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http://www.UrbanDharma.org
...Buddhism for Urban America
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The
Urban Dharma Newsletter... October 7, 2003
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In
This Issue: Special / Buddhism and the
Postmodern World
1.
The Postmodern Buddha ...by
Mark A. Pegrum
2. The Other Enlightenment Project ...Stephen Batchelor
3. A role of Buddhism in Postmodern Psychotherapy ...from
MindIs.com
4. Maitreya Buddha - the future of Buddhism in the West ...from
MindIs.com
5. Temple/Center/Website- of the Week: www.MindIs.com/Dharma
6. Book/Movie Review: The Great
Awakening: A Buddhist Social Theory ...by David R. Loy
-------------------------------
1.
The Postmodern Buddha / Spirituality is as close as the nearest
gift shop ...by Mark A. Pegrum
http://www.poppolitics.com/articles/2001-01-29-redbuddha.shtml
Sitting
on the shelf above my desk is a red velvet Buddha. Not just
any red, mind you - it's so bright it's almost fluorescent.
It came from the oddly assorted shelves of a small gift shop
just off the Royal Mile in Edinburgh, and it's been sitting,
watching serendipitously over the room, for about six months
now. A focal point for visitors to my office, it's kitsch, it's
camp, and everyone seems to love it. A friend, herself a Western(ized)
Buddhist, told me it was the most inspiring statue of the Buddha
she'd ever seen. I suspect she’s now trolling the gift
shops for her very own version thereof - I’ll be interested
to see what she comes up with.
Yet
sooner or later, of course, as the owner of a red velvet Buddha,
one is bound to ask oneself: Why? Why is it that atheists, agnostics,
Christians and Buddhists take to it so quickly and easily? Why
is it, indeed, that I have a red velvet Buddha sitting
on my shelf, and not a pink fur crucifix or a purple suede Star
of David? These questions, banal as they may seem, go to the
heart of a cultural transformation currently taking place, and
even gaining momentum, within the spiritual landscape of Western(ized)
popular culture.
We
find ourselves discussing the spirituality of Star Wars,
debating the desecularization of science fiction stalwarts such
as Star Trek, and in an uproar over the supposedly Wiccan
implications of the bestselling Harry Potter books aimed at
children. We've seen unicorns and ghosts on Ally McBeal,
witnessed the transformation of the Material Girl Madonna
into the Spiritual Girl, and have become immersed in
the fatalism of the film Sliding Doors, not to mention
its apocalyptic younger sibling Final Destination.
It’s
not so long ago, either, that academia was rushing to comment
on the spiritual significance of the public outpouring of grief
over Princess Diana’s death. Vaclav Havel, poet, politician
and president of the Czech Republic, takes this perspective:
Today … we may know immeasurably more about the universe
than our ancestors did, and yet, it increasingly seems they
knew something more essential about it than we do, something
that escapes us.
What
is that something? Where has it escaped to? George Lucas, creator
of Star Wars, gives us a hint when, in 1999, the year
of the release of The Phantom Menace, he describes his
series thus:
It’s designed to make people think about the larger entities
and the mysteries of life. Hopefully they will question them.
There definitely aren’t enough answers in Star Wars
to constitute a religion and I think that the point is to
go and look through the religions and find something that has
some answers.
And
indeed, whether or not spurred on to do so by Star Wars,
Western society is turning increasingly to the faiths of past
generations as it seeks what Havel describes as “the creation
of a new model of coexistence among the various cultures, peoples,
races, and religious spheres within a single interconnected
civilization.” We’re seeing the triumphal return
of religion as we become more involved with the majority of
the not-yet-secularized world, and begin to doubt our own secularization
and blind faith in science and progress.
And
then there’s postmodern theology. But hang on, you say.
Postmodernism, and God? Surely Derrida, Foucault, Lyotard et
al. have deconstructed, undermined and generally torn apart
religion? Yet the realization has slowly been dawning that there
is, indeed must be, as Brian J. Walsh indicates, a “Spiritual
Face of Postmodernity”, which moves beyond the “imperialist,
other-denying ideology of modernity” to welcome back religion
as yet another - if not the ultimate - downcast “other”.
If postmodernity is to curb the damage wrought by the often
sterile rationalism of modernity, then it must also seek to
move beyond the ferocious and even reactionary secularism of
the latter.
While
it’s too late for the late Foucault and Lyotard to reconsider,
the deconstructionist guru Derrida has waded into the debate
to argue for “the possibility of religion without religion”,
where God is no longer seen as a transcendent being, but essentially
as the idea of our cumulative, consensual responsibility to
all other living creatures. This of course dovetails neatly
with the postmodern paradigms of consensual truth and mutual
tolerance. At any rate, if even Derrida is feeling obliged to
take religion seriously, then there really is something afoot.
While
it can be argued that there is increased interest in all things
religious and spiritual, what is perhaps most striking is the
rediscovery of Eastern religions in recent and contemporary
popular culture of the West. Speaking of the role of spirituality
in his Star Wars films, Lucas notes: "People have
said these films are more Eastern than Western." Meanwhile,
self-help books and home decoration magazines are telling us
to watch our karma, keep our yin and yang
in balance, and redesign our houses according to principles
of feng shui. In a quiet moment, you can read Benjamin
Hoff’s The Tao of Pooh or The Te of Piglet;
you can watch Dharma and Greg on TV; and you can buy
Samsara from the House of Guerlain, who describe it as
the place “where Orient and Occident meet”.
Buddhism
is given exposure through actors like Richard Gere and Steven
Seagal, and airplay, as it were, through the songs of Tina Turner
or interviews with Annie Lennox. Pop music, indeed, is full
of references to reincarnation, the circle of life, and Hindu
or Hare Krishna chants. Meanwhile, gift shops sell … red
velvet Buddhas. Can this be coincidental?
