To view a statue carved by the Busshi—a community of Japanese sculptors who create intricate wooden replicas of Buddhas and bodhisattvas—is to view a style of sculpture that has been virtually unchanged for nearly 1,400 years.

In Yujiro Seki’s documentary Carving the Divine: Buddhist Sculptures of Japan—which is currently available to watch for free as part of Tricycle‘s Film Club series—viewers get an inside look at how the Busshi have passed on their meticulous carving techniques from generation to generation. The film introduces us to Master Koun Seki, who has devoted his life to his craft while also running a school for apprentices and other emerging artists. Watching Master Seki interact with his pupils, viewers quickly learn that the craft requires immense dedication.

Tricycle spoke with Yujiro Seki about this ancient art form and its preservation.

How would you describe the traditions of the Busshi to those who are unfamiliar with this community?
Simply put, Busshi are the practitioners of a 1,400-year-old lineage of Buddhist wood carving that’s at the heart of Japanese Buddhism. The Busshi tradition was most likely introduced by the artisans from the Asian continent, one of whom was Tori Busshi, in the mid-seventh century. At first, the styles of Japanese Buddhist sculptures were very similar to their contemporaries from China and Korea, and the primary material they used was bronze instead of wood. But around the 11th century, because of Japan’s diplomatic break from China and the advent of a legendary Busshi named Jocho, among other factors, Japanese Busshi began producing their own style, called Wayo style.

Even today, the craft of a Busshi differs considerably from Western notions of creativity. Busshi are almost always required to create the exact figures that have been established by generations of predecessors—though Carving the Divine features one great exception to this rule. This rootedness in tradition has led to an almost unbelievable level of technique and stylistic refinement among Busshi. Throughout history, Busshi have worked closely with the government, temples, wealthy patrons, and middle-class laypeople. Undoubtedly, the Busshi tradition is one of the greatest legacies of Japan.

What inspired you to create a film about these carvers?
Making a documentary about Busshi was the last thing I had in mind when I was younger. I am a son of a butsudan (Buddhist altar/furniture) maker. When I was little, I was surrounded by Buddhist objects: furniture, statues, incense, shrines, and so on. My father took me to temples all the time, where he’d meet with clients, so I didn’t think there was anything special about the environment I grew up in. It was just a part of family business.

When I became a young adult, I grew fascinated with the art of cinema and came to the United States to pursue the path of a filmmaker. By being so far away from home, interacting with people from different cultures and seeing different kinds of art, I finally realized that the environment that I grew up in was special, and developed a new appreciation for Buddhist art.

I found that modern Busshi would be the perfect subject to put my heart into. Though many aspects of Japanese culture have been appreciated by the Western world, the Busshi tradition remains virtually unknown outside of Japan. Since my family had been in the Buddhist furniture and statues business for so long, I had access to the Busshi world. I knew my Japanese identity would allow me to make a movie few others could, and believed my American sensibility help me share it effectively with a Western audience.

Do people training to become Busshi spend a lot time studying Buddhist teachings and texts?
I’m sorry to dispel idealized notions of the Buddhist carver, but at least in initially developing one’s craft, having a deep understanding of Buddhism has nothing to do with becoming a successful carver.

In order to complete the “hard training,” as it’s called, having talent, patience, and perseverance are basic prerequisites. But I did find it interesting that, just like learning a language, the younger the apprentice, the faster he or she was generally able to learn about this craft. If you become wrapped up in your ego and refuse to suppress your anger and disobey your master, you make little progress and will quickly be dismissed.  The only way to survive is to diligently listen to your master even if you think they are wrong. So whereas I didn’t see much connection between pupils’ purported passion for Buddhism and their success at carving, the Buddhist values of patience, of overcoming the ego, and the conscious negation of suffering would all be very valuable to a Busshi in training.

How do novices adapt to this lifestyle where they are expected to be so obedient?
The Busshi culture is the epitome of a micro-authoritarian society, where the hierarchical structure is firmly established and there is no place for negotiation. The master holds power almost like that of a god. You must always obey your master—period. Below the masters, there are various degrees of seniors. If you are a novice, you cannot disobey the seniors. If you’re bullied you can talk to your master, but most of the time you must tolerate unreasonable living circumstances. It is common for novices to not even be allowed to work on wood, but constantly be kept busy with menial work for a quite some time.

Yes, the biggest challenge is to suppress your emotions, go with the flow of things, and accept the tradition as it is.

I was struck by one quote by one of the senior sculptors who essentially says that younger artists should try their hardest to attract foreign interest in their work because Japanese people tend to overlook Buddhist art, as they are desensitized to it. Have you found that to be the case?
Though this statement could be a mere opinion of one person, I believe it contains some brutal truth. As Japanese people, we grow up with treasures around us—to the extent that it’s hard to appreciate them because we see them all the time. I am a perfect example of this: I grew up seeing Japanese Buddhist objects more than an average Japanese person because of my family’s business, and I didn’t have any appreciation for them, because while they were amazing, they were also so familiar. It wasn’t until I left Japan, lived abroad, and saw Japan from the outside that I developed a new appreciation for Buddhist art.

Related: Kamakura Craftsmanship

It’s very difficult for Japanese people to see what’s truly in front of them in these sculptures. And the fact there’s still a craftsman occupation called a Busshi—artisans who make and fix these sculptures—never even crosses the mind of most Japanese people today.

Nonetheless, this is an artistic tradition that needs to be more widely appreciated to be kept alive. So I think this statement by the Busshi in the film is not about forgetting Japanese opinion and only seeking the approval from abroad, but leveraging recognition from abroad to remind Japanese people of the treasures that lie in front of them.

Update (1/23/2019): Yujiro Seki has changed the name of his documentary from Carving the Divine: The Way of Būshi, Buddhist Sculptors of Japan to Carving the Divine: Buddhist Sculptors of Japan. He has also switched the English spelling of the Japanese word Būshi in his film to the more commonly used Busshi. (Not to be confused with bushi, another term for samurai.) The article has been updated to reflect these changes.

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This article was originally published on June 1st, 2018.

The post Carving the Buddha—the Same Way—for 1,400 Years appeared first on Tricycle: The Buddhist Review.

When June Millington and her sister, Jean, first began singing and performing music in their early teens, they never thought they would one day become part of one of the leading all-female rock bands of the very masculine 1970s music scene, let alone the the first all-female rock band to release an album with a major American record label.

“It was like being in our own club,” Millington, now 73, told Tricycle. “Nobody could possibly have understood. To say that we were going to play electric guitar and bass was like saying that we were going to the moon.”

A new documentary, Fanny: The Right To Rock, directed by Bobbi Jo Hart, chronicles the band’s rise to fame and recent reunification 50 years after their first album. The film is currently being screened at film festivals across the country and features musicians including Bonnie Raitt, The Go-Go’s, The Runaways, and Todd Rundgren reflecting on the impact Fanny had on the American rock scene. In addition to tracing the band’s roots from the Philippines to their 1970s heyday, Fanny also explores how the Millington sisters and early drummer Brie Darling reunited in 2018 for their latest album Fanny Walked the Earth, which features Millington’s classic guitar riffs and songwriting. For longtime fans, the release of Fanny Walks the Earth and Hart’s documentary are long-overdue tributes that cement Fanny’s role in music history. 

