All Considering

Ritual, Andrew Cohen on spiritual evolution, rejoicing and more

Katinka - Spirituality — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 13:32:40 +0000

This is an overview of spiritual material I put online in the past month or so.
All Considering:

Great Spiritual Books, my reviews:

Andrew Cohen, Evolutionary Enlightenment: a new path to spiritual awakening (2)

Contemporary Buddhism

I could not become a Buddhist without still having some controversial opinions about the topic occasionally… my main spiritual blog will remain ‘All Considering’, but when I have something to say about Buddhism that doesn’t fit that general spiritual audience, I will say it here. I started out by writing down my notes on daily refuge: how to take refuge in the Buddha, Dharma and Sangha without losing a universal perspective. So far it’s not very controversial, but that may change.

Ritual as part of a spiritual practice: Tibetan Buddhism

Katinka - Spirituality — Wed, 28 Dec 2011 13:58:58 +0000

Over the past year I’ve gained some experience at (Gelugpa Tibetan) Buddhist ritual. As a born agnostic from a protestant background rituals don’t sit very well with me. In fact, before hand I was planning to select the Buddhist lineage in part on the amount of ritual it involved.

Funnily enough I ended up with one of the lineages of Buddhism that has exported it’s rituals wholesale to the West, along with it’s texts and meditation practices. That is: prayers, prostrations, ritual offerings, etc. play a huge part in the practice of FPMT members and retreats. We should not make too much of this: members are free to ‘take home’ none or a lot of ritual trappings.

The upside is that studying texts is as much a part of their practice as ritual is, and meditation also plays a huge part. Since I am suited to studying and am trying to incorporate meditation into my life, I guess it’s 2 out of 3 for me.

My realistic side tells me I can’t expect the world to just supply me with a tradition that suits me precisely.

That said, I have started realizing that ritual really does have a part to play in spiritual practice, even my own.

From the perspective of the anthropology of religion ritual is an essential part of all religion. The Protestant Sunday Service is as much a ritual as the Catholic devotion to Mary. Personal meditation practices are rituals as much as saying “hail mary’s”. In fact, soccer matches and presidential elections also have ritualistic (even religious) aspects to them, if you look at them from a anthropological perspective.

What ritual does, in our individual spiritual practice, is integrate our ideals into our emotional lives. I find I like singing (Buddhist) prayers to go along with my morning meditation. It lifts me up. Don’t get me wrong: visualizing Buddha (my primary practice is based on that) is a joyful experience in itself, most of the time, but there is something peaceful about voicing one’s devotion in chant.

There, I said it: devotion. I’ve wanted to write about devotion for months now. I still don’t feel quite qualified to do so, but it’s one of those things that Western culture (especially Dutch culture) is most suspicious about. Yet devotion works.

Devotion works- that’s a very utilitarian way of looking at the sacred of course, but it does express my experience of devotion very well.
The thing is: devotion is taking an emotional risk. Devotion to a spouse means that they’re capable of hurting you, but the other side of the coin is that love is impossible without devotion.

In my daily meditation practice I visualize (and try to feel) devotion to the Buddha. Buddha is pretty safe: since he’s there through my visualization, he won’t be hurting me, he can’t run away like a man can, he’s merely there as an extension of my ideals – though of course I hope he’s also a reflection of the universal Buddha Nature as well as ‘my’ Buddha nature.

The thing is: as far as the experience goes it’s not really relevant whether he’s ‘really’ there. As Dumbledore says to Harry Potter in ‘The Deathly Hallows’: “Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean it is not real?”

But the question then becomes: how do we define real?

I think in our culture at this juncture we’re collectively trying to find rituals that fit your changed social and spiritual realities.

Someone mailed me this week with the question of how to dispose of a pack of tarot cards that that the dog had chewed on. I told her that in Tibetan Buddhism Dharma texts are disposed of by burning them and saying prayers over them. I advised her to translate that into burning the tarot cards and saying whatever prayer or chant she thought applicable.

Rituals don’t have to be an expression of an oppressive authoritarian religious structure, they can be taken on in our personal lives to express respect, devotion, moving on and whatever occasion we feel needs ritual to mark it.

