Open Buddha

Zen Druids

2013-04-13T19:55:00-07:00

This is a cross post from my new post over at pagandharma.org called, "Zen Druids." Since it is topically relevant here on my overtly mostly Buddhist site, I thought I'd put it here for you as well. Please keep discussion over on pagandharma.org though to contain it to one place.

James Foster and I were discussing the possibility of Zen Druids today in email. This was the idea of the intersection of the immediacy and focus on presence and mindfulness of Zen practice (among other aspects) with the idea of a sacred or holy nature as present in Druidry, as well as the focus on hearth culture, celebrating the seasons of the year, and other aspects of Druidry as a modern, Neopagan practice.

In part, this came up because I recently joined Ár nDraíocht Féin, A Druid Fellowship (which is popularly known as the "ADF"). I did this in large part because of the work going on at the Solitary Druid Fellowship. This group within the ADF is working with individuals to craft their own rituals and work with a practice as solitary practitioners. Druidry was a path in which I was not involved during my Neopagan years, though the Druidry of the ADF and my own practice within Asatru and as a Wiccan were not far apart, really. As I believe I've mentioned before, I've been a member for a few years of the Shinto shrine in Granite Falls, Washington. I visit it when I'm up in the Seattle area, which is a few times a year to see my daughter and old friends. One of the things that I really appreciated when I visited Japan in 2007 was the extent to which their Buddhism was not wholly distinct from the common Shinto practice and you would commonly see nature oriented shrines and altars to the Kami even in nominally Buddhist places. The recognition of our place in a larger world, the natural world (to compare it against our created world, in a way) was very much present. One of the things that I've found really lacking in Buddhist practice where I am is any real recognition that the natural world is important, valuable, or that we are part of its webs of interconnection. For many Buddhists, we could be living in concrete boxes without any outdoors and it would make no difference to their practice or the relationship with the world. For these Buddhists, the Dharma really is a world denying faith and practice as so many people think of Buddhism. While I'm not an outdoorsman by any stretch, I do enjoy being part of the world and observing it and interacting with it (cue my hundreds of flower photos on flickr).

As I've made clear in other posts, I'm still very much culturally a pagan and my attitude towards the natural world plays a part of it. I've been surprised that this is the case at various points over the years. I thought when I became a Buddhist practitioner that I would leave that all behind but it turned out that the pagan (well, Neopagan) way of doing things and interacting with the world and spirituality doesn't go away easily. I find that elements of pagan culture call to me much more than the way that the Dharma is popularly interpreted in the West. Buddhism in North America smells as much of Protestant Christianity or a need to get away from anything smacking of religion as two of its strongest elements. I don't have a need to incorporate either of those into what I do or practice. This feeling is much of what led to this blog even existing.

So...Zen Druidry. This discussion was of a more personal nature for James and me, since we're Zen practitioners (and he is, in fact, my primary teacher within Zen). How to take what we value from the Dharma and incorporate it in what we value in Neopaganism, specifically in the ideals of modern Druidism... This is an interesting idea and kind of a thought experiment at this point though I suspect that he and I may go further with it.

We tried to come up with what the Dharma, mostly Zen but not just Zen, has to teach Druids and other Neopagans:

Disciplined, well tried, and well organized methods of meditation (shamatha, vipasyana, mixed, esoteric)
A focus on practice retreats, alone and with others
Methods of teacher/student interaction for insight (koan interviews and the koan curriculum)
Well-developed underlying philosophical/metaphysical structure that supports awakening
A focus on the goal of awakening to the nature of the world but also on the Bodhisattva Vow, which makes the goal of awakening to be for the good of ALL beings, and which focuses on helping others on the path.

What does paganism have to offer to Zen folks that they might be missing?

