Opening the Heart: Buddhist Meditation Weekend

“How can we take up the bodhisattva path?” This is the question with which Anyen Rinpoche opened this weekend retreat at Naropa University in February of 2011. Rinpoche was very affable, humorous, and relaxed, but at the same time intensely serious. His English was very good, but he was assisted by his wife and translator, Alison Graboski, who enabled him to have very precise interactions with the students, whom he engaged quite frequently over the course of the weekend. In a natural yet systematic way Rinpoche led us through an overview of Mahāyāna Buddhism and gave us specific instructions for practicing the bodhisattva path. Rinpoche’s definition of this path was simple—to put others before ourselves.

Anyen Rinpoche challenged us to think about how we might do this with the people closest to us: our boyfriends, wives, or partners. In the first of several personal anecdotes, he told us how, as a young tulku,1 he had been given the only comfortable seat—a cushion with branches under it—in the tent which served as a practice hall. He related how he gave his seat up to an old lama who was in physical pain, and how he had to consciously make the decision to do so—to follow through, in action, on the concepts of the bodhisattva path he was studying. Rinpoche then gave detailed teachings on some of those concepts.


The Four Seals

First, there was a lengthy discussion of the “Four Seals,” or the four things which characterize all existence, according to Buddhism: 1) All conditioned phenomena are impermanent. Rinpoche said “Impermanence is the door, or the key, to the spiritual path—if we could think about this [that everything is impermanent], our life can become easier, because we realize there is no reason to be attached to either happiness or suffering. This realization will bring us patience, diligence, and compassion.” 2) The nature of saṃsāra is suffering. Suffering is broken down into three categories: all-pervasive suffering, the suffering of suffering, and the suffering of change. All pervasive suffering is the background noise of saṃsāra—the basic unsatisfactoriness at the root of confused existence. The suffering of suffering is simple pain—the pain of an injury or slight. The suffering of change is the pain we feel when he are happy, yet we know that it will not last. 3) All phenomena are empty of self. According to Anyen Rinpoche, this seal points to the path to getting rid of afflictive emotions. Examining things, we find they have no inherent existence, but are the result of innumerable causes and conditions in an infinite web of “dependent arising.” 4) All phenomena are characterized by enlightenment. This means that enlightenment, or nirvāna, is the actual state of that which seems to us to be confused.

Bodhichitta

Rinpoche discussed two types of bodhichitta: conventional and absolute.
Bodhichitta (literally “awakening mind”) is the aspiration to attain enlightenment for the benefit of all beings. On the conventional level, it is aspirational and engaged. On the absolute level, the belief in self and others no longer operates, and compassion is a natural function of a non-dual experience of emptiness. Rinpoche stressed the importance of motivation for those who would undertake the bodhisattva path. He encouraged us to examine our motivation at every turn, and if we found it to be selfish, to try to turn it towards benefiting others, saying “beings who have excellent motivation sooner or later experience the benefit of that motivation [themselves].” He also said that without the proper motivation, it would be difficult to practice the six pāramitās of generosity, discipline, exertion, patience, meditation, and wisdom—the six “perfections” necessary to help beings. Rinpoche discussed the two accumulations: of merit and of wisdom. He said that merit is more important than wisdom—that it alone would suffice whereas wisdom alone would not—and that generosity could include all the other pāramitās.

The Four Immeasurables

Another way to cultivate bodhichitta is the practice of the Four Immeasurables. Equanimity is “not falling into attachment or aversion” and can be cultivated through śamatha, or “calm-abiding.” Loving Kindness is unconditioned love, like that of a mother for her child, and can be cultivated by wishing that “sentient beings should have happiness and its causes.” Compassion is putting others ahead of ourselves, and can be practiced in tonglen, or “sending and receiving” meditation, which Rinpoche taught us, and in which we learned to take the suffering of others—even our enemies—and transform it into benefit for them. Finally, Joy is to rejoice in the happiness or good fortune of others instead of being jealous of them.

Conclusion

I found Anyen Rinpoche to be a sensitive, humorous, humble, and compassionate teacher, and I left the retreat feeling very inspired to put his teachings into practice. In addition to his extensive doctrinal teachings, Rinpoche spent quite a bit of time practicing with us, both śamatha and tonglen, which gave us the opportunity to follow his instructions directly and immediately, with his very presence to guide and invigorate us.

