Rev. Danny Fisher

[This post has been expanded as of 3.5.2007.]

Jeff Wilson is a contributing editor to Tricycle: The Buddhist Review and author of The Buddhist Guide to New York. A doctoral candidate in religious studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Jeff is also a certified lay teacher in the Jodo Shinshu Buddhist tradition.

His articles and reviews have appeared in Buddhadharma: The Practitioner’s Quarterly, Killing the Buddha, U.U. Sangha, the Journal of Global Buddhism, the Journal of Asian Studies, and the Journal of Buddhist Ethics.

Jeff has also contributed pieces to some very cool books, including Kate Wheeler’s Nixon Under the Bodhi Tree and Other Works of Buddhist Fiction and Sumi Loundon’s The Buddha’s Apprentices: More Voices of Young Buddhists

In addition to all of this, he is the author of two blogs–one for Tricycle and one for the American Buddhist Studies Center.

I met Jeff in the summer of 2001 at a New York City conference sponsored by Tricycle, and we have maintained a friendly correspondence ever since.

Jeff very kindly took time out of what sounds like quite a busy schedule to answer some questions via e-mail.

---

DANNY FISHER: Jeff, you’ve been very involved with the development of the Unitarian-Universalist Buddhist Fellowship. What can you tell us about the history, practice, and character of U.U.-Buddhism?

JEFF WILSON: I’ll work backwards on your question, because it is probably the character, practice, and history of U.U. Buddhism that are interesting to others, in that order. The character of U.U. Buddhism is probably the most significant aspect of this emerging American form of Buddhism. U.U. Buddhism is highly flexible, providing a wide range of Buddhist resources to the seeker but not insisting that the individual must perform any specific practice or adhere to a particular tradition. I’d say there are some specific trends in U.U. Buddhist thought that we can identify. First, it tends to emphasize interdependence and connections with ecological awareness and Earth-honoring spirituality, which is a Buddhist application of the Unitarian-Universalist principle: “Respect for the interdependent web of existence of which we are a part.”

Second, it trusts both that each person has their own Dharma door to enter through and that finding and walking your path is best done in relationship with other fellow seekers, which is a Buddhist application of the U.U. principles: “The inherent worth and dignity of every person,” “Acceptance of one another and encouragement to spiritual growth in our congregations,” and “A free and responsible search for truth and meaning.”

Third, U.U. Buddhism displays the liberal religious concern with direct action to improve the social conditions of other people, a Buddhist application of the U.U. principles: “Justice, equity and compassion in human relations,” and “The goal of world community with peace, liberty and justice for all.” Thus you get an engaged Buddhism that respects the individual conscience and appreciates the gift of community.

Liturgically the Heart Sutra and the Metta Sutta are the most popular texts in U.U. Buddhist groups, which I find significant: they are wisdom and compassion embodied, but come originally from separate Asian Buddhist traditions. U.U. Buddhism is a place where multiple streams–Buddhist and Western–are simultaneously honored. At its worst, it has the potential to become a facile buffet-style spirituality. At its best, it provides a way for Westerners to live a fully liberal, American Buddhism that is neither cut off from Western or Eastern religious tradition and balances the practice on both an individual and group level.

Practice-wise, most U.U. Buddhists fit into two loose, frequently overlapping, categories: meditators and students. By meditators I mean people whose main interest in Buddhism is meditation practice, not necessarily performed in a formal Buddhist setting. Zazen is definitely the most common type of meditation performed by U.U. Buddhists, but there is also substantial interest in Vipassana and metta meditation, and to some extent Tibetan techniques as well, mainly Dzogchen, shamatha-vipashyana, and tonglen.

Students are those who are interested in Buddhist concepts and literature, such as interdependence, impermanence, Buddha-nature, and so on. Their main practice in some cases is reading, discussing, and thinking about these ideas and their implications, often with some attempt to live by the Buddhist precepts as well. There are also a smaller but not insignificant number of U.U. Buddhists whose main interest is Pure Land or Nichiren Buddhism.

