“The purpose of the appearance in this world of Shakyamuni Buddha, the lord of teachings, lies in his behavior as a human being”  

—“The Three Kinds of Treasure,” The Writings of Nichiren Daishonin

Wayne Shorter, the renowned jazz saxophonist, prolific composer, and dedicated Buddhist practitioner, passed away on March 2, 2023, at the age of 89. July 2023 would have marked fifty years of Shorter’s practice of Nichiren Buddhism as a member of Soka Gakkai International (SGI). His practice inspired him to treat every day, every moment, as the proving ground on which to manifest and enjoy his own enlightenment and inspire others to do the same. Shorter’s decades of practicing Nichiren Buddhism profoundly influenced his creativity in music and all other aspects of his life. 

Deeply inspired by his life and legacy, I chanted Nam-myoho-renge-kyo, the core practice of Nichiren Buddhism enacted by millions of SGI members worldwide, with profound gratitude for his life. In doing so, I realized I wanted to write an article about him to ensure that people knew how much his extraordinary artistry was fueled by his practice, and how his practice infused his behavior as a human being. Whenever I had occasion to encounter Mr. Shorter at various SGI activities, he was always encouraging and humble in the way that only people confident in their intrinsic value can be. He always had this warm wit and relaxed courage shining in his way of being and speaking. As a longtime SGI member, I was honored to talk with several of Shorter’s family and friends about his resonant legacy—and his deep relationship with the dharma.

“I think the focal aim of his behavior, as a human being and as a musician, was to live this Buddhist philosophy so that it would inspire people through his behavior,” Carolina Shorter, Wayne’s wife and a SGI Buddhist practitioner, told me. “Buddhism is a practice where we believe that all of us are one, and we cannot be happy while someone else is suffering. And so it’s not about removing yourself from society. We are all together. Let’s all help each other in all kinds of ways.” 

Carolina shared how she could feel this message in his music, too, stating, “He always aimed toward inspiring people to have courage, to get back in touch with their dreams even if it was a profound dream that had been forgotten.” For instance, in 2016, Shorter and fellow jazz musician and close friend Herbie Hancock penned “An Open Letter to the Next Generation of Artists,” in which they write: 

You cannot hide behind a profession or instrument; you have to be human. Focus your energy on becoming the best human you can be. Focus on developing empathy and compassion. Through the process you’ll tap into a wealth of inspiration rooted in the complexity and curiosity of what it means to simply exist on this planet. Music is but a drop in the ocean of life. 

As the poet Rumi says, “You are not a drop in the ocean, you are the ocean in a drop.” The ocean of Shorter’s life was filled with exquisite crescendos of achievement: a 1998 NEA Jazz Masters Fellowship; a Lifetime Achievement Grammy in 2015; a Guggenheim fellowship in 2016; in 2017, the Polar Music Prize; in 2018, the Kennedy Center Honors award. Honorary doctoral degrees were conferred on him by Berklee College of Music, NYU, and the New England Conservatory. Shorter recorded over twenty albums and wrote over 200 compositions, with “mastery (in) knocking down the wall between jazz and classical [music],” according to the New York Times. After serving as primary composer for Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers in the late 1950s, he joined Miles Davis’s quintet in the 1960s, later cofounded the fusion band Weather Report and his own jazz quartet, and toured and performed with many notable talents. In 2008, music critic Ben Ratliff wrote that Shorter was “probably jazz’s greatest living small-group composer and a contender for greatest living improviser.”

In addition to being a twelve-time Grammy-winning recording artist who made genre-defining contributions to the legacy of jazz, Mr. Shorter also actualized his own long-held profound ambition when he cowrote an opera, Iphigenia, at the age of 87, fulfilling a dream he had since he was 19. Coauthor of the opera, esperanza spalding, who became an SGI member herself after Wayne, Carolina Shorter, and Herbie Hancock introduced her to the practice, describes him as a “combination muse, guide, mentor, and guru.”

Adin Strauss, General Director of the SGI-USA, shared his admiration for Shorter’s musical brilliance and how he always maintained high spirits, even throughout the last five years of his life as he challenged and conquered one massive, life-or-death health obstacle after another. “[He was] always moving forward in the spirit of what he termed ‘zero gravity’—a unique Wayne-ism that beautifully expressed Nichiren’s and the Lotus Sutra’s spirit of ‘from this moment forward,’” Strauss told me. “He was unbound by the fetters of the past—musically, culturally, or otherwise—always with eyes fixed on the future, confident that his Buddhist faith, the philosophy of Nichiren and Daisaku Ikeda, the mentor whom Wayne so cherished, and his own irrepressible energy would enable him to conquer any obstacle, including sickness and death. And that is indeed what he did.”

Carolina described how she, too, was simply in awe of Wayne’s unyielding courage coupled with enthusiasm in the face of serious difficulty. She described him as having a childlike excitement for seeing how obstacles could be transformed as they chanted for wisdom to grow like a lotus flower from the mud of suffering. One major challenge they faced occurred when the Shorters were hit hard financially during the 2008 global economic crisis. When Carolina read a letter they had received describing their dire straits, Wayne clasped his hands in elation, stating, “I can’t wait to see what the surprise will be!” On some level, she understood where he was coming from, because as a longtime practitioner herself, she was familiar with how SGI members would often congratulate one another on the loss of a job or some other difficulty out of confidence that good fortune would manifest through practice to overcome the difficulty. Yet even with that awareness, Carolina held the letter up again for Wayne, saying, “I don’t think you understand,” to which he smiled and replied, “Oh, I understand. I understand clearly.”  

Reflecting on this, Carolina said, “We always hear that the obstacles are actually the raw material with which you are going to build the palace of your Buddhahood. And I feel that. But it is very interesting to me how Wayne literally lived that part of the practice.” 

“Wayne went beyond transcending to transformation, transforming each hardship into a blessing,” said world-renowned flutist Nestor Torres, a friend and fellow SGI member for more than forty years who also performed with Shorter. “That is what I feel differentiates us, who practice Nichiren Daishonin’s Buddhism within the Soka Gakkai; that it is one thing to overcome, another thing to transcend, and yet another to transform the difficulty into a blessing.”

Even when Wayne was told in hospice that his body was failing, he embraced the sufferings of illness and death with inimitable courage. Carolina shared that when Wayne heard the news, he said, “Okay, so I guess it’s time for me to go get a new body and come back and continue the mission.”

“If that’s not the most incredibly profound understanding of how the sickness and death part of the four sufferings work, I don’t know what is,” Carolina told me. Wayne’s valiant spirit in the face of his own mortality reminded Carolina of a teaching from SGI President Dr. Daisaku Ikeda, in which he states: 

Illness can neither rob us of true happiness nor stop us from living a victorious life. Though one may be ill, this has no bearing on the inherent nobility, dignity, and beauty of one’s life.

