A Byrd's Eye View

Emotional Intelligence

Here's an interesting test from the BBC...Spot the fake smile:

www.tinyurl.com/2u7sh

Back to Buddhism tomorrow, team! Have a wonderful week,

Byrd in LA

P.S. I got 14 out of 20.

Click to Give!

Everyday, I go to this site, and click to give food. I then click at all the other listed sites, as well:

http://tinyurl.com/3b99xp

I even buy a lot of Christmas and other gifts there.

This doesn't count for my daily practice of giving something away, though - it's just a habit I decided to get into when I sign on every day. I think it's a good habit.

I'll write something more substantive next week, when I'm done with this weekend's blast of busy-ness.

Bye for now, Byrd in LA

Sympathetic Joy

My good friend Kris discussed this Immeasurable in her comment to my last post, so I'll talk about it a bit today.

What is appreciative (or sympathetic) joy?

It is the wholesome attitude of rejoicing in the happiness and virtues of all sentient beings. It counters jealousy and makes people less self-centred.

In a nutshell, sympathetic joy involves feeling happy for other peoples' happiness. Sounds easy enough, doesn't it? But think of some of the situations where you might not be so happy for someone else's happiness:

The Immeasurables

No, it's not a new Disney animated feature. The Immeasurables are a basic set of principles to develop in Buddhist practice. There are four of them, so they are called (like a 50's doo-wop group) "The Four Immeasurables". These principles have become a key feature of my Buddhist practice over the past few years, and I would like to highly recommend them to anyone who is interested. As the SGI does not teach or endorse these specific directed meditations, you may need to do some of your own research.

The "Four Immeasurables" which help us cultivate wholesome attitudes toward ourselves and others are:

1. Loving Kindness;

4. Equanimity.

You can Google the "Four Immeasurables" and read more about them for yourself, or you can go to this site which gives a simple outline:

http://www.buddhanet.net/e-learning/buddhism/bs-s15.htm

More Alumni Prattle (and a question about Ciabattas).....

...Anyway, so the panel members each made their presentations. The student body president told us that student opinion on the school song controversy fell into three major groups, as follows:

1. Those who were mortified and embarassed by the whole thing, and felt Pomona had gone off the Politically Correct deep-end;

2. Those who felt deeply that the school song was now an offense to black people and should be retired;and

3. Those who couldn't care less one way or the other (the vast majority of students seem to fall into this category).

ALUMNI RAMPAGE!

For those of you who don't know, I'm an alumna of Pomona College, a blue-ribbon liberal arts school in Claremont, California, where a degree currently goes for about a quarter of a million dollars. Yikes! Good thing I don't have any kids. For those of you interested in learning more (actually, it was a fabulous undergrad education), here is the website:

http://www.pomona.edu/

Yesterday was my 30th reunion, and the alumni picnic on the quad was fraught with controversy. I seem to get embroiled wherever I go - what was it Nichiren said about the body and its shadow?

Anyway, the Pomona College alumni were all a-twitter this weekend over the potential sacking of the school song. The college president has suspended the alma mater (which is over a century old) from being sung at commencement, convocation, and alumni day this year until a blue-ribbon committee has had a chance to meet and make a decision about where to go from here.

Here are the lyrics to the offending ditty:

"Hail, Pomona, Hail,
We thy sons and daughters sing
Praises to thy name,
Praises of thy fame,
'Til the Heavens above shall ring
To the name of Pomona
Alma Mater, Hail to thee
To the spirit true of the White and Blue
All Hail, Pomona, Hail!"

The tune is original to this song (i.e., only "Hail, Pomona, Hail" has this particular tune), but it has the usual lofty yet clunky college song sound to it. It is a favorite with the Pomona glee clubs and other a capella vocal music groups which flourish on campus (Pomona actually has an excellent music program). So, what's the problem, here? Why has this song been suspended? What offense has it committed? Well, it has been suspended because......

All Hail Pomona, Hail!

Well, I won't be posting again until Sunday (at least). Tomorrow, I have a court appearance on behalf of a family member, and then Saturday, I am going to my (fanfare, please) 30th college reunion at fabulous Pomona College in even more fabulous Claremont, California!!!!

Ay-yi-yi!!!

I'm kind of jittery about the whole thing. I've gained a few pounds since I graduated back in '78. Well.....several pounds. OK, I've gained a lot of weight. When I think of the clothes I used to (not) wear back then, it makes me a bit nervous. I wonder if they'll recognize me without my navel showing?

