A long time ago, when Zen Master Baizhang was giving some lectures, an old man would show up to listen and then leave right after the talk. One day, he stayed behind and Baizhang asked him who he was. The old man told him that he used to be a Zen teacher, in the time of a previous Buddha, and that one day a student had asked him, “is a person who practices with great devotion subject to cause and effect?” The old man had said “no,” and because of that he was turned into a fox for five hundred lifetimes and was still, apparently, a fox. He asked Baizhang to say a Zen word and release him from his fox body, and put the question to him, “is a person who practices with great devotion subject to cause and effect?” Baizhang said, “don’t ignore cause and effect.” Hearing this, the old man was enlightened and bowed, saying “I am now liberated from the body of a wild fox. I will leave my body in the mountain behind the monastery. Master, please perform the funeral services of a monk for me.”

– Pai-chang’s wild fox kōan

I can remember the first time I started to feel discomfort in my body. I was 12 years old, and I had started to go through the changes that come with puberty. As I grew older, that feeling of unease became familiar, and I simply assumed that everyone around me also felt a sense of pain and dysphoria because of their bodies. Although my body was becoming more masculine, my way of being in the world—moving and speaking in more androgynous ways—remained the same. This attracted negative attention. People made fun of my voice and the way I skipped when I walked. Eventually, one of my bullies physically assaulted me. 

I was told by the school that there was not much that could be done—that the boy who attacked me had a difficult family life and that his parents wouldn’t really care if he was suspended or expelled. I think a lot about that boy’s suffering, which caused him to lash out at me from his own pain and hurt. 

I had to change schools. My parents also sent me to a therapist in an effort to help me get along with other children. Even though my parents were trying to protect me, the message was clear: my difference was the problem, I was the one at fault, not the people who called me names or hurt me. The therapist explained that if I wanted to fit in and be safe, I would have to talk more like a boy and move more like a boy. We did exercises where he watched me walk and told me to catch myself if I stepped too lightly through his stuffy office. I practiced lowering my voice and deadening its tone. 

I wonder what would have happened had I been born ten or twenty years later—would a therapist have offered me the possibility of gender-affirming care to help me make peace with my body and express my authentic self more courageously? I feel very protective of young trans and queer children today because of this. I also think this experience allowed me to see with some clarity the kind of emotional lobotomy we subject young boys and men to in our society. I wonder how many men wander our world starved for love, hungry ghosts so malnourished that they do not even realize they have never been properly fed? What kind of world would it be if boys and men were permitted intimacy—if their feelings were celebrated rather than suppressed and cauterized?

I still feel and notice those experiences as a kind of stiff scar tissue, and it is very hard—but not impossible—for me to be my genuine self with others. My relationships with people tend to be marked by a kind of fear, and my expectation is that I will not be accepted or loved; rather, that I will be rejected and hurt.

Like many queer kids, that feeling of unworthiness made me a target for predatory people. I am a survivor of sexual assault, which occurred when I was a young teenager. This is something I seldom talk about or share—partly from feelings of shame and partly because of how sexual trauma can be so easily weaponized against queer and trans communities.

Without the language or support to confront my feelings of discomfort with how my body was gendered, judged, and sexualized, I have often coped by dissociating from it, diving into work or creative escapism—anything to be outside my body. I had trouble seeing my face in the mirror. 

Last year, I finally worked up the courage to begin medically transitioning. I am now, for the first time in my life, looking at my face and feeling the natural joy that comes with the privilege of having a human face and accepting that it is mine. It is an astonishing feeling to inhabit a body to which I am now intimately connected. Now, when I reach out to friends and lovers, my truest self extends to the very edges of my fingertips.

I did not come to Buddhism and meditation practice because of these experiences—or at least not specifically because of them—but these experiences have shaped the color and flavor of the questions I have asked of the practice.

An early question I brought to the cushion was whether I could, if I practiced with “great devotion,” as the old man asks, squirm free once and for all from my body and its trauma. Could I skip over the messy, shameful experience of gender and sexuality and pass straight through to being a shining bodhisattva? 

In the mythical narratives of the koan stories, I could easily see myself as the unfortunate student asking Baizhang, “if I practice devotedly, will I transcend this body and these painful experiences?” Based on some of the common ideas about practice and enlightenment that circulate in Western Buddhism, there are probably a lot of wild foxes wandering around.

This is something Larry Yang, one of the core teachers at East Bay Meditation Center, talks about in his book, Awakening Together. He writes that, “we are sometimes predisposed to idealize aspirations of spiritual practice and to assume that the highest aim is to transcend the vicissitudes of this life, to somehow obviate the sorrows of this lifetime so that we only experience the pleasant, peaceful, or sublime.” Yang references well-meaning dharma teachers who avoid talking about diversity, believing that the focus of practice should instead be on our similarities rather than our differences. 

But as Yang understands deeply from his experiences as a gay Chinese American in predominantly white and heterosexual meditation communities, life is not just about similarities. He writes:

“Like any manifestation of nature—like any snowflake, leaf on a tree, or shape of a cloud—we all have attributes that are unique and characteristics that are common, it is through seeing the deep nature of our differences and how they are a part of our lives that we can also see the deep similarities of our human experience. We all feel different at some point in our lives; in that experience of difference is a similarity common to us all. Just as we cannot have a life without both joys and sorrows, we cannot have a life without both differences and similarities.”

Yang also cites the meditation teacher and psychologist John Welwood, who coined the term “spiritual bypassing” to describe the widespread tendency to employ spiritual ideas and practices as a tool to avoid facing unresolved wounds and unfinished work. For Welwood, there’s a danger of what he calls “premature transcendence,” or trying to rise above the raw and unpleasant parts of our life in the here and now before we’ve made peace with them. When we prematurely transcend, we end up dismissing real human needs and feelings—our own as well as those of others—the very stuff Buddhism is supposed to help us address. 

Did Baizhang understand the dangers of spiritual bypassing and premature transcendence when the old man student asked to be released from his wild fox body? The passage seems to indicate that no, we cannot ignore cause and effect, but once we’ve faced it squarely, the dharma invites us to use it as the grounds for our awakening to this present life.

Not ignoring cause and effect is, for me, to find in practice the freedom to live whatever is happening or has happened as the path. Not to move beyond it but to conceptualize it and make it real as a grounding for awakening. The dharma I express is a queer dharma—my own dharma, and as such, it cannot be anything else. My hope then is that when I express it honestly and authentically, that others can receive it as their dharma. And maybe, when I am brave enough to accept that it is received—and that I am not rejected but am loved by this life—I can receive my dharma back from others and see how my life—with its specific differences—is actually a shared experience.

