The Ideology of Religious Studies.(Review) (book review)
JIM STONE
2075 words
1 June 2001
Religious Studies
242
ISSN: 0034-4125; Volume 37; Issue 2
English
Copyright 2001 Gale Group Inc. All rights reserved. COPYRIGHT 2001 Cambridge University Press
Timothy Fitzgerald The Ideology of Religious Studies. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000). Pp. xi + 276. $45.00. 0 19 512072 8.
Consider this position, which I will call the standard view' (SV). There is a widespread human concern with a reality taken to surpass the ordinary world revealed by sense perception. It is thought to consist either of sentient supernatural beings (e.g. gods, Adonai, or Brahman) or of an insentient metaphysical principle underlying the universe (e.g. The Unconditioned, Sunyata, or the Tao). Either way, the supermundane reality is positioned to figure centrally in the satisfaction of substantial human needs. It is controversial whether 'religion' can be defined; however, systems of practices rationalized by beliefs according to which the practices place us in a relation-of-value to such a reality are paradigmatic religions. Religions have social and political dimensions, but they should also be studied qua religions, as practices, institutions, beliefs, scriptures that flow from this sort of concern.
Timothy Fitzgerald's provocative book, The Ideology of Religious Studies, is dedicated to uprooting SV root and branch. He writes: 'Religion cannot reasonably be taken to be a valid analytical category since it does not pick out any distinctive cross-cultural aspect of human life' (4).'Religious' phenomena have profoundly different meanings within different cultures; when the phenomena are understood in the context of their local symbol systems and ritual institutions, the 'religious' dissolves into the anthropological, the political, and the sociological. The academic discipline of religious studies obstructs a clear view of what happens in other cultures. Fitzgerald proposes that it 'be rethought and re-represented as cultural studies, understood as the study of the institutions and the institutionalized values of specific societies, and the relation between those institutionalized values and the legitimation of power' (10).
Fundamental criticisms of an academic discipline should be taken seriously. Fitzgerald writes with intelligence and vigour, but with considerable detail. Much of his book's force lies in the details. I can deal only with the arguments that strike me as most central, and then only in broad strokes. The reader is forewarned that I'm constantly missing the trees for the forest. The first part of the book argues that religious studies is an ideology. In Chapter 1 Fitzgerald writes: 'The construction of "religion" and "religions" as global, cross-cultural objects of study has been part of a wider historical process of western imperialism, colonialism, and neo-colonialism' (8). Contrasts between 'religion', on the one hand, and the 'secular', 'society', 'politics', on the other, are ideological constructions that were imposed on colonial cultures as part of establishing Western hegemony.
An immediate problem (which Fitzgerald acknowledges) is that every concept applied in cross-cultural studies (e.g. 'values', 'institutions') may have played an ideological role. More important, that concepts are constructed for imperialist purposes doesn't prove that they don't carve reality at the joints. In general, the fact that concepts and theories are the product of enterprises having little concern for truth should alert us to the possibility that they are mistaken, but it hardly warrants concluding they are false. The theory of evolution would have been true if it had originated as Nazi propaganda. To fail to see this is to commit the genetic fallacy. It's unclear to me how much work Fitzgerald thinks this 'deconstruction' talk does in supporting his book's thesis.
Another difficulty: Fitzgerald underestimates SV's cross-cultural adaptability -- as though 'religion' is wedded essentially to all these 'Western' contrasts. When I lived in India I soon recognized that the distinction between 'religion' and 'the secular' doesn't apply -- religiosity runs like electricity through virtually all things Indian -- but I had no trouble applying my old concept of religion. The cross-cultural inapplicability of the contrasts doesn't prove the inapplicability of 'religion'.
In chapter 2 Fitzgerald argues that religious studies, from its beginning in the nineteenth century, has been 'imbued with theological principles of the liberal ecumenical kind' (33), and is 'heavily loaded with Western Christian assumptions about God and salvation', thinly disguised as the scientific study of religion (34). The emphasis has been on interfaith dialogue and 'fitting the non-Christian institutions ... into the framework of liberal ecumenical theology, and into a classification system dominated by Judaeo-Christian concepts of worship, sacrifice, and so on' (54).
Once again Fitzgerald appears to be flirting with the genetic fallacy. That SV is theologically motivated is no reason to deny its truth. Indeed, if there is such a thing as religion, and Christianity is an instance, proceeding in covertly Christian terms may reveal much of importance about other religions. Assuming otherwise begs the question against SV.
In chapter 3, devoted to the work of Ninian Smart, Fitzgerald concludes that 'the language of "religion" and its "social dimension"' obscures 'the real object of study', which is not 'religion' but the way that power is legitimated in a particular context - a job for sociology (71). Suppose the category of 'a world religion' is valid for Christianity. This means that several distinct social groups claim to believe in 'something called Christianity'. Fitzgerald continues: 'But Christianity is here a theological concept, and its interpretation will depend on how it is understood by each different group. To grasp this ideological entity... we have to approach it through the sociological structure of the relevant group' (70).
But why call Christianity - on the face of things a pretty definite body of practices and beliefs (about Jesus, the Crucifixion, the Resurrection) - a 'theological concept' that requires 'interpretation', not to mention an 'ideological entity' in need of being 'grasped' through 'sociological structures'? Fitzgerald's argument's are often ill served by the jargon of cultural studies; it is hard to resist the view that he sees religion himself through an ideological lens.
Philosophers lately tend to agree that there is merely a 'family resemblance' between religions (to use Wittgenstein's term), a network of features generally shared, no single one of which belongs to every religion. In chapter 4, which deals largely with the work of Peter Byrne, Fitzgerald maintains that a 'family resemblance theory of religion overextends the notion so badly that it becomes impossible to determine what can and what cannot be included' (72). Without some essential characteristic, 'the family of religion becomes so large as to be practically meaningless and analytically useless' (73). I am sympathetic to this objection. The 'family resemblance' theory invites the charge that philosophy, ideology, politics, anything people really care about, is religion; but then 'religious studies' is defined too broadly to constitute an academic discipline.
I disagree, however, with Fitzgerald's additional claim that the failure of the 'family resemblance' theory of religion suggests that religion has 'no distinctive theoretical property and therefore cannot supply the basis of an academic discipline' (95). Religious studies is hardly the first discipline to need rescuing from Wittgenstein. I've argued in this journal that a religion is a system of practices meant to place us in a relation-of-value to a supermundane reality (that is, a reality surpassing the world revealed by sense perception) so grand that it can figure centrally in the satisfaction of substantial human needs. Fitzgerald's principal objection to such definitions appears to be that they are 'imbued with theological principles of a liberal ecumenical kind', which is hardly fatal. In any case, one of the book's strengths is that it shows that much depends on the success of such essentialist efforts.
Part 2 of the book concerns religion in India. Chapter 6 is about Ambedkar Buddhism. In the last century millions of untouchables in Maharashtra (led by B. R. Ambedkar, one of the framers of the Indian constitution) tried to change their status by convening to Buddhism. This led to a remarkable form of Buddhism in which Ambedkar, who died in 1956, is revered as much as the Buddha. Buddhist soteriology plays virtually no role in Ambedkar's version of Buddhism. 'According to Ambedkar's understanding, Buddha dhamma is essentially morality. By morality he means compassion, caring for one's fellow human and for the natural world.... On this line of reasoning, Buddhism becomes the basis of the new egalitarian society' (127). Fitzgerald finds the concept of religion 'unhelpful' in studying this movement (121). 'The concept of religion either as a traditional soteriology or as interaction with superhuman beings is patently inadequate for dealing with the realities of the situation of untouchable Buddhists'(129). An obvious response to Fitzgerald is that the concept of religion is unhelpful, not because it is defective or meaningless, but because Ambedkar Buddhism is principally a political movement in Buddhist trappings.
Hinduism is not a religion as much as a religious civilization. One cannot 'convert' to Hinduism, for instance; it is necessary to have a caste. In chapter 7 Fitzgerald argues plausibly that the wish to depict Hinduism as 'a world religion' has often led writers to ignore the profound influence on Hinduism of caste and concerns about ritual pollution. In addition, he suggests that categories such as 'ritual', 'hierarchy', 'gender', 'caste', 'ritual specialist', 'purity', and 'pollution' may provide a more precise framework than 'religion' to study Hinduism (144). Most fruitful to that study is understanding the 'fundamental symbolic system underlying the whole range of ritual institutions' (145). This system is rooted in dharma, Fitzgerald suggests.
Dharma is an eternal ritual order that defines the correct condition of all beings, whether they be gods, demons, animals, ancestors, members of different castes and sub castes. Dharma is fundamentally an ideological expression of hierarchy or ritual order that embraces the whole mythical cosmos but is manifested to the observer most evidently in caste, including the power exercised by the king or the dominant castes in contemporary India (145). I take the force of this to be that to understand Hinduism, finally, we must understand the relevant institutionalized values and their relation to the legitimation of power; but then talk of 'religion' is irrelevant.
This perspective is illuminating, but perhaps Fitzgerald is carried away by his vision. If the more 'precise' categories plus dharma explain Hinduism, what is the supernatural realm doing there at all? It's a bit hard to take seriously the claim that 'the human quest for the Divine' fails utterly as an explanatory category in a culture positively swarmingwith deities. While concerns about caste and pollution affect the ordering of the supernatural realm, one can hardly dismiss a priori the contention that this is a two-way street; for instance, caste is provided a supernatural warrant in the Rig- Veda. Dharma is itself a religious concept, at least by the theory of religion I mentioned above, and the claim that it is an 'ideological expression of hierarchy' is hardly self- evident -- though I expect there is some truth to it. Why not allow that a powerful religious vision (or collection of such visions) plays a role in shaping Hindu society? Above all, Fitzgerald fails to recognize that caste is itself a rel igious institution (a central part of a system of practices meant to place practitioners in a relation-of-value to a supermundane reality), one reason it is so very hard to uproot. This failure, I suspect, flows partly from his apparent conviction that the concept 'religion' is wedded essentially to 'Western' contrasts with 'society' and the 'secular'.
The book's third section, which concerns religion in Japan, argues in part that 'religion' is a category foisted on the Japanese in the last two centuries by Western countries. (In Part 4, concerning problems with the category 'culture', Fitzgerald responds to the concern that all concepts deployed in cross-cultural studies are defective.) Fitzgerald is an apt observer of Japanese culture, as evidenced by his discussion of Japanese baseball. He is also a gifted storyteller. Chapter 10, 'Bowing to the taxman', contains a beautifully crafted account of a Western friend's adventures with the Japanese national tax office, which culminate in his unexpected adoption as a member of Japanese society.
I fear that this review fails to do justice to the intelligence that informs Fitzgerald's writing. I frankly don't know whether religious studies can withstand fundamental criticism. Anyone interested in these matters will profit from reading The Ideology of Religious Studies. While unpersuaded by Fitzgerald's book, I am nervous that its thesis is true.
Friday, September 21, 2007
Retracing the Path of an Ancient Buddhist Monk (Hsuan Tsang) Who Crossed Asia in Search of Enlightenment by Richard Berstein.
The Meaning of Life
By Alexander Frater
1201 words
25 March 2001
The New York Times
Page 6, Column 2
English
(c) 2001 New York Times Company
ULTIMATE JOURNEY
Retracing the Path of an Ancient Buddhist Monk Who Crossed Asia in Search of Enlightenment. By Richard Bernstein.
352 pp. New York:
Alfred A. Knopf. $26.
Every Chinese schoolkid knows about the monk Hsuan Tsang and his seventh-century odyssey through the fabled outer reaches of the world -- how he traveled for 17 years, covered 10,000 miles and brought home ideas about the attainment of serenity that would affect China profoundly. Tall, handsome and ferociously brainy, he had long been troubled by the complexities of the Buddhist Truth -- the ultimate reality that would free mankind from the treadmill of life and death. Buddhist texts indicated that such questions could be answered only in the distant, mythical land we now call India -- but in 629, as he prepared to leave, the emperor sealed the borders. Hsuan Tsang ignored the order. Determined to unravel the truth about human happiness, and with only a notional idea of which way to go -- basically west -- he vanished, subversively, into Asia.
Richard Bernstein, a book critic for The New York Times, first came across Hsuan Tsang's story while studying Chinese at Harvard, and again in Beijing as Time magazine's first bureau chief there. The idea of following in the monk's footsteps occurred in middle age when, working as a book reviewer, ''sitting at home pronouncing on the quality of other people's writings,'' he took stock: never married, Jewish but not particularly religious, comfortably off yet growing increasingly snappy and bored. Making Shaker furniture became one option, the other a journey along the fabled ''Road of Great Events.''
Bernstein's plans to travel in China were made more difficult when, along with a colleague, he wrote a polemic on United States-Chinese relations that put him at odds with Chinese authorities. His first request to obtain a visa was denied; he later got one by bypassing the Chinese consulate in New York and applying through a travel agency in Hong Kong. In the meantime, at a New York film screening, he met Zhongmei Li, a beautiful Chinese classical dancer who had recently moved to the States; she later offered to join him for the first leg of the trip. (In China he found, to his amusement, she was famous; occasionally, even, chauffeur-driven limos were laid on.)
Bernstein, as much of a clandestine traveler as Hsuan Tsang, writes about both journeys concurrently and, as we move through those huge, barren Asian landscapes (passing massifs like the Flaming Mountains) the specter of the monk always shimmers just ahead. In fact Hsuan Tsang is also leading Bernstein on a third quest -- into his ancient Asian religion and, in particular, its Yogacara, ''mind-only school''; a thousand years before Descartes and the British empirical philosophers, Buddhist scholars were proposing separation between the self and the world.
Hsuan Tsang's eventual destination was India's great Buddhist university at Nalanda, where students were taught that all was mind -- both the mind itself and every terrestrial thing that, seemingly, existed outside it. But if all is mind, then isn't that idea mind as well? Or if everything is illusion, isn't the proposition -- like a dream within a dream -- also an illusion? Isn't what we have, in fact, a kind of double emptiness?
''Not easy, is it?'' Bernstein sighs, casting around for a modern metaphor and coming up with the vacuum cleaner in the Beatles movie ''Yellow Submarine''; having sucked up everything in sight, it apocalyptically sucks itself out of existence. Double emptiness! Hsuan Tsang, he concludes, ''went to India to resolve the paradox of the 'Yellow Submarine' vacuum cleaner.''
America's unintentional bombing of China's embassy in Belgrade does not ease Bernstein's passage. Even before the bombing, the owner of a noodle shop in Jiayu Guan sees his open notebook and publicly accuses of him of spying. When Zhongmei has to leave for an important engagement, she worries about his safety. With that dodgy holiday visa in his passport, he carries on into the Xinjiang Uigur Autonomous Region -- off limits to journalists -- where he manages to talk his way out of China and into Kyrgyzstan. Reaching India, he meets its tumult head on: a tiny dark-eyed girl glimpsed in a rickshaw makes him yearn to give her ''a loving home and a rich American life''; the elderly Maharajah of Varanasi angers him by refusing an interview (''If you wanted to see Bill Clinton,'' the Maharajah grumbles, ''would you simply show up at his door?''); he has an anxiety attack in Varanasi's chaotic railway station -- the Indian dystopia in a kind of distilled form, horrible and fascinating.''
There are visits to Buddha's pastoral birthplace at Lumbini; to Sarnath, where he preached his first sermon; and to Bodhgaya, where he found enlightenment (and where Bernstein saw a banner reading ''COCA-COLA WELCOMES HIS HOLINESS THE DALAI LAMA''). Nearby, somewhere among Nalanda's spectacular ruins, Hsuan Tsang was welcomed by a crowd of thousands and given a daily ration of rice, betel nuts, nutmegs and camphor for the duration of his triumphant stay.
But what was Hsuan Tsang looking for? Perhaps confirmation that the world was ''like the moon reflected in the water'' (his words) but, more likely, mastery of the vast Buddhist canon. In Bodhgaya, pondering the rigorous metaphysics of the Diamond Sutra, Bernstein asks a German monk for help. It's all to do with selflessness, the German tells him, the realization that ''the object of your self-attachment is an illusion.'' That was how you began attaining Buddhahood.
In Delhi, to Bernstein's delight, Zhongmei rejoins him. As they follow Hsuan Tsang's homeward path over the breathtaking Kunjerab Pass, Bernstein already knows that Buddhism doesn't hold the answer to his questions (though he continues to leaf through its texts ''looking for the Truth that cannot be expressed in words''). What his odyssey left, instead, was a profound reverence for the Buddhist civilization of the seventh century.
The monk's own account of his journey, ''The Great Tang Chronicles of the Western World,'' is a Chinese literary classic. Bernstein's wonderful book, which ranks with Robert Byron's ''Road to Oxiana'' (1937), deserves to become a classic in its own right. If the best traveler's tales are really voyages through the mind of the author, then here we have a very cerebral story indeed -- intricate, closely argued and beautifully observed -- by a man who, driven as much by the quiet despair of middle age as by a search for deeper meaning, seems finally to have achieved something close to a state of grace. And ''Ultimate Journey'' ends on a note that would have brought a smile to the face of the monk. In an author's note on the book's final page, we read that last September Bernstein and Zhongmei Li . . . well, read it and find out for yourself.
By Alexander Frater
1201 words
25 March 2001
The New York Times
Page 6, Column 2
English
(c) 2001 New York Times Company
ULTIMATE JOURNEY
Retracing the Path of an Ancient Buddhist Monk Who Crossed Asia in Search of Enlightenment. By Richard Bernstein.
352 pp. New York:
Alfred A. Knopf. $26.
Every Chinese schoolkid knows about the monk Hsuan Tsang and his seventh-century odyssey through the fabled outer reaches of the world -- how he traveled for 17 years, covered 10,000 miles and brought home ideas about the attainment of serenity that would affect China profoundly. Tall, handsome and ferociously brainy, he had long been troubled by the complexities of the Buddhist Truth -- the ultimate reality that would free mankind from the treadmill of life and death. Buddhist texts indicated that such questions could be answered only in the distant, mythical land we now call India -- but in 629, as he prepared to leave, the emperor sealed the borders. Hsuan Tsang ignored the order. Determined to unravel the truth about human happiness, and with only a notional idea of which way to go -- basically west -- he vanished, subversively, into Asia.
Richard Bernstein, a book critic for The New York Times, first came across Hsuan Tsang's story while studying Chinese at Harvard, and again in Beijing as Time magazine's first bureau chief there. The idea of following in the monk's footsteps occurred in middle age when, working as a book reviewer, ''sitting at home pronouncing on the quality of other people's writings,'' he took stock: never married, Jewish but not particularly religious, comfortably off yet growing increasingly snappy and bored. Making Shaker furniture became one option, the other a journey along the fabled ''Road of Great Events.''
