Tag Archives: Buddhism

BOOK REVIEW: The Novice by Thich Nhat Hanh

Posted on by
2

The Novice: A Story of True LoveThe Novice: A Story of True Love by Thích Nhất Hạnh

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Amazon page

The Novice is the retelling of a Vietnamese folk tale about a young monk who is repeatedly wronged, but who always does the virtuous thing. As I read this book, I thought the story seemed familiar, and I realized that I read the same story as The Martyr by Ryūnosuke Akutagawa. Akutagawa does a much better job of story building. The Japanese writer doesn’t reveal to the reader that Lorenzo (his novice and the equivalent of Thich Nhat Hanh’s Kihn Tâm) is a female until the end—thus definitely resolving the claim that the young monk fathered a child out-of-wedlock and in contravention of vows f0r the reader at the same time as the characters in the story learn it.

Thich Nhat Hanh tells us that the novice is a female at the beginning, and he does so via backstory that serves both to give justification for why Kihn Tâm chooses to disguise herself and become a monk and to pile onto the injustice. We learn that Kihn Tâm’s female alter ego had been married, but the marriage ended with a false accusation of attempted murder of her husband. This backstory probably isn’t worth the drag for either of the aforementioned purposes—but the former is more justifiable than the latter.

What Thich Nhat Hanh lacks in gripping narrative structure, he gains in provoking thought. The Zen monk and poet gives the reader insight into how Kinh Tâm manages to be preternaturally virtuous. In The Martyr this is a black box affair. Hanh also encourages the reader to see Kihn Tâm’s accusers as the novice does, i.e. with compassion. Akutagawa does what any writer would do; he vilifies the accusers so as to make the story resonate with the average, petty, martyr-complex prone reader—as opposed to the enlightenment-aspiring reader. Hanh leaves the other monks in Kinh Tâm’s corner, i.e. when everyone else is condemning the novice, they still believe in her. In Akutagawa’s story, monastics are not inherently so perfect.

The book offers some interesting back matter. The most substantial of the appendices is an account by Sister Chan Khong of the works of Thich Nhat Hanh and his followers both during the war and afterword when they tried to establish a monastery in Communist Vietnam. The essay echoes the themes of loving-kindness and compassion that form the core of the novella, as does the essay by Hanh that brings the book to a conclusion. While this back matter is filler to make up for the fact that the story is not novel length, it nevertheless makes for interesting reading.

I’d recommend this book for those with an interested in Zen. If you’re looking for a good story, read Akutagawa’s The Martyr, but if you want to be inspired to compassion, read Thich Nhat Hanh.

View all my reviews

DAILY PHOTO: Seaside Shrine

Posted on by
Reply
Taken in January 2014 in Patong.

Taken in January 2014 in Patong.

Taken January 2014 in Patong

Taken January 2014 in Patong.

From this little shrine one could view Patong Beach across Beach Road. It’s a small but very active shrine at the North end of Patong Beach. There was often someone burning incense or making an offering.

 

BOOK REVIEW: The Equanimous Mind by Manish Chopra

Posted on by
2

The Equanimous MindThe Equanimous Mind by Manish Chopra

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Amazon page

Imagine going to a meditation center and living by the following rules:

1. You may not have access to any reading materials.

2. You may not have access to any writing materials.

3. You must leave behind cell phones, tablets, laptops, watches, radios, and other portable electronic devices.

4. While there will be other people around, you are only allowed to talk to your instructor/mentor, and mustn’t acknowledge or interact with others. You will scarcely hear a voice unless you are in meeting with your teacher or listening to the taped lessons in the evening.

5. You will be segregated from the other sex. They will have separate living and meditation spaces.

6. You will eat only the vegetarian meals provided by the center.

7. You will spend your days mostly in meditation—meditation of a rigorously prescribed nature.

8. You have to live by these rules for ten straight days. You are strongly discouraged from attending if you don’t believe yourself capable completing of all ten days.

Could you do it? If your response is, “Sure I can, piece of cake,” you are either an exceptional person or a little deluded. And it’s probably more likely you are like the person who imagines they will be a hero in a bank robbery or mugging, but who ends up catatonically cowering in a puddle of their own piddle. Maybe it shouldn’t be a tough proposition, but it is.

