DHARMA 101
Introduction:
DHARMA
101 IS A SAMPLING OF the questions that commonly arise in the course of
practice. In some cases, Buddhist teachers themselves identified the
questions they most frequently hear from students. To those, we brought
experiences from workshops, retreats, and classes—and asked some questions
of our own.
While the
inquiries may sound familiar to many dharma practitioners, the responses
may not. This may point to a difference in view or understanding between
teachers. Or it may indicate a difference in tradition.
Distinct flavors,
practices and styles inform the three primary vehicles—or yanas—of
Asian Buddhism. Questions about enlightenment may prompt varying replies
from, say, a teacher of the Mahayana tradition of East Asia and a guru of
the Vajrayana School of Tibet. And a query about the Buddhist concept of
emptiness might elicit a response from a teacher of the Theravada schools
of Southeast Asia which differs from that of a master of the Mahayana.
Yet in the West,
where schools of many of these traditions are flourishing side by side, we
are discovering that all the vehicles provoke common questions. And that
basic teachings apply across the board.
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Who was Buddha?
Rick Fields
SIDDHARTHA GAUTAMA WAS BORN
around 567 B.C.E., in a small kingdom just below the Himalayan foothills.
His father was a chief of the Shakya clan. It is said that twelve years
before his birth the brahmins prophesied that he would become either a
universal monarch or a great sage. To prevent him from becoming an
ascetic, his father kept him within the confines of the palace. Gautama
grew up in princely luxury, shielded from the outside world, entertained
by dancing girls, instructed by Brahmins, and trained in archery,
swordsmanship, wrestling, swimming, and running. When he came of age he
married Gopa, who gave birth to a son. He had, as we might say today,
everything.
And yet, it was not enough.
Something -something as persistent as his own shadow- drew him into the
world beyond the castle walls. There, in the streets of Kapilavastu, he
encountered three simple things: a sick man, an old man, and a corpse
being carried to the burning grounds. Nothing in his life of ease had
prepared him for this experience, and when his charioteer told him that
all beings are subject to sickness, old age, and death, he could not rest.
As he returned to the palace, he passed a wandering ascetic walking
peacefully along the road, wearing the robe and carrying the single bowl
of a sadhu, and he resolved to leave the palace in search of the answer to
the problem of suffering. He bade his wife and child a silent farewell
without waking them, rode to the edge of the forest where he cut his long
hair with his sword and exchanged his fine clothes for the simple robes of
an ascetic.
With these actions Siddhartha
Gautama joined a whole class of men who had dropped out of Indian society
to find liberation. There were a variety of methods and teachers, and
Gautama investigated many—atheists, materialists, idealists, and
dialecticians. The deep forest and the teeming marketplace were alive with
the sounds of thousands of arguments and opinions, and in this it was a
time not unlike our own.
Gautama finally settled down to
work with two teachers. From Arada Kalama, who had three hundred
disciples, he learned how to discipline his mind to enter the sphere of
nothingness; but even though Arada Kalama asked him to remain and teach as
an equal, he recognized that this was not liberation, and left. Next
Siddhartha learned how to enter the concentration of mind which is neither
consciousness nor unconsciousness from Udraka Ramaputra. But neither was
this liberation and Siddhartha left his second teacher.
The Buddha
Emerging From His Mother's Side,
Third Century Pakistan, Courtesy The Freer Gallery
For six years Siddhartha along with five companions practiced austerities
and concentration. He drove himself mercilessly, eating only a single
grain of rice a day, pitting mind against body. His ribs stuck through his
wasted flesh and he seemed more dead than alive. His five companions left
him after he made the decision to take more substantial food and to
abandon asceticism. Then, Siddhartha entered a village in search of food.
There, a woman named Sujata offered him a dish of milk and a separate
vessel of honey. His strength returned, Siddhartha washed himself in the
Nairanjana River, and then set off to the Bodhi tree. He spread a mat of
kusha grass underneath, crossed his legs and sat.
The Fasting Buddha, Second or Third Century
Gandhara, India, Courtesy Central Museum of Lahore
He sat, having listened to all
the teachers, studied all the sacred texts and tried all the methods. Now
there was nothing to rely on, no one to turn to, nowhere to go. He sat
solid and unmoving and determined as a mountain, until finally, after six
days, his eye opened on the rising morning star, so it is said, and he
realized that what he had been looking for had never been lost, neither to
him nor to anyone else. Therefore there was nothing to attain, and no
longer any struggle to attain it.
"Wonder of wonders," he is
reported to have said, "this very enlightenment is the nature of all
beings, and yet they are unhappy for lack of it." So it was that
Siddhartha Gautama woke up at the age of thirty-five, and became the
Buddha, the Awakened One, known as Shakyamuni, the sage of the Shakyas.
For seven weeks he enjoyed the
freedom and tranquility of liberation. At first he had no inclination to
speak about his realization, which he felt would be too difficult for most
people to understand. But when, according to legend, Brahma, chief of the
three thousand worlds, requested that the Awakened One teach, since there
were those "whose eyes were only a little clouded over," the Buddha
agreed.
Shakyamuni's two former teachers, Udraka and Arada Kalama, had both died
only a few days earlier, and so he sought the five ascetics who had left
him. When they saw him approaching the Deer Park in Benares they decided
to ignore him, since he had broken his vows. Yet they found something so
radiant about his presence that they rose, prepared a seat, bathed his
feet and listened as the Buddha turned the wheel of the dharma, the
teachings, for the first time.
The First Noble Truth of the Buddha stated that all life, all existence,
is characterized by duhkha—a Sanskrit word meaning suffering, pain,
unsatisfactoriness. Even moments of happiness have a way of turning into
pain when we hold onto them, or, once they have passed into memory, they
twist the present as the mind makes an inevitable, hopeless attempt to
recreate the past. The teaching of the Buddha is based on direct insight
into the nature of existence and is a radical critique of wishful thinking
and the myriad tactics of escapism—whether through political utopianism,
psychological therapeutics, simple hedonism, or (and it is this which
primarily distinguishes Buddhism from most of the world's religions) the
theistic salvation of mysticism. Duhkha is Noble, and it is true. It is a
foundation, a stepping stone, to be comprehended fully, not to be escaped
from or explained. The experience of duhkha, of the working of one's mind,
leads to the Second Noble Truth, the origin of suffering, traditionally
described as craving, thirsting for pleasure, but also and more
fundamentally a thirst for continued existence, as well as nonexistence.
Examination of the nature of this thirst leads to the heart of the Second
Noble Truth, the idea of the "self," or "I," with all its desires, hopes,
and fears, and it is only when this self is comprehended and seen to be
insubstantial that the Third Noble Truth, the cessation of suffering, is
realized.
The Buddha
Greeting His Former Companions, Eighth Century Carving from Java
The five ascetics who listened to the Buddha's first discourse in the Deer
Park became the nucleus of a community, a sangha, of men (women
were to enter later) who followed the way the Buddha had described in his
Fourth Noble Truth, the Noble Eightfold Path. These bhikshus, or
monks, lived simply, owning a bowl, a robe, a needle, a water strainer,
and a razor, since they shaved their heads as a sign of having left home.
They traveled around northeastern India, practicing meditation alone or in
small groups, begging for their meals.
The Buddha's teaching, however, was not only for the monastic community.