But look on the bright side - I can finally find out what Ada Rose Bitterbaum has been up to all these years.

Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Storage Space

I embarked on a massive, death-defying adventure yesterday. Braving heat and layers of dust, and with the help of my trusty sidekick, Gilbert (whom you will recall as my literacy pupil), I decided to empty out my commercial storage space! (cue primitive drumming and surging dramatic music)

Needless to say, I spent most of last night sneezing uncontrollably, due to the dust. I still have a lot of unpacking to do today, and I have stocked up on Kleenex as a precaution.

Like Indiana Jones, I am uncovering rare antiquities like:

On Selling Buddhism

On one of the Yahoo Boards I moderate, we got into a discussion about Buddhism "working" - i.e., how do we know we're doing the right thing, and engaging in the right practice? Some SGI members point to parking spaces or "changed financial karma", others point to an overall "higher life-condition", or health-related benefits from chanting Nam(u)-Myoho-Renge-Kyo. The problem (in the US at least), is that the "chant for what you want" pitch was unique back in the 60's and 70's. Since then, the open marketplace of ideas has been inundated with everything from "name it and claim it" Christianity to "The Secret". It seems like everybody and his brother has a publishing deal promoting the latest means of getting whatever you want by "correctly" hooking up with the Big Whatever (i.e., God, the Universe, the Field, whatever). So, why in this environment, try to "sell Buddhism", and how do we go about it?

Nichiren Buddhism is sort of unique, in that we actively engage in propagation of our teaching. The "why" of propagating comes from the founder himself, who wrote that we should widely proclaim and establish this teaching and practice (a process we usually refer to as "kosen-rufu") We're out there trying to convert people to our practice -- sharing the "good news" of the Gohonzon and the Gosho with everybody and anybody, whereas other schools of Buddhism rely on an ethnic membership base, or on new people actively seeking out the teaching.

Anyway, one of the discussion participants wrote in about her SGI experience as follows:

(SGI members aren't sure) what it is they are practicing. Is it Buddhism, Ikedaism, SGIism, Todaism,Makaguchism, Nichirenism? Mentor/Discipleism? What is it? What struck me finally, was I had to admit to myself that all those years of chanting and participating in SGI activities did not make me a Buddhist. I was a marketing agent, a sales person. Instead of monetary compensation, I racked up benefits and good fortune. Or so I believed.

Ouch. That hit home, and it sort of stung, too.

Happy Birthday, Daimoku!

It was 755 years ago today that Nichiren went to the top of a mountain and chanted Nam(u)-Myoho-Renge-Kyo. He then came back down to the Seicho-ji temple, and gave a lecture in which he declared the Lotus Sutra to be the Buddha's Supreme Teaching. This teaching could be encapsulated and made accessible to everyone by the simple practice of chanting the Sutra's titles: Myoho-Renge-Kyo. According to legend, this new way of looking at things went over none too well with those who had come to hear his talk, and Nichiren spent much of the remainder of his life in exile, or otherwise "on the lam".

So, let's take this day to think about what it is that we have in our practice of chanting the Daimoku of the Lotus Sutra.

It's a good day for saying "thank you", for looking back at our time of practice, and for looking forward to explore the future of Nichiren Buddhism in the West.

How do you see Nichiren Buddhism taking root in the West? What do the next 700 years have in store for this form of Buddhism?

Enquiring minds want to know,

Byrd in LA

I Left My Heart in San Francisco

I do so wish I could have been in San Francisco this weekend. Two friends of mine, Michele Chavez and Kris Alvarez, will be receiving Jukai and officially joining the traditional Nichiren Shu. Their ceremony will be held on Sunday afternoon at the Faithful Fools Center in San Francisco, and presided over by our very FWP blogger, Ryuei Michael McCormick.

I remember how excited I was when I heard that Kris was coming down (all the way from Alaska, no less!) for the same cermony as Michele. It seemed like a fabulous coming-together of like minded and free souls who were taking the next step (for them) in faith.

Stevie Wonder Had it Right

Remember these song lyrics?....

Very superstitious, writing's on the wall,
Very superstitious, ladders bout' to fall,
Thirteen month old baby, broke the lookin' glass
Seven years of bad luck, the good things in your past.

When you believe in things that you don't understand,
Then you suffer,
Superstition ain't the way

Feng Shui and the Single Girl

Mavis Coyle, my Mentor in life, is quite a believer in feng shui (for those of you who are blissfully ignorant of this Chinese art and practice, it is a system of arranging one's living or working space in such a way as to maximize the flow of beneficial "chi", or energy).

