The Best Buddhist Writing 2005

The Best Buddhist Writing

by Melvin McLeod

Wise and witty, heartfelt and profound, this second volume in an annual series brings together the year's most notable prose and verse inspired by the power and insight of Buddhist practice. Compiled by the editors of Shambhala Sun , North America's oldest and most widely read Buddhist magazine, the collection offers a lively array of styles, perspectives, and concerns of contemporary Buddhists.

The twenty-five talented contributors include familiar favorites as well as some surprising voices who will delight and enlighten the reader, with pieces ranging from personal memoir, adventure travelogue, prison journal, and poetry, to advice for practitioners and wisdom teachings of the masters. Among this year's outstanding selections


   •  Natalie Goldberg looks at the complex and troubled relationship with the two most important men in her her father and her Zen teacher.


   • The Dalai Lama explains Buddhism's signature doctrine of emptiness.


   •  Dharma teacher Gaylon Ferguson writes on issues of self-worth and social justice for people of color.


   •  Journalist Joan Duncan Oliver reflects on her struggle with twin "a drink and a man."


   •  Thich Nhat Hanh offers personal meditations to help us lead a more wholesome and mindful life.


   •  Cognitive psychologist Eleanor Rosch discourses on mind, meditation, and the creative process.


   •  Peter Matthiessen ponders the longing for adventure as he travels the Antarctic.


   •  Zen teacher John Tarrant tells how he applied a famed koan as his mother was dying.



Faith Adiele • Geoffrey Shugen Arnold • Rick Bass • Edward Espe Brown • Michael Carroll • Chokyi Nyima Rinpoche • Peter Coyote • John Daido Loori • H. H. the Dalai Lama • Scott Darnell • Gretel Ehrlich • Gaylon Ferguson • Norman Fischer • Gehlek Rimpoche • Natalie Goldberg • Joseph Goldstein • Jeff Greenwald • Erik Hansen • Sam Harris • Joan Duncan Oliver • The Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche • Barbara Rhodes • Lewis Richmond • Eleanor Rosch • Andrew Schelling • Gary Snyder • John Tarrant • Thanissaro Bhikkhu • Thich Nhat Hanh • Claude Anshin Thomas • Traleg Kyabgon Rinpoche • Francisco J. Varela

Genres: Buddhism, Nonfiction, Spirituality, Zen, Religion

288 pages, Paperback

First published October 11, 2005

Reviews

[Bill · Rating 3 out of 5]

I should start by explaining that I read this book over the course of several months. I bought a copy back when I was very interested in Buddhism. I'd read one or two essays, then read something else, then come back to it. It's been my book for when I'm between books. But, I vowed to finish it and I finally have.

I'd say this is a pretty good collection of Buddhist writing, featuring works from many of the giants of contemporary Buddhist thought. McLeod does a good job of balancing the content between the three major schools of Buddhism (Theravada, Zen, and Tibetan). However, because McLeod was a student of Chogyam Rinpoche and the book's publisher (Shambhala) was founded by Rinpoche, there may be an unavoidable slant towards the Tibetan school. Even though I align myself most with the Theravadan school, I found "The Infinite Dot Called Mind" by The Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche to be the most interesting piece in the entire collection.

[Wren · Rating 5 out of 5]

As I was in the process of reading this, I wrote summaries of each entry. This took me 9 weeks to read, and I could benefit from rereading.

I put *** next to the essays that I want to reread. Note that these topics are very individual. You may find other essays in this collection more thought-provoking.

***John Tarrant. "The Great Way Is Not Difficult" applies a koan to the author's experience with his mother's failing health and her subsequent death. The koan: "The great way is not difficult / if you just don't pick and choose." He notes how his expectations and disappointments cast a negative emotion on the family dynamic of his mother's dying, "the room became small and fearful" (p. 5). But when he acted without condition, the situation itself transformed: "...when I wanted no one to be different, the room was large and at peace" (p. 5).

***Choki Nyima Rinpoce with David R. Shlim, M.D. "Recognizing Our Natural State" seeks to describe that state of being that rests within us that is primary--the way we were before we learn how to think, analyze, or even practice some forms of meditation that are full of content and purpose. He calls this state "unconditioned suchness." His entire essay is an attempt to describe this state of calm, peace, and nonstriving. Here is just one description: "To be completely relaxed, you need to rest in a way that is beyond thinking, beyond concepts--and yet aware" (p. 12).

