Joan Halifax Interview with Sean Murphy

Joan Halifax Interview w/ Sean Murphy Mar 2014 (1)

SM: The theme of the upcoming conference is Emerging Wisdom, and for readers who won’t be able to be there – or who will be there but want more -- there’s an interest in how the ancient traditions provided spiritual guidance and companionship, and how this is changing in our multicultural, multi-faith and also partly secular contemporary world -- as well as what the new era of interfaith dialogue has to add to this. First, maybe you could speak to the traditional role of the spiritual guide or companion in Buddhism? JH: One of the important Buddhist teachings is taking refuge in the Three Jewels: Buddha, Dharma , and Sangha. First is taking refuge in the Buddha. In the historical context, this is taking refuge in the historical Buddha. From a contemporary perspective, one can look at it as taking refuge in that spiritually mature individual who becomes a friend to you on the path, and also to that same quality within yourself – a quality of spiritual maturity. If you’ve done that, it might become possible to have an authentic friendship with a teacher who has more experience in spiritual matters, in practice, in spiritual development. SM: Do you think that the approach to providing or encouraging both the role of the spiritual teacher and that quality in oneself is changing in the contemporary era? JH: We live in a very interesting time where there’s a lot of skepticism and cynicism, where the challenges to trust are great. I suppose I feel that it’s difficult even to trust ourselves. And certainly interpersonal trust is frequently not easy to realize with a teacher. I think the student-teacher relationship has become more reality-based. I talk about that relationship going through phases, and the first phase is the phase of idealization. That particular phase I think is more typical in Eastern culture. The second phase is demonization – one 1

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withdraws the projection of the ideal from the teacher, and projects one’s negative complexes on them. That’s usually when the student-teacher relationship is abandoned, frequently by both parties. Then that projection has to be withdrawn as well, for normalization, the third phase, to happen, where there’s a relationship that’s based on differences in capacity, but also upon a kind of equality. We project our enlightenment upon to our teachers; we also project our negative qualities onto our teachers. What we need to do is to understand that process in order to enter into more a normalized relationship with our teacher. You also care about your teacher, the well-being of that person. Just as you would care for your grandmother or your parents. And your teacher cares about you. There’s a kind of intimacy and love there that is very important. SM: So that care goes in both directions. JH: Absolutely. SM: This sounds like the voice of many years of experience talking. So you’ve mentioned that traditionally, seekers on the path sought refuge in the Three Jewels, the first one being the Buddha, who represents partly the historical Buddha and partly the potential of awakening or spiritual maturity in ourselves. But then another jewel is the Sangha, the community of practitioners. How did spiritual companionship historically function in community building and right relationship, and how is that also changing? JH: First, the second jewel is also very important: the Dharma. That has to do with the teachings, the vision, the values that are shared by a community. I feel a lot of times we don’t recognize how important it is that a community share vision and values together. Then there’s the third jewel, the Sangha, the community. In the important teachings Bernie Glassman did (In his book “Instructions to the Cook”) called the ‘Five Course Meal’, he talks about Spirituality, Study, Livelihood,

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Social Action, and Community. Community is a really important part of the experience of spiritual development. It is said that the most difficult and challenging of the jewels is the third, the sangha, because ultimately it’s an antidote to ego. I was thinking about the teachings of St Benedict in this regard, because the most valiant monk is not the solitary or even the beggar, but the one who chooses to live with others in community. Community is really important in the development of character, including the dissolution of one’s own ego. Living in a healthy community offers little escape from who we are. Ultimately community is about love – it’s about doing very simple things for each other, which could include cooking together or cleaning up or helping with the needs of others. Sangha is also about sharing our resources with each other, including our minds, our insights and our time. It’s how we in the community allow each other to develop. Both in Buddhism and the Benedictine model, our spirituality in the community setting is not really about the local self, but about the extended self. And the extended self is about benefiting others. Just living with other people doesn’t necessarily make community. We have to share the same reservoir of values. We also have to have a common commitment. For example in Buddhism they speak about four kinds of karma, of which the most serious is weighty karma. Weighty karma includes causing division in the community. Other kinds of weighty karma would include killing an enlightened being or killing a parent. So clearly causing division in the sangha is considered to be extremely unwholesome. When I was practicing with Thich Nhat Hanh he would talk about harmony of community, which included sharing a common faith, caring for the essentials of daily life, observing the precepts together. A fourth point was engaging in speech that contributes to harmony within the community and avoiding speech that could cause the community to break. The fifth was sharing of insights. And the sixth is really important, this is respecting others’ viewpoints and not forcing others to follow your

