Who are you? Who am I? | Week 29

July | Philosophy and Religion | Week 29 | 7/23/2023
Deep dive on Buddhism

What I know of Buddhism is essentially nothing other than a feeling. I cannot articulate or intellectualize the Dharmas. I am unable to contribute additional depth to the millennias of thought dedicated to the Buddha. I cannot offer alternative translations to the Sanskrit, Chinese or English versions of the Lotus Sutra. But I can tell you what it is like to have been to a Buddhist nation, from the perspective of someone who grew up with no knowledge of such tradition. I can tell you what I observed, what I felt, and what conclusions I was able to draw. I can take my limited knowledge of Western Thought, from the Delphic Maxims to the New Testament, and tell you what I've learned of the East. 

As one strolls through the concrete side streets of Japanese suburbia, there is an indelible solace which resonates through each block, inspired by the minimalist design and abundant tranquility. Stepping into a quiet café filled with professionals, passing by a school yard populated by playing children, or exiting a Family Mart with a bow in your periphery, the same themes emerge undeniably: respect, dignity, duty, community, harmony, pacifism. Was it Zen which produced this? Is it the latent and inherent "Japaneseness" (a concept I learned about in Alex Kerr's Lost Japan)? Was it the militaristic rule of the Shogun or perhaps the Meji Restoration? Was it the atomic bomb? Or is it Buddhism? I have not yet walked the terraced rice fields of rural China, or visited the temples of Thailand, Vietnam and Tibet, but I have absorbed many hours of content from master Shi Heng Yi of the Shaolin Temple Europe. And what I can say is that the themes which I observed in Japan are the same tenets communicated by Master Shi Heng Yi. I suspect, the same would emerge in the places aforementioned, unperturbed by cultural Marxism and dictatorial destruction. 

Buddhism, summarized by the 4 Noble Truths and the Eightfold Path, attempts to solve the same crisis as the Christians, the Stoics, and the Enlightenment thinkers, all of whom in their own respect, form the basis for Western Thought. The crisis: life is endowed with suffering, as a consequence of our conscious experience. Buddhism proposes that whilst consciousness is irremovable, one can transcend the default state of conscious experience, in favor of a state which puts an end to the self-inflicted suffering of the mind. The Eightfold Path, sitting atop a mastery of meditation and dominion over one's body, outlines the way toward that goal. This is the intellectual side of Buddhism, the mission, so-to-speak. It resonates deeply with me and hundreds of millions more. I see thematic crossover between the other religions as I've outlined, and there are areas where I believe Buddhism succeeds (recognition of suffering, recognition of a path forward) and where Buddhism falls short (no mention of divine morality). But here is what I observed, of a people embedded in such tradition and cultural convergence. 

The people were kind, helpful, and non-hostile. You could expect a smile, a bow, and a thank you at every establishment. You could expect gratitude. The people were also hard working. On numerous occasions I witnessed men and women well past retirement age cleaning bathrooms, cooking meals, and attending to ticketing lines. There was no attitude of ingratitude or boredom even at the McDonalds, the airport or the train station. There was no wide variation in the way you'd be treated, served or assisted. Society was well organized; the trains were on time, the sidewalks were clean, the roads were absent potholes and cracks. Construction sites weren't sloppy or spilling over into regular transit channels. Traffic was steady, without accident and respectful. Children walked in lines, people smoked in the designated smoking areas, taxi drivers took your luggage, and no one accepted tips. Overall, there was a strong emphasis on honor, duty, respect and individual dignity with no indication of pride or greed. 

Is it coincidental that Japan is a primarily Buddhist nation or correlative with the attributes and characteristics I've described? I do not have the answer, but I'll finish with one final reflection. After visiting the Great Buddha Hall in Nara, we wandered in the quiet rain, late into the afternoon, around the grounds of the Todaji Temple, until serendipitously resting at a tea shop at the highest point on the grounds. Something occurred to me as I was served warm matcha and red bean: there had been no security guards, no attendants, no rambunctious kids, no sketchy individuals, and we were left to our own agency to wander the grounds of perhaps the most beautiful and pristine Buddhist lands in the nation of Japan, only every so often crossing paths with a monk. What did that say about the culture and the religion? I have visited St. Peter's Basilica at the Vatican, the Lincoln Memorial in Washington D.C., Neuschwanstein Castle in Germany, Buckingham Palace in London. I've seen the images of the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem. There was something truly remarkable embedded either implicitly or explicitly in the Buddhist doctrine: a tempered, respectful, quiet contemplation and a dutiful observation of nature and structure, and those same attributes were those I observed in daily society. Coincidence? I think not.