Many of you are aware that I am an ordained Zen priest. However, that does not exclude me from receiving the gift of sight or divination for others. The Black Angel Cards came to me after seven years of following the path of Buddha’s teachings. Therefore, I say they emerged from the silence in which I was opened to ancestral wisdom or to the unseen. I was glad to see the following film by David Cherniack in which he explores Oracles in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition. He has successfully revealed the Shamanic nature that can be part of Buddhist practice. The Black Angel Cards are no less than the divining balls in the bowl used by some Tibetan Buddhist monks that you will see in this film. Also below the film is more about Buddhism and indigenous traditions.
The practice of Buddhism and indigenous traditions intersect deeply within the realm of heart and soul. They are earth practices. They meet on the earth at the place of symbolism/ritual, purification/cleansing, transmission/initiation, and medicine/healing. Most importantly both indigenous and Buddhist practice are most fertile when one is connected to the ways in which the elements of life affect our inner and outer worlds. Fire, water, earth, nature, minerals, air/wind, metal, and wood can all be accessed on these paths — Dharma and indigenous practices.
While Buddhism appears to be an indigenous practice in countries like Mongolia, Tibet, Burma, and Thailand, there were many other traditions that were suppressed or influenced by the introduction of Buddha’s teachings. Indigenous Asian practices include Confucian, Daoist, Shinto, or the Filipino’s belief in Bathala the creator, yoga or Jainism in India, and many more practices steeped in shamanism and healing divinities. Indigenous practices born on every continent appear to rely on the earth to bring forth many ancient teachings still practiced today. I personally have practiced Nichiren and Zen Buddhism, Lakota Sundance, and African Dagara healing traditions and have experienced the integration of the dharma and indigenous traditions
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In my studies as a Zen priest I have come to realize that in Buddha’s day Dharma was an earth practice. Buddha sat under many trees at the beginning of his journey contemplating the suffering in the world. In The Life of the Buddha by Bhikkhu Nanamoli, the story says: The occasion was this too when at the end of seven days the Blessed One rose from that concentration and went from the root of the Bodhi tree to the root of the Ajapla Nigrodha, the Goatherds’ Banyan Tree. He sat at the root of the Ajapala Nigrodha tree for seven days in one session, feeling the bliss of deliverance.
At the end of the seven days the Buddha was enlightened. Likewise, when one takes on a vision quest in the forest (within many indigenous traditions) the same process of insight and illuminating wisdom as the Buddha had kalpas ago comes forth within us.
In contemporary times many Buddhist and indigenous traditions are being shaped by modern conveniences. There are material trappings, construction of elitism, consumerism, and egotistical ideologies that can draw us away from our practices being rooted in the earth or born of the earth. This is not to advocate that things stay the same as in ancient times but that the practices remain informed by enlightened ancient ways.
How is Buddhist and indigenous traditions linked in practice? I see the following links between the practices: symbolism/ritual, purification/cleansing, transmission/initiation, and medicine/healing.
Symbolism/ritual. Buddhist and indigenous practice use symbolism to connect to an ancient experience. All use altars, shrines, bowls of water, incense (smells), candle lights (light to lead the way), drumming, chanting, honoring ancestors, and making offerings. In the Zen tradition food, flowers, incense is offered to the Buddha, as an ancestor, at every meal. The same is true with other indigenous practices where offerings are made to ancestors. In addition there are many specific rituals that are meant to bring out the highest good in a person in both Buddhism and in indigenous practice.
Purification/cleansing. The element of fire is a symbolic link of purification between the practices. “The greater the challenge, the greater the fire, the greater the purification,” says Venerable Dhamananda. Purification is not in the sense of cleaning away filth but rather burning away the things that keep us from being our true nature or seeing our original face before the events of suffering. For example, in purification, Buddhism and indigenous traditons burn away illusions or our tendencies to be clouded by our emotions. In Buddhist practice purification can be sitting meditation, burning away the things that haunt us until we become the ash we came from. In the Lakota tradition purification is in the hot sweatlodge. In addition, the element of water is core to both Buddhism and indigenous pratices. The Kogi people of Columbia, South America, say water is the origin of all reality because we cannot live without it. In Buddhism there is reference to muddy waters as obstructions around us in our daily lives.
Transmission/initiation. To receive the teachings in its most accurate form, Buddhism and indigenous traditions have formal ceremonies of transmission and initiation. A transmitted teaching through initiation is intended to preserve the ancestral legacy of the practice. Initiation can last for many years.
Medicine/Healing. The medicine Buddha is blue. In the Dagara African tradition blue represents water which represents healing, reconciliation, and peacemaking . Teachings are considered medicine in Buddhist and indigenous practices. Despite the many sermons, sutras, writings, oral traditions of teaching, the core of the spirit work is aligning, balancing the mind, body with the spirit or breath of ancestral life. [to be continued]
