Asian Religions, page 24
“the ripe fruit falls from the tree”;
“a baby's hand releases one object to grasp another”;
“the bamboo leaf slowly bends under the weight of the snow, and it falls”;
“the mountain is climbed, the vista appears.”
What do these expressions mean? In each case, the end result – the consequence of the preparatory activity – is dependent upon what has come before, but at the same time it is qualitatively different, a radically new grasp of reality. The student meditates upon the kōan or focusses a “one-pointed” attention on a single activity for many years, but nothing can prepare her for the moment of enlightenment itself.
In the summer after graduating from college, I took a road trip across the United States. Driving north from Flagstaff on Route 60, I made my way to the Grand Canyon, a place that is indeed beyond description, beyond what can be captured in words, or even in video or film. Counting the 120 miles from the city to the entrance, the preparatory work was done – I had endured the monotony of the flat and arid countryside, following the many signs that directed me on the route. And then, suddenly, the vista appeared: I saw in an instant a grandeur that I could never have imagined after camping in the desert the night before, or holding pedal to metal for the miles leading to the canyon. Satori demands rigorous, disciplined preparation, but its true nature cannot be anticipated. It is spontaneous and unpredictable.
Notes
1 For a full account of this legend, see John Kieschnick, The Impact of Buddhism on Chinese Material Culture (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2003), p. 76. It should be pointed out that such behaviors would be inconceivable in a Chinese Chan or Japanese Zen monastery today. No one – not master, novice, or visitor – would desecrate images, violate monastic rules, or mock traditional practices that have been upheld for centuries. For a vivid account of a young Japanese businessman who spent a year in training at the famed Zen Eiheiji Temple, see Kaoru Nonomura, Eat Sleep Sit: My Year at Japan's Most Rigorous Zen Temple, translated by Juliet Winters Carpenter (New York: Kodansha USA, 2009).
2 This is a well-known Zen saying. Its origin is the Pure Rules of Baizhang (Chinese 百丈清規). A translation of the full text can be found at http://www.thezensite.com/ZenTeachings/Translations/Baizhang_Monastic_Regulations.pdf (accessed July 25, 2013).
3 Adapted from Heinrich Dumoulin, Zen Buddhism: A History, vol. 2: Japan (New York: Macmillan, 1989), p. 382.
4 See William Barrett, ed., Zen Buddhism: Selected Writings of D. T. Suzuki (New York: Doubleday, 1996).
26
Buddhism as a Global Religion
For most Asians, Buddhism remains a tradition of moral living, devotion, and ritual practice. Buddhism provides ritual means – as it has done for many centuries – for coping with death and for remembering the dead: ritual practices associated with death and dying are the only interaction that lay persons may ever have with Buddhist monastics, who might be referred to as “priests” no less than as “monks” on account of the important role they play in Asian social life. “Priestly” or “liturgical” Buddhism is Buddhism in its most visible form in modern East Asia.
In Japan, some critics have argued that the “funeral industry” is now the defining characteristic of Japanese Buddhism, “all that is left” of it – reflecting the “decline” of Buddhist practice as a tradition of monastic self-cultivation.1 In fact the same social functions are performed throughout the Buddhist world: Chinese readily associate Buddhism with death or with coping with death, and funerary rites are performed by Buddhist monks in Sri Lanka, Thailand, Burma, Cambodia, Vietnam, and Korea as well.
Although it is true that traditional Buddhist monasticism appeals to fewer and fewer young men and women in recent years and has had to adapt to cultural and technological change, it remains an option for religious seekers throughout East Asia and throughout the world.2 It is hardly the case that monasticism is “dead.” In the twentieth century significant reforms were carried out in Sri Lanka, Cambodia, Vietnam, China, Japan, and Korea, ensuring that monastic life is responsible to concerns of the modern age.
