the DharmaRealm

Let’s pick up where we left off; last time we discussed how contemporary Shin Buddhists can make the teachings and practices applicable to modern life, balancing tradition and change. This raises the important question of how one can determine whether or not a particular interpretation of the Buddha Dharma is in line with traditional or authoritative understandings. In short, how can we trust our teachers and Dhrarma friends? Our conversation today covers a lot ground through personal and institutional authority, the importance of education and community, and familiar topics such as the dojo and kalyanamitra.

Prompted by a listener who’s interested in how Buddhist teachings and practices change over time, in this episode we take up the tension between maintaining tradition versus adaptation to new circumstances. Whereas one could argue that we should look to Shinran as the final authority on what the orthodox Shinshu teaching or practice should be, we can also look to Shinran as inspiration, as a thoughtful practitioner who, in his own time, creatively interpreted the tradition to meet the needs of those around him. But how much change is too much? When does reinterpretation so alter the tradition that it becomes something new? And who’s to say what counts in the first place? Who are the authority figures who decide what is and is not an acceptable teaching or practice?

Today we go down the rabbit hole of the Tannisho, the so-called razor text of Shin Buddhism, a text that can cut away misunderstandings, or be extremely dangerous in the wrong hands! Specifically, we’re talking about compassion and the question of whether or not great compassion is even possible. In Chapter Four of the Tannisho, Shinran seems to imply that, due to our lack of true wisdom, it’s extremely difficult, if not impossible, to be compassionate and help other people. But if there’s nothing you can do, why do anything? Shinran and Shin Buddhism push us to ask deeper questions, to challenge feel-good Buddhism and shake up our expectations and assumptions about the path to awakening. We go to some pretty complex places in this one; enjoy! And if you’re interested in reading the Tannisho, one translation is available here.

In this episode, Scott complains about the media! Seriously, though, bouncing from the last episode that dealt with the commodification and commercialization of Buddhism, we now deal with the related issue of media representations of Buddhism and Buddhists. How is Buddhism represented in the media, and what we can learn about Buddhism via these representations? Are they helpful to people in actually understanding what Buddhism about? Similarly, how are individual Buddhists represented? Who isn’t represented in the media and what are the consequences of these representations or lack thereof? We reference Jane Naomi Iwamura’s book, Virtual Orientalism, in this episode which can be found here. And Harry makes reference to a weird Ikea ad that can be found here (and talked about by the Angry Asian Man here).

Someone tried to sell some shoes with an image of the Buddha on them. And, boy, were Buddhists mad about it! This is our jumping off point for a discussion about commercialization and the commodification of Buddhism. Should Buddhists be offended or angry when corporate or commercial ventures try to sell products with images of the Buddha on them? Should Buddhists resist capitalism even in their attempts to spread the Dharma? We want to take these issues seriously and move beyond vague platitudes about non-attachment to really engage the question of what the proper Buddhist response is to commercialization and capitalism. One of the books referenced in this episode is Selling Spirituality: the silent takeover of religion, by Jeremy Carrette and Richard King. And offending shoes that started off this episode can be seen here.

A couple episodes back, we tossed out this idea, off the cuff, of hardcore practice. We finally get to it now, asking directly, what is hardcore Shin Buddhist practice? Of course, this raises the important question of what is Shin practice? What do Shin Buddhists actually do? Is it all the temple stuff, Sunday services, oshoko, retreats, hearing the Dharma, saying the name? Or is it something more? Hardcore suggests something out of the ordinary, maybe participating in an all-night nembutsu recitation. But there’s gotta be more! There’s gotta be something deeper than all of this. Maybe all of this temple stuff supports the real practice, the real hardcore stuff. We get to it, we promise! We get pretty fired up in this episode, so enjoy the ride!

We’ve been inspired. A listener wrote in asking for the basics of Shin Buddhism? Could we do a sort of Jodo Shinshu 101 episode? And we thought, well, we can try. This is a great question and in an effort to help clear up misconceptions and to help folks know more about Shin Buddhism, we’d love to take this on! In this episode, we deal with some of our listener’s questions — what’s the difference between Shakyamuni and Amida? is the Pure Land a real place? — but you can bet we’re gonna revisit this topic. We’re pretty fired up about the idea of doing a series of talks on these and many other questions. So stay tuned!

