Shavuot is coming…

In a Jewish community I practice with, we include a brief meditation prior to the amidah….and another congregant and I share the duties of leading that.  The approach I take is to lead in with something to think about…usually a reflection on the torah portion, and then, a brief period of shamata.

I’m scheduled for this Shabbat (on June 1,2024), I’ve just prepared an introduction to practice, it includes a reflection on both the current torah portion, and as well, Shavuot….and I thought to share it with you.

And, for those of you who know, the “interfaith” reflection pointed to in the text below points to the Kagyu and Nyingma influences we have, or…that of mahamudra and maha ati.

See below:

Meditation for Parashat Bechukotai, 6/1/24

Today I’d like to help us prepare for our meditation with 2 rubrics, consistent with both the week’s parsha, Bechukotai, and as well, the proximity of Shavuot, which is coming soon.

We could start with the parsha.  Although our siddur does not confirm it, with its reference back to today’s parsha, the words are unmistakably close to the second part of the shema we said today and we usually say to ourselves.  (and I’ll read the copied text below…)

“If you follow My laws and faithfully observe My commandments, I will grant rain so that the earth shall yield its produce and the trees their fruit.

But if you will not listen to Me, …. and if you do not carry out My commandments and break My covenant….I will bring upon you illness that fills the spirit with grief. You will then sow your seed in vain. I will set My countenance against you and you will be beaten by your enemies….”

And, we understand that the torah does repeat some sections, as this appears to do.

And, the section above is followed in our siddur by another section of the torah…concerning the tsitit, as follows:

“They are widely considered a reminder, not unlike a string around one’s finger, to think of God at all times.

Tzitzit fulfill the following commandment in Numbers 37, in the Torah portion called Parshat Shlah:

Speak to the Israelite people and instruct them to make for themselves fringes on the corners of their garments throughout the ages; let them attach a cord of blue to the fringe at each corner. That shall be your fringe; look at it and recall all the commandments of the LORD and observe them, so that you do not follow your heart and eyes in your lustful urge. Thus you shall be reminded to observe all My commandments and to be holy to your God.”

And as the website Myjewishlearning reviews…

“The commandment to wear tzitzit is repeated in the V’ahavta section of the Shema prayer…which comes next, and as a part of the shema…”

And, altogether, this first of two rubrics….concerns the path nature of our practice.  Without too much imagination, please see with me that the observing of wearing tsitit can be viewed as an object based mindfulness practice, designed to keep us, the pray-er…on the path…so we WILL listen to G-d, and follow her commandments.

But, there is a second rubric.

Although, our tradition teaches about the flow of: creation, revelation & redemption, as associated with the flow of the siddur, from an interfaith point of view, the idea of revelation is connected with one of two strategies for arriving at: emet, or the truth, of how things are.  That is, and in relation to what we just considered about the shema, and the path quality of being reminded, and mindfulness….another approach to the truth is through an open, or even sudden revelation.  And, it is the stuff of revelation that Shavuot is about, as we reflect on the giving of the torah at Mt. Sinai.  The tradition is that…all Jews were in substance at Mt. Sinai at the same time, receiving the torah.  We celebrate and remember this on Shavuot, which we’ll recognize in the next 2 weeks.

So, what I’ve shared about are 2 rubrics, two strategies for relating to spirituality…of walking a path, gradually, and of sudden awakening, or revelation.

Both of these rubrics can come together, as we practice meditation.

On the one hand, when we breath out, we are following….our breath…and that IS consistent with a path approach to practice.

But, on the other hand, WHEN the breath goes out, and there is a gap….THAT is an opportunity for the kind of sudden realization we could be discussing.

So meditation brings these 2 ideas together.

Let’s try to experience that together now.

Sit with good posture…..

Atisa’s Slogans, in Context

Developed for the Tikkun planned for Shavuot 2022, where Shirat HaNefesh joins Tifereth Israel and Fabrangen, and where David Balto agreed to present about Pirke Avot

The proposed title for this session is:

“Righty tighty, lefty-loosey: Sayings and ethics of many of our forefathers, including Pirke Avot from the Jewish tradition, and Atisa’s slogans from the buddhist tradition”

What inspired the title?

In circumstances where you want to understand right action…it has developed that sometimes….it is helpful to reflect on a saying, that somehow directs you.

