Introduction

If there’s such a thing as Buddhist writing, and I think there is, then it’s something rich, subtle, and almost confusingly diverse. In this collection you’ll find memoirs and personal reflections of all kinds—on birth, death, love, motherhood, and even jail. There are think pieces on nature, the arts, medical diagnoses, racism, and the place of love in society. There are spiritual teachings on classical Buddhist themes such as emptiness, enlightenment, the causes of suffering, and the true nature of the mind, and helpful advice on working with marriage, illness, difficult parents, and on what you can do to help the environment. There are famous names from Buddhism and literature—the Dalai Lama, Thich Nhat Hanh, bell hooks, Gary Snyder, Alice Walker, Leonard Cohen—and less well-known writers whose honesty will move you and whose insight will startle you.

What joins together all these different types of writing and these very different people? What is the Buddhist part of “Best Buddhist Writing”? In some cases it’s obvious—it’s clear the writing is about or informed by a formal religion known as Buddhism—but in other cases it’s not so explicit. It may be only a broad theme or even just the writer’s attitude that makes it Buddhist.

To help tie it all together, let’s look at some of Buddhism’s underlying principles and how they’re reflected in this collection of the year’s best Buddhist writing. The themes I’d like to touch on, among the many I could choose, are nontheism, non-ego, suffering, meditation, wisdom,compassion,skillful means, and the teacher. Sometimes explicitly, sometimes implicitly, these ideas run throughout the book.

It’s fair to say that Buddhism is not well understood in the West. Buddhist terms are bandied about in the popular culture with little concern for their actual meaning (look no further than the word Zen—Buddhism’s most rigorous and regimented tradition—used to mean “laid-back” or “relaxed”). Without clear definition, “Buddhism” becomes something vague on which people can project their own spiritual yearnings or left-over concepts from the theistic religions they were brought up in. In fact, as Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche explains in the outstanding essay that opens this book, Buddhism is based on firm and specific principles. It’s just that many of these principles are very different from those of other religions, and that’s one reason Buddhism is so often misunderstood.

Above all, Buddhism is the great nontheistic religion, the religion without God. Nowhere in this book will you find any reference, prayer, or supplication to a higher power or external savior. In Buddhism, what you see is what you get. So the bad news is, you’ll have to deal with it alone. The good news is, you can do it. You have the inherent strength, wisdom, and basic goodness to live your life, with all its challenges, in an enlightened way.What you’ll find throughout this book is people looking at life without denial or escape, confident that as human beings they have all the resources they need.

Along with no God, Buddhism has no idea of a soul, no belief that we have a permanent essence or identity. This is the renowned doctrine of non-ego, described so poetically by Norman Fischer in his essay “Beautiful Snowflakes.” Buddhism sees all phenomena, both beings and things, as always changing—impermanent—and without any solid core—empty. From our current point of view, that may seem pretty depressing but accepting this truth is the very answer to our suffering. Daniel Dancer’s story  “Impermanance Rocks!” shows how even children can receive this message joyfully, when normally we try so hard to shield them from it.

The basic problem Buddhism addresses is suffering, unlike religions that strive for salvation or transcendence. Buddhism analyzes why we suffer and offers us a path out of suffering. As Matthieu Ricard argues so cogently in “There’s No ‘I’ in Happy,” we suffer precisely because of our belief in a permanent, ongoing self, which Buddhism calls ego. We suffer because the struggle against change and death is futile; we attain liberation from this struggle when we are freed from the delusion of ego.

This diagnosis of the human dilemma is another unique characteristic of Buddhism. According to Buddhism, our fundamental problem is not sin or some moral failing.We suffer because of our ignorance; because we do not understand the actual nature of reality. The Dalai Lama’s teaching on “How to See Yourself as You Really Are” is a step-by-step exercise in recognizing our mistaken views of ourselves and the world around us.

The medicine that heals this illness of ignorance is insight or wisdom, which we can develop through the practice of meditation. Meditation means working with our mind, the source of all we experience and do. Through the practice of meditation we become familiar with all that goes on in our mind, both its confusion and inherent wakefulness.We tame the upheavals, conflicting emotions, and mistaken views that cause so much suffering for ourselves and others, and come to know the mind’s true nature, which is enlightenment. While many religions practice some form of meditation or contemplation, what’s unique about Buddhist meditation is that it doesn’t involve doing, changing, or creating anything. It’s about stopping and resting—about relaxing at least for a moment our endless struggles and cogitations. The basic Buddhist view is that we are fine—perfect even—just the way we really are. As Judy Lief explains in “Letting Go,” the practice is simply that: letting go—of all the ways we feel we have to improve or solidify ourselves. It’s so simple, yet so profound and so difficult.

