Tag Archives: religion

Thoughts are with Norway

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Simply.Horrific.

It’s easy to despair when something like this happens, when the ugliest of human behavior shows its terrible face, when religious and racial fanaticism explodes in unthinkable violence.

I usually resist despair in such times, with everything I can muster. And yet, right now, I don’t feel up to it. Right now I fear for the future of our species, the future of all beings, the future of my son.

And so, for now, I join the worldwide community of mourners, and I sit with feelings of deep sadness that such hatred exists, occasionally driving men to commit atrocities like this.

Dharma Bums & Me

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If I could point to the main thing that influenced me — a suburb-raised New Jerseyan — at 28 years of age, to leave his poorly-selected temporary home of Los Angeles, California for the greener pastures of the Pacific Northwest, far above all over influences, I’d have to point to Jack Kerouac‘s 1958 novel The Dharma Bums.

This post focuses on just a portion of one sentence from the book, one of the most amazing, gloriously run-on sentences ever written, a sentence that, all by itself, encapsulates the essence of Dharma Bums and its influence on me.

When I first read the book, I was biding my time in the city of angels, all was not terrible, I had some friends, and a good job doing rewarding work coordinating services for the developmentally disabled, I still liked a good party or pub or club as much as anyone, but I wasn’t happy. I never felt comfortable in L.A., never liked the relentless sunshine, never ever felt a kinship with my friend’s Hollywood acquaintances, I longed for something else, but I wasn’t sure exactly what.

And then I read Dharma Bums, Kerouac’s account of his mid-1950s dabbling in Buddhism, dabbling that led him to a brief but influential friendship with Gary Snyder, a friendship that lured him in fits and starts from his urban life of house parties, bars, poetry readings, and jazz clubs and introduced him to hiking and the mountains and ultimately to Snyder’s home state of Washington, where Jack ends up at the end of the book, as a fire lookout atop Desolation Peak in the Cascade Mountains.

In chapter six, in the last half of the sentence mentioned above, Jack describes these journeys thus:

…prowling in the wilderness to hear the voice crying in the wilderness, to find the ecstasy of the stars, to find the dark mysterious secret of the origin of faceless wonderless crapulous civilization.

And that just blew…my…mind.

And it just so happens that right around that same time REI opened their store in Northridge, CA, just north of L.A., and I was so excited I showed up on opening day and I bought my first pair of good hiking boots, and when I wasn’t researching where in the Northwest I would relocate to, I got out of the city every chance I could, hiking in the Santa Monicas and San Gabriels.

And here I am, 18 years later, and to be honest, like Jack, I’m still torn between the culture of the city and the wilderness (though Bellingham is admittedly a more provincial city than Kerouac’s New York, San Francisco, or even Seattle); and that I’ve been working for the last ten years here at Western Washington University, for all its benefits, makes me wonder how much I’m contributing to the perpetuation of our wonderless crapulous civilization.

Back to the The Dharma Bums sentence in question, closer to the beginning:

…colleges being nothing but grooming schools for the middle-class nonidentity which usually finds its perfect expression on the outskirts of campus in rows of well-to-do houses with lawns and television sets in each living room with everybody looking at the same thing at the same time…

Jack Kerouac had hoped that his sojourns in the wilderness and his dabbling in Buddhism would help him transcend the duality he explored in the book, but it didn’t work out too well for him, as the oft-told, excruciatingly sad story of his life played out.

As I continue my own dabbling in Buddhism, here in the region where Jack made his pilgrimage, I think I’ve found a happy mid-point on the the crapulous-civilization and wilderness continuum; no need to escape to the mountains, just visit there from time to time, then come back to town, enjoy a nice meal and a glass of wine, watch a film every once in a while, camp out in a cozy chair and read at a bookstore, while taking regular breaks on the cushion for zazen, and stopping by the Dharma Hall for refuge in the sangha.

Catholic Priests: Hippies seduced us into molesting kids

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That’s essentially the audacious claim made in a recently concluded “5-year study” commissioned by U.S. Roman Catholic bishops.

It is a chillingly unconscionable assertion, a deplorable denial of accountability, even if you do read some placement of blame on the church in the finding that priests were “ill-equipped” to deal with the so-called sexual revolution.

Big questions about the study abound, beginning with:

  • Can we trust a $1.8 million study, half of the cost of which was paid for by the very U.S. bishops who have been blamed for their abhorrent response to the priest child abuse crisis?
  • Who, exactly, paid the other $900,000?
  • Was the methodology of the study sound, particularly the definition of “prepubescent” children as those age 10 and under, which almost too obviously seems an attempt to deflate the number of cases that can be categorized as pedophilia?
  • Was the study peer-reviewed?

Certainly, it’s incredibly suspicious that the study seems to absolve the church of any celibacy, homosexuality, and pedophilia problems. (Of course homosexuality is not a problem, but I suspect that the church doesn’t agree with me on that matter.)

As an aside, the truth is that I don’t consider the church’s celibacy requirement, in and of itself, to be a problem. I of course don’t agree with the church’s views on sexuality, but if they feel that abstaining from sex is an important spiritual practice, that’s fine with me.

The basic failures of the church, in my view, have been their having not adequately prepared prospective priests for a life of celibacy — particularly a life of celibacy amidst a community of sexual people — followed by ongoing support and counseling; their years of denial and resistance to investigating allegations of abuse; and, most egregious, their attempts to cover up incidents of abuse.

Meanwhile, as if the Republicans needed any help perpetuating negative stereotypes of the counterculture of the late 60s and 70s, this study’s findings absolutely feed on and contribute to a rewriting of history that sensationalizes the easy targets of promiscuous sex and drugs, while obfuscating the very democratic challenges to authority, protests of war, promotion of social justice, and the birth of the environmental movement.

