Randy Rosenthal talks to scholar Glenn Wallis about his thought-provoking new book A Critique of Western Buddhism: Ruins of the Buddhist Real.
at Lion's Roar website
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Glenn Wallis’s new book A Critique of Western Buddhism: Ruins of the Buddhist Real may be disturbing, if not infuriating, to anyone who considers themself Buddhist. For forty-plus years, Wallis has been “actively surveying the Buddhist landscape.” With a Ph.D. in Buddhist Studies from Harvard, he’s a scholar and translator of Pali, Sanskrit, and Tibetan texts. He’s also studied with ajahns in Thailand, rinpoches in the Himalayas, and roshis in Japan. Yet, he doesn’t wear robes or call himself a dharma teacher, or even a Buddhist. This is in part because, after everything, Wallis has concluded that Western Buddhism must get ruined.
Think about it. Why would those who call themselves Buddhists become disturbed or infuriated by a book that critiques Western Buddhism?
I can think of two reasons. One, the author gets any number of actual facts able to be determined and confirmed wrong. Two, the author's argument that Buddhism in the West "must get ruined" because it is not in accord with their own beliefs regarding the main components of the religion. Which is always crucial for me because with so much at stake in getting enlightenment, karma, reincarnation and Nirvana right -- from both sides of the grave -- isn't it vital that those who choose to call themselves Buddhists are on the same page? Otherwise the one true spiritual path gets missed. And then any path that anyone is able to convince themselves is the one true path is okay. However far removed it might be from the original intent of Buddha himself. And how can that not be problem when choosing the behaviors you do with the "next world" in mind?
Thus:
“Ruin” is the keyword in Wallis’s new book...As he says below, it doesn’t refer to destruction or annihilation. In his usage, it describes a return to an unkempt state. Wallis argues that Western Buddhism has been diffused through Enlightenment, Romantic, and Protestant thinking. It claims ancient legitimacy while ignoring aspects of the early Buddhist scriptures — such as stories of the Buddha’s supernatural powers and the teachings on rebirth.
An "unkempt state". What can this reflect but an insistence that any number of "Western" paths are in fact not in sync with the Buddha's intent. With his own understanding of the main components of a religion that, after all, he invented. And that's important to note because unlike the many diverse Western denominations, they can always go to a God, the God, my God. So, for the Buddhist, the intent of the Buddha himself becomes all that much more important.
As for the supernatural powers of Gautama Buddha, what are we to make of them: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miracles_ ... %20himself.
Today, the Buddha is depicted as an empirically-minded scientist. These and other doctrinal alterations, argues Wallis, represent the troubling upkeep of Buddhism’s facade. In order to maintain itself as an institution within the consumerist capitalist framework in which it operates, says Wallis, “Buddhism” must package and market itself. In doing so, he contends that Buddhism negates the very teachings it aims to convey.
In other words, as with Catholicism configuring into Protestant denominations to accommodate the historical reality of capitalism, Buddhism here in the West must follow suit.
But that just begs the question: in regard to the behaviors that, say, the Dalai Lama chooses in our postmodern world how much is he willing to "ignore aspects of the early Buddhist scriptures".