2010 February 21 « Rev. Danny Fisher

Stephen Prothero Writes about “A Buddhist Moment in America” for USA Today

At USA Today today, Boston University prof and Religious Literacy author Stephen Prothero reflects on Tiger Woods’ media statement this week as “a Buddhist moment in America.” He writes:

From President Grover Cleveland, who likely fathered a child out of wedlock, to Ted Haggard, who resigned as president of the National Association of Evangelicals after allegations that he had sex with a male prostitute, our politicians and preachers have bowed and scraped in Christian idioms. Jimmy Carter spoke of “adultery in my heart.” Jimmy Swaggart spoke of “my sin” and “my Savior.” In any case, the model derives from evangelical Christianity — the revival and the altar call. You confess you are a sinner. You repent of your sins. You turn to Christ to make yourself new.

Woods was caught in a multimistress sex scandal after Thanksgiving. In January Brit Hume, channeling his inner evangelist on Fox News Sunday, urged Woods to “turn to the Christian faith.” “He’s said to be a Buddhist,” Hume said. “I don’t think that faith offers the kind of forgiveness and redemption that is offered by the Christian faith.” Woods in effect told Hume Friday thanks but no thanks.

[...]

There are all sorts of lessons, moral and otherwise, to learn from the Tiger Woods affair. One important one is that American citizens take all sorts of paths to ruin and redemption. Christianity has no monopoly over either hypocrisy or saintliness.

In calling Woods to Christ in January, Brit Hume imagined that there was only one way to fall, and only one way to be redeemed. In his statement on Friday, Woods intimated that he fell not because he wandered away from Christ but because he wandered away from the Buddha. Equally important, he suggested that the way forward, at least for him, is through the teachings of a man who, two-and-a-half millennia ago, sat down beneath a Bodhi tree in north India and saw through the illusions of endlessly craving after the next new thing. You don’t need to be a Buddhist to say “Amen” (or “Om”) to that.

Read the whole thing here.

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A Gift of Dharma for 2.21.10

Today’s dharma quote is yet another from the Vidyādhara, Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche (1939-1987), whom I first quoted and wrote a little bio for here. It’s from The Collected Works of Chögyam Trungpa, Volume Eight, pg. 411-412 (via the Chronicles of Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche):

When we talk about conquering the enemy, it is important to understand we are not talking about aggression. The genuine warrior does not become resentful or arrogant. Such ambition or arrogance would be simply another aspect of cowardly mind, another enemy of warriorship in itself. So it is absolutely necessary for the warrior to subjugate his own ambition to conquer at the same time that he is subjugating his other more obvious enemies. Thus the idea of warriorship altogether is that, by facing all our enemies fearlessly, with gentleness and intelligence, we can develop ourselves and thereby attain self-realization.

Robert Thurman on “Why Tibet Matters So Much”

It’s at The Huffington Post.

Leonard Cohen to Be Inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame

The BBC reports that Leonard Cohen will be inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame this summer. Mr. Cohen is a Zen practitioner and sometimes-monk who has lived off-and-on at the Mt. Baldy Zen Center in Mount Baldy, CA. His ordination name, Jikhan, means “silence.” Congratulations, sir.

February 21, 2010

“The Mekong: A River And A Region Transformed”

This from NPR:

On a 3,000-mile journey from the river’s source on the Tibetan plateau to its mouth at the South China Sea, NPR’s Michael Sullivan and photographer Christopher Brown examine the turbulent history and uncertain future along the Mekong.

Watch and listen here.

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