***Thich Nhat Hahn. "Touching the Earth" presents a set of meditations / prayers that I found simple yet powerful. Each section focuses on a different aspect of finding truth that is particular (breathing, regarding nature) or universal (we are happier when we relinquish control, striving for power only makes us miserable, etc.). There isn't a clear "thesis" and at first blush the content seems nearly childlike. Nevertheless, this selection invites the reader to greater insight / character.

Claude Anshin Thomas. "The Flame at the Tip of the Candle" describes the decades-long journey of the author from serving in the Vietnam War to hitting bottom from PTSD to finding healing by joining a community of Vietnamese Buddhists. One of the most powerful insights asks readers to consider how nonveterans are complicit in war since we are all interconnected but how nonveterans marginalize veterans for the collective's use of violence through war. Whoa.

Faith Adiele. "The Anthropology of Myself." This excerpt is part of a book about Adiele's experience in a nunnery in Thailand. This selection describes her arrival and how jarring it was for her to move from being a college student at Harvard focused on achievement to becoming a Buddhist nun focused on enlightenment.

***Thanissaro Bhikkhu. "Dignity and Restraint." Because I split my attention in hundreds of ways in a single day, this invitation to restraint was challenging for me. I also tend to complain a lot and hold on to my suffering. I read this three times in 24 hours, but each sentence challenges me to reframe how I view myself, the world around me, and how I set priorities (or how I don't). This is a powerful piece.

Edward Espe Brown. "The True Spirit of the Grain." Brown has experience cooking for people who are seeking enlightenment and he has thought a lot about how food interesects with the body, mind, soul, and community of seekers. This piece asks more questions than it answers--which is good. Food has such a complex relationship to other realms.

Norman Fischer "Nothing Holy: A Zen Primer" The title is very descriptive. This essay provides an overview of Zen Buddhism in a very brief manner. It is more an encyclopedia entry than a meditation or personal essay. It's interesting.

Natalie Goldberg. "The Great Failure" Goldberg describes working with a teacher who dies unexpectedly. She tried to capture his essence in writing, but--of course--fails. She was transformed by his mentoring, but she feels very lost that he left this life before she felt as though she was done learning from him. I want to reread to dwell on some of the passages that transcend their teacher-student relationship and gesture to powerful Buddhist principles.

***Geoffrey Shugen Arnold. "Mind Is Buddha." This essay unpacks (or strives to unpack) the 3-word koan that is the essay's title. One of things it does is cautions against holding a strict view of what it means to act in a Buddhist manner. If you think that you need seated meditation in complete silence then your definition of Buddha is too narrow. This is too complex (or too easy or too subtle) for me to describe, and I only perceived shadows of the essay's intent. Just (re)read it.

Traleg Kyabgon Ripoche. "The Path of Mahamudra." I gave up on reading this after two pages. Why? It was too abstract with very few anecdotes, images, or practical applications. It's very philosophical and principle based, and I couldn't generate examples on my own to test / understand / connect with the ideas that the author was positing. (And I have 300 college credits primarily in the humanities and social sciences.)

Eleanor Rosch. "If You Depict a Bird, Give It Space to Fly." Rosch laments that humans (particularly western, science obsessed humans) have real difficulty plugging into the fourth realm (a place beyond time and space, a place with no striving). As she quotes a famous phrase: We are trying to locate "a lost horse that you cannot find because you are riding it." She invites readers to use art that we create or observe as a way to see what is otherwise imperceptible. She offers some explanations and some exercises hoping to point people in the right direction. Speaking from my own experience, I have felt a connection to all of humanity in a way that exists beyond time and space. I felt it while climbing Mount Timp in Provo; while watching light filter through the ruins of temples in Luxor, Egypt; while dancing with a diverse group of 100 Zumba enthusiasts in Wichita; and while feeling the pulse of humanity while changing trains at rush hour in DC. But I often feel this "collapse/enlightenment" while reading great literature. Most recently, I felt this overabundance and awe while reading _Olive Kittridge_.

Greta Ehrlich. "The Future of Ice." This essay has a lot of description of the physical: her travels through cold regions. She's serving as a witness to the beauties of nature in cold climate. And given global warming, her descriptions may be vital to persuading people to go green and save the world (starting with the cold regions).

Jeff Greenwald. "Exploring the Great Indoors" The author travels extensively, but in this essay he stays put for an extended meditation. He graciously lets the readers observe him struggling to focus his mind on the present and to let go of petty concerns. It was very relatable.

Erik Hansen. "Sunset Boulevard." This is a short but interesting exploration of how the author strives to adopt Buddhist principles while living in America--a culture that's full of attachments, physical pleasures, and illusions. He emphasizes that practitioners can seek enlightenment in a variety of venues and through a myriad of personal identities.

