Times of great uncertainty and disruption call for an appropriate response. An Ecosattva is a being committed to protecting and serving all, including our precious earth. We can all walk this path, responding to the cry of the earth with clarity and dedication to the interdependent wellbeing of ourselves, our communities and our planet. In this talk, we will explore how compassion and equanimity work together to keep us balanced, grounded and resourced. Without equanimity, we can engage to an extent that we burn out or get lost in the situation. And fierce compassion gives us the courage to stand up to injustice while also grounding our equanimity in the real suffering that is ever-present so that our hearts stay open and connected to the wholesome nectar of loving kindness and deep care.

Kaira Jewel Lingo is a dharma teacher who teaches in the Plum Village Zen tradition and in the Vipassana tradition. Living as an ordained nun for 15 years, she trained closely with her teacher, Venerable Thich Nhat Hanh. Her teaching focuses on activists, educators, artists, youth and families, and Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC), and includes the interweaving of art, play, nature, ecology, and embodied mindfulness practice.

The post Taking the Ecosattva Path: Equanimity and Fierce Compassion appeared first on Tricycle: The Buddhist Review.

As the founder and senior teacher of the Israel Insight Society (Tovana), a leading organization teaching mindfulness, Vipassana, and dharma in Israel and beyond, Stephen Fulder has been called upon by numerous organizations over the past few week to deliver wisdom and insight during a time of great uncertainty. While his ecologically minded home village of over 1,000 inhabitants is usually teaming with young people, today that is not the case. Many, including Fulder’s own family, have fled to safer regions following the Hamas attack on Saturday, October 7th and subsequent Israeli retaliation that has left thousands dead.

With war at his doorstep and rage flaring across the political spectrum, Fulder is remarkably calm and composed. As a Buddhist author, teacher, and practitioner, he is involved with peace work in the Middle East. He was a founding member of MiddleWay, an organization that used to hold peace walks across the country. Fulder talked with Tricycle about the role of the Engaged Buddhist during times of political strife, how to generate compassion when it seems like the last thing the mind wants to do, and why some of the Buddha’s last words remain more relevant today than ever before. 

Are there Buddhist passages or sutras [Pali, suttas] you turn to in times of despair, confusion, and fear? I personally don’t turn to passages to shift my inner world because I move straight into practice, but I think some really important Buddhist texts can help all of us. I’ll mention one or two. 

One sutra is a discourse of the Buddha close to his death, when he told his monks, “be an island to yourself.” “Be an island to yourself” is a beautiful statement on autonomy despite the stormy seas. What’s important in that text is that [when the Buddha was asked], “OK, how do you do that,” he told his monks, “Go back to your basic truth.” When there’s a breath, there’s just breathing; when there is seeing, there’s just seeing; when there’s thinking, there’s just thinking; go back to some basics of our life experience. That truth will ground you in times of crisis and despair. 

A second group of sutras that might be relevant are the Angulimala Sutra and the story of Patacara. Both of those talk about a situation of extreme violence. In the case of Angulimala, he killed a large number of people, and in the case of Patacara, she lost all her family in sudden accidents. Both tell us in such a beautiful way that karma can shift radically, that there’s nothing fixed in stone, that there’s somewhere bigger than us that can take us in another direction, and we just need to be open to it. 

The third set of sutras remind us of nonduality like the Heart Sutra. They tell us, “What you feel as solid is also empty.” The Heart Sutra expresses the emptiness of form and feeling, and perception and samskaras (formations) as constructions in the mind and consciousness. It’s such a beautiful reminder that if we see what’s happening now as being transparent, empty, and passing, [we can shift into] a totally different perspective.

What do you see as an Engaged Buddhist’s role during times of war and crisis? All Buddhism is engaged. There isn’t such a thing as nonengaged Buddhism. It’s an oxymoron. Maybe we need to change the word Buddhism to Buddhist practice, or Buddhist-inspired practice. Then it has to be engaged, because it’s about our meeting with the world and in the world and our embodiment [of] the world, and what that means. I’ve done years of Engaged Buddhist work with Palestinians and Israelis, and I’ve often been asked, “What’s the point?” One point is to keep a small flame burning that shows another way of doing things, like a candle that brings a little light into total darkness. You don’t know where it will go, but that’s what you can do. 

But today, in this critical situation, where people are dying as we speak and there’s huge destruction and rage, Engaged Buddhism may need to be different. It might need to be a kind of first aid, bringing qualities of kindness, love, and care to replace fear. It may need deep listening. Or demonstrating that equanimity and steadiness are possible. 

How do we process anger without losing our goodwill, and without diminishing the imperative nature of the outrage? Sometimes, we need righteous anger against injustice and cruelty. It’s needed at times by people who have no other tools. But it’s our responsibility to replace righteous anger with more effective and helpful Buddhist tools. There are better ways of dealing with violence, oppression, and injustice. 

One way is more trust, our readiness to meet and see the other, putting ourselves in the other’s shoes. For example, people often report that they go on a demonstration, but are full of anger against the right wing and the far right who are creating so much destruction and fear. How can they be in a demonstration and call for change from a place of deep compassion and joy within? It can come from feeling the energy of being together with others, and acting from trust. This doesn’t mean that we assume that things are going to be better because we are demonstrating—it means we are ready to see things as they are. We wish to make a change here, but not on the basis of trying to control or fight the demons. It’s a different use of energy, of joy and kindness, but still a source of action.

Have you been working on generating compassion and helping others to generate compassion over the past week? I have to say something personal. When the invasion of Hamas first happened on Saturday morning, I heard about it quite early in the morning. When I realized there was so much killing going on for two days, I didn’t want to talk to anybody. I had no interest in being in a public situation. My heart was heavy, a deep heaviness inside, a pain. All I could do was spend two days quietly beaming compassion. I needed this sense of quiet, holding in my heart the pain of others, and just letting it move into compassion. Sometimes, we need to make sure that we have space for this, that we give space to our compassion. It’s quite difficult to call up compassion in an automatic way in the middle of difficulty and crisis. After the first two days, I started to give lots of Zoom meetings. 

A second [point to consider] is not to try too hard to be abstract about compassion. Sometimes, it needs a very specific address. I remember a Mahatma Gandhi quote that says that if you’re not sure what to do, “think of the poorest and weakest person you have seen and ask if the step you are contemplating will be of any use to him.” If [general compassion feels too] abstract, go to someone specific. Often, it can be [for] ourselves. For example, if we don’t feel compassion in our hearts, we can feel compassion that we don’t feel compassionate. That’s also a source of compassion. Or if we hear blame and anger and rage, it can trigger sadness which moves to compassion. 

What are some Buddhist tools that we can use to create a more balanced and productive dialogue? For dialogue, firstly, I think you need to go into [the other person’s] shoes. Shantideva in the Bodhicharyavatara says it’s sacred to go into someone else’s shoes. The main tool here is listening, deep listening. The dialogue needs to really feel the other, giving respect to the other, a sense that the other is valuable, and a precious human being. Sometimes, dialogue is impossible. We can’t expect it to work all the time. Today, I met a woman in a local town. I felt pain in my heart when I heard [her call for violence]. I felt the impossibility of changing that view. I hadn’t the power to change that view. But I could do two things. I could express compassion to her. Secondly, I could ask some questions. I said, “This war in Gaza is the fourth or fifth time [this violence has] been going round. Every few years, it happens again. So if there is more violence and punishment and destruction and death, isn’t that [just] preparing the ground for the next one?” I also mentioned that there are children growing up now under the bombs [and seeing death], and they will grow up to be violent, because that’s the language that they learn. So I asked her, “What are the consequences of this view?” 