Giving yourself permission to rejoice in what’s good…

Katinka - Spirituality — Sun, 25 Dec 2011 13:39:08 +0000

In the Discovering Buddhism program it’s often repeated that we should regret our bad actions, words and thoughts, but that we can also rejoice in what’s good.

Rejoicing is not a part of our Western Culture, especially Dutch culture. The Dutch are very good at complaining, my mom even suspects that this is one of the reasons why the Dutch are so happy: they get the negative out of their system.

However that may be, it is a bit weird that it’s so easier to focus on what’s bad, than on what’s good. I’m sure that’s partly because the good doesn’t need fixing, so why spend energy on it?

On the other hand: one sure way of ruining relationships is to focus only on the bad. A naughty child will usually do a chore as well as a ‘good’ child and in being productive they will feel good about themselves and behave (usually only a bit) better in class. A child that thinks that it can only do things wrong will never try and rectify the situation or try and please the teacher or parent.

From a karmic perspective rejoicing really is the opposite of miserliness. If we’re able to rejoice in the good that someone like Oprah Winfrey does, we won’t have as much energy left over to envy her. It’s pretty obvious that it’s a better use of our energy to do the first than the second.

In fact, rejoicing is said to be the lazy man’s route to good karma: you don’t have to meditate all day to get merit, you can just rejoice in someone else’s meditation practice. You don’t have to give to charity yourself, you can just rejoice in how well other people are doing.

You’ll find though that this is not easy: rejoicing in something someone else is doing well that you might have done is very hard. Instead you’ll find yourself resenting that person, which is your psychological defense mechanism against feeling guilty that you’re NOT doing that.

In that sense it’s much easier to just rejoice in Oprah’s good works and good intentions: she does things with her money most of us simply aren’t able to do. We don’t have her wealth, nor her connections, so we don’t have to feel guilty for not joining in.

Still, even in that case it’s apparently not self-evident that we rejoice. When I was in the Chicago area a few years ago I was told that in fact many people did NOT like Oprah or admire her. Perhaps it had something to do with people realizing the folly of making a show like hers: I met some people who knew people who’d been on it. They’d shared just how puffed up everything was, how they’d been forced to tell their story in a way that was out of proportion to how it really was.

Partly that’s simply how the media work: they tell a story and when any of us make the headlines we become part of the story they wish to tell. It’s only the really PR savvy celebrity who manages to make sure the media tell those aspects of the story that they WANT to have told. And even in that case it’s about making sure it’s a story that the media CAN tell their audience. I think the Dalai Lama succeeds pretty well at that, for instance.

Let us rejoice at that!

Similarly in Tibetan Buddhism we have permission to rejoice in the things we do well. Did you just give some money to charity? Good – rejoice! You don’t have to be proud, you don’t have to puff yourself up thinking you’re so great, but you don’t have to pull yourself down either. Just rejoice in having done something positive.

Though this post is not written on Christmas Day I’m publishing it on that day, for the few of you who aren’t spending this day with family.

Perhaps because it is Christmas Day we can share things we rejoice at. It can be personal things, or people we admire, or things in our lives we’re thankful for…

Merry Christmas & overview of 2011

Katinka - Spirituality — Mon, 19 Dec 2011 13:44:27 +0000

2011 was a crucial year for me. My blog reached over 400 subscribers for a bit (now back at 390, still respectable obviously), I learned meditation, quit meditating and went back to meditating daily, I turned Buddhist officially, quit the Theosophical Society, had a serious back problem and recovered, dealt with nose issues that are getting better as well and enjoyed the fact that I can actually live and save on my online income. Due to my health problems I did NOT actually go to India, unfortunately. However, I do feel I learned quite a lot staying in The Netherlands. In fact I’d say this year was adventurous enough on many levels if not on the physical plane.

When you look at my best read posts of the year, you’ll mostly find posts from earlier years. The numbers after the year is the amount of visitors that post had according to my stats:

2012 promises to be a more down to earth year for me: I’m set to try and integrate what I learned in the Gelugpa tradition of Tibetan Buddhism into my own life, trying to continue my meditation practice and generally take it easy. I started a pottery class (yes, that bowl was my first finished product), something I really enjoy doing. I will be going back to university for a class or two, purely on a recreational basis. I have two lectures planned this spring: the one I’m most excited about giving is about health and spiritual transformation.

