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A Western Buddhism is Evolving
IronRabbit
Veteran
Long article - if you have the patience - but very succinct about East-West dichotomy/unity.
http://info-buddhism.com/Buddhism_in_the_West_Jay_Garfield.html
http://info-buddhism.com/Buddhism_in_the_West_Jay_Garfield.html
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He says that because of the fact that Tibetan monks are using English translations of Tibetan texts in their studies, an interpretation of Tibetan teachings that is "inflected with Western philosophical ideas" is influencing Tibetan Buddhism. Why would a careful translation of a text somehow carry alien philosophical ideas? A translation remains faithful to the original, that's its purpose. It doesn't weave in ideas from the translator's cultural background that I'm aware of.
He says TB is based on the Nalanda tradition, but that's only 1/2 the equation. It's also based on the tantric tradition that Padmasambhava brought from a very different part of India. And Tibet was far from a religious "tabula rasa" when Buddhism was imported. Shamanism and nature spirit worship were very strong, and are still practiced in Tibetan communities today. According to some researchers, Buddhism was mightily resisted by significant segments of the population for hundreds of years in Tibet, due to preference for the indigenous tradition.
Lots of oversimplifications in this article.
As for translations--a fascinating topic, though I'm admittedly biased--culture and language are so interwoven that it is absolutely impossible to completely separate them. Without question, English carries longstanding cultural information and values of its own, and translating Tibetan texts to English will inevitably affect them, however slightly.
Take for example the concept of "prayer." We here who hear that word immediately assign it certain values which reflect (I think for most of us here, anyway) our cultural experience, which is some kind of Judeo-Christian prayer.
Some Buddhist translators prefer to translate it into English as "make aspirations towards" or "generate the heart [or mind] of" instead of "pray," for that reason. We think of "praying to Medicine Buddha" as simply "asking for Medicine Buddha to help," whereas in many contexts, the meaning for a Tibetan person is "generating the heart [or mind] of Medicine Buddha." Instead of calling to someone "out there" to do something for you, you are trying to generate within yourself the same compassion that Medicine Buddha would.
But the word "prayer," even though in many ways it is an tempting translation to use of various Sanskrit and Tibetan terms, is so loaded with cultural images and preconceptions for us, that it inevitably colors the Tibetan advice with our American cultural tints. The Tibetan teacher may say, "Now I will read the translation of the Medicine Buddha prayer." What he's saying is, "Here's the prayer you use to invoke within yourself the compassionate mind of Medicine Buddha," but what we hear is, "here's how you call out to Medicine Buddha."
I don't know how this applies to Zen and Ch'an. I have the impression that Zen students tend to accept that the master dwells in the Absolute realm, and is beyond reproach, traditionally, at least. I wonder if that may change after so much time in the West.
If one has this hang-up, then by all means one can--and probably should--study on ones own. However, one should never assume that studying painting or yoga or gymnastics or surgery or trekking or Buddhist philosophy on ones own could ever replace the experience of studying it from a master.
I do put the teacher on a pedestal. I feel deeply that they should be on a pedestal. This is simply a pedestal of respect for their knowledge; it is in no way, shape or form a judgement call on the value of either human being.
There are many countless instances in which a painting master or medical instructor or any other teacher leads the student down a path the student has never seen; going down this path will absolutely require some amount of faith in the teacher, taking some steps in the dark. We will inevitably do some things simply because the teacher said so, and without any proof it will turn out right. But this is the very essence of the master-apprentice relationship; otherwise we might as well simply reinvent the wheel, over and over and over, with absolutely no benefit derived from other people's prior experience.
It sounded to me like he was saying we all have things we can learn from each other for mutual benefit. Not only east to west but east to east with global communication so much easier.
By pedestal I don't mean worship blindly or without any sense whatsoever of the teacher's nature; rather, that at some point, the teacher is going to say or do something that implies they know more than we do. If we resent that, it will be hard for us to benefit from their knowledge and experience.
Of course Buddhism is changing. Modern ideas and Western cultural values will affect it.
I believe the internet will affect it.
Teachers in old times had superior knowledge, probably. Maybe they could read when most students could not. They had a copy of a sutra. Wow! Who could argue with that?
But these days the knowledge is one smart Google search away. And so is the information about all other teachings and about the scientific news. There’s no way the teacher knows more than we do and the teaching model has to change.
@Sile I recognize the language you use about the student/teacher relationship, but I don’t have warm feelings when I hear it. In my mind it's connected with unprofessional psychological games; abuse even. But I’ll try to put this mildly:
Don’t treat the teacher as a superhuman being. It’s asking for trouble. Imho.
One can't Google ones way to being a master martial artist - one must learn from a teacher. Would you trust your life to a Google surgeon?
If one has strong negative feelings about learning from a teacher, then absolutely, avoid that path yourself; but there's no need to project ones own fears/aversions onto other students who prefer learning from a teacher.
The problem I see in westerners who are for some reason completely freaked out by the idea of this master-student relationship, is that they think the pact is with the teacher, and therefore somehow, scary. The pact is not with the teacher, the pact is with yourself. It's simply a decision to focus.
One doesn't have to focus, ever. One doesn't have to choose a master teacher and study from them; it's just that one should then also drop or lower the expectation of becoming a master violinist, or a master surgeon. There is no shame in taking a less focused path, but there is also no shame in following a more focused path.
It really is a matter of personal choice, personal learning style, depth or breadth of experience. Not every path is for everyone; I simply object to people trying to wipe out one path because it's not their personal favorite.
