"If there is a meaning in life at all," psychiatrist and Holocaust survivor Victor Frankl writes, "then there must be a meaning in suffering." As impossible as it seems, we can find this meaning, but it requires deep training.
Great insights as always! I can’t wait for your book to be released.
Question: Is there discussion among Buddhists about non-attachment to historical forms of Buddhism? It always struck me as a paradox that some Buddhists (especially Buddhist converts from non-Buddhist backgrounds) often go overboard in adopting outward forms of historically rooted Buddhist traditions (sometimes I think coming very close to cultural appropriation). It always makes me chuckle a bit when some Buddhist converts introduce themselves with long exotic names, but later you find out their name is actually ‘Gary’ or something really ordinary like that. Lol. They seem to have a deep attachment to form.
How does one practice Buddhism without getting caught up in the “form” of the thing, especially in some branches of Buddhism like Japanese Zen which places a great emphasis on architecture, the arts, brushwork etc. that is very rooted in a very specific form/cultural milieu?
Thanks again for your wonderful insights and thoughtful reflections.
This is a wonderful question, Andrew, and one that I dance with a lot, mostly from two angles which you allude to: 1) racism and cultural appropriation and 2) contrasting views in America and Japan on the role of culture and the arts, and what constitutes knowing.
It can also be useful to parse "historical" or "tradition". Sometimes what's really meant, sometimes subconsciously, is that something feels culturally Asian.
I'm not sure why Americans and Europeans become so easily attached to form--the clothing, the rituals, etc--in Buddhism. I wonder if it has to do with the false sense of acultural modernity that accompanies Whiteness and aculturating to Whiteness. It's so antiseptic si we seek the opposite.
Perhaps it's also because the ways we're raised make us a little numb to nuance, feeling, and ambiguity. There is a reason that here in Hawaii, even we Asian Americans raised on the continent are derogatorily called "kotonk", which refers to the sound that it makes when you knock on our heads (hollow).
The construct of race teaches us from a young age to look for difference at the grossest levels. Seeking to adopt Buddhism, people seem to gravitate to a kind of cosplay that announces and expresses their new beliefs and affiliations. Meanwhile, the actual meaning and realizations are simply very, very hard to grasp.
From the second angle of culture and knowing, Japanese culture has done an amazing thing in turning the arts into ways to the mind/body/heart. And they each contain a kind of koan: to completely subsume yourself to the form in order to master it and transcend, or throw away, the form. So there is a place for adhering to form in these arts, if only to transcend it.
One thing I am also thinking about these days is how Jodo Shin Buddhism has been a completely lay sect for several hundred years, whereas others are still only in the first, second, or third generation of taking forms and practices for monastics and professional priests and trying to apply them to lay life. A lot of the more esoteric forms of Buddhism make sense in a monastic setting, but they are terribly awkward and out of place in regular life. Jodo Shinshu is in contrast very well adapted for everyone from illiterate peasant farmers to kings. These same people often struggle to name what feels Buddhist about their lives versus just culturally Japanese. There's something in there about the role of culture as a way of living the dharma, and also how this kind of innate, unnameable knowing is dismissed as being if lesser value by our intellectually driven Western culture. I am still figuring it out.
Thank you again for the chance to engage with this question! It is one of my favorites.
I should also add that I have a profound respect for the various Buddhist traditions that have evolved over the centuries. I also have no right to judge anyhow. Hope I didn’t come actoss that way. Personally, I have a deep attraction to the traditions and aesthetic of Japanese Zen, but I have a hard time reconciling my deep love and attraction to Japanese Zen with the Buddhist reminder that "Form is emptiness and emptiness is form". How does one reconcile the two?
Great insights as always! I can’t wait for your book to be released.
Question: Is there discussion among Buddhists about non-attachment to historical forms of Buddhism? It always struck me as a paradox that some Buddhists (especially Buddhist converts from non-Buddhist backgrounds) often go overboard in adopting outward forms of historically rooted Buddhist traditions (sometimes I think coming very close to cultural appropriation). It always makes me chuckle a bit when some Buddhist converts introduce themselves with long exotic names, but later you find out their name is actually ‘Gary’ or something really ordinary like that. Lol. They seem to have a deep attachment to form.
How does one practice Buddhism without getting caught up in the “form” of the thing, especially in some branches of Buddhism like Japanese Zen which places a great emphasis on architecture, the arts, brushwork etc. that is very rooted in a very specific form/cultural milieu?
Thanks again for your wonderful insights and thoughtful reflections.
This is a wonderful question, Andrew, and one that I dance with a lot, mostly from two angles which you allude to: 1) racism and cultural appropriation and 2) contrasting views in America and Japan on the role of culture and the arts, and what constitutes knowing.
Please do check out this article I originally wrote for Tricycle Magazine a few years ago, btw: https://tricycle.org/article/asian-american-erasure-buddhism/
It can also be useful to parse "historical" or "tradition". Sometimes what's really meant, sometimes subconsciously, is that something feels culturally Asian.
I'm not sure why Americans and Europeans become so easily attached to form--the clothing, the rituals, etc--in Buddhism. I wonder if it has to do with the false sense of acultural modernity that accompanies Whiteness and aculturating to Whiteness. It's so antiseptic si we seek the opposite.
Perhaps it's also because the ways we're raised make us a little numb to nuance, feeling, and ambiguity. There is a reason that here in Hawaii, even we Asian Americans raised on the continent are derogatorily called "kotonk", which refers to the sound that it makes when you knock on our heads (hollow).
The construct of race teaches us from a young age to look for difference at the grossest levels. Seeking to adopt Buddhism, people seem to gravitate to a kind of cosplay that announces and expresses their new beliefs and affiliations. Meanwhile, the actual meaning and realizations are simply very, very hard to grasp.
From the second angle of culture and knowing, Japanese culture has done an amazing thing in turning the arts into ways to the mind/body/heart. And they each contain a kind of koan: to completely subsume yourself to the form in order to master it and transcend, or throw away, the form. So there is a place for adhering to form in these arts, if only to transcend it.
One thing I am also thinking about these days is how Jodo Shin Buddhism has been a completely lay sect for several hundred years, whereas others are still only in the first, second, or third generation of taking forms and practices for monastics and professional priests and trying to apply them to lay life. A lot of the more esoteric forms of Buddhism make sense in a monastic setting, but they are terribly awkward and out of place in regular life. Jodo Shinshu is in contrast very well adapted for everyone from illiterate peasant farmers to kings. These same people often struggle to name what feels Buddhist about their lives versus just culturally Japanese. There's something in there about the role of culture as a way of living the dharma, and also how this kind of innate, unnameable knowing is dismissed as being if lesser value by our intellectually driven Western culture. I am still figuring it out.
Thank you again for the chance to engage with this question! It is one of my favorites.
I should also add that I have a profound respect for the various Buddhist traditions that have evolved over the centuries. I also have no right to judge anyhow. Hope I didn’t come actoss that way. Personally, I have a deep attraction to the traditions and aesthetic of Japanese Zen, but I have a hard time reconciling my deep love and attraction to Japanese Zen with the Buddhist reminder that "Form is emptiness and emptiness is form". How does one reconcile the two?
Always insightful reading!