For the world in general 2012 is of course set to be a pivotal year if Maya prophecies are to be believed. Personally I think the world will not come to an end, but the Euro will probably continue to fall, the world wide economy looks like it’s in serious trouble and if the Euro does NOT survive I guess the environment may be the only (short-term) win.

Back to this blog: the 10 most popular posts written in 2011 were:

What they don’t tell you about meditation
The unsaid basics of meditation and life
Jiddu Krishnamurti as a man of his time
Best Buddhist Blogs
On how to stay celibate (which nobody felt brave enough to share on facebook btw)
Free will and karma
Is there something wrong with boredom, during meditation?
Sticking to one spiritual path, vs New Age shopping…
Channeling: real, unreal? Divine, human?
What we say, do, think and feel – why action matters

Themes I’m considering writing about in the new year include: 1) There is a considerable difference in the way I’ve always interpreted Blavatsky’s version of Karma and the standard Buddhist interpretation; 2) reincarnation vs rebirth and 3) questions about the soul and consciousness. I’ll also continue writing about whatever topics relevant to the spiritual path that seem worthwhile to me.

If you’ve read this far I do have one question: any topic suggestions? Anything you want to ask me, anything you think I SHOULD be writing about?

Oh, and expect the look of this blog to be updated within the next few weeks

Baby steps or big changes – about self control and habit

Katinka - Spirituality — Mon, 12 Dec 2011 13:00:08 +0000

When I was 21 I decided I needed to work on my social skills. Instead of getting a hobby or something I quit university and decided to get a job. My parents weren’t amused and the result was that I went for a community college nursing class, which I was kicked out of within a few months (I wasn’t very good at washing elderly people and really only wanted to talk to them). Thankfully I had by then started tutoring math, which I was good at, so I went to teachers college. After a few years, having passed (almost) every test with flying colors I went on to teach at middle school after middle school – getting fired again and again, because dealing with teenagers took way more social skills than I had.

The lesson? Forcing yourself into something you’re not fit for will NOT work. On the other hand, I did learn a LOT. My social skills really are way better now than they were back then and forcing myself to face class after class of about 25 teenagers hour after hour for a few years definitely had a lot to do with that.

Looking back I think I was really asking too much of myself. I’m basically an introvert – even though few people will be able to spot that these days. Five years after my last teaching job it feels like the stress caused by forcing myself into that situation is finally out of my system.

I would NEVER recommend that people do what I did. Small steps are way more likely to be manageable and are less risky. I could have gone into IT, worked for a larger salary and learned decent social skills in a business environment. I might have stayed a bit more nervous in front of crowds if I’d done that, than I am now, but that’s just about the only advantage I see to the route I took.

The same goes for things like losing weight, starting an exercise regimen etc. Find a way to change your habits in a healthy direction one step at a time. If you do that, chances of having to go back a step (or all the way) and being discouraged are way less.

A couple I know are trying to prepare themselves for the Buddhist lay vows. Like most well-educated successful people, alcohol was part of their routine. In trying to cut back on their alcohol consumption they’ve already experienced several setbacks. Their main challenge is social situations where they’re used to drinking and serving alcohol. A while ago they proudly announced that they’re now down to one glass of wine a week.

Because they’re doing this as a couple they can use each other as checks. They can change their own home culture and face up to issues together as well. This makes it easier to change fundamental habits like that. Still, because habit is so strong a part of our everyday life it’s no surprise that they had to try again and again.

It sounds like such a small change: not drinking any more alcohol… at least, to me, no alcohol for almost 20 years, it doesn’t sound like a big deal. However, because of all the social trappings it’s a big habit to break.

Part of the issue is will power. The end of the year is coming up and goal setting and good intentions with it. We all know how unlikely it is that people actually keep their good intentions and reach all their goals. We’d like to ignore those stats when it comes to our own goals though.

The reason it often doesn’t work out is because it takes will power to overcome ingrained habits. As long as the new behavior isn’t a habit yet, the only way to stick to it is by having will power each time we stay away from those sweets, avoid that drink or go jogging first thing in the morning.

Unfortunately, will power is a limited psychological resource. If it takes will power to stay away from cigarettes there will be less will power left to also stay away from fast food. This explains why people gain weight after they quit smoking.

