Interview with Reggie Ray

By Michael Schwagler

Dr. Reginal Ray, writer and Buddhist scholar, presented a lecture at Sakya Monastery on “Buddhism in
the West” on January 27th, 2010. At the request of Monastery members, Dr. Ray agreed to this
interview. We are very thankful that he was so generous in sharing with us his time, his knowledge and
wisdom.

Dr. Reginald "Reggie" Ray brings us four decades of study and intensive meditation practice within the
Tibetan Buddhist tradition as well as a special gift for applying it to the unique problems, inspirations,
and spiritual imperatives of modern people.

He is President and Spiritual Director of the Dharma Ocean Foundation, a non-profit educational
organization dedicated to the practice, study and preservation of the teachings of Chögyam Trungpa
Rinpoche and the practice lineage he embodied.

Dr. Ray received his PhD from the Divinity School of the University of Chicago in 1973 and is a current
faculty member of the Buddhist Studies Department at Naropa University. He has written extensively on
the history and practice of Indian and Tibetan Buddhism. His most recent work, Touching Enlightenment,
explores the process of awakening by working directly with the body. Additionally he has authored:
Indestructible Truth, Secret of the Vajra World, Buddhists Saints in India, In the Presence of Masters and
other articles and Sounds True audio programs.

MS. The main thing I gathered from your talk last night is that in order to be Buddhist you have to
practice. What further comments can you add to this?

RR. I’m an historian; that’s my training. My academic training is the history of religions and one of my
special areas is very early Buddhism. And what we learn from the study of the earliest Buddhist
tradition is what Buddhism first was and most essentially was: the practice of meditation and what it
leads to. And it’s that simple.

Over time Buddhism became much, much more complicated and it has a lot of other things going on.
And oftentimes in the West people become distracted from the essence of Buddhism which is practice
and they may not practice very much at all. They may do other things: study, and go to church and hang
around teachers but that’s not really the essence of Buddhism. So from my point of view it’s kind of a
shame if we become distracted from the essence because then we don't change. You don’t really
change by studying, you don’t change by going to church, you don’t change by hanging around teachers.
The one and only way you change is by meditation practice, so in Dharma Ocean that’s what we do.
That’s what we emphasize.
MS. To go deep within yourself?

RR. Exactly.

MS. One thing I notice at the Sakya monastery, especially as a relatively new member, is all the
emphasis on tantric practice. Visualizations. Special mantras and so on. What do you recommend for for
someone like me…a lay person? And how much should I meditate every day…or how should I practice?

RR. I can tell you what I was told when I began practicing in 1970. I was told by one of Chogyam
Trungpa’s students that—number one—do formless practice. Doing formless means sitting and working
with your breath… and being. The practice of being. You’re not doing anything. You’re just paying
attention to your breath, following your breath in and out and opening your awareness. That’s it. That’s
the practice of meditation. If you don’t do that, and you’re just doing mantras and you’re just doing
visualizations, it doesn’t really have any impact. You’re not going to change that way…so the basic
practice needs to be formless practice and then later you can do some of these other things and their
enhancements of formless practice, but not in the beginning.

The other thing I was told is to practice an hour a day and if you do that you will make the journey. You
will change. You will transform.

MS. Seven days a week, not taking a break?

RR. Well, you can take a day off once in a while. You don’t want to be too heavy about it. But [practice]
in a continuous way.

MS. Last night you were discussing the benefits that Buddhism could bring to the masses. How it can
bring more love to people. How we can develop the hollow self – and fill that with love and those sorts
of things?

RR. Those are more advanced practices though. The base line is just the practice of following the
breath. Mindfulness practice – it’s the beginning and it’s also the highest practice of Buddhism which is
interesting. You find that at the very beginning and you find that at the very end… Working with the
breath and just opening your awareness.

MS. How do we bring this to the Western mind? I think one Western fear may be that if we meditate
the way that a lot of gurus and masters say that we should, we’re just going to be a bunch of smiling
zombies walking around. We’ll be in love with the world but nothing will happen. There will be no MRIs,
no airplanes….no creativity, no (technological or scientific) advancements. Everything will just stop.

RR. That isn’t what meditation does. Meditation – when you practice the way I’m suggesting – actually
opens up your creativity. It opens up your interest in the world. It makes you more available to the
world and more engaged with the world.

MS. How does that work?