Elaborating on this, Carolina shared that, “even in his illness, there were so many moments in the hospitals and everything where people would come up to him. I mean, they couldn’t believe how Wayne was dealing with his illness. He used to cite the phrase from President Ikeda’s guidance, ‘Faith is to fear nothing.’ And in this case, I think that the ultimate victory was his never-give-up spirit… His aim at every thought, with his work and with his behavior, including in the hospital, was so strongly aimed toward inspiring people to actually awaken to the greatness of their own lives.”

Indeed, Mr. Shorter could often be seen wearing a hat or T-shirt with the SGI motto “Never Give Up.” Although the phrase may seem to be one that simply cheers us on, it has a deeper meaning, as illustrated in the way Shorter lived. Never Give Up is a rallying cry, a call to our own greater self, a reminder that, of course, we can manifest more of our enlightenment. There are thousands of elegant solutions to any challenge; there is growth and possibility beyond our wildest dreams. “Never Give Up” means that we are determined to actualize the universe’s capacity to align with our determination to transform suffering into growth. It is an expression of resolve, of limitless determination to which the universe responds with limitless compassionate matching force that, in turn, compounds our life force. “Never Give Up” is our rallying cry because it recognizes our own inestimable possibility as human beings and the reflection of that limitless possibility in the cosmos. We say it humbly because we know that there is so much more potential in ourselves and in the universe than we are tapping at any given moment, and we can—must—use our daimoku (our chanting practice) and Buddhist study to tap into more of that potential. It means that we have a humble awareness that there is always hope, there is always a possibility, and if there isn’t, we can create hope and possibility. We can, as African Americans say, “make a way out of no way.” This is in fact what African Americans did with the creation of the genre called jazz.  

Jazz itself is a wisdom transmission about creative living. As a genre, it portrays the particular and otherwise inexpressible triumphs and challenges of Black musicians. According to eminent jazz musician Herbie Hancock, who describes Shorter as a best friend, “Even though the roots of jazz come from the African American experience, my feeling has always been that jazz really developed from a noble aspect of the human spirit common to all people—the ability to respond to the worst of circumstances and to create something of great value, or as Buddhism says, to turn poison into medicine.”

Through his music, his practice, and his relationships, Shorter continually transformed the sufferings of life into something creative and constructive. Olivier Urbain, director of the Min-On Music Research Institute in Tokyo, Japan, recalled Shorter’s own words on the transformative potential of his music: “Shorter said, ‘The music I am creating now has to deal with the unfamiliar; it has to be music that inspires people to consider negotiating with the unexpected instead of the familiar, with the unknown, to raise their life condition.’”  

What Nichiren Daishonin refers to as magnificent “behavior as a human being” is manifest in the compassionate humility with which Wayne Shorter nurtured everyone around him. The fact that he continued to cultivate music to the last weeks of his life, developing a brilliant opera in his late 80s, signifies that when we use our Buddhist practice, we can actualize the real meaning of our appearance in this world and behave as human beings who do not rest on our laurels, ever. 

Up to the last moments of his conscious life, Wayne Shorter was chanting the mantra Nam-myoho-renge-kyo. When the doctors advised him that he would most likely not wake up after receiving the medicine he was being given, he asked Carolina to hand him his prayer beads, which he always kept nearby, so that he could chant, which he did until he drifted into sleep. Carolina describes how she, too, had fallen asleep many hours later, until a nurse came to tell her that his heart rate was slowing; it would not be long. Carolina grasped Wayne’s hand and began to chant for his joyful transition. Even after he passed peacefully, at 4:04 a.m., she continued chanting with him and holding his hand for the next four hours. She says she was thinking of the passage from “The Heritage of the Ultimate Law of Life” from Major Writings of Nichiren Daishonin, where he says,

For one who summons up one’s faith and chants Nam-myoho-renge-kyo with the profound insight that now is the last moment of one’s life, the sutra proclaims: ‘When the lives of these persons come to an end, they will be received into the hands of a thousand Buddhas, who will free them from all fear and keep them from falling into the evil paths of existence.’ How can we possibly hold back our tears at the inexpressible joy of knowing that not just one or two, not just one hundred or two hundred, but as many as a thousand Buddhas will come to greet us with open arms!

The twenty-fourth chapter of the Lotus Sutra describes bodhisattva Wonderful Sound as one who will propagate Buddhism eternally. Listening to his timeless music and chanting Nam-myoho-renge-kyo in communion with him, may we allow our lives to harmonize with bodhisattva Wayne Shorter’s eternally glorious, victorious life force.  

The post The Glorious, Victorious Life of Bodhisattva Wayne Shorter appeared first on Tricycle: The Buddhist Review.

There is an old expression that says “you can’t get there from here,” meaning you can’t get somewhere if you don’t know where you’re starting from. You need to know two things to go anywhere: where you are now and where you are going.

Nichiren taught that our defilements lead to awakening. This idea was so central to his ministry that it frames the daimoku, the title of the Lotus Sutra, Namu Myohorengekyo—on every mandala he ever inscribed.

The defilements (Sanskrit: kleshas) are mental states that disturb the mind and give rise to unwholesome actions. They arise from the three poisons of greed, hatred, and delusion, and are a natural part of life. Klesha can also be translated as “affliction.”

Some think Buddhism’s goal is to eliminate defilements because they function to obscure our buddhanature, but the Lotus Sutra, which is the basis for Nichiren Buddhism, states that there is no difference between our defilements and awakening. Though they seem to be opposites, they are simply different sides of the way things are. Awakening is not the eradication of defilements but a state in which we are fully aware of all aspects of our lives, good and bad. The Lotus Sutra refutes the doctrine that the purpose of our practice is to transcend life, to escape samsara, to “reach” nirvana, thereby confirming Buddhism as a positive, life-affirming religion; one whose objective is liberation through engagement.

As Robert Frost wrote, “the best way out is always through”—in other words, we learn from dealing with the difficult things. Defilements then become the motivation to seek awakening, the fuel to spur us to practice with confidence and trust in the universal process-flow of buddhanature. Rather than seeking to get rid of our defilements, all our characteristics and qualities become the focus of our meditation practice. We accept ourselves fully as we are, good points and bad points included, without rejecting anything in order to go someplace other than where we are right now.

Awakening is not the eradication of defilements but a state in which we are fully aware of all aspects of our lives, good and bad.

The Lotus Sutra states that “even without extinguishing their defilements or denying their desires [people] can purify all their senses and eradicate all of their misdeeds.” It also teaches us that awakening does not lie in subjugating delusions one by one in order to attain enlightenment. Chapter 16 of the Lotus Sutra tells us that “ordinary mortals, just as they are, are buddhas. . . . We burn the firewood of defilements and behold the fire of enlightened wisdom before our eyes.”

