BG 213: The Stories We Tell Ourselves

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Episode Description:

Buddhist scholar and Chaplain Danny Fisher, joins us to explore various stories, or narratives, that run through the Buddhist world. There are a variety of different kind of stories in the Buddhist tradition, including those that are more traditional and those which are more modern. Included in those narratives are Buddhist hagiographies (traditional teaching stories about important figures), historical narratives, and more modern narratives. Listen in as we try and piece apart what some of these stories are, and find out how the stories that we believe in affect us as individuals and communities.

Episode Links:

• DannyFisher.org
• University of the West
• A People’s History of the United States
• How the Swans Came to the Lake
• Buddhism in America
• Luminous Passage
• After the Ecstasy, the Laundry

Transcript:

Vincent: Hello, Buddhist geeks this is Vincent Horn and I’m joined today by a special guest. We had them on the show before Reverend Danny Fisher. Hey, Danny, how it’s going buddy?

Danny: How are you Vince?

Vincent: I’m doing well. Getting ready to move to LA where you’re located actually. We’re going to be a little bit toward the beach but I understand we’re going to get to hang out some more. So I’m excited about that.

Danny: I’m thrilled out. It’s always a pleasure to see you and Emily.

Vincent: Yeah. Absolutely and you live in Los Angeles. You started working there a few years ago at the University of the West and you helped start and are now the main professor at the Buddhist chaplaincy program. The other thing I wanted to mention is that you’re pretty much a Buddhist boss besides that. You’ve blogged for Shambhala Sun, for Elephant Journey. You’ve contributed to a lot of really prestigious magazines and also academic journals. I see on your bio that you’ve contributed to Religion News Service, the New York Times, for the BBC and also my favorite is E! Entertainment Television. Tell me how did a Buddhist academic practitioner get invited on to E! Entertainment Television.

Danny: I tell you when I majored in Buddhist study as an undergrad, went on to get my master divinity and ultimately my doctorate in Buddhist studies it was all with the goal to ending up on E! Entertainment Television. That was my colleague Amy Demyan who is the director of Department of Psychology here at U West. She’s also a boss. You can find out more about her at amyknowsbest.com.

Vincent: Nice.

Danny: She had a connection there and when the Tiger Woods scandal broke they were looking to have someone to speak about basically just for Buddhism generally and as it related to his life story and also the scandal. And so I went in with Amy and it was for True Holiday Story.

Vincent: Nice.

Danny: So we both appear on that episode of Tiger Wood each of us I think for just a handful of seconds.

Vincent: That’s fantastic.

Danny: They were very nice and I thought they had extraordinary well researched question. I wasn’t quite sure what to expect when I went in and they couldn’t be more of a pleasure.

Vincent: So at a young age your career is pretty much already peaked with that appearance, huh?

Danny: It’s downhill from here exactly.

Vincent: And then here you find yourself on Buddhist Geeks good segue yet again. Because we’re good friends outside of the Buddhist Geeks program and we have lots of fun chat. One thing, I thought it’d be fun to discuss with you and that we’ve been chatting a lot about is this whole topic of what we might call Buddhist narratives or Buddhist stories.

And these are narratives or stories that we find not just in Buddhist culture but also in the wilder culture about Buddhism. And these narratives they have a huge influence on how people perceive the tradition whether these people are inside the tradition or outside of it. And if we’re practitioners especially it definitely hearing story about the point of practice or about passes and masters or about just Buddhism in general.

It really impacts whether we know it or not how we view our practice and the purpose of it. And so one thing I wanted to ask is if you could just share because I know this is something that you’ve explored at lot in your academic process and also as a practitioner. Which kinds of common narratives that you often hear in Buddhist culture and then in wilder culture.

Danny: One narrative that’s on my mind, has been no my mind kind of a lot is the whole kind of narrative of Buddhism in America. And I suspect that many of the people who, not all but many of the people who listen to Buddhist Geeks and follow your website probably take a look at other Buddhist blogs and things happening with Buddhism in the internet.

