lotusinthemud

The State Of The World At The Start Of 2024

Dharmavidya David Brazier - a reflection:

 

We all, of course, hope for good things in the year to come, but I think that most will agree that the state of the world is currently on the slide. One surely has to start from the fact that we face a serious ecological problem. All the time it is creeping up on us. We all see the signs. We read about  extreme weather events and natural disasters, the fires, floods, desertification, droughts, melting ice, rising sea levels, loss of biodiversity, storms, pollution, extinctions and so on. One would think that faced with such a challenge people would pull together, cooperate and act decisively, but we all know that this is not happening - at least not to a degree likely to be effective. There are innumerable good projects, but they are too little in the face of the scale of the problem.

 

So what is happening. Well, again, I am not saying anything that is not obvious to everybody in pointing out that the world is currently becoming more and more divided and bogged down in conflict. Rather than uniting, we are dividing. At the end of the twentieth century some people were talking about "the end of history". The fall of the iron curtain had left Russia weak, humiliated and dismembered. Most countries welcomed the end of the Cold War and they reduced military spending. There was a sense of hope around. At that juncture the USA took advantage of the situation, increased its military spending and  positioned itself as the sole super-power. Were we at the beginning of the "American Century"?

 

We all know that things have shifted a bit since then. In particular we have seen the rise of China which looks likely to continue. Most commentators think that China poses the biggest challenge to US domination. Responding to this, the USA has tried hard to encircle China in the same way as it used to encircle Russia, but China keeps growing and increasing its military strength. It is nowhere near equal to the USA yet, but the gap narrows. In the first decade of this century we thought that this process would continue, but that it would be a long time before China caught up. Since then, however, two big developments have tipped the scales a bit faster than we were expecting.

 

Firstly, Ukraine. The USA since Clinton has kept pushing NATO's eastward expansion. Russia protested endlessly, but the West was so used to the idea that Russia was now a spent force that nobody listened. However, under Putin, Russia has regrouped and got back onto its feet. The breaking point came when it was proposed that Ukraine become part of NATO & of the EU. Russia could not stand by and let this happen. War broke out and continues. Initially the Ukrainians, with American backing, did much better than anybody expected, but the Russians have learnt how to fight this kind of war and the tables are turning. The war will probably go on for several more years and Ukraine will be devastated. The most significant effect, however, has been that it has driven Russia into an alliance with China. In terms of the primary world conflict this strengthens the Chinese side considerably. 

 

Secondly, Gaza. The USA, already committed to major expenditure to shore up Ukraine, is now suddenly also committed to another major conflict. How long will this one go on for? How much American resources will it drain away? There is plenty of reason to think that this conflict is not going to be over in a few weeks as was originally thought. Not only that, but the ferocity of the Israeli response is causing much disquiet all around the globe. This is costing America a lot in lost  goodwill. In the Global South (what we used to call The third World), sympathy is largely with the Palestinians. This is all very good news to China which has been courting support in those non-aligned countries for some time.

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A full list of podcasts in June is :: here

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GROUPS NEWS

There are  three "friendship, support and learning" zoom groups.. All three meetings are 90 minutes long.  Do come and join in.

Amida Shu Interest Group
On Sunday at 11am Rome time (11.00)
This group is open to anybody, but will be most relevant to people who receive these podcasts.  There is often a talk about a topic related to one of the recent podcasts, plus time for discussion in break-out groups and for questions and sharing in the whole group. This group meets each week at the same time.

Amida Shu Friendship Group
On Sunday at 8pm Rome time (20.00)
A similarly open group with a more conversational style.  Topics include podcast themes, current affairs and Pureland practice. This group meets each week at the same time.

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This group is for Amida Shu members and others who have taken refuge and is primarily a sangha building group.  This group meets on Saturdays once per fortnight and on Mondays in the intervening week.

If you would like to attend any of these groups (or to receive the podcasts) :: let Dharmavidya know and he will send you the join code if you don't already have it.

There is now an Amida Interest Group meeting on Thursdays at 6pm (Rome) in Italian!  Contact  Angela Romani or myself for details.  And if you prefer Dutch, do contact Vajrapala, or I can put you in touch.  Also I'm still trying to find a few more people in the east (Asia/Australia) who might be interested in a fortnightly Buddhist Psychology interest group.

OTHER STUFF
On the ecological problem and how to solve the dilemmas that this creates for society, there are some good ideas in this little film from BBC
https://www.bbc.com/reel/video/p08hppxt/how-the-dutch-are-reshaping-their-post-pandemic-utopia
As she says, the "Doughnut idea" only really defines the problem; it does not, in itself, provide the answers.  Nonetheless, changing goals and changing the way we think about things can yield results eventually and help policy makers.

Namo Amida Bu
Dharmavidya

Dukkha is Inevitable ~ Dharmavidya

Podcast 7 April 2020

Amida%20Shu%20Podcast%202020%200407.mp3

On the occasion of Boris Johnson, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, being admitted to intensive care with COVID19

:: link

On Being Busy ~ Dharmavidya

Dharmavidya:

Amida is always busy

Always be busy with Amida.

Make all business Amida Nembutsu

 

Be busy with the thought of Amida

Be courageously busy supported by Amida Light

Be busy supporting Amida

Be busy praying for the Pure Land of Amida

Grateful

Don’t be late

Faith in the Midst of the Fire ~ Dharmavidya

Dharmavidya:

PAIN IN A BOMBU WORLD

In the on-line order meeting this past Saturday I said that in relation to the current world crisis caused by the arrival of a virus for which, as yet, we have no cure, I am a happy pessimist.  I’ll say a little more on this subject.

Firstly, the pessimist.  Clearly, in the present situation, there are large numbers of heroic individuals who are doing everything they can to ease the suffering of others.  Most of these are ordinary people doing relatively ordinary jobs.  Stocking shelves in a supermarket or sitting at the till was not, until this eventuality, widely regarded as a heroic activity.  Then there are nurses and doctors who, in many cases, are in serious danger.  Yesterday a doctor died here in France from the virus contracted by contact with a patient. 

