lotusinthemud

buddhist and yoga teachers issue open letter in support of occupy movement

Ethan Nichtern and Michael Stone have composed a letter about why teachers of Buddhism and yoga should support the Occupy Movement. And they’ve reached out to their peers, asking a number of fellow leaders to sign the letter as a gesture of “commitment to align our practice and values and work together to help our society.”

Initial signees include Sharon Salzberg, Stephen Batchelor, Sean Corne, Robert Thurman, Jack Kornfield, David Loy, Joan Halifax, Norman Fischer, Susan Piver, Anne Cushman, Gaylon Ferguson, Pat Enkyo O’Hara, Trudy Goodman, David Nichtern, Sarah Powers, Judith Simmer-Brown, angel Kyodo williams, Adam Lobel, Eihei Peter Levitt, Cyndi Lee, Koshin Paley Ellison, Robert Chodo Campbell, Ty Powers, Sarah Weintraub, Ted Grand, Maia Duerr, and Ari Pliskin.

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the question of buddhist reincarnation and population growth

Thousands of Buddhist monks attend an alms offering ceremony in Bangkok. Photograph: Damir Sagolj/Reuters

There are now 7 billion people on earth, a billion more than 12 years ago, and 6 billion more than two centuries ago. How does this fact fit with the Buddhist doctrine of reincarnation?

The idea of reincarnation is commonly thought of as "one-out-one-in"– you die and then you get reborn somewhere else. That's not at all how it's perceived in Buddhism: one of the hallmarks of the Buddhist teaching is a refutation that there's any permanent self or soul that could endure from lifetime to lifetime. This is such a different view to the one above that most Buddhists prefer not to use the word reincarnation at all, opting instead for something like "rebirth" or "rebecoming".

The Buddha taught that all things are impermanent, in a state of continuous change and flux – and this includes us. We're constantly mutating as we grow, develop, age and decay, and what we tend to think of as "myself" is actually an ever-changing heap of body parts, thoughts and feelings, influenced by a vast range of past and present causes and conditions (family and cultural history, environment, schooling, biology and so on). Ask yourself: are you the same person you were when you were five years old? The same person as five years ago? Five minutes ago? If not, then aren't we being born and dying in every moment?

segovia: reflections on the progress of civilisation

Dharmavidya writes:

Having completed my work in Korea I travelled to Madrid to meet Franca and we stayed with her sister's family. It was my first time in the Spanish capital and I enjoyed seeing the great boulevards and gardens, modern and ancient architecture, and, of course, the Prado, the great art gallery where we viewed the Goyas and a wide range of great art, Spanish and from other European countries.

Spain is currently suffering some economic stress. Some of the lighting and the amount of water used in the famous fountains has been reduced in a visible sign of the relative austerity. Europe is gradually reorganising and doing so at a time of international loss of economic confidence. Very soon they are going to have elections, but one feels that whoever is elected there must be serious limitations upon what it is possible for them to do. Furthermore, elections depend upon the wisdom of the electorate and this is inevitably drawn from past experience which may be a poor guide to what Europe faces in the next few years and the decades to follow. I feel that serious changes are afoot, that such times are perillous, but there is surely, too, a real possibility of a quantum leap forward.

time to revive the alternative society?

Dharmavidya writes:

Our world is changing. There is austerity. There are rising prices. There is anger. Where will it lead? What will people do? They may over-throw governments in the hope that new ones will do better - but the new ones will have the same problems as the old ones and less experience. They may persecute minorities; this is quite likely. There may be wars, though this is increasingly difficult in the contemporary world of weapons of mass destruction because there are no real winners any more. There may be civil disorder and even civil war is possible in some places. Governments are likely to retrench and extensive systems of social control such as have proliferated in recent decades are likely to weaken. This creates conditions favourable to new movements. Discontent can be turned negatively into hate and strife or it can be turned positively into new contruction and values.

In the nineteen fifties, sixties and early seventies there was the idea of the Alernative Society. This was an ideal of greater liberation and greater togetherness that took many forms. There were many associated sub-movements - beatnik poets, hippies, communes, etc - and various periodicals sprang up. It generated much popular music which celebrated the sense of hope. Some of the manifestions - the free love and the drug culture - now appear to have been aberrations, but they were all manifestations of a spirit of hope and freedom, both social and psychological. 
At that time, knowledge of Buddhism was in its infancy here in the West. Buddhism was, in many ways, at that time, a sub-movement within the Alternative Society. I myself lived in a Buddhist commune. The population there was from several kinds of Buddhism. There was a sense that meditation achieved what drugs were supposed to achieve, only more effectively and enduringly. 

Since then, Buddhism has become more institutionalised and is now in danger of stagnation, which will, I fear, be its fate unless it can indeed rediscover that spirit of liberation and become the focus of hope for young people. Most Buddhist groups in Europe at least now have aging congregations. A renewal is already needed and it needs to be a renewal that reanimates idealism about all aspects of human life. Buddhism is not just "a practice" or, even worse, "one's own practice", that isolates a person from the corrupt world. Buddhism is a light for the world itself and a light does not just illuminate the light-house. 

There are two kinds of Buddhism. There is Pure-Self Buddhism and there is Pure-Land Buddhism. One can aim to become an alternative self or to be part of an alternative society - or both. If those practising pure-self have pure-land in view and those practising pure-land appreciate all approaches then there can be a movement that transcends narrow boundaries. The idea of Pure Land or Other Power is not limited to a couple of Japanese and Chinese denominations. It is a gospel of hope for everybody. There is no membership - just the opening of the heart to what is all around. Pure Land is liberation-in-relation. The time of hope is returning.