Bernstein's plans to travel in China were made more difficult when, along with a colleague, he wrote a polemic on United States-Chinese relations that put him at odds with Chinese authorities. His first request to obtain a visa was denied; he later got one by bypassing the Chinese consulate in New York and applying through a travel agency in Hong Kong. In the meantime, at a New York film screening, he met Zhongmei Li, a beautiful Chinese classical dancer who had recently moved to the States; she later offered to join him for the first leg of the trip. (In China he found, to his amusement, she was famous; occasionally, even, chauffeur-driven limos were laid on.)
Bernstein, as much of a clandestine traveler as Hsuan Tsang, writes about both journeys concurrently and, as we move through those huge, barren Asian landscapes (passing massifs like the Flaming Mountains) the specter of the monk always shimmers just ahead. In fact Hsuan Tsang is also leading Bernstein on a third quest -- into his ancient Asian religion and, in particular, its Yogacara, ''mind-only school''; a thousand years before Descartes and the British empirical philosophers, Buddhist scholars were proposing separation between the self and the world.
Hsuan Tsang's eventual destination was India's great Buddhist university at Nalanda, where students were taught that all was mind -- both the mind itself and every terrestrial thing that, seemingly, existed outside it. But if all is mind, then isn't that idea mind as well? Or if everything is illusion, isn't the proposition -- like a dream within a dream -- also an illusion? Isn't what we have, in fact, a kind of double emptiness?
''Not easy, is it?'' Bernstein sighs, casting around for a modern metaphor and coming up with the vacuum cleaner in the Beatles movie ''Yellow Submarine''; having sucked up everything in sight, it apocalyptically sucks itself out of existence. Double emptiness! Hsuan Tsang, he concludes, ''went to India to resolve the paradox of the 'Yellow Submarine' vacuum cleaner.''
America's unintentional bombing of China's embassy in Belgrade does not ease Bernstein's passage. Even before the bombing, the owner of a noodle shop in Jiayu Guan sees his open notebook and publicly accuses of him of spying. When Zhongmei has to leave for an important engagement, she worries about his safety. With that dodgy holiday visa in his passport, he carries on into the Xinjiang Uigur Autonomous Region -- off limits to journalists -- where he manages to talk his way out of China and into Kyrgyzstan. Reaching India, he meets its tumult head on: a tiny dark-eyed girl glimpsed in a rickshaw makes him yearn to give her ''a loving home and a rich American life''; the elderly Maharajah of Varanasi angers him by refusing an interview (''If you wanted to see Bill Clinton,'' the Maharajah grumbles, ''would you simply show up at his door?''); he has an anxiety attack in Varanasi's chaotic railway station -- the Indian dystopia in a kind of distilled form, horrible and fascinating.''
There are visits to Buddha's pastoral birthplace at Lumbini; to Sarnath, where he preached his first sermon; and to Bodhgaya, where he found enlightenment (and where Bernstein saw a banner reading ''COCA-COLA WELCOMES HIS HOLINESS THE DALAI LAMA''). Nearby, somewhere among Nalanda's spectacular ruins, Hsuan Tsang was welcomed by a crowd of thousands and given a daily ration of rice, betel nuts, nutmegs and camphor for the duration of his triumphant stay.
But what was Hsuan Tsang looking for? Perhaps confirmation that the world was ''like the moon reflected in the water'' (his words) but, more likely, mastery of the vast Buddhist canon. In Bodhgaya, pondering the rigorous metaphysics of the Diamond Sutra, Bernstein asks a German monk for help. It's all to do with selflessness, the German tells him, the realization that ''the object of your self-attachment is an illusion.'' That was how you began attaining Buddhahood.
In Delhi, to Bernstein's delight, Zhongmei rejoins him. As they follow Hsuan Tsang's homeward path over the breathtaking Kunjerab Pass, Bernstein already knows that Buddhism doesn't hold the answer to his questions (though he continues to leaf through its texts ''looking for the Truth that cannot be expressed in words''). What his odyssey left, instead, was a profound reverence for the Buddhist civilization of the seventh century.
The monk's own account of his journey, ''The Great Tang Chronicles of the Western World,'' is a Chinese literary classic. Bernstein's wonderful book, which ranks with Robert Byron's ''Road to Oxiana'' (1937), deserves to become a classic in its own right. If the best traveler's tales are really voyages through the mind of the author, then here we have a very cerebral story indeed -- intricate, closely argued and beautifully observed -- by a man who, driven as much by the quiet despair of middle age as by a search for deeper meaning, seems finally to have achieved something close to a state of grace. And ''Ultimate Journey'' ends on a note that would have brought a smile to the face of the monk. In an author's note on the book's final page, we read that last September Bernstein and Zhongmei Li . . . well, read it and find out for yourself.
Another review of Armstrong's book 'Buddha"
BOOK REVIEW An Inspiring Look at the Life of the Buddha BUDDHA By Karen Armstrong; Viking / Lipper; $19.95, 206 pages
PETER CLOTHIER
SPECIAL TO THE TIMES; Peter Clothier is the author of "While I Am Not Afraid: Secrets of a Man's Heart."
861 words
24 February 2001
Los Angeles Times
Home Edition
B-2
English
Copyright 2001 / The Times Mirror Company
Any study of the Buddha's life, as Karen Armstrong is quick to point out in this new biography from the Penguin Lives series, might seem antithetical to the essence of Buddhism, which is for each of us to take nothing on faith--not even the Buddha--and to discover the true spiritual path through our own efforts. But the attempt is still worthwhile, she notes, since "his life and teaching were inextricably combined. His was an essentially autobiographical philosophy."
The historical facts of Siddhatta Gotama's life (I follow Armstrong's use of the Pali, rather than the more familiar Sanskrit, orthography) are entangled in the surrounding myth and legend. The scriptures that make up the Pali Canon, the chief source of our knowledge, are based on oral transmission of discourses by the Buddha himself and on practices created by the monks who codified the dhamma--his teachings and practice--into the religion now known as Buddhism. Though the texts contain some verifiable historical material, they were not written down until several hundred years after the Buddha's death--which occurred in 483 BC, by most Western dating--and are thus subject to the distortions of time as well as of human intention, perception and prejudice.
Though not as well known in our culture as the story of Jesus, there are elements in the Buddha's story that are now widely familiar: how he was born into a princely family and isolated by a fiercely protective father from the sufferings of life beyond the walls of his pleasure palace, and from the prospect of sickness and old age; how, as a young man, he stole out into the city and was horrified when confronted with the reality of suffering and death; how he then abruptly abandoned his sleeping wife and son and set off to discover the answer to life's painful mysteries; how years of study, then of futile fasting and self-denial in the forest led to his discovery of the "Middle Way" between self-indulgence and asceticism, denial and aversion; and how he eventually achieved enlightenment under the Bodhi tree.
Around the bare bones of this story Armstrong weaves a rich texture of historical, religious and cultural information, creating a full portrait of the Buddha, both as a man of his time and as a great spiritual pioneer. First initiated in a sangha, or a school that taught that human suffering derived from ignorance of our true selves and that "the Self was eternal and identical with the Absolute Spirit," Gotama soon reached the limits of this direction. For him, Armstrong writes, "the teachings remained remote, metaphysical abstractions." He was looking not for theories, but for results; not for an understanding of transcendence as a means to conquer samsara, the cycle of suffering, but for a way to experience it in his own life.
Armstrong's clear and consistently insightful story shows how Gotama assembled parts of his answer from a complex of ideas and practices that were in common currency in his time, testing each for its practical application to his purpose. She devotes ample attention to her discussion of contemporaneous religious teachings about dukkha (suffering) and kamma (actions, better known to us in its Sanskrit form, karma)--and rebirth. And she reviews the role of the twin disciplines of yoga and meditation as paths to mindfulness, vital spiritual ingredients in the Buddha's achievement of enlightenment and proven ways "to break free of the conditioning that characterized the human personality, and to cancel the constraints of time and place that limit our perception." By the time we reach the Bodhi tree, we are ready to appreciate the full significance of the Four Noble Truths that form the basis of Buddhist practice, and for the compassionate wisdom of the Eightfold Path, the guiding precepts leading to release from suffering.
Less well known are the 45 years that followed the period of intense activity during which the Buddha's own sangha of monks expanded exponentially. Armstrong evokes a bustling life of travel to numerous cities and courts, of constant preaching and conversion. She details rifts in the sangha, lively dissents and rivalries, even assassination attempts on the Buddha's life as he approached its end, and offers a moving account of his last days, as he increasingly sought solitude and serenity for his parinibbana, or final release from the cycle of rebirth. Her book is a good, solid read, which respects both the integrity and the complexity of the Buddha's teaching, and offers a frequently inspiring look into this exemplary life. This is an invaluable text for all those seeking a better understanding of a spiritual movement whose influence continues to spread astonishingly today, 2,500 years after its founder's death.
PETER CLOTHIER
SPECIAL TO THE TIMES; Peter Clothier is the author of "While I Am Not Afraid: Secrets of a Man's Heart."
861 words
24 February 2001
Los Angeles Times
Home Edition
B-2
English
Copyright 2001 / The Times Mirror Company
Any study of the Buddha's life, as Karen Armstrong is quick to point out in this new biography from the Penguin Lives series, might seem antithetical to the essence of Buddhism, which is for each of us to take nothing on faith--not even the Buddha--and to discover the true spiritual path through our own efforts. But the attempt is still worthwhile, she notes, since "his life and teaching were inextricably combined. His was an essentially autobiographical philosophy."
The historical facts of Siddhatta Gotama's life (I follow Armstrong's use of the Pali, rather than the more familiar Sanskrit, orthography) are entangled in the surrounding myth and legend. The scriptures that make up the Pali Canon, the chief source of our knowledge, are based on oral transmission of discourses by the Buddha himself and on practices created by the monks who codified the dhamma--his teachings and practice--into the religion now known as Buddhism. Though the texts contain some verifiable historical material, they were not written down until several hundred years after the Buddha's death--which occurred in 483 BC, by most Western dating--and are thus subject to the distortions of time as well as of human intention, perception and prejudice.
Though not as well known in our culture as the story of Jesus, there are elements in the Buddha's story that are now widely familiar: how he was born into a princely family and isolated by a fiercely protective father from the sufferings of life beyond the walls of his pleasure palace, and from the prospect of sickness and old age; how, as a young man, he stole out into the city and was horrified when confronted with the reality of suffering and death; how he then abruptly abandoned his sleeping wife and son and set off to discover the answer to life's painful mysteries; how years of study, then of futile fasting and self-denial in the forest led to his discovery of the "Middle Way" between self-indulgence and asceticism, denial and aversion; and how he eventually achieved enlightenment under the Bodhi tree.
Around the bare bones of this story Armstrong weaves a rich texture of historical, religious and cultural information, creating a full portrait of the Buddha, both as a man of his time and as a great spiritual pioneer. First initiated in a sangha, or a school that taught that human suffering derived from ignorance of our true selves and that "the Self was eternal and identical with the Absolute Spirit," Gotama soon reached the limits of this direction. For him, Armstrong writes, "the teachings remained remote, metaphysical abstractions." He was looking not for theories, but for results; not for an understanding of transcendence as a means to conquer samsara, the cycle of suffering, but for a way to experience it in his own life.
Armstrong's clear and consistently insightful story shows how Gotama assembled parts of his answer from a complex of ideas and practices that were in common currency in his time, testing each for its practical application to his purpose. She devotes ample attention to her discussion of contemporaneous religious teachings about dukkha (suffering) and kamma (actions, better known to us in its Sanskrit form, karma)--and rebirth. And she reviews the role of the twin disciplines of yoga and meditation as paths to mindfulness, vital spiritual ingredients in the Buddha's achievement of enlightenment and proven ways "to break free of the conditioning that characterized the human personality, and to cancel the constraints of time and place that limit our perception." By the time we reach the Bodhi tree, we are ready to appreciate the full significance of the Four Noble Truths that form the basis of Buddhist practice, and for the compassionate wisdom of the Eightfold Path, the guiding precepts leading to release from suffering.
Less well known are the 45 years that followed the period of intense activity during which the Buddha's own sangha of monks expanded exponentially. Armstrong evokes a bustling life of travel to numerous cities and courts, of constant preaching and conversion. She details rifts in the sangha, lively dissents and rivalries, even assassination attempts on the Buddha's life as he approached its end, and offers a moving account of his last days, as he increasingly sought solitude and serenity for his parinibbana, or final release from the cycle of rebirth. Her book is a good, solid read, which respects both the integrity and the complexity of the Buddha's teaching, and offers a frequently inspiring look into this exemplary life. This is an invaluable text for all those seeking a better understanding of a spiritual movement whose influence continues to spread astonishingly today, 2,500 years after its founder's death.
Buddha By Karen Armstrong, reviewed by T. F. RIGELHOF
Buddha bio enlightens
T. F. RIGELHOF
1244 words
24 February 2001
The Globe and Mail
Metro
D10
English
"All material Copyright (c) Bell Globemedia Publishing Inc. and its licensors. All rights reserved."
Buddha By Karen Armstrong Viking, 205 pages $28.95
'If you meet the Buddha, kill the Buddha!"
This, the command of a ninth-century Zen master to his disciples some 1,300 years after the death of the Buddha, is the quandary any biographer of Sidhatta Gotama must face. Throughout his life, Gotama, the man who became Buddha, insisted that it was his teaching that was important and that his teaching would not and could not be grasped by those who attended to his life and his personality. He believed that he had woken up to a truth, a dhamma, a fundamental law of life that rendered egotism obsolete. If people revered Gotama the man, they would distract themselves from following the path to immunity and peace in the middle of life's suffering.
A further 13 centuries after that Zen master spoke, Karen Armstrong, who has demonstrated that she understands so much so thoroughly in Judaism, Christianity and Islam throughout the past decade in a series of brilliant books that includes A History of God, Jerusalem: One City, Three Faiths and The Battle for God, performs a wonderful sleight of hand in turning east to the Ganges plain of the fifth century before our era. She brings Gotama to life only to make the Buddha disappear back into his teaching: In the process, she enriches our understanding of just how autobiographical his philosophy is and how much more radical he is than those "positive thinkers" among us who "bury our heads in the sand, deny the ubiquity of pain in ourselves and others, and . . . immure ourselves in a state of deliberate heartlessness to ensure . . . emotional survival."
Although the Buddhist scriptures (the Tipikata or Pali canon) are faithful to the spirit of Gotama's teaching, they do tell us some things about the details of his life and personality that seem reliable, and a great deal more about North India during his lifetime that agrees with external evidence. The first Buddhists thought deeply about five key moments in their founder's life: his infancy, his renunciation of normal domestic life, his enlightenment, the start of his teaching career and his death -- and this becomes the template for Armstrong's Buddha. For his first followers, as for his latest biographer, the general contour of his life is both an inspiration and a model: "Like Jesus, Muhammad, and Socrates, the Buddha was teaching men and women . . . how to reach beyond human pettiness and expediency and discover an absolute value."
What's more, the mass of teachings assembled in the Pali canon, a century after his death, "has a consistency and a coherence that point to a single original intelligence. . . . It is not at all impossible that some of these words were really uttered by Sidhatta Gotama, even though we cannot be certain which they are." That said, "what is historical is the fact of the legend," not the facts themselves, and Armstrong perceives correctly that to understand any of the legend, it must be looked at in its fullness, complete with all its "signs and wonders."
Her previous work on the Torah and the Gospels has taught Armstrong that "miracle stories" are often cautionary tales that point to an obsession with "significance" that rivals our modern concern with "accuracy." So what we have within 200 pages of highly readable and penetrating prose is not the Buddha in full, but a fully Buddhist Gotama, a recreation of his life, teaching and legend that can be recommended both as the best available introduction for newcomers and as the clearest and most precise statement in English of familiar teachings for those long-practiced in the art of piecing them together from inadequately translated texts and commentaries.
Either a contemporary of Confucius (551-479 BC) or, as recent scholarship asserts as more likely, of Socrates (469-399 BC), Sidhatta Gotama was born in a period of rapid transition from rural to urban, agricultural to commercial, traditional to innovative, mythological to pragmatic culture. North India during the sixth and fifth centuries BC was gripped by political violence, corruption, anomie and a profound fear of the emerging mercantile order.
At the age of 29, Gotama walked away from a wife to whom he was attached, a son only a few days old and a very comfortable life as the son of one of the leading men of Kapilavatthu, because he had experienced no pleasure in the birth of his son. He cast off the whole of his life, shaved his head and beard, put on a yellow robe and joined a growing number of forest-dwelling ascetics who were pursuing a life of homelessness. He was an empiricist and he'd reasoned to himself that if there was "birth, aging, illness, death, sorrow and corruption" in life, these states must have positive counterparts in another mode of existence and that it was up to him to find "the unborn, the unaging, unailing, deathless, sorrowless, incorrupt and supreme freedom from this bondage." He called this wholly satisfactory state of being Nibbana -- "blowing out" -- and was convinced that it was entirely natural to human beings and could be experienced by any genuine seeker.
Gotama made his way to Vesali, where he was initiated in the dhamma of Alara Kalama, who taught a form of Samkhya-Yoga, which instructed its practitioners to find enlightenment anywhere and everywhere in this world. Armstrong is very good at showing what elements of Samkhya are retained in the Buddha's teaching and how the traditional yoga he practised was both very different from the various yogas generally promoted in Europe and North America these days, and how crucial its systematic dismantling of egotism was to the meditation that led Gotama finally to the enlightenment he experienced under the boghi tree in the grove now known as Bodh Gaya, some eight years after leaving his home.
Any book on the Buddha rises or falls not with a description of Gotama's enlightenment, but rather with the analysis of the method he began to teach and propagate in his first three great sermons -- a method that means nothing of what he intended if it's separated from its effects on the moral conduct of those who practise it. Armstrong's Buddha doesn't just rise -- it soars! -- when she delineates why the Buddha's Four Noble Truths appealed to so many, and precisely how they provided a compassionate offensive against the rampant self-centredness that had begun to prevail in a new society made aggressive by a market-driven economy.
In tracing the social changes the followers of the Buddha brought (and still bring) to cultures that have begun to cut off human beings from all non-materialistic impulses, Armstrong nimbly makes the case that what Gotama wished to promote is nowhere better expressed than in the Digha Nikaya:
Let all beings be happy! Weak or strong, of high, middle or low estate,
small or great, visible or invisible, near or far away,
alive or still to be born -- may they be entirely happy!
