I'm stunned. Really. This site has been online for about one month. In that short time, we've logged more than 1,200 unique visitors from 32 countries and served up almost 11,000 pageviews. For a new, tiny site about a fairly obscure topic, that's significant traffic.
Before we launched, I questioned the need for another Nichiren site. Message boards and blogs abound. Plus, I didn't want to get back in the fray. Nichiren practitioners aren't known for genteel manners. Online debate can become exhausting.
Plus, there's the Bowling Club. Mroaks observed, "Bowling -- ryhmes with controlling." I would add, "Club -- as in cudgel."
In my past dealings with the Bowling Club, I had to retain a sharp, flinty lawyer. I paid for excellent legal services and advice, but the best advice I received was in the form of a personal aside, said with genuine concern, "If I were you, I would get as far away from that organization as possible."
Indeed. So I have.
My preference is that this site will say nothing about the Bowling Club, not even obliquely, not even by mockingly calling it the Bowling Club. I know this is unrealistic.
What I've discovered is that the Bowling Club is completely unnecessary for those studying and practicing Nichiren Buddhism. In my opinion, involvement with the club eventually becomes an impediment. Others have come to this conclusion, too. How the Club becomes an impediment and why can be fascinating subjects for discussion. I don't want to shut anyone up about it.
But. I think we'd all do better to just move on. Leave the Club in the past like a bad dream and be glad we woke up. Others will wake up, too -- or not. It's not our job to make them see things the way we do.
It's our "job" to apply Namu-myoho-renge-kyo to our own lives and ride the waves.
Some people want a defined community that they can identify with, something that directly nurtures their Buddhist practice. That's fine. That's great, even. In my opinion, not all Nichiren groups are equally efficacious in this regard. I don't want to shut anyone up about this, either.
But. I'm not comfortable with practitioners trying to recruit others into their Buddhist "family."
I like my biological/legal family just fine. I don't need to join a new family. I don't need to adopt a new Buddhist name. People who talk about religious or social associations as "families" freak me the hell out. I doubt I'm alone in this regard.
I'm interested in developing my understanding and practice of Nichiren Buddhism as I am, within the context of the family I have, the work I do, the society in which I live, and the city and country I call home. I'm not going to join anything or abandon anything. I'm not comfortable telling others to join or abandon anything.
So, I wish this website would perfectly reflect my own precious prejudices and opinions. But that's not going to happen. Because this isn't really "my" website. It belongs to whoever reads and contributes to it.
A Denver columnist recently wrote about Wikipedia and The Tragedy of the Commons. He observed:
...Wikipedia appears to be the precise reverse of The Tragedy of the Commons - a collectively maintained and "owned" resource that produces huge benefits to its community of users, while all the costs are borne by a small number of individuals. An online encyclopedia that can be edited by anyone, Wikipedia constantly is improving in quality because the sum of its editing process is positive over time....In his new book, Here Comes Everybody, NYU professor Clay Shirky asks the obvious question: Given the way the process of creating and maintaining Wikipedia distributes its costs and benefits, why hasn't it been destroyed by free-riding and vandalism, like an over-grazed pasture or the North Atlantic cod population?
The answer, he says, is that the project is like Japan's Ise Shrine, which for more than 1,300 years has been torn down and rebuilt from scratch in every generation by the Shinto priests who maintain it (they have done so 61 times now).
"Wikipedia," Shirky notes, "is a Shinto shrine; it exists not as an edifice but as an act of love. Like the Ise Shrine, Wikipedia exists because enough people love it and, more important, love one another in its context."
My hope is that we can all have a hand in building BuddhaJones in a similar spirit. No, not as a Shinto edifice, but as a river of ideas and experiences related to Nichiren Buddhism.
Thanks for visiting.
