Bhikkhu Cintita

Category: Religiosity

  • American Folk Buddhism (5)

    First Quarter Moon, Uposatha, April 29, 2012

    4. Burmese Folk Buddhism (2)

    I began last week by taking Burmese Folk Buddhism to illustrate the relationship of Folk Buddhism, the popular understand of Buddhism predominant in an Buddhist culture, from Essential Buddhism, the adept’s understanding of Buddhism that is functionally the closest  to the Buddhadharma. By the way, a good source of information for the topic is Burmese Folk Buddhism is Melford Spiro’s Buddhism and Society: a great tradition and its Burmese vicissitudes, thought it was written about forty years ago. I will finish doing this here. This discussion is by no means a complete overview of Burmese Folk Buddhism but is meant to be illustrative, in order to achieve an outsider’s perspective of American Folk Buddhism next week.

    Non-self, Merit and Generosity

    Nirvana, rebirth and non-self are among the most important yet difficult concepts to understand in Essential Buddhism. It is therefore hardly surprising that they assume a naïve understanding in any culture’s Folk Buddhism. In Burmese Folk Buddhism non-self receives lip service but makes little sense: Not only is there is someone who gets reborn for the Folk Buddhist but that person is often identified with the pre-Buddhist “butterfly spirit” that flutters away from a previous body and can behave maliciously until it finds another host.

    Many people work out who they were in their previous life, often a neighbor or a relative who died about a year or so before their rebirth. Most people would like a felicitous rebirth in the next life, either in the deva realm, in which suffering is almost unknown, or if in the human realm, as a wealthy or beautiful and in any case healthy and long-lived being. Most people fear rebirth in the lower realms, for instance, in the hell or animal realm. But the idea of escape from the cycle of death and rebirth, as advocated in the common language of Essential Buddhism, makes little sense, nor is it desirable except maybe as a means to avoid the lower realms altogether.

    Accordingly Nirvana is often understood instead as a kind of super and permanent deva realm, a blissful world of eternal life, the bliss here  commonly taken to include a great of sensual pleasure. Those who do understand Nirvana as escape or extinction generally do not actually consider it desirable even while they commonly recite things like, “May I attain Nirvana.” Often they hope that after a good rebirth they will understand Nirvana a bit better and finally set their sights on that goal.

    In such understandings the foundation of Buddhist practice becomes simple: the accumulation of personal merit, which will tend to make this life happier, but which will also help assure happy future lives. Merit (Pali, punnya) is a common concept in Essential Buddhism, but its understanding is itself a bit subtle. It is used basically as a summary means of quantifying progress in practice or in adjusting a karmic profile or intentionality in a positive direction. The tendency in Folk Buddhism is to conceptualize merit in even more simplified and occasionally misguided terms.

    In Burmese Folk Buddhism merit tends to be measured in purely external terms. In most cases a demerit arises with the violation of a precept and merit as a demonstration of generosity (dana). There is a tendency to think of merits and demerits as yielding something like a bank account balance, and in fact Spiro reports that many Burmese actually keep an accurate ledger on paper of their merits and demerits throughout the day. If the balance sheet is positive the Folk Buddhist is doing pretty well.

    There seem to be alternative systems of calculating merits. Spiro reports that in one account offering one person a meal counts as offering one hundred dogs a meal, offering one novice a meal counts as offering one hundred people a meal and offering one fully ordained monk a meal counts as offering one hundred novices a meal. In any case, there is in almost any such system a bias toward religious generosity and such merit is commonly held to correspond not so much to the need of the recipient as to the spiritual attainment of the recipient. There are cases in which a meditating forest monk who gains a reputation as an arahant, partly on the evidence of his secluded lifestyle and of the modesty of his personal needs, becomes the recipient of multiple cottages built by various donors on his behalf, all of which stand unused. Contributing the building of a pagoda is considered very meritorious, while for some reason contributing to the repair of an old pagoda is much less so. As a result it is common to see in Burma a shiny new pagoda under construction right next to a dilapidated one.  A wealthy person is generally regarded a having much more opportunity to gain merit than a poor person and this is one of the reasons rebirth as a wealthy person is considered to be desirable, though the sense of sacrifice, of creating personal hardship through generous deeds is also considered particularly meritorious.

    Relics

    What is missing in many of the Folk Buddhist methods of calculating merits is  reference to one’s intentions, which from the perspective of Essential Buddhism is all that counts. For instance, in Essential Buddhism if an outward act of generosity is motivated purely by desire for personal benefit then it carries no merit. If a poor person acts out of the same kindness as a rich person but can only afford 1% of the expenditure, the merit is the same. Personal benefit accrues along with the exercise and development of kindness and compassion. The Folk Buddhist model of calculating merits on the basis of outward actions alone can be rough at best.

    I suspect that we will find in almost any Buddhist culture that a primary reason for the tension between Essential and Folk Buddhism is that the former looks primarily within while the latter looks primarily without. People with little cultivation of mind most naturally look at what they can observe in others and at what others can observe in them and that will shape the Folk Buddhist understanding. The Essential Buddhist is concerned almost continually with the internal life of perceptions, feelings and intentions.

    Nonetheless, even the most recalcitrant Folk Buddhist cannot get away from the internal world. The fact is generosity is fun. In theory you might have a completely self-centered motivation for generosity if you think there is really something in it for you, such as future wealth, and you might have started out thinking that way. But it would be very hard for you not to get caught up in the warm and fuzzy spirit of generosity once you start practicing generosity outwardly, which is the spirit of kindness and compassion. In fact in Essential terms, this spirit is the beginning of karmic reward.

