Western Buddhists to the Rescue!

The emergence of Western Buddhism has long been chronicled, and I have no doubt that should “Western Buddhism” ever coalesce into a coherent tradition, it will stand apart from all other Buddhist lineages by the phenomenal level at which its early members were so perpetually enthralled in talking and writing about what their new tradition would be. It’s not even clear to me who counts as a Western Buddhist and who doesn’t, but I understand that’s not the point. Western Buddhism will “just happen” by combining the best of East and West, and we’ll all be long gone by then. Western Buddhism is simply the next phase in Dharmic evolution.

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Western Buddhist Feminist Oppressors

This post contains an article sent to me by a friend, Rethinking Western Feminist Critiques on Buddhism (original link), by Cheng Wei-yi (鄭維儀). It’s sort of timely since I’ve been ranting about cultural issues in the Buddhist community since… well, since I’ve started blogging here. I enjoyed this article and felt it deeply resonated with my perceptions. But then when I came to writing this blog, I remembered the first thing I was ever taught when discussing something that stirs your emotions: question your assumptions. It was very clear to me that different readers would draw very different conclusions from this essay.  So I’m just putting the whole thing out there, typos and all. Take from it what you will.

If you’re interested in modern, transnational Buddhism, feminism and postcolonialism, then you’ll surely want to read on. (But it is long!)

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Geting it Right: Ritual and Communal Learning

I played the wooden fish for the first and currently only time on May 17th, 2008. I had received a call that same morning half-asking but mostly telling me to do it at a Vesak celebration later that day.

I had never abused fish, gong, nor bell before, and hurried to try and be hastily taught by a friend of mine before show time. Education be damned, I ended up flustering about and striking the thing about twice as much as I should have. Rolling Stone praised my “rock steady baselines and infectious hooks,” but Buddhist chanting it was not. It was one of the most horrifyingly embarrassing experiences I have ever weathered and I regret not skipping town and hopping a freight train the morning of.

And nobody who wasn’t wearing robes knew the difference.

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