Heavy Metal Buddha

Onwards and Upwards

2011-02-17T10:51:00.000-08:00

As I continue to develop my own ideas and writing, I have decided to relocate my blog over to Wordpress under a different title with a slightly different focus. While this blog has traversed the private to the public, the personal to the academic, I have decided to focus less on posting introspective writing and more on academic considerations.

I will keep this blog online in the event that I use it later, anyone wants to access some of my older posts, and so that I can continue to comment on blogspot blogs.

If you are interested, you can check out my new blog at Philosophy & Polity.

Thanks to anyone who has read over the past few years!

If You're an Authority, I'm an Authority

2010-11-06T13:53:00.000-07:00

Over at Hardcore Zen there has been a lot of discussion in the comments section (and a few comments from Brad) about the role of spiritual authority in Buddhism and spirituality in general. In light of this, I decided to post a response paper I wrote sophomore year for the course "Postmodern God" since it deals with some of these very topics. Enjoy!

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College is the time when, as young people, we have flown the proverbial coop. With a safe distance between us and our upbringings, many take the opportunity to reconsider what we have been taught by our parents and society. Many also take the opportunity to reconsider the role we play in our own spirituality: are we authorities or observers? Often times, as it is in my own experience, we are not content to be merely another drop in the bucket of some congregation. Instead, we search for ways to validate our own mystical and spiritual experiences and beliefs while still being able to fit within the framework of a socially-accepted lifestyle. Michel de Certeau offers a postmodern development on spiritual understanding when he advocates that a plurality of members and authorities is the only way to arrive at a spiritual truth – which would seemingly open the door to mystical experiences that break rank with the usually dogmatic views of organized religions. This serves to validate the air of questioning that surrounds the college life of any introspective student – to question the authorities that one has known, to interpret the event and subsequent interpretations to create a new space is to give birth to spiritual truth. First I will elaborate on Certeau’s view of how authority plays into religious truth, and then I will offer an example of how this viewpoint has helped me progress in my own spiritual development as a practicing Buddhist.

Certeau’s Plural Authority and Mysticism

“Authority in the Plural” is the third of four aspects of Christianity that Certeau outlines in his article, “How is Christianity Thinkable Today?” While discussing plural authorities in Christianity, Certeau says, “Considered precisely as authority, neither the pope, nor Scripture, nor any particular tradition is sufficient to itself. The others are not part of it; as different, they are necessary to it…The plural is the manifestation of the Christian meaning,” (1). No one authority represents the truth of the Jesus-event, and it requires all of the sources and authorities to comprehend and represent Christianity. Again, Certeau says, “This connection of witnesses, of signs or different roles announces a ‘truth’ which cannot be reduced to unity by one member, or by a particular function,” (2). Amassing all of the elements into one super-structure, or attempting to reduce them into one single element does not serve to better the interpretation or encapsulate it – it only limits the reinterpretations that can occur, and thus limits our understanding of the significance of the original event (3).

Truth, as Certeau conceives of it, can only be approached with a plurality of authorities. In fact, this is where spirituality gains its meaning: “The gesture of making room for the multiplicity of Christian languages in relation to the invisibility of the Spirit inaugurates a structure of communication where a plurality of members (or of authorities) is the only revelation of spiritual meaning,” (4). Of this he says, “With [making room for multiplicity] begins a history in which, each time, to “permit” means to “disappear” and, at last, to die. Whether it be in a personal itinerary, pedagogical transmission, educational task or social organization, the mark of spiritual truth is henceforward the effective relation between the fading away of a singularity and that which makes it possible,” (5). In effect, Certeau is saying that spiritual truth only begins to appear when the singularity dies. With a single authority, a single interpretation, there can be no spiritual truth. This opens the door to embracing mystical experiences as a reinterpretation of religious traditions and benefits college students by validating the type of questioning that we often engage in and any conclusion we may arrive at that is contrary or differing from religious authorities.