Certainly,
those monotheistic faiths, which are based on exclusive truth
claims, sit ill with the ideas of consensual truth and mutual
tolerance propagated in postmodern culture. There seems to be
a highly ambiguous attitude toward our own Christian heritage:
this faith which has brought us so much, and yet cost us so
dearly. It is not that religion is to be rejected per se, a
point which Kevin Smith’s movie Dogma makes quite
clearly in respect of Christianity or, more specifically, Catholicism;
it is rather church dogma and the supposedly absolute truth
in which it is grounded that we must see beyond. As yet, within
the Western Church, a certain doctrinal relaxation among various
Protestant denominations is far from having been matched by
Catholicism.
Meanwhile,
Islam, with its requirement of submission to the will of Allah,
and its prescriptive roles for humans, is incompatible with
many recent developments in our culture, and Judaism, too, for
all its ideological tolerance, clashes with much in the Western
cultural landscape as a result of its steadfast belief in the
omnipresence, omnipotence and omniscience of a transcendental
God.
Outside
the Middle Eastern-Western pantheon, however, there are faiths
of a very different ilk. While there are sometimes great variations
between as well as within the major Eastern religions such as
Hinduism, Buddhism and Taoism, there is a conspicuous parallelism
in their underlying principles. All of these share, to some
degree, the idea of one ultimate reality beneath appearances
and the interconnectedness of all life; all manifest a lack
of dogma and internal hierarchy or authority, a disinclination
to proselytizing, and an at least theoretical principle of non-violence.
Most
importantly, perhaps, all are tolerant of other religions, allowing
that there are many paths to God. Move east from the U.S. and
Western Europe, says Johan Galtung, founder of the International
Peace Research Institute, and you move toward greater openness
and tolerance: “Faith loosens up: rather than the occidental
either-or, this faith or that, there is an Oriental both-and,
this faith and that one.”
The
decline in the appeal of organized religion in the West, and
a concomitant increase in personal spirituality, allow for the
adoption of eclectic elements from different religions. The
above-mentioned aspects of the Eastern religions make them ideally
suited to the West’s current cultural concerns such as
environmentalism, human rights and international peace; they
fit in easily with postmodern models of tolerance, decentered
power and deconstruction of binarisms and hierarchies; and moreover,
they also link up with the issues of community and responsibility
being propagated by various branches of contemporary postsecular
theology.
In
addition, their popularity is doubtless advanced in no small
measure by the man who is, in the West, not only the best-known
spokesman for Eastern religions but is perceived to be a victim
of Chinese imperialism and - not insignificantly - secularism,
namely the Tibetan Dalai Lama, winner of the 1989 Nobel Peace
Prize, who pleads constantly for tolerance toward others regardless
of religious persuasion or lack of it, while stressing the importance
of mutual responsibility and co-operation in the establishment
of international peace. Small wonder that pop and rock singers
have rushed to participate in concerts supporting Tibet; small
wonder that Annaud’s Seven Years in Tibet and Scorsese’s
Kundun were released in the same 12-month period.
In
fact, it's not just to the East that the West is looking for
inspiration, but also to the pockets of resistance which have
always existed within Western traditions, as well to
a time long ago, before the monotheistic Western faiths first
took hold. On the one hand, then, we see a vastly increased
interest in mystical traditions of all kinds - Madonna is not
alone in turning to the Kabbalah (Jewish mysticism), and there
is also a widespread fascination with the various internal and
often persecuted occult traditions of the European Christian
past.
On
the other hand, the rise of what have been called neo-pagan
religions takes us back to a pre-Christian Europe: the Wiccan
faith, for example, clearly represented in the recent music
of Sinead O’Connor and storylines in Buffy, the Vampire
Slayer, is supposedly a reconstruction of ancient Celtic
beliefs, and displays astounding similarities to many Eastern
religions. It is the rather loosely defined term “New
Age”, a designation which has now moved beyond its limited
association with Shirley MacLaine going out on a limb, that
brings all these disparate threads together in a meeting of
pre-Western, countercultural Western and - perhaps predominantly
- Eastern traditions.
And
there it sits: the red velvet Buddha on my shelf. The Friends
of the Western Buddhist Order suggest that for Buddhism to take
hold in the West, “it must learn to speak the language
of Western culture.” Is that not what my Buddha represents,
perhaps in a rather more literal and graphic way than the FWBO
might have imagined? Isn’t this really a case of Andy-Warhol-goes-East,
or Buddha-goes-to-the-Factory? Is this why so many Westerners
take to my Buddha straight away - because the children of postmodern
culture recognize, in some way, the clash of East and West which
is both resolved and yet, simultaneously, remains unresolved
in this single figure?
After
all, as Havel reminds us, in a period like ours - one of quotation,
imitation and amplification - “[n]ew meaning is gradually
born from the encounter, or the intersection, of many different
elements.” Is my Buddha not a symbolic recognition that
postmodernism, for all its loud extravagance, apparent superficiality
and materialism, is moving into a postsecular spiritual search
- of which Star Wars is such a clear emblem, in which
so many contemporary cultural figures are caught up, and to
which even Derrida himself is bowing? And is it not equally
a symbol of the potency of the East to provide us with new sources
of inspiration as Western faiths seem to be flagging, or at
least struggling to disentangle themselves from their own dogmas?
And
yet: a word of warning. I am aware that there is, in certain
respects, something faintly disturbing about my red velvet Buddha.
First, in glossing over the more inconvenient aspects of Eastern
religions - as indeed we do in our own homegrown faiths - and
adopting only what suits us, we run the risk of betraying the
integrity of the religions from which we are quoting, and interacting
with them on merely the most superficial level.
