Oral History Program Dr. Brian Davis Interviewed by Dustin Rock 19 June 2008 i Oral History Program Weber State University Stewart Library Ogden, Utah Dr. Brian Davis Interviewed by Dustin Rock 19 June 2008 Copyright © 2012 by Weber State University, Stewart Library ii Mission Statement The Oral History Program of the Stewart Library was created to preserve the institutional history of Weber State University and the Davis, Ogden and Weber County communities. By conducting carefully researched, recorded, and transcribed interviews, the Oral History Program creates archival oral histories intended for the widest possible use. Interviews are conducted with the goal of eliciting from each participant a full and accurate account of events. The interviews are transcribed, edited for accuracy and clarity, and reviewed by the interviewees (as available), who are encouraged to augment or correct their spoken words. 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It is recommended that this oral history be cited as follows: Davis, Brian Dr., an oral history by Dustin Rock, 19 June 2008, WSU Stewart Library Oral History Program, University Archives, Stewart Library, Weber State University, Ogden, UT. iii Abstract: The following is an oral history interview with Dr. Brian Davis. The interview was conducted on June 19, 2008, by Dustin Rock, at the WSU Davis Campus in Layton, Utah. Davis discusses topics about the Thai-Buddhist Temple in Layton. DR: This is Dustin Rock. I am here with Mr. Davis. It is the nineteenth of June; we are at the Weber State University Davis Campus. I'm just going to interview Mr. Davis and ask him about his experience with the Buddhist Religion. I just wanted to start out with a few simple questions... BD: Sure. DR: To get to know you a little bit better. BD: OK. DR: Just tell me a little bit about yourself, where you're from, where you grew up. BD: Well I'm originally from the Ogden area and went to Roy High School and graduated in 1972. I served in the Navy and I got out in 1976 and went to school at Weber State. I got my undergraduate degree there, Associate degree there. Then I went to Utah State and got my Bachelors and Masters Degree and got a PHD from the University of Georgia in Athens, Georgia. Taught in Colorado for a couple of years and then came back to Utah in 1987. And I've been married thirty years this year and my wife is also a Weber State Alum. She graduated in 1978 in nursing. I've got two kids still at home who are attending Weber State. DR: What did you get your degree in? 1 BD: My undergrad degree was in Psychology, my masters in Human Resource Management, and then my PHD in Business Administration. DR: My wife just graduated this fall with a major in Psychology. BD: Oh good! I needed the pre therapy so. DR: (Laughter) BD: It came in real handy. It really works well with some of the stuff I do in teaching. DR: Yeah. BD: Like we’re doing the Myers-Briggs type indicators tonight in class, which is a psychological assessment so it helps to have that background. DR: Good. What are some of the things you like to do? What are some of your hobbies? BD: I do quite a bit of traveling. This year Summers been a bit unusual cause I was going to go to the Philippines back in May and then be overseas in Southeast Asia for about three months but my folks have kind of needed me close by so I kind of canceled my trip to the Philippines and then I was going to be in Bangkok tonight doing a presentation at a conference there tomorrow but I put that off as well, so. Traveling is a real hobby of mine especially, well I've been to Europe and Latin America, but Southeast Asia in particular, Thailand, Philippines, Singapore, but I've been all over the region, to China, Vietnam, India, and so forth, so. I really enjoy traveling and reading. I guess those are my two big hobbies. DR: What are your favorite types of books? 2 BD: Well, I like all kinds of books. I like true crime kind of novels. I like some westerns, I think. A little bit of everything, some science fiction occasionally. I just finished a couple of books, one called the "Beardless Warriors" by Richard Mathison and another one called "Earth Bound." He's the guy who wrote "I am Legend," which is one of my all time favorite books I read back in the seventies. And it's been made into three different films, so I've got the whole film collection from Vincent Price in the 1960's, to Charleston Hesston in seventy-two, to Will Smith in the latest incarnation of that, which is probably the closest to, well fairly close to, at least parts of the book, so anyway. Interesting. But Richard Mathison is one of my favorite writers. And the "Beardless Warriors" is a famous book about WWII and the European Theater where he was a soldier and they sort of kind of talks about soldiers in general although it's not in first person. It's kind of an interesting; it's considered one of the all-time Great War books