Something Is True

Posted on January 11, 2016 by EricKVanHorn

I have been reading up a little on “secular Buddhism” lately because at the Albuquerque Vipassana Sangha someone is running a study group on it. Those of you who read this blog know that I am unabashedly a “religious Buddhist,” and as such I know only peripherally about secular Buddhism. So I have taken this as an opportunity to read up on it.

Ajahn Punnadhammo has written a very clear and intelligent criticism of the book “Buddhism Without Beliefs” that is smarter than anything you are likely to read here. You can find it at http://www.arrowriver.ca/dhamma/woBeliefs.html.

As for me, I will start with three comments. First, upon reading and studying the Pali Canon, I have come to the same conclusion that many others have, that is to say that a) it accurately represents the teachings of the Buddha and b) that it is “consistent and cogent.” The word “cogent” is often used in conjunction with the Buddha’s teaching. It means that there is a “compelling truth.” This does not mean that every word has been transmitted perfectly or that there are not any inconsistencies. It does mean that you can glean from the Pali canon a path of training that will lead to insight into the ultimate truth of life, and that this also leads to freedom from suffering, transcendent happiness, and final liberation.

The second comment is that the Buddha did, indeed, see into the ultimate nature of reality. You can see this in (at least) two ways. The first is from reading (and understanding) the Pali canon. The second is from seeing the many people who, over the centuries, have seen what the Buddha saw. It is a repeatable experiment.

The third comment is that the Buddha – indeed, any Arahant – is incapable of saying something that is not true. The importance of speaking the truth is held in particularly high esteem in the Buddha’s teaching.

If you take these three assertions together, it is impossible to make some of the claims made by secular Buddhists, most notably the denial of the truth of rebirth. The Buddha did teach rebirth, ad nauseum. (I actually heard one teacher at the Barre Center for Buddhist Studies say that the Buddha never talked about rebirth!) This is undeniable. So to claim that the Buddha taught rebirth as “skillful means” is to deny any or all of the above assertions. It is to either trivialize the experience of Awakening/Enlightenment, it is to deny the overwhelming evidence that the Buddha taught rebirth, or it is to claim that the Buddha was not speaking the truth.

There is a kind of hubris in looking at the extraordinary accomplishments of the Buddha, the vast quantity of teachings that we have from him, and to start cherry picking what we want to believe. As I am fond of saying, something is true. And it isn’t just true in Asia or Burma or the West. It is true everywhere throughout the universe. The truth isn’t limited to what an infinitesimal number of people on one land mass on one tiny planet at the outer spiral arm of the galaxy believe.

Of course, this is not to say that you believe everything that you hear or read mindlessly. It is to be done – by definition – mindfully. But a better approach is to accept what the Buddha taught as a hypothesis, and to put it into practice. Run the experiment in an honest way. See the results for yourself. It is perhaps the most fundamental teaching of the Buddha to observe your actions and to see the consequences. I suspect that you will find – as I have – that your own opinions about how things are begin to fall away, and that you open up to a way of seeing that is more vast than what you could ever have imagined.

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What I Want for Christmas

Posted on December 13, 2015 by EricKVanHorn

I saw an ad this evening that started:

“So… What do you want for Christmas?”

OK. I’m game. Here is what I would like.

I want the United States to be as warm and open-hearted as the Canadians are in welcoming Syrian refugees.

I want hatred and intolerance to go away.

I want Donald Trump to be the main character in “A Christmas Carol.”

I want Buddhists in Burma, Sri Lanka, and Bhutan and elsewhere to be kind and loving to their Hindu and Muslim brothers and sisters.

I want Israel to start a new war on the Palestinians, one that starts with helping them receive high quality health care, a good standard of living, education, and a bright future. In this war, kill your enemy with kindness.

I want the rich people of the world – the “2 percent” – to discover that happiness is in helping those who are less fortunate then they, and that their wealth is a gift and a responsibility.

I want people to realize that happiness comes from being happy with little, that happiness comes from being kind, generous, loving, compassionate and wise.

This is what I want for Christmas.

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Metta, Syrian Refugees and Dazzle

Posted on December 10, 2015 by EricKVanHorn

I am reading the Itivuttaka (“This Was Said (by the Buddha)“), which is a small volume of discourses from the Pali Canon. The literary quality of this volume is particularly striking. Each discourse begins with a short prose passage, which is then summarized in a poem. Of course, it is the content and meaning of those discourses which is the most important point.