My Spiritual Progression
Having been a practicing Zen Buddhist for several years, my encounter with Hindu mysticism (Advaita Vedanta) radically reframed some experiences that have occurred throughout my practice. Where in Buddhism I had practiced with the view that I was sitting to help bring the mind and body into a better balance and to alleviate the suffering of other sentient beings, Advaita had no conception of this – it did not make sense to speak of other beings, or of helping them, or of aligning my ‘self’. While Buddhism is not nearly as adverse to un-selfing experiences or ideas of unity as some other religions, Advaita definitely serves to pull this experience apart. The Advaita conception of no-self is radically different from that in Buddhism. As I struggled to understand how the meaning of my experiences could differ so much between being framed in a Buddhist sense and in a Hindu sense, I was reading the work of Advaita/Buddhist author Wei Wu Wei who said, “The methods of the Masters are illustrated by the saying: ‘To acquire understanding at the hands of others is to close the gates of self-enlightenment.’”(6). It was this attitude that has led me to investigate my own role as an authority in spirituality.

What I believe Wei Wu Wei and Certeau are each saying is that relying upon a spiritual authority and his or her interpretation begins to stagnate spiritual experiences, which in turn (to take a leaf out of Certeau’s book) keeps us from pushing forward and ultimately towards the truth. I have since opened myself up to new interpretations of the spiritual texts I read, and have taken an active role in interpreting my own experiences instead of appealing to some group or individual who supposedly has a monopoly on the truth. I believe that, in doing this, new space is created and we open up new opportunities for dialogue and advancement.

Gotama Buddha was supposedly a Hindu Brahman who did just that – refused the current interpretation of spirituality and claimed that there was a different way of viewing it. Now there is an entirely separate avenue of thought based upon his spiritual insight. Similarly, Jesus was a Jewish rabbi who sought to re-write the old laws with new ones and press the boundary of man’s relation to God, which has clearly had lasting effects. When more people of my generation begin to ask questions of their spiritual authorities and interpret their own spiritual and mystical experiences instead of appealing to organized religion, there will be a richer and continually advancing spiritual dialogue because of it. “It is to say that a spiritual authority may be recognized according to the nature of its relationships with other authorities in a plurality of authorities,” (7). By increasing the number of spiritual authorities that exist and converse, we open the door to the advancement of spirituality itself.

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Citations
(1) Michel de Certeau, How is Christianity Thinkable Today?, in The Postmodern God, ed. Graham Ward (Malden: Blackwell Publishing Ltd. , 1997), 148.
(2) Certeau, 148.
(3) Certeau, 149-50.
(4) Certeau, 151.
(5) Certeau, 151.
(6) Wei, Wei Wu. Ask the Awakened: the Negative Way.( London: Routledge, 1963) xvi.
(7) Certeau, 151.

How Political Science is Failing Us: Have We Lost Our Focus?

2010-10-22T11:38:00.000-07:00

This post has been moved and is now hosted at Philosophy & Polity.

The Utility of Research and Political Science

2010-10-22T11:27:00.000-07:00

This post has been moved and is now hosted at Philosophy & Polity.

A Long Absence

2010-03-05T15:26:00.001-08:00

It has been so long since I've been able to write here. I had very nearly forgotten that I had a blog at all. I think the last post I made was almost two years ago. So much has happened, so much has changed. There are even some things that have stayed the same. I doubt anyone has stopped by here for quite some time, and probably won't for some time to come...

Ah, the reason for my departure.

John Lennon once said that life is what happens while you're making other plans, so I suppose life itself has kept me from writing. I am in the junior year of my college experience - plenty of good stories, but all in good time - and I only have one more year before I am officially a college graduate. I have been so busy with my studies, but I am learning so much. I feel as if I have grown tremendously, and some memories from the past that were once so clear have faded into obscurity. There are some things I think I will always remember, and some things, when I detect the shadow of their absence, I wish I had not forgotten. So many experiences in the last two years have lead me to question my self in ways I had hitherto never believed possible, and yet I know I have only scratched the surface.

