The Buddhist Guide to New York: Where to Go, What to Do, and How to Make the Most of the Fantastic Resources in the Tri-State Area

The Buddhist Guide to New York: Where to Go, What to Do, and How to Make the Most of the Fantastic Resources in the Tri-State Area

The Buddhist Guide to New York: Where to Go, What to Do, and How to Make the Most of the Fantastic Resources in the Tri-State Area

The Buddhist Guide to New York: Where to Go, What to Do, and How to Make the Most of the Fantastic Resources in the Tri-State Area

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Overview

Buddhism in New York is as exciting and diverse as the city itself, but can be just as overwhelming for those new to the practice. What's a good temple or practice center to try for your first visit? What should you wear? What are the differences between the various schools? With The Buddhist Guide to New York, you can find a supportive community in which to explore the wisdom offered by this 2,500-year-old tradition. The book includes:

* A brief introduction to Buddhism and the different schools, from Pure Land to Zen
* General etiquette for visiting temples
* Practice centers in all five boroughs, New York State, New Jersey, and Connecticut
* Tibetan stores and restaurants
* Buddhist health practitioners
* Museums and cultural resources
* Bookstores, publications, educational institutions, and other resources

Whether you're a new explorer of Buddhism or a long-time practitioner, The Buddhist Guide to New York by Jeff Wilson will help you enjoy everything the region has to offer.


Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781466874282
Publisher: St. Martin's Publishing Group
Publication date: 06/24/2014
Sold by: Macmillan
Format: eBook
Pages: 304
File size: 3 MB

About the Author

Jeff Wilson is a former staff member of Tricycle: The Buddhist Review, the widest-read Buddhist magazine in the United States. He lives in Queens, New York.

Mike Taylor's cartoons have appeared in Tricycle: The Buddhist Review and the book Buddha Laughing.


Jeff Wilson, author of The Buddhist Guide to New York, is a former staff member of Tricycle: The Buddhist Review, the widest-read Buddhist magazine in the United States. He lives in Queens, New York.
Mike Taylor's cartoons have appeared in Tricycle: The Buddhist Review and the books Buddha Laughing and The Buddhist Guide to New York.

Read an Excerpt

The Buddhist Guide to New York

Where to Go, What to Do, and How to Make the Most of the Fantastic Resources in the Tri-State Area


By Jeff Wilson, Mike Taylor

St. Martin's Press

Copyright © 2000 Jeff Wilson
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4668-7428-2



CHAPTER 1

BUDDHISM FOR BEGINNERS


So, what's Buddhism all about, anyway? Do you have to sit around with your legs crossed, endlessly chanting "om"? Isn't Dharma a TV sitcom character? Here are some basic Buddhist ideas and terms to get you started, plus answers to ten of the most common questions non-Buddhists ask. You don't need to know any of this stuff before you visit your first temple or Zen center, but it could be helpful.


BUDDHISM 101

THE FOUR NOBLE TRUTHS

A good place to start is with the Four Noble Truths, the bedrock of the Buddha's religious philosophy. After his enlightenment, when he decided to share what he'd discovered with the world, it was these basic principles that the Buddha put forth in his first sermon. Thousands of years later, they're still the fundamental guiding principles of the Buddhist community.

These truths are noble because they're practiced by noble people, not because they're particularly holy or comforting. In fact, they deal with suffering as well as happiness, with depravity and delusion as much as with morality and wisdom. Life is rocky, and what we need is tools to help get through the bumpy parts. That's just what the Four Noble Truths are meant to do. Thoroughly understood and put into practice, they offer freedom from the addictions, neuroses, mistakes, and misconceptions that prevent us from living fully wise and compassionate lives.

The First Noble Truth is basically a big wake-up call: Everybody, no matter who or what they are, has suffering, stress, and disappointment in their life. That's quite a different lesson from what the media usually tries to teach. A lot of American culture these days is about chasing after material things we hope will bring us happiness, but let's face it — the right car or lipstick or shampoo isn't going to solve your problems for you. That doesn't deny that sometimes we're happy and things seem to be going our way but rather reveals a hard truth that no one is immune to the "slings and arrows of outrageous fortune." It doesn't matter how rich, how beautiful, or how powerful you are — Bill Gates, Cindy Crawford, and Bill Clinton all experience some level of dissatisfaction, anger, and depression each day of their lives. The current boom of interest in Buddhism among the glamorous Hollywood elite ought to be proof enough of that.

