Expert: Laurie McLauglin - 3/14/2010

Question
Hello,
I am doing an interview paper for class and are looking for some additional answers to the below questions?  I appreciate your time in advance.
1. What Buddhist retreat do you reside in?
2. How has Buddhism managed to perpetuate itself in the past?
3. How does Buddhism survive in this age of information?
4. How has Western society impacted Buddhism and what is it like to live in the United States as a Buddhist?
5. What are the important holidays and traditions of this religion?
6. What are the challenges, if any to practicing this particular religion?
7. How does an individual attain enlightenment through meditation and how long does it usually take one to reach the stage of Nirvana?
8.  What made you decide to live in a Buddhist retreat?
9. What is daily life like in this retreat?

thank you for your time

Answer
Hello Angela -

Sorry it has taken me so long to answer your questions.  As this is a volunteer position, sometimes day to day life gets in the way of donating my time to answer these questions.  

It is probably too late for your answers but I will answer them briefly now. And if you still need a follow up don't hesitate to ask as I do have some free time now and can answer.

You have asked a lot of questions and many of them could take pages to answer in themselves. But I will answer them as well as I can in this type of forum.

1) The name of the Buddhist Retreat Center I live in is Land of Medicine Buddha.

2) I am not sure I know what you are asking here. It has perpetuated itself through word of mouth until it began to be written down. It spread over many countries through the wanderings of teachers who brought the dharma from India.

3) Buddhism survives very well in this age of information.  There are many websites from all the many Buddhist traditions that offers information and teachings to those who want to study Buddhism. The key for all Buddhists is to be mindful that the dharma that is passed down is passed down through a credibel unbroken lineage from the teacher all the way back to Buddha Shakyamuni.

4) Westerners are much more materialistic and into their own feelings and emotions as a rule than are Eastern Dharma practitioners.  Plus Westerners are not so comfortable at first with Buddhist Guru Devotion. Westerners seem to think of religion more as emotional than logical.  Buddha saw what he taught as very logical. And the ordained monks and nuns have a tougher time in the west than in the east where having and supporting monasteries are common. Western monks and nuns have to fend for themselves more in the west. Plus westerners by and large do not believe in reincarnation and of course Buddhists do.

5) Part of the reason your questions are a bit difficult to answer easily is that Buddhism is alive and well in dozens of countries and each country practices Buddhism differently.  I am only familiar with the Tibetan Buddhist practice. So the Tibetan Buddhist holidays that we celebrate here are;
Parinirvana Day - This is the day that the Buddha ascended into Parinivana and left the earth. We celebrate this in early February
Losar - This is the Tibetan New Year - This happens around the 15th of February - Tibtans are on a lunar calendar
Saka Dawa - This is the birth of the Buddha - It happens in June
Lhabab Duchen - This is the celebration of Buddha returning back to earth after being up in the heavens teaching his other - This happens at the end of October

6) The challenges to praciticing this religion are pretty individual. Each person brings their own stuff to Buddhism and has come to Buddhism for different reasons.  So some might find meditation difficult. Some might find the teachings on emptiness difficult, some might find Guru Devotion difficult, some might find the practice of compassion and equaniminy difficult, some might find the prostrations and offerings difficult, some might find doing the practices of the pujas, tsogs and sadhanas difficult and some might find things like the belief karma or reincarnation difficult.  From my side, most students seem to find the rituals and belief in reincarnation the most difficult.

7) This question could take about 5 pages to begin to answer correctly. The short version is to learn mindfulness. Then learn special insight and quiessence. Once you have this, then you have to meditate until you have a direct perception of emptiness. Then there are ten grounds or bhumis that you have to go through before you become Enlightened.  Each bhumi you realize makes you let go of more and more of your attachment to the world until you ar finally free of all attachements, have complete understanding of how things really work, gain complete compassion and complete wisdom and lose all your delusions about reality and gain perfect wisdom and omniscience. If one practices tantra at the same time as going through the stages listed above, one can gain enlightenment in one lifetime. If one does not, it takes up to three great countless eons to gain enlightenment. Many of the Buddhas practiced for three great countless eaons before reaching enlightement.

8) I decided to come here in order to deepen my Buddhist practice and work on letting go of my negative qualities and improving my good qualities. Plus I am intending to ordain and so I wanted to be around an environment where I could work on myself in preparation for ordination.

9) Although this is a Buddhist retreat center, it is also a spiritual retreat center for any denomination.  So we rent the space to other spirtual groups. So I work during the day helping to rent out the space. People who live and work here are from various spiritual traditions but are all trying to work on themselves to become better people. So it is nice in that way that we all have the common goals of improving self and improving the world as a whole. So we sort of have a common language we can speak to each other in dealing with issues. So I work 5 days a week. We are a fairly mellow group and tend to be fairly energetic in our practice. Most people here have their own individual practice. We do have meditation class that the staff can come to if they wish. Each day we do waterbowl offerings to the Buddhas.  And each day we do Medicine Buddha puja.  People from around the country send us names to pray for which we do during the Medicine Buddha puja. Every Sunday we have classes and most evenings there are classes or pujas.

I know this is a lot of information and also not a lot of information. I hope I was not too late and if you still need any clarification, don't hesitate to ask

Namaste - Laurie