Inkwell: Authors and Artists

    
<89> scepticism :: I recently came across this passage from the Quran
XVII:36 : Do not accept anything that you yourself cannot ascertain.
You are given hearing, the eyes and the intelligence (mind), in order
to examine and verify.

¿ How similar is this ? to the Buddha's words to the Kalamas (
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kalama_Sutta ), typifying his spirit of
free inquiry ... some might say scientific method ; phenomenological
approach.   

This resonance elicits in my mind a chord of interfaith.  And
interfaith seems an appropriate topic to braid into the mix here, since
most of here are probably born into nonBuddhist families.  

I'm Jewish (on my parents' side), as Lama Surya Das says.  And believe
me I'm no less rooted in my blood ancestry since following the Buddha
Way.   

Compare the Quran passage ... with the Buddha's saying Ehipassiko ( =
come and see; see for yourself ) ... with "O taste and see"  -Psalm
34:8.  

Or Psalm 46:10 : Be still and know that I am God.
& the Buddha: Be still and know.

Of course, it may be easier to notice differences, and enumerate,
rather than close the book for a moment on judgmental mind ( volume 2
), and instead aim for unification.   I think we are fingers of one
hand, leaves of one tree, stars of one sky.
  

    
Thank you for the wonderful quote from the Quran. 
  

    
I've been interested by Buddhism since a tender age... as a result of
watching samurai-movies. I tried meditation on my own, but I lacked the
discipline to continue it. However, it somehow - in an undoubtedly
very imperfect way - returned during my jujitsu and karate practice,
when we sit in zazen at the beginning and the end of the training
sessions. And of course, in a way, that martial arts practice in itself
can be considered as an "active meditation". 
However, reading books such as Tracking "Bodhidharma: A journey to the
heart of Chinese culture" by Andy Ferguson, I have questions about
this link between martial arts and Zen. 
It seems that Zen in Japan was not exactly ferociously resisting the
militarization of the country and the emperor-worshipping. Quite the
contrary, the Zen tradition was used to prepare many young minds for
the ultimate sacrifice in the war. Japanese monks replaced the Chinese 
monks during occupation etc. 
In Western martial arts circles the whole samurai/Zen culture is being
celebrated without much critical thinking. 
The very difficult question now: am I talking here about an historical
accident, which as such has nothing to do with Zen, or are there
elements in Zen and Buddhism which can lead to these deviation?
Ferguson distinguishes between a tradition in Buddhism which tried to
ignore the imperial palace and the powers that be, and a tradition
which embraced the support from high places in order to become more
influential. 
  

    
Interesting. I too encountered not-doing in karate. Five classes a
week for years and it starts to sink in!
  

    
Roland, now that you have some instruction and practice in sitting
zazen at the dojo, maybe you could see if a short, regular, practice -
10 - 20 minutes or so, might fit into your home?
  

    
Roland, there's another book by Brian Victoria called "Zen at War"
that created a stir when it came out, as it revealed how many
monasteries were complicit in the WWII war effort, doing things like
melting temple bells for bullets.  People have been going along to get
along for centuries and will probably continue to do so.  It's nice to
read about the hero standing up and saying "No I won't!" but much
harder to be that person in the sweep of history.  
  

    
There were people who resisted. My ancestors were samurai; by the time WWII
came around, however, my great-grandfather was adamantly opposed to it; he
felt the people running the war were idiots and he didn't want any of his
children dying fighting for such people. So, he sent his son to America and
his grandchildren, my uncle and father, stayed behind (they were too young
to fight). The great Ueshiba-sensei, the founder of Aikido, was a very
strong worshipper of the Emperor but once he saw what the Imperial Army was
doing he was revolted and he went to an island to wait out the war. There
were, in fact, many samurai who were opposed to WWII (that is, former
samurai), as the government, despite using "bushido" rhetoric was in many
ways violating many of the principles of the samurai culture as at least
they understood it.

