Reverend Ryuei, the Universal Universalist "Nichiren" Shu priest, unfortunately, is not alone.

"I've noticed over the years that people are deeply offended and/or disturbed

when I express what I really think about things. That is why more and more I

have been dropping off my participation in any of these groups and only really

dealing with people I know and practice with face-to-face where there is a

situation of ongoing trust and communication. Also, I think too may of these

discussion just hash and rehash and go around in circles about things that I

have lost interest in. Pretty much from now on all my future thoughts about

Buddhism will be written on my blog in various articles or essays - though that

is not a total promise to never post again elsewhere, it is just that I probably

won't be posting much elsewhere anymore.

Part of that is that I am no longer working in a boring dead-end job stashed

away in a cubicle with a computer for hours on end everyday doing mind numbing

clerical work. At that time, internet communications were my only outlet. I have

now moved on to work that I find much more engaging, social, and enjoyable. Thus

my need for internet communication isn't so acute and the times when I am online

are not so much anymore.

However, I'd like to take this opportunity to make some comments about my own

spirituality and where I am coming from.

The first thing is that when I was in high school and first got interested in

Buddhism I was also very much into magical thinking and I really believed in the

reincarnation, karma,and God, and Jesus, and ceremonial magic and so forth and

so on. Zen first caught my attention because its koans were like the parables

and anecdotes of Jesus only with more depth and there were more of them. I was

also fond of Sufi stories too. I loved the Tao Te Ching and any mystical thing

that I could find. This was what I think of as my Hippy Taoist Marshmallow

Phase.

Then came the overwrought existential crises b.s. of later adolescence and it

was at that time I took up with SGI (for only two years) and then Won Buddhism

(an association that lasted from the late 80's to late 90's and I am still on

very good terms with them). During that phase I tried very hard to reconcile

Christianity and Buddhism as I wanted to have my spiritual cake and eat it too.

This was NOT an academic exercise with me at the time, though I took an academic

way of working through it. I really felt caught in the middle between the

transcendent promises of grace of Christianity and Buddhism with its teachings

about awakening and spiritual cultivation. Both made sense but both contained

elements that I recognized as irreconcilable at that time. Those much older than

me who had been trying to do the same thing (Roger Corless) told me personally

that I was trying to do the impossible and wished me luck. The thing is that it

was such a crises for me because I really really believed or wanted to believe

that both cosmologies (Christian and Buddhist) were real and really operative in

our lives. I didn't want either to be false or at least not totally falsified.

When I went to the Institute of Culture and Creation Spirituality to earn an

M.A. in Spirituality (please don't laugh) at Holy Names College one of the

things I was trying to do there was to find a balance and harmony between

Eastern and Western spirituality, between philosophy and the arts. While there I

wrote a thesis on the process philosophy of Alfred North Whitehead hoping to

find a bridge there between the process theologians inspired by him and

Buddhism. However, I also took classes on Wicca (with Starhawk), guitar, and tai

chi. This is one reason that I am really sick to death of people dismissing me

as an academic or intellectual. I understand it because all anyone here knows of

me is what I write but my spiritual path has always been EXTREMELY VISCERAL. It

has always involved bodily practices - whether sitting still for long periods or

chanting for long periods or performing elaborate ceremonies (whether Wicca or

Kabbalistic) or playing guitar or drumming or doing tai chi. Any spirituality

that is nothing more than creeds, theologies, or the recitation of words leaves

me cold and bored and unengaged. I am actually offended, to be honest, when

people consider me an intellectual or academic because I feel that is a

dismissive misunderstanding of what I am really all about. Still, I understand

why there is that impression.

Anyway, it was at that program that I really began to lost interest in theology

and philosophy. I lost interest in it. I saw that it was all just theory and

conjecture not rooted in concrete actuality but in abstractions about concrete

actuality. I also realized that all along my views of Christianity had been

primarily Buddhist. In my mind/heart Christianity was valued but Buddhism always

had the final word. It was at this point that I stopped worrying about whether I

was Buddhist or Christian. Dueling cosmologies no longer held an interest, and

in any case I realized all these metaphysical claims were extremely dubious

anyway and that what really mattered and held my interest and had practical

significance was what is really going on in and around me here and now. In

rereading the Buddha's teachings from that perspective (and it was about this

time that I was finally getting access to new and better translations of the

Pali Canon and Mahayana sutras) I saw with even more clarity than ever that what

was always being pointed to were actual practices and an awakening to what is

real right in front of us.

