoon tea at the cottage--very English!--and she came, with her brother, bearing gifts of fruit cake and coffee cake, and we sat and spent a delightful while chatting and getting to know each other.

And I realized of course that The Buddha Diaries is one of those lifeboats I have been writing about. Some of my readers are family, some friends, but the vast majority are people I don't know and who don't know me, spread throughout the world in an invisible network of mysterious online connection. Sometimes I hear from one or other of you--some from a great distance--and that's always an added pleasure, and added sense of connection. Some of you I almost feel I get to know, through your reaching out and reading what you have to say in your own writing. So to actually get to know someone from a very distant part, someone to whom the words I sit here writing every day do mean something, was to experience the transformation of the virtual into the real, and to realize that the gap between the two is no greater than that between Alice and her Wonderland.

When I check the Clustrmap or the Sitemeter, as I do from time to time, I can get a surprisingly accurate image of the network that connects the readers of The Buddha Diaries, a kind of snapshot of the lifeboat that has only a virtual existence. In a curious way, I feel it more than I can think it. And I take immense pleasure in being one of millions of other, similar lifeboats that offer refuge to countless millions of human beings, each one of us looking for the right connection, the sense that we belong somewhere. In no way does it replace those other lifeboats I have mentioned, the live ones--the sangha, the community of artists Ellie and I have built, the worldwide organization of men of which I am a member. But it feels good and satisfying to me to have built this one, too.

So I thank my visitor from Europe. It was a fine reminder, and a special treat at this season of (hoped-for) connection. It gives me, too, the opportunity to reach out and thank all the rest of you for stopping by, however occasionally, to visit in these virtual pages. I wish every one of you the peace and freedom you would wish for, and all the joy in the world. And I know that Ellie and George would want me to add their wishes to mine. May all who join me here find true happiness in their lives! May all of us know peace, and practice compassion in the coming year! May all of us continue to share with others the best of what it means to be a human being!

Early Morning Buddhist Inspiration - 12/21/2009

You should really forget the word meditation. That word has been corrupted. The ordinary meaning of that word - to ponder over, to consider, to think about - is rather trivial and ordinary. If you want to understand the nature of meditation you should really forget the word because you cannot possibly measure with words that which is not measurable, that which is beyond all measure. No words can convey it, nor any systems, modes of thought, practice or discipline. Meditation - or rather if we could find another word which has not been so mutilated, made so ordinary, corrupt, which has become the means of earning a great deal of money - if you can put aside the word, then you begin quietly end gently to feel a movement that is not of time. Again, the word movement implies time - what is meant is a movement that has no beginning or end. A movement in the sense of a wave: wave upon wave, starting from nowhere and with no beach to crash upon. It is an endless wave.

~Jiddu Krishnamurti

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Sugata Saurabha

Sugata Saurabha: An Epic Poem from Nepal on the Life of the Buddha - Chittadhar Hridaya
The Sugata Saurabha is an epic poem that retells the story of the Buddha's life. It was published in 1947 in the Nepalese language, Newari, by Chittadhar Hridaya, one of the greatest literary figures of 20th-century Nepal. The text is remarkable for its comprehensiveness, artistry, and nuance. It covers the Buddha's life from birth to death and conveys his basic teachings with simple clarity. It is also of interest because, where the classical sources are silent, Hridaya inserts details of personal life and cultural context that are Nepalese. The effect is to humanize the founder and add the texture of real life. A third point of interest is the modernist perspective that underlies the author's manner of retelling this great spiritual narrative. This rendering, in a long line of accounts of the Buddha's life dating back almost 2,000 years, may be the last ever to be produced that conforms to the traditions of Indic classic poetry. It will not only appeal to scholars of Buddhism but will find use in courses that introduce students to the life of the Buddha.

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Tibetan Ritual

Tibetan Ritual
Ritual is one of the most pervasive religious phenomena in the Tibetan cultural world. Despite its ubiquity and importance to Tibetan cultural life, however, only in recent years has Tibetan ritual been given the attention it deserves. This is the first scholarly collection to focus on this important subject. Unique in its historical, geographical and disciplinary breadth, this book brings together eleven essays by an international cast of scholars working on ritual texts, institutions and practices in the greater Tibetan cultural world - Tibet, Nepal, Bhutan, and Mongolia. While most of the chapters focus on Buddhism, two deal with ritual in Tibet's indigenous Bon religion. All of the essays are original to this volume. An extensive introduction by the editor provides a broad overview of Tibetan ritual and contextualizes the chapters within the field of Buddhist and Tibetan studies. The book should find use in advanced undergraduate courses and graduate seminars on Tibetan religion. It will also be of interest to students and scholars of ritual generally.

