Bearing Witness to what exactly

I actually didn't know that Bernie Glassman is still alive. But he is. Here's a talk entitled "Bearing Witness", on returning to Auschitz-Birkenau year after year.

The famous prayer about oneness, the Sh'ma Yisrael, begins with Listen: Listen, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is One. Not only does oneness begin with listening, listening begins with oneness. And Zen Peacemaker Order's Buddhist service begins similarly: Attention! Attention! Raising the Mind of Compassion, the Supreme Meal is offered to all the hungry spirits throughout space and time, filling the smallest particle to the largest space.

Listen! Attention! Bear witness!

It can't happen if you want to stay away from pain and suffering. It probably won't happen if, like most people, you go to Auschwitz, look over the exhibits, and return to the buses for a quick getaway. When you come to Auschwitz, stay a while, and begin to listen to all the voices of that terrible universe -- the voices that are none other than you -- then something happens.

It's an interesting contrast to Jamie Kastner's Kike Like Me. There's more to the film, which I may return to, but one of the most controversial aspects is his trip to Aushwitz. After seeing German memorials to dead Jews that are resented by the local Jewish community, Polish restaurants with Jewish themes but no Jews, and synagogues staffed by gentiles that serve as museums, Kastner is not in the same frame of mind as Glassman. Not to mention, antisemitic Ajax fans with Magen David tattoos and everthing else he sees in Europe. He wants something more than a memorial. And he's right.

But so is Glassman:

During our 1996 retreat, a man of Jewish descent living in Denmark stood up one evening and spoke about forgiving those who had perpetrated cruelties at Auschwitz. A short while later I stood up and suggested: "And then what? So you forgive, and then what? Is that the end of it? Or is there something else to be done?"

Glassman offers something of an answer. It seems awkward, at first, since he takes a lot of responsibility onto himself, but he takes responsibility for the only thing he can. And offers himself as a teacher.

Engaged Buddhism

On Saturday, I attended the Buddhist Forum. This year's topic was engaged Buddhism. (Btw, for Joan, here's that information I was talking about.)

A high point was a great talk by the Venerable Ben Kong, a White Buddhist Monk and AIDS activist who often acts as a liaison between the city and the Chinatown community. Undocumented immigrants in Chinatown are surprisingly (to me, and I think many in the audience) vulnerable to AIDS. Largely because they're undocumented, they don't have a lot of access to the mainstream medical community. The Chinatown community is largely ignorant of AIDS. Many turn to traditional Chinese medicine rather than go to hospitals where they fear discovery and deportation. One study on understanding of basic AIDS information in various churches/temples/etc. found that Buddhists only get about 20% of the answers correct. In Christian churches and Jewish temples, it was closer to 80%. And the monks in these temples have generally made it very difficult for Ven. Ben Kong to talk about it. When he's talked to monks, he's often heard, "we don't need to know about that because we're celibate." (Buddhism doesn't necessarily teach celibacy for monks or laypeople. It's just something very easy to go overboard with. But many or most monastic communities do call for celibacy.) He's had more luck talking about Hepatitis B, but still it can be very difficult.

Often we think of Buddhists in America as relatively affluent - but there are two Buddhist communities in America. The one I have the most contact with is relatively affluent. People of color in this community are mostly (though not entirely) documented, Korean immigrants. Because of our class-based immigration policies, most are from affluent backgrounds in Korea. However, the larger New York Sangha does include many undocumented Chinese immigrants and other Asians who did not arrive from the upper-middle classes of their homelands. Many Vietnamese immigrants, just to pick a different example, came as refugees from war, and the Vietnamese are among the least "successful" immigrant groups. One of the many problems with the "model minority" stereotype is how it renders so many Asians invisible, including most of Chinatown.

Strikingly, Ven Ben Kong didn't speak from a quiet, humble space. He wasn't like many might imagine Buddhist monks to always be. He was bold and impassioned. And defiantly tempered; after asking if anyone minded if he sat down to talk, he said he'd have sat down whatever we said. The host, Chris, had earlier said something about Buddhism and politics. Ben Kong replied, "politics keeps inserting itself into my life," and that way rejected being apolitical. For me, this was neat stuff.

For me, the day reminded me of some questions about the place of anger. Its no use getting angry at anger - especially not your own. That only compounds anger. This is something I'm prone to forget. Instead, we have to learn to use our anger as a tool of our compassion for the person we're angry at. Being compassionate sometimes means giving teaching that someone else won't like. Sometimes, like the old Nick Lowe song, you've got to be cruel to be kind. But you can't mis-use that as a facile justification for cruelty. Sometimes I talk about radical non-violence as being different from (and far more violent than) pacifism. This is true, but I think I had sometimes, as do many people in debates over antisemitism or Israel, allowed myself to use this as a justification. Very difficult keeping correct direction - and that's why peacefulness should be the first choice when there's any question.