The ten days described are the basic course offered at Vipassana meditation centers around the globe. Except your travel costs, there’s no cost to attend, and you aren’t even allowed to tip the staff–though you can make a donation at the end of the course to assist others. If you happen to be near a center, there’s nothing but will and 10 consecutive days of freedom to keep one from taking the course.

The Equanimous Mind charts Manish Chopra’s personal experience with the course. I bought the book because I intend to attend the course myself, and I craved insight into what the experience is like.

For those who are unfamiliar with Vipassana meditation, it’s nominally a Buddhist method, but practitioners are quick to point out that it’s actually areligious. One need not be Buddhist to attend. One could be a Hindu, a Methodist, or an atheist and get the same value from attendance. Adherents believe that this is the meditation method that Buddha himself taught. For those who thought this sounded awfully cult-like when I described it above, in many ways it’s the antithesis of a cult. There is no central guru to worship. The closest thing to the overarching guru, S.N. Goenka, passed away last year. You don’t have to join a group or swear allegiance. And not only don’t you surrender your life-savings, you don’t have to surrender one, thin dime to have the experience.

Chopra doesn’t write at all about the background of Vipassana, nor much about its philosophy or method. Instead, this book is a retelling of Chopra’s personal experience with the camp. There are many books that deal with those aforementioned topics, and so it’s no loss that this book doesn’t. It does give the reader a first-hand look at what it’s like to live in the camp and what prolonged meditation is like, and thus meets a valuable niche in lending comfort to those who are considering the course–but who are leery of what they will go through.

It’s remarkable that the author had the detailed recollections necessary to construct an entire book. The organization of the book chapters is by day, and so there are ten core chapters. (This is a good way to arrange it as there is apparently some universality to experience day-by-day. Not only are people being taught the same methods, but it seems most people who quit do so on days two or six—indicating many people hit “walls” at the same point.) One will remember that notebooks and writing utensils are prohibited. The last chapter informs the reader that Chopra began frantically outlining the book on his way home. It’s surprising that an entire book sprang from memory. The author does claim that the clarity gained through the course improved his memory.

One can’t help but wonder what the book would have read like if it had been compiled day-by-day as a journal. In other words, how much was the book was framed by the euphoria of just having completed the course? Chopra does mention some low points of the course, but, overall, the picture he paints is rosy. It may be that his experience was just overwhelmingly positive, or he could have been on a high from completing something quite difficult.

Chopra suggests that by the end he had greater mental clarity, decreased vice, increased mental capacity, and was living an idyllic life. I don’t want to sound like I’m treating the account as suspect, and I certainly wouldn’t suggest that Chopra is being blatantly dishonest. However, I worry that Chopra might have oversold the course. It almost reads like he’s been imbued with superpowers (mental, not physical–think Professor Xavier, not superman) at the end of the book. (He doesn’t suggest anything magical, but the claims are pretty impressive.) Maybe this is genuinely his experience, but it sounds a little too good to be true.

I’d definitely recommend this book for people who are considering taking the course. I’m not sure it would be of much interest to a more general reader. As I indicated, one isn’t going to learn a lot about the philosophy or history of Vipassana. One does learn a little about the methods from Chopra’s description, but it is fairly cursory. There is a fair amount of mundane information that people interested in the course will love to know (e.g. what kind of food was served and what it’s like to have to sit through one’s body aches), but which will be less than thrilling for someone who has no interest in taking the course.

View all my reviews

DAILY PHOTO: Incensed at Wat Phnom

Posted on by
3
Taken October 2012 at Wat Phnom in Phnom Penh.

Taken October 2012 at Wat Phnom in Phnom Penh.

How come the noun “incense” means “a substance that releases a strong fragrance when burned,” but in its adjectival or verbal form it means to be, or make someone, extremely angry.

It’s not a rhetorical question, people. If you’ve got an answer, let me know.

Mindfulness Meditation: Why be Mindful?

Posted on by
1

IMG_0430“Why be mindful?” That was the question asked to the group assembled at the Thubten Lekshey Ling Tibetan Buddhist meditation center on Sunday.

We had just completed a couple of rounds of mindfulness meditation. We’d been told that there are four themes of mindfulness meditation, but there can be variations on each. First, there is mindfulness of the body. This was the first type of meditation that we practiced. It isn’t about recognizing the body as an object so much as a field of perceptions.

