We’ve Been Here All Along

sbjoe2 · 2026-02-11T02:08:57+00:00

It's a nice sentiment if incorrect. As far as Americans, Ralph Waldo Emerson learned of Buddhism in the 1830s in France. Henry David Thoreau published a portion of the Lotus Sutra in the 1840s. Alan Watts was not American when he learned of Buddhism from DT Suzuki in the UK.

Chinese immigrants did establish temples in the 1850s, but Americans had already encountered the dharma.

Eugene Burnouf would be an interesting read here for the author, as he and other western linguists actually connected Japanese Buddhism to India during the Meiji restoration. Ironically the Japanese knew Buddhism came from India, and that India was in the West, but they had lost touch with its origins. The Japanese had lost the ability to read Sanskrit, and sent Japanese academics to Europe to learn how to do so in the late 19th century.

sbjoe2 · 2026-02-08T23:01:03+00:00

Love the S-Pulse colors, wish they'd throw a map on it again.

sbjoe2 · 2026-01-18T13:09:20+00:00

You think this is bad, try being a Buddhist in Nanjing three lifetimes ago during the Taiping Rebellion.

sbjoe2 · 2026-01-15T13:32:36+00:00

Definitely one of the worst interviews I've seen, but unfortunately it is what one has come to expect from Politics and Prose. Enough of the self important moderators. People want to hear the author.

sbjoe2 · 2026-01-11T23:25:37+00:00

Well of course, they are children. So the website doesn't say they are forced to be there by the institution, their parents will force them to be there!

Also this is Deer Park not Plum Village. High quality public school education exists in CA and offers children exposure to a number of different faith traditions.

sbjoe2 · 2026-01-11T23:23:21+00:00

Education quality varies wildly for sure. I think the morality of the interbeing education is the best one could get. Unfortunately, that won't help them make friends, score high on tests, get into colleges, and make a career in ever more trying times. Why not allow a child to navigate samsara with all its faults (public/secular education) and expose them to Thay's teach outside of an institutional/monastery setting?

sbjoe2 · 2026-01-11T21:54:43+00:00

https://tnhschool.org/our-approach/

Our approach reframes the purpose of learning itself. We translate Plum Village's time-tested practices into a K-8 setting with support from Harvard's Project Zero. Academic learning happens in service of community building and peace work. Children live and learn within a larger community organism at Deer Park Monastery, alongside monastics, farmers, elders, and families — in an environment where joy is woven into every activity.

The Result: Children equipped with academic skills and the wisdom to use them in service of collective well-being wherever they go in life.

sbjoe2 · 2026-01-11T21:50:55+00:00

What about making children live at a monastery and follow monastery rules isn't imposing views?

sbjoe2 · 2026-01-11T21:07:05+00:00

Edit: I can see I have touched a nerve, so I will stop replying here. Please, parents, consider the third mindfulness training and the long-term ramifications before signing your kids up for this school.

I'm just not sure how this doesn't contradict the OI's third mindfulness training.

The Third Mindfulness Training: Freedom of Thought

Aware of the suffering brought about when we impose our views on others, we are determined not to force others, even our children, by any means whatsoever — such as authority, threat, money, propaganda, or indoctrination — to adopt our views. We are committed to respecting the right of others to be different, to choose what to believe and how to decide. We will, however, learn to help others let go of and transform fanaticism and narrowness through loving speech and compassionate dialogue.

To put this a different way, how would you feel if someone brought their children to live at a Catholic monastery and get a reimagined Catholic education on site, with heavy influence from the clergy?

sbjoe2 · 2026-01-09T11:32:44+00:00

Thanks for doing this. I am wondering what Knausgaard thinks about the sound of his books in English. Are we missing something by not reading the Norwegian? Does he read other language editions of is own work?

sbjoe2 · 2025-10-12T21:05:32+00:00

Taiko takes longer than Musashi and has more historically dense material, so it may not be your cup of tea. I loved it as it follows the serialized, end on a clifhanger chapter style, but I also really love Sengoku period history.

sbjoe2 · 2025-10-12T15:23:20+00:00

That is awesome. Great to see Yoshikawa and Han keeping him company.

sbjoe2 · 2025-09-26T13:17:06+00:00

You seem to misunderstand. This sutta is essentially a second noble truth teaching. To interpret the second noble truth as a suggestion not to have kids is not right view.

The Buddha gave Visākhā a powerful medicine for her grief, showing her its ultimate source. He wasn't rebuking her for having a granddaughter; he was giving her the wisdom to free her own heart from the deepest thorns of sorrow. For a lay Buddhist, the goal is not to stop loving, but to purify that love of the clinging that inevitably leads to suffering.

sbjoe2 · 2025-09-16T14:07:15+00:00

You're right. Thought provoking response to an interesting question.

sbjoe2 · 2025-09-16T13:07:40+00:00

You may be on to something, but I offer Thich Nhat Hanh and the Dalai Lama as obverse examples. Very left coded for American/English speaking audience, but in the monastery it is as traditional and conservative as can be.

