Table of Contents:

Chapter One: Introduction p. Chapter Two: Setting the Scene--An Overview of Buddhism in America,

This Half Century’s Developments p.

Chapter Three: Methodology p. Chapter Four: Personal Introductions p. Chapter Five: The Occurrence of Epiphany p. Chapter Six: Suffering as the Path p. Chapter Seven: The Jewish Something p. Chapter Eight: The Teacher--Finding and Relating to a Spiritual Mentor p. Chapter Nine: The Dialectics of Plot--Narrative Movements of Becoming p. Chapter Ten: Summary p. Bibliography p.

Chapter One: Introduction

How a Nice Jewish Boy or Girl Became a Buddhist Master,

Or, The Phenomenological Beginning to This Study

Several years ago I had a surprising interview with the teacher of one of the

meditation retreats I did at a Buddhist temple in southern Thailand, on the island Ko Pah

Gan. The teacher was Steve Wiessman, a Jewish man in his forties originally from New

Jersey, who had been leading retreats for years at this small wat, temple, with his wife

Rosemary. It was an idyllic setting, high upon a hill dotted with leaning palms,

overlooking the island bays of turquoise waters and tiny islets. Steve and Rosemary ran a

tight ship, with a strict schedule of meditation practice in total silence for ten days under

spartan living conditions: we slept on mats, four to a room, rising before dawn, eating the

simplest of food--the same meal of rice and vegetables was served once a day throughout

the retreat; the washroom was, of course, a hole in the ground, and we washed using a

bucket of cold water. Every couple of days each yogi, retreat participant, would have an

interview of five minutes or so with one of the teachers to check up on his or her

meditation practice.

When I reached Steve’s hut for my interview, he smiled and waved me to the seat next

to him, exhibiting the first sign of emotion since the beginning of the retreat. I had

become used to poker-faced meditation teachers and senior students, and had come to

associate much practice with a decline in emotional affect. At some retreats all contact

among people is discouraged, including eye contact, never mind a casual “good

morning”. Steve and I began to talk, the ice quickly broke, and within a few minutes we

were discussing our Jewish backgrounds and places of origin. The five-minute interview

stretched to over half an hour as Steve told me stories about his childhood in New Jersey,

about his parents and his bar mitzvah (when the rabbi transliterated the Hebrew verses

into English which Steve then recited at synagogue—a meaningless affair for him), his

high school experiences and his spiritual awakenings which led him to search within

Buddhism. Being in Thailand for so long, and having a Jewish mother back home, he

shared with me the joke about the Jewish guru1 and reminisced about some of the smells

and tastes of his Friday nights at the family dinner table.

We were drawn into a narrative discourse where I was asking more of the questions,

Steve was providing most of the content, and together we co-created and rediscovered a

territory of memory which became a storied present moment. During the conversation

Steve touched upon memories long inhibited, and my interest in the narrative process as a

research tool was born. The divisions between teacher and student, interviewee and

interviewer, were at once blurred and maintained, so that our subjectivities mingled

within the exploration of a narrative past--that it was more Steve’s than mine did not

exclude me from the creation of it, for it was the context of my interview with him

(which was originally, in the retreat context, meant to be his interview of me), and our

mutual interest in the narrative, which allowed his stories to emerge.

At times during the interview I was reminded of his status of a very accomplished

meditation teacher, not just by hearing stories of his arduous practice and experience with

famous teachers, but by his current subtle examples as someone further down the path: at

one point in the discussion a mosquito landed on his eyelid, and proceeded to bite him;

Steve did not blink, but simply continued to speak with me throughout the whole landing,

biting, drawing of blood, and departure of the insect. As I witnessed the whole thing in

close detail, and scratched my eye in sympathy, I was reminded of his powers of

concentration as well as ethic not to harm other creatures. It was a small gesture which

left upon me more of a lasting impression than all of his teachings during the retreat. Like

this example, the narrative was delivered in more than verbal ways: his focus and body

language, our rapport and shared interest, our sense of common narrative elements, such

as within the Jewish, and the present shared Buddhist context all combined to expand the

narrative subjectively into a lived experience for both of us. The interview became an

exercise in co-authorship, in which both of us were altered by the uniqueness of the

experience: the emergence of narrative memory as a present and shared moment, equally

revealing the past and present.

I left that interview without a lot of advice for my own meditation practice, but with a

new direction for research which began to consume my interest: the narratives of senior

Jewish Buddhists. I had been meeting a disproportionate number of Jews in all the

Buddhist retreats I had been doing over the years, and had recently become more aware

of their presence as the teachers. The narrative encounter with Steve brought the different

worlds together, which went far beyond the discourse of Jewish-Buddhists, and into the

complexity of memory, identity, and their permutations through time. In hearing parts of

Steve’s life story I had learned not only about much of my own life as I was able to

identify with some of his background and spiritual search, struggles, joys and

disappointments (all embedded in narrative episodes), but I was able to gain insight into

worlds beyond my experience which he had traversed. Above all, I was able to share in

the memory reconstruction of the world of another human being, which meant to see and

learn about the world through those remembered experiences. My horizons were

expanded in the active listening, and through the experience his story became in part my

story, as well as being a story of that is part of the world. Listening deeply, I was hearing

the universal as it was being expressed in the narrative of an individual. No translation of

terms was necessary; the “I” which he spoke expressed simultaneously a subjective and

universal truth. I left our meeting wanting to hear more stories, and to meet more worlds

which intersected with my own.

There can occur in the sharing of narratives, of life stories, a kind of unity which is

both self and other revealing. I call it a narrative meeting, which I was fortunate to

experience during several of my interviews. The meeting, or revealing, can occur during

the interview, or during the course of repeated readings and study of the transcript. An

example of the former, which is the more powerful and insightful, happened during my

interview with Jacqueline Mandel, whose quote I use in different sections of this study as

a summary statement of the power of narrative:

Well I think, I’ll probably talk around your question….Um, well in many ways, your inquiry is

matching my own inquiry. Because like I said, I’m sometimes surprised at the steps that I take as

well, um, and so I’ve had some time to look back, and I too am just understanding my own life.

…(five second pause) so I would say it feels good, because it’s um, ..it’s what I’m doing too.

Does that make sense? You know, your inquiry is also my inquiry.

We find ourselves aligned in an investigation of the meaning of life as mantled in the

particular narrative drapery of an individual life.

Narrative studies in the field of qualitative research have become more acknowledged

and published over the past decade; the phenomenon of the Jewish Buddhist, however, is

something which only certain groups within both the American Buddhist and Jewish

worlds are aware of. There have been no narrative studies performed on the lives of

Jewish Buddhists, and there has been little recognition of the cultural, ethnic, and religion

of origin diversity within the studies of Western and American Buddhism. This study of

the narrative development of Jewish Buddhist teachers will contribute to the academic

study of Buddhism in the West as an in-depth exploration of one such ethnic, cultural and

religious group within Buddhism (being Jewish spans all the definitions), to the academic

study of contemporary Judaism as Jewish Buddhists represent a significant movement

both within the Jewish world and the Buddhist world, and to the non-academic interest of

those compelled by questions of religion, identity, and examples of the pursuit of a

spiritual path which is informed by plurality. The narrative life development of a Jewish

Buddhist teacher becomes a goldmine for insight into issues that touch everyone trying to

live a meaningful life in the contemporary world.

The perpetual popularity of biography and autobiography among general readership

gives evidence to the potential of narrative accounts to expand one’s awareness of oneself

and one’s world. We are all nursed on stories that range from fairy tales to hearing about

our parents’ first meeting, and we are told stories about our childhoods enough to wonder

whether our own memories are more from us or from others’ accounts. We grow up

reading imagined narratives in the form of fiction, the stories of others we place ourselves

in, and watch films that present the peak narrative episodes of a world that resembles our

own enough for us to enter it and be vicariously carried; imaginatively, we co-create

every narrative we encounter through our own identification with it. Every story and

narrative we read, see, or hear becomes partly our own, and as such the world, that

recollected blur of fiction and fact, is made meaningful as it tells us about ourselves.

The construction of the narrative self is self-actualized as well: we communicate who

we are in the world through narratives, as we go throughout the day telling stories to

everyone we meet. This may range from a single line telling a co-worker that you just

went to the bathroom (a very short story with a known plot development), a long co-

narrative about a string of difficult events in your relationship with your spouse, to

imagined narratives of the evening’s plans--to suggest a few of the endless variations.

The point is that our sense of who we are in the world is a narrative one, our identity is a

composition of stories. Self is narrative: I tell a story, and I affirm my sense of existence.

This is important to raise in the introduction, as it is this most fundamental sense of

narrative, that of revealing the essence of the self in living motion, which premises the

whole endeavor. I trace narrative developments within the lives of certain Jewish

Buddhist teachers with the intention of elucidating the complexity of storied lives, as

given instance by their particular examples. Their narratives are proofs of the Jewish-

Buddhist encounter in living text, not as an interfaith dialogue, but as an inner process

which bears fruit in the realities of their circumstances. I rearrange what they say, but it is

the unique journeys of real individuals that do the speaking. Narrative truth is in the

telling of a good (insightful) story, and its faithful representation.

What I set out to do in this study is to faithfully present narrative features of the

subjects so that their significant meanings within the study of narrative and Buddhism in

the West, specifically America, are revealed. First and foremost, it is a study of the

narrative development of a Western Buddhist teacher from a Jewish background, or, how

a nice Jewish boy or girl became a Buddhist master. The fact that Jews comprise of,

according to estimates made by the teachers themselves, my own observations, and the

research of Kamenetz and Linzer, between 30 and 40 percent of the participants in

American Buddhism (with the teachers comprising a similar figure) is a compelling

reason to engage in a study within that area. My main motivation, however, was that

these teacher have fascinating stories to tell and their narrative trains of development will

illuminate a wide range of Jewish, Buddhist, psychological and societal issues. I will

identify and explore, as revealed through their narratives, the central events and

developments which shaped their life processes, including the conflicts and resolutions

which are continually informing their paths. The winding road, with its cracked sidewalk,

weaves through past experiences within Judaism, Buddhism, family members, teachers,

trials and tribulations, and awakenings—the blades of grass that poke up from the cracks.

Their stories do not represent all Jewish Buddhist teachers, but do give living testimony a

phenomenon of plural identity which is unique to our time.

The themes and perspectives taken in the narrative analysis will not cover everything,

but they do give substantial and comprehensive readings to better understand the

subjects’ processes. The different chapters of analysis offer the salient meanings and

narrative approaches that were most apparent to me in my readings, which I pursued in

the context of the preceding chapters on American Buddhism and methodological

considerations. The study in its entirety works together as an organic whole: American

Buddhism is the ground upon which the phenomenon stands, methodology is the sunlight

which allows me to see in different angles, and the narrative themes chosen for analysis

are the branches that together compose the storied plants--in this case, the Jewish

Buddhist teachers. The narratives give back to the others, as in ecology: these teachers

have been very influential on direction of American Buddhism (the plants give seeds and

leaves back to the earth); their narratives inform my use of method, which makes the

method grounded according to Anselm and Strauss (the branches create patterns of shade

and light). This study will illuminate the different relationships that context, method, and

narrative have, both in terms of this particular study and in the light of the world in which

these people live--how they became who they are in the world they inhabit.

I will now briefly overview the following chapters in order to indicate their roles in

the study. Chapter Two, “Setting the Scene” is a short history and description of the

directions Buddhism in America has traveled down from World War Two until the

present. This chapter is a kind of quasi literature review, meaning that in the absence of

academic studies done on my topic, I chose to look at and place my study in the context

of studies of American Buddhism, and understand my topic as a phenomenon within that

area. The chapter examines in detail the schools and trends of American Buddhism that

the research subjects both represent and have contributed to, as well as looking at the

problems of defining a Buddhist. Chapter Three, “Methodology”, outlines both the

theoretical backgrounds and practical applications of the methods I used, namely

grounded and narrative approaches, as well as phenomenology, hermeneutics, and post-

modernism. Chapter Four, the last of the introductory chapters, “Personal Introductions

of Research Subjects” gives brief introductions to the nine subjects whom I interviewed,

relating their personal histories, present circumstances, and relationships to me.

Chapter Five, “The Epiphanies of a Spiritual Life” examines the narrative theme of

major turning point events, those episodes which were life-changing and continued to

exert a defining influence throughout. Epiphanies represent breaking points in the

narrative, allowing for a new development to emerge. Appreciating the power of

epiphany in the lives of these people is essential to understanding their narrative

developments into Jewish Buddhist teachers. Chapter Six, “Suffering as the Path”, takes

on a Buddhist theme as it is manifested in the life development of the subjects. For each

one the experience of suffering in various forms, which will be defined and explored, was

instrumental in the choices they made in their spiritual life directions. Chapter Seven,

“The Jewish Something”, examines the original interest of this study, the role of Judaism

in the lives of these Buddhist teachers, both past and present. Chapter Eight, “The

Teacher: Finding and Relating to a Spiritual Mentor”, takes up another Buddhist-oriented

theme, that of the very defining role of the teacher, or guru, in the spiritual practice and

directions of the subjects. Despite being teachers themselves with formidable influence

upon their students, the subjects spoke very little about their own teaching, and instead

focused to a considerable amount on the centrality of their teachers. The relationship to

the teacher was, consequently, of considerable narrative importance. Chapter Nine, “The

Dialectics of Plot--Narrative Movements of Becoming (a Jewish Buddhist Teacher)”, is

the final analysis chapter, and departs from a thematic view to a cross-narrative view of

plot developments within a whole story. The technique I used for examining plot lines is

the Hegelian dialectic, which proved to be versatile enough for capturing the complexity

of the constant narrative plot development throughout a lifetime. Chapter Ten,

“Conclusion” reviews the study with a look at further narrative research directions.

The Jewish Buddhist teacher is a narrative convention, a contrived label, which I

employ hesitantly for the sake of this study. In truth, such a composite identity is an

artificial designation that doesn’t really apply: while the subjects may have referred to

themselves at various times throughout their narratives as Jewish, Buddhist, and teachers,

the organizing of their storied material into categories, such as the identity named above,

is fully my fault. Their narrative rivers, from which they draw up remembered episodes,

resist damming at any given place for the convenience of my research; their uninterrupted

waters of memory and reflection flow relentlessly on. Each reading discovers a new rapid

and sparkle, which, as indicated above, reveal as much about the reader’s life as about the

narrator’s. In the end, perhaps, the narrative study of the lives of Jewish Buddhist

teachers has much more of a Buddhist influence than a Jewish, which results in the

discovery of the constantly shifting storied self as ephemeral and conventionally non-

existent, as one subject, Thubten Chodron, indicated in the course of our interview:

they’re all just existing in our minds. And they’re not real (laugh). Cause the past is no longer

here, so it’s just the thoughts in our mind that are creating the, you know, these stories that we

then build identities about. Cause none of it’s there. (laugh) and what I find when looking inside

myself, there’s so many of the different identities. It’s not just Jewish and American and

Buddhist…But then, am an American Buddhist? Well, I’m not that either. So you look, and you

know, all these, like you were saying, different layers of identity, which ones kind of come

up…And then watching, how the different, how you learn in one way and how it affects your

behavior in another way.

The narratives of Jewish Buddhist teachers may not reveal so much specifically about

Judaism, Buddhism, teaching or America, but within all of those contexts, and others, we

can read and “watch” how the different narrative-based identities “affects your

behavior”--shape the choices and directions that the person has taken throughout her life.

Endnotes: 1 A middle-aged Jewish woman from Brooklyn decides to travel to India, telling her friends that she needs to see a certain guru. They attribute her fancy to a mid-life crisis. Upon arriving she gets directions to a famous guru who lives in seclusion on a remote mountain. She travels days by train, bus and rickshaw to get there, finally walking the mountain pass herself to reach this guru’s retreat hut. The guru’s attendant receives the woman, and asks what she wants. “I want to see the guru.” The attendant refuses, “the guru is deep in meditation and cannot be disturbed.” She is unrelenting, “I have an important question for him.” Seeing her resolve, the attendant disappears behind the curtains of the hut, and then calls for her to enter. She enters and finds the guru sitting serenely on a cushion in full lotus, thin and browned in a loincloth with a long beard and matted hair. He stares at her in stern silence. Placing a hand on her hip, she says to him, “Marvin, come home!”

Chapter Two:

Setting the Scene--An Overview of Buddhism in America,

This Half Century’s Developments

Table of Contents:

Introduction p.

The Three Elite Buddhisms p.

The spiritual elite p.

Modernist p.

Demographics p.

Zen: Buddhist mainstream p.

The Tibetan experience p.

Vipassana, the secular option p.

The Main Characteristics of Elite Buddhism in America p.

Practice oriented p.

Essentialist p.

Democratic p.

Gender equality p.

Engaged p.

Experimental p.

Ecumenical p.

Psychological p.

Virtual Buddhism p.

The Academic Buddhist Community p.

Who Is a Buddhist? p.

Notes p.

1

Preface: The Eagle has Landed

When the iron bird flies, and horses run on wheels

The Tibetan people will be scattered like ands across the World

And Dharma will come to the land of the Red Man.

Nyingma prophecy attributed to Padmasambava1

Reading like verses from Lamentations, bemoaning the Jew’s tragic fate of exile and

destruction as their recurring theme, this Tibetan Buddhist prophecy takes a surprise turn

towards uncharted waters: the Dharma is not lost, but relocated. American Buddhists have

been quick to use this quote as an affirmation of their present time and place, as indicated

by the recent and ongoing genocide of the Tibetan people and their scattering which has

been accompanied by the mushrooming of Dharma centers in the United States--Tibetan

and all other sects of Buddhism. The irony is not lost to many that in this reading the Red

Man refers to the Native Peoples of America, who themselves suffered an even worse fate

than the Tibetans, having lost their lives, land, and culture without general recognition or

apology; the Tibetans, for their part, are salvaging the later, with the help of being an

internationally celebrated cause. This chapter will outline the context of this study, of

Buddhism in America and it’s recent developments, upon which further and more detailed

analysis of the Jewish Buddhist leaders’ stories and influences rest.

This being a qualitative study, the attempt is not to draw an objective picture of what’s

going on out there, but rather of trying to understand the dynamics of change Buddhism in

America undergoes as it is integrated into certain people’s lives. As such, statistical

information about the number of practice centers, their affiliations, their locations, and

their participants, will be kept to a thumb sketch minimum. My primary intentions in this

chapter are first, to outline the major developments over the past half century in the three

most popular schools of Buddhism for non-Asians, namely Japanese Zen, Tibetan, and

2

Vipassana; second, to discuss the salient features of American Buddhism which are drawn

from their articlulation in the works of Charles S. Prebish, Kenneth K. Tanaka, and Lama

Surya Das’ address to the First Buddhism in America Conference in January, 1997. Those

combined features are: practice oriented; essentialist; democratic/egalitarian; gender equal;

engaged/socially active; experimental; ecumenical; and psychological. Again, this will not

be a discussion of American Buddhism as having those qualities per se, but of Buddhism in

America for certain groups being perceived of as having those qualities. Third, I will

examine the question of who is a Buddhist, which is a problematic definition in the very

diverse and fluctuating American scene, though unavoidable for the purposes of

identifying subjects for a study.

There are two other very prominent features on the American Buddhist scene, which,

though not included in the above list, have been documented by scholars as recent

significant phenomena, and are broad factors which interpenetrate all the others. First, the

appearance of virtual Buddhism, swept into prominence with the internet explosion, has

effected the creation of, in Gary Ray’s term, a cybersangha.2 Second, the development of

an academic Buddhist community, though easily viewed as an entity unto itself (being

behind the gates of the academe), has a significant influence on the relationship of

Buddhism to both potential practitioners (students) and the way Buddhist communities

reflexively view themselves (through publications).

The final section of this chapter, as mentioned, will deal with the complicated question

who is a Buddhist, which will prepare the ground for the following discussions on the

Jewish Buddhist leader’s identity dynamics. From the ordained monk and nun to Thomas

A. Tweed’s nightstand Buddhists (those who keep a book on Buddhism on their night

3

table)3--and all that’s in between--the discussion on identity, of multi-faceted identities,

including multi-religious, highlights the predicament that, due to its entrenched

multiculturalism, is unique to America more than any other place. Self-affirmed identity

and other-affirmed identity (identity which is ascribed by others, through research,

surveys, academic categories, censes, or even family, friends and co-religionists) are

themselves in continual flux, which resonates with the full spectrum of Buddhism in

America as being in a state of constant and rapid change. Extending this further, Bauman

and Prebish note that the label of Western Buddhism is fraught with inaccuracies, as such a

collective label does not admit of the particular features and developments of Buddhism in

Canada, England, France, Brazil, South Africa, Israel, and the U.S. among others.4 This

categorical sweep is equally erroneous when considering Buddhism in the United States,

despite some efforts to condense the practices and philosophies into single amalgamations

(eg, Robert Thurman’s recent works, Surya Das’s conference address and writings, or the

ideas expressed in the recent book One Dharma by renown vipassana teacher Joseph

Goldstein). In one of the first books on American Buddhism, published nearly thirty years

ago, Emma Layman writes, “Attempting to describe the nature of Buddhism in America is

something like trying to answer the question, ‘What is the nature of America?’”5 More

recently, Richard Seager writes that this inability to define American Buddhism is more of

a question of time, stating that “there are so many forms of Buddhism and so many

different roads to Americanization that it is too early to announce the emergence of a

distinct form that can said to be typically American”6. While this implies that such a form

is indeed in the making, the ability and more importantly, the desirability, to make such a

definition is an open question.

4

The choice that many people in America are making to become involved with

Buddhism has a complex set of reasons and a lengthy development that has been greatly

facilitated by the accessibility the information age has provided to teachers and their

teachings. Accessibility notwithstanding, American Buddhism, or preferably, Buddhism in

America, is in its childhood, and it may be several hundred years, as the Jewish Buddhist

scholar and practitioner Nathan Katz of the Florida International University commented to

me7, before the contours of the landscape are able to be defined. Put another way by the

Canadian-born Thai monk Ajahn Tiradhammo, Buddhism in the West needs to “’grow up’

into a unique, Asian-based, Western…tradition, for which there was no previous

precedent.“8 It is for this reason that I titled this preface, The Eagle has Landed, playing on

the initial Tibetan quote while echoing the first words spoken by the crew of the Apollo 11

upon touching down on the moon, that summer of ’69 (the summer, incidentally, I was

born). At times the mosaic of Buddhisms in America may seem to have completely left the

ground they were originally imported from, leaving all precedents behind, but then

suddenly appears the exhilarating view, as from that moonscape, when one spots the

earthrise that gives at once a stunningly new and deeply familiar perspective.

The Three Elite Modernist Buddhisms: Zen, Tibetan, and Vipassana

To introduce the three major traditions that are being practiced by non-Asian

Americans, I wish to first broadly define two characteristics, that of their being the choice

of a new elite, and that the motivations for much of the attraction to Buddhism in America

are distinctly modern.

5

The Spiritual Elite

In September 1994 the two most prominent Buddhist meditation centers in the West

Coast, Spirit Rock, the vipassana meditation center located in the Marin county just north

of San Francisco, and the San Francisco Zen Center, held the first American Buddhist

Teacher’s Meeting. Those who attended the meeting were for the most part American born

meditation teachers from exclusively the Japanese Zen, Tibetan, and vipassana traditions.

The elitism implied by the presence of only those representatives—there are American

teachers in the Vietnamese, Korean Zen, Chinese, Sokka Gakkai, and Sri Lankan

traditions, among others-- highlights what is the common denominator among convert

American Buddhist practitioners, as pointed out by Gil Fronsdal: not only are most of them

involved in one of those three traditions, but that American Zen students will have more in

common with their vipassana or Tibetan counterparts, and vice versa, than they will with

Japanese American congregation in the local Zen temple of Japantown.9

While comparative cases require much more depth than I intend to develop here, the

similarities between the reception and adaptation of Buddhism in China and that of

America, though removed by at least 17 long centuries, has been pointed out by Prebish

and Nattier among other scholars.10 I raise it here to emphasize the existence of an elite

class in both societies that was primarily involved in the new tradition, according to its own

predilections. Jan Nattier indicates the similarity in several areas: Buddhism was first

brought to China by immigrants, merchants, and wandering gurus, which attained the

initial status of cultural exotica; those who became interested and involved were not the

royalty but the aristocracy, creating a subculture for the privileged who focused on the

doctrine of emptiness; monasticism was shunned; and it was popularized at a time of crisis

6

and questioning of national legitimacy during the fall of the Han dynasty in 220CE. Those

factors, she explains, describe well the current and recent American Buddhist scene, which

is drawn from a leisure class that has the time and money to invest in a new spirituality

(books, meditation cushions, cassettes, retreats, and trips across the expansive country to

meet teachers all cost more than most working Americans can afford), it is a largely lay

movement focused on meditation, and became dramatically more popular during

America’s own crisis of legitimacy: the Vietnam War.11 Though the examples may

resonate in form, and an elite class of yuppie Buddhists does dominate the scene, the

reasons most non-Asian American Buddhist practitioners have for associating with one of

the main three meditation-based movements are very American and uniquely modern.

Modernist

While written back in the early 70’s when the popularization of Buddhism in America

was still a novelty, Emma Layman charts several astute reasons for Americans (at that

time, however, a younger generation) seeking out Buddhism. Among them are the

intellectual appeal of a rational philosophy of life, the appeal of a rational cure for a broken

world, the do-it-yourself appeal, and a desire for a richer, fuller life.12 In my own

discussions with Western practitioners of various ages, the most frequently mentioned

reason for their initial involvement with Buddhism was that it just made sense. It was a

path that was rational and did not contradict with what they experienced in the world; there

was something in it that they knew immediately would help them. An example of this

sentiment can be drawn from my interview with vipassana teacher James Baraz, describing

his first exposure to Buddhism with his teacher Joseph Goldstein:

I sat down, after ten minutes, thinking, oh, I don‘t know, this guy looks like he‘s from New York,

7

looks just like me, nothing regal and impressive, that was for about ten minutes, and then I just

heard what he was saying and where he was coming from, and I said, this guy knows something

that I don‘t know, but I want to find out what it is. And ah, that was it.

Or his teaching colleague Seth Castlemans’ first encounter:

Sat for 45 minutes, Jack (Kornfield) gave a talk, and within ten minutes of his talk I knew I was

home. It was like, everything he said, you know, I knew it all before. You know, sort of like when

you hear the Dharma, you know like it’s nothing new. He didn’t say anything I hadn’t figured out

on some level before.

The Dharma is understood immediately on some level, which involves the rational, and is

coming from teachers who are not completely “other”, i.e. Asian, but can be related to as

peers of a certain Western rational outlook.

I was also often quoted by interview subjects the Buddha’s injunction to his followers

not to accept anything by faith alone, but to verify it with one’s own experience. Indeed, at

every retreat I have done, which have been within the Zen, Tibetan, or vipassana

frameworks, the same appeal to rationality was made. This places much of American

Buddhism, as Martin Bauman interestingly points out, as a modernist phenomenon that

by-passes post-modernist deconstructions and theories. According to Bauman, despite the

disintegration of many of modernism’s icons and ideals, Buddhism in the West is still

interpreted according to modernist ideas of the preeminence of the rational and scientific,

of pragmatism and optimistism, and as a socially engaged way to improve both the self and

society.13 A partial exception to this may be found in the popularity of Tibetan Buddhism,

which emphasizes the esoteric and somewhat non-rational. That tradition’s flowering in

America, to a great extent over the past decade, has partly to do with an attraction to the

exotic as well as the high visibility and press the Tibetan cause, and particularly the Dalai

8

Lama subsequent to his receiving of the Nobel Prize, have been given. The American

Tibetan Buddhists I encountered, though, were still among the norm to declare the

rationality of the Buddhist path, albeit this was not their primary explanation.

At this point I’d like to quote at length one of my interviewees, Seth Castleman, the

vipassana teacher at Spirit Rock quoted above, who summarized why Americans like

himself are drawn to Buddhism as it is found, or “packaged” in his words, by the vipassana,

Zen, and Tibetan movements:

…why do people go to Buddhism, ahhm, to some extent in terms of our generation, we went to

Buddhism because this is what was brought over, and I sort of fell into Buddhism. I was looking for

meditation and spirituality, I wasn’t looking for Buddhism, I was actually looking for Taoism, but

this is what had been brought over, and this is what had been adapted for us…and I think responds

to what people are looking for. And it’s not just why Jews go to it, it’s why Christians go to it as

well. This is the one for the contemplatively minded, in terms of meeting people, in terms of their

own personal suffering, psychologically, umm, that works in the stress reduction level, that works

on the existential angst level, that works on the neurosis level, that works on the relationship level,

that works on the societal suffering level, and that works on the deep spiritual why are we all here,

I want to end suffering in the world level. And that they, and that they packaged it in that way, the

vipassana world, but also the Zen world and the Tibetan world.

Here can be discerned the modernist aspiration to improve the self and the world, on

both psychological and societal planes. Buddhism is seen as a kind of spiritual science

which holds the cure-all, and has been presented to Americans in such broad terms--its

packaging finds a market for all personal needs. As such a scientific, rational and global

approach to Buddhism, Bauman’s modernist Buddhism actually corresponds to the

traditional and very pre-modern conception of the Buddha as the supreme doctor, and the

Dharma, or his teachings, as the medicine. Just as we in the contemporary West often view

our bodies as rational mechanisms that, upon failure such as sickness, can be repaired by

9

the scientific medical establishment, so too do many American Buddhist practitioners

carry such a faith in the Buddha Dharma, especially as presented by the Zen, Tibetan, and

vipassana standard bearers, as the quasi-scientific cure for spiritual, psychological, social,

and even physical breakdowns. When giving meditation counseling to students during

retreats, known as interviews, some of the teachers I spoke with find themselves assuming

the roles of marriage counselor, therapist, educator, dietician, and even business

consultant. The recent studies by researchers at the University of Wisconsin revealing the

positive brain chemistry changes that intensive meditation creates, which then remains

effective even after the meditation session, cements this attitude of Buddhism as the

spiritual science for self-improvement. Not ironically, it was the Dalai Lama who first

requested such a study be done by the research team, which is the product of his long time

collaboration with Western scientists.

The rational, modernist argument is persuasive for a great number of practitioners, but

is discarded just as strongly by others. As one long time meditator expressed to me in

response to the Wisconsin research findings (which have been widely publicized over the

internet and in major news syndicates such as The New York Times, Herald Tribune and

Time Magazine), he doesn’t need these findings to meditate, he has experienced the

positive changes, and he believes in it. In a sense this is a version of the rational argument,

which is based on empirical evidence, only here the evidence is drawn from subjective

experience. For many practitioners, the rational is not necessarily rejected, their

commitment to Buddhist practice just is not dependent upon it. Robert Bella represents a

rejection of the modernist argument, positing Buddhism’s attraction as that of being the

alternative to the modern enterprise: the sangha instead of rugged individualism, nature

10

astheticized instead of exploited, and a guru/teacher-student relationship instead of

impersonal management.14 It is safe to say that the reasons for a contemporary American’s

involvement and attraction to Buddhism would constitute a prism including many modern

and post-modern influences. At the same time that meditation is perceived of as rationally

helping the individual in modern ways, it requires a certain faith to become involved in the

practice.

Demographics

Before I present broad overviews of the three dominant American Buddhist

traditions—Zen, Tibetan, and vipassana--some rough demographics will help to bring the

phenomenon into perspective. The few statistics that are available on American Buddhism

vary wildly, ranging from Robert Thurman’s guess to ABC Nightly News with Peter

Jennings in 1994 that there were five to six million Buddhists15, Martin Bauman’s 1997

suggestion that there are three to four million consisting or 800,000 converts and the rest

immigrants from Buddhist countries16, Time Magazine’s estimation the same year that

there are 100,000 Buddhist converts17, to the most recent of Britannica Book of the Year

for 2000 estimate of 2,450,000 Buddhists in America all told. By the time of this writing,

January 2004, there are certainly many more than any of the previous estimates made out. I

paraphrase Seager in that there are enough to take note of, and that they are doing

interesting things.

James Coleman’s 1999 survey of six well known centers, two each of the Zen, Vajryana

(Tibetan) and vipassana traditions, centers that are known for intensive meditation

practice, came up with the findings that 57% of the participants were women, 43% were

11

men, and the average age range was from late 30’s to mid 50’s. The majority (70%) had an

income of more than $30,000, with 20% having an income over $90,000. More than half of

all the respondents had graduate degrees. Coleman concludes that such Buddhists must

constitute the highest educated religious group in the United States.18 Gil Fronsdal’s

assessment of certain vipassana retreats came up with similar results, but with the results

even more telling of the trend: 80% were over the age of 40, 40% were over 50, the vast

majority are college educated Caucasians, with 65% female and 35% male.19 These trends

are rather clear, and establishe the designation of the American non-Asian Buddhist as

elite: well-educated, white, well-earning. Eileen Barker, writing about new religious

movements in the West, notes a similar trend, that “those who have joined the

better-known of the current wave of NRMs in the West have been disproportionately white

and from the better-educated middle classes.”20 Buddhism in America, according to her

definition of being a movement visible in its present form since WWII, qualifies as a new

religious movement. The only factor that bucks these characteristics is the predominance

of women participators--the other factors alone would have had American Buddhism fit

nicely into the patriarchal establishment’s hobby shop. The significant, even predominant

participation of women in Buddhism in the United States could be seen as having a greater

influence on its development than any other single factor--this will be taken up shortly in

the discussion of gender.

My own observations at retreat centers concur with these findings, and I wondered

whether the graying of American Buddhism would result in its becoming a grandparent’s

pastime. Richard Seager reports that he saw advertisements in Colorado (Boulder is called

by some “Buddhism Central”) for buying early into Buddhist-oriented retirement

12

communities. 21 Most centers, especially the vipassana, propagate the virtue of dana,

giving, encouraged by the fact that their teachers subsist purely on the donation

system--they don’t have formal salaries. Despite this, which alone would make it more

accessible to the younger and the unemployed, the average retreat, be it vipassana, Zen or

Tibetan, costs around $50-$80 a day. The retreats are nonetheless full with waiting lists,

and some are in such demand that the spaces are allotted by a lottery system. David L.

McMahan notes that having money and leisure time in the West has become the surrogate

for the financial support of the community that monastics received in Asia.22 Centers must

fund themselves, and it is by and large the participants that foot the bill through the

exorbitant retreat fees.

The graying of the sangha, or practice community, lay and ordained, most noticeable

among the vipassana groups, and is a prominent feature among the other schools. One

reason for the higher age among vipassana practitioners may be the nature of the programs:

vipassana tends to encourage longer retreats, of a week to ten days or more, translating into

higher cost and need of leisure time (read: self-employed or retired), while Tibetan

programs have more evening, day long, and weekend options. Fronsdal asks whether the

aging population of the practitioners indicates that interest in Buddhism is primarily a

phenomenon of the Baby Boomer generation, now averaging mid-fifties, and will fade as

that generation disappears.23 More compelling is his suggestion that the greater popularity

among this age group as opposed to other, particularly the younger generations, stems from

the practice being more suitable to someone who has matured through 20 or 30 years of

work and family. This idea corresponds with the traditional Indian notion of different

stages of life, from student, to householder, to forest-seeker, to renunciant. The American

13

in her mid-50’s, with kid entering college, contemplating early retirement or career change,

possibly not long after divorce, is ripe for entering a new stage: the spirituality of the

forest-seeker who leaves her known environment seeking wisdom.

It is with reservation that this model, or Fronsdal’s ideas, should be applied to the elite

American Buddhist practitioners, as the question can easily be asked why a significant

portion of this same generation thirty years ago, at that much of a younger age, was so

turned on to alternative spirituality, without the alleged necessary maturing through life

experience? Though we can see the societies and times as radically different in many ways,

with the late 60’s and early 70’s as the great experiment in consciousness raising, while the

early 21st century’s global village has brought with it a plethora of social, economic,

environmental and existential insecurities, the spiritual thirst for self-transcendence and

meaning should be a common factor among the youth who are inclined by nature to push

boundaries. I offer the suggestion that, with so many of the elite Buddhists coming from

Jewish backgrounds, just as they were not, on the whole, transmitted a meaningful Judaism

that they could accept and continue, and had not been given the example of effective

transmission of a spiritual path in the family, so too are they failing in transmitting

Buddhism to the next generation as a meaningful spiritual choice. This reason of course

applies equally to the Catholic and Protestant Buddhists who also were not transmitted the

depths of their traditions, and sought without. The question is open as to what these new

Buddhists’ children, without their parents’ native Judaism or Christianity, or the successful

transmission of their parent’s adopted Buddhism, will turn to for the construction of

spiritual meaning and morals.

14

Zen: Buddhist Mainstream

Zen is and has been the most well known form of Buddhism in America, carrying such

influence that Seager calls it “the American Buddhist mainstream.“24 Zen has become part

of the American vernacular, with it being used to describe pieces of furniture and art,

restaurants, clothing, and inspiring a whole industry of pop books beginning their titles

with “Zen and the Art of…“. Japanese Zen Buddhism was the first form to be popularized

in America, and its boom took off in the 1950’s--before this time Buddhism had more or

less been the interest of a small number of occultists, theosophists, and bohemians. The

new era was heralded with the arrival of D.T. Suzuki in 1950, a lay student of Soyen

Shaku, the Soto priest who represented Japanese Buddhism at the 1893 World Parliament

of Religions in Boston. For six years Suzuki lectured at Columbia, where his teaching and

books became known to many significant religious, literary, cultural and academic figures

in New York at the time. Some of the important figures he had direct influence on included

John Cage, Eric Fromm, Aldous Huxley, C.G. Jung, Thomas Merton, Arnold Toynbee,

Gary Snyder, and Jack Kerouac. Suzuki presented Zen to his American audience striped of

ritual, and he barely mentions meditation, zazen, in his prolific writings. Zen became

culturally neutral, aimed primarily at the realization of emptiness and enlightenment.

The Zen of that time was also taken as a complimentary challenge to the two trends that

were the current trademarks among the intellectual class: existentialism and

psychoanalysis. The first precipitated the post-modern disenchantment with the West’s

culture and religious life, and the Zen being presented at the time offered a pursuit of

absolute truth through direct experience unmediated by cultural forms: Zen was a kind of

meta-Modernism. The enthusiastic reception of Zen in the fifties was, David McMahan

15

argues, a response to the awareness of the widening cracks in the modernist project.25 It

was a cure to the meaninglessness that was the bane of the existentialist. For

psychoanalysis of that period, however, the challenge Zen presented was that of

overcoming the Freudian division of the conscious and unconscious completely, so that

one could realize a transpersonal oneness with the world. Zen and psychoanalysis were

seen in this view as joining forces in healing the existentialist’s alienation without

necessarily condemning modernity. Their compatibility was first outlined in the

groundbreaking book Zen Buddhism and Psychoanalysis, by Erich Fromm, Richard De

Martino, and D.T. Suzuki.26

On the other side of the continent, at the same time that Suzuki was planting his seeds, a

group of poets known as the Beats, who consisted primarily of Allen Ginsberg, Jack

Kerouac, Gary Snider, and Phillip Whalen, would do for Zen what the Beatles ten years

later did for long hair: made it trendy, so that anyone could practice it whether they

ascribed to the values it represented or not. For them, Buddhism was mostly a literary

affair, around which they revolved their writings, like Kerouac’s seminal The Dharma

Bums published in 1958. By the use of Zen in their writings the Beats both popularized and

helped to Americanize Buddhism, presenting the image of a free-flowing, anything goes

spirituality which first, as Seager remarks, “forged a link between the pursuit of

enlightenment and the use of drugs”27 This connection would become much more

pronounced in the counterculture of the sixties, and persists in varying degrees until the

present day (a 1997 poll taken by the popular Buddhist monthly Tricycle found that 83%

of the over 1700 polled had taken psychedelics, over 40% first became interested in

Buddhism through the use of LSD or mescaline, and 51% saw no conflict between

16

Buddhism and taking drugs.28).

Opposing this presentation of Zen at the time was the third main influence of that era,

Allan Watts, who wrote in the summer of 1958 his essay “Beat Zen, Square Zen, and Zen”

which dismissed the Beat Buddhists as too self-conscious and subjective. Simultaneously,

his writing took aim at the hardliners, the so-called Square zennists, who ran off to Japan to

become certified in enlightenment experiences. Watts’ books on Buddhism and spirituality

became widely read, and are still very popular, but of the three main influences in the

awakening of Zen and Buddhism in America--D.T. Suzuki, The Beats, Alan Watts--it is

the Beat poets and that whole generation’s culture that have become idealized as the true

experimenters and epitomes of this new path. Vipassana teacher and radio announcer, Wes

Nisker, expresses this sentiment to the audience of the 1997 Buddhism in America

conference:

So, as a Western Buddhist, I like to call on our ancestors, who are the Beatniks. Myself and many of

my contemporaries who started practicing Buddhism in the 1960’s and 1970’s, really drew on the

Beatnik poets and artists who first started talking about the Dharma…They are the ones who really

got me interested, who shored me that there was a way, outside of our Western tradition, to

experience life…The Beatniks were often misunderstood, and still are, as having been like juvenile

delinquents, but they were really on a spiritual quest…they were after the ultimate high.29

I have dealt with the first boom of Zen at some length because it has become construed

as the ground making stage of Buddhism in America, setting many of the trends and

attitudes in the decades to follow. At the end of that decade the next stage of Zen in

America began with the arrival of Shunryu Suzuki Roshi, who landed in San Francisco in

1959 to officiate at the local Soto temple. Shortly thereafter a few Americans began to join

his morning meditation sessions and to seek out instruction, and the momentum around this

special teacher picked up so that by 1961 the San Francisco Zen Center was founded,

17

across the street from the original temple. By 1969 it had expanded enough to purchase its

present premises on Page St., the old large red-brick former Jewish women’s residential

club. The City Center, as it is known, houses a temple, meditation center and hall,

bookstore, as well as a residence for up to 70 and a rock garden courtyard in the middle.

This center has remained the most influential of Zen in America, with its changes in

practice and policy, and crises, making waves in every direction--Zen, vipassana or

Tibetan Buddhist.

In 1967 Suzuki roshi’s dream of a monastery was realized, with the Tassajara Springs

being established as the first Buddhist monastery in America. The high profile of Zen at the

time was evident by the concerted efforts at fundraising that went into acquiring the

property: a rock concert, or “Zenefit“, featuring The Grateful Dead and Jefferson Airplane

helped pay off the mortgage. Suzuki roshi died unexpectedly in 1971, leaving the centers

under the reign of his one dharma heir, Richard Baker, a controversial figure whose

autocratic style and abuses of power eventually resulted in his removal and the institution

of a much more democratic structure within the organization.

Suzuki roshi’s influence consisted of his emphasis on meditation, which was relatively

absent in the presentation of Buddhism before his time. Rick Fields makes the point: “D.T.

Suzuki, decades earlier, had made satori (enlightenment) and Zen synonymous; Shunryu

Suzuki now did something similar with “practice”, an English word that he now gave a

Buddhist spin.”30 Suzuki roshi taught zazen, or meditation, without much verbal

instruction, but with his tremendous example, and it was his personal example of humility

and wisdom that inspired his many students. Sojon Mel Weitsman, abbot of the Berkeley

Zen Center, and former abbot of the S.F.Z.C., and a very close disciple and dharma heir of

18

Suzuki roshi, explains:

If you talk to any of his students, every one of them, is just, you know, ah, all agree on that kind of

power he had, that he never exerted. He had this power of a very great example, very subtle, and ah,

you just watched the way he moved, which wasn’t anything special, very subtle, very, you know,

ah, I don’t know what it was, I can’t describe it, indescribable.

Buddhism was leaving the previous stage of either hip irreverence or the intellectual

modern salve, and was beginning to be taken as a serious practice.

The two other influential teachers to arrive from Japan were Maezumi roshi and his

teacher Yasutani roshi. The former came to Los Angeles in 1956, and began a Zen center

where, by the time his teacher came to visit in 1962, Maezumi was holding weekly zazen

meetings for his American students. Yasutani ran very demanding and intensive

meditation retreats, called sesshin, pushing his students to attain at least one kensho,

enlightenment experience, before the retreat had ended. Practice was becoming the

trademark of Zen, and it was all about meditation. His two main American disciples,

Phillip Kapleau and Robert Aitken both trained with him in Japan, and began their own

centers which have had tremendous influence on the Americanization of Zen. Both of their

centers combine the Soto and Rinzai traditions of Zen, which in Japan are kept separate and

traditionally oppositional. Kapleau wrote the seminal The Three Pillars of Zen, the first

book written from within the Zen tradition by a Westerner, based on Yasutani’s interviews

with Western students during retreats in his Japan monastery.31 The book became a widely

read, and Kapleau returned to the States, toured to promote it and lecture on Zen, and

settled down in Rochester, N.Y., where he opened a center in 1966. As an American in

America, despite running a Japanese Zen meditation center, Kapleau began the process of

change which adapted the practice to its new environment. He introduced chanting in

19

English, more Western-style dress, the giving of Western Buddhist names for people who

took precepts, and more culturally acceptable ceremonies and rituals. Things came to a

head with his teacher Yasutani roshi over the chanting of the Heart Sutra, the terse scripture

chanted daily in all Zen monasteries, in English, which the later was staunchly against.

Kapleau argued that the Buddhist cultures in China, Korea and Tibet had all translated it

into their vernacular for chanting from the Sanskrit, and now it simply was what was

needed for greater accessibility in America. He made his changes, but it cost him his

relationship with Yasutani roshi, as the two never spoke afterwards.

Maezumi roshi’s Zen Center of L.A. never reached the success or visibility that the San

Francisco centers did, but his organization of affiliate centers, the White Plum Sangha, has

branches across the States and internationally. His two main disciples, John Daido Loori

and Bernard Tetsugen Glassman went on to establish in the 1980’s their own centers which

represented the very divergent values that American Zen, and American Buddhism in

general, have been developing. Loori established the Zen Mountain Monastery in upstate

New York which provides intense training for both lay and monastic communities. His

approach is conservative, seeking to preserve the Asian influences while responding to

American innovation; his model remains the monastic life, which is adapted to Americans,

such as his concept of the open monastery where laypeople can join for practice sessions at

will. Glassman represents something of the other side, of plunging head first into the social

needs of American communities, with his creation in New York of a homeless residence, a

bakery and construction company to train the unemployed, and his establishment of a

peace activist organization which produced interfaith and peace building programs around

the world. Among his more well-known activities are the street retreats where the

20

participants experience homelessness, and the interfaith Auschwitz retreats.

The San Francisco Zen Center’s Green Gulch farm community, its grocery and bakery,

shop for their home-made clothing and zafus, foray into the trendy restaurant business, and

involvement in neighborhood organizations also exhibits this social consciousness that has

pervaded much of Zen around the country. Apart from commercial ventures, the Center

runs a hospice; there is a corollary movement among Zen centers towards prison programs

where inmates are given meditation instruction. All this activity has not necessarily been at

the detriment of serious zazen practice, but rather reflects the original direction Suzuki

roshi extrapolated: “In the East the main effort we make to solve problems is to work inside

ourselves. But here in the West we try to solve problems actively, by action outside of

ourselves. The real way to help others should be a combination of the so-called Eastern and

Western ways.”32 This real way has become known in the Zen world as “everyday Zen”, a

well known saying made famous by the teacher Joko Beck, referring to a state of

mindfulness and care maintained throughout ordinary life. The tables have been turned

almost completely on D.T. Suzuki, with Helen Twerkov, editor of Trycycle magazine,

writing that “Enlightenment--oddly enough--has become all but a dirty word among

American Zennists.”33

The Tibetan Experience

In a conversation with Prof. Victor Hori, a Zen priest and head of Buddhist studies at

McGill university, he exclaimed that the Zen fad is over--now Tibetan Buddhism is in!

Although it was said somewhat facetiously, like the title of this subchapter, the very high

publicity Tibetan Buddhism and its leaders have received in the U.S. has sparked an

21

interest that can seem to reflect a “flavor of the month” than real commitment. It is possible

to contend that what the Beat poets did for Zen in the fifties, political activists and movie

stars did for Tibetan Buddhism in the nineties.34 The Dalai Lama is a household name,

meets with every president, and his books are best sellers among non-Buddhists who have

no idea where Tibet is. On the academic front there has been the establishment and

recognition of Tibetan Studies programs in various respected universities across the

country, which not only are responsible for disseminating awareness and teachings about

Tibetan Buddhism, but their scholars have been instrumental in translating and preserving

some of the fundamental Tibetan texts that are in danger of being lost to the Chinese

destruction. Finally, and of concern here, are the many practice centers that form a

patchwork collage of Tibetan Buddhism, which as a tradition remains the most diverse and

decentralized.

Though the attraction of Tibetan Buddhism with the arrival of several lamas began in

earnest in the early 1970’s, the first major teacher, Geshe Wangyal of the Gelugpa school,

arrived in 1955 and taught at Columbia. His students included Jerffery Hopkins, the

renown Tibetan scholar and translator, and Robert Thurman, who became America’s first

ordained Tibetan Buddhist monk, who now teaches at Columbia like his first master; after

Richard Gere, Thurman is the most well-known and outspoken Buddhist figure. It was this

school of Tibetan Buddhism, the Gelugpa which the Dalai Lama heads, that became the

most associated with and most practiced in America, due, in part, to its emphasis on the

intellectual study of Buddhism. Its practices contain less formal meditation than other

forms of Buddhism, with more textual study and contemplation on their meanings. Apart

from this approach holding a strong appeal for the highly educated population that

22

generally becomes involved with Buddhism in America, the prevalence of text study and

frontal lectures in these centers is a way to mediate and access the very particular and

seemingly occultish cultural forms that Tibetan Buddhism comes packaged in. Similar in

its intellectual approach is the Sakyapa school, which was represented by Deshung

Rinpoche who arrived in Seattle in 1961, but it was not until the 70’s that his famous

teacher, Kalu Rinpoche, became involved and began attracting a greater American

following.

The more meditative and esoteric order, Nyingma, whose teachings are attributed to the

patron saint of Tibet, Padmasambava, was introduced by Tarthang Tulku who moved to

Berkeley in 1969. In 1973 he opened The Nyingma Institute, which began its operation

with a training program for therapists and psychologists, expressing the affinity many

people felt between Western psychology and psychoanalysis with Buddhist wisdom and

practice. Due in part to this perceived affinity, and to the immediacy of its teachings which

emphasize the constant presence of the enlightened state of being, Nyingma and its more

popularly known Dzogchen practices have become increasingly sought out and practiced

among not only by the American Tibetan Buddhists but also by Zen and vipassana

practitioners.

Despite the Nyingma emphasis on secret teachings and very arduous preliminary

practices, such as the performance of 100,000 full-body prostrations and recitation of one

million mantras, its popularity stems partly from its absence of monasticism--lamas are

usually married with children, and wear their hair traditionally long. Jacqueline Mandel,

the former vipassana teacher and co-founder of IMS, who for the last few years has been

intensely involved in Tibetan practice, commented that one of the welcoming aspects of

23

the Nyingma retreats and teachings is that there are lots of children around, and they run

where they like--even to sit on the lama’s throne. Such freedom, even the mere presence of

little children in the meditation hall, would be inconceivable in most vipassana and Zen

centers where undisturbed silent meditation is the alpha and omega.

This attempt at integrating rigorous practice with worldly obligations holds a special

appeal for some Americans who are intent on maintaining a lay practice. In Tibet and in

other ethnically Tibetan areas, before the traditional three year, three month, three day

retreat, the preliminary practices such as the prostrations, prayers, mantras, mudras, and

offerings, would be completed in a month or two. In America they became stretched out

over months or years, depending on one’s personal, work, and family situations--the range

of time is purely a personal choice decided between you and your lama. I know one sixty

five year old Canadian Tibetan Buddhist nun who completed the practices in the first

month of her three year retreat, to the near-complete disuse of her knees, and another 25

year old Australian Dzogchen follower who began the practices in India and three years

later was near completion. The Nyingma school’s meditations recently have been asserting

more influence among other schools of American Buddhism, especially in the vipassana

world. The senior vipassana teachers such as Joseph Goldstein and Jack Kornfield attend

Dzogchen retreats, considered to be the highest teachings of the Nyingma. This has more to

say about the plurality of vipassana, which I will shortly discuss, than of the inherent

adaptability of Nyingma.

The last of the four orders introduced to the American scene was the Kagyupa, which

was headed by the colorful and controversial Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche who arrived in

1970. Through his unusual charisma, brilliance, and superb grasp of English (having

24

studied at Oxford), he gathered a strong following of students and proceeded to establish

over a few years a network of Buddhist institutions under the rubric of Shambhala

International. His intent was, apart from introducing America to Vajryana Buddhism, to

create the model for an enlightened society, one that included preschools, an elementary

school, bookstores, businesses, and a college, Naropa University, that bestows

undergraduate and graduate degrees. All these are ground in his presentation of Tibetan

Buddhist values, and represent the most comprehensive attempt to integrate Buddhist

practice and teaching into mainstream American life. Trungpa’s significant

accomplishments are despite his dissonant behavior, such as his voracious drinking and

smoking (both during his lectures), arriving at his lectures two hours late (often drunk), and

most infamous, his incessant womanizing.

Inconsistent moral behavior especially around sexuality between American Buddhist

leaders and their students has been one of the unfortunate recurring themes in American

Buddhism’s short history. Richard Baker, abbot of the San Francisco Zen Center after

Suzuki Roshi’s death in ‘71, was removed from office after several accusations of sexual

impropriety were leveled by the community. The crisis, which exploded after the husband

of one of the women, and who happened to be Baker’s close friend and disciple, made

public the affair--Baker was also at the time married with a child. What followed was a

collective venting of anger over much of his behavior in general, which just didn’t live up

to the guru-leader image that Americans had come to expect from the previous Asian

imports.

Rita Gross, the Buddhist feminist and author of the groundbreaking Buddhism After

Patriarchy, in writing about the crisis in the Shambhala community, contends that the

25

problems and ensuing eruptions did not occur over Trungpa’s sexual exploits, which were

well known, but over the secrecy of his Dharma heir’s sexual promiscuity, which had the

tragic result of transmitting AIDS to those involved. Gross expresses that she had to make

the decision as to whether the discomfort she had with Trungpa’s lifestyle was worth

keeping her from his talents and insights as a Dharma teacher. Such a decision is one Gross

claims everyone has to make as some point when faced with the humanness and fallibility

of their teachers.35 Gross, claiming common sense, simply says that she does not expect a

teacher to be all-wise, or to be a role model for all aspects of her life.

Gross’ separation of a teacher’s spiritual insights from his moral behavior is what has

become partially endemic to Buddhism in America, and an unfortunate consequence of the

compartmentalization of different areas of our lives: the spiritual, moral, intellectual and

physical all exist on separate planes with limited amounts of crossover. This separation

resulted in the wild parties that would occur upon the conclusion of intensive retreats in the

early days of Shambhala—akin to breaking the fast of Yom Kippur with a bottle of vodka.

While it may disturb some that a spiritual teacher may not eat his lunch mindfully, or may

not smile much, that is intuitively very different than a long-time meditation teacher having

affairs with his students, even consensual ones. The problem here is that some forms of

Buddhism, especially in the Tibetan tradition, have as a central practice the idealizing of

one’s teacher, so that, as in some of the more advanced Tibetan Vajryana meditations, one

views one’s teacher as an enlightened being, a buddha. Ven. Thubten Chodron, one of my

interviewees and a nun since 1977, expressed her difficulty with that practice:

These teachings are very easily misunderstood, and I misunderstood them…and for a Tibetan, they

wouldn’t misunderstand things in the same way…Because, the way the teachings are given, it

sounds like if you have one negative thought about your teacher, you’re going to hell realms for,

26

you know, many eons. And whatever your teacher says, you should follow immediately. All this

stuff, those teachings, were giving me so many problems, because I love and respect my teacher,

but, I couldn’t relate to my teacher in that kind of way. And yet I was seeing other dharma students,

and there was a certain pressure to do it…and it took me years to actually work our that yes, I do

have faith, and my way of faith was good, it was fine. And to have confidence in the way that I have

faith. Yeah. Because I couldn’t have this gaga gaga faith that I saw in other people, it’s not my

style.

The issues surrounding leadership, and the expectations students bring of their teachers

into the American framework, tend less to be less direct Asian imports, and more

home-grown traits--as Chodron said, the Tibetans just wouldn’t misunderstand the image

of the teacher in the same ways. She went on to consider where some of these tendencies

towards blind acceptance of the teacher by Americans comes from, which included the

guru worship that filtered in via Hinduism; the specific Western tendency to idealize

people, such as politicians, sports heroes and movie stars; and the desire not to take

responsibility for our lives, but feeling better when an unquestionable authority has given

commands—the “just following orders” syndrome.

In Tibetan Buddhism the institution of the tulku, or reincarnation of a past famous

teacher monk, is an especially difficult area for Americans. It is one thing to accept

intellectually the concept of reincarnation, but it is a much different matter to accept that

the little child sitting on a throne before you is the incarnation of a famous Tibetan lama,

and one that must be shown the appropriate honor. An interesting twist to the story of

Tibetan Buddhism in America is the emergence of American-born tulkus or of Americans

adults being recognized as famous lamas, as in two well known cases. Catherine

Burroughs, now known as Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo, was born and raised in Brooklyn, and

was recognized by Penor Rinpoche in India as the incarnation of a yogini, a solitary

wandering meditator, which carries status in the Nyingma and Kagyu orders, from the 17th

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century Tibet. She now is the head of a large Vajryana center in Maryland which, apart

from acting as a study and retreat center, has an elementary school and a children’s center.

More controversial was the recognition, also by Penor Rinpoche, of the action movie star

Steven Seagal, as a tulku, the reincarnation of a 17th century lama. This recognition elicited

much cynical response in the press about celebrity Buddhists, prompting Penor Rinpoche

to release a response which he wrote from his Indian monastery, saying that, “Such movies

are for temporary entertainment and do not relate to what is real and important. It is the

view of the Great Vehicle (Mahayana) of Buddhism that compassionate beings take rebirth

in all walks of life to help others.”36 Seagal and colleague Richard Gere have certainly

raised popular awareness of Buddhism, for better or worse.

In Trungpa’s case, some of his outlandish behavior was intentional, in the attempt to

shake the newly converted enlightenment seekers out of their attachments and images of

what is spiritual and what it not. His book, Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism takes the

American spiritual consumer to task, and where many people saw a spiritual awakening

happening at that time, he saw a spiritual supermarket. In his eyes, we were “deceiving

ourselves into thinking we are developing spiritually when instead we are strengthening

our ego-centricity through spiritual practices.”37 Even today, more than thirty years later, I

still hear people in Berkeley referring to the area as “the most conscious in the world”. This

is attested to the fact that there are two Whole Foods supermarkets within a few blocks.

Trungpa shed his robes in favor of a fine English suit, and in 1974 his center in Boulder,

Naropa, held a summer program that combined academic study and practice instruction.

Among the teachers were Ram Dass teaching his bhakti path and Joseph Goldstein, just

back from India, teaching traditional Burmese vipassana, and the pluralism was apparent

28

from the faculty that boasted Gregory Bateson, John Cage, Allen Ginsberg, and Herbert V.

Guenther. That summer and the ones that were to follow were critical in the formation of

American Buddhism: Tibetan Buddhism was presented by both practitioners and

academics, Buddhists and non-Buddhists from all over the country had a single address to

learn about and practice different traditions, and for the first time vipassana was being

offered a center stage in America. Over the next twenty years Trungpa’s organization

would succeed in creating over 100 centers worldwide, six main residential retreat

communities, a university and a publication house. Now led by his son, Mipham Rinpoche,

Shambhala International is what Amy Levine suggests represents a “comprehensive

attempt to merge the religious world view of American Vajryana with all other aspects of

American life.”38 This vision of an enlightened society, the new Shambhala, is a vision that

they consciously express in their publications: “Throughout history, men and women have

aspired to create societies that express the dignity of human experience. Joining spiritual

vision with practicality, such an ‘enlightened society’ provides for a context for

meaningful individual life within a flourishing culture.”39 This vision could taken from a

modified section of a secular constitution, and it has been tailor made for the American

practical spirituality that harbors a certain pride in its new world attitude.

Vipassana, the secular option

Buddhism for the non-Asian, non-immigrant American arrived and became popular in

the reverse historical order that it spread to other countries: the first wave was Zen, which

landed in Japan after all other places in Asia; the Tibetan followed in the New World,

though it entered Tibet in the 6th century by the fabled Indian figure Padmasambhava, who

29

brought it up from its Indian Mahayana developments; and the last big splash in America

was vipassana, which bases its teachings on the original Buddhist practices that were

prevalent at the Buddha’s time and were preserved relatively intact in Burma, Sri Lanka,

and Thailand. Continuing on this vein of historical reversals, it is the vipassana movement

in America that consciously abandoned many of the forms and doctrines of the Theravada,

which is viewed in the Buddhist world as the most conservative and unchanging schools.

American vipassana, which goes by the name Insight Meditation, has overturned that

precedent by becoming the most rapidly changing and adaptable practice available in the

American setting--a direction made very intentionally by its founders who, ironically, were

for the most part trained in strict Asian centers.

Before the early seventies, vipassana was virtually unknown in the United States, but

this began to change when some of the seekers who had traveled to Asia in the sixties

began returning to offer what they had learned. The first American teachers to begin

leading retreats in vipassana meditation were Ruth Denison, Sujata, and Robert Hover,

who were all trained in Burma. The turning point in the popularity of vipassana happened

at the aforementioned Naropa summer program in ‘74, when Joseph Goldstein and Jack

Kornfield, themselves having just recently returned from their practice years in Asia, led

sessions of meditation. Joseph had trained extensively under Goenka in India, Mahasi

Sayadaw in Burma, as well as by his student U Pandita, and under Munindra in the

Burmese Vihar at Bodhgaya; Jack had been ordained as a Thai monk in the forest tradition

of Achaan Chaa. Both of them had been in intensive meditation environments for years,

and they began to combine and innovate their techniques. One of my interviewees, James

Baraz, a vipassana teacher at Kornfield’s center Spirit Rock, was at that Naropa summer

30

initially as a follower of Ram Das. In an interview with Das he mentioned that he wanted to

learn more meditation. Das, of course, who was the main feature at the program other than

Trungpa, was teaching meditation himself, but he immediately pointed to Goldstein and

said “Go sit with Joseph.” Though he was teaching his first program, Goldstein was

recognized as bringing with him an important technique that would change the face of

Buddhism in America.

Within two years of Kornfield‘s and Goldstein‘s initial collaboration at Naropa, the

momentum had picked up through their teaching around the country so much so that they

were able to purchase, with the support of the growing vipassana community, a large estate

that once served as a Catholic seminary about an hour outside of Boston. The place was

named Insight Meditation Society, and was founded jointly by the two along with two

women teachers, Jacqueline Shwartz and Sharon Salzberg, with whom Joseph had traveled

and meditated in India. All four were Jews, and the rest of the staff were volunteers from all

over the country. The movement boasts of being one of the fastest growing in America:

from those four initial teachers in ’76 there were over seventy-five by 2000, and the

number of residential retreats, lasting from a week to three months, from nine a year in ’84

to 120, again by 2000.40 Most of the activities are concentrated around the two main

centers, IMS, and the corollary Spirit Rock Meditation Center in Marin County, about forty

minutes north of San Francisco.

Jack Kornfield relocated in California and established Spirit Rock in 1988; its other

main teacher is Sylvia Boorstein, an older Jewish woman, proud grandmother, who has

embraced her Judaism and actively integrates Jewish practice with her meditation work.

Another prominent Jewish teacher at the center is James Baraz who began the family

31

program and the teen mentoring/rite of passage program, an idea he received from Norman

Fischer of the Zen Center. Spirit Rock also has instituted two different teacher training

programs, a two-year program run by Baraz and begun in 1997, which trains existing

vipassana teachers to better serve their communities--the community leader training

program, and a five-year program run by Kornfield and begun as early as 1984 which

cultivates a few hand-picked individuals to become active teachers of the center. I asked

James Baraz about the need of teachers in communities, and he explained that the demand

is far greater than they can supply, with so many communities all across the country that

are looking for teachers. His program trains about 25 teachers a session, and the main

teachers are constantly traveling to lead retreats at more remote locations such as in

Saskatchewan or Wyoming. Most cities in North America have sitting groups with

participation from five to fifteen people, and they are composed mostly of people who at

some point, or on a regular basis, have done vipassana retreats.

The vipassana presented by these centers is a hybrid of styles garnered from the

teachings of Anagarika Munindra, Mahasi Sayadaw, and Achaan Chaa. These well known

teachers, from India, Burma and Thailand respectively, were all reformers of their own

traditions, and the practice they lead their Western students in was a simplified and

essentialized version. These students, upon beginning their own centers in America, were

told from the start that they would not have to keep all the rules of a traditional Theravadin

monastery. Some, like Goldstein and Kornfield, had the additional visions of creating in

America “a whole new experience of the dharma unfolding”.41 The founders of vipassana

in America believed they were pioneers of the new Buddhism.

The cultural differences between American practitioners and their Asian-trained

32

teachers, and especially with the occasional arrival of their teachers, like Sayadaw U

Pandita, the disciple of Mahasi, were bound to come to heads at times, such as during

teacher-student interviews which are held during retreats to check up on the student’s

progress. Jacqueline Mandel, formerly Shwartz, related to me that at that time, she and her

co-teachers, “were more Eastern in our thinking than Western at the time, this is really

important to know, not just our group, but all groups, so that if you talked about something

like feminism, you weren’t practicing.” During the interviews people would vent their

emotional problems, their family and relationship problems, and the teachers, especially

those from Asia when visiting, would be dumbfounded. What was meant to be a traditional

one to five minute interview, which in essence was just a short report on how your

technique is, turned out to take at times half an hour to an hour of counseling.

Expectations clashed. The Asians simply thought that the Americans lacked the faith in

the practice that their native Burmese or Thais had, and that made it more difficult for them

to concentrate. Americans, however, were coming to vipassana retreats with a lot on their

plates, and they were seeking a practice that was emotionally therapeutic as well as for

deepening one’s insight into the nature of reality and the self. Kornfield comments about

this phenomenon: “About half of students at our annual three-month retreat find

themselves unable to do the traditional Insight Meditation because they encounter so much

unresolved grief, fear, and wounding and unfinished developmental business from the past

that this becomes their meditation.“42 It was in response to this need that gave Kornfield

the impulse, who himself was a trained psychologist, to open Sprit Rock which would be

founded on a more Western-integrated, psychological and family-oriented approach.

James Baraz, one of the co-founders of Spirit Rock, recounted to me one of the turning

33

points in the vipassana movement, which characterized the split between the West and the

East--here meaning Spirit Rock of the West Coast and IMS of the East Coast:

In the 1980’s, ahh, the Burmese, ah, very strict mahasi Sayadaw, which is the practice that I did, but

there was a very different flavor when it was brought over here, and Joseph particularly got very

into that. And we all sat together in ‘84, with U Pandita, about twenty teachers sat together. And

ten, it was just about down the middle, ten of the teachers said, ‘I found what I was looking for, this

is the path, this is my teacher, this is it.’ And you know, the other half said, ‘this is not my

expression of practice.’ And for a while it was kind of very difficult because I was trying to sort out

for myself, what the Buddha, who the Buddha was, and would sometimes take on this kind of stern,

this stern, ahhh, just a not very life-affirming mode.”

This split, down the middle as he expressed, can be felt in the respective centers: Spirit

Rock is a family-friendly center that defines itself, as one of its teachers Seth Castleman

pointed out, as Buddhist-inspired, while IMS is more the intensive practice center that has

year-long waiting list for its fall three-month retreat normally lead by Goldstein in the

Burmese method. IMS, under Goldstein’s initiative and efforts, in the past year opened a

forest retreat center on its property, which provides the facilities for long term retreats. The

forest refuge is a style of monasticism in Asia of retreat in a forest, usually living in

individual huts—which demands a type of austerity that is seldom encouraged in the West.

That it now exists as an adjunct to IMS articulates clearly the two directions that vipassana,

or Insight Meditation, is traveling down in America: the practice of mindfulness meditation

in intensive practice, and the practice of mindful community in all the manifestations of

family, work, relationship (there are single’s retreats at Spirit Rock), and children in a

therapeutic framework.

As the centers and their practices become more diversified, being thrown into what

Fronsdal calls the melting pot of American Buddhism,43 teachers from both sides of the

34

divide draw on sources from many non-Buddhist spiritualities. One of the ironic features of

the vipassana movement in the U.S., in that it is derived from the traditional Theravada, is

its frequent lack of reference to Buddhist teachings. Dharma talks given by senior teachers

pull from their hats quotes not only from Zen stories and Tibetan teachers, but from Hindu,

Hasidic, Sufi, and Taoist teachings. The vipassana teachers and students themselves often

participate in retreats from other, mainly Buddhist, traditions, especially the now popular

Dzogchen non-dualistic teachings of the Nyingma Tibetan tradition. The Insight

Meditation movement may well be the most ecumenical of all Buddhist traditions in

America, but this feature could be linked to its abandoning of many of its more traditional

forms and teachings, which in their absence has urged its teachers to supplement with the

wisdom teachings of other traditions. The very basis for its popularity among American

seekers is that it is a very culturally non-specific practice, and that its teachings seem to be

in accordance with, or even verified by, the spiritual teachings of other mystical

tradtions--as they are interpreted by vipassana teachers.

Main Charactersitics of Elite Buddhism in America

While many of the following characteristics have already been touched upon in the

descriptions of the individual movements, it will be useful to summarize these features

clearly for understanding the contemporary stage that the teachers are standing upon. Most

of these features were articulated by Lama Surya Das during his presentation to the First

Buddhism in America Conference in 1997, and they have been commented upon by

Charles Prebish and Kenneth Tanaka. These characteristics exist in part by the conscious

and not-so-conscious decisions of the teachers I have met with, who are among those

35

responsible for shaping the contours of Buddhism in America. Far from being an Asian

import, Buddhism has become an American product defined by the following qualities.

Practice Oriented

As Surya Das comments, “If you talk about Buddhism these days, people think about

meditation.”44 Stephen Batchelor, a former Zen monk and teacher in England, remarks

that if you ask someone involved in one of the elite modern Buddhist groups in America

what their practice consists of, they are likely to answer you with a style of meditation,

such as vipassana, shikantaza, or some form of bodhicitta cultivation. Batchelor is lead to

conclude that most practitioners in the West define what they do purely in terms of

meditation45. Such an attitude is encouraged by centers like Spirit Rock, the main

vipassana center on the West coast, which states outright in its brochure that “the heart of

the Buddhist path is the practice of meditation.“46 Prebish notes that the almost exclusive

focus on meditation has caused some American practitioners to consider Buddhism a

“onefold path”47 as opposed to the traditional eightfold path that is set out in the Theravada

teachings: right view, right thought, right concentration, right effort, right mindfulness,

right livelihood, right action, and right speech. Prebish goes on to suggest that meditation

in Buddhism has become its own subculture which has resulted in a whole market of

popular literature. This subculture includes the establishment of teachers and centers who

emphasize meditation alone--Robert Thurman joked at a conference of Buddhism that he

was privileged to be among people who had logged up so many thousands of hours of

meditation. Meditation experience becomes a status-granting device, and the honor of

being considered an “old student”, or “senior student” depends primarily on the number of

36

retreats one has participated in.

One of the central draws of Buddhism in America is that it offers a tangible, practical

method with results, a modernist spirituality, that, as Kenneth Tanaka notes, was not found

in the follower’s native Christianity or Judaism. What those traditions had in doctrine,

Buddhism had in practice, and those who turn to Buddhism from the Judeo-Christian

traditions seek primarily experience over belief.48 This dichotomy, of their native tradition

lacking for them a clear and effective practice, as opposed to their experience of the

immediacy of Buddhist meditation, was expressed strongly by one of my interviewees,

Ajahn Amaro, the abbot of Abyagiri monastery in California, who grew up under the

Church of England. His experience was one of complete sterility within churches that

stood empty except for one or two days a year, and a clergy that offered no more advice to

his challenging questions than the standard admonition to believe. Upon joining a

Theravadin monastery and ordaining as a prefect, he spent his first half year involved only

in the practice of meditation. Though he had no background in Buddhism, there was no

study of Buddhist doctrine, history, or philosophy offered. It was only after a full half year

as a Buddhist monk whereupon he learned that the Buddha was not Chinese.

Essentialist

If Buddhism in America, in its elite modernist forms, emphasizes meditation above all

else, then it stands to reason that other teachings and approaches to Buddhism would

become less visible. This is what Das calls “Dharma without dogma”49, but to others, such

as Huston Smith, such a simplification of Buddhism flirts with becoming a New Age fuzzy

thing. The essentialization of Buddhism in America means that certain teachings are

37

deliberately minimized or even abandoned. This is most evident in the vipassana

movement of Insight Meditation, where the American founders, all Jews, consciously

decided to repackage and rename vipassana in America as a type of meditative

self-therapy. In his recent book One Dharma, Joseph Goldstein, one of the founders of

Insight Meditation, sets out this view and approach clearly:

A genuine Western Buddhism is now taking birth. Its defining characteristic is neither an elaborate

philosophical system nor an attachment to any particular sectarian viewpoint. Rather, it is a simple

pragmatism that harkens back to the Buddha himself...It is an allegiance to a very simple question:

“What works?” What works to free the mind from suffering? What works to engender a heart of

compassion? What works to awaken?50

This essentialist Buddhism sounds almost Protestant, a pragmatic approach that goes back

to the source, in this case the Buddha himself, as it is alleged. A type of no-frills Buddhism,

where the “frills” are all the cultural baggage and doctrines that Buddhism from Asia

originally came packaged in. As Christopher Titmus said on a retreat he was leading at

IMS, when asked about the Buddha statue at the front of the meditation hall and its

significance, he replied that it was just religious art, and didn’t need to be paid attention to.

Das, echoing Goldstein’s ideas, proclaims the amalgamation and simplification of schools:

“Our melting pot karma here in the West is one Dharma, I’m sure.”51

Phillip Kapleau, as mentioned earlier, was among the first to make the changes towards

a Western liturgy by having the Heart Sutra chanted in English. In the mid-sixties that was

revolutionary, as was so much at that time, but by the first decade of the 21st century, after

more than forty years of developments, what was once radical has become the norm. Toni

Packer, Kapleau’s most well-known student, broke with him and the Zen tradition to

establish the Springwater Center for Meditative Inquiry and Retreats in New York, which

38

has rejected the entire concept of lineage or use of the term “Buddhist”. Ruth Denison, one

of the first Westerners to return from Asia after training in Burma, runs a center in the

California desert that combines meditation and movement, and she has cultivated a large

following among women practitioners through her offering of twice-yearly women-only

retreats. Maurine Stuart roshi, the teacher of the Cambridge Buddhist Association, answers

people‘s surprise at the lack of Asian decoration in the center: “We live in New England!

This is not a Japanese style place.”52 In my interview with Sojon Mel Wietsman, the abbot

of the Berkeley Zen Center, he emphasized the changes to me bluntly, stating that

There’s a Japanese background and influence, you know, but Buddhism’s more than Japanese. It’s

just that that’s where our, you know, but we’re totally independent of Japanese culture. Totally

independent. And my teacher never pushed culture on us. Suzuki roshi never pushed Japanese

culture on us. Ahh, it’s so interesting, relating to Japan, you know (laugh).

If in the Zen world the cultural forms such as language and décor are often dropped, in

the vipassana world certain central Buddhist doctrines are left behind, dropped from the

boat on arrival to America like the Jews in the 19th century, before landing on Staten Island,

would toss their tefilin overboard as relics from the old world. Seth Castleman, a teacher at

Spirit Rock, explained that the center is defined as a Buddhist-inspired meditation center,

not as a Buddhist meditation center. That definition gives the teachers the leeway to

emphasize or de-emphasize the Buddhist teachings and content of the meditation as much

as they like. In general, however, the central Buddhist doctrines of non-self (anatta) and

rebirth have been left out of the Insight Meditation vernacular.

