When Banzan was walking through a market he overheard a conversation between a butcher and his customer.
“Give me the best piece of meat you have,” said the customer.
“Everything in my shop is the best,” replied the butcher. “You cannot find here any piece of meat that is not the best.”
At these words Banzan became enlightened.
Question:
Brian, I’ve been practicing for eight years. I will soon be going to an attorney to do my Will. I plan to be cremated. To be buried as a Buddhist, what other arrangements should I include in my Will?
Answer:
We discussed the preference of most Buddhists to be cremated here:
http://www.dailybuddhism.com/archives/1164
There were many great comments and additional thoughts on that posts , so be sure to look at the comments.
Now on to your question. First, I am not a lawyer; my own will doesn’t contain anything special about my funeral. I’ll be dead, I don’t really care.
As far as special arrangements put into your will are concerned, that would be up to you. Like many other Buddhist practices and rituals, funerals are heavily influenced by the local culture. If you live and die in Japan or China, you would probably want a Japanese or Chinese-style funeral. Similarly, if you are an American or European, you would probably want a funeral that is “normal” for your homeland. If, however, you want a Japanese-style funeral in America (or any other non-standard combination), you should probably make arrangements for that beforehand.
In the other article I mentioned above, some of the commenters mentioned that they wanted a simple, environmentally-friendly funeral. These are things to discuss with your attorney, but if you really want it done right, you may want to contact a funeral director and talk about pre-planning. There’s always a chance that the executor of your estate won’t know anything about Buddhism. You probably don’t want a Zen ceremony if you are Tibetan, so it’s best to be very clear.
I dont really have much in the way of advice about this, so I’ll ask for reader input here. Have you done anything in YOUR will or made any special after-death arrangements that relate to your Buddhism? Please explain in the comment section.
It’s movie day again. This time I have found an internal training film from the Chicago Police Department. Part of a series created to inform police officers on the various cultural groups living in Chicago, this 9 minute video explains Buddhism to those who might not otherwise be familiar with the group.
There may or may not be anything here that we haven’t covered in the past, but this is an excellent resource for showing to non-Buddhists.
One thing that stuck out for me in the video was that they specifically state that most of the traditions and actions of various Buddhist groups depends on their specific ethnic or cultural background.
When the nun Chiyono studied Zen under Bukko of Engaku she was unable to attain the fruits of meditation for a long time.
At last one moonlit night she was carrying water in an old pail bound with bamboo. The bamboo broke and the bottom fell out of the pail, and at that moment Chiyono was set free!
In commemoration, she wrote a poem:
In this way and that I tried to save the old pail
Since the bamboo strip was weakening and about to break
Until at last the bottom fell out.
No more water in the pail!
No more moon in the water!
Question:
I have a question and am hoping you may have some comments: What happens to Earth when all beings reach Nirvana? If all beings progress to enlightenment, then they won’t be coming back, right? If so, then the Earth dies… everything from us to krill would be gone, at least physically. I don’t see that this would be a good thing, since to me, the world is a magnificent phenomenon -irrespective of our human experience of living on it. I love this Earth and feel lucky to have experienced its natural beauty. I wonder about this. Would it be possible to be enlightened and live on Earth too? It is a real sticking point for me. Any comments would be GREATLY appreciated.
Answer:
If you take it that Nirvana means that you exit the cycle of samsara, then that happens after death. A Bodhisattva is an enlightened person who is willing to skip that and stick around on Earth to help others reach enlightenment. Theoretically, eventually, someday every being will reach enlightenment and it would indeed be time for all creatures to move on.
To us here, now, the Earth is a beautiful thing that must be protected for future generations, I believe. However, attachments are something that we will give up after attaining Enlightenment, and that includes being attached to the world. No matter how beautiful it may be, an enlightened person would be willing to let it go if that meant that all suffering would be ended.
You ask, “Would it be possible to live on Earth and be Enlightened too?” Technically, yes, if you return as a Bodhisattva, then you can stay behind, at least until that far-off future when everyone has reached Nirvana. However, it could also be that such a strong attachment to the Earth might keep you from getting there in the first place.
Attachments and irrational grasping/desire are what causes suffering. Attachments, even to things that are otherwise good and wonderful, are still attachments, and will cause suffering eventually.
Question:
The first thing I would like to say is that I am not what I would call a Practicing Buddhist. It just so happens that Buddhism and my natural beliefs and attitudes are expressed in Buddhist. It has actually been through your website and podcast that I have come to realize how Buddhism can help me to a an easier and more rewarding journey on path than the the way I have been struggling along on my own, so thank you very much for that. I mention this because , as an amateur, I do not have the vocabulary to talk about the more advanced concepts in Buddhism and I hope my question makes sense.