There’s a very nice sutra about that. The Buddha said, if someone has strong views and strong hate or anger, you can’t really talk to them or change anything. But never forget the power of equanimity. Your equanimity can help. And equanimity is one of the [tools] that you can bring into a dialogue, to show that it’s possible to stand, to be an island [onto yourself], [to] be steady, and [to] show another way. The other side [also] needs to feel safe. [To have a balanced dialogue you need to create a] safe space [through] friendliness and equanimity and kindness and a sense that we are equal. Then dialogue can start. One direction of dialogue that works is to share pain. Because sharing our personal pain and difficulty is, I would say, a deep place of honesty and listening, where something radically changes; you can’t really be an enemy anymore if you’re listening to each other’s pain.

As Buddhists, how do we combat violence? And are there any particular passages or sutras or anecdotes from the canons about Buddha’s penchant for nonviolence that you’d like to call on during times like these? From the Dhammapada: “For not by hatred do hatreds cease at any time in this place, they only cease with nonhatred, this truth is surely eternal.” I think that’s the core sentence, the core teaching here. It’s very simple and very direct. In a way, it’s what I said to that woman that I mentioned just now—that more violence doesn’t solve the problem. And any of the Buddha’s teachings that teach on causes and conditions would be in that realm [as well]. Because one of the problems is that if you’re acting from instant reactivity, it doesn’t give space to understand causes and conditions, pratītyasamutpāda, dependent arising, that things happen because of the conditions. The conditions create the result. What are the conditions that you’re creating now? This is not a question that’s asked by politicians very often. They’re just reacting and responding, often emotionally, sometimes increasing anxiety and fear. So anything that helps us to see causes and conditions here, pratītyasamutpāda, I consider to be very helpful.

What steps can everyone take to support their own personal healing and integration at this moment? Firstly, we really do need to forgive ourselves. If we feel anger and blame and primal emotions like that, we need to not blame ourselves, because we’re beings born in these bodies. Survival mind is very strong, and samsara is very strong. So do not take it personally but say, this is the nature of things. This is what’s arrived in my existence right now. 

Secondly, remember all the joy and well-being that we’ve experienced in our life, all the practice we’ve done in our life, which is needed now. We can remember: I’ve experienced joy in myself and my tissues and my breath and my being. And here it is, again, I’m going to go reconnect with the joy that I already know. 

And one final point, as much as we can connect with our ultimate nature, our buddhanature, we also connect with perfection. We are fundamentally perfect. Life hasn’t made a mistake; Dzogchen, the Natural Great Perfection, says it beautifully, that in the ultimate place, there aren’t mistakes. There is completion, perfection, if we look at things inclusively, in a nonpersonal way. The nature of existence is bigger than us, we need to allow life to take us, to have a life point of view instead of a personal point of view. That gives a lot of healing and support from a more nondual and ultimate place.

The post ‘Keep A Small Flame Burning’ appeared first on Tricycle: The Buddhist Review.

The ring of a bell signaled it was my turn for dokusan, an interview to discuss my practice with the Soto Zen Master at this five-hundred-year-old training monastery in Japan.

I picked up a small mallet and struck the cast iron bell in front of me: one time, letting it ring, then a second time. I rose and hurried down a long hall of tatami mats, the woven straw flooring in traditional Japanese living spaces, passing through the Ihai-do, a narrow room lined on both sides with rows of individual altars for deceased sangha community members. They silently witnessed the swish of cloth as my long black priest robe rubbed back and forth around my ankles with each quick step.

At the end of the hall, three steps rose up. I stopped at the bottom and performed a short gassho, bowing with palms touching and elbows out. Then in one swift motion, I grabbed the end of my zagu, or priest bowing cloth, laid it down on the tatami, and folded it into a square. I dropped down and started my full prostrations as quickly as possible—body crouched in child’s pose, both hands outstretched and palms placed up on the floor, then, with symmetrical precision, hands raised past the ears and down again before rising to stand. I did this three times quickly, as is the custom, after which I refolded and slid the zagu back over my left wrist. One more quick gassho and then I headed up those three stairs to my dokusan with Sekkei Harada Roshi, the Abbot of Hosshinji monastery in Obama, Japan. I entered the room ready to ask the central question of my life.

I had come to Japan after leaving the predominantly white convert Soto Zen Buddhist monastery in central California where I had thought I would spend the rest of my life. When I had asked to be ordained after more than eight years of meditative Buddhist practice, I had felt a deep calling to live as a Buddhist monastic. But this did not come to be. I left the California monastery after three and a half years there, heartbroken and confused about the racism I had experienced on both a personal and structural level. The persistent white supremacy culture of the monastery made it unsafe and did not support me as a Vietnamese American practitioner. This was true for many other people of color staying there as well. The experience was a huge shock to my understanding of Buddhism, Buddhist practice, and my sense of place in the world.

As I made plans to leave that California monastery and figure out how to practice as a newly ordained priest, I was contacted by someone who studied under Sekkei Harada Roshi in Japan. They urged me to study with him as he was acknowledged as an enlightened Zen Master. I had only practiced Soto Zen in predominantly white convert settings in the United States, and I felt drawn to practice in Japan, the birthplace of this sect of Buddhism.

I had been at Hosshinji for three weeks, trying to process my despair from having to leave California due to the racism at my home monastery. Entering the room for dokusan with Sekkei Harada Roshi, I barely sat down before blurting out the quintessential question of my existence up to that moment. “Why does hatred seem to follow me wherever I go?” I asked.

Sekkei Harada didn’t hesitate. “Know hatred completely,” he answered. Then he grabbed the handbell to his right and rang it vigorously, signaling the end to my interview.

I scrambled out of the room, doing the prostrations and bows in reverse order.

My mind raced to make meaning of what had just happened.

Nothing came.

My mind had stopped.

A  koan in Zen practice is a story assigned by a teacher for you to work with. Various traditions have different ways of practicing with koans, but giving an answer to the teacher as part of the process is a commonality across sects. How the teacher accepts or rejects the answer is part of the mythology of this practice. A well-known koan is, “At this very moment, what is your original face before your parents were born?”

Many people think koans are paradoxes, but really they’re stories to stop your mind, to bump it off its loop of incessant and well-worn patterns of thinking, planning, and processing. Koans open us to an understanding that’s beyond habitual thinking.

Life also gives us koans.

For me, racism has been a koan I’ve turned over and over. Studying race theory was one of my answers to this koan. Other answers from my life have included activism and various jobs as a social worker focused on addressing the harmful results of racism.

All of these were good answers.

In Zen, we like to say, “The question is more important than the answer.” Why? Because questions often come up at uncomfortable moments. Deep questions arise when we’re faced with circumstances in which our coping mechanisms aren’t working anymore. At such moments, transformational change is possible if we stay open to all answers, especially unexpected ones.

The system of white supremacy centers whiteness while juxtaposing people of color as “other,” fragmenting us all into the delusion of separateness. Aware of this dynamic and its harm to people of color, I had to be careful to not simply search outside myself for answers. Like many Asian Americans and other people of color, at some point I had to learn to value myself, reclaiming the validity of my own experience in any moment and in any condition. Buddhist practice over many years has supported me to return to knowing and trusting my wholeness.

