the DharmaRealm

Podcasting while sheltering in place. We’re going to restart the DharmaRealm, recording via Zoom, shorter episodes, and posting here, SoundCloud, YouTube, and, as always, your favorite podcasting service. Send us your questions, subscribe to our feeds, and keep your eyes open for updates. And above all—stay home! Wash your hands!

The nerds nerd out about nerdy things! Specifically, a couple of Buddhist Studies scholars (nerds) discuss (nerd out) what it means to be a Buddhist Studies scholar (nerdy things). It’s our third and final conversation with the brilliant Dr. Natalie Quli in a conversation that meanders through the academic construction and boundary maintenance of Buddhism-as-religion, the role of scholars and teachers vis-a-vis Buddhism, and how we participate in authenticity discourses about what is and what isn’t Buddhism.  We want to thank Dr. Quli for joining us! Check out our other episodes here. And the “someone” Scott couldn’t remember in-episode is Stephen C. Berkwitz, “Textbook Buddhism: Introductory Books on the Buddhist Religion.”

It’s our second episode with our special guest, Dr. Natalie Fisk Quli. We’re continuing our conversation about authenticity, this time around beginning with a conversation about merit, merit accumulation and transference, in the Mahayana and Theravada traditions. This gets us going into other weird and cool places like economic models for karma, the declining age of the dharma, how texts and monks function as fields of merit, and colonialism and Orientalism. Oh, and because it would be the DharmaRealm without a little nerdiness, D&D. Check out Dr. Quli’s last episode, and stick around! She’ll be back for one more!

We’ve got a special guest today! Dr. Natalie Fisk Quli is a teacher at the Institute of Buddhist Studies, author, and co-editor of a couple of books with Scott. She’s joining us today to discuss the idea of authenticity, building off a post on the website Fake Buddha Quotes that sort of maybe possibly suggests that Pure Land (and all of Mahayana?) contradicts the authentic teachings of the Buddha. So in our usual fashion, we meander through the ideas of canonicity, discourse, power, boundary construction and maintenance, and how all of these things co-create this thing we conveniently think of as “Buddhism.”  Dr. Quli’s going to be joining us for a couple more episodes, so stay tuned! Image credit: Buddhism with Lord Buddha https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Buddhism_with_Lord_Buddha.jpg (c) Priyanka250696, some rights reserved

In a weird way, this is sort of part-two of our post-truth conversation since we’re tackling a perennial problem in the contemporary study and practice of Buddhism — can we know what the historical Buddha really taught? Can we know what he really said? And should that even matter? As always, by tuning in to the DharmaRealm podcast, you’re not going to get an answer to that question, and will probably walk away more confused than you were before. But, hey, we will tell you something about canonical texts, fake Buddha quotes, buddhavacana.  Image credit: Alles liegt im Auge des Betrachters, jodage https//www.flickr.com/photos/buchenmann/14280945373/ (c) jodage, some rights reserved

I didn’t want to talk about flat earth or post-truth or aliens! But Harry made me!  Anyway. If you listen to this episode, you’ll get an earful of Star Trek, X-Files, aliens, conspiracy theories, multiple interpretations of reality, and even some Buddhism, Shinran, and the Tannisho mixed in as well. Enjoy!

Faith! We’re bouncing off a question about faith in our personal experience with Buddhism. Now, we know that having said faith, half of you said “There’s no faith in Buddhism!” And the other half said, “Well, what do you mean by faith?” We’re gonna tell you what we mean by faith and hopefully the other half are still listening as we take a deep dive into different aspects of faith, blind faith, believing in things in the absence of evidence, secularism, and eventually shinjin, a foundational concept for Jodo Shinshu which, apparently, we’re not supposed to talk about. But we do. Because that’s how we roll.

A little while back we did an episode on no self and identity — and what do you know? It was wildly popular. Go us. So we decided to come back to the issue. But we’re not gonna deal with identity; we’re just going to do a deep dive into no self. This deep dive goes through no self, emptiness, Sarvastivada, Pudgalavada, Madhyamaka, Yogacara, the store-house consciousness, killing the Buddha, Shinran, the Jodoron, the Pure Land, karma, and rebirth. (No Star Trek, though. Sorry.)

