Going It Alone. Making It Work As an Unaffiliated Buddhist
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Going It Alone Making It Work as an Unaffiliated Buddhist Featuring Norman Fischer, Judy Lief, Barry Magid, Gaylon Ferguson, Sylvia Boorstein, and Lewis Richmond Plus comments from unaffiliated Buddhists NTEROS UI GONZALO Q Buddhism’s New Pioneers by Norman Fischer It’s possible that most Western Buddhists are “unaffiliated.” That is, they practice alone or in small informal groups not listed in the phone book or on the web. There is therefore no record, no official trace, of their activity. They practice off the books. If you’re unaffiliated, maybe you became interested in Buddhism through reading, or in school, or maybe you met a Buddhist practitioner whose approach to life intrigued you. Perhaps you traveled in Asia. Chances are you are unaffiliated because you can’t find a Buddhist center nearby. But I suspect that many unaffiliated practitioners do live near Buddhist centers but don’t want to go to them because they don’t like “organized religion.” This may be due to a bad experience in the past, perhaps in childhood, or because of a strongly held opinion that organized religion is always bad, on principle. According to this essentially romantic view (that many affiliated Buddhists share ), “organized religion,” meaning all identifiable religion, is—or should be—an oxymoron. That’s because real religion, according to this view, is essentially per- sonal and dynamic, and is killed off by all attempts to organize it into doctrine and institution. Religion as we know it kills religion. So it is better to rebel against religion, for the sake of religion. Notice that on both counts—whether one is unable or unwilling to “join”—the assumption is the same: that Buddhism is confined to Buddhist centers. But suppose this isn’t true, or at least not entirely true. What if Buddhism— Buddhism that is as Buddhist as any Buddhism—can also be found outside conventional Buddhist institutions? 33 SPRING 2010 BUDDHADHARMA: THE PRACTITIoner’s qUARTERLY ZOKETSU NORMAN FISCHER is a former abbot of the San Francisco Zen Center and the founder and spiritual director of the Everyday Zen Foundation, an organization dedicated to adapting Zen Buddhist teachings to Western culture. Lately I have been fascinated with the so-called Axial religions (Buddhism, institutions. It’s taking place in the soli- idea of the evolution of religion. When Judeo-Christianity, Confucianism, tude of the private home, in living rooms Nietzsche pronounced God dead in the Brahmanism, etc.), and these religions in and community centers, in book groups, nineteenth century, he was not alone. their formative centuries were quite dif- twelve-step meetings, women’s and men’s Freud quickly followed, as did others. ferent from their this-worldly manifes- groups, private meditation prayer or Religion was dying because humans were tations (Protestantism, Shin Buddhism, study gatherings, corporate leadership growing out of it. Religion had been a etc.), which allowed modernism to classes, human potential workshops, necessary, if somewhat juvenile, phase flourish. yoga and improv classes, stress-reduction of human development. There was a We are now in the twenty-first cen- clinics, coaching seminars. And, perhaps, time when we needed comfort and fan- tury, but we still have a nineteenth-cen- in the practice of unaffiliated Buddhists. ciful explanations for things we couldn’t tury view of religion. We see religion as Everywhere I look, what I would call understand. But now that we were grown a set of coherent doctrines, rituals, and “religious questions,” questions of ulti- up and scientifically minded, religion hierarchies that take shape within real- mate meaning and ultimate connection, would naturally fade away and be rel- estate-based institutions. We might be are spilling out of the official religious egated to nostalgia, history, and myth. affiliated with such institutions or not. institutions and entering the society in It turns out this wasn’t true. Human We may prize their doctrines without various way. Some of these ways, to be beings seem to need religion, just as we being affiliated, or we may be hostile sure, are superficial or exploitive, but need language, food, and air, and this is to all of it. But whatever the case, what it’s natural in times of social change that why religion has always existed in human we affiliate with or prize or reject is a the faulty comes along with the sincere. societies, from earliest times to the pres- centuries-old view of religion. Religion is evolving under our noses, but ent, and why it will probably continue to Intellectual life of the last fifty or more we are not noticing it because we are exist. Some activity, some