Born in the Philippines to a naval officer father and a Filipina mother, the Millington sisters spent their early childhood immersed in Filipino culture before moving to California in the early 1960s. While attending Catholic school in Manila, Millington heard the guitar for the first time, and her life changed forever. “Right before we moved from Manila to Sacramento I had actually heard a mysterious young girl playing guitar at the convent. I never saw her face, but I heard the sound down the hall and I walked over like I was sleepwalking,” she says. “She never turned around but I watched her for a few minutes before I went back to the classroom.” That was the moment she fell in love with the guitar and knew that music would be part of her life. 

Just a few weeks later, Millington’s mother gifted her a pearl inlaid guitar for her thirteenth birthday. The siblings would hone their love of music and performance on the ship from Manila to San Francisco—a journey that spanned several weeks. “There’s a photo of us, me and Jean, playing two guitars for the officers on the ship,” she recalls. “They must have had us singing at lunchtime or dinner. That was our first audience.” 

Along with keyboardist Nickey Barclay, drummer Alice de Buhr, and percussionist Brie Darling (a fellow Filipina American), the Millington sisters formed Fanny’s original lineup while the musicians were still in their teens. ​​The group made history in 1970 when they released their self-titled debut album, becoming the first all-female band to release an album with a major American label. In spite of the sexist music press of the time, the band quickly became known for strong songwriting and for covers of rock classics like “Hey Bulldog” and “Badge.” A 1971 New York Times review of a live show noted in its headline that Fanny’s immediately apparent star power “pose[d] a challenge to the male ego.”

Coming of age within the dynamic California music scene and mingling with legends like David Bowie, John Lennon, and The Kinks, the band members found themselves in a whirlwind of celebrity friendships and—as the new documentary details—the sex, drugs, and rock and roll lifestyle of the early 1970s. Amazingly, though, even when she was performing at places like the famed West Hollywood club Whisky a Go Go, Millington says she was able to embrace stillness. “I would go in and out of being in my center where it’s really quiet. I’m doing my bit, but I’m reaching into the silence for my bit, whereas it’s all happening outside of me,” says Millington of her life as a performer. “I’d perceive the crash and the boom and the loudness of the music, and then I’d go back into the stillness.” This internal grounding amid all the chaos was a harbinger—or even an unconscious practice—of her future spiritual journey.

Even at the height of Fanny’s fame, Millington began wondering what else was out there. “​​I was a real seeker. I was looking for not just a place to land but a place where I could get knowledge,” she says. “I wanted to start to feel more safe in this world because I definitely felt very unsafe.” That feeling of unease began long before she had ever stepped on stage. Millington recalls being deeply affected by growing up in the ravaged landscape of post-war Philippines. “I had this feeling like ‘I just don’t understand it, but I feel like I’m in danger. I gotta figure something out.’ But that never reached my consciousness in the sense that I knew what I was looking for.”

While Fanny was cranking out albums—five in five years between 1970 and 1974—the singer turned to books and poems. “I am a bookworm, quite frankly, I just swallow books. So it was perfect for me to look in that direction.” 

Millington began researching Tibetan Buddhism while browsing bookshops on tour. “The first book that really hit me like a sledgehammer was Chögyam Trungpa’s Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism,” she says. “It was so profound that I had to go over it again and again. Sometimes I would just read one paragraph, and then rest and meditate on what exactly he was talking about,” Millington continues. “Because I knew nothing, right? I didn’t grow up in that tradition.” 

Although a broader interest in Buddhism and other Eastern traditions was taking off in the 1970s in the US, Millington says she often felt alone when it came to her spiritual interests. “I didn’t know anyone who was getting into Buddhism the way I did, even when it came to just reading about it,” she recalls. “I did hear that some of the Beach Boys were doing a mantra so I went to the Transcendental Meditation Center in Hollywood and got the mantra,” she adds. “I realize now that it was a general mantra, but it did get me started [with meditation.]”

“I don’t think people were embracing things. I think they were embracing the lingo,” Millington continues, “but I don’t think they were getting into it in the way that when you really open your heart, and you step on the path, you can make a lot of changes.”

Indeed, Millington’s spiritual journey often left those around her, including her bandmates, somewhat bewildered. One manager would even tease Millington about her “rabbit food” when she embraced vegetarianism. “The rest of the band kind of put up with me doing yoga every day and my breathing exercises and all that kind of stuff,” she recalls. “That was at a very basic level, but those practices definitely opened me up [to Buddhism].” 

Soon enough, Buddhist themes of compassion and generosity began showing up in Millington’s songwriting, as in the 1972 song “Think of the Children,” which contains the lyrics: 

Are you ready to think of the future?
To think about somebody else?
It may be your children’s children
And not just yourself

There’s a kingdom below the ocean 
And it stretches beyond the sun
There is more than we ever imagined
It’s for everyone

Eventually, she didn’t see much of a division between her songwriting process and her Buddhist practice. “They’re the same,” she says. “To me, music is sort of gliding within light. And Buddhism is, let’s say, floating within light.” 

Millington ended up leaving Fanny in 1973 to explore new avenues, including her spiritual studies. “I needed to settle into a space where there wasn’t a whole lot of movement, so I could do my Buddhist meditations and go into the teachings and learn about the nature of suffering,” she says. She began studying under the late Ruth Denison at her center in Joshua Tree, California, and is still practicing today.

Now a co-founder of the Institute for the Musical Arts in Goshen, Massachusetts, Millington continues to write songs, produce music, and mentor emerging musicians. While she no longer does yoga regularly, she still meditates regularly and practices Buddhism at home. “I remember my teacher Ruth Denison saying, ‘Make the world your cushion. Make the world your meditation,” she says. “So I try to make everything be in that frame of mind, and it has really worked.” 

The post June Millington: Buddhist, Rockstar, and Pioneer  appeared first on Tricycle: The Buddhist Review.

Director Kira Dane did not know much about the Japanese Buddhist concept of mizuko kuyo, a Buddhist ritual meant to pacify the distraught spirits of babies who have been lost, until shortly after she had an abortion a few years ago. A friend mentioned that the ritual might help her process her feelings, so she decided to participate in the ceremony in order to commemorate the loss of her own mizuko, or “water child.” Dane documents her emotional journey in the weeks after discovering she was pregnant and deciding to have an abortion in her new film Mizuko, which was co-directed and produced by her NYU classmate and fellow filmmaker Katelyn Rebelo. Dane, who grew up bilingual thanks to her Japanese mother, narrates her story in both English and Japanese, and the film is interspersed with moving animations designed by Rebelo.

The pair quickly realized the need for an honest and open film. In 2018, before Mizuko began screening at film festivals across the country, they presented their vision for the film to a panel of judges at the Tribeca Film Institute. Afterward, they were approached by several women who “came up to us to say how excited they were about the film,” Dane told Tricycle. “People were eager for a conversation about abortion that lies outside of the pro-life or pro-choice binary.” Rebelo agreed:  “In a lot of ways it validated why we wanted to make this film—so people could release all of their emotions.”

