-
Distorted Visions of Buddhism: Agnostic and Atheistby B. Alan
Wallace
As Buddhism has encountered modernity, it runs against
widespread prejudices, both religious and anti-religious, and it is
common for all those with such biases to misrepresent Buddhism,
either intentionally or unintentionally. Reputable scholars of
Buddhism, both traditional and modern, all agree that the
historical Buddha taught a view of karma and rebirth that was quite
different from the previous takes on these ideas. Moreover, his
teachings on the nature and origins of suffering as well as
liberation are couched entirely within the framework of rebirth.
Liberation is precisely freedom from the round of birth and death
that is samsara. But for many contemporary people drawn to
Buddhism, the teachings on karma and rebirth dont sit well, so they
are faced with a dilemma. A legitimate option is simply is adopt
those theories and practices from various Buddhist traditions that
one finds compelling and beneficial and set the others aside. An
illegitimate option is to reinvent the Buddha and his teachings
based on ones own prejudices. This, unfortunately, is the route
followed by Stephen Batchelor and other like-minded people who are
intent on reshaping the Buddha in their own images.The back cover
of Batchelors most recent book, entitled Confession of a Buddhist
Atheist, describes his work as a stunning and groundbreaking
recovery of the historical Buddha and his message. One way for this
to be true, would be that his book is based on a recent discovery
of ancient Buddhist manuscripts, comparable to the Dead Sea Scrolls
or the Nag Hammadi library for Christianity. But it is not. Another
way is for his claims to be based on unprecedented historical
research by a highly accomplished scholar of ancient Indian
languages and history. But no such professional research or
scholarship is in evidence in this book. Instead, his claims about
the historical Buddha and his teachings are almost entirely
speculative, as he takes another stab at recreating Buddhism to
conform to his current views.To get a clear picture of Batchelors
agnostic-turned-atheist approach to Buddhism, there is no need to
look further than his earlier work, Buddhism without Beliefs.
Claiming to embrace Thomas Huxleys definition of agnosticism as the
method of following reason as far as it will take one, he
admonishes his readers, Do not pretend that conclusions are certain
which are not demonstrated or demonstrable.1 He then proceeds to
explain who the Buddha really was and what he really taught, often
in direct opposition to the teachings attributed to the Buddha by
all schools of Buddhism. If in this he is following Huxleys dictum,
this would imply that Batchelor has achieved at least the ability
to see directly into the past, if not complete omniscience
itself.Some may believe that the liberties Batchelor takes in
redefining the Buddhas teachings are justified since no one knows
what he really taught, so one persons opinion is as good as
anothers. This view ignores the fact that generations of
traditional Buddhists, beginning with the first Buddhist council
shortly following the Buddhas death, have reverently taken the
utmost care to accurately preserve his teachings. Moreover, modern
secular Buddhist scholarship also has applied its formidable
literary, historical, and archeological skills to trying to
determine the teachings of the Buddha. Despite the many important
differences among Theravada, Mahayana, and Vajrayana schools of
Buddhism, traditional Buddhists
1 Stephen Batchelor, Buddhism without Beliefs: A Contemporary
Guide to Awakening. (New York: Riverhead Books, 1997), 17-18.
1
-
of all schools recognize the Pali suttas as being the most
uncontested records of the Buddhas teachings.In the face of such
consensus by professional scholars and contemplatives throughout
history, it is simply an expression of arrogance to override their
conclusions simply due to ones own preferences or intuition (which
is often thinly disguised prejudice). To ignore the most compelling
evidence of what the Buddha taught and to replace that by
assertions that run counter to such evidence is indefensible. And
when those secular, atheistic assertions just happen to correspond
to the materialistic assumptions of modernity, it is simply
ridiculous to attribute them to the historical Buddha.For example,
contrary to all the historical evidence, Batchelor writes that the
Buddha did not claim to have had experience that granted him
privileged, esoteric knowledge of how the universe ticks. To cite
just two of innumerable statements in the Pali canon pertaining to
the scope of the Buddhas knowledge: Whatever in this world with its
devas, maras, and brahmas, its generations complete with
contemplatives and priests, princes and men is seen, heard, sensed,
cognized, attained, sought after, pondered by the intellect, that
has been fully awakened to by the Tathagata. Thus he is called the
Tathagata.2 In a similar vein, we read, the world and its arising
are fully known by a Tathagata and he is released from both; he
also knows the ending of it and the way thereto. He speaks as he
does; he is unconquered in the world.3
Batchelor brings to his understanding of Buddhism a strong
antipathy toward religion and religious institutions, and this bias
pervades all his recent writings. Rather than simply rejecting
elements of the Buddhas teachings that strike him as religious
which would be perfectly legitimate Batchelor takes the
illegitimate step of denying that the Buddha ever taught anything
that would be deemed religious by contemporary western standards,
claiming, that There is nothing particularly religious or spiritual
about this path. Rather, the Buddhas teachings were a form of
existential, therapeutic, and liberating agnosticism that was
refracted through the symbols, metaphors, and imagery of his
world.4 Being an agnostic himself, Batchelor overrides the massive
amount of textual evidence that the Buddha was anything but an
agnostic, and recreates the Buddha in his own image, promoting
exactly what Batchelor himself believes in, namely, a form of
existential, therapeutic, and liberating agnosticism.Since
Batchelor dismisses all talk of rebirth as a waste of time, he
projects this view onto his image of the Buddha, declaring that he
regarded speculation about future and past lives to be just another
distraction. This claim flies in the face of the countless times
the Buddha spoke of the immense importance of rebirth and karma,
which lie at the core of his teachings as they are recorded in Pali
suttas. Batchelor is one of many Zen teachers nowadays who regard
future and past lives as a mere distraction. But in adopting this
attitude, they go against the teachings of Dogen Zenji, founder of
the Soto school of Zen, who addressed the importance of the
teachings on rebirth and karma in his principal anthology, Treasury
of the Eye of the True Dharma (Shobogenzo). In his book Deep Faith
in Cause and Effect (Jinshin inga), he criticizes Zen masters who
deny karma, and in Karma of the Three Times (Sanji go), he goes
into more detail on this matter.5
As to the source of Buddhist teachings on rebirth, Batchelor
speculates, In accepting the idea of rebirth, the Buddha reflected
the worldview of his time. In the Kalama Sutta, the
2 Itivuttaka 1123 A guttara Nikya II 234 Stephen Batchelor,
Buddhism without Beliefs, 10, 15.5 Yuho Yokoi, Zen Master Dogen: An
Introduction with Selected Writings (New York: Weatherhill,
1976).
2
-
Buddha counsels others not to accept beliefs simply because many
people adhere to them, or because they accord with a tradition,
rumor, scripture, or speculation. So Batchelor, in effect, accuses
the Buddha of not following his own advice! In reality, the Buddhas
detailed accounts of rebirth and karma differed significantly from
other Indian thinkers views on these subjects; and given the wide
range of philosophical views during his era, there was no uniformly
accepted worldview of his time.Rather than adopting this idea from
mere hearsay, the Buddha declared that in the first watch of the
night of his enlightenment, after purifying his mind with the
achievement of samadhi, he gained direct knowledge of the specific
details of many thousands of his own past lifetimes throughout the
course of many eons of cosmic contraction and expansion. In the
second watch of the night, he observed the multiple rebirths of
countless other sentient beings, observing the consequences of
their wholesome and unwholesome deeds from one life to the next.
During the third watch of the night he gained direct knowledge of
the Four Noble Truths, revealing the causes of gaining liberation
from this cycle of rebirth.6 While there is ample evidence that the
Buddha claimed to have direct knowledge of rebirth, there is no
textual or historical evidence that he simply adopted some
pre-existing view, which would have been antithetical to his entire
approach of not accepting theories simply because they are commonly
accepted. There would be nothing wrong if Batchelor simply rejected
the authenticity of the Buddhas enlightenment and the core of his
teachings, but instead he rejects the most reliable accounts of the
Buddhas vision and replaces it with his own, while then projecting
it on the Buddha that exists only in his imagination.Perhaps the
most important issue secularists ignore regarding the teachings
attributed to the Buddha is that there are contemplative methods
practiced by many generations of ardent seekers of truth for
putting many, if not all, these teachings to the test of
experience. Specifically, Buddhist assertions concerning the
continuity of individual consciousness after death and rebirth can
be explored through the practice of samadhi, probing beyond the
coarse dimension of consciousness that is contingent upon the brain
to a subtler continuum of awareness that allegedly carries on from
one lifetime to the next. 7 Such samadhi training does not require
prior belief in reincarnation, but it does call for great
determination and zeal in refining ones attention skills. Such
full-time, rigorous training may require months or even years of
disciplined effort, and this is where the Buddhist science of the
mind really gets launched. If one is content with ones own
dogmatic, materialist assertions content to accept the
uncorroborated assumption that all states of consciousness are
produced by the brain then one is bound to remain ignorant about
the origins and nature of consciousness. But if one is determined
to progress from a state of agnosticism not knowing what happens at
death to direct knowledge of the deeper dimensions of
consciousness, then Buddhism provides multiple avenues of
experiential discovery. Many may welcome this as a refreshing
alternative to the blind acceptance of materialist assumptions
about consciousness that do not lend themselves to either
confirmation or repudiation through experience.Batchelor concludes
that since different Buddhist schools vary in their interpretations
of the Buddhas teachings in response to the questions of the nature
of that which is reborn and how this process occurs, all their
views are based on nothing more than speculation. 8
6 Majjhima Nikya 36:
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/ptf/buddha.html7 Buddhaghosa, The
Path of Purification, trans. amoli Bhikkhu (Kandy: Buddhist
Publication Society,
1979), XIII 13-120; B. Alan Wallace, Mind in the Balance:
Meditation in Science, Buddhism, and Christianity (New York:
Columbia University Press, 2009), 115 118.
