The Four Reminders: My New Book Is Available Now

MAJOR NEWS! My new book The Four Reminders: A Simple Buddhist Guide to Living and Dying Without Regret is now available in paperback and Kindle formats. Order the book today at Amazon or Barnes & Noble. With this modern interpretation of classic wisdom teachings, I've brought an ancient and very traditional set of contemplations on awakening into a fresh new light, making them relatable for anyone -- regardless of your path or background. 

This book has been over a decade in the making, and I'm delighted that all those years of hard work have earned The Four Reminders strong pre-publication endorsements from Ethan Nichtern, Yogarupa Rod Stryker, Sensei Koshin Paley Ellison, Kino MacGregor, Kirkus Reviews, and more. I sincerely hope the book enlivens your own path of awakening. 

After you get the book, be sure to visit the web site www.thefourreminders.com and download the free Study & Discussion Guide, which will help you take your contemplation of the Four Reminders even deeper. Stay tuned for more news related to the book and upcoming events.

“A smart, eminently readable Buddhist guide to achieving an inner awakening.” — Kirkus Reviews

“With a great gift for updating the language and context of these invaluable lessons from the ancient world, Hunter reminds us that Buddhist wisdom was never meant to be mystical or exotic. Instead, these pages give you something much more important: practical advice for being human.” — Ethan Nichtern

“Hunter has woven a profound journey, rendering key and authentic Buddhist wisdom in a way that anyone can understand and apply. It is an invitation to all and any one of us, not just those already walking the spiritual path, to courageously embrace the eternal truths that lead to lasting happiness and peace.” — Yogarupa Rod Stryker

“A welcome addition to practicing what matters most. This book personally guides us through the practice so that we can reflect on our thoughts, words, and actions.” — Sensei Koshin Paley Ellison

“This book presents the transformational teachings of Buddhist mindfulness in a powerful and provocative way. Hunter doesn't shy away from challenging the reader to address deep-seated personal and cultural assumptions on the road to happiness and freedom. I highly recommend this book to anyone seeking a key to unlock the path to peace in their lives.” — Kino MacGregor

"Chips and Salsa" Meditation

In a recent Facebook post, my friend and fellow writer and meditation teacher Ethan Nichtern pointed out a popular trend these days depicting meditation as being all about relaxing. He even noted an ad that popped up in his feed calling meditation “like a super-charged power nap.” A meditation studio in my area often describes meditation as a form of “chilling.”

I encounter this idea often in my own work as a meditation teacher. Students come to classes very high-strung, their bodies full of chronic tension and their minds racing with thoughts, and they want to learn to relax. I applaud their efforts, and I help them as best I can. This work is important and beneficial for a variety of reasons. Relaxing generally makes people happier, and happier people on principle make for a better world. Relaxation down-regulates the nervous system and helps people better manage stress; it supports better decision-making, and even helps people cope better with painful situations in life, like job stress or being ill or going through a divorce or losing a loved one.

So relaxing, in and of itself, is fantastic. But it’s fantastic in the same way that chips and salsa are fantastic at the beginning of a nice Mexican meal. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not knocking chips and salsa—they are amazing! But chips and salsa are an appetizer, not a main course. If you keep showing up to the restaurant and you always order chips and salsa and then you dash, your experience of Mexican food is rather limited.

Relaxation is awesome and useful, even essential to meditation, but it's not the whole enchilada. In my experience, relaxation is like a key that unlocks the practice of meditation; what you do with that practice once you've unlocked it is the important thing. Eventually, once you’ve practiced using it enough, you might become less curious about the key, and more curious about what’s on the other side of the door it unlocks.

A Tibetan teacher once said: "Little relaxation, little meditation. Middling relaxation, middling meditation. Great relaxation, great meditation." So the more you can relax, the deeper into your meditation practice you can go. And the deeper into your practice you go, the more you can wake up to your true nature and to the reality of the world around you and all the ways the world needs your help. That’s where I think the real value of meditation reveals itself.

