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2020/09/30

Beyond Religion: Ethics for a Whole World by Dalai Lama

Beyond Religion: Ethics for a Whole World

by Dalai Lama XIV, Alexander Norman (Contributor)

4.04 · Rating details · 4,473 ratings · 412 reviews

An unprecedented event: a beloved world religious leader proposes a way to lead an ethical, happy, and spiritual life beyond religion and offers a program of mental training for cultivating key human values

Ten years ago, in his best-selling Ethics for a New Millennium, His Holiness the Dalai Lama first proposed an approach to ethics based on universal rather than religious principles. Now, in Beyond Religion, the Dalai Lama, at his most compassionate and outspoken, elaborates and deepens his vision for the nonreligious way.

Transcending the mere “religion wars,” he outlines a system of ethics for our shared world, one that gives full respect to religion. With the highest level of spiritual and intellectual authority, the Dalai Lama makes a stirring appeal for what he calls a “third way,” a path to an ethical and happy life and to a global human community based on understanding and mutual respect.

Beyond Religion is an essential statement from the Dalai Lama, a blueprint for all those who may choose not to identify with a religious tradition, yet still yearn for a life of spiritual fulfillment as they work for a better world. (less)

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Top reviews from other countries

Amazon Customer

5.0 out of 5 stars Olive branch to Atheists

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 12 November 2013

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As a proud "militant" Atheistic I realise my views often cause offence to others. As an attempt to find some middle ground with religious believers I decided to read this book. The Dalai Lama is clearly approaching this subject from his strong religious beliefs but successfully finds much we can all agree on.

Whilst I will continue to preach evangelically about atheism I shall hopefully be able to do so with a clearer understanding that, for the most part, we all seek the same things from life.

14 people found this helpful

Muriel Hudson

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent and interesting read for anyone interested in religions

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 20 October 2014

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Excellent and interesting read for anyone interested in religions, spirituality and ethics in 21st Century. It cuts right through hypocrisy and misunderstandings and gives you a non-judgemental way to approach personal development................or simply to try and understand meaningful ways to relate to yourself, others and the world.

2 people found this helpful

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pistonstone

5.0 out of 5 stars Absolutely brilliant!

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 27 August 2012

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Another great book by the great man. he has such grace and character its like meditating just reading his words! I am not religious but it is great to know that there are (few) important religious people with such open minds, fearless of science and the times, making faith straight forward - this is a great read for anyone regardless of religion or belief, an open mind is essential.

One person found this helpful

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Rev. T. J. Carter

5.0 out of 5 stars A world wide secuklar ethic is now needed

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 28 January 2013

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It may seem surprising that the Dalai Lama advocates a world wide secular ethic based on the human need of compassion rather than the ethic of any one major religion, important though these religions are in the development of mankind. The Dalai Lama presents cogent arguments for his beliefs, which I found convincing

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C. Wright

5.0 out of 5 stars Great book.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 16 June 2016

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Great book.

Well written and offers some real insight into the humanity of man beyond and separate to religion. The Dalai Lama has a really considered and compassionate way of thinking. It would do us all good if we were to take on even a few of his thoughts and suggestions to implement into my our daily life's.

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Stephanie *Extremely Stable Genius*

Feb 01, 2013 rated it liked it

Shelves: spirituality, 2013, buddhism

I love the Dalai Lama. Every time I hear him in an interview I smile from ear to ear, I can't help myself.

But I have read several of his books and each and every one was difficult to get through. I listened to this audio, which helps me actually finish books like these, but I had a hard time focusing on what was being said. My mind kept wandering every which way. Funny thing since a lot of this was, of course, about meditation practice, which is all about focusing the mind!

I had to laugh at myself many times through this because invariably he would be talking about focusing the mind while mine was happily off somewhere else.......I would think "Crap! Stephanie he said FOCUS!"

Oh, I give up. (less)

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Sara Easton

Nov 23, 2011Sara Easton rated it it was amazing

I am a Goodreads First Reads winner of this book.

This is a great book for anyone interested in philosophy who wants a book as entertaining as it is intellectually challenging. Each new concept is backed up with anecdotes from the Dalai Lama's life, told "half-jokingly" in a way that doesn't fly over your head. I finished the book several hours ago, and I'm still thinking about everything His Holiness said about our common humanity and the place ethics has in society. Thank you for the great read! (less)

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Dan

Feb 29, 2012Dan rated it liked it

Shelves: library

This book on a secular approach to ethics by the Dalai Lama caught my eye when I was browsing the new books section of my library. Acknowledging the shortcomings of religious approaches and the problems caused by the inherent conflicts of religion, the Dalai Lama turns to humanist principles and calls for a secular approach to ethics. In the later chapters, he addresses the overlap between secular humanism and Buddhist principles - a topic that has long been of interest to me.

This is a very good book, and I completely endorse the subject manner and approach. So, why only 3 stars? The topics were only superficially addressed. Only passing reference was made to recent developments in fields such as neuroscience and evolutionary biology that support the positions staked out. I would highly recommend this to someone who has not had much exposure to these topics, but for those who are familiar with it, this presents nothing more than a pleasant, and generally well written, walk through familiar grounds. (less)

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robin friedman

May 10, 2018robin friedman rated it it was amazing

The Dalai Lama And Secular Ethics

The many books written by the Dalai Lama can be divided into two groups. In the first, the Dalai Lama writes specifically about the teachings and practices of Buddhism, particularly his own Tibetan Buddhism.

In the second group, the Dalai Lama takes a broader approach and writes on a range of subjects such as ethics, happiness, and the scientific worldview that are not specifically tied to Buddhism or to any particular faith religion.

Both groups of books are marked by accessibility and openness. The Dalai Lama in fact discourages Westerners from conversion to Buddhism and advises them instead to practice within their own traditions to the extent that is an option for them. Still, his teachings about Buddhist and about broader subjects is enlightening and humbling.

The Dalai Lama's "Beyond Religion: Ethics for a Whole World (2011) lies within the second group of his books. Without giving up in any way his own religious convictions, the Dalai Lama writes to show the nature and possibility of ethics without a commitment to any specific religion or to a religious worldview. In other words, the book separates ethics and religion. Many books have been written taking various perspectives on the difficult question of the relationship between religion and ethics. The issue is also addressed in two of the Dalai Lama's earlier books to which he refers in this one: "Ethics for the New Millennium" (2001) and "Towards a True Kinship of Faiths" (2011). With its provocative title, "Beyond Religion" offers the Dalai Lama's fullest treatment of secular ethics.

The most challenging and important part of this book is the Dalai Lama's discussion of the need for ethics and for an ethics not tied to religious belief. He finds that increasingly in the modern world, scientific and technological ability has outpaced human, interior growth with the result that individuals and groups are increasingly discontented, unhappy, and belligerent in spite of the vast increase in human ability to control and understand the external environment. With a focus on materialism and knowledge of things, individuals lose sight of meaning. Religion has traditionally been a way of attempting to meet these issues. But religion has become difficult or impossible for many people due to the commitment to a scientific outlook and due as well to the sheer variety of religions with their competing and apparently inconsistent claims. The Dalai Lama's book is not written to dissuade any person from their faith. Rather the book is addressed to those without religious faith and, without judging them, to show the possibility of a universal, secular based ethics.

The Dalai Lama has undertaken a challenging task and he performs it well in this book. The chief insight in the Dalai Lama's approach is that beneath all the differences among people and the differences in identity, we are all human beings with the same wants and fundamental needs as human beings. We share a "common humanity". A secular ethics identifies and builds on the factors in our common humanity assisted to a degree by the sciences. Thus the Dalai Lama finds that all human beings want to by happy and need on another. He builds an ethics on the need for a compassion for all persons and develops how, in his view, compassion leads to qualities including justice, forgiveness, and understanding. He finds a secular ethics has much to teach both to individual human relationships and to political and international questions.

The Dalai Lama's vision of secular ethics is developed in the first part of the book, "A New Vision of Secular Ethics" while the second part "Educating the Heart Through Training the Mind" offers guides for increasing one's ability for ethical behavior. These guides focus on understanding one's emotions, on controlling emotions such as anger and envy deemed destructive and on developing positive emotions such as contentment, self-discipline and generosity. The Dalai Lama introduces meditation techniques derived from the Buddhist tradition. Still the practice of these techniques, to the extent presented in this book, do not presuppose a commitment to Buddhism or any other religion. Some forms of meditation are widely-practiced, and their introduction does not change this book's secular character.

This is a thoughtful, moving book. Some readers may question whether the Dalai Lama's ethics follows fully from the secular commitments from which he starts or, alternatively, whether there somehow is an unstated religious or metaphysical position lurking in the presentation. In addition, those holding to a secular worldview may disagree on proper behavior and fight, just as adherents of competing religions sometimes do. These questions are important but secondary. The teachings of this book are demanding and difficult. The Dalai Lama talks persuasively about the importance of ethics and of self-reflection and compassion. Most importantly, he reminds the reader of our shared "common humanity". Much is to be learned from the goals of the Dalai Lama's book and from the simplicity of its presentation.

Robin Friedman (less)

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Jud Barry

Jun 08, 2012Jud Barry rated it really liked it

All my life I have been told by "religious" people that religion is necessary for morality. I have never believed this, mostly because my own parents were every bit as moral as they were secular.

Also, growing up I absorbed the "enlightened," civic faith of the Founding Fathers of the U.S.A. in the ability of a body of citizens to govern itself without being ruled by a set of religious doctrines. All that was needed was the right framework (laws) and a willingness to work for the common good of all.

But this seems to me to be less and less understood, in the U.S. anyway. Maybe it just seems that way because I live in the hyper-religious South. It has recently seemed less and less likely that anyone be very effective in advancing the cause of the same kind of common-sense approach to religion and morals that our Founding Fathers took.

Enter The Dalai Lama. In simple and engaging language, he goes beyond my fondest hopes by articulating a case for, if not the superiority of secular ethics, then at least its existence as a phenomenon that pre-exists religion. He bases his notion of secular ethics on a "spirituality" that "comes from our innate human nature as beings with a natural disposition toward compassion, kindness, and caring for others." Secular ethics are the water into which are intermixed the tea leaves of religion.

In its first section, the book elaborates on this "quite simple" notion. The second section is a beginner's guide to the strengthening of one's sense of secular ethics through self-awareness exercises that draw heavily on the Buddhist meditative tradition.

Maybe it's easier for a Buddhist--as a non-theist--to think in secular terms. Perhaps, but the Dalai Lama emphasizes the distinction between religious (metaphysical) beliefs and secular ones. Buddhism's metaphysical notions are very important to the nature of that religion, yet they do not prevent the Dalai Lama from recognizing secular values as values that everyone shares, regardless of the nature of our religious beliefs. (less)

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Jennifer

Jul 02, 2012Jennifer rated it liked it

Shelves: finished

This book is part of a larger movement by progressive religious leaders - one that makes the argument for ethics outside of the constructs of religious teachings. I really appreciated the time the Dalai Lama spent defining "secular", a term which, all too often, has a negative connotation. His reasoning and practical approach to implementation was intriguing. While Humanist principles assert ethics (and morality) without religion, I'm left to wonder how accepting the larger religious community w ...more

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Kate Lawrence

Dec 20, 2011Kate Lawrence rated it really liked it

Shelves: spirituality-religion

I agree with the Dalai Lama that only if the world's people succeed in finding common ground Beyond Religion is there a chance of working together for any kind of a sane future. I wondered what he was going to suggest, and found myself reading with interest. He describes compassion--the foundation of secular ethics--in detail, what it is and isn't (e.g. it isn't meekness). He shows why the practice of compassion and restraint is necessary for a sustainable environment, stable governments, as well as personal well-being, and why such efforts must be undertaken outside of religion to succeed globally. Training our minds not to wallow in destructive emotions like anger and greed is not that mysterious; it can be done by anyone willing to persevere. He gives convincing motivations and detailed practices to use in taking up this work. He comments on research showing that accumulating wealth beyond basic comfort does not bring happiness, and points out that war is now "outdated and illogical." Schools must be urged to give students training in how to develop patience and compassion; this is not being provided to most children by religion as it was in the past. Compassion training, in fact, is far more important than many of the subjects currently taught.

