How do you tell a real Buddhist teacher from a fake one?
What if you are interested in secular meditation and do not believe Buddhism or other religions are truthful?
What if you are interested in secular meditation and do not believe Buddhism or other religions are truthful?
This is notoriously difficult. Buddhist teachers are extremely reluctant to criticise one another; you won't get a straight answer if you ask "Should I go on a retreat with teacher X?". Ultimately you have to rely on your own intuition, which makes it a bit of a game of dice.
> What if you are interested in secular meditation and do not believe Buddhism or other religions are truthful?
Good luck finding a secular meditation tradition with more than about 20 years of accumulated knowledge underlying it. Find a real teacher with a lineage; if your inclination is secular, discount the religious elements of the teaching you receive.
A secular mindfulness teacher has no lineage support-structure to support their teaching activity. And generally, they don't have the experience and insight that comes from practising a wide variety of techniques in addition to mindfulness.
Vipassana has been mentioned, in the article, and here in comments. Vipassana is a set of techniques for destroying the belief that you have an independent self. Not believing you have a self is itself a mark of psychosis. Vipassana is a form of mindfulness; but it's a big mistake to think that Vipassana practice can be secular. It's entirely founded on the (religious) view that belief in an independent self is the root of "suffering".
This way of looking at it reveals a clash between Buddhism and mainstream "Western" psychology.
If one experiences the self as unreal, the world as unreal, others as unreal, according to some forms of Buddhism you're on your way to enlightenment (if not already there). But according to mainstream Western psychology you're mentally ill.
Which is it?
I was over-simplifying when I said "destroying the belief that you have an independent self" - the cause of suffering is attachment to the sense of an independent self. Attachment in general is seen as a cause of suffering, but attachment to the sense of self is the hardest attachment to get rid of.
The term "ego" is used in Western discourse about Buddhism, as a cipher for the attachment to the sense of self. That is not what is meant by "ego" in Freudian or Jungian psychiatry (basically, the focus of consciousness). I wish Western Buddhists would stop using that word.
Western psychiatry doesn't pretend to address anything like the state of nirvana. It's mainly concerned with curing pathological conditions. I don't think any reputable psychotherapy traditions propose to take you any further than a condition of being free of the most-obvious kinds of hang-ups (Jung and his followers might be exceptions - I'm not sure - Jung's views were very expansive).
The Abidharma is the closest thing in Buddhism to psychology; it presents a detailed, practical (for meditators) way of thinking about the mind and how it works. It doesn't resemble Western psychology at all.
By the way, why does is not? What do you mean under Western psychology at all? Freud and Jung? If so, is it a mere incoincidence the models of the mind they invented are different from that of Abidharma or did they sort of look on the object from different angles?
When trying to model a mind there are obvious elements everybody can note (can they?): the mood, the memories, the focus of the attention, the sense of self, rational logic, computational intelligence, slow and fast decision functions, self-control, compassion, random thoughts popping up and making mental noise, attitude, instincts (like fear, jealousy, arousal, etc), probably some other. Why do different thinkers come up with different models?
Some of the stuff in the Abhidharma reflects teachings of the Buddha; but most of it was constructed by monks, after the Buddha's death.
I don't know of anyother models of mind, other than Western psychology and Abhidharma. There must be other models; I'd be surprised if Vedanta, for example, didn't incorporate a model of the mind.
I suppose the dominant model of mind in a society reflects the preocccupations of that society.
Not to go off on too much of a tangent, but the testability criterion was seen as inadequate and was replaced a while back with falsifiability[1], but even that has its own problems.
String theory's claims are supposedly untestable. Is it not a science?
I'm not a physicist, but I've heard there are cloud chamber experiments for which the only observer is the physicist performing the experiment, and are not reproduceable and yet are published in physics journals all the time.
That's not to mention that while many experiments are in principle reproduceable, in practice they usually don't get reproduced, and even if they were reproduced at one point they're not going to be continuously reproduced over and over again by each researcher (who has not the time, education, budget, or interest to reproduce every experiment they've ever read and not yet read but that is still an accepted part of the overall body of scientific knowledge).