The suffering is real.  To die in this way is no picnic.  Furthermore, those who are in hospital are often elderly people, already frail, and they have the added misfortune that their younger relatives are prohibited from coming to comfort them.  A miserable situation indeed.  And it may come to any of us. I myself must be in one of the risk categories due to my age and existing lung damage, but even people much younger and fitter are sometimes falling foul of the most terrible effects.  The fatal element in the illness is caused by one’s own body’s defensive reaction to the virus that, as it struggles against the invader, inflames the inside of the lungs making it impossible to breathe.

The Buddha spoke of eight afflictions - birth, aging, disease and death, loss, association with what we hate, failure, and the skandhas. In this epidemic many of these are conspiring to make our existence one big heap of dukkha.

Now I have been following events and reading commentaries in the media and there are a number of essays expressing the sincere wish that this will be the kind of shock that will lead us into a better world once the crisis is over.  The examples of heroism may become the norm for us all.  A new era of love and kindness may dawn.  There are also items suggesting what needs to be done in terms of international cooperation, restoring faith in ethical leadership, and trusting the good sense of the honest citizen.  All of these accounts are inspiring and often wise.  However, I have no expectation that they shall come to pass.  This is my pessimism.

There were hurricanes and we did not heed.  There were fires in the great forests and we did not heed. There were floods.  Now there is a pestilence.  Will this turn the hearts of the rich to help the poor, the profiteers to share their gains, the warmongers to turn to pacifism - probably not.

I am not so sanguine about human nature.  I recognise that we are all bombu.  What will actually happen will not be a function of wise collective human decision making nor of responsible citizens having confidence in virtuous governments. It will, rather, be a function of decisions made on the hop with little thought for the long term consequences.  This is partly because we do not have the prescience to know what those consequences are going to be.  There undoubtedly will be many, but predicting them is not at all easy.  Some projections can be made on the basis of what is already happening, but it is of the essence of situations like this that the unexpected will triumph.

The scourge will probably last longer than governments are currently assuming.  To have it all over by mid-summer is probably wildly optimistic.  There will obviously be a massive economic effect from the measures already in place.  It will take a long time to get "back to normal" if that ever happens, and along the way a lot of the capital that civilisation depends upon will have simply disappeared.  Governments will almost certainly have to start printing money as the only way of getting out of the huge debts they are currently running up. and this will probably fuel a sudden surge of inflation  The USA will be in a fair degree of chaos because it does not have the systems of social control that exist in the Old World, and as it is the leading economy that chaos spells trouble for everybody else on top of the damage that will already have been done directly by the virus.  So we may well be on the cusp of a descent into a period of considerable disorder.  This is my pessimism.

DHARMA-VINAYA

How does one remain happy, or at least sanguine, in the midst?  By faith and practice.  The Buddha has given us the Dharma-vinaya.  It may be a bit old and rusty after all these centuries.  It may have degenerated somewhat.  We may even be in the Kali Yuga - Mappo - the Dharma ending age; but even in Mappo it is possible for there to be upwellings of faith and practice (which is what Dharma-vinaya originally meant).  In fact, in the history of the world, it has often been in the Dark Ages that the finest spirit has shone light in the gloom.  The Dharma given by Buddha is a recipe for a noble life in the very midst of the realm of poison.  Like the proverbial peacock, it transforms the poison into nourishment.

Furthermore, even if one is the last person on the planet in possession of this precious Dharma treasure, it alone is enough to carry one through the fires at the end of the universe.  Therefore, I am not afraid.  Death has no sting.  The test of one’s Dharma practice is the manner in which one faces death.  If I ask my Japanese friends what Pureland Buddhism is all about they are likely to say that it is about “the one great moment”.  The one great moment is the one that we shall all pass through - the moment of death.  So the question is, are you ready?  When something like this plague comes along, we are all called to think of our death and of the deaths of those around us.  How we meet this determines the whole tenor of our lives.   

None of us knows exactly how the nembutsu works, how the grace of Amida unfolds, how the Pure Land will appear, but we can have faith.  We can have absolute confidence that at that great moment we are going home, and that beyond that going home other destinies shall unfold.  Those who live with faith in the prayers of Buddha shall all be Buddhas one day and those who entrust to the heart to heart bond that supports us in the sangha shall meet in the Pure Land one way of another.

When I sat by the bedside of my mother in the last week of her life, I was inspired by her calm acceptance.  She had me describe the Buddhist teaching on the afterlife and there was a great peace between us.  Those who are close to death participate in a spirit that is often completely occluded in the hubbub of everyday, supposedly healthy, life.  I place my faith in that spirit.  Whether the precise descriptions that one reads in the great texts are exact or not matters not one whit. An iota of such faith will carry one through.  Therefore, I am happy.

And if one has such spiritual confidence, then, if one is granted more years, that joy and ease cannot help but spread, like a positive virus, infecting those who are not inoculated against it.  They may be few - those with but little dust - but they will be a leaven and through them the Dharma of Buddha will continue to inspire, the grace of compassion shall continue to be transmitted, and there will be a light in the world, not withstanding that the majority retain a herd immunity to accepting it.

Do not be dismayed by the greed, hate and delusion that is around - the hoarding and the negligence of sane instructions - even the pessimistic prospect.  People find it difficult to change and when they are frightened they often act in ways that multiply the dukkha rather than making it a spring-board for awakening.  We are all such foolish beings.  Do not expect too much, but have faith.  Though the world be all on fire, the Dharma enables one to walk through that fire to help the one in need.  Trust. Namo Amida Bu.

:: link to original post, where you can comment

Clarifying Nembutsu Practice ~ Dharmavidya

QUESTION:  I’d like to be clear about what nembutsu practice is. It’s seems from what I can glean from your writing you are saying Amida Buddhism is the work of compassion in the world in the play of opposites. So practice begins with some kind of descent into what has been disowned. So I enjoyed the way you framed the practices of Chih Quan and Nei Quan as two koans. And the three kinds of mind seem to describe a larger picture of what Amida Buddha practice entails. 

