Academic frustrations, why I am disheartened, and where I should be going
by Al
I’m attending the big Japanese Buddhism at UC Berkley this weekend. That has been very interesting so far. I had the opportunity to meet Dr. Paul Groner and Dr. Steve Covell, who have both written on Tendai, and talk with them a bit (especially Steve). I also was able to see Ryuichi Abe speak at the opening keynote. All of these are people who have written very good books that I happen to have.
This conference has once again brought the the forefront some of my ongoing issues with my Buddhist Studies work. I’ve been planning on focusing on Japanese esoteric Buddhism, specifically Tendai, for a while. I’d like my dissertation to focus on a particular tantric ritual or set of rituals. At this time, we (my advisor and I) have made the preliminary plan for me to focus on the Susiddhikara Sutra and its influence on the core Tendai rituals (or maybe just one, like the goma). The problem here is that every professor that I talk to about this, other than my advisor, starts talking about all of the language work that I’ll need to do and then all the time I’ll need to spend in Japan in order to get access to libraries of books, etc. etc. Dr. Covell mentioned today (and in a helpful way, I should add) that I should go to Taisho University to do research and that I’d really have to have my Japanese mastered in order to do that.
You know what? I have zero (none at all) interest in being an expert on, say, 12th century Japan, Japanese history, or of spending a year or two in Japan with a bookcase full of contemporary scholastic works on Taimitsu just to finish my dissertation. We’re not talking about my academic career here, we’re talking about what I need to do to get my degree.
Along with this, while I have been fortunate enough to be exposed to Tendai, anything beyond that seems to have strong karmic barriers or somesuch. To really understand these rituals, I would like to follow the same path that Dr. Payne (my advisor) and Dr. Covell (not to mention others) have done and be trained in the practices, instructed in the traditional meanings, etc. This requires Tendai ordination, which is a sisyphistic task as far as I can tell. I actually am friends with one Tendai priest (who reads this blog) and have spoken to others but the way things seem to be going, unless I want to abandon my home to go to Japan (and going there has been recommended against by more than one person), the process to do that here in the U.S. would take longer than actually getting my entire doctorate. Meanwhile, I can’t shake a tree or a bush without someone not involved with Tendai falling out of it and making introductions to me.
I’m wondering if I’m suffering from a both “the grass is greener” issue and ignoring what is in front of my face. I have a background in Tibetan tantric practice. I’ve been fascinated by tantra for 20 years now and I’ve practiced a bit of it. That said, I’m a Zen priest, working and living in America, and participating in a non-denominational Mahayana seminary (outside of my doctoral work). Maybe I need to step back and away from the “Oooh, shiny!” smells and bells of esoteric Buddhism and its rituals and unify my current spiritual practice, where I live, and what I want to do for my academic work.
While I’m not interested in becoming an expert in 12th century Japan or learning Classical Chinese (just to read a few texts), I am very interested in the practice of Buddhism in the West, especially in the community of those that converted to it. Where is Buddhism going here in the next century? Are we creating new sects, trying to transcend sects (as seems to be happening in Zen), or doing something else? It seems like I should be considering finding a dissertation that focuses on the here and now or that is related to what I am involved with (meditation and koans, mostly) rather than focusing on stuff that propels me to places where I don’t want to be. Frankly, Buddhism now is much more interesting and almost none of it is esoteric in the sense of tantra if you leave out Tibetan Vajrayana. At the end of the day, as a practitioner who is also a scholar, I’m thinking that I should unify my interests, which are contemporary, not ancient.
I haven’t come up with a dissertation idea that goes along these lines, having just spent a chunk of the afternoon thinking about this, but I should. One of my classes this term is dedicated to refining your dissertation and all the groundwork for it so as to not spend 11 years (a true story, it seems) doing a doctorate instead of five or six. If I want to change focus, I should do it now, rather than later. All dissertations are centered around a specific question that needs to be answered and also about what the answer to that question tells people (what is learned) that is new. Those two things are both necessary.
I guess I’d better quick cracking or I’m going to wind up banging my head against work that I don’t have an interest in really doing just to create a dissertation.
Comments
See, I would think that this would be an excellent question (paraphrased from your post):
Is Buddhism in the West creating new sects, transcending sects, or creating a new post-modern sect through the very act of transcending?
