Western Buddhism as an Immature Tradition
There are Buddhisms for all four cardinal directions: Southern Buddhism, Northern Buddhism, Eastern Buddhism, and Western Buddhism. Southern Buddhism is the Buddhism practiced in Sri Lanka, Myanmar, and Thailand. The term âNorthern Buddhismâ either covers everything else, or only refers to the Buddhism practiced in Tibet and Mongolia. In the latter case, Eastern Buddhism is the Buddhism found in Taiwan, Korea, Japan, China, and Vietnam. In the two-way North/South distinction, India is part of Northern Buddhism. In the three-way North/South/East distinction, on the other hand, India is missing, indicating that this isnât a classification of historical Buddhisms. However, while Buddhism...
What does it mean to be a Buddhist?
In âWhat Does it Mean to Be a Marxist?â, Norman Geras distinguishes âthree meanings of âbeing a Marxistââ: personal, intellectual, and sociopolitical. He writes that âfor someone to be a Marxist, in the first â personal â sense âŚ, he or she must (a) subscribe to a significant selection of recognized Marxist beliefs and (b) describe him or herself as a Marxistâ. About the intellectual meaning he writes that âa person can work â as writer, political publicist, academic, thinker, researcher â within the intellectual tradition begun by Marx and Engels and developed by later figuresâ, and about the sociopolitical...
“Protestant Buddhism”
The term âProtestant Buddhismâ was introduced in 1970 by Gananath Obeyesekere to describe a development in Ceylonese Buddhism that started with Anagarika DharmapÄla almost a century earlier. The notion was further developed in a 1988 book he co-authered with Richard Gombrich, but variants of the term have also been used outside the Ceylonese (Sri Lankan) context â in reference to certain trends in Western Buddhism, for example, as well as to the switch from âself-powerâ čŞĺ jiriki to âother-powerâ äťĺ tariki in Japanese Pure Land Buddhism. The term is also sometimes used in a more general sense in reference to...
Buddhism, Marxism, and Negating Self-centeredness â Preliminary Remarks on the Philosophy of Neville Wijeyekoon
summary â In 1943, S.N.B. (Neville) Wijeyekoon published a book under the pseudonym Leuke aiming to compare Buddhism and Marxism. It starts out doing so indeed, but the second half of the book presents his own philosophy focused on achieving mental harmony by negating self-centeredness through âmerging oneâs self in social welfareâ. Wijeyekoonâs wrote two more books, and in one of those he further developed aspects of this idea, while eliminating the overt Buddhist and Marxist influence. This long blog post summarizes and comments on two of Wijeyekoonâs books (namely, his first and third). I do not have access to...
Pop-Stoicism as Ideology
Stoicism was a school of Hellenistic philosophy founded by Zeno of Citium around 300 BC. Stoic philosophy consisted of logic, (meta-) physics, and ethics. There has been a bit of an upsurge of interest in stoicism recently among widely different segments of society, ranging from right-wing extremists and male supremacists to Secular Buddhists and self-help gurus. Typically, this resurgent âstoicismâ ignores most of Stoic philosophy and focuses on a simplified version of selected ethical doctrines. (And that selection, moreover, depends on the interests of the group that does the selecting.) The most prominent doctrine of this âpop-stoicismâ is the idea...
Is Secular Buddhism Possible?
The question whether secular Buddhism is possible might seem absurd at first. Varieties of what has been, or could be called âsecular Buddhismâ have been around for well over a century, and there is a sizable group of people who consider themselves âsecular Buddhistsâ. So, of course, âsecular Buddhismâ is possible. So, letâs be a bit more precise. My question is not really whether there are âthingsâ (in a rather broad sense of âthingâ) that could be or have been called âsecular Buddhismâ, but whether there could be something that is genuinely secular and simultaneously genuinely (a variety of) Buddhism....
Nan-in and the Professor â A Western Zen Parable
âA Cup of Teaâ is a short Zen story that is quite famous and popular among Western (Zen) Buddhists. Itâs a bit of a peculiar story, however, as I hope to make clear in the following. Before we turn to that, letâs start with the story itself: Nan-in, a Japanese master during the Meiji era (1868-1912), received a university professor who came to inquire about Zen.Nan-in served tea. He poured his visitorâs cup full, and then kept on pouring.The professor watched the [cup] overflow until he no longer could restrain himself. âIt is overfull. No more will go in!ââLike this...
On Secular and Radical Buddhism
In a number of influential books and articles, Stephen Batchelor has proposed, developed, and defended something he has called (among others) âsecular Buddhismâ and âBuddhism 2.0â. The idea of such a secular or scientific or naturalistic or otherwise not traditionally religious kind of Buddhism isnât new â it has been especially popular among 20th and 21st Western converts to Buddhism, but there have been Asian precursors as well. Nevertheless, the idea is also somewhat controversial. Adherents of âsecular Buddhismâ like Batchelor typically consider it a return to the roots of Buddhism and to the original teachings of the Buddha, but...