Modern Buddhism: Surprising Origins

Modern Buddhism is viewed as a religion (in the West) in which you really don’t have to believe in anything in particular or follow any strict rules. Surprisingly, Modern Buddhism has as much to owe to European Enlightenment as Buddha’s enlightenment. In many respects Modern Buddhism is quite distinct from what traditional Buddhism has meant throughout its long and varied history. It is in fact a new form of Buddhism, purged of mythological elements and “superstitious cultural accretions”^*. This Western Buddhism involves few rituals, de-emphasizes the miracles and supernatural events depicted in Buddhist literature, disposes of image worship and stresses compatibility with scientific and democratic ideals.*

Let me interject to say this is not meant to be a derogatory polemic against Buddhism, which has much to value it but a corrective to those that in the West that encounter Buddhism.

To continue some have termed this modern variation Protestant Buddhism, much as Protestants threw over much of the ritual and sacramental elements of the ancient traditional Christian faiths, practiced in Roman, Eastern Orthodox, and Oriental Catholics. The ornate churches were made austere and priestly robes removed. They nearly eradicated or demystified the transcendent rituals like the Eucharist and anointing. The iconostasis or rood screen was removed, separating representation of the Holy of Holies (where the mystery of the Eucharist is performed) from the nave. The genuflections as in crossing oneself, prostrations, kneeling and were banned as well. Confessional to the spiritual Father was eliminated, as well. Traditional Buddhism in Asia has been practiced with similar mystically imbued religious rubrics.

Traditional Buddhism wasn’t meant to be transmitted by someone visiting a local book store and perusing a book on Buddhism. A person studied under a spiritual teacher; to read the sutras without a spiritual guide would be deemed folly. It would have occurred to no one to pick up a book and try to understand it for themselves.  And one must remember the population was largely illiterate.

Native Buddhism encountered Theosophy, an eclectic philosophical system advocating the benefits of meditation to attain a transcendent spiritual state. Theosophy originated in the United States in the late 19^th Century under Helena Blavatsky and Henry Scott Olcott. It was influenced by their idea of what constituted the essence of Eastern Asian Religions, Neoplatonism, and included occult elements as well. In Ceylon Theosophy had a big influence on Buddhism, setting up schools and rediscovering ancient Sanskrit Buddhist texts. Curiously Theosophical founders ignored the living tradition of Buddhism that they encountered, other than to note its alleged corrupted state.

Much of the impetus for “reform” was Buddhism’s response to colonialism and missionary outreach. Buddhists began to respond with a digestible brand of its spiritual message. Elsewhere, D.T. Suzuki (1870-1966) was an influential Japanese popularizer of Buddhism in its Modern more accessible variety. Although not a Zen priest himself, we learned of Japanese Zen Buddhism’s quizzical Koan, “What is the sound of one hand clapping?” A novitiate would be presented with a series of these impenetrable queries. He incorporated American transcendentalist themes of returning to nature and living a simpler less commercial and acquisitive lifestyle. The emphasis here is a sudden, revelatory awaking of Buddha consciousness, the direct encounter with the divine, if you will permit.

The Vipassana movement, popularizing Theravada Buddhism, founded in part by Mahasi Sayadaw (1904-1982), a Burmese monk, focused on meditation with a diminution of traditional merit making efforts(karma related), chanting, ritual and devotion. He among other advocates of modern Buddhism sees the deinstitutionalized and detraditionalized meditation.

The truth is that the type of awakening the amateurs seek lacks much of the rigor required for such an elevated goal. The guidance of a master accompanied by exhaustive works of meditation, asceticism, prayer and devotion in an ancient religious tradition are lacking; according to traditional Buddhism it’s not easy to attain Buddha consciousness.

By the 10th century vipassana was no longer practiced in the Theravada tradition, due to the belief that Buddhism had degenerated, and that liberation was no longer attainable until the coming of a future Buddha; that is to say Theravada Buddhism practiced in Southeast Asia ceased efforts of attaining the level of Buddha Consciousness well over a thousand years ago until a revival in the early 19^th century.

