Whitney Joiner over at Salon.com wrote an interesting appraisal of the Dharma Punx phenomenon, which she playfully titled "Dive-bar Dharma." Specifically she considers how this new phenomenon within American Buddhism relates to the more original phenomenon of American Buddhism itself (i.e. Buddhism that rushed into America after WWII and proliferated with the then counter-culture). In the end she comes out with what, I think, is the typical utilitarian/skillful-means defense of the movement. Rather than strive for appeal through the quasi-authority of Eastern exoticism---which may or may not fairly describe the original appeal for '50s and '60s counter-culture-warriors like Allen Ginsberg, who like many other disaffected youth of his time was already enamored with quasi-mystic figures of the Romantic movement like William Blake and the less mystical but no less romantic Walt Whitman, not to mention being steeped in the Jewish and Christian mystic traditions---Joiner thinks Levine and a fellow dharma punk, Ethan Nichtern, are on the right track with their edgy new approach to spreading/practicing the dharma. What I think is missing from this sort of account is the flip-side of even this movement. I'll digress for a moment in an excerpt from the lengthy comment I left, which I think says my point about as well as I care to right now.
The key to understanding how active Buddhist practice is already (before getting hipsterfied or whatever) is in understanding how active our minds are already.
We are typically dominated by a more or less mild froth of mental activity, both in the moment but largely also out of it. That is to say, when we pull out the drawer to get a spoon for eating our freshly poured bowl of cereal, our minds are probably engaged in that activity, but more likely than not a bunch of other stuff too---whatever we were doing before we made our bowl of cereal, whatever we anticipate doing afterwards and associations and thoughts of other sorts. What happens is we are constantly pulled out of the moment and to the extent that we are in the moment, the weight of the rest of our mental activity can make things that are not in this moment feel very present. Isn't it common to be in a bad-mood and to take what someone said or did, or some otherwise inadvertent circumstance, as we put it "the wrong way," only to realize later that "I was just in a bad-mood" and feel crumby about it?
Tarrying with this mental activity, which takes us out of the moment when we don't even normally realize it until after the fact, is the core of Buddhist practice. Stilling the mind is not simply turning our inessential mental activity off, because we can't turn our thoughts off like that. Luckily for us, what comes goes, and the same is true for our thoughts. So, the trick of Buddhist practice, at least when we're talking about meditation, is staying with these thoughts long enough to notice that they are there, but not so that we become unaware of everything else that is going on around us. This is, on the one hand, profoundly difficult, more difficult than anything else someone can try and do, because it is asking that we stay in full contact with every nook and cranny of our mental activity so we don't lose track of it. On the other hand, it turns out to be profoundly simple too, since after establishing our mindfulness, the mental activity goes away by itself. We're just there to watch, engaged enough to know what's going on, but not so much that we're really worried about what's going to come of it, since we already know: when this arises, that arises; when this ceases, that ceases.
In this way, Buddhism is already profoundly active from the get go. I'm very much on board with what one of the commenters said about the ease of this practice perhaps unskillfully being put before its simultaneous [depth and] difficulty. As much [as] overly esoteric practices and teachings are unskillful (not in themselves, but because they are brought [up in] an inappropriate context), I think that overly exoteric practices and teachings are probably just as unskillful. The idea that "you aren't doing anything" isn't wrong, as I already pointed out, but it's incomplete, and it is incompleteness of a view or a practice that makes it unskillful. What we do on the meditation cushion, or however you meditate is, first of all, tremendous work, but it isn't to be just something we do on the meditation cushion. The goal is bring this practice we have in meditation into every moment of our lives. If that doesn't sound like positively the most difficult thing anyone has ever suggested to you, then I don't know what will. Nonetheless, somewhat in defense of the article, it doesn't matter what's going on the outside so long as the same practice is happening on the inside, whether you say "Peace, man" or "Oi!"