My personal feeling is the Zen sects which supported the war were probably
swayed by the past association between Zen and bushido culture. In the old
days, Zen was the samurai religion, essentially. Zen was responsible, I
think, to a large degree, for the relative restraint which samurai were, for
the most part, famous for. It was considered the worst offense to kill in
anger; killing was something that was to be done only when necessary, and
deliberately, without passion. In some ways, this was the opposite of the
Western idea that cold-blooded killing is the worst, and killing in anger is
understandable --- for Japanese, Zen made outbursts of anger seem the worst
sin --- and I think in the context of a martial culture that was definitely
a good thing. So I think when the war came along, the Zen temples which went
along with it really misread the government, they believed, perhaps naively,
that the government was acting in a way somehow consistent with the samurai
ethics of old --- not the case, of course, at all. The Japanese who were
more politically savvy, like my great-grandfather, knew it was all bunk.

Of course, it is possible Zen temples also went along with the murderous
and bloodthirsty behavior of the Imperial Army --- but I somehow suspect
that had they actually seen what Ueshiba saw on the battlefield they would
have changed their view of the whole business. But that's just speculation.
As I understand it, the Rinzai sect tended to be more pro-war, and the
Soto sect simply went quiet. It's well-known that Suzuki-roshi was opposed
to the war, but like most Japanese he couldn't oppose it very openly.
My great-grandfather opposed it by sending his family to America, that's
why we're here today.
  

    
Mitsu, thank you for your illuminating post. Your great-grandfather
must have been a very remarkable person, taking bold decisions at very
difficult momentS in Japanese history.

Paul, I'm about to start meditating also at home. I'm a journalist, so
it's not easy for me to go to a Zen-group early in the evening, as I
often work late (and really, I do need sleeping). However, there are
some of those groups active here in Antwerp, Belgium, and I think I'll
visit them anyway. Mu feeling is that at my karate dojo people consider
karate as simply being a kind of active Zen (which can be true,
depending on the karateka) and that it's not necessary to talk about it
explicitly nor to engage in more specific meditation practices (I
don't agree with that). 
I will look for a traditional Soto Zen group - somehow I think I'll
feel at home there, being used to rather traditional Japanese
karate-practice. 
  

    
Am seconding Renshin's book recommendation, and thanking Mitsu for her
post, as always.

Wonderful that you're going to Zen to learn about Zen, Roland.

(Haiku is a form of Zen.  Tea ceremony is a form of Zen. 
Swordsmanship is a form of Zen.  Flower arranging is a form of Zen. Zen
is not a form of anything: it is life itself.)
   
Here are 2 sites for possible sources where you are.
http://www.buddhanet.info/wbd/country.php?country_id=57
http://iriz.hanazono.ac.jp/zen_centers/centers_data/belgium.htm
(I see that Vietnamese Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh has three practice
centers in Belgium, but not in Antwerp.)

How wonderful to learn Zen from living practitioners and teachers.  
When I first set out, there were more buddhas sitting behind glass
cases in museums, than living buddhas breathing on zafus, in community
with other beings.

_/|_
  

    
After being mostly offline for a month, I'm arriving late to this
quite remarkable conversation. I deeply appreciate the depth of what's
been conveyed here, and the spirit and feeling of shared inquiry and
exploration.

Please forgive a slightly long post by way of entering in, since
people have generally given their history when they first speak here.

My background: I was given zazen instruction at age 15, when a school
teacher brought a group of us on a field trip to the new New York Zendo
just opened by Taisan, later Eido-Roshi. At age 18-19, in college, I
began reading Japanese and Chinese classical literature, encountered
the Buddhist ideas in them, and began to sit haphazardly on my own a
little, with what I recalled. At 21, after graduating and then a year
of farm labor, I drove cross country slowly, living in a van with
tie-dyed curtains, looking for where I might live and write, probably
waitressing. But I'd heard there was a Zen monastery in California (at
the time, the only one in the US). It was summer, and so more open than
in the winter. I talked my way in to be a guest student for a week
without going to the City Center first (as one was supposed to). I
ended up staying at Zen Center of S.F.'s three residential practice
communities for most of the next eight years, including three in
monastic training at Tassajara. I was lay ordained in 1979. This is
Suzuki-roshi's lineage, Soto Zen, the same practice community as
Renshin's.