    The upshot is that typical Burmese Folk Buddhist is a fountain of generosity and takes great delight in generosity; you can see it in his face, hear it in her voice, you can see it in how thoroughly she generalizes generosity far beyond the religious realm. Generosity is one of the most striking qualities of Burmese culture. The casual tourist becomes aware of it quite readily: He will easily become a recipient  even while falling outside the category of religious generosity. He will find that Burmese tend to take care of one another; they do not have a disposable population of homeless, in their very poor land. They also have little crime or beggars. Although the Folk Buddhist understanding of generosity is imperfect, there is something that seems to work, and even the most recalcitrant Essential Buddhist must see that much merit is being gained.
    Merit, in Burmese Folk Buddhism, carries over beyond the encouragement of generosity and the discouragement of violating precepts. It is often viewed as the reason for other aspects of Buddhist practice, such as meditation, chanting or expressions of respect. These have more sophisticated justifications that simply “merit,” in Essential Buddhism, but nonetheless provide a simple way of conceptualizing Buddhist practice.

    Relationship of Burmese Folk and Essential Buddhism.

    When we look at elements of Folk Buddhism we can evaluate them in a number of ways. The most significant is its relationship to Essential Buddhism. A second derives from the bias of one’s own Folk Buddhism: Probably everyone falls in the trap when looking at one Folk Buddhism of evaluating itself in terms of one’s own Folk Buddhism. A third is what features are universal, that is, occur in every Folk Buddhism, yet not in Essential Buddhism. Here is roughly how Burmese Folk Buddhism seems to compare with Essential Buddhism (others may view some of these features differently).

    (1) Near Essential Buddhism. These are features that are included in or tend to support or enhance elements of Essential Buddhism. These include attention given to the Triple Gem such as food offerings to the Buddha and offerings to monks. These tend to inspire people in Buddhist faith and open the mind to the corrective influence of Essential Buddhism.  The basic model of merit as an expression of the benefit accrued in actions and practice works to encourage Buddhist practice, particularly the practice of generosity.

    (2) Intermediate to Essential Buddhism. These are innocuous supplements to Essential Buddhism. These include associating certain powers with relics, pagodas and images of the Buddha, rituals and chants for protection, and many of the influences attributed to nats or devas. I classify these as intermediate rather than far, because Essential Buddhism does not seem as far as I can see to care about all the extraneous things people might believe that we in the West might consider superstition or simply objectively wrong; they are neither right view nor wrong view.

    (3) Far from Essential Buddhism. These are features inimical to Essential Buddhist principles. There is some perhaps some danger in attributing current conditions, such as power or poverty, as inevitable consequences of karma because it can lead to harmful actions or more likely passivity when action is more appropriate. Efficacy of ritual was clearly discounted by the Buddha as wrong view. The butterfly spirit contradicts no-self in Essential Buddhism.

    Keep in mind that Burmese Folk Buddhism has developed over centuries in a culture with certain pronounced features, such as animism, but also under the corrective influence of Essential Buddhism. Without this corrective influence Burmese Folk Buddhism might well have floated off as part of an cultic bubble unachored in Essential Buddhism. Understanding flows as a corrective tendency from Essential to Folk Buddhism rather than in the other way, as we saw last week, because of refuge in the Triple Gem, the Buddha, the Dharma and the Sangha. In this way Folk Buddhism will tend not to corrupt or displace Essential Buddhism.

    Monks frequently correct common attitudes toward the efficacy of ritual or attribute the real efficacy not to some kind of magic but taking the internal view to the power of ritual to develop confidence in the beneficiary. Although the Folk Buddhist understanding of merit differs from the Essential Buddhist understanding, people are at least reminded occasionally of the proper understanding even while the proper understanding is not entirely assimilated.

    In summary, Burmese Folk Buddhism is largely anchored in Essential Buddhism, but trails off into less accurate understanding and eventually into misunderstanding. However deep faith in the Buddha, Dhamma, and Sangha tends to keep Burmese Folk Buddhists from drifting too far afield. The monks, representing the Sangha, often act as sheep herders to correct the most egregious deviations.

    Next week we will begin to look at American Folk Buddhism in terms similar to the quite different Burmese Folk Buddhism.

  • American Folk Buddhism (4)

    New Moon, Uposatha, April 21, 2012

    4. Burmese Folk Buddhism (1)

    I want today to use Burma as an example of the difference between, and interrelatedness of, Essential and Folk Buddhism. I choose Burma primarily because I’ve gained quite a bit of familiarity with it, but also Burma provide a particularly good example of a very traditional strong Folk Buddhism happily coexisting with a markedly well maintained Essential Buddhism.

    Essential Buddhism is evident in Burma in meditation practice, in the large proportion of monastics in the population, in the high standards in much monastic education, in the widespread familiarity with the Pali texts (there are monks who can recite thousands of pages from memory), in the ubiquitous practice of generosity throughout the culture, as well as the practices of precepts, of listening to Dhamma talks and discusing the Dhamma and of expression of faith in the Triple Gem. A number of Burmese in recent years have been widely regarded as arahants (they won’t actually tell you). Burma is particularly well known abroad for its many teachers of Vipassana meditation since meditation has undergone a massive revival since the middle of the Twentieth Century such that farmers and otherwise employed lay people now crowd 10-day meditation retreats. Burmese Vipassana schools are in fact well-represented in America today. Aung San Su Kyi through her many years of house arrest sustained a strong daily meditation practice; she is a follower of Pandita Sayadaw, a now elderly disciple of Mahasi Sayadaw, with whom people like Joseph Goldstein and Sharon Salzburg studied many years ago. Essential Buddhism is clearly not the exclusive domain of monastics in Burma.