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Serious Men

I have been thinking a good deal about the two films we saw last week. The first, "A Serious Man," I wrote about in The Buddha Diaries on Tuesday. You might remember that I did not like it much. Then Saturday night we went with friends to see Up in the Air--a film about an unserious man. At the beginning, at least, he's unserious. Arrogant, self-involved, superficial, slick, casually promiscuous... and very good at his job. He works for a corporation that specializes in firing people for other corporations, too cowardly to do their own. As his CEO gloats, in an early scene, this is their moment.

It's a good film, and it has been widely touted as an Oscar front-runner. George Clooney does an excellent job as Ryan Bingham, and he is more than ably supported by Vera Farmiga as his on-the-run luxury hotel sexual interest and Anna Kendrick as a feisty young corporate wannebe whose goal is to cut costs for the company by converting the live encounters with its victims--the job at which Ryan excels--with remote video technology. The story is a sad and disturbingly accurate reflection of our current social and cultural environment, from its cutthroat, bottom-line corporate practices to its self-congratulatory promotion of the phony values of positive thinking. Ryan does both, as a company hit-man who profits on the side from his motivational "What's in your Backpack?" conferences. His theme in life, which he readily promulgates, is travel light, keep moving, and avoid attachments--whether to possessions or to other people.

Okay, so far so good--and on this level the film would have to count as a major success. For me, though, there was a major flaw in the mythical pattern of the story that left me, at the end, feeling dissatisfied, almost cheated. The missing ingredient is redemption. Here's an empty, heartless, soulless guy who is set unexpectedly--and unwantedly--on the path to discovering a heart and soul that he never thought he actually possessed. From the high point of a hugely successful career and a life that's happy, at least by his own estimation and intentions, he's led on an increasingly precipitous descent, to a point where he's brought face-to-face with the emptiness of his life and discovers in himself a capacity to love and a need for deeper connection.

What the mythic pattern requires, at this point, after all the protagonist has gone through, is at least the possibility of redemption. And there seems to be a glimmering of recognition of that need. Ryan achieves his life-time dream of amassing the ten million airline miles that have been his lifelong goal, and gets the precious little platinum (?) card--his is only the seventh in history--along with a personal visit from the airline Captain (a benevolent Sam Elliot, we presume a stand-in for God) who blesses him with vacuous platitudes. But then the film ends with Ryan's dispirited return to the empty arc of his life, "up in the air" again, in constant flight to his next dispiriting assignment, with no visible hope of any real change or redemption.

It's interesting that to me the protagonists of both these films were in desperate need of some form of salvation, and neither got it. The hapless Job of "A Serious Man" ends up holding hands in the synagogue with his feckless wife while their slacker son cheats his way through his bar mitzvah; and the film ends with the arrival of God's wrath in the form of an approaching tornado, likely to sweep the whole lot of them into oblivion. Ryan Bingham ends up succumbing to emptiness and disconnection as the inalterable fact of his life, and drifts off into the clouds aboard an endless flight.

It should be noted that my friends who saw "Up in the Air" with me, and Ellie too, praised what they saw to be the realism of its ending. I was alone, it seemed, in my discontent. Perhaps it says more about me than the movie!

I Dreamt...

... that I woke in the middle of the night and tapped the button on my I-Phone to see what the time was. My I-Phone told me it was 6:30 AM. Then I actually woke and tapped the button on my I-Phone to see what the time was. It was 3:49. Confusing, no?

Yet Another Abbot Asked to Expel Thich Nhat Hanh Monastics.

(Vietnamese Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh -- Pictured above with brown robe showing)

James: As many know, monastics in the tradition of Vietnamese Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh were forcefully removed from Bat Nha monastery in Vietnam by the communist government and local mobs. However, communist dictatorships are historically notorious for staging mob riots by secret police dressed in plain clothes to appear as peasants. The government claims the abbot of the monastery was the one who initiated the demand for expulsion, however, he has yet to say anything publicly about it. Another favorite trick of communist dictatorships is to force people into saying things via threats of violence or imprisonment if they refuse. Anyway, this expulsion took place this past October, which suspiciously came soon after Nhat Hanh called for Vietnam to be more open about religious freedoms. Following the expulsion the monastics fled to a pagoda whose abbot had invited them to take refuge within but now they are being pressured to leave there as well. This time the abbot is speaking out and confirming suspicions that the initial abbot was pressured.

