One articulation of "Urban Buddhist"

Here's an excerpt from an interview done with Rodney Smith, a senior teacher in the insight meditation movement and founder and guide of Seattle Insight Meditation Society. The full interview is posted on the Insight Meditation Society, Barre, MA website.

Smith has some compelling ideas and expressions for us to digest and nourish on.


Rodney, how would you define ‘Urban Buddhism’?
‘Urban Buddhism’ is the practice of taking all environments as opportunities for spiritual awakening. Work, family, relationship and other avenues of life are all acknowledged as vital areas for investigation. Those who fully embody the entire spectrum of their lives, without spiritually prioritizing any one aspect or activity, are what I term Urban Buddhists.

From this perspective, all moments are equally precious. Whether we are practicing formal meditation on retreat or showing up for ordinary moments of our daily lives, the same unobstructed inner freedom is always available.

Any facet of life can be used to resolve the suffering of disconnection. The Urban Buddhist harbors no defense, seeks no shelter and avoids no conflict for the resolution of her/his wholeness. Nothing is avoided or passed by as mundane. Wherever there is discord and struggle, there is insight into contraction and resistance to life. This is true on emotional, psychological and spiritual levels.


What brought you to this understanding?
When I was new to meditation retreats, the final instruction given was to bring the mindfulness we had been cultivating during the course into our daily lives. I was never very good, however, at being mindful out of retreat – the harder I tried, the less successful I became. In fact, I found it almost a burden – something I had to add to my already full life. I began to feel like a spiritual failure.

So I started to look at the Buddha’s teachings, at what might speak to me in every moment and across all settings. I found the answer within the Noble Eightfold Path. This is the path the Buddha taught to those seeking liberation from suffering, and its eight elements are wise view, wise intention, wise speech, wise action, wise livelihood, wise effort, wise mindfulness and wise concentration.


How does the Noble Eightfold Path help us awaken?
The entire Noble Eightfold Path serves as a system for dismantling the sense of self. It is our clinging to a solid sense of self that causes our suffering. Unless we see that our identity is constructed from a set of beliefs, it’s easy to get sidetracked into further supporting the illusion of the sense of self. We then add to the problem rather than end the suffering.

Wise view, the first step of the Noble Eightfold Path, can help us get back on track. It says that our lives are interconnected beyond what is immediately visible. When we don’t understand this interconnection, we erroneously assume we are separate. In this state of separation, we think we have to get over ourselves, get over our mind states. We try ever harder to find freedom in some other timeframe outside of the here and now.

But we can’t ‘effort’ ourselves to freedom. Instead, if we simply open to our suffering, rather than resist it, we come back into a state of connectedness. Whether we connect with our knee pain while sitting on the cushion or with a deep wound in our psyche, we have automatically entered wise view.

Wise view helps us frame all of the other steps on the Noble Eightfold Path. It allows us to move away from individuation and towards wholeness.


How does the Urban Buddhist work with wise intention?
Wise intention - the second aspect of the Noble Eightfold Path - is the heart’s deepest longing. This longing is always available to us but gets sidetracked by secondary intentions such acquisition, fame or power. The spiritual practitioner must first discover that these secondary gains are ultimately unsatisfactory. Then, energy aligns towards the wise intention to awaken.

Much of spiritual practice is about redirecting the pursuit of those secondary intentions into awakening. For the Urban Buddhist, inquiry and investigation are essential tools in this transformation and fully complement retreat practice. Inquiry allows our ordinary lives to unfold with the same depth available to us on intensive retreat.

Asking simply, “Who am I?” “What is this?” or “Where is contentment in this moment?” adds a seamless continuity to daily life practice. This kind of inquiry contributes to the natural unfolding of the Noble Eightfold Path, from one aspect to the next. Ultimately, we move away from differentiation and the separation that causes suffering. We then find ourselves at the door to the infinite.