The Miracles of the Buddha and the Modern Buddhist

                Several years ago I was writing for or at least contributed to a Buddhist website which I believe was named “The Kalachakra”  this website was put together by a man in Holland whose name is I recall was Rudy. It was perhaps one of the best Buddhist websites I have ever read. Rudy was nice enough to have different sections of the website set up for different schools of Buddhism. Of course The Kalachakra is in fact a very advanced teaching in Tibetan Buddhism. But Rudy was nice enough have different parts of his website dedicated to the other teachings and schools of Buddhism.  Perhaps the saddest thing about this website was that eventually it was destroyed by hackers who for some reason despised Buddhism in all its forms.  Rudy tried to rebuild the website several times but the anti-Buddhist hackers just would not let it stand, a wonderful example of 21^st century religious intolerance.

         One of the sections on the website was dedicated to what the Tibetan Buddhist scholars referred to as Hinayana Buddhism but which is more properly called the Theravada tradition, which continues as the main form of Buddhism in Sri Lanka and Southeast Asia, but some scholars deny that the term included Theravada Buddhism. In 1950 the World Fellowship of Buddhists declared that the term Hīnayana should not be used when referring to any form of Buddhism existing today. This being because Hinayana is now consider a derogatory term, since in Sanskrit it means smaller vehicle which is often also translated as inferior.  Theravada Buddhism was once simply called Southern Buddhism by English scholars trying to study the history of Buddhism. It’s cannon is perhaps the oldest written Buddhist scriptures that we presently have and is therefore sometimes simply referred to as the Buddhism of the elders.

            One of the things that marks the Theravada sutras and writings is there reciting of the many miracles that Buddha was supposed to have performed in his lifetime. This is not to say that the other schools of Buddhism that came later did not themselves recite many unbelievable miracles performed by the Buddha. It is my observation that one of the many stumbling blocks that almost all religions throw up for the modern mind is the insistence that all their founders performed a horde of miracles while they walked the earth. Both the Bible and the Koran are chock-full of an almost  endless list of miracles performed by Jesus or Moses and of course the founder of Islam Mohamed. I think it’s fair to say that almost every religion seems to find it a necessity to recite these miracles as proof of the wonder, the power and the divinity of their founders and Buddhism is no exception. The population of the earth has expanded to the billions but still many of those billions believe firmly in the miracles performed by their founders and their Saints. While a larger and larger number of people who have converted to the more materialistic religion of science see these claims of miraculous acts as proof that these religions are composed primarily of fairytales.  The great Christian writer CS Lewis once noted that if Christianity was simply based on the teachings of Christ and not on Christ’s divinity and his miraculous powers as a son of God than Christianity would be meaningless.

            So one day I logged onto The Kalachakra website and went over to the section that was provided for followers of the Theravada school to chat and ask questions concerning their teachings. Unfortunately Theravada Buddhism is not well distributed in the European and in Western countries so the person assigned to supervise that section did not in fact practice that school of Buddhism and was terribly ignorant of the schools teaching. Of course these people that were assigned to the sections were there primarily to keep people from posting advertisements for products, to keep members of the website from flaming each other, and to act as a referee over any disputes that arose in the chat rooms. 

            A few days before this one of the very few persons on the website who actually practiced Theravadan Buddhism had begun to ask questions concerning several of the miracles recited in the Pali canon.  I’d done my best to try to answer these questions for this person and even done quite a bit of research to try to help them along. But on this day the person assigned to oversee this section lost control of herself and flamed this  member to the sky and his belief  in Buddhist miracles.   She of course argued that these are all fairytales and had no place on a website concerning modern Buddhism. This new member who I believe was from Malaysia became terribly offended, informed her that he had been taught these stories from the time he was a small child by the Buddhist monks in his country and they were not fairytales but the absolute truth, then he quit the website.

            Of course when I and Rudy saw this we ask her to give up her position monitoring the threads on that section. But it was too late almost everyone who was a member of that section quit the website right after that.  It’s just a very hard for modern Western Buddhist to give the Buddhist who were brought up in countries where Buddhism was the primary religion the slack and tolerance that all Buddhist should have towards the different teachings from the different countries that practice Buddhism. The fact is we just can’t deal with miracles. This is especially true among Western practitioners of Zen.

            Buddhism is over 2500 years old, it’s a basic teachings fit very well with the modern teachings of our materialistic and scientific education in the West. But most Western Buddhist would just rather ignore the old sutras which contain all these miracles and superpowers attributed to the Buddha. And one of the fascinating things about Buddha himself is that he reportedly responded to any request for a miracle by saying “ I dislike them, saying he rejected and  despised them, and refused to comply to such a request. And on several occasions Buddha is quoted as warning his listeners that miraculous powers should not be the reason for practicing his path. And in several places he is quoted as saying that people should not believe his teachings either because of any miraculous thing it done or because of his divine authority. 

            Despite this the sutras often recite miracles that he supposedly performed such as flying, building a jeweled archway in the sky and pacing back and forth on it for days. Generally speaking if we sum up most of the sutras that talk about his powers we find eight really glaring miracles that he was to have performed.

            The first miracle of courses when he was born he supposedly stood up took seven steps to the north and gave a speech: 

            "I am chief of the world,
             Eldest am I in the world,
              Foremost am I in the world.
              This is the last birth.
              There is now no more coming to be."

            Quite a feat for a kid who just got born a few seconds before. Also rather amazing since he apparently didn’t remember making it and proceeded to live the next 30 years as your average everyday run of the mill totally pampered prince of one of the 15 kingdoms of India. Then ran away from home after the birth of his child to go find himself.

        Perhaps his second miracle was that he allegedly went into the world of the gods and explained his teachings to the chief Hindu God Brahma himself, who then begged him to give these teachings to the world.

            His third most famous miracle was when a jealous cousin of his released a giant bull elephant that had been tormented into madness by its keepers and set loose in the street to trample the Buddha into the ground.  But of course when the elephant reached Buddha rather than trampling him it calmed down then it  kneeled on one knee and let him stroke it's trunk.

            One of his fourth miracles was simply converting the water of a poisoned well into clear drinkable water.  In another story he walked on water, in yet another story he flew through the air with 500 others disciples to go have a chat with a king who want to learn about Buddhism. In fact his miraculous powers included super hearing divine seeing traveling through time and seeing all of his own past lives and remembering them all, and of course being several different places at once. 

            Just like many Catholics seem to have a need to believe in the miraculous powers of Jesus, and the Muslims who believe that the superpowers of Mohammed are essential to believing in Islam many Buddhist throughout the world have a need to believe that the Buddha was omniscient and basically had all the powers that Superman possessed and his comic books. 

