Why is Secular Buddhism Important? – Part 1

Posted by on March 18, 2012 No comments

I’ve done a very brief turn around the notion of Secular Buddhism recently.  I’ve talked a little about my view on why Buddhism is originally secular and why it’s such a good fit for the west.  I also covered very briefly how it came west, though there is a lot that can be said about that, I urge you to pursue your own research.  Accounts of the Panadura debate are available on line, and I may be able to reproduce them on this website once I’ve looked into the copyright issues.  But I haven’t been near a question.  Why is Secular Buddhism important, why am I of the opinion that it’s vital to have it?

The answer, I feel comes down to awareness and the willingness to see.  Humanity has many religions, depending on where you draw the line this number can vary.  These religions for the most part draw their authority from their particular god, so I see them as drawing their moral authority from an source outside provable and verifiable reality.  This effectively means that anything can be passed off as morality and go unchallenged as once you subscribe to religion your incentives are to support the status quo.  Want an example?  The Catholic Church frowns on the use of birth control, this from a religion that is widespread in some of the poorest areas on the planet!  The most effective thing the Catholic Church could do for these areas is allow condoms and other contraception.  This would reduce population pressure and the strain on already poor families, it would also reduce the spread of AIDS and other diseases all of which would benefit these communities no end.

For a second example, I’ll move along to Homosexuality.  According to the doctrines of many religions Homosexuality is a sin, pure and simple.  Buddhism, tends to vary depending on where you are but as far as I am aware the Buddha was silent on this.  There are a number of stones thrown at Homosexuals by the religious (remember “he who is without sin”, anyone?), this isn’t the time to get into it in depth but I’ll make one comment.  Homosexuality has been observed in 450 species in the wild on Earth, Homophobia in only one.  You can say the same about religion come to think of it, same species too, odd that isn’t it?

In my opinion, because of doctrine, the Catholic Church can’t allow any of this to be challenged.  The doctrine of Papal infallibility means that to admit that they were wrong would be to shake the bedrock, this is something they cannot have.  I’ve already expressed my views on the consequences of that before.

The NHS Reforms, Among Other Things.

Posted by on March 17, 2012 No comments

“A nation’s greatness is measured by how it treats its weakest members.” ~ Mahatma Ghandi

I’ve been watching the furore about the upcoming public services reforms and have been signing petitions to try to help stop the gutting of our public services.  To be honest, I can see us being steered towards a system of private health insurance, with all that this entails.  In addition to this, we’re looking at cuts to the availability of legal aid and also cuts to the assistance given to sick and disabled people.

Now, I don’t believe for a minute that the money can’t be found to preserve these things and this whole thing makes me wonder about the commentary this provides on the people running the show in this country.  Let’s be clear, these reforms will hit the poor and sick the hardest and we all know the old maxim that a society should be judged by how it treats the weak and vulnerable.  There are many variations on this theme and in my opinion, the most apt quote is the one above from Ghandi.

We must understand that the presence of these things shows our compassion for others in action, to just slash them would be a betrayal of this compassion for others and would also ignore the very real Karmic consequences of this act.  All of our actions have very real consequences, Karma is not a mystical thing and it can be readily observed in action.  The cumulative and ongoing negative effects of these shortsighted decisions will cause an enormous amount of harm to the life of our nation.  It’s not just the person who is refused treatment who suffers, it’s the family and friends, it’s the carers who have to take up the slack.  These effects ripple outward, in the same way that the closure of a large factory (e.g. the Rover plant at Longbridge) has an effect on the local community and the supply chain.

Let’s hope common sense prevails, before we all suffer.

