Indholdsfortegnelse for Winter 2015 i Buddhadharma: The Practitioner's Quarterly

IN THE LOTUS SUTRA, the Buddha uses a parable to explain why his teachings take different forms. A father finds his children at play inside a burning house. Because of their innocence, they don’t know they’re in danger, so he tries to save them by describing three beautiful carts that he says he has placed on the lawn. They eagerly run out of the house to play with these imaginary toys. When I was young, I was tempted out of the burning house of my own ignorance to play in the fields of the various Buddhist traditions. My favorite toy cart has been Zen, but I have had the great good fortune to meet, learn from, and teach with friends from other Buddhist traditions as well. Beyond the expected cultural…

Whatever Buddhist tradition we follow, we are probably all familiar with some version of the story of the Buddha, featuring his life and qualities. But what are contemporary Buddhists to make of this figure, generally known as Gotama Buddha by Theravadins and Shakyamuni Buddha by Mahayanists, who lived in the fifth-century BCE (perhaps 484–404)? How close can we get to knowing what he was really like based on critical analysis of the early texts? This is a question related to Buddhist practice, for not only is it said that to have insight into the Dhamma is to have insight into the Buddha, but also that to have insight into the Buddha is to have insight into the Dhamma (SN.III.120). For a modern Buddhist practitioner, the developed story and figure of…

Although autobiographical literature is extremely popular and common in Tibetan Buddhism, very few women have ever recorded their stories. Sera Khandro (1892–1940) became one of the few women to attain prominence as a Vajrayana teacher and also to write about her own experience. Not only was she eventually regarded as a noteworthy practitioner and teacher in her own right, but from her youth she was also identified as a terton, or “revealer” of hidden texts, an even more specialized and rare kind of teacher among whom women were rarer still. Love and Liberation, a welcome addition to the small collection of books exploring the lives and subjectivities of women practitioners in the Tibetan Vajrayana tradition, offers translated autobiographical passages as well as author Sarah Jacoby’s own commentary and analysis. As…

The Dharma Should Disturb You If dharma teachings always leave you feeling good, says John Peacock, then someone isn’t doing their job. If this stuff isn’t disturbing you, then it’s not working. If it isn’t shaking up your coziness, then it’s not working—all you’re hearing is the bits you want to hear. Now, that’s always a danger, and we can’t legislate against it. But I think it’s the job of teachers not to tell people what they want to hear. Part of the integrity of teaching is being able to say what people will find uncomfortable. I still adhere to the importance of the dana tradition in the West and some of the consequences of that tradition. Teachers don’t get paid fees, in general, which gives them a degree of…

There are two ways of understanding a buddha or an enlightened one, depending on whether one considers a bud dha from the ultimate point of view or from the relative point of view. A buddha may be understood from the ultimate point of view as manifesting from the absolute “downward” into the relative realms of experience out of compassion for beings. On the other hand, a buddha may be understood from the relative point of view as one who begins from the relative con dition of an ordinary sentient being in samsara and gradually progresses “upward” along the path in order to realize the ultimate. When we speak of the Buddha according to the relative viewpoint of the general vehicles of Buddhism, we are speaking from the perspective of the…

Tibet’s landscape and religious sites have long fascinated seekers and scholars, yet good (or even basic) geographical knowledge of the Tibetan cultural area remains something of a rarity. This in part has been due to a lack of good resources, which Karl E. Ryavec’s A Historical Atlas of Tibet (Chicago 2015) goes to great lengths to correct. In this beautiful full-color volume, twenty years in the making, Ryavec maps Tibet from Palaeolithic times to the present day, producing an exceptional resource for understanding Tibet’s history from the ground up. Christopher Beckwith’s Greek Buddha: Pyrrho’s Encounter with Early Buddhism in Central Asia (Princeton 2015) is one of the boldest books on Buddhism I’ve read. A highly accomplished scholar, Beckwith attempts to dismantle a number of beliefs about the historical Buddha,…

Q I recently attended a dharma talk in which the teacher said that laypeople, even if they practice sincerely, just don’t have the proper causes and conditions for full enlightenment. I feel that I need to know if this is true or not. What possibilities does this practice hold for me as a layperson, and what is beyond my reach? Please tell me honestly. NARAYAN HELEN LIEBENSON: I have heard this same thing myself, and if I believed it, I would have ordained long ago. In the early teachings of the Buddha, however, there is nothing to support this view. Rather, there are stories of all different types of laypeople from many different walks of life who were said to have awakened to the highest happiness. The Buddha said all…

NO ONE REALLY KNOWS. There are stories—in one, he was beckoned to the kingdom of the nagas, underwater serpents, where he found the Prajnaparamita Sutras, lost since the time of the Buddha. He is said to have had magical abilities that extended his life for centuries, and to have used those same abilities to prolong the life of a benevolent king. But the king’s son, eager to assume the throne and recognizing that Nagarjuna was preventing his father’s death, asked Nagarjuna to commit suicide as a display of generosity. According to the story, because Nagarjuna had once accidentally killed an ant while gathering grass for meditation, the one weapon that could kill him was a single blade of grass. He took one and cut off his own head. When the…

For over three decades, Stephen Batchelor has been the best-known exponent of an unapologetically modernist vision of buddhadharma. In such popular and controversial works as Alone with Others, Faith to Doubt, Buddhism Without Beliefs, and Confession of a Buddhist Atheist, he has promoted an approach to Buddhism that dispenses with metaphysics (including rebirth), miracles, or any hint of the transcendent. He regards the Buddha as an ordinary man who happened to teach an extraordinary way to overcome human problems, the dharma as a secular, pragmatic, and ethical basis for human flourishing here and now, and the sangha as a community of men and women, monastics and laypeople, who support each other’s efforts regardless of social or spiritual status. Batchelor’s views have resonated with many contemporary Buddhists who feel that his…

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