Focus 580; Buddhism

In this part of focus 580 we will be talking with Buddhist scholar and practitioner David Loy. He is a professor in the faculty of international studies at bunco University which is near Tokyo in Japan. Previously he taught in the philosophy department of the National University of Singapore and is interested in among other things in comparative philosophy and as if he was just explaining to be here just a moment ago. More and more in recent years he's been interested in the idea of applying Buddhist ethics and the Buddhist approach to social issues that we will talk a little bit about that in this second hour of focus 580 he servicing the campus he last night gave the Marjorie hall Phoolan lecture. This is he is the 2005 Marjorie visiting scholar in religion and contemporary culture. He gave a talk last night about an issue that he has spoken a lot about a great deal and has written on and that is religion and the market. And his idea that in in a way

in a way. Consumerism has become the religion of our time. We'll talk more about that in a minute I'll get him to explain exactly what that means. We're pleased that he could be with us here this morning and talk and of course we'd like to involve people who are listening in the conversation as well so if you have questions you'd like to make comments that's perfectly fine the only thing that we ask of people who call in is that people try to be brief just so that we can keep the program moving and get as many different people as possible. But of course anyone who was listening this morning is welcome to call 3 3 3 9 4 5 5 toll free 800 2 2 2 9 4 5 5. Those are the numbers. Well thank you very much for being here. Thank you David and it's a pleasure to be here and on the University of Illinois campus to start. I am interested in having you talk about this the subject of the religion of the market. This this is you talk about this last night and I know

that you have written about this and talked about it quite a lot and you make the basic point that if you something like this if you look at at the functions that religion traditionally has served that is to help us understand the world and our place in it. Over time as a as religion has seemed to provide less at least some people would say that the answers to those questions that are provided are less and less satisfactory somehow its place in doing that as it has waned something else has come along has grown to take its place. Which you argue is consumerism. Let's talk about that. What exactly do you mean. Well not only consumerism consumerism is the one side of it that most of us are probably most exposed to but you can also look at the other side too. I mean consumerism is our

preoccupation with finding satisfaction or a kind of salvation really in the things that we buy and enjoy. But the other side is the production values as well that for a lot of us too the other kind of salvation involves making money. So you don't want to separate the production values and the consumption values but to a large extent I think that this is functioning as a new religion that somehow that the new God is is money and the markets which enable us to make the money and to spend it on the products that we like to have. I suspect that for a lot of people to persuade them of this idea it's not a particularly hard sell. I think that there are a lot of people who when they would hear you say that would right away say well yeah I think it's a matter of fact I think you're right about that at least in our seeming preoccupation with getting in spending. I know that there are a lot of people regardless of their philosophical and religious

orientation who I think would say yes I agree that that is a problem. But casting it in terms of religion I suppose that might be the that might be the step two and step too far for some evil. Well I think that's because we tend to think of religion as dealing with some other realm some transcendental realm heaven up there where we go when we die. Maybe it helps then to look at it from a Buddhist perspective because Buddhism doesn't necessarily make that separation. The issue is starting out with what Buddhists call our Duca our dissatisfaction our being happy and the whole point of the Buddhist path is to realize what the source of that Duke is and. You can understand Buddhism as as a clever way to enjoy our lives. So Buddhism doesn't necessarily encourage that kind of duality whereby we can separate what we're doing here from where our religion is hoping to get us. I think maybe there might be some people who who have heard at one time or another.

The idea that there is this essential idea in Buddhism that all life is suffering. And that and and having read some things that you have have written and some writing I think your suggestion is that too to translate that term as suffering is not quite right. It's that's not really the idea. Talk about it. That's a very important point because actually the word Duca includes a lot of things suffering every form of suffering as we normally think about it including emotional mental pain is only one aspect. In the Buddhist tradition it's very clear that it also includes just awareness of impermanence in general. So that for example even when you're eating an ice cream cone there's a kind of Duca because you're aware that the last bite is coming soon or the last lick. But most profoundly Buddhism connects Duca with the false sense of self.

