The Angry Asian Buddhist who Isn’t Anymore

Aaron Lee blogged under the name “Arunlikhati”  at his blog, Angry Asian Buddhist.  From what I’ve heard from those who met him, he wasn’t really angry.  He was frustrated, mainly about the way Asian American Buddhists are represented in Buddhist organizations and media.

He’d been battling cancer for over a year.  He died last Saturday.  He was 34.

I didn’t agree with everything Aaron wrote.  At the same time, he changed my mind about some things.  Definitely made me re-think some of my preconceived notions.  I never met him.  I have the feeling he had a good heart.  He wrote this in the section of his blog called “Why I’m Angry”:

“[Asian American Buddhists] are angry when they hear people write about the history of Buddhism in America without reference to the hundreds of thousands of Buddhist Asian Americans who have been and who continue to be the greatest part of American Buddhism.  Who will speak out for them when they’re ignored?  Who will stand up to let them know they’re not alone?  That’s why I’m the Angry Asian Buddhist.”

Bodhisattva words.

You might be interested to read this article about Aaron Lee published in Lion’s Roar earlier this year.

I thank you, Aaron, for blogging about the underrepresentation of Asian American Buddhists and all the other issues you focused on.  Everyone benefits from truth, and in that sense you were speaking out for all of us, standing up for all of us, to help liberate all of us.

My delight in death is far, far greater than
The delight of traders at making vast fortunes at sea,
Or the lords of the gods who vaunt their victory in battle;
Or of those sages who have entered the rapture of perfect absorption.
So just as a traveler who sets out on the road when the time has come to go,
I will not remain in this world any longer,
But will go to dwell in the stronghold of the great bliss of deathlessness.
– The Last Testament of Longchenpa

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“When the mind is free…”

I’ve had the opportunity to attend quite a few teachings by the Dalai Lama over the years.  If you have too, then you know they are usually 3 or 4 day affairs, 3 hours in the morning and 3 hours in the afternoon, and the Dalai Lama gives deep teachings.  It is unfortunate that he is more renown as a sort of Buddhist celebrity.  In my opinion, his real contribution to all of us is being the foremost teacher and interpreter of Madhyamaka philosophy in the world today.  I can’t think of any other teacher who comes close.

Here are some notes I took at a 2001 teaching on Shantideva’s “Guide to the Bodhisattva Way of Life.”  I thought I would share them with you:

If you wish to overcome hatred you must cultivate loving-kindness just as you turn on heat to dispel cold or turn on a light to illuminate darkness.

In itself, the mind is neutral and can take either the form of mental affliction or insight into true reality.

Samsara has a powerful antidote and the power of this antidote can be increased infinitely.

When the mind is free from mental afflictions, the mind can then permeate and perceive both conventional and ultimate truth simultaneously.  

We who recite the Heart Sutra should accept the Buddha as the embodiment of the object of ultimate realization.  Bodhicitta [‘thought of awakening’] is the aspiration to attain Buddhahood for the welfare of all beings. When bodhicitta arises, all the actions of the individual are those of a bodhisattva.

If you have insight into emptiness but no bodhicitta, you will not realize full awakening.  If you have no insight into emptiness but have bodhicitta, you are on the way no matter what.  Bodhicitta is a benefit both temporary and long term.  You should practice bodhicitta as an antidote to pride.  It is also powerful when you are depressed.

Bodhicitta cannot be realized merely by making a wish or offering a prayer, but you can practice to a point where you make a simple thought and this causes a spontaneous arising of bodhicitta within you.

To develop compassion first cultivate a sense of closeness to all sentient beings, then a real empathy with them.  A practice that is very powerful for cultivating compassion is seeing others as your mother, who symbolizes the one who has shown you the greatest kindness.

It is important to have some understanding of what kind of sufferings you wish others to be free from.  The wish to free oneself from suffering is true renunciation.  To wish others to be free is true compassion.

Bodhicitta has two elements: 1) closeness to others and 2) understanding of suffering.

To achieve the kind of liberation we are talking about requires great courage.