And, the saying: righty-tighty, lefty loosey, is one such saying…that might help you know how to screw in a screw correctly.

Likewise, Pirke Avot, as a system of thought, developed in the Jewish tradition, and has been thought to represent an important ethical system.

Recently, reading from Rabbi Rachel Barenblat, also author of the Velveteen Hagaddah, where she reflected from her recent study of Pirkei Avot: “

“”Give others the benefit of the doubt” (Pirkei Avot 1:4) — what does that mean in practice? “Don’t separate yourself from the community (2:4) — how do we live that?”

Somehow, that phrasing made me reflect on another system of sayings, called Atisa’s Slogans, and it occurred to me that, with this now Shavuot teaching situation, it might be a swell opportunity to share reflections of how these two systems of sayings, both, can provide help to prayers and practitioners.

David will discuss Pirkei Avot, and I’ll intend to share something about Atisa’s Slogans….also and sometimes referred to as a system for training the mind….also including tonglen, which is somewhat more widely known.

More background for where Atisa’s slogans fits into the buddhist framework may be helpful.

Generally, these slogans are a part of the Tibetan tradition in Buddhism.

Buddhism, like Judaism, from some points of view, is known as a middle way

And, in some systems of Buddhism, a focus is sitting meditation….and I would say that is definitely common to all traditions of Buddhism.

Generally, though, Tibetan Buddhism sees the process of awakening as going through a series of stages, called yanas…of which there are 3…being Hinayana, Mahayana, and Vajrayana.

The hinayana is most closely associated with sitting meditation.

The practice we’re going to talk about tonight, slogans practice, or training the mind, is right in the middle of the middle way…and is associated, along with paramita practice, as part of the Mahayayana practices.  And then, both of these yanas are seen, in some sense, to being preparatory to the 3^rd yana, called Vajrayana…..in which the practitioner engages especially in both visualization practice….and then dissolving.

What we’re doing tonight is a little bit of comparison.  Not straight on….system of slogans, one for the other.  But, the general idea is that one good idea might throw a positive clarifying light on another.

Since Atisa’s slogans, and this approach to mind training, are designed to prepare you to visualize and dissolve in the Vajrayana….let me just talk about this for a minute.

There’s a lot of dissolving practice in Buddhism.  In a sense…that’s the heart of basic sitting practice…you be willing to let your thoughts and concepts dissolve.

In comparing Judaism and Buddhism, you would be reasonable to either praise or blame the focus on dissolving in Buddhism.

On the one hand, there may be a useful function on relaxing….from holding too tightly.

On the other hand, the buddhists frequentyly fail to get a tikkun olam committee off the ground, typically, training in compassion, but not showing a good pattern of practice of actually helping others.

But, remember…there are 2 focuses in the Vajrayana….and they are…. first visualization, and then….dissolving.

A real focus of training in the buddhist tradition is visualizing the images engendered in the texts that is practiced in Tibetan Buddhism.

Although there are many attempts to integrate meditation into Jewish practice, aka consistent with the Hinayana tradition of buddhist practice, sitting meditation practice is fundamentally…..primarily complementary….allowing you to prepare for davening.

But, the use of texts in Tibetan Buddhism is, to my mind….an on par match with Jewish practice.

Both traditions use texts to engage the practice.

But, where in Tibetan Buddhism, there is a focus on visualizing the text….we don’t have that so much as our minhag….our emphasis….in the Jewish tradition.

The idea of….what is in our mind…..as we daven, at the time we say the words…has had somewhat less of a focus, and I think we could do better there.  Just my two cents.

Now, with that background, we’ll talk about the specific, and parallel….tradition of Atisa’s slogans, which came specifically from Atisa in 982 CE.

In contrast, I believe we understand that Pirke Avot was written more than a thousand years earlier….in about 200 BCE.

Universal and Particular

Universal and Particular

The Vidyadhara, Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche, famously said: Love of wisdom puts you on the spot all the time…

Which is a good motivator for any discussion.

The more specific motivation for these notes, is the planning to attend a one evening discussion on “Torah and Dharma,” hosted by the Hebrew College in Boston, in January of 2024, where faculty from Naropa University, including Judith Simmer-Brown and others, would speak, also in recognition of their close work done with Reb Zalman, who founded the renewal movement in Judaism.