            So now I’m coming to the crux of this whole post do we have to believe that Buddha attained superpowers when he woke up that day under the bodhi tree? Was CS Lewis correct when he said that the teachings of Jesus meant nothing if they weren’t backed up by superpowers and miracles? Of course my decision early on this question was that these tales of Buddhist miracles are  cultural artifacts and completely unnecessary to either believe or even consider when deciding to become a Buddhist.  Yet still today they are in fact a stumbling block to many people’s belief in Buddhism and many Western teachers simply act like the stories were never told because they know if they tell the stories their Western students will run away laughing. Then of course there are the literally thousands of people who seem to come to Buddhism because they believe that if they meditate long enough they will attain these superpowers.

            So now I’m going to tell you and old Buddhist story, it in fact does not concern the Buddha but rather two men lost in the desert. After several days both men were dying of thirst and then they had the great fortune to come across a great roaring River of pure water slicing through the desert. One of the men ran to the river and drank and quenches his thirst, while the other man sets on the riverbank and simply stares at the River. His companion looks at him and says what your problem, your dying of thirst here’s the River drink. The second man looks back and replies, but I could never drink all that water. I just can’t do it he says it’s too much for me. And then with the river in front of him he sets down and dies of thirst.  

            When it comes to the miracles of the Buddha and the teachings of the Buddha I suggest that you take the approach of the first man, even if you can’t drink the whole River drink what you can and leave the rest alone.

 

Zen mind, a commentary on the mass shooting of nine black people at the Emmanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church.

                         I’ve never been quite sure why I started this blog several years ago, and it I have addressed personal issues and issues relating to the history and practice of Buddhism in Zen. I have no idea how long a blog like this will last I have no idea how long it will float through the Internet some of my posts have been read by thousands of people and some of my posts have been read by almost no one. I suppose this has a lot to do with the title of the post and the search engine that picks up that title.  But what I have rarely done is addressed current events things that are happening right now in our society. Buddhism is thousands of years old and as scholars do more and more research they find that its teachings reach far back in time the truth is no one knows how far back.

               Most of the issues that I address have to do with the practice of Zen as it exists today in the teachings of the Buddha as they have been passed down to us over those thousands of years. One of  the really amazing things about Buddhism and the teachings of Buddha is that they are so fundamental to human nature that they never seem to lose their power because of  their truth and I think it is that truth that has kept it alive and spread it from one end of the planet to the other over those thousands of years.

 I’ve written on Buddhist websites and I have taught in Zendo’s I’ve even given lectures in Christian churches on the teachings of Buddha but I have never seen myself as a priest I have seen myself more as a scholar and a student of the teachings of Buddha and the history of Zen and Buddhism. My last couple of blog posts have been very personal and they were posted in what may be a vain attempt to help other people that have gone through some of the sufferings that I have. After all if Buddha ever made one promise about his teachings it was that they would mitigate our sufferings as we dealt with this life.

        The subject of this post is the Zen mind, a commentary on the mass shooting of nine black people at the Emmanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in downtown Charleston South Carolina on the evening of June 17, 2015. And it is being written shortly after that event. Anyone reading this post today will be very aware of the facts and the news media are flooding television and radio newspapers with the facts of this horrible event. But 10 years from now the world flooded by horrible events the people who are reading this post if it still exists might not remember that on the evening of June 17 a 21-year-old white man entered a historic church in Charleston South Carolina and sat down at a Bible study group. After about an hour of participating in the group he pulled a gun out of his pocket and shot nine people to death in cold blood, he left at least one witness alive so they could relate the twisted reasoning that drove him to do this. It was a statement of pure irrational racist hate made by a man whose mind was consumed with hate. At this particular time no one is aware of any particular harm that any of these people had ever done to him personally or to anyone he knew. It was an action driven by a mental state that we in the United States have observed on numerous occasions, simply put , unreasoning racial bigotry, irrational hate  and fear.

            Any historical observer or psychologist or for that matter any person familiar with human history will recognize this state of mind, I will call it here the “us versus them” state of mind. This state of mind is characterized by the individual separating himself out into one group and convincing himself or herself that a particular other group is intent on his destruction. While we see this quite often in racism it is certainly not been limited to that over a period of the last 10,000 years. As I write this in the Middle East and Africa Islam's ancient schism Sunnis and Shia Muslims have been slaughtering each other for thousands of years based upon this “us versus them” irrational separatist hate. Christians and Moslems and Jews have been slaughtering each other for generations deeply ingrained in this mindset of “us versus them”. When the Europeans landed on the North American continent one of the traits of their society was to see the Native Americans as subhuman, within 20 years 97% of the population of Native Americans on the North American continent were dead. These Europeans then started importing black slaves to North America and treating them pretty much in the same manner as subhuman creatures  that they could own, for all intent and  purposes animals that they could own as property and do with as they will.  Protestants and Catholics in Europe and Ireland have killed each other in the same irrational mindset for decades if not for hundreds of years.

            Now I’d like to step back into the present were journalists civil rights activist politicians and religious figures all are at this very moment pretending that they have some kind of cure for what happened in that church. I have read a blog by a civil rights leader proclaiming that open dialogue is the only answer. I’ve heard statements by religious figures stating that only God’s love can save us from this unreasoning hate.  One very well-known pundit named John Stuart on the Daily Show bemoaned the fact that he was convinced that in the end American society would do nothing about the conditions or the mindset that led to this tragedy. And perhaps the truth is we as a species just don’t know how to cure this disease of the mind.  Beneath all the great compassion being expressed across the world at this senseless act one can sense a deeper feeling of futility and hopelessness.  Religious leaders from almost every religion have expressed a willingness to try virtually anything that will eliminate this kind of behavior in the future, they offer  prayer and preaching and tears. But history has shown us that prayer and preaching and tears have in the end not stopped this plague upon our species. On this same day  Christian preachers claiming to represent the Prince of Peace stand in their pulpits and demand the arrest and execution of Gay and homosexual people who want to get married. The Confederate flag the battle flag of the South that represents a nation that fought and bled to maintain slavery flies over the capital of the state in which this occurred. It seems no one who supports this flag is willing to admit that it stands for hate and  that state of mind that led to that shooting of those nine innocent people. It is an icon around which races haters gather and at the same time in the year 2015 they still refuse to acknowledge what it represents.

            But in our country there is a growing number of people have begun to practice an ancient philosophy and way of life. Some people call Buddhism, some call it  a religion other peoples call it a lifestyle but virtually every type of Buddhist acknowledges the basic teachings of Buddha. And one of the things that separates Buddhism from all the other world religions is its requirement to deal with your own mind, using what Buddhists call skillful means primarily through the practice of meditation the Buddhist is taught to observe his own mind. This can be called minding mind and it is a powerful tool when applied sincerely by the individual practicing it.

