Burma’s 2010 Election
This via the U.S. Campaign for Burma:
Rev. Danny Fisher
Just a Buddhist Minister Trying to Benefit Beings
Month: March, 2010
March 28, 2010
Lama John Makransky’s “Buddhist Reflections on Theological Learning and Spiritual Discipline”
In the latest issue of the American Academy of Religion’s Religious Studies News, the great Lama John Makransky, who is associate professor of Buddhism and comparative theology at Boston College, senior advisor to Kathmandu University’s Centre for Buddhist Studies in Nepal, and co-Chair of the Buddhist Critical-Constructive Reflection Group in the AAR, offers his “Buddhist Reflections on Theological Learning and Spiritual Discipline.” Here’s a sampling:
When I teach courses on Buddhism in Boston College, a Catholic university, I try to show many connections between doctrine and practice not just to help students understand Buddhist traditions but also to point them toward analogous integrations of thought and spiritual practice in Christian traditions, and perhaps in their own lives. When Indian and Central Asian Buddhism first began to take root in China in the early centuries CE, most Chinese did not become formally Buddhist, but many took an interest in Buddhist resources to help them reexamine what it means to be a Chinese person, which they understood in broadly Confucian terms. I sense a similar historical moment now in the Western academy — many Christians, Jews, and others are seeking in Buddhism the means to reintroduce themselves to their own spiritual lives and traditions in light of the Buddhist emphasis on connecting philosophical reflection to spiritual discipline.
Pedagogically, I try to help students discern connections between doctrine and practice in three ways: 1) Through lectures and readings that point out relations between Buddhist doctrines and spiritual practices, including ritual, ethical, meditational, psychological and analytical practices; 2) Through studying various manuals of Buddhist practice to see how doctrines are integrated into each element of spiritual discipline; and 3) Through class exercises, adapted from philosophical and meditative traditions of Buddhism, to provide some experiential light on connections between thought and practice.
Read the rest here.
March 27, 2010
A Gift of Dharma for 3.27.10
Today’s quote is from Cheng Yen, the great Taiwanese Buddhist nun, socially engaged Buddhist icon, and founder of the philanthropic Tzu Chi Foundation. This is it:
Before we learn Buddhism, most of us have wandering minds which lead us to evil thoughts. As soon as we start cultivating our Buddha nature, we need to work diligently to develop appropriate attitudes and methods within ourselves. Our attitudes are of utmost importance; evil thoughts should be eradicated completely as soon as their ugly faces come to mind.
In our daily lives, we cannot get away from all manner of people, places and things. We need to deal with these daily encounters with a steady heart that treats even extraordinary events as if they were commonplace and that loves everyone as equals. Human beings interact with each other through both verbal and body language. In this manner, our words and our attitudes communicate our thoughts. The standard we want to set for ourselves is to be gentle and kind in our words and to always embody a congenial and generous attitude. Of course, we often meet people who speak to us rudely and treat us with little or no respect. Nevertheless, we still need to maintain our own self-dignity and not lower our behavioral standards under any circumstances.
Our goal is not to ask others to change themselves; likewise, our goal is not to inventory their weaknesses. It is wrong to take the words other people let slip out unintentionally and use them to build self-justified resentment and hatred inside ourselves. It is also not worthwhile to feel hurt or angry when others speak rudely to us, because they may just have bad habits of communicating and may not really mean any harm whatsoever. There are also people who look cold and uncaring on the surface, and yet have loving hearts buried inside. We need to avoid stereotyping and judging others by their outward apperances.
It is important to be constantly mindful of our own attitudes and behaviors. Among the ever-changing people, places and things in our daily lives, we need to focus our minds on our own cultivation instead of on ego-based emotions of self-interest, such as resentment, hatred, affection and anger. If we find ourselves feeling resentful, we must eradicate the resentment as quickly as possible. No negligence or laziness can be allowed in this constant process of self-monitoring and correction. This, then, is what is meant by putting an end to existing evil.
March 26, 2010
A Gift of Dharma for 3.26.10
Today’s quote is another from the much-beloved Acharya Ani Pema Chödrön, whom I first quoted and wrote a little biography for in this post. This is it:
Idiot compassion is a great expression, which was actually coined by Trungpa Rinpoche. It refers to something we all do a lot of and call it compassion. In some ways, it’s whats called enabling. It’s the general tendency to give people what they want because you can’t bear to see them suffering. Basically, you’re not giving them what they need. You’re trying to get away from your feeling of I can’t bear to see them suffering. In other words, you’re doing it for yourself. You’re not really doing it for them.
When you get clear on this kind of thing, setting good boundaries and so forth, you know that if someone is violent, for instance, and is being violent towards you —to use that as the example— it’s not the compassionate thing to keep allowing that to happen, allowing someone to keep being able to feed their violence and their aggression. So of course, they’re going to freak out and be extremely upset. And it will be quite difficult for you to go through the process of actually leaving the situation. But that’s the compassionate thing to do.
It’s the compassionate thing to do for yourself, because you’re part of that dynamic, and before you always stayed. So now you’re going to do something frightening, groundless, and quite different. But it’s the compassionate thing to do for yourself, rather than stay in a demeaning, destructive, abusive relationship.
And it’s the most compassionate thing you can do for them too. They will certainly not thank you for it, and they will certainly not be glad. They’ll go through a lot. But if there’s any chance for them to wake up or start to work on their side of the problem, their abusive behavior or whatever it might be, that’s the only chance, is for you to actually draw the line and get out of there.
We all know a lot of stories of people who had to hit that kind of bottom, where the people that they loved stopped giving them the wrong kind of compassion and just walked out. Then sometimes that wakes a person up and they start to do what they need to do.