Our destination is our vow to do good, to do no harm, and to seek awakening for ourselves and others. Our starting point is accepting and embracing all of our qualities, good, bad, and neutral. We won’t arrive at our destination by denying or suppressing anything—that never works. Things always pop up again and again, usually in the most unpleasant ways and at the most unfortunate times.

The Lotus Sutra says, “Good people should enter the abode of the Tathagata.”  This abode is the four brahmaviharas: lovingkindness, compassion, sympathetic joy, and equanimity. We hold everything in and around us, even the most embarrassing and terrible things about ourselves, even our defilements, with the same lovingkindness and compassion that a parent would have for their crying child.

We begin our journey of awakening by observing all our characteristics, patterns, and behaviors just as they are. We accept that we are not perfect and, frankly, may never be perfect. But we try our best. And when we fail, we notice it, accept it with a smile, and without self-criticism simply begin again, and again, and again. We can get there from here.

The post You Can Get There From Here appeared first on Tricycle: The Buddhist Review.

Nichiren Shonin taught that the essence of the Lotus Sutra is found by developing faith through chanting what’s called the daimoku (or the odaimoku), the sutra’s sacred title. Myokei Caine-Barrett, the first woman and the first Westerner to hold the position of bishop in the Nichiren Order of North America, leads us through daimoku practice.

Myokei Caine-Barrett, Shonin is the first woman and the first Westerner to hold the position of bishop in the Nichiren Order of North America. She is the resident priest of the Myoken-ji Temple in Houston, Texas.

The post Living the Lotus Sutra appeared first on Tricycle: The Buddhist Review.

If someone you love has died in a hospital, you may have seen modern death at its worst: overly medicalized, impersonal, and filled with unnecessary suffering. The experience can be a bitter lesson in Buddha’s most basic teaching: the more we try to avoid suffering (including death), the worse we often make it.

Even though roughly half of Americans die in hospitals and other institutions, most of us yearn to die at home, and perhaps to experience our leavetaking as a sacred rite of passage rather than a technological flail. You don’t have to be a saint, or be wealthy, or have a Rolodex of influential names to die well. But you do need to prepare. It helps to be a member of at least one “tribe,” to have someone who cares deeply about you, and to have doctors who tell you necessary truths so that you can decide when to stop aggressive treatment and opt for hospice care. Then those who care for you can arrange the basics: privacy, cleanliness, and quiet, the removal of beeping technologies, and adequate pain control. They can listen and express their love, and provide the hands-on bedside care hospice doesn’t cover.

From then on, a more realistic hope for our caregivers, and for ourselves when we are dying, may not be an idealized “good death” by a well-behaved patient, but a “good enough death,” where we keep the dying as comfortable and pain-free as possible, and leave room for the beautiful and the transcendent—which may or may not occur.

Hospice professionals often warn against high expectations. Things will probably not go as planned, and there comes a point when radical acceptance is far more important than goal-oriented activity. They don’t like the idea, inherent in some notions of the “good death,” of expecting the dying to put on a final ritual performance for the living, one marked by beautiful last words, final reconciliations, philosophical acceptance of the coming of death, lack of fear, and a peaceful letting go.

“I don’t tell families at the outset that their experience can be life-affirming, and leave them with positive feelings and memories,” said hospice nurse Jerry Soucy. “I say instead that we’re going to do all we can to make the best of a difficult situation, because that’s what we confront. The positive feelings sometimes happen in the moment, but are more likely to be of comfort in the days and months after a death.” This is what it took, and how it looked, for the family of John Masterson.

John was an artist and sign painter, the ninth of ten children born to a devout Catholic couple in Davenport, Iowa. His mother died when he was 8, and he and two of his sisters spent nearly a year in an orphanage. He moved to Seattle in his twenties, earned a black belt in karate, started a sign-painting business, and converted to Nichiren Shoshu, the branch of Buddhism whose primary practice is chanting. He never left his house without intoning three times in Japanese Nam Myoho Renge Kyo (“I Honor the Impeccable Teachings of the Lotus Sutra”).

He was 57 and living alone, without health insurance, when he developed multiple myeloma, an incurable blood cancer. He didn’t have much money: he was the kind of person who would spend hours teaching a fellow artist how to apply gold leaf, while falling behind on his paid work. But thanks to his large extended family, his karate practice, and his fierce dedication to his religion, he was part of several tribes. He was devoted to his three children—each the result of a serious relationship with a different woman—and they loved him equally fiercely. His youngest sister, Anne, a nurse who had followed him to Seattle, said he had “an uncanny ability to piss people off but make them love him loyally forever.”

When he first started feeling exhausted and looking gaunt, John tried to cure himself with herbs and chanting. By the time Anne got him to a doctor, he had a tumor the size of a half grapefruit protruding from his breastbone. Myeloma is sometimes called a “smoldering” cancer, because it can lie dormant for years. By the time John’s was diagnosed, his was in flames.

Huge plasma cells were piling up in his bone marrow, while other rogue blood cells dissolved bone and dumped calcium into his bloodstream, damaging his kidneys and brain function. He grew too weak and confused to work or drive. Bills piled up and his house fell into foreclosure. Anne, who worked the evening shift at a local hospital, moved him into her house and drove him to various government offices to apply for food stamps, Social Security Disability, and Medicaid. She would frequently get up early to stand in line outside social services offices with his paperwork in a portable plastic file box.

Medicaid paid for the drug thalidomide, which cleared the calcium from John’s bloodstream and helped his brain and kidneys recover. A blood cancer specialist at his medical center told him that a bone marrow transplant might buy him time, perhaps even years. But myeloma eventually returns; the transplant doesn’t cure it. The treatment would temporarily destroy his immune system, could kill him, and would require weeks of recovery in sterile isolation. John decided against it, and was equally adamant that he’d never go on dialysis.

After six months on thalidomide, John recovered enough to move into a government-subsidized studio apartment near Pike Place Market. He loved being on his own again and wandered the market making videos of street musicians, which he’d post on Facebook. But Anne now had to drive across town to shop, cook, and clean for him.

The health plateau lasted more than a year. But by the fall of 2010, John could no longer bear one of thalidomide’s most difficult side effects, agonizing neuropathic foot pain. When he stopped taking the drug, he knew that calcium would once again build up in his bloodstream, and that he was turning toward his death.

An older sister and brother flew out from Iowa to help Anne care for him. One sibling would spend the night, and another, or John’s oldest daughter, Keely, a law student, would spend the day.