Of the many personal stories he told, one in particular was very touching and I still remember it vividly. When he was a small Child, and was still living with his parents and being tutored by his first teacher, Lama Chupur, he had a “yak baby” which he loved very much. When the baby yak got sick and died, he was inconsolable, and would not let his father “touch a knife to the yak baby’s body.” Lama Chupur used the situation to teach the young Anyen Rinpoche about the truth of impermanence, and told him to cultivate that same feeling of love he had for the yak, and to extend it to all sentient beings. This strategy of starting with cultivating bodhichitta towards someone we love—for whom its easy to feel compassion—and then expanding the feeling to include more and more beings, is one that Rinpoche recommended, and which makes a lot of sense as a method. The idea of generating compassion and love equally for all beings can be daunting, and starting small can be a way to get a handle on the practice. I now have a renewed sense of urgency toward acting out the creed of the bodhisattva as elucidated by Anyen Rinpoche. He is truly a treasure, and we are extremely lucky to have him as an instructor at Naropa University.

1 Tib., sprul sku, a reincarnated master.

Readings on Pluralism: a Response

Mason Brown
Professor Miller
Contemplative Learning Seminar, Sec. F
Preparation Paper 6
11/16/2009

I found all the readings from “Speaking in Silence,” very interesting and instructive. I didn’t have a strong response to Chogyam Trungpa’s chapter, having read it repeatedly and being in complete agreement with it. This is my tradition: internalized from my youth—but, as always—Trungpa’s words remain fresh and inspiring. He delivers another concise, elegant description of the practice and process of meditation in absolutely ordinary language: mindfulness and awareness join together (200), aggression subsides (201), and we are able to help others (201). Of course, it’s not always so simple in the real world, or “on the ground” as the current phrase goes. This process seems to have a lot of ebb and flow to it; it has the inevitable backsliding. The kind of insights Trungpa describes have happened for me as flashes of perception which, if anything, have slowly grown closer together in frequency over the years, but still sustain me through long intervals of ignorance. I don’t see any real discussion in the text itself of “exclusivism, inclusivism, pluralism, diversity, relativism and/or syncretism,” But I can relate my own feeling that I do have a twinge of exclusivism in myself when I read these teachings: so much more correct than any others I have encountered. I don’t necessarily buy into the twinge, and it soon fades. I do think that the process Trungpa describes, if followed completely, will unavoidably lead to inclusivism and pluralism, and honest acceptance of the diversity which surrounds us, without reliance on the dubious compromises of relativism and syncretism.

I have always loved and respected the Quaker tradition. With its uncannily Buddhistic silent meditation, justice-based social activism, and community values of respect for the individual as a part of the whole, it strikes me as one of the most beneficial forms of Christianity. I have even visited the oldest continually used Quaker church in the United States, said to be America’s oldest frame building, in Easton, Maryland, and seen its rough wooden benches; its spare interior, devoid of an alter of any kind. Quakers I have known have been very inclusive and embracing of diversity—often to the point of putting their bodies in harm’s way to stand in solidarity with people of other faiths and cultures—but I suspect that, like many Buddhists, they harbor unspoken feelings of exclusivism. The relative superiority of their spiritual tradition almost demands it. However, They probably also go through those feelings and do not rest on them. They have too much to do, and that doing includes not-doing. I think that the problem with Quaker contemplative practice is its lack of any real methodology or pedagogy of consciousness. There is no concrete description in this text of how to do it [Quaker scholars were even persecuted for trying to syncretize such methodologies (Yungblut 203)]. Practitioners are simply told to “wait upon the Lord in silence (202).” It would take a true spiritual genius to reach the highest levels of understanding through this system—which is strikingly like Zen—and I imagine that it was founded by such geniuses.

I have long been acquainted with the contemplative traditions within the Catholic and Orthodox Churches, and I have great respect for Tessa Bielecki, David Stendl-Rast, and George Timko. It is not surprising that the meditative techniques developed by the Church are the some of the most thorough, subtle, and refined in the European culture. In spite of this, I feel my exclusivism: Their contemplative practices are somewhat advanced, but their explanation of reality is utterly fanciful. This fact makes pluralism problematic, especially when one considers that the contemplative Christians featured in these readings, although representing a spiritual elite within Christianity, and holding some of the religion’s oldest and deepest forms, are a tiny minority of Christians in the world. Most adherents of Christianity take inflexible-belief-in-the-Bible-as-literal-Truth, and “faith in Jesus” as comprising the “practice” of Christianity, with nothing but a telephone call with God for their prayer (215), and disdain for true internal investigation. Bielecki describes a process of syncretization of her own (209), and I think it’s a good thing. She is taking knowledge which was discovered and transmitted by Buddhists to enrich her Christian practice, which is obviously deep and penetrating, but she is not giving up her Christianity; on the contrary, it seems to be strengthened.