My identity, who I thought I was, seems to be chipping away. During the busy day, when appointments dominate my mind and the whole of my mental energy is directed toward pushing myself further, harder, I almost become lost. But at night, in the stillness at the dark edge of sleep, I feel closer to my true self than ever before. I feel as though I am groping in the dark, so close to what I am searching for but helpless to find it. It is there, beyond the scope of my perception. A barely audible whisper amidst my churning, howling mind. The Vedas say that the True Self is present in deep, dreamless sleep, and that the waking world is an illusion.

When I wake up it is back to the world of appointments, juggling obligations and various relationships. But always in the back of my mind is that whisper.

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I would like to post some of my papers from school up here. There are a few I am particularly proud of, and maybe posting them will help me get back into the habit of updating on here. But again, the hindrance is a lack of time versus material. There may be some formatting issues but I will burn that bridge when I come to it.

Where Do We Go From Here?

2008-03-28T19:41:00.000-07:00

It would seem to be an oft-overlooked assumption, the sensation of freedom...freedom in the sense that I choose how I act and what I do. But how can this be? I do not choose to exist; this, whether a glorious gift or unbearable burden, seems absolute. I do not choose the time or circumstance of my birth, nor do I choose how I am to be raised or who is to raise me. I do not choose the nature of the universe or the extent of its natural laws. I do not choose the desires of my fragile body, or the thoughts of my elusive mind. I do not choose my personality, or the temperaments and dispositions embedded within my DNA. Furthermore, when pressed it would seem that any idea of a self, a continuous and unchanging ego or soul, is an illusion created for convenience but bought into out of craving. I do not choose to be a link in the chain of cause and effect, yet every action I take is tethered inevitably to some effect outside of my control. Is freedom to be defined as the ability to react to one's circumstance? But this answer is lacking; how can any action or being be free when it MUST act and, by virtue of its circumstance, act in a certain way?

I see this chain of cause and effect, so fittingly named since it binds us, as the karma that Siddhartha Gotama spoke about. It is not a mystical cycle or magical retribution, it is simple cause and effect, at times shrouded from our understanding due to the complicated nature of the universe. But Gotama also spoke about freedom. He spoke about liberation, and freeing ourselves from delusion and suffering. Is the delusion our illusion of free will? Of personhood? Our suffering is self-created, so why not our freedom as well? Perhaps the release that he spoke about is merely an understanding of our cosmic circumstance. Perhaps we are like leaves on a river, seemingly free but ultimately powerless to change our path. The difference between us and the leaves is that we have the uncanny ability to percieve our circumstance.

The answer might lie in the question. When I ask, "Do I have free will?" I may be begging the question. I assume there is an "I" to possess free will. Is this the resolution? Is the question of free will an absurd one, since it relies on assumption? Perhaps, but it gives rise to another question: what is it that I percieve to be myself? Gotama called the self nothing more than an illusion based on the five skandas, but does this explain my consciousness? Does this answer WHY I am aware of my lack of free will?

It does not.

**NOTE: This is an edited version of something I wrote in a more formal setting, so it definitely breaks rank with my normal posts. I thought I would throw it on here since I've been thinking a lot about free will recently.

Secrets, secrets are no fun...

2007-06-25T18:13:00.001-07:00

...unless they're shared with everyone! Which is, apparently, just what is happening. "The Secret" is on all sorts of Best Seller lists and is marketed as both a self-help and spiritual book. But it has come under fire from psychologists and others because the slightly kooky and well-meaning message could have severely damaging effects, which I may or may not talk about in a later post.

