Not your Tibetan Buddhism
aeon.co
aeon.co
To provide a parallel to western culture, the view most westerners have of Buddhism is like if Christianity was portrayed purely as a well sanitized Joel Osteen prosperity gospel book, ignoring the entire history of violence in the old testament, the east/west catholic/orthodox split, upturn of the protestant reformation, and all the other "historical nasty bits".
And with Buddhism being offered based on that pop-culture sanitized version, no wonder people are surprised when they dig deeper (as would be the case with any long-standing religion).
I don't know why you've been downvoted - your comment brings up a good point, that no culture exists in a vacuum. Japan was being influenced by Western culture even during the Sakoku period when the entire country was locked down, albeit in a very controlled way.
Anime's treatment of Christianity and its own Christian history is insulting. Amakusa Shiro is an evil boss in a series of videogames, ffs,(3) Their treatment in real life demands massive censure; Christians never did anything to their co-religionists on the level that Japan did to their own believers.
(1) The subject of Endo's "silence," also look up Kakkure Kirishtan for the sect.
(2) Notice all all nuns in anime tend to be 23 years old or under?
(3) Samurai Showdown to be exact. Shiro led an uprising of Roman Catholics against persecution, one that was brutally put down.
Also see "Anime Catholicism[0]."
But then again, how many accurate portrayals of Eastern religions do you find in popular Western tv and film? It's usually vague mysticism and dragon talismans and nonsense.
I don't think your comment and the parent's necessarily disagree. It's entirely possible that Japan's view of Christianity in general has changed in the intervening centuries, or is more complex than one or the other. I'm reminded of the story that Hideaki Anno added the Christian symbolism to Neon Genesis Evangelion because of it's "exotic" appeal, and only recently there was a moe-blob slice of life anime about Christian archangels and demons hanging out in modern Japan (Gabriel Dropout.)
And while not all anime portrays Christianity accurately, they also don't do Shinto or Buddhism correctly either, just more so because they're more familiar with those religions. There aren't a lot of actual mikos running around slaying demons and aliens, after all. And some modern writers do put in a surprising amount of research into Western religion and mythology, although it is true that, in most cases, they don't care about accuracy.
[0]http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/AnimeCatholicism
One interesting thing was when the priest asked the other guy (who professed to be a Shinto practitioner) to describe what Shinto was all about and then to describe Christianity - he was more clearly able to describe Christianity!
The priest was not surprised.
The priest was also clear about the state of religions in Japan: there are a majority of of believers in Shinto and yet may people conduct Shinto ceremonies for young children, Christian marriage ceremonies and Buddhist funerals!
That is to say, it’s more complicated than Chinese bad, Dalai Lama good. Yet, the Dalai Lama gets invited to state dinners and the likes of Stanford as an exiled benevolent leader of a subjugated people, yet, the people are actually freer than they were under the theocracy, although there is also episodes of sporadic Chinese repression.
Pretty sure that the indigenous Tibetans don't see it that way. Comparable to native Americans in that way.
Not going to lie... I only know most of the few I do know from Wuxia movies and Dynasty Warriors :/
The one that always gets me, as it's so glaringly obvious, is that Buddhism is so audaciously and unapologetically male-dominated. It just seems embarrassing to me that on the one hand the teachings place so much emphasis on kindness to all living beings, yet none of the major lineages (until recently under Western influence) have female lineage holders - therefore those that are considered worthy enough to pass the teachings on to the next generation.
The Catholic Church says priests can only be male too. Women weren't given much freedom in society when these policies were defined.
Western-adapted Buddhism lineages are much more open to women in general.
From what I understand, the Buddha taught anyone who was interested without the slightest regard for gender, age, wealth, caste, or anything else -- 2500 years ago, in India.
The monastic orders have very reasonable rules about how new monks or nuns get legitimacy by being approved by former monks or nuns, and that worked for, I think, over a thousand years. The problem is, for some reason, the female lineage suffered a break, and there was no contingency plan for restoration. But this is now occurring, at least in Theravada. Please don't paint it as if Buddhism is sexist. It is actually amazingly and remarkably non-sexist, back in a time when this was unheard of.
Also, I'd agree with you that Buddhism itself is not sexist. But many of the practitioners are as sexist as everyone else. We shouldn't assume that just because someone practices a certain religion or spirituality that they are perfect.
I, as a non-Christian, might be skeptical of that, but believing it is part of the definition of Christian.
Most of the Bible is the Old Testament, which are primarily Jewish religious texts carried over from tradition, and the New Testament is a lot of writing about Christ from his disciples and later followers. But I found in my own study of the Bible that Christ was actually a fairly minor character, in terms of the volume of quotes actually directly attributed to him.