Although there are a number of elements to consider in the interface between the traditions of Judaism and Buddhism, it could be useful to single track the ideas.

Starting with Buddhism. Primary is both mindfulness, and awareness….where the former leads to the latter.

Also, mindfulness can be thought to be cultivated by a close attention to one’s breath.  And, as a natural outcome of that, one develops awareness.

Frequently, where Buddhism is understood to be a three yana tradition, attention to mindfulness and awareness, as one meditates with the breath, is aligned with the first of the three yanas.

And, in the Mahayana, where the important practice of tonglen is inspired, the idea that the practice is mediated by the breath is central.

Then, let’s turn to the third of three yanas, the Vajrayana.  Through one of the summer seminaries, shamata and vipassana were understood to manifest, alternately, throughout the yanas.

So, consider the following. In the same way that attention to the breath brings forward mindfulness, so too does attention to visualization….sometimes known as utpatikrama.  Then, when resting from this focus on visualization, when relaxing that focus, and turning to sampanakrama…you have a parallel expression of awareness…that completes…what had been created with the visualization.

The book, Creation and Completion, is one of the important books students of Trungpa, Rinpoche have been exposed to.  And, the idea presented in it is a simple explication of the third yana of Tibetan Buddhism.

Although visualization has not been universally considered as central to liturgical practice in Judaism, Rosenberg of Jewish Liturgy as a Spiritual System, did conceive it that way.  Examples in the liturgy make the idea seem more evident, after the fact.  Consider the main prayer in Judaism’s liturgy, the Amidah.  The pray-er begins by moving backwards and then forwards, consistent with their imagining that they are relating to a ruler on high.  Later, they rise up on their heels at kadosh kadosh kadosh, imagining that they are angels.  Rosenberg provides more and similar explanations for the rest of the liturgy.

One argument, with respect to the engagement of the shabbat service, goes that the practice of the liturgy, leading up to the torah service, is like that focus on mindfulness, followed by the torah service, which stands in for a greater experience of awareness, in contrast.

And, so what does the above have to do with Universality and Particularism?

What is proposed above is that Judaism, when engaged as intended, is really most like Vajrayana Buddhism (vs other forms of Buddhism, that do not engage in visualization).

But, if both of these traditions…that have been called practicing traditions….can be viewed as having the ability to bring the practitioner through transformative stages, in the engagement of mindfulness and awareness….the question can lead to…wonder…about other religious traditions.

It would be good if those trained separately and together in Buddhism and Judaism, especially the latter, would affirm what is supposed in the above.

But, if this particular focus on the value of giving ones attention to visualization, as a medium for mindfulness, holds true…..could a next, fruitful question point to other traditions?  Traditions that use texts for the congregants to engage?

Are there other religious traditions, whose congregants intentionally use texts in prayer…can they likewise creatively engage, and participate in a new way in their tradition, to a yet to be reviewed positive end?

With these strategies, there is no wish to do other than participate in an understanding of reality.

Rosenberg’s argument…that the Jewish liturgy is intended to be visualized…to be engaged properly….is based on his work with his teachers, his study of history and the development of the Jewish prayerbook, and his clearly represented insight as to the development, and function of the text.

What will need examination….perhaps….is the nature of text development for liturgy, altogether.  Is it reasonable to apply the same principles…more generally. If so, how will that have worked.  That should be reviewed, and closely.

At this point, it’s a question.  That may be worth exploration.

Meditation – Amidah on Kol Nidre (2022)