The good news is that once a new behavior is a habit, you can start working on another new behavior in your self-development plan.
More good news: will power CAN be trained, however while you’re training, do expect other aspects of your life to work a bit less well.

Some researchers even believe that one reason poor people stay poor is that it takes them so much energy to just get the cheapest groceries in the store, that they don’t have any left to better themselves…

There is one advantage to big changes though: big changes bring a change in context with them. That’s why people need rehab or go on retreat: a new context brings new behaviors with it as a matter of course. However integrating those new behaviors into your home life is a lot harder: old habits, old triggers (like the bar where you always meet your drinking buddies)…
The reason I’m not afraid of speaking in front of groups any more is that I was forced to face them hour after hour, day after day, week after week. It worked to change my circumstances drastically and since I kept at it long enough, it’s a skill I have at my disposal for the rest of my life. However, there is always a cost.

Meditation, Buddhist Paths, Blogs and more: overview

Katinka - Spirituality — Thu, 08 Dec 2011 13:14:08 +0000

With Christmas and other holidays coming up, it’s perhaps not totally inappropriate to remind you all of my spiritual gift guides. Buy something off one of these pages and I get a nice commission: you help me make a living and it doesn’t cost you a thing! Given that it’s almost 2012 and I don’t expect the world to end, you might also want to stock up on a Spiritual calendar or datebook. If you want to give something not particularly spiritual you may like this list of gift ideas or my new gift blog.

But you don’t read this blog for that. So here’s my latest spiritual blog posts.

All Considering

Great spiritual books

Mirror of the free, Nicholas Swift: on the origin of the Tarot (Blavatsky inspired)
When the chocolate runs out, Lama Yeshe

My Spiritual Quotes

Lama Yeshe Quotes on Happiness – When the chocolate runs out

Regret, Guilt and changing your life

Katinka - Spirituality — Mon, 14 Nov 2011 13:35:32 +0000

In Eat Pray Love (book and movie) by Elizabeth Gilbert we meet Richard, a western devotee of an Indian guru who chastises Elizabeth for every attitude she has, or so it seems – helping her deal with the issues of living in an ashram and learning to meditate.

The main lesson Richard teaches Elizabeth is that she needs to mourn the past and forgive herself.

It turns out that Richard is in fact very troubled himself: divorced after nearly running over his kid when drunk he has lost touch with his children and is trying to deal with nearly having killed one of them.

While I didn’t like the book much, I did enjoy the movie with Julia Roberts.

The lesson Richard teaches Elizabeth is the lesson he needs to learn himself – not because it’s not unforgivable to almost run over your child, but because life does go on and the only way to live it well is to mourn your losses and mistakes and forgive: yourself and others. I know it sounds sappy, but it’s the only way.

Once one has forgiven oneself the work is not done of course: it’s also necessary not to repeat those same mistakes again.

What remains when the guilt is gone is regret. In fact the distinction between guilt and regret is made quite explicitly in the first course in the FPMT Discovering Buddhism course (which is not quite an introduction into Buddhism course btw).

Guilt has a Protestant Christian connotation for many people – not for me, though. When I talk about guilt I merely mean that our past mistakes can be like a black cloud on our soul. Guilt is when we can’t move on, when we’re stuck in self-blame and self-pity.

Regret about negative actions on the other hand is simply the awareness of those mistakes and the conscious choice not to make them again.

Personally I think Jiddu Krishnamurti had a point when he said that the chances of avoiding a mistake are highest when we have a genuine insight into the causes of the mistake and just why it WAS a mistake. Buddhists would call that a realization: deeply felt, fully understood…

Still even if one does have a realization of how wrong something was, new habits need to be formed. The memory of the mistake, the consequences and regret combined help do just that: to develop new, more healthy, patterns.

I recently came into a position where I might have repeated some of the mistakes I made in my 20s. Thankfully I found it possible not to fall into those traps, in part because I knew just where they were. That felt good, however hard it was.

It probably sounds sappy, but moving from guilt to regret, it IS possible to change your life.

Please invent a pseudonym if you want to share your regrets.
How hard is it to avoid repeating past mistakes in your life?
Does insight into the problem, its causes and consequences help?