So as I understand it, the nembutsu practice is the last step, maybe practice isn’t a word you would use to describe it since it seems to be an activated prayer based on faith in the unconditional love of Amida Buddha. So do you simply chant “Namo Buddha Bu”, like a mantra? Are you visualizing Amida Bu when you do this, or holding him in your heart and imagination. This seems to be both an act of faith and trust in the underlying love of the universe which supports us all, and a  act of imagination, as our Bodhisattva vow is as well. 

I’d appreciate any direction you could send me in to help me do some of this practice for myself.

 

SHORT ANSWER: Just say “Namo Amida Bu” in simple faith.

LONG ANSWER:  Thank you, great question. Yes, hold the Buddha in your heart and imagination. But even if, sometimes, you just say the words, it is still powerful. The nembutsu does its own work.

Nembutsu is an expression of refuge.  Understanding and entering into the deep and true meaning of refuge is the core of the Buddhist religion and it is a life long practice.  So a Buddhist is somebody who chooses to take refuge in Buddha and keeps on doing so in deeper and deeper ways as understanding and experience broaden and deepen.  In the Pureland forms of Buddhism, of which Amida Shu is one, the Buddha we take refuge in is Amida Buddha, on account of his all-acceptance.  This goes with the Pureland emphasis upon humility in the practitioner - even if one is the lowest of the low, Amida will accept you just as you are.  So the form of taking refuge in these branches of Buddhism is “Namo Amida Bu” or an equivalent in local language. 

In the larger Pureland Sutra it says that Amida accepts anybody who thinks upon him with sincerity and “thinking upon him” is, for practical purposes, taken to mean calling his name.  therefore, the most fundamental form of nembutsu practice is to call the Buddha to mind by saying his name - in this case “Amida” or “Amitabha”, usually “Namo Amida Bu”. This is called the nembutsu. (nem=mindfluness, butsu=Buddha, hence “mindfulness of Buddha” or “bringing Buddha to mind”). To call one Buddha is to call all Buddhas.

So nembutsu practice is simply to say the nembutsu in simple faith on all occasions, formally or informally, singly or in congregation, to oneself or out loud.  Nothing needs to be done in advance of this.  Choosing the nembutsu is the key action and commitment.  To entrust oneself to the nembutsu is called shinjin.

Several things, inessential but useful, follow, in no particular order:

1/ The nembutsu is a window through which all of Buddha’s teachings may be seen.  It gives one a perspective on the Dharma. Once one has chosen nembutsu as one’s key practice, all other practices become forms of nembutsu.  Why is one bowing, offering incense, reading scriptures, sitting in zazen, etc? In order to deepen refuge and so make the nembutsu more real and sincere.

2/ The nembutsu, in effect, is the planting of Buddha seed in one’s heart.  One becomes a Buddha womb.  This seed will grow, just as an embryo grows in the womb of the mother, but the mother does not make the baby grow; one does not need to do anything about it.  The process is unconscious.  All the mother needs to do is avoid anything dangerous or damaging.  Just so, a nembutsu practitioner should maintain good general spiritual health, but does not need to worry.

3/ Although subjectively one has the sense of having selected the nembutsu by oneself, in reality, the arising of the urge to do so is Amida’s grace. It is the Buddha who has planted the seed, not oneself.  It is not really that one has done something so much as that one has been “seized by Amida”.  This is not, therefore, a practice in which one strives to achieve something, so much as one in which one entrusts to a process more powerful than oneself and celebrates this grace that has come into one’s life.

4/ Consequently, many Buddhist teachings come to be seen “the other way around”.  there is a kind of reversal.  The eightfold path is an outcome, not a means.  Salvation, enlightenment, samadhi and so on are not things to be achieved.  They may be given, but it is all out of one’s hands.

5/ There are practices such as nei quan and chi quan which can deepen one’s appreciation of nembutsu in an experiential manner.  One can come to understand better “Who or what is it that calls the Buddha’s name?”  “Who has the Buddha called?” One can have experiences of the grace of Buddha descending into one’s frame.  This deepening can also come through such simple practices as having gratitude, appreciating nature, simplifying one’s life and so on. 

6/ There are also practices that can amplify the nembutsu experience. Thus

   a/ visualisation.  One can visualise Amida Buddha or the attendant bodhisattvas Quan Shi Yin (Kanzeon), or Tai Shih Chi (Mahasthamaprapta), or one can do the series of visualisations described in the Contemplation Sutra for visualising the Pure Land, and so on. 

   b/ circumambulating or prostrating to a stupa, relic or Buddha rupa while reciting the nembutsu

   c/ ceremonies, litanies, etc.

7. There can be many psychological spin-offs from the practice since one develops faith and confidence, preoccupations fall into perspective, fear of death is dissolved and self-defensiveness tends to fall away.  Accepting that we are all foolish beings, one feels fellow-feeling for others so empathy becomes more natural.

Many of the above can be done individually or in a congregation.  It is important to stress, however, that they are all anciliary to the core practice of just saying the nembutsu as often as possible, on all occasions, inwardly or outwardly, and trusting that this does the trick without need of any additional aid since it invokes the power of the Buddhas.  One might, when reciting, coordinate the chanting with the breath.  If this helps one to keep going, very good.  Or one might use a mala - I recommend it - but it is not essential.

Nembutsu can be chanted, like a mantra, or it can be said in the course of daily life, whatever happens. Good things happen: “Namo Amida Bu”, bad things happen: “Namo Amida Bu” - meeting a fellow practitioner: “Namo Amida Bu” - stopped at the traffic lights: “Namo Amida Bu” - looking at clouds in the sky: “Namo Amida Bu” - holding up a flower: “Namo Amida Bu”.  Calling Buddha to mind in association with everything that happens saturates one’s being with grace and blessings and generates samadhi.

There is an endless amount one could say, but the basic practice is extremely simple. Namo Amida Bu.

 

:: link to original post

Shock and Grace ~ Dharmavidya

Dharmavidya:

Humans press on forward.  It is like an automatic car.  The basic state of such a car is to move slowly forward.  To get it to stand still while the engine is running one actually has to apply a brake.  It will not come to a stop of its own accord.  Humans are the same.  When you learn to drive a car, the first thing to learn is how to apply the brake.  The spiritual life is the same, first learn to apply the brake.

