Searching For A "Real" Buddhism

British journalist Barbara O'Brien (who writes for The Guardian), writes in her blog about the search for a "real Buddhism" amongst Westerners and how, too often, this search winds up just conforming to our own deeply held biases and prejudices rather than making us think beyond the views we take for granted. The entire piece is below:

Henry Steel Olcott, TW Rhys Davids, and other 19th century western "Buddhologists" arrived in Asia brimming with Orientalist idealism about the pure wisdom of the ancient east.

Then they looked around and concluded that the people of Asia were largely an ignorant lot who didn't appreciate "authentic" Buddhism as well as them. Olcott in particular made it his mission to explain Buddhism to the Sinhalese, publishing a Buddhist catechism and organising Buddhist Sunday schools.

Both Rhys Davids and Olcott made important contributions to the understanding of Buddhism in the west, and I understand the people of Sri Lanka still honour Olcott's memory. We might well dismiss 19th-century western attitudes toward "inauthentic" Asian Buddhism as typical Victorian-era white arrogance. However, westerners continue to want to save Buddhism from backward, superstition-ridden Buddhists, who (they believe) have contaminated the Buddha's authentic philosophy with rituals, altars, bowing, incense and other clutter of religion.

The imperialist spirit lives on today in best-selling author and atheist Sam Harris, for example. Harris wrote in an essay titled Killing the Buddha that "The wisdom of the Buddha is currently trapped within the religion of Buddhism." Like the Victorian Buddhologists, Harris seems besotted with his own ideal of an authentic Buddhism that no saffron-robed Asian monk could possibly appreciate.

As a Buddhist who writes about Buddhism, I encounter almost daily enthusiasts who declare with great confidence that Buddhism is a wonderful philosophy, or maybe even a science, but it's not a religion. And they know this because they've read lots of books about it. That most of those books were written by people who spent years immersed in rituals, altars, bowing, and incense tends to be overlooked.

Meanwhile, people debate whether western Buddhism is "authentic", or even if authentic Buddhism can exist in a western cultural context. I say the issue of "authentic" Buddhism in the west is not about robes versus blue jeans, or about culture at all. The issue is whether we can accept Buddhism on its terms and not ours.

Westerners no sooner realised that there was something of value in Buddhism than they co-opted it for their own agendas, from promoting human understanding to personal self-improvement. But the power of Buddhist practice comes from its ability to confound assumptions and break us out of limited, habitual thinking. If from the beginning we demand that Buddhism conform to our assumptions and habitual thinking, it hardly matters whether we wear jeans or robes. It won't be authentic.

Our very determination to shoehorn an ancient Asian discipline into 21st-century western definitions of "philosophy" or "religion" is a rejection of "authentic" Buddhism. This sort of conceptual packaging is one of the mental habits Buddhism warns us about. Without realising it we use prefabricated concepts about ourselves and the world around us to organise and interpret what we learn and experience. One of the functions of Buddhist practice is to sweep away all the artificial filing cabinets in our heads so that we see the world as-it-is.

About 2,000 years ago Buddhism hit another cultural speed bump as it made its way into China. The officially sanctioned monk's robe was wrapped around the body leaving the right shoulder and arm bare. But Chinese cultural sensibilities demanded that arms be covered in public. Eventually, with much grumbling about authenticity, Chinese monks took to wearing long-sleeved robes similar in style to the robes of Taoist scholars. They wrapped the one-shoulder kashaya over the sleeved robe for formal occasions, a practice found in China, Japan and Korea to this day.

Likewise, Buddhism will find ways to express itself authentically in western culture. But to encounter authentic Buddhism in any culture, first empty your cup of assumptions and expectations. And if you meet the Buddha on the road, really kill him – meaning, "kill" all ideas about him. Don't just replace one idea of Buddha with another idea you like better.

