Religion
Let It Be
Looking for inner peace, compassion for others, and a newfound spirit of generosity? More and more Texans are finding these things in Buddhism.
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In 1998 Flint Sparks, a clinical psychologist who is preparing to become a Buddhist priest, founded the Austin Zen Center (512-479-4022; www.austinzencenter.org), which sponsors discussion groups, extended retreats, lectures, meditation workshops, and morning and evening meditation sessions. He is excited that Seirin Barbara Kohn, with her fifteen years of dharma teaching experience in San Francisco, is guiding the growth of the Buddhist community in Austin. Following the Japanese Soto Zen tradition (emphasizing silent, seated meditation), the Austin center has become so popular it was forced to move into a bigger space last year. Says Sparks: “Working with cancer patients, I began to realize that although psychotherapy is a powerful tool, it provides only limited answers to the difficult questions life poses. I’ve become one of those therapists-turned-Buddhists who are shifting their whole life to dharma practice. Buddhism hasn’t just changed my life. In a way it has become my life.”
In 1999 Soren Gordhamer, who grew up in Lubbock, moved to New York and set up a branch of the Lineage Project, the country’s first nonprofit, dharma-based meditation program for incarcerated teens (which is now winning raves from prison officials in Brooklyn, Harlem, and the Bronx). “The frantic pace of our lives, especially in inner cities, leaves a lot of us on edge,” Gordhamer says. “Many jailed youths—and, perhaps as important, youths who will be released from jail—find that the sense of ease and relaxation they sought through drugs can actually be accessed through meditation.”
Whether practicing the highly disciplined Zazen of Japan or the compassion-fueled Mahayana Buddhism of the Dalai Lama, all Buddhists believe that we’re inevitably made miserable when we cling to what could be rather than what is, when we focus on the next bite rather than the one we’re chewing. The Buddha also suggested that desiring and clutching things—a thinner body, a younger car, a plusher mate—lie at the heart of life’s sufferings, even illness and death. It is through meditation, Buddhists believe, that a person most successfully defies his or her ego (that notion of me and mine that compels one to covet and cling and feel that “first dance” queasiness) and most fruitfully learns from the omniscient rigpa. “Meditation is a quiet state of mind in which value judgments are suspended,” explains John Whittlesey, a vice president of the Texas Buddhist Council. “When thoughts arise, one simply labels them ‘thinking’ rather than calling them good or bad, profitable or unprofitable, happy or sad.” Contrary to what many Westerners assume, meditation does not necessarily mean sitting cross-legged on the floor. The Buddha taught that meditation is any experience cultivated with selfless, mindful attention. Jogging, cooking, even making love can be an exercise in Buddhist spirituality.
Perhaps these are the reasons why Buddhism has become so popular—its practice can be approached and felt in so many ways. Buddhists believe that resting for a moment in the emptiness between two thoughts is a Buddhist experience. So is losing yourself in the granite when rock climbing or being centered on a bowl spinning on a potter’s wheel or aching with hunger when you see someone without food.
People who become interested in a more formal approach to Buddhism may choose to go on meditation retreats, which can last only a weekend or as long as three years. Retreatants often take a vow of Noble Silence, which means no talking, reading, writing, watching TV, or listening to music. Days start early, sometimes before dawn, and can include sessions of guided mantra chanting (such as “Om Mani Peme Hung,” the Tibetan prayer for wisdom and compassion), sky gazing, yoga, teachings on the sutras (the talks given by Siddhartha Gautama), or even contemplative walks through the woods. There are dozens of retreat possibilities all over Texas: The Margaret Austin Center in Chappell Hill (800-836-4757; www.macenter.org), one hour northwest of Houston, hosts a variety of spiritually oriented retreats, including several devoted to dance-movement meditation. The Southwest Vipassana Meditation Center (214-521-5258; www.siri.dhamma.org), near Dallas, sponsors ten-day retreats that focus on a technique of meditation, first used more than 2,500 years ago in India, that gives a deeper insight into the nature of reality; the retreats are free, including food and lodging. The San Antonio Shambhala Center (210-647-1804; www.shambhala.org) sponsors weekend retreats devoted to “mindfulness-awareness meditation” as well as meditation instruction, group discussions, and individual interviews, all by appointment.
It is now even possible to attend a Buddhist academy in Texas. Since February 1998, Jade Buddha Temple’s handsome three-acre campus in far southwest Houston has been home to the Texas Buddhist College (281-498-1616; www.jadebuddha. org). Twice a year the school offers an intensive twelve-week course to laypersons interested in an increased understanding of Buddhist practices; about sixty students were enrolled in the last session. In addition to the college, Jade Buddha Temple sponsors four-day meditation retreats, youth summer camps with lessons and activities centered on topics such as “Loving Kindness” and “The Environment,” and free meditation classes. What started in 1979 with ten Chinese Buddhists who held their meetings in a shopping mall has evolved into a world-class spiritual center that has been visited by the Dalai Lama and numbers more than 1,400 members.
According to Lama Surya Das, the author of the best-selling Awakening the Buddha Within (and whose popular chant tapes were produced in Austin), there are now about five million Buddhists and three thousand meditation centers in North America. “What I call ‘stealth dharma’ is invading every aspect of society,” he says. “It has already made a large contribution in psychotherapy and in the field of death and dying. Doctors are recommending that patients meditate for their hypertension. You see the Zen aesthetic in architecture and gardening. Yoga and tai chi and natural eating are being taught at the local YMCA. Buddhism is a kind of fad now, with Hollywood and all, but as the sizzle fades the substance will remain.”
Anne Klein agrees. “There’s really a sense now of Buddhism having its own community in Texas. What’s happening with Buddhism in Houston is amazing. When we came here in 1989, there was almost nothing. Now visits by the Dalai Lama and other Tibetan teachers draw hundreds of people. There’s a hunger for ritual and for practices of stillness and love and opening. These are not things that our secularized culture has really been called on to provide. Buddhism provides them.”
Perhaps it’s worth noting that Texan Buddhists don’t always wear maroon and saffron-colored silk robes or shave their heads. Brenham-born singer-songwriter Darden Smith is a dharma practitioner. League City (population: 45,000) is home to the Fighting Wildcats high school football team and the Diamond Way Buddhist Center. Wooden mala meditation beads rattle around the wrists of Fort Worth architects, fiddle players at Austin’s Broken Spoke saloon, firefighters in El Paso, the grandmother handing out sandwiches at the local church’s soup kitchen, and maybe even your child’s kindergarten teacher. Whether in Tibet or Tyler, practicing dharma means being a mindful parent, a patient and faithful spouse. It means slowing down. Letting go. Lowering your fork after each bite. And offering the world a knowing half-smile when you hear Kris Kristofferson or Janis Joplin sing, “Freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose.”
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