In extended workshops, where I’m able to offer more explanation and guide students to a deeper meditative experience than is possible in a typical meditation class, I often speak about “three levels” of meditation. What I call Level One is what Tibetan Buddhist students refer to as shamatha meditation, with some specific relaxation-inducing breathing techniques borrowed from my training as a yoga teacher. Level One has two main components: relaxation and attention.

So it all starts with relaxation—it really does. Just like a Mexican meal might start with chips and salsa. But once you learn to relax, that’s when meditation gets really interesting. If chips and salsa are all you’re interested in, no problem. No judgments here. I’m a big fan of chips and salsa, and relaxation is the bomb. (But before you go, I just want to mention that there’s also a whole buffet of enchiladas, tacos, burritos, empanadas, and tostadas available....)

For the student who is committed to waking up, there are other levels of meditation waiting to be explored. But you have to have the appetite for them, and it helps to have someone to guide you through them. The menu in this restaurant is a strange one, with specials that change daily; it requires some interpretation and perhaps recommendations that are tailored for you.

It’s also possible to go to the other extreme, and turn your pursuit of meditation into a tasting menu. A small plate of this technique, a few bites of that one—and before you know it, you’ve got meditative indigestion. In culinary pursuits and in meditative ones, it’s helpful to have a solid grounding in one tradition, to know which practices lend themselves to a type of “fusion cuisine” and which ones don’t—when to mix it up, and when to stick with chips and salsa.

These are lessons that only come with time, and patience, and proper guidance, and getting your hands dirty in the kitchen of your own practice.

__________

Dennis Hunter is a meditation teacher and author of You Are Buddha (2014) and the forthcoming The Four Reminders (2017). Follow him on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram.

Five Western Buddhist Teachers to Watch

Western Buddhism is at a turning point in its history. I recently heard one teacher compare where we are at now to the stage of adolescence: the rebellious years, when kids are not kids anymore but they're not yet full-grown adults either. It's a time of bold questioning, even rowdiness, and of rapid and sometimes disorienting growth and change. And it is the time when children begin to assert their own identity and their own understanding of the world. They begin to demand -- to require -- space to explore things for themselves, to find the answers that make sense to them. Certainly, if you look around at the Buddhist scene these days, you see the signs of this adolescence unfolding all around us.

A number of significant Buddhist teachers are leading this adolescent rebellion, and helping to forge the identity that Western Buddhism will carry into adulthood. Here are my picks for the five Western Buddhist teachers to watch. These teachers may not be widely known yet, but I suspect that will change. Each of them is doing something unique and compelling that will shape the way we study and practice Buddhism in years to come. Observing these five will give you a sense of what Western Buddhism's emerging identity may look like.


Ethan Nichtern
Usually when someone is called a "charismatic" teacher, as I saw Ethan Nichtern called in print recently, it's a euphemism that secretly means he's good-looking. Ethan is that too, but he's also charismatic in the old sense of the word -- which used to refer to a certain breed of Protestant preachers who had a power to captivate audiences with impassioned sermons. Founder of the Interdependence Project and author of One City: A Declaration of Interdependence, Ethan is a second-generation American Buddhist (his father is the Shambhala Buddhist teacher and Huffington Post columnist, David Nichtern).

With the ID Project, Ethan is building a new kind of Dharma community: one modeled primarily around the interests and perspectives of young people. The group includes students of all ages, but most of all it embraces the 20-something and 30-something demographics, who often feel disempowered and under-recognized in more long-established Buddhist institutions. Under Ethan's guidance, members of the ID Project are shaking things up and manifesting a new vision of socially and politically engaged Buddhism. At the recent demonstrations for and against the Islamic center near Ground Zero, ID Project members sat in silent meditation, "bearing witness" and conveying a startling message of peace while angry mobs on opposing sides shouted insults at each other. Last year, the group staged Sit Down Rise Up, a 24-hour meditation marathon in the windows of Manhattan's trendy ABC Carpet store. Instead of mannequins or displays of merchandise, the store's windows featured, for one full day, live human beings meditating.