Without explicitly saying so, he conveys a view I've long held: peace and environmental responsibility will have to come from the people, because our leaders will not lead. I especially appreciated his upbeat attitude: humans have practiced cooperation for centuries, we know how to do this, we CAN do this. "Let us all, old and young," he writes in closing,"strive together with vision, with courage, and with optimism." The Dalai Lama conveys a strong sense of possibility to turn things around; I hope this latest book of his will attract a wide readership. (less)

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Natassia

Apr 09, 2015Natassia rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

A breath of fresh air.

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Jenny Choi

Jul 27, 2015Jenny Choi rated it really liked it

This book is worth reading for me. The author explains quite difficult concepts by using simple and easy expressions in order to help normal people understand better. Come to think of this book, It seems that wise men put their values into entire humanity beyond narrow perspectives, which is pretty challenging to me.

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Jason Smith

Mar 03, 2018Jason Smith rated it it was amazing

I should not have raced through this at double time on Audible. I should have absorbed more and will need to revisit the book. His emphasis on compassion as a fundamental attribute of a good, global society was particularly powerful. Also his emphasis on personal responsibility and control over one's self.

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Ben

Dec 19, 2011Ben rated it liked it

To some, this may be a surprising book and proposition coming from the modern 'father' of an ancient faith.* Not that Buddhism (in my experience and practice) must be faith-driven. Still, many may be surprised to hear a religious leader advocate and articulate universal morality and ethics free from faith-based or doctrinal foundations.

The book is short, practical, well-reasoned, easy to follow, and includes positive prescriptions that can be carried out in the everyday lives of even busy secularists. (I was deeply affected by Hitchens' 'God is Not Great', which did not dislodge philosophical Buddhism's appeal to me, and this book reaffirms my comfort with that affection.)

More than a few readers may be surprised by just how well-read the Dalai Lama is in contemporary neurology and recent science about the brain. Indeed, I look forward to contrasting his opinions here with those of a moral atheist like Sam Harris or a behaviorist like Steven Pinker. If you read more by His Holiness, I think you will be struck by how vigorous and stimulating his intellectual life is.

And since he has such a distinct voice in writing and in speech, it must be hard for a narrator to find the 'voice' of the Dalai Lama in a short treatise like this. While Mr Sheen does a fine job, I found it a distracting listen at times perhaps because he is so well-known. A less high-profile reader may have been called for here.

*NOTE - This review refers to the audio version of this book from Audible. (less)

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Doug

Jan 13, 2012Doug rated it liked it

Ethics-based approach to the idea of improving the condition of humanity by improving yourself first. Wrapped in pretty much a Buddhist philosophy without the religious aspects. Promotes moral/ethical principles that are mostly common to the teachings of the major religions, even if not their practice. Full of very sensible ideas, though nothing revolutionary.

The writing style was simplistic, as if aimed at 12-year-olds, I thought. Whereas the content is more adult focused. So I'm not sure who i ...more

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Diane

May 18, 2013Diane rated it it was amazing

Despite his deep faith, the Dalai Lama is convinced that the striving toward moral ethics and inner values cannot be met solely through religion in the secular world of today. With so many belief systems, a religion-based approach to ethics will never be universal, thus the need for a secular ethics. Secularism - respect for all faiths and no faith - and religion are not mutually exclusive. A good example of this would be Gandhi. deeply religious and all-embracing.

I picked up this book primaril ...more

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Sunny

Feb 26, 2012Sunny rated it liked it

I always enjoy listening to the Dalai Lama and his calming words. After the disappointment of realizing Martin Sheen was narrating the book I decided to read instead. He talks about the need for a system of ethics that doesn't depend on religion but instead depends on people's shared humanity and compassion, where people of many religions and none all live together and increasingly must work together to solve global problems. I appreciated how he spoke his own Buddhist religion and says even though it is his religion, it is not for everyone. The understanding that some religions work well for some and not others but can still be well respected by each other can bring us together instead of the opposite which happens often. The reason I gave it three stars is only because soon I found myself skimming the text because it became repetitive and a message he has talked about many times before. (less)

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David Gross

Dec 07, 2011David Gross rated it liked it

Shelves: philosophy, ethics

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

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Omar

Sep 03, 2020Omar rated it really liked it

Shelves: philosophy, spirituality

"In the face of all the challenges of today's interconnected world, is my optimism about the future of humanity idealistic? Perhaps it is. Is it unrealistic? Certainly not."

Well at least he's self-aware. One problem, or reservation, that I have with spiritual leaders is that they say all the right things, but don't have a real grasp, or the 'insider look', into bureaucratic challenges, social issues, and personal challenges we all face that gets in the way of a sense of ethics at times. They say all the right things from an eagle eye perspective, and make you feel a little better about humanity knowing that there's people like that out there, but then you go back to your life and realize that the real world doesn't actually operate that way. Real life is unfortunately not a Disney movie where if you just say and do the right things everything will work out. The world does not operate in an egalitarian manner. Society can be cruel and unforgiving. Natural selection/evolution favours the resourceful. I think to strive and be more ethical both individually and collectively is a noble pursuit, but it's important to keep a level head on human nature and the capitalist machine and how that effects people and nations. I think we should all strive to be the sort of people he prescribes here and to hold ourselves accountable to a code of of ethics, and I will take his advice to heart so i'm doing my tiny part to be on the right side of things, but the spiritual revolution that a lot of these figures hope for isn't going to happen anytime soon. To reiterate though, I am glad that people like him are out there because at least he is trying to steer the ship in the right direction. I admire and respect his efforts-- and I hope people like him never stop advocating for change.

4/5 . (less)

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Hedgehog

Aug 17, 2018Hedgehog rated it it was amazing

I read this somewhere...

Someone asked The Buddha, "What is the greatest obstacle to Enlightenment?" The Buddha answered, "Laziness!"

That sly quote came to mind several times as I read this book. It works in two ways. It conveys His Holiness' conviction that ethical behavior isn't necessarily based on faith, but is also based on several internal values (compassion being the greatest, if I read correctly). Developing those internal values, the ability to have compassion, understanding, and more, takes a lot of work. A lot of work. No laziness!

Having read several of his books, seen and heard him on TV and radio, his equanimity and good-heartedness has always amazed me. In this book, the reader gets a glimpse into how he has attained those qualities. But really, I found it a bit daunting because this man has spent most of his waking hours working towards the goals and virtues he describes. No laziness there! But for us who have many other concerns, like family, work, keeping the household running...well, we might not be lazy but how can we really move forward, make any progress in developing those virtues and abilities? His Holiness spends hours, hours mind you, every day, meditating. He describes his practices in terms I found a little opaque..they're technical, really, and I don't have the background to parse them well.

Well, at the very end are some meditation practices for the reader. So there you are...there's the starting point, the first step in what I'm sure is a long journey.

As usual, his writing is (generally) accessible, good-humored, and inspiring.

(less)

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Sebastian Gebski

Nov 03, 2018Sebastian Gebski rated it it was amazing

It's the highest time for the whole world to switch from separatistic religious dogmas to common, shared system of ethics with universal values behind it. It's not easy, no doubt about that, but the modern world demands it - or we'll all succumb to conflict and chaos (again). The fact that it's one of the religious leaders who comes up with such a book is actually a good sign.

To be perfect frank, this book is very needed, but it doesn't mean it brings any kind of breakthrough - maybe my way of thinking was already very aligned with what Dalai Lama proposes, but I haven't found anything truly revealing. Which actually may be a pro as it probably means that the content is far from controversial (for the wide spectrum of an audience) - and that increases the chances of wider adoption. If you're not sure whether you agree, just check the part on the word "secular" - how Dalai Lama steps carefully not to hand any weapon to any potential zealots.

What struck me very quickly was that the book is very approachable, but not in an American way of being approachable :) It means that it's not oversimplified, but assumes that the reader should be able to comprehend some ideas without being guided by hand like a small child. Truly appreciated :D

As a declared agnostic atheist, all I can do is show both thumbs up! (less)

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Arno Mosikyan

Oct 15, 2018Arno Mosikyan rated it it was amazing

Shelves: philosophy

Hey Goodreads where is your 10 stars, I can't just mark 5 stars, this is not enough!

What a spiritual leader, what a wisdom! His excellence Dalai Lama still remains the bastion of unchallenged wisdom compared to the leaders of other creeds. Impressive, a vivid example how to construct spirituality paradigm in the science infused 21st century.

QUOTES

“But for all its benefits in offering moral guidance and meaning in life, in today’s secular world religion alone is no longer adequate as a basis for ethics.

Ultimately, the source of our problems lies at the level of the individual. If people lack moral values and integrity, no system of laws and regulations will be adequate.”

I do not agree that ethics requires grounding in religious concepts or faith. Instead, I firmly believe that ethics can also emerge simply as a natural and rational response to our very humanity and our common human condition.

Instead of looking to blame others and the world around us, we should first look within ourselves

What we need today is an approach to ethics which makes no recourse to religion and can be equally acceptable to those with faith and those without: a secular ethics." (less)

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Book of Joy: Lasting Happiness in a Changing World Hardcover by Dalai Lama , Desmond Tutu, Douglas Carlton Abrams

Book of Joy: Lasting Happiness in a Changing World Hardcover – September 20, 2016

by Dalai Lama (Author), Desmond Tutu (Author), Douglas Carlton Abrams (Author)4.8 out of 5 stars 3,655 ratings

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An instant New York Times bestseller

Two spiritual giants. Five days. One timeless question.

Nobel Peace Prize Laureates His Holiness the Dalai Lama and Archbishop Desmond Tutu have survived more than fifty years of exile and the soul-crushing violence of oppression. Despite their hardships—or, as they would say, because of them—they are two of the most joyful people on the planet.

In April 2015, Archbishop Tutu traveled to the Dalai Lama's home in Dharamsala, India, to celebrate His Holiness's eightieth birthday and to create what they hoped would be a gift for others. They looked back on their long lives to answer a single burning question: How do we find joy in the face of life's inevitable suffering?

They traded intimate stories, teased each other continually, and shared their spiritual practices. By the end of a week filled with laughter and punctuated with tears, these two global heroes had stared into the abyss and despair of our time and revealed how to live a life brimming with joy.

This book offers us a rare opportunity to experience their astonishing and unprecendented week together, from the first embrace to the final good-bye.

We get to listen as they explore the Nature of True Joy and confront each of the Obstacles of Joy—from fear, stress, and anger to grief, illness, and death. They then offer us the Eight Pillars of Joy, which provide the foundation for lasting happiness. Throughout, they include stories, wisdom, and science. Finally, they share their daily Joy Practices that anchor their own emotional and spiritual lives.