First, let's talk about the glaringly obvious point illustrated by the hyperlinked CNN article above, which has L. Ron Hubbard-esque qualities surrounding it. Hubbard was the founder of the Church of Scientology and the original author of Dianetics, the first framework of said Church. But Hubbard was quoted on numerous occasions as saying, "If a man really wanted to make a million dollars, the best way to do it would be start his own religion. " or some variant*. Does it seem odd that he is quoted saying these things c. 1948 or 1949, and then coincidentally starts up Scientology in 1953? When one of the main practices in the CoS is to charge ridiculous amounts of money for classes teaching secrets of the religion, or the ultimate truth? Hmm...

Now, as I was saying, "The Secret" smells of the same chicanery. Actually, it stinks of it. The CNN article above talks about the creator of "The Secret", Rhonda Byrne , "She said she was struggling personally and professionally several years ago when she was given a nearly 100-year-old book called "The Science of Getting Rich," by Wallace D. Wattles. In it, readers are guaranteed to become wealthy if they learn and follow "certain laws which govern the process of acquiring riches." The emphasis was added by me to stress what comes in the next paragraph:

"Inspired to do further research, Byrne said, she resolved to create a film to spread the word about what she felt she had learned about the "law of attraction." "

A film which she just so happens to be marketing as a revolutionary wealth-generating system and, apparently, becoming insanely rich off of. It is a wonder that the ancient book she read wasn't titled, "How to Scam a Nation Into Making You Rich", as that seems to be what she learned. Hell, maybe her "secret" of positive reinforcement and visualization actually does work. After all, the ancient text was about how to get rich, and she obviously did. There is a very logical way to prove that Byrne's act of creating The Secret is neither rational nor moral, if it indeed functions as she proposes.

German philosopher Immanuel Kant coined the term "Categorical Imperative". In his words, "Act only according to that maxim whereby you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law."** In my words, "An act is immoral if you wouldn't want everyone and his cousin to do the exact same thing." Categorical Imperatives are true no matter the situation or the particular details surrounding it. So...why does it matter? Kant created the Categorical Imperative to show a universal set of ethics. You see, Kant believed that we are morally obligated to only make decisions that are acceptable for everyone else to make. This approach has two prongs: one is that it means we are all equal in that no one person has moral rights that another does not, and the second is that we are forced to admit that in certain circumstances, the universality of an action would create a contradiction, thus proving that it is morally wrong and should not be done. It would seem Kant believed that immoral actions weren't a sin, just irrational.

Example, anyone? Let's use The Secret. Byrne claims that her motivation behind publishing The Secret is to help everyone get rich. Being rich means having great wealth, and as we all know via inflation and economics, wealth is relative. As such, using the Categorical Imperative, if everyone were rich, no one would be rich, and thus the entire argument collapses upon itself in a contradiction of conceivability. It stands to reason through this simple excercise in logic that not only is it impossible for everyone to be rich like Byrne claims, Byrne must also be deceiving us as to the effectiveness of The Secret, since she cannot honestly will everyone in the world to be rich, lest no one be rich, thereby voiding her actions. It don't work the way she say it do.

Byrne is conscious of this, or could be made conscious of it very easily through the above excercise. In saying that The Secret works for everyone she is lying.The Secret does work. But only for her. The basis of HER path to wealth is through scamming people. And, once again, if EVERYONE scammed people, no one would trust anyone else and thus no one could be scammed, resulting in another contradiction and another immoral action.

I don't really blame people like Byrne, or Hubbard. True, they should absolutely positively be held responsible for the things that they do, and purposefully ripping off hundreds of thousands of people is a serious deal. But COME ON! A book claims that you can acquire wealth and anything else you want just by thinking about how much you want it? Use that brain a little bit before you whip out the charge card! You're responsible for your own shit, and you always will be. Just because slick salesmen or flashy products exist doesn't mean you aren't responsible for the things you do. There's no such thing as a free lunch. Or a free diamond necklace, or hunky lifeguard, or...