8 Stephen Batchelor, Buddhism without Beliefs, 35-36.
3
-
Scientists in all fields of inquiry commonly differ in their
interpretations of empirical findings, so if this fact invalidates
Buddhist teachings, it should equally invalidate scientific
findings as well. While in his view Buddhism started out as
agnostic, it has tended to lose its agnostic dimension through
becoming institutionalized as a religion (i.e., a revealed belief
system valid for all time, controlled by an elite body of priests).
9 Since there is no evidence that Buddhism was ever agnostic, any
assertions about how it lost this status are nothing but groundless
speculations, driven by the philosophical bias that he brings to
Buddhism.As an agnostic Buddhist, Batchelor does not regard the
Buddhas teachings as a source of answers to questions of where we
came from, where we are going, or what happens after death,
regardless of the extensive teachings attributed to the Buddha
regarding each of these issues. Rather, he advises Buddhists to
seek such knowledge in what he deems the appropriate domains:
astrophysics, evolutionary biology, neuroscience, and so on. With
this advice, he reveals that he is a devout member of the
congregation of Thomas Huxleys Church Scientific, taking refuge in
science as the one true way to answer all the deepest questions
concerning human nature and the universe at large. Ironically, a
rapidly growing number of open-minded cognitive scientists are
seeking to collaborate with Buddhist contemplatives in the
multi-disciplinary, cross-cultural study of the mind. Buddhist and
scientific methods of inquiry have their strengths and limitations,
and many who are eager to find answers to questions of where we
came from, where we are going, or what happens after death
recognize that Buddhism has much to offer in this regard.
Batchelors stance, on the contrary, fails to note the limitations
of modern science and the strengths of Buddhism regarding such
questions, so the current of history is bound to leave him
behind.Having identified himself as an agnostic follower of Huxley,
Batchelor then proceeds to make one declaration after another about
the limits of human consciousness and the ultimate nature of human
existence and the universe at large, as if he were the most
accomplished of gnostics. A central feature of Buddhist meditation
is the cultivation of samadhi, by which the attentional imbalances
of restlessness and lethargy are gradually overcome through
rigorous, sustained training. But in reference to the vacillation
of the mind from restlessness to lethargy, Batchelor responds, No
amount of meditative expertise from the mystical East will solve
this problem, because such restlessness and lethargy are not mere
mental or physical lapses but reflexes of an existential
condition.10 Contemplative adepts from multiple traditions,
including Hinduism and Buddhism have been disproving this claim for
thousands of years, and it is now being refuted by modern
scientific research.11 But Batchelor is so convinced of his own
preconceptions regarding the limitations of the human mind and of
meditation that he ignores all evidence to the contrary.While there
are countless references in the discourses of the Buddha referring
to the realization of emptiness, Batchelor claims, Emptinessis not
something we realize in a moment of mystical insight that breaks
through to a transcendent reality concealed behind yet mysteriously
underpinning the empirical world. He adds, we can no more step out
of language and imagination than we can step out of our bodies.12
Buddhist contemplatives
9 Ibid. 16.10 Ibid. 62.11 Progress in this regard can be read by
following the series of scientific papers on the Shamatha
Project
on the website of the Santa Barbara Institute for Consciousness
Studies: http://sbinstitute.com/. Other studies have been cited
elsewhere in this volume.
12 Stephen Batchelor, Buddhism without Beliefs, 39.
4
-
throughout history have reportedly experienced states of
consciousness that transcend language and concepts as a result of
their practice of insight meditation. But Batchelor describes such
practice as entailing instead a state of perplexity in which one is
overcome by awe, wonder, incomprehension, shock, during which not
just the mind but the entire organism feels perplexed.13
Batchelors account of meditation describes the experiences of
those who have failed to calm the restlessness and lethargy of
their own minds through the practice of samadhi, and failed to
realize emptiness or transcend language and concepts through the
practice of vipashyana. Instead of acknowledging these as failures,
he heralds them as triumphs and, without a shred of supportive
evidence, attributes them to a Buddhism that exists nowhere but in
his imagination.Although Batchelor declared himself to be an
agnostic, such proclamations about the true teachings of the Buddha
and about the nature of the human mind, the universe, and ultimate
reality all suggest that he has assumed for himself the role of a
gnostic of the highest order. Rather than presenting Buddhism
without beliefs, his version is saturated with his own beliefs,
many of them based upon nothing more than his own imagination.
Batchelors so-called agnosticism is utterly paradoxical. On the one
hand, he rejects a multitude of Buddhist beliefs based upon the
most reliable textual sources, while at the same time confidently
making one claim after another without ever supporting them with
demonstrable evidence.In Batchelors most recent book,14 he refers
to himself as an atheist, more so than as an agnostic, and when I
asked him whether he still holds the above views expressed in his
book published thirteen years ago, he replied that he no longer
regards the Buddhas teachings as agnostic, but as pragmatic.15 It
should come as no surprise that as he shifted his own self-image
from that of an agnostic to an atheist, the image he projects of
the Buddha shifts accordingly. In short, his views on the nature of
the Buddha and his teachings are far more a reflection of himself
and his own views than they are of any of the most reliable
historical accounts of the life and teachings of the Buddha.In his
move from agnosticism to atheism, Batchelor moves closer to the
position of Sam Harris, who is devoted to the ideal of science
destroying religion. In his book Letter to a Christian Nation,
Harris proclaims that the problem with religion is the problem of
dogma, in contrast to atheism, which he says is not a philosophy;
it is not even a view of the world; it is simply an admission of
the obvious.16 This, of course, is the attitude of all dogmatists:
they are so certain of their beliefs that they regard anyone who
disagrees with them as being so stupid or ignorant that they cant
recognize the obvious.17
In his article Killing the Buddha Harris shares his advice with
the Buddhist community, like Batchelor asserting, The wisdom of the
Buddha is currently trapped within the religion of Buddhism, and he
goes further in declaring that merely being a self-described
Buddhist is to be complicit in the worlds violence and ignorance to
an unacceptable degree. By the same logic, Harris, as a self-avowed
atheist, must be complicit in the monstrous violence of communist
regimes throughout Asia who, based on atheistic dogma, sought to
destroy all religions and murder their followers. While Harris has
recently
13 Ibid. 97.14 Stephen Batchelor, Confession of a Buddhist
Atheist (New York: Spiegel & Grau, 2010).15 Personal
correspondence, July 6, 2010.16 Sam Harris, Letter to a Christian
Nation (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2006), 51.17 Cf. B. Alan
Wallace, Religion and Reason: A Review of Sam Harriss Letter to a
Christian Nation. In
Shambhala Sun, October/November 2006: 99-104.
5
-
distanced himself from the label atheist, he still insists that
religious faith may be the most destructive force in the world. It
is far more reasonable, however, to assert that greed, hatred, and
delusion are the most destructive forces in human nature; and
theists, atheists, and agnostics are all equally prone to these
mental afflictions.Harris not only claims to have what is
tantamount to a kind of gnostic insight into the true teachings of
the Buddha, he also claims to know what most Buddhists do and do
not realize: If the methodology of Buddhism (ethical precepts and
meditation) uncovers genuine truths about the mind and the
phenomenal world truths like emptiness, selflessness, and
impermanence these truths are not in the least Buddhist. No doubt,
most serious practitioners of meditation realize this, but most
Buddhists do not. 18 In the wake of the unspeakable tragedy of
communist regimes attempts to annihilate Buddhism from the face of
the earth, it comes as an unexpected blow when individuals who have
been instructed by Buddhist teachers and profess sympathy for
Buddhism seem intent on completing what the communists have left
undone.The current domination of science, education, and the
secular media by scientific materialism has cast doubt on many of
the theories and practices of the worlds religions. This situation
is not without historical precedent. In the time of the Weimar
Republic, Hitler offered what appeared to be a vital secular faith
in place of the discredited creeds of religion, Lenin and Stalin
did the same in the Soviet Union, and Mao Zedong followed suit in
China. Hugh Heclo, former professor of government at Harvard
University, writes of this trend, If traditional religion is absent
from the public arena, secular religions are unlikely to satisfy
mans quest for meaning. It was an atheistic faith in man as creator
of his own grandeur that lay at the heart of Communism, fascism and
all the horrors they unleashed for the twentieth century. And it
was adherents of traditional religions Martin Niemller, C.S. Lewis,
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Reinhold Niebuhr, Martin Buber who often
warned most clearly of the tragedy to come from attempting to build
mans own version of the New Jerusalem on Earth.19
While Batchelor focuses on replacing the historical teachings of
the Buddha with his own secularized vision and Harris rails at the
suffering inflicted upon humanity by religious dogmatists, both
tend to overlook the fact that Hitler, Stalin, and Mao Zedong
caused more bloodshed, justified by their secular ideologies, than
all the religious wars that preceded them throughout human
history.I am not suggesting that Batchelor or Harris, who are both
decent, well-intentioned men, are in any way similar to Hitler,
Stalin, or Mao Zedong. But I am suggesting that Batchelors
misrepresentation of Buddhism parallels that of Chinese communist
anti-Buddhist propaganda; and the Buddhist holocaust inflicted by
multiple communist regimes throughout Asia during the twentieth
century were based upon and justified by propaganda virtually
identical to Harriss vitriolic, anti-religious polemics.The
Theravada Buddhist commentator Buddhaghosa refers to far enemies
and near enemies of certain virtues, namely, loving-kindness,
compassion, empathetic joy, and equanimity. The far enemies of each
of these virtues are vices that are diametrically opposed to their
corresponding virtues, and the near enemies are false facsimiles.
