The Inquiring Mind you are now reading is the tenth anniversary issue. So, happy anniversary to us, everyone! Actually, the aging process hasn’t been difficult; time does all the work. The hard part is becoming wiser and more beautiful with age. We hope that has been the case with this journal. As we look back at the first issue, mailed out in the spring of 1984, it seems so unpolished and innocent, and so small in size. Just a baby Mind! That first issue was only twelve pages long, about five thousand copies were mailed out, and the entire vipassana retreat schedule consisted of only twelve listings. Our current issue is forty-four pages long, with more than five pages just for retreat information, and close to 32,000 copies of the journal have been printed. We must be reaching adolescence. The growth of Inquiring Mind, of course, only mirrors the growth of the vipassana Buddhist sangha in the West, which in turn reflects the ongoing vitality of Buddhadharma in the world. We are thrilled to be a part of all those evolutions.

           It is only due to the generous donations of our readers that we are able to continue to publish, and for your continuing support the entire staff of Inquiring Mind extends its deepest thanks and gratitude. We would love to offer you all a piece of birthday cake with this tenth anniversary issue, but—since mailing costs are prohibitive—we will ask you instead to join us in a retrospective. We think you will find this collection of pieces from our past issues to be as sweet and even more nourishing than cake. As we dug into our archives, we were inspired by the wisdom, compassion and eloquence of the people who have graced the pages of this journal. We also noticed that, unlike news of current events or contemporary culture, the words of dharma never seem to go out of date. So we invite you to enjoy this tenth anniversary party feast, and ask you to raise your journals with us to toast another decade and beyond of Inquiring Minds. Who knows, maybe we’ll even survive the next millenium.

Over the years, many of the interviews we have conducted for Inquiring Mind have touched on the growing pains of dharma in the West. How do we adapt the teachings to a new culture? What is essential and what is not? What will Western Buddhism look like? In the winter of 1988, we featured an interview with teacher, conservationist, and Pulitzer Prize winning poet Gary Snyder. We asked for his views on the transmission of Buddhadharma to the West, and he responded with his usual depth of insight and humor, and his poetic sensibility.

Gary Snyder: Let’s consider the American approaching Buddhism. When hearing of the Three Treasures, the American is going to have an intellectual and intuitive appreciation for the idea of the Buddha, a teacher, and the idea of dharma, the teachings. But our social and cultural experience just does not prepare us to have appreciation for the sangha, the community. Many people would just as soon skip the sangha part of it. “I want the teachings but I don’t want to have to hang out with these other turkeys.” (Laughs) That translates into an unconscious resistance, on many levels, to the history, the sociology, the humanity, the responsibility, the dishwashing and floor wiping that must, from the Buddhist perspective, be considered every bit as important. The Triple Gem is not hierarchical. The Three Treasures are presented as equal. The sangha is every bit as important as the Buddha and dharma.

The condition of Buddhism in this country right now is the condition, say, of Buddhism very early in China when it was studied as an exotic new topic by a small highly privileged aristocratic elite. It took some centuries before it worked its way down and out to the larger public. I see that my role, in part, is to try to marry (like in marrying big hawser lines from ship to shore, a language of making knots) the strengths of American openness, nature-love, humor and vigor, independence and energy, egalitarian spirit and commitment to democratic values, to the traditional forms of Asian Buddhism with their refinement, diffidence, precision, and nonjudgmental humorous firmness. What I look forward to is not “Zen in America” but rather a “Ch’an on Turtle Island,” which for me means an earlier and more open and more T’ang Chinese spirit; old women trading insults and teacakes with wandering monks, chopping literal wood and carrying actual water, a Ch’an for ordinary people and a few ghosts and spirits as well, on a real continent of mountains and streams on which we ask how to include the sagebrush and the rabbits or the farmworkers and the growers of Manteca and Turlock in our Zendos as well as the highly educated slightly troubled professionals. That’s going to be more fun, but it will take awhile.

