Foundational Fridays

A Tour of My Ideas

Instead of writing an essay, I will usually use Fridays to introduce you to some of the Foundational Essays on the site. So today, I want to encourage you to read About Our Logo.

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Also on Fridays, I will be publishing the Free Online Sutra Study. Today we offer our very first lesson:

The Middle Way and the Eightfold Path

being the first portion of

The Dhammacakkappavattana Sutta

This is the Buddha's first sermon, called in English "The Turning of the Wheel of the Law." That is, here is where the Buddha "cranks up the teaching machine" which ran for another 45 years, from his enlightenment at age 35 until his death at 80. Here he laid out the basic insights acquired in his moment of enlightenment. This, too, is "foundational"--to everything else he taught. Please read it and, if you feel so moved, join the study by responding to the questions.

[Update 2023: Of course, this was all then. I posted six of the seven intended studies--they're still there--but literally no one ever participated. I'll try to finish the seventh some day and promote them. And let's see how long I carried on with "Foundational Fridays"...]

Bon weekend!

Provisional Truth

The "Front Porch" of Dharma

The Story of Buddhism (mentioned on June 22) has a long discussion on provisional vs. definitive truth. Those statements of the Buddha "that cannot be taken literally are regarded as provisional or subject to interpretation. Those that can be taken literally are regarded as definitive." (p.112) This is an aspect of upaya, the "skillful means" used by the Buddha to help followers on the path. In its most extreme form, this may involve lying; whatever it takes to bring about benefit for the hearer. I knew Taiwanese nuns in Los Angeles with a 200-word English vocabulary, but they knew the expression "white lie"!

Buddhism 101

An Index to Things to Come

Over in the Foundational Essays you will find an article that details The Influence of Buddhism on my thinking.  One section is called Lessons of Buddhism, which ends with a relatively short (20-item) list of ideas.

I have now expanded that list to 33 items (and many of those contain three items or more) on a page called Buddhism 101, which serves as both a guide to Buddhist ideas and an index to future articles. Please take a look.

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Bliss Station

Get Yer Daily Dose

Tonight I was showing my new friend Jay Govinda (a Krishna devotee of the Gaudiya Math) around Shenzhen, and we ended up at my pal Murli's 1947 Indian Restaurant. (I wanted Jay Govinda to meet Murli as he thinks about offering some yoga and other lessons in Shenzhen.)

My new pal Jay Govinda

As usually happens, talk came around to spiritual things, and I ended up suggesting to Murli that he reserve a little time each day for meditation or contemplation. In his case, this would be telling beads in his family's tradition, but for others it might be another formal exercise, such as the Christian rosary, Indian japa, or Buddhist chant or meditations. But it doesn't have to be; it could just be (as the cliché has it) stopping to smell the roses.

"Who Do Men Say That I Am?"

The Debate Over the Nature of Jesus

Jesus asked this question of his disciples, and thanks to The Da Vinci Code it seems now to be the theological question of 2006. Here's the passage in Matthew 16:

Jesus [to his disciples]: Who do men say that the Son of man is?

The disciples: Some say John the Baptist, others say Elijah, and others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.

Jesus: But who do you say that I am?

Simon Peter: You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.

Jesus: Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jona! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven. And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the powers of death shall not prevail against it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.

And the story concludes: "Then he strictly charged the disciples to tell no one that he was the Christ."

There's lots to be gleaned from this story, but I am fascinated by the "laundry list" in the first response: "John the Baptist... Elijah... Jeremiah... one of the prophets." Some of these same disciples had seen Jesus with John the Baptist; the other figures named had been dead for centuries. Jesus couldn't possibly have been any of the people named--in rational terms.

So even the disciples who knew him in the flesh could not identify him in terms of A - B - C logic. Peter's answer isn't exactly "scientific" either, but it is the one that Jesus seemed to have been fishing for. (I note in passing the ambiguity of Peter's description: Is it not still possible that we are all the Christ?) And what about Jesus' admonition to keep mum?

No wonder, then, that twenty centuries later we still can't figure out who he is.

"The Gods Behind the Gods We See"

"God Without Attributes"--in (Un-)Stained Glass

Back on June 21, I mentioned the Church of the Ascension, where I worked back in the late '70s. In those days I considered myself an Evangelical Christian and a Western Man, with a worldview shaped by Plato, Jesus, Leonardo, and so on.

But even then, I had inklings of something more waiting for me out there.

Read more and see a Photo-Journal Entry.

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Good Feng Shui?

How Can a "Foreign" Belief Cross Cultures?

Friday with the Buddhists, Saturday with the Hindus.

Lila and I spent a delightful evening with her sangha, the Gaudiya Math. The teacher of this group, their Gurudev, His Divine Grace Sri Srimad Bhaktivedanta Narayana Maharaja, is in Hong Kong this week, as they prepare for their "East Asian Festival of Love 2006" on July 1st-3rd, as well as the dedication of their new temple (which until now we have been calling only a "center"). [Update: In 2010, Gurudev passed--uh, "concluded his pastimes in this world."]