A different view of community/grove/sangha
A western approach to engaging with nature (important in Japanese Zen moreso than anywhere else)
An established lexicon for "translating" and understanding the aforementioned philosophy/metaphysics
A freedom to change/play/innovate with methods and ways of practice or teaching (less rigidity)
Less of a dogmatic attachment to history and 2,600 years of ongoing tradition leading often to ossification
Ties to Western cultural roots instead of visions of Asian exoticism and "orientalism" (as a way of making Asia into an "other")

One of the nice things about practicing from the Neopagan (and especially Druid) side of things, is that pagans realize people are putting things together and making up things as they go. They work out new things, inspired by tradition (or romantic ideals of tradition) and keep "what works." Everyone involved with Neopaganism knows that people are making it up and folks are largely fine with it. There is no mystical Druid College off on the Emerald Isle to come offer oversight here. If an organization or grove does things in a way you don't like, you can always leave or make a schism without that much of a problem. Buddhists, especially in the West, are often very conservative in approach and practice. There is little room for trying new things, making stuff up, and jettisoning things that don't work well here. Instead, we become scholars of the Pali Canon and engage in Talmudic interpretation of what the Buddha said. There is a place for such things (and knowledge of history and traditions never hurts anyone!) but it can often feel quite stifling and rigid.

Right now, I'm very tempted to find a way to explain common "calm abiding" (shamatha) and "insight" (vipassana) practices in Druidic (or even larger Neopagan) terminology and combine teaching those and doing some celebratory and other rites into something similar to a short Buddhist retreat. Wouldn't it be interesting for both pagans and open Dharma practitioners to come to a three or four day practice retreat near the woods or the ocean where we combined sitting meditation, instruction in some koan practice, hiking and nature walks with observation, and some actual celebration of being alive in this world and of the world around us. It sounds, to me, to be a lot more fulfilling than either a number of the Dharma practice retreats I've been on (sit...walk...sit...walk...eat...clean...sit...walk...) or just hanging out dancing around a maypole while having a campout. Both of these are caricatures but I do think there is a place where the union of the techniques and views of the Dharma could enhance the experience and views of Druidry and other forms of Neopaganism (and vice versa). I think that the Druids are likely to allow space for this kind of thing to be tried without being too against it. I fear that the Buddhist groups would be far less open to such ideas.

Does this sound interesting to you? I'm sure that Steve and the Zen Odinists would be open to this sort of thing (though they are on the other side of the planet from me).

A New and Quicker Format

2013-03-08T11:45:00-08:00

Biting off more than I can chew...

I haven't been posting as much here or any of my other blogs as of late. This is the perenial generic blog complaint of "I know that I haven't been posting much..."

Well, it is true. I have reflected on this the last few years and compared it to the first few years I was blogging (well, up until late 2008, really), and I realize that most of the energy that I put into it really has been subsumed by things like twitter and other forms of online interaction. If you have only so many words in a week that you want to type and you work for a tech company where most of your interaction with people is through text in bugs, online chat, and so forth, it really is more trouble to write.

I have recently been inspired by my friend, Jonathan, and his blog. Jonathan doesn't do a lot of long form posts, what I once considered the main justification for blogging, but he managing to post some of a medium form length at least a couple of times a week on average. That seems to be a good ballpark these days. That is kind of the tumblrification of blogging. Short, one page, posts that are too long for twitter or the like. Like Jonathan, I prefer to own my own content and host it in a place under my control (not tumblr), so I will continue to host it here (and on makehacklearn or Pagan Dharma).

I serve this blog via Github Pages and I'm using prose.io now to try to do quick and simple writing. I'm going to try to commit myself to posting at least two things a week here, even if they are short bits. We'll see how I do. I still have a couple of book reviews to get up as well.

Words on my Grandfather

2013-01-29T14:30:00-08:00

My Grandparents

This morning, my maternal grandfather, Ethan Beals, died. To my recollection, he was 85 years old, growing up during the Great Depression. He had been suffering from Parkinson's these last few years and have collapsed suddenly about a year ago. Since that time, he's been in a care facility and started to dramatically deteriorate mentally and physically in the last six months. His passing is not unexpected but is definitely a bit of a shock.