Shakyamuni had instructed them to bring it to all: "Go ye, O bhikshus, for
the gain of the many, the welfare of the many, in compassion for the
world, for the good, for the gain, for the welfare of gods and men."
For the next forty-nine years Shakyamuni walked through the villages and
towns of India, speaking in the vernacular, using common figures of speech
that everyone could understand. He taught a villager to practice
mindfulness while drawing water from a well, and when a distraught mother
asked him to heal the dead child she carried in her arms, he did not
perform a miracle, but instead instructed her to bring him a mustard seed
from a house where no one had ever died. She returned from her search
without the seed, but with the knowledge that death is universal.
As the Buddha's fame spread, kings and other wealthy patrons donated parks
and gardens for retreats. The Buddha accepted these, but he continued to
live as he had ever since his twenty-ninth year: as a wandering sadhu,
begging his own meal, spending his days in meditation. Only now there was
one difference. Almost every day, after his noon meal, the Buddha taught.
None of these discourses, or the questions and answers that followed, were
recorded during the Buddha's lifetime.
The Death of the
Buddha,
6th Century rock carving from Ajanta, India
The Buddha died in the town of Kushinagara, at the age of eighty, having
eaten a meal of pork or mushrooms. Some of the assembled monks were
despondent, but the Buddha, lying on his side, with his head resting on
his right hand, reminded them that everything is impermanent, and advised
them to take refuge in themselves and the dharma—the teaching. He asked
for questions a last time. There were none. Then he spoke his final words:
"Now then, bhikshus, I address you: all compound things are subject to
decay; strive diligently."
The first rainy season after the Buddha's parinirvana, it is said
that five hundred elders gathered at a mountain cave near Rajagriha, where
they held the First Council. Ananda, who had been the Buddha's attendant,
repeated all the discourses, or sutras, he had heard, and Upali
recited the two hundred fifty monastic rules, the Vinaya, while
Mahakashyapa recited the Abhidharma, the compendium of Buddhist
psychology and metaphysics. These three collections, which were written on
palm leaves a few centuries later and known as the Tripitaka (literally
"three baskets"), became the basis for all subsequent versions of the
Buddhist canon.
Rick Fields was a Contributing Editor to Tricycle and an
editor of Yoga Journal. His other books include The Code of the
Warrior (HarperCollins) and Instructions to the Cook (with
Bernard Glassman, Bell Tower). "Who Was the Buddha?" is adapted from
How the Swans Came to the Lake (Shambhala). Rick passed away in 1999.
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Where is Buddha?
Ane Pema Chodron
IN
MY OFFICE THERE IS A scroll with Japanese calligraphy and a painting of
Zen master Bodhidharma. Bodhidharma is a fat, grumpy-looking man with
bushy eyebrows. He looks as if he has indigestion. The calligraphy reads,
"Pointing directly at your own heart, you find Buddha."
Bodhidharma brought Zen Buddhism from India to China. He was well known
for being fierce and uncompromising. There is a story about how he kept
nodding off during meditation, so he cut off his eyelids. When he threw
them on the ground, they turned into a tea plant, and then he realized he
could simply drink the tea to stay awake! He was uncompromising in that he
wanted to know what was true, and he wasn't going to take anybody else's
word for it. His big discovery was that by looking directly into our own
heart, we find the awakened Buddha, the completely unclouded experience of
how things really are.
In all kinds of situations, we can find out what is true simply by
studying ourselves in every nook and cranny, in every black hole and
bright spot, whether it's murky, creepy, grisly, splendid, spooky,
frightening, joyful, inspiring, peaceful, or wrathful. We can just look at
the whole thing. There's a lot of encouragement to do this, and meditation
gives us the method. When I first encountered Buddhism, I was extremely
relieved that there were not only teachings, but also a technique I could
use to explore and test these teachings. I was told from day one that,
just like Bodhidharma, I had to find out for myself what was true.
However, when we
sit down to meditate and take an honest look at our minds, there is a
tendency for it to become a rather morbid and depressing project. We can
lose all sense of humor and sit with the grim determination to get to the
bottom of this stinking mess. After a while, when people have been
practicing that way, they begin to feel so much guilt and distress that
they just break down, and they might say to someone they trust, "Where's
the joy in all this?"
So, along with
clear seeing, there's another important element, and that's kindness. It
seems that, without clarity and honesty, we don't progress. We just stay
stuck in the same vicious cycle. But honesty without kindness makes us
feel grim and mean, and pretty soon we start looking like we're sucking on
sour lemons. We become so caught up in introspection that we lose any
contentment or gratitude we might have had. The sense of being irritated
by ourselves and our lives and other people's idiosyncrasies becomes
overwhelming. That's why there's so much emphasis on kindness.
Sometimes it's
expressed as heart, awakening your heart. Often it's called gentleness.
Sometimes it's called unlimited friendliness. But basically kindness is a
down-to-earth, everyday way to describe the important ingredient that
balances out the whole picture and helps us connect with unconditional
joy. As the Vietnamese teacher Thich Nhat Hanh says, "Suffering is not
enough."
Discipline is
important. When we sit down to meditate, we are encouraged to stick with
the technique and be faithful to the instructions, but within that
container of discipline, why do we have to be so harsh? Do we meditate
because we "should"? Do we do it to become "good" Buddhists, to please our
teacher, or to escape going to hell? How we regard what arises in
meditation is training for how we regard whatever arises in the rest of
our lives. So the challenge is how to develop compassion right along with
clear seeing, how to train in lightening up and cheering up rather than
becoming more guilt-ridden and miserable. Otherwise, all that happens is
that we all cut everybody else down, and we also cut ourselves down.
Nothing ever measures up. Nothing is ever good enough. Honesty without
kindness, humor, and goodheartedness can be just mean. From the very
beginning to the very end, pointing to our own hearts to discover what is
true isn't just a matter of honesty but also of compassion and respect for
what we see.
Learning how to be
kind to ourselves, learning how to respect ourselves, is important. The
reason it's important is that, fundamentally, when we look into our own
hearts and begin to discover what is confused and what is brilliant, what
is bitter and what is sweet, it isn't just ourselves that we're
discovering. We're discovering the universe. When we discover the Buddha
that we are, we realize that everything and everyone is Buddha. We
discover that everything is awake, and everyone is awake. Everything is
equally precious and whole and good, and everyone is equally precious and
whole and good. When we regard thoughts and emotions with humor and
openness, that's how we perceive the universe. We're not just talking
about our individual liberation, but how to help the community we live in,
how to help our families, our country, and the whole continent, not to
mention the world and the galaxy and as far as we want to go.
There's an
interesting transition that occurs naturally and spontaneously. We begin
to find that, to the degree that there is bravery in ourselves-
the willingness to
look, to point directly at our own hearts
-and to the
degree that there is kindness toward ourselves, there is confidence that
we can actually forget ourselves and open to the world.
The only reason
that we don't open our hearts and minds to other people is that they
trigger confusion in us that we don't feel brave enough or sane enough to
deal with. To the degree that we look clearly and compassionately at
ourselves, we feel confident and fearless about looking into someone
else's eyes.
Then this
experience of opening to the world begins to benefit ourselves and others
simultaneously. The more we relate with others, the more quickly we
discover where we are blocked, where we are unkind, afraid, shut down.
Seeing this is helpful, but it is also painful. Often the only way we know
how to react is to use it as ammunition against ourselves. We aren't kind.
We aren't honest. We aren't brave, and we might as well give up right now.
