What questions would I like to have addressed concerning
Buddhism? What perspectives would I find most helpful in better understanding Buddhist
tradition and practice? What do the author and I share on our paths toward
Buddhism? Let me offer a checklist and apply it to this book.
How did the author first come into contact with Buddhism?
Like many Western
Buddhists, I first came to understand the fundamentals of the dharma by reading
books. Most Western Buddhists have grown up in families that were monotheistic,
culturally speaking, and we discovered our Buddhism via the printed word rather
than at the neighborhood temple or war or shrine.
Stephen T. Asma. Why I Am a Buddhist: No-Nonsense Buddhism
with Red Meat and Whiskey (Kindle Locations 45-46). Kindle Edition.
Check.
How does the author perceive Buddhism?
Buddhism is not a set of
beliefs to be adopted by faith, but a set of practices and beliefs to be tested
and then employed in our pursuit of the good life.
Id. 64-66
Check.
How does the author address the issue of
temptation?
The trained mind can
rise above distraction and craving, but the normal mind is fraught with
temptations, agitations, and diversions. The idea of not looking at a beautiful
woman (or man) when we are clearly drawn in that direction may sound rather
puritanical. But the point of the simile is not to denigrate beauty, but to
isolate the tension between natural inclination and discipline. It is perfectly
natural to look at beautiful people, and Buddhism doesn't require the forfeit
of such trouble-free pleasures. I suspect that our very biology ensures that
we'll take a quick gander at any attractive prospect, and such radar abilities
probably had some evolutionary advantages for our ancestors. But if I simply
cannot help myself from gawking at a stunning model on the street, then I have
overturned a division of labor inside myself. I have become the servant of my
desire, rather than being the master of my desire. I am being led, rather than
leading.
Id. 90-95
Check. (And would I ever have such a problem? Please, no
speculations here. I disavow any admissions against interest.) For mere
mortals, the issue of desire is the crucial issue in life, is it not? How do we
attain our desires? Should we attain
our desires? How much should we pay for our desires, not just in terms of
money, but also in terms of time, energy, effect on relationships, and so on?
Does this author share a perspective with Robert Wright and me that Buddhism (and aspects of other traditions as well) is intended to overcome inheritances from natural selection that don’t work in a
civilized society?
Buddhism attempts to
give us a second nature-one that writes over the old genetic and psychological
code.
Id. 98
Check.
Does the author come from a religious tradition that I can
identify with?
I was ripe for such
communion because I had been raised as a devout Catholic. Some people think
that the conventional and conservative experience of Catholicism and the
eccentric, lefty spiritualism of hippy culture are worlds apart. But, in fact,
Catholics have a deep sense of mystery in the very belly of their religion.
Unlike most Protestants, Catholics give themselves over to the irrational
mystery, miracle, and authority. There is an undeniably conventional and
institutional aspect of Catholicism, but beneath its traditionalism is a robust
mystical approach to God. When I was in primary and middle school I was an
altar boy and even a lector. When I began to ask philosophical questions in my
early teens, my blue-collar parents knew of no other outlet for such precocious
intellectualism except perhaps the priesthood. I was dutifully driven to the
local seminary to meet with priests and be interviewed to see if I had the
calling. I didn't.
Id. 157-163
Check. Indeed, one of my friends was once a candidate for
the priesthood and now finds himself in the Buddhist camp. (N.B. Perhaps
because of my Presbyterian father, or perhaps the local priest sensed that I’d
was far too randy, I was never recruited. After all, the priest heard my confessions:
one impure thought after another.)
Did the author explore traditions other than his native
Catholicism and Buddhism?
I . . . graduated to a tougher-minded mysticism,
reading Aldous Huxley, Krishnamurti, and Thomas Merton.
Id. 191-192
Check. Merton, by the way, was a Catholic monk who explored
the Buddhist and Daoist traditions and wrote eloquently about his encounters
with them from his position as a Trappist monk.