Three elements to attain Buddhahood: 1) bodhicitta, the heart of the practice, 2) compassion, and 3) understanding of emptiness (through tranquil abiding and penetrative insight).

The purpose of the Buddha’s teaching is to transform negative aspects of the mind and mind training.

Both the Buddha and Nagarjuna had unobstructed vision.  One should think that in their presence, ‘I have nothing to hide, I have no guilty conscience.’

Great guidance! As you know, a bodhisattva is an individual who begins his or her practice by generating bodhicitta, the aspirational wish to liberate all living beings from their sufferings.   The Tibetan term for bodhisattva is jang chub sem pa, which translates roughly as “mind-hero.”

Bodhisattvas are heroes of the mind.   They have learned to master their minds, rather than letting their minds master them.  Why are they heroes?  They have the “great courage” the Dalai Lama talks about, the bravery, the audacity to aspire for liberation.

It reminds me of the line in the David Bowie song “Heroes”: “We can be heroes, just for one day.”  That is all it takes… small acts of random kindness… beginning with just one day.  Be a hero for just one day and it expands from there like a ripple in a still water when there is a pebble tossed… which reminds me of another song…

 

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True Self

In recent posts I have mentioned the false sense of “self” several times.  But what about the self we call True Self?  True Self has many names: Buddha nature, original nature, mind – to mention just three.

Tsung-mi (780-841) was an important figure in Chinese Buddhism, regarded as both the fifth and final patriarch of the Flower Garland School and a Ch’an (Zen) Master of the Ho-tse School. For Tsung-mi, True Self was the Real Mind revealed through the process of awakening.  Here are some of his thoughts about the subject from Yuan Jen or “On the Original Nature of Human Beings”:

“All sentient beings have been endowed with the true mind of original enlightenment. From the beginningless beginning this mind has been constant, Pure, luminous, and unobscured; it has always been characterized by bright cognition; it is called the Buddha Nature or the Womb of the Awakened.

From the beginningless beginning the delusions of human beings has obscured it so that they have not been aware of it. Because they recognize in themselves only the ordinary person’s characteristics, they indulge in lives of attachment, increasing the bond of karmic power and receiving the sufferings of birth and death. Out of compassion for them, The Awakened One taught that everything is empty; then he revealed to all that the true mind of spiritual enlightenment is pure and is identical with that of the Buddhas.”

Ultimately, this True Self is unknowable.  Beyond all concepts and words.  Yet, in order to experience healing, find wisdom, and create harmony, we need to uncover True Self, remove the veils of delusion, lose our ego.  This allows us to drop off the feeling of separation from others and world.

Meditation is the indispensable tool, the most effective method for making thoughts of “I” disappear.  By intuitively realizing that we are not ego, that we are interconnected with the world and all living things, which is greater than self or ego, we have an opportunity to experience the harmony, the unity, we so urgently need.

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Can Meditation Bring About a Process of Healing?

When we suffer we experience pain.  Whether it is mental, emotional, and/or physical, pain is a message that something is out of balance, that we are lacking harmony.  Healing is the restoration of harmony.

In Taoism, everything is energy.  Pain and stress arise when energies are off balance or when they clash.  Taoism teaches how to achieve harmony.  Balance or harmony is also important in Buddhism, which holds that the main disturber of harmony is the false concept of “self,” “I,” or “ego.”

Both philosophies prescribe the same cure:  meditation.

Can meditation really bring about a process of healing?  That was the precisely the question posed to the great   philosopher Jiddu Krishnamurti during a 1969 talk.  He answered,

“Most of us have had pain of some kind – intense, superficial, or pain that cannot be cured.  What effect has pain on the psyche, the brain or the mind?  Can the mind meditate, disassociating itself from pain?  Can the mind look at the physical pain and observe it without identifying itself with that pain?  If it can observe without identifying itself then there is quite a different quality to that pain…  The more you are attached to the pain, the more intense it is.  So that may help to bring about this healing, which is an important question and which can only take place when there is no `me’, no ego or self-centered activity.  Some people have a gift for it.  Others come upon it because there is no ego functioning.”

