All about Me(me): Buddhism

Narya gave me Buddhism as one of my words. I could write pages and pages and pages on Buddhism. I wasn't sure where to start, and lo!, this morning a friend emailed me to ask what the difference is between Zen and other sects of Buddhism. Here's my response to her.

If you'd like me to give you 5 words I associate with you to explore on your own blog, tell me in the comments.

Buddhism

Disclaimer: Dividing Buddhism into "Zen" and "Other" is sort of like dividing Christianity into "Calvinism" (for example) and "Other." Nonetheless, we shall examine what makes Zen so very Zen.

Zen is direct pointing at mind!
Zen is the diamond that cuts through illusion!
If you meet the Buddha, kill him!

Zen is the Japanese translation of "Ch'an," the Chinese word for "meditation." Ch'an is a sect of Buddhism that originated in China. At the time (at least in China), Buddhism was a super-scholarly pursuit, monks spending days and nights memorizing and debating sutras, quibbling over what exactly the Buddha meant when he said this or that. Also, the monastic orders became very wealthy and opulent because Buddhism was held in high esteem.

Ch'an arose a reaction against this ivory tower Buddhism. Legend has it that the first Ch'an patriarch was illiterate, but this may have been fabricated to prove a point. Ch'an/Zen emphasizes meditation and direct insight. (Zen is direct pointing at mind!) Ch'an redefined the concept of Nirvana. In other sects Nirvana is a sort of extinguishment-paradise after death, an escape from rebirth. In Ch'an/Zen, it is the extinguishment of duality and notions, the direct experience of reality, and it attainable in this life. (Zen is the diamond that cuts through illusion!)

Ch'an/Zen also got rid of the worship on the Buddha. (Many sects always did and still do worship the Buddhas. Many Tibetan Buddhists, for example, are very into Buddha & Bodhisattva worship, but of course their flavor of Buddhism is influenced by pre-Buddhist Tibetan animism.) The object is to BECOME the Buddha, here and now, not to worship external Buddhas. All external Buddhas are false. (If you meet the Buddha, kill him!)

Ch'an spread from China, becoming "Zen" in Japan, "Thien" in Vietnam, and "Seon" in Korea. It is also known as "Dhyana," the Sanskrit word for meditation.

It's interesting to note that Ch'an/Zen places a good deal of emphasis on lineage. ("I received the precepts from so-and-so, who received it from so-and-so, who traces his lineage back to Patriarch So-and-So.") This is because Ch'an/Zen has needed to prove its legitimacy ever since its origins as a renegade sect. Also, it may be because of the importance of ancestors and lineage in the Chinese culture.

Recommended reading: Zen Speaks!: Shouts of Nothingness.

One More Shantideva

From Chapter 2: The Confession of Sin

34. I have committed various vices for the sake of friends and enemies. This I have not recognized: "Leaving everyone behind, I must pass away."

35. My enemies will not remain, nor will my friends remain. I shall not remain. Nothing will remain.

From Chapter 4: Attending to the Spirit of Awakening

20. Therefore, the blessed one stated that human existence is extremely difficult to obtain, like a turtle's head emerging into the ring of a yoke in a vast ocean.

And now, a pause for the words of Shantideva

Guide to the Bodhisattva Way of Life--

From Chapter 5: Guarding Introspection

13. Where would there be leather enough to cover the entire world? The earth is covered over merely with the leather of my sandals.
14. Likewise, I am unable to restrain external phenomena, but I shall restrain my own mind, what need is there to restrain anything else?

From Chapter 6: Patience

33. Therefore, upon seeing a friend or an enemy committing a wrong deed, one should reflect, "Such are his conditions," and be at ease.
34. If all beings would find fulfillment according to their own wishes, then no one would suffer, for no one wishes to suffer.

(These are not the most fluid translations, but rather the ones found easily online. Here's the monk-approved translation we read at my sangha; here's the version with excellent commentary some members bring instead.)

Festival Day

was terrific fun. I shaped and fried many, many dumplings. Chef and I had a rotating brigade of high school students. It was somewhat unfortunate that as soon as the kids got into a dumpling groove, their teacher rotated them to another duty and sent us a new group to start over.

I stayed in the kitchen until my guests arrived. We marveled at the mandala, listened to our monk talk to a packed lecture hall, took in the high school dance troupe's performance to benefit the organization. (I had been mistaken, thinking we were to see traditional Tibetan dance.)

The whole event was to benefit the school my sangha runs in a remote, impoverished mountain area where many Tibetans settled. Lobsang calls it both "school" and "orphanage", which gives you an idea. His talk was quite heartbreaking. The stories of these children were worse than the most macabre vision of Dickens. The photos of the shacks, the 85-year-old woman supporting her two orphaned grandchildren by hauling rocks 12 hours a day... But the changes in the children's faces after a month at the school are undeniable. They learn to smile.