And this is the other basic claim that's important in Buddhism. In fact I think that that's it's really what's most unique and special about Buddhism is that it. It links up this fundamental dissatisfaction their disease. What I sometimes call a lack with our lack of self that sense of self as we normally experience it is is not real and by trying. And because it's not real we experience it as the sense of it shadowed by the sense of lack and we become preoccupied with different ways of trying to make ourselves feel more real. So in a very real way do most fundamentally refers to a basic dissatisfaction or disease or basic frustration that it's the nature of an awakened mind to experience regardless of how fortunate how healthy wealthy you might be. I think that this is really a really important concept to get across and something that I think people maybe would will have a difficult time with if they're not familiar with

the idea already. And interestingly have hooks back with the very first thing that we were talking about. I think that it is true that different again different people coming out of different sort of religious ethical philosophical traditions whatever there may be one thing that they all address and that is the kind of feeling that I think almost everyone feels at some point whether it is and it can be so profound that you can't function or it also could be just sort of a vague feeling of unease. That is the feeling that. Something's missing and and different. Again as I see so different people come up with a different a way of explaining that of talking about well what is the thing that is peeved that people feel that they're missing what is it where does it come from. How do how do you get at that so not everybody has the same sort of answer to or the same analysis. But it does seem to be something that a lot of different people a lot of different traditions feel they must

address it's a thing that must be addressed. In Buddhism the the the lack of that's that's the term that I know that you use the the empty place the thing that is missing. As buddhists think about what that is and why that is. Can you explain that one. What is that when when you talk about lack. What is it that you're talking about. Well I have to emphasize that that term isn't used precisely in Buddhism it's my attempt to explain Buddhism in modern terms. But basically I think what is so special about Buddhism as I said is that it links this with the sense of self. And we tend to think of ourselves as somehow being real or having some essence but the Buddhist claim is that this sense of self is a construct. It's a social mental linguistic concept which is constantly being changed and reconstructed. But because it's a concept or because it's a construct there's something ungrounded about it

and we feel this underground in this as a sense of emptiness at our core. And usually experience it as a sense of lack that something is lacking and missing something as you said the problem from a Buddhist perspective is that we don't really usually understand what's going on here and so we tend to think. That what we're lacking must be something outside us in our culture in particular given the the way we're encouraged to think. It's often that we don't have enough money for example or maybe we're not famous enough or maybe we haven't found that right other person to fill in our lives. But the Buddhist claim is that insofar as we're preoccupied with looking outside ourselves trying to find something that we can attach to that will fill up the lack that we're looking in the wrong direction because you can't resolve the problem in that way. And Buddhism offers in place of that a kind of spiritual path that makes us more aware of the emptiness at the core of our being and but by dwelling in that by finding

ways to to deal with that more directly than the claim is that the kind of transformation can occur there. And of course you know what we just said you can see how it links so nicely with consumerism that the whole trap of consumerism is that it plugs into our lack of writing her Ijaz us to think that the solution to this sense of DIS-EASE that we feel is somewhere outside us and always of course it's the next thing that we buy is going to fill up our sense of lack and in course of narrative. If he doesn't get that message always is if you buy this thing it's going to be great you're going to be happy your life will be complete and of course you do that in oh for about five minutes and then you know it doesn't work because that doesn't really whatever the fundamental thing is. No that doesn't get at it but it's easy to to then get the next message as well. OK maybe that thing didn't do it but maybe this this new thing Well exactly and that that you know you can get into that sort of cycle and never because it's really not

getting at what the basic issue is it's never going to satisfy him but of course we have this industry that's that's that's built on persuading you that these things will do that. So you know the latest issue of The New Yorker had an article in advertising which made the point that last year the United States spent 500 billion dollars on advertising and marketing which is you know well over what Sixteen hundred dollars per person as usual about half the world total. So it just keeps going up and up. So what do we do about that. Well I would say what what what does Buddhism say that we do about that. Well there's two issues there I mean there's the social question of how we address the culture that that is encouraging us to understand our lack in those terms and that's something that is increasingly concerning me and. I've haven't worked it out by any means but in in the in the Buddhist sense of the individual

problem the claim is that we need some kind of meditative technique or process that helps us get in touch with this sense of lack at our core instead of projecting it instead of looking outside ourselves can we find a way to focus on it. To go inside our minds and to focus on that lack in its pure form. The real claim is not that the lack is is has an essence or substance of its own our lack is rather due to the way that we tend to react against and be afraid of this emptiness at our core. But the claim is that if we can stop running away from it and dwell in it then there is the possibility of the turning around of a transformation of that and then we can realize that the sense of self is in fact grounded in something deeper than itself which of course all the different religions have different names for but there's the possibility of something springing up from a deeper part of our being.