Christmas came and went. His sister Irene returned to Iowa and was replaced by another Iowa sister, Dottie, a devout Catholic. In early January, John developed a urinary tract infection and became severely constipated and unable to pee. Anne took him to the hospital for what turned out to be the last time. His kidneys were failing and his bones so eaten away by disease that when he sneezed, he broke several ribs. Before he left the hospital, John met with a hematologist, a blood specialist, who asked Anne to step briefly out of the room.

Related: A Life Too Long

Anne does not know exactly what was said. But his doctor was apparently well-trained in difficult conversations. The wisest doctors, when supported by morally responsible institutional cultures, do not simply present patients with retail options, like items on a menu, and expect them to blindly pick. Instead they believe they have an obligation to use their clinical experience in the service of their patients’ best interests, and they are not afraid of making frank recommendations against futile and painful end-of-life treatments. When the meeting was over, the doctor told Anne that her brother “wanted to let nature take its course.” He would enroll in hospice. Anne drove him home.

John knew he was dying. He told Anne that he wanted to “feel everything” about the process, even the pain. He took what she called “this Buddhist perspective that if he suffered he would wipe out his bad karma. I said, ‘Nah, that’s just bullshit. You’ve done nothing wrong. The idea that we’re sinners or have to suffer is ludicrous.’” She looked her brother in the eye. She knew she was going to be dispensing his medications when he no longer could, and she wasn’t going to let him suffer. She told him, ‘You’re not going to have a choice.’”

Anne said she “set an intention”: not to resist her brother’s dying, but to give him the most gentle death possible and to just let things unfold. On January 15, her birthday, she and John and a gaggle of other family members walked down to Pike Place Market to get a coffee and celebrate. John was barely able to walk: Anne kept close to him so that she could grab him if he fell. It was the last time he left the house.

The next morning, a Sunday, while Anne was sitting with John at his worktable, he looked out the window and asked her, “Do you think I’ll die today?” Anne said, “Well, Sundays are good days to die, but no, I don’t think it’s today.” It was the last fully coherent conversation she had with him.

He spent most of his last nine days in bed, as his kidneys failed and he grew increasingly confused. He didn’t seem afraid, but he was sometimes grumpy. He had increasing difficulty finding words and craved celery, which he called “the green thing.” He would ask Anne to take him to the bathroom, and then forget what he was supposed to do there. His daughter Keely took a leave of absence from law school, and Anne did the same from her job at the hospital. Fellow artists, fellow chanters, former students to whom he’d taught karate, nephews, nieces, and sign-painting clients visited, and Anne would prop him up on pillows to greet them.

Related: Travel Guide to the End of Life

Anne managed things, but with a light hand. She didn’t vet visitors, and they came at all hours. If she needed to change his sheets or turn him, she would ask whoever was there to help her, and show them how. That way, she knew that other people were capable of caring for him when she wasn’t there. “The ones that have the hardest time [with death] wring their hands and think they don’t know what to do,” she said. “But we do know what to do. Just think: If it were my body, what would I want? One of the worst things, when we’re grieving, is the sense that I didn’t do enough,” she said. “But if you get in and help, you won’t have that sense of helplessness.”

Each day John ate and spoke less and slept more, until he lost consciousness and stopped speaking entirely. To keep him from developing bedsores, Anne would turn him from one side to the other every two hours, change his diaper if necessary, and clean him, with the help of whoever was in the room. He’d groan when she moved him, so about a half an hour beforehand, she’d crush morphine and Ativan pills, mix them with water as the hospice nurse had showed her, and drip them into John’s mouth.

One morning her distraught brother Steve accused her of “killing” John by giving him too much morphine—a common fear among relatives, who sometimes can’t bear to up the dose as pain gets worse. At that moment, the hospice nurse arrived by chance, and calmly and gently explained to Steve, “Your brother is dying, and this is what dying looks like.”

The death was communal. People flowed in and out, night and day, talking of what they loved about John and things that annoyed them, bringing food, flowers, candles, and photographs until John’s worktable looked like a crowded altar. Buddhists lit incense and chanted. Someone set up a phone tree, someone else made arrangements with a funeral home, and one of the Buddhists planned the memorial service.

Most of the organizing, however, fell to Anne. It may take a village to die well, but it also takes one strong person willing to take ownership—the human equivalent of the central pole holding up a circus tent. In the final two weeks, she was in almost superhuman motion. She leaned in, she said, “into an element of the universe that knows more than I know. I was making it up as I went along. People contributed and it became very rich.

“That’s not to say there weren’t times when it was phenomenally stressful. I was dealing with all the logistics, and with my own mixed emotions about my brother. I was flooded with memories of our very complicated relationship, and at the same time I knew my intention was that he be laid to rest in the most gentle way possible.”

Hospice was a quiet support in the background. Over the two years of his illness, John’s care had perfectly integrated the medical and the practical, shifting seamlessly from prolonging his life and improving his functioning— as thalidomide and the doctors at UW had done—to relieving his suffering and attending his dying, as the hospice nurses and those who loved him had done.

There were no demons under the bed or angels above the headboard. Nor were there beeping monitors and high-tech machines. His dying was labor-intensive, as are most home deaths, and it was not without conflict.

A few days before he died, two siblings beseeched Anne to call a priest to give John last rites in the Catholic church. “It was a point of love for my siblings. They were concerned that John was going to burn in hell,” Anne said. “But John hated priests.” In tears, Anne called the Seattle church that handled such requests, and the priest, after a brief conversation, asked her to put her sister Dottie on the phone. Yes, Dottie acknowledged, John was a Buddhist. No, he hadn’t requested the sacraments. Yes, his children were adamantly opposed. No, the priest told her, under the circumstances he couldn’t come. It wasn’t John’s wish.

Ten days after the family’s last walk through Pike Place Market, the hospice nurse examined John early one morning and said, “He won’t be here tomorrow.” She was seeing incontrovertible physical signs: John’s lips and fingertips were blue and mottled. He hadn’t opened his eyes in days. His breathing was labored and irregular, but still oddly rhythmic, and he looked peaceful. The hospice nurse left. Anne, helped by John’s daughter Keely and his sister Dottie, washed and turned John and gave him his meds. Then they sat by his side. Anne had her hand on his lap.

He was light. She held him close, and during his last three breaths she chanted Nam Myoho Renge Kyo, as her brother had always done, three times, whenever he left his house.

“It was January in Seattle,” Anne said. “The sun was coming through the window and we could hear the market below beginning to wake up. We were just the three of us, talking and sharing our stories about him and the things we loved and didn’t love, the things that had pissed us off but now we laughed about. I can’t ever, in words, express the sweetness of that moment.

