The FP Interview: Danny Fisher, Buddhist Chaplain-in-training

Editor's Note: Danny Fisher recently shut down his blog for now, but he obviously still has a lot to say and we hope he can return when his circumstances change...


FP: Who is Danny Fisher and how did he become so happy?

DF: I’m a twenty-six-year-old graduate student in the Master of Divinity program at Naropa University. I live alone in Boulder, CO. I have two saintly parents living in the Midwest, and a brilliant and beautiful sister living on the East Coast. “How did I become so happy?” Well, I don’t know how happy I really am, frankly. I’m going to assume that you’re referring to my e-mail moniker, “happydanfisher.” That has a simple explanation. In college, there were quite a few “Dans” in my circle of friends. Subsequently, we were each given an adjective by our other friends to distinguish us. There’s a Big Dan, Lil’ Dan, Angry Dan, and Happy Dan (yours truly).

FP: When and why did you start your blog?

DF: About two years ago, a very dear friend e-mailed me and said,
“Hey, how’d you like to join my multi-blog ?” At the time, I didn’t even really know what blogs were. But I joined and had a lot of fun being irreverent with some other old pals. After some time, my friend started his own blog and suggested to the rest of us that he could revamp the site a little bit to accommodate his absence. So the site was broken up into four distinct blogs. I covered “religion and spirituality in politics and culture.” By the end of last year, it was becoming clear that the multi-blog wasn’t going to last.
At the time, I thought I would just quit blogging for good. I got so much
encouragement from friends and readers to keep going, though, that I thought I might try again. So, this past February, I debuted the Danny Fisher blog. I decided that it would be very different from what I had done at the multi-blog, though: less comic in tone, more personal, chalk-a-block full of resources,etc. Basically, I just ripped off Chuck Currie and the other good
religion bloggers. So that’s how the whole thing started.

FP: What led you to become a Buddhist chaplain-in-training? Were you born into Buddhism, or was it a choice? Did you struggle with what tradition to commit yourself to?


DF: I was not born into Buddhism. I was baptized Catholic and raised Episcopalian, actually. (I was even an acolyte for a few years.)While I was in college, I had a bit of an existential crisis. Everything in my life was going great, but I just didn’t feel happy at a very basic level. I was petrified of death, and had been for a long time, and the time had come to really look at that and not avoid it. So I spent the summer after my first year of college doing a lot of reading--everything from Tolstoy’s A Confession to Carl Sagan’s Billions & Billions. In this subsequent “seeking,” I eventually found my way to books about Buddhism. I recognized Buddhist practice as real, exhaustive work on understanding my mind and the space of my own basic nature. I felt it could help me with my suffering.

At the same time, Buddhism stimulated all of my bookish tendencies. There are so many developments, texts, nuances across culture, schisms, and communities. I wanted to know the bare bones of my new faith, but I also wanted to know all of these differences and distinctions. I eventually spent a semester in India living in a Buddhist monastery and traveling to important pilgrimage sites, and earned my B.A. in Religion with a concentration in Buddhist Studies. I knew I wanted to help people at a very direct, personal level, and that I needed to be rooted in the Dharma, so I found my way to pastoral care and to Naropa’s M.Div. program. I continue to struggle with committing to a tradition.

At the blog, I wrote about the importance of the late Godwin Samararatne in my spiritual journey, and I definitely consider the Theravada tradition of South and Southeast Asia my “heart tradition.” But, at the moment, I’m practicing with a Korean Zen sangha and getting a lot of exposure to Tibetan Buddhist teachings through Naropa. We’ll see where it all leads.

FP: Is mindfulness meditation taught as an applied academic subject as part of your training? If so, what are the texts like? What is mindfulness anyway?

DF: Mindfulness mediation is taught as an applied academic subject as part of the Master of Divinity program. We take two “meditation practicum”
courses and then mindfulness meditation instructor training, which ends in certification as a mindfulness meditation instructor. I’m in the middle of
that now. The faculty for these courses is simply extraordinary,although--and this is just my opinion--I’d like to the contemplative component of the training revamped a little so that the various unique practices of non-Buddhist/non-Tibetan Buddhist students could be a more pronounced part of their individual educational journeys at Naropa. At the moment, there’s definitely a very strong Tibetan Buddhist flavor to the meditation courses, which purport to be somewhat ecumenical and interdenominational. As far as texts, we read a lot of terrific Buddhist teachers, like Bhante Henepola Gunaratana, Charlotte Joko Beck, Jack Kornfield, Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche, Pema Chodron, Jon Kabat-Zinn, and others.

