New World Dharma

Trevor Carolan

Description

Based on Trevor Carolan's interviews, profiles, and essays from the past twenty years, this book offers a fascinating and intimate look at many of the Buddhist (and Buddhist-inspired) spiritual and cultural leaders who have shaped our time. Drawn from the global mosaic of the arts and humanities, environmentalism, and governance, Carolan's collaborators include Buddhist teachers, poets, writers, activists, and even a politician. Readers will encounter Red Pine, Maxine Hong Kingston, Gary Snyder, Robert Aitken-Roshi, Jerry Brown, the Dalai Lama, Allen Ginsberg, along with many others. They explore engaged practice, East-West ethics, the role of dharma-influenced literature, Beat literature, social and political activism, and more. A rich resource for anyone interested in Buddhism, New World Dharma reveals a Buddhist consciousness responding to the challenge of rethinking what citizenship, community, and the sacred might mean in a global age.
Foreword by Susan Moon
Acknowledgments
Introduction

1. Dancing with China’s Old Masters: With Master Red Pine/Bill Porter

2. The Wild Mind of Gary Snyder

3. Grounded in Humanity: Gary Snyder on Back on the Fire

4. A Bloomsday Interview with Joanne Kyger

5. And So Make Peace: Talking Story with Maxine Hong Kingston

6. The Bedrock of Practice: With Sulak Sivaraksa in Bangkok

7. A Heart Free to Listen: The Awareness Practice of Thich Nhat Hanh

8. Embracing the Responsibility of the Moment: The Zen Politics of Jerry Brown

9. Avanti! The Dharma Poetics of Diane di Prima

10. On Forgiveness and Compassion: H. H. the Dalai Lama

11. On the Trail with Nanao Sakaki

Back on the Trail with Nanao

12. Dangerous Work: The Retirement Interview with Zen Master Robert Aitken-Roshi

13. Expatriate Passions: Meeting Donald Richie

14. A Conversation with Andrew Schelling

15. Notes from the Gone World: Lawrence Ferlinghetti on Street Smarts and the Poetry Rebellion

16. Beloved Renegade: With Allen Ginsberg at Cortes Island

Sujets

• Philosophie
• Philosophie de la religion
• États-Unis
• Buddhism
• United States of America
• USA

Informations

• Publié par: State University of New York Press
• Date de parution: 16 mars 2016
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781438459844
• Langue: English