And it feels like there’s a lot of conversation about that and how well particular communities, groups, individuals, cultures are represented. I mean I think sometimes a mistake that you hear coming out of perhaps this Anglo middle class community is when you talk about the history of Buddhism in America, the narrative arc of Buddhism in America. You sort of say where does it start?

Well there were these guys the Beats poets and they got really interested in Zen and all these other stuff. Again, the problem with that is that it ignores that Buddhism has much deeper root in America, you know, with east Asian settlers in particularly the western United States and people who came over here to do things like work on the railroad and then ended up contributing to the growth and development of temples and centers all over the west that were there for people like the Beats to drink deeply.

And again that’s a problem if that kind of thing gets perpetuated this idea that the narrative of Buddhism in America starts with the Beats. I mean that obviously points to the problem of how we’re privileging maybe the experience of one group, one part of the picture not the whole. And by the way, could I stop for a minute and just add one thing to what I had said before.

Vincent: Yes.

Danny: This is just a little chunk on there.

Vincent: Yeah, yeah, please. And obviously we don’t have time to get into the rich history of Buddhism coming to America. But I would mention “How the Swans Came to the Lake” is a fantastic book on the history of Buddhism and how it came to America. And then there’s also Richard Seager’s book “Buddhism in America.” It’s another kick-ass book with regards to Buddhism coming into the state. And it can really be rich right as a practitioner to kind of know the historical roots of this stuff.

Danny: Absolutely and I would add one other book to that list there’s a wonderful book by a good friend of mine Charles Prebish called “Luminous Passage.” I’m going to forget the subtitle but it has to do with the practice and study of Buddhism in America. And I sort of feel like it’s an essential read for basically anybody who’s kind of interested in both the world of practice and study Buddhism in America.

Vincent: So that’s one big narrative. And then another that we have talked about a lot because you find it not only now but also throughout the history of Buddhism and interestingly throughout the history of religious tradition on the whole is something and this pronunciation is kind of hard. It’s hagiography. So tell us a little bit because as an academic this is something that you’re familiar with terms like hagiography and normative and all sorts of weird terms that most Buddhist practitioners do not hear. Can you say a little bit about what a Buddhist hagiography is?

Danny: Hagiographies are interesting because essentially what they are idealized story. They’re not not the truth but they’re a certain kind of trust that has a priority namely making the individuals ideas, community, bringing out the best of these things. And it’s an interesting topic when you’re looking at Buddhism because often story telling, biographies these things have a kind of as they do in most religions.

But perhaps in a really interesting kind of cute way in Buddhism this purpose of kind of contributing to the person’s practice. They exist to inspire, to motivate. There’s a great quote from the Ninth Kenchen Thrangu Rinpoche and I wrote it down here so I can read it for you where he says Buddhist hagiographies, life-stories, speak about what caused someone to turn away from samsara, at which point in their life they decided to do so, how they were able to find the precious teachings, who taught them the practices they did, and what they achieved from practicing diligently.

So the priority then of hagiography is somewhat different than history, journalism or something like that where you’re trying to be objective and just report facts and information. Hagiographies have this purpose of trying to get into the heart of the reader or the hearer. So they have a very different character from what you read in the history book from the newspaper.

Vincent: Yeah. That sounds almost like describing the Buddhist Hero’s Journey in some way, you know, Joseph Campbell’s famous phrase. It’s interesting.

Danny: Absolutely. And you know the Buddhist life story might be an interesting example of that. Because you know obviously its’ recounting the great story of this individual. But the same time it’s pointing to things that I think the practitioners meant to notice and it’s supposed to kind of nurture them in their journey as well as being a great story of this spiritual ancestor.

Vincent: Buddhist hagiography has been kind of important for me in my practice journey as well sometimes because I’d read different biographies from people like obviously one famous one is Milarepa’s story and in my own traditions I read things like Ajahn Mun’s autobiography. Actually, it wasn’t’ an autobiography. It was written by one of his students.

