In response to a listener question, we discuss the variety of Pure Land practices outside the Shin and Japanese traditions. We begin by noting that Honen and Shinran set up distinct schools and institutions devoted to a single Pure Land practice (nenbutsu) whereas across the Buddhist world, Pure Land is best understood not as a distinct school but as a cluster of related texts, practices, orientations, and cosmologies that find expression in a wide array of approaches to awakening. Some of...

Following up on our conversation from last time, we tackle a list of listener questions that we thought would be simple but took us off in really different directions. The first question is whether or not Japanese Buddhist traditions rely on the Pali canon — yes? no? maybe? we don’t know! We (well, really, Scott) might be overanalyzing this question, but depending on what the question means, maybe yes, maybe no. This question is not unrelated to the second question — the profound “are...

In response to a bunch of listener questions that we thought would be pretty straightforward, we bring you several episodes to discuss, first, the differences between Japanese Buddhist schools of Jodo Shu, Jodo Shinshu, and Nichiren. What unites these traditions are their founders’ experiences in the Tendai tradition and eventual dedication to a single path of practice. For Nichiren, the exclusive path was reliance of the Lotus Sutra; for Honen and Shinran it was the Pure Land path and...

Reflecting on the sad news of Rev. Dr. Taitetsu Unno’s passing this past month, we thought we’d do a special short episode to acknowledge his influence in our own lives as well as appreciating our good Dharma friends and teachers. We’ll be back in a couple of weeks with full-length episodes answering listener questions. Thanks for listening and happy new year! In memoriam: Rev. Dr. Taitetsu Unno

Okay. Some big questions this time around, none of which we’re gonna answer but we have a good time talking around the issues. Does (Shin) Buddhism give us a way to act? Are there guidelines on how to be good and avoid evil? Is it right to even judge persons as good and evil or should we talk about good and evil behavior instead? Are these categories even native to (Shin) Buddhism or are we asking questions from a non-Buddhist context? Doesn’t Shinran mention the foolish beings of good and...

We’re doing a post-modern meta show about the show where we talk about the show. It’s been six years, this is episode number eighty, and we want to take stock and talk about what we’ve done and where we’re headed. Actually, we have a really hard time remembering what we talk about once we post these things on the web, so we’re not going to talk much about what we’ve said as much about how we think about the show. We think of the last six years as part of a long — and ongoing — learning...

Just gonna say it up front: Harry’s on fire in these episodes, saying some profound stuff! In this final installment of our reflections on Shin and Zen practice, we take up the issue of other-power/self-power. We dive right into the deep and complicated issues about the nature of the self, what’s at stake in the distinction between these paths of practice, and whether or not it’s even possible for the self to negate the self. Photo credit: Japanexperterna (CC BY-SA)

We take up the issue from last time, wandering around the historical circumstances of exclusive practice, Kamakura-era Buddhist schools, deal with how the context in which one practices matters, ritual efficacy, heresy, and whether there’s really a difference between zazen and nembutsu. We don’t really answer the question of whether or not one can combine Zen and Shin practice; ultimately, that’s for you to decide!

Hey! Check out that new theme song! We finally get around to doing some recording and answering some listener questions, this one about the possibility of combining Shin and Zen Buddhist practice. We dance around the issue for a while, meandering through the minutia of particular ritual styles, before getting to some of the historical and institutional justifications used for why Shin Buddhists should only do this practice and not this other thing. Stay tuned for more episodes on this topic....

Our third and final episode with special guest Mushim Ikeda from the East Bay Meditation Center. In this show, we use the current popularity of mindfulness based meditation practices (and their secularized off-shoots) to answer the “why Buddhism” question. We discuss what mindfulness means in classic Buddhist terms (satti/smrti as well as Pure Land nenbutsu) and in what ways secularized practices diverge from these forms. One area of concern is the commodification of Buddhist practice and the...

Here’s part two of our conversation with Mushim Ikeda of the East Bay Meditation Center. We jump right in from where we left off in the last episode, trying to answer the question of “Why Buddhism?” (Spoiler alert: it’s gotta do with the ego.) A lot of our conversation meanders around different experiences in the Zen Buddhism and Shin Buddhist traditions, but in a really cool twist, we find common ground in the Golden Chain, a reading all of us have had some experience with. Mushim has some...

Today is part one of a three-part series of episodes featuring our very first special guest star, Mushim Ikeda. Mushim is a Buddhist teacher, author, mentor and the community coordinator and a core teacher of Oakland’s East Bay Meditation Center. Mushim helps us unpack what may seem like a very basic question: why Buddhism? There’s a lot of directions this question could take us in, from questions of motivation, why people engage in Buddhist practice, why people are attracted to Buddhism,...

