THE
WESTERN ENCOUNTER WITH BUDDHISM :
THE
BURNING MONK
by
Dr. John Dwyer
Introduction
In a recent talk that was
delivered to the Temple in Chicago, I pointed out that one of the real
ironies of history was that so many people consider Buddhism an other
worldly religion -- one that doesn?t may sufficient attention to the
real world. This is not only a stereotype, but it?s a stereotype that is
absolutely nonsensical when one considers the evolution of Buddhism since
the 1940s, where it has become synonymous with the peace movement,
environmentalism, working with Indian untouchables, caring for the aging,
and stimulating the kind of anti-colonialism and nationalist fervour that
has profound implications for the west. What North American, for example,
would deny the profound social and psychological effect of the
Indo-Chinese war. And in this war, Buddhism played a pivotal role,
symbolized most powerfully perhaps by the image of the burning monk -- an
image so powerful that it now graces the record cover of a popular
alternative group called Rage Against the Machine. Alternative
groups, as you may or may not know, like to place the most shocking and
dramatic images on their product.
The burning monk had a name --
Thich Quang Duc. In 1963, he sat down in a street in Saigon in the
meditative position. He poured gasoline all over his body and set himself
alight. He maintained a calm and meditative posture as his body burned,
and then he simply toppled over. His death was dramatic but not all that
different in nature and spirit from the deaths of many other Buddhist
leaders and saints. One remarkable difference, however, was that his death
was shown on many different televisions all around the world.
Whether you agree with his
actions or not, Thich Quang Duc?s immolation tells us at least three
things that I want to talk about tonight. The first thing it tells us is a
deeply Buddhist, but sometimes forgotten, truth -- that human beings are
capable of incredible actions when they practice mindfulness.
It
was only by understanding the power of meditative awareness that Thich
Quang Duc was able to have the courage to act with such purpose. The
second thing that it tells us is that Buddhism can be an engaged
religion. Thich Quang Duc made a statement about the oppression of the
Vietnamese people that will outlast the ideological propaganda of the
Americans or the Communists. The final thing that tells us is that
Buddhism ultimately is not about nationalism or particularism, it is all
about interbeing and interconnectedness. Thich Quang Duc?s death
lamp was lit on television sets all around the world. Thus, a simple
Buddhist monk turned the primary instrument of mindlessness and
consumerism into a vehicle for interconnectivity.
Understanding the Stereotype
As thinking human beings, we are
supposed to clear our minds of stereotypes. But for historians,
stereotypes can be useful indicators. How was it that Buddhism?s image
came to be seen as that of the removed meditator, seeking the harmony and
peace of his or her own mind, without sufficient concern for the social
and political welfare of others? The answer to this question can tell us a
lot about the relationship between the Buddhist East and the Christian
West.
As Western culture developed,
within it grew a strong rationalist ethic. This ethic was important
to emerging Protestantism because it organized the behaviour of its
adherents and allowed them to use their own minds to break with
Catholicism. In many ways Catholicism resembles conventional Buddhist
religion because of the emphasis that it places on religious faith,
tradition, hierarchy, and the passing down of the teachings. The
Protestant?s faith was of a completely different order. Its purpose was to
demonstrate salvation, not to organize behaviour. The behaviour of the
good Protestant was ruled by orderliness, reason, logic and an
individualistic attention to one?s behaviour and the actions of others.
Protestantism may have ushered in
a new kind of rationalism and individualism, but rationalism and
individualism only really flourished when Protestantism was left behind
and a more secular culture emerged. That secular culture in the West
ushered in capitalism, the scientific revolution and the industrial
revolution. It changed the face of the West and eventually the face of the
East. In the face of the increasing superiority of the West, the East
tried unsuccessfully to isolate itself. Traditional Buddhist communities
were confronted with a new challenge from a Western culture that was still
ostensibly Christian. Their reaction was to retreat in one two directions,
either to monastic meditation -- the ascetics of the woods and mountains
-- or into an emphasis on preserving formal rituals and ceremonies.