And those things are incredibly empowering to me because a big part of the stories are often these relationships or breakthroughs or awakening that these teachers are speaking about very frankly. And that part for me as a practitioner always spoke very deeply to me because I felt that oh if these people could do it that means that I also have a shot at waking up.

And like you mentioned the Buddhist traditional story is all about that. So it sounds like from Thrangu Rinpoche’s perspective and the thing that you’re highlighting here is that these stories can be incredibly helpful tools or pointers for practitioners or sources of inspiration maybe.

Danny: Yeah and I think perhaps frustrating in a way if you’re trying to create an objective history because there’s a tendency to really celebrate and really demonstrate a lot of appreciation and reverence you know whether its Milarepa or the Buddhist disciples or whomever else, the saints and citizen and so on. So that can create kind of blurry picture sometimes for people who are not baseball as it were or none Buddhist looking in on the tradition.

Vincent: Cool. And you know it’s interesting because there’s a recent article that came out kind of academic article by someone that we’ve had on the show before on Buddhist Geeks named Stuart Lachs.

And it’s entitled “Modern Day Zen Hagiography.” In it he goes into incredible details on two Zen masters that were modern day Zen masters. And he talks specifically about the way that they’re biographies were factually and accurate. He sort of points out the kind of accuracies there and then make some conclusions about how this type of hagiography even for inside practitioners, people that are part of the tradition can actually contribute to scandalous and unethical behavior from the Zen master.

Obviously you know in the last few months and we don’t necessarily need to get into the gory details of this. But for everyone listening to show you’re probably aware of some of the recent scandals that have come to the larger cultures attention. Scandals from various Zen masters and of course there’s a history of scandals on all the Buddhist traditions from teachers and people in position of power. It’s really interesting given that it’s current in our practice community, this tension of scandal and people being in hurt in community.

And also this point from Stuart is the way we can see of a Zen master, if we don’t see that it’s not literal that there’s metaphor culture mixed in with kind of mythical storylines that this can actually contribute to some really scandalous and unethical behavior actually. I wonder if you could maybe respond to that and maybe share some of your perspective and on this complex issue.

Danny: Well it was interesting when you and I did the, I guess it was like the pre-interview kind of conversation last week.

Vincent: Yes.

Danny: I thought you actually said a couple things that I thought were brilliant. I don’t know why you’re having me on the show. You should just talk about it. You sort of pointed out that the way we understand what enlightenment is. You didn’t exactly say this way but I think you were kind of pointing in this direction that that kind sometimes pin us into a corner if we have a very very kind of almost crazily idealized idea of enlightenment.

It can really be dangerous for both the teacher and the student that sort of have this view of that. So I’m not sure to what degree the text actually contributes to that. So much as the reader hears kind of what they want to sometimes or the listener hears what they want to or the reader sees what they want to. I lived in New Haven for a little bit in 2008 I guess it was. And I was in the campus of Yale University one day and heard a lecture from Stephen Teiser who I believe is at Princeton.

And he was talking about artistic rendering of one Buddhist text. And he read us sort of chunk of the text which was remarkably detailed in terms of depicting I think it was the pure land and what it looked like and all that. And then in the artist rendering you don’t often see all of those details. You know you kind of see probably whatever inspired the artist. And essentially to make his point, what Teiser did then was to show us some pictures I think it was some kindergarten students that he’d spoken to or he’s read them the same thing and basically told them would you please draw what I just said.

And they effective did what the artist have done which was there were certain pieces of it that they grabbed a hold of it and really really like and were sort of inspired in and struck by. So at the end of the day, I mean again I guess listeners, readers have a certain emphasis they’re going to place on certain things and a certain way of understanding it. I’m not sure if this helps the point about enlightenment.

Vincent: Yeah. I think it does. And the other thing or the other side of this that I see is that not only do people seem to latch on to certain things and have unrealistic expectations regarding themselves and other people. Certainly, we wall do that. It also seems like certain traditions or even certain types of tradition can be particularly bad at perpetuating that in a way that these ideals are carried forth.