The far enemy of loving-kindness, for instance, is malice, and that
of compassion is cruelty. The near enemy of loving-kindness is
self-centered attachment, and that of compassion is grief, or
despair.20 To draw a parallel, communist regimes that are bent on
destroying
18 Sam Harris, Killing the Buddha In Shambhala Sun, March 2006,
73-75.19 Hugh Heclo, Religion and Public Policy, Journal of Policy
History, Vol. 13, No.1, 2001, 14.20 Buddhaghosa, The Path of
Purification, trans. Bhikkhu amoli (Kandy: Buddhist Publication
Society,
6
-
Buddhism from the face of the earth may be called the far
enemies of Buddhism, for they are diametrically opposed to all that
Buddhism stands for. Batchelor and Harris, on the other hand,
present themselves as being sympathetic to Buddhism, but their
visions of the nature of the Buddhas teachings are false facsimiles
of all those that have been handed down reverently from one
generation to the next since the time of the Buddha. However benign
their intentions, their writings may be regarded as near enemies of
Buddhism.The popularity of the writings of Batchelor, Harris, and
other atheists such as Richard Dawkins both within the scientific
community and the public at large shows they are far from alone in
terms of their utter disillusionment with traditional religions.
Modern science, as conceived by Galileo, originated out of a love
for God the Father and a wish to know the mind of their benevolent,
omnipotent Creator by way of knowing His creation. As long as
science and Christianity seemed compatible, religious followers of
science could retain what psychologists call a sense of secure
attachment regarding both science and religion. But particularly
with Darwins discovery of evolution by natural selection and the
militant rise of the Church Scientific, for many, the secure
attachment toward religion has mutated into a kind of dismissive
avoidance.Children with avoidant attachment styles tend to avoid
parents and caregivers no longer seeking comfort or contact with
them and this becomes especially pronounced after a period of
absence. People today who embrace science, together with the
metaphysical beliefs of scientific materialism turn away from
traditional religious beliefs and institutions, no longer seeking
comfort or contact with them; and those who embrace religion and
refuse to be indoctrinated by materialistic biases commonly lose
interest in science. This trend is viewed with great perplexity and
dismay by the scientific community, many of whom are convinced that
they are uniquely objective, unbiased, and free of beliefs that are
unsupported by empirical evidence.Thomas Huxleys ideal of the
beliefs and institution of the Church Scientific achieving
domination over the whole realm of the intellect is being promoted
by agnostics and atheists like Batchelor and Harris. But if we are
ever to encounter the Buddhist vision of reality, we must first set
aside all our philosophical biases, whether they are theistic,
agnostic, atheist, or otherwise. Then, through critical,
disciplined study of the most reliable sources of the Buddhas
teachings, guided by qualified spiritual friends and teachers,
followed by rigorous, sustained practice, we may encounter the
Buddhist vision of reality. And with this encounter with our own
true nature, we may realize freedom through our own experience.
That is the end of agnosticism, for we come to know reality as it
is, and the truth will set us free.
B. Alan Wallace is an American author, translator, teacher,
researcher, interpreter, and Buddhist practitioner interested in
the intersections of consciousness studies and scientific
disciplines such as psychology, cognitive neuroscience and
physics.
1979) IX: B. Alan Wallace, The Four Immeasurables: Cultivating a
Boundless Heart (Ithaca, NY: Snow Lion Publications, 2004).
7
-
An Open Letter To B. Alan Wallaceby Stephen Batchelor
Dear Alan,I have read your piece Distorted Visions of Buddhism:
Agnostic and Atheist, which appeared in the previous issue of
Mandala. While I recognize that some of what I say conflicts with
Buddhist orthodoxy, I do not believe that I am distorting the
message of Siddhattha Gotama. I am offering an interpretation of
the Dharma in the hope that the Buddhas teaching will continue to
speak to the core concerns of people in todays world and provide an
effective philosophy and practice with which to address them. I
realize that what I say might seem puzzling, objectionable and even
heretical to followers of traditional Buddhist schools. And I
regret any offence I might inadvertently have caused you and others
through my writings.Here is an email I received via my website a
few days ago from a complete stranger:Dear Stephen, thank you for
the knowledge of Buddhism that you pass on to all of us engaged
with the complexity of Buddhism in a modern Western world.
Personally you have helped me recover the devotion to and belief in
a Buddhist and ethical approach to life. Since I travelled in Asia
12 years ago, I have been very fascinated with Buddhism, but the
question of rebirth always made me doubt whether I could call
myself a Buddhist or not and whether this was the right approach to
life for me if I had to force myself to believe something I
actually questioned. It was such a relief to read about agnosticism
and Buddhism as being actually able to work together. You have
helped me find my way back to something dear to me. So I have taken
up my practice again, and this really brings focus back after many
years in the dark.I get a steady stream of letters like this. After
being inspired to practice the Dharma, many then become
disillusioned and frustrated by their involvement with traditional
forms of Buddhism. Having been presented with an image of Buddhism
as open-minded, rational, scientific and tolerant, they often find
themselves confronted with a Church-like institution that requires
unconditional allegiance to a teacher and acceptance of a
non-negotiable set of doctrinal beliefs. Some, as you suggest, are
advised to pursue their practice while putting aside those aspects
of Buddhist doctrine they find hard to accept. Yet while this
approach may work in certain cases, in others it does not. For many
people today like my correspondent above are seeking in Buddhism a
way of life that integrates all aspects of their humanity:
philosophical, ethical and spiritual. To be told simply to ignore
doctrines such as rebirth strikes them as intellectually
unsatisfying and even dishonest.I found myself in a similar dilemma
after eight years of studying with Geshe Rabten and other teachers
in the Gelug tradition. Although I could no longer in good faith
accept certain traditional beliefs, I was still convinced that the
Dharma offered the most comprehensive framework within which a
human life could flourish. It was then, as you know, that I went to
Korea to study and train in Zen.It has always puzzled me why you
and my other Tibetan Buddhist friends never showed the slightest
interest in what I did there. Zen does not sit comfortably with the
Indo-Tibetan forms of the Dharma. It seems oddly different, even
troubling. As we know, it was outlawed in Tibet after the Samye
debate in the 8th century. Yet because of its antiquity and
popularity, today one cannot just dismiss it out of hand. So you
likewise felt obliged in your essay to appeal to the authority of
Dogen to make your case for belief in rebirth more
8
-
watertight by including Zen. I do not dispute that Zen
Buddhists, broadly speaking, believe in rebirth. But, in terms of
Zen practice, it is irrelevant. The fact that I questioned it made
not an iota of difference to pursuing my study and training in the
monastic community at Songgwang Sa.A key significance of Zen in the
coming of the Dharma to the West is that it provides an excellent
historic case study of the encounter between Indian Buddhism and a
civilization with a highly evolved and distinctive culture of its
own, i.e. China. By contrast, when Buddhism entered South-East and
Central Asia, together with the Dharma it also introduced a high
culture that of India as well. By seeing how Buddhism was
transformed by its encounter with China, we may get a clue as to
how it also might change as it struggles to find a voice in the
modern world.I was trained in the Lin-chi (Rinzai) school of Zen,
whose founder was the 9th century monk Lin-chi I-hsuan, perhaps
best known for his admonition: If you meet the Buddha, kill him!
Were you to read the Record of Lin-chi, I suspect you might find
the writings of Batchelor rather timid and orthodox by comparison.
