BUDDHISM AND DEMOCRACY

BUDDHISM AND DEMOCRACY

KIRTI BUNCHUA

As both terms, "Buddhism" and "democracy", are very broad, this chapter will limit their scope.

The term "Buddhism" here will be limited to only Theravada Buddhism, that is, to the teaching of the Buddha found in the Tipataka and clarified by the traditional commentaries of the Theravada School. To open to Mahayana Buddhism would add more and more later scriptures whose canonical list varies from school to school within the Mahayana tradition.

As for the term "democracy", we must distinguish between a "democratic regime" and the "democratic spirit" in a regime. It is possible to have a democratic regime with an absolutist spirit, and an absolute regime with a democratic spirit, not to mention regimes that use the name "democratic" for purposes of obfuscation. For this chapter to take the term "democracy" for the government or regime would be anachronistic, because in the time of the Buddha, such an idea would have seemed impossible and absurd. Hence, our topic, "Buddhism and democracy" is possible only if we limit our consi-deration to the "democratic spirit" as far as it can be found in Buddha’s teachings and practices.

SOME PRELIMINARY REMARKS

1. The Indians of Buddha’s time could know only two types of regime: absolute monarchy with one absolute king at the head of the state, and oligarchic monarchy with several kings at the head of the state, but close joint authority as absolute as in the first regime.

Rajagrh is an example of an absolute monarchy, while Kapila-vatthu (Buddha’s original state) and Vesali are examples of the oli-garchic monarchy states.

Buddha never showed a preference for one or the other of these political regimes, but gave guidelines to be followed by the people of both regimes.

2. Buddha had no intention of teaching politics. He seems to have had no preference for any regime or form of government. Any form may be good if it is exercised in a democratic spirit, conforming to His religious teachings; it may also be bad if it counteracts His religious teachings which are required necessarily for religious persons. The only interest of His religious teaching is to lead His followers from a way of life of suffering to one of real happiness.

3. Though Buddha never seemed to denounce the existing absolutism of His lifetime, He established the Sangha--the community of Buddhist monks--which could be considered model for later demo-cratic regimes. Though the word "democracy" was never men-tioned in the government of His monks, we can learn His democratic spirit through the process of governing and the regulations of the community which issued from that process.

HISTORY OF THE DEMOCRATIC SPIRIT IN BUDDHISM

The Establishment of the Sangha

The regulations of the Sangha are not a ready-made set prepared before its start, as St. Benedict or St. Francis of Assisi might have done for the Christian monastic orders.

Buddha started His Sangha without any prior regulations. This is understandable, because as founder of His own religion He had no need to obtain approval from a superior. He was free to evolve his attitude regarding community life, which in the end would develop a democratic character. From the acceptance of the first member of His Sangha it is clear that He emphasized the importance of the quality of life through teaching and formation.

After Buddha’s enlightenment, He directed His attention first of all to persuading the Pancavaggi (the Group of Five) to enter into His way of life. He preached to them His first sermon, known as Dhammacakkappa-vattanasutta, at their residence, the Isipatana Marigadayavana or Deer Garden, in Banares State. After the sermon only one of the five, Kondanna understood thoroughly the meaning of life and requested to be admitted as His follower. Buddha accepted him by saying "Come, O Bhikkhu, well-taught in doctrine, lead a holy life for the sake of the complete extinction of suffering."1 In this way Kondanna was admitted as the first Venerable Buddhist Monk. During the first rainy season, 60 monks were admitted by Buddha Himself into His monastic order or Sangha.

During this earliest period, there were practically no regulations, for all the monks had good will and a firm intention to follow the life-style of Buddha Himself. All were under the direct inspiration of Bud-dha who presided like a loving Father over his beloved sons.

One of the Prescriptions of Buddha, for example, runs as follows: "I prescribe, O Bhikkhus, that only a learned, competent Bhikkhu who has completed ten years, or more than ten years, may confer the Upasampada Ordination."2 In such a way, more and more regulations were prescribed by Buddha, to be observed by all the Bukkhus of His Sangha.

The democratic spirit during this period was one of equality among the monks who might come from any caste and status in society: princes, nobles, brahmins, vaisayas and outcasts. All became equal once they were ordained monks. They were differentiated, how-ever, according to their years of ordination: those later ordained had to be the first to pay respect to those earlier ordained because of the supposition that the earlier ones had more experience in the monastic life than did the later ones.

During the Experimental Period

As more and more people requested to be admitted into the Sangha, the elder monks were delegated to perform the ceremony of admission and also to take the responsibility of training and supervising the novices. We do not know if Buddha delegated such powers to only one monk or to a set of monks for each community. Each delegation had to take responsibility for the community under its care in a spirit of paternal love and under the general control of Buddha Himself.

It is not surprising that during this transitory period, with the rapidly increasing number of new monks to be admitted and trained, together with the new experiences each community of monks encoun-tered, decisions had to be made for uniformity of conduct among the monks. After consultation with the senior monks, Buddha declared one after another the regulations of the whole Sangha. It can be said that most of the actual Sangha regulations resulted from particular cases which occurred to the Sangha at different times. It is believed that Ananda, Buddha’s cousin and one of the senior monks or Theras, had a good memory so as to be able to remember all the regulations and the particular circumstance that gave rise to each of them. Only after Buddha’s death were the collection of regulations reported and the Theras helped Him analyze and rearrange them into a systematic collection, known later as the Vinaya Pitaka.

Final Development of Sangha

After a certain period of experimentation with the Sangha Or-ganization through delegations under the direct control of Buddha Himself, Buddha saw that his Sangha had matured sufficiently to stand on its own feet. He let it go, being conscious that in time He would have to leave it behind--though surely it would have been better to see the result while He was living with them, so that, had any difficulty occurred, He would be able to suggest a wiser solution. He transferred His absolute authority over the Sangha to all the members of Sangha, so that they might all together decide how to apply the Sangha regulations to each particular case. These were the regulations all of them consented to accept in common as their Constitution on the day of their ordination into the Sangha.

Buddha then convened the Bhikkhus and proclaimed to them this Announcement or natti:

Let the Sangha, reverend Sirs, hear me. This person N.N. desires to receive the Upasampada ordination from the venerable N.N. with the venerable N.N. as his Uppajjhaya. If the Sangha is ready, let the Sangha confer on N.N. the Upasampada ordination with N.N. as Upajjhaya. This is the natti (announcement). Let the Sangha, reverend Sirs, hear me. This person N.N. desires to receive the Upasampada ordination from the venerable N.N. The Sangha confers on N.N. the Upasampada ordination with N.N. as Upajjhaya. Let any one of the venerable brethren who is in favor of the Upasampada ordination of N.N. with N.N. as Uppajjhaya be silent, and any one who is not in favor of it, speak. And for the second time I thus speak to you: let the Sangha etc. . . . (as before). And for the third time I thus speak to you. let the Sangha, etc. . . . (as before). N.N. has received the Upasampada ordination from the Sangha with N.N. as Uppajjhaya. The Sangha is in favor of it, therefore it is silent. Thus I understand.3

Surely this kind of democracy is a strict one, for any decision of the Sangha requires a unanimous vote. As to be silent at the moment of the vote means a vote in favor, such voting respects any kind of minority.

Such a strict democracy can be practiced within the Sangha because we can presuppose that all and each one of the monks has been well formed and has a good intention for the common welfare of the Sangha. As such democracy is appropriate to the Sangha, it has progressed continually to today.

It is to be noted that by this particular democracy, the Sangha members can vote only for the applications of regulations to particular cases. Buddha did not allow them to vote for the abolishment of the Sangha. As for the votes for change, Buddha allowed them only for minor regulations and still required a unanimous vote. During the Buddha’s lifetime, no such voting had ever been heard of. However, this allowance was like a time bomb within the Sangha, awaiting explosion at any time after Buddha’s death.

The adjective "minor" is very imprecise when it qualifies the noun "precept". Any change of precept with the intention of "adaptation for the better" can be considered a "minor precept". Such inter-pretation happened many times after the death of Buddha, leading to the split of Buddhism into Hinayana and Mahayana, and to the split of each into a number of sects until today.

CHARACTERISTICS OF BUDDHIST DEMOCRACY

1. Buddha’s words are the final appeal. Buddha did not delegate any person or any group of persons to approve the actions, nor to modify the regulations. At His death, the oral teaching of Buddha came to an end. No one had the right to add or to subtract a word of Buddha. What disciples can do is to interpret and clarify the Buddha’s words. Buddha’s words are like a constitution which came from Buddha alone. He might consult in order to obtain opinions, but He always gave the final decision, and no one could change it. Therefore the demo-cracy of the Buddhist Sangha is limited to the application of the regulations, and does not extend to making and modifying the regu-lations, except when a regulation is minor and the community unani-mously gives it consent by silent vote.

This means that the Sangha government is absolutist in the formation of the Constitution, but democratic in its application. The Mahaparinibbana Suttanta expresses the vision and the reason of Buddha:

I have preached the truth without making any distinction between exoteric and esoteric doctrine in respect of the truths. Ananda, the Tathagata has no such thing as a closed-fist teacher who keeps some things back. Surely, Ananda, should there be any one who harbors the thought, ‘It is I who will lead the brotherhood’, or ‘The order is dependent upon me’, that is that he should lay down instructions in any matter concerning the order. Now the Tathagata, Ananda, thinks not that it is he who should lead the brotherhood, or that the order is dependent upon him.4

Therefore, O Ananda, be ye lamps unto yourselves. Be ye a refuge to yourselves. Betake yourselves to no external refuge. Hold fast to the truth as a lamp. Hold fast as a refuge to the truth. Look not for refuge to any one besides yourselves.5

It may be, Ananda, that in some of you the thought may arise, ‘The word of the master is ended, we have no teacher more.’ But it is not thus, Ananda, that you should regard it. The truths and the rules of the Order which I have set forth and laid down for you all, let them, after I am gone, be the Teacher to you.6

It is to be noted that the Sangha Constitution or the Vinaya should be distinguished from the Universal and Eternal Dhamma which cannot be determined at will or modified by any convenience or inconvenience. Only the Vinaya can be modified according to their appropriateness to the circumstances. Nevertheless, even here He allowed for modifications with regard only to the minor Vinayas.

