Following is an email exchange between me and my oldest friend Bob Schenck. Bob, in recent years, has become a practicing Zen Buddhist. Back in the day I think I was the one who first introduced him to Zen practice. He used to call me, with a large dose of irony, I am sure, the Zen Master. Here is our exchange:
From: jns@pubblog.com
Subject: Re: Houses, politics. File attached.
Date: October 4, 2004 12:00:31 PM CDT
To: db94346@alltel.net
I’m not at all disillusioned with the practice. I still sit every morning. But I am, I confess, disillusioned with the Buddhist theology that has grown up around it. It feels to me like it has settled into a particular mode of thinking, and regardless of the truth and beauty therein, my understanding of the old masters is that they weren’t really about settling into a particular mode of thinking.
One of my favorite pundits is Victor Davis Hanson. He’s a professor of classics at California State University, Fresno. He has a four part essay on his web site entitled “The Perfect Storm of Hating Bush”. What it’s really about is the effect of, and I quote, “postmodern thinking of the last two decades that has dominated the intelligentsia, specifically the Foucauldian notion that there is no real absolute standard of good or bad, right or wrong, but simply interpretations and views, whose ‘correctness’ is predicated on the nature of power.” The Buddhist chant you sent has, at least for me, echoes of this postmodernism.
I should warn you that VDH’s writings do occasionally appear in National Review, so you may want to avoid them, but if you’re curious, here’s a link to his site:
If you don’t feel like reading the whole thing, I recommend parts 3 and 4.
On Oct 4, 2004, at 6:19 AM, Schenck/Brady wrote:
I liked the house photos, John. Do you know this Buddhist piece, “Verses on
the Faith Mind?” We chant it on the first Sunday of each month. Your brother
Jeff sounds well-informed.
The debate:
Kerry: “I will hunt down and kill terrorists.”
Bush: “I will hunt down and kill more terrorists faster.”
I thought of Hell’s Parliament in Milton’s “Paradise Lost.”
Peace.
Bob