Or consider this exchange between Bodhidharma, who brought Zen to
China from India in the 6th century, and the devout Emperor Wu of
Liang:Wu: What is the meaning of the Holy Truths?Bodhidharma:
Unholy emptiness.Wu: So who is standing before me?Bodhidharma: I
dont know.Hows that for an atheist-agnostic double whammy?I found
all this terribly refreshing and liberating. The Zen masters of the
Tang dynasty (618-907) regarded as the golden age of Buddhism in
China exhibited a wonderful, irreverent vitality that sprang from
their native genius as it engaged with the Dharma of the Buddha.
They gave rise to the Zen culture that spread throughout East Asia,
producing sublime works of philosophy, poetry, literature, painting
and architecture. Or would you regard the entire movement as a
distortion of Buddhism, in which the Chinese projected their own
prejudices on the Dharma, and recreated the Buddha in their own
image as a Taoist sage?I do not, however, consider myself a Zen
teacher as you describe me; I have no more interest in promoting
that form of Asian Buddhism than any other. Yet my experience of
Zen was empowering it affirmed the value of imagination and
creativity in Dharma practice, it gave me the courage to speak out
in my own voice. I would be the first to recognize that this can be
a risky and hazardous endeavor. I am only too aware that I will be
accused of arrogance or worse. At times I am assailed by doubts.
Yet for better or worse, this is the way my path has unfolded, and
I feel a responsibility for those who seem to benefit from what I
say.Since I returned to Europe from Korea 25 years ago, my studies
have been focused on the discourses in the Pali Canon, which you
acknowledge as the most uncontested record of what the Buddha
taught. While it would be foolish to maintain that in these
discourses the Buddha never spoke of rebirth or framed some of his
key doctrines in the light of that belief, I would still argue that
he did so because that was the prevailing worldview of his time. If
you read those Upanishads that scholars regard as pre-dating the
Buddha, you will find plenty of passages that talk of a continuity
of life after death and the need for the soul to liberate itself
from this cycle by achieving union with the absolute reality of
God. The
9
-
Jain tradition of the Buddhas contemporary Mahavira, which goes
back to the figure of Parsva some two centuries earlier, is framed
in a similar way but without God. The Buddha goes a step further
and takes the soul out of the equation as well, though, curiously,
provides no explanation of what is or ceases to be reborn.
According to Thomas McEvilleys The Shape of the Ancient World:
Comparative Studies in Greek and Indian Philosophies, the view of
rebirth was widespread throughout the whole of antiquity from India
to Greece, and accepted by Pythagoras, who preceded the Buddha, and
Socrates, who was his contemporary.Now if, as you say, the Buddha
taught a quite different view of rebirth, you would expect to find
at least one sutta in the Pali Canon where you find him being
criticized for his views on this matter by brahmins and other
ascetics, and defending his unorthodox position. But, as far as Im
aware, you dont. On the contrary, when reading the Pali discourses,
one has the overriding impression that speaker and audience are in
broad agreement on what rebirth means. The Buddha doesnt have to
explain himself. I recognize that the Buddha or his followers
refined and developed the rebirth doctrine as part of their
distinctive scheme of salvation, but this is a Buddhist
contribution to the evolution of an established concept, rather
than a departure to something different.I was glad to see that you
quoted the Kalama Sutta as an authoritative source in your essay.
This is the only text I know of in the Pali Canon where the Buddha
explicitly states that the practice of the Dharma is valid and
worthwhile even if there is no hereafter and there are no fruits of
actions good or ill. This is the closest he comes to an agnostic
position on the subject. At the very least it suggests that he did
not regard belief in rebirth to be necessary for all those who
followed his teaching. Since the Kalama people are thought to have
lived outside the area of Brahmanic cultural influence, the text
offers us a glimpse as to how the Buddha, were he still alive,
might address an audience in the West today.As to the Buddhas
awakening, it is hardly surprising that you select a Pali text that
describes it in terms of remembering past lives, while I prefer to
cite the accounts that dont. For me, the most economic and
compelling account is found in The Noble Quest (Majjhima, 26),
where the Buddha tells his story from the renunciation to his
decision to teach. When he describes the awakening, there is no
mention at all of remembering past lives. His awakening consists of
his seeing conditioned origination from the perspective of the
cessation of craving. Nothing else. Then, as we know, he goes to
Sarnath, where he delivers his first discourse Turning the Wheel of
Dharma (an authoritative text if there ever was one) at the
conclusion of which he declares that as long as my knowledge and
vision were not entirely clear about the twelve aspects of the four
noble truths, I did not claim to have had a peerless awakening.
Again, no mention of remembering past lives.The doctrine of rebirth
is not inconsistent with these accounts, and I expect you will
respond by saying that they can only be really understood by
framing them in that context. I would claim, however, that they
provide an adequate basis for developing a coherent, canonically
sound, secular interpretation of the Dharma that has no need at all
for belief in multiple lifetimes.But there is another way to look
at the issue of rebirth which suggests that the Buddha would have
regarded this entire argument as being beside the point. Siddhattha
Gotama was born into a turbulent period in Indian history, where
the established social, political, philosophical and religious
order was being thrown into question. In this highly disputative
environment, some teachers openly rejected the view of rebirth.
While we get a general sense of this intellectual ferment
throughout the Pali Canon, it comes into clearest focus, I
10
-
believe, in two parables: those of the poisoned arrow (Majjhima,
63) and the blind men and the elephant (Udana, 6.4). Following the
Biblical scholars of the Jesus Seminar and the Pali scholar Richard
Gombrichs recent What the Buddha Thought, parables are regarded as
having a high likelihood of being actual words of the founder of
the tradition.Both these parables concern the ten views on which
the Buddha famously refused to comment. In the parable of the blind
men, we find these views being debated by brahmins and ascetics,
who are wounding each other with verbal darts, saying the Dharma is
like this! the Dharma is not like that! Among these views, not only
do we find the mind and body are the same and the mind and body are
different, but also the Tathagata exists after death and the
Tathagata does not exist after death. Since the parable describes
non-Buddhist brahmins and ascetics arguing about these issues, it
seems clear that the Tathagata here does not refer to the Buddha
(who, in any case, repeatedly stated this is my last birth) but
just means one or I, which is how the Pali commentaries explain it.
In other words, these views are simply the big questions to which
religions traditionally provide the answers. The Buddha, by
contrast, regards them as utterly irrelevant to accomplishing the
urgent task at hand: removing the poisoned arrow of craving that
pierces ones heart.The Pali canon might be the most uncontested
record of what the Buddha taught, but that doesnt mean it speaks in
a single, unambiguous voice. One hears multiple voices, some
apparently contradicting others. In part, this is because the
Buddha taught dialogically, addressing the needs of different
audiences, rather than imposing a single one-size-fits-all
doctrine. And it is precisely this diversity, I feel, that has
allowed for different forms of the Dharma to evolve and
flourish.Your attack on atheism puzzled me. I was surprised that
you found it at all contentious to describe the Buddhas teaching as
atheistic. Many readers have said to me: Why did you call your book
Confession of a Buddhist Atheist? I thought all Buddhists were
atheists? To then launch into a tirade against the evils
perpetuated by atheists during the 20th century, insinuating that
by declaring myself an atheist I am unwittingly preparing the
ground for another anti-Buddhist pogrom, is absurd. Unlike Stalin
and Mao, I am a Buddhist atheist, remember. By choosing this title,
I was hoping to show how Buddhism can offer a way of life that
embodies our deepest ethical, spiritual and religious concerns, yet
without having to believe in anything resembling God.I was glad you
mentioned Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who is a great inspiration for me.
Here was a courageous and deeply religious man, who nonetheless
envisioned a religionless Christianity that embraced the secular
world. While the German Churches compromised and vacillated in
their dealings with Hitler, he stood alone in bodhisattvic
opposition to the Nazi tyranny. I entirely sympathize with his view
that religious institutions can often hinder a heartfelt engagement
with the most pressing issues of the day. Some of us believe that
if the Dharma is to breathe again with the same creativity and
vitality that characterized all its schools at their inception, it
will need a reformation.Yours in the Dharma,StephenThis letter was
in response to Distorted Visions of Buddhism: Agnostic and Atheist
by B. Alan Wallace, first published as a Mandala online
exclusive.
11
-
A Reply to B. Alan Wallace's article "Distorted Visions of
Buddhism: Agnostic and Atheist"
by Ted Meissner, The Secular Buddhist
The article from B. Alan Wallace was posted for review on the
FaceBook fan page for the podcast on October 5, 2010, and prompted
much interest and discussion. Many points and counter points were
made, and some themes have risen to the surface. It is my hope to
explain a bit more about what this practice of secular Buddhism is,
why people are integrating the eightfold path in their daily lives
in this particular way, and respond to some of the points that were
made in the article. I will do my sincere best to provide
meaningful examples and dialogue, without engaging in logical
fallacies of argument. As a human being, subject to mistakes, I may
not catch my errors, and ask for your patience and honesty in
helping me correct those mistakes when they are made.
As Buddhism has encountered modernity, it runs against
widespread prejudices, both religious and anti-religious, and it is
common for all those with such biases to misrepresent Buddhism,
either intentionally or unintentionally.