Let nobody lie to anybody or despise any single being anywhere.
May nobody wish harm to any single creature, out of anger or hatred!
T. F. RIGELHOF
1244 words
24 February 2001
The Globe and Mail
Metro
D10
English
"All material Copyright (c) Bell Globemedia Publishing Inc. and its licensors. All rights reserved."
Buddha By Karen Armstrong Viking, 205 pages $28.95
'If you meet the Buddha, kill the Buddha!"
This, the command of a ninth-century Zen master to his disciples some 1,300 years after the death of the Buddha, is the quandary any biographer of Sidhatta Gotama must face. Throughout his life, Gotama, the man who became Buddha, insisted that it was his teaching that was important and that his teaching would not and could not be grasped by those who attended to his life and his personality. He believed that he had woken up to a truth, a dhamma, a fundamental law of life that rendered egotism obsolete. If people revered Gotama the man, they would distract themselves from following the path to immunity and peace in the middle of life's suffering.
A further 13 centuries after that Zen master spoke, Karen Armstrong, who has demonstrated that she understands so much so thoroughly in Judaism, Christianity and Islam throughout the past decade in a series of brilliant books that includes A History of God, Jerusalem: One City, Three Faiths and The Battle for God, performs a wonderful sleight of hand in turning east to the Ganges plain of the fifth century before our era. She brings Gotama to life only to make the Buddha disappear back into his teaching: In the process, she enriches our understanding of just how autobiographical his philosophy is and how much more radical he is than those "positive thinkers" among us who "bury our heads in the sand, deny the ubiquity of pain in ourselves and others, and . . . immure ourselves in a state of deliberate heartlessness to ensure . . . emotional survival."
Although the Buddhist scriptures (the Tipikata or Pali canon) are faithful to the spirit of Gotama's teaching, they do tell us some things about the details of his life and personality that seem reliable, and a great deal more about North India during his lifetime that agrees with external evidence. The first Buddhists thought deeply about five key moments in their founder's life: his infancy, his renunciation of normal domestic life, his enlightenment, the start of his teaching career and his death -- and this becomes the template for Armstrong's Buddha. For his first followers, as for his latest biographer, the general contour of his life is both an inspiration and a model: "Like Jesus, Muhammad, and Socrates, the Buddha was teaching men and women . . . how to reach beyond human pettiness and expediency and discover an absolute value."
What's more, the mass of teachings assembled in the Pali canon, a century after his death, "has a consistency and a coherence that point to a single original intelligence. . . . It is not at all impossible that some of these words were really uttered by Sidhatta Gotama, even though we cannot be certain which they are." That said, "what is historical is the fact of the legend," not the facts themselves, and Armstrong perceives correctly that to understand any of the legend, it must be looked at in its fullness, complete with all its "signs and wonders."
Her previous work on the Torah and the Gospels has taught Armstrong that "miracle stories" are often cautionary tales that point to an obsession with "significance" that rivals our modern concern with "accuracy." So what we have within 200 pages of highly readable and penetrating prose is not the Buddha in full, but a fully Buddhist Gotama, a recreation of his life, teaching and legend that can be recommended both as the best available introduction for newcomers and as the clearest and most precise statement in English of familiar teachings for those long-practiced in the art of piecing them together from inadequately translated texts and commentaries.
Either a contemporary of Confucius (551-479 BC) or, as recent scholarship asserts as more likely, of Socrates (469-399 BC), Sidhatta Gotama was born in a period of rapid transition from rural to urban, agricultural to commercial, traditional to innovative, mythological to pragmatic culture. North India during the sixth and fifth centuries BC was gripped by political violence, corruption, anomie and a profound fear of the emerging mercantile order.
At the age of 29, Gotama walked away from a wife to whom he was attached, a son only a few days old and a very comfortable life as the son of one of the leading men of Kapilavatthu, because he had experienced no pleasure in the birth of his son. He cast off the whole of his life, shaved his head and beard, put on a yellow robe and joined a growing number of forest-dwelling ascetics who were pursuing a life of homelessness. He was an empiricist and he'd reasoned to himself that if there was "birth, aging, illness, death, sorrow and corruption" in life, these states must have positive counterparts in another mode of existence and that it was up to him to find "the unborn, the unaging, unailing, deathless, sorrowless, incorrupt and supreme freedom from this bondage." He called this wholly satisfactory state of being Nibbana -- "blowing out" -- and was convinced that it was entirely natural to human beings and could be experienced by any genuine seeker.
Gotama made his way to Vesali, where he was initiated in the dhamma of Alara Kalama, who taught a form of Samkhya-Yoga, which instructed its practitioners to find enlightenment anywhere and everywhere in this world. Armstrong is very good at showing what elements of Samkhya are retained in the Buddha's teaching and how the traditional yoga he practised was both very different from the various yogas generally promoted in Europe and North America these days, and how crucial its systematic dismantling of egotism was to the meditation that led Gotama finally to the enlightenment he experienced under the boghi tree in the grove now known as Bodh Gaya, some eight years after leaving his home.
Any book on the Buddha rises or falls not with a description of Gotama's enlightenment, but rather with the analysis of the method he began to teach and propagate in his first three great sermons -- a method that means nothing of what he intended if it's separated from its effects on the moral conduct of those who practise it. Armstrong's Buddha doesn't just rise -- it soars! -- when she delineates why the Buddha's Four Noble Truths appealed to so many, and precisely how they provided a compassionate offensive against the rampant self-centredness that had begun to prevail in a new society made aggressive by a market-driven economy.
In tracing the social changes the followers of the Buddha brought (and still bring) to cultures that have begun to cut off human beings from all non-materialistic impulses, Armstrong nimbly makes the case that what Gotama wished to promote is nowhere better expressed than in the Digha Nikaya:
Let all beings be happy! Weak or strong, of high, middle or low estate,
small or great, visible or invisible, near or far away,
alive or still to be born -- may they be entirely happy!
Let nobody lie to anybody or despise any single being anywhere.
May nobody wish harm to any single creature, out of anger or hatred!
Wednesday, September 19, 2007
An expat living in Chinese temples
Religion BOOK REVIEW Living a Monk's Life at Chinese Temples in a Quest to Expand the Soul JOURNEY TO HEAVENLY MOUNTAIN: An American's Pilgrimage to the Heart of Buddhism in Modern China; By Jay Martin; Hohm Press: 244 pp., $16.95 paper
MIKE MEYER
Mike Meyer is a writer at work on a memoir of his travels through the Middle Kingdom.
961 words
22 June 2002
Los Angeles Times
Home Edition
B-20
English
Copyright 2002 Los Angeles Times
Daytime visitors to China's Buddhist temples often walk away feeling anything but spiritually cleansed. Fleeced is more like it. The nation's ancient religious tradition, the Communist Party's official atheism and a burgeoning market economy have produced a wealth of restored temples that are at once revered, rebuked and revenue-generating.
At night, however, Chinese temples become themselves again, or at least the best version of themselves that they can. After the tour buses depart and the stall-holders pack up, the smell of incense overpowers that of cash; tranquillity replaces bustle.
It took me years of living in China to realize that temples should be seen on overnight visits--that they are still religious sanctuaries, not museums and fun fairs. Jay Martin is a much quicker study.
In 1998, the Claremont McKenna College professor embarked on a summer-long stay in southeastern China's temples, a bit of spiritual tourism documented in "Journey to Heavenly Mountain." Unlike most recent books about China, "Journey" is neither a travelogue nor memoir of the country's rapid economic evolution, but of its spiritual one. "I haven't come to look at [China], but to be a part of it," he writes.
Yet the people and places Martin encounters and describes so precisely--from venerable masters on mist-shrouded mountains to island-bound, angelic tour guides and devilish boatmen--are only part of the tale. "Journey" is about Martin's own quest to expand his soul by merging into the breaths of the multitudes around him--including those who turn temples into tourist traps.
At his first stop, at Lingyin, the Temple of Inspired Seclusion, he is momentarily taken aback by what feels like Disneyland mixed with Notre Dame. A travel writer would stop the account there. Yet Martin is after more than a description, a simile and segue to the next adventure.
"I could easily be cynical about Lingyin," he admits. "But actually being plunged into it without preparation and premeditation makes me see that I myself, and all of us, are put together in the same way--a bit of commerce here, some shallow pleasures there, old memories, new desires, new landscapes along with ancient plantings, and all fused with an authentic heart and a sacred soul--we are made of such assemblages. I came to China to live in Buddhist monasteries and revisit my soul. But I see here, right at the outset, that my quest is much more complicated than I thought.... I realize that if I am to find myself at all, it must be in the multitudes and varieties that I possess, the shallow along with the deep, and my very human, superficial desires along with my yearning for a bottomless divinity."
Martin ensconces himself in the life of a monk, taking residence in temples for two months, rising at 3 in the morning to pray. "I am content. Warm, drawn in, bowing and kneeling, following the group. The chanting begins, I am a Buddhist now. Then it is over. But--of course--not over, since it will resume tomorrow and never end until the world does. And if the Buddhists are right, the world will never end."
The monks accept him as part of the community. That Martin is an American matters none; some monks aver that he lived at the temple in a past life and came back. Nor does it matter that the order's newest monk is Catholic. A colleague reasons, "Catholics are on their way to becoming Buddhists. You are just a little bit ahead of other Catholics in the journey."
Buddhism, an abbot explains, holds that to reach the Buddha inside ourselves, we must enlarge our kind heart by cleansing ourselves of desires. Martin asks what desire is most difficult to give up.
"Beauty, the beauty of women," replies the 71-year-old monk.
Another abbot confesses that his greatest desire is his computer, which he uses to download the spiritual precepts called sutras.
"The desire to possess the attractions of society," says another. Others say it's the desire to understand quickly and the wish to rise above people.
For Martin, the question vexes him. How can he read a book, for instance, without desiring to read?
By the end of "Journey to Heavenly Mountain," Martin realizes that his deepest desire is the same one which drives the reader to turn the page: to find out more. Yet he has no intention of giving it up, for he concludes that "desires are inseparably woven into the mottled tapestry of life." And the soul was not what he thought it was, nor is China some enormous refueling stop where one can top off the spiritual tank merely by pulling in and opening one's wallet: "A talk with a tree can bring as fine a vision as an expensive journey to consult the wisest man in the farthest reaches of the universe."
Like the earthworm with which he boasts conversing on a forest walk, Martin burrows deeper and more expansively than the creature's form suggests. The worm doesn't get to respond, but the dozens of Chinese that the author meets do. It is these touching encounters that teach him, and us, the most about the soul; and they make "Journey to Heavenly Mountain" a rare, refreshing temple trip.
MIKE MEYER
Mike Meyer is a writer at work on a memoir of his travels through the Middle Kingdom.
961 words
22 June 2002
Los Angeles Times
Home Edition
B-20
English
Copyright 2002 Los Angeles Times
Daytime visitors to China's Buddhist temples often walk away feeling anything but spiritually cleansed. Fleeced is more like it. The nation's ancient religious tradition, the Communist Party's official atheism and a burgeoning market economy have produced a wealth of restored temples that are at once revered, rebuked and revenue-generating.
At night, however, Chinese temples become themselves again, or at least the best version of themselves that they can. After the tour buses depart and the stall-holders pack up, the smell of incense overpowers that of cash; tranquillity replaces bustle.
It took me years of living in China to realize that temples should be seen on overnight visits--that they are still religious sanctuaries, not museums and fun fairs. Jay Martin is a much quicker study.
In 1998, the Claremont McKenna College professor embarked on a summer-long stay in southeastern China's temples, a bit of spiritual tourism documented in "Journey to Heavenly Mountain." Unlike most recent books about China, "Journey" is neither a travelogue nor memoir of the country's rapid economic evolution, but of its spiritual one. "I haven't come to look at [China], but to be a part of it," he writes.
Yet the people and places Martin encounters and describes so precisely--from venerable masters on mist-shrouded mountains to island-bound, angelic tour guides and devilish boatmen--are only part of the tale. "Journey" is about Martin's own quest to expand his soul by merging into the breaths of the multitudes around him--including those who turn temples into tourist traps.
At his first stop, at Lingyin, the Temple of Inspired Seclusion, he is momentarily taken aback by what feels like Disneyland mixed with Notre Dame. A travel writer would stop the account there. Yet Martin is after more than a description, a simile and segue to the next adventure.
"I could easily be cynical about Lingyin," he admits. "But actually being plunged into it without preparation and premeditation makes me see that I myself, and all of us, are put together in the same way--a bit of commerce here, some shallow pleasures there, old memories, new desires, new landscapes along with ancient plantings, and all fused with an authentic heart and a sacred soul--we are made of such assemblages. I came to China to live in Buddhist monasteries and revisit my soul. But I see here, right at the outset, that my quest is much more complicated than I thought.... I realize that if I am to find myself at all, it must be in the multitudes and varieties that I possess, the shallow along with the deep, and my very human, superficial desires along with my yearning for a bottomless divinity."
Martin ensconces himself in the life of a monk, taking residence in temples for two months, rising at 3 in the morning to pray. "I am content. Warm, drawn in, bowing and kneeling, following the group. The chanting begins, I am a Buddhist now. Then it is over. But--of course--not over, since it will resume tomorrow and never end until the world does. And if the Buddhists are right, the world will never end."
The monks accept him as part of the community. That Martin is an American matters none; some monks aver that he lived at the temple in a past life and came back. Nor does it matter that the order's newest monk is Catholic. A colleague reasons, "Catholics are on their way to becoming Buddhists. You are just a little bit ahead of other Catholics in the journey."
Buddhism, an abbot explains, holds that to reach the Buddha inside ourselves, we must enlarge our kind heart by cleansing ourselves of desires. Martin asks what desire is most difficult to give up.
"Beauty, the beauty of women," replies the 71-year-old monk.
Another abbot confesses that his greatest desire is his computer, which he uses to download the spiritual precepts called sutras.
"The desire to possess the attractions of society," says another. Others say it's the desire to understand quickly and the wish to rise above people.
For Martin, the question vexes him. How can he read a book, for instance, without desiring to read?
By the end of "Journey to Heavenly Mountain," Martin realizes that his deepest desire is the same one which drives the reader to turn the page: to find out more. Yet he has no intention of giving it up, for he concludes that "desires are inseparably woven into the mottled tapestry of life." And the soul was not what he thought it was, nor is China some enormous refueling stop where one can top off the spiritual tank merely by pulling in and opening one's wallet: "A talk with a tree can bring as fine a vision as an expensive journey to consult the wisest man in the farthest reaches of the universe."
Like the earthworm with which he boasts conversing on a forest walk, Martin burrows deeper and more expansively than the creature's form suggests. The worm doesn't get to respond, but the dozens of Chinese that the author meets do. It is these touching encounters that teach him, and us, the most about the soul; and they make "Journey to Heavenly Mountain" a rare, refreshing temple trip.
Friday, September 14, 2007
BUDDHADASA: Theravada Buddhism and Modernist Reform in Thailand By Peter Jackson
BOOK REVIEW - Rethinking Buddhism.
1056 words
15 March 2003
Bangkok Post
3
English
(c) 2003
A revolutionary religious thinker and his complex legacy
Chris Baker
BUDDHADASA: Theravada Buddhism and Modernist Reform in Thailand By Peter Jackson, Silkworm Books, 2003, 625 baht.
In 1931, a young monk failed his clerical exams, and got fed up with "blundering around studying the scriptures in a way polluted by concern for status." He quit his Bangkok wat, buried himself in the forests of his native Surat, and set out to reinterpret the earliest Buddhist texts.
This was strikingly ambitious. The whole Theravada tradition is built on the sanctity of the texts. No significant commentary had been written for over a millennium. Scholar monks were supposed to preserve the texts in their purest form, not try to change the view of what they meant.
The results were as revolutionary as the project. Buddhadasa invented a method (phasa khon-phasa tham) which claimed to find the higher meaning buried in the original statements of the early texts. With this, he made three major propositions.
First, he interpreted all mentions of heavens, hells and rebirths to mean simply psychological states. By doing so, he rejected mystery and supernaturalism and could claim that Buddhism was rational and consistent with modern science.
Next, Buddhadasa argued that the original human condition was not characterised by sinful desire (kilesa) but by a "void mind" (chit wang). The purpose of Buddhist practice was to recover that state. Moreover, that was not so difficult and certainly not possible only by monks and through strenuous asceticism. Lay people could do it too, using simple insight meditation. Besides, the ultimate goal of nibbana was no more than a deepening of this "void mind".
Finally, without a concept of rebirth, the whole notion of storing up merit for a future life no longer had any meaning. This world became the whole deal. So the duty of a good Buddhist should be to create a world in which more people have a chance to attain nibbana.
With these propositions, Buddhadasa had done a lot. He had created an interpretation of Buddhism which could coexist with modern science. He had paved the way for lay people to participate fully in Buddhist practice and even attain nibbana. He had indicated that the proper duty of a good Buddhist was not to escape this world but to improve it.
Buddhadasa's ideas met a demand among a new educated elite who feared that old-fashioned Buddhism would whither in the face of modernity, and who sought religious justification for greater social and political activism.
But the political and social implications were huge. Along the way, Buddhadasa had delegitimised the whole business of acquiring merit for a future life, which is the focus of most everyday religious practice. He also undermined the traditional thinking which justified the rule of the king and the existence of social hierarchy, in terms of unequal merit.
Buddhadasa had achieved his new interpretation with a lot of difficulty. He had to cherry-pick his texts. He had to slide past some statements attributed to the Buddha which seemed to deny his psychological interpretation. He had to borrow from other Buddhist traditions, especially Zen. This laid him open to attack from conservatives who bridled at the idea of any such reinterpretation, and who especially feared the political implications. They branded Buddhadasa as a Mahayanist Trojan horse who would destroy the Theravada tradition.
Perhaps because of these attacks, and perhaps because of the deeply divided ideological politics of the 1960s and 1970s, Buddhadasa disappointed his followers by backing away from the political and social implications of his ideas. He rejected the competition at the heart of democracy and argued that an ideal political state (dhammocracy) was most likely to be achieved under a (benevolent) dictator. He opposed monks getting involved in politics and development. To minimise personal attacks, he stuck closely to traditional clerical practice and steered clear of politics inside the Sangha. Hence he offered no new guide for the monkhood in line with his new doctrine.
Peter Jackson originally published this book in 1984 when Buddhadasa was still alive, and when the prime minister was still a general. He concluded then that Buddhadasa was an inspirational thinker, but that his appeal would be limited to a "tiny minority" of educated activists.
