I have been practicing Buddhism for eight years now. For the first six years of that time, I read
several great Buddhist authors such as Robert Thurman, Jack Kornfield, Norman
Fischer, James Kullander, and others. Nowadays, I have grown disenchanted by American Buddhist literature, and
have hardly read any Buddhist book, except for poetry books, picture books, and
novels. Another thing that has
disenchanted me about American Buddhism is that it seems to be dominated
largely by people from older generations, and after years of reading and
collecting magazines such as Tricycle,
Buddhadharma, and Shambhala Sun, I think I found the
problem: most of the contributors in these magazines are older people. Not once have I seen in these magazines an
article written by someone in their twenties or thirties. Moreover, when looking at these publications
and Shambhala Publications Best Buddhist
Writing series, I notice that these author’s experiences don’t connect very
well to younger generations of Buddhists and potential Buddhists. I read chapters and articles on losing one’s
spouse to cancer, unhappy marriages, disillusionment with their professional
lives, aging, and other experiences that young people just don’t connect to,
however important they are. Many talk about
how they still suffer from time to time, indulge in bad habits, or feel
slighted by people. Many of them are
very bleak and confusing, and they never really say anything positive about
practicing the Dharma. I currently have
over a dozen Buddhist books in collector’s condition that I have never even
touched. Meanwhile, one of my books,
which I’ve had since my early teens, J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, is held together
with loads of packing tape, with lose pages hanging out. To me, that just means it’s important to
me. Its contents are still accessible
and I still get hours of joy and inspiration from them and other books by
Tolkien. Before my disillusionment with
American Buddhist literature, I was lucky enough to come upon Buddhist
psychotherapist David L. Loy’s book The
Dharma of Dragons and Daemons: Buddhist Themes in Modern Fantasy, which had
an amazing take on Tolkien’s The Lord of
the Rings. Since then I found a
renewed sense of enjoyment in Tolkien’s work as an artist, poet, film buff, and
Buddhist. Before I got the idea for this
post, I realized that yesterday was
Buddha Jayanti Day, the celebration in the Buddhist world of Buddha’s birth,
and thought that I ought to do a post (albeit a late one this time) for that
time, like I did with Autism Acceptance Month, and I thought I’d talk about
what it means to be Buddhist. Part of me
was struggling from having heard accounts from my fellow Buddhists (all of them
older) about what Buddhism and meditation hadn’t
done for them and part of me was wondering, “Why practice Buddhism?” Earlier I had come upon an article called The 10 Best Quotes from Middle Earth to Live By by Selina Wilken, and later I
thought back to the article and realized all these quotes share something about
what Buddhism does well for people, and that these have been true from all my
experiences practicing Dharma. While
looking at articles on The Lord of the
Rings quotes I found some that showed me what happens when one practices
the Dharma.
“A day may come when the
courage of men fails, when we forsake our friends and break all bonds of
fellowship, but it is not this day. An
hour of war and shattered shields in the age of men may come crashing down, but
it is not this day. This day we fight!” –Aragorn
This quote was not from the
aforementioned article, but it did see that it made a good Buddhist point: be
in the present. There is no need to
worry about the age when mankind is shattered because it is not now. Similarly, we need not dread taking tests,
asking out dates, and learning to drive all the time because most of the time,
it is not now.
“All we have to do is to
decide what to do with the time that is given to us.” –Gandalf the Grey
This
gets to the heart of the Buddha’s teachings, for one of the most quoted
Buddhist axioms is, “Live in the present.” This simply means to put your hopes for happiness, love, and freedom by
what you think, say, and do in this moment, for it is precious, and once it is
gone, you can never get it back. Maybe
you’re a student in college at home for the summer, and know a desired
sweetheart who will be living off campus next year while you’re still in the
dorms, but hey, what if you knew now that she didn’t have a car? Then you may see her in the dining hall and
could hit things up with her, huh?
“If more of us valued food
and cheer and song above hoarded gold, this would be a much merrier world.”