FP: Like many others with an interest in Buddhism, I’m familiar with the Tibetan, Vietnamese, Thai and Chinese traditions. What path attracted you the most? Also, is there such a thing as an American tradition of Buddhism--if so, how is it different?

DF: As I mentioned above, I consider the Theravada tradition to be my “heart tradition.” I’m practicing in the Korean Zen tradition right now. I got involved with it at first because I wanted to know more about it. I had gotten very interested after doing some reading--Martine and Stephen Batchelor’s books, as well as Robert Buswell’s The Zen Monastic Experience and his translations of Chinul’s writing.

Is there such a thing as American Buddhism? I’m probably not the best person to answer this question. I’d ask a Buddhologist like Charles Prebish or my friend Jeff Wilson.

I think there are a lot of distinct trends that probably all fall under the heading of “American Buddhism.” There are teachers and monastics who have started temples and sanghas in America, trying very hard to stay true to the Asia tradition. I’m thinking here of places like Abhayagiri Buddhist Monastery in Redwood Valley, the Vietnamese Buddhist Temple in East Los Angeles, and Karma Triyana Dharmachakra in Woodstock. And there are uniquely American experiments with Buddhism, like Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche’s work with Naropa and Shambhala International, and the Insight
Meditation Society in Massachusetts. And there are a lot of things in between.

FP: I loved your recent essay on Mr. Rogers and Henri J.M. Nouwen’s theory of the ministry. Did you grow up in Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood? Did he have an influence on your decision to become a chaplain?

DF: I’m really glad that you enjoyed the essay. I did grow up with Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood. I have only vague memories of watching the show
as a little guy, but my mother will tell you about how I used to put on a
cardigan and sit quietly when his show came on. (Apparently, I used to dance around during Seasame Street and other children’s programming.) Did he have an influence on my decision to become a chaplain? Absolutely. I think that that points to some larger issues, though. I’ve been really affected and influenced in my life by people who completely embodied genuineness and kindness--whether I have known them personally or through something like television. There is no doubt in my mind that Fred Rogers completely embodied the same genuineness and kindness that he projected
through the mass media. You just can’t fake that, and it shows if you try. I also come from an artistic family. Creative works like Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood have had a profound effect on me and the process of discerning my vocation. Just as there have been people in my life who have influenced my path, my life has been irrevocably changed by things like Gorecki’s Symphony No. 3, the play The Laramie Project, the film The Thin Red Line, Calvin & Hobbes comic strips, Bruce Springsteen’s album The Rising, Amiri Baraka’s poetry, C.S. Lewis’ Chronicles of Narnia, and so on.

FP: Who are your favorite thinkers and writers in the area of
politics, religion and theology? Please especially tell us about Buddhist
thinkers we might not have heard of...

DF: Archbishop Desmond Tutu is a true person of God--we need him now and forever. Karen Armstrong is a genius. Nouwen, Wendell Berry, Cornel West, Oscar Romero, Helen Prejean, Dorothy Day, Jerry Mander, Martin Luther King, Michael Nagler, Studs Terkel, Alice Walker, Tony Kushner...

In terms of Buddhist thinkers, Nagarjuna, Shantideva, Asanga, Chinul,Milarepa,His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama of Tibet, Ajahn Chah, Thich Nhat Hanh, Clark
Strand, Dilgo Khyentse, Janice D. Willis, Kalu Rinpoche, Robert Thurman,Tarthang Tulku, Nyanaponika Thera,Stephen and Martine Batchelor,Khenpo Tsultrim Gyamtso Rinpoche and my friend Judith Simmer-Brown, to name just a few. (Actually, most of my professors are favorites. Reggie Ray, for
example, has such an incredible gift for articulating knotty and subtle concepts, and Sarah Harding is an absolutely exquisite translator.) But I think Maha Ghosananda and Sulak Sivaraksa--both Nobel Peace Prize nominees--are probably the most
shamefully under-read Buddhist teachers out there.

FP: Many people feel frustrated by both the perception of religious people and the Bush Administration--what can they do to change things?

DF: Don’t believe the hype. Show others through example what
religious people really look like.