The Archbishop has never claimed sainthood, and the Dalai Lama considers himself a simple monk. In this unique collaboration, they offer us the reflection of real lives filled with pain and turmoil in the midst of which they have been able to discover a level of peace, of courage, and of joy to which we can all aspire in our own lives.

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Editorial Reviews

Review

Winner of the 2016 Books for a Better Life Award in Spirituality

“The question may be timeless, but their answer has urgent significance.”

—Time Magazine

"[An] exquisite book...An intimate glimpse into the minds of two of the world's spiritual guides, and their foundation for an attainable and practical approach to experiencing a more enriching and sustainable life of abundant joy."

—Shelf Awareness

"This sparkling, wise, and immediately useful gift to readers from two remarkable spiritual masters offers hope that joy is possible for everyone even in the most difficult circumstances, and describes a clear path for attaining it."

—Publishers Weekly

"The world needs joy and compassion more than ever before – and who better than Archbishop Tutu and the Dalai Lama to show us how it is done. This beautiful book takes us on the journey of their friendship and gives us the gift of their wisdom. A bright spot of hope and love in this world."

—Sir Richard Branson

"It's a book that transports you deep within the intimate friendship that binds these two incredible souls. And it’s a book that vividly probes the very nature of joy itself — the illusions that eclipse it, the obstacles that obscure it, the practices that cultivate it, and the pillars that sustain it."

—Rich Roll, The Rich Roll Podcast

About the Author

His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama, Tenzin Gyatso, describes himself as a simple Buddhist monk. He is the spiritual leader of the Tibetan People and of Tibetan Buddhism. He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1989 and the US Congressional Gold Medal in 2007. Born in 1935 to a poor farming family in northeastern Tibet he was recognized at the age of two as the reincarnation of his predecessor, the 13th Dalai Lama. He has been a passionate advocate for a secular universal approach to cultivating fundamental human values. For over three decades the Dalai Lama has maintained an ongoing conversation and collaboration with scientists from a wide range of disciplines, especially through the Mind and Life Institute, an organization that he co-founded. The Dalai Lama travels extensively, promoting kindness and compassion, interfaith understanding, respect for the environment, and, above all, world peace. He lives in exile in Dharamsala, India. For more information, please visit www.dalailama.com.

Desmond Mpilo Tutu, Archbishop Emeritus of Southern Africa, became a prominent leader in the crusade for justice and racial reconciliation in South Africa. He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1984 and the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2009. In 1994, Tutu was appointed chair of South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission by Nelson Mandela, where he pioneered a new way for countries to move forward after experiencing civil conflict and oppression. He was the founding chair of The Elders, a group of global leaders working together for peace and human rights. Archbishop Tutu is regarded as a leading moral voice and an icon of hope. Throughout his life, he has cared deeply about the needs of people around the world, teaching love and compassion for all. He lives in Cape Town, South Africa. For more information please visit tutu.org.za.

Douglas Abrams is an author, editor, and literary agent. He is the founder and president of Idea Architects, a creative book and media agency helping visionaries to create a wiser, healthier, and more just world. He is also the co-founder with Pam Omidyar and Desmond Tutu of HumanJourney.com, a public benefit company working to share life-changing and world-changing ideas. Doug has worked with Desmond Tutu as his cowriter and editor for over a decade, and before founding his own literary agency, he was a senior editor at HarperCollins and also served for nine years as the religion editor at the University of California Press. He believes strongly in the power of books and media to catalyze the next stage of global evolutionary culture. He lives in Santa Cruz, California. For more information, please visit ideaarchitects.com and humanjourney.com.

“Is joy a feeling that comes and surprises us, or is it a more dependable way of being?” I asked. “For the two of you, joy seems to be something much more enduring. Your spiritual practice hasn’t made you somber and serious. It’s made you more joyful. So how can people cultivate that sense of joy as a way of being, and not just a temporary feeling?”

The Archbishop and the Dalai Lama looked at each other and the Archbishop gestured to the Dalai Lama. The Dalai Lama squeezed the Archbishop’s hand and began. “Yes, it is true. Joy is something different from happiness. When I use the word happiness, in a sense I mean satisfaction. Sometimes we have a painful experience, but that experience, as you’ve said with birth, can bring great satisfaction and joyfulness.”

“Let me ask you,” the Archbishop jumped in. “You’ve been in exile fifty-what years?”

“Fifty-six.”

“Fifty-six years from a country that you love more than anything else. Why are you not morose?”

“Morose?” the Dalai Lama asked, not understanding the word. As Jinpa hurried to translate morose into Tibetan, the Archbishop clarified, “Sad.”

The Dalai Lama took the Archbishop’s hand in his, as if comforting him while reviewing these painful events. The Dalai Lama’s storied discovery as the reincarnation of the Dalai Lama meant

that at the age of two, he was swept away from his rural home in the Amdo province of eastern Tibet to the one-thousand-room Potala Palace in the capital city of Lhasa. There he was raised in opulent isolation as the future spiritual and political leader of Tibet and as a godlike incarnation of the Bodhisattva of Compassion. After the Chinese invasion of Tibet in 1950, the Dalai Lama was thrust into politics. At the age of fifteen he found himself the ruler of six million people and facing an all-out and desperately unequal war. For nine years he tried to negotiate with Communist China for his people’s welfare, and sought political solutions as the country came to be annexed. In 1959, during an uprising that risked resulting in a massacre, the Dalai Lama decided, with a heavy heart, to go into exile. The odds of successfully escaping to India were frighteningly small, but to avoid a confrontation and a bloodbath, he left in the night dressed as a palace guard. He had to take off his recognizable glasses, and his blurred vision must have heightened his sense of fear and uncertainty as the escape party snuck by garrisons of the People’s Liberation Army. They endured sandstorms and snowstorms as they summited nineteen-thousand-foot mountain peaks during their three-week escape.

“One of my practices comes from an ancient Indian teacher,” the Dalai Lama began answering the Archbishop’s question. “He taught that when you experience some tragic situation, think about it. If there’s no way to overcome the tragedy, then there is no use worrying too much. So I practice that.” The Dalai Lama was referring to the eighth-century Buddhist master Shantideva, who wrote, “If something can be done about the situation, what need is there for dejection? And if nothing can be done about it, what use is there for being dejected?”

The Archbishop cackled, perhaps because it seemed almost too incredible that someone could stop worrying just because it was pointless.

“Yes, but I think people know it with their head.” He touched both index fingers to his scalp. “You know, that it doesn’t help worrying. But they still worry.”

“Many of us have become refugees,” the Dalai Lama tried to explain, “and there are a lot of difficulties in my own country. When I look only at that,” he said, cupping his hands into a small circle, “then I worry.” He widened his hands, breaking the circle open. “But when I look at the world, there are a lot of problems, even within the People’s Republic of China. For example, the Hui Muslim community in China has a lot of problems and suffering. And then outside China, there are many more problems and more suffering. When we see these things, we realize that not only do we suffer, but so do many of our human brothers and sisters. So when we look at the same event from a wider perspective, we will reduce the worrying and our own suffering.”

I was struck by the simplicity and profundity of what the Dalai Lama was saying. This was far from “don’t worry, be happy,” as the popular Bobby McFerrin song says. This was not a denial of pain and suffering, but a shift in perspective—from oneself and toward others, from anguish to compassion—seeing that others are suffering as well. The remarkable thing about what the Dalai Lama was describing is that as we recognize others’ suffering and realize that we are not alone, our pain is lessened.

Often we hear about another’s tragedy, and it makes us feel better about our own situation. This is quite different from what the Dalai Lama was doing. He was not contrasting his situation with others, but uniting his situation with others, enlarging his identity and seeing that he and the Tibetan people were not alone in their suffering. This recognition that we are all connected—whether Tibetan Buddhists or Hui Muslims—is the birth of empathy and compassion.

I wondered how the Dalai Lama’s ability to shift his perspective might relate to the adage “Pain is inevitable; suffering is optional.” Was it truly possible to experience pain, whether the pain of an injury or an exile, without suffering? There is a Sutta, or teaching of the Buddha, called the Sallatha Sutta, that makes a similar distinction between our “feelings of pain” and “the suffering that comes as a result of our response” to the pain: “When touched with a feeling of pain, the uninstructed, ordinary person sorrows, grieves, and laments, beats his breast, becomes distraught. So he feels two pains, physical and mental. Just as if they were to shoot a man with an arrow and, right afterward, were to shoot him with another one, so that he feels the pain of two arrows.” It seems that the Dalai Lama was suggesting that by shifting our perspective to a broader, more compassionate one, we can avoid the worry and suffering that is the second arrow.

“Then another thing,” the Dalai Lama continued. “There are different aspects to any event. For example, we lost our own country and became refugees, but that same experience gave us new opportunities to see more things. For me personally, I had more opportunities to meet with different people, different spiritual practitioners, like you, and also scientists. This new opportunity arrived because I became a refugee. If I remained in the Potala in Lhasa, I would have stayed in what has often been described as a golden cage: the Lama, holy Dalai Lama.” He was now sitting up stiffly as he once had to when he was the cloistered spiritual head of the Forbidden Kingdom.

“So, personally, I prefer the last five decades of refugee life. It’s more useful, more opportunity to learn, to experience life. Therefore, if you look from one angle, you feel, oh how bad, how sad. But if you look from another angle at that same tragedy, that same event, you see that it gives me new opportunities. So, it’s wonderful. That’s the main reason that I’m not sad and morose. There’s a Tibetan saying: ‘Wherever you have friends that’s your country, and wherever you receive love, that’s your home.’”

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Dalai Lama

2020/09/29

Buddhism and Pessimisim Harold Stewart

Muryoko: Journal of Shin Buddhism

MURYOKO

'Infinite Light'
Journal of Shin Buddhism
----
Harold Stewart Buddhism and Pessimisim

That 'Buddhism holds a pessimistic view of life' has, ever since Schopenhauer, been indelibly imprinted in the minds of Westerners as a standardized error. What this condemnation as 'Oriental fatalism' really means is that Buddhism does not share modern Western man's restless and aggressive attitude of self-assertion, an extraverted optimism scarcely supported by the actual conditions of worldly existence.

The truth is quite otherwise: Buddhism adopts neither of the sentimental attitudes of pessimism or optimism, which appertain to European and American cultures. Instead the Buddha regards universal existence with detached Wisdom and impartial Compassion. The aim of his teaching and method is Liberation from all such partial and illusory viewpoints, coloured by desire and aversion, into a state of peace and well-being. The Buddhist doctrine is not optimistic, because 'seeing things as they really are' includes 'a full look at the Worst', which reveals them as relative, limited, and finite and entails the realization that pain and suffering are endemic and incurable so long as one is identified with Samsara.

There is not one shred of historical evidence to substantiate the millenarian fiction that any society staffed by men is perfectible. All that we know of the past goes to prove the world's chronic corruptibility, at least so long as it is under human management. Its defects seem inbuilt by design, to prevent our permanent attachment to any of its forms of impermanence and to ensure its continued function as what Keats called 'a vale of soul-making'. The Buddha's ultimate affirmation after confronting all exigencies is thus at the opposite pole to the naive optimism of 'God's in his Heaven, all's right with the world' or 'All is for the best in this best of all possible worlds' or 'One truth is clear, whatever is, is right'. As Dickens pointedly remarked of Pope's line, it 'would be as final as it is lazy, did it not include the troublesome consequence that nothing that ever was, was wrong'.

