7 It’s Buddhism, Jim, but not as we know it.

So far we have considered some of the changes which opened up historically Christian, Western society to Eastern religions like Buddhism (here and here). Christian theism degraded into a cold and remote deism creating a hunger for something more tangibly spiritual, intimate, and warm. Pantheistic approaches have obvious appeal. If ‘God’ cannot be found ‘out there’ (because Enlightenment philosophy decided that all external, objective knowledge is dubious) then our only hope of finding him or her or whatever god is, is to look inside ourselves. Do we not often feel that there is some sort of transcendent quality to our deepest intuitions and emotions, our appreciation of art and music, the primal connection we have with nature, and so on? These were the main ideals of the Romantics, who idealised the beauty of the natural in reaction to the destructive mechanical darkness of rapid industrialisation. I confess that if I were not a Christian, I would rather be a fiery pantheist than a cold deist. I am in good company too. Writing in the late 1800’s, the famous Dutch statesman and theologian Abraham Kuyper felt the same:

“It is not our desire to be classed with those who have no good word for pantheism  in any form. The difference between our age and the age which preceded it is too deeply marked for this. Then it was deism, cold and grave ; a rationalism which withered the spirit; a conventional affectation on every hand; a state of society such as exists in the waiting-room of the house of one dead, inanimate and weaned from every ideal. In its place we have now an age full of animation and thrift; a boiling and a fermentation of all the elements of society ; a spirit to dare everything, together with development of power which is astonishing. Were ours the choice, therefore, between frozen deism, which causes the blood at length to coagulate in the veins, and this melting pantheism, which from the midst of a tropical wealth communicates to the soul a thrill of its own delight, there would be no room for hesitation.”

So, at the end of the era known as the ‘Romantic period’,  there was an increased openness to Buddhism. However, just as the chef at your local Chinese takeaway changes his traditional recipes to suit the taste of Western customers, so traditional Buddhism needed a bit of modification. Buddhism had to be adapted to the local taste.

Adapt to Survive

The origins of Buddhism are traced to Siddhartha Gautama who lived in India around 500BC when many of the beliefs we associate with Hindu religion - like a polytheistic cosmology and reincarnation - were already prevalent. Born into a life of royalty and luxury, Siddhartha became troubled by questions of ultimate significance. Leaving the privileges of home he embraced the life of an ascetic spiritual seeker,  using meditation to explore the nature of experience. Without jettisoning every part of the Hinduistic worldview, he came to envisage a different answer to the ultimate questions about life and death.

Everything we experience, Siddhartha said, is subject to change. Suffering, or dukkha, is the result of ignorantly clinging to objects and desires which are inherently impermanent. The key to ending suffering is to stop grasping at these passing phenomena. Suffering is sustained by ignorance about the true nature of things. The experience of waking up to reality so as to let go of passing phenomena is called ‘Enlightenment’. Through his illuminating meditative experience Siddhartha Gautama became the ‘Buddha’– ‘the Enlightened One’. Through his handed-on teachings, or dharma, he became the father-figure of one of the world’s major religions: Buddhism.

Except that Buddhism is not really one religion. It is an umbrella term for a multiplicity of religious approaches which trace part of their origins to Siddhartha Gautama‘s approach to the big questions of life and suffering. Global Buddhism is typically divided into three sub-divisions, which emerged as a process of doctrinal divergence and cultural engagement. Theravāda Buddhism is commonly found in Sri Lanka, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia and Myanmar (Burma). Mahayana Buddhism, is typically associated with China, Nepal, Japan, Korea and Vietnam. These two traditions share many beliefs, but the Mahayana form teaches that there are set-apart ‘Bodhisattvas’ who can help lay-followers towards nirvana, where Theravada puts emphasis on monasticism and individual ‘salvation’. The Buddhism of Tibet is known as Vajrayana, and tends to have strong tantric or ritual elements. As Buddhism spread it proved extremely adaptable to the cultures it encountered and was often embraced by a process of mutual transformation. In Tibet, Buddhism absorbed elements of ‘Bon’ shamanism. In contrast Japanese Buddhism came to reflect indigenous religious concerns about funeral and burial rites. 

