[Buddha-l] Re: Filtered Buddhism

[Katherine Masis]

Richard Hayes wrote:

"One theme that Joshu-roshi returned to several times
was his feeling that Zen is almost completely dead in
Japan and, indeed, that Buddhism is almost  
completely dead in Asia. The hope for Buddhism, he
says, is in the West."

Hmm.  That reminds me of what, if I’m correct,
Yasutani-roshi told Philip Kapleau back in the
1950’s—to bring back "real" Zen Buddhism to the west
where it could be preserved and passed on.  The door
is left open for us westerners to believe that we are
either privileged enough to carry on "pure" Buddhist
tradition or uncontaminated enough to develop a "new
and improved" Buddhism.

Katherine Masis

Joanna Kirk wrote:

"He [Michael Moore] shouldn't forget to film also the
point where the dana appeal gets noted by one or other
of the teachers. Dana rhetoric is often quite
illuminating."

Yes, it can be.  In some centers there is so much
fundraising done for this, that or whatever project
comes to the leader’s mind, that everybody burns out
and the spirit of practice kind of gets lost in the
shuffle.  In the past, I’ve also sat at a few centers
where all the leaders did after every single sitting
period was whine about how they couldn’t support
themselves as monks did, solely with dana.  This task
of preserving (?) developing (?) creating (?) Buddhism
in the secular west is indeed daunting.

Katherine Masis




       
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