The Buddha taught some things which are particularly resonant with what Jesus taught, especially love and forbearance for people who wish you harm. It is a timeless and challenging teaching. Sometimes when people look at these ancient teachings, they rationalize them somehow so that they do not apply to us now. But they do. Having enemies is not unique to modern life. Joseph Goldstein tells a story about teaching a metta – loving-kindness – retreat the week after 9/11. So there is the challenge. Can we love people who just flew some airplanes into the World Trade Center? Can we love people who opened fire in public places in Paris?

Metta is not about approval. It is about love and understanding. It is the unconditional love that a parent has for a child. People who do these things cause a great deal of suffering for themselves. From the broad perspective of rebirth, people who do such things condemn themselves to aeons of misery. And even in this life, you don’t see any terrorists looking happy. It is not a happy way to be.

Then there is the reaction, reacting to hatred with hatred. This, of course, only perpetuates the problem. The Buddha tells us to look at the consequences of our actions. If the United States prevents Syrian refugees from entering the country, what effect does that have? How does the Muslim world respond to that? How does banning them from entry make things better?

So the challenge is not to just take the teachings as empty, idealistic and unachievable. They are to be put into practice here and now in your very heart.

And so we go back to the Itivuttaka, where the Buddha says this:

This was said by the Blessed One, said by the Arahant, so I have heard: “Monks, all the grounds for making merit leading to spontaneously arising [in heaven] do not equal one-sixteenth of the awareness – release through good will. Good will – surpassing them – shines, blazes, and dazzles. Just as the radiance of all the stars does not equal one-sixteenth of the radiance of the moon, as the moon – surpassing them – shines, blazes, and dazzles, even so, all the grounds for making merit leading to spontaneously arising [in heaven] do not equal one-sixteenth of the awareness – release through good will. Good will – surpassing them – shines, blazes, and dazzles.

Just as in the last month of the rains, in autumn, when the sky is clear and cloudless, the sun, on ascending the sky, overpowers the space immersed in darkness, shines, blazes, and dazzles, even so, all the grounds for making merit leading to spontaneously arising [in heaven] do not equal one-sixteenth of the awareness – release through good will. Good will – surpassing them – shines, blazes, and dazzles.

Just as in the last stage of the night the morning star shines, blazes, and dazzles, even so, all the grounds for making merit leading to spontaneously arising [in heaven] do not equal one-sixteenth of the awareness – release through good will. Good will – surpassing them – shines, blazes, and dazzles.

When one develops – mindful –
good will without limit,
fetters are worn through,
on seeing the ending
of acquisitions.

If with uncorrupted mind
you feel good will
for even        one being,
you become skilled from that.
But a noble one produces
a mind of sympathy
for                  all beings,
an abundance of merit.

Kingly seers, who conquered the earth
swarming with beings,
went about making sacrifices:
the horse sacrifice, human sacrifice,
water rites, soma rites,
and the “Unobstructed,”
but these don’t equal
one sixteenth
of a well – developed mind of good will –
as all the constellations don’t,
one-sixteenth
of the radiance of the moon.

One who
neither kills
nor gets others to kill,
neither conquers,
nor gets others to conquer,
with good will for all beings,
has no hostility with anyone
at all.

– [Ṭhānissaro Bhikkhu, Itivuttaka: This Was Said by the Buddha, 1.27]

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New version of Travel Guide

Posted on November 5, 2015 by EricKVanHorn

There is a new version of the Travel Guide to the Buddha’s Path. You can download it directly from this site for Kindles, and get it from Smashwords for non-Kindles. The content has not changed but I made dozens and dozens of style and format changes. It should look nicer. Much nicer.

I am in the process of putting together a print version of the book. I will let everyone know when that is available.

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Travel Guide

Posted on September 23, 2015 by EricKVanHorn

The Practice Guide is now complete, to the extent that anything of this sort is ever complete. I am hoping that many of you will read it and provide feedback. I would like to know, in particular, what parts are not clear, or are problematic in some way.

The Practice Guide is available as an eBook called “Travel Guide to the Buddha’s Path.” If you click on the link at the top of the page (Travel Guide to the Buddha’a Path) or go to the Additional Resources page, you can download either the ePub version (iBooks, Nook, etc.) or the Kindle version.