But in the epilogue, originally written in 1994 and here slightly updated, Jackson modifies this view. Since Buddhadasa's 1993 death (described in the epilogue), his legacy has become much more complex. A host of followers both inside the monkhood (Phra Payom, Santikaro Bhikkhu, P.A. Payutto) and outside (Sulak, Prawase, Chamlong) have fine-tuned the socio-political implications of his thinking, and put them into practice in their own lives.
A new and much larger generation of activists has taken up Buddhadasa's message of this-worldly commitment. Some commentators have used Buddhadasa's rationalism as foundations for supporting capitalist modernism, while others interpret his ideas as the basis for a sophisticated opposition to capitalism.
The King's involvement in Buddhadasa's funeral has blunted some of the conservative opposition. And in the popular tradition, Buddhadasa has been embraced as a great monk and attributed the supernatural powers he was so keen to deny. Buddhadasa's retreat at Suan Mokh has become one of the nation's most famous religious centres.
This book is a reissue but very welcome. With his philosophical background, Peter Jackson takes us through the logic of Buddhadasa's thinking with great clarity. Through his readiness to put religion in its social and political context, he shows exactly how and why Buddhadasa's ideas matter. By here reproducing the 1984 edition (along with his later comments on it), he shows how much society, politics and religion in Thailand have changed in the tumultuous years since.
The book is indispensable background to all the swirling religious currents of today, from the Dhammakai phenomenon, through the political roles of figures like Prawase Wasi and Chirmsak Pinthong, to the turmoil over the Sangha Bill.
Regrettably buried in the endnotes, he quotes the thinker's farewell poem, Buddhadasa will never die:
"Treat me as if I never died,
As though I am with you all as before.
Speak up whatever is on your minds
As if I sit with you helping point out the facts.
Realise the Absolute and stop dying."
1056 words
15 March 2003
Bangkok Post
3
English
(c) 2003
A revolutionary religious thinker and his complex legacy
Chris Baker
BUDDHADASA: Theravada Buddhism and Modernist Reform in Thailand By Peter Jackson, Silkworm Books, 2003, 625 baht.
In 1931, a young monk failed his clerical exams, and got fed up with "blundering around studying the scriptures in a way polluted by concern for status." He quit his Bangkok wat, buried himself in the forests of his native Surat, and set out to reinterpret the earliest Buddhist texts.
This was strikingly ambitious. The whole Theravada tradition is built on the sanctity of the texts. No significant commentary had been written for over a millennium. Scholar monks were supposed to preserve the texts in their purest form, not try to change the view of what they meant.
The results were as revolutionary as the project. Buddhadasa invented a method (phasa khon-phasa tham) which claimed to find the higher meaning buried in the original statements of the early texts. With this, he made three major propositions.
First, he interpreted all mentions of heavens, hells and rebirths to mean simply psychological states. By doing so, he rejected mystery and supernaturalism and could claim that Buddhism was rational and consistent with modern science.
Next, Buddhadasa argued that the original human condition was not characterised by sinful desire (kilesa) but by a "void mind" (chit wang). The purpose of Buddhist practice was to recover that state. Moreover, that was not so difficult and certainly not possible only by monks and through strenuous asceticism. Lay people could do it too, using simple insight meditation. Besides, the ultimate goal of nibbana was no more than a deepening of this "void mind".
Finally, without a concept of rebirth, the whole notion of storing up merit for a future life no longer had any meaning. This world became the whole deal. So the duty of a good Buddhist should be to create a world in which more people have a chance to attain nibbana.
With these propositions, Buddhadasa had done a lot. He had created an interpretation of Buddhism which could coexist with modern science. He had paved the way for lay people to participate fully in Buddhist practice and even attain nibbana. He had indicated that the proper duty of a good Buddhist was not to escape this world but to improve it.
Buddhadasa's ideas met a demand among a new educated elite who feared that old-fashioned Buddhism would whither in the face of modernity, and who sought religious justification for greater social and political activism.
But the political and social implications were huge. Along the way, Buddhadasa had delegitimised the whole business of acquiring merit for a future life, which is the focus of most everyday religious practice. He also undermined the traditional thinking which justified the rule of the king and the existence of social hierarchy, in terms of unequal merit.
Buddhadasa had achieved his new interpretation with a lot of difficulty. He had to cherry-pick his texts. He had to slide past some statements attributed to the Buddha which seemed to deny his psychological interpretation. He had to borrow from other Buddhist traditions, especially Zen. This laid him open to attack from conservatives who bridled at the idea of any such reinterpretation, and who especially feared the political implications. They branded Buddhadasa as a Mahayanist Trojan horse who would destroy the Theravada tradition.
Perhaps because of these attacks, and perhaps because of the deeply divided ideological politics of the 1960s and 1970s, Buddhadasa disappointed his followers by backing away from the political and social implications of his ideas. He rejected the competition at the heart of democracy and argued that an ideal political state (dhammocracy) was most likely to be achieved under a (benevolent) dictator. He opposed monks getting involved in politics and development. To minimise personal attacks, he stuck closely to traditional clerical practice and steered clear of politics inside the Sangha. Hence he offered no new guide for the monkhood in line with his new doctrine.
Peter Jackson originally published this book in 1984 when Buddhadasa was still alive, and when the prime minister was still a general. He concluded then that Buddhadasa was an inspirational thinker, but that his appeal would be limited to a "tiny minority" of educated activists.
But in the epilogue, originally written in 1994 and here slightly updated, Jackson modifies this view. Since Buddhadasa's 1993 death (described in the epilogue), his legacy has become much more complex. A host of followers both inside the monkhood (Phra Payom, Santikaro Bhikkhu, P.A. Payutto) and outside (Sulak, Prawase, Chamlong) have fine-tuned the socio-political implications of his thinking, and put them into practice in their own lives.
A new and much larger generation of activists has taken up Buddhadasa's message of this-worldly commitment. Some commentators have used Buddhadasa's rationalism as foundations for supporting capitalist modernism, while others interpret his ideas as the basis for a sophisticated opposition to capitalism.
The King's involvement in Buddhadasa's funeral has blunted some of the conservative opposition. And in the popular tradition, Buddhadasa has been embraced as a great monk and attributed the supernatural powers he was so keen to deny. Buddhadasa's retreat at Suan Mokh has become one of the nation's most famous religious centres.
This book is a reissue but very welcome. With his philosophical background, Peter Jackson takes us through the logic of Buddhadasa's thinking with great clarity. Through his readiness to put religion in its social and political context, he shows exactly how and why Buddhadasa's ideas matter. By here reproducing the 1984 edition (along with his later comments on it), he shows how much society, politics and religion in Thailand have changed in the tumultuous years since.
The book is indispensable background to all the swirling religious currents of today, from the Dhammakai phenomenon, through the political roles of figures like Prawase Wasi and Chirmsak Pinthong, to the turmoil over the Sangha Bill.
Regrettably buried in the endnotes, he quotes the thinker's farewell poem, Buddhadasa will never die:
"Treat me as if I never died,
As though I am with you all as before.
Speak up whatever is on your minds
As if I sit with you helping point out the facts.
Realise the Absolute and stop dying."
A new meditation on love by JEANNE MALMGREN
FLORIDIAN
A new meditation on love
JEANNE MALMGREN
1014 words
13 February 2003
St. Petersburg Times
SOUTH PINELLAS
1D
English
Copyright 2003 St. Petersburg Times.
Zen and the Art of Falling in Love
By Brenda Shoshanna
Are you a "hungry ghost"? One of those poor souls who wanders from relationship to relationship, never quite getting your fill of love, always wondering what went wrong, starving for the very thing that's right in front of you, laid out on the banquet table of life?
What you need, Romance Junkie, is your own personal Zen master/shrink. Someone who will listen to your problems, then crack you over the head with a long stick. Or - here's the cheaper, less painful option - you could get a copy of Brenda Shoshanna's new book, Zen and the Art of Falling in Love (Simon & Schuster, $21, 224 pages).
Despite the silly title and the oh-so-subtle marketing ploy of releasing the book right before Valentine's Day, there's some good, solid advice here that just might help the lovelorn break some of their destructive patterns and connect the dots as to why true love is always passing them by.
Of course, relationship self-help guides are a dime a dozen, so the savvy author has to find a hook to make his or her book stand out from the crowd. Shoshanna's shtick is Zen, which she has practiced for 28 years. (She founded the Gateless Zendo in New York City and teaches meditation there on Monday nights.)
But hey, wait a minute. This seems like an oxymoron. What does Zen - austere, silent Zen, the practice of nonattachment - have to do with love, breathless, giddy love, the very definition of attachment?
Everything, says Shoshanna: "Zen and love are incredibly compatible. The wonderful, ancient practice of Zen is actually the practice of falling in love. When one focuses on and welcomes all that life brings, each day becomes a good day in which you are able to fall in love with all of life, to continually find wonder, kindness, friendship and playfulness."
Yeah, yeah, yeah. That still doesn't explain why you haven't found your soul mate yet. And why so many losers keep auditioning for the part.
This is where Shoshanna slips on her psychotherapist hat. (She has been a psychologist for almost as long as she has studied Zen, and she's quite the Internet counselor, offering online couples' courses, live chats on iVillage.com and her own e-zine called "Touchstones to Love.")
The problem, she says, is that we're always looking for answers through love. Solutions to our problems. We search for the person who'll somehow magically fix it all, who will, to quote Tom Cruise, "complete" us.
And that, according to Shoshanna, is a major mistake.
In Zen, she points out, you're all alone on the cushion. You sit there, you keep your eyes on the floor, you follow the instructor's orders to count your breaths from one to 10. It's simple, and yet it's profoundly difficult to surrender, to sit still. If nothing else, you learn patience.
Using the most elementary of Zen lessons, Shoshanna draws parallels between what happens in the zendo and what happens in the jungle of romance. Or what should happen. "Take Off Your Shoes" means becoming available, giving oneself up to the process, paying attention to the tiniest details. "Doing Nothing" means releasing control, giving up the illusion that we can make a partner act how we'd like them to act. "Receiving the Stick" means absorbing blows, resisting the urge to run when a relationship hits a rough patch.
All of which might sound pretty negative to someone not familiar with Buddhism and its emphasis on selflessness, on the freedom to be gained by letting go. But hey, says Shoshanna, life - and, by extension, love - is often about not getting your way. Deal with it.
"In Zen practice, the sorrow, shocks and imbalances of life are not seen as an illness. They are not bad, things to be avoided, but rather are to be understood and welcomed as one would welcome a temporary guest. They are not dwelled upon or figured out. They are simply known to be the unavoidable fluctuations of life, like day and night, sun and clouds."
The last section of the book, "Advanced Training," is about how to stay in love once you've fallen. A relationship, according to Shoshanna, is like sesshin, the intensive weeklong retreat during which Zen students give up responsibilities of the outside world and devote themselves to meditation, hour after hour. Settling down on the cushion; settling down with one partner. Almost everybody finds this hard. We fidget, struggle with boredom, endure stiff knees, entertain fantasies of leaving. Some people actually do leave. Sometimes they come back, sometimes they don't.
Shoshanna recounts an old Zen story of the student who went to visit a revered master, hoping for a great teaching, something that would deliver instant enlightenment. Instead, the master offered him some tea and put a kettle on the stove. It took awhile for the water to boil. Teacher and student watched the kettle. When the water was ready, the Zen master poured two cups of tea. They drank in silence.
Finally the student put down his cup. "Are you finished?" the master asked.
"Yes," said the student.
"Fine. Now wash your cup."
That kind of simplicity, that attention to detail, will sustain a relationship, Shoshanna assures us. But it has to come from you, not from that perfect partner who has arrived at last.
"The ability to love and to be present is entirely up to you. Whoever is seated beside you, or whoever appears on your path, is part of the amazing manifestation of life. Why can't we accept and revere it? Why can't we offer all a beautifully prepared cup of tea?"
Maybe we can, if we're ready to stop being hungry ghosts.
Jeanne Malmgren's first book, which she co-wrote with a Buddhist monk, will be published this fall by Wisdom Publications.
A new meditation on love
JEANNE MALMGREN
1014 words
13 February 2003
St. Petersburg Times
SOUTH PINELLAS
1D
English
Copyright 2003 St. Petersburg Times.
Zen and the Art of Falling in Love
By Brenda Shoshanna
Are you a "hungry ghost"? One of those poor souls who wanders from relationship to relationship, never quite getting your fill of love, always wondering what went wrong, starving for the very thing that's right in front of you, laid out on the banquet table of life?
What you need, Romance Junkie, is your own personal Zen master/shrink. Someone who will listen to your problems, then crack you over the head with a long stick. Or - here's the cheaper, less painful option - you could get a copy of Brenda Shoshanna's new book, Zen and the Art of Falling in Love (Simon & Schuster, $21, 224 pages).
Despite the silly title and the oh-so-subtle marketing ploy of releasing the book right before Valentine's Day, there's some good, solid advice here that just might help the lovelorn break some of their destructive patterns and connect the dots as to why true love is always passing them by.
Of course, relationship self-help guides are a dime a dozen, so the savvy author has to find a hook to make his or her book stand out from the crowd. Shoshanna's shtick is Zen, which she has practiced for 28 years. (She founded the Gateless Zendo in New York City and teaches meditation there on Monday nights.)
But hey, wait a minute. This seems like an oxymoron. What does Zen - austere, silent Zen, the practice of nonattachment - have to do with love, breathless, giddy love, the very definition of attachment?
Everything, says Shoshanna: "Zen and love are incredibly compatible. The wonderful, ancient practice of Zen is actually the practice of falling in love. When one focuses on and welcomes all that life brings, each day becomes a good day in which you are able to fall in love with all of life, to continually find wonder, kindness, friendship and playfulness."
Yeah, yeah, yeah. That still doesn't explain why you haven't found your soul mate yet. And why so many losers keep auditioning for the part.
This is where Shoshanna slips on her psychotherapist hat. (She has been a psychologist for almost as long as she has studied Zen, and she's quite the Internet counselor, offering online couples' courses, live chats on iVillage.com and her own e-zine called "Touchstones to Love.")
The problem, she says, is that we're always looking for answers through love. Solutions to our problems. We search for the person who'll somehow magically fix it all, who will, to quote Tom Cruise, "complete" us.
And that, according to Shoshanna, is a major mistake.
In Zen, she points out, you're all alone on the cushion. You sit there, you keep your eyes on the floor, you follow the instructor's orders to count your breaths from one to 10. It's simple, and yet it's profoundly difficult to surrender, to sit still. If nothing else, you learn patience.
Using the most elementary of Zen lessons, Shoshanna draws parallels between what happens in the zendo and what happens in the jungle of romance. Or what should happen. "Take Off Your Shoes" means becoming available, giving oneself up to the process, paying attention to the tiniest details. "Doing Nothing" means releasing control, giving up the illusion that we can make a partner act how we'd like them to act. "Receiving the Stick" means absorbing blows, resisting the urge to run when a relationship hits a rough patch.
All of which might sound pretty negative to someone not familiar with Buddhism and its emphasis on selflessness, on the freedom to be gained by letting go. But hey, says Shoshanna, life - and, by extension, love - is often about not getting your way. Deal with it.
"In Zen practice, the sorrow, shocks and imbalances of life are not seen as an illness. They are not bad, things to be avoided, but rather are to be understood and welcomed as one would welcome a temporary guest. They are not dwelled upon or figured out. They are simply known to be the unavoidable fluctuations of life, like day and night, sun and clouds."
The last section of the book, "Advanced Training," is about how to stay in love once you've fallen. A relationship, according to Shoshanna, is like sesshin, the intensive weeklong retreat during which Zen students give up responsibilities of the outside world and devote themselves to meditation, hour after hour. Settling down on the cushion; settling down with one partner. Almost everybody finds this hard. We fidget, struggle with boredom, endure stiff knees, entertain fantasies of leaving. Some people actually do leave. Sometimes they come back, sometimes they don't.
Shoshanna recounts an old Zen story of the student who went to visit a revered master, hoping for a great teaching, something that would deliver instant enlightenment. Instead, the master offered him some tea and put a kettle on the stove. It took awhile for the water to boil. Teacher and student watched the kettle. When the water was ready, the Zen master poured two cups of tea. They drank in silence.
Finally the student put down his cup. "Are you finished?" the master asked.
"Yes," said the student.
"Fine. Now wash your cup."
That kind of simplicity, that attention to detail, will sustain a relationship, Shoshanna assures us. But it has to come from you, not from that perfect partner who has arrived at last.
"The ability to love and to be present is entirely up to you. Whoever is seated beside you, or whoever appears on your path, is part of the amazing manifestation of life. Why can't we accept and revere it? Why can't we offer all a beautifully prepared cup of tea?"
Maybe we can, if we're ready to stop being hungry ghosts.
Jeanne Malmgren's first book, which she co-wrote with a Buddhist monk, will be published this fall by Wisdom Publications.
Understanding the Tibetan Book of the Dead; By Francesca Fremantle
Religion BOOK REVIEW For Serious Seekers, an Expert Guide to Revered Buddhist Text LUMINOUS EMPTINESS: Understanding the Tibetan Book of the Dead; By Francesca Fremantle; Shambhala: 408 pp., $26.95
RUTH ANDREW ELLENSON
878 words
9 March 2002
Los Angeles Times
Home Edition
B-18
English
Copyright 2002 Los Angeles Times
Would the Tibetan Book of the Dead by any other name be as popular? That's one question that Francesca Fremantle's thoughtful and intricate "Luminous Emptiness" brings to mind.
The real title for what we call the Tibetan Book of the Dead is the less melodic "The Great Liberation Through Hearing During the Bardo." Fremantle's book attempts to be no less than a guide for maintaining one's perceptions and awareness during the bardo (or transitional state between life and death) in which she shows readers the complicated process of understanding one of Buddhism's most sacred texts.
One surprising aspect of Fremantle's revelations about the Tibetan Book of the Dead, written by "the precious guru" Padmakara in the 8th century, is that the book is not so much a guide to the afterlife as a guide for the stages of life in preparation for death. Death, she asserts, is not the end of existence but a passage into a more evolved state of consciousness, similar to what is achieved in transcendent meditative states: "After death, without the grounding influence of the physical body, events will overtake us with such speed and intensity that there will be no chance to stop and meditate. To be of use, meditation must become part of our innermost nature. That is why this is a book of the living as well as a book of the dead."