This raises the unanswerable question of just how much Buddhism is needed to be

considered Buddhism. In the Insight Meditation system the main teaching is of

mindfulness and its practice in all activities, but in that virtually exclusive focus other

39

central aspects such as the ethical teachings, the precepts, are not particularly emphasized.

The keeping of precepts is mandatory for participating in one of the retreats, but after their

initial explanation at the beginning of the course next to nothing is mentioned of them

afterwards. Fronsdal writes about this absence when he spoke with someone who had just

completed the annual three-month retreat in IMS:

“I asked a woman who had just completed the three month course how much the precepts were

discussed. Without hesitation she replied ‘All the time.’ But then, upon reflection, she corrected

herself, saying that she could not recall the precepts being discussed at all after the formal taking of

the precepts at the retreat opening.”53

Fronsdal goes on to comment that this is a result of the particular emphasis the teachers

place on mindfulness training. The teachers of the Insight Meditation tradition rely on their

meditation techniques to generate ethical behavior, thus obviating to some degree the

formal teaching of precepts in a more detailed way. The dilemma rests in the division

between the safe retreat environment and the confusing outside world where ethical

decisions abound and are rarely straightforward. It is easier to be very ethical when one is

in a silent environment, with no relationships or responsibilities other than making it to the

sittings. It is the concern, however, with maintaining a mindful, and ethical, composure

outside of the retreat setting, such as with family and at work, which comprises the content

of most of the questions teachers receive during retreats.

The vipassana communities, more than the Zen or Tibetan, are in their adolescence,

trying to figure out what works and how to present it, and to be comfortable with their

emerging forms. This lack of ethical teaching, coming from the paring down, or

essentialzing, of the more Asian forms of Buddhism, did also occur to lesser degrees within

the Zen and Tibetan groups, but their crises of leadership, which occurred around ethical

40

issues, resulted in a comprehensive reassessment of their approaches. The Insight

Meditation movement will hopefully escape such rude awakenings, which so far they have

been able to do.

Democratic

Removed from the strict and long-standing hierarchical structures of Asia, Buddhism in

America has been free to develop a new relationship to authority which is more peer-based

than guru-dependent. This extends from Buddhism in America being largely lay-oriented,

where most teachers are householders with families, and many groups are joint-run.

Monasticism does have a place, and there are new monasteries being founded, such as

Savrasta Abbey in Idaho by Thubten Chodron, but this approach does not strike a chord

with most American Buddhists who are more concerned with issues of the integration of

dharma into their daily lives. There simply is not the ingrained reverence for monastics in

America that there is in Asian Buddhist countries, which is the result of two main

developments: the secularization of society in general, and the more specific abuse of

power by certain monastics in both Buddhist and non-Buddhist traditions.

This trend of lay-led communities, especially in the vipassana world, shows just how far

a movement like Insight Meditation has traveled from its Theravada parent, which revolves

around its ordained sangha. Jack Kornfield, one of the founders of IMS and Spirit Rock,

writes,

How can we live the practice in our American lives? Our practice will emphasize integration, not a

withdrawal from the world, but a discovery of wisdom within the midst of our lives…as

householders, as family people, as people with jobs who still wish to partake of the deepest aspects

of the Dharma--not through running away to caves, but by applying the practice to our daily lives.54

41

He has come out even more strongly since, stating that Americans simply don’t want to

become monks or nuns. Thubten Chodron, a Tibetan Buddhist nun for the past 27 years,

who has recently founded the first women’s monastery in America, related to me the

anti-monastic attitudes that she has come across by both practitioners and teachers in the

American Buddhist world, especially, and as I mentioned, ironically, from the vipassana

movement. There is such an emphasis on integration, on being, as Helen Tworkov said,

“out of robes, in the streets”55 that the choice to remove oneself from family and pursuit of

a career for the sake of intensive practice has become rather politically incorrect. This

disdain for the ordained life, as well as the rise of lay leadership has the result of breaking

down traditional authority structures into much more casual relationships: your teacher is

your spiritual friend (and maybe even your boss at work).

As practice became increasingly emphasized, there have been attempts, since the early

sixties with the arrival of Suzuki Roshi, to create full time practice environments which at

the same time allowed functioning in the outer world. This ushered in the rise of what

Surya Das calls the “in-between sangha”56: people who are committed to living and

practicing in a monastic lifestyle, but who are living at home and working. Buddhism in

America continues to be a largely urban phenomenon, making the kind of reclusion that

forest monasteries effected something of an anomaly. James Baraz considered his nine

years living in a communal house in Berkeley, out of which he practiced, taught, and ran

his thriving business from a back room, to be his formative training period. The Zen Center

of Berkeley has residential premises, and the abbot, Mel Wietsman, who has led the

community for over thirty years, is married with a son.

The leadership of American Buddhism is very experienced in practice, and it is their life

42

circumstances, such as of having families or outside jobs, which makes them more

accessible and easier to relate to by those who are struggling with the issues of establishing

an everyday practice. Suzuki roshi, in his Zen Mind, Beginner Mind, which has become a

classic in the American Buddhist canon, wrote very early about this new phenomenon:

Here in America we cannon define Zen Buddhists the same way we do in Japan. American students

are not priests and yet not completely layman. I understand it this way: that you are not priests is an

easy matter, but that you are not exactly laymen is more difficult. I think you are special people and

want some special practice that is not exactly priest’s practice and not exactly layman’s practice.

You are on your way to discovering some appropriate way of life.57

More than thirty years after he spoke those words, it is still not very clear just what that

appropriate way of life is, but the trend is towards the maintenance of the complex and

busy American lifestyle with the addition of Buddhist practice and community.

The democratization within American Buddhist groups has not always been by choice,

or completely successful. Changes are often precipitated by crisis, as was the case in two

major communities, the Zen Center of San Francisco, and the Shambhala network out of

Boulder, CO. In 1983 the abbot of the Zen Center, Richard Baker, who had run the center

and its affiliates for more than ten years after Suzuki Roshi’s untimely death, was removed

from his post by the community after revelation of his abuses of power and affairs with

students. After his removal, a new board was chosen and the office of the abbot would be

filled by election for a rotating position of five years. Quite suddenly the Zen institutions

were faced with having to deal with totally new relationships between the leadership and

the students, where leadership was now accountable directly to the board and community.

A similar crisis occurred within Chogyam Tungpa’s Shambhala community, when his

successor, Tendzin Ozel, was exposed in 1991 as having slept with several students while

43

knowing that he was infected with AIDS. The board of the community also knew, but

chose to remain silent, thus passively abiding by his behavior and the transmission of the

disease, which resulted in the death of at least one man. The ensuing crisis resulted in a

more traditional solution, decided upon by Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche, head of the Tibetan

Nyingma lineage, whereupon Trungpa’s son, Mipham Rinpoche, would take over the

leadership of the movement. These two crises and shifts in leadership among the most

well-known Buddhist communities in America had reverberations across the American

Buddhist vista. The mainstream media picked up on the scandals and in the resultant

soul-searching by the communities, every Buddhist center in America had to reassess its

relationship to authority. In 1993 there was a special meeting of American Buddhist

teachers with the Dalai Lama in California to discuss the issue of the responsibility and the

abuse of teacher power, and the scars that such occurrences has produced increases a

certain wariness over investing American Buddhist leadership with too much authority or

reverence.

The shift in power towards a lay-lead organization of Buddhism is not always as

successful a shift of paradigm as it’s made out to be. Victor Hori suggests that the change in

authority structure is more of form alone, that the power differences still exist, only more as

in the American models of business manager and worker, hospital staff and patients, or

hotel staff and guests.58 There is still the division between those who hold the keys to the

tradition, and those who are paying for some use of the facilities. More striking is the fact

that it is the very casualness with which Americans approach their teachers that allows

such abuse of power to occur. In Japan, Hori explains, there are so many social constraints

concerning relationships between roshi and student, covering both sides, so that departure

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from those limitations is virtually impossible. In American centers and retreats, students

are used to talking about every kind of personal issue and problem imaginable to the

teacher, investing them with not only wisdom of the Buddhist traditions, but the healing

aura of an idealized therapist. The temptation to cross borders is ever-present. Hori

describes the predicament:

In America, the relation of Zen master to student comes with no accompanying system of social

constraints and is assumed to be similar to the relationship of psychotherapist and client, with all

the accompanying dangers of dependence, transference, and projection. Here both roshi and

student are on new ground where both are tempted to exploit the situation to push formalized

intimacy to greater extremes.59

The sad irony of that situation is that it is women who are the victims of much of the abuse

of leadership, and yet it is American women’s very significant participation in Buddhism

that has been largely responsible for the shift away from traditional structures of authority

and their protective formality.

Gender Equality

As was pointed out demographically, women make up half of the teachers of Buddhism

in America and account for more than that as students, reaching two-thirds of the

practitioners in some communities. There are many reasons for the predominance of

women in American Buddhism, and among them is as a response to the lack of acceptance

and leadership roles found within their native traditions of Christianity and Judaism.

Buddhism in America, by breaking away from some of its Asian authoritarian and

patriarchal roots, offers a new paradigm of participation for the woman practitioner. This is

not without its new risks, as outlined above in regard of the crises, but, as Sandy Boucher

writes, it was just those crises of leadership and the surfacing revelations of such abuses

45

among other Buddhist communities by their male leadership that accelerated the

leadership-taking by women within these places.60

Jacqueline Mandel, known for her leaving the vipassana community of IMS because of

her discomfort with identifying with its tradition, the Theravada, that does not grant equal

roles for women, related to me in our interview of the change that occurred since the

sixties, when women were very involved in the social causes associated with radical

feminism. Her breakthrough occurred at a talk given by the poet Anais Nin, who was taken

up by the feminist activists as their role model, as she said at one point that “For there to be

women’s liberation, every woman must be liberated.” This created an uproar, with people

accusing her of selfishness, of not joining in the group mentality of liberating all women at

once. The shift Mandel indicated was that now women are less concerned with the idea of

the group, and more concerned, as Nin was, with the spiritual freedom that they can each

achieve--collectively this adds up to women’s liberation.

Women’s equal participation and leadership does not necessarily mean that there is

gender equality in American Buddhism. First of all, women who do want to ordain cannot

receive full ordination in the Theravada tradition, and in the Mahayana tradition this is

possible only in China and Korea, forcing women to make the long and expensive journey

there. In the Tibetan, or Vajryana tradition, no such ordination for women is yet possible,

despite it being seen as a desirable development by the Dalai Lama. While women teachers

compose equal numbers as men within the Insight Meditation community, the Zen

community has yet to ordain as many women roshis, and the privilege of receiving Dharma

transmission, the spiritual seal of approval from one Zen leader to another, which confers

upon her the title of a lineage-holder who then can transmit it to others, has far fewer

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women recipients.

That women form the majority of participants in Buddhist centers, and are taking up

leadership roles, is not necessarily unique to Buddhism, but rather is something of a trend

among alternative spiritualities as a whole. Through casual observation, I have noticed a

majority of women participants, also averaging around two-thirds, in the Jewish meditation

groups, yoga groups, and non-affiliated New Age spirituality groups I have attended over

the past ten years. This may make a statement about women’s higher awareness of spiritual

needs, or, more likely, it may be still telling us that some of the same patriarchal trends

exist here. Those trends are those of men taking the more traditional jobs with higher status

and more time demands, and thus having less flexibility both in time and attitude for

joining such groups. Also a statement of more traditional sex roles in this society is the

presence of child care and family programs in some centers such as Spirit Rock and Green

Gulch, among others, which is largely due to women’s influence in response to their needs

to have the kids taken care of while they practice--since they are still more responsible for

the children in most relationships. The men are unavailable to take care of the children

while the women practice, so day care must be arranged.

Engaged

The word “engaged” is derived from the French “l’engagement” which was brought

into use by the Vietnamese monk Thich Nhat Hanh, who has created his own brand of

Buddhism for Westerners that emphasizes community and everyday mindfulness. The type

of engagement he originally made famous was the social activism that he led in response to

the Vietnam war, and was such a compelling figure in the ’60’s that Martin Luther King Jr.

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nominated him for the Nobel Peace Prize. Every Buddhist group in America has been

influenced by his work, and his brand of socially engaged Buddhism has come to mean not

only working for the big societal causes, but for the seemingly small personal ones of all

the relationships to the world in everyday life. Thich Nhat Hanh expresses this sentiment:

How can we practice at the airport and in the market? That is engaged Buddhism. Engaged

Buddhism does not only mean to use Buddhism to solve social and political problems, protesting

against the bombs, and protesting against injustice. First of all we have to bring Buddhism into our

daily lives…Do you practice breathing between phone calls? Do you practice smiling while cutting

carrots?61

Part of the reason for the tremendous popularity of Buddhism is that if offers a practical

path of everyday living that the other Sunday (or Shabbat) religions just didn’t if one was

not following an orthodox strain. Han’s presentation of Buddhism as engaged and worldly

is in direct contrast to its initial reception in America, a period which lasted roughly from

the end of the Victorian era right up to the arrival of D.T. Suzuki in 1950. Thomas Tweed,

in his book The American Encounter with Buddhism, 1844-1912, traces the general

opinion of Buddhism during that period as pessimistic, passive, and world-renouncing.62

This unflattering depiction of Buddhism was used by scholars of the time to be held in

contrast with Christianity which was elevated as hopeful, active, and the cure for the

world’s ills. There were few, if any, American adherents of Buddhism to defend its cause,

and its character was defined by poorly translated texts. This was a time of America’s

coming of age, and its new found power had little tolerance for what was considered,

however inaccurately, as the antithesis to its exuberant optimism.

The emphasis on practice that Shunryu Suzuki Roshi brought to the scene, combined

with the social activism that the diminutive and tireless Thich Nhat Hanh presented, made

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for a new Buddhism that Americans could now claim consistent with their worldliness. For

some practitioners, the transition from being a social activist in the ‘60’s and ‘70’s to being

an active Buddhist in the ‘80s and ‘90’s was one of natural development, and of spiritual

insight. Blanche Hartman, the former abbot of the San Francisco Zen Center, recounted to

me her long involvement with social issues beginning with “ban the bomb” protests

immediately after World War Two. It was during an anti-Vietnam war protest that she

realized, coming face to face with one of the riot policemen attacking the students, that she

needed to expand her approach to involve spirituality. From that time onward she was just

as active in protests and social and civic programs, only now in her role as a Zen priest.

The growing list of social programs that Buddhists in America are involved in is

constantly growing and diversifying. The Zen Center of San Francisco runs a hospice

across the street, and offers programs to train volunteers and to help the public deal with

death. Joan Halifax, who received ordinations from both Thich Nhat Hanh and Bernie

Glassman, runs workshops around the country and out of her Sante Fe center on working

with the dying. There is a national organization of Zen prison programs, which bring

meditation to inmates of all races and severities of sentence. The vipassana groups also

offer prison programs; Seth Castleman, besides teaching at Spirit Rock, works for the U.S.

government teaching meditation in prisons, emphasized that it is not presented as a

Buddhist technique, but as purely secular stress management. Using the terms stress and

pain management, Jon Kabat-Zin runs a center at the University of Massachusetts Medical

Center, called the Center for Mindfulness, Medicine, Health Care and Society, which has

helped thousands over the past 25 years use meditation techniques for coping with their

chronic pain and diseases. The center trains many doctors to bring mindfulness techniques

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into their own medical practices. Bernie Glassman Roshi, of the New York Zen Center, has

opened a bakery, construction company, and residence for training homeless and

unemployed people from the surrounding deprived neighborhood. His organization,

Peacemakers, is a non-denominational network of international peace activists who form

local communities for developing strategies and activities. Norman Fischer of the Green

Gulch center has begun an organization called Everyday Zen which leads workshops and

retreats aimed at integrating Zen into everyday life. Spirit Rock runs, as mentioned, a

community leader program as well as a family program. Jacqueline Mandel is teaching a

course in Portland libraries called “The Dalai Lama and the Workplace” and she described

to me the Buddhist camp she sent her kids to. Stephen Levine, apart from his work on death

and dying, offers workshops with his wife on personal relationships which are also being

offered by Buddhist psychologists such as David Richo and Mark Epstein.

The most prolific Buddhist social organization, the Buddhist Peace Fellowship,

founded by Robert Aitkin, is an ecumenical Buddhist network with some four thousand

members spread out in chapters across the U.S. Their activities include work on human

rights issues, especially in Asia and Tibet, as well as workshops on Buddhist approaches to

nonviolence, conflict resolution, education, leadership responsibility, and even Buddhist

economics. This list of engaged Buddhist activities, by all means very partial, gives an

indication of the direction that many of those involved in Buddhism are going, and how far

it is from the world-renouncing image it once carried.

As to the contemporary theoretical roots of this pull towards activism among American

Buddhists, Christopher S. Queen of Harvard focuses on two underlying qualities:

agnosticism, which is the renunciation of fixed opinions, and interbeing, a term coined by

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Thich Nhat Hanh, which stands for the inherent connection and interdependence of all

life63. The first, agnosticism, is the maintenance of the “don’t know mind” in Zen which is

employed in order not to accept the status quo, but to question fixed structures of authority

and society, motivated by the search for something better. It means not to swallow all the

covert and overt messages our governments and consumer societies feed us. This has

always been a premise of social activism. The second, interbeing, is the premise that

someone else’s suffering is also my own, and that our viewing ourselves as separate beings

perpetuates the suffering. These two concepts work together, in that if all of us are united in

an essential way, then I cannot really “know” who or what you are separate from myself.

Not-knowing, or agnosticism, allows for the realization of interbeing, since to know

something is to separate it conceptually from the whole. It is this sense of wholeness, of the

unity of life and the world, that is the main motivating factor of engaged Buddhism.

Socially engaged Buddhism has become such a dominant feature of Buddhism in America,

and abroad, that Queen has suggested considering it a “new vehicle” of Buddhism, after the

Theravada, Mahayana, and Vajryana--engaged Buddhism would be the “fourth yana”.64

Experimental

Buddhism in America is in a very experimental phase, which is the natural result of the

continual and varied attempts to adapt and integrate Buddhism into the American context.

The very fact that one cannot talk about an American context, but of many contexts, means

that Buddhism is being constantly innovated to better meet the different needs. Emma

Layman wrote, “Attemping to describe the nature of Buddhism in America is something

like trying to answer the question, ‘What is the nature of America?’ For neither is America

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nor the Buddhist church in America is a monolithic entity, and neither is it a melting pot.”65

Though there will be many similarities among, for example, the Zen of the San Francisco

center and the Zen of Kapleau’s Rochester center, the barometer of experimental change

sways to the radical side when one considers the Zen of Bernie Glassman’s Greystone Inn,

which houses homeless, his Zen street retreats where most of the time is spent wandering

the streets of New York as a homeless person, or the non-Zen of Tony Packer. The

vipassana of Jon Kabat-Zin’s pain and stress management is an experiment in technique

and context that is far different than the vipassana that the children of Spirit Rock’s family

program are being taught, which differs just as much as from the approach taken with

prison inmates. These are just a few of the myriad of examples of Buddhism in America

being transformed to meet the needs of specific communities, at times without needing to

refer to itself any longer as Buddhism. While certain essential teachings and techniques

may be found as common threads, the changing contexts require an experimentation of

form and presentation that produces a wildly diverse phenomenon.

The tension between preserving tradition and responding to the demands of change

creates a risk of, in basic terms, throwing out the baby with the bathwater. Tanaka sees this

as the danger of excessive interpretation, where the tradition is altered dramatically to suit

the needs of the new cultural context. Surya Das states that “Our Western Dharma…(is)

very forward looking--present and forward looking--rather than preservationist.”66 This

general skepticism of past tradition, a rejection of what he describes as ‘if it’s in the past, it

must be good’, flirts with the becoming of a service providing on demand, as Tanaka states,

“to serve the individual rather than the individual being transformed by the teachings.”67

The approach towards a radical adaptation to individual needs stems from the character of

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Buddhism in America as that of a salve first and foremost for individual spiritual and

emotional needs, rather than, despite the engagement many activists, as a tool for societal

transformation. American individualism has created a Buddhism that is individualistic,

wherein the needs of the self, as Tanaka explains, take precedence over the needs of the

group; the result is a rejection of anything from ancient traditions that utilize the forms of

group ritual and meaning.

This type of skepticism, of traditional forms and interpretations, has contributed to the

development of the particular approach of “agnostic” Buddhism, or as Stephen Levine

would describe, a Buddhism without dependence on any prior beliefs. Again highlighted is

the priority of experience in American Buddhism, where many American Buddhists, even

without having studies the sources, are able to refer to the famous advice of the Buddha to

the Kalamas (Anguttara Nikaya I:189): “not to accept any conclusions on the basis of

heresay, expertise, or respect for one’s guru, but rather to suspend judgments about what is

healthy, admirable, and beneficial until ones knows these things for oneself.”68 Such

advice, when combined with the American milieu, results is a rugged individualistic

approach that is often the surrogate for individual therapy. The American distrust of

institutions contributes to the breaking down of religious authority, and, as Thubten

Chodron expressed, there remains little room for traditional monasticism, which is

extremely communal and, to some degree, hierarchical. As mentioned, the movement that

has, ironically, rejected the most of its parent tradition is vipassana, Insight Meditation,

which has consciously distanced itself from much of the Theravada teachings, including

the centrality of the monastic example. That which was the most conservative has become

the most progressive in its new home.

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The move towards experimentation and radical adaptation to new American

environments indicates a breaking away from the Asian parent institutions. This is the

natural result, as Surya Das outlines, of the “third wave” of teachers in America. The first

wave was the Asians who came from the East, the second the Westerners who trained with

Asians in the East and brought it back home, and the third wave is the Americans who have

been trained by Americans in America.69 Americans dealing with Americans, with their

characteristic informality and language idioms, and shared sense of culture and

environment, allows for much more adaptation in interpretation and practice. Moreover,

most American teachers do not expect or demand exclusive loyalty, so that one of the

prominent features of American Buddhism, encouraged by the third wave teachers, is that

students, as the teachers themselves, learn from a variety of other Buddhist and

non-Buddhist traditions, which are brought together in their own personal experimental

spiritual path.

The third wave of teachers, emboldened by the spirit of experimentation, has caused

some to reassess the direction and commitment that the movements are cultivating towards

practice. Joseph Goldstein, who himself is responsible for many of the innovations in the

vipassana world, acknowledges that the Theravada tradition views the integration of the

householder life and dharma practice less favorably. Having trained extensively in Asia, he

questions the seriousness that the new line of teachers is producing, with there now being,

as at Spirit Rock, five year programs to become a meditation teacher. He comments:

In Asia, people will often practice for as many as ten or twenty years before teaching. Most of us

who came from practice in Asia to the West started teaching much sooner than that, but it was still

after a substantial period of training. There are people teaching now who have practiced for only a

few years…I wonder whether we, as a generation of practitioners, are practicing in a way that will

produce the kind of real masters that have been produced in Asia. I don’t quite see that happening.70

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Although the amount of time practicing does not necessarily translate into progress on the

path of spiritual awakening, there are those who can have sudden transformative

experiences, and those who after many years are stuck in the same negative patterns--

Goldstein’s concern is well placed. A general impatience permeates American culture, as

evident from fast food to fast enlightenment, which is the down side of modernist

practicality wanting results yesterday.

The jury is still out, and probably will be for a good long time, as to whether these

adaptations and experimentations with Buddhism in America are simply a matter of

pouring old wine into new bottles, as Surya Das contends, or, as Victor Hori differs, the

pouring of wine into new bottles which immediately makes it a different wine. Hori goes

on, however, to state that the wine also changes the bottle it was poured into: religion,

culture and environment interactively influence and modify each other in a slow, maturing

process.

Ecumenical

The 1960’s was the formative decade for Buddhism, which was an era of cultural

upheaval and protest, experimentation and social action. Kenneth K. Tanaka points out that

the period was marked by the end of the Protestant hegemony and the loss of cultural

consensus, which opened for more religious tolerance and plurality.71 The Vatican II in

1962, a year after the founding of the San Francisco Zen Center, was to greatly contribute

to this movement, with its new approach of openness to both Judaism and Eastern

religions. America was caught up in the spirit of rapid change, at times revolutionary, and

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the general push towards more integration and acceptance reverberated on the political,

social and religious levels. Buddhism in America, having passed its childhood in the 60’s,

that is, being a child of the 60’s as so many of its current graying adherents describe

themselves, became distinguished by its ecumenical nature as teachers and students

learned freely from other Buddhist lineages and religions, a phenomenon Tanaka calls

“diffuse affiliation.”72

The most eclectic and ecumenical of the Buddhist schools in America by far is Insight

Meditation, which not only draws frequently on teachings from other Buddhist schools, but

in any given dharma talk or book by a senior teacher one is just as likely to encounter a

quote by Rumi, Kabir, Chuang Tse, Tagore, or St. John of the Cross, as from the

Dhammapada. This is the direct influence of the teachers’ explorations of other traditions,

as combined with the desire to find an essentialized Dharma that can be corroborated by

those other paths. Currently popular are the Dzogchen teachings of the Tibetan Nyingma

school, emphasizing non-dualistic awareness, similar to that of the advaita Hindu

teachings, which are being learned by vipassana teachers in retreats with Tibetan lamas.

Joseph Goldstein’s “One Dharma” is a synthesis of basic Buddhist teachings in order to

offer the student a unified path that cuts across the sectarian differences. The end product is

grounded in his Theravada background, the vipassana teachings with the addition of

Tibetan teaching of bodhicitta-- the enlightened intention of practicing for the sake of

other’s benefit and ultimate freedom.

Such ecumenism has been called “the melting pot of American Buddhism” by senior

vipassana teacher Gil Fronsdal73, “amalgamated Dharma” by Surya Das, and “One

Dharma” by Joseph Goldstein, all of them in favor of the cross-fertilization that Buddhism

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in America is engaged in. The underlying motive is to arrive at a common set of practices

and teachings which are recognized as Buddhist. This could be compared to Lama

Tsongkapa, the 14th century founder of the Gelupka sect of Tibetan Buddhism, who

learned from masters of every Tibetan group, and then combined their teachings into a new

order which was not regarded as a replacement of the others. This type of tolerance for the

differences of tradition and practice has been a hallmark of Buddhism in America, which

reflects the American live and let live mentality, or “whatever works for you”.

There are those who do not paint such a rosy picture of American Buddhist ecumenism,

but rather see it as a New Age watering down of essential teachings and discipline. Surya

Das quotes Huston Smith as saying that Buddhism in America is turning into a blend of

pop psychology and New Age, which Das answered was the natural and positive result of

creating something new. The question is whether that new product, specially designed for

American consumers, can still be called Buddhism, or, whether like popularized Kabala

teachings that are divorced from their Jewish religious context and requirements, a new

Buddhist-inspired tradition will exist along side its more traditional forebear. The Sufi

movement, which has gained much following in the U.S., and is not being presented in the

context of Islamic law or the Koran, but as a product of visionary poets, is a parallel

example of a new tradition being created without much connection to its original religious

context. The question with Buddhism in America becomes more muddled when certain

central doctrines such as non-self and rebirth are abandoned—never mind the dizzying

cosmologies of the Theravada. Insight Meditation has gone the farthest in the development

of this new product, so much so that one of its founders, Jack Kornfield, has not only

skirted non-self teachings, but, as Fronsdal points out, has been able to refer to a “true self”,

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which flies in the face of a tradition that regards the concept of the self as the main

problem.74 With an emerging tradition so diverse in its approach and presentation of its

teachings, it remains to be seen whether the future generations of practitioners, beginning

with the children of the current one, will respond to the wide openness that their parents,

true children of the 60’s, take as their anthem.

Because of its very specific practices and emphasis on the teacher-student relationship,

Tibetan Buddhism in America has emerged as the least ecumenical of the Buddhist groups.

The culturally-specific teachings and practices are marked by their high demands of

commitment and time-investment, leaving the practitioner busy enough with her one

adopted tradition. Thubten Chodron discovered on retreat at IMS, the main vipassana

center in the States, that her own practice was full enough and not in need of

complimentary practices or teachings from other schools. She simply stated to me that one

needs to be committed to one path in order to go deeply into it, which she indicated was

said to her by the Dalai Lama, one of her main teachers. I have heard on at least two

occasions the Dalai Lama at public teachings with both Westerners and Tibetans in

attendance saying something similar, encouraging people to return to their native traditions

in order to go deeply into them, and only then choose Buddhism if it still is right for you.

The implicit criticism of the current popularity of Buddhism in America is that not only are

most of its followers not aware of what they are rejecting, their own Christianity or

Judaism, but that the choice of Buddhism is not a very informed one. Buddhism is another

attractive course on the American spiritual buffet.

Representing another direction in ecumenism are the more self-identified Jews and

Christians who actively combine their practice with Buddhism, and allow each tradition to

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inform each other. This is in the true ecumenical spirit, where one identity is not merged

into another, but that someone such as Sylvia Boorstein, the well-known Jewish Buddhist,

who teaches vipassana and leads retreats for rabbis, can simultaneously refer to herself as

an observant Jew and a faithful Buddhist. This enters into the discussion of just who is a

Buddhist, which will follow, but the hyphenated Buddhists, those who are Buddhist and

something else, reflect the breadth that Buddhism in its new American context can spread

over.

Psychological

The parallel construed between Buddhism and psychology goes back to the beginnings

of the current era of Buddhism in America, with Zen in the fifties. In 1957 occurred the

Conference of Zen Buddhism and Psychoanalysis, attended by D.T. Suzuki, who carefully

spelled out the differences as well as the similarities between the two disciplines. Over

time, the differences have blurred, so that forty years later Robert Thurman could say to an

avid audience, “Buddhism, of course, first and foremost probably, is a therapy…it is a

therapy for demented human beings such as us…and fundamentally it’s a therapy about

selfishness…the four noble truths is a therapeutic recipe.”75 Whereas Suzuki saw that

psychotherapy and psychology of his time lacked the discipline of a spiritual practice that

he saw in Buddhism, the current mapping of psychology onto Buddhism by many

American practitioners and teachers can in certain instances mean that the discipline of the

former has increased, and in others, following Goldstein’s worry, that the discipline of the

later has weakened.

The psychological tone of Buddhism in America has pervaded all movements by virtue

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of what Ryo Imamura describes as the American propensity to psychologize everything.76

This character within Buddhism is equally the result of the inclination of both the teachers

and the students. The founders of the vipassana movement in America made a conscious

decision from the beginning to utilize psychology as their main approach of integration

into American culture. Not only was this because the terms of Western psychology were

more familiar than Theravada vocabulary, but that the needs and concerns that the students

were bringing up during retreats were particularly psychological. Worth repeating here is

Jack Kornfield’s observation, in his chapter on psychology and meditation in his classic A

Path With Heart: “at least half of our students at our annual three-month retreat find

themselves unable to do traditional Insight Meditation because they encounter so much

unresolved grief, fear, and wounding, and unfinished developmental business from the past

that this becomes their meditation.”77 Jacqueline Mandel recounted to me the difficulty

visiting Asian teachers had with the emotional issues American students would bring up

during the traditional interview during a retreat to receive meditation guidance. At a

meeting between the Dalai Lama and a group of psychologists, the notion of self-hatred or

lack of self-worth arose. He was perplexed, not having any idea what they were talking

about, and spent a while with his translator trying to find the right Tibetan terms. He was

shocked to discover that all the people in the room, when asked, admitted to suffering from

it.

American Buddhist teachers are predisposed to psychology, with many of the teachers

having training and earned graduate degrees in psychology--as of 1998, nine of the

fourteen teachers at Spirit Rock vipassana center were trained in psychotherapy.78 The line

between Dharma instruction and self-help counseling in much of the popular current

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Buddhist writing is increasingly blurred. Psychological perspectives cuts across the

Tibetan, Zen, and Insight Meditation movements, with titles like, When Things Fall Apart:

Heart Advice for Difficult Times by Pema Chodron of the Shambhala tradition, Mindful

Parenting and Full Catastrophe Living by Jon Kabat-Zin of vipassana, and Anger by Thich

Nhat Hanh of Zen. Hanh has been a strong proponent of the integration of psychology into

Buddhism, contending that “We should build Buddhism with the local materials.”79

The psychological outlook is a cornerstone of American alternative spirituality, it is the

main local material, and hence, of American Buddhism. Hanh‘s retreats and sitting groups

have therapeutic purposes; at one retreat I attended people would sit in a circle after sitting

meditation and share their personal difficulties in what was a form of shared catharsis.

America is the home of a new self-help Buddhism.

That Buddhism and pop-psychology are becoming merged is not universally viewed as

positive phenomenon. Hanh himself has pointed out irreconcilable differences between the

two, criticizing psychology‘s emphasis on self-expression, and its view that not to express

is to repress and cause illness. In his opinion, to express negative emotions like anger is to

rehearse them for more and stronger expressions, and that the Buddhist view is not to

express or repress, but to observe it with care. Theravada monk Ajahn Tiradhammo warns

about the phenomenon of “spiritual bypassing“ where spiritual ideas and practice are used

to avoid personal issues and neuroses. It is very easy, according to him, to oversimplify the

teachings on impermanence and non-self and develop a “disembodied spirituality“ which

is in fact a form of denial of the real needs of oneself and others.80 I have heard long-term

practitioners banter around phrases like “it’s an illusion” to deal with a difficult emotion, or

“no self, no problem”, believing that another retreat will resolve emotional difficulties they

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are experiencing. Teachers now are addressing the different needs, that meditation and

psychological help, while complimentary, do not replace each other.

Victor Hori warns against the transposing of the model of relationship between the

therapist and the client onto the dharma student-teacher relationship, which is accompanied

by the classic dynamics of dependence, transference, and projection. The result, Hori

states, is that “here both roshi and student are on new ground where both are tempted to

exploit the situation to push formalized intimacy to greater extremes.”81 While such

extensions are not at all a given, or by any means the norm among teacher-student

relationships, the lack of formal guidelines for them have from time to time lead to their

exploitation and abuse. Such painful results, however, are simply from the

psychologization of Buddhist relationships, for the same exploitation can be readily found

among priest-layperson and rabbi-student relationships in Christianity and Judaism which

do not have the same therapeutic role relations. There is a tension created when the

casualness and lack of borders of American relationships are combined with the hierarchal

authority of the spiritual master.

The focus that psychology has brought to Buddhism in America is one very much

preoccupied with the self, on “my” problems and “my” relationships, so much so that

Surya Das sarcastically called the Three Jewels of American Buddhism “Me”, “Myself”,

and “I”, as compared to the traditional Buddha, dharma and sangha.82 This self-focus,

partly a result of American individualism and partly from pop-psychologization, creates a

self-consciousness that is somewhat antithetical to the Buddhist project. Elite Buddhists in

America take their identities very seriously. At one retreat at a Thai vipassana center I

noticed a difference between the American practitioners and the Thais--the former were

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stony-faced, while the latter were easy going and smiling. This sentiment has been

expressed by Ryo Imamura: “White practitioners practice intensive psychotherapy on their

cushions in a life-or-death struggle with ego, whereas Asian Buddhists just seem to smile

and eat together.”83 It is not a coincidence that some of the recent books written by senior

teachers address more healthy emotional states, like Sharon Salzberg’s Lovingkindness and

Faith, and James Baraz’s Joy, hoping to balance the prevalent emphasis on strict

mindfulness practice with the cultivation of positive emotion states. The challenge with the

practice of awareness-based meditation is to not lay claim to the disturbing mind states that

arise, not to own them as one becomes mindful of them. To be a little more aware of

self-arising, and a little less self-aware.

Virtual Buddhism

It is possible to argue that the advent and rapid development of computers over the last

half century has contributed the most to the globalization of ideas. Even though

multinational corporations existed before the widespread use of computers, it has been

through their use that a new efficiency and extension of communication standards to

far-flung regions has introduced. The proliferation of the internet, with its so called World

Wide Web, a name that suggests a new order of interconnectedness, has done far more than

jet travel to accelerate the access one has to foreign cultures and ideas. Not only are the

misdeeds of rogue countries and leaders made visible to a world audience on live news

sites, but someone living in a two-street town in the middle of Montana with an interest in

Buddhism can ask questions to a master in New York, Tokyo, or Rangoon, and expect a

reply within hours, or even minutes if the reader is online at the time. One does not need

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proximity to a library or Buddhist center to learn how to meditate or read the Buddhist

canon--a simple computer and phone line serve just as well, or better with no hours of

closing.

It is not my intention to analyze the use of the internet by Buddhists in the West or

America, which is being mentioned in most recent studies, but to simply acknowlege its

tremendous influence on the current popularity of Buddhism in America. The recent

internet explosion has brought with it a myriad of Buddhist sites, ranging from the major

center sites, small groups’ sites, individual teachers’ sites with biographical information

and teachings, whole stacks of translated scriptures, scholarly journals, university sites for

programs in Buddhist studies, order sites for meditation products like tapes, books, music,

pillows and ritual objects, all the way to online real time meditation groups whose

members sit together in their own homes linked by the site. There are hundreds of such

sites, and most of them are categorized and accessible through the site DharmaNet

International. These developments, aided by America’s high level of computer literacy and

accessibility among the socio-economic group that is drawn to Buddhism, i.e. the elite

modernist Buddhist and Buddhist sympathizers, are making available Asian traditions and

wisdom which once required great effort to access. Prebish notes that “formerly distant

regions have become virtual neighbors”, but that in the process, “Buddhism spreading

globally encounters local transformation. The global becomes particularized and

socio-culturally particular. As a consequence, globalization involves a dissolving of the

Asian center(s) as the main or only agent of authority and the emergence of a variety of

authority centers.”84 The ironic turn of the internet and its contribution to globalization is

that the new found closeness and accessibility that American centers can have to their

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Asian parents is accompanied by a greater sense of independence and self-definition.

Buddhism lends itself well to the use of the internet and its many functions, particularly

the globalization of information. Christopher Queen reflects that Buddhism has been an

international religion from its early history, taking root quickly and easily in a variety of

countries and cultures. Buddhism itself stresses the universal aspect of the human

experience, which transcends national and cultural boundaries. An internet-fed globally

aware Buddhism helps to make this reality more apparent. Queen expresses this

movement: “it is not possible to appreciate the social and institutional dimensions of

human and environmental suffering in a globalized world without recognizing their

transcultural, transnational scope.”85 The information on the suffering of local peoples

around the world that the internet has made public has given Buddhist groups such as the

International Campaign for Tibet, based in the States, and the Buddhist Peace Fellowship,

a loose organization of over 14,000 members, much rallying power.

The increased use and reliance on the internet for communication among Buddhists has

spawned the curious emergence of a virtual sangha, a “cybersangha” as coined in 1991 by

Gary Ray, which is a generic term describing the online Buddhist community. The fact that

such a term can be used points to the breadth that the meaning of sangha has taken, the

word used for Buddhist community and originally used to describe just the community of

ordained monks and nuns. The sangha is one of the Three Jewels, or foundation pillars of

the Buddhist world, the other two being the Buddha, who is the founder and primary

teacher of the movement, and the Dharma, which is his teaching, and has come to include

teachings by others which express the Buddhist way. The meaning of the sangha expands

to include lay people, and there are groups such as Sokka Gakkai that have no ordained

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clergy at all. The internet further expanded the concept of sangha to include a community

without a location in real space at all, but existing virtually on the screens of its adherents.

Prebish outlines some of the types of Buddhist cyber-communities for those who

consider themselves Buddhist practitioners.86 There are the web sites and pages put up by

American Buddhist groups for their members, and these include center and retreat

schedules, biographies and writings by the teachers, descriptions of the centers and

directions for arriving there, as well as many pages of teachings and recorded talks. Some

of these groups have created virtual temples as an experiential componenent to their sites.

There are also communities that do not exist as a center, and there are online publications

and writings that target these groups. One of the founders of cyber-sanghas, an American

monk Suwattano of the Thai tradition, wrote a discourse on mindfulness and the use of the

internet which framed the very use of the computer as a form of mindfulness meditation.

The machine itself is to act as a kind of shrine, with the computer room serving as the

meditation hall. John Daido Loori, the abbot of the Zen Mountain Monaster in upstate New

York, has led his students to embrace the use of computers just as they would cut

vegetables for lunch, as an awareness building activity.

The creation of cyber-sanghas, and the increasing reliance on the internet to become a

practicing and informed Buddhist in America has enabled what only a few years previously

would have seemed inconceivable: the instant contact with Buddhists from around the

country and around the world, the sharing of ideas, problems, and Dharma on a scale that

no library or letter writing could compete with, and the inclusion of those practitioners into

the active world of Buddhist who would never be able to reach an established center for

practice and study. The other colder side of the internet is the lack of real face to face

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human contact and support that a true sangha is all about. There is, when it comes down to

real practice, no substitute for the physical presence and supportive energy of others

sharing meditation space, or of the direct communication and understanding that can only

be transmitted in person by a teacher. The emergence of a cyber-sangha can actually reveal

the alienation and lack of access that many American Buddhists have to a living, sitting,

breathing sangha—more than simply reveal it, the cyber-sangha may perpetuate the

distance.

The Academic Buddhist Community

The development of Buddhist Studies programs in most of the major U.S. universities

over the past thirty years has been accompanied by much self-reflection as to the nature of

the discipline. On the whole, however, Buddhist studies continue to be under the domain of

Religious Studies departments, with Buddhist scholars who are trained in a specific region

of the Buddhist world having to teach a wide range of Buddhist topics. Of interest here is

the category of the scholar-practitioner, who, once a very rare and odd bird, is now quite

commonplace. As far back as 1995, a survey of 106 scholars found that at least 25% openly

admitted their Buddhist affilation and practice, and it was estimated that at least another

25% were, as Prebish calls them, “silent Buddhists” who were known to each other but not

to the larger academic community.87 This silence comes from the fear that religious

practice will bias one’s academic perspective, which itself is rooted in the modernist belief

that only cool, removed observation is academically valid. Post-modern theories of

research, which developed largely out of experiments in anthropology where the subjective

view became recognized as valid data, have broken down some of this concern, overriding

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the fear of once being blacklisted as “going native”. Prebish, himself Jewish, encountered

this attitude when admitting to a colleague of his Buddhist affiliation, he was then accused

of becoming “Buddhish”, which was less a joke and more an expression of doubt over his

scholarly abilities.

Because Buddhism crosses over many definitions of religion, allowing one to consider

herself oneself involved with Buddhism or a Buddhist based on very different and

individual standards, the scholarly study of Buddhism may be used in some cases to

include the scholar in the definition of a Buddhist. Professors of Buddhism are often

regarded by their students as spiritual guides or dharma teachers, a role that the

non-affiliated Buddhologist would be reticent to take on—not to mention the scholar of

Buddhism who is personally committed to another faith completely. Many students turn to

religious studies at the university as an expression of their own search for spiritual

development, and they come to the teachers with personal questions that reflect their own

existential and religious concerns. A good percentage of students who take Buddhist

studies courses are actively seeking spiritual alternatives and personal insights, and not

knowing of other places and centers to turn to, or being in university towns where such

places are not available, the professor becomes the main link to a new spiritual life. This

places a very sensitive responsibility on the shoulders of the scholar, especially on those

who would not consider themselves anything more than a scholar, to help the inquiring

student find the more apropriate outlets for her search. The disappointment resulting in a

meeting with an unsympathetic teacher could very well discourage the student from

pursuing a path that could substantially help her life.

It is not just the students who turn to Buddhist studies for the pursuit of a spiritual life,

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but, as mentioned above, a large proportion of the scholars make careers out of Buddhist

studies as part of their desire to etch out a contemplative path. The combination of seeking

students and teachers has resulted in the development of what Duncan Ryukaen Williams,

a Zen priest and PhD candidate at Harvard, has called “Practitioner-Friendly

Institutions”.88 These are places where the academic study of Buddhism is combined with

the practice of Buddhist meditation in an environment that is encouraging to both. The

teachers in such places come from long histories of both practice and study, and offer

personal guidance to the students in ways that are not easily found in more traditional

institutions. Williams lists five such schools as within this category: California Institute of

Integral Studies (CIIS), Graduate Theological Union, His Lai University, Institute of

Buddhist Studies, and Naropa Institute.

The emphasis on study and practice among most Buddhist groups in America highlights

the nature of Buddhism there as of a predominantly lay movement. The knowledge and

skills are not only in the hands of the priesthood or monks, and the accessibility of

Buddhist sources and study programs at universities has created a general literacy among

Buddhist practitioners of essential texts. The preeminence of the university in Western

societies has created a partial democratization of knowledge (partial because it is open to

all who can afford it financially), which has allowed a greater dispersion of Buddhist

studies and Buddhist knowledge. The lay and ordained have equal access to the sources

and teachings of Buddhism—as with politics, the access to knowledge increases the

democratization of the tradition. The growing popularity of Buddhist studies in the

university reflects not only the fact that more and more people are searching for spirituality

in their lives, but that many people who consider themselves Buddhists view the study of

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Buddhism at the university level as complimentary to their practice, and in some ways

necessary for the critical approach that the academy offers.

Who Is A Buddhist?

One of the first requirements for doing a study of a group is to define who the subjects

are. Seems easy enough--this study will be of Buddhist leaders in America from Jewish

backgrounds. Upon considering the nature of the definitions “Buddhist”, “leader”,

“Jewish” and even “America”, the initial neatness becomes more and more muddled. Some

of my interviewees did not consider themselves Buddhists, even though for most of their

lives they had been involved in Buddhist practice. Some would not call themselves leaders,

even though they had been running groups and retreats for years. Being Jewish would seem

the easiest to determine, but apart from there being as many different levels of awareness of

their Judaism as there were people, one of my subjects used the word “we” when referring

to Jews but it turned out he had only one Jewish grandfather and was brought up going to

church. I did not restrict myself to orthodox Jewish legal definitions of a Jew—being born

of a Jewish mother who was not converted by non-orthodox school. When I approached

subjects for an interview as a Jewish Buddhist teacher, their acceptance I assumed was an

identification of their Judaism. As far as America goes, one of the subjects spent most of

his practice life and teaching career in England, and only more recently did he relocate in

America, and two of my subjects, while having strong American influences, run groups in

Israel. Identity is never a clear-cut issue, and the categories created to define people

necessarily stretch and adapt to the non-contradictory complexities of the human being. In

this section I will limit the discussion to the issue of who is a Buddhist in America, from the

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non-Asian groups, those who I have called the new elite Buddhists.

Jan Nattier, in her essay “Landscape of Buddhist America” defines the problem of

identification in clear terms:

One issue that must be faced at the outset in any study of American Buddhism is precisely who is be

included within the category of “Buddhist”. Is it enough merely to call oneself a Buddhist, or are

other features--certain beliefs, certain ritual practices (such as meditation or chanting), or perhaps

even active membership in a specific organization--required as well?…To take a not uncommon

example: if a college sophomore buys a book on Zen by Alan Watts, reads it, likes it, and

subsequently begins to think of himself as a Buddhist--but without ever having encountered any

form of Buddhism beyond the printed page--should he be included within the scope of a study of

Buddhism in North America? 89

Her example is not that uncommon at all--I was that sophomore. In my second year at

McGill, I came across a battered used copy of Alan Watt’s The Way of Zen, and it read like

a revelation. From that alone I began attempting meditation, and to seek out other books.

The next main source I read was Philip Kapleau’s The Three Pillars of Zen, and by the time

I finished it, and developed sore knees sitting, I considered Buddhism my path. I did not,

however, call or think of myself as a Buddhist, a title which seemed to imply too much of

the religious identity I believed Buddhism was free of. For a while I continued my nightly

attempts at meditation, which seemed to become more difficult with time. After about a

year, not having found any instruction beyond the written word, I gave up temporarily on

meditation but continued with my study and interest of Buddhism. Despite my lack of

community or even practice, I embraced Buddhism as my chosen spirituality. If someone

were to have asked me if I were a Buddhist, I would not have said yes, but I’m not sure if I

would have said no.

Most scholars and Buddhists would not, as Nattier points out, have included me at that

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time within the definition of a Buddhist in North America. I would have fit into Thomas

Tweed’s definition of a sympathizer: “Sympathizers are those who have some sympathy

for a religion but do not embrace it exclusively or fully. When asked, they would not

identify themselves as Buddhists. They would say they are Methodist, or Jewish, or

unaffiliated.”90 Most sympathizers, Tweed contends, encounter the tradition, at least

initially, through books; the plethora of Buddhist-inspired books on the self-help shelf of

the local New Age bookstore, with titles like Zen and the Art of Golf, or Zen and the Art of

Changing Diapers, raises the question of whether the readers of such books would include

themselves in the category of a Buddhist sympathizer, or rather as more of just having a pet

interest in spirituality in general. Being interested in Buddhism is not the same as being a

Buddhist sympathizer, or as being, even in the widest sense, a Buddhist.

Should a Buddhist sympathizer who doesn’t identify herself as a Buddhist be included

in the parameters of Buddhism in America? Scholars such as Charles Prebish, Thomas

Tweed, Rick Fields, Richard Seager and Jacob Raz have suggested that Buddhists are

simply those who identify themselves as such. If you say you’re a Buddhist, then you are.

In what could have been taken as a rather sarcastic response, Chogyam Tungpa, when

asked by a woman during the first Naropa summer program in 1974 what she had to do to

be considered a Buddhist, grinningly replied, “When you go into the hospital, on the

admitting form, write ‘Buddhist’ on the dotted line where it asks for religious affiliation.”91

Perhaps he meant what he said in all earnestness, but I feel, both the renegade and

traditionalist that he was, he was poking fun at the need to create an identity out of a

practice that is aimed at being free of such attachments. He could have used the Zen, “if

you see the Buddha, kill him” and added--even in the hospital.

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There are a couple of general reasons given for the validity of self-identification as a

definition of the Buddhist. One is that one would not, except for extreme cases of fashion,

identify oneself as a Buddhist unless one really was in some sense. It’s not going to grant

you any special rights, like claiming a Jewish identity in Israel, and it would seem to

obligate the announcer to some kind of commitment. If you’re going to call yourself a

Buddhist, then you would need to know enough about it to explain yourself to the person

who asks, “what is that?”, including describing the practices you do. The other reason in

favor of self-identification is that it broadens the scope of Buddhism so to include many

groups and people who would have been ignored if more traditional definitions were

utilized, such as the formal taking of precepts, refuge, or membership in a Buddhist

organization. These groups and individuals, as Prebish contends, would be inspired with a

new sense of seriousness and mission by having the title applied to them.

Self-identification is equivalent to self-validation.

The use of the very general requirement of self-identification serves the purpose of

avoiding essentialist reductions of what Buddhism is, especially as such definitions just do

not apply to many of the American permutations of Buddhism. If Buddhism is defined as

being about meditation, then what do we do with the groups who don’t meditate but call

themselves Buddhist? Or, if one needs to take precepts or refuge in the Triple Gem, the

Buddha Dharma Sangha, to be considered a Buddhist, what about all the meditators who

keep all of the precepts for the duration of their retreats only? Is a Buddhist monk, newly

ordained, who doesn’t know who the Buddha was (an interesting situation one of my

interviewees experienced in his first months as a monk) a real Buddhist? Tweed states that

self-identification enriches the story of Buddhism in America, claiming that it “allows

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more characters into our historical narratives,”92 which many of the practitioners who

would fall between the cracks of strict definitions compose. Prebish takes this to mean not

just individual characters, those Buddhists who now can come out with their identity

statements, but for those unrecognized groups, as he says, “we also provide more than a

modicum of freedom for the American Buddhist groups--a freedom in which they can

develop a procedure that is consistent with their own self-image and mission…imposing a

renewed sense of seriousness on all Buddhist groups.”93 A group which calls itself

Buddhist, and then is recognized as such, will discover the inspiration and ability to create

and pursue its own group process. The letterhead on the stationary gives the writer a sense

of purpose in his composition.

While the designation of an identity, Buddhist, can serve to inspire and motivate

individuals and groups to develop in their practice and “mission”, there is something

counter-Buddhist about it. I have heard it said from monks that the wearing of the robe as

an outer identification, for themselves and others, helps them keep their vows and protects

their practice to a certain degree. The uniform and its outer identity label remind them who

they are and how they should be acting. I have heard the same thing said to me by religious

Jews who wear a head covering, a kippa, which imparts upon them a self-consciousness of

having to behave in a certain way, in keeping with the religious laws and morality. Upon

seeing the uniform, people expect certain behavior, which, human that the monk or rabbi

may be, may be temporarily forgotten. One’s inner identity is shaped by the relationship

with the outer world, which is mediated by the external accruements of identification. The

self-consciousness of a chosen identity, calling oneself a Buddhist, can serve the same

purpose, but it runs the risk of becoming another attachment in the ego-self that Buddhist

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practice is aiming to gain release from. Vipassana teachers Joseph Goldstein and Jack

Kornfield warn against this, as they discourage their students from identifying themselves

as Buddhists:

It is important to realize that to identify oneself as a meditator or a spiritual person or even a

Buddhist can be another way we get caught or lose one’s true balance. This is like carrying the raft

on your head instead of using it for a vehicle to the other shore. The purpose of meditation is not to

create a new spiritual identity, nor to become the most meditative person on the block, who tells

other people how they should live. To practice is to let go.94

It seems from this attitude, which most in the vipassana movement I spoke with share, that

being a Buddhist is not part of their practice, so to speak. If that is so, then the job of

identifying subjects for a study is not as easy as asking to write your religious affiliation on

the dotted line, of a simple identity statement.

The various categories of Buddhists in America offered by scholars, starting with the

outdated “white Buddhists” (Fields), “occidental” (Ellwood), Caucasian American

Buddhists (Prebish), “Euro-American” (Tweed), “American converts” (Numrich and

Seager), and my preferred “Elite” (Nattier) to which I append “modernist” (Bauman), do

not tell us much about what is actually Buddhist about these people, or what includes them

in the category. When Buddhism in America was just becoming recognized as a topic of

study, Emma Layman set out three qualifications for the designation of the term Buddhist:

a) those who have made a formal commitment to Buddhism, or have been accepted as

disciples to teachers or masters; b) those who are members of Buddhist institutions, replete

with maintaining continued interest and financial support; and c) those who have

maintained regular Buddhist practice, which she defines as meditation, sutra study, or

chanting, on a regular basis for at least a year.95 I believe she has outlined a useful

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framework, though limited and rather outdated, I accepted it and altered first and the last

conditions as the most relevant for my study. People may or may not have made a formal

commitment to Buddhism, may not have ever met a teacher, but may be actively engaged

in a Buddhist practice and study. This does not neccesitate the formal taking of vows which

is not relevant for many people, and can smack of a religiosity that they may have rejected

in their native religions. Being a member of a Buddhist group or institution is even more of

an unreliable gage, for, as Nattier points out, “Americans are, on the whole, notorious

non-joiners: statistics regularly demonstrate a far higher level of belief…and

practice...than of participation in church or synagogue activities.”96 For many American

Buddhists, even though they may attend a weekly sitting group and go on a yearly retreat,

their Buddhism is very much an individual affair.

The most appropriate qualification for being a Buddhist is, I would maintain, revising

Layman’s first condition, that of having made a formal or informal commitment to

Buddhism as one’s chosen spiritual path, or one of one’s paths. While a formal

commitment may entail the taking of vows and refuge before a teacher and community, an

informal commitment is the personal embracing of Buddhism in one’s own life. A

Buddhist is one who accepts Buddhist dharma as that which primarily informs her own

spiritual aspirations and path. This means that while Buddhologists may have much more

knowledge of Buddhism than the newly involved adherent, and may have devoted most of

his professional life to the study of Buddhism, his lack of personal conviction and

commitment to it as his own path disqualifies him as a Buddhist.

This definition does not mean that the student who reads a book on meditation and

begins trying it out, thinking that this is her new way, is automatically a Buddhist. There

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must be some endurance to the commitment, and this is most easily measured by time. The

time qualification links up with Layman’s third condition, that of being engaged in a

regular practice for at least a year. It is not enough to simply proclaim one’s commitment to

Buddhism, this must be enacted, or manifested, by the practice that one takes on over a

period of time. A Buddhist, then, is someone who has made a commitment to Buddhism as

his primary spiritual path, which is expressed by a regular practice for at least a year. I

refrain from defining what that practice would entail, but it would be associated by the

practitioner with Buddhism, and would have been learned from Buddhist teachings or

teachers. A Buddhist in America is not, then, someone who calls herself a Buddhist, but

someone who does what a Buddhist does. Instead of self-identification as the gage, I would

go with praxo-identification, or identified by activity. This person does something that he

consciously associates with Buddhism, which is taken on as a primary part of his spiritual

life. The activity over time expresses the commitment, and consequently, the identity. The

people I contacted for interviews were not asked if they were Buddhist, but were chosen on

account of their having been involved intensely with Buddhist practice and teaching for

many years. I was interested in what people were doing over an extended period of time.

The Buddhist practice which identifies one as a Buddhist does not have to be, as Tweed

points out, an exclusive practice, but can exist as a hyphenated one. His category of

Buddhist sympathizer allows for this, creating a kind of “Creole character of their religious

life”97 where not only are different schools of Buddhism mixed and matched, like

combining vipassana meditation with Tibetan Buddhist bodhicitta motivations, but that the

phenomenon of the “not-just Buddhists” can freely exist. When well-known teachers such

as Sylvia Boorstein can publicize being a religious Jew and a faithful Buddhist, and Zen

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teacher Norman Fischer can write a Zen-inspired translation of the Psalms, then the doors

are opening to a much more creatively spiced Buddhism on one hand, or Judaism on the

other. Religious practice is a meal that involves different ingredients, to borrow from

Jewish Zen teacher Bernie Glassman’s metaphor. The style of the cooking may be

Buddhist, but the ingredients, by virtue of the context, are necessarily local, and must

respond to the nutritional spiritual needs of the individual practitioner-cook.

It is not so useful, following this definition, to refer to some Buddhists in America as

Buddhists, but rather just to refer to what they do, and to talk about that. I find the statement

by Jon Kabat-Zin on this most persuasive:

What I’m most interested in is the use of Buddhist meditative practices, as opposed to spreading

Buddhism, if you will. There was a time that I considered myself to be a Buddhist, but I actually

don’t consider myself to be one now, and although I teach Buddhist meditation, it’s not with the

aim of people becoming Buddhist. It’s with the aim of them realizing that they’re budddhas.98

What is of note here is that he once called himself a Buddhist, and now doesn’t, though he

presumably is involved at least in the same amount of practice, with a strong commitment

to the Buddhist way. This again reveals the limitation of self-identification for the study of

Buddhists, for there may be many practitioners who are much more “Buddhist” and don’t

identify themselves as such, than those who claim the identity and don’t do very much

about it. Kabat-Zin runs the Center for Mindfulness which utilizes meditation for pain and

stress management, and the place exemplifies his position: “I don’t even ask and I don’t

know whether my colleagues--and there are about twenty people who work at the Center

for Mindfulness--are Buddhist or not. I’ve never even thought to ask them. All I want to

know is that they are deeply grounded in Buddhist meditative practice, particularly in

mindfulness practice.”99 As the saying goes, it’s not whether you can talk the talk, it’s can

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you walk the walk. A Buddhist in America can be a non-Buddhist who is committed to a

Buddhist practice. There doesn’t need to be any self-identification of the person or the

practice as Buddhist, but there must be a long-term relationship between the two.

In this chapter I have described the context of Buddhism in America for the elite

modernist practitioner. The focus was on the recent formative history and current trends of

the three main Buddhist movements for this groups, Zen, Tibetan, and Insight Meditation.

This background, particularly the different features of Buddhism outlined as well as

identity issues, is the overall context from which the stories of the Jewish Buddhist leaders

I have interviewed emerge. It is these people, and many more they represent, who have

participated in the founding of their traditions in America, have been actors in its history,

and have contributed through their teaching and long-term commitment their influence to

the ongoing experiment of creating a new-old way. Their stories are the stories of

Buddhism in America.

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Endnotes: 1 Fields, Rick, How the Swans Came to the Lake. Boston: Shambhala Publications, Inc., 1992. p. 307. 2 Prebish, Charles S., Luminous Passage: the Practice and Study of Buddhism in America. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999. p. 203. 3 Thomas A. Tweed, “Night-Stand Buddhists and other Creatures: Sympathizers, Adherents, and the Study of Religion”, in American Buddhism. Eds. Duncan Ryuken Williams and Christopher S. Queen. Surrey: Cruzon Press, 1999. 4 Bauman, Martin, and Prebish, Charles S., Westward Dharma--Buddhism Beyond Asia. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002. p. 5. 5 Layman, Emma McCloy, Buddhism in America. Chicago: Nelson Hall, 1976. p. 31. 6 Seager, Ricahrd Hughes, Buddhism in America. New York: Columbia University Press, 1999. p. viii. 7During a lunch on Succot in Jerusalem while he was visiting in 2003. 8 Ajahn Tiradhammo, “The Challenge of Community” in Westward Dharma: Buddhism Beyond Asia. eds. Charles S. Prebish and Martin Bauman. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002. p. 252. 9Gil Fronsdal, “Insight Meditation in the United States” in The Faces of American Buddhism. eds. Charles S. Prebish and Kenneth K. Tanaka. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998. p. 176. 10 Prebish, Luminous Passage, p.86, and Nattier, “Landscape of Buddhist America” in The Faces of American Buddhism, p. 192. 11Nattier, ibid.

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12Layman, pp. 268-270. 13 Martin Bauman, “Protective Amulets and Awareness Techniques, or How to Make Sense of Buddhism in the West.” in Westward Dharma: Buddhism Beyond Asia. p. 61. 14 Bellah, Robert N., “The New Consciousness and the Crisis of Modernity” in The New Religious Consciousness. eds. Charles Glock and Robert N. Bellah. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1976. p. 341. 15 Prebish, Luminous Passage, p. 54. 16Seager, 11. 17 ibid. 18James William Coleman, “The New Buddhism: Some Empirical Findings”, in American Buddhism, p. 94-98. 19 Fronsdal, Gil, “Insight Meditation in the United States” in The Faces of Buddhism in America, p. 178. 20 Eileen Barker, “New Religious Movements: Their Incidence and Significance”, in New Religious Movements: Challenge and Response. Bryan Wilson and Jamie Cresswell, eds. London: Routledge, 1999. Her definition of a New Religious Movement is as follows: “an NRM is new in so far as it has become visible in its present form since the Second World War, and that it is religious in so far as it offers not merely narrow theological statements about the existence and nature of supernatural beings, but that it proposes answers to at least some of the other kinds of ultimate questions such as: Is there God? Who am I? How might I find direction, meaning and purpose in life? Is there life after death? Is there more to human beings than their physical bodies and immediate interactions with others?” p. 16. 21 Seager, Buddhism in America, p. 242. 22 McMahan, David, “Repackaging Zen in the West” in Westward Dharma--Buddhism Beyond Asia, p. 223. 23 Fronsdal, ibid, p. 179. 24Seager, Richard, “Buddhist Worlds in the U.S.A.: A Survey of Territory” in American Buddhism, p. 246. 25McMahan, 222. 26 Erich Fromm, D.T. Suzuki, and Richard De Martino, Zen Buddhism and Psychoanalysis. New York: Harper and Brothers, 1960. 27Seager, Buddhism in America, p. 43. 28 ibid. 29 Nisker, Wes, “Breaking Out of the Shell of Self” in Buddhism in America. Boston: Tuttle Publishing, 1998. p. 255. 30Fields, p. 229. 31 ibid, p. 241. 32 ibid, p. 268. See interview excerpts with Blanche Hartman, a social activist of the 50’s and 60’s who found

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in Zen a way to integrate her different needs and realizations, and continued to be active both in practice and social activism as abbot of the Center. 33 Helen Tworkov, “Zen in the Balance: Can It Survive America?” in Tricycle, Spring 1994, p. 52. 34Seager, Buddhism in America, 113. 35 Gross, Rita, “Western Buddhist Women”, in The Faces of American Buddhism, p. 241. 36 Richard Seager, Buddhism in America, p. 118. 37 Fields, 309. 38Levine, Amy, “Tibetan Buddhism in America” in Faces of Buddhism in America, p.103. 39 see: http://www.shambhala.org/int/vision.html. 40Gil Fronsdal, “Virtues Without Rules, Ethics in the Insight Meditation Movement” in Westward Dharma, p. 287. 41 Fields, 322. 42 Kornfield, Jack, A Path With Heart. Boston: Bantam Books, 1993. p. 246. 43 Fronsdal, “Insight Meditation in the United States” in Faces of American Buddhism, p.176. 44 Surya Das, “Emergent Trends in Western Dharma”, in Buddhism in America, p. 550. 45 Charles Prebish, Luminous Passage, p. 66. 46 Fronsdal, ibid, p. 171. 47 Prebish, Luminous Passage, p. 63. 48 Kenneth K. Tanaka, “Epilogue” in The Faces of American Buddhism, p. 290. 49 Surya Das, ibid. 50 Goldstein, Joseph, One Dharma. San Francisco: Harper Collins, 2002, p.1-2. 51 Surya Das, ibid, 548. 52 Boucher, Sandy, Turning the Wheel: American Women Creating the New Buddhism. Boston: Beacon Press, 1988. p. 193. 53 Fronsdal, “Virtues Without Rules” in Westward Dharma. p. 298. 54 Jack Kornfield, “Is Buddhism Changing in North America?” in Buddhist America: Centers, Retreats, Practices. ed. Don Morreal. Sante Fe: John Muir Publications, 1988. p. xv. 55 Helen Tworkov, “The Formless Field of Buddhism” in Tricycle. I, no. 3 (Spring 1992), p. 4. 56 Surya Das, ibid, 548. 57 Shunryu Suzuki, Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1973. p. 133.

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58 Victor Hori, “Japanese Zen in America” in The Faces of Buddhism in America. p. 66. 59 ibid, p.73. 60 Sandy Boucher, Turning the Wheel: American Women Creating the New Buddhism. Boston: Beacon Press, 1988. p. 4. 61 Thich Nhat Hanh, Being Peace. Berkeley: Parallax Press, 1987. pp. 53-54. 62 Thomas Tweed, The American Encounter with Buddhism, 1844-1912. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1992. Pp.3-144. 63 Christopher S. Queen, “Engaged Buddhism” in Westward Dharma. pp. 324-343. 64 ibid, p. 327. Originally expressed in Christopher S. Queen, Engaged Buddhism in the West. Boston: Wisdom Publications, 2000. pp. 17-26. 65 Emma Layman, Buddhism in America. Chicago: Nelson Hall, 1976. p. 31. 66 Surya Das, ibid, 552. 67 Kenneth K. Tanaka, “Epilogue” in The Faces of Buddhism in America. p. 294. 68 quoted by Richard Hayes, “The Internet As a Window onto America Buddhism” in American Buddhism. ed. Duncan Ryukan Williams and Christopher S. Queen. Richmond: Curzon Press, 1999. p. 170. 69 Surya Das, ibid. 70 “Empty Phenomenon Rolling On: An Interview With Joseph Goldstein,” in Tricycle. Spring, 1995, p. 38. 71 Kenneth K. Tanaka, “Epilogue” in The Faces of Buddhism in America. p. 297. 72 ibid, 296. 73 Gil Fronsdal, “Insight Meditation in the United States” in The Faces of Buddhism in America” p. 176. 74 ibid, 180. Fronsdal notes that in Kornfield’s popular book, A Path With Heart, Boston: Bantam Books, 1993, he has a chapter entitled “From No Self to True Self.” 75 Robert Thurman, “Toward and American Buddhism”, in Buddhism in America. p. 452. 76 Ryo Imamura, “Buddhist and Western Psychotherapies: An Asian American Perspective,” in The Faces of Buddhism in America, p. 229. 77 Kornfield, Jack, A Path With Heart, p. 246. 78 Fronsdal, “Insight Meditation in the United States”, in The Faces of Buddhism in America. p. 172. 79 Rick Fields, How the Swans Came to the Lake, p. 177. 80 Ajahn Tiradhammo, “The Challenge of Community”, in Westward Dharma. p. 250. 81 Victor Hori, p. 73.

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82 Charles S. Prebish, Luminous Passage. p. 263. 83 Ryo Imamura, Sangha Newsletter 7, Summer 1994, pp.2-10. Quoted by Charles S. Prebesh in Luminous Passage, p. 65. 84 Charles S. Prebish, Westward Dharma. pp. 6-7. 85 Christopher S. Queen, “Engaged Buddhism” in Westward Dharma, p. 326. 86 Charles S. Prebish, Luminous Passage, pp. 225-227. 87 ibid, p. 180. 88 Duncan Ryuken Williams, “Where To Study” in Tricycle, 6 no. 3 (Spring 1997), p. 68. 89 Jan Nattier, “Landscape of Buddhist America” in The Faces of Buddhism in America, p. 184. 90 Thomas Tweed, “Night-Stand Buddhists and Other Creatures” in American Buddhism, p. 74. 91 Charles S. Prebish, Luminous Passage, p. 56. 92 Thomas Tweed, ibid, p.79. 93 Prebish, ibid. 94 Joseph Goldstein and Jack Kornfield, Seeking the Heart of Wisdom: The Path of Insight Meditation. Boston: Shambhala, 1987. p. 8. 95 Emma Layman, Buddhism in America, p. 253 96 Jan Nattier, p. 185. 97 Thomas Tweed, ibid, p. 84. 98 Jon Kabat-Zin, “Toward the Mainstreaming of American Dharma Practice”, in Buddhism in America. p. 479. 99 ibid, p. 482.

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Chapter Three: Methodology Contents: Introduction to Qualitative Research p. Grounded Theory Basics p. Narrative Theory p. Post-modernism, the Hermeneutic Circle, and a Phenomenological Twist p. The Role of Theory and Interpretive Interactionism p. The Interview p. Analytical Tools: Grounded and Narrative Practice p. Validity Assurance p. Ethical Considerations p.

1

Introduction to Qualitative Research

When I set out to study how Jews became Buddhist teachers, it was immediately

obvious that I would not be doing a statistical analysis--this was not a phenomenon of

great numbers, or of dealing with information that could be quantified in any conclusive

way. I was interested in people’s stories that spoke about their life processes, individual

choices and spiritual directions, which fell squarely under the rubric of qualitative

research. Qualitative research is, in short, the alternative to quantitative research, as

Anselm Strauss, the founder of grounded theory, and Corbin express: “By the term

qualitative research we mean any kind of research that produces findings not arrived at

by means of statistical procedures or other means of quantification.”1 Qualitative research

is an umbrella category that covers such diverse approaches such as grounded theory,

ethnography, phenomenology, narrative, feminism, interpretive interactionism,

participant observation, and conversation analysis, among others. The empirical materials

it makes use of can include case study, personal experience, life story and narrative,

interviews, biography, historical texts, journals, interactions, art, poetry and literature, as

well as self-reflection and introspection. Its diversity has led David Silverman to state

that “there is no standard approach among qualitative researchers.”2 There are, however,

common features of qualitative approaches which I will examine here, following the

summary statement by the one of the most published in the field, Norman Denzin:

Qualitative research is multimethod in its focus, involving an interpretive, naturalistic

approach to its subject matter. This means that qualitative researchers study things in their natural

settings, attempting to make sense of, or interpret, phenomena in terms of the meanings people

bring to them…Qualitative research is many things to many people. Its essence is twofold: a

2

commitment to some version of the naturalistic interpretive approach to its subject matter, and an

ongoing critique of the politics and methods of positivism.3

I needed a methodology that would consider the subjectivity of the subject matter and

be varied and flexible enough to integrate very diverse individuals. As this study is

primarily an investigation into the meaning of certain people’s lives, as both they

conceive of it and as I interpret it, it became clear that the qualitative approaches of

narrative study and interactionism as set on the background of grounded theory and the

phenomenological attitude were most suitable--these will be explained in the following

sections. Qualitative research aims at understanding the processes of lives and events, on

how something happened rather than the results. The focus is not on what happened in a

life, but how it happened.

I am interested in how people from Jewish backgrounds became teachers of

Buddhism, the process of life events and choices that meaningfully shaped their lives; not

a list of facts, but how they fit together with subjective meaning. Qualitative research

looks at meaning as it is cannot be quantified, but rather socially, or interactively,

constructed, as Denzin expresses: “The word qualitative implies an emphasis on

processes and meanings that are not…measured…in terms of quantity, amount, intensity,

or frequency. Qualitative researchers stress the socially constructed nature of reality, the

intimate relationship between the researcher and what is studied,”4 The researcher

embarks in a search for meaning that is found in the processes of the phenomena that he

or she is identifying. This meaning is naturalistic, in that it relies on the unmanipulated

(by the researcher) perspectives of the subjects within their natural setting, and it is

interactional, in that it is revealed through the social interaction of the researcher and her

3

participants. Though it was time and resource consuming, I was careful to conduct my

interviews in the homes or centers of the participants, which allowed for more casual and

comfortable interview atmospheres, and I make sure, in the analysis, to quote them at

length with minimum alteration to present their perspectives.

Bryman (1988) lists six criteria for qualitative research, which include: seeing through

the eyes of the subject; describing the mundane detail of everyday settings; understanding

actions and meanings in their social context; emphasizing time and process; open and

unstructured research design; and avoiding concepts and theories at an early stage. The

study of new or relatively unresearched phenomena, such as my study of the life

processes of Jewish Buddhist teachers, requires a flexibility in research design that the

burgeoning field of qualitative studies provides; to paraphrase Silverman (1993) it offers

new opportunities for people to make their own choices. With analysis grounded in the

data, I am able to creatively combine narrative and phenomenological readings while

adhering to internal validity requirements.

In addition to above criteria, Gubrium and Holstein(1997) include several

commitments that the researcher must have to her project: a commitment to close

interaction with subjects (which I achieved through interviews); appreciation for

subjectivity (equal weight is given to the subjects’ and my own interpretations of their

events); and a tolerance for complexity which is interactional (the meanings of life are

complex, and socially constructed by my interviewees in their own lives and with me

before, during, and after the interviews). I am especially sensitive to this last point, as the

interview is something frozen in time and thus lived experience with all its complexities

necessarily eludes it; this echoes Silverman’s (1993) recommendation that we recognize

4

that the phenomenon always escapes. Escapes what? Escapes our definition of it. The

analysis, in the end, is an intersubjective evaluation of the interview, and not of the life

events the interview is recounting.

Denzin and Lincoln (1998) include as a requirement that the researcher is committed

to holism, the search for the larger picture of understanding the whole. This naturally

works in conjunction with their next point of looking at relationships within a specific

culture, insofar as one constantly refers back to the personal and immediate experience.

In my study, the personal lives of the Jewish Buddhist leaders are stories about

themselves and of their societies and cultures. The personal, interpersonal, communal,

societal, and universal are all frameworks of the same life that stands and speaks before

you. The individual story reflects many levels of being in the world, like co-centric

circles rippling out from the stone thrown in the pond. This is what Strauss and Corbin

(1992) call making a conditional matrix of meanings, which I return to in the practical

discussion of their method.

Beyond qualitative research being a naturalistic inquiry, with a holistic perspective

and design flexibility aimed at uncovering subjective meanings, Patton (1990) maintains

that it involves inductive analysis. This means that immersion in the details and specifics

of the data discovers the important categories, and the inquiry begins with open questions

rather then hypotheses that are then tested (deductively). Categories of meaning and

findings are grounded in their specific contexts (the interview data). Qualitative data is

thus detailed, or “thick” (Geertz, 1973), describing the mundane, using direct and full

quotations, and subject’s perspectives. Data analysis is interactional in that the

researcher’s personal experiences and insights, as well as biases, are important parts of

5

the process of understanding. The emphasis on subjectivity has Patton point out the

feature of unique case orientation, which assumes that each case is special and unique;

the effort in qualitative research is to capture the details of individual cases, and to

present them meaningfully.

The difference between inductive and deductive approaches, which is also the

difference between grounded and non-grounded theories, is expressed by the

anthropological stances of emic, or experience-based language use (exemplified by

Whyte), verses etic, or theoretical and experience-distant language (exemplified by

Malinowski). Grounded theory, in fact, integrates both inductive, emic language, and

deductive, etic language, approaches. I look to the data for the categories of

understanding to first emerge on the data’s own terms, but are recognized only as from

within a framework of understanding that already exists--I am looking for certain

information based on my interests and theoretical background. Theory and raw data

dance together in an open circle--a circle, not square, dance.

