Progressive Buddhism, a reflective evaluation

Recently I was asked, roughly, "what exactly is Progressive Buddhism." 

I had to think a bit. First, our sidebar says:

About Progressive Buddhism
This is a group-blog on the topic of progressive, modern Buddhism - looking at Buddhism in the light of modern knowledge, free from excessive dependence on ancient dogmas; looking at the best ways to integrate Buddhism into modern life and modern societies; discussing and encouraging an empirical or scientific approach; seeing insight and awakening as a living tradition not just a historical one
If you'd like to contribute please get in touch.

How does that differentiate us from other forms of Buddhism? Focusing in on these two terms, 'progressive' and 'Buddhism', how does each inform the other in our lives?

Inner development / outer development

In initial response is two-fold. On the one side I hope to continue to explore how the dharma finds use and meaning in my life. And on the other side I think about dharmic responses to political issues that are shaping my life. This allows me to be open both to new teachings and interpretations of them and to the changing world around me.

Concerning "Progressive Buddhism" specifically, here is a portion of an email I sent out to fellow contributors today:

I'd like to think that we represent a particular flavor or tendancy within all forms of modern Buddhism: a tendency to engage, to listen to people who are different from us (refugees, the homeless, the LGBTQ community, non-Buddhists of all stripes, people from near and far), and to seek connection and to alleviate suffering for all, recognizing that Buddhist practices and ideals of old might not apply and serve today or tomorrow - following the Advice to the Kalamas to test for ourselves and see. We also recognize that systems matter: capitalism, authoritarianism, white privilege, patriarchy, etc all shape the suffering in ourselves and those around us. How can we expect those most oppressed by these systems to see the benefits of Buddhism if Buddhism replicates and enforces the systems too?

This means that we do not leave or look down upon other Theravadins, Zen, or Tibetan practitioners (or the many others out there); but that we do seek to balance our practice and learning with progressive engagement in the world.

Some areas where I'd like to see us work in the year to come include:

• 'Buddhist' economics (e.g. this interview/book)
• Climate Change 
• Promoting Openness in Sangha hierarchies
• Developing Democracy, decentralized decision-making
• Promoting women and people of color 
• Advocating generosity and non-violent responses at home and around the world
• Showing the benefits of simple life (renunciation of consumerist greed)

Those are all in the more 'progressive engaged' category. What about the 'progressive dharma' side?

• Key teachings of the Buddha
• Wisdom from later Indian, Tibetan, Chinese, etc developments
• The 'dharma' of science and Western wisdom sources

What is 'progressive engagement'?

Engaged Buddhism is a category created by Thich Nhat Hanh, specifically in reference to the need for Buddhists to 'engage' with the crisis of his home country, Vietnam, during the war there. Non-engaged Buddhism, in this instance and after, is that which seeks to avoid politics, avoid worldly affairs, avoid rocking the boat of the powers that be. 

The addition of 'progressive' to the already widespread movement of engaged Buddhism points to specific ideals of inclusiveness and equality. 

This point invites further development and reflection, which I will leave to a later post. This is different from other forms of engaged Buddhism that might focus on developing meditation centers and translating sutras anew. These are great and are no-doubt part of our own lives and worlds, but they are not necessarily our focus. 

The politics of progressive Buddhism

As we are a global movement, no particular affiliation need be sought. In the U.S., where I live, I think our values align more with the Democrats than with Republicans, though we needn't close our eyes and ears to Republican ideas. We also might align more with the Green or Democratic Socialist parties on many or most issues. 

As suggested above, not every 'progressive Buddhist' will want to be directly or heavily involved in politics. Perhaps for some, new and relevant understandings of dharma in modern life is just what is desired. That is fine. For others, a pretty solid engagement with politics, especially where issues of inclusiveness and equality are at hand, will feel like a natural extension of Buddhist practice.

There is no need to affiliate; though discussions of affiliation are welcome. In the U.S., I know we will be facing major elections in 2018 and I hope we can discuss issues and candidates (and parties) that we feel will best embody the values we hold.