–Thorin Oakenshield
(Spoiler alert) Thorin Oakenshield from Peter
Jackson’s Hobbit trilogy gets the ax
in The Hobbit, the part that is to be
covered in PJ’s third installment, yet says these beautiful parting words to
Bilbo on his death bed. Perhaps dying
made him see how meaningless and empty hoarded gold really is, but food, cheer,
and song on the other hand? Well, food,
that’s necessary to live, and cheer, well is that not our end goal in all
things? Isn’t everything we do, whether
getting our bottom lip pierced or holding out a box of Valentine’s box to your
love interest all done in the pursuit of something that will make you
happy? And song? Well, what does that
have to do with Buddha? Well it’s easy
to think in an age of gawdy pop music that music is tacky and commercial, but
most of the world begs to differ. Song
comes from within, and by coming up with songs, we can see what’s within. In
Senegal, West Africa, music praise the journey to God. The Dinka of South Sudan sing songs to
celebrate love or praise the cattle that their livelihoods depend on. In war-torn Somalia, songs are composed
around campfires celebrating heroes who committed brave and noble acts. And hoarded gold can easily translate into the
hordes of money possessed by billion dollar companies, such as Enron, Chevron,
and Haliburton. Oil companies deny
responsibility in cleaning up the Gulf of Mexico, politicians bomb the Middle
East while protecting major oil companies, and the CIA overthrows
democratically elected presidents in Iran, Zaire (modern-day Democratic
Republic of the Congo), and Latin America (note oil has been called black gold). And isn’t the whole point of socially engaged Buddhism to help alleviate
greed, hatred, and ignorance-the three poisons in Buddhism-to make this world a
better place.
“It’s like in the great
stories, Mr. Frodo, the ones that really mattered, full of darkness and danger
they were. Sometimes you didn’t want to
know the end, because how could the end be happy. How could the world go back to the way it was
when so much bad happened? But in the
end, it’s just a passing thing, this shadow, even darkness must pass.” –Samwise
Gamgee
A famous Buddhist saying goes,
“This, too, shall pass.” Breakups, fear
of driving, nasty professors all cause us stress but in the end we forget all
about them. Intellectually disabled people
find decent housing. Tragic losses make
people stronger and closer to the people around them. Life is about hanging in there until change
comes around, and when it does, we’re all still here. Through meditation, we’re able to see that
all challenges are impermanent, and we just need to see them through.
“Not all those who wonder
are lost.” –J.R.R. Tolkien
Sometimes we all go down the
wrong path: wanting a girl who’s completely egotistical, hoarding objects we
think have value to us, snack cravings before we go to bed. But we eventually our able to see that this
girl is very manipulative, that those things we collect aren’t always so
interesting, and that we can unwind in bed from the day without food. Yet these don’t stop us from truly living
because we’re in touch with our selves.
“It’s a dangerous
business, Frodo, going out your door. You step out onto the road, and if you don’t keep your feet, there’s no
knowing where you might be swept off to.” –Bilbo Baggins
Hobbits are particularly afraid
of going out their door, particularly beyond the borders of the Shire, their
home. They love creature comforts like
good food, an armchair, fireplace, and well-groomed gardens. Yet Bilbo Baggins discovers that when he
decides to take Gandalf and the company of thirteen dwarves led by Thorin
Oakenshield to reclaim their kingdom, going out into the nasty, uncomfortable,
and dangerous wild, he discovers that there is more courage and resilience in
him than he previously believed. This is
not to different from the story of the Buddha, who left his palace, sexy wife,
and creature comforts to try and live discover how all people could truly live,
into the wild, eating very little until he nearly starved to death, or the
alluring, obedient women and concubines that strutted around his palace, and
found that he was much happier and wiser now that he knew there was more to
life than his wild, sex-crazed, drinking, party life. Today in the West, we have several safety
blankets to help make us feel secure in our lives, such as our televisions,
cell-phones, professional lives, material luxury, and even religion to make us
feel secure in our safe predictable lives to the point where they almost
enslave us, and we begin to feel disconnected to all the people around us. With Buddhism, we can take work, money,
relationships, and technology with moderation so we can truly feel loved by and
connected to the world.
