A Bouquet of Flowers: Practicing Across Buddhist Traditions
by Doreen Schweizer
Unlike in the earliest days of the Buddha, we modern-day Dharma practitioners are exposed to many different Buddhist traditions––often somewhat superficially through mass-media coverage––but also at times through careful reading and exploration.
Such study can enrich our understanding and support the development of compassion, wisdom, and ethical behavior. However, sometimes cross-traditional attempts can become confusing and can even dilute the transformative power of the teachings. How can we explore beyond our Insight Meditation tradition in a way that is beneficial?
Some years ago, Bhikkhu Analayo, Buddhist monk and scholar, spoke to this question in an interview at the Barre Center for Buddhist Studies (BCBS).
He addressed the historical developments of Buddhism over time, as well as the influences that the various countries and cultures have had on it. Different emphases, practices, metaphors, stories, and even different views of the Buddha have arisen. However, there is always a shared, basic, intentional beneficence at the core of these teachings. This central concern is the transformation of a person from a self-centered focus towards a wise and stable, compassionate view, one which enables us to meet the basic wobbliness of human existence with wise and appropriate action. We gradually, naturally, address our vulnerabilities––in regard to aging, illness, injury, death, and loss—with a balanced open-heartedness. We are liberated, free to trust and act from our clarity and an unshakeable sense of caring.
Bikkhu Analayo points out the value of learning about, and perhaps practicing within, various traditions, but he insists that we should not try to blend them into one entity. He compares each tradition to a flower, a beautiful flower with its own distinct, individual colors. We don’t want to put all the flowers into a blender, swish them around, and get some kind of gray, mishmash of a stew. Instead, if we proceed with care, we can create a lovely bouquet of flowers, each with its distinct color and fragrance intact.
Our Valley Insight Sangha member Ray Chin has a deep, ongoing understanding of, and practice within our Insight Meditation tradition. He also has a long, steady practice in a form of Buddhist Zen archery called kyudo. More recently, he has been engaged with the Thich Nhat Han Order of Interbeing. Recently, Ray was invited by this Order to give a kyudo demonstration along with a talk on the first two of the Fourteen Mindfulness Trainings. These trainings are a modern distillation of the traditional Bodhisattva precepts of Mahayana Buddhism and were created by Thich Nhat Hanh in Saigon in 1966. They have reverberations in the eightfold path teachings. Here is Ray’s beautiful offering: not a dull amalgamation, but a bouquet of many-colored flowers.
You do not practice kyudo to polish your form.
You practice kyudo to polish your heart.