"Luminous emptiness" is the space between life and death before rebirth. "Space is emptiness and luminosity: luminous emptiness," Fremantle says. "Because it is empty, nothing exists, yet because it is luminous, everything arises from it." Though this description might seem elusive--and, indeed, it is this language that makes Eastern religions hard for many Western critics to grasp--it describes a state of spiritual bliss with abstract language that forces the reader to let go of a rational, linear thought process.
A British scholar of Sanskrit and Tibetan, Fremantle helped translate the Tibetan Book of the Dead in the 1970s with her teacher, Chogyam Trungpa, to whom this book is dedicated. Fremantle is a student of Indian Buddhism--the purest form of which, according to her, is practiced in Tibet. The struggle to arrive at a state of enlightenment is palpable in the meticulous and detailed manner in which Fremantle lays out its spiritual path. She begins with a concise explanation of the fundamentals of Buddhism and then moves on to the more complex ideas of karma, self-deceit, the immaterial, the ego and consciousness.
Fremantle acts as our intellectual guide, unraveling the book's complicated and powerful imagery and abstract messages. For example, she presents this daunting passage dealing with the moment of death:
*
Now the bardo of dying is dawning upon me,
I will abandon grasping, attachment and the all-desiring mind,
Enter undistracted the clear essence of instructions,
And transfer into the space of unborn self-awareness,
As I leave this conditioned body of flesh and blood
I will know it to be a transitory illusion.
*
Then she explains how this passage treats dying as a transference, not an end, like moving from "one place to another," just as one would move from one room in a house into another. In skillfully unraveling such knotted imagery and symbolic meaning, Fremantle points to the meanings that each passage contains.
Her description of Buddhism makes no bones about it: "Buddhism is a religion of practical methods for spiritual realization." Every religion might make the same claim, but Fremantle argues that Buddhism provides the unique ability to provide those steps without being dogmatic. "[Buddhism] contains many different views and formulations in response to people's needs and a huge variety of techniques to suit their inclinations and capabilities. Some of these may appear contradictory, yet they do not teach different truths; they present different points of view from which to approach the same truth."
"Luminous Emptiness" differs from some Western books on religion--it is not an anthropological study, or even an academic explanation, that tries to simplify concepts for an unfamiliar general audience. Instead, this book is a deeply heartfelt guide to spiritual fulfillment through Buddhism, and the work of a believer who has studied her tradition with academic intensity and whose faith has emerged on the other end, undiminished.
The reader who comes to "Luminous Emptiness" with a predisposition toward believing in Buddhism, and a desire to understand how to use the Tibetan Book of the Dead as a way of furthering that knowledge, will be rewarded. However, readers who come with only a passing interest in the subject and seek a convincing argument for taking on the Tibetan Book of the Dead will perhaps find Fremantle's work less than illuminating. Not a book for the casual reader, "Luminous Emptiness" provides interested seekers with a journey through the Tibetan Book of the Dead, and Fremantle is an expert guide.
RUTH ANDREW ELLENSON
878 words
9 March 2002
Los Angeles Times
Home Edition
B-18
English
Copyright 2002 Los Angeles Times
Would the Tibetan Book of the Dead by any other name be as popular? That's one question that Francesca Fremantle's thoughtful and intricate "Luminous Emptiness" brings to mind.
The real title for what we call the Tibetan Book of the Dead is the less melodic "The Great Liberation Through Hearing During the Bardo." Fremantle's book attempts to be no less than a guide for maintaining one's perceptions and awareness during the bardo (or transitional state between life and death) in which she shows readers the complicated process of understanding one of Buddhism's most sacred texts.
One surprising aspect of Fremantle's revelations about the Tibetan Book of the Dead, written by "the precious guru" Padmakara in the 8th century, is that the book is not so much a guide to the afterlife as a guide for the stages of life in preparation for death. Death, she asserts, is not the end of existence but a passage into a more evolved state of consciousness, similar to what is achieved in transcendent meditative states: "After death, without the grounding influence of the physical body, events will overtake us with such speed and intensity that there will be no chance to stop and meditate. To be of use, meditation must become part of our innermost nature. That is why this is a book of the living as well as a book of the dead."
"Luminous emptiness" is the space between life and death before rebirth. "Space is emptiness and luminosity: luminous emptiness," Fremantle says. "Because it is empty, nothing exists, yet because it is luminous, everything arises from it." Though this description might seem elusive--and, indeed, it is this language that makes Eastern religions hard for many Western critics to grasp--it describes a state of spiritual bliss with abstract language that forces the reader to let go of a rational, linear thought process.
A British scholar of Sanskrit and Tibetan, Fremantle helped translate the Tibetan Book of the Dead in the 1970s with her teacher, Chogyam Trungpa, to whom this book is dedicated. Fremantle is a student of Indian Buddhism--the purest form of which, according to her, is practiced in Tibet. The struggle to arrive at a state of enlightenment is palpable in the meticulous and detailed manner in which Fremantle lays out its spiritual path. She begins with a concise explanation of the fundamentals of Buddhism and then moves on to the more complex ideas of karma, self-deceit, the immaterial, the ego and consciousness.
Fremantle acts as our intellectual guide, unraveling the book's complicated and powerful imagery and abstract messages. For example, she presents this daunting passage dealing with the moment of death:
*
Now the bardo of dying is dawning upon me,
I will abandon grasping, attachment and the all-desiring mind,
Enter undistracted the clear essence of instructions,
And transfer into the space of unborn self-awareness,
As I leave this conditioned body of flesh and blood
I will know it to be a transitory illusion.
*
Then she explains how this passage treats dying as a transference, not an end, like moving from "one place to another," just as one would move from one room in a house into another. In skillfully unraveling such knotted imagery and symbolic meaning, Fremantle points to the meanings that each passage contains.
Her description of Buddhism makes no bones about it: "Buddhism is a religion of practical methods for spiritual realization." Every religion might make the same claim, but Fremantle argues that Buddhism provides the unique ability to provide those steps without being dogmatic. "[Buddhism] contains many different views and formulations in response to people's needs and a huge variety of techniques to suit their inclinations and capabilities. Some of these may appear contradictory, yet they do not teach different truths; they present different points of view from which to approach the same truth."
"Luminous Emptiness" differs from some Western books on religion--it is not an anthropological study, or even an academic explanation, that tries to simplify concepts for an unfamiliar general audience. Instead, this book is a deeply heartfelt guide to spiritual fulfillment through Buddhism, and the work of a believer who has studied her tradition with academic intensity and whose faith has emerged on the other end, undiminished.
The reader who comes to "Luminous Emptiness" with a predisposition toward believing in Buddhism, and a desire to understand how to use the Tibetan Book of the Dead as a way of furthering that knowledge, will be rewarded. However, readers who come with only a passing interest in the subject and seek a convincing argument for taking on the Tibetan Book of the Dead will perhaps find Fremantle's work less than illuminating. Not a book for the casual reader, "Luminous Emptiness" provides interested seekers with a journey through the Tibetan Book of the Dead, and Fremantle is an expert guide.
A 16th Century Mystic's Meditation on His Sensual 'Songs of the Soul' by Nora Gallagher
RELIGION BOOK REVIEW A 16th Century Mystic's Meditation on His Sensual 'Songs of the Soul'
NORA GALLAGHER
Nora Gallagher is the author of the memoir "Things Seen and Unseen: A Year Lived in Faith."
1074 words
9 February 2002
Los Angeles Times
Home Edition
B-20
English
Copyright 2002 Los Angeles Times
"Dark Night of the Soul"
St. John of the Cross
Translated from the Spanish
by Mirabai Starr
Riverhead Books, 184 pg., $22.95
As the last rites were read to him on his deathbed at the age of 49, John of the Cross, the 16th century poet, mystic, priest and monk, interrupted. Please, he begged, read me "The Song of Solomon."
That such a sensual, luscious poem to love would be the last words John wished to hear is a bittersweet commentary on his life. He was a member of Teresa of Avila's Discalced Carmelite Order--the Barefoot Carmelites--and Teresa's beloved, passionate friend. His finest and most famous poem, "Songs of the Soul," combines the best of each of his vocations. He and Teresa were committed to the reform of the Carmelites, and both of them were caught in the chaos of the Inquisition in Spain.
At 25, John was captured and imprisoned in a closet in a monastery by a community of monks who upheld a Vatican faction's dim view of Teresa's reforms. He was starved and flogged. After nine months of captivity, he escaped by lowering himself out of his cell with a rope made of strips of cloth. He got himself to a Discalced convent and wept as he heard the nuns reciting the Angelus. He wrote "Songs of the Soul" in a state of gratitude and ecstasy.
The poem is a mere eight verses long. It describes a night in which a soul escapes from her house to join her lover, her creator, in a night of risk, ecstasy and passion. As with the Song of Songs and many mystics' writings, it is not only beautiful, it is remarkably sensual. Consider the seventh verse:
Wind blew down from the tower
Parting the locks of his hair
With his gentle hand
He wounded my neck
And all my senses were suspended.
John's Discalced brethren prevailed on him to write a "commentary" on his poem, and this resulted in what we now know as the "Dark Night of the Soul." The commentary is 25 chapters long, divided into two parts, "Night of Sense" and "Night of the Spirit," an exegesis of the first three verses of the poem (nothing remains, if it ever existed, of the commentary on the last five).
In these pages, John describes how and why the soul must risk entering darkness, become empty and abandoned, to be ready for union, real union, with God. It's partly a step-by-step guide to contemplation and has served as solace for those who suffer from a dry or despairing season in meditation or prayer. It's wise and often witty about spiritual seekers: our love of trinkets and icons, how attached we get to juicy spiritual experiences, how competitive we are about our lives of prayer.
For the last 400 years, "Dark Night of the Soul" has been taken very seriously by contemplatives. Writes Thomas Moore in his introduction, "As I see it, St. John of the Cross is speaking of mysterious developments in the soul, which includes the psychological.... His goal is not health, but union with the divine."
At the same time, however, the commentary flattens and devitalizes the poem. While the poem celebrates sensuality, the commentary argues against it. It attacks the urgency, the moment of the poem. The poem and the commentary are like a war between the imaginary and the literal, the mystical and the dogmatic.
Poems are mysterious. So is mystical experience. We don't know where their inspiration comes from. To write a serious poem or to enter into prayer is to enter into darkness. Because they come from a place "outside the writer," poems, even those written 400 years ago, have the capacity to speak to us, in the now. And mystics, including Julian of Norwich and the 13th century Sufi poet Rumi are presently speaking to large numbers of us.
Most mystics, from Mechthildof Magdeburg to John of the Cross, experience God as a creative, sensual, intimate lover. This version of God makes people, especially those in authority, very nervous: Many mystics, most of them women, who insisted on this God, so different from the remote Father in Heaven, were banned, imprisoned and even killed.
St. Hildegard of Bingen, another early Christian mystic, said in one of her revelations that our sin is not that we are sensuous but that we are not sensuous enough: We do not allow the beauty of the world and the flesh to fully enchant us. It is the poem, not the commentary, that brings us close to John's actual experience of God.
Yet the poem and the commentary are linked forever. As a friend, a former Ursulan nun who studied John of the Cross at Notre Dame, said, "the commentary is like a provenance" to the poem, a place of origin, the place where a thing is made.
John's commentary anchors the metaphysics of his poem in the struggle that led to its creation. It shows us the place where the poem was made, and this, finally, is what gives this work its greatness.
This new translation by Mirabai Starr, a fiction writer and adjunct professor of philosophy, religious studies and Spanish at the University of New Mexico at Taos, is the first translation of John from someone "outside the church," as the publisher puts it, meaning the first translation by someone who is not Roman Catholic.
Her translation is somewhat like Coleman Barks' reading of Rumi: more plain speaking, less ornate and designed to appeal to a secular, or at least nonreligious, audience.
Starr's own spiritual "seeking'' has led her from Hinduism to Buddhism to Native American sweat lodges. "But eventually the juices drained out of my spiritual practices and the fireworks faded. By the time I reached my thirties, nothing remained but a quiet connection to emptiness." "Dark Night of the Soul" is Starr's silent companion.
NORA GALLAGHER
Nora Gallagher is the author of the memoir "Things Seen and Unseen: A Year Lived in Faith."
1074 words
9 February 2002
Los Angeles Times
Home Edition
B-20
English
Copyright 2002 Los Angeles Times
"Dark Night of the Soul"
St. John of the Cross
Translated from the Spanish
by Mirabai Starr
Riverhead Books, 184 pg., $22.95
As the last rites were read to him on his deathbed at the age of 49, John of the Cross, the 16th century poet, mystic, priest and monk, interrupted. Please, he begged, read me "The Song of Solomon."
That such a sensual, luscious poem to love would be the last words John wished to hear is a bittersweet commentary on his life. He was a member of Teresa of Avila's Discalced Carmelite Order--the Barefoot Carmelites--and Teresa's beloved, passionate friend. His finest and most famous poem, "Songs of the Soul," combines the best of each of his vocations. He and Teresa were committed to the reform of the Carmelites, and both of them were caught in the chaos of the Inquisition in Spain.
At 25, John was captured and imprisoned in a closet in a monastery by a community of monks who upheld a Vatican faction's dim view of Teresa's reforms. He was starved and flogged. After nine months of captivity, he escaped by lowering himself out of his cell with a rope made of strips of cloth. He got himself to a Discalced convent and wept as he heard the nuns reciting the Angelus. He wrote "Songs of the Soul" in a state of gratitude and ecstasy.
The poem is a mere eight verses long. It describes a night in which a soul escapes from her house to join her lover, her creator, in a night of risk, ecstasy and passion. As with the Song of Songs and many mystics' writings, it is not only beautiful, it is remarkably sensual. Consider the seventh verse:
Wind blew down from the tower
Parting the locks of his hair
With his gentle hand
He wounded my neck
And all my senses were suspended.
John's Discalced brethren prevailed on him to write a "commentary" on his poem, and this resulted in what we now know as the "Dark Night of the Soul." The commentary is 25 chapters long, divided into two parts, "Night of Sense" and "Night of the Spirit," an exegesis of the first three verses of the poem (nothing remains, if it ever existed, of the commentary on the last five).
In these pages, John describes how and why the soul must risk entering darkness, become empty and abandoned, to be ready for union, real union, with God. It's partly a step-by-step guide to contemplation and has served as solace for those who suffer from a dry or despairing season in meditation or prayer. It's wise and often witty about spiritual seekers: our love of trinkets and icons, how attached we get to juicy spiritual experiences, how competitive we are about our lives of prayer.
For the last 400 years, "Dark Night of the Soul" has been taken very seriously by contemplatives. Writes Thomas Moore in his introduction, "As I see it, St. John of the Cross is speaking of mysterious developments in the soul, which includes the psychological.... His goal is not health, but union with the divine."
At the same time, however, the commentary flattens and devitalizes the poem. While the poem celebrates sensuality, the commentary argues against it. It attacks the urgency, the moment of the poem. The poem and the commentary are like a war between the imaginary and the literal, the mystical and the dogmatic.
Poems are mysterious. So is mystical experience. We don't know where their inspiration comes from. To write a serious poem or to enter into prayer is to enter into darkness. Because they come from a place "outside the writer," poems, even those written 400 years ago, have the capacity to speak to us, in the now. And mystics, including Julian of Norwich and the 13th century Sufi poet Rumi are presently speaking to large numbers of us.
Most mystics, from Mechthildof Magdeburg to John of the Cross, experience God as a creative, sensual, intimate lover. This version of God makes people, especially those in authority, very nervous: Many mystics, most of them women, who insisted on this God, so different from the remote Father in Heaven, were banned, imprisoned and even killed.
St. Hildegard of Bingen, another early Christian mystic, said in one of her revelations that our sin is not that we are sensuous but that we are not sensuous enough: We do not allow the beauty of the world and the flesh to fully enchant us. It is the poem, not the commentary, that brings us close to John's actual experience of God.
Yet the poem and the commentary are linked forever. As a friend, a former Ursulan nun who studied John of the Cross at Notre Dame, said, "the commentary is like a provenance" to the poem, a place of origin, the place where a thing is made.
John's commentary anchors the metaphysics of his poem in the struggle that led to its creation. It shows us the place where the poem was made, and this, finally, is what gives this work its greatness.
This new translation by Mirabai Starr, a fiction writer and adjunct professor of philosophy, religious studies and Spanish at the University of New Mexico at Taos, is the first translation of John from someone "outside the church," as the publisher puts it, meaning the first translation by someone who is not Roman Catholic.
Her translation is somewhat like Coleman Barks' reading of Rumi: more plain speaking, less ornate and designed to appeal to a secular, or at least nonreligious, audience.
Starr's own spiritual "seeking'' has led her from Hinduism to Buddhism to Native American sweat lodges. "But eventually the juices drained out of my spiritual practices and the fireworks faded. By the time I reached my thirties, nothing remained but a quiet connection to emptiness." "Dark Night of the Soul" is Starr's silent companion.
Wednesday, September 5, 2007
Sparks of the Divine: Finding Inspiration in Our Everyday World by Drew Leder
Religion
BOOK REVIEW Scholar offers tips to finding sacred in life
BY ROBERT NERALICH SPECIAL TO THE DEMOCRAT-GAZETTE
759 words
27 November 2004
The Arkansas Democrat Gazette
50
English
Copyright (c) 2004 Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, Inc. All rights reserved.
In the opinion of Drew Leder, professor of Western and Eastern philosophy at Loyola College in Maryland, human beings fail to see the world's sacred dimension because "The sheer ordinariness of things is our cataract. We view our world through a glaze of familiar tasks and objects."
Therefore, his ambition in Sparks of the Divine: Finding Inspiration in Our Everyday World is to help readers rediscover this sacredness by looking at common objects in uncommon ways.
The book's title derives from Kabbalah, a mystical branch of Judaism, according to which, "Every particle in our physical universe, every structure and every being is a shell that contains sparks of holiness." To assist his readers in locating these sparks, Leder has written his book in the form of "one hundred brief reflections," in which he borrows spiritual insights from many religions, including Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism and American Indian traditions.
He also includes "15 guided meditations" that he calls "shapeshifts," designed to "further the book's use as a transformative tool" by allowing readers to shift "into the heart of another being," or, as he expresses it in his epilogue: "It is good to consult with creature-teachers; it can be better to turn into them and absorb their wisdom from within."
In essence, Sparks of the Divine is an extended invitation to investigate the claim of 19th-century Hasidic teacher Menahem Mendel, cited by Leder, that "One who does not see the Omnipresent in every place will not see Him in any place."
