In Chapter 3 of The Making of Buddhist Modernism , David McMahan writes that "a few dominant colors in the prism of western modernity have picked up different hues of Buddhism while obscuring others." This is something I've observed also, on several levels.
From the 19th century to today, westerners from Theosophists to the Beats to the New Agers to the "Buddhist naturalists" have looked at Buddhism and seen what they wanted to see. Whether they wanted to see something mystical, rational, or empirical, somehow they managed to see that.
One gift to us from the 19th century Transcendentalists is the notion of some idealized cosmic divine something that is the common root of all religions, or the ultimate aim of all religions, or both. The Transcendentalists talked about a "Universal Religion" that would someday supplant the crude sectarian institutionalized dogmatism that is "organized religion." You see their influence today whenever anyone claims to be "spiritual but not religious."
From the earliest western scholarly study of Buddhism to the present day -- a period of 150 years or so -- this perennialist ideal has both helped and hindered Buddhism in the West. It has been used to promote and idealize Buddhism, but it also has placed limitations on it. McMahan writes,
"The perennialist model marginalizes and relativizes that which is specific to any tradition. If the specifics of a Buddhist text or practice did not conform to the tenets of the perennial philosophy, they were deemed incidental, parochial, institutionalized, ritualized, corrupted, or simply for the common people."
Something weird I've noticed often: Many aficionados of Buddhism in the West have adopted the view that the historical Buddha was a font of pure wisdom who, remarkably, perfectly reflected their personal ideals. And then they decide that anything about Buddhism they don't like, including texts thought to be the historical Buddha's own sermons, must be corruptions that those superstitious Asian wrote in later.
For some reason, they can't bring themselves to conclude that (a) the historical Buddha might really have taught something that doesn't conform to their personal belief system; and (b) if he wasn't a God, why is it so unthinkable to disagree with him?
A variation on this is the Buddhism-can-be-whatever-I-say-it-is fallacy. I sometimes run into people who are actively hostile to the idea that Buddhism really does have some doctrinal parameters. If I say no, you cannot dump belief in an individual immortal soul and a Creator God into some New Age soup and call it "Buddhism," they have a fit and call me a "fundamentalist."
The issue of Buddhism and culture is a very complex one. Buddhism is so woven into the fabric of many Asian cultures that it's unsettling to Asian to see it ripped out of those contexts. But we in the West would do well to empty our cups, also.
Recently there was some heated discussion in the comments about exploring parallels between Buddhism and western philosophy. While there's nothing inherently wrong with it, such exploration been done to death already, I would think. What else have we in the West been doing with Buddhism for the past 150 years?
What such "exploration" usually comes down to is westerners twisting Buddhism around to make it fit into western philosophical contexts. To understand Buddhism as-it-is, westerners would do well to stop doing that. At least once in a while leave your cultural assumptions and philosophical heritage at the door, with the shoes, and let the dharma speak to you with its own voice.
I didn’t click on Say It! on that thread, although I had typed something, for reasons somewhat similar to what you cite.
It’s not easy to leave your shoes at the door. You can only understand things in terms of other things you understand. Buddhist philosophy is rich and complex and very, very subtle. An adult who has been immersed in other philosophies can’t help but carry that baggage. This cuts two ways.
On the one hand, it’s a huge help to understanding new things. The more tools you have in your toolkit, the more likely it is you’ll find something to connect to when you encounter a new concept. You may also already have sorted out some difficult questions, like the central, very counterintuitive, and very powerful notion of things existing as provisional definitions rather than essential entities.
But on the other, it’s very easy to see something that looks familiar in some way and assume that that’s all there’s to it. “Oh cool, Nagarjuna is just like Baudrillard. Who’s next?”
So I don’t know if trying to leave your heritage at the door is a very useful exercise. I think it’s more useful to try to remain open to the possibility that you’re completely misinterpreting something you think you understand, or the possibility that if something doesn’t make sense the problem may be that you don’t understand what’s being said.
This is very tricky for those of us used to being smart, knowledgeable, and ‘right’ a lot of the time. Me, for example. So thank you for the reminder.
That’s how we usually understand things, yes. This is essentially what the Buddha said in his teaching on the Third Skandha. But the challenge of the Buddha dharma is to see things as-they-are, not just find a spot for new information in our established cognitive filing system.