from somebody who was there. DR: I'm going to have to read that one. I love reading about WWII. BD: Yeah, it's a great book. DR: You've mentioned to me before that you're involved in the Pluralism Project. Could you tell me a little bit more about the Pluralism Project and what your role is in that project? BD: Sure. The Pluralism Project started back in about 92, 93. Diana Eck at Harvard University initiated that and the purpose of that is to study the changing religious landscape across America, especially due to changes in immigration patterns since 1965. With the Immigration Act of 1965 it opened our shores to a lot more folks from Asia in particular. And, so it's a study of Buddhism, Islam, Sikhism, Jainism, Hinduism, you know these various traditions outside of the Judeo-Christian area, which had been 3 well researched prior to the Pluralism Projects emergence. But the focus was on looking at religion in America outside of the Judeo-Christian traditions. And, actually America is the most religiously diverse country in the world. DR: I didn't know that. BD: Yeah, we have more brands of let's say Buddhism for example than any other country on the planet. And in part that's because were largely a nation of immigrants. And I was studying, looking in 2000 doing some research on religion in Utah and went to the Pluralism Project web site and I noticed that nothing was being done much in the west, and nothing in Utah. So I contacted them to see if there was some information and got chatting with the folks back and Harvard and they said "well nobody's doing it, would you like to, you know, would you be interested in starting something?" So I became an affiliate in 2000 and I've got a lot of stuff on the web that I've accumulated over the years. And in fact we had Diana Eck from Harvard, we had her out here in Utah, I think it was 2004, for the diversity conference where the focus was on religious diversity. So Diana Eck was here, and then we had an LDS woman, speaker, and then Bishop Tanner Irish from the Episcopal Church in Utah, so those were our three key note speakers. Diana Eck is actually a native of Bozeman, but she's on the faculty there at Harvard in the religion department and is an expert on Sanskrit and Hinduism. She has a book out "From Bozeman to Binaries". Kind of talks about her journey to India and her specialization, which is sort of broadened out from Hinduism now to a more of a comparative religion and it kind of gets into sociology of religion issues as well. But it is very helpful; it was very helpful during the Olympics. I had a lot of people contacting me to find out about religious diversity in Utah in 2002 and how many Buddhist worship 4 practice centers there where, temples; Hinduism, we have two Hindu temples and a number of Mosks along the Wasatch front. So, and then I'm the advisor for Muslim students association at Weber State. DR: Oh really! BD: So I've been doing that for a number of years as well, so. I've got a really great group of students, so. DR: Before your involvement with the Pluralism Project, were you this involved in dealing with religion, non-Judeo-Christian religions? BD: Not so much with, I mean I've had some curiosity. I served with some South Vietnamese military folks back in, during the Vietnam era and they where Buddhists, and Catholics and so that kind of broadened my horizons a bit. And then after I got out of active duty in the navy I did about six years in the Air force Reserve as a chapel manager. And as a chapel manager I would set up the church for chaplains of different faiths. So, for Jewish services, and Christian services, you know Protestant, Catholic and all that. So I worked with chaplains from a variety of faiths, all though at the time I don't know that we had, at least I didn't have any Muslim chaplains, but since then I've had a couple Muslim chaplains who were serving in the military. So it's become more diverse in the Air force and other services. So I've had an ongoing interest in religion for a long time, and this is a more practical aspect of it, in terms of religious communities as opposed to theological, you know, doctrinal debates and that sort of thing. I just think it's nice to get to know your neighbor. So I have presentations I do in the community about knowing your neighbor. How are we supposed to love our neighbor if we don't know our neighbor? And so you don't have to go overseas to find a lot of religious diversity. 