How do I, who have acknowledged strong opinions about the shortcomings of other religions, and expressed visceral exclusivist tendencies also claim to be a pluralist? Because while I do hold those opinions and, on occasion, defend them, I do not really believe them. I know that my understanding is imperfect, and that inasmuch as my belief system does not perfectly depict reality, it is just as flawed as any other, no matter how primitive or outrageous that other might seem to me. Judith Simmer-Brown says that “in learning lessons of openness, the great yogis failed again and again (Simmer-Brown, n.p.).” This gets to the heart of the issue: “They were willing to risk, willing to fail, and willing to learn (Simmer-Brown, n.p.).” If we open to others as no different from ourselves, we will eventually realize the truth of that condition experientially, and, in the words of the Baptist hymn, there will “be no distinction there.”


Work Cited:
Simmer-Brown, Judith. “Chapter 6/Commitment and Openness: A Contemplative Approach to Pluralism,” in Glazer, The Heart of Learning, pp. 97-112.

“Natural Dharma,” “Corporate Mysticism,” Long, Loving Look at the Real,” and “Letting Go if Thoughts,” in Speaking of Silence:Christians and Buddhists in Dialogue, First Edition. 200-203;206-221.

Brown Enters Sinister “Phase II of Operation”

I think I am done gathering sources. I have way more than I can read already, and some of it extremely interesting. Through ILL I was able to get a copy of the “Black Music Research Journal” with an article by Paul F. Wells called “Fiddling as an Avenue of Black-White Musical Interchange.” This article is very important for me to read because it is, in effect, the article I wish I could write. It was published in 2003, so it is not too old, and cites a great many sources, so it should completely fill me in on what is already in the scholarship on this subject. There is a great quote in the article from a 1973 interview with Charles Wolfe of Kentucky fiddler Richard Burnett, who was born in1883. Wolfe asked Burnett about whether many blacks played old-time music when he was young:

Oh yeah. Yeah. Bled Coffey here in town [Monticello, Kentucky], he was a fiddler during the Civil War, and the Bertram boys here, Cooge Bertram was a good fiddler. He was raised in Corbin [Kentucky]. Yes sir, there were a lot of black men playin’ old time music. Bled Coffey was the best fiddler in the county. Been dead for years. I played many a tune with him—used to play with me, oh, sixty year ago. He’d play any o’ the old songs that I did. The old-fashioned tunes, like “Cripple Creek,” “Sourwood Mountain,” “Soldier’s Joy,” “Fire on the Mountain―them old-fashioned tunes is about what he played. (Quoted in Wolfe 1973, 7)1

This is exactly the kind of information I was looking for, and Wells and Wolfe got to it way before me. But that’s okay. I am thankful to have their work to learn from, and I hope, to build on or at least to synthesize with what I am getting from some of the other fantastic sources I’ve gotten through ILL, such as “the Birth of the Banjo: Joel Walker Sweeney and Early Minstrelsy” by Bob Carlin, the fascinating story of one of the first well-known white banjo players, who learned the instrument from slaves.


I also still have three or four interviews to do, which I will start over the weekend. I’m very excited and less intimidated every week. This seems doable! I will now turn to my document, edit the bibliography to reflect these new sources, and begin to add some headings; some kind of break-down of the different sections I want to go on about. I will print out the first draft of my paper, such as it is, for the perusal and criticism of my illustrious professor. I am thankful for the opportunity to get everything right as I’m doing it, rather than waiting to hand in a draft when the whole thing is already done. Tally Ho!

Bibliography

Wells, Paul F. “Fiddling as an Avenue of Black-White Interchange,” Black Music Research
Journal Spring/Fall (2003) 135-147.

Analysis of the Chariot

The use of a chariot as a simile for the self first appears in Buddhist scripture in the Saṃyutta-nikaya, the third of the five collections of sūtras in the Pali canon. A Buddhist nun, one Vajira, tells Māra the tempter:

There is no “being” found...[within oneself], only a heap of karmic constituents. Just as the word “chariot” is used when we come across a combination of parts, so we speak conventionally of a [human] being when the five aggregates are present. (Mitchell 39)

Later, the monk Nāgasena, in a dialogue known as the “Questions of Milinda”(Stryk 89), uses this same simile in greater detail, asking King Milinda a series of rhetorical questions:

Is the axle the chariot?... Are the wheels the chariot?...Is the chariot-body the chariot?...Is the flagstaff...the yoke...the reins...Is the Goad-stick the chariot? (Stryk 92)

He goes on to ask whether the chariot is simply “a sound”(92), and then explains to the King that, like the chariot, human beings are simply the sum of their parts: namely, the five aggregates (skandhas). Any one part of a human being, though it might be integral, is not the being. The parts of the chariot, though while they are assembled do conventionally constitute a chariot, are destined eventually to separate, leaving no sign that a chariot ever existed.

