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Glenn Wallis & Non-Buddhism
matthewmartin
Amateur BodhisattvaSuburbs of Mt Meru Veteran
I'm reading Glenn Wallis's "Basic Buddhism" book & so far, I really like it. It's Buddhism in the vein of Stephen Batchelor. It predates his latest project, which I also tried to read some of Glenn, et al. non-Buddhism project (google it, its a website and a book that might not buy 'cause I don't like post modern). It's a very confusing project-- here are some of the ideas I think they are trying to express:
- A punk rock-zen approach to Buddhism (some sort of finding truth by burning everything to the ground and seeing what survived the stress test-- disturbingly, this often looks identical to plain vanilla religious intolerance & the sort of withering criticism that anti-religion/anti-theists/militant atheists deal in)
- Buddhism ought to be secular, non-mystical, although he beats up secular Buddhists as group.
If I'm wrong about the above two points, then I'm probably wrong about the rest.
- A belief that Buddhism is hard & the style of post-modern literature is required to discuss it.
- A strong belief in extinctionalism (no life of any sort after death)
- An unclear belief in the importance of mindfulness, focusing on the moment, and that doing that well in this life is nirvana. I say unclear because the project spends so much time on the attack, it's hard to see what they are in favor of. I'm going to guess that Glenn isn't repudiating what he said in "Basic Buddhism", so maybe that is where we find the positive suggestion for what Buddhism ought to be?
- A strong suspicion of institutions, which seem to be seen as vehicles for exploitation in a Marxist sense (Oddly including a defense of Pure Land for its radically populist approach, in the sense that PL is available to all, while other forms of Buddhism reserve)
- An belief in the value of interdisciplinary approaches, i.e. that since the Buddha is describing reality, then western philosophers & maybe even western literature authors are working on the same project as the Buddha and may have done it as well or better. (I can't say I entirely buy this-- the Stoics and the Epicureans seem to be working on a similar project as the "secular Buddha", but if one is interested in Buddhism, better to study Buddhism than to try find it in St Augustine-- from the secular Buddhist stand point, it already is hard enough to differentiate the Hinduism from the Shintoism, from proclamations of the Meiji government, or for that matter, to differentiate what we think Buddhism is from ordinary non-Buddhist ideas we picked up from our environment)
- Oddly, a ultraconservative, back to the basics approach. I think in US politics, this would be called paleoconservatism, where you don't align with the ideas of old people who liked life when they were kids, but instead aligning with the beliefs of people in the distant past.
Anyone else figure out what they are getting at?
- A punk rock-zen approach to Buddhism (some sort of finding truth by burning everything to the ground and seeing what survived the stress test-- disturbingly, this often looks identical to plain vanilla religious intolerance & the sort of withering criticism that anti-religion/anti-theists/militant atheists deal in)
- Buddhism ought to be secular, non-mystical, although he beats up secular Buddhists as group.
If I'm wrong about the above two points, then I'm probably wrong about the rest.
- A belief that Buddhism is hard & the style of post-modern literature is required to discuss it.
- A strong belief in extinctionalism (no life of any sort after death)
- An unclear belief in the importance of mindfulness, focusing on the moment, and that doing that well in this life is nirvana. I say unclear because the project spends so much time on the attack, it's hard to see what they are in favor of. I'm going to guess that Glenn isn't repudiating what he said in "Basic Buddhism", so maybe that is where we find the positive suggestion for what Buddhism ought to be?
- A strong suspicion of institutions, which seem to be seen as vehicles for exploitation in a Marxist sense (Oddly including a defense of Pure Land for its radically populist approach, in the sense that PL is available to all, while other forms of Buddhism reserve)
- An belief in the value of interdisciplinary approaches, i.e. that since the Buddha is describing reality, then western philosophers & maybe even western literature authors are working on the same project as the Buddha and may have done it as well or better. (I can't say I entirely buy this-- the Stoics and the Epicureans seem to be working on a similar project as the "secular Buddha", but if one is interested in Buddhism, better to study Buddhism than to try find it in St Augustine-- from the secular Buddhist stand point, it already is hard enough to differentiate the Hinduism from the Shintoism, from proclamations of the Meiji government, or for that matter, to differentiate what we think Buddhism is from ordinary non-Buddhist ideas we picked up from our environment)
- Oddly, a ultraconservative, back to the basics approach. I think in US politics, this would be called paleoconservatism, where you don't align with the ideas of old people who liked life when they were kids, but instead aligning with the beliefs of people in the distant past.
Anyone else figure out what they are getting at?
0
Comments
Im not a huge fan of Bachelor, other then his insistance on using the pali texts in the way he does.
Just like buddhism changed over the thousands of years as it spread, it is changing and being adapted faster now with the speed in which ideas move today.
Some people feel the need to pick and choose and combine elements, im not sure of the validity and beneficial-ness(yeah not a word i know lol) of doing that, but to each their own.
I think a lot of people's issues with Buddhism is that they dont know the core teachings, they only see the cultural Buddhism, which for "secular" types resembles the other religions with rites and rituals etc.
The core teachings are very "secular", and very beneficial, people get hung up on things like rebirth and kamma, when what is important is dhamma practice right now in this life.
Im someone who is moving towards being a monk, and im not gonna tell you i believe in rebirth and kamma, it feels right to me, always has, but i remain agnostic as i always have been.
Where i plan to become a resident and ordain is Bhavana Society, which is a pretty famous place and has plenty of room for more monastics, other places may just be one or two monks and a small community that couldny support a 3rd.