            Buddha was perhaps one of the most insightful psychologist who ever lived.  One of his first revelations was that we are the victims of our own mind and that we have little control over it as we stumble through life. Well over 2500 years ago he was teaching people about their minds and providing them with advice and direction on how to observe their minds. Buddha wasn’t a God and Buddha wasn’t a Savior he was just a man but he is what we would call an enlightened a man who had seen things about the human condition and took up the selfish life of trying to show us what he saw.

            One of his teachings that is accepted by almost every school of Buddhism is the teaching on the monkey mind. It might even be better described as monkey minds, minds  intoxicated with fear and  irrational thoughts,  our self awareness filled with what we call our mind is filled with a chattering screeching and howling of what amounts to a pride of monkeys rattling around in our head. Buddha observed that it is almost pointless to try to vanquish these monkeys to make them disappear because the paradoxes is that the harder we try to resist the more they seem to persist. And that is perhaps one of the reasons why for thousands of years different religions have tried to vanquish these monkeys called hate and racism with very little success and have in fact often ended up under their control. They can not be killed only tamed.

             It is my opinion that even deeper down inside of us beneath the monkey minds there lies another mind more primitive and more powerful than even the most howling irrational monkey mind. I will call this the lizard mind and it is in this the lizard mind that the mindset of “we versus them” resides. This state of mind is so primitive it cannot be described in any way other than as a animalistic survival instinct which is why it is so strong and filters its way up through our higher minds gaining a coating of false rationalization and self-deception.  There was perhaps the time when there were 20 or 30 other types of humanlike primates walking the earth.  In that primitive time the lizard mind was probably King and that  probably explains why none of those other primates exists today.

            Buddha showed his students how to meditate in order to quiet those dozens of monkey minds hiding in our skulls. He showed us that the pratice of meditation could calm them down and that with a great deal of practice and observation many of these monkey minds could be tamed. In fact if one practices meditation and observes your own mind there comes a time when you can have a talk with these minds, you may not be able to reason them into changing their nature but through these conversations you can silence their voices sometimes almost putting them to sleep or under a kind of self control.  The monkey mind of fear cannot be dissolved or totally vanquished but it can be reasoned with an calmed down and put in its place.

            But perhaps the hardest mind to reach, the hardest mind to calm down the hardest mind to unbind its power upon you is that lizard mind. And it’s in that lizard mind that the key to our future continued existence on this planet resides.  The simple truth is Buddha knew that the only way to actually change the world was to change ourselves. This is not quite as hard a task as it may seem. If we teach our children to take the time to meditate a few minutes a day. If we teach ourselves that we are in fact responsible for ourselves and our future and our children’s future then perhaps there will be some hope that this lizard mind can be tamed. 

             I’m not saying of course that this is the cure to all racism separatism and hate. What I am saying is that this is a tool that is now available to everyone on the planet Earth. It’s on the Internet it’s on television is being taught by psychologist and secular teachers many of whom have never even heard of Buddha. And it is a practice which should be offensive to no one. What valid complaint can be brought against the teacher that simply suggests that we take a few minutes each day to breathe deeply and quiet our minds.

             You don’t need a temple or priest to meditate. You don’t have to invoke the name of Buddha or the name of any bodhisattva,  meditation has become as secular in the West as the practice of going to the gym and getting a good workout. We can talk to each other and we can live next to each other and we can observe that people of other religions and races and belief systems are just people just like us. That has power in and of itself.

          But if I have observed anything in the last 60 years it is that no state governments or churches or political leaders have any real  power over this lizard mind that drives young men to walk into a church and coldly murder nine people simply because of the color of their skin. If in the end we destroy ourselves I think it will be because we are simply too stubborn and childish  to grow up and take on the responsibility of our own minds.  The tools are there, just waiting to be picked up.

 

Laughter and Humor as Skillful Means In The Zen of Life

                 There is an old cliché that laughter is the best medicine, Zen has a history of humor as a teaching tool. Zen  Koans are filled with stories about Zen teachers using humor primarily to push their students minds out of the trap of rational thinking.  There is probably no better tool to show us the absurdity of ourselves and most of our basic assumptions about the world. A humor can be  tool to expose the irrationality of the world and even Zen itself. True Zen is a leap into the absurd and the inexplicable with your eyes wide open and no net to catch you.  But in Zen this is no leap of faith,   this is a leap without faith  and that makes all the  difference in the world.  This is especially true when dealing with personal tragedy and loss because one of the first things that your mind generates at times like that is the simple question why? Why did this person have to die, why did this have to happen to me. Why, why, why?

 

         I do not want to give anyone the impression  that humor or Zen  or any of Buddhism's skillful means  will give you an  unshakable  place to stand,  a place of refuge that is unassailable  by the daggers of the world .   The refuge that we  take  when we take our vows is only as strong  and as unassailable  as we make it.      

          In fact if you decide to stand on Zen  assuming  it is an unshakable platform  upon which you may always stand you will almost always find yourself like Wiley coyote going over the cliff with a very strange look on your face. The fact is both Zen and humor have one thing in common to be successful the punch line has got to be a surprise. If it’s what you expected than it hasn’t worked. If what you seek Is some fantasy of superhuman powers, Immortality an unearned wisdom that sets you above others you have a long road ahead of you. 

          Buddhism's  only real  power lies in its truth. And the only real enlightenment is seeing that truth. The Buddha's words come down to us through the millennium without a promise of miracles,  just a promise of the truth. They say in the west that the Buddha was the "Tathagata" , and commonly define this as he who has thus come, but a more accurate definition is "he who sees  the world as it really is".  

 

              They say that a Zen master that cannot learn from his students is not unlike a car that can only travel in reverse.  In my case it is my one remaining son who has taught me the healing power of laughter even when my  brain was about to explode and my soul turn to ashes.     

          This is my son Sean White's new Comedy CD, " Dead and Gone"   You can buy it on iTunes Or from Amazon.com, Or go to this link:

http://astrecords.bigcartel.com/product/dead-gone-cd
            
         In any case those of you that have read my blog know my approach to the healing of what cannot be healed, I think it would be worth your while to listen to this CD and see how the same set of circumstances can be dealt with by the skillful means Of humor.


                  It may or may not  amaze you,  it certainly did amaze me, I guess all fathers consider their sons  their students  so this is a perfect example  of the teacher learning from the student .  The one thing I do promise, you will laugh, which is never a bad thing.

Togen

   

Zen, Grief & Death and Buddhism

Zen, Grief & And; Death and  Buddhism

 

        I have over the last several years searched in books and on the Internet and in the far-flung reaches of my own humanity for some kind of guidance on death and grief and the loss of loved ones. I have found articles written by Zen priest and Tibetan priests and psychologists as well as so-called grief counselors and even lay men and women who wanted to put in their thoughts on the subjects of death and grief and coping with the death or loss of a loved one.

