With the recent shootings and anti-Asian racism that has been in the news, I am reprinting a revised version of an article I wrote almost 30 years ago, just after I came back to Salt Lake City, Utah after almost thirteen years of living in Berkeley, Oakland, San Jose, California and Kyoto, Japan. In each of these places, I felt like an outsider. In Berkeley and Oakland, I was the country bumpkin moving to the big city. In Kyoto, I was the American that looked Japanese. When I went to San Jose, I was suddenly the young minister, not a member of the temple.
It was difficult to adjust to and find my bearings. However, the difficulty was not so much the environment, as much as finding out who I was. I was a Japanese-American Buddhist, born and raised in Salt Lake City, Utah. I think I knew what it was to be different, anti-Asian racism is not something new. The sixties and seventies of my youth were only twenty or thirty years after World War II or the Korean War. The Vietnam War was happening. Having an Asian face was a target. Someone asked me recently if I had ever been in a physical fight, I had to laugh, because when I was in Elementary School, it seemed I was fighting at least once a week. Being called a “Jap”, “Chink” or “Gook”. Part of war is to de-humanize the other. Words such as these do exactly that. I don’t have a realistic solution for getting rid of anti-Asian racism. It is ingrained in the soul of America’s history. If you lived in Japan, you would feel racism if you are not Japanese. It is ingrained in the soul of Japan. Racism and discrimination is a part of humanity. Therefore, the solution is not something we can do to society as much as what we can do for ourselves. This article is about how I began to find myself.
—
Hometown Love
I admire those cold, proud beings who adventure upon the paths of great and daemonic beauty and despise ‘mankind’; but I do not envy them. For if anything is capable of making a poet of a literary man, it is my hometown love of the human, the living and ordinary. All warmth derives from this love, all kindness and humor.”
Tonio Kroger by Thomas Mann
As Buddhists living in America, we are often placed by society and ourselves in the position of having to defend our beliefs. In many ways this can be beneficial, for the need to defend our beliefs often make us stronger. However, there are some Buddhists who feel a need to apologize for their beliefs. This is something I feel is totally unnecessary and detrimental to Buddhism and in the long run, to one self.
I can think of no reason that one should be embarrassed about the Buddhist teachings. Within Buddhism, we find one of the most non-judgmental, compassionate teachings in the history of mankind. The historical Buddha Shakyamuni has said, “There are 84,000 paths to enlightenment.” What he means by 84,000 paths is that there are an infinite number of ways to awaken to Truth. Each of us human beings are individuals, consisting of our own histories and various causes and conditions which make our lives. We each have our own stories and truths that make us who we are. Buddhism recognizes that the teachings must be flexible to encompass so many different viewpoints. There cannot be one true and real teaching. Just as there cannot be only one story or history to identify each and every one of us.
Buddhism is nothing more than a finger pointing out our way. There is the famous Zen painting of a man laughing and pointing at the moon. If we focus on the man’s finger, we can see that he is laughing at us. Focusing upon his finger is narrowing our minds. In addition, that finger is his not ours. The man is telling us to open our minds and look at the Moon. The Moon shines upon each and every one of us, in our own place and time. To see its true beauty, we must view it from our own perspective. We should open our eyes to the light shining down upon us. If are able to honestly see what the light is revealing, we may laugh with him. For the light reveal our true selves. If we cannot accept and laugh at our own true selves, we are in serious trouble.
I like to write about some of the basics of the Buddhist Teachings. In writing, I am not telling you that this is the definitive Buddhist way. I am merely explaining to you what I have found to be the beauty of the Buddhist teachings. I am writing as a third generation, Japanese-American married male, who was born and raised in Salt Lake City, Utah. As an ordained Jodo Shinshu Buddhist priest, my views are interpreted from that particular perspective. How can it be otherwise? However, I hope that you will find that although each of us is different, in many ways, as human beings we are very much alike. I hope that you will find some teaching that will enlighten your way to look at yourself and maybe laugh a little at our human frailties. Whenever possible I try to use passages from Western philosophers and thinkers rather than famous Buddhist philosophers and thinkers. I want to show that Jodo Shinshu is speaking about basic truths in Life, which transcend the boundaries of culture and race; this means they can be found in many different places, not only in Buddhist texts and literature.