It is therefore appropriate that Leder discovers the sacred dimension in a variety of decidedly humble objects not generally associated with spiritual pursuits, such as frogs, ducks, belly buttons, fire hydrants, pencils, windshield wipers and bubble gum. His analogies in these discussions are always interesting, and the questions they generate are sometimes as startling as they are thought-provoking, as when, after stating that many people hold opinions on what God looks and sounds like, he asks, "What does God smell like?"
A few examples will serve to demonstrate the textures of Leder's considerable intelligence and imagination. He suggests that driving an automobile provides motorists with numerous opportunities for spiritual practice, since he believes that there is "no better way to exorcise your demons of impatience, pride and selfishness."
He cleverly compares the way in which magnets affect iron with the manner in which a saint can influence his students: "The disorganized impulses of the disciple - generous at one moment, selfish the next - begin to unify like electrons spinning in the same direction."
He also argues in a reflection called "Sudden Death Playoffs" that viewing sports can be a form of yoga, by suggesting that individuals should "try watching the game prayerfully, or as a form of meditation, and working with the intensity of the desires and emotions that arise."
Sometimes Leder provides readers with cosmic perspectives on their everyday world, as in a notably fine piece on footprints in mud, in which he suggests that "everything is footprints. Not just the mark in the mud, but the mud itself: It's a memory of all the ground-up rock, the pulverized leaves, the falling rain, now congealed together ... The present is but the past preserved."
Finally, Leder affirms humanity's connectedness with all of creation in a lovely meditation on the stars, in which he observes that "The stars, so distant, so other-worldly in their shining, are the authors of our solid flesh ... From dust we have come, and unto dust we shall return - yes, but it is stardust."
Leder concludes Sparks of the Divine with a series of "Tips for Spark-Hunters," in which he offers readers guidance and encouragement. This closure is, however, merely a brief summary of what he has argued persuasively throughout the book: By the simple expedient of mindful attention to the everyday world, people can rediscover the depthless mystery that is the context of their lives and thereby reinvest their world with wonder. Socrates claimed that wonder is the beginning of wisdom, and Leder's book is therefore decidedly wise in calling attention to a wonder-filled world.
Robert Neralich has a doctorate in English and teaches Asian studies at Fayetteville High School. Write to him c/o Northwest Religion Editor, Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, P.O. Box 5105, Springdale, Ark. 72765, or e-mail: rneralich@aol.com
BOOK REVIEW Scholar offers tips to finding sacred in life
BY ROBERT NERALICH SPECIAL TO THE DEMOCRAT-GAZETTE
759 words
27 November 2004
The Arkansas Democrat Gazette
50
English
Copyright (c) 2004 Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, Inc. All rights reserved.
In the opinion of Drew Leder, professor of Western and Eastern philosophy at Loyola College in Maryland, human beings fail to see the world's sacred dimension because "The sheer ordinariness of things is our cataract. We view our world through a glaze of familiar tasks and objects."
Therefore, his ambition in Sparks of the Divine: Finding Inspiration in Our Everyday World is to help readers rediscover this sacredness by looking at common objects in uncommon ways.
The book's title derives from Kabbalah, a mystical branch of Judaism, according to which, "Every particle in our physical universe, every structure and every being is a shell that contains sparks of holiness." To assist his readers in locating these sparks, Leder has written his book in the form of "one hundred brief reflections," in which he borrows spiritual insights from many religions, including Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism and American Indian traditions.
He also includes "15 guided meditations" that he calls "shapeshifts," designed to "further the book's use as a transformative tool" by allowing readers to shift "into the heart of another being," or, as he expresses it in his epilogue: "It is good to consult with creature-teachers; it can be better to turn into them and absorb their wisdom from within."
In essence, Sparks of the Divine is an extended invitation to investigate the claim of 19th-century Hasidic teacher Menahem Mendel, cited by Leder, that "One who does not see the Omnipresent in every place will not see Him in any place."
It is therefore appropriate that Leder discovers the sacred dimension in a variety of decidedly humble objects not generally associated with spiritual pursuits, such as frogs, ducks, belly buttons, fire hydrants, pencils, windshield wipers and bubble gum. His analogies in these discussions are always interesting, and the questions they generate are sometimes as startling as they are thought-provoking, as when, after stating that many people hold opinions on what God looks and sounds like, he asks, "What does God smell like?"
A few examples will serve to demonstrate the textures of Leder's considerable intelligence and imagination. He suggests that driving an automobile provides motorists with numerous opportunities for spiritual practice, since he believes that there is "no better way to exorcise your demons of impatience, pride and selfishness."
He cleverly compares the way in which magnets affect iron with the manner in which a saint can influence his students: "The disorganized impulses of the disciple - generous at one moment, selfish the next - begin to unify like electrons spinning in the same direction."
He also argues in a reflection called "Sudden Death Playoffs" that viewing sports can be a form of yoga, by suggesting that individuals should "try watching the game prayerfully, or as a form of meditation, and working with the intensity of the desires and emotions that arise."
Sometimes Leder provides readers with cosmic perspectives on their everyday world, as in a notably fine piece on footprints in mud, in which he suggests that "everything is footprints. Not just the mark in the mud, but the mud itself: It's a memory of all the ground-up rock, the pulverized leaves, the falling rain, now congealed together ... The present is but the past preserved."
Finally, Leder affirms humanity's connectedness with all of creation in a lovely meditation on the stars, in which he observes that "The stars, so distant, so other-worldly in their shining, are the authors of our solid flesh ... From dust we have come, and unto dust we shall return - yes, but it is stardust."
Leder concludes Sparks of the Divine with a series of "Tips for Spark-Hunters," in which he offers readers guidance and encouragement. This closure is, however, merely a brief summary of what he has argued persuasively throughout the book: By the simple expedient of mindful attention to the everyday world, people can rediscover the depthless mystery that is the context of their lives and thereby reinvest their world with wonder. Socrates claimed that wonder is the beginning of wisdom, and Leder's book is therefore decidedly wise in calling attention to a wonder-filled world.
Robert Neralich has a doctorate in English and teaches Asian studies at Fayetteville High School. Write to him c/o Northwest Religion Editor, Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, P.O. Box 5105, Springdale, Ark. 72765, or e-mail: rneralich@aol.com
Spiritual struggle.(The Dance of 17 Lives: the Incredible True Story of Tibet's 17th Karpama) by Mick Brown, reviewed by Isabel Hilton
Spiritual struggle.(The Dance of 17 Lives: the Incredible True Story of Tibet's 17th Karpama)(Book Review)
Hilton, Isabel
1205 words
17 May 2004
New Statesman
53
ISSN: 1364-7431; Volume 133; Issue 4688
English
Copyright 2004 Gale Group Inc. All rights reserved.
The Dance of 17 Lives: the incredible true story of Tibet's 17th Karmapa
Mick Brown
Bloomsbury, 304pp, [pounds sterling]16.99
When the 16th incarnation of the Karmapa was dying at a hospital in Illinois in 1981, his doctor observed that his compassion for those around him seemed to burn even brighter. It was, the doctor recalled, as though he had come to hospital just to cheer everybody up. Devotees, who can be expected to experience intense emotion near their guru, often say such things, doctors less often. Whatever qualities the 16th Karmapa possessed, they clearly touched a wider circle than those already faithful.
There are many such anecdotes in Mick Brown's lively and judicious account of the Karmapas, a story that begins in 12th-century Tibet and reaches its climax in modern India with a violent dispute over the succession to the 16th Karmapa. In between, the narrative roams across territory as wide as the reach of the Karmapas' influence--from Woodstock and Dumfries to Sikkim and Himachal Pradesh.
The battle over the succession that began with the death of the 16th Karmapa still continues. There are two pretenders--one recognised by the Dalai Lama, the Chinese government and most of the Karmapa's followers; the other championed by a dissident lama (the nephew of the previous incarnation) and his retinue of largely foreign activists. The story of the dispute is both a primer in the darker aspects of Tibetan theological politics and a sobering account of what happened when Tibetan Buddhism went west.
[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]
The dispute itself is a minefield of conflicting passions and perceptions. A less skilled guide might have trodden on any number of explosives that lie just beneath the surface, but Mick Brown picks his way unscathed through this landscape of good intentions, cynical plots, individual heroism, exotic tradition and esoteric practice, pointing out the path for his readers in good-humoured fashion.
The Karma Kagyu were the first school of Tibetan Buddhism to search for tulkus-reincarnations of great teachers. When a teacher dies, the identification and subsequent education of the tulku is the primary task of his close followers. Both intellectually and spiritually, the transmission of the accumulated knowledge of the lineage depends on the chain remaining intact.
The Karma Kagyu were a powerful school in Tibet, but lost out to the Gelugpa in the 15th century when the 5th Dalai Lama became king. In 1959, the 16th Karmapa fled into exile in India together with the current Dalai Lama and tens of thousands of religious and lay Tibetans. The Dalai Lama settled at Dharamsala, the Karmapa at Rumtek monastery in Sikkim, from where the Karma Kagyu line began a vigorous and successful expansion into the west. By the time of the 16th Karmapa's death, it was the wealthiest and best-established of the schools in exile.
It is the tradition of the Karmapas to leave written instructions on where the next incarnation will appear, but this time the instructions could not be found. Four regents were appointed from among the young lamas closest to the 16th Karmapa, but years went by without a resolution. Then, in 1989, Tai Situ Rinpoche, one of the four, claimed to have discovered the prophecy in a pouch given to him by the Karmapa. A fellow regent, Shamar Rinpoche (Shamarpa), disputed it. In 1992, a third regent, Jamgon Rinpoche, who was due to travel to China to try to locate the new Karmapa, was killed in a car crash.
Ogyen Trinley Dorje, widely recognised today as the 17th Karmapa, was found in China in 1992 and, with the approval of the Chinese government, installed at Tsurphu monastery near Lhasa, the Karmapas' traditional seat. There he stayed until his dramatic escape and arrival in India in January 2001. Shamarpa, however, had never accepted him and in 1994 announced that he had found his own young candidate, Thaye Dorje, whom the Chinese authorities permitted to leave Tibet for India without difficulty. Shamarpa's western followers launched a media war against Tai Situ and his candidate. Supporters of the two lamas slugged it out in the courts, on the streets and on the Internet.
In India, Ogyen Trinley found that he had escaped from one oppression only to be placed under virtual house arrest on the orders of the Indian government, which thought that he and Tai Situ were agents sent from Beijing to stir up trouble. He was unable to visit Rumtek monastery in Sikkim, or to claim the most important insignia of his office, the black hat that was now under armed guard at Rumtek.
The Shamarpa had been in trouble before. In the 18th century, the 10th Shamarpa accompanied his brother, the 6th Panchen Lama, to Beijing, where the Panchen died of smallpox. The emperor made a generous gift of gold coins to the dead man's family. As the funeral cortege wound its way back to Tibet, the Shamarpa quarrelled over the treasure and then fled to Nepal, where he incited the king to send his army to invade Tibet. The Tibetans had to call for the assistance of Chinese imperial troops and the then Dalai Lama, incensed by Shamarpa's behaviour, forbade his reincarnation and buried his crown under the courthouse steps in Lhasa--which, for a Karma Kagyu lama, is about as bad as it can get.
It was nearly 200 years later that the 14th Dalai Lama was prevailed upon to lift the ban and the present incarnation was recognised formally. To his opponents, Shamarpa is as greedy and ambitious in the 21st century as he was in the 18th. Then he turned to Nepal for support; today, he relies largely on foreign devotees, some of whom have taken up his cause with a militancy seldom seen outside Trotskyite cells.
The dispute over the Karmapa's reincarnation might have been just another arcane row. But the Karmapa's escape to India and his growing presence as a charismatic religious leader has given the affair a new dimension. The Dalai Lama is fast approaching 70, and the influence of the next most important Gelugpa lama, the Panchen Lama, is compromised by a dispute with Beijing: the Dalai Lama's candidate has been detained since he was seven; Beijing's candidate is not respected. The Dalai Lama has made a point of embracing the young Karmapa and of trying to overcome the sectarian disputes that divide the main schools of Tibetan Buddhism.
Exiled Tibet needs a figurehead, and it is no longer unthinkable that the 17th Karmapa might play that role, in the absence of the Dalai Lama, or during the minority of the next incarnation. For that possibility to come to fruition, however, it would be better if the dispute were settled. For now, neither candidate has absolute sway--over the followers, the monastery at Rumtek or, most important of all, over the crown woven of dakini hair that is the symbol of the Karmapa's authority.
Isabel Hilton is the author of The Search for the Panchen Lama (Penguin)
Hilton, Isabel
1205 words
17 May 2004
New Statesman
53
ISSN: 1364-7431; Volume 133; Issue 4688
English
Copyright 2004 Gale Group Inc. All rights reserved.
The Dance of 17 Lives: the incredible true story of Tibet's 17th Karmapa
Mick Brown
Bloomsbury, 304pp, [pounds sterling]16.99
When the 16th incarnation of the Karmapa was dying at a hospital in Illinois in 1981, his doctor observed that his compassion for those around him seemed to burn even brighter. It was, the doctor recalled, as though he had come to hospital just to cheer everybody up. Devotees, who can be expected to experience intense emotion near their guru, often say such things, doctors less often. Whatever qualities the 16th Karmapa possessed, they clearly touched a wider circle than those already faithful.
There are many such anecdotes in Mick Brown's lively and judicious account of the Karmapas, a story that begins in 12th-century Tibet and reaches its climax in modern India with a violent dispute over the succession to the 16th Karmapa. In between, the narrative roams across territory as wide as the reach of the Karmapas' influence--from Woodstock and Dumfries to Sikkim and Himachal Pradesh.
The battle over the succession that began with the death of the 16th Karmapa still continues. There are two pretenders--one recognised by the Dalai Lama, the Chinese government and most of the Karmapa's followers; the other championed by a dissident lama (the nephew of the previous incarnation) and his retinue of largely foreign activists. The story of the dispute is both a primer in the darker aspects of Tibetan theological politics and a sobering account of what happened when Tibetan Buddhism went west.
[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]
The dispute itself is a minefield of conflicting passions and perceptions. A less skilled guide might have trodden on any number of explosives that lie just beneath the surface, but Mick Brown picks his way unscathed through this landscape of good intentions, cynical plots, individual heroism, exotic tradition and esoteric practice, pointing out the path for his readers in good-humoured fashion.
The Karma Kagyu were the first school of Tibetan Buddhism to search for tulkus-reincarnations of great teachers. When a teacher dies, the identification and subsequent education of the tulku is the primary task of his close followers. Both intellectually and spiritually, the transmission of the accumulated knowledge of the lineage depends on the chain remaining intact.
The Karma Kagyu were a powerful school in Tibet, but lost out to the Gelugpa in the 15th century when the 5th Dalai Lama became king. In 1959, the 16th Karmapa fled into exile in India together with the current Dalai Lama and tens of thousands of religious and lay Tibetans. The Dalai Lama settled at Dharamsala, the Karmapa at Rumtek monastery in Sikkim, from where the Karma Kagyu line began a vigorous and successful expansion into the west. By the time of the 16th Karmapa's death, it was the wealthiest and best-established of the schools in exile.
It is the tradition of the Karmapas to leave written instructions on where the next incarnation will appear, but this time the instructions could not be found. Four regents were appointed from among the young lamas closest to the 16th Karmapa, but years went by without a resolution. Then, in 1989, Tai Situ Rinpoche, one of the four, claimed to have discovered the prophecy in a pouch given to him by the Karmapa. A fellow regent, Shamar Rinpoche (Shamarpa), disputed it. In 1992, a third regent, Jamgon Rinpoche, who was due to travel to China to try to locate the new Karmapa, was killed in a car crash.
Ogyen Trinley Dorje, widely recognised today as the 17th Karmapa, was found in China in 1992 and, with the approval of the Chinese government, installed at Tsurphu monastery near Lhasa, the Karmapas' traditional seat. There he stayed until his dramatic escape and arrival in India in January 2001. Shamarpa, however, had never accepted him and in 1994 announced that he had found his own young candidate, Thaye Dorje, whom the Chinese authorities permitted to leave Tibet for India without difficulty. Shamarpa's western followers launched a media war against Tai Situ and his candidate. Supporters of the two lamas slugged it out in the courts, on the streets and on the Internet.
In India, Ogyen Trinley found that he had escaped from one oppression only to be placed under virtual house arrest on the orders of the Indian government, which thought that he and Tai Situ were agents sent from Beijing to stir up trouble. He was unable to visit Rumtek monastery in Sikkim, or to claim the most important insignia of his office, the black hat that was now under armed guard at Rumtek.
The Shamarpa had been in trouble before. In the 18th century, the 10th Shamarpa accompanied his brother, the 6th Panchen Lama, to Beijing, where the Panchen died of smallpox. The emperor made a generous gift of gold coins to the dead man's family. As the funeral cortege wound its way back to Tibet, the Shamarpa quarrelled over the treasure and then fled to Nepal, where he incited the king to send his army to invade Tibet. The Tibetans had to call for the assistance of Chinese imperial troops and the then Dalai Lama, incensed by Shamarpa's behaviour, forbade his reincarnation and buried his crown under the courthouse steps in Lhasa--which, for a Karma Kagyu lama, is about as bad as it can get.
It was nearly 200 years later that the 14th Dalai Lama was prevailed upon to lift the ban and the present incarnation was recognised formally. To his opponents, Shamarpa is as greedy and ambitious in the 21st century as he was in the 18th. Then he turned to Nepal for support; today, he relies largely on foreign devotees, some of whom have taken up his cause with a militancy seldom seen outside Trotskyite cells.
The dispute over the Karmapa's reincarnation might have been just another arcane row. But the Karmapa's escape to India and his growing presence as a charismatic religious leader has given the affair a new dimension. The Dalai Lama is fast approaching 70, and the influence of the next most important Gelugpa lama, the Panchen Lama, is compromised by a dispute with Beijing: the Dalai Lama's candidate has been detained since he was seven; Beijing's candidate is not respected. The Dalai Lama has made a point of embracing the young Karmapa and of trying to overcome the sectarian disputes that divide the main schools of Tibetan Buddhism.
Exiled Tibet needs a figurehead, and it is no longer unthinkable that the 17th Karmapa might play that role, in the absence of the Dalai Lama, or during the minority of the next incarnation. For that possibility to come to fruition, however, it would be better if the dispute were settled. For now, neither candidate has absolute sway--over the followers, the monastery at Rumtek or, most important of all, over the crown woven of dakini hair that is the symbol of the Karmapa's authority.