This simile, like many used in early Buddhism, seems designed to be grasped fully by even the simplest hearer of the teachings. There can be no doubt. Any object or thing can be described with the simile of the chariot. For instance, a toaster is not the heating elements, nor is it the controls. It is is not the plastic feet, nor is it the metal body. Neither is it the springs or the logo imprint of the manufacturer. It is is definitely not the toast, though bread may transmigrate through the toaster, becoming toast. When viewed in this way, the toaster can be seen more
accurately. It is an assemblage of parts, briefly put together for the function of heating bread, or perhaps frozen pizza, but it has no permanent or independent self. In that way, in an absolute sense, it can be considered illusory. In the same way, all beings are made up of impermanently gathered parts, all interdependent on each other and on countless other causes and conditions. It is a very powerful and immediate way to illustrate two subtle and sublime aspects of the Buddha's teaching: the five skandhas and no-self, which would otherwise be very challenging to explain.

Works Cited:

Mitchell, Donald W. Buddhism: Introducing the Buddhist Experience. New York:
Oxford University Press, 2008.

Stryk, Lucien. World of the Buddha: A Reader. Garden City: Anchor Books, 1969.

Response/Process Paper 6

Reading the Sources on “the Interracial Origin of Appalachian Fiddle Music”

Though I still haven't got all the materials I think I should read, I'm feeling a little bogged down in reading the books and articles I do have. That is not to say I don't find them interesting. On the contrary, They are fascinating in the extreme. All of them are things I would like to read and absorb on their own. For instance, “Singing the Master”¹, Roger D. Abraham's study of early African-American culture has a large section of slave's accounts of “corn-shuckings”, where plantation owners would invite their friends (other slave owners) to bring their slaves to participate in shucking the corn harvest. The labor involved in processing the entire harvest was so great that the slaves belonging to any one plantation were insufficient to the task. So during that season, the owners would take turns going with all available slaves to their neighbor's places and having large parties, where the slaves would be encouraged, with liquor and food, to make a game of the work, competing, one plantation against the other, to see who could shuck the fastest. The labor of the slaves was then enjoyed as a spectator sport by the masters and their families. The slaves employed techniques of group organization which were straight out of Africa: the best singers would stand on top of the pile of corn and lead their teams through song, which often had a strong call-and-response component. There was also a good deal of horseplay tolerated by the masters, including members of one side trying to surreptitiously throw unshucked cobs back on to the pile of the opposing team, or the stricture that the girl who could shuck the fastest “had to be kissed”. The accounts collected by Abrahams are really fun to read: a little jarring in their caricatureish plantation dialect, but very colorful, funny, and filled with detail. I don't know exactly how to incorporate this source into my argument, but I suspect it's giving me some important background.

Another source I've enjoyed reading is a scholarly article by ethnomusicologist Chris Goertzen, called “American Fiddle Tunes and the Historic-Geographic Method”¹. I had never heard of the Historic-Geographic method before, but apparently it was developed in Finland in the 19^th century to analyze folkloric items as to their relative positions of origin in space and time. By identifying and cataloging various aspects of the items, and then charting the differences and similarities within a sample of similar items, the scholar can make inferences as to when and where a given item came from without any other record but the item itself. Goertzen has applied this technique to fiddle tunes, and specifically one tune, or family of tunes with the name “Billy in the Low Ground”. Goertzen's style is dense and his data are extensive, to the extent that even I, a smart-ass amateur musicologist, find my eyes glazing over while trying to figure out what his findings mean. I think that therein lies the key to my question. I'm not going to find out anything that musicologists haven't known for a long time concerning the interracial origin of Appalachian fiddle music, but if I'm smart, focused, and even lucky, I might be able to present the subject in a fresh way that will be easily graspable by the general, educated reader. This must be my goal: I must read a lot, but not too much; not more than I have time and space to digest, synthesize, and put into a coherent form in 15 pages. This is not going to be easy. I feel pulled in many different directions by all this material. If a source doesn't seem irrelevant to, or at least distant from my problem, then it seems to be already saying what I wanted to say, and with much greater authority than I could ever say it. I know these concerns are typical for beginning scholars like myself, and I have faith that my path will become clearer as I read more, and as I interview my primary sources. I simply trust, with alarming naiveté, that I will find away to write a worthwhile paper.

1Roger D. Abrahams. Singing the Master: The Emergence of African American Culture in the

Plantation South (New York: Pantheon Books, 1992) 203—328.

