So I have been revisiting my interest in koans on this blog a while back. Actually I haven’t really paid much attention to that interest for many years. Life presented enough of it’s own koans to keep me going. One of these days someone is going to come out with one of those koan-a-day desk calendars with cartoons to boot. But this has gotten me thinking about new sources of koans. And my answer would be in the Google search results.
faith boobs forum-the milk of human kindness discussed
chocolate and the enlightenment – a rather weighty way to go
soup packaging forum-is that creamy soup or clear soup?
porn for charity-that’s pretty heavy.
repetitive violence becomes habit -repeat anything enough and it becomes a habit
computerized chicken – for what purpose?
whitebelt cattle-in a new reality show they will be fighting the computerized chickens
where is lakmi’s beauty parlour-turn left at Green Restaurant in Kulri Bazaar Mussoorie India
tulku hollywood – see Steven Seagal
escaping self zen-there is no escape
is buddhism correct?-works for me
facebook enlightenment-some new app that takes all your information and your friends information and connects it together in a new way
vicara boobs – “Vicara (Sanskrit: Vicāra) means the way mind maintains attention toward any object.” “(slang) Plural of boob, usually the breast meaning; boobs meaning “breasts”. Generally inoffensive.” Seems to be a lot of boobs mentions lately. Must be beach season.
so many spiritual gurus bullshit-see last entry on this list
guy with buddist beads-looking to meet girl with slightly used cushion
practice like a fool-works for me
depeche mode and buddhism-that should be depeche mode and enlightenment. You know I fetishize that band ridiculously.
drikung kagyu porno-I’ve heard that anything is fodder for the porno mill but this is a bit far fetched
sexual practice of nuns-see above
enlightenment porn – see Brad Warner (or my own indulgence in the same a couple of posts back)
extreme exercise to reach enlightenment-not to be confused with Extreme Buddhism-another one of those pseudo-mystical get enlightened quick schemes-they won’t even tell you who teaches it. Check out their reading list-sounds like a first year college liberal arts text list. (They have The Prophet by Khalil Gibran listed as Christian Mysticism. He was a Muslim and the title refers to The Prophet Mohammed.)(In comments James Ford states:
A small quibble. I agree Gibran’s “The Prophet” is not an example of Christian mysticism. But, also, he wasn’t a muslim, nor do I think the prophet of the “The Prophet” is meant to be Mohamed. Gibran was raised a Lebanese Maronite who in his adulthood was heavily influenced by the Bahai faith. I think of him as a “freelance” mystic.
It is good to have knowledgeable readers. I feel his poetic style is greatly Sufi influenced as well. And his association with the Nationalist movement in Syria and the pan-Arab nationalism that seemed to engender and that most of his early writing in Arabic maybe led me to the wrong impression. Though I do think Prophet is a reference to the Muslim figure as it is such an archetype. In the book it is not messianic (in a Christian sense) but more divinely inspired rather than embodying divinity itself. (OK this is not a literary discussion). But I am glad James has brought up the actual facts of the situation. Thanks.
Stumbling around in the dark
Looking for stones
To build my house
I swear
At all these stupid rocks
That block my path.
In an official statement from Wat Pah Pong the well-known Australian Ajahn Brahm has stepped over the line by ordaining nuns. You can read all about it on Bhante Sujato’s blog
Official WPP statement on Ajahn Brahm’s expulsion
which includes a copy of the letter attempting to explain the expulsion.
Oh the times they are a changin.
And here’s a brand new update from Bhante Sujato
Statement from Wat Pa Nanachat
This story’s got some legs I think.
!Note
This link was placed in comments but I add it here for your immediate reference:
A response from the Buddhist Society of Western Australia
Bhikkhuni Ordination at Bodhinyana Monastery, a Response to Ajahn Chandako and Others
By Ajhan Brahmali and the Bodhinyana Sangha
!Note 2
and a letter of support from Bhikkhu Bodhi:
Now Bhikkhu Bodhi’s revised response November 8, 2009
Some Blog and Other Reactions:
From the nun Phalanyani who keeps the marvelous blog silly nun: under shock
From Angry Asian Buddhist Arun writes This is Not a Schism
From The Buddhist Channel
From Buddha Forum
From the Buddhist Society of Western Australia forum
From Wisdom Publications blog Go Beyond Words History in the Making
Rev. Danny Fisher makes his opinion known The Wat Pa Phong Sangha Disavows Bodhinyana Monastery Over Ajahn Brahmavamso’s Ordination of Nuns
Shravasti Dhammika makes his point on the blog dhamma musings with this post Excommunicating Brahmavamso
support bhikkhunis-a website set up to collect letters and information of support for Bhikkhunis
Facebook group set up to support Women and the Forest Sangha
Buddhist Channel has taken to Nobel Silence henceforth on this issue (!?)-an explanation of this decision The Buddhist Channel: Why the imposed “silence” on the Wat Pah Pong / Bhikkuni Ordination issue
Note 3
Open Letter To All From Ajahn Brahm On His Exclusion by Wat Pah Pong-from The Buddhist Channel
Some Background
An interview with Ajahn Brahm just prior to the expulsion Interview from the Bangkok Post via Buddhist Fellowship
For a little more background from Bante Sujato on the Five Points that have been adopted by the English Sangha. Not favorable.
My Current Opinion (not that it matters much)
I left a comment on Arun’s blog Angry Asian Buddhist (listed above) but I want to add to it and put it here as well.
He is still Ajahn Brahmavamso Mahathera not Mr. Peter Betts as he was born. So “excommunication” which requires a full Vinaya vote is not what has occurred. The robes have not been repossessed. A political (politics meaning the wielding of power) disagreement among a certain group of monks (who do not represent all of Theravada or even Thai Buddhism) does not throw the entire school or all of Thai Buddhism into disarray. Let’s keep some perspective on this and not sensationalize.
It would be nice if those taking the action against Ajahn Brahm would be more reasonable, in my opinion, but a lot of things would be nice if they came to pass. That’s just not reality. So this thing has occurred and people will adjust and take it from here.
Perhaps, once the upset from the situation wears off some fruitful dialogue will occur. To get people to talk of a situation is the first step to it’s resolution.
[inspired by Justin's post Self, No-self, Psychology and Buddhism on Progressive Buddhism]
Carrying around a sense of I-am-me-this-one-separate-thing-now-and-forever, me vs “that”, “independence”, is rather like carrying around eggs in a tightly woven basket made only of belief.
The problems with this are:
a) All the eggs are in one basket. Mom said “Don’t put all your eggs in one basket!”
b) The basket frequently comes unwoven because all the ends of the threads are tied up all over the place.
c) They are eggs not chickens and have not and cannot develop into anything else.
d) Eggs are fragile so you spend a great deal of time protecting them and worrying about them.
e) The more eggs the heavier the basket.
f) The eggs are not eggs but little soap bubbles of ideas of who’s who and what’s what. They change all the time. Some break and more are manufactured to maintain the fullness of the basket.
The term self as a locational device for a particular conglomeration of flesh and point of sentience is useful in a linguistic and geographic sense, as is saying that particular head of cabbage has worms in it. Maybe don’t buy it or clean it before you cook it or something.
In an interview conducted in Austria for Eurozine, the Indian psychoanalyst Sudhir Kakar made an interesting statement contrasting the views of ego in the West with that of India.