I have had an unusual relationship with my grandparents. I was their only grandchild until my brother was born when I was nine and he and I were the only grandchildren until my other cousins were born another eight or so years later. For the entirety of my early childhood, I was the only child in the family and one of two until I was practically an adult. My youngest uncle is only nine years older than me, the same distance is between us as is between me and my brother.

In the 1980's and into the 1990's, I lived with my grandparents in Seattle. I had moved away to Utah at age nine and come back to Seattle at fourteen, briefly. I somehow managed to convince them to let me stay, instead of returning to Utah with my mother and brother, as I was in high school already. Later, I again somehow convinced them to allow me to skip my senior year of high school and go to college. They loved and supported me during the entirety of this, wanting me to get an education and be happy, and giving me a home. I didn't always get along with them and was a rather difficult teen and young man at times, but they still gave me a home.

Ethan was there when I didn't really have a father in my life until I was an adult. Grandpa was overwhelmingly the positive male influence in my life, a strong and stoic fellow, though not terribly communicative or without his issues. He was definitely stubborn but had a wonderful sense of humor if you could see it (I still remember him sitting there and laughing at a string of "funny" numbers). He was an electrical engineer at Boeing for more than 30 years. Under his influence, I built my first computer and became unafraid to poke at things or try to understand technology. He believed in education and hard work.

Ethan was a deeply religious man and a longstanding member of the Nazarene Church, a form of Methodism. He and I did not share the same faith and while I know this concerned him, my grandmother, and probably much of our family, he and I never had any intense or disagreeable arguments or fights centered on faith or, really, at all. I always assumed, because we never spoke about it, that he was disappointed in my choices but that he and my grandmother still loved me (which she tells me whenever we speak). As someone who has walked an odd spiritual path to my Buddhism, I appreciated the love even with the disagreement on faith and never felt judged by them.

Ethan was married to my grandmother, Mae-Sallee, for more than 50 years. They raised two sons by birth, another son by adoption, my mother, and, to a great extent, me, in the course of this time. As an example of a man living an upright and moral life, I don't think I could ask for one finer.

I miss you, grandpa. Godspeed.

Pagandharma is up again

2012-12-12T11:45:00-08:00

I had a brief project in 2011 called "Pagan Dharma" that was up on pagandharma.org. I wound up feeling uninspired to write much at the time and my co-author got busy with her graduate work and other things, like health, so eventually I took the site down.

Yesterday, I put the site back up and I've retrieved the old content from the Internet Archive. I added two things as well:

Reinvention? - basically saying why I put the site back up.
What’s the point of a Pagan Dharma, Part One - the first in a multi-part series of turgid prose from my point of view about the idea of Pagan Dharma.

Some of my readers here may be inclined to read such things. Since I don't actually know who my "base" is anymore, it is hard to say but there it is.

Catherine is going to write some more as well, I expect, based on our communications and there is the potential for another suprise guest author in this next month if he finds the spare time to write some things up.

Another Side of Sasaki

2012-11-27T14:30:00-08:00

Since I did the post yesterday mentioning the current allegations (which I expect are true) of sexual abuse/predation/who the hell knows by Kyozan Joshu Sasaki towards female students, I thought it might be interesting to present some of the other views of him, as popularily presented. This shows a bit of why there is so much of a storm over this and of his historical role in American Zen over the last 50 years.

This is not an an endorsement of Sasaki (or a defense). As I clearly said yesterday, I cannot think of a single circumstance where sexual relations between a student and teacher are appropriate, let alone teachers grabbing people and molesting them, as is alleged by some. This is just to show that there is definitely another side and that Sasaki has had a profoundly positive effect on at least some people and their practice.

Shinzen Young on three things he got from Sasaki

Shinzen Young states above that he learned three things from Sasaki after Shinzen came back from Japan and studied with him:

Not to suppress his sense of self.
The paradigm of impermanence in terms of expansion and contraction, which is core to Shinzen's work now.
The "direct vibe" of working with a teacher who has realized this or the "zap of the flow of nothingness" during teacher/student interviews and the need to incorporate it away from the interview.