1Goertzen, Chris. “American Fiddle Tunes and the Historic-Geographic Method,” Ethnomusicology, Vol. 29, No. 3 (Autumn, 1985), pp. 448-473.

The Library

Brown 1

Mason Brown

Professor Spohn

Response/Process Paper 5

Writing Seminar II sec. D

9/30/2009

The Library

I have never been in a university library before. Or rather, I have never been in such a library and had access to its sacred shelves; its mysterious vaults of knowledge. I found the experience to be simultaneously thrilling and overwhelming: giddily roaming the stacks, clutching my bibliography like a drunk with his car keys, I was lost in a world of wonder.

I managed to find several items on my list: “Music of the Common Tongue”, by Christopher Small, a study of the African contribution to American music; “Singing the Master”, by Roger D, Abrahams, about early African-American culture; and a very interesting study of the “Iconography of Music in African-American Culture”, called “Images”, by Eileen Southern and Josephine Wright. I also tried my hand at searching the article databases and turned up three musicological papers that I think will help me: “American Fiddle Tunes and the Historic-Geographic Method”, by Chris Goertzen; “George P. Knauff's Virginia Reels and Fiddling in the Antebellum South”, by Goertzen with Alan Jabbour; and “Black Musicians in Appalachia: An Introduction to Affrilachian Music”, by Fred J. Hay.

Now I feel that I am adrift on a great sea of information: the tiny raft of my thesis being beaten apart by factual whitecaps, born on a heavy swell of data. I hear the surf breaking on a lee-shore of irrelevance. Should I abandon my fragile craft and swim for it? I try to make peace with my God and prepare for death.

Right Action

Mason Brown

Professor Jobson

Rel 150: Buddhist Journey of Transformation, Sec. A

“Right Action”

9/28/09

Right Action

Right Action is not best considered on its own. It is a facet of the Noble Eightfold Path of the Buddha. The Eightfold Path is a unitary whole. It is not complete without all of its elements. Any one aspect of this Path is insufficient, in and of itself, to lead to enlightenment, but it is instructive to consider these facets one at a time to better understand them.

The Four Noble Truths, the primary teachings of the Buddha, are thus: Suffering (duḥkha), which is existence ; the Cause (samudaya) of suffering, which is thirst (tṛṣṇa); the Cessation (nirohda) of suffering, which is possible, and the Way (mārga) to end suffering, which is the Eightfold Path . The Eightfold Path consists of Right Understanding, Right Thought, Right Speech, Right Action, Right Livelihood, Right Effort. Right Mindfulness, and Right Concentration. Of all these aspects of the Eightfold Path, Right Action is possibly the most all-encompassing. It can cover many, if not all, of the others.

The way I have been taught to view aspects of the path, such as Right Action, is not as rules or strictures to be adhered to, but as descriptions of reality, and at the same time, tools for thinking more deeply about the implications and consequences of my actions. My teacher, Hojo-sama Keibun Otokawa, had a story that illustrates this: his new-born son was asleep when Hojo-sama saw a mosquito feeding on the baby. Hojo-sama was recently out of the monastery, and had just taken over as abbot of his family temple, and was very earnest and pious as a Buddhist. He was therefore very conflicted over whether to swat the mosquito, sparing his son the pain of a bite, or to spare the mosquito and allow it to make it's living in the way nature intended. There was no perfect solution. He ended up killing the mosquito, but only after deep consideration of the nature of reality, within the framework of Right Action.

Brown 2

Bibliography:

Mitchell, Donald W. Buddhism—Introducing the Buddhist Experience. New York: Oxford University Press, 2008.

Rahula, Walpola. What the Buddha Taught. New York: Grove Press, 1974

Breaking Out of the Cocoon

Brown 1

Mason Brown

Professor Miller

Contemplative Learning Seminar Sec. F

Preparation Paper 4--Breaking Out of the Cocoon

9/29/2009

When confronted with the environmental degradation of the natural world, we aresometimes tempted to enclose ourselves in a cocoon of selfishness and denial. Referring to chapters 7 & 8 in The Sacred Path of the Warrior, and to either the article by Joanna Macy or the one by David Abram, how will you break out of the cocoon and become more “green?” What will you do to heal our relationship with the sacredness of the natural world?