The dharma of progressive Buddhism

For those less interested in politics, please contribute if you can to our understanding of the dharma in your life. What suttas/sutras appeal to you? What wisdom of Buddhism has found its way into your life?

Mentioned explicitly here already is the Sutta to the Kalamas. But other teachings, and practices, will have meaning to us at different times. Let's share those and help one another connect deeply with the dharma in these often trying times.

With loving-kindness and deep bows to all. Wishing you a warm new year and a peaceful and richly connected 2018.

“Buddhist” Violence

I don't pretend to understand all the nuances of whatever the circumstances regarding Myanmar, Rakhine state, or the Rohingya. My bet is that among the many people who have an opinion about this don't know anything more than what they've read on the internet. I'm curious about how many could find Myanmar on a map or could give its former name. This piece in fact, only tangentially involves that situation.

What this does involve is the drum beating about “Buddhist Violence” and “Buddhist Terrorism,” and the assumptions behind that. Western Buddhists (at least the most visible ones) seem to think that these “other” Buddhists should “know better.” We seem to have an odd attitude about our quaint little fellow Buddhists on the other side of the world, as if we have a better handle on the Buddha’s teachings than they do. To be charitable, let's call it the “zeal of the convert.” To be less charitable, it's another example of Western Superiority, of neo-colonialism.

I'll make a few broad statements here: countries tend to have armies. Armies tend to be armed with weapons. Weapons used by armies by definition are implements designed to inflict harm upon another person. Even “majority Buddhist” countries have armies, and they're armed with weapons. And their having weapons implies that their intent is that they will be used either defensively or offensively, to inflict harm on other people.

Without going too deeply into history, Buddhists have used weapons against other Buddhists and non-Buddhists. I tried looking up some facts about South and East Asian wars just since 1900, and the list was lengthy to say the least. Overall, a good number of these countries have at one point or another been ruled by “military dictatorships,” which is a euphemistic way of saying, “Fellow countrymen, agree, submit, or die.” In some cases, this was extended to “Conquered countrymen…” sometimes to “Invader…”

In no particular order, there were wars between the Japanese and Russians, Chinese against other Chinese, Koreans against Koreans, Koreans against Japanese, Chinese against Japanese, indochinese against Japanese, Vietnamese against Vietnamese, Cambodian against Cambodian, Laotian against Laotian, Burmese against Burmese, Sri Lankan against Sri Lankan, Thai on Thai, Chinese against Tibetan, Nepalese against Nepalese, Bhutanese against Bhutanese, and any number of the above against ethnic minorities and/or separatists within their own borders, and seemingly everyone against the French, British, and/or Americans.

That long sentence should point out that the “peaceful Buddhist” is an illusion. To return to Myanmar/Burma for a moment, think back to how “brutal” the military dictatorship was, as seen in the film Beyond Rangoon, pretty ruthless. It shouldn't be too much of a stretch to think that they're not “over it,” or more or less Buddhist than they ever were. Admittedly, I'm curious about what Suttas Ashin Wirathu and the 969 Movement read that said that inciting violence was a good idea, but I also look at them as representative of the Monastic Order as the Westboro Baptist Church is of Christian churches.

“Buddhism” as teaching is Lovingkindness, Joy, Equanimity, and Compassion. “Buddhists” as humans, are as liable to hate, become violent, become enraged, and commit acts of violence as the rest of humanity. That doesn't mean when we see atrocities that we don't protest them or call the perpetrators on their deeds. But let's not do it out of some sense of superiority or stereotype. Let's do it not because we're Buddhists, but because that is a reflection of ALL beings’ True Nature, not just a “Peaceful Buddhist,” as if there was a monolithic, uniform “Peaceful Buddhist.”