Somewhat in response to a listener question, we dive into the question of practice versus academic study. Is there a difference between academic study and the practice of Buddha? Is one more valuable than the other? Does academic study undermine religious/Buddhist practice? Or can academic study be, in itself, practice? Well, if that’s the case, then what do you mean by “practice”? And that’s really what this episode is about. We do a deep dive into scholar-practitioners (a la Charles Prebish), the multivalent senses of the word “practice” (a la Charles Bielefeld), the role of study-as-practice historically both in the West and in Buddhism, the age of the degenerate Dharma, and, yes, even Star Trek. Bottom line: don’t get stuck in your head. This week’s image is of a photographic reprint of Shinran’s original handwritten manuscript of his Kyogyoshinsho on display at the library of Ohtani University in Kyoto. Who says Buddhists don’t study?

Hooray! It’s been ten years since we started this show, and this is our 100th episode! We hit the highlights in this one, themes and topics we’ve touched on several times over the years, including how to practice Shin Buddhism at a distance from a sangha or community. Years ago we tossed out the idea that someone should have a “starter kit” for Shin Buddhist practice – and, what do you know? The BCA Bookstore’s new online store sells one now! We also tackle a listener question about Buddhist tattoos and dance around some touchy issues before settling on the middle way between extreme views. (Today’s cover image is an old photo one of Scott’s tattoos, by the way.) Also, in celebration of the 100th episode and 10th anniversary, Harry made a mega-mix of all the different versions of the DharmaRealm theme song. It’s been uploaded to SoundCloud so be sure to check that out. Thanks to everyone for your decade of listening. We’ll be back soon with new episodes!

In today’s episode, we respond to a listener question about the possibility, in Shin Buddhism, of reconciling the concept of no-self (anatman) and personal identity (especially in regards to race). To do that, we need to break down the concept of no-self and argue that it’s not necessarily a rejection or negation of any type of self but rather, first, part of a pedagogical strategy of the Buddha and, second, related to a whole mass of complex Buddhist concepts that have very little to do with modern understandings of personality, subjectivity, or identity. A key part of this is the idea that self-ness is defined by our interconnection with the world, and on the social level, this absolutely includes social and cultural ideas about race, ethnicity, gender, and so on; and merely saying, “Hey, there is no self!” doesn’t make all of that go away.

Scott’s still got a cold! And he’s a cranky old man who wants to argue with people! So today we’ll try to come up with the Buddhist answer to everything. Not really. Long time listeners should know by now that quick and easy answers aren’t our stock in trade. We’re far more likely to come up with complicated answers that point to the messiness of life rather than the simple and comfortable. And that’s really what we’re on about today, coming up with responses to the oft-asked “Doesn’t Buddhism say…?” or “What’s the Buddhist position on X?” Our answer? There isn’t an answer. And, more than that, there’s the possibility that Buddhism is wrong. (Cue dramatic chipmunk.) This week’s image, something Harry mentions in the episode, is the Shumisengi astronomical clock, created by Hisashige Tanaka in 1850. It’s an model of the traditional Buddhist world system with the sun and moon rotating around a flat disk with Mt. Sumeru in the middle.

For our first full episode of 2018 we tackle a listener question about Buddhism and social justice, jumping off from the tension between accepting things as they are and the urge to stand up to inequality and social suffering. Of course, it wouldn’t be us if we didn’t unpack those terms and dig deep into the question — isn’t the point of Buddhism not to accept the world as it is but to see the world as it is, from the point of view of compassionate wisdom? And does merely accepting things as they are, and not acting, necessarily follow from this seeing? And it wouldn’t really be us if we didn’t somehow manage to get sci-fi back into this by dragging Ursula K. Le Guin into the conversation. Stay tuned for a second episode later this month! Image credit: (c) the.Firebottle

We’re back! Here’s a teaser to wet your appetite. We’ve got a couple of other episodes in the can that we’ll release this month. And we’re only a few episodes shy of our 100th episode and this March is our tenth anniversary of doing this show! We’re excited to be back in the “studio,” and now is the time for you to send us your questions. Really. Ask us literally anything (except about flat earth) and we’ll do our best to answer it. Really. I promise. Welcome back, DharmaRealm.

One more episode recorded in October before the election but on a topic that will most certainly continue to be of importance in the year ahead – race, racism, and American Buddhism. This one’s a bit heavy, wherein we discuss the problems of discussing race in public discourse and the social and legal construction of racial and ethnic categories in American culture generally and in Buddhism specifically. And follow Angry Asian Man; he’s knows what’s what. Image credit: Buddhist service at Manzanar Relocation Center in California, 1943. Photo courtesy the Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division LC-A35-6-M-36.