Vietnamese authorities have ordered the abbot of a pagoda to evict some 190 members of an unofficial Buddhist group who had taken refuge there, the abbot said Monday. "They asked me to evict the nuns and monks from the pagoda before December 31," said abbot Thich Thai Thuan of Thuoc Hue pagoda, in the south-central province of Lam Dong. Thuan said he had met Friday with Duong Van Vien, deputy chair of the People's Committee in the town of Bao Loc, and Nguyen Thanh Tich, head of the religious committee. Last week a mob of some 100 people surrounded Phuoc Hue pagoda for three days. The mob attempted to prevent a fact-finding delegation of EU diplomats from visiting the abbot on Wednesday. "I have no choice but to sign a document saying the pagoda will ask the nuns and monks to leave," Thuan said. "If I don't ask them to leave, [the mob] will carry me away too."

James: They can push Buddhism outside the confines of Vietnam but they can't push Buddhism from the hearts of the people. Nor will they ever be able to fully crush Thich Nhat Hanh's influence in that country. Their fight against spiritual freedom and freedom in general is like trying to prevent a dam from breaking by putting your finger in a crack that opened. The artificial barrier might hold up for awhile but after years of pressure they can't keep up with all the fissures and cracks forming throughout the obstacle. Change always finds a way through any barrier -- just not always in the time frame that we might desire. The time will come when the Communists will no longer be able to hold back the people. That especially goes for online access to information that is pouring through the cracks appearing in that country's internet dam. Information is power and will quite likely, eventually be the catalyst of liberation for the people of Vietnam. May it happen in our lifetime.

~Peace to all beings~

Early Morning Buddhist Inspiration - 12/20/2009

Live a good honorable life. Then when you get older and think back, you'll be able to enjoy it a second time.

~The Dalai Lama

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Exams

An exam dream--though I'm not taking it. I'm supposed to be working with a colleague (not anyone I know) on MFA examinations for students which involve a twenty-minute written part and a twenty-minute oral. The process is not made easier for the fact that it all seems to be conducted in an outdoor cafeteria. We have a handful of examinees, and we're trying to time it so that one is sitting in a private area doing the written part while we're doing the orals at a table on the other side. My attention, though, is distracted by a particularly tricky New York Times crossword, and I lose track of the schedule. I go over to fetch a young woman after her written piece, and she comes over to the oral table with two very chatty young women friends. I try to tell them that this in an examination area, and that they may not sit here while the oral is taking place. Meanwhile, other customers file past our table to an adjacent one. The whole area is getting too crowded to conduct the oral, and besides, I have forgotten what the questions are supposed to be.

Early Morning Buddhist Inspiration - 12/19/2009

Old friends pass away, new friends appear. It is just like the days. An old day passes, a new day arrives. The important thing is to make it meaningful: a meaningful friend -- or a meaningful day.

~The Dalai Lama

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Early Morning Buddhist Inspiration - 12/18/2009

Happiness is not something ready made. It comes from your own actions.

~The Dalai Lama

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Help the Vietnamese Zen Monks of Bat Nha Monastery.

James: Please write your leaders to urge them in assisting the violently oppressed Vietnamese monks who follow in the tradition of Thich Nhat Hanh at Bat Nha monastery in that Southeast Asian country. They seek temporary asylum until they can return to their beloved, beautiful homeland. May their pure wish to peacefully practice the Dharma be fulfilled. Svaha!!

~Peace to all beings~

Looking for Lifeboats

Some of you will remember my having written before about those "sacred lifeboats" that a friend up north promotes as a way to survive the coming cataclysm. Reading the newspaper these days, I can't escape the feeling that the cataclysm is indeed coming, in one form or another. (It could be a benign one, if there is such a thing as a benign cataclysm!) The apparent stalemate on important issues in Copenhagen, the Senate's surrender on health care to that arrogantly stubborn spoiler, Joe Lieberman and his act-alike Republicans, the quagmire of the Middle East, the economic situation here at home with millions living in or near poverty and millions without jobs... all these and more suggest, increasingly, that we humans are unwilling or unable to do the things that need to be done to assure the health, happiness and survival of our fellow beings. And that includes the non-two legged kinds.