The other compelling thing about the ID Project is its non-sectarian approach. The group's lineage mentors include Zen Roshi Pat Enkyo O'Hara, Shambhala Acharya Eric Spiegel, and Insight teacher Sharon Salzberg -- representing Theravada, Mahayana, and Vajrayana. Ethan, who was recently named a Shastri (senior teacher) within the Shambhala Buddhist lineage, has skillfully brought together these diverse streams of Buddhist study and practice into a single, harmonious sangha that represents a new model for Dharma communities in the West.

On November 14th, Ethan will join Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche, Roshi Pat Enkyo O'Hara, Mitra Mark Power and Gina Sharpe at NYC's Great Hall at Cooper Union for a "a multimedia day of discovery around key questions of spiritual life, religion and culture — what Western Buddhism is and what it can be." Ethan's voice in this conversation will be one to listen to.

Links
The Interdependence Project
Rebel Buddha NYC event on Nov 14
Ethan Nichtern on Twitter


Hokai Sobol
I first encountered Hokai Sobol when listening to a Buddhist Geeks podcast called Vajrayana in Plain English. At first I was struck by his deep voice and his Eastern European accent, but as I listened I was struck more and more deeply by what he had to say. Since then, I've listened to that podcast about 10 more times, and I continue to be inspired by it.

Hokai is a scholar and teacher in the Shingon tradition, Japan's little-known tradition of Vajrayana Buddhism. Most of the Japanese Buddhism we see in the West is Zen; some people don't realize that Japan also has a Vajrayana lineage. So far, the Shingon tradition has been largely invisible in Western circles, but Hokai just might change that. Hokai is also Croatian. The seeming oddity of a Croatian teaching in English about a Japanese form of Vajrayana Buddhism says something promising about the emerging global and pluralistic nature of Buddhism in the 21st century.

Hokai's depth of knowledge about a variety of Buddhist traditions and practices, and his respect for those traditions, is matched by his commitment to innovation and to finding authentic (sometimes dramatically new) ways to express the meaning of the Dharma in a Western cultural context. His recent, four-part series of interviews at Buddhist Geeks (Episodes 180-183) addresses "the invisible, and rarely discussed, forces that shape Western Buddhism. In particular what we call "culture" shapes our institutions and communities in ways that we rarely see with clarity." Hokai is another teacher who contributes an important voice to the current discussion of Buddhism in the West.

Links
Hokai Sobol's Website
BG Episode 180: The Invisible Forces that Shape Western Buddhism
BG Episode 112: Vajrayana in Plain English
Hokai Sobol on Twitter


Khenpo Karl Brunnhoelzl
Dr. Karl Brunnhoelzl is infamous for two things: having a name that most Americans can't pronounce or spell properly, and writing intimidatingly long and in-depth commentaries on Buddhist philosophy. He is also, in my experience, one of the most lucid, direct and humorous teachers you'll find anywhere in the Tibetan tradition.

Karl is a Buddhist scholar of the first magnitude, and translator of some of the most profound treatises in the Kagyu school of Tibetan Buddhism. His book Center of the Sunlit Sky laid out the Kagyu view of Madhyamaka philosophy, while other books dive deep into the topic of Buddha Nature. Karl's authoritative scholarship was recently recognized when he received the title of "Khenpo," a Tibetan designation for a master scholar that is roughly equivalent to a doctorate degree in Buddhist philosophy. As one of very few Westerners who hold the title of Khenpo, Karl represents an emerging class of Western Buddhist teachers whose depth of understanding of the Dharma is being recognized by Tibetan masters. Karl is also a Mitra (senior teacher) in Nalandabodhi, the lineage of Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche, and one of the main teachers at Nitartha Institute.

Despite all that, Karl is also incredibly humble and down-to-earth, and totally funny. At the most recent Nalandabodhi Sangha Retreat where he gave a series of teachings on Buddha Nature, Karl showed up one night and delivered his entire talk wearing a Spider-Man costume (it was an inside joke that would require too much explanation). Like Hokai Sobol, Karl's depth of scholarship gives him the authority to legitimately question and play with tradition, parsing out the genuine Dharma from its cultural container -- and he does it without taking himself too seriously or losing his sense of humor.

