Elizabeth Mattis-Namgyel Talk and Reading in New York City September 2, 2010
Posted by Philip Ryan in : Books, Buddhism, Buddhist Teachings, Events, Tibetan Buddhism , add a commentIn the first of four talks for her Tricycle Retreat, Elizabeth says that standing on a street corner in Manhattan, she sees as many people in a moment as she might see in six months at home in Colorado. Well, lucky New Yorkers, she’s heading back your way! tricycle is proud to be the media sponsor of this event:
Sunday, September 26th
Threshold 521 West 26th Street 2nd floor
Elizabeth Mattis Namgyel - Public Talk “Finding Our Way to True Practice”
2 - 5 pm (2-2:30 is meditation)
$20
Followed by a reading from her new book, The Power of An Open Question at
6:30 PM. Book signing to follow. Free and open to the public. Refreshments
will be served.
Www.thepowerofanopenquestion.com
Right attitude August 27, 2010
Posted by James Shaheen in : Art, Buddhism, Buddhist Teachings, History, Shingon, Tricycle , add a comment
Shinno Yamasoba, 58, is the vice head priest at Daijyo-ji, an an 8th-century Shingon temple three hours outside Kyoto by train. In the Japan Times, he shares some monkish wisdom with Japanese TV reporter Judit Kawaguchiwho:
“We’ll know if the road was correct when we arrive,” Yamasoba says, “That’s how we Buddhists think. But since a monk’s road is never straight, the trip is always fun. It really doesn’t matter where I’m going.”
It’s a good thing Yamasoba is the type who takes what comes in stride. Daijyo-ji’s main temple, which was built in the 18th century, is home to a number of masterpieces by the painter Maruyama Ohkyo (1733-1795), but it has had an unwelcome makeover of sorts. In order to preserve Ohkyo’s paintings, which Japan’s government considers cultural treasures, the temple moved the paintings next door, to a concrete storage house. To take their place, digital technicians made replicas of the 45 works the temple owns. Yamasoba’s not too happy about it but takes a philosophical attitude:
Technology should not be blamed for human error. Japanese digital technology is so advanced that it’s possible to make perfect replicas of things. Our replicas, however, turned into cheap-looking copies because we made the mistake of hiring an art director to guide the technology team. This director manipulated the images to recreate what he thought the paintings might have looked like 200 years ago. He used more gold leaf and brightened the colors. His added touches destroyed Ohkyo’s original strokes. Luckily, at certain times each year visitors can see the originals on show.
The best and worst part of Japanese culture is the concept of shikataganai. This means that we accept reality as is and we don’t blame anyone. If we feel frustrated, we blame ourselves, because ultimately everything that happens to us is our own doing, our own fault. For example, even though the replicas are not what the originals look like and not what we wanted, we still paid the full price — 0 [sic] million — and accepted the outcome. It’s all over and done with, so there’s no point in crying over spilled milk. That’s shikataganai.
The temple itself is remarkable for its sliding screens painted on both sides with birds, trees, monkeys, and flowers. The many sliding doors can be open and closed to create countless perspectives and interconnecting spaces. The Ohkyo-ji paintings, which laid the foundation of the Edo period Muruyama School, are perhaps more famous than the temple that houses them. Indeed, Daijyo-ji is better known as “Ohkyo-ji.”
Yamasoba is apparently a modest man, and acknowledges that his acceptance in the case of the botched replicas (by his account, anyway) may not yet be complete.
“I’m not a real monk yet,” he confides, “because it’s hard for me to accept everything and forgive everyone. I’m still a deshi, a young man in training. My wife’s the best monk. She’s the most enlightened being I know.”
You can take a tour of Daijyo-ji online here. Click on the screens to have a closer look. To read the full Japan Times article, click here.
Photo (top) © Judit Kawaguchiwho; Photos of Maruyama Ohkyo’s work © Kameisan Daijyo-ji. All rights reserved.