Five hundred lifetimes as a fox is my own life right now. But is it really even a punishment to be a wild fox? Even though I came to my practice as a means of escaping my body, that same practice ultimately requires a return and reconciliation with the body. And in returning to this foxy body, I have slowly come to have experiences of true joy within and through it. I am very confident that this will continue, and even though it is hard work, in practice I also have the opportunity to rest in the powerful silence of the mysterious not-two, a place of ease from which to work in the turbulent world of the relative and the ultimate, in neither and in both.

To awaken in this body and as this body is also the basis for recognizing the self not as something to cast aside or move beyond, but as an aspect of our dynamic, flowing, and relational life. Transgender students of the dharma have a wonderful opportunity to experience and enact this universal truth. Dr. Florence Ashley, a bioethicist and scholar, has repeatedly affirmed in their scholarship that gender and transition are not acts of unearthing a preconstituted image of the self, but instead a project of “actively creating ourselves” in a process Ashley calls “creative transfiguration,” which must occur in relationship with others. 

When I read this, I felt strongly that it harmonized beautifully with descriptions of the bodhisattva way as inherently creative, playful, and imaginative. The fabulous images of the Mahayana sutras—with naga princesses turning into men or the Buddha’s male disciple, Shariputra, finding himself in the body of a goddess much to his awe and dismay—are an invitation to transform the wonderful powers of human imagination into tools of awakening. Imagination is not separate from reality but rather cognizes reality. We conceptualize the world through the lens of our imagination, and through imagination, we can reach out and create a pure land here and now, in this body, in this life, and in this world. This is the miraculous power of the Buddha and our birthright as humans. 

We cannot ignore cause and effect. We cannot ignore this life, especially the painful, embarrassing, and frustrating parts of it. But through practice, we can transform these experiences into fuel for awakening—and not an awakening somewhere else beyond the rough edges of modern human life—but right here in the middle of it. That’s where you’ll find me—sometimes a queer student of the dharma, sometimes a mischievous fox, but always flowing on and moving forward, toward a deeper love for this messy world.

The post My Foxy Body appeared first on Tricycle: The Buddhist Review.

Every June, the LGBTQ community and allies around the world celebrate Pride Month. The tradition has grown out of the June 1969 rebellion that ignited the gay rights movement, when gay clubgoers in New York City’s Greenwich Village retaliated against police officers who raided the Stonewall Inn.

Although there have been great strides toward equality in recent years, the work is far from finished, including within the Buddhist world.

In solidarity, here are 12 articles from the Tricycle archives that highlight and share the stories of queer Buddhists across history.

‘This Monk Wears Heels’: An Interview with Kodo Nishimura

The Buddhist monk, makeup artist, and LGBTQ activist shares his journey to self-acceptance in his memoir, This Monk Wears Heels: Be Who You Are, which was recently translated to English.

In the Cabin of the Crazy One 

Diana Goetsch, a poet, essayist, and Vajrayana practitioner, recounts her late-in-life gender transition while on a 12-day solo meditation retreat.  

A Gender-Diverse Sangha

How Kevin Manders’s groundbreaking anthology, Transcending: Trans Buddhist Voices, created a community for trans, genderqueer, and nonbinary Buddhists. 

Hair Hair

A transfemme theater artist and educator reflects on a crucial—if unexpectedly painful—moment of autonomy after getting hair extensions.

Tenzin Mariko: Tibetan Trailblazer

A former monk gains renown as one of the first openly transgender people in the Tibetan community, opening the door to acceptance.

Coming Out Whole

Caitriona Reed, the first openly transgender Buddhist teacher, came out as a “woman of transgender experience” in an article from Inquiring Mind in 1998. Read the article from Inquiring Mind’s archives.

A Transgender Buddhist Trailblazer 20+ Years Later

Over 20 years after the publication of Reed’s article, she speaks with Tricycle about what has changed.

We’re Queer and We’ve Been Here

Dr. Jay Michaelson shares four examples that demonstrate the breadth of queer experience throughout Buddhism, from its history of gay monks and homoerotic samurai to gender-nonconforming practitioners and gods.

Working Through the Strong Emotions of Sexual Identity
On a 40-day meditation retreat, dharma teacher and LGBTQ activist Jay Michaelson came to the shocking realization that, deep down, he would change his orientation if he could.

Becoming Jivaka
How Lobzang Jivaka, a transgender man, shed his English identity and found (some) solace as a Tibetan Buddhist monk in India.

A Big Gay History of Same-sex Marriage in the Sangha
Buddhist same-sex marriage was born in the US. American Buddhists have been performing same-sex marriages for more than 40 years without fanfare. 

Street Zen
How the drag performer Issan Dorsey became a Zen master and caretaker for gay men living with HIV/AIDS.

[This article was originally published in 2017.]

The post Celebrating Buddhism’s Inclusivity appeared first on Tricycle: The Buddhist Review.

How do we make the invisible visible? How can we see the unseen? We could get fancy and I could give this practice a name—the practice of seeing with the great wisdom eye of liberating compassion. In plainer language, in diversity and inclusion work, it begins with looking around the room and noting who’s here and who isn’t here. It’s a practice of mindful awareness.

For example, in the Zen Buddhist Temple in Ann Arbor, Michigan, where I started training in 1982, we were located in an old house that we were renovating. There were steps that led from the street level up to a porch, then a narrow doorway with a threshold that you had to step over, and then an entryway area that took you up to the meditation hall and other parts of the temple. But there was no wheelchair ramp. Therefore, by definition, we never had any people coming to meditate or practice with us in wheelchairs or who had severe mobility limitations. We never saw them in the meditation hall. Was it because there were people in that city in wheelchairs who didn’t want to come? We didn’t know, and we didn’t find out at that point. Since that time, a ramp has been built, and it has become a diverse and thriving sangha. Sometimes it takes time. We’ll never get to our goals unless we have in mind that we want to become more inclusive. 

Usually, when we ask who isn’t here, someone will be confused and ask, “How can I see who isn’t in the room?” We can extend “the room” to all the places we go on a regular basis, on vacations, and special trips, as well. We can look around any time and ask ourselves how many people appear to be here in the room. I want to emphasize the word “appear.” We can’t always know how others self-identify, but as humans we do look around, even if we’re not aware of it, and we’re constantly making these assessments.