This is a true statement, but incomplete. Buddhism is not exempt
from the natural evolutionary process of adaptation, all religions
go through cultural assimilation as they encounter new environments
from the one in which they initially formed. They are all
encountering modernity. The book The Making of Buddhist Modernism
by David L. McMahan does a very respectful investigation of some
modern impacts to our tradition. There is also a positive side to
this. Buddhism and other faiths do encounter prejudices, but they
also encounter fertile ground for growth with people who have not
heard the teaching and resonate with it. Any departure from
classical early Buddhism, the whole of the rich Mahayana school,
was able to come from that original teaching and provide a
spiritual path to those who found it. Alan Wallace himself is an
example of that growth, that opportunity for a Westerner to
practice a tradition they would not otherwise encounter except for
that very engagement outside of the land of its formation.
Reputable scholars of Buddhism, both traditional and modern, all
agree that the historical Buddha taught a view of karma and rebirth
that was quite different from the previous takes on these
ideas.
What is the definition of "reputable scholars of Buddhism?" Who
is the defining authority for what is reputable? This touches on
the first point of secularism I'd like to share, not simply in
Buddhism but with all religious traditions -- authority is
arbitrary. Anyone can (and many have) declared themselves the
authority by lineage, divine inspiration, by years on the cushion,
by fiat. Secularism is in total agreement with the Canki sutta's
criticism of tradition, and the Kalama sutta, which describe
authority as not being a valid means of determining the truth of a
statement. This does not mean we completely reject all statements
by figures with experience and skills in the realm for which
they're speaking. It simply means that we can and should question
the validity of statements made, and put them to the test for
ourselves. This is in complete accord with the Buddha's
teaching.
Moreover, his teachings on the nature and origins of suffering
as well as liberation are couched entirely within the framework of
rebirth. Liberation is
12
-
precisely freedom from the round of birth and death that is
samsara. I agree that the Pali canon has rebirth, and liberation as
being freed from the rounds of rebirth. Not all agree on that
point, so please understand this is my own accordance. This,
however, brings up a second point of the secular point of view.
Again, in alignment with the Canki sutta, I am completely honest
and open about not having been present 2,500 years ago, nor were my
teachers, nor my teachers' teachers, for far more than seven
generations. The simple fact is I don't know -- none of us do. We
have a wonderful teaching in the words of the Pali canon. But, we
weren't there. We don't know what the Buddha said, we only find
some degree of reasonable expectation that what is said, when
tested for ourselves, is of value in our personal spiritual growth.
This is a discussion I have had many times with devout Christians,
absolutely certain that the words in their Bible are true and the
divinely inspired word of God. And yet, without any clear
definition beyond their own belief, they reject out of hand the
Book of Mormon. And without any experience with Buddhism, dismiss
it just as completely. Again, Buddhism is not exempt because we
practice it -- there is absolutely no way for all religious texts
to be completely and literally true, as they say different things.
When you practice Buddhism and identify as Buddhist, or Christian,
or Hindu, or Muslim, you're making a choice to dismiss other
traditions in favor of your own. And that is why I as a secular
person reject untested acceptance of religious texts as the source
of authority for my spiritial growth. It doesn't mean I don't find
value in them, or that I don't resonate more with some traditions
than others. It means I question what is said, and put it to the
test.
But for many contemporary people drawn to Buddhism, the
teachings on karma and rebirth dont sit well, so they are faced
with a dilemma. A legitimate option is simply to adopt those
theories and practices from various Buddhist traditions that one
finds compelling and beneficial and set the others aside. An
illegitimate option is to reinvent the Buddha and his teachings
based on ones own prejudices. This, unfortunately, is the route
followed by Stephen Batchelor and other like-minded people who are
intent on reshaping the Buddha in their own images.
This is not a dilemma for us in the least, because the secular
expression is one of questioning and not adhering to that which is
unproven, and has no basis in the natural world. And, again, who is
the judge of what is legitimate, and why? I am being described
quite clearly here as being like minded to Stephen Batchelor. I am;
it has been my great joy to speak with him on these topics and have
him as a guest on the podcast. I am unreservedly atheist in the
sense that I do not believe in deities or the supernatural, there
is nothing agnostic about it. I am also unreservedly Buddhist in
the sense that I have a practice of personal growth, and that
practice is the eightfold path. This is not a choice made out of
faith in the Judeo-Christian sense, but in the Pali connotation of
faith (saddha) being "confidence." I disagree with the concept that
we are intent on reshaping the Buddha in our own image. We are not.
This brings me to the third point about secular Buddhist practice,
that of providing another inroad to the dhamma. We are all people.
We all have the same propensity for suffering, for joy, for
ignorance, for understanding. But we all do have different personal
experiences, backgrounds, likes, and inclinations. Many of us know
or are ourselves Westerners who started out with a Judeo-Christian
background, but have come to have a Buddhist practice. Whether it's
Zen,
13
-
Theravada, Vajrayana, etc., they have left another tradition and
taken the precepts. For some, there remains a cognitive dissonance
with having a very rational spiritual practice, but what feels like
an irrational religious framework. Some have left their "home"
religion because of rites and rituals -- the forms of religion
which are among the first fetters to go upon stream entry -- which
were meanginless to them. They came to Buddhism because of the
practice, but remain uncomfortable having replaced one set of
beliefs that can't be proven and provide no value to them, with
another. Secular Buddhism is about providing a means to practice
the eightfold path to those of us for whom supernatural claims,
rites, rituals, and lineage traditions do not contribute to
personal growth. It does not in the least discourage others from
practicing in that way if they find it beneficial to their practice
-- far from it. Secularism is about choosing the practice that is
best suited to the personal experience of spirituality, rather than
insisting on adherence to its own views.
The back cover of Batchelors most recent book, entitled
Confession of a Buddhist Atheist, describes his work as a stunning
and groundbreaking recovery of the historical Buddha and his
message. One way for this to be true, would be that his book is
based on a recent discovery of ancient Buddhist manuscripts,
comparable to the Dead Sea Scrolls of the Nag Hammadi library for
Christianity. But it is not. Another way is for his claims to be
based on unprecedented historical research by a highly accomplished
scholar of ancient Indian languages and history. But no such
professional research or scholarship is in evidence in this book.
Instead, his claims about the historical Buddha and his teachings
are almost entirely speculative, as he takes another stab at
recreating Buddhism to conform to his current views.
Stephen is very open about his experience as a scholar, and his
book is a personal story, not an academic presentation. Of course
there's conjecture, that is part of one's personal journey.
To get a clear picture of Batchelors agnostic-turned-atheist
approach to Buddhism, there is no need to look further than his
earlier work, Buddhism without Beliefs. Claiming to embrace Thomas
Huxleys definition of agnosticism as the method of following reason
as far as it will take one, he admonishes his readers, Do not
pretend that conclusions are certain which are not demonstrated or
demonstrable. He then proceeds to explain who the Buddha really was
and what he really taught, often in direct opposition to the
teachings attributed to the Buddha by all schools of Buddhism. If
in this he is following Huxleys dictum, this would imply that
Batchelor has achieved at least the ability to see directly into
the past, if not complete omniscience itself.
Huxley's definition of agnosticism is simply showing the
difference between belief and knowledge. And, in keeping with not
only the tentative and therefore corrective claims of science, it
is appropriate to avoid certainty of conclusions about things that
cannot be demonstrated. If that were not the case, every
supernatural claim from every religion would be acceptable. I
suspect that no one believes every claim of every religion.
Secularism suggests we put things to the test -- as does Buddhism.
Stephen is openly questioning the traditional texts and
commentaries with rational and critical thinking. A view in
opposition to many schools of thought does not make it incorrect.
It is only the validity or invalidity of something that makes it
correct or incorrect, nothing else. Not lineage. Not because it was
written. Not because it was divinely inspired.
14
-
From a modern academic perspective, the most historically
reliable accounts we have of the Buddhas life and teachings are
found in the Pali canon. Most Theravada, Mahayana, and Vajrayana
Buddhists acknowledge the authenticity of these Pali writings, but
Batchelor repeatedly overrides them with his own agnostic
preconceptions that cause him to portray the Buddha as the spitting
image of himself.
I would agree that the Pali canon represents the best we can
hope to have as indicative of what an historical Buddha may have
said. Again, this does not make it true, however much we may want
it to be. We don't know, we only have some degree of reliance due
to reasoned inquiry of scholarship and experience. As for Stephen's
agnostic stance, I share it, as do many others. And we still find
the actual practice of the eightfold path to be of value. This does
not mean we're trying to make it in our own image. It means we're
embracing the practice within our own modern, cultural context. And
though many of us have interests in Asian culture, we were not
raised with it, and the practices are not a part of our personal
heritage. The rites, rituals, and many practices that have been
brought along from the East do not always create a comfort zone for
practice in the West.
