Jaume de Marcos of the Hanif blog has comments on my UUWorld article on UU Buddhism, and finds it falls short.
it is not that UUs quietly evolve towards a “vague Buddhism”: it is Buddhism that is revisioned and contorted (something that Buddhism has done very well for centuries and is one key reason for its survival and expansion) in order to fit the UU way of being religious.
I gather Jaume is critical of UUs taking a humanist approach to Buddhism, and discarding notions like samsara, the cycle of rebirths, that are fundamental to Asian Buddhism. UU Buddhism seems more to me like the Buddhism Without Beliefs proposed by Stephen Batchelor rather than traditional Asian Buddhism. I am skeptical not just of rebirth, but of the aspiration for “enlightenment,” so I think that’s the right way to go.
Jaume also criticizes the statement (he attributes it to me, but in the article, it’s a quote from Joel Baehr) that Buddhism is non-theistic, by noting the Pure Land sect which is extremely popular in Asia.
All I can say is that among UU Buddhists, I found interest in Zen, Tibetan and Vipassana forms, but no one who followed Pure Land.
Thank you for your comments, Rick, and sorry for misquoting. I have changed that entry accordingly. I am not upset by Humanists adapting Buddhism, but by any frivolous mis-using what is a millenia-old tradition of Buddhism to make it something else. This misunderstanding and misrepresentation may be done by Humanists, Christians, or even by so-called Buddhists, as there are many both in the East and in the West. I recognize in my article that Buddhism is a “flexible” tradition that adapts without much pain to other cultural and religious backgrounds, and that is partly the reason that it is so widespread. A not so flexible understanding would have probably reduced Buddhism to a tiny monastic sect in south-east Asia.
But the deeper argument is that UUs have a specific approach to religion, not always explicit but rather implicit in our ways and custom, and then some of us want to bend other traditions to our taste and manipulate them to make them fit in our approach, and we call that being “pluralistic”. I call it being unrespectful and banal.
Comment by Jaume — June 24, 2007 @ 1:04 pm
Rick, I’m the former editor for many years of UU Sangha and was the first speaker at the UUBF Convocation in 2005, and I’m a Pure Land Buddhist, a certified lay Dharma teacher, in fact. I was also asked to lead the entire gathering in an extended Pure Land chanting practice. So there certainly are some UU Pure Land Buddhists out there, though currently Zen is the more popular form of Japanese Buddhism among UUs (ironic in some ways, since Pure Land is many times larger than Zen in Japan). There was a Pure Land UU sangha not too long ago, called Acorn Sangha if I recall correctly, but I’m not sure it’s still operating.
Note to Jaume, in case he returns to this thread: Pure Land Buddhism is non-theistic, just like other Buddhisms. Amitabha is not a god, and properly speaking isn’t even a being separate from oneself. This is especially clear in Jodo Shinshu Pure Land Buddhism, the largest Buddhist denomination in Japan. Amitabha is not a Creator figure and does not grant wishes, answer prayers, send fortune or misfortune, or judge the dead.
I agree with Jaume’s general point that UUs have a particular approach to religion, and that they can be disrespectful at times when appropriating and reorganizing outside traditions. So-called “Native American spirituality” in UU circles is one commonly mistreated example. What tends to bother me is the unconscious sense of entitlement that many UUs and other liberal Westerners show toward other traditions, including the entitlement to alter traditions and then represent themselves as authentic spokespersons for those traditions. Not to attack any one in particular, but in your UU World article I saw many instances of UU Buddhists claiming that BUDDHISM believes such-and-such, when such beliefs are really confined to the extremely tiny minority of convert Western practitioners. It would be more appropriate for them to say that UU BUDDHISTS believe such-and-such and not take on the full mantle of Asian (i.e. mainstream) Buddhism. The same holds for practices: meditation is a marginal practice in Asia that is rarely indulged in by laypeople or the majority of monks, but it somehow becomes the end-all-be-all of Buddhism to Westerners, who think that the cosmological beliefs, which are FAR more central to virtually all living and historical Buddhists, can just be thrown aside without even full comprehension of what those beliefs are and represent. Such developments trouble me. Of course, few UUs seem really informed or interested in our own denominational history and tradition, so it may be too much to ask for deep engagement with Asian history on top of that.
But I still feel that UU Buddhists are legitimate in their pursuit of a personal understanding of Buddhism, and that, to answer your post’s opening question, UU Buddhism is indeed a form of Buddhism (as well as a form of UUism). Buddhism isn’t an ethnic religion like Judaism–it has been since the beginning a missionizing world-oriented faith, and that has always both made it available to new groups and necessitated that new groups find ways to make it relevant in their own circumstances. James Ford, Joel Baehr, and others are doing just that, and in their decades-long training as Buddhist teachers I believe they are authentically engaging with the issues that arise in the course of encountering and learning to accept a new religious tradition.
Comment by Jeff W. — June 24, 2007 @ 5:26 pm
Do not go upon what has been acquired by repeated hearing,
nor upon rumor,
nor upon what is in a scripture,
nor upon tradition,
nor upon surmise,
nor upon an axiom,
nor upon specious reasoning,
nor upon a bias towards a notion that has been pondered over,
nor upon another’s seeming ability,
nor upon the consideration, “The monk is our teacher.”