To counter the tendency in some places for U.U. Buddhism to become too watered down, many people practice both within a more orthodox lineage and with a U.U. Buddhist group. This provides them with the stability of a systematic practice and view, while also giving them access to alternate Buddhist approaches and encouragement to grow as individual Buddhists as their path seems to require.

As for the history of U.U. Buddhism, I can probably tell you far more than you’d ever care to hear. So I’ll try to sum it up in a brief fashion. The historical connections between Unitarianism and Buddhism go back to the beginnings of American contact with Asian Buddhist culture. In 1844 Unitarian Elizabeth Parker Peabody translated the first sutra into English (an extract from the Lotus Sutra), and the Unitarians were instrumental in bringing greater information about Buddhism to Americans throughout the 19th and 20th centuries. One can trace the change in their writings from curiosity to growing admiration and eventual actual practice as time passes. At the same time, Japanese Buddhists were highly interested in American Unitarianism–the first Japanese to visit America in 1843, Nakahama Manjiro, became a Unitarian and influenced an entire generation of Japanese Buddhist reformers, who advanced a sort of Unitarianized Buddhist program in Japan. This partially Unitarianized Buddhism was then exported to the West by Jodo Shinshu and Zen missionaries, completing the circle.

The Unitarian-Universalist Buddhism you’re specifically asking about builds on these earlier threads, but is largely a product of the growth in American Buddhism that followed the lifting of racist immigration laws in 1965 and the “Baby Boomer” quest for alternative religious expressions. In the 1970s you begin to see a few isolated individual [Unitarian-Universalists] proclaiming themselves to be Buddhist without leaving the [U.U.] fold. By the 1980s it starts to look like the beginning of a real phenomenon, as meditation practice appears on church event calendars and some U.U. churches form Buddhist study groups. These were independent groups, just a few people here and there who would attend a U.U. church, discover some like-minded souls there interested in Buddhism, and form a sub-group at the church devoted to sitting practice and study. By the 1990s there were so many of these groups that an umbrella organization, the Unitarian Universalist Buddhist Fellowship, was formed to help steer people toward resources and explore the idea of melding U.U. and Buddhist religious practice. At this point there are well over 100 such groups, about 10% of U.U. churches have them. Beyond the actual practice groups, there are a much larger number of individual [Unitarian-Universalists] who are involved in Buddhism to some extent, from nightstand Buddhists to ordained Buddhist priests.

D.F.: The U.U.B.F. had its first national convocation in 2005. The second will be held this April. Clearly, it’s a growing movement. What does this tell us about the evolution of both Unitarianism and Buddhism in America? What does this mean for the future of both?

J.W.: For Unitarian-Universalism, it is a clear sign that the denomination has largely become post-Christian, and seeks inspiration from multiple sources, including ones that are relatively new to mainstream American religion. This has the effect of both complicating and enriching U.U.-ism, and the effects will probably play out over the entirety of the 21st century.

For Buddhism, it shows the development of fully American forms of Buddhism that are no longer based in one of the traditional Asian streams of Dharma. In a way, even while U.U. Buddhism is affiliated with a specific American denomination–Unitarian-Universalism–it is actually non-sectarian Buddhism. In the same sense that U.U.-ism is post-Christian, U.U. Buddhism is sometimes almost post-Buddhist, a new form of religious practice that emerges from Buddhism but is not constrained by sectarian or orthodox concerns. I don’t know that we’ll see the development of a more rigorous form of U.U. Buddhism–that’s a possibility, but a more likely scenario is that U.U. Buddhism will continue to grow and maintain its status as the meeting ground where different traditions, both liberal Christian and various Buddhist, rub up against each other in innovative and fruitful ways.