thought, some years has been mostly about the break- stuck on old forms and old terminolo- feeling that helps us extract meaning and down of hierarchies, the relativism of gies. It may be that among Buddhists, the significance from our lives is necessary, doctrines, and the doubtfulness of real- “unaffiliated” are our leaders without because we human beings are creatures estate-based institutions in an increas- knowing they are, rather than the poor uniquely capable of living meaningless ingly network-based world. Religion souls who either by choice or by circum- lives, and we desperately need to avoid needs to absorb these developments. stances have been left out in the cold. As this. Without meaning and significance Probably it is in the process of doing so. they fumble to find their way, perhaps we literally get sick or go crazy. Religion But our thinking has not yet caught up they are finding the way for us all. is our coping mechanism, our natural with it. This is not to say that these unaf- healing activity. Efforts to transpose reli- All of this might provide context for filiated individuals and small informal gious practice and feeling into politics understanding with new appreciation the Buddhist pick-up groups are the good during the twentieth century (commu- position of the “unaffiliated Buddhist.” guys, while the conventional Buddhists nism) failed spectacularly. Art has been It may also help us to appreciate the dis- are the bad guys, old-fashioned and mor- significant as a substitute, but it isn’t tinction people these days so frequently ibund. If we have learned anything over enough. Neither is psychology. So reli- insist on making: “I’m not religious at the last decades, as technologies and NO I C gion is almost certainly here to stay. all! I’m spiritual.” It seems to me that social forms have morphed and multi- I Everything in human society changes some of the liveliest religion going these plied, it is that nothing disappears; it just NE AL I ST over time, and religion does too. Neolithic days is not in Buddhist centers, churches, changes its function. I religion was quite different from the synagogues, or other official religious I think of the great world religions © CHR buddhadharma: the practitioner’s quarterly SPRING 2010 34 Comments I have a strong desire for spirituality and a from unaffiliated Buddhists weaker desire for religion. Sometimes I long for religious ritual and the feeling of belong- ing, as well as the support for spiritual prac- tice that they give, but I often get put off by the cultural baggage. I have an aversion to adopting another culture’s “stuff.” I would like to find a Zen group that has a local (I guess we could say “American”) flavor, but visiting most groups feels like a trip to Japan for me. I like Japan and the history of Zen culture, but it’s just not me. as self-contained high-rise buildings. there. Many of us can visit one or more Christianity is a massive Cathedral-like buildings briefly, or we can stay in one Chris Herrod structure. Islam is a giant multi-tiered and but only during the daytime, because we Healdsburg, California -storied mosque. And Buddhism is a huge have to sleep elsewhere. Or maybe we tower, like the great stupa at Bodhgaya can stay for several months, a year, or but many times bigger. Completely several years, but eventually we have to I prefer to practice on my own using down- enclosed within each of these separate go out into the street, in the open air, loads of dharma talks from Dharma Seed uniquely designed yet essentially similar among the various bazaars, stalls, and and other sites. Currently, I’m focused on structures a coherent conversation has markets, where other things we also need Tara Brach’s work. In addition, I read your been going on for millennia among intel- can be found. The buildings don’t need publication and books by Buddhist writers. ligent and highly committed interlocu- to be knocked down. They are beautiful, At this point in my practice, I would find a tors who share an intellectual system, a and we need them. It’s just that they can sangha both confining and distracting. I history, and a set of rituals and practices no longer contain all the dimensions of have many virtual Buddhist friends on Twit- that inform them. Because the conver- who we are. They need to be used differ- ter. I am the happiest and most present I’ve sation is so thorough and so old, and ently, understood differently. ever been, so it must be working. because its theme involves what is most In the articles that follow, unaffiliated Diane D’Angelo mysterious and most fundamental about practitioners will find much to think Phoenix, Arizona human life, it is essential that we not lose about that will be of use to their situ- track of it.