5 DR: And I totally agree. That's one of the reasons why I wanted to do this project was to get to know other people around you. Yeah, sure we have a lot of Christians but who else is around here. There's a lot of other people I'm finding. BD: There are. It's very interesting to live in Thailand for a few months and to see the way the Buddhist culture influences everything around I think we've seen. And then go to the Philippines and see the way Catholicism, it kind of permeates virtually every aspect of culture in Luzon and Dasios in those two areas in particular which are predominately Catholic, and how much that influences everything from political debate to schools and colleges, you know they use religious language all the time even if there private schools or public universities. There's this Catholic language and commitment to Christian values that's very evident. DR: So is it a lot more dominant than it is here in the United States, cause I know we have a lot of things that are, you can see a lot of our Christian background in our government and what not, but is it a lot stronger there? BD: Oh, I say very much more evident. You don't have the cultural resistance that we often have here to keep a separation of church and state. Now officially there's a separation of church and state but um, you know when the bishops over there get quite involved in politics, at least making statements and so there's no divorce in the Philippines, you know once you get married you can never get a divorce, no abortion, they've got a lot of really strict rules and then religious, you know you constantly have religious commenting about political issues; and in fact maybe helping to oust regimes if they don't feel they're doing the right things, like President Marcos. I think it was Arch Bishop, or Cardinal Sin was his name, but he was instrumental in helping build the Peoples 6 Revolution that over through Marcos. And so if you had that kind of thing happening in the U.S. people would be amazed, and probably outraged. But over there it's part of the culture. They were a Spanish Colony for about four-hundred years before America came into the picture in 1898. So I think you've got that kind of continuing up to the present where there is officially a separation but you constantly, senators or house of representatives or presidents, they invoke a lot of language like a sermon almost. It's used, I don't know, perhaps abused. DR: Yeah. BD: It's much more evident in the public dialog. DR: That's interesting. You talked about how the Pluralism project mainly deals with non Judeo-Christian groups. What kinds of groups have you worked with in Utah, what major affiliations? BD: I guess, I've got a very comprehensive website on Utah religions; including Scientology, Wiccans which is the, sort of the, what do you call it, earth based spirituality kind of Wicca, sort of witches, but not kind of like white magic I guess they would say but you've got Wicca still and Pagans; there's debate about whether that's kind of a more recent development or whether its roots go back to Pagan times before let's say Christianity took roots in the British Isles. But there are some groups that practice that as well as Viking religion, I think its sutra. DR: Really! BD: And I've got all these on a website on Utah religions as well as histories of different Protestant groups, Catholic groups in Utah. And in the Jewish congregations, think we 7 have four or five Jewish congregations in Utah. So I've got a pretty comprehensive website, whenever I hear more about what's going on, I'll put that on there. Sometimes I'll have a group contact me and ask to be put on the website. So there's certainly Scientology and Bahi, I've got contacts with those communities. Buddhist, Hindu, Muslim, Seek, we have a Seek temple in Salt Lake City, and Cao Dai religion which comes out of southern Vietnam, and in fact I visited the cathedral, Cao Dai cathedral in Vietnam a few years ago. So, and we have a small Cao Dai temple in Salt Lake City within the Vietnamese community. So there is a lot of diversity and uh, more than I could name. I'm always trying to help people connect, if nothing else to help to know what's going on in the neighborhood. DR: I honestly, your bringing up these religions, and I've heard about them but I had no idea they were here in Utah. That's really interesting. BD: Yeah. DR: It's really neat to see all the diversity in Utah, I had no idea. I kind of want to focus on the temple, the people that I'm doing. I want to talk a little bit more about the relationship with the people there at the Layton temple. BD: OK. I guess it kind of dates back to 2000 or so, and I had some contact with the temple before 2000 because I had a number of Thai students who came from Thailand to the U.S. to study. And probably because of the link to families at the Buddhist temple in Layton but through the late 80's and mid 90's I had quite a few Thai students come over and some students of mine at Weber State were also, you know, related to people at the temple. So I had some knowledge of what was going on but I got pretty involved starting in 2000, and my involvement in the Pluralism Project is one of the first places I 8 started to do research was the Layton Buddhist temple. I got to be pretty good friends with a number of people out there, and I went to Thailand with several of the people from there on