Science, just like pretty much every other human cooperative endeavor, largely runs on trust... trust that what one reads and learns is mostly accurate. As skeptical as they make themselves out to be most scientists just don't run out and try to replicate every experiment under the sun or every a large fraction of them. They just trust the results they read are more or less accurate, or expect someone else to catch them.
Back to Western psychology. Some branches of it (like the Cognitive/Behaviorist branches) do purport to be more "scientific", but others like Freudian, Jungian, Humanistic, and Existential and Transpersonal psychology (not to mention art therapy, dance therapy, drama therapy, somatic therapy, life regression therapy, etc) aren't so big on the "science" bit, and aren't so interested in experiments or the scientific method at all.
Simplifying I'd conclude that this is not a binary but an spectral phenomenon: there are 2, both undesirable, poles of extremity and a harmonious middle. Naturally/culturally people are more inclined to self-association and a slight shift to the opposite generally is desirable. Dissociate from your mind but don't in a degree when you loose it.
By inspection (eg. sitting, paying attention, etc!), I discovered that we both do and do not have an independent self, at the very same time. They form a non-dual—-each arises in the combination of both and are mixed together in a way that trying to fix the boundary between them is folly.
I believe it is a major error to practice with the objective or possibility of annihilating the self. The self is an observable phenomenon. To reject it is crazy, as crazy as rejecting non-self.
IMHO a major milestone in practice is to grasp deeply the reality of non-duals, and leave behind the attachment to a dualistic belief in the self. This is nothing like annihilation.
As I became less desperately invested in a simplistic sovereign concept of self, my “self” became more confident, natural and wild. It's not going anywhere!
If you require more proof, make it a priority to seek understanding of ”Buddha-nature”.
Seriously? Buddha-nature teachings are regarded as heretical by many Buddhists. They assert that all beings have this buddha-nature innately, and that it is indestructible, because it does not arise dependent on causes and conditions.
That is very much a religious view, and in direct conflict with the traditional teaching that ALL phenomena without exception arise dependent on causes and conditions.
Discard what? I have said elsewhere in this thread that I am a lapsed Buddhist. I hold no religious dogmas. It's not me that considers buddha-nature teachings to be heretical.
And what are "experiential practice" and "logical exercise"? These sound like some kind of private jargon you are using to support your "rather-rational" approach.
Experiential practice is when you do something and experience the result. Rub your hands and feel warmth appear - this is an experiential practice of experiencing warmth in your hands. Meditating a certain way you can experience a particular state of mind. This is important because some things are either impossible or useless to describe - you have to experience them and a particular practice may trigger the experience.
Logical exercise is when you exercise logic and come to conclusions.
Yes.
> in direct conflict with the traditional teaching that ALL phenomena without exception arise dependent on causes and conditions
With all due respect, make it a priority to seek understanding of ”Buddha-nature”.
Try the Koans.
Note that I'm not declaring Buddha Nature teachings to be heretical; in general, I think the really deep divisions between the various Buddhist philosophical positions were (are?) more political than anything else, and I've never considered them important.
I've studied both the Uttaratantra and the Uttaratantrashastra, under the direction of a western academic who specialized in the subject (and also happens to be an ordained Buddhist nun). I've also done meditation practices designed to deepen understanding of Yogacara-style thought. I think I have a reasonably good understanding of the subject, for a lazy, lay practitioner.
The accusation of heresy is because it's very easy to misinterpret Tathagatagarbha teachings as monism.
Buddha is my master, teacher and guide, etc. This is all sorts of hilarious from a Zen perspective; interpreting Tathagatagarbha as monism, or Buddha as anything, heh.
And as a teacher, The Buddha has certain limitations - like when you ask him "I'm having problems - am I doing this right?" - answer came there none.
Sincerely, a stream-enterer.
This is actually not that uncommon, despite some popular image problems.