Extrait

New World Dharma
New World Dharma
Interviews and Encounters with Buddhist Teachers, Writers, and Leaders
Trevor Carolan
Foreword by Susan Moon
Published by State University of New York Press, Albany
© 2016 State University of New York
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission. No part of this book may be stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means including electronic, electrostatic, magnetic tape, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior permission in writing of the publisher.
For information, contact State University of New York Press, Albany, NY
www.sunypress.edu
Production, Jenn Bennett
Marketing, Kate R. Seburyamo
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Carolan, Trevor, author.
Title: New World Dharma : Interviews and Encounters with Buddhist Teachers, Writers, and Leaders / Trevor Carolan.
Description: Albany : State University of New York Press, 2016. | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2015012446 | ISBN 9781438459837 (hardcover : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781438459844 (e-book)
Subjects: LCSH: Buddhists—Interviews. | Buddhism.
Classification: LLC BQ840 .C37 2016 | DDC 294.3092/2—dc23
LC record available at http://lccn.log.gov/2015012446
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
For Gary Snyder
and for the unknown monk,
The Way is endless …
Every stump is sacred.
Every stump a saint
Every silted river a church to which
the pilgrim salmon return.
Every breath of wind a love song.
We worship in the wetlands,
bow to the fern, the rock,
the holy salamander,
the blood of sweet water,
the body of moss.
—Gary Lawless
CONTENTS
Foreword by Susan Moon
Acknowledgments
Introduction Chapter 1 Dancing with China’s Old Masters: With Master Red Pine/Bill Porter Chapter 2 The Wild Mind of Gary Snyder Chapter 3 Grounded in Humanity: Gary Snyder on Back on the Fire Chapter 4 A Bloomsday Interview with Joanne Kyger Chapter 5 And So Make Peace: Talking Story with Maxine Hong Kingston Chapter 6 The Bedrock of Practice: With Sulak Sivaraksa in Bangkok Chapter 7 A Heart Free to Listen: The Awareness Practice of Thich Nhat Hanh Chapter 8 Embracing the Responsibility of the Moment: The Zen Politics of Jerry Brown Chapter 9 Avanti! The Dharma Poetics of Diane di Prima Chapter 10 On Forgiveness and Compassion: H. H. the Dalai Lama Chapter 11 On the Trail with Nanao Sakaki Back on the Trail with Nanao Chapter 12 Dangerous Work: The Retirement Interview with Zen Master Robert Aitken-Roshi Chapter 13 Expatriate Passions: Meeting Donald Richie Chapter 14 A Conversation with Andrew Schelling Chapter 15 Notes from the Gone World: Lawrence Ferlinghetti on Street Smarts and the Poetry Rebellion Chapter 16 Beloved Renegade: With Allen Ginsberg at Cortes Island
FOREWORD
Susan Moon
F or thirty years, Trevor Carolan has been wandering around, following Buddhist teachers, poets, and thinkers he admires, and, gracefully and somewhat shyly, getting them to talk to him. This book is the result.
Carolan is a follower of both poetry and dharma in the best sense of the word follow . His perseverance, attention, and sense of adventure come through here. He follows his own nose, too, and his intuition, bravely setting forth to find people and their teachings. I admire his respectful curiosity. When was the last time you traveled a long way in order to ask a question of someone you admire, someone to whom you are a stranger?
And that’s not the end of it. He writes down what happened and he passes it on, sharing what he learned. He is a translator in the broadest sense. To translate is to carry across, and this collection is all about cross-cultural currents, about wisdom coming from the East to the West and being changed into a new East/West consciousness. Everyone is changed by everyone else, by the animals and the trees and the poets and the Zen teachers they meet. Everyone is creating everyone else all of the time.
My own study of Zen Buddhism has taught me to appreciate the ancestors, the long lineage, the list of names—historically true or not it doesn’t matter—from the Buddha all the way down to my living teachers. I value, too, the ancestors of literature—like Shakespeare and Emily Dickinson, to name two who have changed my mind, and the living ancestors, who are transmitting poetry to us right now. These last are the voices making up the weave of New World Dharma : a varied gathering of some of the twentieth- and twenty-first-century Buddhist teachers and poets who have changed the way we think in the West, particularly in the west of the West—the Pacific Northwest and California.