The book is also available at the Apple Store, Smashwords, etc. as well as Amazon. Amazon is somewhat problematic as they do not allow small publishing houses or individual authors to distribute a book for free. I am trying to do a workaround to price match it down to $0.00. In the meantime, however, you can always download it from here.

The Buddha’s teachings were always offered freely. It is rather bad form to earn a living from them.

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Good Monk, Bad Monk

Posted on April 28, 2015 by EricKVanHorn

When my children were young and I was learning how to be a parent, one of the things that I quickly noticed was how they learn from their parents. The most obvious way in which they learn is by the things that you tell them. I think most people think this is the most important way in which they teach their children.

But long after they have forgotten anything you told them – and this will be most of the time – how they really learn is by observation. They watch how you react to situations. If you tend to overreact and show a lot of anger, this is how they will behave. This is how patterns of abuse get passed on from one generation to another. The converse is true as well. In Thailand children first learn about generosity from their parents who give alms food to the monks.

I have had similar experiences with my meditation teachers. To be honest, when I go to a retreat, even a few months later I hardly remember anything that was said. I may remember one or two notable things, but that is about it.

But what often stays with me is how the teacher behaved, and I have seen more than my share of bad behavior in Dharma teachers. One benefit of this is that I have learned to be very self-reliant in my practice. I value the teachers that I have had, and I have had some wonderful teachers, but even my most revered teachers I tend to hold at arm’s length. After all, they cannot will me to become enlightened. That can only happen through my own effort. They are guides leading you through the mountain pass, but you have to carry your own weight.

A little over a year ago I went to a retreat with an extremely prominent, world-renowned monk. As usual, I remember very little of what he said. But what I do remember is an incident that happened on the first day of the retreat. There was a young woman in our group who was asking him a lot of questions. I got to know her during the week and became quite fond of her. She is smart, and has a lot of energy, she loves the practice, and it also turned out that she is quite creative.

But her persistent questions could have been experienced as being annoying, and that is, in fact, how the monk reacted. He was, I thought, quite harsh with her. There was nothing in what she said that could be considered rude or objectionable; she was just asking a lot of questions. But he became quite impatient with her and was, I thought, quite rude.

Now fast forward to this year. I went to a different retreat with a different monk. There was someone in our group, an older man, a successful business owner, and he had a rather loud and big personality. This is the kind of thing that can rub people the wrong way. To be sure, once again I became quite fond of him. As with the young woman, there was nothing he said that was offensive or rude, and in fact I believe he has a very big heart. But he did on a couple of occasions launch into rather loud and lengthy soliloquies about his life.

This time, however, the monk was so attentive, and so kind, and so patient with him, that it left a substantial mark on me. He was the very embodiment of patience, kindness, and compassion. He was very sweet with the man.

Uncharacteristically for me I learned a great deal at this retreat. But what really stuck with me was that interaction between the monk and that older gentleman. It was Dharma in action.

The Buddha’s teachings are vast, and over the centuries they have spawned a great deal of scholarship. At a certain level the scholarship is fun. The Buddhadharma is an incredible exercise in learning. And the scholarship has produced some wonderful results.

But at the end of the day it is about cultivating yourself in a certain way, and being a certain kind of person. Some of the kindest, most generous people I know don’t know anything about Buddhism, and some of the most ideological, self-absorbed people I know call themselves Buddhists. It isn’t about how many suttas you have memorized or how smart you are or how dominant a personality you have or whether you can win a debate. It is about being patient when someone cuts you off in traffic, being compassionate towards someone who has treated you badly, and being generous to those who are in need. It is also about wisdom and skill. And when you bring all of those qualities together, you really have something, indeed.

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The Three Poisons

Posted on March 15, 2015 by EricKVanHorn

I heard a Dhamma talk this week in which the idea that there is such a thing as an “appropriate poison” was proffered. He was speaking of the Three Poisons: greed, hatred and delusion. He gave an example of “appropriate greed” as the desire to develop the path. He gave two examples for “appropriate aversion.” One was the fear that he felt when coming upon a rattlesnake while hiking. The other was a woman who was being threatened by a man in her life. He said that the fear was “appropriate” because it kept him and her safe.

This is a confused lack of understanding of very different qualities.

The Buddha never spoke about the Three Poisons as being of any benefit. A poison’s only job is to kill something, or at best to make it sick. The Buddha was very careful about how he used language. It is pretty clear what a poison is. It is something that is dangerous and to be avoided.