For example, contrary to all the historical evidence, Batchelor
writes that the Buddha did not claim to have had experience that
granted him privileged, esoteric knowledge of how the universe
ticks. To cite just two of innumerable statements in the Pali canon
pertaining to the scope of the Buddhas knowledge: Whatever in this
world with its devas, maras, and brahmas, its generations complete
with contemplatives and priests, princes and men is seen, heard,
sensed, cognized, attained, sought after, pondered by the
intellect, that has been fully awakened to by the Tathagata. Thus
he is called the Tathagata. In a similar vein, we read, the world
and its arising are fully known by a Tathagata and he is released
from both; he also knows the ending of it and the way thereto. He
speaks as he does; he is unconquered in the world.
Quoting religious texts is not evidence, it's quoting religious
texts. If someone quotes the Christian bible, do Hindus accept what
it says? Neither do I. Nor should we allow our "preconceptions" for
the validity of traditional religious alignment with the Pali canon
cause us to ignore that and give our own interpretation greater
strength. It is when we are most certain, that we are most in need
of checking ourselves.
Batchelor brings to his understanding of Buddhism a strong
antipathy toward religion and religious institutions, and this bias
pervades all his recent writings. Rather than simply rejecting
elements of the Buddhas teachings that strike him as religious
which would be perfectly legitimate Batchelor takes the
illegitimate step of denying that the Buddha ever taught anything
that would be deemed religious by contemporary Western standards,
claiming, that There is nothing particularly religious or spiritual
about this path. Rather, the Buddhas teachings were a form of
existential, therapeutic, and liberating agnosticism that was
refracted through the symbols, metaphors, and imagery of his world.
Being an agnostic himself, Batchelor overrides the massive amount
of textual evidence that the Buddha was anything but an agnostic,
and recreates the Buddha in his own image, promoting exactly what
Batchelor himself believes in, namely, a form of existential,
therapeutic, and liberating agnosticism.
15
-
Stephen is conjecturing that the Buddha's teaching of the
practice is not religious. The eightfold path does not involve
rites and rituals, praying to divinities, or prostrations of any
kind. In that, secular Buddhists are in agreement with this not
being a religious path. This is one of several reasons there
continues to be discussion about Buddhism being a religion or a
philosophy, as it retains qualities of both.
Since Batchelor dismisses all talk of rebirth as a waste of
time, he projects this view onto his image of the Buddha, declaring
that he regarded speculation about future and past lives to be just
another distraction. This claim flies in the face of the countless
times the Buddha spoke of the immense importance of rebirth and
karma, which lie at the core of his teachings as they are recorded
in Pali suttas.
Buddha very specifically stated in the suttas -- if that's what
we're taking as evidence -- not to speculate about the workings of
kamma, which Wallace points out right here as being directly
associated with rebirth. Which brings me to the fourth point about
secularism, that a belief in an afterlife of any kind is not
necessary to the practice. So, I'm on retreat. I'm practicing
anapanasati, or perhaps mindfulness, with the same diligence as the
person next to me. We both practice silence during this time, we
both practice right speech at other times. And we both have
personal experiences in the broadening of this present moment to
help us make better decisions, to be free from suffering. How does
a belief in rebirth impact that moment by moment practice? Knowing
that my grandfather was a toymaker or a horse thief has no more
effect on my meditation than the other person's conviction that
they were Eleanor Roosevelt, nor should it. Whoever I was in the
past is totally irrelevent to what I choose to do this very moment.
Secular practice does not require the promise of a better
afterlife, or the threat of a woeful rebirth, to practice the
eightfold path in this lifetime. The practice itself is unchanged.
Secularists don't practice right action to get a reward later, or
even just because it's the right thing to do, we practice right
action to see and experience for ourselves cause and effect, which
encourages us without reliance on an unprovable claim of
rebirth.
Batchelor is one of many Zen teachers nowadays who regard future
and past lives as a mere distraction. But in adopting this
attitude, they go against the teachings of Dogen Zenji, founder of
the Soto school of Zen, who addressed the importance of the
teachings on rebirth and karma in his principal anthology, Treasury
of the Eye of the True Dharma (Shobogenzo). In his book Deep Faith
in Cause and Effect (Jinshin inga), he criticizes Zen masters who
deny karma, and in Karma of the Three Times (Sanji go), he goes
into more detail on this matter. Since Batchelor feels such liberty
to rewrite the Pali suttas, perhaps he should have a go at Dogens
writings next, to enlighten us as to their true meaning.
Wallace is right, secular Buddhists do tend to view previous and
past lives as a distraction. And again because a teacher said
something, even Dogen (whom I admire, as someone who *is* from a
zen lineage), doesn't make it true. Stephen is also not rewriting
the Pali suttas. That would be creating new Pali texts, or making
wild claims of finding new ones that have been guarded by dragons.
Does that mean we should dismiss all Mahayana tradition as
dangerous?
As to the source of Buddhist teachings on rebirth, Batchelor
speculates, In
16
-
accepting the idea of rebirth, the Buddha reflected the
worldview of his time. In reality, the Buddhas detailed accounts of
rebirth and karma differed significantly from other Indian thinkers
views on these subjects; and given the wide range of philosophical
views during his era, there was no uniformly accepted worldview of
his time.
I agree that Buddha's interpretation of rebirth (if we take the
Pali canon at face value) differs from reincarnation in that there
is no unchanging self which is reborn. What I think Stephen is
saying is that rebirth as a concept, however much Buddha's
introduction of anatta diverged from the norm, was pervasive in
that culture. More than it is in, say, modern Western culture.
Rather than adopting this idea from mere hearsay a gullible
approach the Buddha specifically rejected he declared that in the
first watch of the night of his enlightenment, after purifying his
mind with the achievement of samadhi, he gained direct knowledge of
the specific details of many thousands of his own past lifetimes
throughout the course of many eons of cosmic contraction and
expansion. In the second watch of the night, he observed the
multiple rebirths of countless other sentient beings, observing the
consequences of their wholesome and unwholesome deeds from one life
to the next. During the third watch of the night, he gained direct
knowledge of the four noble truths, revealing the causes of gaining
liberation from this cycle of rebirth. While there is ample
evidence that the Buddha claimed to have direct knowledge of
rebirth, there is no textual or historical evidence that he simply
adopted some pre-existing view, which would have been antithetical
to his entire approach of not accepting theories simply because
they are commonly accepted. There would be nothing wrong if
Batchelor simply rejected the authenticity of the Buddhas
enlightenment and the core of his teachings, but instead he rejects
the most reliable accounts of the Buddhas vision and replaces it
with his own, while then projecting it on the Buddha of his
imagination.
Again, quoting religious texts is meaningless as a source of
truth, even for the Buddha. It is a guide. It is a reference to
truth. It is not truth itself. Taking the suttas as absolute truth
means one needs to take all aspects of the teaching as absolute
truth. And all aspects of all religions, which no one is prepared
to do.I'd also like to point out that rebirth is hearsay, unless
validated with evidence.
Batchelor concludes that since different Buddhist schools vary
in their interpretations of the Buddhas teachings in response to
the questions of the nature of that which is reborn and how this
process occurs, all their views are based on nothing more than
speculation. Scientists in all fields of inquiry commonly differ in
their interpretations of empirical findings, so if this fact
invalidates Buddhist teachings, it should equally invalidate
scientific findings as well. While in his view Buddhism started out
as agnostic, it has tended to lose its agnostic dimension through
becoming institutionalized as a religion (i.e., a revealed belief
system valid for all time, controlled by an elite body of priests).
Since there is no evidence that Buddhism was ever agnostic, any
assertions about how it lost this status are nothing but groundless
speculations, driven by the philosophical bias that he brings to
Buddhism.
Wallace makes a subtle but profound change in wording here.
Stephen is correct, the different schools do vary in their
interpretation, and are all speculation. And Wallace is right,
scientists do vary in their interpretation of empirical findings.
That is conjecture, or
17
-
more correctly for the context, hypothesis. Wallace then
introduces "invalidates" to the topic, which Stephen does not, and
then tries to use this incorrect transition from 'interpretation'
to 'invalidation'. Scientific findings are not invalidated by
having differing hypothesis; indeed, it is the very nature of
science to be tentative and corrective. In the case McLean v.
Arkansas in 1981, science witnesses helped the court with defining
science as having the following traits:
1. It is guided by natural law 2. It has to be explanatory by
reference to natural law 3. It is testable against the empirical
world 4. Its conclusions are tentative 5. It is falsifiable
That is part of its great value, to remove that which is shown
to be not true or non-contributory. Secular practice is the same.
If there is no value shown, remove it. The Dalai Lama agrees in his
book The World In A Single Atom with his statement, ".. if
scientific analysis were conclusively to demonstrate certain claims
in Buddhism to be false, then we must accept the findings of
science and abandon those claims." Of course, this is something of
a logical trick, as proving a negative is problematic. As Bertrand
Russell demonstrated with this analogy in 1952, "If I were to
suggest that between the Earth and Mars there is a china teapot
revolving about the sun in an elliptical orbit, nobody would be
able to disprove my assertion provided I were careful to add that
the teapot is too small to be revealed even by our most powerful
telescopes. But if I were to go on to say that, since my assertion
cannot be disproved, it is an intolerable presumption on the part
of human reason to doubt it, I should rightly be thought to be
talking nonsense. If, however, the existence of such a teapot were
affirmed in ancient books, taught as the sacred truth every Sunday,
and instilled into the minds of children at school, hesitation to
believe in its existence would become a mark of eccentricity and
entitle the doubter to the attentions of the psychiatrist in an
enlightened age or of the Inquisitor in an earlier time." This is
every bit as true for claims our own Buddhism makes, including
those claims some of us hold most dear.
