Charles R Johnson

“…During periods of great transition, like this moment in history, we cannot afford to be trapped and limited by our own narratives, by a miscellaneous list of egoistic “likes” and “dislikes,” or by the forever-running magic show that is a product of the conditioned Monkey Mind. All that we must give up…if we want peace, we must be peace ourselves. When I wonder how to achieve right speech, I remember one of my favorite Zen sayings, Open mouth, already big mistake, and frisk my planned utterance at three gates: Is it true? Is it necessary? Will it do no harm?

Like right speech, right action necessarily demands that our deeds do not contribute to division and divisiveness in the world. Leaving our private gardens, we got to our workplace, the professional and service organizations we belong to, and other places in the social world where we work in concert with other men and women on life-enhancing, dukkha-reducing projects too great for us to accomplish individually. Such work is done with no thought of reward…We live always in the present moment (for where else is there to live?), not becoming “stuck” on results, nor to “hope” or “despair,” those false polarities that are more about the needs of the fictitious ego, so full of itself, than anything else…

We must work and practice daily at the white-hot center of samsara with a glorious hopelessness and devotion to the ten paramis (virtues): loving-kindness, compassion, joy in the happiness of others, equanimity, giving, keeping precepts, forbearance, assiduousness, meditation, and wisdom. The paramis vouchsafe no guarantees. They offer no safety net. But for followers of the dharma, this exhilarating challenge, during the Buddha’s time or in our own era of complex and tempestuous change, has always been quite enough.”

"Buddhism was really unknown to the general public in the West before World War II. After the 40s, when American black and white soldiers came back with Buddhist wives, and the first teachers (Suzuki was huge back then) came to these shores, Zen Buddhism flourished among artists and so-called hip people, like the Beats. But they misunderstood a very great deal ...

The steps on the Eightfold Path are nothing like the Ten Commandments. Buddhists never command anything. We have no interest in imposing our will on others. Like the precepts, the Eightfold Path offers a blueprint for ethical living that leads to awakening or nirvana (The word suggests to blow out the illusory sense of self, nir meaning "out" and vana "to blow".) The Buddha made it clear that we are not to accept the Four Noble Truths or Eightfold Path on his (or any) authority. Rather, we are to confirm (or deny) their truth in the depths of our own experience, and proceed from there, adapting the Eightfold Path to our own experiences, time and place. No two people arrive at awakening on the same path."

~ Charles Richard Johnson (born 1948, aged 68) is an African-American scholar and the author of novels, short stories, screen-and-teleplays, and essays, most often with a philosophical orientation. Johnson has directly addressed the issues of black life in America in novels such as Dreamer and Middle Passage.