Ryder Japhy

Bill Schwartz, who goes by the Twitter handle @ryderjaphy lives in Chicago. We met on Twitter on September 10, 2009 the first day I joined. A friend told me to follow him because he tweeted out Buddhist dharma quotes. Since that time, Bill has become my friend and dharma brother and we have spoken on the phone about life, health, Buddhism, and conflict.

I decided to publish this interview in its entirety and not edit it down. I feel it’s best to just let Bill roll. I hope it inspires you as much as it did me.

Bill, you have been a practicing Buddhist since you were 22 isn’t that right? From what I remember, you went up to Rinpoche and asked him right off the bat how could you prepare for death. Why did you do that?

I actually began identifying myself as a Buddhist as a teenager in college after reading Shunryu Suzuki’s Zen Mind Beginner’s Mind so I have been a practicing Buddhist for well over 30 years. I took refuge in 1981 with Khenpo Karthar Rinpoche when Lama Colleen Reed, a neighbor in Rogers Park (a neighborhood in Chicago) introduced us, which sealed the deal for me as a dharma practitioner. In 2009, after a lifetime of being a disciple of Rinpoche’s and concerned that neither of us were getting any younger, I requested his final instructions on what should be my exit plan when he last visited Chicago. At that time I could hardly walk up a flight of stairs, already in congestive heart failure after suffering a silent heart attack earlier (thought to be an acute asthma attack that spring), so I was ready to prepare myself for dying.

You’ve been very open and even humorous about dying. How old were you when you got the diagnosis of Congestive Heart Failure?

Only last December did the doctors figure out why I was constantly exhausted and unable to breathe. Since I had no chest pain, perfect blood pressure and cholesterol, it was a difficult diagnosis I’m afraid. Finally, last November I had a stress test, which was cancelled when they saw evidence of cardiomyopathy in my left ventricle, but even at that point I wasn’t diagnosed with Congestive Heart Failure. It wasn’t until I was referred to a cardiologist who made the call. He came out and said, “Mr. Schwartz, you had a heart attack and are in congestive heart failure.” Then the fun began. After two angioplasties, four stents, and a defibrillator, I’m still kicking.

What are your feelings and approaches towards death? For yourself, your wife, your children?

That’s a work-in-progress. My father died of an aneurysm of the aorta after suffering his heart attack at 42 in 1972. I was 13 at the time. So given that experience, I’ve been preparing for this moment since adolescence in that regard. My wife thought I was joking or being morbid, up until the cardiologist visit. She was still grieving the loss of both her parents within a year of each other, and we thought our death and dying tour day were behind us for the moment. My children are young adults, a daughter in SW Michigan, and a son in New Orleans. We keep them updated. I had a good talk over the Christmas holiday with both and they understand what is going on with my health. The hardest conversation was with my mother because my sister kept telling her that I was going to be good as new like so many people that have had heart attacks and are treated within 90 minutes of the event. My brother has lived his entire life contemplating impermanence (from a Christian perspective), so he was the easiest person to talk with about the subject of dying. Men don’t live long lives in our family and we all know it.

What is your wife’s emotional state regarding your health?

My wife is an editor for a major book publisher and has been put on probation after over 20 years with the same employer for her recent lack of focus on corporate priorities (i.e. taking time off for doctor appointments and being short with colleagues). She has received no support whatsoever not only from her employer but those people she has worked with her entire life I’m afraid. They dismiss it as nothing, like I did this to myself, and it’s nothing at all in any way. After a long and distinguished career, they want to fire her essentially because of the stress and distraction of having a sick spouse dying from a disease that can’t be cured and thus has no races or ribbons or bracelets they can sponsor.

It seems like your Twitter presence has recently changed from a guy who sends out dharma quotes and music to a guy who likes to spar with other people on Twitter about the accuracy of dharma.

Anger and irrititability is a part of the process of dying, so I can see how you might get that from following my tweet stream. Actually, the sparring of recent hasn’t been about the accuracy of the dharma in the least. We had it really good on Twitter before the self-appointed dharma protectors discovered the medium and started to target those that didn’t agree with them. At that point I felt compelled to shut such people down, which I have for the most part. I also love to argue about the dharma. Of course, as a Karma Kagyu, intense public debate is an important part of our tradition as a form of contemplating which we have been taught by our teachers. It’s a popular misconception that Buddhists are all about meditation. According to the 17th Karmapa, our practice is to listen to the dharma, contemplate it, and only then do we begin to meditate in earnest really. I much prefer to tweet dharma quotes from lineage holders and the playing of music during breaks in my daily practice regimen than engaging people in debate on Twitter. I’m good at it fortunately, so the debates are usually quite short when they occur.

Why is openness and transparency so important to you when it comes to Buddhism?