“....Subhuti, when I talk about the practice of transcendent patience, I do not hold onto any arbitrary conceptions about the phenomena of patience, I merely refer to it as the practice of transcendent patience. And why is that? Because when, thousands of lifetimes ago, the Prince of Kalinga severed the flesh from my limbs and my body I had no perception of a self, a being, a soul, or a universal self. If I had cherished any of these arbitrary notions at the time my limbs were being torn away, I would have fallen into anger and hatred.”
Diamond Sutra, Chapter 14 (excerpt) Diamond Sutra.com

There was, however, a peaceful Buddha.

Mindfulness in Waiting

I’m waiting for something to happen. Beyond the existential concept that says we’re all waiting for something, I am waiting right now for information about something very specific. The details of what I’m waiting for aren’t important. The experience of it is what I’m here to discuss.

Most of us can tolerate a certain amount of waiting without too much trouble. We wait in line. We wait in traffic. We wait for our loved ones to come home from a trip. Some kinds of waiting feel benign and others become suffering. This is the suffering kind of waiting. It’s the kind of waiting where I’ve done everything I possibly can to distract myself from obsessing over when I’m going to learn the outcome  and all that’s left is hyperawareness of not knowing.

After becoming bored with developing some killer skills in the game 2048, it finally occurred to me that this is exactly the kind of situation Buddhist practice is designed to address (light dawns on marble head, right?). Mindfulness is the answer! Yes, mindfulness. Be in the present moment. 

Unfortunately my present moment is fused with uncertainty. There is music playing in the coffee shop I’m sitting in right now. I can hear the sounds of the barista wiping the counters and her sneakers squeaking on the floor. I feel the smoothness of my laptop under the palms of my hands as I type. I’ve just eaten. So I feel well-sated. There is a lingering taste of chocolate on my tongue, since I decided to get a mocha today instead of a plain latte. And…there is an underlying discomfort in the background of not knowing this important information. 

It’s a common misunderstanding that the point of mindfulness is to make us feel better, to remove us from our discomfort. Turning back to Pema Chödrön I am reminded that the real instruction is simply to stay. Part of the point of mindfulness is to inoculate ourselves against suffering by practicing staying with the discomfort when it is present, to not distract ourselves or run away from it. Mindfulness in this case is to learn to be with what is, as it is. In learning this lesson, that is how the suffering is released, not by blissing out and just pretending everything feels okay.

Because I am a plan-ahead kind of person, this particular brand of waiting looks like it was special-ordered for me. In order to be relieved from my suffering, I need to stay with the feelings of insecurity and threat I get from not being able to make plans and from not having any kind of control over when or how I will finally get the information I need. I need to examine this suffering so I can become more informed about the result of being strongly attached to a particular outcome.

Having reoriented the purpose of my mindfulness exercise in this case, I bow to this teacher and hope to learn all I can from it before resolution comes.

Namasté. 

Unintentionally Consequential

There's a line between “what we are,” and “what we do.” It's sometimes very blurry, sometimes may even overlap, and sometimes diametrically opposites. It's all based on self-identification. Depending on work, we may conduct myself as an engineer, or banker. If we're in a political mode, the identification might be as Democrat or Republican, Labor or Tory, Trotskyite or Stalinis, Liberal or Conservative. Vegan, vegetarian, omnivore, male, female, gay, bi, lesbian, transsexual, transgender, Buddhist, Zen Buddhist, Forest monk, Shin, Christian, Muslim, Sunni, Shiite, Jew, Orthodox Jew, Hasidic, Reform, etc., and that's a lot of round holes we square pegs might be forcing ourselves into! 

These demarcations often have behaviors we associate with them, and quite often, we make ourselves into cookie-cutter images of what we imagine those labels demand. Likewise the label we pick may even determine what hole we think we should dive into. It's one thing to be environmentally conscious and then become a member of the Greens, it's another to look at them and start acting like we think a Green should act. Neither is particularly good or bad, after all, we haven't necessarily thought of every way to be environmentally conservative and may have something to learn from what appear to be like-minded individuals.