2. All monks have equal rights regardless of family background or personal prestige. In the Indian context of Buddha’s time, caste discrimination was taken strongly into account. But Buddha’s Vinaya went against the current and this became the strong point of His Sangha Community. People of all castes found equal right of recog-nition in His Sangha and equal right to the perfect purification or Nibbana status. Read the following passage and imagine a triumphant tone of Buddha in pronouncing it:

Just, O Bhikkhus, as the great rivers -

that is to say, the Ganga, the Yamuna,

the Aciravati, the Sarabhu, and the Mahi -

when they have fallen into the great ocean,

renounce their name and lineage and are

thereceforth reckoned as the great ocean,

Just so, O Bhikkus, do these four castes -

the Khattiyas, the Brahmans, the Vessa, and

the Suddas - when they have gone forth from

the world under the doctrine and discipline proclaimed by

the Tathagata, renounce their names and lineage, and

enter into the number of the Sakyaputtiya Samanas.7

Any monk who has been such for a lesser period is to venerate the older one. This means that an outcast monk is to be venerated by a monk from the Brahmin caste, if the former has a longer period of monkshood. Such a practice could not be imagined at that time outside the Buddhist community.

3. A fraternal democracy is recommended. Buddha recommended six conditions for his monastic community. Buddha seems to have known how difficult this was, for in stating this He did not use the categorical imperative, but a persuasive form:

So long as the brethren shall persevere in kindness of action, speech, and thought among the saints, both in public and private--so long as they shall divide without partiality, and share in common with the upright and the holy, all such things as they receive in accordance with just provisions of the order, down even to the mere contents of a begging bowl--so long as the brethren shall live among the saints in the practice, both in public and in private, of those virtues which are pro-ductive of freedom, and praised by the wise; which are untarnished by the desire of future life, or by the belief in the efficacy of outward acts; and which are conductive to high and holy thoughts--so long as the brethren shall live among the saints, cherishing, both in public and in private, that noble and saving faith which leads to the compete destruction of the sorrow of him who acts according to it. So long may the brethren be expected not to decline but to prosper--so long as these six conditions shall continue to exist among the brethren, so long as they are instructed in these six conditions, so long may the brethren be expected not to decline, but to prosper.8

4. Unus inter pares (one among equals) democracy is an ideal of the Sangha. Buddha’s words: "Think not that it is he who should lead the brotherhood"9 show that, though the eldest in years of monkshood is venerated by all the other monks, he is not by any means the leader of the whole community in the administrative affairs. He is only one among equals. To conduct an administrative affair, any monk of any number of years of monkshood may be chosen by the community. He is still one among the equals and has to venerate those monks of his community who have been monks for a longer period.

CONCLUSION

What is the best regime? This question was proposed to Jesus by the Pharisees: "Is it right to pay tax to Caesar?" which implies: Is the absolutism of Caesar the right regime? Neither founder, Buddha or Jesus, gave a direct answer, but proposed an ideal instead. "Dhamma will be your absolute leader", said Buddha; "Who is leader, let him serve", said Jesus. Dhammika regime as well as a service regime is not a form of government, but an attitude. Any regime that holds such an attitude, brings peace to the country and welfare to the people.

Nowadays, democracy is held in high esteem; we rightly join in this but should not be enchanted by the mere word "democracy". A Thai proverb warns: "A word as a word is it much important?" Any word can be abused to cheat the people in unclear politics. Experience tell us that "Christian Democracy" is not always the best party; the same would be true of a Buddhist Democratic party if one were ever to exist. If now we prefer to use the word "democracy" for a way of governing the people, let it be practiced with the attitude and spirit of Dhamma and of loving service, as Buddha and Jesus recommended. Buddha’s Rajadhammakatha speaks thus:

Kacchapinanca macchinam

Kukkutinanca dhenunam

Puttaposo yatha toti

Tatha maccesu Rajunam

As turtle and fish spare

As hen and cow nurture

Of their young ones care

Of their human sheep so a pastor.

Philosophy Department

Assumption University

Thailand

NOTES

1. F. Max Muller, ed. Sacred Books of The East (Delhi: Motilal Barnasidass, 1968), vol. XIII, p. 97.

2. Ibid., p. 178.

3. F. Max Muller, ed. N. 43, pp. 169-170.

4. Ibid., n. 42, pp. 36-37.

5. Ibid., p. 38.

6. Ibid., p. 112.

7. Ibid., n. 61, p. 304.

8. Ibid., n. 42, pp. 10-11.

9. Max Muller, Vol. 42, p. 372.

DISCUSSION

Civil society raises the issue of the need for authority in social life. In Confucian cultures authority is exercised by ritual, which in turn has some relation to heavenly authority. Buddhism too agrees upon the need for authority. In the Theravada tradition authority remains in the words and action of the Buddha. Mahayana Buddhism also locates this essentially in the teaching of the Buddha, but allows for greater adaptation to circumstances, provided this continues to aim at the perfection of life.

Buddhism distinguished the monks from those living in the world. The life of the monks was subject to many precepts (217 for men and 358 for women). Those living in the world followed a lesser and varied number of precepts according to their advancement. They found guidance from the monks with regard to their spiritual welfare and in return were to support the minimum needs of the monks.

With regard to the political order Buddhism does not propose any particular regime, but stays where it is welcome and moves on where it is not. For civil society, however, and the quality of its life Buddhism is a main proponent of tolerance. This is the basis of civil life and is the predominant note of the 10 principles Buddha prescribed for kings.
In Thailand the king is, but need not be, Buddhist, as is 95 percent of the population. All religions are supported, but great em-phasis is placed upon tolerance for others by those in the majority and from others by those in the minorities (4 percent Muslim and .05 percent Christian). This tolerance is not merely passive, i.e., waiting for others to become Buddhist, but as did

Buddhism: Thich Nhat Hanh

Buddhism: Thich Nhat Hanh

Thich Nhat Hanh, an exiled Vietnamese monk, is among the world's most respected Buddhist leaders. A monk since age 16, he was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 1967 by the Rev. Martin Luther King for his efforts to bring peace to his divided country. He also helped organize rescue missions into the 1970s for Vietnamese trying to escape political oppression. At 40, he founded Plum Village Monastery in France as a home for monks and nuns and a practice center where each year thousands of lay people, activists and refugees visit. Nhat Hanh has conducted many retreats in Europe and North America for thousands, and has written more than 75 books of prose, poetry, spiritual guidance and prayers. For at least a decade, Nhat Hanh has visited the United States every other year, drawing large multidenominational crowds. His popularity in the United States inspired the mayor of New York City to declare a Day of Reconciliation during a visit in the 1990s. Now in his 70s, Nhat Hanh is coming to America for a series of retreats, including a controversial one this month in Madison, Wisc., aimed at police and others in high-stress public service jobs called "Protecting and Serving without Stress or Fear." In September, he hopes to offer a public talk to members of Congress and a weekend retreat for the elected representatives and their families. Chat with Thich Nhat Hanh about his teachings.
Read the accompanying USA TODAY story




Comment from USATODAY.com Host: We will begin our chat with Thich Nhat Hanh momentarily.

Pawtucket, RI: Good evening: I am overwhelmed with all the sorrow that encompasses our world. What can I do that will really make a difference in the world?

Thich Nhat Hanh: The first thing we have to do is come back to ourselves. We have to recognize that we have to take care of ourselves first. It's just like on an airplane when you have to put the oxygen mask on yourself first before you put it on your child. We have to take care of ourselves before we can take care of other people.

St. Clairsville, OH: My father is quite ill right now and consequently I have been spending more time with my mother and brothers and sisters. Everyone is under a lot of stress and are emotional. I try to listen compassionately, but sometimes someone might say something negative about another family member. I do not want to get into an argument, but I do not want to continue to listen to them say unkind things about another person, either. What can you suggest as a skillful means of turning the conversation in a more positive direction? Thank you, dear Thay,for all of your wonderful teachings. Donna

Thich Nhat Hanh: The person should first be able to relax themselves, come back to their breathing and their body, become calm. Then very sincerely ask if the family can sit down together. You can tell the family that you are aware this is a stressful and difficult time, and if we can all do our best to help each other and share the difficulties in a way that is kind. Support each other as brothers and sisters.

Southgate, Michigan: How long should one meditate each day?

Thich Nhat Hanh: In our tradition, it's not a matter of sitting once or twice a day, but trying to be mindful all day long. So we try to be aware of our breathing and our footsteps all day long.

Edinburg, TX: What do I teach my children to prepare them for this world and what should I do to help this world be a better place to live?

Thich Nhat Hanh: We should teach our children how to be calm, and how to be able to be in the present moment. How to come back when they have strong emotions, how to be able to handle their strong emotions, how to be able to come back to breathing exercises or walking mindfully so they realize their emotions are not in control of them, so they can handle their emotions. (As far as the second part of your question is concerned) It comes back to knowing how to take care of yourself, be able to nourish yourself in difficult moments, be able to calm yourself, to be able to practice guidelines that help you be protected from the many difficulties in the world, from the many areas that can cause unhappiness in your life. Some sort of guideline system -- we call it mindfulness training. You need to be a model yourself for your children so they have something to learn from, something to look up to, something to be inspired by. The parents have to set themselves as examples, in the event that good or bad things happen, the parents must stop and look deeply and be calm in order to see the root and the consequence of what happened and act in a beautiful way. If the parents can do that, the children can do that. Look deeply before acting fearfully, or angrily . . . it will help the world to be better. The guideline is mindfulness. There are five guideliness: Being aware that killing causes suffering (I am determined not to kill)and I try to protect life. Second guideline: Be aware that there is a lot of social injustice, but I am determined not to take into my possession things that do not belong to me and practice generosity by sharing my time, my deep listening and material resources for those who are in need. Third guideline: Having seen so many broken families, I am determined to have only a sexual relationship with a long-term committed partner, and I also will protect children from sexual abuse. Fourth guideline: Be aware of unmindful speech which can cause suffering, be determined to speak mindfully, look deeply into the consequences of each of my words and practice listening deeply to others in order to understand them and to appropriately use my words. Fifth guideline: This concerns consumption for the mind and our body. We must be aware that unmindful consumption can cause disease and therefore we must not use intoxicants or drink alcohol, and we must eat and drink mindfully. Concerning the mind, we must be determined not to look at intoxicating books, articles, TV programs -- those that contain violence, craving and fear.

