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Call for a new
Buddhism
"Intelligence is the ability to ascertain the essential."
Jiddu
Krishnamurti
Who and what is a Buddhist?
Historians tell us that Siddhartha Gautama (563? to 483? BC) was the
founder of the organized religion we call Buddhism. The fundamental
meaning of the word 'Buddha' is 'Enlightened One.' We know that there
were many enlightened ones, many Buddhas, before Siddhartha Gautama's
birth and there have been many Buddhas after Siddhartha's death. The
historic Buddha was born a Hindu and the evidence suggests Siddhartha
wished to reform Hinduism rather than reject it completely. Siddhartha
Gautama died a Hindu, not a Buddhist, just as Jesus died a Jew, not a
Christian.
What we call Buddhism today is an amalgamation of the true teachings of
Siddhartha combined with invented myths and large amounts of culture
derived from the country in which the Buddhism is practiced. Tibetan
Buddhism, for example, is as much Tibetanism as it is Buddhism.
Buddha's words were handed down for several centuries through oral
tradition before a committee was formed to commit the communal
heritage, not memory, of Buddha's teaching to written text. No human
being who actually met the Buddha wrote any of the famous Buddhist
scriptures that present day followers take so literally and seriously.
Can we separate the essential teachings of the many enlightened ones,
the many Buddhas, from mere tradition? Can we bring Buddhism up to date
by keeping the essential tools of enlightenment, while discarding the
cultural biases that burden the path with unnecessary obstacles? I
believe we can create a new Buddhism if we consciously analyze our
situation as present day seekers of truth. With this most fundamental
definition of the word 'Buddhism,' anyone who seeks enlightenment can
be called a Buddhist.
Is Buddhism pro-family?
Our lives have changed dramatically since the days of the historic
Buddha. Technological advances such as birth control have reshaped our
most basic human behavior. In Siddhartha's time, if you had sex you
were always potentially creating a new child. The strict sexual
disciplines of Buddhism were born in a era when sex meant children and
children meant no time to meditate. Surviving with primitive farming
methods was difficult and raising a family under such severe conditions
left little energy for introspection. Today many people are able to
have a full life, a family, and still have the time and energy to
meditate. The average adult American watches over four hours of
television a day, so most of us can easily spare 40 minutes a day for
meditation. Scientists have proven through brain scans that meditating
just forty minutes a day is enough to physically increase the size of
the portions of the brain involved in inner awareness. You do not have
to give up a full normal life and all contact with the opposite sex in
order to find your existential identity.
A rich society brings with it the possibility of creating a more
complete human being than Siddhartha's era could afford. Which is more
important for society: sex, family, and wealth creation, or meditation,
solitude, and detachment? Don't we have a need for all? If you live for
seventy years you can easily spend a few years in solitude and then go
on to have a rich family life. Will the added experience of wife and
children make you a smaller person or a bigger person? By repressing
our procreative desires we are not becoming more whole or holy, but
rather we are simply building a firewall inside ourselves that divides
our being into two. Cut into parts we will have less energy, not more
energy. I believe it is more wholesome to become a fully functioning
human being than to retreat into the misperceived safety of half a life.
Back in 1971, when I was twenty-one years old, I had an experience I
would never forget. I was walking around the large Baudhanath Stupa
near Katmandu, Nepal. There was a large group of monks walking that
day, spinning prayer wheels and chanting in the brilliant morning
sunlight. A middle aged monk in his forties came up to me and
asked: "What's it like to be with a woman?" I was shocked that a good
looking and healthy man in his forties should have to ask a twenty-one
year old what sexual intercourse was like. I had decided years earlier
never to become a celibate monk, and that day engraved my feelings even
deeper into my soul.
The Catholic Church has made sex a taboo for priests and the priesthood
has been plagued with scandals of sexual perversion and pedophilia.
Many famous gurus from the East have taught celibacy in public while
seducing female disciples in private. I am not against any human being
having a normal, healthy sex life. I am against lying and hypocrisy.
Sex is as natural to human beings as breathing, eating, and sleeping.
How can such an essential activity for the survival of the human race
be thought of as "unspiritual" and why make it a big secret?
Extreme Buddhism and self-defense
Some, but not all Buddhist circles have a politically correct
insistence on absolute nonviolence. Tibet had no effective army to
fight off the Chinese invasion of 1950. The less politically correct
and more pragmatic Nepalese fought off Chinese incursions with ease.
