The case against "Buddhism"

[Jundo]

Jundo,

I found your word choice in item 3 interesting when it comes to the practice "numbing" us. Please correct me if I interpreted it incorrectly.

This is the correct wording for how I particularly feel after a period of more dedicated practice. Like there is a buffer between my own emotional state and the things happening around me. I know it has been talked about on the forum before. People having some trouble with others thinking they don't care or are even depressed because of this numbing.

I don't want to derail the thread because it has been wonderful thus far but did want to speak about something that jumped out at me.

James F
Sat

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Hi Anka,

Everyone has their own personality and experiences walking the road of Practice. However, my own experience in my life is that Practice has made me more "numb" when I need to be so, and more totally present and feeling when I need to be so.

The former is, for example, something like the calm and detachment of a lifeguard or nurse in an emergency situation. Then, one wants to be calm and collected, not pulled into the drowning and panic.

But other times in life, I can feel, empathize, cry with others, smile with others, and enjoy all the range of human passions. (Of course, it is our way not to be pulled into excess or runaway passions, especially of the negative kind such as desire and anger. We try to avoid that, although being human, these things grab us sometimes. However, neither would I want to be numb or seeming cold and uncaring).

I think that there are ways to communicate to others that we care and are concerned, but without truly getting pulled under the water. My own cancer doctor is good at this. I went to see him this week for my one-year check (all pretty good there, by the way), and he is really all about the test results, numbers and condition in a clinical way. However, he smiles just enough, looks me in the eye just enough, furrows his brows just enough, listens enough that I know he is not uncaring either. He finds the Middle Way.

Maybe in treating the diseases of "capitalism" and modern society, we need to keep such an attitude too: Not getting pulled into the anger, the excess passions which govern much political debate these days, but also empathetic and focused on finding some real cures.

Gassho, J

STLah

[Anka]

Gassho Jundo.

By the way, great news on the check up!

James F
SAT lah

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[Jinyo]

Some criticisms of Buddhisms may be justified.

Wallis is not the only fellow to point out that modern, western Buddhism is "enabling" capitalism, or allowing practitioners to be good consumers and cogs in the machine by allowing us to "accept what is" (i.e., the present state of society and our middle class lifestyles). Another fellow who has offered this criticism is a philosopher named Slavoj Zizek:



Here is a fairly short article by Wallis regarding Zizek's views on this ...

https://speculativenonbuddhism.com/2011/05/04/slavoj-zizek-heresy-western-buddhism-and-the-fetish/

There is much truth in that. However, I would offer these rejoinders:

-1- Capitalism has many problems and excesses (excess consumerism, feeding desires and excess consumption, remaining inequalities, harm to the environment to name a few problems), but also has brought great human achievements and rising standards of living for most people compared to past centuries. The system needs great reforms, but not abandonment or destruction.

-2- Buddhism, throughout its history, has never really been a vehicle of social change. The original message was that this world was rather unfixable, and Buddhism traditionally existed in class-divided, feudal kingdoms and empires from India to China to Tibet to Japan where the Buddhist folks had no choice but to accept the existing system. If any monks presented too much of a threat, the kings and lords had few compunctions about burning down the monasteries, scattering or killing all the monks inside. Perhaps their monasteries (which had a great emphasis on communal living within) were attempts to literally "shut the doors" on the outside world of politics and inequality.

-3- Nonetheless, many Buddhists these days are "engaged" and socially conscious, and are pushing for reforms of society's inequalities and injustices. Many Buddhists are doing about as much as anyone can (maybe much more than average) to work for fixing this planet. Our practice not only numbs us, but makes us aware of a more basic "suffering" at the heart of the human condition that we are working hard to remedy for all sentient beings. Perhaps we are just as engaged as these "philosophers" who seek to fix the world with their words.

Gassho, J

STLah

Thanks for this considered response. I agree with what you say.

I also appreciate where philosophers like Zizek are coming from - putting aside the political aspect he's really addressing spiritual bypassing which I do feel is a cause for concern and relates to Anka's enquiry.

I agree with your take more than Zizek's because I don't agree with him that the ability to live in a frantic world(which he blames on Capitalism) co-joined with the ability to withdraw at the same time necessarily results in a split subject. For sure - it can do, but if we're aware of the danger of that what is wrong with a practice that helps us to analyse (Buddhism is very analytic) stabilize and better cope and be fully engaged at appropriate times?

One could spill many words on this but just writing this much heads me in the direction of 'just go sit'.



Jinyo

(about to sit)

[Jinyo]

... and very good to hear your check up went well !

[Getchi]

Hello!

I really appreciate the comments Zizek has given, and it seems to me that the major argument against it is that since "Western Buddhism" has been advanced during the Capitalist period, it could therefore not be shown readily to have capitulated to a consumerist/capitalist culture through under-engaged practitioners. I mean, what can we actually compare it to? Maybe this period should be seen as the first forays outside academia and romanticists looking to further bolster there own ideals.


I am unaware of many Western Buddhists advocating keeping our societies in there exact present state, most would adapt to a changed society advancing the core humanitarian values that correspond to both Buddhist teachings (Dharma proper) and secular society, just like Jundo states above. Im unaware of any buddhsit teacher advocating slavery for example, and note the way the nationalists of Myanmar have been rebuked as warping the Dharma message


Im only writing so many words because I am a follower of Zizek's work. He is essentialy wrong on this point though, by confusing individual humans with intitutional responses.



Gassho,
Geoff.

SatToday,
LaH.

[Jundo]

I am unaware of many Western Buddhists advocating keeping our societies in there exact present state, most would adapt to a changed society advancing the core humanitarian values that correspond to both Buddhist teachings (Dharma proper) and secular society, just like Jundo states above. Im unaware of any buddhsit teacher advocating slavery for example, and note the way the nationalists of Myanmar have been rebuked as warping the Dharma message

One note of caution ...