For a long time in psychology it was thought that a person’s instincts were always trying to bring the person to a halt.  Needs were met in order to end the state of neediness and this end of neediness would be a halt. 

Then some people decided to test this out.  If there is a basic instinctive need to return to rest, total rest should be blissful.  Experiments were done using sensory deprivation.  Subjects were put into float tanks where they received minimal sensory input.  This was as near to complete stasis as can be contrived.  Subjects were paid to stay in the tank.  They had a button they could press when they wanted to get out.  The vast majority of subjects found it intolerable after a short time.  Even though they were being paid to spend time doing absolutely nothing they soon asked to be let out.  Returning to zero is not bliss for most people.  They are all itching to complicate their lives.

The Buddha realised this.  If you are to simplify your life and discover real bliss, this will not happen by just indulging your feelings.  If one goes with the flow, life gradually becomes more and more complicated until something breaks down.  If people have capacity - time, space, money, attention - they get a hankering to use it.  

You can see this operating in many areas of life.  For instance, it causes economic cycles.  When times are good people invest.  In order to invest they borrow.  Others lend.  Lending is one simple way of investing.  Demand grows.  Lenders gradually make more and more risky investments.  As people push for more and more the whole structure becomes increasingly fragile. Eventually some shock to the system tips the balance.  Some borrowers fail to pay their debts.  This leads to a “loss of liquidity” - in other words, the people that they borrowed from now do not have the money to pay their debts either.  There is a general loss of confidence that anything will get paid.  Investment dries up.  The crisis ripples through the whole system very quickly and there is a crash. Then it all starts all over again.

These kinds of cycles involve pain.  One can see that it is all rather unnecessary, but it is not so easy to avoid.  On top of one’s own tendency to get involved in things one does not need, there is the fact that everybody else is doing it too, so we egg each other on.  Surveys have suggested that most people think that they would be happy and content if they just had 25-30% more income than they currently have.  This stays true however big the income is.  It is thus apparent that whatever they currently think, they will never actually be happy.  They will always want that next increment.  Many career structures have increments built in.  On the one hand, this means that people have an incentive to stay in the job. On the other hand, it also means that the cost of keeping them gets higher each year.  Organisations that use such a system - and most big bureaucracies do - thus have to have a “restructuring” - an artificial crisis - every so often so as to get rid of the staff who are now costing more than they are worth.

Although it is easier to see these cycles and their effects when we look at large scale social structures, the same is true in individual lives.  When life becomes simpler it is more blissful, but there arises also the hankering to complicate it - a new relationship, a bigger car, a new house, a better job, or, simply, get a dog - there is always an urge for more, an incessant irritation.

So the Buddha said that unless there arises a revulsion for this aspect of oneself, one will stay tied to the cycle.  Samsara will just keep going round and round.  The key to liberation is restraint.  If your relationship has ended, don’t immediately go onto a dating site and find a new one - enjoy the liberation of having some space in your life.  If your events cancel, don’t immediately fill up the time with new commitments - enjoy the free time.  If you have this kind of attitude, nothing is a disaster.  If the car breaks down and you have to walk, enjoy the exercise.

It has all become worse since we increasingly live in urban environments.  Most people no longer live close to nature.  If you do, cherish it.  Take time to stop and stare.  Smell the flowers, listen to the birdsong, hug a tree.  Observe the cycles of nature.  You will see that they have a similar pattern, but you can stand outside of it and watch.  In an urban environment one is surrounded by things that advert toward complication.  Buy this.  Get one of those.  Don't miss out.  Don't be late.  And so on and on, endlessly until the crash. Birth, old age, disease and death.     

At the present time, we are at a point in the cycle where quite a lot is breaking down due to the arrival of the corona19 virus.  People are staying at home rather than going out.  Many are obliged to “self-isolate”.  This is like sending half the population on a religious retreat.  Some people find it hard to bear, though it means that they are living much as I do most of the time.  Sartre said "Hell is other people," but many find it a kind of hell just to be on their own.  Yet what could be easier?

Eventually the crisis will pass and things will “return to normal”, but normal is not a steady state. Normal is a constant pushing forward - shop til you drop.  For sure, when the present crisis is over, there will be some kind of rebound.  Not everything will be the same as before.  During the crisis people will have learnt new ways of doing things and some of these will stick.  But the point to notice is that the crisis creates space and the rebound fills it up again.  Better to keep some of the space free. 

Spiritual teachers teach restraint - he who does not know contentment will never have enough.  Do not complicate your life unnecessarily.  Enjoy the freedom that you have and hold back from filling it up with new stressful commitments.  Every loss is also a freedom regained; don’t squander it.

To do this there has to be some countervailing force to the urge to ever press on.  This force has two components.  The first is paravritti - the revulsion for the samsaric hamster wheel.  The second is grace - allowing the bliss of spiritual sustenance in.  Amida’s light is always everywhere if we will allow it.  To fulfil the spiritual life, both of these elements need to be present.  Commonly this means that enlightenment arrives when shock and inspiration coincide.  Right now we are in a time of shock, but will one allow the inspiration to enter or is the itch to get back to "normal" irresistible?

:: link to original post on La Ville au Roi (Eleusis)

The Meaning of Mindfulness: Reply to Tineke ~ Dharmavidya

Following the discussion coming from the essay :: here

Dharmavidya writes:

I am making this into a new discussion as it is somewhat at a tangent from the "Unmodernising Buddhism" theme.

Clearly Anapanasati and Satipatthana were teachings that were important to the Buddha.  These were key items that he wanted disciples to hang onto.  The question is, therefore, what do they actually mean and imply, and at the core of this is the word sati, translated as mindfulness.

Now the sutras on anapanasati and satipatthana contain exercises and generally the Western take on this has been to assume that these exercises are the way that one develops mindfulness and that mindfulness is some kind of present moment attention or awareness.

