Westernized Buddhism seems to be turning more and more towards materialism, if not hard scientism, which has become the unspoken modern lingua franca. Foremost, it has a decisive bias towards non-materialistic, spiritual phenomena. One of its cardinal tenets, it believes the brain and the self are the same, or if you like, the brain and mind are the same so that when the brain goes we go—there is no self (P. natthattâ). In addition, there is no rebirth or karma.
For those of us familiar with the Pali canon, this sounds a lot like the teaching of the materialist, Ajita Kesakambali, who was a contemporary of the Buddha.
“Ajita Kesakambali taught what appears to be a form of materialism, that there is no future life for us let alone repeated rebirth. Mankind is formed of earth, water, fire, and air, which return to their elements after death. There is no merit in good deeds (good karma) or demerit in wicked ones" (Paul Williams, Anthony Tribe, Buddhist Thought, p. 19).
Implied in Ajita’s materialism, as with modern forms of materialism, is the belief that our mental life is born from a certain configuration of matter (e.g., biological matter). But then what is matter? Oddly, pushing to the very limits of what is meant by matter, matter cannot be defined except to go in a circle—it almost means nothing. For example, matter is mass, mass is matter. The best definition that we can find for matter is that it is resistance. But this answer falls into the jurisdiction of metaphysics like the notion of force. In other words, we are still in the land of ideas, not matter as a fact.
Switching gears, what Western Buddhists have achieved is really the transformation of Buddhism into a kind of a humanist materialism. From this perspective, Western Buddhism has invented a new kind of nirvana that is all about the total acceptance of death. Our self along with the brain, after we are dead, will be no more. Supposedly, in this state of peaceful nothingness, suffering cannot touch us ever again.
But all this rests on murky assumptions that matter, for one thing, is primary, not spirit, or the same, Mind. If, on the other hand, there is the postmortem survival of consciousness, this materialist version of Buddhism is in deep trouble.
Because of our ignorance (avidya) with respect to what phenomena are fundamentally composed of, in which materialism is still just a guess, we are caught in an almost inescapable trap of doubt and unsurety. We cannot be certain that there is no postmortem survival of consciousness (vijñâna), as Buddhism predicts, in which consciousness will spontaneously interface with a more dense expression of its latent desires and presuppositions, which is rebirth (punarbhava).
Western Buddhists, for the most part, do not come to study Buddhism with an open mind. If they did, they would not wince when the word “rebirth” is read or heard. The project of Western Buddhism is to forge a new religion using some older parts of Buddhism in which Buddhism is turned into a religion of death and mortality acceptance. This is really the teaching of Ajita Kesakambali—not the Buddha.
".....The soul is the same as the body I have left undeclared - The soul is one thing and the body another I have left undeclared. After death a Tathagata exists - I have left undeclared...." et cetera, Majjhima Nikaya, Culamalurikya Sutta
It may be fundamental that the ten (sometimes fourteen) unanswered questions remain such.
Like David Ashton says the answers don't make any difference.
Posted by: Bob Morris | July 16, 2012 at 07:47 PM
Paul Garrigan
" I just don’t understand why they need to call this Buddhism. To make matters worse you have people like Stepehen Batchelor who are trying to claim that the Buddha was originally some type of nihilistic materialist."
Bless your heart laddie! :)
Posted by: azanshi | July 13, 2012 at 12:17 PM
Excellent article! I don’t see anything wrong with westerners cherry picking the parts of the teachings they like to soften their scientism and nihilistic beliefs. I just don’t understand why they need to call this Buddhism. To make matters worse you have people like Stepehen Batchelor who are trying to claim that the Buddha was originally some type of nihilistic materialist.
I live in Buddhist Thailand and it always amazes me to hear western Buddhists mock the locals for their beliefs. Some of these people are only recent converts to Buddhism but they look down on the Thais for not being Buddhist enough. They try to make out that teachings like rebirth are just superstition.
Posted by: Paul Garrigan | July 12, 2012 at 07:01 PM
Great scholarly breakdown of the contemporary buddhist malaise. This also admirably reinforces your case in "Spotting secular Buddhists."
Posted by: MStrinado | July 12, 2012 at 06:35 AM