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Daily Buddhism

Guest Post: Transformational Practice, by Thomas Hochmann

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Today’s guest post is from Thomas Hochmann, a former English teacher and a student of Buddhism since 2002. Today, he will lead us through something called transformational practice. His blog can be found at http://www.hochmann.org and you can follow him on Twitter (@hochmann).

Transformational Practice, by Thomas Hochmann

When you think of religion, what comes to mind? Here in the USA, I believe most people would answer with words like church, God, prayer, belief, faith, etc. For myself, the words “faith” and “belief” were always synonomous with religion. It always seemed to me that religion was primarily an exercise of the heart and the mind, something private between oneself and the cosmos. Over time I have come to see that my understanding of religion (and spirituality in general) was only half of the equation. I owe perhaps the deepest gratitude to a Vietnamese monk named Thich Nhat Hanh, also known as Thay. Let me show you why with a quote from his book Living Buddha, Living Christ:

Our faith must be alive. It cannot be just a set of rigid beliefs and notions. Our faith must evolve every day and bring us joy, peace, freedom, and love. Faith implies practice, living our daily life in mindfulness. Some people think that prayer or meditation involves only our minds or our hearts. But we also have to pray with our bodies, with our actions in the world. And our actions must be modelled after those of the living Buddha or the living Christ. If we live as they did, we will have deep understanding and pure actions.
— Thich Nhat Hanh, Living Buddha, Living Christ
(emphasis added)

Thay is well-known for representing “engaged Buddhism” — Buddhism in action. He has written many wonderful books, but everything he has ever said or written is summarized in the quote above. For him, Buddhism and Christianity and every other religion are not effective unless they are put into practice, here and now, in the real world we live in. Religion cannot just be something you think about or even something you feel. It needs to become part of everything you do.

Thay talks extensively about the difference between devotional practice and transformational practice. In my early approaches to Buddhism, I paid attention only to the devotional side. Growing up in a scientifically-minded family and spending all my time studying, it was natural for me to focus on the brainy parts. Perhaps knowing people like me would see things that way, the Buddha was careful to emphasize both sides of the equation:

If you have confidence in the Dharma, if you practice the Dharma, I am always with you.
— The Buddha

“Have confidence in the Dharma” is what Thay calls devotional practice. This is having faith in the teachings and believing them with every fiber of your being. In your mind, you accept those truths. And in your heart, you believe them strongly.

“Practice the Dharma” is what Thay calls transformational practice. That means using the teachings and your faith as the fuel for concrete action in everyday life. You mindfully use your spiritual knowledge to promote goodness, healing, love, and positivity. In that way, the Buddha is “always with you.” Your actions stem from what the Buddha taught, and so bring him to life in you. As long as the Buddha’s teachings are confined to books, web sites, and the reasoning brain, the Buddha is dead. It is not until the Buddha comes out in our actions that he is alive.

As an example, take the Five Precepts in Buddhism — refrain from destroying life, from stealing, from speaking unskillfully (lying, manipulating, etc.), from misusing sexuality, and from taking intoxicants. These make up an excellent code of conduct. However, if you see them as merely somebody else’s rules being imposed on you, they will do little good. The first step is to look deeply into the Precepts, and know their truth deeply in your heart. If you know in your heart that it’s a bad thing to steal, this is devotional practice. You know that it’s wrong to steal literally (e.g. taking someone’s bicycle) as well as in subtle ways (wasting somebody’s time). Knowing this in a deep way will form the basis for actions in line with what you are devoted to — your actions will be such that you will avoid stealing bicycles and wasting people’s time, because you truly know the negative side. This is transformation: your actions express the truths that you know and the things you believe.

The power of any religion or spiritual tradition is not just to settle our hearts or to tantalize our minds. The real power is to shape our actions. Accepting the teachings of Buddha, or Jesus, or another great teacher is a good first step. But the real value of those teachings is when they become the foundation for every breath, every thought, every word, and every act. Transformational practice is an ongoing process that never ends. Being spiritual, being enlightened is not like graduating from college. You graduate from college, and you are now a “college graduate.” You don’t have to do anything more to be a college graduate — that label is a label of state, a label of accomplishment. It is forever true from that point on. But enlightenment and wisdom don’t work that way — you have to be enlightenment and wisdom.