Buffalo, New York: Those of us who believe in world peace watch with dismay as daily acts of vengeance continue to rip at the flimsy fabric of peace which world leaders continue to try to drape over ancient and ongoing hatreds. It seems that every time progress is reported, it is followed by a heinous act, done by those to whom vengeance is the only option. How can we help people to turn away from ancient hatreds and fears, embrace their so-called enemies, and commit themselves to work toghether for the good of all?

Thich Nhat Hanh: People can have a process of peace education where they can learn to transform their ancient hatreds of each other by learning how to look deeply. As a world of nations we have to learn how to see each other as brother and sister nations and not to see each other as separate and something to hate. We have to want to learn about each other and support each other as a world of nations. We have had in Plum Village Isreali and Palistinian retreats. We bring them together and they practice several days of relaxing and mindful walking and breathing, and then they learn to look deeply into their situations and to use kind, gentle, careful speech. Through mindfulness and being nourished by the atmosphere they learn to be able to look deeply into each other and learn the necessity of learning to help each other instead of hating each other. There has been remarkable success with this. People in the beginning they couldn't speak to each other and in the end many, for the first time, felt there was a real hope for peace. The United Nations has the capacity to do this if we are all able to see that we can learn how to care for each other, and that as we care for each other we're really caring for ourselves. Another aspect to pay attention to is the energy of anger and vengeance, so when we get this kind of news from the media, that energy is being transferred and it can come inside of us and we can feel it toward our own administration, and that continues the hatred. We have to be careful, because the way people receive information can allow them to continue their hatred. When we're having conversations with people, with relatives and friends, on a personal level, we should not continue that energy. We can look at how we talk to family and friends about these topics. Then we can look at it on a national and international level.

Milwaukee, Wisconsin: Hello. I was wondering what your view on the total disrespect for our planets environment (deforestation, pollution, endangered species, etc.). It all seems too depressing and overwhelming sometimes.

Thich Nhat Hanh: We have to wake up to the fact that a lot of oil, fame and power cannot really bring happiness. This is something everyone has to wake up to. There are many people who have a lot of these things but they suffer very deeply. We have to wake up to the fact that if we have understanding and compassion it is very easy to relate to others. If we lead a very simple life, happiness is still possible. This is a basic awakening. Parents have to help young people to see this. Only with this kind of awakening will people stop exploiting the planet and using up all the resources that should belong to the next generation. That is why the media, the powerful, it is their duty to contribute to that kind of awakening. In every one of us, there are seeds that if exposed to anger and negative things will grow. We must live our lives so that only the good seeds of compassion and kindness are watered every day. The seeds of craving, anger and despair should not be watered every day. To create a safe environment is very crucial to find peace.

St. Louis Missouri: How can a simple, everyday person live a more peaceful life? What is the main thing to focus on?

Thich Nhat Hanh: He or she should offer himself or herself the kind of environment that can make it safe in light of selective waterings of the seeds. With the support of those who live around you, determine only to go in the direction of peace and brotherhood and not in the direction of cravings. When you are in a safe environment, that's when peace becomes possible. You have to protect yourself first, then your family, then the society. Then the negative energy will not manifest. When a community does this, the good seeds will be watered every day. A person must put oneself in a safe environment where peace becomes possible.

tampa, fl: please tell me if we can ever achieve an end to conflict between human beings. what must take place before this occurs? thanks, Ida

Thich Nhat Hanh: We can only reduce the number of conflicts. First, in our family. That is a big step. Without that you cannot go further. When you have peace within yourself, you can bring peace to another person; when you both have peace you can bring peace to a third person. This is the only way. We have to learn from suffering because suffering can teach us a lot. We ask the person why we suffer so much, and if we look deeply we see the roots of our suffering and then you find out that the other person is not safe or happy. To help the other person to be safe and happy you must help yourself. This is true on an international level as well: If you want your country to be safe, to be happy, you must be sure that you don't do anything to other countries that will make them lose their safety and their happiness. When you help other countries to be safe, to grow, that means you are helping yourself. Safety, peace and happiness are not individual matters. When you take care of the others, you take care of yourself -- that is what we call inter-being. It is like the right hand taking care of the left hand when the left is hurt, and the left taking care of the right when it is hurt. It is the wisdom of nondiscrimination of both hands. That is the foundation of peace and brotherhood.

West Palm Beach, Florida: How do you show a person that you love them?

Thich Nhat Hanh: Based on my experience, you can show a person that you love them if you really understand that person. Understanding means that you know what that person needs, and his or her suffering. Love cannot be possible if you do not understand well what you can do for that person and what are his or her aspirations, as well.

Jacksonville, Florida: I feel an inner need to go on a solo retreat, probably to India. While researching such places on the Internet, it seems that many options are somewhat commercialized. Do you have any advice on the direction I should take to start my journey?

Thich Nhat Hanh: Why do you have to go to India for a solo retreat? Why don't you do it at home? It's less expensive. You might want to look more closely at the idea, that you think you might find something in India or some other place, because you have to be careful with that. It could be right there in your home. To be safe, bring to your solo retreat a few books like "Peace is Every Step," "Creating True Peace," "Be Free Where You Are." I think you should know before you start you need a daily schedule. In the morning when you wake up what will you do? Then after that, what will you do? It is helpful to consult a teacher of meditation before you start your solo retreat. Sitting meditation, walking meditation, preparing your breakfast in silence, all these things you have to prepare for. How much should you eat during the solo retreat? Practice a lot of breathing, going back to the present moment -- don't think too much in the future or in the past -- transformation and healing is in the here and the now. The best place for your retreat could be Plum Village (in France), but you won't be alone there! When you are mindful and aware of your steps and your breathing, you're taking a true solo retreat. You can do that around other people, and it's very healing and transforming and nourishing.

Herndon, Virginia: For those of us who have been observing the politics in the US and countries all over the world - one can but see few examples of altruism and see mostly greed and power among most policiticians. This is really troubling especially since the government plays such an important role in our lives and most people do not realize it. How can I as an ordinary citizen help to change this in a spiritual way?

Thich Nhat Hanh: AS individuals and as a country we ahve to learn to help our elected officials and we have to look deeply to see what makes a congressman able to fulfill their deepest aspiration -- serving the public -- and what in our society pulls them away from that, just as it pulls us away. As individuals if we see what helps us a great deal, because we understand our culture, then in turn we can be of great kindness and compassion we can be of help to our congressmen to help them see and fulfill their true aspirations. To help our congressmen doesn't mean we write a protest letter. First we try to appreciate him or her, then we express the direction we think the country should go, and then we try to show him why he should move in that direction. You show him that you appreciate him, even if you did not vote for him. I will lead a retreat for congressmen on Sept. 10 on Capitol Hill in the Library of Congress at 7 p.m., and then a weekend retreat Sept. 12-13 for members of congress and their families. Please email your congressman and encourage them to attend this retreat. You may have the insight into what their country can do, so you have to share your light with other citizens. That is why seeking to bring about a collective awakening is crucial. You may lead people in the field of education, or journalism, to provoke that kind of collective awakening. Your congressmen will only listen to you when you are great in numbers. If you have the energy of faith and if you are supported by a number of friends with the same kind of insight you can move forward with this collective awakening. Only that can change out situation. Everyone is capable of contributing to that awakening, and if every day you can do something in that direction you will not be victims of despair.

portland, or: Do you think whether the war the U.S. launched against Iraq last March a legitimate one?

Thich Nhat Hanh: The United States started the war with the conviction that there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, but they have not found them, so the war is not justified in the opinion of the world. Now America will have to occupy Iraq for a long time. I believed that President Bush and his administration have an awakening Buddha nature in them, and they should help watering that seed of awakening, that seed in our president. We should ask him and his administration to courageously take action in order to bring back authority and prestige to America as a great nation. And President Bush can say "We are sorry, we had a wrong perception about Iraq. There are no weapons of mass destruction. But we did remove a dictator and that is not bad. But now we want to hand the situation over to the United Nations and we will contribute our best to the UN to see that Iraq has a good government of duly elected people." That would be a very wonderful way for America to stop being caught in the situation. There are superpowers in the world, and they should be urged to redesign the UN into a real peacekeeping organization, and America can do a lot to fulfill that dream of a lot of us, so the UN becomes a real body of keeping peace. Then when the UN becomes a solid body of nations, then they can intervene very well in situations like the Middle East. In the family, every time two brothers fight each other, the other members of the family come and stop the fighting and bring about reconciliation. This should have been done in the Middle East by the community of all nations. But we have allowed this to go on for a long time. They have expected America to solve the problem by itself without the support of other nations. But America can strengthen the chance of peace in the world by allowing other nations to build the UN into a real peace organization. America is a mighty nation and can help to realize that dream for all of us -- a powerful UN could solve the problems in the Middle East in a few months.

Comment from Thich Nhat Hanh: I feel that the answer to the last question is very important. It can save the world. All the nations in the world would applaud that act. The United States can withdraw with prestige. It could save a lot of lives.