But when we apply the instruction to be soft and nonjudgmental to whatever
we see right at that very moment, then this embarrassing reflection in the
mirror becomes our friend. Seeing that reflection becomes motivation to
soften further and lighten up more, because we know it's the only way we
can continue to work with others and be of any benefit to the world.
That's the
beginning of growing up. As long as we don't want to be honest and kind
with ourselves, then we are always going to be infants. When we begin just
to try to accept ourselves, the ancient burden of self-importance lightens
up considerably. Finally there's room for genuine inquisitiveness, and we
find we have an appetite for what's out there.
Ane Pema Chodron is an American Buddhist nun and the director of
Gampo Abbey, Nova Scotia, the first Tibetan monastery in North America
established for Westerners. She is the author of The Wisdom of No
Escape and Start From Where You Are: A Guide to Compassionate
Living. "Where Is Buddha?" is excerpted from When Things Fall
Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times (Shambhala Publications).
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How Important is Faith?
Sharon Salzberg
IN
PALI (THE LANGUAGE of the original Buddhist texts), the word for faith is
saddha. While sometimes translated as "confidence" or "trust," the
literal meaning of saddha is "to place your heart upon." When we give our
hearts over to a spiritual practice, it is a sign of faith or confidence
in that practice.
Faith opens us to what is beyond our usual, limited, self-centered
concerns. In the Buddhist psychology, it is called the gateway to all good
things, because faith sparks our initial inspiration to practice
meditation and also sustains our ongoing efforts.
The concept of faith can be difficult for some people. Faith might be
associated with mindless belief, or it might imply the need to proclaim
allegiance to a creed or doctrine and then fear of being judged, by
oneself or others, for one's degree of compliance. When we use faith in a
Buddhist context it is quite different from this.
To "place the heart upon" does not at all mean rigidly believing in
something and thus being defensive about opening to new ideas. It doesn't
mean using that which we have faith in as a way of feeling separate from
and superior to others. When we talk about saddha, we are talking about a
heartfelt confidence in the possibility of our own awakening.
We experience faith on many levels. In a classical text entitled "The
Questions of King Milinda," a monk named Nagasena uses an allegory to
illustrate this. A group of people gathered on the edge of a flooding
stream want to go to the far shore but are afraid. They don't know what to
do until one wise person comes along, assesses the situation, takes a
running leap, and jumps to the other side. Seeing the example of that
person, the others say, "Yes, it can be done." Then they also jump. In
this story the near shore is our usual confused condition, and the far
shore is the awakened mind. Inspired by witnessing another, we say, "Yes,
it can be done." That is one level of faith. After we have jumped
ourselves, when we say, "Yes, it can be done," that is quite another level
of faith.
The first instance is an example of what is called "bright faith." This is
the kind of faith that happens when our hearts are opened by encountering
somebody or something that moves us. Perhaps we are inspired by a person's
qualities of love or wisdom or kindness. Whether it is someone we know, or
a historical figure like the Buddha, or another great being, we can begin
to sense the possibility of another, happier way to live.
Bright faith is a wonderful feeling and an important beginning, but it is
also unreliable. We might encounter somebody one day and someone else
another day, and be moved powerfully by each of them, but in opposite
directions. We can get distracted by whatever influence comes into our
lives next.
Mature faith is anchored in our own experience of the truth, centered in
the deeper understanding of the nature of the mind and body that we come
to in meditation practice. This deeper level of faith is called "verified
faith," which means it is grounded in our own experience. The inspiration
and confidence we feel arises from our own experience, rather than coming
from someone outside of ourselves.
It is a great turning point in our spiritual lives when we go from an
intellectual appreciation of a path to the heartfelt confidence that says,
"Yes, it is possible to awaken. I can, too." A tremendous joy accompanies
this confidence. When we place our hearts upon the practice, the teachings
come alive. That turning point, which transforms an abstract concept of a
spiritual path into our own personal path, is faith.
Sharon Salzberg is a founder of the Insight Meditation Society in
Barre, Massachusetts, and of the Barre Center for Buddhist Studies. She is
the author of Lovingkindness: The Revolutionary Art of Happiness
from Shambhala Publications. |^|
Who Are You?
WHO ARE you?
My name is Peter.
If you went to Nicaragua, you'd be called Pedro. Are Pedro and Peter one
person or two?
One,because I am only who I am.
Are you a name?
No, of course not.
Then who are you?
I am a man.
You mean you are not a woman?
No. I mean that I am a man.
But you are only a man because you are not a woman. Who are you?
I am an Englishman.
If you went to Japan, would you be a Japanese man?
No.
Why?
Because I was born in England and I speak English.
If you had been born in England but raised in China, would you be Chinese
or English?
I would be English.
Oh, then, you are not a person, rather you are a country. Who are you?
I am the grandson of a famous Arctic explorer. He returned from the
North Pole with a frozen polar bear in the hull of his ship.
And which do you think you are defined more by, your grandfather or the
polar bear?
How could I be defined by my family? I'm just me.
Then you are more like a single polar bear?
No. I am an intelligent, accomplished man. That's what everyone says.
Now, let me see: you are Peter who is intelligent and accomplished and
special because your grandfather was a famous Arctic explorer. What else
sets you apart?
My youngest daughter is a world-class gymnast and my mother died when I
was a child.
Ah, you are Peter the tragic, Peter the successful. Which would you say is
the real you: a motherless son or the father of a successful daughter?
Both are within me.
Where?
Where do you mean?
I mean, is this within you closer to your head or your toes?
Perhaps in between. Closer to my heart.
It's a feeling?
Yes.
How big is it?
I'm not sure.
What color is it?
It doesn't have a color.
A form?
No.
But it's inside you?
Yes.
If we cut open your heart, could we see it?
I don't suppose so.
Then where is it?
I don't know.
Are you sure it is inside you?
Where else could it be?
Look again. Come here. Look in the mirror. Do you see intelligence?
grandfather? accomplishment? gymnast?
No.
Do you see English?
No.
Do you see Peter?
I don't know.
Good. Now we can begin. Who are you?
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Joseph Goldstein
ONE OF THE MOST PUZZLING
ASPECTS OF the Buddha's teachings is the idea of no self. If there's no
self, who gets angry, who falls in love, who makes effort, who has
memories or gets reborn? What does it mean to say there is no self?
Sometimes people are afraid of this idea, imagining themselves suddenly
disappearing in a cloud of smoke, like a magician's trick.
We can understand no-self in several ways. The Buddha described what we
call "self" as a collection of aggregates—elements of mind and body—that
function interdependently, creating the appearance of woman or man. We
then identify with that image or appearance, taking it to be "I" or
"mine," imagining it to have some inherent self-existence. For example, we
get up in the morning, look in the mirror, recognize the reflection, and
think, "Yes, that's me again." We then add all kinds of concepts to this
sense of self: I'm a woman or man, I'm a certain age, I'm a happy or
unhappy person—the list goes on and on.
When we examine our experience, though, we see that there is not some core
being to whom experience refers; rather it is simply "empty phenomena
rolling on." Experience is "empty" in the sense that there is no one
behind the arising and changing phenomena to whom they happen. A rainbow
is a good example of this. We go outside after a rainstorm and feel that
moment of delight if a rainbow appears in the sky. Mostly, we simply enjoy
the sight without investigating the real nature of what is happening. But
when we look more deeply, it becomes clear that there is no "thing" called
"rainbow" apart from the particular conditions of air and moisture and
light.