How many people here appear to be people of color, younger, older, in wheelchairs or scooters? How many people here appear to be women, men, [non-binary], or maybe I can’t tell how they may self-identify in terms of gender? How many people here are of various body shapes and sizes? Or who appears to me to be low, medium, or higher income? I want to stop and emphasize that we’re invoking a mind state—and this is important as we’re beginning to ask these questions—that is spacious, gentle, compassionate, and contains friendliness and lovingkindness. As we begin to practice seeing the unseen, we’re going to get a peek of how much we don’t know, which can be unsettling, irritating, or just plain scary. We’re also surfacing our unconscious assumptions, thoughts we’re thinking that we don’t know we’re thinking, beliefs that we have held our entire lives. It’s likely that we’ve never examined these beliefs because they are so core to who we think we are and how we’ve been raised—how we’ve been conditioned. 

We need to invoke a mind-state that’s an antidote to whatever anxiety may arise, an attitude of gentleness, kindness, openness, curiosity, and interest. If you have kids or work with kids, you know that it’s natural as human beings to be curious about so many things, especially when we’re younger. We can practice metta, or lovingkindness, for ourselves: may I be safe, healthy, happy, peaceful, joyous, and at ease. Then we can proceed on as though we’re contemplating this koan. We’re talking about building inclusive sanghas, and as we know, the sangha is the third of what’s called the three jewels: the Buddha, the dharma, and the sangha. We go to the sangha for refuge, we go to the Buddha for refuge, we go to the dharma for refuge. So how can we create sanghas that are true refuges—harbors in the storm, safe and welcoming spaces of healing and renewal of spirit—in the samsaric world?

Ask yourself this without demanding a quick answer to emerge, but go deeply into the question. Of the three refuges, I’d say that sangha is the most difficult. It presents the most problems—not that we don’t wrestle with the Buddha and the dharma, but the sangha is made up of real people. They’re our communities. They’re our friends. They become our spiritual family. And that’s where the rubber meets the road in a lot of our practice. It’s hard to be serene and spiritually wonderful when people we find annoying, or difficult, or who we feel just aren’t harmonious with our group for whatever reason show up. In fact, we may really struggle with accepting others as our sangha members when we feel that they are just so different from whoever we are. At that point we need to step back and take a look and ask ourselves, “What is my dharma practice about really?” Many of us will say, “I want to become a calm, centered, wise, and compassionate person,” but there’s another way of looking at this as well.

In 1985, I was on pilgrimage with my original Zen teacher and we were passing through San Francisco. Along the way on this pilgrimage—which went from Mexico City all the way up through Texas, the West Coast, across the Rockies, through Colorado, and then back to the Midwest—we visited as many Buddhist groups of every sect and lineage that we could find. At a Chinese temple in San Francisco’s Chinatown, we met a Chinese monk who only spoke a limited amount of English. I remember distinctly that he said, “I became a monk because I wanted to learn about the world. I wanted to learn about the world.” 

We need to ask: How reflective are our sanghas, or spiritual communities, of the entire world? How can we learn? How can we see more deeply, and grow spiritually more and more? Very simply, how can we learn about the world?

♦

Further resources listed in this Dharma Talk include: “Making the Invisible Visible: Healing Racism in our sanghas, in our Buddhist Communities (2000) and “Dharma Color and Culture: New Voices in Western Buddhism,” edited by Hilda Gutiérrez Baldoquín, (Parallax Press, 2004)

The post Seeing the Unseen appeared first on Tricycle: The Buddhist Review.

In the Indo-Tibetan textual tradition, the four seals (Skt. caturmudrā, T. phyag rgya bzhi), or dom shyi in the Tibetan oral tradition, are the four necessary characteristics of a view or teaching to mark or certify it as Buddhist. These seals mark our views as Buddhist, as opposed to taking refuge in the three jewels, which makes us Buddhist through precepts. Tibetan monastics memorize the four seals in their teenage years in a short formula:

All compounded things are impermanent.

All contaminated things are dukkha (unsatisfactory).

All phenomena are empty and selfless.

Nirvana is true peace.

Several sources attributed to the Buddha, including The Questions of the Nāga King Sāgara (Sagara­naga­raja­pariprccha), mention these four statements. They are closely related to the three marks of existence—impermanence, dukkha, and nonself—that play a quintessential role in the Pali and the Sanskrit traditions of insight meditation. Although the last of the four gives hope for an eventual end to suffering, we must initially grapple with the first three seals.

The Tibetan word for a follower of Buddhism—nangpa—means “insider” and implies that we only truly live in the fold of the Buddhist worldview when these four seals start to permeate our perception and become its natural element. The real challenge is not understanding the four seals conceptually but applying them to our existence, with all our multifaceted identities, challenges, dramas, dreams, and aspirations. We should measure the four seals against the fabric of our daily life to see with greater clarity all the individual threads and knots that make up our lives and then let them dissolve in an ocean of spacious, liberated awareness. Easier said than done, of course.

Looking deeply into our existence will not be unsympathetic toward our conventional reality, where we see ourselves as beings of different backgrounds, genders, cultures, sexualities, and generations. It was this duality of relative identities and universal truths that I, as a queer practitioner and ex-monastic, experienced quite powerfully when interpreting teachings on the four seals given by one of my primary mentors, Chokyi Nyima Rinpoche. Though he spoke about the four seals in a general way, his talk left room for profound personal reflection on how the roles and labels I have serve as an illustration for the material. In our conventional identities, we see the first three seals with greater precision.With that understanding, we then use the fourth one to see the flip side, sometimes described as the indivisible union of emptiness and luminosity that transcends conventions yet remains inseparable from them.

The First Seal: All Compounded Things Are Impermanent

Hearing that impermanence pervades all compounded things is challenging, not because it’s untrue but because it is true. If the world has cut us deeply with rejection—like it so often does with queer individuals—how can we accept that even our few loving connections will be taken away? How can we accept the inevitable separation from the body we’ve used to find those connections and with which we’ve worked so hard to make peace? We viscerally shy away from knowing that every relationship, even our life, will end.