Happy Christmas (if that’s your thing – if not then Happy Winter Holiday of Your Choosing)! So, head’s up. We recorded this episode way back in early October and are only just now getting around to posting it. Between then and now a lot has happened — well, one thing happened, but it’s a pretty big thing — so what we talk about here is both a little “off-topic” and actually oddly prescient. After traveling to Denver for the Tri-State Denver Buddhist Temple’s centennial celebration, Scott was struck by the shifting demographics in BCA communities, especially those further out from the Bay Area where racial diversity is significantly more pronounced. Our conversation meanders through the old tropes of the “two Buddhisms” and the question of where “culture” ends and “Buddhism” begins — and if it’s even possible to know what “real” Buddhism is — before finally landing on the big issue — race. Which I’m guessing we’ll take up in future episodes. For now, enjoy this one while watching the yule log on TV and avoiding awkward conversations about the election with your crazy uncle. Oh, and here’s some links to articles mentioned in the show: Wakoh Shannon Hickey, “Two Buddhisms, Three Buddhisms, and Racism”: http://www.globalbuddhism.org/jgb/index.php/jgb/article/view/112/12 Mine the bibliography for related sources. Natalie Quli, “Western Self, Asian Other”: http://blogs.dickinson.edu/buddhistethics/files/2010/05/quli-article.pdf Image credit: Buddha and Christmas Light (c) Somu Padmanabhan https://www.flickr.com/photos/woodooz/15580024467

Announcement: we’re doing a “live” show on Saturday August 20 during the CBE’s Pacific Seminar. Check out the the CBE’s website for more information, and send us your questions via Facebook or Twitter! Picking up from our last conversation, we do our best to stay on topic and not get lost in the pop-culture woods. Our discussion about generations is really about how inter-generational differences play out in the BCA, how they’re reflected in community or institutional structures, their relationship to issues of ethnicity, and the challenges that come with all of that. Image credit: enlightenment, for $6.95 (c) nancy walkman https://www.flickr.com/photos/nuanc/887170272/

Right off the bat, pretty sure I goofed the origin story of the word “meh” and its reference in The Simpsons. I’m sure someone out there will correct me in the comments. If you can get through the first ten minutes of what’s basically a therapy session for Harry and the next five minutes of us talking about Godzilla, we get to our point: generations are complicated. There’s a seemingly easy correlation of Japanese-American generations and the Shin Buddhist experience in the US, but after the third generation — as the community becomes more diverse and what it means to be Asian/Japanese/American/Buddhist/a-member-of-specific-generation changes — things get fuzzy. We talk around a lot of issues about how inter-generational dynamics play out in the BCA, and you’re gonna wanna stick around for the next episode. (Also, note to self: buy Harry a Transformer for his birthday.) Image Credit: Godzilla (c) 2007 by Kirk Teetzel https://www.flickr.com/photos/kirkt/437482433/

Buddhism and Introspection: in which we ramble on for a time about the extent to which Buddhism is introspective, about controlling, watching, or purifying the mind, an extended exercise in trying hard to look inside one’s psychology and recognize our inner habits, shortcomings, and personal narratives. Image Credit: Buddha Land (c) 2008 by John Nakamura Remy

Jumping off from our conversation about utopia and Star Trek from our last episode, this time around we’re diving deep into questions of belief and interpretation and how to approach the mythological aspects of Shin Buddhism. What do we do with this tradition whose cosmology appears, at face value, to be so far removed from what we take for granted in a scientific/secular/modern world? Should believe all this Pure Land stuff literally or is all metaphorical? Somehow we manage to get through fundamentalism, Star Wars, the Grateful Dead, and the Big Lebowski in all of this. Enjoy! Image Credit: Offerings, Great Buddha of Kamakura, Kotokuin Temple, Kamakura, Japan, 1980 (c) 2013 Terry Feuerborn

I’ll be honest. We spent the first half of this episode geeking out on Star Trek, talking about how this vision of a utopian future hinges on the civilizing influence of an alien culture and that the Federation, being created by humans, is actually less of a utopia and more of a homogenizing galactic empire. And it isn’t even until the last four minutes that we get around to actually defining the word “utopia.” But, really, we do talk about Buddhism (seriously!) by noting how, in analyzing the causes of suffering and offering a solution, Buddhism posits a kind of vision for a better world. So, this episode is basically all about the cultural and religious narratives that we go to for meaning and value in our lives. And, if not that, then…aliens. (Literally.)