My question concerns compassion. When I find myself meditating on compassion for all living beings, there often comes a point where my I become overwhelmed by what I would say is my love for everything and everyone to the point that I compassion becomes pity. As soon as pity creeps in, I feel tainted and self indulgent and I am not able to get myself back on track.
I was hoping that you had some advice about this, or maybe some specific meditations that you or anyone else think will help keep me in line.
Answer:
If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion. –Dalai Lama
The first thing that sprung to mind when I read your question was, “What’s wrong with pity? Isn’t it just a strong form of compassion?” And then it hit me. No it’s not the same at all.
Compassion is genuinely caring about others, understanding their plight and taking action in your decision to actively help in some way. Pity is an outpouring of empathy so strong that you may be tempted to help more out of the need to ease your own sense of guilt or obligation than real compassion.
Have you ever seen the television commercials for charities with the sad-looking thin and sickly cats and dogs? With the lingering shots of their sad faces and the mournful music playing in the background? How about ones with the starving children in Africa with the emaciated bodies and flies everywhere? These commercials aren’t appealing to your sense of compassion, they’re striving to create pity. Give them money, and you will feel better for having done something. The central character in pity is YOU. YOU feel bad because of whatever the problem may be, and by helping you make yourself feel better. In the “big picture” some good is still being done by donating to those charities, but your personal karma works out differently because of the motives behind the giving.
Now on to your question. You are doing metta meditation (loving-kindness meditation which we have discussed elsewhere), and you are putting yourself in someone else’s extreme situation and losing yourself in pity for them. This is yet again another form of attachment. As a Buddhist grows his or her sense of non-attachment, they can look at things more objectively and feel compassion without too much painful emotion. Compassion is your genuine desire to help others, while pity is all about helping yourself.
Pity is far from the worst emotion you can experience, but true compassion is much better for everyone involved; you should work towards channeling one emotion into the other. I’m not sure that I have any special “meditation tricks” to solve this problem. You need to have a clear understanding of the difference between pity and compassion, and I hope I have been able to help with that. Keep that difference in mind as you meditate, and as you feel yourself sliding into pity, use the knowledge to pull yourself back.
Question:
My question has to do with anger in the Buddhist practice. One of the main reasons why I turned to Buddhism is to get better control of myself. I have been genetically cursed with a hot temper. I have been attempting to learn to control it all my life and I thought perhaps Buddhism may help with this. I wondered if you could tell me about how anger fits into the Buddhist practice and perhaps point me in the direction of some practices or places of help to better control my anger. Thanks so much!
Answer:
Fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate leads to suffering. — Jedi Master Yoda (All the great quotes can’t be by the Dalai Lama can they?)
Buddhism has something called the three poisons, Greed, Ignorance, and Anger. These poisons are the easiest way to never reach Enlightenment. They’ll mess you up worse than just about anything else on the Path. Greed is obviously bad, most of what is written is there to combat Ignorance, so let’s focus on anger today. Buddhists try to limit their anger. Note I said limit, not eliminate, as anger is a normal human emotion. We all get angry sometimes. The trick is not to get carried away with it and understand where it comes from.
One common phrase we have all heard is, “He made me so angry!” No, he didn’t make you angry, YOU made you angry. It is a choice, one that can be controlled and limited. The first thing you need to do the next time you get angry, preferably before you get angry, but if it’s too late, then immediately after you calm down, is to think on why you became angry.
Was there some kind of attack on your ego? Remember, Buddhists do not believe in a self, and therefore an ego is a very bad thing to feed. Was there, as Yoda suggests, some kind of fear involved? Nothing is permanent, things do change, fear of change is paralyzing, and getting angry when things do change is futile. Whatever the reason is for your anger, you need to think it through and recognize the root cause of the anger, and it’s not that other person; it never is.
Once you have figured out why you chose to become angry (notice how I worded that?) you’ll be able to calm down and deal with the cause of the anger. After you have done this a few times, you’ll amaze yourself with your new-found ability to spot anger coming on, analyze it, and defuse it before it gets the better of you. That sounds like a tall order, but it is actually possible, and many people do it everyday, not just the most enlightened folks.
Exploring the causes of your anger is simply a mental exercise you do when the situation arises. Doing some form of meditation and mindfulness training on a regular basis will also help with this. Nothing builds patience and calmness like lots and lots of meditation. With a clear, calm mind, you’ll have far better control of your emotions. I can say this all day and you may not believe me, but work at it and see whether or not I am right; it’s easy enough to prove.