While the reaction was perhaps
natural, it was misguided. For better or worse the new intellectual and
social culture of the West was here to stay and its political and
commercial aspirations were global. It would inevitably transform
all culture. To retreat meant that one had no power to change or amend it.
It also meant that Buddhist practitioners got stereotyped as being
other worldly, superstitious, overly ritualized, and irrelevant.
Setting the Stage
I've argued in a number of places
that, in order to be successful, religion must be integrated and
relevant to its external society. That sometimes means that religion
will lose some of its purity and will make mistakes. But, to a historian,
the real sign that a religion is thriving is that it is viewed as part of
the entire social fabric and is not simply an escape or an add on.
During the late
nineteenth-century, Western culture began to go through a crisis.
Sensitive people began to question the ability of reason and progress to
make a better world. It is not surprising that it was at precisely this
time that the spiritual alternative of the East began to be explored and
Orientalism came into vogue. But during much of the period that we?ve
traversed in the course, Buddhist teachings were ways of bandaiding
the pain that all human beings experience but that the Western
consciousness confronted most starkly. The wealth and consumerism of the
West was no consolation for its loss of meaning and, in fact, merely
increased the cravings that are at the root of human suffering. Buddhism
seemed to offer a path out of suffering for many, and a superior
reality for others.
It was still far from being a
living and breathing religion in the West. It attracted adherents, of that
there is no doubt, but one has only to read the literature to discover how
unsettled the followers of Buddhism were, how they were so easily split
apart by factions and arguments, how individualized Buddhism was by many
of those westerners who practised it, and how others sought
psychotherapists, gurus or substitute fathers who would obviate the need
for any independent thinking whatsoever.
But while there was nothing that
we could label authentic Western Buddhism during most this period,
historians can see a framework being established that would be needed for
a more robust form of Buddhism. The translation of Buddhists texts by
scholars was clearly a key. The training of Europeans and North Americans
in particular forms of Buddhism, and their attempts to pass on what they
had learned, was another. Perhaps the most important aspect of all of this
energy and cogitation was the gradual introduction of some admittedly
basic Buddhist concepts into popular culture. Nirvana was the name
of two popular pop groups, one in the sixties and another in the nineties.
Mindfulness we see even in television shows like Kung Fu,
superficial perhaps, but certainly not the worst television show in the
world. Interconnectivity -- something that had been obscured by
individualism and capitalism -- has found a profound resonance in
environmental circles and it is not surprising that environmentalists are
among those most attracted to Buddhism as a religion.
All of this set the stage for a
more authentic Buddhism in the West. But it is naive to think that, just
because you set the stage, it is inevitable that there will be a
performance. It is still not clear that Buddhism will take its place as a
genuine alternative to spiritual growth and social evolution in the West.
But there is reason to believe that the chances are far greater than they
once were. Not because the West is seeing the light, but because
the East has once again become engaged in ways that make Buddhism relevant
and vital.
Mindfulness
For most Westerners who practice
Buddhism today, mindful awareness is a critical concept. It is
something that was clearly a major part of the Buddha?s teachings in the
Pali Canon and was instrumental to his own reaching of awareness. So
important is mindful awareness to us, that we prefer to refer to mindfulness
as opposed to meditation. Mindfulness means being absolutely in touch with
one?s being and environment without any distractions from thoughts,
whether they be of the past, the present and the future. Mindfulness means
that time itself is removed as a barrier and a moment of mindfulness is
worth more than a thousand years of well meaning activity.
What mindfulness tells us is that
there is no coherence or continuity, only change. There is no individual
or self, only oneness. Emotions themselves are delusive transitional
states. We can never escape our feelings or even the sufferings that they
cause. But what we can successfully do is to stop them from running our
lives.