If a path doesn't appeal, simply avoid it. Don't go around drumming up horror stories because it bothers you that the path exists. I totally understand the psychology, and I am no different from anyone else--if something exists that I disagree with, it nags at me. But if a huge part of your spiritual journey is defined by trying to mess with someone else's, something is wrong.
-Morpheus (from The Matrix)
Anyone nowadays can gain knowledge of the Buddhadharma. What a skilled teacher is able to do is guide one along the path in an efficient manner. They can tailor the message and give a particular teaching that will benefit the student the most for that particular time.
A classroom lesson is useful and not to be underestimated; but the benefits of studying one-on-one with any great master are priceless, and all too rare. My girls are learning adequate string technique in their orchestra class, but if they were spending that the equivalent amount of time with a private instructor, would be light years ahead.
Both methods are worthwhile, but there's no question which is deeper.
I sometimes like to point out that it is important to have realistic ideas about the person of the Teacher and that it’s smart to keep making one’s own decisions.
I’ll keep doing that if you don’t mind.
I think we've reached a level of mutual understanding here. To bring the topic back to the OP, a Westernized Buddhism, I'd say, is increasingly meaning a discipleship that is savvy enough to be discerning regarding masters who present themselves. This is a healthy development.
But isn't that implying that no one in the past has been discerning? It's in the original instructions of the Buddha to be discerning about the teacher.
If westerners are increasing their level of discernment regarding teachers, I'd agree it's a wonderful thing, and say it's a sign of the Buddhification of westerners, not the westernization of Buddhism.
My understanding from this is that there is a feeling Tibetan Buddhism is "contaminated" in some way with tantrism, shamanism, and nature spirit wisdom, and that therefore both Tibetan Buddhism and tantrism itself are in some ways impure.
My point is simply that even if one feels personally that aspects of Tibetan Buddhism and tantra are not appealing, that doesn't mean they aren't valuable for others; even if one finds these aspects personally troubling, one has to be careful in implying that TB and tantrism are somehow "bad." Not everyone is troubled by remnants of nature spirit worship; who's to say those remnants, if they exist, aren't actually a good thing?
There's really no such thing as a "pure" tradition.
"I agree that the downside—the negative side of richness—is a difficulty in choice, and it can lead to a distraction of flitting from one thing to another and that’s one extreme. Another extreme is to say: »I’ll only take this insight and shut everything else out.« But another is to choose a practice—choose an approach that makes sense—but to draw insight and illumination from other places, and that can be a very, very useful thing. I don’t think that that needs to be a cause for too much anxiety."
The first response to the OP implied that Tibetan Buddhism incorporated imagery from nature, i.e. non-Buddhist elements. So my continuing that topic is, I don't think, baggage.
What is a non-Buddhist element? If you introduce contemplative meditation, say, to a new group of students, and ask them to focus visually on a simple object--say an iPod (!)--does the Buddhist teaching of contemplative meditation become un-Buddhist in some way simply because the object of meditation is something from the new culture that didn't exist in Buddhism's culture of origin?
If you take an entire nature worship ritual and literally change Buddhism drastically to fit it into the nature ritual, I would definitely consider that an alteration of Buddhism (though even that would depend on the nature ritual conflicting in some way with Buddhist tenets).
But if cultural objects or deities, which already exist in the new culture and are familiar to the new students, are used simply as tools for Buddhist meditations or exercises, is that contamination or degeneration of Buddhism?
I think one really has to take it on a case by case basis, and see whether any local imagery or objects or rituality violate the logic and tenets of Buddhism, before deciding whether those things are radically changing Buddhism.
It was probably prohibited because Buddhists disapprove mightily of shamanism. For a view of traditional shamanic traditions, see the film by Mystic Fire Video, "Oracles of Ladakh"."
http://newbuddhist.com/discussion/10276/bon
Feel better now?
Spiny
And the day the 8 become 6, I'm going back to Catholicism...
where have you heard that?
nowhere, right?
Lets' not go to extremes....
I get you.
no, i don't take people like that too seriously myself, either.....
People bring it up so often, usually (to my ear) in a sort of frightened, averse or denigrating way; but if we examine what we think are shamanistic influences, are they making Tibetan Buddhism somehow worse than, say, Zen? If not, is it something we should keep worrying about? Or is it simply that, in striving for a western Buddhism, we (understandably) prefer imagery closer to our own cultural references and want to ditch some of the eastern imagery? What is it about these Bon or shamanistic aspects we find most worrisome?
My suggestion would be that Bon, shamanism, pre-Buddhist Tibetan cultural aspects to TB, are just a natural flavoring, and if we mold Buddhism into some western shape, it will take on western flavoring. Therefore, there's really no need to fear or denigrate the Tibetan cultural aspects of TB, since we are inclined to make the same sorts of changes ourselves.
I keep coming back to the feeling that there's sort of an urge to "wipe out" Tibetan influences in existing sanghas, whereas I feel it would be healthier to establish new sanghas and shape them however you like. That's the overall thing that is troubling me in the western Buddhism discussions--a feeling that the Buddhism I prefer is under attack. It is hard to establish a sangha, so I do understand that it's tempting to try to "reform" existing sanghas.
You have to understand it's come over as confrontational.
So, how did you know exactly what to look for and where?
http://www.google.com/search?q=shamanism+buddhists#sclient=psy&hl=en&source=hp&q="pre-bon"+buddhists+shamanism&pbx=1&oq="pre-bon"+buddhists+shamanism&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&gs_sm=3&gs_upl=23843l26796l1l27224l2l2l0l0l0l0l266l484l2-2l2l0&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.,cf.osb&fp=a26899f1ff3a0aa2&biw=1479&bih=859