Buddhist Religious Fact
Buddhism and the West | Page 3
Roger Gunter-Jones
But at the same time and perhaps of more importance, there began to arise a greater interest in Buddhism in non-Buddhist circles for purely religious reasons. Here the term "religious" is being used in the sense given to it by William James in The Varieties of Religious Experience. There he laid down as criteria for valid religion: philosophical reasonableness, moral helpfulness, and immediate luminousness — terms which can easily be correlated with the three components of the "eightfold path," namely, "wisdom," "morality," and "mental discipline." Referring to these criteria, Dom Aelred Graham has suggested that they are what in effect are now being sought. He quotes the Chairman of an American university religious department as saying that all over America there is an increasing interest in religion combined with a decreasing interest in the Church, and commenting on this statement he says: "There can be little doubt that the scientific temper of the age with its emphasis on control by evidence and the test of experience, in contrast to religious insistence on mystery and blind faith, is a formidable challenge to any merely authoritative presentation of Christian belief. Science has been well described as a 'process of discovery rather than a compendium of data.' For many, this description could just as easily apply to the personal religious quest."10 These remarks about authoritative religion and the personal quest draw attention to two important characteristics of the Buddhist way: the first, that it is emphatically not an authoritative system, and the second, that it is most decidedly a personal inward journey of self-discovery.
These two characteristics go a long way towards explaining the welcome Buddhism has received, especially from the young, in a culture which many people believe to be spiritually bankrupt. The young of today seem to be more conscious of this spiritual poverty and more affected by it than their elders; they sit, as Dr. H. Saddhatissa has put it, "in the midst of the nuclear arms race" and "surrounded by their bingo-crazy relations."" Whether the young, when no longer young, will retain this interest and awareness is another matter. Where, for instance, are the "beats," the "hippies," and the "flower people" of yesteryear? Gone — in the idiom of the "pop" song — to the suburbs, every one! Nevertheless, the young in their present attitude represent the natural outcome of the convergence we noted earlier — the rejection of the old, and the acceptance of the new. They are evidently seeking for a valid and vital religious basis on which to construct their lives. Some of them accept one or other of the Eastern religions, Buddhism for example, but many seek only guidance without wishing to commit themselves to any particular sect.
The nature of this spiritual regeneration in the West — in so far as it exists — suggests the birth of something new rather than the revival of something old. Evidence in support of this possibility is the preference shown for the non-theistic approach. Professor Ninian Smart, for example, has noted that ... "one of the reasons why Buddhism and some other religious movements have attracted recent interest and concern in the West, and especially among the young, is precisely their non-theistic nature ..." and that "... the mood is introvertive, disillusioned with the personalistic approach, among those who have experimented with the teachings and methods of the Eastern world."'
Buddhist non-theism contrasts with Christian theism not only as a fact in itself but also in the resulting absence of speculation and belief. Buddhism rests firmly on the facts of experience and on the logic of cause and effect. In Buddhist philosophy, cause and effect takes the form of the interdependence of events, a short formula for which runs as follows:
"When this is, that is; This arising, that arises; When this is not, that is not; This ceasing, that ceases."
Using this principle, the cause of suffering is traced to "craving," and the cause of "craving" to "ignorance." If Buddhism ultimately refers back to the singleness of the fact of life itself, then it does so without speculating about the nature of the fact. The Buddha refused to discuss matters beyond the comprehension of his listeners, or which were not useful to the holy life. Such discussion, he said, "is not conducive to aversion, detachment, cessation, tranquillity, deep penetration, full realisation of Nirvana." Anyone who insisted on having metaphysical assurances before he would venture on the way, he compared to a man wounded by a poisoned arrow who refused to receive treatment until his friends had found out all about the arrow and the man who had shot it. As the Buddha pertinently remarked, the man would die before hisfrlendscould get the comprehensive report he demanded.
Turning to God-belief as a specific form of speculation, we find naturally enough that Buddhism is far less concerned with this question than Christianity. In fact, in Buddhism God-belief has no essential part to play at all, though it is raised in discussion from time to time incidentally, and consequently we find that several aspects of it are dealt with by the Buddha.13 Some say that the Buddha neither affirms nor denies the existence of God. However, it is truer to say that he is less concerned with the question of God's existence than with the fact that Enlightenment transcends God-belief, which is in any case incompatible with the way of Enlightenment; for the way, as we have already noted, is one of discovery, not of belief. Buddhism, in fact, does not place the Buddhist in the position where the question of God arises as a necessary factor. Hence, although faith is an important factor in Buddhism, it does not take the form of belief in God or of intellectual assent to creeds; it is primarily a form of trust in the efficacy of the way, a trust that is justified as one proceeds, step by step. First, we hear about the "truth of suffering," then we look around and within and find that it is true. Next, we proceed to the "truth of the arising of suffering" and find that it also is true. And so on. Other forms of faith may arise naturally from experience; for example, we have faith in the fact that there is a self-validating quality about truth itself which requires no justification. We may also experience faith in life itself in the sense of its essential Tightness and sanctity, the kind of faith that so powerfully affected Tolstoy. But at no time does Buddhism make demands on our credulity; instead, it has always given priority to personal experience and self-reliance, for which reason it is sometimes said to be a "come-and-see" teaching.