I suspect that female students may have gotten a different "zap" in interviews but this raises interesting questions. I've met Shinzen Young (at Buddhist Geeks 2011) and spent a little time with him and his students. He strikes me as the "real deal" and the #2 point above is a core part of Shinzen's teaching. What does it mean when a seemingly excellent teacher has gotten so much of his practice and inspiration from another teacher who turns out to, potentially, be so problematic? Does it invalidate anything or does it validate that the teachers are just containers or tranmitters of something? I'm not sure.

Then there is Leonard Cohen on Sasaki:

Unlike Shinzen Young, Cohen doesn't have much to directly say here about what he learned from Sasaki but it is clear, here and elsewhere, that he felt a deep afinity for what Sasaki taught, enough that Cohen stayed on Mt. Baldy for years, ordaining as a monk. Cohen speaks more about it in this video as well, part of a biographical film on Sasaki that features others speaking as well.

All of this makes Sasaki so much more problematic to me than Eido Shimano, of whom I had never heard anyone speak so highly. What is this man's legacy likely to wind up being?

The Old Woman Burns the Hermitage

2012-11-26T14:10:00-08:00

Oh, the exciting world of Zen. Another month, another sexual scandal. Lately, I've become rather exhausted with the idea of discussing these. It turns out that Zen teachers and students are much the same as everyone else. I gather this is horribly disillusioning to many but I just see it as confirmation that people are "just folks" and Zen isn't something special, not matter how magical some people try to make it.

If you really look at the number of people involved in these troubles versus the number of actual students and teachers out there, we wind up discussing the foibles of less than a dozen Zen teachers. If you then remove ones that are the common human failings of addiction (alcohol) and infidelity, you come down to a few (two that I can think of) potential sexual predators and a number of others being stupid about the power dynamics of teacher/student involvements. It is all rather tawdry but, for the most part, rather mundane, I'm afraid to say.

The reason why the new scandal is so interesting to folks is because of the overall position of the teacher in question and the multi-decade history (perhaps still ongoing) of the problems. The teacher in question is Kyozan Joshu Sasaki, who runs the Mount Baldy Zen Center. He's rather well known because he isn't far from Los Angeles, has been teaching in the U.S. for 50 years this year, and has been rather influential in American Zen, at least by perceived importance and longevity. He's 105 (!!) this year, which makes the fact that of this being a sexual scandal all the more weird/odd/unsettling. One normally thinks of this as something younger men go about doing, not the guy who's 25 years older than my own grandfather.

An acquaintance of mine (and a Zen priest), Eshu Martin, came forward with the allegations in a post on Sweeping Zen (which I must resist calling "Seeping Zen" at this point). Sweeping Zen has taken it upon itself, for better or worse, to be the "go to" place for Zen scandals in the last year or two (to the point where I've become rather tired of the site). In his post, "Everybody Knows" (nice Leonard Cohen reference there), Rev. Martin states:

Joshu Sasaki Roshi, the founder and Abbot of Rinzai-ji is now 105 years old, and he has engaged in many forms of inappropriate sexual relationship with those who have come to him as students since his arrival here more than 50 years ago. His career of misconduct has run the gamut from frequent and repeated non-consensual groping of female students during interview, to sexually coercive after hours “tea” meetings, to affairs and sexual interference in the marriages and relationships of his students. Many individuals that have confronted Sasaki and Rinzai-ji about this behaviour have been alienated and eventually excommunicated, or have resigned in frustration when nothing changed; or worst of all, have simply fallen silent and capitulated. For decades, Joshu Roshi’s behaviour has been ignored, hushed up, downplayed, justified, and defended by the monks and students that remain loyal to him.

He then states that everyone in the sangha there for any length of time, specifically attendants, fellow priests, etc., have known about this behavior and have even, especially in recent decades, enabled it as Sasaki became older and more frail. When confronted, the leadership has failed to address the situation or even really act on it, he alleges. This is all very reminiscent of Eido Shimano and his scandal as the leader of the Zen Studies Society though one gets the sense that Sasaki is a bit less of a predator (except for his complete abuse of his position and the inherent power dynamic) than the rather overtly predatory behavior alleged to have been practiced by Shimano.