    Nevertheless, the average Buddhist, though perhaps devout, knows little of meditation, nor of the basic teachings of Buddhism, but is informed instead by a vibrant Folk Buddhism. Burma is a land of pagodas, solid structures that evolved architecturally from the burial mounds that originally held parcels of the Buddha’s relics after his parinirvana. Statues of the Buddha abound before which people bow fully touching their foreheads to the ground in reverence and to which they offer flowers and food. This average Burmese Buddhist inhabits a world of tree spirits, miracles and magic, largely of pre-Buddhist origin but blending seamlessly with Buddhist practices and doctrine, for instance, calling on the presence or actions of monks to work invisible forces in a more favorable direction. This trails into Folk Buddhism, which is clearly not the exclusive domain of the laity in Burma.

    A couple of months ago we held a rite at the Burmese monastery where I live in Texas to appease three angry tree spirits (nats or devas) dwelling here. It seems that in our extended community, which apparently extends to relatives in Burma and in Houston of people living here, there had been three mishaps in one week, Someone was even grazed in the head and critically injured by an out of control, in fact airborne, race car. We had in the months before this fateful week been constructing many new buildings, particularly meditation cottages, which we had always tried to locate in the spaces between standing trees. Occasionally we had had to cut a tree down of one of the two kinds of common trees on our property, favoring an oak to a cedar when one or the other was to be spared. Nonetheless we had had to cut down exactly three oak trees.

    One morning the abbot announced to me the necessity of performing this rite. The monks would visit each of the three crime scenes, we would chant the Metta Sutta (Loving Kindness Discourse) then the abbot would speak to the offended spirit to ask forgiveness. This was up until then outside of the realm of my familiarity, so something like the following exchange ensued.

    “We have cut down several cedar trees as well. How do we know that devas weren’t living in those trees as well?”

    “They only live in oak trees.”

    “There aren’t any oak or cedar trees in Burma, how do you know which trees they live in in America?”

    “They like oak trees.”

    “OK. Are you going to speak to them in Burmese? These are Texan devas. They are more likely to understand English … or Spanish.” (They are also likely to have names like “Clem” or “Dusty.”)

    “I think devas can understand any language, but just in case I will speak to them in Burmese and then you speak to them in English!”

    And so it was, three little ceremonies in turn with my full participation. It was kinda fun I have to admit.

    The Buddha once sneezed. I’ve been looking for the source of this story; I believe it is in the Vinaya.

    A nearby monk said, “Bless you!” Apparently this was also the custom in the Buddha’s time and place.

    The Buddha asked, “Wait a minute. Do you think that saying that will have an effect on my future health?” He had after all in his teachings replaced the idea of appropriate rites and rituals as a determinant of future well-being with the idea of purity of intention in one’s own actions, the Buddhist meaning of “karma.”

    The monk replied, “Well, no, actually.”

    “Then don’t say it!”

    And thereby a new rule was put into circulation that monks were expected to follow. The problem was that lay people began to complain about how rude all the monks had suddenly become.”

    “I sneezed and there was a monk standing right there and he didn’t even bless me!”

    “How rude! The impudent cad”

    When this was reported back to the Buddha the Buddha rescinded the rule that he had established.

    “People need monks to say ‘Bless you’ to them.”

    This little story is indicative of the Buddha’s tolerance and willingness to adapt to common cultural preferences. Except where a particular practice flies in the face of Essential Buddhism as I understand it, I personally try to follow his example.

    Much of Burmese Folk Buddhist practice and understanding is only about one step removed from Essential Buddhism. We mentioned in an earlier episode the importance of the Triple Gem, refuge in the Buddha, the Dhamma and the Sangha, as a bridge between Essential and Folk Buddhism and common to both. I described the function of the Triple Gem in terms of deference to the experts, but in every Buddhist culture I am aware of it takes on layers of meaning. The Burmese express their relationship to these with particular exuberance.

    Pagoda under construction in Austin, Texas.

    The Buddha authorized in the Parinibbana Sutta the practice of honoring him after his death through pilgrimage to the places of his birth, awakening, first teaching and death. He probably did not anticipate the devotion and reverence his disciples would slather on every reminder of him. Chief among these, and prior to Buddha statues, were his relics, the bits of bone, teeth, sometimes hair, that survived his cremation. The Burmese also honor the relics of arahants, which generally take on the form of crystals, and which reproduce like bunnies, that is, left overnight the next morning they will have increased in number and mass. A museum has been built in a temple in Burma where a local arahant had lived and died. Pictures in the museum reveal he had very intensive eyes, which died and was cremated, did not burn but were found among the relics! Moreover, the concrete ground floor one story below the bed in which he died has continually cracked and burst open since its last occupancy.

    Relics are often said to have special powers. Kyaik Tiyo, the golden rock (actually gold-leaf enhanced with a little pagoda on top), is a huge boulder, maybe 40 or 50 feet in diameter, perched on top of a sheer cliff, at the very top of a tall mountain, in such a way that it has been just about to roll off for maybe the last several hundred thousand years or so. Inspection of this amazing site from below invites one to try to pass a string, an accomplice holding the other end, under the rock all the way across; it looks like it would work, maybe by rocking the rock a bit. From higher up, one can see that its center of gravity does keep it from rolling off the cliff, but golly it seems that by now an earthquake or a clumsy dinosaur sometime in the last innumerable millennia would have toppled it. It is certainly a wonder of nature.

    In Myanmar all such phenomena are miracles that have to do with Buddhism. The story is that some of the Buddha’s hairs are contained inside of the rock and that the rock remains in place by the power of the Buddha. Once upon a time, some non-Buddhists tried to push the rock off the cliff in order to undermine people’s faith in the Buddha, Dhamma and Sangha, but they were turned into monkeys. That’ll show them! In an inspiring, hopefully not foolhardy, display of faith, there is now a nunnery directly below the rock, exactly at the point of first bounce.

