From the Blog Sangha...
Foguiera, in her blog foot before foot [formerly known as f. kwan and before that Fogdux], tells us she is beginning to learn Swedish. She writes, "There are few things, regretfully, that cause a true ecstatic thrill in me. One of them is photography. The other is learning a new language. It truly is better than sex, because it's the alleged reason for it: intimacy. You're actually meeting the person speaking the target language on a brain cell level. It doesn't get any more up close and personal than that.
Wondering on the Way explored guilt this week. Jeb writes, “To believe that being interconnected with others means somehow we are collectively guilty or responsible for everything that goes on the world, and all the acts of violence committed isn’t rooted in Buddhism at all.”
Emptiness is on Gareth of Green Clouds mind. Early in the week, he quotes Tenzin Palmo re the nexis of emptiness and merit. Later, in a series of three posts -- Emptiness Part I, Emptiness Part II, and More Emptiness -- he contrasts the Geluk and Nyingma schools' teachings, peers into the nature of Ultimate Reality and takes some instruction from Nargajuna.
Rumi and Thich Nyat Hahn help out as Hundred Mountain's Douglas eyes a snakey grey tree trunk of a thing and gleans an elephantine helping of wisdom. "We harm ourselves day-by-day, [by] large and small infractions and infarctions. No god can save us, although protector spirits abound."
Via Negativa's Dave finds peace in a watermelon and writes the week's most provocative opening paragraph in a wonderful entry called "Holes." That paragraph follows:
If only the personal weren't, as they say, so political. If only the person-holes called leaders were a bit less personable. If only the suction from those walking vacuums weren't always so goddamn difficult to resist.Adela, the mercurius blogger, quotes lyrics from Bowie's "Planet of Dreams" and tells us, "Our planet is facing the greatest problems it's ever faced so don't get bored in solitude. A dream we dream alone is only a dream. A dream we dream with others can become a reality."
Cycling Sam of sam i am checks in to update us on his situation after a month away from bloggery. Money (lack of), Work at the bike shop (too much of), School and Career Choosing exert pressures, but the open road beacons. “I’ve been doing many of the shops' group rides and I am continually the one setting the pace or being attacked ‘to test me.’ Today I rode like a man possessed up to Bee Caves …”
Reading by Lamplight
The blogger of everything is illuminated is indefatigable, pulling together delicious long and heavily-researched entries on rather esoteric topics that are Zen related or about works of European philosophers from the distant past.
This week, Peace speaks in a book the eii blogger found, written by Erasamus, a German humanist, in his 1506 book ‘Plea of Peace.’ “The dominant tenor of Peace’s talk is the complaint of being recklessly treated, devalued and demoted, while humans lavish endless praise and honors on warfare, the source of death, destruction and misery.”
An entry, “Poetry inspired by the shakuhachi [a Japanese flute],” introduces us to poems little known in the West and to some of the peccadilloes of 15th Century Zen poet and priest Ikkyu Sojun. “Ikkyū was among the few Zen priests who argued that his enlightenment was deepened by consorting with pavilion girls. He entered brothels wearing his black robes, since for him sexual intercourse was a religious rite.”
Another entry, “Shobogenzo and online resources” is, as its title suggests, an introduction to Dogen’s great work with a bounty of links to the book from a project at Stanford engaged in completing a full translation of this work and other great Soto texts.
Reconciling Buddhism and Euthanasia
Euthanasia is examined this week in The Buddhist Blog. Writes James, "How much suffering must someone go through before our compassion allows them to pass on peacefully? What lessons can be learned in slowly watching yourself (or a loved one) die from cancer ... wracked in pain? You might say that the terrible suffering teaches that suffering is inevitable, but what if you have already learned this great teaching? Or, you might answer that modern drugs allow the patient to be quite comfortable during the dying process. [B]ut I would argue then, 'Isn't that already a form of voluntary euthanasia?'"
