Reader letters to BuddhaJones.com. Letters are separated by blank lines or bold headings.

Suggestions

I wish you would appeal more to my consumer instincts. Throw in some e-commerce or a shopping cart widget so I can feel that I am shopping as I read the articles. Can I have Brooke's phone number?
Abe

I forgot my other request. Can you please post a recipe for coconut flan or some Leonard Cohen lyrics? Your choice.
Abe

The Editor responds: Please click here. unavailable


Top Ten Reasons to Chant

Right on target, Terri Moore unavailable! Good job!
Maggie


Sex or Love?

Thanks everyone who sent me messages about "Nichiren the Lover." unavailable The statement that I want to make at this time is this: Love and sex have very little to do with each other. The minute you say "love," why do some people act as if you said "sex"? Is that a guy thing? Same with the word "passion."

Equating love and sex sounds to me like a Christian-ish way of "legitimizing" one's sexuality. Mentally merging sex with love somehow sanctifies the sex part of it and makes it OK. But sex is OK all by itself, without mixing it up with love. One's sexuality does not need to be legitimized. I am talking about natural sexuality, like natural hunger -- I do not mean the artificial appetite of dulled sensitivity and crass commercialization. Gay, straight, whatever -- sexuality is what it is -- and it's a good thing (as Martha-Stewarty as that sounds). But it is NOT love.

If you love a tree, do you want to have sex with it? If you love a work of art or a beautiful sunset, do you want to have sex with it? Do you feel like you have to possess it materially in some way? If so, I think that's a sign of delusional thinking. People always say, "But there are different kinds of love! There is love between friends and family and there is love between lovers, all these different kinds..." But no, there is only one "kind" of love -- and I do believe it is synonymous with compassion and kindness. Sex is something else.

This is where I'm coming from when I say that Nichiren was a lover -- I do not mean to suggest that he was a swinger. (yeah baby) Thanks again for all the feedback on this topic -- I look forward to reading more!
Brooke St. G



Positive Reinforcement

Aaaahhhhhhh.....
Barbara Pettitt


Hi, Just wanted to say I love the web site. How can you go wrong with a site named "Buddha Jones"? (Speaking of names, I do not for a second think that guy's name really is George Spelvin. I've seen a lot of '70's pornography.) Truly hilarious. Keep up the good work.
Peace, Amber R.


It's refreshing to see a bunch of Buddhaheads poking fun at themselves! If people are uptight about this site, they are taking things way too seriously. Yes cause and effect is strict, and yes there are major, medium and minor causes, but I don't think this is "sacrilegious". Some of the funniest people I know are the one who have the strictest personal practice. You've got my vote.
from a YMD Yankee now in Hong Kong


thanks for the lift. very enjoyable. my site is also a money losing venture, but I love it anyway
Dixon Hamby
http://www.idixon.com/



Buddhism Is Inclusive

Your site was not the first place I have heard the notion that such-and-so is not part of Buddhism. I have heard people say, "Guilt is not a part of Buddhism." And "God is not a part of Buddhism." And, most recently on your site, "Love is not a part of Buddhism." Here is a rule of thumb, should a similar discussion arise in the future: If it exists in the human heart, it is a part of Buddhism. If it exists in the phenomenal world -- even beyond the abilities of our five senses to fully apprehend -- it is a part of Buddhism.

The primary teachings of Buddhism are about the nature of life itself, and specifically, the nature of human life as both microcosm and macrocosm. To say that Buddhism is inclusive is not expansive enough. Buddhism excludes nothing. As Nichiren Daishonin so sagely observed: "No affairs of work or daily life are in any way separate from the ultimate reality."
Tony Alamo


I did a search for the word "love" in the writings of Nichiren Daishonin on www.gosho.net. He uses the word love, mostly in the context of talking about a mother's love for her baby. He compares a Buddha's feelings toward common mortals to the way a mother feels about her baby. There were other instances too. Next I will look up "long," "longing" and "yearn." Hope this helps.
Deborah C.


