| It's not as if the web came along and all of a sudden we're at each other's throats. The Internet has simply allowed more practitioners worldwide to get in on the debate. And this has been enormously valuable and transformative -- harsh speech included.
Let me offer a couple of examples.
Years ago, BuddhaJones posted a video online that many referred to, angrily, as the Dancing Gohonzon. I was one of the admins for the early site, so I was able to see first-hand the scorching hate mail pious Buddhist sent in.
Around the same time, Don Ross was putting Gohonzon images online and distributing the amazing Prayer Gohonzon, a mandala in Nichiren's hand that people could accept without having to join an organized group. I don't know what kind of hate mail Don received, but I know he was vilified loudly and slandered by righteous Buddhists.
In both those cases, the debate was fierce, ugly and personal. At the root, the issues themselves were fierce, ugly and personal. Who controls the Gohonzon? What is it? Where is it? What does it mean to my practice?
In the heat of the online argument, people had to confront and articulate their deepest assumptions about the object of devotion at the very center of Nichiren practice.
Today, it's not such a big deal anymore. Our sangha collectively worked through the issues involved, partly by screaming at one another.
Maybe it was painful for some to witness, but it was real. In Nichiren Buddhism, frankness trumps politeness.
A searing, emotionally honest, seemingly unskillful, often inarticulate statement of frustration or dismay is worth so much more than a detached nod of the head or gentle platitude. You can't resolve your shit if you can't acknowledge or express your shit.
One thing I love about the Nichiren community is that we definitely have our shit, and we put it all out there.
Other Buddhists find this disgraceful, of course. The reigning assumption is that anyone who calls him- or herself a Buddhist teacher should be treated with utmost respect. Buddhist students should respectfully defer to their teachers.
That's bunk, as many of us know from bitter experience with, say, the abusive organizational dynamics of SGI.
Not long ago, Tricycle lauded Daisaku Ikeda with a fawning, totally uncritical article. The magazine's editor was taken aback that their lovey-dovey feature was greeted with such rancor by Nichiren Buddhists on this site.
What? We're supposed to shut up and nod in agreement at what we know is untrue?
That's Buddhism? No, that's messed up.
This most recent Tricycle article about "internet bullies" looks to me like an attempt to make Buddhists feel guilty for speaking up and stirring the pot.
The point of practicing Buddhism is to wake up. Maybe a gentle word will do the trick for some people. More helpful, I think, is the shrill, relentless alarm clock of knock-down-drag-out Nichiren-fired debate.
Bring it. |