If we reject the metaphysics of the monotheistic religions,
is there another path that shows the way to a good life and that provides some
sense of spiritual wholeness?
Many people like myself
come to Buddhism through the arts, because crafts, arts, and even meticulous
chores can be expressions of spirituality. The secular and the sacred are
collapsed in Zen, and that is a very attractive integration for many of us who
are dissatisfied with the two-world thesis of most religions.
Id. 324-325
Check.
Can the author explain the different types and processes of
Buddhist mediation?
Check. He does.
Does the author recognize the affinity between Buddhism and
some of the Western tradition, such the thought of Spinoza?
The Dutch/Jewish philosopher
Baruch Spinoza (1632-1677) offered a very Buddha-like theory (despite having
never heard of the Buddha) of human happiness through intellectual
enlightenment. In his famous Ethics
(part V), he says that when the mind comes to understand the real causes of
things—how some things could not have been otherwise and simply lie outside the
realm of our control—then we cease to worry and fret over them.
Id. 724-725
Check.
Does the author recognize the affinity between Buddhism and
Stoicism?
Buddhism, like Stoicism
in the West, seeks to reduce suffering, in part, by managing human emotions.
There are several tactics for getting one's emotions under control. One tactic
that both Buddhism and Stoicism recommend is the adoption of the long-range
perspective. I'll refer to this as eon perspective. When we are feeling
overwhelmed by anger, or despair, or fear, the Buddha asks us to think about
the impermanence of our problems and ourselves. Similarly, Stoic philosopher
Marcus Aurelius asks us to contemplate the human drama of families, cities, and
even nations that lived hundreds of years ago. They all did just as we do. They
married, worked jobs, had children, loved and lost, felt great joys, killed
each other, and engaged in every other emotional human endeavor. But, Marcus
Aurelius reminds us, "Of all that life, not a trace survives today."
It will be no different with the dramas of our own generation.
Id. 869-874
Check. Asma also notes an affinity with Epicurus, so gets
even more points on my score chart. I’ve yet to find a careful, book-length exposition
about the correlations between Buddhism and Classical philosophy, which someone
with more skills and knowledge (and time and money) than me ought to write.
All of these thinkers can be very austere. I cherish my
loved-ones, my family, my friends. Do I have to surrender all of these
relationships and go live in a forest monastery to avoid all attachments?
Does this mean that I
cannot be attached to my son? Well, if that's what it means, then I wouldn't
call myself a Buddhist. No, I think the Buddha is pointing out something that
we all understand at some level. He means, rather, that I cannot possess my
son.
Id. 784-786
Check. I understand that.
I know that modern science gives us the most concrete,
tangible knowledge of nature. It’s far from complete, and it’s imperfect, but
between a belief taken on faith, custom, or an ancient metaphysics, and natural
science, I’ll take natural science. So do I have to surrender that choice to
follow a Buddhist path?
One of the reasons why
I'm a Buddhist is because Buddhism makes friends of the sciences, and the
sciences are the best methods we have for understanding nature.
. . . .
For Buddhism and for
science, the mind is a natural rather than a supernatural entity.
. . . .
Buddhism and science
share a similar approach to phenomena, an approach that can be called
naturalism. Naturalism rejects (or at least brackets) supernatural explanations
of the world and its occupants (e.g., us). Unlike many other religions,
Buddhism does not find itself in the awkward position of having to reconcile
the metaphysical assertions of faith with the experimental findings of science.
Id. 879-881; 988-989;
1064-1066
Check. The natural world doesn’t make sense without Darwin,
Einstein, and the quantum thinkers, to mention just a few fields of
investigation.
What about karma and reincarnation? That stuff seems pretty
spooky to me, at least in some sense.
[T]he only really compelling
interpretation of karma—one that doesn't conflict with science—is the radical
reinterpretation that asks us to think about karma as a psychological fact
rather than a metaphysical one. For example, it is possible to say that one's
early lack of mental control and discipline results in a later batch of
suffering—perhaps I never disciplined my cravings for fast food as a young man,
and now I'm an obese older man who lives like a slave to French-fries. Or my
younger taste for drama and negative attention has resulted in a later
relationship pattern wherein I only try to date married women. This more
naturalized version of karma is the only one that seems reasonably defensible.