Secondly,
while it might be argued that the clash of serendipity and kitsch
is cleverly conceived in my Buddha, and ironic in that winkwink
postmodern way, and while it might even be maintained that in
our late capitalist culture, irony is the only mode of critical
distancing left open to us, is it not also possible that our
cleverness represents a certain shying away from deeper issues
we are unsure of how to confront? Thirdly, as always, commercialism
rears its ugly head in the selling of spirituality in all its
forms, from distorted do-it-yourself versions of the Kabbalah
to the feng shui experts who come at a hefty price -
not forgetting Madonna’s CDs or George Lucas’s Star
Wars merchandise - … and then there are the red velvet
Buddhas in the gift shops. Is the West, in picking and choosing,
in recoloring and recoding, in buying and selling, undermining
the spirit of the East, enveloping its Oriental otherness in
Western trappings? Is my Buddha a bright, empty, saleable shell
of something that, far away and long ago, had meaning?
In
fact, the current Western vogue for Eastern spirituality is,
perhaps like Eastern spirituality itself, less about either-or
and more about both-and. Homage, and rip-off.
Superficial, and sincere. What is certain is that the
Eastern religions, and Buddhism in particular, have become increasingly
popular over recent decades, and that our eclectic popular culture
is more and more frequently turning eastwards for inspiration.
In
our “New Age” cultural search for meaning, we find
that many aspects of Eastern faiths sit easily with current
Western social issues and beliefs, as well as with postmodern
concepts and postsecular theology - much more so than certain
aspects of Western faiths. Of course, the issue here is not
the intrinsic “truth” or “untruth” of
these religions; if indeed truth is consensual, and responsibility
is mutual, it’s up to us to construct the reality we want,
need and … deserve.
Whatever
gaps there may be in our understanding of the East, it seems
that we, in the West, can at least appreciate a red velvet Buddha
on some level, and for a whole host of reasons. Those reasons
are still evolving. Meanwhile, I suspect that it is going to
be quite some time before I find a gift shop which sells a pink
fur crucifix, or a purple suede Star of David. Then again, you
never know. I’ll keep you posted.
Mark
A. Pegrum, a lecturer at Queen Margaret University College in
Edinburgh, Scotland, has taught in the areas of German and French
language, culture and history, European Studies and English
as a foreign language. He is the author of Challenging
Modernity, a study of the relationship between Dadaism
and postmodernism.
2.
The Other Enlightenment Project
...Stephen Batchelor
http://www.martinebatchelor.org/other3.html
3.
Postmodernity
A
postmodern world that takes for granted the plurality and ambiguity
of perception, the fragmented and contingent nature of reality,
the elusive, indeterminate nature of self, the arbitrariness,
inauthenticity and anguish of human existence, would seem to
fit Buddhism like a glove. Yet this is nothing new. Western
advocates of Buddhism, from Schopenhauer onwards, have all tended
to be impressed by the compatibility of its doctrines with their
own way of seeing the world.10 Kantians saw the views
of Kant in Buddhism, Logical Positivists those of Bertrand Russell,
just as today Deconstructionists behold the unravellings of
Jacques Derrida. Within the last hundred years the teachings
of the Buddha have confirmed the views of theosophists, fascists,
environmentalists and quantum physicists alike. Then is Buddhism
just an exotic morass of incompatible ideas, a ‘Babylon
of doctrines’ as the 16th century missionary Matteo Ricci
suspected? Or is this another illustration of the Buddha’s
parable of the blind men who variously interpret an elephant
as a pillar, a wall, a rope or a tube depending on which bit
of the animal’s anatomy they clutch? There may well be
as many kinds of Buddhism as there are ways the Western mind
has to apprehend it. In each case ‘Buddhism’ denotes
something else. But what is it really? The answer: nothing you
can put your finger on. To fix the elephant in either time or
space is to kill her. The elephant is both empty and perplexing.
She breathes and moves--in ways no one can foresee.
This fluidity has enabled Buddhism throughout its history to
cross cultural frontiers and adapt itself creatively to situations
quite different from those in its lands of origin on the Indian
sub-continent. (The most striking example being that of its
movement nearly two thousand years ago to China.) This creative
process requires Buddhism to imagine itself as something different.
It entails adopting compatible elements from the new host culture
while at the same time critiquing elements of that culture which
are at odds with its own Buddhist values. So it is hardly surprising
that Buddhists today would not instinctively home in on elements
of postmodernity that resonate with their own understanding
of the Dharma. The danger is that, for the sake of appearing
‘relevant,’ they sacrifice the equally vital need
to retain a lucid, critical perspective.
The
element of postmodernity that potentially promises Buddhist
voices access to contemporary culture is implicit in Jean-François
Lyotard’s simplified but seminal definition of ‘postmodern’
as ‘incredulity toward grand narratives.’11
The grandest of all these grand narratives for Lyotard and others
is the European Enlightenment Project itself: the certainty
of human progress through reason and science, which began in
the 18th century. As soon as conviction in this myth wavers,
a host of other assumptions are thrown into question. Through
focusing on change and uncertainty rather than assured continuity,
through emphasizing contingency, ambivalence and plurality,
postmodern thinkers have come to hear voices of the Other: those
the Enlightenment Project has either suppressed, ignored, or
disdained: women, citizens of the Third World, non-European
systems of thought such as Buddhism.
As
a Buddhist I find myself reading erudite texts on themes such
as the nature of the ‘self,’ which explore ideas
quite familiar to me as a Buddhist yet fail to make even a passing
reference to the fact that this kind of analysis and discourse
has been pursued in Asia for more than two thousand years. I
sense at these times what women must feel about texts that blithely
assume a male perspective as normative. The habit of treating
the ‘East’ as Other is a deeply engrained European
trait that goes back at least as far as Euripedes and is ironically
perpetuated even by postmodern writers. Yet there are signs
of change. After the usual Eurocentric analysis, Galen Strawson
concludes in a recent article, ‘The Sense of the Self:’
‘Perhaps the best account of the existence of the self
is one that may be given by certain Buddhists.’12
Note the hesitation: ‘Perhaps...,’ ‘...may
be...,’ ‘...certain Buddhists...’ (not all
of them of course).