Since completing the film with the Institute’s support, Mizuko has screened at some of the most prominent film festivals across the globe, including SXSW, the Seoul International Women’s Film Festival, and DOC NYC. Tricycle subscribers can also stream the film throughout the month of January as part of Tricycle’s Buddhist Shorts Festival. 

Tricycle had the chance to talk with both Dane and Rebelo about the process of making the film, connecting to modern Buddhist culture, and how they feel about releasing their film at this particular moment in American politics.

Kira, what does mizuko kuyo mean to you?

Kira Dane (KD): Mizuko, meaning “water child,” is a special term in Japanese used to refer to a life that never makes it to being born. The philosophy behind mizuko kuyo comes from the perspective that all life is an endless ebb and flow of water, with no true dividing line drawn between life and death. A life that ends as early as its time in the womb—whether it’s by choice of the parents or by miscarriage—is seen as the smallest of tides pushing back into the sea, before it even formed a wave. 

But that life is still something that can be acknowledged, appreciated, and mourned. People who’ve experienced an abortion can go to a special mizuko kuyo temple, where they’ll erect a small statue of Jizo in a long line of Jizo statues belonging to others who have also experienced abortion or miscarriage.

Abortion is arguably one of the most complicated moral questions that humans have to commonly face, and the answer will never be defined simply or collectively. But mizuko kuyo allows for the space to define this answer for yourself.

Jizo is a Buddhist bodhisattva and protector who is thought to travel between the realms of afterlife, carrying lost spirits in his cloak, and bringing them to where they need to go. But Mizuko Jizo is a special kind of Jizo that looks like a child, and he represents both the lost baby and his/her protector. A mizuko kuyo temple essentially acts as a graveyard for unborn souls. People will often knit red caps and cloaks for their statues to keep Jizo warm on his journey into the afterlife. And they might leave offerings of toys, juice boxes, or pinwheels, which signify the wheel of dharma, or life pushing backwards and forwards in unpredictable gusts of wind. 

Being able to put all of my emotions about the lost child that I never even wanted into a physical object was so important for me. By doing that, I turned this idea of a life that I rejected into something real and tangible, which was indescribably difficult and uncomfortable. Because it was a future I didn’t want, and didn’t believe in, and I had to literally make a face for it, and look it in the eye. But by doing that, I also relieved myself of carrying the weight of that face in deep, hidden parts of myself. 

Abortion is such a complicated experience because, like miscarriage, you’ve lost something that has no concrete image, physical presence, or personality. You’ve made the decision to destroy a part of your own body, something that was both you and not you. It is a special kind of grief. And it is arguably one of the most complicated moral questions that humans have to commonly face, and the answer will never be defined simply or collectively. But the mizuko kuyo ritual allows for the opportunity and the space to define this answer for yourself. To be able to do that privately and in peace, while also feeling a warm connection to strangers through the faces of all their own statues. That’s what felt so special about mizuko kuyo. 

Katelyn, what was it like for you to learn about the mizuko ceremony?

Katelyn Rebelo (KR): Kira was the one to introduce me to this practice, which meant that I went into this project knowing that there was so much that I needed to learn—my knowledge of Buddhism was incredibly limited. We had a long period of research before we started the film. 

In addition, during the making of the film I had to confront beliefs that I hadn’t realized I was holding on to. I was surrounded by Christianity growing up, and I never really questioned the ways it influenced the ways I view life and death. Right now, I don’t associate myself with any religion. I was raised Catholic, and most of the people around me were pro-life. My reaction was to automatically be the opposite of that. But I was pro-choice without ever really digging into what that meant. So this film helped me clarify my views around abortion and religion all at once. 

Kira, I was wondering about your current relationship to Buddhism. Are your Japanese family members Buddhist?

KD: For me, this project has actually been a pathway toward Buddhism. My family’s roots are Buddhist, but my mom is very much an atheist. Both my parents had a non-spiritual and non-religious approach when it came to my upbringing. Now, I guess I would consider myself a Buddhist, but I’m not a very strong practitioner. I moved to Nara, Japan, after we finished making Mizuko. Some of the oldest Buddhist temples in Japan are here and there’s a general understanding that this is the one of the places where Buddhism filtered through Japan. The Shugendo Buddhism that came to Japan is an esoteric branch that is closer to Tibetan Buddhism in a way that a lot of other Japanese Buddhism is not. There’s also just so much to learn, and so many different paths to choose from that I haven’t fully found my way. But [exploring them all] is all very exciting to me.

Kira, did you have any hesitations about speaking Japanese on film? I know that many second generation kids (like myself!) are sometimes nervous about speaking their ancestral languages in public. 

KD: I appreciate this question because it was definitely nerve-racking for me. I grew up speaking Japanese to my mom, but I do speak differently than a native. I’m half-Japanese, and a lot of people in Japan don’t consider me Japanese at all. But being Japanese is one of the most basic ways that I define my own identity. So to be able to put my Japanese out there while not caring if it’s not perfect, but just using the language I spoke growing up, was liberating.

Also, the film would have been really different if I didn’t speak in Japanese. Two distinct sections in the film show the completely different ways of thinking about abortion in the two cultures that affected my decision and how I processed it. So having those sections in Japanese—showing my Japanese self—made a lot of sense. 

How did you two decide to incorporate animations into the film?

KR: I’ve always been interested in making more experimental films that had a social- justice framework. This is a smaller film, so to be honest, much of the animation came about as a result of not having access to a lot of equipment. But I also have always seen animation as a personal way of filmmaking. 

This film is being shown on the festival circuit at a time when reproductive rights in the US appear to once again be in danger, especially considering the recent realignment of the Supreme Court. What have been some of the reactions to the film in this context?

KD: I think the current political climate has added a sense of urgency. It does feel like more people are gravitating towards the film, since the future of people’s ability to have abortions is in question.

I still get emails from people who reach out to share their stories. A middle-aged woman told me, “I’m 55, I have two grown daughters. This film moved me to tears. I had two pregnancies decades ago that were not considered viable. And this really meant a lot to me.” Messages like that are why we made the film. All I’ve ever wanted as a filmmaker is to be able to connect to strangers like that.

KR: Like Kira, I’ve also had people reach out, sometimes people who I haven’t talked to in a while, who tell me their own experiences. While we were making this film my own mom told me for the first time that she had a miscarriage in the past. Our goal was to allow people to talk about these experiences in a different way.

What would you ultimately like viewers to take away from your film?

KR: I think the film asks the questions: “What does a conversation about abortion look like without the binary ideas of pro-life and pro-choice? What is the grief that may follow the decision?” As far as I can tell, there haven’t been many conversations in the US that exist outside of that binary. A lot of what we wanted to do was to avoid discussing a personal experience in a political way. 

KD: What’s bizarre to me is that there is a loud conversation surrounding abortion in the US, but that conversation often does not address the most basic things. It’s all politics. It’s all about whether or not we can make this choice. All of that distracts from the fact that there’s no conversation around the question of “What does this really mean?” What does it mean to kill a life that is inside of you, one that a lot of people don’t even recognize as a life? 

Something that I’ve really come to through making this film is how arbitrary life is. I really saw this as an opportunity for both myself and for a larger audience to create a dialogue around admitting that we don’t know so much about what happens before we’re born and after we die. We should be honest about that and be honest about saying, “Hey, I have no idea what I’m doing here.” Maybe this abortion is wrong. Or maybe there’s no such thing as wrong. Maybe this is tragic, but also OK. 