This is about approaching the Amidah….which we’re about to do…on Kol Nidre.
I’d like to share 3 points, which are:
a) Stepping backwards, and then stepping forwards (which we always do in the Amidah)
b) Cancelling all vows, part II
c) Minding the boundaries
A
Conventionally, on Kol Nidre…
(see source I: Yom Kippur Prayers | The Jewish Agency – U.S.)
…” ‘Anyone who wants his vows throughout the year not to be binding, should stand … and say, “Any vow that I make in the future shall be invalid””
Conventionally, that’s why Jews come to Kol Nidre.
I had been skeptical that this is REALLY why Jews are motivated to come on time for this day.
I researched, and confirmed:
Source II – The Amidah Project: Kol Nidre | CHICAGO CARLESS
“For Jews who go to synagogue all year and those who come only for the High Holy Days, the literal meaning in the chant is less important than that which it symbolizes–the words and music of ultimate t’shuvah, forgiveness, and ultimately, returned closeness with God.”
B
But, I think we need to look again. After having stepped backwards,…..let’s step forward again.
It dawned on me that…we’ve adopted the legal formulation of Kol Nidre…because our people are very clear thinking, and there is a strong reasonable power in that conventional legal formulation of cancelling all vows:
I read from (Rabbi Mendel of Vitebsk)”
(See source I again)…“Yom Kippur is a day of forgiveness and repentance, when a person must purify oneself from sins … One cannot do this with vows on one’s conscience, or possible vows, so one must first remove any problems that vows might cause – hence the relevance of Kol Nidrei .
As pray-ers…people who pray….we may require a whole lot of space. We may do well to have…as JUST IN CASE….the knowledge that…IF we don’t even fundamentally connect with our prayers, we will have all year to not mess our situation further up.
The concept of making sure we have a lot of space to do our practice, authentically, made me recall the words of another teacher, Suzuki Roshi, and google brought me to his words when I entered…giving a cow a large pasture. Roshi said:
Source III
Quote by Shunryu Suzuki: “Even though you try to put people under control…” (goodreads.com)

“Even though you try to put people under control, it is impossible. You cannot do it. The best way to control people is to encourage them to be mischievous. Then they will be in control in a wider sense. To give your sheep or cow a large spacious meadow is the way to control him. So it is with people: first let them do what they want, and watch them. This is the best policy. To ignore them is not good. That is the worst policy. The second worst is trying to control them. The best one is to watch them, just to watch them, without trying to control them.”
C
So, the last point…is minding the boundaries.
We create a space on these high holidays to attend to these matters of importance. We have developed the pattern of practice of bracketing this time.
Let’s respect that knowledge. Let’s give ourselves fully to our conversation with G-D, as we approach g-d in the Amidah…
(If time….add, and direct)….let’s sit in silence, aware of the present moment briefly, now, as we approach the Amidah)…

Greetings!

It’s June 12, 2016, and I’ve just returned from presenting, at our combined Tikkun, joining 3 synagogues, in celebration of Shavuot….one way to view prayer practice, from the vantage point of having the rubric that’s been developed over centuries in the buddhism of Tibet.

The essential idea is that normative keva and kavannah can be expressed and understood even more clearly, when seen in terms of their fundamental relationship with mindfulness and awareness…which flow through the buddhist paths.

This presentation tracks that flow…hopefully to a good purpose

Chag Shavuot Sameach,

Ira Zukerman

Now…see below

Keva & Kavannah as expressions of Jewish practice

Or

Working (with) prayer

Keva and Kavannah as two wings of a bird, aka, mindfulness & awareness (or skillful means & wisdom)

A Jewish Buddhist 3 Yana paradigm for Reconstructing/engaging Jewish practice

0

• Begin with the prayer for study

• Then….

Quoting from: Judaism 101 & Tracey R Rich:  http://www.jewfaq.org/prayer.htm#Who

“The Talmud states that it is permissible to pray in any language that you can understand; however, traditional Judaism has always stressed the importance of praying in Hebrew.”

Discuss…

• Optional clarification
  • Two types of Buddhism can be associated with Jewish practice
    • Frequently Judaism is associated with Theravadin practice, and I see often the net result is a preference to quiet sitting meditation being an outcome, vs engagement in prayer
    • Science meets Buddhism and expresses the differences
      • http://newswise.com/articles/nus-study-revealed-that-vajrayana-meditation-techniques-associated-with-tibetan-buddhism-can-enhance-brain-performance
    • I’d venture that Judaism is more consistent with the second type of “3 yana Buddhism,” where prayer is seen as the more robust expression of our tradition, and where meditation supports it
      • 3 yana view as a developmental view, leading up to prayer. Meditation & prayer are not “parallel tracks.”