Comment from USATODAY.com Host: That's all the time we have for tonight. We had many questions we did not have time to answer, unfortunately, but perhaps we can persuade Thich Nhat Hanh to return to USATODAY.com again and try to answer more of your questions. Thank you for participating

The Zen Wisdom of Jesus and Buddha

Since the age of twenty-one, I have been attracted to the philosophies and faiths of Asia, especially Buddhism. Which is pretty strange considering I grew up on a small farm in Georgia, was saved at 13 and baptized in the Baptist Church. Of course Jesus was my role model. Then came the turmoil of the 60s. By 20 I no longer thought Jesus was God. By 1968 after the assassinations of ML King and Robert Kennedy I was in dispair and didn’t believe in anything, especially the “God” that Baptists taught. But soon I found answers–in what may seem far from my childhood faith --in Zen Buddhism. And I woke up one morning to realize that I was connected in total oneness to a Timeless and Infinite Universe. Now I don’t deny Jesus’ divinity. I don’t deny anyone’s divinity. Jesus is a wonderful model of what humans can be. And so is Buddha. I was raised on Jesus. I had to search for Buddha. And what I found was they were two masters with one message. I believe the teachings of Buddha and Jesus offer a way to end human suffering. But I believe Jesus and Buddha were trying to heal human pain in this life, not just the next life. Jesus’ remedy was called the Kingdom of Heaven and Buddha’s tonic was called Nirvana. Of course we Unitarian Universalists are not much interested in getting people into heaven, but we are interested in getting heaven into people. I think that is the message of Jesus and Buddha. Both Jesus and Buddha taught the inner person is more important than outer image or ritual. Both proclaimed that love and compassion for others were the highest ideals. And not just to love your friends. That what every society expects. Good Zen masters have to think outside the box.



Jesus said. “You have heard it said, love your neighbor. But I tell you, love your enemies, be good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, and pray for those who hurt you.” “Love one another as I have loved you.”

Buddha said, ”See yourself in others, who then can you hurt.” “Hate never overcomes hate. Only love overcomes hate. Cultivate boundless love toward all beings.”

There is evidence that the teachings of Buddha, who probably was born around 560 BC influenced Jesus’ teachings. By 30 AD Buddhism had already gone east, met the Taoism of China and become Zen. Buddhist monks seemed to have wandered as far west as Alexandria Egypt by the time of Jesus. These mendicants may have influenced a whole wave of wandering philosophers including the the Cynics, the Stoics, as well as that little band around Jesus that later split into the Gnostics and the orthodox church.

Of course Christianity as we know it is strongly influenced by Paul who was steeped in ancient mystery religions and Greek philosophy. Some people even think Jesus never lived but was a vision of Paul’s as a kind of western Buddha ; it was later orthodox Christians who twisted the original teaching about Jesus into a powerful way to maintain control over the Roman Empire. I do think the original followers of Jesus were probable the Gnostics, for they taught that Jesus’s resurrection was not literal but symbolized enlightenment. Buddha was actually canonized in the early church as Saint Barlaam. So Zen wisdom can be attributed to both Jesus and Buddha. Zen is everyday spirituality; It is living in the moment. It is being mindful, awake to Reality. Zen is religion stripped of false ritual and pretense. Enlightenment is seeing that the natural order of things is often just the opposite of what we normally think. Thus Zen wisdom is often called“crazy wisdom.” Conventional wisdom is if we follow the rules and obey laws and conventions the world will treat us fairly.

Conventional wisdom says you can bargain with God or society. But Jesus and Buddha will have none of that. Jesus always insisted that the “first shall be last.” He was a good Zen Master. Jesus subversively taught that who would save his life (by being proper and moral) will lose it. If you are nice in order to get into heaven then you don’t deserve to get into heaven. And Buddha agrees. He said, “The fool who knows he is a fool is that much wiser.” ”The enlightened one is liberated by not clinging.” In other words you can’t be enlightened by trying to be enlightened. So Jesus and Buddha are my teachers, my Zen masters. That is why I often label myself a Zen Baptist.

I recognize the need to be born again --to be transformed, to have a direct experience of ultimate reality, that was taught by the original Baptists, Quakers Gnostics, even Universalists. Whether independently or interdependently both Jesus and Buddha preached the perennial philosophy which Aldous Huxley said may be found among all religions. He said, “There is only one religion, though there are a hundred versions of it.” The term “Perennial Philosophy” was coined by German philosopher Gottfried Leibnitz to described the ancient wisdom that the appearance of the world of separate things is an illusion-–Instead there is really only one all encompassing Reality.

The perennial philosophy does not insist that there is a God out there or here or anyplace. Rather there is unity underlying everything, similar I believe to what physicist David Bohm called quantum interconnectedness and Emerson called, “The Over-Soul.” The Zen Buddhist Huang Po said, “All Buddhas and all sentient beings are nothing but the One Mind, beside which nothing else exists.”

The medieval Christian monk Meister Eckhart taught, “The eye with which I see God is the same eye with which God sees me.” This teaching of course got him excommunicated.

Both Jesus and Buddha say what all mystics say––and I have felt it too––we are connected to something greater than ourselves and to each other, and we must treat each other accordingly. Despite this message of Jesus and Buddha, they seem like the yin and yang of religious prophets. Jesus is said to be born a peasant, Buddha a prince. Jesus evidently did not know who his father was, claiming the infinite was his “father.” Buddha rejected his father, and proclaimed the infinite a void.

Jesus of Nazareth is portrayed as an intuitive, emotional, loving, healing man; Siddhartha, the Buddha, a rational, thinking solver of the most perplexing of human problems. It has been said that Jesus healed the body, Buddha healed the mind. Jesus was crucified on a tree at the age of 33 for criticizing the ruling elites. Buddha died peacefully at the age of 80 while resting under a tree.

Yet they both taught a way of inner transformation so radical that eventually they were both seen as more than human. For centuries they have served as symbols of the sacred who offered a way of salvation and liberation. For many they are mythic figures who transcend death. (pause) The peasant Jesus became the Christ, the Anointed. The prince Siddhartha became the Buddha, the Awakened.

The religions that later sprang up around them offered escape from this world. But that is to totally misunderstand their message. And neither was interested in being glorified. Buddha said, “A fool wants recognition and a place over other people.” Jesus said, “Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone.” To actually worship Jesus and Buddha is to make a mockery of that message. Instead these two sages called on all to live according to what each called “The Way.” Both taught inner change and inner peace comes from that inner awareness of unity— which means all dualisms disappear: Male, female, good and evil, God and self. No wonder Jesus said, “The Father and I are one. and “you are all Gods” No wonder Buddha said, “More than all the joys of heaven is entering into the One Stream.”

Those who have been baptized in such waters are said to be enlightened, to be awake, to be reborn, to be in heaven. And that creates a different outlook from our conventional wisdom. Of this new way of seeing— Buddha said to his followers, “You are the lamp to lighten the way.“ Jesus told his disciples, “You are the light of the world.”

Yet in spite of the light they preached, both Jesus and Buddha lived in dark times. The Graeco-Roman world had overpowered the peasant society of Jesus. The Romans ruthlessly ruled Judea, Samaria and Galilee. Siddhartha was born into a society in which his people, the Indo-Aryans had conquered the dark-skinned natives of the Indian subcontinent and imposed a caste system. With the inequities of such cultures there arises the recognition that something is broken in the unity of the world. Jesus and Buddha were looking for a way to mend that broken condition. Jesus challenged the priestly caste of Judea which had attached itself to Roman might. Those priest had become that era’s religious and political fundamentalists. Of course Jesus satirized them in Zen-like parables. Instead of “What is the sound of one hand clapping” he said—”The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.”

Jesus expanded on the ideas of the Hebrew prophets who came before him—the Amoses and Isaiahs, who challenged the complacent, saying God demanded justice not sacrifice—that empty ritual was no substitute for inner change. “Unless you humble yourself and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of Heaven.” (pause)

Siddhartha also criticized the ritualized Brahmanism of his day. With cool logic he proclaimed sacrifice and the caste system worthless. For they did nothing to alleviate human suffering. All still face disease, decay and death. And no amount of fiery rites could stop that. Once Siddhartha saw this problem, his mind would not let go of it until he solved it. Leaving his father’s palace, his beautiful wife and son, Siddhartha gave away his riches and power. He followed forest dwellers and meditating monks. He fasted, he held his breath, he wrestled with the problem.

Siddhartha could find in the many gods of his faith only empty symbols. He abandoned rules and rituals. He sought the ultimate truth of enlightenment. And after years of meditation, one day sitting under a tree he woke up, and became the Buddha. His solution, “All deeds are led by the mind. If one acts with serene mind happiness follows. There is an end to suffering by letting go and rejecting craving.”

Both sages had dropped out of the conventional roles of society at about the age of thirty and retreated to the wilderness to get in touch with their higher selves and both returned to the world to proclaim this new Way of seeing. Neither Way was an easy path for the followers they attracted. For both preached the death of the ego. Jesus told his followers to die to their old selves and be “born again” and Buddha said to awake one must destroy the rafters of the house called “self”. Yet neither was strictly an ascetic. Each tried a middle way between the extremes of wealth and poverty, so of course they displeased almost everybody: Jesus’ critics said “The son of man came eating and drinking and you say, Look at the glutton and drunkard— a friend of tax collectors and sinners!”

When Buddha quit his long fast to find the Middle Way some of his followers abandoned him, saying: “Friends here comes the recluse Gautama who lives luxuriously, who gave up his striving and reverted to luxury.”

Both Jesus and Buddha found their new way of seeing reality made them challenge the hypocrisy around them. The following quotes from Marcus Borg from his book, “Jesus and Buddha, The Parallel Sayings,” illustrate my point. The Buddha said “Just as a line of blind men go by, holding on to each other, and the first one sees nothing, the middle one sees nothing, and the last one sees nothing—so it is with the talk of priests.”

“If a blind person leads another blind person,” said Jesus to the priests, “both of them will fall into a hole.” Said Jesus, “Blessed are those with a pure heart, they will see God.” Buddha said “The way is not in the sky, the way is in the heart.” Jesus also said, “Out of the heart come evil intentions, murder, theft, false witness, slander. These are what defile a person, but to eat with unwashed hands does not defile.

Buddha said “One does not become pure by washing, as do the multitudes in this world. Who casts way every attachment, great and small, that one is a true brahmin.“ These sages weren’t about setting up rules of behavior but about compassion: They wanted humans to let love take them beyond the letter of the law.

Said Jesus,”If someone slaps you on the right cheek turn the other cheek as well. If someone takes your coat, give him your shirt and pants as well.”

Buddha said, “If anyone should strike you with the hand, with a stick or with a knife, you should abandon all desires and say no bad words.”