Just be aware of that, and watch out for it.
I actually never formally studied western philosophy. I’m not necessarily proud of that. But when I was in college, back in the 14th century or so, I wasn’t really interested in philosophy, and the few times I tried to sign up for a philosophy course (to fill a hole in my humanities requirements) the class was full before I got in.
So I actually learned something about Asian philosophy first, because later in my life I got interested in it, and now I’m sort of going backward and picking up western philosophy in bits and pieces. I’m far more likely to say “Oh cool, Baudrillard is just like Nagarjuna.” Except I usually don’t see things as being “just like.” I see Asian and western philosophers occasionally ending up in the same ball park, but that’s about it.
Most of the time, in my experience, people who are very well educated in western philosophy have a hell of a time “seeing” Buddhism as it is. They are so certain that X is “just like” Y that they don’t look any deeper.
That. Yet sometimes study of philosophy can be skillful means, too, for some of us anyway. At its best it can twist your mind in new ways, out of your habitual ways of thinking. There’s a space in that twisting, in the moment when you’ve just broken free of one set of views but not yet fallen into another.
So I don’t think the problem is being well educated in philosophy, Western or otherwise, rather than the intellectual arrogance that often comes with it. That monk who knew the Diamond Sutra inside and out did eventually get it, when the candle went out.
Listening, trying and experiencing are key. Not just analyzing and configuring. When I was younger, I looked to Buddhism to “fit me” like a good pair of jeans. Then I noticed, this is indeed a good pair of jeans, but I need to lose a little baggage, for a good fit.
Interesting; it reminds me a lot of the response by Antonin Araud to the Balinese dancers he saw at the Paris Exposition in 1931. He almost completely mis-interpreted what he had seen, reading into the movements and overall style, a motivation and philosophical foundation the Balinese themselves would have been stunned to hear about. However, the result was the generation of an entire theatre movement that went on to influence Western performance styles in profound ways. Edward Said had a lot to say about this romanticising of Asian culture generally in his book ‘Orientalism”.
I think the comments here are fair, and honest. Conceptualisng, as Sufi Sam used to say, is part of the problem.
That he said it as a ’sufi’, not as a buddhist, though he was an early practitioner in Zen, shows we can take our ideas with us when we leave. But he didn’ have to take those ideas with him, since in the sufi tradition, a reality before it was a ‘name’, the there are ideas and states, intutive, experiential, which appear to be something that Buddha described, although in another language. That language was culturally specific; it was not Japanese, or English. Once they were re-translated into, say, Japnese, their import changed. How much, I can not say, but Dogen was not exactly saying what ancient man in India was saying.
They said something similar; it was not the same. And once Dogen died, a new language, a new era, a new demand on his ‘Shobogenzo’ was inevitable. Steven Heine confesses, ‘Dogen stands in a dynamic reciprocal relationship with Dogen Zen, or his appropriators and critics…Dogen and Dogen Zen are entagled in an ongoing process of creative misunderstanding and creative hermenutics’. This hermenutic is inescapable, and it is more than a West and East thing, more than a distortion by perennialist, who, incidentally, are quite diverse and subtle. To interpret, in a sense, is to distort. It is also a way of re-crating and re-situating in a new world.
dear m’am barbara:
it’s good to hear from your weekly teachings again.:-) every week i learn a little more from your articles about buddhism and zen and the attitude of being open. however, i’m also beginning to realize in the forums that during discussions, while healthy there are some individuals here who just argue for the sake of arguing and really can’t take no for an answer and honestly, it’s getting also very annoying for me. i won’t mention names but they know who they are.
this forum is dedicated to a healthy discussion about dharma and buddhism in general and although you have been very open to our opinions which i certainly appreciate i just wish some people here have the PRUDENCE to think first before saying something and not just saying it because it’s their, “right to freedom of expression.” abuse of freedom is not freedom…..
please forgive me, m’am barbara. you have been one of my influential sources in my dharma practice while i am still looking for a formal teacher….and sometimes i just can’t bear to see you being hounded and pressured by these useless and intimidating comments by some people since i notice it’s been going on for some time now. but make no mistake….there are also GOOD people here which i appreciate also and thank them dearly for their help. with metta.