5 recent quotes from Thich Nhat Hanh in today’s Guardian August 26, 2010
Posted by James Shaheen in : Buddhism, Buddhist Teachings, Environment, Meditation, Mindfulness, Tricycle, Zen , 2 comments
In the current issue of Tricycle, contributing editor Andrew Cooper recounts his travels with Thich Nhat Hanh, the much beloved Vietnamese teacher, poet, peace advocate and environmentalist. Cooper’s view is unique; charged with attending Thay, as he is called, on an early visit to the United States, Cooper offers an up-close-and-personal view of a man who changed—in fact, helped to shape—Buddhism in the West. Today’s Guardian features a nice piece on Thay on the occasion of his visit to Nottingham, where he led nearly 1,000 people in walking meditation (above). Here are five outtakes:
1.
“The situation the Earth is in today has been created by unmindful production and unmindful consumption. We consume to forget our worries and our anxieties. Tranquilizing ourselves with over-consumption is not the way.”
2.
“We should speak more of spiritual pollution. When we sit together and listen to the sound of the [meditation] bell at this retreat, we calm our body and mind. We produce a very powerful and peaceful energy that can penetrate in every one of us. So, conversely, the same thing is true with the collective energy of fear, anger and despair. We create an atmosphere and environment that is destructive to all of us. We don’t think enough about that, we only think about the physical environment.”
3.
Thay talks about capitalism as a disease that has now spread throughout the world, carried on the winds of globalisation: “We have constructed a system we cannot control. It imposes itself on us, and we become its slaves and victims.”
4.
“Without collective awakening the catastrophe will come,” he warns. “Civilizations have been destroyed many times and this civilization is no different. It can be destroyed. We can think of time in terms of millions of years and life will resume little by little. The cosmos operates for us very urgently, but geological time is different.
5.
“One Buddha is not enough, we need to have many Buddhas.”
You can read the full article here.
For more on Cooper’s article—and to get a better idea of his rare perspective—click here.
Photograph © Frank Schweitzer
First Nichiren Shu Female Priest talks suffering, prison work, and sanghas in communities of color August 23, 2010
Posted by Rachel Hiles in : Buddhism, Buddhist Teachings, Nichiren , 1 comment so far
Yesterday’s CNN online opinion section featured a piece by Myokei Caine-Barrett, a Nichiren Buddhist teacher based at the Myoken-ji Temple in Texas. Within the Nichiren Order, Caine-Barrett is the first woman of Japanese and African descent, the only ordained Western woman, and the first female priest in the Nichiren Order of North America.
Caine-Barrett came across Buddhism during a quest for a path of faith. As a young child, she hoped that devotion to a religion would help her deal with the isolation she felt as a mixed-raced child living in a world divided by black and white. Since discovering Buddhism at the age of 13, Caine-Barrett says that Buddhist practice has allowed her to better understand reality:
Buddhism has been the mainstay of my life, enabling me to understand life’s reality and providing a practice of faith to deal with that reality. I have learned to release the past and not give in to imagination or the future. Buddhism taught me that there is only now, the present moment.
Most people understand the law of cause and effect, or very simply “What goes around, comes around.” When I asked the question “Why is this happening to me?” as I explored various faiths, I never received an answer that made sense. Buddhism taught me that my life is the result of causes made in the past and my future would be the result of causes made in the present.
Caine-Barrett goes on to discuss her work with prisoners—including white supremacists—and the importance of creating sanghas within communities of color:
The practice of Buddhism has much to offer communities of color; however, it may be difficult to find teachers and practitioners with the necessary experience. There is no national directory. We exist in myriad traditions and cities throughout the U.S. Ordination in many traditions is often difficult and expensive, and finding teachers willing and able to address issues relative to being African-American is sometimes impossible.
Yet, progress is being made as we create sanghas within communities of color and assume the roles of clergy and lay teachers. It is definitely time for practitioners of color to step up and make ourselves known. Our communities need us to be present now.
