[Buddha-l] (the recycling of) Western Buddhists
John Whalen-Bridge
ellwbj at nus.edu.sg
Sat Nov 17 18:18:19 MST 2007
IN RESPONSE TO JOY'S RESPONSE TO DAN...
>Subject: Re: Re: [Buddha-l] Western Buddhism
>Dan ; Any success stories with non-"native" Buddhist parents? Or is this a missing
>The only thing that the second generation of parents can authentically transmit is that failure. And they seem >pretty successful in that.
>Joy
Thanks Joy! Now I feel better! The kids' grandparents were communist on one side and quite poor on the other, neither of which got passed along in full measure either.
My older son was conceived with 49 days of my mother's passing and I sometimes tell him has to go to bed or do homework because he made me do it. When he said "I didn't choose to be born in his family," I said "That's not how we look at it around here." When I told him, after he got ticked off about going to bed or doing homework, that he should just calm down since getting angry is just a bad habit that doesn't accomplish much (when practiced habitually, anyway), he said: "DAD: You're a Buddhist. You believe CALM and HAPPY are good things. I'm NOT a Buddhist. I'm an atheist and I think it's good to be angry." The kid was maybe eight years old at this point, not yet big enough to wallop me. I said, "You thought Buddhism was stupid in your last life, and you haven't learned a thing, so go to bed."
So a possible solution that we could entertain under more rigorous scientific conditions and possibly make into an AAR article: second-generation Buddhists become anti-Buddhists precisely because we hail from the bardo those relatives and loved ones whom we became Buddhist to tick off in the first place, so it's our own karma coming back to crow. The solution is to be nice to these kids, don't make them do all of their homework for example, so that they will later hail us from the bardo and we can try again.
Question about another thread from a few weeks back: does anyone know whether anyone responded to Zizek's latest "Please invite me to China again" anti-Buddhist screed?
A Moderater may tell me to not entangle threads like this, but I'd like to bow three times in honor of Norman Mailer, a wonderful writer and immoderate soul whose books haven't really been read since 1980, and so he's rousingly strange humor is unknown, while his worst literary karma and personal mistakes are celebrated with glee. He argued over and over again for reincarnation. Those his conception of reincarnation was anything but Buddhist, I'm wondering about the possibilities of locating his next incarnation and passing the kid a laptop. I can't think of anyone in American literture these days who can step out and away from how We are supposed to think with the gusto of a Mailer or a Henry Miller. There is a kind of freedom of mind--not cautious, correct thinking, to be sure, that is just missing, now. Or rather, it was public, and now it is relatively private.
Hoping for a literary tulku,
JWB
All best wishes, JWB
Whalen-Bridge @ English Language and Literature
National University of Singapore
7 Arts Link, Blk AS5 Singapore 117570
(Also @ http://courses.nus.edu.sg/course/ellwbj/jwb/ <http://courses.nus.edu.sg/course/ellwbj/jwb/> )
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Today's Topics:
1. Re: Western Buddhism (Richard Hayes)
2. Re: Re: [Buddha-l] Western Buddhism (Joy Vriens)
3. Re: RE: [Buddha-l] Western Buddhism (Joy Vriens)
4. Re: Re: [Buddha-l] Western Buddhism (Joy Vriens)
5. Re: Western Buddhism (curt)
6. First ever foreigner to become monk in China? (Alberto Todeschini)
7. RE: First ever foreigner to become monk in China? (jkirk)
8. Eastern Buddhism (jkirk)
9. FW: H-Japan (E): CFP: The Journal of Japanese and Korean
Cinema (jkirk)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Message: 1
Date: Fri, 16 Nov 2007 20:06:44 -0700
From: Richard Hayes <rhayes at unm.edu>
Subject: Re: [Buddha-l] Western Buddhism
To: Buddhist discussion forum <buddha-l at mailman.swcp.com>
Message-ID: <1195268804.6961.36.camel at localhost>
Content-Type: text/plain
On Fri, 2007-11-16 at 21:00 +0100, Erik Hoogcarspel wrote:
> Richard Hayes schreef:
> > As is almost always the case when there is a disagreement between me and a
> > priest of any religion, I'm right.