The Nepalese Gurkha fighters have a reputation for being among the
bravest soldiers in the world. Tibet is enslaved and Nepal is free
because Tibetan Buddhism went too far in the direction of extreme
philosophical purity. Idealism is a form of mental opium. It may feel
good for a short while, but the long term effects can be disastrous. I
do not call for war mongering or aggressive behavior toward one's
neighbors. I do call for a strong sense that self-defense is normal,
natural, and a basic necessity of life. Every animal on this planet has
some form of defense mechanism, and human beings should have many
layers of defense to protect ourselves, our families, and our society.
Having an army is not evil; it is just good common sense.
What is relevant in Buddhism?
Over the centuries Buddhism has collected a great deal of hocus pocus
and excess baggage. Meditation is not a very complicated affair. It
takes time, patience, and whole hearted commitment, but it is not
intellectually difficult. Meditation is a gentle and loving step beyond
the mind, not a complicated new philosophy that the mind must learn.
The cosmic consciousness we seek is the ultimate blank page. Nothing
can be written on it and there is no dogma inside it. No individual can
claim ownership of it and no country can pollute it with its customs
and prejudices. Cosmic consciousness remains an eternally wild and pure
phenomena because it is beyond all of our minds. Our methods may be
organized, but the thing itself is anarchic and beyond the realm of
society and culture. Some Buddhist teachers give the false impression
that superconsciousness is a mapped out empire that has been conquered
and controlled by the great masters. This is simply not the case, and
it is an absolute impossibility.
I have met people who think that by learning to speak Tibetan,
Japanese, or Sanskrit they will somehow become more spiritual. The
cosmic blank page does not care about your language. It is simply there
and available to anyone who is open enough to perceive it. Frankly,
Buddhism and all the other religions of the world have become, in large
part, just nonsense. People are given the impression that if they
become enlightened they will have spiritual thoughts and will be
talking to deities and angels. A safer bet is that when you become
enlightened, you will become totally silent inside. You will be able to
think or not think, turning the thinking part of your mind on and off
like a radio at will.
As an example of the insanity of some Buddhist circles, one Taiwanese
Buddhist group constructed a Godzilla Buddha. It is a steel statue of a
standing Siddhartha, so grotesquely monstrous in proportions, that I am
not sure if it is meant to scare little children or prove that my God
is bigger than your God. Two even larger giant steel Buddha statues are
being built in India (500 feet tall) and China (509 feet tall), in a
war to see who can build the worlds tallest religious
superhero.
Some Buddhist sects still preach that there is a "Western Paradise"
where good Buddhists go to live after they die. Are they talking about
Beverly Hills? Buddhism has its carnival of nonsense, just as
Christianity, Hinduism, Judaism, and
Islam.
Buddha's Four Noble Truths
(1) Life is suffering. Is human life essentially painful from
the moment of birth to the moment of death? Even ordinary life can be
full of fun, adventure, friends, romance, good food, music and art.
Buddhism has been, in many ways, an anti-life religion that appeals to
those who always see the glass half empty rather than half full. Why
should we deny the fact that life can be an enjoyable adventure and not
just a pitiful veil of tears?
(2) All suffering is caused by ignorance. Much suffering is
caused by poverty, accidents, disease, and countless other factors that
can be addressed by the positive application of science. Even the fully
enlightened suffer physically if they fall down and break a leg. We
have modern pain killers for physical pain, and psychological suffering
can be lessened by the practice of meditation. Traditional Buddhist
meditation techniques alone have proven inadequate for the Western
mind. More relevant and powerful methods are available today.
Many Buddhists love to debate the meaning of the word 'dukkha,' which
was the word Siddhartha used for 'suffering.' The current fad in
Buddhism is to claim that Siddhartha was only refering to some subtle
and esoteric discontent with life, the boredom and unsatisfactory
burden of having a heartbeat. I find this intellectual, analytic trend
to be particularly odious as it shows a lack of compassion for all
forms of suffering. If Siddhartha was a wise and compassionate man, and
I believe that he was, then he must have been concerned with all forms
of sorrow and pain, not just with the decadent discontent of the
pampered elite. A real Buddha would never ignore the terrible anguish
of a man who suffers the loss of a wife, or a mother who suffers the
loss of a child. The overly analytic trend of modern Buddhism comes
from the head, not from the heart or the hara, and for me real Buddhism
is from the heart and the hara.