RR. Well, you’re not so preoccupied with yourself all the time. I mean…most of us may be running
around… but we constantly have this little tape loop running in our mind about ourselves and our own
life and there’s no real openness there. You may be engaged in life and you may have a family and you
may have a job but it’s very narcissistic and the whole point of meditation is to dismantle narcissism so
you’re actually available to the world and you see the world on its terms, not just on your terms.
MS. From last night’s talk, I gathered that almost any contemplative practice would be acceptable…what
Buddhists, Trappist monks and others do. Does it really matter?

RR. Well, it depends what they’re doing. If you’re meditating the way I’m talking about, which is…you’re
paying attention, you’re being mindful, and you’re opening your awareness and you’re making
discoveries about yourself and about life….If that’s what they’re doing? Very beneficial. I mean, people
say, “I’m meditating,” but what they’re doing is something entirely different. It could be…. So you
actually have to find out what people are doing before you [can know.]

MS. What about “centering” meditation? Such as that practiced by Thomas Keating, a Catholic
contemplative in Snowmass, Colorado?

RR. From the Buddhist point of view, we’d rather it be more formless, rather than filling up the space
with activities. We’d rather just let the awareness be open and see what shows itself when we do that.

MS. Is that the only way we get to where we want to go, is through meditation?

RR. Well, no. There are many ways to get there, but meditation is the most direct route. It’s more
direct. Meditation is accessible to everybody. Anybody can do it.

MS. Is that the value of it?

RR. Well, that’s one value, but another value is that you’re working with your own state of being. That’s
what meditation is. It’s opening up to who you are as a person. Most of feel that we’re kind of living on
the surface and that we really haven’t opened all the dimensions of our own “feeling life”, our emotions,
our sense perceptions. You know, we feel we’re a little shut down and meditation is a way of opening
that up, which most of us would like to do.

MS. One question in Western philosophy is, “What is our purpose in life.” Is that what you’re getting at?

RR. Meditation makes us more complete. It makes you see how held back you are and how afraid you
are, actually …of life and how afraid you are to be vulnerable. It shows you that. And then - when you
see that - you can open up…

MS. Then you really do have to spend more than 10 minutes a day meditating?

RR. Anything you do is going to help you. Anything you do. What if you found out that you only had a
month to live – what would you do? What is the most important thing in your life?

And I think meditation, first of all, makes you more intelligent, more sensitive and more perceptive so it
would really help [whatever is the most important thing in your life.] And it also helps you clarify how
you feel about life. What your inspiration is.

MS. Does meditation help you love others (unqualified) rather than be angry with their actions, for
example when they do something to you like cut you off on the freeway?

RR. Well…more than that. It makes you more flexible as a person. You’re not stuck with one response
to every single situation. You can hang out with it and see what’s really going on. It makes you a little
more intelligent that way and more aware.
MS. How does meditating for the benefit of all sentient beings compare to actually doing something for
the benefit of beings? For example, what the Sisters of Mercy do in Calcutta or Thich Nhat Hanh’s style
of engaged Buddhism that he employed during the war in Viet Nam?

RR. Well, it’s not like one is good and one is bad. When you’re going to meditate…don’t just do it for
yourself. Do it for other people. Have the intention that it’s going to benefit others. But of course you
should help other people. [Meditation] doesn’t replace helping other people.

MS. Is prayer a form of meditation?

RR. Not in the Buddhist sense; the Buddhist sense is just opening your awareness. Do you know what I
mean by that?

MS. Could you explain that?

RR. Follow your breath in and out. When you’re thinking, and you catch yourself thinking you just
come back to your breath and feel the sensation as it goes in…and as it goes out. Just stay with the
breathing right here, at the tip of your nose. Just feel it. If your mind wanders you bring it back.
[Again,] if your mind wanders you bring it back. You just stay here. So you’re tethering your mind the
way you would tether a horse. And over time your mind settles and becomes quiet. And when your
mind is quiet you can see things. As long as your mind is going you can’t see anything – it’s like a muddy
pond. And when the mind settles and the mind becomes clear you start to see things more in terms of
what they really are. So…it’s that simple.

MS. Do you see things in terms of what somebody’s action or reaction may be?

RR. Or your own. You can see yourself…if you’re being defensive, being egocentric…or you really are
being kind. You can see that. You just have more of a clear mirror to see what’s going on.

MS. Do you ever get the feeling that you’re standing beside yourself, looking down at yourself? For
example, in an interview such as this, one may get tense…hands getting sweaty… and then all of a
sudden one is relaxed and is feeling changes the whole time they are interviewing the person.

RR. That’s right. And when you see that, you bring yourself back. But some people don’t even see that.
They’re gone and they don’t even know it. And they’re not really here …they’re somewhere else. But
meditation helps you see and then you can come back and focus on what you’re doing.

