buddhism

February 16, 2006

Judaism and Buddhism

My friend Mark just emailed me this article from the NYT: "Reform Jews Hope to Unmix Mixed Marriages."

I wrote back:

Hey - we've made some valuable converts over the years. What are Rod Carew and Sammy Davis, Jr., chopped liver? I don't know whether we should take credit for Madonna, though . . .

Seriously, this has to at least be an improvement over browbeating single Jews to only marry within the faith. Talk about being on the losing side of history. Nothing like replaying the villains' role in romances from Romeo and Juliet to Albie's Irish Rose to My Big Fat Greek Wedding.

But the more import issue for Judaism's survival must be to develop a vision of Judaism worth converting for - or staying Jewish for, for that matter. In the last few years, I've found in Buddhism a much more compelling spiritual vision than anything Westchester Reform Temple ever taught me in all those years of useless conversational Hebrew, bowdlerized Bible stories, and one-sided Israeli history lessons. And the irony is that most of my favorite Buddhist writers are "Jew-Boos" - Jack Kornfield, Mark Epstein, Shinzen Young, Alan Ginsberg, Sylvia Boorstein, the list goes on and on. Kabballah appears to be the attempt to find a synthesis of these ideas within the Jewish tradition, but actually, I have to say I'd just as soon stay a spiritual tourist in Buddhism, where I have so much less baggage.

Of course, if I had been schlepped to a "Buddhist Reform Temple" all those years in Scarsdale, I'd probably feel much the same way about Buddhism at this point. The real problem may just be organized religion, per se. I don't go to a Buddhist temple at all - I just meditate on my own, and listen to and read individual writers. I don't know that there's any way to pursue that path as a Jew today. And I don't know that I've ever been to a synagogue that's ever made me want to come back.

Probably more than you all wanted to know about the state of my spirituality, but if you're curious for more, I taught a class on Buddhism and contemporary culture last year. I recorded it, and it's online at http://www.tedfriedman.com/archives/2005/04/buddhism_and_cu.php. This semester, my media and technology class is reading the Dalai Llama's new book about science and spirituality, which I highly recommend - especially the audiobook version, read by Richard Gere. (Thankfully, he doesn't try to put on a Tibetan accent.)

Posted by tedf at 10:54 PM | Comments (0)

April 27, 2005

Buddhism and Cultural Studies: Talk on MP3

As I've mentioned on this blog a couple of times, I'm growing more and more interested in Buddhism. I've meditated regularly for over a decade, and in the last couple of years, I've started reading more about Buddhist philosophy. Now, I'm starting to think through how to incorporate Buddhist ideas into my scholarship and teaching.

So, this semester, I tried an experiment: for my graduate course on cultural studies, I included a week on Mindfulness in the Marketplace: Compassionate Responses to Consumerism, a collection of essays by Buddhists about the politics and ethics of consumer culture.

Last week, we had our class on Buddhism. I started by having everybody take off their shoes and sit on the floor. I talked about my own experience with meditation and Buddhism, and then addressed the relationship I see between Buddhist ideas and critical theory. After that, we had a group meditation. Since I wasn't sure of my skills as a meditation leader, I played a video hosted by Jack Kornfield, Meditation for Beginners.

Here's my talk. You can find the syllabus for the course here.

Here are a few of the meditation teachers I recommend in the talk:

Shinzen Young, The Science of Enlightenment - meditation training with a focus on the continuities between science and mysticism. For free samples of Young's meditation instructions, check out his web site. See also Break Through the Pain and Pain Relief for meditation techniques for chronic pain

Steven Batchelor, Buddhism without Beliefs - agnostic Zen Buddhism.

Other recommended meditation teachers: Jack Kornfield (the guy in the video), Pema Chodron, Cheri Huber, Sharon Salzberg (specializes in loving kindness meditation), Robert Thurman (specializes in Tibetan Buddhism).

A good one-stop source for meditation recordings is Sounds True.

Posted by tedf at 12:41 AM | Comments (0)

Buddhism and Cultural Studies: Talk on MP3

Here's my talk. You can find the syllabus for the course here.

A good one-stop source for meditation recordings is Sounds True.

Posted by tedf at 12:41 AM | Comments (0)

March 07, 2005

Travellers and Magicians

I just saw Travellers and Magicians, which is apparently the first fiction film ever made in the Kingdom of Bhutan. I was particularly curious about the film because its director is apparently also a Buddhist monk, and the film's been promoted for its Buddhist sensibility, as was Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter . . . and Spring Again, the South Korean drama released last year. As somebody very interested in Buddhism - at least the Americanized variations taught by Pema Chodron, Jack Kornfield, Shinzen Young, and others - I was both intrigued and frustrated by both films. This film's structure is pretty standard world cinema fare. A young man in a rustic small town wants to escape to see the world - in this case, specifically to move to the US. Over the course of the film, he learns to appreciate the beauty, slow pace, and community of his life at home, and abandons his plans to emigrate. I always worry that movies like this have less to do with authentic expression than with playing to international audiences' stereotypes and vanity. The American viewer is made to feel both smug and envious. On the one hand, we think, of course our hero wants to move here - doesn't everybody? On the other hand, we wonder, "how could he possibly want to leave the stunning Bhutan countryside, the leisurely pace of life, the rich sense of belonging?"

But as with Bride and Prejudice, the movie involves a performative contradiction. While it preaches staying down on the farm, it only exists because its director discovered the bright lights of the big cities - Sidney (where it was edited), Cannes, and the rest of the stops on the international film circuit. And of course, we Americans can only enjoy the film because we lead lives cosmopolitan enough to catch films from Bhutan at the local artplex. If I embraced the equivalent "simple life" - living without a TV in Vermont, say - I'd never be exposed to a film like this. So can't I feel a little bad for our protagonist, who wears an "I Love NY" t-shirt, but learns to accept the limited horizons of his hometown and never see the Big Apple?

The best thing in this movie is the Buddhist monk who bonds with our hero as he hitchhikes to the capital, from whence he plans to head out for the states. The monk tells a story which becomes a film-within-the-film about another restless young man who learns the value of settling down, and that part is a little too didactic. But the monk character himself is wonderful - calm, twinkling, always generous without ever being a sap. It's the vibe I feel in people like him that makes me so impressed by Buddhism. Growing up Jewish, I always found my rabbis pompous and distant - why would I want to grow up to be like them? I've similarly never been impressed by the presence of most other religious leaders I've seen - whether TV preachers, nuns, or the pope. But Buddhists like the Dalai Lama, Pema Chodron, and this character radiate a wonderful sense of wisdom and peace. (It's not just Buddhists who can find this peace, of course - I saw Desmond Tutu on the Daily Show last year, and he just blew me away with his palpable sense of joy and compassion.) Anyway, that's what spiritual wisdom ought to look like, I think. Maybe it's easier to acheive isolated in the Himalayas than info-overloaded in the Atlanta exurbs. (The monk warns at one point, "avoid the city. It's depressing.") But maybe there is a middle ground. How about a cabin out in the country, but with a DSL line and a Netflix account?

Posted by tedf at 10:35 PM | Comments (0)