the DharmaRealm

Podcasting while sheltering in place. We’re going to restart the DharmaRealm, recording via Zoom, shorter episodes, and posting here, SoundCloud, YouTube, and, as always, your favorite podcasting service. Send us your questions, subscribe to our feeds, and keep your eyes open for updates. And above all—stay home! Wash your hands!

The nerds nerd out about nerdy things! Specifically, a couple of Buddhist Studies scholars (nerds) discuss (nerd out) what it means to be a Buddhist Studies scholar (nerdy things). It’s our third and final conversation with the brilliant Dr. Natalie Quli in a conversation that meanders through the academic construction and boundary maintenance of Buddhism-as-religion, the role of scholars and teachers vis-a-vis Buddhism, and how we participate in authenticity discourses about what is and what isn’t Buddhism.  We want to thank Dr. Quli for joining us! Check out our other episodes here. And the “someone” Scott couldn’t remember in-episode is Stephen C. Berkwitz, “Textbook Buddhism: Introductory Books on the Buddhist Religion.”

It’s our second episode with our special guest, Dr. Natalie Fisk Quli. We’re continuing our conversation about authenticity, this time around beginning with a conversation about merit, merit accumulation and transference, in the Mahayana and Theravada traditions. This gets us going into other weird and cool places like economic models for karma, the declining age of the dharma, how texts and monks function as fields of merit, and colonialism and Orientalism. Oh, and because it would be the DharmaRealm without a little nerdiness, D&D. Check out Dr. Quli’s last episode, and stick around! She’ll be back for one more!

We’ve got a special guest today! Dr. Natalie Fisk Quli is a teacher at the Institute of Buddhist Studies, author, and co-editor of a couple of books with Scott. She’s joining us today to discuss the idea of authenticity, building off a post on the website Fake Buddha Quotes that sort of maybe possibly suggests that Pure Land (and all of Mahayana?) contradicts the authentic teachings of the Buddha. So in our usual fashion, we meander through the ideas of canonicity, discourse, power, boundary construction and maintenance, and how all of these things co-create this thing we conveniently think of as “Buddhism.”  Dr. Quli’s going to be joining us for a couple more episodes, so stay tuned! Image credit: Buddhism with Lord Buddha https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Buddhism_with_Lord_Buddha.jpg (c) Priyanka250696, some rights reserved

In a weird way, this is sort of part-two of our post-truth conversation since we’re tackling a perennial problem in the contemporary study and practice of Buddhism — can we know what the historical Buddha really taught? Can we know what he really said? And should that even matter? As always, by tuning in to the DharmaRealm podcast, you’re not going to get an answer to that question, and will probably walk away more confused than you were before. But, hey, we will tell you something about canonical texts, fake Buddha quotes, buddhavacana.  Image credit: Alles liegt im Auge des Betrachters, jodage https//www.flickr.com/photos/buchenmann/14280945373/ (c) jodage, some rights reserved

I didn’t want to talk about flat earth or post-truth or aliens! But Harry made me!  Anyway. If you listen to this episode, you’ll get an earful of Star Trek, X-Files, aliens, conspiracy theories, multiple interpretations of reality, and even some Buddhism, Shinran, and the Tannisho mixed in as well. Enjoy!

Faith! We’re bouncing off a question about faith in our personal experience with Buddhism. Now, we know that having said faith, half of you said “There’s no faith in Buddhism!” And the other half said, “Well, what do you mean by faith?” We’re gonna tell you what we mean by faith and hopefully the other half are still listening as we take a deep dive into different aspects of faith, blind faith, believing in things in the absence of evidence, secularism, and eventually shinjin, a foundational concept for Jodo Shinshu which, apparently, we’re not supposed to talk about. But we do. Because that’s how we roll.

A little while back we did an episode on no self and identity — and what do you know? It was wildly popular. Go us. So we decided to come back to the issue. But we’re not gonna deal with identity; we’re just going to do a deep dive into no self. This deep dive goes through no self, emptiness, Sarvastivada, Pudgalavada, Madhyamaka, Yogacara, the store-house consciousness, killing the Buddha, Shinran, the Jodoron, the Pure Land, karma, and rebirth. (No Star Trek, though. Sorry.)