Within this circle of subjective interpretation, called the hermeneutic circle, are the

thick descriptions of the data (untouched extensive interview quotes), descriptions of

processes (subjects’ interpretations of how their events occur as well as my own

understanding), frank admissions of my own biases and biographical issues, and a

personal investment in the research project--care for what I’m doing. This last point is

what Denzin calls taking care of the feigned academic dispassion; I don’t pretend to be an

objective observer, or even an observer, but while maintaining my academic purpose, I

am an involved participant in the research process. This does not mean simply as a

participant observer in the anthropological sense, but that the whole research is based on

6

interacting subjectivities. My biases help me--I like what I’m looking at, or I wouldn’t be

doing it.

The main question that qualitative research tackles, as Harry Wolcott (1990)

expresses, is ‘what is going on here?’ I see that a lot of the senior teachers of Buddhism

in America are Jewish, and I ask myself, what is going on here? I look at my own life

story as it has weaved together Judaism and Buddhism, and I ask, what’s going on here?

Are there others like me whom I can learn from, and whose stories I can better

understand because of my own? Gubrium and Holstein (1997) continue to ask, what are

people doing, what does it mean to them, what are the contexts of meaning, and how are

their realities accomplished? So, then, what are these Jewish Buddhist teachers doing,

what kind of lives are they living, and how did they get there? Moreover, what do the

events in their lives mean to them, and what are the cultural, societal, and biographical

contexts to these meaningful events? Denzin sums up the qualitative project by

contending that “the question that the researcher frames must be a how and not a why

question.”5 From the beginning I have been asking, how did you get to be a Buddhist

teacher and leader coming from a Jewish background? The road down that line was

purely qualitative, though fueled in part by the quantitative facts of the large percentages

of Buddhists who are Jews in America, especially among teachers. That significant

number, though a fascinating start to research in its own right, would not make the stories

I am looking at less compelling if it were not so large. In qualitative research, one person

is a phenomenon.

Grounded Theory Basics (Theory)

7

Grounded theory is the backbone of much, if not most, of qualitative research

methodology. Simply put, it is the insistence of a constant interplay between theory

generation and data, so that the categories and theories constructed have their grounding

firmly in the data themselves. One’s theory is validated against the data, and any

propositions have to be supported over and over by the data. Grounded theory was a

reaction by two sociologists, Barney Glasser and Anselm Strauss at the University of

Chicago to the predominance of theory and abstraction in the human sciences during the

50‘s and early 60‘s. They felt a need to be in the field of research to understand what is

going on, and to have any theory grounded in the reality being observed. Grounded

theory can also be called inductive analysis, as mentioned above, meaning that any

themes, patterns, or categories of analysis emerge from the data and not from prior ideas,

using instead categories and meanings articulated by the subjects themselves. Grounded

theory makes research and analysis people-centered rather than theory-centered, which

involves the interpretive interaction of both the researcher and the subject, as Strauss

expresses: “interpretations must include the perspectives and voices of the people whom

we study…they (the researchers) accept responsibility for their interpretive roles. They

do not believe it sufficient merely to report or give voice to the viewpoints of the people,

groups, or organizations studied.”6

Grounded theory can be developed into a specific method, which I do utilize and will

detail later, but it is first, as Strauss explains, “a general methodology for developing

theory that is grounded in data…theory evolves during actual research, and it does this

through a continuous interplay between analysis and data collections.”7 This highlights

the fact that theory generation commences as soon as data begins to be collected, and so

8

the interplay of theory and data takes shape from the start of the project. The point is to

have theory closely related to the realities that are being studied; the constant thinking

about categories and analysis during the data collection period means that they will be

adjusted and corrected, given more depth, as more data comes in. Waiting until all the

data has been collected will overload the researcher and push him into the escape hatch of

abstraction. During my first Buddhist retreats when I met other Jews I began generating

ideas about the situation, and as I read literature and began to interview teachers, these

ideas became more sophisticated, with some being dropped and others generated. The

purpose of grounded theory is to present a description that is faithful to and sheds light

upon the phenomenon under study.

Grounded theory represents a creative breakthrough in research methodology. No

longer is one constrained by having to refer to previously developed theories or

explanations, which may or may not apply, but the theory that one uses to explain

phenomena evolves during the research project itself, as Strauss states, “new categories

emerge that neither we nor anyone else had thought of previously.”8 With new data one is

invited to make free associations, “let the mind wander”, and break old assumptions.

Grounded theory is the place where art and science meet in research. This creative vein

does not mean, however, that anything goes, as certain criteria must be met for the

analysis to be valid (I will fully detail validity issues in the section on validity). These

criteria, in a general sense, are that the analysis must be induced from the data and thus

represent the reality it is describing; it must be understandable and make sense to the

people studied; the data should be comprehensive enough to include a variety of contexts;

and the limitations or conditions of the data need to be clearly spelled out.

9

The most broad and important criterion for working with grounded theory is what is

called by Strauss theoretical sensitivity. This is what gives depth and breadth to the

analysis, while avoiding the temptation to over-generalize. Theoretical sensitivity is

cultivated through one’s personal experience with the field being studied (in my case, I

am an self-identified Jew who has been involved with Buddhism as a scholar and

practitioner for the past fourteen years); one’s professional experience (my previous

graduate work involved interviewing Western Buddhists and participating in their

centers); reading relevant literature (I try to keep up!); and intensive involvement in the

analytic process itself, through interaction with the data (repeated interview readings).

With all this in mind, I take to heart Valerie Janerick’s (1998) admonition against

‘methodolatry’, the combination of method and idolatry. As a Jew I don’t worship

strange gods, as a Buddhist with a Zen inclination I kill the Buddha (external crutches for

truth) when I meet him, and as a qualitative researcher I view theory with large doses of

suspicion. It is easy to become preoccupied with the method to the exclusion of the data,

even in the grounded approach. The point is not to take my own ideas, categories, and

analysis more seriously than the data.

Narrative Theory Basics

Narrative occurs in all periods, in all places, all societies; narrative begins with the very

history of humanity; there is not, there has never been, any people anywhere without narrative; all

classes, all human groups have their narratives…narrative never prefers good to bad literature:

international, transhistorical, transcultural, narrative is there, like life.

Ronald Barthes9

Before I specify how I practically combine grounded method and narrative into an

10

analytical tool, I wish to take some time here to consider narrative as a whole and why it

is so central to my project. We live, as Maines (1993) has articulated, in narrative’s

moment--we live in stories, and the world is a construction of all the storied individuals

within it. Narrative is the meaning making of experience, how we order it into a coherent

whole with purpose and direction, as Polkinghorne elaborates: “Narrative is a scheme by

means of which human beings give meaning to their experience of temporality and

personal actions. Narrative meaning functions to give form to the understanding of a

purpose to life and to join everyday actions and events into episodic units…it is the

primary scheme by means of which human existence is rendered meaningful.”10

Narrative is not just the construction of how past events are made meaningful, but also

the life story that is continually unfolding unexpectedly, connecting the past, present, and

future selves, as Polkinghorne continues, “We are in the middle of our stories and cannot

be sure how they will end; we are constantly having to revise the plot as new events are

added to our lives. Self, then, is not a static thing nor a substance, but a configuring of

personal events into a historical unity which includes not only what one has been but also

anticipations of what one will be.”11 The study of the narrative expressions and

constructions of a life is crucial to understanding the meanings and motivations of the

individual. The self here is considered to be a narrative construct, is a narrative, and this

narrative self is in constant flux and subject to continual reinterpretations. It is a kind of

Buddhist story--the self is empty of a fixed, solid self, and thus the product, or construct,

of changing and impermanent interpretations. Lieblich (1998) gives two reasons for the

elusiveness of narrative (which I see as the elusiveness of the self), or definite story, in

that a life story is always developing and changing through time, never to be fixed

11

accurately, and that a life story (self-presentation/recreation) is adapted to the context of

the telling, such as by the aim of the interviewer, the audience, or the mood of the

narrator, among other factors. Again, the self as narrated just can’t be pinned down.

Narrative is used, both in the interview and in all life circumstances, as a means to

communicate identity concepts. Linde writes, “Life stories express our sense of self--who

we are, how we are related to others, and how we became that person...life stories involve

large-scale systems of social understandings and knowledge.”12 Narratives involve the

personal in a trans-personal relationship with others and the rest of the world, and as such

they become goldmines for discovering individual, social, and universal meanings. Each

story is individually and culturally placed, while expressing values and meanings that

transcend the particular. Denzin makes this point:

Everything we study is contained within a storied or narrative production. The self is a narrative

construct. There is not separation between self and society…as social constructions, stories

always have a larger cultural and historical locus. Individuals are universal singulars,

universalizing in their singularity the unique features of their historical moment.13

For a study of the process of the life and spiritual processes of certain Jewish Buddhist

figures, which necessarily involves their social and cultural contexts, the choice of

narrative interviews as the primary source of data was clear from the conception of the

project.

Human beings live in multiple contexts--the individual, the familial, the communal,

the societal, the global, and the universal. As a meaning making device, narrative is, as

Polkinghorne states, “the fundamental scheme for linking individual human action and

events into interrelated aspects of an understandable composite…we need to consider

how narrators link together aspects of experience and thereby meaningfully articulate the

12

stories they tell. Meaning, in other words, is linkage.”14 Narrative linkages, which are

how the narrators connect different contexts into a meaningful whole, collectively make

up what Heidegger termed horizons of meaning. These are the contextual contours of the

stories as they are assembled by the narrator, as she meaningfully links together different

life experiences into a running plot, or overarching horizon. These horizons are always

culturally mediated, and thus offer insight into the outlying co-centric ripples of context.

One’s individual story necessarily ripples out into the communal, societal, and as Denzin

suggested, the universal singular. Looking at the horizons of meaning, the bigger or more

inclusive stories, is the subjective study of both individual identity-making as well as of

world-making.

This construction of self involves the warp and woof of different narrative voices, as

Cortazzi describes: “the self then (in the past event described); the self recalling then; the

self now interpreting the self then from the present self’s perspective; the self now

thinking about future selves; a possible future self looking back to now to the present self

seeing it as if in the past,”15 If it sounds confusing, well, it is. Or, alternatively put,

complex. As complex as human beings are, that is as complex and “thick” that the

narrative construction becomes--and the narrative unpacking that the researcher attempts

to do--bearing in mind the elusiveness of the story. Polanyi, in her study of American

middle class lives, expresses this sentiment: “If stories are complex, storytellers are that

much more complex; if the story worlds built by tellers in their stories are complex, the

everyday world in which those tellers live and talk and interact with one another is that

much more complex.”16 The narrative study admits of such complexities, and allows

layers of meaning to unfold and be expressed which come closer than other methods to

13

preserving this sense of complexity and wholeness without abstract reductionism. A

Jewish Buddhist teacher recounts stories that present her self as a Jew, Buddhist, Tibetan

(or Zen or Burmese) lineage, feminist, New Yorker (or Californian, or Israeli, or

Southerner), single (or married or divorced), mother (or daughter, or sister, or friend), and

on and on. The researcher cannot presume to uncover all that the person wishes to or

even can express, but the echoes of fullness, of human beingness, resound throughout the

elusive story as shimmering horizons of meaning.

The narrative interview is interactional, in that one of the central voices in the analysis

is that of the interviewer. As mentioned, the context of the interview, with the face to face

interaction of two people based on the research interest of one of them, shapes the

narration and gives direction to the whole story. The narrative, though revolving around

one of the participants of the interaction more than the other---the interviewee--is a co-

created story. The analysis continues this interaction through the rearrangement of the

narrative according to the grounded, or interactive, categories and concepts. There is no

formal division between data and theory in the grounded approach, and so both the

researcher and subject co-create the data and analysis: the data through the interactive

interview, and the analysis through the researcher checking with the subjects the

soundness of her interpretations. Mischler (1995) summarizes this dynamic, stating that

“we do not find stories; we make stories…we too are storytellers and through our

concepts and methods…we construct the story and its meaning. In this sense the story is

always coauthored, either directly in the process of an interviewer eliciting an account or

indirectly through our representing and thus transforming others’ texts and discourses.”17

Stories are, as Hannah Arendt said, discoveries. One is attempting, as Robinson and

14

Hawpe express, “to discover and reveal what happened in a way that is faithful to reality

and at the same time illuminates it.”18 Representing reality in a faithful way means that

one must approach narratives with a sense of naturalness that does not abstract them from

their living realities. One does not begin the study with a set of hypotheses, or theories

that one wants to deductively prove using the data of the interviews. Such a top-down

approach, the opposite of the grounded, would lead one to read the theory into the story at

the loss of the context and feel of the real people themselves. The narrative researcher is

guided by research questions and methods, but the ideas and organization of the material

are generated from attentive reading of the data. This work is inductive and somewhat

intuitive, and for the whole part interpretive; as such it requires, as Lieblich rightly points

out, that the researcher feels comfortable with a degree of ambiguity--there are no hard

facts or proofs in narrative investigations.

The illumination which emerges from the study of narrative is one of what can be

called narrative truth, and may, as Lieblich explains, “be closely linked, loosely similar,

or far removed from ‘historical truth’”19 Narrative truth is the revelation of meanings that

the subject constructs out of her life, and orders into a coherent whole in order to make

sense of reality. That “sense” is a personal truth that reverberates, or ripples out, into the

larger world. Josselson, who has been working on a longitudinal study of thirty women

for the past thirty years, comments: “narratives are not records or facts, of how things

actually were, but of a meaning-making system that makes sense out of the chaotic mass

of perceptions and experiences of a life.”20 What analysis can illuminate are the causal

relationships that arise in the course of the story, and that are intentionally made by the

narrator. Stories are meaning-oriented and thus, as Polyani points out, “must have a

15

‘point’.”21 The point, so to speak, can be brought out in the psychological motivations

and personal thoughts and reflections of both the teller and the hearer. This occurs as the

life story unfolds in a coherent set of relations undergoing constant revision as it is

expressed. Even though the story is an open unit, with one never knowing where it will

end up, it is given coherence by the relationships, or links of meaning, that are made

along the way, and collect to form a horizontal direction or theme. As the plot develops,

say, of a Jewish woman developing over the years into the leader of a Buddhist

community, the episodes and events of the story take on increasingly directional meaning

in the narrative unfolding.

Narrative time is non-linear, drawing on memories that are non-chronological and, as

Rubin (1985) points out, providing a reconstruction and not a reproduction. Josselson

(1995) suggests that memory changes as the plot develops, which is a provocative notion,

in that the story, and the self “recalling” it, are created by the story in the present which

reconstructs the memories, and not, as the common view would have it, that the

memories collect into a story. Narrative memory, and narrative time, run across

generations, connect individuals, can be derived from a group or family, and can be

totally divorced from what actually happened--if there is such a thing; memory proves to

us that it cannot be “factually” known.

There are two problems with the use of narrative as a research focus that can arise, as

Denzin (2001) indicates. One is the assumption that lived experience can be captured,

which, according to postmodern critiques of method, cannot be--this refers to the crisis of

representation where the text is held as referring only to itself, and not to any outside

experience. The other is that the traditional criteria for evaluating research are no longer

16

seen as relevant--this refers to the crisis of legitimization that calls into question all forms

of generalization, objectivity, validity and reliability. Basically, narrative, when reduced

by postmodern criticisms, is a story only about itself, a story about a story; in such self-

containment, it cannot be evaluated from the outside. These are worrisome concerns,

which I will elaborate upon in the next section of this chapter. The solution, if I may spoil

the end of the movie, lies in the use of grounded thick descriptions, allowing the story to

connect to the narrator and her experiences, and to create an inner-generated validity.

Postmodernism, the Hermeneutic Circle, and a Phenomenological Twist

The postmodern turn in the social sciences can be characterized by the “breaking up”

of the old grand narratives, or theories, of the academic disciplines. It is the final revolt

against what Hegel began with his universal Spirit of History drawing its irrepressible

world story. Lyotard summarizes it as thus: “simplifying to the extreme, I define

postmodern as incredulity toward metanarratives.”22 Narrative research, in essence, is a

postmodern discipline, in that it is a turn toward the individual, the local, and the

particular meanings she construes. There is no “meta” in narrative, even the evoking of

the term universal is couched in the individual as a “universal singular”. Postmodern

approaches are recognized by their suspicion of generalization, inclusion of non-

academic forms of and styles of discourse, focus on the individual and ignored minority

voices, centrality of subjectivity, process orientation, and a rejection of objective truth.

The narrative interview and analysis contain all of these elements, but here I will relate to

the issues of truth, representation and interpretation of the text.

Truth, in the postmodern glass, gives way to tentativeness, as Roseau (1992) relates,

17

and a new confidence in emotion replaces the modern belief in impartial observation.

Universal truth is not out there, but in here (I’m pointing to my chest): truth is equivalent

to self-understanding, which varies from individual to individual, and from societal,

cultural and historical context to context. Theory is replaced by the text of everyday life,

which expresses local knowledge and details direct experience. If there is empiricism, it

is anecdotal, with the emphasis being on what is unique in each and every life. The

subject, while being an individual, is nonetheless defined by her cultural context: the

modern, autonomous, self-made individual, the hero rising above history, is shattered into

a multiplicity of conditions and influences. Narrative, with its varying voices and

adherence to context and detail, is the stage on which the postmodern self emerges. This

self is a storyteller, not speaking for anyone else but himself, and as such the idea of truth

is replaced by memory which is unstable and creative.

If objective truth is rejected and replaced by subjective story, then the aforementioned

crisis of representation raises its spiked tail. If the narrative refers just to subjective states

and perspectives, and the connection to an outside, objective world is called into

question, then any postures of “doing research” will add up to no more than the talking

about a text talking about itself. What conclusions can be made, what is there to learn

from such a study about the world of others, if the text is only self-referential? This is

similar to the Buddhist admonition against taking the term emptiness to mean that

nothing exists. Buddhists are careful to steer through the middle way between the

extremes of affirming reality as inherently existing, or real as it is perceived by us, and

nihilism, which rejects reality as having any existence at all. Similarly, in doing narrative

research one can maneuver away from the solipsism of a self-interpreted text, and the

18

making of definitive representation claims. The middle road lies in what Ezzy (2002)

calls moderate postmodernism, characterized by Kvale (1995) as “while rejecting the

notion of universal truth, it accepts the possibility of a focus on daily life and local

narrative”23 Truth is broken up but not discarded, and found scattered in a myriad of local

truths and perspectives. The universal singular, as an individual human being, means that

even the claim of universalism can be recovered through the narrative, and here I quote

Denzin:

Interpretive interactionism the late postmodern period is committed to understanding how this

historical moment universalizes itself in the lives of interacting individuals. Each person and each

relationship studied is assumed to be a universal singular, or single instance of the universal

themes that structure the postmodern period. Each person is touched by the mass media, by

alienation, by the economy by the new family and childcare systems, by the increasing

technologizing of the social world, and by the threat of nuclear annihilation. Interpretive

interactionism fits itself into the relation between the individual and society, to the nexus of

biography and society.24

The interview is contextual, in that not only do the researcher and subject sit in a

certain place at a certain time, but that they bring their own personal contexts into the

interaction, including their pasts, future hopes, preferences, anxieties, race, gender, class,

education, age, politics, and even what they just ate, into the interview. The interpretation

that takes place around the interaction need to include as many of those factors as

possible, which requires a degree of hermeneutic art. A hermeneutical approach to

analysis would try to reveal the subject’s ways of interpretation as well as expressing his

own take, making his influences clear. In the section on validity I will, as much as

possible, reveal my background influences and biases affecting my interpretations. The

hermeneutic interplay of the interview combines the interviewee’s interpretation, the

19

researcher’s interpretation, the interpretation of the researcher-interviewee relationship

and how that affected the interview and its analysis. I felt more rapport with some of my

subjects than with others, and this affected not only the depth of the interview, but my

interest in its analysis. All interpretations, it can never by emphasized enough, are

unfinished and open-ended, finding meaning in the endless circle dance between theory

and lived experience.

The circle of the dance, the hermeneutic circle, is the framework of all the theoretical,

interpretive, and personal background that the researcher brings into her study. They are

always present, and while able to be temporarily suspended, the circle places both the

researcher and the subject in the center. Not only is the study about the meanings of the

subject, but it is equally revealing of the inner life of the researcher. As Denzin (2001)

clarifies, there is no value-free research, all researchers take sides, and biases are only a

liability if they are not exposed by the researcher early on. The circle is a double one, of

the subject within her circle of subjective telling, and the researcher reading the story in

the center of her circle of interpretation. The grounded interaction of the interpretation

and the data means that the dance shifts from moment to moment who is taking lead. It

the very revealing of one’s biases that allows the text, as Spence (1986) indicates, to be

presented on its own meaningful terms:

A person trying to understand a text is prepared for it to tell him something. That is why a

hermeneutically trained mind must be, from the start, sensitive to the text’s quality of newness.

But this kind of sensitivity involves neither “neutrality” in the matter of object, nor the extinction

of one’s self, but the conscious assimilation of one’s own fore-meanings and prejudices. The

important thing is to be aware of one’s biases, so that the text may present itself in all its newness

and thus be able to assert its own truth against one’s own fore-meanings.25

The newness of the narrative moment, of the self-revealing text according to the

20

teller’s subjectivity, I have found to be revealed through the practice of

phenomenological bracketing. This is the special twist to an interpretive method. First is

the becoming aware of my own biases and the way I intervene, or interact, with the

subject, which is called epoche in classical phenomenological terms. This is followed by

bracketing, which attempts to suspend my personal preconceptions, and to be with the

subject as much as on her own terms as possible. The approach, which can be thought of

as an intentional naivety, or naïve listening, comes from the commitment to understand

the story from the narrator’s side and own perspectives--as much as possible. Ashworth

(1999) spells out the intention: “The procedure has the purpose of allowing the life world

of the participant in the research to emerge in clarity so as to allow a study of some

specific phenomenon within the life world to be carried out. The researcher must suspend

presuppositions in order to enter the life world.”26 The story is taken at face value, just

absorbed, and only then integrated back into the hermeneutic circle of the researcher.

I found during interviews that I was often catching myself making internal interpretive

comments, sometimes critical, while trying to listen to the teller. These could have been

about the content of the story at hand, its presentation, or even about the surroundings

and appearance of the subject. My thoughts were often, as they often are, composed of

stray associations or even daydreams. Sometimes the stories were just off the wall or

seemingly exaggerated, and sometimes there was repetition and I was uninterested. At

such times I had to consciously bracket such thoughts in order to be open fully to the

interview moments and their meanings to the narrator. In simple Buddhist terms, I had to

be mindful of the focus of my attention (which meant to keep coming back to it when my

thoughts strayed) and to maintain as much as possible concentration, single-pointedness,

21

on the interaction. Just as in meditation, it was not easy or a constant achievement, but

when I was more fully present and attentive, the subjects would respond in kind, and the

narrative would be richer.

The phenomenological approach endeavors to reveal the essences of a phenomena,

and I have been asking throughout this study what the essence, or what is at the heart, of

the Jewish involvement in Buddhism at the very committed level. I did not expect to

come up with any definitive answers, but as I learn more about the phenomenon of

Jewish Buddhist teachers, from their own sides, I am captivated by the stories that

emerge—they are meaningful in themselves. Phenomenological bracketing, as a kind of

practical meditative technique to research, allows a sense of wonder in the subject to

arise. Martin van Manen expresses this point, “at the heart of the famous

phenomenological reduction lies the orientation of wonder, wonder in the face of the

world. Wonder is that moment of being when one is overcome by awe or perplexity…the

text must induce a questioning wonder.”27 People are revealed as worlds in themselves,

and their stories take great significance--universal in their particularity.

The Role of Theory and Interpretive Interactionism

With the postmodern attack on theory and generalizations in mind, as coupled with

the more moderate appreciation of the universal singular (the individual whose story

represents a culture and a society, as well as certain universal values), I want to specify

just what role theory has in the interpretation of the interviews I have collected. In the

grounded approach, theory is linked to data like petals to the flower, as the flower opens,

or as the story is read and reread, the petals are revealed in more and more layers. As new

22

data appear, or old data are reinterpreted, certain categories or theories become discarded,

like petals dropping off the edge as new ones emerge from the center. The interpretive

“theories” or practices I am using are grounded theory, phenomenological approach, and

narrative reading. Theory refers, in general, to the interpretive choices and frameworks

that one makes in the analysis--which function during the data gathering as well.

While the interpretations are thought of as incomplete and provisional, there are

certain criteria that ground them into the data and allow them to seem appropriate. These

criteria include, as Denzin (2001) outlines, illumination of the phenomenon as lived

experience; using thick contextual descriptions; historically grounded; process oriented

and interactional; incorporating prior understandings; producing new understandings; and

finally, as mentioned, being unfinished. The main thing to keep in mind when working

with or towards qualitataive theory, is that it is an interpretive enterprise, and therefore

subjectively situated. This does not render theory obsolete or inherently unattainable, but

that it is provisional. Strauss and Corbin make a similar point: “Theories are

interpretations made from given perspectives as adopted or researched by researchers. To

say that a theory is an interpretation--and therefore fallible--is not at all to deny that

judgments can be made about the soundness or probable usefulness of it.”28 Theories are

different ways to describe and understand phenomena, which need not be taken as

definitive, but can offer one of many ways of looking at the world studied. Theoretical

sensitivity, as described above, enables the theory to approach the phenomenon closely,

and make sense to both people within the experience and those without it.

I am not worried about over-generalizing. I am more concerned about appropriately

articulating meaning in the cases I am studying beyond the particulars themselves. I do

23

believe that a single human being is of ultimate value, and worthy of a full and elaborate

study in itself--the unique case study of the individual phenomenon. The individual

naturally expands into the world, as she reveals all the cultural, historical, and

interactional content of her story. I take my cue from Ralph Waldo Emerson who wrote,

“The deeper he dives into his privatest, secretest presentiment--to his wonder he finds,

this is the most…universally true.”29 The personal story is significant both as a universal

singular, and as simply a singular; a case study is significant even if it is not

representative of others, for it will represent some personal truth which will offer trans-

personal insight. Helen Hughes, writing about her study of female drug addicts,

comments, “the story she left can be read in a variety of ways…but beyond this, it is a

story of ones person’s journey thought the city and of what that journey did to her.”30 In

every story there will be parts that suggest universal themes, and parts that speak only

about the particular. Both are essential and meaningful, and true.

I chose to focus on a limited number of subjects, nine, who represent a wide variety of

both Jewish backgrounds and Buddhist practice. Riessman (1993) points out the tension

involved in narrative studies, in that while few cases resist generalizations, in the analysis

they become representative. They need not be representative, however, of all other cases,

but, as Lieblich points out, “by studying and interpreting self-narratives, the researcher

can access not only the individual identity and its systems of meaning, but also the

teller’s culture and social world.”31 This cultural and social world can be seen as

constructed meaningfully around myths, both public and private. These myths, or as

Stephen Pepper in 1942 called root metaphors, give horizons of meaning to one’s life, as

situated within a societal context.

24

One of the ways I take note of the development of the root metaphor in the course of

the narrative, the subjects’ horizons of meaning, is through attention to epiphanies. The

focus on epiphany is a central feature of interpretive interactionism, as explained by

Denzin, which attempts to interpret and render understandable turning point moments in

the lives of people. These moments need to be thickly described, using extensive

interview material, making their interpretation is grounded in the data. Denzin describes

the approach:

Interpretive interactionism attempts to make the world of lived experience visible to the

reader…the focus of interpretive research is on those life experiences that radically alter and

shape the meanings persons give to themselves and their life projects. The existential thrust sets

this research apart from other interpretive approaches that examine the more mundane, taken for

granted properties and features of everyday life. It leads to a focus on epiphany.32

An epiphany, a turning-point moment in one’s life, is a rupture in the daily life that

changes a person irreversibly. They are transformational, though the transformation may

occur on a subtle and even imperceptible level to those on the outside. It may even be

unknown to the subject until reflection some time later. There are four kinds of

epiphanies that Denzin outlines that I use for identifying the most meaningful narrative

moments of a person’s life, which are the major, minor, cumulative, and relived, to which

I have added a fifth, the generative. These epiphanies, it will be shown, occur within the

cultural, societal, and historical contexts. The telling of the story, the narrative interview

itself, can be tranformative; in the interaction between the researcher and subject a new

understanding of the self can occur, on both sides, which would constitute a type of

cumulative epiphany.

25

The Interview

Making Contact

I conducted in-depth narrative interviews with nine individuals: Jacob Raz, Stephen

Fulder, Seth Castleman, Ven. Thubten Chodron, Jacqueline Mandel, Sojon Mel

Weitsman, Blanche Hartman, James Baraz, and Ajahn Amaro. These people represent the

approach of a purposeful sampling (Patton, 1990), which focuses in depth on a small

sample of people selected intentionally by virtue of their unique appropriateness to the

study. Each person was a Buddhist teacher and leader of a community who came from a

Jewish background, and had been involved in Buddhism intensively for most of his or her

adult life. Three are women, six are men, and their ages range from thirty to eighty-six.

The schools of Buddhism they represent are of the main schools most active in America:

vipassana, Zen, and Tibetan. Their Jewish background ranges from orthodox to

completely non-Jewish.

Each participant in the study was located and arrived at differently. Jacob Raz is my

Ph.D. advisor, and the leader of the Zen group in Tel Aviv I participate in. Stephen

Fulder was invited to teach at a Jewish meditation retreat I helped to organize. Seth

Castleman runs a bi-weekly sitting group in Jerusalem which I attend. Ven. Thubten

Chodron was my first Tibetan Buddhist teacher in India over eleven years ago. Jacqueline

Mandel was referred to me by Chodron. Sojon Weitsman’s and Blanche Hartman’s

names were given to me by the San Francisco Zen Center when I asked them, via email,

about another one of their teachers. James Baraz was found in the list of Vipassana

teachers in America, again from the internet. Ajahn Amaro’s name was given to me by

26

Seth Castleman. I will introduce each person more fully in the next chapter.

Everyone was contacted by email, and this initial contact was made in March, 2003.

Some individuals responded within days, which was a pleasant surprise, while some took

weeks or even months to respond. Trying to build a schedule for the research trip, which

involved much planning in order to maximize the time and minimize the costs, was a

great challenge when the responses of certain subjects were delayed. The interviews were

conducted from June to August 2004, primarily on the West Coast of the U.S., with three

conducted in Israel. As the interview dates approached I renewed contact in order to

confirm the interview, its time and place.

I had a list of about sixteen teachers I wanted to interview, and the nine I am including

here were the ones that agreed to my request of a long interview. Some of the major

figures in the American Buddhist world that were on my wish list to interview either did

not reply, were too busy, or were only able to offer a short amount of time. For the

interview to be in-depth, I told people I needed a minimum of an hour and a half. One

very prominent teacher offered to meet me for twenty minutes, which may have been a

lot in her busy schedule, but it would have not helped my project; it takes relaxed time to

get beneath the surface to some of the more insightful and personal stories. There was, as

I discovered, and as makes common sense, a correlation between the length of the

interview and the depth of the data. In general, Americans are good at telling you their

life story, with all its tragedies and triumphs, within five to seven minutes, but that does

not indicate a depth of insight. The couple of interviews that stretched close to four hours

over a few meetings offered the most insight and spontaneous interactional discoveries. It

takes time to allow rapport to develop, even with those whom I previously knew and was

27

friendly, for the interview creates an interaction of its own quality which requires a re-

acquaintance of the people. If that rapport and comfort level are not achieved, then what

is given is a standard account that the interviewee has down already, and is used to giving

in interviews.

Most of the people I met with, as heads of communities and long involved in the field,

had been interviewed many times before. One interviewee, the monk Ajahn Amaro,

reeled off stories with the greatest of ease. When I commented on this, he mentioned that

indeed he has said them many times, having been often interviewed. That did not, in my

view, depreciate the uniqueness of the accounts he gave me. Getting past the standard cut

story may at times, given the limitations of the interaction, be an insurmountable

challenge, but I consoled myself with the belief that the same story is never told twice, as

it always changes according to its hearer. What was essential was not that the story hadn’t

been told before, but that it hadn’t been heard in this specific context before--by me in

that time and place.

Waiting for replies to my requests for an interview sometimes took months, and a

couple of replies came after I had returned from the entire first trip--they were refusals

anyway. I was elated when someone would agree to an interview, and disappointed when

I was refused. Who was I to them? I hoped that my coming all the way from Israel would

open some doors, but after meeting those whom I did, they would have accepted my

request just because of who they are, not because of who I am or from where. I did not

have the courage to call people out of the blue after receiving a refusal, or after simply

not hearing from them. I wanted to interview people who wanted to be interviewed, or at

least who were willing to help me out with my project. There were only two occasions

28

that I felt very frustrated. One was with a very senior and famous teacher who agreed to

be interviewed, and even suggested to me times and places around the retreats he was

running. I was surprised and very happy at his response. As my trip drew near, I

attempted to renew contact, alas to no avail. After repeated attempts, one of his aides

contacted me, writing that the teacher wanted him to arrange the details of the meeting. I

then proceeded to reply to the aide, but again, as with his master, received no response.

The other difficult situation was an interview held with a well known teacher in a popular

Berkeley café. A public place, this taught me, is the wrong place for an interview--the

noise interferes with the interaction and the tape quality, and there are too many

distractions. He didn’t want to relate much to my general direction, which was an interest

in his life story and process, and was obviously bored--he referred me to his book for

personal information. After one side of a tape, forty-five minutes, he ended the interview,

saying as he jumped up when the tape clicked off, “just on time!” Due to its brevity, not

due to the data being according to his interest and not mine, I have chosen not to include

the interview within this study.

The interviews were recorded using a small Sony tape recorder and regular 90 minute

cassettes. The interview itself was unstructured, though there were certain areas I wanted

to cover. I would begin by explaining my purpose, saying something like, “I am

interviewing Buddhist teachers from Jewish backgrounds, in order to learn about their

life stories. I am interested in how you came to be a Buddhist teacher, and where you

came from. Perhaps you could begin with something about your childhood, and include

any experiences, influences, and relationships that were most significant to you.” Some

subjects were natural story tellers, and some had to be guided with more specific

29

questions. With a couple of interviewees I felt as if I were drawing water from a rock,

until they came upon a subject matter that generally was opinion based, not narrative

ground. Usually those who were not so forthcoming with their own personal stories were

loquacious in more abstract areas such as theories about Buddhism and Jewish

involvement. As I became less green in my interviewing I learned to ask more self-

returning questions, such as “could you tell me about that experience?” or “what were

you going through at that time, what were you feeling?”, or “what happened then?”. I was

most concerned with not only hearing the outer events that shaped the person into who

they are, but the inner events of reflection, meaning, feeling, thoughts, beliefs, hopes,

fears, and perceptions.

My role was, as Wiess (1994) describes, that of a “story-facilitator” more than that of

an interviewer. I was attempting, through the hearing of their stories, to gain their

perspectives on life and the spiritual journey. Patton comments, “The purpose of

interviewing, then, is to allow us to enter into the other person’s perspective. Qualitative

interviewing begins with the assumption that the perspective of others is meaningful,

knowable, and able to be made explicit.”33 Cultivating rapport was essential to this, what

is called creating a research alignment with the interviewee. I had to make my interest in

the topic and their story contagious, so that we would act as partners in the research

project, co-creating the narrative. At seldom times I was the one not interested, such as

when the narrative was swerving along lengthy detours of theoretical musings, or, as

teachers often do, the propounding of their ideas with extensive commentary. Creating

rapport was assisted by my taking what Josselson (1995) calls the “empathetic stance”,

the being able to understand the story from the side of the interviewee. What was exciting

30

for me was sharing in the understanding of the spiritual struggle for a meaningful life, as

she states, “people’s personal narratives are efforts to grapple with the confusion and

complexity of the human condition.”34 My subjects may not have been so interested in

my topic per se, about which most of them have already been interviewed, but everyone

was able to pick up on my interest in their own life stories as the basis of my data. Most

people enjoy talking about themselves when given the chance—even Buddhists.

Apart from echoing what was said, asking for clarification, and non-verbal

encouragement (yeah, uh-huh, hmmm, a nod of the head, sustained eye-contact, directed

body language), the questions I would ask could generally be categorized into the

descriptive--asking to describe what happened, where, when and with whom; and the

interpretive--asking about what these events meant to them, their thoughts and feelings.

The areas I wanted to hear about, though without insisting, were: the family context;

Jewish experiences in childhood or youth; first contact with Buddhism; primary

relationships and teachers; turning point moments or epiphanies; and becoming a teacher

or leader. I would not ask theoretical questions, such as how Judaism has influenced their

Buddhism, or how Buddhism has reflected back and changed their perspective on

Judaism, or how Jewish influence is affecting American Buddhism as an eclectic

movement. I wanted to hear their experiences, and reflections on them, not how they

might answer an abstracting question.

I paid attention to non-verbal language such as body gestures, posture, facial

expressions, as well as the vocal expressions of intonation, sneezing, coughing, yawning,

and laughing. Other forms of expression taken note of were how the subject was dressed,

and how we arranged our physical space, or distanced ourselves from each other during

31

the interview. How I was initially received also made an impression on the rest of the

interview. One woman made me Darjeeling tea and served cookies before we started in

her living room, and it turned out to be my best interview. Another person arranged for a

friend to drop by and visit during the time of our interview, which of course interrupted

the flow of narration, and the interview necessarily suffered. One generous welcoming

was as follows: confusing the time of the interview with the one in the following day, I

arrived at the center two hours late for my meeting with the abbot. I was told I was late

by the attendant that led me to the abbot, which startled and confused me. Did I miss the

interview, and lose these two precious hours for which I had traveled all this way? I

entered the abbot’s residence in dismay and apologized. The abbot swept me in saying,

“you’re just on time! It allowed me to do some things I had been pushing off for a long

time.” That was my lesson of the day on equanimity and graciousness.

Following each interview I would write notes on the context, both with physical

descriptions and emotional ones, describing the mood of the places, the feeling of the

interaction, the rapport, and my experiences during the interview. I would begin to jot

down initial insights and ideas that simply to come to mind. Some interviews left me

feeling changed, and such a feeling revealed the strength of connection that was made. So

strong was one such feeling that I brought my wife and, at the time, three month old baby

son to meet her, whom she blessed. The interviews, from my side, were experiences of

self-discovery, as I learned about my own inner life through identifying with the

processes of my subjects. I was sensitive to Atkinson’s (1995) concern about over-

identification with one’s subject, and tendency to romanticize--“these people led charmed

lives, even in their struggles” or, “I should have become a monk, and then I would really

32

be spiritual.“ Their lives were not my own, even though I at times envied the dedication

to spiritual practice that they had invested over the many years. I did identify with the life

of a search within contemplative traditions, though it was clear to me that they had found

distinct forms of commitment that were not fully my own. I felt, as a whole, that I was

speaking with fellow travelers who were much farther down the road. They had found

many answers, but not all of them were to my questions.

The interview was an exercise on my part in active listening, where I attempted to

encourage through attentiveness, and silence more so than words, the unfolding of

personal stories. As with any meaningful interaction, there are distinctive therapeutic

elements to the interview experience for both parties. The researcher and the subject are

engaged in a contract of self-emergence through the creative reconstruction of memory

fused with reflection. Polkinghorne makes this point, writing about psychotherapy:

Psychotherapy and narrative have in common the construction of a meaningful human

existence…each client’s personal narrative uniquely integrates his or her own life events,

individuals also adopt basic themes provided by the cultural repertoire…the therapist helps clients

articulate and bring to language and awareness the narratives they have developed to give

meaning to their lives…the telling of the story in itself is held to have therapeutic value.35

It was my identification with the interviewees and their stories that enabled me to

appreciate the more subtle nuances of meaning-making in which we were engaged. This

meant, first of all, being attentive and knowledgeable of the language of the interviewee--

what is their “idiolect” as Wolcott (1990) terms it, their cultural and personal usage of

language. This could vary from understanding the Buddhist Dharma terms that are used,

such as how a reference to “practice” could mean, according to the context of the story,

formal meditation, devotional practices, study, retreats, or awareness in daily life. Jewish

33

and Yiddish terms also would come into play from time to time, revealing meaningful

cultural markers, such as using the word “davening” instead of “prayer”, mensch as a

positive description of a family member, etc. On the whole, frequently repeated terms and

unique terms indicated their being a marker, in narrative coinage, that pointed to a

general significance throughout the story.

What I was working for, and more often than not received, especially after a half an

hour or so of warming up to me and the interview topic, were thick descriptions of their

life experiences. Denzin describes this quality:

Thick description conceptualizes experience. It is interpretation. Thick description presents in

detail the context, emotion, and webs of social relationships that join persons to one another. It

enacts what it describes. Evokes emotions and self-feelings, inserts history into experience.

Establishes the significance of an experience or sequence of events for the person.36

Thick description, when aptly thick, includes the context of an action; the intentions and

meaning of that action to the actor; the developments and causes of the action (outer and

inner); and creates a description in terms of a text that can then be interpreted by both the

researcher and the subject. Merleau-Ponty (1973) summarizes succinctly: “Thick

descriptions capture and record the voices of lived experience, or the ‘prose of the

world’”37.

Analytical Tools: Grounded and Narrative Practice

The methodological process I use for the analysis of the interview data is a

combination of grounded and narrative practices, as laid out by primarily by Glaser and

Strauss (1967) and Strauss and Corbin (1992) for the former, and Lieblich (1998) and

Polkinghorne (1988) in the later. The data first undergoes several readings aimed at a

34

holistic impression of the narratives, and then the more grounded tools of coding and

categorizing, as informed by the arising of holistic themes, plots, and issues, are used.

The coding process stays firmly grounded in the data, and so validity, which is the issue

broached in the next section, is maintained. The coding ripples out, as is the case in

grounded practice, to find the more and more encompassing themes, forming what is

called a “conditional matrix” that is meaningful on many levels. In this way, I hope to

show that the personal life stories of a Jewish Buddhist teacher, when read holistically

and inductively, are meaningful on the individual, communal, and universal levels. I keep

in mind that the universal particular as a human being consists of universal themes and

meanings which are only as expressed in very particular and unique circumstances.

The initial holistic reading of the story takes in the person as a whole and her

development to the present position. The different parts of the story, the inner chapters,

are meaningful in light of the development of the whole narrative, the whole content of

the story. This approach is called by Lieblich a holistic content reading, whereby an

empathic, open and intuitive reading is first done to allow the story to speak to you on its

own terms. Such a reading requires the practice of phenomenological bracketing. The

story is read several times and the patterns or general themes that appear are recorded,

which then become the guides for further grounded codes. These themes are noted for

their repetitiveness and emotional content and weight, and are traced for their occurrence

from beginning to end. As each theme is followed in light of the whole story, I write

down my impressions, staying aware of how themes interact and develop each other. As

the contexts for a new theme arise, I take special note of the episodes and events that

seem to not fit in the thematic flow. These “contradictions” or exceptions, are gathered

35

together to see how they either make up their own theme, or stay outside the realm of

definition.

The themes as a whole collect into the development of the plot of the story or life. The

tracing of plot lines running thematically throughout the story offers an alternative

narrative reading, which I employed in the final analytical chapter. Explaining the

usefulness of plot, Polkinghorne states, “a plot is able to weave together a complex of

events to make a single story. It is able to take into account the historical and social

context in which the events took place and to recognize the significance of unique and

novel occurrences…more than one plot can provide a meaningful constellation and

integration for the same set of events.”38 There is more than one plot to a story, and a

single plot, as suggested, can be read in different ways which result in different

consequences for the mapping of a matrix of meaning. Polkinghorne is careful to point

out that the ascribing of plot structures to a story, which then shapes all the content in a

certain direction, is necessarily a subjective exercise: “The way in which an array of plots

is divided appears to depend on the particular perspective of the researcher or the interest

of the discipline.”39 I come to this study with my background and interests, which I will

describe shortly, and they are the pots and pans in which I place the raw ingredients, my

data, for a slow cooking. The groundedness of the analysis, however, means that the

ingredients--the stories--will provide most of the flavor and be readily recognized despite

my using some of my favorite recipes. As a long-time vegetarian, I have come to

appreciate that most natural foods need very little additions. The cook’s job is to

encourage the inherent flavors of the foods to become more defined.

Northrup Frye, the great Canadian literary critic and writer, defined four basic plot

36

structures of narrative, namely the romantic, comic, tragic, and ironic. I take to heart what

Roberts (2002) points out as the limitation of such a narrative plot analysis, in that lives

are not always expressed or lived in ways that fit a conventional narrative structure with a

coherent plot. Real people and their non-fictional stories do not fit neatly into plot

categories intended for fictional characters and situations. For this reason, I turned to the

classical dialectic as an interpretive tool for plot analysis. Relying upon Hegel’s original

form, I examine the plot developments of the life stories according to their movements

through categories of thesis, antithesis, and synthesis. The dialectic was chosen as the

interpretive lens because of its ability to include complex and contrary narrative

developments, while respecting historical development: the narrative does flow through

time. The constant change and development of a life is something which the dialectic

appropriately expresses.

A third approach of narrative reading is the categorical content, which is a content

analysis using coding, categories, and the classification of sections of the text. This

approach works closely with the two others, as there is a reciprocal informing of larger

themes and plots with the more detailed and particular coding of text material. Categorial

content analysis is grounded theory put to practice, and this is what will be described

here, using Glaser and Strauss’ open coding, axial coding, and selective coding

procedures.

Open coding is the initial naming and categorizing of phenomena through close

reading of the text. The interview data are broken down into organizational categories,

which are given labels. These names, or labels, come from one’s own experience and

learning, as well as through the continual comparing and contrasting of the material with

37

other phenomena in the text. The question to ask while doing this is, what is this? What

does this section, sentence, event, phrase, or thought represent? It is given a name, which

then informs future categories as the analysis begins to take more and more shape into

larger themes. The initial holistic readings have already influenced the name-giving of

phenomena, but the discoveries of new and novel categories can then circle around to

reshape the entire theme and plot developments. The open coding (open because the

categories can be anything, as long as they are derived from, or grounded, in the data) of

an interview can be of words, sentences, paragraphs, or entire sections, with an eye for

significant markers of meaning.

Lieblich suggests that before the material is sorted into categories, the content

categories should be defined according to the theory upon which they are based, say, of

Maslow, etc. I prefer a more phenomenological reading that refers only to the text of the

interview, where holistic and categorical understandings are constantly interacting. Of

course I have background theoretical considerations, but by using epoche I try to suspend

their defining powers. What will help to define the codes are the holistic themes and what

will alter those themes are the specific codes--the relationship is reciprocal and circular. I

begin by looking at the specific, even as it is holistically considered (a text can only be

read word by word, line by line, idea by idea), and only then do I go beyond the data

themselves to locate explanatory or interpretive frameworks from my own experience.

There is a shadow dance of inductive reasoning (the exclusive focus on data to the

exclusion of previous theories) and deductive reasoning (the framing of data with

preexisting concepts). The inductive takes the first lead in grounded practice, which

begins by looking at the particular and naming it. This dance of inductive and deductive

38

reasoning is what Ezzy (2002) calls abductive reasoning, which has a rather troublesome

ring to it. The sorting of text material into categories is based on, as Tesch (1992)

indicates, comparison. The names or labels of individual phenomena are compared and

contrasted to collect into categories. The diversity of labels can be tremendous within

long interviews; their collection into categories, which is the defining activity of open

coding, is a comparative exercise. Open coding, then, consists of labeling phenomena and

discovering comparative categories.

The third step in grounded practice, or categorical content analysis, is the making of

meaningful connections among the categories--this is called axial coding. The codes are

gathered around axes of meaning, which examine the relationship among the codes. The

data that was split up during open coding into categories is now reconfigured into

interpretive groups. The question asked in this process is, what are the relationships

among the categories and phenomena? The axes of meaning, or relationships, are causal

and conditional: what is traced are the processes of how the events and narrative sections

developed, their interactional conditions. The attempt in axial coding is to try to find

some organizing principles for the various categories, to look at them in clusters and find

topics or sub-themes. How did this come to be, what is it related to? Categories that are

don’t fit into any relationship cluster are as important as the ones that do, as they

emphasize the complexity of the phenomena, of the narrative life. The definition of

categories in itself is not a mechanistic procedure, but flexible, tentative, and interpretive.

The steps described in the grounded narrative analysis--holistic theme reading;

dialectic plot analysis; and grounded coding, are interactional, inter-dependent, and in

constant motion. Grounded theory in practice simply allows the narrative to more or less

39

define itself, with the analytical approach in the background like an attentive midwife.

What seems very thick in analytical processes actually functions very impressionistically

and intuitively, with repeated readings further grounding and validating the initial ideas.

The different levels and approaches to reading the text illuminate the various layers of

relationships to meanings that the narratives extend into. These levels of interactional

relationships create what are called a conditional matrix, which describes the web of

meaningful relationships that exist from the personal to the global. A grounded narrative

analysis will bring to light an interpretation of the meaning of the phenomena as

pertaining to the personal (how the life events and stories relate to the interviewee’s life);

the relationship to small groups, such as family or friends; to organizations such as

spiritual communities; what it means on a national and societal level; and what these

themes and stories can mean on a global or universal level. They are all interrelated,

conditional one on another, and form the matrix of a meaningful life. My impetus for this

study from the start was the belief that the life processes of the Jewish Buddhist teacher

can serve to illuminate meanings across all of these planes, leading to a better

understanding of both the contemporary particular and universal spiritual journey.

Validity Assurance

Maintaining validity in qualitative research is an issue that once raised much concern,

but today can be methodologically well secured. The concern arises from qualitative

analysis being largely an interpretive exercise, without any rigid formulas or canons; this

is what Denzin calls the crisis of legitimization. The closest thing to a recipe in

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qualitative approaches is that of groundedness, which has been well outlined, and defines

my analysis. Validity confirmation is needed, however, for, as Silverman states, “if social

science statements are simply accounts, with no claims to validity, why should we read

them?”40 In other words, if you can say any old thing, then what does it mean to anyone?

Validity, first of all, takes on a different definition in narrative and qualitative

research than in its quantitative counterpart, which aims at consistency in the replication

of results among tests--if different observers see the same thing, then it must be

objectively true. Hammersley defines qualitative validity as “the extent to which an

account accurately represents the social phenomenon to which it refers.”41 He goes on to

suggest that validity is identified more with a confidence in the knowledge that one has,

but not a certainty. Reality is viewed and understood, following the postmodern line of

reasoning, only through individual subjective perspectives, and as much as our accounts

may represent reality, they cannot reproduce it. Validity is not the pursuit of objectivity,

but of that which provides true insight into the subjective world and perspective of

another.

Qualitative research approaches, and narrative analysis in particular, are the foray into

subjectivity as a valid area of academic discussion. Runyan (1984) provides seven

validity goals of a qualitative account that revolve around subjectivity, which include:

providing insight into the person; providing a feel for the person; understanding the inner

world of the person; deepening empathy for the person; portraying well the social and

historical reality of the person; illuminating the causes and conditions of the life events of

the person; and being a compelling read. Runyan represents the subjective far end of

validity assurance in a study, while Rogers offers a more logical stance: “in qualitative

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research, a fundamental criterion of validity requires that interpretations and conclusions

follow a trail of evidence that originate in the text.”42 This could speak for the bare bones

requirement of grounded theory, that whatever one says must be given textual support

from the primary sources--the interpretations remain within the text. Atkinson (1995)

echoes this view when he states that internal coherence is more important than historical

validity or factuality. Glaser and Strauss (1967) speak of validity in terms of having the

theory fit the data (grounded, of course), having the interpretations understandable so that

non-specialists can understand the theory, having the theory general enough to say

something about everyday situations (though not too general to lose grounding), and

being clear enough to make it apply to the area (such as when the research is done for the

sake of implementing change, say, in an organization).

Validity in qualitative research, as a whole, is not an objective set of standards, but an

inner set of guidelines that work to ensure insightfulness, coherence in the description,

healthy skepticism in the theory or conclusions, awareness of personal bias, breadth of

evidence, and a close empathic connection to the material and subjects. Validity is

functioning when the descriptive account and interpretation make sense, are sound, and

stimulate interest in the human situation.

How is validity ensured? There are several paths that most authors touch upon, and

Meriam (2002) summarized them most comprehensively. These fall under eight methods,

as follows, which I apply to my own research:

1. Triangulation: the utilization of different types of data collection, such as interviews,

observations, and literature. I interviewed my subjects, read their literature, read literature

about them, such as past interviews, visited their homes and centers, attended teachings

42

and retreats by them, and did much background reading about the phenomenon of

Buddhism in America. Triangulation also refers to drawing upon varying theory

frameworks, such as my using of grounded theory, narrative theories, postmodernism and

phenomenology. Interdisciplinary triangulation calls on insights from psychological,

religious, poetic, sociological, historical, and cultural fields, which in my study reflects

the complexity of the living subjects as well as my own interests in these fields.

2. Member checks: the taking of data and interpretations back to the participants. I sent

my interviews back to each subject for corrections, and have sent questions about

interpretations of some of the data.

3. Peer review--my work is discussed at length with my supervisor, and academic peers.

4. Researcher reflexivity: I am in a constant critical self-reflection regarding my

assumptions, biases, and relationship to the study. Some of these will be detailed in the

next section.

5. Adequate engagement in data collection: I have been immersed in the data for several

years, and years before the formal thesis work began. I am studying, among other things,

my own life and its journey through Judaism and Buddhism.

6. Maximum variation: I have sought out as much diversity as was practically available in

the small sample of teachers I have interviewed, who range widely in age, background,

Jewish affiliation, Buddhist lineage, gender, and location.

7. Audit trail: I have kept detailed memos of research experiences, decisions, and

methods during the study.

8. Thick description: the analysis maximally utilizes interview excerpts to allow rich and

evocative descriptions of the issues and areas discussed.

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Validity, as is seen, has many facets to its assurance, which can be encapsulated by

two expressions: the rigorous use of method, and the integrity of the researcher. This

second direction, the integrity of the researcher, gains support through having personal

and professional experience in the field of study, which in my case I will now offer a

brief account.

Ethical Considerations

I will end this chapter with a description of some of my personal background to this

study project, but first I would like to cover some of the ethical concerns that must be

included in qualitative research. The main issue is that of consent--what are the

interviewees agreeing to when they consent to an interview? How will their interview

data be used, and how will their privacy be secured? The standard method of dealing with

these types of concerns is with an interview consent form, which I provided to each

participant who signed and returned it after reading. This form covers areas of

confidentiality, data access and security, and privacy or the possibility of anonymity. In a

couple of cases an interviewee requested that I conceal the identities of some of the

people mentioned, over the concern about the sensitive and personal information

divulged. Every transcript was checked by the respective interviewee, and altered

according to his or her requests.

The ethical question that lurks in my mind is that of the manipulation of the data for

my own analysis. Did my selecting quotes in order to provide coherence and validity for

themes and plots strip the narratives of their contextual meanings and truths? Are my

estimations of what constitutes a turning point epiphany really make one? What if an

44

interviewee just doesn’t agree with my conclusions, or is upset at the connections I make

with her narrative segments? There is another way, however, to view the whole process

of narrative interviewing and analysis from grounded perspectives, which is that the

researcher and subject are partners in the data creation, and not that I simply collect what

my subjects have said and reconfigure it in the analysis. I become one of the subjects,

perhaps the main one, who connects all the others together. The interview, then, is a co-

narrative, or a kind of narrative dialogue. While the interviewee does speak much more

during the formal interview, I as the researcher and analyst speak more during the

analysis of the data. A balance over time is achieved between perspectives. It is a form

of long dialogue that extends over months and even years--instead of interacting with

each other directly, I interact with the data, bring interpretations back to the subjects, and

constantly return to the data.

During the entire analysis, my inner discussion with the data and the process as a

whole, is going on--right from day one. In grounded theory the analysis begins with the

data collection, meaning that the two are not separate, but that the researcher is creatively

interacting with the data, and re-presenting them all the time. I am not presuming to

present just the subjects’ words and views, but I am sorting them through my own

subjectivity and analytical purposes. My manipulation of the data does not mean that I

will be distorting what my subjects said and meant, but that their own meanings are

appropriate to their own contexts, while mine is a different one. The research I am

conducting, in the form of a doctoral dissertation, creates its own context in which

subjectivities interact--the stories of people and my interpretations of them. The subjects

may not agree with the interpretation, as it is formed in this new context, but it should be

45

at least understandable to them. It is crucial for the validity of my interpretations that the

subjective background to my interpretive interactions is described.

I am a white, Jewish, middle-class male from a small city in Canada. I grew up in a

non-religious home where we celebrated Jewish holidays, and yet I went to supplemental

classes twice a week run by the orthodox synagogue for basic Jewish learning and

preparation for my bar mitzvah. After that ceremony, I had no more Jewish learning, and

our home practices dwindled, especially after my parents divorced when I was a teenager.

I encountered anti-Semitism in high school, and internalized the messages to have a very

negative view of Judaism, and denied the identity. Though I went to university in

Montreal, which has a large and vibrant Jewish community, I distanced myself from its

functions, as it seemed too exclusive for my needs of getting out of the small town and

into the cosmopolitan city. It was not until I had been involved in Zen practice and began

studying Buddhism that I was able to reconsider Judaism.

It was at McGill that I met a professor who ran a meditation group from his home,

Richard Hayes, who is now a Zen priest. After one class I rushed to his office and blurted

out, “Tell me, what is enlightenment!?” He simply asked me if I meditated, and invited

me to his sitting group. Once a week I would take the subway and trudge through the

snow to his small apartment, where a group of four to six people would sit on zafus for

two hours without moving, breaking every half hour for a minute at the sound of the bell.

There was no instruction, and it was excruciatingly painful for me and my legs. I didn’t

know how to sit, or how to deal with pain. I came to the conclusion that I just couldn’t

meditate, so I stopped going to the group after a few months. The quiet and serenity of

the place, as well as the dedication of the sitters, made an impression on me as I

46

continued to search for methods to mitigate the stresses of university life and find

meaning in my life.

During this time I saw a sign up at the university swimming pool locker room for an

evening of Jewish meditation at the Hillel House. Intrigued, I went, and found a table of

three men in front of an avid audience. Two of the men talked about meditation and

Judaism, and one of the men, an orthodox rabbi, talked a bit and then simply led a short

meditation. Afterwards this rabbi came up to me and invited me to his house for Shabbat

dinner on the coming Friday night. From then on I began to be a regular guest at their

house, and attend his Sunday evening meditation group where he led meditations based

on Aryeh Kaplan’s writings. This rabbi, Daniel Elkin, and his wife Gitel, introduced me

to the contemplative, devotional and emotional sides of meditation from a Jewish

perspective, which was largely around their Shabbat tables and their loving kindness as

hosts.

Those two examples were my first encounters with Buddhist and Jewish meditation,

and that they happened around the same time means that I continued to see them as

somehow connected throughout my journey. After finishing my degree in philosophy, I

traveled for a year, mostly in Asia, where I attended my first long meditation retreats, in

the vipassana and Tibetan traditions. My first teacher in Tibetan Buddhism was Thubten

Chodron, who comes from a Jewish background herself, and had a sense of humor that

was distinctively Jewish. I remained in contact with her and corresponded about my

difficulties straddling the two paths; I would say then that my heart was Jewish and my

mind was Buddhist--Buddhism just made perfect sense as a description of reality, but

Judaism had a deep emotional appeal to me. Chodron simply reassured me in my

47

directions, and was disinclined to see any conflict in the two.

During that long trip I visited Israel and took courses in Judaism, all the while

maintaining my daily meditation practice which I committed to after my first retreat in

Thailand. It was in Safed, the home of the Jewish mystics and kabbalists of the 17th

century, that I thought I could possibly live in Israel, which, five years later, I ended up

doing. Upon return to Canada, I continued my study with a graduate degree in

comparative religion, focusing on Judaism and Buddhism, with a thesis on meditation

centers in the Far East for people from the West. The thesis topic was, of course, for the

sake of my being able to further develop my meditation practice in these places. The plan

was to develop a stable base of meditation practice, and then move to Israel where there

was so much tension and conflict, in the hope that I could contribute something positive

in terms of meditation. While in Buddhist centers during my research trip I met several

Jews from Israel who were eager for Dharma practice opportunities to develop in Israel.

Since that time several options for Buddhist meditation practice have emerged here. I

came to Israel after intensive practice in the East believing that meditation would provide

the cure to the conflict here. After eight years here I still hold that may be true, but a lot

of people both outside of and inside Israel would also have to be involved in the practice

for any collective change to happen.

Since my moving to Israel, I became involved in Jewish practice, and studied at a

yeshiva, a Jewish seminary, for two and a half years. It was a place that emphasized the

more contemplative teachings of hassidut and kabbalah within Judaism as well as the

more standard sources of Bible and Talmud. My meditation practice was encouraged, and

my involvement with Buddhism was not discouraged, so that I was even provided a room

48

equipped with rugs and pillows for use as a meditation area. I held regular sittings there,

and since my departure another student is leading a regular meditation group. I spent a

couple of years teaching at a Jewish meditation group in Jerusalem, where I live with my

wife and young son. My wife is an observant Jew, grew up in a religious household, and

our toddler is being exposed to both traditions and practices. I see no contradiction in the

convergence of practices, and feel comfortable meditating before the sandalwood Buddha

statue in our bedroom before reciting some Jewish prayers.

I go through cycles of feeling a greater need for Jewish practice or Buddhist

practice, for words or for silence. I cannot view one without the other, and their insights

and practices are simply necessary for me to be with either. This does not mean that I

have an easy time of it, or that the integration is smooth and conflict free, for there are

times when I want only one, and am fed up with the other: often the Jewish “noise” and

wordiness, as well as the stress that I see in so many of Jews around me, contradict my

ideas of what a spiritual practice should cultivate. When I yearn for silence and the

insight that it brings, for the returning to universal qualities of wisdom and compassion, I

move more in the direction of Buddhism; while there, the needs for relationship, for

family and ceremony, for peoplehood and a connection with a four thousand year history

bring me back to a center that binds these two traditions together in a space close to the

heart.

As is pretty clear, I am biased in my research, and my bias comes from my

commitment to both Judaism and Buddhism as my one path in life. I must admit,

however, when I teach meditation I rely on Buddhism as the clearest expression of the

inquiry into reality and the self. I believe that integration of Jewish and Buddhist wisdom,

49

as well as practices, is not only helpful to each one, but very necessary. Religious identity

and practice, like genetic pools, can only be enhanced by elements that come from the

outside, which do not replace what already is, but strengthen it—both traditions’ histories

are testimonies of this. I believe that we carry our identities, our relative truths, with us

wherever we go--a Buddhist who is a Jew cannot but have the two influence each other,

consciously or not. I see it in my own life, and I have made a conscious path out of it. I

am interested in how others with similar identity combinations live their lives, and quote

Jacqueline Mandel, one of my subjects, who said at the end of our long interview, “Your

inquiry is my inquiry.” I paraphrase her to say that each person’s narrative is, in this

interconnected world, also our own.

50

Endnotes: 1 Strauss and Corbin, 1992, p.17. 2 Silverman, 1993, p. 10. 3 Denzin and Lincoln, 1998, pp.3-8. 4 ibid, p.8. 5 Denzin, 2001, p.71. 6 Strauss and Corbin, 1998, p.159. 7 ibid, pp. 158-9. 8 Strauss and Corbin, 1992, p.49. 9 Barthes, 1998, p.89. 10 Polkinghorne, 1988, p.11. 11 ibid, p.107. 12 Linde, 1993, p.21. 13 Denzin, 2001, p.59. 14 in Gubrium and Holstein, 1992, pp.147-8. .15 Cortazzi, 1993, p.13. 16 Polyani, 1989, p.109. 17 in Merriam, 2002, p.287. 18 in Sarbin, 1986, p.114. 19 Lieblich, 1998, p.8. 20 Josselson, 1995, p.33. 21 Polyani, 1989, p.46. 22 in Gubrium and Holstein, 1997, p.77.

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23 in Ezzy, 2002, p.21. 24 Denzin, 2001, p.155. 25 Spence, 1986, p.224. 26 in Merriam, 2002, p.94. 27 van Manen, 2000, p.5. 28 Strauss and Corbin, 1992, p.171. 29 in van Manen, 2002, p.27. 30 Wiess, 1994, p.33. 31 Lieblich, 1998, p.9. 32 Denzin, 2001, p.34. 33 Patton, 1990, p.278. 34 Josselson, 1995, p.32. 35 Polkinghorne, 1988, pp.178-82. 36 Denzin, 2001, p.100. 37 ibid, p.99. 38 Polkinghorne, 1988, p.19. 39 ibid, p.167. 40 Silverman, 1993, p.155. 41 Hammersley, 1990, p.57. 42 in Lieblich, 1998, p.172.

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Chapter Four:

Personal Introductions of Research Subjects

Table of Contents:

Introduction p.

Ajahn Amaro p.

James Baraz p.

Seth Castleman p.

Thubten Chodron p.

Stephen Fulder p.

Blanche Hartman p.

Jacqueline Mandel p.

Jacob Raz p.

Mel Weitsman p.

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The most central feature of narrative research is the data having being generated from

stories of real people’s lives. The thrust and power of the research is the groundedness of

the analysis, that the ideas emerge directly from the accounts of the subjects themselves.

Their narratives provide the real world connections, the very substance for the writing. It

is essential, therefore, that the living people who provided the narratives are not lost in

the researcher’s use of them; good narrative research enables the reader to get to know

the subject not just as chopped up material for analysis categories, but as real people who

have rich and insightful stories to tell. This “getting to know” the subject may not come

from a linear reading of their life story, since the story as a whole is not presented as part

of the research account, but rather in more of an inductive, intuitive sense by bringing

together the different angles presented along the way in the various chapters. It is akin to

meeting someone in different contexts: seeing a co-worker at work, then shopping at the

mall, and later at a PTA meeting, or out to dinner with her spouse, and at a yoga class, all

provide insights into her character without being drawn from a contiguous narrative.

What can aid in this “getting to know” the subjects presented is an initial introduction,

just as a simple social introduction between acquaintances creates an initial frame within

which the other contexts will contribute. Here I will sketch out basic introductions to the

nine Jewish Buddhist teachers I interviewed for this study. These introductions will

include some basic information relevant to the study, such as their background training

and family contexts, as well as what communities they are presently involved with.

Included in the brief descriptions will be my own impressions formed by being in their

presence, as well as a note on my own connection with them, if there is a past one. This

will all hopefully serve to provide an initial framework which will allow the specific

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excerpts and contexts of the following chapters to be related to as drawn from the living

narratives of real people.

Ajahn Amaro

Two and a half hours north of San Francisco, among the dry hills that nestle the

renown Californian wineries--hills reminiscent of those surrounding Jerusalem--is located

the small Thai Buddhist monastery named Abhyagiri. In our rented white Chevy

Cavalier, I, my wife and our four-month old son traveled along long windy country roads

that eventually led to a cluster of small brown-stained wood buildings. It all looked pretty

new, and the style of the place was both Thai, with the curved ornate roof of the

meditation hall, and American, with the ranch-style house of the office and kitchen. We

felt very far away from the trendy big city we had recently left. Within a short while

Ajahn Amaro walked in to greet us, a tall man in yellow robes, youngish looking with a

broad smile and tanned skin, emanating both confidence and playfulness. He spoke with

a strong and proper English accent, and seemed very comfortable with himself, which set

a mood for the entire place--it was at once a traditional Thai forest monastery and a very

relaxed northern Californian atmosphere.

Ajahn Amaro was born in London, England in 1956, and spent his early years in a

country village where his parents relocated. He later was sent to private boarding schools

and continued to complete a college degree in psychology and physiology. In 1978 he

traveled to the Far East and upon his first exposure to Buddhist meditation and monastic

life in 1979, joined the Wat Pah Nanachat monastery in northeast Thailand, ordaining as

a bhikku. He remained there for two years, being a student of the famous monk Ajahn

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Chah, upon which he then returned to England to become a student of the American

monk Ajahn Sumedo in his monastery Amaravanti. Within a short time Amaro was

teaching and writing books, and his current monastery, Abhyagiri, was opened in 1996,

where he is the co-abbot. It is the first Thai monastery of the forest tradition in America.

There are currently around six monks residing there, and they follow the schedule and

lifestyle of a traditional Thai forest monastery, which includes living in separate huts in

the forest, eating one meal a day before noon, and practicing a full schedule of daily

meditation. Apart from his teaching the residents, Amaro leads meditation retreats at

centers such as Esalen and Spirit Rock, as well as giving talks to various Buddhist centers

in the Bay area.

Ajahn Amaro has a very healthy British sense of humor, which came through in much

of our interview. He seems not to take himself too seriously, which is despite his serious

and time-worn devotion to an intensive spiritual life and practice. Amaro’s parents are

not Jewish, he has only one Jewish grandfather; he is the only person I interviewed who

is not formally Jewish. I chose to include him in my research nonetheless, without much

debate, for a couple of reasons. One is that he was referred to me by another subject as a

Jew who would be appropriate for my study, meaning that he is perceived by at least

some others as being a Jew. Another reason is that during the course of the interview

itself he referred to himself as Jewish, or as coming from Jewish genes and ancestry,

using the pronoun “we” when referring to Jews. Judaism is, obviously, part of his identity

matrix, even if it does not qualify him to join a Jewish prayer quorum.

His sense of ease and the casualness of the place manifested in several ways. I made

the initial faux-pas of sitting in the abbot’s seat, when we sat down for our interview,

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which would have been a huge embarrassment in Thailand, but he simply pointed it out

and we switched. Amaro suggested to my wife that she wait for us in the meditation hall,

which he stated was the most comfortable building in the sweltering heat of the

afternoon. She sat there with our baby, whom she nursed; his offer I took to represent his

openness and natural concern, allowing a woman and baby to take over the meditation

hall of a male monastery for the afternoon, breast exposed in the presence of a huge Thai

golden Buddha statue. This was, I reminded myself, California, not Thailand.

James Baraz

A senior teacher and co-founder of Spirit Rock Meditation Center, the main vipassana

center of the West Coast, James maintains a full schedule of teaching retreats and running

a community teacher training program. I found James through the list of teachers at Spirit

Rock, and contacted him via email with my request for an interview. He is in his early

fifties, a soft-spoken man who weighs his words, and lives in an affluent residential area

of Berkeley with his wife Jane and their sixteen year old son Adam. He and his wife have

a business of selling home water filters, and a substantial amount of his income comes

from the profits of a spirulina market that he helped establish several years back.

James is friendly and quiet, with a sense of patience and an understated nature. He had

just returned home the day before from the end of his program for meditation community

leaders around the country, which gives support and training for fledgling groups and

their teachers. James grew up in New York in a family that was nominally Jewishly

active, and after his bar mitzvah he, as so many young Jews with uninspired exposure to

their tradition, ceased to have any involvement. He earned a degree in psychology, but

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worked as a high school teacher, which he did for several years, until his interest in

meditation practice became his main focus. He chose to devote most of his time to this,

with his moving to Berkeley, and the organizing of retreats for teachers like Joseph

Goldstein and Jack Kornfield. His main influences were Ram Dass and Joseph, the later

of whom continues to be his main teacher.

James’ main interest is the practice of building spiritual communities, which he

teaches at Spirit Rock. He has been one of the senior teachers there since its founding in

1989, and it was from their roster of teachers that I found his name and made contact. He

travels to other communities to lead retreats, such as in Vancouver and Missouri, and he

is currently writing a book on joy. James is the only teacher who did not have an initial

formative period of practice and spiritual exposure in the Far East, but trained and

became inspired primarily through Western teachers and in America. Only as an

established meditation teacher did he travel, in 1990, to India, which served as an

inspirational trip to renew the practice and devotion that he had already developed and

learned from his Western teachers.

Seth Castleman

After a four hour bus ride from Jerusalem to Safed, the city of the kabbalists, I arrived

at Seth’s one-room apartment in the Old City. The door was wooden and painted the light

blue that decorates much of the area, standing out from the whitewashed walls. Seth

welcomed me with a hug and a broad smile, then set out a tray of olives and dried fruit,

with mint tea, all in conjunction with the ancient environment. We sat on pillows close to

the ground and talked, to begin with as the friends we were. I knew Seth from having

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participated in the meditation group that he ran on a bi-weekly basis in Jerusalem, and we

developed a friendship based on our mutual interest in both Judaism and Buddhist from a

practice standpoint. The youngest of the teachers I met, at 31, Seth has a maturity and a

comic side which are drawn from his broad experience in teaching, travel and work. He

teaches retreats at Spirit Rock as well as at the Jewish retreat center, Eilat Chayim, and is

in the midst of a five-year meditation teacher training program run by Jack Kornfield. He

has recently enrolled in a non-denominational rabbinical program in Boston.

Seth grew up in Boston, in a non-religious Jewish home which had some Jewish

content brought in via family friend Rabbi Larry Kushner, a well-known spiritual teacher,

writer, and Reform rabbi. He soon discovered a natural talent for story-telling, and began

to perform to various audiences in the San Francisco area, where he moved to at the age

of 20. Very soon after he became involved intensively at Spirit Rock, and within a year

he was running the family program there. At that time he began to take his meditation

practice and teaching to prison chaplaincy work, which he considers one of his main

occupations along with teaching of meditation retreats, the running of a small meditation

group, and the study of Judaism. For a year and a half Seth recently lived in Israel, first in

Safed and then in Jerusalem, where he studied in a yeshiva, a religious seminary, as well

as studying Hebrew in an intensive program. He is the most active in Jewish practice of

all the teachers, and is very concerned with the integration of both traditions in his life. At

once garrulous and contemplative, Seth combines frequent humor with sharp insights into

his spiritual life and journey, always weaving a story into his points and making his own

narrative an array of lively images.

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Thubten Chodron

It was a full two and a half days drive from Seattle to Boise, Idaho, where my

interview with Chodron was to be held. The drive was glorious, cutting through mountain

ranges, on through forest groves, rolling hills, and then down to the desert valleys of

which much of Idaho is comprised. Upon approaching the Idaho border from Oregon, we

felt like we had returned to the Judean hills: dry, low, randomly treed, only here the scale

was tremendous, with the peaks of Mt. Adams and even the blown-out Mt. St. Helens

visible in the blue distance. Every turn on the road opened up a totally new vista, so much

so that by the end of the second day of driving we were jaded by the pristine nature. The

longer we drove out into the wilderness, the more I wondered just how a Tibetan

Buddhist nun of Jewish origin ended up here, of all places.

Boise is like an old western town from the gold rush times, only gone suddenly

modern with shiny new buildings and outdoor cafes. The oldest synagogue west of the

Mississippi is found here, a modest red brick building with colorful stained glass

windows. Chodron lived on the outskirts of the town, on a house on a hill offering a view

of the whole area: brown hills rolling around a green treed city below. She lived in a

house of a student of Buddhism, and had a small room in it rented by her community.

The weather was very much like that of Jerusalem, hot and dry by day, cool and crystal

clear by night.

Thubten Chodron is a small woman in her fifties with a very happy demeanor and an

even more ready laugh. She was my first teacher of Tibetan Buddhism, when I took a ten-

day retreat led by her in the Tushita center located above McCleod Gange, the Tibetan

refugee village in upper Dharamsala, India. That retreat, in early 1993, when I first

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formally took refuge in the Triple Gem, the Buddha, Dharma and Sangha, which was a

commitment to the Buddhist path, was very much inspired by Chodron’s teaching and

personal example. She was a person who seemed to have tremendously benefited from

her long practice, and she presented Buddhist wisdom in a down-to-earth manner whose

motivations I could integrate into my daily life. Years later I encountered Chodron again,

this time in Israel, at the house of a good friend and Jewish meditation teacher, Rabbi

David Zeller. He had hosted Chodron for the Passover Seder, as she was in Israel to give

teachings and lead a retreat for the fledgling Tibetan Buddhist community here. I

attended her retreat, and renewed my good connection with her.

Chodron had been based for a while in Seattle, where she had formed a community,

and divided her time among there, Singapore where she also taught, and India where she

met with her teachers. Since the time of our interview and this writing, she has

established the first Tibetan Buddhist Abbey in America, on a large estate in northern

Idaho which will house a community of nuns as well as serve as a center for retreats and

teachings. This has been Chodron’s dream for years, and her way of rectifying some of

the exclusion she has felt as a woman from the systems she has been part of. She has

cultivated a very supportive and active community, which has funded the costly project.