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perspective. These are really important perspectives that Thich Nhat Hanh has articulated in the community process. SM: Were there any particular experiences that you had in your early spiritual development and in receiving spiritual guidance that illustrate some of these points? JH: Well, I think one of the important things that I’m engaged in is the experience of being in a community where you’re studying the Dharma, you’re discussing the Dharma and also the experience of council process. You’re sitting in a circle where there’s equality and difference. I feel that the council process for me -- and I’ve been engaged with it since the 1960’s -- is about basic respect, and also the development of kind of inquiry in relation to views of others. Community to me is a very challenging process. We’re kind of selfish in western culture -- everybody wants to have their own house, their own car, but we’re not so good about sharing resources. We feel like we need a lot of stuff and that stuff is our stuff. SM: Is there a particular moment or turning point where either you saw something that changed you or where you helped somebody else see something about that community experience that changed them? JH: Sean, you’re asking somebody who has been living in community since 1970’s. SM: I know. That’s a lot. JH: Most people live in their own houses. So … SM: It’s an everyday experience for you. JH: I feel like I see it every day, so it would all sound a little self- serving.

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SM: How about in terms of advice to give others in offering spiritual guidance? JH: If we’re looking at a paradigm that is useful, I feel that the (traditional model of the) Paramitas are really helpful. What is it to live generously? What is it to live virtuously? What is it to be patient and inclusive, to be wholehearted, to be mindful? And what is it to be wise? That is both the path of the bodhisattva and it’s also the fruit of that path. These are classical teachings in Buddhism about how a bodhisattva acts, and they’re wonderful guidelines for community. SM: So, when you’re training people to live in community, how is it different from the traditional Buddhist training? How has that had to change to accommodate first the 1960’s and ‘70’s and then up through today? I’m sure your ways of training people both for insight and wisdom and for living in community have evolved and I’m sure that they’re rather different from the way it was in the original Buddhist times. JH: I think that because of feminism, psychology and democracy, Buddhism here is quite different than it was for example a hundred years ago or in Asia. People (in the west) tend to be much more psychological. So, a really important element in community, for example, is taking personal responsibility for one’s harmful actions -- but that was also true at the time of the Buddha. And then practicing forgiveness is another really important element -- what is it to be unconditionally forgiving? In Lojong training, they say drive all blames into oneself. It’s again coming back to that aspect of what is it to take personal responsibility for suffering. I’m not sure that Buddha would have told his monks this, but the way we would say it is: don’t personalize. Everybody in the west tends to personalize so much. At the same time, it is essential to take personal

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responsibility for all, much in the vein that Teilhard de Chardin wrote about. This is what atonement points toward and what love teaches us. It’s essential to develop the courage to reflect on one’s own conduct. This is not to be hyper-judgmental of oneself, but to see, well, if I’m given the opportunity, can I do it better? And, another thing I think is really critical is how do we cultivate a sense of wellbeing, a sense of nourishment, peace and joyfulness? A lot of spiritual communities are a little bit dour. SM: I’ve experienced that. It’s concerned me a lot. JH: And also kind of self-righteous. I don’t think those are very wholesome dimensions to cultivate in the community. So humor, service, joy, kindness, stability, accountability, wisdom -- and to me the most important is compassion, recognizing the truth of suffering in others and in oneself. SM: How do you encourage these qualities in the people you train? JH: Probably not very successfully! (laughs) I try to live that way myself -- to live a life where there’s a lot of humor, a lot of personal accountability, a lot of inquiry and interest. A life that has a basic stream of practice throughout. So, you have to walk your talk. Of course you fall off the wagon. SM: Sure. JH: You know, you do the best you can. And, the second is to provide a stable place where people can actually practice and to bring people in who are excellent teachers who can encourage and deepen the practice of students. And then to, nourish people within the community to take on roles of responsibility and care -- it can’t all fall on the shoulders of one person. So I think shared leadership is really important. SM: So, first by example and then by providing a stable place for practice and providing a broad community of teachers. 6