“Know hatred completely.” That moment with Roshi stopped my mind from its habitual looping to try to “understand” racism. All my intellectual theories and years of antiracist work didn’t address my suffering in a useful way at this crucial point of my life. That moment stopped my frantic search to find some reason why hatred kept following me. What I needed was to attend to the hurt and harm from being the target of racism.

In Buddhism, we practice to be able to find settledness and clarity that’s not dependent on the conditions of the world. To find such settledness and clarity, we have to attend to our suffering in body, heart, and mind. The koan of racism was not just something that I wanted to understand. What I really want, even now, is to heal from the hurt and pain I’ve carried.

In both activist and Buddhist practice realms, I felt that I had to choose between a rock and a hard place. For example, in feminist spaces, white women were most often touted as leaders, negating the many ways women of color brought groundbreaking exploration and transformation to gender oppression. Or in racial justice groups, male-identified BIPOCs often take up the most space, including leadership ones. Or, in many of the convert-based meditation groups I’ve taught at, I am thought to be “too religious,” especially as Buddhism-based practices have been appropriated into secularized popular “mindfulness” apps and health and self-care industries.

Similarly, I noticed that in predominantly white convert Buddhist centers, people of color were often told that race was not part of practice because “there’s no self.” When I tried to address racist incidents, I was told that this was to reify “a false sense of self.” If antiracism work was acknowledged by white leaders, then it was “just a relative stepping stone” on the way to an “absolute.” By default, given the predominantly white and mostly male teachers within convert Buddhism in North America, this “absolute” felt patriarchal, white-defined, and white-centered.

I needed a way to practice that started from the premise that there is racism in the world and that there are intense manifestations of it in the United States of America. Racism impacts us on the cushion, in meditation halls, in practice communities, in our places of work, in conversations with friends, at the doctor’s office, and everywhere we go. This is true whether we are people of color or white-identified. I needed a way to practice Buddhism that moved from only an individual focus to one that recognized the power and privilege embedded in our structures and systems and how we are impacted by them in different ways. In doing so, I hoped to discover how to heal from systemic hurts and harms.

The day after that mind-stopping meeting in Japan, Sekkei Harada Roshi offered me another chance for a dokusan interview. I rang the bell, did my bows, and went into the practice discussion room, ready to share my insights about how his answer had affected me. Before I could open my mouth, Roshi launched into a lengthy story of Shakyamuni Buddha’s life and enlightenment along with the histories of other early Buddhist ancestors. Then, once again, he rang me out of the room.

We never spoke about my question again.

This event impacted me deeply, and I continued to turn it over for many years afterward. When I remember my dokusans with Sekkei Harada Roshi, this last part has always puzzled me. I often wondered, What was his point about it all? In writing this now, I have an understanding of what he was teaching me. The Buddha and ancestors were searching for the same things as you and me: an end to suffering.

I think Roshi was saying that there can’t be spiritual bypass. He realized—and after that initial exchange I, too, realized—that I was looking for a way to explain away the hurt and pain by wanting to discuss it. Discussion isn’t wrong. Theory isn’t wrong. Activism isn’t wrong. But we can’t use these things for spiritual bypass. We can’t use Buddhist practice, or any methods such as race theory or activism, as a way to skip over the human condition inherent in the first noble truth—experiencing the hurts and pains of our lives. Trying to get away from them via any method is to try and skip over, or bypass, fully experiencing our life as it is. Our practice is to get closer and closer to “know it completely” because, in doing so, we can actually then have more clarity on how we can heal. In Pali, the first recorded language of Buddhism, the term yoniso manasikara is usually translated as “wise attention.” It can also be translated as “attention that takes the whole into account.” This is what Sekkei Harada Roshi was pointing me toward: the practice of investigating dukkha (suffering), which sees it in context, in totality, and not just the hurt and pain of the moment.

Then, the rest of the four noble truths offer us descriptions and practices for how to connect or reconnect to the wholeness of life—that our existence is seen, relevant, healable, and valued—when we remember and access the contexts that validate us and support us to thrive. Additionally, we need to remember that all beings want the same thing: to be free from suffering and the causes of suffering. This is what connects us all.

Denying that systems of oppression exist is to deny reality as it is. Learning to negotiate these systems with self- and collective-determined agency is the practice of engaged liberation. In practicing collective liberation, this is what I wish for us: that we may come home to a sense of wholeness grounded in what is safe and of value to all. May we then aspire to spread that out, to work together to strengthen safety and care for each other. This is the work, and the liberation, of understanding, practicing, and developing the four noble truths.

⧫

From Home Is Here: Practicing Antiracism with the Engaged Eightfold Path by Rev. Liên Shutt, published by North Atlantic Books, copyright © 2023 by Rev. Liên Shutt. Reprinted by permission of North Atlantic Books.

The post ‘Know Hatred Completely’ appeared first on Tricycle: The Buddhist Review.

Her lilting voice was powerful. The body may have been aging, and physical strength not what it once was, but the voice and the tack-sharp mind that it came from were constant. “You didn’t ask me about the Beloved Community. It’s important that we talk about that. It was what [Martin Luther King, Jr.] first dreamed of, and Thay picked up on the concept, and both worked so hard for this ideal.” 

I turned my camera back on, adjusted the tripod, and continued the one-on-one interview I had been granted by Sr. Chan Khong, the Vietnamese peace activist, cofounder of the Plum Village Buddhist Monastery in southwest France, and, for all practical purposes, the person who is filling the vacuum since the physical death of Thich Nhat Hanh. I was in awe, and in some disbelief, that I had been given this wonderful opportunity to sit and visit with such a revered spiritual figure at Magnolia Grove Monastery in Batesville, Mississippi.

Sr. Chan Khong was the first fully ordained monastic of Thich Nhat Hanh and one of the original emissaries of engaged Buddhism. And here I was, a photographer from Texas and a relative newcomer to Zen Buddhism, about to interview the person one of the monastic brothers at Magnolia Grove had described as a “rock star.” Tupelo, Mississippi, may have given the world Elvis Presley, but the more than 300 individuals who attended the “Learning True Love” retreat in Batesville were eagerly awaiting their own star, and we would not be disappointed.

Sr. Chan Khong afforded retreat attendees compassionate insights on confronting their grief, mindfully working through daily difficulties, and utilizing spiritual tools to love themselves and others more authentically. She was present and visible, or, in other words, engaged. Sr. Chan Khong rendered her energy to all of us. Two mantras she repeated continually during the retreat were “flower fresh, mountain solid.” This was her exhortation to each of us: stay fresh, stay solid, immovable, and rooted. There was a pathway out of our suffering if only we dared to work through it nobly and mindfully.

She also showed us her rock star status quite literally on the several occasions she serenaded us with beautiful songs and chants in Vietnamese, French, and English, each a parable, a teaching, an insight by which we could walk our own paths in a more genuine way. Her strong, vibrant, and accordant voice would fill the Rising Tide Meditation Hall and dining area; it was as if an angel were singing to us. She seemed her happiest when she was able to offer us a lesson through song, and each of us was more than receptive to her enthusiastic performances.

Marie Dean, a volunteer at the retreat, was visiting from Chattanooga, Tennessee, and reflected on the impact the singing and chanting had on her during the deep relaxation sessions led by Sr. Chan Khong. “I didn’t always know what words she sang, but I knew what she was singing about. She was singing about her love for me and the community. During the deep relaxation exercises, she helped me drop my defenses. I felt like an infant being sung to sleep by her mother.” Caroline Felker, who lives in a closer proximity to Magnolia Grove, in Oxford, Mississippi, and has made numerous trips to the monastery, offered the following: “What a blessing to be in her presence, with her lively songs and funny stories. I felt so honored.”