This, however, is not just a Buddhist movement. The age of the spirit may take on a myriad forms and associations. We should think of ourselves not as "the answer" but as a rich contribution. If we have a real sense of our own bombu position, then we can contribute to a renaissance of hope in society at large. The ideals of liberation and of the Alternative Society can be a beacon. When something is unleashed in the world there is no telling where it will end. We are entering such times.

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reminiscing and the real world

This is a post by Modgala - she has agreed that I can share any of her writing:

Student riots and anger that are exploding here in London in response to the increased fees, and conversations with Massimo have inspired me to share – both about past activities and what I feel we can do in the present.

I guess we are all worried, I know my fellows in the faiths forum are worried about the effect of cuts on the needy, and we have been exploring “what are our roles”. Now we have student riots too.

I am reminded of “September 11th”. Dharmavidya and I were at a protest against an arms trade fair in London that day. We had gone to the conference centre with the local people in the official protest and were waiting for the large procession of unofficial protestors to arrive. There was a large police cordon separating the groups however Dharmavidya and myself, in our robes, ringing our bells were allowed to remain in the middle ground, close to the police cordon. Most protestors were not aggressive, however I remember one trying desperately to “wind up” and attack the police. We drew closer to the cordon, ringing our bells, distracting the angry man, as they went by other protestors gave us the thumbs up; fortunately no serious trouble evolved.

fears of the effect downstream of dam development in tibet

Construction of a large-scale dam in Tibet is prompting familiar fears downstream on the Brahmaputra. Joydeep Gupta reports on India's concerns.

Only five rivers in the world carry more water than the Yarlung Zangbo, or Brahmaputra as it is known when it reaches India. Only one carries more silt. Rising at a height of 5,300 metres in the Kailash range of the Middle Himalayas – an area holy to both Hindus and Buddhists – the river flows east through Tibet for 1,625 kilometres before taking a horseshoe bend, changing its name and flowing as the Brahmaputra into north-eastern India.

There, for 918 kilometres, it is both a lifeline due to the water it carries and a scourge because of the floods it causes almost every year. It then takes a southward turn and flows into Bangladesh for 363 kilometres before it merges with the Ganges, together forming south Asia’s largest river, the Meghna, and flowing into the Bay of Bengal. This huge river, with its 25 large tributaries in Tibet and 105 in India, drains much of the eastern Himalayas.

As the world’s youngest mountain range, the Himalayas are particularly unstable – and so is the river. It has changed its course significantly at least once in the last 200 years, following a major earthquake. Smaller changes in course are common, wiping out farms and homes on one bank while depositing fertile silt on the other. Now humans are changing the course of this river: Chinese engineers have started to build the Zangmu hydroelectric power station in Lhoka prefecture, 325 kilometres from Lhasa, Tibet’s capital. The development has led to serious expressions of concern, particularly in India but also in China.

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attacks on north american buddhist temples

by Maia Duerr

Arun of the blog Angry Asian Buddhist points out a disturbing trend this year–what seems to be increased incidents of vandalism and attacks on Buddhist temples around the U.S. and Canada, including in Iowa, Kentucky, and Minnesota. (See map here.)

Not surprisingly, most of these temples are made up of primarily Asian/Asian American members.

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afghan copper mine development could destroy ancient buddhist temple

Archeologists are racing to salvage a 2,600-year-old Buddhist monastery at Mes Aynak-- located along the Silk Road connecting Asia and the Middle East--which now stands in the way of development of the world's second largest unexploited copper mine in Afghanistan.

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pakistan to preserve 2,400-year-old buddhist caves in capital

Plan to protect the caves - ::read here

dharamsala: forging tibetans’ future

by david hayes

The attitude of the authorities in the People's Republic of China (PRC) to the Dalai Lama and exiled Tibetans is reminiscent of the response of Joseph Stalin when the Soviet dictator was advised to avoid conflict with the Catholic church: "How many divisions does the pope have?"

Beijing's routine contempt is echoed in Unhappy China, a bestselling work by a group of self-styled spokespersons for Chinese nationalism. One of the authors says that China has no need to argue with the west about whether Tibet was part of China historically or is part of present-day China legitimately: China just needs to make the fact clear that China occupied Tibet in 1959. What can the west do? The case for brutal realism and "hard power", in which actual control matters more than any moral or historical justifications, reveals a significant current of thought in contemporary China (see Song Xiaojun, Wang Xiaodong, Huang Jisu, Song Qiang & Liu Yang, Unhappy China [Jiangsu, People's Press, 2009]). Temtsel H! ao is a journalist based in London

The answer to the updated version of Joseph Stalin's question is clear from a visit to Dharamsala in the northern Indian state of Himachal Pradesh, where the Dalai Lama and the Tibetan government-in-exile have been based since their flight from Tibet fifty years ago. Tibet's spiritual leader has not a single division, except for some (unarmed) bodyguards in his residence. Along the mountain road leading to Dharamsala, a visitor can see many soldiers - but they are Gurkha, and belong to Indian army garrisons stationed nearby. Indeed, many come here precisely because Dharamsala represents the values preached by the Dalai Lama and embodied by the Tibetan exile communities: the harmony of Tibetan and Indian cultures, the quiet inspiration of the spirit, "soft power".