Whatever
features of postmodernity may be apparent in Buddhism, it would
be foolish to describe Buddhist thought as ‘postmodern’
-- for the simple reason that Buddhism has undergone no phase
of modernity to be ‘post’ of. Buddhist cultures
have evolved according to the grand narrative of their own Enlightenment
Project. Consequently, two broad but opposing trends can be
seen in the way Buddhism encounters contemporary Western culture.
In
recognizing, on the one hand, the breakdown of the grand narratives
of the West, Buddhists might seek to replace them with their
own grand narrative of enlightenment. This is explicit in the
stated goals of at least two of the most successful Buddhist
movements in Britain today: the Friends of the Western Buddhist
Order (FWBO), who aim to create a ‘New Society’
founded on Buddhist principles, and Soka Gakkai International
(SGI), who seek to realize ‘Kosen Rufu’ -- the worldwide
spread of Nichiren Daishonin’s Buddhism.13 Although
both organizations are contemporary reformed Buddhist movements,
from a postmodern perspective they remain entranced by the legitimating
myth of a grand narrative that promises universal emancipation.
If a defining trait of our times is indeed widespread loss of
credibility in such narratives and their inability any longer
to compel consensus, then such ambitions may be doomed to frustration.
Yet,
on the other hand, if Buddhists find themselves in sympathy
with postmodern incredulity towards grand narratives, then they
might be compelled to imagine another kind of Buddhism altogether.
They will try to rearticulate the guiding metaphors of Buddhist
tradition in the light of postmodernity. An attitude of incredulity
would itself tend to resonate more with the metaphor of wilderness
than with that of path, with the possibilities of unbounded
landscape as opposed to the secure confinement of a highway.
The
key notion in such an endeavour would be ‘emptiness.’
For here we have a notion that shares with postmodernism a deep
suspicion of a single, non-fragmentary self, as well as any
‘transcendental signified’ such as God or Mind.
It too celebrates the disappearance of the subject, the endlessly
deferred play of language, the ironically ambiguous and contingent
nature of things. Yet in other respects it parts company with
the prevailing discourses of postmodernity. Meditation on emptiness
is not a mere intellectual exercise, but a contemplative discipline
rooted in an ethical commitment to non-violence. It is not just
a description in unsentimental language of the way reality unfolds,
it offers a therapeutic approach to the dilemma of human anguish.
Proponents
of the doctrine of emptiness, at least from the time of Nagarjuna,
have been subjected to the same kind of criticism as postmodernists
receive today. They too have stood accused of nihilism, relativism,
and undermining the basis for morality and religious belief.
And not only from non-Buddhists; the concept of emptiness is
still criticized within the Buddhist tradition itself.14
The history of the idea of emptiness has been the history of
the struggle to demonstrate that far from undermining an ethical
and authentic way of life, such a life is actually realized
through embracing the implications of emptiness.
The
emptiness of self, for instance, is not the denial of individual
uniqueness, but the denial of any permanent, partless and transcendent
basis for individuality. The anguish and uncertainty of human
existence are only exacerbated by the pre-conceptual, spasm-like
grip in which such assumptions of transcendence hold us. While
seeming to offer security in the midst of an unpredictable and
transient world, paradoxically this grip generates an anxious
alienation from the processes of life itself. The aim of Buddhist
meditations on change, uncertainty and emptiness are to help
one understand and accept these dimensions of existence and
thus gently lead to releasing the grip.
By
paying mindful attention to the sensory immediacy of experience,
we realize how we are created, moulded, formed by a bewildering
matrix of contingencies that continually arise and vanish. On
reflection, we see how we are formed from the patterning of
the DNA derived from our parents, the firing of a hundred billion
neurons in our brains, the cultural and historical conditioning
of the twentieth century, the education and upbringing given
us, all the experiences we have ever had and choices we have
ever made. These processes conspire to configure the unrepeatable
trajectory that culminates in this present moment. What is here
now is the unique but shifting impression left by all of this,
which I call ‘me.’
Moreover,
this gradual dissolution of a transcendental basis for self
nurtures an empathetic relationship with others. The grip of
self not only leads to alienation but numbs one to the anguish
of others. Heartfelt appreciation of our own contingency enables
us to recognize our inter-relatedness with other equally contingent
forms of life. We find that we are not isolated units but participants
in the creation of an ongoing, shared reality.
A
postmodern perspective would question the mythic status of Buddhism
and Agnosticism. In letting go of ‘Buddhism’ as
a grand, totalizing narrative that explains everything, we are
freed to embark on the unfolding of our own individuation in
the context of specific local and global communities. We may
find in this process that we too are narratives. Having let
go of the notion of a transcendental self, we realize we are
nothing but the stories we keep telling ourselves in our own
minds and relating to others. We find ourselves participating
in a complex web of narratives: each telling its own unique
storywhile inextricably interwoven with the tales of others.
Instead of erecting totalitarian, hierarchic institutions to
set our grand narratives in brick and stone, we look to imaginative,
democratic communities in which to realize our own petits
recits: small narratives.
Such a view is inevitably pluralistic. Instead of seeing itself
in opposition to other grand narratives that seem to contradict
or threaten it, Buddhism remembers how in its vital periods
it has emerged out of its interactions with religions, philosophies,
and cultures other than its own. This reminds one of the traditional
Hua-yen image of the Jewelled Net of Indra: that vast cosmic
web at the interstices of which is a jewel that reflects every
other jewel. Today this image suggests the biosphere itself:
that vast interdependent web of living systems that sustain
each other in a miraculous whole. Which brings us back to the
metaphor of wilderness as an image of a postmodern, postpath
practice of Buddhism.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Notes
10.