> >
> That's what any priest would also say, the difference is only in the
> eye, sorry 'I'.
Aye, but when a priest says such a thing, his tongue is not sufficiently
far in his cheek.
> Another thing about Western Buddhism: if there would be such a thing, it
> would be the first Buddhism that lives with science.
It would certainly be the first kind of Buddhism did live in a culture
whose intellectual landscape was dominated by scientific method as the
most trusted method of acquiring new insights.
These days I have been getting a great deal of enjoyment (and
inspiration) from Brian Swimme and Thomas Berry's "The Universe Story,"
an ambitious attempt to tell the story of the the creation of the
universe and the evolution of human beings in a way that is
simultaneously close to how contemporary science tells the story and
supportive of a responsible and compassionate way of living in the
world. I heard Thomas Berry talking about the book shortly after it was
written, and I have listened to many of Briane Swimme's recorded
lectures. If I may borrow a Quaker expression, their way of telling the
story speaks to my condition. While I have become quite wary of labels,
if I were to allow myself to wear the label "Buddhist", I would say that
Swimme and Berry's telling of the story has deepened my Buddhist
practice.
--
Richard Hayes
Department of Philosophy
University of New Mexico
------------------------------
Message: 2
Date: Sat, 17 Nov 2007 05:23:13 +0100
From: "Joy Vriens"<jvriens at free.fr>
Subject: Re: Re: [Buddha-l] Western Buddhism
To: "buddha-l"<buddha-l at mailman.swcp.com>
Message-ID: <DreamMail__052313_89063860722 at smtp.free.fr>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="ISO-8859-1"
Dan,
>Any success stories with non-"native" Buddhist parents? Or is this a missing
>ingredient for Western (aka American) Buddhists?
When we talk about (or desperately search for) success stories of "Western Buddhist" parents successully transmitting "Western Buddhism" to their children, we should also remember the stories of utter failure of the parents of those parents. They failed to transmit their religion to their children, who went off to become vague buddhists. How did that happen, what went wrong? The only thing that the second generation of parents can authentically transmit is that failure. And they seem pretty successful in that.
Joy
------------------------------
Message: 3
Date: Sat, 17 Nov 2007 05:28:07 +0100
From: "Joy Vriens"<jvriens at free.fr>
Subject: Re: RE: [Buddha-l] Western Buddhism
To: "buddha-l"<buddha-l at mailman.swcp.com>
Message-ID: <DreamMail__052807_46868861306 at smtp.free.fr>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="ISO-8859-1"
Richard,
>David Webster wrote:
>> Many of my generation (not quite yet 40...) who study Buddhism [here in the
>> UK at least] seem to be clearly self-defined as non-Buddhist..
>> What's that all about then?
>That's about what I would expect. The generation who taught you had
>fallen in love with Buddhism. Your generation realized that Bob Dylan
>was speaking the truth when he said "You can't be wise and in love at
>the same time." I expect your generation to produce far better
>scholarship on Buddhism than mine has done; we were all so enamoured of
>our object of study that we could not see it at all clearly.
Deep bow for your answer mr Hayes.
Yet, at the same time, I would say that whoever is not enamoured with the object of their study doesn't see it. And "it" is not necessarily the object of the study.
Joy
------------------------------
Message: 4
Date: Sat, 17 Nov 2007 05:47:06 +0100
From: "Joy Vriens"<jvriens at free.fr>
Subject: Re: Re: [Buddha-l] Western Buddhism
To: "buddha-l"<buddha-l at mailman.swcp.com>
Message-ID: <DreamMail__054706_04624547882 at smtp.free.fr>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="ISO-8859-1"
Richard,
>Seeing the source of one's strength as outside oneself strikes me as
>immature thinking. Mature practice consists in seeing that all of one's
>strength comes from within,
I wonder what the Buddha would think about that? He did tell us to be islands unto ourselves, but he wasn't very specific about an "inside oneself" and a "within". Not that I have a problem with that, but I do have a problem knowing what is inside and what outside.