When Buddhists get to the point where they can only talk about life
using foreign languages and cryptic and obsolete terms, then in my
opinion they have missed the experience of meditation itself, because
meditation has no pedantic element to it at all. The historic Buddha
tried to use the ordinary language of his day to speak to people
because he wanted to help them deal with life as it existed right then
and there. Nowadays Buddhism has to some degree become a history lesson
for cult snobs. Many modern Western Buddhists are incapable of speaking
in terms of the here and now, and continuously rely on parroting second
hand Buddhist slogans to get through any important conversation. For me
it is pointless to debate how many angels can dance on the head of a
pin, or the thousand and one definitions of the word 'dukkha.'
(3) Suffering can be ended by overcoming ignorance and
attachment.
A positive spirit is also needed to overcome suffering and dwelling on
the potential misery of life only amplifies that misery. Friendship,
jokes, and high spirits alleviate suffering more quickly. Love, an
experience rarely mentioned in Buddhist scriptures, is such a powerful
force that suffering retreats in its presence. The loveless negativism
of the extreme forms of Buddhism may lead to a sickly and unloving mind
just as easily as an enlightened spirit.
[see pictures of Vietnamese Buddhist monks burning themselves
alive in
1963]
(4) To suppress suffering, Buddha recommended the
Noble Eightfold Path, which consists of right views, right intention,
right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort,
right-mindedness, and right contemplation. What are right views? Is a
theocracy of Buddhist priests going to dictate to the sangha (monastic
community) how to think and what to say? Intense meditation is needed
by all, but the difficulties of determining what is "right action" and
"right speech" is fraught with dangers. Was it "right action" for Tibet
to fail to develop an effective military with which to fight off an
obvious Chinese threat? What brilliant monk dictated that
"right action" to the sheep like sangha?
I am not saying that Siddhartha's Four Noble Truths are wrong, but
rather that suffering should not be the centerpiece of a meditation
based religion for the West. A more positive path to enlightenment is
possible that is every bit as valid as traditional Buddhism and more
suited to the positive Western mind. I see this new Buddhism as an
offshoot of traditional Buddhist and Hindu practice, with both the old
and new schools coexisting without conflict. This new path has been
gradually evolving for decades in the West and this essay is simply
meant to help codify and clarify that which is already being born.
Buddhism started in India, but the countries to which it spread
modified Buddhist teachings to fit their own temperament and culture.
Tibetans now practice Tibetan Buddhism and the Japanese practice
Japanese Buddhism. The original form of Indian Buddhism has become
extinct. The West is far removed from Asian culture. It therefore seems
obvious that a new Western Buddhism should be quite different in
philosophy and methodology, while retaining the ultimate goal of
enlightenment.
Siddhartha left his life as a recluse in the forest to create an
esoteric philosophy for the masses. The problem is, there is no such
thing as an esoteric philosophy, because esoteric people do not need
any philosophy. All doctrine is a product of the mind, and the esoteric
leap beyond the mind leaves all philosophies far behind. Therefore, if
you create a new religion, it should be with the common man in mind.
Religion should be life affirming: value honesty, family, democracy,
and reasonable nonviolent behavior. Organized religion is useful to
elevate the masses to the point where real religion begins. That point
is beyond the mind and beyond any organization, scriptures, rules, or
teaching.
Is traditional Buddhist compassion hollow?
In traditional Buddhism you don't hear much talk about love, joy, and
romance. That is because the essence of traditional Buddhism is to keep
one's focus on suffering and death. This constant remembrance of the
negative is supposed to help one become detached from life and thus
attain the ultimate freedom of nirvana. The word "compassion" is used
by traditional Buddhists repetitiously and unconsciously. Buddhist
monks are sometimes taught to visualize sick and starving people and
then feel "compassion" for their suffering. Christians are taught to
feed the sick, cure the ill, and to love their spouses and children
dearly. In this way Christianity is a superior religion to Buddhism,
because Christian compassion leads to helpful positive action and is
not just a self-absorbed, self-centered pretense.