Our guest in this hour focused 580 is David Lloyd he's a professor at the Faculty of international studies at university which is near Tokyo he's also a Zen teacher and uses Buddhist and comparative philosophy to think about the modern world and some of the problems that come with modern life. He's the author of a number of books including nonduality a study in comparative philosophy lacke and transcendence the problem of death and life in psychotherapy existential and Buddhism a Buddhist history of the West. And he is here visiting the campus and gave a talk last night dealing with some of these very ideas here that we have been talking about. He's the 2005 Marjorie hall through and visiting scholar in religion and contemporary culture. Questions are welcome and we have a couple of people here who are listening in and want to join the conversation. 3 3 3 9 4 5 5 4 champagne Urbana toll free 800 to 2 2 9 4 5 5. And our first caller is in Champaign on line number 1.

Hello. Hello. Yeah I have a great deal of respect for Buddhism. Going back to the dark days of the Vietnam War when the Buddhist monks. Courageously launched opposition to the military dictatorship imposed by the United States government. And I've studied it extensively since then but I have to say and I'm just asking you perhaps you could explain this to me. I've also studied a lot about the conflict in Sri Lanka and they're the most violent racist and vicious bigoted almost genocidal individuals and organizations are Buddhists and Buddhists monks and the Buddhist monasteries and they are doing everything humanly possible to prevent a peace settlement with the Tamil people. As a matter of fact the the Buddhist organizations down there basically have killed 65000 Tamils

and it seems to me that this is completely inconsistent with what Buddhism is all about it's supposed to be a religion of peace. And I just don't understand it. How could Buddhism. Produce a variant. They're down in Sri Lanka. That is so violent vicious racist and genocidal. Thank you. Well thank you for that question. And I can only share your sentiments there because I think what's happened in Sri Lanka is it is extremely deplorable and doubly so the fact that Buddhism has become so involved. Let me just say though that in general I think within Asia the Buddhist tradition has has served as as a force for peace in most cultures. But as you are very well aware that it certainly hasn't in Sri Lanka. It's really true that if you try to go back to the original teachings of the Buddha which the

Sinhalese claimed to do it's inconsistent what they're doing now the monks or many of the monks in Sri Lanka with what the Buddha himself was was proposing what seems to have happened historically though is that the. Buddhist tradition or part of it and I should emphasize it's only part of it has become entangled with nationalist and Marxist views and so I think we shouldn't understand that as a good example of Buddhism but I think one of the kind of unfortunate distortions that happened whenever a religion becomes involved in in politics and Sri Lanka is sort of the classic example of how the monks have become politicized. Well I guess that raises the what is a basic question and it's not just a question for Buddhists to confront but people of many different face to confront is how do you how do you disentangle essential teachings and politics of the moment whether that whether it be this moment or somehow are some passed on.

Well it's been a general problem in Asian Buddhism because of course Asia wasn't democratic and in order for Buddhism to be successful as an institution it unfortunately usually came to some kind of accommodation with ruling classes with with governments with emperors and dictators such that that they had a lot of control over what the Buddhists were saying. So you know they would support the institution of the song of the Buddhist community. But likewise the community was supporting the ruling authorities and each was scratching the other's back and that was the most unfortunate thing. What I think is fascinating now now that Buddhism is coming to the west and now that Asia too is being exposed to more democratic forces. There's new possibilities for development in Buddhism traditionally Buddhism has very little to say about justice and human rights. The doctrine of karma the way it's been understood has been sort of taking the place of that. It's been very easy to say well if you're suffering if something is wrong with your life it must be due to your karma. But now I think