As far as I can see, this is a misreading.  These sutras do not say that they are teaching one to be mindful and they do not say that mindfulness is a form of attention.  In fact in both the Satipatthana Sutta and the Anapanasati Sutta it is clear that the practitioner has to have mindfulness already established before he does the exercises. The bhikkhu “establishes mindfulness before him” before he starts.  So both assume that the practitioner already has mindfulness.  Mindfulness is a precondition for the exercises that follow, not a result of them. 

The intended result of them is that the practitioner shall have an experiential understanding of the truth of the Dharma teachings, since this will keep him in good stead in the future.  He will learn things that are to be kept in mind. Thus, if he approaches awareness of the body with this mindfulness established, he understands experientially that the body is just a body, feelings are just feelings, etc. Keeping this discovery in mind will help him in many situations.  If he were to do body awareness without having the  Dharma already in mind, he might come to all sorts of other conclusions.  The worldling is also aware of his body and concludes that it is his self, or concludes that it should be pampered, or whatever. Many people are aware of their feelings and as a result are completely enslaved by them.

It is not that by doing these exercises he learns how to be more aware of what is happening in the present moment.  It is that by them he learns something that will be for his benefit for a long time.  For a bhikkhu to sustain the kind of composure Buddha is expecting, he has to keep in mind that the body is just a body, feelings are just feelings.  They pass. When he has got this then he is freed from covetousness and grief.

Also, the refrain “ardent, mindful and aware” surely designates three qualities that work in synchronisation. There is no implication here that mindfulness = awareness any more than mindfulness or awareness = ardour.

Interestingly, in the Salayatana Vibhanga Sutta (MN137) there is a threefold satipatthana.  This does not mention awareness exercises at all.  It outlines three situations, one in which the disciples do not take in what the teacher is teaching, one in which some do and some don’t and one in which they all do.  It says that the teacher is only satisfied in the third situation, however, in all three he is “unmoved, mindful and aware”.  So here mindfulness is a foundation for equanimity. I am inclined to think that satipatthana does not mean the setting up of mindfulness, but rather what mindfulness sets up.

The practice of anapanasati is not a practice of learning to follow the breath, like a yoga exercise, it is a practice of learning to experience rapture, tranquility, joy, liberation, etc, with every breath.  The emphasis of the teaching is not on the physical yoga as such but upon having the good qualities of the Dharma as close and as constant as breathing. Or, indeed, not only the good qualities, but also whatever else the bhikkhu is studying.  He is to give it attention as unwavering as breathing. In other words, having them in mind unceasingly. When this is achieved then satipatthana is also thereby achieved.

So what is mindfulness? In the Mahasihanada Sutta, mindfulness is linked with “retentiveness, memory and lucidity of wisdom”  (MN12.62)) and in the Sekha Sutta ()MN53.16 it says “He has mindfulness; he possesses the highest mindfulness and skill; he recalls and recollects what was done long ago and spoken long ago”.  In other words, mindfulness means to have a good memory, and this is supported both by the etymology of the word sati, which comes from remember, and from the fact that at the time when Rhys Davids chose “mindfulness” as the best word to translate sati, that was what mindfulness meant in the English language - to remember or keep in mind.  Rhys Davids wrote in a footnote to this translation that the Buddhist notion of mindfulness on all occasions was the Buddhist equivalent of the Christian injunction “Whatsoever you do, however mundane it may be, do it in the name of the Lord” - in other words, mindfulness is, for Buddhists, about keeping Buddha, Dharma and Sangha in mind whatever one is doing.

In Pureland Buddhism the central practice is niàn fó 念佛  which means recollection of  Buddha (J. nembutsu). Niàn is the Chinese for mindfulness. The aim is to keep Buddha in mind on all occasions.

As a result of the recent upsurge in something called mindfulness, we now have two different meanings of the word circulating and this sometimes leads to quite a bit of confusion.  The idea that mindfulness is deliberate, non-judgemental attention to whatever is arising in the present moment is a fair distance away from mindfulness as in the sentence, "I'm always mindful of what my mother told me before she died."  The latter meaning is, however, closer to what I think the Buddha meant: there are things to be remembered and treasured that will be for one's benefit for a long time, and they will be so because they will protect you from what may arise in the unpredictability of the present moment.

This is how I have come to understand it.

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And a further comment from Dharmavidya:

Thank you for the question.  Often in the sutras we see the Buddha delighting in receiving a good question.  He says such things as "Oh, well done, Ananda!  This question will be for the benefit of many beings for a long time".  A good question is a Dharma door.

As I understand it, anapanasati is not so much the sati of anapana but rather sati by means of anapana.  In other words, anapanasati is not “watching the breathing” but rather it is what the Tibetans call “mounting the practice on the breath”.  This is a significant change of emphasis.

In Amida Shu the practice is to remember Buddha at all times.  The recollection of Buddha enters into everything one does.  This is called nembutsu, literally “mindfulness of Buddha” or “recollection of Buddha” and it often takes the form of saying the Buddha’s Name. To this end I encourage my people to have a mala and to use it.  This is not just because the mala is handy for counting recitations of the Buddha’s Holy Name,; it is rather that as soon as one sees the mala, or whenever one takes it in hand, the thought of Buddha is straightaway in the mind.  Telling the beads keeps the recollection going.  With each bead one says so many nembutsu.

Now anapanasati is like that.  When one mounts the practice on the breath, then the breath becomes your mala.  Every breath becomes a nembutsu.  Through anapana one’s sati (nen in Japanese) is reanimated. The breath is the soul of recollection. 

The Pureland way is also to make every aspect of Dharma into a Buddha recollection. This both simplifies and deepens the practice.  So it is not a matter of learning a scatter of practices - wisdom, compassion, rapture, impermanence, truths, powers, etc., so much as that all of these become  extensions of the one key recollection.  This being so, one does not need, necessarily, to learn many volumes of teaching in order to get the blessing.  Whether you know one teaching or many teachings, they are all recollection of Buddha. It is always valuable to listen and learn, but always, whatever the teaching, one is listening to Buddha.

Once one has selected nembutsu (selection is an important word in the teachings of Honen Shonin) then all practices become nembutsu and “only nembutsu is true and real”. 