… with the Indians the boundaries to the ego aren’t as rigid. That comes from the corporeal, the body itself is open. The image of the body that one has in Ayurveda, for example, is that of a permanent exchange between the ego and the environment. If the body is open, the boundaries to the ego are also open. The body forms the basis of the ego. One views one’s body in the same way one views one’s ego, and in the Indian view this ego is more fluid. For an Indian, mental illnesses come from spirits that force their way into the body; one falls ill because of evil spirits. In the West, the ego is a fortress – that’s why in psychology many biological approaches are taken. What happens in the fortress is important and not what comes from outside. Here in the West, it would be considered esoteric to say that sunlight or stones can influence the character, because the view of the ego is different. The exchange between environment and ego is emphasized much more strongly in India.
Kakar has written a great number of books on the psychology of Indian culture and the effects of globalization on both Indian and Western, particularly European culture.
In a conversation about arranged marriage with a friend a number of years ago this point of Kakar’s was reinforced in a rather interesting way. She said [and I paraphrase as I didn't record it]:
My life is not my own. I belong to India, to Gharwhal [a Himalayan region], to my caste and gotra [subcaste]. When I was growing up my life belonged to my parents. Then I went to school and it belonged to my teachers and my family. Then I married and it belonged to my husband and now it belongs to my children. In time it will belong to God.
This view did not disturb her in any way. It is how she identifies and defines herself, by her geographic and social placement in relation to that which surrounds her. It is highly relative in contrast to a movable “fortress” of an ego.
To demonstrate in part how this plays out socio-linguistically in Indian society consider the vast array of kinship terms. For example the name for uncle in English is specifically subdivided so that the terms one uses for one’s father’s younger brother (chachi) and one’s father’s older brother(tau) are different and these again are different than the way one’s mother’s brothers (mama) are named. Each relation is named relative to whomever is speaking so everyone has a plethora of relationship descriptors depending on who is referring to them. This gives a social context to identity.
And as one traces one’s self to a village in Indian culture, no matter where in the world that one lives this gives a geographic context. Ask one of your friends of Indian origin where their village is and I’ll bet they’ll be able to tell you all about it even if they were born in America or elsewhere. They will probably also be surprised you asked since the concepts of home towns are becoming increasingly of use only for sentimental purposes rather than locative purposes in North America and elsewhere. And this is a trend that will likely continue and appear with more frequency in Indian and similar cultures as populations continue to migrate.
In my last post I wrote that Buddhism is not psychology and psychology is not Buddhism. Buddhist explanations of the experience of life are quite different than psychological explanations.
Psychological explanations are given a great deal of credence [synonyms see belief] in the West but consider the following quote from a review of the book Vishnu on Freud’s Desk wherein Arjun Mahey states:
… Harold Bloom’s incandescent suggestion that Freud is a late event in European shamanism: it’s as a shaman (self-healed soul-healer) that he can be compared, fruitfully, to Indian shamans: the reductive aspects of his psychology bear point-by-point comparison to, lets say, Buddhist meditational grids. One can analogise Hinduism and Freudianism as two systems of thought, then, or allow one to supplement the other rather than aiming at joint dissonance.
I had to laugh at this since viewing Freud, or psychology as a form of shamanism tends to really get the “scientific” community up in arms. But if not that though, then what is it?
Neuroscientists work around the clock to try to “demonstrate” some theory to explain consciousness or even sentience but as yet to no avail. These differing categories may well supplement each other but they don’t replace each other.
On more practical terms one can consider the ego-view something of a choice-to work on reinforcing, shoring up the fortress or to work towards seeing it as the inter-fused ebb and flow that it is. And inter-fused is a more accurate term than interdependent which still carries some elements of a will to separateness.
Popular Western culture would have us reinforce this separateness in numerous ways. Consider this popular Simon and Garfunkel song.
Though I like the song and understand the sentiment of the desire to alleviate a sense of suffering it’s certainly not how I would choose to live, just me and my ego locked up in a Fortress of Solitude.
There is a choice.
Simon And Garfunkel — I Am A Rock lyrics
In a deep and dark December;
I am alone,
Gazing from my window to the streets below
On a freshly fallen silent shroud of snow.
I am a rock,
I am an island.
I’ve built walls,
A fortress deep and mighty,
That none may penetrate.
I have no need of friendship; friendship causes pain.
It’s laughter and it’s loving I disdain.
I am a rock,
I am an island.
Don’t talk of love,
But I’ve heard the words before;
It’s sleeping in my memory.
I won’t disturb the slumber of feelings that have died.
If I never loved I never would have cried.
I am a rock,
I am an island.
I have my books
And my poetry to protect me;
I am shielded in my armor,
Hiding in my room, safe within my womb.
I touch no one and no one touches me.
I am a rock,
I am an island.
And a rock feels no pain;
And an island never cries.
FLM: Dr. Feel-good and the Medicalization of Buddhism (with bonus book review of How to Become a Buddha in 5 Weeks-ouch)
[This is another episode of this blog's occasional column, Fear and Loathing in McBuddhaland ]
Freedom is a challenge. You decide who you are by what you do. It’s like a question, like a fork in the road. An ongoing question you have to keep answering correctly. There’s a touch of the high wire to it. I’ve never been able to walk high wires, but I get the feeling. Hunter S. Thompson, in The Playboy Interviews. p. 38
Introduction
I am a religious Buddhist. I have never been a “spiritual” or secular or philosophical or psychological Buddhist. It would be fair to say I am one of those full on 24/7/365 believers full of faith and certainty regarding the Buddhist path. I love and am devoted to the Buddhadharma as much as to anything in life, maybe even more than anything else. It is the breath of life from this perspective. Maybe that makes me a Buddhist fanatic. I hope so.
After nearly 30 years of treading the Buddhist path I’ve come to relish the occasional arduousness and the often ridiculousness of it. As well as the sublime joy of that journey. It’s a very deep and very human path. It takes stamina, energy, courage and maybe even a little bit of foolishness and fearlessness to carry on for years on end. There’s no point in hope alone. It isn’t enough.
The purpose of religion, ultimately is salvation of some sort. Perhaps salvation from incidental day to day bothers or questions or perhaps salvation in the grandest sense of complete understanding of or mergence with the universe. It is transformation on any scale and provides some relief from all that existential angst that is the human condition.
Robert Thurman has said
I have become somewhat averse to the idea of merely ‘practicing’ Buddhism and would prefer to dedicate our efforts to those who have had a lot of practice and are now striving to ‘perform’ the buddhadharma. Or, if they are not ready to perform, they practice with the intensity of one who is determined to perform as soon as possible….There is no true practice of Buddhism if there is no intensity of aspiration to attain the full goal, the whole deal, the unexcelled perfect enlightenment of buddhahood itself. quoted in the editorial of Buddhadharma magazine Summer 2009 p.7
So that is a quick summary of my belief, perspective, aspiration, world view and bias. No point in pretending to some impossible standard of objectivity.
There is no objectivity because there is not a solid settled thing to objectify. And no fixed objectifier. As an aside from the Abhidharma, as soon as an interaction is registered in consciousness any future reference to that thing requires a re-registration in consciousness and a verification with memory. By that time both object and objectifier have been altered from the original contact.