Last night we sat through (well, agonized through) a rented version of The Baader Meinhof Complex--the story of Germany's Red Army Faction of the 1960s-1970s. The surprise was not simply the violence and delusion of this murderous group of young terrorists, responding to what they saw as the perversities of the capitalist world, but the depth of support they enjoyed among other young people at the time. The terrorist option, as we know to our cost, has been still more widely embraced throughout the world since then, and the values and methods of extremists are perceived as acceptable and necessary to vast numbers of the dispossessed. Even here, in America, the anger roils, barely below the surface any more. There is anger on the left as well as anger on the right. It arises out of real frustration and suffering, and a recognition that the economic and political system we have historically embraced no longer serves a vast number of the people it was supposed to benefit.

Still, a revolution--whether from left or right--does not seem imminent. Sheep-like, we accept the inaction of our representatives with a good deal of grumbling and whining, but little in the way of action. Perhaps this is because we have been brought to the realization that action, this far along the line, accomplishes nothing. We dutifully write our letters, make our telephone calls to Senators and Congressional representatives, and send in our donations--only to be checkmated by a Joe Lieberman or his Republican act-alikes. Having just last year elected a President who we hoped might make a difference, we watch him rapidly ensnared, as we are, in a system designed to disempower and mired in inertia. The futility of it all is numbing to mind and spirit.

My book, I realize as I write these words, is in part about this same paralysis as it manifests in the cultural arena. It's about the creative person's struggle for survival--"persistence"--in a cultural environment dominated by powerful corporate profit-making imperatives. In this predicament, the artist has all too often come to feel powerless, unrepresented, voiceless. To whine and grumble about this situation, though, is to become its victim, and we artists need to be made of sterner stuff. We are blessed with creative, imaginative minds--minds we can put to use to create strategies that allow us to persist.

Which brings me back to my lifeboats. Lifeboats, as I understand it, are small, manageable, mutually supportive communities of like-minded people, tough-minded in their commitment to values other than those that have brought us to this pitch. They can be the source not only of personal and emotional support, but also of practical, systemic social and economic support. If I write about them today, and in this broader context, it's because I have been coming to the understanding that such lifeboats can become the context for the "success" of my book--and I think of success in part as selling copies, yes, the financial part; but also, and more importantly for me, of sharing its ideas, these ideas about which I'm writing at this very moment, and bringing them into the forum of discussion. What strategies do we need to develop, as artists, to survive?

Community is an important component in the overall survival strategy, and "Persist" is finding a gratifying response in small communities of artists, communal knots or nodes, particularly at first in my own neighborhoods in Los Angeles. Across the 5 Freeway in Atwater, for example, artists Ed and Vivian Flynn have invited me to lead a discussion and sign books at their space in the Atwater Village Art Center, where they teach classes and plan exhibitions and community events. The vibrant community of Atwater has attracted artists as a less-expensive area to live and work for a good number of years, and Ed and Vivian have created a fine working space for their lifeboat operation in a new complex that includes studios and a small theater.

Similarly, a few miles to the east in the Highland Park/Mount Washington area, another thriving community of artists is gathered around an impressive nexus of galleries and exhibition spaces. Here my friend Stuart Rapeport has suggested a session either at Future Studio, the gallery that represents him, or perhaps at the local Highland Park Ebell Auditorium. Further to the west, I'll be doing a talk and leading a discussion before (I hope) signing a few books at the Los Angeles Art Association--an artists' collaborative that sponsors exhibitions and art-related events of all kinds.

So I'm looking for lifeboats. In this world which has become so impossibly large that its problems are unmanageable, they seem to me to offer hope for the future, a new way of co-existing and managing our lives that relies more on mutual love, respect and support than on systems that have proven, are proving inappropriate for an overpopulated, overcompetititve world. If you happen to know of any, please let me know!

Early Morning Buddhist Inspiration - 12/17/2009

It is very important to generate a good attitude, a good heart, as much as possible. From this, happiness in both the short term and the long term for both yourself and others will come.

~The Dalai Lama

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