Thus,  in the anapanasati passages in the sutras, anapanasati might be used to establish, for instance, rapture.  With each breath the rapture comes back to one.  In this way, by means of breathing, recollection of rapture occurs.  In Pureland, rapture is just another way of experiencing Buddha.  Buddha is rapture.  Rapture is the blessing of Buddha entering one's physical being.  So anapana bringing rapture is anapana bringing the experience of the presence of Buddha.

In anapanasati, the breath is ones mala.  When the breath is one’s mala the recollection occurs all the time and it does not matter which aspect of the Dharma appears, they are all recollection of Buddha.  Buddha is the mani gem: it is a jewel with innumerable facets. Buddhism is to ever be in contact with Buddha, ever receiving the blessing, taking it in with every breath.  Sati is to keep the blessing in one’s heart and anapanasati is to refresh it with every breath.  I am not breathing - Buddha is breathing in me.

Unmodernising Buddhism ~ Dharmavidya

Dharmavidya writes:

BUDDHIST MODERNISM

One reads a good deal these days about Buddhist modernism.  This is a movement that began in South and South East Asia as a resistance to colonialism.  Local Buddhists wanted to present their countries as “modern” and so injected a lot of Western rationalist prejudices into their culture and religion in order to make it look  more compatible with science which was, in the West, becoming dominant over the established monotheistic religions.  It became possible to say that Buddhism was the most scientific religion, or even that it was not a religion at all but rather a way of life, a philosophy and a science of the mind.

This strategy proved more successful than even its inventors had hoped.  Not only did it stimulate a rejuvenation of Buddhism in Asia, it led to this new Buddhist modernism or modernised Buddhism being imported into the West.  By deliberately playing to all the prejudices of Western culture, a new Buddhist product had been created that had direct appeal to Westerners alienated from their traditional faith traditions.  In the process the modernisation went further and further.  Buddhism was presented as a psychological technique leading to happiness, free from rituals, superstition, gods, priests and any kind of superstition.  In other words, Buddhist modernism became, as many writers have now pointed out, a new fabrication that has precious little in common with Buddhism as practised for the twenty five centuries or so up to 1900, or, indeed, with Buddhism as still actually practised by ordinary folk in Thailand, Taiwan or Tokyo.

WESTERN CULTURAL ACCRETIONS

So now we face a situation where Buddhism in the West has absorbed a mulitude of values and attitudes that have no connection with Buddha, but have their roots in Europen history and North American concerns. 

There have been a number of reactions to this situation.

1/ As Buddhism has become more established in the West Buddhist groups have sought legitimacy and have established institutions.  Temples, monasteries and centres have come into being.  Generally these strike some compromise between their historic tradition and what is necessary to be sufficiently popular in a Western context to keep people coming through the door.

2/  Some people and groups have sought to extend Buddhism into or even identify it with current “progressive” Western concerns - ecology, psychology, gender equality, democracy, social justice, racial parity, and so on.  Sometimes this is a bit of a stretch since traditional Buddhist texts do not mention most of these subjects.  It can be argued, however, that Buddhism did advance what is recognisably a psychology and that since it taught universal compassion, these are naturally the modern forms of such.

3/  Some have taken techniques from Buddhism and applied them in the service of amelioration of contemporary ills.  In the process, in order to make them acceptable to modern sensibilities, they have carried moderisation to an extreme, stripping out every trace of religiosity.  The most widespread and notable case is “mindfulness” about which I have written extensively elsewhere.

4/  There has emerged a quasi-spiritual quasi-commercial phenomenon called New Age.  This is a kind of hotch-potch of popular spiritual and magical ideas combining a variety of (often mutually contradictory) principles such and practices drawn from Taoism, Buddhism, Hinduism, Druidism, Shamanism, Sufism and so on.

5/  In the forms of Buddhism now popular in the West there has emerged a broadly recognisable consensus around such principles as interdependence (or interbeing), non-duality, Buddha nature, present-momentism, expanded consciousness and awareness. 

6/ All of this has been linked to an almost complete identification of Buddhism with the practice of meditation, especially three forms of contemplation: insight meditation, metta (loving kindness) practice, and choiceless awareness.  Most Western people now assume that meditation and Buddhism are more or less synonyms.

7/  Most recently Buddhist modernism has struck up an alliance with neuroscience, a branch of science that has been rescued from moribundity by the discovery of neuroplasticity.  If the brain can change, then Buddhism, presenting itself as a set of meditation techniques, can claim to be the methodology for improving the brain.

8/  Some more academically minded, surveying this scene, have despaired of the idea that there is really any such thing as Buddhism.  Rather they see a diversity of forms, more appropriately studied by anthropology than religious studies or theology, that have some family connection, but no core essence.

There are others. There is no doubt that this has produced a fertile and creative melting pot situation in which new ideas and new forms periodically emerge and, broadly, this is all to the good as far as it goes.  However, in the plethora of adaptations and confusions, the actual salvation that Buddhism offered tends to get lost or submerged.  This feels rather unsatisfactory, but one cannot go backwards, so the question become how to go forwards from here.

I recently spoke at a conference.  The speaker who followed after me was Chinese.  He started his presentation by saying (and I paraphrase from memory) “Doctor Brazier and I are on opposite, perhaps complimentary, tracks.  He is trying to remind Westerners that there was a perfectly good, functioning Buddhism before it got contaminated with modern Western culture and I am trying to persuade Easterners that Buddhism needs modernising and reforming to conform to the needs of the contemporary world.”  No doubt he and I shall go on learning from one another.

BUDDHISM IS A RELIGION: YOU CAN BELIEVE IT

I am a Western born and Western educated person.  I share many of the views of my progressive liberal friends and even some of those of my more conservative ones.  None of these, however, take priority over my faith. I do not see Buddhism as a way of advancing other causes and I do not think that the Dharma of Buddha needs to be modified to fit us.  We need to modify ourselves to fit it.

I came into Buddhism from the position of an already established spiritual outlook.  To me, religion is not something to be rejected out of hand as old fashioned, nor is it a modern invention, as some have suggested.  As I see it, people have a fundamental spiritual need and an unavoidable intuition of a beyond.  We call ourselves homo sapiens, but this is a conceit.  It would be truer to call ourselves homo religioso.  Every culture generates, in one way or another, a dimension that is recognisably religious.   