But neither is the Buddha's teaching pessimistic, since in his analysis of human experience into its constituent elements, or dharmas, the pleasant far outnumber the painful. Yet for all that, they still prove to be a source of suffering, for even a life of unalloyed pleasure and comfort soon palls and passes away, leaving behind only regrets for lost happiness and the prospect of sickness, old age, and death. The Western misconception that Buddhist doctrine is pessimistic probably arose from the translation of the term duhkha as pain or suffering in the aphorism 'All existence is duhkha', when it carries the wider meaning of the finite limitations to which all existents are subject.

Its opposite is sukha, which signifies the smooth movement of the World-Axle in the nave of the Wheel of Existence. That empty hole in the hub, without which Samsara could not revolve, is known as kha, or zero, as A. K. Coomaraswamy explains, and aptly exemplifies the practical usefulness of the Void. From sukha is derived Sukhavati, the Western Paradise of Amida Buddha. Finally, the Middle Way taught by the Buddha transcends both extremes of pessimism and optimism and opens up an expedient path by which we can escape from our existential impasse.

The bare mention of escape is bound to call forth the stock criticism of those modern descendants of the Confucians, whose outlook is restricted to human society and its political and economic institutions as the sole reality. Despite its inspiring and formative influence on most of the Traditional civilizations of the Far East, Buddhism has long been accused of failure to face up to its social problems and responsibilities or, as it is called in the jargon, escapism. The twentieth century attaches a moral stigma to this term of opprobrium that suffices to disqualify and debar any subject to which it is applied. So Buddhism, the first Tradition to found many of those beneficent social institutions later adopted by secular states, is convicted of seeking to escape from the pain and suffering of this world - as if that were not the aim of all the healing arts !

Yet in some predicaments to escape may become a moral obligation, such as for the prisoner of war, whose military duty it is to try to regain his freedom. Buddhism likewise offers Liberation from Samsara to those unfortunates imprisoned by delusion, hatred, and greed. When social moralists inveigh against escapism, it is as well to recall C. S. Lewis's penetrating observation that 'Those most interested in preventing escape are gaolers'.

Reflections on the Dharma - Harold Stewart

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REFLECTIONS ON THE DHARMA

Harold Stewart

Harold Stewart (1916-1995) is well-known as a highly-accomplished Australian poet even though he spent the last thirty years of his life in Japan. What is not as well known about him was his strong adherence to the Pure Land tradition of Mahayana Buddhism. His writings on this school of Buddhism (the most popular in Japan yet among the most misunderstood in the West) must rank as one of the most incisive and eloquent accounts of the Dharma ever written by a Western writer. In order to make his prose writings on Buddhism more accessible, a selection of passages from the commentary on his By the Old Walls of Kyoto (1981) have been reproduced on this website.

The photographs which accompany the text of Harold Stewart's writings on this site have been kindly provided by Mr Barry Leckenby of Melbourne. They were taken of the various sites in Kyoto referred to in Stewart's poetic work By the Old Walls of Kyoto.

Please select articles by clicking on links to the left of this page.

Before browsing Harold Stewart's articles, you may like to read two introductory works:

Peter Kelly's biography of Harold Stewart

Barry Leckenby's article entitled 'Keeping Faith: The Narrative and Metaphysical Poems of Harold Stewart.'

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Peter Kelly

HAROLD STEWART (1916-1995)

A vignette of his life and works

Harold Frederick Stewart was born in Drummoyne, Sydney, in December 1916. He came from a comfortable middle-class background and his father, who was a health inspector, had lived in India for many years. He attended Fort Street High School and, after a brief period studying music at the Sydney Conservatorium, went on to the University of Sydney in 1936. He began writing poetry at school and was editor of the school magazine. His early enthusiasms were for the French symbolist poets Mallarmé and Valéry, whom he translated, and for American modernists like Hart Crane and Wallace Stevens. Later, he reacted strongly against modernism and free verse, and used traditional English metres in all his surviving work.

He dropped out of university after a year and henceforth devoted himself to poetry and studying the art and philosophies of Asia. Carl Jung was an early influence and it was by way of Jung's commentaries on oriental texts that he discovered the 'Traditionalist' school of writers. He also immersed himself in Chinese art and poetry, and this determined the subject matter of his first published collection, Phoenix Wings: Poems 1940-46 (1948). A later volume, Orpheus and Other Poems (1956), was strongly influenced by Jungian ideas.

During the Second World War, he worked in Army Intelligence at the St.Kilda Road Barracks in Melbourne. It was at this time, in 1944, that he collaborated with James McAuley in perpetrating the famous 'Ern Malley Hoax' which aimed to expose the excesses of literary modernism. Stewart was associated with McAuley and A.D.Hope, belonging to a neo-classical movement in poetry, but his content was quite different from theirs.

Stewart never completed a university degree or took up a profession. He devoted all his time to writing and independent study, and supported himself by writing literary journalism and lecture notes on art and literature for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation and the Council of Adult Education. As this proved to be a precarious livelihood, he took up a part-time appointment as a bookseller at the Norman Robb Bookshop in Little Collins Street, Melbourne, in 1950 and worked there until he left for Japan in 1966.

The period at Robb's Bookshop proved to be, intellectually, very important. It was here that he set up a study group which met every Friday night to discuss the oriental doctrines; in particular, the interpretation of them given by René Guénon, Ananda Coomaraswamy and Frithjof Schuon. The group met in the shop for about twelve years from 1951 to 1963. It started with members being interested solely in theory but after about 1957, several became interested in practice and in attaching themselves to a particular tradition. Influenced by Frithjof Schuon who was convinced that Shin Buddhism was the most appropriate form of Buddhism for Westerners to adopt, Stewart, together with Adrian Snodgrass and Rodney Timmins, went to Kyoto and studied at the Higashi-Hongwanji temple under the direction of Shojun Bando. Thus, from about 1963, Stewart became a practicing Shin Buddhist and remained one for the rest of his life.

During his time in Japan in 1963, he toured the country extensively and became enchanted with all things Japanese like Lafçadio Hearn before him. In 1966, he left Australia and settled in Kyoto, making his home in the Shirakuso Inn on the northern outskirts of the city. For the first few years, he lived very frugally, supporting himself by teaching English.

From the outset, he devoted himself to studying the doctrines of Shin Buddhism and to saturating himself in every aspect of traditional Japanese culture. He became an expert on the history of Kyoto and was intimately acquainted with its temples, gardens, palaces and works of art. He became fascinated with Japanese poetry and published two translations of haiku: A Net of Fireflies (1960) and A Chime of Windbells (1969) which proved popular with the reading public. The translation of haiku was instrumental in altering his poetic style which became at once more focused and more simple.

His major project in the 1970s was the writing of a sequence of poems, By the Old Walls of Kyoto, and an accompanying set of essays or prose commentaries which demonstrated his gifts as an exponent of the doctrines of Buddhism, Taoism and Shinto. To finish this work, he was assisted by grants from the Literature Board of the Australia Council and the Australia-Japan Foundation. The book, published by Weatherhill in 1981, was lavishly illustrated and produced, and the poetry demonstrates that Stewart had, at last, found his true voice and subject-matter. In 1982, he was awarded a Senior Emeritus Writers' Fellowship by the Literature Board and, for the first time in his life, enjoyed a small measure of financial security.

Although he lived a fairly reclusive life within the small expatriate community, he was by no means without company. Visitors from overseas were always made welcome and subjected to gruelling walking tours to see the beauties of the city. He kept up a voluminous correspondence: letters to Dorothy Green, the literary critic, and to Carmen Blacker, folklorist and Professor of Japanese at Cambridge University, demonstrate his wide range of enthusiasms.

Health was always a problem. In his last years, he was in and out of hospital, mainly for problems with angina. Despite this, he continued to study and to write prodigious amounts of verse. His magnum opus, a vast verse-epic called Autumn Landscape Roll, is over five thousand lines in length and occupied all his time after the completion of By the Old Walls of Kyoto. The poem, which remains unpublished, explores a different landscape altogether. It is a kind of guided tour of the heavens, hells and purgatories of the Buddhist after-life, and draws its sources of imagery from descriptions in the various Pure Land sutras and from paintings and scrolls.

He also devoted a great deal of time to collaborating with his teachers, Shojun Bando and Hisao Inagaki, in producing English versions of Japanese Buddhist classics such as the Three Pure Land Sutras and the Tannisho.

He died in Kyoto on 8 August 1995 after a short illness and a Shin Buddhist ceremony was conducted for him. He was mourned by many people - in Japan, Australia, the USA and Europe - and was a much loved and revered figure. His literary remains, including unpublished works, notebooks and letters are housed in a special manuscript collection at the National Library of Australia in Canberra.

---

Barry Leckenby

Keeping the Faith:

The Narrative Metaphysical Poems of Harold Stewart

"Acceptance is all"

- Harold Stewart in By the Old Walls of Kyoto

Australian born poet and Buddhist scholar Harold Stewart loved Kyoto; it was his spiritual home. He lived in Japan's ancient capital for the last twenty-nine years of his life. During this time he collected Buddhist art, including the mandalas representing the Larger, the Smaller and the Contemplation Sutras. These mandalas are rare visual examples of the Mahayana Sutras chosen by Honen, the visionary priest who initiated Pure Land Buddhism, as the most important for that religion. To increase awareness of them outside Japan, Hisao Inagaki, in collaboration with Harold, wrote The Three Pure Land Sutras: a definitive source for those wishing to better understand their iconographical and symbolical significance. It is for this and other important scholarly contributions, which will be my major focus, that Harold has earned a special place in Pure Land Buddhism.

[ [i] ] Galen Amstutz, Interpreting Amida: History and Orientalism in the study of Pure Land Buddhism (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1997), p.86.

His writings are seminally important because at a time when few people outside Japan had taken any interest in Pure Land Buddhism, he was looking to spread the recitation of the Name in the West. Galen Amstutz in Interpreting Amida writes: 'While Zen exercised considerable influence on modern Western creative writers ranging from Jack Kerouac to Peter Mathiessen, the independent uptake of the Shin religious perspective has remained almost nil; an exception is Harold Stewart's little known By the Old Walls of Kyoto.'[[ i ]] American Beat writers like Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg were influenced by Zen from the 1950s. Harold was writing poetry influenced by Taoism and Zen some twenty years before Zen had beach headed on to the North American continent. Mahayana Buddhism influenced his poetry from the beginning of his poetic career in the 1930's and lasted a lifetime. His 'independent uptake' of Pure Land Buddhism began in earnest during the 1960s after he was drawn to Kyoto. The depth of his Buddhist knowledge gave him acute metaphysical insight, making him one of the most outstanding Eastern-influenced spiritual writers of the twentieth century.

By the Old Walls of Kyoto

The practical simplicity and democratic applicability of the Name was like a magnet for Harold. He had been searching for a less prescriptive spirituality that exiled nobody from the paradisiacal afterlife. His spiritual journey is poignantly recorded in By the Old Walls of Kyoto (hereafter referred to as Old Walls). He wrote Old Walls in celebration of Kyoto and Amida. It is the poetic soul's 'lonely planet' guide to Kyoto, providing a testament to how he overcomes his spiritual doubt. The thirteen narrative poems, each accompanied by an expositional essay, capture the essence of the Pure Land teachings, following the poet amongst the temples, through the quiet lanes at sunrise, up the mountains and across the fields of Kyoto in search of Amida's Pure Land - the land of ultimate happiness beyond this cycle of birth and death. In a fleeting moment of transcendence he briefly envisions such a paradise in the fields of Ohara: a farming district north of Kyoto, noted for its traditional Japanese thatched roofs and waterwheels. When witnessing the glory of the Pure Land here on earth he asks somewhat incredulously:

My dusty journey ends in joy today:

I see a hundred butterflies at play

About the vagrant flowers by fields of rice.