* The Discovering Buddhism course by the FPMT is given at local FPMT centres throughout the world. The online version is meant for those who want to turn to Buddhism as a practical path. Local teachers will usually adapt the teachings to their specific audience. However it’s taught the aim is to combine theoretical knowledge of Tibetan Buddhism with practical tools for personal transformation.

On how to stay celibate

Katinka - Spirituality — Fri, 21 Oct 2011 13:11:38 +0000

As a life long celibate (by most definitions) I thought it might interest some of you to get a few tips Yes, this is largely a tongue in cheek post, as I’m sure most of you are NOT celibate. Celibacy has a respected history in both Buddhism and Roman Catholicism. Like most people today I have mixed feelings about the institution.

On the one hand I feel the best spiritual teachers are celibate: I have trouble taking Stephen Batchelor and his wife (both former monastics) seriously for instance. On the other: staying away from the issues of relationships, kids and all that does leave more room for ‘spiritual development’ (whatever that means).(#)

For me personally: I stayed celibate to avoid bad relationships, but it has left me lonely. [And no, that is not an invitation... So far men who try to pick me up online are not the kind I'd want to see in real life.]

I’ve heard of celibacy as the cure for sexual addiction too, for instance. It makes sense: nobody expects alcoholics to get cured without staying off alcohol completely either.

On the other hand: as a method for teens to avoid teen-pregnancy I’m not a fan. I think it’s better to educate them and give them condoms.

Without further ado, or those who choose to stay celibate, here are a few pointers:

Well, first of all it helps if you’re simply not attracted to anybody. This is obvious perhaps, but the main issue here isn’t your own attraction, but the mutual attraction that builds up… Nothing more attractive to woman than a man who is attracted to her. This goes both ways of course.

If you ARE attracted to someone it becomes tricky. Monastic robes will keep some women (and men) off, so it diminishes the problem. Still, as the example of the Batchelor’s shows, that won’t kill it off completely.

The first instinct of anybody who has been in this situation will be to ignore the person they’re attracted to. This will work in a bar or in the train station. It will not work if you have to face that person on a regular basis. They will notice that they’re being ignored, start to guess at the causes etc. Still, as a first precaution it is not a bad idea: the other person may simply decide it’s not worth the hassle and lose interest. This will in turn make it easier on you to forget about them.

How tricky ignoring is as a strategy is shown by the fact that one young man of my acquaintance bragged that he used it as a pick up tactic. I won’t go into details, but it worked.

On the other hand: going into a single-sex monastic institution works too of course. Avoiding temptation will keep you safe. However, most monastic institutions I’ve heard of these days do allow women in as students so even that’s no guarantee.

Back to normal life scenario’s: it’s much more effective to just treat that other person as though you really don’t care that much. Greet them casually, talk to them normally, but never let a hint of sexual attraction into your demeanor. Don’t look into their eyes longer than you would anybody else, but don’t avoid their eyes either. Don’t seek them out, but don’t avoid them either.

Again: It’s easier if you really don’t care.

One thing to absolutely avoid is intimacy of any kind. It is not for nothing that Buddhist monks are not allowed to be in a room alone with a woman. Emotional intimacy with the sex you’re attracted to is equally tricky – best avoid it altogether. Emotional intimacy leads to more if both of you are available and the attraction is mutual as well.

This isn’t to say you can’t be casually friendly. Just never cross that line.

It’s not for nothing that facebook is now THE way people become unfaithful to their partners. It starts with a quarrel of course. One of the partners chooses to not talk it through, but grumble to a (single) ex. That leads to emotional intimacy. They decide to meet over coffee and next thing you know, they’re in bed together.

Because the hard part is not being attracted to anybody there are all kinds of meditations in Buddhist texts designed to do just that. Such texts were written by monks for monks avoiding being attracted to women. In the famous Bodhicaryavatara(*) for instance it’s recommended viewing women as consisting of piss and pus and all things vile. Obviously the advice can be adapted to women by recommending they see men that way, gays will also know what to do with this I’m sure.

This is actually a recommended meditation topic! It’s a way of turning sexual energy into meditative energy, but personally I would not go that far. After all (and this is part of the trouble in today’s world) men and women have to work together and it doesn’t help if each side is imagining the other side as consisting of piss and pus etc.