When the Buddha spoke of greed, he was not speaking about the wholesome desire to cultivate the path. The simplest way to think of greed is sense craving. A more complex way to think of greed is as craving and clinging, two of the links in the chain of dependent co-arising. This is the Buddha’s detailed analysis of how suffering is created. The Buddha listed three types of craving and four types of clinging. The three types of craving are craving for sense pleasures, craving for existence, and craving for non-existence. The four types of clinging are clinging to views,  clinging to rights and rituals, clinging to sense pleasures, and clinging to a doctrine of self.

Thus, you can see that in the Buddha’s teaching, he is pretty clear about with is meant by “greed.”

The Buddha did speak about the need to have desire in order to develop the path factors. However, desire to cultivate the path is not greed. Rather, it is an aspect of Right Intention. The Buddha often spoke of worldly and unworldly – of transcendent – aspects to mental factors. Worldly desire is the desire for sense pleasures. Unworldly desire is the desire to cultivate virtue, concentration, and wisdom.

As for “appropriate aversion,” there is a difference between aversion and wisdom. Wisdom is what keeps you from being bitten by a rattlesnake. Wisdom is what keeps you from putting yourself in harm’s way. Wisdom is what keeps you from speaking when it will not be of any benefit.

The objective in practice is to tease out the wisdom from the aversion. You don’t need the anger, fear, anxiety or hatred. They just get in the way of the wisdom. People who handle dangerous animals learn to be calm and equanimous, otherwise the animals pick up on their fear and become more aggressive. Martial arts expects learn to stay calm and clear-headed, because it makes them better able to be skillful in the execution of their craft.

The traditional antidote to greed is generosity; greed is what we want, and generosity is what we give. The antidote to aversion is loving kindness. And the antidote to delusion is wisdom. These three things, generosity, loving kindness and wisdom, can be called the Three Antidotes. The Three Poisons can only do harm, but the Three Antidotes are the cures.

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Be The Change…

Posted on March 7, 2015 by EricKVanHorn

“Be the change you want to see happen, instead of trying to change everyone else.” – The Love Project

I saw a movie yesterday, “Dalai Lama Awakening.” It is about a group of mainly Americans who go to Dharamsala for a conference called “Synthesis” hosted by the Dalai Lama. It wasn’t at all what I expected.

I presumed that a film called “Dalai Lama Awakening” would have something to do with spiritual awakening. Instead it was about this conference. The attendees were from a broad cross-section of life, from an economist to a Jesuit to a couple of physicists. Their charter was to come up with solutions to the world’s problems.

Instead the conference became an example of why the world has such problems. It reminded me of the anti-Viet Nam War movement, where there was so much anger and hostility. It was hard to tell what was more violent, the war or the anti-war.

The conference attendees spent most of their time either complaining about the conference format, or arguing with each other. And the arguments were not about how to make the world a better place. They were about who was going to be allowed to speak and who was dominating conversation and – finally – who was going to be able to get up in front of the Dalai Lama on the final day of the conference and give a presentation. In other words, it was all about “me.” As far as I could tell, they didn’t spend any time talking about how to make the world a better place.

The closest they came was when one person wanted to talk about how to help Tibet, proposing a boycott of Chinese goods. After some discussion, the Dalai Lama reminded them that this conference was not about Tibet, it was about the whole of humanity.

So here was a group of supposedly intelligent, gifted people, who a) could not stay on target with their charter, b) could not co-operate with the poor folks trying to facilitate the conference, and c) could not even observe rules of common courtesy in how they communicated with each other.

I started life as a very politically active person. It was the time of the Viet Nam War and the Civil Rights Movement. But I came eventually to distrust my own judgment when it came to politics. So much of what I thought and did I decided at the end of the day was wrong.

And finally I came to Buddhism, and saw a radically different way to think about change. That is that change has to start at home with my own heart. How can you possibly promote change in the world if you yourself cannot be kind, patient, and compassionate? How can you expect other people to be something that you cannot?

I wish that I had a magic wand and could end all of the terrible suffering in the world. I don’t. And as much as I wish I was like Gandhi, I’m not. But I do know that I can be kind to people. I can help where I see a need and can do something about it. I can smile at the person who is bagging my groceries. I can adopt a cat and give it a home. And if I am ever invited to Dharamsala to discuss how to make the world a better place, I’m not going to waste everyone’s precious time.