The Buddhist tradition has undergone profound changes within Asia, partly as a consequence of encounters with the West in social and economic terms, and partly due to its own dynamics and evolution. Before focusing our discussion on broader cultural trends, we can list some of the most evident transition points:
the weakening of state control and the institutionalization of Buddhism as a distinct “corporate entity” in administration, taxation, and economic activities;
the influence of enlightenment thinking and modernist scientific rationalism, which is evident in Buddhist monastic reforms and in Buddhist publications for public consumption;
a decline followed by a modest recovery of both monastic and lay Buddhism, in parallel with a growth in the enhanced status of women as nuns or lay practitioners in East and Southeast Asia;
engagement with social and political causes in the form of Buddhist reform movements, hospitals, NGO's, and social services;
the commercialization of ritual services, especially in the form of “funerary Buddhism”;
increasing lay interest in Buddhism as a “self-help” movement, accompanied by broader participation in activities once limited exclusively for monastics: meditation classes, retreats, study groups, and the like;
expansion of Tibetan Buddhism throughout Asia and the world since 1959, as a consequence of the Tibetan exile.
Buddhist Modernism: From Scientific Rationalism to Depth Psychology
The Buddhist tradition is dynamic. Although some Buddhist institutions are committed to traditional forms and practices, and although the most visible dimensions of Buddhism in Asia (its temples and monasteries, its ritual performances) retain the grandeur and classical feel of the past, Buddhist thought and practice are as responsive to modern life and cultural changes as any other dimension of human social life. Some scholars consider the transmission of Buddhism to the West, together with the complementary phenomenon of Western influence on Asia, as a primary agent of change; but Buddhist modernity is not simply a process of “Westernization” – in fact some of the most interesting contemporary Buddhist movements and thinkers in both Asia and the West are highly critical of “Western” values and define themselves in contrast to Westernizing global trends. Still, the Buddhist encounter with the West is one of the most dramatic developments within the tradition in the past several centuries. It affects both the self-definition of Buddhism and its future course, and it is difficult to find any Buddhist institution in the modern world that does not relate itself some way or another to Western culture.
One example is the emergence, in the past few centuries, of “Protestant Buddhism” – a style of practice that incorporates formal elements from Protestant Christianity: a pastor, a regular service incorporating both ritual and instruction (a sermon), membership rolls, tithing to support the temple, volunteerism, and community service. Protestant Buddhism can be found in contemporary Sri Lanka and some Southeast Asian Theravāda communities, in Japanese Pure Land congregations and Buddhist-inspired new religious movements, and in congregational communities in the West.3
Another example is the increased interest, among young urban professionals – that is, educated persons usually from the upper middle class – in Buddhist meditation and Buddhist thought, which they pick up through reading, workshops and seminars, university courses, and short-term formal practice. This is especially true of Western Buddhists inspired by Western seekers in the 1960s and 1970s, who themselves were the heirs of the transcendentalists, theosophists, and free thinkers of the eighteenth century (one of the first English translations of The Heart Sūtra – a foundational scripture of Mahāyāna Buddhism – was done by Henry David Thoreau from a French translation by an eminent European scholar). However, Buddhist modernism – lay-based, individualistic, focused on meditation and psychological introspection, “self-help”-oriented – is developing all over the world, including Asia.4
Though lay Buddhists have constituted the great majority of practicing Buddhists throughout history, their role in traditional times was limited to worship, prayer, alms-giving, and ritual participation. Today lay Buddhists are more spiritually active and show a greater interest in meditation and philosophical expression. Part of this is a function of literacy: hundreds of Buddhist books are published every year, in every language, and are read by practitioners who may have no institutional affiliation at all, or by groups of individuals sharing common interests. Much of the Buddhist canon has now been translated into English, vernacular Chinese and Japanese, and other languages. Even more widely, books on Buddhism by both scholars and practitioners now reach a worldwide audience.
What do these books have to say? For better or worse, the image of Buddhism presented in “guidebooks” written for mass consumption – as well as by popular media such as television, pop music, and film – is a mixture of traditional Buddhism with modern psychology, counterculturalism, and aesthetic expression. Modern Buddhist spirituality is contrasted with “religion” (especially Western religions) and with “consumerism” or materialism.5 Many of my own students, taking their first course on Buddhism in a university setting, come into the class with preconceived ideas of what Buddhism is: a spiritual practice that does not affirm a belief in God, that emphasizes freedom and self-expression, that requires no rules and makes no authoritarian demands, that promises a state of “enlightenment” largely self-actualized and self-defined, and that teaches peace, tolerance, and love. Even before knowing much about the history of Buddhism and its rich variety and cultural forms, most American university students think of it in highly romanticized terms.