People are fooled because they want to be. Everyone who buys into Scientology, The Secret, and similar snake oils knows in their heart of hearts that what is promised can't possibly be true. And yet people line up by the buttload to shovel out their hard-earned cash to buy this crap. Tell you what: instead of spending your money on the next tier of Scientology classes or the latest Secret DVD, why not, oh I dunno...put it in the bank? Sock drawer? Work towards acquiring what you want instead of sitting around thinking about how much you want it.

*-- Bare Faced Messiah p.148. Reference given to LA Times, 27 Aug 78. Supposed to have happened in spring 1949.

**Kant, Immanuel; translated by James W. Ellington [1785] (1993). Grounding for the Metaphysics of Morals 3rd ed.. Hackett, p30. ISBN 0-87220-166-x.

Ugly Duck Prom Queen

2007-06-22T07:09:00.000-07:00

I've been visiting family in NC, my home state, for the past week. I tend not to watch a lot of TV, but when everyone around me is so much my senior and I've read the one book I brought twice already, the BoobTube starts looking pretty good. This morning over breakfast, I was flipping through the channels and rested on MTV. The show "Made" supposedly (this one word becomes very important later on) assigns mentors to troubled or down-and-out kids to help make their dreams come true. Cool, no? No.

You see, the idea is a benevolent one. Sort of like the Buddy Program, or the Big Brother/Big Sister Program, just televised. But that's not what the show really is. One teenage boy wanted to be a fashion designer, and so they helped him organize a fashion show with local colleges. Innocent enough. Another helped a hardcore nerd become a hardcore rapper, which I suppose is just fine. Sometimes their goals are very noteworthy, like helping a failing slacker graduate High School. But the episode playing this morning as I ate made me disheartened, not only with pop culture, but with my generation and our sense of self (illusory or true).

An Avril-Lavigne type High School senior wanted to run for Prom Queen. I think this is a GREAT idea. In my school, the different cliques and groups were not nearly as seperated as they are in most schools. Maybe mine is one of the few schools like this, but I thought it would be cool to have a Punk Rock Prom Queen. But what started happening was the girl's coach began encouraging her to change to fit what people think a Prom Queen should look like. Namely, glam shots, pink miniskirts, and pumps. She encouraged her to ditch her hardcore style and embrace something more feminine. Uh, WHAT?? Being counter-culture doesn't interfere at all with being feminine. One look at the lovely ladies on http://www.suicidegirls.com/ will tell you that.

A lot of the time, we seem to get mixed up thinking that what society believes is ______ is the only way to be _______. Like in this instance, the coach seemed to be saying that if you don't dress the way society believes women should dress, you aren't feminine. Or, if you don't look the way society thinks a Prom Queen should look, you won't be Prom Queen. Now, this last statement might very well be true; Prom Court is usually decided by vote, and it would stand to reason that if the voting majority doesn't think you look like Prom Queen, they won't vote for you in which case, you won't win. But that's not my point.

What troubled me about this episode was the complete willingness of the girl to have her room made over into something more girly, to have her clothing style changed completely, and to begin dressing in the "norm". She seemed ready to resign just about every superficial detail of her person in order to fit in. Now, I know just as well as the next person that our appearances are constantly changing, and people are not always accurately represented by the way they look. But teenagers are especially apt to dress the way they feel or dress how they think best represents them. This girl's willingness to surrender an important, although superficial, aspect of her personality and therefore call into question her sense of identity and self bothers me. As human beings it is only natural to be shaped by the way others percieve us, but it's an entirely different thing to let their perceptions DICTATE our behavior.

Whatever. My head hurts, so I am going to go lay down and watch Nightshift.