Id. 1123-1128
Check. Although some Western Buddhist thinkers, I believe,
would argue with this limited conception of karma and reincarnation, such as B.
Alan Wallace. However, this more conservative approach is the easiest to accept and
incorporate into our life and thought.
Let’s go back to the austerity and detachment thing for a
moment—such scary words! What about some of the good things in life, like art?
Must we surrender our appreciation for beauty and meaning to non-attachment?
Appreciating art and
making art are meditations that liberate us from self-absorption.
….
I think the role of art
is especially important in Buddhism, because Buddhism embraces a nondualistic
metaphysics. In some supernatural religious frameworks art is a gateway or
communication to a divine realm, but in Buddhism the artistic experience is
"naturalized" like everything else. This is why Buddhists have always
been more interested in the psychology of art. Art is a meditation that brings
one in contact with the formless nondiscursive mind. So, it's not a mere
communication with a transcendent reality, it is a transcendent reality. As an
analogy, I think "memory" becomes more important in the secular
Confucian framework of the Chinese, because there is no supernatural
immortality—only an "afterlife" in the memories of your descendants.
Id. 1064-1066; 1173-1177
Check. In fact, Buddhist art runs a gamut from the detailed
intricacy of the Tibetan tradition to the negative fields of a Zen garden. As
Asma notes:
Mandalas, for example,
are wonderful examples of the Indian idea (in both Hinduism and Buddhism) that
the macrocosm can be found inside the microcosm. To paraphrase Gottfried
Leibniz, "every single substance is a perpetual living mirror of the
universe." And in Tibetan Buddhism the mandalas also convey the Buddhist
teaching of impermanence (anicca),
because when the elaborate and agonizing sand-paintings are finally finished,
they are immediately and intentionally swept away and destroyed. . . . [T]he Far Eastern traditions of Daoism and
Zen Buddhism, on the other hand, have turned away from the spiraling complexity
of forms. Negative space and the aesthetics of minimalism help to convey the
equally powerful emptiness.
Id. 1189-1192
Check.
Can Buddhism help me deal with the difficult people (or
chose your more apt and colorful description) that I struggle with? I need
help!
If I don't feel genuine
kindness (metta) toward the bully
who's browbeating me, that's understandable—but I can still act as if I feel
it. There's nothing disingenuous about this. We're so hung up by our Romantic
ideas about acting from our authentic feelings, and expressing ourselves
authentically, that we forget how new habits of behavior can slowly transform
our internal habits of the heart.
. . . .
Spinoza noticed the same
thing and gave the same reasons for recommending the goodwill strategy.
"He who lives according to the guidance of reason strives, as far as he
can, to repay the other's hate, anger, and disdain toward him, with love or
nobility" (Ethics IV.46).
Id. 1419-1421; 1458-1459
Can that work?
Spinoza, like the
Buddha, adds that a kind and noble person will be more joyful (because joy is a
harmonic state of the healthy psyche), so such a person will be more powerful
and effective in pursuit of his goals.
Id. 1461-1462
Check. It seems like it can work--most of the time.
But what if either on a personal level or on a political
level, returning loving-kindness to mistreatment or exploitation doesn’t stop profound harm, even death?
[T]he overall critique-Buddhism
is too peaceful-is worth examining. . . . The Buddha and the dharma also
represent sources of strength. Power is necessary, because life is struggle.
Even the ultimate goal of detached equanimity can only come after substantial
struggle.