Buddhism in the West

Posted by on March 16, 2012 No comments

My previous two posts have continued a short theme I wished to explore.  They’ve hopefully explained why I consider Buddhism to be Secular and provided a very quick overview of how Buddhism came to the West.  So here we are, Buddhism is in the western world and according to some sources is the fastest growing religion (I use the term as a shorthand) in many countries, maybe even the whole western world. [1] [2] [3] [4]

I think Buddhism has come to fit the western world very well.  Buddhism is finding that in many places it fits very well with modern science.  Indeed the attitude of questioning and verifying things for yourself that the Buddha speaks of to the people of Kesaputta in the Kalama Sutra is not at all antagonistic to the scientific endeavour.  I’ve posted verses 4 and 10 from the above link in order to bring them directly to your attention.

4. “It is proper for you, Kalamas, to doubt, to be uncertain; uncertainty has arisen in you about what is doubtful. Come, Kalamas. Do not go upon what has been acquired by repeated hearing; nor upon tradition; nor upon rumor; nor upon what is in a scripture; nor upon surmise; nor upon an axiom; nor upon specious reasoning; nor upon a bias towards a notion that has been pondered over; nor upon another’s seeming ability; nor upon the consideration, ‘The monk is our teacher.’ Kalamas, when you yourselves know: ‘These things are bad; these things are blameable; these things are censured by the wise; undertaken and observed, these things lead to harm and ill,’ abandon them.

10. “Come, Kalamas. Do not go upon what has been acquired by repeated hearing; nor upon tradition; nor upon rumour; nor upon what is in a scripture; nor upon surmise; nor upon an axiom; nor upon specious reasoning; nor upon a bias towards a notion that has been pondered over; nor upon another’s seeming ability; nor upon the consideration, ‘The monk is our teacher.’ Kalamas, when you yourselves know: ‘These things are good; these things are not blameable; these things are praised by the wise; undertaken and observed, these things lead to benefit and happiness,’ enter on and abide in them.

The above isn’t the only thing Buddhism has to offer that fits it with an increasingly secular west, you will find Buddhist meditation centres in many western cities.  Theravada centres, Zen centres and New Kadampa centres among just a few.  The teachings of Buddhism offer a powerful potential antidote to the stresses, strains and challenges of modern life.  They allow a person to find a sense of peace in our high-tech materialist society without making you feel inherently sinful or unworthy.  For me, as for many others here in the west, this is a huge part of the appeal.

References

[1] – Buddhism fastest growing religion in west.
[2] – Buddhism is fastest growing religion in English jails over past decade.
[3] – Buddhism: Ancient faith experiences and explosion of growth in US.
[4] – Why is Buddhism the fastest growing religion in Australia?

 

Buddhism Comes West

Posted by on March 15, 2012 No comments

I said previously that I’d say a little more about how Buddhism came to the west.  I’m going to put my notes into some sort of order and relate them here.

The story starts in Sri Lanka.  Both the Anglican church and the Catholic church had missionaries in the country and under the colonial rule of the British they were busily making converts and making life very difficult for the indigenous religion, Buddhism.  The Buddhists were ill equipped to make any inroads until a monk called Migettuwatte Gunananda Thera came along.  He had received much exposure to the Christian faith and scripture as he had originally intended to be a Christian priest, but he took a different path and became a Buddhist monk.  He participated in a defining debate between the Christians and the Buddhists, which took place in the town of Panadura on the 24th and 26th August 1873.  Prior to this, there had been several other debates which had mostly been written, but this one was the clincher.  The Buddhist side emerged victorious and the scene was set for a revival of Buddhism in Sri Lanka.

Ok, that’s fine, but how did Buddhism come to the West?  Enter Col. Henry Steel Olcott.  Col. Olcott was a co-founder of the Theosophical Society, and when a translation of the debate caught his eye, he sent a large amount of material to Sri Lanka, all of it critical of Christianity.  This was translated and distributed, Col. Olcott then visited the country.

Col Olcott wrote a book “The Buddhist Catechism” which is still in demand today.  He helped organise the Buddhist revival in Sri Lanka and started the process of drawing both Buddhism and modern science together.  He and Helena P. Blavatsky of the Theosophical Society became the first known westerners to convert to Buddhism.  Through their influence the Dharma started to come West.

How is Buddhism Originally Secular?

