Responding to the Response

The story thus far: Professor Paul Flesher, head of the religion studies department at the University of Wyoming, wrote an article titled "What Buddhism Does and Does Not Believe In."

This column made statements about Buddhism that I found objectionable, and I wrote a blog post in the form of a letter pointing out what I saw as fundamental errors.

Professor Flesher has responded to my response, and now I'm going to respond to the response to my response to the original article. I think I've got that straight, anyway. If you haven't been keeping up with this exchange, you may want to read the earlier literature linked above before you read this post further. Or, you may want to make yourself a sandwich and watch college basketball on television. Up to you.

Dear Professor Flesher:

I fully appreciate how difficult it is to explain Buddhism in 600 words or less. It is difficult to explain Buddhism, period, especially since much of it is genuinely ineffable. I see people mangle Buddhist doctrines on the web every day.

But if you are an educator, you have a responsibility to at least not convey misunderstanding. If one doesn't understand something, it is better to appreciate that one doesn't understand it than to harbor misunderstanding and mistake it for knowledge. As we zennies say, empty your cup.

I think that in your eagerness to make a point about atheism you threw Buddhism under the bus. Yes, Buddhism is very, very difficult to explain, and if you haven't the time or space to explain it properly, it would be better not to discuss it at all.

Let's take the first paragraph of your original article.

Move over atheism, Buddhism has you beat. What angers most Christians about Atheism is that it denies the existence of their unseen heavenly God. That's nothing. Buddhism denies not only the unseen heavens and their godly residents, but also the visible Earth and all its inhabitants.

That's just plain inaccurate. And let's put aside the fact that for many Buddhists "believing in" anything, including Buddhist doctrine, is not the point. There's no teaching in Buddhism that says "the visible Earth and all its inhabitants" do not exist. In fact, in the Sabbasava Sutta, the Buddha clearly taught that wondering whether oneself or the earth exist or not is a waste of time.

Even in Mahayana, which is way more "out there" than Theravada about "existence," we are not taught to believe that we don't exist, although that's a common misunderstanding. It would be more accurate to say that the practice leads one to a different understanding of the nature of existence.

Another paragraph:

Let me explain Buddhism in two steps. In the first, Buddhism developed from Hinduism and took many beliefs from it. One of these was that the natural and supernatural realms, as Western religions would term them, belong to a single structure called Samsara. Everyone and everything living in Samsara is subject to reincarnation, upon death they are reborn into Samsara. Again and again and again. This applies to the gods in the heavens as well as the humans and animals on earth. The gods may be strong, spiritual beings who live long lives, but they do not live forever and they are not all powerful.

The single biggest problem with this paragraph is that it implies that Hindu and Buddhist doctrines on reincarnation are identical. This is emphatically not true. In fact, this brings us to the most fundamental way in which Buddhism parts company with Hinduism. You indicate in your second article that you sorta kinda understand this, but for the record I'm going to go over it again anyway.

Hinduism teaches the doctrine of atman, which according to a reference book at hand is "the real immortal self of human beings, known in the West as the soul. It is the nonparticipating witness of the jiva, beyond body and thought and, as absolute consciousness, identical with brahman." The book doesn't explain what a jiva is, but I assume that definition of atman is reasonably accurate.

From the beginning, Buddhism clearly denied atman. The Buddha taught anatman: There is no soul, no imperishable essence of "self." This is not to say there isn't existence. There is matter, and matter arranges itself into many phenomena. There are birds and toasters and eyeballs. However, there is no intrinsic self within an individual existence.

Applied to reincarnation, this makes a huge difference. "Reincarnation" normally is understood to mean that a soul transmigrates to another body to begin another life. But in Buddhism, there is no soul to transmigrate. There is rebirth, but it's not an individual existence that is reborn.

This is a point that western Buddhists tend to be twitchy about, since we are incessantly challenged to prove there is such a thing as reincarnation. And of course we have no interest in proving any such thing, but it's hard to get that point across to someone who has heard all of his life that Buddhists believe in reincarnation. For that matter, a lot of western Buddhists don't "believe in" rebirth, either. Believing this or that isn't the point of Buddhism.

That said, there are sectarian differences in exactly how rebirth is understood. And throughout Asia, reincarnation in the Hindu sense is a common folk belief, which I realize is confusing.

However, the atman-anatman distinction is enormously important to Buddhists. It's probably important to Hindus, also.

Regarding the gods -- in this case, you're talking about the devas and asuras of the Six Realms -- I realize you were trying to make a point about atheism, or else you might not have mentioned the gods. But if you're ever called upon to explain Buddhism in 600 words or less again, do us a favor and leave out the gods. Some "believe in" them and some don't, but "gods" in Buddhism really aren't understood in the same way that "gods" are understood in the Abrahamic religions, and if you aren't given the time to make that point, it's better not to go into the gods at all.

One of the best one-volume explanations of Buddhism for many years, What the Buddha Taught by the Theravadin scholar Walpola Rahula (Grove Press, 1959, 1974), doesn't mention asuras at all and has only one mention of a deva (on page 80), in an aside. A basic, nonsectarian grasp of Buddhism doesn't require knowing anything at all about them.