Krishnamurti considered meditation “the natural act [that] brings about the harmonious movement of the whole.” Healing is about becoming whole.

The word ‘whole’ comes from the old English ‘hale’, which means to be in good health, to be whole and healthy.  The original meaning of ‘whole’ implied “keeping the original sense,” “that which has also survived,” and “to heal.”  The prehistoric German root of whole is also the origin of ‘heal’, ‘health’, and ‘holy’.

To heal means to be whole and to be whole means to heal.

I don’t think we should ever expect to achieve complete wholeness or perfect harmony.  Because we are human beings, we will always be incomplete, imperfect.  Completion is the journey of life, and perfection, an endless further.

But we can expect to heal.  And naturally I am going to tell you that meditation, or what in the T’ien-t’ai/Tendai tradition is called kuan-ksin (Jp.  kanjin), “observing the mind,” is a powerful healing tool on all levels – mental, physical, emotional, spiritual and social.

“Meditation develops your innate energies. With practice, you can take charge of your mind and body, preventing disease before it arises. Shouldn’t everyone make an effort to learn something like this?”
– Yin Shih Tzu, Tranquil Sitting

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Thoughts and Prayers and the Violence Within

In the aftermath of tragedies like the Las Vegas massacre, we hear the familiar counsel to offer “thoughts and prayers.”  This week some voices have spoken up to suggest that this phrase is simply a by-word for inaction, that thoughts and prayers are simply not enough to overcome the spiral of gun violence in this country.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) tweeted, “Thoughts and prayers are NOT enough,” Talk show host Jimmy Kimmel, during his show Monday night, lamented the lack of political action and said, “Your thoughts and prayers are insufficient.”

While I agree that more action needs to be taken to help curb gun violence, the interesting question to me is whether offering thoughts and prayers actually accomplish anything .  My feeling is they mainly help the person generating  the thoughts and/or offering the prayers.  They help us process our grief.  They make us feel that we are taking action, at least spiritually.

This begs another question: do thoughts and prayers transcend space and time?  I would say, yes.  Metaphorically speaking.  Do one’s prayers actually touch and help the person prayed for?  I’m doubtful.  In this context the kind of thoughts and prayers we’re talking about are externally directed, and as a Buddhist, I am skeptical about relying on external solutions.  If we really want to stop violence then we must look within ourselves, for that is where the causes for violence lie.

Thich Nhat Hanh from his book Creating Peace:

“Violence is never far.  It is possible to identify the seeds of violence in our everyday thoughts, speech and actions.  We can find these seeds within our own mind, in our attitudes, and in our fears and anxieties about ourselves and others.  Thinking itself can be violent, and violent thoughts can lead us to speak and act violently.  In this way, the violence in our minds manifest in the world.”

So, to find a real solution to violence, we must look within.  Like “thoughts and prayers,”  “looking within” has become a bit of a cliché, but what it represents, inner-directed reflection, is a universal truth.  Just as universal, I think, is the idea that real social change is only possible when each individual accomplishes a radical change within themselves.  It’s what the famous Gandhi quote means about becoming the change you wish to see in the world.  (There is no evidence he actually said that, but he did say this:  “If we could change ourselves, the tendencies in the world would also change.”)

Changing the world through changing ourselves is not like sending out thoughts and prayers.  As Thich Nhat Hanh mentions, looking within, developing self-awareness, and actualizing positive inner change manifests in the world through our thoughts, speech, and actions just as our inner violence does.

At Psychology Today, Allen R McConnell Ph.D. writes,

“A variety of theories on self-regulation (i.e., how people direct their behavior in the pursuit of their goals) emphasize that change requires two things: a goal, and an awareness of where one currently is in order to assess the discrepancy between the two.  In short, we cannot reach our destinations without knowledge of our current location on the map.”

If our goal is stop gun violence, then we must to look within ourselves and develop an awareness of our own inner violence.  Thoughts and prayers are not enough.

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