Sumi Loundon Kim - Blue Jean Buddha: Voices of Young Buddhists

The emerging face of Buddhism is revealed. Poignant and provocative, honest and heartfelt, these stories are diverse expressions of our shared longing for a wise and compassionate life.

Sharon Salzberg, author of
Lovingkindness

These young people offer all of us something precious. We need their insight and experience for the tree of Buddhism to grow and take root in the West.

Thich Nhat Hanh, author of
The Miracle of Mindfulness

A bracingly fresh set of visions of how spiritual life emerges. Blue Jean Buddha shines both as a documentation of the forces that shape spirituality and as a testament to Buddhism as it exists today.

Daniel Goleman, author of
Emotional Intelligence

Here we have the grassroots of Dharma in our own country, sprouting up and enriching our society and our lives. These young voices speak straight from their good hearts and have a mind to awaken us all.

Lama Surya Das, author of
Awakening the Buddha Within

What a rich collection this is! Intimate stories and serious questions, excitement and skepticism: This is the stuff of the next iteration of Buddhist practice.

Sensei Pat Enkyo OHara, founding teacher
of the Zen Peacemaker Order

Fabulous! A fresh, no-nonsense collection. This is the first generation to grow up with Buddhism from the breast. Theyve got it and its not what we thought. As the Buddha taught, theyre taking his teachings, testing them like goldsmiths do gold, and finding out what is true for themselves. Halleluja! Good news! Buddhism has put down its roots and it is flourishingblossoming and bearing the juicy fruit of Blue Jean Buddhas.

China Galland, author of The Bond Between Women and
Longing For Darkness: Tara and the Black Madonna

A collection of thoughtful and often touching personal experiences of youthful bodhisattvas coming from the rich and varied traditions of Buddhism. A refreshing and needed addition to the growing literature on Buddhism in America.

Taitetsu Unno, Smith College, author of
River of Fire, River of Water

This is a fascinating, timely book. Human and lively, its many voices raise a forest of questions, all the hope and perplexity that the honest search for truth always brings.

Zoketsu Norman Fischer,
former abbot of San Francisco Zen Center

Blue Jean Buddha

Voices of Young Buddhists

Wisdom Publications

199 Elm Street

Somerville MA 02144 USA

www.wisdompubs.org

2001 Sumi D. Loundon

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photography, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system or technologies now known or later developed, without the permission in writing from the publisher.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Blue jean Buddha : voices of young Buddhists / edited by Sumi Loundon ; foreword by Jack Kornfield.

p. cm.

ISBN 0-86171-177-7 (alk. paper)

ISBN 978-0-86171-800-9 (EBOOK)

1. Youth, BuddhistUnited StatesBiography. 2. Spiritual biographyUnited States. 3. Youth, BuddhistReligious life United States. I. Loundon, Sumi D., 1975.

BQ738.B58 2001

294.3'0973'09051dc21 2001033236

ISBN 0-86171-177-7

6 5 4 3

Cover design by Laura Shaw

Interior by Gopa and Ted2

Wisdom Publications books are printed on acid-free paper and meet the guidelines for the permanence and durability set by the Council on Library Resources.

Printed in the United States of America.

Dedicated to the dharma friends
whove helped me on the path
and to my parents.

May the merit from this book
be extended to the well-being of all.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

W HAT IF B UDDHA WERE BORN in North America, in our times? From the comfort of his modern home might he begin to wander the streets of our world and see the same human conditions of aging, sickness, and death, the same human-created sufferings of greed, war, racism, and injustice that he saw in India 2,500 years ago? When he reached his twenties would he, again out of compassion, go forth from the palaces of comfort to seek liberation for the sake of all beings?

He has. His search for freedom and universal loving-kindness can be found in the voices and spirit of the young writers in this bookin their honesty, their courage, and their care. Though we live in a world troubled by ecological destruction, consumerism, and conflict, all who listen to their hearts can sense the possibility of humansof each one of us being more aware, more compassionate, more free. To sense this is to connect with our awakened heart, our buddha nature. The world needs this awakening more than ever, and a new generation has begun to draw on the Buddhas teaching to reawaken their noble hearts.

These young peoples stories tell of finding the way of the Buddha here and now, in their very lives, in Buddhist communities and in practice in the world. Whether working in the prisons or climbing mountains, on the streets of New York or the sports field, their practice is honorable. From family struggles to social activism, from failure and success to reawakened passion for the world, these tales are full of dharma learning.

In Thailand, where I lived for some years as a monk, traditionally almost all young men and women would have to spend some time in their twenties undertaking spiritual practice in a monastery. Otherwise, the Elders would say their hearts would not become ripe, that they would stay green like an unripened fruit. What is beautiful in this book is to see how the fruit of these contributors has begun to ripen.

As they ripen, wisdom replaces nave excitement, judgment turns to compassion, and kindness deepens for self, for family, for all beings. This is the journey we all must take.

Finally, this new dharma generation asks important questions for the Buddhists of the twenty-first century. How do we balance meditation and social responsibility, dharma and mass media, monasticism and lay life? Do we take the Orient Express, or is there a new meeting of East and West that is our generations way? It is these young Buddhists who will decide.

On the day I first ordained as a Buddhist monk in the forest monastery of the Elders, I had a strange experience. It felt oddly familiar, as if I had done it many times before. Of course, we cant say how these Blue Jean Buddhists have come to their wisdom, but maybe they are old Zen students, lamas, monks, and nuns reborn in the West. Whatever the source, what they have to teach us is inspiring. Now the dharma that is good in the beginning, good in the middle, and good in the end is in their good hearts and good hands.

Blessings,
Jack Kornfield
Spirit Rock Meditation Center
Woodacre, California
2001

A FEW YEARS AGO, I was working in the kitchen of a Buddhist retreat center settled in the woods of New England. The bright colors of autumn leaves were beginning to speckle the hillsides. I had just graduated from Williams College, where I had been cloistered in a world of perpetual youth. Now twenty-two, I suddenly found myself surrounded almost exclusively by copies of my parents, graying-haired Baby Boomers in their late forties and fifties. Working in the kitchen was a great way to meet these older Buddhists, who came in to scrub carrots, scrape plates, and dry pots. Our onion chopping was often slowed by conversations that started, When I was your age followed by stories of how they got turned on to the dharma twenty or thirty years ago. I loved hearing their adventures about the time that was almost mythical in my mind, the 60s. Over the months, I became increasingly aware that we werent just different in age and historical recollection. We were different in our maturity in the dharma and how we were relating Buddhism to our lives. They were thinking about integrating dharma into dealing with a teenage son, a midcareer change, divorce, picking socially responsible stocks, and retirement. I was questioning what Buddhism meant to me as someone just out of college, with no money and even less life-experience, still figuring out how to relate to my parents and my first real boyfriend, and just trying to get a basic understanding of who I was and wanted to be. Without peers to share my twenty-something stories and discuss issues, I began to feel somewhat lonely and isolated.