Each one of us is like that rainbow—an appearance, a magical display,
arising out of the various elements of mind and body. So when anger
arises, or sorrow or love or joy, it is just anger angering, sorrow
sorrowing, love loving, joy joying. Different feelings arise and pass,
each simply expressing its own nature. The problem arises when we identify
with these feelings, or thoughts, or sensations as being self or as
belonging to "me": "I'm angry, I'm sad." By collapsing into the
identification with these experiences, we contract energetically into a
prison of self and separation.
As an experiment in awareness, the next time you feel identified with a
strong emotion or reaction or judgment, leave the story line and trace the
physical sensation back to the energetic contraction, often felt at the
heart center. It might be a sensation of tightness or pressure in the
center of the chest. Then relax the heart, simply allowing the feelings
and sensations to be there. Open to the space in which everything is
happening. In that moment, the sense of separation disappears, and the
union of lovingkindness and emptiness becomes clear. We see that there is
no one there to be apart. As the Chinese poet Li Po wrote: "We sit
together the mountain and me/ Until only the mountain remains."
Joseph Goldstein is a co-founder of Insight Meditation Society in
Barre, Massachusetts where he is one of the resident teachers. His books
include Insight Meditation and Seeking the Heart of Wisdom: The
Path of Insight Meditation (both from Shambhala Publications).
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What Do Buddhists Mean When
They Talk About Emptiness?
Thanissaro Bhikkhu
EMPTINESS
IS A MODE OF perception, a way of looking at experience. It adds nothing
to and takes nothing away from the raw data of physical and mental events.
You look at events in the mind and the senses with no thought of whether
there's anything lying behind them.
This mode is called emptiness because it is empty of the presuppositions
we usually add to experience in order to make sense of it: the stories and
worldviews we fashion to explain who we are and the world we live in.
Although these stories and views have their uses, the Buddha found that
the questions they raise—of our true identity and the reality of the world
outside—pull attention away from a direct experience of how events
influence one another in the immediate present. Thus they get in the way
when we try to understand and solve the problem of suffering.
Say for instance that you're meditating, and a feeling of anger toward
your mother appears. Immediately, the mind's reaction is to identify the
anger as "my" anger, or to say that "I'm" angry. It then elaborates on the
feeling, either working it into the story of your relationship to your
mother, or to your general views about when and where anger toward one's
mother can be justified. The problem with all this, from the Buddha's
perspective, is that these stories and views entail a lot of suffering.
The more you get involved in them, the more you get distracted from seeing
the actual cause of the suffering: the labels of "I" and "mine" that set
the whole process in motion. As a result, you can't find the way to
unravel that cause and bring the suffering to an end.
If, however, you adopt the emptiness mode—by not acting on or reacting to
the anger but simply watching it as a series of events, in and of
themselves—you can see that the anger is empty of anything to identify
with or possess. As you master the emptiness mode more consistently, you
see that this truth holds not only for such gross emotions as anger, but
also for even the most subtle events in the realm of experience. This is
the sense in which all things are empty. When you see this, you realize
that labels of "I" and "mine" are inappropriate, unnecessary, and cause
nothing but stress and pain. You can drop them. When you drop them
totally, you discover a mode of experience that lies deeper still, one
that's totally free.
To master the emptiness mode of perception requires firm training in
virtue, concentration, and discernment. Without this training, the mind
stays in the mode that keeps creating stories and worldviews. And from the
perspective of that mode, the teaching of emptiness sounds simply like
another story or worldview with new ground rules. In terms of the story of
your relationship to your mother, it seems to be saying that there's
really no mother, no you. In terms of your worldview, it seems to be
saying either that the world doesn't really exist, or else that emptiness
is the great undifferentiated ground of being from which we all came and
to which someday we'll all return.
These interpretations not only miss the meaning of emptiness but also keep
the mind from getting into the proper mode. If the world and the people in
the story of your life don't really exist, then all the actions and
reactions in that story seem like a mathematics of zeros, and you wonder
why there's any point in practicing virtue at all. If, on the other hand,
you see emptiness as the ground of being to which we're all going to
return, then what need is there to train the mind in concentration and
discernment, since we're all going to get there anyway? And even if we
need training to get back to our ground of being, what's to keep us from
coming out of it and suffering all over again? So in all these scenarios,
the whole idea of training the mind seems futile and pointless. By
focusing on the question of whether or not there really is something
behind experience, they entangle the mind in issues that keep it from
getting into the present mode.
Now, stories and worldviews do serve a purpose. The Buddha employed them
when teaching people, but he never used the word emptiness when
speaking in these modes. He recounted the stories of people's lives to
show how suffering comes from the unskillful perceptions behind their
actions, and how freedom from suffering can come from being more
perceptive. And he described the basic principles that underlie the round
of rebirth to show how bad intentional actions lead to pain within that
round, good ones lead to pleasure, while really skillful actions can take
you beyond the round altogether. In all these cases, these teachings were
aimed at getting people to focus on the quality of the perceptions and
intentions in their minds in the present—in other words, to get them into
the emptiness mode. Once there, they could use the teachings on emptiness
for their intended purpose: to loosen all attachments to views, stories,
and assumptions, leaving the mind empty of all the greed, anger, and
delusion, and thus empty of suffering and stress. And when you come right
down to it, that's the emptiness that really counts.
Thanissaro Bhikkhu is the abbot of Metta Forest Monastery in Valley
Center, California. His most recent book is The Wings to Awakening
(Dhamma Dana Publications).|^|
Do the thoughts ever stop?
Bhante Henepola
Gunaratana
THE
BUDDHA ADVISED his bhikkhus(ordained followers), "Bhikkhus, when
you have assembled together you should do one of two things—have dhamma
discussions or observe noble silence."
Noble silence is the state of mind where there are no thoughts. The mind
is totally silent. But thoughts can be stopped only if we train our mind
to do so through correct meditation practice.
I use the phrase "quieting the mind" or "silencing the mind" to mean not
having thought in the mind; but this does not mean slowing down the mind
like slowing down a body's metabolism during hibernation. It simply means
not having thought-creating habits in the mind.
A meditator should begin by paying undivided and uninterrupted attention
to one single object without verbalizing the experience in the mind. When
you verbalize and conceptualize things, on the one hand you interrupt your
attention and on the other you perpetuate your thoughts.
The brain does not manufacture thoughts unless we stimulate it with
habitual verbalizing. When we train ourselves by constant practice to stop
verbalizing, the brain can experience things as they are. By silencing the
mind, we can experience real peace. As long as various kinds of thoughts
agitate the brain, we don't experience 100 percent peace.
Peace is not a thought, not a concept; it is a nonverbal experience. One
can stay in this peaceful state for up to seven days. But before one
attains such a totally peaceful state of mind, one should gradually train
oneself to slow down thoughts. Once slowed down, thoughts fade away, and
no more new thoughts are fed into the brain.
Even while not meditating, we experience many things—often deeply—for
which there are no words. We may try to find a word or a verb for that
experience. We may call it intuition. Yet intuitions may arise with no
associated words or concepts. You can also listen to sounds without any
words arising in the mind. It is said the best way to enjoy music is to
listen to music. While hearing music, you listen to the sound without
trying to verbalize the sound. Or consider how you listen to a bird's
song: you don't verbalize the sound. You may say, "the robin sings like
this." But that is your imagination.