What are we to do here, assuming this is true (and I have no reason to doubt that it is)? Yet another high figure of American Zen turns out, tragically, to be a frisky old goat that abuses woman whom he is supposed to be teaching, not groping? Is Zen morally bankrupt or unable to teach basic ethics, as some are stating? I don't think so. I think this is another, rather horrid, example of group think, the enacting of power, and the overwhelming power of sexuality for human beings (and perhaps the basis of power in a group of primates). Given the abuses that have occurred in other forms of Buddhism (I can think of Vajrayana and Theravadan incidents, just off the top of my head) and the same kinds of problems in Christian Churches, Marxist organizations, etc., this all turns out to be very ordinary.

This is not to say or imply that it is acceptable. It is not. As far as I'm concerned, there is no appropriate sexual relationship between any Zen teacher and any student. The power dynamics and the muddledness of relations that sexuality brings in makes it entirely outside acceptability. I rather like the Code of Conduct for the Boundless Way Zen Sangha here:

Our practice is one of intimacy. It can be warmhearted and close. And relationships between teachers and students, as with therapeutic relationships, usually involve powerful psychic conditions including projection, transference and counter-transference, among others. In addition there are the complexities found within the power differential that exists between a teacher and a student. With these various circumstances it is tempting to cross a line from spiritual intimacy to sexual intimacy. And whatever the merits of sexual intimacy, this type of relationship tends to confuse the other aspects of intimate relationship necessary for a successful teacher and student relationship.

Again, sexuality is a natural part of life and as a non-celibate sangha, sexual intimacy is going to be a cherished part of our shared lives. However, those who teach have additional responsibilities and our covenant includes several commitments regarding sexual behavior.

No priest, senior Dharma teacher or transmitted teacher who is married or in a committed relationship should engage in sexual activities with any person outside of their stated commitment.

Any priest, senior Dharma teacher or transmitted teacher who finds a romantic relationship beginning with a member of the sangha should inform the EAR Committee of this relationship and seek guidance as to the most healthful way to proceed.

If the people involved are in a teacher-student relationship, a choice must be made between either pursuing that personal relationship or continuing the teacher-student relationship, but not both. The EAR Committee should help in this decision-making process. A resolution should be achieved with as little delay and as much openness and transparency as humanly possible.

They, wisely, understand that, well, shit happens and people fall in love and/or feel sexual attraction. They also recognize that it is completely inappropriate for a student/teacher relationship.

I think we need, at the very least, three things:

The adoption of a code of conduct by all Zen sanghas (and social reinforcement that this is necessary)
The establishment of an independent body (or affiliation with an existing one) that can act as a clearing house for reports of abuse. This body should not be composed of the priests/monks/ordained sangha of Zen organizations. It should not have ties to any power structure that might be jeopardized by reports of abuse.
The actual involvement of police and legal authorities, including civil suits as well as criminal ones, in resolving the crimes that have occurred and may occur in the future.

What finally caused the Roman Catholic Church to, poorly, begin to try to figure out how to deal with decades of sexual abuse by a number of priests? It wasn't internal discussions and policies, which appear to have mostly focused on how to protect the Church as a whole (which wound up also shielding the priests). It was Johnny Law. Legal cases suing the various diocese and the criminal cases against both the individual priests and those that shielded them, allowing the problems to continue. Zen organizations will quit turning a blind eye to abuse, unfortunately, when they are forced to do so. Again, I don't think this is an inherently "Zen" issue but something which all organizations or groups with an inside and an outside can have happen. Structures of authority, of people getting invested in leaders, etc. all allow for this. When people at Mt Baldy or the Zen Studies Society (and other places) realize that the organization can lose its property, go bankrupt, or be destroyed and their boards and senior members could be personally liable and potentially go to jail…that's when these issues will be systematically addressed. In other words, we have a legal system, use it.