I've also worked with some non-Soto Buddhist teachers as an editor on
their books, Jack Kornfield's first two big books, A Path With Heart
and After the Ecstasy, The Laundry, and John Tarrant's first book, and
have translated various Buddhist poets from the past, from early
Japanese and Indian women poets to 17th c haiku poet Basho, who
travelled wearing Buddhist robes. Those translations felt like coming
full circle, since it was Buddhist poetry that first led me toward
practice.

One thing I always was drawn to in Buddhism as a possible thing to
actually do was that lay practice is (in theory, anyhow) presented as a
fully valid path, and it was what I wanted. The intensity of formal
training, but then a life in the regular world. The Ten Oxherding
pictures are one famous depiction of that way of practice. Another is
something I heard about early on at Zen Center: that there are four
types of practice-- priest practice, monastic practice, lay practice,
and teahouse practice. That last is the old lady who runs the teahouse
by the road, and no one quite knows why they like to go there so much,
they just do. I always liked that idea of invisible, unlabelled
practice best of all, because it stops labels and ideas from getting in
the way of actual experience. Yet the teahouse lady is not untrained
herself--she is part of the tradition, and a fierce teacher at times.
(I recently wrote about the originating koan of this for a book that's
coming out sometime soon, edited by Susan Moon, in which women
practitioners comment on koans with women in them.)

A life-koan for me has been about falling into the cracks between lay
practice and teahouse practice. The place I just was for a month, I
never said anything about having a practice, but after a while, people
just started coming up to me and asking, "Do you meditate? There's
something that makes me think you must." Then I'd have to answer.
Speaking in this conversation is part of that koan, for that matter.
The real teahouse lady would just be pouring some tea, minding her own
business in both senses of that phrase.

Another life-koan and abiding question has been the relationship of
Buddhism to our human emotions. That's an area we haven't much talked
about yet--that Buddhism, according to the story, anyhow, began as a
way to address the basic questions of fundamental human suffering.

I myself like the idea that mindfulness, whatever gate it's entered
through, is going to lead to similar or the same recognitions, if what
we are seeing in practice is at all a human truth. "Everything changes,
everything is connected, pay attention" is something I once came up
with as "all Buddhism in seven words," and I do think that if you allow
yourself to take in transience and interconnection with full
attention, which happens in meditation-awareness but could happen in
other ways as well, all the rest will arise from it--the paramitas, the
eight-fold path, the concept of karma, maybe even the Tibetan panorama
of figures (though that, I suspect, might be a stretch). Certainly
compassion arises, and unfixedness of self. Out of compassion,
generosity. And so on.

Quite a few years after I came up with that sentence and it had rather
gotten out there, I laughed when I realized, really, you only need two
words: pay attention. All the rest rises from that. With my Western
cultural bias, I do think that one way to describe Buddhism is as an
experiment you can run on yourself, and see the results in yourself and
your life. Who you are is always right there with you. Awareness is
the difference. 

And yet, the teachings, in their huge flowering and variation, are
helpful. And different teachings helpful to different people--some will
practice more happily in paths with visualization, devotion, mantra
(no one here has yet mentioned the namu Amida Buddha practice which is
probably one of the most widely done), some will practice more happily
with koans, some with shikantaza just-sitting, some with a
movement-based practice, some with Abhidharma philosophical inquiry,
some with vipassana mind-awareness. None is better or worse than any
other. I always like the story of a great teacher saying, "If I meet a
six year old child with something to teach, I will learn from him, if I
meet a seventy year old patriarch who needs something I can give, I
will teach him." We all learn from and teach one another and remind one
another. And every school of Buddhism (or other religion) seems to me
a practice of maintaining or allowing a certain awareness--whose
descriptions and outer manifestations may differ, but whose heart is to
a great extent recognizably shared. 

Another thing I heard early on and that stuck deeply with me which
seems relevant to earlier parts of this conversation is that Buddhist
practice rests on a tripod: Great Faith, Great Doubt, Great Effort.
None without the others.
  