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JH: I think about Dogen’s four beneficial actions. First is giving. How do you live justly in relation to all of the resources that you and your community have? The second is kind speech. How do you engage in speech that actually nourishes a safe and healthy world? And then, beneficial action is how do you engage in loving action, as Bernie Glassman talks about it -- action that is about really benefitting others. And then, Dogen talked finally about identity-action. That is living a life where you’re treating all beings equally and you actually love and care for all beings. SM: So you mentioned certain elements that have changed the practice like feminism, like psychology, democracy. How about engaged Buddhism? How does that fit together with contemplative practice, and are we taking Buddhism out of context? JH: Well, of course engaged Buddhism really has strong roots in the west, but its deepest roots are in the life of the Buddha, who left his own rather comfortable situation and then ended up creating a system that was not the caste system of the world that he came out of. He ordained women and he ordained the serial killer, Angulimala. He’s a wonderful model for social action as was (King) Ashoka. if we look at social action’s roots they go right back into the origins of Buddhism. But in our time, there’ve been really important individuals like Maha Ghosananda, Ariyatne, Thich Nhat Hanh, Joanna Macy, Bernie Glassman, Helena Norbet Hodge, people who have dedicated themselves to social transformation. And, Zen has become an important medium in the west, where spirituality in the sense of pure contemplative spirituality has its virtue -- but we in the west try to do everything. We tend to have a strong sitting practice -- contemplative practice -- and at the same time we hope to engage in socially relevant endeavors. So that’s been my main interest: how do we as practicing Buddhists not only engage in social service which is direct 7

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service to others, like care of the dying or prison work, but also address issues related to structural violence or systemic change, and from a contemplative base? So in the process of this, Buddhism in certain ways has become quite secularized. My good friend Jon Kabat-Zinn developed MBSR – Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction, which is used all over the world as a way to help individuals feel better. And, is that good or is that not good? Well, I think it is good. But there are also some interesting questions that come up in relation to decontextualizing Buddhism, taking Buddhist elements out of context. For example, the eightfold path reduces to the threefold training of Sila (Virtue), Samadhi (Mind Training), Prajna (Wisdom) which is basically the precepts, the experience of meditation, and then the realization of wisdom. And if you leave out one of those aspects, you’re decontextualizing Buddhism. That raises some important issues that are being explored. SM: Of course when we’re dealing with Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction, I don’t know that precepts really specifically come into it -- it’s quite decontextualized, isn’t it? JH: Well, I don’t know because I haven’t done that particular training. Jon Kabat-Zinn would say that precepts are implicit in the training. SM: Which of course they are to some degree. But that’s an interesting point, decontextualizing -- and of course, people in the west are often reluctant to look at the precepts -- at the ethical side of these practices. JH: Well… (laughs) I also don’t want to say that there is no violation of precepts in the Asian context. SM: Of course, yeah. (laughter) They may have different ways of doing it than we do. So, how do you deal with the people from

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other faiths who are engaged in practice with you -- Judaism, Islam, Christianity? I know you’ve had a lot of interfaith connection. JH: I use the same equation as I do in community: equal and different. I just finished a wonderful weekend with Father John Dear, the Jesuit peacemaker. I often teach with Malka Drucker, who’s a Rabbi. I taught on and off many years with Rabbi Zalman Schachter. I’ve done quite a few talks with people in the Islamic faith. I feel like we all share a common heart. We all want peace. We all are endeavoring to actualize compassion. There are 84,000 Dharma doors. It’s not for me a matter of one being better than the other – it’s more that, this landscape of spirituality and so many wonderful teachers makes spiritualities and diverse religions more accessible to more people. SM: How do you deal with people who want to practice but identify themselves as spiritual but not religious? JH: I think spirituality is actually a personal thing, religion is societal. And so (laughs) it doesn’t make any difference to me. Some people are religious, but they’re not very spiritual. SM: Right. JH: And, some people are spiritual and they’re not very religious. SM: Right. JH: I just try to relate to peoples’ good hearts. SM: So, focusing more on the commonality in the differences? JH: I’m always interested in the differences, but really I care about is that we are able to share in some kind of basic goodness. SM: Does the multi-faith context change the way that you offer the Dharma?

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JH: It does. So if I’m talking with a Christian group, I will be definitely less technical. Now, if I’m talking with Buddhist scholars or, neuroscientists who have a Buddhist background, then I’m able to be more technical and more scientifically oriented. SM: This is a more personal question, but I wonder sometimes regarding the universal mind experience that we can have in Buddhism -- a mind without division, a kind of universal awareness. When I’m working with students from a Catholic background for instance, which happens a lot in New Mexico, I might correlate that to their experience of God. Do you feel like they’re the same thing? JH: I probably wouldn’t venture into that territory. SM: So you’re trying not to pin it down in such a way? JH: I don’t try to pin it down. SM: How are you training people these days? How has that changed over the years? It does seem that the monastic approach to training may be becoming less a viable way -- although certainly a lot of the first teachers who came over tried to maintain that monastic setting. Are you striving to maintain that or – how are you working with that? JH: I’m working with on both sides of the equation. We have ordained monks who live here, work here, serve here with liturgy. We have liturgy almost every day of the week. We have six or seven sesshins a year, we do liturgy trainings. I do ordination, so all of the traditional elements associated with monastic life in that context are present here at Upaya. By the same token we have a Buddhist chaplaincy training program and we have Buddhists and non-Buddhists in that program. We have Zen people and non-Zen people. So it’s a matter of finding a way that is inclusive and I think that we’ve done a good job of it.