“But no living man am
I! You look upon a woman.” –Eowyn
This quote is delivered by
Eowyn, niece and surrogate daughter of King Theoden of Rohan, who sneaks into
battle disguised as a man after she is refused to be allowed to go to battle on
account of her gender, right after the king is mortally wounded and her best
friend, Merry the hobbit is critically injured by Sauron’s chief lieutenant the
Witch-King of Angmar. Going back to the
Witch-King’s beginnings, Sauron used the ring of power he gave his servant,
which he made so no living man could
kill him. However, he didn’t foresee a
woman riding into battle against him, so consequently, he left a major weakness
for his most valuable servant. While
Tolkien did not create a lot of female characters, he left one of the most
important acts to one of them. Similarly, are own differences, whether gender or otherwise, are capable
of serving this world to a greater degree. Companies often hire autistic workers for their ability to
recognize and perceive patterns. During
World War II, many Navajo gained a place in the war for the fact that they
could communicate with each other without the Nazis or Japanese being able to
listen in on their plans because they didn’t understand the Navajo
language. The Dharma can help us all
understand that while we all have our own unique differences, we are able to
use them to contribute to this world.
“It’s useless to meet
revenge with revenge; it will heal nothing.” –Frodo Baggins
When people egg you on, you know
longer need to respond to them. The
former classmate who makes snide comments at you is really just jealous of your
success and is so immature that he thinks when you share it with your high
school staff that you’re out to get him. Snooty middle-age mothers engage victimize themselves for being
chastised for their charity which pays more money to its executives, and then
make snide comments when you tell them of more accountable charities. Yet you realize they just want to provoke you
into chastising them so they can continue to indulge in self-pity, and when you
don’t respond to them, they just look vindictive and snide and hurt their own
cause.
“It is not the strength of
the body, but the strength for the spirit.” –J.R.R. Tolkien
Selina Wilken elucidated this
quote best when she writes, “When all hope seems lost, Frodo and Sam do not
give up; Eowyn fights her way through a world of men; Arwen does not abandon
what seems lost; Faramir stands up to a rotten parent…” Haven’t some of us had to stand up for
ourselves when we are physically smaller, been a woman who had to move up the
ranks in a male-dominated profession, or pursue a dream when our parents or
family aren’t supportive. Yet we get
where we need to go anyway. Practicing
Dharma and meditation allows us to see challenge and adversity with compassion
and equanimity.
“Deeds will not be less
valiant because they are not praised.” –Aragorn
These days, pop stars, football
players, and reality show stars seem to get all the positive attention from
society, not to mention more money than teachers, doctors, and social workers
who put more of their lives and energy into fulfilling much more noble
pursuits. Yet for trainee nurses,
student teachers, and engineering students, this does not have to stop them
from appreciating and valuing their own hard work, for with the Dharma, one is
able to see things as they are, not simply as they are valued by society.
“Even the smallest person can
change the course of the future.” –Lady Galadriel
This quote may be in reference
to the physical stature of hobbits, who are smaller than other races, including
dwarves, yet it is a good metaphor for the potential for ordinary people to
make an impact on their own world and the world beyond. Groups of teenagers are able to save local
parks from being built over by chain malls, preteen girls are able to
successfully petition large corporations to cut down on their use of pesticides
and GMOs, and small groups of concerned citizens are capable of helping intellectually disabled people who are fired for their misbehaviors to be reoffered
their jobs. One who truly practices the
Dharma is fully capable of living in the face of challenge and adversity and
eventually coming out successful. For
when we practice the Dharma, we are able to be more proactive, humble,
resilient, peaceable, and adventurous people. Regardless of whether we are Buddhist or not, Tolkien’s work has some
great Buddhist wisdom, delivered in a universal, non-Buddhist package, by which
we can all live by.
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