Nov 1973, huh?

Great post on faith and acting on faith.

Genuine faith is lived, not thought about or argued over. It has to do with being good and kind. If Jesus said anything that just about everybody can agree with, it is that “the Law was made for man, not man for the Law.”

Loving-Anger

I haven't posted anything on Buddhism for a while, but I found this quote at Ox Herding:

Hatred does not ever cease in this world by hating, but by love; this is an eternal truth. Overcome anger by love, overcome evil by good. Overcome the miser by giving, overcome the liar by truth. - Shakyamuni Buddha

Usually in Buddhism, we talk about loving-kindness (or metta). But I'd like to talk about loving-anger. So, two points about this quote:

Zen Master Seung Sahn, when speaking about anger, said there are different types. First there is the type that blinds you so that you don't know what you're doing. But there are others as well, like the anger a parent has when their child runs out into the street. This is an anger that comes from love and that can be used as a tool by the loving. Sometimes, people think that being peaceful means never being angry, but this is just attachment to the idea of peace. Better to say that being wise means using anger rather than being used by it. For those of us who aren't Buddhas yet, there isn't necessarily specific advice to give (other than hard practice). For some, angry karma is a real problem, and they should try not to give in to it; but that's not applicable to everyone.

If you do hard practice, over time you will notice that the quality of your anger changes. If you come to understand the idea of loving-anger intellectually, however, you will never understand it. The intelligence easily deceives us, so that knowing about different types of anger only enables us to better delude ourselves into thinking our anger is born of justice. So, many people easily think one side in a war is better than the other side, and that to be angry on behalf of that side is to be righteous and the same as being on the side of peace. But this is just thinking. This righteous anger is not peaceful anger. It's not loving anger.

Both sides in the Israeli/Palestinian conflict do this -sometimes doubly deluding themselves to think that their anger is more loving that "their" anger- so anger and pain on both sides grow. Together, the Israelis and the Palestinians make conflict karma. The only way to overcome that is through peacefulness and love.

When Paul McCartney went to Israel (facing death threats from some who think that no one should ever show love to Israelis), he sang John Lennon's song, "Give Peace a Chance." The crowd, with his encouragement, sang along to the chorus. And afterwards, Sir Paul simply pointed out to them what they had said.

Buddhism 201

Went to a dharma talk tonight. Teaching that hit me: World Peace not possible, but not necessary. Of course, Buddhism 201 is the same as Buddhism 101 with different examples to remind us of the same principles. Same as remedial Buddhism, even: don't attach to ideas. World peace is a great idea, but it's really just an idea isn't it? Many of the world's biggest conflicts are about who has the best idea to bring world peace. Ironic.

(Don't mistake this for advice to abandon the search for world peace. We still vow to save all beings.)

Confirmation bias in the media (and in us)

They won't post audio until Wednesday, but if I didn't post this today, we'd both forget. Listen to this episode of Hearing Voices. Here in New York, the show's on at 7 am on Sundays. It's a shame because I only ever hear it when I'd rather be sleeping in. Actually, I missed half the show today. I'm guessing the first half is as good, but what I did hear is important in so many ways that I don't really want to describe it.

I will offer that it deals with how the media misheard Al Gore in a particular instance (Love Canal). That same process of mishearing is basic to our experience. We all go through life mishearing one thing after another.

Advice from a Bu-Mu to the New Atheists

Religion doesn’t poison everything. Self-righteousness does. Self-righteousness is something that Hitchens and his boys have a heap of in their anti-God books.

It might be more productive for hardcore atheists to put aside questions of God’s existence and explore the question of what exactly is this self that’s getting all righteous. And to do so with the same spirit of scientific inquiry that generates their very reasonable skepticism in the concept of a supreme authority.

As a BuJu (which I prefer to Jubu, which means "housewife" in Korean), I appreciate this advice.

A simple Buddhist monk

The New Yorker has an article on the Dalai Lama. It seems uncertain at first, ready to attack.

For someone who claims to be “a simple Buddhist monk,” the Dalai Lama has a large carbon footprint and often seems as ubiquitous as Britney Spears.

But it never does. How could you?

The Tibetan leader cast doubt on his divine ancestry, pointing to his premature endorsement of the founder of the Aum Shinrikyo group, which released sarin gas in Tokyo subways, as an indication that he is not a “living Buddha.” The most famous Buddhist in the world, he advises his Western followers not to embrace Buddhism. He seeks out famous scientists with geekish zeal, asserting that certain Buddhist scriptures disproved by modern science should be abandoned.