Stuart Lachs again, I’ll go back to him cause he’s been such a proponent of deconstructing some of these traditional stories from a sociological perspective. And he kind of points out that for instance the idea in Zen that the lineage is teacher to student all the way back to the Buddha is almost certainly something that was created in 8th century China.

It wasn’t something that was actually the case from the objective sociological perspective. We don’t see any evidence for that. It’s actually something that for Chinese Buddhist genealogy was incredibly important. And so it was very important for the validity of the tradition and for it to take hold in that culture to kind of create story and maybe it wasn’t even done with a harmful intent.

But the fact is there is no one person lineage all the way back to the Buddha from a sociological perspective. And yet this is something that’s deeply embedded mostly as a literal truth in the Zen tradition. And so it’s kind of interesting that the tradition have also done a lot to perpetuate certain myths you could say.

What’s interesting to me is that the Buddhist tradition doesn’t seem incapable of doing this because all the other religious tradition do the same thing. We see myth used and taken literally in all sort of tradition. And I find that really interesting cause it kind of pops the idealistic bubble of Buddhism being like this rational religion in some ways.

Danny: That really is an interesting thing kind of keeping projections in check. Although, I’m mean there’s also a kind of blurriness there in Buddhist history in early encounters with westerners and Buddhist. You have a kind of dual thing happening where you have westerners projecting certain kind of things unto these cultures.

And then the Buddhist cultures were looking back and saying they seemed to really like this so we’ll give them more of this and that kind of furthers conversation and things like that. You know there’s some interesting stuff in looking in that history of first encounters between European historians and philosophers and others coming to this Buddhist countries and these Buddhist representative kind of encountering religious others elsewhere in the world.

So I mean that’s an interesting thing and like you said it creates this picture of Buddhism that maybe seems like it wouldn’t have some of these pieces to it. But then when it does people sometimes get a little surprise and all that. And with regards to these scandals, I mean I think there’s something going on we’re missing a piece. We’re missing a lot of pieces I suppose in terms of talking about first of all sexuality, power dynamics, and things like that.

And again there needs to be some back and forth conversation with these communities. Right now, there’s a lot going on in the Zen community but this is something that has affected a lot of Buddhist community in tradition in north America since they’ve sort of set of shop. So it’s not unique to the Zen community. We’re just hearing about them right now.

It’s very sad but it’s also I think constructive in terms of what we’re doing and not doing very well in terms of framing a lot of this. And it seems to me we need to have a lot more conversation about ethics. We need to have a lot more conversation about gender dynamics and Buddhism in North America. Also kind of look at issues tradition and some of these things are being rationalized or understood or framed often by people committing some of these abuses of power.

So you and I were talking again in the pre-interview about more modern narratives. And you know I think when we first spoken we were sort of exploring the possibility of talking about Buddhism and media and some of the work you and I do in terms of I guess trying to record some of what’s going on in terms of the development of Buddhism in America, things that are happening in the Buddhist world.

And it’s interesting to me, I mean one interesting thing that comes out of the hagiography conversation for me is again in the example of the Milarepa isn’t that interesting that you have figure who, it doesn’t flinch from the fact that he was involved in like sorcery, vengeance, murder. These sort of things and still manages to pull out an inspiring, motivating story and it doesn’t kind of flinch from the details.

I mean again its priority is not to be reported and yet it has a kind of courageousness about messier details in this figures story. I supposed similarly you might see that in the life of the Buddha. That you have him leaving his wife Yasodhara, his son Rahula and leaving the palace to go to what he’s doing. And if you read the text like the Bodhicaryāvatāra, which is telling of his life, it’s interesting how Yosodhara is painted.

I mean that she is kind of gets very hysterical about leaving and is almost kind of spiteful and angry when he comes back. So as a reader you’re almost struck by well probably better for him to kind of extricate himself from something like that, which is a kind of interesting device in terms of figuring out how to negotiate this really messy part of the story.