In short – staying celibate is only going to be easy for those few of us who really aren’t attracted to anybody sexually. Yes, I’m told such people exist. For the rest of us: I guess just dealing with that energy as honestly as we can, without hurting anybody, is the best we can do. Celibate or not. Also – but this is off topic – I’m told that an emotionally healthy relationship will help people avoid straying…

#) As I’ve now come to experience Buddhism first hand, I can’t help have a renewed respect for Stephen Batchelor: he deals with the challenges of Buddhism in modernity in a way that’s both honest and well founded.

*) ‘A Guide to the Bodhisattva Way of Life‘ (Bodhicaryavatara) by Santideva. Translated from the Sanskrit and Tibetan by Vesna A. Wallace and B. Alan Wallace, Snow Lion Publications, Ithica, New York USA. This is otherwise a very inspiring text on the Bodhisattva Path. For the scholarly among you: the notes in this edition are great.

[edit Jan. 8th 2012] Since writing the above I was sent “A Couple’s Guide to Sexual Addiction: A Step-by-Step Plan to Rebuild Trust and Restore Intimacy“ for review. Which really is a great book that will help couples deal with sexual addiction. My Review.[/edit]

Best Buddhist Blogs

Katinka - Spirituality — Mon, 17 Oct 2011 13:47:25 +0000

I’ve done a list of best spiritual blogs several times. Now that I’m a Buddhist officially, it’s time to find out what the best Buddhist blogs of today are.

My criteria:

Last post in Oct. 2011
Something interesting to say
Controversy is good
Scholarly underpinning is good
Personal stories are good
Poetry: boring (sorry people)

So here we go in somewhat random order:

One of the best blogs about Buddhism: both thoughtful, personal at times and well-educated is the Buddhism blog at About.com by Barbara O’Brien. Her whole blog is worth reading, but one recent post that stood out for me was the one in which she discusses the recent statement by the Dalai Lama that the next Dalai Lama will be an ‘emanation’, not a ‘reincarnation’. The comments are well worth reading as well.

Another great Buddhist blog is a group blog by young Buddhists at the ID Project. The authors include Lodro Rinzler who writes the column ‘what would Sid’ do. Sid is short for ‘Siddharta’, aka Buddha, of course. Those posts are highly practical. For instance: should you call your ex?

Sweetcake Enso is a Zen Buddhist blog that is a breath of fresh air if, like me, you crave authors with a bit of historical perspective.
The latest post is interesting for instance, not merely because it’s a thoughtful look into the Zen discussion of ‘emptiness‘, but also because it goes into the Western terminology usually used to discuss it. We find mention of Dogen, Nagarjuna and ethics.

Bookbird is a personal look into the life of a Buddhist struggling from day-to-day. Heartrendingly real at times, as when she shares: “Something in me was weeping. Huge, ungoverned sounds were forced out. I choked on them as they arrived. I could bite my tongue out and they would still come. I was shouting into the air, I was screaming, I was crying. My face in the cold air was wet and raw.“

On Nothing to Attain you’ll find more personal inspiration from a woman on the Buddhist path. I loved her discussion of confidence (and humility) as well as her story about how to check ourselves in our ups and our downs.

Existential Buddhist is another blog on which the paradoxes of Western Buddhism get faced: how do we deal with the dogmatic side of Buddhism which our teachers can’t leave behind, but which are for us totally unacceptable? Well, first off, by realizing that it’s ok that Buddhism changes, like everything else.

From the context it becomes clear that Sujato’s Blog is a Theravada Buddhist blog. It’s activist on supporting raped nuns for instance. That’s great of course (not the rapes, but that the nuns get support, obviously) but the main reason I feature the blog here is the recent discussion of whether the Buddha’s views are permanent.

Truth is within is another Theravada blog, Thai Buddhist in fact. It too will help readers avoid idealizing Buddhism: the latest post is about monks raping children and how people hush it up. Obviously neither this monk, nor I, are trying to suggest that all monks do this. Just that monks are people too, and some of them cross the line and society needs to check them as they would anybody else who abuses kids (or sexuality in general). Yuttadhammo also offers advice on meditation though.

Buddhist Geeks is on the other end of the spectrum: modernist to a fault. In fact I’ve doubted whether to list them here at all. However, their post about the limitations of learning Buddhism online does deserve to be shared.