This view of Buddhism in the modern age was inspired by the countercultural movements of the 1960s and by a few cosmopolitan Asian intellectuals who have lectured and published in the West. Though they represent very different styles of thought and practice and are extremely diverse in their own right, these Asian intellectuals have responded to a chord of discontent in the West – discontent with religious institutions and with traditional Judeo-Christian teachings and practices. Increasingly, their messages of self-actualization and of relief from psychological pain and trouble are gaining popularity in Asia as well. Among the most influential of these public intellectuals are D. T. Suzuki, Shunryu Suzuki, Thich Nhat Hanh, Kelsang Gyatso, Chögyam Trungpa, and the fourteenth Dalai Lama (shown in Figure 26.1). Spanning a half-century and representing a broad spectrum of moral and ethical teachings, these teachers have transformed Buddhism into a truly global, truly modern phenomenon.6
Figure 26.1 The 14th Dalai Lama. © vipflash/ Shutterstock.com.
Today American and European Buddhists are shaping the tradition's present form and future course. Some have taken the vows to become monks and nuns (often adapting the Vinaya to fit modern needs) and are themselves authorized to initiate disciples, creating dharma transmissions that are fully self-contained within the West. Western Buddhist teachers have established an authoritative presence by publishing regularly and by teaching seminars and workshops such as those associated with the San Francisco Zen Center established in 1962 (it recently celebrated its fiftieth birthday), the Massachusetts Barre Center for Buddhist Studies (“for the integration of scholarly understanding and meditative insight”), Boulder's Naropa University (the first degree-granting Buddhist institution of higher education in the United States), the University of the West (associated with Hsi lai Temple in Hacienda Heights, Los Angeles), and others. There are hundreds of Buddhist centers dedicated to Zen and Vipassana meditation in the United States, in England, and on the European continent; Pure Land, Sōka Gakkai and other devotional movements; and Tibetan-based organizations including Shambhala International and the Foundation for the Preservation of the Mahāyāna Tradition. The history and diversity of Western Buddhism is extraordinarily rich and has now been the subject of a number of detailed studies.7
One of the most significant social and institutional developments of contemporary Buddhism is the rising status of women, in both lay and monastic contexts. In Asia and in the West, Buddhist women have become empowered to be institutional leaders, teachers, and writers with a more powerful voice and more receptive audiences. In some countries the nuns' order has held steady while the monks' order has declined; in Southeast Asia lay nuns have seen an increase in numbers and status while continuing their calls for the restoration of the nuns' order; and in the West there is now no significant gender divide in either intellectual or institutional leadership – a significant change since American Buddhism first arose in the 1960s and 1970s. While some would argue against defining this trend as “feminist Buddhism,” there is no doubt that women's roles have expanded within Buddhist communities in both Asia and the West to a level not seen in most of the world's great religions.8 At the same time – and partly in a critical response to feminist Buddhism – persons of color and LGBT Buddhist practitioners have also found a voice in community and publication.9
Buddhism is one of the fastest growing of the world's religions, with estimates of several million adherents in Europe and America. We tend to think of this as a new phenomenon, but there has never been a time in its history when Buddhism was not inspiring new cultural forms and adaptations, from Sri Lanka to Southeast Asia, from Tibet to Mongolia, from China to Korea to Japan. The emergence of Buddhism in the West, now some 150 years in the making, is just the latest chapter in this story of growth and change.