This means that even outside of meditation you can experience many very
subtle things simply by paying total attention to your senses. Most of the
time, we verbalize things after we have experienced them, not while
experiencing them. But when you pay total, nonverbal attention to
something, you gain concentration that is not possible by verbalizing.
When you experience something, if you don't try to translate the
experience into words you simply have the experience, not thoughts.
Sights, sounds, smells, tastes, touch—they can all be experienced directly
without words. When you use words, you block your direct experience of
sensory objects. Suppose the color white appears before your eyes. The
whiteness reflects on your eyes. The mind knows it as it is. Only if you
want to express what you have seen do you really need words. Yet whiteness
is not a word, but what it is. Blackness is not a word, but what it is.
The same is true for sweetness, bitterness, sourness, toughness,
etc.—everything in your experience.
The brain does not manufacture thoughts from nothing. It has to be fed
something to use as raw material for manufacturing thoughts. The raw
material is what you have fed it in the past. If you do not feed the brain
words, if you have trained it to avoid verbalizing, the silence will come.
Bhante Henepola Gunaratana is a Buddhist monk from Sri Lanka and
the author of Mindfulness in Plain English (Wisdom). He is
president of the Bhavana Society in High View, West Virginia, an
organization that promotes meditation and the monastic life.
|^|
Is meditation enough?
Judy Lief
WE
ALL HAVE PRECONCEPTIONS, we all have points of view. Not only do we have
ideas but we have opinions and countless judgments, especially about
other people. We may hope to free ourselves from such a tangle, but
usually what we find is that we just exchange one set of preconceptions
for another.
The practice of mindfulness-awareness meditation does not take place in
a vacuum. It happens within a certain context and point of view. In the
Buddhist tradition, meditation is often presented in the context of
view, meditation, and action. View is like the eyes, which provide
vision and perspective; meditation is like the mind, with its openness
and clarity; and action is like the limbs that enable us to move about
in the world. Each of these three is essential, as a system of checks
and balances. So we cultivate all three of them together in order to
overcome the prejudice and narrow-mindedness of our visions, the
restlessness of our minds, and the ineffectiveness of our actions.
IF WE DO NOT understand the view, the practice of meditation can
be more of a trap than a means of freeing ourselves from deception.
Without an understanding of non-theism and the motivation to benefit
others, meditation practice can degenerate into self-absorption and
escapism. Rather than loosening our ego-clinging, it may further
perpetuate our ignorance and grasping. Rather than connecting us to our
world, it may draw us away from it. Meditation practice can even be a
tool of aggression, a way of clearing the mind before going out to
commit our next murder. Meditation in and of itself is no magical
cure-all. Proper understanding and proper motivation are important. The
view informs the practice.
Likewise, meditation balances view. Meditation practice is a way
of loosening our solidity. Without practice, even the most inspired view
can become rigid ideology. The practice of meditation brings out the
futility and limitations of holding any rigid view. We see the nature of
our attachment to particular viewpoints, and the simplicity of letting
such views dissolve. The irony is that the proper motivation and view
are essential—and at the same time, it is also essential not to grasp
any view.
Action, the third component, is a balance to both view and
meditation. Meditation does not matter that much if it has no effect on
the rest of our lives. Likewise, we could be filled with empty words
that do not lead to any change whatsoever in our lives or our
relationships with others. We need to act on our understanding and our
awareness.
Action, like view and meditation, does not stand alone. Action without
clarity of view is blundering and apt to cause more harm than good. And
action without meditation tends to be speedy and complex, rather than
spacious and simple. But if these three factors are in balance, clarity
of view and meditative awareness permeate all our activities.
In the Buddhist path we are bringing together our actions, our view, and
our practice. It is a balance of awareness, insight, and action, working
harmoniously together. In that way our energy is no longer divided or
scattered, and we are fully present in whatever we do. That is what it
means to be a genuine human being.
In Buddhism, the point is not simply to be accomplished meditators but
to change our whole approach to life. Meditation is not merely a useful
technique or mental gymnastic; it is part of a balanced system designed
to change the way we go about things at the most fundamental level. In
this context, it is a way of exposing and uprooting the core problems of
grasping and ego-clinging that separate us from one another and cause
endless pain.
Within the Buddhist tradition there are many varieties of meditation and
many differences of opinion as to what meditation is all about. Wherever
it occurs, it is colored by one set of preconceptions or another.
Nowadays, people pluck techniques such as meditation from their
traditional contexts, mix and match practices from very different
traditions, and apply them in new settings. Meditation practice is often
presented in a secular way, free of religious trappings and increasingly
separated from any spiritual dimension. In the United States, this tends
to place it in the general category of self-help techniques. As a
result, meditation has been demystified for many people, who see it as
one aspect of a healthy lifestyle, like working out or eating healthy
food.
Meditation is used as therapy, to calm people down, as healing to lower
blood pressure, for instance, or deal with pain, and even as a way to
get ahead in business, or win at sports. It is gradually becoming part
of the mainstream. This is not unlike what has happened to the practice
of yoga, once viewed as a sophisticated system of spiritual training,
and now offered regularly as a class at neighborhood health clubs. The
technique may be there, but without heart. There is a danger that the
practice of meditation could be similarly reduced. The very technique
designed to undermine the power of ego-fixation could become another
feather in our ego-cap. But if we keep in mind the broader context of
view, meditation, and action, we are constantly challenged to look at
what we are doing and why. By doing so, we discover that there are no
limitations to our practice apart from those that we ourselves impose.
Judy Lief was a senior student of the late Chogyam Trungpa
Rinpoche, who authorized her as a teacher in the Buddhist and Shambhala
traditions. She is the series editor of the Dharma Ocean Series of
Shambhala Publications, and the executive editor of Vajradhatu
Publications in Halifax.
|^|
Why do we bow?
Norman Fischer
MANY
PEOPLE HAVE this question the minute they walk into the zendo and are told
to make full prostrations to the Buddha image on the altar. They come with
an idea that Zen is beyond words and letters, beyond religion, beyond
rules, beyond piety, and so the idea of such a thoroughgoing and
outrageous display of what seems like religious fervor seems quite
disturbing to them.
So why do we bow? I had this same question myself in the beginning of my
practice. My teacher at the time took me up to the altar and let me look
closely at the tiny Buddha there. He pointed out to me that the little
Buddha was also bowing. So I was bowing to the Buddha, and the Buddha was
bowing to me. "If he can do it, you can do it," he said. I thought that
was fair enough.
Bowing is just bowing. You do it mindfully, in a particular way, aware of
the body and mind in the doing of it. The so-called meaning of it is
extra. It's not a symbolic or conceptual act. It's just another form of
sitting practice. You sit—you walk, the bell rings, you get up and bow. To
just do what you do with full attention and without much worry is an
important part of the method in Zen.
AND THERE'S ANOTHER way of looking at it: We are bowing to an image that
suggests for us an attitude we are trying to cultivate. So the bowing is a
training method. We offer our whole body and mind to wisdom or to
compassion, opening ourselves, in the act of the bow, to that quality of
letting go of everything else in our life but that quality, bringing it
out, making it big, fashioning it day by day, bow by bow.
When I bow to the Buddha on the main altar at Green Gulch, I train my mind
deeply, creating a powerful predisposition in myself toward the
development of love and appreciation for the Buddha nature that is my own
nature. When I bow to the Tara, a Tibetan deity of compassion, I am
training my mind, creating a predisposition in myself toward the feminine
and active in my own nature.