Mindfulness is sometimes talked
about in a vacuum, which has nothing to do with the stillness or the void
that we tap into. The vacuum is one that posits mindful awareness as a
separate state of being. Mindfulness, rather, is something that puts us in
touch, that makes us available, that allows us to act.
It is the most powerful social ethic imaginable, since it minimizes the cravings
that distract us and the fears that incapacitate us. It is
an immense source of energy.
The Buddha?s discourse on the
Foundations of Mindfulness was an important part of the Asian canon. But
it got pushed into the background and into a few monasteries as Asians
retreated from Western acculturation. It was only when the people who most
deeply understood Buddhism themselves began to meet the challenge of the
West that mindfulness was restored to its proper place and Buddhism
revitalized. Buddhism moved out of the monasteries and onto the offensive.
In Burma in 1941, a Buddhist monk
by the name of Mingun Sayadaw began to teach practical courses on
mindfulness to ordinary people. Since then, 45,000 students trained in
Mingun?s Rangoon Centre including many Europeans and Americans. These, in
turn, have taught at least another 600,000. The impact of this and other
Burmese monks has been immeasurable. Working in what is called the vipassana
tradition, these monks eschew dogmatic orthodoxy in order to focus on
practical experience. That adaptation alone made Buddhism much more
approachable for Westerners who, if they can understand some of the dogma,
have real problems with ritual and tradition. And because this Burmese
tradition steered clear of any of the ideological isms that
characterize politics and religion, their message was one that could be
adapted to a diverse society like North America.
Although the Burmese message was
non-sectarian, that did not stop followers from adapting it to their own
convictions, specializations and ideological positions. Those who were
trained in the vipassana tradition have gone on to establish
Buddhist communities that are committed to political causes,
environmentalism and feminism. Some psychoanalysts who have been attracted
to Buddhism have gone so far towards practicality as to redefined
the religion in psychological terms. To someone with deep religious
convictions, this may appear to be a travesty of spirituality, but it is
also a sign that a religion is relevant. And wherever a religion is
relevant, there will be those who will explore its deepest reaches.
Interconnectivity
The focus on mindfulness allowed
Buddhism to create a teaching instrument that transcended cultures. It
also unearthed a concept that might make it easier for a highly
individualistic society to reconnect with one another. Again, this was a
spiritual direction that came from those most intimate with Buddhism and
its teachings. While it certainly was not a North American innovation, it
has potentially profound consequences for Europeans and Americans. It is
the concept of empathy.
Going back to the teachings of
Gautama Buddha, the vipassana teachers emphasized that fact that
meditation did not detach us from our fellow human beings and make us feel
superior. Quite the contrary, it effected a systematic cultivation of loving-kindness
towards others. The vipassana teachers returned to the Mahayana
Buddhist teachings on the Bodhisattva. This is a teaching that has been
there from the early days of Buddhism, but Buddhism is a complex religion
and one that can lead in many different directions. By asserting loving-kindness,
the vipassana teachers were directing Buddhism in a potentially
fruitful direction.
I talked about the Bodhisattva
Ideal in my third talk, so I wont go into it in any detail here
(although I?ll be happy to give you a copy of that talk if you missed it,
or you want to go over it). What I will do instead is make some
suggestions as to why this direction was so important for Europeans and
North Americans.
As capitalism developed in the
West, many thinkers and writers struggled to create a new moral and social
code that would be consistent with individualism. They hit upon sentimentalism,
a cultural force that is extremely powerful emotionally but more difficult
to translate into practice. Essentially, sentimentalism says that
individuals are naturally connected to one another by sympathy or
the desire to feel others joy and pain. By cultivating our sympathy
towards others, we can become better neighbours, friends, parents and
lovers. Sentimental literature encourages us to have a little cry at the
suffering of others, on the grounds that this will strengthen the social
bond. A classic example is Dicken?s A Christmas Carol which remains
a perennial favourite around Christmas time, the sentimental season.