See Andrew P. Tuck. Comparative Philosophy and the Philosophy
of Scholarship: On the Western Interpretation of Nagarjuna.
New York/Oxford: OUP, 1990.
11.
Jean-François Lyotard. The Postmodern Condition: A Report
on Knowledge. Tr. Geoff Bennington and Brian Massumi. Manchester:
Manchester University Press, 1986, p.xxiv. I have translated
Lyotard’s grands récits as ‘grand narratives’
rather than ‘metanarratives’ as found in this English
translation.
12.
Galen Strawson. ‘The Sense of Self.’ London Review
of Books, 18 April 1996, pp. 21-2.
13.
For further information on these organizations, see Stephen
Batchelor. The Awakening of the West: The Encounter of Buddhism
and Western Culture. London: Thorsons, 1994.
14.
See, for example, S.K. Hookham. The Buddha Within: Tathagatagarbha
Doctrine According to the Shentong Interpretation of the Ratnagotravibhaga.
Albany: State University of New York Press, 1991.
3.
A role of Buddhism in Postmodern Psychotherapy ...from MindIs.com
http://mindis.com/PSYCHOLOGICAL%20MEDITATIONS.htm#Mu%20&%20the%20true%20I%20of%20God
Buddhism
liberates, offers a glimpse into the absolute, a sense of transcendence
in the realization of fundamental emptiness, realization of
the emptiness of the present moment, the emptiness of existence
and mind, psychotherapy gives one skills to unlock the mind,
to diagnose the symptoms, unearth their causes and to heal them.
Buddhism’s
“suffering” (duhkha) manifests itself as psychological,
or psychiatric “dis-ease”, or symptoms, symptoms
which are individual, private, mine, yours, even if the same
ones in many, if not all of us.
Life
is full of suffering because of a fundamental lack, not only
a perception of a lack, but the actual lack of our absence.
If
the absence is lacking, then there is suffering. Of course there
are moments of great joy, love, ecstasy, in fact there is the
entire spectrum of human emotions arising from just being alive
and human, but the lack of your absence – which is nothing
but your life – is the source of your suffering. Our very
existence originates from the lack of absence, so there is that
actual experience of not being absent, of the lack, of not not-being
there, and that lack, life itself, is causing suffering.
That
fundamental suffering manifests itself as psychiatric and psychological
symptoms so well described in the DSM system of psychopathology.
Depression, suicide, panic attacks, anxiety, perversions, addictions,
violence, psychosis, hundreds of other. They are real, they
exist, we all do suffer in some way. And that suffering and
symptoms is where Buddhism and psychotherapy meet. They both
address the same aspect of life and being. One might say, that
therapy then moves on to devise a system of healing, systems
of alleviating of the suffering, of reducing, decreasing, eliminating
or controlling the symptoms. Hundreds of systems have evolved
to do just that – the major ones being psychoanalysis
and psychoanalytic/psychodynamic therapy, cognitive behavior
therapy, and psychopharmacology.
Buddhism
and postmodern psychotherapy are similar to the extent they
both attempt to understand the Mind and find a way to alleviate
human suffering.
In
Buddhism, the essence of the Mind (sunyata) and the ubiquity
of suffering (duhkha) are, arguably, best described by the Mahayana
doctrines of Emptiness and Interdependent Origination and by
the Four Noble Truths, while the Eightfold Path (sila, samadhi,
prajna) charts the general path towards personal liberation
(Nirvana, Enlightenment).
Correspondingly,
postmodern psychotherapy combines cognitive psychology and psychoanalytic
theory to describe how minds work and borrows from the DSM system
of classification of psychiatric symptoms to catalogue diverse
manifestations of individual suffering (anxiety, depression,
psychosis, personality disorders, etc.)
Duhkha,
the first of the Four Noble Truths and the Buddhist term for
any form of dis-ease, pain and suffering corresponds to the
inherent conflictedness of our lives and the inescapable presence
of psychological symptoms addressed in any psychotherapy.
To
understand the potential role of Buddhism in postmodern psychotherapy
on has to understand why people suffer.
And
we do not mean the physical pain, although, it may actually
be involved, we really mean the psychological pain, despair,
anguish, anxiety, depression, psychosis, alienation, self-destructive
behavior, aggression, suicide, etc. There are many ways in which
people suffer, and the pain takes on infinite and infinitely
subtle manifestations so well depicted in art and so often seen
in clinical practice. But is suffering limited to people
only? Everybody would agree that all animals experience physical
pain, but how about the “mental” pain –depression,
loss, anxiety? And what about other forms of life? Is suffering
contingent on having a mind? Consciousness? Self? Do plants
and trees suffer? And how about inanimate object? Can we imagine
a river or a mountain suffering? Do industrial or human waste
dumped into delicately balanced ecosystems of our land creates
a form of suffering? If it destroys life and living organisms,
pollutes water and soil, poisons and sickens people who live
there – does it create some sort of universal suffering?
What
are the boundaries of suffering – when her child is in
pain, the mother suffers, somehow child’s and mother’s
pain are connected or maybe even really just being one, even
if we can’t see it as long as we function within the more
narrow sense of our individuality restricted to inside of our
skin? Do we suffer when others suffers? And what empathy really
is? Is it resonating with the other or is it experiencing the
same state, emotional, physical or psychological?
And
what about a farmer, a rancher who can’t sleep at night
when his land or his cattle is destroyed by a natural or man
made disaster? Individual pain is never just individual, it
transcends, it permeates all those who are sensitive enough
to experience it.
Buddhism
asserts that all duhkha results from some form of desire, including
the desire for existence and the desire for non-existence. Similarily,
postmodern theory places psychological symptoms in the realm
of Desire and Lack (wish, instinct, drive, motive, need, deficit,
deprivation, etc.), fundamental precursors of any individual
self, identity and behavior.