        I think it’s amusing that these articles always seem to be so poetic and philosophical they are so often written by people who use words every day in their jobs or professions and they are often very skillful in the crafting of these words.  I should tell you right now that I have made my living for 30 years with words so I’m not unfamiliar with their use as a tool of persuasion. I seldom see in any of these articles or books much outlining of the person who is crafting these words qualifications for handing me their well-crafted and well-meaning advice.

            I can start this blog by telling you that I am a lay Zen priest, that I have practiced Buddhism for almost 35 years, including Tibetan Buddhism and Zen Buddhism under several teachers some from Taiwan some from India and some from Japan and even an American Zen master or two. But if that is what you want to hear than your standard for qualifications on this subject are as prosaic as the many articles I have read over the last few years from monks and Lama’s and Zen priests. Now I want to start this article by stating my qualifications in a different manner.

             A little over five years ago my wife of 33 years was diagnosed with cancer, it was a rare form of cancer with a low survival rate, four months after she was diagnosed my oldest daughter was studying for finals took a pill that a lot of college students take meant for people with attention deficit disorder to focus her mind, she went into anaphylactic shock and died. 11 months later after months of chemotherapy and radiation treatment my loving wife of 33 years set in a chair after her liver transplant and had a heart attack and died. Approximately 8 months later my oldest son was opening up a Starbucks getting it ready for the customers in the morning, his heart had a defect, a small hole and through a blood clot into his lungs and he died on the floor of a coffeehouse. One year after that my youngest daughter walked into her office fell to the floor and died of causes unknown. These are my qualifications to write this blog about death, loss of loved ones, and grieving, Zen and Buddhism.

            Please don’t mistake my intentions here I am not writing this because I think I’ve had some epiphany or vision different from yours if you’ve lost a loved one. I’m writing this because all the well-crafted words neatly numbered clichés and well-intentioned crafted prose that I have found on the subject at hand has in total been all but worthless to me in my experiences with death and loss.  If there is one thing that I truthfully believe that Buddha taught that we must all achieve if we are to come close to awakening it is compassion for others. I am writing this out of compassion in the sincere hope that something that I say in this essay may actually help you if you have suffered a loss so devastating that it is crushing your soul and you would give anything to hear, see or even see the hope of an offer of a modicum of relief. Being lost in grief,  and seeking something that might help you find your way.

             The very first thing that I would tell you is that people who you love when they die,  do not die on a specific date or at a specific time or at a specific place.  The people that we love and cherish do not pass away from us like a bus or a train leaving the station.  The people we love die one memory at a time over a period of years. You should brace yourself for this and understand that you can make this a good thing or you can make this a bad thing but that you have the choice as to which it will be.

             You can be walking through the mall or cruising through some channels on your television set and a memory of this person that you love so much will hit you; sometimes a gentle tap ; sometimes a slap on the face and sometimes it will hit you like a freight train. You can’t know what will trigger this. you can’t walk around these sections of  your life. Nor can you not smell that smell or see that little child that reminds you so much the person you love, not loved, that person you love, there is simply no way of avoiding this, there is no way of predicting this and it’s going to happen, and it will not stop and can not be avoided.
            You can run from this but you can't hide from it. I sold my house, stopped doing the things I had loved doing with them, I stopped, no I couldn't work at a career I had had for 28 years.  I moved to a new city.  I hide from all things that had come before, I could not sleep, because they lived in my dreams. I  went to therapist, took antidepressants, drank alcohol, I bought things I didn't need. It was all a waste of time.  Love and memory will note leave because combined they are what our reality is made of.    

            The freshness of loss brings all sorts of feelings like anger and frustration and fear and perhaps  most strongly comes frustration and a feeling of helplessness.  As a Buddhist we must realize that this is a form of self cherishing. When you feel like you are responsible when you feel guilty like there must’ve been something you could have done different something you could have done that would have prevented the loss of the person you love, that is your ego, not real  grief. Somewhere down inside you, you think your God, that you in your almighty omniscience should have been able to twist the universe in such a way that the world and karma and impermanence could have been controlled,  bent to your will so that none of this should’ve happened. If you’re a Buddhist you must recognize this in yourself and get over it. But I warn you that you can’t get over it by an act of will, you can’t get over it by looking away from it,  you can only get over it by seeing it for what it is, your ego wallowing in its own self-importance. If you have studied Buddhism then this is where the teaching of Buddha can be of great help to you. You’re using the death of a loved one to dwell here on feelings of your own self-worth and punishing yourself at the same time and you must realize that you’re giving yourself far more credit than you deserve.
            One thing that you’ve got to realize is this death happened to them not to you, it’s their death not yours. You are simply a witness to their death, they are the ones that suffered the pain of death so don’t be so selfish in feeling and acting as if death was something that happened to you and not to them. Your job in loving them is to bear witness to their life and the value of that life and while their death is something that you had to endure you were simply  a witness and nothing else. You do a disservice to everyone that you love that has died when you mock them by acting as if it was your experience, your death and not theirs. Further you do them a disservice, because your assuming because their life was short, it somehow had less value than a nice long life.  A beautiful, brilliant child's life short or long has value beyond your petty evaluation.
            I’ve read so many articles on death and loss written by Buddhist and perhaps the first word that jumps off the page of each of these writings is the word "impermanence".  One of the fundamental elements of the Buddhist view toward reality is of course impermanence. The problem with using the word impermanence in English is that it’s tends to lend itself to a meaning that something is here and then it’s gone.  That people are like a cloud of smoke visible for a moment and then blown away by the wind. Now I’m not talking about reincarnation or rebirth or the transmutation of the soul. I’m talking about the impermanence that is the fundamental nature of things as they really are and that in reality  impermanence is composed of never ending change,  not extinction. 
             Earlier in this essay I was talking about memories and the things that trigger them and in doing so bringing back experiences of our life with the person that we love and that has died. In so many of the articles I’ve read the experts will list phases of grieving and telling us that we must get over grieving that we must work our way through these experiences by the numbers and finish off our grief like it was a bowl of soup that needed to be consumed and then done with. These experts explain that  grief is a  process like having a tooth extracted.
             First we are told that the tooth’s got to go and then an appointment is set where  a dentist reaches into our mouth and yanks the tooth out. And this hurts. In grief,  just like having a tooth extracted in the modern world, we are given drugs to ease the pain of the extraction. To soothe the pulling of the tooth the dentist will inject some pain relieving drug into our gums and then once the tooth is pulled give us a prescription for pain relievers like hydrocodone because we all know it is going to hurt for a while afterwards.
         We are told that grief is like that,  that our gums where the tooth was will begin to heal and that the pain will go away and eventually we will learn to do without it.  In the modern world they give us antidepressants for the loss of a loved,  some  drugs to ease the pain and make the loss that’s going to hurt for a while more bearable.  But like the extracted tooth we will eventually heal and learn to do without it or in this case the person that we loved. It’s all very neat and tidy and they’ve got it all figured out. You just follow the instructions on the pill bottle and everything will be okay. When a tooth is pulled it's nice to not feel the pain. But in grief the drugs they give you, change you in a way that simply delays the pain, there must come a time when you must face the pain of your loss, and it must be you, not a cardboard mockup of you that deals with the loss and the pain. My advice is antidepressants are fine for a while but don't wait to long before you give them up or what's left won't be you, it will be something else.
            The cliché of course is that time heals all wounds whether it be an extracted tooth or our dead child or dead wife.  That somehow our brains are wired in such a way that we will get over it and everything will be okay in the end.  It has not been my experience that this approach to grief and grieving is not overly successful.  It’s not the same thing and it doesn’t work the same way.  This is especially true when the loss happens out of the natural order of things. We all expectant parents to die before us and we all miss and suffer grief for them when they pass. But their passing is expected and accepted by us as the natural order of things.  But this is not the case when we lose a child or even when we lose our mate.  These losses are out of order,  they are not the expected, not the  way things are supposed to proceed,  which makes them that much  harder to cope with, alas they are often inexplicable to the mind. Then that wiring mentioned above becomes twisted and often breaks rather than heals.
             Our wife or husband or children are by their very nature an integral component to our perception of the world and our life.  I think it can truly be said that when you lose a child or person you shared your life with for 30 years it is a loss of part of yourself maybe even more significant than the loss of an arm or a leg,  it is truly an overwhelming and incomprehensible experience. And when I talked about death happening to them and not to you and when I talked about self cherishing and the  loss of the child or a wife or husband makes that tendency almost justified almost true because they were a part of you, a part that you naturally feel you cannot do without. But the reality is you must now do without them and that is hard and that hurts beyond description. 
            The only way to truly survive such a loss is virtually to undergo a form of rebirth of  your mind and soul, you must be reborn, and yet remain, you must somehow accomplish this and there is no guidance and no pill that will accomplish this for you or even deaden the pain because birth is always a painful experience and a shock to the soul. This is an experience that’s for you and you alone,  there is no science to it. If anything there is an art to it, a creative process. But if you do not accomplish it in some manner you will be crippled, damaged beyond repair, so it’s something you must do despite the pain.