The questions raised when the Dharma comes to the West were also addressed by Robert A. Thurman, who we interviewed for the Fall, 1991 issue of Inquiring Mind (the one with the cover picture of the Dalai Lama hugging a penguin). Thurman is professor of Indo-Tibetan Studies at Columbia University and has thrilled many an audience with his dynamic and dazzling dharma talks.

Robert A. Thurman: I agree with the Dalai Lama who believes that in order to work well, Buddhism in America requires a renewal which harkens back to its original spirit in India. In America people are kind of wild and woolly, just as they were in India in the fifth century, B.C. So there’s no point in trying to keep Tibetan Buddhism or Theravada Buddhism or Zen Buddhism intact, to enshrine them here in the West. I think those attempts are doomed to failure. They’re not even healthy.

When the Dalai Lama sends Tibetan monks to visit Christian monasteries, he tells them to offer freely any of the Buddhist techniques and methods. His Holiness does not want to convert people to Buddhism. He wants to make it available as a psychology, a science, a meditation practice, whatever. Of course, if you want to be a Buddhist, that’s fine. But the Dalai Lama wants people to find the essence of Buddhism beyond the cultural form. I think that out of that approach all kinds of hybrids of American Buddhism can arise.

I hope to see American Buddhists adopting new practices and having the flexibility to use whatever works. Let American pragmatism get at the dharma. Don’t just adhere to this museum-like business of sitting this way or that way on the pillow, or using only this or that mantra. Of course it’s good that we have people who are studying all of that, but I think we should develop our own rituals and practices. Furthermore, we should give away everything we know to Christians, Muslims, atheists; give them whatever they want. And we don’t have to ask them to sign a receipt that they got it from Buddhism.

When we interviewed her for the Winter, 1988 edition of Inquiring Mind, senior vipassana teacher Sharon Salzberg sounded a more cautionary note about the Americanization of Buddha Dharma.

Sharon Salzberg: My main concern is that there remain a context where the teachings are preserved. When teachers of Buddhism begin to adapt the dhamma to fit their preferences, the main thing I fear is that something essential will get left out. Believe me, it’s easy to leave things out. Sometimes you think your students won’t like you, or they’ll be angry at you because you’ve said something they don’t like; you’re afraid that you’re going to lose them. Yet the very teachings you are tempted to change may be necessary to maintain the integrity of the system. I would hate to think that I, or my generation, were the ones who lost the idea of enlightenment just because it brings up a lot of uncomfortable questions.

As the Buddha Dharma gains a foothold in the West, it is simultaneously undergoing major changes in places where it has been kept alive for the past two millennia. Political upheavals in China, Tibet, Vietnam, Cambodia and Burma, have created tremendous difficulties for the Buddhist practitioners in those countries. We interviewed poet Allen Ginsberg in February of 1985, after his return from a visit to China where he had taught American Beat poetry to Chinese university students. We asked Allen how the Chinese were able to relate to all the Buddhist references in Beat generation poetry.

Allen Ginsberg: The Chinese students were puzzled by the Buddhist words and ideas. So what I did, finally, in the context of teaching Gary Snyder’s poetry, is that I taught my class to sit meditation. In fact, I think the historical role of the American generation will be to bring Zen dharma back to China. It sounds incredible, but I think it’s true. What Mao did was to introduce this Western Marxist religion that replaced Buddhism, Taoism and Confucianism. Now communism is collapsing and there’s total disillusionment with both the old and new religions. It’s interesting to note that the one thing that would have made Chinese socialism work was the thing they attempted to exterminate, which was the Buddhist practices of awareness and mindfulness, care, consideration and sympathy. The one glue that actually could have made their communism possible was precisely the nerve center, that in their blindness, they eradicated.