Picking up where we left off (in our D&D episode), we wrestle again with the questions and challenges of Buddhist ethics. We begin with the assumption that a basic Buddhist ethical framework is based on compassion and informed by the wisdom of seeing the world clearly, as it is. But this clarity of vision is necessarily an attribute of an awakened being, a Buddha. The challenge posed by Shinran’s experience is the question of whether or not we, as unenlightened beings, can know good from evil? Check out the whole episode for our insights and interpretations of these important issues. Image Credit: Buddha Earth Witness Mudra, statue, gold over wood, San Francisco International Airport, California, USA (c) 2008 Wonderlane

That title should really be “Dungeons and Dragons (and Ethics).” Or “D&D, Star Wars, and Cats (with some Buddhism sprinkled in).” In our first episode for 2016, we wanted to begin a conversation about social ethics — somehow we got sidetracked by Dungeons and Dragons, the classic role playing game that we both grew up with. Seriously, though. Is there a way to reconcile the D&D ethical and moral alignment system with Buddhist ethics? Unsurprisingly, we go off on several tangents before getting to the notion of absolute good and evil that seems implicit in the D&D system and that (some) Buddhist traditions seek to transcend. And we end, of course, talking about cats. Happy new year! Image of Tempel Kenninji in Kyoto, Japan copyright: © 2010, Christian Kaden Licence: Creative Commons BY-NC-ND 4.0 ID: DSC02893

The rumors of deaths have been greatly exaggerated.

In response to a listener question, we discuss the variety of Pure Land practices outside the Shin and Japanese traditions. We begin by noting that Honen and Shinran set up distinct schools and institutions devoted to a single Pure Land practice (nenbutsu) whereas across the Buddhist world, Pure Land is best understood not as a distinct school but as a cluster of related texts, practices, orientations, and cosmologies that find expression in a wide array of approaches to awakening. Some of these approaches include the recitation of the name, others include contemplative or meditative approaches. Some are focused on Amitabha and Sukhavati, others aren’t. All of which points to the wide dispersal of Pure Land Buddhisms and the diversity of practices. Approaching the Land of Bliss The Contemplation Sutra Pratyutpanna Samadhi Sutra Image: “Dancing flames at Po Lin Monastery, Lantau Island, Hong Kong” by kartografia.

Following up on our conversation from last time, we tackle a list of listener questions that we thought would be simple but took us off in really different directions. The first question is whether or not Japanese Buddhist traditions rely on the Pali canon — yes? no? maybe? we don’t know! We (well, really, Scott) might be overanalyzing this question, but depending on what the question means, maybe yes, maybe no. This question is not unrelated to the second question — the profound “are different Buddhist traditions teaching the same thing in different ways or are they teaching different things?” On the one hand, we want to argue for some continuity in the larger flow of Buddhist history; on the other, it’s more than a little possible that the Buddha himself taught different things to different persons depending on their capacities. And that might not be a bad thing. Image courtesy Jan.

In response to a bunch of listener questions that we thought would be pretty straightforward, we bring you several episodes to discuss, first, the differences between Japanese Buddhist schools of Jodo Shu, Jodo Shinshu, and Nichiren. What unites these traditions are their founders’ experiences in the Tendai tradition and eventual dedication to a single path of practice. For Nichiren, the exclusive path was reliance of the Lotus Sutra; for Honen and Shinran it was the Pure Land path and recitation of the name of the Buddha Amida. But there are differences of focus between them that lead to the establishment of separate traditions. Rooflines, Myohoji Nichiren Buddhist temple, Honolulu by Joel Abroad

Reflecting on the sad news of Rev. Dr. Taitetsu Unno’s passing this past month, we thought we’d do a special short episode to acknowledge his influence in our own lives as well as appreciating our good Dharma friends and teachers. We’ll be back in a couple of weeks with full-length episodes answering listener questions. Thanks for listening and happy new year! In memoriam: Rev. Dr. Taitetsu Unno