A final note on this subject: although many people, such as myself, grew up Unitarian-Universalist, a larger portion of the denomination are people who converted as adults due to dissatisfaction with their religious background. Many [Unitarian-Universalists], for instance, are fleeing negative experiences in dogmatic Christianity, but don’t wish to become unreligious. U.U.-ism provides a place where you have support for your religious journey but that support is not conditional on full acceptance of an externally applied creed. Likewise, I think U.U. Buddhism may serve in the future as a place for larger numbers of people who have qualms about particular Buddhist traditions or organizations, yet wish to remain deeply connected to the Dharma on a personal level. Maybe U.U. Buddhism is becoming the raft to the other shore for people who can’t find a truly comfortable seat on any of the other traditional Dharma vessels already making the journey.

[Another thing that the growth of U.U. Buddhism points to is] how American liberal religionists go about resolving problems they have with their traditions. Unitarianism has a lot going for it but it lacks the contemplative practices that Buddhism offers, practices that are enormously appealing to many people who love U.U.-ism but don’t feel entirely fulfilled in its rather cerebral atmosphere. So bringing in Buddhism provides a way to augment their U.U. path. On the other hand, Buddhism offers tools for personal insight but few of the convert groups in America have a really vibrant congregational life the way most any U.U. church provides. So people who need some socializing with their religion, who want really good religious education for their children, and who appreciate the far greater resouces and infrastructure that most U.U. churches offer for social action work, gravitate toward Unitarian-Universalist churches as a way to round out their spiritual lives. I think it’s this nice synchonicity in terms of each tradition providing precisely what the other is weakest at that is driving a lot of the interest in dual practice.

D.F.: Last year you were interviewed by the New York Times for a piece about the Buddhist Churches of America. In the article, you refer to the “split between converts [to Buddhism] and so-called ethnic Buddhists.” You and Kenneth K. Tanaka and others have done some very fine work dispelling stereotypical notions about these two groups. This seems like an excellent start at reconciliation. What do you think are some other steps American Buddhists can take to deepen their understanding of and relationship to one another?

J.W.: I think the most important thing is for converts to Buddhism to examine their sense of entitlement and superiority. There is an attitude prevalent in many convert Buddhist communities that they are somehow practicing the TRUE Buddha-dharma exactly as Shakyamuni intended it, and that people from Asia are a bunch of superstitious Buddha-worshippers who don’t understand their own religion. The irony is that people with this attitude often know next to nothing about Asian-American Buddhism, have never had any sustained contact with it, and their attitudes tend to come from secondhand sources rather than trying to learn if their prejudices are based in actual facts. It has always amazed me on some level that Buddhists proclaim we are diligently seeking the truth of “things as they are,” yet are often so bad at examining our most entrenched cultural assumptions and uninformed stereotypes of others.

I would say that the number one way that American Buddhists can break down the racial barriers that are so obvious in our communities would be for converts to seek out and practice with and listen to birthright Buddhists. Perhaps attending a sangha that is overwhelmingly non-white once each month for a year (that’s a commitment of only a handful of hours total) would help the average convert to learn an amazing amount about the richness and depth of other Buddhisms, as well as reveal the hidden prejudices, fears, and self-aggrandizement that tends to create monochromatic sanghas.

I put the onus on the converts because they are largely white and middle to upper class, making them–willingly or otherwise–part of the power structure in America, and because in my observation Asian-American sanghas often bend over backwards to help outsiders who come to their temples while converts often have great difficulty accommodating visitors who aren’t from the white middle class. In fact, so-called ethnic sanghas are usually more integrated (though still only partially) than even the best efforts by most convert groups have produced. Put simply, I think the converts Buddhists have more to learn.

I guess the number two prescription for healing some of this would just be to focus on humility and not-knowing. Unless you’ve practiced for some time in a Buddhist tradition other than your current one–Asian-American or otherwise–you can’t really evaluate it or determine its value or authenticity. Better to affirm what works for you and reserve judgment on the Dharma doors of others that you don’t have personal experience with. That means not jumping to conclusions about forms of Buddhism that have nurtured millions but seem unfamiliar from your own narrow perspective on the totality of Buddhism (advice for converts and birthright Buddhists alike). Again, I think the more pernicious attitudes come from the converts, who often look at birthright Buddhists and say: “That isn’t really Buddhism.” Whereas the birthright Buddhists tend to look at converts and say: “Is that really Buddhism too?” Neither side fully understands the other but there’s clearly more self-righteousness on one side than the other, in my observation.