I mention Abhidharma for a very specific reason. Abhidharma is the third part of the Tripitaka-the Buddhist canon. Since it deals with perception, memory, concentration, consciousness, motivation and many other mental factors it is the basis of Buddhist psychological theory. This is especially true of the Theravadin and Tibetan branches of Buddhism. In Mahayana schools it is less emphasized or even ignored to a certain extent.
The forest and the trees is why Buddhism is not only a psychology, a philosophy or a set of rituals or prescribed actions. It is all of these and more. It is an entire system of living. It is a world view, and even beyond that an absolute and universally all encompassing view, and a guide for every aspect of life. It is a lot bigger than the secular specialist viewpoint would like to admit. Interdependence, karma, and other Buddhist concepts are enormous even though they are practiced on individual human scale. The three jewels include Buddha-the first teacher and representative of the goal of Buddhist practice, the Dharma-the description of the Buddhist world view and methodology, and the Sangha-the social circumstances in which the Dharma is practiced and the Buddha is realized. Dharma includes much more than just the psychological or philosophical elements.
“Western Buddhism” as some groups define it has generally become another term for feel-good encounter groups and self-improvement practices. And in other quarters it has become a treatment “modality” or style of office decor for the practicing psychotherapist.
Buddhism is Not Enough-Validation
The social psychology of North America has been profoundly shaped by Christian viewpoints, values, doctrine and practices. Even with attempts to separate religion and politics (church and state) there is no separation between religion and culture. American and European culture is permeated with behaviors that are shaped by authoritarian theism. Culture is a world view informed by it’s dominant elements and one of the most dominant elements of any culture is it’s ideology particularly it’s religious ideology and behaviors stemming from it. In the case of North America this means an authoritarian theistic and specifically a Christian world view.
In this world view there is a very clear demarcation between secular and sacred. The sacred is totally reliant upon authority. That is authority of books, leaders and ultimately a divine figure. The secular realm takes the same tack with laws, political figures, group leaders and the rigidity of educational systems, the emergence of science and it’s “rational” authority and social sanctions against non-conformists. Authority = Power. It is something very few ever question. This viewpoint is self-serving, self-preserving and self-validating. Anything that is introduced to it goes through a rather arduous screening process by socially- and self-proclaimed “experts” before the authoritarian stamp of approval is given.
Here are a couple of points regarding Buddhism’s marginal acceptance in the dominant American culture and to some extent Europe and elsewhere.
1) Buddhism is a side-dish to one’s main religious practice. There are a growing number of voices that insist Buddhism should be “compatible” with other religions. Although this has been historically apparent for quite a long time in the philosophical practices of say the Theosophists and other spiritual adventurers at the turn of the 20th century. The idea seems to be that Buddhism should not replace one’s original religion or ideology but augment it in some way. Why?
Several reasons for this come to mind.
- a) Buddhism is not seen as a “serious” spiritual path due to it’s “otherness” (all that “cultural baggage” and foreign language)
- b) Buddhism is not seen as a “serious” spiritual path due to it’s inherent lack of authority. Who’s the boss? Who tells you what is and isn’t Buddhism?
- c) The practices of Buddhism are internally focused where authority is questionable and cannot be externally validated.
- d) Buddhism is “weak”. That means it is not aggressively prosthelytizing and converting. Nor are there any “serious” consequences for the “Bad” Buddhist. (like Hell). (note: I am talking about the non-Asian context here.) Nor is it attempting to “triumph” over anything so ominous as a great “evil” figure. There is no epic battle to be collectively fought and no heinous “enemy” in the deepest sense of the word to be conquered. There are the factors such as Mara, illusion and the like but in comparison to a Great Satan or other figure they are quite laughable in terms of evil intent. There is no overt “Power” in Buddhism either in doctrine or in action and this in a comparative context renders it without much in the way of authority.
2) The authority of the medical establishment
This is the main point of this column. If Buddhism is without “authority” in America what institution, body, group, individual has the power to sanction Buddhism as “approved” for the American public?
Well that would be the medical establishment. And by extension the pharmaceutical and corporate based research networks.
With the discipline of psychology being enfolded under the tent of Medicine and with the growing number of medical advances an increasing amount of personal behavior, belief and activity has come under the rubric of the medical establishment. Disorders abound and seem to multiply almost daily. And as psychology continues to adapt Buddhist methodology (without much else Buddhist) to psychotherapeutic ends we can already see the onset of such things as spiritual disorders replacing religious seeking. In fact spirituality and religion are already falling under this rubric.
Example: A Spiritual Disorder. A proposal to increase the definition of Narcissistic Personality Disorder to include a separate category for “Spiritual Narcissist”. This is actually just the same old Narcissistic behavior in the spiritual/religious realm. Will there also be a “Political Narcissist”, a “Sexual Narcissist”, a “Corporate Narcissist”? This writer also argues that NPD is a spiritual disorder and is “misdiagnosed” as a personality disorder. So the DSM, which is a huge catalogue of named disorders put out by the American Psychiatric Association may need to be revised. At the APA website such plans are in the works for the next edition DSM-V. Spiritual disorder doesn’t seem to be on the menu yet.
So if you are having trouble with sitting on your zafu for more than 10 minutes perhaps you have meditation-deficit disorder. Or if you can’t reach the next jnana in a certain period of time you might want a dose of jnaiagra for your ascension dysfunction. Or if long retreats scare you perhaps you have Vassa-phobia and require an immediate intervention.
Buddhism is an easy target for this enfoldment into the medical realm. While there are Christian counselors the basis for much of the practice in that realm remains adherence to Bible based principles with a dash of psychology thrown in. Buddhism on the other hand is being dismantled whole-sale to serve the powerful purposes of the medical-psychiatric establishment. Christianity in the west is too powerful for the psychiatric/psychological community to co-0pt so lesser targets are subsumed.
And we can see many of the prominent folks in the American Buddhist community jumping on board with this agenda.
I am not against Jon Kabat-Zinn, Norman Fischer, Harvey Aronson, Jack Kornfield, Noah Levine and qualified others using some elements of the Buddhist whole to effect a relief from psychological suffering. I am all for it, in fact. But it isn’t all of Buddhism. Buddhist inspired, informed or influenced psychotherapy definitely but its not the whole of Buddhism. It’s goals are somewhat different than Buddhist goals. Many people say the relief of suffering is the goal of Buddhism and is also the goal of psychotherapy. This is true. But they are different kinds of suffering. On different scales. One is relative and the other absolute.
And now we see even Brad Warner jumping on the psychology bandwagon by attempting to practice psychotherapy without a license or any training by giving counseling advice to survivors of sexual abuse and PTSD. (check the snippet from the upcoming book cited in the linked post) And he is without credentials in the counseling realm.
We have psychologists using elements of Buddhist religion as a therapeutic modality and Buddhist specialists (or at least specialists in shikantaza if nothing else) hijacking psychotherapy and giving Buddhist prescriptions for serious issues about which they know little or nothing. The lines have definitely blurred.