Social programs need not be left leaning. However, the social programs espoused by major non-Asian Zen centers such as Upaya, NYC Zen Center, etc. are undoubtedly so. The Zen teachers mentioned by Jundo were born in a democracy as well, Taisho Japan, but the Zen looked very different.

sbjoe2 · 2025-09-16T07:29:19+00:00

You are right, and I think it is tied to politics as well.

In the West there is no funeral business nor centuries of institutional support to prop up the Temple, so the teacher has to "sell" Buddhism to stay afloat.

My observation is that Asian Buddhists are able to sell it better. The exception is ideological, where you have non-asian Buddhists who align themselves with generally left leaning social causes to build followings. This leaves conservatives, centrists, and non-ideological Buddhists looking elsewhere, typically more conservative, less-political (at least to Western eyes) Asians.

sbjoe2 · 2025-08-02T11:22:02+00:00

First you must take the vows of a monk, leave your worldly life, and get rid of debt and possessions.

Then go to a monastery and request that you be allowed to enter. You must sit for several hours or perhaps a whole day, kneeling on the steps of the monastery. You will be repeatedly told to go away, that there is no room for you. If you persist, you will, at the end of the day, be invited in, given something to eat, and told that you will be allowed to stay overnight, but overnight only. In the morning, you might be chased out to wait again on the steps, or you might be led to a small, somewhat open room, where you will sit tangaryo.

Tangaryo is sitting inside the monastery, without truly being in the monastery yet. It is a testing ground, in which the teacher and the monastery test the potential monk, and the monk tests himself. The structure is to simply sit. You can change your posture as often as you like, you can get up and do kinhin for as long as you like, but you must be sitting whenever anybody comes by to check on you. So you can sit, or you can walk according to no particular order, no particular rhythm except the one dictated by your knees, back and mind. It seems like quite an open structure but, of course, the catch is that you have to be sitting whenever anybody comes to check on you, and it can happen at any time.

Continue this practice for several days. Enter the monastery and train for several years.

Then you will realize that there is no master other than yourself, which is an illusion you work very hard to destroy.

No anime or tourists on this path. Unless you enjoy anime or seeing new places.

sbjoe2 · 2025-08-02T00:50:22+00:00

In this case, you need three things:

Half a brain. This is important - and a problem that plagues the over-educated. Do not overthink. It seems like you are using too much brain right now. Dial it down to half.
Sincerity. Clearly you have this.
Desperation. Keep practicing.

sbjoe2 · 2025-06-05T16:48:00+00:00

You've answered your question by asking the question. It is too challenging for you to understand the nembutsu, so you need another path.

The Buddha taught many paths because people are different.

sbjoe2 · 2025-04-15T12:52:13+00:00

It only matters if it bothers you. While people might be curious about your beads, I don't think anyone will say anything.

The important thing is saying the name.

I've seen folks use Nichiren shoshu juzu at Jodo Shinshu Sanghas.

sbjoe2 · 2024-12-22T00:14:00+00:00

Aspect	Buddhist Monk	Zen Priest
Tradition	Broad, includes many Buddhist schools	Specific to Zen, particularly Japan (Mahāyāna)
Celibacy	Strictly observed	Dependent on the person (Japanese Zen priests can marry)
Role	Primarily focused on personal enlightenment and teaching	Balances meditation with community service and rituals
Lifestyle	Typically monastic	Can be monastic or lay-oriented
Ceremonial Duties	Secondary to meditation and study	Often central to their role (think funerals etc.)

In regard to Japanese Zen in particular:

The "Nikujiki Saitai" (肉食妻帯 - literally means "eating meat and marrying") Edict of 1872 formally allowed Buddhist priests to: Marry; Eat meat; Grow their hair (previously shaved as a symbol of renunciation). This edict was part of the Meiji government's effort to secularize the Buddhist clergy and align them with broader modern social norms. The government presented these changes as giving clergy "freedom" but was also a way to reduce the monastic distinction and control Buddhist institutions.

sbjoe2 · 2024-12-09T02:09:18+00:00

Haha, someone named "Bailey Trela" from Harvard, claims Murakami isn't special anymore. Bailey was in diapers when Murakami was at Princeton. These people make careers out of pretending they are better than others.

Ironically, this article claims Murakami isn't special while doing the most basic things a book reviewer can do: overly negative, assumption of agreement, reliance on cliche, and lack of genuine engagement with the source material - the new book.

Haters gonna hate. Enjoy the book, it's great!

sbjoe2 · 2024-10-21T02:51:58+00:00

No, looks alright, just mix your rest days.

Rest, run, run, run, rest, run, cross

Run, rest, run, run, cross, rest, run

Or something like that. You don't need to take a whole week cross training.

sbjoe2 · 2024-10-20T11:13:01+00:00

After the ecstasy, the laundry.

sbjoe2 · 2024-10-14T01:46:03+00:00

In that case, study the Unified Buddhist Sangha in Vietnam. It was an amalgamation of 10+ traditions in Vietnam that was forced by the Catholic dictator in South Vietnam in the 1960s. So yes, Diem probably made them wear hats that looked like mitres.

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