As a last point, I am reminded of a koan that I know from my own training, being part of both Zen Master Seung Sahn's collection of koans and also part of the Japanese Rinzai tradition. This koan involves an old priest, a young maid, and sexuality. I'm going to close with it.

The Old Woman Burns the Hermitage

It is said that if you practice hard for ten years you will attain something. So, as is customary among many Buddhist laypeople, an old woman in China once supported a monk for ten years. She provided him with food and clothing, and allowed him to live in a hermitage that she provided. For his part, the monk only practiced very, very hard, and did not have to concern himself with anything else.

After ten years, however, there was still no news from the monk. "What did he attain?'' she wondered. "I must test this monk." So one afternoon, the woman summoned her sixteen- year-old daughter, who was considered one of the most beautiful girls in the village. Her mother asked her to put on makeup, her best perfume, and clothing made of the finest materials. Then she gave her daughter instructions for testing the monk, loaded her up with plenty of fine food and clothing, and sent her off to the hermitage. The woman's daughter was very excited about the plan!

When she arrived at the hermitage, she bowed to the monk and said, "You have been here for ten years, so my mother made this special food and clothing for you."

"Oh, thank you very much," the monk replied. "Your mother is a great Bodhisattva for supporting me like this for so long."

Just then, the girl strongly embraced the monk, kissed him, and said, "How do you feel now?"

"Rotten log on cold rocks. No warmth in winter."

Releasing him, the girl bowed deeply and said, "You are certainly a great monk!" She returned home, full of happiness and admiration, to report the incident to her mother. "Mother, Mother! This monk's center is very strong, his mind is not moving! He must have attained something!"

"It doesn't matter if his center is very strong, or if his mind cannot be moved, or if he is a wonderful monk. What I want to know is, what did he say?" "Oh, his words were also wonderful, Mother. He said, 'Rotten log on cold rocks. No warmth in winter."'

"What!?" the old woman shouted. Fuming, she grabbed a big stick, ran to the hermitage and mercilessly beat the monk, shouting, "Go away! Get out of here! I've spent ten years helping a demon!" Then she burned the hermitage to the ground.

So, is it time to burn the hermitage to the ground, folks?

Feast of the Mighty

2012-11-03T12:48:00-07:00

Last night I went to a neopagan ritual locally in Oakland. For the non-pagans out there who somehow missed out on Halloween symbolism (or who aren't Americans), Halloween commonly has associations with the dead, largely through Catholicism. The neopagans, of a general sort as well as the Celtic types, associate Samhain, October 31 these days, with the Dead, and consider it the time to honor the dead and when the "veil between the worlds" (of the living and dead) is the thinnest. Here in California, we also have Día de los Muertos, the Day of the Dead, celebrated on All Saints Day, November 1, which is drawn from Mexican traditions (we have a lot of Hispanic folks, dontchaknow).

In my house, we put up a Day of the Dead altar every year. We've been doing this since we lived in Seattle. On it, we put our dead friends and family, those lost to us over the years, and, strangely, the altar only grows over time as we age. This year, we added my wife's father and her aunt, both lost to us by illness.

Because of this and other life events, we've been somewhat contemplative (moreso?) of death this year. I heard about the local ritual, called the "Feast of the Mighty," through Facebook and/or local friends. Most of my extended community is still composed of Neopagans, magicians, and occult folks, as well as hackerspace types. The ritual was, not surprisingly, a feast, held at a local hall. The description from the organizers was as follows:

Feast of the Mighty: A Celtic Samhain Feast with the Gods, Ancestors and Mighty Ones

Presented by the Coru Cathubodua, a priesthood dedicated to the Morrigan.

Come join us at the turning of the year to celebrate the great Celtic feast of Samhain! Share a Celtic-style feast of ancient foods as we dine with the Otherworldly host. Raise a glass in honor of your Ancestors, Gods and those who are to come after us. Join in the tale as the myths of the mighty heroes of old are brought to life to inspire our lives. Lend your spirit as we renew the Sovereignty of the land at the turning of the year.