As an agnostic Buddhist, Batchelor does not regard the Buddhas
teachings as a source of answers to questions of where we came
from, where we are going, or what happens after death, regardless
of the extensive teachings attributed to the Buddha regarding each
of these issues. Rather, he advises Buddhists to seek such
knowledge in what he deems the appropriate domains: astrophysics,
evolutionary biology, neuroscience, and so on. With this advice, he
reveals that he is a devout member of the congregation of Thomas
Huxleys Church Scientific, taking refuge in science as the one true
way to answer all the deepest questions concerning human nature and
the universe at large.
This mixes two concepts, that of naturalism and that of personal
meaning. Stephen J. Gould views science and religion as
"non-overlapping magisteria" or NOMA as highlighting this
difference. The scientific method is indeed the best way we have to
learn about how the natural world works, unless we believe the
Buddha's body-hairs are coloured deep blue and grow clockwise in
rings, and that adepts in meditation can multiply their bodies. If
not, perhaps even Wallace doesn't take everything in the Pali canon
at face value, exactly like a secularist.
18
-
A method for learning about the natural world does not, nor is
it intended, to ascribe personal meaning to the experience of that
world. That's what this practice is about, not about providing a
cosmological map of the universe with Mt. Sumeru at the center.
Stephen is committed to growing the eightfold path as a viable and
practical method of training the mind, just like other secular
Buddhists. We simply don't believe in supernatural claims, we're
not tossing out the baby with the bathwater. One of the most common
discussions secular Buddhists have is how to ensure the teaching
does not get reduced to just another relaxation technique, as that
is not what our practice is about, and not what we find of
value.
Having identified himself as an agnostic follower of Huxley,
Batchelor then proceeds to make one declaration after another about
the limits of human consciousness and the ultimate nature of human
existence and the universe at large, as if he were the most
accomplished of gnostics. A central feature of Buddhist meditation
is the cultivation of samadhi, by which the attentional imbalances
of restlessness and lethargy are gradually overcome through
rigorous, sustained training. But in reference to the vacillation
of the mind from restlessness to lethargy, Batchelor responds, No
amount of meditative expertise from the mystical East will solve
this problem, because such restlessness and lethargy are not mere
mental or physical lapses but reflexes of an existential condition.
Contemplative adepts from multiple traditions, including Hinduism
and Buddhism have been disproving this claim for thousands of
years, and it is now being refuted by modern scientific research.
But Batchelor is so convinced of his own preconceptions regarding
the limitations of the human mind and of meditation that he ignores
all evidence to the contrary.
I'm glad Wallace brought up the work done by Cliff Saron of the
Samatha project, as I've had him on the podcast. We've discussed
this work, and at no point is it intended to convey personal
meaning. It is meant to quantify what is happening during the
experiences of meditation, and what the long-term (within this
lifetime) effects of meditation are. Also, Stephen is not a
"follower" of Huxley, any more than any secularist is a follower of
anyone. That is completely contrary to secular practice.
While there are countless references in the discourses of the
Buddha referring to the realization of emptiness, Batchelor claims,
Emptiness is not something we realize in a moment of mystical
insight that breaks through to a transcendent reality concealed
behind yet mysteriously underpinning the empirical world. He adds,
we can no more step out of language and imagination than we can
step out of our bodies. Buddhist contemplatives throughout history
have reportedly experienced states of consciousness that transcend
language and concepts as a result of their practice of insight
meditation. But Batchelor describes such practice as entailing
instead a state of perplexity in which one is overcome by awe,
wonder, incomprehension, shock, during which not just the mind but
the entire organism feels perplexed.
Reporting experiences does not make those experiences true, any
more than claims of stigmata throughout history are true
validations of Christian belief, or the claim that communion wafers
and wine are magically transformed into the actual body and blood
of Christ -- unless he was constituted of flour and alcohol. As
Wallace has referenced
19
-
scientific studies, I'll reciprocate with a machine which
recreates the out of body experiences such contemplatives claim to
have. Such is just one example that our minds can be deceived.
Stephen's point is that emptiness is a reference to our concepts,
that those concepts are not the actual thing, and the actual thing
is not what we conventionally view it as. There is nothing mystical
about it.
Batchelors account of meditation describes the experiences of
those who have failed to calm the restlessness and lethargy of
their own minds through the practice of samadhi, and failed to
realize emptiness or transcend language and concepts through the
practice of vipashyana. Instead of acknowledging these as failures,
he heralds them as triumphs and, without a shred of supportive
evidence, attributes them to a Buddhism that exists nowhere but in
his imagination.
Since Wallace is asking for evidence, I hope he'll please
provide evidence of rebirth. He can win $1,000,000 from the JREF if
he does. Or any supernatural power claimed by Buddhist
contemplatives, for that matter.
Although Batchelor declared himself to be an agnostic, such
proclamations about the true teachings of the Buddha and about the
nature of the human mind, the universe, and ultimate reality all
suggest that he has assumed for himself the role of a gnostic of
the highest order. Rather than presenting Buddhism without beliefs,
his version is saturated with his own beliefs, many of them based
upon nothing more than his own imagination. Batchelors so-called
agnosticism is utterly paradoxical. On the one hand, he rejects a
multitude of Buddhist beliefs based upon the most reliable textual
sources, while at the same time confidently making one claim after
another without ever supporting them with demonstrable
evidence.
Stephen makes no claims whatsoever about the universe or
ultimate reality, Wallace is doing that. He's making claims about
rebirth without "demonstrable evidence". Ian Stephenson studied
this, and the most he could do was be intellectually honest in his
book by stating that it was not evidence, but was merely suggestive
of rebirth.
In Batchelors most recent book, he refers to himself as an
atheist, more so than as an agnostic, and when I asked him whether
he still holds the above views expressed in his book published
thirteen years ago, he replied that he no longer regards the
Buddhas teachings as agnostic, but as pragmatic. It should come as
no surprise that as he shifted his own self-image from that of an
agnostic to an atheist, the image he projects of the Buddha shifts
accordingly. In short, his views on the nature of the Buddha and
his teachings are far more a reflection of himself and his own
views than they are of any of the most reliable historical accounts
of the life and teachings of the Buddha.
I would suggest that a 2,500 year old story of someone else's
personal journey is not more reliable than one happening today.
It's not the form, teacher, culture, or timeframe that matters,
it's the teaching.
In his move from agnosticism to atheism, Batchelor moves closer
to the position of Sam Harris, who is devoted to the ideal of
science destroying religion. In his book Letter to a Christian
Nation, Harris proclaims that the problem with religion is the
problem of dogma, in contrast to atheism, which he says is not a
philosophy; it is not even a view of the world; it is simply an
20
-
admission of the obvious. This, of course, is the attitude of
all dogmatists: they are so certain of their beliefs that they
regard anyone who disagrees with them as being so stupid or
ignorant that they cant recognize the obvious.
How is that different from what Wallace is doing here in his
criticism? I would also like to point out that Sam isn't being
dogmatic, as he is just insisting on proof for supernatural
claims.
In his article Killing the Buddha Harris shares his advice with
the Buddhist community, like Batchelor asserting, The wisdom of the
Buddha is currently trapped within the religion of Buddhism, and he
goes further in declaring that merely being a self-described
Buddhist is to be complicit in the worlds violence and ignorance to
an unacceptable degree. Harris not only claims to have what is
tantamount to a kind of gnostic insight into the true teachings of
the Buddha, he also claims to know what most Buddhists do and do
not realize: If the methodology of Buddhism (ethical precepts and
meditation) uncovers genuine truths about the mind and the
phenomenal world truths like emptiness, selflessness, and
impermanence these truths are not in the least Buddhist. No doubt,
most serious practitioners of meditation realize this, but most
Buddhists do not. It is sad when communist regimes throughout the
world seek to annihilate Buddhism from the face of the earth, but
it is even sadder when people who are allegedly sympathetic to
Buddhism seem intent on completing what the communists have left
undone.
I've also found great value in that article of Sam's, and link
to it frequently. He's right. If the teaching of Buddhism is
correct as a teaching for sentient beings, it will hold true
without the rites and rituals of the culture in which it manifests.
It will be timeless and prove to be true without religious
trappings which are not a part of the eightfold path. What has come
up in interfaith dialogues I've had is that this practice is of
value to people. If it's only of value to Buddhists, there's a
problem. The attitude that one must "become a Buddhist" to practice
meditation, let alone the eightfold path, is a problem that must be
overcome if the value it brings is to be brought to fruition. Our
culture is one that questions authority, questions supernatural
claims, and puts things to the test. Buddhists need to rise to that
challenge, and show that this practice is valid under all
circumstances, not just when one adopts a belief in the unseen. If
we can't, we should set aside our beliefs as being invalid.