There’s been plenty written on the topic of anger management and Buddhism. In fact, most of what I have heard about anger management courses seem to teach exactly what I have said above. Check out the book, Anger: Wisdom for Cooling the Flames by Thich Nhat Hanh http://www.amazon.com/dp/1573229377/?tag=askdrarca-20
Oh all right, maybe the Yoda quote was a bit much. Here’s the Dalai Lama, who gets the final word this time:
When reason ends, then anger begins. Therefore, anger is a sign of weakness. — Dalai Lama
A couple of weeks ago, I put up a guest post discussing Nichiren Buddhism from the point of view of a practitioner of that sect. This week is a similar to that, but this time, our guest will discuss Shin Buddhism.If you would like to write a short essay or article explaining “your” version of Buddhism, e-mail me what you want to do and we’ll work on it. I’d like to see several more denominations represented here, so topics are still very much wide open.
Jeff Wilson is the author of Buddhism of the Heart: Reflections on Shin Buddhism and Inner Togetherness (Wisdom Publications, June 2009). He is also a Contributing Editor for Tricycle: The Buddhist Review.
Shin Buddhism, by Jeff Wilson
As a Shin Buddhist, my primary practice is not meditation, Sutra study, ritual, or precepts. All of these can be valuable of course, but in our school of Buddhism our main focus is the practice of gratitude.
About 800 years ago, a Japanese monk named Shinran founded a new Buddhist school with his wife, Eshinni. After twenty years spent at the center of Buddhist studies in Japan, Shinran’s insight was that meditation, precepts, and other rigorous practices have a tendency to subtly reinforce our egos. As we become better at sitting still for long periods of time, we may start thinking “man, I’m a great meditator, too bad all the other poor slobs out there don’t have my capacity.” A glimpse of emptiness leads us to believe we are more enlightened than normal people. And when we manage to adhere to strict precepts, we tend to slip into thinking “I’m a good person, and those people who don’t stick to the precepts are bad, they’re a bunch of weak-minded, self-indulgent losers.” Indeed, Shinran found these sorts of attitudes in himself, and in his fellow monks. I’m guilty of this too. Meanwhile, despite a lifetime of efforts, it seemed as if there were few if any monks that Shinran could look to who were reaching genuine levels of attainment akin to those described in the Sutras.
The solution that Shinran hit upon was to flunk out. If traditional Buddhist practice so often reinforced self-attachment and created divisions between people (even as practitioners believed that they were making spiritual progress), then the way out of the trap was to stop practicing. Or rather, to stop striving egoistically. Instead, Shinran turned away from self-power (since the self is a delusion anyway) to power-beyond-self, using a Buddhist theory with a long history in India, China, and Japan.
For Shinran, Amida Buddha (the name means Infinite) was the embodiment of power-beyond-self. Hundreds of Sutras attributed to Shakyamuni Buddha describe Amida and his Pure Land, as well as his helpers Avalokiteshvara and Mahastamaprapta. Pure Land motifs and practices are part of virtually all Mahayana schools of Buddhism, whether in Japan, China, Tibet, or elsewhere. Amida is described as infinite light and life, symbols for unlimited wisdom and compassion. Tibetan monks visualize Amida Buddha, Zen monks chant his name during funerals, and Foguangshan nuns seek to create the Pure Land here in this life.
Shinran taught that Amida is actually reality in its true, liberated nature, and the Pure Land is a poetic description for nirvana. Putting the insights of Mahayana Buddhism into narrative format, he talked about how Amida embraces all beings no matter how bad or good, and liberates them from their greed and delusion. In fact, this liberation is something that has been accomplished in the primal past (i.e. it is always naturally present), and so we should stop endlessly chasing after attainment. Instead, when we give up attachment to our ego-laden efforts to become enlightened, and relax back into the embrace of inconceivable wisdom and never-abandoning compassion, we are freed from our anxieties and pettiness. Our practice, then, stops being about getting Buddhahood for ourselves, and instead is refocused to be about expressing gratitude for all that we have received, spiritually and materially.
