BellaOnline Forums Religion and Spirituality Buddhism Brit Hume/Tiger Woods Buddhism/Christianty Comment

I imagine it's like anything in life, that when something world-news happens that involves something dear to you, you pay attention to it. So if an Olympic skater came from your home town and did all her practicing at your local rink, you'd probably talk about it

Well, that would stuff Brit Hume, make her look like an idiot, and give Buddhism air-time and Christianity the thumbs-down....

Almost like saying "Brit? Go jump, honey.
Buddha - 1 Jesus - 0"

Oooooh.
Couldn't have that, huh?

I think I must be really sleepy, but I'm not sure I understood the last post. Could you explain it a little more, to help my sleepy mind?

My response was to the comments below (in Bold)



We had a thread running about him in another forum I frequent (completely Theravada Buddhist, with a Mahayana sub-forum)and I think the general consensus of opinion is that we could care less. Or as we say in the UK, we couldn't care less (even if we tried).

Alexandra - yes, that's what I think it was about (the Fox cutting the parts about Buddhism) too.

Anyway, yes I think it was really the American Buddhist blogosphere that was alight about it all...probably partly because Tiger is American and Fox News is here (as Lisa S said), but I feel also there is just this fascination with celebrities practicing Buddhism. What made me slightly uncomfortable about it was this sense I got from some of them that celebrities practicing Buddhism somehow validated Buddhism, made them (the bloggers) feel more secure in their own choice. I may be overly sensitive to that because I live in Los Angeles and I do often hear people say 'I practice yoga with X, you know, the teacher Cindy Crawford studies with' or 'I attend the X Dharma Center, you know, where Goldie Hawn used to go' etc etc (those are entirely hypothetical examples I might add!)

That's interesting, I don't equate Buddhism at all with celebrities in my mind. If anything, when I think of Buddhism I think of quiet rural people being very happy with what they have. So in my mind a relationship of celebrity = Buddhist would be very foreign.

But that being said, we were talking in my meditation class about Chuck Norris writing a book on Zen, and I know that many martial artists (which is an area I'm very interested in) have a matching Zen belief. So I do have, in my mind, a link between martial arts and Zen Buddhism. Which may be a little strange. These people are practicing ways to defend themselves actively. But in my world, that is the linking.

That's fair enough, but there are some prominent celebrities who practise Buddhism (the three which spring to mind are of course Richard Gere, Tina Turner and Uma Thurman)so by association, Buddhism began to be an extremely hip and trendy discipline to follow, but obviously, there is an aspect of adopting something as a veneer.... Paris Hilton mumbled something about becoming Buddhist a while ago when she was arrested and jailed for drunk driving.... *rolleyes*.....

So it may be my sensitivity on the celebrity Buddhist issue is from me living in Los Angeles. And also, the Celebrity Buddhists article is ALWAYS in the top 5 articles hit-wise every month. So there is definitely interest there.

As for martial arts and Zen, there really is a historical link between Zen and martial arts, at least in certain lineages within both China and Japan. Bodhidharma, 1st patriarch of Zen Buddhism taught at the Shaolin Temples. And of course in Japan there is the samurai/Zen link.

This is actually a subject near and dear to my heart. I don't know if I've mentioned it here, but I studied Shotokan karate for 14 years, that is actually why I went to Japan (mentioned that trip in the Temple thread), and the school I was in did combine our training with Zen meditation and even koan practice at times. My my formal Buddhist training was in Tibetan Buddhism, but I resonate with Zen also for this reason. It does seem strange to people sometimes, that Buddhism and martial arts were combined this way. The link is really non-attachment, especially from fear, and martial arts as a means of self-defense only, which is what it originally was, especially in Japan. Of course the samurai took it in a different direction, and there is a lot of debate about the validity of that from a Buddhist perspective. It's been on my 'to-do' article list for a long time to do an article on that...