9 comments
The topics of emotional manipulation and undue influence are relevant when discussing religious groups in general. I do feel strongly that these are important topics to address within the Nichiren community, and should absolutely be discussed until everyone becomes aware.The group-as-family metaphor is a sure signal that emotional manipulation is being used. The family metaphor can be used to infantilize members:"We are your family. In families, everyone plays a role. The guru/sensei/priest is like your father, the authority of the family. Members are like the children. You must be obedient because you are not yet ready to be an adult in this group."The family metaphor can be used to shame members into submission: "Criticizing the group is like criticizing your own family, which is like criticizing yourself. Only an ingrate looks down on his own family. After all your father has done for you, this is how you repay him?"The family metaphor can be used to subjugate women: "Women play an important supporting role in the group, even though it seems as if the men have all the power. Women take care of the 'children' and make sure the needs of the men are met. This is crucial for our religious movement, therefore it makes no sense for women in the group to want parity with men."The family metaphor can be used to persuade members that they can never leave the group: "We are the ones who brought you into this religion and raised you in faith, so even if you walk away (ingrate!) you can never really leave. We will always be a part of you, and you will always belong to us."These are very real examples of how the family metaphor is used to manipulate and pressure members of some groups. There are more tactics and techniques that everyone on a spiritual path should know about. We so easy fall prey to "teachings" that lead us away from liberation when we are vulnerable and open to new friendships and ideas.Perhaps I will write a primer on Spiritual Self-Defense and post it here.
Beryl,Congrats on the success of your site. This is obviously indicative that there is a lot of interest in Nichiren Buddhism for many good reasons. I am glad to see you have kept the usual invective down here and duly appreciate that.I am a member of said Bowling Club. I am very interested not only in where and how and to what degree it is not leading to the members' happiness, and what, if anything, can be done so that the members who wish to practice in this way can do so successfully.Maybe this is undercover or dangerous for me to think this way. Maybe nobody else cares.Another topic in which I am quite interested is what in other forms of Nichiren Buddhism works and why and how successfully. Does it really matter regarding the effects of our daimoku (mantra recitation) whether we revere Shakyamuni or Nichiren as the timeless Buddha without beginning? And would we just brag about the efficacy of Namu vs. Nam? This is said without any thought of conversion involved.I am interested in what other Nichiren sects think and do. How they practice. Is compassion their vanguard or is their doctrine?I hope these aren't excisable thoughts, but then, maybe no one else cares about this stuff.Armchair.
Dear Auntie,Do NONE of the many sects & schisms of Nichiren Buddhism have female priests? I'm very new to the practice but if that is so, It's just as retrograde as the Roman Catholic Church (where one early church father said, in his woman-loathing doctrine, "Man is born between urine and feces."I don't know who here is SFI and most probably that came about to demolish hierarchal cult-like control.Althogh this suggestion attenuates the top-down goal of SFI, but as long as there exists a group such as SFI, as well as our beloved www.buddhajones.com, why not consider a 38th (?) sczimatic Nichiren organization that is goverened not by High Prists or High Laymen, but by consensus and a Flower Garland of the feminine ordained into the consus, egalitarion order?
are ordained by Nichiren Shu.
Robin it feels great to know this :-) I have no way of knowing if they treat them as equals but it seems reasonable to BELIEVE they would (fugue to a post to follow ;-) I've met some really nice people in Nichiren Shu & most of my scads of Gohonzans are Nichiren Shu (I recently read they are the most liberal for getting practitioners. The qote, "they give them away to people who don't even ask for them" ;-)I don't know (or greatly care) where everyone hangs ther hats on their religios journey. but Suzanne and the US Nichiran Head Temple have really walked their spiritual path and certainly impressed me. Although we two here are JaiGonhon ecclectic sect s at least until or practice and study might lead us to the bowling alley (j/k) we both feel.very comfortable with the FAITH we have begun to give birth to. You & Frank are another two who walk your talk no matter if you are in one of the hierarchal Oxford Bowling Shoe soft shoe glee clubs. Thanks for all the Gohonzon time you spent on mine: you are a scholar (one in truth.).Jai
I hope some of Lisa's writing makes its way back to this site. Or maybe it is here somewhere. . .and I just haven't discovered it yet. Loved UP.
I would love to see a primer on "Spiritual Self-Defense" at this website. Cheers,Kris
That's really all I have to say. Oh, and, Congratulations on the site! Brian(former Bowling Club member)
The transmission, I presume. Are you going to ask the same question every week and make no other contrib. to the conversation? She's in Denver, obviously. It's called Google. You're welcome. Where are you?