Shhhhhhhhhhhh. I’m hunting…abalone?

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So, you know, as I wrote yesterday, just two nights ago I recited the Bodhisattva Vows, which includes the line:

A disciple of Buddha does not intentionally or maliciously kill, and cherishes all life.

Well, I guess I felt like I didn’t have enough ancient twisted karma in my life, so I agreed to go on what may prove to be the most unusual road trip of my life, the main objective of which is to free dive for abalone in the chilly Pacific Ocean waters off the coast of Mendocino, California.

Now, you might say, “Wow, I guess you really must love abalone!” Or, you might even ask, “What the hell IS abalone?”

Well, that rock-looking thing you see in the photo above is an abalone, a marine gastropod mollusk, an edible sea snail, actually, and, the inside of its shell, used for jewelry and inlay on guitars, looks like this:

Also, I’m told, once the insides are pounded for tenderizing and cooked in a particular way, they are one of the most delicious things a human could ever ingest.

Do I particularly like shellfish?

Well, no, not really.

Do I like putting on a wetsuit and diving without an oxygen supply in cold water, fighting the pull of the tide to keep from getting smashed onto the rocky shore?

No, not especially.

Oh, but did I mention that the diving is really just the excuse for a two-day, two-night, all-guy camping and party extravaganza, with legendary music jam sessions around a campfire?

It’s a two-day drive, with a stop in southern Oregon, there and back, and I’ll be on day two of the drive a week from today.

So, will this abalone dive involve the very intentional or malicious killing that, as a disciple of Buddha, I vowed to to refrain from?

Probably.

And yet, when I consider that I will actually be risking my own life in order to take the life of a faceless creature that I will eat for sustenance, the equation gets a little fuzzy.

To be, or not to be…a Bodhisattva?

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So, last night at the zendo, I was present for my first ever Ryaku Fusatsu or Full Moon ceremony, which involves, amongst other things, the recitation of the Bodhisattva Vows and Precepts.

Not to be confused with the formal Jukai ceremony, wherein an advanced Zen student is initiated and given his/her Dharma Name, this was, nevertheless, my first time reciting the Bodhisattva Vows, and I was surprised at my reaction to them.

It begins with repentance, and like the entire ceremony, it’s call and response; every line is read by a lay leader and each line is repeated by everyone else in attendance, and all of it is chanted in a dirge-like monotone:

All my ancient twisted karma
From beginningless greed, hate, and delusion
Born through body, speech and mind
I now fully avow

Ancient twisted karma…that’s intense and foreboding! At this point I was already feeling a bit overwhelmed. Of course, I’d just been sitting and meditating for nearly an hour, and I’m still very much a beginner, and that means that an hour of meditation is equivalent to a brutal mental wrestling match.

Then, after a chant of homage to the seven Buddhas before Buddha and various other sages, we recited the Four Vows:

Beings are numberless, I vow to save them
Delusions are inexhaustible, I vow to end them
Dharma gates are boundless, I vow to enter them
Buddha’s way is unsurpassable, I vow to become it

Now THOSE are some significant commitments! They make my wedding vows seem like pinky promises. How can anyone really be expected to live up to those vows? Isn’t it just a set up for massive guilt?

Moving on, there’s some recognition that keeping these vows could be a rough road, as you recite a kind of list of resources called The Refuges:

I take refuge in the Buddha
I take refuge in the Dharma
I take refuge in the Sangha

Ok, so, I won’t be in this alone, there are clues as to how to proceed, and a community of people (Sangha), who have also take the vows, to support me.

Yeah, that made me feel better, until…

Finally, there was the Buddhist equivalent of the biblical Ten Commandments, the 16 Precepts, which started off with three big-picture items, that, while huge in scale, seemed like common sense and mostly doable:

I vow to refrain from all action that increases suffering
I vow to perform all action that increases awareness
I vow to live for and with all being

But, then we got into the nitty gritty:

A disciple of Buddha does not intentionally or maliciously kill, and cherishes all life
A disciple of Buddha does not steal, and respects the possessions and lifetimes of others
A disciple of Buddha does not misuse sexual energy, and is honest and respectful in mind and action
A disciple of Buddha does not intentionally deceive, and speaks the truth
A disciple of Buddha does not misuse drugs or alcohol, and keeps the mind clear
A disciple of Buddha does not speak of others’ faults, and is understanding and sympathetic
A disciple of Buddha does not praise oneself by criticizing others, and overcomes one’s own shortcomings
A disciple of Buddha does not withhold spiritual or material aid, and gives it freely when needed
A disciple of Buddha does not give vent to anger, and seeks its source
A disciple of Buddha does not speak ill of the Three Treasures (refuges), and cherishes and upholds them

What?! Now I’m a disciple all of a sudden? Where did I sign up for that? AND, you want to boss me around, diss my social enjoyment of alcoholic beverages, tell me what to do in the bedroom, and then ask me not to be angry about it?!!!

Sitting and meditating are one thing. Nothing dogmatic about that. Makes sense purely from a mental health perspective. But, I’ve got a lot of pent up distrust of religion, which explains my reaction to what was otherwise a really beautiful experience.

The chanting was actually quite mesmerizing, soothing even, and the experience of making these kinds of commitments, or at least considering reaching for and making these commitments, in the company of a community of others, was a rather empowering and hopeful one.

In fact, as I read over what I’ve written here, I feel a renewed determination to meet my cynicism head on, to work at a more regular meditation practice, so that I might be better able to brush off those skeptical, critical, sarcastic and angry thoughts, to better able to simply be in the present moment, where all those seemingly monumental achievments are possible.