Her founding of the abbey has received the blessings of the Dalai Lama as well as many

teachers and supporters from around the world.

Our interview was one of the more engaging I had had, partly due to our connection

and largely due to Chodron’s depth, sincerity, and interest in my endeavor. She is self-

effacing and quietly commanding at the same time, she can flow from being a funny

woman with Jewish humor to a devoted, highly trained, and fully-ordained Buddhist nun

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within moments. I felt very connected to her own journey and her descriptions of her

inner process, which she explored freely with me. Chodron met early with Tibetan

Buddhism as presented by Lama Yeshe, who was to become her main teacher, or root

guru. She ordained within a year of her first meeting, and has remained loyal to that path

since. What stands out most in talking with her, apart from her striking honesty, is her

faith in the path she has chosen for herself. Her unwavering devotion to the spiritual life,

and her unique blend of wisdom and humility in her approach to others, are inspiring

qualities. After the interview I brought my baby son for her blessing, which she did as he

stared wide-eyed at her, afterwards to stare at the large thanka painting of White Tara. All

of us, my wife, my son and myself, left Boise feeling blessed by our encounter.

Stephen Fulder

I first met Stephen at a Jewish meditation retreat in northern Israel to which he was

invited as one of the teachers. As fellow Buddhist practitioners, we formed a connection

which I drew upon later as I began my research. Stephen is the founder of Tovana, the

association of insight meditation in Israel, which offers regular retreats of vipassana

meditation along the lines of IMS and Spirit Rock. There are also a string of sitting

groups spread among various cities in Israel which are associated and practice similar

forms. Stephen teaches vipassana meditation at Tovana functions, and organizes for the

arrival of well-known teachers from abroad to visit and lead retreats. He is also very

active in The Walk, a program of silent walks across parts of the country joining Jews

and Arabs for the purpose of peaceful coexistence.

Stephen was born in London, England to a traditional Jewish family, but left

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observance as a teenager. He studied organic chemistry in university, eventually earning

his doctorate, and proceeded to teach college classes. He spent a year in India under the

auspices of the university, and there became very interested in Eastern practices, being

exposed to meditation as taught by Goenka. Stephen continued with Goenka’s vipassana

meditation for years until he began to broaden his approach with teachers like

Christopher Titmuss, who is his main teacher, and others along the Insight Meditation

Society’s approach. He married an Israeli woman, Rachel, and they began to split their

time between Israel and England. After some time like that, they settled full-time in

Israel, and joined a small community in the rural Galil area. It was there that they raised

three daughters and build their own house, both of which were very formative to

Stephen’s outlook on practice. Rachel is very Jewishly connected, and Stephen has

become increasingly interested and involved in bridging the Jewish-Buddhist divide in

his own life. Apart from teaching meditation, he has worked as a consultant for chemical

and pharmaceutical companies in Israel, drawing on his expertise on plant compounds.

Our interview was one of both his sharing his story, and of our mutual exploration of

the possibilities of Jewish-Buddhist practice. He is very invested in both areas, and with

time has become more concerned with broadening and reclaiming his Jewish background.

We connected to each other as two somewhat drifting souls in this area, with Stephen not

finding much resonance for his Jewish leanings in his Buddhist community, and my not

finding kinship in my Buddhist practice within my more Jewishly observant

environments. Such is the exchange that we continue to maintain from one meeting to

another.

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Blanche Hartman

The San Francisco Zen Center, the flagship institution of Zen in America for the past

37 years, is a large red-brick, imposing building in a mixed residential area. The first

thing I noticed as I approached the building was the large bronze Star of David suspended

over the door, and as I walked up the steps and pushed upon the large wooden door, my

eyes caught a mezzuzah, the small box containing prayer verses Jews place on their

doorframes. I was told later by Blanche, who lives at the center with her husband, that the

building originally was a home for young Jewish women. I wondered to myself if there

still weren’t more Jews housed in the building than not.

Blanche met me in the office of the center, a diminutive gray haired woman in her late

seventies, who still emulates a vibrant energy and presence in her demeanor. She wears

loose black robes, and keeps her contrasting light grey hair about an inch long. She led

me to a dimly lit reading room furnished luxuriously in an English style, with striking

posters of Buddhist images from around the world adorning the walls. Blanche had an air

of straightforwardness about her that could be disarming, and right before we began our

conversation she excused herself to go to the office for some medications. There she met

my wife who was nursing our baby. She mentioned that she was about to be interviewed

by some guy from Israel, and my wife replied that I was her husband. Blanche looked at

her with surprise, and then softened her gaze as she took in the baby--she herself is a

mother of four and a grandmother of double that. I felt a change in her attitude as she

returned, as if I was now meeting not just Blanche Hartman the abbess of the Zen center,

but Blanche the Jewish mother.

I received Blanche’s name and contact information from the Zen center I contacted

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about my research. Blanche served seven years as the abbess of the Zen center, ending

her term within the previous year. She was the first woman head of the institution, and

this was groundbreaking and ruffling even for an area as alternative as San Francisco.

Blanche grew up in a Reform Jewish family living in Atlanta, Georgia, and moved to the

West Coast shortly after World War Two. She was very involved in social activism, and

worked in various fields while raising her children. It was not until her mid-forties,

following several crises in her life, that she sought out spiritual practice, and met with

Buddhism. She became intensely involve immediately thereafter, learning from Mel

Weitsman at his Berkeley center and taking Suzuki Roshi as her main teacher. Within a

few years she was living at the Zen center’s different centers, eventually to become

ordained as a Zen priest. Her husband, who is now 89, shared in her practice, though her

children chose to become involved in traditional Jewish practice.

Jacqueline Mandel

The most immediate response to my request for an interview from among all my

subjects came from Jacqueline, whose name I received from Chodron. While some

teachers took months to respond to my request, and some not at all, Jacqueline always

responded to a change in schedule or meeting times within a day. She was eager to speak

with me and share her story, which turned out to be the longest, richest, and most

expressive of all my interviews. A small woman in her early fifties with short hair and

bright eyes, she was warm and hospitable, flowing with ease and excitement from one

story to another with little encouragement.

We arrived in Portland, Oregon, one of the most pleasant cities on the West Coast,

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whose lushness was a welcome change from the arid plains surrounding Boise. The

combination of snow-capped mountains on one side of the city and the Pacific coast a

short drive on the other side, with abundant forests and greenery in between, makes

Portland a source of pride for its inhabitants. Jacqueline lives in a small suburb across

from the main park with her twin teenage daughters. They share a warm and respectful

relationship, maintaining a healthy balance of independence and connectedness. The

twins, each of whom I was able to speak with separately, are interested and have been

involved in their mother’s Buddhism, while pursuing their own interests; one is training

and performing as a dancer, and the other just returned from a year studying French in

France.

The interior of the house is covered with colorful Tibetan art--thankas, posters,

paintings, and photographs are found everywhere. These reflect Jacqueline’s current

direction in Buddhism, which is along the Tibetan way of Vajryana practice. Jacqueline

spent most of her adult life involved in vipassana practice and teaching, being one of the

four founders of Insight Meditation Society in Barre, Mass. In a dramatic break, she

resigned from the center, married, and moved out west where she began to become

involved in Tibetan practice. Jacqueline teaches meditation at a local bookstore, has a

weekly group meet at her house, and leads workshops at venues such as the public

library. She is very involved with the Tibetan refugee community of her area.

Jacqueline grew up in Ohio with a strong Reform Jewish background, and taught

school before leaving for her definitive year in Far East, where she dived into meditation

practice as taught by Goenka. It was there that she bonded with fellow practitioners

Joseph Golstein and Sharon Salzberg, which resulted in their creating IMS shortly after

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their return to the States. After her departure, her involvement in Tibetan Buddhism led

her to realize the Dalai Lama as her main teacher, as well as Ozen Rinpoche from Tibet

whom she met on her pilgrimage voyage there a few years ago.

The first thing Jacqueline did upon my arrival to her house was serve us Darjeeling tea

and cookies. Her enthusiasm and excitement around her journey created a dramatic story

which was full of emotion and insight, and was narrated in the form of an epic journey.

The interview as a whole took on something of a therapeutic function, with Jacqueline

moving through moments of catharsis, explanation, story-telling, confession, and soul-

searching; the result was a very engaging process which involved us both.

Jacob Raz

Professor Raz is the head of the Department of East Asian Studies at the University of

Tel Aviv, Israel, and runs a Zen-inspired meditation group which meets twice a week

with periodic weekend retreats. Jacob is also my thesis advisor, and in the few years that

we have been working together, and as I have been part of his sangha, we have grown in

our connection not just as teacher and student, but also as friends. Jacob is at once a deep

thinker, an academic with broad interests, and a committed practitioner. He teaches from

his experience and own personal insight, both to his university and dharma students.

Jacob is an example of the breaking of the borders of academic and practical Buddhism,

as he lives it in his own life and work. His practice extends into social action and engaged

fields within Israel, having headed and worked with peace groups. Over recent years

Jacob has become involved in teaching Buddhist thought and practice to groups of

psychologists for their own professional development. A central part of each day is

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devoted to his adult son, Yoni, who has Down Syndrome, and from whom Jacob draws

continual inspiration.

Jacob was born in Tel Aviv to parents from Greek and Turkish backgrounds, who

maintained a household of much cultural diversity and awareness. He attended French

school, was trained in the piano, and studied Asian philosophy, theatre, and language in

university, eventually completing his Ph.D. in Japan. He was involved in theatre in Israel,

directing several productions, and generated an interest in kabbalah, Jewish mysticism,

upon his return from Japan. His involvement in Zen began with a Japanese master,

Dorpio Roshi, who was for a time teaching in Jerusalem. Jacob visits Japan on a yearly

basis, as well as traveling extensively in the Far East. He draws on Burmese Buddhism as

well at the Soto Zen of Dogen for much of his teaching of meditation practice, but is

conscious of the adaptations that are necessary for the Israeli context. He teaches in

Hebrew and this has contributed to his creative interpretation of Buddhist terminology

and application, which has not been extensively translated into that language.

An ethical question exists about my using as a subject my own thesis supervisor. How

would he accept the uses I make of his story, of his personal narrative? As a subject of

the study, how much can he suggest, advise, and even direct its direction and form,

without this being somewhat biased by his own participation? And from my side, is it

possible for me to assert my own interests and research needs without feeling inhibited by

his own investment in the project? These are all concerns, but they are moderated by the

very person of Jacob, who’s blurring of lines in his own life of the academic practitioner

means that his participation in my study would just be another facet of that. Our research

relationship is such that Jacob attempts to refine the directions I myself stake out, without

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imposing his own predilections. His openness and flow with the project is the product of,

like his teaching, his own practice.

Mel Weitsman

Except for the small sign on the wooden gate reading “Zen Center” one wouldn’t

notice anything out of the ordinary while walking on this quiet residential street in

southern Berkeley of old two story houses, broad trees lining the street, and small patches

of well-kept lawn. This innocuousness is intentional on the part of the Berkeley Zen

Center, which fits in with the quiet diversity of the neighborhood. Down the street is an

authentic Thai Wat, looking as if it were just magically transported from rural Thailand,

replete with orange-robed monks doing the gardening outside. Even this temple, sheltered

by the trees, wouldn’t be noticed on a drive-by. The inherent modesty of Zen aesthetics

has influenced the center--the whole place looks like someone’s pleasant home. The back

area surprisingly opens into a small complex of several buildings which include the

zendo, meditation hall, and Mel’s residence.

I was a full two hours late for my interview with Mel, having mixed up the times with

my interview set with Blanche the next day. Opening the door to his small abode, Mel

appeared, an old monk in black robes with thick black eyebrows and a hesitant smile. I

apologized for my extreme tardiness, and he was completely unfazed, telling me it

offered him the time to catch up on things he wouldn’t have other wise--I was just on

time, he said. I was very grateful that the first American to be ordained as a Zen priest,

and the founder of this thriving center, would set aside a whole afternoon not just for my

interview, but for my lateness.

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Mel’s place was a cramped two rooms, homey, with some calligraphy instruments on

the wood table, and a music stand with sheets of Mozart nearby. He is a stout man in his

mid-seventies, with a sharp gaze and weighed responses, accompanied by an easy laugh.

Most of his life had been devoted to the practice and teaching of Zen, and he is one of its

founding fathers in America. He grew up in Hollywood, California, in a non-affiliated

Jewish home, and after high school joined the marines in which he served following

WWII. After his release, he went to art school in San Francisco, where he studied under

the master abstract expressionist painter Clifford Still. His interest in music led him to

learn the recorder, which he taught for a while, and his love of gardening became

expressed as the center’s vegetable garden which once provided for much of their food.

He has been married twice, and has an eighteen-year old son.

During the period of the mid-sixties he became involved with Zen, accepting Suzuki

roshi as his teacher, and began to divulge himself of all other concerns so to devote

himself entirely to practice. Mel become ordained by Suzuki Roshi in 1969, the first

American to do so, and received dharma transmission, the ceremony which indicates one

receiving the authority of a specific lineage, from Suzuki Roshi’s son in 1986. Mel single

handedly founded the Berkeley Zen center at the behest of his teacher, and has guided it

and its thousands of students for the past thirty years. There are currently more than 200

members, and there are constant activities such as sittings, intensive retreats, and

teachings, as well as a daily schedule for the several residents who live on the premises.

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Chapter Five:

The Occurrence of Epiphany

Table of Contents:

Introduction p.

Major epiphanies p.

First encounter with Buddhism p.

Illness and death p.

Transformation through travels p.

Spontaneous epiphanies of total change p.

Cumulative epiphanies p.

Illuminative epiphanies p.

Relived epiphanies p.

Generative epiphanies p.

Summary p.

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Introduction

The illumination of the turning point experiences of a person’s life story, specifically

those that can be seen as essential to the development of the Jewish Buddhist teacher’s

spiritual life and path, is the focus of this chapter. These definitive experiences, what

Denzin (2001) terms epiphanies, emerge out of crisis situations where the individual’s

very sense of self is often revealed, shaken, and transformed to varying degrees. The

epiphany experience, though crisis-provoked, may in fact be experienced as a very

positive and even desirable happening; I use the term crisis as meaning that experience or

set of conditions which generate a breakage with a previous way of being. It may be very

welcome, or it may evoke terror. Either way the result is, as an epiphany, transformation

which provides a corner stone to the person’s journey as a spiritual practitioner and

teacher. The epiphany then remains as a reference point for future developments of

character.

I am devoting a chapter to the description and understanding of epiphany in the Jewish

Buddhist teacher’s journey because such transformative experiences were crucial markers

in every one of my subjects’ stories. Often the very word epiphany was used by them to

emphasize an experience’s importance to their story, and the recounting of it generally

inspired in them (and of course, in myself) a deeper appreciation of the events’ centrality

to their story. The examination of epiphany, especially where it appears as a prevalent

and life-defining phenomenon, allows for a profound understanding of human

experience: epiphany reveals underlying tensions in one’s existential and spiritual life,

and how those tensions are confronted and resolved. Epiphany, as a turning point and

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transforming event, is the vessel through which radical change occurs in response to the

shifting tectonics of the self. In such an existential earthquake, where opposites collide,

certain constructions of the self are razed and other rise up. These points of collision

indicate dialectical movements, the synthesis of which may take the whole remainder of

the lifetime to find expression and understanding.

On the meaning of epiphany, Denzin states: “Meaningful biographic experience

occurs during turning point interactional episodes. In these existentially problematic

moments, human character is revealed and human lives are shaped, sometimes

irrevocably.” (Denzin, 2001, p.145). Tracing these episodes is not only a way to make

personal character apparent, but that if, as Denzin says, “having had such a moment, a

person is never quite the same again,” (ibid, p.34) then the flow and development of the

whole person’s life, their choices, and their relationship to their traditions and the world

become better understood. He states further on, epiphanies represent “ruptures in the

structure of daily life” (ibid, p.38) and it is my contention that such events not only can

illuminate the direction of life that the person is going along, as restructuring occurs in

the aftermath, but that they stand on their own as intensely meaningful moments.

Meaning in experience is not only determined by its contribution to future developments,

but can be evaluated and appreciated purely on the intensity of its lived moment. The

events described in the teachers’ lives as epiphanies read as monumental icons on their

own; they are recounted, in addition to this, because they are seen as defining the shape

of the rest of the narrative.

In the narrative interview the moment of epiphany is one which is remembered and

granted retrospective meaning, which may have been previously established as an

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inexorable part of the person‘s self-understanding. The retelling of epiphany becomes,

despite this, a kind of reenactment, and the subject’s interpretations, upon which I base

my own, are present manifestations of the continuing epiphany. The epiphany happened

in the past, and its retelling becomes something of a present reoccurrence, like an echo

heard over time which still has the power to shake and inspire. As a function of plot,

which I examine in a following chapter, epiphany may have a beginning and a middle,

but as its tranformative effects are long lasting, even for the remainder of one’s life, it can

not be seen as having an end. The excitement with which subjects speak about their

epiphany experiences is good evidence that the transformation is recalled as a present

moment--it is still happening now.

I intend to describe the different subjects’ transformative experiences roughly

according to the four categories of epiphany that Denzin (2001) has marked out, as well

as adding a category I feel missing in his paradigm. Though certain turning point

episodes can be seen as bridging two or more of the categories, they are nevertheless a

useful interpretive tool which offers a certain reading of their relationship to the rest of

the person’s life, and of the person‘s life with the rest of the world. The four forms of

epiphany that Denzin describes are the major, the cumulative, the illumative, and the

relived. The major is an earth-shattering experience, one that permanently and drastically

alters the person’s life. They affect every part of the person’s being, and the effects are

immediate and enduring. Deaths, births and severe illnesses are examples of this type.

The second structure of epiphany is the cumulative, which are reactions to developments

that have been occurring for a long time, the sort of penned-up bursting out against events

that have been building up. Having a breakthrough realization after years of meditation is

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an example of this, as would leaving a marriage after years of abuse. The third form of

epiphany is the minor, which Denzin also calls the illuminative, wherein minor events

occur that are symbolically representative, or illuminative, of more major developments

or tensions in one’s life. The account of a seemingly uneventful conversation between a

child and her parent may be seen to indicate the pattern of difficulty in their relationship.

The fourth and final form of epiphany Denzin describes is the relived, when the

individual relives a turning point event which is granted significance through the

interpretive recounting. Any event which in its recounting is given new retrospective

meaning of great significance can be included in this category. The most striking

examples happen when sudden insight is realized during the very narrating of the

episode, which beforehand did not have such relevance. They are distinguished by the

teller of the story expressing the newness of the meaning to her, and of the intensity of

feeling expressed in the revelatory experience during the recounting.

I wish to add to this list a form of epiphany I will call generative, meaning a

significant experience that begins humbly, or as a mild experience, and then snowballs

throughout one’s life to become a major theme or character trait. The generative epiphany

is the mirror image of the cumulative, which is the response to a build up; in the

generative, the build up happens after the significant moment. These experiences are seed

epiphanies that create a momentum, and help to define future epiphanies, as well as

reciprocally being reinforced, or further germinated, by them. An example of this would

be a child’s first introductions to piano lessons, which grow into music being a defining

aspect of his life. A generative epiphany is determined by both the future events that are

the fruits of the seed, and the designation of it as a significant experience by the subject

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him or herself.

The subjects of my study revealed a high prevalence of epiphany in their life stories,

and it would be excessive to categorize and describe all of them here. What I will do is

select some of the more representative turning-point moments in each of the subjects’

lives, and understand them through the lens of the categories outlined. I rely mostly on

what the people themselves describe, as being most significant and definitive for them

either directly through their designation or indirectly through its placement in their story

and their emotion in retelling. The extensive quotes will help to reveal not only how these

epiphanies relate to and help explain their characters as people on a certain spiritual path,

but how they navigate this path in the world.

Major Epiphanies

Major epiphanies stand as the most transformative events of a person’s life. They are

maintained as reference points for all future directions taken, and can be seen as clearly

shaping the person’s character in a profound way. The major epiphany never, in a sense,

ends, but becomes, in its power and intensity, a constant presence either in or just below

the subject’s consciousness. More than just a turning point setting one on a certain way

previously unchartered, a major epiphany makes an indelible mark on one’s very being,

affecting how one relates to oneself and to the world--without such an experience, one

could imagine oneself as being a very different person. In the case of my selection of

Jewish Buddhist teachers, each one had between one and five major epiphanies. They are

identified by, firstly, the subjects themselves introducing them as the central experiences

of their spiritual and life journey; secondly, by the detail, emotional expression and

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interest with which they narrate these experiences; and thirdly, how the experiences seem

to shape and give direction to the life narrative that follows.

In every case, the major epiphany sparked a vital interest and commitment in spiritual

practice, which for the most part was understood as Buddhist, though in a couple of

instances it was as yet undefined or Jewish. The subjects were narrating their spiritual

journeys as Jewish Buddhist teachers, and their recollection and description of epiphany

represents this; if I had been researching their stories as Jewish Buddhist parents, then the

epiphanies narrated, even the major ones, may well have been completely different ones.

This self-selection according to my interest and the purpose of my interviews means that

their recounting them is an interpretive act according to their desire to accommodate me;

the result is that their choices of defining moments to recount are easily understood as

having defined their lives. The very descriptions and narrative content, as will be seen

through the quotes, express clearly just how such experiences define their journeys and

understandings of themselves. The major epiphanies I have identified can be sorted into

the following four groupings: those dealing with first contact with Buddhism or

meditation practice; those arising from serious illness or death; those occurring in the

context of travel; and those which arise spontaneously to introduce a completely new

awareness and direction. I will highlight now the most representative of these.

The First Encounter with Buddhist Meditation

Much leads up to a person being profoundly affected by a first spiritual experience--

what he has heard about it, who else he knows is involved, how he got there in the first

place, what other similar experiences he had previously, what he has studied and read

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about the practice, what was going on in his life leading up to this encounter, even what

he ate and drank immediately beforehand, and more. Those factors vary from person to

person according to each individual life story. What is most striking is that the first

formal meditation session experienced in a Buddhist context proved to be a defining

turning point, a major epiphany, for each one of the teachers studied. More than any other

experience or epiphany, their first meeting with Buddhist meditation is the common

factor among them as a major epiphany which defined their spiritual path for the rest of

their lives. That is not to say that the first meditation was necessarily the most major of

the major epiphanies, but that it is the most commonly shared one.

One of the usual ways that this epiphany is described is as a kind of coming home, a

rediscovering what one already know deep inside. It is not seen as revelatory, as bringing

something new and foreign into one’s life, but as a return to an essence of who they are.

Seth expresses this sentiment characteristically:

I go in, we sit for 45 minutes, there’s a break, we have tea (me: you’d never sat before) Ahh, not

in formal Buddhism. I mean, I’d had, ahh, movement and meditaiton class at Kirpalau, you know,

a little of this and a little of that. Sat for 45 minutes. Jack (Kornfield) gave a talk, and within ten

minutes of his talk I knew I was home. It was like, and everything he said was, you know, I knew

it all before. You know, sort of like when you hear the Dharma you know like it’s nothing new.

He didn’t say anything I hadn’t figured out on some level before, ahh. And, ahh, within six

months I was volunteering there, and within a year I was the director of their family program.

This sense of being at home, at coming home, at finding what one left one’s previous

home (physical, psychological, and spiritual) for, is echoed by Amaro, who, like Seth,

makes a head first plunge into the practice and the environment after the initial encounter:

I joined the routine (of the Thai monastery). And then, within a day, it was just like, okay, this is

it, I’ve arrived…every kind of intuitive fiber in my being was saying, this will do. (laugh) You

know, this is what you need…On the third day I was there, I shaved my own head, because I was

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sure I was going to stay there more than one week1.…I made the resolution for a couple of years,

I’d try it out for a couple of years, and I’ll definitely do it for two…So that’s what I said to

myself, yeah, it was much more intuitive than rational, you know, it was just, I felt totally at

home, and it was exactly what I was looking for even though I had this idea that I strongly

disapprove this, like organized religion...It’s like, I arrived, I felt totally at home, I didn’t know

any other form of Buddhism, I never opened a Buddhist book before I walked into the place. I

had no idea, I didn’t know.

More than just the overwhelming intuitive sense of coming home, Amaro describes, like

Seth, the experience as being one of acting as a springboard into a full commitment to

Buddhist practice. Amaro’s dive into the practice, by becoming a Theravada monk, is the

most radical of all the narratives. What is remarkable about these dramatic turns is that it

is preceded by little or no familiarity with Buddhism per se, or even with any other forms

of meditation or spiritual practice in any serious way. This is the case for all nine of the

teachers, and their sudden or near sudden commitment to intensive Buddhist practice is a

feature that can be seen as a common one among newly religious or converted people,

such as among the newly-observant Orthodox Jews (ba’alei tshuva). What separates

these teachers from many who have conversion experiences, I venture to suggest, is that

their commitment to Buddhist practice is not lightly taken on (despite it often being

quickly taken on), but one that continues for the remainder of their lives and allows them

to develop as teachers and leaders of their communities. If it were not so, these

experiences could not be included as major epiphanies.

This plunge into Buddhist practice as their life’s endeavor, and the awareness of such

from the very beginning (extending, in part, from the overwhelming feeling of having

“come home”) is something that cuts across all forms and schools of Buddhist

meditation, irrespective of its seeming foreigness or the physical and psychological

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difficulties of sitting meditation. Although the rational element of Buddhism is often

quoted by them as one of the main draws, the initial pull is universally emotional and

intuitive. One has come home, and such a feeling is no small thing to people who have

felt most of their lives alienated from their environments, societies, religious upbringing

and even family. Both Mel and Blanche described the strangeness of the Zen center’s

ceremonies, chanting in Japanese, and bowing to Buddha statues, but the power of the

initial positive experience overcame all of their inhibitions. Mel, like all the others,

describes this feeling: “When I first went to the Zen center, and sat down, it was just

boom, I really felt at home.” This is a kind of summary statement of all of the subjects’

first experiences with Buddhist meditation, which he goes on to call a “very powerful

experience” and one which inspires him to dedicate his life within a short time: “Yeah,

after a few months I just decided this is exactly what I was looking for, and I had better

not, umm, fool around. So I just took it up. And ah, ah, I just did it wholeheartedly.” Such

wholeheartedness, in Mel’s case, means that his life begins to revolve around the sittings

in the zendo, the Zen meditation hall; though he would continue to work at odd jobs in

order to support his Spartan lifestyle, his whole focus was Zen practice. During this initial

period of his first year of involvement, he would drive a taxi in San Francisco all night,

and arrive at the morning meditation session in his uniform.2. After the service, he’d catch

a bit of sleep, and then go to the center for afternoon meditations and evening services,

before heading out again in the taxi.

A major epiphany is often remembered not only in descriptive and emotional detail,

but the precise date and even time is etched in memory as a monument. In very seldom

cases did the subjects recount exact dates, even for events like births of their children or

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deaths of loved ones, but the first experience with Buddhist meditation is often

remembered with such detail. Seth recalls: “Ahh, so it’s about five thirty in the afternoon

on a Monday, on the 15th of July” to introduce his first meditation experience, and

Blanche combines historical and emotional detail in her description: “somebody told me

about the Zen center of Berkeley, and I went for meditation instruction. I just felt it right

away, I had meditation instruction July third, 1969, I started, I went away for the July

fourth weekend, and sat meditation up in the mountains, came back and started going to

the zendo everyday to sit. Umm, (snaps fingers) just like somebody, you know,

somebody drowning, somebody throws them a life preserver or something.” The first

Buddhist meditation experience, as the one that is remembered with all of its biographical

details, indicates that it may well be the most significant moment of these peoples’ lives.

The path has suddenly opened up, and it was one that, as home, was always there.

The powerful impact and profundity of the first meditation experience may also be a

result of not just a deep intuitive awareness, that of coming home, but of the realization of

a significant life lesson. In such cases the first meditation session is remembered not

because of the meditation experience itself, but for the teaching that the teacher of the

group gave at the time and impact it made on the subject. It was what the person needed

to hear, and convinced her to pursue the Buddhist path further. As a major epiphany, such

teachings didn’t just result in an intellectual appreciation, but struck a chord deep within

the very essence of the person, so that the course of her life would be forever changed.

Jacqueline expresses this experience (the date she gives is the only one in the five-hour

interview):

And then I went to Bodhgaya3 and um, I took my first Buddhist retreat, January 19, and I walked

in, and the first thing the teacher, who was Goenka, he was my first teacher, said, was ‘there’s

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suffering, cause, release, path, Four Noble Truths.’ YES! And he said the method is how to be in

the present moment. YES! (laughs) It just made sense. It was like, of course. It totally made

sense. And, any suffering was due to clinging, you know, so you didn’t have people walking

around going oy vay. And umm, it was incredible.

Receiving a life teaching that serves as a turning point does not have to be experienced

as earth-shaking, but its significance for the life of the subject can still be definitive; the

tone and texture of the experience, and how it is received, depend very much of the

character of the person. The nature of a particular epiphany is a revelation of personal

character. Jacqueline and Blanche are deeply emotional people, and Jacqueline freely

expresses her emotions throughout the interview--their major epiphanies are dotted with

emotional states. Seth is a storyteller, and his experiences are replete with much theatrical

and conversational material. Mel is a solitary, harking back to his frustrated-artist days,

and his accounts are bare-boned and to the point. Amaro is expressive and humorous, and

his stories often have a funny turn. Jacob is an intuitive intellectual, and his first

meditation experience is punctuated by the koan4-like lesson he receives unintentionally

by his teacher. The meditation was okay, but the lesson at the end, not a formal teaching

but one picked up on by Jacob, changes his perception:

Someone, a friend of mine, noticed that he (the Zen teacher) had a watch. He sort of took this as

not being alright, and he said, ‘I see that you have a watch’. He answered, ‘Yes. I have a watch

and at 12:30 I have a meeting in Jerusalem, and I want to arrive on time.’ And that was it. That

was my first Zen lesson. There is a watch. Yes. A watch is necessary (laughs), it’s not, a watch is

necessary, yes. But it is possible also not to have one. And if you need to arrive to a meeting on

time, it is necessary to have a watch. (laughs) And that’s it. It was very inspiring.

The repetition within Jacob’s reciting of the key points of the experience (had a watch,

have a watch, watch is necessary, there is a watch) articulates the integration of this

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lesson into his psyche, as if he is repeating a mantra. This first Zen lesson is one well

learned, and his pursuing the professional life of the academic, with all its deadlines and

pressures, while leading a parallel life as a Zen teacher and leader of a community,

reveals his living the lesson of both having and not having a watch. The professor keeps

time, the Zen master transcends it--without throwing it away. This koan of having and not

having a watch (what is the sound of no hand ticking? Does an alarm clock have Buddha

nature? What was the face of your watch before time began? Tick-tock) can also be

called the paradox of being in the world and not of the world, working in the relative

world of time, and being in the ultimate world of the eternal present.

Illness and Death

I dealt with at length the first Buddhist meditation experience as a major epiphany

because it was the most universal form of the transformative event. Of equal

transformative power is a serious or life-threatening illness experienced by the subject, or

the death of a close loved-one. The main difference between these two forms of major

epiphany, meditation and crisis, is that the first experience offers actual direction, opens

up a path, which is usually experienced as a joyous relief, while a terrible illness and

subsequent recovery creates the opening for that path to be realized--but is not a path in

itself. Illness and suffering create the strong desire to seek out its end, and so an

experience of illness can be seen as tilling the ground for Buddhist teachings and

practice--which are all about the cessation of suffering--to germinate. That is why, once

this ground has been prepared, the opening of the path through being introduced to

Buddhist meditation is experienced as joyous relief: finally, something can help me get

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out of this black hole I’m in. All of the subjects experienced suffering to greater or lesser

extents, which will comprise the topic of one of the following chapters, but only a few of

them actually experienced their suffering as a kind of major epiphany which transformed

their lives permanently.

The most dramatic of these experiences happened to Blanche, who both lost her best

friend and became deathly ill herself in the same year. These events sparked in her a new

awareness which opened her life to a spiritual search. She traces the developments

clearly:

Ah. Annnnd, then, ummm, a friend of mine died, suddenly, so I had a, ah, sheeee, went to a

doctor, she had an inoperable brain tumor. Annnd, very quickly, dead. And it was shocking to me.

She was my best friend. We were 40, 41 at this point. Ah, (with) small children. Ummm. And,

she was my contemporary, it could have been me. (her emphasis) Yesterday we were drinking

coffee, she had a headache, today she’s got an inoperable brain tumor, and the next, you know,

she didn’t die immediately, because she was young and strong. Except for the brain tumor. But

she was in a coma for a long time. Anyhow, it was very shocking for me. The first time I really

saw my own mortality…And thennn, I don’t know, sometime within that year, I became very ill.

I developed a severe infection that became…ahh and I almost didn’t survive. And so by the time

that was over, I was really faced with impermanence….the illness didn’t last very long. It was

just very severe…I ended up in the hospital with septic shock. I had no blood pressure. My doctor

came in in the morning and said, boy, am I glad to see you. You topped out at 106 last night.

Umm, so I was pretty sick for some time, and a slow recovery. And then that experience, those

two experiences started me searching, reading, looking for what. I wasn’t aware at the time what

was going on except ahhh…searching, not knowing for what, but everything was coming

unraveled.

The connection of this epiphany to the rest of Blanche’s life is clear. These painful events

pushed her into the realm of the unknown, searching for an escape, “like a crab in a pot,

scrabbling with eight arms and legs to get out…and that’s how I was in that period,” she

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later describes. When she finally does meet with a practice that offers a direct method for

dealing with crisis, she embraces it fully as a godsend, within a few months she was

revolving her day and family life around the sittings at the zendo5.

The grave illness that Jacob experiences during his army service, which forces him to

be discharged from the army (a serious blemish in Israeli society where job applications

require descriptions of army service) is defined by Jacob as being a major turning point,

though not yet placing him directly in a spiritual search. His description delineates its

importance to his story, while not, as Blanche did, defining exactly how:

Suddenly I was ill. My body became very ill, and after less than a year6 in the army I was

discharged because I was sick. Because I was a person who was ill and not at all fit for the army,

not just for parachuters, but at all not fit for the army. You know, a youth aged nineteen. I was in

the hospital a month, all my friends were combat troops, I know (laugh), I can’t say what this did

to me, but this did to me, did to me (clears throat) something very strong, some kind of revival of

all my narrative, all of my narrative, of the nation, and of the army, and of power, and of the

fighters, and all the parachuters, and all, and all this thing. I had the whole month to think while I

was, almost paralyzed, almost paralyzed, I couldn’t even eat, they fed me. Because I couldn’t

move my hands. That was a very good place for meditation. (Laughs) Really, a place very good

for meditation. Then I didn’t know what was meditation, but (clears throat), a place very, very

good for a type of meditation. You know, it was like, a kind of being born again. I was also

wounded in the heart, a young man, you know, this, this, you need to think everything anew.

In retrospect Jacob sees his hospital sojourn as a type of spiritual experience, a first foray

into meditation of sorts, but one can also pick up on the suffering and humiliation that

went along with the experience. He was reduced to an infant-like existence, not only

being taken out of a respectable army unit, but of having to be fed, and though not said,

washed and changed. A month like that, totally alone (his friends were in intensive

training exercises and he did not tell his mother so not to worry her), would provoke just

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about anyone to either spiritual distraction or despair. The event does not become an

excuse to collapse into self-pity and anger, as would be understandable responses, but is

taken as an opportunity for renewal, “revival” as he puts it.

This epiphany is not only major in that it transforms, or begins in a serious way the

transformation, of Jacob from a regular Israeli soldier to a spiritual seeker, where

everything is reconsidered, “thought anew”, but it takes on mythical proportions,

becoming part of what he sees as not just about him, but about the army and country as a

whole. His story, his conception of his story, exemplifies the emergence of Sartre’s

universal singular, which Denzin focuses on. Every story, every event in a person’s life,

has meaning and significance beyond his own confines. Each individual stands as a

representative of humanity, and his tragedies and transformations reverberate with deep

universal human truths. Jacob sees this operating within his own hospital episode, of a

boy coming from a well-defined set of norms and customs, thrust into a situation he did

not choose, a passage of suffering, and emerging forever changed--not able to return to

the land he was exiled from. This is the fall from Eden, the taste of the Tree of

Knowledge, Siddhartha outside of the palace walls, the beginnings of a reflective life, of

the search for more than what one has inherited can offer. Jacob’s being “wounded in the

heart” reveals the sadness which accompanies this change, for all that one has grown up

with--friends, family, army, nation--must be left or transformed conceptually. This is

Thomas Mann’s Magic Mountain, or, You Can’t Go Home Again. The seeing of

everything new comes part in parcel with the breaking with everything old--a sad and

hopeful turn.

The transformative power of physical illness or death becomes a metaphor for the

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death or illness of the old self, and the rebirth or healing into a new, spiritually-oriented

and seeking individual. This movement of epiphany is perhaps most exemplified by

Jacqueline who experienced not a death of a friend or family member, but of herself. She

undergoes a kind of mystical dying which resulted in her reassessing her life and

radically changing her direction. Her description of the experience is explanatory:

It was my birthday…so I invited all my Western friends, and, uh, thy took me on top of a rotating

restaurant, and all of a sudden I realized that I was on top of this restaurant in Tokyo, I had gone

everywhere I had wanted to go, I had done everything I had wanted to do, and…I had a

spontaneous experience that I was dying. I wasn’t dying, I wasn’t physically dying, but I had this

experience of dying, so much so that I stayed up all night…and I realized it was the unknown,

and I realized it was now time for the inner journey.

Over the next week Jacqueline has repeated experiences of this, while she is teaching

English to Japanese students, or just sitting on her bed. She is unprepared for the

experience despite having already had experience with meditation: “Nobody told you that

that would happen, nobody, they didn’t tell you that in meditation. I would be sitting in

my bed and then visions of dying would take place. Or I would be looking at something

and it would just dissolve.” Her world, inner and outer, is coming apart, breaking down,

dissolving, and yet at the same time a new awareness of a deeper, latent truth begins to

manifest. After traveling constantly for a year, she is propelled to begin in earnest the

inner travel, shedding the old self that is dying for a new self that is committed to the

spiritual path: “I said, I’m gong back to India, to meditate forever, but first I’m going to

meet the Dalai Lama. I just said that to myself.” Jacqueline remains faithful to her inner

sense of truth and path. The intensity of her experiences, which is reflected by her having

reported the greatest number of epiphanies of all the teachers, as well as by the way she

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describes her transformations in somewhat absolute terms, both form and reveal a

character that has strong devotion, dedication, and resolve to her own journey.

Throughout her life she remains ready and poised for the appearance of the, as she

described it, unknown. Her dying is at the same time her being born to a new way of

being in the world, which was similarly articulated by Jacob and Blanche.

Transformation through Travels

The third type of major epiphany which was described by the subjects was those

which were inspired by travel experiences. Most of the teachers spent significant periods

of time traveling, usually in the Far East, where they were exposed to Buddhist teachings

and environments. Their journeys there seldom began with the intention to gain exposure

to these environments and their teachings, and often a crisis or epiphany occurred on the

way which inspired a turn towards those Buddhist places like monasteries or retreat

centers. The travel enacted on the outside, say a trip to Bali or a hike in Nepal, is the

pretext for the true journey which is the inner transformation through the epiphany which

it arouses. The physical environments and travel contexts are the settings, both essential

and extraneous for the major event to happen: essential because it did occur in that place

and during that situation, and extraneous because the life was moving in that direction

and if it didn’t happen under those specific circumstances, then it is reasonable to assume

that another set of conditions would have equally served as the impetus. What travel does

allow, and most who have traveled extensively can attest to this, is a distancing from

one’s old self, habits, patterns and relationships that are well-defined in one’s home

environment. To paraphrase Krishnamurti, epiphany happens by accident, but travel

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makes you more accident-prone.

After a duration as a hippie in London, touching upon spirituality through his reading

of myths, Tolkien, and attending meetings with an occultist teacher, Amaro decided to

“throw himself out into the story” as he expressed it. He left on a one-way ticket to

Indonesia on a plane full of race horses (he received free passage by working as their

groomer), with the intention of finding some kind of spiritual direction and training.

What he found was quite the contrary, and this sparked a deep insight:

I had met a girl at a party who had been to Bali, and that sounded like a mystical place. So then I

went to Bali and found that, you know, Bali might be mystical, but I wasn’t. (Laughs) I was still

the same, sort of screwed up, neurotic white kid that I was when I was in England. So I thought,

well, that’s a shame. And I suddenly realized that oh, it’s not geography that’s going to make that

much of a difference. Ah me! To my astonishment, you know, I thought, okay, I’ve left that all

behind, and there, there was me. So that’s when it started, I started to realize what was really

involved, it was clear, it didn’t matter where you went, or what you did, or what you decorated

your sort of perceptual world with, no matter how beautiful the beach was, or how lovely the girl

was, or, or what you were eating, or, or anything, and it was really clear, it was very, very

powerful insight…yeah, I mean it was weirdly, it was weirdly clear….and I’m still this ordinary

character, with these sort of personality and body and mind…and, then, I don’t know why, but it

was an astonishingly clear insight….I was absolutely certain that that was the case. It didn’t

matter where on the planet I went, or what kind of job I do, whether I wrote the great novel, or

found the perfect woman, that, until, I was, you know, clear and awake and free inside, then the

rest was all just…

Within a few months Amaro found himself in the Thai monastery and felt completely

at home. Up until this point he still carried the belief that the outside journey is the cure,

and the epiphany creates the strong awareness, as it did for Jacqueline in the Tokyo

restaurant, that freedom has little to do with where you’ve been or what you’ve done. His

old self, the floating hippie seeking peak experiences, dies in a flash of blinding insight

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and what survives is then ready to don the ochre robes of a traditional monk. Amaro’s

travel experience, his major epiphany on the road, highlights two main characteristics of

the transformative event which are evinced by all the examples: the old traveling self

dies, and the new self commits to a lifetime of inner journey. Where this new journey will

take them, and exactly what forms of practice will be defining are not known at the time

of the travel epiphany.

The nature of the major epiphanies occurring around dying, illness, and travel are

equivalent to placing one of the path without a map--one starts moving with no idea to

where. The map may surface in a few months as it did for Amaro when he first visited the

monastery, or it may involve a lifetime of unfolding and the discovery of new maps as it

has been for Jacqueline. Even after many years practicing and teaching vipassana

meditation, she has a definitive and uprooting experience, a kind of semi-major epiphany

which throws her back onto the road without a map: “I was pregnant, and just before

giving birth I looked up to the mountains and I said, there must be more. And I just know

there was something more than vipassana, it was just like very clear to me. And it just

came out of nowhere.” Within a year and a half she began her intensive involvement with

Tibetan Buddhism and teachers, but this very option was made through a clearing of the

old that had cluttered her inner space. Her looking up at the mountains, an important

symbol in the Jewish tradition, reveals not a looking up at the non-ascendable, but at the

very infinity of possibility which such a view can represent. There is a faith in the more,

and the mountain says, as she herself in faith speaks through the mountain, there is more.

Her experience parallels that of the psalmist in a remarkable way. Psalm 121:

. A song of ascents:

I will lift my eyes to the mountains

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From where will my help come?

My help comes from God

Maker of heaven and earth.

He will not let your foot slip

Your guardian will not slumber

Behold, he will not slumber

Nor does he sleep, guardian of Israel

God is your shelter at your right hand

By day the sun will not strike you

Nor the moon at night

God will guard you from all evil

He will guard your soul

God will guard your coming and going

From now to forever.

The mountain is the inner journey, the path full of endless possibilities, and faith in

one’s ability to walk that path, faith in the truth of the path, enables one to look up. This

path, the practice of Dharma and concomitant faith in its effectiveness, offers the

protection needed to maneuver through life’s turmoil. Jacqueline’s comings and goings

through forms and practices of Buddhism are guarded by her faith in its unlimitedness.

The role of an actual physical mountain as the setting of an inner epiphany is central

to one other story, that of Stephen, who went through a form of death and rebirth as he

ascended. It should be noted how the action “walking up the hill” is repeated four times,

emphasizing the inner struggle and journey going on at the same time, and when he

arrives at the top of the hill, to insight and epiphany, the description becomes purely of

his inner journey:

At that time I remember walking up a hill in Nepal, I was on a trek, for a month, and I remember

walking up the hills in Nepal with Rachel, and I walked up the hill and I was saying to myself, do

I need to say no to Judaism? And I kept, as I walked up the hill I kept saying it to myself, how

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does it sound: NO Judaism, NO to Judaism. I don’t want you. How does it sound? How does it

sound. In real time, in a kind of feeling, a present moment experience. How does it feel now if I

say it to myself, if I feel it to myself, how does it feel. And I got to the top of the hill and I said to

myself, I don’t need this, it’s completely unnecessary, fortuitous, an extra burden, and I can throw

away the whole thing. That means the no, the resistance. I have no need of resistance any more, it

was a complete acknowledgement, and a real inner certainty. Doesn’t mean that I immediately

rushed off and became religious at all, but I didn’t have, I realized that I had the confidence in me

to be able to relate to Judaism entirely independently, irrespective of the forces of society,

irrespective of who said what, irrespective of my father who wasn’t alive, but the voice of my

father, and choose my relationship with it. A real new confidence and freedom arrived through

my Indian experience.

This breakthrough is similar to the others in that the confines of the old self are “thrown

away” and a new, freer, and more open self is discovered. The main difference here is

that Stephen knew what he was dealing with and where it will lead him afterwards. The

main obstacle is the resistance to a part of himself, his Jewish heritage, and the new

direction is towards a greater openness and acceptance of Judaism in his life. It is

unknown in the sense that he didn’t know where it would specifically lead him, though he

does state afterwards that it did result in his keeping of the Jewish Sabbath in his own

way which he sees as having a “real Buddhist significance“. Stephen is still very actively

attempting to understand his Judaism and bridge the Jewish-Buddhist divide; this passion

is the outcome of his mountaintop epiphany. As seen with Amaro and Jacqueline, the

physical place provides the trigger for the experience, but the real journey transcends

both the time and place. The mountain, India, Bali, Thailand, Tokyo, and all the other

stations of epiphany in the external world stand for metaphorical equivalents within the

soul.

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Spontaneous Epiphanies of Total Change

The final group of major epiphanies are those I call, awkwardly, spontaneous

epiphanies of total change. These are unexpected events which open up a totally new

awareness and propel the subject to a completely new life direction. They are often

recounted and expressed in strong terms, replete with detail and emotional content, and

convey the shock value that has played in the person’s life. I call them spontaneous

because they arrive completely unexpectedly, without any conscious preparation or

background. In Stephen’s account of walking up the hill, as an integral part of his travels,

one can sense the build up of something critical about to happen. Amaro’s Bali

experience also carries the naturalness of an awareness which if it didn’t happen then, it

would shortly thereafter. The category of spontaneous epiphany has no narrative build up

to it, and it appears in the story in almost a disjointed fashion. One can discern its

significance to the narrative which follows, as it inspires new direction and radical

change, but its relation to the past is not inductive, as derived from facts of the past. Its

occurrence is more to be deduced from the general movement and currents underlying all

the twists and turns of the life up to that moment. After the event one can say “of course

this had to happen”, but until it occurs, there were no warning tremors.

The other main feature of the spontaneous epiphany is that it opens up a totally new

direction and way of being in the world for the subject. This may relate not only to the

spiritual life, but also to professional life, teaching, and relations to family. The point is

that such epiphanies are interpreted by the subjects as a necessary part of their spiritual

development, and so whatever area it affects is included as part of their spiritual path.

What is a common feature of these epiphanies is the level of surprise the subjects felt in

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regard to them, and a sense of awe at the intensity of the experience and its subsequent

changes it made in their lives. These epiphanies are truly, as will be seen, examples of

inner revolutions which became part of their permanent identity.

An intense dream which changes one’s perspective on reality is a striking example of

an epiphany which arises spontaneously. Mel, who had a distant relationship with his

parents, speaks about his transforming dream:

Ah, so, for a long time, you know, I rejected my parents, we never had any kind of closeness,

nobody ever touched anybody, you know. But I had a dream one night, and I dreamt that my

whole family had their arms around each other, and they were in this kind of golden glowing

space, you know, and everybody’s saying “of course, of course, how stupid we’ve all been”, you

know, to have so much, ah, distance, to never have any really, ahh, ahh, ahh, related in a way that

was positive. And at that point I just forgave them, that’s what the whole thing was about,

reconciliation. So, I was totally reconciled with them, and it totally influenced my life, that

dream. Ever since then, I didn’t tell them about it, but the way, ah, I related to them after that was,

totally without, ah…it was an amazing dream. And it also affected my relationship to the world.

Like acceptance, you know, merging…I think I’ve always, since then, had this attitude of

accepting whoever’s there, you know…I can meet everyone, I just can meet everyone where they

are.

Mel’s dream is life-changing and spontaneous. It could be speculated that such a

reconciliation arose out of his intense Zen practice, which was extended naturally into the

area of the unconscious, but the form of the experience, the specific dream, is a unique

and spontaneous phenomenon. He does not describe the dream as confirming a process

he had been working on, and nowhere in the narrative does he mention any efforts with

his family at a positive relationship. In this sense, appearing literally out of thin air, the

dream truly is “amazing”, and even more so in that he does not ignore it but allows it to

give shape to his relationship to the whole world. What is interesting is that the

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reconciliation occurs on his side only, there is no mention of any further contact with his

parents, but that the lesson is lived out with the rest of the world--he does not tell them

his dream, or presumably enact it with them. His reconciliation is inner, and it becomes

expressed by his simple acceptance of his parents and the rest of the world. Mel does

read the dream literally, and knows that the content came from him, not from his family.

His reconciliation is to the world, parents included, which stems from his inner change

and certainty.7

Family can be the context and impetus for much, if not most, of the major changes

that one undergoes in one’s life. The birth of a child can definitely be considered an

epiphany, but it would be hard to consider it a spontaneous one (even Mary,

spontaneously pregnant, had nine months of preparation for the miracle birth). An

exception to this is when the child is born with a difference, which is what happened in

the case of Jacob whose son was born with Down Syndrome. This event, which spans

over an intensive 24 hour period of the birth and his epiphany experience, begins a

change in Jacob’s life which is more major than any other. He describes his son Yoni as

“the biggest lesson in my life” and as his greatest teacher, which can be seen as tracing

back to the awakening which occurred after the birth. The initial period was one of shock

and confusion, which in itself helped clear the way for his epiphany to occur:

At the end of ’78 Yoni was born. In the beginning this was a great confusion. Shula (Yoni’s

mother) was in shock for a long time, she, ah, didn’t take it well in the beginning. He was born

with Down Syndrome….and for me, there were 24 hours of very great confusion, that was, really,

true ignorance. Both informative and Buddhist. It was really, really confusing…the informative

ignorance was that I didn’t know what Down Syndrome was. Generally they said “mongoloid”,

you know, all kind of things like that (laughs).

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The Buddhist ignorance referred to, which Jacob does not extrapolate upon, can be

thought of as the lack of understanding of dependent co-origination and emptiness that he

has going into the birth. Briefly stated, these mean that every being and phenomenon in

the world is the result of a web of relationships which make it what it is or seems to be.

Since everything is dependent on everything else for its existence, then nothing can be

seen as having inherent, or independent, existence. That is another way of saying that all

being is empty of inherent existence, which on the flip side expresses the essential unity

of all being. Emptiness does not mean things don’t exist, but that they don’t exist as we

normally take them--separate and self-defining. All things are full of all things, and the

Mahayana development of the notion of emptiness to equate with Buddha-nature comes

to mean that all things have this essential nature of being infinite, essentially perfect, and

connected to all things. When we view things as separate, and ourselves as separate, then

the suffering arising from attachment, aversion and confusion appears. An understanding

of emptiness allows one to accept the present moment and all beings within it as an

expression of true Buddha-nature. Jacob enters the birth expecting a normal baby and

suddenly a “mongoloid” appears. The confusion which results from the frustration of his

expectations and his wife’s reaction is partially a result of his not being able to directly

perceive the emptiness and perfection of the birth and baby as they were. His awareness

does not stop there, however, or the epiphany would not have manifested.

The actual trigger of the experience comes from the doctor’s shocking suggestion that

he abandon the child, which turns the confusion up to a boiling point, ready for

breakthrough:

The doctor said to me…this is something I will never forget in my life, he said, “if you want to

abandon him, you can abandon him.” Really like that. I don’t, now that I say it I can’t believe it.

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And he said, “Do you want the child or do you not want the child?” That question, for me it was a

question of a different kind. But for him it was a question which had a terrible meaning, but for

me it was a question of a different kind. Like I say to you on retreat. Do you want or don’t you

want, choose. This was not a formal question. He’s my son, he’s formally my son. Am I choosing

him? Is he my son? Like to say, that was the question for me. I had a very deep meditation. Not

for the issue of abandoning or not abandoning, but what kind of choice I would make. What kind

of choosing would I do. There’s no alternative, I accept him, like, that’s one option, if I choose

him with a full choice, fully committed, if he is mine…what kind of choice am I making? I knew

nothing about Down Syndrome. I don’t know. I know that there is developmental problems, I

know that it’s retarded, I know, all sort of formal things, but what kind of life here, I don’t know.

That’s to say, without knowing any information….and then, I chose him. I knew that it was the

right thing that Yoni was born. I knew that he was the right thing. It’s not right against wrong, it’s

right, it’s there.

The whole day, the whole span of 24 hours, can be seen as an extended epiphany which

results in his fateful choice. Jacob is not simply choosing Yoni as his son, to accept him

fully, but in doing so he is choosing all life, and to follow a path of life that accepts every

moment and person on their own terms. He has an experience of emptiness which breaks

any conceptual ideas he has about life--not “right against wrong“, but simply everything

and everyone as “right“, simply because “it’s there.” This is not unlike the result of Mel’s

dream which also generates an inner path of acceptance. Mel chooses his parents, and by

extension the rest of the world, which is the choice Jacob makes with his son. Jacob

names his son Yonaton (Yoni for short) which means “God gave” in Hebrew, affirming

the “rightness” with which he sees his son’s existence. This epiphany sets Jacob on a path

of accepting life and all its diversity as taught by Yoni who “is my son and also my

greatest teacher”. As a child with Down Syndrome, he developed at a rate completely

different from other children, even those with Down, and fathering Yoni has lead Jacob

to understand that he cannot compare him to anyone else. “Nothing can be presumed”

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Jacob states, and this is a comment he has learned about life. The centrality of choosing

the present moment and of developing the equanimity to accept what is, are the most

recurring themes in Jacob’s teaching of others.

The final major epiphany I bring as an example which occurs spontaneously and with

profound repercussions expresses the theme of a new awareness of unity and acceptance

of others more explicitly than the other two. Shortly after her grave illness and the death

of her friend, Blanche experiences a major epiphany par excellence which shatters her

view and gives the rest of her life a reference of meaning. The context is a student strike

at her son’s university in San Francisco during the volatile 60’s which turned ugly and

deteriorated into a riot. She went as an observer, and to try to block violence which could

erupt between the students and police.

My son was one of the students arrested. So I went out to the campus. And ah, ah, I was kind of

watching the thing, not really…and I was standing there looking and I said, where’s my side?

Because by that time I was a pacifist. And I realized that I was for the black student’s strike and

that people shouldn’t be arrested, but smashing cameras (violence perpetrated by the students)

was not part of me either. So I was in a state of much confusion and uncertainty, when this sort of

planned confrontation happened. There was a rally, and it was announced that this was an illegal

assembly, and the police came out in full riot gear, shoulder to shoulder, the whole width of the

square, and started sweeping the square. And ah, arrested the speaker, and started arresting all the

leaders, all of them were whisked away. And I found myself one person between me and the

police column. Sort of one row, I ducked under their hands…and I made contact with one of the

police officers, right in front of me, much closer than you are. And this, you know, his mask and

everything. And I had this overpowering experience of identity with this riot squad police. And it

sort of expanded into this boundless to include everything. Very powerful, very real experience,

for which I had no conceptual framework, and no way of understanding what happened. What

that experience was. But it was much more real than any ideas I had ever had. I had to change my

life…my whole political career, if you will, ended with that experience, and I began to ask, who

knows about that?

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The breakthrough is preceded by an experience of great confusion, a kind of

unknowing and unlearning what was assumed previously. If the people she wants to

support are using violence, then how can she continue naively supporting them? Whose

side is she on? What happens when the sides are taken away? Her identification with the

police officer could just as well have been with one of the black students, the result is not

a switching of sides, but an abandonment of side-thinking and taking, and an embracing

of a kind of unity which admits of all sides. This is an experience of Buddhist emptiness.

She doesn’t know how to interpret it conceptually, but the experience has touched her

core and gives direction to the rest of her life. This epiphany of identification with the

other, combined with the two others of her friend dying and her almost dying, Blanche

reflects “changed my way of seeing the world”. This change was not just about seeing, as

we know from the rest of her life, but inspired, even compelled her, to seek out a way of

life that would reinforce her awareness, “I started looking for who could help me

understand the way in which, in this way, the world that I had seen.” It was during her

searching that she came upon the Zen center and, after nearly drowning in her

experiences, felt a life preserver thrown her way.

Cumulative Epiphany

Occurring in quite a different form than the spontaneous epiphany, the cumulative

epiphany is an event which is the final result of much build up, and has a linear and quite

apparent relationship to the past narrative. Such experiences do not necessarily come as a

surprise, but are often the crowning achievement of years of development. They are

experienced, to be certain, as a tremendous breakthrough, and thus are to be considered

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epiphanies on their own right. The cumulative epiphany is at once a marker of having

come so far on their journey, and a signpost which indicates the direction which the

journey will continue to take in the future. They are not, like the major ones, earthquakes

measuring eight on the Richter scale, leveling the cities of self which stood and requiring

total rebuilding, but are more like a bursting dam which opens due to the build-up of the

water of life and spiritual experience. The water pours out and streams down river

channels which have already been formed, only now with much greater flow.

Of the monks, priests, and nuns I spoke with, their ordination stands as an example of

this, a turning point which is considered one of the major ones of their lives, and yet

reconfirms the path they have been traveling for a good long while. For none of the

teachers did ordination mean a kind of conversion, a formalizing of being a senior

Buddhist, but rather a profound deepening of their commitment to their practice and

tradition. The different nuances of what ordination actually meant to them, why it was so

significant, are very noteworthy. Mel expresses that ordination for him as a Zen priest in

the late 60’s was for him “absolutely a big, big marker”, which interestingly enough at

the time was a mystery to him. Upon being ordained, he asked his teacher Suzuki roshi

what it meant, and received a noncommittal answer:

I said, what do I do now? What do I do as a priest? And he said, I don’t know. And I asked

Katagiri (Suzuki roshi’s Japanese assistant) what do I do when I’m a priest? I don’t know. That’s

right, I thought, you have to find out what it is to be a priest, it’s not like somebody’s going to tell

you what to do, you have to find out. Especially in America.

Mel was the first American in the Western World to be ordained as a Zen priest. A year

later, by 1970, there were a couple of others ordained, and they were by then following

Mel’s example as what to do as a priest. He was, in a sense, reinventing the wheel of

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American Buddhism. When asked what his ordination meant, he refers to his relationship

to others and his practice: “Up until that time, I was still playing (recorder), teaching

music, after that I said, I’m not going to do that anymore…I just let people support me.”

He has become a full time monastic, living off the alms of the community, practicing and

teaching Zen as his full time occupation. Becoming a priest is a major marker, a

cumulative epiphany, as it formally defines him as a teacher and Zen Buddhist. It caps

what he had been doing up until that point, and opens up the same path to more intensive

involvement.

The relationship ordination has to her practice is the main theme of Blanche’s turning

point. On the one hand, she becomes very conscious of her being a representative of the

practice and tradition, “it makes you more visible. It makes you more attentive to how

you are…it does make you conscious of what I am embodying. Am I embodying the

teachings?” On the other hand, being an example is something she relates inwardly to her

own practice, and the ordination, for her, is the assumption of a serious responsibility to

that: “Enormous (responsibility). Tremendous support to practice.” Her understanding of

ordination is that it is there for the sake of her practice; it is, as a cumulative epiphany,

both the result, or culmination of years of practice, and that which propels her practice to

new depths. In this sense, a cumulative epiphany is one which may have a beginning, but

does not have an end: it is the powerful opening of a new stage, or chapter, of the

narrative.

Ordination may be experienced as a mixed blessing, creating an epiphany which

initially can be quite disturbing. Amaro, after spending a year as a novice monk, which

was a tumultuous time full of the highs and lows of intensive spiritual practice, receives

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full ordination, a status which confers much more obligation within the community of

monks. He expresses his reaction: “Once I took full ordination as a monk, then things

slightly, you hear the door closing, and the guard waking down the corridor. It’s like,

ahhhh!” He finds himself in an environment where “conformity becomes synonymous

with spirituality, so being conforming is being more spiritual.” Everyone looks identical,

does the same work, sits at the same times, eats together, begs alms together, and accepts

a code of behavior which is well-defined. In such a place he feels the wall closing in, and

his practice, rather than being supported and strengthened by the ordination, as it was in

the case of Mel and Blanche, becomes stifled and unhappy. He begins dreaming of

peanut butter sandwiches and concocts ways to get out, to flee from what he saw as “a

kind of mechanistic, sort of materialistic approach to spiritual practice…liberation

through conformity.” This cumulative epiphany, which began with the disillusionment

following his full ordination, finds its full manifestation upon his return to England,

entrance into a monastery there, and finding of his teacher. “It was just like water in the

desert. It’s like, ahhhh, suddenly it’s like, ahhh, okay, now, I could feel totally at home.

All that sense of restriction, or containment, frustration, fell away, because it’s like, I had

a real spiritual kind of teacher.” Amaro’s cumulative epiphany now flowers into a

characteristic experience of great opening and direction. The breakthrough reaffirms

where he was coming from, his practice which had stultified, and changes his life so that

his practice now begins to flourish in ways he had dreamed of upon first ordaining. He

has come home to the home that he both left and never had.

A cumulative epiphany may be years in the making, and break through the surface as

a sudden realization which radically alters one’s relationship to one’s path. The

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realization is not the epiphany, but rather the tip of the iceberg which has been drifting in

the sea of the mind, drifting and gaining mass through the various experiences along the

way. Jacob recounts such an experience when he says, “I think, essentially, only years

after I left Japan I understood that it’s not, not, there…you know, all manner of things,

you know, it’s the issue of being homeless.” In contrast to Amaro, who speaks often of

finding his true home in the monastery and in Buddhism, Jacob embraces a state of being

homeless in the world, spiritually, and through his frequent traveling, to a degree

physically. He realized the limitations of his attachment to places like Japan, to which he

often traveled, as “spiritual” or the ideal of practice. No place has a monopoly on

enlightenment, it’s simply wherever you are, in you. It’s not there, it’s not here, it’s

neither there nor here, it’s both there and here. After years of practice and travel, Jacob

realizes his true home is in homelessness, and becomes, in a sense, a self-ordained

monk—he relates that the word for monk in Japanese means “homeless one”.

Jacob’s epiphany is a recognition which has been building for years, and

simultaneously the realization of a new ease with his Israeli surroundings as his place of

practice. A frequent characteristic of a cumulative epiphany, which is evinced here, is

that it may not manifest, like the major ones, as a tremendous happening, but that the

inner realization is often just as intense and profound. The cumulative and major, of

course, are related, and the former can be the growing realization of the movement the

latter began with a big bang. Jacob’s realization of his place of practice as here can be

seen as one of the natural developments that the major epiphany of his fatherhood set into

motion.

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Illuminative Epiphanies

This form of revelatory change, which Denzin also refers to as a minor epiphany, is

more symbolic in nature than carrying power of its own to transform. It may well be

inappropriate to include it within the category of epiphany, which carries a potent

connotation, but I think it is insightful to consider how the smaller and yet notable events

in a spiritual life story bring some of the deep patterns and relationships to light. An

illuminative epiphany does just that: it illuminates for view parts of a person which may

have been less apparent, lost in the shade of some of the fireworks of the great events. In

some ways, the illuminative epiphany speaks more of the whole person, revealing not

only deep currents within her narrative, but also how she views herself. More often than

not, the illuminative epiphany is identified by the subject herself, who defines the section

in the narrative as meaningful in a certain way; it is a kind of self-conscious epiphany.

Jacqueline recounts an experience which occurred shortly after she left IMS, Insight

Meditation Society, the largest and most established vipassana center in the United

States, located just outside of Boston. It is the center she founded with three other well

known Jewish Buddhist teachers and where she taught for many years:

When I first, actually, when I first moved away from meditation groups, and I’ll never forget this.

I went to ah, it think it was a hot tub or something, and I heard this conversation of people, and it

was one of the warmest and most intelligent conversations I’ve ever heard. And again, I was

always, like, ahh these people must be in ignorance, you know, they must all be suffering. But

they were all very wise. And um, it’s amazing.

What seems like a pretty normal activity turns into the vessel for an important realization

about not only herself up to that point, the conditioning her meditation life had bestowed

upon her, but also about the new direction she is heading into. Confined to meditation

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groups, centers, monasteries and intensive retreats for years, surrounded by like-minded

and practicing people who share similar views and values, she cultivated and carried an

attitude of disdain for the non-meditation world, especially the “working” world. The hot

tub epiphany illuminated the biases and attitudes she had been conditioned with, and

allowed for their reevaluation and revision. The event, undramatic in itself, has become

symbolic of a critical turning point in her relationship to others and to herself, allowing

her to understand these on a more insightful and liberating level--one that is now part of

her folklore, a point in the story she will “never forget”.

Chodron’s illuminative epiphany is one which reflects the deep divisions and strains

which existed between her and her family, particularly with her father. The awareness

which arose from her realization was a large part of the driving force that pushed her to

enter a committed Buddhist life full on, and seek out an alternative to her parent’s

lifestyle and examples as much as possible. From the beginning, she was inclined

towards spirituality, but it was her father’s example which gave her the impetus to make

the choices she did.

I felt for me it was just this very strong spiritual inclination. And this feeling that if I did not

explore this, I was going to regret it when I died. Because I remember quite distinctly, you know,

as a teenager, feeling that my dad had regrets. My dad’s had a great life, really, a wonderful life. I

never was quite sure what his regrets were, I know he wanted to be a doctor and wound up being

a dentist instead. It might have been about that. You know, funny, isn’t it. But I had this feeling,

as a, he wanted to do something in his life that he never did. You know, and I remember being

aware of this as a kid. I, I remember feeling, before I became a Buddhist, being aware of that.

And then, always having this feeling of I don’t want to live my life feeling that I should have

lived it in a different way. Very precious (teaching).

This segment of the narrative follows Chodron’s narration of the painful rejection of her

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by her parents after she ordained as a nun. They didn’t speak with her for years. This

illuminative epiphany must then be read in regard of that reality, and the tensions and

distance in their relationship which began in her childhood--she was aware of her father’s

dissatisfaction with life as she was a child. Having grown up with this awareness, his

unhappiness despite his “wonderful life”, the ubiquity of regret, is a defining feature of

Chodron’s character. She is raised, unwittingly by her parents, to not buy into the

materialistic culture of her surroundings--why should she, when if for someone like her

father, who has everything, it provides no solace? This awareness, this illuminative

epiphany of her awareness of her father, is a self-awareness of his role in her life and of

her relationship to the world that he represents. It confirms the spiritual inclination that

she had as a child and as a senior Tibetan nun.

A different kind of self-awareness which emerges through an illuminative epiphany is

narrated by Seth who’s self-consciousness around the episode’s meaning to his life is a

central factor in the recitation. He tells the story from his self-conscious evaluation of its

role and meaning in his greater narrative, whereas Chodron’s recitation does not assert

meaning in as much of a global context. Because of his effort in communicating its

meaning to me, it illuminates more Seth’s view of himself than of a running theme which

is evident in the overall character of his life narrative--though it does serve to illuminate

his character on a different level. The episode itself was told in its entirety in two

segments during the interview, with a digression to other topics which lasted for a half an

hour in the middle. It was very important to him that I hear the full version of the story,

along with his evaluation of it. His introduction to the episode as a “crux moment” which

would repeat itself regularly in his life, underscores its importance to him in his narrative,

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and the self-consciousness with which he evaluates it. It is for him a primary symbol of

who he his, how he sees himself.

And ah, the story which I can give you, ahhhm, this was sort of a crux moment, which will be

defined again and again and again, is when I was five. Larry Kushner, the rabbi, comes over for

shabbos dinner. And ah, at the end of shabbos…he wipes the crumbs out of his beard, I’m five

and he’s an adult, old, he looks at me, and begins to tell a story. You know the story of the zen

strawberry?8 …so that’s the end of the story, and Larry Kushner looks at me, and my brother and

sister age seven and nine say, huh? And I’m thinking wow, I get it. I don’t know what I get, but I

get something. Part of me thinks, that’s the end of the story, what kind of, you know, it’s only a

funny story, what kind of a story is that? And then part of me’s thinking, I get it. And then lying,

lying awake at night, that night, I’m thinking nobody’s ever said these things before. There’s

something in that that I’d been looking for, you know, that I know is true, and why doesn’t

anybody ever talk about it. And the sense, at the age five, feeling like there’s a truth there that

nobody speaks about. And the sense that ever since then I’ve been sort of looking for that truth.

This event is pivotal in Seth’s self-definition, and it is one which has become part of his

self-conscious narrative (as opposed to the narrative which simply is told without pre-

conception). This is Seth’s defining myth, the story of the discovery of truth and

enlightenment which has become the chosen symbol of his life. Seth’s embellishments of

the story make it clear that he has recreated the event many times in his life (“which will

be defined again and again and again”) so that it is impossible to separate the child’s

memory of from the adult’s reinvention. The image of the five-year old child lying awake

at night contemplating the meaning of life is Seth’s adult self projected back after years

of having been on a search for that strawberry. “So that’s sort of what started me,” he

says later, referring to the episode, which has become sort of hallowed ground in the

narrative of his spiritual path. More than just the strawberry itself, a rabbi telling a Zen

story is central in his conception of his own path--he is very consciously and actively

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pursuing both Jewish and Buddhist practice, and has enrolled in rabbinical school, while

continuing his teaching at various vipassana centers. The episode in terms of the story

told within it and the story around it serves as an illuminative epiphany which reveals

aspects of Seth’s character as both the man walking in the woods and the rabbi telling of

that man.

Relived Epiphanies

In a sense, all epiphanies are relived epiphanies--the meaning we give our experiences

are always retrospective, as we go back there in our memory and derive meaning which

relates to our present. What distinguishes relived epiphanies from this more general

activity is that their significance is very much a narrative-based one, in that the subject’s

recounting the experience, either during the present interview or at some other time to

themselves or others, triggers an awareness which provokes a major change. The

epiphany can be relived again and again upon each retelling, and it will serve to promote

the course of change that its initial narration began. The above example of Seth’s Zen

strawberry epiphany, which was shown here as an illuminative epiphany that defines his

life, can as well be seen as a clear case of a relived epiphany, one which he visits

repeatedly to reinforce the path that he has chosen and is choosing. The relived epiphany

is consciously maintained in memory more than the other forms, with subjects often

introducing such episodes with phrases like “I remember”, or “what always stays with

me”, etc. This form is carried by the subjects as part of their self-narrative, how they

conceive of themselves, and how this experience has changed their view. The narrating of

it, in itself, can be revelatory, as will be seen in the case with Jacob, and a relived

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epiphany is often recognized by the intensity of emotion expressed while being

recounted--as if to capture some of the original experience, which may not in itself have

had any amount of the emotion that years of self-narration of it has accumulated.

Jacob has such a moment of deep insight during the interview, which brings a story he

was recounting into perspective from his present day Buddhist awareness. The narrating

triggers the breakthrough, which makes everything clear to him. The story is a digression

from his narrative, a kabalistic myth about the one original practitioners of kabbalah in

the 16th century who wanted to go to heaven to release the messiah and bring him back to

the world.9 In the middle of reciting this story, Jacob suddenly stops and exclaims, “And

he…Wow! Now I, now I understand something…” There is a pause for around seven

long seconds during which he becomes intensely contemplative, and then he loudly claps

his hands. “Thanks a lot! Now I understand something very beautiful.” Jacob places his

hands together in a prayer pose and bows to me, Japanese style, indicating his gratitude.

He goes on to recite the rest of the story, and then gives his concluding interpretation,

which he realized just as he began to narrate it. “It’s a beautiful story about, you know

about the cow, you know,” He tells the Zen koan about the cow who passes completely

through the door, but whose tail gets stuck. How is it that the horns can pass through, the

head can pass through, the shoulders can pass through, and even the hind legs can pass

through, but the tail?! He interprets: “At the last moment, it is a moment when you can

feel secure, like you don’t need to be mindful. You don’t need to be mindful. Nothing.”

He pauses and thinks for another six seconds. “Redemption comes at the last moment. It

can almost be there and not come.” If you let down your mindfulness guard for one

moment, then the tail gets stuck, the genie is let out of the bottle.

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What is happening here? Is Jacob teaching me, himself, thinking out loud, or just

going over cute and enigmatic spiritual stories from different traditions? By including this

episode in the category of relived epiphanies, I am suggesting that he is reliving, meaning

that he is actually having, an epiphany experience which he then goes on to express for a

few minutes afterwards. He realizes something which crystallizes his understanding of

Zen, kabbalah, and his spiritual life. It is an intellectually inspired breakthrough which

becomes a more holistic understanding of the spiritual path. As an academic, one of

Jacob’s main approaches is through the intellect, but when he reiterates “now I

understand” this is not simply an intellectual understanding of a spiritual morale.

Knowing is synonymous with becoming, to now know means to now realize in his own

life the lesson that is being narrated. Knowing has a sense of intimacy which bears real

fruit; Adam knew Eve, the Hebrew scriptures state, and she begot Abel. Knowing in the

Bible, with which Jacob is well-versed, denotes a kind of union, often sexual, where the

outer and inner divisions are dissolved. Jacob now knows, meaning he now realized the

truth of the Zen and Jewish stories within himself, and how this reinforces the spiritual

practice of meditation and mindfulness which he has devoted himself to. It is a 24-hour-

seven- days-a-week practice, there is no letting up, otherwise the tail might get stuck in

the door or the devil may be released from his ropes.

Relived epiphanies are not necessarily dramatic episodes, like the major ones, but they

are the types of realizations which are revisited and become definitive in the subjects’

perspectives about their path and themselves. In this sense, since they are remembered

repeatedly as part of their self-narrative, they can even lose their specific episodal content

and remain just the insight. This is the case with Blanche who turns to, near the end of the

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interview, summarize her path:

I mean, I, I used to be, ah, emotionally very needy person, and I realize I was trying very hard to

get everybody to love me, and that wasn’t going to be possible. And then at a certain point I had

this epiphany that I had it all backwards, that it wasn’t that I wanted everybody to love me, I

wanted to be able to love everybody. And ah, that’s everything. That’s what I’m devoted to.

(laughs)

We don’t know what experience triggered this epiphany, but she herself uses the term,

which suggests that there was a time and place that it first happened. It is something

which has defined her life and her purpose of spiritual practice, a kind of summary

statement of her path, revealing the movement and change which has occurred and she

hopes will continue to. With the years and revisitations of the epiphany, all the times it

has been relived, the details have faded and now only the meaning remains--still active in

her being.

One of Jacqueline’s relived epiphanies is identifiable by the way she introduces it: “I

remember at my confirmation, I’ll never forget this”. To remember and never forget

means that it is being relived on a regular basis, and it is significant enough that it still

fuels the change and perspective that it originally began to generate. “My aunt Rose came

from New York, and I was sitting on the steps of my house, and she goes, ‘Darling, enjoy

this, these are the best years of your life’. And in my mind was, oh my goodness, that

can’t be, that’s not possible.” That 16 year old young woman, having just experienced the

tremors of the Summer of Love in 1967, understood that interaction to represent

everything she wanted to escape. It was one of the definitive initial pushes she needed to

set her on her way, taking her on a long journey away from the pampered, middle-class,

educated, materialistic and repressed Jewish world of her family to an eastern horizon of

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Buddhist meditation. This simple interaction between a girl and her aunt has been

revisited and mythologized into representing everything she left behind. That her middle-

aged aunt could not recognize the trials and tribulations of teenage life in the late 60’s,

with social revolution at the doorstep, is understandable; what her statement and life

represented to the teenager, a life of pretense, status, and materialism, is something

Jacqueline resolves not to pursue. “I’m spending basically my entire youth and teen years

in disbelief”--the initial epiphany is that there must be so much more than this, and how

can everyone not know? Seth’s idealized five year old contemplative self wonders

similarly: how can there be this truth that nobody talks about? That seeking of the more is

a recurring theme in Jacqueline’s life, so much so that during an intensive meditation

retreat, in a traditional Tibetan Buddhist environment, she has the phrase “new and

unbounded ways of the Dharma” repeatedly pop into her head. That phrase and epiphany

is a long-time response to the original conversation with her aunt on the steps.

