Eido Shimano, the Japanese Zen Buddhist monk whose exploitative relationships with female followers over a fifty-year period were to tear apart the American Buddhist community, arrived in the United States in August , at the age of 27, to study at the University of Hawaii. He moved in with Bob Aitken, a Zen teacher who had first been exposed to Zen as a prisoner of war in a Japanese camp, afterwards studying with leading Japanese masters. Until the women he serially abused finally began to speak out, in the last two years or so, Shimano was a pillar—the pillar—of the New York City community of Zen Buddhists. This note, haunting in retrospect, foreshadows all the abuse that was to come. This coincidence was passed along to Dr. Linus Pauling Jr. Further, I was concerned about protecting the two women. He even flew to Japan to consult with his own teachers, the legendary Nakagawa and Yasutani—neither of whom, it turns out, doubted that Shimano was capable of sleeping around, but both of whom seemed unwilling to accept that this behavior was really a problem. Aitken never went public with what he knew about Shimano, not in , and not for the next half century until his death. Tormented, Robert Aitken saved his correspondence with and about Shimano.

Buddhism and romantic relationships

Finally, it highlights the unique features of DDL and compares them to popular and academic conceptions of Zen Buddhism. Taiwanese Buddhism is one representation, and the most vocal and visible form on a global scale , of Chinese Buddhism as a whole. It was founded in with a acre piece of mountainside land located in Jinshan County in northern Taiwan, about 40 kilometers from Taipei City. Construction of DDM did not begin until the mids.

It was not until that the main buildings on the mountain site were completed.

This post details the lessons Joe has learned regarding male-female relationships. It attempts to fit dating into a Zen and Buddhist lifestyle.

Alot of searching goes on out there, Grasshopper. But truth can sneak up on you when you least expect it. Joshu Sasaki, the Mt. Mostly, the venerable spiritual leader spends his days in his little wood-slat cabin in the mountain, meditating and teaching his students and acolytes according to the oblique methods of Zen Buddhism.

Academically speaking, Zen is a school of Buddhism dating back to the 12th Century, when Japanese masters adapted Indian and Chinese meditation techniques and moral discipline in the search for transcendental illumination. From the Zen perspective, true wisdom is rarely straightforward or capable of being expressed objectively. Sasaki came from Japan to Mt.

Baldy 27 years ago, at the beginning of a wave of American interest in Zen Buddhism.

How to Use the Buddhist Concept of “Right Effort” to Have a Better Dating Life

Zen Buddhism: Main. Leading Buddhist scholar Sam van Schaik explores the history and essence of Zen, based on a new translation of one of the earliest surviving collections of teachings by Zen masters. These teachings, titled The Masters and Students of the Lanka, were discovered in a sealed cave on the old Silk Road, in modern Gansu, China, in the early twentieth century. All more than a thousand years old, the manuscripts have sometimes been called the Buddhist Dead Sea Scrolls, and their translation has opened a new window onto the history of Buddhism.

Both accessible and illuminating, this book explores the continuities between the ways in which Zen was practiced in ancient times, and how it is practiced today in East Asian countries such as Japan, China, Korea, and Vietnam, as well as in the emerging Western Zen tradition.

There are numerous similarities between Horney’s theory and Zen Buddhism. such as working abroad and intercultural dating, are increasingly common.

Your Northwest Dharma Association NWDA website is getting a technology boost that will make it easier for group leaders to list events, and for Sangha members and anyone else to utilize the site. For Dharma groups: Dharma group members will find the new system far easier for building and editing profiles of their groups, and for sharing lineages, practice schedules, and contact information. Leaders will be able to more easily enter and edit calendar listings, with less confusion and fewer problems needing solutions from NWDA volunteer staff.

Groups will find it easier to promote their practice schedules and events…. It was January 27, and 16 pilgrims were one week into their three-week pilgrimage through India and Nepal. This journey catered specifically to Chinese-speaking participants. Surrounded by Garry oak and Douglas fir, the original building is a Victorian house, beautifully trimmed in grey-green and burgundy. Beside it stands a low structure of post-modern concrete.

Art galleries are all about looking and seeing, which makes them perfect sites….