Those are the contemporary commonly held Western values that are at odds with the traditional Tibetan Buddhism that I practice. There are fundamentals in the Karma Kagyu that think it’s nonsense, but I beg to differ. As soon as Tibetans began charging for teaching the dharma, which is contrary to Tibetan tradition, and entering into franchise agreements with affiliate centers, I began to insist on transparency and openness of process with little success. If the fundamentalists want to keep it in blood, a violation of samaya, to speak of anything regarding the dharma outside the circle, they need to walk the talk, and stop shaking the money tree for all it’s worth as they have the past 30 years. As I recently told Lama Sean Jones, director of KTC Chicago, I objected to this lack of transparency and openness from the moment I was introduced over 25 years ago, long before the phrases of transparency and openness became as popular as they are today. It hasn’t been a popular cause and I suffered the marginalization that comes with supporting unpopular causes, but so be it. The chickens are now coming home to roost. The sky is falling on their heads and they have no one to blame but themselves. In matters other than the dharma, I am a very private person with the exception of social media, as you well know. Handles such as @RyderJaphy, which is mine on Twitter, are fine, but I am against anonymous tweeting under fake profiles, which is common I’m afraid. Especially if you are tweeting about the dharma, it is important that people know who they are engaging so they can properly examine your Tweet stream. Otherwise, Twitter becomes nothing but a popularity contest.

Does laughing at yourself in any way denigrate or diminish the sadness and pain that you and your loved ones are going through knowing you have a life-threatening illness that could kill you instantly?

Well, my defibrillator “Sparky” guarantees that I will not go gentle into that good night, which is a great relief. It can be quite unnerving to have loved ones checking to see if I’m still breathing whenever I take a nap. Personally I can’t take dying (as a Karma Kagyu), like it’s some big surprise really. In the beginning we are all taught to contemplate the various ways we may die as outlined in Jamgon Kontrul’s Torch of Certainty so laughing at death comes easily to me. I helped my wife care for her parents when they died and humor is the only way to go when it comes to dying in my experience. We joked daily about printing t-shirts (like rock bands) for our “Death and Dying Tour” in our darkest moments. The sadness and pain of a loved one dying never leaves us but humor in my experience helps us feel more comfortable moving forward to our own end of life. My mother’s mother died without it and my mother never got over that experience.

Why is it important to be prepared for death? Why are Buddhists so preoccupied with death?

Death is what turns our mind toward the dharma, as previously noted. Regarding preparation, as in life, there is no substitute for being prepared for that which we must all face sooner or later. Everyone dies, as they say. Nobody gets to live forever. From a Tibetan Buddhist perspective, to die unprepared is to leave an ordinary corpse in the bed of a supposed dharma practitioner and something we all strive to avoid at all costs. To do so would be an opportunity to gain enlightenment wasted. Interestingly, there are more and more Tibetan Buddhists that have come to shy away from these fundamental contemplations. Nothing clears a room quicker than a weekend line-by-line reading of a text on Impermanence!

Why do you want Tibetan Rinpoches to be on Twitter?

I’m committed to web 2.0 (social media) and their presence in imperative to maintaining the integrity of the dharma in the medium. People tweet differently when they know someone they respect may read what they tweet. Personally, Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche (@ponlop on Twitter), a teacher that I have studied with but never met, has reached out to me and follows my tweet stream and that has been very helpful for me.

What do you think of President Obama?

As a longtime Chicagoan, I unlike most people that voted for him knew whom I was voting for so I am less disappointed with his falling short of his promise so far than people outside of Illinois. I’m more disappointed with Rahm Emmanuel and David Axelrod.

Why the tattoo’s?

The ink comes from my experience as a Tibetan Buddhist in Chicago. Buddhism, to say nothing of Tibetan Buddhism, is not very well understood, even less so back when I began. Back then, we were thought to be cult member instead of people of faith. People ridicule someone with a bad haircut and prayer beads without a second thought but think twice if said person is covered in ink, especially before tattoos became as popular a fashion accessory as they are today. I was also young and a hard partying bad boy in the 1990’s with friends in the tattoo and body mortification scene locally that encouraged me down my wayward path. They really rub some people the wrong way in the Buddhist community, but so be it. Most Karma Kagyu love my ink. Lama Yeshe Gyamtso once even interrupted an interview I was having with Khenpo Karthar to ask me to give him a guided tour of my body art (all Tibetan Buddhist imagery). Rinpoche was amused.

Why do you love Craig Ferguson?

My stepfather was Scottish, from Glasgow, so his humor has a special appeal to me. He is also closer to my generation. I’m a late bloomer and he’s an early GenXer so I can more easily identify with him on a visceral level regarding his 1980’s experiences. I think his recent experiment with doing a show without an audience, just him and a guest, Stephen Fry, was a brilliant piece of television. His 100th episode done in which he didn’t appear other than has a puppet, less so, but at least he’s trying.

Who do you think will carry on the teachings after this generation of Tibetan teachers who escaped Tibet and brought the dharma to the west, die? Are there other teachers coming from Tibet?

The 17th Karmapa is a young man, of course, and as Khandro Rinpoche has noted we have the reincarnations of Kalu Rinpoche and Jamgon Rinpoche coming down the pike, so the Karma Kagyu is in good hands. We as western-born early adopters of the lineage are getting old and creaky. We have made mistakes that the younger generation will need to clean up. My fear is that they won’t bother and simply abandon traditional Karma Kagyu practices as unnecessary. That is why I promote “old school” as an alternative to the extreme of “fundamentalism” versus “new age” approaches to the lineage, which is consistent with the Karmapa’s Seattle teaching for students of his previous incarnation as the 16th Karmapa.