Second, there is mindfulness of one’s feelings or sensations, in other words, mindfulness of the outside world as perceived by our sense organs. We did a meditation in which we were mindful of sound in particular. The key, we were told, was to hear everything–even the sound of silence. “Listening to the sound of silence” may sound like an oxymoron, but it makes sense as one experiences it. When one thinks in terms of hearing sounds, one begins to actively try to “catch” a sound. One may even try to anticipate sounds, particularly sounds in series–like a roofer using a nail-gun on a nearby roof. This active listening, rather than hearing, is not what one wants.

We also did a mindful eating/tasting exercise. We ate a tiny bit of snack mix. The whole processing taking many times what it normally does to shovel a bit of snack into one’s mouth and wolf it down. The food was raised to one’s face, experienced, placed in one’s mouth, experienced, chewed, experienced, and swallowed.

Third, there is meditation on the mind. That is, one watches one’s thoughts. We didn’t do one of these meditations. However, I’ve tried it in the past, and I find this particularly difficult . Watching thoughts go by as if they were rising bubbles or logs floating on a river suggests a division between the observing mind and the thought-producing mind. Recognition of the thought intrudes upon it, and this becomes a whole new line of thought.

Finally, there is meditation on emotion. We did not do one of these in this session either.

Our final meditation was another type of meditation on the body, but it was a moving meditation. We walked and experienced the motion of the body as it moved through the room. I particularly enjoyed this.

However, before the last meditation, we discussed this question of “why be mindful?” I had my own ideas, which I shared. Others had their own ideas, some closer and others farther from my own thinking, but all thought-provoking and valid.

My own thoughts were two-fold. First, mindfulness allows one to be more stable and grounded. Fear is about the future and anger and sadness are about the past. In the present one is neither afraid nor fearful. Second, by being mindful, we can come to see problems before they tumble out of control. We can catch our angry thoughts and dissect them before they do us harm. We can recognize the subtle problems with our bodies before they come full-blown ailments.

Of course, as a martial artist, I had always thought in other terms about mindfulness. There’s no time at the speed of combat to consciously recognize and consciously respond to attacks, one must be mindful to have any hope of surviving a surprise attack.

My First Tibetan Buddhist Meditation & Lecture

Posted on by
Reply

Having settled into life in India over the past month, I’m now getting around to some of the self-enrichment activities I’ve planned on taking advantage of here in Bangalore. Today I attended a meditation session and discussion/lecture at the Thubten Lekshey Ling Tibetan Buddhist Meditation Center. I’ve read a few books on Buddhism and even one or two specific to Tibetan Buddhism, but this was my first time attending such a session. Also, while I’ve done several kinds of secular meditation, both in a group and individually, this was my first exposure to guided meditation in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition.

The title of the session was As the Clouds Drift by… The first hour was the meditation portion and the following two hours were the lecture / discussion portion. The session opened with a few prayers that were chanted in what I believe was Sanskrit, but there was an English translation for newbies such as myself to follow along with the meaning. Then we did a few short meditations that were much like others that I’ve done: meditation on breath and meditation on bodily awareness. Then there was a visualization as we read a sutra in English.

Transitioning into the discussion and lecture portion, we first discussed the meaning of life. No, I’m not making that up. While it might seem like a hackneyed question, some intriguing points were raised. We were directed to think of the question as having two alternative meanings. First, why am I here? Second, what is my purpose? The conversation gravitated to the latter topic. I’m not sure if this was because there was a consensus that the question “why am I here?” is meaningless, or if the question of purpose was just more intriguing. There were various opinions about whether there was a purpose, and–if so–whether it is universal or individual-specific.

After a brief tea break, the remainder of the session involved readings from The Way of Bodhisattva followed by analysis and prompted discussion. Much of the discussion revolved around the issue of how compassion is expressed and the difficulty (or ease) of being a Bodhisattva. (A Bodhisattva is one who seeks enlightenment out of compassion for all sentient beings.)

I found the session to be thought-provoking and beneficial, and thought the atmosphere was conducive to growth. Emphasis was placed on discussion rather than straight lecturing. I will no doubt be back to visit in the future.