Nichiren Shu Buddhism emphasizes the teachings of the Lotus Sutra as the ultimate embodiment of the teachings of the Buddha. Read more about the Lotus Sutra and Japanese Buddhism in Andrew Cooper’s interview with Professor of Japanese Religions Jacqueline Stone and Jeff Wilson’s blog post “An Important New Translation of the Complete Lotus Sutra.” Read more about Myokei Caine-Barrett here on the Nichiren Shu Buddhism site.
Image: nichiren-shu.org
Freeing the Body, Freeing the Mind: Yoga & Buddhism August 20, 2010
Posted by Philip Ryan in : Buddhism, Buddhist Teachings, Tricycle Community , 1 comment so far
Starting Monday, we’ll be discussing the new book Freeing the Body, Freeing the Mind: Writings on the Connections Between Yoga & Buddhism in the Tricycle Community Book Club.
Freeing the Body, Freeing the Mind
Shambhala Publications, 2010, $18.95 paper
For a 30% discount, use the code BODYMIND when you purchase it!
“The main thrust of this book has to do with the possibility of freedom and how great teachers like the Buddha, Patanjali, Dogen, and Nagarjuna, among others, understood freedom and consequently described a path, or at least repeatable techniques, that create the conditions for genuine realization. All of the contributors herein are practitioners first and thinkers second, and we are all writing from personal experience having practiced within and between these two systems for many years.”
—from the introduction to Freeing the Body, Freeing the Mind
Over the years, I’ve found it increasingly frustrating that Yoga is continually reduced to a body practice and Buddhism to a mind practice. This makes no sense at all. Anyone who has practiced deeply in both traditions knows that the Buddha gave attention to the body and Patanjali to the mind, and that both traditions value ethical precepts and commitments as the foundation of an appropriate livelihood.
Read the rest of Michael Stone’s introduction here. (You need to be a member of the Tricycle Community to view Book Club content, but it’s easy to join, and free!)
The book is edited by Michael Stone. The foreword is by Robert Thurman. Contributors include Ajahn Amaro Bhikku, Shosan Victoria Austin, Frank Jude Boccio, Christopher Key Chapple, Eido Shimano Roshi, Ari Goldfield and Rose Taylor, Chip Hatranft, Ming Qing Sifu (Daniel Odier), Roshi Pat Enkyo O’Hara, Sarah Powers, Jill Satterfield, Mu Seong, and Michael Stone .
Recovery & The Fifth Precept August 18, 2010
Posted by Sam Mowe in : Buddhism, Buddhist Teachings, Health , 7 comments
Do you have a problem with the fifth precept—refraining from intoxicants? If so, Don Lattin, author of The Harvard Psychedelic Club, encourages you to ask yourself why that might be. In his piece “Recovery & The Fifth Precept” from the Fall 2010 issue of Tricycle, Lattin writes:
Many of us who came of age in the 1960s convinced ourselves that getting high was the quickest—if not the best—way to begin the long, strange trip toward higher consciousness. Aldous Huxley, the man who wrote The Doors of Perception and turned Timothy Leary on to the Tibetan Book of the Dead, seemed to be saying that we could access ancient wisdom through the wonders of modern chemistry.
For a while at least, that theory seemed to hold true for me, and I suspect I’m not the only reader of this magazine who became interested in Buddhism following an acid trip back in the sixties.
Lattin goes on to point out that interpretations of the fifth precept vary a great deal among Buddhist teachers. The same is clearly true of Tricycle readers—as demonstrated by the many, many thoughtful comments, stories and opinions that we received from you all about the topic. Some questioned what qualified as an “intoxicant”—do television and the Internet count?—others held that it really depends on the individual taking the intoxicants, and some related that, like Lattin, drugs served as a gateway introducing them to the dharma. Most all agreed that it is a questioned to be explored seriously and honestly.
Thank you for all of your wonderful thoughts.
Read reader responses to the fifth precept here.
Read the rest of Lattin’s piece here.
Are we kidding our selves?