“Do not judge and you will not be judged,” said Jesus. “Don’t go looking for the splinter in your brother’s eye and not notice the plank in your own eye,”

Buddha said, “How easy its to see your brother’s faults, how hard to see your own.”

So these masters taught a way of being that turns social status upside down, because we are all connected, all children of the cosmos. Both preached nonattachment and freedom from material worries. Both these homeless itinerant preachers depended on others to feed them, yet they are seen as holy figures (even by those who still pray to them for success). Jesus said, “Foxes have dens, and birds have nests, but the son of man has nowhere to lay his head.” Buddha said “Live joyfully on the edge of the forest without desire, without possessions.”

As I said, Zen is about living in the moment with mindfulness. Jesus said, “Don’t worry about life, wondering what you will eat or drink or what you will wear. Surely life is more than food and the clothes you wear. Look at the birds. They do not sow, they do not reap, they do not store food in barns. Yet the heavenly father feeds them. Aren’t you more valuable than birds.” Buddha said, “Like a bird, one rises on the air and flies an invisible course. One wishes for nothing. One’s food is knowledge. One lives on emptiness, One has brokenfree.” They were concerned that over attachment to wealth and power can be an impediment to a spiritual life, a life devoted to the nourishment of others as well as self.

Jesus told one young man, “If you wish to be perfect go sell your possessions, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven.” Buddha said, “The fool laughs at generosity. The miser cannot enter paradise, but the master finds joy in giving and happiness is the reward.”

Both Buddha and Jesus were not only critics of social status but of the family values of their times. Treating your family well was not enough. You must of course see everyone as your family.

A would-be follower of Jesus said, “Let me go first and bury my father,” Jesus responded with the very Zen-like “Leave the dead to bury the dead.” When told that his mother and brothers were outside waiting for him Jesus said, “Who are my mother and my brothers? Whoever does the will of God is my brother and my sister and my mother.” Mark 2.2 relates that after Jesus began his ministry, “his relatives set out to size him convinced he was out of his mind.”

The Buddha’s father gave orders that he was to be locked in his palace and never see the suffering of the outside world, lest he be tempted to renunciation. No wonder Buddha said, “As the rivers flowing to the ocean lose their names, so do my followers lose there former names and become children of the Buddha.”

Jesus described God as his “Abba” - or Father (and according to Gnostic sources his Mother, however this “God” is a metaphor for universal mind emanating from the dark void), while Buddhists speak not of God as a separate personal being, but of “Sunyata”, a vast womb-like emptiness, which cannot be described. And attaining Nirvana causes one to become free from craving, free from violence, free from competitiveness. Buddha said, “There is an unborn, an unoriginated, an uncompounded, were there not, there would be no escape from the world of the born, the originated, and the compounded.”

Jesus proclaimed the Kingdom of Heaven, but Heaven is not a place but a state of mind. In the long-lost Gnostic Gospel of Thomas, Jesus proclaims, “The Realm of God is already spread on the earth, but people do not realize it. The realm is inside you and outside you. When you know yourselves, then you will be known, and will understand that you are children of the Eternal.” Buddha said, “Look within yourself and be still. Free yourself from fear and attachments. Know the sweet joy of the way.”

Of course Jesus’ Zen view of God seems to be quite different from those who say God answers all prayers and brings prosperity to those who follow him. As a matter of fact praying for these things has no effect. He said, “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be children of your Heavenly father, for he makes the sun rise on the evil and on the good and sends rain to the honest and to the dishonest.”

And the teachings of the Buddha are in agreement, “That great cloud rains down on all whether their nature is superior or inferior. The light of the sun and of the moon illuminates the whole world.” I’m not sure that Jesus and Buddha expected their teachings to change the world immediately. They were trying to plant some seeds. When asked, “What is the Kingdom of Heaven like?” Jesus said, “What can I compare it to? It is like a insignificant mustard seed which a person planted in the garden. It grew and became a large tree and the birds made nests in its branches.” Jesus also compared the Kingdom to yeast and a wedding. So entering this Kingdom, the Realm of God is just a beginning, not an end in itself. As Buddha said, “Do not underestimate your virtues or say they are nothing. As a bowl fills with water drop by drop so a Wise One is filled with virtue little by little.”

The Way of Buddha and Jesus challenges the modern materialistic world view that the universe is utterly indifferent to us. I agree with them that we are more than an accident of matter and energy. We are part of the unity. To Jesus, that unity is symbolized as a parent full of love. Thus we are urged to love one another with a pure heart.

To the Buddhist, the metaphor for unity is called the Net of Indra--a vast interdependent web. Suffering is caused when we cling to the illusion that we are separate from all other beings. Thus we must treat each other with love. And cultivate a pure heart and mind. Heaven or nirvana comes when we experience that we are part of this grand unity, the true source of reality. Then we can all become lamps, Buddhas or Christs.

Said Jesus: “If you bring forth what is within you, what you have will save you.”

And Buddha says “All things arise and pass away. But the awakened awake forever.”So be it, Shalom, Shanti

Which Way is the Way?

