Buddhism in the West - Page 2
Roger Gunther-Jones
It Is probably far too early for anyone to attempt to forecast what lasting effects Buddhism may have on Western culture in general, for its influence so far is only germinal, and further growth and development are not yet assured. However, if we trace the course of Buddhism in the West, noting the changes of Western opinion that have accompanied its progress, we may achieve as a more limited objective an understanding as to why it has been gaining favour among us. What seems to have been taking place, as I shall try to show, is a gradual convergence of two tendencies: on the one hand, the West's increasing understanding and appreciation of the nature of Eastern faiths, such as Buddhism, and on the other, the West's growing disenchantment with its own religious heritage. We now seem to be at the point where these two tendencies show signs of merging into a single movement of religious regeneration, not necessarily Buddhist or even Eastern, though Buddhism and other Eastern faiths may have a part to play In it, but with motivations and aspirations similar to those of Buddhism, and sometimes reaching out for the kind of methodology which Buddhism can supply.
Some of the earliest Western contacts with Buddhism were made by Jesuit missionaries in the sixteenth century. The records of their activities in China and Japan show that in spite of their position as pioneers in the field of Buddhist studies they had a fine appreciation of Buddhism, at any rate as encountered in those countries. Naturally, there were many aspects of the teaching and practice of the Buddhists which were uncongenial to them. Nevertheless, they had a high regard for the "bonzes" (priests), for their spirituality, and for the level of Buddhist culture generally. St. Francis Xavier wrote: "I have spoken with several learned bonzes, especially with one who is held in high esteem here by everyone, as much for his knowledge, conduct and dignity as for his great age of eighty years. His name is Ninshitsu, which in Japanese signifies 'Heart of Truth.' He is among them as a Bishop, and if his name is appropriate, he is indeed a blessed man.... It Is a marvel how good a friend this man is to me."1 He also reported of the Japanese in general that "in their culture, their social usage, and their mores, they surpass the Spaniards so greatly that one must be ashamed to say so."
However, the Jesuit interest in Buddhism was primarily in support of their missionary effort, in which, incidentally, they had some success. Two and a half centuries later, when Schopenhauer speaks out in favour of Buddhism, he does so without condescension and in order to express his agreement with its principles. The consonance of Schopenhauer's views and Buddhist principles is all the more interesting when we remember that in the first instance he arrived at his own viewpoint quite independently of promptings from Buddhist or other Indian sources. He thought he had found in Buddhism support for his own theories and world view. His works contain many passages which either refer directly to Buddhism or can be correlated with it.3 It seemed to him that the Buddhist process of self-realisation and liberation from self-will carried on from the point where his own understanding left off. "I have taught", he said, "what sainthood is, but I myself am no saint." Even though some people, from the vantage point of their own greater knowledge, now criticise his understanding of Buddhism, it is remarkable that he acquired as good an understanding of it as he did with such slender resources, for in his day Pali and Sanskrit scholarship was in its infancy, and very few Buddhist scriptures were available in translation. Perhaps from his own theories he read into Buddhism an emphasis on the will that is not there. The will certainly has an important place in Buddhism, but one that is subordinate to discernment. For Buddhism places more reliance on the natural morality and responses of the enlightened and liberated consciousness than on unenlightened self-coercion. Nevertheless, Charles Muses4 has recently given support to Schopenhauer's views on the will and Buddhism, and shows that the Lankavatara Sutra of the Mahayana canon (a sutra unknown to Schopenhauer) completes Schopenhauer's thought with regard to logic, metaphysics, and ethics. As an example, for purposes of comparison, he quotes from paragraph 71 of
The World as Will and Representation:
"In those who have overcome the world, in whom the will, having attained to perfect self-knowledge, found itself again in all, and then freely denied itself... we shall see that peace which is above all reason, that perfect calm of spirit, that deep rest, that inviolable confidence and serenity, the mere reflection of which in the countenance ... is an entire and certain gospel."
Muses then states that the Lankavatara Sutra lends its confirmation with clarifying detail. Among several examples, the following indicates the kind of confirmation and clarification he had in mind:
"But with the Bodhisattva's attainment [Bodhisattva means 'enlightenment being'] ... there comes the 'turning about' within his deepest seat of consciousness from self-centred egoism to universal compassion for all beings. After experiencing the 'turning about' ... he will be able to enter the realm of consciousness that lies beyond that of the mind-system.