Kira, what do you think ultimately inspired you to do the mizuko kuyo ceremony?

KD: With all of the cyclical conversations, with all of the mounting aggression, and the shame, and deafening noise surrounding abortion in the US, I never once considered the possibility of grief. I felt absolutely nothing, because so much of my energy was spent on making sure I could get the procedure done and move on with my life. What I didn’t realize is how much I pushed away my feelings about this decision and what it really meant to me. 

I don’t always talk about what kick started my research, but three months after my abortion, I tripped on psychedelic mushrooms, and suddenly I felt an overwhelming sense of grief, when I had thought I felt no sadness about the abortion at all. More shockingly, I felt a presence, and I felt the deep loss of that presence. I just sat there and cried for what felt like hours. I felt like I was at the top of a deep well, and as I cried I was watching my own body dripping away into a dark void below. I felt like my body was a morphing, uncontrollable pool of liquid with no boundaries, pliable and vulnerable. 

I experienced much of my own grief through the element of water, which aligns with the philosophies behind mizuko kuyo. But I knew next to nothing about the ritual at that point. Then I had a conversation with a good friend, and she mentioned that she had heard of rituals surrounding the loss of a child in Japan. Around that time I started reading William LaFleur’s book Liquid Life: Abortion and Buddhism in Japan, and I was so moved. Through its description of its complicated history in Japan, it reaffirmed my own sense of discomfort in the way abortion is handled in the US. And by describing this Buddhist ritual and its very complicated history in Japan, this book allowed me to turn my experience into not only a Buddhist lesson but a lesson about my own cultural heritage, the political history of my mother’s country, and a more solid sense of my own morality and mortality.

One core lesson in Buddhism is that there is no boundary between our idea of self and all other things, and this false boundary is what brings us suffering. When we are still a fetus, it is the only time in our lives where we fully represent what we actually always are and always have been, which is a very tiny living part of a much larger living whole—and you might say the pregnant mother, for a brief period, is also a manifestation of that. For a few weeks, I was one body and another at the same time. This allowed me to physically understand how arbitrary these lines are that we draw between what we think we are and what we think exists outside of us. It was the biggest lesson in Buddhism in my life.

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Mizuko is now available to watch on Vimeo on Demand.

The post Putting a Face on Loss  appeared first on Tricycle: The Buddhist Review.

There’s a moment in Indian Matchmaking—the hit Netflix reality show that centers on a Mumbai-based matchmaker who works with clients in both the United States and India—that led many Buddhist viewers to take notice.

For those who have yet to dive into the buzzy docuseries, the heart of Indian Matchmaking is Sima Taparia, the 50-something matchmaker who is devoted to finding the perfect rishta (match) for her clients. In episode three, viewers learn Sima’s dedication even extends to meditating over how best to help them find love. The camera pans to Sima as she sits at her personal prayer area and recites “Nam-myoho-renge-kyo,” which is the title of the Lotus Sutra and the bedrock chant for followers of the Nichiren Buddhist organization Soka Gakkai International (SGI) worldwide.

In many ways, the embrace of SGI by Sima is reflective of the growth of the organization in India, especially among the country’s thriving professional class. While SGI’s Indian affiliate Bharat Soka Gakkai only had 1,000 members when it opened 1992, membership has skyrocketed in the decades since. The group now claims to  have over 200,000 members in over 300 cities and towns across India. 

Much of that growth can be attributed to SGI’s boom in popularity at the beginning of the millennium. Soka Gakkai “is definitely Japan’s most successful religious export,” Levi McLaughlin, an expert on Soka Gakkai and a professor of religion and philosophy at North Carolina State University, told Tricycle. “And that is really saying something if you think about Zen, for example.”

As McLaughlin watched Sima meditate on the show, he was struck by several aspects of her practice, particularly the fact that she displayed an Indian statue of the Buddha alongside statues of Hindu deities like Shiva. (In keeping with Soka Gakkai tradition, the gohonzon, or mandala depicting the daimoku, was not photographed and instead appeared to be just off camera). “If you were to set up the calligraphic object of worship alongside the Hindu gods Shiva and Vishnu in Japan, people there would be quite shocked,” he said, adding that Nichiren Buddhists in India are known for blending local cultures with Buddhist principles.

Sima’s adoption of SGI practice also reflects the faith’s growing popularity in India, particularly among that nation’s burgeoning population of upper-middle-class professionals. “This is a very aspirational group of people, and Soka Gakkai appeals to the aspirational,” said McLaughlin. “One of the principles of Soka Gakkai is human revolution and the belief that through dedication to the practice one can achieve anything one desires to achieve.” Whereas Soka Gakkai is known as a religion of the poor in Japan—a history that dates back to the faith’s growth in the 1950s as Japan struggled to recover from World War II—the average SGI practitioner in India is decidedly economically ambitious. 

For Indian American SGI practitioners, watching Indian Matchmaking and seeing Sima chant the daimoku was particularly poignant. “The show has both its positives and things that I don’t necessarily agree with, but they are all part of our society,” viewer and SGI practitioner Shraddha Wadhwani told Tricycle. Critics of the show note that Indian Matchmaking glosses over how matchmaking can serve to uphold India’s caste system and how the insistence of many families that potential brides be “fair” continues to normalize the rampant colorism many Indians experience.

Despite the criticism, Wadhwani was heartened to see a familiar custom on screen. “I don’t think the concept of matchmaking is foreign to Indians and honestly, any marriage is arranged right?” she remarked. “You usually either meet the person through friends or family.”

Wadhwani was particularly taken by the fact that Sima not only chanted to support her personal goals but also to receive guidance about how best to serve her clients—many of whom had opened up to her about their past relationship struggles and their dreams for the future. “I liked the fact that she used meditation to chant about her clients, that is a very integral part of SGI and Nichiren Buddhism,” noted Wadhwani. “The practice is meant to make us more compassionate and promote the happiness of both self and others.”

Wadhwani also understood how Soka Gakkai could provide much-needed guidance for both a matchmaker and someone going through the process of finding a spouse. Wadhwani now lives in New Jersey, but she first came to Soka Gakkai seven years ago when she was at a turning point in her life while still living in India. “When you chant, you tend to look at things at a deeper level,” said Wadhwani. “There was a phase in my life where things weren’t going well and made me realize some of the things that I needed to work on.”

That introspection is particularly important for those looking to get married, said Wadhwani, who got married herself two years ago at the age of 32. Searching for a spouse “is a high stress thing and the chanting helps you look beyond just finding a partner,” she said. “It prompts you to ask, ‘Why do you want to get married in the first place? What is it that you are seeking?’ That helps you focus on your goals.”

Watching Indian Matchmaking reminded SGI practitioner Meghna Damani of her own experiences as a young bride in 2002. Damani was surprised to discover that Sima also practiced Nichiren Buddhism, a practice that she herself started following after she struggled to adjust after her own marriage. In her debut documentary, Hearts Suspended, Damani detailed the struggles she and many other Indian wives experienced after arriving in the US on spousal visas that prohibited them from working. She was introduced to Soka Gakkai after she briefly separated from her husband and returned to Mumbai to work in advertising.