            It’s about this time that most Buddhist start talking about attachment and not being attached even to the ones you love, and this is absurd. You can no more remain human and at the same time unattached to the people you love then you can turn to stone and still keep breathing. For me I have found that turning those memories that could’ve destroyed me into something that gives me joy and helps keep me afloat was what I had to do to obtain the rebirth that is required after the loss of a wife and children. These memories can keep you warm at night can make sure that you’re not alone and never will be. This takes effort on your part not willpower and not force of ego, perhaps a little compassion for yourself mixed in with love for those you remember helps in changing what would be poison into something else completely. Always remember nothing is ever truly lost. But it  will be you who must mix the potion to make this work. You must conjure this cure.

            When you suffer a devastating loss your friends want to help you and they all say they’re there for you. After a while this compassion becomes a very irritating experience but it’s something you’ve got to learn to live with. I know this doesn’t make sense and that it’s what we call counterintuitive,  but having people feeling sorry  for you can often be as destructive as anything in the experience of suffering such a loss.  I can’t speak for other people but I myself want my friends to treat me the way they did before the loss I want them to be my friends I want them not to tiptoe around me and treat me different.  I once had a well-meaning friend I had not met in a long time blurt out “my God why haven’t you killed yourself”.  Needless to say he suddenly realized what he said, he  saw that it  was perhaps the most damaging statement I had heard in a few years.  He didn't understand my laughing at him.

            Almost every article I’ve read about grief and dying has the expert giving advice to the friends of the person who is grieving or for that matter the person that is dying.  I didn’t find any of it anything much but condescending.  I think people who are dying and people who are grieving want you to treat them like you did before they were dying or were grieving.  I don’t think I’ve had more than one or two of my friends call me up like they did before my so-called tragedy and invite me out to dinner or to a movie or to any of the things that they used to do. The last thing a person who is grieving wants is to be treated like a leper. They want to be listened to when they feel like talking and when they don’t feel like talking don’t ask them to. No one likes to feel like they’re being managed or treated like someone with a  disease or mental illness because they are grieving.  If you tell a person who’s lost a loved one that you’re there for them then be there for them the same way you were before nothing more or less.

            Almost every article I’ve ever read by a Buddhist when dealing with death and grief includes the story of the woman who brought her dead daughter to the Buddha and asked him to bring her back to life. In the story the Buddha tells the woman to go find a household that death has not touched and he will bring the daughter back to life. The woman of course goes door-to-door and finds no house and no family that death has not touched.  And somehow this makes the woman more able to cope with her daughter’s death when she sees that everyone has experienced what she’s experiencing.  It’s a simple parable but I don’t think it’s for a person who’s actually suffering grief. I think it’s more of a warning that the death of a loved one is inevitable and that every person must find some way of coping with it.  I can’t say that this has been some great comfort to me and I wish people would quit throwing it out every time someone suggests they do a talk or write an essay on death in Buddhism. It almost seems like your being told to suck it up and walk it off.

                    I’m much more impressed with the story from the Buddha’s own life  concerning the death of his family at the hands of another king.

            One day word came to the Buddha who was a prince from a royal family that there was an army led by a vengeful king on its way to destroy his father’s kingdom. The Buddha ran in front of the Army and sat down in front of it.  It was the tradition in those times that the army could not pass a holy man so temporarily the attack was called off.  But not too long afterward the vengeful king did attack again. He took all of the Buddha's family that were still in the kingdom put them in a pit and had them crushed by elephants.  The Buddha himself found that he was powerless to save his father or his kingdom. Just as I was powerless, just as you were powerless to stop the deaths of your loved one. And he grieved just as your doing. This is a story for someone who is grieving: that not even the Buddha could save his family and in the end he had to share the grief that we all share in this life.
            We all ask ourselves at one time or another what is the point of life.  We all must endure unending change that is the impermanence that is the hallmark of our existence.  But impermanence is not extinction and while life may have no purpose as we define purpose it has a direction and a flow and in the case of a sentient being that direction and that flow is best toward awakening and away from delusion, seeing things as they really are, as free from the delusions that create suffering as possible. A life of compassion and wisdom, imperfection and learning.
             I know most of my modern Zen brothers and sisters do not believe in karma or rebirth but I cannot see the why of this. All the best efforts of man since he first became sentient has pointed in the direction that nothing is ever lost that things only change and that what is one thing today will be another thing tomorrow.  How boring the universe would be if there was no change and how hopeless would be a world both static and predictable. 