Buddhism
does not elaborate on the “how” of how symptoms
develop, why depression and not anxiety, why obsessive rituals
and not panic attacks. In Buddhism, all suffering is one suffering,
the suffering of the Universe. And the Buddhist Eightfold Path
is presented as a way out. Right understanding, right speech,
right action, right life - what on the surface of it appears
a uniform prescription for all, is, in its actual implementation,
completely individualized. It is always, ultimately, my right
speech, my right understanding, my action, my suffering, my
life, and this is where psychotherapy and Buddhism overlap.
It is a person attempting to change him/herself…and anything
that pertains to changing mind, speech or behavior is, by definition,
a realm of psychology. The same thing looked at from two different
perspectives.
Not
only two perspectives but two different methods. And it is the
methods where Buddhism and psychotherapy begin to diverge. Psychotherapy
is codified in the psychoanalytic and the cognitive paradigms,
psychopharmacology, inpatient crisis interventions, the entire
“mental health” industry as we know it. Buddhism
is different, with its meditation at the core, teacher / student
matrix of interactions, its monasticism, Sangha, precepts, vows,
mind-to-mind-transmission, Buddhism approaches a person completely
differently.
And
there is the outcome, the end, or is there? What is the prescriptive
outcome of Buddhist practice? The art of happiness? Compassion?
Boddhisatva’s realized and actualized enlightenment? And
what is the outcome of psychotherapy? At bare minimum, alleviation
of symptoms, a lack of diagnosable mental disorder. Happiness?
Health? Adjustment? Insight? Freud’s “ability to
play, work and love”?
It
is easy to see that there are similarities and differences here.
Capacity for happiness and insight overlap for Buddhism and
psychotherapy, enlightenment is clearly not even addressed in
therapy, usually relegated, and rightly so, to the realm of
religion. But what is “enlightenment” in Buddhism?
Maybe it exists in psychology under different names? Mystical
experience, peak experience? “Flow” in the “zone”?
From James and Maslow to contemporary post- modernists, there
has always been a great interest in the transcendental in psychology.
Freud and Jung grappled with it. Is compassion similar to empathy?
Altruism? What is health, happiness, compassion?
This
area needs more clarification of those basic terms to sort through
it, but just looking at it, it appears that even in the outcome,
there are great similarities, or at least similar concepts which
may, or may not, actually denote similar realities.
So,
in summary, it looks that in Buddhism and psychotherapy the
nature of “the problem” is similar –
suffering manifesting itself in psychological and psychiatric
symptoms. The solutions are very different – psychotherapy
vs. Buddhist practice; the outcomes may actually be more similar
than not…when the terminology and concepts are clarified.
And,
fundamentally, there is only one soul, one mind, to treat and
to save. Some say that we do not need to divide it into different
conceptual fields of practice and treatment. There is only one
person in front of a therapist or a Buddhist teacher. A person
who seems to need some sort of help or liberation. So when we
sit in front of each other, it is yet another Mysterium of a
healing dialogue, because, somehow, words heal your suffering
and my alienation from you. And, as we talk, as you reveal yourself
even more to me, I don’t know if I am being Buddhist or
just therapeutic. Actually, I forget myself in your story. What
is psychotherapy anyway? Somehow people have realized that speaking
heals, brings things out, to focus, focus of the mind, two minds.
You and me, leaning over your illness, your pain, touching it
with words, touching it with attention, feelings and our imagination,
ourselves touched, as we discover the new and the old buried
under the skin of our minds.
Your
words flow, language flows, and we change the direction, telling,
retelling, listening, hearing, till the pain dissolves. Even
if life does not have a rewind button, we can change the past
in the present of our dialogue. Living without a possibility
of return is living in the Real, but there can also be the Imaginary
transformed by the Symbolic…..
And
there is the lack, the lack of absence, the lack of emptiness,
your life, and there is the emptiness of the lack….a possibility
for healing and liberation.
4.
Maitreya Buddha - the future of Buddhism in the West (...Waiting
for American Dogen ) ...from MindIs.com
http://mindis.com/PSYCHOLOGICAL%20MEDITATIONS.htm#Mu%20&%20the%20true%20I%20of%20God
Buddha
usually appear as “this very moment”, however perceived
or defined. Being always “just that…..” Buddhas
may or may not be perceived as Buddhas by others, nevertheless,
they always continue being Buddhas just as they are. However,
since the “as they are” is inherently empty and
not any fixed entity, Buddhas appear as simply “this”
[…….] or “that” [……..],
as me and you, as “this very moment” and as the
entire Universe.
They
“appear” only when Mind appears (…) divided
into its object / subject modes of Being.
Whenever
a Buddha realizes that he or she is Buddha as a human being,
the Buddha, the Dharma and the Sangha rejoice, leap forward,
and “Buddhism” takes yet another turn.
The
last 2,600 years of Buddhism have been marked by such occasional
appearance of realized Buddhas, of spiritual guides, whose insights,
understanding or manifestation of the Dharma not only subsumed
and included all prior teaching traditions but also reformulated
them into a new philosophical turn, new school or spiritual
paradigm.
Today,
two centuries after Buddhism was introduced to the West, many
practitioners in this country wonder how long will it take for
another Buddha, another uniquely enlightened mind, another Nagarjuna,
Asanga, Milarepa, Hui-Neng, Hakuin or Dogen to appear in American
Buddhism?
Alas
for all of us, as the timeline in the box below suggests, it
may to take quite a long time again.
In
the past, it was always at least 600 years after Buddhism was
first transplanted to a new culture or country before a truly
original teacher / reformer would appear – suggesting,
if one can extrapolate from history – that it may take
another 450 years for one to emerge here, in the West.
*In
its birthplace, India, almost an entire millennium passed, before
early Buddhism, proselytized by Siddharta Gautama around 500
B.C., spread throughout Southeast Asia and Tibet and matured
into its philosophical pinnacle manifested by Madhyamika (Nagarjuna
200 – 300 AD), and Yogacara (Asanga and Vasubandhu
300 – 400 AD).