“My boss practiced Soka Gakkai, so the screensaver on my work computer was the chant,” she recalls. Her boss soon invited her to an SGI meeting. “It was incredible because the chanting itself really started giving me hope and made me start believing in myself,” Damani said. As she continued her practice, her fellow practitioners urged her to rejoin her husband in the US and to seek out the SGI community there.

Connecting with the Soka Gakkai community in New Jersey after she settled back into life in the States “was like finding an anchor,” she said. “It was realizing that home is not a physical place, it is a spiritual place within yourself.”

While Sima’s Buddhist practice may escape mainstream viewers of the show, SGI practitioners may see a hidden message in her commitment to Buddhism.

“As in all matters of the heart, we can get easily swayed. What the practice of Nichiren Buddhism teaches us that we create our own lives and destiny,” Damani explained. “As we transform, we attract the right partners into our lives.” 

The post The Hit Netflix Show <i>Indian Matchmaking</i> Has a Surprising Connection to Buddhism appeared first on Tricycle: The Buddhist Review.

Tech entrepreneur Julio Rivera knows what it’s like to search for a place of belonging.

Growing up as an Afro-Latino child of immigrants in the predominantly white Connecticut suburbs, he often felt out of place. Rivera felt the same way when he began visiting Buddhist centers as an adult.

Introduced to meditation through the popular app Headspace, Rivera first practiced in his twenties at the Shambhala Meditation Center of New York City before finding his spiritual home at New York Insight Meditation Center’s People of Color Sangha.

“For the first time, I was really able to let my guard down,” Rivera said, noting that in other white-dominated spaces he often felt the need to be “constantly proving” himself to others. But when a scheduling conflict meant that he could no longer attend meetings, he realized there weren’t many alternatives for him, especially when it came to digital resources. And that’s why he created Liberate, a meditation app that features dharma talks and guided meditations by teachers of color for people of color. 

Rivera was stunned when a basic beta version of the app that he had first shared with 20 friends was downloaded 150 times in the first week. Now available for free on iOS and Android, the app has been downloaded thousands of times since its February 2019 launch.

Since all of Liberate’s teachers are people of color, users can scroll through dharma talks and guided meditations that are designed with their needs in mind, said Rivera. “It says, ‘The experiences I am going through as a person of color—it’s not just me going through them.’”  The app is a combination of exclusive content and talks selected from other platforms such as Dharma Seed, an online resource for Vipassana teachings.

Liberate stands out for its guided meditations on topics that include microaggressions, ancestors, and toxic masculinity. Black women, Rivera said, kept telling him that processing microaggressions targeting their appearance and mannerisms represented a major part of their day-to-day lives. “The constant barrage of comments has them questioning, ‘Should I even be in this space?’ ‘Am I worthy of being in this space?’” The meditations, Rivera hopes, help practitioners realize that they do indeed belong.

Rivera is proud to be part of an ongoing movement within Western Buddhism that works to make its communities more diverse and welcoming, and he is also proud of his role in instantly connecting users to teachings that can heal racial trauma.

“It was a calling,” he said, “to be of service not only to my own practice but also to the practice of others.”

The post A New Meditation App for People of Color appeared first on Tricycle: The Buddhist Review.

When Tenzin Mariko decided to step out on stage at the 2015 Miss Tibet pageant, she knew that she was making a life-changing decision. A former monk, Mariko had left her monastery the year before in order to live as a woman. While she had been open about her gender with close friends, the pageant was the first time many in the Tibetan community learned that she was transgender. In fact, it was the first time they had encountered an openly trans person in general.

“I was so nervous when I was sitting backstage. I was literally saying, What will people think? Are they going to throw stones or eggs? It was really hard,” said Mariko, who is now in her early 20s. “Most of the people knew me as a monk, but when they saw me on stage people were so happy. It was so beautiful.”

Mariko had good reason to be nervous. In 2014, a video that showed her dancing at a close friend’s wedding while wearing a wig, five-inch heels, and full makeup, went viral on Tibetan social media. Tibetan culture does not widely accept those who identify as LGBTQ, and while His Holiness the Dalai Lama, the leader of the Gelug school and the world’s best-known Buddhist, has condemned violence against LGBTQ people, he has also expressed beliefs rooted in traditional Buddhist teachings that same-sex relationships are “sexual misconduct.” (In a 1997 meeting with representatives of the LGBTQ community, the Dalai Lama reportedly acknowledged a “willingness to consider the possibility that some [Buddhist] teachings may be specific to a particular cultural and historic context.”)

Related: What Does Gender Have to Do With the Dharma?

Gay monks were common in traditional Tibet, though this “accepted form of interaction between males . . . had no relationship to sexual or personal identity,” Buddhist scholar Jeff Wilson has written. Tibetan culture doesn’t recognize same-sex couples, and members of the LGBTQ community face “considerable legal and social obstacles,” according to James A. Wren in an article in The Himalayas: An Encyclopedia of Geography, History, and Culture.

Mariko at first denied that she was the woman in the video that was spreading across WeChat. It was only later that she came forward with the truth—and subsequently endured hurtful comments from strangers. (Mariko had been one of six brothers, and her family had discouraged her from expressing herself as a woman.) Her appearance at the pageant and the dance performances that followed were on Mariko’s own terms and signaled a turning point for the Tibetan LGBTQ community, with Mariko quickly becoming known as the first openly transgender Tibetan Buddhist. Since then she has appeared on several Indian reality television shows and performed as a dancer and model, and she is currently training to become a makeup artist. She has also given a TEDx talk in Dharamsala about her experience and has represented organizations such as the Tibetan National Women’s Soccer Team as a brand ambassador.

Even though Mariko had never heard the word transgender growing up in Himachal Pradesh, she always knew she was different from the other young monks she studied with at Samdrup Darjay Choling Monastery in Darjeeling. Together with one of her brothers, Mariko entered the monastery when she was 9; she later lived for three years at the Tergar Institute in Kathmandu, in the lineage of Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche.

Today, Mariko says she holds no ill will toward the people who laughed at or misunderstood her appearance, noting that many Tibetans were unfamiliar with transgender people until she herself decided to become so visible. Mariko’s newfound prominence as an LGBTQ celebrity also came at a time when India—the country she has lived in her whole life—was undergoing a great deal of change when it came to LGBTQ rights. After a years-long fight by activists, in 2018 the Indian Supreme Court overturned the colonial-era Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code, which criminalized gay sex.

Related: We’re Queer And We’ve Been Here

The post Tenzin Mariko: Tibetan Trailblazer appeared first on Tricycle: The Buddhist Review.

Artist Sanitas Pradittasnee has visitors looking at one of Bangkok’s most sacred spaces in a new light.

Pradittasnee has become known in recent years for her wide-scale installations that incorporate the natural world into the frenzy of urban life. Her latest work, “Across the Universe and Beyond,” brings her vision to Bangkok’s legendary Wat Arun temple, which dates back to the Ayutthaya Kingdom in the 1650s.

The artist has wrapped Wat Arun in walls made of transparent red acrylic, so visitors can see the colors projected onto the landmark and watch them shift along with the sun’s movement through the sky. She says she hopes to offer temple-goers a moment of tranquility and a chance to reflect on the impermanence of the universe.