This kind of training is not something most of us are used to. Our sense
of training has largely to do with will or skill, and this kind of
training has to do with warmth and devotion. Yes, piety. But after all,
piety is all right, devotion is all right. In fact, they are very tender
and splendid states of mind if you can cultivate them without getting
hysterical about it. It's okay to respect Buddha and make offerings to
Tara. We can appreciate Buddha and Tara and all the other figures that we
practice with as "other" when we really appreciate that they are
manifestations of ourselves. The more familiar we are with ourselves as we
actually are, the more comfortable we are with Tara and Buddha and
everyone else. As my first teacher said, the bowing is always mutual;
there is one bow back and forth. Buddha bowing to Buddha, Tara bowing to
Tara.
A long time ago, when I was serving as his attendant, I noticed that
Katagiri Roshi always mumbled something as he bowed. I asked him what it
was, but he couldn't tell me since it was in Japanese. Later on, I
received in the mail a translation of the bowing verse, which I have used
ever since.
"Bower and what is bowed to are empty by nature," it reads. "The bodies of
one's self and others are not two/ I bow
with all beings to attain liberation/ To
manifest the unsurpassable mind and return to boundless truth."
Norman Fischer is a poet, Zen priest, and the co-abbot of San
Francisco Zen Center. He lives at Green Gulch Farm, where he heads the
practice program.
|^|
What is Karma?
by Thubten Chodron
from What Color is Your Mind?
KARMA
MEANS ACTION AND refers to intentional physical, verbal or mental
actions. These actions leave imprints or seeds upon our mindstreams, and
the imprints ripen into our experiences when the appropriate conditions
come together. For example, with a kind heart we help someone. This
action leaves an imprint on our mindstream, and when conditions are
suitable, this imprint will ripen into our receiving help when we need
it. The seeds of our actions continue with us from one lifetime to the
next and do not get lost. However, if we don't create the cause or karma
for something, then we won't experience that result: if a farmer doesn't
plant seeds, nothing will grow. If an action brings about pain and
misery in the long term, it is called negative, destructive, or
nonvirtuous. If it brings about happiness, it is called positive,
constructive, or virtuous. Actions aren't inherently good or bad, but
are only designated so according to the results they bring.
All results come from causes that have the ability to create them. If we
plant apple seeds, an apple tree will grow, not chili. If chili seeds
are planted, chili will grow, not apples. In the same way, if we act
constructively, happiness will ensue; if we act destructively, problems
will result. Whatever happiness and fortune we experience in our lives
comes from our own positive actions, while our problems result from our
own destructive actions.
According to Buddhism, there is no one in charge of the universe who
distributes rewards and punishments. We create the causes by our actions
and we experience the results. We are responsible for own experience.
The Buddha didn't create the system of actions and their effects, in the
same way that Newton didn't invent gravity. Newton simply described what
exists. Likewise, the Buddha described what he saw with his omniscient
mind to be the natural process of cause and effect occurring within the
mindstream of each being. By doing this, he showed us how best to work
within the functioning of cause and effect in order to experience
happiness and avoid pain.
When we see dishonest people who are wealthy, or cruel people who are
powerful, or kind people who die young, we may doubt the law of actions
and their effects. This is because we are looking at only a short period
of this one life. Many of the results we experience in this life are the
results of actions done in previous lives, and many of the actions we do
in this life will ripen only in future lives. The wealth of dishonest
people is the result of their generosity in previous lives. Their
current dishonesty is leaving the karmic seed for them to be cheated and
to experience poverty in future lives. Likewise, the respect and
authority given to cruel people is due to positive actions they did in
the past. In the present, they are misusing their power, thus creating
the cause for future pain. Kind people who die young are experiencing
the result of negative actions such as killing done in past lives.
However, their present kindness is planting seeds or imprints on their
mindstreams for them to experience happiness in the future.
Karma is both collective and individual. Collective karma is the actions
we do together as a group: soldiers use weapons, a group of religious
practitioners pray or meditate. The results of these actions are
experienced as a group, often in future lives. Yet each member of a
group thinks, speaks, and acts slightly differently, thus creating
individual karma, the results of which each person will experience
himself or herself.
Thubten Chodron has been a Buddhist nun in the Tibetan tradition
since 1977. She currently lives and teaches at the
Dharma Friendship Foundation in Seattle, Washington. "What is
Karma?" is adapted from What Color is Your Mind?(Snow Lion
Publications)|^|
I've been meditating for ten years,
and I'm still angry.
What's the matter
with me?
Mark Epstein
WHAT'S
THE MATTER WITH YOU? YOU'RE ANGRY!
If you are angry and you meditate to get rid of your anger, you will only
frustrate yourself. Meditate because you are angry, not to
eliminate it. Thich Nhat Hanh says we must learn how to hold anger like a
baby: we need to learn how to be angry, not how to express or repress it.
Whenever we take any emotion and make it into an It (as in "I can't stand
it any longer" or "I have to get it out of my system"), we
are in trouble.
The classic Buddhist psychological texts have a lot to say about working
with anger. In the Visuddhimagga (the fifth-century Sinhalese "Path
of Purification"), for instance, the mental factor of dosa , or
hate, is described as follows: "Herein, by its means they hate, or it
itself hates, or it is just mere hating, thus it is hate (dosa). It has
the characteristic of savageness, like a provoked snake. Its function is
to spread, like a drop of poison, or its function is to burn up its own
support, like a forest fire. It is manifested as persecuting (dusana),
like an enemy who has got his chance. Its proximate cause is the grounds
for annoyance. It should be regarded as like stale urine mixed with
poison."
RECOGNIZING THE CHARACTER of anger, as described in this text, is a big
help in learning to work with it skillfully. We feel righteous when we are
angry, but more often than not we end up being self-destructive. The
grounds for annoyance are there, but we respond in a way that is savage.
Like a forest fire, anger tends to burn up its own support. If we jump
down into the middle of such a fire, we will have little chance of putting
it out, but if we create a clearing around the edges, the fire can burn
itself out. This is the role of meditation: creating a clearing around the
margins of anger. Ten years of meditation might be a good start, but it is
actually very difficult to carve out that margin. Holding anger like a
baby while at the same time regarding it like stale urine mixed with
poison is a neat trick. The Dalai Lama implies something like this when he
teaches us to offer gratitude to our enemies for teaching us patience.
The Buddhist teachings have another method of working with anger, one that
the Dalai Lama always refers to. "All human beings want happiness and
don't want suffering," he often says. There are practices in which one
deliberately changes places, in one's mind, with another person, thinking,
"She wants happiness, she doesn't want suffering just as I want happiness
and do not want suffering." These practices are usually done first with a
person for whom one has loving feelings, then with a person for whom one
has neutral feelings and finally, only after much practice, with a person
for whom one has angry feelings.
So you're still angry and you're wondering what's the matter with you?
Probably nothing. Don't compare the Bodhisattva path with being a Buddha
and expect yourself to have purified every emotion.
Mark Epstein is a practicing psychotherapist in New York City and a
Consulting Editor to Tricycle. He is the author of Thoughts
without a Thinker: Psychotherapy from a Buddhist Perspective
(BasicBooks).
|^|
SHUNRYU SUZUKI ROSHI
(1904-1971), founder of Zen Center San Francisco and author of Zen Mind,
Beginner's Mind,was known to discourage questions about enlightenment.