    The reverence for relics and the attribution to them of special powers seems to be universal throughout Buddhist Asia. A particular expression of this is the pagoda, originally representing a burial mound for the Buddha’s relics but now takes on wildly varying forms. The Burmese are particularly fond of pagodas, which there follow a squat earth design common also in India and suggestive of their original function. Burma is known as the Land of Pagodas; they must consume a large part of the small national income. A 70′ pagoda is currently under construction here in Texas substantially supported through donations from Burma.

    A common observance in Burma and perhaps in all Buddhist countries of Asia is the ritual offering to a Buddha statue, of food, water, flowers, incense and light. In Burma it is generally understood that the Buddha is no longer able to receive those offerings. Rather the offering is made as a kind of enactment in which the offerer’s wholesome qualities are developed. The view however seems to be widespread that some kind of unseen power adheres to Buddha statues and other representations of the Buddha once these have been properly consecrated ceremonially by monks.

    The Dhamma is most commonly represented by recitation and by listening to Dhamma talks. Great value is placed in the ability to memorize the scriptures and enormous veneration of what are known as Tipitaka Monks, those who pass a state examination that exhibits rote knowledge of the scriptures, including memorization of at least two of the three baskets and a substantial part of the third, roughly twenty volumes. Only eight monks have passed this examination since it was instituted sixty-four years ago. Monasteries in Burma often have enhanced loudspeaker systems to broadcast recitations to the world. Many undertake once a year to recite the Pathana, a long chapter of the Abhidhamma Pitaka, which takes several days and nights and is done in shifts. Where I once lived in central Burma a neighboring nuns’ monastery undertook to broadcast such a recitation day and night. I strongly suspect the nun in charge of setting the volume control had once belonged to a heavy metal band. Burmese often report the occurrence of miraculous phenomena during such recitations, for instance, water offerings to the Buddha will begin to boil. Burmese recite (chant) together typically with great energy.

    The Sangha is represented by the monastic community, upon whom great reverence is bestowed and who are doted upon much as house pets. Traditionally in Burmese culture one is expected to show special respect for four categories of people: (1) monastics, (2) parents, (3) teachers and (4) the elderly. This respect finds its most visible expression in full prostrations, generally in groups of three, representing the Buddha, the Dhamma and the Sangha. A rite of passage for boys is to ordain as novice monks for short period, sometimes for a week, sometimes at the age of seven or eight, but generally as teenagers, having their heads shaved, wearing the traditional robes and taking the precepts. One of the moving aspects of the ceremony is that once immediately following the ordination the parents will perform full bows to their sons, reversing the order that had obtained until that time. Burmese will generally try to sit at a lower level than monks, for instance offering the monks chairs then sitting on the floor themselves.

    Often magical powers are attributed to senior monks of great attainment. The presence of monks is commonly regarded as good luck and making offerings to monks, particularly offering a meal to monks, is karmically meritorious. This is often done on auspicious occasions such as weddings and birthdays, as well as periods of misfortune when people feel they need a karmic boost. A Burmese doctor in Austin, a specialist in sleeping disorders, was pleased to be able to offer her services for free to a visiting Burmese monk who suffered from sleep apnea, which required that he stay overnight in a specially outfitted room hooked up to various machines. She was particularly pleased with the auspiciousness that he was the inaugural patient of a new room they had just added to their lab. A frequent visitor to our monastery, who like to come on weekends to prepare food for the monks, was up late one night and spotted a monk standing in the air above one of the new buildings near where the new pagoda was beginning construction. She called to other people who indeed verified the presence of this monk in the sky, only now he was meditating. It was generally assumed that this monk had teletransported from Burma. A couple of weeks later I heard the story retold such that the monk in question had become our own founder, Sitagu Sayadaw.

    Next week I will continue to discuss Burmese Folk Buddhism with a focus on how generosity, merit and the object of Buddhist practice are understood in the popular culture. Then I will look at the influence of Essential Buddhism on the popular practice and understanding.

  • American Folk Buddhism (3)

    Last Quarter Moon, Uposatha, April 14, 2012

    3. Folk Buddhism

    Essential Buddhism is the corn, the Buddhism that sustains and is most directly sustained by the adepts. Folk Buddhism is the undergrowth that nourishes far more beings. Last week we considered Essential Buddhism, this week we look at Folk Buddhism.

    Against the Stream. Essential Buddhism is radical in any culture. It extols Awakening as the highest attainment, a state most can scarcely conceive of, one that entails not only the complete eradication of personal desire and aversion as motivating factors but the elimination of intentional action altogether. It defies common sense in holding that well-being lies in renouncing the quest for personal advantage and is attained exclusively by no one in the conventional sense. It finds well-being to be quite contrary to the most natural human impulses learned and unlearned.

    The primary motivating factors for the mass of people in any culture in the meanwhile are substantially based in greed, hatred and delusion and many of the cultural, economic and social influences serve to magnify these very factors. Rampant suffering is the result. Buddhism “goes against the stream,” as the Buddha described it. Essential Buddhism mixes with common culture as oil with water.

    It is the rare person who can totally see the contradictions in the assumptions that prevail in her own culture, or observe that their application fails spectacularly to achieve the well-being anticipated by their adherents. Such a person might embrace Essential Buddhism rather quickly … if she just happened to come across the teachings. How do those teachings gain a toehold in the culture in the first place and what makes them accessible to anyone perhaps a little less astute that this rare perceptive individual? More generally, what is the dispersant that allows Essential Buddhism to penetrate the water, to make a large-scale difference in providing some relief from the excesses of a suffering dominant culture?