An ancient period-style Celtic feast will be laid out in three courses, providing the structure for the evening's ritual. We have selected recipes for the feast that closely match the kinds of foods our ancestors would have eaten, relying as much as possible on fresh, local and seasonal ingredients, with an eye to what would have been available to the ancients.

Ritual Details:

The Samhain ritual will be enacted in three parts: the first dedicated to the Ancestors, the second to the Gods and the Fey, and the third dedicated to the Descendents, those who will come after us. We will open the Otherworld gateway and invite the Mighty Ones to join us in feast and celebration as we enact the ancient stories of their heroic deeds: Brave warriors who ventured out to meet the host of the Sidhe on the haunted eve of Samhain. The Morrigan's gift of prophecy and blessing for the mighty Dagda, on the eve of Samhain, when the Tuatha De Danaan prepared to fight for the sovereignty of Ireland. And the untold story of our own generation's heroes, and those to come after us.

An altar will be set up where you are welcome to place pictures and mementos of your own Ancestors and beloved Dead, and places will be set at the tables where we may feed them.

We attended and it was… interesting. Rebecca added to the altar when we arrived. I found the ritual activities moving but also very familiar. I spent a lot of time at various points over the years in the kind of social and ritual environment in which this ritual took place. The delineating of sacred space, the calling of the ancestors, the reciting of old tales, and the seeking of light from the dead, ritually, as well as the act of eating and drinking with and in remembrance of the dead were all familiar and moving as well. This is the kind of ritual that I don't see within the Buddhist communities I function within. While most of my Buddhist activities are done as a solitary, without a local community but a more distributed one, even those that do have a local community really don't seem to do things of this sort. This aspect of community and celebratory religion really is missing from most forms of Western Buddhism, whether Zen or otherwise. It does bring home elements of what I lost when I explicitly turned my back on sixteen or so years of being a Neopagan. Once upon a time, I helped lead a kindred that did exactl this sort of ritual, though in a more Germanic vein. It does tend to seem very familiar (moreso than the Catholicism of my youth, even). That said, I'm as theistically challenged as ever so I'm probably not going to become a Morrigan worshipper.

It was a good way to remember our dead and the fact that they are never really gone from us, even though they are no longer with us in other ways.

In the Footsteps of Wonhyo

2012-09-24T14:40:00-07:00

The other day, I heard about a new kickstarter, In the Footsteps of Wonhyo, when my own teacher backed it. As the kickstarter page explains:

This documentary explores the ancient Korean monastic way of life in the mountains through the eyes of a Western pilgrim travelling across South Korea. Besides introducing the audience to the beauty of Korean nature, and the wisdom and simplicity of Korean Zen Buddhism, the film will encourage the creation of an official Buddhist pilgrimage trail covering 500 km. When this documentary is made, and when the route is established in the future, it will help thousands to increase their wisdom and compassion, control their karma (habitual patterns) as well as provide economic growth to rural Korea along the path.

The narrator, a retired Canadian writer and Buddhist, follows in the footsteps of a beloved 7th Century Korean Buddhist saint Wonhyo who, according to popular tradition, found enlightenment in a cave near the western seaboard after walking across the Korean peninsula. The narrator discusses with meditation masters in the mountain monasteries Wonhyo’s teachings on oneness and reconciliation and asks questions such as: "How do you overcome suffering and achieve happiness?", "Can one attain enlightenment in the cities, or does one have to go to the mountains?" and "What spiritual advice would you give to people watching this documentary?".

In and of itself, this looks to be an interesting project. As a general rule, I try to back Buddhist focused kickstart projects that actually look interesting or likely to educate or otherwise do some good. As a practitioner drawing heavily from the Korean Buddhist traditions, this project is actually pretty near and dear to my heart.