American Buddhist Perspectives is a scholarly blog written mostly from a Tibetan Buddhist perspective. It will keep you up to date on developments in Buddhist academia, like a recent conference on Buddhist Ethics.

One effect of how popular Buddhism is in the West these days is that ethnically Asian Buddhists living in the US feel marginalized. One of them writes a blog called Angry Asian Buddhist. See this lovely collection of youtube videos of young Western Asian Buddhists for instance.

The Buddhist Blog is the first one to come up in any Google search for ‘Buddhist Blog’ (great title). Does it deserve to? Well, I don’t think it’s the best Buddhist blog on the block, but it does merit a mention here. About making mistakes: ‘So, it’s o.k. to shit your pants from time to time–spiritually speaking, of course. Shit, itself, isn’t bad either. To paraphrase my teacher Thich Nhat Hanh, without shit, we wouldn’t have roses!! Our mistakes, fertilize the seeds of our good intentions to grow roses of happiness and peace. The key is to not blame yourself for doing something that human’s can’t help but do–make mistakes. This world itself is imperfect and flawed, so how could we not make mistakes? You are trying, and trying is a pro-active action. A lot of people are too afraid to try, so go easy on yourself.’

I don’t know how it happened, but the busy Tricycle blog ends up rather late on my list. It’s well written, but perhaps a bit tame. However, the recent post by Thanissaro Bhikkhu on the context of Buddha’s teachings is well worth reading, as is anything he writes.

Dhamma musings is a Theravada Buddhist blog. I do wish he’d adapt his paragraphs to online reading. I loved the post about alternative precepts and commandments.

Moonpointer takes being critical to the next level. However, he usually has a point. Read for instance his ‘Is Buddhism a Path to God’? (the answer is obviously: NO, Buddhism is not a path to God).

Buddha’s advice to lay people is currently on a series of explaining the Mangala Suttra. Read for instance this post in which she explains dealing with intoxicants (yes, that includes alcohol).

Robin’s Karma is a Tibetan Buddhist blog. Read this touching story of a teen girl who went to a lecture on death because her mother is dying.

Buddha Space is apparently one of the blog authors that got sent a preview copy of ‘The Buddha walks into a bar‘. The review there is far less positive than mine will be. See for instance my quoting Lodro Rinzler in this post. Still G has a point: Lodro is rather lax on the sexual restraint that traditional Buddhism has always favored. I mean, can one really justify a one night stand in a Buddhist context? On the other hand, if you read Lodro well, he does suggest that few people would be able to be as loving and detached as necessary to have a one night stand in such a way that it harms neither party.

Speculative Non-Buddhism is another must read for the academically interested Buddhist, despite the title. Read ‘Fanged Dialogue‘ for instance.

Dangerous Harvests shares the psychological backflip he had to make when he found a woman yelling at him at a social service event.

Last but not least (I think) is my own blog on Pema Chodron. I did a review on The Places that Scare You this month.

Well, that’s it folks! Do share any Buddhist blogs you feel are worth reading in the comments.

Becoming awake for others: Bodhicitta or the Bodhisattva Motivation

Katinka - Spirituality — Tue, 04 Oct 2011 13:01:22 +0000

It’s time to blog about what they call in Tibetan Buddhism the ‘large scope’ in the Lam Rim.

On one level this scope is the only one which we, as Westerners can relate to: it’s all about universal and impartial love. We can think of Christ, Nelson Mandela, Mahatma Gandhi, Mother Teresa and the Dalai Lama etc. as Bodhisattvas: people who lived not just for themselves, but for the alleviation of the suffering of all of humanity, or at least that part of that they could reach.

Less dramatic examples include foster parents who are in it to really help children, those teachers that manage to do more than merely survive, volunteers in churches and community centers who devote hours to making sure vulnerable children and the elderly get more than the mere basics.

All that is, when the motivation is pure and unselfish, a form of ‘bodhicitta’*, literally the spirit of enlightenment. That is, according to some Buddhist teachers.

My teachers however, in the Gelugpa tradition of Tibetan Buddhism, stress that this is merely the start. Sure, it’s an important start but real bodhicitta is about more than just universal love, it’s about the spontaneous resolve to do something about the suffering of all sentient beings – and forever too. In order to help all those sentient beings we can only do one thing, according to Buddhism in general: we have to help them out of samsara: the cycle of rebirth.