    Folk Buddhism as Popular Understanding. Folk Buddhism is the popular understanding of Buddhism in a particular Folk culture. It may contain aspects of Essential Buddhism, the Buddhism of the adepts described last week, and as we shall see must contain at least three aspects. But it also contains aspects that either simplify aspects of Essential Buddhism or are properly extraneous to Essential Buddhism. For instance, it is common in Folk Buddhisms to think in terms of a soul, a fixed self, that acquires merit through good deeds in order to be reborn in a felicitous realm, or as a true inner self that is released through Buddhist practice from learned inhibitions or social constraints. It is common to think Nirvana is a particularly felicitous realm where that self can dwell forever. It is common to equate the well-being achieved through practice with material well-being or reputation and to confuse Awakening with a kind of celebrity status. It is common to read particular powers into ritual objects, even to the extent that Buddhist practice becomes primarily a shopping experience. It is common to find Buddhism residing in special experiences and then to expect instant gratification from Buddhist practice. It is common in Folk Buddhism to seek protection from outrageous fortune in amulets or in special chants or in the presence of monks. It would be difficult to find evidence of any of these things in Essential Buddhism, for instance, as attested in the Pali Suttas.

    Folk Buddhism is always largely conditioned by the embedding culture. For instance Asian (pre-Buddhist) culture has many animist and shamanic influences and we can expect these to find expression in Asian Folk Buddhism. East Asian culture is very ritualized and Ancestor worship is common, and therefore these factors are expected to be found in their Folk Buddhism. American culture emphasizes individualism and consumerism, it glorifies celebrities and has marked influences from Protestant Christianity, from the European Enlightenment, and from later European Romanticism. Therefore these factors can be expected to find their way into American Folk Buddhism.

    The advantage of Folk Buddhism in general is that it is a much easier nut to crack than Essential Buddhism. Much of its content is based on factors present and easily understood and appreciated in the general culture, often assimilated by the individual at a very early age. It tends to avoid the most difficult teachings of Essential Buddhism, such as non-self or emptiness or (for Westerners) rebirth, and downplay the most demanding practices, such as meditation and renunciation of sensual pleasures. In general it is much less challenging to the common culture or the impulsive behaviors of the individual than Essential Buddhism and more reassuring to people’s lifestyles as they are currently constituted. Nonetheless it can help people over time gently ease toward the path of liberation as it conveys values and practices that reflect or support parts of Essential Buddhism.

    The disadvantage of Folk Buddhism is that it is itself subject to absorbing the personal and cultural factors of the wider society that cause so much distress and suffering in the first place. Rather than following the direct path advanced by Essential Buddhism the followers of Folk Buddhism may come under distracting influences or unsavory influences inimical to the teachings, practices and values of Essential Buddhism. For instance, Folk Buddhism might begin to assume much of the materialism, acquisitiveness or intolerance of the embedding culture, then represent this as belonging to the Buddha’s teachings. It may acquire features that enhance the ego or endorse an unconscionable status quo. It may also come under manipulation of special interests who exploit Folk Buddhism, for instance, for commercial interests or as a means of controlling public opinion.

    In brief, Folk Buddhism is a middle way between Essential Buddhism and the general embedding culture. It has a natural tension with each, but also serves as a path of access to each. It has a natural tension with Essential Buddhism which is far too strict and inscrutable for its tastes, but which is at the same time tolerant of its looseness, like a kindly wise grandmother. It has a natural tension with the embedding culture. Its task is to highlight certain values and bring in new perspectives that challenge the culture at large or challenge the cultures influences for the Buddhist practitioner. If it does not engage in this challenge, what is the point? At the same time a Folk Buddhism provides access to Essential Buddhism; it provides a welcome mat for beginning to learn more of Essential Buddhism. And it communicates Buddhist values and perspectives to the embedding culture in the way Essential Buddhism in its obscurity is unable to do effectively.

    The tensions between Folk Buddhism and Essential Buddhism and between Folk Buddhism and the general culture are however nothing compared to the tension between the Folk Buddhisms of distant lands. Dependent as they are on diverse cultures, one such Folk Buddhism is not going to look particularly Buddhist or even sensible from the vantage of another such Folk Buddhism. Asian Folk Buddhisms are distinctly odd to Westerners, ours are bound to be equally odd to Asian Folk Buddhists.

    Maintaining the Integrity of Folk Buddhism. Folk Buddhism as a culturally determined phenomenon is fine and necessary. The biggest danger to a Folk Buddhism is that it just dissolve into the embedding culture altogether, losing its identity as Buddhism. It is imperative that Folk Buddhism be anchored to Essential Buddhism, that Essential Buddhism have the power to shape and correct Folk Buddhism. For instance, a snapshot of a Folk Buddhism at one point in time might have factors related to Essential Buddhism in the following ways:

    1. Factors found in Essential Buddhism.
    2. Factors that approximate an Essential Buddhist understanding. These may be naïve understandings derived from Essential Buddhism or factors present in the local culture that happen to have a close affinity with Essential Buddhism.
    3. Extraneous factors present in or derived from the embedding culture.
    4. Factors present in or derived from the embedding culture that are inimical to Essential Buddhism. These are particularly manifestations of greed, hate and delusion in the common culture.

    (It seems to be common, by the way, for cultural factors with an affinity for Essential Buddhism to be incorporated eventually into Essential Buddhism and this is probably a primary driver of the evolution of Essential Buddhism. In this way many originally Taoist and Confucian elements seem to have come to characterize much of East Asian Essential Buddhism.)

    To develop a healthy beneficial Folk Buddhism we would want to encourage the first two types of factors and discourage the last. How does all of this happen?

    Buddhism in fact has a mechanism for this, which has to do with acknowledging the authority of Essential Buddhism even when the Folk Buddhist might not be clear about what it has to say. This is much like the popular relationship to science. For instance, if I don’t have much of an understanding of how the weather works I might have some odd notions about it and even communicate these to other people. If someone disagrees with me generally we have a ready way to resolve the conflict: look it up or ask an expert. If I am not to be informed or corrected by those that I understand to be the experts my understanding along with that of the people I talk with about the weather will quickly lose its tenuous mooring in science and float off into supposition and superstition bearing even less relationship to science than it does now. It is normal to defer to the scientist, the historian, the physician, your own real estate agent, to put faith in the experts. This allows us to correct our misunderstandings and improve our understandings, to loosely anchor ourselves.