This principle of seeing for yourself is well illustrated by the advice the Buddha gave to some people called the Kalamas who were perplexed by the many conflicting doctrines taught by men who all claimed to be right. The Buddha said, "When you yourselves know that certain things are unwholesome, and wrong, and bad, then give them up.... And when you know for yourselves that certain things are wholesome, and good, then accept them and follow them." The sayings of the Buddha include many similar injunctions; for example, on his deathbed he advised his followers to be "lamps unto themselves" and to accept no one else as an authority. At every stage of the way the principle applies that the final certitude, the ground of verification, must be one's own experience.
So far, in reporting on Buddhism's reception in the West we have tried to indicate its general compatibility with the temper of the present age and have noted some of the characteristics that appeal to the modern Western consciousness; we have made no mention, as now we must, of some of its shortcomings. In fact, we have been dealing with unperverted Buddhism, as it were, and must now confess that the teaching does not always, or indeed often, appear in a pure and unperverted form. In addition to the usual institutional drawbacks common to most faiths, some forms of Buddhism also exhibit lapses from integrity and good sense of a kind found in many other religions. Some of these are traditionally justified as "expedient means" for the use of less gifted followers of the way. But the history of Buddhism brings to light such astonishing deviations from what is generally believed to be the original teaching of the Buddha, that good sense suggests other reasons. It is, for instance, inconceivable that the Buddha would have given utterance to some of the more fanciful Mahayana sutras, magnificent though some of them may be, or demonstrated some of the Tantric sexual postures, whatever the benefit that is alleged to be derived from them. Such things are surely the fruit of the mind's natural exuberance rather than the result of someone's good intentions towards the dim-witted. Objection is raised not so much against the means as such as against the supposition that they are necessary when it is perfectly obvious that they are not. In relation to the principal aims of Buddhism many of these developments are little more than ego-gratifying diversions; one might just as well climb mountains or go sailing.
Many of these developments can be accounted for by the fact that Buddhism, like other faiths, has been subjected to various corrupting influences. For example, it has its own form of scholasticism, has absorbed local superstitions and practices, has had to harmonise with racial and national idiosyncrasies, and has been manipulated to meet the needs of governments in search of legitimation and for other political purposes. We can trace its progress from the primitive message to the theistic, and sometimes theocratic, forms it later adopted — as, for example, in Tibet — and then back again by way of some of the early Zen sects to a semblance of the primitive ideal of personal experience and self-reliance. An immense variety of forms exists today, ranging from the comparatively authentic and ancient Theravada in Ceylon, to the comparatively inauthentic and modern pseudo-religious structures with strong political affiliations, such as the Soka Gakkai, in Japan.
Obviously, if we are to extract from this great mass of traditional material Buddhism's own unique contribution to the Western religious process, we must ignore not only what is superfluous but also what can be found just as easily elsewhere. For example, most traditions can supply emotional outlets and vicarious salvation and can offer the paths of devotion and works to those who want them. But Buddhism is essentially a path of self-knowledge and self-reliance, and its essence is therefore more likely to be found at the centre and near its origin than at the periphery and in its scholastic subtleties.
There is general agreement among Buddhist scholars14 that the Theravada doctrine of Anatta — egolessness, and its highly developed Mahayana equivalent, the doctrine of Sunyata — emptiness, form the core of Buddhist teaching and that Buddhism stands unique among the religions of the world by reason of these doctrines. Consequently, that which is unique, relevant, and valid in the contribution which Buddhism is now making to the Western religious scene, derives from these two doctrines. And it also follows that the Buddhist process of convergence on the singleness of fact — the truth inherent in life itself, which was the proposition we started out with, is based on these doctrines. Accordingly, these must now primarily engage our attention. For convenience, we shall refer to these two doctrines in the singular as the doctrine of Emptiness.
In confining our attention to the central tradition of Buddhism and in particular to its basic truth of Emptiness, we are not dismissing as totally irrelevant to the needs of the West all the various doctrines that have generally been regarded as essentials of the teaching. The intention is only to emphasise that Buddhism in any authentic form derives its power and validity from this basic truth of Emptiness and in this respect is unique among the religions of the world, and that by reason of this unique characteristic it has something of importance to say to the West which probably cannot be better said by any other tradition.
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