Posted by Philip Ryan in : Books, Buddhism, Buddhist Teachings , 2 comments
In the January 22nd, 2010 Times Literary Supplement, the philosopher Peter Hacker considers Galen Strawson’s book Selves, which at 452 pages seems like a dense and weighty philosophical tome. In his review, Hacker traces the use of the word “self” from its early Middle English origins up to its (problematic, he says) use by John Locke in the famous Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1690). After this, Hacker writes:
“Self” rapidly sprouted definite and indefinite articles, and singular and plural forms. It was conceived to be the subject of experience, the possessor of experience and the core of the identity of the person. Indeed, it was supposedly the reference of the first-person pronoun “I”. It was the self, thus conceived, that Hume famously failed to find: “When I enter most intimately into what I call myself, I always stumble on some particular perception or other…. I can never catch myself at any time without a perception, and can never observe anything but a perception.”
Hume’s failure will be familiar to most Buddhists. (more…)
When our spiritual journey begins August 15, 2010
Posted by James Shaheen in : Buddha, Buddhism, Buddhist Teachings, Tibetan Buddhism, Tricycle , 2 comments
Only when we have a genuine, abiding desire to free ourselves from suffering and all its causes does our spiritual journey begin. That original desire is very potent and very real. It is the basis upon which we enter the path that will lead us to our goal. Yet from the point of view of the Vajrayana, or tantric, school of Buddhism, there is no place to go on that path, no end of the road where we will one day satisfy our thirst for liberty. Why? Because the very thing that we are looking for—freedom, wakefulness, enlightenment—is right here with us all the time.
Adapted from a 2004 talk given by the Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche. To read the complete talk, visit Young Tibet Online.
This October, Ponlop Rinpoche will be discussing his upcoming book, Rebel Buddha, online at the Tricycle Book Club. We hope you can join us then!
Realize the Undivided Mind August 13, 2010
Posted by Monty McKeever in : Buddhist Teachings , add a commentToday’s Daily Dharma:
We often feel our everyday existence is a distraction from our spiritual intention. When this happens, life is divided between the sacred and mundane, and the mind pits one concept against the other. But belief shapes reality, and if the belief is maintained that the sacred lies somewhere else other than Now, our spiritual life will be governed by that limitation. The truth is that the sense-of-self is not separate from the moment in which it is arising, any more than the sense-of-self is outside the mind that it thinks it possesses. In fact, realizing the undivided mind also heals the dualistic notion of “me” being outside the moment.
Rodney Smith, “Undivided Mind” (Summer 2010)
Read the complete article here.
Photograph by Kenro Izu
Diane Wolkstein on Dharma Master Cheng Yen August 12, 2010
Posted by Sam Mowe in : Buddhist Teachings , 2 comments
In the Fall 2010 issue of Parabola about desire, Diane Wolkstein writes of the time she met Dharma Master Cheng Yen, the Taiwanese nun known as “Mother Teresa of Asia.” She describes the small, five-foot woman’s presence as “a force of nature that can’t be stopped. Whatever she has envisioned so far, she has brought into being: humanitarian relief, hospitals, schools, programs of love that are broadcast throughout the world.”
From “The Desire to Relieve All Suffering”:
Master Cheng Yen had the same burning desire as the Tang Priest, one of the chief protagonists in Journey to the West. The Tang Priest (like the historical monk, Xuanzang, on whom his character is based) was willing to make an arduous journey of ten thousand miles from China to India. His goal was to bring back the Buddhist scriptures in order to relieve the suffering of his people. Once the Tang Priest had made up his mind to make this journey, no one could stop him. Although the Tang Priest’s character was based on an actual person, I had trouble relating to him. Many of the other storytellers in the Journey to the West marathon also had difficulty believing that a human being could be so pure-hearted, so altruistic. Yet the more I read about Master Cheng Yen, the more I realized she was the living dharma. Once she set her course, she, also, could not be stopped. In forty years, she had changed the world for millions of people.
Read the entire article here.
Tricycle highlighted Master Cheng Yen’s Tzu Chi Foundation in the “Charities” section from the Summer 2010 issue.