“Across the Universe and Beyond” was unveiled earlier this year as part of the premiere of the Bangkok Art Biennale, which invited 75 artists—including international stars like Marina Abramovic and Huang Yong Ping—to create works that would be displayed at holy sites throughout the city.  

Tricycle spoke with Pradittasnee about the installation, how she drew on the history of Wat Arun, and how the concept of impermanence influenced the project.

What would you like visitors to take away from your installation?
The installation is meant to create a space that allows visitors to slow down and spend more time with themselves so they can observe the changes that are happening. It is made of transparent red acrylic, so the light that comes through in the morning is different from what it looks like in the afternoon, and you get to see the color move with the changing of the sky.

I am also inviting people to compare what’s happening to the light of the outer world with what’s happening in their inner world. That is represented in the fact that the exhibition is not only for the people who are standing inside the inner room. There is also the outer area, where people can walk around, and they can both look inside and at the reflections of the temple grounds around them. In this way, visitors are encouraged to look at both worlds.

Tell us about the inspiration behind “Across the Universe and Beyond.” What message is this installation trying to convey?
I always start the process of planning an installation by researching the site to understand both its history and potential. I learned from my research that Wat Arun—which is also known as the Temple of Dawn—was planned according to the Tribhumi [three worlds] cosmology, a Buddhist creation myth written by the 14th-century King Lithai of the Sukhothai kingdom (1238–1583 CE). According to Tribhumi, the center of the universe is Mount Sumeru, which is represented by the main pagoda.

One of the Buddhist chants in the Tribhumi is the Lokavidu, which celebrates the enlightenment of the Buddha and translates to “knower of the cosmos.” Lokavidu refers to the Buddha’s enlightenment about the khandha-loka, or “the world of aggregates.” The Buddha’s teachings shift our focus to the inner world, or the self, instead of the outer world, and point out that both realms experience endless births and deaths.

Buddhist thinking and principles have always been very applicable and central to my work—like what the teachings say about impermanence and the connection between humans and nature. This exhibition is about the changes all around us. I’m comparing the changes in surrounding nature with the changes in the human body. How are we different from the khao mo [garden]? Ultimately, we come from nonliving matter and return to nonliving matter.

What is the significance of the khao mo?
A khao mo is striking because it is a replica mountain; an imitation of nature created in the living environment of humans. I have been interested in khao mo since 2013, when I did my previous installation “Khao Mo 2013, Mythical Escapism,” a modern take on khao mo that is constructed out of mirrored boxes that reflect the environment where they are placed.

The first khao mo was built in Thailand in the Ayutthaya period (1351–1767 CE). The khao mo at Wat Arun was originally built in the reign of King Rama II (1767–1824) at the Grand Palace and was relocated to the front of the temple to its north following the command of King Rama III (1788–1851).

In the cosmology that Thai Buddhist temple gardens represent, the khao mo is considered part of the Himmapan forest, which is where all living creatures repeat their cycle of birth and death. When looked at within the temple’s layout as a whole, the garden demonstrates a strong sense of order. This way of thinking about design is different from Japanese Buddhist gardens, for instance, where the beauty is in the lush landscape.

This installation is part of Bangkok’s first-ever Biennale. It’s been striking to see the images of various installations around many of the city’s ancient sites. What is it is like being part of this event? How do you think all of the exhibitions go together?
It has been an honor to be part of this event and to be able to put a contemporary art installation in this historic site. Working at the site is very challenging in terms of planning, but it also brings many new types of visitors to the temple, especially younger visitors, which is great to see.

I think there are strong stories connected to each of the historic sites (Wat Arun, Wat Pho, and Wat Prayoon) that are part of the Biennale, and each of the installations were responses to the specific sites. It is a interesting way for the viewer to interpret the work with the existing context.

The Bangkok Art Biennale ended in February 2019, but “Across the Universe and Beyond” remains up at Wat Arun and will be on display at least through this fall.

[This interview was edited for brevity and clarity.]

The post Transforming a Thai Temple Garden into Abstract Art appeared first on Tricycle: The Buddhist Review.

For many people, fashion means expensive clothes catering to momentary trends that are made by global conglomerates and draped over emaciated models—the epitome of the consumerist culture that many Buddhists hope to break free from. But artist and author Yumi Sakugawa wants to change our approach to fashion, which she sees as an opportunity to practice mindfulness.

Sakugawa began to explore this new approach in 2016 with her exhibit, Fashion Forecasts, a collaboration with the Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center (APAC). That project has culminated in her latest book, Fashion Forecasts (Retrofit Comics, October 2018), which looks at the ways fashion, clothes, and beauty can be feminist, environmentally conscious, and—as the publisher’s description promises—“possibly bring you closer to enlightenment.”

The series of drawings that make up Fashion Forecasts are like thoughtful comics with captions that lead readers through Sakugawa’s various designs and the concepts they explore. Her illustrations include a mindful makeup ritual, a dress made out of the traditional Vietnamese dish pho, and a step by step guide to figuring out what outfits are right for you. As one of Sakugawa’s graphics notes, “You can always pick a new outfit.”

Sakugawa, whose other books include Your Illustrated Guide To Becoming One With The Universe and There Is No Right Way to Meditate: And Other Lessons, took some time to chat with Tricycle about Fashion Forecasts, why spirituality has always been infused with her art, and how she is learning how to pick her own outfits mindfully.

What made you begin thinking about the connections among fashion, mindfulness, and identity?
Fashion Forecasts originally started with drawings that I was doing for myself, which I would post on Instagram and Facebook. I wasn’t planning to turn it into a book or anything—it was just an informal series that I did on and off when I had nothing else to do. I didn’t think much about it, but people really seemed to respond to it.

About a year later, I got an email from the curator at the Smithsonian APAC inviting me to be part of a pop-up culture lab on intersectionality. He asked me if I had any ideas, and I said, “Well, I’ve been doing these fashion forecast drawings, which could be an interesting way to explore Asian American identity, gender, and intergenerational cooperation.”

From there, it became an installation and a zine, which later became a book.

Why were you drawn to fashion?
Over the last few years, I started to get excited about my own fashion choices. I felt that I was exercising my own agency in a very intentional way with how I presented myself to the world. It became a daily practice of honoring who I am in the moment. When we are mindful about fashion, it can help us become aware of how our seemingly small daily choices inform both who we are and who we want to become.

Walk us through that process. Let’s say you’re getting ready for your monthly Sunday book club brunch. How would you mindfully pick an outfit?
So much of it is intuitive, but the main question I ask myself is “how does this fashion choice affect the gathering?” For a brunch with friends, I don’t want to be too stiff, which could make it feel like a chore, but I still want to show that I care and value their company. Pops of color, like some bright red lipstick, and playful accessories help bring some extra fun and fit well with a daytime event. This approach lets me be artistic in my choices while heightening the experience for the whole group, even if some people might not notice or appreciate the subtle influences.

I’m always trying to vibe into the energy of the event. I often try on different options until I get a feeling in my chest that is similar to when a final puzzle piece has slid it into place, and I think, “This is it.”