I'm not a current or ex-Christian, but except for Jehovah's Witnesses, do any current-day Christians believe that Christ is not (also) God himself? And isn't the New Testament the revealed Word of God? How could Christ-the-historical-figure have any opinions different from the ones revealed by God?
Yes lots, they are known as Trinitarians. Those that don't believe that Jesus is God incarnate are non-Trinitarians. Without being disrespectful to those that know far more than I, this was basically (simplistically, more or less) the reason for the Schism or the Orthodox Christian Church.
In my own life, I don't identify as a Christian anymore but I continue to draw inspiration from Christ's life and the few teachings I felt I could attribute directly to him.
Even when I called myself a Christian, I never believed that the Bible was the literal word of God. It's just a book. When I studied for my confirmation my pastor took our group through a lot of interesting history around how the Bible was actually written and put together. There was tons of material that never made it in, so it's at best an approximation of beliefs that people who call themselves Christians have had over time.
For what it's worth the history of Christianity is fascinating. There were many schisms and lots of infighting within the Church even prior to the Reformation. I suspect the same may be true within Judaism and Islam - there are "mainstream" sets of beliefs and then people on the fringe. Likely the fringe folks were more tapped in to the real mystical teachings but got shut out.
Most Christians accept Trinitarianism as a definitional requirement for Christianity, hence why theologically-precise descriptions of JW and related groups, and LDS, and some other groups that describe themselves as Christian from within mainstream Christianity use phrases like “pseudo-Christian cults”. But, yes, there are certainly groups that self describe as Christian that subscribe to heterodox (from the POV of mainstream Christianity) Christology, and JW are very much not alone there.
> And isn't the New Testament the revealed Word of God?
No, Jesus Christ in the Word of God. The Bible (the whole thing, not just the NT) is words about God. The NT is just the part written after Christ and which looks back on him rather than forward to him.
> How could Christ-the-historical-figure have any opinions different from the ones revealed by God?
The Bible, in any case, contains very little direct explication of the opinions of Jesus, and those it does have are often opinions about specific events also recounted in the Bible. Most ideas about his general opinions that have any applicability outside of the narrow events in the Bible are inferences and generalizations from the Bible (or other sources in tradition; the Bible as the sole root of Christian belief is a fairly modern innovation in theology held by a narrow subset of Christianity, which also tends to have stronger views about the literalness and factual authority of the Bible than other Christians.)
If someone writes a book about me, that has nothing to do with me, even if the person who writes the book claims to know everything about me. Only I know what I believe and you should only assume I believe the things you hear me say, whether in word or in deed.
EDIT: also, Paul never actually met Christ. He came along later after Christ had already been crucified. If you believe Paul's account, Christ revealed himself in a vision. But everyone agrees that Paul and Christ never actually met in person.
The Bible—specifically the Gospels —contains some stories about what Jesus said and did, but much of the former is explicitly in parable. Ideas about what Jesus thought are largely inferences from that.
And any belief about the Bible other than that, understood correctly, it contains no moral error, is neither part of the definition of Christianity, nor a universal doctrine within it (even among the official doctrines of the large subsets.)
First, the Pali canon didn't begin to be put to paper until 100-200 years after the buddha, so like Jesus, there aren't clear first-hand records.
That being said, the Pali canon states Buddha was reluctant to teach women, and had to be exhorted by his aunt to agree. Supposedly, he agreed but warned that if he taught women the lifetime of the sangha would be halved. Even after letting them in, the monastic rules for women were/are much more extensive than for men.
In the modern era, there's still a lot of resistance in traditional Theravadan countries to female nuns. Sri Lanka only started ordaining women in the 1990's, and both Burma and Thailand have jailed nuns in recent history.
One thing you learn being in a Buddhist country, is that there are many buddhists (even monks) engaged in unskillful behavior, just as there are many Christians who don't understand Christ's actual message.
Yes and there are people who suspect that the “Buddha” wasn’t one person, but representative of teachings passed down from a bunch of gurus over the years.
Also, it was the fourth Buddhist council where stuff was written down. That was like 300 years after parinirvana. True to human nature, 70 years after parinirvana the Sangha had already split (second Buddhist council).
And even if there were firsthand records, even if we knew the “actual message”, I’m not sure that really adds much credibility in my mind.
You have an interesting story. Based on you using “skillfull” for “kusala” I assume you’ve read Thanissaro’s translations. Where did you ordain?
> "...two-dimensional caricatures tend not to deepen. Instead, they flip – in this case, from loving and peaceful back to the sinister and violent caricatures that..."