Michael Carroll. "Waking Up at Work." Carroll was led to practice Buddhism in a work setting rather than in a monastic setting. This is an excellent essay from a book-length work on how to be in the present even within the challenges that paid work presents.

Gaylon Ferguson. "Making Friends with Ourselves." The author writes about the value of Buddhism to people of color, so I am an outsider on the nuances and power of this essay, but I was honored to have the opportunity to "listen" while reading this essay about self-acceptance through a Buddhist lens.

Barbara Rhode. "Listen to the Cries of the Universe." This is a short, lyric description of a silent retreat the other experienced in a cabin by herself for 100 days.

Scott Darnell. "Meeting Myself in the Cell House." Darnell describes how Buddhism helped him find a path of peace after being an abused / neglected child then a criminal then an initially hopless prisoner.

***Lewis Richmond. "The Great Love." This essay does a great job exploring how to be filled with love for the particular while also recognizing that everything is an illusion.

Rick Bass. "Daughter Time." The author describes how he is trying to enjoy each moment with his two small children while he can.

Joan Duncan Oliver. "Drink and a Man." The author explains how her yearning and desire for a man and for alcohol robbed her of peace until she learned that these attachments were causing her suffering.

His Holiness the Dalai Lama. "Cultivating Wisdom." I'm seeing a pattern: reading essays by traditional Buddhists from Asia are very challenging for me. They seem either way too abstract and philosophical or too literal for me to glean an insight or a path for walking. I do see some flashes of inspiration here, but it's very difficult for me to find applications. I feel bad. The Dalai Lama wrote this too-hard-for-me selection. Gah!

The Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche. "The Infinite Dot Called Mind." Again, I have trouble reading the entries by writers who are writing abstract-based prose detailing concepts rather than prose that is embedded in narratives of how to function in day-to-day life using Buddhist-based concepts. (And the book is due soon. I would have to read this entry very slowly and repeatedly, and I would still probably only get about 10% of what the author is trying to communicate. This may be good for my growth, but I want to finish this before it's due on 7/6.)

Francisco J. Varela. "Intimate Distances." The author has received an organ transplant and uses this as a focal point to talk about the illusion of self as distinct from others and from the environment. This is a very interesting exploration of these concepts.

***Andrew Schelling. "Rucksack Poetry: How Haiku Found a Home in America." This was a history essay, but it conveys a lot of interesting concepts of how people relate to nature and each other through this type of poetry.

John Daido Loori. "Have a Cup of Tea." It's interesting to read this description of tea ceremonies and how they invite participants to slow down and be more present in the moment.

Gary Snyder "Danger on Peaks" (Four Poems). These were nice. Snyder is famous and quite prolific. It's interesting to read some current (at the time of publication) work.

Sam Harris. "Experiments in Conscousness." Harris is a critic of religion, particularly the Abrahamic religions. In this essay he uses Eastern spirituality and bioneurology to dismiss faith and even the sense of self that Westerners rely upon. Key quote: "...if we can recognize our identity as consciousness itself, as the mere witness of apperances, we will realize that we stand perpetually free of the vicissitudes of experience" (282). This sounds good, but I don't know if I can give up myth, symbol, literature and such to the degree his form and content suggest.

Peter Coyote. "The Politics of Interdependence." This was short yet powerful. Coyote gives a definition of politics that moves away from warring enemies and focuses on mutual cooperation and the recognition that we all benefit if we work to promote shared interests. Timely.

***Joseph Goldstein. "Three Means to Peace." This is a lovely, gentle, powerful view of how to recognize our vulnerability, how to diffuse the ego, how to embrace wisdom, and how to be compassionate. This piece is a good summary of the heart of many of the essays in this collection. Here is a key quote from the essay's introduction: "[W]e might let go of rigid attachment to any view, and ask the very pragmatic question, 'Is this teaching leading my heart and mind to greater wisdom and peace, to greater kindness and compassion? Or does it lead to more divisiveness, to more selfishness, to more violence?'"

[Guy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Most of the writing included was excellent and I loved the diversity of perspectives from the Buddhist or non-Buddhist's that McLeod included.

I was introduced to Faith Adiele and will be looking for her experiences of becoming, more or less accidentally, a Buddhist nun in a very strict Thai monastery. Meeting Faith: The Forest Journals of a Black Buddhist Nun.

The alcoholic and man addicted Joan Duncan Oliver was fun.

I enjoyed the survey of Haiku in America, and learning of the lost history of the Japanese American haiku and its strong influence in the revitalisation of haiku. Oddly enough, though, I was generally disappointed with Andrew Schelling's chosen samples. I learned that Kerouac was a haiku poet.