Generative Epiphanies

Meaningful experiences can be considered seeds in a garden. Many of them grow into

full-fledged plants with flowers and fruits, and some of course don’t make it there but

wilt on the way due to insufficient sun and rain, are eaten by other creatures, or never

take root in the first place. Still others, very few, mysteriously take hold of the best soil

and develop into mighty trees which offer their strong trunks for support and stability,

giving character and shade to the whole area. The seeds from which those trees sprouted

are generative epiphanies, experiences which may have seemed like any other, but

continued to develop as major themes, supporting trunks, in the person’s life. They differ

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from relived epiphanies in that the visitation of the epiphany is not as a remembered

significant event within a circumscribed time and place, which can still inspire now as it

is remembered, but rather as it is experienced in its developed form. The epiphany may

have begun in its germ stage long ago, which would not then have attracted any notice,

and now as it has manifested in its developed tree form, the little seed can be recognized

as having been most significant. These seeds are recognized largely by the subject’s own

designation of their importance.

In the beginning of this chapter I gave the example of a child’s music lessons which

may then have developed into a whole way of life for the adult. This example is taken

directly from the life of Jacob, who defined his initial study of piano as a definitive

moment in his life:

and now something that is very important in my life story, which is at the age of five and a half I

began to study piano. Until I went to the army, at the age of 18, I studied, all the years I studied

piano very, very hard. I really loved it, and really, I actually wanted to be a pianist. I actually

wanted to be a pianist. That’s what I wanted to do. That I really loved.

Throughout Jacob’s narrative he uses musical metaphors, mixing them with Zen insights

and teachings, “It’s like music,” he states at the end of the interview, summarizing his life

and spiritual journey,

my, ahh, not very long career, but very long love of music, as a performer and as a listener I

sometimes feel now I understand what it’s all about. Music, I didn’t understand before…it’s now

that I understand it. I didn’t get it before. Of course, I did get it before, but the feeling is that, this

is the first time that I really understand what it’s really about. This requiem, this, ah, this fugue,

this, now I know what it’s all about. I may have heard it played countless times, but it’s now that

I know what it’s all about…and it’s the same feeling, which means my experience of life, in that

moment of recapture (laughs) it’s a sort of capture, it’s not Buddhism that comes to mind, it’s life

that comes to mind--now I understand what it’s all about…as with music, the direct experience of

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the music that the musician, is a very direct, a kind of enlightenment experience, the nature of

music, then comes the reflection which says, I didn’t understand anything about the music before!

(laughs) It’s very stupid, but it deeps recurring many times, and it’s, it’s now I understand what

music is all about. (long laugh)

What is recurring is not the memory of the epiphany, but the experience of it again

and again in new forms. Rather than reliving the original scene, it has spread its branches

into all directions. The theme, or trunk, of the forms is music, but this he states is a

metaphor for all of life as a spiritual path, not just as it occurs in Buddhist meditation and

mindfulness techniques. The seed experience for all of this is his initial piano lessons at

the tender age of five, which began a journey that would come to define his life in broad

terms. The connection to the relived epiphany of Jacob’s which I presented, of the

kabbalistic story, is brought out in the choice of language he uses, again emphasizing the

realization and epiphany experience as a kind of knowing, of his now understanding what

it really is about. Music is an intimate activity, it is a passage into intimacy where he

comes to feel and experience life with more unity and connection. It is not a surprise,

then, that he relates and communicates with his son, who cannot speak, through music.

Music is the very expression that brings Jacob closer to his son and to the world, and

allows him to understand life more profoundly.

Generative epiphanies often happen in childhood, which is a time wherein openness to

change and discovery of the mysterious are inherent. Occurring without much

background cause, they set the child on a course which is usually only recognized later,

as with Seth who identifies that Shabbat dinner as what started him on his path. For

eleven year old Jeremy, who would become much later the monk Ajahn Amaro, his path

is traced to a generative epiphany which involved a night of contemplation on the

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meaning of God:

I had a very sort of mystical, I didn’t talk about it a lot, but ever since I was about eleven, I started

seriously thinking about spirituality. And I remember at that age, which, sitting down one night

and trying to figure out what the nature of God was. And spending hours and hours writing down

what I thought God was. And particularly, I can’t, I never found a copy of what I wrote. But, I

ahm went sort of back looking for it years later. Ahm, the one thing I remember was that I ah,

say, how people, it was really clear how people create God in their own image. And that was

really clear what God was, was something that was far more universal and non-personal. I think,

and ah, not limited by the images that we put upon them. So, in a way, it was very Buddhist.

Amaro’s account has less of a mythological bent to it than Seth’s five year old boy

who stayed up all night contemplating the elusiveness of truth. The difference makes

Amaro’s epiphany more of a generative kind, an actual event which marks the beginning

of a development, while Seth’s is a relived, one that has been revisited many times and

gone through refurbishment into its final rarefied narrative. A relived epiphany is an

event that has been worked on and made relevant with each revisitation, while a

generative simply remains a foundation stone as it is. Amaro’s unsuccessful efforts to

relocate the transcript of that night reinforce not only the event’s importance to his self-

narrative, but also that the experience remains somewhat intact, un-manipulated, and a

record of the original form is floating somewhere among the many pages of Amaro’s

musings. His afterthought of it as a Buddhist type of experience is just that, an

afterthought that does not reconstruct what the event was.

A childhood generative epiphany instills the child with a vision of more, the desire to

find more in life, which relates to this study as being something of a spiritual vision. It

may be packaged in the metaphor of music, of writing and non-theism, or of a nature

image. Jacqueline had a generative epiphany as a child on the beach of South Carolina,

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and it became the defining image of her life, which encouraged her to always seek out

more from her spiritual life. She herself calls the image one which she preserved, which

was “pretty constant”:

So, ah, the one vision I had, in South Carolina at the beach, which was pretty constant, was that I

always played at the beach and I played at the ocean. And I actually had other Jewish friends who

lived on our kind of, kind of like a road, where there were other Jewish families who bought

houses on that road. And then we all went to the beach and swam together. And ah, they were

also from the tiny town and they owned the stores there. But all I can remember is seeing the

horizon where you could see the boats, going, you know, the big ships, ocean liners, and that they

looked very tiny. But my, my vision in my mind kept saying to myself, I’m going over that

horizon. I am going over that horizon. And it was so constant. And then I would dig in the sand

and I would say, I’m going to China…I’m going over the horizon and I’m going to China. And at

that time I didn’t even know the geography to know what that really meant. But that was, those

were visions that I just, they were in my mind. So I always knew that I was leaving.

The vision is, not coincidentally, of the eastern horizon, and China became the

mythical promised land which offered spiritual escape. By the time she finally reaches

there in her travels, she has come to terms with the outer reality of “there”, like Jacob

realized in regard of Japan, being no such magical place, but the inner horizon

nonetheless remains as a destination. She always knew she was leaving, not just Ohio and

North Carolina, vacationing Jewish merchants and friends from camp, being a

cheerleader in high school and the unspoken presence of the Holocaust in her family, her

aunt’s “best years of life”, but also the leaving the confinement to one spiritual tradition

and practice in Buddhism. Her path is defined by her vision of the horizon, of always

following that disappearing line to some new vista. This need continues as a theme all

through adulthood, as she experienced in the major epiphany she was quoted as having

earlier in this chapter: “I Iooked up to the mountains and said, there must be more.”

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Examples of generative epiphanies can be found just as poignantly in adult life as in

childhood. For Stephen, his first trip to India became his generative epiphany, before he

became involved with Buddhism; it was, as he defines it, “the major turning point, this

trip to India.” He spent the time hanging out, not doing any formal training, but just being

impressed by the ways of life of the Indians. “It was definitely important, I think that was

the time when I really began to feel that spirituality can be something that exists in

ordinary life, it exists in everything you do, it doesn’t need to be a drug experience, it

doesn’t need to be a fringe activity, it could be part of ordinary life.”

Until that point, Stephen had been leading a dual life of an academic by day and a

drug-using hippie on the streets of London by night. His year in India provided a radical

alternative, that of everyday life as the holy life, and it is can be recognized as his

generative epiphany by it being defined as that which began the path of awareness which

he’s continued to pursue to the present day. He shunned monastic life and chose the

householder’s, marrying and raising three daughters, building a house in the country and

starting a lay Dharma organization in Israel. All his activities and directions can be traced

to the Indian example he was exposed to 30 years ago of the daily life as the place of

spiritual practice.

James’ primary location of practice is community, the development and nurturing of

spiritual communities. Throughout the interview he often referred to “the joy of

community” and the idea of community took on life as a spiritual practice in itself.

Because of his experience with community building, other senior teachers at Spirit Rock

refer students to him when faced with questions and concerns over living in the non-

retreat world with spiritual intentions and of how to find supportive community. All of

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this focus in his teaching and practice can be traced back to his nine years living in a

communal house in Berkeley during the 80’s with seven others. It was there that not only

his ideas about spiritual community were initially formed, but also where he began

teaching meditation. He describes the experience:

The person who started that house, who owned that house, was an amazing person who really

created a foundation to bring out just the ultimate group, not even co-housing, just sharing. And

with systems, but also just the general spirit. I became completely just a believer in the joy of

community from that experience. It was just really conscious. We had house meetings maybe

once a week, sometimes every two weeks. But they weren’t like, oh, we’ve got to sit through this,

it was a time to get together and we’d start off with, we, my family still does this for an hour,

family meetings, start out with a check-in, just seeing where you are, and then going to

appreciations, and self-appreciations if you’ve done something people haven’t noticed…(the

description continues through various aspects of the meeting) But that the group keeps benefiting

from where people are inside. A very, a real warm and supportive environment.

James calls his time at the house “paramount” in terms of the formation of his ideas

about community and spiritual practice. During that period he was in a relationship with

one of the members, and they married shortly after their departure. He ran from the house

his flourishing business of marketing spirulina to the burgeoning California health food

scene--with such success that he was able to retire at a young age and devote himself to

Dharma teaching and practice. All this is to say that the “house” was the location for

most of James’ activities: meditation practice and teaching, intimate relationship, friends

and community, and livelihood. The house became the microcosm of practice in the

world, and the example it set for him was indeed paramount to his approach of spiritual

life. It was a nine-year generative epiphany which continued to inform his joys of family,

meditation teaching and practice as very much community oriented.

The last generative epiphany I will bring as an example is unique in that it involves a

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positive Jewish experience that came to define Buddhist practice and commitment. Mel,

who is arguably the most senior American Zen teacher, and has a penchant for traditional

forms, referred several times during the interview to his “hasidic soul”. It was his sense

of having such an inclination, or soul, that propelled him to seek out living examples of

spirituality, and not merely contend with rituals and theory. Upon meeting his only

teacher Suzuki Roshi, he expresses that he has met his “hasidic rabbi”. His views of a

hasid and hasidic rabbi convey to him the sense of a living spirituality, a vital, energetic

and hands-on approach to meditation, and a complete commitment to the path. These

ideas are formed from his initial generative impressions of hasidism--the Jewish populist

movement begun in the 18th century as a desire to make spiritual experience more

accessible to the world outside the walls of the religious seminaries, or yeshivot. Mel’s

encounter happens very much by chance:

I felt I identified, I remember seeing, um, a, Life magazine cover with this bearded Jewish rabbi

on it, and I felt an immediate connection with them. And that kind of awakened something in me.

I didn’t get awakened until, in my early twenties, and I started reading, umm, hasidic literature,

Martin Buber. And that hasidic literature really, ahhh, turned me on, I was very much awakened

by it.

What is this awakening? There is identification, but not necessarily with the rabbi as a

Jew, but with him as a hasid. Mel goes on to seek out some instruction in Judaism, and

receives some rudimentary information from an old German rabbi in San Francisco, but

there was no guidance in his true interest, hasidism: “He was a nice guy. And he helped

me, but he wasn’t interested in that stuff, nobody was interested in that stuff.” For Mel,

being a hasid meant dropping all of the cultural and religious baggage that accompanied

historical Judaism, and getting straight to the essential experience of the spiritual

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connection between himself and God: “I developed my own sense of, you know, my own

version of Judaism, which ah, probably didn’t correspond to what other Jews felt was

theirs, because it was just bare, there was no cultural stuff. (I ask: Just between you and

God) Yeah, that was correct.” Mel identifies himself with the romanticized hasid, as

presented through Martin Buber’s Tales of the Hasidim: “I got very interested in Judaism

through the hasidic tales. And you know, I really felt like a hasid, you know, ah, but I felt

like a 19th century hasid.” This feeling became a defining and ironic feature of his

spiritual path. That with which he identifies is the hasid who rejects religious conformity

and dry, lifeless ritual form, and aspires for an intense and unconventional relationship

with the spiritual. Mel’s chosen practice, Zen, is one which emphasizes strict form and

the performance of rituals in a language which he does not understand. Like the original

hasid, he does pursue an unconventional path which is rooted in tradition. The key is that

Mel’s experience of Zen was as he would envision that of the 19th century hasid:

immediate, experiential, committed, and devoted to the teacher who himself embodies the

qualities of an enlightened master, and teaches by his example. In this way, Mel’s

generative epiphany of his awakening to hasidic Judaism is to a large degree what

enabled him to appreciate and develop into Zen life as much as he did. His appreciation

of the hasid’s commitment to Judaism, as paired with his inner freedom and energy--his

iconoclast self-- generated into Mel’s commitment to formal Zen practice as the vessel

for his experience of a path to liberation.

Summary

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This chapter has sought to show how central the experience of epiphany is to the

spiritual narratives of the Jewish Buddhist teachers sampled. While most of the examples

were taken from the category of major epiphanies, due to their intensity both in their

narration and in their estimation by the subjects, the other four groupings provide

essential markers for the understanding of the developments and meanings of the spiritual

lives of these people. Without any one of these epiphanies, be it major, cumulative,

illuminative, relived or generative, the course of the person’s inner and outer life would

have traveled quite a different route. What can be drawn from all the examples is that

epiphany is primarily an inner experience, it is the emergence of a new awareness which

sets into motion either immediately or over a course of time a radical change in the

person’s life. It may be suggested from these findings that epiphany plays a very major

role in the Jewish Buddhist teacher’s narrative, more so, perhaps, than for those without

such prominent roles or devotion to a spiritual path of the unconventional kind. The

examples given here form only a sample of the epiphanies identified in the life-story

narratives of the subjects. These findings reveal that the Jewish Buddhist teachers here

are very prone to epiphany in their lives, and those experiences are integrated into their

lives as central and transforming.

Endnotes: 1 In this monastery, Wat Pah Nanachat, located in Northeast Thailand, guests are required to have their hair shaven off if staying for more than one week. Amaro shaves his head earlier because of the strength of his epiphany. 2 Mel worked for the Rothschild’s taxi company, which was considered the best at the time (the mid-60‘s),

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and demanded high standards which included wearing a uniform with a tie and cap, and getting out to open and close the car door for customers. The appeal of decorum and form is a theme of Mel’s attraction to Zen practice which places an emphasis on meditation and ritual form, and this can be seen as having expression in his taxi work. 3 Bodhgaya is the holiest Buddhist site, located in the north-east Indian state of Bihar. It is the place where the Buddha is believed to have achieved enlightenment, while sitting all night under the Bodhi tree. A descendent of the tree is still there, as well as a large stupa and grounds which are the center of pilgrimage for Buddhists from all over the world. Temples from every Buddhist country dot the village, and teachers come there to offer teachings and meditation retreats. The Dalai Lama holds teachings there in the winter of each year, and there are many courses taught in English for Westerners. 4 A koan is a paradoxical question given by a Zen teacher to a student as a type of practice. The question has no rational answer, such as the famous “what is the sound of one hand clapping” or “does a dog have Buddha nature” or even the monosyllabic “Mu” and the constant contemplation on it is aimed at breaking through conceptual confines and dualistic thinking. 5 A zendo is the meditation hall of a Zen center or monastery. 6 The standard period of service in the Israeli army is three years for men and two years for women. 7 Mel’s use of the dream for inner change indicates a spiritual maturity and restraint which often is absent among those who have initial powerful spiritual experiences. Many beginning students of Buddhist practice often face much disillusionment when, after completing an intensive retreat or course, return home feeling changed and want to “spread the good news” with family members. Not only do they not change as one would like, but the so called changes one experienced on retreat seem to quickly evaporate in the heat of conflict. Compare Mel’s dream with that of another teacher who also dreamt of family reconciliation, where she and her parents, who were divorced and not on good terms, were holding each other in a loving embrace. She understood the dream as one of mutual acceptance and love, of relating in new and accepting ways. In the hope of communicating this wish to her parents, she told them the dream, and to her dismay they rejected it by understanding it as her wish that they will get back together. 8 The story is that a man is going for a walk in the woods, and comes upon a mountain lion. He flees and is pursued by the lion. Running for his life, he comes upon a cliff, and as the lion approaches, begins climbing down. He’s holding onto rocks which begin to slip away, and grasps onto a hanging root. He looks up and sees the mountain lion above, looks down and sees another mountain lion far down at the bottom waiting for him to fall. As he’s looking, two mice, a black and white one, appear and begin to chew on the root, which is growing thin. The root begins to break, and as it does the man looks into a cleft in the rock and sees a wild strawberry growing there. So he eats the strawberry and exclaims, “ahh, so sweet!”. The story can be interpreted in many ways, among them the importance of being in the present moment and the escape from fear that this brings; the need to transcend duality of good and evil, life and death, self and other (the two mice, the two lions) which is realized as a moment of infinite sweetness--he eats the strawberry, this unity, which becomes him; the intensity and effort needed to live the spiritual life; the characteristic Zen theme of achieving enlightenment or deep insight in a seemingly chance and spontaneous or serendipitous occurrence; the sweet taste being of one’s true enlightened or Buddha nature which is always there right before us to be tasted. The interruption in Seth’s recitation of the story occurred just as the man sees the strawberry, at the height of the drama. Someone came to visit us at that moment, knocking on the door, and he stayed for a half an hour for tea. After his departure, Seth returned to the story exactly where he left off.

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9 The story goes that the kabbalist Rabbi Yosef Delarana and five of his students went off to release the messiah who was tied up. On the way they met angels and Satan, and they tackled them. They grabbed Satan and his wife Lilith, and then performed all sorts of ritual on them so that they would help them in their quest. The finally arrived at a hill and on the top was the messiah who was bound. They were getting closer, just a little farther to go, and then Satan said to them, “Okay, you have almost released the messiah, and so I have completed my role (to help them). So release me.” They refuse, and so they continue, flying higher and higher up the hill to release the messiah. They are almost there and Satan asks to smell the box of perfume that Rabbi Yosef had. He agreed, and as soon as Satan smelled it he broke through his bonds and escaped. So they weren’t able to release the messiah, and they ended up going crazy. Jacob interprets that last moment of story, that of the failure of the mission through the escape of Satan to indicate the necessity of diligence and mindfulness to the very end. One cannot simply rest on one’s laurels, having gone to hundreds of retreats and logged thousands of hours meditating, for a slip in awareness of the present moment can have disastrous effects.

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Chapter Six:

Suffering as the Path

Table of Contents: Introduction p.

Family difficulties p.

Physical pain p.

Social Suffering p.

Existential suffering p.

Summary p.

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Introduction This is the noble truth of suffering: birth is suffering; ageing is suffering, sickness is suffering, dying is suffering, sorrow, grief, pain, unhappiness and unease are suffering… This is the noble truth of the origin of suffering: The thirst for repeated existence which, associated with delight and greed, delights and this and that, namely the thirst for the objects of sense desire, the thirst for existence, and the thirst for non-existence. This is the noble truth of the cessation of suffering: The complete fading away and cessation of this very thirst--its abandoning, relinquishing, releasing, letting-go. This is the noble truth of the way leading to the cessation of suffering: it is the noble eightfold path, namely, right view, right intention, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, right concentration. The Buddha, Samyutta Nikaya v. 421-2.1 You must be devoted to this: this is suffering, this is the cause of suffering, this is the cessation of suffering, this is the Way leading to the cessation of suffering. The Buddha, Samyutta Nikaya v. 5:4202

I was suffering a lot, which again is one of the reasons why so many Jews are involved in Buddhism. It’s like, it’s a very major common piece, we’re really good sufferers. From interview with Ajahn Amaro To talk about life from a Buddhist standpoint and not to dwell on suffering would

be akin to performing the Jewish Passover without matza, the ceremonial unleavened

bread which represents the passage from slavery to freedom. As the fundamental doctrine

of the Four Noble Truths teaches, which constitutes the cornerstone of Buddhist thought,

suffering and the release from suffering is at the heart of the Buddhist path. Rather than

being a pessimistic approach to life, a kind of “oy vay” when waking up in the morning,

Buddhism focuses on suffering with an awareness of the possibility of removing it. The

message is explicitly positive: suffering can be ended. Just as the medical profession is

not considered pessimistic for diagnosing disease, by virtue of its desire to cure it, so too

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can the Buddhist approach to life as being inherently difficult be a hopeful awareness.

The Buddha propounded the First Truth as a description of the problem of life; the

remaining Truths encapsulate the solution. The experience of suffering in life is an

inseparable part of everyone’s journey, which often plays out as a defining factor in one’s

spiritual life. Just what forms and roles suffering took place in the lives of Jewish

Buddhist teachers, how formative it was to their spiritual journeys, will be examined in

this chapter. The presence of suffering was a significant factor in each one of their lives,

and opened their search to a tradition which confronted the dilemma of suffering head on.

Traditional Buddhist sources do indeed equivocate the teaching of suffering and the

Four Truths to medical healing: the First Truth, that of suffering in life, is the disease; the

Second Truth, that of the origin of suffering as craving, is the cause of the disease; the

Third Truth, that of the cessation of craving, is the disease cured; and the Fourth Truth,

that of the path, is the medicine which brings about the cure. The Buddha, far from being

a god, oracle, prophet or wizard, is simply the doctor who has recognized the disease and

prescribed the cure, which is his teaching as the Dharma. For many of those, including

the subjects presented here, the practice of Buddha Dharma takes on a healing quality,

particularly on a psychological level. Buddhism in the West, as mentioned in Chapter

Two, has self-consciously taken on a psychological approach, stripping many of the

traditional terms and replacing them with Western psychological ones. It is on this level,

the psychological, that many practitioners in the West need the most healing--thus

contend many of the senior Western teachers of Buddhism. During the 1993 meeting of

senior Western Buddhist teachers with the Dalai Lama in Dharamsala, the first of its

kind, most of the participants raised the need of a more explicitly psychological approach

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and language. The Dalai Lama was supportive, even sending some of his monks to learn

psychology, while at the same time firmly believing that the Dharma speaks to the whole

of a person in its traditional form.3

Taken psychologically or not, the Buddhist path is one which, because of its primary

teachings, has a specific attraction to those who have been intimate with suffering. This is

at times comically stereotyped for Jews, who are seen as having internalized suffering as

a part of their identity, which Amaro expresses in his above quote. This sentiment was

also shared by a non-Jewish abbot of a Thai monastery who replied to my question,

“Why do you think so many Jews are attracted to Buddhism?” with the following: “They

know suffering.”4 Jacqueline, recounting her first exposure to Buddhist teaching at her

first retreat, expresses the Jewish response powerfully:

When I got to India, and I went to my first Buddhist retreat, the first night, when the teacher said,

“There is suffering”, I was actually grateful that someone named it, because actually there wasn’t

a name for this feeling that was always being talked about (within her family). So he said, “there

is suffering, there is a cause of suffering, and there’s a release of suffering”. And I was absolutely

ecstatic. Because in my house there was only suffering. You know, suffering and suffering and

suffering and suffering. And ah, suffering…so the fact that there was a teaching that there was a

release of suffering, I was soooo happy. And that there was a path to the release of suffering, I

was ecstatic. I was like, Yessss.

Jacqueline outlines with emotional clarity the approach that Buddhist teaching

promotes, namely, that of realizing the mess we’re in (the recognition that the First Truth

dictates), and turning to a way to clean it up with great enthusiasm and joy (the Eightfold

Path as dictated by the Fourth Truth). What results is a primarily optimistic realism,

which is part of the main attraction, emotionally and intellectually, to the practice: no

longer does one have to live in denial of one’s experience of life, that it is often and

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inherently painful and replete with difficulty, but that there is, thank god, an effective

way to deal. As Jacqueline indicates, the mere acknowledgement of the experience of

suffering is in itself therapeutically relieving; that there is a path out, a way to deal, is

downright exhilarating.

Locating the narratives of suffering in the lives of Jewish Buddhist teachers enables

one to appreciate the process of the spiritual life and its choices as very much a response

to such painful events. The Buddha himself epitomizes this in his own narrative when, at

the age of 29, he escaped his palace walls and took a tour around the city. Up until that

point, he had been cloistered at home by his father the king, who wanted to shelter his

son from being exposed to the shadow side of life. On that night sojourn, he came across

figures who suffered from old age, sickness, and death. So shaken by these images, he

renounces his position and steals away from the palace to devote himself to spiritual

practice. The Buddha’s early narrative creates a kind of archetype which many people,

with or without former spiritual orientation, are inspired or compelled to follow, within

their own narrative turns. Great suffering can cause a spiritual revolution in even the most

die-hard materialist. The old adage, there are no atheists in a foxhole, can be rephrased

here as everyone’s a Buddhist at a funeral. When faced with the impermanence of our

physical and mental life, and of their health, we are likely to turn to teachings and

practices which facilitate coping and acceptance. The Buddha, along with the likes of Lao

Tsu, Jesus, Mohammed, Abraham and Moses, make radical departures from their

suffering-ridden contexts and find release in spiritual teachings and practices. The

archetype of the spiritual seeker who breaks from the yoke of suffering and pursues a

path of liberation is foundational to most of the great spiritual traditions.

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In the Buddhist understanding, suffering operates on three levels, and it is along those

frameworks that I will consider the experience of suffering in the lives of the teachers.

The first level of suffering is that of obvious pain, both physical and mental. It is

undeniable, and everyone suffers from it in varying degrees throughout their lives. Such

suffering tends to increase as time passes and age increases. This was the level that the

Buddha, then Gotama Siddhartha, witnessed on his city tour. Suffering of this sort is

experienced not only in regards of oneself, but in sympathy with those around us who are

afflicted. The second level in the Buddhist breakdown of suffering is the suffering of

change. This is seen as related very closely to the Second Truth, that of the cause of

suffering being attachment. When something we are enjoying changes, then we generally

become upset as the enjoyment ceases. As everything becomes revealed as impermanent

and in constant flux, then the world becomes less reliable as a sorce of satisfaction; its

nature as a place of unsatisfaction, of dukkha, becomes apparent. The suffering of change

is also that which reveals the First Truth of the nature of the world as difficult. If one

were to accept change with equanimity, then the experience of suffering would be greatly

reduced. Thirdly, suffering has the understanding of being on a more subtle, all-pervasive

level, that of the suffering of conditions. Rupert Gethin comments, “The world becomes a

place of uncertainty in which we can never be sure what is going to happen next, a place

of shifting and unstable conditions whose very nature is such that we can never feel

entirely at ease in it.” (Gethin, p.64) This nature of suffering is a kind of lingering

dissatisfaction with life, a feeling which pervades every situation. One may have

moments, even long ones, of distraction from this, but the sense of dis-ease inevitably

creeps back in. Simply put, it is just the way life is in this world; nothing lasts, and

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nothing external is inherently satisfying. We are left with great existential insecurity.

The people represented in this study committed themselves to a lifetime of Buddhist

practice and teaching fully in response to these levels of suffering and the insecurity

ensued. Their narratives of suffering, unique to each individual, I arranged as falling

under the four common themes of having to do with family, with their own physical

illnesses, with social rejection and alienation, and with existential crises. I will examine

examples of their suffering according to these themes, and using the Buddhist framework

of the three levels of suffering for perspective. There is a Buddhist saying of “turn your

obstacles into the path” and this is exactly what the people here have attempted to do with

their formative difficulties. Buddhism gave them a path that was very amenable to such

road making.

Family Difficulties

For most relatively healthy individuals, family life is a source of both much joy and

suffering. Most early childhoods are romanticized as blissful, most adolescent periods are

demonized as hell, and adulthood navigates between these two poles. Every Jewish

Buddhist teacher had significant family tensions and divisions, and made at some point

later in life attempts at reconciliation. This reconciliation was generally instigated and

fueled by their Buddhist practice. The divisions and ensuing suffering most often arose

from differing values, which became exacerbated when the person began to formally

involve herself with Buddhist practice. The later reconciliations took on as many

different forms among the subjects as the antecedent difficulties.

Jacqueline’s above quote indicates the definitive role the suffering around her family

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environment took in her acceptance of Buddhism as her practice. This suffering

manifested as an emotional black cloud which hovered over the house. She explains its

origin as the dread from the Holocaust and the fear of the world which perpetrated it:

So emotional, there were no logical discussions about them (Holocaust stories), it was only, like,

horrible…(Me: Was there family lost there?) No, it was very strange, it’s almost like they took it

on, you know…Um, no, no, it’s very, um, and they would emotionally take on, all the stories of

the survivors, and you know, people in our town, or stories that were read or heard, umm, but

World War Two was a constant discussion. It was like, it was almost like it’s unprocessed. I

would say, it it it didn’t, they were not taking any like, ah, anyone who would have, uhhhm,

growth from it. There was no personal growth from it. The whole thing was a cloud in the

foreground.

This section of Jacqueline’s narrative directly precedes the previous one of her first

retreat experience, where suffering is finally named, identified, and she is offered a way

out--which she joyously accepts. It is a watershed moment, an epiphany, which arose

directly out of her experience of family suffering.

Without such a difficult family environment she probably would never have sought

such a radical alternative, since Jacqueline is the only one of all the subjects who did not

report any experience of social difficulties or alienation from her peer groups. She was a

self-described Ohio cheerleader and candidate for the prom queen. It was her family and

its dark cloud of fear which bestowed upon her such a strong impetus to leave. More than

her family in particular, the social and personal values they ascribed to drove her to seek

out, even as a young child playing at the beach, as described previously, the eastern

horizon. She describes her experience growing up: “There was tremendous expectation,

but at the same time there really wasn’t the fertile ground to fulfill that expectation, there

was no reason, why would anyone want to do that. Because, all I saw was suffering. I

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mean, I saw, all I heard was suffering. I mean, I didn’t see people with wealth any

happier.” Her recitation indicates how much a part of herself and her consciousness

suffering was--it was all she saw and all she heard, it totally surrounded her as her

awareness of her family and social environment.

By choosing Buddhism Jacqueline is doing more than rejecting the materialism of her

milieu and the existential gloom of her parents; she is confronting the truth of all-

pervading suffering, the suffering of the conditions of the world. Nothing she has been

exposed to is ultimately satisfying; the examples she is given of success, her parents and

their well-off friends, offer no answers in their unhappiness. The emotional bleakness of

her parent’s Judaism, one informed only by historical wounds and the fear of its replay,

supply no incentives to stay within the fold. Her world, even as a young child, is painted

black by her family and community, and as such is something from which to escape. The

awareness of all-pervading suffering, of life as inherently painful, is infused into her

consciousness from early childhood. Her family’s cloud eventually lends itself to release

the very same rain that causes her Buddhist roots to grow.

The resolution that people make with their family may take the form of intensive

Buddhist practice, so that they come to understand their and their family’s suffering

through the perspective of Dharma teachings. Jacqueline never returns to a close

relationship with her parents, and their closest adult experience was her running a

Buddhist retreat from her parents’ house. Appropriately, it was the one where she gives

over her last teachings as a vipassana teacher, and turns to the new page as a Vajryana

follower. Mel speaks briefly about his troubled relationship with his father, who was

absent most of the time, physically and emotionally, and his resolution is outlined by his

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epiphany of a dream. He begins thereafter to accept his parents more fully, though their

relationship would by no means be called close. Amaro, like Jacqueline, rejects his

parents materialism and values, but finds himself many years later relating to their need

to have a son to be proud of through his cross-England walk:

“I suddenly realized, that they, they had nothing to be proud of. You know, to tell your parents

that you had a great retreat. Big Deal. Thy didn’t know what a retreat is. They couldn’t tell a good

one from a bad one. It has no value, it’s got zero value in their world system. So it was like the

first thing I’d done that had any, ah, kind of characteristics that they could relate to. And I just

said, and I realized what an idiot I had been , like, your parents need something to be proud of.

And I had just been depriving them of that. And I wrote a book about it, and I wrote another book

after that, dedicated it to them.

Jacob, who was very close to his mother and aware of her mental suffering and illness,

does not reveal to her his own illness and month as an invalid in hospital. He indicates

distance from his father, but has resolved to be his father’s support and partial care-taker

at his advanced age of ninety, accompanying him to his thrice-weekly dialysis treatments.

Seth describes a dysfunctional childhood, replete with family emotional disturbances and

distorted expectations, and now relates to his parents through his being a Buddhist

teacher--his father goes to a meditation group twice a week and sits regular week-long

retreats. Blanche’s Orthodox Jewish children often visit her at the Zen center where she

lives, and she is very involved in their and her grandchildren’s lives. Blanche speaks of

the tension in the family as she began to absent herself for the sake of her zen practice in

the center, with her daughter commenting sarcastically, “Gee, mom, things have sure

changed around here since you started meditating.” Blanche recounts this statement twice

in different contexts, and it is with some regret that she reviews her absence from her

family and the suffering it may have caused them. Their resolution was to turn to

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traditional Jewish practice. Stephen’s epiphany on the hill is very much concerned with

overcoming the rejection of “abba” or father, the literal father that he had, and the father

tradition of Judaism that he was born with. He achieves his “tikkun abba” (father-healing)

as he calls it, his repairing of those relationships, which is possible entirely through the

mediation of Dharma. Like Mel, the healing occurs within Stephen’s attitudes and

approach, which enables him to live more fully in the world.

The only person who had no formal reconciliation, inner or outer, with her family was

Chodron, whose parents did not speak with her for years after she ordained as a Tibetan

Buddhist nun. She was invited years later to her sister’s wedding, on the condition that

she “looked normal”, meaning no robes and grown-in hair. Perhaps her own inner

resolution can be conceived of in the form of the monastery she has put all of her efforts

into opening over the past year, Savrasti Abbey, finally creating her own home base and

family in terms of the sangha5 that is connected there. It is her own “tikkun mishpacha”

(family healing).

Physical Pain

While space was devoted to illness and death in Chapter Four as the harbringer of

epiphany and transformation, the occurance of illness and physical pain takes on a

different consideration here, that of contributing to an awareness of suffering which

stimulates spiritual directions--as a more general and foundational awareness and not as

an epiphany moment. I will be looking at the experience of pain, the first category of

dukkha, as it is occurs in the spiritual life stories of the Jewish Buddhist teachers. In the

most extreme cases such experiences led to transformative epiphanies, but here I am

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more interested in how it is a such a common, even universal, element of their journeys.

What is unique among these people, however, is how the experience of pain and illness,

of dukkha in its most apparent form, is framed within the spiritual journey. As will be

seen, physical and mental suffering is always given a redemptive position within the

narrative, that which allows the experiencer to move beyond a blockage within his or her

inner life. Their obstacles, in their handling of them, do indeed become their paths.

A good example of this redemption of pain is by Jacqueline’s bout with malaria while

in India during her year of meditation practice:

I started to feel really sick. And everybody’s worried that I have hepatitis, they say, oh my god,

you probably have hepatitis. You have to get to the doctor. And everybody knows the doctor in

New Delhi. So I go to the doctor, and he comes back with the test, and he goes, ‘oh, first person

in New Delhi to get malaria.’ so um, I wind up having to stay in this house in New Delhi, a

friend’s house…So I spent two weeks in bed. Drinking lassi, and alternatively sweating and

hallucinating, and having malaria, taking quinine. So during that I realized that, what came to me

in the course of it was that I had gotten it after Maharaji6; you know, was of course I was

planning ahead. You know, I still wasn’t in the present moment. Because I was planning this

around the world trip to the Misty Mountains.

Jacqueline’s processing of her illness, not just years later while recounting it, but during

its very experience, is within a spiritual framework. The illness and its convalescence

period becomes a kind of retreat wherein she gains insight into herself and her motives. It

is not unlike Jacob’s hospital stay, offering a kind of new beginning and break with the

old patterns of conditioning--she had been motivated by her image of crossing over the

horizon and reaching the Chinese Misty Mountains since early childhood. Such a pattern

and motivation had continued into her spiritual practice, so that even during meditation

retreats she was planning the next stage of her inner and outer journey. More than just

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offering insight into how she had been living, she attributes the illness to having been

caused by that lack of being in the present; it is a kind of red flag, a warning signal telling

her, as she understands it, to forget her fantasies of the future. Her mentioning of her visit

to Maharaji in relation to her contracting malaria is her attributing a causal relationship

between her state of attachment, which she became more aware of through her visit to

him, and the illness. She frames the illness in spiritual terms, as a manifestation of an

inner state of attachment which she must let go of if she is to heal. The image of the

Misty Mountains, which she had carried within her for so long, now dissolves in the heat

of physical suffering which assumes a spiritual significance.

I have already discussed Blanche’s illness and its role in her turn towards spiritual

practice. It was her suffering which, as she says, “started me searching, reading, looking,

for what…searching not knowing for what.” Twenty years later Blanche is an ordained

Zen priest, and a senior teacher at the San Francisco Zen center, when she is striken again

with a life-threatening illness. What is insightful here is how she copes with the illness

after twenty years of intensive practice, and how she emerges from it:

Some twenty years after my first encounter with that I had a heart attack. Umm, and during the

course of the heart attack when the outcome was unknown, I chanted refuges, in Buddhism we

take refuge in what’s called the Triple Treasure, the Buddha…the Dharma, and the Sangha…But

I chanted, I was told that one of the great teachers in our tradition chanted the refuges when he

was dying, and it seemed like a good thing to do. (Me: you thought you were dying?) Well, I

didn’t know, I was in the middle of a heart attack. Who knows? The heart attack was in

progress…so I chanted the refuges in English, and I chanted them in Pali, and I chanted them in

Japanese, I made up tunes. But you know, however long it was later, I was discharged from the

hospital. I was walking out the door, and down the street to m step sister’s house, which is just a

block or two away from the hospital, and I turned to my husband and said, gee, I’m alive, I could

be dead! Wow! The rest of my life is just all a free gift! It’s always been a free gift! Pity I didn’t

notice it that way…um, and so there was just this tremendous joy at just being alive. And

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suddenly I understood. There it went. So that was a very different response from the other time I

almost died.

This experience can be considered an epiphany of the cumulative kind--her practice

had developed to allow her great insight into her life-threatening experience and

suffering, which thunderously appears after the heart attack. I have included this episode

here in order to show just how Blanche incorporates her suffering, the heart attack, into

an opportunity for spiritual practice and insight. It is by no means certain that if she

hadn’t proceeded to confront her own mortality and chant the refuges as if preparing for

death that the insight of her life as a gift would have manifested in the aftermath. It is also

worthy to note that the insight did not occur directly after the heart attack had ceased, but

only after some fallow time (“however long it was”) in the hospital before her discharge,

like Jacqueline’s and Jacob‘s bed-ridden stints. Her going through the doors of the

hospital and back into life, a life perceived now as a gift, symbolizes the Zen journey as

expressed by the old Zen poem:

Before I practiced Zen I saw mountains as mountains and rivers as rivers

Then I practiced Zen and I saw that mountains were not mountains and rivers were not rivers.

After many more years of practice I saw that mountains were mountains and rivers were rivers.

Blanche does not begin a whole new journey, but completes a circle where she now

understands something very fundamental to the path she is on, and to life in general. It is

not dissimilar to Jacqueline’s breaking away from the pursuit of the Misty Mountains;

there is now nowhere to go, nothing to achieve or accomplish in spiritual practice (an

acquisitory motivation to which Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche calls spiritual materialism),

but just the basic realization of this present moment as a pure gift. That is the true

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mountain, which looks just as it is, whether it is the car she drives, or the conversation

she is having, or the juice she drinks, or the pillow she sleeps on. These and an infinite

more are the real Misty Mountains that appear just as they are, the gifts of the present

moment.

Social Suffering

Loneliness and alienation are the cold bedfellows of a spiritual seeker. The long hours

as a child spent alone, often friendless, encourage the development of an inner life and

awareness which become carried over into later spiritual pursuits. When Seth talks about

his prayer life and relationship with God at the age of five, and Amaro recounts his

rejection of God and organized religion at the age of eleven, a budding inner life and

search are revealed. Most of the Jewish Buddhist teachers indicated experiences of

emotional pain and alienation from their early social environments, which created the

impetus for seeking out alternative pathways. Chodron aptly generalizes this experience,

giving her own solution:

The guilt laid on us when we don’t, and anger laid on us, when we don’t follow their

expectations. The pain we suffer when others don’t follow our expectations. You know, so I see

in some situations, I see that conditioning come up, and then I just remember the Dharma, and it’s

like, that vanishes (laughs). That’s exactly why I became ordained, cause I didn’t want that.

The unfullfilment of social expectations, either of oneself by others or of others by

oneself, is an example of the suffering of change. Things seem to be going a certain way,

and we build up our expectations that they will continue as such. Life changes, people

change, and we suffer from our inability to accept the changes. Specific training, as

Chodron indicates, is necessary to desist from reacting in self-defeating conditioned ways

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to the fluctuating world around us.

For the Jewish Buddhist teacher, who found himself on an often solitary search for

that alternative, which would at some point be revealed as Buddhism, the growing up

with a sense of otherness is simply a painful given. This alienation from one’s home

community and social reality, be it family, school peers, or the society at large, is

expressed in varying ways and experienced to varying degrees as suffering. Such

narrative descriptions invariably conjure up painful memories, which often are glossed

over quickly in a return to the more “successful” spiritual narrative. This experience of

otherness within mainstream American, British or Israeli culture serves the dual purpose

of encouraging a strong inner life and awareness, as well as nurturing an identification

with the suffering of other minorities. This later sensitivity can be considered an

important factor in the attraction to a practice whose primary focus is the relief of the

suffering of oneself and others. Chodron relates this idea clearly:

I grew up in a suburb of L.A. that was predominantly Christian. There were like two houses on

the the block that didn’t have Christmas trees, and ours was one of them, you know. I grew up

very much with this identity, of I am not mainstream American. You know, and I would read the

news, and you would read about the racism, you would read about this, and it was like, that’s

mainstream America. But I belong to a minority, and I grew up with a very strong value for

justice and sticking up for the underdog, and sticking up for the persecuted, and speaking your

own truth in the face of prejudice.

Did she suffer growing up? She does not express it in such terms, but the identity she

recounts bespeaks of an uncomfortable position. The un-processed feeling of otherness

and exclusion from one’s environment makes an indelible mark on a person. I grew up

with a similar experience of looking outside my window on Christmas morning and

seeing kids just running outside with their newly-opened toys, leaving me with pangs less

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of envy and more of alienation. Chodron relates less to that aspect of the experience and

more to the identification and compassion for others who share such isolation.

Not all experiences of otherness were paired with such positive outgrowths. Stephen

speaks of his being an observer, an outsider during his youth, a position which created

much fear of interaction. This fear, which at times was paralyzing, would become

resolved only after years of Dharma practice. His involvement in Buddhism can be

partially read as the desire to absolve himself both of his fear and its root, his feeling of

separateness and alienation from others. He outlines his dilemma:

The issue for me, the difficult issue at an early age was that I couldn’t really feel connected to

society. I was playing here on my own, over here, and there was over there a bunch of kids

playing together. I had some connections with friends, and so on. I was used to being more or less

a watcher of society around me. I was on one side, and there was a bunch of kids on the other side

of the climbing frame chatting away together. Ths sense….I was quite lonely in a way, in my self,

I would say lonely is too strong, but, the observer.

The image he carries with him of his childhood is an endearing and disturbing one. It

creates an inner wall between him and the world, which is somewhat self denying--he

doesn’t want to enter into the pain of his exlusion, into his being lonely, but the image

remains. The observer status is a kind of defence against the strong emotions the child

must have felt. The difficulty develops into his youth:

I felt king of the world at that time, (age) 15, 16, 17. Well, with the exception that, at that period

of time, the issue of being an observer, and being able to talk to people, more than one person at a

time, not being able to communicate with groups, feeling. I began to feel it at the level of

pathology. It was a very difficult time for me at that level…I felt that being an outsider from the

group became very painful.

…and beyond into his adulthood and career as a university lecturer:

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It did stay with me as a kind of ah, difficulty in communication. I remember when I was a lecturer

in university, I really had difficulty talking in front of the crowd. I had real problems, it was a

nightmare for me. I would stand in front of my class sweating and my stomach contracting, not

being able to breath and sweat pouring down my face, stammering, and any time there was a

small silence, I felt the world spin, you know, vertigo. It was hell for me.

…only to resolve much later with the help of Buddhist practice: “that was a major issue,

a fear, and only when I learnt meditation and techniques for dealing with inner problems,

I dealt with it, but up until that time it was a major problem.” Such enduring and

pervasive fear cannot but be viewed as a major motivating factor for his meditation

practice. His “tikkun abba”, healing of the father on the mountaintop in Nepal, is another

indication of his practice enabling him to overcome his deep fear, a fear which he saw as

embodied by his own father and his father’s relationship to Judaism.

The Judaism he was raised on, like Jacqueline, was nursed on fear and paranoia, the

post-Holocaust legacy that most of the survivors’ generation and their children inherited.

That fear becomes sublimated, for Stephen, into a total relationship with the world, with

the fear of others and communication with them relegating him to the status of outside

observer. Such fear is a prime example of suffering on the obvious physical and mental

levels: his mental suffering as the fear of others and communication with them translates

into physical suffering (his vivid description has him seeming to approach losing

consciousness!) when confronted with such situations. The practice of meditation,

especially vipassana whose methods include the non-reactive observation of physical and

mental processes, seems tailor-made for his form of suffering. His social defense of being

the observer, invented to mitigate the fear of interaction, turns into a spiritual discipline

which in the end evaporates that fear. In this way, Stephen’s therapeutic success with

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Buddhist meditation can be seen as representative of much of the American Buddhist

approach to spiritual practice. Not only is he able to heal psychologically his issues

around communicating with others, but also around communicating with his parent

tradition, Judaism.

Amaro’s sense of otherness began with the torments of the English public school

system (i.e. private boarding schools of high repute), and eventually cast him out into the

yonder to search for a true home which he eventually, and quite suddenly upon entrance,

found in the Thai monastery. A social product, like all of the subjects of this study, of the

tumultuous 60’s, his rejection of his peers and their values was conjoined with a rejection

of societal mores at large. His passage was riddled with the ills of the system: “I was just

teased a lot. I mean, I was just a very ugly kid, you know…I was teased because of my

features and also because I, ah, I was brighter than a lot of people, and that makes people

jealous.” Such teasing was not, according to him, connected to any form of anti-

Semitism, but it was simply endemic to the system. His description details not just his

experience of suffering, but the genesis it stimulated:

The first few years there…were miserable. If I had a fat lip, you know, a black eye or something,

oh yeah, (he’d tell his parents that it was from) playing rugby, or walked into a door. Fell over on

the way. If you wanted to be in, you had to sort of take your medicine. It was a nightmare. I hated

it, the whole sort of public school scene. Was really, it was not a good fit, I was not, I was not a

happy camper there. So, you know, they were my friends, but I hated the kind of treatment I got,

very vehemently, you know, the whole boarding school system, the authoritarianism…it was an

incredible amount of bullying and just ah…social pressure…that first year was particularly

horrible. So, that was in a way the suffering that I experienced in that situation, that kind of being

bullied and teased and being a shrimp at the bottom of this kind of pool was just so horrible, that

then, I kind of, as I look back on it now, I, when I’ve thought about it, you know, ask myself why

did I sit down and look at the nature of reality, what was the cause of it, I realize it was because of

this, I had been in this sort of idyllic pastoral delightful world where everybody was nice and the

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days just floated by, and suddenly you’re in, you’re being chewed up in the gears. It’s a ghastly

system, and suddenly that shock of suffering, was what the hell is going on here, but I responded

to that by not cracking up or running away or over eating, anyway,what I did was try to figure it

out. I took refuge in my brain, I asked, what is real, what is goig on here, what is of value here.

Amaro’s experience of suffering is profound and enlightening. It combines all three

forms of suffering: that of physical and mental pain (being beaten and taunted by his

peers), of change (being thrust from his happy country home into a school from hell) and

of all-pervading conditions (the world is seen as an unstable and unreliable place--

unsafe). The pervasiveness of his experience of suffering, wherein he literally feels up

against the wall, stimulates his spiritual and existential questionings which serve to offer

his only escape. He takes refuge in his inquiring mind, and rather than reject out of hurt

and anger his environment, he epitomizes the Buddhist spirit of making the difficulties

the very path. Amaro himself attributes the beginning of his spiritual awakening and

aspiration to this miserable period, though it is a much-later retrospective reflection.

When one suffers terribly, it is rare to perceive it, at least before one has received formal

training in spiritual practice, as a necessary part of one’s journey. Jacqueline’s malarial

insight came after her year of intensive practice, and Amaro’s reflection a good thirty

years later.

Existential Suffering

The idea of an existential crisis generally relates to an insipid sense of

meaninglessness and apathy towards the world and life. One feels rudderless, drifting,

and unconnected to others. Alienation is another description, not simply on the social

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level, as with the previous section, but more globally from the world, and more intimately

as from oneself, one’s own sense being in the world. It is like a kind of philosophical

depression, which places one in a room built by Sartre with a sign over the door reading

“No Exit”. There are many forms and degrees to which existential suffering can be

experienced, and in a Buddhist perspective it is best characterized by the suffering of all-

pervading conditions. Everything, simply everything in life, is intuitively perceived as

unsatisfactory. What is left is an unease, a psychic listlessness, which can motivate the

stirrings of a spiritual life.

Jacob describes this disturbing feeling as the sense that as a child, “I sometimes didn’t

remember where my place was.” This comes after his describing of his very broad

cultural background, from his parent’s eclecticism, drove him into a protective

introvertedness. This sense of displacement, of homelessness, as indicated earlier,

becomes a defining feature of Jacob’s spiritual life. He returns to it during his training at

a Japanese monastery, where he reacts to the formalization of meditation practice--it was

not his place, and his experience of Japan, as with most foreigners there, is one of acute

otherness. A release came from his Japanese master who sent him out to the subway and

city center to practice meditation. Suddenly, the difficulty of not feeling at home in the

world was transformed by meditation into the finding in every place an opportunity for

spiritual practice--wherever he was, with mindfulness practice, was a temporary home.

This sense of all-pervading suffering, or dis-ease, a kind of Upanishadic “neti-neti”,

not this, not this, in the search for a sense of truth and meaning, is well described by

Amaro; it is this undefined sense, as he indicated, which spurred him to spiritual

considerations:

I don’t know, it was just there (the suffering and the spiritual desire to dispel it). Trying to figure

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it out, because all of the things I could see around me that were not real, or were being, people

were telling me were valuable or real, you can get as far as to say, well, that’s not it, and that’s

not it, and that’s not it, so then, at that stage, I was suffering a lot.

This all-pervasive suffering, that sense of dis-ease with the conditions of life, is a key

ingredient to his own and the others’ spiritual aspirations, as well as for the recognition of

others as in the same leaky, wet, cold boat. It is this final and deepest sense of suffering,

on the most subtle level, which underscores all forms of suffering.

The all-pervading suffering of the conditions of the world is a suffering that is

experienced more as a lack than as a tangible sense of something painful, like a burn

from the stove or the death of a friend. It is a sense of emptiness in the negative sense,

and the ensuing attempts to fill it most invariably increase the suffering as superficial

salves are mistakenly applied. One feels depressed, so one eats, smokes, finds lovers, or

works compulsively. Or meditates obsessively. Turning towards a spiritual escape runs

the risk of nihilism, of rejecting the world and preventing a compassionate working with

others who are suffering along with oneself. This is what the Dalai Lama calls the monk-

mind, the attitude that true spiritual practice is only possible in the monastery or retreat

center. Much of American Buddhism, as developed by these teachers, has been aimed at

a practice that is much more world-embracing and engaged.

Summary

The experience of suffering in all of its forms and degrees holds a central place in the

spiritual life of the subjects presented here. Not only the personal experience of suffering,

but the sympathetic experience of the suffering of others has equally defined the world-

views of some of the teachers. Both Jacqueline and Blanche witnessed the inequities

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caused by Segregation in the South during the 50’s and 60’s, and it infused in their minds

both a rejection of the society which upheld such a situation, and a sensitivity to the

sufferings of others. Chodron considers her otherness as essential to her spiritual

development and sensitivity to others, but interestingly, she is the only one who makes

reference to her Judaism as the source of that. She also attributes her original awareness

of her Jewish otherness within American society as enabling her comfort level with her

standing out as a maroon-robed Tibetan Buddhist nun in the West; other ordained sangha

members, she relates, often wear Western clothes when in transit. For all of the subjects

the experience of suffering paved the way for deep questioning about the nature of

reality.

Suffering, its being understood, and the development of compassion as a response, are

intimately linked in Buddhist practice. In Mel’s case, his own life as an artist opened up

not just a sensitivity to the existential sufferings of others, but the desire to contribute to

its relief:

My vision was ah, this kind of place, to ah, ah, have a place where people could do zazen (zen

meditation) and ah, practice the Dharma. And ah, you know, when I was a beatnick, you know,

and an artist, I saw people suffering a lot, and I would say, if they had some place like this it

would be really a haven for people, you know. (Me: what were they suffering from?) People who

need, people who are searching.

Such a compassionate reaction to the suffering of others arises directly out of an intimate

awareness of one’s own suffering. It is, as well, the very premise of the Buddhist faith, as

Gethin explains:

all this suggests something else that is fundamental to the orientation of Buddhist thought and

practice: the wish to relieve suffering in the end can only be rooted in a feeling of sympathy or

compassion for the suffering of both oneself and others. This feeling of sympathy for the

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sufferings of beings is what motivates not only the Buddha to teach but ultimately everyone who

tries to put his teaching into practice.

What all the examples of suffering in the lives of Jewish Buddhist teachers reveal is

their contribution to the development of just such a compassionate attitude: the

experience of suffering is directly responsible for their desire to find a path that can

ultimately end their own, and by extension, all others’ suffering. Buddhism answered this

need, and provided the means and perspective by which they were able to reframe their

difficulties within their spiritual paths. It was a road paved with tears and laughter.

Endnotes: 1 Gethin pp.59-60. 2 quoted from The Sayings of the Buddha, p.18. 3 An account of the meeting is given by Ajahn Amaro, one of the participants, in his book Small Boat, Long Journey. 4 From interview with Ajahn Kemmo in January, 1996, at Wat Suan Mokh in Southern Thailand. 5 Sangha traditionally is understood as the community of ordained monks and nuns. It can be expanded to include all those who are involved with and support a Buddhist community. 6 Maharaji was a well-known Hindu spiritual teacher whom Jacqueline visited. During their interview he asked her about the two necklaces she was wearing. She understood afterwards how attached she was to them, and then began to realize how much attachment she was living with. She believed this was the

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message she was to have received from him.

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Chapter Seven:

The Jewish Something

Table of Contents

Introduction p.

Identity as empty p.

At home: Jewish experiences among family p.

Family obligation p.

The Zen-mitzvah p.

The Bad Times: Negative Jewish experiences and their impact p.

Exclusiveness p.

Victimhood p.

Irrationality p.

The difficulty with Israel p.

The Good Times: Positive Jewish Experiences

Childhood experiences p.

Adulthood p.

Integration p.

Summary p.

1

Introduction

“I’m Jewish because I’m Jewish.”--Blanche Hartman

“I’m gastronomically Jewish”--Joseph Goldstein

“I felt like a 19th century hasid…I think it was genetic.”--Mel Wietsman

“Now that’s the way I’m Jewish…You have to be Jewish to understand this!”--Thubten

Chodron, laughing at a Jewish joke1

What makes a Buddhist Jewish? It is much simpler to identify and describe what

makes a Jew a Buddhist, particularly if there are formal commitments that have been

taken on, in terms of beliefs, loyalties, and practices. I interviewed people who ostensibly

came from Jewish backgrounds--having Jewish parents and exposure to rudimentary

Jewish experiences--though one subject, Ajahn Amaro, didn’t even fit this criterion, with

only one Jewish grandfather, and having been brought up in the Church of England. How

are these people Jewish apart from their simply being born to Jewish parents, as Ram Das

says, “I’m Jewish and my parents are”? What experiences were formative to their own

Jewish identity, insofar as that identity was reinforced negatively or positively? Most

importantly to a narrative study, how do these people describe their Judaism through the

narration of these experiences, and what roles do they play in their spiritual life journeys

as Buddhist teachers? When dealing with stories that are tracing the development along a

certain line--in this case of the becoming of a senior Buddhist teacher from a Jewish

background-- the choices that weren’t made within Judaism, for most of them, echo as

significant absences. Reading the narratives, then, becomes an exercise in listening to the

2

silences as much as the spoken stories, for it is the very lack of significant Jewish content

which, on the whole, was the most determining factor in their not choosing to journey

within that tradition; James expresses this sentiment which was shared by several of the

others: “if I had had a bar mitzvah like that (referring to his relative’s inspiring bat

mitzvah) I probably would still be in synagogue.” When these teachers began their

search, an accessible and fulfilling Jewish spirituality was not available.

It would be rather speculative, if not spurious, to make assertions about the influences

their Jewish experiences and identities have on their Buddhist practice, as well as vice-

versa, of how their Buddhism has refocused, or even “enlightened” their Judaism. I once

believed such an analysis would be possible, even regarded it as the main emphasis and

focus of the study. For the vast majority, however, Judaism is simply not part of their

conscious life, not dissimilar to having been born with a certain national and linguistic

identity--it lingers as the general sense of who one is, remaining in the indistinct

background. Blanche’s being Jewish because she’s Jewish is virtually the extent of her

and others consciousness of the role of Judaism in their lives. It would be artificial and

inaccurate, not to mention misrepresentational, to isolate areas of their lives that fall

under Jewish influence without their having acknowledged them as such. The Jewish-

Buddhist interplay which occurs in the spiritual life and practice of some of the subjects

is a result of their own conscious pursuits of it, which I will address following their own

leads.

The purpose of this chapter, nonetheless, is to describe the roles that Judaism has had

in the spiritual life journeys of the Jewish Buddhist teacher, as they were related to me

through the narration of life experiences. Certain distinct areas of Jewish experience

3

began to be recognizable, which fell under three categories: those concerning family

relations; those which were experienced as negative, pushing them away from Judaism;

and those which were experienced as positive, allowing a rediscovery or integration of

Judaism into their lives. The first section, which includes the dynamics of relationships

with children, spouses, and parents, I call At Home; the second section of negative

experiences deal with issues of anger, rejection, and reaction against perceived

exclusivity and irrationality, is entitled The Bad Times; and the last section of the

positive affirmations of Judaism, which were experienced in early childhood, or as adult

rediscoveries, as well as in expressions of conscious integration, I call The Good Times.

Hopefully an understanding will emerge of the Jewish “something” in the lives of the

Jewish Buddhist teachers as not only a residual background, but an integral part of a

complex identity and narrative which is played equally in the rests and the notes. These

organizing categories of Jewish experience are largely descriptive, but it is the

descriptions which ground the categories into interpretive frameworks: in the narrative

discourse, description and interpretation are one.

Identity as Empty

I will end this introduction to the chapter with a note on the tenacity of Jewish

identity. It is just such an enduring quality which has piqued my interest all along: how is

it that people who are completely devoted to another tradition and have absolutely no

involvement in Judaism continue to identify themselves as Jews? What in their narratives

has allowed for that? The tenacity exists, and can be heard resounding in a teenage Seth

in the throws of rebellion, who shouted out to his parents: “I’m not Jewish and you can’t

4

make me Jewish,” but continued to say, “so I’m ethnically Jewish.” Huh? Blanche’s “I’m

Jewish because I’m Jewish” is probably the best title for this chapter, as it summarizes

the paradox that many Jews live with: even though they may have no involvement with

Judaism as a religion, which is not an ethnicity like being Bulgarian or from the Han hill

tribe of northern Thailand (Ethiopian, Russian, Morrocan and American Jews do not have

similar ethnicities), they still find themselves with the inescapable fact of their being

Jewish. The Jewish “something” is better described as a Jewish “nothing”, a kind of

Buddhist emptiness which takes on a lot of different forms2. There are as many

manifestations of Judaism in the lives of Buddhist Jewish teachers as there are of

teachers, and even within one life story the experiences may be or may not be at times

read as Jewish. I choose to give such a reading when the narrative account grounds it as

such.

The forms of identification that this Jewish something (or nothing) finds itself

expressed as varies as much as the individual narrative and narrative turns there within.

Mel saw a photo of bearded rabbis on the cover of a 1950’s Life Magazine, and

experienced a strong sense of identification: “I felt an immediate connection with them,

that kind of awakened something in me“. He began reading Martin Buber’s Tales of the

Hasidim, and got interested in Jewish spirituality, but, alas, had no way to access it--the

one teacher he managed to find in San Francisco was an old German rabbi, “he was a

nice guy, and he helped me, but he wasn’t interested in that stuff, nobody was interested

in that stuff.” People were interested, however--more, captivated--by Buddhism, which

was the rage among the beat poets and artists who made up Mel’s milieu. Mel had

absolutely no Jewish background, but after his “awakening” to Judaism, he began a

5

journey of an essentialism that has come to mark much of the subsequent approach to

American Buddhism: “I was really very serious and I developed my own sense of, what I

felt was my own Judaism. It probably didn’t correspond to what other Jews felt was

theirs, because it was just bare, there was no cultural stuff…I thought being Jewish was

just being Jewish.” Mel strips down Judaism to an indefinable sense, an intuition, which

is virtually free of content. What is Mel’s Judaism? Well, he might say, I’m Jewish.

Period. It is intuitive, and almost sub-conscious, though it does emerge with strong

feelings upon being triggered, like by the photo of the rabbis, and later when he mentions

that he always cries when he hears Hebrew chanting. Such are the moments when Mel’s

self-ascribed “hasidic soul” comes closer to the surface.

I use Mel as an example of a sense of Jewish identity which is self-identified (no one

tells him he is or should be Jewish, there were no precedents to his magazine cover photo

awakening) and relatively undefined, yet very connected to an intuitive, emotional, inner

place. The ascribing of identity, or its recognition, can alternatively occur from the

outside, from others, and not from one’s own inner sense, subjectivity, or struggle.

Chodron relates that her Jewish identity had been forced upon her during a contentious

visit to Israel in 1997 as a Buddhist nun to teach:

I was so struck when I went there that everybody wanted me to have an identity. I felt like I was

being forced to have an identity, because within the first 24 hours some people came from a

major newspaper, I don’t remember its name, came to interview me. And I was standing for a

moment, the first question they ask me is, are you Jewish? Now, of course, I remember that

question from Sunday school, you know, don’t you remember we had to write essays in Sunday

school, about that, so I came back with the rabbi’s question. Well, what does it mean, to be a

Jew? Is it religious, is it social, is it ethnic, is it, you know, racial? (laughs)

Chodron resists the identification with Judaism using a typically Jewish ploy--answer a

6

question with another question. Despite her resistance, she finds herself identifying on

that “something” level, which is described by her as a very deep feeling, and comes as

something of a shock: the minority status of being a Jew, which those of us who grew up

in the Diaspora simply inherited without note but not without discomfort, is now inverted

into majority status:

First of all, there’s this very deep feeling of connection with the people there…my goodness, my

first days in Israel on my trip, my goodness, everybody’s Jewish here! I was raised in a place, you

know, where it wasn’t like this, and I always had this different feeling. And then I come here, and

now its your nationality that makes you different, whereas before it’s your religion that makes

you separate from others.

Chodron frames her understanding of her identification with Judaism within Buddhist

terms, as she states subsequently: “how the human mind likes to feel that, how we make

ourselves separate, or how we identify ourselves and create all these identities, just based

on our body, really, This transient collection of atoms and molecules.” She experiences

her identification with Jews, with herself as a Jew, and retrospectively uses the feeling as

an example of the conditioned mind that, according to a Buddhist analysis, is the source

of conflict and suffering. She identifies Jewishly and simultaneously sees the problem

with such identification. Her appraisal of the conditioning is not so far removed from

Mel’s “I think it was genetic” to explain where his initial interest and identification with

Judaism (as triggered by the photo) came from. Whether the conditioning is social or

biological is secondary to the fact that it occurs, and it is interpreted as something not

chosen. I’m Jewish because I’m Jewish.

At Home: Jewish Experiences Among Family

7

In this section I will look at Jewish experiences that, as occurring with and around

family members, or in a dependence of them, can be seen as arising from two directions:

out of a familial obligation towards children or parents, and out of a sense of awakening

to a Jewish identity as inspired by a family context. The former involves a participation

and identification with Judaism for the sake of others, while the later is for one’s own

sake, and embraced with more enthusiasm. The vast majority of Jewish experiences

within the family that the Jewish Buddhist teachers relayed during the interviews fall

under the first category. That is not to say that personal Jewish awakenings did not occur,

which the last section of this chapter will be devoted to, but that it was unlikely for them

to occur within the traditional family context which had its own patterns and definitions

of the Jewish experience. If they had occurred within the context of positive childhood

family-related experiences, it is unlikely that these teachers would have so ardently

pursued another spiritual tradition. As one rabbi once commented to me, “If you want to

know why children leave Judaism, don’t look to how observant the family is (i.e. how

much they adhere to the Jewish law). Go see how much singing there is around the

Friday night table.”

Family Obligation

The desire to offer one’s children something positive from the Jewish tradition and its

values is a common motivation for the Jewish Buddhist teacher’s participation in Jewish

life as an adult. It is worthy to note that while most teachers with children did not offer

Buddhist teachings or practices in any explicit manner to their children, but instead

allowed them to show interest on their own, their exposing their children to the Jewish

8

tradition was quite intentional and explicit, though in no way obligatory. Jacqueline

summarizes the rationale, as she expresses the intergenerational pull she felt as well as

the desire to balance something she felt missing in Buddhism:

I felt family, umm, you know, my parents always wanted grandchildren, so I gave them

grandchildren. And they really wanted them to have bat mitzvah’s, and I went to great lengths to

do that. Um, and also, because I feel like, and especially when I was with them in the temple, that

Judaism--and you know, they went to Jewish Sunday school--so Judaism gave them an ethics.

You know, and the ethics could be, there was a lot of dialogue around the ethics, and I felt that

was really healthy. They way they taught them at Sunday school. And, um that they could learn

Hebrew. And that, um, and that it treasured family life. I think that’s so wholesome in Judaism,

and that’s something that Buddhism, you know, has a difficult time doing because the Buddha

left his family. So, you know, the roll models are totally different. So I felt that was very

important.

Jacqueline grew up in a Reform household, and the Jewish education she offered her twin

girls was similar, meaning that the “dialogue around ethics” was one that would have

been open to alternative world views, such as one informed by the Buddhism that the

girls would have absorbed by osmosis at home. She didn’t inundate them with

Buddhism, but the Judaism she did offer was one which was very admissive of Buddhist

influence.

Her obligation to her parents is fulfilled first by having children, and second by

giving them the symbolic Jewish rite of passage (for most American Jews, Jewish

religious involvement, particularly within the synagogue, begins and ends with the

bar/bat mitzvah). Her obligation to her children extends beyond that, into the desire to

transmit to them something of the positive qualities she perceived in the tradition,

especially around the value of family that Judaism emphasized. It was just such an

emphasis that persuaded Jacqueline to have a traditional Jewish wedding, even while she

9

was teaching at IMS, which was attended by her Buddhist teacher colleagues.

Though she personally had virtually no involvement in the tradition, Judaism was her

choice for her children’s initial learning of ethics and family; she is the only teacher to

criticize the example set by the Buddha as an inappropriate role model, where family is

concerned.3 His abandonment of his wife and infant child is a largely ignored episode

when the Buddha’s life is studied by Western practitioners, who are lay householders.

Jacqueline’s response was to confront this problem and choose an alternative model from

her Judaism, which she gave to her marriage and her children. The desire to have her

children learn Hebrew a reason for their Jewish education can be understood as offering

them the tool for being able to “dialogue” with the tradition.

The obligation towards one’s children and the desire to offer them some of the

positive attributes of Judaism are motivations in Jacob’s choice of Jewish frameworks for

his son Yoni. Jacob faced the challenge of finding a good special education school for his

son, who, as mentioned has Down; Jacob intuitively recognizes that a Jewish religious

approach, with its emphasis on ritual and repetition, would helpful and appeal to Yoni.

To that end, he chose for his son not just a religious school, but an ultra-religious one:

He entered a religious school in Bnei Brak4. Ultra-religious, not just religious…the ultra-religious

school for special education was very good for education, and in essence I chose it for that, but

also, I thought that all the religious matters would speak to Yoni. It would connect with him in

another place, the prayers, and the song, and the holidays and holidays, I thought that this would

be really right, and in truth it was for him. He really loved it. And until today Yoni keeps some

things more than me (laughs)!

Much of Jacob’s interaction with his son revolves around Jewish religious matters: “I

even participated in, in all the holidays, and he would bring it home, he would request

it…because he would do it at school, he would want to continue at home. He wanted, and

10

it was good for him.” On Thursdays he accompanies his son to the bakery to buy special

bread for the Sabbath, and Yoni’s musical sense, which is an important aspect of their

communication, was largely developed through the songs he learned at school. Jacob

even took his son to a concert by the preeminent star of the ultra-religious Jewish music

scene, where Yoni ascended the stage and danced in joy. Jacob described himself as the

only bare-headed man in a sea of black-hatted admirers5. Never mind the only Buddhist.

Jacob’s obligation to his son’s well-being is not, as is clear, a religious obligation, but

rather a family obligation; he involves his son in a religious framework that is clearly not

a choice for himself. The reason that it is “good for him” is enough, and this is an

expression of the Buddhist quality of sympathetic joy, one of the four brahmaviharas, or

divine qualities. It is joy arising purely out of another’s joy on their own terms.

The most significant experience involving family and Judaism for Jacob occurred as

the bar mitzvah of his son. Enabling one’s child to have a bar or bat mitzvah is one of the

pimordial obligations of the Jewish parent, religious or secular, Buddhist or otherwise. It

is around the time of one’s child’s bat or bar mitzvah that the sense of the Jewish

“something” rises to the surface perhaps more strongly than at any other time. Every

Jewish Buddhist teacher I spoke with had themselves had a bar or bat mitzvah; most of

them even remembered the portion of the Torah from which they read. A sense of Jewish

continuity is expressed for both sexes more through that ceremony and the preparation

for it than any other Jewish event6 . As Jacqueline expressed, her parents wanted it for

their grandchildren, and James Baraz, whose wife is not Jewish and who has brought up

his son with much involvement in Spirit Rock, still offered him a bar mitzvah--which he,

incidentally, declined.

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The divisions within the Jewish religion and the alienation Jacob and most of the

other teachers feel from are expressed in the difficulty he had finding a synagogue that

would accept his son for a bar mitzvah ceremony. Despite his son’s enrollment in an

ultra-orthodox school system, In Jacob’s case, it was only at a Reform synagogue that he

could arrange for a bar mitzvah for him. The experience, nonetheless, proved to be

powerful. Jacob himself taught Yoni to recite the special blessing for the reading of the

Torah, and spoke for Yoni in front of the congregation. He spoke not only for Yoni, but

as Yoni: “I spoke in his place. I said, ‘I think this is what Yoni would have said if he

could speak’ (laugh)…it was really emotional. It was really beautiful. Yoni was really,

really happy. Really emotional from that.” The bar mitzvah is a formative experience first

and foremost in the relationship between Jacob and his son, so that he identifies not only

with him but as him. Jacob’s recounting of the experience brought forth strong emotions,

and he spoke in a very animated and emotional way, reflecting the strong emotion

contained within the original experience. The Jewish ceremony offered a culmination of

the sharing that father and son had had to that point, which in itself created an indelible

mark upon not just their relationship, but upon Jacob’s identity foremost as a father, and

secondarily as a Jew.

The Zen-Mitzvah

The centrality of a bar mitzvah to the Jewish parent-child relationship has manifested

itself in another very unique way among some of the Jewish Buddhist teachers. Mostly

unaffiliated and disenchanted with any of the available Jewish options, some of the

parents have turned to their own Buddhism to supply the content for a similar ceremony.

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Such ceremonies are called rite-of-passages or mentoring, and they are becoming more

and more utilized and popular among Jewish and non-Jewish Buddhists. The first were

conceived of in 1998 by Zen teacher and former abbot of the San Francisco Zen Center

Norman Fischer, who worked with a group of five boys and their parents, all of whom

were teachers in the Buddhist community. Mel Weitsman was one of them, and his son

Daniel was among the group of boys. They spent two years, from the ages of 12-14,

meeting regularly and participating in a program of exploration, creativity, and spiritual

exercises, under the guidance, or “mentorship” of the parents. At the conclusion of the

period there was a ceremony (Mel called it a Zen-mitzvah) held at the Berkeley Zen

Center, upon which the boys made presentations, gave speeches, and received new

names.

Since that initial program, other communities, such as that of Spirit Rock, have begun

developing similar rites, which James’ son participated in. One of the features of the

ceremonies is that they are not defined as Buddhist (or, of course, Jewishly-inspired), but

instead emphasize a universalism allowing the youths to choose their own melange of

traditions as to which they are drawn. Mel recounted to me that Norman Fischer was very

concerned not to use Buddhist language or symbolism, and to keep the affair religiously

neutral. Norman himself came from an Orthodox background, and teaches meditation at a

Jewish meditation center; his Jewish background may explain his reticence to fully

transform the Jewish ceremony into a Buddhist one--better to keep it neutral than to fully

appropriate the ceremony by Buddhism. Mel, on the other hand, wanted something

tangibly Buddhist to be presented to the children, like a robe or a begging bowl; his son

today does not use his ceremonial name, Midnight Fire.

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The Bad Times: Negative Jewish Experiences and Their Impact

That Buddhism and not Judaism was their spiritual path of choice is shown in the life

stories of the Jewish Buddhist teachers as resulting not just from the attraction to the

later, but from a certain repulsion from the former. If nothing were wrong at home, then

why would you leave? Of course, to expand oneself in ways that home could not offer,

but even so, if very limited and strained contact is maintained, then an underlying

problem in indicated. To appreciate the involvement these teachers have in Buddhism,

and the choices they made in their spiritual pursuits, it is important to consider just what

problems they encountered with their “home” tradition of Judaism. Their issues with

Judaism, the difficulties they had with it, were characterized by the teachers as falling

within four areas of contention: Judaism’s exclusiveness as a people and tradition; the

Jewish people’s persecution complex and self-perceived victimhood; the tradition’s

irrational religious precepts and contravention of current mores; and the state of Israel as

problematically representing the Jewish people. Their negative experiences which were

interpreted by them along these lines, did contribute not only to the subjects’ rejection of

such a tradition as able to provide for their own source of spiritual fulfillment, but set up

Buddhism, with its universalism, rationality, and work on suffering, as something of a

polar opposite and ideal alternative.

