Reverend Greg

Musings on the brink of a new year

It’s not easy being Buddhist in a Western society. I ponder this often as I look around at the plethora of Western Buddhists groups, journals, websites and mostly I see Westerners working hard to not be Christian.

It’s natural. There are majority and minority religions in every society.

I’m a Nichiren Buddhist - I am one of those “chanting for stuff” Buddhists.

We catch a lot of flack from other Buddhists who don’t think chanting for stuff is real Buddhism. It’s natural I suppose. Fact is after 20 years of being a Buddhist I’m no more sure of just what it is to be a Buddhist than I was before I became a Buddhist. It’s been easy for me compared to others though, my family wasn’t significantly religious so I had little baggage to offload when I “converted”.

Converted is a weird word for changing or acquiring a new religion, isn’t it? Maybe “upgrading” is better - no, not really. Upgrading means I’m getting something better than before. Well, it was an upgrade for me anyway. As a human being I think often in terms of value judgment. It’s only natural I suppose.

Many people to whom I speak about religion and Buddhism ask me the same questions, questions that appear to be based on the Western perception of how a Buddhist is suppose to behave.

“Are you vegetarian?” some ask…

“No, not really. I mean I hunt and kill stuff, but I don’t eat it, I just leave it lay where it dies” I have replied on occasion. That specific reply usually ends the conversation uncomfortably. People who ask these questions don’t think a Buddhist should employ sarcasm. Anyway, I don’t really hunt.

“So you’re really peaceful, huh?” Buddhists are suppose to be peaceful. Often I am tempted to remind them of the Sohei, the Buddhist Warrior Monks of Mt. Hiei and the havoc they caused in ancient Japan. Peaceful is a value assigned to Buddhism by a modern Western audience. A true Buddhist may dismiss the Sohei as mere mercenaries, but any Buddhist group could be dismissed for one reason or another.

“Do you watch TV?”, “What do you think of the Dali Lama?” “Is that why you have no hair?”

As a martial artist I fit the image of a Westerner converted to Eastern tradition much more satisfyingly than as a Buddhism Minister. Those people who ask those questions loose interest quickly. I fear they are only interested in the fashion of Buddhism and truly there is much fashion to be found in the Western Buddhist world. Clothes, statues, incense, special everything - bells, CD’s, DVD’s, brainwave machines and an unending supply of seminars by Buddhist Masters.

“Are you non-materialistic?” they ask.

I saw a groups of non-materialistic Buddhists once. A pod of them actually. As I watched them I was able to answer many of the questions I had regarding Buddhists and Buddhist life. I don’t know how many there were, maybe four or five, but they were swimming playfully close to the shore of the Monterey Bay beach. I watched the dolphin pod for a half hour before they finally swam too far out to be seen clearly. Of course a Christian may argue that the dolphins may be Christian and not Buddhist. Such an argument is only natural.

Stripping away the culture from the Buddhism is difficult. There’s so much culture, so much cultural fashion in Buddhism and so much human history. To most people, and most Buddhists the fashion is the Buddhism. Pictures of Westerners dressed in Asian and Indian ethnic Buddhist costumes is really impressive to most. It makes one think that these persons have worked hard to earn the right to wear clothes so sacred, or perhaps clothes that are quite common in another Country - I don’t know… It seems unnatural somehow.

We Western Ninjas wear the split-toe tabi shoes when we train. One model for out of doors, another cloth soled design for indoors. Fact is, in Japan the split-toed design is an ordinary and common design, evolving from ancient footwear. Anyone outside of Japan looks at these shoes and thinks NINJA. In Japan, farmers and construction workers wear them routinely.

This same principle exists throughout the clothing fashions of Buddhism. Costumes are very powerful, regardless if they really are the common dress of some other culture. Uniforms are something our culture expects to be given, or issued by an authority, such as the military. One is given or issued a uniform when they join or swear allegiance to a group. This is the general perception of Buddhist costumes I believe. In reality costumes are as often purchased from Ebay. “Did your sensei give you your robes?”, “nah, I got them in a second-hand store in Santa Cruz California”. How disappointing.

So how do we truly live as Buddhists, and not merely consumers of Buddhist fashion? This has been my burning question for some time now. Certainly there are many answers, but the most important benefit should be FREEDOM.

Living free, free from power, power from outside and inside, certainly must be an integral component of living a Buddhist life.

Back in the old days in NSA, Nichiren Shoshu of America, being a Buddhist meant you had to chant and perform Gongyo twice a day, no matter what. To miss or neglect gongyo (recitation of the Lotus Sutra, chanting of Nam myoho renge kyo) was truly a crisis. I myself recall the desperate feelings that if I neglected gongyo even once I would begin to lose my Buddhist faith.

Missing a discussion meeting was also very serious. If a member missed a discussion meeting we devoted Buddhist leaders would begin to lament that the member had gone “taiten” and had abandoned their faith. Missing a meeting was a fine way to get lots of great phone-call attention.

Looking back there were many serious flaws in the way we thought about our Buddhism. I often wonder how many serious and devoted NSA members actually applied their chanting practice to their OCD, or obsessive compulsive disorder. A OCD would have made a wonderful NSA Buddhist. I would think that with such an enthusiastic and consistant practice they would be promoted up the leader chain quickly.

I recall a very senior leader whom I worked with in the same company for many years would often mention, pridefully, that he had never missed a gongyo in his twenty-something year practice. It was interesting to me that before he relocated in our company and moved out of state he had divorced his wife, seemingly without regret, and had no plans to regularly visit his two young children.

I know he had made his wife solely responsible for raising their kids. The final time I heard him mention his decades-long gongyo victory at a meeting, I could only think to myself “yeah, but how many times did your wife miss gongyo while being responsible for your family?”

It’s difficult. We do the very same things, for very different reasons.

That which made us free one day, becomes our prison the next….

It’s only natural…

Rev. Greg Dilley

Posted by revgreg at December 28, 2005 05:06 AM