Metaphysical and theological claims and magical thinking and more overwrought

approaches to religion and spirituality became a kind of "been there done that"

thing with me at that point. Not that I no longer get worked up on occasion,

because of course I do. But I no longer take it all so seriously and I recognize

how extremely dubious all the claims made about reality are. What mattered to me

really changed. At that point I was still fascinated with and engaged by

Buddhist teachings and practices, esp. Nichiren Buddhism. At that point I wanted

to really get to the bottom of it. Did it still make sense even if I no longer

believed in it as a literal map of the metaphysical underpinnings of how things

work? Did NIchiren's reading of the Lotus Sutra really hold up in the face of my

broader and deeper knowledge of the Buddhist tradition? How about the Lotus

Sutra itself? All this time I was continuing my practice and even began training

to be ordained in the Nichiren Shu. I mention this because my writings like

Dharma Flower and my articles on the Life and Teachings of Shakyamuni Buddha,

and Lotus Seeds and Lotus World are all products of my attempts to double check

Nichiren Buddhism in light of what I had learned just as Nichiren himself double

checked everything by reading the sutras and treatises available to him; BUT AT

THE SAME TIME I was engaged in something that my writings do not express - I was

sitting for hours on end in seiza chanting the sutra and Odaimoku, I was

deepening my practice of silent sitting with Taigen Dan Leighton, I was engaged

in a very visceral and physical practice of the Dharma. This period was a time

of holistic practice and study of the Dharma, a body-mind endeavor that was

never ever a merely academic or intellectual one. It was also not one that any

longer depended on literal beliefs in anything metaphysical or in any invisible

entities or afterlife states or spiritual realms. It was not a rejection of any

of that either, but it no longer depended on such things.

I am now at a point where I look back and I think that many of the things I used

to care about so passionately and argued about so vehemently were just silly,

stupid, petty, and ridiculous. I now find such things tedious. Of course decades

from now I might read this and think the same thing about it. That is the

process of getting older and growing (or decaying?) into new perspectives -

hopefully deeper and broader but I won't take that for granted. Consequently I

more and more want to leave such things to those who are still interested in

them - metaphysical entities, tit for tat versions of causality, reincarnation,

gods and demons, transcendent saviors, magical (or magickal if you will)

principles and so forth and so on.

Am I still a Nichiren Shu Buddhist? Well, I still function as a minister and pay

my dues as such, and am in good standing in the big tent that is Nichiren Shu.

My approach to Nichiren Buddhism is, I believe, within the parameters of what

Nichiren Shu teaches and advocates but I also know that my views are not

necessarily shared by everyone within Nichiren Shu nor do I necessarily share

the exact views of other Nichiren Shu members or ministers and I am okay with

that just as for the most part they seem to be okay with me. But do I think of

myself as a Nichiren Shu Buddhist? Yes, I do. It is my community, I feel very

loyal to it, I have been trained and ordained by it (though my training is not

exclusively via Nichiren Shu), it is my lineage, and it is one that I would like

to share with others if possible and I continue to make it available to others

through my Sunday activities and online articles. On the other hand I am no

longer worked up about sectarian boundaries or rivalries, and I see a unity in

all the traditions of Buddhism that I think others miss to their detriment (in

my view). I also see the One Vehicle as reaching out in a deeply ecumenical way

to other traditions, fields, and endeavors. This is not to say that everything

is okay and acceptable, but it is to say that being critical and condemnatory is

no longer my thing - discernment is, and looking for what is wholesome is more

and more my thing (or at least I want it to be).

Basically I am going on my own way and if it offends others I am sorry it is not

my intention to offend you, it is my intention to be honestly who I am. If what

I do inspires others that is gratifying to me but not something I really want to

dwell on nor something I should focus on, rather just being honest and true to

myself and to what each situation really calls for is what I should focus on."

That is all.

Namu Myoho Renge Kyo,

Ryuei