Kalamas, when you yourselves know: “These things are good; these things are not blamable; these things are praised by the wise; undertaken and observed, these things lead to benefit and happiness,” enter on and abide in them.’
Comment by Bill Webb — June 24, 2007 @ 6:48 pm
Bill, when you quote a small portion of a Sutta out of context without any commentary, it tends to give the impression of religious dogma. Could you explain what you’re getting at here?
For what it’s worth, few Westerners understand this text. It is not a very important text in the Asian tradition. But if you do read the full Sutta you’ll see that the point is that karma and the afterlife are real and that non-Buddhists shouldn’t be listened to. That is the way in which this Sutta has always been understood in its own context, as the traditional Asian commentaries make clear. The Kalamas know from their own experience that karma is an actual force in this world and the next and that their next reincarnation will be affected by it. Thus Buddha, in pointing out that they already know these facts and that he teaches them, gets them to abandon other religions and take refuge in him. Ironically, the afterlife and literal readings of karma are something that the UU Buddhists in Rick’s article often discount. Thus the Kalama Sutta is a poor scripture to resort to in this case.
Comment by Jeff W. — June 24, 2007 @ 9:26 pm
Jeff, thanks for your clarification. When you take refuge in Amitabha Buddha, is there not a degree of trust in His grace that you will be given what you yearn most, as in most Western traditions about praying to the high God? This trust in the power of prayer is not contradictory with the belief that only by grace, and not by repetition of the sacred formula, may that wish be fulfilled. Even Catholicism says so. But practice tells otherwise, and scholars of religion tend to pay too much attention to what the texts say and disregard what actual people believe and do, and also their motivations in their doing or not doing.
Another small comment to your comment is that being a Creator is not specific to theistic belief: in most religions before Christianity, and even among gnostic Christians, the creator god was different from (and sometimes even opposed to) the most powerful and revered god or goddess.
Apart from these two questions, I agree with your comments above.
Comment by Jaume — June 25, 2007 @ 8:18 am
Jaume, I think one of the problems of misunderstanding here is that you’re treating Amitabha like a person. Amitabha isn’t a person, but a symbol. So there’s no need to write about Amitabha with capital letters (i.e. “His”).
Jodo Shinshu is only one school of Pure Land Buddhism. So what I say here may not apply fully in other cases. But it is the largest school in Japan and the West, so its positions ought to be examined. In Jodo Shinshu, one doesn’t take refuge in order to receive a reward. That is explicitly considered to be superstition. When we say nembutsu, it is purely expressive, not petitionary, and expresses not our hope of receiving something but rather our grateful joy at having already been awakened to our inner nature and the boundless support of all things. There is absolutely no causal relationship between saying nembutsu and any effect coming about.
The problem may be that you seem to be trying to map Buddhism onto other religions. But Buddhism is really quite different from most religions. Amitabha isn’t a god, but a focus of attention that allows you to wake up to reality. The Pure Land isn’t a heaven, but a symbolic description of liberated peace that is experienced during life, as well as at death. Nembutsu isn’t a prayer, but an utterance of happiness after the goal has already been achieved. Not that Buddhism is utterly unlike most other religions, but there are some differences worth noting. I hope that this is clarifying.
Rick, we may have departed from the point of your thread. Sorry if I’ve improperly hijacked it.
Comment by Jeff W. — June 25, 2007 @ 10:07 am
Jeff,
No apologies necessary. I found your contributions very interesting.
The people I spoke to took what they were doing quite seriously, and were not religion-shopping. But they are not representative of worldwide Buddhism, and perhaps not even Buddhism in the U.S.
Comment by Rick Heller — June 25, 2007 @ 11:01 pm
Glad I’m not taking things too far astray, Rick.
I might also say that the people you talked to may not be representative of how UUs as a whole appropriate Buddhism. Those who go so far as to lead practice groups and fly cross-country to UU Buddhist retreats are likely the most serious of the bunch. There are an awful lot of others (far more, in fact) who snip off little bits of Buddhism and stick them onto their personal philosophies, and then proclaim themselves Buddhist. How many countless times have I heard Buddhist sayings/teachings quoted (and misquoted) from the pulpit in passing by people whom I know have no particular understanding of Buddhism? Heck, we even have tidbits of Buddhism in the hymnal nowadays. Buddhism is very much a spiritual fashion accessory in UU circles, a phenomenon that doesn’t negate the commitment of the smaller core of full UU Buddhists who are taking both paths seriously.
I guess my point here is that there are really two UU Buddhisms, a large but fluid one that treats Buddhism as just another product to be consumed from the supermarket of world religions, and a smaller but more stable UU Buddhism that earnestly tries to understand Buddhism and apply it to one’s life. Of course, we might say the same thing about a whole range of other traditions that show up in UU circles. But the Buddhist example does seem particularly prominent these days, doesn’t it?
Thanks for a thought-provoking article, Rick.
Comment by Jeff W. — June 25, 2007 @ 11:22 pm