Buddhism in the west -let's be mindful of what we learn from it

It was interesting to see here Beyond me - Philosophy and Life Mark Vernon's own comments on why he wrote a recent article in Third Way. Buddhism, he says:

... addresses modern everyday concerns – the desire for happiness, the anxieties of stress. Indeed, policy makers are growing increasingly interested in the ability of mindfulness meditation to achieve everything from reducing aggression to warding off aging.

It is a genius piece of spiritual positioning in a secular culture, like ours, that associates belief with half-forgotten myths, at best. Psychology, not theology, is trusted as a source of truth. The individual, not the divine, is what really draws our attention. And I have to admit, as someone who entirely understands what it is to be metaphysically agnostic, Buddhism drew me too, for a while.

But I’ve changed my mind. I’m inclined to think that Buddhism’s easy ride into western consciousness should be challenged. A moment for critique has arrived – a moment that, I suspect, serious Buddhists will, in fact, welcome. Conversely, Buddhism’s undoubted appeal raises questions that Christians would do well to reflect on too

On this very blog I have at various points mentioned that we can probably learn a lot about how contemporary Western people are linking spirituality and culture at the level of plausibility structures by paying attention to the popularity of Buddhism in some circles. So this article is welcome.

The Four Noble Truths demythologised

This is quite interesting, especially if (like me) you are find some of the Buddhist analysis of the human condition helpful to some degree. It arises from a recently publish book Confessions of a Buddhist Atheist and you can find a bit of a reflection on it here:

the church and postmodern culture: conversation: Speculative Grace: The Four Noble Truths. It is the following that caught my attention: "Batchelor’s thesis is that the four noble truths – originally anti-mythological, pragmatic, and phenomenological – were almost immediately re-embedded by the Buddha’s followers into the more familiar and comfortable mythological framework of Hinduism in a way that conceals the straightforward but radical logic of the original formulation."

Now, I want to do with this something a bit different to what Adam Miller does in his post: I would want to link this up with a Christian reading which might argue that the cessation of craving is a fool's errand.

What we need to do is to recognise that 'craving' or 'desire' is what, for good and ill, drives humans. That desire can be well-oriented or otherwise, it can be well-carried out (right mindfulness etc) or not. What we might then do is to recognise that unright /misdirected desire/craving is righted not by elimination of all desire (which is to become inhuman) but rather to redirect desire. Principally this redirection of the affections is the fixing of primary desire on God (see Mt.6:33) and is held in place and grown by the ongoing work of 'sanctification' - aided chiefly by the classic disciplines of the Christian life and the re-orientation of our perspectives by Scripture, meditation and prayer (including recognition of wrongness and misdirection and repentance).

One of the important insights of Christian thinking is that this is not something we can achieve solo... there is a gracious intervention from outside of our condition possible to kick-start the process and to offer ongoing support ....

Self-centred Buddhism and the introspective conscience of the West?

This is definitely worth adding to your clip-book of articles on Buddhism:Self-centred Buddhism | Mark Vernon | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk.
There's a really nice exposition of western Buddhism through an encounter with a retreat centre and it has a concise and helpful guide to the central beliefs of this religion-philosophy. Then comes an outline of why it might be appealing in contemporary western culture:

It's religion as a kind of therapy, and points to one of the reasons that Buddhism is finding such a ready audience in the west. Modernity has damaged many egos, perhaps as a result of the Enlightenment teaching that we are autonomous selves, capable of self-creation, control and consolation

Pleasinngly for me, this is rather similar to things I've been saying and writing (especially). One particularly pleasing part of the article is the way that it picks out a central issue in the interface between Western culture and Buddhism:

... it comes with risk. Meditation-as-therapy flirts with narcissism when it is devoted to observing yourself, for that can lead to self-absorption and self-obsession.

In fact the issue is a contradiction -or perhaps paradox-

I suspect this is a key paradox with which western Buddhism is currently grappling: the practice that tells you the self is a delusion could, in the modern context, deepen the very attitude it seeks to dislodge. It's a risk compounded when self-concern is arguably the secret of western Buddhism's current success.

. I think that is quite right. And, as I've also pointed up before,

a God-centred spiritual practice might offer a better way to get over yourself, and in turn offer a more satisfying "therapy".

In control? Think again. Our ideas of brain and human nature are myths

In an article which is useful for providing a fairly good, quick, overview of where we're up to with brain/neuroscience research as it impinges on how we live together and make policy. It ends with this 'left field' comment which I think we should take note of. The whole thing is here: In control? Think again. Our ideas of brain and human nature are myths | Madeleine Bunting | Comment is free | The Guardian And here's that very nearly final comment:

To add one more element to this potent brew of extraordinary ideas: what has been left out of the UK debate so far is how much of this new research maps on to Buddhism. In the US, a group of researchers has been involved in an ongoing dialogue with the Dalai Lama to deepen understanding of the correlations between the new research and Buddhism. Here is a system of thought which has maintained for several thousand years that the idea of a separate individual self is an illusion, which urges a set of practices to increase awareness of the processes of the mind in order to transform them and cultivate ethical habits such as compassion or courage.

Now there are several things to note here. One is that this provides us an insight as to why Buddhism is attractive to certain sections of British society (and we should note that in the period 1970-2000, Buddhist groups in UK grew from 74 to around 400 -see p.19 of linked article). I'd take a punt as to what sections of Brit soc, on the basis of a little observation (so this is a hypothesis to be tested): it seemingly appeals to middle-aged, middle-class slightly left-ish people. Why? -it connects science and spiritually-searching sacralised-selves, ironically in a philosophy which is all about eliminating the self -sacralised or not (rephaps the burden of a sacralised self is too much to bear?). Those people who look to meditation and the life of the mind as ways to help them to deal with life. Bunting's paragraph puts together just what I think I'm observing about the attraction of Buddhism in our society.