One of the voices here is that of the late Nanao Sakaki, wildman from Japan, nature poet, anti-nuclear activist. (It was Carolan who introduced me to the poetry of Nanao Sakaki many years ago, when I published an interview he did with Sakaki in Turning Wheel magazine.) Sakaki exemplifies the theme of interconnectedness that runs through the book. The mountains of Japan and the Pacific Northwest do not belong to separate nation-states as he walks them; poetry and Zen are not two different things in his talking. He understands that he is not separate from all the beings around him. He writes, “Soil for legs … mushroom for nose … wind for mind/Just enough.” He proclaims: “Let’s eat stars!”
One of my Zen teachers was the late Maurine Stuart. A couple of decades ago, I went to a weeklong sesshin (intensive meditation retreat) she led at Green Gulch Farm. Sometimes the silence included the sound of the surf a mile down the valley at Muir Beach. At the very end of the sesshin, Maurine asked us to turn away from the wall and face each other, for the last period of zazen. Then, without warning, but gently, the old barn filled up with the sound of a cello, like an empty cup waiting to be filled with water. For forty minutes, sitting still in zazen posture, we listened to Yo-Yo Ma playing Bach cello suites.
Woven together were the Zen practice of thirteenth-century Master Dogen, the composition of an eighteenth-century German composer, the performance of a contemporary Chinese-American cellist, a Buddha hall made out of an old California barn, the distant waves of the Pacific Ocean, and a teacher from Cambridge, Massachusetts. Many ancestors were present, working together to help us see our lives.
In the EiheiKosoHotsuganmon , Dogen declares: “Buddhas and ancestors of old were as we; we in the future shall be buddhas and ancestors. Revering buddhas and ancestors, we are one buddha and one ancestor.”
Thanks to Carolan for bringing us some of our living ancestors.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
S ome material in this book originally appeared in earlier versions in the following publications. Grateful thanks to all who contributed to their original and revised production, and who gave permission for written material to appear in this book. Trevor Carolan is the author or editor of record and editor asserts copyright over these works and on this compilation. All rights reserved. If an error or omission is brought to our notice regarding copyright we will be pleased to correct the situation in future editions of this book. For further information, please contact the publisher.
“Dancing with China’s Old Masters.” Copyright 2016 by Trevor Carolan. Used by permission.
“The Wild Mind of Gary Snyder.” Copyright 1996 by Trevor Carolan. Used by permission. Originally appeared in Shambhala Sun (May 1996).
“Grounded in Humanity: Gary Snyder on Back on the Fire. ” Copyright 2007 by Trevor Carolan. Used by permission. Originally appeared in The Bloomsbury Review (July/Aug. 2007).
“A Bloomsday Interview with Joanne Kyger.” Copyright 2008 by Trevor Carolan. Used by permission. Originally appeared in Pacific Rim Review of Books (Summer 2008).
“And So Make Peace … Talking Story with Maxine Hong Kingston.” Copyright 2008 by Trevor Carolan. Used by permission. Originally appeared in The Bloomsbury Review (Jan./Feb. 2008)
“The Bedrock of Practice: Sulak Sivaraksa in Bangkok.” Copyright 2007 by Trevor Carolan. Used by permission. Originally appeared in Turning Wheel (Fall, 2007).
“A Heart Free to Listen: The Awareness Practice of Thich Nhat Hanh.” Copyright 1996 by Trevor Carolan. Used by permission of the author. Originally appeared in Shambhala Sun (Jan. 1996).
“Embracing the Responsibility of the Moment: The Zen Politics of Jerry Brown.” Copyright 2000 by Trevor Carolan. Used by permission. Originally appeared in Shambhala Sun (Sept. 2000).
“ Avanti! The Dharma Poetics of Diane di Prima.” Copyright 2007 by Trevor Carolan. Used by permission of the author. Originally appeared in Pacific Rim Review of Books (Fall 2007).
“On Forgiveness and Compassion: H.H. the Dalai Lama.” Copyright 2001 by Trevor Carolan. Used by permission. Originally appeared in The Bloomsbury Review (Sept./Oct. 2001).
“On the Trail with Nanao Sakaki.” Copyright 1995 by Trevor Carolan. Used by permission of the author. Originally appeared in Common Ground (Oct. 1995).
“Back on the Trail with Nanao.” Copyright 2004 by Trevor Carolan. Used by permission. Originally appeared in Beat Scene , Coventry, UK (Summer 2004).
“Dangerous Work: The Retirement Interview with Zen Master Robert Aitken.” Copyright 1997 by Trevor Carolan. Used by permission. Originally appeared in Shambhala Sun (Jan. 1997).
“Expatriate Passions: Meeting Donald Richie.” Copyright 2001 by Trevor Carolan. Used by permission. Originally appeared in The Bloomsbury Review (Mar./Apr. 2001).
“A Conversation With Andrew Schelling.” Copyright 2003 by Trevor Carolan. Used by permission. Originally appeared in Beat Scene , Coventry, UK (Winter 2003).
“Notes from the Gone World: Lawrence Ferlinghetti on Street Smarts and the Poetry Rebellion.” Copyright 1996 by Trevor Carolan. Used by permission of the author. Originally appeared in