To one extent or another, we also try to force others into round holes, and they may have a totally different hole picked out for themselves. It may come as a real shocker to find out that Hitler was a vegetarian and that he was kind to dogs. Animal rights activists might also be vegetarian dog lovers, but that doesn't mean they also have to be Nazis any more than Hitler was a tree-hugging liberal. “Fascists are evil!” we might say, and then to find out that they aren't evil 100% of the time can shake up some of our deeply held preconceptions. And lest we forget, Richard Nixon created the Environmental Protection Agency, no tree-hugger was he, at least according to conventional wisdom. These examples of “other-identifications” are as mistaken as our own “self-identifications.”

Following the Buddhist path is to lead to liberation. Following the Zen path leads to seeing things as they truly are, to experience it fully, to see our True Nature, to help others, and thus become liberated. One could even say that we're already liberated, if we looked for something that held us in chains, we'd see that there really isn't anything. And not just in an “emptiness” nothing, but in reality “nothing” except our own thinking. To be liberated from our thinking is to stop thinking “I'm this,” “You're that,” and because of this and that, it means I must do something and you do something else. Dropping this thinking includes even the notion of unity and differentiation, the notion that there's a fallback position when things get difficult. We make difficult for ourselves, and we really don't need a fallback position. That doesn't really exist either. 

The bottom line is that there is no more a reason than an excuse for doing what we do. Negotiating the line I mentioned above can be tricky. Do I not eat meat because I'm a “vegetarian” or am I feeling compassion for all beings and therefore don't eat meat, so I look for the vegetarian section of a menu? Anything I do because I'm a “Zennist” is a poor excuse for doing it. Do I do things because I think it's correct action, and that just so happens to be what the Buddha would have done? Better reason for action. When I go the grocery store, do I put the cart in the little cart hut because that's what a Zennie “should” do? Do I see that someone's livelihood depends on people not putting carts back so he can gather them back up--which is what puts food on his family table? Honestly, sometimes I'll do either, largely dependent upon a whim. 

To use the grocery store example further, when they ask “Paper or plastic?” which do I choose and why? Do I immediately say “paper” because I think of myself as environmentally conscious Buddhist, and the Buddha wouldn't have used paper, so ergo I must use paper?. Making the choice isn't that straightforward if I really look at it. Paper requires trees to be cut down. These trees help the atmosphere, provide habitats for animals, help stop soil erosion and so forth. The power saws used to cut them down requires power, obviously. That power is most likely a fossil fuel, the trucks that transport the timber to the sawmill likewise uses gasoline, the saws at the mill use electricity, which may have been produced by coal, nuclear, or maybe by wind, solar, or water power. The rest of the paper-making process likewise requires power, and on it goes. As it turns out, I bring my own bags, because Northampton Mass has banned plastic shopping bags, so it's a moot point here. Previously I went with paper because for all the shortcomings manufacturing entails, plastic ends up not decomposing for the most part, so the long term result is probably the worse choice. Neither choice is pristine.

Until we stop creating karma, our actions will by and large not be pristine. Some may be wholesome and positive, some negative, and some neutral. The priest at an old Zen sangha I attended once said that meditation is one of the few karmically neutral actions we can make. Virtually any action we take--writing, grocery shopping, driving, being with loved ones, working--all involve other people, and therefore will have consequences. In my estimation, the same action will be perceived differently by others involved in the ripple effect of the action. The same person may have radically different reactions to the same phenomena, depending on the flexibility of perceptions. The reaction is dependent on any number of other factors in addition to the action I have taken. It would be very naive and self-important to think my actions happen in a vacuum, that they're the only stimulus that elicits a response. Even when I'm “just writing” this, the thoughts that come to me, the mood I'm in, my physical environment all figure into creating that “just.” In reality, what is it even possible to “just” do? 

As Bodhisattvas, the job of “saving all beings” may be as simple as trying not to do harm. Maybe the next notch up is to try to be helpful. We can't worry about how this help will necessarily be received, we can't be paralyzed by the possibility that an action may be taken to be other than in the spirit we intended. We do what we can, as skillfully as we can, to be of benefit to not only the one person we're interacting with, but with the realization that the ripples of our action will flow out like Indra’s Net. This is how we save “all” beings--by respecting and taking care of ourselves so we can help the next being with whom we come into contact, 

If we aren't paying attention, acting mindfully if you like, then our blind wandering throughout our environment may indeed result in our actions being “Unintentionally Consequential.”