Shinran’s daughter founded a temple in his memory, and this helped keep his teachings alive. Over time, the Shin school grew to be the largest form of Buddhism in Japan. Much of its appeal came from the fact that anyone could be involved, even people who were traditionally excluded from advanced Buddhist practice, such as women, peasants, fishermen, hunters, soldiers, outcastes, prostitutes, and others who were not allowed in the monasteries. Shin Buddhism today is the school with by far the most adherents in Japan (the second largest is the Pure Land school of Honen, Shinran’s teacher), and it came to Hawaii and North America in the late 1800s. There are about a hundred temples, many of them over 100 years old, in the United States. They include people who are fifth- and even sixth-generation Buddhist Americans. During that long Western history they have often been at the forefront of developments in American Buddhism, from giving Gary Snyder and Jack Kerouac their first taste of living Buddhism, to founding the first Buddhist seminary in the West, to pioneering Buddhist prison ministry.
For me, Shin practice is about humility, gratitude, and service to others. And also good food and dancing, since Shin temples are true communities, with many activities for all ages and lots of yummy Japanese cooking. Our mid-summer Bon festivals give us an excuse to hold Buddhist parties, including traditional folk dancing that itself can be a vehicle for expressing our thankfulness through pure joyous motion. And happily, our festivals have participants from all sorts of Buddhism, as well as Christians, Jews, atheists, and others. We can all celebrate together and appreciate one another’s diversity.
None of us are deluded about our level of attainment-we are ordinary people, prone to foolishness. But everyone, Shin Buddhist or otherwise, exists within an inconceivable network of support from all things, an ever-changing matrix that provides us with nourishment, shelter, love, and, if we don’t let our egos get in the way, pushes us on toward final liberation. Awakening to this inner togetherness which we all share helps us to get a perspective on our karmic limitations, and this engenders humility, patience, and a sense of humor about our shortcomings and those of others. When we wake up to how power-beyond-self is always nurturing and supporting us, we often say the nembutsu in gratitude. Nembutsu is a phrase, Namu Amida Butsu, that expresses our happiness and thankfulness. It isn’t a mantra or a prayer-it doesn’t accomplish anything other than letting out that bottled-up gratitude in a joyful utterance.
People have all sorts of karma, so I don’t expect that everyone will find Shin Buddhism to their liking. Luckily, there are lots of options for people in the West these days. But for those who can’t seem to meditate, or have trouble following strict precepts, or who are looking for a Buddhist path that says “just as you are, you are affirmed and included,” Shin Buddhism can provide an ancient Buddhist tradition adapted to their situations. Regardless of what path you take, Shin Buddhists believe we will all be born together into Pure Land-liberation-and become bodhisattvas who work to care for any beings who suffer and need help. I’ll end this with a selection from Issa, the famous Japanese haiku poet and Shin Buddhist priest. It nicely illustrates the attitude of all-embracing trust and compassion that characterize Shin Buddhism:
tossed in cold autumn wind
trusting in Amida. . .
little butterfly
Question:
I am sure you have already addressed this question in some form or another, but I was wondering if you could give me some insight into a problem I am having with tolerance and acceptance. I have a coworker who I must work with closely every day, and with whom I have had a long term disagreement. I have tried talking with this person several times about the situation and have decided things are not going to change. So I have decided to try to change my attitude about the situation instead.
As I have learned through your website, compassion for others is important. I do my best, but I can’t help but often feel angry and disappointed at times with this person. Feeling these feelings disappoints me as well. Do you have any advice for me? Thanks.
Answer:
It’s hard to give specifics on this since you don’t tell what the specific disagreement is about, but I’ll give some general thoughts. Maybe others will add their suggestions too.
Your desire to change your own attitude is the right way to go about this. It’s actually the only way to deal with it, since this other person isn’t going to change to suit you. You cannot change others. You can talk to them and try to educate them, but if they don’t want to change or see things your way, there’s not really much you can do about it. Anything more is just an attachment to your idea of what they should be like. Worse, your desire to control them and bend them to your way of thinking (even if that’s not the case, it might look like it to the other party) could damage your relationship even further.
Buddhists are realists. We see the world at it could be, and work toward that end, but we accept things as they are. We see through the illusion of attachment and grasping; this includes expectations towards others. It’s OK to share your thoughts and beliefs with others, but if they won’t accept your way, then you need to accept that.
by Mike Lucas
A few posts back, we briefly touched on the topic of Nichiren while talking about going to a temple. This article is the result of that, and more fully explains what Nichiren Buddhism is all about and some of the important concepts involved with that branch. Mike Lukas is a comedian, and you can check out his website at http://www.crackinupradio.com. Although his wife was raised in Nichiren Buddhism, Mike converted several years ago and it has had an incredibly positive influence on his life.
