the DharmaRealm

Inspired by a Dharma Talk at the BCA National Council Meeting, Rev. Harry starts us off by suggesting that individualism is a point of contact between Buddhism and American culture. This seems somewhat counterintuitive given that individuality seems at odds with Buddhist ideas of interdependence, no-self, or non-attachment to the ego. But we think there may be a way for Buddhist notions of individualism to engage in dialogue with American ones while finding a balance between a complete denial of the self and egocentric narcism. This conversations takes us into Shin Buddhist philosophy, the Tannisho, and brings us back to Yogacara conceptions of reality itself.

For some reason, we thought we’d start talking about the Seven Masters. But we get immediately sidetracked by Herbert Güenther, a Buddhist scholar who wrote about the Madhyamaka and Yogacara schools of Buddhism. Interestingly, his discussion of the development of these schools isn’t exactly historically accurate from a Western point of view — but it is from a traditional Tibetan scholastic one! This different way of reading history sets us off on a discussion of how our understandings of history itself is colored by our often uncritical acceptance of a Western/European/progressive view of history that suggests human civilization is getting better all the time. But this raises all sorts of ethical and philosophical and even Buddhist problems that we take up in this episode.

In this episode, we also make mention of the Spring 2011 Ryukoku Lecture happening at the Institute of Buddhist Studies. Check out the IBS website for details and the IBS podcast in the coming weeks for audio and video from this event.

In this episode, we continue our conversation on ichinen-sanzen, but take the conversation up a notch. We’re wrestling with some difficult issues in Buddhist philosophy; namely, if we understand samsara to be the realm of delusion and defilements and nirvana to be a purified realm, how do we reconcile this dichotomy with a generally non-dualistic perspective in Buddhism? And what is the mechanism by which we can transform ourselves from one state to another? In Mahayana thought, this issues is dealt with by focusing on the identity of samsara and nirvana; to borrow a phrase, form is emptiness and emptiness if form. In this view, samsara and nirvana are two sides of the same coin. But Tientai takes this even further by suggesting that there aren’t two sides; it’s all the same thing. Thus, both samsara and nirvana totally interpenetrate. This perspective, though, has profound implications on ethics and how we judge whether our actions are good or bad, right or wrong. We suggest that Buddhism at its best is critical, that it forces us to critically examine our subjective perspectives on what we think we know while (hopefully) leading us toward better wisdom and compassion.

Rev. Harry brings up the complex idea of ichinen sanzen — three thousands things in a single thought moment — from Tendai (Tiantai) Buddhism. In short, ichinen sanzen says that each thought moment contains within it all of existence — wait, what? How does all of existence exist within each thought moment? Whose thought moment? Mine? And how long is a thought moment? Somehow all of this is related to broader Buddhist concepts of interdependence but also reincarnation and the six (or ten?) realms of rebirth — not to mention Shinran’s understanding of birth in the Pure Land. And all of this complex philosophizing is all well and good, of course, but how does it help us with the more visceral experiences of life and death?

Inspired by a listener question/discussion on Facebook, we tackle the issue of belief in (Shin) Buddhism, specifically when it comes to Pure Land imagery. Are we expected to believe in it in some substantive, literal sense? Or do we take it as metaphorical? Symbolic? Symbolic of what exactly? We start by suggesting that wrestling with these questions allows us to think critically about what the point of Buddhist practice is in the first. Why do we practice? Because in some sense we believe it will work. But is this belief in the efficacy of Buddhist practice any different from other forms of religious belief? These are some of the questions we wrestle with in this episode.

In this episode, we wrap up our conversation about humanism and Buddhism and what the two might have to say to one another, starting off with a question about what Buddhism might say regarding the value or importance of humanity. Humanism seems to suggest that humanity is rather important. But in Buddhism we find ourselves, at best, one kind of sentient being among many. At worst, especially in Shin Buddhism, we’re foolish, unenlightened beings caught up in a web of messy karma that challenges the positive idealization of humanity and makes tough work of morality and ethics. We want to thank our listeners once again for sending in such thought-provoking question — keep ’em coming!

Even though this week’s episode isn’t really about humanism per se, we pick up where we left off last time, allowing Scott a moment to clarify what he meant when he said that Buddhism doesn’t care about the individual. This week is really all about individual practice versus community practice, what does it mean to practice, and what do you do when you don’t live anywhere near any other Buddhists? This is a question we get asked a lot by folks who are “distant members” or “solo practitioners,” and it’s an especially important and difficult one for Jodo Shinshu which seems to place so much emphasis on community-based practice. But perhaps in these isolated and new communities we can see glimpses of the future, individual practitioners who are unencumbered by older and rigid communities, folks who are more engaged in multi-yana perspectives. All this and more in this week’s episode. Enjoy!

We’re back!

Using a couple of related listener questions as a jumping off point, we start a conversation about what Buddhism might have to say about (secular) humanism or what humanism might have to say about Buddhism. Apart from anything humanism may have to say about the rejection of a supernatural or religious foundation for ethical behavior, humanism also has something to say about about humanity’s place in and our relationship and responsibility to the world. So what does Buddhism have to say about humanity’s place in relation to other sentient beings? We don’t stop there, of course, and discuss the issue of whether or not Buddhism really is a rational and scientific religion as many claim (or want) it to be. All of this leads Scott to close the episode by saying some terribly silly things that he’ll no doubt recant in some future episode. So stay tuned!

It’s summertime. So here’s an important announcement and a hearty thank you!

In the second installment of our live show, we answer two listener questions. First, we received a question about Shin Buddhist nembutsu practice and the concern that chanting the nembutsu might be something of a crutch, that while making one more calm it might distract us from very real world social problems. We frame this in a conversation about the middle way, the path between extremes of self-doubt and self-indulgance, and how difficult it is to actually walk that path. Our second question came in via Twitter during the live broadcast and was about, generally, the appropriateness of translating Japanese gathas, songs, or chants into English. We focus mostly on the music side the question, exploring the appropriateness of ease of setting English language songs to traditional Japanese musical styles (or vice versa).