Long thread - Yay Fediverse Blog Posts

Thread Topic: Creating a Buddhist sangha in my home town
w/ discussions on a couple Buddhist denominations

Heavy Note: I am not an expert in Buddhism. This is my take and my experience. These are not complete thoughts nor should they be seen as an exhaustive dive into these denominations. I most certainly misunderstand a lot of things. So, take it as a perspective - not as a representation of - these denominations.

So I dived into Buddhism a couple years back and I want to type out some quick thoughts on two different "denominations" (sects, traditions, practices) of Buddhism that I've experienced and am looking into.

Living in the US, I wanted to join an in person sangha (temple, church, group of practictioners) that:
- Had English services
- Wasn't primarily created to serve an expat or immigrant population (these are great! I just didn't want to crash their party, so to speak.)
- Was not a cult (There aren't many cults disguised as Buddhism. There are some, sure, but not nearly as many cults disguised as Christian, for example).
- Had infrastructure, apparatus, policies, to prevent abuse. (I won't get into this here, but think of things like transparency, not allowing strict master/pupil dichonomy, holding folks accountable, etc)

In addition to those requirements, I had a couple nice to haves:
- Approachable from a "lay" perspective. Basically, I'm not a monk and don't want to be a monk right now. The traditional term is "householder" but that can be dated and out of context.
- Focused on being active in community. Retreats are great. They're even needed sometimes. But I need to address my community and my family while addressing myself.
- I'm not a big proponent of heirarchy. Many religions have strict heirarchy. So I would prefer lay peer groups with educated and skilled organizers and speakers as opposed to a strict stratefication between a priest/clergy/monk caste and a follower/listener/pupil class. I don't mind the concepts of monks or priests, so long as they're not seen as infallible or untouchable.

There aren't a great many options for Buddhism in the US, but there are some solid ones. I'll speak to my experiences, but if you have other insight - different groups, denominations, outside the US, etc - let me know.

So I'm in northernish Virginia (eastern United States). There is one tiny meditation group in town that has Buddhist roots - but meditation is only one part of Buddhism. In fact, this is an issue through the US. So many "buddhist" groups only focus on meditation. While all of them flow together, there are several other aspects to the eightfold noble path besides just meditation. Adding to this, in searching for Buddhism, sometimes I only find meditation centric groups that have nothing to do with Buddhism. Meditation is practiced by many religions, for one. But these groups seem to practice meditation without anything else. Which... can be problematic. Hell, we practiced various forms of meditation in the US Marine Corps as we meditated on our rifles and chanted the Rifleman's prayer. Right. Sooo... meditation is a tool and without a guiding purpose it seems rather empty.

There's a rabbit hole. Back to Buddhism.

I recently dived into a denomination called Shin Buddhism. Shin Buddhism, or Jodo Shinshu, has a very rich history and comes from Japan. It arrived in the US on the west coast and was originally an "expat" religion and served Japanese folks, Japanese Americans, and their families. You know the internment/concentration camps that we threw our Japanese American citizens into during WWII? Many of those folks and the Buddhist priests that we tossed in were Shin Buddhist. In the US, the biggest Shin Buddhist organization is the Buddhist Churches of America (BCA: https://www.buddhistchurchesofamerica.org/ ). The term church here is interesting. After being locked up for their culture (it's the religion of our enemy!), they figured that if they looked more "American" they would be accepted more and survive.

A loooot goes into this, but for this post, I'll just highlight that the modern BCA has some of the following attributes:
- English services opened to all, not just Japanese or Japanese descended folks
- A temple/church that looks like a protestant church with pews/rows of chairs, and an area up front that houses focal points of the religion (where you might find a cross in a Christian church, you'll find a statue of a Buddha (often Amida/Amitabha Buddha, and not or not just the historical Siddartha Gotama Buddha - a little on this next) or the "Nembutsu" a focal chant central to the religion.
- A priest (no monks in Shin Buddhism, that's a big part of their history)
- Gathas (think Hymns) are sung.
- Group chanting and meditation
- And a dharma talk - or a sermon

It's VERY Protestant Christian coded. And that's on purpose. They wanted Americans to identify with them. While we could certainly go into the issues of "uncanny valley" as it relates to white/christian supremacy and how trying to be similar might backfire, I get their approach and their reasoning.