That's pretty much all I have to say, but I should still add a bit more. What is at stake for Buddhists brought up in Generation X and now Generation Y is still very much what was at stake for the first mentionable generation of American Buddhists in the last century: suffering and its cessation. The way I see it, people have come to the dhamma because they are ready to begin taking up the path to the cessation of (their) suffering and dissatisfaction with life. If they aren't, then allure of the exotic (whether its from China, the hippie commune, or the tattoo-parlor) wears off, as everything does, and they get on with their lives---still unsatisfied.
The point I fear is missed by many in the Dharma Punx movement and those surrounding it is that we practice the dharma for its own sake---not because it's cool or fun or whacky or edgy or however you want to describe the vehicle. I think this marks one of the difficulties for the development of a truly Western (or American) Buddhism, because we have a deep cultural penchant for commodities (i.e. things whose first and practically only purpose is to be consumable by as many people as possible, which is to say, things that are all exterior), which translates into approaching something like the dhamma asking "so what is it good for?" The only meaningful answer I can think of is: everything, and nothing less.
This reminds me of a story I've heard from somewhere about the Buddha and a farmer. The farmer comes to the Buddha, who he heard has this great teaching, and asks him if it can help him with this or that mundane problem of his life (nagging wife, unruly kids, failing crops, etc.). The Buddha says his teaching cannot help with any of those problems. He tells him that life is full of all kinds of problems, 83 to be exact, and the Buddha's teaching will help him with none of them. The farmer, kind of ticked off, asks the Buddha just what good his teachings are then, if they in no way answer to any of these issues in his (or anyone else's) life. The Buddha points out that his teachings are good and only good for one still yet unmentioned problem, an 84th problem enveloping all the other 83 problems: the farmer wants to have no more problems.
In a similar way, Buddhism's task is not to remain popular (i.e. prolific in a social context insofar as that context stays the same), like when the farmer asks if it can fix this or that problem (i.e. a fix for a problem only when it's a problem), but to remain effective. By effective I don't mean in the sense that there is any particular, conventional issue it addresses, but because it remains true to its only purpose: the cessation of suffering.
"Buddhism's task is not to remain popular"
ReplyDeleteIsn't it our Bodhisattva duty to reach out to others? Unless, the essence of the practice is significantly damaged then what is wrong with communicating Buddhism in a way that more people can relate to?
Buddhism shouldn't have to contort or disguise itself to appeal to young people. The heart of the practice should be there no matter what the teacher looks like. If coolness brings in people, great, but many might be there just for the happening, not for the work of going down the road of ending suffering. But it was ever thus.
ReplyDeleteOrdinary,
ReplyDeleteThe point I hoped to make is, of course, our practice is, in part, reaching out to others, but that I am suspicious when our message begins to get too concerned not with this reaching-out per se, but the form it takes. I imagine there are many out who are of the otherwise undefined "next generation" of would be Buddhists, or just people who could benefit from the dhamma, who would not identify with and might even be put off by the self-identified pop-culture motif of things like the Dharma Punx movement.
In other words, appealing to so-called popularity is not the same as appealing to the conditions in which many or most (maybe even any) people find themselves, if anything because what is popular is an abstraction from what people are actually doing. Our practice does not benefit by appealing to abstractions, but to real conditions we know for ourselves. Because our notion of what's popular is abstracted from these real conditions, it will seem like there is something to making such an appeal, but this would be as problematic, for example, as appealing to our bad-mood for why we take something the wrong way. Our bad-mood, while making things really seem the way they do when we look back and say, after saying we were mistaken, that we took it the wrong way, is a static form lingering where real conditions kept on changing. In the same way, a notion of popularity can quickly get away from itself and take itself to be the real conditions of how things are, which is why I think popularity is an ineffective way of organizing our practice.
Is there a place for the Dharma Punx movement in American Buddhist culture? Of course there is. I'm just saying that it is not a replacement for it, since there is no monolithic American Buddhist culture just as there is really no monolithic American Culture either. The message should be just as inviting for those to whom it doesn't appeal as it is for those it does. Otherwise it comes across as a social movement of one self-defined niche of pop-culture that happens to also define itself as a community of buddhists too---eerily and dishearteningly similar to identity politics.