The monastics—especially the younger nuns, who see her as a mother—were equally excited to welcome Sr. Chan Khong. Sr. Harmony, who has called Magnolia Grove home for the past six years, told me: “For me, Sr. Chan Khong is like a cool, clear stream, flowing free wherever it goes. That stream makes fresh grass, and trees cool themselves there. She has loved and helped people with an empty and boundless heart.” Sr. Boi Nghiem, a dharma teacher at Magnolia Grove Monastery, said, “Sr. Chan Khong is the representation and expression of true love. Her love to offer happiness and lessen the suffering of others is a reminder for me to live each moment meaningfully.”

True love was indeed palpable during the retreat, the enormity of Sr. Chan’s visit to a Buddhist monastery in northern Mississippi not lost on anyone. Visiting from Birmingham, Alabama, Chris Davis extended the following: “Her presence was strongly felt whenever she entered the meditation or dining halls. She was fully engaged with any individual she was having a conversation with. At 85, [she showed] no signs of slowing down.”

Before her reminder to me to visit the concept of the Beloved Community, Sr. Chan Khong addressed my questions, ranging from mindfulness in the West, the idea of interbeing taught more broadly, to what made her smile looking back at her life of service. She also left a message to the younger generation coming up behind us.

Mindfulness is growing steadily but slowly in the West, and more specifically, in the United States. Since Thich Nhat Hanh established his monasteries here, what has that meant for the teachings, and are you happy with the spread of mindfulness? Mindfulness is an aspiration. It is something that can help each of us suffer less and, in turn, help others to suffer less. I am glad to see the monasteries that we established here in the US continuing the teaching of mindfulness. There are so many things that can distract us from simply just being. Especially here in the US, complications arise, demands are trying to be met, and the individual often doesn’t seem to have time to just sit and be. So what our monastics are doing here is important and can help not just the person, but the person’s family. If we commit to engaging in mindfulness, slowly we see that transformation is happening everywhere, like a beautiful garden.

The world is tired of suffering, and certainly tired of more war, conflict, and violence. How can the message of interbeing be taught more broadly to provide hope? Touching the earth is touching others and ourselves. Seeing that each person is connected. This is what Thay taught me and the first monastics in Vietnam. If we are able to look deeply at another person’s suffering, if we become aware of them through loving speech, generosity, and giving, we can call this “true love.” This allows us to see others as ourself, and we will nurture the desire to see them dwelling peacefully in the present moment. When we are not suffering, we can see clearly, with true desire to help others not suffer. We can help take care of their pain. This is why interbeing must be taught more widely. But it must be taught with the desire to end suffering and being able to see us in each and every aspect of life. 

Looking back at your journey through life, what has made you smile? What is one message you would like to give to others, especially youth? I have gained much joy from the interest in and spread of mindfulness, particularly from our earliest efforts. Not just here in the US and Canada, but also in Vietnam, France, and other parts of Asia. Mindfulness can help transform the person, which, in turn, can help transform the world. 

As I spoke last night, I mentioned ‘flower fresh, mountain solid.’ There is a beautiful nature, but also a strong nature, to living in the present moment. When I visit the monastics at our monasteries and see them holding steadfast to these teachings, it brings me great happiness. My message, as you say, to younger generations coming up is simple: Touch the earth! Touching the earth is a beautiful act of true love. Be aware of our planet and be aware of others, and in this way we can help to alleviate great pain.

May we turn to the concept and teaching of the Beloved Community? What is it, and why is it important? Our teacher [Thich Nhat Hanh] admired Martin Luther King, Jr.’s vision of a Beloved Community. We were doing this as monastics; however, he called it a monastic practice of mindfulness. It was the same. It was the dream where all live ethically, no quarreling, a brother and sisterhood and understanding of each other. When we are doing this together, practicing together, we have a spiritual home. We are aware of each other, where we are and how we are. It is a rule or a guideline to live together in harmony. There must be respect for one another so we can build an even greater community.

Sr. Chan Khong leading a releasing grief session

Releasing grief session

Sr. Harmony

Bell pagoda

♦

Photographer | Window to the World – The Photography of Jerome Cabeen | Beaumont

Follow Jerome Cabeen on Instagram: @jeromecabeenphotography

The post A Mother Visits Mississippi appeared first on Tricycle: The Buddhist Review.

In response to the climate crisis and other ecological problems, a new development within socially engaged Buddhism has emerged: ecodharma, also known as ecobuddhism. Despite traditional Buddhist focus on individual practice and awakening, today the ecological implications of the dharma have become difficult to ignore. Buddhist emphasis on interdependence—what Thich Nhat Hanh describes as our “interbeing”—is part of an all-encompassing worldview that does not separate one’s personal well-being, or collective human flourishing, from that of the earth. We find ourselves confronted by an unavoidable question: how do we acknowledge that interconnectedness in how we actually live? 

In accord with this, an increasing number of Buddhist teachers, scholars, and activists are drawing attention to ecological engagement as an important aspect of Buddhist practice today. From March 24 to 28, twenty-one of us gathered at the Barre Center for Buddhist Studies for an eco-retreat sponsored by the BESS Family Foundation to discuss this very issue. 

Most of the participants were members of an eco-advisory team of North American teachers and practitioners that has been meeting online since last summer. This group of fourteen advisors, incorporating a broad range of backgrounds and lineages, is also sponsored by the BESS Family Foundation. The group came together to explore the intersection of climate change and practice, particularly to assess ways to benefit people and the planet as we go through this uncertain time.  We are discussing questions such as: How is the eco-crisis affecting people differently? How can Buddhist meditation and secular mindfulness help people cope with the distress in ways that lead to beneficial actions? What is the difference between grief and despair? Which eco-practices seem most useful, and to whom? What are the challenges of implementing them? 

The highlight for everyone was the opportunity to spend time together in person with other like-minded ecodharma practitioners, strengthening the emerging eco-Buddhist community, and beginning to share resources. Several people noted that “it felt like a homecoming.” As one of the participants said, “We can’t do this alone. The jewel of community is crucial to our work around visioning a better world.” Another emphasized that “only with deep friendships and coalition building can we create strategic ways to scale up a just response to the ongoing climate emergency.”

Along with informal discussions, members of the advisory group offered eco-meditations, ranging from brief tonglen sessions to a three-hour Earth-based practice. This allowed participants to observe how others are approaching this work and sustaining themselves in these challenging times. The discussions highlighted the intersection of the ecological crisis with social justice issues, including racism and other forms of oppression: “how can we support and uplift Indigenous communities and communities of color who are facing the most urgent manifestations of environmental injustice?” We also addressed a variety of other issues, including systems theory, economic implications, and the importance of skillful means (upaya).