She gave me a book to read, which is the same book that Barbara Pike gave me a few months before she died, and is also a book which I got from Amazon.com a year or so ago and conveniently lost. I told Mavis that her copy was the third copy of this book, "Move Your Stuff, Change Your Life" which had passed through my hands. Here it is, for those of you who may be interested:

http://tinyurl.com/4d4cql

"See?" Mavis said, and nodded her head in that way she does, sort of signifying that something has great meaning - a meaning which is generally lost on me. In this case, the great meaning was that I was supposed to be reading this book and applying its wisdom in my life, in my kitchen, in my apartment, wherever.

Funning

Over the weekend, I gave my literacy student a new and different homework assignment. I told him to take 20 empty flashcards (he usually makes his own flashcards for basic words like "him" and "her" and "their" and "kitchen" and whatever), and on each of these 20 cards, he was supposed to write a word which he saw in daily life, but he didn't know the meaning of it, and he wanted to learn the word.

This exercise turned out a bit more comically than I expected when we got together for our study session last night.

"So! Did you do your flashcards?" I asked. And yes, he had. He reached into his backpack and pulled them out.....

A Market Monopoly on Buddhism

A couple of weeks ago, I was visiting my dear aunt Irene, and together we were watching a series of lectures from a company called "The Teaching Company":

http://www.teach12.com/teach12.asp?ai=16281

This company is so cool and no, they don't give me a kickback for plugging them on my blog. It is one of my life's ambitions to have gobs and gobs of money so that I can sit and watch lectures like this all day long. "Sick, sick, sick!" I hear you cry. Well, maybe, but I really do dig browsing through their online and mail catalogues. So sue me - some women like looking at pictures of jewelry and clothes, I like browsing through lecture course catalogues. It gets me excited, I guess. "Ancient and Modern Political Philosophy, Oh, God! Yes! give me some of that! Oh, yes, yes, yes!"

Chanting and Meditation

I have been observing and participating in an interesting discussion at an online chatboard where I am a moderator. The discussion has been focused on the difference, if any, between chanting Nam(u)-Myoho-Renge-Kyo and meditating. The SGI-USA's webpage contains a section dedicated to answering this question here:

http://www.sgi-usa.org/is_chanting_meditation.php

The segment reads, in part:

Meditation is a more passive exercise than chanting; one usually calms one's mind by concentrating on a particular phrase or image. At first glance this may seem close to the practice of Nichiren Daishonin's Buddhism, but actually the difference is apparent. The practice of chanting Nam-myoho-renge-kyo enables us to express and experience our innate Buddhahood and release the powerful energy contained within that, rather than to calm our minds or negate certain ways of thinking.

So, we know that meditation is more passive than chanting is. But what if an individual is seeking to calm his or her mind? If that's the goal, then is a silent meditation practice somehow in conflict with chanting, or not? Also, can silent meditation, or deep relaxation techniques provide "benefits" which can not be obtained from chanting Daimoku?

I think that they can, but only further research will show for certain. I'm interested in hearing any kind of anecdotal evidence you-all out there in cyber-land may have on this subject.

Walking and Seeing

Well, since my car broke down a week or so ago (and with me looking for a new job right now), I have been doing a lot of walking - walking to the store, walking to the library, walking to the bus stop, walking here and walking there. The world looks a lot different from the sidewalk than it does from the inside of a moving vehicle, that's for sure, and I am enjoying the different perspective. I have also lost a couple of pounds, and that's OK, too.

The inside of a car is pretty much a controlled environment. And here in Los Angeles, we love our controlled environments. Air conditioning keeps away the heat of the sun. Radio or CD creates a cocoon of chosen sound. The windshield puts a slab of glass between us and the rest of the world. The body of my car is like an extended skin, expanding my sense of what is "personal" to include a quiet retreat from whatever is going on "out there". Two weeks ago, I was cruising down these North Hollywood streets at 35 miles per hour, on my way to someplace at a pretty good clip. Now, I am walking and paying more attention to what I see.

On Tone

The other day, in a discussion with one of my SGI leaders, she encouraged me to consider a couple of things:

1. What it is that I want to accomplish with my blog, and

2. Whether my tone is helping me accomplish it.

If I have this wrong, I hope she will write in and correct me.