Both your book and the original exhibitions place an emphasis on being more environmentally conscious. One of the hardest parts about loving fashion is knowing that it’s not great for the environment and that workers aren’t always treated well.
Absolutely. I don’t have the perfect solution, but one way of approaching the ethical question is to buy clothes that I know I am going to be wearing for a long time. That means no throwaway fast fashion [cheap clothing made to keep up with trends] that is only good for one season and will be forgotten the next.

I also love swapping clothing with friends. As a matter of fact, I am wearing a jumpsuit right now that a friend didn’t want anymore. The idea is to buy as few garments as possible and give a lot of life to the clothes I already have.

The original Fashion Forecasts installation featured a “community cape” that was designed to be worn by several people at the same time. Can you tell us about the that idea and how it brought people together?
That was probably one of my favorite drawings, and I was so glad that it was translated into a real-life prop for the exhibit by my friend Robbie Monsad, who had worked on costumes at the LA Opera House. Because fashion can be isolating, I liked the idea of an outfit that could only function when it’s being worn by multiple people. Fashion can bring people together, but often it ends up creating more distance.

There were two iterations of the community cape. One cape was for dialogue, and the other was a silence cape. A lot of interesting things can happen when strangers are talking to each other, and throughout the exhibition, there were a lot of people shuffling in and out of the cape having those connections and conversations. But sometimes people are more introverted and want to be in good company without the pressure of talking.

Another part of the installation that stood out to me was the drawing of an outfit that served as a wearable altar to one’s ancestors. The outfit is so striking because it allows visitors to give fruit and other offerings to the altar as a way of honoring their family history. How did you come up with that concept?
I started wondering how fashion can be a vehicle for exploring Asian American identity and how we think about our origins. I wanted to offer a counterbalance to the cultural appropriation that happens in fashion, where wearing chopsticks in your hair or kimonos becomes trendy. To me, the opposite of that appropriation is Asian Americans owning their own heritage and origins in a personal and sacred way.

I created the living altar because those traditions do exist in many Asian and Asian American cultures, and also because seeing family altars in my grandparents’ home is a sensory memory that feels important to me. I didn’t grow up with altars in my parents’ home, and so this installation is my attempt to capture a tangible sense of ancestral lineage and ritual that, in many ways, got disconnected when my parents immigrated to America and raised me here.

You’ve said before in interviews that everyone always asks you if you are a Buddhist because so much of your work seems to draw on Buddhist themes. What’s your relationship to Buddhism?
I am inspired by Buddhist philosophy, but I wouldn’t formally identify myself as a Buddhist. With my own spiritual identity, I prefer to keep it undefined because there is not an official organized religion that I feel the need to identify with.

Did your parents or ancestors practice Buddhism? Where does that influence come from?
My parents and ancestors are culturally Japanese Buddhist. I wouldn’t go as far to say that they are religious, but my grandparents did have family altars in their homes and both sides of my family would celebrate the annual Obon, a Japanese Buddhist custom to honor the spirits of the dead. So I grew up with those influences, which I think are more cultural than religious in the way that I experienced them.

Then from 2008 to 2012, I worked for a startup founded by Deepak Chopra’s daughter, Mallika, and I think that having immersed myself in the self help and new age world, I picked up a lot of things on meditation and mindfulness. My biggest introduction to meditation and mindfulness was through Eckhart Tolle’s A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose and The Power of Now. So much of what Tolle writes about feels very Buddhist in nature, but he also doesn’t explicitly identify as Buddhist.

What did you ultimately take away from working on Fashion Forecasts?
It took me a long time to allow myself to get into fashion in my own personal way. Growing up, I saw fashion as this exclusive hierarchy, and at the top of this pyramid there’s the celebrities, or the rich and powerful, who everyone else is trying to emulate.

I started drawing Fashion Forecasts to try to subvert that power structure. I wanted to see fashion as a more democratic structure, where everybody can participate regardless of age, body type, and so on. Everybody should be able to practice agency in how they present themselves to the world.

The post A Mindful Approach to Fashion appeared first on Tricycle: The Buddhist Review.

Mind training has a long history in Buddhism, but when the 11th-century Tibetan master Geshe Langri Tangpa wrote the Eight Verses for Training the Mind, he probably wasn’t thinking of memorizing the entire IKEA catalog.

But for memory champion Yanjaa Wintersoul, whose furniture feat was used in a viral marketing campaign last year, meditation and memorization are intimately related. Wintersoul, 24, who was born in Mongolia and raised in Sweden, says that the meditation practices she learned from her great-grandfather, a Mongolian Buddhist monk, have played a key role in making her a rising star in the world of memory competitions.

Known as “mental athletes,” Wintersoul and her rivals compete in events in which they recite randomly drawn numbers, names and faces, poems, and playing cards. Wintersoul’s talent for remembering people led to a turn on Sweden’s Got Talent and the attention of the producers of the new documentary Memory Games, which made its world premiere at the DOC NYC film festival in New York City on November 15, 2018. The documentary follows Wintersoul and three other competitors as they prepared for the 2017 World Memory Championships. She would end up winning the gold medal in the names and faces competition, which involves correctly identifying people in a series of photos after a short period of study.

“The documentary is basically describing what is happening in our minds [as we prepare for the Championships],” said Wintersoul. “I think the documentary tries to touch on everything that has to do with memory and its importance. Memory is one of the things that makes us.”

Tricycle had the chance to chat with Wintersoul about competitive memorization, her approach to meditation, and how she draws on her family’s Buddhist roots.

Growing up, did you think of yourself as someone with an exceptionally good memory?
Actually, no. I almost didn’t graduate high school because I couldn’t make certain memories stick, and I couldn’t figure out why. But I had promised my mom that I would get a bachelor’s degree, and I was determined to graduate within two years instead of four. So I started learning memory techniques, and I was able to finish school early.

How did you learn these techniques?
I found the book Moonwalking with Einstein by science journalist Joshua Foer, who ended up competing in the US Memory Championship, and it was revelatory. When I finished it, I didn’t need to study much for my business school exams because I had those memory techniques with me. So I sailed through.

Can you give us an example of what these memory techniques are and how ordinary people can use them?
The basic process is about linking what you do know with what you don’t know. Let’s say someone introduces themselves to you and says their name is Brad, and you want to commit their name to memory. You can choose to think of how they look like Brad Pitt when he was younger—lucky you!—or Brad Pitt now, which is less lucky. Or maybe his skin tone reminds you of bread. Brad becomes bread, and because our brains have more fun with concrete objects than abstract words, we’re more likely to remember bread than some dude named Brad.

I’ve heard you say in interviews that you’ve used meditation to help you get mentally prepared and ready to use your memory techniques.
Memory training and mindfulness go hand in hand. I try to be present every single second of my life, and I really think it helps. There have been basic studies that have said that mindfulness can improve our memories, so I am really interested in seeing what science can prove, once there are more complete studies.

Do you consider yourself a Buddhist?
I grew up subconsciously knowing I was Buddhist without my mom ever saying “you have to identify as Buddhist.” When someone passes away or on certain holidays, I do all of the rituals I can think of. I definitely think I am more Buddhist than any other religion, but I do try to practice a little bit of all religions. I try to donate a certain amount of my earnings [from competition prizes, endorsements, memory coaching, and speaking engagements] every month to different things I find interesting and helpful to the world. I read the Quran. I try to mix it up. But spirituality-wise and ritual-wise, I definitely do more Buddhist stuff.