Links
Karl's books at Snow Lion Publications
Heretic Buddhists: Karl's article on Rebel Buddha


Kenneth Folk
Kenneth Folk is part of what some people have called the "hardcore Dharma" movement, but which Kenneth and others are now calling the "pragmatic Dharma" movement. The movement, and its most visible teachers such as Kenneth Folk and Daniel Ingram, are controversial and outspoken; I wrote about the movement here recently. What makes the movement controversial is the fact that Folk, Ingram and others are breaking with tradition and speaking openly about their levels of realization. Some, such as Ingram, are even publicly calling themselves "arahants," or "enlightened." Whatever you think of that, it is difficult to deny (unless you are totally cynical) that many students who are studying with Folk and others in this movement are making progress in their practice that they were never able to attain with other teachers.

Folk comes largely from a background of practice in the Vipassana tradition. The stages of practice and fruition he describes are those of the Theravada path, and they differ in some important ways from the stages and paths of the Mahayana and Vajrayana vehicles that I'm more familiar with. Folk, however, excels at finding ways to show that the realization attained in all three traditions is really not as different as it might appear. His own vision of enlightenment and the nature of mind has been influenced by threads from the Tibetan Dzogchen and Mahamudra traditions, making him another Western teacher who is breaking down traditional sectarian walls between Buddhist schools. He also has a knack for using simple metaphors and jargon-free language to explain the mechanics of awakening. He most often describes the stages of practice using the image of a 3-speed transmission, showing students how they can shift through progressively higher or more refined gears of consciousness. Kenneth Folk's frank and direct voice, which comes not from theory but from experience, will be increasingly important in American Buddhism in the coming years.

Links
Kenneth Folk's Website
Coming Out of the Closet About Enlightenment: A look at the hardcore Dharma movement
Kenneth Folk on Twitter


Clark Strand
I first came across Clark Strand when Tricycle magazine published a cover story on "Green Meditation." Strand's article talked about his years-long struggle with insomniac episodes of awakening in the middle of the night, and his eventual epiphany when he began to realize that these episodes might actually be not the dysfunction that he had always believed them to be, but part of a human being's natural rhythm. Strand's research into this phenomenon suggested that this rhythm of "divided sleep" was recognized and utilized by many spiritual traditions for thousands of years -- until the industrial age and the invention of light bulbs. At that point, our natural rhythms were disturbed and we lost touch with the fertility of darkness and twilight states of consciousness; we developed the expectation that we are supposed to sleep through the night without awakening. As someone who has struggled against divided sleep and insomnia, I found Strand's hypothesis compelling.

Strand is also one of the few Buddhist teachers who is openly exploring the territory where Buddhism overlaps with the Abrahamic religions -- Christianity, Judaism, and Islam. In my article "Christian Buddhism?" published on Buddhist Geeks last month, I profiled Strand's work in this area, which included founding the Woodstock Buddhist Bible Study and the Green Meditation Society where he teaches frequently on "Biblical koans." Given the depth at which our Judaeo-Christian roots are planted in our collective and individual psyches in the West, it makes tremendous sense to search for ways to tap into the wisdom of those roots in conjunction with our study and practice of the Buddhadharma -- rather than trying to dig up and replace our familiar roots with something culturally exotic and foreign. As Buddhism unfolds in the West, this kind of interfaith inquiry will be increasingly important and essential to the tradition's survival here. Strand stands out among Buddhist teachers as someone who has not only the inspiration to pursue such an inquiry, but the breadth of knowledge of multiple traditions to pursue it effectively. Strand's book, How to Believe in God: Whether You Believe in Religion or Not, his columns on religion and spirituality for the Washington Post, and his ongoing "Green Koans" column for Tricyle testify to this breadth.

Strand is also in the process of articulating his vision of a "Green" spirituality that returns to a pre-industrial sense of humanity's benevolent interdependence with the planet, the seasons, the elements, and the cosmos. A Dharma that does not include such a vision for our future, and practical steps towards implementing that vision, is no Dharma at all. At this pivotal time when we see so much man-made environmental catastrophe unfolding before our eyes (with warnings of greater catastrophes in the making), there could be no more important message for us to hear than this one.

Links
Clark Strand's Facebook Page
Christian Buddhism? An article that profiles Clark Strand
Clark Strand on Twitter