As to the authority of the scientific-medical community Bhikkhu Punnadhammo in an excellent critique of Stephen Batchelor’s Buddhism Without Beliefs has stated:
Consciousness has not at all been explained “in terms of brain function” by modern science or by anyone else. It is entirely a metaphysical assumption that it ever can be, an act of faith of the most credulous sort that Mr. Batchelor should be the first to denounce. There is not a shred of a proof of this claim anywhere, only a pious belief in some quarters that such a proof will shortly be forthcoming.
Even odder is that when there is a conflict between two metaphysical assumptions, a Buddhist writer should be so ready to give the benefit of the doubt to the unbuddhist one.
This is characteristic of what one might call Buddhist Modernism. It’s that:
the influence of Protestant and Enlightenment values have largely defined some of their more conspicuous attributes.[4] David McMahan cites “western monotheism; rationalism and scientific naturalism; and Romantic expressivism” as influences.[5]
Taking up the latter “Romantic expressivism” Thanissaro Bhikkhu writes in the opening paragraph of The Roots of Buddhist Romanticism:
Many Westerners, when new to Buddhism, are struck by the uncanny familiarity of what seem to be its central concepts: interconnectedness, wholeness, ego-transcendence. But what they may not realize is that the concepts sound familiar because they are familiar. To a large extent, they come not from the Buddha’s teachings but from the dharma gate of Western psychology, through which the Buddha’s words have been filtered. They draw less from the root sources of the dharma than from their own hidden roots in Western culture: the thought of the German Romantics.
His entire article is well worth reading and reflecting upon. He also discusses the influence of these ideas from the German Romantics on Western teachers including those Asians who had a “westernized” education before coming to America to teach. Additionally he states:
The question here in the West is whether we will learn from the Chinese example [the dialogue between Buddhism and Taoism] and start using Buddhist ideas to question our dharma gate, to see exactly how far the similarities between the gate and the actual dharma go. If we don’t, we run the danger of mistaking the gate for the dharma itself, and of never going through it to the other side.
That indeed is part of what I am trying to do here as well. If the discipline of psychology is a “dharma gate” due to the sociological authoritarian and familiarity factors then what is it’s resemblance to the actual Buddhadharma?
On a practical level we can note that quite a number of psychotherapists have become Buddhist teachers and vice versa. Of course having an office full of people to whom one could recommend one’s Sangha isn’t a bad thing in terms of Dana (or is it?) and having a Sangha full of people in need of some “spiritual psychotherapy” also isn’t a bad thing for the bank account. (or is it?) But perhaps that is just my cynicism creeping in.
There are some very major differences between Buddhism and psychotherapy. And between the Buddhist principles of psychology and the Western medical principles of psychology.
To summarize some of the principle differences.
1. Psychotherapy or psychology does not involve Bodhicitta. It does not address the mindset that involves aspiration to Buddha-hood or even Bodhisattva-hood at all. (unless they are a symptom of some psychological disorder) Those two things are beyond the reach of psychology. Bodhicitta is the central pivot point to which all Buddhist doctrine, psychology, philosophy, ritual, metaphysics and belief is fixed. To talk of Buddha- or Buddhist-anything is to talk of Bodhicitta.
2. Psychotherapy addresses only the fruits of Karma, not Karma itself. Psychotherapy deals with the results of personal choices based on personal circumstances and seeks to restore or develop an equilibrium in the ego rather than address the fiction of the fixed ego itself and it’s relationship to Karma. It deals only in specifics that are relative.
3. Psychotherapy does not deal significantly with the personal ethics of the client/patient nor does it attempt to confer a particular philosophy to a client nor does it often attempt to address ultimate personal viewpoints regarding life, death and ultimate meaning or understanding. These are beyond the scope of psychology.
Here is a lovely table from Wikipedia that summarizes things further:
Four Noble Truths and the medical model
Broadly speaking, differences between traditional Buddhism and contemporary institutionalized Western psychology[21] can be conceived in terms used in the following table.
Buddhism (Four Noble Truths) Western psychology problem suffering (dukkha)[22] significant distress, disability, pain, loss of freedom, suicidality[23] etiology craving (tanha), ignorance (avijja)[24] conditioning, genetics, biology, childhood development, socialization goal Enlightenment (bodhi), Nirvana[25] normal or higher functioning, lack of initial symptoms treatment Noble Eightfold Path[26] counseling, therapy, medication, systems advocacy
And the definitions of suffering as indicated in the problem row also differ. So the starting point is NOT the same for both. From the footnotes of the article:
- ^ In the Dhammacakkappavattana Sutta, the Buddha defined suffering (dukkha) in the following terms:
- “Suffering, as a noble truth, is this: Birth is suffering, aging is suffering, sickness is suffering, death is suffering, sorrow and lamentation, pain, grief and despair are suffering; association with the loathed is suffering, dissociation from the loved is suffering, not to get what one wants is suffering — in short, suffering is the five categories of clinging objects.” (Ñanamoli, 1993.)
- ^ For example, the DSM-IV states:
- “In DSM-IV, each of the mental disorders is conceptualized as a clinically significant behavioral or psychological syndrome or pattern that occurs in an individual and that is associated with present distress (e.g., a painful symptom) or disability (i.e., impairment in one or more important areas of functioning) or with a significantly increased risk of suffering death, pain, disability, or an important loss of freedom.” (APA, 1994, p. xxi).
The purpose of psychotherapy is to restore an individual to functionality from a conventionally dysfunctional place and relieve psychological suffering relative to the individual, his/her circumstances and personal ego make-up. The purpose of Buddhist practice is to achieve a particular perception and/or understanding of the world in an ultimate way often called enlightenment which relieves existential suffering. The latter is considerably more intense and well beyond the scope of “normalizing” an individual into a relatively comfortable Samsaric existence.
Routine maintenance of the Skandas is what psychotherapy does. Putting these elements into some sort of livable balance while ignoring that they are significant to the causes and understanding of suffering is what psychotherapy does.
Buddhism encompasses a philosophy, a psychology including methodology, as well as a world view, a set of moral values and a well defined goal that ultimately goes far beyond the relief of day to day suffering even though it does encompass that. Buddhism is a complete system that deals with wholes, with the whole, while science and psychotherapy and other secular approaches like philosophy or psychology deal only with specific parts.
This medicalization process is an attempt to fit Buddhist religion into a familiar box. And to give it the necessary “stamp of authority” to make it palatable to the general public. Some people have even gone so far as to suggest “branding” Buddhism and apparently selling it just as one does a pair of Calvin Klein underwear. Wrapping the “other” in the familiar little boxes whether they be psychology or consumerism do bring some comfort but that doesn’t change what is inside.
Even to those who consciously try to reject the overt Christian references and try to live in the material, the provable, psychology cannot provide the entirety in the same manner as Buddhism. What is lacking is a depth-a metaphysics an understanding of the non-material.
In the west the only outlet to attempting to understand that depth has been psychology or occasionally philosophy, the latter being principally in the domain of the ivory tower and not generally accessible.
The accessibility of psychology, it’s popularization, in part funded by pharmaceutical manufacturers, and the commonality of experiences people encounter in life has broadened its appeal. And under that umbrella psychology increasingly speaks for Buddhism.
They are two different categories of thought and understanding and as such, have two very different ends. Occasionally and with a little tweaking the methodology may overlap but that does not make them the same thing.
Buddhism is a complete system designed for a specific ultimate purpose. Psychology is a sub-discipline of medicine designed for a specific limited and relative purpose.