The cocoon is a very powerful image that Trungpa uses to describe the cowardly tendency of human beings to protect themselves. He says:

The way of cowardice is to embed ourselves in this cocoon, in which we perpetuate our habitual patterns. When we are constantly recreating our basic patterns of behavior and thought, we never have to leap into fresh air or onto fresh ground. Instead, we wrap ourselves in our own dark environment, where our only companion is the smell of our own sweat.(52)

In terms of the environment, many of us are in cocoons of consumption and flamboyant selfishness. The Hummer, and other giant SUV's, are good examples of people wrapping themselves in a vehicle, inside of which it is warm, comfortable, and safe, while outside is the dangerous world of others: the enemy. Only when they look out side the windows of their SUV's will they have the possibility to see the suffering of others, and to consider how their actions affect the world. Trungpa says:

We realize that there is an alternative to to our cocoon: we discover that we could be free from that trap. With that longing for fresh air,for a breeze of delight, we open our eyes, and we begin to look for an alternative environment to our cocoon. And to our surprise,we begin to see light, even though it may be hazy at first.(53)

At this point, the Hummer will begin to seem disgusting, and will naturally be abandoned.

Joanna Macy describes a similar situation:

What Alan Watts called ʻthe skin-encapsulated egoʼand Gregory Bateson referred to as ʻthe epistemological error of Occidental civilizationʼ is being unhinged, peeled off. It is being replaced by wider constructs of identity and self-interest—by what you might call the ecological self or the eco-self, co-extensive with other beings and the life of our planet. It is what I will call ʻthe greening of the self.ʼ(183)

For my own part, simply moving from rural Missouri to Boulder, CO, in order to attend Naropa University has done a lot to improve my impact on the environment, and my awareness of it. In Missouri for instance, it is not made easy to recycle. I made a strong effort to do so, but the materials which are allowed are limited, and it is necessary to haul them many miles to the recycling center. Here in Boulder, recycling is made convenient by having a single stream, and by having bins conveniently located everywhere. Also, the miles per week I travel in my vehicle have been reduced by a factor of ten. In Missouri, I commonly had to drive 40 miles one way to get to where the work was. There was also no public transportation available where I was. In Boulder I live within the city, within 5 miles of school, and I often take advantage of the fine public transit system.

In addition to these somewhat automatic changes, which occurred largely as a result of moving here, I aspire to increase my awareness of my impact on the environment and other beings. I hope to reduce my consumption even further by taking only what I need. I also want to renew my intention to refrain from eating other beings. With the support of my fellow students, teachers, and benefactors, I will continue to progress along the Path.

Brown 2

Work cited:

Trungpa, Chögyam. Shambala: the Sacred Path of the Warrior. Boston: Shambala, 2007.

Macy, Joanna. World as Lover, World as Self. Chapter 17, “The Greening of the Self”. PGW,2007(Publishing information not available)

How could the Buddha Abandon his Son?

Mason Brown
Professor Jobson
Buddhist Journey of Transformation, Sec. A
“Life of the Buddha”
9/4/09
How Could the Buddha Abandon his Son?

I have heard the story of the Buddha's life from childhood. I have always been inspired by the uplifting sense of hope it contained; by the possibility of actually ending human suffering. I was also fascinated by the details: the miraculous events at his birth and the predictions of the court seer; the almost immediate death of his mother; the attempts of his father to shelter him and prevent his singular karma coming to fruition; his escape from a life of pleasure and leisure to intentionally practice the most extreme asceticism; his abandonment of austerities and discovery of the “middle way”and, of course, his enlightenment and subsequent teaching career. This story always made perfect sense to me. I suppose stories we learn in religious contexts as children often go unquestioned. So I was taken aback years later, after I was an ordained priest and had been a serious practitioner of Buddhism for decades, by a question put to me by my brother-in-law, John: “how could the Buddha have abandoned his son?”

I have to admit, I never considered this question before. It seemed obvious to me that the Buddha had “bigger fish to fry”, but I could hear the pain in John's voice and sense that he had felt abandoned himself, and that what I had taken for granted was not obvious to him. John had been raised in some form of traditional Christianity. I can't remember which one, but When he asked me this question he had just finished his first intensive meditation retreat and, in the context of that, had been told the Buddha's story. This one detail had become a sticking point for him and, though he appreciated the value of the sitting, he had trouble getting past it. “Why should I follow the teachings of someone who would do that to his own son?” he asked me.

Though I tried to articulate some kind of response, I was at a loss and I don't think my answer helped him. I know it didn't satisfy me and I still think about it some ten years later.