But neither Christianity not
sentimentalism have shown themselves to be very powerful at stopping the
kind of greed, self-centredness and desire to win that now consume Western
society. Many perceptive Westerners are aware that there is a real
dissonance between our actions and our ideals that are not being bridged
by culture. Enter Buddhist empathy or loving kindness. Loving
kindness goes way beyond sympathy, which is a form of pity, right to
the absolute and immediate identification with others that we sometimes
call empathy. During meditation, we become aware that the self
is simply a fiction and that we are totally interconnected with all other
beings. In their deepest sense, all other human beings are Buddha?s.
This understanding, especially
when suggested as part of our practice, makes meditation less of a self
absorption than a connection with everything around us. It is an
exhilarating connection, and one that makes us want to do everything we
can to help those around us. It is an ethic that encourages us to make
ourselves more available for other. And it is not a stretch or contrived
because it comes out of a deeply rooted spiritual experience.
While intrinsically Buddhist in
nature, loving kindness bears a sufficient resemblance to Christ?s Sermon
on the Mount when he told us that the greatest commandment was to
"love thy neighbour as thyself" or sentimentalism?s exhortations
towards general humanity and specific acts of kindness. But, in a word
where personal cravings often upset good intentions, Buddhism provides the
discipline and the insight to make our good intentions stick.
Engagement
Westerners find it difficult not
to seek to control all aspects of their environment. As Buddhism develops
in the West, one of its greatest challenges will be to transform the
clutching hand into open palms -- accepting what comes, whether it be good
or bad.
In the meantime, however, it
would be difficult to conceive of a religion making inroads into Western
society if it did not at the very least offer a real possibility of
creating a better world, if not in our own lifetimes, at least in the
foreseeable future. All relevant religions do this, no matter how much
their focus may be on a heavenly kingdom or the millennium.
Buddhism is no exception. It has
had its share of millenarian and reformist phases. But if we want to
single out the episodes that have demonstrated Buddhism?s commitment to
social reform in the twentieth century, we need again to look -- not to
North America or Europe -- but to Asia. We need to look specifically at
Vietnam and Tibet. The story of Vietnam should be familiar to many of us.
When I was young, I saw the Vietnamese war being fought on television. At
that time, I was all for the Americans and for freedom as opposed to what
I saw as Communist aggression.
Like so many others, I learned
that the issues were not so simple and that the Vietnamese had suffered
greatly and deserved to create their own society, free from warring
ideologies. Into this debate stepped perhaps the most influential of
modern Buddhist teachers Thich Nhat Hanh. Nhat Hanh brought together many
strands of Buddhism simultaneously. He promoted Buddhism as the national
religion of Vietnam and as a cultural vehicle for unification. He
showed that dogmas and isms need not be victorious by creating a Unified
Buddhist Church for Vietnam, the first time "such a feat of
reconciliation has ever been achieved." And he demanded that Buddhism
modernized its outlook and connected with the social issues of the day.
What did Buddhist engagement
mean to Thich Nhat Hanh. It meant rebuilding villages ravaged by the
Vietnamese war; it meant helping Vietnamese boat people, even if it meant
breaking the law; it meant criticizing unjust regimes, even when this was
life threatening. It even meant the burning monk.
Many might consider suicide a
quintessentially unreligious act. Thich Nhat Hanh praised those monks who
immolated themselves in order to make the complacent and the selfish
consider the injustices that were perpetrated on the Vietnamese people.
The motive of the monks was to move the hearts of others and to make the
most sincere statement possible. For Thich Nhat Hanh, every burning monk
or nun was a lotus in a sea of fire. You can?t get any more engaged
than that.
