Karmapa

Today the HH Karmapa gave an empowerment and talk at the Paramount Theatre in Seattle. Like Ponlop Rinpoche, whose Nalandabodhi center was sponsoring the event, Urgyen Trinley Dorje, the XVIIth Karmapa, was charming and humble. He seemed to question his own divinity. If I am a Buddha why do I have these problems?

So in the Tibetan tradition the great reincarnated masters, are they there for the lay people? Someone, a near god, to believe in, be inspired by? If the idea of a lineage is institutionalized someone has to fill the role. Maybe they aren't true reincarnates, or perhaps they are, but the ones I have any experience seem to be sincere, erudite and humble. So at the very least they become a sort of super-monk, incredibly well schooled and trained. They sacrifice their privacy and a simple life, for the benefit of those that believe in them.

It's a very generous thing to do. I don't claim to understand it.

Karmapa described his view of the world as a stage with the stars as a backdrop. What dramas do we chose to enact on this great stage? Are they uplifting or disturbing? Are we looking for short term pleasure at the cost of the world and others?

Time

Imagine that moment when you are driving and you look ahead of you and you see the interstate stretching before you for perhaps miles before it disappears around a bend, or at the crest of a hill in the broken shards of mirage. You know where you are now and where you will be in a few moments. What is the difference between here and there? The passage of time will see you there. But what if you decide to examine this passage of time and distance? What does it consist of.

Does time for us consist of changes in the pattern of consciousness? Is this why humans experience time as an "other", why we are not in the moment the same way animals and nature is? Is this what confuses (or enriches) our experience? There is the infinite moment, but within that moment there is everything and what makes time is the shifting of our perception.

So...my buddhist year was going to be daily, here it is one month later. I'm on the road under the big sky. The Dalai Lama came to Seattle. The Karmapa is coming soon. I've done a lot of work in the last month but not much thought of buddhism other than lighting some incense, filling the lone water bowl on the altar table and attempting to meditate once or twice.

On the advice of a friend, a new tome has joined the library: Stephen Batchelor's "Buddhism Without Beliefs". As I understand it, an agnostic, non-sectarian, de-woowooed sorta buddhism. Should be interesting. (I hope to let you know how it goes for me soon).

Big sky blessings to all.

First Post

Buddhism has always been in my life in some way or other. Like a pop song you hear every once in a while and almost know the words to, or a taste that is exotic and yet familiar like cotton candy or a canned lychee nut in syrup. I've always been attracted to the iconography, the beautiful calm buddhas, prayer flags, darumas, zushi, lhakangs and hermit's caves, but I understand almost nothing of 'it'.

I have books, I have been to temples zen and tibetan, I have been to buddhist kingdoms, I have donated money to further the dharma, and yet I know almost nothing of that dharma. I have stacks of books on buddhism, picture and text, secular and sacred, simple and complex, and yet I know nothing. I would have a very hard time telling you the four noble truths, let alone the specifics of the eight-fold path.

I know nothing.

I don't like karma for reasons I'll tell you about. I don't understand even the basics. I have a fascination, but not a passion. Many is the night I have nodded off with a good buddhist text in my hands. Or was it a good text? I don't know.

But the purpose of this blog is to give it a shot. For one year. To explore. To write about my personal exploration. To (let me google it...) damn, can't find it! But basically, the thing where Buddha says don't take my or any other person's word for it....only accept what you prove to yourself.

I'm 45. I grew up as a Christian Scientist. And by the way, Christian Science has nothing to do with Scientology, except that both are homegrown US religions and both attracted celebrities in their haydays. I don't think I've ever typed the word 'heydays' before, what's the etymology of that do you think? Christian Science may have something to do with Buddhism or vice versa, we shall see. But this blog is my own personal yet formal foray into Buddhism. An exploration.

'Personal' because this will be my own, lonely venture into trying to understand buddhism and formal because I will write daily, uh, apparently whenever I damn well feel like it. And that is enough for today.