The Second Noble Truth pushes this idea further. We suffer pain, stress, and disillusionment because of our wrong ideas about life, other people, and especially ourselves. We cling to things that can't bring us true happiness: material goods, money, our health or achievements, and so on. We want things to be perfect, and if we do manage to perfect some aspect of our lives — our job, our relationships, our skills, or whatever — we want it to remain that way forever. It's this twin denial of reality — believing that exterior things can bring us lasting happiness, and that somehow things won't change and get messy — that's at the root of most of our self-created suffering, confusion, and despair.

Fortunately, the Third Noble Truth isn't such a downer. After these tough first two truths, the Third Noble Truth offers the comfort of hope and encouragement: All this suffering is just a mental mistake, one that we can correct. Life doesn't have to be filled with pain, alienation, or stress. Peace of mind and good conduct can be learned by anyone, no matter how confused or misguided they may be right now. You can be a Buddha too.

Many people see the Buddha as a sort of metaphysical doctor, tending to the ills of the world. The First Noble Truth is his pronouncement of disease, the second is his diagnosis of the cause, and the third truth is his declaration that a cure exists. The Fourth Noble Truth is the Buddha's prescription for healing the mind and spirit: By practicing good deeds, training the mind, and developing wisdom, we can free ourselves from the troubles we create through greed, anger, and delusion. This process is usually referred to as following the Holy Eightfold Path.


THE HOLY EIGHTFOLD PATH

Each school of Buddhism has its own unique teachings regarding the path to enlightenment. But a common unifying factor is the Holy Eight-fold Path, the original formula created by the Buddha and still observed by millions today. This teaching forms the fourth and final of the Noble Truths and represents the Buddha's recommendations for transforming greed into generosity, anger into compassion, and misunderstanding into wisdom.

The eight steps on this path are:

1. Correct view: recognizing the Four Noble Truths and the interconnected nature of all things.

2. Correct determination: resolving to root out bad habits and achieve peace.

3. Correct speech: avoiding gossip, slander, and lying.

4. Correct livelihood: pursuing an occupation that doesn't clash with your values and ideally affords opportunities to benefit others and discover wisdom.

5. Correct action: not harming others, be it through violence, theft, sexual misconduct, or losing control while under the influence of alcohol or drugs.

6. Correct effort: striving to practice the teachings, particularly by giving up deluded ways of thinking in favor of wholesome thoughts.

7. Correct mindfulness: being aware of negative thoughts when they arise, before they become harmful actions, and observing how the mind works.

8. Correct concentration: developing stability of mind.


Together, this mix of morality, mindfulness, and wisdom is the key to living a Buddhist life.


KARMA AND REBIRTH

Most people have at least heard of karma, though they may not have a clear idea what it means. Basically, karma is the active force that arises out of our thoughts, words, and actions, and which always leads to consequences. It's a sort of spiritual law of cause and effect, with the implication that prior conditioning increases the likelihood that you'll repeat an action, whether it's beneficial or harmful. Thus if you commit a misdeed — say you lie to cover up something you did — you set in action a chain of events that will eventually rebound negatively against you. Likewise, if you do something good — perhaps you contribute money to charity — that good karma will eventually return to you somehow. Exactly how each cause will manifest as an effect can't be known ahead of time — your lie may be exposed and cause you humiliation, or you may get away with it, but then worry constantly about being found out; perhaps your generosity will make you feel good and happy for the rest of the day, or maybe later someone will help you out when you're in need. The point is that actions all have consequences, and the quality of our life can be controlled to a large degree by regulating whether we are committing wholesome or unwholesome deeds.

Karma has an additional spiritual and mental level beyond that of reacting to actual things we do. If you think negative thoughts — perhaps you gripe all the time about how long your commute is, or you think about how cool it would be if your boss got hit by a bus — you will experience mental suffering and anguish. On the other hand, positive thoughts — such as reflecting on how much other people have contributed to your life, or resolving to help other people in need — produce mental and spiritual comfort and can lead to positive actions that create further positive karma. Holding on to greed, anger, or delusion pollutes the mind and therefore degrades the way in which we relate to the world. Approaching things with a fresh, forgiving, or positive attitude can measurably increase the amount of goodness we notice in the world and lead us to act in loving, compassionate ways.

