There was some interest in such a thread, so I thought I’d start it. I know I’m not alone (no really, I know I’m not alone… heh.) So let’s have a Buddhist free-for-all. I imagine it will involve lots of gong-ringing and hitting people with sticks.
I would request that participants state what sect of Buddhism they follow because I have the feeling there are going to be some really diverse perspectives.
In that vein, I’m white and from the Midwestern United States, about as far from culturally Buddhist as you can get. I tend to fall down heavily on the Zen side of things, but I’m terribly inconsistent at meditating so I’m kind of a hypocrite. (Yes, that’s right, hypocrisy isn’t just for Christians, folks!)
To start the ball rolling, there are four basic beliefs that Buddhists universally have in common (formally referred to as the Four Noble Truths):
Life means suffering.
The origin of suffering is attachment.
The cessation of suffering is attainable.
It may be attained by following the Eightfold Path
1.Right View
2. Right Intention
3. Right Speech
4. Right Action
5. Right Livelihood
6. Right Effort
7. Right Mindfulness
8. Right Concentration
And that’s where it gets tricky, folks. Have at it!
That said- here’s my Q: Why do you feel you are a hypocrite especially from a Buddhist perspective? So you’re inconsistent, last I checked there wasn’t really a hard and fast rule on X amount of hours meditating and such as long as you’re doing your best to stick to the path, no?
Well, because it’s hard not to think in terms of achievement even when you honestly believe it’s not helpful. Especially when you don’t have the clarity of mind that is so often achieved by regular meditation.
I (mostly jokingly) call myself a hypocrite because ‘‘Zen’’ literally means ‘‘meditation.’’ When someone says he is a Zen Buddhist, he is saying, literally, ‘‘I am a Meditation Buddhist.’’
‘‘Hi, I’m olivesmarch4th and I’m a Meditation Buddhist… who doesn’t meditate very often.’’ It’s a bit silly, no?
The thing is, I DO meditate… I just do it in daily life and not so much on the cushion. I do it while I’m waiting at stoplights or dealing with some frustrating person at work or exercising… little moments of awareness as often as I can.
But I know, from experience, that it takes some real time on the cushion to develop the sort of awareness the Zen masters speak of. There is no hard and fast rule, but most experienced teachers recommend daily time sitting.
Have you ever seen the British TV show Absolutely Fabulous? The main character, Eddy, a very shallow woman, frequently says, “I’m a Buddhist, darling” (she really isn’t), and every time I think about studying Buddhism, I hear her voice and cringe.
In other words, did you have those hangups about your atypical background/trendiness/whatever before starting to really study it?
When I first got into it, I wasn’t thinking about how the world perceived Western Buddhists, I was just looking for a new religion. I’d been a Christian as a teen, discovered Nietzsche as a freshman in college, and was ready to move on. Spirituality has always been central to my life and that wasn’t about to change, I just knew I needed something that fit my new, much more open-minded perspective of the world.
What appealed to me about Buddhism is that it can be completely without dogma – there is no requirement to believe or not believe in a god or gods, and there is no real concept of proselytizing (except, perhaps, the Nichiren Buddhists.) That was important to me because I had been a fundamentalist Christian and wanted something that was the complete opposite of that. I was tired of the concept of guilt and sin, and Buddhism really fit my new understanding of the world anyway.
When I realized that a lot of people perceived Buddhism as a trendy/new-agey thing, I was rather distressed. I have always been a bit overly concerned about what people think of me and it fed into pre-existing insecurities a bit. It was especially hard because I was so new to learning about it, I worried that people would take my ignorance as a lack of true conviction. But, I mean, what can you do? I found something that made a real positive difference in my life and I couldn’t disown it simply based on the fact that it was perceived as kinda trendy.
At this point, I’ve made peace with it. I don’t discuss it very often with people so when they do happen to figure it out it usually just generates a little educational conversation. Occasionally the fact of my Buddhism will offend someone’s Christian (or in one case, Muslim) sensibilities, but it’s not often enough to really matter that much. Most people are just curious.
My biggest fear of course has always been offending someone who is culturally/regionally Buddhist. I actually had to do a little project related to this for one of my courses, and I discussed what it was like to be a Western Buddhist. There was a new international student from Taiwan whose eyes lit up the moment I started talking about it, and she totally perceived me as someone she could relate to in a culture that was very foreign to her. The next day in class she gave me a little Buddha magnet. We have become very good friends as a result of this commonality (even though she’s not formally a Buddhist herself.)
So I guess the short answer to your question is, being a Buddhist very occasionally affects my social life and how I am perceived by others, but the bulk of my experience is private and internal and much larger than those little moments of frustration.
