The dharma of adapting Buddhism

Yesterday at the Berkeley Zen Center, Sojun Mel Weitsman reflected on how when Suzuki Roshi asked him to start the center, one of his tasks was to build a library.  They had little money, so the community donated many non-Buddhist books which Sojun then traded in at local bookstores for Buddhist ones. He collected virtually all the Buddhist texts published in English, ending up with one bookshelf.

Hearing his story reminded us of exactly how new this tradition is to the West.  In Sojun’s lifetime, he has seen a flowering of temples and teachers in the United States.  Popular Buddhist magazines exist where there used to be none at all; multiple rooms can now be filled with well-researched, deeply insightful books; major universities host popular and respected PhD's in Buddhist studies.  

He spoke of how this flowering of the dharma in a new land has often felt like a “grand experiment" requiring many adaptations.  When I asked him what adaptations he felt were most important, he quickly answered that American Buddhism was responsible for two major alterations that Buddhist leaders around the world are seeking to emulate.  The first is the striving for total equality of men and women within Buddhist practice.  In the United States, this has been a journey requiring sangha members to examine their own roles in patriarchal culture and to contribute to changing that culture.  Sojun stressed that we have the benefit of being used to and expecting continuous change, whereas in Japan change happens much more slowly.  Even though Japanese priests are working on it, reshaping culture is far more difficult.  The second adaptation was the introduction of zazen as a lay practice.  Sojun described how he has been working with Japanese priests for two decades in helping to bring these modifications to Japan.  Japanese priests, he said, are deeply impressed by the ability of American temples to bring meditation to the public.

Sojun’s talk was deeply affirming for me.  I have felt the need to leave certain traditions and teachings behind, the simple examples being reincarnation and laws of karma based in it.  While many western Buddhists do believe in these, it's important to note that throughout Asia, cosmology has been a major part of Buddhism.  Both cosmology and the vast bulk of ritual activity has been left behind by American Buddhists.  Despite the fact that many Buddhists around the world would hardly recognize American Buddhism as a form of Buddhism, these dramatic changes are nonetheless extensions of the dharma. 

Part of my practice is also taking teachings in new directions, such as my recent reflections on the paramitas.  In these contemplations I've been developing my own thoughts, inspired in part by tradition and in part by the reflections of recent Western ancestors like Reb Anderson and scholars like Dale Wright, who themselves take traditional teachings in new directions. The reflections on the paramitas from across Asia are immensely beneficial, but there is also much that is not said about such important topics as generosity, patience, and wisdom: as American Buddhists, we are taking these in new directions, and extending the dharma by doing so. 
  

I have been experiencing a growing desire to spread the dharma.  I don't know what this means for me because I have no intention of becoming a priest.  Although I increasingly feel drawn to the idea of spending a long period in meditation, study, and reflection in order to embody and understand the dharma, I cannot imagine the priestly route of stepping away from my activity in the world.  I have, however, reached a place where it feels important to communicate the dharma to many people from all walks of life, to contribute to helping people make sense of the dharma in this new soil.  It is not just me and my sangha that thrives on the dharma, the world needs it.  It has to be communicated very clearly and thoughtfully in order for the roots to continue to spread and to deepen.  This communication and taking root requires extending traditional teachings in new directions.  New directions don't mean straying from essential teachings and practices, but fully meeting the moment and recognizing what works here and now.  If we meet the moment fully here, in San Francisco and in the United States, we will apply the dharma in an appropriate and specific way which will entail altering tradition.  Sanghas around the world will very likely learn something from us. 

Thankfulness as generosity

Another post on the many manifestations of danaparamita, the perfection of generosity.  

My mother has been suffering from major health problems recently.  After a month in a nursing home, I am extremely thankful that she is healthy enough to be home once more, thankful that she can be in a warm and cozy space, thankful that she can once again sit in her chair and look out over the narrow strip of water that separates Alameda and Oakland.  

I want to write about a moment of thankfulness that she shared with me while she was still in the nursing home.  We were sitting calmly together, and in a very sweet moment after reading a story, she expressed with great sincerity how lucky she felt and how thankful she was.  She acknowledged that things could easily have been much worse.  She was thankful for what she did have of her health.  And she was so, so thankful for all the love she had in her life. 

Her expression of thankfulness was a great gift to me because it opened a space for my own.  My inability to find work as a history teacher despite years of hard work and complete devotion to the teaching path had driven me into an incapacitating depression.  As she expressed thankfulness, deep in my own body I could feel how right she was.  Her expression allowed me to fully feel how much I had to be thankful for despite feeling so unacknowledged and unsuccessful.  Thankfulness didn't get rid of that suffering.  But it did put it in a larger perspective, in which it wasn't such a big deal.  In depression we have trouble seeing outside of our suffering, and by focusing on it, allow suffering to overcome us.  In thankfulness, we focus on what is beautiful in life.  Suffering is real, but it is only part of the story.  Thankfulness shows us the other part. 