“He just had this one-room apartment with a little half-wall before the kitchen. I walked over to put water on to make coffee, and Keely said, ‘His breathing’s changed.’”Anne stopped, ran over, sat on the bed, and lifted her brother to a sitting position. He was light. She held him close, and during his last three breaths she chanted Nam Myoho Renge Kyo, as her brother had always done, three times, whenever he left his house. “I was really almost mouth-to-mouth chanting, and he died in my arms,” she said. “We just held him, and then my sister Dottie said her prayers over him.”

Anne sat next to her brother and said, “John, I did well.”

“I know he would not have been able to orchestrate it any better than how it unfolded,” she said.

“It was a profound experience for me. I realized what a good death could be.”

♦

From The Art of Dying Well: A Practical Guide to a Good End of Life, by Katy Butler © 2019. Reprinted with permission of Scribner.

An earlier version of this article incorrectly identified the medical center where John Masterson sought treatment as the University of Washington Medical Center. We regret this error. 

The post A Good Enough Death appeared first on Tricycle: The Buddhist Review.

Most people who have spent time in American Buddhist communities would read my title as sarcastic. As numerous writers have noted, many Buddhist sanghas in the United States are largely white. Practicing in these spaces is often an isolating experience where people of color feel erased and invisible, or at times so hypervisible that simply being in the room invites the assumption that they will educate others about race.

Not in my neck of the Buddhist woods. I walked into my first meeting of the Nichiren Buddhist organization Soka Gakkai International (SGI) two years ago—and immediately blurted out, “Why are there so many black people here?” At that point I had already visited many meditation centers, most of them practicing in the Zen, Shambhala, or Vipassana traditions, and nine times out of ten I was the only black person in the room. While this experience had been a common one for me, it remained uncomfortable. From the stares of other practitioners to the frustratingly obtuse mindfulness teachings that ignored the reality of the racialized body and attendant social injustices—I’d had enough. This is not to disparage those traditions; in fact, I am deeply grateful to them, as they provided the initial opening for me to explore Buddhist practice.

Many Buddhist organizations are, in fact, grappling with the lack of racial diversity in their communities by offering special meditation events and retreats for people of color. In 2015, a contingent of Buddhist leaders visited the White House to discuss what Buddhists can do to address issues like climate change, racism, and anti-violence.

But frankly that isn’t enough for me. I don’t want to go to a special retreat. I want to walk into a Buddhist center on a Wednesday night and feel at home, surrounded by people of all races and colors.

For years, I’d thought that this was an impossible dream, until I found that SGI meeting where the room was filled with people of color, many of them black (and a good number white, too). From the moment I sat down, people of all racial backgrounds came over to welcome me, genuine warmth evident in their smiles.

That was not what I had anticipated, and the racial diversity was not the only surprise. Because I was unfamiliar with the SGI at the time, I expected to be guided through a meditative practice. Instead, a leader walked to the front of the room and rang a bell next to a large scroll covered in Japanese characters. Suddenly the room was filled with the sound of dozens of people chanting the words “nam-myoho-renge-kyo” in unison. The mantra comprises the title of the Lotus Sutra, in which the Buddha gives the fundamental teaching that all living beings inherently possess buddhanature—meaning that they all equally have the potential to attain enlightenment. Chanting nam-myoho-renge-kyo morning and evening, along with studying Buddhist texts, forms the core of Nichiren practice.  

A key component of SGI’s chanting practice is that it usually takes place at neighborhood meetings, which are often focused on using dialogue to overcome the divisions that threaten peace and harmony within the community and the world at large. This emphasis on social change is folded into SGI’s structure and philosophy and speaks volumes to marginalized groups, for whom these issues have a disproportionate impact.

A quick glance at the news tells us that racism is at the heart of many of the divisions in the US. The current national climate of racial profiling is out of control, as black people are policed and profiled for everything from chatting in coffee shops to barbecuing in the park, sleeping in dormitories, eating lunch on campus, renting an AirBnB, or just standing on the sidewalk. Simply existing in public space as a black person in America is a precarious prospect. Which is why I —and many others—take refuge in my Buddhist community.

Over the past year, I’ve interviewed dozens of other black SGI Buddhists who have shared these feelings. One member told me that his Buddhist practice has allowed him to better face everyday challenges with a compassionate outlook that encourages him to “speak up without being angry and cussing people out.” He added, “I’m able to call out racism in a different way. I try to create value while being fearless in the face of injustice.”

Another member told me, “The fundamental heart of SGI is to value each human being—we all have intrinsic value. That’s the problem with social inequality: the basic respect for all people is missing. That’s what SGI speaks to.”

It’s a fundamental SGI teaching that every member should do all they can to create peace and happiness in our lives and the lives of others. In my experience, the community takes this very seriously. We fight to overcome the part of our nature that separates us from others and encourages conflict and division. Doing so requires profound shifts in the way that we relate to ourselves and others: we can’t ignore, shy away from, or avoid difficult issues or conversations. Instead, we are challenged to tackle them head on.

That’s why the meetings involve chanting and heart-to-heart dialogue. We chant for the clarity and wisdom to identify the limitations and unjust thoughts and feelings within, as well as the courage to transform them. Then, through dialogue with others, we build a necessary basis for peace for ourselves, our families, communities, and the world.

The SGI is known as the most racially diverse Buddhist organization in the US. This did not come about by happenstance, but it also is not the result of deliberate outreach or diversity recruitment. Rather, it stems, at least in part, from the leadership of the organization’s president, Daisaku Ikeda. Ikeda has publicly stated a passionate commitment to anti-racist engagement since the first time he visited the US in 1960, when he witnessed an act of racism against a black child in Chicago’s Lincoln Park. The moment had a profound impact on Ikeda, shaping his conviction that propagating Buddhism in the US would have to involve directly addressing the prejudice and bias found in people’s hearts—and asking members to fight to overcome it. This is a necessary step to acknowledge and embrace the inherent dignity and equality of all human beings. It is referred to as engaging in human revolution, and is the cornerstone of the practice. It is also the basis for achieving kosen rufu, or world peace, which is the ultimate aim of Nichiren Buddhism.

Further, the SGI continually rallies its members around social issues, from nuclear disarmament to environmental causes. Most recently, on September 23, 2018, the organization hosted 50,000 young people in nine locations across the US for a nationwide Festival of Youth. These “lions of justice” gathered to stand up for the dignity of all life, calling for respect for all human beings   and proclaiming a fierce opposition to global currents of war, specifically nuclear war. Organizers of the event created a profound mission statement that asserts the importance of challenging oppression and empowering young people to fight for social and environmental justice. It served as yet another reminder of why I practice in this tradition: SGI Nichiren Buddhism is predicated on direct engagement with pressing social issues. Inner transformation is the daily goal, but it is incomplete without directly working to transform the outer environment as well.