You write,

Nagarjuna made the observation, “The doctrine of the Buddhas is taught with reference to two truths—conventional truth and ultimate truth….Without dependence on everyday practice the ultimate is not taught. Without resorting to the ultimate, nirvana is not attained.” The meaning I used for the English word “reincarnation” can be illuminated by this observation.

Sorta kinda. The Two Truths are about the nature of existence, of being-ness. Most English texts I have seen use the words "relative" and "absolute" instead of "conventional" and "ultimate," and I think relative and absolute are more accurate. (Update: I see the Tibetans favor "conventional" and "ultimate," but I still think "relative" and "absolute" convey the closer meaning.)

It's not a matter of passing from one to another. The absolute and relative together make up reality as a whole. The relative is the world of form and appearance. The absolute is the dharmakaya, all things and beings unmanifested and undistinguished. In the relative there is birth and death. In the absolute there is no birth and no death. In the relative you are you and I am me. In the absolute, there is no distinction. Of course, this is just Mahayana; Theravadins won't have anything to do with Nagarjuna.

But the larger point is that relative existence is still existence. As I said, matter exists and arranges itself all kinds of ways. The hands keyboarding this sentence exist by any definition of the word "exist." But how do the hands exist? Do the hands have an owner? Are they "my" hands? That's the delusion we Buddhists struggle with.

Skimming through the rest of your article, I see you do have some cognitive knowledge of Buddhism. I'm going to skip the parts where you are sorta kinda in the ball park and just call out a few bits that, um, aren't.

I had already objected to your understanding of dukkha and won't repeat that.

Also, again, monks don't "learn detatchment," or at least Mahayana monks don't. Just the opposite; they learn "no separation." The self-other duality must be dissolved. Detatchment is entirely the wrong word. See, for example, this teisho by the American Zen teacher John Daido Loori, Roshi.

In Zenspeak, attachment requires detatchment. No attachment means no separation.

To say that “the illusion that the world…is real falls away” is not to say that maya/samsara does not exist. It is a claim of the nonexistence of its reality, a perfectly ordinary Madhyamika position.

No. In Madhyamika, any affirmation of either existence or nonexistence is rejected. From a Madhyamika perspective it's more correct to say that there is neither reality nor not-reality, only relativity.

You're a bit off on yogacara. My definition might help a little. Yogacara is difficult, and I don't have the strength to go into it now. The pertinent point is that yogacara (which heavily influenced Zen) doesn't give you an excuse to say "nothing exists," either.

OK, so how is the statement “once enlightenment is found, then the illusion that the world, the heavens, and their human and divine inhabitants are real falls away,” compatible with Zen?

Enlightenment was never lost (wow, now I'm quoting the Ox-Herding Verses. I'm getting tired, sorry). Don't worry about "real" or "not real." Not the point.

Zen believes in the unity of all multiplicity, and hence that samsara and nirvana are the same. But they are also not the same. That is the same as saying that samsara and emptiness are the same, but are also not the same. What does this mean?

Samsara (form) and emptiness are relative and absolute. This is the Two Truths, as understood in Zen. See, for example, the Sandokai (Identity of Relative and Absolute), a very important text attributed to Master Sekito (700-790), which is chanted daily in Zen monasteries to this day. My sangha chanted it this morning. See also the Heart Sutra; the part about form and emptiness. This also is part of the daily liturgy and is chanted in Tibetan Buddhism also. These are not meant to be understood intellectually, but they might give you a hint.

Crushing the nirvana-samsara duality is a little more advanced. I think this is one of those things that it's better not to try to make sense of. Understanding comes when it comes. The Buddha taught us not to spin our wheels wondering what Nirvana is, and I take that advice to heart.

Back to Nagarjuna’s two truths. The maya of samsara is real because it is “conventionally” true. Humans must work within its reality to attain enlightenment. The enlightened one knows the ultimate truth, which is that conventional truth is untrue.

No, not untrue. It's just not the whole truth, only half. It's called the "two truths," remember, not "one truth and one lie."

The column’s point is that from the perspective of enlightenment, nothing in samsara exists, nor does samsara itself.

Don't be concerned whether things exist or not. Instead, look at how they exist; what is the nature of existence. That's the piece you are missing. Put another way, there is existence, but existence isn't what you think it is.

There is also a way to explain this with the doctrines of Hua-Yen Buddhism, but I’ll spare you.

You should worry about me sparing you. I love Huayen. It influenced Zen also. I've only met one person in my life who claimed to have slogged through the entire Flower Garland, but we all know Indra's Net. I assure you, however, you cannot get to "nothing exists" through Huayen, either. Huayen has rich teachings on the nature of existence, though.

As far as the question of whether atheism is a religion is concerned, seems to me it's a stretch, but it depends on how you define "religion." I reject the definition of religion as "belief system," so what one believes is not necessarily "religious." If we loosen it up to, say, Tillich's view of faith as ultimate concern, I'd say I've met a few atheists who were religious about it -- atheism is their ultimate concern -- but most aren't, I don't think. But that's just my opinion.

Anyway, if there's anything else you want to discuss, the About.com Buddhism forum is a good spot. There are some genuinely knowledgeable people who hang out there.