Unlike Christians, Buddhists are not known for doing great charity
work, because the Buddhist focus is always on the negative. Why develop
a cure for a disease if nature is just going to come up with a new
disease sooner or latter to take its place? Aging, decay, and death are
always on the Buddhist's mind, so why bother fighting a futile battle
against the inevitable physical collapse? If your religion makes
suffering the centerpiece of your attention, you will not nurture life
to make it better. All your effort is invested in trying to escape
life, not in trying to improve the art of living. If your attitude is
defeatist at its core, then why even bother to try? Thus Tibet was in a
state of physical ruin when the Chinese army simply walked into Tibet
in October of 1950. The Chinese took control with little effective
resistance because Tibetans had not developed a strong and viable
society.
Is attachment to guru better than attachment to money or sex?
Another great problem for Buddhism has been the excessive worship of
gurus, which is an irrational contradiction for a religion that puts
such a great emphasis on detachment. Intense love can be very positive,
but worship and idolization quickly degrade into enslavement. Just
because a human being realizes his or her own true identity does not
make that human being a deity. I have been with many teachers, some of
whom were fully enlightened, but none of whom were perfect human
beings. It is my understanding that all enlightened human beings remain
human, with weaknesses and the potential for corruption.
Self-realization is not self-perfection in any total sense. It could
more accurately be described as self-expansion. You become vast inside,
but not perfect and not all knowing. Even after full enlightenment you
can still be fooled by others and make blunders yourself.
Existential intelligence, the knowledge of one's self, does not
automatically give you a higher IQ or a degree in science. The
enlightened men I have know have all been pretty miserable at science,
mathematics, and economics. They end up living in ivory towers, part
created by themselves and part created by their own disciples.
Spiritual teachers can even lose their basic common sense through lack
of contact with the more ordinary world we live in. The last person you
should go to for advice about politics or science is the guru on the
mountain, because he is divorced from the world that works, creates
wealth, and continues the human race.
For Westerners, the East represents an imagined source of pure
spiritual inspiration. Unfortunately, for many poor Asian monks and
teachers, the West has meant a source of income and a new livelihood.
Many in the East have long felt that only Asians could comprehend the
inner art of meditation, and their focus in the West has been largely
motivated by a desire to raise funds. If you are living in a hut in
India or ramshackle monastery in Nepal, a journey to the West is an
opportunity to increase your standard of living. Many Asians wrongly
assume that they own meditation as if it were a proprietary cultural
commodity. Westerners must beware that the East is no more innocent
than the West, and many Asian gurus are just as impure in motivation as
our own homegrown variety of spiritual opportunist.
Is traditional Buddhism pro-freedom?
The East has always had an imperial model for the teacher-student
relationship. At worst it has degraded into a corrupt, authoritarian
charade of spirituality. Tibetans still enthrone their high lamas in
elaborate royal ceremonies. Are we in the West going to enthrone those
Westerners among us who attain enlightenment in future years? The very
idea is ridiculous and counter to our finest principles of equality and
democracy. I have never met any human being who was so enlightened that
they did not occasionally come up with some truly bad ideas. Likewise,
it is rare to find an individual so low that on occasion they don't
have a positive suggestion. The West must develop its own path, based
on our most noble principles of dignity and respect for all.
A new path is possible
Buddha said that life exists as constant change, but many Buddhist
leaders want Buddhism to remain fixed and dead like a rock. A new, more
direct path to self-realization is possible that avoids trying to make
Westerners look and act more like people from the East. If Westerners
are to find their own self, they will have to look deep inside their
own self, and not merely imitate the persona of others. Americans and
Europeans are not the same as Tibetans and Indians. Trying to think and
act like a Tibetan will only make you a false Tibetan, never a real
Tibetan, and never a real enlightened Western human being.
I love and respect many Buddhist teachers who are alive today. I just
hope a newer breed of teacher will one day appear that will actively
encourage students of meditation to become total human beings. We need
a new living Buddhism that changes with the times and the condition of
the seekers traveling the path. Westerners can afford the luxury of
being lovers, parents, meditators, and creators of wealth, all in the
same lifetime. Buddha gave up his wealth because he thought
that was the only way to achieve enlightenment. I am saying that you
can keep your wealth, your spouse, your home, and still make spiritual
progress. Science can give us the added energy we need to have it all.
It all is important, and nothing of importance should be discarded in
the name of spirituality.
Christopher Calder
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