That isn’t focused enough, unfortunately, because the answer, on its face, could be “yes” to all of those.
A lot of ideas for dissertations are, as I have found, either too open (trying to cover too much ground) or too focused (not enough room to really work on anything or add new knowledge).
You have to have a question that is fairly focused and an idea of what new knowledge might be demonstrated by it.
“How is the Susiddhikara Sutra reflected in the Tendai rituals that makes them different than very similar Shingon rituals” is a specific question (though it has potential issues).
I’ve thought of a very Zen dissertation topic, after reading James Ford’s postings, on the issue of lay versus ordained teachers in American Zen but I’m not sure if that is something interesting enough to me to spend a few years on.
I’m not sure how to approach the problem of American Buddhism (at least convert Buddhism). We have people who go to Spirit Rock, which is technically Vipassana, who also go to retreats or teachings by Tibetans, or Zen teachers, etc. In fact, tomorrow there is a joint teaching by a Bay Area Kagyu teacher and a Zen teacher called “Zen Heart, Vajra Heart” (see http://www.zenheartvajraheart.com/ and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j7mxwUdxMY8) for an example. They use the term “Joining the Streams” (which makes me think of “crossing the streams” and Egon…). My gut says that there is a dissertation topic in there but I need to conceptualize it and how to approach it.
They say that I should have a two minute elevator pitch for what my dissertation is about to summarize it.
Hi Al,
I think James is right and I’d like to add a few points of my own. We currently have active teachers and schools of Buddhism that are combining sects and practices. Teachers, such as Joan Halifax for instance trained with Zen Master Seung Sahn, Thich Nhat Hahn, and finally with Tesugin Glassman Roshi; so her approach is a combination of Korean Zen, Vietnamese Zen, and Sanbo Kyodan Japanese Zen. There are other teachers who have crossed over from other sects. If you’d like I can get further details into this. There are teachers who cross over from Theravada, Zen Sects and Vajrayana. The resultant organizations are merging some of these differences and evolving into organizations that are focusing on what is the most important for the Western Practitioners of Buddhism. I don’t know, this would be an interesting endevor and would be focused in the West.
Just my opinion. Good luck
Thank you, Paul. I do agree that it would be interesting. In fact, I’ll flat out say that regardless of my dissertation work, it is something that I want to explore in the future no matter what.
I’m just trying to figure out how to conceptualize it academically.
You’ve actually helped because you state that there are multiple teachers that are crossing types of Buddhism. While Zen has many different forms, I would bet it is less “interesting” to most if different Zen lineages are cross-fertilizing than if say Theravadan, Zen, and Vajrayana teachers are sometimes cross-fertilizing. That is much more radical.
I would love for you to e-mail me with more information that you felt like sharing.
Sure, I’ll try and work on the list, the best I know of it. Just a side note, did you know that Trungpa Rinpoche and Shunryu Suzuki Roshi were very close friends? And that Trungpa changed some of his methods of teaching meditation based upon his conversations with Suzuki. And, yes I’d agree that this would be more interesting.
Yeah, I knew the connection. I have the book that came out the other year (the Teacup and the Skullcup?) of Trungpa’s writings on Zen. I’ve also done the first few “levels” of the Shambhala training where they, really, teaching you shikantaza in a very Zen manner but using different language. I actually quite enjoyed their school and group, though I never joined. They had a number of arranged flower vases, bits of calligraphy, etc. It felt very inbetween Zen and Vajrayana.
Hey Al,
The advice you’ve gotten from the profs is probably very good for ending up with the kind of stature and position they have; getting a professorship is an extremely competitive thing, as you know, so you usually have to have some killer credentials to succeed. If you’re not interested in becoming an expert in some limited historical phenomenon (I’m sure not myself), then best face that now rather than after two or three years of jumping through extravagant hoops. Changing course might be a little tricky politically, though, if you got into the program and chose your advisor on the basis of doing Japanese tantric stuff.
Hi Bill,
Actually, at least one of the professors seemed to think that looking at modern Buddhism or Buddhist communities was pretty worthwhile from a job point of view. He mentioned that in passing. If I want to teach at a major research university, I need to be an expert on some really interesting subject and have four languages under my belt. I’d already decided that I wasn’t aiming for that kind of career. I’m interested in teaching, if possible, but I’d be happy to do it at a smaller school and get a chance to write books and articles, etc.