I did not mean to imply that all modern, western Buddhists are necessarily Volvo driving, latte drinking liberals (although there are A LOT of those in our western Sangha in North America and Europe), or that Buddha was a socialist.

It is important to remember that there are many modern, western Buddhists who are quite conservative in their personal views. For example, some are more "right to life" on the abortion issue, or support a stronger military stance as actually in keeping with the Precept to Preserve life, such as this fellow ...

https://www.thedailybeast.com/the-zen-buddhist-nuclear-weapons-expert-in-trumps-white-house

(If you read his papers on how he can be a nuclear policy adviser to the Trump administration and a Zen chaplain, he explains his reasoning in quite cogent terms. Here is the shorter version) ...

https://www.upaya.org/uploads/pdfs/NukesandtheVowfinal.pdf

So long as one is sincere in wishing to "save the sentient beings" and in wishing to uphold the Precepts on avoiding the taking of life and such, it is possible for well-intentioned Buddhists to disagree on the best means. Yes, throughout its history in Asia for thousands of years, many many Ordained and lay Buddhists have often been quite conservative in their views toward supporting the regime in power and the conservative values of the traditional societies where they lived.

However, even those modern, western "strong military" and conservative Buddhists are, for the most part, very interested in reforming the problems of our modern society if you look closely. It is just that there is some disagreement on the means and goals for doing that.

Gassho, Jundo

STLah

[Jishin]

https://youtu.be/ZVGDzne7cRQ

[emoji854]

Gasho, Jishin, _/st\_

[Souchi]

Ah, yes, from time to time it is nice to spent some hours in the philosophical space

I've read some interviews/short notes with/from Glenn Wallis like the one linked by Kokuu. My personal impression always was that he mostly criticizes "Pop/Wellness Buddhism" or views expressed under the label "authentic Buddhism" that encourage people to engage in escapism or extreme passivity. Žižek's criticism in the article linked by Jundo seems to address those points, too. His additional thesis that "Western Buddhism" (whatever is included under this term) complements a negative form of capitalism well is something to think and argue about (dependent origination, anyone ?). By that, I just mean to keep it in mind and not dismiss the idea too quickly.

As far as I understood it, there are other voices, too, that point out that at a certain period "the West"'s interest in mind-techniques grew rapidly. Robert Sharf wrote a short article about mindfulness in which he considers several interesting aspects about that expression (to which - according to him - Buddhism in the west attaches a much higher importance than other forms of Asian Buddhism):

Robert Sharf, "Is Mindfulness Buddhist? (And Why It Matters)," Transcultural Psychiatry 52, no. 4 (2015), 470-484.

One of the many topics he talks about is how certain groups in the past have tried to reduce Buddhism to mindfulness considered as "bare attention" only, and how those groups have been criticized (page 476).

Indeed, a not uncommon criticism was that the excessive focus in meditation on achieving "inner stillness" (ningji), especially when unbalanced by an engagement with the scriptures, leads to a state described as "falling into emptiness" (duokong), which is, in turn, associated with "meditation sickness" (chanbing). The term meditation sickness was used by various Buddhist masters as a critique of practices they deemed detrimental to the path, notably techniques that emphasized inner stillness - they seem to have been targeting practices that cultivated a sort of non-critical or non-analytical presentness. Today we might translate "meditation sickness" as "zoning out," by which I do not mean being lost in thought or daydreaming. Rather, I suspect that when medieval meditation masters used terms such as "falling into emptiness" and "meditation sickness," they were targeting techniques that resulted in an intense immersion in the moment, in the now, such that the practitioner loses touch with the socially, culturally, and historically constructed world in which he or she lives. The practitioner becomes estranged from the web of social relations that are the touchstone of our humanity as well as our sanity. [..]

With respect to what Anka wrote: I usually feel like "numbed", too, after a more intensive period of practice. Personally, I consider that to be alright, since it seems to be a natural effect of Zazen (or any other similar activity), and it gradually vanishes like a numb leg I would consider it a problem for myself if I would expect it to happen every time (i.e. make it a goal of practice) or if I had the feeling to be dependent on being numb etc. etc.

Gassho
Souchi

Sat Today

[Kyonin]

Just read this... yeah... all our systems and ways of expressing the ineffable are incomplete at best, and pure fantasy at worst. So we sit.

Gassho
Jakuden
SatToday/LAH


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Thank you for this.

Yes, we sit to be let go of being the protagonist if only for a bit.

Gassho,

Kyonin
Sat/LAH

[Kokuu]

Hi all

Glenn Wallis got in touch with me on Facebook and said he felt the edited version of the conversation at Lion's Roar misrepresented his views.

He shared the unedited transcript on his website if anyone is interested in reading it: https://speculativenonbuddhism.com/2...st-buddhism-2/

Gassho
Kokuu
-sattoday-

[Meian]

Hi all

Glenn Wallis got in touch with me on Facebook and said he felt the edited version of the conversation at Lion's Roar misrepresented his views.

He shared the unedited transcript on his website if anyone is interested in reading it: https://speculativenonbuddhism.com/2...st-buddhism-2/

Gassho
Kokuu
-sattoday-

Thank you for sharing this.

Gassho
Kim
St lh

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[Jinyo]

Hi all

Glenn Wallis got in touch with me on Facebook and said he felt the edited version of the conversation at Lion's Roar misrepresented his views.

He shared the unedited transcript on his website if anyone is interested in reading it: https://speculativenonbuddhism.com/2...st-buddhism-2/

Gassho
Kokuu
-sattoday-

Thanks Andy - and I am impressed that he has now added the link to download the book to the comments section of that transcript.

Gassho

Jinyo

Sat today