Exclusiveness

By far the most shared difficulty with Judaism expressed by the subjects was its

apparent doctrine and practice of exclusivity. These teachers experienced such

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exclusivity not necessarily from the inside, as part of the Jewish club which held the rest

of the world under a certain suspicion, but primarily from the outside: the feeling of being

excluded from the very tradition they were born into. Such a feeling was also experienced

as their being excluded from sharing such a doctrine, of feeling of being other and alien

to such a particularist approach to religion. Mel describes the alienation he felt from

Judaism, which is largely of the second kind, of not being able to identify with a

constricted world view. His comments follow his description of him and his wife, who is

also Jewish, having gone to a dinner by his wife‘s old college roommate, who married a

hasidic rabbi and became very religious:

So, I went to dinner, and I just felt totally alienated. I just felt alienated, you know, like I just

can’t relate to this…(Me: What gave you this feeling?) Well, they were, I felt as if they were not

open, for one thing. You know, this is also part of Judaism, I felt, ahh, I would go to synagogue,

you know, and people, it was open, but it wasn’t really open…I just couldn’t (be accepted), my

world was just too expansive. And this is one of the criticisms I have about Jewish culture, is that

it is so Jewish (laughs), you know, it’s very exclusive…I was brought up in Los Angeles, where I

didn’t have a clan for survival.

Mel later makes the comparison between Jews and Japanese, in that they are both

closed cultures, and as close as you get to them, you will always be a foreigner, relegate

to a view from the outside. Though himself a Jew, Mel feels this among practicing or

self-identified Jews: his alienation is of a social and cultural dimension; his world view is

simply, for him, of a kind that he does not believe can be accepted by observant Jews.

Mel’s critique and alienation is unique in that he does not touch upon any of the

theoretical or theological issues and differences encapsulated by the two traditions,

Judaism and Buddhism, and which are often held as points of contention among their

respective adherents. These points which Mel ignores are, indeed, quite divisive for the

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other teachers.

Mel’s iconoclast hasidic soul needed a wider berth than what Judaism seemed to offer,

which ironically found expression in the very formalized and culturally defined practice

of Japanese Zen. I commented on this rather ironic turn, to which Mel replied that at the

center they were not practicing Japanese Zen, but rather American Zen. What I

understand from his statements and from his cultural criticism and rejection of Judaism is

that it was not strict religious form he objected to, but rather the attitude behind the form-

-that such a form can only be properly performed by “us”, those within the proper ethnic

or religious group. Despite its very culturally-specific forms, which the practice at the

Berkeley and San Francisco Zen centers is comprised of--including chanting in Japanese

and the sewing and wearing of traditional robes--the practice is open to all who simply

join in. Under the very distinct forms there is no discrimination about ethnicity, gender,

age, language or nationality--and that openness, which Mel spoke of, is uniquely

American. This openness, one which he feels absent in the traditional Jewish world, is

hence why he contends they practice American Zen, and not Japanese Zen, even though

on the surface much of it appears similar. Such equality has not, according to his sense,

penetrated deeply into the Jewish consciousness, even the American Jewish one, which

still struggles with divisive self-definitions over lines of religion, ethnicity, and

nationhood.

The exclusion from Judaism and Jewish community can be experienced in painful

events, as what happened to Blanche. She had very nominal involvement with the Jewish

community, and became Jewishly aware through her two eldest children who became

observant in their adult lives. He son is an orthodox Jew whose children study at religious

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seminaries, and his daughter is a Conservative Jew who is very involved in her

community. Despite living at the Zen Center, being ordained as a priest, and having a

non-Jewish husband, Blanche remained very close with her children, who often visit her

at the Center, as do their children. She came to know the inside-outs of kosher laws as

she learned to accommodate them during their visits, so that they could eat together. The

difficulty with Judaism arose painfully around the wedding of her daughter, who was to

have a traditional Jewish wedding:

I was there. My husband is not Jewish, and so he was not there. It’s difficult for him, the tribal

aspects of Judaism, it’s difficult for him. It was very difficult for him when his daughter married,

he could not accompany her, he could not be there in any way as her father at the wedding,

because he was not Jewish. And that was dreadful for him…that’s very painful. Yeah.

This event is a painful marker for Blanche reinforcing why she cannot be part of that

world. Her husband of almost sixty years has been her companion throughout all of her

involvement in Zen, having himself considered ordaining, and lives with her at the

Center. She describes his exclusion from their daughter’s wedding with repetitions of the

negatives: “difficult”, “dreadful” and “painful” define the emotional contours of the

episode. It is inconceivable and consequently tragic for them that he could not be

included in his own daughter’s wedding, a ceremony that is supposed to be a celebration

of family par excellence, as Jacqueline considered it and hence choose it. Blanche’s

criticism runs along a similar vein as Mel’s, in that the exclusion is largely cultural,

“tribal”, as the term she uses to describe her husband’s difficulty with Judaism, which is

clearly her own difficulty as well.

While Blanche and Mel find themselves personally rejected by Judaism, others initiate

the rejection of their original tradition. Where James takes issue with the “chosen people”

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doctrine of Judaism, Stephen rebels against the “group dictatorship”, as he calls it, that

demanded strict conformity within the observant world in which he grew up. These

theoretical issues contrast the cultural critiques of Blanche and Mel who touch upon their

own personal experience of alienation and rejection from their Judaism. Stephen

describes his “deep disgust, it was quite strong, I use the word advisably, a real disgust.

Because I felt that there was something great in religion and it had become totally

contaminated by what I saw at the time.” This disgust was his rejecting of Judaism, not

Judaism’s rejection of him. The sense of alienation arising from a sense of personal

rejection by one’s own people and tradition as expressed by Blanche and Mel does not

allow for much room for reintegration. The pain of rejection has closed the door. Where

the rejection occurs on the side of the teacher, room for reconciliation exists. Stephen has

been very involved in Jewish practice, especially following his major epiphany on the

mountain, and James celebrates certain Jewish holidays with his family. Mel and

Blanche, despite the former’s penchant for hasidism and the later’s observant children,

found it impossible to gain reentry into the club they were excluded from.

Victimhood

The joke of the Jews as professional sufferers, which was raised at the beginning of

the previous chapter on suffering in the quote by Amaro, becomes here a much more

serious negative quality that repulses many of the teachers from an identification with

Judaism. James summarizes this attitude and the reaction to it:

It just seemed like a lot of, to be honest, persecution complex and self-fulfilling prophecy: why is

everyone against us, it’s us against the world--not to diminish what Jews had gone through

throughout history, but I began to see at that time somehow there’s a dynamic there. The identity

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of being the victim, and I just didn’t want to be the victim anymore.

American Jewish Buddhist teachers can be seen has having some of the same reactions to

Judaism and Jews that the original pioneers in modern Israel, the founders of the

kibbutzim, expressed: the desire to no longer be the weak, helpless ghetto dweller, sheep

of the Holocaust. Whereas those pioneers viewed the solution in an independent state, the

Buddhist Jewish teachers turned to an alternative spirituality that, just like the philosophy

inherent in independent statehood, advocated the ability of the individual to release

himself from his binds.

This sense of victimhood and persecution complex which many of the teachers

experienced in their native Jewish environments linked up with the exclusiveness that the

perceived Jewish club created for itself. If it is the world against us, then we have to

protect ourselves from the outside. What was a ghetto mentality, which in actuality

served to preserve Jewish life and institutions during much of Jewish history, became

translated into a cultural identity persisting even when Jews were no longer excluded

from their society, such as in contemporary America and England. The existence of

perceived Jewish victimhood, which became a source of repugnance for these teachers, is

a unique feature of the Diaspora experience. A person such as Jacob, born and raised in

Israel, shared none of these feelings towards such attitudes of Jewish victimhood, which

did not exist in the Judaism he was acquainted with. Israel has purged itself of the Jewish

self-perception of victimhood, which instead was sublimated into a national self-

perception which maintained an aggressive awareness of its separateness from the world

of other nations (put crudely, it’s us and them, and they‘re against us).

Stephen sounds like a young kibbutznik when he, describing his adolescent rejection,

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exclaims, “I saw it as control, in a very simple way, which was that afraid people need

religion, need God because of being afraid. Young people like me weren’t afraid of life,

would seize life with both arms, didn’t need religion.” He is not the new Jew, as the

Israeli pioneer would describe himself, but rather the new man who is free of such a

religious identity. If Judaism, in the perspectives of those who left it, became insular

when faced with its existential fears, then Buddhism seemed to offer a way to unpack that

conditioning and face those fears without seclusion. Chodron explains such peeling away

when she responded to the reporters in Israel, asking in essence, what is it that makes you

you anyway?

It was Chodron and Jacqueline who made the connection of the Judaism of

victimhood with the awareness of the Holocaust--an awareness which has become

imprinted upon modern Jewish consciousness. Whereas Jacqueline made reference to the

Holocaust in relation to the suffering she experienced in her family situation, as outlined

in the previous chapter, Chodron connects what she calls a Holocaust mentality to the

type of Judaism that she removes herself from. This mentality, of intense fear of renewed

persecution and accentuated existential insecurity, she identifies as the source of her

rejection:

I really rejected growing up with an identity of persecution. My identity being formed about

being part of a persecuted people. I did not want to grow up with that identity…I felt as a

minority within the Jewish community in America because I didn’t agree with its values. Because

this persecution mentality was not coming from the outside. I didn’t learn that from the rest of

America. It was the Jewish community who tried to inculcate me with this idea of you are a part

of a persecuted minority. So it was that part of the Jewish community that I was rejecting, not the

American community…I mean, I have, I often have a really different perspective, because my

view, I think the Holocaust feeds a lot of what’s going on. You know, and that the Holocaust is

sooo alive in Israel. And it feeds, it’s like the Jews never healed from the Holocaust. There was

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no time to heal. And there was no way to heal, you know.

The common theme of the rejection of being part of a self-perceived persecuted

minority, of being the perennial victim, Chodron points to as originating in the Holocaust.

That the Holocaust was so terrible and inconceivable makes it a black background that

comes to the fore in these attitudes she, as well as the other Diaspora teachers, find so

objectionable. In Jacqueline’s case the unspeakable, the dark cloud of the suppressed and

unspoken--“unprocessed” as she puts it--memory of the Holocaust, hovered within the

family consciousness, imbuing it with a tangible sense of suffering. For Chodron this

heavy impression is experienced on the communal level; as she expresses, it was that part

of the Jewish community, of its collective emotional and physical scars of the terrible

abuse of the Holocaust, that she refused to accept as her inheritance.

The Holocaust mentality, whether internalized on the personal, familial, or communal

level, is resoundly rejected. Both women consciously chose a path of healing that torn

identity, by in large by completely replacing it with another practice. After Mel and

Blanche, it was these two who maintained the least connection with Judaism or Jewish

practice; the others, with less of an acute awareness of this difficult victim mentality, are

able to find more points of entry into the tradition. Such a reentry into parts of Judaism is

not without a price, as Stephen reveals in his epic struggle up the physical, emotional, and

spiritual mountain. Though not reentering Judaism as part of a people or tradition, Mel’s

individual Judaism, his personal hasidism, is won at the cost of feeling connected to any

other Jewish communities or practitioners. Seth’s increasing involvement in Judaism has

tolled the death knell of several intimate relationships with non-Jews. Like the biblical

Jacob wrestling with his angel, significant transformation, the proverbial taking of a new

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name while still maintaining the old (even though having received the name Israel, he is

still called Jacob throughout the remainder of the Bible), is a passage traversed typically

through struggle, as some of the aforementioned epitomize. Such struggle will be the

topic of the later chapter on plot dialectics.

Irrationality

The rejection of the traditional model of a theistic system, of an almighty God running

the show, commanding obedience and observance of strict rules, is uniformly rejected by

the teachers as simply not corresponding with their experience or sense of reality. In

short, it just didn’t make sense to them, and the perceived irrationality of much of

Judaism became accentuated in comparison to Buddhism’s rational appeal to inquiry and

investigation, led by the Buddha’s own injunction not to accept his teachings on faith, but

by testing it out for oneself. James represents this objection to Judaism in his following

comments:

Seeing things in a much bigger picture. Just seeing this little speck called planet earth hurtling

through space, as one little blip, and this huge cosmos, and this idea that we’re the only show in

town, and that God is busy there saying, we’ve got to support these guys and these (other) guys

are the bad guys, it just didn’t make any sense. So it was like, what is this, some strange charade,

you know, just a very limited view of reality. And on top of it, God was something to be feared,

putting the fear of God into you, you know, ‘he’s a God-fearing man’, yeah, that wasn’t my

version of God.

A spiritual path which relied on fear to ensure correct behavior, and divided the world

between “us” and “them”, whether a correct appraisal of Judaism or not, simply did not

provide convincing emotional or intellectual reasons for its pursuit.

This rejection of a perceived narrowing and constriction of the spiritual life into a very

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particular system is echoed by Stephen whose reaction, coming from a much more

observant, informed, and constrained background than James’, is colored with anger:

I was quite angry, I was quite disgusted. What disgusted me was why people were so insecure as

to take on the form and the recipe book for a kind of living, when there is a spiritual reality so

vast and wide, so clear and interesting and flexible. A minimal awareness of that came through

my reading of Alan Watts, and drugs, and all that, and my anger continued through the years from

the age 15 onward because I felt that anger towards such a narrow view of life…Everything done

by setting rules. That is what Judaism had come to mean to me. In order to find my own values I

threw the lot out. You can say there was quite a lot of anger there.

Where James’ is more of an intellectual rejection, Stephen’s is fiercely emotional; the

underlying reaction being of to an irrational constriction of the spiritual vision is

common. James takes issue with the theology, rejecting the God of the Jews; Stephen

rejects the authoritarianism and conformity of the religious community; their ideas of a

spiritual life resisted, in their appraisal, such reduction.

Seth, meanwhile, has his rejection of Judaism triggered by more specific presentations

within the system which did not accord with his own beliefs:

When I was seven and a half I became a vegetarian…ahh, and just after my bar mitzvah I started

reading the Torah, and started seeing how it treated animals, how it treated women, started seeing

the God I know existed was not out there, was not this king sitting in heaven. Was seeing how it

was this sort of, in all of the archetypal stories, sort of the father, whether it be my father or the

father that was being created as God, umm, was all a lie, just sort of crumbled before my eyes and

then it all wasn’t what I thought it to be.

The Judaism of the Torah did not correspond with the mores that Seth was guided by, nor

with the type of God he knew. By relying on his experience to inform his spiritual

choices, an experience that carried a broken image of a father, his connection to the

tradition crumbled, causing him as a youth to exclaim, “by the age of 15, I wasn’t Jewish,

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everybody said you are Jewish, you don’t have a choice, I didn’t like that, what do you

mean, because my parents were Jewish I’m Jewish?” It took a ten-year hiatus for him to

begin the process of reinventing his relationships to both his biological father and his

archetypal Father.

What crumbled for Chodron upon her first exposure to Buddhism was the

conditioning that she had received from her Jewish environment about family, which led

her to marry, and which, after her initial exposure to Buddhism and her intense

involvement, caused her to abandon that path completely. Choosing the ordained life and

divorcing her husband, the family was not seen as compatible with her spiritual path, nor

did her own family view her as compatible with their world view--the result was their

painful refusal to communicate with her for over three years. Just such conditioning

continues to rise to the surface, which she recounted as happening during Jewish family

events she on occasion attends, like a Passover dinner:

I can watch there this old conditioning come up, of how I was taught that there was this ideal, you

know, and the ideal was that, you know, as a woman, you find a nice Jewish boy, good looking

one, who’s, you know, and they’re all good looking because they’re Jewish. You know, you’re

taught how to spot a Jewish boy from the non-Jewish boy, at a very early age. (laugh)

Such conditioning is obviously ridiculous in Chodron’s perspective, despite it serving a

group purpose. It is incompatible with her world view as a Tibetan Buddhist nun, and

unlike others like Seth, Stephen, and James, who participate in select Jewish holidays as

part of their own and their families’ lives, Chodron’s participation is the opportunity for

Buddhist reflection and deconstruction of her old conditioning.

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The Difficulty with Israel

Most of the Jewish Buddhist teachers have had some experience with Israel, either by

living there, as in the case of two of them, or by having visited, as in the case of several

of the others. Of those who fall under these categories, all save one (Jacob, the only

native Israeli), reported negative impressions and experiences around Israel. As the

Jewish State, and as the state that comes to represent not only Jews but also Judaism to a

certain degree by virtue of the country‘s concentration of Jews and its amplified visibility

in the media, these impressions tend to have affected the teachers’ relationships with the

tradition. Their difficulty with Israel, for most, is less responsible, on the whole, for their

aversion to parts or all of Judaism than the other more pervasive factors outlined here--

the perceived exclusiveness, victimhood, and irrationality of the tradition. The negative

relationship to Israel was realized more in adulthood, whereas the other factors hark back

to childhood conditioning and grievances. Still, for those with experiences and memories

around the country, they were recounted as meaningful in negative ways to their process

within and without Judaism.

Stephen’s case is interesting in that he has chosen to live in Israel, a choice

encouraged by his Israeli wife, while still maintaining a deep ambivalence and discomfort

with his adopted home. He is invested in Judaism and has been exploring it since the time

of his Nepal breakthrough, while finding it actually more difficult to do in Israel due to

the reasons he expresses here:

For me, Jerusalem is full of sad attachment. I’m totally uninterested in the State of Israel, the

Jewish State, I don’t think it’s healthy (laugh)….I feel that sometimes it inhibits me as a Jew,

being here. There is so much attachment, so many symbols here. I feel it’s very confusing. For

example, attachments to Jerusalem, attachments to land, attachments to graves, and especially

attachments to history. All those I feel prevent a deeper experience of life. They also give

25

something, I appreciate that they give something to work with. There are difficult issues. I

sometimes feel I could be freer as a Jew away from Israel. To be more clear about an essential

type of Judaism, a core experience without all the complications that go with the attachments to

history and land. Of course, they are stimulations as well as attachments.

Such ambivalence creates a complicated relationship not only to Israel, but to the very

Judaism Stephen has been struggling to recreate a relationship with. These difficulties,

the attachments he rejects, simultaneously act as stimulations for a certain spirit of the

land. He finds himself thrown within place of extremes and extreme divisions, spanning

peoples, religions, ethnicities, economic classes, and even geography and weather, the

combination of which necessarily creates a sense of confusion. Out of that confusion, the

attachment to symbols and identities is a natural reaction, he observes, in the hope of

securing some stability. This tendency becomes exaggerated when the insecurity is

experienced on the most basic existential level--in a country whose citizens are not

certain about their very survival from one month to the next, the need to attach to

something in a frightened iron grip is irrepressible. What Stephen has expressed is the

dilemma of any sensitive and conscious person living under such pressure in Israel; the

price, however, of a security borne from attachment is “a deeper experience of life”, and

it is one he refuses to pay. He chooses Tillich’s and Fromm’s holy insecurity, which takes

refuge and discovers a deeper security in the unattached spiritual life.

A negative connection between Judaism and Israel was reinforced for Stephen as a

child in his London orthodox Jewish upbringing. One particular event was the straw

breaker that compelled him to break with Jewish practice at the age of fourteen:

I remember going to one Yom Kippur Kol Nidrei. The rabbi was giving a talk, and it was a call

for money, of course, for Israel, the usual. And then, they were giving out cards, it was orthodox,

so no one was writing, but you could put a little peg inside the hole. And it said 25 pounds, and

26

there was a picture of one gun. One hundred pounds (laugh) and there was a picture of one little

tank, 1000 pounds and a picture of some military rocket…I was fourteen, so that was in 1960. So,

ah, you know, it was the final straw kind of thing, I couldn’t take any more of this. So basically I

stopped keeping any religious practice.

This event represents all the aspects of Judaism Stephen rejects: its materialism, its

authoritarianism, its militarism, its attachments to place and symbol, and its spiritual

hypocrisy. These difficult aspects became transplanted to Israel, which is experienced by

him as exhibiting many of the same faults. Stephen’s relationships both with Judaism and

Israel, which are intimately connected in his life, are redeemed by his redefinition of

both: the difficulties in Israel are mitigated by his living in a small, rural location without

much of the pressures of the main society, and his Judaism is balanced and informed by

his Dharma practice.

Jacqueline’s experience with Israel occurred en route to India, and can be summarized

in three words: Jews are pushy. That was the gist of the experience she chose to

remember and recall, and it has impaired her view of both Jews and Israel. She recounts

the origin of this negative impression:

I spent two weeks there, and I’ll, ahh, I’ll tell you my experience in Israel. So, um, I was in

Switzerland, and I was in the airport, and even before I got on the plane, I was horrified.

Everyone’s with their cart, I’m taking El Al, and they’re pushing! Everyone had a seat, everyone

could get on the plane, and I had never experienced this before. They’re pushing! I’m like, oh my

goodness, this is really neurotic. And the entire time I was in Israel, people are pushing…any

time I was in the Jewish section, they were pushing. And so, I thought, this is just bizarre. So I’ll

leave it at that.

Where did Jacqueline go during her two weeks in Israel? What did she see, who did she

meet? What about the food, the weather, the holy sites, the foreigness, the Jewish effect?

Even Chodron, who visited Israel in her maroon robes, was rapt by her identification with

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the Jews here. The intensity of Jacqueline’s negative experience dominates her memory,

so that it is what she receives, not just from Israel, but from Judaism: “any time I was in

the Jewish section, they were pushing”. Judaism and Israel, equated here, are neurotic

and bizarre in their behaviorisms and attitudes, which is something she’ll just “leave it at

that” and move on to her adopted Dharma practice; she fully embraces it in the shadow of

neurotic Judaism. This condensation of memory into a focused point of discomfort leaves

little room for the type of ambiguity that characterizes Stephen’s relationship.

The Good Times: Positive Jewish Experiences

The final section of this chapter looks at the variations of the positive experiences of

Judaism that the Jewish Buddhist teachers recounted as part of their life journey, and can

be seen as influencing their relationship to Buddhism. Such good times can be divided

roughly into three categories: those which occurred during childhood or youth, those

which were encountered during adulthood and after identification with Buddhism, and

those few which represent a conscious attempt at the integration of Judaism and

Buddhism in practice and mutual understanding. The majority of positive Jewish

experiences occurred during adulthood, which is indicative of several factors. First, with

the teacher already entrenched in Buddhist practice, which strongly advocates the

realization and removal of biases and negative conditioning through meditative

techniques, she may find herself enabled to view Judaism as purged of some of the

difficult past baggage which created aversion. Second, identification with and

commitment to another spiritual tradition can actually make the involvement with

Judaism more possible, as it can be approached from the stable ground of an established

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practice--there is not competition or threat, as Judaism is not seen as an option, but rather

as a complimentary interest. This is to say that Judaism is not perceived as a competing

system, but encountered from the vantage point of a religious and spiritual dialogue.

Lastly, Buddhism in the West has self-consciously drawn upon for verification and

inspiration sources from all the religions available in the pluralistic environment of the

West, especially America--it is common in a single Dharma talk by a Zen or vipassana,

though less so Tibetan, teacher to hear quotations from sufis poets, Hindu gurus,

Christian saints, and Hasidic masters, with perhaps a word or two slipped in from the

Buddha. In such a pantheon of wisdom traditions, Judaism finds its place as an equal

option, or consumer product, among the world religions as a complement and even

support to Buddhadharma.

Childhood Experiences

One of the more striking features in the early life stories of some of the teachers is a

strong urge for spirituality and practice expressed at a very young age. Judaism was the

only outlet available at that time, and it often served as the initial midwife to more

intensive Buddhist practice--after, of course, a break with the former for a significant

period of time. The expression that Judaism took at that tender age was most commonly

in the form of Sunday school and synagogue attendance. This urge for a spiritual outlet

was expressed by some of the teachers (e.g. Chodron, Jacqueline and James) in their

childhood by their own request for Jewish education. Their early self-motivated

involvement reveals their strong instinctive need for a spiritual path which was not

necessarily a Jewish one, and as such is later replaced in its entirety with Buddhism. The

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early passion for Judaism is transplanted with equal, though more mature, enthusiasm to

their adopted traditions.

James expresses this early desire in his recollections:

I was actually completely into it (Judaism) when I was growing up…Ah, I was hungry for the

spiritual. I was into it, I was hungry, but not, ahh, getting my needs met…I was hungry and I

didn’t get what I was looking for. I can remember very clearly, I used to go to junior congregation

every Saturday, at the Jewish center in Jackson Heights. And I was going because I wanted to

go…I was…asking my father to drop me off at the synagogue. Which he did, you know, he

would drive me.

This hunger, as for the others and as his later life choices show, was not satisfied with

this early exposure to a spiritual path, a Jewish path, which was all he had for the time

being. Chodron, when explaining her strong faith in Buddhism and unwavering devotion

to the practice, refers suddenly to her childhood interest, “It’s interesting, cause as a kid, I

had that desire for a spiritual life. And I sought it in Judaism. Yeah…I asked to go to

Sunday school. A kid who wanted to go to Sunday school! Well, when I went to Sunday

school, what I learned there made me realize this wasn’t the path for me.” What is

presented to young Cherry (now Chodron) may have eliminated the possibility of

Judaism as her path, but it did not dampen her spiritual thirst which, after years of

dormancy following her Jewish experiment, burst through upon meeting with Buddhism.

Jacqueline’s interest as a young child convinced her whole family to join a congregation,

led by her passion for involvement, “I remember very distinctly, that I had to go to

Sunday school. That I was going to Sunday school. I was very young.” Jacqueline’s

strong will for practice also suffered a dormant period, to be rediscovered years later in

full force during her first meditation retreat in India.

The stronger the will was expressed in early childhood for a spiritual outlet, taken as

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Judaism, the more unwaveringly was a commitment to Buddhist practice expressed in

later life. This is not to say that the other teachers did not themselves discover and

develop strong commitments to their Buddhist practice, but that their process was not

described in as immediate terms as by those with early childhood spiritual passions. The

people who had strong desires as children for what was even at that early time defined as

spiritual practice, and was given expression in Jewish outlets, described their meeting

with Buddhism in the strongest terms. These occurred as epiphanies, which take on the

tenor of variations of conversion-like experiences.

It would have been impossible that the intense desire of these children for a spiritual

life would have been satisfied, as they matured, by the standard answers and offerings of

Sunday school Judaism, yet that is the extent of what they were exposed to. Such

insufficiency, which is often realized as one learns within the system with more intensity

around one’s bar or bat mitzvah, is a result of a standardized religious approach not being

able to answer the thirst of individual seekers. If the spirit and the presence of inspiring

rabbis had been available, several of the teachers commented in passing that they

wouldn’t be teaching Buddhism right now. Mel mentioned that when he looked for

teachers of hasidism, he couldn’t find anyone interested “in that stuff”. James reflected

upon this as he described the bat mitzvah of family member: “I just went to my cousin’s

daughter’s bat mitzvah…her service was the most spiritual service I had ever heard. And

the rabbi was a woman…it was a kind of Jewish renewal thing, and I went up to them

and said, if I had had a bar mitzvah like that, I probably would still be in synagogue.”

Seth indicated a similar critique of the institutional religion that Judaism had become,

which failed to meet so many of its people’s needs. Several rabbis who knew Seth

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complained to him about teaching Buddhist meditation, arguing that they needed him in

the Jewish community. He answered them: “I said to those guys, you know, Buddhism is

the best thing to happen to Judaism. It’s going to make the rabbis look at Judaism and

find some practices that are going to speak to people.”

Seth‘s own childhood experience offers a different example from the above teachers

who embraced Judaism early on, only to reject it later. They are similar in that he rejected

the Judaism of his bar mitzvah and its teachings, which is around the same time that some

of the others who had some Jewish education began to remove themselves, but he

rediscovered and began to reclaim in earnest a Judaism which was, in fact, founded on

his early childhood experiences. The internal difference between Seth and the others is

that upon feeling this spiritual thirst as a child, he took the reigns into his own five year

old’s hands, and did not rely upon what the institution had to offer--which is exactly what

the others ended up rejecting. Seth describes his having “at the age of five or six, a

relationship with God, not the God up there but in here (pointing to his heart), and having

a daily prayer, not from a siddur (Jewish daily prayer book) but just my own nightly

prayers to God.” The child does not ask to go to Sunday school (which he later does in

any event) but seeks his own answers and expressions of this yearning for the spiritual.

The fact that he does not immediately turn to outside authorities, the defined responses by

the organized religion, but seeks his own relationship with God, ensures not only that this

relationship will endure the disappointments that he faces later on when he rejects

Judaism, but that it will emerge more fully later on as the adult who strives to consciously

integrate his two traditions.

A significant variation of the childhood experience with Judaism is the social-based

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one, which for many people made the deepest impressions. Blanche did not have any

childhood exposure to Jewish religious practices, or have any inclination to them, but her

sense of community was built around her parent’s synagogue and its rabbi:

The community I knew were people around Temple Emmanuel, the rabbi’s wife and my

grandmother were best friends, so that I hung out at the rabbi’s house often enough. I think there

was no Jewish education back then, that I know of, at the time…It was fine, you know, we sang

in the choir and umm, I loved Rabbi Gutfield, and they were sort of extended family for us.

The impression that this family rabbi and close friend, adopted family member, made on

Blanche gave her an idea of what a spiritual teacher should be, but did not, however,

inform her about Judaism as a spiritual option. The community lasted as long as she was

within its environment--singing in the choir was a fun group activity, and the rabbi’s

family was as her own extended family, but the next time she encounters an inspiring

teacher who emulates some of the qualities of this rabbi she dearly loved it was in the

form of a Japanese Zen master by the name of Suzuki roshi. Similarly in Jacqueline’s

story of her youth, after her early childhood spiritual thirst and Sunday school

participation, her connection to Judaism is revealed as contextually-based, in that when

she leaves the context she also leaves the involvement and community: “I was in a pretty

much of a Jewish neighborhood, and then my high school, which was a pretty large high

school, there was a large Jewish population. And there were Jewish sororities, I was in a

Jewish sorority, and then at college I was also. So I was always within a Jewish social

group.” That group context, when removed, does not provide for any continued

identification with Judaism: Jacqueline’s adolescent Judaism was group-defined, and

when the group disappeared, so did the Judaism. It is selectively recovered as an adult, as

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her choice for a Jewish wedding and providing of a bat mitzvah for her daughters, but

only to fill in for the values where Buddhism was deemed by her as lacking.

Apart from Judaism being experienced in childhood as the outlet for an early spiritual

thirst or as the expression of a communal context, it provided for Chodron an ethical and

moral backbone that she expresses would not have been realized otherwise. Her

description of her Jewish childhood conditioning is revealing:

When I look back…this is one reason I’m very grateful for my Jewish upbringing. Cause my

Jewish upbringing wasn’t just the persecuted mentality, my Jewish upbringing was this thing of

sticking up, that everybody’s equal, and that persecution and racism and any form of trashing

somebody or discriminating against somebody because they’re different, that’s not right. That’s

not the way the world should be, and I don’t want to contribute to the world being that way. And I

think, in looking back, cause I’ve tried to trace this back, I think part of it must have been

something from previous lives, but the conditioning I got as a child from my Jewish upbringing

watered those seeds. And that’s something I’m very grateful to my Jewish upbringing for.

Because if I had grown up, you know, as a WASP (white anglo-saxon Protestant) those seeds

may never have been watered.

Chodron’s positive experience of Judaism in childhood is primarily ethical. She is

provided with a moral universe, where ideally all people are created equal and should be

treated as such. This ethic did not, in her case, come from Jewish schooling or synagogue

attendance, but from her parents, which she relates earlier in the narrative as having

provided in their examples what she understood as a moral Jewish upbringing. That she

identifies it as a Jewish upbringing, even though she did not have a Jewish framework

imposed upon her in any formal way, reveals the childhood Jewish identity as composed

of largely intuitive factors. These conscious and unconscious factors are, as described

here, construed of early spiritual, communal, or ethical components.

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Positive Jewish Experiences in Adulthood

The experiences of Judaism as a Buddhist adult from a Jewish background are as

varied as the teachers themselves; the common thread, however, of these experiences is

that they are found as occurring in isolation, an event in itself, and not as part of a

patterned or more general return to Judaism. A positive Jewish experience, like James

attending the inspiring bat mitzvah of his cousin’s daughter, comes generally too little too

late--it does not convince the teacher, who has a life built around Buddhism, to begin

exploring Jewish practice as a path. The one exception to this is Seth, whose formative

positive Jewish experience was in the form of an epiphany, which, as the previous

chapter explained, has the power of causing a radical change in the course of one’s life.

For the rest, however, the positive Jewish experiences they narrated arose out more out of

random circumstance, and were then interpreted in a way as to supplement their already

firmly established Buddhist practice.

Judaism as a Supplement to Buddhism

This idea of having Judaism supplement Buddhism is best exemplified by Jacqueline’s

choosing to have a traditional Jewish wedding, where all of her colleagues from the

meditation center were in attendance. She explains her choice:

I had a Jewish wedding because the Jewish faith honors marriage…Everyone from IMS

came to my wedding. We had the whole thing, we had a Jewish wedding.” This value is

connected to the later decision she makes to send her children to Jewish Sunday school,

where they could receive some family values, which, as she was quoted as saying in the

previous section, Buddhism has a hard time doing because the role model is of the

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Buddha who left his family. She feels Buddhism lacks the value of the family and

marriage, and this is what she imports from Judaism. It is not the Jewish practices and

path per se that she brings into her life, even though she does undergo the rituals of a

Jewish marriage and has her children learn and participate in a Jewish rite of passage, but

it is more the values of family that they express which she supplements her Buddhism

with. All the while, her Buddhist practice remains as firm and central as ever.

Chodron’s earlier Jewish experience of feeling as an outsider in her society returns to

her as an adult, even as an ordained Tibetan nun. The difference here is that it is this

experience which helps her as a nun; what was once a source of discomfort becomes a

positive quality. She describes this dynamic:

I found, becoming a Buddhist, that Jewish identity has affected how I am as a Buddhist. Okay.

For example, I see, like when I travel, I wear my robes, I shave my head, I don’t look like

everybody. I don’t even notice it. I don’t even notice that people stare at me. Sometimes I’d be

with a friend and they’ll say, do you realize that people are looking at you? Oh no, I didn’t, you

know. It’s like, I feel totally comfortable wearing my robes. There are other people who I see,

who grew up, you know, WASP, white anglo-saxon Protestant, they are so self-conscious about

their robes. Yeah. They feel so self-conscious looking the least bit different from mainstream

America. For me, it was like no problem.

Chodron goes from being an uncomfortable outsider as a Jew to being a quite

comfortable outsider as a Buddhist. She perceives the naturalness with which she

experiences this identity of the other in positive terms, and as such her Jewish

background serves to inform her Buddhist present as a positive experience: the outsider is

redeemed in a new role. She is “totally comfortable” wearing her robes, being on the

outside of mainstream America, which her non-Jewish colleagues painfully do not. In an

ironic turn, that which she rejected as part of her identity, the sense of being a persecuted

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outsider, a Jewish victim, part of an exclusive club, is exactly what enables her to accept

her marginal status as a Tibetan Buddhist nun within American society.

Reinterpretation of Judaism and Reinforcement of Buddhism

In addition to Judaism supplementing Buddhist practice and identity, it can be

experienced as reinforcing Buddhist understandings and teachings. Judaism here is

experienced in a positive light as it is perceived in a Buddhist light--whether this retains it

as a Jewish experience, or transforms it into a Buddhist one with Jewish vocabulary, is

more of a religious question. It is the Buddhist framework of understanding which these

teachers view the world that allows them to reconsider Judaism and appreciate parts of it.

Blanche experiences this in her reading, when she suddenly realizes there is a universal

aspect to Judaism which she had presumed was the territory of Buddhism:

I’d been reading some Zen stories, and I ran across Martin Buber’s Tales of the Hasidim. And I

said to myself, that’s a Zen story! And I was really very pleased because, it just meant to me that

human wisdom was human wisdom, and nobody had a corner on it. If people deeply consider

how to live in the world, they will come to pretty similar conclusions.

This is not so much a Jewish experience, but an example of how Judaism and Jewish

teachings are viewed as Buddhist equivalents, and then taken to redeem Judaism as a

valid spiritual path in the world. Judaism is viewed from the side of Buddhism, not from

the side of Judaism, which is understandable as it is committed Buddhists who are doing

the considering.

Jacqueline does a similar reinterpretation of the Jewish holidays which her former

husband reintroduced to her as containing Buddhist meanings: “I discovered Passover

when I had gotten married, you know, my husband said, you clean house and you really

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purify and it’s a lot like meditation. And then, we actually did it ourselves. Oh, this is a

really great holiday, oh yeah, this is a great holiday. And then, Yom Kippur I think is

related because of purification through fasting, and so forth.” Unlike Blanche, Jacqueline

steps momentarily into the realm of Jewish practice, but as interpreted along Buddhist

lines. Her designation of Buddhist meanings to her Jewish experiences does more to

reinforce the former as meaningful and able to transform even traditional Jewish

practices. In such an approach, Judaism cannot stand on its own.

Blanche indicated this dependency on Buddhist meaning when, upon having a bit of a

tiff with her son over his strict observance of kosher laws (she used the wrong sponge for

dishes, which he then said he would have to throw out), she voiced her frustration. Her

son replied, “But mom, it’s just Jewish mindfulness practice!” to which she said in the

narrative, “Well, he had me there.” By reinterpreting the Jewish practice according to

Buddhist meanings, she was compelled to accept its idiosyncrasy, which she may not

have been able had such an approach not been available. For the traditional Jew, the

kosher laws are kept because, first and foremost, they are seen as divine commandments,

and if anything is intended to be mindful of by their observance it is the presence of God

and the fulfillment of His Law. This interpretation of Jewish practice from the side of

Judaism, is obviously not accessible to the committed Buddhist, who must then

reinterpret Judaism through the lens of Dharma.

Cultural and Intellectual Attraction

A variety of the adult Jewish experience is found to occur in the cultural and

intellectual areas, in study and the arts, which is exemplified in Jacob’s life. His interest

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and involvement in Jewish sources occurred after his return from Japan, where he

completed his Ph.D. studies, and at the same time where his practice of Zen had received

the strengthening of a monastic stay. It was after this intense period of immersion in

another culture and tradition that he dove into Jewish sources. For several years after his

return Jacob studied texts of kabbalah, hasidut, and Jewish mysticism, which he read and

compared with Zen. He approached this with academic intensity:

I started to become interested in a serious way very slowly. I went to talks about kabbalah, and

when I arrived in Israel, I dived into kabbalah. Really. Very deeply. I studied a lot. I studied a

lot… I studied a lot of kabbala. A huge amount…A huge amount of the writings of Gershom

Shalom on kabbalah, and I worked throughout three, four years, a huge amount of kabbalah.

This immersion into Jewish spiritual study is more, to be fair, than just an academic

interest or a foray into comparative religious studies. The study, for Jacob, is an

experience, a Jewish experience, which he, naturally, relates in a comparative way to his

understanding and experience of Zen. His study of Judaism began, no less, in Japan

when, alongside his studies and practice of Buddhism, he worked for the JCC (Jewish

Community Center) of Tokyo, teaching Hebrew at the Sunday school to the children of

Jewish businessmen and diplomats. He recounts his introduction to Judaism in Japan:

I went to the Jewish holidays at the JCC, and there was a library there, a big library of Judaism. I

started to read books of Judaism, for the first time in my life I read some books seriously about

Judaism. I don’t mean like the classes at school on Bible and a little of the culture I learned at

school, but really to read about Judaism. The first time, and then I started to read more and more

on Judaism.

The main attraction is to the library, the big library. Books for Jacob are an experience,

and he gains an experience of Judaism through his reading. He bridges the traditional gap

between the armchair traveler and the field explorer, between the university scholar and

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the practitioner. This gap is closed not, in the case of Judaism, by his both studying and

practicing, as is the case with his Buddhism, but by his redefining what study is.

Intellectual and spiritual study converge into one experiential sphere.

Study as a spiritual experience is, not coincidentally, a basic tenet of the Judaism of

the yeshiva, the religious seminary. Full days are spent in the study and discussion of the

ancient texts, especially Talmud, and there is the rule held that one is not to be disturbed

in such study even for the times of communal prayer. The orthodox prayer book has the

following verses among its morning prayers:

These are the things without measure--

Leaving the corners of your fields (for the poor to take the produce)

Good deeds, and the study of Torah.

These things a man benefits from in this world and gains merit in the next;

… the study of Torah is the greatest of all.

Jacob in his own way continues this age-old tradition of the study of holy texts for its

own sake, for “the sake of heaven”, which for him is an integral part of his spiritual path.

This path integrates these Jewish sources into his presentation of Zen, as he frequently

refers to them to illuminate points as he teaches his community, drawing on kabbalah,

hasidut, as well as modern Hebrew writers such as Shai Agnon. Jacob’s process is not

dissimilar to Jacqueline’s and Blanche’s reinterpretation of Judaism according to

Buddhist understandings, but that his depth of study and immersion in Jewish sources has

leveled the playing field, so to speak, to a certain degree. Judaism and Buddhism are

compared and contrasted more than simply having the former reinterpreted by the later--

he emphasized the points of connection in his teaching, while not disregarding or fudging

the areas of contrast.

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Emotional pull

The experience of Judaism as an adult can often spark strong emotional reactions--

negative, as was shown in the last section, as well as positive and heartful. Mel speaks

about this in relation to hearing Hebrew chanting: “I liked chanting Japanese, much better

than in English. (Me: it could have been in Hebrew) Yeah, could have been. That would

have been good too. (Laugh) I think chanting Hebrew is wonderful, it always makes me

cry.” Hebrew is attractive not just because it has a foreign musical lilt conducive to

religious chanting, like Japanese, but there is a deep emotionality in Mel’s experience of

it. It would be spurious to identify the origins of such feeling, which come from the same

place as his emotional identification with the Life Magazine rabbis--suffice to say a

deeply intuitive and subconscious place that has little or no role in Mel’s daily life as the

abbot of a major Zen center. He simply becomes deeply emotional when aspects of

Judaism are encountered, which has no identifiable cause from his early life that was

totally lacking in anything Jewish.

Another teacher who has had equally strong emotional reactions to parts of Judaism

offers his own reasons. Seth began rediscovering Judaism shortly after he became

involved seriously in Buddhism, and explains his growing involvement in Judaism in

metaphorical terms borrowed from his Buddhist teacher Jack Kornfield. The later used

the image of the well to describe all religions as wells reaching down into the same

source:

I had denial in the fact that I hadn’t been delving into Judaism. In the metaphor I then took (from

I would take it a little further and say, you know, the well that we grew up with is usually the one

that is most polluted. It usually has the most muck and scum on the top, and it’s in some ways,

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the one that our great grandfathers drank from. It’s the one that we were, you know, that we drank

from at our mother’s breasts, and we heard the songs from in the womb. And in some ways it

goes the deepest, or if it’s not the deepest, it’s the one that sort of nourishes us the most. Even

though it’s the most polluted and we have a lot of reticence to and we really get annoyed by the

people who are sitting around that well. And ahh there’s many of us immediately don’t want to go

to that well, and we have associations with it…I’m happy with the well I’m at, I’m happy with

the Buddhist well, and there’s a piece of me that didn’t want to do that. And say, if it’s really true,

you know, if it’s true that they all go to the same well, and it’s a very good reason that I should go

back to the one that I started with because it goes deeper.

In a twist of seemingly Talmudic logic, Seth takes the very image that his teacher used

to suggest the equality of all religions from a Buddhist standpoint, and uses it to become

aware of his need to return to his Jewish well, which for him runs deeper than the others.

This feeling of greater depth in the Jewish experience is unique to Seth among all the

teachers, and it is based on his appreciation of his Jewish genealogy: it is the religion of

his mother, his grandfather, and his great grandfather, and, by extension, far beyond. He

does not compare the experience of Jewish and Buddhist practice, of, say, meditation and

prayer, to ascertain each one’s profundity as a spiritual practice. The fact that he is

viewing each tradition from different standpoints, the Buddhist from its effective practice

and the Jewish from its historical pull, means that they do not for him stand in

competition or contradiction. This dual approach has enabled him to pursue both

Buddhism Judaism in study and practice, to move for a period of time to Israel, and to

attempt to integrate his Judaism and Buddhism in a conscious way.

Integration of Judaism and Buddhism

This chapter ends with a brief consideration of some of the ways Judaism and

Buddhism are described by the teachers and being consciously integrated by them. I rely

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on their own descriptions of such integration, and in doing so I focus on the narratives of

Seth and Stephen, the two teachers who actively pursue Judaism in study and practice,

and thus have come to see it as a vital part of their spiritual path along with Buddhism.

While it is possible to locate Jewish experiences that are integrated in the lives of all of

the teachers, these are generally viewed, as described above, as supplemental,

reinterpreted, intellectual, or emotional, without ever becoming a significant element of

their own spiritual practice. What Seth and Stephen represent is a new model of

integration, that of within the realm of spiritual practice itself, where they use both

traditions’ practices to inform each other and give composition to their own unified path.

What they practice in their own lives ends up, by extension, being expressed in their

respective Buddhist communities: Seth uses Jewish stories and Biblical references as

often as Buddhist ones, and is careful to maintain retreats that are possible for an

observant Jew to attend (eg, with kosher food and respectful of the Sabbath laws);

Stephen holds Jewish Buddhist weekend retreats, which explore the contemplative sides

of both paths, on a regular basis, and the retreats held by his organization Tovana

provides separate food for those who observe kosher laws.

The process of integrating Judaism and Buddhism in the lives of these two teachers

can be described as organic, something which naturally grows out of their practice of

both. Stephen describes his process of integration, which I quote at length:

My Buddhist life is a way of gradually transforming the way my consciousness is working. My

Jewish life is a way of putting my house in order in my daily life. Adding one component to that,

which is the taste of sanctity. The idea of worship, prayer, and respect comes from Jewish life.

When I celebrate Shabbat I celebrate it as a Jew. Without any ceremonies from Buddhism. I

celebrate it as a Jew with the consciousness of Buddhist transformation that’s in there. It comes

out in a spontaneous way in that Jewish form. The form is Jewish and there are no artificial

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intentions to bring anything Buddhist into that form. But my Buddhist awareness comes in there.

For example, I might be saying kiddush (the blessing on the wine) on Friday night, and as I’m

reciting it, and I mention the Exodus from Egypt, I might experience an opening, a spaciousness.

It reminds me of feelings, or textures and senses. I might have a few moments of silence before

the kiddush. When I’m blessing the bread, I might do it in the Thich Nhat Hanh7 sense, that God

brought the bread into the world, and I feel it, feeling this connectedness of all things, a kind of

panoramic vision. I’m changed. This is without any artificial sense of what to do in a Buddhist

way. So I would say that my Jewish practice is just completely Jewish, but there are elements that

are transformed through Buddhist practice that come naturally out of me. It just comes naturally, I

wouldn’t say there is an intention to it.

The emphasis throughout his narration is on the naturalness of the process. He is not

trying to be a Jewish Buddhist or a Buddhist Jew, but in his experience of Judaism to

simply practice as a Jew with the awareness he has cultivated through his Buddhism. As

he defines it, the emergence of “Buddhist” understanding and meanings is a purely

spontaneous occurrence. He practices Judaism, he practices Buddhism, and as one person

on one path, his own spiritual narrative, they mingle and inform each other with spiritual

meaning. Any reinterpretation that occurs is not a conscious endeavor to render Judaism

more palatable to the Buddhist practitioner, it occurs “naturally” without intention, and

purely in the realm of Judaism’s and Buddhism’s mutual and simultaneous practice.

Here the “integration” is not so much a combining of Judaism and Buddhism into a

Buddhist-inspired Judaism, nor vice versa--Stephen did not mention the way his

Buddhism takes on any Jewish meanings or interpretations. Buddhism, by all the

teachers, is seen as pretty complete in itself, and it is their Judaism that they attempt to

supplement with Buddhist meaning--where the other teachers supplement Buddhist

practice with Jewish insights, Stephen and Seth are unique in their supplementing

practice with practice. As Seth told the rabbis, “Buddhism is the best thing to happen to

44

you guys“; Judaism is seen as lacking and needing of a spiritual overhaul, not the other

way around. Of course there are many deficiencies pointed out by certain teachers,

especially women teachers, of Buddhism, namely the lack of emphasis on family values

(Jacqueline), and the inferior status of women (Jacqueline and Chodron). There are those

like Jacqueline who appropriate aspects of Judaism for her life, though this does not

mean for her Buddhist life and practice. The integration of Judaism and Buddhism is

what happens in the understanding of the meaning of the practices of each tradition. On

the whole those like Stephen and Seth who have their meanings transformed through

their practice are talking about the integration of Buddhism into their Jewish practice; no

one spoke about their integration of Judaism meaning in to Buddhism. It is the renewed

understanding of Judaism that allows for Jewish practice to be more integrated into their

own personal spiritual paths--as Jewish practice, not as a hybrid breed--as Stephen said,

he practices Judaism as a Jew. The result of such integration is that they become more

involved in Jewish practice and those Jewish forms take on some additional, though not

exclusively, Buddhist-inspired meanings. Their Buddhism, on the other hand, remains

somewhat untouched, as Stephen said to me on a meditation retreat, “When I teach

Dharma I teach Dharma.”

Seth, describing his process of integration, which like Stephen is about his rediscovery

of Judaism through the insights of Buddhism (what would it mean to rediscover

Buddhism through the insights of Judaism?), vacillates between approaching Judaism

from his Buddhist background, and the desire to have what he calls a “Jewishly Jewish”

experience, that is, Judaism on its own terms:

To some extent I’m starting to look at Judaism from its own, and immersing myself in it, in

Judaism intensively…I am studying in a yeshiva, and I’m living in Safed for a year. A piece of

45

that has been to try to get more of a, not exclusively Jewish, but a sort of Jewishly Jewish flavor

of it. Ahh, there was this way that it was at first all sort of through the filtered eyes of the

Dharma, and then finally, I remember when I started first having Jewish experiences that were

Jewishly Jewish, that weren’t sort of like, okay, oh, I see what they mean, they’re just Jewish

words for the Dharma thing. And then it started to happen when I was having Jewish, I was

having spiritual understanding, when I was having spiritual moments, umm, wisdom

moments…it wasn’t going through the Dharma operator, it was just sort of like a direct, there’s a

lot of direct connections for me. More and more now, I have a depth of Judaism in and on its own

right. Ahh, but there’s a way in which it, and this is a constant process…in which this is sort of

my awakening, and I don’t mean this with a capital A…but my awakening…

Seth is awakening to his Jewish self, or to Judaism “in and on its own right” as a

spiritual choice equal to that of the Buddhist which has sustained him for many years.

Within the same narrative section, however, the process turns back towards the Buddhist

perspective, and the process towards the awakening to a Judaism on its own terms is

more cyclical:

Now as I start to sink and reemerge in Judaism…the paths I’ve worn have been in the Dharma, so

they become a bit my reference point. What I naturally slide into…sort of you train the mind to

just naturally slip into these places. And I’ve trained my mind and my heart to slip into this

Dharmic trail….my understanding is in some ways from the perspective of the depths or the

wisdom I gained and the experience from, from the Dharma, cause that’s where, that’s sort of

where my initial training has come from.

Like Stephen, the integration happens on the side of Judaism--the experience and

understanding of Judaism is altered by Buddhism and Buddhist training for Seth. His

intention is to limit this integration, or influence, that Buddhism has on his Jewish

practice, to no longer call Judaism through the Buddhist operator, but to dialogue directly

with the tradition. Both of the teachers do not intend to do anything more than practice

Judaism as a Jew, not as a Buddhist, but the influence of their long training in Buddhism

46

naturally frames their experience.

The difference between the two teachers is that while Stephen sees this influence as

something organic, spontaneous, and welcome, not to be pursued or refused, Seth

indicates a certain amount of unease with the Buddhist perspectives as he has applied

them in his Judaism; hence his desire for the “authentically” Jewishly Jewish. This may

be a result of the Jewish training and exposure Seth has had in an orthodox yeshiva in the

very orthodox section of Safed, which would not admit of Buddhist integration with open

arms. Stephen, alternatively, has learned most of what he knows of Judaism from his wife

who rejected the strict orthodoxy she was raised in, while herself remaining a believing

and practicing Jew. Seth’s need for a more contained Judaism has lead him to more strict

observance, encouraging him to begin to distance himself from parts of his involved

narrative within Buddhism--this is reflected by his recent change of name to his Hebrew

Yaakov (who, as mentioned above, himself had his name changed.) Seth struggles with

the two sides of his practice; Stephen allows and observes the integration; both have their

practice expanded.

Summary

What becomes clear in the consideration of the life stories and narrative developments

of the Jewish Buddhist teachers figuring here is that they are primarily Buddhists, then

teachers, and finally Jews. That is not to say that their being Jewish does not figure

prominently in their narratives, either as a significant presence or an equally significant

absence, but that their main conscious efforts in a spiritual life, throughout most of their

adult lives, has been with Buddhism, and as they developed, with their teaching of it.

47

Judaism was a background identity which for some periodically rose to the fore, but on

the whole did not inform their main Buddhist practice in any intentional or even

particularly identifiable way. In this way, their Jewish identities can be compared to their

being male or female, American or Israeli, as well as having grown up in New York,

London, Tel Aviv, or Cincinnati. The Jewish experiences of these teachers are rich and

varied, and represent a large slice of American, and Israeli, Jews whose exposure to any

formal Judaism generally ends with childhood, but whose echoes continue to resound

throughout the rest of their narratives. Jewish family, negative and positive revisitations

of Jewish experiences, as well as more conscious integrative approaches, all compose

stations along narrative routes that travel along an American (or Western) Buddhist

multi-lane highway.

Early into this study I abandoned the notion of discovering how the Judaism of

Buddhist leaders influences not only their Buddhism but also the face of American

Buddhism as a whole. That, in retrospect, seems like a grandiose mission, not to mention

very Judeo-centric. Jews are responsible for many things in the development of

civilizations, but the large participation of Jews in American Buddhism, and particularly

in the leadership and teacher levels, is a result much more of the echoing absence of

Judaism in their lives than of any presence which may have had such a seminal influence.

As Jews, of course, Judaism has played a definitive role in their spiritual life narratives--

which has been, according to the narrative emphases given, traced here. The conclusions

which can be drawn from the sample taken, small as it is, are applicable to the specific

individuals and their unique journeys. It is just such specificity which is the very essence

of an individual life and its choices, and is what gives flesh and blood relevance to the

48

expanded horizon of the universal singular that each one becomes.

Endnotes: 1 During a discussion about Jewish parental expectations, I shared with her the following joke: The newly-elected president of the United States was about to be inaugurated. A large crowd, with many invited dignitaries, waited on the lawn of the White House for the ceremony to begin. It was of special significance to some because this was the first Jewish president in the history of America. His mother, an old lady with a hearing problem named Gertrude, was seated a few rows back. With much fanfare the new president stepped up to the stage, ready to take the oath of office. Gertrude nudges the man seated next to her, the ambassador of Indonesia, and says in a loud whisper, “You see that man there,” pointing to the stage, “his brother is a doctor!” 2 I have, of course, the panoptic verse from the Heart Sutra, or Prajna Paramita Sutra, in mind: form is emptiness and emptiness is form. 3 In a similar vein, Seth voices a concern over this part of the Buddha’s life, as coming from the Hollywood

49

film establishment. In the recent past he worked on writing a script for an animated movie of the Buddha’s life, for Disney, but the production got bogged down in the debate over what to do with the Buddha’s leaving his family. The producers don’t think that American audiences would be comfortable with that, and be able to see the Buddha as the spiritual hero of the film after that. 4 An ultra-religious city outside of Tel Aviv. 5 In Israel, one’s religious identification is defined by the wearing, or not, of a kippa, round skull-cap of various sizes and colors, as well as for the more strictly observant, a black hat. His not wearing one at the concert would have identified him as a secular, or non-religious, Jew, and in that context would have seemed like a camel in Antarctica. Plain black velvet kippas are worn by the ultra-religious, as well fadora-styled black hats. The curve of the hat identifies the particular religious stream, as does the size and color of the kippa. Colorful ones made from cotton knit signify a religious modern persuasion, which appreciates and integrates certain values of contemporary life, while fur hats are the domain of the more world-rejecting hasidic sects. 6 Traditionally, the ritual circumcision, the brit mila, is considered the symbol of Jewish continuity, but this is preformed, thank God, only on boys. The child is equally blessed not to remember anything of the experience, unlike the bar mitzvah, where one’s Jewish identity is meant to be more consciously integrated. 7 Thich Nhat Hanh is a Vietnamese Buddhist Zen master who has a large following of Westerners. He leads retreats and teachings around the world, and runs a center in southern France, Plum Village. His emphasis is on the practice of mindfulness in all activities, and the creation of a conscious community supporting such a lifestyle.

50

Chapter Eight

The Teacher: Finding and Relating to a Spiritual Mentor

Contents:

Introduction p.

Finding the Teacher p.

The emotional connection p.

The attraction of teachings p.

The non-rational relationship p.

Relating to the Teacher p.

Devotional relationships p.

Maintaining independence p.

Having an example p.

The Non-Buddhist Guides p.

The family member as a teacher p.

Spiritualists and artists p.

Non-Western gurus p.

Summary p.

1

Introduction

If there is one aspect of the Jewish Buddhist teachers’ lives and spiritual biographies

that is most common--more common even than their being Jewish or teachers of

Buddhism (as shown, their Judaism in both the technical and personal meanings widely

varies, and their being formal teachers of Buddhism ebbs and flows with changing

circumstances), it is that each person had or has one or more central teacher who inspired

and guided their path in a definitive way. While, as the previous chapter describes,

epiphanies can provide revolutionary changes and movements, the relationship to the

teacher takes on the tenor of a kind of softened extended epiphany--he or she is acting

constantly as a force of change in the subject’s life. An epiphany on a low flame in the

form of a formal relationship. There is the experience of change, on one hand, by

providing impetus for the practice and teaching of Dharma, and continuity on the other

by providing an address for consultation and inspiration. Every subject in this study

emphasized the importance of his or her teachers in the formation of their spiritual paths

and their pursuits of them, and these teachers--the teachers’ teachers--remain potent

forces even when they are no longer the subject’s central teacher.

In the West, and especially in American Buddhism, the relationship to the spiritual

teacher has been a contentious subject due to several cases of its misuse, or abuse, over

the past twenty years or so. This has caused some students to veer away from the direct

and committed teacher-student relationship, and has compelled on the side of the teachers

a full reexamination of the nature of the relationship. Each Buddhist community reacted

to the several crises in leadership which occurred, whether within their midst or at other

centers, in varying ways. The Zen Center of San Francisco, after the 1982 revelations

2

around its teacher, and his subsequent removal from office, revamped its leadership

structure so that each abbot would be periodically replaced by rotation, and would serve

with another teacher as co-abbot. Other Zen centers, like Zen Mountain Monastery in

upstate New York, run by John Daido Loori, responded to the tidal waves from the west

by creating breakers: a vigorous emphasis on monasticism and strict discipline, with a

five to ten year long program of gaining seniority. After Chogyam Trungpa’s Western

successor was removed in 1990 for grave breaches of trust and sexual morality, his

institution Shambhala International turned to Trungpa’s own guru, the head of Tibetan

Buddhism’s Kagyu sect, for guidance. He placed at the helm of Shambhala Trungpa’s

only son, himself a recognized Tibetan tulku1 and the organization has made efforts at

increased transparency in its leadership and administration. These are two of the more

dramatic turn of events which shook the naïve devotion and absolute trust with which

many of the earlier practitioners approached their teachers; the result has been a

continuing redefinition of the role of the spiritual teacher in the fledgling American

Buddhist context. Centers are increasingly emphasizing the simultaneous practice of

ethics along with meditation, which is something the Dalai Lama reiterated clearly at the

conference with Western Buddhist Teachers in Dharmasala, in 1992, when the 25 senior

Western teachers in attendance turned to him for advice on a response to the difficult

events which had been taking place.

Every Jewish Buddhist teacher had a relationship with more than one teacher which

defined their spiritual practice, with some having had several. It is possible to have, as

they indicate in their lives, more than one central teacher at the same time, just as it is

equally possible to have a particular relationship run its course and come to an end. The

3

death of the teacher does not necessarily end the relationship, in that the student

continues to turn to her teachings and example as their main source of guidance, thereby

consciously choosing not to take on another main teacher. This chapter will examine the

dynamics of this relationship first as it is initially formed, or as the teacher is found, and

then as the teacher is related to. Each of the subjects had Asian teachers, but at least three

of them had Western teachers as the central teaching figures in their own narratives. The

Jewish Buddhists here approach the teacher, the “root guru” in Tibetan terms--one’s

chosen main source of guidance for the Buddhist path--with a delicate balance of

independence and devotion. Finding the balance between these poles is an issue which

figure prominently in their relationship with the Asian teacher-guru. This effort can be

described by the Zen saying that being too close to the teacher one burns, being too

distant from the teacher one freezes. The last section of the chapter will look at the

prevalence of non-Buddhist teachers that appear as important guides in the lives of these

people, and who are received as teachers for both the Buddhist and non-Buddhist areas of

their lives.

Finding the Teacher

The Emotional Connection

A strong emotional response to a teacher, especially to the first meeting with a teacher

(who at that point, is not yet regarded as their teacher) can be the defining moment in the

finding of such an authority. It cannot be overstated just how significant the experience of

finding of a teacher is, for it is just such a person who will then define the spiritual path

4

that the seeker--in this case the path of the Jewish Buddhist, who may or may not at that

point be teaching Buddhism. Often a seeker is not looking for Buddhism, or whatever

school that the teacher represents, but finds herself drawn into that direction by virtue of

the relationship and influence of the newly found teacher. As Seth indicated in his

narrating of his first exposure to vipassana meditation through an evening with his

teacher Jack Kornfield, “I was not looking for Buddhism, I was more into Taoism, but

that was simply the address I found myself in.” The address is one that has an occupant,

or a gate-keeper, who is the teacher that the seeker meets at the door. This teacher opens

the door and invites the student inside to discover a whole tradition which he begins to

explore as he is led from room to room. In short, it was not what the visitor expected

when the strong emotions rose to the surface upon meeting the teacher at the entrance.

While the emotional connection and reaction to a teacher, which enables the student to

recognize on that level that she has found her teacher, does to a degree cross over into the

area of the non-rational (an area discussed later in this chapter), it is experienced as

making intuitive and emotional sense. It is simply that the relationship is first realized on

the emotional level, but it in no way remains purely that--the intellectual, spiritual,

cultural, ethnic, gender and age aspects of the relationship all figure subsequently. In

Tibetan parlance the title lama simply means “high mother” (la-ma) which indicates the

type of relationship that the student and her lama is predicated upon. Emotions are a

central feature, and they are the emotions of diligent care, responsibility, and

unconditional love which the lama is expected to have for his disciples. In turn, the

student offers unconditional devotion and unwavering respect. These are, of course, the

ideals, which are, in that tradition, readily visible. This dynamic in Tibetan Buddhism is a

5

direct result of, before the Chinese occupation, the large numbers of young children who

were sent to monasteries for education and upbringing. The lamas were required to be

teachers and loving parents at the same time.2

Jacqueline, whose finding, or realizing of her root guru as the Dalai Lama on Yom

Kippur was already recounted here in terms of its epiphany experience, highlighted the

strong emotions that were expressed. Her narrating of the experience was highly

emotional for her, with her reliving the experience to a certain degree. A significant

factor to her experience is the context of the memory, that she was in the process of a

divorce, which is an emotionally laden event, and, of course, the day being the most

solemn in the Jewish year--a fast day, at that:

All of a sudden I am crying in the service, cause I know my root guru…I’m telling you it

happened. And what was amazing was I was getting, we were already getting divorced, my

husband and I, but we were all at Yom Kippur service with the girls…and he looked at me and he

thought it was him, you know, and I turned to him and said, it’s not you (laugh) it’s not you. I

know who my root guru is.

The tears flow, of course, from all of those reasons, though it can be assumed that the

highly charged emotions from all directions paved the way for her breakthrough

realization, her epiphany, of discovering her guru. The discovery is a bone fine emotional

one, which leads her down a road of an intensification of her involvement in Tibetan

Buddhism.

The strong emotional connection she suddenly feels towards the Dalai Lama is not,

Jacqueline reflects in retrospect, totally new. Even though she states that “it just came”,

she goes on to suggest that such a connection was known, if not by herself in a conscious

way, by others around her: “And also, everyone knew, I mean…everyone just knew

6

that…they appointed me to be the teacher who would give him the kata (traditional white

silk scarf of blessing).” Jacqueline’s emotional life, her emotional connection to the Dalai

Lama, becomes public space as she looks back from the perspective of the Yom Kippur

epiphany. The power of such strong emotion defines not only her future direction and

relationship, but also her past experiences and the perspectives of others.

Less of an epiphany, but just as defining in his relationship to his teacher, was the

emotional connection that Jacob had to his first Zen teacher Dorpio roshi, the Japanese

monk who found himself teaching out of a small room on the Mount of Olives in

Jerusalem in the early seventies. Jacob emphasizes the positive qualities that his teacher

had which endeared Jacob to him, and became an overall example of a more emotional

and feeling approach to Buddhism--one which Jacob has maintained to the present. Jacob

responds strongly to the humanness of his teacher:

He was really impressive, and really smiling, and really present. Ah, really human. I had an

interest to see him. There was already here some Indian guru and all types of things like that. I

got interested in him, I started to read more and more, and this man conquered my heart. He had

something really human, he simply sat on the couch, smiling…that man was really funny. Really

funny. He had a lot of crazy humor.

The quality of humanness and humor that Jacob repeatedly notes, sketching the image of

a smiling, laughing, somewhat mischievous Buddha, is contrasted with the image of the

Indian guru, and others things of that sort (all types of things like that). Jacob had had

experience with Transcendental Meditation (TM) and his comparison is partially coming

out of that system which at the top of the pyramid sat (in full-lotus meditation posture)

Maharishi Yogi, the supreme guru (and multi-millionaire). Jacob finds himself at ease

and responding emotionally to quite a contrary example, that of the strange little Japanese

7

monk who doesn’t say much but smiles a lot. Doesn’t preach, but sits in the cramped

Jerusalem rented room with a small group of curious visitors. Makes jokes and initiates

Jacob into a system, Zen Buddhism, which is famous for poking terrible fun at itself,

eschewing all top-down authority with the famous injunction, “If you see the Buddha on

the road, kill him!”

The Attraction of Teachings

The ways in which the connection to one’s teacher are initially expressed, or the

manner in which the connection is first realized, are, of course, not limited to a single

type of experience. The strong feeling of an emotional attraction to a teacher, be it to her

charismatic presence or her simple example, may very well occur in the context of her

teaching--the attraction to the path she represents is experienced both as to the person and

teachings she is presenting. This section looks at the attraction which occurs in

connection to the teachings of the teacher, which for most of the subjects was the most

persuasive and compelling aspect of the initial relationship. The teachings and the teacher

form here a single pull, and the relationship to the teacher was first realized in the context

of her convincing presentation of the Buddhist path she represented. Neither one can be

isolated, for it can be assumed that if the same teachings were given by someone else,

then they would not have inspired the subject in the same way to begin a teacher-disciple

relationship of the kind which was indeed initiated. Most of the subjects had been

exposed to Eastern spirituality in general and Buddhism in particular by the time they met

their main teacher, indicating that it is the unique combination of teachings that spoke to

their hearts and a teacher that knew the way in which began the special relationship.

8

Such a combination of finding a teacher through teachings is exemplified by James’

first sitting with his teacher Joseph Goldstein. He finds himself enamored by the

teachings, and drawn to the teacher simultaneously:

I sat down, after about ten minutes, thinking, oh, I don’t know, looks like he’s from New York,

looks just like me, doesn’t look very regal and impressive. That was for about ten minutes, and

then I just heard what he was saying and where he was coming from, and I said, this guy knows

something that I don’t know. But I want to find out what it is. And, ah, that was it.

I use this quote again here to emphasize something other than its epiphany effect, but that

it reveals the unity with which James sees the teachings and the teacher. Joseph is viewed

not just as the presenter of the attractive and convincing teachings, but as a living

example of their efficacy. He knows something that James doesn’t, and that knowing is

on the experiential and wisdom levels. When James says, “and, ah, that was it,” he is both

referring to his realization of he new relationship to the Buddha Dharma, and his

beginning relationship to Joseph as his primary teacher for the following decades of his

life. The teachings and the teacher are one here, and the relationship to one necessarily

realized and includes the other.

A similar experience happened to Seth with the first meditation he attended by his

teacher Jack Kornfield at Spirit Rock, wherein he realized, “within ten minutes of his talk

I knew I was home.” This being at home, spoken of in the previous chapter, is understood

in this context as also being at home with the teacher, of feeling a commitment to the

teaching and teacher as part of the same relationship. Seth goes on later to describe his

relationship with Jack as one of having shades of a father-son dynamic, so that his initial

feeling at home means even more than finding a teacher and a spiritual home tradition,

but even finding spiritual family. The other person who felt totally at home in his first

9

meetings with his teacher was Amaro, who found more of a spiritual brother/teacher,

rather than father figure, in the person of his main teacher Ajahn Sumedo. The centrality

of the teachings as the cement in their relationship expressed by him:

I went to the Citthurst monastery, where Ajahn Sumedo was, and then, ah, really met him. I

mean, I’d met him briefly, when I first arrived…and um, then, ah, settled down there. And then,

once I met Ajahn Sumedo, and I was living in this place, and, suddenly, there was like,

instruction. Going out the window…and just the degree to which he was able to articulate

different meditation methods, solve people’s problems, and to, and it was just like water in the

desert. It’s like, ahhh, suddenly it’s like, ahhh, okay, now, I could feel totally at home. All that

sense of sort of restriction, or kind of containment, frustration, fell away, because it’s like, I had a

real spiritual kind of teacher. Because I hadn’t had a teacher in Thailand. It was basically trying to

figure it out on my own.

The teachings are not new to Amaro, he had already been a monk in Thailand for two

years prior to this experience, so it is not as if he is being persuaded by a new system, as

is a factor in the experiences of Seth and James. What is new is the teachings he know

being presented in a path that speaks to him as a seeking individual, made accessible and

relevant by the charismatic figure of his teacher. Again, the teachings and the teacher find

unity in Amaro’s experience of them, and it is just such a needed presentation of the

Buddhism he had been up to then practicing in isolation (ironically in the monastery),

which enables him to flourish in his new context.

Jacob’s turning point experience of what he calls his “first Zen lesson”, that of his

teacher Dorpio roshi explaining why he wears a watch, “I have a watch, and at twelve

thirty I have a meeting in Jerusalem, and I want to arrive on time,” combines with Jacob’s

understanding of this, “Yes, there is a watch. A watch is necessary…but it’s also possible

without one. And if you need to arrive to a meeting on time, you need a watch. That’s it.”

10

The result is a deep appreciation of not so much the Zen or Buddhist teaching of skillful

means, of knowing when to use what for the best results, but of the teaching in the living

example of his teacher. His first lesson in Zen is not a theoretical one, or one received

during a teisho, a formal dharma lecture, but a breathing (and ticking) one in the form of

his teacher. The teacher in all these examples is found and realized in relation to the

teachings he presents both in instruction and example.

The Non-rational Connection

The initial connection to a teacher can be in the form of a sudden recognition which

occurs in the course of a profound experience. Not necessarily an epiphany, the initial

opening of the teacher-student relationship, and its finding by the student, is experienced

without the frameworks of a certain teaching, emotional or cognitive understanding. It

simply happens, there is a strong awareness which breaks through, and the teacher is

realized and found. One needs to be especially open to such a realization, to such a non-

rational experience of finding one’s teacher, which in Buddhist terms would be attributed

to having a strong karmic connection--meaning having had similarly intensive

relationships in past lives. Jacqueline in particular was subject to such experiences, and

her narrative is punctuated by intense sudden realizations and meetings with her core

teachers. For the rest of the subjects, they met their teachers in the process of seeking and

being exposed to teachings, as well as having strong emotional reactions to their teachers.

The non-rational connection, as will be seen, is a kind of meta-emotional experience,

which relies on chance and very improbably circumstances to dictate the initiation of the

relationship.

11

The prevalence of non-rational and improbable meetings with her main teachers

occurred on the whole with the finding of her Tibetan gurus. It is as though her departure

from the ordinary mindfulness world of vipassana and her foray into the much more

fantastic and mythical world of Tibetan Buddhism, particularly the more esoteric

Dzogchen practice which Jacqueline primarily practices, opened her to the experience of

unexpected and intense meetings as a feature of her path. The description of the

circumstances of her repeated meeting with one of her main teachers, Chagdud rinpoche,

is indicative, as it encompasses the confluence of events that intensify the experience:

It was actually the day I got divorced, and it was actually very strange. On the day I got divorced,

I was at the airport, going to my parent’s fiftieth anniversary. We were all meeting in California.

And this really astounding Tibetan, who had been in prison for like twenty or thirty years, and the

Chinese finally let him go…he was just this extraordinarily powerful person, and he was coming

to Portland. And he arrived at the gate I was leaving from. And then they delayed my plane. And

so I had lunch with him. And then during lunch one of his people said you should come to his

retreat.

Jacqueline does go to his retreat, and requests to become his student: “I went up to him

at the end of his talk and I said, I want to study with you. And he said, not yet….and I

didn’t know what that meant. Nobody had ever, they would either say yes or no, yeah? I

mean, nobody ever said no.” She is finding herself initiated into the realm of the non-

rational, the teacher’s response doesn’t make sense to her, but it compels her to keep

going in his direction. A further “coincidence” of a certain spiritual magnitude occurs

which emphasizes the non-rational dimension she has entered and the full emergence of

her teacher which comes from that place:

He said to me (after meeting him in India) I will see you again. I thought he was just being polite.

I said, that’s fine. And he said, no, I will see you again. Cause he knew that I, you know,

umm…and so I said, okay. And then, there he was…I used to live in an apartment, and coming

12

off the elevator he said, oh, I’ve been looking for you. (laugh) I mean, what do you say? (laugh)

You know, like here’s this six foot three huge Tibetan, “I’ve been looking for you”. And he’s like

getting off my elevator. So, there are many things like that. I think of myself as this very rational

person, um, but it keeps being given.

From this series of events and Jacqueline’s particular narrating of them it is clear that

she has understood them as the unique ways in which her teacher was introduced to her,

or found by her. According to her, however, the finding was more on the teacher’s side,

that he found her, “cause he knew that I, you know”--he knew that they were to have a

guru-disciple relationship. Even though she was the one on the search in her newly-

adopted Tibetan Buddhism, the teacher found her more than she found him; this is a very

non-rational interpretation of events, but one that she suggests by her narrative framing of

her experiences--”it keeps being given”, the strange ways in which the teacher is revealed

to her. Later, when questioned about this, and how much she was active in the search, she

replies, “No, no, I was not looking. No. It’s really like the teacher appeared.” Her

responses to her teacher’s appearing and re-appearing as if out of thin air, or the strong

air currents of past karmic relationships, are not simply emotional, intuitive, or faith-

based, but include a peculiar combination of wonder and acceptance of the extraordinary

as simply present.

The Relationship to the Teacher

Devotional relationships

A prevalent quality in the relationship of the disciple to the teacher--and here I use the

term disciple, not student, to connote the uniqueness of the relationship--is its devotional

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aspect. Such a feeling, which is accompanied by a commitment to the teacher as the main

source of spiritual guidance, is a common feature of traditional disciple-guru

relationships in both Eastern and Western traditions: the image of the Indian guru is

famous for the veneration of his (in some cases, her) followers, who sit at his feet or wait

around all day for a blessing in the form a darshan, or daily audience; equally

demonstrative is the impassioned allegiance that the fur-hatted hasid has for his rebbe, to

whom he and his family turn to for every decision.

Such adoration has not escaped the experience of the Western Buddhist, who at times

approach their teachers and gurus with naïve and total acceptance, an approach which,

according to Chodron, is not the attitude of the average Eastern follower to his or her

mentor. Speaking of the Tibetan position, she explains,

“At the beginning, we just see our teacher in a very idealistic way. But then, all of our personal

preferences, and personal beliefs jump into the picture. And our teacher does not think the same

way we do about everything. You know, and our teacher does not do things the way we would do

it…a Tibetan, they wouldn’t misunderstand things the same way.”