    
An inspiring post!
  

    
Yes, quite so. I want to read that book about women in koans when it's
published.

In Buddhism we hear about 'emptiness' and 'not-self,' often
misunderstood, possibly because the words used are never quite right.
Emptiness is discussed more in Mahayana than Theravada tradition; I
think we have participants here who have experience with both. Maybe by
talking about emptiness, we can also gain some insight into the
difference in Mahayana and Theravada schools?
  

    
Jane, you brought up so many great topics that we should talk about here! 
I'm gonna make a little list.

I've been told that "kindness and awareness" says it all -- but it seems 
like adding "impermanence" to that is called for, and then that's the same 
basic formulation as your six-word one, which spells it out better.

Back to Roland, though -- you could sit for 5 minutes without any 
instruction or whatever. It's easy, once you find a posture that works for 
you. It could feel like nothing is happening but that's good!
  

    
slip, obv.
  

    
Hi Jane :) Welcome. As it happens, I'm currently reading "After the
Ecstasy, The Laundry" and enjoying it a lot.
  

    
Thanks, fom, glad you like that.

Jack's a wonderful teacher, with both feet on ground and a knack for
the right story and the right issues for many of us who practice in
this country and culture. Very glad to hear you are liking the book,
Patrick.

Jon, I think you are just right about words and meanings making a
difference, and that different schools/places/times embody different
attitudes to similar but not identical concepts. I have often heard
that a better translation than "emptiness" would have been
"spaciousness," and I tend to say "no-fixed-self" rather than
"no-self." But different schools lean differently on these descriptors,
and as people have said eloquently earlier, the experiences behind the
words are ungraspable by language anyhow.

The Theravadan texts and Mahayana and Tibetan/Tantric also have hugely
different attitudes about the emotions--but an American just starting
to learn about Buddhism gets a kind of stew of them all, unsorted and
not distinguished. For a long time I carried the question "What is the
emotional life of a Buddha?" Different traditions propose quite
different answers to that. In classical Theravadan texts, the emotions
are supposed to wither up like dead leaves and vanish. Tantric Buddhism
offers images of fierce deities, or erotic ones, as elemental forces
of liberation. Mahayana is somewhere between these. But in each case,
what's clear is that you are probably not going to find liberation from
suffering if you identify completely with your emotions or are
attached to them. But it's not a good idea to ignore them either--which
is a lot of what Jack is talking about in that book. 


One thing that Western practitioners are at times taken to task for is
unseriousness, that "there isn't enough about enlightenment." I notice
that's not a word that has shown up much here, and I'd agree that
there just isn't a lot to be said, but I thought I'd raise it. As a
Soto-trained practitioner, I come from a lineage where as the koan
says, chopping wood and carrying water are themselves the miraculous
powers. Sitting a seven day sesshin at Tassajara is unimaginably
arduous and "serious".... but big experiences, in Soto practice, are
something that isn't much talked about--they happen, but you don't talk
about them, and the test of them is how you are in any given moment.
What is the quality of this moment is the only barometer that matters.
In Rinzai, though, you pass your koans, and there's a kind of
check-ladder of practice; people know exactly where they are on it. I
wonder, does anyone here do koan practice in that way, and if so, do
you have anything to say about it?  Or is anyone a Tibetan lineage
practitioner, where as I understand it there are a series of quite
specific initiations and practices along the way of training? The Soto
attitude of no-attainment seems to me to be the governing vocabulary
among many American Buddhists, including non-Soto ones--it fits well
with a democratic culture of essential modesty-- but it's not the only
approach, and can be misunderstood as placid by those who train in
other modes. 
  

    
I think these are excellent points and questions to raise. As I mentioned
before my teacher's main teachers were in the Vajrayana/Tibetan tradition
which is very robust, intense, and works directly with powerful energies and
forces. He also has studied with Taoist masters as well, who also work
directly with deep forces which have connections to emotions (but are in
many ways more primal than what we typically call "emotions"). (Some of the
"strange" experiences I alluded to above are a result of explorations with
these practices). A very strong component to the Dzogchen view, however, is
precisely this "already accomplished" aspect of reality, that is to say, not
striving to "achieve" something via the self making progress towards a goal,
but instead working with what is already the case even before you start.
However, I don't think many people would mistake the Vajrayana or Dzogchen
approach with a "passive" approach --- it dives into the very fabric of the
tumult of life including all its energies and conflicts and contradictions,
even as it also agrees with the Soto emphasis on what Suzuki-roshi used to
call "no gaining idea."