Keep in mind that this is written from the perspective of someone who follows the path of Nichiren; the beliefs of other denominations may vary significantly, but this is a good explanation from within that tradition.
Nichiren and the Lotus Sutra by Mike Lukas
Okay, so here’s how I understand it – hope I can explain it correctly. Shakyamuni Buddha wrote thousands of Sutras, or teachings, in his lifetime. He slowly revealed ’The Truth’ (the truth being the correct way to achieve enlightenment) to the people, as he thought they could understand it, starting with more basic sutras (explaining how to clean yourself, to eat properly, etc. – remember, this was thousands of years ago!) all the way up to his later teachings which explained more specifically how to practice different parts of Buddhism.
Now in the last eight years of his life, he taught only one sutra, the Lotus Sutra, and in his words, this is the teaching that all the others have led to. It contains "The Truth’ (what is enlightenment and how one achieves it). It’s actually the literal title of the Lotus Sutra, Myoho Renge Kyo that we chant, in fact. The Lotus Sutra (according to him) says (among lots of other things) that each of us is able to achieve ‘Nirvana’ or ’enlightenment in THIS lifetime, without having to depend on any thing or any one else. The other sutras do not say this. Each of us has the ability to tap into our ‘best selves’ (which is what enlightenment is!) in this lifetime. All the other sutras do not state that (because, again, in his words, people were not ready to hear/understand that truth yet) – and Shakyamuni says that because of this ommission, all prior teachings are ‘provisional’ or ‘incomplete’ teachings which were written simply to prepare the people to hear the final truth contained in the Lotus Sutra.
So then what is Zen, or Tibetan or ‘XYZ’ Buddhism then? These are Buddhist practices based on the earlier, or provisional teachings (Sutras) of Shakyamuni Buddha. Their originators heard the earlier teachings (which were partially true, of course, but incomplete, according to the Buddha) and ran with them – and since there was no internet or postal system back then, they never got the final message about the final Sutra, and so there was no one to correct them. And so they taught and spread their form of Buddhism based on an imcomplete truth – they’re all ‘partially’ true, but do not contain ‘all’ of the truth.
So then, cut to Japan in the 1200’s – lots of foreign invasion, strife for the people, cruel and greedy rulers and priests – even though they were practicing ‘Buddhism’ it didn’t seem to be working. Then Nichirin was born in the midst of this turmoil. He is considered to be Shakyamuni reborn for the sole purpose of correcting the situtation. He saw what was happening with the people and decided to dedicate his youth to studying all the sutras and figure out what the people were doing wrong. He’s the one who read and re-read the Buddha’s own words, and concluded that the Lotus Sutra is the ultimate teaching, the final truth, the single way towards enlightenment in this lifetime. Nichirin began to call out the incompleteness of the other sutras (which of course pissed off anyone who thought their sutra was ‘the truth’ – and STILL pisses people off to this day) and began teaching to the people that, by simply chanting the title of the Lotus Sutra (Nam Myoho Renge Kyo, adding Nam, a contraction which means ‘to devote oneself’) anyone (from commoners to the ruling class) can tap into the wisdom of the entire sutra and achieve enlightenment, here and now.
To me, Nicherin is like the original Obama, a guy who rose up out of turmoil and said the people must be represented. And like Obama, he still gets lots of grief for having the balls to ‘call out’ the status quo, because if what he says is true, what they say is not. Of course no one likes to have what they believe called ‘incomplete,’’ but these findings are based on the direct quotations from the guy who originally wrote it all (Shakyamuni)! When you read the actual words, it’s impossible for me (and millions of others) to arrive at any other conclusion.
This is how I understand it – and it truly makes sense to me. Before I ever found Nichiren Buddhism, I tried Zen and read about a lot of the others, but none of it sang to me. It felt incomplete, though I never used that word. Then when I began studying the Lotus Sutra three years ago, it all made sense to me and my heart began to open up to life again. Just as it said I would. I don’t think the other sects are wrong, just incomplete. Not incorrect, just not whole. They all seem to be using this lifetime to prepare for some future lifetime, some distant ‘Nirvana,’’ in the same way that Catholicism uses this life to prepare you for ‘Heaven.’ And they all claim that you must go through some level of priesthood in order to accomplish this. The Lotus Sutra, on the other hand, says now is the time for enlightenment, and everyone (not just priests or not just with their guidance), but everyone can tap into this right this second! How amazing is that?
Well, this is what I believe with my whole heart, and I hope it makes sense to you, because this distinction is extremely important.
Nam Myoho Renge Kyo
I am curious to hear from others on this topic as I am still searching.