MS. For most people; let’s say they begin a practice of one hour a day. How long would it take them to
get to point where it’s of profound benefit?

RR. You’ll feel changes right away. Within the first couple weeks you’ll feel changes and then you’ll
change over your whole life. It becomes an ongoing process of change….your whole life. But you’ll get
benefit right away.

MS. This is a question about the term enlightenment. Apparently it is not a Buddhist concept. How did
the word get to be so prevalent in Buddhist writing and even in Buddhist prayers? Even some of your
books have the word enlightenment in the title. Is that marketing?

RR. It caught on… probably from the beginning of the 19th century. We’d have to look back and see
[exactly] when it was first used. It translates to the term Nirvana, which is Sanskrit. And what Nirvana
means is the near opposite, which is…blowing out the flame of grasping. That’s literally what Nirvana
means. Blowing out. Extinguishment. That’s rather different from enlightenment.

MS. Does Nirvana also mean something like emptiness?

RR. No. it means blowing out. Blowing out the flame of desire….or of clinging, grasping.

People started using [the term, enlightenment] and it caught on. And at this point everybody uses it.
You can’t really change the whole culture just like that.

MS. Culture has changed the definition of that word?

RR. That’s right. It’s quite misleading, unfortunately.

MS. Is that just a Western thing, or is it used all over the whole world – that term enlightenment? Does
it show up in Zen?

RR. Well, there’s no term that corresponds to that in any Buddhist language. The closet thing – I
suppose you could say – is this term bodhi, which means to be awake…or it means “awake.” That’s the
closest term. Budh is the Sanskrit root and it means to wake up…to not be asleep anymore. And,
so…being awake and enlightenment they have quite different meaning.

And the other thing about enlightenment, of course, is…it connects up with the 18th century – the so
called age of enlightenment. That’s where the term really comes from in English, which is all about
rationality. In the 18th century we have this split between body and mind so, unfortunately, the term
enlightenment has the split built into it. So if we’re talking about the mind when we’re talking about
enlightenment and the body doesn’t really come in to it, [that notion] is completely incorrect. So this is
difficult; a difficult situation.

MS. The Sakya Monastery makes a strong effort not to proselytize, that is, not to promote or do any
marketing of the Monastery. Is non-proselytizing a universal Buddhist philosophy?

RR. Well, the Buddha, of course, preached his whole life – he preached from the age of 35 until he died
at the age of 80. And he wandered around and gave teachings to people. I mean, that’s as far as
Buddhism will go…then leave it up to people what they’re going to do with it.

MS. What about being a missionary? Is that proselytizing?

RR. Well. You need to present the teachings to people, because that can help them, but if you’re trying
to get people to join your group…that’s left up to the individual. If they want to join your group, fine. If
they want to join another group, fine. If they want to join no group, it’s fine. Buddhists do teach the
Dharma, but they’re not out there actively trying to build their membership. Some Buddhists groups do
that, but that’s not what the Buddha did. He didn’t care if people joined his group but he wanted them
to meditate and to become who they are; to develop themselves. So…there’s that much proselytizing.

MS. I heard you say the phrase, “Become who you are” several times. Is that the essence of this?

RR. Yes…that’s the essence of what Buddhism is. To develop your full capacity as a human being.

MS. I’d like to ask some questions about The Buddha. A lot of westerners are really turned off by the
fact that the Buddha abandoned his family. The day his child was born, he took off for the forest to find
out about himself. How selfish is that?
RR. He didn’t abandon his family. He came back- did you know that? When he left he said, “We’re all
caught in this small, social, elitist, royal world and it’s not healthy for anybody. I’m going to find
something bigger and when I find it, I will come back and teach you,”and that’s exactly what he did. He
came back and his son, actually, became one of his foremost students. His wife became a practitioner.
And his aunt- the woman who raised him because his mother had died – became the first Buddhist nun.
Isn’t that interesting?

MS. How long was he out meditating?

RR. Nobody really knows. They say six years, but nobody really knows. What they say is, he actually
stayed in touch and there were goings and comings between him and the palace. So people stayed in
touch with him. He was out there working.

MS. Let’s say the Buddha comes back from the dead and observes the religion that’s named after him.
He’s practically revered as a god; there are all these thousands of deities – intricate rituals, secrets, and
people bowing to lamas. What do you think he would say?

RR. He would say you’ve all gotten a little distracted and need to go back to formless meditation – you
need to get back to your meditation cushion.