*In
China, over 500 years passed since the time Buddhism was first
introduced (ca. 100 B.C. – 100 A.D.) to the arrival
of Boddhidarma ( 500 A.D), the legendary Indian monk who became
the First Patriarch of Chan (Zen).
*It
took another 150 years and five more generations of teachers
after Boddhidarma, before Hui Neng (638 – 674), the revered
Sixth Patriarch appeared, and additional 200 years for Lin-chi
(Rinzai) (d. 867) and Ts’ao-tung (Soto) ( 830) schools
of Chan (Zen) to emerge.
*Over
1,000 years passed in China, since Buddhism was first introduced,
to the time when the first two major Zen koan collections –
“Blue Cliff Record” (1125 A.D.) and “The Gateless
Gate” (ca 1228 A.D.) were compiled.
*Similarly,
even if Buddhism arrived to Japan as early as 550 A.D., it took
more than 250 years for it to fully settle in Kyoto during the
Heian Period ( 800) and another 400 years to culminate in the
Kamakura Period (1185 - 1333 A.D.).
*Again,
Buddhism was widely present in Japan for at least 650 years
before the spiritual and poetic genius of Dogen and his mystical
masterpiece Shobogenzo (1200 – 1253) appeared and established
Soto Zen’s Ehei-ji temple as a major presence in the Japanese
Mahayana Buddhism.
*After
Dogen, it was another 400 years more till the time when Hakuin
(1686 – 1769) reformed Rinzai Zen and its use of koans
at the Ryutaku-ji temple in Japan where it still continues today.
*Buddhism
was originally introduced to the West, about 1800, and it still
seems to be in its infancy today.
*Several
generations of Asian pioneer teachers struggled with cultural
and language barriers for several decades, as they attempted
to bring authentic practice to the US and Europe.
*First
legitimate non-Asian Buddhist teachers began to emerge in the
second half of the last century (ca 1950 –2000) and a
transition to the second and third generations of teachers is
currently under way in all major Buddhist traditions, nationwide.
More
time is needed for Buddhism to take root on the American soil,
more time to assimilate with the culture at large and to mature
enough for its new, truly Western, form to eventually emerge.
Even
more time is probably needed for an American teacher, another
Nagarjuna, Asanga, Milarepa, Hui-Neng, Hakuin or Dogen to appear
in the U.S., a teacher who will not only conclude the transmission
of Dharma to this new land but who will also legitimize American
Buddhism as a new and fully autonomous tradition.
And
when it finally arrives, what is the American Buddhism likely
to be, 400 - 500 years from now?
How
is that future American Maitreya Buddha, likely to lead, galvanize
and propel American Buddhism into its next Millennium?
Historically,
Buddhism, born out of Hinduism and Yoga traditions in ancient
India, has always tended to absorb native spiritual tradition
and culture of the country to which it arrived. As it moved
East throughout Asia, it merged with Confucianism and Taoism
in China, assimilated shamanism in Tibet and adapted to the
Shinto Samurai culture in Japan.
Similarly,
the future of American Buddhism is likely to be shaped by the
entire Western / American culture and its future evolution in
the time to come.
One
can anticipate that, by the year 2,500, American Buddhism in
will have assimilated and merged with the following “Western”
influences:
*Democracy
– contrary to more autocratic, male dominated Asian model,
American Buddhists will embrace more democratic, egalitarian
/ libertarian approach, with man and women practicing together
in centers governed by elective process where the role of a
teacher is separate from the center’s administrator. A
full spectrum of training models will develop, from more traditional
monastic institutions to lay centers which are likely to grow
in popularity. The Western appreciation of individuality, democracy
and transparency will result in more horizontal, egalitarian
approach to the interpretation of the Dharma, with multiple,
loosely related “lineages” and a marketplace of
individual preachers. Paradoxically, this model is likely to
resemble the origins of Buddhism in 600 B.C. India where wondering
“seekers” / “monks” gathered only during
rain seasons to study and practice in one place and only to
resume their individual/ solitary search afterwards. An individual
“hermit” / Boddhisatva / preacher model is likely
to emerge, in addition to more organized Buddhism-as-religion.
*Science–
science in general, and quantum physics and Unified Theory (when
available) will replace Mahayana Buddhism as the new paradigm
for the understanding of the Universe, Mind and Emptiness. American
Buddhism will not only embrace science as the preferred language
of the Dharma but a new, Scientific Buddhism will emerge as
the dominant “school” of Buddhism not only in the
West but worldwide.
*Psychology
– both Buddhism and psychology endeavor to alleviate
suffering and to grasp the nature of Mind. Psychology without
the Mysterium of spirituality and mysticism is incomplete, Buddhism
without postmodern psychology is naïve. Buddhism will eventually
adopt the language of cognitive neuroscience and psychology
to redefine itself within the Western culture. Insights of psychology,
psychiatry, brain science and psychotherapy will not only inform
any serious spiritual training and practice in the future but
will also permeate the “Western” interpretation
of the Madhyamika / Yogacara Dharma. Buddhist teachers of the
future are likely to undergo formal training in at least one
of the above disciplines to match ever evolving psychological-mindedness
of their Western practitioners. Seated meditation and mindfulness
will continue as the key elements distinguishing Buddhists practice
from other traditions.
*Language
– translating Buddhism into the Western context will impose
the English language and its vocabulary on the Dharma. A complete
translation of most of Sanscrit, Chinese, Tibetan and Japanese
texts should be completed within the next 100 years and most
of the Buddhist canon will be available to Western readers in
English. Terminology and understanding of particular terms is
likely to evolve to adjust to the usage within the Western culture.