Okay. Some big questions this time around, none of which we’re gonna answer but we have a good time talking around the issues. Does (Shin) Buddhism give us a way to act? Are there guidelines on how to be good and avoid evil? Is it right to even judge persons as good and evil or should we talk about good and evil behavior instead? Are these categories even native to (Shin) Buddhism or are we asking questions from a non-Buddhist context? Doesn’t Shinran mention the foolish beings of good and evil? What the heck is evil anyway!? It’s a good ride. Scott says some things he’ll probably regret, Harry is as insightful as always, we run through good, evil, the Tannisho, the Golden Chain and magic and end up places we didn’t think we’d get to. Enjoy! Photo credit: Singapore Dragon Silk, by Drriss & Marrionn

We’re doing a post-modern meta show about the show where we talk about the show. It’s been six years, this is episode number eighty, and we want to take stock and talk about what we’ve done and where we’re headed. Actually, we have a really hard time remembering what we talk about once we post these things on the web, so we’re not going to talk much about what we’ve said as much about how we think about the show. We think of the last six years as part of a long — and ongoing — learning process, and we really appreciate all our listeners sticking by us. You’re awesome! Image courtesy bebouchard

Just gonna say it up front: Harry’s on fire in these episodes, saying some profound stuff! In this final installment of our reflections on Shin and Zen practice, we take up the issue of other-power/self-power. We dive right into the deep and complicated issues about the nature of the self, what’s at stake in the distinction between these paths of practice, and whether or not it’s even possible for the self to negate the self. Photo credit: Japanexperterna (CC BY-SA)

We take up the issue from last time, wandering around the historical circumstances of exclusive practice, Kamakura-era Buddhist schools, deal with how the context in which one practices matters, ritual efficacy, heresy, and whether there’s really a difference between zazen and nembutsu. We don’t really answer the question of whether or not one can combine Zen and Shin practice; ultimately, that’s for you to decide!

Hey! Check out that new theme song! We finally get around to doing some recording and answering some listener questions, this one about the possibility of combining Shin and Zen Buddhist practice. We dance around the issue for a while, meandering through the minutia of particular ritual styles, before getting to some of the historical and institutional justifications used for why Shin Buddhists should only do this practice and not this other thing. Stay tuned for more episodes on this topic. We’re not done yet!

Our third and final episode with special guest Mushim Ikeda from the East Bay Meditation Center. In this show, we use the current popularity of mindfulness based meditation practices (and their secularized off-shoots) to answer the “why Buddhism” question. We discuss what mindfulness means in classic Buddhist terms (satti/smrti as well as Pure Land nenbutsu) and in what ways secularized practices diverge from these forms. One area of concern is the commodification of Buddhist practice and the lack of attention paid to how our actions perpetuate systems of injustice and inequality. Rather than merely talking about the positive (often secular-focused) benefit of mindfulness practices, we jump into the deep end to discuss the political and social consequences and limits of Buddhist practice in the modern world. Part One and Part Two of our conversation with Mushim Ikeda. Beyond McMindfulness Mindfulness in Plain English  

Here’s part two of our conversation with Mushim Ikeda of the East Bay Meditation Center. We jump right in from where we left off in the last episode, trying to answer the question of “Why Buddhism?” (Spoiler alert: it’s gotta do with the ego.) A lot of our conversation meanders around different experiences in the Zen Buddhism and Shin Buddhist traditions, but in a really cool twist, we find common ground in the Golden Chain, a reading all of us have had some experience with. Mushim has some fantastic insights into its resonance with broad Buddhist ideas of interconnectedness and compassion which grounds this conversation in the realm of ethics, the bodhisattva path, and the challenges inherent in trying to discern “right” from “wrong.” Part One and Part Three of our conversation with Mushim Ikeda.

Today is part one of a three-part series of episodes featuring our very first special guest star, Mushim Ikeda. Mushim is a Buddhist teacher, author, mentor and the community coordinator and a core teacher of Oakland’s East Bay Meditation Center. Mushim helps us unpack what may seem like a very basic question: why Buddhism? There’s a lot of directions this question could take us in, from questions of motivation, why people engage in Buddhist practice, why people are attracted to Buddhism, and so forth. And our conversation meanders from existential questions about the meaning of life as well as how to compassionately engage the world while knowing that we can never live up to our highest expectations. We find a lot of overlap between Mushim’s experiences in the Zen tradition and our own experiences with Shin Buddhism, an opportunity for substantive intra-Buddhist conversation. The conversation will continue… Part Two and Part Three of our conversation with Mushim Ikeda. East Bay Meditation Center Buddhism: A Way of Life and Thought, by Nancy Wilson Ross

We’re not talking about magicians, we’re talking about ritual and whether or not there is some efficacious power inherent in Buddhist ritual practice. Ritual is often derided by modern folks or rejected explicitly as not a part of Buddhism, distinct from practice proper. But there’s ritual throughout Buddhist history and practice, and ritual serves an important function in human social life. Scott spends a lot of time riffing on ritual theory and anthropology. Harry spends some time waxing nostalgic for the loss of the Elves. And somehow we keep it all related to Shin Buddhism. It’s magic!

