the DharmaRealm

In today’s episode, we respond to a listener question about the possibility, in Shin Buddhism, of reconciling the concept of no-self (anatman) and personal identity (especially in regards to race). To do that, we need to break down the concept of no-self and argue that it’s not necessarily a rejection or negation of any type of self but rather, first, part of a pedagogical strategy of the Buddha and, second, related to a whole mass of complex Buddhist concepts that have very little to do with modern understandings of personality, subjectivity, or identity. A key part of this is the idea that self-ness is defined by our interconnection with the world, and on the social level, this absolutely includes social and cultural ideas about race, ethnicity, gender, and so on; and merely saying, “Hey, there is no self!” doesn’t make all of that go away.

Scott’s still got a cold! And he’s a cranky old man who wants to argue with people! So today we’ll try to come up with the Buddhist answer to everything.

Not really. Long time listeners should know by now that quick and easy answers aren’t our stock in trade. We’re far more likely to come up with complicated answers that point to the messiness of life rather than the simple and comfortable. And that’s really what we’re on about today, coming up with responses to the oft-asked “Doesn’t Buddhism say…?” or “What’s the Buddhist position on X?” Our answer? There isn’t an answer. And, more than that, there’s the possibility that Buddhism is wrong. (Cue dramatic chipmunk.)

This week’s image, something Harry mentions in the episode, is the Shumisengi astronomical clock, created by Hisashige Tanaka in 1850. It’s an model of the traditional Buddhist world system with the sun and moon rotating around a flat disk with Mt. Sumeru in the middle.

For our first full episode of 2018 we tackle a listener question about Buddhism and social justice, jumping off from the tension between accepting things as they are and the urge to stand up to inequality and social suffering. Of course, it wouldn’t be us if we didn’t unpack those terms and dig deep into the question — isn’t the point of Buddhism not to accept the world as it is but to see the world as it is, from the point of view of compassionate wisdom? And does merely accepting things as they are, and not acting, necessarily follow from this seeing? And it wouldn’t really be us if we didn’t somehow manage to get sci-fi back into this by dragging Ursula K. Le Guin into the conversation.

Stay tuned for a second episode later this month!

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We’re back! Here’s a teaser to wet your appetite. We’ve got a couple of other episodes in the can that we’ll release this month. And we’re only a few episodes shy of our 100th episode and this March is our tenth anniversary of doing this show! We’re excited to be back in the “studio,” and now is the time for you to send us your questions. Really. Ask us literally anything (except about flat earth) and we’ll do our best to answer it. Really. I promise.

Welcome back, DharmaRealm.

One more episode recorded in October before the election but on a topic that will most certainly continue to be of importance in the year ahead – race, racism, and American Buddhism. This one’s a bit heavy, wherein we discuss the problems of discussing race in public discourse and the social and legal construction of racial and ethnic categories in American culture generally and in Buddhism specifically.

And follow Angry Asian Man; he’s knows what’s what.

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Happy Christmas (if that’s your thing – if not then Happy Winter Holiday of Your Choosing)!

So, head’s up. We recorded this episode way back in early October and are only just now getting around to posting it. Between then and now a lot has happened — well, one thing happened, but it’s a pretty big thing — so what we talk about here is both a little “off-topic” and actually oddly prescient.

After traveling to Denver for the Tri-State Denver Buddhist Temple’s centennial celebration, Scott was struck by the shifting demographics in BCA communities, especially those further out from the Bay Area where racial diversity is significantly more pronounced. Our conversation meanders through the old tropes of the “two Buddhisms” and the question of where “culture” ends and “Buddhism” begins — and if it’s even possible to know what “real” Buddhism is — before finally landing on the big issue — race. Which I’m guessing we’ll take up in future episodes.

For now, enjoy this one while watching the yule log on TV and avoiding awkward conversations about the election with your crazy uncle.

Oh, and here’s some links to articles mentioned in the show:

Natalie Quli, “Western Self, Asian Other”: http://blogs.dickinson.edu/buddhistethics/files/2010/05/quli-article.pdf

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Announcement: we’re doing a “live” show on Saturday August 20 during the CBE’s Pacific Seminar. Check out the the CBE’s website for more information, and send us your questions via Facebook or Twitter!

Picking up from our last conversation, we do our best to stay on topic and not get lost in the pop-culture woods. Our discussion about generations is really about how inter-generational differences play out in the BCA, how they’re reflected in community or institutional structures, their relationship to issues of ethnicity, and the challenges that come with all of that.

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Right off the bat, pretty sure I goofed the origin story of the word “meh” and its reference in The Simpsons. I’m sure someone out there will correct me in the comments.

If you can get through the first ten minutes of what’s basically a therapy session for Harry and the next five minutes of us talking about Godzilla, we get to our point: generations are complicated. There’s a seemingly easy correlation of Japanese-American generations and the Shin Buddhist experience in the US, but after the third generation — as the community becomes more diverse and what it means to be Asian/Japanese/American/Buddhist/a-member-of-specific-generation changes — things get fuzzy. We talk around a lot of issues about how inter-generational dynamics play out in the BCA, and you’re gonna wanna stick around for the next episode.

(Also, note to self: buy Harry a Transformer for his birthday.)

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Buddhism and Introspection: in which we ramble on for a time about the extent to which Buddhism is introspective, about controlling, watching, or purifying the mind, an extended exercise in trying hard to look inside one’s psychology and recognize our inner habits, shortcomings, and personal narratives.

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Jumping off from our conversation about utopia and Star Trek from our last episode, this time around we’re diving deep into questions of belief and interpretation and how to approach the mythological aspects of Shin Buddhism. What do we do with this tradition whose cosmology appears, at face value, to be so far removed from what we take for granted in a scientific/secular/modern world? Should believe all this Pure Land stuff literally or is all metaphorical? Somehow we manage to get through fundamentalism, Star Wars, the Grateful Dead, and the Big Lebowski in all of this. Enjoy!

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