Can I have drunk the elixir by mistake,

And stumbled unawares on paradise?

As only two thousand copies of the book were ever published, it is not surprising that just a small number of people are familiar with the literary riches of Old Walls. It is difficult, but not impossible, to find a copy (try the Internet), and worthwhile tracking one down as it is an immaculate source of Buddhist wisdom filled with the sort of compassionate observation that goes straight to the heart of spiritual reckoning.

[ [ii] ] James Legge, Confucius: Confucian Analects, The Great Learning and The Doctrine of the Mean, Chinese Test; translation with exegetical notes and Dictionary of all Characters (New York: Dover Publications, 1971), p.145.

Harold, like Old Walls, is not well known outside a small circle of friends. This lack of recognition is indicative of his private nature and not an adverse judgement of his work. He never overtly sought public attention but worked to cultivate the inner light and life of Amida as he maintained a global network of friends. The words of Confucius rightfully apply to him: 'I will not be afflicted at men's not knowing me; I will be afflicted that I do not know men.'[ [ii] ]

In Poem Six of Old Walls he looks back upon his life, grateful for anonymity, recognising that it gave him time to transmute youthful desires, burning as they did like a hostile sun, and acquire the saving tranquillity of the Name:

High summer's tyranny has loosed its hold;

From their hot zenith my desires descend

To genial afternoon. Though I grow old,

Autumnal ripeness comes before the cold.

The hostile sun, with whom I would contend,

Tempers his lustful fire, and as a friend

Inaugurates my evening years of gold.

I, who could not give up the world, go free:

This irreligious world renounces me.

Ignored in peace and decently neglected

Till I am safely dead, I lay no claim

To riches, privilege, prestige, degree,

Nor crave the flaring fraudulence of fame,

But work unknown, my only wealth the Name.

Harold is now 'safely dead,' passing during Obon in 1995 - the celebratory time in Japan when the spirits of the dead return to their living descendants. During his 'evening years of gold' in Kyoto he dedicated his life and poetry to the Name as he practiced the Dharma. Though as he alludes to with his declaration: 'This irreligious world renounces me,' the possibility of following a religious faith without ever transgressing its principles becomes increasingly difficult in a world that neglects spiritual possibilities for the more tangible and instant rewards of material pursuits.

[ [iii] ] Harold Stewart, By the Old Walls of Kyoto: A years cycle of landscape poems with prose commentaries (Tokyo, New York: Weatherhill, 1981), p.210.

'One of the most cherished prejudices of the twentieth century,' he writes, 'has been that the benighted ages of faith are now happily outgrown with the childhood of the race and that, fully adult at last, we can take pride in living in a rationally enlightened period of disbelief.'[ [iii] ] It is commonly accepted today that Science has exposed religion as a superstitious folly. Sceptics argue that visions such as the Pure Land are mere castles in the air, nothing more than the deluded fabrications of the desperate: a persuasive argument enticing many to pray at the altar of Mammon. This 'clever ignorance' does not demonstrate the loss of faith, but rather it indicates that faith has been 'merely displaced' into the material pursuits of science, politics, and economics. He thinks that these pursuits are the 'false prophets of Progress,' treated like pseudo-religions and worshipped as quotidian gods.

[ [iv] ] The capitalisation of the word 'Faith' follows Harold Stewart's usage and indicates a Faith that comes directly from Amida and one that is beyond the trials of secular doubting.

He argues that this displacement does not give us cause to believe that Faith has been weakened, but rather it demonstrates how our capacity for faith manifests in many different forms. Our capacity for faith enamours us in the fight against radical or nihilistic doubt. In the final judgement, having battled to focus his spiritual energies, he jubilantly sacrifices his own doubting secular self because he finds Faith is blessingly freighted with the altruistic Other Power of Amida.[ [iv] ]

[ [v] ] Stewart, By the Old Walls of Kyoto, pp.210-211.

Those who think religion lacks credibility have trouble placing faith in it and, more often than not, decide to place it in the false prophets of Progress. After being 'miseducated' into believing that the real Metaphysical principles and powers are now 'exploded fallacies,' modern man finds himself in an absurd existential position: 'if they [the Metaphysical principles and powers] had been, he and his entire world would at once have disappeared.'[ [v] ] This observation shows how one-eyed scepticism can be just as myopic as one-eyed faith, leaving nobody better off. It also demonstrates that radical doubt does not in any way disprove the central hypothesis of Metaphysics: the existence of a gracious spiritual influence. Having abandoned Metaphysical principles for the pseudo-religions, many people still find themselves troubled by radical doubt. This has resulted in, not Enlightenment or Liberation as was once hoped, but the wages of dismay, boredom and despair.

[ [vi] ] Marco Pallis, A Buddhist Spectrum (London, George Allen and Unwin, 1980), p.33.

In this despiritualized modern world Harold argues that even though contemporary views and standardized answers might not give credence to Metaphysics, there may be a more subtle mode of reality prevailing involving spiritual influence. 'Metaphysics,' as Harold applies it, means the sacred science of the transcendent unity of all the world Traditions. One of the fundamental realisations of his poetry is that the spiritual reality of Metaphysics is not separate from the world at large, not something outside the self or displaced from the material world, but is indeed the very essence of existence. We have to try to appreciate spiritual influence even in a world seemingly bent on dissipating its influence. Yet to keep spiritual influence as sentinel is easier said than done: it is constantly undermined by radical doubt. Marco Pallis believes: 'We are living through an age of doubt, if not of counter-faith.'[ [vi] ] Radical or counter-faith doubt is accepted as common currency and a suitable disposition to adopt in the face of a despiritualized modern world. The strength of Old Walls as spiritual testimony comes from the poet's steady approach as he overcomes doubt and keeps Faith. Amida's Eighteenth Vow promises the devotee that Faith will result in rebirth in the Pure Land. It is by keeping Faith, while honestly tackling doubt, that Harold feels the vivifying strength of Amida's Other Power.

In Poem Four Harold outlines how the workings of the spirit can subtly prevade our thoughts and clarify our spiritual equivocation. After suffering a long hot sleepless night in the stifling humidity of Kyoto's summer, tortured by his own existential doubts and trapped in the reductive dead-ends of subjectivity, he hears the solemn boom of the bell at the Honen-in:

Hours later: in the huge and sultry gloom

A temple bell has tolled with solemn boom:

Its lingering overtones profoundly steep

The distant stillness, where it still resounds.

Again the heavy pole is swung, and pounds

Its tongueless dome, whose bronze vibrations vie

In their sonorous hive, and humming deep

Pervade the hush that holds the earth and sky.

The damp air breathes, lifting the slightest sigh:

A little windbell, hung beneath my eaves,

Instantly rings its lightly trilled reply.

I wake at once out of a lifelong sleep:

My being's inmost solitude receives

A summons that dissolves its sombre spell,

The Heart's reverberations rise and swell

Till lips and tongue spontaneously exclaim:

'Amida Butsu!' - Buddha's sacred Name.

The lingering overtones of the temple bell 'steep the distant stillness' and their humming pervades 'the hush that holds the earth and sky.' At this profound meeting point the still damp air breathes: nature itself is resuscitated after a choking night of ignorance. A sudden breath of air rattles the poet's windbell, replying to the sonorous boom emanating from the Honen-in. This meeting of sounds at once delivers the blessing of Enlightenment. He awakens from 'a lifelong sleep' of doubting. His Heart rises as the sombre spell experienced by his 'inmost solitude' dissolves into joy and the Name is exclaimed. The poet's night of meditation is brought to perfect pitch by the beautiful chorus of bells. He gives thanks for Amida's blessing as he is filled with spontaneous joy.

A person lacking a Metaphysical framework is denied the chance to respond in this manner and would have to face the continued trials of counter-faith doubt. The hardened sceptic would call the meeting of sounds a coincidence, but the poet keeps Faith, now more spiritually articulate and at ease with himself. It is timely to remember that Science cannot explain everything away: mystery abounds where spiritual influence pervades. The appreciative and joyous, if not sleep-weary poet, exclaims the sacred Name and notes:

During this call our voices sound the same,

And yet I do not call on him, but he

By my response recalls himself through me.

The calling of the Name becomes a spontaneous act and the individual awakens to a call that flows from within him, as beautiful as Amida's own voice, but not unlike his own. On a doctrinal level the poet is informed by Shinran's celebrated distinction of Once-Calling by the Other Power. The boundary of distinction evaporates and all becomes one as the sombre spell of doubt gives way to the joy of the Name as Amida transfers Faith to the devotee. Harold writes:

My weakness feels the strange resistless strength

Of Faith flow in, that will prevail at length;

While all my restless questions are resigned,

And silence has absorbed the noisy mind.

The noisy mind of the secular self comes to rest in the profound silence of the Other Power and the flow of Faith strengthens him against doubt. The long hot summer night comes to an end and the poet looks out to the Eastern hills as the 'dark by gradual shades' is withdrawn, to leave a 'delicate-tinted transience of clouds above Japan':

Looking farther down

Each leafy lane and narrow avenue

To where they end in fields beyond the town.

The rounded Kyoto hills, abruptly blue,

Misty with conifers, close in the view.

He looks toward the vaulting conifers and 'abruptly blue' hills, left in rapturous wonder at the subtlety of the Other Power, his sight trailing off into the distance.

Harold's experience of Enlightenment is like the dawning light. Spiritual insight comes gradually as the shades of doubt recede, bringing the light of Amida's Pure Land. Patient meditation softens doubt; its waning allows for the keeping of Faith.

As the narrative of Old Walls progresses the poet gets closer to his goal of Enlightenment. After visiting the Sanzen-in in Ohara, he steps along the path which is covered in autumn-leaves, and poetically captures the mood of the valley when dusk is falling; at the time of year when the temperature begins to get colder:

Earlier now the quiet nightfall chills

This blue primordial loneliness of hills.

In scattered villages the roof-vents choke

The valley with their lingering wreaths of smoke,

Where farm-house windows kindle, spark by spark,

And sprinkle silver through the gathering dark

As random stars to guide the labouring folk

Homeward to bath and evening rice and sleep.

A pale diaphanous damp begins to creep

Up from the river, stealthily dispersed

Until the misty hollows are immersed;

While over darkening stubble fields, a slow

Belated shadow flaps: one carking crow

Whose passing leaves the silence vast and deep.

The traditional patterns of rising before dawn, working in the fields during the day, and going home at sunset as the farm-house windows begin to light up like stars - 'spark by spark,' show nature and man coalescing. In this union the farmers gather significance by connecting to the seasonal patterns, which are subtly, if not intuitively, followed in daily practice; and life itself as they age toward 'autumnal ripeness.' The passing shadow of the crow, like the passing shadow of the day, cannot be seized: just as the cycle of nature cannot be stilled. Having reaped the harvest the farmers go home to enjoy an evening meal and a hot bath. The darkness ushers in the night and the creeping damp signals that autumn is giving way to winter, leaving the valley dormant with mist.