For example, catholicism has a long history of scientific thought being used to change the common understanding of their scriptures. Even the infamous treatment of Galileo's asssertions about the Earth moving around the sun were more a question of scientific debate and politics than any religious dogmatism: a lot of powerful people in the church simply considered the heliocentric model better science and a settled matter, and used their political power to silence opponents.
In fact, today most christian churches regard the scientific understanding of the world (big bang theory, evolution, geological times etc) as correct, and consider the biblical accounts to be metaphors and reflective of a deeper truth about God's involvement in creation. I believe the same holds true for most muslims, though I am not sure; and I have no idea if it does or not in hinduism. Young Earth creationists and other groups taking the bible as literal truth (6000 year old earth, literal 6 days of creation etc) are a small but vocal minority.
Also they have a mega-rare tld: http://www.vaticanobservatory.va/content/specolavaticana/en....
It's good to remember that human nature hasn't changed and the same thing is almost certainly happening today too.
There are many types of Buddhism, and some types are definitely very religious.
Take Pure Land Buddhism[1][2], for example, one of the most popular forms of Buddhism in Japan, believers of which essentially pray to the Buddha for salvation and hope to be reborn in a heavenly land. It has some interesting similarities to Christianity.
Buddhism as it's actually practiced in parts of Asia has many magical, "superstitious" components, like believing that a red string connected to a statue of the Buddha can transfer magical power from the Buddha to what the string is tied to. Believers pray to Buddha all the time for protection, luck, or even wealth. Some Buddhists believe in magical effects from tattoos made by Buddhist monks or that a Buddhist funeral would bring an auspicious rebirth.
Speaking of rebirth, the belief in reincarnation (which is central to most forms of Buddhism) is certainly religious in nature. Same with the belief in karma.
Also, one reason that Buddhism has been so successful around the world is that it can co-exist with and even absorb local religions to such an extent that many people who consider themselves Buddhists still believe in all sorts of gods, demons, or spirits, and for them Buddhism is not seperable from such beliefs.
It's only certain types of Buddhism in certain contexts which have been desacralized.
"as Dalai Lama put it: if science shows Buddhism to be wrong, then Buddhism must change"
He might have said it but I'm skeptical as to just how much change he'd be willing to subject his version of Buddhism to.
Anyway, the Dali Lama is a representative of just one form of Buddhism: Tibetan Buddhism, which is far from representative of Buddhism as a whole, and one that's pretty far from being secular compared to, say, Zen or Chan.
Even when focusing on just the more secular forms of Buddhism, at what point does veneration of the Buddha become worship? Is faith in the effectiveness of the Eightfold Path, the Buddha, and the Sangha all that different from Christian faith in God or in the effectiveness of works, faith, or grace (depending on one's denomination) in being saved?
There's been a concerted, conscious effort to desacralize Buddhism to make it more palatable to Westerners, but if you look at how Buddhism is actually practiced in the places where it came from before it got to the West it's pretty clear that it's a religion.
[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pure_Land_Buddhism
[2] - https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/japanese-pure-land/
By the way, it is worth mentioning, not all Buddhist take this literally. Alan Watts told there were some Buddhists, understanding kind of like this (in my own words, I can't find the original quote now):
At any given moment you are never the same person you were in the previous. Your personality changes, your body atoms get replaced with new ones. The past you is already in the past. Today you are distinct from yesterday you. You are reincarnating right now. Like an immutable value in functional programming can never be changed, you can (or you can't, this depends on the programming language) just assign a similar value derived from it with some change applied to the same identifier. So if you practiced well, the future you (in this life time from the conventional point of view) is a reincarnation of you which will reap the fruits of "good karma" (karma being just the causes (mostly mental) causing you to behave a certain way and get into certain situations because of this - nothing mystical). And the fruits are there: even if good doings fail (not necessarily) to lead you to good health and financial prosperity, mental practice results are here to greatly help you cope with any problems you face and also to help you behave in a more constructive way.
Unlike the Christian G-d, the Buddha does not judge, does not punish, does not forgive and has not died in tortures for your sins, this way enabling priests demand you feel guilty. AFAIK the Buddha taught you should pursue the Eightfold Path as a tool to attain your ultimate goal, not as a law breaking which is evil and a subject to punishment.