Once, when pressed on the subject, he replied,
"What do you want to know for? You may not
like it."
|^|
Etymology: The Three Jewels
by Stuart Smithers
|
 |
Buddha.
From the Sanskrit root budh, literally "to wake, wake up, be
awake." Sanskrit was the elite language of the Aryan tribes who
migrated to South Asia sometime in the second millennium B.C.E.
Various forms of this root, budh, appear in the oldest
Sanskrit literature of the Vedas, the sacred texts of the Aryans (c.
2nd to 3rd millennia B.C.E.). The original form of the term was also
meant to imply the recovery of consciousness (as after a swoon), or
to become aware, etc. The adjective buddha is found already
in the epic texts of the Mahabharata, the Indian equivalent
to the Odyssey, with the meaning "intelligent, wise,
learned." The Buddhist name Buddha meaning an "awakened one" refers
especially to Shakyamuni, a prince of the Shakya tribe and the
founder of "Buddhism." But apparently the Buddha was not referred to
as "Buddha" by his followers and students during his lifetime;
rather, he was generally called "Bhagavat", or "Lord."
|
|
 |
Dharma.
Ultimately derives from the root dhri, "to bear, to support."
The Buddhist understanding of dharma as the "teaching" is related to
the sense of dharma as it appears in the Vedas in its older
form, dharman: that which is firm, a steadfast decree,
statute, law; practice, duty; morality, religion, good works, etc.
The principal usage of the word dharma in India is connected to the
idea of duty or even sacred duty as it relates to caste. In the
simplest terms, the Buddha, for example, was a member of the
ksatriya caste, the warrior and ruling caste, and as such his caste
duty was to fight or to rule or to govern. Hinduism is often
referred to as the sanatana dharma, the eternal
dharma, which as such encompasses the various schools and lines of
Hinduism. Hence, the Buddhist usage of dharma, meaning the Buddha's
law, doctrine, or teaching is in line with the traditional usage of
the term.
|
|
 |
Sangha.
Derives from the prefix sam- ("with") and the root han.
Han has various meanings, but in this combination it means
"contact." Thus pre-Buddhist texts refer to muni-sangha, a
"gathering of sages." The term is generally used to refer to people
who had contact with others for a certain purpose. The collective
body of Buddhists (especially the monks and nuns of early Buddhism)
is referred to as the Sangha, a group who had contact with one
another because of their shared aspiration to follow the Buddha's
dharma. Initially the Buddha seems to have envisioned a universal
Sangha, but the monastic movement ended up as various separate
"sanghas." Today "the Sangha" refers generally to the collective
body of individuals who follow the Buddhist teaching.
|
Stuart Smithers is a Contributing Editor to
Tricycle and Professor of South Asian Religion at the University of
Puget Sound.|^|
Where to study?
AS
INTEREST IN BUDDHISM CONTINUES TO grow in America, many people are
choosing to deepen their understanding of this tradition through graduate
level study. If you are contemplating this route, one of the first things
to examine is your motivation for pursuing an advanced degree in this
field. Is it to complement a Buddhist practice? Is it to build a career in
academia? Most graduate programs in Buddhist studies do not serve as a
substitute for the faith in and the practice of Buddhism. Rather, they
approach Buddhism from analytical vantage points: from history, sociology,
philology, philosophy, religious studies, and cultural studies.
Nevertheless, there are a number of degree programs that encourage or
support Buddhist practice and scholarship among students. These
"practitioner-friendly" programs generally offer one of three things: the
ability to pursue a degree in the context of Buddhist priestly training,
courses in the practice of Buddhism that complement academic study, or an
emphasis on the study of Buddhism from a normative point of view. Keep in
mind, though, that if you're interested in pursuing a career in academia,
the institutions that offer these practice-integrated programs are often
not accorded the same status as secular universities.
At most universities, faculty members in Buddhist studies tend to be far
fewer in number than their Christian or Jewish counterparts. As a result,
very few programs can be considered comprehensive: most have a strength in
a particular geographic/cultural area (South Asia, Tibet, East Asia), a
particular tradition (Ch'an/Zen, Theravada, Tibetan), or a particular
approach (philological, historical, apologetic). While a comprehensive
program may be optimal, many graduate students have also prospered in
departments with a strength in one area of specialization. In such smaller
contexts, working closely with a faculty member whose interests coincide
with your own may compensate for the more limited scope of the program.
Most faculty in Buddhist studies are housed in either a religious studies
or an area studies program (East Asian, South Asian studies). Religious
studies departments commonly require course work and exams in other
religious traditions as well as familiarity with the theoretical
literature of the study of religion in general. In contrast, area studies
programs place greater emphasis on the study of Asian languages (Pali,
Sanskrit, Chinese, Japanese, Tibetan) and the study of Buddhism in its
various historical and cultural contexts.
The following is a chart of Buddhist studies programs divided into several
categories designed to help you decide which schools may be most
appropriate for your interests and goals. Professors whose names appear in
brackets are not specialists in the study of Buddhism per se, but because
their expertise is in subject matter closely related to Buddhism, they
have taught or directed graduate students in the past.
PRACTITIONER-FRIENDLY INSTITUTIONS
•CALIFORNIA INSTITUTE OF INTEGRAL STUDIES
9 Peter Yorke Way, Box TR
San Francisco, CA 94109
(415) 674-5500
Degree(s) Offered:
M.A. in Philosophy and Religion
Ph.D. in Philosophy and Religion
Faculty:
Steven Goodman (Tibetan Nyingma)
Joanna Macy (Engaged)
•GRADUATE THEOLOGICAL UNION
2400 Ridge Road
Berkeley, CA 94709
(510) 649-2400
Degree(s) Offered:
M.Div.