When the Future Buddha was informed of the birth of his son, he said: “An impediment [rāhula] has been born; a fetter has been born”(28). The Buddha knew that the attachment of a parent for his child is one of the strongest attachments we develop as human beings. He seems immediately to have instinctively distanced himself from his son in order to avoid such attachment. When he heard that “...the heart of a mother attains Nirvana, the heart of a father attains Nirvana”(28), the Buddha asked himself “...wherein does Nirvana consist?”(28).
The answer came to him that:

“When the fire of lust is extinct, that is Nirvana; when the fires of hatred and infatuation are extinct, that is Nirvana; when pride, false belief, and all other passions and torments are extinct, that is Nirvana...Certainly, Nirvana is what I am looking for. It behooves me this very day to quit the household life, and to retire from the world in quest of Nirvana.”(28)

The Buddha understood that the problem of human suffering was greater than any one person; any one relationship; any one lifetime. He knew that, even if he raised his son with loving and constant attention, as he himself had been raised, that in the end, his son would be subject to suffering, sickness, old age and death. He realized that a way had to be found to end suffering once and for all, and not just for himself, his son and his family, but for all beings.

Still, he seems to have hesitated. He went to take “just one look”(30) at his son. When he saw the beautiful sight of his son and wife asleep together he gazed at them for a moment and said:

“If I were to raise my wife's hand from off the child's head, and take him up, she would awake, and thus prevent my departure. I will first become a Buddha, and then come back and see my son.” So saying, he descended from the palace.(30)

So it seems clear to me that the Buddha did not “abandon” his son, but that the problem he was trying to solve was so big, and the solution to it was so important, that he felt he had to leave his wife and son, who he knew would be well and extravagantly cared for, in order to accomplish his purpose. He did, in fact, return to see his family after his enlightenment, and many of them, including his son, became the Buddha's disciples.

Though I think I have answered John's question to my own satisfaction, I know that it is an imperfect answer in terms of relieving the deep suffering caused by abandonment. But as the Buddha observed, Life is suffering. The only further help I can give, other than my willingness to be in that suffering with him, is to quote the Buddha's final teaching:

“And now, O priests, I take my leave of you; all the constituents of being are transitory; work out your salvation with diligence.”(45)















Work Cited
Stryk, Lucien. World of the Buddha. New York: Doubleday, 1968.

Argument vs. Rant

Mason Brown
Professor Spohn
Response/Process Paper 2
Writing Seminar II sec. D
9/4/09

Arguments vs. Rants

There's nothing like a good rant to make one feel better. That is if you are the one doing the ranting. Someone else's rant can be the most irritating thing in the world, especially if you disagree with his or her point. A rant is not trying to convince, it's trying to vent; to let off steam; to rail against some injustice or instance of stupidity. It can be very effective at ridiculing; at insulting; at calling out inconsistencies, lies or double-standards. It makes me feel good to rant, but if I'm ranting it usually means I'm preaching to the choir. If I'm talking to or writing for someone who I expect will disagree with me, I'm much more comfortable with argument.

Argument respects the other side. The humanity and reasonableness of the opponent. It assumes that, in the face of superior reasoning backed up by iron-clad facts, the other person can be brought around to agree with us. Or, conversely, that we may end up, after weighing the counter-arguments, changing our position. Argument is actually very open-minded. It is willing to honestly confront it's own shortcomings; it's own blind spots. Ultimately it is much more fulfilling than ranting because it is deeper. It must “wallow in uncertainty”, at least for a time.

A rant starts out convinced of it's righteousness, and though it may well be righteous, it is inflexible, shrill and brittle. It can leave one feeling a little ashamed; the way one would feel after blowing up at a family reunion. Better to stick with the feeling of superiority we can get from a solid, articulate, well-thought-out argument. Lovingly crafted and offered to our opponents to deconstruct if they can, with our blessing and approval. I'll bet you can't argue with that!

Contemplative learning Seminar 1

Preparation Paper 1

Contemplative Learning Seminar, sec. F

8/28/2009

Mason Brown

Question: according to Trungpa, one cannot experience fearlessness without first experiencing fear. Why is this? What is “fearlessness” and how do we achieve it?

Since Trungpa's definition of fearlessness is “beyond fear”(35), it follows that to go beyond something, one must go through it. To get to the other side of a street we have to cross the street, being in it for a time. To get to tomorrow there is no way to avoid today. The reasoning seems sound enough. With fear, though, it's a little more complicated. Say we fear death. If we can't stop fearing death without going through death, Is it possible to ever get beyond that fear before actually dying? I would say the answer is yes. We can go through/be in the fear itself. If we practice meditation, we can experience, over and over again, the death of every single moment. We can slowly become more comfortable. We can see that our state of fear is not so terrible; just a mental state. Slowly we can become used to the fear, like someone we've known for a long time. We begin to relax. In that way, by going through the fear of death, it's possible to get beyond it.