Buddhism is not a substitute for psychology nor is psychology a substitute for Buddhism.
A Prime Example of My Main Point or a Review of The Worst Book on Buddhism I’ve Encountered in a Very Long Time
The topic of Buddhism Is Not Psychology has been on my mind for some time. What has spurred this episode of this column is that recently I acquired a book that just about sent me right over the edge.
The book’s title “How to Become a Buddha in 5 Weeks:The Simple Way to Self-Realization” written by Italian psychotherapist and university professor Giulio Cesare Giacobbe gives you some indication that I might take issue with some of the contents. You would not be wrong in this regard.
Normally I wouldn’t even bother to read such a book. It is published by Arcturus who brings us such delectable titles as “A History of Cannibalism”, reprints of Nostradamus, “Crop Circles”, “Bigfoot and Other Mysterious Creatures”, “Evil Wives”, “Why Are There No Cats in the Bible?” and “Discover Your Psychic Powers.” Pick up a copy at your favorite supermarket today. They state that is one of their target demographics-OK that was me wallowing in a bit of intellectual arrogance I admit. To be a bit more fair this publisher does also put out low cost editions of classics such as Dracula, Canterbury Tales, The Tao te Ching and others as well as puzzle books (like Sudoku) which I have actually purchased myself.
The reason I am bothering with this title is because this desperately Freudian fellow and his book labeled “The International Bestseller” are being peddled on his academic credentials. He keeps a personal website to sell his books, all but this one in Italian as well as a blog. He is a professor at the very prestigious University of Genoa Italy where he teaches “Principles of Oriental Psychology“whatever that is supposed to mean. This information is prominently displayed on the book. I will say that if his courses are as badly researched as the book woe to those students.
By badly researched let me give an example. His main sources of information about Buddhism include:
- Thich Nhat Hanh’s book “Old Path White Clouds” from which the brief biography of Buddha is adapted
- Dr. Edward Conze (“…one of the greatest scholars of Buddhism…”p.16) -the only Buddhist scholar referenced
- various sutras and other works such as Buddhacarita by Ashvaghosa but no edition, translator etc is given
- Chogyam Trungpa “Glimpses of Abhidharma” from which he takes the term Skandha but states “Skandha [is]..the five means by which perception presents itself. For the sake of greater clarity, the terms used here differ from the traditional ones…the function of perception, which Buddhist psychology subdivides into the five Skandha” (p.69) If he actually read and understood Trungpa’s book he might not have made such statements.
- Patanjali “The Yoga Sutras” Prof. Giacobbe has also written a book “interpreting” this text but as yet it is only available in Italian so all you yogis and yoginis have something to look forward to in the future as well.
- Buddhadasa “Mindfulness with Breathing” The author takes the phases of Vipassana and reduces them to 5 easy steps which he states makes them a “…much more easily practicable version of the traditional Vipassana, which has sixteen phases”(p.153)
- Hui-Neng is referenced regarding “the Zen experience” which is summed up in totality as “Presence in reality” (p.114)
Seems like a reputable list of folks with some knowledge of Buddhism and related material. But what few references are made are used to bolster a bizarre theory that 5 weeks of self-brainwashing will give one some kind of “Buddha” experience. It appears that this list of names is included to attempt to give credence to this theory. The author makes the statement ” My life has been transformed. I have seen enlightenment.” I will return to this issue in a bit as it is important to the content of the book.
As well he includes references from such diverse sources as:
- P.D.Ouspenski who was a long time follower of George Gurdjieff. Having read the works of both these men I can’t see what they have to do with Buddhism but there it is. He calls Ouspenski a psychologist (he was a philosopher) and lumps him in with Maslow and others.
- Osho Rajneesh aka Bhagwan Shri Rajneesh (and the book “Tantra, Spirituality and Sex”) had a rather interesting take on spirituality. He is labeled a Zen master by his followers, hence the adoption of the word Osho, but he had never studied Zen.
- Satya Sai Baba is a controversial Hindu guru in India who has met with numerous unsavory accusations.
- Christian Bible and “Catholic theology”(p. 105) and diverse Christian speculation such as:
Jesus, having shown himself to be not only the son of God but also a shrewd psychologist…It is exciting for psychologists, like me, that out of all possible professions Jesus chose ours. To think that we number the son of God among our members! That our profession now also turns out to include the Buddha is a real stroke of luck! I wouldn’t be surprised if Gandhi and Golda Meir were in there somewhere too.”(p.16)
And his sources for some of the psychology talk are named but not referenced with the exception of Psychosynthesis: A Manual of Principles and Techniques by R. Assagioli published in 1965. Names dropped include Freud at every turn, as well as R.M. Bucke, W. Hall, A. H. Maslow, for no apparent reason as their works are never referenced. Freud’s theory of religion “focusing on neurosis as a psychological origin of religious beliefs” (source) is adopted wholesale and is clearly in evidence in this book. There are no current references and no references to any of the neo-Freudians such as Alfred Adler, Erik Erikson, Karen Horney or Erich Fromm or Freudian influence people such as psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan or those who after Freud actually encountered Buddhism such as Carl Jung.
While this does not claim to be a scholarly book it rides on those coat-tails and to ignore developments in psychology over the past 60 or more years as well as to ignore actual Buddhist scholarship in favor of Osho Rajneesh demonstrates a serious case of intellectual laziness.
The Author’s Disclaimer or Explanation of Sorts
At the outset the author states:
This manual is not about the Buddhist religion.
It’s aim is to present the psychological method taught originally by the Buddha.
…
The sole purpose and objective of this teaching is liberation from suffering. (p.11)
The author then immediately quotes from the Upakkilesa Sutta numerous times at length. The above “…” leaves out some of the author’s opinion of Buddhist religion as he seems to understand or misunderstand it.
The “…” excluded:
Which means you won’t have to shave your head and beg for charity. Best of all, you won’t have to dress in orange all the time;quite an advantage if you prefer other colours. (p.11)
He continues with his opinion of Buddhist religion in other sections of the book as well:
This business of being a parasite on others is one of the characteristic of the Buddha (who never worked a day in his life) that I urge you not to imitate. Not because there is anything bad about begging. But there is something a bit too Eastern about this way, which tends towards passivity. I propose a Western way to Buddhism, an active way that allows you to create, construct and compete as you would in normal life. But without stress. Which also means more efficiently. [emphasis the author's] (p. 34)
You don’t have to shave your head and dress in orange or retire to a monastery twelve thousand feet up in the Himalayas (p.22)
He then goes on to allegedly quote the Dalai Lama as having said “…the Buddha is inside you whatever you do and wherever you go.” and then adds in a footnote:
I don’t know where and when he said it but, given the Buddha’s pot belly, he must have said it somewhere! (p. 26)
OK Let’s just make up stuff and attribute it to anyone we can think of off-hand. And is he talking about the Buddha or the Dalai Lama as having said that. It doesn’t make sense for the Buddha to have said such a thing in such a way.
It’s not only the Asians and the religious Buddhists who get a bash. From Amazonian headhunters to modern soldiers the swath is cut. I’m just going to do the whole quote here:
In Buddhism there is no moral imperative of the Kantian type, which states that moral good is a value in itself (a typically Western notion).