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We also have this big professional training program for compassionate end of life care that has been a really extraordinarily successful program, and we re-language Buddhism so that people from all faiths and no faiths seem to be very comfortable and enthusiastic about what we are teaching. SM: So that’s an interesting question. How do you re-language without decontextualizing? JH: For example instead of using the word meditation we call it reflective practice. That’s what it is -- finding terms that aren’t so loaded. We have the threefold training right in our curriculum, but if you don’t know Buddhism, you don’t realize that this is a completely Buddhist frame of reference that’s being transmitted. SM: That must have taken a lot of work over the years and a lot of back and forth figuring out how to handle that without throwing the baby out with the bathwater. JH: Well, it’s been a wonderful process and I’ve been in it for over forty years now. It’s always a work in progress. SM: It’s interesting how you really span the spectrum in the work you do-- from dealing with scientist who might not regard their work as spiritual, who might not apply that label to their work - - to dealing with ordained representatives of other paths who would not only define what they do as spiritual, but see it in a religious context as well. It’s really quite a broad span to cover. JH: It’s fun. It keeps me on my toes. SM: I bet. So… what can this ancient tradition that we practice offer people today who are seeking wisdom in a variety of contexts - - does that change or does the wisdom stay constant over the centuries? JH: I think the wisdom stays constant. It is constant. But the threefold training is such a brilliant system – first the deep

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value of living a life that is virtuous, that is characterized not only by not engaging in harmful activities, but also in benefitting beings. Then samadhi, the pivotal importance of mind training, untangling the tangle of psychology and society. And then, wisdom, what is it be a wise person. This is what the Buddha taught 2500 years ago, and we’re still teaching and working on it today. SM: So you characterize meditation as untangling the tangles both individually and in society, which sounds quite psychological -- and I think that work is. But, the wisdom that emerges from that process -- how is that different from untangling the tangles? JH: The wisdom that emerges is -- Bernie Glassman, and my first teacher (Seung Sahn) also talked about it: ‘Don’t Know Mind’. It’s the mind that is open and characterized by insight, the capacity to have a better cognitive perspective, the realization that all people -- all beings want happiness. It also recognizes the truth of impermanence -- it recognizes that there’s no inherent self, it recognizes that all beings fundamentally are unconditioned at the very deepest level. So like when I was working in death row in maximum security prison in New Mexico, with people who were really suffering and who had harmed others, what was so powerful was to recognize that this individual who was imprisoned for life or on death row also had a heart no matter how hard their life was - - or how hard they were. Underneath it all I always felt I could reach through to a place where we shared common goodness. That’s Buddhist practice – Buddhist practice and perspective, that’s what it leads you to. SM: Have you had examples of people like that who have completely transformed through the practice? JH: Well, again, any story I tell you is going to sound self-serving, so forget it. (laughs)

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SM: But you have had such experiences? JH: You know, you see people all the time having bigger or smaller realizations – benefiting deeply from the practice. Lives heal because of this. Children are set on the path because they’re exposed to something very fortunate -- to understanding the nature of the mind at a very young age. And even people on their deathbed have the opportunity to awaken. SM: It’s kind of remarkable isn’t it? JH: Well, it certainly is inspiring. SM: Well, is there anything that you’re particularly like the readers of Presence Journal to take away? To hear in closing about our conversation or concerning your work? JH: The thing that I feel most deeply is this sense of realistic optimism. After having encountered so much suffering in the world, I feel I have seen the possibilities within the human heart to wake up to their fundamental generosity and to their basic goodness of who they really are -- which is not self, not other. And what I’ve tried to do at Upaya is to create a context where people from all walks of life can come practice, touch into who they really are and to bring that back out into the world. I think again of the Paramitas -- practicing generosity, the turning of one’s heart toward the world is really important. Because -- Upaya has been here for almost twenty-five years and thousands and thousands of people have come to practice here. I feel it is now, and I hope it will always will be, a work in progress -- to bring the contemplative perspective in Buddhism together with the dedication to social action. SM: You say realistic optimism. So do you think – do you think we have a chance, as human beings? JH: Of course. Absolutely. SM: It’s a difficult time in history isn’t it?

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JH: Well, I don’t think history has ever been easy. SM: Yes, that’s why they call it samsara, right? JH: Right. I don’t think that we’ve been privileged with a worse era than any other, it’s just that our suffering is very visible to us at this point. SM: Well, thank you. I think that’s plenty for our purposes and I enjoyed talking to you. I look forward to seeing you at the conference.