several occasions. So that was kind of fun to meet several their families in various parts of Thailand. I hosted monks from Thailand, who came over here to teach, do guest lectures and that sort of thing from the Oil Buddhist University in Bangkok, and so I hosted them and took them around to BYU and the University of Utah and Westminster, Utah State, and Weber, Utah Valley State College, and so on. And in turn I went over there to Bangkok and did guest lectures, kind of comparing Aristotle, teachings of Aristotle with the teachings of Buddha and Confucius. So, some of it was academic and cultural exchange but I've got a lot of friends there. DR: I noticed when I was there, there was a lot of people coming up to you and saying hi. BD: And I've helped them MC some events, fundraisers, things like that, where they're looking for, Roberta and I kind of help with making contact with the community, invite officials like the mayor whoever else to events; and introducing different dance groups or musical groups who are performing for cultural fairs. DR: You mentioned you've been over to Thailand a couple of times, have you ever been to any of the Theravada Buddhist temples over there? BD: Oh many many. I've probably been over there a couple of dozen times, so I frequently will go to temples over there. Very similar to what we have here, but no carpeting, you know the chanting is the same and the poly language and the monks are the same and so much of it is the same. Some things that are different, usually you get up around six in the morning and go out and the monks will come through neighborhoods, you give them alms in the morning and that's what they'll eat for the day. And so I participate in 9 that. I wouldn't consider myself a Buddhist but there are parts of the philosophy and teachings of Buddhism that I do embrace, that resonate with me, but I wouldn't consider myself a practicing Buddhist. There are certainly parts of it that are compatible with my own background. DR: You mentioned some of the differences and some of the similarities like carpet in the temple in Layton; they don't there, what are some of the other similarities and or differences that you've noticed. BD: Well there's a lot more monks over there. We don't have nearly so many monks over here, but over there you may have several dozen monks in a monastery; but they do dress the same way, receive alms the same way. In a lot of cases you've got a little place where you've got the Buddha's but you don't have a place for congregational meetings and preaching and that sort of things that you saw Sunday where Phra Israt was preaching in Thai, kind of expanding on the lessons the Poly scriptures that he was chanting earlier. Um, so I guess the preaching is a little bit different here than there. Over there, a lot of it is ceremonial, kind of rituals, but you know it's basically the same kind of thing, just a little bit different physical setting. And then the gathering on Sunday mornings at a particular time is more something you're going to see in the west in Utah for example. And the same is true for the Lau temple and Cambodian temples in Salt Lake; they'll have gatherings on Sunday mornings because that's just a typical time when people get together. In a similar manner, the mosks, they will have Sunday school for the kids, even though their typical worship service is on Friday afternoon, jumma prayer, but they will use Sunday mornings here in the west, in America, as a time for instruction, and likewise the Japanese Buddhist temple on 155 North street in Ogden, 10 they have Sunday school, they call it Sunday school. Kind of interesting how they adapt to that, the fact that Sunday mornings are significant in the U.S., and so other religions even though Sunday may not be a Sabbath for them, they will use that day for religious ceremonies. DR: In your opinion, why do you think they've had to make some of those changes, for example, meeting on Sundays? BD: Well part of it maybe is because people are so geographically dispersed, here. Where as in Thailand people, there are many temples in a city, you might have five or six temples and so people from neighborhoods will come in and attend services or I don't know, go in and get blessed by the monks or give alms and that sort of thing. Here, people may drive from Park City or all the way up from Utah Valley. And so having a particular time when you're going to have a community gathering is more important I think when you got more geographical distance involved, and people aren't just going to drop by the temple because it's on the way somewhere, they have to be very intentional about going. And so that's probably one of the factors, and the fact that Sunday mornings are generally available; now they will have other services at other times for special festivals, weddings and house blessings, the monks are involved in funerals and those sorts of things as well. But Sunday mornings I think a lot, again congregations in America will use that Sunday morning time because it's a time when people around here think about religion, so they'll have classes, often times a worship service even though it's not a significant day necessarily on their religious calendar. DR: Have you visited any other Theravada temples outside of Utah but still in the United States? 