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Distorted Visions of Buddhism: Agnostic and Atheist
caz
VeteranUnited Kingdom Veteran
Distorted Visions of Buddhism: Agnostic and Atheist
By B. Alan Wallace
As Buddhism has encountered modernity, it runs against widespread prejudices, both religious and anti-religious, and it is common for all those with such biases to misrepresent Buddhism, either intentionally or unintentionally. Reputable scholars of Buddhism, both traditional and modern, all agree that the historical Buddha taught a view of karma and rebirth that was quite different from the previous takes on these ideas. Moreover, his teachings on the nature and origins of suffering as well as liberation are couched entirely within the framework of rebirth. Liberation is precisely freedom from the round of birth and death that is samsara. But for many contemporary people drawn to Buddhism, the teachings on karma and rebirth don’t sit well, so they are faced with a dilemma. A legitimate option is simply is adopt those theories and practices from various Buddhist traditions that one finds compelling and beneficial and set the others aside. An illegitimate option is to reinvent the Buddha and his teachings based on one’s own prejudices. This, unfortunately, is the route followed by Stephen Batchelor and other like-minded people who are intent on reshaping the Buddha in their own images...
http://www.mandalamagazine.org/archives/mandala-issues-for-2010/october/distorted-visions-of-buddhism-agnostic-and-atheist/
By B. Alan Wallace
As Buddhism has encountered modernity, it runs against widespread prejudices, both religious and anti-religious, and it is common for all those with such biases to misrepresent Buddhism, either intentionally or unintentionally. Reputable scholars of Buddhism, both traditional and modern, all agree that the historical Buddha taught a view of karma and rebirth that was quite different from the previous takes on these ideas. Moreover, his teachings on the nature and origins of suffering as well as liberation are couched entirely within the framework of rebirth. Liberation is precisely freedom from the round of birth and death that is samsara. But for many contemporary people drawn to Buddhism, the teachings on karma and rebirth don’t sit well, so they are faced with a dilemma. A legitimate option is simply is adopt those theories and practices from various Buddhist traditions that one finds compelling and beneficial and set the others aside. An illegitimate option is to reinvent the Buddha and his teachings based on one’s own prejudices. This, unfortunately, is the route followed by Stephen Batchelor and other like-minded people who are intent on reshaping the Buddha in their own images...
http://www.mandalamagazine.org/archives/mandala-issues-for-2010/october/distorted-visions-of-buddhism-agnostic-and-atheist/
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Comments
He proposed a utopian ideal of a buddhist anarchist community, and then attacked traditional buddhist structures based on his rhetoric. When the facts as I see them are that the structures are what makes the dharma possible via the adhistana and samaya (sorry this doesn't translate to english) of the mandala of awakened beings.
"To get a clear picture of Batchelor’s agnostic-turned-atheist approach to Buddhism, there is no need to look further than his earlier work, Buddhism without Beliefs. Claiming to embrace Thomas Huxley’s definition of agnosticism as the method of following reason as far as it will take one, he admonishes his readers, “Do not pretend that conclusions are certain which are not demonstrated or demonstrable.”1 He then proceeds to explain who the Buddha really was and what he really taught, often in direct opposition to the teachings attributed to the Buddha by all schools of Buddhism. If in this he is following Huxley’s dictum, this would imply that Batchelor has achieved at least the ability to see directly into the past, if not complete omniscience itself."
Are you happy now?
mindgate, care to elaborate? Is that guy going to the bathroom?
The teaching is a tool, a raft, a finger pointing at the moon. When we turn it into dogma we are stuck in delusion.
Delusions have many shapes and forms. I have the sixth sense; I see them all the time;:hair: and I’m not so sure I’m free of them right now.
zenff, I agree that we all approach things from our own situation with our own needs and beliefs. I don't want to invalidate Batchelor but on the other hand I do wish to express my own beliefs and for me it is nothing sort of that I want to get angry about, I want to conduct myself in a mature way discussing the issues at hand. Because I think it is an interesting line of thought (comparing batchelor's book which I read to the Wallace article).
For some balance here's Stephen Batchelor's reply
I tend to agree here.
"In his article “Killing the Buddha” Harris shares his advice with the Buddhist community, like Batchelor asserting, “The wisdom of the Buddha is currently trapped within the religion of Buddhism,” and he goes further in declaring that “merely being a self-described “Buddhist” is to be complicit in the world’s violence and ignorance to an unacceptable degree.” By the same logic, Harris, as a self-avowed atheist, must be complicit in the monstrous violence of communist regimes throughout Asia who, based on atheistic dogma, sought to destroy all religions and murder their followers. While Harris has recently distanced himself from the label “atheist,” he still insists that religious faith may be the most destructive force in the world. It is far more reasonable, however, to assert that greed, hatred, and delusion are the most destructive forces in human nature; and theists, atheists, and agnostics are all equally prone to these mental afflictions."