My great-grandfather was a Buddhist monk and had to flee during the socialist regime, so I definitely connect a lot with him. He had a great memory even when he was 90-something.

You had an opportunity to know your great-grandfather? That’s really beautiful.
Definitely. We hung out most of my life until he passed away in 2011. It was really nice. I’m not sure what his tradition of Buddhism was called, but I know that he was persecuted for being a monk and that he would read old Tibetan scripts. To be around someone who was 90-something and still spoke Mongolian Russian as well as Tibetan was very cool for me.

Related: Bidia Dandaron: Prisoner, lama, and “neo-Buddhist” heir to a Russian dharma king

What do you think you took away from that relationship?
That relationship made me realize that there is beauty in old age and that there is beauty in taking care of your brain every single day. Because that is what he’d do every day; he’d hope for the best for everyone around him. He would also meditate every day and move around for exercise and help tend to my family’s dairy cows.

My favorite story about him is that an impoverished person walked onto his plot of land in Mongolia and stole a cow in the middle of the night. When everyone found out, they were in crisis. But he just said, “I think the cow has found its rightful owner, someone who needs it more than I do. Somebody who is willing to steal from somebody else.” It was very Zen of him.

Did hearing your great-grandfather’s stories about what it was like in Mongolia under Soviet control ever make you wonder about how hurtful the power of memory can be? Everyone who lived through that era went through a lot.
Absolutely. My mom suffered from depression for a really long time, and we didn’t know why. We later found out that it was latent post-traumatic stress disorder from all of the things that she had to do when the USSR collapsed.

So I’ve seen how our bad memories can hurt us. I don’t think it is necessarily helpful to remember everything you’ve ever seen.

Do you have any tips that you think would work for the most forgetful among us?
First, pay attention. Most of us think we’re terrible at remembering people’s names, when the problem is we really didn’t hear what they said in the first place.

Second, as I described earlier, learn to link what you don’t know with what you do know. It’s a creative process that can be hard to describe, but anybody can do this; it just takes practice. We see that in the documentary, when we meet people of all ages and professions—from Danish stockbrokers to a young girl who is a violinist from the African country of Djibouti—who learn to use these memory techniques in a way that works for them.

Most important, for the love of Buddha, get enough sleep. Your brain needs sleep to consolidate memories. This third tip is easier said than done.

The post How a Buddhist Memory Champion Trains Her Mind appeared first on Tricycle: The Buddhist Review.

In her new novel, Zen and Gone, Emily France tells the story of two Colorado teens from very different families who begin exploring Buddhism together.

The young adult tale—which was named a Best Book for Young Readers by the Washington Post—follows Essa McKree, whose mother’s tumultuous personal life, along with her increasing dependence on pot, often leaves Essa with the responsibility of running the household and making sure her little sister, Puck, has everything she needs. Her many responsibilities were part of the reason she was instantly distrustful when she meets Oliver, a teen visiting Boulder from Chicago. But through the intervention of Puck, the two begin going on long hikes and discussing some of life’s big questions at the local Zen center. When Puck goes missing during a camping trip, the pair realizes that they have to rely on each other and their newfound spirituality if they want to save her.

Tricycle talked with France about her new novel and why she thinks it’s important for teens be able to see themselves in fiction.

This book explores some pretty heavy themes. We have two teen main characters who have experienced a lot of trauma in their lives. What made you decide to create a character like Oliver, who we soon discover has a troubled family?  
Yes, they are big themes. Similar to Oliver, I have members of my family who have severe mental illness. And I played a big role helping out with family members when I was 16. That was definitely the most formative year of my life, and I do think it forms my characters. It seems to be that every teen character that comes to me has rather large problems. I’m sure that comes out of my life experience.

As for Essa, she is basically a second mom to her sibling because her mother is a drug addict. Do you think that a story like this could be a source of comfort for teens who see themselves in Essa and Oliver?
I certainly hope so. There are several types of diversity in this story. There is certainly spiritual diversity and racial diversity, but there’s also economic diversity. Oliver comes from a pretty privileged background, but Essa does not. I hope that readers can find a home for themselves in this story and see themselves reflected in it.

The heart of it is that whatever suffering anyone is having in life—and I think everyone has some—I hope that the Buddhist lessons on how to view the world are comforting.

How did you start writing?
I have always wanted to be a writer. According to family lore, my parents asked me when I was five years old, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” And I said, “I want to be a writer.” I wrote stories from that age on. So it’s always been my passion, and if I go too many days without doing it, I feel off-center. It’s who I am.

Related: Young Adult Novelist Emily X. R. Pan Didn’t Mean to Write a Buddhist Book

When did your relationship with Buddhism begin?
I had been practicing meditation since 2005, attending dharma talks given by several different teachers. But when I found the Boulder Zen Center in 2015, my practice and faith blossomed. I immediately connected with a teacher, Ryokan Gary Hardin, an ordained priest in the Soto Zen lineage of Zentatsu Baker Roshi. His dharma talks hit me in a profound way. So I began practicing with him and joined that sangha [community].

Can you tell us a bit more about the aspects of your teacher’s philosophy that you felt a particular connection to?
When I found my teacher, I was going through incredible hardship in my personal life: loss, grief, chronic illness in my family. I felt like happiness was out of reach. And then I met my teacher. As a result of his guidance, ineffable moments of joy began to bloom in my life. Some of the first lessons he taught me were about considering mind and location; how we often suffer with an “elsewhere located mind.” He taught me to practice

with the phrases, “Just this” or “This very mind is Buddha.” My way of being in the world began to change, and with that came joy. The moments caught me off guard at first. My mind might be swirling with distressing thoughts, and I would find myself looking at a flower, practicing. Just this. This very mind is Buddha.

Related: How to Support Your Teen’s Meditation Practice

How did you weave Buddhism into your story in a way that made it feel natural even for those who aren’t familiar with Zen practices?
Buddhist teachings are the heart and organizing principles of my novel. The story is broken into four parts, and each begins with and explores one of Buddhism’s four noble truths. In Part I, the reader is introduced to the first noble truth—the existence of dukkha [suffering]—which can be described as a “thirst for not less than everything,” or the human condition of never being satisfied. My novel introduces characters who are all trying to quench this craving and find satisfaction in various ways. For example, Essa’s mother attempts to ease discomfort by escaping through legal marijuana. Another character tries to escape dukkha by going into the wilderness whenever possible. Another tries to buckle down, to be serious and hyper-responsible in an effort to feel more in control, more secure. Of course, none of their strategies work.

Through the course of the novel, the characters are exposed to the rest of the four noble truths, to two Zen koans, and other Buddhist teachings about how to address this craving and suffering at the root of the human condition.

Ultimately, what do you want your readers to take away from Zen and Gone?
I think the biggest thing—and this is what I have taken away from my practice—is that joy is possible even in the midst of suffering. There is comfort in the present moment if we slow down and are mindful of the things around us.

I think in our society we are told to look for joy and comfort outside of ourselves and to look for that in acquiring things and getting things and achieving things. I hope the book’s focus on human beings rather than human doings is something that readers take home with them.

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