Instead, an instrumental value is ascribed to morality. This does not mean that it is any less categorical. In fact, it is essential for mental well-being and therefore survival.
In other words, it is necessary to do good, or rather not to do bad (that is, not to cause suffering to living creatures), not because this is an absolute good in itself, but because causing suffering to living creatures creates in us a sense of guilt that becomes a cause of suffering to ourselves.
Unlike the Western tradition, this approach to morality, which is strictly speaking psychological, takes the historical and cultural dimension of morality into account.
For an Amazon headhunter, for example, decapitating and enemy, shrinking his head and sticking it on his belt is an act of great social merit and does not produce any sense of guilt. [a footnote is referenced here which states: In fact in the discos of Amazonia, the more shrunken heads you have on your belt, the more women you pull. With the rest of us, it would be dollars.]
The same thing has happened, and still happens, to soldiers in every period and in every country when they kill other human beings in the name of the most diverse ideals and social interests.
The expression ‘to do evil’ and therefore to suffer from a sense of guilt, ultimately assumes a meaning only in relation to the accepted morality of the society in which we have been brought up.
[Oddly he adds] The moral rules handed down by the Buddhist tradition are the moral rules common to almost all human cultures, which is why the Buddha was able to adopt them as absolute. …
This makes Buddhism the bringer of a morality that had never been seen in the history of humanity up until that point, and which would then find a fuller expression in Christianity.
That is why it not only assumed spontaneously the form of a religion, but is in fact compatible with any other religion.(p. 59-61)
Where to begin with this? I almost can’t. In the first part of this piece I addressed some of this nonsense. I only hope that no soldiers with PTSD come to see this guy for any kind of psychotherapy because it would be a disaster. And if this author had any inkling of his own ethnocentrism and misogyny (got another quote about that coming up too!) it certainly is not in evidence here.
Let’s insult some Swedes too!
The distinction between words, thought and reality in Naples, where there are many buddhas, is quite clear… The further north you go , the more this distinction fades. In Sweden if you call someone an idiot, he commits suicide.(p.115)
I suppose that’s some kind of European in-joke.
How about the Americans? In the chapter called “Presence in reality”, after a brief story about imagining while one is in New York that they are in some sleazy area in Paris and behaving boorishly. [my words of his description]
And you would probably end up spending the night in a police station; and if you behaved in the clubs in Times Square as you might behave in the clubs of the Place Pigalle (for example, touching the backsides of the girls) you would end up in a police station;Americans are very sensitive when it comes to the backsides of their girls. (p. 117)
Does this mean that women are the property of the State or of the Men? I do hope no women visit this guy for any kind of psychotherapy.
Let’s have a jab at Zen too
Have you ever wondered how people who practise Zen earn a living (since Zen consists of doing absolutely nothing)? Writing books! I am a Zen master! (p.117)
Yeah just like Osho Rajneesh.
So apparently the disclaimer that the book is not about Buddhist religion is enough to cover any sort of insulting ill-informed blather. No wonder he wants to cut Right Speech out of his methodology for becoming a Buddha in 5 weeks. (coming up shortly)
On Buddhist Topics
There are many examples I could take issue with here but I will reign it in and only focus on a couple.
About Karma the author writes:
The law of karma was discovered by Eastern culture in very ancient times (even before the Buddha);after the advent of writing it was described in the Bhagavad Gita, a work that forms part of the Indian epic poem The Mahabharata, dating from the 5th century BC., and in the classic treatise on Yoga, the Yoga Sutra, fro the 3rd century BC. In Western culture the law of karma was only discovered in the 20th century by Sigmund Freud, who identified the conditioning of the memory of the past (the unconscious) over the present as the cause of neurosis. (p.26)
There is no distinction made between the Hindu concept of Karma and the Buddhist one which is significant particularly with regard to volitional action and vipaka (fruit of Karma). And some kind of Karmic mechanism being encapsulated in “the unconscious” of the individual is another distinction entirely. [It should also be noted that The Mahabharata had much earlier origins. It is alleged to be the account of the Kurukshetra War which took place approximately in the 10th century BCE. and this account was transmitted orally with additions for a lot longer than this author indicates. That is one of the reasons it is in poetic form, to ease memorization. The advent of writing did not bring about the creation of The Mahabharata nor descriptions of Karma. These were both well known long before that.]
Here’s a few more that you can take issue with yourself:
[A Buddha] is always calm and serene…is always relaxed…no longer feels stress or tension…lives on joy, laughter, harmony and love…inspires joy, harmony, love, laughter and good humour in those around him……is someone who has attained serenity and maintains it in every situation (p.18)
Sort of like Santa Claus on Prozac.
Here’s a goody:
This ability to announce one’s own death in advance is characteristic of the enlightened or initiated. Which doesn’t rule out the possibility that some of them kill themselves in order to prove they were right. (p. 32)
As usual no source given for this idea. To care about being right or wrong with some prediction would be a fairly egotistical situation. If the person were “enlightened” why would they care about that?
Apparently we only need a 5-fold path:
As we can see, Right Speech, Right Action and Right Livelihood are moral precepts rather than strictly psychological procedures. …Therefore we can leave them out of our method for achieving buddha-hood.[and further on Right Livelihood]…Not because these [killer etc] professions are immoral. Buddhism does not deal with questions of morality. [?] But because of the sense of guilt, however unconscious, that may derive from the exercise of these professions is a cause of mental suffering that cannot be eliminated even with the practice of Buddhism….It is obvious that a sense of guilt depends on the morality with which we have been brought up.(p.58)
And what if we have been brought up Buddhist? “Buddhism does not deal with questions of morality” I can’t take much more of this! This is in direct contradiction to the above quoted :
The moral rules handed down by the Buddhist tradition are the moral rules common to almost all human cultures, which is why the Buddha was able to adopt them as absolute. …
This makes Buddhism the bringer of a morality that had never been seen in the history of humanity up until that point, and which would then find a fuller expression in Christianity. (p.61)
On reality and suffering:
Reality is the environment that surrounds us. (p. 107)
The world of reality is real, the world of the mind isn’t real. (p. 109)
But suffering is not an object that can be found in reality. It is a mental state. (p. 113)
In reality there is never suffering. (p.113)
A huge limitation on the interpretation of Dukkha and reality. Does that mean that people are not real then? Or that anyone’s existence did not occur even on a material level? If neither the world of the mind nor suffering are real why are there psychologists? If only that which surrounds this body writing this blog is real how did this post get here? It may all be relative but that leaves a lot of gaping holes in this fabric of reality. Who the hell wrote this book I’m taking apart then? Or is it an imaginary book? Have I fabricated the whole thing? Is it just a dream like on that episode of Dallas when Bobby died?
Freud Swallows Buddha
Ego. That’s the biggest problem with this book in ever so many ways. I will just compile some of the statements and you can figure it out for yourself.
We can already, as of now, construct our personalities as buddhas. (p.20)
Indeed, according to Buddhist psychology, the structure of the Ego-in other words, the normal structure of the human personality-is a neurotic structure [there is a footnote pointing to a misinterpretation of Trungpa here]…
Theoretically, it refers to the mental structure of a personality attracted to, and absorbed in, the symbolic expansion of the Ego and the abnormal development of thought.