    Buddhism’s mechanism is the Triple Gem, the Threefold Refuge, the basis of Buddhist faith and considered the beginning point of all Buddhism. Where my knowledge and understanding might be insufficient I entrust myself to the Buddha’s understanding. Where my knowledge and understanding might be insufficient I entrust myself to the teachings of the Buddha. Where my knowledge and understanding might be insufficient I entrust myself to the Sangha’s understanding. The Sangha is the adepts we met last week whose task it is to maintain Essential Buddhism through their study, practice and attainment.

    For instance, I may naively believe that paying daily respect to my Buddha statue will erase the karmic results of any misdeeds I commit out in the world. If I am unwilling to be corrected by the adept who points out that I am heir to all of my deeds, my understanding a practice along with those of the people I talk with about such matters will quickly lose its tenuous mooring in Essential Buddhism and float off in a wildly devotional cultic bubble having even less relationship to Buddhism than it does now.

    Summary. Once again our goal is not to weed out Folk Buddhism from under the corn of Essential Buddhism; that would withdraw Buddhism from most of the population in favor of a very small exclusive elite of monastics and lay people who have the time, energy and inspiration to explore the depths and heights of Buddhist practice, to fix their feet firmly on the Noble Eightfold Path and set their sights on Nirvana. Rather our goal should be to create a healthy Folk Buddhism, one that is consistent with a healthy Essential Buddhism, the two together providing both depth and breadth and in the end the most benefit for the most people and the option of intensive study and practice to produce the adepts of tomorrow.

    Now the individual Buddhist is commonly some mix of Essential and Folk Buddhist. Even an adept if born a Buddhist probably retains much of Folk Buddhism inculcated since childhood, but is unlikely to retain those aspects that are inimical to Essential Buddhism. A casual Buddhist may nonetheless take an interest in some particular teaching or practice of Essential Buddhism such as mindfulness meditation. The communication the two enjoy will generally make Essential Buddhism accessible to the Folk Buddhist who might then decide to go deeper into Essential Buddhist practice.

  • American Folk Buddhism (2)

    Full Moon, Uposatha, April 6, 2012

    Essential Buddhism

    Last week I introduced but did not fully explain the distinction between Essential Buddhism and Folk Buddhism. In brief, when people criticize Asian Buddhists as not being real Buddhists or as caught in a mesh of superstition and religiosity, they are probably talking about Asian Folk Buddhism; Asian Essential Buddhism is generally just fine. When people criticize American Buddhism as being watered down Buddhism, they are probably talking about American Folk Buddhism; American Essential Buddhism is developing just fine, thought it is not yet as firmly planted here as in most of Asia. Most of Buddhism as it is lived and practiced by millions of people is Folk Buddhism, it has always been that way since Buddhism expanded beyond the Buddha’s immediate disciples and will always be that way. Folk Buddhism is fine too as long as it is kept wholesome. We will begin to look at what “wholesome” means next week.

    The reason why Folk Buddhism is so overwhelmingly popular is that Essential Buddhism is so incredibly sophisticated and subtle that it will inevitably be understood substantially (let alone fully) by the relatively few. Essential Buddhism is rooted in the most ancient teachings of the Buddha while Folk Buddhism is a generally culturally conditioned more naïve popular understanding of Buddhism, or sometimes a complete misunderstanding, or sometimes an accretion of elements that have no historical relation to Essential Buddhism at all but are nevertheless thought of as Buddhist in a particular culture.

    This is much the situation with science, music, philosophy, engineering or many other areas wherever popular interest and narrow achievement exist side by side. A professional physicist, for instance, has a very sophisticated understanding developed through education, training and perhaps personal research that the rest of us fall far short of. Yet we are all physicists at at least a naïve level insofar as we must deal with the world of mass and motion, light and liquids. Try asking some naïve physicists things like: What keeps the moon and airplanes up but us down? Why is the back of the refrigerator so warm? How can radio waves carry sounds and pictures? What makes water freeze? … and you may receive in return some astonishing examples of naïve understandings. Beyond naïve understandings folk science trails off into misunderstandings, superstition and “wive’s tales.” Buddhism is no different, never has been since the early days and never will be.

    Elements of Essential Buddhism

    So what is this more sophisticated Essential Buddhism?

    The easiest and obvious answer would be that it is the Dharma-Vinaya taught by the Buddha, as somewhat reliably attested by the early Pali Suttas, but also in the Chinese Agamas and the Vinaya in many languages. I take care to tack “Vinaya,” monastic discipline, which carries most of the institutional aspects of Buddhism, onto “Dharma” in this context, first, because the Buddha normally used “Dharma-Vinaya” to refer to the entirety of his teachings, and secondly and more importantly, because the Vinaya is directly relevant to the relationship of Essential and Folk Buddhism.

    Essential Buddhism defined in this way includes a variety of understandings, practices and institutions that include, for instance, the Noble Eightfold Path, the Four Noble Truths, Nirvana, Samsara, Dependent Origination, the Marks of Existence (impermanence, suffering and no-self), karma, meditation practice, renunciation, kindness, generosity, the Three Refuges, the monastic lifestyle and obligations, and so on. “Understanding” here is much deeper than intellectual understanding but rather depends on the direct experience of these elements on the basis of deep and prolonged practice.