I have experienced this kind of process many times in my own life. Applying to Naropa University is only the latest example. First there was a dissatisfaction with where I was and what I was doing. It seemed arbitrary and pointless. Though I had wonderful friends, a loving and supportive partner, and enough employment to survive, it still didn't seem workable. I had already decided to seek higher education, and was enrolled in junior college when I came to the realization that, at my age, I should waste no time in getting to where I wanted to be. In terms of education, that place had always been Naropa.

I was late in applying for this semester, so the process was rushed and intense. It took a month to finish the application in the midst of work and school. During that time, I had the fear that I would not be accepted; that I would not meet Naropa's standards. That fear, as I lived with and, as Trungpa suggests, “...acknowledged”(34) it on a daily basis, it slowly receded. By the time I was accepted, I was resigned to whatever happened. I had a “plan B” and I was perfectly willing to go with that. I had put myself into the hands of the universe.

After being accepted, however, I had something new to fear. What if I couldn't get enough financial aid to pay for it? I have always lived on the edge of poverty, and my family is of very modest means. So during the period of waiting for my aid to be packaged, I had another fear to get beyond. In the same way, As I sat with that fear, it gradually lost its power.

Now that I am at Naropa, I am afraid of failing; afraid of not being able to make it financially(I have never had a fear of academic failure), but I have confidence, inspired by past experience, that this fear too will pass. So getting beyond the fear; achieving fearlessness is an ongoing process. Like peeling the layers of an onion, there is always one more level. Trungpa says:

Fear evolves into fearlessness naturally, very simply, and quite straightforwardly. The ideal of warriorship is that the warrior should be sad and tender, and because of that can be very brave as well. Without heartfelt sadness, bravery is brittle, like a china cup. If you drop it, it will break or chip. But the Bravery of the warrior is like a lacquer cup, which has a wooden base covered with layers of lacquer. If the cup drops, it will bounce rather than break. It is hard and soft at the same time. (37)

I identify strongly with this. I feel both hard and soft; brave and tender. I am ready to face anything. As my teacher, Kobun Chino Otogawa told me, “all we are doing is trying to accept everything as it is”. To me this is the same thing. If we are okay with reality, what is there to fear?

Works Cited

• Trungpa, Chögyam. Shambala,the Sacred Path of the Warrior. Boston: Shambala, 2007. print.

a New Naropa Student

Well, I am now officially a Naropa student. I just finished my first two classes: Buddhist Journey of transformation, a kind of "Buddhism 101", and Contemplative Learning Seminar, which is an introduction to the particular pedagogic style pioneered by Naropa University. We have heard the story of the school's namesake, the siddhi Naropa, and how, when he was a famous scholar at Nalanda University, circa 11-12 centuries, he was visited in his study by an alarmingly ugly old hag. The hag is said to have asked him:" Do you understand the words you are studying?" to which he replied in the affirmative. At this the hag broke out laughing and expressed great joy. She then asked:"Do you also understand the inner meaning of the words?"

When Naropa answered again, that of course he understood the deeper meaning, the hag's attitude changed abruptly. She began weeping and wailing uncontrollably, falling on the ground and clutching herself; expressing great sadness and despair.

Naropa asked "why were you so happy at my first answer and so sad at my second?"

The hag replied: "when you answered my first question, you told the truth, but when you answered the second question, you lied!" At this the hag dissolved into rainbow light and was gone. Naropa realized his understanding was insufficient, and gave up his place at the university and embarked on a years-long journey to find a teacher who could help him understand "the inner meaning".

I too, like Naropa, have studied and practiced for many years, and many people consider me a source of knowledge and experience. But, like Naropa, I don't know nuthin'! I am starting at the beginning and I hope I can accept everyone as my teacher. Even the ugly, poor old woman, or a child with bare feet.

With humility, I ask for the presence to pay attention every moment to the teachings that constantly surround me. My footsteps have led me back here after decades of seemingly aimless wandering, and I aspire to take what comes with equanimity.

My friend and Dharma brother, Hakubai Martin Mosko, Zenji has invited me to act as caretaker at his temple in Boulder, which is also a memorial garden for our teacher, Kobun Chino Otogawa, Dai-osho and his daughter, Maya, who tragically died in 2002. I am honored and humbled to serve in that position, and grateful for the trust that Martin has shown in me.

I am also thankful for all the support that has come from my friends and family, without which this would be impossible. I am keeping you all in my heart.

So this is my first post as a Naropa student. I will endeavor to write regularly on my experience here. The writing requirements will be pretty heavy for classes: it's looking like I'll have to write 3-4 papers a week this semester, so I may cheat and recycle some of that for this blog. I'll keep you posted. Gassho!