Yet Another Abbot Asked to Expel Thich Nhat Hanh Monastics.

(Vietnamese Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh -- Pictured above with brown robe showing)

James: As many know, monastics in the tradition of Vietnamese Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh were forcefully removed from Bat Nha monastery in Vietnam by the communist government and local mobs. However, communist dictatorships are historically notorious for staging mob riots by secret police dressed in plain clothes to appear as peasants. The government claims the abbot of the monastery was the one who initiated the demand for expulsion, however, he has yet to say anything publicly about it. Another favorite trick of communist dictatorships is to force people into saying things via threats of violence or imprisonment if they refuse. Anyway, this expulsion took place this past October, which suspiciously came soon after Nhat Hanh called for Vietnam to be more open about religious freedoms. Following the expulsion the monastics fled to a pagoda whose abbot had invited them to take refuge within but now they are being pressured to leave there as well. This time the abbot is speaking out and confirming suspicions that the initial abbot was pressured.

Vietnamese authorities have ordered the abbot of a pagoda to evict some 190 members of an unofficial Buddhist group who had taken refuge there, the abbot said Monday. "They asked me to evict the nuns and monks from the pagoda before December 31," said abbot Thich Thai Thuan of Thuoc Hue pagoda, in the south-central province of Lam Dong. Thuan said he had met Friday with Duong Van Vien, deputy chair of the People's Committee in the town of Bao Loc, and Nguyen Thanh Tich, head of the religious committee. Last week a mob of some 100 people surrounded Phuoc Hue pagoda for three days. The mob attempted to prevent a fact-finding delegation of EU diplomats from visiting the abbot on Wednesday. "I have no choice but to sign a document saying the pagoda will ask the nuns and monks to leave," Thuan said. "If I don't ask them to leave, [the mob] will carry me away too."

James: They can push Buddhism outside the confines of Vietnam but they can't push Buddhism from the hearts of the people. Nor will they ever be able to fully crush Thich Nhat Hanh's influence in that country. Their fight against spiritual freedom and freedom in general is like trying to prevent a dam from breaking by putting your finger in a crack that opened. The artificial barrier might hold up for awhile but after years of pressure they can't keep up with all the fissures and cracks forming throughout the obstacle. Change always finds a way through any barrier -- just not always in the time frame that we might desire. The time will come when the Communists will no longer be able to hold back the people. That especially goes for online access to information that is pouring through the cracks appearing in that country's internet dam. Information is power and will quite likely, eventually be the catalyst of liberation for the people of Vietnam. May it happen in our lifetime.

~Peace to all beings~

Sitting with Jundo Cohen.

Awhile back I was contacted by Zen teacher Jundo Cohen about his wonderful Tree Leaf Zendo, which provides insightful v-cast teachings that include a time for sitting Zazen. It's a very effective way of staying interconnected with a teacher and the sangha of practitioners if one has needs that precludes a person from sitting formally.

I know the advent of the "Online Sangha" has been of some controversy of late on the Buddoblogosphere. I personally find it change to embrace and appreciate. It is allowing and enabling the Dharma to reach more and more people who seek its wisdom. People are discovering the Buddha's teachings through the internet who might not ever have come into contact with them if it were in years past.

I do not understand how enabling more people (through technology) to sit with and learn from ordained teachers as well as enjoy support from fellow practitioners is a less helpful. It seems to me that such thinking is allowing yourself to be tethered to the "iron ball and chain" obstacle of "I'm here" and "you're there." Just because people aren't sitting the same room does not mean that their sitting is less helpful, less real or a "fad." If we believe that we truly understand interconnection then the idea of a sangha meeting virtually from all corners of the world should make complete and total sense. It is a creative way to make that understanding of interconnectedness stronger to encompass the world and beyond. Jundo Cohen speaks of the illusion of "Now" and "There" quite beautifully in this v-cast:
James:Along this same parallel, I believe that there is other life out in the universe (as even the atheist Richard Dawkins believes). As Dawkins writes in his fantastic book, "The God Delusion":

Now suppose the origin of life, the spontaneous arising of something equivalent to DNA, really was a quite staggeringly improbable event. Suppose it was so improbable as to occur on only one in a billion planets. And yet, even with such absurdly long odds, life will still have arisen on a billion planets -- of which, Earth, of course, is one."