Much like arguments over whether who and what is "real" Christianity, or Islam... it's all equally "real". Buddhism is made of people and has a couple thousand years of history across large swaths of the world. And like everything made of people, it's complex and has parts and times and trends we might like and parts we might not.
I suppose the believer can say the parts they don't like aren't 'real', and different factions of believers can fight it out over which parts are 'real', as in all religions. But that doesn't seem very "Buddhist" to me. :) And like with all religions or ideologies, the non-believer has no stake in the game. It's all equally "real Buddhism", as it's all things that have actually happened and been done by and in the name of Buddhism.
A western monk friend and I discussed it a lot, and we concluded that the rules of the sangha (the monastic community) ensured it would be roughly as sexist as the society around it.
See, one of the rules of the vinaya (the ancient monastic code) is that monks are forbidden to grow their own food; all food is a gift from someone. This is an interesting rule, with both good and bad consequences.
The beneficial aspect is that it keeps the sangha tied to the lay community; it prevents Theravadan monks from disappearing into the forest with no ties, and is probably crucial to maintaining the existence of a religious order for over two millennia.
The detrimental aspect is that it punishes sanghas that are too progressive for their community. Every morning, we would walk out at 6:00 for alms. If the townfolk were pissed at us, we'd have starved.
One of the things western buddhist communities have done better is gender-inclusion. In fact, most of my teachers in both zen and theravada have been women.
As an atheist, I am not going to defend Buddhism (be it Mahayana, Theravada or Tibetan) because they all have major flaws, and aren't very practical--in my opinion--for the modern society. As with most religions, there are good and bad parts in Buddhism and a lot of original teachings by Buddha have been 'tainted' by cultural reasoning (not to mention that even Buddha himself likely got a lot of influence in his philosophy from Hinduism and other mainstream religions in his time). Overall though, I have to say that Buddhism at its core is fairly benign (no eliminate-those-who-don't-believe-in-our-god's-teachings that can be found in old testament or Koran).
I consider my self an atheist too. I've done some reading on Buddhism (online and offline, and at my local temple) to learn more about it. I found that a secular approach to Buddhism ("Secular Buddhism"?) is what works best for me.
I don't believe in myth or fairy tales. Nor do I believe in sky Gods or the after life. To me Buddhism, when stripped of all of this, becomes The Four Noble Truths, The Eight Fold Path, and meditation. Or put another way: a simple guide to understanding the mind, our attachment to worldly possessions, life, how to do well by others, and so on.
What's your take on this?
Cherry picking gets a bad rap in religion as being arbitrary, but in the Kalama Sutta, which to me is an epistemological treatise, Gotama (or some other guru, who really knows?) says:
> "So, as I said, Kalamas: 'Don't go by reports, by legends, by traditions, by scripture, by logical conjecture, by inference, by analogies, by agreement through pondering views, by probability, or by the thought, "This contemplative is our teacher." When you know for yourselves that, "These qualities are skillful; these qualities are blameless; these qualities are praised by the wise; these qualities, when adopted & carried out, lead to welfare & to happiness" — then you should enter & remain in them.' Thus was it said. And in reference to this was it said.
Cherry-picking.
When I became old enough (like 8-9th grade), I realized they are mostly folklores. But I still believed that there is some essence/truth in Buddha's teaching like Four Nobel Truths, and so on. I tried Vipassana meditation (nowadays, it's become quite popular in the western side as mindfulness meditation--an alleged antidote to alleviate stress in life). Unfortunately, I never found myself to be able to consistently practice meditation to keep my mind in calm most of the time. I'm too lazy to put in serious effort at meditation and stick to it.
BUT I found that being aware of the fact that mindfulness is great when we are in tough situations is good enough for me. For example, when I'm having a stressful day/moment, I just try to look at myself from a third person p.o.v and realize quickly that 'this too shall pass' and no negative event in life is big enough to overcome/forget. I just need to do the best that I can for the items that are in my control to minimize the impact and move on. Plus, Buddha's teaching of lessening attachment to worldly possessions (nowadays, it's popular as 'minimalism' in the west) is quite useful. So I try to live life minimally (not to an extreme because Buddha's philosophy is to walk the middle path). That helps me qualm a lot of desires and the consequence of chasing after those desires.
