a LETTER is not enough. And I made a donation. And meanwhile, a 17 year old unarmed black man has been killed, shot in the back by police. All the same, here is a letter

June 21, 2018 by klwheeler

Statement from the Spirit Rock Teachers Council

As Buddhist meditation leaders, teachers and practitioners, we are concerned with the welfare and safety of everyone in our society. These commitments are based upon an understanding of our shared vulnerability in this life. Separating migrant children from their families unambiguously harms children and their families – this harm is immediate and severe and endures across generations through the lingering effects of trauma. Under no circumstances can we as contemplative practitioners, spiritual leaders, or moral human beings imagine circumstances in which it is acceptable to engage in acts that harm children. We cannot forget that we belong to each other. We feel deeply the heartbreak of families being torn apart.

We, as teachers for Spirit Rock Meditation Center and for tens of thousands of Buddhist practitioners around the country, reaffirm the Spirit Rock Statement of Values and stand with many other secular and religious organizations – organizations spanning the political and theological spectrum – in condemning these acts. These acts represent a dramatic deviation from the standards of morality and basic human decency that form the fabric of civilized society. Unraveling that fabric has a corrosive effect on our capacity to live and thrive together.

The Executive Order issued June 20th represents a hopeful signal, but we must remain engaged to ensure that this policy change is implemented and family reunifications are expedited. We encourage you to contact your representatives to voice your concern, to connect with organized efforts to express your values, and to support reputable advocacy organizations.

We must also pause to consider how this depth of moral confusion was enacted and tolerated and take steps to nurture the values that make such depravity unthinkable.

Signed*:

Sally Armstrong

James Baraz

Matthew Brensilver

Eugene Cash

Debra Chamberlin-Taylor

Howard Cohn

Mark Coleman

Anne Cushman

Anna Douglas

Bonnie Duran

Andrea Fella

Anushka Fernandopulle

Gil Fronsdal

JoAnna Hardy

Susie Harrington

Will Kabat-Zinn

Ruth King

Jack Kornfield

Brian Lesage

John Martin

Nikki Mirghafori

Phillip Moffitt

Kittisaro

Kate Munding

Wes Nisker

Mary Grace Orr

Sharda Rogell

Donald Rothberg

Erin Selover

Gina Sharpe

Oren Jay Sofer

Tempel Smith

Heather Sundberg

Thanissara

Erin Treat

Pamela Weiss

DaRa Williams
Diana Winston

Kate Lila Wheeler

Larry Yang

* Note: certain Teachers Council members are on retreat and may not have had the opportunity to sign this statement as yet.

Not just cute animal stories

May 15, 2018 by klwheeler

I love the Jataka stories. They express the Buddhist tradition’s sensitivity toward all beings, all forms of life. They transmit other meaningful values, like compassion and self sacrifice.They are also the root of Aesop’s fables and Kipling’s Just So Stories that I read and loved as a girl.

I learned from my friend and fellow teacher Larry Yang that these apparently simple stories are the most common theme for Buddhist discourses in Thailand and Laos. Recently Sylvia Boorstein spoke about one of the Jatakas in a talk of hers, and I was happy about it.

But it also reminded me that even as a girl, I’d noticed — and it bugged me — that the future Buddha is always a male in the Jatakas — king of the deer, king of the monkeys — so I decided to look into the issue today. Here’s the material I found…with a couple of sources at the bottom.

Jatakas are adapted from even more ancient Indian folk tales, as we might guess. Consistent maleness may have been a sort of convenience (haha) to lend continuity, helping the protagonist remain recognizable and prominent from life to life. (I just read Coyote Buddha, a novel co-written by my friends Keith Kachtick and Camilla Figueroa where one of the plot twists relies on the reader’s not recognizing the heroine and hero in their next rebirth — but don’t let me spoil it for you). But there are Jain stories involving multiple rebirths that do include gender switches.

Apparently as Jatakas were used more and more in service of the Buddhist faith, they were more and more about the Buddha’s previous lives than just about wonderful, wise animals. The anti-female bias became more and more pronounced. It’s partly because of prevailing social attitudes toward female leadership; also specifically Buddhist attitudes about women threatening monks’ celibacy. Seemingly there’s a notion, too, that a future Buddha’s karma has to be the very best quality karma! So he can’t be reborn as a woman.

One male scholar exclaimed in 1992 that the Jatakas are the most blatantly misogynistic group of Pali texts. After they were incorporated into the Pali canon, they seem to have influenced things for the worse, at least in the sense that they promoted tradition’s male dominant tendencies.

Of course this trend may be mirroring larger scale social shifts and movements in gender relations, but as a bad scholar who isn’t getting a doctorate in this, may I kvetch that I think it more likely revolves around the monks feeling threatened by women?