Chodron is explaining some of the disillusionment that the Western devotee will, in most

cases inevitably, come to experience around her teacher’s personal and spiritual

differences. The Tibetan approach, she later details, is one of thoroughly checking out the

teacher--she quotes the Dalai Lama as saying that one should keep a critical eye on one’s

teacher for ten years! Few Westerners have had the opportunity to maintain such a

relationship for that duration. Whereas Westeners are generally impressed by the

foreigness of the Eastern teacher, and take his or her appearance to grant spiritual

authority, such an appearance does not stand out in the Eastern environment, and teachers

are more required to “prove” themselves. All told, the relative newness of Eastern

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spirituality and teachers widely accessible in the West combined with the immediacy and

energy of the need of those in the West who seek them out make for a situation which

inspires much devotion as well as the possibility of misunderstanding.

The Jewish Buddhist teachers of this study ranged from having passed through a range

of central teachers from various Buddhist traditions, to initially finding and remaining

with one throughout. The number of teachers did not correspond with the amount of

devotion the disciple had for any one of them--more teachers did not result from a weaker

devotion to any one of them, as neither did having one teacher indicate a stronger

devotion than if one had several; a shared feature of the relationships was a strong sense

of devotion for each teacher. The difference I am making here in the scope of the

disciple-teacher relationship is the expression of devotion as compared to independence,

not as compared to a lack of devotion. As in the case of some of the teachers who had

several teachers, independence from the teacher as the one absolute authority, and strong

devotion to the teacher as one’s main spiritual guide, are in fact complementary qualities.

The expression of devotion to one’s teacher can take varied forms, and the most

common is that of the simple affirmation of the teacher as one’s teacher. Such a statement

is generally accompanied by qualifiers, such as recounting his or her qualities, as Mel

expresses:

Suzuki roshi was my teacher. And even after Suzuki roshi, well, I sometimes go to some teachers

who can live up to Suzuki roshi, and, ah, I always just refer to him, if I feel I want to know

something…Suzuki roshi had these qualities, had this quality of seeing the true nature of each

person…and that’s why everyone could relate to him in that way…as he could just see who they

were, he could just see right into their nature. They all felt seen by him, he seemed to know

everybody better than they knew themselves…so he was a powerful influence.

Two things are expressed clearly here: devotion to the teacher and the main reason why.

15

Having strong devotion to one teacher, for Mel, does not prevent him from learning from

other teachers (“as people sometimes do”), but his teacher Suzuki roshi remains his main

guide even after the teacher’s passing away (I always refer to him). Rather than the

teacher’s person, it is the teachings and the practice received by the disciple, in this case

Mel, which are the points of reference.

The devotion to the teacher which extends after his or her passing can be expressed,

as in the case of Blanche, in a continued devotion to the tradition he represented and its

chain of leadership. After Suzuki roshi’s death she became a student of his successor,

Richard Baker, who ordained her as a priest. She was also a student of Mel’s, and while

the Zen Center did invite various teachers from different traditions to teach, she veered

minimally from the path of her original teacher. Comparable to such a devotion to the

path of her teacher is the example of James, who has been a disciple of his teacher Joseph

Goldstein for thirty years. Being a relationship between two Westerners, it is defined

somewhat more broadly than of with an Eastern teacher, but the devotion is similar:

And then when I met Joseph, oh there’s a way to do this, there’s a practice, there’s this pristine

quality of Buddha Dharma, there was Joseph my teacher who I could trust, and I saw for myself

that this works… I have incredible, undying gratitude, and IMS is, Joseph is my teacher, is my

main teacher, and, and good friend, but teacher….I put out on the retreats for Joseph and Jack,

and Sharon (co-teachers at IMS) but mainly I wanted people to hear Joseph. And I loved, and

Joseph and Jack were teaching together…so I was somehow in the center of this network, which I

couldn’t imagine where else I would rather be.

His sense of devotion to the teacher is clearly related to the practice that the teacher not

only represents and teaches, but also offers as a living example. As indicated in the

previous section, the teacher and what he teaches are experienced by the disciple as one

and the same. Far from being blind devotion, James’ trust is qualified: he sees for himself

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that the practice works, as evinced by the person of Joseph--meeting Joseph presents him

a view of the path (“when I met Joseph, oh, there‘s a way to do this, there‘s a practice.”

He trusts his teacher because of the example he sets of the fruit of Dharma practice; his

teacher embodies “the pristine quality of Buddha Dharma”, and for such a path and

teacher (one and the same here) he has unwavering devotion.

Trust and devotion in one’s teacher is not always substantiated by the practice he or

she represents, such as James’ devotion to Joseph due to the efficacy of the practice the

later exhibited, but the opposite: the devotion to the teacher may be prior to the

perception of the benefits of the practice he represents. Jacqueline describes this in her

explaining her practice of esoteric Vajryana practices, which, coming from a vipassana

“proof is in the pudding” history, was initially difficult for her to accept. The practices

she began in Tibetan Buddhism, such as the performance of thousands of ritual offerings,

prostrations, and recitations of mantras, seemed to wield no positive benefits to her inner

or outer life; this stood in stark contrast with her vipassana practice with which she

observed immediate effects of relaxation and heightened awareness. She explains her

willingness to engage in such new practices plainly: “It’s my trust in both the Dalai Lama

and Ozem rinpoche (her two main teachers)…Ozem rinpoche could see completely into

my practice.” This approach to her teachers, a devotion which is rooted in her non-

rational (or karmic) acceptance of them, is what enables her to proceed through the

practices they bestow upon her. Similar to James’ perception, her teachers’ being

immaculate examples of the benefits of the practice may be an inspiration for her

continuing it, but in a departure from James’ example, her devotion to her teachers is

prior to her acceptance and understanding of the practice. They are invoked to give her

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the reasons for a practice which is initially bewildering to her: they are the reason.

The relationship to the Western Buddhist teacher is necessarily experienced as very

different than that of to an Eastern guru; the lines of relationship are less formally drawn

in the former, and the teacher comes closer to being something of a spiritual friend rather

than authoritative master. The Buddha may have had such a relationship between teacher

and disciple more in mind as he described the role of the kalyamitra, or spiritual friend,

who is anyone further ahead on the Dharma path than oneself. They offer guidance by

virtue of having progressed along the same way, but are not replacements for one’s own

inherent wisdom and need of experiential learning. Under James’ tutelage, Spirit Rock

has embarked upon a year long program of training advanced vipassana practitioners to

assume the role of the teacher/spiritual friend in their respective communities; the

program is called Kalyamitra. Returning to the definition of the Western teacher as a

spiritual friend, and shying away from the terms and roles of the master or guru, with all

the baggage and expectation therein, may help to safeguard against some of the abuses

that have resulted from both the Western masters and disciples not knowing how to

manage such a relationship. Alex Berzin, one of the most senior and learned Tibetan

Buddhist practitioners and teachers, as well as a close student of the Dalai Lama, noted in

his book Having a Spiritual Teacher that it is the very formality of the Eastern teacher-

disciple relationship, with most personal interactions falling under defined restrictions,

which prevents most opportunities for abuse. Westerners, however, have often taken on

the formality of the roles without upholding the restrictions of the relationships. It may be

that Western society simply defines most relationships as casual, and therefore is not

suited to the Eastern model; when school teachers as well as later workplace bosses are

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called on a first-name basis (and increasingly, even parents), and political authorities are

either shouted down or bear-hugged, then there is very little conditioning for a formal

spiritual relationship. The rediscovered role of the spiritual friend may just serve such a

mores ideally.

The Western teacher, following this, is usually defined by the disciple as being related

to in various ways: James calls Joseph his friend and teacher, Seth refers to Jack

Kornfield as “being a colleague and friend, and my mentor and teacher.” In my own case

I have referred to Jacob as my academic advisor, my Dharma teacher, and my friend, as

well as my research subject. Seth continues his broadening definition of the relationship

to include a psychological aspect:

And there’s a piece of it, this is somewhat projection, but there’s a piece of it which is my

relationship to Jack. We’re not real clo--Jack’s not real close with anybody. But ahhhm, as a

student and a colleague, colleague-student, I mean not just a student to him but a teacher trainee,

there is a certain slight father-son there, and I think there’s a way that he likes me doing the

Jewish path that he never did.

The unique relationship, the shade of a father-son one, is admittedly something which

Seth desires and projects. He looks to his Buddhist mentor for affirmation of the choices

he has made in Jewish practice and interest, seeking his support for his learning in Israel.

The framing of the relationship in a father-son image, with Jack being himself a Jew,

allows Seth to strengthen the support he receives by playing out the fantasy that he is

fulfilling his father’s Jewish dream: the errant son becomes a rabbi. As a matter of fact,

Seth is currently enrolled in a new rabbinical program in Boston, with, of course, Jack’s

blessing.

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Maintaining Independence

The independence of mind that a disciple maintains in her relationship to her teacher

does not stand in opposition to the amount of devotion she has to him. On the contrary, it

is just such independence, the ability to question the teacher and teachings, and to listen

to what is really going on inside--to what really works for you--which enhances the very

disciple-teacher relationship into a mature commitment. The Buddha himself ended his

life with the famous injunction not to trust his words alone, but to verify his teachings

with one’s own experience. After such verification, the depth of relationship to a teacher

who has provided true directions is naturally extended. Among the subjects here, and

their relationships to their teachers, the strongest expressions of independence came from

the two who are involved in Tibetan Buddhist practice--Chodron and Jacqueline. At first

sight this would strike one as slightly ironic, given the Tibetan teachings on complete

surrender to the lama, and the requirement of the disciple to regard him as an enlightened

buddha. While disciples may have more than one “root guru”, it is very unlikely that a

certain lama recognized as such by the disciple would cease to be so--this is to say that

the relationship is life-long, making the assertion of independence even more unlikely.

Nevertheless, the narrative examples of Chodron and Jacqueline indicate just how much

an independent spirit is an essential ingredient of their practice.

Both Chodron and Jacqueline only had Asian teachers, which, as mentioned,

formalized their relationships with them under traditional Tibetan (and in Jacqueline’s

case, also Indian and Japanese) expectations. Chodron describes her relationship to her

teachers as a departure from the norm:

I consider myself as having three root gurus. But to me all my gurus are equally important,

they’ve all nurtured me in very, very special ways. So, I don’t kind of just adhere to ‘I’m the

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disciple of this one, and that’s the only one I do have.’ Yeah. That’s interesting because even in

that way I’m quite pluralistic, cause I find some people are just, ‘I’m the disciple of this one

teacher, and I belong to his organization’--and I don’t, you know.

The norm which Chodron is departing from here is that set by other Western disciples of

lamas, who become very territorial--the allegiance to the teacher and his practice

becomes an identity flag which sets their camp apart. She has rejected the sort of starry-

eyed (as she states it, “some people are like, all gaa-gaa) adulation which she has

witnessed with other students. There was much resistance and doubt levied to Chodron

by other students over her plan to open a monastery for women, with everyone wanting to

know, “Did rinpoche tell you to do this, does rinpoche know about this?“ Chodron did

receive the blessings of her gurus as well as the Dalai Lama for the project, and she raised

her colleagues concerns as examples of the type of lama-dependency that many Western

disciples have created.

Chodron’s independence in relationship to her teachers is the result both of her own

Western predilections and the encouragement of her Tibetan teachers. Speaking about her

one current teacher, she explains her, and his, positions:

I always had other teachers. My teacher actually sent me to study with other teachers. Who were

his teachers. And I was very close with some of those people that he sent me to study with. So

that’s why I say, I never said, oh, I’m just a disciple of this teacher…and I didn’t see that as a

loyalty issue, because they’re all teaching the same Dharma.

By simple example, Chodron’s teacher is not possessive over his disciple, sending her out

to other teachers, and she is not possessive over him. Chodron describes her relationship

to her guru, Serpon Rinpoche, who lives in South India, as “a very interesting

relationship”, and gave the example of an informal meeting as an indication of this. She

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was visiting him in his main room which has a throne on which he sits during his

teachings or ceremonies to officiate, and they were reading a text together:

He was just sitting with his legs hanging off the throne like it was a chair, and reading the text, he

said, well, come here. Because I had to write down what was saying. And I said, rinpoche, I can’t

sit on the throne. And he said, oh yes you can, just sit here, it’s auspicious. So, okay. So I was

sitting there, like we were sitting, you know, it was a big thing, my legs were hanging off too, and

he was telling what to write down, and I wrote down. I said, that was a kind of unique

relationship, and unique situation. (laugh)

This image can be used as a summary of the relationship: they are sitting on the throne

together, he dictates and she writes down. There is equality and difference, he is still the

guru with greater knowledge, but she existentially sits equally with him. What enables

this “uniqueness” are a couple of factors: she is a Westerner, and despite being a woman

who is given less regard in the traditional Asian context, she is granted instant status; and

she is much his senior in years--he is 20 and she is 53. About this Chodron comments: “I

voice my opinions to him, and I kind of act, I’m an adult, and helping to raise him in

some ways. Teaching him things about the world and stuff like that. So, we have a very

nice relationship, we just laugh and joke, and have a good, have a very good time.” As a

Westerner she is allowed to break social conventions with him--he is a high lama, and

expected to stay only indoors, but she drags him outside for walks during her visits, to get

some sun and fresh air. She encapsulates her independent position with, “My teacher’s a

Tibetan, so he does things Tibetan ways. I don’t want to do everything the Tibetan way.”

Her independence is mutually achieved by herself and her teacher.

There are two central Tibetan Buddhist teachings which can, if taken a certain way,

propagate a guru-worship on the part of the disciple. One teaching is that of seeing your

teacher as a realized buddha, and the other is the belief in incarnation of high lamas.

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Chodron takes a unique approach to these, which she admits “these teachings are very

easily misunderstood, and I misunderstood them.” She turned to the Buddhist teachings

themselves to rectify her view, which changed the way she related to such high-level

incarnations, and preserved her integrity:

I find what’s amazing in Tibetan Buddhism is there’s so much emphasis on emptiness of inherent

existence, and then you find people looking at the incarnations of rinpoches, or tulkus, and you

know, this was the great master that life, and this life. Seeing them as inherently existing

people…as if there is a real solid person (who continued). Which is picked up out of one body

and went onto another body. And that’s completely opposite to the Buddha’s teachings

(laugh)…See, I don’t do it that way. I don’t do it that way. When I meet children who are

incarnations, whether they’re of my teachers or not, I’m cheerful, I’m pleasant, you know, I’m

fine, I don’t go gooo goo gaa gaa. When it’s the children who are the incarnations of my teachers,

I get to know that child first…I don’t automatically accept that child as my teacher. I want to see

what they’re like as teachers this lifetime.

Chodron’s first refuge is in the Buddhist teachings themselves, and then in the teachers as

transmitters of the Buddhist Dharma. If the teacher does not match her tuning, so that she

cannot receive the transmission, she does not maintain them as her guru. She sees her

root guru, Serpon Rinpoche, as an example of the type of independence in spirit that

Chodron herself has lived and found in her practice: “He plays the role that’s expected,

but I don’t think he buys into the whole thing. You know, he sees it as a role, and he

doesn’t fight it, but I think, you know, he doesn’t buy into it.” Chodron could be

describing herself, which she very well may have intended to do in the narrative: she

represents a very traditional system, in which she has a very defined role, but she sees the

inherent emptiness of all of it; not only does she not buy into it, but she knows that

there’s nothing to buy into.

Jacqueline’s sense of independence in relation to her teachers and their traditions is

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less outstanding than Chodron’s, who is a senior ordained nun, and it finds its roots in her

first exposure to Buddhist practice under her first teacher Goenka. She remained loyal to

him for several years, and pointed out how he was initially very appropriate: “Well, the

reason that Goenka was great was that he said you didn’t have to believe in anything, you

didn’t have to become a Buddhist, you didn’t have to change anything at all. He said this

is a way or life. So that resonated with me. And also the other thing he said was that ‘I’m

not a guru’.” Such an introduction to Buddhism is very compelling, and it cleared the

way for her to become involved with other teachers without any issues of division. Her

ending with Goenka maintained the initial positive feelings, thus deepening the

impression of the openness of Buddhist practice for her: “I hadn’t seen Goenka in years,

but he was teaching in Mass., and um, I went to see him, and he just brought me up to the

front and wanted to know how I was, and he was very caring. And, you know, I just told

him I was fine, and I had ordained. So, that was our completion, and it was very sweet.”

Even though Jacqueline ordains twice as a Burmese nun, and subsequently disrobes, she

maintained the first attitude she received from her first teacher as that of remaining free

of dogmatic loyalties and identifications.

Jacqueline describes herself and her path as unbounded and of “my mind was very

open, I felt like I was doing my practice, and maybe it didn’t connect in the same way

that everybody else’s practice was, but it was working for me.” She listens to what works

for her, and what doesn’t, she leaves. The most dramatic example of this was her

resigning from IMS, which she had helped to found and was until that point one of the

four most senior and active teachers. Her parting letter mentioned the inequality of

women in the Theravadin tradition, which IMS was largely based on, as the major factor

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in her decision, but she explicitly told me that for her it was simply time to go. She

needed to change, and to expand her practice. The teachers she then connects with are

related to in the same vein: if it works, she’ll do it. After spending a hard sessions over

several years at Mt. Baldy Zen center under Josho Suzaki roshi, she writes him a letter

saying that she was leaving that practice--he wrote her back in support of her decision.

Like Chodron, Jacqueline finds teachers who resonate with her sense of independence,

and allow it to continue.

Later in her narrative, Jacqueline meets with her present guru, Ozem rimpoche, and

realized her other guru, the Dalai Lama, both under extraordinary circumstances. She

engages in practices which can’t be judged by working or not working (as she had judged

her vipassana and Zen practice, leaving their institutions when they ceased to work), but

instead relies on the presence of her gurus in her mind and life to inspire her

perseverance. At the same time, she says that “I try to take advantage of as much as

possible. You know, with the different teachings.” Rather than seeing this new direction

of practice as something of a departure from her more common-sense approach to her

past of vipassana and Zen, this foray into Vajryana and tantric Buddhism correlates with

her taking advantage of what is available; her meeting with the new practice, as with the

others, is jointly experienced as the meeting with the teacher--both become

simultaneously available to her. The evaluation of whether it works or not, according to

her independent mind, is in fact made, only now it is in reference to its working for

otherst: it has definitely worked, in her estimation, for her two gurus. Her evaluation for

herself will, undoubtedly, require much more time. In a dream Jacqueline had one night,

while on a Tibetan retreat, the image of Manjushri, a Buddhist deity who wields an

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illusion-cutting sword, enjoined her to find “new and unbounded ways of Dharma.” This

is a phrase which she has preserved and elevated into a definition of her current journey,

which is in essence a mature recasting of the pining for the unknown Eastern horizon of

her childhood. Such a self-narrative and life-long theme has served to organize her

unique independence of commitment.

Having an Example

Every one of the teacher’s teachers can be counted as inspiring through their living

examples, and the previous sections outlined briefly the identity of the teachings with the

teacher that people James, Jacqueline, and Mel explicitly pointed out. In this section I

will further detail those relationships which were most inspired by their teacher’s

examples, as found specifically in the cases of Mel and Jacob. This is not to say that the

other teachers did not find much guidance from their teachers’ examples, but that these

two placed central emphases on such examples in their narrative--more so than of the

teachings or practices they received from them. It was the teachers in the Zen tradition--

Mel, Jacob, and Blanche--who spoke of the importance of their teachers’ examples with

much recollection and admiration; the Zen teachers tended to speak of their teachers in

general much more than the subjects from the vipassana or Tibetan traditions. It may

even be said that the assertion of independence from the teacher and his tradition was

least expressed among the Zen teachers, and most strongly, as shown, among those

within the Tibetan tradition. This trend may in part be a result of the ways in which the

different traditions and their practices are transmitted or taught: where the Tibetan

tradition, especially the Gelupka which has the most Western followers and is the one

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most associated with Tibetan Buddhism in the West (partly because of the Dalai Lama

being its head) relies upon much frontal teaching and textual learning, the Zen approach

was made famous for its idiosyncratic transmissions--anything from long sittings to the

preparation of tea, or a nonsensical formal question (called koan) all meant to break away

from the very intellect which the Tibetan tradition works intensively with.

The Zen emphasis on teaching through non-teaching, or through example alone and

not explanation, is described by Mel about his teacher Suzuki roshi: “He comes, he

doesn’t exactly teach, because, that’s not what you do. (laugh) He’ll talk with people. He,

he kind of teaches mostly through his actions…I think people learned a lot from him just

from his presence. (pause of ten seconds)” In this pause in the narrative Mel is visibly

reliving one of those scenes, returning to the ingrained presence of his teacher as his

example, “referring to him” as he mentioned earlier, when he wanted to know something.

The power of such an example is what allowed Mel, and Blanche, as well as many others,

to consider Suzuki roshi their only teacher, even after his death. Mel comments on this

quality and his attraction to it in more detail:

He had, if you talk to any of his students, every one of them, is just, you know, ahh, all agree on

that kind of power he had, that he never exerted. He had this power of a very great example, very

subtle, and ahh, you just watched the way he moved, which wasn’t anything special, very subtle,

very, you know, ahh, ah, I don’t know what it was, I can’t describe it, indescribable. So, I felt,

when I, after I started studying with him, he was the hasidic rabbi I was looking for. He had all

the qualities of the hasidic rabbi without being Jewish. (laugh)

Mel’s romanticized vision of the hasidic rabbi, the one who transcends book learning

in his dance with life, is realized in the Japanese monk who equally embodies something

both transcendent and very real. The power of the example was one that Suzuki roshi

never, according to Mel, fully actualizes, or as he puts it, exerted. The example he offers

is so compelling, and so embodied by his person, that it cannot be translated into words--

it is “indescribable”. Its only partial realization kept his students attached and seeking

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more insight into his life. Blanche comments on the view of her teacher Suzuki roshi as

an example of long practice, one which, as such, is a fount of continued inspiration: “I

saw that this capacity of his was just the by product of fifty years of practice….it was his

practice. It was very consciously his practice.” Such a recognition makes his example the

very way in which all that practice is taught to his students.

Mel summarizes the approach of his students, like himself and Blanche, among the

many others:

We just watched…and that was a kind of teaching. You know, the teaching was always indirect.

It was like, you had to observe, to pick up what was going on. What the teacher was saying, you

watch the teacher’s actions, and the way the teacher would move, and you know, relate. By

observing and by following. Kind of like an apprenticeship, in a way. You know, but that’s very

typically Japanese. He explains very little, I mean, he gave lectures all the time, but as far as

transmitting the understanding, it was all subtle observation.

Like the hasidic rabbi Mel idealizes who knows the all the law but teaches through the

mere lacing of his boots, Suzuki roshi is well-versed in Buddhist learning and lectures

frequently, but when it comes transmitting understanding his students rely on his subtle

actions. The intellect is not abandoned, but the deeper realizations of the practice is all by

“subtle observation” or Buddhist apprenticeship. In such a relationship, it is clear that the

teacher’s living daily example is paramount.

Jacob’s relationship to his Japanese Zen teachers is not as long-standing as that of Mel

and Blanche to Suzuki roshi, but the transmission of understanding is received by him in

a similar way. The only instruction he initially received from his first Zen teacher, Dorpio

roshi, was “we sit.” He would mock the categorizing of Zen with a laugh, “What is this

Zen, what is this Zen? We sit! Just practice, practice, practice.” Jacob relates further that

“It was impossible to hear anything from him about Zen. He didn’t want to talk.” The real

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teaching came through surprising examples, like when Jacob took his teacher for a tour in

the beautiful nature of northern Israel: “I saw that it was the time that he would usually

meditate, and I said to him, maybe we’ll stop by the side of the road and meditate. He

said to me, ‘Meditate? This is meditation!’ That was my second lesson.” The first was a

similar example of such an attitude which saw life in its entirety as the field of spiritual

practice, that of the necessity of the watch for keeping appointments.

When Jacob trains in Japan he studies under a ceramic teacher at the monastery, who

ended up being a formative influence along the same vein of grounding a worldly

practice. This teacher used to make beautiful pieces of pottery and then hurl them against

the floor or wall, smashing them to shards. His intention was to smash his students’ ideas

of what Zen and spiritual practice are. He would take Jacob and some other students out

of the monastery to broaden their ideas of what the practice was:

We would go outside of the monastery, to some pub and drink beer. He would say not to take Zen

too seriously. He said to me several times, that when water is too clean, fish cannot live there. If

the water is totally pure, there is nothing for them to eat there. The water doesn’t need to be

clean….You want to drink coffee sometimes, drink coffee. Take a cigarette. I never smoked, but

ah, there was something very human. He would take us out for a beer, he would get a little drunk,

he would sing songs, ordinary songs, pop songs. There was something there healthy.

As he describes his other teacher, Dorpio roshi, the ceramic teacher is most

compelling to him in his humanness, his being “flawed”, or at least with some murky

water which spawns an interesting spiritual life. It is that example, something human and

very unpretentious--an aversion to what the Dalai Lama calls the “monk-mind”--that

Jacob has chosen to emulate in his own life. Like the other teachers, Jacob has learned

much textually and academically about Zen and Buddhism, he several times mentioned

that he had read quantities of books on the matter before meeting his teachers, but the real

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lessons for him come from the inspiring and very accessible examples that his teachers

set by their own lives and attitudes. These examples, by not setting heights which are

unreachable to their disciples, present the practice in a form which is deceptively

commonplace while being subtly refined.

The Non-Buddhist Teachers

The Family Member as a Teacher

Just as certain family members and family experiences, as recounted in the previous

chapter on Jewish identities, provided some of the fundamental Jewish models for the

subjects, so too are family members often received and experienced as providing

important Buddhist life lessons. Such “teachers” may or may not be defined as a

Buddhist teacher for the subject, and they are definitely not framed in the traditional

disciple-teacher model as found in the last section. Their influence and importance in the

Buddhist practice and understanding, however, are described by some of the Jewish

Buddhist teachers as more central and profound than any of the other formal Buddhist

teachers they may have had. While very often family members can be seen as teachers in

the same way that the Dalai Lama sees the Chinese as his greatest teachers (they teach me

patience and compassion, he frequently says, and then goes on to expound upon the

virtues of the “enemy” as the teacher), I am restricting the inclusion of family members

as teacher to those who described the positive examples--the negative ones would have

taken up too much space.

Most explicit in his describing of a family member as a teacher to him was Jacob, who

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has embraced his son Yoni, who has Down Syndrome, as his great teacher: “My real life

of Zen has a lot of things, but before everything is Yoni. He is, in a sense, my greatest

teacher. Really a teacher. Until today this continues all the time…I am everyday with

him. Everyday in the afternoon I am with him.” Yoni is a leitmotif of Jacob’s interview,

who keeps reappearing as a subject, and reminding the narrative of his centrality. At the

end of our last session, Jacob expressed just what one of the major lessons was which he

receives from his son after his son‘s temporary disappearance while under Jacob‘s care:

Look in to the kind of love you’re giving…and find ways…look into ways to give him more

independence. So, to be one with your own theory and practice, and letting him be…for his own

good. In what way I don’t know yet, but, ah, I do it all the time, but obviously not enough (laugh).

He took his own freedom and he said, ‘Father, please awaken!’ That’s what he said to me. So,

that’s your koan, and find ways, find ways!..a kind of middle path, to let him be…um, something

else he said is, ah, I’m more independent than what you, ah, think…I can do, you don’t give me

credit, you loving father. (with sarcasm)

Like his other more formal Buddhist teachers, Jacob understands his son’s lesson in

terms of how to engage with the world--of nature views, of watches, of beer, cigarettes

and here of relationships--through the lens of spiritual practice. He admits his own

shortcomings, of not being “one with your own theory and practice”; his emphasis,

presumably, had been on the side of theory. His son, as his greatest teacher, shows him in

his own practice, in his son’s oneness with who he is and what he does, the path that

Jacob needs to work on. In a sense, Yoni is pure practice, while his father veered too far

the other way; in their relationship Jacob is finding the middle way between freedom and

responsibility, theory and practice.

Though not calling her a teacher, Jacqueline does consider her grandmother to have

had a seminal influence on her spiritual development. Like Yoni for Jacob, her influence

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relied more on the example of her life than by anything she may have said to Jacqueline.

Her grandmother was from the Deep South of the Carolinas, and in her own ways resisted

the segregation that was entrenched in that part of the States during most of her life. Her

influence rested in the attitude of equality she had for all people, and which she expressed

in subtle ways to the child, at the time, Jacqueline: She would spend time at their shop, a

department store (the only one in town) where her grandmother would give poor black

people clothes--which was frowned upon by the rest of the town. Jacqueline explains

their connection: “A lot of people say we have this connection. That grandmother had

much more personal influence…I mean, she was quite different. So, for my real, ah, inner

maturity, she had the greatest influence.”

Jacqueline would spend summers with her grandparents at the segregated beach, and

during these times she received an awareness which was missing: “A very great social

awareness. And also a skill, there was a lot of skill in what to say and what not to

say…yeah, and even in terms of conditioning.” The world of the early 60’s in the

southern U.S. was embroiled in racial tensions, and her grandmother offers an example of

a different way--while living outwardly in the same, very disparate world. The real inner

maturity which her grandmother instill in her is the sense of a choice, that one does not

have to accept the status quo go on, but there is an inner and outer difference to be made;

the former in one’s attitudes and beliefs, and the later in one’s actions. It is the example

of being able to change the conditioning which one has inherited from one’s society,

according to a different moral code; this example, her grandmother’s “skill”, opened a

path of resistance and change for her grandchild.

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Spiritualists and Artists

Most non-Buddhist teachers were encountered prior to the subjects’ involvement with

Buddhist practice, which means that most of these teachers were met not only in their

youth, but at moments in their life narrative when a spiritual search was just beginning to

be outwardly expressed. The teachers and guides who are initially turned to in this regard

are often those who were the first station on what would become the Dharma path--in the

retrospective view of the narrative process they become part of the subjects’ Buddhist

education. They are not regarded by the subjects as Buddhist teachers in any formal

sense, but, as Mel calls his art teacher Clifford Still, who was the most original figure in

the American Abstract Expressionism of the 50’s and 60’s, a “spiritual teacher…(one of)

the greatest teachers.” The greatness of these teachers, in the case of the subjects of this

study they taught, was in their being able to assist the subjects in their initial steps on the

newly defined spiritual path--not to follow the path these teachers had followed, but to

encourage them in their own ways which would shortly be revealed as Buddhist.

Returning to Mel, and his formative first spiritual teacher in the person of the great

artist Clifford Still, he describes the experience as, “He didn’t teach anything (laugh).

He’d walk around and he’d talk to you, you know, he never talked about your painting.”

The resemblance of Still in his approach to Mel’s later main Buddhist teacher, Suzuki

roshi, in the way he teaches (by non-teaching, and by example) is something which he

extrapolates on later in his narrative: “He’d never talk about how to do this or that, there

was not way of doing anything. (laugh) So, ah, that was great…he was a spiritual teacher,

actually, very much like my teacher Suzuki roshi who doesn’t teach either. So I had,

when I think about my life, you know, I’ve had some really great teachers, some of the

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greatest teachers, you know, of the time.” Whether Mel appreciated Still at the time as a

spiritual teacher is irrelevant, in his narrative he makes the designation clear. Other than

Suzuki roshi, Still is the only teacher Mel mentions by name, and those two were indeed

among the greatest of their generation. Art for Mel was from the beginning a kind of

spiritual pursuit without the definition; he abandoned that practice as his life became

consumed by his passion for Zen and the founding of the Berkeley Zen Center, but

equally was he dismayed by the contrived scene which was manifest in the art world.

That he was able to abandon his practice of art (after being tutored by one of the

century’s greats) reveals that it served as a spiritual substitute, or station on the way, for

his lifelong Zen practice and teacher.

Another very famous artist served as a central teacher for Jacqueline, when she was in

college and about to depart for the Far East on her first trip which was self-consciously a

spiritual search--her embarkation for that far horizon of her beach front childhood.

During the late 60’s Harvard Square in Cambridge, Mass., was a center for the meeting of

society’s alternative artistic voices, with figures like Henry Miller, Berling Getty, Alan

Ginsberg, and the poet who inspired Jacqueline like no other, Anais Nin. She was

regarded as a symbol of the women’s movement, “held up as a symbol” Jacqueline says,

“cause she was a poet and she just lived independently, and, you know, chose her own

lifestyle.” From the start, even before her speech, she is a model for Jacqueline who had

felt very confined by her circumstances--dependent on her middle-class materialistic and

fearful family, and trying to break out of the Ohio cheerleader mold.

Anais Nin is a one-time and permanent teacher of Jacqueline’s: she only hears her on

the evening of her eventful speech, but the message she receives makes a lifelong imprint

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upon her soul. The scene is a packed large church off of Harvard Square, and Jacqueline

is in the front, sitting at the second row, right beside the tape machine recording the

speech. She gives a speech and at one point she says the fateful line: “In order for all

women to be free, each woman must be liberated.” Pandemonium. All hell broke loose:

people were screaming from the balcony, what about our sisters in Vietnam!!? while

other people from below shouted at them to shut up and let her continue her speech.

Anais Nin looked out at the din as said calmly, “I guess I can’t continue,” and calmly left

the stage. Jacqueline describes the aftermath:

and then she went back and had a class of water. So, um, I was impressed…I got invited back

behind to be with her…so I was with her and I was watching this woman just wearing a very

lovely white shirt, long black skirt, not meeting people’s expectations, and she was just totally

gracious. She was unphased. And I said, oh, I like that. So, um, because I had been around the

protests, and I had been around every conceivable definition of freedom.

What happened there? There is, for Jacqueline, a kind of epiphany, where she is

suddenly offered a completely new definition of freedom: individual liberation. It was

exactly that definition which ignited the ire of all the hippie protesters in the audience--

everything must be experienced by the group, by the masses, by the freedom commune.

Individual freedom was understood by those who shut up Nin as a shibboleth of the free-

market powers that be--the freedom to own a gun and drive fast on cheap gas. They

suffered from exactly what proved much of the freedom movement of the 60’s demise:

the problem was out there, in others, while oneself remained unworked on. Anais Nin

points in the opposite direction, which helped prod Jacqueline in a Buddhist direction:

one must simultaneously work for one’s own liberation while working on the world’s

woes. Nin gives Jacqueline the permission to be truly independent, not just from her

35

parents but from the hippie group mentality which had up until then provided the only

radical alternative. She can now depart for her search for personal freedom.

The non-Buddhist spiritual teachers of the 1960’s, who were formative for the

narratives here and who were not artists or poets, fell under the spectrum of non-

denominational spiritualists. These were the rebel voices in the hippie wilderness and

drug scenes when drugs were still being used largely for spiritual and psychological

escape, not for physical pleasure as they came to be abused in the later decades. A figure

the likes of Timothy Leary, former Harvard psychology professor turned psychedelic

guru, lead the way in this substance-oriented spirituality. Stephen, upon his breakthrough

trip to California in ‘67, which was even more formative for him spiritually than his year

India, says that “I became a real follower of Timothy Leary. At that time LSD was very

legal…” There was no separation between drugs and spirituality. He also turned to the

person of Alan Watts, who was a Buddhist, who Stephen describes as “a major

inspiration for the spiritual side of the sixties. He really was the guru.” As with Mel and

his replacement of art with meditation, so too did Stephen begin to view the drug

experience as superfluous and replaced by more disciplined spiritual practice; his initial

teachers of the psychedelic path, Leary and Aldous Huxley, who offered an alternate

view of reality, were cornerstones in the alternative social context of the late 60’s for a

seeking individual such as Stephen.

Most of the Jewish Buddhist teachers in this study came of age spiritually in the

tumultuous later 60’s of an America (and to a lesser extent, an England) in transition and

inner turmoil. To say that this period made an indelible mark on their paths would be an

understatement: their basic choices of a spiritual life were defined during this time.

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Amaro was a typical rebelling product of his times: “I’m a hippie, right, I’ve got long

ringlets, earrings, and rainbow colored coat, and a beard.” Taking refuge in the London

hippie scene which offered escape from the confines of his family’s country homestead,

he is taken by one of his ilk to a weekly spiritual meeting run by the man who would be

his first teacher, Trevor, who spoke about Rudolf Steiner-like spirituality. Amaro

describes the relationship:

This guy who was very powerful and very humble, in his own way extraordinarily gifted. My

spiritual connection was first through him. You know, I trusted him because he really wasn’t

trying to get anything out of anybody, he didn’t want anything from you. So that was really sort

of powerful, he wasn’t trying to get converts or money, or, sleep with you or anything. He was

like, he was just okay, I happen to know this stuff, if you want to hear it, I’ll say it. If you don’t

want to hear it, that’s fine. You know, he didn’t want anything from the people who were coming

along. He wasn’t trying to gather a following or something. A sort of free lance guru, which was

very common. So, ah, I trusted him, and even though his life was chaotic, and I knew I didn’t

want to be like him.

Repeated with emphasis is the quality of the teacher teaching for its own sake--not for

money, fame, or sex. In a materialistic culture where the so-called free-lance gurus were

common, as Amaro contends, it would be rare to find an example of a such a teacher who

had no ulterior motives. This example paved the way for Amaro’s entrance into the world

of Theravada Buddhism, which is extremely strict about its precepts of non-ownership,

celibacy, and prohibition on the handling of money. Trevor gives Amaro the example of a

free spirituality, no strings attached, and the monastery and tradition he commits himself

to place a high value on giving--the quality of dana in Pali. No fees are charged for

Dharma instruction. Amaro trusts him based on this example, despite his “chaotic life”

which he wouldn’t want to emulate, and he accepts advice from him which proved to be

fateful: “The advice that he gave me was, ah, …he said your destiny lies in Northern

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India. At that time I had no connection with Buddhism.” The meetings with Trevor

proved to be for Amaro crucial in the discovery of a trust that he could have in a spiritual

teacher, and in the teacher’s setting him in a direction with which he had no previous

inkling. Amaro probably would have ended up in the monastery without such advice, but

in terms of the narrative importance, the experience stands as a pivotal station for his

departure to the East and the monkhood.

The example of another spiritualist teacher shows how a non-Buddhist can serve

unintentionally as a teacher of the most central Buddhist values, in the example of her

life. When Jacob began as an undergraduate student to become actively interested in

Buddhism, which was formalized by his involvement with his Buddhist teacher Dorpio

roshi on the Mount of Olives, he began to learn Japanese language and music (as referred

to him by the Japanese consulate) by a certain older woman named Pitali. She was by

then a mature woman of Austrian Catholic origin, a Jewish convert, who moved to Israel

with her Jewish husband. Jacob recounts her story which inspired and changed his life:

There was a robber, and the robber robbed the cashier (at a store). Pitali (the husband) stood

before, by chance, he stood there by chance, he didn’t stop him, and the robber got scared and

shot him. He shot him and he didn’t mean to kill him, but he killed him. They caught the robber

and put him in prison. She (Pitali the wife), Hinka, this was her first name, went to the prison and

found the murderer. Simply found him and began to rehabilitate him, to teach him music. In the

end he was the conductor of the prison orchestra. By her work. Now that is an amazing thing.

From every angle you view it, even from Buddhist perspectives, this woman who went to who

killed her husband and did work like that, is not just forgiveness, you know, it’s something,

really, beyond the norm…it was strange to many people. They thought that she was a little crazy.

But really, it was compassion. That was before I knew what in Buddhism was this compassion, I

learned it from her. When she did this thing I was a little child. I mean, I met her ten years after

this…I didn’t understand how one could do such a thing, what kind of, really, what kind of divine

compassion this really was to go to someone who killed, someone who killed someone that was

so close to you, to teach him and educate him, and rehabilitate him.

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Such an example of “divine compassion”, before he has learned about any equivalent

quality in Buddhist teachings, grants Jacob the inspiration of an engaged and incredibly

human--with all its suffering--approach to spiritual work. Pitali performed this amazing

work before she had had any extensive exposure to Buddhism--it was only after these

events that she went to Japan and spent time in a monastery. Though she may have, by

the time Jacob met her and became her student, considered herself a Buddhist, I include

her in the section of non-Buddhist teachers because her main inspirational teaching for

Jacob came from her example of compassion before she was involved in Buddhism. She

shows Jacob that compassion, even seemingly crazy compassion of the unconditional

sort, is not the domain of any Buddhist or non-Buddhist, but is an exquisitely human

potential. Such refined and elevated humanness is the connecting factor of all of Jacob’s

teachers.

Retrospectively, from the perspective of his Buddhist learning, Jacob calls her a

bodhisattva--the Mahayana Buddhist equivalent of a saint or tzaddik, one who works

unrelentlessly for the welfare of all others. He describes this: “She had something in her

presence which was like some kind of bodhisattva. She was a bodhisattva. A woman who

was really impressive…I absorbed something really, really powerful.” It was her very

humanness, however, which makes a tragic turn to her story and Jacob’s recollection of it

in his own narrative. He narrates painfully: “After a few years she wasn’t able to get it

together here, and she returned to Hamburg, and she…committed suicide. Committed

suicide, and she even wrote a kind of death poem that the Japanese Zen monks write, and

she committed suicide.” Other than Dorpio roshi, Pitali was Jacob’s main teacher and

example in life, and her death--he repeats the phrase “committed suicide” three times as

39

if to convince himself still of the painful news--has not lost its sting. He expresses such:

“Several years after I returned from Japan I heard about her, and it really hurt me. She

didn’t explain why. She didn’t write why…she was a very special woman…a very

special woman.” Even though he had not had contact with her for years, the loss of his

main teacher was a painful blow to Jacob, and stood as the last lesson that she was to give

him, in her absence. Her suicide threw to him an unsolvable koan: how could a woman

with such compassion for others, divine compassion, a veritable bodhisattva, kill herself?

Why?

Non-Western Gurus

While many of the subjects’ core teachers were non-Western, they were Buddhists

masters. The non-Buddhist Asian teachers were met by subjects who were already

committed to Buddhist practice, unlike their meetings with the Western non-Buddhist

teachers of the previous section. Such teachers did indeed become formative to their

Buddhist practice, as they infused their path with fresh perspectives felt to be missing in

their Buddhism. The non-Buddhist teachings became important rediscoveries of their

Buddhism which was in need of renewal.

In 1990 James went to India for the first time, after having been involved in, and a

teacher of, Buddhist meditation for years. He sought out a Hindu guru named Punjaji,

who was first mentioned by a vipassana colleague of James’, Christopher Titmus. James

describes his experience:

A couple of friends had gone there and they said check him out. And I went to check him out, and

got my mind blown…Punjaji really blew my mind. And brought me back to the Dharma, brought

me back to kind of, you know, seeing it from a love perspective. I had a very limited perspective

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of what Theravadin, of what Buddhism was, of Theravadin Buddhism, it’s much, much bigger

than that….Punjaji would say, (with an Indian accent) there’s no place to land, there’s no place to

land. You know, you don’t have to get caught in small views. And ah, so that can stretch the

whole vipassana teaching.

James went to India to broaden his Buddhist, and specifically vipassana practice, beyond

what had begun to feel constricted. The Hindu guru who taught a path of bhakti, of loving

devotion, introduced James to a perspective which in essence saved his Buddhist practice.

He had his “mind blown” by the teaching, and he returned to his own practice with a

sense of vastness and love which was previously missing. Part epiphany, part returning to

some of his original spiritual intuitions, James refers to his meeting with Punjaji as

pivotal in the redemption of his vipassana practice.

Jacqueline’s meeting with an Indian guru had a similarly profound effect on her

practice, and it too came from a very short exposure--in her case from one audience with

the guru. During her year of intensive practice largely in India with Goenka, she and

some of her meditation friends travel to meet Neem Karoli Baba, who was mentioned in

Ram Das’ Be Here Now book, a seminal influence on Jacqueline’s first spiritual

awakenings as a college student. Her meeting with the guru occurs as a simple exchange

which had a profound meaning for her:

And so I go, and by then I have like a coral necklace from all the Tibetans who are still escaping

Tibet. I was trading clothes for beads, I’d give them all my clothes and they’d give me a bead.

And I had another like, string of beads. So I went to meet Neem Kuroli Baba, and all that he did,

he asked me the meaning of my beads. And, having learned so much from Goenka already, you

know, one of them, I realized I was attached to, you know, the one with all the coral and stones

and stuff, and the other one I realized was just adornment. It didn’t have any meaning to me, I

mean, it was cool, but it was like ignorance. You know, sort of like ignorance and attachment. So,

um, I ended up just sending that one off.

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Through the simple and seemingly innocent question by the guru, she perceives her

two necklaces as representing the Buddhist-defined mental afflictions of attachment and

ignorance. She sends of the ignorance, gives that one up, but holds on to the coral

necklace (more seemingly “meaningful” because of all the trading with Tibetans she did

for it). Later in the narrative, Jacqueline brings me back to that necklace (“there’s a really

important piece I want to tell you about” she re-opens that narrative section with), even

though it was far back chronologically. While she was in a hotel room in Delhi, later that

year, she receives a postcard from a friend in America informing her that Neem Karoli

Baba had died. Returning to her room, she finds that it was broken into and messed up--

presumably for the sake of theft. Searching the room, she finds that nothing was actually

taken, nothing except the coral necklace. According to Jacqueline, in his passing, the

guru left her with one final teaching, to complete the one he began in their short

interview: she must let go of attachment as well. These messages from the living and

dead guru are essential markers in Jacqueline’s progress down her Buddhist path which

she was pursuing in earnest.

Summary

Having had a teaching and continuing to have a teacher, whether he or she is still alive

or not, is a defining feature of the Jewish Buddhist teacher’s spiritual path. Uniquely, the

person of the teacher receives a broad context and definition--family members, Asians,

Westerners, Buddhists, non-Buddhist, living and dead all fill the role. The subjects relate

to their central teachers emotionally, through their teachings, and “karmically“; all the

while gravitating between the poles of independence and devotion, which in their lives

42

form a single whole. Above all, these teachers are inspired by the examples that their

teachers set for them, and their teaching is transmitted largely through this. Without

having had such guides, the teachers of this study would not have found their way into

the paths they chose, or have had the opportunity to develop by example their own

teaching abilities. In short, uniformly their faith in the Buddhist path and its efficacy for

personal refinement and interpersonal service was maintained by their relationships to

their primary spiritual teachers.

Endnotes: 1 A tulku is the term given to one considered to be an incarnation of a previous high lama. The honorific title given to such a person is rinpoche.

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2 It is estimated that in pre-occupation Tibet twenty percent of the population were ordained monks and nuns residing in monasteries. This number would have included the children, meaning that a significant amount of the population was parented by lamas. It was a common folk wish to have two sons--one for the fields and one for the monastery. While this does indicate the overt sexism of a male-privileged spirituality (girls did not have the same option, and that’s not to say they only went to the nunnery, but rather the opposite), it also reveals the central value placed on a family’s commitment to Buddhist training. Of course, the socio-economic realities influenced these choices: the best, and free, education came from the monastery, as well as providing food and shelter.

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Chapter Nine The Dialectics of Plot:

Narratives Movements of Becoming (a Jewish Buddhist Teacher)

Table of Contents

Introduction: The dialectic as an interpretive tool p.

Thesis Themes: p.

Personal alienation and loneliness p.

Dissatisfaction with available religious options p.

Early spiritual thirst p.

Tensions with the mainstream culture p.

Antithesis Themes: p.

Escape through travel p.

Assuming an alternative lifestyle p.

Avenues of study, arts and work p.

Intensive meditation practice p.

Synthesis Themes: p.

Finding one’s place in Buddhism p.

The family practice p.

Being a teacher p.

Reconsidering Judaism p.

Summary p.

1

Introduction: the dialectic as an interpretive tool

In this final chapter of narrative analysis I intend to examine the plot developments of the

life stories according to a dialectical understanding. The base line of this entire study has

been that narratives--the recounting of life story episodes--are meaningful events in both

their content and their form. Content, the specific details of a life as organized into relevant

and insightful themes, has been the focus of the previous six chapters; form, the structure in

which the narrative content is presented, as thought of in terms of plot development, is now

turned to. Structure, especially when the framework is plot, of course cannot be completely

removed from the very content which it organizes. Plot is only one of many interpretive

structures to utilize when looking at the presentational sweep of an entire

narrative--language use and conventions, psychological process, interviewer-interviewee

relationship and interview dynamics, memory use patterns, and thematic repetition are just

a few of the structural interpretive choices. To be clear, I am not referring to interpretive

theoretical perspectives and choices that underlie the whole project, such as my choice of

phenomenological, existential, and grounded theories. The structural analysis of this

chapter is more formal (or practical) and less theoretical: plot is a narrative convention

which, like grounded theory, exists as an open theory--it needs to be filled by a specific

interpretive tool or approach.

Plot organizes content, similar to the previous chapters’ content analyses, but instead of

according to theme, the movement of the whole narrative is the framework. Traditional

plot analysis, originating in literary studies, relied on categories of romantic, tragic, comic

2

and ironic--these are useful for fiction, but are found to be “tragically” lacking when

applied to living narratives. Simply put, a real life cannot be summed up as being on a

single trajectory; who would want to have their personal narrative summed up as tragic or

ironic? In a depressive narrative turn, the comic or romantic generalizations would appear

equally inappropriate. The most decisive resistance of a living narrative to traditional

literary plot categories comes from the open-endedness of the narrative--a life is

interpreted and reinterpreted ad infinitum; by the narrative self during her life, by others

after. The tragic, comic, romantic and ironic plot directions are present at all times in each

real life narrative--the defining factor is the perspective of the specific reader at a given

time, which changes in the next moment.

The interpretive tool which will guide my use of plot analysis will be a reading of the

dialectic movements within the narrative, according to Hegel’s usage of the term. Hegel’s

dialectic is particularly suitable to the reading of a narrative sweep of a significant lifetime

segment; in accordance with my appreciation of narratives as meaningful on the personal

and inter-personal levels, Hegel’s understanding of history and the development of

consciousness stemmed from a belief in the inherent meaningfulness of history and its

developmental trajectory--its narrative direction. In his Philosophy of History, Hegel

boldly and famously states that “The history of the world is none other than the progress of

the consciousness of freedom.”1 This sentence, as Peter Singer states, defines the theme--or

plot--of his entire work.

Hegel attempted to trace the development of such consciousness of freedom, as he

would define it, throughout the great recorded civilizations of the past, culminating in the

Germanic era of his lifetime. The development of freedom was articulated through the

3

dialectic replacement of one level of consciousness by another, with the Reformation

heralding the final stage of spiritual liberation. Its message was of the ability of every

human being to recognize her own spiritual nature, independent of an outside authority to

interpret the scriptures or perform rituals: the individual is free to actualize her own

salvation. It is the role of individual conscience, in its realized and rational form, to discern

what truth and goodness are. Following this grand turn toward the flag of freedom that the

Reformation had unfurled according to Hegel (and most of his contemporaries), the role of

history is defined as the very transformation of the world according to this spirit of

freedom. The individual’s role is the conforming of the powers of intuition and conscience

to the principles of reason, in order to properly judge what truth and goodness are. The real

transformation comes when all social institutions are reformed in conformity to these

general principles of reason, which will convince individuals to fully accept and participate

in them. In this unity and harmony between the individual and his society, as Singer

expresses, “only then will human beings be free and yet fully reconciled with the world in

which they live.”2

With that apex reached, which Hegel believed was the achievement of his own times,

world history comes to a magnificent end--the development of the idea of freedom has

reached its consummation. The remaining work is for individuals to reform their

consciences accordingly and for all the social and political institutions to be rationally

re-organized. The ensuing harmony will christen the final end of world history. Obviously,

we are just of the verge of this happening. My intention here is in no way to present a

critique or even substantial summary of Hegel’s views of history and freedom, but rather to

make a parallel between his reading of history, or History, and my reading of narratives and

4

life stories. Hegel presented history as constantly developing, procedural, and with a

specified end goal. The narrative readings which I utilize view lives and their stories as

process-oriented, and the “procedure” which I apply as a framework of understanding in

this chapter is the same as with which Hegel interpreted history and consciousness--the

dialectic movement. As far as having an end goal, here I depart from Hegel’s evolution of

Spirit--partially, because while process is king in narrative studies--the means is the end--I

nonetheless have framed a certain developmental milestone--that of becoming a Jewish

Buddhist teacher, or of a Jew who becomes a teacher of Buddhism from not being one. I

have presumed no prior contextual likelihood that she would develop in this way, towards

such a contingent end. This is in no way the “goal” of their narratives, or the end product of

their life stories, which keep on developing, as lives do, in unexpected ways. Seth’s later

narrative turn (post-interview) away from Buddhist teaching and to his enrolment in

rabbinical school, is a sterling example of this. My interest is in a specific reading of

narrative development up to a certain point, which is my interpretive end, not theirs.

Hegel’s interest was world history, mine is personal history. In the Philosophy of

History, there is a single dialectical movement which defines world history from the

Greeks to his present. The customary community of ancient Greece, forming the original

thesis with its societal harmony, was shown to be inadequate by Socrates’ questioning

independence--the first antithesis. This antithesis was then proven to be inadequate by

Christian morality, forming the synthesis between the opposition of community and

independence. This synthesis itself is developed and shown as inadequate by further

developments in the Spirit of Freedom throughout world history, eventually coming to its

final form in developments of Lutheranism and the idea (not the disastrous outcome of The

5

Terror) of the French Revolution.

The point here in outlining Hegel’s dialectic of world history and the development of

the idea of freedom is that the dialectic is constantly in motion and reinventing itself--at

least until it is put to an interpretive end, as he does with his own time. Every synthesis of

opposing thesis and antithesis is a temporary achievement, lasting until further narrative

developments reveal its own inner tensions, instability, and tendency towards change.

Singer summarizes: “In the categories of our thought, in the development of

consciousness, and in the progress of history, there are opposing elements which lead to the

disintegration of what seemed stable, and the emergence of something new which

reconciles the previously opposing elements but in turn develops its own internal

tensions.”3 Hegel’s is a dialectic with an end; mine is without--I don’t know where my

subjects are going. The dialectic interpretive tool views narrative turns as dance rhythms,

moving a step this way and a step that, creating its own new form. The background music

for Hegel which determined the rhythm of the dance was the development of the idea of

freedom; for my narrative study the music is the development of a teacher of Buddhism

from a Jewish background.

The crux of the dialectical movement is the dynamism in the whole endeavor; Hegel

himself specified this in his Science of Logic, where he applies the dialectic method to

abstract categories of consciousness, with the definition of the terms of the dialectic as

Being (thesis), Nothing (antithesis) and Becoming (synthesis). The emphasis of the

dialectic, its raison d’etre, is its synthesis: reality as a manifestation of Becoming. Gadamer

explains that this is the result of the identity, or non-separation of Being and Nothing,

thesis and antithesis: “That Nothing ‘bursts forth’ from Being is intended to mean that

6

although in our belief Being and Nothing appear as the most extreme opposites, thought

cannot succeed in maintaining a distinction here.”4 Gadamer maintains that Hegel uses the

term “bursts forth” to imply that there is a lack of separateness, that Nothing is not a natural

transition from Being. He continues this collapsing of categories: “Being and Nothing are

more to be treated as analytic moments in the concept of Becoming.”5 If we are to

understand reality, it is in its dynamic becoming, in the constant movement of life and the

development of consciousness. Being and Nothing, or thesis and antithesis, have no reality

in themselves, they exist only as categories for the understanding of Becoming--this proves

them to be, as conceptual tools, non-oppositional. Hegel’s dialectic is an evolutionary view

of history, not completely antagonistic. His own words clarify this point, and are most

relevant to my study: “One has acquired great insight when one realizes that being and

not-being are abstractions without truth and that the first truth is Becoming alone.”6 Within

the narrative, which is the constantly moving story of an individual becoming him or

herself again and again, the chosen memories freezeframe this undifferentiated flow into

identifiable images of being and not-being, of having a certain state of being and then

having it challenged. The synthesis is the resultant narrative change and the resumption of

the flow. It is like a movie film, only functioning in reverse: first is the natural flow of

images (becoming) which with memory selection and recounting divides into individual

frames (being and nothing). The synthesis gets the film reels rolling again.

Being and Nothing are identifiable as conceptual interpretations of the flow of

Becoming; the narrative never ends or stands still, it can just be remembered and spoken

about in terms of episodic moments which are pure interpretation. To remember a

narrative piece of a life story is to frame it, in the dialectic interpretive approach, as thesis

7

or antithesis, Being or Nothing. Simply put, I was something, then something happened

which confronted my sense of self, resulting in a change in my life. Each remembered

narrative has its major dialectics, which I will examine here. These are different than

epiphanies, which too resulted in major changes, since epiphanies can be much less a

product of past theses, or states of Being. The dialectic plot movements here are identified

according to the question of how a Jewish man or woman developed into a Buddhist

teacher; the plot lines then are traced accordingly, using a dialectic lens. The focus will be

on the movement of the narrative as a whole, the entire plot, so to speak. The frames that

provide the images of the thesis, antithesis, and synthesis of each life story will collect to

suggest a flow which is, like Hegel’s own take, evolutionary. While he meant the evolution

of the Spirit of freedom, I mean the evolution of the particular individuals, which give

narrative evidence to some common dialectical movements.

Thesis Themes

Personal Alienation and Loneliness

The original thesis, or major point of departure, for a life-story narrative is something

which in itself is the product of previous dialectic movements. My beginning the plot

descriptions with the theses to be outlined here is coming from my own grounded readings

of the narratives; I have chosen from the mass of thematic material available the most

prevalent and, to the study’s own theme of the narrative development of a Jewish Buddhist

teacher, relevant thematic arcs. Such narrative developments occurred as a result of the

meeting of the researcher and subject, myself with the people interviewed, not from the

8

unadultered memories they revealed to me (of which there is no such thing); they

recounted according to their perceptions of my interests, which were or were not

particularly their own. Jacqueline articulates this when she says at the end of a long

interview: “Oh, how does it feel to talk about my life? Oh, I just want to fulfill what you

want, that’s what I keep wondering, am I fulfilling what he wants? Jewish or Buddhist?”

The memories, however, or the recounting of them, have their own momentum and force,

which become a joining factor between the researcher and subject during the

interview--formally called an alignment-- as Jacqueline continues to express: “Well, in

many ways, your inquiry is matching my inquiry…so I would say it feels good, because,

it’s what I’m doing too. Does that make sense? You know, your inquiry is also my

inquiry.” The reading of plot is one of many readings, arising from a multi-pronged

investigation into the processes of life; the dialectic, beginning with the identifying of the

thesis, reveals the connectedness and dependency that the further stages of development on

it. Without the thesis of a lonely childhood, as is the case in some of the subjects, their

choosing of travel as an escape from the oppressive environment may not have occurred as

a reaction or antithesis; the Buddhism they met on their trip would then not have been

engaged as it was in their narrative as part of their synthesis.

A majority of the subjects in this study experienced loneliness and alienation from their

peers in their early years, which was a point both emphasized and reframed in turns.

Stephen, speaking about his early school years, says, “I was quite lonely in a way, in my

self; I would say lonely is too strong, but still the, ah, observer.” Revisiting the pain of

childhood is in itself painful, and begs for retrospective reinterpretation--he reframes it to

accord with his mindfulness training. The pain cannot be avoided, and he returns to it:

9

“Until the age of, I think, 17, 18, I felt that being an outsider from the group became very

painful. At that period of my life, from 12-17, I felt very shy…I didn’t have the habit of

talking to more than one person at a time…I kind of adjusted to it. But it did kind of stay

with me as a kind of, ah, difficulty in communication.” This quality of social otherness

becomes a defining factor that the practice of meditation, as a solitary endeavor, is suited to

(as a kind of antithesis development) while allowing him to develop a community, sangha,

based on this practice (a synthesis resolution).

Jacob’s loneliness is expressed more as a sense of alienation, that “I sometimes don’t

know where I belong…the culture in my house was so diverse. I was a very introverted

boy.” His parent’s later divorce exacerbates his feelings of pain and loneliness, of inner

homelessness, so that he forces himself to become a social creature in the youth

movements of his time. This sense of homelessness as a basic thesis draws Jacob to a

tradition which defines its ordained members as “homeless”--the Japanese word for monk.

Seth’s experience of emotional alienation also had its origins in the home, where his

father would inappropriately read to him bedtime stories by Edgar Allen Poe at age five,

and forged a connection that was based on “a lot of complex concepts, ah, more than

emotional love. Emotionality wasn’t so strong…my mother was more emotional, but,

emotional to the point of, ah, a lot of anxiety and franticness.” He was pushed away by two

extremes--the absence of emotion, and its extreme. Finding emotional balance, and

belonging, became a lifelong search founded on this original thesis of childhood emotional

difficulty.

Quoted in the chapter on suffering, Amaro’s alienation and victimization by his school

peers, his torment in the British private school system, and overall feeling of being in a

10

self-described “nightmare” while attending school are possibly the most formative

building blocks of his entire narrative. It is the foundation for his seeking escape as a hippie

and eventually finding his “home” and community in the monastery. This does not prevent

him from attempting immediate revision, which is followed closely by further dark

descriptions: “Oh yeah, (I had) loads of friends, and they did most of the teasing…yeah, we

were best friends…if you wanted to be in, you sort of had to take your medicine. It was a

nightmare. I hated it, the whole sort of public school scene. Was really, it was not a good

fit, I was not, I was not a happy camper. So, you know, they were my friends, but I hated

the kind of treatment I got, very vehemently,” With friends like that, who need enemies!

Amaro’s framing and reframing of his difficult thesis makes the subsequent plot

movements of his hippie escapism and monastery resolution equally dynamic, forceful,

and open to various interpretive assessments.

Dissatisfaction with available religious options

Apart from Amaro, whose religion as a child, which he rejected, was the Church of

England, the religious option which was universally rejected was the Judaism of the early

years. The only subjects who did not express any rejection were Blanche and Jacob, the

two who were given no religious background within their families--they had, in essence,

nothing to reject. As the life stories develop, there are those (Jacob, Stephen and Seth) who

make efforts at rediscovering their Judaism, while the rest follow the trajectories set in

motion by these early negative impressions, never to reengage their original tradition in

anything other than in an occasional observer status. The substantial thesis that such

dissatisfaction with their early religious experiences creates is a legacy which defines the

11

rest of their spiritual lives.

Most of the subjects’ relationships with their Judaism have been described in the

chapter “The Jewish Something”, so here I will bring summary negative impressions into

the context of the dialectic for their roles as defining theses. The strongest negative terms

for his early relationship with Judaism was voiced by Stephen, with phrases such as, “I felt

suffocated by it. I felt suffocated and aggressive and irritated by it. Tremendously irritated,

and pissed off more and more.” Aware of his feelings, he is even more explicit: “I had a

deep disgust, it was quite strong, I use the word advisably, a real disgust.” Stephen is very

intentional in his expression, for he is setting out a theme, a thesis theme, which will define

much of his life journey to come: the flight from Judaism, the exploration of new practices

and homes (physical and spiritual), and the eventual momentous rejection of his lifelong

rejection of Judaism. The force of his reconciliation mirrors the force of his early rejection,

like physical laws. His strong expressions describing his early relationship to Judaism set

the stage for a well-defined dialectic which must return to again and again these initial

impressions—his rejection colors the rest of his narrative.

Seth is the other example of a serious and intentional return to his Jewish thesis, which

involved a rejection of the outer forms. This rejection is the consequence of his own

spiritual experiences: “At age fourteen it was then sort of threw it all out, I know God’s not

out there, I know God’s in here, I know God’s everywhere.” His anger “I was sort of

adamant in the way I’m not Jewish, and you can’t make me Jewish,” becomes a powerful

energy which motivates an earnest search, contemplative practice, and eventually a

reconsideration of the rejected background. The search, reconsideration and reintegration

are defined and fueled by the initial rejection and its strong emotional inertia.

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The thesis of a dialectic, in narrative time, does not always appear

chronologically--narrative memory runs back and forth, and a foundational thesis may

appear in the middle or end of the spoken story. Mel’s alienation from Judaism is

experienced by him in later life when he attends a Jewish celebration at the home of some

observant acquaintances--as he describes it, “I just felt alienated, you know, like I can’t

relate to this…it was open, but it wasn’t really open.” It is an experience that reinforces his

feelings which he has had all along, providing the thesis underpinning for his direction

within Buddhism. Judaism as it was experienced and known by him simply wasn’t a viable

option; he had, as he put it, “my own version of Judaism, which, umm, probably didn’t

correspond to what other Jews felt was their(s)”. It was an invisible hasidic version which

was deeply felt (“I think chanting in Hebrew is wonderful, it always makes me cry”), but

manifest, or synthesized, into his purely Zen world.

Jacqueline’s, Chodron’s, and James’ rejections of the Judaism of their childhood are

decisive and final; their early experiences are vital dialectically to their later developments.

Chodron rejects the “persecution mentality” of her childhood’s Jewish community,

causing her to feel “as a minority within the Jewish community in America, because I

didn’t agree with all of its values,” As a minority within a minority, she finds herself

adapting with natural skill to a similar status as a Tibetan Buddhist, only as tripled: a

Tibetan Buddhist in the West, a Caucasian among Tibetans, and a woman within a

male-dominated tradition.

For Jacqueline, the doom and gloom of her childhood home and its Holocaust

emotional black hole led her to react with the awareness that “I always knew that I was

leaving”. Her desire to escape the “distrust of somebody who wasn’t Jewish” and the

13

culture of “tremendous amounts of fear” sets her on a journey which finds no inner resting

place until her breakthrough and near-death experience in Japan. The expectations created

by her over-achieving early Jewish environment led to her rejection of them and pursuit of

a path with very few outer achievements and status.

James’ rejection of the irrationality of Judaism, that it “just didn’t make any sense” led

to his choosing a practice which seemed immediately to make perfect sense to him. Only

much later does the irrational, or non-rational, return as a defining factor when he rejects

the dry meditation practice of his Burmese teacher and turns to a softer, devotional and

more love-oriented approach of an Indian guru. In another form the early Jewish thesis

returns to the story, transformed and at times externally unrecognizable, but essentially

invigorating. The irrational he originally rejected slips back in wearing a new skin.

Early Spiritual Thirst

Most people who are dissatisfied with their religion of birth reject not only it, but most

other forms of organized religion. The early bad impressions and formative experiences

serve to write off religion and spiritual pursuits as a whole. What allows certain individuals

to continue a spiritual search and involvement with other traditions is their awareness of a

persistent spiritual thirst, a deeply felt need for some kind of practice and guidance in their

lives. For many of the subjects interviewed, this awareness and need was experienced in

early childhood, and stood to enable them to continue their interest in spirituality despite

initial disappointments. The experience of early spiritual needs and interests stands as a

major thesis in the dialectic of a Jewish Buddhist teacher’s life development.

Jacqueline and James both expressed this early thirst as the desire to go to religious

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Sunday school, which they did, enjoyed, but eventually found insufficient as they entered

puberty. Jacqueline’s interest in religious training was paralleled by her desire to escape

and find freedom, “my vision in my mind kept saying to myself, I’m going over the

horizon, I’m going over the horizon. And it was so constant.” The former lost out to the

latter escape, but then found incarnation in Buddhist training. James was explicit in his

naming his early desire:

I was hungry for the spiritual. I was into it, I was hungry, but not, ahm, not getting my needs met, it

wasn’t as satisfying as if I was exposed to some really good, high spiritual, spiritually based

teachings. I might not be a Dharma teacher, who knows? I may be, I was hungry and I didn’t get

what I was looking for…but I can remember very clearly, I used to go to junior congregation every

week, Jewish center at Jackson Heights, and I was going because I wanted to go.

Just as explicit as his defining his motivation for spiritual activity and search is his

designation of this thirst as foundational in his dialectical plot. It was not simply that

Judaism wasn’t sufficient and didn’t answer his needs which propelled him into Buddhism,

into his eventually being a Dharma teacher; he was “hungry”--a word he uses three times to

describe his inner state. This hunger is the thesis that underlies his entire search; when it is

not satisfied it keeps him moving and searching until he finds “some really good, high

spiritual, spiritually based teachings.” If it had been satisfied early on, then he, in his own

admission, may well have not continued in his narrative to become a Buddhist teacher; then

again, maybe he would have.

Chodron states her own thesis motivations, “I had that desire for a spiritual life. And I

sought it in Judaism. Yeah.” It was her experience in Sunday school which changed her

direction, “what I learned made me realize this wasn’t the path for me.” She goes on to try

out other options--a Catholic boyfriend takes her to his priest: “That didn’t fit. You know,

15

so drugs, well, you know.” That the desire for the spiritual is not satisfied by any of the

options does not extinguish it, but its satisfaction becomes merely postponed until after

another attempt--marriage. Her keen awareness of her inner need results in her

enthrallment with Buddhism when she finally becomes involved--she immediately wants

to quit her job and move to Nepal, which she in fact ends up doing, dissolving her marriage

shortly thereafter. Feeling starved and then falling upon a sumptuously laid out feast causes

Chodron to dive in without looking back.

The unique feature of Seth’s early childhood spiritual thirst, revealed through

experiences which have been described in both in the epiphany and Judaism chapters, is

that it was a very God-oriented awareness. The other subjects describe their early

yearnings in general terms such as spiritual thirst, hunger and desire, while Seth explicitly

refers to his Jewish and God connections: “I felt very Jewishly connected. Aaand, umm,

then on my own, like, ah, every night I would have a conversation or prayer with God, and

then when I lost my bus pass we would make special deals on the side, you know, between

me and God.” Part jest, part serious conviction, the young Seth grows up pursuing his own

relationship with God, not simply with an abstract spirituality. It is this ground of his

spirituality, a thirst not just for a path, but for a kind of relationship with God, which spirals

back later on as the doorway to his mature involvement and renewed commitment with

Jewish practice. As the only subject who spoke of a God-experience, he is the only one

who has in later life returned to a Jewish path without constant Buddhist reinterpretation:

his direction is, as he puts it, “Jewishly Jewish.” The focusing of his spiritual desire onto a

more delineated Being does not for Seth betray its contemplative expanses which he finds

in Buddhism.

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Tensions with mainstream culture

One of the forces which propel the subject to an alternative spirituality is the experience

of dissonance with the prevailing culture and its values. These conflicts are intuitively

experienced early on, such as Jacqueline’s and Blanche’s early memories of racial

segregation, as well as Chodron’s sense of identification with the disadvantaged minorities

of the divided Los Angeles of her childhood. A sense of not belonging, of not identifying

with the norms and beliefs of the moral majority cultivate a need for change and escape, as

Jacqueline repeated and explicitly reported. What is remarkable is that each one of the

teachers who expressed strong disapproval with the society at large have chosen to live,

practice and teach in the very same environment, when they had ample opportunities, and

experiences, living abroad. This trend reveals a completed cycle of the dialectic: growing

up at odds with the society at large, leaving it for dramatic alternatives, and returning to

work with the very aspects that were once so disturbing. The movement epitomizes the old

Buddhist proverb of turning one’s obstacles into opportunities, and the Zen poem of seeing

mountains as mountains, then not as mountains, then as mountains again; in the movement

of the Zen oxherding pictures, the subject leaves his home, searches for his ox, and returns

later much changed to the same house.

Chodron states several times that “I didn’t feel American…my way of thinking is so

different than the other Americans.” This root feeling is not a result only of her Buddhist

training and extensive periods in the Far East, but also of her double minority status as a

child. Jacqueline talks about the incongruence she felt growing up before integration,

swimming at separate beaches. Her main push away from society is less idealogical,

17

however, and more of her own boredom with a trivial environment: “I had all these things,

you know, many friends, and social standing (laugh) and the community, I was really

bored…I was just amazingly bored.” Her aunt’s visit hammers the nails in the coffin with

her pronouncement, “darling, enjoy this, these are the best years of your life.” Jacqueline,

of course, responds in the narrative with, “And in my mind was, oh my goodness, that

really can’t be, that’s not possible.” In a society which professed such beliefs as her aunt’s,

she had no recourse but to pine for and attempt escape. Such tensions with the prevailing

culture make for a decided ambivalence over her engagement with her given society.

Blanche’s opposition to her society was clearly expressed by her social activism which

was a focus of her adult life. She describes her context:

My main political focus has been civil rights. And I’ve dealt with my main involvement in civil

affairs, and my involvement socially, for the first 25 years of my adult life. You know, I came to

adulthood at the time of Hiroshima. So, my peace activities were very important, and civil rights,

particularly…I grew up with water fountains labeled white and colored. Ah, there were waiting

rooms labeled white and colored. Ah, segregation all around. It was the deep south. I was extremely

aware of the ahhh, unfairness of the treatment of the black people in the south.

Her participation in a racial riot, as a bystander and parent of one of the arrested students,

led to her major epiphany when she identified with the “enemy”, the policeman

representing the oppressive system. Blanche partially accounts for her values through her

description of her father as a “humanist…he was a person with tremendous personal

integrity…and a very strong sense of social justice which carried on to my generation as

well.” Following her epiphany experience Blanche comes to renounce the type of social

activism which is based on opposition, “my whole political career, if you will, ended with

that experience, and I began to ask, who knows about that?” She continues her work in

social action and civil rights as informed later by her Buddhist practice. Her discomfort

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with society as it exists and recognition of its pervasive inequalities form a basic thesis for

the work that Blanche has continued to do as a Buddhist teacher.

Antithesis Themes

The emergence of the antithesis in a narrative plot is seen as a natural and direct

consequence of the original theses and their themes. The relationship can be considered

one of cause and effect, and not necessarily one of the antithesis offering an opposing

direction to what preceded it in the narrative sequence. The antithesis is developed in the

life story as an alternative route to what was being followed up to that point, though its

existence is in complete dependence upon the original thesis it replaces. The thesis and the

antithesis as movements within the narrative plot stand as independent and identifiable

sections in the life as well as completely codependent and mutually informing; both

developments are recounted in the perspective of each other. James recounts his early

Jewish experiences in the light of a more satisfying Buddhist practice, and his choice of a

Buddhist practice is explained in the light of his unsatisfying Jewish experiences. The

thesis and antithesis within the life narrative are mutually informing and dependent,

standing both apart and together as two perspectives within one spiritual life.

Escape through travel

For most of the subjects travel to the Far East was a necessary direction resulting from

their increasing awareness of inner needs. A major trip to Buddhist countries and the

introduction to intensive practice which it afforded was definitive upon their paradigms of

the spiritual life. An Asia trip was not, however, the only requirement for serious

19

involvement and commitment to Buddhist practice, as the cases of Mel and Blanche prove,

who did not have the extensive voyages that the others had. Those who did journey abroad

for the sake of finding or reinforcing their spiritual practice were also the ones who were

reacting to much of what they found objectionable in their own environments, be that

Judaism, societal values, or their own alienation, as conjoined with a yearning for the

spiritual which would help them in the perceived quagmire of their lives.

The urge to travel is initially experienced as the desire to escape from the confines of the

original theses which are oppressing their lives, and less as the more affirmative aspiration

for a spiritual practice. Jacqueline epitomizes this from early childhood onward, with her

desire to go over the horizon, and her first trip to Europe after finishing college is her

self-described desire for pure “experience”. She expresses this clearly: “I wasn’t traveling

for spiritual purposes, I was traveling for, um, to have experience. You know, to learn

experientially cause I felt that I had been learning intellectually. I really wanted to know

people, I wanted to know cultures.” She travels overland to India, as several other of the

teachers did, and her intention is of fully “trying to be in the present moment” (having just

read Ram Das’ book Be Here Now), to have an “experience”. The direction of her trip takes

a turn when she has a serendipitous meeting: “When I was trekking in the Himalayas I kept

trying to be in the present moment. It was like, ooooh, I’m not doing a really good job of

this. And um, so then I came back down, I don’t know, some Western lady next to me just

said, well, you’re in India, you should really be meditating. And I said, you’re right.” This

is the moment in the narrative when the trip turns dialectically from being escape-oriented

(looking for ever more and different “experience”) to being practice-oriented, and she

enters in to the stream of intensive meditation practice. The next year of her life is spent for

20

the large part doing meditation retreats.