Though so difficult to picture as “a simple Buddhist monk,” it seems more that his mistakes are magnified by his fame and authority.

I hope his view on non-violent pursuit of Tibetan autonomy (short of independence, so as not to provoke China more than necessary) is not a mistake. Buddhism does not embrace pacifism, and the Dalai Lama is no pacifist. So I hope he knows what he's doing.

Israel and Palestine are a single flower

I know that a lot of Palestinian actions are reactions to Israeli actions. And a lot of Israeli actions are reactions to Palestinian actions. In Buddhism, sometimes they call that "mutually co-dependent origination." I prefer to avoid such long names and think of it simply as "recognizing that we are all connected." No human being exists in isolation. We only exist inside and in relation to a larger society. We are part of this world, not apart from it. And this world that we are part of includes all of us.

When the Japanese occupation of Korea ended (and this was an occupation far worse in every way that I can think of than the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories), the great Zen Master Man Gong dipped a flower in ink to write the calligraphy, "The Whole World is a Single Flower." Understanding that the Japanese and Koreans were not separate but both a part of a larger world, he had an amazing ability to forgive that I only hope to be able to develop. Martin Luther King, Jr. said that white people need black people to love them. Understanding that black Americans and white Americans were not separate but both a part of a larger America, he had a boundless capacity for love that I only hope to develop. Understanding interconnectedness means that loving your enemy is as easy as loving yourself. More, it is the same as loving yourself.

The Israelis and Palestinians are part of a single flower. You act together to make war or to make peace. You act as one. But instead of understanding this, Palestianians say, "What else can we do; you see how awful our lives are." Israelis say, "What else can we do; you see how awful our lives are." You make "us" and "them." You make difference and opposites and enemies. So long as you view yourselves as separate --arguing over who has had it worse, who is at fault, who wants peace more, and so on-- I think you will continue to avoid everything necessary to making peace and to make your own situations worse.

But we can love each other. When your enemy commits an act out of fear and anger, you should try to feel compassion for someone suffering in fear and anger. I know this isn't easy. When I see people write things on mepeace.org that express fear and anger, I find it difficult not to react from my own fear and anger. But I know we have to try. And I know that trying --which is the reason we're all here in the first place-- is something wonderful that we all share.

mepeace.org

I just found mepeace.org via an article in Haaretz. I've tried to start a discussion by posting the following (reproduced here with just the correction of one typo):
__________

Hello everyone! I'd like to start this, my first post here, by thanking you all. Of course thanks to Eyal Raviv, who had such a big hand in creating this space. But also, thanks to everyone who comes here and makes it a community, and not just a collection of webpages. I hope we can come to understand each other better, but it's important to recognize the effort we've all made -already- toward a peaceful world just by coming here to listen and be heard.

What I write here is very much influenced by Buddhism, but I don't think it's limited in any way by that. Buddhism just provides me a language in which I'm able to express it. I hope you can understand it as part of your tradition as well. Knowing even a tiny bit of why you came here, I'm certain you already understand the basic requirements of peacemaking.

In particular, what I write here is influenced by a dharma talk I heard recently with Thich Nhat Hanh. (You can find the entire dharma talk here, if you'd like.) He made his reputation during the Vietnam war, when he tirelessly, and at great personal risk, went back and forth between the different sides, trying to facilitate a meaningful dialog. In this dharma talk, he said something that was very important to me, because it's something I have great trouble with myself.

He noted that peace activists are great at writing powerful protest letters, but few are good at writing love letters. The importance is that few of us are good at using our words to encourage others to listen and hear us. It's very easy to blame others for not listening --in truth, it's often their fault that they're unwilling-- but this attitude does not promote peace. This blaming polarizes us, pushes us apart, and makes communication harder. We have to fight against that impulse within ourselves so that we can bring people together.

Someone once told me a story about a Vietnam peace activist who found himself on a plane next to a farmer who supported the war. They began talking, and he began trying to convince this farmer that the war was wrong. It didn't bother the farmer that people were dying. He was even willing to justify killing children since they would grow up to be Communists. (That awful slogan, 'nits make lice.') They discussed napalm and the damage to the land. All along, the farmer agreed that these things sounded horrible, but he justified them. Finally, the activist said something, and the farmer almost jumped out of his seat. "They're killing Cows?!?!?!" The farmer raised cows, and he finally found himself unable to justify the violence.