So I wouldn't say the Tibetan approach is necessarily one which involves
this idea of progress --- more accurately, as I noted earlier, Tibetan
Buddhism includes within it a verison of most of the approaches including
step-by-step approaches, sutric emphasis, tantric schools, and "already
complete" schools such as Dzogchen.

Perhaps somewhat unlike Soto Zen, however, in Tibetan Buddhism you can and
do talk about "big experiences" with your teacher (it's still rather bad form
to talk too much about them with fellow students, for the obvious reason
that you don't want to get into some sort of competition.) But they
understand these experiences not as goals in themselves but instead interesting
moments which can shed light on issues the practitioner happens to be
going through, either in terms of their general realization or working with
specific energies, forces, and principles. The longer I've practiced, however,
the more clear it is to me that, at least from the perspective of my own
practice and study, the notion of the "already complete" really is the
most fundamental truth of our existence; to the extent I've had big
experiences they aren't achievements, but rather points where I shed one or
more habits in which I was clinging to some notion of self or ordinary
time or progress, however subtle. But shedding or dropping something isn't
necessarily permanent; you can always pick it up again, which is why this
is not the "end" of practice but rather just an event. It is true, however,
that I've had major shifts, so huge that they radically changed my moment to
moment experience of life rather completely... but even so, the interesting
thing about them was the extent to which at the same moment I realized that
there wasn't actually a fundamental change there at all --- even delusion
is itself an expression of enlightenment. The more that's become clear
ironicaly the more stable my realization and practice has been.
  

    
It seems that serious meditation practice engenders a dropping away of
a number of habits that tend to conceal the nature of mind, perception
and generally how things are. The events that mark this process can
indeed be quite earth shattering - until soon thereafter it becomes
apparent that this "new" perception was there all along anyway.

On another note, Theravada practice seems often to get short shrift
from other Buddhist traditions. I've always been mystified by why this
might be - is it carryover from Asia? Is it something we said?  ;-)
  

    
<101> is quite a ' tea ceremony ' — thank you, <jh>. Just when it felt
like the forum was revolving around in a circle, in need of new
thematic topical inquiry, shazam!

i'll pick just emptiness, for now, as <jon> has also flagged it, and
it might be fun enuf: thus have I heard.   Before I begin, I can see
how emotions also could pertain, so I'll end on that, as emotional life
of Buddha puzzled me too for decades. 

< e m p t i n e s s >

Emptiness links in to initial previous posts & ripostes abt
re-incarnation : if there's an immortal soul, then it's a twofer deal
(two-for-the-price-of-one): one automatically can get Heaven (with God
thrown in as a bonus).  But -- if no fixed separate immortal anything (
except continual change & interconnection ), then what exactly carries
over (gets reborn), such as unhatched seeds of intention, gives way to
Buddhist  hair-splitting.  --Unless, aha!,  one recognizes the
emptiness of all this as concepts, in which case there might be another
two-fer gift to open: emptiness + the unborn/undying.

Emptiness can give rise to complex elegant treatises, such as
Nagarjuna's tetralema, and the whole PrajanaParamita canon, but why not
keep it simple : Don't believe everything you think.  Check your
expectations.  Say I'm driving in my vehicle, and as I reach an
intersection you turn in front of me such that I miss the light and
have to wait.  I might curse that you cut me off(!), but hey you just
made a turn, and I interpreted it.  As in law, there's statement of
fact, and conclusion from fact.  The situation was, in and of itself,
blank (empty of interpretation).  Bonus: In my practice, btw, emptiness
is one of three mutual doors, along with signlessness, and
aimlessness.  But, then, Ven. Thich Nhat Hanh teaches Theravada &
Mahayana, both.