We pick up our conversation from last time about the attrition problem in American Shin Buddhism, its possible causes, and solutions. This time we focus on our listener’s suggestion that there is an essential anti-institutionalism within Shin Buddhism. We’re on the fence on that one; we want to be cautious about reading too much of our own cultural and historical biases into very different cultural and historical contexts. Was Shinran’s understanding of “institution” the same as ours? Or was he advocating for a completely different kind of community? Of course, we’ve inherited centuries of temple bureaucracy and hierarchy, and it’s absolutely important to be self-critical and question how we do things as an institution. Can we think of new ways to envision Shin community in contemporary America?

A listener wrote in to ask about the problem of attrition in the Buddhist Churches of America (or Jodo Shinshu more generally) and suggested a few possible doctrinal reasons for declining membership including Shinran’s seemingly anti-institutional and anti-ritualistic understandings of Buddhism. Harry and Scott tackle these questions starting with the assumption that membership is declining. It brings up some important sociological questions about who is and who isn’t “a Buddhist” or who is “religious”? (Not to mention how the BCA counts and tracks members.) We also discuss the important question of how Shinran’s doctrinal understandings of Buddhism translate to the motivations behind lay members coming to temple (or not). The question is a good, deep, important one, giving us an opportunity for personal and institutional self-reflection.

Inspired by conversations in our last two episodes, today we discuss creativity, art, and love. What does Buddhism have to say about the creative process? Is it merely a kind of desire? Or attachment? And what about familial and romantic love? (It is almost Valentine’s Day, after all!) Classical Buddhism suggests that we ought to remove all attachment and desires; but the flip side is the compassion of the Buddha, often spoken of in terms of a sort of universalized familial love. Believe it or not, we still find room in all of this to talk about art, music, film, and — of course — Star Trek!

We’re not done with TRON yet! Well, sort of we are. We use TRON — film, art, music, anything really — as a jumping off point for discussing the suspension of disbelief. What is it about our expectations or preconceptions that sometimes get in our way, that keep us from appreciating certain kinds of films? This is a jumping off point for us get into Abhidharma and Yogacara philosophy, to talk about how our perceptions often determine our reality, and how often times we are unable to see things as they are.

We’re going to talk about Buddhism and sci-fi again! Get ready for several episodes about sci-fi, movies, music, the creative process, and Buddhism. In this episode we talk about TRON: Legacy, a movie that probably only the two of us and, like, three other people ever saw. But it’s got specific and explicit Buddhist references. And its star, Jeff Bridges, has said he has a Buddhist practice. Does this make Tron a Buddhist movie? What does it even mean for something to be a “Buddhist” movie? We talk about these issues as well as the specific Buddhist elements in Tron, the creative process, Buddhism, art, and music.

Inspired by a listener question, we explore some of the superficial similarities between Pure Land Buddhism and the monotheistic religions. After considering the difficulty of really knowing the historical origins of Mahayana Buddhism and Pure Land Buddhism, let alone what sort of connections may have existed between South Asia and the Near East, we think about the idea of universalism between religions. What lies behind this longing to see similarities between religious traditions? What is our attachment to the idea of a universal religious Truth? Can we live in difference with other traditions, or even other Buddhists? All this and more in this episode!

It’s been six months since our last episode. Where’ve we been? What did we do all summer? Now that we’re back in the “studio,” we recap some of the stuff we’ve been working on and promise to release new episodes this fall. After a short chat about what it’s like to be a professional Buddhist, we talk about some of the projects we’ve been working on including research on Buddhism and the media and encounters between East and West. We want to encourage our listeners to keep sending us their questions, and keep listening for new episodes soon!

Hey! This is our fiftieth episode! This week, we take up our conversation from last time about aspects of American culture and their intersection with Buddhism — this time, talking about freedom. What does freedom mean in an American context? And how is this more political understanding different from or similar to soteriological concerns of freedom from samsara in Buddhism? This conversation leads us into the murky waters of the “happiness industry” and the growing connection in America between Buddhism and happiness. We argue that Buddhism challenges us to go beyond simplistic dualisms between happiness and sadness and critically examine our own selves and our own lives. This sort of radical honesty leads to being truly human. We wrap things up with a discussion of the importance of being critical of own’s own cultural baggage (no matter where that baggage comes from) and being open to having a true dialogue between Buddhism and American culture.