After yesterday's "year-end round-up" entry, I went back and counted the number of blog entries where I had been specifically discussing SGI-USA policy, doctrine, or activities. I counted 33 out of 101. Of course, there were other entries where I made a passing reference to the Gakkai, and I did not count entries where I discussed Buddhism or Buddhist activities outside the purview of the SGI (i.e., my visits to Brad Warner's zendo in Santa Monica, my interfaith visit to speak to a synagogue youth group, or the Gathering of Friends in Granada Hills). These 33 entries were pretty varied in content, ranging from a warm agreement with a World Tribune article, to a sharp rebuke of the SGI's "chant to close the Nichiren Shoshu temples" campaign last December.

Happy Birthday, One-Year Old!

Well, tomorrow, April 18, 2008 will be the one-year anniversary of this blog, "A Byrd's Eye View" at Fraught With Peril (cue cake and candles). And this entry is....the 101st entry! Wow. I'm getting all misty just thinking about it. So, let's take a stroll down memory lane and see what all sorts of fabulous online mischief I've gotten myself into this year, and if you have a special request (as they say on the radio) for any online mischief you'd like me to get into this coming year, feel free to let fly in the comments section. For those of you who have recently started to look at this blog, a "greatest hits" (in my opinion, at least) list may help you understand what's goin' on, as the man sang. All right...dim lights...cue soft, nostalgic music.....

"My Two Faces" - Starring Fred MacMurray!

For you old fogies, this is where you hear the theme song and see the animated tapping toes....

Anyway, yesterday, I made certain to assure my SGI leaders that I had no intention of importing any unorthodox or unscheduled ideas into my district or chapter. No non-SGI publications, no none of that. That seemed to go over well, except that one of them remarked on the contrast between my online persona and the persona that I use at official gatherings. I think the word she used was "duplicitous." Honestly, I'm not at all offended that she said that, please don't think that I am. I'm not trying to put anyone on the spot or make anyone feel like they've been violated or betrayed by my responding and raising what is actually a very, very important point. I don't like dishonesty, either, and I think it makes a super-dooper interesting topic for a blog entry. My faithful reader Kyoushin sent me a link to this site which explains the Japanese concepts of "Tatamae" and "Honne", (i.e., public persona and private feelings):

http://japan-101.com/culture/tatemae_and_honne.htm

Actually, That Was Quite Encouraging

Well, I had my pow-wow with my WD leaders today, and it was actually quite encouraging. They did think it was odd that I had two "faces" - gee, am I two-faced -- online and at my district. I referred them to the Japanese terms of "Tatame" and (you Japanese speakers,what's the other one?) In other words, at least I'm public about my varoius faces.

All in all, though, it was an interesting talk, and I'm glad I did it. I hope that something better comes of it by way of enhanced communication between me and the org.

An over-riding issue seems to be that blogs like this one attract the "disgruntled" - Andy, are you disgruntled? ;) Actually, just because people are disgruntled in someway or another with the org doesn't mean that they don't want world peace or are unwilling to chant, does it?

See For Yourself! The Amazing Talking Building!

Last week, I discussed how happy I was to receive some written response, however scolding, from an SGI-USA staff member. One of the groups I was supposed to owe an apology to was the area leaders who govern the SGI-USA Area where my friends Michele and Richard Chavez live - Richard is the fellow who was told he couldn't have SGI meetings at his home anymore due to the fact that his wife was joining a different Nichiren denomination.

I discussed the matter here:

http://www.fraughtwithperil.com/blogs/byrd/archives/001696.html

and here:

http://www.fraughtwithperil.com/blogs/byrd/archives/001697.html

Look Ma! I can do links!!! YAY!!! Okay, back to the blog.....

Anyway, apparently, I owe an apology to these area leaders for misrepresenting the reasons why meetings were discontinued at this particular home. The problem is, we still don't know what the reasons were, except that whatever I say is a misrepresentation. At least that's a rule we can all count on.

Hello, Young Writers, Wherever You Are.....

I was browsing through my most recent edition of the SGI-USA's "Living Buddhism" magazine last night, and enjoying both the study material and the personal experience articles very much.

One of the things I have noticed in past months is that a number of contributors belong to something called the "Young Writers' Group". This has to be an exciting group to belong to. I'd like to see them posting some blogs online (I know I keep harping on this topic, but it's something I'd really, really like to see). Online is where young writers are writing these days, right?

To quote Billy Crystal in "Throw Momma From the Train" (and to also quote a number of other writing teachers:

"A WRITER WRITES...EVERY DAY."