Other Eunsahn Citta blogs can be found here:

http://nobodhiknows.blogspot.com/2017/04/unintentionally-consequential.html

Zen and the Art of Tube Feeding

Overall my family and I have been pretty lucky with pets. My parents had two cats when I was growing up. The “baby” had a heart condition and I guess my mom had to give it medicine. That usually translated into my sister giving the cat the medicine, as she was destined to eventually work at a vet’s office.

When my husband and I had cats in the ’90’s through the early 2000’s, both passed after relatively short illnesses at 15 and 17 years of age. Until then, the most exciting veterinary experience we had with them was giving thyroid medication to our calico cat, Sheila. She also needed percutaneous fluids near the very end, but that was only a week or so and only once a day.

Nothing could have prepared us for…tube feeding a cat.

The cats we have now, Ichigo and Angel are total sweethearts. At least when Ichigo is not beating up his brother, they are sweethearts. They’re six years old. We were told at their last veterinary appointment in the summer that they were a little pudgy. So, we tried a few things changing their food around. We tried to exercise them more, but discovered that we really have no idea what is amusing to a cat. Most of our attempts resulted in us getting far more exercise than our fuzzy friends. So, when Ichigo looked like he’d lost a little weight, we weren’t that concerned. For some reason, Angel was spending a lot of time sitting next to him and we thought that was so cute! 

Cats are small animals though. So when things start going downhill (we discovered), they go downhill fast. Next thing you know, Ichigo was lethargic and not engaging in any of his normal activities. We were getting  concerned, but it wasn’t until one of our friends commented on how terrible he looked that I called my sister. Rather than waiting until the next day, she advised us to take him to an emergency vet right away.

• Resorptive lesions on his teeth - six extractions
• Pancreatitis - pain meds
• Hepatic lipidosis (fat stuck in the liver from all the weight loss)
• Three days in the animal hospital AND

…wait for it…

• the feeding tube

Those of you who have had infants will laugh at my adventure, I’m sure. Certainly, the idea of chasing down a cat, plunging 48 ml of “slurry” into it’s esophagus…one…milliliter…a…time…six…times…a…day seems like nothing to you. Cleaning the splattered slurry off of the walls after he’s shaken his head vigorously with the tube cap off? Piece of cake. Making the slurry…smelling the slurry…crushing medications and mixing into the slurry? Eh - that’s nothing.

Dreaming about slurry...

In those moments at 2:30 am, after finally figuring out the sequestering the cat in the bathroom for tube feeding is best for everyone involved, there is time to ponder.

I started thinking about mortality and expectations. Pena Chodron once said (quoting someone I believe) “since death is certain and the time of death is uncertain, what is the most important thing?” This is a phrase I consider frequently when I’m faced with difficult situations. In this flurry of activity taking care of the cat, however, I was reminded that I actually do take each day for granted. That “the time of death is uncertain” has translated to my subconscious as “some time in the very distant future that I don’t have to worry about now.” I expect everything to keep clicking along just fine.

I’ve been fortunate in life. I’ve mentioned elsewhere that I had the opportunity to have relationships with three of my great grandparents and that three of my grandparents lived well into their 80’s and 90’s. My father recovered completely from his cardiac arrest - which rarely happens in real life. My parents’s cats lived to be well over 10 years old - even the one with the heart condition. Our last cats lived into their teens. In my good fortune, I lost perspective on the precariousness with which we greet each day. It simply never occurred to me that Ichigo could die, but he almost did.

I’m trying to hold this thought in my head for a while, think about and manipulate it a little, let it sink in. The tube came out last week and my husband, daughter and I are currently obsessed with his gustatory rhythms. It would be easy to forget now and just go on as I did before. At some point, this lesson too will fade. For now though, I bring my palms together and bow to it’s wisdom. Katz!