Somewhat in response to a listener question, we dive into the question of practice versus academic study. Is there a difference between academic study and the practice of Buddha? Is one more valuable than the other? Does academic study undermine religious/Buddhist practice? Or can academic study be, in itself, practice? Well, if that’s the case, then what do you mean by “practice”? And that’s really what this episode is about. We do a deep dive into scholar-practitioners (a la Charles Prebish), the multivalent senses of the word “practice” (a la Charles Bielefeld), the role of study-as-practice historically both in the West and in Buddhism, the age of the degenerate Dharma, and, yes, even Star Trek. Bottom line: don’t get stuck in your head. This week’s image is of a photographic reprint of Shinran’s original handwritten manuscript of his Kyogyoshinsho on display at the library of Ohtani University in Kyoto. Who says Buddhists don’t study?

Hooray! It’s been ten years since we started this show, and this is our 100th episode! We hit the highlights in this one, themes and topics we’ve touched on several times over the years, including how to practice Shin Buddhism at a distance from a sangha or community. Years ago we tossed out the idea that someone should have a “starter kit” for Shin Buddhist practice – and, what do you know? The BCA Bookstore’s new online store sells one now! We also tackle a listener question about Buddhist tattoos and dance around some touchy issues before settling on the middle way between extreme views. (Today’s cover image is an old photo one of Scott’s tattoos, by the way.) Also, in celebration of the 100th episode and 10th anniversary, Harry made a mega-mix of all the different versions of the DharmaRealm theme song. It’s been uploaded to SoundCloud so be sure to check that out. Thanks to everyone for your decade of listening. We’ll be back soon with new episodes!

In today’s episode, we respond to a listener question about the possibility, in Shin Buddhism, of reconciling the concept of no-self (anatman) and personal identity (especially in regards to race). To do that, we need to break down the concept of no-self and argue that it’s not necessarily a rejection or negation of any type of self but rather, first, part of a pedagogical strategy of the Buddha and, second, related to a whole mass of complex Buddhist concepts that have very little to do with modern understandings of personality, subjectivity, or identity. A key part of this is the idea that self-ness is defined by our interconnection with the world, and on the social level, this absolutely includes social and cultural ideas about race, ethnicity, gender, and so on; and merely saying, “Hey, there is no self!” doesn’t make all of that go away.

Scott’s still got a cold! And he’s a cranky old man who wants to argue with people! So today we’ll try to come up with the Buddhist answer to everything. Not really. Long time listeners should know by now that quick and easy answers aren’t our stock in trade. We’re far more likely to come up with complicated answers that point to the messiness of life rather than the simple and comfortable. And that’s really what we’re on about today, coming up with responses to the oft-asked “Doesn’t Buddhism say…?” or “What’s the Buddhist position on X?” Our answer? There isn’t an answer. And, more than that, there’s the possibility that Buddhism is wrong. (Cue dramatic chipmunk.) This week’s image, something Harry mentions in the episode, is the Shumisengi astronomical clock, created by Hisashige Tanaka in 1850. It’s an model of the traditional Buddhist world system with the sun and moon rotating around a flat disk with Mt. Sumeru in the middle.

For our first full episode of 2018 we tackle a listener question about Buddhism and social justice, jumping off from the tension between accepting things as they are and the urge to stand up to inequality and social suffering. Of course, it wouldn’t be us if we didn’t unpack those terms and dig deep into the question — isn’t the point of Buddhism not to accept the world as it is but to see the world as it is, from the point of view of compassionate wisdom? And does merely accepting things as they are, and not acting, necessarily follow from this seeing? And it wouldn’t really be us if we didn’t somehow manage to get sci-fi back into this by dragging Ursula K. Le Guin into the conversation. Stay tuned for a second episode later this month! Image credit: (c) the.Firebottle

We’re back! Here’s a teaser to wet your appetite. We’ve got a couple of other episodes in the can that we’ll release this month. And we’re only a few episodes shy of our 100th episode and this March is our tenth anniversary of doing this show! We’re excited to be back in the “studio,” and now is the time for you to send us your questions. Really. Ask us literally anything (except about flat earth) and we’ll do our best to answer it. Really. I promise. Welcome back, DharmaRealm.