we're getting to the point where greater concerns about social justice are entering into Buddhist understandings and ways of thinking. Well it seems though that in my understanding of that of karma the idea of karma to have does. It does say that there are consequences for our actions and that. The that should help you decide what's right action and what's wrong action and it has a lot to do with how it is you treat other living things. I would think that that that could be an underpinning for an idea of human rights and how it is that that other people should be treated. But it can also work against it. You can look at somebody say who's poor who's suffering and you can say well that's a result of their karma and likewise if you really believe in this doctrine of karma and rebirth then in a way you don't have to worry about justice things will take care of themselves that you you know what you get you'll eventually get what you deserve it's built into the universe. So you don't have to worry so much about making sure that we're doing a

good job with the social justice and that's the kind of trap I think that Buddhism has often fallen into Asia. So how do you how then what do you how do you address that particularly I guess I'm interested in how how you think about it as a Buddhist addressing issues like like social justice for example. Well there's a couple ways to go there. I mean I think part of that problem say from the Buddhist tradition I mean Buddhism I think has to change and part of that is looking back at the way that we have been understanding such thing as karma at such things as karma and rebirth and a number of us are starting to suspect that the way the tradition understands it now is in fact a distortion of what the Buddha was really getting at that what he was really focusing on was motivations how it is that by changing our motivations we can change ourselves and so that he wasn't encouraging the sort of thing we have now where it would just be a matter of accepting your

fate. But it's rather the focus is on by changing our motivations that that we change our character and then the way we experience the world will change as well. Now that's one side of it. The other side is I'm I'm quite fascinated by how it's possible to apply what Buddhism says about the self to issues of the. Group self or group identity. For example Buddhism emphasizes And this is one simple way to understand the Buddhist teachings that we have to transform our greed illwill and delusion into more positive counterparts greed into generosity illwill into love and kindness delusion into wisdom. What's fascinating to consider today is we have new types of collectivity as institutions do we have such a thing as institutionalized greed. Well that of course is is tying into the market. Do we have such a thing as institutionalized ill will well we have militarism. Do we have institutionalized delusion Well excuse me for this environment. But

you could look at the public media and to a large extent even our educational systems now as encouraging a certain ignorance about what's often going on. So it seems like in that way the Buddhist teachings can be extrapolated to to look at social identity social groups and they seem to make a lot of sense there as well. Well let's talk with someone else. Indiana next line number 4 0 0 0 0. Surprise I guess is the best term for religious groups in particular. No not necessarily. But basically when they come upon this feeling which you call a lack of some philosophers or call it you know you're not hooked up with being taken by Heidegger For example you know out of step with being in a proper way. I guess when I heard you say the Buddhists say you just haven't turned internally enough to understand the

self I am see wages do except in some biochemical reaction in the body and move on. Thanks a lot. I guess I have to say I'm not totally clear what the question is but but from a Buddhist standpoint the kind of transformation that we need you know isn't something that could be conditioned to us just I think by taking a pill that it involves a kind of reconstruction or the formation of the self that has to do with our intentions with our whole stance our whole way of approaching the world and I'm not sure how that could be you know simply solved by taking a pill. All right well let's go to another call this is champagne and wine too. Hello. Yes I'm I was that your talk last night and I'm very interested in this notion of religion in the markets and our particular era. In other words in particular I'm wondering whether or not

me sort of make this statement and ask the question I wonder whether there is. As Americans that in our particular era there's a timely aspect to this that in very specific historically specific to our era insofar as we have of course on the one hand certain evangelical perhaps neo conservative Christians who are promoting a kind of radicalized of laissez faire capitalism approach to the world order and they they of course try to find proof for this in the Bible and so on very not very successfully I think but at any rate they're promoting this kind of world order and of course along with them a neoconservative much larger political wing which is of course attempting to reorganize the World Bank and attempting to destroy the welfare state and what I'm wondering is is it possible that I know last night you didn't really speak to this to any great degree but are there forms of capitalism. I mean in the larger sense of the term of course

