Dharma Monkey

Several years ago, a friend described a conversation that took place at her office:

People were preparing to depart for Easter, and everyone was sharing their plans. When someone asked my friend about her weekend, she politely responded that, as Buddhists, her family doesn’t celebrate Easter. Without hesitation, a co-worker responded she would pray for my friend’s family, as they were destined to an eternity in hell unless they accepted Jesus as their savior.

In telling the story, my friend, although stunned, said she calmly voiced her reaction to her co-worker at the same time I thought it: Buddhists don’t believe in hell, least not an eternal place filled with literal fire and brimstone.

Newsweek’s religion editor Lisa Miller explores the concepts of heaven and hell in a conversation last week on washingtonpost.com’s On Faith.  While discussing her new book, “Heaven: Our Enduring Fascination with the Afterlife,” Miller noted that Americans are increasingly challenging the traditional notion of hell.

When asked by On Faith’s Sally Quinn if she believes in hell, Miller responded:

“No…well, I’m not alone, just so you know.  Belief in hell in this country is tanking, like the economy tanked last year.  Belief in heaven is pretty stable, around 80 percent, but belief in hell is just going down the toilet, and I think that is partially because Americans are more and more willing to see there are many paths to God.”

Miller goes on to cite research demonstrating that, while our collective belief in hell is plummeting, for those who still believe in it, almost none of them think they will end up there.

Some possible causes for this change, which I’m certain will never amount to a wholesale “dropping” of hell by mainstream denominations in the United States:

• Christianity is on the decline, with more Americans responding to surveys that they are either agnostic, atheist or simply non-religious.
• Mainline churches — and even some of the evangelical branches — seem to have abandoned fear as a method for getting people in the door.  I’m amazed when I visit the Web sites of churches and denominations that previously used vivid imagery of sinners burning in hell as a recruitment tool — the notion of “love the sinner, hate the sin” seems to have finally taken hold.
• Extremist groups that actively promote hell as a place for non-believers may be simply wearing down the general public’s tolerance or creating such a credibility gap that people simply abandon a belief that was, in many cases, instilled by preachers or teachings from their childhoods.
• A new type of holistic — bordering on metaphysical – Christianity is rapidly emerging in the United States in response to our larger faith crisis.  My spouse goes to a very progressive Methodist church, and not once have I ever heard “hell” mentioned in a sermon, scripture reading or church bulletin.

Perhaps the larger societal trend leading people to abandon traditional views of hell is that we seem to act as if consequences simply no longer exist, and if that is the case, then why even contemplate something like hell?  We use natural resources like they will last for ever, and purchase products without thought to what happens to the product (or its components) after we’re done.

On a personal, spiritual level, we all tend to act as if we, as individuals, are permanent fixtures on this planet.  Politicians fret about their legacies, while some among us amass wealth as if there is an expectation that maybe, just maybe, we can take it with us when the end comes.

I’m reminded of the approach of various indigenous groups whose entire basis of governance is focused on future generations.  Imagine if the U.S. Constitution, or the U.N. Charter, opened with a statement similar to first mandate of a Haudenosaunee Iroquois chief?

“What about the seventh generation? Where are you taking them? What will they have?”  —Great Law of the Iroquois

Certainly, it’s easy to see how the history of human and societal development made it necessary to frame decision-making and action-taking in the context of good and bad consequences.  It’s as basic as the notion of karma: we need reward and punishment to guide us to operate within a moral context.

But if hell, as Miller posits, is no longer a hot place, then what’s the alternative?  Do we create such a unbearable “hell on earth” (which may very become an unbearably hot place) that we drive ourselves into a great spiritual transformation, a sort of global great awakening?  Maybe a belief in hell fills a vital need in an organized and highly connected society.

April 3rd, 2010 | Category: Spirituality | Leave a comment

This photo, from the front page of today’s Washington Post, is a stark reminder of why I practice.  While suffering is an undeniable fact of life, this particular woman’s suffering cuts straight to the core and leaves me overwhelmed with feelings of compassion and heart-ache.  From the lead-in to the story:

To grow old in Haiti, where so many die young, has always been considered an achievement worthy of great respect.  But in the weeks after the devastating quake there, the elderly has been forgotten.  Nursing homes are in ruins and caregivers have disappeared.  There are no rails to lean on, no ramps for their wheelchairs.  Ronald Blain, a Haitian government official, admits that the old have suffered disproportionately.  ”They are invisible,” he said.

Washington Post photojournalist Nikki Kahn‘s gallery that accompanied the online version of the story is like a punch to the gut – Pulitzer-quality work that is absolutely brilliant.  The complete online gallery is here.  Nikki’s work will bring tears to your eyes.

PORT-AU-PRINCE, HAITI - MARCH 8: Idamise Pierre leans against a tree for support as she waits to bathe at the Azil Communal home for the aging population in Port-Au-Prince, Haiti, on Monday, March 8, 2010. (Photo credit: Nikki Kahn/The Washington Post)

March 13th, 2010 | Category: Buddhism, World News | Leave a comment

I’ve been a fan of Bill Maher for a long time: he brings a well-reasoned voice to discussions of politics, pop culture and world events, using biting humor as an equal-opportunity offender to make his points.  I agree with his position on many issues, including marriage equality, the decriminalization of certain drugs, the sometimes-absurdity of political correctness and the inappropriate role of religion (organized and otherwise) in American politics.  I’ve seen him live and on television, and squirmed uncomfortably at times during his movie Religulous in the theater.

Simply put, the guy is dang funny…except for this week.