Since man began his mental evolution, which has made thought his main perceptual activity, his Ego-that is, the image the human being has of himself-has gone past the natural limits of his body.
[a long speech about identification with consumer goods etc.](p.42)…
It is a neurotic process, in so far as it is a process of estrangement from reality-in other words, from the natural correspondence between the Ego and the body. (p. 43)
What makes us neurotic is not so much the excitable life we lead as the mental attitude we adopt towards it;as if our happiness really depended on success. This produces stress, which is the exact opposite of serenity. Happiness is essentially serenity, and therefore serenity, not success, is the true gauge of our happiness. The state of buddha-ness allows us to achieve genuine serenity, without giving up on the idea of success. (p.44)
[on Right Understanding, interdependence and conditioned phenomenon]
Consider also the beautiful idea that this universe could not exist without you. [footnote from page 51 "That is what I always say to patients suffering depression. It gives them momentary relief, but then they fall back into the one thought that obsesses them:that the universe has been created with the sole aim of cheating them.] ..You are necessary to the existence of this universe, just as this universe is necessary to your existence. (p. 48)
Enlightenment includes a psychological growth from a child personality to an adult personality. (p. 123)
The teachings of Buddha involves the whole of our psychological evolution. In the natural evolution from child to adult to parent, the development of these three natural personalities is necessary to the development of the fourth personality, that of the buddha. (p. 127)
My Psycho-analysis of This Book.
This author has dedicated the book to his son who died at the age of 27. Apparently this incident has sparked a certain emotional response which the author describes as follows in the Introduction:
I acknowledge my gratitude to Siddhartha Gautama Sakyamuni who opened the Way and to my son Yuri who, in following it throughout his all too brief life, also led me to it.
Yuri died at the age of 27: the exact age at which the Buddha attained enlightenment.Yuri was a buddha, one of those incarnations of the buddha (Bodhisattva) who, according to Buddhism, appear every so often on Earth. From the moment he was born he displayed an incomparable degree of serenity and love….
He died of nothing more unusual than influenza. But in dying he performed a miracle. He turned his father, this old sinner, into a buddha. He passed his buddhaness on to me, so that I acquired it through no merit of my own. My life has been transformed. I have seen enlightenment. I have seen and absorbed into my own body, totally and permanently, the absolute precariousness of existence, the one reality of the here and now, and the absolute, exclusive importance of love, laughter and joy. I have seen that it is possible to become a buddha.
My Buddhism is no longer theoretical, it has become real. This is how this book came about. …
Throughout the book the author makes statements regarding loss and grieving and attributes them to some kind of attachment which he advocates denying. The tone is one of bravado often and not unlike someone who is trying to sell themselves something while selling it to others.
Urging people with such statements as
…Right Thought consists of the elimination of negative thoughts and the construction of positive thoughts. (In accordance with Eastern tradition, we can define as negative all those thoughts that lead to separation [mistrust, suspicion, antipathy, resentment, hate, etc.] and as positive all those thoughts that lead to union [trust, acceptance, sympathy, benevolence, love etc.].)
In addition, we have also seen that negative thoughts are involuntary.
It is obvious that the positive thoughts that we must introduce into our minds, on the other hand, are in fact voluntary.
The operation we have to do ultimately is to replace involuntary negative thoughts with voluntary positive thoughts. (p.89)
is not helpful in either a Buddhist nor psychological context. It is similar to brainwashing. It is simply denial of reality.
The term Reaction Formation comes to mind. By definition this means
In psychoanalytic theory, reaction formation is a defensive process (defense mechanism) in which anxiety-producing or unacceptable emotions and impulses are mastered by exaggeration (hypertrophy) of the directly opposing tendency
So while this book may have been either a catharsis for the author or a bit of sales material to shore up his denial of his grief over the loss of his son it gives little helpful information. As a memoir to a son, a man’s reflection on his own sense of salvation or as a father’s reaction to loss it is interesting but even as a self-help book I sincerely hope that people will not take it seriously either in a Buddhist sense or in a psychological sense as this will only prolong their suffering.
…
Addendum: I highly recommend Chogyam Trungpa’s book The Sanity We are Born With: A Buddhist Approach to Psychology particularly the chapter “Is Meditation Therapy?” Short answer: No. (That’s the Amazon link so you can read a bit of the book if you want)
[Inspired by a post over at Doug's blog Mujina: a Japanese scary story]
Have always enjoyed the literature and folklore and interpretations of the many cultures of the world in fictional works. Early childhood brought such things as Grimm’s Fairy Tales, Greek and Roman mythology and especially the Arabian Nights. I only read these things at my maternal grandmother’s house as my aunt was a teacher and had the most interesting taste in literature and that’s where she stored her books. I wasn’t allowed to borrow them I think, though I had never asked. They were leather bound very expensive editions. And such works were not available in the local book-mobile the public library sent around to our area every Wednesday.
Also at my grandmother’s was an old pump organ of the type one had to push the pedals on to get the air to go through before any sound would come out. Many an afternoon was spent trying to make “scary” music come out of that thing. The type of music one heard in old Boris Karloff movies. And during the “Arabian Nights” phase it was trying to get some approximation of “harem” music whatever that was. This was also the time when old movies came on TV like those with the special effects of Ray Harryhousen such as The 7th Voyage of Sinbad.
While all of this stuff was a North American translation or interpretation of other cultures it did spark some kind of interest that has stayed with me for my entire life. Later it led to an interest in world literature.
At one point I took a course in modern Japanese literature in translation. It was a little outside of my fields of study (Anthropology, Religious Studies and Psychology) but something about it just took my fancy and I delved in. I had heard of a few of the authors previously such as Yukio Mishima who some say was a Zen inspired nihilist who later committed seppuku and Ryūnosuke Akutagawa who wrote In a Grove from which Rashomon was taken. Rashomon was made into a brilliant movie by the well known director Akira Kurosawa.
Having read Doug’s post about a scary story mentioned above I thought I’d share some the names and works of some of the writers I have and still do enjoy over the years. Many of the Japanese writers don’t do what could be called “light” fiction. The themes are universal and often psychological. Such things as:
- the nature of the self
- existential alienation
- conflict between the individual and society
- the purpose of existence
- the role of absurdity in life
- conformity vs rebellion
- the validity of social roles
- the value of family and social bonds
- the nature of politics both nationally and individually
- the effects of trauma and the unexpected
- culture clashes
- existential horror (not unlike Polish writer Joseph Conrad–>Apocalypse Now was based on his book Heart of Darkness)
- the relentlessness of nature (ala Woman in the Dunes) as symbolic of human relentlessness
I like this heavy sticky awful stuff. It’s the most fun you can have without climbing into a boiling tar pit. (Am considering making this the sub-title of this blog). Which also might be fun if one had asbestos skin and lived on a planet with half the gravity of earth. (OK have been dipping into some science fiction lately too-Iain M. Banks “Culture” novels are fabulous as are the writings of China Mieville)
Some excellent Japanese authors:
Yasunari Kawabata. In 1968 Kawabata became the first Japanese to receive the Nobel Prize for Literature
Kobo Abe-Woman in the Dunes is probably his most well known work as it was made into a film directed by Hiroshi Teshigahara-a real existentialist turmoil in this situation
Kenzaburō Ōe-often deals with physical and psychological trauma and alienation. Intense.