Id. 1740-1741; 1748-1749
Stop! Only half-credit (I don’t know how to give a
“half-check”). Buddhism, even less than Christianity, doesn’t have a complete
and compelling theory of politics to govern political actors on issues of war
and peace. This challenge isn’t unique to Asma. As far as I know, Buddhism
simply doesn’t have an articulated theory of politics. Islam melds politics
into religion, and this can lead to great problems, as we see around the world
today. Christianity skirts the issue with the doctrine of the Two Swords
(sacred and secular) and the Two Cities (St. Augustine), which are based on a
couple of sayings in the Gospels that provide a shaky foundation for any
definitive doctrines. Among those who call themselves Christians, we see a spectrum
that runs from pacifist to warmonger. I believe that the tragic, ironic, and
realist views of Reinhold Niebuhr and Max Weber (commenting from a secular
perspective) provide the most compelling responses to these ethical concerns,
but no easy answers. I don’t know that Buddhism offers any authoritative
answers. Someone, help me here! (I will be investigating the work of William
(Patrick) Ophuls, Western political scientist-philosopher and Buddhist
practitioner-teacher. I will report what I find in his work The Buddha Takes No Prisoners, which
includes an essay on “The Politics of Meditation”.)
The author came to my attention in the NYT
writing an article about John Dewey’s pragmatism and its reception in
China, where the Asma has lived and taught. So how does contemporary China
relate to Buddhism?
In previous ages, one
would, if gripped by a philosophical mood, simply turn to the great indigenous
works of Chinese intellectual culture: Kongzi's (Confucius's) Analects, Laozi's Daodejing, the Buddha's Sutras,
and so forth. But these days such fountains of wisdom are like trickling rivulets
in the landscape of religious competition, and the Christian Bible is often
more readily available to the average spiritual searcher.
Id. 1823-1825
Check, but I’d like more. I suspect an entire book—or
more—could be written about culture, ethics, and religions now afield in China
and how these are changing—as the very landscape is changing—at a dizzying
speed. What ethics work for hyper-capitalism, hyper-consumerism with Chinese
characteristics?
But can I retain what’s valuable in my Western
Christian-liberal tradition if I take this Buddhist path?
Buddhism, like
Christianity, pushes us away from the natural biases of human nature-it pushes
us beyond the usual concentric circles of value that surround our own families
and seeks to expand the circle to include all people, all animals, all beings.
The West has been pursuing this same model, in secular form, for several
centuries now. We can trace the development from Luther's Reformation up
through Enlightenment Kantian morality that asked us to treat all people equally
as "ends in themselves" rather than "means" to some end.
And after Immanuel Kant, we have the utilitarian tradition that asked us to
maximize the greatest happiness for the greatest number of people, and finally
the "fairness" philosophy of John Rawls and the rejection of personal
bias, nepotism, favoritism, preferential treatment, and partiality. Discordant
on almost every other point of comparison, Buddhism, Christianity, and Western
liberalism all make strange bedfellows on this one point of egalitarianism.
Id.1859-1860
Check.
Finally, I like red meat and I cannot lie. Must I limit
myself to rabbit food if I want to follow the Buddhist path? Can I follow a
Chicago diet of brats and beer?
Animal suffering is to
be avoided at all costs. But the idea that Buddhists have always been, and
always should be, vegetarians is pure myth. The historical Buddha, Siddhartha
Gautama, ate meat—he even died eating meat.[SNG: not a great plug for Buddhist
meat-eating.] My Buddhist friends in Cambodia eat meat. Most Tibetan Buddhists
eat meat. Meat, contrary to popular opinion, is not the problem for Buddhists.
The problem is causing unneeded pain to animals, so if we can kill them
humanely, then the ethical transgression is averted. In the West these days,
you will meet many Buddhists who are smug lettuce-nibblers, and that's fine.
But be assured, it is not Buddhism per se that compels their diet.
Id. 300-304
Check, thankfully. I didn’t see anything about whiskey
except in the title, but I take the ban on intoxicants to be a ban on
intoxication, so a beer or glass of wine—or whiskey if you’re made of sterner
stuff than I am—seems to me okay.
I trust that it comes as no surprise that at the end of this
review I say that I enjoyed and benefited from this book a great deal. It’s
always nice to meet a fellow seeker exploring the same paths.
