Ourvan - The star spangled Buddhist: Zen, Tibetan, and Soka Gakkai Buddhism and the quest for enlightenment in America

Zen, Tibetan, and Soka Gakkai Buddhism and the Quest for Enlightenment in America

JEFF OURVAN

Skyhorse Publishing

Copyright 2013 by Jeff Ourvan

All Rights Reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without the express written consent of the publisher, except in the case of brief excerpts in critical reviews or articles. All inquiries should be addressed to Skyhorse Publishing, 307 West 36th Street, 11th Floor, New York, NY 10018.

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The author gratefully acknowledges permission to reprint the Meal Gatha from the Mountains and Rivers Order, www.mro.org; from the Buddhist Publication Society for use of an excerpt from Last Days of the Buddha: The Maha Parinibbana Sutta, by Sister Vajira and F. Story; and from Brian Daizen Victoria for reprinted excerpts from Zen War Stories, RoutledgeCurzon, 2003.

The author is further grateful for the use of lyrics from Leonard Cohens Anthem, 1992 Stranger Music Inc. All rights administered by Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC, 8 Music Square West, Nashville, TN 37203. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Ourvan, Jeff.

The star spangled Buddhist : Zen, Tibetan, and Soka Gakkai Buddhism and the quest for enlightenment in America / Jeff Ourvan.

pages cm

Includes index.

ISBN 978-1-62087-639-8 (hardcover : alk. paper) 1. BuddhismUnited States. 2. Buddhism and cultureUnited States. I. Title.

BQ732.O97 2013

294.3920973dc22

2013005416

Printed in China

In memory of Shin Yatomi and to our eternal friendship

The purpose of Buddhism is not to produce dupes who blindly follow their leader. It is to produce people of wisdom who can judge right or wrong on their own in the clear mirror of Buddhism.

Daisaku Ikeda

The essence of warriorship, or the essence of human bravery, is refusing to give up on anyone or anything.

Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche

Enlightenment is crap. Living ethically and morally is what really matters.

Brad Warner

Nirvana Unplugged:
Buddhism in America Today

THE FIRST JEWEL:
THE BUDDHA

I
n 1983, I was a nice, Jewish, macrobiotic geologist who somehow was enlisted to play sousaphone in a Buddhist marching band.

I attended college in the late 70s and early 80s, reading the colorful works of Carlos Castaneda and similarly groovy books like The Tao of Physics, which attempted to reconcile theoretical physics and Eastern mysticism, and Seth Speaks, which featured an otherworldly being, channeled through a medium, who explained the mysteries of life and death in a tone reminiscent of my kindly uncle from the Bronx. I was ripe, in those days, for an introduction to new philosophies.

Armed with my geology degree, I worked for a year at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory and then left, in a first stab at reinvention, to seek a more meaningful existence in Manhattanto do something that might concern people more than rocks. But I didnt know what that was just yet, so I bided my time editing physics journals transliterated from Russian in an office building smack in the middle of what was then a rundown Soho neighborhood.

I would have lunch alone, every day, at a nearby restaurant called Souen. The menu was Spartan: a lot of seaweed, tofu, and grains. One July day, a very bright waitress whom I had never seen before was my server. I was shy back then, especially around pretty girls, so Im sure I wouldnt have shared anything with her about myself other than what I wanted to eat; the lunch itself was bland and routine.

I ate, rose to pay, and weaved my way between the tables to the cash register, but no one was there to help me. My boss at the time was a stickler for punctuality, so I was nervous about being late. I looked around, but my waitress was busy, bustling in and out of the kitchen and serving other wan vegans like me. I stood there and gazed out a large window. With every changing light, the traffic on Sixth Avenue passed by. I checked my watchI would be late. I leafed through the magazines and flyers on the cash registers counter, but nothing was of interest to read. Then I boosted my feet up off of the floor and myself onto the counter to peer around the other side of the register, where I saw a small alcove with an index card taped to its interior. The card read: A blue fly, if it clings to the tail of a thoroughbred horse, can travel ten thousand miles, and the green ivy that twines around the tall pine can grow to a thousand feet. I jumped back down, and my waitress came to take my check.

Who said that? I asked.

What?

Unintentionally, I found myself trapped in her large, brown eyes. The blue fly thing.

Nichiren! Nichiren Daishonin!

I had heard of Kant and even read a bit of Marx and Engels, but I didnt know what she was talking about. Nietzsche?

No. This is Buddhism. She invited me to a meeting the next evening.

I didnt know what to think, or whether it would even be safe to attend a small meeting of an unknown religion at some strange persons East Village apartment. So I asked around until I found someone in my weekly Tai Chi class who knew what it was all about. Apparently, so I was told, everyone lies down in the dark, holds hands, and chants. And for some reason, I found that to be appealing.

I showed up the next evening at a walk-up leading to one of those old New York so-called railroad apartments in which you enter through a narrow vestibule, and proceed through a tiny kitchen, a small bedroom, and into a slightly larger main room. A group of people were on their knees on the floor there, with their backs to me, facing a closed, wooden box on the wall. I couldnt see anyones face but heard an unusual, incessant sound:

Nnnnnrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

I thought there was an audiotape in the box on the wall from which this strange tonal vibration emanated. It wasnt until I sat on the rug, having been welcomed by my waitress, Grete, that I realized this was the collective noise of people chanting Nam-myoho-renge-kyo. It was the first time I had ever heard such a sound.

The meeting had nothing to do with holding hands in the dark. Rather, the group recited a portion of the Lotus Sutra and chanted to a paper scroll with Chinese markings inside of the now-opened box.

The people were unusual, too. As a flannel-shirted scientist, I suppose I led somewhat of a narrow life up to that point: The most distinguishing feature among most of my white, tectonically inclined male friends was whether or not one had grown a beard. I was raised in the northeast Bronx, in a large, state-subsidized housing development called Co-op City, so I wasnt utterly sheltered. But in this roomful of about twenty Buddhists I saw what was for me an infrequent gathering: a gay couple, several African Americans, a Puerto Rican group leader and half a dozen incredibly beautiful women.