Of course, the other dimension is why connection isn't being made to Christian faith with regard to this. It's not as if there isn't extensive reflection by Christians about the nature of the self etc. Some of this I would propose is naked dismissal of Christianity which is fuelled by a pomo suspicion of power and the Church-state thing gets in the way. Some of it is post-Enlightenment rationalism and the contemporary equivalent of Schleiermacher's 'cultured despisers of religion' -in this case Christendom-mode Christianity is mostly in the frame. Some of it is because we Christians have not really understood what the challenge is and have been slow to reacquaint ourselves with the relevant parts of our tradition and have responded to the challenge of neuroscience in Modernist categories rather than pomo mode.

We also need to better understand Buddhism; what it actually says about such things, and how we as Christians might respond to westernised appropriations of Buddhism (and it's interesting to note that there is debate in the wider Buddhist community about what we might term enculturation into Western/Northern cultural perspectives see this article, for example). Much of this is already picked up in stuff I've blogged previously... Here regarding selfhood and karma; here about it's possible relation to pomo; And a discussion about spirituality and apologetics in the contemporary West/North refers to it too.here is comment on research relating to teens. OMF have produced a really good brief introduction to Buddhism which is written in a way that highlights the challenges to Christians. But remember, in crafting apologetics to Western/Northern Buddhism-attracted seekers, we need to understand which bits are attractive and how and address that rather than simply transplanting the apologetic moves already developed in south-east Asia or Japan, for example. Be informed by them by all means but don't take them over wholesale.

Pat Rafter turns to Buddhism and Hinduism | NEWS.com.au Entertainment

Yesterday I blogged about the attraction Buddhism has for westerners, and in this article we see an example of that: Pat Rafter turns to Buddhism and Hinduism | NEWS.com.au Entertainment. But it also points out the disincentive to following:

"Rafter said he hadn't fully embraced the Buddhist life because it was a big commitment and hard work. One of his brothers, in the US, practised 10 hours a day. 'I'm sort of scared to make the step. It's pretty big. You can do it half-arsed and I've done that for a long time.'"

I have to say that for me one of the least appealing aspects of the Buddhist account of the universe is the eons of suffering and the long, long, long, long, long, long, long ... hard road it holds out in prospect of working out a bundle of karma. Though, of course, in an a-personal account of things, it's hard to know what value to place on that suffering. But even within this one life it's a tough prospect to be serious. This is where the Christian doctrines of grace and of God actively taking suffering on board and releasing into reality the means to redeem and transfigure suffering can become very attractive. Yes, it can be hard, but we don't struggle alone or with little hope.

Reincarnation vs. Rebirth vs Resurrection

Because a lot of westerners are attracted to Buddhism partly by the doctrine of reincarnation, it is worth noting that many western ideas of it are not really Buddhist. See here.

Buddhism teaches the doctrine of rebirth. Between a series of lifetimes there is a relationship of causality, not of identity. To make this more clear, let's use the example of the falling dominos. If I place a series of dominos standing up in line next to each other, and I strike the first one to make it fall down, this causes the second one to fall down, and the next, until the last in line falls down. The fall of the first domino is the cause of the fall of the last one, but there is not a shared identity between the first and the last domino. When somebody dies, rebirth is caused by the continuation of the mental processes of the dead person in a new body. The new person however is not identical to the one that left the previous body (a lot of causes and conditions come into play to shape this new being), nor a completely different person (because of causality relation).

It's an important thing to be aware of as Christians, because the fancy is in westerners that it is personhood that somehow gets transferred to a new life; actually, in Buddhist teaching, it's a knot of karma that somehow ends up in another life. Actually, in a kind of way I could support that as a CHristian depending on just how you thought the causality worked, but the issue would be about the survival of the person. And that's where the fact of a God who is personal (though not exhaustively so, as many misunderstand) is important. Personhood is important in Christianity, but not so much in Buddhism. Our personhood 'survives' (or is resurrected) because it reflects and is sustained by a personal God in whom relatedness and communication are important. It is interesting that the concept of personhood remains important in our culture (a hangover from the heavy Christian influence of the past?) to the point of affecting Western appropriation of 'exotic' religions. (This can be seen in some Western converts to Mohammedanism/Islam who carry a hangover idea of God as Love, which is essentially alien to Mohammedan islam).
I could say more but I've got to go the the hospital. Happy to deal with comments though.
Reincarnation vs. Rebirth

Why post-secularist might be mindful of Buddhism

When I've led workshop/lectures on post-modern spiritualities, I've quite often cited the rapid growh of Buddhism in the west and the connections it seems to make with 'new age' stuff, and invited students to reflect on what about Buddhism might be attractive to post-secular spiritual seekers. I've not fully named it for myself, even, but I suspect that this quote puts us in the right vicinity to answer the question. "Buddhist-influenced cultures understand adaptive self-deception; they view human cognitions, emotions, and preferences as self-interested illusory constructs that may serve biological goals, but that do not reflect objective reality". I think that these things are being seen from a reflective post-modern mindscape and that are then being seen in Buddhism. Perhaps. This is certainly one area I'd like to be able to research if my new post allows it.
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