Despite the resistance, we know that the threads holding the pieces of our lives together will inevitably snap, something new will form, and then again be replaced with another configuration of matter, energy, and awareness. It’s not easy to feel and know this without some sense of grief, but contemplating impermanence is supposed to bring about a level of sadness—a disappointment in our hungry grasping at permanence, in our inability to be like Queen Elsa in Frozen and simply “let it go.”  

I can only tolerate impermanence because I deliberately and continually remind myself of the naturalness of change. Like the changing of the season, my own life will endlessly go through cycles of change. I can find solace in the naturalness of it all and keep rolling along, however clumsily. Although this may seem like a simplistic understanding of the first seal, it is, perhaps, “good enough,” as Lama Thubten Yeshe used to say. Good enough to keep my vulnerable queer heart afloat: not yet radiantly enlightened, but certainly still alive.

The Second Seal: All Contaminated Things Are Dukkha 

Why does being in the world cut so deep? Why do our interactions with others often continue to slice our hearts like a sharp razor, even when we earnestly try to do our best? Our minds and the minds of all sentient beings are contaminated by primordial ignorance (avidya) and therefore accompanied by multiple types of dukkha or unsatisfactoriness. 

This contamination is not about violating the decrees of a higher authority or about systems of social oppression, which ultimately also stem from the fundamental polluting agent of ignorance. This ignorance—that which contaminates us—is our shared tendency to reify: to draw a thick line around ourselves and other phenomena, or subject and object. Living under the influence of this habit, we all construct thick walls and then harm each other and ourselves in endless cycles of attachment and aversion. 

The Third Seal: All Phenomena Are Empty and Selfless

Our attempt to overcome this contamination brings us to the third seal, which invites us to recognize all phenomena’s selfless and empty nature: the lack of independent existence. Since this truth goes strongly against our habituated perceptions, people often misunderstand this truth, which leads to additional harm for marginalized communities, adding insult to injury. It is too easy to say, “Everything is empty, so your queerness (race, gender, immigrant status, traumatic past) doesn’t matter.” Even though such a comment (perhaps well-meaning) tries, unskillfully, to point out the emptiness and grasping, it’s hurtful in its dismissiveness, reveals more about the speaker’s unchecked privilege, and in attempting to avoid the extreme of grasping, can also fall into the opposite extreme of nihilism.

Indeed, we are not merely our marginalized identities—but acknowledging those identities is essential, both in terms of our dukkha and as tools we can use to serve others. When doing Buddhist visualization practices—so beloved in the Indo-Tibetan lineage, where they form an integral part of Vajrayana practice—we keep the rules of the meditation intact: each Buddha figure appears in its color, with the correct number of arms, faces, and eyes. Arya Tara’s green form is visualized as green, and Medicine Buddha is imagined as radiantly sapphire-blue, without qualms about their unusual appearances or claims that the form is irrelevant. Things do not collapse into utter nihilistic chaos, even as they arise against the background of emptiness. So, why would our conventional roles no longer matter in the relational realm? I have repeatedly heard from my teachers of Madhyamaka philosophy that emptiness does not mean nothing matters. Since everything is empty, everything matters. Embodying the perfection of wisdom on the bodhisattva path by finding the balance between the relative and ultimate —between “I am definitely and defiantly queer” and “The empty self is not inherently queer”—requires a lifetime, or multiple lifetimes, to fully master.

The Fourth Seal: Nirvana is True Peace

Fully embodying the wisdom of knowing emptiness is nirvana. However, for many of us, the possibility of nirvana is merely a working hypothesis and something to be gradually tested through practice. So, how does the fourth seal provide peace right now? Is nirvana simply a promise for the distant future, like one day going to Heaven or one of the Buddhist pure lands?

Some Western teachers insist that all we have available are discrete moments of insight, which can never remove our underlying fallibility, no matter how meaningful. While the Indo-Tibetan tradition (or “Nalanda tradition,” as the Dalai Lama prefers to call it) that I’ve been trained in does not disagree with the persistent nature of our fallible traits, it does envision a complete potential transformation that transcends this life, even if it takes numerous lifetimes to achieve. Knowing which of these interpretations is correct requires carefully examining our reductionist and colonial conditioning, assessing our assumptions about the nature of consciousness, and, perhaps, a few encounters with realized practitioners of the highest caliber.

While all of that is underway, a beautiful element of the Great Perfection (Dzogchen) and Great Seal (Mahamudra) traditions is that they readily offer meaningful glimpses into our ultimate radiant nature. Gained through qualified guidance, careful preparation, and practice, these glimpses aren’t the same as full realization or nirvana but still provide essential insights. Je Tsultrim Zangpo, from the Dzogchen lineage, compares these insights into our pristine awareness to rays of light. Following the ray to its source, we arrive at the sun of complete freedom and experience the fourth seal in its full form.

Tenderness is an inseparable quality of our true nature.

This journey to the fourth seal is not only about exploring the qualities of awareness—at least not emotionally, since our hearts might hunger for more—but also about how tenderness is an inseparable quality of our true nature. The Dzogchen tradition teaches that our ultimate nature has three primary qualities: emptiness, luminous cognizance, and all-pervading spontaneous compassion. 

My limited conceptual understanding of spontaneous compassion (stemming from both emptiness and luminosity) had a powerful transformative effect on my practice and my way of being in this world. A few years into my decade-long monastic training, one of my primary teachers reminded me of the connection between the more effortful practices of the four immeasurables (brahmaviharah)—love, compassion, empathetic joy, and equanimity—and the spontaneous, effortless warmth of our pristine nature. That reminder (less than a sentence in a short email) made me think: how can I work towards greater levels of trust towards this loving nature, which, in my case, manifests through the lens of my queer identity and has perhaps been obscured by all the heartbreak experienced so far? This question inevitably brings me back to the practical application of the four seals—a way of holding my mindfulness on them so they can transform my experience.

The four seals interpenetrate each other in our lives and can become a powerful emotional support system if we let them. For that, an excellent place to start is the fourth one: in seeking peace, let’s start with the promise of peace (nirvana). Let’s imagine that our ultimate nature is, as Dzogchen teaches, empty of inherent existence, radiantly cognizant, and boundlessly compassionate. When can that boundless compassion manifest and be strengthened? When we face change (first seal) and the knots of our contaminants—our afflictions—make us hurt ourselves and others (second seal). What helps us undo those knots? Deeper and deeper levels of knowing that things are not inherently existent. Understanding that things are, in the words of Suzuki Roshi, “not always so” can help us face life’s challenges with more compassion and respond in more wholesome ways.