James cites an entry in Nacho's WoodMoor Village Zendo last March and utilizes a very helpful article on the topic by Buddhism guide Anthony Flanagan at the about.com webspace to explore the contentious topic.
Chalip of Zen Under the Skin has added a perhaps-final word on a topic that has roiled the Buddhist cybersangha since Bill Bennett made some disturbing comments on his radio show September 2 that included these words [that Bennett would object are out of context]: "if you wanted to reduce crime ... if that were your sole purpose, you could abort every black baby in this country, and your crime rate would go down."
Chalip agrees in large degree with sentiment by Nacho in WoodMoor Village Zendo and by Terrance in Republic of T that sentiment in the Black community is widely on the order of "What else is new?" Chalip explains – to which Nacho and Terrance would likely agree – that that remark does not imply that Bennett’s words were innocuous. “This does not mean that we [Blacks] are not disgusted when public figures (or any other figures) make these statements. We simply bump up against racism in our daily lives. We might not have fire hoses or dogs turned upon us, but we share common experiences that remind us that racism is alive and well.”
Chalip then comes to her central point [directed at Nacho, but truly a more-open and general question]: Nacho seems to be looking at this through the lens "You're either a part of the solution or you're part of the problem" and is (quite passionately) trying to be part of the solution. I applaud his motives. But the sum of his argument is the belief that people need to change. They need to change what they say. They need to change what they believe. They need to change how they view and respond to matters of race. They need to ‘know better.’ So I want to ask him What changes people?” Later in her post, Chalip answers her own question, “People don't change because we want them to. People change because they choose to.”
Chalip writes that she is in sympathy with a point made in a post on Oct. 9 by Jeff in ZenDiary: “Stop externalizing racism: it is truly ‘inside’ all of us to the degree that we participate in activities that foster and sustain racial oppression.” Says Chalip, “We all need to own up to our own hypocrisy …, we need to own up and take responsibility if we really want to do something to eradicate the [problem]. Jeff makes a valid point... clinging to the fact that we don't purport racist attitudes while we support policies that prolong racial oppression only carries us 1/8th of the way.”
Real compassion
Eric of Virtual Zen is hearty this week in a series of moving and wonderfully written entries. Following are words about and links to two of them: Early in the week, he directs his words to a specific, unnamed reader of his blog, saying “My heart has been opened completely by reading of your pain -- that wrenching, gut tearing pain you've been put through.”
At the end of the week, alone in a hotel room, he writes of coming to hate everyone and everything and hate where he’s living and that he's finding “solace only in the bottom of a Absolut Mandarin bottle.” But then he concludes, “Things are so much calmer now - even in the whirling maelstrom of my career … and I can see myself much more clearly as the person I truly am. Perhaps its the sitting, perhaps its the time and/or distance from what I was going through - but now I know that I am truly blessed, truly loved, truly.”
A Bushel of Shining Read Blog Entries
[And not a bad apple in the bunch]
Jeb of Wondering on the Way has boxed “Blog Harvest 4” this week, highlighting posts from luminous emptiness, Green Clouds, this zen life and jack/zen. Meanwhile, this week’s “Wednesday Blogma” over at the meditateNYC blog praises entries in Notes in Samsara, tysonwilliams.com, Zen Under the Skin and Keep Trying. And over at Republic of T, Terrance has chosen an entry in WoodMoor Village Zendo as one of his Friday "10blogs."
Ryan's Lair alerts us to the complete English translation by D.T. Suzuki of the Lakavatara Sutra, found at a Russian website. Buddhology adventurer Ryan credits "the all-seeing eye of Iain Sinclair," who blogs Jinajik, for the discovery. Speaking of finds, be sure to explore Jinajik, a cornocopia of exotic, fascinating wonders relating to Vajrayana.
And at Zen Filter this week, more compassion-touched Zen Buddhism sites are brought to the fore. Among them are three blogs found and recommended by Mark: digitalZendo Blog, Wondering on the Way and Dharma Crumbs.