Giving thanks is seeing things clearly.  It is being present with reality.  It is loving.  It is a skill we can cultivate, a spiritual technique, a practice we can use to offer ourselves a more expansive view.  Thankfulness is spiritual because it allows us to enter into a deeper, more subtle and more perceptive relationship to this world.  If we practice the spiritual technique of thankfulness with sincerity we will see more clearly and love more deeply.  Giving thanks may start as a mental activity, but the mental activity serves to allow the body to become thankful.  We can feel and express thankfulness in the way we sip tea or touch another human being.  I imagine that bodhisattvas are beings whose bodies express love and thankfulness in each moment, and whose expressions of love and thankfulness open doors for others to be loving and thankful as well. 

Thankfulness is a form of danaparamita because when we are thankful, we are being generous to all beings.  People who give sincere thanks together develop love together and become dharma sisters and brothers. 

Allowing others to fully approach to us

Buddhists have traditionally divided danaparamita, or the perfection of generosity, into two parts: the giving of physical objects that benefit other beings, and the giving of the dharma.  However, giving physical gifts should always involve giving the dharma because the spirit in which we give should embody the dharma, should embody selflessness, compassion, and wisdom.  The way in which physical gifts are given can be the true gift.

Generosity is often thought of as giving physically or of actively reaching out.  But there is also the great gift of receiving, of being available, of being approachable.  What does it mean to perfect approachability?  It does not mean spiritual charisma or energy that entices people to approach.  Approachability means cultivating a certain physical and psychological presence so that when people watch our body language, look into our eyes, or hear our tone of voice, they will understand that they are deeply accepted and safe with us.  This is not about the mind.  Our body communicates to their body that they are completely accepted.  Without reaching out at all, on the surface offering nothing, we can in fact offer everything.  In this way we can allow people to fully approach us.
 

Approachability is perfected when our body, speech, and mind reveal our true warmth and compassion for all beings, just as they are.  It is perfected when everything about ourselves shows to others that we do not wish they were different in any way.  In zazen we fully face and accept ourselves.  We learn to witness and care for what is true in ourselves.  This is training for witnessing and caring for what is true in the world rather than expending energy wishing that things were otherwise.  The body that wishes that things were otherwise, that does not totally accept other beings, will not be a fully approachable body and thus will not fully manifest danaparamita.  Perfecting approachability includes witnessing and caring for people who are cold and distant towards us.  Their distance need not be ours; their wish that things were otherwise need not be our wish.  We can offer warmth and remain approachable in all circumstances.  We can at least reflect on this matter and work towards this goal.

When we practice witnessing and caring for what is true in ourselves and the world, we become at home in ourselves and in our interconnectedness with the world.  As our new ino Kyosho Valerie Beer wrote today, "the purpose of meditation is to come home...  Dogen called zazen 'the full investigation of the homeward course.'"  We are home right here, we do not need anything to be different; in finding home we have transcended the acquisitive mind. Not needing the world to change for us allows others to be at home with us.  Thus zazen provides shelter for all beings.    

Acquisitive energy is alive in each precept

During my morning reflections on the precepts, I read part of Reb's chapter on not-lying.  He mentions that, for many people, the precepts regarding intoxication, sexuality, and lying are connected.  Intoxication makes lying and bending the truth much easier – some of us may even become intoxicated to enable ourselves to be more willing to bend the truth.  If intoxication is a problem for us, its something we would be very tempted to lie about, including to ourselves; and of course, intoxication can lead to a lack of mindfulness regarding sexuality.  Sexual desire can facilitate lying for many reasons; one is because the desire to impress can lead many of us to bend the truth about ourselves.  

I found myself thinking of how the desire to impress, which can all too easily involve a lack of honesty, is often the desire to acquire, and realized that these precepts were also intimately connected with not-stealing. 

The precept of not-stealing has not meant much to me before, because I was thinking of it simply in terms of stealing physical objects.  However, considering not-stealing as the acquisitive mind and body, the mind and body that wants more than it already has, the mind and body that wants to own or control something, the mind and body that is not fulfilled by what it has in the present, has made this precept fruitful.  Considering not-stealing in this light has allowed me to consider how this precept facilitates perfecting other precepts: reading about not-lying, I was also reading about not-stealing.  

The being that lies - the being that refrains from total forthrightness, the being that speaks in half-truths or promotes obscurity rather than clarity - is often a being that feels the urge to acquire something; the being that is not mindful about sexuality is often a being who feels the impulse to acquire the attention of another being in a variety of ways and may even want to own or determine the way the energy of another being manifests.    

One of the great gifts we can give the world - one of the manifestations of danaparamita or the perfection of generosity - is a highly developed non-acquisitive nature.  When we develop this nature, others can feel free around us and truly cared for by us: we are not trying to get anything from anybody but are caring for all beings, including ourselves, exactly as we are.

When reflecting on many of the precepts – even those involving maintaining rituals and taking refuge – I realize it is fruitful to ask myself: do I have any acquisitive energy around this precept?  In some form, I do have acquisitive energy around every single precept, and part of the work of gradually perfecting the precepts will be working with the many manifestations of acquisitive energy.