The retreat was not designed to produce a specific result, but there were several key takeaways, including:

• Despite its importance, ecodharma still has a small presence in the US and most other Western nations. One major factor is that many people come to dharma centers to ease their suffering and feel better, not to confront the anxiety that most of us feel in response to the ecological crisis. How can ecodharma teaching and practices respond to this reality?
• The intersection of Buddhism with ecodharma and other social justice concerns requires a double engagement: although we continue to work on our own practice and transformation, we realize that our personal well-being is intimately related to the well-being of others. Acting on this insight requires social engagement. How can we skillfully promote this understanding within the Buddhist community and encourage this double practice?
• There may be a generation gap between older Buddhist practitioners and younger Buddhists, who often seem more concerned about the ecological crisis and more determined to do what they can to address it. How do we attract and serve younger people? What can more experienced Buddhists do to make practice centers more welcoming and responsive to their personal and social concerns?
• Buddhism has always emphasized interdependence: the delusion of a self that is separate from others is a source of suffering. Today, the eco-crisis seems to be a larger version of the same duality: our now-global civilization feels separate from the earth, exploiting it without any sense of responsibility to it. How can we address this collective sense of alienation? What practices—traditional and new—can promote the realization of our nonduality with the earth, which is our mother as well as our home? As one participant put it, how can we promote “a future in which everyone knows that we are part of an intelligent, living Earth?” 

Earth-based practices seem to be a key: For example, listening to the earth, to ancestors, and to nonhuman animals. How might such practices be integrated into traditional Buddhist teachings? Several of the participants represent centers and programs already exploring some of these possibilities: Kristin Barker with One Earth Sangha, Susie Harrington’s NatureDharma Teacher Training, Lama Willa Blythe Baker’s Rewilding the Soul, Thanissara’s Peoples Alliance for Earth Action Now (PAEAN), Ayya Santacitta with the Aloka Earth Room, Kritee Kanko and David Loy with the Rocky Mountain Ecodharma Retreat Center. What is working well, and what is not? What can we learn from one another, and how can we make these teachings and practices more widely available?

• It is not enough to realize our nonduality with the earth. We need to act on that realization. As Thich Nhat Hanh emphasized, what is the point of seeing if it doesn’t lead to action? But what types of action are appropriate? Education only? What about challenging and even disrupting institutions? In particular, how can our work begin to redefine community values so that the health of the earth comes first? How can we promote the healing of the earth, along with the healing of our relationship with it? 

Buddhism originated in a very different time and place, so we can’t expect traditional texts and teachings to offer precise answers to what to do. But contemplative practices can help us decide for ourselves where to engage. Examples are reflecting on questions such as: What do I have to offer? What are the best possibilities for me? And (most important) what tugs at my heart? These three contemplations can also be done by groups that are drawn to work collectively.

• We discussed a declaration of alliance or solidarity, which would articulate the beliefs and values that we share. Such a declaration could be an important symbolic gesture to the entire Buddhist community, emphasizing the unique challenge we face today and the importance of responding appropriately. (This discussion is ongoing.)
• How can we continue to work together, and expand the circle to bring in more people and groups? We listed “offers for help and requests for help” among us. One idea is to create a registry of teachers (with their preferred topics) who would be available to offer online or in-person ecodharma talks and workshops (online or in person) to dharma groups that want to begin discussing such issues.
• There are already several interreligious coalitions in the US where members from different traditions work together to address the climate crisis, such as GreenFaith and Interfaith Power & Light. In addition to various ecodharma groups becoming more familiar with one another and cooperating, should we join such coalitions (or create new ones)? Can we make bridges outside the Buddhist community? We may have more impact working together.
• The participants expressed their desire to continue meeting online and in person. Two online meetings of the advisory group are planned for later this year, and a second in-person retreat, again at the Barre Center for Buddhist Studies, is planned for September 2024.

To sum up, what has evolved so far is the beginning of a network of ecodharma teachers, programs, and centers. We hope that others who share these concerns will contact us (either as individual participants or at info@bessfoundation.org) and join us in developing this new and vitally important direction for socially engaged Buddhism. 

The post An Ecodharma Retreat for Buddhist Teachers appeared first on Tricycle: The Buddhist Review.

We really could use someone to look up to these days. 

In Living Nembutsu: Applying Shinran’s Radically Engaged Buddhism in Life and Society, religious scholar Jeff Wilson presents us with a radical role model: Shinran Shonin (1173–1263). Shinran, who founded the Jodo Shinshu school of Pure Land Buddhism, lived during a time of social, political, and religious upheaval in medieval Japan, a time that produced fellow radical religious thinkers like Honen, who first advocated for chanting the nembutsu, and Nichiren. By rejecting mainstream Buddhism, with corrupt monks and monasteries, Shinran worked to create a Buddhism that was available to everyone regardless of their social and economic standing; all one has to do is put their faith in Amida Buddha and call his name to be born in the Pure Land. 

Living Nembutsu, published in March 2023 by Sumeru Press, includes chapters called “Queer Shinran” and “Refugee Shinran,” and explains how engaged Shin Buddhism and Shinran himself can inspire Pure Land practitioners and help us navigate today’s most pressing issues. Wilson, a Tricycle contributing editor, is professor of religious studies and East Asian studies for Renison University College at the University of Waterloo (Canada) and an ordained Jodo Shinshu minister. He recently spoke with Tricycle about how “radical Shinran” worked within the Buddhist tradition to once again make Buddhism’s liberatory potential available to everyone.  

What’s the story on how this book came to be? The project has been percolating for a long time. Jodo Shinshu has been my primary community of practice for the last twenty-five years or so. I went to graduate school and became a professor of Buddhism, and eventually I got ordained—I serve in a supporting ministerial role at the Toronto temple. And as part of all that, I’ve been asked to give dharma talks and participate in seminars for the past twenty years. When you’re a speaker, you talk about the things that you’re interested in, but people also start asking you things that you eventually start incorporating into your talks. And one thing that often comes up is the intersection of Buddhism and various social issues—the hot topics of the day. 

A lot of people wondered about the role of Jodo Shinshu in social, political, and environmental issues. There is a stereotype that Pure Land Buddhism has been passive, not engaged. I’m a historian and anthropologist in addition to being a practitioner, so from my research I know that actually many people, both historically and currently, have been involved. 

Shinran himself was very involved in the social issues of the day. We think of him as a religious reformer, but 800 years ago in Japan and everywhere else on the planet, there was no separation between the religious and secular. And Shinran was politically persecuted because he was teaching what we today might call a Buddhist liberation theology. If you’re trying to liberate people from the oppressive social order through religious means, the powers that be are not going to take kindly to that. He was a political prisoner, exile, and refugee. And so I thought, this is easily the most important single monk in Japanese history, the cultural impact of his teaching is larger than anyone else, his movement is the largest and has been deeply involved in politics for over 800 years. So why do we keep asking these questions about whether Jodo Shinshu has a history of social engagement? 

How did you first encounter Shinran: as an academic or practitioner? I first read Dr. Alfred Bloom’s book Shinran’s Gospel of Pure Grace (first published in 1965) in the mid-nineties when I was studying at Sarah Lawrence College. It was interesting, different, not at all like the other stuff about Buddhism I was reading in English at the time. And the “gospel of pure grace” seemed so Christian … he had to work within the language constraints of the time, when religious studies in North America were dominated by the study of Christianity. I was attending all sorts of different groups: Zen, Shambhala, Insight, in order to broaden my understanding of Buddhism to the greatest extent. And I started to steer more into Jodo Shinshu, especially as I became disillusioned with my time with Zen Buddhism. It wasn’t that Zen was bad; it had a tendency to pump up my own ego—the better I got at meditation or keeping the precepts or the more I could talk intelligently about koans, the more self-conceited I started to get. It wasn’t a good match. I was also concerned about how few Asian practitioners there were in many of these spaces. And then I began attending the New York Buddhist Church on the Upper West Side, and became more and more drawn in until Jodo Shinshu became the tradition that I was adopted by.

