Rev. Danny Fisher

Just a Buddhist Minister Trying to Benefit Beings

Month: January, 2010

January 22, 2010

Push Back Against Justice Department Regulations – Restore the Rule of Law at Guantanamo!

This from Amnesty International:

A Justice Department-led task force recently released its outrageous recommendation to continue holding nearly 50 Guantanamo detainees indefinitely. These actions are in direct violation of civil liberties, human rights, and a Supreme Court ruling in 2008 that confirmed Guantanamo detainees’ rights to habeas corpus.

Call the Obama administration on its recent backsliding in rejecting the rule of law and ask for a new kind of task force – a commission of independent, bipartisan experts to examine, report, and come to their own informed conclusions about the policies and actions related to the detention, treatment, and transfer of Guantanamo detainees.

Send a message to President Obama and your Congresspersons here.

January 22, 2010

The Khenpo Tsultrim Gyamtso Rinpoche Blog

This via the Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche’s Twitter feed:

This blog shares updates about Khenpo Tsultrim Gyamtso Rinpoche from the Tek Chok Ling nunnery in Boudha, Nepal, where Rinpoche is currenlty residing.

The blog was created and will be updated by Tsepak Dorje, Khenpo Rinpoche’s main attendant.

Check out the new Khenpo Tsultrim Gyamtso Rinpoche blog here.

I previously wrote a biography for Khenpo-la in a past “A Gift of Dharma” post.

January 21, 2010

James Zito’s New Film Inquiry Into the Great Matter: A History of Zen Buddhism is Now Available on DVD!

Our friend and past interviewee James Zito is pleased to announce the DVD release of his new documentary Inquiry Into the Great Matter:  A History of Zen Buddhism.  At the film’s website, James describes it this way:

This film tracks the evolution of Zen Buddhism from its beginnings in the China of the T’ang Dynasty to its transfer to Japan in the 11th century and up to the present day.  In three parts the film examines the growth and development of Zen by profiling the lives of some of its greatest masters who embody and exemplify various important phases in Zen’s  long, illustrious and mysterious history.

1. ZEN BEGINNINGS

The first part looks at the place of Zen within the continuum of Buddhism as a whole examining its origins in China and the beginning of Zen’s transfer to Japan.  In addition to profiling the important Zen masters Eisai, Dogen and Muso Soseki, it also contains an examination of the etiology and aesthetic of the Zen garden.

2. RISE AND FALL

The second part traces the arc of Zen’s golden age in Japan from its steep rise and tremendous growth through its period of aesthetic excess and spiritual  decadence to a period of great destruction and eventual renewal. Here the lives of Japan’s most important masters such as the great Daito Kokushi, the iconic Zen master Ikkyu Sojun and the greatest Zen master of the last 500 years Hakuin Ekaku as well as the humble Ryokan are examined. In addition there are segments examining the role of the tea ceremony in Zen and a look at the evolution and function of Zen art and calligraphy.

3. ZEN COMES WEST

The third part deals with the current state of the Zen Institution in Japan and discusses the current dissemination of Zen to the West.  It also examines how Zen’s core values are being essentialized in their journey to the West and contains an examination of the fundamental role of meditation in the practice of Zen Buddhism.

In a post for elephant journal, I dubbed James’ previous film, Compassion and Wisdom: A Guide to the Bodhisattva’s Way of Life, the best movie I have yet seen about Buddhism.  I’ve seen two parts of the new film, and it’s similarly extraordinary.  Trust me:  this is a film you should see as soon as possible.

Order your copy of Inquiry Into the Great Matter:  A History of Zen Buddhism at http://www.historyofzendvd.com.

FYI:  I have an interview with James appearing in the upcoming issue of Tricycle: The Buddhist Review.  Stay tuned for more on that.

1 comment
January 21, 2010

A Gift of Dharma for 1.21.10

Today’s quote comes from the late Beat poet Allen Ginsberg (1926-1997).

The author of the earth-shattering work Howl and Other Poems and Kaddish and Other Poems, Michael Schumacher describes him this way:

Renowned poet, world traveler, spiritual seeker, founding member of a major literary movement, champion of human and civil rights, photographer and songwriter, political gadfly, teacher and co-founder of a poetics school. Allen Ginsberg (1926-1997) defied simple classification.