Meditation or becoming a monk to seek Four Noble Truth is too 'costly' for me and I do not plan to give up my worldly possession and family to go seek for the 'Truth'/Nirvana (whatever that means; maybe there's not a set of truth for everyone and Truth could very well be different for different people). I feel okay (that is, I don't feel guilty) about reaching to this conclusion as well. If everyone were to become a monk/nun and seek for Truth via meditation, the society will grind to a halt (because somebody's gotta grow the food), right? All in all, I am happy with the way I have been managing my life's stresses in a kind of Stoic way that I mentioned above.
P.S. Please read the comment below by 'cko' about Kalama Sutta. If you already know about this, that's awesome! If not, I hope you'll find it somewhat interesting/useful. :)
I think one could say generally that, whatever the shortcomings of Western understanding of Buddhism, there has been a non-zero positive influence in the area of a role for women in leading religious communities.
By the way, the way I have heard it explained by Burmese monks and Zen priests (in both cases, western) is that there was a tradition of Buddhist nuns from the time of the Buddha (his mother-in-law actually), but this tradition died out about 500 years after his death (in the Therevada tradition anyway). There is a lot of discussion and disagreement within Buddhist communities about the specifics of if/how it should be reinitiated.
I am a Buddhist, but not born Buddhist, and I am not a monk, etc. etc.
There are nuns in the Zen (Mahayana tradition), so I don't think the line died out through China (not sure it is unbroken though).
Are you playing on hard mode if you respawn as a woman? Is spiritual practice or reaching enlightenment harder for women? Modern studies seem to indicate that women seem to be more prone to neuroticism or hysteria and being clouded by sense pleasure.
As children are very prone to be misled, women are similarly very prone to degradation. Therefore, both children and women require protection by the elder members of the family. By being engaged in various religious practices, women will not be misled into adultery. According to Chanakya Pandit, women are generally not very intelligent and therefore not trustworthy. So the different family traditions of religious activities should always engage them, and thus their chastity and devotion will give birth to a good population eligible for participating in the varnasrama system. On the failure of such varnasrama-dharma, naturally the women become free to act and mix with men, and thus adultery is indulged in at the risk of unwanted population. Irresponsible men also provoke adultery in society, and thus unwanted children flood the human race at the risk of war and pestilence.
Bhagavad-Gita As It Is, Bhaktivedanta Book Trust, 1972. Chapter 1, verse 40, purport. Vedabase
Bhagavad-Gita As It Is, Bhaktivedanta Book Trust, 1972. Chapter 16, verse 7, purport. Vedabase
Srimad Bhagavatam, Bhaktivedanta Book Trust, 1999. Canto 1, Chapter 7, verse 42, purport. Vedabase
Srimad Bhagavatam, Bhaktivedanta Book Trust, 1999. Canto 3, Chapter 31, verse 41, purport. Vedabase
The science on that seems pretty convincing especially if you've paid any mind to the James Damore memo thing. The paper is said to have referenced plenty good science and researchers and scientists who have commented on it pretty much have said as much.
If you observe people meditatively in detachment and are not sucked in by lust or other ego games you might witness some crazy behaviour. And then it keeps on repeating and occurring and then... well it may be confirmation bias as well.
Is that perhaps a fashionable contemporary Western idea bleeding in?
In traditional Chinese medicine (my uncle and dad believe in it despite both having PhDs) they believe in acupuncture and chi.
Two months ago my ankle was bothering me. I thought “it’s because I just walked like ten miles.” My dad was like nah, it’s energy flow or something. Then I let him put huge amounts of pressure on my upper arm area (because apparently that’s connected to my ankle). After five minutes of pain, he proudly sat back and said, “better?” I wanted to say “no you idiot. I sprained my ankle badly ten years ago and just walked excessively. You know this.” But I didn’t because I don’t get to see him much and didn’t want to hurt his feelings. Believe it or not, it didn’t help at all, and my arm was bruised for two weeks. The guy has two PhDs. Two. Published papers and stuff.
Just goes to show how... compartmentalized? Inconsistent? our minds can be. /end rant
I’ve been trying to find a more “untainted” and universal set of truths, and that just leads to reflecting on human nature and behavior. Then again, there is a heavy dose of western skepticism and whatever in my methods.
Culture runs deep.
It is almost like if someone never knew what Christianity was about and after learning about a sect (church) with strange practices proceeds to write an article talking about it using the name of the church interchangeably with Christianity as a whole- to a group that knows nothing about Christianity.
This is especially disappointing because the Theravada school is the school that emphasizes philosophy more than rituals (other than meditating) and is thus actually closer to the Western idea - even though it is not exactly the same, because again Westerners including the author of this article mostly know nothing about Buddhism.
The result is this articlle paints a picture that Buddhism as a whole isn't really worth learning about.
