Who Precicely are These 'Buddhists' I Keep Reading About?

Spellcheck sheet

I keep reading about what 'Buddhists' like and what 'Buddhists' do and what 'Buddhists' eat and who 'Buddhists' boink and what 'Buddhists' wear and I wonder precisely who the fuck these people are talking about.

Because I think, _I'm_ a 'Buddhist' but most of the time these things don't apply to me. Even when they're written by a 'Buddhist' in a cute little saffron colored robe.

Which is another thing, but I digress...

The problem is that the phrase 'Buddhist' is analogous to 'Western Religion.' There are just so fucking many different kinds of us. Often people compare it to using the phrase 'Christianity' with all it's bazillion little sects but in truth it's broader than that. Soto Zen has about as much relation to Burmese Buddhism as Episcopalianism has to Judaism. Sure, they're related, they have a lot of the same concepts, same holy entity same general view of the universe and creation.

But that's where it all ends. They don't really transplant well or even interact well some times. And it's the same for us. I don't know what the fuck Burmese folks do in there ceremonies or why even. In fact most of the things that Non-Buddhists think that 'Buddhists' do aren't consistent.

Let's explore some shall we.
1) Buddhists are vegetarian.
Well.... no.
I think you will find, in general a higher number of vegetarians amongst Buddhists than non-Buddhists but there's no consistent hard and fast rule. The traditional Mahayana monks weren't really capable of being vegetarian. Because they essentially begged for their food. Part of their life was to get up in the morning and go around town with their alms bowl collecting their meals for the day. Now they weren't allowed to kill 'living beings' (more on that later) nor have something killed for them or even be around when it happens. But when you are relying on other people for the entirety of your foodstuffs you really don't get to be very picky.
I'll have to come back and update this and add more later. It's twelve thirty and I was shooting for being in bed before 10. Various things have prevented that.

2) Buddhists meditate a lot.
OK, this one I think is true. I honestly can't think of a single Buddhist sect that doesn't place an emphasis on meditation. Some (*cough* Zen) Place a REALLY strong emphasis on it. Others like Pure-Land place much more emphasis on chants and less on meditation.

3) Buddhist wear robes.
FALSE!
This is one of my favorites. 'Buddhists' don't wear robes any more than 'Christians' do. MONKS wear robes, priests wear robes. It's the same in both groups. Lay people like myself and probably anyone reading this generally wear.. whatever the hell we want. Work clothes, jeans, dresses. Like any religious event folks tend to dress a little more conservatively, the idea isn't to be provocative. And in Buddhism where we spend a fuck-ton of time sitting in some version of crossleggedness* we often wear something loose fitting. But beyond that most of us wear street clothes.

4) Buddhist pray to the Buddha
Nada,
So most of us chant/pray/pay homage/honor/whatever you'd like to call it, to 'the Buddha' the definition of 'The Buddha' is a little squiffy in this context. First there's the 'Shakyamuni' Buddha who is the Buddha that became enlightened under a tree. Then there's the eternal spiritual Buddha that is essentially the same guy only, magic or something. He's usually called 'Tathagata' in Mahayana but I don't know if that's the case in Theravada. Then there's like 500 other or so Buddhas and Bodhisattvas mentioned in the lotus suttra that various Mahayanaists consider to be just analogies but the esoteric Buddhists may actually be chanting to instead of the Shakyamuni Buddha or the Shakyamuni as the Tathagata or what not.

N) I'm going to collect a few more and update this post.


But you get the idea. My wife keeps asking me 'What does Buddhism say about this' and I'm repeatedly forced to say 'Well that really depends on who you ask.' Which often sounds like I'm picking and choosing things to win arguments but it isn't. And often it doesn't require finding some crack-pot to prove that there's someone who believes a certain thing. The spectrum is broad as hell.

* I'm totally going to try and get that into the dictionary.

All the little bows

So there's a lot of bowing in Soto Zen. Well in Zen. Ok, in Buddhism.
But at the end of a period of Zazen we all say the Bodhisatva vow and the bow. I never really knew why and I always forgot to ask. I assumed we were bowing to the wall who has been a part of our meditation time. Or do the meditations space or to the other folks who have meditated with us.

But I do most of my Zazen in front of a closed TV cabinet. It's not a great wall nor even a great meditation space. And while I consider the whole world my meditation partners when I meditate There really isn't anyone in the same room with me.

unless the cat has decided it's time for cat tree Zazen.

But the other day I realized. We're bowing to the Dharma.

It sounds cheezy and maybe others won't agree to me but that's the way I see it. We bow to the Dharma because after all that's what is.
that's not a typo.

The Dharma is what is. It's everything. The Dharma while normally translated as Law or the truth or the words of the Buddha is also some times used as essentially 'nouns' the word Dharma also means things. Which only sounds weird until you dig deeper.

Dharma as 'Law' isn't law in the sense of the allmighty bob will smite you for your sins. Remember in Buddhism there isn't any judge. There isn't an old man with a beard that's going to tell you if you did right or not. Dharma is a natural law. It's simple, you do bad shit, bad shit happens to you. Maybe not now, maybe not even in this lifetime but bad shit will happen to you the more bad shit you do. And that goes for everyone and everything. The Dharma is natural law, it's everything. you drop a rock on your foot and it'll screw up your foot. The rock sits there and it will become a home to bugs, it will be worn down by the weather. It just is so it affects and is affected.

The rock is Dhamma, the rock is law, the rock is life.

Who knew rocks where so cool?
-db