The Vietnamese monk Thich Nhat Hahn has had a profound influence on Western dharma students of all traditions, and he holds a special place in many hearts. His call to simplicity and joy, and to create peace by “being peace,” as well as his “Precepts of Interbeing” have become the cornerstones of engaged Buddhism in the West. We interviewed Thich Nhat Hahn during his second visit to the United States in 1985.

Thich Nhat Hahn: I think Theravada Buddhism puts too much stress on suffering. Suffering is not enough. The Buddha spoke about both dukkha and sukkha. We don’t want to make everything into suffering. We talk about extinction, but extinction means the extinction of ignorance, suffering, attachment, and at the same time it means the blossoming of their opposites. We should be able to smile at our own suffering. That is the practice of Buddhism. In both the Theravada and Mahayana the joy is something you begin with in practice. You leave the noise and complications of daily life behind to go to a retreat where you experience joy; the joy of being alone, of going back to yourself. You do not escape life, but rather go to yourself to fully realize that you are in life, that you are one with everything. So joy must be the keynote of Buddhism, both in Theravada and Mahayana. I cannot see it as otherwise.

In the Summer 1986 issue of Inquiring Mind we featured a lively discussion under the title “Western Vipassana Teachers’ Forum.” We submitted questions to senior vipassana teachers about a number of issues, including engaged Buddhism. Here’s how Christopher Titmuss, cofounder of Gaia House in Devon, England responded.

Christopher Titmuss: The world is in crisis. How can an awakened mind ignore this brutal fact? Compassion is not a feeling, but is direct, skillful action. Compassionate politics is the politics of protest. The Buddha protested against caste, privileges, greed, profiteering, injustice and the exploitation of animals. He also frequently told kings, priests and the powerful about their responsibilities. So how can a poor dharma devotee ignore such an example?

“Coming Home” was the title of our Spring 1991 issue, which focused on the ecological/spiritual crisis, offering words of wisdom from D. H. Lawrence, Alan Watts, Annie Dillard, Ram Dass and many others. That issue also included an interview with Joanna Macy about her Nuclear Guardianship Project, which calls for citizen involvement in the responsible care of the enormous amounts of radioactive waste our society has produced; waste which Joanna calls the “poison fire.” We had also interviewed Joanna for our Winter 1989 issue, focusing on her ideas about Buddhism in the West, a transmission she calls “the third turning of the wheel of dharma.” Here are related excerpts from those two talks with Joanna.

Joanna Macy: I believe that in the third turning of the wheel (the Buddhism now taking seed in the West) there will be no split between meditation and action in the world. You don’t want to lose the distinctions between the two, but also see how they are mutually reinforcing—like the people who are doing meditation out on the railroad tracks at the Concord Naval Weapons Station. With the third turning of the wheel we see that everything we do impinges on all beings. The way you are with your kid is a political act, and the products you buy and your efforts to recycle are part of it, too. So is meditation. Just trying to stay awake and aware is a tremendous task and of ultimate importance. We’re trying to be present—to ourselves and to each other—in a way that can save our planet.

In our Nuclear Guardianship Project we’ve decided that for the sake of future beings and for the sake of this generation too, we’re going to take care of the poison fire (nuclear waste). That means wherever it’s generated, we will try to keep it on-site. These will become Guardian Sites—Rancho Seco, Three Mile Island, Hanford—places of attention and remembering, retelling over and over again, the story that produced the poison fire. The nuclear engineers will monitor and repair the waste containers, but people like you and me would also become guardians. We would go to the Guardian Sites to practice moral vigilance, to perform rituals, to offer gifts. Just as we now go to Barre or Spirit Rock for meditation retreats, we might go to a Guardian Site for meditation practice. The guardianship of this poison fire can then continue through generations that will wonder if perhaps this was a sacred gift that was given to us to help us wake up.