         This gift of being sentient is more than a blessing or curse it is a responsibility. It has been said that the Buddha after he awoke paced back and forth for days and finally said "this cannot be taught it can only be experienced" . But despite knowing this he still walked barefooted from one end of India to the other his long life teaching and pointing the way to the path of awaking, he was  a compassionate man who did not let the knowledge of his own limitations or our temporary nature  dampen his compassion or lessen  his efforts. If there is a lesson for those who grieve in Buddhism it is to follow in the footsteps of the Buddha no matter how hard or unbearable that path may sometimes seem.  Nothing is ever truly lost.

          I hope there is something in this essay that will be of value to you, if you suffer from grief or have suffered the loss of a loved one.  Even a grain of helpful wisdom at this time is rare, believe me I know.

   

 

“If you meet the Buddha on the road kill him!”

                  “If you meet the Buddha on the road kill him!” this is an old Koan attributed to Zen Master Linji, (the founder of the Rinzai sect of Zen).
 

      This like all Koan is a  puzzle to which each person must find their own answer and before they can find the answer they must discover what the question actually is.  Even though this is a statement and in fact a very emphatic statement it is in fact a question at the base of deciding to become a Buddhist. Over the years I’ve heard many people give their own interpretation of what this means. Some people’s answers seem so obvious that they hurt to listen to while others go so far away from what I see in this that they mean nothing to me.

    A Buddhist is a person who is decided to take a refuge in the Buddha the Dharma and the Sangha, at the same time the initiation ceremony that soon follows symbolizes leaving home. But I have often thought that a better translation for the word refuge in the English language might be the word home. A refuge in English defines more of a condition than a place, it can be defined simply as a condition of being safe and sheltered from pursuit, danger, or troubles. In English the word home is a place where one lives permanently, especially as a member of a family or household. But most simply home in English refers to a place where one lives.  We often refer to the things we do, the ceremonies we perform, the skillful means by which we approach the idea of Buddhahood as our practice.

       As a verb in English practice means to perform an activity or exercise a skill repeatedly or in regular order to improve or maintain one’s proficiency, as a noun on in English the word practice means the actual application or use of an idea, beliefs, or method as opposed to theories about such application or use. I think most of the people that I have run into see their “practice” as the ceremonies that they perform, and the meditation that they do. In this sense their practice is separate from their daily activities.

      Anyone who spends any time studying Zen knows that one of its more frustrating admonitions is that it is composed of nothing more than your own daily activities.  When asked what is Zen many of the old Buddha’s simply said when you wash the dishes wash the dishes, when you carry water carry water, when you eat eat. This is very frustrating to us Westerners because it doesn’t seem to convey anything in the way of mystical meaning or anything that would push you towards that ever present goal of enlightenment.

     In Buddhism enlightenment in the English language is usually defined as a final blessed state marked by the absence of desire are suffering. Put more commonly I think that many people have all sorts of ideas as to what enlightenment means that have nothing to do with the Buddha or for that matter Buddhism. And this idea that enlightenment is marked by superhuman psychic powers and even omniscience has been part of the Buddhist legend probably from the moment that Buddha gave up the ghost.

    One of the earliest stories about Buddha was that after his, what has today been called enlightenment, under the bodhi tree, he was walking along and he was met by someone who noticed that he seemed different from other people and they asked him what he was, his response was not that he was enlightened but that he was "awake". Many of the old sutras referred to him as the Tathagata.  When you look up this word you’ll usually find it defined as “one who has thus come’ and this is explained in saying that he is beyond all coming and goings beyond all transitions. Which is to say he is beyond the cycle of birth and death and rebirth. But in a few of the old sutras it is simply defined as "one who sees things as they really are". And that definition of one who sees things as they really are is much closer to what Buddhist himself said that he was, not enlightened but “awake”.

 

        “If you meet the Buddha on the road kill him!” –Linji

 

       I’m going to make the simplest assumption that a Zen master wasn’t instructing his students as they traveled around the countryside to murder anyone they found that looked or seemed like they were enlightened. I think this is an safe assumption. If you have taken the refuge vows, I suppose you must decide if this means that the teachings of the Buddha, the Buddha himself and other Buddhists, are to be used like a parasol to protect you from the rains of life, or as I prefer whether you have decided to make the Dharma your home, the place where you live. If you make it a shield and not a home and you make your practice separate from your daily life, Buddhism becomes a thing, that you brandish when you feel that you are in danger or threatened. If you make Buddhism your home, if you make it the place you live every day for the rest of your life, if your practice is your life, then the admonition to chop wood when you chop wood, to eat when you eat, and to wash when you wash becomes not a useless mystical saying but a common sense direction to make the road from birth to death your practice. In this way Zen holds no mystery it simply becomes your state of being and your state of mind. In doing this you can become awake but you may never become enlightened because enlightenment is nothing more than a bunch of preconceptions that you had when you came to Buddhism in the first place.

       If you see enlightenment is a state of being marked by omniscience and magical powers, and you see the Buddha as a person who was omniscient and had magical powers and you meet this creature in your meditations or even in the form of a teacher, then it is time that you woke up and killed this creature in your mind.  This certainly doesn’t mean you should shoot your Zen master, but it does mean you should stop projecting your fantasies onto him or her. If you are striving to become a Buddha and that Buddha is composed of all your preconceptions, it is doubtful you’ll ever meet him or her, so it’s much better to kill that Buddha, and once you have made Buddhism, the Dharma, the Sangha and the Buddha your home, and once you’ve made your practice your life and your state of mind and not these ceremonies and meditations, then perhaps you will  actually have killed the Buddha and then maybe you’ll be one.


Togen

Buddhist Reincarnation and Buddhist Rebirth

          Since this blog was started several years ago I have  developed all of 19 followers however over 120,000 people have read some or all of my blog posts and one post for some reason has drawn the attention of at least 50,000 people who seem to be interested in the subject that I was posting about. I once did a small post simply titled rebirth and simply put a small epiphany that I had had while I was in meditation. It simply said that nothing ever happens only once.  I think about 80 people read it and I’m not sure they actually gave it any thought if they had I think they might have gotten an impression that I was talking about them as well as myself.

       As some people know who have read this blog I practiced Tibetan style Vajrayana  Buddhism for many years. Certain things happened in my life and I came to a teacher who just happened to be a Zen teacher. I started this blog after a few years of setting with my teacher in order to create a record of this new practice that I had taken on.  But as I’ve mentioned several times before even the eight years I have spent now practicing Zen have no stripped me of my basic Buddhist beginnings and those decades of teachings by some very wise and amazingly educated Chinese and Tibetan monks.  If you’re one of the 50,000 people that read my post on monk versus laymen then you’re aware of my feelings concerning Westerners recent tendency to be enthralled with robes. Especially the wearing of and selling of such spellbinding materials. The only explanation I can find for this is the need to be set apart in a  practice were one is supposed to expand and merge with the other not separate yourself out with some sort of mystical looking garb. But I digress.