Everything in ordinary life is finite, impermanent, incomplete, measurable and non-ultimate, but to say that this is all is to deny the unavoidable intuition.  All worldy things can be counted, but, as Einsteinn is supposed to have said, not everything that can be counted counts and not everything that counts can be counted.  There are numbers, but there is also zero and infinity and these beyond-the-limit items, which we all intuit, do not behave like rational numbers.  The same is true with the lived life: we experience a great diversity of conditional circumstances, but somehow the mind cannot avoid intuiting the unconditional.  To me, this is what Buddhism is fundamentally about. This is what Buddha designated as the only possibility of true liberation. 

My own approach therefore has been

1/ to study the sutras and try, as best I can, to glean the real message

2/ to strip away the Western cultural accretions and try to find the true spirit

3/ to take it that the core of Buddhism is, on the one hand, an answer to the religious longing of people, and, on the other, a way to let the Beyond into our lives

4/ to take seriously the assumption of pious Buddhists that Buddha can help

5/ to not be afraid of ritual, symbolism, poetry, priestly roles and overt religious forms; their replacement by socio-political equivalents is not progress

6/ on the observation that most Buddhists do not meditate, to not assume that Buddhism is a technique

7/ to take it that Buddhism is seriously religious and is not simply an anthropological cultural category or congeries of diverse practice forms lacking ultimate meaning

8/ to assume that Buddhism is not designed to answer “modern” questions, but rather to satisfy the heart and soul of people in all cultures in all times, like any other major religion

I respect the religious impulse.  That does not mean that I approve of the subversion of religion by politics in order to set communities against one another.  Nor, contrarily, does it mean that I think all religions are the same.  I see them as vehicles.  The well designed ones can get you from here to infinity.  Some will give you a more comfortable ride than others.

Modernist people are often completely cut off from their religious heart.  They think in materialistic terms and lack a sense of spirit.  Their world is disenchanted and they think that this is reality, whereas, in fact, it is a spiritual desert.

In a nutshell, the problem is that we have taken the bhakti out of Buddhism.  We have tried to make it into a cold, clinical, secular, utilitarian, intellectual rationalism with a set of techniques that can be used as remedies for modern ills.  It is not and never was like that until this modernism came along.  To hear modern Buddhists, one would think that Buddha never mentioned such things as faith or devotion, yet for most Asian Buddhists throughout history faith and devotion have been precisely what Buddhism has always been about. That is bhakti.  Bhakti is to throw oneself heart and soul into the hands of Buddha.  It is free fall.  or, at the simplest level, it is to kneel in humility, place a flower on the altar, and receive the blessing in one's heart. This is what we have lost.  It is not that we have thrown the baby out with the bathwater, it is that we only have bathwater and the baby has gone.

MISSING THE POINT

A simple example of where we have got to is the fact that almost all Western Buddhists like the idea that Buddhism teaches that everything is impermanent.  This sounds like science and it is the kind of phrase that can be applied to a multitude of situations.  However, it completely misses the point that what Buddha actually taught was that all worldly things are impermanent and impermanent things offer no reliable or permanent spiritual refuge.  This was not the Buddha stating a hypothesis about physical reality, it was an injunction to find that which is not impermanent, to find the true refuge.  Finding such a true refuge - nirvana - is the core of Buddhism.  Modern Western Buddhism has lost this core.  But if you take the heart out, the body no longer lives.  At best you are left with a mechanism, a robot. Buddhist modernism is such a robot. It has no soul, no spirit, no religion.

Somebody wrote to me recently and said that they had been to an event at which the presenters had been asked if they were Buddhists.  One of the presenters had said that yes, he was Buddhist, but immediately hastened to say that Buddhism is not a religion and that for him it was simply a collection of techniques that could make life less stressful.  My correspondent found this unsatisfying, which is why he wrote to me about it.  No doubt the presenter was in some degree nervous of alienating the audience if he showed anything more than this very watered down idea.  Perhaps he really was wishy washy or perhaps he just did not have the courage of his faith.  Unfortunately, in the contemporary West, wishy-washy is the norm and, often, the only socially acceptable stance.

To unmodernise Buddhism does not mean adopting tenth century packaging nor pretending that we are not twenty first century Europeans or North Americans, but it does mean finding some way to put the bhakti back into Buddhism.  Buddhism needs rehydrating; it needs to rediscover its passion.  When Buddha gave teachings people danced for joy, the hair on their necks stood up, they wept and sang. Where has this gone?  Rationalism launches no ships.

Somehow we have inoculated ourselves against drinking the living water.  In our haste to expel anything that seems remotely superstitious we have become academic.  To say that something is merely academic is to say that it does not really matter.  The modernised Buddhism is a hobby that does not really matter.  Real Buddhism is about salvation and liberation and this is not achieved through something that is merely a hobby or an intellectual interest.  Real Buddhism has a vast cosmic vision that includes the possibility of myriad lives in myriad realms, with beings rising and falling according to their deeds.  It is not just giving impartial attention in the present moment; it encompasses destinies in the perspective of eternity.  Somehow we have made something inherently vast and magnificent into something trivial and cheap - an easy sell.  For sure we have established Buddhism in some of our academic citadels and we have infiltrated vaguely Buddhistic ideas and techniques into society at large, and this is better than nothing, but it is still a long way short of the liberation promised.  Many are wasting for want of the Dharma.  I hope that some few shall understand.

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I am a Religious Buddhist ~ Dharmavidya

Dharmavidya:

A little while ago I answered a knock on my door and found myself in conversation with two Jehovah’s Witnesses.  I told them I was Buddhist.  They immediately asked if I was a religious Buddhist or a philosophical Buddhist.  I replied, without hesitation, that I was a religious Buddhist.  We had a pleasant conversation and found some commonality of concern about various issues such as the current ecological crisis.  They then went on their way. 