Poets are commonly known only within their circles of readerships but like Walt Whitman, Ginsberg’s name was recognizable to millions who had never read so much as a single word of his poetry. Like Whitman, the foundation of Ginsberg’s work was the notion that one’s individual thoughts and experiences resonated among the masses. “It occurs to me that I am America”, Ginsberg wrote, and while the statement was intended to be humorous, it also illustrated his idea that democracy begins with the raising of a single voice. At the height of his celebrity, Allen Ginsberg was, arguably, as symbolic of America — or at lease a large segment of the country — as anyone.

As I mentioned in a recent post about the upcoming Ginsberg biopic Howl, his contributions to the development of Buddhism in America in the last 75 years were substantial.  After studying Krishnaism and traveling through India, he become a devoted student of Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche after meeting him randomly on the street in New York City. Along with fellow Beat writer Anne Waldman, Ginsberg founded the Jack Kerouac School for Disembodied Poetics at Naropa University (my graduate alma mater) in 1974. He was also the basis for the character “Alvah Goldbook” in his friend Kerouac’s much-beloved “novel” The Dharma Bums. For more on Ginsberg and his extensive relationship with the Buddhadharma, take a look at Tony Trigilio’s Allen Ginsberg’s Buddhist Poetics and Michael Schumacher’s Dharma Lion: A Critical Biography of Allen Ginsberg.

This is the quote–his memorable response to the question “Is there any cause for optimism?” for Tricycle: The Buddhist Review for their Fall 1995 issue (vol. 5, no. 1):

    Well, personally, yeah. Everybody’s got a life to lead and they’ve got a bodhisattva tendency, everybody wants to do good, so I just think on a personal level, yeah. On a larger scale, there doesn’t seem to be any hope unless compassion becomes a more widespread important teaching on how to live. Compassion to self and others.
2 comments
January 20, 2010

A Gift of Dharma for 1.20.10

Today’s quote is another from the Kagyu master Ringu Tulku Rinpoche–one of my old Naropa University profs, whom I previously quoted and wrote a little bio for in this post.  This is it:

From a Buddhist point of view, compassion is the most fundamental thing, the most fundamental practice. As His Holiness the Dalai Lama often says, ‘I have just one simple religion, and that is ‘kind heart’. There’s nothing else but that.’

That’s really a very Buddhist way of thinking. If there is a kind heart, if there is compassion, then it’s OK. If there is no kind heart, no compassion, then it’s not OK. We appear to judge a person by whether he is positive or negative, or whether any practice, any work, any action, is positive or negative. But we are really judging a person by whether he has compassion or not. And this is not only a Buddhist point of view: different paths, different religions, different doctrines, look to see whether there is compassion or not. If something is based on compassion, it’s OK. Even if your view is completely different, even if your philosophy is totally different, it’s still OK. But if there is no compassion, then whatever you say, however high, however profound, that view, philosophy or doctrine maybe it is not OK. That’s the Buddhist way of putting it.

That’s why His Holiness the Dalai Lama often says that his religion is kind-heartedness. This is what we try to develop. Because we know that it is not very easy to generate and to maintain, we usually express this bodhicitta, this compassion, in the form of a prayer.

We pray that those who do not generate this bodhicitta, may generate it, and that it may not degenerate in those in whom it is present. And that it may increase. We make this prayer a kind of practice in itself, to try to generate compassion with good- heartedness. Then we try to maintain that, not let it be overpowered by other ways of thinking or emotions or influences, and we try to increase it.

In order to generate it, it is important to understand what it is and to understand the value of it, the importance of it. That’s why there are lots of teachings.

I have been told that you have been given lots of recommended reading, such as the ‘Bodhicharyavatara’ and the chapter on compassion in ‘Words of my Perfect Teacher’, and so on. Maybe you know much more than I do! I don’t remember any of those books at the moment! The first thing is to understand the importance of compassion.

[...]

[It is] the most important thing for my own welfare, for my own good; for the good of society; for the good of the people of the world; for the good of everybody, all sentient beings. And if we want welfare and happiness and peace and survival in a nice way, there is no other way but to generate compassion and to generate a culture of compassion. That is what we need to understand.