Everyone here wants peace. If we keep talking long enough, we'll eventually find a few things we can agree upon and build upon. I know it can be hard to wait for that time (and that it might be hard to listen to a guy in New York preaching patience to someone dealing more directly with the violence). But I think all of us have some faith in this process. I want to say that I have faith that it works. And I want again to say thanks to people who are trying to make it work.

Thich Naht Hahn dharma talk

Being Peace, .mp3, via Zencast

If you can't put it down, pick it up

That's advice Buddhists give a fair bit. Usually, we start with "put it down" which means "don't worry, try to forget about it." But if you can't put it down, pick it up - you'll learn something. I first heard that actually from Hyon Gak Sunim who told me about a fellow novice monk (when sunim was younger) who had trouble not masturbating. "If you can't put it down, pick it up." Ha!

Anyway, being a relatively young Buddhist, I'm not always so great at putting stuff down. My temperament is such that I put a lot of things down easily - too much so, even, so that I often lack motivation - but there are a few things I have tremendous trouble putting down. If you've been reading this, you probably have a good idea what they are.

Anyway, I recently got email from someone at Newsvine, and it's part of the reason I've had something on my mind:

What do you mean they banned you? Why? Last I heard it was a suspension? Thought you were back with another byline. Seen a guy around I'd have sworn was you. Time to start a bring ignoblus back campaign!

Funny thing, this is the guy who made the argument that got me banned.

I kept arguing -increasingly focusing on the one argument- that when a member of an oppressed minority group tells you they are offended -in my case if I say, "hey, that's antisemitic"- it's important to listen. You don't have to agree, but you should do what you can to understand what that person is saying. It's not always easy, but you really should try to make an extra effort to listen. I would go on noting that if you then act to silence that person, which often happens as minorities are seen unfairly when they react legitimately to stereotypes and discrimination, that's an act of discrimination far worse than what might originally have been said. On the other hand, listening can be an act of compassion strong enough to win over others even if what you originally said was truly horrible. That's a pretty standard anti-racist line. Perhaps my formulation isn't the best, but I would expect anyone who claims to be concerned with racism or antisemitism to take that argument seriously.

So, when he wrote, in response to a seriously antisemitic article (that portrayed Ann Coulter as a victim of a "Zionist" witch hunt for antisemites in order to stifle criticism of Israel - really):

I call this phenom the real new anti-semitism the throwing around of the label at anyone who is critical of Israel. How this helps Israel in its need to make peace with its neighbours is unclear.

This is an attempt to marginalize Jews when they express concern about antisemitism, and attitudes like that are an important element of Jewish oppression. (By coincidence, I recently saw an episode from the third season of Cracker, with the same argument but about gender. "Women need rape," with the explanation that it gives them power over men.) I expressed my feelings openly and honestly. I did make one mistake, though - I was too intimidated to confront the person who wrote such a hateful article head on, and I picked this comment to challenge instead.

But what he said is exactly the sort of thing I spent a lot of time on Newsvine arguing against, and it shouldn't have been a surprise to him that I'd take offence. And then it comes to:

I will take legal action against you if you do not take this statement back.

Now we're talking about using legal means to enforce censorship on Jews who complain about antisemitism. Wow! Carried forward, the claim that I was stifling debate was used to get me banned. And the hypocrisy of claiming that I was the one stifling debate!

Yet here he is surprised that I was banned (?!?!) and trying to be friendly? What can I do?

Well, I don't know. I wrote an email back that will probably be interpreted as attacking rather than confused. Perhaps it was attacking, even. I went back and forth between feeling compassion for someone who was trying to reach out and frustration with someone who refused to listen even as they expect friendship. I only know that I can't make him think anything.

I have to just trust the situation. If he can see clearly, perhaps he can learn from me even when I make mistakes and react with anger instead of compassion. If he can't see clearly enough, he can't learn no matter how good my teaching is.

It's very tough for most of us not to expect a Buddhist teacher to give us something. Not gonna happen, and that expectation is something I've had no trouble putting down. What I have tremendous difficulty putting down, though, is the feeling that I can give someone else something other than just compassion. In some sense, it's why I'm writing here, hoping to teach. That's my ego. Even in becoming a Buddhist, on some level it's a desire for spiritual fame, a desire to be seen and admired for being wise. Then people will listen and I can help - but that attitude is a serious impediment to me being wise or to others listening. No matter how right I am.

Dhamma Banned in Burma

The Burmese military government has ordered a ban on Buddhist dhamma talks and seminars in Rangoon, according to monks in the former capital.

via Precious Metal

Mahakashyapa Smiled, everyone else wriggled nervously

I wasn't particularly happy with the way I ended of the last post:

The failure to treat marginal ideas as truly marginal can lead to their seeping in if they're repeated often enough. But I'm also concerned that some Jews - like me, I have to admit - desperately long to feel camaraderie from people who can see clearly what's going on.