The case of Schopenhauer has been chosen as an early and noteworthy example of the acceptance of Buddhist views as distinct from mere academic interest in them. But there were many other nineteenth century writers, such as Emerson and Tolstoy (in addition, of course, to Buddhist scholars), who contributed to the general awareness of the nature and value of Buddhism and other Eastern faiths. In some ways Tolstoy's views are typical of the period and represent the state of convergence at this time. On the one hand, he repudiated Church-Christianity, vehemently condemning its perversion of the truth and love of power; on the other hand, while welcoming Eastern faiths because they avoided the worst of the Church's vices and crimes and demonstrated that organised Christianity had no exclusive rights where the highest truth is concerned, he could not quite accept their teachings as the equal of Christ's original and unperverted message, as he himself understood it.
By the end of the nineteenth century a far wider circle of scholars and the general public had begun to appreciate the merits of Buddhism as a non-theistic and non-authoritarian religion. By now Buddhism had in fact become widely recognised as a philosophical and ethical system that did not conflict with modern scientific knowledge and common sense. In this it contrasted sharply with the tendency of Western religion to resist the advance of modern knowledge as, for instance, in the attempt to refute the premises of Darwin's theory of Evolution. (A pleasing example of this attempt was the suggestion that God had put fossils into rocks in order to deceive human beings.) The words of T. H. Huxley give expression to a view of Buddhism which seems to have been widely held at this time:
"... a system which knows no God in the Western sense, which denies a soul to man, which counts the belief in immortality a blunder and the hope of it a sin, which refuses any efficacy to prayer and sacrifice, which bids men to look to nothing but their own efforts for salvation, which in its original purity knew nothing of vows of obedience and never sought the aid of the secular arm, yet spread over a considerable moiety of the old world with marvellous rapidity and is still, with whatever base admixture of foreign superstitions, the dominant creed of a large fraction of mankind" (Romanes Lecture, 1893).
Commenting on this view, Dr. S. Radhakrishnan says: "Given the psychological conditions of the time (i.e., in India), the reception of the Buddha's message would be unthinkable, if it were negative. For anyone who is familiar with the religious environment of India it is impossible to look upon a philosophy of negation as the mandate of a religious revival."
Certainly, the late nineteenth century assessment of Buddhism as represented by Huxley's words can now be seen as an expression of the rising tide of positivism and materialism and to that extent misses the principal characteristic of the Buddha's way which in this, as in other respects, is a middle way between extremes, both in theory and in practice, hence neither materialistic nor idealistic, and neither theistic nor atheistic. In some of its aspects Huxley's view can now be cited as a case of Buddhism being admired largely for what it is not. Few scholars today would describe Buddhism in such terms as he used. Nevertheless, in some respects his view can be upheld, and it represents an important stage in the process of convergence between the acceptance of the new religious viewpoint and the rejection of the old.
Naturally, there were many views that differed from those given as examples so far. Some of these testified to the extreme difficulty of shaking off the Christian ethos of one's natural background, even with strenuous conscious efforts. For example, some professed Western Buddhists obstinately insisted, and some still do insist, against all the weight of evidence, in bringing into the teaching a ghost of the Western soul in the form of a "higher self," a kind of immortal entity existing in its own right. A detailed argument on this point would be out of place here. At present it is sufficient to note that whether or not there is in fact anything to which the term "self" can be applied, the way of the Buddha, as already noted, not only avoids this supposition, or hypothesis, but actually teaches quite otherwise. The whole system derives from, and depends for its efficacy on, the negation of anything in experience to which the term "self" could legitimately be applied; if any notion of self arises in consciousness, instantly the question must be asked, "To what or to whom does this notion occur?"
From the earliest European encounters with Buddhism until now, the teaching of the Buddha has been presented to the West in many conflicting forms ranging from extreme nineteenth century scientific Buddhism to mid-twentieth century "beat" Zen, and controversy about the merits of different views continues. So many interpretations have been spread around that almost every self-styled Buddhist draws his own picture of the Buddha either as some sort of ideal man or as a symbol for some kind of principle, and has his own private kind of Buddhism. Yet in spite of these somewhat shaky beginnings, Buddhism has already made quite surprising inroads into our culture.
As well as scientists and philosophers, many well known figures in the arts and literature, such as T. S. Eliot, Aldous Huxley, and Hermann Hesse, have become associated with Buddhism, if not always as professed Buddhists, at least as examples of those who have been influenced by its teachings. Scratch a painter or a writer and as likely as not you will find a Buddhist.
In recent decades there has also been a steady increase in the number of Buddhist scholars, of Buddhist societies and study groups, and of books published on Buddhism. Of special importance was the publication in popular editions of Dr. D. T. Suzuki's works.8 These introduced a wider public to Zen and gave fresh impetus to the study of Buddhism in relation to various Western disciplines. For example, some psychoanalysts began to correlate their theories and practices with the methods and insights of Zen,' and philosophers began to draw comparisons between Zen and Western existentialism.
More in the Buddhism and the West series:
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