I did learn something interesting about myself through the process of the class, and that’s that I need to learn to be still for more than two hours. While there was no prohibition on moving around–particularly beyond the meditation portion– in an effort to not be a distraction, I tried to keep fairly still. I practically ran home afterwords. I had all this pent-up energy. I would have thought myself better than average at sitting in a contemplative state. I’m a writer for goodness sake. I spend entire days at my computer. However, in truth, I rarely sit more than an hour without getting up and stretching or doing some sort of movement to limber up my body and get the blood flowing. I was raised Catholic, and so I’m not new to sitting quietly for long periods of time. Though that was a long time ago. I also have three college degrees and have spent more than my fair share of time in classrooms, but the wandering mind is not discouraged in that environment–in a way it’s encouraged.

DAILY PHOTO: Buddha Under the Bodhi Tree

Posted on by
Reply
Taken September 24, 2013 at the Mahabodhi Society Temple in Bangalore

Taken September 24, 2013 at the Maha- Bodhi Society Temple in Bangalore

There are a whole series of these brightly colored bas-reliefs in recesses in the exterior wall at the Mahabodhi Loka Shanti Buddha Vihara, which is a temple run by the Maha-Bodhi Society. This society was founded by a Sri Lankan monk with the intention of bringing Buddhism back to India. While Buddhism was founded in India, there had been a long period of decline of individuals self-identifying as Buddhists.

Transmigration of Blog

Posted on by
1

india_sm_2012We’re down to about a month until our move to India.

The house is largely in order with only a few odds and ends remaining.

Most of our worldly possessions are in storage, and I haven’t really missed any of it. (A lot of “moss” collects when your stone stops rolling for a few years.) The house now echoes. Movers will be coming to get the small amount of stuff we’ll ship to India in the next couple weeks. Then we’ll really be living minimalist.

We’ve got all our shots with the exception of the final doses for Hepatitis. We’ll get those in country. With respect to shots, when moving to India, one has to get… well,  all of them.

Visas are in the works though we’ve had some delay on that front. However, fortuitously, the local Indian Consulate is beginning to take applications, and so I won’t have to send my application off to another city and can eliminate the time and risk of postal transit.

My list of things to do consists of fewer large, all-consuming tasks and more quick and easy jobs.

All of this means that I’m getting back to writing.  This is a bit like getting a corroded junk-yard jalopy running again. It’s remarkable how much the creative juices curdle when one spends a few months focusing on home repairs, monitoring contractors, getting shots, and other mundane tasks of international relocation. I worked almost exclusively on drafting two novels for a period of a little over a year, and now–as I resume writing and revisions–I’m having to re-read just to figure out what they’re about. On the bright side, I sometime surprise myself with what I wrote. For me, there’s definitely economy of scale in long writing  projects. Writing eight hours a day yields a lot more than eight times writing for one hour a day. I lose voices, character idiosyncrasies, and plot detail so easily unless I’m immersed in them.

As for this blog, I think a rebirth is in order. Since I’m moving to India, I’ve invoked the concept of transmigration of soul. In Hinduism, some sects of Buddhism, as well as a few lesser known religions, there’s a belief in reincarnation in which the soul may be reborn into an altogether different type of container. For example, if you were good in your last life, you might come back as a lama or a lap cat. If you were bad in your last life, you might come back as a slug or a Congressman. So the question of the moment is what this blog will be reborn as when  it sputters up from out of the ashes.

I would like the site to remain (or, perhaps, become)  humorous, but I’d like the humor to be less curmudgeonly. This presents a challenge because I’m not sure that I know how to be funny without being a curmudgeon. In point of fact, I’m not sure I know how to not be a curmudgeon–funny or otherwise.

I want this site to be reflective of my new life. I’ll continue posting photos, though after the move they will be disproportionately from Bangalore, India, and a few adjacent countries to which I will be traveling. So it’ll remain part travel site. I’m sure I’ll have plenty of lessons learned about travel in India to share.

When I’m not writing or sleeping, I’ll be engaged in a quest of self-improvement. The development of mind and body have been raised to high art in India, and I hope to  find some of those individuals with that knowledge.

Expanding my abilities and understanding of martial arts is one of my goals for this period. It’ll be a challenge to keep from becoming rusty in the jissen kobudō (Japanese old school martial arts that emphasize pragmatic skills) that I have been studying my entire adult life. However, in addition to working on what I know, there are other activities that I think will help expand my understanding while keeping me suitable limber and conditioned. I would like to learn  a little about indigenous Indian martial arts such as kalaripayattu, silambam, and–if time permits–gatka. Furthermore, I would like find a place to train in Bangalore where I can do some training in what I’d call general jissen (practical fighting) skills.