D.F.: If the last question was about intrafaith issues, this one is about interfaith issues… In a post you wrote last year for your Tricycle blog, you talked about the problem of “one temple [having] to do the work of representing a whole kaleidoscopic religion” in the United States, where Buddhism is a minority faith. You went on to say: “One sangha’s health can potentially determine a person’s whole attitude toward Buddhism as a viable personal practice.” You say a bit about the qualities of an unhealthy sangha, but what are the specific qualities of a healthy sangha in this sense? Given the relatively “narrow range” of Buddhism’s public faces in America, how does one sangha responsibly represent “a whole kaleidoscopic religion”? Can one?

J.W.: No, one sangha cannot do this. So the most responsible representation a healthy sangha can take is always to emphasize to outsiders (and insiders too) that it is only one small corner of the Buddhist phenomenon. You cannot understand “Buddhism” by looking at one sangha, no matter how deeply you explore it and how keen your understanding of that one group is. What you’ve come to understand in that case is the functioning of one form of Buddhism in one time and place, not some sort of meta-understanding of Buddhism as a total phenomenon. So again, I’d say a whopping dose of humility is on order for any Buddhist called to represent Buddhism.

As for healthy sanghas, every human institution has its problems but thankfully there are plenty of Buddhist groups that are functioning well and can provide role models. Here are the qualities that I would list of a healthy sangha:

1. People are encouraged to voice their concerns and ideas for the group.
2. The group is not dominated by one person or a handful of people.
3. There is more than one single way to practice or interact with the group.
4. The membership remains steady or grows over time, without too much
   of the “revolving door” phenomenon.
5. People without substantial financial assets are able to participate in the group without feeling marginalized.
6. A range of ages are represented among the membership.
7. Discussion or interaction with other groups by members is permitted.
8. Newcomers are welcomed but also given space to decide for
   themselves if the group is what they are looking for.
9. Members are able to access financial information about the group.
10. The practice and schedule of the group do not make frequent,
    substantial changes.
11. Members are aware that other Buddhist groups may have significantly different practices and ideas than there own, and that Buddhism is an extremely diverse religion.

This is just a rough list. Others could probably do a better job than me, especially if they had more time to discuss it. Note that there are many more things that pertain to the particular type of group under discussion: what makes a large temple with several priests healthy or unhealthy is not necessarily the same as what pertains to a small lay-led group.

D.F.: There is a lot of conversation in the field of Buddhist Studies about the practice and academic study of Buddhism and the appropriate relationship between the two. For me, Charles Prebish expertly sums up the “scholar-practitioner’s” possible dilemma with this rhetorical question from his book Luminous Passage:

If one acknowledges a personal commitment to the tradition being studied, the suspicion that [Jose Ignacio] Cabezon cites so clearly [(the stereotype that critical distance from the object of intellectual analysis is necessary)] is immediately voice; but if one remains silent, how can the demands [Luis] Gomez outlines [(that both Buddhism and Buddhists 'make claims' on the lives and work of scholars)] be fairly confronted? [1]

You’re a scholar, and you’re also a lay teacher in the Jodo Shinshu tradition. What are your thoughts about all of this?

J.W.: These are dilemmas that scholars in many areas confront, not just Buddhologists. Christian scholars, for instance, may have difficulty getting their work taken as seriously if they are open about their faith commitment. At the same time, I do think American Buddhists have a more difficult time of it than many, because Buddhism is relatively new and unfamiliar, and thus there is less trust established that Buddhists can fairly study and discuss Buddhism in an impartial, scholarly manner. Of course, we are talking about the Western situation here: most Buddhologists are Asians operating in their home countries, where they suffer far less suspicion.

