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What Is the 'New Buddhism'?
A Buddhism defined by national borders is not Buddhism at
all.
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By David Brazier
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Excerpted with permission from "The New Buddhism" by
David Brazier by permission of St.
Martin's Press, LLC.
White or Western Buddhism is a contradiction in terms. If Buddhism means the
life of enlightenment, then there cannot be a specifically English or
American Buddhism and we should not be looking to create one any more than
our spiritual ancestors should have wanted to create a Chinese or Thai
Buddhism, specifically. Buddhism does not belong to countries and should
not become caught up in national pride.
We need to understand that when you look through Buddha eyes,
England and America do not exist. They are just conventional designations
that have been blown up into a justification for some of the worst
barbarities in history and currently stand as ramparts in defence of the world racist system. Do not be proud to
be British, or American, or French, or any other nationality. As soon as
you begin to feel any such sentiment coming over you, you should smell the
blood of all those who have died for such folly—and hear the cries of the
excluded. Buddhism, therefore, should be profoundly non-nationalist.
People are conditioned to think that nationhood is inevitable
and even noble—something to die for even—and certainly something from which
to exclude nonnationals. That, however, is
definitely not Buddhism. There have, in consequence, been repeated crises
in history over whether or not the Buddhist sangha
would recognize or acknowledge the supremacy of the state. One different occasions, this issue has gone different ways in
specific cases, but the Buddhist position in principle is that the sangha does not recognise the
state.
This principle has been compromised in many real-life
situations. The subordination of Buddhist principles to nationalist ones,
however, is generally extremely deleterious to the former. The
revolutionary nature of the Buddhist renunciation becomes sharply apparent
in such controversies. Of course, much of the time this is an issue that
never comes to a head. The sangha is no military
threat to the state and its presence is often welcomed by the civil power
because it brings peace, stability and social service of all kinds to an
area. Buddhism does not seek to overthrow the civil power. It aims to make
it redundant.
In Japan, it was not possible for the sangha
to maintain its independence and a series of military governments regulated
and subordinated the practice of religion to national requirements. In Japan,
religion and state have always been closely connected. The word a religious
organization is matsuri. The word
for government administration is matsuri-goto.
The state was a form of religious expression and religious expression was
state regulated. Some of the schools of Buddhism that arose in Japan more
than accommodated to this environment by advancing teachings with a
strongly nationalistic flamour. It is these forms
of Buddhism that have, in large measure, found their way to North America.
Buddhism that places religion in a subordinate position to the state is
actually being practiced in a number of places, but this is not the
original variety and should not be part of the New Buddhism either.
The original spirit of Buddhism is, on the one hand, positive
compassionate action and, on the other hand, noncoopration
with coercion and oppression. This spirit needs to be dug out from under
the accretions of history. To ask what a Western Buddhism would be like,
therefore, is already to have surrendered.
All this is symptomatic of the fact that people do not see the extent to
which Buddhism is radical. It is common for people to think that a little
bit of tinkering with the status quo will accommodate Buddhism quite
nicely. This is, in turn, rooted in the assumption that most of what the status
quo consists of is inevitable. Once you can persuade people to believe
that something is inevitable, they will generally accept it, no matter how
immoral or inappropriate it may be.
Karl marx, for instance, argued in favour of economic determinism. This idea made his
followers believe that history was on their side. Although Marx himself is
now widely thought to have been discredited, his idea of economic
determinism, in one form or another, still holds sway, particularly among
his staunchest opponents. Margaret Thatcher, for instance, will be
remembered, among other things for her strident insistence that “There is
no alternative”. There is, in fact, a widespread sense nowadays that
capitalist rather than communist economics have an historic inevitability.
History is full of such paradoxes. It is a further paradox
that Marx was a living demonstration of the falsity of this central idea.
Had he really believed it, then there would have been no reason to write
the books that he did. In fact, his books gave hope to many of the world’s oppressed and changed the course of history in
ways that were not simply down to the relentless march of economic forces.
Marx, like Buddha, went against the current. Each did so by establishing a
new mythology.
It was not Marx the economic scientist who achieved this. It
was Marx the writer and speaker who created a mythology around the ideas of
liberation and revolution. Liberation and revolution are key concepts in
Buddhism too. The meaning attaching to them is different, and the suggested
means are totally opposite—but the hope of a better world is not really so
fundamentally different. The Buddhist revolution—the turning of the dharma
wheel—is nonviolent. It is still, however, intended to cut through the hyposcrisy of our world and establish a new order. The
Buddhist liberation is inner as well as outer. Marx took away religion as
the opiate of the people, but he left them hollow. A true revolution
requires both inner and outer work—and it never ends.
Marx and his successors thought to impose the new order with
weapons, but could only achieve and justify this by making it seem an
historic inevitability. Corrupt myths are needed to support corrupt
practice. Buddha saw that the only way to a better world was to renounced
weapons. He was the first great proponent of nonviolence as the route to
social change. He was a demonstrator in the strict sense of the word—he
demonstrated what he meant. If you are going to overcome caste, then you
must give up your own cast. If you are going to abolish oppression and
violence, then it is no good employing those methods yourself. People who
are willing to be so consistent are rare. When they are consistent in the
cause of good they are precious indeed.
Most people place subordination to the state as the highest
inevitability, and subordination to economic factors—even relatively
trivial ones—as the next highest, and then try to fit their spirituality
into whatever space is left—if that has not already been used up by the
energy consumed in the dynamics of personal life. In consequence,
spirituality means little to them and their lives are built on other
principles.
The modern world maintains its caste system (delusion) by
relying upon national rivalry played out through force (politics, hate) and
money or debt (economics, greed). We think that our white countries are
democratic and feel proud, for instance, but where there ever to be a
worldwide election—for the United Nations Security Council, say—where would
the white caste be then?
As long as Buddhism’s primary goal is subsumed within
nationalism and national cultures, it will never be met. Unless Buddhism
can help us to rise out of our local culture, caste and so on, no real
enlightenment will occur. An enlightened person is a citizen of the world,
not a citizen of Japan or Germany or Britain or any other local power
structure. We have, therefore, to start seeing countries simply as
organizations and not as part of our identity.
Ideas of historic or economic determinism are myths that seek
to excuse what should not be perpetrated, and to lull people into thinking
that the things that they knowingly do that are bad, or not the best they
can do, are necessary and inevitable. Determinism of either kind is, simply
put, a lie. There are better myths and a cleaner conscience is possible. If
we cannot find better ways to live, then we will continue to make new
nightmares.
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