A New Chan (Zen) School in Taiwan: Dharma Drum Lineage of Chan Buddhism

This post details the lessons Joe has learned regarding male-female relationships. It attempts to fit dating into a Zen and Buddhist lifestyle. This post is more for me than it is for you. My ideas may or may not resonate with you. You should always only apply what does resonate with you. These ideas are made to fit my own life and might not fit with yours.

Buddhist teacher Susan Piver shares her advice for entering the online dating world. Photo by Tim Foster. The March Lion’s Roar.

Hinduism is patriarchal. No doubt about it. But Buddhism? It is not the first religion that comes to mind when we talk about misogyny. The assumption is that Buddhism is rational, modern, agnostic, and liberal in matters of gender and sexuality. Book after book has conditioned us to see the celibate and chaste Buddha as a kind of androgynous, asexual, gentle sage with a beatific smile. Yet, some of the earliest and most systematic documentation of rejection of female sexuality in Indian literature is from Buddhist scriptures, especially the rules of monastic discipline Vinaya Pitaka , traditionally attributed to the Buddha himself.

Initially, none of these strictures were codified. There was no Vinaya Pitaka. But as many people joined the monastery vihara , they started behaving in certain ways that were deemed unworthy of monks and seekers of Buddha-hood. People also started making fun of the Buddhist way. So to protect the reputation of the dhamma and the sangha , Buddha began putting down these rules. This happened 2, years ago.

222 – Zen and the Art of Relationships

Dictionaries 2. Geographical Aides 3. Biographical Searches 4. Book Titles 6.

dharmaMatch is a spiritual alternative to mega dating sites & apps, inspired by the Eastern spirituality Many of our members identify as Buddhist, Hindu, or Yogi.

In regards to romantic relationships , Buddhism has very liberal views. Non attachment is the idea that in order to be fulfilled and happy in life, a person cannot be attached to any one thing because this thing can cause suffering. This idea is not referring to worldly objects in the physical sense, but in a spiritual sense. Instead, one must accept a partner for who they are unconditionally. In Buddhism, this is the key to a happy romantic relationship.

Accepting a partner for who they are, for who they are throughout their life no matter what changes, and making the best of every situation is how one achieves personal fulfillment in a romantic relationship. The idea of unconditional love is essentially what Buddhism teaches. People married for a variety of reasons including: status, wealth, power and love. Buddhist text do not delve too deeply into the idea of marriage because Buddhism leaves the decision to marry up to each individual person.

In Buddhism, marriage is not a religious obligation, a means for procreation , or a romantic notion of love. It is simply an option for each individual to make. If an individual believes marriage will bring them happiness and keep them on the path of enlightenment, then they are free to make that choice. Buddhism does not provide rules or traditions about marriage, instead, the philosophy offers advice to help a person live happily within a marriage.

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Close Menu. Following a tradition dating back over years, two dozen Buddhist nuns gather for a ninety day period of meditation, fasting and contemplation deep in the mountains of South Korea. With the singular goal of attaining enlightenment, the women undertake a rigorous schedule of meditation, at one point sitting for seven days without sleep.

This is a guest post by Shane as part of the article swap, part 3 within the Buddhist blogoshphere. I am posting over at Peace Ground Zero.

My dear friend Whitney was in town the other week, and one of the things we talked quite a bit about was how Buddhism has helped her feel more at peace with life. She wrote a fantastic essay for this month’s Marie Claire about how she converted after being a life-long atheist. One of the key things Buddhists try to keep in mind: When someone does something that makes you feel bad, it’s rarely the case that his goal was to hurt you.

Rather, he was trying to make himself feel good, or happy–or, at least, to minimize his own pain or discomfort as much as possible. Which is kind of a long way of saying: Don’t take it personally. Familiar as that might sound, it was good to hear what Whitney was explaining—so good that I decided to find out if there was some Buddhism guru out there who might have some tips about how to “stay Zen” while dating.

So I did. And after I contacted him to ask if he had any insight into how to apply Buddhist ideas to dating, he wrote back to say:. I’m dating myself right now—and, oh, it’s miserable! The only time I ever meet cute women who are interested in dating me is when I’m giving a lecture.