Vincent: Right. Right.

Danny: And then in something more deliberately hagiographical Thich Nhat Hanh’s “Old Path White Clouds,” which is his biography of the Buddha which is based on the agamas but also looking at the polycanon and I think some of Thich Nhat Hanh own creative spirit. When I was at Naropa, I took a class with Reggie Rey where we read both the Buddhacarita and Old Path White clouds.

And it’s interesting to look particular Yasodhara and in fact I ended up writing a paper about this topic how she’s presented in the Buddhacarita versus how she’s depicted in Thich Nhat Hanh’s book. And in Thich Nhat Hanh’s book, it’s really interesting that it’s like an incredibly mature relationship. And she is a much a partner in his enlightenment.

She isn’t a partner in that. You know there’s sort of frank conversation how he knows this sort deep retreat experience needs to be part of what he’s doing and he has to leave. And he sort of paints this really beautiful story about the night that the Buddha left but she’s awake. She knows he’s leaving but she lets him go to do that. And then there’s sort of constant communication between the two of them again based some of the actual canonical stuff.

But giving a kind of more interesting, humanizing spin in a way on Yasodhara that looks at her as a dynamic interesting individual with her own path and her own really deep spirituality that stands in great contrast to say Buddhacarita where she seems almost kind of, again somebody you might feel too bad about leaving behind if they’re going to expect this much of you and behave in some of the way as she’s depicted as behaving.

So you and I have are having this conversation about more modern narrative and how sometimes there seems to be a kind of skittishness around diving into some of the more controversial aspects of particular teachers or proper kind of wrangling with some of the darker piece.

Vincent: Yes.

Danny: As far as these scandals and things are concern.

Vincent: Yeah, yeah, absolute. I mean see a big spectrum in terms of how people would present their own lives or maybe how other people write about them. I was just thinking as you’re speaking about some of the darker sides and the more human elements. You know when I read one of my teacher’s books “After the Ecstasy, the Laundry” Jack Kornfield.

I was really struck by how my he highlighted the human elements of awakening and how it really didn’t paint the picture of enlightenment as being this sort of perfected state. And that was in real contrast to a lot of the things I’ve read. Because even with Milarepa they do focus on the darkness and yet the whole point of the story is that he completely overcomes that.

Whereas in Jack’s books he kind of points out that there’s this fluctuation between neurosis and contraction and then great insight and awakening in that of that all the western teachers he knows, all the Buddhist teachers he knows they would readily admit that actually. And yet for people to admit it on a personal level is different for them or their students to write about it.

And it’s so interesting this interplay between history and contemporary interpretation of history like you’re saying with Thich Nhat Hahn almost reinterpretation or at least his interpretation of the canonical material. It’s just so fascinating that it’s such a complex issue and such a complex situation. All these different narratives and many of them being competing narratives.

Danny: Well it’s interesting with the Thich Nhat Hahn example. I mean that is quintessential hagiography in terms of the way he does it as writer. You know that he’s looking at Asvaghosa’s Buddhacarita and the sort of rendering of Yasodhara there. And I think Thich Nhat Hahn looks at that and says where is the compassion in the depiction of her.

That it’s kind of a convenient characterization of her so that we will basically be kind of not get stuck on this idea the Buddha leaving. And rather than kind of paining bleaker picture or something of the Buddha. What Thich Nhat Hahn does is says what I can do is put in the compassion here.

I can look at this figure with the eyes of practitioner and how can I render Yasodhara in such a way that it will have the leader thinking about the relationship to others and their responsibility to others. It’s basically, I mean in a sense he’s bringing a very feminist lens to it and saying somehow this gets a past.

So how I can tell a story in such a way that there’s sort of a proper sense of looking at man and woman as equals and that we do right by this character, this figure Yasodhara. How can I do that? So I mean in a sense his agenda as a writer is to do this in such a way that the reader grows the reader gets something meaningful from this. So I mean it’s a beautiful job in terms of doing that.