Jun’ichirō Tanizaki-is well known for his female characters. In the novel Quicksand he deals with a lesbian relationship and in Naomi the fascination with the West that Japan has had as the lead female character is being groomed to become more Western. Tanizaki deals with political and cultural issues in a subtextual sort of way that is always interesting. I particularly enjoyed The Makioka Sisters
Haruki Murakami-sometimes writes with a kind of psychological creepiness I call magic-realism with shadows.
Fumiko Enchi- one of the few women writers
Links to some of these authors works on-line:
Ryunosuke Akutagawa In a Grove which includes Rashomon-free downloadable PDF or read it on-line here. The interlinked stories tell of those who encounter a murder victim and their varying accounts of the situation. Each sees the occasion in a completely different manner clouded by their own judgments and imaginings.
Natsume Soseki was a great influence on the works of Akutagawa, Kawabata and many others. His novel Botchan (Master Darling) is available as a text file from Project Gutenberg. It is a novel of disillusionment, culture clash (Western and Japanese as well as urban and rural), revenge and trying to find some peace in life.
Links to books:
Am currently reading Tales of Moonlight and Rain by Ueda Akinari (translation by Anthony H. Chambers) written in the 1700s. The Chrysanthemum Vow is one of the more well known stories from that collection. The book jacket describes his work as “gothic” but it is more than that. There is a further undercurrent that challenges deeper levels. It has been described as “weird” fiction which I think is more appropriate. (Am very surprised not to find an e-text of an old translation of this on-line-if you know of one please leave a note in comments-thanks)
Yukio Mishima The Temple of the Golden Pavilion is about the destruction of the Kinkaku-ji Zen Buddhist Temple in Kyoto. It is about both the attraction and repulsion of extreme desire and misguided efforts to deal with that. The Amazon blub summarizes the plot:
Because of the boyhood trauma of seeing his mother make love to another man in the presence of his dying father, Mizoguchi becomes a hopeless stutterer. Taunted by his schoolmates, he feels utterly alone until he becomes an acolyte at a famous temple in Kyoto. He quickly becomes obsessed with the beauty of the temple. Even when tempted by a friend into exploring the geisha district, he cannot escape its image. In the novel’s soaring climax, he tries desperately to free himself from his fixation.
I once wrote a long and convoluted essay comparing Mishima with Dostoyevski . Maybe I’ll post it on my sort-of-literary blog some time. There are similarities in many ways. Not surprising considering Russia is not all that far from Japan. Maybe I’ll have to do a post about Russian literature in translation too. A lot of the characters in both writer’s works are embittered and going through major psychological and emotional battles with themselves as well as with their political, social, family and life situations.
Haruku Murakami’s modern style is influenced both by Japanese tradition and foreign writers such as Marquez. The first book I read of his was The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle: A Novel. The unsettling story of the unsettling life of Toru Okada. Reviews are quite mixed but no one was bored by it!
Jalaluddin Rumi is one of the most well know Persian Sufi mystical poets. He is also one I like a lot. He packs a lot of wisdom into few words.
Have had an interest in many kinds of mystical poetry for years and got a lot of information/education about Rumi’s poetry when I was in Turkey about 15 years ago. Met quite a number of Sufi folks there and spent more than a few afternoons over spiced tea and hookah (with flavored tobacco not other stuff) discussing poetry, politics, God and a whole lot of other things. And I am fortunate here in India, where I live there are a lot of Kashmiri and Sufi Muslim folks who also like the poetry and music as well although I don’t have as much time as I’d like to discuss these things.
So just to pick out a few quotes of Rumi’s that seem to accord well with some Buddhist thought I’ll just amble through this post with a little comparative religion so to speak.
Out beyond ideas of rightdoing and wrongdoing there is a field. I’ll meet you there.
Note here Rumi is talking of ideas of rightdoing and wrongdoing not rightdoing and wrongdoing themselves. This kind of second hand mental action, reaction and cogitation that takes over and separates us from the activity of reality. Here are some words by Sosan Zenji (Seng-Tsan) – the 3rd Zen Patriarch on Faith Mind. Here is another source for the quotes.
If there is even a trace of this and that, of right and wrong,
the Mind-essence will be lost in confusion…The Way is perfect like vast space…
Rumi had some sense of humor as well. In describing some seekers of truth he wrote:
He is like a man using a candle to look for the sun
This is reminiscent of the Zen story
It is too clear and so it is hard to see. A dunce once searched for a fire with a lighted lantern. Had he known what fire was, He could have cooked his rice much sooner. - Zen Flesh, Zen Bones, p. 176 Translated by Paul Reps
And another
Open Your Own Treasure House
Daiju visited the master Baso in China. Baso asked: “What do you seek?”
“Enlightenment,” replied Daiju.
“You have your own treasure house. Why do you search outside?” Baso asked.
Daiju inquired: “Where is my treasure house?”
Baso answered: “What you are asking is your treasure house.”
Daiju was enlightened! Ever after he urged his friends: “Open your own tresure house and use those treasures.”
Rumi also wrote:
When you come looking for sugar,
your bag will be examined
to see how much it can hold;
it will be filled accordingly.
Doesn’t this remind you of the words:
Nan-in, a Japanese master during the Meiji era, received a university professor who came to inquire about Zen. Nan-in served tea. He poured his visitor’s cup full, and then kept on pouring. The professor watched the overflow until he could no longer restrain himself. “It is overfull. No more will go in!”
“Like this cup,” Nan-in said, “you are full of your own opinions and speculations. How can I show you Zen unless you first empty your cup?” Zen Flesh, Zen Bones
Some Ecstasy
Here’s a little Sufi and other music that may well send you into some sort of ecstasy.
Famous Qawwali (Sufi devotional music) singer Nusrat Fatah Ali Khan performing Allah Hu one of the most well known Sufi songs. It is so joyful I almost cry every time I hear it. Nusrat died in 1997.
The full song is over 20 minutes. Here’s the first half of the live album version again by Nusrat. Some interesting pictures of Mecca and related places as well as images of related verses from the Quran accompany the song. There are also images of Sufi relics and the crypts of Sufi saints which receive a reverence not unlike Catholic relics and the like in popular culture. In India even Hindus are known to go to the resting places of Sufi saints to pray. I’ve been to some of the Chishti resting places inside the Jama Masjid (biggest mosque in India) in Delhi and Ajmer (Rajasthan) and left offerings for the Chishti saints.
And here is a more contemporary version done by Harshdeep Kaur done with Punjabi style music and melody on a television show. Her voice is incredibly powerful. The word ishq means love in a passionate and devoted and all encompassing sense. It is often heard in the phrase ishq samandar which means ocean of love-that’s also the name of a well known Hindi song. She sings some of the lyrics in English as well.
Signal to Noise. Here is Nusrat Fatah Ali Khan with Peter Gabriel from a performance on VH-1.
Face of Love. Nusrat from the soundtrack of the Movie “Dead man walking”. Performed with Eddie Vedder. Lyrics include English so you can get the drift of what Qawwali music is about.
Here are photos of the tomb of a local pir (Sufi holy person) right outside of Mussoorie where I live. On certain occasions in the Muslim calendar people bring offerings including the green coverings to leave at the grave.