However, my attempts to improve myself will not be limited to martial arts alone. India might be cursed with plagues of poverty, pollution, and–well–plague, but they have no shortage of gurus–whether I can find one that’s reputable and willing is another matter. The older I’ve gotten, the more I’ve realized that I don’t have a firm grasp of my mind. My mind runs and I don’t pay enough attention to what it is telling me; I don’t put enough effort into fixing what is broken. I read a quote recently about people who put great effort into studying the external world, but who remain ignorant of themselves.  This struck close to home, but it’s not just me–it’s widespread. People study psychology in school and learn about cognitive biases, but they don’t put the information to use in becoming more virtuous people. For example, a person might learn about the “self-serving bias” –whereby people claim responsibility for successes but place blame for failures on external factors–and say, “yeah, it’s funny that other people totally do that.”

Part of practicing martial arts is keeping one’s self healthy, against all odds. While I’ve never practiced yoga, I appreciate the belief that mind and body are inseparable. I would like to work on building a body that is less likely to be crippled by the practice of martial arts as I age. I intend to study Thai yoga massage, which incorporates stretching and pressure point massage. There’s an interesting connection between India and Thailand with respect to this form of bodywork. While it’s most closely associated with Thailand, some claim that its roots are in Northern India with a master called Guru Jivaka. While visiting Thailand, I developed an appreciation for the health benefits of this type of massage–particularly for one prone to have things out of whack. However, I didn’t have the time to study it during that visit. There is also the more distinctly indigenous holistic healing system of India, Ayurveda, and I would like to learn more about it as well.

In short, I intend to have a pretty full agenda while living in India, and I hope readers will find my posts about these experiences interesting and worthwhile.

DAILY PHOTO: The Wat Chana Songkhram Complex

Posted on by
1
Taken October 2012

Taken October 2012 from atop the Rambuttri Village Inn.

Paul Brunton’s Search for Sages in India

Posted on by
4
Source: Kalyan Kumar by way of Wikipedia

Source: Kalyan Kumar by way of Wikipedia

As I prepare to move to India, I’ve begun to read up on this subcontinent about which I know too little. For example, I’d never heard of Paul Brunton before a week ago, but now I am immersed in his book A Search in Secret India. Brunton was a Brit who, like a number of his contemporaries living in the first half of the 20th century, struck out to experience the mysteries locked in the heart of India. Like many, he wanted to gain access to the country’s treasure, but the treasure he sought had nothing to do with material wealth or ancient artifacts. He sought living sages, and the lessons they could teach him. The book I’m reading tells the story of this search.

Something about India drives internal reflection and the spirituality that often accompanies it. It’s the home of Hinduism, Buddhism, Sikhism, and Jainism, as well as many non-denominational wisemen (and wisewomen) who at once can be seen as followers of no religion and believers in many religions.  Value for the unity of mind and body can be seen in the popular national practice of Yoga, which is the antithesis of mindless exercise in which one jumps on a treadmill with an i-Pod and zones out for an hour as one’s body churns through its paces. Yoga, like Tai Chi, requires one’s full attention, and that one’s movement, one’s breath, and one’s awareness are all working toward the same purpose.

So far, Brunton’s work has appealed to me not only because he is in search of wisdom, but because he goes about this pursuit as a skeptic. In the introduction he tells how he edited out the many meetings with charlatans and frauds. Charlatans always abound in the presence of sages because it’s quite lucrative to convince people that they can achieve self-improvement effortlessly through some patented approach. (I’m here to tell you that self-improvement is a struggle that requires your physical and mental energy all the way–what I cannot yet tell you is whether it is worth it or not.) If one cannot see the cloud-enshrouded destination, it’s easy to sell maps–whether one knows the route oneself or not–and many are all too ecstatic to buy a map that shows a secret route that takes them to the pinnacle by way exclusively downhill paths.  The fact that Brunton enters his quest with a degree of skepticism suggests he didn’t fall for such traps; traps that should be obvious but that appeal to those for whom the force of wanting to believe is stronger than the force of truth. [As I am only a few chapters in, I reserve the right to change this prognosis. At some point, I’ll put up a review with my final thoughts.]

I look forward to discovering whether wisdom is alive and well on the subcontinent. Hopefully, the hucksters haven’t won the war for the mind’s of seekers.