Joy
------------------------------
Message: 5
Date: Sat, 17 Nov 2007 08:05:43 -0500
From: curt <curt at cola.iges.org>
Subject: Re: [Buddha-l] Western Buddhism
To: Buddhist discussion forum <buddha-l at mailman.swcp.com>
Message-ID: <473EE727.4060302 at cola.iges.org>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed
Joy Vriens wrote:
> Richard,
>
>> Seeing the source of one's strength as outside oneself strikes me as
>> immature thinking. Mature practice consists in seeing that all of one's
>> strength comes from within,
>>
>
> I wonder what the Buddha would think about that? He did tell us to be islands unto ourselves, but he wasn't very specific about an "inside oneself" and a "within". Not that I have a problem with that, but I do have a problem knowing what is inside and what outside.
>
The Buddha did, of course, mention something about there being no self
in the first place, however. And if there is no self then there is no
"other".
Curt
------------------------------
Message: 6
Date: Sat, 17 Nov 2007 08:45:32 -0500
From: Alberto Todeschini <at8u at virginia.edu>
Subject: [Buddha-l] First ever foreigner to become monk in China?
To: buddha-l at mailman.swcp.com
Message-ID: <473EF07C.1070000 at virginia.edu>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed
Dear All,
Today's Corriere della Sera, one of Italy's most important newspapers,
reports that according to an article in the China Daily, an Italian has
become the first ever foreigner to become monk in China.
Is this correct? No other foreigner has become Buddhist in China?
Perhaps we should add "in modern times". Even so, would that be correct?
Here is the article:
http://www.corriere.it/esteri/07_novembre_17/cavalera_monaco_buddista.shtml
If you are interested, you could try ask Google to translate it into
English. It sometimes does a half decent job with some European languages.
Thank you for your thoughts,
Alberto Todeschini
------------------------------
Message: 7
Date: Sat, 17 Nov 2007 10:00:27 -0700
From: "jkirk" <jkirk at spro.net>
Subject: RE: [Buddha-l] First ever foreigner to become monk in China?
To: "'Buddhist discussion forum'" <buddha-l at mailman.swcp.com>
Message-ID: <002f01c8293b$5a6e0c70$0400a8c0 at OPTIPLEX>
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Dear All,
Today's Corriere della Sera, one of Italy's most important newspapers,
reports that according to an article in the China Daily, an Italian has
become the first ever foreigner to become monk in China.
Is this correct? No other foreigner has become Buddhist in China?
Perhaps we should add "in modern times". Even so, would that be correct?
..................
Alberto Todeschini
==================================================
From: Kirkpatrick [jkirk at spro.net]
Several foreign (e.g., not Chinese) women renouncers--from Thailand and
other areas,
have gone to China earlier on to be ordained in a Buddhist tradition, since
the bhikkhuni tradition
had been lost in Sri Lanka, Burma, and Thailand.
Here's one article reflecting this situation:
http://www.buddhistchannel.tv/index.php?id=52,4632,0,0,1,0
"...If women still insist, they will be simply dismissed and told to go to
Mahayana Buddhism in Taiwan, Korea, Vietnam or China for female ordination.
The mutual understanding, however, is that they will remain outsiders to the
Thai Sangha and never be accepted as equal to monks....In 1996, the clergy
in Sri Lanka restored the Bhikkhuni order. It was decided that Mahayana
Bhikkhunis could co-preside over female ordination because the Bhikkhuni
order in Mahayana could be traced back historically to Theravada origins.
The Thai Sangha has simply snubbed the move."
In any case, in the vinaya the bhikshunis are never 'equal' to bhiskshus,
but it's true that in Thailand such China-ordained nuns are not acepted as
ordained nuns by the Thai sangha.
Quite a few (I don't know how mnay) women have already done this before your
Italian chap went to China to ordain.