Buddhism is said to be like a bird, which needs two wings to fly. Wisdom is one of these wings, and the other is compassion. Wisdom heals our suffering; compassion heals the suffering of others. It is these two principles that inform all the selections in this book. Some emphasize the wisdom aspect; some the compassionate side. But at heart these two are indivisible.

Wisdom is the true nature of the mind; compassion is the true nature of the heart. This volume offers teachings by great Buddhist masters on both subjects. Some of the wisdom teachings, such as those by the Dalai Lama, Matthieu Ricard, and Norman Fischer, emphasize the emptiness aspect of the mind—they allow us to relax into great spaciousness and openness beyond the fixed concepts we normally try to impose on reality. Teachings by Thrangu Rinpoche and Khenpo Tsultrim Gyamtso take us further, pointing out that this vast openness is joined with the clarity and wakefulness called buddha nature, the infinite store of positive qualities that shine like the sun when we cease to cover them over with the clouds of ignorance and self-absorption.

Compassion is wisdom in action, the heart’s natural desire to ease the suffering of beings and help them find happiness. Compassion suffuses this book, from the great teachings of Thich Nhat Hanh, to the heartfelt responses to the world’s sufferings by writers such as Alice Walker and bell hooks, to the experiences of ordinary people facing the challenges of daily life with love and courage. I am sure you will be moved and inspired by the stories of John Tarrant, Karen Miller, Jarvis Jay Masters, Ajahn Amaro, and Layla Mason, which show us how rich is the opportunity of human life, difficult as it may be, if we approach it as a spiritual path.

From the union of wisdom and compassion flows the final component that allows us to benefit ourselves and others: skillful means. Motivated by love, not blinded by projections, fixed ideas, and selfish concerns, we are capable of working in the world with great skill. Western Buddhists are making valuable contributions in applying Buddhist principles and practices to modern life, and many of the selections in this book are about how we can act skillfully to address the challenges of our own lives and the problems of society. These range from Christopher Germer’s helpful advice on mindful marriage, to the work of seminal thinkers such as Stephanie Kaza and the MacArthur Award–winner Charles Johnson on how Buddhism can help us address global issues of environmental destruction and social change.

Finally, all these ideas come down to human relationships, and no relationship is more important in Buddhism than the relationship between the teacher and the student. Because the truth is beyond concepts, words and writing are at best signposts that help us along the way. The true transmission has taken place since the time of the Buddha in an unbroken lineage of relationships between teachers and students. And thus it continues to this day, marked by the great Asian teachers such as those represented in this book and their Western students, many of whom are now excellent teachers in their own right. It is the success of this transmission—the emergence of Western teachers passing on to new generations the great gifts they have received—that gives us hope for the future of Buddhism in the West and the positive impact it can have on our lives and on our society.

It is appropriate, then, to begin my acknowledgements with heartfelt thanks to my own teachers, Khenpo Tsultrim Gyamtso Rinpoche and the late Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche. I have had the good fortune in my life to meet many great Buddhist teachers, but to these two I have given my heart.

As editor-in-chief of the Shambhala Sun and of Buddhadharma: The Practitioner’s Quarterly, I am privileged to combine my work with my study of Buddhism. Our days here at the Sun are frequently devoted to consideration of Buddhism’s meaning and its progress in the West. I would like to thank all my colleagues, who are partners in this ongoing, fruitful conversation, particularly publisher Jim Gimian, my longtime friend and colleague Molly De Shong, and the members of the Sun and Buddhadharma editorial and art departments: Liza Matthews, Barry Boyce, Andrea McQuillin, Tynette Deveaux, Seth Levinson, Jessica von Handorf, Andrea Miller, and Scott Armstrong.

I would like to thank my good friend Peter Turner, president of Shambhala Publications, for the honor of editing this series, and Beth Frankl for editing this year’s edition. Above all, I thank, and give thanks for, my wife Pam and daughter Pearl, who are my inspiration and my teachers too.

Melvin McLeod
Editor-in-Chief
The Shambhala Sun
Buddhadharma: The Practitioner's Quarterly