Posted by on March 14, 2012 No comments

I’d like to expand on a couple of things I said in my previous post, this first one regarding Buddhism itself.  I said that Buddhism was originally, a fairly secular thing.  You could be forgiven for looking at the Buddhist world, with it’s Devas and Dharma Protectors and other things and thinking that I’ve lost the plot.  On the face of things, I wouldn’t blame you, but let’s look a little closer.

The Buddha himself is quoted in the Dhammapada as not being very impressed with religions that preach salvation, this first quote shows exactly what I’m talking about.

No one saves us but ourselves, no one can and no one may.
We ourselves must walk the path, but Buddhas clearly show the way.

The Dhammapada, 165.

This is the first quotation, but there is a second one that I’d like to share that specifically deals with the reasons that the Buddha says people go to temples and holy places.

Gripped by fear men go to the sacred mountains, sacred groves, sacred trees and shrines, but these are not a secure kind of refuge.

The Dhammapada, 188

The Buddha is setting a theme, that one cannot find salvation or a refuge from suffering in sacred places or in the hands of another, whether that person is a human or a deity.  I can see this setting the scene for an attitude of Agnosticism if not outright Atheism.  I interpret it as Agnosticism as the Buddha didn’t directly comment on the existence or not of gods, at least as far as I know.  I say Buddhism is secular as when dealing with things in an Agnostic manner, if you don’t have any evidence to prove a thing exists or is true, you simply behave as if it doesn’t exist or is untrue.  In the case of the divine, this defaults in my view to a secular manner.

Secular Buddhism

Posted by on March 13, 2012 5 comments

Buddhism is something with a long history.  As far as I’m aware, it started about 2600 years ago and has migrated through a new of countries.  Along the way, it picked up various traditions, practices and other paraphernalia.  It also picked up a lot of religious baggage, including gods, spirits and demons, though this can vary a lot in quantity and lineup depending on where exactly you happen to stand.

Of course, as we know Buddhism eventually came to the west.  This is an interesting story in itself and when I can actually finish looking into it I’ll write up my understanding of it.  On coming west, Buddhism met western secularism and I think something very special happened.  The important thing to remember is that Buddhism was originally a quite secular thing, but during its travels that seems to have gotten lost, at least to my eyes.  Upon coming west, the path was set that would start to dust away the accumulated layers of it’s travels and leave an entirely secular system of ethics.

In Buddhism we have perhaps the only system of ethics and self development that has stood the test of time and does not draw on the authority of a hazily defined and unproven supernatural system for its basis.  The importance of this cannot be overstated, in my opinion.  This is also the beginning of subject that I’d like to delve deeper into in future posts.

Compassionate Computing

Posted by on March 12, 2012 No comments

Let’s bring my two chosen fields of interest together for this one shall we?

I’ve talked yesterday about the idea that in Buddhism, compassion (or karunà) is a very wise kind of selfishness, a kind of enlightened self interest that starts at home but actually works to the benefit of all of those around us.  If you’re in Computing, or if you follow it, this sounds quite familiar when you think about it; it sounds like the Free Software movement.

Let me play on that idea.  Free Software is software that id defined by the four freedoms:

  • the freedom to run the software as you see fit.
  • the freedom to study the program code and change it.
  • the freedom to redistribute copies of the original software as you see fit.
  • the freedom to redistribute your modified version should you so wish.

The result is that an awful lot of programmers (or hackers if you prefer that term) are producing great software for nothing and giving it away!  This may look awful, but the result has been GNU/Linux, many of the services that run the Internet, Firefox, Chrome, VLC and many other great things.  So we’ve all benefited hugely, including those original hackers.  It’s not just hackers and the public, when you investigate you find that a lot of Linux kernel development is paid for by corporates.  They wouldn’t do it if they didn’t benefit, but by doing that their actions ultimately benefit us as well.

So this serves as a more practical example of what I was talking about yesterday, the idea that compassion that starts at home can reach out to, and benefit the wider society.