A remarkably similar message has
been preached by the Dalai Lama, who seeks not only to make the sufferings
of his Tibetan people known to the world but also to develop an ethic of interbeing
or universal responsibility. For the Dalai Lama, it is not enough to
criticize the Chinese communists for the damage that they have done to his
country. He always seeks to uncover the underlying motivation that makes
people cause damage to their planet. Self-centred attachments and hatreds
result in deluded thoughts and actions that hurt others. These delusive
attitudes can only be removed or remedied by spiritual practice and
discipline. But that is still not enough.
The Dalai Lama tells his
followers that, even as they begin practising meditation, they
should be at least as concerned about the liberation of others than
themselves. What distinguishes human beings from animals and makes them
special is that they can wish to work for the benefit of others. He
makes a direct connection between the Bodhisattva tradition and Gandhi?s
work among the untouchables or Lincoln?s freeing of the slaves. He even
goes so far as to suggest that any falling away from this compassion
for others is the sign of a spiritual decline that cannot be
compensated for by any spiritual realization. Bodhichitta, or the
"compassionate wish to achieve Buddhahood for the sake of
others," is the "essence of practice."
The Dalai Lama?s attack on purely
intellectual Buddhism, and his ideal of the Bodhisattva, results in a plea
for engagement in the things of this world and helps to explain his
popularity in the West. Unlike many religious writers and thinkers, the
Dalai Lama appears to be like one of us. His compassion and his humanity
shine through all of his teachings and many parts of the message that he
preaches have resonance for us.
While many Westerners have
difficulty understanding or believing the doctrine of karma or rebirth;
while few Westerners find the esoteric nature of Tibetan teachings or even
the position of the Dalai Lama convincing; all can understand the
teachings of interbeing and engagement. Twentieth century
Western culture has enough touchstones to be receptive to the kind of
practical teachings of Thich Nhat Hanh and the Dalai Lama.
Even where Western culture prides
itself most -- on its rationalism -- it is now susceptible to Buddhist
influence. Not only are Thich Nhat Hanh and the Dalai Lama able to write
and speak in ways that are open and inviting to Westerners, but even where
they criticize the Western tradition of individualism and intellectualism,
they speak a language that is nearly a century old among Westerners
themselves. Revitalized Buddhism finds many bridges to Western culture.
Epilogue
Nor should this be surprising. As
I end this series of talks, it should be clear that Buddhism and the West
are not two separate entities attempting to dominate or control one
another. Instead, the two cultural developments have been influencing one
another for over two thousand years. The influence of the West on the East
has been at least as powerful of that of the East upon the West, although
the latter has been our focus in this series of talks. The West not only
gave the Buddha his face but helped to create a vibrant and engaged form
of Buddhism that is changing Asia and now threatens to transform the West.
The amount of Buddhist activity
in the West has accelerated exponentially in the last two decades and, at
present, shows no signs of abating. We may appear to be on the cusp of an
enormous religious revival in North America where Buddhism will play a
major role.
But we should perhaps pause and
measure of our excitement. Earlier Buddhist missionaries spoke of the lotus
clinging to the rock in North America. Its hold is still more tenuous
than its influence might appear. Even in the East, Buddhism was on the
road to becoming moribund until it re-energized itself in ways that were
relevant to the hopes and aspirations of the society in which Buddhism
found itself.
Similarly in the West, we will
only know that Buddhism has become a socially integrated religion when its
name is invoked as something more than an oddity. Only when Buddhism
outgrows its priestly leadings strings and becomes a more indigenous
cultural force will we be able to say more positively that it is here to
stay. Only when it more actively challenges the status quo of a
consumerist, individualist and divisive society, will Buddhism rise above
its present ambiguous cultural position. Only when Buddhism becomes more
than yet another form of psychic masturbation or a substitute for
psychiatry, will it begin to remake our culture. And only when it
contributes to alternate frameworks for social interaction and political
progress -- some of which we may not like -- will we know that it has
become vital.
Source:
www.sayitagain.com/ivorytower/buddw5.html
---o0o---
Last
update: 01-02-2002