In the article below, a good friend, Ven. Analayo explores, with apparent heart-fire, several versions of a Jataka story about a woman who can’t even receive the certain prediction that she will become a Buddha in the future while in a female body, even though she gives dana to a Buddha, which is normally a good karmic career move to start your progress toward Buddhahood. In the most sympathetic version — this is pretty hilarious — she jumps off a building to get rid of the female body, but the earth suddenly becomes a cushion, and she doesn’t die, but she needs to be transformed into a man before the previous Buddha can tell her she will eventually reach full enlightenment. This seems to make it clear that at least one male ally wanted women to be encouraged to achieve the ultimate goal.

And of course I am hanging on to what’s lovely about the Jatakas; they are wiser about speciesism than about gender.

https://www.buddhismuskunde.uni-hamburg.de/pdf/5-personen/analayo/buddha-princess.pdf

https://www.buddhismuskunde.uni-hamburg.de/pdf/6-woman-in-buddhism/2015-e-learning/wib11.pdfM

Images from New Scientist

https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn11022-new-squirrel-like-rodent-discovered-in-peru/

Trust the Earthworm

November 16, 2017 by klwheeler

Inertia set in after my last post, I almost forgot that I have a blog or website at all. A new friend who checked out my online presence said my most recent remark here and it was that I haven’t been able to write anything since the Orange Haired Villain was elected. That was more than a year ago. It is not true that I’ve been paralyzed, but I became less public as one of three coordinators to lead the Spirit Rock Teacher Training. It feels like we are turning a wheel that will turn other wheels, which is very gratifying, and this also requires a certain amount of force. Thus in order to focus, I have been turning down nearly all public meditation teaching invitations through 2018 in order to focus more on helping the wonderful 20 people in the Spirit Rock training program to become the best next generation of retreat teachers and Dharma leaders they can be. They’re amazingly diverse, I’m enjoying and learning so much from them, particularly as the only white, straight human in the room. Concomitantly I’m doing more meditation practice and finishing my book. Changing the pattern of my life has occasionally felt sad or scary, turning down chances to work with teacher friends and see retreatants I care about. But I need to trust why I framed out a period of intense, somewhat more private creativity.

Yesterday I was talking about this with my friend Gina Sharpe, who’s been laid up with a badly broken ankle and ‘stranded’ in San Francisco for several weeks. She’s discovering, she said, resting and receiving the love and care of friends and family. Gina quoted a wise, flawed, old Western monk who said: “Be an earthworm.” I liked that. David, my husband once surprised me by letting me know that the giant Amazon earthworm is one of the most sacred beings for Yekuana people. I remember saving a worm who was drowning in a puddle of water on a sidewalk, near Harvard University’s biolabs. I sensed its relief when it found itself on dry land and could breathe again. Secret aerators, benefactors. It’s hard to find a beautiful image of an earthworm, I suppose they thrive on not having one.

Here are a few images of earthworms from National Geographic. Above a lovely drawing, below the quantum dots generated in earthworms as they comfortably digested cadmium telluride, generating the luminous dots that discern cancer, etc. And a link to the National Geo article at bottom where I found the images and the interesting discovery.

http://phenomena.nationalgeographic.com/2012/12/24/the-quantum-earthworm/

Unbiased Attention

July 1, 2017 by klwheeler

20170219_173954 (1) There’s more than one reason for not posting anything since the election. But it’s curious to me that October’s image of a retreatant sitting quietly looking at the hills now looks like a memorial for a bygone time.

This new photo is from Old Town Fitness, a gym I have belonged to in Key West and also fondly remember. Yesterday I agreed with a friend to work on the weight gain that seems to reflect the distress our minds have both been feeling, causing the body to call for emergency fat storage.

Conscientious care of body and de-escalation of the internal impacts on my mind seem critical to face all that’s going on these days.

For example, yesterday I was inside a hospital (for a minor diagnostic test) and I noticed feeling afraid that I may not be able to afford such care in the future. Not that I’ve taken health care access for granted, believe me. Still, I’m a privileged, well-to-do, aging white person and I’m now able to know what many others have suffered for years.

In general most of the votes and decisions and processes taking place at the highest levels are terrifying. Marching for the climate in DC was sweet and encouraging, a sign of shared resolve. Yet it also felt, eerily, as if one was listening, and not just because our thin-skinned Earless Feeder had skipped town. Russia has succeeded in the equivalent of a 21st century invasion. The likelihood of war feels imminent and even if we manage to avoid that, the loathsome creep of climate ruin is a sufficient disaster.

It’s been a test of meditation practice and I can report that the energy of unbiased awareness is a huge support. To admit the painful feelings allow me not to feel as if I’ve run aground. It hurts, but then a little clarity arises and my mind can see that this toxic detour is happening one step at a time. It can also be reversed one step at a time. But the steps need to be taken, and need to be taken soon enough .