In my particular case, I have some advantages because my field of research is not specifically focused on Jodo Shinshu. I’m primarily a scholar of Buddhism in the United States as a broad phenomenon, and my dissertation focuses on a ritual that is in fact rejected by Jodo Shinshu, so most of my consultants are Zen practitioners, or in some cases priests in the Shingon, Jodo Shu, Nichiren, and other traditions. None of my projects so far focus on Shin Buddhism exclusively because I prefer to work on research that cuts across denominational lines and tells larger stories and identifies trends that aren’t confined to one particular sect or group.

But although it is difficult, I do think scholars can do legitimate work on their own religious traditions. At its best, academic training prepares you to ask tough questions and put aside personal attachments. Also, the peer review system means that your colleagues can help point out to you your blind spots and presuppositions. And I hope that Buddhists committed to seeing the truth of things will be able to speak frankly about the worse as well as the best aspects of their tradition. If nothing else, covering over the bad aspects of our traditions just causes them to fester, rather than allowing healthy attention to bring about change in a positive direction. In my opinion, it is in our best interest to be frank about Buddhism–it’s the only way to ensure that we are continually moving away from the problems inherent in human endeavors and toward the best possible performance of religion.

D.F.: Lastly, I don’t really have a question. I’m just sort of curious to hear you riff about Buddhism and the internet. First thought, best thought. How are websites, online discussion groups, blogs, podcasts, and so on affecting Buddhism, especially in America? Are they?

J.W.: Definitely. For one thing, there’s an enormous mass of information available to people that was never so accessible anywhere at any time in the past. That’s leading to far more Americans dabbling in Buddhism, for one thing, and also causing people involved in Buddhism to learn about a relatively wider range of Buddhist traditions. Rather than wait for a monk to hopefully one day travel through your village, people in areas without a nearby temple can just access the web and find a dizzying amount of material about virtually every form of Buddhism. And you can do a little comparison shopping before you settle down into the tradition that’s right for you.

Alternately, the protean nature of cyberspace makes it possible to form relatively non-sectarian (or perhaps pan-sectarian) Buddhist identities. That’s a new development in Buddhist history: up until now people have always been identified with one tradition or another, not just “Buddhism” as a general phenomenon. In fact, this idea of non-sectarian Buddhist identity is totally new and modern–the idea of “Buddhism” as a general phenomenon didn’t exist in pre-modern times. You can’t find that very easily in real life, where virtually all temples are connected to a specific lineage. But online discussion encourages this sort of open-ended Buddhist identity.

At the same time, online forums put severe limits on the types of knowledge that can be disseminated. It is easy to post writings, but rituals, objects, and oral teachings–arguably more important for many Buddhist traditions than sacred texts–are far harder to replicate online. There is a vital richness to real life interactions that probably will never be replicated even with future advances in online technology. That puts a real barrier on the types of Buddhist knowledge that can be accessed through online forums, and distorts Buddhism by recreating it as a mainly philosophical/conceptual tradition, when it is embodied practice that has always been the primary defining orientation of historical Buddhism.

Also, frankly, there is a huge amount of misinformation about Buddhism online. This occurs even on websites devoted to Buddhism. If you just learn about Buddhism through the Web, you’re virtually guaranteed to develop some very skewed ideas that don’t fit the reality of how most real life Buddhist understand their religion.

Last thought on the internet: I think there’s a certain synchronicity between the U.U. Buddhism you first asked me about and Buddhism online. Both provide avenues for people to explore traditions for themselves and to create novel Buddhist identities, without censure from authorities or fear of exclusion from a group. These are hallmarks of a modern Buddhism that is unlike what has come before it in many ways, but characterizes much of the dynamic nature of American Buddhism. That freedom has benefits and risks, but there’s no putting the genie back into the bottle at this point. The Dharma has come west and its presentation and practice are inevitably impacted by the local culture. The individuals and groups that will thrive are those that best manage to strike a balance between tradition and innovation. It is this new middle path that we are all searching for in our myriad different ways.

---

WORKS CITED:

1. Charles Prebish, Luminous Passage: The Practice and Study of Buddhism in America (Berkeley/Los Angeles/London: University of California Press, 1999), 183.