Read the article. But it's a waste of time. I'm surprised at the article's cluelessness (and I'm not the only one -- NellaLou has her say here.)
The article cites examples to give readers a sense of how harsh and bullying some exchanges between Buddhists can be. But if you've skimmed Nichiren boards and blogs for even fifteen minutes, you'll see that the "bullying" exchanges cited in the article are laughably tame and cordial.
Nichiren Buddhists are notorious for getting down and dirty, as NellaLou points out in her rebuttal. This has been going on since the 13th century. If you want warmth, cuddles and sugary palliatives from your religious practice, don't become a Nichiren Buddhist...
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.
6 comments
It never ceases to amuse me how people characterize online behavior as "bullying" or "aggressive." In a real-life (that we even have different terms for real life and the Internet is telling) situation you can't always just walk away from bullies. But on the Internet, you can (unless it's extreme like the woman who drove a teen to suicide). I don't know how many times the Internet has given me the opportunity to practice equanimity by ignoring someone who's being a jerk. When I do choose to respond I'm aware that I am participating in the continuation or escalation of bad feelings. Sometimes I do it just for my own amusement, as I'm sure everyone has.On the other hand, many Buddhists excuse bad behavior, on and offline, by saying, "oh well, we're all human, working through our karma together," or "we're just a reflection of society." I call BS on that. Why shouldn't Buddhists strive for a higher standard if, as many of them say, their philosophy is superior to others?More troubling to me than all the acrimony is the willingness of some to argue about the same old shit, slinging the same old insults, day after day, for years on end. Don't they ever tire of it? I have (mostly).
Cultmember, I tire of it, too. Sometimes it does take discipline and I dare say compassion to restrain oneself from engaging in an online spat or escalating a debate.Brooke, I can agree with you up to a certain point. If the online debate gets to a point where personal threats are being made, I think it has crossed the line.As for "walking away," sometimes this is not possible in an online environment. I have seen some people (I won't name names) become obsessed with another participant and will not stop posting slanderous attacks, even after that person has withdrawn from the debate.Cyberstalking is a crime. Women seem to be more of a target. I know two or three women who have engaged in online (public) debate who subsequently received rather disturbing e-mails. I know of at least one case where this behavior was reported to authorities.So, Brooke, I support your point of view that heated debate is valuable, as long as the debate stays within the bonds of the law. Perhaps you assumed this as a given, but I wanted to clarify.
I clicked the link and it has different music from what I remembered from years ago. I remembered Stevie Wonder's Superstition as the music, which at the time I took to mean all the external excessive credulous beliefs that hover around it.
You remember right, joe. There was another clip with four Nichikan scrolls grooving to Superstition. The clip that brooke referenced actually preceded the Superstition version. People kept calling the "It's your thing" version "the Dancing Gohonzon." If I recall correctly, a contributor said: "You call that a dancing Gohonzon? I'll show you a dancing Gohonzon," and made the clip set to Superstition.
Having been on the receiving end of some personal attacks, I'm not 100 percent willing to say it's all good.But I think the Tricycle piece misunderstands something really fundamental about bullying. Mainly, bullies like to function in secret.Even if a person posts comments anonymously (or pseudonymously) on a public board, they're still participating in a public discussion and opening themselves up to criticism. They at least have the guts to say what they think and allow everyone to read it. Even if the person is being a total jerk, there's a public document of the exchange. I think that can be valuable.Anonymous e-mail messages that I have received related to my online statements have been far more nasty than anything written on a public board. Anonymous hate-mailers don't want a discussion, they want to hurt you in whatever way they can. That's bullying, IMO.The other point I want to make is that online bullying in Buddhism is just a tiny taste of the real-life bullying that happens in dubious sanghas. One of the very best things about the dawn of the Buddhist Internet is that it allowed SGI members to compare notes about abuses -- shunning, character assassination, "hate chanting" -- all around the world. I single out SGI only because I have first-hand knowledge of it, and witnessed how the Internet changed the game.Blogs and online message boards, for all their potential for abuse, have served to illuminate and (I hope) lessen the offline abuses committed in the name of "Buddhism."
"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."LOL... this is my first visit here in over a year and I find my name in the first article I read. Oh my.... ;-] But yes, Brooke, I received huge volumes of hate mail when I put all the Gohonzons online a decade ago. I call such emails, "drive by refutations." I still get them occasionally, but if they are posted publicly on my website, their IP address is banned from the Coffeehouse. If they mail them to me privately, their email address is blocked as well. Life is too short to be bullied by bullies. Cut off their balls!-Rev Don Ross, interfaith minister of the Amerine Retreat Center, imagining a world without hate