In the Winter of 1986, Inquiring Mind published a special issue on dharma art, featuring articles on painting, music, the Japanese tea ceremony, and a special Haiku poetry section. The staff loved working on this issue, and we plan to publish another on dharma art very soon. For that first arts issue we were privileged to interview a student of Zen and one of the great twentieth-century musicians, John Cage, who died last year. We also talked to Mayumi Oda, the beloved Buddhist artist who has invoked the goddess with such grace and playfulness in her paintings. Here are excerpts from those two interviews.

John Cage: In 1945 the great Buddhist scholar D. T. Suzuki came to Columbia to teach and I went for two years to his classes. From Suzuki’s teaching I began to understand that a sober and quiet mind is one in which the ego does not obstruct the fluency of the things that come in through our senses and up through our dreams.

For instance, I discovered that if you develop an ear for sounds that are musical it is like developing an ego. You begin to refuse sounds that are not musical and that way cut yourself off from a good deal of experience.

My intention is to affirm this life, not to bring order out of chaos or to suggest improvements in creation, but simply to wake up to the very life I’m living, which is so excellent once one gets one’s mind and one’s desires out of its way and lets it act of its own accord.

Mayumi Oda: At one time, when I was going through excruciating pain, I stopped painting goddesses. I did a lot of self-portraits. I never show those self-portraits to people. They were just for me, for my cleansing.

Sometimes, in preparation for creative work, I do a practice which helps me cleanse my mind of thought. I do calligraphy of the sutras, which is called shakyo or tracing sutras. I usually do a heart sutra in Japanese with Chinese characters. I empty the mind so that inspiration may come in. And if it doesn’t, I clean the studio, I cook, I garden. Then, if inspiration comes, it shows me what to do. When you draw or paint, you feel like a filter. The images arise; you don’t search for them. So you have to wait around. Creating art is good patience practice!

Continuing with the theme of art and Dharma, in the Winter of 1990 we published part of a talk given to a group of artists by Thich Nhat Hahn. His comments on the subject elaborate on the sentiments of John Cage and Mayumi Oda, and are well worth repeating.

Thich Nhat Hanh: Each minute of our life is a work of art. Growing lettuce is poetry. The time when we are not writing or painting, we are still creating. If we are pregnant with beauty, joy, and peace, we can make life more beautiful. And when we know how to be peace, we will find that art is a wonderful means for us to share that. The foundation is being. The expression will take place in one way or another, but the being is essential.

In the Fall of 1990, we talked to the word-wizard Stephen Mitchell, whose translations and anthologies of poetry and spiritual writing have become a great fountain of wisdom for Western dharma students. We got into a discussion with Stephen about how artistic creation arises out of personality, and whether that somehow conflicts with the Buddhist notion of an empty mind.

Stephen Mitchell: There’s nothing dharmic about stepping on personality. We need to get rid of the neurosis but not the personality. Personality is wonderful. A lot of what doesn’t appeal to me about certain Buddhist students, and some teachers as well, is the lack of personality. They’re juiceless, joyless, there is no vibrancy there; whereas when you’ve truly stepped beyond joy and sorrow, you’re full of joy. In my experience, the people who have been denying their emotions and just sitting on the cushion become—how can I say it—almost ghostlike. The human quality becomes very thin, the flame becomes dampened, and the wonderful vibrant life that can come to fruition through dharma practice isn’t there. You feel that there are storerooms of unfinished business lying in the cellar beneath their dharma insight.

One of our most popular issues (Summer, 1988) featured a forum on Psychotherapy and Meditation, with prominent therapists and dharma teachers talking about the similarities and differences between the two disciplines. We received more requests for extra copies of this issue than any other to date, perhaps reflecting the large number of therapists in our sangha. Following are some brief excerpts from that forum.

Ram Dass: Western psychotherapy has focused primarily on effective ego functioning. It treats the psychological self as real and encourages identification with motives, emotions and cognitive content. Eastern spiritual disciplines consider the psychological self as a “relatively” real creation of mind, and set as a goal of practice the breaking of identification with the components of the psychological self. Western psychotherapy rearranges the furniture in the room. Eastern techniques help you get out of the room.