Hi Al,
I think your right in your assessment re; focusing on what you already know and frankly where your heart is-your going to have to spend a shitload of time with this stuff. If your looking at interfaces and the evolution of new currents/trads, is there any mileage in a comparative analysis between the Nath tantra and John Reynolds work as emboddiments of tantric and contemporary western magical approaches (spot the personal axe to grind!!)
Al,
It is the internet and someone should play devils advocate, right? I mean what would the internet be if there was no one disagreeing in the comments section, i fear for what would happen.
Anyways having recently gone through what your going through now, at a large state funded university. Though I am quite familiar with the GTU/IBS and all the folks there. I would encourage you to look at the AAR website and some of the Job postings. You will find quite a few for Asian BUddhism and very few, if any, for American Buddhism. While this may change, there are specialists in American Buddhism getting jobs, they are not getting jobs at small teaching universities. See for example, Jeff Wilson at the University of Waterloo. Also a change is slowly happening in the field thanks to people like Wilson. If one really wants to work in American Buddhism, Buddhism in America or something on those lines, they need to be trained in American Religions and Asian Religions both. Language skills are still going to be very necessary, many of the early documents are in Japanese, Thai, Korean, Chinese, etc. Also there are a number of studies in Japanese on American Buddhism (whole conferences in fact focus on this). If you don’t have the language facility in Japanese the chances of you missing something will highly go up. For example attending the conference in Berkeley that you have written is TOMOYA Moriya. SHe is a wonderful scholar who focuses on American Jodo SHinshu and publishes a lot in Japanese. I have heard presentations in Japanese on all kinds of Buddhisms in America.
Now, I am not trying to be a troll. I think your proposed work has a ton of valuable contributions to make to the academy and I wish you luck no matter which direction you chose to go. My comment reflects a concern I have with the study of American Buddhism in that a number of people seem to turn to this when interested in Buddhist studies, but lacking language training. Without the language training I feel they are still at risk of missing something. Imagine the horror upon writing your first book, getting it reviewed and the reviewer saying it was interesting but ignored x study in y language.
Anyways, good luck. I look forward to reading your future posts and seeing what direction you choose to go. Apologies in advance if my post is out of line.
Thank you for the response, Eld. I don’t think it is out of line at all.
I will point out that I am learning Japanese, as I have mentioned. This is not a question of whether or not I learn Japanese or me looking for a way to get out of it or somesuch (that isn’t an option anyway as my program requires me to have reading competency in two foreign languages and one is normally Asian).
The language issue is more a matter of emphasis. Do I read Japanese, just as I’ll read German (probably), in order to have access to articles and such or do I read Japanese because all of my research materials are in Japanese? Those are two very different things.
Frankly, I’m not interested in learning Japanese *and* Classical Japanese *and* Classical Chinese *and* Tibetan *and* Sanskrit. Out of the people that I know working in Buddhist Studies, many know two Asian languages but I don’t, personally, know many who know four, for example. If I was 18 instead of 38, maybe I’d consider it.
So, I’m not looking at changing focus as some sort of dodge around language as much as the fact that my interests are primarily in contemporary Buddhism and that within my own culture. The fact that I also have an interest in esoteric Buddhism and ritual effectively propelled me to doing work focusing on Japanese Buddhism in Japan (since I do not want to work on Tibetan Vajrayana) since there is almost no esoteric Buddhism in the United States. (While Shingon and Tendai are present here, I’m not interesting in doing, for example, an ethnographic study of how immigrants established Shingon temples and how they developed over time. I’m interested in tantra.)
I will say that the “American Buddhism” that I am interested in is not primarily the immigrant Buddhism of Japanese-Americans, Thai-Americans, etc. As a convert to Buddhism who grew up Catholic, my personal interests are within the largely white convert community. For example, while there are tens of thousands of ethnic Tibetans in this country practicing Buddhism, at most “Tibetan” Dharma centers, the members are largely white converts. From my own experience (anectdotal, obviously), white converts and people who grew up within the same Buddhist tradition have very different viewpoints towards Buddhism and its practice.