Here's how the Buddha succinctly put it:

We are what we think. All that we are arises with our thoughts, and with our thoughts we create the world. Speak or act with an impure mind, and trouble will follow you as a cart follows the ox who draws it. Speak and act with a pure mind, and happiness will follow you like your shadow, never leaving. "He abused me, he beat me, he robbed me" — cling to such thoughts and you live in hate. "He abused me, he beat me, he robbed me" — release such thoughts, and live in peace.


Buddhist metaphysics is based on the idea that when we die, our minds are compelled by our accumulated karma to seek a new rebirth. Depending on whether we've built up good or bad karma, we may be reborn in positive or negative situations. Thus the fortune we experience now is based not only on deeds and thoughts from this life but countless previous ones as well. And the actions we undertake in this life will reverberate for centuries. Because all causes inevitably have effects, we're continually reborn in new forms until we shake off our old karmic patterns of misdeeds and unhealthy mind states. Through practicing Buddhism we learn how to achieve liberation from our past and gain full control over our lives.

Rebirth occurs not only between lives but from moment to moment as well. In each moment thoughts are passing away and new ones are replacing them. These new thoughts are conditioned by the previous ones and give rise to repeated patterns of behavior. If we can learn to turn our greed, pain, egocentricity, and delusion into generosity, forgiveness, selflessness, and wisdom, then we'll experience happiness and freedom from the cycle of negative thoughts. This mental freedom, seasoned with wisdom and compassion, is the goal of Buddhism. Buddhists call it by various names, such as nirvana, enlightenment, or awakening.


THE THREE JEWELS AND BECOMING A BUDDHIST

Many people ask how one "converts" to Buddhism. Basically, you don't become a Buddhist by renouncing your current religion or by adhering to a new dogma. Rather, it's accomplished by voluntarily turning to Buddhism for answers to your deep spiritual questions, an act that's traditionally referred to as seeking refuge with the Three Jewels. These Three Jewels are the Buddha, the teachings, and the community of practitioners.

When life has brought us to a crisis point, we seek help from that which we trust. If our trust is placed in Buddhism, then we can rightfully call ourselves Buddhists, whether or not our practice is particularly strong, our knowledge deep or shallow. Going to the Three Jewels for refuge is the most basic Buddhist activity, one repeated in temples and communities around the world every day, and performed again and again throughout the lifetime of each Buddhist.

The Three Jewels are called such because they're the precious core of Buddhism. The Buddha is the historical founder of Buddhism. Buddhists look to him as a role model and guide, a compassionate teacher and moral leader. But the title "Buddha" can also signify the other legendary Buddhas, as well as the innately enlightened aspect of our own minds. Thus when we seek refuge with the Buddha, we're trying to follow his example, and attempting to rely upon the Buddha nature that lies within us.

The teachings are known as the dharma, a complex Sanskrit term that includes concepts of law, natural order, lessons, methods, and wise writings and sayings. When Buddhists talk about the dharma, they mean both the specific teachings that were preached by the Buddha and refined by his followers, and the natural spiritual law of the universe, akin to the physical and chemical laws of science. The Buddha didn't invent the dharma — it's just how things naturally work, and he happened to discover this fundamental aspect of life and teach it to others. So by taking refuge in the dharma, we are following the teachings of Buddhism in order to better understand the way the world and our minds work.

The community of Buddhists is known as the sangha, another Sanskrit word. In its widest sense, all Buddhists are members of the sangha, and by taking refuge in the sangha we seek help and comfort from people walking the same spiritual path as ourselves. Sometimes the term sangha is used in a narrower sense to refer to a specific group of practitioners, or to refer to just the community of monks and nuns.

A good resource for further investigation is Walpola Rahula's What the Buddha Taught.


TEN FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

WHO WAS THE BUDDHA?

The Buddha was a religious teacher who lived in India about 2,500 years ago. According to the stories of his life that have been handed down to us, the Buddha was a prince named Siddhartha Gautama. Based on a fortuneteller's prediction, his father feared that Siddhartha would become a guru instead of a king, and therefore had him kept in the palace, surrounded at all times by luxury and happiness. But one day the prince saw some suffering people and a wandering holy man and realized that there were more important things in life than material richness and power. He renounced his princehood and left his family to seek a religious solution to the problems of the world.