New, original, modern “sutras”, or Dharma
texts, will appear and gradually replace the old ones. Future,
American, Nagarjuna, Asanga, Milarepa, Hui-Neng, Hakuin and
Dogen will “re-write” the old texts and create a
uniquely English-language “school” of Buddhism.
*Postmodern
/ postindustrial culture – Buddhism preceded some
ideas typically associated with deconstruction and postmodernism
for over 2,600 years. The lack (emptiness) of the subject and
form, decentralization / multiplicity (Absolute / Relative)
of signification and truth, quantum physics and interdependent
origination – all point to inescapable parallels between
Buddhism and the postmodern. The future Buddhism will continue
to evolve within the postmodern Western culture and will become
increasingly permeated by its ideas and values. Environmentalism
and “engaged” Buddhism will play a significant role
in defining how Buddhists will function in the future global
/ local marketplace.
*Technology
–Buddhism will evolve in the Millennium dominated by science
and its applications - technology. In a few decades we will
be able to effectively manipulate our genetic codes, and hence
the life itself, will learn how to control and change, at will, our
states of mind through new advances in molecular neuropsychopharmacology,
and will be able to immerse ourselves in computerized virtual
realities of our choice, leaving more mundane chores to increasingly
more efficacious and omnipresent artificial intelligence tools
and robotic appliances. Instantaneous visual-audio global access
to any information, person or place anywhere on Earth, via the
next generations of the Internet, will be taken for granted.
Biological computers and ultramicrochip-enhanced biological
implants will merge technology with brain functions, altering
cognition, consciousness and the sense of individual identity.
The new American “Scientific Buddhism” will emerge
to embrace technology as its new “Great Vehicle”
to ferry all sentient beings to the other shore of Existence.
*Judeo-Christian
tradition – Buddhism will assimilate many of the contemporary
Judeo-Christian forms of monastic and lay practice, ranging
from the Catholic monastery / church / priest model to the Episcopalian
/ Protestant / Baptist minister / preacher / congregation formats
of practice. Buddhism will continue to struggle with the concept
of Judeo-Christian monotheistic God. Interfaith dialogue(s)
will emerge to clarify basic ideas and to enhance mutual understanding.
The concepts of God and Buddha-Mind, along with neuroscience,
will take the center stage in the multidisciplinary debate on
the nature of the mind and spiritual and religious life.
*Global
marketplace – American Buddhism will embrace wholesome,
not-for-profit entrepreneurial self-sufficiency, simplicity
and non-attachment rather than poverty and asceticism. Although
Buddhism originally developed within tribal / feudal cultures
of ancient India, China and Japan, we are now witnessing an
increasing emphasis on economic self-reliance rather than on
alms-gathering or feudal / government donations and support.
Sophisticated fund raising, students / members fees and small
business ventures are likely to become dominant sources of income
for Buddhist centers in the future. Separation of the spiritual
teaching from the economics, similar to that of church / state
in the society at large, will have to be strictly observed to
prevent perception of exploitation. The issues of property ownership
or de facto property control by teachers, non-attachment vs
poverty vs asceticism will have to be addressed and resolved
as a Dharma question and within the American Sangha to assure
integrity, purity and depth of future practice.
The
future is always different from our speculations about it. However,
we know that Buddhism will have to change in its encounter with
the West. The old Theravada / Mahayana tradition will be, eventually,
replaced by a new "school" or paradigm.
Since
science and technology, along with democracy and global marketplace,
are the most dominant forces shaping the world today, the postmodern
science will become the next discourse of Buddhism, not only
in the West but worldwide.
That
fully autonomous American / Western Scientific Buddhism will
need a teacher, who like others did before, will propel it into
the next Millennia. That person, whoever he/she will be, will
find a way to translate the Dharma into a new language of science,
psychology, cognitive neuroscience and postmodern / postindustrial
culture.
To
save all sentient beings, we all need to do our best to make
it happen as soon as possible.
Buddha
usually appear as “this very moment”, however perceived
or defined. Being always “just that…..” Buddhas
may or may not be perceived as Buddhas by others, nevertheless,
they always continue being Buddhas just as they are. However,
since the “as they are” is inherently empty and
not any fixed entity, Buddhas appear as simply “this”
[…….] or “that” [……..],
as me and you, as “this very moment” and as the
entire Universe.
They
“appear” only when Mind appears (…) divided
into its object / subject modes of Being.
Whenever
a Buddha realizes that he or she is Buddha as a human being,
the Buddha, the Dharma and the Sangha rejoice, leap forward,
and “Buddhism” takes yet another turn.
5.
www.MindIs.com/Dharma
http://mindis.com/DHARMA.htm
A
list of resources for anyone studying the Buddha Dharma.
6.
The Great Awakening: A Buddhist Social Theory ...by David
R. Loy
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0861713664/wwwkusalaorg-20/
Book
Description
The
most essential insight that Buddhism offers is that all our
individual suffering arises from three and only three sources:
greed, ill-will, and delusion. In The Great Awakening, scholar
and Zen teacher David Loy examines how these three qualities,
embodied in society’s institutions, lie at the root of
all social maladies as well. The teachings of Buddhism present
a way that the individual can counteract these destructive influences
to alleviate personal sufffering, and in the The Great Awakening
Loy boldly examines how these teachings can be applied to institutions
and even whole cultures for the alleviation of suffering on
a collective level.
This
book will help both Buddhists and non-Buddhists to realize the
social importance of Buddhist teachings, while providing a theoretical
framework for socially engaged members of society to apply their
spiritual principles to collective social issues. The Great
Awakening shows how Buddhism can help our postmodern world develop
liberative possibilities otherwise obscured by the anti-religious
bias of so much contemporary social theory.
Amazon.com-Reviewer:
A reader from Portand, Maine ...This book integrates
buddhism and western social concerns, forging an important link
that I've found missing in buddhist oriented texts. Enjoyable
reading, timely politically, and IMPORTANT!
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