A             Beginning

• Darkness vs basic goodness; what do you believe is foundational?
• Keva & kavannah as expressions through the yanas; foundation being the beginning
• Before presenting Shamata/vipassana, present the 3^rd blessing of the Shema, and review the principles of mindfulness reviewed therein
  • Practice
    • Consider that this may be included prior to davening
    • Before the Amidah, or at other sensitive places, aka immediately after Sunrise Blessings, or before Shochen Ad
    • Or replacing the kaddish, especially when no minyan is present

B             Middle

• Heart Sutra – arnhants had heart attacks. This is not kabbalah. Kavannah aspect can be thought to point to clinging, and to Devekut.  Likely these are associated with Jnana states, but unsure.  Awareness is open. The analogy of Shamata/vipassana and keva & kavannah is strong, but experimental, frankly
• Keva & kavannah (or mindfulness & awareness) is expressed through the 6 Paramitas:
  • Generosity, discipline, patience, joyful exertion, meditation, and wisdom
    • The aspects of Shamata and vipasana alternate through these 6 paramitas
  • Another important, and alchemical practice in the middle is broadly called Lojong practice…working with expressions.
    • And, one of these typifies and exemplifies these, being: Sending & taking
    • This is also known as tonglen
    • Similar to the Blessings practice IJS and others train in, I suspect this is lifted from the teachings of tonglen
      • Review and engage in tonglen practice
    • Show where this might be accorded with, in terms of mishebera-ich
      • A summary view of this middle view: realizing others are more important than oneself

C             Our Concluding portion

• Ideally, the preparations of beginning & middle would be required
  • We do have the kaddish, and mesheberach as normative practices
• One approach would be to stop the presses, and map out some of the other elements we could impute would be missing, by studying Kongtrul’s Creation & Completion, and contemplating such mapping, i.e., note we have no guru principle, nor stated commitment to “seeing through” nor egoless understanding of oneself in relation to the deity
  • Or, we could appreciate that as a community, we are jumping into davening, as our minhag, nevertheless, and consequently….let’s jump in
• Our suggestion…..as the practice has developed in Tibet…and as a culmination of the first two paths of practice, we now engage the liturgy in a somewhat normative way. But…we do this with the intent of visualizing all of the included elements…to the best of our ability.
  • Show (and read/practice together):
    • 3^rd blessing of the Amidah
    • Beginning of Mah Tovu
    • The Shema
    • And Micha Mocha
      • As highly representative, and appropriate targets
        • Along with the whole of the service
      • Notable notes from Kongtrul & Creation & Completion as strategies for visualization, with my edits. The 3 strategies to bring forward include:
        • Clearly visualizing the elements included in the prayer
        • Understanding the elements intended to be conveyed in the meaning of the prayer
        • Assuming a posture of chosenness
      • And note, with respect to the concepts of keva and kavannah, whereas I had presumed that we just missed the boat on the kavannah aspect (since the visualization practice is entirely the keva aspect), I’ve come to realize that the expression of the torah service really does serve as our appreciation of kavannah, to the keva of the form of the service as we have it.
        • Or, in other words, with respect to the morning service and mindfulness & awareness, aka, keva & kavannah:
          • The morning service is the keva and mindfulness aspect
          • And the torah service becomes the awareness aspect, I’d suggest

• Could revisit the question of BATNA (Best alternative to a negotiated agreement)
  • This paradigm asserts and recommends an approach we could and should take as we engage prayer practice
    • Now that the idea has been introduced, what would we consider doing instead (while we daven)?

A Strategic View: Two books & more

Welcome here!

I created this website because I felt that, by a combination of happenstance and natural seeking, I uncovered a view….a life orientation….also guided by a strategy for practice.

The first of two books that galvanized this view is mentioned on the home page. Written by Arnold Rosenberg – Jewish Liturgy as a Spiritual System: A Prayer by Prayer Explanation of the Nature and Meaning of Jewish Worship…. It describes the basic approach that drives the view, however….this book and view I think makes more sense when its ostensible underpinnings are further explained in a book I later realized connects very well with this understanding. This other book is written by Jamgon Kongtrul – Creation and Completion: Essential Points of Tantric Meditation.

In some measure, the approach is pointed to on the home page of this website: jewbu.org. But, let me backtrack.

Although I was about to re-create a description here about a co-ordination between awareness and concentration….and this could be correct, and has been discussed in other places….more fundamentally, what I find I’m talking about is the essential elements: mindfulness and awareness. These two elements coordinate throughout the journey of practice. Again, observed and commented on skillfully by Chogyam Trungpa, of blessed memory, they are like the two wings of a bird, and are documented on substantively, with respect to their “back and forth” throughout the nine yana journey…in at least one of his summer seminaries.