And so there are devotees from all over converging on Kowloon. The best conversations I had last night were with senior devotees from America, Israel, and Finland. One of those conversations centered around the same topic as last night: how can this group (a close relative to the well-known "Hare Krishnas") "package" or market their message in a way that modern people will find palatable?

Because the message is simple: Be Happy. But their particular path to happiness is through devotion to Lord Krishna, an avatar of the Hindu god Vishnu, preserver of the world. This is where modern Western people start to run into obstacles.

Guru and some Hong Kong
devotees of Gaudiya Math

What tickled me the most was to see these guys sitting there in their saffron robes with their mostly-shaved heads (with a sikha, a little pony tail signifying one-pointed focus on one's spiritual goal)--in other words, their very foreign appearance--and knowing that their appearance will be problematic for many people, and yet insisting that these people need and deserve to hear this message--unlike last night's monk, who doubted that anyone different from him could ever "get it."

To be fair, I doubt the monk has ever been out of China, while these devotees are themselves from countries other than India, so they are living proof that their dharma is transferable.

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Bad Feng Shui

In Which America Gets Dissed by a Chinese Buddhist Monk

Tonight Lila and I had dinner with our friend Mr. Wu and his family. Mr. Wu is a government officer--and a high-powered Buddhist. He and our friend Wang Fu Qing (who introduced us to Mr. Wu) took us on an overnight trip to a temple in Guangzhou last year, where we dined with the abbot; and Mr. Wu often takes us to Summer Tea House, an elegantly-decorated vegetarian restaurant that actually has a shrine room inside.

Tonight, Mr. Wu brought along a monk from Hong Fa Temple, who turns out to be the head of the Shenzhen Buddhist Association. As usual, Diego, Mr. Wu's son, served as translator. (Mr. Wu speaks no English, and Diego is a senior at Shenzhen Foreign Language Middle School.) Diego had two shockers for me. One was when I asked the monk if there were any monks at Hong Fa Temple--a big, showcase temple--who could speak English. "Mei you," the monk replied, meaning "we don't have any." That much I got without translation. Diego then translated the next comment: "We have one monk who can say 'Yes,' 'No,' and 'OK.'" Wow. A place like that, all those resources, and no English-speaking monks. Mr. Wu is going to check into the idea of me offering an official tour once a month, just so the temple will offer some English instruction. [Update 2023: That never happened.]

The other revelation was more disturbing. Just after I sat down, apropos of nothing, the monk volunteered to the table (and poor Diego had to translate) his view that the Buddha-Dharma has little chance of success in other countries (outside of China) because they "lack good feng shui." Feng shui is the Chinese "science" of geomancy, placing buildings and other features in harmony with the land and, as the two words say, the "wind and water."

So wait: We're doomed? The dharma will never penetrate our minds and hearts because we were born in the wrong place? We can never get enlightened?

This smells to me of the rankest kind of chauvinism.

Numerous retorts rolled through my head. I wondered, for instance, if the Indians who brought Buddhism to China felt the same: That the Chinese would never "get it" because they hadn't been born in India. But I calmed myself, realizing that like most of us, this monk was a prisoner of his upbringing. And as I calmed down, I realized what I should say.

Who's Your Daddy (and Mommy)?

The Interconnectedness of Everything

Last May on a visit to Tokyo, I picked up Donald S. Lopez's The Story of Buddhism. It's a fine introduction; I put it right up there with Buddhism: A Concise Introduction by Huston Smith and Philip Novak and Christmas Humphreys' classic, simply titled Buddhism.

Lopez covers a lot of ground that I'm quite familiar with; the pleasure for me is in finding a story or two that I didn't know before (or perhaps heard and set aside--different stories "resonate" at different times in one's life). Here is one "new" story that really struck me:

Welcome to the Realize! Journal

The Human Side of Religion

[Happy Summer Solstice! Read more here!]

Let's start with a story.

Years ago I was on the staff of the Episcopal Church of the Ascension in Sierra Madre, California. Fr. Ron Erlandson, the Rector, had decided to invite parishioners into the Rectory in small groups for a program he called "Coffee, Coke, and Conversation."

This was a sort of "evangelistic" endeavor. The idea was two-fold: to create stronger ties between the people who attended, and to "pick the brains" of the parish members, a few at a time, about how the church could attract more people. To this end, members were encouraged to bring family members who did not regularly attend church.

Well, Nancy was a regular attendee, but her husband Bob was not. In fact, if anything, Bob was a little antagonistic to church in general. So it was surprising--and perhaps a little bit worrisome--to see that Nancy had dragged Bob along to "C, C & C."