06.Jul.2012 Not a Religion Twice in One Day

I was walking down Washington St. near Polk a few years back, and passed a small church that had been taken over by the Chinese.  An elderly gentleman standing in front asked me “do you know Jesus?”  My answer was  “do you know Kuan Yin?”

The life of an American Buddhist.  I almost envy this immigrant population who could so easily toss their cultural heritage on the scrap heap to accept whatever was being sold to them as part of “being an American.”  Do they envy me being born into a Christian culture and indoctrinated for 14 years?  Probably they simply envy me being born an American, something like winning the Birth Lottery.  I suppose they wouldn’t envy my 30 years of floating before finding my “true faith.”

14 years old is a long ways back;  late sixties, living in San Diego.  That would be when I read “The Way of Zen” by Alan Watts.  No big transformation or sudden “enlightenment,” just not much interested in going to our Presbyterian Church anymore.  I read more in Buddhism over the next 10 years, but also read through the Bible, the Bhagavad Gita (yes, I had to look up the spelling on that), the Tao Te Ching and most other religious texts that came my way.

It was “The Three Pillars of Zen” by Phillip Kapleau that put me back onto that “Buddhism kick,” as my mother liked to call it.  It was more than a book explaining Buddhist ideas or history.  It was by an American who had truly become a Buddhist.  It spoke to me directly, as I’m sure Roshi Kapleau had intended.  I started a meditation practice in my tiny college apartment and considered traveling to Rochester to train.

“Consider” was most of what I did.  Life not changed, collegiate drinking binges not avoided; just a bit more thoughtful about it all.  It was ten years later that everything fell together at once.  Living in Los Angeles with a career in the traveling entertainment business (OK, I was a Roadie) and a burgeoning cocaine habit, it all changed at once.

I read “Being Nobody, Going Nowhere” by Ayya Khena;  I packed up everything I owned and drove towards Vancouver; I settled in Bellingham, WA because that’s where my car broke down;  I began attending meditation and services at Lion’s Gate Buddhist Priory in Vancouver.

Does that all seem to blend together.  It does in my memory.  I can hardly pick any of the threads out of that time.  I won’t say that Buddhism saved my life.  It was the key to a transformation that other recovered addicts might attribute to Jesus, to Bill W or to the “love of a good man/woman.”  It culminated in taking my Lay Vows at a Ju Kai retreat at Shasta Abbey in Mt. Shasta CA, followed by months of Lay Practice at the Monastery.  I might have stayed.  I didn’t.

All being prelude to today.  By some trick of fate, I was told twice in one day that “Buddhism isn’t a religion.”  Once in the comments of The Friendly Atheist and once while listening to (of all things) Bertrand Russell’s “What I Believe.”  It’s a bit late to argue with Professor Russell, not to mention intellectually intimidating.  I did put up a small fight in the comment section, just to point out that the majority of Buddhists would beg to differ.

Where did this idea come from?  I was once told that the Baptists had started it and it made sense to me.  Instead of converting the competition, make them cease to exist by definition.  But this doesn’t hold up for me.  I find that most of the “Buddhism is just a philosophy” rhetoric coming from Western Buddhists.  Or Western admirers of Buddhism like Professor Russell.  See, for example, Stephen Batchelor’s “Confession of a Buddhist Atheist.”

What’s my opinion?  I am a reverent, devotional, practicing Buddhist.  Whatever I am practicing, it sure feels like a religion to me.  What does Webster have to say:

  1. a : the state of a religious <a nun in her 20th year of religion> b (1) : the service and worship of God or the supernatural (2) : commitment or devotion to religious faith or observance
  2. : a personal set or institutionalized system of religious attitudes, beliefs, and practices
  3. archaic : scrupulous conformity : conscientiousness
  4. : a cause, principle, or system of beliefs held to with ardor and faith

What about that is hard for the “not a religion” crowd to accept:  it’s 1.b(1) “…God or the supernatural.”  So many in the West have broken free or radically departed from Christianity.  They associate Christianity with “God and the Supernatural,” and they have terminated their faith with extreme predjudice.  This is not their fault.  Christianity is an insidious and sticky miasma.  In most cases it takes a great effort to get free after a lifetime of soaking in it.

These people are left empty.  They have a gap that was once filled, what philosophers have called a “thirst for meaning.”  Coming upon Buddhism, they do find meaning and many find peace, but…they will not define what they have found as a religion.  A religion is what they left behind.

As for the many Atheists who wish to claim that Buddhism is not a religion, I can only assume that they want to swell their ranks with a quick semantic trick, while taking millions out of the “opposition.”  I understand.  It’s a lonely world for professed Atheists.  Here in America, they are one of the last “acceptable” oppressed minorities.  We have a constitutional right to “freedom of religion” but no right whatever to freedom from religion.