For those who, through a natural process of engagement with life, find themselves drawn to wish to see more clearly than they might otherwise do….there is a drive to have available to themselves a more keen awareness than might more naturally otherwise be available to them.

In saying this, there is no speculation nor any drive to other realms of existence that are not otherwise well exposed. The sense is that, quite apart from unseen higher realms, one is motivated to more clearly, simply, see what is already ahead, but too frequently obscured. So, it is like peeling an onion. Perhaps, metaphorically, we’re trying to go to the center. Nevertheless, the process is one of steadfastly staying right here.

With respect to strategies for enhancing this awareness…there is a midrash that…while it is very hard for one person to find their own way by themselves…it is good to be working with a “pathmaker,” i.e., someone else other than ones own self who has found their way. So, because they have pointed the way to a path…so…you can do this, too.

Now, it may be that the discipline of psychology will have something to say about the dance between mindfulness, or concentration on the one hand…and awareness on the other, but….as I understand it…their coordinating relationship has been worked out in the Buddhism of Tibet. In a secondary source…in Robert Thurman’s Inner Revolution: Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Real Happiness, he talks about how the Tibetan culture had over centuries worked out an “enlightenment machine & system,” and Thurman provides an argument for how the Buddhism of Tibet had a unique incubation time to work out many many things.

Certainly, consistent with this understanding, when Chogyam Trungpa laid out a system of development for his students from the early 1970s and well beyond, now followed by his son into the present time, there is the direction to begin with a technique that focuses on an awareness oriented practice…while at the same time, very much mixing together mindfulness and awareness in that same practice. And then, after a time, and some trust has been earned, with respect to a dual appreciation on the part of the teacher who can see the student is dedicated to seeing clearly, and on the part of the student who grows in their skills in doing this…then a program of mindfulness, or concentration….is introduced….which I will say is intended to enhance the students engagement with awareness.

So, backtracking one more time…

Mindfulness actually first is needed for awareness.

And then, as awareness is cultivated, mindfulness is brought back in again, but with a new face. It is mindfulness with form.

In the first introduction to mindfulness, the student is directed to attend to the breath. This gets them into a steady interaction with reality, also, and allows the student to even be in the room, rather than be vacationing in Bermuda while being in the room.

By cultivating this attention, the student finds they ARE in the room, over time, and thereby naturally discovers the quality of awareness. Nothing is created in this case, and there is no extension of faith or investment in belief that is required to sustain this practice, and its value is naturally experienced, in terms of the truth of the experience that is exposed.

And then, as it has developed in the Tibetan tradition (and as I surmise it was intended to be taught implicitly in the Jewish tradition), the student learns to work with images. In the Buddhism of Tibet, and also, in the normative Jewish tradition, these images are presented in texts. They are called sadhanas in Tibetan Buddhism. In Jewish practice, the text is our siddur. And, the practice is to engage the words.

As Jamgon Kongtrul, in his Creation & Completion taught, when working with the words of a text, the student does three things. I’ll write them in the order that I think is conventionally understood, but this is somewhat speculation.

1. The student visualizes what is written in the text.

So, this is basic Tibetan Buddhism 101. And, it is the central thesis of Rosenberg’s Jewish Liturgy as a Spiritual System. Very much, this directs the student to be mind-full…have his mind full with this activity. Then, also…

1. The student seeks to connect the meaning of the image with what it symbolizes.

I think some commentators in Tibetan Buddhist practice place this as second in importance to item (a). However, I think it can also represent exactly how one visualizes what one visualizes, perhaps. As I frequently describe the Mah Tovu prayer as optimizing this strategy in the Jewish Liturgy…as the davvener begins prayer, they are asked to visualize the transformation of their ordinary surroundings to that of like a palace, engaging the right frame of mind. This is a visualization practice based on understanding the underlying meaning of the words in the text. Without knowing this underlying meaning, the visualization doesn’t work so well. So this piece is important.