The project is more interesting than just the film, though, since this is the second time that the makers have done this pilgrimage. If you go over to their site at inthefootstepsofwonhyo.com, you can see that the film is an outgrowth of a previous pilgrimage, done last Fall as part of the "Wonhyo Pilgrimage Project." Four of these fellows (the same people involved in the current filming work, I believe) hiked accross Korea, staying at temples and local places along the way. If you dig through their site, scrolling back through the older pages, you can see the entries for the two weeks of their trip, which ended at Wonhyo's cave. It makes for some interesting reading and I think it adds quite a bit of context to the current filming. (They also have a flickr stream of images from last Fall as well.)

As an aside, in the course of going through this, I found this new (to me) story of Wonhyo and an encounter with the Bodhisattva of Compassion, usually known in the West as "Kwan Yin" from the Chinese. David Mason explains how Wonhyo messed up in being compassionate and taking what was given to him when encountering a stranger on his way to the temple. These kinds of stories remind me of the old European tales of travellers encountering gods and failing (or succeeding) in offering hospitality to them with all of the attendent repercussions.

I think that this is a worthy project to back if you are a Buddhist or even just interested in this sort of thing. This is an example of the kind of thing that I think crowdsourcing excels at: a small project doing something interesting and not even looking for a lot of funding. Please consider backing In the Footsteps of Wonhyo.

Gateless Gate Artwork Series

2012-08-29T11:30:00-07:00

I just came across this the other day. A artist named "Mark Morse" is doing a series of images of the entire Gateless Gate koan collection and putting them up online at gatelessgate.com. Mark admits to the meditative side of working with the collection being a mystery but is inspired by the stories and the imagery in them. He's going to do an image of each koan with one new drawing added every week. He's also been narrating them and adding them to his Youtube channel as well.

Here is an example of his images. This is for "Case 2: Hyakujo’s Fox."

Mark told me over e-mail that he'll eventually have an Etsy store set up so people can buy his images but his main priority right now is just making the images, which is taking all of his free time.

I really encourage people to go check out his site, especially Zen practitioners.

Outline of a Social Meditation Application

2012-08-15T16:12:00-07:00

This is an outline of a social meditation application that I've been considering this morning as a brainstorming thing. The idea is to help those of us isolated without a local sangha with which we sit to sit together (in time) online. Potentially, there is also some support for gamification and peer support by treating it as a kind of social media. Think of Fitocracy for meditation.

This would be a website and an associtated mobile application. I'll probably use the "sitnow.org" domain for this.

The following is just my initial notes during my thinking between security meetings at work.

Outline of Social Meditation Application

Whether to do this as an iOS (and possibly Android app) or just website application with facebook app extension/integration? I think people will want an application on their phones directly though. The website seems necessary though as at central gathering point for profiles, etc. on the web.

Features / Functionality Brainstorm

User makes account via website or mobile app.
- Gives Twitter and Facebook permissions explicitly, if wanted.
- Sets their timezone and location (location optional)
User enters friends from e-mail address, Twitter, Facebook, or site accounts friend them and prompt them to potentially make account on system.
- Friends must opt in and make account on system to receive messages beyond "join us" email when friend enters their e-mail address.
Users form arbritrary group(s) with selected friends (aka "My Buddhist Geeks conference friends" and "My Zen Sangha" as two example groups).
Users can be members of an unlimited number of groups.
Users can send messages to groups, individual friends on site, or all friends on site.
Users can set up meditation session with specific group, an individual friend, multiple friends, or invite all friends.
- select friends or group for meditation session
- set time and date of session (derived from GMT so people all see their local time)
- session can be a one-off individual sesions or reoccuring (day of week? dates?)
- set length of session in minutes
- application messages session start reminder to all sessions members a user selected minutes before session start.
To join session, user connects to app and joins session before it starts or as it is going.
- track time in session once it starts or is joined (meditation timer with countdown)
- send message to subscribed session attendees when session is finished
- optional tweet, facebook post, or app site post for completed session ("I just completed an online meditation session with my crew.")
- record attended sessions for running total of sessions attended, dates, total minutes for each user.
Allow users to expose total sessions attended, total minutes sat as part of profile (or not)

If any of you reading this have additional thoughts, additions, criticisms, ideas, and so forth, please feel free to leave comments or otherwise contact me.