What was going on in Japan during Shinran’s lifetime that led him to such radical thinking? What I’ve tried to convey in my talks at Jodo Shinshu temples and in other situations is just how radical Shinran was. Jodo Shinshu grew to become the largest Buddhist school in Japan—one out of every three Japanese people’s family background is Jodo Shinshu—it’s all kind of very normal (at this point). I wanted to convey the really unique things about Shinran. 

Shinran was born into an ossified medieval social hierarchy, where Buddhism’s revolutionary potential was profoundly muted by social conditions that put the dharma and Buddhist practice out of the reach of all but the most privileged. Japan was wracked by constant civil war, environmental disasters, epidemics, the threat of foreign invasion, elite Buddhist monastic complexes that hoarded their power with armed monks, and a vast gulf between the lives of the enfranchised and the great mass of poor regular people. The old style of Buddhism, including the Tendai school he was trained in, was beautiful and true but no longer relevant. Worse yet, establishment Buddhism had become one of the primary obstacles between average people and Buddhahood. Shinran wanted to create a Buddhism focused on freeing those who had been excluded from the current Buddhism.

“Shinran drew on his own suffering, exile, downward mobility, and outlaw status to build a true solidarity with the people of Japan.”

Buddhism for the 99 percent. That’s right. Shinran turned to the Pure Land teaching of Honen (1133–1212), another radical monk, as a solution. Honen created a revolutionary sangha, sort of like a Pure Land ashram where men and women, monastics and laypeople, upper class and lower class all mingled freely as practitioners of the nembutsu. Their flouting of strict social standards that were designed to keep everyone in their carefully ordered place, and their insistence that the expensive and esoteric rituals of elite Buddhism were unnecessary due to the liberating power of Amida Buddha, earned them the enmity of the powerful monasteries. Honen and Shinran’s community was smashed and their Pure Land Buddhist teaching was made illegal. They were exiled as criminals, their ordination stripped by official censure. In those days, conditions in Kyoto were relatively better, and Shinran was thrown out into the “real” Japan. He was living among the peasants and fisherpeople, and this reinforced his idea that “these are the people that the Buddha cares about but that elite Buddhism doesn’t care about.” 

This unjust persecution helped to truly set Shinran free. It was clear to him that the powers that be would never support a Buddhism of universal liberation, regardless of their supposed commitment to Mahayana Buddhism. And with nothing left to lose, Shinran turned fully to preaching a Buddhism he felt was designed for his times. He drew on his own suffering, exile, downward mobility, and outlaw status to build a true solidarity with the people of Japan. He did so by teaching in the vernacular, offering dharma lessons that could be distributed and read out loud at gatherings for the benefit of the illiterate majority. He composed dharma hymns that could be memorized and performed in meetings or individually, without the need for scriptural study. He told the farmers, soldiers, and women who came to listen to him that there was a path designed for them, in their ordinary, toiling, oppressed lives, one that didn’t demand expensive dana payments, unrealistic moral precepts, or rejection of the family and community ties without which life was literally impossible in regular society. And he demonstrated this by eating meat, drinking alcohol, marrying, and raising a family, while still fulfilling the role of a monk through teaching, wearing robes, and performing rituals.

You write that Shinran transformed Buddhism by working within the existing framework, but it just seems to me that he was doing something completely different! If you take a look at The Collected Works of Shinran, which is a massive, two-volume set, and start reading through it, you’ll see he does a lot of proof texting and quoting from other sutras, and you might think to yourself, “oh, this guy is super traditional.”

He didn’t advocate abandoning the classic texts, nor did he critique the famous teachers. He used their words, images, and ideas constantly in his own preaching, but he reinvigorated them with readings and meanings that teased out the fundamental principle of Amida’s Buddha’s compassionate liberation of all beings, which he felt underlay all Buddhism. He continued to use the resources his forebears had preserved and transmitted to him—Amida Buddha, the Pure Land, the nembutsu, the Primal Vow, the way of the bodhisattva—but he ensured their continued vitality by applying them in different, sometimes opposite, ways from their uses in the past, so that they met the needs of the suffering disenfranchised classes rather than insisting those with the least agency somehow overhaul themselves according to demands of unobtainable social positions or ancient cultures impossibly distant from their own. He was comfortable talking about Amida, the Pure Land, and other aspects of Buddhism with literal, symbolic, and pedagogic approaches according to the needs of his listener, and inhabited all of these modes as a person liberated from the boundaries and boxes that society wished to impose and enforce.

This method of respect for the past, combined with attention to the needs of the present, remains an important model for Jodo Shinshu temples today. Our times and places are not those of Shinran any more than Shinran’s were those of Shakyamuni Buddha, so we have to navigate the breathtaking pace of social and technological change and find ways to keep the dharma stream flowing as a genuine source of life and support. And we have to avoid succumbing to the modern Western temptation to simply throw away the old and entrust in the salvific power of the latest cool thing. We’re fortunate to have a guide like Shinran, who showed how to focus on what truly matters: the liberation of all people, not as a theory but as a way of living together in inclusive sanghas that can transform suffering into gratitude and joy.

The book focuses on modern Jodo Shinshu communities and how they’ve served LGBTQ communities, among others. Can you talk a little bit about projects in your sangha? My temple is involved in refugee assistance, and an important previous minister, Rev. Newton Ishiura—this was before my time—was quite involved in Indigenous matters, helping First Nations and Inuit people push for rights in Canadian society. And over the last dozen years or so there’s been a growing push within Jodo Shinshu communities in North America and Hawaii to become educated and sensitive on LGBTQ+ inclusion. 

Jodo Shinshu is sangha-based, it’s not an individualistic, solo-meditator type of Buddhism. It’s family Buddhism, and so if someone comes out to their temple, they’re also coming out to their parents, aunties, grandparents, best friends—if you have difficulty being out to your family, you can’t be out at temple, because it’s the same people. We’re trying to highlight how Buddhism is supportive of LGBTQ+ people and that they’re an important part of the sangha. The nembutsu is precisely for those people whom our culture has labeled “evil” in the first place; when there’s more suffering, that is where Amida Buddha is rushing to. And if we can make our temples an inclusive, affirming, and empowering place, this will flow out to other places as well. Making it OK to be out as yourself at temple can then make it OK to be out at home, at work, on the street, etc.

“We’re fortunate to have a guide like Shinran, who showed how to focus on what truly matters: the liberation of all people.”

We have various LGBTQ+ affinity groups in some of the temples. Gardena Buddhist Church’s Ichi-Mi group just released a video called “A Profound Silence” that interviews various queer people and their allies about their experience as Buddhists and some of the challenges they face. 

This doesn’t mean that these spaces were always inclusive, not because there were reasons in Buddhism for noninclusivity but because people didn’t understand how to be inclusive. From both Japanese and North American culture we’ve inherited degrees of homophobia, sexism, racism, and other challenges that we’re working to eliminate so that we can fulfill the central vision of Pure Land Buddhism: a harmonious, inclusive, welcoming sangha that serves as an engine for liberation.

Organized religion is on the decline in favor of more individualistic forms of practice. Is this the case in Jodo Shinshu communities in North America? And how might Shinran’s message of acceptance and the community’s embrace of often-marginalized groups—like the LGBTQ+ community and immigrants—help keep a congregation strong and connected? Yes, many Jodo Shinshu temples have experienced a contraction in the past generation, just as other religious institutions have. Within all areas of life, our society is undergoing a profound shift from smaller, closely interconnected, local and intimate relationships to larger, loosely interconnected, dispersed networks. Of course that comes with all the advantages and drawbacks—such as freedom and loneliness—that result from such an unprecedented and rapid cultural change.