11 BD: I have! In Denver. I've been to the Thai Buddhist Temple in Denver and also the Japanese Buddhist temple in Denver which is the Jodoshinshee tradition, same as the Salt Lake and Ogden temples. And very similar. The Thai Buddhist temple over there in Denver is very much like this one here. I remember I was there once and it was mother's day, it was the Queen’s birthday so it was a big celebration on that particular Sunday they were celebrating mother's day which is the Queen's birthday and it was a very festive time; very big pot luck and cake and everything. Again cake being kind of American adaptation, but we had cake last Sunday, DR: Yeah. BD: That's not uncommon, it's not common in the Thai diet but as we adapt to traditions around us, they'll have cake for mother's day, a birthday, that sort of thing. DR: The pot luck thing, is that something they just do here in the United States or do they do that over there as well? BD: I've not seen that over there. Well I've been to some evening gatherings and people will bring food, but it's more of a Utah, or American kind of thing I think. People bring food for the monks and then they kind of share what's left afterwards; but I've seen the same kind of thing at the Lau and Cambodian Buddhist temples. DR: Moving towards, to the people, you've obviously had a lot of contact with the Buddhist people in Utah and the Buddhist people there in Thailand. Are there any similarities or differences between the people or do they act pretty much the same? BD: Very much the same. And it's interesting with the um, at least my observation going to Thailand, a lot more women go to the temple then men. I find that kind of interesting, the 12 same thing here. You probably have seven or eight women for every two or three men. So it's kind of interesting, it just kind of struck me that when I go to the temple in Thailand, at least stopping by on a given morning, there will be a lot more women there than men. Over there we'll take some offering to the monk and then the monk will sprinkle water and be blessing those who are there, and you sort of have different groups that come in and then they tie some string to your right hand this sort of reminder I guess of keeping the precepts of Buddhism. But there are a lot more women, now that I think of it, then men. All though in Thailand you have other kinds of temple too, there's a Chinese Buddhist temple I've gone to several times in Thailand, and you have Thai people who go there too, so. DR: There not really tied to a certain temple, they just kind of go when they can or? BD: I think people are fairly free willing about it. They'll often give to a particular temple have a preferred temple that maybe is closest to them or that they particularly like. There are some different movements within Thai Buddhism but the main thing that you're going to see is the Theravadan tradition. But there's a Chinese Buddhist temple as I mentioned and the rituals are quite different; it's more of a matter of going around to the different, lighting incense at the different centers where you've got different figures represented with statues and that sort of thing. But um, there's diversity it Thailand regard to that, the way Buddhism is practiced and people aren't particularly fussy, a lot of people in the world whatever works, you know. "Hay, I think we'll go over here this time." I'm sure it differs from one person to another, but there's going to be some people who are dedicated to a, maybe a more conservative Buddhist movement in Thailand and others. I hear about those things and read about them in the Bangkok Post but I don't know all 13 the details of that. I've got a book or two I've looked at, but again it's like I say, the more I read the less I understand. DR: (laughs) BD: Some of its cultural differences within Thailand, some people feel like the monks are, some monks are too lacks and aren't sufficiently rigorous in their life style, and so they want monks who are more acetic, more non- worldly than others. But I think everyone has their little bones to pick. And you have the same thing here with, discourse between mainstream Protestant and Evangelicals about different issues, so I don't know that it's suppressing that we see that around the world. DR: Well, you've given me a lot of information to use and look into further. I really appreciate you taking time out of your day to talk with me about the Layton Buddhist temple and its people. BD: Happy to chat with you. DR: Again, thank you so much for all your help. 14