One of the issues that came up in our last conversation was the idea of “original enlightenment,” or the idea that from an enlightened point of view, everything’s equal. Today we take up some of the consequences of this view; do we use this idea as a way to minimize, dismiss, or disregard the experiences of others? Just because, from the Buddha’s point of view, everything’s already enlightened, do we ignore the lived reality of social injustice and the suffering it creates? And does this attitude preclude the possibility of effecting change? These are just a few of the deeper questions we ask this time around and suggest that Shin Buddhism in particular has some tools and advice for the culture at large on how to engage with the world both personally and socially. Don’t forget to check out our last episode if you missed it and the resources listed on that page.

Is the BCA silent on issues of social justice? For many, it might seem like there’s no Shin Buddhist public voice in the American  discourse on Buddhism and social justice. We’ve been asked several times about this, so today is part one of a larger conversation about Shin Buddhism and social justice. We start by focusing on the historical and cultural contexts in which Shin Buddhist thought and practice develop both in Japan and in the U.S. In the U.S., of course, we need to be attentive to history of anti-Japanese sentiment and Japanese American internment that shapes how we talk about our tradition and engage with the world. The subtext, of course, is the question of whether our institutions are living up to a Buddhist ideal of equality and the extent to which Buddhism can be used and exploited to use and exploit others. Some of the reference and resources mentioned in this episode: Buddhist Churches of America Art of Gaman Zen At War  

In prepping for our last episode on how to do Shin Buddhist practice, we started thinking about why people do practice and the question of motivations. The conversation starts with a reflection on a conference paper Scott heard early in the summer about Buddhism, the self-help industry, and BCA’s “Zen envy” (hat tip to James Dobbins for that awesome phrase!). We talk about what the purpose of Shin and Buddhist practice is in the first place: is it to help create a better self, or a project in radical self-transformation? We meander through questions of ethics, self-critical awareness, and how all this fits into BCA communities today.

We’re back! And we’re taking up a listener question about practicing Buddhism when you’re not near a Shin community, so we’re calling this one “how to do Shin practice?” This is an important question; what is our practice? How do we do the practice? Harry breaks it down into external and internal aspects where the external is related to intellectual, doctrinal, historical studies as well as critical analysis of the teachings and the internal is personal or subjective critical self-reflection. Often times the internal is related to ritual and practice, saying the name or hearing the dharma. But it is important to note the connection between the two and the importance of living a Shin Buddhist life in community — both explicit Shin Buddhist communities and all the other communities in your life. In this episode we also touch on ritual and magic, vajrayana and tantra, and institutional aspects of the Buddhist Churches of America. Some resources mentioned in this episode: Jodo Shinshu Center which hosts retreats and seminars year-round Jodo Shinshu Correspondence Course The BCA Buddhist Bookstore Center for Buddhist Education Recordings of Shin Buddhist chants

We round out our conversation about music by focusing on Shin Buddhism, starting with Shinran. It’s clear chanting was an important part of early Shin communities, and many of Shinran’s wasan (poems) have come down to us as songs still sung today. We take a brief detour to talk about Herbie Hancock before getting into contemporary music in the American Shin context. If we expand our view beyond the traditional gathas, we can find all kinds of really interesting music within Shin communities, opportunities for creative and personal expression of the Dharma. Also in this episode, Scott plugs his current research project which is devoted to American Shin Buddhist music. Check out his website and take part in his research.