Those changes represent challenges and opportunities for Jodo Shinshu temples. We’re subject to the same socially corrosive, centrifugal forces as everyone else. But within and between our temples we have an inherently resilient web of intergenerational bonds which helps to mitigate those forces to some degree. Now we need to continue to foster awareness of and continue to activate the radical welcome at the heart of Jodo Shinshu Buddhism.

  As Shinran declares: 

In reflecting on the great ocean of shinjin (the awakened, trusting heart), I realize that there is no discrimination between noble and humble or monks and laypeople, no differentiation between men and women, old and young. The amount of evil one has committed isn’t considered; the duration of religious practices is of no concern. It is a matter of neither practice nor good acts, neither sudden nor gradual attainment, neither meditative nor non-meditative practice, neither right nor wrong contemplation, neither thought nor no-thought, neither daily life nor the moment of death, neither many-calling (of mantras) nor once-calling. It is simply shinjin that is inconceivable, inexplicable, and indescribable. It is like the medicine that eradicates all poisons. The medicine of the Tathagata’s Vow destroys the poisons of our wisdom and foolishness.

Shinran is saying here that Amida Buddha’s vow of universal liberation is a great warm ocean that floats all of us, no matter who we are or what we’ve done. It breaks down all distinctions we erect between our group and so-called others (our “wisdom,” which the Buddha reveals to be foolishness) and accepts everyone just as they are. Our sanghas are called to be part of this great ocean of shinjin, of total acceptance and embrace. The point isn’t to build membership numbers, but naturally when you do have a community that can welcome in those who aren’t given welcome elsewhere, and where people of whatever type feel supported and connected, that will be a place that people want to be. So if we live up to our central religious principles of inclusion and acceptance, that will have a positive effect on keeping the sangha healthy and continuing as an institution that is valued by the community.

A thread throughout the book is Shinran inverting a teaching to make it clearer, and something you wrote in your chapter on the environment really struck me: the Earth is sick without us. Can you speak about this? Some of this comes from the Buddhist experience, but other perspectives as well, such as Indigenous issues in the US and Canada and the Landback movement. There is this idea of nature with a capital “N” as something pristine that we are spoiling. This is a romantic fantasy based on European enlightenment ideas; it has literally never existed. 

And today, whether it’s about the rainforest or whatever is looking bad, we’re like, “oh no, poor Nature.” Even that creates an us and them situation. Everywhere you go, the Amazon, on top of mountains, and in caves and the deserts—there are people living there, and there have always been people living there. This idea that we’re destroying nature is a mental mistake, like when we draw a line around our skin and say, “this is me,” and beyond my skin is not me. Some people talk about getting rid of humans, like we’re a cancer or something. What we need is to slow down and develop a better relationship, better balance, so we stop destroying this thing that we ourselves are a part of. Shinran talks about the ability of the ocean to accept and purify even the most polluted rivers: it’s a metaphor for how Amida Buddha naturally transforms all beings into awakening. The Earth really does have amazing regenerative abilities, but we’re selfishly outstripping its capacity to handle our activities. We need to remember that our presence is part of what makes the land and water healthy, and lean into that role rather than ignorantly treating it all as “natural resources.” 

This attitude is developed by the EcoSangha movement in the mainland Jodo Shinshu temples, and the Green Hongwanji program in the Hawaiian temples. And we saw an example of this at the Jodo Shinshu temple in Winnipeg. They inducted an elm tree as a member of the temple. It’s a small act but a significant one: it recognizes that trees are part of the sangha with us and that we support one another. It’s a reflection of the Pure Land, which is described as a beautiful place where people, birds, trees, and waters all live in harmony and enable one another’s awakening. That’s the vision that animates our temples, and we need to apply it in all areas of life.

♦

The post Shinran’s Engaged Buddhism appeared first on Tricycle: The Buddhist Review.

It might have been a different story had there been more than two of them. In the case of an actual infestation, I can’t say I wouldn’t have pulled out one of those flytraps that unspool into a sticky ribbon of death. But I decided I couldn’t get rid of these two even if I tried. They must have come in on a grocery bag from the outdoor market. Or on the back of my shirt. In the five years I have been living on the eleventh floor, I have never had any fruit flies. These two were relentless. I tried opening the apartment door to the hallway, but they flew into the kitchen. After several frustrating hours, I realized they were definitely here to stay. The only question was for how long. I googled the life span of a fruit fly. It was two to three weeks.

Week 1

Their favorite place to land seemed to be the top of my head, right on my bald spot. They also liked to hang out on both of my arms. I assumed that they were getting some kind of nourishment. From sweat?

When I sat meditating, I had to put my meditation shawl over my head, because the constant coming and going of the two flies began to compete with the thoughts I was already trying to tame. They also liked to explore my face. It was impossible not to instinctively swat at them. They were sentient beings. I didn’t want to kill them; I just wanted them to go away.

If I got out of my chair, they followed me. If I stood cooking dinner, they got excited and dive-bombed me. When I came home, I would spot them immediately because they would just be hanging out on the armrest of my recliner. As soon as I sat down, they’d go walking up and down my arms, and fly up to my head. Every once in a while they did zoomies and went hell-bent for leather in every room. I knew they were tiny little flies, but they were beginning to seem ominous.

During the week, my irritation morphed into all-out rage. One afternoon, right after repeatedly snapping a dish towel at them, I sat down and had a hard talk with myself, while all the while they kept spinning around my head. (By the way, they were never alone and always traveled as a pair.) I told myself to get a grip and then remembered something I had heard from a therapist on talk radio. He was an anger management coach, and I could recall him yelling at that very moment, “Don’t get furious, get curious!” These five words had the effect of a whole dharma talk.

So I wondered what they ate. Unsurprisingly, it was rotten fruit. I didn’t have any around the house, nor did I want to conjure any. They seemed to be getting nourishment from somewhere, and they were certainly sparky enough for me to feel they were getting what they needed in the apartment. I continued being curious. I discovered that fruit flies were coveted by geneticists for research because of their short lives, which could create hundreds of generations to track in a short time. A friend I told this to laughingly accused me of becoming a fruit fly apologist.

Week 2

I began to find ways to tolerate them. When I cooked, I covered all the ingredients before the flies landed on them. I did the same with a simple glass of water. Bedtime required a strategy: I would turn out all the lights in the apartment except for the bathroom, reasoning that the one light would appeal to them. I would then make a dash for the bedroom and slam the door behind me. This didn’t always work.

I didn’t want to kill them; I just wanted them to go away.

I had no idea, and still don’t know, if fruit flies sleep. What I do know is that I awoke one morning to find them both perched on my pillow, completely still. Were they just waiting for me to start the day? In my drowsiness I found myself in a Looney Toons cartoon, actually imagining that they were both having a conversation with me in teeny screechy voices that I couldn’t decipher. At that point, I believed we were becoming friends.

Week 3

I came across Pema Chödrön’s book Welcoming the Unwelcome. It couldn’t have come at a better time. The book spoke to me; it was the very dilemma I found myself in. What synchronicity! Reflecting on one chapter titled “Welcoming the Unwelcome with Laughter,” I realized that I had been chuckling to myself more often than not about the whole dilemma these days.