My Mom had a hundred million questions that I could not answer, as usual: Where do the monks live who aren't affiliated with a monastery? Do they have divinity degrees? (I'm pretty sure that the monastic educational system is just Totally Different in Tibet and India.) I can't remember another example from the multitude of questions, for the questions probed the kind of concrete-thinking, "how" details that simply float out of my abstract mind. I offered what information I could about Buddhist belief and practice (which didn't seem to interest my mom all that much) and apologized for not having more answers. On Mother's Day, no less! My mother was very gracious but assured me there would be more questions nonetheless. (My Dad was interested in Buddhism itself, but especially in finding himself in a state-of-the-art high school. Once a principal...)

Dinner was delicious, especially the beef curry. Two Tibetan cooks--just two!--worked from 10:30 AM until 6 PM preparing the feast which, in addition to the beef, included grilled chicken, vegetable lo mein, jasmine rice, salad, and hot hot hot sauce on the side. My kitchen contributed dessert (the carrot fudge) and chai. The Tibetan cooks were just such nice guys, friendly and shaking my hand, no matter any language barrier. The Tibetan chef taught us his way to fold dumplings, which was better than the way we'd been doing it, so we switched. I began to think that the Chinese government could not have violently deposed a nicer people.

I was very tired, so we left before the Tibetan music concert. No matter, collapsing on the couch to watch a bit of "The Vicar of Dibley" was really what I needed that that point. Today, I feel a little of that sadness that a very happy event has passed and we are back in ordinary life. I'm trying to remember the Zen teaching of "no coming, no going".

PS I have photos, but they are on film. Someday you will get to see them.

Being Tibetan

Tomorrow is the long-awaited Compassion Festival sponsored by my sangha! The monks have been working on the sand mandala for a week. I saw it today, almost finished, and it is stunning, beautiful, glorious, gorgeous, touching.

Late this afternoon, I went to the high school hosting the mandala and festival to help with food prep. I was surprised to find pretty fliers on the school's doors advertising dharma talks our monk gave for students throughout the week. The high school was massive, the main office closed, and no map to be found. Some students pointed me in the right direction. I wondered how I would know when I was approaching the right place.

I need not have worried. At the foot of the stairs, I heard recorded Tibetan chants and saw the bright yellows and greens of Tibetan Buddhist banners. There were four or five cinnamon-robe-clad monks. One was working on the mandala, measuring the edges with a compass. His sneakers peeked out from beneath the red robes. People clustered around the mandala for a glimpse. Were they parents of high school students, or just people who lived in town? I paused for a moment, bowled over by this work of art, deeply afraid of sneezing. Further down the hallway, I saw Lobsang, "our monk," answering questions, and his best friend, Amdo (another monk), at his elbow. At last I spied a woman wearing an apron dusted liberally with flour, and asked where the kitchen was.

I expected to slog through boring hours of chopping, but I was essentially treated to a cooking class on stuffing and shaping Tibetan dumplings. Chef Viktor, our leader, seemed impressed with my work, and the high school cafeteria manager half-jokingly offered me a job. It was great fun to socialize with the sangha members who were there, but meeting Chef Viktor was the real treat. He made sure that his volunteer cooks tried the carrot fudge (ohmygod, like the best carrot cake you never had) and enjoyed the samples of reject dumplings. When the other cooks cleared out and I stayed with just a few others to clean, I had the chance to chat with Chef. He grew up in Mozambique, has lived in 7 countries in 3 continents, and has studied the cuisine of all of them. He uses only Succanat for sweetener and has fascinating insights about the mineral and nutritional value of sweeteners. We both admire Jacques Pepin.

I also enjoyed the cleaning, the pulling long streams of cling wrap across trays. It reminded me of my college work study days in the Kosher Kitchen. I missed the Beatles compilation we used to play during cleanup.

As we cleaned and tidied, Lobsang and Amdo entered the kitchen. Lobsang does not know my name, but often greets me with a warm bow-handshake-hug, a fusion hello which always delights me. Chef explained that he may not return tomorrow, as he lives far away, and a Tibetan who speaks no English was slated to be running the kitchen. (I had already volunteered to lead the crew to fold the remaining 150 dumplings and fry all 300 if Chef couldn't return. Chef was glad to have me when I mentioned my high school summers frying up clamcakes.) It turns out they found another Tibetan chef who does know English, and Lobsang charmingly requested Chef's return tomorrow. You can't say no to a monk, especially one as charismatic as ours, so Chef and I will be manufacturing the dumplings together in the morning.

The food we made today is just the snacks to sell in the afternoon. The evening's dinner for 300 will be prepared by the Tibetan crew tomorrow. I wonder what time service will really happen. It's scheduled for 6. Based on my limited exposure to the Tibetan sense of time, I would guess we will eat somewhere between 6:45 and 9.

As we walked out, Chef told me the mandala is so beautiful it made him weep. We looked at it from the second-floor balcony, mesmerized by the colors and intricate patterns. Two high school girls were departing from extracurriculars at that time. They leaned over to look at the mandala again. "It's sooo beautiful," one whispered in awe.

My parents are coming up for the festival, too! Yay!