I can’t believe I’m sitting here. I‘ve never sat in this seat, and I haven’t been here in a long, long time. To be here today, particularly at this time in my life, is very touching to me. I want to thank you all for your practice and your big lives and I especially thank Cal for inviting me and to Sekijun, my sister, for her dedication and also her kindness and encouragement. And I most especially thank Katagiri roshi whose practice inspired me to continue to find the way. I also thank my preceptor, Dosho Port sensei, who continues to help me touch the truth.I am returning to the world. I’ve been gone for three months. On Easter I came back from a three month retreat, a solo silent meditation intensive in a cabin about 20 miles north of St. Croix Falls. I would have liked to go to a monastery, but I have this problem with incense—it’s a very serious problem with incense, so there wasn’t anywhere I could go. I couldn’t figure out where I could go, so I went by myself instead. I’m in a transition from that to I don’t know what, to the rest of my life. I will say that the retreat time was very challenging and transformative and I learned so much, and I’m so grateful that I had the opportunity to do that. I’m so grateful to have this opportunity to be with you and share what I can, a little bit of the fruit of deep practice. It’s pretty hard for us to get away like that and take that time to do that. Also I was making jokes, imagining giving a talk while I was there. You know when you see a trick on TV, and they say, “Don’t try this at home”? [laughter] I was imagining saying, “Please, this is for professionals. Don’t try this at home!” Here is a poem by Hongshi Zenji, a Chinese Zen ancestor, which I recited every morning as part of my personal service when I was on retreat. It is “The Heart of Zazen.”Essential function of all the Buddhas,Functioning essence of all the ancestors,It knows without touching things.It illumines without facing objects.Knowing without touching things, its knowledge is inherently subtle.Illumining without facing objects, its illumination is inherently mysterious.Its knowledge inherently subtle, it is ever without discriminatory thought.Its illumination inherently mysterious, it is ever without a hairsbreadth of sign.Its illumination comprehends without grasping.The water is clear, right through to the bottom.A fish goes lazily along.The sky is vast, without horizon.A bird flies far, far away.I think I sang some of it. I sing a lot. I would sing it to myself. Do you get it? [laughter] It’s really amazing that he could write something that is exactly the heart of practice, the truth. So I’m going to talk about this and I’m going to talk about Layman Pang, a little koan story from Layman Pang, and I’ll tell you who he is in a minute.What is the work of the way? What is that? “The water is clear, right through to the bottom. . . . The sky is vast, without horizon.” Which way do we go to find the way? Which way? What motivates us to take it up, to take up the question? And what do we find on the path as we go? When we take up our travelling stick and we begin our journey, what do we ask? What is this beauty? What is this pain? What IS this? Who am I and why do I suffer and also why do I cause suffering? What is the meaning of this? Do you ever ask yourself that?When we ask that, we ask the same question the Buddha asked himself, and he jumped over the palace wall and left. You know, when you’re deep in retreat, deep things come from the mind. You don’t know where they’re coming from—a deep place. For me, given my root tradition of being Jewish and the Old Testament is in there somehow, sometimes passages from the Old Testament would arise in my whole being and become illuminated, to my shock and amazement. Sometimes they would come up in Hebrew, and I don’t speak or read Hebrew, so I don’t know how that happened. But one is “Lech L'cha”—“Go forth, leave your father’s house.” Abraham heard in his inmost heart the voice that the Buddha heard. “Leave your father’s house and go to a land which I will show you. Leave the house bounded by the conditions of self-clinging and go to the land flowing with milk and honey.” Isn’t that fantastic? It’s the same. It’s the same question. It’s the same journey.There’s a Zen saying that I found on my wonderful Zen calendar that my friend gave me when I went on retreat. Maybe you have this one, you know, where you tear off the days? “All things flow freely as a fish swims in water.” Does it feel like that? [laughter] How deep do we have to do to see that? Pretty deep.This poem by Hongzhi Zenji tells what that is, that flowing, this ordinary, non-ordinary heart. This is a mystical practice we’re doing here. There are all kinds of practical aspects, but it is about illuminating our existence, about quenching the thirst, about answering the question that has no answer.I want to say that this practice very ordinary people can do, like me, like you, and when we do we can enter the realm of Rumi and the Christian mystics and the psalms and Moses and all of them—we can do it. But it requires the utmost of us—the utmost discipline, and the utmost compassion, and the utmost effort, and the utmost persistence. So as our practice refines itself and us, we see what is required as we go. Thank goodness we don’t have to figure it all out—in the next moment, just breathe. Sometimes for me, I ask, “WHAT? You want me to do WHAT? No, no, no, no, no. Usually I say no, no, no and that’s my way of saying yes, yes, yes, But first I have to say no, no. It’s too big. It’s too much. I’m too scared. Don, my husband, is sitting right there. He knows, first I say no, but he waits, [laughter] because he knows it’s just my way. Just give me one more minute!The Buddha said as his last words—sometimes they say one thing in one place and another thing in another place about his last words—one of his last words was, “Work out your salvation with diligence.” He also said, “Be a lamp unto yourself.” Wow.Something pokes us, motivates us, calls us, and we step out into the unknown, out of our habitual comfort or out of our habitual pain. Clarifying our own questions puts us in the way of the Way, doesn’t it? We get close, and we get closer. This is in the way of being intimate, frighteningly, brilliantly close to who we are, beyond apprehensions, which is just what this poem is pointing to. When I took jukai in 1980 with Katagiri roshi, Byakuren Judith was sitting right next to me, right over there. Suddenly the question of the suffering of all living beings was recognized as my personal, inmost quest, right in the middle of the ceremony. I have to say, I had no idea what I was getting into. Probably it was a good thing. I have spent many, many years enter this question of the suffering of all living beings. Save all living beings? Who? What? How? What is that?While I was on retreat, I had to chop wood every day. Every day, like it or not, because I was in a cabin, and sometimes I was very tired. I sat six hours a day, but sometimes when I was chopping wood a lot happened. In March one day I was chopping wood and I started sobbing. I cried every single day, many times, so I just said well, now what’s going on? All of a sudden—this is so wild—out of my deep mind this question came up: Why couldn’t Moses cross into the promised land? WHY? I was almost laughing while I was crying. Oh, my God. [laughter] Where is this coming from? But it had me by the throat, as they say, so I ran into my cabin, plugged in my little e-mail thing, e-mailed my friend who’s in rabbinical school and also Clark Strand, who’s the Bible koan guy, and I said, “I have to know! Tell me! What do you know?” My friend e-mailed me back Talmudic commentaries and said, “Good luck. Nobody knows the answer to that question.” [laughter] Clark Strand e-mailed me back a clarification of the question. I really wanted to punch him. But, it was helpful. He said, “It has nothing to do with Moses’ character or his actions. So he clarified the question. He said, “It’s a universal question with a universal answer and the question is ‘Why couldn’t SHE cross?’”Who is the question about? It really was amazing because I couldn’t put it down. I was in the bathtub, throwing water around the little bathroom. “I don’t understand! I need to know!” I knew what was happening, but still. And then in bed, crying, crying, “Why? Why? He was an enlightened being! Why couldn’t he cross?”We say cross all the time—cross the river. The river came up a lot. There was a river right outside my door, and images of the river come up in our practice, crossing over, crossing over, cross to the other shore. I burned with that question. I burned and it started to burn inside and reveal itself. That’s what I mean, getting close to your question, intimate, so intimate that there’s no you asking the question. Then maybe we can fall down the rabbit hole of realization.This is the burning, so let’s just take a minute to breathe, and look inside, and see if there’s a question lurking around in there. Just breathe into your own heart and your own gut. It’s OK if it’s just a big nothing. We’re just on the way. This is the way. Even if what you’re hearing is “I don’t know,” that’s great. On our journey, we try to get a sense of how to choose our direction, and who should be our companion, and by what standards we acknowledge our process. We all know that there’s no easy answer, and there’s no one answer, and things are changing all the time. Let’s look at one of these stories from Layman Pang. Do you know Layman Pang? Layman Pang was born around 740 CE in Jiang [?] Province in China. His name means “Lofty Interior.” He died on August 3rd, 808 according to this book. At this time in China there as a great flowering of Ch’an, or Zen. He met incredible teachers. His father was the prefect of Hangyeng and Pang lived there and he married, he had a son and a daughter. His daughter, with whom he was very close, was named Ling Zhao, which means “Spirit Shining.” They spent a lot of time together, wandering around, selling bamboo utensils. When he became middle aged, he gave his house to be used as a temple, and sank his money and his possessions in the river, which blew people’s minds because they still talk about it. Because it was also a very difficult time, and people were hungry, but he didn’t give everything away because he didn’t want people to be confused by having possessions. He didn’t want to hurt anyone’s chance of getting in the way of the way, so he put them in the river as a compassionate action.His son became a farmer and supported Mrs. Pang, and Pang and Ling Zhao wandered around and sold implements. In 785 he traveled to Zen master Shi Tou, “Cloud Cliff Cloudy Light,” and was enlightened by him immediately. They had one of those dialogues, you know? I’m dying to have one of these. [laughter] You ask one question, the teacher goes like this, or coughs, or says something, and crack! That’s it! Anyway, he had one of those, and he stayed with that guy for a year, and then he went to another incredible teacher, Ma Tsu, often called Master Ma. With Master Ma Layman Pang experienced great, complete, unsurpassed enlightenment, and stayed there for two years and received transmission—permission to teach—from Ma Tsu. Shi Tou and Ma Tsu were seven generations after Bodhidharma, considered the first great Zen ancestor, bringing Ch’an from India to China.Then he traveled around and met with monks and they liked to see who had the deepest realization, so they would have these little contests and talk to each other, and that’s how they had fun. He wrote a lot of verses to set down his understanding too. And then he went, toward the end of his life, back to a cave near Xianyan [?] with his daughter, and I just want to mention that he had a friend, the prefect Yu Chi, [?] who set down all of his verses in a collection. Also, if you ever want to read about Yu Chi, he had a kind of a wild life and conversion experience that’s quite interesting.Then there’s a story that when Layman Pang was ready to die, he got all ready, he took a bath, and he was going to sit on his cushion and die sitting. His daughter said, “Father! Come and look! I think the eclipse is happening.” He went to the door of the cave and looked, and then his daughter jumped on his seat and died first. He and his daughter had this sort of friendly, loving dharma competition thing going their whole life. [laughter] So she won. He thought that was great, by the way. Then, a week later, he died. Layman Pang defies categories, which pleases me tremendously. He had no ambition, he was a lay practitioner who lived like a monk, yet he declined to become a monk. He did not give lectures or train disciples. He loved the Vimalakirti Sutra, and I just want to say, I spent so many years on Wednesday nights in this room, listening to Hojo-san discuss the Vimalakirti Sutra. I didn’t understand one thing he said, [laughter] but I was here every Wednesday and now I can study it. Wait, I do remember one thing—that there were like 500,000 bodhisattvas in a 10 by 10 room with Vimalakirti, and Vimalakirti pretended to be sick to get them all to come so he could argue with them about whose understanding was deeper, and he always won, by the way. That I do remember.Vimalakirti, just like Layman Pang, could pursue many activities forbidden to monks without it affecting him, and yet be bested all the monks and all the bodhisattvas too in his discussions. When I read you this little short, short story, which you probably have heard, maybe, see for yourself who us this story about? Who does it describe? And what is the point for you, okay?