Siddhartha wandered around India, studying with different gurus and trying various ascetic and meditative practices. But nothing seemed to deliver the real release from suffering that he sought. Finally he discovered for himself a middle path between luxury and asceticism, and while meditating he achieved enlightenment — he understood the causes that bring about suffering, discovered the means to end them, and finally freed himself of angst and anguish. It is at this moment, at the age of thirty-five, that he became a Buddha: literally, an "awakened one."

The Buddha went on to found a large community of followers, including monks, nuns, and laypeople. He traveled the countryside for decades, preaching his doctrine of freedom through compassion, mindfulness, and wisdom. He finally died of food poisoning at the age of eighty.

After the Buddha passed away his remains were cremated and distributed among his followers. His community continued to grow and spread, eventually splitting into many different subgroups that viewed him and his teachings in different ways. Some people saw him as a human being who achieved extraordinary abilities through his peerless virtue and wisdom. Others saw him as a more transcendent being, an eternal guide and teacher who had always been enlightened. Today there are probably as many different ideas about who and what the Buddha was as there are about Jesus Christ.

The Buddha wasn't a god. Despite the miracles he is said to have performed and the belief of some that he represents an eternal principle of wisdom, Buddhists do not believe he was a deity or messiah. Buddha didn't create the world and doesn't control it — he was a great teacher who showed humanity the way to peace and insight. Others have done so before him and more Buddhas will appear in due time, because the truth that the Buddha discovered is an intrinsic part of reality, of being human, and it can be realized at any time if we only make the effort to practice as the Buddha recommended.

For a full account of the Buddha's life told in an accessible, novelistic style, try Thich Nhat Hanh's Narrow Path, White Clouds.


DO I HAVE TO MEDITATE IN ORDER TO BE A BUDDHIST?

No. To be honest, the majority of Buddhists living in Asia meditate very infrequently, if at all. Meditation is traditionally seen as a very difficult activity practiced by the religious elite — monks, nuns, and some advanced laypeople. Most Asian Buddhists would probably stress that morality is more important than meditation.

In America, meditation is strongly identified with Buddhism, to the extent that many American Buddhists consider meditation to be the core of Buddhist practice. This is a rather unique situation in the history of Buddhist transmission to a new country, which led the famous Zen teacher Shunryu Suzuki Roshi to remark that American Buddhists are "neither monks nor laypeople."

Meditation is a powerful tool for exploring the self and developing insight into reality. It's highly recommended that all people interested in Buddhism at least give meditation a try. But it's hardly the only useful technique for self-transformation that Buddhism offers; some people will fare better with chanting, visualization, study, bowing, or other Buddhist activities. Don't let the rigor of meditation practice deter you from exploring the riches of Buddhist practice, philosophy, and culture.


(Continues...)

Excerpted from The Buddhist Guide to New York by Jeff Wilson, Mike Taylor. Copyright © 2000 Jeff Wilson. Excerpted by permission of St. Martin's Press.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

Table of Contents

Contents

TITLE PAGE,
COPYRIGHT NOTICE,
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS,
INTRODUCTION,
HOW TO USE THIS BOOK,
GENERAL ETIQUETTE WHEN VISITING BUDDHIST CENTERS,
PART ONE: WHAT IS BUDDHISM?,
BUDDHISM FOR BEGINNERS,
BUDDHISM 101,
TEN FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS,
A BRIEF OVERVIEW OF THE DIFFERENT SCHOOLS OF BUDDHISM,
PART TWO: WHERE CAN I GO TO PRACTICE BUDDHISM?,
PRACTICE CENTERS AND MEDITATION GROUPS: NEW YORK CITY,
MANHATTAN,
UPTOWN,
MIDTOWN,
DOWNTOWN,
QUEENS,
BROOKLYN,
BRONX,
STATEN ISLAND,
PRACTICE CENTERS AND MEDITATION GROUPS: OUTSIDE THE CITY,
NEW YORK STATE,
NEW JERSEY,
CONNECTICUT,
PART THREE: WHAT OTHER BUDDHIST RESOURCES ARE AVAILABLE?,
DR. BUDDHA,
ZEN AND THE ART OF PARENTING,
MUSEUMS AND CULTURAL SERVICES,
TIBETAN RESOURCES,
STORES, ORGANIZATIONS, AND OTHER BUDDHIST RESOURCES IN NEW YORK,
GLOSSARY,
INDEX,
COPYRIGHT,

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