I
was dancing salsa and was struggling with the lead, being a bit tense and
tired. Assuming my Asian and proud dance partner understood Buddhist
theories, I joked that I would try the exercise of clearing my mind. Isn’t
Buddhist meditation about making yourself soft and flexible to external
forces to help us work with the world rather than in constant conflict?
Unfortunately, he hadn't heard this theory before and thought I was more
tired than he realized and had better let me get some rest.
Just because he is Asian and proud, should
he know something about the big Buddha? After all it is one of the biggest
ideas that came and spread from Asia to the rest of the world.
I asked a few people, Asian and Non-Asian.
“Off the top of your head, what do you know of Buddhism?” I asked.
“If you’re a good Buddhist, when you get
cremated you should turn into a white pea.” Julie Wong, underwriting
assistant, said.
“….. a big fat man,” Randy Napenas, senior
accountant, said slowly. “And if you rub his belly, you can make a wish.”
The
IT guy, from my day-job, volunteered his story about his friend, in martial
arts, who decided to have the Chinese character of Buddha etched into his sword. “I just turned to him and said, “guy, maybe I’m
wrong, but isn’t Buddhism suppose to be about peace and non-violence?”
“Buddha! The funky Buddha! Buddha!” a
lyric from a Reel 2 Real song sung by an anonymous friend. He
added the special “running man” dance move to compliment the song, with some
side shuffles.
My main recollection of Buddhism is as
a myth. A boy sits by a
tree and meditates and during that meditation is tested with every kind of distraction including fires, storms, ants,
fiery dragons, etc. Buddha maintains his meditation and at the end of the
trial reaches nirvana. My mother took me to strange smelling temples as a
child. I saw stone (some freakish looking) statues and worshippers whose
worship looked more like mourning. As I grew older I saw my mother’s long
list of rituals and types of prayer as something more out of habit and
superstition than out of reason.
I
stumbled upon Buddhist ideas again in my twenties. A post-University,
desk-job reality was weighing on my nerves. I was resorting to all sorts of
‘stress management’ and ‘writer’s block’ cures. I probably wasn’t the only
one. Ying/Yang symbols were popping up all over the place. Tai Chi, Yoga
and Pilates were making a comeback as the fashionable forms of exercise.
Finally, a friend recommended a book to me called,
Siddhartha, by Herman Hesse.
And
here I am again, a freelance writer coming back to Buddha in the middle of a
tumultuous salsa dance, thinking ‘I’m making this harder on myself than I
need to.’
So, time to look a little deeper. I started
with my favourite resource. The Internet.
Buddhism was founded by an Indian man named
Siddhārtha Gautama, roughly 500 BC, and spread throughout every Asian
country becoming the dominant religion, for a time, and adapting itself to
the existing older religions of Hinduism (India), Taoism, Confucianism
(China), Shinto (Japan) and animism (Asia).
Its mythology is based in animism and
shamanism. In China, the myth of the Monkey King is a reflection on how
they dealt with the differences between Taoism and Buddhism. Check out
these
links for some info on Asian mythology:
China:
http://www.livingmyths.com/Chinese.htm
Korea:
http://www.sogang.ac.kr/~burns/cult96/s940067.html
Japan:
http://www.crystalinks.com/japancreation2.html
Asia:
http://www.mythome.org/Asia.html
As a religion and philosophy, after the
death of Buddha, Buddhism broke into many variations and various leaders
such as Zen, Pure Land, Theravada and Mahayana. Even with the coming of
Christianity and Western science and technology, Buddhism is still one of
the largest religions in the world. Despite being assimilated into older
and newer ideas throughout the years, Buddhism’s core has always been the
pursuit of happiness, peace, love and compassion.
Check out the following links for more info
on the different variations:
http://www.buddhanet.net/
http://www.acay.com.au/~silkroad/buddha/h_japan_frames.htm
http://www.japan-guide.com/e/e2056.html
http://www.cambodia-travel.com/information/religion.htm
http://religions.indiaserver.com/india-hinduism-religion.html
One of the most heart-warming quotes I would
draw from the Internet is from the following article on
Buddhism and Non-violence from the
bodydharma.org
website:
“Before
the end of the Vietnam War, I asked Venerable Thich Nhah Hanh whether he
would rather have: peace under a communist regime that would mean the end of
Buddhism or the victory of democratic Vietnam with the possibility of
Buddhist revival, and he said that it was better to have peace at any price.
He told me that preserving Buddhism does not mean that we should sacrifice
people's lives in order to safeguard the Buddhist hierarchy, monasteries, or
rituals. Even if Buddhism as such were extinguished, when human lives are
preserved and when human dignity and freedom are cultivated toward peace and
loving kindness, Buddhism can be reborn in the hearts of human beings."
"
In
all of Buddhist history, there has never been a holy war. Surely Buddhist
kings have waged war against one another, and they may even have claimed to
be doing so for the benefit of humankind or the Buddhist religion, but they
could not quote any saying of the Buddha to support them. The Buddha was
quite clear in his renunciation of violence: "Victory creates hatred.
Defeat creates suffering. The wise ones desire neither victory nor defeat
... Anger creates anger ... He who kills will be killed. He who wins will be
defeated ... Revenge can only be overcome by abandoning revenge... The wise
seek neither victory nor defeat."
I wanted some feedback on this new info
from living groups and individuals outside of me. I sent out queries to
dancers, musicians, writers, magazines, Buddhist and religious communities.
I was very surprised at the amount of silence my questions received. I
began emphasizing that 1) they didn’t need to be Buddhist to answer my
questions and 2) they didn’t need to be afterwards either. Silence.
Some people did answer that they couldn’t answer because the topic was
too personal. Too individual. One person said it was
too controversial.
Why? What harm can come from talking about ideas? Where would Buddha or
any religious/philosophical leader have been if there weren’t people back in
the day ready to discuss these things with him? Why don’t we want to talk
about something as benign as peace and compassion? Hell, can’t think of a
better time in history to be open to such topics.
Even
my own father had little to say to me. He told me that he and his family
were Buddhist but not because of anything he was taught or particularly
practiced. He just was and then looked at me funny if I tried to get more
details. I asked an old childhood friend, whose roots go back to the south
of China, for her insight. She has asked to be known only as Wendy. She told me
that her family and most likely much of that region of China PRACTICE
Buddhist rituals as a form of salvation from life and death but they do not
learn the philosophy. She personally didn't care to. Her concerns as a
Buddhist were that she cultivated a place for herself in the afterlife and
that she honour the traditions of her culture. She added that there is a
vast difference between people who are born into a faith and those that find
it later in life.
So history is telling me that Buddhism is
rooted in ideas older than Buddha but also adaptable to anything that our
century is willing to ‘believe’ in. This is a rare religion where the idol
started out no more godly than you or I (although being born a prince didn’t
hurt). How is this possible? What makes an idea(s) that good? Seems to
me that Buddha was somebody who chose to remind us and rework, into
ourselves, some ideas that we already knew and wanted to hear again.
And
if we should find today that we are in need of another kind of reminder,
we’ll have to start with what to do with silence. It’s hard to dance
without a song – so says this salsa dancer.
Copyright
lyw 2004