The current domination of science, education, and the secular
media by scientific materialism has cast doubt on many of the
theories and practices of the worlds religions. This situation is
not without historical precedent. In the time of the Weimar
Republic, Hitler offered what appeared to be a vital secular faith
in place of the discredited creeds of religion, Lenin and Stalin
did the same in the Soviet Union, and Mao Zedong followed suit in
China. Hugh Heclo, former professor of government at Harvard
University, writes of this trend, If traditional religion is absent
from the public arena, secular religions are likely to satisfy mans
quest for meaning. It was an atheistic faith in man as creator of
his own grandeur that lay at the heart of communism, fascism and
all the horrors they unleashed for the twentieth century. And it
was adherents of traditional religions Martin Niemller, C.S. Lewis,
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Reinhold Niebuhr, Martin Buber who often
warned most clearly of the tragedy to come from attempting to build
mans own version of the New Jerusalem on Earth.
21
-
Surely he doesn't mean domination in modern American culture,
with constant attempts to introduce biblical creationism in the
classroom as science, and a National Day of Prayer held despite a
federal judge's ruling against it? Doubts exist about that kind of
thing because they have no evidence, and as such, should be
questioned.
While Batchelor focuses on replacing the historical teachings of
the Buddha with his own secularized vision and Harris rails at the
suffering inflicted upon humanity by religious dogmatists, both
tend to overlook the fact that Hitler, Stalin, and Mao Zedong
caused more bloodshed, justified by their secular ideologies, than
all the religious wars that preceded them throughout human
history.
I'm going to call "shenanigans" here. The Pope recently made the
same biased error in historical revisionism that is being made in
this article. Let's set the record straight, as I've had to do so
many times with dogmatic Christians -- Hitler was not an atheist.
He was a Christian. Here are a set of quotes of Hitler's, showing
his adherence to Christianity. He also outlawed books criticizing
religion.
I am not suggesting that Batchelor or Harris, who are both
decent, well-intentioned men, are in any way similar to Hitler,
Stalin, or Mao Zedong. But I am suggesting that Batchelors
misrepresentation of Buddhism parallels that of Chinese communist,
anti-Buddhist propaganda; and the Buddhist holocaust inflicted by
multiple communist regimes throughout Asia during the twentieth
century were based upon and justified by propaganda virtually
identical to Harriss vitriolic, anti-religious polemics.
I'm going to call "shenanigans" again. Yes, Wallace is
suggesting Harris and Batchelor are similar to Hitler. Quite
clearly. He made the tie between them in the same sentence. But,
more importantly, it is utterly irrelevant to the discussion. To
say that Hitler was an atheist (though he was not) and therefore
atheism is bad, is no more sensible than saying Hitler was a
vegetarian, so vegetarianism is bad. The criticism needs to be made
on the virtues or vices of the ideological stance, and when
practiced correctly, its effects in the real world.
The Theravada Buddhist commentator Buddhaghosa refers to far
enemies and near enemies of certain virtues, namely,
loving-kindness, compassion, empathetic joy, and equanimity. The
far enemies of each of these virtues are vices that are
diametrically opposed to their corresponding virtues, and the near
enemies are false facsimiles. The far enemy of loving-kindness, for
instance, is malice, and that of compassion is cruelty. The near
enemy of loving-kindness is self-centered attachment, and that of
compassion is grief, or despair. To draw a parallel, communist
regimes that are bent on destroying Buddhism from the face of the
earth may be called the far enemies of Buddhism, for they are
diametrically opposed to all that Buddhism stands for. Batchelor
and Harris, on the other hand, present themselves as being
sympathetic to Buddhism, but their visions of the nature of the
Buddhas teachings are false facsimiles of all those that have been
handed down reverently from one generation to the next since the
time of the Buddha. However benign their intentions, their writings
may be regarded as near enemies of Buddhism.
We're trying to preserve Buddhism and the wonderful teaching and
practice it has, for the benefit of all mankind, not just the ones
who believe in rebirth.
22
-
The popularity of the writings of Batchelor, Harris, and other
atheists such as Richard Dawkins both within the scientific
community and the public at large shows they are far from alone in
terms of their utter disillusionment with traditional religions.
Modern science, as conceived by Galileo, originated out of a love
for God the Father and a wish to know the mind of their benevolent,
omnipotent Creator by way of knowing His creation. As long as
science and Christianity seemed compatible, religious followers of
science could retain what psychologists call a sense of secure
attachment regarding both science and religion. But particularly
with Darwins discovery of evolution by natural selection and the
militant rise of the Church Scientific, for many, the secure
attachment toward religion has mutated into a kind of dismissive
avoidance.
Galileo's faith is utterly irrelevant to the validity of his
scientific work. And his treatment at the hands of the church --
when he was correct in his findings -- came from a fear of the loss
of ascendancy of dogmatic belief that was not in evidence. My
preference wouldn't be to associate my stance with religion on this
particular topic! And that's an excellent example of why
secularists find dogmatic belief to be harmful.
Children with avoidant attachment styles tend to avoid parents
and caregivers no longer seeking comfort or contact with them and
this becomes especially pronounced after a period of absence.
People today who embrace science, together with the metaphysical
beliefs of scientific materialism, turn away from traditional
religious beliefs and institutions, no longer seeking comfort or
contact with them; and those who embrace religion and refuse to be
indoctrinated by materialistic biases commonly lose interest in
science. This trend is viewed with great perplexity and dismay by
the scientific community, many of whom are convinced that they are
uniquely objective, unbiased, and free of beliefs that are
unsupported by empirical evidence.
The scientific community is made up of people, filled with the
usual set of human issues. That does not detract from the
scientific method as a means of investigating the natural world as
being vastly more effective than religious doctrines in that
particular sphere of knowledge. This does not take away from our
spiritual practice, and the comfort it brings us. It's not one or
the other -- they both can have contributing roles in realms of
learning, one as a way of knowing, another as a way of
experiencing.
Thomas Huxleys ideal of the beliefs and institution of the
Church Scientific achieving domination over the whole realm of the
intellect is being promoted by agnostics and atheists like
Batchelor and Harris. But if we are ever to encounter the Buddhist
vision of reality, we must first set aside all our philosophical
biases, whether they are theistic, agnostic, atheist, or otherwise.
Then, through critical, disciplined study of the most reliable
sources of the Buddhas teachings, guided by qualified spiritual
friends and teachers, followed by rigorous, sustained practice, we
may encounter the Buddhist vision of reality. And with this
encounter with our own true nature, we may realize freedom through
our own experience. That is the end of agnosticism, for we come to
know reality as it is, and the truth will set us free.
I agree that we should set aside biases. That means encouraging
different ideological views to participate in meaningful dialogue,
but it does not mean we simply give a free pass for every
unsubstantiated claim those views make about the natural world. I
would also agree that we need critical and disciplined study of the
most reliable sources of the Buddha's teaching, and that does mean
questioning every aspect of it, without a pre-
23
-
determined conclusion about what the right answer must be.
Asking questions only as long as one comes to the "right"
conclusion isn't sincere inquiry, it's prejudicing the results.
Only then, when we have been transparent and completely honest
about our inquiry, our practice of the eightfold path, do we
eliminate the hindrance of doubt without remainder. Then we can set
aside the raft, concepts of agnosticism vs. faith, us vs. them, and
simply practice together -- as people.
24
-
An Old Story of Faith and Doubt: Reminiscences of Alan Wallace
and Stephen Batchelor
In the exclusive online content of the October-December 2010
issue of Mandala, B. Alan Wallace sparked a heated debate about
truth and doubt with the controversial Distorted Visions of
Buddhism: Agnostic and Atheist. Stephen Batchelor, who was a focus
of Alan Wallaces criticism, responded thoughtfully in an open
letter in the January-March 2011 issue. In An Old Story of Faith
and Doubt, Stephen Schettini examines the debate between these two
well-known thinkers from a more personal and person-centered
perspective.
by Stephen Schettini
I first met Alan Wallace and Stephen Batchelor in 1975, in the
tiny Swiss hamlet of Schwendi. I lived upstairs from them in our
four-roomed house. From day one, I was impressed that the two of
them could share such close quarters without argument even though
their temperaments were strikingly different. The philosophical
gulf between them today reflects those personal differences
remarkably closely. It doesnt surprise me, but I am saddened by the
increasingly strident tone of those differences. After three
decades, the old restraint seems finally to be bursting out of its
emotional containment. This is not just a debate of ideas.On the
face of it, the Batchelor-Wallace face-off is an archetypal battle
between faith and skepticism, one that characterizes not just
Buddhism but all philosophical thought. It doesnt actually require
two people; that very conflict has played out in my own mind since
early childhood. My memoir The Novice explores that theme at
length, and many readers have written to tell me what a relief its
been to know theyre n