James: This was in response to the creationist claim that evolution means life was created spontaneously, whereas evolutionists know it evolved over billions of years. He was saying, however, that even if it was spontaneous--the probability still makes it very likely.

That all said, I do not believe that alien life has contacted us or our world--yet. But my point in all of this "alien life" discussion is that idea of infinite lives being connected to all things and beings regardless of proximity to a meditation center or physical presence at one. We are interconnected with things that we haven't even discovered yet!! How cool and humbling is that idea?!! Imagine one day being able to virtually meditate with Buddhist practitioners of some other planet?!! You could be meditating at the same time with someone from your country, another country on the other side of the planet and another life form on another side of the UNIVERSE!!!! That would be quite the mindful moment of awareness of the many levels of interconnectedness. What a marvelous thought. Even better? We can do that right now. We can imagine all forms of life as we meditate on interconnectedness, which makes the Universe (I find) very personal and easier to grasp.

UPDATE: I wanted to elaborate a bit more on why there is some blow-back (resistance) to online sanghas and online or telephone interactions with teachers. I suspect that some of the "anti-internet" sanghas stems from a perhaps hidden desire to maintain their position as "Abbot" of some prestigious temple. Or as an ordained practitioner by a prestigious and famous "Master." This is not to say that there is anything wrong with ordaination but there seems to be a bit of a tendancy for some traditional practitioners to act as "purists" when someone discovers another way of diseminating the Dharma.

It's sad that rather than welcome another way to spread the Dharma and sustain practitioners who can't access physical sanghas; some of these folks laugh off online interactions as "not as real" or "authentic." As if there is anything "real" to begin with but that's a topic for another time. Part of these backlash could also stem from a desire to maintain their institution and steady line of devoted students. Such a position of importance can easily fuel their egos and push them to seek maintaining such a situation regardless of what it might mean for others.

I don't see how online sanghas and online interaction with ordained teachers threatens traditional "brick and mortar" sanghas. They both administer to different groups of practitioners. Some feel the need for physical interaction like those who attend school on a campus. Versus those who attend online classes. This doesn't threaten the disappearance of traditional sanghas and temples for people will always have a need for sacred places. It's to say that no one needs a savior, a "master" or any other being to wake up. It's not a matter of one or the other.

Physical sanghas, temples and monasteries simply need to adapt a bit. Perhaps setting up an online sangha on their own web page administered by a senior monk would help people continue their practice while maintaining a deep connecting with their teacher and that particular sangha or temple. Even just maintaining an interactive website where senior monks answer questions as they can would help maintain both needs of updated sangha options and making sure our institutions are still honored.

Establishing or growing retreats and especially days or weeks when the temples and sanghas celebrate and honor traditions and festivals. That way people would be more willing drive an hour or so to attend something to connect with fellow physical practitioners from time to time without having to drive hours upon hours every time sangha meets. It would also enable people with psychological conditions to be apart of a communion and connection with a physical temple/sangha while limiting the stimulation that they easily become overwhelmed with.

Even just maintaining an interactive website where senior monks answer questions as they can would help maintain both needs of updated sangha options and making sure our institutions are still honored.They are all helpful, useful and I believe essential to a degree. However, they are still, in the end--fingers pointing at the moon. No one can do the waking up but us.

~Peace to all beings~

Article for Which I was Interviewed for Published. Plus, All Beings are Buddha

All beings are by nature Buddha,
as ice by nature is water.
Apart from water there is no ice;
apart from beings, no Buddha

-Hakuin Zenji, "Song of Zazen"

James: On another note the article that I was interviewed for was published in the Hartford Courant newspaper in Hartford, Connecticut, USA. Here is the full text:

Worship on the Web
By Phil Hall
April 5, 2007

The late Quaker theologian D. Elton Trueblood said evangelism "is not a professional job for a few trained men but is instead the unrelenting responsibility of every person."

Many people, particularly those with webpage-building skills, have taken Trueblood's words to mind and modem, creating a new online era of conversation and commentary in all matters theological.

In some cases, the Internet has provided a new extension of an existing theological experience. In 2005, for example, the Unitarian Church in Westport expanded its audience for Sunday services by having sermons digitized for podcasting or real-time broadcast from its website (www.uuwestport.org).