Isabel Hilton is the author of The Search for the Panchen Lama (Penguin)
Re-enchantment: Tibetan Buddhism Comes to the West By Jeffrey Paine
Books
AWAKENINGS HOW FORMERLY OBSCURE TIBETAN BUDDHISM BECAME ONE OF THE WEST'S FASTEST-GROWING RELIGIONS
Askold Melnyczuk
994 words
29 February 2004
The Boston Globe
THIRD
D.8
English
© 2004 New York Times Company. Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning. All Rights Reserved.
Jeffrey Paine opens his riveting narrative about Tibetan Buddhism's emergence in the West with an account of Thomas Merton's brief but prophetic encounter with "the dharma." In 1968, the last year of his life, America's most celebrated Catholic writer stopped in India on his way to an interfaith conference in Bangkok. The Trappist monk was a serious student of Asian religions, a translator of the Tao Te Ching, and had written extensively about Zen. Yet Merton had dismissed Tibetan Buddhism as a sect riddled with superstition. After a series of unscheduled meetings with several Tibetans, however, Merton, without rejecting his Catholicism, vowed to return to pursue a yearlong retreat as preparation for advanced Buddhist spiritual practices. " `The Tibetan Buddhists are the only ones at present,' " he wrote in "The Asian Journals," " `who have a really large number of people who have attained to extraordinary heights in meditation and contemplation.' "
Long before Merton visited India, Buddhism's signals were picked up by the "antennae of the race": An unusual number of artists and writers, from Jack Kerouac, Gary Snyder, and Allen Ginsberg to Peter Matthiessen and Philip Glass, registered its frequencies. Earlier still, historian Arnold Toynbee had written that the arrival of Buddhism in the West "may well prove to be the most important event of the twentieth century."
The most famous of the Tibetans whose presence so utterly changed Merton's mind was Tenzin Gyatso. As just about everyone knows by now, the 14th Dalai Lama fled the Chinese invasion of Tibet in 1959. Yet, nearly a decade later, few people outside India were aware of him or of the unfolding tragedy of the Tibetans, whose culture was being systematically destroyed by the communists. Paine points out that in 1968 there were only two Tibetan Buddhist centers outside Asia: in Scotland and Vermont. By 2000, nearly every sizable American city had one, with eight in Washington, D.C., 25 in Boston, and about 40 in New York. One of every 35 French citizens is a Buddhist. Buddhism is the fastest-growing religion in the United States, with the Tibetan variety drawing the most converts.
Paine, formerly editor of the Smithsonian Institution's Wilson Quarterly, offers several reasons for Tibetan Buddhism's many recent successes. First, uprooted from its country of origin, it has been encouraged by circumstances to become ecumenical and universal. Second is its emphasis on individual responsibility, enabling those who succeed at their practice to communicate directly what they have learned. Then there's the heightened mental capability nurtured by meditation. Scientists recently began documenting the physical benefits of prolonged meditative practice. A religion defining itself as "a science of the mind" has made a timely arrival in the empirically oriented West. Finally, and most immediately, the Chinese occupation created a cadre of uniquely qualified teachers who welcomed new students and were willing to travel.
Paine's immensely readable study tells its stories through a series of cameos and profiles of several great Tibetan Buddhist teachers and their disciples. Here we meet the charismatic Lama Yeshe, one of the first Tibetans to take on Western students. His legendary selflessness and inexhaustible exuberance electrified his students. Though he died before the age of 50, the organization he created continues to thrive, with hundreds of centers worldwide.counts a great and dynamic teacher, Trungpa was also an alcoholic whose more outrageous actions confused and hurt some of his disciples. Paine's balanced portrait, chronicling both Trungpa's excesses and his achievements, offers a model of transparency.
Among the accounts of Tibetan Buddhism's Western followers, the story of Alexandra David-Neel stands out. In 1912 she became both the first Western woman to win an interview with the previous Dalai Lama as well as the first Westerner of either sex to receive advanced Tantric teachings directly from a Tibetan. Paine's vivid recital of David-Neel's travels through India, China, and Tibet makes for fascinating reading.
Paine's speculations on the synergies between Buddhism and film might explain its attraction for many Hollywood notables. Emphasizing the deceptive nature of appearances surely appeals to people who slip in and out of identities without attachment. Quoting Alexis de Tocqueville, Paine observes that "American art will no longer attempt to evoke the divine or the ideal but concentrate solely on human realities." A nontheistic practice, Buddhism nevertheless underscores people's capacity to become buddhas, to achieve enlightenment.
And this is where the matter of re-enchantment comes in. Donald Lopez, among other senior American Buddhist scholars, has cautioned against projecting onto this lost Shangri-La one's own longings for mystery. Fortunately, Paine's sensibility is steeped in Western rationalism. He recounts elegantly, yet without fuss, stories of human transformation that consistently incite our capacity for wonder. He relates the change Buddhist practice has wrought on death- row inmate Jarvis Masters, who recognized through it his power to alter the plot of his own story and the history of Diane Perry's metamorphosis from a working-class English girl to a Buddhist nun named Tenzin Palmo, who stayed in solitary retreat for 12 years.
These authoritative sketches reflect Paine's fluency with the essentials of some of Buddhism's thorniest ideas, from emptiness to bodhicitta perhaps the central concept in Tibetan Buddhism, sometimes translated as "loving-kindness." Is it possible to love your enemy, turn the other cheek, put another before you, and embrace death with equanimity? The Dalai Lama's example seems to embody an unequivocal answer to at least three of these questions and remains a primary cause for our enchantment. Whether it's possible to return love for hate and win your country back for your people remains, however, the subject for another volume.
BOOK REVIEW Re-enchantment: Tibetan Buddhism Comes to the West By Jeffrey Paine Norton, 278 pp., $24.95
AWAKENINGS HOW FORMERLY OBSCURE TIBETAN BUDDHISM BECAME ONE OF THE WEST'S FASTEST-GROWING RELIGIONS
Askold Melnyczuk
994 words
29 February 2004
The Boston Globe
THIRD
D.8
English
© 2004 New York Times Company. Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning. All Rights Reserved.
Jeffrey Paine opens his riveting narrative about Tibetan Buddhism's emergence in the West with an account of Thomas Merton's brief but prophetic encounter with "the dharma." In 1968, the last year of his life, America's most celebrated Catholic writer stopped in India on his way to an interfaith conference in Bangkok. The Trappist monk was a serious student of Asian religions, a translator of the Tao Te Ching, and had written extensively about Zen. Yet Merton had dismissed Tibetan Buddhism as a sect riddled with superstition. After a series of unscheduled meetings with several Tibetans, however, Merton, without rejecting his Catholicism, vowed to return to pursue a yearlong retreat as preparation for advanced Buddhist spiritual practices. " `The Tibetan Buddhists are the only ones at present,' " he wrote in "The Asian Journals," " `who have a really large number of people who have attained to extraordinary heights in meditation and contemplation.' "
Long before Merton visited India, Buddhism's signals were picked up by the "antennae of the race": An unusual number of artists and writers, from Jack Kerouac, Gary Snyder, and Allen Ginsberg to Peter Matthiessen and Philip Glass, registered its frequencies. Earlier still, historian Arnold Toynbee had written that the arrival of Buddhism in the West "may well prove to be the most important event of the twentieth century."
The most famous of the Tibetans whose presence so utterly changed Merton's mind was Tenzin Gyatso. As just about everyone knows by now, the 14th Dalai Lama fled the Chinese invasion of Tibet in 1959. Yet, nearly a decade later, few people outside India were aware of him or of the unfolding tragedy of the Tibetans, whose culture was being systematically destroyed by the communists. Paine points out that in 1968 there were only two Tibetan Buddhist centers outside Asia: in Scotland and Vermont. By 2000, nearly every sizable American city had one, with eight in Washington, D.C., 25 in Boston, and about 40 in New York. One of every 35 French citizens is a Buddhist. Buddhism is the fastest-growing religion in the United States, with the Tibetan variety drawing the most converts.
Paine, formerly editor of the Smithsonian Institution's Wilson Quarterly, offers several reasons for Tibetan Buddhism's many recent successes. First, uprooted from its country of origin, it has been encouraged by circumstances to become ecumenical and universal. Second is its emphasis on individual responsibility, enabling those who succeed at their practice to communicate directly what they have learned. Then there's the heightened mental capability nurtured by meditation. Scientists recently began documenting the physical benefits of prolonged meditative practice. A religion defining itself as "a science of the mind" has made a timely arrival in the empirically oriented West. Finally, and most immediately, the Chinese occupation created a cadre of uniquely qualified teachers who welcomed new students and were willing to travel.
Paine's immensely readable study tells its stories through a series of cameos and profiles of several great Tibetan Buddhist teachers and their disciples. Here we meet the charismatic Lama Yeshe, one of the first Tibetans to take on Western students. His legendary selflessness and inexhaustible exuberance electrified his students. Though he died before the age of 50, the organization he created continues to thrive, with hundreds of centers worldwide.counts a great and dynamic teacher, Trungpa was also an alcoholic whose more outrageous actions confused and hurt some of his disciples. Paine's balanced portrait, chronicling both Trungpa's excesses and his achievements, offers a model of transparency.
Among the accounts of Tibetan Buddhism's Western followers, the story of Alexandra David-Neel stands out. In 1912 she became both the first Western woman to win an interview with the previous Dalai Lama as well as the first Westerner of either sex to receive advanced Tantric teachings directly from a Tibetan. Paine's vivid recital of David-Neel's travels through India, China, and Tibet makes for fascinating reading.
Paine's speculations on the synergies between Buddhism and film might explain its attraction for many Hollywood notables. Emphasizing the deceptive nature of appearances surely appeals to people who slip in and out of identities without attachment. Quoting Alexis de Tocqueville, Paine observes that "American art will no longer attempt to evoke the divine or the ideal but concentrate solely on human realities." A nontheistic practice, Buddhism nevertheless underscores people's capacity to become buddhas, to achieve enlightenment.
And this is where the matter of re-enchantment comes in. Donald Lopez, among other senior American Buddhist scholars, has cautioned against projecting onto this lost Shangri-La one's own longings for mystery. Fortunately, Paine's sensibility is steeped in Western rationalism. He recounts elegantly, yet without fuss, stories of human transformation that consistently incite our capacity for wonder. He relates the change Buddhist practice has wrought on death- row inmate Jarvis Masters, who recognized through it his power to alter the plot of his own story and the history of Diane Perry's metamorphosis from a working-class English girl to a Buddhist nun named Tenzin Palmo, who stayed in solitary retreat for 12 years.
These authoritative sketches reflect Paine's fluency with the essentials of some of Buddhism's thorniest ideas, from emptiness to bodhicitta perhaps the central concept in Tibetan Buddhism, sometimes translated as "loving-kindness." Is it possible to love your enemy, turn the other cheek, put another before you, and embrace death with equanimity? The Dalai Lama's example seems to embody an unequivocal answer to at least three of these questions and remains a primary cause for our enchantment. Whether it's possible to return love for hate and win your country back for your people remains, however, the subject for another volume.
BOOK REVIEW Re-enchantment: Tibetan Buddhism Comes to the West By Jeffrey Paine Norton, 278 pp., $24.95
FOREST RECOLLECTIONS: Wandering Monks in Twentieth-Century Thailand By Kamala Tiyavanich
BOOK REVIEW - Wandering into history.
981 words
10 January 2004
Bangkok Post
3
English
(c) 2004
Forest monks go from reviled to revered
Chris Baker
FOREST RECOLLECTIONS: Wandering Monks in Twentieth-Century Thailand By Kamala Tiyavanich Silkworm Books, 495 baht
The story of the Northeastern forest monks is one of the most remarkable and illuminating themes in modern Thai history. The personal chronicles of this small handful of men wandering in the forests are fascinating in themselves. But more remarkable still is the way these monks wander through the great changes of modern Thai history - the creation of a centralised state, the growth of modern urban society, the political transition from absolute monarchy to competitive democracy, and the transformation of the landscape from wilderness for agricultural areas.
Most of these religious wanderers were farmers' sons who grew up around the turn of the century when the Northeast was still remote, thickly forested, and closer to Lao traditions than to the culture of Bangkok. Little by little, the Northeast was being drawn into the new centralised administration, and the monkhood was being standardised and centralised under the 1902 Sangha Act.
But these young monks decided to buck the religious establishment. They rejected the book-learning, exam-passing and hierarchy-climbing of the reformed Sangha in favour of learning through meditation and the self-awareness that comes from hardship. They chose to wander in the forests rather than sit in the library. The Sangha repaid their rejection in kind. It derided them as country bumpkins and said their path was not proper Buddhism.
It also made fun of their interest in meditation: "Buddhism would not survive if all monks sat and closed their eyes."
Half a century later, these same forest monks had become pillars of the country. They received the patronage of the royal family, high-ranking officials, and big businessmen. Some were lodged in monasteries specially built for them in the heart of the capital. Their cremation ceremonies were grand and public affairs, while their pictures and amulets became part of urban religious commerce. The unofficial leader of the group (Acharn Man Purithat) was heralded as an arahant, or Buddhist saint.
This transformation was complex.
First, the growth of democratic politics from the 1930s onwards undermined the dominance of the Thammayut order, because the elders now needed the forest monks as allies in the now competitive Sangha politics, and as agents to spread monastic Buddhism in the Northeast.
Second, the Cold War period gave their spirituality a political meaning. They were first evicted from the forests as suspected allies of the communists, then adopted as the focus of a spiritual resurgence to oppose communist values. Around this time, they first attracted the elite patronage that made them famous.
Third, the growth of urban areas brought about changes in Buddhism. In particular, the growing interest in religion among city-dwellers has made meditation popular, and has placed a premium on the special expertise developed by the forest monks. The media has also made prominent monks into celebrities.
Even as they made the slow move from the fringes to the frontlines of popular culture, the base from which they started was being destroyed. The forests in which they wandered were cut down. The tigers and elephants that tested their ability to conquer fear were decimated. The caves where they had meditated became tourist attractions. And the forest village communities where they spent the rainy season retreats were transformed by roads, migration, television and urban influence. In 1987, monks were officially banned from wandering in the forest. Thus they could no longer walk the path that brought them into the limelight to begin with.
The monks' tale is a very big study. Kamala Tiyavanich's book is the third major study in English, and somehow none is able to do justice to the complexity and resonance of the story. Stanley Tambiah (The Buddhist Saints of the Forest and the Cult of Amulets) buried the Northeastern monks under his own grand theory of Buddhist cosmogony. Jim Taylor (Forest Monks and the Nation-State) lost them in a flood of social-science jargon.
Kamala's study has the advantage of being lucidly written, human and passionate. It starts very well. She shows that provincial Buddhism before the 1902 Act was very varied, very local, and very much an active part of these communities. Monks worked, played Songkran, rowed racing boats, acted as community leaders, and preached using folk tales in the local idiom.
Kamala also provides a graphic account of the experience of the forest monks, based on their published biographies. They confront tigers, elephants and snakes; survive jungle fevers; search for caves; test their concentration in charnel grounds; resist the temptations of women.
But when she begins to trace the complex history of the monks' relations with the outside world, her narrative meanders like the tracks of someone lost in the jungle.
In the final two chapters, Kamala argues strongly for the de-bureaucratisation and de-centralisation of the Sangha. She points out that the centralised, bureaucratic, doctrine-focused, hierarchical Buddhism stemming from the 1902 Act is too often seen as "real" or "traditional" Buddhism, while all other practices are portrayed as marginal or heretical. But, she contends, "today's hierarchical and bureaucratic national Sangha is, in terms of the cultural histories of ethnic groups in Siam, an aberration."
She advocates revival of the diversity of local Buddhist practice; more respect for the tradition of self-realisation through experience rather than book-learning; a return to the role of monks as community leaders; more emphasis on meditation; more drama and relevance in Buddhist teaching; and a greater role for women.
The Northeastern forest tradition may be dead, buried by middle-class patronage and destruction of the forests. But Kamala still manages to extract a message for the living from their story: Buddhism has to be removed from the state's clutches and returned to the community.
981 words
10 January 2004
Bangkok Post
3
English
(c) 2004
Forest monks go from reviled to revered
Chris Baker
FOREST RECOLLECTIONS: Wandering Monks in Twentieth-Century Thailand By Kamala Tiyavanich Silkworm Books, 495 baht
The story of the Northeastern forest monks is one of the most remarkable and illuminating themes in modern Thai history. The personal chronicles of this small handful of men wandering in the forests are fascinating in themselves. But more remarkable still is the way these monks wander through the great changes of modern Thai history - the creation of a centralised state, the growth of modern urban society, the political transition from absolute monarchy to competitive democracy, and the transformation of the landscape from wilderness for agricultural areas.
Most of these religious wanderers were farmers' sons who grew up around the turn of the century when the Northeast was still remote, thickly forested, and closer to Lao traditions than to the culture of Bangkok. Little by little, the Northeast was being drawn into the new centralised administration, and the monkhood was being standardised and centralised under the 1902 Sangha Act.
But these young monks decided to buck the religious establishment. They rejected the book-learning, exam-passing and hierarchy-climbing of the reformed Sangha in favour of learning through meditation and the self-awareness that comes from hardship. They chose to wander in the forests rather than sit in the library. The Sangha repaid their rejection in kind. It derided them as country bumpkins and said their path was not proper Buddhism.
It also made fun of their interest in meditation: "Buddhism would not survive if all monks sat and closed their eyes."
Half a century later, these same forest monks had become pillars of the country. They received the patronage of the royal family, high-ranking officials, and big businessmen. Some were lodged in monasteries specially built for them in the heart of the capital. Their cremation ceremonies were grand and public affairs, while their pictures and amulets became part of urban religious commerce. The unofficial leader of the group (Acharn Man Purithat) was heralded as an arahant, or Buddhist saint.
This transformation was complex.
First, the growth of democratic politics from the 1930s onwards undermined the dominance of the Thammayut order, because the elders now needed the forest monks as allies in the now competitive Sangha politics, and as agents to spread monastic Buddhism in the Northeast.
Second, the Cold War period gave their spirituality a political meaning. They were first evicted from the forests as suspected allies of the communists, then adopted as the focus of a spiritual resurgence to oppose communist values. Around this time, they first attracted the elite patronage that made them famous.
Third, the growth of urban areas brought about changes in Buddhism. In particular, the growing interest in religion among city-dwellers has made meditation popular, and has placed a premium on the special expertise developed by the forest monks. The media has also made prominent monks into celebrities.
Even as they made the slow move from the fringes to the frontlines of popular culture, the base from which they started was being destroyed. The forests in which they wandered were cut down. The tigers and elephants that tested their ability to conquer fear were decimated. The caves where they had meditated became tourist attractions. And the forest village communities where they spent the rainy season retreats were transformed by roads, migration, television and urban influence. In 1987, monks were officially banned from wandering in the forest. Thus they could no longer walk the path that brought them into the limelight to begin with.