Buddhism speaks to the problem of capitalism and of desire and delusion but I'm wondering whether there are certain forms of capitalism that are more communal more satisfying than others. That is let's say the welfare state which of course some you know most countries except the United States have some form of welfare state and it's only recently of course that the United States is generally you know increasingly moving toward the destruction of the welfare state as a whole. And of course that with the destruction of Social Security this would happen as well and also since the communality by extension we might imagine might fall away and I could note for example that even today literally in the news the first library in any community is shut down. The 1980s occurred as of today. So you know there's a level to which communities are not even funding local communal projects and schools. The extent to which of course the national

level the national level there's no willingness to support states and states of course are not willing to raise taxes. People are not willing to pay taxes that they. Rabid individual ism about which you spoke last night is all the more real in our era and the consumerism is around to mock. I bet that this is very specific to our situation our historical situation and I just want you to stick to that. Well I think your question is very important but as it as I think you already know there's there's no very clear answer within the Buddhist tradition. I mean the Buddha himself didn't have anything to say about capitalism corporate or not. But there are in fact some some indications within what he did say that I think we can apply today. For example he did make the point in a couple sutras that you know governments rulers do have responsibility for the welfare of their subjects there's one famous sutra where when when people would become poor or lose their jobs and they steal when the king has them

arrested he doesn't. At first he sort of gives them something to help them it later on he decides Well this is becoming a bad habit so he starts chopping off their heads and treating them very serious very seriously punishing them very badly. But the conclusion of this is very interesting talk is that the society falls apart by treating the subjects harshly this society collapses. And the point is being made that governments do have a responsibility for the welfare of their. Peoples And so I think in some ways we could apply that to what we have come to call the welfare state today. My talk last night you know didn't give an answer. I mean I don't think Buddhism or any other traditional religion does have a very clear answer about what to do with capitalism whether that's something to be replaced or whether it's something to be modified. And I'm not enough of The Economist to give an answer to that either. I think that something for us to work out along the lines of these kinds of of traditional points.

I definitely think that you're talking extremely timely though in this regard that makes us to think about the possibilities of alternatives to the kind of rabbit consumerism and individual ism you know year on and on every level of our life in society. Thank you Daryn well thank you for the go. We have a little bit past our midpoint here. And for anyone who might have tuned in in the last five or 10 or 15 minutes perhaps I should introduce Again our guest and we'll talk with some other people who are listening. David Loy is a professor at the Faculty of international studies at bunco University which is near Tokyo. Before that he also taught for a number of years in the Philosophy Department at the National University of Singapore and is interested in comparative philosophy that is comparing philosophy of the east and the West and particularly he's interested in bringing Buddhist perspectives to bear on contemporary social issues things like terrorism and violence and globalization and biotechnology. He's author of a number of books he's also has practiced Zen Buddhism for many years. In 1970 he was recognized as a

zen teacher. He's here visiting the campus. He's the 2005 Marjorie hall Phoolan visiting scholar in religion and contemporary culture and he talked to give a talk last night dealing with some of these ideas we discussed at the beginning that this whole business of the religion of the market. Questions are welcome. 3 3 3 9 4 5 5 toll free 800 to 2 2 9 4 5 5. Something just for a moment. I want to ask you about and we'll get back to people who are listening. One of the things that I think is is interesting about Buddhism. And is a little bit more True Buddhism than other religions although I suppose it has happened in other religions. Is the fact that as Buddhism spread out starts it starts in India and then is carried to various other places around the world into China into Japan into Southeast Asia and and. It comes to the Americas of course. As it is it moves different people who come to it already with different sorts of ideas and different traditions have a way of putting their own spin on it and it

takes different forms. And this is something that I've asked you know more than people like you more than once and I think and I'm not sure I ever feel like I've gotten a really good answer but the question is do you think that there are ways in which American Buddhism is different from Buddhism that you would might find anyplace else you know China Japan Thailand Vietnam. And is there something that something special do you think that that American Buddhism brings to the table. Of Buddhism in a larger sort of sense. You're exactly right that Buddhism has one of the three great missionary religions has spread in a rather unique way it tends to infiltrate sort of acting almost as a virus. It's not a very nice analogy but a virus that mutates to meet the local culture and transforms the local culture theres a kind of mutual transformation that goes on. So for example in China what we have done a fison or Chan Buddhism is really