Afterwards, I reflected that they would probably have made a more determined effort to convert me if I had answered the first question differently.  The person without religion is in a more vulnerable position and soon likely to admit to some uncertainty and anxiety. I also thought about why I had had no hesitation in answering the question as I did.  Many people who identify with Buddhism these days do not identify with religion.  What is the real point at issue here?

The fundamental definition of religion is that it is a system of thought, philosophy, culture and practice within which the core element is a distinction between the mundane and the sacred.  We could also term these poles the finite and the infinite, the conditioned and the unconditioned, the here-and-now and the eternal-beyond, the mortal and the deathless, or any other parallel set of terms. In the West they have come to take on the form of the mortal and the divine.

On this definition, secular or philosophical Buddhism is not really a religion because it lacks a sense of the beyond.  It is Buddhism minus nirvana.  If you had asked Shakyamuni about this, however, he would surely have said that Dharma without nirvana is not Dharma.  It is like a one legged man or a one wheel bicycle - it is a precarious balancing act that easily tumbles without the application of unwearying vigilance, contortion or extra props.

According to secular Buddhism, only the here and now exists, the only benefits available are mundane ones, and the only way to proceed is with the pursuit of this-worldly results.  This type of thinking is considered progressive.  However, it is fragile.  Those following such an approach, if they do so in a serious rather than dilettante manner, are liable to get burnt out, because this-worldly goals offer no permanent succour, no real solution: they are just more of the same. Many “modern” people find this very difficult to grasp. Consequently they never escape from their stress and anguish. They set up a goal of this worldly perfection and then come unstuck because there is no such perfection here to be had.

The original teaching - the Dharma - aimed at salvation from this world while within it, not mere transient happiness or pleasure.  Happiness within it might often be a spin off, but was incidental to the original purpose.  Nor is Dharma really about self-development.  Again, a good deal of character reform may well occur as a spin off - sila and samadhi develop from prajña - but the core is right view and right view is lokavid, the ability to see beyond.  We might like the idea of perfecting ourselves, but we all remain bombu.

In the Ariya Pariyesana Sutta (MN26), Buddha says:

Bhikshus, before my awakening, while I was still only an unawakened bodhisattva,

9. I, too, being myself subject to birth, sought what was also subject to birth; …
subject to decay, sought what was also subject to decay; …
subject to sickness; …
subject to death; …
subject to sorrow …
being myself subject to defilement, sought what was also subject to defilement.

Then, bhikshus, I thought thus:

‘Why should I, being myself subject to birth, seek what is also subject to birth; …
subject to decay; …
subject to sickness; …
subject to death; …
subject to sorrow; …
being myself subject to defilement, seek what is also subject to defilement?

Suppose that I, being myself subject to birth, having understood the danger in what is subject to birth, were to seek the unborn supreme security from bondage, nirvana.
Suppose that I, being myself subject to decay …
subject to sickness …
subject to death …
subject to sorrow…
subject to defilement, were to seek the undefiled supreme security from bondage, nirvana.’

If we recouch this in Pureland terms we get:

Formerly I, a bombu, sought that which is also bombu,
being a foolish being, sought that which is also foolish,
being subject to wayward passion, sought that which is also wayward.
being an impermanent mortal, sought that which is also mortal and impermanent.

Then I thought, why do I do this?

Suppose that I, a bombu, seeing the danger in it, were to seek refuge in what is not bombu;
suppose that I, a foolish being, seeing the danger in it, were to seek refuge in what is not foolish;
suppose that I, a being subject to wayward passion, seeing the danger in it, were to seek refuge in what is pure;
suppose that I, being mortal and impermanent, seeing the danger in it, were to seek refuge in what is not mortal, not impermanent.

What if I were to call out to what is beyond this mundane samsaric merry-go-round. What if I were to call out to Amida.

At a philosophical level, secular Buddhism is propped up by the wooden leg of non-duality.  A great deal is made of this notion, but it is quite clear here that the Buddha has a critically important duality in mind, namely that between the being who is limited by birth, sickness, death, sorrow and defilement on the one hand and, on the other, the unborn, the deathless, that which is not subject to sickness, sorrow and defilement. In the Dharma of Buddha, not everything is impermanent.

This is the same distinction as that between the bombu being and Amida.  Buddhism occurs when the limited being reaches out to the limitless, the finite to the infinite, the measured to the immeasurable.

One does not cross this divide, for one remains a mortal being, but one takes refuge in the other shore.  In the here and now, one calls out to the eternal. In this very life, one calls out to the beyond. In this perilous situation, one pleads for help  - “Tai Shi Chih, aid me now!”.

Such calling is nembutsu. “Namo Amida Bu”.  Then, amazingly, it comes to you. This is the meaning of Tathagata (Nyorai, in Japanese).

It is said that the difference between Jodo Shu and Jodo Shin Shu is that Jodo Shu places the emphasis upon the calling and Shin Shu places the emphasis upon it coming to you.  These, however, are two aspects of the same movement.

This is religious consciousness giving rise to a religious act with a spiritual result - the religious act that is the core of all true religion, whatever the names or terminology may be, and the result that is the reason why religious movements have had such influence and sway in human affairs.

As long as one, a mundane being, continues to call out only for an improved mundanity, one has not grasped the Dharma nor been grasped by it and so one does not get the result.

Only when, as a mundane being, one nonetheless calls out to what is ultimately sublime, beyond this tawdry sphere, does one grasp at the real Dharma and create the condition within which one can be grasped by it.  This is why it is important not to be ashamed to be religious.  Without religious consciousness one is eternally vulnerable and lost because, however much effort one makes, one is still dependent upon things that are as vulnerable, impermanent and unreliable as oneself. 

Buddha said that few would be able to get this.  He was right, but there are some with but little dust in their eyes.  Don’t let them waste for want of the Dharma.

For me personally, it makes complete sense.  Even if I were the only person left on the planet who saw this, it would still deeply satisfy.  Furthermore, it is what Shakyamuni taught.  This is original Buddhism and universal Dharma.

If Jodo Shu is “Please” and Shin Shu is “Thank You” then Amida Shu is Please and Thank You together, the complete set of cosmic good manners. Learn these good manners and use them on all occasions. Then you will be welcomed to the feast where all the Buddhas dine.

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