文章从Dinty W. Moore的一本有关佛教的书谈起，提到他发现有三种佛教在美国，英语论文范文，英语论文，即禅，上座部，藏之一。尽管在某些琐碎方面不同，但实质上它们是相同的。虽然他发现佛教源自亚洲可能不能很好地与现代美国社会相适应，但他获得了很多，也改变了他自己的看法。Dinty W. Moore在生活中无意间开始探究佛教在美国的近况。
Dinty W. Moore, the author of the book, the Accidental Buddhist, Mindfulness, Enlightenment, and Sitting Still, has an authentic upbringing of Catholicism. However, the God from his original religion has let him down since his youth hood is a mess. Some twenties years later when the writer stands at the door of a Buddhist monastery and explores the so-called American Buddhism Project, he suddenly finds his way. During the project, the author has visited different monasteries, Zen centers, retreats, and zendos, and met with editors of Buddhist magazines, Jesuit, Zen masters and even Dalai Lama, the living Buddha. Through this process, the author finds out there are three kinds of Buddhism in America, namely, the Zen, Theravada and Tibetan one. Though different in some trivial aspects essentially they are the same. Though he finally discovers that Buddhism originating from Asia may not well fit in with modern American society, the writer gains a lot and alters his views in life unintentionally while exploring the status quo of Buddhism in America. Therefore reading this book is like going for a spiritual journey and adventure along with the author. It’s instructive and entertaining. There are so many topics I want to discuss here based on this book, but due to space limitation, I would like to select some key elements regarding Buddhism according to the book, including meditation or sitting, enlightenment and the three principle aspects of the path to enlightenment, killing sentient things, karma, dukka and impermanence, and finally the relationship between making money and Buddhism.
First of all, meditation is the basic and primary practice in Buddhism or Zen. By sitting on a cushion for minutes or hours, practitioners may calm their mind and listen to the inner heart. In the beginning of this book, the author cannot sit there without thinking anything, because his “monkey mind” keeps whispering around his head. He has to count his breath so as to concentrate in the Zen Mountain Monastery. However, as time passes by, he can control the monkey better through gradual practicing. When I was reading this part, I cannot agree more with the author. Today the rapid growth of information technology brings both benefits and damages to people. We have so many things that need checking at one time, including Facebook, email, messages and so on. We are anxious about our job, family, friends and future before these things really go wrong. We play the mobile phone while talking with others in front of us, listen to music while running and watch TV while eating. It seems that we are accustomed to handling several tasks at the same time. However, that’s totally wrong. The modern technology and society have made us much more difficult to concentrate and easy to be distracted. The monkeys in our minds keep jumping from one place to another, making noisy voices of interruption. It’s like several small people quarrelling and fighting with one another, both retiring and troubling. Therefore the main goal of sitting or meditation is to quiet both the mind and heart, unravel the interwoven knots, bring every single thing before the light. After keeping an empty mind for a certain period of time, meditation may help people take a fresh view on things happening around them. It may be explained as that only through getting out of the thing, can we find its true nature. Therefore while meditating, we live out of the voices surrounding us for a certain length of time. Also it has been shown to be helpful to adjust the attitude towards life.
Secondly, let’s talk about enlightenment and the three principle aspects of the path to enlightenment. Based on the book, when an enlightened person is enjoying the sunset, his mind is only focused on this beautiful view, without any thought of job, future plan, children, school and other distractions, neither does he feel pitiful for the short existing of this magnificent scenery, while naturally turn to appreciating the stars after the sunset. One striking feature of an enlightened person is that he feels no attachment to anything. When things come, he only accepts it, while it goes, he does not grieve for it. In fact, according to Buddhism, most of our sufferings and agonies are caused by our strong attachment to things like success, families, job, friends and marriage, which themselves should not be blamed. Marriage itself is good, while our desire that marriage can bring happiness to us is wrong. We get married and hope to harvest happiness but finds out the opposite answer. It’s not the fault of others but our desire. Seeking from external things can never solve problems. Instead we should look into our heart, according to Buddhism. As a result, the Zen puts forward three principle aspects of the path to enlightenment, namely, craving for getting rid of problems, doing it for others and realization of emptiness. For instance, problems are weak points of humans and our desire and attachment to things block us from achieving real happiness. Moreover, the Buddha does all things for all sentient things, and then he achieves enlightenment. Finally, we need to understand that the world is a state of non-duality, meaning there are no difference between you and me, human, plants and animals. We are all the same, thus it’s unnecessary to envy or hate others because if you are angry with your colleague, it means that you are just pissed off by yourself since you two are the same person. Also the path to enlightenment is gradual.
Thirdly, what is killing the sentient things? People always have a misunderstanding that monks and nuns believing Buddhism are vegetarians. Before reading the book, I have the same view. However, the reality is that they eat the same food as us, such as pork, chicken and milk. If they really follow the rule of not killing any living creatures, then they may die because as he takes one step, some small ants right blew his shoes may lose their lives. Then he should never leave the house and eat nothing. But that’s also unacceptable since he is torturing himself. Buddhism believes human are sentient things.
Fourthly, let us discuss three popular terms used in Buddhism, karma, dukka and impermanence. Karma is that good action may bring happiness while bad one leads to suffering. Buddhism believes reincarnation and holds that the karma of this life is the result of former one and is important in deciding next life. We Chinese people are deeply influenced by this idea. In addition, dukka is our pain and suffering, perhaps caused by the karma of our previous life or attachment in this life. What’s more, as far as I’m concerned, impermanence is a rather object outlook. Buddhism argues that people may die at any time and we should always be prepared to that. Some people may find it pessimistic, while from another perspective, I think it warns us to value our life and really enjoy the present since we cannot know when it’s time to go. Also this impermanence view frees us from obsession with unimportant things so that we can really devote our time and energy into those meaningful ones since life is so unpredictable.
Fifthly, there is no contradiction between making money and being Buddhists according to the book. Buddhism does not insist that its believers must be poor. Instead it stresses more on no attachment to money. It’s good that people can make money because they may be capable of helping others and exert more positive influence on the world. However, Buddhism does not encourage people to worship and cling to money. It is easy to think of many examples to support this view. For instance, there are so many people around us who are rich but unhappy, only because they have become the slaves of money but hardly remember what it should be used for.
To conclude, with various distractions in today’s society, it is hard for us find a pure land. Buddhism teaches me that we should always seek truth from inside instead of outside. We may not achieve enlightenment, but through meditation or sitting we may clear our mind and finds out what is important. Also doing good things is no wrong, both for ourselves and others since we are the same. What’s more, we cannot afford to waste our life because next second may be our time. Finally, money is good while clinging to it may ruin our life.
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