    I want to qualify this definition. First, there was probably already a vibrant Folk Buddhism even in the Buddha’s day, cobbled together from elements of essential Buddhism along with popular folk beliefs and this Folk Buddhism is also probably reported in the earliest scriptural sources, for instance, in the Buddha’s discourses to village people as opposed to those spoken to his closest disciples. So this definition may be a bit too broad.

    Second, and more importantly, Essential Buddhism itself has gone through a historical process of evolution, particularly as it has been transmitted into novel cultural contexts, and is evolving in the West as well. This Essential Buddhism, though expressed in different ways has retained its functional integrity in very diverse schools. One of my interests has been in assessing the claim with regard to Zen Mahayana Buddhism in which I was ordained for a number of years before ordaining in the Theravada tradition. In practice and understanding Zen is actually very close to the Theravada Forest Tradition even though its language and teachings are heavily influenced by Taoism and Confucianism. In my recent series on meditation I compared Zen shikantaza and modern vipassana techniques both favorably with Buddha’s original teachings. So the definition of Essential Buddhism as first stated above may also be too narrow; anyway it is not the unique property of a single school of Buddhism.

    Maintaining the Integrity of Essential Buddhism

    Essential Buddhism is only able to maintain its integrity in spite of evolution because of adepts. In particular, without the involvement of strong practitioners with, or who develop, deep understanding of its essential functions, who are able to at least glimpse Nirvana and experience the Path of development that heads unwaveringly in that direction, the sophisticated teachings of Essential Buddhism will not make full sense, are likely to be misinterpreted, will probably shed their most head-scratching aspects and will be unable to recover from past misunderstandings. Traditionally the adepts with this level of attainment are called stream enterers, and as a group are called the ariya sangha (noble community). With adepts practicing sincerely, false or incomplete understandings cannot survive and the integrity of Essential Buddhism will be upheld. For an example, in my blog series on meditation I described how Buddhist meditation in particular seems to have retained its integrity or even to have self-corrected when it has deviated functionally from the Buddha’s original intention, even as the way it has been taught and described has changed.

    A primary function of the monastic institution is to ensure a steady stream of new stream enterers. This is much of the reason that the Buddha included the Vinaya as a critical aspect of Essential Buddhism. Monastic practice not only enforces a personal discipline fully aligned with Dharma, that supports progress on the Path, but also creates a social and economic context that protects practice from aspects of common samasaric life that would otherwise suck the monastic back into self-centered responsiveness. Because it entails a strict renunciate practice that most cannot sustain and many cannot fathom without a great deal of affinity for the Buddha’s Path, it effectively provides a means of self-qualification. The mutually supporting community of those in the monastic path is the monastic sangha.

    In short Buddhism supports the monastic sangha institutionally to provide the ideal context for Buddhist practice, thereby also producing most of the adepts who will ensure the survival of Essential Buddhism. The monastic sangha is the institutional, and visible, counterpart of the ariya sangha. Not all monastics are ariyas, but an ariya is most likely a monastic. In a number of Theravada sources it is maintained with great confidence that as long as monastics are following the Vinaya, the integrity of the Dharma is assured, because these are people who are living wholly according to Dharma. This has in fact preserved Essential Buddhism for many centuries throughout Asia.

    Science works much the same way. Maintaining the integrity of science would be practically impossible without a community of adapts. Science is simply too sophisticated to be sustained by amateurs and hobbyists alone. Institutionally modern societies support a class of professional scientists who are qualified and then given the support, academic appointments and leisure to pursue their disciplines. Not all scientists produce great breakthroughs, but if someone produces a great scientific breakthrough she is most likely a professional scientist. There are exceptions to this: Einstein’s earthshaking early work was produced as a kind of hobby without the support of an academic appointment, yet he was one step away from the professionals who trained him. Similarly non-monastics become ariyas, yet they are seldom if ever far removed from the influence of monastics.

    Essential-ish and Folk-ish Buddhisms

    I have been describing Essential Buddhism and Folk Buddhism as two distinct things. This is actually a simplified model of the reality. First, there may be different Folk Buddhisms existing side by side. More importantly any Buddhist’s understanding will probably fall somewhere between pure Essential Buddhism and pure Folk Buddhism and probably nobody’s will actually be pure Essential Buddhism or pure Folk Buddhism. We can actually envision within any culture an indefinite number of hybrid Buddhisms varying in their mix of Essential and Folk elements.

    For instance, it is very common for very learned Burmese monks, who can discuss the Suttas at length and even recite many of them for you, to also share many beliefs, say, in miracles associated with Buddhist religious objects, relics and Buddhists of high attainment, with the bulk of the Burmese population. Maybe they are right, but these beliefs are not a part of my thinking and I do not feel I am less of a Buddhist for it. It is hardly surprising that learned monks have these beliefs since they first grew up as Folk Buddhists and only later overlaid their early understanding with the study of Essential Buddhism.

    Another possibility that I suspect has happened in some schools of Asian Buddhism is that an Essential-Folk hybrid has become authoritative, that is has displaced Essential Buddhism. This might be the case, for instance, if the most adept in that school have lost sight of Nirvana as the goal and have set their sights on a lesser goal, such as felicitous rebirth in a deva realm. Still another possibility is that Folk elements may become integrated into Essential Buddhism, that is, may come to fulfill an essential function. For instance, ritual aspects already present in Chinese culture before the arrival of Buddhism seem to have been integrated as effective aids to developing mindfulness and in that context are a part of Essential Buddhism.

    Although the relationship of Essential and Folk Buddhism is more complex than initially portrayed, the simple model of regarding Essential and Fok Buddhism as two distinct things will serve, I think, for the purposes of this series. I just want to caution that when it comes to examining certain elements of your practice, for instance, they may be difficult to classify. Since I don’t advocate expunging Folk elements, only bringing them in line with Essential Buddhism, this should not be a problem.