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Reverse Engineering the Buddha’s Enlightenment

Posted on March 3, 2015 by EricKVanHorn

I was dumpster diving through my hard disk the other day and found a paper that I wrote a few years ago called “Reverse Engineering the Buddha’s Enlightenment.” I have posted it to the “Papers and Projects” section of the web site.

At the time I was – as the paper notes – trying to connect the dots from the night of the Buddha’s awakening. Coincidentally I ran across a reference to a claim by an academic named “Bronkhorst” that the Three Knowledges attained by the Buddha on the night of his awakening were “later additions” to the canon, along with the notion of liberating insight itself.

This strikes me like having an atheist commenting on Catholicism. We sort of would take it for granted that an atheist disagrees with Catholic doctrine.

I find this assertion preposterous. First of all, as can be seen from the paper that I wrote on jhāna, depending on how you count, in the Majjhima Nikāya alone there are 26 references to the story of the Buddha’s awakening. So Bronkhorst would be claiming that in that one volume 26 of the 152 suttas were changed. That would still leave several thousand pages in the other books of the canon.

As for the reality of liberating insight, I presume that for everyone who has attained that goal – some of whom are alive today – what does that mean? Do they have to give it back?

Non-Buddhists rejection of Buddhism aside, I was more interested in trying to really understand the Buddha’s line of inquiry to see if I could make sense of it. I was, and it was quite an interesting project.

Additionally, a couple of years ago I read Ajahn Lee Dhammadharo’s autobiography, The Autobiography of Phra Ajaan Lee. It is a fascinating read. You have no idea how much Buddhism has been sanitized in the West until you read about a book like this. Among other things, he was able to realize the same Three Knowledges that the Buddha did.

As always I look forward to any comments on the paper.

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The Good Path

Posted on February 22, 2015 by EricKVanHorn

Many years ago I went to a retreat at the Omega Institute in New York. It was a Buddhist retreat, but there were four other non-Buddhist retreats taking place at the same time.

One of them was with Sufi Muslims. They were teaching the whirling dervish dances of their sect. They did a performance for the rest of us at Omega, and I was deeply touched by the loving nature of their performance and the meaning behind the dance.

I do not, frankly, know much about Sufism. I have read that they believe that at their cores, all religions are the same. Thus they preach the commonality among people, rather than differences between them. I occasionally read something that was written by the king of Sufism – Rumi – and I am always touched by the poetic, loving and compassionate nature of his words.

In India there was a time when Sufi Muslims had the most influence, and it was one of the most enlightened times in Indian history. This also happened in Spain. Muslim Spain once even sent a Jewish diplomat as its representative to Germany.

So when I hear the sort of vitriol that is directed at Muslims, I can only think back to my most direct experience with Muslims, which was at that retreat. I would trust those people with my very heart.

Perhaps I am just too simple minded, too naive, but I believe that most people want to do the right thing. Sometimes, sadly, that leads them down the wrong path. But I think the motivation is right, even if the skill is lacking.

I was greatly heartened, therefore, to read the following item:

OSLO (Reuters) – More than 1000 Muslims formed a human shield around Oslo’s synagogue on Saturday, offering symbolic protection for the city’s Jewish community and condemning an attack on a synagogue in neighboring Denmark last weekend.

Chanting “No to anti-Semitism, no to Islamophobia,” Norway’s Muslims formed what they called a ring of peace a week after Omar Abdel Hamid El-Hussein, a Danish-born son of Palestinian immigrants, killed two people at a synagogue and an event promoting free speech in Copenhagen last weekend.

“Humanity is one and we are here to demonstrate that,” Zeeshan Abdullah, one of the protest’s organizers told a crowd of Muslim immigrants and ethnic Norwegians who filled the small street around Oslo’s only functioning synagogue.

“There are many more peace mongers than warmongers,” Abdullah said as organizers and Jewish community leaders stood side by side. “There’s still hope for humanity, for peace and love, across religious differences and backgrounds.”

Norway’s Jewish community is one of Europe’s smallest, numbering around 1000, and the Muslim population, which has been growing steadily through immigration, is 150,000 to 200,000. Norway has a population of about 5.2 million.

I am an unabashedly devout Buddhist. And to the extent that makes me a better person, I think that is a good thing. And I think that is true of whatever you believe. The real test is what kind of person does it make you? Does it make you kinder, more compassionate, more loving, wiser, more generous? If it does, then your path cannot be all wrong. But if it does, perhaps you need to consider another course. The proof, after all, of the pudding is in the tasting.

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