Engaged Buddhism in Asia and the West
“Engaged Buddhism” is an activist, lay-centered movement with a goal of ethical transformation on personal, social, and global scales. It is non-institutional (there is no “church” of Engaged Buddhism and no particular branch of Buddhism that lays claim to it) and exists primarily in a wide community of writers and readers who attempt to put Buddhist ethical teachings into practice on a daily basis. It has generated a library of publications, especially since the mid-1990s, and it could be argued that Engaged Buddhism is the defining characteristic of Western Buddhism in the twenty-first century, both expanding upon and in some cases supplanting the more inward-looking “cult of meditation” that defined Western Buddhism a generation before.10
Buddhist participation in the social and political life of Asian countries has also become increasingly more visible – the immolations of Tibetan monks since 2010 (see Figure 26.2), inspired by those of Zen monks during the Vietnam War, the construction of hospitals and orphanages from Taiwan to Sri Lanka, and anti-government activism in Burma, Cambodia, and beyond. It is rare now to find Buddhist monastic institutions that isolate themselves from the social issues of their communities –poverty, prostitution, political oppression, environmental pollution, health care, education, and so on.11 Increasingly, the English publications of eminent Asian Buddhist leaders focus primarily on ethical practice and social concerns.12
Figure 26.2 Exiled Tibetans chant slogans in front of mock coffins as they hold pictures of Tibetans who allegedly have either died by self-immolation or were killed in a Chinese police firing during a protest march in New Delhi, India, on Sunday, January 29, 2012. More than 100 Buddhist monks, nuns, and other Tibetans have set themselves on fire in protest since February 2009, mostly in traditionally Tibetan areas of southwestern Sichuan Province. © AP Photo / Kevin Frayer / Corbis.
Notes
1 For an excellent study of funerary Buddhism, see Mark Michael Rowe, Bonds of the Dead: Temples, Burial, and the Transformation of Contemporary Japanese Buddhism (Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press, 2011).
2 For a fascinating personal account, see Kaoru Nonomura, Ku neru suwaru: Eiheiji shugyoki (1996), translated into English by Juliet Carpenter as Eat Sleep Sit: My Year at Japan's Most Rigorous Zen Temple (Tokyo: Kodansha International, 2008).
3 For a perspective on “Protestant Buddhism” from those who created this category, see Richard Gombrich and Gananath Obeyesekere, Buddhism Transformed: Religious Change in Sri Lanka (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2004).
4 See Donald S. Lopez, A Modern Buddhist Bible (Boston, MA: Beacon Press, 2002). On “Buddhist modernism” by the author who coined this phrase, see David McMahon, The Making of Buddhist Modernism (London: Oxford University Press, 2008). On Buddhist psychology, see Mark Epstein, Psychotherapy without the Self: A Buddhist Perspective (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2007).
5 These books owe a debt to the colorful writings of the Beat Generation. See especially Alan Watts (1915–1973), The Way of Zen (New York: Vintage, 1999). Today a whole market of countercultural Buddhist books can be found reflecting similar themes. Some of the most popular of these books are by Brad Warner, beginning with Hardcore Zen: Punk Rock, Monster Movies, and the Truth about Reality (Boston, MA: Wisdom Publications, 2003). See also Stephen Batchelor, Confession of a Buddhist Atheist (New York: Spiegel & Grau, 2010).
6 These six writers have well over one hundred English-language publications or translations between them. Often mixing historical accuracy with orientalist-inspired imagination, Buddhist popularizers have shaped the Buddhist experience for a global audience. See, for example, D. T. Suzuki, An Introduction to Zen Buddhism (New York: Grove Press, 1999); Shunryu Suzuki, Zen Mind Beginner's Mind: Fortieth Anniversary Edition (Boston, MA: Shambhala, 2011); Thich Nhat Hanh, Peace is Every Step: The Path of Mindfulness in Everyday Life (New York: Bantam, 1992); Kelsang Gyatso, Introduction to Buddhism: An Explanation of the Buddhist Way of Life (Glen Spay, NY: Tharpa Publications, 2008); Chögyam Trungpa, Cutting through Spiritual Materialism (Boston, MA: Shambhala, 1973); and the 14th Dalai Lama, The Art of Happiness: A Handbook for Living, 10th Anniversary Edition (New York: Riverhead Books, 2009).