Stephen also traveled overland to India in the late sixties, an experience which remained

on the reactive side of the antithesis (as compared to Jacqueline’s mid-trip turn to the

proactive traveling to something rather than away from); his first trip was an experience of

drug-induced escape. His second trip to the subcontinent was under the auspices of the

university, when he went as a lecturer for a year. Most of the time was spent, “hanging out

on the banks of the Ganges, of Benares, and that was more or less what I did the whole

year…it was definitely an important, I think that was the time when, umm, I really began to

fell that spirituality can be something that exists in ordinary life.” This trip, and the

awareness that begins to dawn from it, he defines as “the major turning point, this trip to

India.” Though I have written of this trip in the chapter on epiphany, here it finds its

narrative importance in the development it signifies from a reactive to a proactive

antithesis. For the first time Stephen is no longer moving away from something, but

suddenly a new perspective opens up which allows him to move towards something--the

spirituality of the every day. The context of this dawning awareness is in the antithesis that

a trip to India encapsulates as contrasting the life in England he had grown up with. He

begins to understand his life in terms of the categories “a journey” and “an experiment in

living” which he articulates several times, and which stand in stark contrast with the

oppressive routines of his upbringing he initially fled from with drugs and travel.

Unlike Jacqueline and Stephen, Amaro’s initial intention for travel in the Far East was

explicitly spiritual, as he explains, “I had a 21st birthday party and said goodbye to

everyone, and then left. And my feeling was that, you know, my intention was that this was

a spiritual journey…I was going to pitch myself in.” His choice of travel after finishing

21

college was also an adequate response to the constant demands of others for answers:

“people were constantly harassing me to find out what you were going to do with the rest of

your life. So I found it. The one thing you can get away with is saying, well, I want to

travel. For a few years, and everyone was okay with that. (laugh).” Travel is the acceptable

antithesis to the pressures and expectations of the original thesis, namely the stifled society

he lived in and the abusive school system which had tormented him. Without outright

rejecting it in the eyes of others, he effectively escapes its clutches.

The Asian journeys of other subjects, such as those trips by Jacob, Chodron and James

who each found their spiritual practice defined by their experiences abroad, can equally

find their place in the plot movement of the antithesis. The fact is that they all left

something, namely the thesis material which had defined their lives up to the point of

departure. A similar chord can be found when the travel is not abroad, but to a different part

of the country, involving the process of leaving the home thesis and relocating in a place

that is purported to offer more inner direction. The relocation of James and Seth to

California is an example of this, as well as the shorter amount of time spent there by

Stephen. For both James and Stephen California was spiritually revolutionary, with the

former exclaiming, “I had this epiphany: why would I want to live in anyplace but

California?” Seth moves out to the Bay Area and soon becomes involved in Spirit Rock;

Stephen encounters Timothy Leary and becomes a follower. The outer travel to California

co-exists with the inner travel they perform in their antitheses towards a developing

spiritual practice and their commitment to a contemplative path.

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Assuming an alternative lifestyle

Most of the subjects of the study came to age during the tumultuous sixties, when the

exploration of alternative lifestyles was a common reaction to the conservatism of their

backgrounds--as well as to an America which was entrenched in a tragic war and plagued

by racial discrimination. The popular music of the time sang of rebellion and the use of

drugs was considered a valid spiritual practice. James expresses the sentiment:

I was kind of like, searching, trying to sort out my way, and then the 60’s hit. I found my way…that

was what was happening…it was turning on, it was the Beatles getting into Maharishi, okay,

meditation, I’ll try that, you know, gets you off, okay, I’ll try it, till it was pretty natural. And Ram

Das was speaking for what we were all going through.

While this comment seems to stereotype the era as rather trivial and trifling, a sort of

whatever-turns-you-on hazy psychedelic drive on the boulevard, the actual results in the

subjects’ narratives of such lifestyle experiments and alternatives were lifelong

commitments to a disciplined spiritual practice. People were, by and by, products of their

times, which for most in this study were along the lines of Stephen’s summary: “My

interest in…Buddhism is just a product of my time. I am a product of my time. I must be.

My old track is definitely a product of my time--LSD, Alan Watts, Timothy Leary, India,

yoga, Buddhism, Judaism, back to nature. I’m just a typical example of my time, and that’s

just fine.” It was just that time, a very special time indeed, which shaped not only the lives

and plot lines of the people who lived consciously through it, but for the generations who

are following their present examples as influential teachers.

For James, the communes of the 60’s and 70’s inspired his nine-year involvement in the

communal house, which was formative to his whole perspective and emphasis on spiritual

community. His experience there was during the rather acquisitional 80’s, and so his

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communal living set a very contrary example to the societal value placed on the success of

the individual. The irony is not lost in the fact that James himself was able, during that time

in an office set up in the back of the house, to achieve such success in his marketing of

spirulina that he could retire soon after from the business and devote himself to teaching

meditation. His spiritual development was surpassed only by his material success.

The most common response, or antithesis, evinced by the narratives was the assumption

of a lifestyle which could be labeled as hippie. This involved the donning of bright, loose

and worn-out clothing, growing long hair (if you’re male), and the taking of many

drugs—while listening to protest music. Travel was also included in the lifestyle, usually

by hitchhiking, as a policy of apparent poverty was the norm among this group. Stephen,

Amaro, and Chodron assumed this form which was the precursor to their involvement in

formal Buddhist practice. This period in their narratives is generally recalled with fondness

and amusement, as well as regarded as an essential transition between rejecting the societal

norms and assuming a new order and practice. Stephen expresses some of the elements: “It

was a very special time. And I was very, very stoned then, I must say that that period of my

life was just one long, endless, umm, hashish…” The sentence fades off there without

finish.

Living the dual life of the drugged hippie by night and the Ph.D. student in organic

chemistry by day, Stephen elaborates on the inherent tension he experienced, calling this

his time of “dancing at these two weddings. On one side a hippie and all that, and on the

other side, very serious about my studies, and not willing to fail. So, just basically just

sitting up all night, I mean, burning the candle at both ends. Get stoned at night, and

somehow manage to get my work done the next day. So, it was really juggling these two

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sides.” Where in most cases the thesis and antithesis do not necessarily clash, in Stephen’s

life they did, and he was burning the candle of his own life out fast. It would take his radical

departure from the university and even more radical move to Israel to begin the process of

the synthesis of these two sides.

Amaro chose to align himself as a teenager with an alternative group that offered escape

from the confines of his school; he calls himself “a kind of free agent. And I was a very

rebellious student, whose crowd I hung out with was very sort of rambunctious.” Drugs

were an essential part of the recipe: “At 15, 16, drugs, booze, sex, everything, whatever you

could get.” Not indulged in, however, simply for pleasure, but true to his times, they had a

spiritual connotation:

When we started doing psychedelics, then, then it kind of wove in, because it was a very trippy

space. So then, ah, spiritual things, you could get to that. So that’s how I really developed my sense

of love for the spiritual, was psychedelics. So immediately, so when I started taking them, or even

when I heard about then or started reading about psychedelics, it was sort of instantly I felt like,

okay, this is my crowd, I can relate to this, this this looks like home.

It was at this time, previous to and during his college study, that Amaro was involved with

the spiritualist Trevor Ravenstock in London, who became his first teacher. The crowd at

his place was composed of other hippies, artists, actors, and people on the fringe; Amaro

describes his appearance: “I’m a hippie, right, I’ve got long ringlets, earrings, and rainbow

colored coat, and a beard,” and he becomes hooked by Trevor’s immediate recognition of

his interest in horses (which would not have been obvious by his hippie attire.) It was this

connection with Trevor and his alternative group which eventually encouraged Amaro to

travel to the East, upon Trevor’s later innuendo of his life as being tied with northern India,

thus beginning the transition from antithesis to his own synthesis as a Thai monk.

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The hippie lifestyle as an essential antithesis feature can occur on the level of a more

integral and less rejecting identity choice. Chodron and Jacqueline both assume certain

hippie alternatives which do not depart completely from their previous developments, but

are explored as the options available at the time. Jacqueline expresses this sentiment: “It’s

that era, it’s that era…’cause it was all in 1969...I felt opened, do you know what I

mean?…I was trying out different things, everything from craft to improv, to, ah, just

trying out different things. You know, it was Cambridge, and there was so much aliveness,

and I was really liking that.” Jacqueline becomes a vegetarian in college, feels transformed

by the Ram Das’ Be Here Now, begins practicing yoga and TM with a mantra, and attends

lectures by Allen Ginsberg and Anais Nin—it all came with the territory. Chodron traveled

around the country in a yellow bakery van, camping and “everything that went along with

it”, that is, about being in the 60’s. Their choosing of hippie alternatives within their lives

was not a total abandonment of their narrative courses up to that point: Jacqueline

experiments while going to graduate school in Boston, without considering it a split or

contradiction; the alternative and mainstream coexisted within her single life.

Along similar integrative lines, Chodron maintains that her hippie experiences were

“very formative…I went out on a limb in many ways, but there was always a certain

cautiousness in me because of my upbringing. There were things that I did not do because

they were too, too scary. No too scary, but too dangerous. For me.” Both of the women

have well-defined borders with the alternatives in which they involve themselves. Chodron

admits “I did have a lot of spiritual experiences on drugs” and quickly adds that “I was

getting very bored with taking drugs…I mean, I wasn’t one of these people who were

totally stoned all the time, I wasn’t like that. I, I had very clear boundaries.” Here the thesis

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and antithesis movements are less oppositional and more complementary in the way that

one is not so much a rejection of the other, but held together by a common sense of borders

and continuity of both who they are and who they are becoming. The alternatives they and

the others chose are intrinsically products of their context, specifically the radical later

1960’s, but where those alternatives end up taking them is unique to their individual

narrative syntheses—such uniqueness is what would make Chodron a nun and Jacqueline a

mother and lay teacher.

Avenues of study and art

As the above examples of Jacqueline and Chodron exhibit the complimentary nature of

some antitheses with their thesis antecedents, so too do the dialectic movements of the

fields of study and art present examples of integrated directions within the narrative plot.

Jacob’s stresses music’s importance to his narrative development, “now something that’s

very important to my life story…all the years (of youth) I studied piano very, very hard…in

essence, I wanted to be a pianist. In essence, I wanted to be a pianist. That, that was what I

wanted to do. That I really loved.” The verbal repetition indicates its centrality to his

self-assessment and awareness, suggesting a desire and love that has never ended. Music

continues throughout his narrative to be a reference point and vocabulary for expressing his

spiritual understanding. Though he began the study of music at the tender age of five,

which would well qualify it as a thesis function, his continued pursuit of music as a

metaphor for all of his life and inner development extends it well beyond that original

context. Jacob’s strong intent and pursuit of music, especially in the teenage years when he

invested the most in it, can be seen as set against the many changes and stresses which were

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occurring in his life at the time. The world of music and his personal world of piano

practice became a kind of refuge, an escape from the pain of his parents’ divorce and his

own alienation from his peer group. The development of music as an antithesis theme

extends naturally from the thesis background, as it continues to be an appropriate metaphor

he calls upon to describe the future syntheses he makes in his life.

Jacob’s spiritual search is realized through the lens of academic study: he pursues

oriental philosophy at university, as well as theatre. Both of these he continues to study in

Japan at the graduate level, returning to Israel to direct plays for a period of time with

themes drawn from kabalah. Like Stephen’s dancing at two weddings, Jacob maintained

for the years of his antithesis period a sharp division between the personal work he did on

his own as a Zen practitioner, and the public work he did as a student and professor of

Buddhism. Jacob explains his dilemma: “I worked in a lot of things around Zen, but not,

not in Zen itself. That was just for private work….Zen was for me one thing, and academic

life was (laugh) another thing. Like, things that were not connected, despite that I think that

in everything that I taught, the interest of Zen entered it.” This duality is not as sharp or

separate as in Stephen’s case, for here the duality exists within the very plot movement of

the antithesis itself, the sides of practice and study. Jacob teaches Zen, and Jacob practices

Zen, there is the academic Jacob and the monastic Jacob. Both extend out of the context of

his background thesis, and both are vying for a resolution which emerges in his own unique

synthesis as a single Buddhist teacher.

The practice of art was the defining feature of Mel’s pre-Buddhist adult life, and is a life

choice which is set against the end of the War years and the emerging consumerism which

America celebrated during that period and beyond. He had a grant from the army after his

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discharge to study anywhere he chose, and the choice of art, especially abstract

expressionist art under the tutelage of Clifford Still, flew in the face of the national mores.

Bluntly, there was no money in it, and he knew it. His period as an artist in San Francisco

during the formative Beatnik 50’s and early 60’s stands as a way station between Mel’s

past and his Buddhist future:

Yeah, the poets, I knew, you know, Ginsberg. I lived in West beach, you know, lived in San

Francisco West beach, and knew most of those people. And you know, we lived a life of an artist in

San Francisco for ten years or something like that. So, I had a lot of influences. And ah, I saw a lot

of stuff, and had a lot of experience in life. So, ah, when I was 35, that’s when I went to the Zen

Center, which was in San Francisco.

The wealth of experience which Mel gathered during that time was not easy, “I was also,

ahh, not too satisfied, life was difficult.” The suffering he was aware of around him, as well

as his own--quoted in the chapter on suffering--prepared the ground for his entrance into

the Zen world with ease: “So, when the Zen, when somebody took me to the Zen center one

day, that’s how it happened.” His experience there is of the nature of an epiphany, but it is

preceded by and dependent upon the antithesis of his ten years as a struggling artist.

Intensive Meditation Practice

For some the entrance into the Buddhist world and its central practice of sitting

meditation may have signaled, like for Mel, Blanche, Chodron and Amaro, the beginning

of the third stage of their narrative plots--the dialectical synthesis of what had come before.

For others, however, meditation practice and involvement with Buddhism was a

continuation of a direction away from something--the thesis background. The movement

was towards, though not yet arriving at, the development of a more holistic and

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complementary whole which would be able to embrace all of who they are: the synthesis of

the differences into a harmonic life and plot resolution. The above case of Jacob, who

struggled over the divide between his private and public Zen, maintained this division even

while immersed in intensive practice environments like the monastery in Japan where he

trained. Intensive practice, as will be indicated here, often accentuates the divide between

the thesis and antithesis, making a harmonic synthesis in the life story postponed for further

narrative development, often over the course of many years.

The intensity of Jacob’s practice was twofold: on one hand, he delved into Zen practice

and meditation as per his training at the monastery, and as pursued individually in Israel,

while on the other hand he was immersed fully in his academic career which was

increasingly focused on Buddhist studies. The separate investment he had in each made the

unification or synthesis of both within himself more difficult. Stephen, who also became

involved in intensive meditation according to the Goenka vipassana school, maintained his

practice as separate from his public professional life for most of his narrative, and resisted

until his epiphany moment the synthesizing of his practice with his Jewish concerns.

Meditation was a way, in his words, of “cleaning house”, which excludes the integration of

the rest of one’s life as intrusions of dirt and clutter--a contrary notion to that of Jacob’s

ceramic teacher who warned that fish cannot live in clean, sterile water, and who

proceeded to enjoin his students to get their too-well-scrubbed proverbial spiritual hands a

little dirty. A Zen green thumb.

The most intensive period of meditation practice in the antithesis period is described by

Jacqueline, who spent a year in India and Burma on near-constant retreat, and then several

years practicing intensively and teaching meditation at IMS. Her period includes two

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instances of ordination as a Burmese nun, and intensive retreats at a very demanding Zen

center in southern California. She was inspired by her first teacher Goenka’s description of

the practice as, “you didn’t have to believe in anything, you didn’t have to become a

Buddhist, you didn’t have to change anything at all. He said this is a way of life. So that

resonated with me.” Her main guiding principle, however, was the advice that a fellow

student gave her before her first retreat after arriving in India: “You’re going to hear every

story you can imagine…I mean, people are doing every conceivable wild thing, he said, but

don’t pay attention to them, just listen to the teacher and do what he says. So I did.” She

spends years doing just that, followed by her underlying desire for “experience” (a parallel

antithesis plotline) and for “opening up”. I asked her in the interview, as she is describing

all the intensive meditation practice she had been involved in following her second

ordination as a nun, “Did you have a goal in mind while you were doing this?” To which

she replies:

Opening up. Opening up totally to Buddhism. I wanted to totally know what it was. Because I had

been just trained, you know, I was like, sooo just diligent as a meditation student, I just did what the

teacher said. You know, I followed what the first person said. So then, it was like, okay, it’s bigger

than that. So, I just wanted to know more and more. I’m very inquisitive.

Jacqueline’s diligence is not unlike Chodron’s cautiousness as a hippie, keeping her

from making a total break or opposition to her thesis past: it is part of that past’s

conditioning, just as Chodron labels it, and thus serves to maintain a sense of plot integrity

between the two dialectic stages. They both change, and maintain some of their

conditioned past, be it the qualities of diligence or cautiousness. The sense of plot integrity

is not to be confused with a more evolved and conscious synthesis in the whole life

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development, which for the time being Jacqueline’s years of practice still is distant from.

Her more radical changes-- her break with IMS, her marriage, her childrearing, and her

Tibetan turn--are still looming in the future as synthesizing developments, bringing her

more in harmony with the original theses of her life which she distanced herself from.

Synthesis Themes

Finding one’s place in Buddhism

The third stage of the dialectic, the synthesis, is that period of life which inherently

unifies the stages which preceded. It is not simply a product of the two, thesis and

antithesis, but a new development which both includes what led up to it and makes a

departure. The thesis and antitheses are not simply dissolved into one synthesis, but retain

their narrative integrity and can be recognized as distinct elements and influences within

the synthesis. An example of this would be James’ creation of the community dharma

leader’s program, within which can be discerned his early thesis of spiritual thirst and his

later antithesis involvement with a communal house. These elements continue to function

within his synthesis period of teaching and leading a community program, but the later

period does simultaneously stand on its own as a new development in his narrative plot.

The synthesis periods of a narrative illuminate both the dependency of the plot

development on its previous parts--its cause-effect relationship with the thesis and

antithesis--as well as the integrity and self-definition of each plot episode. The synthesis in

a life story reveals how the tensions of different plot developments and parts of a life are

resolved in creative and spiritually integral ways: in the synthesis, as in a narrative life,

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there are no contradictions, only stimulating differences. The synthesis reveals the place of

the parts in the constantly emergent and elegant whole.

An important feature of the synthesis, according to Hegel’s definition, is that it too is

subject to further plot development and narrative change, during which the ensuing

tensions revert it to the status of a thesis. The synthesis is dynamic and subject to change, as

the narrative moves on, and what was a harmonious synthesis now is shown to be

insufficient, anachronistic, and contrasted with the development of a new antithesis. As

time and narrative forge relentlessly onward, a new synthesis is formed from the recycled

plot materials of the former synthesis--now thesis--and its contrasting antithesis. Amaro’s

“coming home” to his monastery in Thailand, a period which synthesized his past elements

of childhood suffering and teenage rebellion, of always feeling on the outside, changes

after time spent there to its being again alienating and insufficient--it reverts to thesis

status. He returns to England, in contrast to the monastery which stands now as an

antithesis, and finds home again in the presence of his teacher Ajahn Sumedo, thus

completing another cycle in the form of a synthesis. This period too is subject to change

and dissolution when he begins to travel and teach in California, creating narrative tension

with his monastic life in England, causing the once-solid synthesis to crack and break into

a thesis with the horizon of big America as the new antithesis plot direction. The narrative

flows on and he establishes Abhyagiri monastery in northern California, which synthesizes

his former plot sections: he makes a home of a traditional Buddhist monastery, in a

non-traditional area of the world, and assumes the role of the abbot following the example

of his teacher who offered the previous synthesis experience. Rather than always finding

home or coming home, he is now engaged in the synthesizing process of making home.

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The dynamic movement of the dialectic, and its constant redefinition, is well

represented by Jacqueline’s changes of direction and evolution within the Buddhist world

as she attempts to find new “horizons” and continually be “opening up”. She is motivated

by her desire that “I had to discover what my expression was” in Buddhism as a teacher and

practitioner. After many years teaching at IMS and practicing within a community, sangha,

of devoted teachers and students, she resigns from the organization. This move has been

explained by other writers as a feminist reaction to the chauvinism of the Theravada

school, which her vipassana practice was based upon, and she did in fact write a letter to

the movement’s journal stating her refusal to represent a practice which ignores women or

treats them as second-class. She emphasized in our interview, however, that her decision to

leave IMS and continue her search in Buddhism for alternatives was very much a narrative

need (my term), as she explained, “I just knew that there was something more than

vipassana, it was just like really clear to me. And it just came from nowhere.” He decision

to move on, which usurped what was a stable synthesis of being a vipassana teacher to the

thesis status, was provoked by her dissatisfaction both on the inner (her feelings of the need

for more) and the outer (the confinement of a male-dominated practice) levels; these acted

as the antithesis tension which stimulated a major change.

Jacqueline’s new synthesis is found in the Tibetan practice she takes on, which was

family-oriented (evinced by the free reign children had in the centers and provision of day

care there), synthesizing her Jewish conditioning, and honored the roles of women within it

by addressing female needs and enabling female leadership. Above all, it was at the retreat

of one of her teachers, Chaduk rinpoche, where she experienced an epiphany that

summarized her whole path: “I was on early morning tea duty, and I woke up on the last

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morning, and this phrase came popping out of my head, New and Unbounded Ways of the

Dharma. (ten second pause) And I was in a very traditional setting. And that’s what came.

So…I don’t know.” True to narrative form, Jacqueline never finds her place in Buddhism,

she is perpetually finding her place. She is motivated by her original thesis of following the

horizon, as well the antithesis of seeking pure experience, which are transformed into the

continual “opening up” into new forms of Dharma. Her path exemplifies the “beginner’s

mind” which was coined by a founding teacher of Zen in America, Suzuki Roshi: the

beginner’s mind has many possibilities, while the expert’s mind has few.

The place Chodron found for herself in Buddhism, as a Tibetan Buddhist nun, offers a

different example of a synthesis did not go through the kind of revisions that Jacqueline’s

Buddhist plot has. For thirty years Chodron has been a nun, and her main developments

within that have been her taking on full ordination in Taiwan, and her recent founding of an

abbey in Idaho. As discussed earlier, her ability to remain within a traditional form is based

on her inherent psychological and spiritual independence: “my allegiance is to the

teachings, not to the institution,” is the statement which clearly defines her position. Two

experiences in particular helped her to settle and find her place within Buddhism,

specifically as a Tibetan Buddhist. The first was at a vipassana retreat she did:

When I went one time to an insight meditation retreat, the big thing I understood there was why I

was a student of my teacher. You know, why the Tibetan tradition spoke so deeply to me. Because

when I was on the insight retreat, I loved the meditation technique, but I missed so much having the

teachings on bodhicitta.7 And I was going nuts, it’s like, where’s, you know, the motivation for the

practice? Cause this is what in our tradition we talk about so much. I’m a Tibetan Buddhist, you

know, and this is really not I am a Tibetan Buddhist, but like, this is what really speaks to my heart.

Chodron recalls feeling so enthralled with the practice when she first ordained in the

mid 70’s that she did not notice some of the differences between monks’ and nuns’ status,

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that the former had full ordination available to them while the latter did not. She simply

followed her instinct to the tradition that spoke to her, and stayed with it: “That really

spoke to me. And I didn’t even know at that time that there were other Buddhist

traditions--a long, long time...I just gravitated to the teachings because they were so

meaningful for me.” While in Singapore for a year teaching she meets and befriends for the

first time a Theravadin monk, the only other English speaking ordained Westerner in

Singapore, and through their friendship she became aware of the other tradition. She is able

to synthesize the differences into her own practice and direction, as enabled by her

independent spirit and commitment to the teachings, not the school: “what I see it as is,

these are all the Buddha’s teachings. The Buddha was extremely skillful, he taught in

different ways for different people. I have a practice that works well for me, but I can learn

all these other practices that the Buddha taught, and incorporate them into the way I

practice right now. Because it’s all from the Buddha, and it all helps me.” This pluralistic

attitude of considering the various teachings of the Buddha as all equal and able to help

her--if they speak to her--is what enables Chodron to remain a Tibetan Buddhist while at

the same time choosing what works for her and letting go of what doesn’t. As a narrative

function, her past is sorted out the same way, and becomes part of the Tibetan Buddhist nun

she is: the thesis of a double minority identity (Jew in America, dissenter within the Jewish

community) and the antithesis of a rebelling and cautious hippie resurface in the

transformed world of a Tibetan Buddhist nun who finds and keeps what helps her on her

path.

Chodron’s example of an immediate finding of her place, synthesizing, within

Buddhism which perseveres throughout the rest of her narrative is more of the norm among

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the teachers in this study: every teacher except Jacqueline remain within the Buddhist

tradition they first encounter. There are variations made within the tradition, such as

Stephen moving on from the strict Goenka school of vipassana to the more holistic insight

meditation of IMS. What is common in all the teachers’ entrances into Buddhist practice is

their intensity--it does not begin with a dip, but with a splash. With the exception of Jacob,

each teacher became involved in intensive practice pretty much from their first

introduction to Buddhist meditation, which increased over time to often include

ordinations and residence within a center. This very rapid finding of one’s place within

Buddhism, which synthesized the previous plot developments into a more formal spiritual

path, soon would create its own dialectical tensions which evolved into further antitheses

and syntheses, only now as played out within the very same Buddhist path.

Blanche dove into Zen practice with eagerness and devotion--in a word,

wholeheartedly. She felt, as she described it, that she was drowning in her life and being

thrown a “life preserver.” Her past antithesis of being a social activist, coming out of her

thesis of living in segregation and her father’s integrity, is transformed into her current

practice:

when I was very engaged before, that was in a very dualistic way: there were the good guys and the

bad guys. And that’s the thing that really blew my mind about this practice of inclusion, you know,

there are wholesome actions and unwholesome actions, actions that cause suffering and actions that

cause joy….and umm, my kind of engagement used to be confrontational, and ah, argumentative,

and ah, opinionated, and self-righteous. I hope that’s not what’s happening now.

She is still a social activist, but she in an “inclusive” one, which does not involve, as she

said, later, fighting for peace: “there was something very contradictory about fighting for

peace. There’s no peace here.” She goes to marches for peace with a sign that reads “What

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is the Sound of No Bombs Dropping?”

Her synthesis into her Zen practice continues to develop, and the inner changes become

more subtle and interior, relating to her relationship to others. She describes the shift:

I used to be an emotionally very needy person, and I realize I was trying very hard to get everybody

to love me, and that wasn’t going to be possible. And then at a certain point I had this epiphany that

I had it all backwards, that it wasn’t that I wanted everybody to love me, I wanted to be able to love

everybody. And, ah, that’s everything. That’s what I’m devoted to.

Her change in attitude was gradual and yet marked, allowing her to find her place in her

chosen tradition and practice with an inclusiveness previously elusive. An event which

symbolized her turn towards others was her allowing her hair to grow in from the state of

ordained baldness. She traveled with her mother for a time, during which her shaven hair

grew in. Upon return to the center, her impulse was to shave it all off again, but at the

request of others, she refrained. She complains to the abbot of the center, asking for

permission to shave, and he instructs her to look at what is happening to her and why. She

holds off on shaving, and explains her decision: “I could see that I was attached to the

symbol of non-attachment, which is the shaven head. So, ever since then, when I’m in the

monastery, I wear hair. (laugh)” Within the place she has found in Buddhism, there are

movements and developments that unsettle and resettle all that came before. It is a process

of an ever-increasing synthesis of the past, of, as Blanche repeats, “the teaching is about,

ah, all-inclusiveness.” When it is all brought together, the theses, antitheses, and syntheses,

the real person is both the same and very different, on the same path and quite a different

one.

As mentioned, Jacob was the exception to the rule of immediate intensive involvement

with Buddhist practice, as he followed a path of reading, study, and a weekly sitting group

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with his first Zen teacher Dorpio Roshi, while only in Japan did he enter a monastery with

the intention of immersing in practice. Even there he divided his time between the

monastery and his own academic studies which he was completing at the university in

Tokyo. Jacob does not have a monastic mentality, but follows a path that returns again and

again to his everyday life. His main epiphanies in his Buddhist practice were around

appreciating everyday practice, of living in the “dirty water” of the non-monastic world.

Jacob’s place within Buddhism is, in a sense, outside of Buddhism, or any formal category

or place with the name on it--this is despite his being the foremost academic authority on

Buddhism in Israel and leading a Zen sangha. He has devoted his life to the study, practice

and teaching of Buddhism, and refuses to call himself a Buddhist.

Jacob’s synthesis of his dialectic experiences is in the everyday life, the Zen of

everyday living. What he learns in the monastery in Japan is what he will take out of the

monastery: “Everything was a lesson. Everything that you would do was a lesson. You eat,

it’s a lesson. Drink, it’s a lesson. Speak, it’s a lesson. Wipe your behind after the

washroom, it’s a lesson.” The mindfulness he learns to apply to his daily life he compares

to his Israeli culture which seems out of control and chaotic--but it is that very context in

which he works and practices. Jacob expresses his path explicitly at the end of his

narrative: “One of the things which is very important to me in my teaching of Zen, whether

at the university or in the sangha or with the psychologists…I know that what I do is Zen

with daily life.” He incorporates his academic antithesis, the duality between personal and

public Zen, into a Zen of the everyday which takes his practice to a new, inclusive level

while at the same time does not blur the categories. At the university he is the professor, at

the sangha the master, with the psychologists the Buddhist instructor, but all the while he is

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practicing the Zen of daily life which is his place in Buddhism, his synthesized path.

The family practice

For most of the people in the study, as well as for most people in general, family life, the

context in which we grew up, forms the original defining thesis upon which so much of our

later developments depend. That understanding is the basis of psychotherapy, which

attempts to retrace those lines back to their origins, working through early memories and

the problematic symptoms of later life which point back to those times. The intention in

that endeavor is to reshape and rehabilitate those dysfunction-causing theses, which in a

ripple-effect will realign and heal the present way of being. The basic premise of

psychotherapy is that clear insight into the past will liberate one from the problems in the

present which it is causing. Self-knowledge is freedom. The parallel in Buddhist practice is

direct, in that meditative awareness and insight into one’s negative habits will free oneself

from them, but the focus is more on how they function in the present, rather than their long

roots into childhood. While the teachers of this study all spoke with openness about their

childhoods and early family contexts, it was their family in the present which became one

of the foci of their practice, and served to synthesize the often problematic areas of the past

into a more wholesome and aware present relationship. The past thesis of family was a

point of departure which eventually developed through various antitheses (such as

intensive individual practice and travel which exclude family life) to arrive at a synthesis of

family life as a more conscious, practice-inclusive life context.

While family as practice was discussed in chapters six and eight, here I want to view

family in the lens of the dialectic--what kind of synthesis formed with the present family of

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the teacher and her attitude towards them comes out of the past narrative movements of the

family thesis and antithesis. Stephen fleetingly considered becoming a monk, but his desire

to have a family, especially to raise children, was predominant. His comments begin with a

sense ironic self-criticism of what is revealed as his source of strength and joy:

I’m not a very good practitioner. I’m not tough enough on that. My relationships with my wife and

family are just too enjoyable. It uses up a lot of my life. I’m sure that I would be much better off

spiritually if I was more austere and less engaged with my family…I’m not from a monkish austere

environment. I’m engaged with the world and with other people…Part of the Buddhism is that it

has helped me to enjoy family life very much. It’s a wonderful playground, garden, not prison. To

be a married Buddhist, I’ve thought, it must be the best of all worlds. To be a married monk. I feel

that. It’s wonderful.

Quite simply, family comprises the mainstay of Stephen’s spiritual practice. He married

Rachel, an Israeli from an orthodox Jewish background but who had left her original

narrow context without abandoning Jewish practice, and together they recreate a Judaism

he could integrate into his Buddhist view: “It was my wife, Rachel, who helped me see it

with new eyes. She was crucial in my seeing Judaism with new eyes.” In the founding of

the vipassana organization in Israel, Tovana, and his “being so devoted and so giving” to

the endeavor, he attributes his motivation not just to the Jewish notion of tikkun olam,

healing of the world, but “I think that there was a strong motivation in there for tikkun abba

(healing of the father)(small laugh), like so much tikkun olam is really also tikkun abba.

And ah, tikkun (healing) of the splits inside of me…you know, look at it psychologically it

is in a sense healing the split.” I asked him which father was being healed in his practice,

the one he was, or the one he had, to which he replied:

No, the abba that I had…I felt I transformed the difficulty with my father, and in a way sort of left.

You know, I, I, through meditation I’d, um, cleaned a huge amount of the stuff, really, that was left

over from father. I didn’t want it to pass over a generation…I saw vipassana as a tremendous

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therapeutic tool, as well as a spiritual tool. Which is, ah, the way I proved in on myself.

As a type of spiritual psychotherapy, Stephen’s Buddhist practice allows him to synthesize

his past thesis of a difficult father relationship with his antithesis of intensive meditation

practice, and transform them into a service which he devotes to others, in the form of

Tovana, as well as into the joy of being a, as he calls himself, “married monk”.

Most of the teachers have spouses and children, and their relationships to their families

have taken on aspects of their practice--each has attempted to include his or her family

through various approaches. Mel encouraged his son’s Zen-mitzvah preparation and

ceremony, Blanche lives at the Center with her husband, Jacqueline brought her twins to all

of her teachers, and even went together to a Buddhist summer camp, James shows off his

father’s day card by his 16 year old son who writes glowingly in it about their relationship.

Other than Stephen, however, the narrative instances of dialectic synthesis in family

relationships come from the examples of Amaro and Jacob. By being considered his

greatest teacher and responsibility, Jacob’s relationship to his son Yoni incorporates his

Zen emphasis of everyday practice and reintegrates the original thesis of his own early

loneliness. As an only child of a home in which culture and education flourished, where he

was taken along to his father’s work because there was no day care, Jacob in a sense was

denied his own childhood. His early alienation “I didn’t remember where I belonged” is a

natural reaction to an adult world which has no place for child’s play. His synthesis and

healing comes from his relationship to his son, a child who, with Down Syndrome, will

never fully grow up, but will always remain dependent upon his parents for most things.

From having no childhood he is now responsible for a perpetual childhood, and he

manages by considering it his main practice and his son his main spiritual teacher.

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Amaro’s family synthesis occurs as a result of his “epic-making journey” as his family

considers it, across England on foot, as a monk, over several months. This was discussed in

the chapter on epiphany, as the journey and its effect on the relationship with his family

had all of the elements of an epiphany--it was a major turning point in his life, both with his

family as with his own spiritual practice. While on the walk, he calls his family, and to his

surprise,

there was this extraordinary kind of, ah, enthusiasm and glee and delight in their voices, they were

really excited in what I was doing, this kind of epic-making journey…that’s never been done

before, sort of our son the spiritual hero…well, the most striking thing was that, as I put down the

phone, it was like, (whisper) what was that about? And I suddenly realized, that they, had, had

nothing to be proud of…and I realized what an idiot I had been, like, your parents need something

to be proud of. And I had just been depriving them of that. And so now they had something to be

proud of. And I wrote a book, and I wrote another book after that. Dedicated it to them….and so I

make, always made a point since then, twenty years ago, of doing that. And ah, and so, they have

the sideboard is covered with pictures of me (laugh).

Amaro is the early hope of his family: the only son, he is sent to the best schools,

graduates early, and gets a college degree in psychology. He rides horses (an English

upper-class pursuit) and has family in the diamond business waiting to take him on to make

his fortune. To everyone’s dismay, he early on ends up a Buddhist monk, depriving his

family of not only the joys of their son’s would-be successes, but of laughing grandchildren

(mercifully, his sisters provided). My son, the monk! As he relates it, “To tell your parents

that you had a great retreat. Big Deal. They didn’t know what a retreat was. They couldn’t

tell a good one from a bad one. It has no value, it’s got zero value in their world system.”

His beginning to relate to them on their own terms synthesizes his past--their expectations

of his greatness, and his own rejection of those standards as a hippie--into something which

is a “success” but a Buddhist one. He reflects, “I’ve got to present something, in my life

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that has value for them to say, they can see, that his life is worthwhile.” It’s from his own

life, but it relates to their needs and views. The synthesis of different and seemingly

conflicting life approaches that Amaro makes in his narrative makes a plot resolution with

his family and his entire past. He does not conform to the society’s definition of success,

such as material, thus integrating his antithesis hippie plot, but he does deliver recognizable

appearances of success, which synthesizes his original thesis of familial and societal

expectations.

Being a Teacher

For none of the teachers was being a teacher an anticipated goal of spiritual practice--in

fact, for most the opposite occurred, in that they were very reticent to taking on teaching

responsibilities. Their doing so was often at the behest of their own teachers and others

who would become their students--they taught on demand, not by desire. Stephen, in

describing his process of becoming a teacher, defines the different requirements needed to

be met:

I felt I was ready to give some teaching. So I just started with evening classes. At that time I had

been practicing for twenty years, so I thought I ought to be able to say something after twenty years

of practice. I felt confident, and so I began to teach. And gradually I took on retreats, so on, it

started as weekends, co-teaching, assisting other teachers. And I got basically an okay from Fred,

my first teacher, I got an okay from Christopher, ahh, and umm, so I fulfilled the requirements for

teaching, for being a teacher, and the main requirements are four of them, namely: you should be

asked to teach by people who want to be taught; you should be asked by your teachers; you should

have some degree of purity of thought, speech, action, less desire, ego, etcetera…and some

capacity…so I felt confident to go on teaching.

Stephen outlines the gradual path to teaching, which involved many years of practice

and “tikkun”--personal healing. This healing is the synthesizing of the different,

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contrasting and ultimately complimentary aspects of one self, one’s plot, which come

together as a whole person ready to give over what he has become. He reflects, “especially

after I worked on being able to talk before crowds (a fear which is a residue from his

childhood thesis of alienation, pain and introversion), I didn’t have that problem anymore,

so I felt confident to go on teaching.” Stephen further indicates this direction when he says,

“I’m sort of learning to accept that my life can also be a teaching to others, in a certain way,

as well as the form of Buddhism that I know.” Being a teacher is being able to teach not

only in words and explanations, but in the very person you are and have become after much

work. It is being the example of the fruits of the practice which will inspire others to do the

work themselves. It is just such examples which, as pointed out in the chapter on teachers,

largely inspired the subjects themselves to embark upon their journeys, and now they are

assuming those roles. Being a teaching who teaches by example means that the dialectic

“splits inside of me”, as Stephen puts it, are synthesized into a refined whole.

For a long time Jacob had been a teacher of Buddhism before he became a dharma

teacher--he was teaching classes at the university, but it was at the demand of people who

heard a lecture of his given outside the academy, at a museum venue with several hundred

people in attendance, where he spoke for hours without preparation in a kind of trance, that

he began his spiritual teaching. Up to that event, he had been very diligent in maintaining

the division between personal Zen (his own practice) and public Zen (his teaching of Zen at

the university or in public lectures). At the epiphany of his museum lecture the walls

collapse and he is compelled to synthesize his different plot lines. Even before the lecture,

students from other departments at the university had been approaching him: “there would

be those who would come and say, Teach Me! Like that…and I understood that my lessons

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were not only academic lessons, but they were lessons of another kind. I don’t know how to

define them…they bring in something that comes from my world whether it is what I call

Zen or what I don’t call Zen.” Jacob’s style of teaching university classes on Buddhism

includes at least one session of meditation. He does not prepare for his lectures, other than

to know the general topic; he teaches from his own experience and knowledge. This is the

same style of Thai monks whose tradition is to teach dharma purely from their own

experience, and not to lecture from notes or a prepared lesson. They follow the Buddha’s

injunction to rely purely on one’s own experience, which was among his dying words. In

this way Jacob heals his own split and synthesizes his plot developments--teaching Zen is

no longer “to touch it in an academic way would dirty it…to make it an object of study, of

research, is not proper”, but rather as coming from his whole self in a way that is his own

unique dialectical expression.

This synthesis was a long process, “I felt for years that I was not fit, that I was not fit.”

At the museum lecture, he suddenly feels transformed, as if someone had handed him the

gauntlet and he must teach:

I was afraid to take the robes, not from any specific teacher…but someone gave me the robe, and

the robe was a responsibility, it’s not a prize, and award, it’s a responsibility. And I don’t take the

robe, I’m afraid to take the robe…but slowly, slowly I felt that I was obligated (laugh) to take the

robe. There was no alternative. No alternative. No alternative….particularly because I felt it from

the world, from my students, from people who heard me. I said, okay…I can’t stop this…it’s not

because I am qualified so much or something like that, it’s not something I can take credit for or be

proud of, but this transmission must continue, I have no alternative.

Like Stephen, Jacob responds to those around him, to a plot inertia and development which

places him as a dharma teacher. Jacob does not, however, claim any readiness for the

job--not his practice or his knowledge or his previous teaching; he simply responds to a

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powerful plot movement which is, for him, unstoppable. He can only respond, there is no

alternative, as he emphasizes three times. Jacobs assumes the role of the teacher, dons the

proverbial robe, with a sense of mission and of great responsibility, which awaken from his

epiphany experience at the museum lecture--an experience which dramatically synthesized

his life in a teaching moment. He now is obligated to wear the invisible robe of a united

life, one where his academic and personal Zen are one and the same.

Jacob’s receiving of transmission is entrenched in the Zen tradition as the method by

which a senior student receives authorization by her teacher to represent the tradition. It has

a mystical element, it is not simply the process of a student acquiring the requisite training

and knowledge, but of the teacher perceiving intuitively the student’s readiness and

spiritual maturity. The teacher then gives something of his essence to the student, who

subsequently is qualified to teach in his name as part of the lineage--she becomes a

lineage-holder, and able to then give dharma transmission herself to others. As such it is a

tremendous responsibility, which Jacob indicates, not just to one’s students, but to all the

students that the teacher will teach as representative of the tradition, and to all the followers

of the tradition who came before; to all the future and the past. Jacob experiences the sense

of responsibility even though, as he says, he received transmission “not from a specific

teacher. Not given from my teacher, and I don’t want, but, someone gave me the robe.” For

Jacob, his students made him their teacher, placed the robe of authority and responsibility

upon his shoulders.

Mel’s beginning as a teacher was not dissimilar, though less revelatory, in that he began

teaching at the Berkeley Zen Center according to the student’s needs: “It was just kind of

natural, getting into it…I was just, ahm, giving zazen instruction all the time, and talking to

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people about, you know, when people ask questions, and I was around, you know, I was the

only one around to answer questions. So, I, I was, just started, you know, teaching.” His

“natural” approach incorporates his teaching of music, which he simply picked up himself

and found he had a skill doing, and his intuitive ability as an artist, following the example

of both of his teachers Clifford Still and Suzuki Roshi who did not formally teach, but just

pointed out the direction the student must walk herself. Such an approach agreed with his

“hasidic temperment” which bypassed formality. He receives ordination and dharma

transmission from Suzuki Roshi in the same way, which involved no special training or

instruction: “It never occurred to me to be a priest, but he just asked me, he said, I’d like

you to do this…it’s very interesting, though, because I said, what do I do as a priest, and he

said, I don’t know.” He had to find out for himself, like learning to paint abstract art and

learning to play the recorder, and only then could he help others on their path; in the hasidic

example, he teaches by natural inclination.

Mel received actual dharma transmission, not just ordination, not from Suzuki but from

his son years after Suzuki had died. Blanche received transmission from Mel, and had

originally wanted very much to become ordained--her request was denied by her teacher

Richard Baker,

I could see why, because my motivation for being ordained, at the time, was just way off the mark.

It was about, it was about, status, belonging, ah, being with the big kids, the in group. It was about,

ah, getting something, which is not what ordination is about. Ordination is about giving up

something.

He did ordain her years later when she had stopped wanting it. Or, she began wanting it for

a different reason: “The main thing is are you doing it for the benefit of others…and you

know, ordination is about living a life of value.” Blanche begins her spiritual practice quite

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naturally as a reaction to the suffering which had occurred in her life--her friend’s death,

her own illness, the student riots--as a cry for help. Her development within the Zen world

from a needy practitioner to a priest and finally to receiving dharma transmission

represents her inner development and narrative plot line from self-helping (the social

activist who, as she self-criticized, “fights for peace”) to other-helping (“I wanted to be

able to love everybody”). She is now giving dharma transmission to her students, based on

their having a similar realization: “I have a disciple who I think is about ready to receive

transmission, because he has finally understood that his practice is about helping the

students.” Blanche has synthesized her early thesis example of her own helping father and

her antithesis of her own neediness into a practice which is both socially active and

internally peaceful.

The initial acceptance of the role of a teacher varies with negative and positive reactions

by the subjects. Jacob was initially afraid to “take the robe”, and Chodron reacted

negatively to her guru’s request that she begin teaching. She is rebuffed by him, and

explains her difficulty:

when I protested, Lama Yeshe looked at me and he said quietly, you are selfish…No, I didn’t feel at

all prepared to teach, I’ve never felt prepared to teach. Every time I go to my teachers and I say, I

really want to do my retreat. So that I can actually become qualified. They say, that’s nice…and

teach. I get constantly told to teach…I would much rather practice. But this is an area, I mean, this

is one of the things that I’d had to, that’s been a struggle for me.

Chodron has been teaching internationally for many years now, running centers in Asia

and North America, and finally by founding her own monastery. She doesn’t want to teach,

but she does, like Jacob, out of a sense of the necessity and benefit it will have for others.

As with Blanche, she has developed her motivation so that it is directed towards loving

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others, which transforms her approach:

What has happened in recent years is that I’ve begun to see teaching as an opportunity to share the

Dharma, and I’ve begun to, instead of feeling like I shouldn’t be doing this and I’m only doing this

because my teachers are telling me and my students ask, to beginning to appreciate that I want to

benefit sentient beings, and what an incredible opportunity to benefit by teaching. And how

fortunate I am to have this opportunity to serve sentient beings through teaching. And so, that’s

how I’m seeing this role.

Her career in teaching began with the requests of her teachers and students, like

Stephen, Jacob and Mel, but unlike them she maintained a sense of her unworthiness for

the role. It was as though the original thesis of being a double minority, a Jew in America

and a stranger in Judaism, which transferred to her later life as a Tibetan Buddhist in

America and a woman within Tibetan Buddhism, perpetuated a residue of inferiority in her

self-assessment. She admits to the struggle involved in her coming to terms with her role as

a teacher, and this resonates as the dialectic forces which were being resolved within

herself. Eventually she does enter into a synthesis period which opens her up to the love of

teaching as a practice of helping others, a spiritual practice no less than her own solitary

retreats. Only then is she able to fully come into her own, realizing her dream of founding

an abbey in America, the first for women, which requires of her, as its head, to assume the

role of teacher and leader in a formal way--she has full responsibility for the place.

There are those who become teachers willingly and with ease, which can fall into the

problem Blanche mentioned of wanting to get something out of it. Seth felt destined to be a

teacher, saying that, “In terms of the role of a teacher, it became very clear, whether I liked

it or not, that was my karma, it is my karma.” He was working as a public story-teller in

Jewish communities when he began his teaching meditation at Spirit Rock, which soon

became rather self-centered: “I was leading a very public life…I’m a very, you know, my

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style was sort of the charismatic leader. So it was very self-centered…I took that a little

overly seriously and I felt like I had to be careful who I was with and what I was wearing.”

Seth finds himself falling into the trap of what Chogyam Trungpa coined “spiritual

materialism” which turns spiritual practice into another item of acquisition and

ego-enhancement. He breaks this cycle during his Asia trip, realizing that “there was a lot

of ego in it, ahhm and I hadn’t done the level of spiritual work, and I still feel like I

haven’t…there’s a certain level one needs to get to, I mean, it’s somewhat arbitrary, but at

some point one’s teacher’s say, now start teaching.” Seth began teaching before that point

was reached, and ended up having to backtrack and return to the practice as a student once

again.

Seth grew up in an affluent family environment which rejected materialistic values

while still benefiting from them, and his antithesis to that is a simple inverse of form: he

takes on a spiritual practice and life which rejects attachments while using spirituality to

satisfy his desire for status. The dialectic works itself out in his realization of more work

needed to be done, uncovering his patterns of ego attachments, while at the same time

opening him up to his Jewish past which was part of the original thesis once rejected. Seth

now is involved in two five-year programs: the teacher-training of Jack Kornfield at IMS,

and Rabbi Arthur Green’s post-denominational rabbinical training. Seth’s dialectic

tensions find resolution in his returning to the practice, study and apprenticeship of both of

his traditions.

Being a teacher of Buddhism and Buddhist meditation can involve much more than the

teaching of Buddhist philosophy and meditation techniques. For some they are called upon

by their students for counseling and guidance--Jacob counsels individuals using Buddhist

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understandings, and guides a group of psychologists through a program of learning

Buddhist perspectives for their therapy. Amaro, finding himself in the touchy-feeling

center of the universe, northern California, has the frequent experience of, “you can meet

someone and within five minutes they’ll tell you what in England your closest friend in

twenty years would never say to you.” He is, even as a robed and celibate Theravadin

monk, called upon to be “marriage guidance counselor, parents, parental counseling…all

kinds of things. I mean, there’s so many dimensions.” He is required to draw from his

degree in psychology as well as his experience as a drug-using hippie to understand and

connect with the variety of unconventional people who knock on his door. His role as abbot

of the monastery allows him to synthesize all of his experiences in an authoritative and yet

accessible approach.

Jacqueline acts as a counselor as well as a marriage chaplain, and through her work in

these capacities she has come to expand her view of spiritual work: “I’ve been invited into

many, many families, just getting to know them, and I’ve found such happiness. Where I

always thought, oh, that would be a neurotic experience (marriage, family)…I see a lot of

conscious, open hearted people…there’s a lot of wisdom there.” As previously expressed,

Jacqueline’s path is self-defined as that of “expansion, inclusion”, of finding “new and

unbounded ways of the dharma”, which she attempts to do in her ever-changing role as a

teacher. Her involvement in family rituals, such as marrying couples, synthesizes her own

investment in family, her raising two children, and her entrance into a Tibetan tradition

which honors these choices. As a teacher of vipassana meditation, she made her transition

to Tibetan practice formal by her training of others to be teachers in the tradition she was

leaving: “that was a really important moment because I could just sort of pass everything

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on, and then, I told them all, I said I’m doing this so that I can move on.” Jacqueline passes

the torch while at the same time lighting the way in front of her which is into uncharted

territory--a deeper synthesis of her past.

Echoing Jacob’s words, Jacqueline expresses that as a teacher “I actually had to take an

enormous amount of responsibility, just for myself…I just felt like, I’m sooo filled with

this, you know, and now, it’s more, it arises spontaneously. It’s not like I know anything,

just, oh, there it is. Just by natural.” This is the true manifestation of the synthesis: a

spontaneous, natural arising of the deepest wisdom of one’s life experience. It is a

tremendous responsibility to share it with others, not as something which comes from

oneself, but as that which one simply is entrusted to hand over to others. The maturity of

each teacher is measured and indicated by her sense of responsibility for the welfare and

benefit of others--this is a concern that the teachers here who have effected far-reaching

syntheses of their lives have each expressed. It is spoken of as the desire to love all others,

to share the Dharma with them, and to pass everything on; common to all is the admission

of not being the holder of knowledge, but rather of being blessed with the unique and

irrepressible responsibility to share all that one has realized.

Reconsidering Judaism

This final discussion in the section on synthesis will look at those examples of subjects

who came to new understandings of Judaism and chose to integrate these approaches into

their spiritual practice. The chapter on the teachers’ relationship with Judaism, The Jewish

Something, looked in detail at the variations of Judaism within their narratives; this section

will focus on the few cases of conscious rediscovery and integration as the product of their

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dialectic narrative plot lines. The syntheses, in these cases, are very much points of

departure for new developments which have the presence of substantial new theses in their

lives; the tensions of antitheses can be already discerned. The examples of Blanche,

Stephen and Seth will be discussed.

The reconsideration Blanche makes of Judaism is not through her own practice and

exposure, but through the lives of her children, two of whom chose to live observant Jewish

lives. Her son follows an orthodox Jewish lifestyle, and her daughter a Conservative

Jewish practice--both revolve their lives around Judaism and its laws. Blanche has

remained very close with her family, and they often come to visit her and her husband

(their father and grandfather) at the Zen Center. Blanche comments on her Jewish

awareness: “my Jewish education has all happened second hand through my kids in the last

ten years of my life.” She tells of her son’s explaining Jewish kosher laws to her husband,

who is not Jewish, as “Dad, it’s just Jewish mindfulness practice”, to which he replied to

Blanche, “well, he had me there.” Blanche extrapolates: “And it’s true, if you’re truly

observant, you acquire a very strong mindfulness practice.”

With Blanche’s children and grandchildren being very Jewishly identified, she finds

she cannot avoid her own role in it: “I, I wanted them to know they were Jewish, they were,

you know, because I was Jewish.” She returns as a Buddhist priest, former abbot of the San

Francisco Zen Center, to her Jewish identity, which was nascent in her thesis youth and

abandoned in her intensive antithesis involvement as a burgeoning Buddhist. She states, “I

identify myself both as Jewish and Buddhist. But not, not as a religious Jew.” Through her

children and grandchildren Blanche has rediscovered “religious” Judaism as a practice on

par with the Buddhism she has devoted most of her adult life to, which synthesizes her

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narrative directions into a more holistic identity, embracing in very different ways both

sides. Her synthesis is in the form of an appreciation for their choices, as well as a deeper

awareness of her own Jewish identity.

Stephen’s reconsideration of Judaism, which followed his thesis of much anger and

resentment towards the religion and antithesis of a hippie/academic departure from it,

began with his decision to move to Israel for what he called “a radical experiment in

living.” He and his family settled in a small village in the rural north of Israel where he

immersed himself in physical labor--building his own house and planting a garden. He

explains his need:

I felt I needed the physical, the touch of the earth…I needed that to balance that something else

which was the bourgeois background, intellectual side and so on, with the physical side which was

very important to me. My hands were rough, you know, I was building and I really enjoyed it. And

it was a cleanout, it was more like Goenka (vipassana meditation), I would say, it was a cleanout of

my past history…I was picking stones like a peasant for two years, and building and it was a

beautiful time in my life, really beautiful. And it was also a time of practicing meditation in action,

because of the quietness of the hills, working on my own, and all the challenges I had to face…I had

no experience before how to build a house, no experience. I didn’t know what a hammer was,

coming from a middle, upper middle class Jewish home. I had no idea. I had to learn as I went, went

along.

The experiment of living was a synthesis period when he was able to return to a type of

Judaism which was very primordial, even Biblical--living on the land in

self-sufficiency--while combining it with his meditation practice. It was the combination

of his meditation-- “all the time, though, all the time, Goenka in the background.

Meditation was, for me, like I had to do it,”-- with his living in Israel which enabled him to

exist in the land that was the source of the very Judaism which had caused him so much

grief in his early life. Meditation was just that which returned him, he says, to the “clean,

55

pure space where there was no conflict, not disputes, just back to the child, pure

discovery.” The child he discovers is not a return to the child who faced so much conflict in

his life and ended up leaving the Judaism which was at the source of a lot of it, but the child

who is free to discover Israel and Judaism and Buddhism on his own terms, according to

his own needs.

As described, Stephen’s epiphany on the hill in Nepal allowed him to rediscover and

reclaim Judaism, to “choose my relationship with it. A real new confidence and freedom

arrived…after that I began until today to be respectful of Shabbat and to keep Shabbat…I

wouldn’t keep it as the orthodox, but I keep it complete.” He has since consciously been

cultivating that new relationship with Judaism, offering Jewish-Buddhist weekend retreats,

and studying Jewish sources. This synthesis period Stephen calls being a bridge between

different worlds:

I feel I’m a bridge-builder in my life, partly through the cultures I went through, the sixties and

this…I think my role is in a sense, and my mission, is to bring the opposites together. In all the

different ways. So here I am in a sense doing it with Buddhism and Judaism. And um, I enjoy that

kind of creative fire, to bring the opposites together.

The experiment in living that Stephen has embarked upon while in Israel is the synthesis of

the Jew and the Buddhist within his own life, with the intention to share that journey, that

experiment, with others, acting as a bridge for their own divisions. As a teacher, like most

of the others in this study, he arrives to teach the most by his own example and synthesis of

his life’s plot.

The most active reconsideration of Judaism comes from the decision Seth made to

return to his Jewish roots, which involved his studying traditional Judaism in a yeshiva, a

Jewish seminary, and enrolling in a rabbinical program. The synthesis began in his reaction

56

to hearing his teacher Jack Kornfield: “you know, he likes to say there’s one spiritual river

and many wells down to it. You know, and he said that. And I thought, well shit, if that’s

true, you know, I can’t live in denial any more. Sort of like when I realized at age seven

animals have feelings of pain and suffering, I can’t kill, I can’t deny that anymore.” Seth

accepts a basic fact of himself, his being Jewish, as real as the experience of animals’

pain--it’s simply a fact, but one which compels a decision. What this realization means,

however, extends to a more proactive direction, like that the fact of animals’ pain means he

cannot kill, so too the fact of his Jewishness means to him that he must explore it and

reconcile.

Seth develops a sense of purpose from the meaning of his realization: “I think there are

very good reasons that Judaism could benefit from the Dharma, and in my own small way I

could bring some meditation back to it. Ahhm, and it would reconcile for me, and I

wouldn’t have to have this sort of closed door, we don’t go into that room.” Like Stephen,

Seth comes to the point in his narrative of rejecting the negativity around Judaism,

rejecting the rejection he had been carrying around with him since the age of fourteen, and

tentatively opening the door which had been emotionally barricaded. Within that

unexplored room of Jewish spirituality he begins to generate his synthesis which retrieves

his childhood personal relationship with God while maintaining his Dharma practice which

he begins to redirect towards Judaism.

Summary

The narrative plot lines contained within a life story continually make unexpected as

well as predictable turns; the way in which different and seemingly divergent threads of the

57

storylines are brought together is a product of both the narrative presentation of the author

and the narrative reading of the reader, myself. Those who read my own understandings of

the dialectic movements within the narratives presented here may well differ in their

assessments of the directions--what I present as an antithesis development may well be

described as a thesis ground to the whole story, and vice-verse. An underlying premise in

the describing of plot dialectics is that the narrative is in constant motion, even as it exists

on paper and is being analyzed; each reading produces novel and previously unseen

directions, which result in overhauling the former categories of parts or whole dialectic

arcs.

What becomes clear in the endeavor of tracing plot dialectically throughout a life story

is that in the flow of the narrative all parts are eventually reconciled: life moves on, and the

people here eventually make some kind of peace with who they are, where they come from,

and where they imagine they’re going. This does not mean that the synthesis is final, for as

soon as it is identified it begins its role as a new thesis motivating further change and

growth. Nor is the reconciliation with one’s life and past one which incorporates all the

differences equally--those who do not want Judaism will not practice it, those who choose

certain directions in Dharma will follow them; the synthesis is a reconciliation with all the

choices one has made, as a Buddhist and as a Jew. The dialectic shows how a narrative, as

viewed in terms of merging plot lines, has an overall meaningful structure which follows

the conscious decisions and choices of the subject, the story’s hero, as well after that

meaning which emerges out of the narrative’s own directions. To study the dialectics of a

narrative is to follow the trail of a meaningful life in the making, as a Buddhist, a Jew, a

teacher, and moreover as a human being.

58

Endnotes: 1 Hegel, Freidrich, translated by J.Sibree, p. 19. 2 Singer, p.28.

59

3 Singer, p.103. 4 Gadamer, Hans-Georg, pp.87-88. 5 ibid, p.89. 6 ibid, p.91. 7 Bodhicitta, literally, “awakened mind” is the mind that has the motivation of attaining enlightenment for the benefit of all sentient beings. There is an emphasis in the Tibetan practice of generating bodhicitta as a motivation for all of one’s actions. The most practiced means for generating bodhicitta is the taking of the bodhisattva vow, which is the vow to help all beings attain freedom from suffering and to continue to do so until every being is free. This requires, according to the traditional belief in reincarnation, that one postpones entering final nirvana and continually returns to the world until the work is completed.

60

Chapter Ten: Summary Thoughts

You say I took the name in vain

I don’t even know the name

But if I did, well really, what’s it to ya

There’s a blaze of light in every word

It doesn’t matter which ya heard

The holy or the broken--Hallelujah.

Leonard Cohen, excerpt from “Hallelujah”i

From the years 1993 to 1996, Leonard Cohen, the Jewish folksinger and poet

originally from Montreal, spent most of his time as a monk in the Zen Buddhist

monastery Mt. Baldy in southern California. This period was the culmination of his

twenty-five year involvement with Zen which began in the 1960’s while he was on the

Greek island Hydra. In the monastery he meditated most of the day, as well as cooked

and drove for the Japanese abbot, Sasaki roshi. Cohen, a man of profound, haunting, and

eminently relevant words, with fifteen albums out, two novels, several collections of

poetry, and hundreds of performances, was tantalizingly given the Dharma name “Jikan”

which means “Silent One.” He has spent life searching through words and music for deep

silences, the vast solitudes of the soul to which he returns continually, and then attempts

to express in his art. A Dharma name is given to the Zen student by the master not as an

affirmation of who or what one is, but rather what one aspires to become. Cohen’s

admission, “I don’t even know the name” summarizes the theological dilemma of the

searching individual: what can I say in the face of the terrible silence of God? What is

there to know, to say, to do, to believe in? He does not leave us mercilessly hanging

there, however, but answers boldly with a redeeming call: Hallelujah. Not triumphant, not

scorning or denying, but simply expressing the enlightened paradox of both the cry of

pain and laugh of joy within each one of us. It doesn’t matter which you heard, which

path you take, it ends in Hallelujah.

I bring Cohen into the final pages of this study as a compelling example of a Jewish

Buddhist who struggles and reconciles and continues to struggle for a clearer expression

of his path through life, Judaism, Buddhism, the street, the hotel, the family, friends,

lovers, conversations, art, sleep, drinking bourbon, trudging through the snow at night,

and so on. His story and expressions of it are never finished but always being refined; he

always is finding “New Skin for the Old Ceremony”, the name of his 1973 album. The

new skin Cohen chose for his old and well-tread search in spirit was not a new form of

Judaism, but the newly emerging Buddhism of North America; his search and choices are

mirrored by thousands of other Jews who take their spiritual lives very seriously. This

study has been a close examination and narrative exploration of a few of such stories and

choices which, despite being drawn from relatively few examples, can be seen has having

much broader reverberations and correspondences. Like Cohen, the subjects of this study

have not cast away their Jewish identities, or even their frequently very Jewish

perspectives, but nonetheless have devoted themselves to serious Buddhist practice. Their

lives represent the significant and successful attempts at finding paths into a spiritual life

which is a unique phenomenon of our times: Jews assuming leadership of Buddhism in

the West. The sincerity and achievements of such people reveal the inherent

compatibility of many Jews and Buddhism in America; the “blaze of light” they discover

are in the words, and practices, of Buddhism, and for some, in Judaism as well.

I will outline here the most salient features of the Jewish Buddhist teacher’s spiritual

journey which were illuminated during the course of the entire study. These features, I

am suggesting, can be found in every serious Jewish Buddhist seeker, with greater or

lesser emphasis. Their unique and engaging stories reveal some universal aspects of the

spiritual life as a whole, and of the Jew who pursues Buddhism in particular. Rather than

simply reiterating the findings, I will use some of the episodes in the life and songs of

Leonard Cohen as a summary example of the features discussed and their wide

applicability.

Leaving Home

The home that Cohen leaves is multi-layered, including his hometown of Montreal,

his religion Judaism, and his family. He first began to leave the home of his conventional

upbringing by writing poetry and entering a literary scene, which in the late 1950’s was,

of course, identified with the anti-establishment Beat movement. After a completing his

university degree, he departs on the search for truth and freedom, which, like many of his

contemporaries in the 1960’s when he lived in Greece, was a foray into an alternative

lifestyle that involved travel, writing, and intoxicants. His song “I Came So Far For

Beauty” captures the movement:

I came so far for beauty

I left so much behind

My patience and my family

My masterpiece unsigned.

The beginning of the search, the impetus to leave, seldom originates from a spiritual

intention--the search for beauty, for experience, and for escape are dominant themes. In

his song “Sisters of Mercy” Cohen traces just where the contours of the road lead: “Yes

you must leave everything that you cannot control/ It begins with your family, but soon it

comes around to your soul.” What starts as a physical departure soon develops into a

spiritual one, where one is searching for the answers to the troubling questions of

suffering and loss. Not for answers, exactly, but for how to respond to life in a way that

can bear the immensity of it all.

Cohen finds solace in both love and solitude, seeing them as inseparable, and the road

between them as irresistible. The journey and departure he espouses is one which drops

pretense and makes the self one had built up to seem a stranger, as in “The Stranger

Song”:

The door is open, you can’t close your shelter

You try the handle of the road

It opens, do not be afraid

It’s you my love who are the stranger

One has left all traces of home: one’s place, one’s family, one’s tradition, and one’s very

self. It is a journey which leads into the unknown, passing through the highs and lows

that are standard features of the road.

The Spiritual Highs

The journey would not be able to proceed without its rewards, the spiritual highs, the

epiphany moments, which make the suffering bearable, the loneliness consolable, and the

future possible. Cohen has had his poetic fill of such markers along his path:

The light came through the window

Straight from the sun above

And so inside my little room

There plunged the rays of Love.

In streams of light I clearly saw

The dust you seldom see

Out of which the nameless makes

A Name for one like me.

This epiphany experience, reading like a classic example of a mystical encounter, has

transforming power upon him. He is renamed, and finds a new inner life which is replete

with love. In “The Guests” Cohen describes the experience in similar passion: “All at

once the torches flare/ The inner door flies open.” The transformation is not easy, but is a

sacrifice of love to something higher, as he suggests in “The Window”:

Then lay your rose on the fire

The fire gives up to the sun

The sun give over to splendor

In the arms of the high holy one…

Oh chosen love, oh frozen love…

The final departure is recognized by a letting go even of the spiritual high that is so

entrancing, the epiphany that can become, as a goal, an obstacle on the path. His “The

Smokey Life” chants:

It’s light enough, light enough

To let it go

Light enough to let it go.

Not only is the spiritual high let go of, but the rejection of the old, the rejection and denial

of the home that had been left, the old angers and denials of the different (read: difficult)

parts of oneself, including the Jewish part, are let go of like weights that slow down the

movement . The highs, however let go of, are necessarily coupled by the lows that carve

out the important valleys in this journey.

The Spiritual Lows

Suffering is an unavoidable part of life, Buddhist or Jewish, or anything else for that

matter. The lows on the road actually serve to give momentum to the pursuit of the

spiritual journey--if nothing more than to invigorate the cry for help and search for

respite. They are the valleys that the mountain heights rely upon for their majestic

prominence. Suffering is such an intrinsic part of the path in its ability to generate

identification with others’ sufferings, and to be able to respond with compassion, as

Cohen’s “Heart With No Companion” sings:

I greet you from the other side

Of sorrow and despair

With a love so vast and shattered

I will reach you everywhere.

It is the very shattering of the love and of the self that allows him to reach out to others.

He expresses this empathy even more explicitly in “Sisters of Mercy”: “Well I’ve been

where you’re hanging, I think I can see how you’re pinned/ When you’re not feeling

holy, you’re loneliness says that you’ve sinned.” The journey into a spiritual life can

often have the effect of guilt, of not having done enough, of regret for past actions, and a

deep low which envelops one in the form of a bleak loneliness--telling you that you’ve

sinned. It simply is one of the dangers of the way, as Cohen expresses in his 1988

interview with L.A. Style magazine:

I had a lot of versions of myself that I had used religion to support. If you deal with this material

you can’t put God on. I thought I could spread light and I could enlighten my world with those

around me and I could take the Bodhisattva path which is the path of service, of help to others. I

thought I could, but I was unable to…Once you start dealing with sacred material you’re gonna

get creamed.

It is not that suffering is an inevitable result of the spiritual life, but that the pursuit of

the spiritual life, of Buddhist meditation and understandings, involves the great irony of

making one much more aware of suffering in the world--one’s own and others’. The

experience of suffering may, ironically, actually increase rather than be eliminated. True

spiritual practice is the path of no escape. Those who want to make changes and help

others, as well as themselves, must be committed to a lifetime of struggle and work--and

it is this commitment that both Cohen and the other teachers of this study have made.

The Intransigency of Jewish Identity

Though Cohen has spent much of his adult life involved in serious Buddhist practice,

he continuously made references to his Judaism in much of his songwriting and poetry.

His is a more tortured and hidden identity, recalling images of Babylon and exile, which

connects him to his suffering and spiritual distress:

By the rivers dark

In a wounded dawn

I live my life

In Babylon.

Cohen’s Judaism is not a source of light or inspiration, and was left for Buddhist

expanses, but it remains an intrinsic part of his self-understanding and approach to life.

He explains his understanding of both Buddhism and Judaism as mutually informing, and

points to his affinity with Buddhism as having a Jewish underpinning, as he expresses in

an interview (my italics):

The thing that attracted me, in the first place, was this…emptiness. It’s a place where it’s very

difficult to hold fast to one’s ideas. It’s very close to certain forms of extreme Judaism. Take the

conviction, for example, amongst certain of the more orthodox Jews, that one can’t say the name

of God, or that one cannot even define what God is. It’s a movement in one’s spirit that perhaps

makes one more predisposed to a clear comprehension of Zen. I always liked this aspect of

Judaism, the fact that no one really speaks of God; there is this sort of charitable void that I found

here in a very pure form.ii

In Cohen’s path, Judaism and Buddhism are not really separate--it is the “charitable

void” in one that he recognizes in the other. By no means having anything of an orthodox

Jewish upbringing, Cohen’s Jewish awareness, or more correctly his Jewish

consciousness, provides the space for his understanding of Buddhism. At the end of my

interview with Blanche Hartman, she said to me that after I had finished the study she

wanted me to tell her why so many Jews were involved in Buddhism, a phenomenon she

had been keenly aware of during her long involvement with the San Francisco Zen Center

and her tenure as its abbess. I did not pursue this dissertation in the hopes of answering

this question, but I can send her Cohen’s own summation: it is the charitable void of the

nameless God which makes a Jew more predisposed to clear Buddhist understanding.

Cohen begins with his Judaism, passes through Buddhism in the effort to free himself

of his baggage without taking on more Buddhist bags (“Even though I have been living

like this for some time, I have never considered myself a Buddhist”iii), and returns

continuously to refer to his Judaism in his own integrated way, as in “The Future”:

I’m the little jew

Who wrote the Bible

I’ve seen the nations rise and fall

I’ve heard their stories, heard them all

But love’s the only engine of survival.

Here is the impermanence, the distrust in worldly power, and the supremacy of love.

Buddhist, Jewish, both and neither. Stories all.

In his song “If It Be Your Will” Cohen fuses Jewish prayer with Buddhist

compassion; he is appealing to the free choice of each individual to do the Bodhisattva’s

work of alleviating suffering in the world, and equally to a greater power which remains

unnamed. Selflessness and the assertion of a will for good combine in the echo of the

ancient psalms:

If it be your will

If there is a choice

Let the rivers fill

Let the hills rejoice

Let your mercy spill

On all the burning hearts in hell

If it be your will

To make us well.

The Great Teacher

Cohen’s relationship with his Zen teacher, Sasaki roshi, was his main spiritual

influence as well as his reason for remaining within the monastery and within Buddhist

practice as a whole. When asked why he became involved with Zen, Cohen replies, “Zen

arrived at a certain moment in my life; I met this old man and I liked what he wasn’t

saying.”iv It is not the traditional Japanese master-disciple formal relationship, but rather

much more of the American combination of casualness, lack of borders, and respect for

authority especially if it is garbed in oriental attire. Cohen expresses the different tenors

of the relationship, while revealing his dependency upon his teacher for his spiritual

direction:

I enjoy this guy’s company. He’s my drinking buddy, you know. We’ve been drinking together

for twenty years…I don’t know what I will do after he dies. Perhaps I will stop everything…I

have certain responsibilities concerning his funeral rights…he has given me permission to keep

one of his bones, if I feel like it. After all that, I might feel too old, I wouldn’t be able to take the

cold and I’d abandon the practice. Maybe.v

Cohen left the monastery before Sasaki roshi died, which occurred recently, and he

has since produced another album. His most recent photo, which has become the one

used by the Finnish government for a special stamp in his honor, has him sitting at a table

with a cap on. In front of him are two candlesticks with burning candles, an ornamental

wine glass (kiddush cup) and a covered loaf of bread. The title of the photo is “Dad

Shabbat”. The same old clear and somewhat forlorn look in his dark eyes greets you. He

is alone, teacherless, out of the monastery, but still searching his troubled soul.

The Struggle, and Resolution, and Struggle Again

The life as a writer, poet, songwriter, and musician have generated within Cohen a

deep awareness and sensitivity to the conflicts within the inner life, of the searching soul

and his relationship to the world. Those conflicts, tensions, and struggles find temporary

resolutions within the work of the artist, only to arise again in the form of new

conditions--the dialectic of the spiritual life is constantly reinventing itself. Cohen

explicitly refers to this dynamic movement, which reveals his work as a source of solace

in the sea of turbulent change:

I became a writer and as my friend (Irving) Layton always said, a writer is deeply conflicted and

it’s in his work that he reconciles those deep conflicts. That place is the harbor. It doesn’t set the

world in order, you know, it doesn’t really change anything. It just is a kind of harbor, it’s the

place of reconciliation, it’s the consolumentum, the kiss of peace.vi

Nothing is changed, everything is different. Life continues, the resolutions turn into

conflicts again, the syntheses revert to theses with troublesome antitheses in the aisles,

and the artist’s work strives to return to safe landings.

The change of the seasons of the soul, through love and loss, joy and suffering,

conflict and resolution, Cohen has mastered in his verse. If one impression stands out, it

is comprehensiveness: the all-encompassing nature of the journey which is so poignant in

its emotional vicissitudes. The endless roaming search for meaning and path demands, as

with any good narrative, the simultaneity of remembrance and forgetting--we tell what is

meaningful to the voyage, no more or less. “I Can’t Forget” captures this sentiment of

gentle paradox:

Yeah I loved you all my life

And that’s how I want to end it

The summer’s almost gone

The winter’s tuning up

Yeah, the summer’s gone

But a lot goes on forever

And I can’t forget, I can’t forget

I can’t forget but I don’t remember what.

The life narrative and songs of Leonard Cohen parallel the themes which were

developed throughout this study as derived from the life stories of several prominent

Jewish Buddhist teachers. The narrative study of a life, especially along the lines of the

spiritual choices made, cannot but have relevance beyond the specifics of the individual

studied. The Jewish Buddhist journey, in its mature and seasoned development, can be

found to leave its narrative traces in not only the chosen spiritual paths of the individuals

themselves, but in the poetry, literature, film, speech, song, memory and cultural

awareness of many others within both similar and very different contexts.

The narrative pathways of the people studied here have contributed profoundly to the

self-awareness and self-description of the contemporary American Jew and Buddhist. A

recent example will illustrate this. A few years ago a friend of mine spent a month at a

course for Westerners at the Kopan monastery outside of Kathmandu. The course was an

intensive experience within Tibetan Buddhism, and it attracted a hundred students. Most

of them had background in Buddhism, and were very involved in the ritual practices of

the monastery. The course, held in November, overlapped with the Jewish holiday of

Hannukah. My friend, a religious Jew from Israel, lit the ritual menorah in his room,

which is done every night for eight days, beginning with one candle, and a candle is

added each day until eight are burning. Word spread that he was doing this, and all of a

sudden there were over thirty people crammed into his room to participate in this

lighting--they were all Jews from America. A third of the course. My friend was shocked,

but for all those Jewish Buddhists, their being of both persuasions was the most natural

thing in the world. One of them said to him, “to be a Jew in America is to be a Buddhist.”

Though an exaggeration, this sentiment and those Jewish Buddhists’ pluralism reveal

how much the narratives of the people studied here, and others like them, have

dramatically influenced the contours of Jewish and Buddhist America. The dialectic of

meaning continues, the story ever unfinished, with Cohen’s music and silence hanging in

the air like a broken prayer:

I did my best, it wasn’t much

I couldn’t feel, so I tried to touch

I’ve told the truth, I didn’t come to fool ya

And even though it all went wrong

I’ll stand before the lord of song

With nothing on my tongue but Hallelujah.

Endnotes: i All song quotes are taken from Leonard Cohen’s website, www.leonardcohenfiles.com ii from interview in “Les Inrockuptibles”, France, October 15, 1995. iii ibid. iv ibid. v ibid. vi from L.A. Style interview, 1988, as found in above website.

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