a result of such a process like that. Its as much Taoist as it is Buddhist although most people aren't aware that so your question is what particular forms what particular mutations are occurring now that Buddhism is entering the West. One of them well there has been a very interesting and I think very productive Buddhist Christian dialogue but I don't think that's the main form. I think the two main forms that are occurring first of them first of all it's psychology. There has been an enormous amount of interest among Western psychologists and psycho therapists in Buddhism to the point that now we have a number of very experienced trained psychotherapists who are also long term Buddhist practitioners some of them Buddhist teachers. So there's a real cross-fertilization going on between the whole psychological psychotherapeutic tradition and what Buddhism is having to offer that's quite striking because when you look at the history of psychology they've in the West it's tended to have a pretty good

sense of what's wrong of how things go wrong with human beings but it hasn't had such a good account of what psychological health is. And Buddhism of course brings in the idea of awakening and what an awakening what a really awake and how an awakened individual might be living. So so that's one of the very productive forms that I think this is one of the ways that Buddhism is transforming the psychological culture of the US. And another one which I've already hinted at earlier has to do with socially engaged Buddhism which some people even think of as a totally new type of Buddhism that. Given the liberated more democratic social structures in the West which enabled Buddhism to free itself from its you know authoritarian control and given the Western Judeo Christian Islamic emphasis upon social justice. I think Buddhism is starting to adapt its teachings. As I've also been trying to do too to bring in the social justice implications of what Buddhism has to do. So I think

well we already touched on that a little bit. Talking about religion of the market and various institutional forms of greed and so forth. But I think this is potentially one of the most fruitful fruitful aspects of Buddhism in the West now where in earlier in the beginning part of the conversation the first part we talked about the idea of lack the term that you like to to try to. Put some kind of AA name on that feeling that one has and that something's missing. Is that do you think that the primary thing that somehow brings psychotherapy and Buddhism together because seems that that psychotherapy that also is a fundamental issue that it tries to address that is that that feeling that one might have that something is sort of a vague feeling that something is wrong something is missing. But I'm not sure what it is exactly what to do about it. And the Buddhist understanding of that that I think is quite radical in psychological

terms it's saying that it's not just a matter of sort of the self you know changing itself a little bit adopting but that the basic problem is the sense of self and that in order to really solve the disease the lock that we have there has to be a fundamental kind of restructuring of how the self works. And I think that's the way in which Buddhism is really trying to deepen the psychological dialogue. Well let's talk with some more people who are listening. Someone in Urbana next line number one. Hello. Yeah. Yeah. I don't I'm not sure of it. Hard to know where to go with what you've said so far actually. But drum did. Make a couple of comments and I've got a question. And the first comment I guess would be that you should I think it should be mentioning that if you're going to talk about the market should be talking

about butan a little bit because early I understand that there the prime minister launched a way to measure national progress. That is not the in the gross national product that other countries have but that he's initiated something called the gross national happiness. And as I understand it that that one way that Buddhism is showing itself to you know be be showing our alternative to our way of the American way of life so to speak. And another common is that. Need she understand thought that there were preconditions of Buddhism and I guess I'd wanted

to comment on the dick you were saying that Buddhism kind of adapts. But Nietzsche thought to have Buddhism really needed a quote of very mild climate very gentle and liberal customs and no militarism unquote. And it seems to me a lot of what you've talked about kind of avoids the question one of the key problems in that is that where there is militarism Buddhism doesn't really have a good way to to a good answer to it. So here's a. Here's the question and I want to ask and that is that. I've heard that there is. I've read that there are like countervailing concepts

and Buddhism that we know of dharma and the wheel of karma. And that's what I was hoping to get a little more explanation of from you. OK well that's a lot we only have 15 minutes. Go ahead. Well very briefly I appreciate the reference to Bhutan you're quite right there they've recently had a conference where they're trying to find new measures instead of gross national product which is just a measurement of how much people have spent in total. They're trying to come up with a new index. And I don't know specifically what that's including except for one thing that really stood out in my mind the concept of gross national smiles. Can you imagine measuring how many people smile and how much people smile. And of course that's something to smile and laugh about but that is an indication of something isn't it ho ho much people seem to be. Happy regarding Nietzsche. Well Nietzsche was writing at a time when the understanding of Buddhism wasn't so clear it tended to be taken in a rather nihilistic way

