Eastern practice Western minds

Buddhism's popularity is growing in the United States. It is a religion that renowned Swiss psychoanalyst and examiner of Eastern thought Carl Jung described as a "point from which our Western attitude of mind could be shaken to its foundations." \nBloomington's Tibetan Buddhist monastery, Tibetan Cultural Center and Zen Center provide several resources for those who wish to learn about Buddhism. \nNext to Cascades Park, in a yellow and red house surrounded by extensive gardens and prayer flags, is the Dagom Gaden Tensung Ling monastery. The DGTL monastery has graced Bloomington since 1996. \nThe monks who founded the DGTL monastery came to Bloomington from India. All had been teachers in India at the Ganden Shartse Monastic University. The university, originally located in Tibet, relocated to South India following the suppression of Tibet by the Chinese in 1959.\nWhile functioning as a traditional Tibetan Buddhist monastery, DGTL also serves as a community resource, offering a wide array of religious, cultural and educational programs. \nGeshe Sopa, residential teacher and founder of the monastery, said they chose Bloomington because of its large Buddhist community. \n"Bloomington has been very warm and welcoming," Sopa said. "We have met with no opposition to our being here.\nJan Yong, a monk and translator at DGTL said many people have expressed interest in joining the monastery.\n"We have people come to us and they say 'I want to be a monk,'" Yong said. "I tell them that there is no great hurry. Buddhism isn't something you rush into."\nWhile DGTL is open to new people, they do not recruit new members.\n"In Buddhism, active recruitment is not encouraged. It has never been encouraged," Sopa said. "And the interest people have in Buddhism is strong all over the United States, not just in the big cities." He said that Buddhism is equally popular in Europe. \nTucked away on a 90-acre site in Bloomington, the Tibetan Cultural Center grew out of an active University and community involvement with Tibetan culture. Thubten Jigme Norbu, a monk and president of the Tibetan Cultural Center is the older brother of His Holiness the Dalai Lama. During his 46 years in exile he has worked devotedly for the Tibetan cause.\nWhile the Tibetan Cultural Center's main mission is to teach Tibetan culture and promote the liberation of Tibet from China, it is also a community center for Buddhist workshops, teachings, seminars, initiations, retreats, and ceremonies relating to Tibetan religious practices.\nIt has been posited by Western thinkers, such as Jung, that Westerners cannot and should not practice Buddhism because of the difference in how the East and the West define the key concept of "the ego" and the difference in how Easterners and Westerners define the world around them.\nLiz Locke, student of renowned teacher Chongyam Trungpa Rinpoche and director of Interdisciplinary Studies at Naropa University, thinks Westerners should pursue Buddhist teachings. \n"They must be willing to change their ideas about ideas. Westerners have learned to love the idea of duality and the categorical boundaries that come with it," Locke said. "Buddhism does not love these things. To be a Buddhist practitioner, one must eventually abandon duality. The misunderstandings facing Westerners practicing Buddhism stem from the Western mind's addiction to dichotomies and its fear of emptiness (sunyata)."\nWesterners will run into the most trouble with a concept essential to Buddhism, "the annihilation of the ego," Locke said. This means disciplining oneself to living free of obsession and of living unattached to happiness or to suffering.\n"To the Western mind, 'annihilation of the ego' precludes the possibility of having an individual ego," Locke said. "And a Western psychologist might perceive such dispassion as mental illness. But a Buddhist might feel that such a diagnosis is the result of the psychologist's 'deluded belief in the existence of the ego.'"\nThere are obvious differences between Westerners and Asians, said Tenzin Jamang, a monk at the Cultural Center.\n"The Buddha said 'Do not go where they believe,'" Jamang said. "Buddhism is good for Westerners. The practice of Buddhism is meant to make people's lives better."\nThe main goal in Buddhism is to create inner peace and to subdue the mind's negative emotions, Sopa said.\n"At the core, all cultures are the same," Sopa said. "(But) people who practice Buddhism are more open-minded and can achieve more inner peace." \nIn his appendix to the philosophical Chinese text "The Secret of the Golden Flower," Jung warned of the dangers that lie in practicing Buddhism without understanding it.\n"The great danger is placing Buddhist ideas, such as 'nirvana' in Western categories such a 'heaven'" Locke said. "There is no 'god' in Buddhism. You do get to go to heaven in the end, because Buddhism is not transcendent in that way. You are not given a prize for annihilating the ego. And the Western ego would love to get a prize for that." Meditation is the greatest tool in Buddhism for annihilating the ego. It is a means for "getting out of one's own way," Locke said. \nJamang said the border between identifying oneself as Buddhist and not Buddhist is taking refuge in the Three Jewels.\n"The Three Jewels are Buddha, which is the principle of awake non-dual mind; dharma, which are the teachings of an awake non-dual mind; and Sangha, which is the community of practitioners who are on the path of the awake non-dual mind," Jamang said.