As the valley comes to nightfall the silence is left vast and deep by the sound of a carking crow. This shows how the dialectical elements of experience, in this case sound and silence, depend on each other for their very existence. Without sound there cannot be silence and vice versa. The idea of interdependence, as has been noted in the calling of the Name in Poem Four, is a characteristic of the foundational principle of dependent arising. Its importance for Buddhism cannot be overstated. The term dependent arising constitutes a middle way that avoids the theological assumption of a mysterious first cause and the ontological assertion of a permanent identity or soul. It argues for the conditionality of all physical and psychical phenomena.

Harold wishes to make this crucial point clearer for his Western readers, and after spending twenty-nine years in Kyoto he avoids what Edward W. Said makes apparent in Orientalism. Briefly summarized, Said's thesis argues that modern Orientalism, that is the image of the East in the West, is not derived from some sudden upsurge of objective knowledge about the Orient, but is knowledge surmised when an inherited prism of Western intellectual structures is applied to the East. This prism of intellectual structures is derived from what has been defined as Christian supernaturalism (or natural supernaturalism as M.H. Abrams originally termed it). In other words, the West has repackaged the East with values that were originally Christian in nature, such as the notions of Heaven and Hell; exile and reunion. These Christians values were secularized during the Romantic period of the eighteenth century when theology was reconstituted. Romantic writers tried to make these existential paradigms and cardinal values more intellectually acceptable in a world of eroding ancient Christian values. Harold does not try to repackage the East with the values of Christian supernaturalism, but instead presents Eastern religion in accordance with his long experience of it: that is as its own entity.

His understanding of the principle of karma is one example of him amending the ways of a miseducated West. In the West karma is often treated synonymously with the characteristic of interdependence; summed up with the common saying: 'What goes around comes around.' Unfortunately karma is largely misunderstood and its wider implications not fully appreciated because its meaning has been affected by the Christian idea of sin. As most would be familiar, the idea of sin sees merit placed on individual actions so that at the termination of life one either goes to Heaven or Hell. When the principle of karma is borrowed in the West its understanding becomes one where it is moralized so that someone who says or does something bad is judged as creating 'bad karma.' If it is deemed that you are the first cause in a chain of unfortunate events (what goes around), then eventually this will come back to haunt you (comes around). Westerners who think like this believe that all things are connected in a way that sees negative events attracting negative outcomes and positive events attracting positive outcomes. Even though this type of thinking displays the characteristic of interdependence, its application is faulted because of the moral value placed on individual events and outcomes. Each person attracts what they have caused, with the outcome given a positive or negative value, and so is judged, not by the idea of karma as it is known in the East, but more by the principle of retributive justice inherent in sin. The idea of karma is Westernised when a moral value is asserted.

[ [vii] ] Stewart, By the Old Walls of Kyoto, p.155.

Harold does not fall into the trap of Westernising karma. He points out that karma is never individual but always collective, so that any suffering will ultimately be a burden we all bear - if not in this lifetime, then in lifetimes to come. The collective nature of karma means that it is neither good nor bad in an absolute sense. In a relative sense it is a combination of both. Harold points out: 'The law of karma, of equal and opposite action and reaction, is ineluctable and cannot be abrogated, even by a Buddha who, though omniscient and omnipresent, is not the Omnipotent Creator.'[ [vii] ] Karma is not omnipotent as the historical Buddha, Shakyamuni, discovered. He devised a method of using karma to overcome karma, with his foundational belief in contemplative non-action, and was delivered to Nirvana. The world of experience presents karma 'inextricably mixed in a paradoxical dilemma,' making moral judgements impotent. The Buddha, going above good and bad as absolute moral positions, perceived karma as inevitable and something that can be overcome. Whereas the idea of sin bears an arbitrary and concatenate judgement based on moral worth, the principle of karma accepts the moral categorical imperatives as provisional positions which must be lived through and transcended. The poet's burgeoning acceptance of this concludes Poem One.

My heart accepts its karma. In the end

The loss, defeat, and failure time may send

Can clear the way within to Buddhahood,

Which from the start foresaw and understood

That all things as they are, with no rejection,

Before the mind can judge them bad or good,

Are even now the Land of Pure Perfection.

Individual thoughts, no matter what contour they might follow or what colour they may take, cannot jostle for precedence forever and in time we will understand 'all things as they are.' It is then that the meditative stillness of the Pure Land will be apparent. By adopting a provisional position to conceptual opposites, Buddhism sees no need for an absolute position. Nagarjuna, the pre-eminent Buddhist philosopher, said that Nirvana (Pure Land) is Samsara (everyday world) and Samsara is Nirvana. His assertion collapses this polar distinction as does the overcoming of karma. The Buddha understands all events, 'Before the mind can judge them good or bad.' This sort of forbearance makes possible the transcendence of apparent polar opposites. The idea of karma should promote

[ [viii] ] Stewart, By the Old Walls of Kyoto, p.155.

the most masculine fortitude, generosity, and endurance; the most feminine patience, sympathy, and gentleness; the most childlike innocence, purity and spontaneity; in other words the supreme virtues of the Bodhisattva. Acceptance is all.[ [viii] ]

When the darkness of ignorance is banished, we are freed from the torment of karma and from spiritual darkness. The fundamental Buddhist position Harold's poetry holds is that for this emancipation to take place, the material and spiritual must been seen in their essential oneness.

After having a brief vision of the Pure Land in Poem Nine, where the poet glimpses the everlasting Western Paradise of Amida, he finds it possible to forge an outlook that transcends the polar opposites of life and death. In so doing he accepts that this world is fused with everlasting spirit. Walking in the late afternoon light of Ohara he observes:

These last warm days of autumn in decline

Draw in to wintry dusks, and so do mine.

If soon the earth and I must undergo

The hushed, the purifying death of snow,

Let the wind strip the ragged leaves that cling:

They go without regret. Though overnight

Our naked branches are attired in white,

Do we complain against the cold who know

That patient buds already wait to bring

The ever-faithful poignancy of spring?

Should we complain against the harsh cold, knowing that it nourishes the latent seed that brings the promise of new life? Are we to argue against the natural cycle of events? We would be foolish to do so, and regardless such complaint is futile in the face of the dynamic cosmic cycle unfolding endlessly. We must pass without regret as our wintry dusk closes in and experience 'the purifying death of snow.' The poet faces what might seem like a harsh reality with the strength of Amida's Other Power. He is emboldened in his quest by the fact that after having pierced the illusionary veil of duality he imagines the Pure Land here on earth.

All who are to go beyond mere birth and death on this cycle of existence and enter into the Pure Land must heed the realization that suffering exists - the Buddha's First Noble Truth. They cannot separate their suffering from anybody else's and must accept all suffering as their own. This is the Buddha's very own declaration. He will not rest in Nirvana until each and every person (not en masse but each of us alone) has overcome suffering. With wisdom tempered by compassion, which brings the blessing of Enlightenment, one can imagine other pure worlds beyond this imperfect one and understand the difficult lesson that the nature of suffering is the 'ever-faithful poignancy of spring.' Trying to stop time as one helplessly bemoans old age will not change the fact that after having enjoyed the spring of our childhood, we must now face the winter of our old age.

The poet understands that the road to wintry dusk is the unfolding of karmic elements where all things will penetrate each other, and apparent opposites will be seen in their essential and true oneness. As he writes in the essay accompanying Poem Eleven:

[ [ix] ] Stewart, By the Old Walls of Kyoto, p.403.

Death is no longer what all men believe and so hate and fear but is gentle, compassionate, and kind. Pure Faith and the calling of the Divine Name are powerful enough to bring one safely through this trial. Thereafter one is ready to leave this world at any time or to stay on for any time, as the Other Power wills, for to live and to die are equally good.[ [ix] ]

[ [x] ] Stewart, By the Old Walls of Kyoto, p.156.

A revelatory conviction, purged of doubt but not of humility, reverberates in the claim: 'Death . . . is gentle, compassionate, and kind.' His equanimity is based on the belief that 'to live and to die are equally good,' and has been accomplished by holding possible opposites in coincidence: that is by understanding the dependent arising of phenomena and therefore its nondual nature. Nonduality can only be realised after reaching perfect Enlightenment, which means reuniting the false subjective-objective dichotomy of Samsara and Nirvana. He writes: 'If only our setbacks could have been contemplated all along from the universally comprehensive viewpoint of the Buddha, it would have been possible to foresee and understand their necessary part in the whole developing pattern of our lives.'[ [x] ] In the rush to satisfy the circus of ever-multiplying desires, lurching from one extreme to another, it is all too easy to isolate oneself and create a schism between the spirit and self, between self and others, and ignore 'the whole developing pattern of our lives.'

[ [xi] ] Stewart, By the Old Walls of Kyoto, p.199.

Although it should be granted it is difficult contemplating the Middle Way in a despiritualized and skeptical modern world where death is feared because it ends the only existence that has been given any credence: the existence of 'mindless hedonism and hardened materialism.'[ [xi] ] Harold's own journey as represented in Old Walls provides a great example of how to approach a spiritual quest, but it is not the only example he provides.

Autumn Landscape-Roll

Just days before his death in 1995, he told close friends that he had finally finished his second great epic poem Autumn Landscape-Roll: A Divine Panorama. It is little known even in the small circle of the people who read his poetry because it has never before been published, that is until now with its inaugural publication in The Pure Land. The narrative structure is similar to Old Walls, exploring how an individual can authentically place his faith in powers other than his own.

[ [xii] ] Harold Stewart, Autumn Landscape-Roll, from the Notes for the Prologue(unpublished manuscript,1995).

The main character of the poem is Wu Tao-tzu, the 'Divinely Inspired' painter of China's artistically rich T'ang Dynasty (618-906).[ [xii] ] This dynasty is considered to be the most glorious and golden of China's long dynastic history so we may well consider Wu as the best of the best, even though today no original examples of his work remain. Harold follows his journey after he miraculously steps out of this world into his landscape-roll to seek the ancient wisdom of the Way of Taoism.

[ [xiii] ] Stewart, By the Old Walls of Kyoto, p.259.

[ [xiv] ] Stewart, By the Old Walls of Kyoto, p.185.

In Autumn Landscape-Roll Harold broadens his religio-philosophical scope to include Taoism, as well as other forms of the Buddha's doctrine. His thematic scope remains consistent with that of Old Walls: the individual's struggle to overcome doubt and keep Faith. As Harold notes, there are strong links between the Madhyamaka of Nagarjuna, the First Patriarch of Pure Land Buddhism, the Yogacara school of Asanga and Vasubandhu, and Taoist Metaphysics.[ [xiii] ] They all practice a belief in Anatman or nonself, the very foundation of the original Buddha's teaching, 'which is the only doctrine among the many branches of Tradition that proceeds directly from Becoming to Non-Being, without the mediation of any changeless ontological principle or deity.'[ [xiv] ] Wu searches for nonself by emptying the secular self, discovering the nondual Universal perspective of the Buddha.

[ [xv] ] Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching in A Source Book In Chinese Philosophy, translated and complied by Wing-Tsit Chan (New Jersey, Princeton University Press, 1963) p.156 and p.139.