We need to understand that Master Dogen’s statement “There is no enlightenment without morality and no morality without enlightenment” arises directly from his equation “Practice is enlightenment.”
– John Daido Loori, The Heart of Being

Daily Buddhism

Starting Buddhist Practice … How?

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A Reader Asks:

I grew up in the United States in a Christian-Baptist household. I always felt that this was not right for me, and formally denounced this faith as I embarked on my journey into adulthood. Lacking any faith whatsoever, I spent time researching ‚Äúreligion‚Äù as a whole and found many concepts from Buddhism that I could agree with. I was fortunate at one point, to form a relationship with a Japanese woman who convinced me to make a trip back to Japan with her. Once in Nagoya, her family introduced me to Nichiren Buddhism, though I’m unsure of the particular ‚Äúorder‚Äù of Nichiren that I was being exposed to. This didn’t really ‚Äúsink in‚Äù and, after returning to the United States, I lost my desire to focus on this study. I have recently decided to begin this study once again, and primarily have Nichiren Buddhism as a background to begin the study. I located a Nichiren Shu temple close to where I live, attended the Sunday morning service last week, and also plan to visit this service again this week. I have little knowledge of many other denominations, but learned the primary difference between Nichiren Shu and the Soka Gakkai last week. That is the difference of Nichiren Daishonin being the eternal Buddha vs. being a mere messenger of Shakyamuni.

I’ve begun reading books on Buddhism and have learned of the Four Noble Truths and the Eightfold Path. These I agree with completely. One thing that I have determined is that this will be a ‚Äúlife(lives)-long‚Äù process, but I’m unsure of what’s acceptable for me to properly begin this study. For instance, I’ve read that praying is disrespectful without the use of a mala (juzu); that it is like grabbing the Buddha with bare hands. There are so many types of juzu, one I ordered from the Soka Gakkai, but am unsure still if this is right for Nichiren Shu. The bigger question (that I apologize for it taking so long for me to ask) is how do I know what is right for me to begin this journey? Am I being disrespectful by attending this service without knowing how to ‚Äúpractice‚Äù?

Answer:

You say you are in NC, so I assume that this temple is going to be familiar with Americans, and they will realize that you probably have no idea what the rituals are. As far as what is or is not respectful, that’s purely a cultural thing. In Japan, it’s often appropriate to bow to people you meet; here it isn’t. Many of the things you saw in Japan won’t apply here in the USA (unless the temple is run primarily by and for Japanese people). Although it’s simple good manners to learn how the people at your local temple do things, if you mess something up, you are not going to personally offend the Buddha. If you are unsure how to act or what to do in the local temple, then sit in the back and just observe the first few times. Phone ahead and ask if they have a beginner’s level class you can take. If not, then stay respectful and follow along as best you can; it’s no different than a Baptist visiting a Catholic church for the first time; you just have to “play along” until you understand the significance of the rituals, probably doing a lot of Googling after each visit. You have to go in order to learn; you can read books for years and not understand as well as you could with a single real-life visit.

Now that being said, you will need to decide if this is the denomination you want. This can be hard to do in America, where you may or may not even have a choice in the matter. Some cities may have only one temple, while others aren’t even that lucky. Remember that the Path to Enlightenment is mostly an individual thing. The only one who will get you to Nirvana is YOU. YOU need to do whatever works best for you. Maybe that’s by following every word laid down by Nichiren, or Dogen, or Bodhidarma, or the Dalai Lama, or some other teacher. Maybe it’s some American combination of various Eastern schools of thought.

The way you describe this sect of Nichiren, it sounds like the distinction between them is whether or not Nichiren was a reincarnation of “The” Buddha or not. My question is simply, “who cares?” Take what Nichiren said and weigh it in your mind and decide if what he said strikes you as useful. Note that I said useful, not believable, realistic, true, or respectful. Buddhism is a practice, the beliefs and rituals are secondary. Do what WORKS. Believe in what WORKS. Take to heart the words that are most useful to YOU. There’s a lot to be said for finding the right teacher and following him all the way, but that’s not easy in the west. Most of us have to take bits and pieces pf what we need from several groups unless we just happen find one that fits our personality and needs exactly.

Good luck!