In the second half of the book, Batchelor describes how he withdrew from Buddhist "orthodoxy" and studied the Pali Canon to come to his own conclusions about what the Buddha taught. As he worked through this process, he was influenced by western philosophers and western commentary on Buddhism. By his own account he did not bother with Asian scholarship and commentary on Buddhism.
In a nutshell -- Batchelor strongly implies that Buddhism was just fine until the historical Buddha died, at which time ignorant and superstitious Asians got hold of it and mucked it up. But never fear; now rational and enlightened westerners are riding to the rescue, and they will lift it out of the muck and make it all sparkly and fat-free.
To purify Buddhism from the corruption of being metaphysical -- a word Batchelor uses as a synonym for "supernatural" -- he combed through the Pali Canon looking for what he judged was authentic --
"I also came to recognize that what spoke to me most directly in the Buddha's teaching were precisely those ideas that could not be derived from the matrix of classical Indian thought. What I needed to do, therefore, was to go carefully through the Pali Canon and extract all those passages that had the stamp of Siddhattha Gotama's own distinctive voice. Anything attributed to him that could just as well have been said in the classical Indian texts of the Upanishads or Vedas, I would bracket off and put to one side. Having done this, I would then have to see whether what I had sifted out as the Buddha's word provided an adequate foundation for formulating a coherent vision for leading a contemporary lay Buddhist life." [pp. 100-101]
Now, this is certainly an interesting thing to do, although I'm not sure what it proves. There is no logical reason to assume that Siddhartha Gotama didn't incorporate some classical Indian thought into his teachings. The culture in which he lived his life was saturated with classical Indian thought, after all.
This exercise is the basis for Batchelor's rejection of doctrines such as rebirth and karma. But Buddhist teachings about rebirth (about which I am agnostic, for the record) and karma differ in several ways from what's presented in the Upanishads. It is logical to infer from this that Siddhartha Gotama did not reject classical Indian thought wholesale, but instead built upon it.
(Note: For a brief explanation of how the historical Buddha's teachings on karma, as derived from the Pali Canon, differed from that of other Indian schools of his day, see "Karma" by Thanissaro Bhikkhu.)It also strikes me as odd that Batchelor feels a need to defend his own interpretation of Buddhism with scripture, albeit juryrigged scripture. If you disagree with Buddhism, just disagree with Buddhism. Maybe the scriptures are wrong. Maybe the Buddha was wrong. He wasn't a god, after all.
For someone who celebrates "Buddhism without beliefs," Batchelor seems awfully eager to create and defend beliefs about the Buddha and Buddhism.
What's Left Out
In his sifting through the Pali texts, Batchelor came up with "four core elements of the Dhamma that cannot be derived from the Indian culture of his time" (p. 237). These are:
- The principle of "this conditionality, conditioned arising" [also called dependent origination].
- The process of the Four Noble Truths.
- The practice of mindful awareness.
- The power of self-reliance.
I can't quarrel with any of that, although I'm sure I have read scholarly commentary on the Four Noble Truths that say some part of it really isn't a huge departure from other Indian thought of the time. But let's go on.
Batchelor has some appreciation of the Buddhist doctrine of anatta, not-self, which is the most basic and critical distinction between Buddhism and HInduism. But he doesn't seem to appreciate that anatta (or its Mahayana variation, shunyata) is inseparable from all other doctrine. By all accounts the Buddha's realization of anatta is at the center of the "radical shift in perspective" that was his enlightenment.
Perhaps Batchelor just isn't expressing himself well, but through all of his explanations of the Buddha's teaching there seems to be no hint of anatta. And time and time again, he makes offhand remarks that leave out the perspective of anatta.
For example, he writes why he rejects the doctrine of rebirth -- "It made me realize that belief in rebirth was a denial of death. And by removing death's finality, you deprive it of its greatest power to affect your life here and now." That's all right as far as it goes, but it speaks from the perspective of assuming there is one permanent "self" that begins at birth and ends at death. But all schools of Buddhism teach that this permanent "self" is an illusion.
The Buddha said, “Oh, Bhikshu, every moment you are born, decay, and die.” He meant that, every moment, the illusion of "me" renews itself. Not only is nothing carried over from one life to the next; nothing is carried over from one moment to the next. "I" am just a series of thought moments. And birth and death are events in time with no "self" attached to them.
Work with that. Realize it. That's the path. Without anatta, Buddhism is just a sweet little philosophy. And if that's all it is, you can have it.
Next: What Orthodoxy?