Joanna Kirkpatrick
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Message: 8
Date: Sat, 17 Nov 2007 10:29:00 -0700
From: "jkirk" <jkirk at spro.net>
Subject: [Buddha-l] Eastern Buddhism
To: "'Buddhist discussion forum'" <buddha-l at mailman.swcp.com>
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From: Kirkpatrick [jkirk at spro.net]
On a tangent from the western Buddhism thread, I just want to say that I
watched Akira Kurosawa's film version last night of Maxim Gorky's _The Lower
Depths_ (_Donzoko_).
Have to admit I've never seen the Gorky play nor read it. Kurosawa says that
he made a lot of changes in adapting the play to his purposes. Since I've
not seen nor read the play, I can't address the changes. But Kurosawa's
version is a study in both samsara and compassion, and to my mind is a very
Buddhistic film. An old man pilgrim monk arrives amidst the seedy denizens
of a lower depths somewhere in Japan, at the bottom of a refuse pit (we're
talking late Edo period here), and asks to stay there for a while. "Gramps"
as they call him is given a bunk that was empty, and winds up gently
advising various of his shared-quarters neighbors during their wild passions
and disputes with one another. At the end, after he has moved on, someone
recalls his compassion. Mostly they accuse him of talking comfortable lies,
while "they" perceive the truth of reality, and then get drunk. It's a
retooled version of the film and the subtitles are in contemporary US
English slang, a bit grating-- but then I never saw the original with
original subtitles, that may not have been any better. A beautiful filmic
exposition of delusion, hatred, and desire and how the social lowest of the
low are so attached to their existential situation that they cannot imagine
getting out of it, even though some of them dream of it. The pilgrim monk is
the only one who has ever been out of the pit.
Has anyone on the list seen this film, and/or the Gorky play? Jean Renoir
filmed it in France in 1931, and Kurosawa's dates from 1957.
Joanna K.
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Message: 9
Date: Sat, 17 Nov 2007 10:56:10 -0700
From: "jkirk" <jkirk at spro.net>
Subject: [Buddha-l] FW: H-Japan (E): CFP: The Journal of Japanese and
Korean Cinema
To: "'Buddhist discussion forum'" <buddha-l at mailman.swcp.com>
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X-posted.
Just in, call for articles for this new journal. Inspired to submit an article, anyone?
Joanna K.
======================================================
H-Japan
November 17, 2007
From: Aaron Gerow <gerowaaron at sbcglobal.net>
The Journal of Japanese and Korean Cinema, a fully refereed forum for the dissemination of scholarly work devoted to the cinemas of Japan and Korea and the interactions and relations between them, seeks essays for its inaugural issue devoted to Japanese-Korea cinematic connections.
Possible topics for this first issue include, but are not limited to:
remakes across national borders;
co-productions;
censorship and regulation of Japanese films in Korea; Representations of Koreans in Japanese film/Japanese in Korean Film; Reception; Casting/stars; Korean cinema under colonialism; manga adaptations across national borders; Japanese influence on Korean cinema/Korean on Japanese cinema
Future submissions may include essays devoted to issues specific to either Japanese or Korean cinema, but articles on interactions between them will also continue to be considered.
Topics for essays for future issues may concern:
historical considerations and reconsiderations; authorship; genre; spectatorship and audiences; reception of Japanese and Korean cinema regionally and globally
Information for prospective authors:
Submit the article as an e-mail attachment in word format.
Essays should be 6,000-8,000 words.
Please include abstract of 150-200 words.
Include a separate, short biography in the third person.
Please give contact details, including e-mail address.
Provide up to six key words for indexing.
Do not put identifying information in your essay.
Text including notes should be in Times New Roman, 12 point.
Everything must be double-spaced. Quotations must be in English. The first mention of a film should include its original title, director's surname and year of release. In all subsequent references, the title should be translated into English, unless known by original title in all markets. Use explanatory endnotes, not footnotes. Use MLA style for references and works cited.
Editors:
David Desser and Frances Gateward, University of Illinois Unit for Cinema Studies
3072 FLB
707 S. Mathews
University of Illinois
Urbana, IL 61801 USA
Fax (217) 244-4019
Phone (217) 244-2705
jjkc at live.com
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