The layman was sitting in his thatched cottage one day. “Difficult! Difficult! Difficult!” he suddenly exclaimed. “Like trying to scatter ten measures of sesame seed all over a tree.”“Easy! Easy! Easy!” returned Mrs. Pang. “Just like touching your feet to the ground when you get out of bed.”“Neither difficult nor easy!” said Ling Zhao. “On the hundred grass tips, the patriarchs’ meaning.”
“Difficult! Difficult! Difficult!” he suddenly exclaimed. “Like trying to scatter ten measures of sesame seed all over a tree.” Can you imagine? You have sesame seed, trying to get it to stick on a tree. Have you ever had that experience with anything? [laughter] You know? When we practice, sometimes it’s exactly like this, isn’t it? Our concentration is—what is it? It’s nowhere. Nowhere. We don’t know what we’re doing, and sometimes then we react with frustration and self-abnegation and doubt. WE can’t do IT, or something. The joke is that each of the mind states that arises is the gate. Even the aversive mind state is the gate to freedom. It’s not a sign of failure. But, do I see that? Do we see that. Just look inside—what happens then, when it’s just not going the way we thought it ought to, or hoped it would?The habit of clinging to like and dislike and my view and just about everything is so strong that I can miss the boat. Even though I’m holding on to the rail of the boat, I miss the boat. But, in next moment I might catch the boat. Then come back again and again and again. This idea of the joke that every mind state is itself the gateway to freedom--I want to read you what Master Ma thought about this. This is a summation by Tsung-mi, the fifth and last ancestor of the Hua-yen sect. “Our arousing the mind and moving thought, snapping the fingers, moving the eyes, etc., is wholly the activity of Buddha-nature itself, and not the movement of anything else. In a word, the entirety of our wanting something, getting angry at something, or arousing the passion is all Buddha-nature.” That’s a radical view. “Since the Way as it is is mind, we cannot cultivate mind with mind. Since evil is also mind, we cannot cut off mind with mind. Not trying to cut off evil or trying to cultivate good, just letting things follow their own courses and being ourselves is what they call liberation of mind.”That is so profound. It sounds like, “Well, why practice, then? Just be yourself. That’s the liberation of mind.” That’s an interesting question. What does that mean? Being ourselves? Not trying to cut off evil or cultivate good? That seems like, “What about . . ?” In the midst of some strong aversive mind state lately that I’ve experienced, one thing I’ve been doing is dedicating whatever is happening to the liberation of all beings, right in the middle of these strong experiences. What happens then is quite astonishing. It really becomes a liberating gate. The practicing, like training for a marathon, is to be able to stay with, stay with, not control, not even understand, but stay with, deeper and deeper into the question. Sometimes we forget our question. What am I doing in sesshin? Why am I here? What am I doing here? Or we lose the energy of it. We forget what we’re doing, and sometimes we enter the dry desert where there’s very little joy and it all feels very rote and dry, just going through the motions. Difficult, difficult, difficult. We all know this. In the three months I was away, all of these things happened that I just said, over and over again. Sometimes I was just able to assert my discipline and begin again. I’m a pretty disciplined person, and I could just take it up. Sometimes I would read something from the Flower Ornament Sutra, which is just gorgeous beyond gorgeous, and it would inspire me. Or sometimes I would take a walk or have a cup of tea or write in my journal, and sometimes I just cried. Sometimes I called my kalyana mitra, my spiritual friend, who had agreed to be my support person while I was gone. Also there was a thing about balance on a long retreat, and I was all alone. I had to kind of have this inner grandmother that would say, “Don’t push now,” or “You have to eat. I don’t care if you don’t want to eat. You will eat.” I couldn’t get so strung out that I couldn’t deal with my survival needs. It was a race, I’ll tell you, but it was very interesting. I had some sense about “All right, where is the balance in this moment? Come back to balance,” which wasn’t about denying what was happening. It was sanity. It didn’t mean I understood what was happening, either. One evening, toward the end of my retreat, I was sitting and I just completely didn’t know what I was doing at all any more. I put my head on the floor and I said, “AAAHHHH! I can’t do this any more! I don’t know what I’m doing!” I carried on for awhile like that. [laughter] You know, it’s great when there’s nobody to blame it on. You’re just there by yourself. Then I think I did walking meditation and then I sat down again. I just went on. Another thing that can happen when we do intensive practice is that there can be a lot of purification experiences. Generally speaking, these might not be so pleasant. The mystics that we know of like Rumi and Hildegard of Bingen—we don’t get to hear what it was really like. We just hear their poetry, which inspires us, but what was their actual physical, mental, emotional vast experience moment to moment? What were their lives like? I don’t think it was so easy. I could tell you stories, but they’re different for everybody, and they’re just a story. It’s a story and it’s passing through a particular territory. I’m so well trained—Hojo-san said, “Phenomena is not enlightenment. Phenomena is not enlightenment. Phenomena is not enlightenment.” There were a lot of phenomena, which is what happens when we’re burning karma for all living beings. What is happening? Sometimes I thought, “Where is this coming from? I’m just this sort of ordinary person, I haven’t been in a war, I haven’t murdered anyone.” But it’s for everyone, and we take it up. It’s probably too late for all of you right now. When we take it up, we take it up for all beings, and that’s a lot of work, but also without being for all beings, I wouldn’t have enough energy to do what it is myself. It inspires me.I want to say that it’s really normal if you do this and this kind of intense stuff happens for you. Please don’t worry. Please have a spiritual friend to connect with, or a teacher, but don’t worry. It’s normal. This is what happens. It’s written about. Joen Snyder O’Neal told me that this Korean nun wrote about her time in hermitage and it was almost exactly my experience. That was very reassuring. It’s very important to open to it all with a deep cultivation of compassion—really important—and also steady equanimity. I have a friend, whom I love, who practices deeply, deeply, deeply, and he is very quiet and smooth, and that’s how he does it. My equanimity doesn’t look like that, but it’s still equanimity. Even though I put my head on the floor and go “AAAHHH! I don’t know what I’m doing,” really that’s my way of staying with it. It’s really equanimous. I’m not quitting. I want to open up the expression of equanimity very wide and this is linked to trust in the practice, and in the lineage, which says that many, many, many beings have walked this way, just like us, just like me, just like this. This is the work, exactly like this, and many, many are doing it right now in many traditions. This very moment, this very work, this is the Way. We’re actually doing it. We’re upholding the Way. It’s not only some ancient Chinese people, wearing outfits like this. It’s you in your life for real. This is the work of it, to see clear right through to the bottom. I want to read you a poem that I love so much. It’s called The Law that Marries All Things.1.The cloud is free onlyto go with the wind.The rain is freeonly in falling.The water is free onlyin its gathering together,in its downward courses,in its rising into the air.2.In law is restif you love the law,if you enter, singing, into itas water in its descent.3.Or song is truest law,and you must enter singing;it has no other entrance.It is the great chorusof parts. The only outlawryis in division.4.Whatever is singingis found, awaiting the returnof whatever is lost.5.Meet us in the airover the water,sing the swallows.Meet me, meet me,the redbird sings,here here here here.That’s by Wendell Berry. It’s the truth.So then Mrs. Pang says, “Easy! Easy! Easy! Just like touching your feet to the ground.” Just chop wood, just this step, just take the compost over to the teepee frame and dump it, just wander lonely as a cloud on the frozen marshes where I was. Nothing to do or say or know or figure, not happy, not unhappy. I had a quote up on my sink from George Carlin, the comedian: “Always do the next thing.” Oh yeah—the next thing, breathing.In sesshin we don’t have to know what the next thing is. Isn’t that great? The bell rings and we do the next thing. It just rises up and we are met. Hojo-san used to say, “Just take one step, and very naturally the next step will arise.” But do you forget that sometimes? When things are flowing or opening I like it, and when they are painful or scary I notice dislike. That’s human. That’s just human. This like and dislike fool me, which is the good moment? Which is not good moment? How do I discern? Should I discern? It’s exhausting, isn’t it? Dogen Zenji says in the Fukanzazengi, “If the least like or dislike arises, the mind is lost in confusion.” I sort of understand what he means now. For me, Mr. and Mrs. Pang’s speech shows me this is how it is. This is my own goings-on they’re talking about. This is real! It’s really simple. It’s really, really like this, and they point to my tendency to hold to a concept of what practice should be like. Do you have an idea about what should be happening? Here’s a quote from Art and Fear, a book by Bayles and Orland: “Uncertainty is the essential, inevitable and all-pervasive companion to your desire to make art”--realize the Way—“and tolerance for uncertainty is a prerequisite to succeeding.” This work of navigating difficult and easy--that’s the work. That’s what we do. Water clear all the way to the bottom, vast sky transparent throughout, and then who is the one who wants to know? Who wants to know? Who is the one who wants to know how it’s going? Who is that one? Bring me the rhinoceros fan. That’s from a koan. It just came up right now. I want to encourage us to say that the compassion and equanimity that it takes to do this work is enormous. It is. It’s enormous and ongoing, and it means having a very large view and a wide container for everything that’s happening, the changing states of body and mind and bringing all the phenomena back to the center. Turn the light around, right here, right now, giving everything that arises the opportunity to reveal itself, to reveal its Buddha-nature to us. Its true nature is unfixed and it gives us the opportunity to see and experience the suffering when we fix, when we cling. Really see that very clearly, returning again and again and again and again and again and again, endlessly, endlessly, endlessly. The center moves from self-concept to freedom. We can do this by our practice. Gradually Hongzhi’s Zazenshin is revealed to us. This is what blew my mind. You mean us? Even us! Ling Zhao says, “Neither difficult nor easy! On the hundred grass tips, the Patriarch’s meaning.” The hundred grass tips means the myriad things and beings, the world of differentiation. The patriarch is Bodhidharma. The marriage of difficult and easy produces the daughter, Ling Zhao. This difficult, easy, right here is a concise and explicit description of my three months in solo practice, right there in that little story—the depth of difficult, the simplicity of easy, and the vastness manifested like a spinning jewel, over and over again. Where does the jewel spin? Where does the jewel of awakening spin? Right here. Nowhere else. “The water is clear right through to the bottom.” To me, this points at the work of seeing through the powerful habits of self-clinging that are set in place by conditioning, by we don’t know, by our karma. This can be very treacherous and courageous work, and it takes enormous compassion to see through it. Seeing through to the bottom, there’s no problem. One of my Vipassana teachers once said, “No self, no problem,” and she was quoting another famous teacher. “Vast sky without horizon” points to the vast mind without hindrance or attachments which allows and fulfills the blowing grass tips, blowing in the wind without obstruction. Who takes up this Way? Where will we realize it and for whom? Here’s a cute quote from this Art and Fear book: “After all, someone has to do your work, and you’re the closest person around.” [laughter] Isn’t that wonderful?