Yes the author says he is talking about 'Tibetan Buddhism' but he doesn't inform the reader of other schools of Buddhism that may be more interesting to learn about and that don't have an emphasis on tantric rituals and mysticism that he is complaining about.
Mindfulness practice like everything else is much more complicated. It is more than a management tool for complacency. There are times when you have to really just have to suck it up and times when you don’t. The overall goal is to stop torturing yourself about things you cannot control even if you are trapped with no options. The more you peer through delusion the less you need to suck it up. You might even start to see new possibilities where none were apparent.
If a business really wanted to deal with the excess stress in their organisation then they would start with the causes rather than trying to treat the symptoms.
Throughout the last few years I've read around 8 books on Buddhism, Meditation as a practice, and Zen Buddhism. And some of the differences that popped up were bizarre to me. Incredibly so in the Tibetan side of the literature. Even more so because I started with a very westernized view: The Zen Programmer.
It took me over a year of some non-focused research to get a general idea of what was going on, and I feel this article actually summarizes, and ties it together pretty well. It is fairly simplistic of course, but you can't go too in depth in a handful of pages.
I do feel they explained the situation more eloquently than I would have.
Not to mention the extraordinary mess that was Chögyam Trungpa.
For example, the famous yogi Drukpa Kunley sings about nuns who have sex, and then, ashamed, bury their newborn so that the walls of the monastery are filled with their corpses. Similar things were happening everywhere. Nevertheless, this has nothing to do with the essence of the religion, which in the case of Tibetan Buddhism is Dzogchen and Mahamudra, and which can be practiced without any monasteries, complex rituals, and other elements of Tibetan culture.
Stoicism, or Buddhism, in my view, is simply the most efficient ideology for surviving in dangerous environments.
Cabin fever is extreme introversion, to the point that you have cut off social contact with most people for an extended period of time. You effectively create an echo chamber of one.
I have found it to be prevalent in areas of rugged natural beauty, such as mountainous regions. As an introvert, one can fill all of their free time exploring this paradise forever.
But as you get better at seeking out more rugged and wild adventures, it almost serves as a positive feedback loop for your introversion. Thus, when you are in a stressful situation, the escape hatch is to get out in nature away from all those pesky humans.
The "logical" conclusion is that you should just buy a cabin in the woods. Then you don't have to deal with any people, and your already in your comfort zone 24/7.
The downside of all of that is you eventually become singularly focused on whatever your echo chamber has reinforced. And when you live among mountains, without focussing on all of the immediate danger that constantly surrounds you, that danger has extreme consequences.
Worth a read.
Other than that, probably for the same reason Hindus don't question why Hinduism came after tribal shaman religions.
Because in the believers mind maybe age doesn't matter and if it does, it's simply that people were foolish before religion X appeared.
The core issue I think this article ignores, is a Western buddhist's need to identify their spiritual life with a specific geographic region across the globe. The goal of Buddhism is not to create an alliance to eventually rule the world and compete with evil Western forces, but to develop a way of life through personal enlightenment that allows a better world to emerge.
These constructs in between us and enlightement only have life because of the energy we give to them. When the Dalai Lama talks about ways of finding personal peace, that's because it's the key point that you need before you can even know if your calling is to put your energy toward saving the Tibetan Buddhists.
Buddhism originated from a wealthy prince, who enjoyed every aspect of upper-most human life, began to ponder why there miseries exists among humans.
And let's not forget he pursued ascetic practices for six years and nearly starved to death[1], then he sat under a tree with a very particular goal in mind.
[1] He would later characterise these practices as a false path.
Suttas of Pali canon, the most ancient collection of Buddhist texts, are not dedicated to building a better world, though they contain advise on how to achieve happier and more peaceful existence. The goal of Buddha's teaching is an escape, a release from the endless cycle of rebirths, that is achieved through renunciation and non-clinging to the world and the concept of "self".
The Budhism in Burma and Sri Lanka is extremely political and virulently nationalistic. Like many others you are cherry-picking.
Most folk Taoist and Buddhist beliefs would probably horrify people who tend to think New Age bowdlerization of eastern faiths is what really goes on.
You are vastly generalizing "how westerners view Religion" while, at the same time, cherry-picking and oversimplifying facts about Buddhism.
Currently I feel there are two ways to meet that problem: With ignorance: "Oh, Buddhism is a thing of peace an enlightenment, as opposed to Christianity, which a vicious God condemns people to hell." or with acceptance: "There are people who just did things in contexts I might just never truly understand, some of it might be of value and some of it might not be of value. Is there anything I can learn from that?"
Nothing is untainted. The best anyone can do is just separate the wheat from the chaff and move on.