Of particular note for me was Natalie Goldberg's cry of pain for her mentor, Katagiri Roshi, in 'The Great Failure', an extract of her book that explored her struggle with learning of Katagiri's sexual dalliances with students/disciples and with his early death. (Now I want to read The Great Failure: A Bartender, A Monk, and My Unlikely Path to Truth.) This came to me with a great synchronicity because I was at that time writing to explore my feelings about the death of the amazing yogi-Buddhist Micheal Stone who came into my life a few years after his death at 42. (Goldberg added immeasurably to it. For the curious, you can read that letter here: Dear Michael: Letter to Dead Yogi-Buddha Michael Stone.)

And another great inspiration came from another death story. The engaging exploration by Buddhist and neuroscientist Francisco J. Varela of his movement into extended life after the invasion into the his body by another's person's liver and subsequent bodily rejection of that liver and with it his movement towards death. His writing provided me with an 'aha' moment around my reluctance to be a blood donor. I have begun writing about that.

There is a lot here that is excellent and only one or two did not finish essays with some in the middle. A worthwhile read, and some of the essays definitely worth revisiting and savouring.

Solid 4 stores.

[H]

from Traleg Kyabgon Rinpoche's "The Path of Mahamudra"

In Buddhist logic, it is said that all concepts are based upon exclusion. As soon as we affirm something by saying, "It is this," we automatically exclude so many other things it might have been. By imposing a conceptual limitation we fabricate an idea. (98)

A great Mahamudra master known as Joo Gotsangpa said that we need three things in order to stay with the correct view--the correct view here being "the view of no view," because it is a view that subverts or undercuts all views. The first thing we need is a decisive understanding of our original being. The second is nonbias toward samsara and nirvana. The third is conviction, because once we have attained conviction, we cannot change our minds back again. (98)


from Elenanor Rosch's "If You Depict a Bird, Give It Space to Fly"

My basic claim is that it is the special province of the arts to show people themselves in a mirror which reflects their ordinary self-image in the light of these broader and deeper intuitions. (104)

Perhaps because in both verbal and pictorial presentations, the setting, the figures, and the action are all presented in the same imaginative modality, such as brushstrokes or the author's words, the audience can more readily apprehend and participate in the mutual determination of figure and setting, than in real life, where our ordinary assumptions and habits hold sway. (106)

To know oneself as the movement of ch'i, or energy, is perhaps most obviously and directly the province of music and dance. (107)

The appreciator of the arts and of fictional narrative always knows, at some level, that s/he is not the character in the artwork. Thus s/he can fully identify with and participate in the vividness of that character's life and world without the pervasive filter of self-interest. By that sleight of hand, the reader or viewer may perhaps be caught off-guard by a glimpse of the potentials of a more direct way of knowing. (This is actually not complicated: the claim is simply that there is a basic mode of knowing which is direct and appreciative and is accessed whenever one's ego mind ceases to get in the way.) (111)

Tibetan Buddhism calls this other way of knowing time the "fourth moment" (Tibetan: dus bzhi pa), described thus: "All phenomena are completely new and fresh, absolutely unique and entirely free from all concepts of past, present and future, as if experienced in another dimension of time." An analagous description of time figures in many experiential reports of Zen kensho, or realization. A Course in Miracles brings a similar sense of time into Christian context. (112)

But note: years ago a recording was released called "Great Moments in Music." It contained the death music from La Boheme, the death music from the ballet Romeo and Juliet, the climax at the end of Emperor Concerto, and so on. It was ludicrous! Perhaps we need "the whole catastrophe," stretched out in time, in order to collapse time and bring a sense of completeness--in Taoist terms, "rectification"--to the world of phenomena. (113)

Buddhist mindfulness practice emphasizes being present. One cannot feel real if one is lost in memory, wishes, plans, autobiography--even if one amps up the timulation, which is our culture's usual strategy for trying to make ourselves feel real. Knowing, in Tibetan Buddhism's fourth moment, is said to be direct and unfiltered. It bypasses one's personal egoistic story. (113)

[Jane · Rating 4 out of 5]

Perfect book to dip into each morning. Essays by Martine Batchelor, Noah, Levine, James Kullender so personal, may have been my favorite) Thich Nhat Hanh, Sylvia Boorstein, and others. A book to return to. Want to read Batchelor's book and one by Shinzen Young.

[Sherri Oster]

Due back at the library before I could finish...too many other books going. It's a great collection. I'm sure to pick it up again.