My experience was different than all of that.  I like religion(s), almost all of them.  I like Cathedrals in Europe, Bach Cantatas, Sufi Poetry, the Tales of Arjuna.  I like silk robes, incense and chanting the Prajna Paramita.  In grandeur and in simplicity, I feel closer to the religious than the mundane.

What about that “God and the Supernatural” part?  Do I believe that the Buddha visited the Tushita Heaven and preached to the Gods?  Do I believe that the Bodhisattvas surround us and answer our calls.  I don’t really know.  When I look for faith or belief my focus slips away from an answer.  That doesn’t keep me from defining my practice, and the practice of millions of others, as a religion.  What else could it be?  One simply doesn’t offer incense and 108 bows to a philosophy.

Well…that was a long way to go, but I guess when an obscure question is so pointedly addressed to you, it must be time to answer it.  Is Buddhism a religion?  YES!

Thanks for reading.  Comment if you like.

 

01.Dec.2011 The Doom of Immediacy and The 10%

HBO Co-President Eric Kessler has some brave words to speak about cord-cutters:

HBO To Cord Cutters: You’ll Never See Our Shows

HBO has thrown its lot in with the Cable and Satellite companies, so it’s no surprise when he carries the party line:

Kessler is undaunted, saying HBO regards cord cutting as a temporary phenomenon that will go away once the larger economy improves.

I’m a cord cutter.  Last year I didn’t exist, according to the Cable companies.  This year, after my non-existent state was predicted to reach 10%, I am a temporary phenomenon.  If any of them asked, I would tell them what I am:  a constant media watcher/listener/reader who has figured out that immediacy is not important.

It started with VCR and then Tivo, ironically offered by Directv for my convenience.  It continued with the realization of how much a night at the ARC Cinema cost me.  It was switched on by Netflix, as my wife and I ran through six or more seasons of CSI and NCIS on the suggestion of friends.  At that point it was easy to drop Directv.  We never watched so why should we pay for it.

What Kessler and other Media Producers are trying hold on to (and monetize) is immediacy; the need to see it now, as it happens.  Their content has always been worth the most on first airing and their job is to wring the most out of it for the next 12 months.  Now, unfortunately for them, these cord cutters and theater avoiders are conceiving a different idea of what the content is worth.  We, the 10% (catchy isn’t it!) are saying “we’ll take the 12 month later value pack please.”

20.Nov.2011 Funding Hate

Update:  Yelp cut my post on Lassens new store in Los Feliz, but apparently they can’t stanch the flood:

Lassen’s Los Feliz on Yelp

Down to 1 and a half stars now.

It started for me with Carl Karcher, founder of Carl’s Jr.  He was a “conservative” supporter of all things hateful.  After hearing about his support of the Briggs Initiative, I never stepped foot in any of his Restaurants.

In 1978, he provided $1 million USD to California’s Proposition 6, also known as the Briggs Initiative. He was the initiative’s biggest financial supporter. The proposition was a ballot measure requiring the termination of all gays and lesbians from employment in public schools. The initiative was defeated by over one million votes.

It was barely even a conscious decision.  I simply didn’t want to be associated with that sort of sickness.  I didn’t make the connection then that I would make now:  by frequenting Carl’s Jr., I was helping supply Mr. Karcher with that $1 million.

Flash forward to today.  I just had my first Yelp review deleted as “not within the guidelines.”  The review was for a new Natural Food Mart only three blocks from me.  It used to be the Nature Mart, but is now a branch of Lassens.  Lassens is a pretend crunchy granola company owned by bigots:

Prop. 8 foes aim their ire at Lassen’s stores

I will never be shopping there, as you can probably guess.  Nor will I be buying any product associated with Koch Industries, assuming that a few pennies from my purchase will be funding the Tea Party and extremely evil pseudoconservative lobbyists.

So…for three decades I’ve been an advocate of awareness shopping.  I’ve never held back from telling anyone who’s interested why I will not purchase certain products or frequent certain establishments.  I’ve waited for a coherent argument against this sort of thing, but nothing’s come up yet.  All I get is:

  • They have a right to their opinion
  • They can spend their money any way they choose
  • you’re not really hurting them – it’s all just symbolic

Sure, probably right on all counts.  So?  In the case of the Lassens donation, it always comes up that they are Mormons, ergo I am somehow impinging on their religious freedoms.  I’m not buying that one either.

I suppose I just wanted to rant for a moment.  I can understand Yelp’s side of things, and my post was not within the stated guidelines.  It still gets under my skin, as it’s the first time I’ve publicly posted on this sort of thing.  It’s out of my system now, so I’ll just go back to not funding hate.