> Buddhism as it's actually practiced in parts of Asia has many magical, "superstitious" components, like believing that a red string connected to a statue of the Buddha can transfer magical power from the Buddha to what the string is tied to. Believers pray to Buddha all the time for protection, luck, or even wealth. Some Buddhists believe in magical effects from tattoos made by Buddhist monks or that a Buddhist funeral would bring an auspicious rebirth.
> There's been a concerted, conscious effort to desacralize Buddhism to make it more palatable to Westerners, but if you look at how Buddhism is actually practiced in the places where it came from before it got to the West it's pretty clear that it's a religion.
Some times I contemplate what a blessing it is we have been born in the west and given highest monastic kinds of Buddhism right away instead of being born in a Buddhist country where only (mostly) monks can pursue enlightenment and the laymen only know worship and magick. I know a monk would probably laugh at this and tell I don't understand the point and I believe I know why, nevertheless I won't deny such an idea visits me occasionally.
The gods are not the same, but the faith seems very similar to me.
What is the difference between a Pure Land Buddhist believing chanting the nenbutsu[1] ("I take refuge in the Buddha of Inconceivable Light!") in order to get in to ensure rebirth in to Amitabha's pure land and a Christian saying they accept Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior in order to get in to heaven?
Not much, from what I can see.
Even in the more secular forms of Buddhism, Buddhists regularly follow the precepts, take refuge in the dharma, Buddha, and Sangha because they believe it'll get them to enlightenment. And some believe "just sitting" for 20 years or whatever will make them enlightened.
Interestingly, some forms of Buddhism preach that one should not be so goal-oriented and should "just sit" without reason or expectation. That also sounds not very different from blind faith to me, where the believer is encouraged to throw reason out the window and "just believe" or "just do" (whatever the religious authorities tell them to).
"FAIK the Buddha taught you should pursue the Eightfold Path as a tool to attain your ultimate goal, not as a law breaking which is evil and a subject to punishment."
Well, the "punishment" in the case of Buddhism is supposedly just the iron law of karma and rebirth in to the world of suffering. It's not meted out by a god in Buddhism's case, but it still serves as a very effective stick on the Buddhist faithful.
"Some times I contemplate what a blessing it is we have been born in the west and given highest monastic kinds of Buddhism right away instead of being born in a Buddhist country where only (mostly) monks can pursue enlightenment and the laymen only know worship and magick."
Is secular Buddhism the highest kind? Just as in any major religion, there is great disagreement among the various Buddhist traditions as to which is the truer Buddhism. Many of these branches don't accept each other's most sacred texts as being as authentic or as important as their own, which preach radically different understandings of the Buddha's teachings.
One of them really might be more authentic, and everybody's got their own opinion on that, but ultimately who's to say?
Having said that, it's hard to make sense of a lot of Buddhist teaching without karma and rebirth.
In the tradition that I followed, they said that experience was momentary (like, atomic); and the moments were separated by 'gaps'. Realisation was to be found in these gaps. In a way, that is like dying after every moment.
This was a tradition that venerated Padmasambhava, the composer of the Tibetan Book of the Dead; which highlights the opportunities for realisation in the gap between two lives.
Interestingly, these gaps also contain extreme terror, which you experience without the stabilising influence of a body. The TBOTD describes these terrors in a lot of detail.
The Dream Yoga is another way of exploring these gaps.
This is a big generalization without a clear definition of what is "sacred".
> it's pretty clear that it's a religion.
I understand what you mean but using the world "religion" creates a lot of generalizations.
- Devotion
- Loving kindness
- Morality
- Generosity
I'm not saying that these kinds of things define religion; but there are few systems of thought that include these things, that don't also include supernatural beings.
It's hard to argue that Buddhism isn't a religion. It's certainly possible to construct something that's derived from Buddhism that isn't religious; but I don't think that's Buddhism.
/me not religious, nor Buddhist (any more), and now much more contented.
"Do not accept my words simply because I have said them; test them yourself, to see if they are true."