The monks' tale is a very big study. Kamala Tiyavanich's book is the third major study in English, and somehow none is able to do justice to the complexity and resonance of the story. Stanley Tambiah (The Buddhist Saints of the Forest and the Cult of Amulets) buried the Northeastern monks under his own grand theory of Buddhist cosmogony. Jim Taylor (Forest Monks and the Nation-State) lost them in a flood of social-science jargon.
Kamala's study has the advantage of being lucidly written, human and passionate. It starts very well. She shows that provincial Buddhism before the 1902 Act was very varied, very local, and very much an active part of these communities. Monks worked, played Songkran, rowed racing boats, acted as community leaders, and preached using folk tales in the local idiom.
Kamala also provides a graphic account of the experience of the forest monks, based on their published biographies. They confront tigers, elephants and snakes; survive jungle fevers; search for caves; test their concentration in charnel grounds; resist the temptations of women.
But when she begins to trace the complex history of the monks' relations with the outside world, her narrative meanders like the tracks of someone lost in the jungle.
In the final two chapters, Kamala argues strongly for the de-bureaucratisation and de-centralisation of the Sangha. She points out that the centralised, bureaucratic, doctrine-focused, hierarchical Buddhism stemming from the 1902 Act is too often seen as "real" or "traditional" Buddhism, while all other practices are portrayed as marginal or heretical. But, she contends, "today's hierarchical and bureaucratic national Sangha is, in terms of the cultural histories of ethnic groups in Siam, an aberration."
She advocates revival of the diversity of local Buddhist practice; more respect for the tradition of self-realisation through experience rather than book-learning; a return to the role of monks as community leaders; more emphasis on meditation; more drama and relevance in Buddhist teaching; and a greater role for women.
The Northeastern forest tradition may be dead, buried by middle-class patronage and destruction of the forests. But Kamala still manages to extract a message for the living from their story: Buddhism has to be removed from the state's clutches and returned to the community.
Tuesday, September 4, 2007
The quest for nirvana: the Heart of the world by Ian Baker
The quest for nirvana; The Heart of the World A Journey to the Last Secret Place Ian Baker Penguin: 514 pp., $27.95
Seth Faison
Seth Faison, a former China correspondent for the New York Times, is the author of "South of the Clouds: Exploring the Hidden Realms of China."
1010 words
18 December 2005
Los Angeles Times
Home Edition
R-9
English
Copyright 2005 The Los Angeles Times
BROWSING in a Katmandu antique shop one day in 1982, Ian Baker overheard a conversation about a Tibetan sage who had found a hidden paradise between vaulting cliffs in a little-explored corner of Tibet. Baker was curious. He had heard about Tibet's "hidden lands" -- sacred places that Tibetans believe can be found only by a devout pilgrim who can endure both physical and spiritual challenges. An accomplished climber and a determined student of Tibetan culture, Baker resolved to discover one of these places.
He trekked into the mountains outside Katmandu and found the sage, an old man with a long white beard, sitting on a goatskin in a small cabin. Baker asked for guidance on how to conduct his quest, and the sage told him about a cave where he should first go and meditate alone for a month. Baker complied, even staying an extra week.
Back in Katmandu, Baker studied Tibetan and Western texts about searches for the hidden lands. He zeroed in on a mysterious section of the Tsangpo River that for centuries had tantalized explorers seeking a mythic waterfall. No one had yet been able to find it, and Baker decided to try. Battling rough terrain and political obstacles (Chinese officials often blocked his access), he made repeated journeys over the next 15 years into Tibet, a forbidding land of mountainous desert and daunting Himalayan peaks. Each voyage was an ordeal, yet each brought Baker a little closer to his prized goal, the never-seen waterfall.
In "The Heart of the World," Baker tells the story of his uncompromising pursuit of hidden lands and the spiritual adventures he had along the way. It is a remarkable tale, lyrical and full of the magic of wilderness travel. "The cobalt-blue flash of a monal pheasant lured me down a steep track that soon dissipated into dense forest," he writes. "Garlands of moss swayed sensuously from ancient oaks and broad-leafed rhododendrons."
Tibetan Buddhism is the richly colored tapestry that forms the background of the narrative, and Baker weaves it with firm authority, describing myriad dakinis (female spirits) and bodhisattvas in the Tibetan pantheon. He also delivers detailed historical asides about British and Indian explorers from centuries past who struggled through the same terrain. Attractive photographs, many taken by Baker, appear throughout -- although, oddly, Baker and his publisher have chosen to relegate their captions to the back of the book, as if too many facts might intrude on the telling of a good story.
The trials of travel into the Tsangpo Gorge become frighteningly clear. Baker and various accomplices brave sheer cliffs, hike and camp in violent downpours and venture through jungle so thick that only at day's end do they find that 40 or more leeches have burrowed under their clothing to suck their blood.
Hardly a Garden of Eden. Baker's sage had warned him at the outset that the paradise of secret lands described in ancient Tibetan writings was not all that heavenly; rather, the lands were "paradises for Buddhist practice, with multiple dimensions corresponding to increasingly subtle levels of perception."
In other words, it's all in the mind. And an open mind can be richer than most of us know. Baker works hard to straddle the physical, mental and spiritual aspects of his search. He is aiming for the upper realms of consciousness, yet we can feel his earthly determination to achieve the distinction that comes with discovering a secret place in Tibet -- a feat that exhaustive preparation has put within his reach.
But Baker does not ponder, much less explain, just what it is that drives him, over and over, to take on the near impossible. His writing is both majestic and scholarly, but it lacks a self-reflective depth that might have given his story more humanity. The descriptions of many of his personal encounters -- including one with the gorgeous daughter of the Tibetan sage and another with an Indian woman at a Buddhist retreat with whom he investigates the finer points of Tantric sex -- are poetic but somewhat stilted.
After defying the odds and finding the waterfall, Baker allows one of his sponsors, National Geographic, to announce the discovery in a news release and thereby wins a few fleeting moments of fame. He is soon roundly criticized by fellow wilderness travelers, however, who ridicule the notion that he has "discovered" anything at all in a region populated by Tibetan hunters. Baker attempts to downplay this controversy, musing thoughtfully instead on the pointlessness of geographical discovery. ("It's just another place, isn't it?" a Tibetan monk observes.)
Regardless of his status as Tibetan explorer, Baker has given us a compelling tale of the timeless search for spiritual fulfillment and of finding it in an exotic locale where the limits of topography and human possibility meet. *
Seth Faison
Seth Faison, a former China correspondent for the New York Times, is the author of "South of the Clouds: Exploring the Hidden Realms of China."
1010 words
18 December 2005
Los Angeles Times
Home Edition
R-9
English
Copyright 2005 The Los Angeles Times
BROWSING in a Katmandu antique shop one day in 1982, Ian Baker overheard a conversation about a Tibetan sage who had found a hidden paradise between vaulting cliffs in a little-explored corner of Tibet. Baker was curious. He had heard about Tibet's "hidden lands" -- sacred places that Tibetans believe can be found only by a devout pilgrim who can endure both physical and spiritual challenges. An accomplished climber and a determined student of Tibetan culture, Baker resolved to discover one of these places.
He trekked into the mountains outside Katmandu and found the sage, an old man with a long white beard, sitting on a goatskin in a small cabin. Baker asked for guidance on how to conduct his quest, and the sage told him about a cave where he should first go and meditate alone for a month. Baker complied, even staying an extra week.
Back in Katmandu, Baker studied Tibetan and Western texts about searches for the hidden lands. He zeroed in on a mysterious section of the Tsangpo River that for centuries had tantalized explorers seeking a mythic waterfall. No one had yet been able to find it, and Baker decided to try. Battling rough terrain and political obstacles (Chinese officials often blocked his access), he made repeated journeys over the next 15 years into Tibet, a forbidding land of mountainous desert and daunting Himalayan peaks. Each voyage was an ordeal, yet each brought Baker a little closer to his prized goal, the never-seen waterfall.
In "The Heart of the World," Baker tells the story of his uncompromising pursuit of hidden lands and the spiritual adventures he had along the way. It is a remarkable tale, lyrical and full of the magic of wilderness travel. "The cobalt-blue flash of a monal pheasant lured me down a steep track that soon dissipated into dense forest," he writes. "Garlands of moss swayed sensuously from ancient oaks and broad-leafed rhododendrons."
Tibetan Buddhism is the richly colored tapestry that forms the background of the narrative, and Baker weaves it with firm authority, describing myriad dakinis (female spirits) and bodhisattvas in the Tibetan pantheon. He also delivers detailed historical asides about British and Indian explorers from centuries past who struggled through the same terrain. Attractive photographs, many taken by Baker, appear throughout -- although, oddly, Baker and his publisher have chosen to relegate their captions to the back of the book, as if too many facts might intrude on the telling of a good story.
The trials of travel into the Tsangpo Gorge become frighteningly clear. Baker and various accomplices brave sheer cliffs, hike and camp in violent downpours and venture through jungle so thick that only at day's end do they find that 40 or more leeches have burrowed under their clothing to suck their blood.
Hardly a Garden of Eden. Baker's sage had warned him at the outset that the paradise of secret lands described in ancient Tibetan writings was not all that heavenly; rather, the lands were "paradises for Buddhist practice, with multiple dimensions corresponding to increasingly subtle levels of perception."
In other words, it's all in the mind. And an open mind can be richer than most of us know. Baker works hard to straddle the physical, mental and spiritual aspects of his search. He is aiming for the upper realms of consciousness, yet we can feel his earthly determination to achieve the distinction that comes with discovering a secret place in Tibet -- a feat that exhaustive preparation has put within his reach.
But Baker does not ponder, much less explain, just what it is that drives him, over and over, to take on the near impossible. His writing is both majestic and scholarly, but it lacks a self-reflective depth that might have given his story more humanity. The descriptions of many of his personal encounters -- including one with the gorgeous daughter of the Tibetan sage and another with an Indian woman at a Buddhist retreat with whom he investigates the finer points of Tantric sex -- are poetic but somewhat stilted.
After defying the odds and finding the waterfall, Baker allows one of his sponsors, National Geographic, to announce the discovery in a news release and thereby wins a few fleeting moments of fame. He is soon roundly criticized by fellow wilderness travelers, however, who ridicule the notion that he has "discovered" anything at all in a region populated by Tibetan hunters. Baker attempts to downplay this controversy, musing thoughtfully instead on the pointlessness of geographical discovery. ("It's just another place, isn't it?" a Tibetan monk observes.)
Regardless of his status as Tibetan explorer, Baker has given us a compelling tale of the timeless search for spiritual fulfillment and of finding it in an exotic locale where the limits of topography and human possibility meet. *
Buddhism primer draws escape path from modernity
BOOK REVIEW Buddhism primer draws escape path from modernity
BY ROBERT NERALICH SPECIAL TO THE DEMOCRAT-GAZETTE
756 words
16 April 2005
The Arkansas Democrat Gazette
45
English
Copyright (c) 2005 Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, Inc. All rights reserved.
In his foreword to Robert Thurman's Infinite Life: Awakening to Bliss Within, the 14 th Dalai Lama suggests that, "Buddhahood involves a state of complete awareness that finds blissful expression in a compassion that tirelessly embraces all living beings, manifesting whenever necessary to help them reach their own freedom from suffering."
This statement perfectly captures the essence of this ambitious book, in which Thurman argues persuasively that, with practice, this state is available to everyone, just as Buddha claimed 25 centuries ago that "he discovered and proclaimed that total freedom from suffering" and exquisite, enduring joy "is extremely possible for every sensitive being."
Thurman is certainly a reliable authority in this matter, since he is not only the first American to be ordained as a Tibetan Buddhist monk but also holds the first endowed chair in Indo-Tibetan studies in America at Columbia University.
Written in an accessible, eminently readable style, Infinite Life is an informative primer of basic Buddhist principles that will delight and instruct seasoned spiritual practitioners and inquisitive neophytes, as well as a charming spiritual autobiography and a masterful exercise in apologetics.
One of the book's major virtues is that it eschews any sort of religious exclusivism, and, in fact, Thurman assures readers that it can be read "while remaining loyal to your religion, allowing the description simply to broaden your imagination."
Early in the book he states this conviction even more forcefully: "In my case, I enthusiastically chime in with the Dalai Lama's call for the leaders of all world religions to abandon once and for all their campaigns to convert everybody."
Thurman begins with a brief critique of what he regards as the two major impediments to human joy in the modern world, either of which can produce what he calls "the terminal life of bondage": nihilistic materialism, which sees the world as soulless, dead and mechanical, and spiritualistic absolutism, which is a form of idolatry that "occurs when human egotism and selfishness restrict the Divine to merely personal or tribal or national possessions."
The principal goal of Infinite Life is to lead people out of these spiritual cul-de-sacs and help them experience the core truths of the human condition: selflessness, interconnectedness to others and infinite life.
For Thurman, the means to realizing these truths resides in the transcendent virtues, to each of which he devotes a chapter: wisdom, generosity, justice, patience, creativity and contemplation. These virtues are transcendent, Thurman suggests, "because they are indivisible from the understanding of the true, selfless nature of reality that is wisdom."
For example, in Thurman's view, generosity "keeps you open through deeds, making you aware of other's needs," while justice "encourages you to make your relationships with others as fruitfully harmonious as they can be."
Further, patience "armors you against any negativity that might be caused by others purposefully or inadvertently inflicting injuries on you," contemplation "provides the central strength that empowers you to achieve a new level of focus and serenity" and, finally, creativity "empowers you with limitless, joyful energy that frees you from the bonds of self-loathing and despair."
However, it is not enough for people simply to understand these virtues; they must engage them until they transform their consciousness. Therefore, each chapter includes spiritual practices that, taken together, constitute a graduated path to enlightened action in the world.
In the book's final chapter, "The Art of Infinite Living," Thurman urges readers to embrace their inherent greatness, undertake a serious spiritual practice and thereby act in ways that benefit all sentient beings. In truth, Infinite Life is a passionate challenge to readers to become spiritual heroes, "who do not make use of dogmatic assertions" but who instead employ their wisdom to help everyone "move beyond faith to direct knowledge and full experience of our true state."
Near the close of Infinite Life, Robert Thurman tells his readers that "this book opens a door for you," and since they have nothing to lose and so much to gain by accepting his invitation to enter, it would be nothing less than a foolhardy act of spiritual cowardice to decline.
Robert Neralich has a doctorate in English and teaches Asian studies at Fayetteville High School. Write to him c/o Northwest Religion Editor, Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 515 Enterprise Drive, Suite 106, Lowell, Ark. 72745; or e-mail: rneralich@aol.com
BY ROBERT NERALICH SPECIAL TO THE DEMOCRAT-GAZETTE
756 words
16 April 2005
The Arkansas Democrat Gazette
45
English
Copyright (c) 2005 Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, Inc. All rights reserved.
In his foreword to Robert Thurman's Infinite Life: Awakening to Bliss Within, the 14 th Dalai Lama suggests that, "Buddhahood involves a state of complete awareness that finds blissful expression in a compassion that tirelessly embraces all living beings, manifesting whenever necessary to help them reach their own freedom from suffering."
This statement perfectly captures the essence of this ambitious book, in which Thurman argues persuasively that, with practice, this state is available to everyone, just as Buddha claimed 25 centuries ago that "he discovered and proclaimed that total freedom from suffering" and exquisite, enduring joy "is extremely possible for every sensitive being."
Thurman is certainly a reliable authority in this matter, since he is not only the first American to be ordained as a Tibetan Buddhist monk but also holds the first endowed chair in Indo-Tibetan studies in America at Columbia University.
Written in an accessible, eminently readable style, Infinite Life is an informative primer of basic Buddhist principles that will delight and instruct seasoned spiritual practitioners and inquisitive neophytes, as well as a charming spiritual autobiography and a masterful exercise in apologetics.
One of the book's major virtues is that it eschews any sort of religious exclusivism, and, in fact, Thurman assures readers that it can be read "while remaining loyal to your religion, allowing the description simply to broaden your imagination."
Early in the book he states this conviction even more forcefully: "In my case, I enthusiastically chime in with the Dalai Lama's call for the leaders of all world religions to abandon once and for all their campaigns to convert everybody."
Thurman begins with a brief critique of what he regards as the two major impediments to human joy in the modern world, either of which can produce what he calls "the terminal life of bondage": nihilistic materialism, which sees the world as soulless, dead and mechanical, and spiritualistic absolutism, which is a form of idolatry that "occurs when human egotism and selfishness restrict the Divine to merely personal or tribal or national possessions."
The principal goal of Infinite Life is to lead people out of these spiritual cul-de-sacs and help them experience the core truths of the human condition: selflessness, interconnectedness to others and infinite life.
For Thurman, the means to realizing these truths resides in the transcendent virtues, to each of which he devotes a chapter: wisdom, generosity, justice, patience, creativity and contemplation. These virtues are transcendent, Thurman suggests, "because they are indivisible from the understanding of the true, selfless nature of reality that is wisdom."
For example, in Thurman's view, generosity "keeps you open through deeds, making you aware of other's needs," while justice "encourages you to make your relationships with others as fruitfully harmonious as they can be."
Further, patience "armors you against any negativity that might be caused by others purposefully or inadvertently inflicting injuries on you," contemplation "provides the central strength that empowers you to achieve a new level of focus and serenity" and, finally, creativity "empowers you with limitless, joyful energy that frees you from the bonds of self-loathing and despair."
However, it is not enough for people simply to understand these virtues; they must engage them until they transform their consciousness. Therefore, each chapter includes spiritual practices that, taken together, constitute a graduated path to enlightened action in the world.
In the book's final chapter, "The Art of Infinite Living," Thurman urges readers to embrace their inherent greatness, undertake a serious spiritual practice and thereby act in ways that benefit all sentient beings. In truth, Infinite Life is a passionate challenge to readers to become spiritual heroes, "who do not make use of dogmatic assertions" but who instead employ their wisdom to help everyone "move beyond faith to direct knowledge and full experience of our true state."
Near the close of Infinite Life, Robert Thurman tells his readers that "this book opens a door for you," and since they have nothing to lose and so much to gain by accepting his invitation to enter, it would be nothing less than a foolhardy act of spiritual cowardice to decline.
Robert Neralich has a doctorate in English and teaches Asian studies at Fayetteville High School. Write to him c/o Northwest Religion Editor, Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 515 Enterprise Drive, Suite 106, Lowell, Ark. 72745; or e-mail: rneralich@aol.com
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