It can be argued that words are not always helpful in promoting an understanding of the Way of Taoism, the Tao Te Ching stating: 'As soon as there are names, know that it is time to stop.' This central text describes the Way as 'The door of all subtleties' that leads to an understanding of the relationship between Heaven, Earth and Man.[ [xv] ] The work of Lao Tzu and Chuang Tzu traditionally represent the teachings of Taoism. Their doctrines are built upon the principle of eternal nonself and hold the idea of the Great One as fundamental. The understanding of the Tao in Lao Tzu's philosophy is still worldly, whereas with Chuang Tzu it becomes more transcendental. The idea of self-transformation takes on a central focus in Chuang Tzu, who presents life and reality as dynamic and ever-changing. Taoism concentrates on providing tranquillity by understanding the nature of this dynamic change and was formalised into a doctrine around 1 B.C., yet was in practice long before this date. Both men understand the Way as a natural cycle demonstrated when the Yang, or positive forces, interplay with the Yin, or negative forces, two apparently opposed but ultimately cooperative tendencies, creating the T'ai Chi, or Great Ultimate, most commonly known in the West by the black and white Yin-Yang symbol. Harold metaphorically describes this process when Wu sketches a pair of dragons in flight:

Their light and darkness would cooperate

By opposition in a cyclic chase,

And take by counterchange each other's place.

With great poetic economy he describes how the apparently conflicting dual forces cooperate to achieve the nondual Way of Taoism. The process of counterchange demonstrates how absolute positions are unnecessary in the matrix of change; the 'cyclic chase' demoting any notion of independence. In the course of this counterchange the Taoist is to follow Nature and in so doing fulfil his or her own nature. To achieve this the Taoist must search for the essence of all things. This essence contains the evidences of what is most real, only disclosed beyond the illusory veil of duality.

In the 'Prologue' Harold outlines the circumstances that led to Wu being titled the Prince of Painting. The Emperor Ming Huang, who is kindly disposed to the arts, proclaims that Wu and Li Ssu-hsun, his able opponent, will clash in artistic competition to decide who is the more accomplished artist. The differing personalities and backgrounds of the painters are reflected in their attitudes to art and life (yet there hardly seems a difference between art and life for the two men). Wu was born into humble circumstances

but orphaned while a boy and left forlorn

In poverty to make his way alone.

Li was born into privilege but is not a complete stranger to adversity. He had to flee to the north of China when the bloody usurper Empress Wu ordered his execution. She was the last ruler of the T'ang Dynasty who only obtained the throne by poisoning the rightful heir and imprisoning or exterminating rival claimants. He escaped her clutches to establish his Northern School of Art.

The different position each painter holds on what constitutes art is more than just an idle theoretical argument. The ability to create art is seen as an indication that the artist understands the natural forces of the Way. Li comments on Wu's style:

Your brushwork, brilliant but erratic too,

Which models forms with fluctuating line.

Wu replies:

Since you established, Li, the Northern School

You must obey your own restrictive rule.

Their argument becomes one between spontaneity and set design; between intuition or following the established rules. Wu, the iconoclast, thinks 'that measured drawing leaves the picture dead.' In Autumn Landscape-Roll no small detail should be discarded as what may seem like an incidental is in fact a hint of the Way. Harold hints that the Way is not to be pursued by set rule or measure but requires an spontaneity that goes with the flow of natural forces. A spontaneity beyond the manipulation of self, like that of the Way of Nature, is a necessary condition to understand the Way.

Ming Huang commands both artists should travel to the western province to capture its natural wonders in a sketch. On their return a separate hall is set aside so that the two artists can finish their masterpieces, 'nurtured by silence, stillness, solitude.' The industrious Li works hard; while the casual Wu entertains four old friends. Harold hints at the method behind Wu's apparent laziness when describing the importance that the colour white has for Wu:

To Wu ivory silk, pristinely bare

Of natural semblance, absent everywhere,

Would teem with numberless unpainted views.

For whiteness underlies the rainbow hues

Of all the imagined scenes that colour it,

Outstanding from its ground, which they omit;

As from the unmanifested Infinite

Emerge a myriad worlds, whose empty spacing

Defines the universe's stellar placing.

Li represents the world with plentiful, colourful and intricate details. Wu, on the other hand, believes that white, symbolising absence, underwrites all representation. The emptiness of space and the absence of detail defines the placement of the stars and thereby the structure of the universe; and thus the Way. Wu must understand the nature of this emptiness. This is also a necessary condition for understanding the Way.

The three months allowed to complete the landscapes elapses and the two men are brought before Ming Huang. Li's landscape is grand in design and scope and he tells the audience:

As we unroll each scene from left to right,

Ten thousand things pass by in time and space.

The Emperor is well pleased but marvels in silence at Wu's work, saying:

Wu's art is vitally inspired by Ch'i,

The circulating breath of Tao, the Norm

That resonates through every natural form

And gives it life, spontaneously free.

Wu's picture is judged to be the better, but to be fair to Li both men are given the royal title of Prince of Painting. As the court retires Wu is asked to stay behind by the Emperor. He questions the newly titled artist:

Your painting, Wu, has caught forever here

Autumn's perennial golden atmosphere.

Such art is more than human. Are your powers

Inherited from Heaven then, like ours?

Wu fails to answer the Emperor, wandering off into his landscape roll. Why does Wu do this at the height of his artistic success? Does he receive the Emperor's words:

caught forever

Autumn's perennial golden atmosphere,

with sense of irony? Has he realised that to 'catch forever' is just the beginning of never catching at all, as to still nature is to stop man?

The ebullient mood Wu displayed during the competition is now eclipsed by a sense that his life, like nature itself, is governed by an inexorable impermanence.

The year and I are dying out together:

The cold, the damp, descend on all our weather.

The long warm afternoons that would extend

So late into the west there seemed no end

To those the abundant summer held in store,

Have long outworn the golden tone they wore.

As he confronts the damp winter descending 'on all our weather,' he searches for a guide. He recalls that T'ao-ch'ien, a reclusive poet who follows the Way of Tao, lives in a farm-house near by. The old poet is not home so Wu is asked to wait in the study. To occupy himself he reads a book that has been left open on the desk. The Book of Chuang-tzu is opened at the page describing the time Chuang-tzu had dreamt he was a butterfly. Upon waking he could not distinguish if he was in fact a man or a butterfly. Chuang-tzu argues strongly that the pure man needs to become aware that the universal process of transformation equalizes all into oneness and this should be his eternal abode. His dream of metamorphosis rejects the distinction between subject and object by blurring the commonly accepted duality of a true waking reality and a false dreaming other world.

In the blank margin of the page T'ao-ch'ien has added in contemplative reply:

Our lives are dreams, but not our own; for we

Who dream have selves no less illusory.

This further complicates what is increasingly becoming a problematic reality. This is an important moment in Wu's spiritual journey as it is the first vital conceptual crossing-point. He is presented with an opportunity to expand his conception of consciousness. To conceptualise consciousness in its essential oneness means that it cannot be reduce or negated, but rather it must be enlarged to included all, every iota of experience, both good and bad. As Harold learned: 'Acceptance is all.'

The restriction that applies when we argue for a conceptualisation of consciousness based solely on the experience of the waking self is tested by the claim that 'our lives are dreams.' The further claim: 'but not our own,' unsettles any hardened resistance to expanding our concept of consciousness to include the baroque world of dreams. And finally the claim: 'but not our own' argues that we become someone else's dream. This means that the consciousness of self becomes twice removed from its point of conceptual origin in the waking self. Firstly, any declaration of origin arguing that consciousness is constituted by the waking self is voided by the claim that our lives are only dreams. And in the second place by the claim that these dreams have an origin beyond the waking self. T'ao ch'ien then writes:

for we who dream have selves no less illusory.

[ [xvi] ] Stewart, By the Old Walls of Kyoto, p.273.

[ [xvii] ] Stewart, By the Old Walls of Kyoto, p.299.

Having destabilized the confidence of the waking self to claim the origin of consciousness in the conceptual framework of self, the old poet goes on to say that the dreaming self is not an illusion but part of a larger dream involving the Cosmic Memory. The self, both waking and dreaming, belongs to this first and foremost, before any tendentious claims are made that characterise the origin of consciousness as something that is restricted to the narrow experience of the waking self. Harold thinks that our human consciousness is a 'basic and incontrovertible fact.'[ [xvi] ] Aligning human consciousness with the greater Universal Consciousness he notes: 'Buddhism is the Doctrine of Awakening, and its goal has always been recognized as Enlightenment, which is synonymous with the All-Knowing and Universal Consciousness of the Buddha.'[ [xvii] ]

Wu realises that his previously held view of human consciousness has restricted his understanding of the Way of Taoism. His view needs to be augmented by unconditionally accepting the Universal Consciousness of the Buddha. To do this he must see that his journey goes in two directions at once. It is simultaneously an expansion outward to appreciate the Universal Consciousness and a path inward to discover nonself. The trick is to realise that even though the directions of inner and outer might seem contrary, they are actually only the one way and the Way. Wu must invoke the Buddha's spiritual legacy by meditating upon the emptiness of nonself. This will unravel the accreted layers of self that have been wrought from experience and give him access to the spontaneous essence of everlasting life. In Pure Land Buddhism this requires the grace of Amida's Other Power; in Taoism the figure of influence is located in the natural forces of the Way.

[ [xviii] ] Stewart, By the Old Walls of Kyoto, p.184.

His faith in emptiness gives him a governing principle. His assumption that emptiness is the principle governing stellar placing can rightly be called a foundationless foundation in the sense that it does not provide a first cause like the concept of God does in the Judeo-Christian religions. These religions conceptualise emptiness by equating it with nihilism and diametrically opposing it to the plenitude of the paradisal garden of Eden. In the Eastern traditions, as Harold writes: 'Emptiness, the Void, Non-Being are negative only in verbal form, and since they negate all negations actually affirm the most positive though ineffable Reality.'[ [xviii] ] Buddhism does not argue for a first cause, but the conditionality of all causes, and sees emptiness as affirming the most positive Reality. Harold's most enduring literary accomplishment is the development of a poetics of emptiness relating to the conceptualisation of consciousness.

[ [xix] ] Stewart, By the Old Walls of Kyoto, p. 246.

Wu, still alone in the study, is riding a crescendo of doubt before he experiences the final break through when one 'arrives at the Great Doubt, the Doubt of doubts, when we must give up even doubting.'[ [xix] ] If all doubt is to be exhausted, then an emptiness free from the contrivances of self must be contemplated. With his solemn mood set in like the weather, he looks out of the study window onto the rain-soaked garden:

Out on the garden, which a rainy haze,

Veiling the trees and bushes, faintly greys,

But stains their trunks and branches black with wet.

Meshed in its evanescent silver net,

Its liquid spheres are hung from leaf and twig,

Reflecting all in each and each in all,

Till raindrops run together, swell too big,

And let translucent constellations fall

For single glistening instants everywhere,

As though a broken necklace were to spill

Its beads of crystals, sprinkled through the air

Some dripping here and now, then other there. . . .

The use of imagery compliments the theme of the Way invoked. The garden's 'liquid spheres,' 'Reflecting all in each and each in all,' is analogous to the Way. Its universal mesh of influence, an 'evanescent silver net,' momentarily grants the appearance of 'glistening instants everywhere' as the raindrops swell and hang on the branches. When the raindrops run together the liquid spheres spill like a broken necklace, scattering as though 'sprinkled through the air.' The same can be said of the Way when it is contained in a conceptual frame of reference: it too spills beyond the borders of conceptuality; beyond the measured ratio of words and into ineffable silence. Leaving the study to resume his journey he is more aware of the paradoxical direction of this journey; the enigmatic governing principle of emptiness that grounds the conceptualisation of consciousness; and the need to resist the ossification of thought by promoting the spontaneity of it. He notes:

Briskly the wind drives clouds away that dare

To shroud the heavenly altitudes of air,

And while it clears the sky, their counterchange

Patches the spacious day with blue and white,

Until their flock of shadows, put to flight

Across the valley toward the distant range,

Is routed by a solar burst of light.