We’re not talking about magicians, we’re talking about ritual and whether or not there is some efficacious power inherent in Buddhist ritual practice. Ritual is often derided by modern folks or rejected explicitly as not a part of Buddhism, distinct from practice proper. But there’s ritual throughout Buddhist history and practice, and ritual serves an important function in human social life. Scott spends a lot of time riffing on ritual theory and anthropology. Harry spends some time waxing...

One of the issues that came up in our last conversation was the idea of “original enlightenment,” or the idea that from an enlightened point of view, everything’s equal. Today we take up some of the consequences of this view; do we use this idea as a way to minimize, dismiss, or disregard the experiences of others? Just because, from the Buddha’s point of view, everything’s already enlightened, do we ignore the lived reality of social injustice and the suffering it creates? And does this...

Is the BCA silent on issues of social justice? For many, it might seem like there’s no Shin Buddhist public voice in the American  discourse on Buddhism and social justice. We’ve been asked several times about this, so today is part one of a larger conversation about Shin Buddhism and social justice. We start by focusing on the historical and cultural contexts in which Shin Buddhist thought and practice develop both in Japan and in the U.S. In the U.S., of course, we need to be attentive to...

In prepping for our last episode on how to do Shin Buddhist practice, we started thinking about why people do practice and the question of motivations. The conversation starts with a reflection on a conference paper Scott heard early in the summer about Buddhism, the self-help industry, and BCA’s “Zen envy” (hat tip to James Dobbins for that awesome phrase!). We talk about what the purpose of Shin and Buddhist practice is in the first place: is it to help create a better self, or a project in...

We’re back! And we’re taking up a listener question about practicing Buddhism when you’re not near a Shin community, so we’re calling this one “how to do Shin practice?” This is an important question; what is our practice? How do we do the practice? Harry breaks it down into external and internal aspects where the external is related to intellectual, doctrinal, historical studies as well as critical analysis of the teachings and the internal is personal or subjective critical self-reflection....

We round out our conversation about music by focusing on Shin Buddhism, starting with Shinran. It’s clear chanting was an important part of early Shin communities, and many of Shinran’s wasan (poems) have come down to us as songs still sung today. We take a brief detour to talk about Herbie Hancock before getting into contemporary music in the American Shin context. If we expand our view beyond the traditional gathas, we can find all kinds of really interesting music within Shin communities,...

In part two of our discussion of Buddhism and music, we talk (mostly) about the potential genre of “Buddhist music.” Genre is a tricky; it raises all sorts of questions about who gets to define an artist or musician and whether or not it further divides people into camps of musical identity. But we definitely think there’s Buddhist music out there worth talking about, and we meander around such different artists as Hiroshima, Toshiro Mayuzumi, the Beastie Boys, Lou Harrison, and eventually...

We’ve got a long-standing interest in music; coincidentally, a listener asked us a question about music on Facebook, so we took the subject and ran with it! This is the first of three episodes dedicated to the subject of Buddhism and music. Today’s show is a general overview of the subject, both the question of what is music — how is it used and performed and why we listen to it — and how is music used in a Buddhist context, both ritually and as a form of practice.

“Won’t somebody please think of the children!” This week we take up the tension in Buddhism between the ideal of monasticism, the renunciant, the solo practitioner who goes off in search of awakening versus the reality of home life, laity, and family. Our conversation is inspired, in part, by a post last fall over on the Dharma Dialogue blog about revisiting the biography of the historical Buddha and being attentive to how this narrative can be re-read to highlight Shakyamuni’s connections to...

Let’s pick up where we left off; last time we discussed how contemporary Shin Buddhists can make the teachings and practices applicable to modern life, balancing tradition and change. This raises the important question of how one can determine whether or not a particular interpretation of the Buddha Dharma is in line with traditional or authoritative understandings. In short, how can we trust our teachers and Dhrarma friends? Our conversation today covers a lot ground through personal and...

Prompted by a listener who’s interested in how Buddhist teachings and practices change over time, in this episode we take up the tension between maintaining tradition versus adaptation to new circumstances. Whereas one could argue that we should look to Shinran as the final authority on what the orthodox Shinshu teaching or practice should be, we can also look to Shinran as inspiration, as a thoughtful practitioner who, in his own time, creatively interpreted the tradition to meet the needs...

Today we go down the rabbit hole of the Tannisho, the so-called razor text of Shin Buddhism, a text that can cut away misunderstandings, or be extremely dangerous in the wrong hands! Specifically, we’re talking about compassion and the question of whether or not great compassion is even possible. In Chapter Four of the Tannisho, Shinran seems to imply that, due to our lack of true wisdom, it’s extremely difficult, if not impossible, to be compassionate and help other people. But if there’s...

In this episode, Scott complains about the media! Seriously, though, bouncing from the last episode that dealt with the commodification and commercialization of Buddhism, we now deal with the related issue of media representations of Buddhism and Buddhists. How is Buddhism represented in the media, and what we can learn about Buddhism via these representations? Are they helpful to people in actually understanding what Buddhism about? Similarly, how are individual Buddhists represented? Who...