A Lotus For You, Erik Curren

Many joke that Barack Obama is 'the first Buddhist president' due to his calm demeanor and insightful ways of viewing problems but are there any prominent Buddhists in modern American politics? One interesting case is that of Erik Curren, an "openly Buddhist" candidate for the Virginia House of Delegates. Some controversy arose when his Buddhist beliefs surfaced (although he is also a practicing Methodist). A recent article by journalist Emily Breder looked into some of the controversy. The article eventually led to a very interesting interview between Breder and Curren, one where he discusses numerous topics, from reincarnation rituals in Tibetan Buddhism to trying to reconcile Buddhist ideas of detachment with his political aspirations. Here's an excerpt:

Breder: It definitely would be a new kind of politics from what we’ve been experiencing the last fifty years or so. Well… it’s also true that we can’t be extricated from our experiences. It’s those… it’s our experiences which gives us our set of personal ethics, and… one reader described you as an “unknown quantity”. They need a yardstick by which to measure your probable reactions, and… actions and re-actions. Can you describe how Buddhism has shaped your ethical values?

Curren: Sure! I follow the Bodhisattva ideal. I believe that the life that’s worth living is a life of service to the community, and that’s really what motivated me to run for political office. I have been trying to serve the community in various ways, I volunteer with different Boards and… service organizations and I felt like I could be more effective if I stepped up to the plate… to work on a state-wide level.

Breder: A reader also asked whether Buddhism conflicts or expands your Christian faith, in regards to the existence of a Creator/God.

Curren: You know, there’s a lot of terminology I think that people can get caught up on, and particularly religious faiths, and I think if you speak to some wise religious teachers from different traditions, what I’ve heard them say… people like Thich Nhat Hanh… or even the Pope… that various religious traditions are not all that different in concept. And so, for example, when you talk about… Creator/God in Christianity… in Buddhism, of course, you have the... you may have God, depending on your tradition, but that’s not really what Christians are talking about when they talk about God. I think when Christians talk about God, at least in my humble opinion, they’re talking about something that’s like Ultimate Truth and Ultimate Goodness, and to me that sounds an awful lot like Buddha Nature, and like Ultimate Reality. So, I think that if we can get over the differences in the terminology and some of the cultural things that are not really central to these faiths, we can get to the heart of the faiths, which do have an awful lot of things in common.

What People Do

Good can be easily done by the good;
Good is not easily done by the bad.
Evil is easily done by the bad;
Noble ones cannot do evil deeds.

-Udana Ch.5 Sutta 5

Buddhism "Wins" Best Religion

Beliefnet has a humorous spoof article that talks about the fictitious "International Coalition for the Advancement of Religious and Spirituality" has awarded the Buddhism the Best Religion in the World Award.

I find it hilarious that they 'can't find a Buddhist' to accept the award. Well, could we expect anything less from a spiritual philosophy that teaches 'no-self'?

The Doctor Is Within

In a New York Times blog, journalist and author Pico Iyer writes about the Dalai Lama's charm, not on a spiritual or religious level but on a realistic and thoroughly human one. Here's an exerpt:

Yet in 35 years of talking to the Dalai Lama, and covering him everywhere from Zurich to Hiroshima, as a non-Buddhist, skeptical journalist, I’ve found him to be as deeply confident, and therefore sunny, as anyone I’ve met. And I’ve begun to think that his almost visible glow does not come from any mysterious or unique source. Indeed, mysteries and rumors of his own uniqueness are two of the things that cause him most instantly to erupt into warm laughter. The Dalai Lama I’ve seen is a realist (which is what makes his optimism the more impressive and persuasive). And he’s as practical as the man he calls his “boss.

A Song Offering

Pluck this little flower and take it, delay not! I fear lest it droop and drop into the dust.

I may not find a place in thy garland, but honour it with a touch of pain from thy hand and pluck it. I fear lest the day end before I am aware, and the time of offering go by.

Though its colour be not deep and its smell be faint, use this flower in thy service and pluck it while there is time.

-Rabindranath Tagore in 'Gitanjali'

A Little Break

I've been rather busy lately and have done a bit of traveling recently...all of which means things have been slow here lately. I do, however, have quite a few things in the works as well as highlights from the 2009 Bodhi Monastery Dharma Retreat. Thanks for reading and stay tuned!