Here we see that wallace is using logic in showing the absurdity of stating that religions are villainous based on association to historical violence committed by villains.
In Batchelor's response he makes it seem that Wallace is making an absurd attack on agnosticism, when the fact is that Wallace was pointing out the absurdity of Harris' comment.
One thing is certain is that many of the world's religions preach love and tolerance. The only failing is that deluded followers corrupt that message for their own ends.
So, Ajahn Brahm's Buddhism is diluted too!
"A legitimate option is simply is adopt those theories and practices from various Buddhist traditions that one finds compelling and beneficial and set the others aside."
In contrast Batchelor's rhetoric sounds (in his books his article was fine) pretty hostile to buddhist traditionalists. Throughout the book Buddhism Without Beliefs, which I have read, Batchelor makes claims about traditional buddhism without providing evidence.
For example he states that traditional buddhism teaches meditation as a form of mysticism. This is contradicted in my own experience when we examine the traditional teachers such as Pema Chodron. Pema Chodron states that meditaiton is staying our own friend, seeing what is there, sitting in difficult states, staying in the present, and a sense of no big deal.
And then there is the dreaded 'd word', dogma.
Batchelor is claiming to know buddha's mind. know = gnostic. For example Batchelor 'knows' that buddha made positive statements about reincarnation because he was unable to question the beliefs of the time. How does Batchelor know this? In that sense he is 'gnostic'.
For instance some of the Mahayana sutras were composed after the Buddha died. That’s because Buddhism needed to addapt.
It certainly changed in China where it transformed into Chan.
For these composed sutra’s the fiction was invented that they were spoken by the Buddha, but the texts were kept hidden for some ages by the Nagas in the underworld until people were ready for them.
That’s nonsense of course, but it worked in giving people the comforting idea of being authentically Buddhist.
In Chan they invented the transmission outside words for the same purpose. The story of the sermon of the flower is the lie which was designed for giving a new movement a false historical base.
(All imho and so on, you know that by now.)
I think maybe Batchelor falls for the same temptation. I must say I don’t know his books very well so I could be wrong. Maybe he wants to modernize Buddhism and support that attempt with the claim Buddhism is going to be more authentic that way.
I don’t believe in that strategy. I think it’s better to be honest about the reasons for wanting to adapt the traditional teachings. The study of history is simply another sport, and should not have anything to do with it.
I don’t feel that cramp. I think there’s no need to feel it. Of course Buddhism changes and of course we don’t see the world in the same way as one person – as brilliant as he may have been – 2.5 thousand years ago saw it. It’s a Buddhist “dogma” if you like; impermanence!
Compassion, liberation, non-self, Buddha-nature...something shines through such concepts and inspires us to keep investigating; to keep practicing.
In that sense I believe in a “transmission outside words”.
It's an interesting debate, the essays between Batchelor and Alan Wallace. My only objection to the essay by Wallace is that he says that Batchelor's take on Buddhism is "speculation", and that there's no evidence in the book "Confession of a Buddhist Atheist" of any scholarship in an ancient Indian language. This is incorrect. In the book, Batchelor says that after quitting Zen, he studied Pali in order to get to the source and find out what the Buddha really said.
What the debate between Batchelor and Wallace tends to boil down to is the same suttra-flinging we've seen here in the past. I think all we can do is declare a tie, and continue on our paths.
“Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it. Do not believe in anything simply because it is spoken and rumored by many. Do not believe in anything simply because it is found written in your religious books. Do not believe in anything merely on the authority of your teachers and elders. Do not believe in traditions because they have been handed down for many generations. But after observation and analysis, when you find that anything agrees with reason and is conducive to the good and benefit of one and all, then accept it and live up to it.”
*It's super effective!*
Karma can be seen here and now, I don't need to experience it in my next rebrith.
We leave samsara behind when we don't gasp or cling to ideas of permenance or self.
What need is there in a faith of rebrith or karma that happens in a later life? I can't see how it would make one iota of difference if I believed, or not, that something happens after the physical death of this body.
In what way does it matter if this is believed or not? I can still understand and practice Kamma, the eight-fold path and the three marks of existence.
What happens after this life cannot be known, anyone who says as much is either delusional, wants to really believe or is intentionally misleading. NO ONE can know.
What really is the "true" Buddhism?
Of course my opinions without any suttas to back me up