Tag Archives: Kabir

Buddhism and Modernity

KuanYin Water Moon, Shaanxi

Kuan- yin, in “Water Moon” position, Shaanxi History Museum, Xi’an, China

Buddhism and Modernity

I find the “water moon” position of the Chinese Buddhist statues of Kuan-yin, right knee raised, with the right arm extending over the knee, one of the most beautiful and evocative in Buddhist art. That’s what the Chinese call this pose. I saw one statue of it at Shaanxi History Museum in X’ian, China, that is truly a national treasure, in carved stone, that’s very famous. Buddhism has what are called mudras, stylized hand positions and other poses, all carry various meanings symbolically. I use or refer to several in my epic poem, because for Buddhists they carry a great deal of meaning and suggestive emotion, and so on.

I finally finished my epic, and it’s available online as a hardcover and ebook formats. There’s a long section with Kabir that I hope speaks well to Sikhs, though he’s really a pre-Sikh poet. It’s his universal perspective that is important to me. I think much of that spirit is what the world needs today, globally, East and West. One of the qualities of modernity is the rigidity of its abstractions, whether East or West, codifying its disjunctions. They often stand in the way, barring a deeper understanding of modern experience than the knee-jerk nihilism of the academy, chanting its mantra of the “Enlightenment,” just as bigoted, isolated, extremely fragmented and convinced of the truth of its exclusivism as any Christian fundamentalist.

Whose Buddha? Whose West? East? Modern life is much more complex and fluid than the traditional categories and the attempts to “return,” “restore,” “recover,” and so forth, in each case, around the globe. The tiresome morality tale of the ascendant Enlightenment is just as flawed. Kabir, Rumi, others, speak to our time because they were early voices of the realization of Unity.

I’ve read the Tao te Ching many times throughout my life. To my mind, one who has spent his entire adult life reading in all the religious and literary traditions, East and West, and lived in Japan, traveling all over China, the “categories” are not as tight and neat as many argue… especially on the lived, human level. Given modern experience, I have often thought, What’s the difference between going back to Jesus, back to Lao-si, or back to Buddha?  The idea of *exclusive* truth, East or West, is a misconception. I believe the realization of Unity, as in Rumi, Kabir, and others, human oneness, is a much more profound response to human experience, especially given all the upheavals and change that marked the 20th Century.

Ultimately, while it may, has, and will appeal to some, Buddhism is not compatible with Western civilization, which has usually always been a highly active and vigorously alive culture.

There’s a rare article on the realities of Buddhism in much of Asia, on the ground, as it is often lived, or not, in The New York Times. Of course, though, typical of The New York Times, one might say… yet this is the Buddhism I witnessed, at times, in Japan, thirty years ago, as later in China, and this experience runs throughout the modern literatures of Asia, as I suggest in my book The Grove of the Eumenides.

Frederick Glaysher

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Emperor Akbar. Fatehpur Sikri.

Emperor Akbar. Fatehpur Sikri.

Emperor Akbar. Fatehpur Sikri.

Emperor Akbar. Fatehpur Sikri.

January 26, 2010

The Mughal emperor’s Pachisi Courtyard. In front of the Ibadat Khana, House of Worship.

Akbar’s court poets Faizi and Urfi receive the Persona. Rabindranath Tagore, Amir Khosrow, Kabir, Bulleh Shah, Lalan, and Sarmad, the wild Persian-Jewish convert to Sufism, dressed like a Jain. The mystics and Sufis of India mix and consult. Vyasa, Valmiki, and Tulsidas look on. Persuaded by Tagore, given the trials of the time, Rahman Baba, an Afgani Pashtun, comes down from his mountain village to confer with the poet from the moon. Satya Pir, Dihlawi, Fani Kashmiri, Brahman, Panapati. Evoking the majesty of human history, Lord Alfred Tennyson extols Akbar’s dream.

The many oceans mingle. The dancing girls on the Pachisi Courtyard.

Frederick Glaysher

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A Journey through India

The Lesser and Greater Vehicles

The Lesser and Greater Vehicles

Beyond in medias res, the Persona traveled on through India, from the field of Kurukshetra to Shiva Nataraja, Kabir, and the epic struggles of the Ramayana. Hanuman has guided me now to Angkor Wat. From there the Persona shall walk with the elders and ride the greater ferry to Dunhuang and China, on to Korea and Japan.

Though daunted by the immensity of the trip before me, I trust my guides shall sustain me through the jungles and mountains and deserts. They have brought me thus far, cannot fail me now.

Frederick Glaysher

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