M.A. in Religion
Ph.D. in Religion
Faculty: (Access to professors at the Berkeley Institute of
Buddhist Studies)
•HSI LAI UNIVERSITY
1409 North Walnut Grove Avenue
Rosemead, CA 80302-9926
(818) 571-8811
Degree(s) Offered:
M.A. in Buddhist Studies
Faculty:
Francis Cook (East Asian)
Wang Yao (Tibetan)
(Visiting faculty from area universities)
•UNIVERSITY OF BUDDHIST STUDIES
1900 Addison Street
Berkeley, CA 94704
(510) 849-2383
Degree(s) Offered:
M.A. In Buddhist Studies
Faculty:
Dennis Hirota (Japanese/Shin)
Richard Payne (Esoteric Buddhism)
Kenneth Tanaka (Chinese/Shin)
•NAROPA INSTITUTE
2130 Arapahoe Avenue
Boulder, CO 80302-9926
(303) 444-0202
Degree(s) Offered:
M.A. in Buddhist Studies
Faculty:
Roger Dorris (Engaged)
Reginald Ray (Indo-Tibetan)
Judith Simmer-Brown (Indo-Tibetan/American)
MOST COMPREHENSIVE
PROGRAMS
•HARVARD UNIVERSITY
Committee on the Study of Religion
Philips Brooks House, 3rd Floor
Cambridge, MA 02138
(617) 495-5781
Degree(s) Offered:
M.T.S. (Divinity School)
Ph.D. in Religion
Faculty:
Charles Hallisey (South and Southeast Asian/Theravada)
Leonard van der Kuijp (Indo-Tibetan history and literature)
[Helen Hardacre (Japanese religions)]
[Christopher Queen (Engaged/American)]
[Oktor Skjaervo (Inner Asian)]
•INDIANA UNIVERSITY
Department of Religious Studies
Sycamore Hall, Room 230
Bloomington, IN 47405
(812) 855-3531
Degree(s) Offered:
M.A. in Religious Studies
Ph.D. in Religious Studies
Faculty:
John McRae (Chinese)
Jan Nattier (Central Asian)
Eliot Sperling (Tibetan)
Michael Walter (Tibetan)
•UNIVERSITY OF HAWAII AT MANOA
Department of Religion
Sakamaki Hall
Honolulu, HI 96822
(808) 956-8111
Degree(s) Offered:
M.A. in Religion
Faculty:
Helen Baroni (Japanese/Zen)
David Chappell (Chinese/T'ien-t'ai)
David Kalupahana (South Asian)
George Tanabe (Japanese)
Willa Tanabe (Art History)
[Graham Parkes (East-West Philosophy)]
[Oung Thwin (Theravada/Burmese)]
•UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
Department of Asian Language and Culture
3070 Frieze Building
Ann Arbor, MI 48109
(313) 764-4475
Degree(s) Offered:
Ph.D. in Buddhist Studies
Faculty:
Luis Gomez (Indian/Tibetan)
Donald Lopez (Tibetan)
Robert Sharf (East Asian)
•UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA
Department of Religious Studies
Cocke Hall
Charlottesville, VA 22903
(804) 924-3741
Degree(s) Offered:
M.A. in Religious Studies
Ph.D. in Religious Studies
Faculty:
David Germano (Tibetan Nyingma)
Paul Groner (East Asian/Tendai)
Jeffrey Hopkins (Tibetan Gelug)
Karen Lang (Indian/Sri Lankan)
[H.L. Seneviratne (South Asian)]
•UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO
The Divinity School
1025 East 58th Street
Chicago, IL 60637
(312) 702-8200
Degree(s) Offered:
M.A. in Religious Studies
Ph.D. in Religious Studies
Faculty:
Steven Collins (Theravada)
Paul Griffiths (Indian/Mahayana)
Mathew Kapstein (Tibetan)
Frank Reynolds (Theravada)
[James Ketelaar (Japanese/Modern)]
[Hung Wu (Art History)]
INSTITUTIONS WITH
STRENGTH IN EAST ASIAN STUDIES
•PRINCETON
UNIVERSITY
Department of Religion
1879 Hall
Princeton, NJ 08544
(609) 258-4520
Degree(s) Offered:
Ph.D. in Religion
Faculty:
Martin Collcutt (Japanese/Zen)
Jackie Stone (Japanese/Nichiren/Tendai)
Stephen Teiser (Chinese/Popular)
[Soho Machida (Japanese/Zen)]
•STANFORD UNIVERSITY
Department of Religious Studies
Building 70
Stanford, CA 94305-2165
(415) 723-3322
Degree(s) Offered:
M.A. in Religious Studies
Ph.D. in Religious Studies
Faculty:
Carl Bielefeldt (Japanese/Zen)
Bernard Faure (East Asian/Ch'an-Zen)
•UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA
East Asian Studies Department
Franklin Building 404
Tucson, AZ 85721
(520) 621-7505
Degree(s) Offered:
M.A. in Japanese or Chinese Studies
Ph.D. in Chinese Studies
Faculty:
Robert Gimello (Chinese)
Elizabeth Harrison (Japanese)
•UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA AT LOS ANGELES
Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures
Box 951540
Los Angeles, CA 90095-1540
(310) 206-0257
Degree(s) Offered:
Ph.D. in Buddhist Studies
Faculty:
William Bodiford (Japanese/Zen)
Robert Buswell (Chinese/Korean)
[Robert Brown (Art History)][Donald McCallum (Art History)]
•UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA AT SANTA BARBARA
Religious Studies Department
Santa Barbara, CA 93106
(805) 893-3578
Degree(s) Offered:
M.A. in Religious Studies
Ph.D. in Religious Studies
Faculty:
Allan Grapard (Japanese/Esoteric)
William Powell (Chinese/Ch'an)
Ninian Smart (South Asian)
•UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA
Department of Religious Studies
Box 36, College Hall
Philadelphia, PA 19104
(215) 898-7453
Degree(s) Offered:
M.A. in Religious Studies
Ph.D. in Religious Studies
Faculty:
William LaFleur (Japanese)
Victor Mair (Chinese)
Guy Welbon (Indian)
•YALE UNIVERSITY
Department of Religious Studies
Box 208287
New Haven, CT 06520
(203) 432-0828
Degree(s) Offered:
Ph.D. in Religion
Faculty:
Stanley Weinstein (Sino-Japanese)
[Edward Kamens (Japanese Literature)]
[Mimi Yiengpruksawan (Art History)]
INSTITUTIONS WITH STRENGTH IN INDO-TIBETAN BUDDHIST STUDIES
•HARVARD
UNIVERSITY
•UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
•UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA
(See above)
•UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON
Department of Asian Languages and Literature
225 Gowen Hall
Box 353521
Seattle, WA 98195-3521
(206) 543-4996
Degree(s) Offered: M.A. in Asian Languages and Literature
Ph.D. in Asian Languages and Literature
Faculty:
Collett Cox (Indian)
Richard Solomon (Early Indian)
Richard Dreyfuss (Tibetan)
[Charles Keyes (Theravada)]
[Ter Ellingson (Ritual Music)]
INSTITUTIONS WITH
STRENGTH IN SOUTHEAST ASIAN BUDDHIST STUDIES
•UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO
•HARVARD UNIVERSITY
(See above)
OTHER NOTEWORTHY PROGRAMS
•COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY
Department of Religion
Kent Hall Room 617
Mail Code 3949
1140 Amsterdam Avenue
New York, NY 10027
(212) 854-3218
Degree(s) Offered:
M.A. in Religion
Ph.D. in Religion
Faculty:
Ryuiche Abe (Japanese)
Robert Thurman (Tibetan/Gelug)
[Barbara Ruch (Japanese/Women)]
•UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA AT BERKELEY
Department of East Asian Languages
104 Durant Hall
Berkeley, CA 94720
(510) 642-3480
Degree(s) Offered:
M.A. in Chinese or Japanese
Ph.D. in Chinese or Japanese
Faculty:
Lewis Lancaster (East Asian)
•UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT AUSTIN
Center for Asian Studies
W. C. Hogg Building, Room 4.134
Austin, TX 78712-1194
(512) 471-5811
Degree(s) Offered:
M.A. in Asian Cultures and Languages
Ph.D. in Asian Cultures and Languages
Faculty:
Gregory Schopen (Indian)
•UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN
Department of South Asian Studies
1238 Van Hise Hall
1220 Linden Drive
Madison, WI 53706
(608) 262-3012
Degree(s) Offered:
Ph.D. in Buddhist Studies
Faculty:
Gudrun Buhnemann (Indian/Tantra)
Minoru Kiyota (Sino-Japanese/Shingon)
Geshe Sopa (Tibetan)
[Tongchai Winchakul (Southeast Asian)]
[Andre Wink (Indian)]
Duncan Ryuken Williams is a Ph.D. candidate at Harvard University
specializing in Japanese Buddhism. He is also ordained in the Soto Zen
tradition and is currently a Visiting Lecturer at Brown University.
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Update : 01-03-2003