These modern attempts at striving for an awakening similar to Buddha consciousness have their psychological and emotional benefits. Buddha has a heritage of advocating strong ethical behavior.  Conforming to the Eight Fold path leads to virtuous living. But it’s the meditation that is foremost; the effort to receive an experience of monitoring their psycho-mental states with a goal of eventually awakening into Buddha Consciousness that Modern Buddhism extols.

I am sorry that Christians, namely the Eastern Orthodox, haven’t presented their mystical traditions to a wider audience. Eastern Orthodox have a nearly two millennium tradition of monastic life populated by numerous Saints, some of whom are said to have attained the outpouring of God’s Uncreated energies, predicated on “watchfulness” and “stillness” of the heart. Saint Gregory Palamas (1296-1357) advocated such a spiritual journey; this meditative method of prayer is termed Hesychasm, designated as such by the Greek word for stillness.  This life offers the possibility of an encounter a “direct and unmitigated and individual experience of the Divine”*; this is fully within the religious tradition of the Church.

I must note that in contrast to Buddhism and Hinduism, there’s no belief that the Self dies or becomes subsumed with the One. Nonetheless one can be fully imbued with God’s Grace in a state of sinlessness; this path of greater holiness leading to salvation in cooperation with God’s Grace is called theosis. Any direct encounter with God’s Energies is purely dependent on God’s Mercy. I must say far more emphasis is placed on obtaining the virtues through ascetic struggles, observance of liturgical cycles, daily prayer and confession of sin than anticipation of some transcendent encounter with the Divine.

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The Buddhism is understood by the West as a rational philosophy that contains a practical spiritual technique that “requires neither belief nor a particular worldview”*; that’s touted to be reminiscent of empirical and pragmatic methods employed in science. This process of meditation has been likened to a scientific method of investigation into ones psycho-emotional state. And it sets the dead ritual and superstition of any traditional religion aside in its deeper scientific quest for truth about our interior. Modern Buddhism strives for a direct and unmitigated and individual experience of the transcendent, however outside the milieu of traditional Buddhism. 

Modern Buddhism strives to extinguish the residual existence that’s subject to reincarnation; restated, nirvana is the process of blowing out of the candle of the spiritual substance that might ever become reborn. Both Hinduism and Buddhism wish to transcend the Self, the Me-ness.  The goal is towards cessation of existence of the individual Self and avoidance of rebirth.

This has some correlation with Modern science’s skepticism towards the existence of mind. Brain and it’s wiring and synapses, evoked by brain scans, are the sole repository of our personhood, science makes claim. The illusion of Mind is emergent from that complex wiring of the brain; we just mistakenly think the Self is separate from the wiring; it’s affirmed by modern scientific discoveries. The supernatural or mythical is downplayed in the view of Modern Buddhism. Buddhism is scientific discovery of the mind, or rather psychological processes of the brain.

“As a spiritual-mystical technique that aspires to a universal truth transcending religious dogma, in some cases it breaks away from the ‘religion’ of Buddhism and is seen as a path, transcending all religions, to an alleged truth at their core. As an instrument for ascertaining ‘natural laws’ within the mind, it becomes a technique for empirical inquiry. As a tool for taming negative emotions and gaining control over the mind, it is a therapeutic tool…”*

One last contrast, Buddhism looks to end rebirth; this contrasts to the Christian idea that despite the universe being flawed due to our own choices, a nonetheless divine creation. One’s fondest wish is to be delivered from this despoiled reality to enter God’s eternal domicile; we are not extinguished, because we are independent minds beholden to a far greater Mind. As far as that’ concerned, Hinduism wants the droplet of the wave (the self) to be reunited with the ocean (the Great Mind).  Christians want to dwell as individuals with the Divine Being.

*Generous borrowings have been made from David L. McMahan’s fine book, The Making of Modern Buddhism.  I highly recommend it, as an exposition on the nature of Modern Buddhism.