Systems of oppression, acts of violence, the roughness of the fabric of existence, and even change itself can leave us aching, but by reflecting on the four seals, we can see what lies at the root of both pain and the tendency to create pain. Understanding the source of our suffering, expressed in the second seal, we seek the medicine of emptiness and find peace by experiencing our true nature.

Developing a trusting confidence in our true nature—our basic goodness—has been emphasized by many notable Buddhist teachers whom I’ve had the fortune to meet. This confidence does not come through simply telling yourself that “I’m a radiant magical being” or being reminded by others. It unfolds when we gradually realize the first three seals so that all of us—queer or not—can gracefully accept change, compassionately deal with our afflictions, and constantly remain aware that all things are radiantly empty. To whatever degree these four qualities seal the fabric of my life, I feel that my practice and existence—as an individual and a part of my communities—have been meaningful.

⧫

Watch a guided meditation from Michael Lobsang Tenpa on the second of the four seals below. 

The post Sealing Our Queer Life 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.

Kodo Nishimura is far from your typical Buddhist monk. He is also a makeup artist, LGBTQ activist, and, as of 2021, one of TIME’s Next Generation Leaders. Since being interviewed by Tricycle in 2017, Nishimura has been featured in many media outlets in Japan and abroad, including on Queer Eye: We’re in Japan! I recently translated his 2020 Japanese memoir into English as This Monk Wears Heels: Be Who You Are, to be published this February by Watkins Media in the UK and Penguin Random House in the US.

When I interviewed Nishimura on Zoom from his Tokyo home to discuss his memoir, he spoke frankly and poignantly, with the same powerful conviction I could sense while translating his writing. Central to his work is the belief that in Buddhism, as he puts it, “anybody and everybody can be equally liberated,” irrespective of sex, gender, race, or ability. Yet, he also told me how difficult his path to self-acceptance was. He has struggled to reconcile his authentic self—someone who identifies as neither male nor female—with the traditional expectations of how a Japanese monk should dress and act.

“It’s hard to be who I am,” he told me.

During his childhood in socially conservative Japan, Nishimura found refuge from homophobia and ostracization through studying English and connecting online with peers who were also exploring their gender identity and sexuality. While still attending high school, and despite initial opposition from his parents, he decided to leave Japan for the US. There, he studied English, art, and then makeup. And with the help of mentors and friends who were completely open about their gender identities and sexuality, he found the freedom to express who he truly was.

At the age of 24, Nishimura made another fateful decision—to return to Japan and train as a Buddhist monk like his father before him. As Nishimura recounts in his book, up to that point he had never intended to become a monk. He had even “fiercely disliked” Buddhism at one point in time, an attitude he describes as originating from “ignorance and prejudice.” “I needed to face my own Buddhist roots. . . something I had avoided for so long,” he writes. 

Upon his return, Nishimura completed the arduous training to become a monk of the Pure Land school and stayed in Japan to help run his family’s temple in Tokyo. Today, in addition to writing and appearing frequently in media, he is active at the forefront of Japanese Buddhism’s diversity initiatives and gives many talks in Japan and overseas. 

When you wrote your Japanese memoir, did you imagine English speakers also reading it? I know you added extra text to the English version, such as explanations of Buddhist teachings. I always intended my book to be for a global audience. However, the intentions for the Japanese audience versus the international audience are a little different. I don’t have to introduce Buddhism to a Japanese audience, but in Japan I feel that people are pressured to conform to societal expectations—that women have to behave in this way, or that men doing [certain things] is not manly enough. That is something that I want to break in Japan.

[For English readers,] I really want to introduce Buddhism and how accepting it is. Many people are suffering with religious values that are limiting toward their sexual identity or sexual preferences. So, if they know more about other religions in the world, I think I can liberate them a little bit. I want to tell them that those beliefs are not the only way and there are other teachings too.             

How can Buddhist teachings help someone who is struggling with their sexuality or gender identity? Actually, Buddhist teachings don’t specify LGBTQ people at all. They just say that anybody and everybody can be equally liberated. . . and not only in the LGBTQ community, but people who struggle with racial discrimination, different disabilities, or status. I don’t want to only talk about LGBTQ issues because Buddhism really is for everybody.

That being said, in 2019, the Pure Land School hosted their first LGBTQ symposium and I was a guest speaker. A master [at the training temple], Kojun Hayashida, was invited to speak. He talked about the story from one of the main sutras we read, called Amida Sutra. There is a pond of lotus flowers in the pristine Pure Land pond. . . and there are many colorful lotus flowers and these flowers shine in their own colors of blue, yellow, red, and white. He said that diversity is to be celebrated and that we should be shining in our own color.

In order to spread the Buddhist message of equality, I designed a rainbow sticker with praying hands in the middle. The Japan Buddhist Federation of 23 Japanese Buddhist schools agreed to issue this rainbow sticker that I designed. These are for anyone who wants to display them, at temple gates, bulletin boards or by anybody, even if they don’t belong to any Buddhist group.

Is the idea that people might see them and enter the temple for advice and support? Yes. [For example,] when Japanese people die, monks give the spirit a different name. But these names are gendered. . . different names for men and women. When people identify with a different gender to their sex assigned at birth it’s unpleasant because [the posthumous name] is not actually how they want to be named. We should create an area where people can open up and talk about how they want to be named once they pass away. That kind of communication is something that I want to encourage.

In your memoir’s title, you say “Be Who You Are.” What does that mean to you personally? It’s hard to be who I am. I am a Buddhist monk and there is a certain expectation and image tied with being a monk. [It means] to be free of desire, quiet, wise, humble, minimalist. . .  those kinds of images. I felt that people started viewing me as this serene, pristine, perfect being, and that is not who I am. I tried to kind of perform, to look like a Buddhist monk and uphold that image for them, but that wasn’t making me happy.

I didn’t want to talk about my sexual desire. I didn’t want to be honest and complain. I didn’t want to be funny. And because I was not really myself, I wasn’t connecting with people. I couldn’t empathize with or help people in the best way possible.

That was not a sustainable way for me to continue helping people, even if I wanted to. The answer was not to try harder but to have the courage to reveal my true self. That way I could truly be friends with people. Unless people felt they could safely open up to me, I couldn’t help them. I feel that people are too ashamed to talk about their vulnerabilities to monks because they think that monks are these perfect people who must be respected, so they don’t really get to the point of what needs to be discussed. 