            I have unfortunately had the dubious honor of recently reading a web post and watching a lecture by the ever entertaining Brad Warner entitled literal reincarnation or some such thing. I have always been a little bit fascinated by the Western Zen attitude toward reincarnation I suppose it seems a little too magical for modern Western minds that were raised on Newtonian physics and trained in high school laboratories around the American and English world so first I’m going to do what I have a tendency to do which is set a little background work on the basic Buddhist concept of reincarnation. Then I’m going to address Soto Zen and master Dogen and this modern viewpoint that is personified in the lectures by Mr. Brad Warner. Normally it’s against my policy to be condescending toward any particular Buddhist practitioner teacher, but since Brad seems to be so set on attacking anyone who holds the view opposite of his, I’m not going to feel bad if some of my statements are a little bit contemptuous of his.

          Reincarnation commonly called rebirth by modern Zen practitioners or the transmigration of the soul by the ancient Greeks and Egyptians. Has been a part of Buddhism since its very beginnings. However if you’re familiar all with the history of Buddhism you must realize that Buddha was a Hindu. Many of the basic concepts of the world that he lived in were part of the very fabric of his society and his belief system. Buddha did not invent the idea that the world was subject to constant unending change he simply accepted it as the truth. Nor did he invent the idea of reincarnation.   In Hinduism’s  Rigveda the oldest extant Indo-Aryan text, numerous references are made to transmigration, rebirth (punarjanma), and redeath (punarmrtyu) in the Brahmanas.    One verse reads, "Each death repeats the death of the primordial man (purusa), which was also the first sacrifice" (RV 10:90). Another excerpt from the Rig Veda states (10: 16. 1-4):

 

“Burn him not up, nor quite consume him, Agni: let not his body or his skin be scattered. O Jatavedas, when thou hast matured him, then send him on his way unto the Fathers... let thy fierce flame, thy glowing splendour, burn him With thine auspicious forms, o Jatavedas, bear this man to the region of the pious... Again, O Agni, to the Fathers send him who, offered in thee, goes with our oblations. Wearing new life let him increase his offspring: let him rejoin a body, Jatavedas. “

 

            The systematic attempt to attain first-hand knowledge of past lives has been developed in various ways in different places. The early Buddhist texts discuss techniques for recalling previous births, predicated on the development of high levels of meditative concentration      The later Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, which incorporated elements of Buddhist thought, give similar instructions on how to attain the ability.     The Buddha reportedly warned that this experience can be misleading and should be interpreted with care. Tibetan Buddhism has developed a unique "science" of death and rebirth, a good deal of which is set down in what is popularly known as “The Tibetan Book of the Dead.”

    I can think of no greater authority on the subject of reincarnation in traditional Buddhism than the Dalai Lama himself so the following is his own explanation of reincarnation translated from the original Tibetan and written by the Dalai Lama himself:

 

"Past and future lives



In order to accept reincarnation, we need to accept the existence of past and future lives. Sentient beings come to this present life from their previous lives and take rebirth again after death. This kind of continuous rebirth is accepted by all the ancient Indian spiritual traditions and schools of philosophy, except the Charvakas, who were a materialist movement. Some modern thinkers deny past and future lives on the premise that we cannot see them. Others do not draw such clear cut conclusions on this basis.



Although many religious traditions accept rebirth, they differ in their views of what it is that is reborn, how it is reborn, and how it passes through the transitional period between two lives. Some religious traditions accept the prospect of future life, but reject the idea of past lives.



Generally, Buddhists believe that there is no beginning to birth and that once we achieve liberation from the cycle of existence by overcoming our karma and destructive emotions, we will not be reborn under the sway of these conditions. Therefore, Buddhists believe that there is an end to being reborn as a result of karma and destructive emotions, but most Buddhist philosophical schools do not accept that the mind-stream comes to an end. To reject past and future rebirth would contradict the Buddhist concept of the ground, path and result, which must be explained on the basis of the disciplined or undisciplined mind. If we accept this argument, logically, we would also have to accept that the world and its inhabitants come about without causes and conditions. Therefore, as long as you are a Buddhist, it is necessary to accept past and future rebirth.



For those who remember their past lives, rebirth is a clear experience. However, most ordinary beings forget their past lives as they go through the process of death, intermediate state and rebirth. As past and future rebirths are slightly obscure to them, we need to use evidence-based logic to prove past and future rebirths to them.
 


There are many different logical arguments given in the words of the Buddha and subsequent commentaries to prove the existence of past and future lives. In brief, they come down to four points: the logic that things are preceded by things of a similar type, the logic that things are preceded by a substantial cause, the logic that the mind has gained familiarity with things in the past, and the logic of having gained experience of things in the past.



Ultimately all these arguments are based on the idea that the nature of the mind, its clarity and awareness, must have clarity and awareness as its substantial cause. It cannot have any other entity such as an inanimate object as its substantial cause. This is self-evident. Through logical analysis we infer that a new stream of clarity and awareness cannot come about without causes or from unrelated causes. While we observe that mind cannot be produced in a laboratory, we also infer that nothing can eliminate the continuity of subtle clarity and awareness.



As far as I know, no modern psychologist, physicist, or neuroscientist has been able to observe or predict the production of mind either from matter or without cause.



              There are people who can remember their immediate past life or even many past lives, as well as being able to recognize places and relatives from those lives. This is not just something that happened in the past. Even today there are many people in the East and West, who can recall incidents and experiences from their past lives. Denying this is not an honest and impartial way of doing research, because it runs counter to this evidence. The Tibetan system of recognizing reincarnations is an authentic mode of investigation based on people’s recollection of their past lives.



How rebirth takes place



                There are two ways in which someone can take rebirth after death: rebirth under the sway of karma and destructive emotions and rebirth through the power of compassion and prayer. Regarding the first, due to ignorance negative and positive karma are created and their imprints remain on the consciousness. These are reactivated through craving and grasping, propelling us into the next life. We then take rebirth involuntarily in higher or lower realms. This is the way ordinary beings circle incessantly through existence like the turning of a wheel. Even under such circumstances ordinary beings can engage diligently with a positive aspiration in virtuous practices in their day-to-day lives. They familiarize themselves with virtue that at the time of death can be reactivated providing the means for them to take rebirth in a higher realm of existence. On the other hand, superior Bodhisattvas, who have attained the path of seeing, are not reborn through the force of their karma and destructive emotions, but due to the power of their compassion for sentient beings and based on their prayers to benefit others. They are able to choose their place and time of birth as well as their future parents. Such a rebirth, which is solely for the benefit of others, is rebirth through the force of compassion and prayer.
"

 

(Translated from the original Tibetan)

Written by:  H.H. The 14^th Dali Lama of Tibet

 

    In his post and lecture on literal reincarnation Mr. Warner goes to great lengths to be contemptuous of anyone, such as Deepak Chopra, who holds an opposite view from his concerning literal reincarnation, and suggesting of course that the only reason that Mr. Chopra holds these views is to milk money out of gullible Westerners who want to be told that they can live forever. The ignorance displayed by Mr. Warner as to an even a basic  understanding of the concept of reincarnation, the wheel of death and rebirth and the entire purpose of Buddhism in this one statement is so mind-boggling as cause  smoke to rise from  out my ears in utter amazement. I have read many things that Brad has written and at the least I have found him amusing and at the best sometimes quite erudite concerning the basic concepts of Zen and Buddhism.  Now I’m beginning to believe he has a ghostwriter somewhere who has been writing this stuff for him all these years.