"In the past 12 months, there have been 1,837 requests for podcasts, and 519 sermons have been listened to online," says webmaster Charles Klein, who adds that the church's Net audience stretches far beyond its Connecticut congregation. "The website gets approximately 4,700 visitors monthly. The site is visited from all over the United States, much of Europe and even the Middle East."

Still, Klein is aware of the local value of this Net outreach.

"Those who are elderly have indicated a strong desire to visit the site specifically for the podcasts," he says. "Some listeners have moved away, and it is a way to stay connected. Others have either vision or hearing issues, and this really goes far in making sermons accessible to them. Others might be ill at home and do not wish to miss a service or have become shut-ins due to ill health. Others simply enjoy having the services available at their leisure while driving, walking, exercising, or at work."

For those who'd rather be in the pulpit than the pews, the Net allows personal views on matters of a divine nature. Blogging provides a more intimate discussion of faith, as James Ure discovered when he launched The Buddhist Blog (www.thebuddhistblog.blogspot.com) in 2005.

"An important aspect to Buddhism is the `Sangha,' or community of followers," says Ure, an artist in Loveland, Colo. "Being disabled with mental health issues, I have a difficult time staying connected to my physical Sangha, so I started this blog to stay connected with followers online. This blog has helped me see and connect with that worldwide community of followers that I call `The Greater Sangha.' Further, it has helped me realize that we are interconnected with the entire planet [Buddhists and non-Buddhists alike] and therefore one giant community."

Ure says he appreciates the depth of the connection (he averages 100 hits per day) and the diversity of experiences that lace these interactions. "I receive comments and stay in contact with bloggers of the Sufi Islam faith, mystics, agnostics, Christians, Taoists and Hindus," he says.

Cutting across religious traditions has benefited the Dalit Freedom Network, a nonprofit advocacy group devoted to bringing civil rights to the Untouchable caste within India's Hindu faith. Benjamin Marsh, social justice coordinator, notes the group's website (www.dalitnetwork.org) has attracted a strong level of global non-Hindu attention.

"A good deal of our traffic comes from the U.S., U.K., Canada and a surprising amount from China," he says, adding the one group that has tapped into the site is the community in its focus. "Most Dalit have no access to electricity, let alone the Internet."

Distinctive approaches to faith can also be addressed online. Michael Elliott discovered this when he launched The Christian Critic's Movie Parables (www.christiancritic.com) in October 1998.

"My interest is in trying to show how Scripture could be applied to life -- using the lives of the characters we see in the movies as examples," says Elliott, who runs his site from Orlando, Fla. "So, for me, R-rated films are every bit as valid as G-rated films."

Elliott says his initial efforts were not well received.

"Believers were concerned for my soul, thinking that I was naively subjecting myself to the negative influences of a devilish temptation," he says. "Unbelievers were offended that I was bringing religion to their secular entertainment. Over time, the negative feedback has all but disappeared. Most of my e-mail now is simply filled with suggestions of films people want me to review or, better yet, biblical examples that people have seen in films that I haven't yet had an opportunity to review."

Of course, some degree of negativity aimed at faith-based Net entities exists -- yet the digital environment allows intolerance to be erased with little more than a Delete Button click. Leslie Bunder, editor and publisher of the website Something Jewish (www.somethingjewish.co.uk), can afford to be blase when anti- Semitic e-mail is sent.

"We get a few e-mails of that nature, but generally we ignore it," says Bunder.

For Ure, the main problem facing Net-based faith is not the lack of tolerance, but the lack of face-to-face interaction.

"Perhaps the only negative that I can see between religion and the Internet would be that perhaps it might keep some people from interacting with others in person regarding religion," he says. "However, in today's busy world many people are finding it easier [and just as rewarding] to commune online vs. visiting a physical temple or church. In fact, my teacher, Thich Nhat Hanh, says it is not enough to be mindful at temple or while meditating -- that one should stay mindful and present throughout the day while engaging in various tasks."

PHOTO: One of my favorite representations of the Buddha called, "Resting Buddha." I first saw it as a large sculpture available in the "Dharma Crafts" magazine but for hundreds of dollars. I can't seem to find a smaller version. I guess I'll have to paint one!!

~Peace to all beings~