Your book includes a moving account of how, while training as a monk, you approached a senior teacher with questions about what you could wear. Can you tell me more about how that conversation went? Since I was young, I’ve been a person who likes to dance and sing and put on something sparkly. I like to wear skirts and pink clothes. But I started hiding myself because people were humiliating me. In the US, I met many people who are very expressive and wear colorful clothing, which was eye-opening to me. I didn’t know that there was an environment where it was OK for me to be myself. I didn’t want to give that up. I was always concerned, If I become a monk, would I have to give up being who I am?

Kojun Hayashida, the master monk in my training temple, was very respected, knowledgeable, and open-minded, so I asked him [about wearing beautiful things such as accessories]. He told me, “Well, in Japan, Buddhism has been evolving. . . Monks can get married now. . . Monks can have children now. Monks have multiple jobs. . . because that was necessary for Buddhism to survive in Japan. Some monks are wearing scrubs if they are also doctors. So, if you wear something shiny, so long as you are able to deliver the message of Buddhism, which is that everybody can be equally liberated, I don’t think it is a problem.”

He cleared the clouds above my head and he gave me validation to stay as who I am, and to be a proud monk.

You also write about the bodhisattva Kannon (Guanyin in Chinese). Does this deity have a special significance for you? [In Pure Land Buddhist temples] there are usually three Buddhist statues: Amida in the middle, Kannon on the left, and Seishi on the right. After my master told me that it is OK to dress in beautiful clothes, my father [who is a Buddhist priest] asked me, “Oh, do you remember Guanyin? Do you know why he is wearing dazzling accessories and embellishments?” He said that Buddhism has been evolving. In the beginning, neither humble monks nor bodhisattvas wore anything lavish because they didn’t own anything, they didn’t have money. But The Flower Garland Sutra says, “In order to inspire people, in order to gain respect from people, you have to look beautiful, because sublime virtue requires sublime appearance. Also, you have to be excellent in knowledge, and surround yourself with majestic people. For the first time, then, you can gain respect and help people. So, if you want to be a bodhisattva like me, you should dress up and look pristine.”

After learning this, I thought, “Wow, that’s so true. We worship Kannon so why can’t I try to be like him or her?” I feel like I empathize with Kannon so much because Kannon was considered a male bodhisattva of bravery in India but was later depicted as a mother-like figure with very soft features and considered a bodhisattva of mercy. He is considered a male, but I don’t know if Kannon considers himself a man or a woman. It is the same with me. I know my body is male, but am I a man or a woman? I don’t even know myself.

Your father is also a priest. How does he view your unusual path as a Buddhist monk? My father is an emeritus professor at a Buddhist university and knows much about Buddhism. He lives in a rather conservative way and doesn’t wear anything lavish or colorful. He has always known that I was a homosexual, [but] he was very afraid that I would be targeted and humiliated within the Buddhist community when I publicly came out. But actually, there have never been negative comments from the community. 

He has become comfortable with me expressing my sexuality because he has seen many people supporting me. He has received compliments from his professor and monk peers, and also letters and words of gratitude from the followers of our temple. Recently, he has given me suggestions on my fashion too, about which heels to wear!

My father is not really trying to change the overall situation. He likes to keep things in the comfortable way as they are now. However, he thinks the Japan Buddhist Federation should eliminate discriminatory lines from the sutras. For example, when women are reborn in the Pure Land, it says they will be reborn as male. Or, in a sutra from the Pure Land school nuns and novices are listed as “ignorant.” I [also] think these lines are so outdated. I get offended, so during the monk training, I would secretly skip these lines.

Do you want to say anything else? Well, a lot of people think that I am not a real monk. I know that I am not following the traditional image, but I believe that the essence of being a monk is to help people. So, I have no hesitation in tackling the problems people face today while utilizing my uniqueness.

Furthermore, I want to inspire other religious leaders of the world to re-examine their conceptions and teachings against LGBTQ people so that all of us can feel safe to be ourselves and shine in our own color. If I can contribute to that, what people think of me does not matter at all.

♦

The post  ‘This Monk Wears Heels’: An Interview with Kodo Nishimura appeared first on Tricycle: The Buddhist Review.

TIME magazine has Japanese monk, makeup artist, and LGBTQ activist Kodo Nishimura on its 2021 list of Next Generation Leaders. Though both of his parents are Buddhist clergy, Nishimura was not interested in following in their footsteps when he moved to New York City to study at Parsons School of Design. In college, he learned to embrace both his LGBTQ identity and his Buddhist roots. At the age of 24, Nishimura began splitting his time between makeup-artist work in America and monastic training in Japan. At 32, the monk, who once again resides at his family’s temple, now boasts such celebrity clients as actress Christina Milian and the musical duo Chloe x Halle. An outspoken LGBTQ activist challenging discriminatory legislation in Japan, Nishimura feels that simply expressing his most authentic self is also part of engendering change. He told Tricycle in a 2017 interview, “By doing what I love, I want to inspire people to know that they can be themselves.”

♦

Each Friday, Buddha Buzz looks back at the events of that week in the Buddhist world. Read the full Buddha Buzz article here.

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Nothing is permanent, so everything is precious. Here’s a selection of some happenings—fleeting or otherwise—in the Buddhist world this week.

Vandalized Buddhist Temple Only the Latest in a String of Anti-Asian Attacks

Recent vandalism at Huong Tich Temple, a Vietnamese Buddhist temple in Santa Ana, California, is only the latest incidence of anti-Asian racism in the US and Canada. Last month, Thai Viet Phan, Santa Ana’s first Vietnamese American city council member, discovered that fifteen of the Huong Tich Temple’s buddha and bodhisattva statues had been spray-painted, Religion News Service (RNS) reported. On one statue’s back, the word “Jesus” had been painted in black letters. This happened just weeks after Phan was elected. When she reached out to other local elected officials, Phan learned that five other Buddhist temples in the same neighborhood, Little Saigon, had been defaced in November. “This is a hate crime, not just vandalism,” she told RNS.

Hate crimes against Asian and Asian American people in the US have increased since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, and President Donald Trump’s incendiary rhetoric about the virus’s Chinese origins has put Asian American communities on alert. According to RNS, vandalism of Buddhist temples has historically been a common expression of hate toward Asian Americans in general, and has also served as a way to express dissatisfaction with the US government’s handling of Asian foreign affairs. In 1984 three Vietnam War veterans burned down a Tibetan Buddhist temple in Massachusetts to express their frustration with the lack of support they received from Veterans Affairs. Russell Jeung, a professor of Asian American studies at San Francisco State University who runs a center that tracks cases of anti-Asian racism and xenophobia in the US, said there have been no reported hate incidents at Asian American churches this year.