One more episode recorded in October before the election but on a topic that will most certainly continue to be of importance in the year ahead – race, racism, and American Buddhism. This one’s a bit heavy, wherein we discuss the problems of discussing race in public discourse and the social and legal construction of racial and ethnic categories in American culture generally and in Buddhism specifically. And follow Angry Asian Man; he’s knows what’s what. Image credit: Buddhist service at Manzanar Relocation Center in California, 1943. Photo courtesy the Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division LC-A35-6-M-36.

Happy Christmas (if that’s your thing – if not then Happy Winter Holiday of Your Choosing)! So, head’s up. We recorded this episode way back in early October and are only just now getting around to posting it. Between then and now a lot has happened — well, one thing happened, but it’s a pretty big thing — so what we talk about here is both a little “off-topic” and actually oddly prescient. After traveling to Denver for the Tri-State Denver Buddhist Temple’s centennial celebration, Scott was struck by the shifting demographics in BCA communities, especially those further out from the Bay Area where racial diversity is significantly more pronounced. Our conversation meanders through the old tropes of the “two Buddhisms” and the question of where “culture” ends and “Buddhism” begins — and if it’s even possible to know what “real” Buddhism is — before finally landing on the big issue — race. Which I’m guessing we’ll take up in future episodes. For now, enjoy this one while watching the yule log on TV and avoiding awkward conversations about the election with your crazy uncle. Oh, and here’s some links to articles mentioned in the show: Wakoh Shannon Hickey, “Two Buddhisms, Three Buddhisms, and Racism”: http://www.globalbuddhism.org/jgb/index.php/jgb/article/view/112/12 Mine the bibliography for related sources. Natalie Quli, “Western Self, Asian Other”: http://blogs.dickinson.edu/buddhistethics/files/2010/05/quli-article.pdf Image credit: Buddha and Christmas Light (c) Somu Padmanabhan https://www.flickr.com/photos/woodooz/15580024467

Announcement: we’re doing a “live” show on Saturday August 20 during the CBE’s Pacific Seminar. Check out the the CBE’s website for more information, and send us your questions via Facebook or Twitter! Picking up from our last conversation, we do our best to stay on topic and not get lost in the pop-culture woods. Our discussion about generations is really about how inter-generational differences play out in the BCA, how they’re reflected in community or institutional structures, their relationship to issues of ethnicity, and the challenges that come with all of that. Image credit: enlightenment, for $6.95 (c) nancy walkman https://www.flickr.com/photos/nuanc/887170272/

Right off the bat, pretty sure I goofed the origin story of the word “meh” and its reference in The Simpsons. I’m sure someone out there will correct me in the comments. If you can get through the first ten minutes of what’s basically a therapy session for Harry and the next five minutes of us talking about Godzilla, we get to our point: generations are complicated. There’s a seemingly easy correlation of Japanese-American generations and the Shin Buddhist experience in the US, but after the third generation — as the community becomes more diverse and what it means to be Asian/Japanese/American/Buddhist/a-member-of-specific-generation changes — things get fuzzy. We talk around a lot of issues about how inter-generational dynamics play out in the BCA, and you’re gonna wanna stick around for the next episode. (Also, note to self: buy Harry a Transformer for his birthday.) Image Credit: Godzilla (c) 2007 by Kirk Teetzel https://www.flickr.com/photos/kirkt/437482433/

Buddhism and Introspection: in which we ramble on for a time about the extent to which Buddhism is introspective, about controlling, watching, or purifying the mind, an extended exercise in trying hard to look inside one’s psychology and recognize our inner habits, shortcomings, and personal narratives. Image Credit: Buddha Land (c) 2008 by John Nakamura Remy

Jumping off from our conversation about utopia and Star Trek from our last episode, this time around we’re diving deep into questions of belief and interpretation and how to approach the mythological aspects of Shin Buddhism. What do we do with this tradition whose cosmology appears, at face value, to be so far removed from what we take for granted in a scientific/secular/modern world? Should believe all this Pure Land stuff literally or is all metaphorical? Somehow we manage to get through fundamentalism, Star Wars, the Grateful Dead, and the Big Lebowski in all of this. Enjoy! Image Credit: Offerings, Great Buddha of Kamakura, Kotokuin Temple, Kamakura, Japan, 1980 (c) 2013 Terry Feuerborn