But on this path, where lingering puddles lie,

A fallen wu-t'ung leaf can still retain,

With russet palm upturned, a pool of rain

Holding a glimpse of that reflected sky

Whose scraps of blue and white are scudding by.

The ever-changing face of nature, so exactingly caught in the image of the clouds in the sky glimpsed as 'scraps of blue and white' scudding by in the 'pool of rain,' confirms the need for spontaneity if he is to harness the natural forces of the Way. This image demonstrates Chuang-tzu's philosophy of the universal process of transformation where the high white clouds in the sky and the low pool, poles apart it would seem, are caught together in a reflection. The reflection is a harbinger of all things being equalized into an essential oneness. The fallen leaf, a symbol of both death and rebirth, is a reminder that death touches all in the universal process of change. Yet it is not a reductive death as the essence of the leaf flows back into life's everlasting store of nature. Someday Wu will be compost for the earth and like the leaf return to the everlasting life of nature's Way. His death presages a rebirth. If he is able to overcome his karma by understanding the nature of suffering he will be reborn beyond suffering; and so beyond this imperfect world. The stark fact of death, harsh only if one moralizes about life and death, can deliver the most profound and intimate knowledge that increases the circle of influence assumed by human consciousness.

When Wu meets an old fisherman his understanding of emptiness begins to crystallise. He asks the old man why he has retired from the world:

Here cares and creditors no more infest

The house of mind: Poverty brings it rest.

Possessing nothing, I am not possessed.

And he adds:

I fled not from the world, but into it.

His answer is concise and delivered without evasiveness; its premise refuses to accept a division between the material and spiritual world realms: 'not from' 'but into' the world. In his state of poverty he declares to know the true nature and worth of material possessions: 'Possessing nothing, I am not possessed.' With this realization a freedom is granted, a freedom to spontaneously experience the natural forces of the Way, without being limited by perspective or constrained by theory. Wu must undergo the same type of kenosis to still the 'house of mind.' He will then know the true freedom and wonder of the Way.

Harold's poetic ability to describe natural phenomena, tuned as it is with fifty years of craftsmanship, reaches its apotheosis in Autumn Landscape-Roll. At the end of the day when the elegiac light is mournfully harmonised with the season's bereavement, the autumn leaves all but a memory on the earth's floor, the poet's words unfold as colourful images, painting a grand scene that integrates the sublimity of the spiritual dimension with nature's melancholic finitude.

Into infinite distance, sad and clear,

Recede the miles of autumn atmosphere:

With pale citron tone, the watery light

That shines out after rain washes their height.

The autumn mountain, swept as neat and clean

As the tidy winds can, reclines serene:

No twig is out of place, no leaf is seen

Of all that tarnished ruin of gold which lay

So densely underfoot till yesterday,

Claimed by the earth as tribute for decay.

Upon its sides the naked forests brood,

Locked in a crystalline disquietude,

And looped with sleeping vines and beards of moss,

Despair for want of leaves, the season's loss.

Each tall gauntly calligraphic tree,

Forked against the light's sour clarity,

Soars with static branches, sparse and bare,

In that remote and disappointed air.

An empty vast, the autumn waters lie,

Merging into the open sea of sky.

Slowly the ebb goes out, and from the height

Drains away the westering tide of light.

The image of

Each tall gauntly calligraphic tree,

Forked against the light's sour clarity

haunts both the season and the draining 'westering tide of light' as a reminder of their own inevitable and ghostly desolation.

Night falls and Wu needs to find a place to rest.

The mountain's secret presence at this hour

Yields a serene and sanctifying power

To heal the exhausted spirit,

and with this invigorating power, having found a temple to rest in, Wu concentrates his spiritual energies. The peace and silence of the temple favours meditation:

His breathing is hushed and held, his posture still,

Unheeded on the cushion, long he kneels

Aware of Emptiness alone. . . . .

Wu begins his meditation upon Kuan Yin, the Buddha of Compassion. Unrivalled in the Western poetic Canon, Harold delivers a poetic tour de force, distilling the essence of compassion: the essential nature of this impressive Buddha. Wu's prayer breaks off because of an external disturbance. The uproar signals the entrance of Hui-Neng, the Sixth Patriarch of the Southern Line of Ch'an. The old monk provides the main humour of the poem with his seemingly sacrilegious ways. He says:

Such scribblings are absurd:

Your feet already wander from the Way

Who seek Enlightenment in what they say;

And so, as Ch'an discards the written word,

To Hell with all your sutras!

Burning old Buddhas and using sutras-scrolls as kindling he sends the indignant audience into a frenzy of shock. As one Buddha burns, his lips appear to murmur in the melting heat and Shakyamuni, transfigured in flame, preaches a new Fire Sermon:

O monks, all sentient beings are on fire

In worlds on worlds, the universal pyre.

This holy crucible, which only moments before had been considered a heathen's madness, fuses the collective experience of those gathered, leaving them in silent awe and readied for a journey to Hell.

Shakyamuni opens the ground beneath him and Ti Tsang, the Guide of the Dead, appears. Descending into the underworld, Ti Tsang tours the grief of this forlorn realm, wandering amongst the lost, tormented, and unrepentant souls who are trying to recover from their fallen state as their minds are led 'from darkness up to light.' Here are the people who cannot conquer their desire:

Grandly imagined riches fade and fray

To rags in their impoverished consciousness;

Remembered wealth, which they no more possess,

Dwindles and dims: the stingy cling in vain

To lives misspent on monetary gain,

Dragged down by habit's gravity, the grey

Niggardly stint that squandered every day.

Exhausted by this spiritual drain,

Their stale obsession forces them to fast

On orts raked up from that penurious past

Whose destitute desires alone remain.

The Hell Cantos graphically depict those who have an impoverished consciousness, 'Dragged down by habit's gravity,' suffering a fate far worse than a simple final extinguishment of consciousness. Their death signals the beginning of a state of infernal suffering until they repent and overcome their desire, which is the root cause of their suffering.

As this sad journey ends Shan Tao appears, the Third of the Pure Land Patriarchs, and the glory of the Pure Land is described. The poem continues with appearances from Vajrabodhi, the famed Tantric Buddhist and Fa Tsang the Hua-Yen master. They expound the virtues of the Buddha's Doctrine to wake the seeds of Buddhahood present in all sentient beings. This is the spiritual climax of the poem. When the Buddhist masters are finished Wu remains alone and 'Once more the hall is silent, empty and still.' A solitary spiritual journeyman who stands before the spent fire, having sought the ancient Way of Tao, Wu has overcome his earthly desire and now understands the true nature of suffering. He has emptied self and is filled with the serene silence of Enlightenment. By invoking the Buddha's Doctrine of nonself he has reached Enlightenment.

To conclude the poem the Ming Huang, still standing before the landscape-roll, watches as it is 'all at once erased.' Wu leaves nothing behind, not a trace, not one burning desire, as everything he will ever need is right before him in Buddha's Pure Land.

Listening to the music: In summary

Harold spiritual journey is truly original in scope and provides an understanding of the Buddha's Middle Way rarely, if ever, matched in the Western poetic Canon. The thematic development of doubt and emptiness are articulated to show the flawed symmetry of dualistic thinking and thereby demonstrate how the realisation of nonduality is Enlightenment. The metaphysical challenge of accepting the nondual relationship of the material and the spiritual is given cohesion by assuming human consciousness is beyond negation and connected to the Cosmic Consciousness of the Buddha.

His poetry is valuable for its immense Buddhist erudition and the way in which his learning is applied in an accessible and straightforward fashion. The grand themes of Metaphysics can often isolate the humble individual, but his poetry always remains on a human scale by overcoming doubt and keeping Faith. At no time does the task overwhelm him nor do his personal emotions foreshorten, or overextend, his perspective. By keeping Faith he brings Eastern Metaphysics closer to the Western sphere of understanding. His meditation upon emptiness, especially as it relates to the conceptualisation of consciousness, remains to be fully appreciated. His work prefigures, or runs parallel with, the attempts many Western writers and philosophers have made in the twentieth century (Martin Heidegger and the American Beat writers to mention just a few) to use the Eastern philosophical approach to better understand the interfacing between the ontological and existential realms.

His poetry is notable for its precise word usage that does not forfeit its steady metre or force common speech into unusual and unfamiliar patterns; the integration of its dense pictorial imagery and thematic content; and above all else, its calm and consummated humility, matured by wisdom and graced with compassion. The metrical craftsmanship creates a peaceful and poetic music, with suffering as its undersong and emptiness as its melodic touchstone. Autumn Landscape-Roll continues the spiritual tenor established in Old Walls and delivers the same messages of peace and hope for those keeping Faith.

leckenby

Leckenby, Barry: A Ph.D. student at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia. His dissertation traces the metaphysical journey of Harold Stewart. Barry spent one year in Kyoto during 1998/9 photographing the major scenes in By the Old Walls of Kyoto, as well as talking to many people who knew Harold. This is Barry's first published article.

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REFLECTIONS ON THE DHARMA

Introduction
Nagarjuna
Mahayana and Theravada
Difficulty in Accepting the Name
Non-retrogressive stage
Non-interference
Good and Evil
Buddhism and Pessimism
Escape from Samsara
Karma and Determinism
Transience
Non-duality
Being and Non-being
Buddhism and Nihilism
The Five Aggregates
Decline of the Dharma
Initiation and Purification
Politics and Psychoanalysis
Pseudo-religion
Christianity
Zen
Misconceptions of Pure Land Doctrine
Limitations of Zazen
Wisdom and Compassion
Alchemy of the Name
Modernity and the "Three Poisons"
First Encounters with Japanese Buddhism
Passion
Three Ages of the Dharma
Permissiveness
Who Is Amida?
The Futility of Self Power
Amida as Buddha-Nature
Saying the Name
Dharmakara Bodhisattva
The Call of Amida
The Meaning of Nembutsu
Amida's Transfer of Faith
What is Faith?
Nama-Japa
Once-calling and Many-calling
The Differences Between Buddhism and Protestantism
The Non-retrogressive State
The Consolation of the Name
Gratitude
The Differences between Jodo and Shin
The Name of Names
Problems of Doubt
The Symbolism of the Pure Land
Morality and Goodness
Antinomianism
Foretaste of the Pure Land
Rennyo Shonin
Metanoia
Altruism
Maitreya Bodhisattva
Mahayana
Materialism
Modes of Knowing
Mindfulness
Ippen
Distractions
Surrendering the Will
Amida's 'Fragrance'
The Doctrine of 'Consciousness Only'
Jung
Reflections of The Moon
Detachment
Heaven and Hell
Amida's Transfer of Merit
The Gift of Tears
The Six-Fold Rebirth
The Promise of Transcendence
Salvation
The Crosswise Leap
The Transformed Pure Land
Transformation of Nature
Birthlessness
Action and Contemplation
Birth in the Borderland
Proper Estimation of the Body
Great Compassion
Mount Sumeru
Kannon
The Great Physician
Two Rivers and A White Path
Awakening to One's True Personality
Eternity
Mahasthamaprapta Bodhisattva
Birds of Paradise
Transcending our Humanity
Worlds of Form and Formlessness
Rebirth
Mundus Imaginalis
Spiritual Pollution
Translucency of the Physical World
Death
The Immortal Phoenix
Genso-Eko
The Language of the Birds
Universal Existence
Pitfalls of Progress