New Survey Aims to Count Buddhist Chaplains in North America

A new survey aims to obtain clear statistics on how many Buddhist chaplains are currently working in the field of spiritual care in North America. “Mapping Buddhist Chaplaincy in North America,” headed by Cheryl Giles of Harvard Divinity School and Monica Sanford of the Rochester Institute of Technology, is “a first attempt to answer some fundamental questions about Buddhist chaplaincy as a professional field, including how many Buddhist chaplains there are, where they work, what Buddhist traditions they represent, where they are educated, how they are certified, and what concerns they have about their profession,” according to the project’s website. Funded by Harvard Divinity School, the project was developed by a multi-institute research team representing the four existing accredited MDiv in Buddhist Chaplaincy programs in the US. Buddhist chaplains interested in taking the survey can do so here. The data collected by this study will be used to promote more nuanced research and advocacy about and for Buddhist chaplains. 

Bhutan Parliament Decriminalizes Homosexuality 

The Buddhist kingdom of Bhutan has officially decriminalized homosexuality, according to Reuters. On Thursday, a joint sitting of both houses of Bhutan’s parliament approved a bill to legalize gay sex, making the small Himalayan kingdom the latest Asian nation to take steps towards easing restrictions on same-sex relationships. Bhutan has been moving toward decriminalizing homosexuality since last year, when the legislative body’s lower house passed a bill to repeal a section of the penal code banning “unnatural sex,” which in practice has meant homosexuality. (In January, the upper house of parliament debated the bill.) The changes still need to be approved by the King of Bhutan to become law.

Buddhist Picture Books Teach Children About Climate Change 

In Taiwan, where over a third of adults identify as Buddhist, parents and teachers are using Buddhist picture books to teach children about climate change and how to care for the Earth, the Conversation, a nonprofit news organization, reported. Recently published children’s books feature bodhisattvas, beings with the desire to attain enlightenment for the benefit of all beings, who help children clean up polluted spaces in their communities such as beaches, parks, or even bedrooms. Other books use stories about plants and animals to teach the interconnectedness of all beings. 

Cambodian-American Writer Anthony Veasna So Dies at 28 

Anthony Veasna So, author of darkly comedic stories about the lives of first-generation Khmer-Americans, died last week at his home in San Francisco. He was 28. The New York Times described So as a writer “on the brink of literary stardom.” So’s fiction and essays about the lives of Cambodian-Americans, generational clashes, and one individual’s experiences with Buddhism (see his short story, “The Monks”) had appeared in publications such as N+1, Granta, and the New Yorker. His first book, Afterparties, a collection of short stories, is to be published in August 2021.

Unique Tibetan Reliquary Building Wins Design Award

The Architect’s Newspaper awarded this year’s Best of Design Award for Institutional—Religious to the 14th Shamarpa Reliquary Building, designed by architect Anthony Poon. Featured in Tricycle’s Fall 2019 issue, Poon’s structure lies on the grounds of the Bodhi Path Retreat Center in Natural Bridge, Virginia, and honors the passing of Shamar Rinpoche, the 14th Shamarpa, a lineage holder in the Karma Kagyu school of Tibetan Buddhism. Before he started the project, Poon immersed himself in the Buddhist life of the retreat center, joining its sangha for teachings, meditation, and retreats, as well as social events and meals. “Lots of my time was spent getting to know the community of Bodhi Path. I wasn’t just designing architecture for them; I was being present with them,” he told Tricycle in 2019. Poon’s uniquely minimalist building that surrounds the reliquary contains the Shamarpa’s relics within a gold-leafed stupa. 

Spotlight on Tricycle’s Winter Issue  

The Society of Publication Designers, a network of editorial designers, featured Tricycle’s Winter 2020 Issue in its Cover of the Day portfolio, a collection of “great newspaper and magazine covers from around the world.” The mention coincided with a major snowstorm on the East Coast of the US, where most of the Tricycle staff is based. 

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Nothing is permanent, so everything is precious. Here’s a selection of some happenings—fleeting or otherwise—in the Buddhist world this week.

Thai Monk Speaks Out About LGBT+ Rights

As Thailand prepares to pass a landmark civil partnerships bill that would recognize same-sex unions with nearly the same legal rights as heterosexual couples, one Buddhist monk is openly showing his support for the LGBT+ community. According to the nonprofit arm of the Reuters news service, the Thomson Reuters Foundation (TRF), 52-year-old Shine Waradhammo has been attending LGBT+ events in Thailand, where his saffron robe and shaved head are often conspicuous, and posts frequently on social media about issues affecting the queer community. “He is quite exceptional; it is not common to see a Buddhist monk take such an interest in these issues, and be vocal and supportive, and even show up at events,” Anjana Suvarnanda, co-founder of the LGBT+ organization Anjaree Group, told TRF. “He also helps us frame the argument from the religious perspective, reminding people of the Buddhist philosophy of accepting all people. If we had more monks like him, it would make a real difference.” 

If the Civil Partnership Bill is passed, Thailand will be the second country in Asia after Taiwan to allow the registration of same-sex unions. But Waradhammo says it doesn’t go far enough. He supports a separate initiative that seeks to change the Civil Code, Thailand’s main body of laws, so that marriage is defined as being between two persons rather than between a man and a woman. “The Civil Partnership Bill does not give equal rights [to gay couples],” he said. “Changing the Civil Code would be better.” 

In Theravada Buddhism, LGBT+ people are sometimes seen as paying the price for bad karma from a previous life, Waradhammo told TRF. But he doesn’t agree. “The Buddha never said anything against LGBT people, so it is a very wrong interpretation of the scriptures that leads to bias and rejection of LGBT people. Monks generally avoid talking about LGBT and gender issues, but we should be talking about issues that affect society, and religious teachings have to reflect the present times—otherwise religion becomes a dinosaur.”

Resettlement Prospects Look Bleak for Rohingya Refugees from Myanmar

Resettlement for Rohingya Muslim refugees fleeing Myanmar has become even more dangerous as countries like Malaysia have closed their borders and threatened to push boats back to sea to protect jobs and resources amid coronavirus lockdowns, according to Reuters. In 2018 and 2019, two attempts at a repatriation process failed when refugees refused to return to Myanmar, a Buddhist-majority country where the ethnic minority has been denied citizenship and where the military’s campaign of violence against them forced millions to flee to neighboring Bangladesh. 