Cool thing, though, is it certainly works in a way intended - namely that if you are not familiar with Buddhism but have experience in Christianity, you can walk into a BCA Temple/Church and feel right at home. Different "god" (not a god). Different message of "salvation". But the flow matches. You can "hot swap" it with Christianity and it fits.

For me.... it fit a little too close.

There's a joke that Shin Buddhism is akin to "Christian Buddhism" - this isn't true at all, but on a very surface level, the similarities are striking.
- There is a focus on the afterlife (instead of reaching enlightenment in this life, or reaching enlightenment over several lives, practictioners seek to be reborn into a "Pure Land" that allows for easier/guaranteed enlightenment)
- There is a focus on a central "celestial" powerful entity. Amida/Amitabha Buddha is not a god in the Christian sense and Amida Buddha's Pure Land is not the same as the Christian heaven, but dang are they presented in very similar fashion
- There is a focus that we are not good enough to gain enlightenment on our own and need help. Again, not the same as the abusive/toxic relationship in many high demand evangelical christian sects, but it was way too close for comfort

There are several things that I really like about Shin Buddhism.

The biggest thing is that I can take my family there. They have "Dharma School" (akin to Sunday school) for the kids. While there is some meditation during the service, it's not a lot and even small children can sit through it with a minimal amount of fidgeting.

So many Buddhist groups in the US that cater to English speaking attendants are all about the individual. You sit for meditation for an hour. You do prostrations. You are meant to arrive as an individual and practice as an individual. They aren't family centric at all. (many of the expat and cultural-specific sanghas absolutely are family centric... but many of the ones that cater to English speaking folks aren't). This has historical ties to how Buddhism was introduced and is currently practiced in the US... and again, I get it, but its not what I need. Shin Buddhist groups are often family centric. That's amazing.

And in that regard, they are directed towards folks living lives outside of the religion. They have services on Sunday mornings, because culturally that's when Americans that do practice religion, practice it. They have the occassionally weekday evening thing for specific areas of practice because we have jobs, etc.

Lastly, I love love love the "Boddhisatva" approach to Buddhism. The whole "I will not enter into Nirvana until I have helped others end their suffering and achieve awakening first" - That's neat. It's very communal. I like that.

So, even with the issues that I have with some aspects of the denomination, all in all, Shin Buddhism is great.

Big pragmatic problem for me, though, is I have to drive an hour and a half to get to my sangha (three hour drives plus one to two hours at the temple means my entire Sunday is gone).

I wanted to create a local group in my small town under the BCA aegis, but that's not feasible. The BCA, while wanting to expand, is not in a position to *help* expand. There are many reasons for this, some of which cause me great frustration, but it is what it is. And I accept it.

For the last year, I've served on the Board of Directors at my "local" temple. And it has been frustrating to say the least. For a religion with the concept of "Impermanence" as a central tenant and observation - they are surprisingly (maybe not so surprisingly as I dived into root cause analysis on it) steeped in tradition and are surprisingly resistant to change.

Anyhow.

I really like Shin Buddhism. And I really like the BCA. And I will continue to attend BCA temples when I am in town (I attend the New York Buddhist Church every time I go to Manhattan).

That said, I really need a local Buddhist group in town and creating one under the BCA is not feasible at this point.

So. I've looked into two other options.

There is the North American Shin Buddhist Association (NASBA - which... ugh... whatever...). (https://bffct.org/bff/nasba/) This is basically a lay lead Shin Buddhist group. It's the same denomination as the BCA, just with different leadership. It's very much a group of groups. Non-hierarchical, which I like, and enough of a Code of Conduct that it lends legitimacy to groups that are a part of it. (eg if a local group did something heinous, at minimum they would be kicked out - so one aspect of a system of accountability).

If I were to create a local group with Shin Buddhism, or Pure Land Buddhism in general, I'd probably try and work with this group.

But, for the... what's the word for theological when you not operate within a theistic religion? Anyhow, but for... core-tenants of a specific practice reason, I really don't relate to Pure Land versions of Buddhism.

But I also don't really relate to the many of the monastic and Theravadan approaches to Buddhism as well.

So where does that leave me?

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