buddhism
i have always been curious about buddhism, and i took the opportunity to study it a little bit at the university of michigan. i tried meditation in my college days, but it made me extremely nervous — i abandoned it almost immediately. now i am very comfortable meditating and meditate every day.
years ago, when i realized that i'd taken my christian beliefs (roughly aligned with the friends church) and retrofitted them until they resembled some sort of mutant buddhism, i decided to study buddhism with more effort.
i received the gohonzon from the sgi and attended sgi meetings for nearly two years. they are a wonderful group that makes buddhism very accessible to newcomers. the sgi also has a comprehensive study program, and as my friend jim reitz put it, “there’s as much theory as you need.” i no longer attend group meetings, but i still study nichiren's writings.
i am a member the zen buddhist sangha in ann arbor, where we tame the wild ox.
i also read soto zen and tibetan buddhist books. among the tibetan books i have read, i particularly liked sogyal rimpoche’s the tibetan book of living and dying and felt very comfortable with his eclectic approach. A quote from his book:
“To follow the path of wisdom has never been more urgent or more difficult. Our society is dedicated almost entirely to the celebration of ego, with all its sad fantasies about success and power, and it celebrates those very forces of greed and ignorance that are destroying the planet. It has never been more difficult to hear the unflattering voice of the truth, and never more difficult, once having heard it, to follow it: because there is nothing in the world around us that supports our choice, and the entire society in which we live seems to negate every idea of sacredness or eternal meaning. So at the time of our most acute danger, when our very future is in doubt, we as human beings find ourselves at our most bewildered, and trapped in a nightmare of our own creation.”
i love shunryu suzuki’s zen mind, beginner’s mind; not always so; and branching streams flow in the darkness.
one of my favorite writers is adyashanti, a “post-zen” teacher out of san jose. his books emptiness dancing and true meditation form the capstone of my buddhist study.
i also like eckhart tolle, and the power of now. i think that adyashanti is good at getting you to presence, and tolle is good at keeping you there.
i came across the book the complete conversations with god, an uncommon dialogue. it is written by neale donald walsch. in this book, walsch takes dictation from god. this seems really out there — until you read through the book, and you ask yourself, if this isn't god speaking, how would god speak differently than this? this book touches on so many things that i have read from so many works and pulls them together. it evokes so many experiences i've had. it is eery. it seems to me a clarion call for those that have ears. it is a very beautiful book.
adyashanti brings you to presence. tolle keeps you there. and walsch helps you to understand what to do when you're in presence: creation occurs in the moment. each moment we create ourselves anew. there are so many insightful comments and so much sage advice. if you quote the book, then how do you attribute the quote? no matter, you can just pass the ideas along — it doesn't matter if you attribute them, for we are god experiencing god on earth. no one really owns ideas exclusively.
so what interests me now is presence, being awake, being in the moment, what it means to live one's life from within, rather than without, staying present as much of the time as is possible, being out of thought and out of mind, and creating a meaningful life form moment to moment.