I’ll take a crack at this one. I was lucky, in that Buddhism was pretty unknown in my part of the west (the eastern part, Nawth Cawlina) when I started out, so I got to skip a lot of the cultural preconceptions of Buddhism. I took a bunch of eastern religions course at college in the '80s. The main instructor (Roger Corless, for those of you playing Buddhist Bhingo bhack home) was outstanding, and allowed me to start off without belief, but with knowledge. By the time I bought into the philosophy I’d read a ton of books, and met relatively few Buddhists, and (thank god) almost no wannabe Buddhists. Now I’m in the peculiar position of being a bonafide practitioner, but not hardly ever going to temples, meetings or groups. Except for Olives and a few dopers, and a few others I know IRL, and the Attackkids my practice is very very hidden away. I don’t usually mention it in meatspace if I can avoid it.
As cringe-inducing as AbFab is, the worst was when I admitted that I was a Buddhist to an in-law of mine, whose father was a…I dunno, a Jack Kerouac Buddhist, one of the beat generation who screwed around with other peoples lives, and were totally irresponsible, while justifying it all with some sort of hand wave about zen.
How often does the typical Buddhist attend religious services? How are they structured? What are the big Buddhist holidays?
You mentioned you were raised a Christian, but have moved away from that faith. Do you believe the big three monotheistic religions are incompatable with Buddhism, or can you be Christian and Buddhist? Do most fellow Buddhists agree with you? Is there any Christian practices (holidays, prayers, etc.) you still perform?
Speaking of secular Buddhism, how is Shambhala Buddhism viewed by traditional and/or cultural Buddhists?
FYI, what you’re doing sounds pretty cool. I dabbled in secular Buddhism years ago. Basically, I read Chögyam Trungpa’s book and did a little meditation (I was too broke and self conscious to attend the local secular temple.) In the end, the teachings seemed like a lot of basic common sense. I identify as Christian now but see no conflict between the paths.
My family tends not to celebrate Buddhist holidays, simply because, as mentioned above, we are pretty solitary in our practice, and culturally our holidays are standard North American style. We celebrate Xmas, largely on the grounds that Jesus was a Bodhisattva My original mentor, as mentioned above, was well known as as a Catholic and Buddhist, and many people are Jewish/Buddhist or whatever.
The Jataka stories and Buddha’s teachings make explicit references to gods, so it would be silly to argue against their existence. However, since one can be incarnate as a god, it is equally silly to make a big deal about them. In general, gods exists, but they’re kind of irrelevant to the main point that Gautama Buddha was making. Most Buddhist branches don’t try real hard to get converts, but will often tell you to do your best in the religion you’re currently in. In general, if you take the long view, it is better to get what you can out of your religion, get a moral compass, cultivate compassion and gradually work your way to enlightenment.
It seems every religion has their whackjobs that most of the true followers just wish would go away (Islam has people like Al Qaeda and suicide bombers, Christianity has no shortage of people - Pat Robertson and Fred Phelps are two of far too many, you get the idea (even athiesm has its loudmouth assholes)). Does Buddhism have any? (I’m thinking with less followers, the nutjob number is smaller, which is why names aren’t coming to me). If so, do you think there’s a reason for this inherent in Buddhism that the other religions (and atheism) lack?
Speaking as a fellow western Zen Buddhist who doesn’t spend enough time on the cushion (high five!), well, my teacher effectively told me that if you can really truly tell yourself that you’re achieving a calm mind in the midst of the real world, then you’re ahead of the game anyway. Granted, the potential for self-delusion that you’re less detached than you think you are is there.
Other things my teacher has said: In response to me saying “Sometimes I feel like this whole Zen thing is me at the foot of a mountain, and after all these years of practice I’ve only climbed a few hundred feet max.” And she smiled, and nodded, and said, “I feel exactly the same way.” Coming from a woman in her 60s who’s dedicated her life to this, that kinda made me feel better.
As far as I understand it, the most well known Buddhist “whackjobs” tend to self-abuse rather than attack others–witness the monks who occasionally immolate themselves in protest over wars etc.
There are a LOT of ostensibly Buddhist terror groups, though–they’re just not as well known in the West because they have so far tended to stay home, as it were.
There’s the DKBA in Burma that started as a ethic-based terror group but split into Christian (the KNU) and Buddhist (DKBA) factions, with the Buddhist side siding with the military junta currently in control and enforcing their particular reign of terror. Aum Shinrikyo in Japan uses some Buddhist teachings in its melange of beliefs. The government of Sri Lanka is officially Buddhist and has been in a bloody civil war with the minority Tamil population since the 1980s, a war the Tamils claim is essentially ethnic/cultural cleansing.