In part two of our discussion of Buddhism and music, we talk (mostly) about the potential genre of “Buddhist music.” Genre is a tricky; it raises all sorts of questions about who gets to define an artist or musician and whether or not it further divides people into camps of musical identity. But we definitely think there’s Buddhist music out there worth talking about, and we meander around such different artists as Hiroshima, Toshiro Mayuzumi, the Beastie Boys, Lou Harrison, and eventually come back to our own Buddhist musician — Harry himself — who’s written some Buddhist music of his own, including various versions of this show’s theme song. Here’s just some of the names we drop in this episode: Stanley Lighthead (Harry’s new band) IBS Symposium where we talk about music Beastie Boys Toshiro Mayuzmi Esperanto Heart Sutra Hiroshima

We’ve got a long-standing interest in music; coincidentally, a listener asked us a question about music on Facebook, so we took the subject and ran with it! This is the first of three episodes dedicated to the subject of Buddhism and music. Today’s show is a general overview of the subject, both the question of what is music — how is it used and performed and why we listen to it — and how is music used in a Buddhist context, both ritually and as a form of practice.

“Won’t somebody please think of the children!” This week we take up the tension in Buddhism between the ideal of monasticism, the renunciant, the solo practitioner who goes off in search of awakening versus the reality of home life, laity, and family. Our conversation is inspired, in part, by a post last fall over on the Dharma Dialogue blog about revisiting the biography of the historical Buddha and being attentive to how this narrative can be re-read to highlight Shakyamuni’s connections to his home life and family rather than his rejection of it. We eventually come back to Shinran and the Tannisho, and Harry starts to say some pretty profound stuff about twenty minutes in. It’s worth sticking around just for that! Also, the Dharma Dialogue blog seems to be no more since it was created for a specific class down at University of the West last fall. The author of the post linked to above, however, can be found on his site, here, Family Dharma.

Let’s pick up where we left off; last time we discussed how contemporary Shin Buddhists can make the teachings and practices applicable to modern life, balancing tradition and change. This raises the important question of how one can determine whether or not a particular interpretation of the Buddha Dharma is in line with traditional or authoritative understandings. In short, how can we trust our teachers and Dhrarma friends? Our conversation today covers a lot ground through personal and institutional authority, the importance of education and community, and familiar topics such as the dojo and kalyanamitra.

Prompted by a listener who’s interested in how Buddhist teachings and practices change over time, in this episode we take up the tension between maintaining tradition versus adaptation to new circumstances. Whereas one could argue that we should look to Shinran as the final authority on what the orthodox Shinshu teaching or practice should be, we can also look to Shinran as inspiration, as a thoughtful practitioner who, in his own time, creatively interpreted the tradition to meet the needs of those around him. But how much change is too much? When does reinterpretation so alter the tradition that it becomes something new? And who’s to say what counts in the first place? Who are the authority figures who decide what is and is not an acceptable teaching or practice?

Today we go down the rabbit hole of the Tannisho, the so-called razor text of Shin Buddhism, a text that can cut away misunderstandings, or be extremely dangerous in the wrong hands! Specifically, we’re talking about compassion and the question of whether or not great compassion is even possible. In Chapter Four of the Tannisho, Shinran seems to imply that, due to our lack of true wisdom, it’s extremely difficult, if not impossible, to be compassionate and help other people. But if there’s nothing you can do, why do anything? Shinran and Shin Buddhism push us to ask deeper questions, to challenge feel-good Buddhism and shake up our expectations and assumptions about the path to awakening. We go to some pretty complex places in this one; enjoy! And if you’re interested in reading the Tannisho, one translation is available here.

In this episode, Scott complains about the media! Seriously, though, bouncing from the last episode that dealt with the commodification and commercialization of Buddhism, we now deal with the related issue of media representations of Buddhism and Buddhists. How is Buddhism represented in the media, and what we can learn about Buddhism via these representations? Are they helpful to people in actually understanding what Buddhism about? Similarly, how are individual Buddhists represented? Who isn’t represented in the media and what are the consequences of these representations or lack thereof? We reference Jane Naomi Iwamura’s book, Virtual Orientalism, in this episode which can be found here. And Harry makes reference to a weird Ikea ad that can be found here (and talked about by the Angry Asian Man here).

Someone tried to sell some shoes with an image of the Buddha on them. And, boy, were Buddhists mad about it! This is our jumping off point for a discussion about commercialization and the commodification of Buddhism. Should Buddhists be offended or angry when corporate or commercial ventures try to sell products with images of the Buddha on them? Should Buddhists resist capitalism even in their attempts to spread the Dharma? We want to take these issues seriously and move beyond vague platitudes about non-attachment to really engage the question of what the proper Buddhist response is to commercialization and capitalism. One of the books referenced in this episode is Selling Spirituality: the silent takeover of religion, by Jeremy Carrette and Richard King. And offending shoes that started off this episode can be seen here.