These points are both true and important. However, there are also other considerations. Calling out Mearsheimer and Walt harshly isn't going to be the right way to convince them just how wrong they are. And it isn't going to convince a lot of people who think M&W are part of a legitimate and informative debate.

This is something I think about a lot on the cushion. I had wanted, last night, to include a reference to a time I tried to ask my Zen Master about something similar, but I couldn't find the words before I had to go meet a friend in Astoria. Hopefully, I can do a little better today, but I worry that this is still incoherent. The Buddha gave a dharma talk on Vulture Peak Mountain. As the crowd grew more and more anxious, waiting, the Buddha just kept silent. Eventually, the Buddha held up a flower, and Mahakashyapa, alone, smiled. This is called the second transmission from the Buddha to Mahakashyapa, the second time their minds met silently and they understood each other perfectly. I have a problem with this story, one thing I just don't get - when it starts talking about transmission, I start to ask, "What about all the other people there? Did you forget about them?" You always try to tailor your teaching to a particular audience, but sometimes there's a diverse audience that can be thought of as more than one audience. There's Mahakashyapa and there's everyone else.

I think (and I can't stress enough that this is just my present thinking and I'm still fairly new to Zen, given that most people qualified as teachers have at least 20 years of experience behind them) part of the answer is that you tailor your speech to one group by offering a model of interacting with another. The Buddha and Mahakashyapa both were teaching everyone else there through their interaction. Or, to take a different sort of example, my girlfriend and her sister could (at least, if I knew how to say more than, "I don't speak Korean well") teach me about the Korean language while talking about something entirely different by using clear and proper Korean.

I was reminded that I wanted to elaborate on that last post, that our speech serves multiple purposes for different listeners and that we can become more effective, when I read this in a description of April Rosenblum, who made The Forward's list, the "Forward 50."

In recent years, many Jews have been alarmed by an apparently rising tide of antisemitism on the left. April Rosenblum, 27, a Philadelphia-based progressive activist, is also concerned about antisemitism. But she's skeptical of the community's response. While studying at Temple University, she saw fellow Jews responding to antisemitism in ways she thought were ineffective and counterproductive, circling the wagons and alienating potential allies.

The meaning here isn't to be dishonest or play down Jewish oppression, though. In her pamphlet, where she combines pretty standard lessons of anti-racism to the problem of anti-Jewish oppression with a genuinely radical perspective, she writes:

If people use opposition to the term 'antisemitism' to shut down discussion, by all means, speak of anti-Jewish oppression. But speak of it. Don't let fellow activists silence conversation about antisemitism by complaining that the word is wrong, and blaming Jews for the problem.

When we're angry or frustrated about antisemitism - and it shows - hopefully people will recognize that for what it is. But my desire to see others speak more clearly about what is and isn't antisemitism wasn't a call for allies to be angrier. Speaking clearly and speaking angrily are different things. And, as Rosenblum notes, the Left has struggled with these ideas of suppressing dissent in order to preserve unity before.

The Old Left's perspective that all struggles were second to the class struggle meant all kinds of groups were shut up, dismissed and disrespected... all in the name of unity for the revolution.

It was a mistake then, and it would be a tragedy to repeat that mistake today. We've already learned that we can't prioritize one struggle against oppression to the exclusion of another without reinforcing the structures of oppression against us all, but too often wannabe radical leftists refuse to understand that.

Hyon Gak Sunim

Hyon Gak Sunim is something of a rockstar in Korea, ever since his book From Harvard to Hwa Gye Sa (only available in Korean) . Despite that status, he does give good talks. Here, he's interviewed by Dennis Wholey for the program I Believe.



A little out of date, here's his bio from KUSZ:

Hyon Gak Sunim JDPS is guiding teacher of the Seoul International Zen Center, Hwa Gye Sah Temple. A graduate of Yale College and Harvard University, Hyon Gak Sunim JDPS received novice monk precepts in 1992 at Nam Hwa Sah Temple, China, and received Bikkhu precepts in 1996 on the Diamond Precepts Altar at Tong Do Sah Temple, South Korea. He has been doing meditation training in remote mountain places, including three intensive 100-day solo retreats. He has compiled and edited several of Zen Master Seung Sahn's books, including The Compass of Zen (1997) and Only Don't Know (1999). He is author of the bestseller, Man Haeng: From Harvard to Hwa Gye Sah Temple (1999), as well as several bestselling translations into Korean of Zen Master Seung Sahn's English-language books.

Hat tip to The Marmot's Hole for the video.