  • American Folk Buddhism (1)

    First Quarter Moon, Uposatha, March 30, 2012

    Introduction

    How did it happen that Western Buddhists so quickly gained a monopoly on real Buddhism? We in the West certainly don’t seem to have gained much of a handle on Christianity over many centuries, and the average citizen of my country is pretty clueless about science., history, and almost everything else outside of popular entertainment. Yet we meditate and study Buddhist philosophy while people in Asian temples burn money and appease spirits through elaborate rituals. How were we the ones to arrive at this precise understanding of something as sophisticated and refined as Buddhist thought and practice?

    There is a common kind of hubris in the West that often goes as far as trying to save Buddhism from Asian misunderstanding. I began wondering about this some years ago after many years of training in the Western American context. Often Americans who come to Buddhism are dismayed at what gets included in Buddhism in Asia, and yet American Buddhism sprang out of the Asian communities and was inspired by Asian teachers. This does not add up. What gives?

    It is true that if we try to accept the whole package things get muddled in our Western way of thinking very quickly. Meditation is widely acclaimed and the Four Noble Truths and the Refuges are broadly accepted, but then there are choices to consider: when to blend in Tantric elements, whether to walk the Bodhisattva Path or the Path of the Arahat, which precepts to follow, not to mention the daunting plethora of meditation techniques. OK, that goes with the territory. But then there is this renunciation thing, ritual with a lot of bowing, community and social functions where a go-it-alone individual endeavor would seem preferable, devotional practices, gaudy garb, ancestor worship, appeasing tree spirits, appealing to bodhisattvas or simply the power of Buddha to save us from misfortune, gaining merit to attain a felicitous rebirth and blaming misfortune on one’s past karma. Some of this is certainly over the edge, … isn’t it?

    For a Western newcomer and many a seasoned practitioner Buddhism as a whole appears as a tangle of bushes with a few edible berries but in general no clear path or order. Unfortunately the individual or collective Western response has often much like that of the landowner who discovers an overgrown but still potentially productive corn field on his property and with limited understanding of both corn and non-corn dauntlessly hacks away with a machete only to destroy half of the corn and to leave half of the undergrowth, then plants one row of Monsanto super-corn and row of squash to make it look right. It looks pretty good, so we call it Western Buddhism.

    To make better sense of this historical process in which we Western Buddhists participate I want to suggest that we are actually in a process of developing two distinct Western Buddhisms, and that when we look at any particular Asian tradition we are actually looking at two distinct Asian Buddhisms. The two Buddhisms in each case exist in a symbiotic relationship. Often we confuse the two.

    Essential Buddhism is like the corn in the simile. Although it is generally regarded as authoritative in a Buddhist community, it is so sophisticated that it is understood only by the adept few, often fully understood by the none.

    Folk Buddhism is like the undergrowth. It represents the popular understanding of Buddhism. Individually we each feed on Essential and Folk Buddhism to varying degrees, but Folk Buddhism is the most nibbled and gnawed.

    The super-corn and the squash represent new innovations, of Essential and Folk Buddhism respectively. Of course hacking away with a machete is also innovative as well. Essential Buddhism tends to be the more conservative, yet is still subject to innovation and culture-specific understandings. Folk Buddhisms on the other hand tend to vary wildly.

    Understanding the difference between Essential Buddhism and Folk Buddhism is by no means intended as an aid for elimination of the undergrowth in favor of the corn. Buddhism has always been ecologically more sustainable than that; Roundup is eschewed. Undergrowth is a universal and inevitable part of Buddhism and already characterizes American Buddhism though I don’t think this is generally recognized. In fact it already feeds more critters by far than Essential Buddhism will ever feed.

    Understanding the difference between Essential and Folk Buddhism is to bring the two into a proper and mutually beneficial relationship. First, our corn should grow straight and tall. Maintaining the integrity of Essential Buddhism is for the adepts and those with adept tendencies and it is for future generations. It also serves to protect the undergrowth and plays a corrective role, to ensure that Folk Buddhism thrives is a wholesome and beneficial form. Second, our undergrowth should bring wholesome values and practices into the lives of Buddhists. It should serve to bring benefit and remove harm. It should also take refuge under Essential Buddhism, to remain consistent in expression with the teachings, wisdom, standards and advice of the corn. The power of Folk Buddhism is in its immediate appeal to the largest masses of Buddhists through its simplicity and cultural consistency, but if it escapes the influence of Essential Buddhism it becomes a marginal cult of Buddhism at best.

    Understanding the difference between Essential and Folk Buddhism is to recognize where our relationship with our Asian big brothers and sisters goes askew. Folk Buddhism is strongly bound to the local culture, one land’s Folk Buddhism is unlikely to made sense to the Folk Buddhists of a distant land. Moreover Folk Buddhists generally do not understand the extent to which they are Folk Buddhists. Yet the Essential Buddhism of a distant land, while not identical, is likely to accord with the local Essential Buddhism.

    Parenthetically let me note that I will use “American” and “Western” almost interchangeably, preferring “American” where, as a North American “convert” Buddhist, I am a little unclear whether what I am about to assert really carries over to Europe or Australia, or Costa Rica. And even “Western” could generally be swapped with “Global” to apply to the cultures of not technically Western countries like modern India in which Buddhism is on the rise among an educated class, or even certain Westernized classes in some of the traditionally Buddhist countries, like iPod-toting Thais.

    Today I am beginning this series on American Folk Buddhism. Next week I will try to get clearer about what Essential Buddhism is and how it can vary, particularly with culture. After that I will develop the theme of Folk Buddhism taking as my primary examples the two Folk Buddhisms that I am most familiar with: American and Burmese. In the end I will show what the implications of this are for thinking about and participating in the development of Western Buddhism.

    Sound reasonable?