Bangladesh used to run a resettlement program that offered a way for refugees to find permanent homes, but they ended that program in 2010. Bangladesh’s refugee commissioner told Reuters that if the government resumed the program, they would focus on resettling refugees in other countries. H.T. Imam, a political advisor to Bangladesh’s prime minister, however, has called that process unrealistic because European countries and the US are so reluctant to accept Muslim refugees. 

Buddhist Monk’s Reputation Destroyed in Government Smear Campaign on Facebook

Buddhist monk Luon Sovath, who had spent decades fighting for the human rights of his fellow Cambodians, was the victim of a Facebook smear campaign backed by the Cambodian government. An investigation by the New York Times found that government employees were involved in creation of fake social media accounts and false claims that led to the takedown and eventual exile of Luon Sovath, who has been an outspoken critic of his country’s authoritarian policies. After grainy videos appeared on a fake Facebook page, claims began circulating that the monk had slept with three sisters and their mother. A government-controlled religious council then defrocked Luon Sovath, alleging that he had broken the monastic precept of celibacy. Fearing imminent arrest, the monk fled Cambodia for Thailand, where he now lives in exile. Luon Sovath’s plight draws attention to the fact that the Cambodian government can easily use Facebook, the only digital interface for millions of people in the country, to crack down on dissidents. Under Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen, the government has repeatedly used falsified Facebook posts or manipulated audio to denigrate and imprison politicians, activists, and other human rights defenders. 

Remains Found in Japan Suggest 1800s Epidemic

Archaeologists in Osaka, Japan, dug up remains of more than 1,500 people who were buried in a 19th century mass grave, reported the Associated Press. Some graves were small round holes with bodies apparently stacked and buried together; others contained coffins with multiple remains. Experts cited these as signs that many victims of an epidemic were buried together. Lesions on limbs of the remains suggest that there may have been a syphilis outbreak, which was rampant in the 1800s in populated areas like Osaka. Archaeologists also found coins, Buddhist prayer beads, headdresses, combs, sake cups, and clay dolls, which has taught them more about regional burial practices.

The post Buddha Buzz Weekly: Thai Monk Backs Marriage Equality appeared first on Tricycle: The Buddhist Review.

Nothing is permanent, so everything is precious. Here’s a selection of some happenings—fleeting or otherwise—in the Buddhist world this week.

CDC Releases Pandemic Guidelines for Faith Communities

On May 22, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) released new guidelines for faith communities that choose to reopen during the coronavirus pandemic. The guidelines include instructions on hygiene practices, face coverings, disinfection, and social distancing. Although President Donald Trump last week deemed places of worship “essential” during the pandemic, CNN reported that faith leaders across the country have stressed the need for caution. Rev. Elizabeth Eaton, presiding bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, told CNN that God “has given us the gift of science” and urged her congregations to abide by the CDC guidelines. “Protecting others is a faithful response,” she said. 

Many Buddhist centers remain closed while continuing to offer online teachings and meditation sessions. (Tricycle’s live online meditation sessions will continue as well.) In an update explaining their decision to keep their doors shut, the Insight Meditation Society said, “The alleviation of unnecessary suffering is a way to honor our mission even when no one is sitting in our meditation halls.”

Japanese Temple Expands Wedding Ceremonies for Same-sex Couples

After the city of Kawagoe became Japan’s 48th local government to legally recognize LGBTQ partnerships through a “partnership oath system” on May 1, a local Buddhist temple expanded its wedding ceremonies to include services for same-sex couples. According to Yahoo News Japan, Saimyo-ji temple now offers weddings (photography and traditional outfits included) for 200,000 yen—about $1,858 USD. “With the increasing understanding of LGBTQ in society as a whole these days, we’re working on creating a new temple with people who are sexual minorities,” vice priest Akihiro Senda told Yahoo News Japan. He also said that the ceremonies will provide “rainbow malas” and rainbow-colored kesa [Buddhist vestments] for the couple to wear. While Saimyo-ji is not the first temple in Japan to provide same-sex wedding services, it may be the only Buddhist temple that offers these sartorial accompaniments. 

今日は東京レインボープライド🏳️‍🌈オンラインパレードの日です🤗❗️

最明寺はLGBTQフレンドリーな寺院を目指しております🙏全てに平等な仏教を通じ、皆様と想いを共有していきたいですね。

来年こそは代々木公園のパレードに参加します🌈 写真は自慢のLGBT輪袈裟💕#川越 #TRP2020 #おうちでプライド pic.twitter.com/KRxOa1iV4z

— 千田明寛 （最明寺 副住職) (@saimyou_kun) April 26, 2020

Chinese Buddhists Use Online Merit Fields During Lockdown

Monasteries in China have been closed since January, but they have adopted novel digital methods to interact with followers during the COVID-19 outbreak. According to a recent report by the National University of Singapore, monastics are using online platforms to promote Buddhist teachings and practices. In late March, Putuo Monastery in China’s Guangdong region posted a guide to cultivating “online merit fields” (wangluo futian) on WeChat, a social media platform popular in the Chinese-speaking world. By scanning a QR code, practitioners can participate in virtual ritual acts, including preaching the dharma; printing scriptures; donating to the monastery; and making offerings, such as vegetarian meals, to Buddhist statues and ancestral tablets. While these online services are not new, they may be the only way for Buddhists to worship until the pandemic has passed. Despite the tentative return to normalcy for businesses in China, it is uncertain when religious institutions will be permitted to open their doors to the public again. 

24-Hours of Namu-Myoho-Renge-Kyo

Nichiren Shu practitioners have organized a 24-hour chanting event on Facebook Live that will run from 8:00 a.m. on June 6 to 8:00 a.m. on June 7, Japan Standard Time. Information about the session can be found at the “24 Hours Odaimoku offering to heal the world” Facebook group, where the chanting will be broadcast live. (For more on the history and practice of Nichiren Buddhism and the chanting of the odaimoku, check out Myokei Caine-Barrett’s video Dharma Talks, “Living the Lotus Sutra.”)

The post Buddha Buzz Weekly: Pandemic Guidelines for Faith Communities appeared first on Tricycle: The Buddhist Review.