     I was touched by Mr. Warner’s willingness to admit that the man who founded Soto Zen the guy we like to call Master Dogen, clearly taught reincarnation and rebirth and that his masterwork the “Shobogenzo” has people being reborn all over the place in it. Then of course Mr. Warner makes a long apology for Master Dogen, observing that after all he was just a poor ignorant Japanese monk living in the Middle Ages firmly set in the archaic beliefs of Buddhism and simply didn’t know no better.  He goes on from there to say that his own teacher Master Nishijima who spent his life translating the Shobognzo didn’t really believe in any of that stuff he just left it in his translation and didn’t edited it out in respect for this poor misguided monk from the Middle Ages, poor ignorant Dogen Zenjii.

   Perhaps one of the first things I should say is that Dogen was perhaps the greatest Buddhist scholar in the last  oh I don’t know thousand years. Having read not only his Shobognzo and his extensive record, and compared these to numerous sutras, not to mention perhaps the greatest work ever written in modern Buddhism, The Lamrim, by TsongKhapa, founder of the Gelug school. I am more than ready to say that even though he wrote 700 years ago Dogen, was a bit more of the scholar and probably a little bit more intelligent than Brad Warner. I’m sorry Brad but I’ve meet Dogen, at least in his words and his works. And your no Dogen.

     Now I would like to addressed the simple issue of whether or not a modern student of Zen can endure the ridicule of  people like Mr. Warner if they happen to believe in the traditional underpinnings of Buddhism as taught by both Buddha, Bodhidharma and of course Dogen.  My answer to this question is absolutely. Other than intellectual fashion there is absolutely nothing in the modern compendium of thought and or science that would prove or disprove the reality of literal reincarnation or rebirth.

      And as pointed out by  someone as humble as the Dalai Lama himself there are people who in fact remember past lives. This of course is antidotal proof and despite the numerous cases over the years were people have challenged folks who remember their past lives and so many times find that their memories are quite accurate Buddha didn’t ask you to believe anything on authority so neither will I.  If I were to tell you that several years ago while in deep meditation I had a waking vision of a  past life, or rather a past death, I wouldn’t expect you to believe me any more than I would expect you to believe the last ho I don’t know 2800 years of Buddhist teachings and sacred Scriptures.: Much less the founder of Soto Zen.

      Science tells us that there are natural laws that govern the universe I think one of the first two I was taught when I was a child was the conservation of matter and energy, this was followed by the fact that both matter and energy are more or less the same thing and constantly in a state of flux becoming one and then the other, and at for the last oh I don’t know 15 years modern physicists have also held to the conservation of information, that is to say nothing is ever lost it can change states but it’s never lost. Perhaps the clear mind is at its essence information? But then again I’m not asking you to believe modern scientist either, after all  they keep persisting in telling me that 97% of the universe is made out of something called dark matter and dark energy that we can’t detect it in any way except through its effect on things that we can detect.  I mean what’s more spooky and mystical than that. When Einstein proved that two electrons separated by an infinite amount of space remain connected in some way and when one was affected the other one was affected he call this spooky action at a distance, I mean even Einstein was kind of freaked out by this. But I don’t expect you to believe in that either, after all Mr. Warner says there’s no such thing as literal reincarnation, he makes a great argument for this which as far as I can tell is based solely on his own opinion which he pulled out of his nether regions.

        A way to bridge this gap between the unwillingness of modern people to believe in anything that Newton couldn’t weigh and measure, and past teachings by Buddhist masters was in fact achieved by that poor medieval monk Dogen. When he pointed out that you were going through death and rebirth every instant of your existence. He observed that the you that went to sleep last night is not the you that  woke up this morning, during the night change occurred. If I understand what he was talking about at all I think he was saying that as a Zen Buddhist we should probably be more concerned with what’s going on right where and when you are standing then what may or may not occur in the future. Death is certainly assured and if there’s one thing that I’ve learned it’s that reality doesn’t give a damn what you think it is.

        A modern Zen Buddhists can certainly reject the traditional Buddhist belief in the six realms of existence, while at the same time accepting modern physicists belief that it’s extremely possible that we live in a multi-verse where every possible variation of this universe is occurring simultaneously with this one after all that is science not mysticism. I’m perfectly aware that scientists can saw open your skull sticking electrodes in your brain  and give you what appears to be mystical or spiritual experiences. You can have a painting of a rice cake or you can have a rice cake but you can’t eat the painting.

    It is my belief that every now and then here and there the universe has a tendency to manifest itself as me and perhaps even you. I have no reason to prove this to you and I don’t really care if you believe it or not, but I believe that Buddhism its basic ethics and its basic purpose reflect what Buddha called being awake, perceiving things as they really are, that’s why I’m still a Buddhist and why I’m still trying to figure out that little section of the universe that I seem to find myself standing in from time to time.

Letter to the 1%

1. Dear racists, segregation, genocide and slavery simply never works, just ask Hitler or Pol Pot, or Jefferson Davis and General Lee. Go talk to South Africa and mention segregation.


 2. Dear would be dictators, in the end it just never works, ask Cesare, ask Mussolini ask Stalin, in the end they either kill you or simply watch as you die. Go to Mongolia and ask to see the great Kahn.


 3. Dear super rich who would enslave the majority while you glory in your treasures, in the end they just drag you out and cut off your head. Just ask the Royalty of France. Go have a chat with The Tsars of Russian or spend a day with Pablo Escobar.


 4. Dear politicians and rich who find “science “inconvenient, and simply say its untrue, just ask the people of Pompeii or the people of Easter island.


 5. Dear religious fanatics who think you can force everyone to follow your religion or kill them, it never works, just ask the Mayans and the Catholic Church. Find a Templar knight or visit the Ottoman Empire.


 6. To all those industrialist who think natural resources are never used up, go find a tree on Easter Island. Bring me some California gold, or a few million American bison.


7. Dear Fox News who think lies and fomenting hate and fear will yield power and control for your masters. Ask Himmler how he and the Nazi regime are doing today.


    Would all of you please stop wasting our time, its almost 2015 and we the human race have no desire to go extinct because of a few greedy, stupid people caught in the evil dreams of the past. Go back to the 12th century where you belong and let the rest of use build a future for the human race.
There simply is no place for you in the future.


 Togen