< Back to Question and Answer
U.S. Buddhism appears to be highly selfsegregated ethnically and demographically an intense latent sense of duality appears to prevail in many U.S.American sanghas.This is ironic because our practice is to extinguish such nonsense.What are your thoughts on this as Buddhism grows this continent?
October 28, 2013, 7:35 pmIt is not really clear to me what you are referring to. When you do training in a monastery DoJo, your roots become deeper and you continue to do training for many years, then naturally you would want to help others because there is no other way to continue. Becoming one when doing Samu, reading sutras and during zazen. It is all the same. No more doubt enters. When we do a sesshin alone, then we are being supported by the whole sangha. And we ourselves try to not create trouble for others. If we only join a sangha for short sesshins, it is best to not do anything extraneous, using your time well to deepen your training. In society there are all kinds of encounters, yet having received this chance, we need to only focus on deepening our mind. That is why we are connected through this great chance of doing training, yet efforts are needed to stay deeply aware of this chance, not getting involved in other matters.