and he saw it as as a religion for an exhausted people. But as far as his criteria are concerned a mild it's only suitable for mild people well the immediate counterexample that comes to mind is Tibet. I can't think of a more more hostile more difficult environment than that high windswept plateau and yet Buddhism seem to thrive there as it did in Mongolia and a number of other places in northern Asia as well so to tell the truth I think Nietzsche as as an understanding of Buddhism is a little bit dated. We know so much more about the tradition now. As far as your actual question I confess I'm not actually ware of that distinction. Except that it may be saying that you know Buddhism isn't just talking about how karma works in hollow or in motivations and intentions to recreate the reality that we're in but it's also saying that ultimately we're trying to step off that track that enlightenment isn't

just a matter of improving your karma but rather seeing through it and realizing some other dimension to life. And that's very true. It's not just a matter of improving the circumstances of your life but coming to some kind of special awakening which which will of course encourage the same sort of transformation but it's it's a deeper understanding of what's going on. So Buddhism does make that distinction. We do have some other callers I appreciate the comments of the last and let's go on here to talk with someone here again here locally in Champaign Urbana line too. Hello. Oh yes interesting comment please on current Sam Sam East Asia today or other special days of the week where everyone flocks to a temple or do they just pretty much go on me on festivals like B O and bond. And what about veterans and what about. Facing inward or outward in a meditation because years ago there was a Western journalist who enjoyed a stay in a monastery in Japan but basically

prevailed. Ask for more protein in the diet and be accommodated him but otherwise he likes the 3am. Rising and ice cold water showers and getting hit with a stick and so on do they still do that. Yes they do if you go to a traditional Zen monastery that still what you're going to get as far as whether you sit facing in or out that depends there's two basic types of Zen in Japan Soto and Rinzai and the Rinzai people send you know they all sit in a circle but the Rinzai face and the Soto usually face out toward the toward the walls or the windows. In general though although Japan is a Buddhist country it's quite remarkably different from the type of Buddhism that is shocking anybody himself. Buddha himself taught. He didn't have much to say if anything about funerals and yet that's really what it is in Japan now. Most Japanese don't have anything to do with Buddhism except when you know grandfather dies or it's

time for a memorial service it's totally associated with death. Curiously. If you want to get married you might do that in a Christian chapel because they love the white gowns and so forth. But Buddhism has really been reduced I think in the in the Japanese consciousness for most people as surrounding death and death rituals unfortunately. And of course there still is an tradition that has a much deeper understanding that it is it's a very minor part of the Japanese tradition. When I first went to Japan you know there's the assumption you know all Japanese are Zen Buddhist and that's just not true they are many of them know less about buddhism than many educated Americans. Let's go to another caller here this is a line three. Hello. Yes I know. So good to hear that Darva on radio. Thank you. One comment. I think that the previous caller in his comment about not fighting an order or implying that they should not

fight in Sri Lanka I think that having to study Buddhism for a while I think that the practice. So Buddhism doesn't say that we should not fight. I mean if somebody is stepping on our toes. So it is totally ok to brush him off as long as one does it compassionately. But one Buddhism doesn't mean to just roll down and die and not defend our rights. So that's one point and another point is that what is I find from my readings that they seem to be extraordinarily strong in the way that they do receive a fort for example the Tibetans the China innovation in that it is the idea and they slide. But

this friend couple flights and we see here in the way it is. So that's what I want to make that comment and now the question. Having studied for two years here I have not. Tell my friends that I bought it because I think I fear in another word. Do you think that if here in the West if Christians really thought that Buddhism was coming would they burn us at the stake. I mean if if if they really thought would do so miss coming. How would how have you perceived the especially in this community in the Midwest. How is Buddhism being thoughtful and then my last comment is to tell the Christians relax. Buddhism is beautiful it is a practice self the mind

has that person that can control the mind is really free of suffering is full of compassion and he just loves it. Lovely practice Thank you. Thank you for your remarks. Well I appreciate a number of things there the first is mentioning again the problem of violence and resistance. One thing I forgot to mention with regard to Sri Lanka is that there are some very strong Buddhist influenced movements that are working against the violence in particular. These are voting a movement which has hundreds of villages and many tens of thousands of people involved. Not all of them Buddhist but in principle a kind of Buddhist approach toward nonviolence. And as you as you realize I think nonviolence doesn't mean passive it it doesn't just mean rolling rolling over and accepting what's done to you but that there's something very active about it. The classic example of course would be somebody like

