A Fistful of Sand

Contemporary Pure Land Buddhism has come under much scholarly critique over the past two to three decades. This is especially true of the Japanese Jōdo and Jōdo Shinshū presentations. In fact, the entirety of the model of populist Buddhism in its many guises has come under question as to whether they can be accurately called “Buddhisms” at all.   While few take such criticisms of Zen to heart there is open criticism of all of the major sects in the Buddhist world.  Western forms of Buddhism have come under especially intense scrutiny even if they are direct transplants from Asia. It is even the case that some sects do not recognize the validity of those ordained in other sects.  Prior to my ordination  in Sōto Zen my Zen teacher, for example, told me the story that that beginning in 2000 the Sōto Zen headquarters in Kyōto Japan formally complaint to the American Sōto Zen lineage of the San Francisco Zen Center and others that they was not actually...

Illumination or Elimination Many people who go to a formal meditation retreat want to get something. That something might be relaxation, stress relief, a sense of community, simple silence or even some kind of illumination leading to special insight. There are many things to get out of a meditation retreat, but meditation isn’t so much about getting something, not even illumination, as it is about elimination. We are trying to eliminate the sense of self that keeps getting in the way of our happiness. It gets in the way by presenting a huge array of “goodies” for us to attach to: goodies like a happier relationship, better job, more money, a new car, bigger house, a new smart phone, the biggest, best and latest anything. It is little wonder that this world is sometimes called the “Candy Store World” or  Saha  World. The Sanskrit word saha  means endurance and choices we feel we must make among the goodies is often hard for us to bear. Sometimes we attach to the stu...

One of the harshest ironies of life is that practically all people long to live a life of peace and yet we find ourselves entangled in dissonance, involved in relationships rife with tension, pitting one heart against another. Open hostility, backbiting and stress are everywhere we look. This is what the Buddha called dukkha, a fact of life as we experience it in samsara, the wandering from one state of mind to the next. The process of life becomes especially heartrending because we understand that pleasant and convivial relationships are necessary if we are experience our own authentic happiness. Such relationships help us follow the goals we regard as indispensable to our personal contentment and fulfillment without serious commotion. These relationships bring us joy and a sense of complete, valuable and even needed. In marked contrast living in conflict in most often fundamentally painful. In order to protect ourselves we “armor up”. We don’t want to feel the pain; ...