I began with the passage by Thomas Mann, because I believe that one of the problems many of us find in our Buddhist teachings is that when we identify ourselves as Buddhists, we seem to set ourselves apart from the larger society we are born into. I was born and raised in Salt Lake City, a predominantly white, Christian society. Identifying myself as a Buddhist and a Japanese American Buddhist Priest seems to set me apart from this society. Yet, who and what I am has been defined by this society I was born into. This is my hometown love.
Salt Lake City is where I first discovered people and life. If I were to reject this society I was born into, am I not rejecting a part of who I am? Mann says, “All warmth derives from this love, all kindness and humor.” I feel that we must accept the society we are born into as a part of ourselves. No one fits into society perfectly. Even if I were born a white, male, L.D.S. descended from Brigham Young. I could not consider myself a perfect fit. For each of us has our own perception of the world. I used to use Steve Young, the quarterback for the San Francisco 49ers as my example of someone that does not fit the mold. He is now almost 60 years old, but when I wrote about him, he was rich, famous, a B.Y.U. graduate with a law degree. However, he was in his early 30s and not married without children. Most Mormon males are married by the time they are his age and have children.
There is no perfect fit. Each of us is flawed in some way. Coming to accept and understand our own flawed nature is the beginning of understanding Jodo Shinshu. As the Philosopher Meister Eckhart wrote, “To get at the core of God at his greatest, one must first get into the core of himself at his least.” In Jodo Shinshu, one of the first steps we must realize is how imperfect we are. This is why Buddhism says, “Life is suffering.” It is through our imperfection and understanding that we can find healing and joy. The philosopher-psychologist William James called it “torn to pieces hood,” his translation of the German Zerrissenhiet. As human beings each of us experiences this feeling of being torn asunder, being pulled by various forces of family, job, marriage, race, etc. Yet if we are able to step back for a moment, we will realize that each of these forces is what identifies who we are. It is living in this world. As the commissioner of Baseball Francis T. Vincent, Jr., observed about baseball, we should view life. He said in a speech; Baseball teaches us, or has taught most of us, how to deal with failure. We learn at a very young age that failure is the norm in baseball and, precisely because we have failed, we hold in high regard those who fail less often-those who hit safely in one out of three chances and become star players. I also find it fascinating that baseball, alone in sport, consider errors to be part of the game, part of its rigorous truth.
We can look at life in the same way. Jodo Shinshu teaches us how to deal with failure. We should learn from a young age that in life failure is just part of the game. We can accept and understand this basic fact of life, by understanding this being torn apartness. We can see how we are being embraced and healed at the same time. This is the core of the Buddhist teaching. It is not a pessimist, nihilistic teaching as some would claim. It is a teaching that accepts us as we are and shows us how to understand that imperfection which makes us truly human. To face ourselves squarely, seeing ourselves as we are; mixed up, paradoxical, incomplete, not quite fitting in.
This is teaching is not something new or different. It is not just the Jodo Shinshu way. From the Delphic Oracle’s first admonition, “Know thyself.” As the Lizensker Rebbe, “Only God is perfect. Man’s actions must be basically defective in part. If one believes his good deed or my study to be thoroughly pure and perfect, this is a sure sign that they are thoroughly bad.” These are all basic rules of for playing the game of Life. Jodo Shinshu is a way for us to understand this Life.
I know that within myself, I am flawed. The racism and other defects of society and humanity are also within me. The responsibility for change is within me. I believe that there will always be racism and hate in our World. It is only by seeing ourselves, that we can begin to change the world a bit. Rev. Jitsuen Kakehashi had said, if we can see the other as a human being, it can change the world. His example was, “if we can see the other person we hate as a human being, like ourselves. He may still dislike them, but just that small change in attitude could change the world. Could you imagine if everyone began to pause and think like this?” I wonder and hope that each of us will pause and see ourselves as the other. Namo Amida Butsu.
~J.K. Hirano