And from the above, we can ground emotions.  In my car, feeling cut
off, I can get angry.  Honk my horn.  Honk louder as others around are
honking, in a little symphonic prequel to road rage.   Or -- I can feel
anger.  Be aware of it arising.  Noticing the bodily sensations of
constricted chest, shortness of breath, dizzy head, etc.  Recognize it,
and rather than react to it, respond in a skillful way: an opportunity
to see, in my own life-as-laboratory, the truth of the four ennobling
truths.  Here, the whole jukebox of feelings gets boiled down to three
essential emotional tones: craving, aversions, and shutting down.  

Had I been a better practitioner, this would have been wayy shorter. 
But am so grateful for the teachings, so am sharing what I've found for
myself to be true and correct -- and beneficial to others as well as
me -- in this context.

BTW, <jh>, am curious when you're in a group situation as you say you
just were -- even 'tho you don't tell anyone about Zen or sitting or
any of that, do you consider your presence amongst the group an
instance of sangha?
  

    
(I do not wish to hijack the current stream but want to point out an
interesting blog post on 'Western Philosophical Chauvinism' by Barbara
O'Brien who I enjoy reading. The post is much too short but brings up a
good topic. There are some interesting comments.

http://buddhism.about.com/b/2012/06/05/western-philosophical-chauvinism.htm

)
  

    
Wonderful posts, Jane, also clearly time consuming on your end so
thank you for them.  I hadn't known your early history, the way you
burrowed your way into zen like a heat seeking missile with tie dyed
curtains.  Karma karma karma.

One of my favorite stories about my own relationship to zen is this: 
In 1964, I was living in a hippie apartment at Bush and Laguna.  My
neighbor, who was a very strange fellow, told me that there was a
Japanese master named Suzuki-roshi who was teaching zen in the big old
building across the street.  "What is zen?" I asked.  "A way to end
desire," he answered.  So of course I didn't go, and never met
Suzuki-roshi, and didn't get to zen for another 30 years.  If my
peculiar neighbor hadn't confused Mahayana and Theravadan practice, and
the attempt to end desire with the struggle to live with it, my life
might have been quite different.   Now, though, I can't in any way
argue with the life I've had, which is to say that I can't argue with
my own particular karma.
  

    
(Renshin slipped, with such a marvelous post!)

Too many interesting directions to go at once; even with a non-unified
self it seems we humans must put one thing at a time into awareness...
at least when we talk.

Mitsu, your description of Dzogchen chimes with the sense I've always
had that Dzogchen and Soto are very very close in what you describe.
Everything you say so eloquently, I recognize also as Soto practice
path's description. Especially the feeling/idea of what Suzuki-roshi
meant by "things as it is"--awakening already is present, it is only
that our experience can feel separate from it or not. 

Chris's description also--so simple and right feeling. Yes.

And how to work with that in traffic, as Gary describes, one of the
great American fields of practice.

I should clear up any misunderstanding on one thing--of course in Soto
you speak with your teacher, privately, about big experiences (and all
else). What I had in mind was the difference with what I've heard
about Rinzai, where at the end of a sesshin it is (I have heard,
probably going all the way back to DT Suzuki and Kapleau-roshi's books)
sometimes announced that X many people had kensho experiences.

Chris, I think Theravada practices are fully present in the landscape
of American Buddhism, both through Thich Nhat Hanh's teaching, as Gary
reminds, and through the many Vipassana and especially Insight
Meditation teachers; and then, through them, people like Jon
Kabat-Zinn, who is taking mindfulness meditation into the larger
culture in so many interesting ways. We just don't tend, for some
reason, to label them Theravada as firmly as the Mahayana and Vajrayana
paths are labelled--I'd guess probably out of some left over
embarrassment from the old, now discarded "Hinayana" (lesser path)
description.

Thinking of Jon Kabat-Zinn raises yet another possible area of
discussion--Buddhism without Buddhism has been touched on, but there's
so much more to think about there--what happens when you take certain
practices out of their traditional fabric--can they keep their
effectiveness, are they in some sense the broadest path to lessening
suffering and increasing compassion, or do they get watered down and
vanish? Which circles back to those four paths of practice--all of
which, to me, seem part of a sustainable ecosystem. 