Of course, this would soon stop in the face of a new anxiety: fruit flies lay hundreds of eggs at once, a Google search told me. Was I unintentionally promoting a real infestation? Was I going to have to pull out those sticky strips after all? I wondered if they were a breeding couple. As it turns out, one needs a microscope to be able to identify their sex. I essentially wished upon a star that they were either both females, or both males.

Toward the end of this week, I began to see that both of them were getting darker and smaller. They had gone from their original brown to jet black. And they did seem to be less active. They were indolent. When I’d swoosh them away with my hand, they sometimes didn’t even move out of the way. And then one morning, one of them disappeared. Two days later, the other was gone. They were so small by then, I could never have found their bodies, but clearly they had lived out their life span, right on the dot of three weeks.

I’ve thought about how they gave me the opportunity to be virtuous, not because I didn’t (or couldn’t) kill them, but because I had found a way to live with them through those three weeks. I had gone from an entitled human to one who, in spite of himself, was forced to take on the challenge of “welcoming the unwelcome.” At least in some—admittedly clumsy—way.

I felt sad. I had followed them, in the near blink of an eye, through their entire lives. I was reminded that any sentient being’s life and death is something sacred and cherishable. I know, now, from Pema Chödrön, that there are innumerable paths and ways to experience bodhicitta. I’d gone from nearly blind rage to a tenderness toward “my” two flies. And in that very moment, in the tiniest of ways, I felt my heart grow larger.

♦  

This article was originally published online here. 

The post Fruit Fly Dharma appeared first on Tricycle: The Buddhist Review.

Compassion does not exist outside of us. It’s not a concept we can access through rational thought or philosophizing. It’s an innate force within each and every one of us. It is unwavering love and protection for life, or the courage of our shared heart. When we turn toward rather than away from that which we perceive as dark, difficult, or absent of light, then our compassion is unlocked. Compassion is found in being willing to venture beyond our comfort zones and walk through the portals of discomfort, pain, and vulnerability for ourselves or another.

♦ 

From Luminous Darkness: An Engaged Buddhist Approach to Embracing the Unknown by Deborah Eden Tull © 2022 by Deborah Eden Tull. Reprinted by arrangement with Shambhala Publications, Inc. Boulder, CO.

The post What Waits in The Dark appeared first on Tricycle: The Buddhist Review.

Our own exploration of impermanence can reveal that nothing is really separate and everything is relational. So what does this mean for us as humans when things enter our life, our awareness, that seem to require more of us or something different than what we are used to bringing to the world? I find myself wondering now and again what the Buddha would be doing right now, how he would move in this globalized world. How would he and how should we respond to the crises that are so clearly interrelated and inseparable: the collective, continually surfacing injustices that have been carried through history, the ecological crisis that all species on this earth face, as well as simply the overarching problems that are somewhat institutionalized into many of the frameworks within which we inevitably live our lives? What are we to do in this matrix of conditions? 

Looking at the ecological crisis, you could say we face a crisis of separation or disconnection as a species who is damaging its sustaining life support systems. Our alley here is that there is only just this moment, and it’s OK if this moment feels imperfect or if we find ourselves struggling or caught up in the activity. Recalling impermanence, we’re invited to engage in the world not to seek a permanent solution or to seek being able to fix something in a permanent way. We’re invited to respond in ways that are not driven by greed, hatred, and delusion—the forces of control and separation. In this way it may be through a journey of inner discovery that is also not separate from the world around us that we start to understand our pathways forward more clearly. 

But suppose these crises of separation really do need something more from us? They’re so big and they’re so collective, they’re due to so many factors over time, it potentially feels important not to bring more separation into the arena of these crises. So what can we as individuals bring? We can’t get beyond ourselves. We can’t overextend ourselves. You might have discovered in yourself a feeling that some of these global issues are too overwhelming to turn toward. It’s this idea that we’re carrying enough on our plate as it is, how on Earth do we open to and let in the kind of gravity of what’s being pointed to in these collective crises? These global crises of our era aren’t about somehow finding a way to hold that weight or carry it on our shoulders. It’s too much for any one of us to hold and it’s really important to have a sense of self-compassion with that. But there is something in us that is also part of the doorway to what we perhaps seek in terms of freedom and connection. Through exploring and understanding and seeing the interdependent, interconnected nature of lives, an authentic compassion can start to come into play that both can meet us where we’re at and can also start to meet others where they’re at.

From my own exploration around the ecological crisis, what I’ve come to notice in myself is that there’s a kind of doing movement within us that has us act and engage in the world, but it’s actually a bit more like or comes from a place of non-doing. It’s perhaps how the Buddha moved in the world, with a sense of wholeness that is different in each and every one of us but perhaps available in the different situations we find ourselves in.

For example, I’ve found all manner of curious responses in terms of feeling what I “should” be doing and what everyone else should be doing, or trying to find a fixed sense of what needs to happen or of what we all need to be doing, on the one hand, and then going into an experience of cutting myself off and just saying, “There’s nothing I can do.” I’ve gone from going into an experience of suddenly having a lot of energy to try to do an awful lot and feeling like I shouldn’t need to be doing an awful lot. I’ve flitted regularly between these states and it’s kind of neat to see the way in which different flavors of the separating forces of greed, hatred, and delusion have been there in each of these movements. But through all this, my feelings have naturally moved toward this sense of doing what’s available from a sense of non-doing: that by turning toward and embracing the imperfection and impermanence that we meet in situations in life, we can also potentially encounter a flow of non-separation within us.

Recently, this came into play for me when I became aware that the COP26 Climate Conference was going to be held in the UK, in Glasgow, as close as it’s ever been to me, as far as I’m aware, during a period of time where I had other things going on. It wasn’t obvious how I could be there. Sitting with that for a little while and feeling the resistance of not doing and the feeling of wanting to overextend myself, (which also had flavors of greed, hatred, and delusion), I discovered within the flow that yes, I needed to go and be there. Then the trip to Glasgow unfolded and it all felt very smooth and clean. It was also very open-ended in terms of what I was to discover while attending the climate conference and a protest march during the middle of the conference where 100,000 people gathered on the basis of wanting change and transformation. So I offer this as something to explore in your own life. There’s a kind of movement that’s active, engaging, and responding, and it may at times feel like a doing that’s coming from a place of non-doing. We can spend as much time doing in the sense of resisting things that feel like we’re being called to respond to as we can trying to fix and control things. But there is this other possibility in there as well. 

If you think about the opposite of the flavors of greed, hatred, and delusion or ignorance, craving and aversion, there are these qualities of compassion, generosity, and wakeful awareness that can mature and lead to wisdom. Maybe as this happens, as we support these three qualities and move in the world in whatever way they do, we start to also develop what is sometimes known as the wings of awakening, or the wings of compassion and wisdom, that in a sense know what needs to be done.

The post Creative Engagement in an Imperfect World appeared first on Tricycle: The Buddhist Review.

Based on Thich Nhat Hanh’s teachings of engaged Buddhism and the Plum Village tradition, this course offers practices to help ground ourselves amid the negativity and injustice that we face. From a peaceful center, you’ll discover how to skillfully respond to strong emotions that may arise while engaging in social causes.

Valerie Brown is a dharma teacher of Afro-Cuban descent in the Plum Village tradition founded by Zen master Thich Nhat Hanh.

The post How to Fight Injustice Without Hating appeared first on Tricycle: The Buddhist Review.