I mean I think sometimes yes when I first read it there was part of me that kind of was surprised and thought this almost seems like a reinterpretation when you’re doing some of this. But thinking about another way, thinking in terms of hagiography, it’s very appropriate and very brilliant done in terms of his as a teacher. But I supposed it’s not surprise since its Thich Nhat Hanh that it would be so well done.

Vincent: So it seems like in this conversation, in this interview about Buddhist hagiography and narrative, there seems to be kind of two main ways we can look at it. One is the practitioner’s point of view and the other seems to be a bit more from like an academic point of view. And it seems like this begs the question how do we, as practitioners, cause mostly Buddhist geeks is a group of practitioners, how do we approach, study and I think this is something you’re uniquely qualify to respond to because it’s basically your job. How can study of these things actually support or influence how we actually practice?

Danny: It’s interesting. I mean I think there’s been a lot of anecdotal observation about the issue of how divided I think the world’s practice and study are in Buddhism maybe to a degree that’s somewhat different from the way we approach the study and practice of other religions in kind of the north American system.

I have a colleague here at U West in Federal Way High and I have interviewed him for the video about U West that I put together. He kind of made the observation that it’s not unusual if you’re doing Jewish studies for many of these scholars to also be rabbi. And if you’re doing Christian theology or even biblical studies and things like that it’s not unusual for you to be ordained clergy as well.

Then the point he makes is and yet in the world of Buddhism it’s kind of an atman of a practitioner. There’s almost a kind of, I mean I wont say across the board but I think people are cautious about it. In fact, Prebish published a couple of years ago a piece about this in BuddhaDharma magazine where he sort of he didn’t identify who it was but he mentioned he was in the home of a great scholar of Buddhism.

He didn’t know this person was a practitioner. I think the person was, if I remember correctly kind of very proud of their home altar and that was how Prebish found out. His observation was the person didn’t want to get out because then their scholarship would be questioned or looked at oddly.

So unfortunately I think there’s a kind of strange divide sometimes and my only concern about the divide are these times were we might intentionally or intentionally maybe marginalized findings from both groups. I think practitioners actually wouldn’t be much to look at, much to study if they’re Buddhist practitioners.

And similarly I think scholars have a lot to say to us that’s really profound and really interesting. And I like to think that some of what I’m trying to do is to bridge that a little bit certainly in the chaplaincy program I think it’s important for the students to not only be good caregivers but effectively Buddhist theologian as well.

And I think part of doing this kind of more theological and normative work is having a strong foundation in terms of religious studies, Buddhist studies, looking at these phenomena through an academic lens. And I think it can a little scary that in a sense that it can be so deconstruction sometimes to look at things of the academic.

And I think it’s off putting to us occasionally as practitioners. And I think that’s where the rub is. But again I think we have this great resource in the Buddhist tradition where we’re always ask to go further, keep looking, don’t try to get settled, too rooted, keep digging, keep asking questions.

And I certainly had my moments of being extraordinarily challenged by some of the things that I’ve been taught or I’ve read and looked at and all that. But I think when I try to keep that in perspective as practitioner, it’s been really helpful. In fact in a way, it’s been liberating sometimes to learn certain things for example about the creation of Buddhist test and some of it came about.

It makes you feel a little bit comfortable about sort of saying not dismissing things but sort of saying we can challenge the text on this or the tradition on this. Like especially around issues of women and Buddhism. My understanding of those things has been well served by being an academic and looking at them and being able to kind of say with some real academic background.

This will not stand. This is not okay. There nothing inherently great about some of these awful stuff that get said about women that we have to keep and in fact we need to throw it out. And here’s why we can challenge it and we can look at it and say this is problematic. We don’t need this.

So you know again it makes you feel comfortable in bridging the sort of modern with the tradition. If you know something about the tradition and how it developed, how things happened. Again, I think it can be very very liberating to you as a practitioner.