Zen and the Art of Dating: Insights from a Zen Monk

As Lindsay and her friend set out to investigate the dharma of online dating, Susan chimed with some ideas. In online dating, we are taking our vulnerable parts and putting it all out there for people who could be the flakiest people ever. How do we navigate that and not take it personally? There is no way to not take all of it personally.

To preserve and present Chan Buddhism as a form of moral and spiritual education, of DDL and compares them to popular and academic conceptions of Zen Buddhism. All publications listed there are under the original publication date.

A few years back I went on a dating spree. Over a couple months, I went out with about twenty different people, some for one date, some for several dates, and some for a month or more. There was the sportswriter, the screenwriter, the director and the entertainment lawyer I live in LA, after all. There was the guy who refused to choose a restaurant, and made me pick both the first and second date locations. There was the cute but nerdy professor who had the unfortunate quality of sounding bored by the sound of his own voice.

In the Buddhist philosophy there is something called the Noble Eightfold Path. Right Effort means you avoid extremes of over-diligence on one side and inaction on the other, and instead follow a middle path. You avoid playing with a string that is too loose or too taut. Right Effort means your actions have good intention and are purposeful, yet are also joyful and not forced.

Zen and the Art of Dating

And as a mating strategy, it possibly beats travelling a Vipassana resort. A FrenchZen pupil that cooked a tarte aux pommes for my birthday party and also used me bouquets of homemade chard. None of the relationships, nonetheless, included anything that you could contact dating.

Feb 25, – Date a Buddhist? Great Idea! Maybe you’re tired of dating the same types of people over and over again. Well, if that’s the case, I’d like to suggest.

This is a guest post by Shane as part of the article swap, part 3 within the Buddhist blogoshphere. I am posting over at Peace Ground Zero today. When I started writing on this post, I was approaching it with a discursive and relative based mind. I wanted to look at how Zen had made me approach dating differently…hopefully better.

I wanted to explore how non-attachment and equanimity could be balanced with passion and romance. I wanted to know how I could be equanimous when what I really wanted to do was jump some bones or engage in an argument. I found myself approaching Zen and dating in a very non-Zen way. More to the point it can be difficult to say how Zen and the art of anything really works out because Zen is beyond words.

Ryōanji (Peaceful Dragon Temple)

I find the notion both intriguing and horrifying. According to Business Week Online, almost 5 percent of the U. Arranging dates through Buddhist sites promises something novel: a wide assortment of potential friends, all of them single and interested in connection, and all sharing a primary interest in spiritual practice. And as a mating strategy, it probably beats cruising a Vipassana retreat. A French Zen student who baked a tarte aux pommes for my birthday and offered me bouquets of homegrown chard.

None of the connections, however, involved anything that you might call dating.

If the Buddha Dated: A Handbook for Finding Love on a Spiritual Path [Kasl, Charlotte] on Zen and the art of falling in love. One disclaimer, I never buy books on dating, this is the first one, so I can’t compare it with any other.

Some things just don’t want to die. Much to my surprise, a little piece I published over 10 years ago, about a certain type of spiritual guy I found myself dating in my early twenties, set alight a dormant flame throughout the world. Originally published in the anthology “Radical Spirit,” “Zen Boyfriends” was rapidly translated into multiple languages, and I soon learned that Zen boyfriends were found in Italy, Spain, France and even communities in Thailand and other parts of Asia.

More years on the path brought more Zen boyfriends and infinite variations on the theme, not only for myself but from my clients and from readers and seekers everywhere. I hope you enjoy the snippets from the original writing and revised theater production, and please share your stories! At a certain stage in my own spiritual development, I began to attract a new breed of men that over time I came to call “Zen boyfriends.

He could be a Tibetan Buddhist, a Sufi, or even a practitioner of some obscure brand of yoga. The more rigid the tradition, the better for this type. What defines a Zen boyfriend is the manner in which he skillfully uses spiritual ideals and practices as an excuse for his terror of, and refusal to be in, any type of real relationship with a woman. He is both too identified with his balls to become a celibate monk, and at the same time too little identified with the wider implications of them to take responsibility for them.

The result: a righteous, distant and very intelligent substitute for a real man. Andrew was a great example of a Zen boyfriend. This is how a typical morning went in our love nest:.

Getting Zen with a Buddhist