What do you think of the Dalai Lama?

He’s a teacher of the 17th Karmapa, which means the world to me as a Tibetan Buddhist looking forward. The past political animosity between Karma Kagyu and Gelug lineages rooted in Tibetan history are a thing of the past. Personally, I’m able to parse the dharma from the politics that goes with his role as leader of the Tibetan people and inspiration to peace-loving people around the world. I appreciate the delicate balance he so effortlessly maintains.

What is the longest retreat you have been on?

In the Karma Kagyu I practice, which is that of the Karma Triyana Dharmachackra, Woodstock, NY, retreat means 3 plus years in the big house in Delhi, NY, where Khenpo Karthar Rinpoche makes his lamas. I’ve never been on the lama track (from the very beginning), so I’ve never done retreat as such fortunately. Anything less than that is simply a vacation, and in my life vacations have been few and far between I’m afraid. I can say that I’ve maintained my samaya with Khenpo Karthar Rinpoche without fail my entire life from the moment we met to the present. I can’t make a torma, or play any of the instruments, although most of my friends here in Chicago have. It isn’t for everyone. My guru started me out with a simple ripening empowerment and the “pointing out” instructions for Mahamudra in accordance with Karma Chakme’s “Quintessence of the union of mahamudra and dzogchen” instead. This isn’t the norm of course, but an alternative to the long form approach used in the training of lamas that requires a significant investment of time and resources that Rinpoche knew from the beginning wasn’t in my future.

A lot of people think that meditation is going to make them calmer, less stressed out, maybe even have less wrinkles. What are your thoughts about popular marketing that is occurring that meditation will give you something? If meditation doesn’t offer a fulfilling promise of some sort of improvement, why should we engage with it?

It’s not like they are representing such approaches as anything other than self-improvement, so it really isn’t an issue for me. If being calmer, less stressed out, and wrinkle-free is presented as anything to do with the dharma, then that is problematic. We don’t have any such problems in my experience with Karma Kagyu teachers. For example, Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche is quite popular with people who would otherwise never connect with the dharma. Is there anything wrong with that? Of course not, in my opinion. This spring he will be teaching in Chicago. His primary focus will be teaching to a non-Buddhist audience in fact. He will also do Vajrayana teachings in the local KTC here. It isn’t an either/or proposition. I’m not a fundamentalist. I’m open to new paradigms in supporting the dharma in the west and don’t consider it a bastardization of the dharma. No skin off my nose. In terms of turning the mind to the dharma, meditation in itself is not considered sufficient as a substitute for the four ordinary foundations of course. In the Kara Kagyu, first we listen, next we contemplate, and only then, we meditate. By the time we get down to meditation, whether or not it is fulfilling or not as an experience, is not an issue. All that arises in the mind is appearance-emptiness, so I don’t worry about mediation’s current popularity.

What is the role of emotions on the path?

All that arises in the mind is the path, which includes emotions. I personally would have no practice without emotions, and the more conflicted the better. It is important to remember that we don’t get to pick and choose what our practice is in the Vajrayana, but instead submit ourselves to the teachers’ evaluation of our situation and follow their instruction in this regard.

Book(s) you would take with you on a desert island?

Karme Chakme’s “Quintessence of the Union of Mahamudra and Dzogchen,” “ Amrita of Eloquence” (Khenpo Karthar Rinpoche’s biography), and “Treasury of Eloquence” (the songs of Barway Dorje).

Fond, funny teaching moment with your teacher?

Funny; Meeting Khenpo Karthar Rinpoche unexpectedly for the first time in Lama Colleen Reed’s tiny Rogers Park kitchen and trying to do prostrations without banging my head against the cupboard when he suddenly appeared.

Fond; When he accepted me as a disciple (first formal meeting with Rinpoche) and he grasped both my hands in his and placed his forehead on mine and said, “We will never be apart forever.”

Three things you would like to do and haven’t done yet?

Well, I’d like to see the 17th Karmapa again, visit Paris with my wife, and live long enough to do both before my congestive heart failure puts me in my grave.

Wish to be reincarnated as?

My aim is to go straight to Amithaba’s pureland Dewachen when I die; that’s the idea at least. The alternative, given the rarity of human rebirth, is none too pleasant from a Tibetan Buddhist perspective.

What is the importance of having a formal teacher in one’s life?

There is no greater blessing than connecting with a lineage holder in my experience. It’s rare of course, so I encourage people to study and contemplate the dharma available to them and have faith that their teacher will appear as needed to instruct them in whatever forms appropriate to their situation.

Tagged as: Bill Schwartz, Buddhism, Buddhist Dharma, death, dying, Exit Plan, Heart Attack, Heart Failure, Perfect Blood Pressure, Shunryu Suzuki, Stress Test, Twitter, Zen Mind