Ordinary,
ReplyDeleteI should also amend that sentence you quoted of me to say: "Buddhism's task is not to become or remain popular..."
Again, the issue lies in where popularity comes from: effective dissemination of the dhamma or a transitory form of social organization in which a given set of conventions predominates. What is popular 40 years ago obviously isn't popular now, and there is nothing that bridges the two in terms of then and now both having a notion of popularity. Even if we want to say popularity persists in the fact that it means lots of people are doing it, we have to admit that what is popular and who thinks its popular changes even though the fact of popularity doesn't seem to change. In the end, there is nothing real for the dhamma to which the dhamma can appeal in popularity, so it is best to stick with the dhamma as it is, which nonetheless may in fact manifest itself in contemporary conventions if they suit the purposes of the dhamma not the other way around.
"Buddhism shouldn't have to contort or disguise itself to appeal to young people. The heart of the practice should be there no matter what the teacher looks like. If coolness brings in people, great, but many might be there just for the happening, not for the work of going down the road of ending suffering. But it was ever thus."
ReplyDeleteWell, people are human. No one is born understanding what Buddhism is all about. The Dharma can either be presented in an appealing and understandable way or not. I'm not suggesting that what it is really all about should be lost in the process. But what it is really all about doesn't have anything to do with any particular language or style of clothing or cultural reference points.
"The point I hoped to make is, of course, our practice is, in part, reaching out to others, but that I am suspicious when our message begins to get too concerned not with this reaching-out per se, but the form it takes. I imagine there are many out who are of the otherwise undefined "next generation" of would be Buddhists, or just people who could benefit from the dhamma, who would not identify with and might even be put off by the self-identified pop-culture motif of things like the Dharma Punx movement. "
ReplyDeleteYes of course, just as there are many who don't identify with more traditional forms of Buddhism. I'm sure there is some danger in attaching to form in both cases and avoiding that is part of our practice, but I don't see any danger in Buddhism taking new contemporary forms which are more appealing to the young. If it helps save them from suffering it's a good thing. I don't think there is any danger of 'punk Buddhism' replacing traditional Buddhism.
"it is best to stick with the dhamma as it is, which nonetheless may in fact manifest itself in contemporary conventions if they suit the purposes of the dhamma not the other way around."
Yes of course. But 'the dharma as it is' should not be confused with any particular form it takes. Both forms seem entirely valid. If someone is 'a punk', then that person's real life is 'the dharma as it is'. No one has artificially changed anything. Wearing robes is not the dharma, it may be one way of practicing it.
I agree with you Joe, in your thoughts on the Salon article. I felt similarly when I read it. There is a construction here by these new flashy teachers of a decontextualized Buddhism, which obviously has been seen before. And their teachings also represent a reaction against counter-cultural hippie Buddhism of their parents' generation. So like you said in your article, it appears that some people are taking to the young teachers' messages in a superficial way, and this could be because of the way it is being presented. Of course there is the argument for skillful means, that has been brought up here, but I would hold, like you wrote, that the message should be more about 'dharma for its own sake.'
ReplyDeleteThank You, Brooke. I think I started to get a little too caught up in my point by the end of that discussion too. My intention was merely to point out a way I see---sometimes, not all the time---people talk about the dhamma that puts something before the dhamma itself.
ReplyDeleteIn this case, it is the felt-need to rebel against so-called hippie Buddhism of a generation or two ago. Of course, the same could be said of that, and so on back to the first sectarian divisions in ancient India. The point, however, shouldn't be to have a better practice than, say, those guys, but to have what is already the best practice, which is the dhamma. It isn't always the case that younger Buddhists are thinking this way (the first way I mention) either, but it's the tendency of many young Americans to think about things like this in general, which I don't think should be left out of discussing dhamma-teachers who appeal to popularity.