In the popular “New Rules” segment at the end of his Friday night show, he mounted a senseless tirade against Buddhism, all because Tiger Woods’ Feb. 19 mea culpa speech referenced the fact that the golf legend was raised Buddhist, and that Woods would now return to the Buddhist path as part of his recovery.  Here’s the part of Tiger’s speech that sent the Real Time host into an angry tailspin:

I have a lot of work to do, and I intend to dedicate myself to doing it. Part of following this path for me is Buddhism, which my mother taught me at a young age. People probably don’t realize it, but I was raised a Buddhist, and I actively practiced my faith from childhood until I drifted away from it in recent years. Buddhism teaches that a craving for things outside ourselves causes an unhappy and pointless search for security. It teaches me to stop following every impulse and to learn restraint. Obviously I lost track of what I was taught.

I guess it shouldn’t come as a surprise that, in Bill Maher’s eyes, a celebrity either hiding behind or wrapping himself in religion after a scandal would be, in a world, scandalous.  But rarely have I seen the man get so angry, and spew so much venom toward organized religion.  But to then go on to personally attack Gautama Buddha as a man and teacher, and his teachings on the origins of suffering?  I guess I would have thought that Bill Maher was smart enough to realize, even in the abstract, where Buddhist thought comes from.

[Read the full transcript of his "New Rule" here, via Huffington Post.  He demonstrates that Buddhism really isn't his cup of tea: "Craving for things outside ourselves is what makes life life - I don't want to learn to not want, that's what people in prison have to do."]

Even so, the fact that I’m still thinking about this — that I’m still smarting from Bill Maher’s vilification of Buddhism — leaves me to wonder what I’m missing.  When he railed against Sarah Palin’s certainty that her candidacy for vice president was part of “God’s plan,” I laughed right along with him.  Yet when he poked fun at tourists and a man playing Jesus at Orlando’s Holy Land Experience in his movie Religulous, I groaned aloud in discomfort.

The discussion of religion in public life, especially in today’s America, is never easy, as few issues are as divisive.  I have as much right to believe in Buddha’s teachings, as off-base as they may seem to some, as Jehovah Witnesses have the right to believe that they are the only ones who can survive the Abrahamic Armageddon.  And Bill Maher has the right to what he believes, too.

Many years ago, I remember feeling terribly uncomfortable when visiting my dad’s Southern Baptist church and hearing the minister and Sunday School teachers say that Roman Catholicism was a statue-worshiping cult made up of people who prayed to spirits rather than reserving all of their devotion for Jesus.  And now, perhaps I’ve grown accustomed to the low profile Buddhism maintains with militant atheists and the like, but it is still uncomfortable when my personal beliefs are attacked.  The same certainly holds true for anyone on a spiritual or religious path.

I still respect Bill Maher for his intelligence, his ability to use persuasive reason, and the fact that he’s irreverently funny.  I realize his red-in-the-face form of atheism is part of his shtick.   But sometimes, it really isn’t that funny — and I know I’m not the only one who thinks so.

February 28th, 2010 | Category: Buddhism, Pop Culture | Comments (2)

A situation recently came up at work — a decision was made, and I didn’t think it was a good one. I stewed over the issue for a day or so, and after an intense couple of hours, as I tried to figure out the best approach for dealing with the way the situation had manifested itself in my mind, a word popped into my head: pag-yü.

Pag-yü is the title of the fourth chapter of Shantideva’s Bodhicaryavatāra, the Way to the Bodhisattva. I’ve seen this word translated as attentiveness, carefulness, awareness or conscientiousness. The pag-yü chapter, as I read it, is a how-to guide for dealing with afflictive emotions, or kleshas, that starts with a stern warning to the practitioner to develop an emotional awareness that is keen enough to burn away lifetimes of habitual behavior. It’s a deep-rooted pattern of situational experience and emotional reaction that, in most cases, has us beat from the very beginning.

It is I who welcome them within my heart,
Allowing them to harm me at their pleasure.
I who suffer all without resentment –
Thus my abject patience, all displaced…
And yet, the mighty fiend of my afflictions,
Flings me in an instant headlong down
To where the mighty lord of mountains
Would be burned, its very ashes all consumed.
No other enemy indeed
Has lived so long as my defiled emotions –
O, my enemy, afflictive passion,
Endless and beginningless companion!
Pag-yü 4, 29 and 31-32

In his commentary on the Bodhicaryavatāra, For the Benefit of All Beings, His Holiness the Dalai Lama echoes the poet’s sentiment, noting, “Those whom we ordinarily consider to be our enemies can only be so for one lifetime, at the most. But negative emotions have been harming us from time without beginning. They are truly the worst of enemies.”

So how to break the ingrained, habitual stranglehold that afflictive emotions have on us? As I walked to the office one morning, the work situation still churning in my mind, I thought of this concept of awareness, pag-yü, and I asked myself the simplest of questions: where do these feelings I have about this specific work situation come from? In other words, why do I feel this way?

That split-second pause from letting my brain baste in an self-concocted emotional stew was all it took. A single, brief moment of attention, and I had the answer. In this case, as in so many others, the matter boiled down to ego (the workplace is the perfect breeding ground for ego, as I’ve written in the past).

A couple days ago when I started reading the Bodhicaryavatāra, I hoped that something — even a single stanza — might jump out to help me in my day-to-day life. Yet in this instance, it was the title of a chapter that helped remind me of the wisdom that I so desperately seek. A moment of awareness, plain and simple, was exactly what I needed.

February 10th, 2010 | Category: Buddhism, Mindfulness, Professional, Spirituality | Leave a comment