Of course, the SGI is not perfect. No organization is. As a new member, I worried a bit over what I perceived as elements of groupthink, including the strong emphasis on attending numerous activities every month, and the focus on viewing the organization’s president as a personal mentor. Based on my natural skepticism, I resisted committing myself fully, and instead began reading everything I could get my hands on about the organization’s history and philosophy.

I found that Nichiren Daishonin (1222–1282), the founder of the sect, was a bit of a renegade and free thinker who rejected the oppressive, dominant views of the government and religious leaders of his time. Seven hundred years later, Tsunesaburo Makiguchi (1871–1944) founded the Soka Gakkai. He and his successor, Josei Toda (1900–1958), were religious dissidents who were jailed for refusing to accede to the Japanese military government’s demands to accept Shintoism during World War II. Following Toda’s release, he and Daisaku Ikeda instituted a new way of thinking about Buddhism as fighting for peace through direct rejection of nationalist militarism.

Learning more about this history further strengthened my resolve that I wanted to practice socially engaged Buddhism based on the example set forth by Makiguchi, Toda, and Ikeda. Perhaps this tradition of fighting for the wellbeing of all humankind while being persecuted as outsiders is why their message resonates with so many black Buddhists today.  

In the latest installment of his book series, The New Human Revolution, Daisaku Ikeda writes, “The devilish nature lurking in the depths of human life manifests itself in discrimination and oppression based on ethnic, ideological, and religious differences, and is found at work in the human heart that accepts and condones such discrimination and oppression. Battling this devilish nature is the mission of practitioners of Nichiren Buddhism.” This is at the core of why I practice. When I look around at those practicing with me, knowing that we are fighting for a world that respects the dignity of all human beings, it fills me with a sense of connection to my community. It also doesn’t hurt that a lot of them look like me.

♦

J. Sunara Sasser does not represent the SGI; the views expressed here are her own.

The post Why Are There So Many Black Buddhists? appeared first on Tricycle: The Buddhist Review.

As Tropical Storm Harvey continues to flood many areas of Texas and Louisiana, Buddhists in the Houston area are pitching in with disaster relief work.

The storm, which at more than 50 inches of rain has already set an unofficial record for the most rainfall during a single storm, made a second landfall in southwestern Louisiana early Wednesday morning. Harvey has been responsible for about 46 deaths so far, according to Texas officials.   

On the ground, members of the Houston Zen Center are volunteering at the George R. Brown Convention Center in downtown Houston, which is sheltering some 9,000 people who evacuated or were rescued from their homes.

Gaelyn Godwin Roshi, abbot of the Houston Zen Center, told Tricycle that she and other members of the center had been volunteering since Monday. 

“Walking into the convention center felt like a release. People felt relieved,” Godwin said. “The kids were well-protected and the adults could finally sleep.”

Godwin said that the Zen Center, where she lives, is safe and dry. The center was prepared to welcome displaced people, but the neighborhood was cut off by flooded roads. To help, she recommends donating to the Houston Food Bank or directly to the Houston Zen Center.  

The abbot also added that local Buddhist centers are staying in touch and seem to be faring well. 

“My plan is to drive around today [Wednesday] and see for myself,” Godwin said. 

Raul Teran, vice region leader for the Soka Gakkai International’s Houston Buddhist Center, said there are about 30 affected households from their local community of 1,500 practitioners. 

Teran said the center is organizing supplies, such as water, canned food, toiletries, deodorant, soap, towels, first aid, and pet food, for their members. 

The center itself was not impacted by nearby flooding, but has canceled activities and meetings this week as they “try to get back to normalcy.”

Dawn Mountain, a Tibetan Buddhist Center located in Houston, is also structurally safe from the storm. Myokei Caine-Barrett, bishop of the Nichiren Shu order of North America and resident minister of Myoken-ji Temple, said the center is dry and has power and water. We will provide updates on other centers as that information becomes available.  

Other Buddhist temples around the city are providing shelter to displaced Houstonians.

Brandon Lamson, a member of the Houston Zen Center who also teaches at the University of Houston, said that he had recently moved to “The Heights,” a neighborhood in northwest central Houston that is about 30 feet higher than downtown.

“Our streets turned into rivers for a couple of nights, but we’re really fortunate compared to other parts of the city,” Lamson said.

Lamson, who is also a meditation teacher, said he started checking in with other members of his Buddhist community shortly after the storm hit. He’s already led a Facebook Live meditation class and has another one planned for Friday, in addition to volunteer work at the convention center.

“I think people are looking for stability in the midst of everything,” Lamson said, adding that his guided meditations have focused on lovingkindness practice for the city, as well as helping practitioners feel grounded in their body.

If you’re a Buddhist in an area damaged by Harvey or traveling to do relief work, we’d like to hear about your experience. Please email wendy@tricycle.org.

The post Buddhists Pitch In with Hurricane Harvey Relief appeared first on Tricycle: The Buddhist Review.

A few years ago I attended a gathering of mostly white Buddhists, where I was met with a stunning lack of community. It seemed to me that there was very little warmth and little awareness of the need for intimacy. At the time, I remember wondering why it had felt so cold to me but apparently not to others: Was it that I was one of the few people of color there? Or was it the fact that in a group of meditation-centric practitioners, the tradition in which I practice—Nichiren Shu—was little understood and didn’t seem to have a place in the discussion?

The Western Buddhist sangha has been engaged in significant conversations about the issue of diversity for some time now. Those conversations, the architects of which have been largely those engaged in meditation-centric practice, have focused on ethnic diversity, specifically on its lack and why such lack exists. As someone who has always been engaged in Buddhist practice based on ritual and tradition—because they speak to me in a way that silent meditation does not—I’ve found these conversations so narrowly focused as to create a kind of tunnel vision. There is even a bit of arrogance implicit in them about what Buddhism in the West really looks like. It seems to me that in our search for diversity, we Buddhists have been asking the wrong questions. The world of Buddhism in the West is actually quite diverse and has always been so. It has a lot to offer anyone if only it is sought out.

I was born in postwar Japan to an African American soldier and a young Japanese woman from a family of Nichiren Shu practitioners. I was unaware of my mother’s Buddhist background for more than 50 years, and was raised as a Protestant in the United States Army system. When I became a Buddhist at age 13, my cultural context was a unique environment formed in those American spaces by Japanese women representing various age, class, religious, educational, economic, rank, and racial differences. These women were war brides, limited by language and their own alienness, who banded together to support each other in an environment both strange and hostile.

My greatest memory and treasure of those early years was the time spent with these women as they shared their struggles, their victories and defeats, their hopes and dreams, and all the stories of their lives. This was how they taught Buddhism, not through books (there were none in English at that time), but through their own examples. Everything they encountered and endured became the fuel for their Buddhist practice.