Hungry Hungry Buddha

2007-05-05T08:46:00.000-07:00

May 2nd was Vesak, the "official" Buddha Day or whatever you'd like to call it. It was established by the World Fellowship of Buddhists in 1950 as Guatama's holiday, celebrating his birth, enlightenment, and death. It follows the astrological calander and supposedly corresponds to those three events in some way, but that, like everything else, is up for debate. Either way, I decided to celebrate it by fasting this week. To clarify, I haven't fasted much and in retrospect this was more serious than I anticipated (though nothing compared to gross Buddha fasting ). I decided that I wouldn't eat anything all week, but that I would drink normally as long as it wasn't a protein shake or smoothie or something. I really wanted to do this because I think it's easy for Buddhists (or anyone) to say that they're practicing the middle way without having experienced the extremes of what they're doing. That is to say, you don't have to get strung out on blow then go coldturkey to decide that maybe you should only have a beer or two every weekend. I just mean that it's very easy for us to say we will eat moderately when most of us only have experience with OVEReating instead of UNDEReating. Buddha, as the above hyperlinked image shows, was supposedly an ascetic for a period of several years and became positively skeletal before deciding that this probably wasn't conducive to, oh I dunno...living? So I just thought it would be an important experience for me to actually feel HUNGRY for once. Herman Hesse's Siddhartha is also one of my favorite books, and he talks a bit about fasting. So I gave it a shot!

I hadn't been that hungry over the weekend so I didn't end up eating a big meal Sunday night to tide me over for the first day. I got hungry and I found it tempting to want to snack a little. I drank plenty of water and, all in all, it wasn't that different from a normal day. I started drinking a Vitamin Water each morning and really, things didn't go that badly. I found that if I kneeled down and stood up I had pretty bad headrushes, almost to the point of not being able to see for a few seconds, and I was fatigued by the third day. I also discovered that I eat, atleast sometimes, out of boredom. I'm in pretty good shape, and at 5'6" and 120 lbs it's not like I have a lot of body fat to subsist off of, or that I'm a lazy bum . I would think, "I wanna eat some pizza and play video games" when pizza really didn't have anything to do with playing video games. I wanted to go some place to eat and hang out with friends or go on a date to lunch even though I wasn't that hungry. I wanted to eat out of habit, not necessity.

I think, especially nowadays, we tend to say/believe that we are hungrier than we actually are. It's three hours after breakfast and suddenly we're "starving". A friend of mine once said this while taking a group of Ethopians on Foreign Exchange for a tour around Burlington and they were really offended. Food is fuel, not necessarily an indulgence. While I enjoy the way a lot of foods taste, all too often we fall prey to the avarice of wanting that taste so much that we overeat, or eat when we don't need it. From now on I'm really going to try eating only as much as I need to stay comfortable and healthy. I don't mean I'm only going to eat Blandbrand Nutra Wheat Health Cereal and Powerbars, or tasteless gruel. I'm just going to stop reaching for food every time I can't think of something better to do.

**As a side note, after having a bagel and cream cheese to break the fast I ended up getting REALLY sick and booting. I'd advise anyone thinking of doing something similar to eat a little something each night, like maybe a small bowl of oatmeal or something. Otherwise you might get really sick like I did. Oh, and thanks to http://www.bustedtees.com/ for the above image. It's from one of their many hilarious t-shirts.**

The Life Of Flies

2007-04-25T19:30:00.000-07:00

Some time ago I used to frequent a certain online Buddhist forum *cough E-Sangha cough*. While there are certainly some people on the net that have genuine knowledge and experience to share, the majority of people tend to be Buddha-Freaks or just dogma-walking (I'm not trying to be pejorative, it's just the truth). I don't mean that E-Sangha is the only place like this, or even that the Internet is. No matter the situation, we tend to give off an image of how we wish we were, and we want others to buy into that image. The anonymity of the Internet just happens to draw out these extremes in people, or it exacerbates whatever particular insecurity drives us to act like this. Sometimes it just gives us a forum to go wild, where identity is not an issue and conflict is indirect at best.

