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 “Northern Buddhism” 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 isn’t a classification of historical Buddhisms. However, while Buddhism...
“Protestant Buddhism”
The term “Protestant Buddhism” was introduced in 1970 by Gananath Obeyesekere to describe a development in Ceylonese Buddhism that started with Anagarika Dharmapāla 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 – in reference to certain trends in Western Buddhism, for example, as well as to the switch from “self-power” 自力 jiriki to “other-power” 他力 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 — Preliminary Remarks on the Philosophy of Neville Wijeyekoon
summary — 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 “merging one’s self in social welfare”. Wijeyekoon’s 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 Wijeyekoon’s 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 “stoicism” 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 “pop-stoicism” 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 “secular Buddhism” have been around for well over a century, and there is a sizable group of people who consider themselves “secular Buddhists”. So, of course, “secular Buddhism” is possible. So, let’s be a bit more precise. My question is not really whether there are “things” (in a rather broad sense of “thing”) that could be or have been called “secular Buddhism”, but whether there could be something that is genuinely secular and simultaneously genuinely (a variety of) Buddhism....
A Buddha Land in This World (New Book)
My new book, A Buddha Land in This World: Philosophy, Utopia, and Radical Buddhism, has just been published. Here is the abstract/back cover blurb: In the early twentieth century, Uchiyama Gudō, Seno’o Girō, Lin Qiuwu, and others advocated a Buddhism that was radical in two respects. Firstly, they adopted a more or less naturalist stance with respect to Buddhist doctrine and related matters, rejecting karma or other supernatural beliefs. And secondly, they held political and economic views that were radically anti-hegemonic, anti-capitalist, and revolutionary. Taking the idea of such a “radical Buddhism” seriously, A Buddha Land in This World: Philosophy,...
On Selfish and Selfless Readings of Buddhist Scripture
In Indian religions and philosophy, mokṣa – the escape from the cycle of death and rebirth (saṃsāra) and, thereby, the liberation from suffering (dukkha) – is (typically) the ultimate goal of (one’s/my/your) life. Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, and other schools of thought disagree about various details – Buddhists prefer the term nirvāṇa instead of mokṣa, for example – but all accept a version of the doctrine that right (non-) action leads to good karma, which leads to better rebirth, and ultimately to mokṣa. That ultimate goal is a selfish goal, however – the ultimate aim of my right (non-) action (regardless...
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) “secular Buddhism” and “Buddhism 2.0”. The idea of such a secular or scientific or naturalistic or otherwise not traditionally religious kind of Buddhism isn’t new – 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 “secular Buddhism” like Batchelor typically consider it a return to the roots of Buddhism and to the original teachings of the Buddha, but...