Gandhi who wasn't a Buddhist although he was influenced by Buddhism but he was aware of how nonviolence can be taken as a very powerful technique to resist what's being done to one without dual izing that the problem of violence of course is that we usually do lies between ourselves and the other person and we. It's important in a nonviolent resistance not to do that not to demonize the other but to appreciate their own humanity. And I think one reason Gandhi was so successful is that he never did that to the English. And I think that's an important challenge for us now. You look at the war on terrorism and I think one of the tragedies of that is the way that each side has been demonizing the other and therefore not really understanding the other. Regardless regarding the reception of Buddhism with then within the US it's quite striking in a number of ways one thing I've noticed recently I came upon a statistic which startled me that there are perhaps between four and six

million people who consider themselves with us but moreover 24 26 million people who have been influenced by Buddhism for whom that that has somehow changed their world which is quite striking it suggests that Buddhism is having a significant impact. I've been very involved at different times of Buddhist Christian dialogue which has been very active and at that level there is no problem of Christians in Buddhist talking to each other. It seems to me often it's not between religions but often within religions that it's the more progressive liberal Christians have a much harder time dealing with their own very fundamentalist wings than they do dealing with other Buddhists. And somehow that's the real challenge at this point not just dialoguing with other religions but religions dialoguing with themselves that if we're going to address the kind of social issues that are facing us today religions are going to have to start doing that more successfully than they have been doing just internal dialogue.

Well again I think the caller we had somebody else but I guess they changed their mind. You know something we don't really have a lot of time here but something that I'm really very interested in that you have written about. I'd like to have you talk at least a couple of minutes about is this the some of the things you deal with in the book. Looking at myth and Buddhism and the point has been made certainly that that myth and popular stories things like The Lord Of The Rings for example people have looked at them and done a kind of done an analysis of them for Christian themes. You've you've written a book which you do the same sort of do the same kind of exercise and look at popular myth like that in popular literature and look for Buddhist themes that are that I think is really a fascinating idea. Maybe you could talk about that for a minute or two. Sure. I suppose I should add To be fair to the co-author my wife Linda good yes indeed I should not cut her. Cut her out of the project you're actually like. She was very much a part of it because she's the literary

side of it and we're both fascinated by one of her specialties as children's literature and fantasy. And so we realized as we read and enjoyed these things together that what we thought were Buddhist themes kept popping up again and again watching the film as Lord Of The Rings we realize that there's a certain almost Buddhist attitude toward karma that's going on there how it is that the the the world depicted in Lord Of The Rings is a comic world where good intentions lead to good results and bad intentions are self-defeating. So we explored that and how and and if you look also say Frodo's whole attitude he was going on this quest not to gain something but to give something up to let go of something what's more Buddhist than that when the whole point of the path is to let go of yourself. But not only Lord Of The Rings we also talk about a wonderful book by the German writer Mikhail ENDA called Momo. He's better known for the neverending story which is made into some

films but Momo is a wonderful fantasy about time. There's also the Japanese anime director MIAs Aki and the wonderful. Why American science fiction and fantasy writer Ursula Le Guin and in all of all of these works we find very fascinating Buddhist themes. Not using the word Buddhism. The point being that there's a basic understanding of the world that is sometimes expressed in Buddhist terms but is much broader than that. You could call it the dharma if you want. The Buddha himself never taught Buddhism he taught Dharma which is much larger and I think we find that expressed in some of these things. Well we're going to have to stop by the way if you're interested in reading on this subject you can look for the book that David Lloyd and Linda Goodhue have written it's titled The dharma of dragons and the demons I know it is now available and in a paperback so you can look for in our guest David Loy. He's professor in the faculty of International Studies bunco University near Tokyo in Japan.