One particular discussion from E-Sangha stands out in my mind, both because of the person asking the question, and because of how one of the other posters specifically replied. A woman, Jane, posted a heartfelt plea for advice. Her workplace had an issue with flies, especially in the break-room area. She took great offense when co-workers would kill flies, and even more when fly-paper was hung. She expressed fear in speaking up about the issue because she didn't want people to harass her over her spiritual beliefs. Several posters commiserated with her and there was plenty of Sutra quoting. The Metta was everywhere, dude! One particularly sharp poster said, "Miss, someone who goes through such lengths to save the life of a fly would be wise to wonder if she would give up hers to do so?"

It would suffice to say that the woman completely misinterpreted what the poster meant. She replied with something along the lines of how she would endure the oppression of her gestapo-esque employer and co-workers to single-handedly save the flies from their sticky doom. Flabergasted, the poster had to explain what he had meant, that perhaps she should examine her reaction to the situation instead of just the situation and the other people surrounding it.

I think a lot of the time when we're confronted with something that we don't like, we tend to act like Jane. We start hemming and hawing because we feel our toes are being stepped on, but we end up missing the real issue. Namely that the toes we so carefully protect don't really exist. We get offended when someone insults us or questions our competency, but what are they really insulting? Where is that enduring entity that has perpetual pit sweat and a cheese-like odor? Buddha taught that we are merely the sum of our parts, namely the five skhandas: form, feelings, perceptions, impulses towards action/action itself, and consciousness. There is no soul, or personality, or spirit, that continues after death. We just dissolve into our relative parts and they go on their merry way.

Sort of depressing, huh? The media and society paint Buddhism as being sunshine and rainbows, a sort of eclectic new-age fad where anything goes and people are just chock full of loving kindness. But then when you take even a cursory glance at some actual "Buddhist scripture" (har har) it can come off as being really depressing stuff: life is suffering. There is no God. There is no soul. When you die, you rot. Even the whole reincarnation shtick is crap. People have accused Buddhism of teaching that the phenomenal world as we know it is an illusion we create. But any basic understanding of the main tenets of Buddhism will show you that this doesn't even make sense to say. There is no personality or entity that could have created said illusion, just as there is no personality or entity to experience or be fooled by that illusion. The only thing experiencing reality is reality itself. Now that's some quantum shit right there, Douglas.

Bottom line, smokers are smokers, life is life, and flies are flies. They get into the pantry, they can make people sick, and they breed like crazy. Flies can be pretty bad too. But they are just doing what flies are meant to do. They are acting out their fly-ness, for lack of better words. That's exactly what we need to be doing, but with human-ness! While I think it's fantastic that not everyone just hauls off and smacks the buggers, there's such a thing as putting too much thought into it. That fly on the wall is no more your great grandmother reincarnated than you are his reborn great uncle twice removed. I am as sure of this as I am of anything and everything else (read into that however you want). I think the best way to sum up this post, as well as the most Buddhist answer to Jane's quandary, is an anecdote I once heard about the Abbot of the Zen Mountain Monastery in NY. It should be pretty accurate since it was told to me by a friend of his, but take it how you want. It goes like this:

The Abbot was sitting in his office one day when a resident of the monastery informed him that the compost pile out back seemed to have a rat problem, as a few were seen rummaging in it. The Abbot thanked her and said he would handle the matter. Not two minutes later the entire monastery could hear banging sounds out in the composting area. When some of the students ran out to the field they found the Abbot shooting at rats on the compost pile with a pistol. Not even knowing the Abbot owned a gun, one of them shouted, "What the hell are you doing?!"

The Abbot calmly replied, "Shooting rats."

Compassion

2007-04-22T19:12:00.000-07:00

"A chilly emptiness in the water reflected the terrible emptiness in his soul."
-Siddhartha

A short post tonight. Maybe it will be eloquent in its brevity.