Hanlen in Spain

I was surprised to read the travel notes by Andy Hanlen. I recognized his name because I have seen it on the Internet, mostly in articles that lambaste the SGI-USA. I have often wondered if he and I practice Buddhism within the same organization. To hear him tell it, the SGI-USA is a terrible place full of authoritarian leaders and mindless followers. Now it all makes sense! He's not even in the USA. I like Mr. Hanlen's sense of humor and hope he will write more amusing anecdotes and less invective.
Robin P.


Great Personages at the LA Sports Arena

This Hillcrest fellow hits the nail on the head unavailable. It is not President Ikeda who encourages his own idolization. It is those who run the show (figure of speech) in this country who oversell this business about "making sensei's heart our own." No doubt they are sincere in their respect for the man, as am I. But I do not trust that they practice as they preach.
BtMoore


I thought Ben made a fine point. I wonder simply if he has sent this letter, exactly as is, to President Ikeda, and to the local (USA) leaders.
TL in Seattle


Ben Hillcrest replies: Your suggestion makes such good sense that it never even occurred to me! Last year, I gave up hope that anyone would listen. Maybe it is time for me to dust off my letterhead.


Regarding "Nichiren the Lover"

What's all this about Nichiren shagging?
ChaBella1


I just read an article on your site about Nichiren the Lover unavailable at Urth Caffe. It was a sweet article and I am happy to have found your site. I practice Nichiren's Buddhism in Bristol UK. The article once again opened up a subject I ponder much upon. In all the Buddhist sutras and treatises, goshos and major and lesser writings, we do not find this word 'love'. It does not exist in Buddhism.

Love is an oft misused word here at the Western world. We use it to infer romantic love, lust, longing, compassion, even pity. But in the east there is no such thing. Buddhists have 'Jihi' which is compassion for all things. To call Nichiren 'a lover' is perhaps to confer on him attributes which we share as humans but we describe using this word exclusively here at the Western world.

Considering the only representations of him (statues) I have ever seen, Nichiren was somewhat akin to Quasimodo in appearance. This does not go down well with the girls :-)

Like that unfortunate up in Notre Dame, Nichiren must have known that to "go there" as you Americans would have it, would cause much suffering. No one talks about the physical desires of sages because they aren't supposed to have any, but he was a man and as such, Buddha or not, must have had to deal with these longings. That he was lonely is probably undisputable, although he had his long term friend and disciple Nikko Shonin as a constant companion, even on Sado.

No, I think Nichiren was not a lover as we understand it in the west; As he wrote in his Gosho, 'of all the millions of tears that one has shed for wives, girlfriends, lovers, and mothers in countless lifetimes, not one have you shed for the Lotus Sutra.' (paraphrased sorry). That he was a very emotional person is also I feel without doubt, but his emotion was from such a high life state, that 'physical love', the attraction of the opposites in flesh, did not enter into it.

My feeling is that Nichiren was in 'love' or felt 'jihi' for all life, including his own and especially those of his followers and disciples, but most of all, he 'loved' the Lotus Sutra and that fundamental energy that resides within it, expressed as the Gohonzon of the Three Great Secret Laws, the power of which can save all *people* (hey girls, not just men, you know ! )from the suffering desires such as 'physical Love' inevitably bring.

The East, after all, always considered physical love as simply an act of 'friction' which, when blood and sperm are mixed, produces more humans (and lets face it there are more than enough of those right now). I'm not going to go into the hundreds, ney thousands of treatises and sutras written on how to raise the powerful and restless energy that resides in the loins up through the spine to the brain (Kundalini Yoga etc etc), a most dangerous passage, frought with peril and terrible side effects if not handled properly, but hey, as Nichiren Buddhists we don't have to worry about that, since we are Buddhas exactly as we are :-)

OK I've gone on too long already but I'll conclude by asking everyone not to confuse our western notions of 'love' with Jihi or compassion, since I really don't think the two are in any way similar. I would be interested however, to hear from anyone on this subject as you can tell by my writing this that I'm not quite enlightened on this subject and would welcome anyone's comments :-) Neener, neener to you too.
Nam Myoho Renge Kyo
Marco