Buddhism remains a minority religion in the West but it has many layers. Asian immigrant communities bring with them the conservative monastic temple-based organisations of their home cultures in Japan, Tibet, Korea, or Vietnam. Second- and third- generation immigrants may have never had any direct contact with Buddhism in Asia, adding further complexity. There are also Western converts to Buddhism but they do not typically associate closely with the traditional Buddhism of immigrant communities. T.A. Tweed also refers to ‘Night-Stand Buddhists’ - those who might have a popular book of Buddhist inspirational quotes on the bed-side table but no intention of pursuing any higher form of devotion.

Buddhist Modernism

It is the Buddhism of non-traditional Western converts which is relevant to the development of Western mindfulness. As well as the major categories - Mahayana, Theravada, and Vajrayana - with their distinct national and local sub-flavours, a further distinction must be drawn between traditional and modernist forms of Buddhism. Increased contact with westerners during the Colonial era catalysed reform movements in Burma, Thailand and Sri Lanka. In order to counter the success of effective Christian missionary endeavour, some Buddhist thinkers deliberately appropriated the anti-Christian critiques of Western Modernism. They sought, Robert Sharf says, to portray Buddhism as a “rational, empirical, and therapeutically oriented tradition compatible with modern science”.  The elements of traditional Buddhism which did not fit with anti-supernatural Western thinking, (e.g. reincarnation, strict monastic vows, cosmology) were intentionally down-played or re-interpreted. For example, the spirit world of emaciated hungry ghosts whose necks are so narrow they cannot swallow anything might be interpreted in psychological terms as referring to addictions or cravings. Though this was not originally done with the intention of exporting Buddhism, it produced something quite palatable for a materialistic audience which demands low-cost instant gratification.  

Some Buddhist scholars have described this modernising process as a kind of Buddhist Protestant Reformation.  The comparison has rhetorical impact but is not very accurate. The Protestant Reformation is associated with the Renaissance era and was characterised by a return to Scriptural authority and careful textual exegesis. It made frequent appeal to earlier historical sources, acknowledged the supernatural realm. It did not aim to erase the distinction between ordained clergy and laity but merely corrected and recalibrated it. A form of Buddhism which is anti-supernatural and downgrades historical authorities and institutions – scriptural texts, historical commentaries, ordained monks, temples – has closer parallels with the Romantic ideals and immediate (as opposed to eternal) concerns of the disastrous, heretical theological liberalism of 19th Century Europe. So it is not so much a Buddhist Reformation as a Buddhist Enlightenment (which seems altogether more appropriate).

Buddhist Modernism is Buddhism, as it is typically perceived by Western society, portrayed by Western media, and embraced by Western academics. In the 1960’s, when American students began looking for alternative approaches to spirituality as part of a widespread counter-cultural movement they found what they were looking for in the spiritual-but-still-scientific approach of Buddhist Modernism. Some of these early converts may have travelled to Asia or had direct contact with monks who came to preach their message on University campuses. They then went on to become successful scientists, doctors, lawyers, and so on, and their professional status granted them a disproportionately loud voice in society. Because of the extensive influence they exercised through the media, there are now a large number of Westerners who could be called Buddhist ‘sympathisers’. They may use meditation for stress relief or as part of a generic spirituality, without identifying or committing themselves to Buddhism as a religion.

This rough outline is sufficient to locate the mindfulness movement in relation to Buddhism both geographically and historically. The movement’s core representatives are typically first-generation American converts to Modernist Buddhism who have a wide-reaching influence.  Their understanding of Buddhism differs from the vast number of Buddhists worldwide but appeals to sympathetic audiences in Western countries who are suspicious of traditional religious authorities and institutions. In seeking to present mindfulness as a user-friendly technique, it is common for Modernist Buddhists to claim that they have taken their favourite meditation techniques practice and “stripped” it “of all dogmatic and religious content” so as to make it “accessible to people of all faiths and none”. But the whole appeal of Buddhist Modernism is that it is already supposed to be religiously and dogmatically neutral. So what exactly has changed?