As I'm sure everyone knows, there was a particularly violent shooting at Virginia Tech last week. I'll spare you the details, as they're all on cnn. Something that touches me, though, is that it seems a very human reaction to feel empathy for those killed, and the families of those killed. But we're all very quick to forget (or scorn, as the case may be) the killer.

As detestable a thing it is that he did, he is no less a human being. In no way do I condone what he did, nor am I attempting to shift the blame away from him. But I cannot imagine the emotional or mental pain that he must have endured daily to have put him in such a place to kill 31 of his peers and teachers, as well as himself. It is very easy to point the finger, and say that this man alone was a monster and the only one responsible. But every one of us is a steward of this universe and there is not a single event that occurs, large or small, that we don't have a hand in. So as you keep the victims of the Virginia Tech shooting in your thoughts or prayers, consider numbering Cho Seung-Hui among them.

Nü Zen?

2007-02-24T12:36:00.000-08:00

"Nü Metal" is a pretty loaded term among fans of heavy metal. Not that it isn't obvious, but it refers to specific newer metal bands, and came into general use around 1994 (not coincidentally with the release of Korn's first CD). At the time, a lot of people on the metal scene seemed to feel as if the glory days of thrash legends Metallica and Megadeth were coming to an end, and the term was used to refer to a new wave of bands who looked as if they might make metal as popular as it had been. While this did indeed happen, it didn't end up being what most heavy metal fans wanted.

True, nü metal brought a huge audience and helped pull attention away from the church-burnings that Burzum and Gorgoroth (two prominent Black Metal bands) supported/perpetrated. But it also muddied the waters and created a huge division between those who wanted nothing to do with bands like Korn, Limp Bizkit, Linkin Park, and Slipknot and those who sought to bring them under the huge umbrella genre that is heavy metal. Most nü metal music is defined by drop-d tuning, extensive bass lines, and the use of rap or rapcore elements. The division among the metal community has led to a lot of nü metal bands being classified as Funk Metal, Groove Metal, Alternative Metal, and more derisive names like mallcore or rapcore.

The reason I bring all this up is because I see a similar thing happening with Buddhism in my generation. A new "genre" of Buddhism seems to be gaining a lot of footing, especially in America and it seems based mostly in Zen. The reason I think it's drawn some controversy is because some of the folks who really value traditionalism and the more esoteric aspects of Buddhism are getting their panties in a bunch over people like Brad Warner. Brad is the author of Hardcore Zen: Punk Rock, Monster Movies, and the Truth About Reality. He's an ordained Buddhist priest who grew up on hardcore punk. On his website, blog, and in his book, he repeatedly and lucidly equates Buddhism with Punk ideals. His style of telling it straight and to the point, cultural references and jokes included, has garnered him that negative feedback from the aforementioned crowd (old-zen dudes, not nü metal kids).

Personally, I think it's great. Things need to be shaken up. I passed over Buddhism at least twice because any book I picked up was filled with all of these flowery words that sounded pretentious and meant shit to me. If I couldn't understand it, what was the point? Finally I read Brad's book - and it made sense! Not only was it clear and fun to read, but he definitely knows what he's talking about. He doesn't pretend to have all (or any) of the answers, and many of his examples are from experiences in his life that a lot of us can relate to.

While some of the old nü metal bands are starting to lose steam, more and more are replacing them, aided by the prominence of Hot Topics and disenfranchised youths. I'm still a fan of early Korn and Slipknot, and think that Linkin Park's "Hybrid Theory" is one of the most solid albums I've heard. But they aren't true heavy metal. Conversely, I think Brad's version of Buddhism is much closer to what Siddhartha really meant than the majority of what's out there. Hell, it could be that all of these Roshis and Senseis have actually got it right, but damned if I can wade through pages of buzz-words and vague quotes to see what it is they're trying to get at.

I guess the moral-of-the-blog is to quit labeling stuff and look at it for what it is! Names don't mean diddly. What's that maxim about good advice? It grows on the North side of trees? I don't know.