Delivered 28 April, 2002 at Minnesota Zen Meditation Center

Buddhist-Christian Dialogue: Promises and Pitfalls
Mark Berkson
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The Center for the Pacific Rim and the University of San Francisco hosted a conference on Buddhist-Christian Dialogue on May 8, 1998. The conference brought together scholars and practitioners of both traditions in an encounter that was not only academically stimulating, but also personally and spiritually enriching for those involved. The participants included both those who have had extensive experience in the dialogue, as well as a number of new voices. The conference both critiqued previous and ongoing efforts at dialogue and also took the dialogue itself in new directions. While Buddhist-Christian dialogue of the past has often focused on comparative doctrine, involving theological issues and comparative beliefs, this conference focused instead on comparative practice, an approach that was quite productive. The practices explored included monasticism, pilgrimage, bowing, meditation, renunciation, social action and--of particular relevance to the overall project of interfaith encounter--the practice of dialogue itself and the methods and virtues necessary to carry it out successfully.
Comparative Practice
In the first of three panels, the following questions were central: Despite the differences that exist in metaphysics, doctrine, and worldview between the traditions, are there certain practices which, because they are shared, point to some deep commonalities between the traditions? What is the relation of belief to both the interpretation of practice and to the experience itself? Can a tradition authentically incorporate the practices of another tradition? What obstacles are involved in the process?
The first speaker, Sister Mary Margaret Funk, executive director of the Monastic Interreligious Dialogue and a Benedictine prioress, gave a paper entitled "Monastic Practice: Views of the Mind." She focused on the theme of renunciation in monastic life and discussed three types of renunciation Benedictine monastics undergo that seem to resonate with the experience of Buddhist monastics. The first is the renunciation of the former way of life, moving away from "the designs of self-willed projects and works that serve to shore up the ego and make one's own personality the main concern in life." Following that comes the renunciation of thoughts about the [End Page 181] former way of life. Sister Funk pointed out that while monastics might physically renounce their former life (e.g., move into a monastery), their thoughts, desires, and passions follow them. The final renunciation is to give up even thoughts, images, and mental constructs of God. She observed: "The monastic practices that deal with the mind seem to be parallel tracks in both spiritualities. The observation of our thoughts, desires, and passions [is] a universal experience."
David Komito, a fellow at the Center for the Pacific Rim and scholar of Tibetan Buddhism, in his talk "Teacher, Reliquary, Circumambulation," discussed the practice of pilgrimage in the Vajrayana Buddhist tradition of Tibet. The questions that framed his talk included, "What would be the virtue of visiting a stupa (reliquary) and what would be the goal of travel?" He pointed out that the answer to such questions would depend on one's philosophical or theological position, explaining that the different schools of Buddhism would often provide different answers. This raised an important point for the conference: We might look at Buddhists undertaking a particular practice, such as pilgrimage, and assume that they're doing the same thing; for example, traveling to a place in a group, walking around that place, and returning home. Yet their experiences might be very different; in fact, pilgrims on the same journey who arrive at a sacred site may even be seeing different things while looking at one and the same object. This is because they might be framing, interpreting, and understanding the experience differently. If this is true among Buddhists, how much more so between Buddhists and Christians?
The panel continued with Father Paul Bernadicou's "Catholic Guides to Buddhist Practice." Father Bernadicou, the chair of the Department of Theology and Religious Studies at USF, discussed a number of Catholics who have had deep encounters with Buddhism and incorporated Buddhist practice and insights into their own spiritual path. Through this historical survey, he both provided a context in which to understand our conference and showed us the possibilities that lie in our own encounter with another tradition when we enter into genuine dialogue rather than looking to proselytize. The thinkers Father Bernadicou discussed include Thomas Merton, Aelred Graham, Heinrich Dumoulin, and Thomas Keating. He concluded with a quote from Merton that sounded a theme echoed throughout the conference: "I think we have reached a stage of (long-overdue) religious maturity at which it may be possible for someone to remain perfectly faithful to a Christian commitment, and yet to learn in depth from, say, a Buddhist or Hindu discipline and experience."
Rev. Heng Sure, director of the Berkeley Buddhist Monastery, gave a talk entitled "Humbling Pride: Buddhist Repentance Bowing." Pointing out the centrality of bowing in Mahayana Buddhism, he discussed both the physical practice of bowing as well as its psychological and spiritual components. The act of bowing, he suggested, is used as an "effective means to reduce pride and penetrate the illusory view of the self." Bowing is a "yoga," a physical practice that alters one's orientation. As one lowers oneself, pride and arrogance are reduced; a layer of "self" is shed with each bow. To give the audience a concrete example, he gave a lively and dramatic account of his nearly three-year "three steps, one bow" pilgrimage in which he made [End Page 182] a full prostration to the ground every three steps for eight hundred miles of California coastline. He also addressed the problems that many westerners have with the practice of bowing, but concluded that Mahayana Buddhists "saw in the practice of bowing not so much worship of idols or surrender of personal autonomy to an external religious authority, but as an effective means to reduce pride and penetrate the illusory view of the self."
The Practice of Dialogue
The second panel looked at issues surrounding the ongoing interreligious dialogue, including problems of interpretation, understanding, and meaning. Durwood Foster, professor emeritus at the Pacific School of Religion, provided a thoughtful overview of the process of dialogue in "Buddhist-Christian Dialogue: Progress and Problems." He started by warning against common pitfalls that beset the dialogue, including "taking the particular for the general" (e.g., Zen for Buddhism, Lutheran for Christian), excluding underrepresented voices, expecting quick results, and "presumption about the other's beliefs." He went on to point out some of the deep commonalities between the two traditions, including "their boundless saving intentionality, addressing our universal plight of self-centeredness and grounded hopefully in the nature of things."
Professor Foster then provided a list of sticking points that create difficulty for the process of mutual understanding. These include the following pairs of concepts (where, depending on interpretation, the Buddhist concept might be incompatible with the Christian and might, in certain ways, be analogous or very similar): emptiness/God, compassion/agape, upaya (skillful means)/truth, and nirvana/kingdom of God.
Father Thomas Hand, director of the meditation program at Mercy Center in Burlingame and a self-described "Zen Christian," provided a specific example of how this reinterpretive enterprise might work in his talk "Christ and Buddha: Facing the Millennium." He began with a quote from Kevin O'Shea that provided the background for his reflections: "A new sense of Godness is arising in our cultural consciousness. Assertions about the femininity of God, and of change in God, are only steps along the way to a massive paradigm change about God, in which we are using our brains differently." Using the text of the Mahayana Heart Sutra (in particular the lines "Form is Emptiness, Emptiness is Form"), Father Hand gave a thought-provoking interpretation of Buddhist notions of emptiness and form and Christian notions of the trinity, exploring how new light can be shed on each through an exploration of the other. Among the patterns that emerge from the encounter of the two traditions is "the coincidence of opposites (which) constitute the unified whole of reality." On the Buddhist side, while emptiness (formlessness) and form are in one sense opposites, they are not entities (beings) but rather are both constituents of being. Formlessness and form are "the ultimate constituents of the unified whole which we call reality." Father Hand then applies this understanding [End Page 183] to the Christian notion of the Trinity. The three of the Trinity must also not be seen as beings, but rather as constituents of Divine Being. Through a careful, complex interpretation, Father Hand connects the Buddhist and Christian understandings, stating that "the One God is Three, who are called Father (formless source), Son (universal form) and Holy Spirit (movement from the formless into form and back)." In the words of Father Hand, "We are nothing but the movement of formless/form manifesting individually."
Taigen Daniel Leighton, a Soto Zen priest and scholar of Buddhism, in a talk entitled "Finding the Heart through Another Tradition: How Buddhism Is Informed by Christianity," showed in a very practical way how Buddhism can benefit from an encounter with Christianity. He focused particularly on the ways that Buddhism can be enriched by incorporating elements of Christian teachings on social justice and Christian devotional practices. Regarding the teachings on social justice, Taigen began by praising Christian social action for its "strong commitment and dedication to social justice and righteousness." The Christian notion that God acts in history, acting to oppose injustice and oppression, energizes Christian approaches to social transformation. While such notions resonate with the movement of "engaged Buddhism" and the spirit of the bodhisattva, the Buddhist approach is framed in terms of nondualism, the idea of karma, an emphasis on ignorance as the primary problem (rather than evil), and a stance of nonjudgment. Taigen shows how we can work toward an effective combination of the Christian intensity of commitment with the Buddhist approach grounded in meditative calm and an understanding of the workings of karma.
Dialogue as Religious Practice
The final panel looked at how engaging in dialogue itself can be seen as a part of one's religious path. One thread that ran through all three talks in this panel is our need to cultivate certain virtues (excellences of character) in order to participate in interfaith encounter most fruitfully and ultimately live well in an increasingly pluralistic nation.
Professor Lee Yearley of Stanford University, in his talk "Buddhist-Christian Dialogue and New Religious Virtues," began by pointing out four ways that adherents of religious traditions have historically looked at those who belong to another tradition: seeing the adherents of the other tradition as "in error," as "less developed," "more developed," and "only apparently different." Each of these positions required the proponents to manifest certain virtues. Professor Yearley, after showing that virtues can be "era specific," showed another possibility by providing an account of a new religious virtue, "spiritual regret," which he argued "concerns the appropriate response to the recognition that extremely varied, legitimate religious ideals exist and that no person can possibly manifest all of them." This virtue, which requires the training of the imagination, combines a deep appreciation and enjoyment of the goods represented in the view of another tradition, along with a sadness [End Page 184] that, due to our facticity and the need to maintain integrity of the self, we will never be able to realize these goods in our own lives. We begin with the understanding that our way of life, our vision of the good, is only one among many.
Professor Jim Fredericks of Loyola Marymount University, further developing the theme of important virtues in a pluralistic age, delivered a paper entitled "Interreligious Friendship as a Theological Virtue." Professor Fredericks began with a theoretical discussion of virtues, explaining that they have a history (are defined in response to changing historical situations) and can function as correctives to human weaknesses. He then gave a specific example with his discussion of the importance of friendship with someone of another religious tradition, exploring the virtues that are required to make friendship possible and those that are cultivated through the relationship. He emphasized the notion of love captured by philia--preferential love that requires a bond of reciprocal affection--rather than agape--unconditional love that is steadfast in the face of rejection. While agape may provide the basis for religious tolerance, philia moves us beyond this to a place where our lives may be transformed by the concrete "other." Befriending someone with a different way of understanding and being in the world can decenter our ego, expand our horizons, and "draw us out of ourselves and into a world significantly different than our presuppositions."
Professor Mark Unno of Carleton College opened his talk, "Buddhist-Christian Dialogue: By Whom and for Whom," by stating, "We may talk about Buddhist ideas and Christian ideas in abstraction, but the real significance is, I believe, in the one-to-one encounter." Professor Unno highlighted how critical reflection on Buddhist self-understanding must be undertaken in light of non-Buddhist discourse (e.g., Christian, feminist, psychotherapeutic) while remaining within a perspective grounded in Buddhist tradition. Both a centeredness within a tradition and an openness to the insights of other ways of thinking are necessary for what Professor Unno calls a "critical synergy" to emerge. Is there a way of becoming responsive to the great diversity of human life in a manner that expands the horizons of Buddhist theology rather than rendering it ineffectual and self-enclosed? Professor Unno pointed out three possible strategies that adherents might take: conservative retreat, progressive reform, and "constructive bricolage," which entails the creative intellectual task of weaving together, from one's social and conceptual inheritances, a pattern that "is provisional and created to meet the needs of the moment." Drawing on the Vimalakirti Sutra, which states that the ultimate truth of emptiness "should be sought in . . . heretical teachings," Unno said, "Where should a Buddhist look for his or her truth? Look for it in Christianity, Islam, feminist discourse . . . in all discourses in the diversity of this world."
The keynote address of the conference, entitled "Religious Transformation: Rituals of Traditional Practice and Contemporary Dialogue," was given by Anne Klein, professor and chair of religious studies at Rice University. Although she acknowledged the importance of "the commonality of experience" of Buddhists and Christians, a theme that had been discussed a number of times throughout the day, Professor Klein began her talk by emphasizing that "this is a profoundly cross-cultural [End Page 185] dialogue" and that what looks the same from the outside (e.g., a particular practice) may involve very difference experiences. She illustrated this by showing the remarkably different ways that Americans and Chinese understood the experience they had on an identical meditation retreat. She explained this by saying: "We bring our cultural selves to whatever practice we do. . . . We all are born out of a certain cultural matrix and whatever we take into ourselves (e.g., in dialogue) participates with that matrix." While never losing sight of these differences, Professor Klein went on to characterize a basic structural characteristic of the religious experience common to each. She said, "Perhaps the archetypal religious move of virtually any practitioner is to open beingness up to a larger system, however that is understood." When one prays or otherwise interacts with a larger system, one is expanding the sense of self. This involves commonality between religious practitioners and is, at the same time, a mark of difference because "we do this in different ways with fundamentally different assumptions about the self that we're bringing to practice in the first place."
The full papers from this conference will be published and distributed by the Center for the Pacific Rim. Inquiries may be directed to the Center.