These women married into American families of European, Latino, African, and Asian descent, further deepening the differences among them. Their stories of surviving and overcoming racism, domestic violence, their husbands’ alcoholism, poverty, solitude (when their husbands shipped overseas), their own longing for home, depression, regret, and simply being Japanese are the dharma teachings for which I will always be eternally grateful. They shaped the Buddhism I was taught as well as my life as a practitioner; they were teachings of applied practice within community. In particular, these women taught their multicultural children, and all of their children’s friends, by sharing the dharma in the small spaces of their homes in military bases around the world. These were the sacred spaces of ritual, of transcendence, and of hope as they learned to navigate the various cultures that formed the American military and the populations where the military showed up. These gatherings formed the basis for the diversity that was Nichiren Shoshu of America, now SGI, which since its formal beginnings in the 1960s has maintained a consistently diverse community. Similar stories exist with respect to the Jodo Shinshu, Jodo Shu, and the Nichiren Shu, as well as various other Asian-based communities whose beginnings predated the early 1900s.

Because of my own history and the way I came to Buddhism, my practice has always been about faith and the development and application of faith. I was taught spiritual uplift and transcendence as important products of faith, driven by elements of practice geared toward awakening one’s senses. I assumed for a long time that all Buddhists felt the same way. It was a while before I learned that many meditation-centric practitioners, who have long dominated the known landscape of Buddhism in the West, had deemed the rituals and traditions of Buddhism as cultural baggage, superstitious practices with little value for sophisticated, intelligent modern meditators. Often, this “baggage” has been thrown away with little reflection or understanding of its purpose.

When these conversations happen, they are dominated by the assumption that the unifying bond and essential practice among Buddhists is sitting, silent meditation, which marginalizes the experience of millions of Buddhists in the West, not to mention billions of Buddhists throughout history.

Aside from the obvious problems of such flippancy, this dismissive attitude toward certain forms of Buddhist practice has led to an insularity that is ultimately harmful to embracing a truly diverse Western sangha. And in the same vein but on the other side of the divide, those practitioners based in ritual and tradition have also tended to congregate in closed communities, open only to those willing to wholeheartedly adopt ritual and tradition and to fully adapt to the cultural imperatives of those communities.

For most practitioners, what makes us Buddhist is taking refuge in the three treasures: the Buddha, the dharma, and the sangha. This is the culture that we have come to accept as fundamental. Unfortunately, while there have been efforts to gather together as diverse practitioners, we have not really engaged in the conversations centered on our commonalities— or rather, when these conversations happen, they are dominated by the assumption that the unifying bond and essential practice among Buddhists is sitting, silent meditation, which marginalizes the experience of millions of Buddhists in the West, not to mention billions of Buddhists throughout history. Instead of seeking what truly binds us as a common group of practitioners, we have developed a level of closed-mindedness about the validity of the various Buddhist schools. We are more likely to take up interfaith activities with Abrahamaic traditions, for instance, than to interact with the assorted traditions under the umbrella of Buddhism.

So while most of us have awakened to the need to experience the richness that diverse communities bring to us, we have failed to consider the ways in which our communities are already diverse and have always been so. We are diverse not only in our ethnicities and root origins but also in our histories, our practices, our source texts, our goals, and our purpose in being Buddhist. Some of us seek only a technique for living without really accessing the dharma behind it; others seek the experience of transcendence provided by ritual and tradition. Still others are deeply concerned about and engaged in sharing the dharma to bring peace and harmony to the world. These differences reflect a great deal about the adaptability of Buddhism, its appeal to diverse communities, and its ability to offer refuge to anyone seeking it. Such differences also reflect the manner in which practitioners have been able to develop over the long term and maintain a practice that retains its heart while adapting to a different landscape.

There is room for all of us in the wonderful net that is Buddhism in the West, and our ability to develop and maintain harmony with each other is important to the spread of the dharma. Our world demands action from all sorts of communities, including Buddhists, and our conversations and questions about these issues would clearly represent a significant and positive point of departure if we would simply interact and learn from each other.

Chapter 5 of the Lotus Sutra suggests an essential perspective that we may consider developing within ourselves:

I see all living beings equally.

I have no partiality for them.

There is not “this one” or “that one” to me.

I transcend love and hatred.

Further, there is a concept that Nichiren Shonin (1222– 1282), founder of the Nichiren school, wrote about known as itai doshin [many in body, one in mind], which suggests the following:

If itai doshin prevails among the people, they will achieve all their goals, whereas in dotai ishin [one in body, different in mind], they can achieve nothing remarkable.

There need not be a competitive spirit among the Buddhist communities of the West. We have a great deal to learn from each other, and we have each met the dharma that is suitable for us where we are. There is not one valid approach to the practice of the buddhadharma: Deep insight and understanding can be gained from the type of critical examination and questioning that is endemic to Western ways of thinking. But practice without deep intellectual understanding can also provide a profound capture of the essence of the dharma, especially when one seeks simply to live the very best life of which one is capable. The process of giving oneself over to the beauty of ritual and tradition especially allows entry into transcendence, thus alleviating the suffering of daily life. Combined, these two approaches may lead to a deeper, more nuanced, and simply a more solid vessel to “cross the sea of suffering.”

The gifts we receive as dharma practitioners may increase our desire and our obligation to share our path with others. By uniting with all practitioners as a collective community of compassion—exactly what is needed in the world we currently inhabit—we may create a world in which we can all have hopes and dreams. 

The post The Great Divide appeared first on Tricycle: The Buddhist Review.

In honor of Black History Month, Tricycle is presenting a special video series, “Teachings for Uncertain Times,” featuring 13 teachers of color, here on our blog, Trike Daily, throughout February. The videos are free to watch.

In the following talk, Myokei Caine-Barrett, current bishop of the Nichiren Shu order of North America and resident minister of Myoken-ji Temple in Houston, Texas, introduces the “bare bones” of a complex practice—Ichinen Sanzen—that asks us to view 3,000 realms in a single moment.

“In our tradition, we talk about the mutual possession of the 10 realms. That means simply that the realm of hell is also the realm of buddhahood as well as the realm of humanity . . .

We can think about a realm as something each of us fundamentally has but may not know about. Mine used to be anger, which came about as a direct result of spankings that I got as a child. It was something that I carried with me for a long time without realizing. The more I got into practicing, the more I began to understand the nature and the source of that anger. Because of that, I was able to heal from that anger,” Caine-Barrett says in her talk.

Download a transcript of this retreat. It has been edited for clarity.