Roger Walsh (University of California Professor of Psychology, vipassana meditator, author): I have faith in human ingenuity to use anything as a defense, including meditation. Meditation can be used to withdraw from relationships and the challenges of daily living. There is significant clinical data to suggest that in some people meditation can induce or exacerbate psychological problems, though only temporarily in most cases. On the other hand, the extent to which meditation can heal psychological problems is one of the great research questions of our time.

Jack Engler (Harvard psychologist, vipassana meditator, author): Meditation requires a lot of ego strength. In awareness practice, people allow anything and everything into consciousness. This would overwhelm someone who hasn’t developed the capacity for self-observation or the capacity to tolerate difficult emotional states. That’s why I say, “You must be somebody before you can be nobody.”

It was Joseph Goldstein, co-founder of the Insight Meditation Society and a senior vipassana teacher, who first approached Wes Nisker with the idea of starting a journal for the vipassana sangha in the West. Wes asked Barbara Gates to join him in this project, and for the first issue of Inquiring Mind (Spring, 1984) they decided it would be appropriate to interview Joseph. Since then, Joseph’s words have appeared numerous times in this journal; he writes our practice column, and has participated in all our forum discussions. (Joseph’s new book Insight Meditation:The Practice of Freedom is reviewed in this issue.) Here is an excerpt from an interview we did with Joseph for the Inquiring Mind of Summer, 1989.

Joseph Goldstein: What inspires me is the connection with the original teachings of the Buddha with what, as far as we know, he actually taught during his lifetime. In the Pali Canon, in these core teachings that have been defined as the Theravada tradition, there seems to be a consistency and a systematic development of wisdom, a definite path, that corresponds directly to my own practice and understanding. My great interest is to understand these teachings in a deeper way and to preserve an authentic transmission. What I hope I am doing is teaching what the Buddha taught based on my own experience of it, rather than my latest insight into life. While the latter may be interesting and even relevant, having as a larger reference point the classical teachings and methods assures a connection with a time-honored and well-established path to liberation.

Over the years the words of Jack Kornfield have also appeared regularly in this journal, in interviews and forum discussions, as well as in several articles he has written for us. (In this issue we include his dharma talk entitled, “Advice from the Dalai Lama.”) Jack, also a senior vipassana teacher, is cofounder of the Insight Meditation Society and Spirit Rock Meditation Center, and has been an important advocate of and advisor to Inquiring Mind. We close this retrospective with an excerpt from an interview we did with Jack nearly ten years ago in our second issue, Winter, 1984. His words ring as true to us today as they did then, and we are struck by how much of what he says seems to mirror what we have presented in these pages over these years.

Jack Kornfield: The essence of the dharma will always remain the same. Impermanence will always be the law. Attachment will always cause suffering. But in the West there is a shift away from the ascetic and masculine monastic containers for practice which exist in Asia. Three key elements are emerging here. They are feminization, democratization, and an integration of practice in the world. Feminization means much more than the inclusion of women in an equal way. It means a shift to include the archetypal feminine more in practice, paying greater attention to aspects of intuition, feelings and the receptive; aspects that will balance the ascetic, mental, logos orientation of the teachings in the monasteries. Secondly, with democratization, our Western cultural emphasis on individuality and participation will transform the hierarchical forms of dharma practice in Asia. For Americans there will not be so much of the “yes boss, yes guruji” authoritarian quality you find in the East. The third key shift is a spirit of integration, where we learn to bring mindfulness practice to our freeway driving and child rearing and sexuality and world peace. For the most part, our practice will not be off somewhere in a monastery, but rather fully engaged in all aspects of life.

∞

From the Fall 1993 issue of Inquiring Mind (Vol. 10, No. 1)

Text © 1993–2021 by Inquiring Mind