1. Re the third aspect addressed in Kongtrul (see especially the preface, but read the text if you like, which is dense for me), and being mindful that this site is designed to reflect on both Jewish & Buddhist practice, I’ll first say that, explicitly, two things are true for Buddhist practice:
   1. That the practitioner is directed to only engage in this “advanced” and secret practice after first appreciating what either could be called “non-theism,” or rather, that one is not praying for the purpose of having god save you, or having the expectation that your prayers will be answered. Also, and literally, describing aspect three directly, the student is asked to:
   2. Have pride in the deity. By which I mean…Tibetan Buddhism is also known for having various gods that are visualized. Though this causes problems for some Jews, who ostensibly either believe in one G-d, or that everything is G-d, Buddhist are encouraged to see things in a “layered” way. Meaning…first….
      1. You need to pull up your own socks. This is either Hinayana or basic Theravadin training in individual salvation. If I am not for myself, who will be for me.
      2. After having developed a commitment to care for oneself, you later, like the mom who is instructed to put on one’s own air mask on a plane going down before they help their child…then….then…they should absolutely help their child. And every sentient being. After both of these developments…
      3. The student can see more accurately the details of the world, and in this case, I understand techniques both aerobic and anaerobic metaphorically, have been created to aid in the development of seeing clearly. So, as against the “doing nothing” of awareness…there is the “doing something” of visualizing…creating an aerobic counterpoint to the doing nothing practice of just attending to what is going on.
         1. So, when we say the student has “pride in the deity,” first, they do understand there is no substantial deity, but also
         2. Based on the symbol system ascribed to the deity, they at the same time, transparently, embody the described aspects, and then
         3. Carry a certain attitude consistent with this practice…of pride. A transparent, but tangible pride.

1. And, so what is that pride like? It is only conjecture on my part, and both an appreciation for where we have come from as a Jewish people, and also, an extension into today of what I understand has probably been intended by this “view,” but the corresponding view I have thought to apply in Jewish practice, to what Kongtrul has called “pride of the deity” in Tibetan Buddhist practice is…
   1. A feeling of chosenness…long standing in Jewish practice.

The feeling of chosenness is easily transformed, and simply so…considering the language applied by the editor, Joe Rosenstein, of the siddur we use in our community, Eit Ratzon, who, in the morning blessings, translates that the davvener is grateful to be Jewish, mindful of inheriting an enriching tradition. And that’s it.

Let me provide two more sets of evidence for the ideas presented here.

In New York, second generation students of our Shambhala Community have created a program called the Interdependence Project. Though it uses the tagline of presenting “secular Buddhism,” it is arguable that such a qualifier is needed, or that it adds any enhancement. Regardless, the view explicitly encouraged by the leaders of this community reinforces what I’ve tried to describe here, and they torque it somewhat.

They have called out 3 bootstraps available to practitioners: a drive for a) waking oneself with mindfulness/awareness practices, b) the use of tools for engaging empathy, and c) then tools of visualization to continue in ones growth. And, as I’ve suggested, they see that in the tonglen practice associated with step #2 (b above), they recognize how it embryonically embraces the visualization practices that will be used in the 3^rd approach.

Also in New York is my now friend Philip Richman, who again also trained in what is now referred to as Shambhala Buddhism, He wrote a book called the Shofar and the White Conch. In it, not only does he also write about, in an enriching way, the dual natures of Jewish & Buddhist Practice (he subtitles his book: A text of Vajrayana Judaism), but he was motivated to create his own Jewish Buddhist sadhana. Importantly, he also found it appropriate to discuss in his text the idea of Creation and Completion as a core underpinning element of his work.

Essentially, what does the title in the book, Creation & Completion…point to?

Although the way meditative approaches to working with texts has evolved in the presentation of Tibetan Buddhism in Shambhala…,one begins a period of practice with formless, mindfulness awareness practice…after this initial period…then…
By engaging with a text (sadhana, liturgy, what have you), you then…

CREATE. As you read, you create the world presented by the text. And then, when that part of the practice session is concluded… you stop. At that point, you engage in:

Completion.

Having stopped creating…you rest in that created space.

Recently, in discussing with my rabbi, I think he felt it suitable to talk about “sealing” a text with a closing part.

I think these would be equivalent ideas….

But, I think we do conventionally seal our Jewish prayers with Aleinu. As it happens, it is also a prayer “marked” by the idea of our chosenness.

In this website, I hope to share some ideas I have found helpful about the fundamental nature of practice in both Judaism and Buddhism.

Stand by (circa August 19, 2010)

Ira Zukerman

zukerman.family@comcast.net