Watch Myokei Caine-Barrett’s Dharma Talk, Foundations of Nichiren

Read “A Right to the Dharma,” Linda Heuman’s 2011 interview with Myokei Caine-Barrett, Shonin 

♦

Watch other videos in the “Teachings for Uncertain Times” series

The post Teachings for Uncertain Times: Viewing 3,000 Realms in a Single Moment appeared first on Tricycle: The Buddhist Review.

When we recently caught up with spoken word artist and emcee G. Yamazawa, he had just landed in Juneau ahead of a show at the University of Alaska.

While you may think that Alaskan college students are not the natural audience for an artist who focuses on telling stories about his Japanese-American and Buddhist background, Yamazawa says his act often introduces his audience to the everyday aspects of being an Asian-American Buddhist in the United States.

“I grew up in North Carolina, so I got used to not having an Asian American audience at an early age,” Yamazawa told Tricycle, adding that his classmates were primarily African American and white. “I’m used to telling my story and having a conversation about cultural identity. But what’s great about performing for college audiences is that people can relate to different aspects of my story. It makes them think.”

The child of Japanese immigrants who ran a local sushi restaurant, Yamazawa, 25, remembers learning to chant at a very early age. “My dad was an extremely strict Japanese father,” he recalled. “And North Carolina is a very spread out place, so not only was I often the only Buddhist in my school, I was also the only Asian. I guess that’s what made me so different.” In fact the only Asian kids he knew, Yamazawa said, were from Soka Gakkai International.

Yamazawa said that while he chanted and performed other rituals with his family throughout his childhood, it often felt like a rote experience. “I rejected it [for a long time]. But when I was 17 I got kicked out of high school because I was caught up in the wrong crowd,” he said. “I was really going down the wrong path at that moment, and I really needed to take charge of my own life and work on all the aspects that I didn’t like.”

During this period of deep soul searching, Yamazawa found himself returning to the Nichiren Buddhist faith of his family with a renewed enthusiasm. “I wanted to take my life in a different direction and chanting was the only tool that I knew,” he said. Yamazawa eventually graduated from a continuation school and went on to community college. It also was during this period of transformation that Yamazawa began to seriously write poetry. His work often explores themes of family, faith, and identity.

One of his big breaks came in 2014, when as a member of the Washington DC-based Beltway Poetry Slam, he beat 71 other teams to win the National Poetry Slam. Since then, Yamazawa has released a self-titled EP and continues to work as an emcee as well as a spoken-word artist.

“A lot of my poetry really honors my family,” Yamazawa said. “They’ve always supported the fact that I chose a creative life.”

In his poem “Dear Grandma,” Yamazawa movingly describes his immigrant grandmother’s role in his life and the impact of her presence at his birth. “It’s really cool to initiate conversations about Buddhism” through his family’s stories and his poetry, Yamazawa said. “What I would love to start doing is more interfaith dialogue.”

As he tours colleges and universities throughout the United States, Yamazawa says he wants to continue to have these conversations about faith and community with the young people he meets each day.

“Buddhism to me can really mold and transfuse with literally any religious faith and can be incorporated into anyone’s life,” Yamazama explained. “I would like to continue seeking a deeper sense of self and ways to be a better person while helping people to recognize the power that they have.”

The post How Buddhism Influences Slam Poet and Emcee G. Yamazawa appeared first on Tricycle: The Buddhist Review.

On Saturday, May 21, Buddhists from around the world will celebrate the holy day of Vesak, which commemorates three events in Buddha’s life: his birth, his enlightenment, and his passing. They’ll visit temples, join parades with dancers and dragons, and set caged birds free as a symbol of liberation. They’ll offer gifts to Buddha statues to express their gratitude for his teachings and pour water over his shoulders to symbolize a pure beginning. And they’ll light up the night—already bright from the full moon—with lanterns made of paper and wood.

Chanting is a central element of Vesak, too. And even if you don’t have a Buddhist temple in your town, you can still celebrate on Saturday by chanting with fellow Buddhists online.

Mantra music pioneers Deva Premal & Miten, who have recorded a variety of mantras from the Buddhist, yoga, and Hindu traditions, are inviting spiritual seekers from around the world to join their Buddha Full Moon Meditation at 9 a.m. in every time zone via Facebook.

Vesak “is one of the most auspicious times for meditation and chanting, with a focus on enlightenment for all beings,” they explain.

What are the benefits of participating in a virtual meditation like this? “Chanting is a transformational and healing process in itself,” the musicians said. “It opens up the breath, the voice, and the heart. The powerful energy of the Vesak full moon amplifies [those benefits]—and amplifies our inner light.”

And meditating with others—whether it’s on Vesak or any other day—helps us connect to a sangha, or spiritual community.

What is Nam-myoho-renge kyo?

Nam-myoho-renge-kyo is the core mantra chanted by Nichiren Buddhists—a Japanese sect founded in the 13th century. Also referred to as chanting the daimoku (which means “title”), Nam-myoho-renge-kyo is the title of the Lotus Sutra, which Nichiren Buddhists regard as the culmination of the Buddha’s life teachings.

“The translation of Nam-myoho-renge-kyo is ‘I bow down to the mystical law of the Lotus Sutra,’” Deva Premal & Miten explained in an email interview. “The message of this mantra is that we all carry the state of Buddhahood within ourselves. This powerful mantra opens us to our supreme and innate buddhanature.”

As musician and Buddhist Duncan Sheik previously told Tricycle: “When you chant Nam-myoho-renge-kyo . . . the idea is that you are getting your whole life into rhythm with the fundamental law of life. It’s that sound, that vibration, that is bringing you into that rhythm. In some ways, it’s the entrance point.”

The Power of Sangha

The idea for this Saturday’s Buddha Full Moon Meditation with Deva Premal & Miten grew out of the 21-Day Mantra Meditation Journeys that the music duo led online in 2013 and 2014, during which more than 200,000 people from 204 countries learned to chant a new mantra every day for three weeks. Students later said they felt inspired to stick to their practice knowing that a global community of meditators were chanting at the same time as they were; they felt a sense of solace and connection because they were part of a greater whole.

Our sangha “supports and nourishes us in times of isolation and fear,” Deva Premal said. But it also has an altruistic dimension. As Thich Nhat Hanh writes in Friends on the Path: Living Spiritual Communities, “You don’t sit for yourself alone, you sit for the whole sangha—not only the sangha, but also for the people in your city, because when one person in the city is less angry, is smiling more, the whole city profits. If we practice looking deeply, our understanding of interbeing will grow, and we will see that every smile, every step, every breath is for everybody. It is for our country, for the future, for our ancestors.”

The Buddha Full Moon Meditation with Deva Premal & Miten will take place at 9 a.m. in every time zone on May 21, 2016. For more information, visit the event page: http://tricy.cl/1WEdLE9

The post Chant with a Worldwide Sangha on Vesak appeared first on Tricycle: The Buddhist Review.