Gary, to answer your question, my use of sangha (inside my own psyche)
is so broad as to be perhaps meaningless. For me, everything's sangha.
Right down to the rocks and squirrels and mosquitoes, one big sangha,
all practicing together. I know that's not what it's supposed to mean
as a reference. And it is certainly true that even in that narrower
sense, I feel that way about the group of people I was with--everyone
was doing something with full-hearted intention, certainly, and
supporting one another in that. So, not a "Buddhist" sangha, but surely
a sangha. 

I am curious how others here handle this intersection of regular
person and practitioner, especially when so much of practice is about
dropping identity and label. Does it come up as an issue in ways that
need to be attended to, that bring either difficulty or satisfaction?
For Renshin, as priest and hospice worker, it is I am guessing part of
your public and knowable identity(though as you said, most of your
hospice patients may not know your training is in Zen, you still are
"chaplain"). What about others? How does the vocabulary and label
affect your interactions with those who are not practicing?
  

    
((miguel), thanks for your #120, that's a fascinating thread)
  

    
I don't talk about Buddhism much with those who aren't conversant with
it. I had a conversation the other day with a friend who's an
attorney, and who also studies, and gives talks about, the way the
brain works. We talked about the relationship of brain to mind. I
mention stuff that emerges from my practice or study to him, and I have
the feeling he didn't hear. There's also always the part that words
fail to carry.

Yesterday I practiced and felt connected to my practice, and when it
was done I met my wife, did something mundane - grocery shopping - and
could feel all the attachment stuff emerging again. Dependent
origination, karma, conditioned response and action, emotions churning.
However aware, just after practice, that this stuff is "empty" in the
sense that it just comes, just goes - is transient and has no
persistent substance. An uptight emotion is not a thing, but a process
that comes and goes. Self is like that, too.

Mu Soeng in _The Heart of the Universe_ makes the connection between
sunyata/emptiness and quantum study. Is an atom a thing, or a process?
When you look inside, there's nothing there... but there's something.
Talking about no-thing seems to thingify it, so the words don't seem
adequate for any kind of understanding. Communicating the experience is
hard - I figured that's why Rinzai use koan, and there are various
more experiential methods and shocks that communicate what words alone
can't.
  

    
To me, if there's a concern about Buddhism "without Buddhism", it's not
about the cultural trappings --- after all, every culture Buddhism has moved
into has changed radically the style and other cultural indicators. As we
were discussing above, Thai Buddhism is extremely integrated with local
customs and with the local animist religious beliefs that were likely
indigenous to Thailand before the advent of Buddhism. On the other hand,
sects like Zen in Japan have already stripped out a huge number of Buddhist
stylistic trappings, and Zen already is a very spare version of Buddhism,
though it does still retain rituals and so on, robes, etc., it is
nevertheless already an almost "modern" version of Buddhism which doesn't
spend a lot of energy or time on many of the things which occupy the
mythological space of other Buddhist sects.

So I think Buddhism can certainly survive just fine while changing,
dropping, or radically simplifying many of the rituals and so on --- as it
already has for centuries. The more important question is whether something
deep can get lost in translation --- there's a lot of richness in Buddhist
theory and practice, and incredible, nearly inconceivable depths ... if
Buddhism gets reintrepreted simply as a form of psychology, for instance,
rather than as a tradition which directly addresses fundamental existential
issues in a way which is both deeply personal and almost cosmic in its
implications, then I think something will have been lost.

But I also believe there is a future, as I alluded to before, to the Dharma
which goes beyond Buddhism as it has evolved in the past. I personally think
there are profound ways in which many of the deep principles of the Dharma
can be found in, say, great art, and even in science, not to mention
philosophy, politics, management theory, economics... and not in the
relatively superficial sense of "Buddhist art" but something far more
interesting and surprising. These explorations I think are only just
beginning, and there's no way to know where they will end up.