Not that any form of Buddhism claims that this is at all easy: even a Buddha can’t create enlightenment for us. We have to take his hand as he pulls us out of the water, as it were. Similarly: when we do become Buddha’s ourselves, we can’t magically release all beings. Instead we have to wait for the moment they’re ready to be helped.

So what a Bodhisattva** vows, out of the spirit of bodhicitta, is to help all those beings reach Awakening. However, a Bodhisattva is well aware that he or she cannot do that unless she becomes a Buddha herself. So the resolve becomes a bit more complex:
‘I vow to dedicate myself to becoming a Buddha, in order to help all sentient beings out of the cycle of reincarnation’. (Other formulations of the Bodhisattva vow)

All this is rather a lot to take on of course, and in order to really practice it a Bodhisattva will practice more particularly the 6 perfections:

1. DANA, the key of charity and love immortal.
2. SHILA, the key of Harmony in word and act, the key that counterbalances the cause and the effect, and leaves no further room for Karmic action.
3. KSHANTI, patience sweet, that nought can ruffle.
[4. VIRAGA, indifference to pleasure and to pain, illusion conquered, truth alone perceived.]
5. VIRYA, the dauntless energy that fights its way to the supernal TRUTH, out of the mire of lies terrestrial.
6. DHYANA, whose golden gate once opened leads the Narjol* toward the realm of Sat eternal and its ceaseless contemplation.
[*A saint, an adept.]
7. PRAJNA, the key to which makes of a man a god, creating him a Bodhisattva, son of the Dhyanis.
(H.P. Blavatsky, Voice of the Silence, Fragment III)

The formulation here is by Blavatsky in her meditative work ‘The Voice of the Silence’.

Unfortunately I don’t (yet) have permission to quote from the material we got during our Lam Rim weeks at the FPMT, so instead I’ll put it in my own words, based mostly on a Dutch book on the Lam Rim (#):

Generosity
Moral Self-Discipline
Patience
Enthusiastic Perseverance
Meditative Absorption
Wisdom (aka the spontaneous understanding of Emptiness)

The first four are very practical of course: we can practice patience, generosity, moral self-discipline and perseverance (enthusiastically or not) in our work, in our dealings with the shopping lady, in how we respond to beggars etc. Trying to practice these can transform our lives. What if patience did replace anger? What if generosity did replace envy? What if we responded to every moral temptation (for once I’m NOT talking about chocolate) with restraint? What if we never gave up on anything worth doing? What if we even managed to stay happy as we persevered?

The point here isn’t to beat yourself up every time you fail. The word to stress here is practicing generosity etc. Even noticing when you’re not being generous and not making excuses for yourself is already a form of practicing generosity. The same goes for every one of the other perfections.

Meditative absorption and a realization of Emptiness (that doesn’t forget about karma) are both formulated in such idealistic terms that it takes a monk or nun to reach the first, and perhaps even the second. Since I’m not a nun, nor very practiced in meditation, I’ll leave those to others to explain.

Am I right: is it easier to relate to this highest scope motivation than to the medium and lower scope? How do you feel about practicing the 6 perfections (especially the first 4) in your own life?

Terminology as explained by Pema Chodron in The Places that Scare You.
* Bodhicitta = “Bodhichitta exists on two levels. First there is unconditional bodhichitta, an immediate experience that is refreshingly free of concept, opinion, and our usual all-caught-upness. It’s something hugely good that we are not able to pin down even slightly, like knowing at gut level that there’s absolutely nothing to lose. Second there is relative bodhichitta, our ability to keep our hearts and minds open to suffering without shutting down.” (The Places that Scare You: A Guide to Fearlessness in Difficult Times (Shambhala Classics), p. 6)

**Bodhisattva = “Few of us are satisfied with retreating from the world and just working on ourselves. We want our training to manifest and to be of benefit. The bodhisattva-warrior, therefore, makes a vow to wake up not just for himself but for the welfare of all beings.” (The Places that Scare You: A Guide to Fearlessness in Difficult Times (Shambhala Classics), p. 122)

Other sources
# Lam Rim: Boeddha’s Weg naar de Verlichting, Geshe Konchog Lhundup, p. 179

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