Quote:
Originally Posted by brianberkeley
There is an interesting growth of what I term nondenominational Buddhism. Some detractors call this Buddhism Light. This is not the secular Buddhism of Stephen Batchelor that dismisses the hagiogaphy and metaphysics of Traditional Buddhism. Instead, it is an approach to Buddhism strangely reminiscent of your corner generic Christian church.
Secular Buddhism denies samsara and rebirth. Nondenominational Buddhism simply does not address the issues of cosmology and metaphysics. The emphasis is on on meditation and mindfulness. Ritualism is minimized.
One excellent example is Spirit Rock Meditation Center in Marin County, California. The monastery is breathtaking in beauty, with wild turkeys and deer. The approach is transactional and meditation oriented. There are a dozen youtube videos about Spirit Rock. Jack Kornfield, an ex-bhikkhu is a frequent instructor at Spirit Rock and the East Bay Meditation Center in Oakland, California.
The attitude of Spirit Rock is process oriented. While it is ostensibly Theravada, and there are buddhas all over the property, the attitude embraces the famous quote from the Buddha that some things pertain not to edification.(See Majjhima Nikaya, Sutta 63).
Is Spirit Rock a California phenomenon? I'm not really sure. I have attended both Traditional and generic Buddhist, and I personally prefer the Spirit Rock approach. I spent six months in a Cha'an Buddhist monastery, and, like Jack Kornfield I became weary of ritualism.
Comments
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I may be way off track here, and if I am, feel free to tell me so.
Let me begin by saying that whatever spiritual life one chooses, that's their choice. And, providing they don't try to push it on me, and it harms no one, they can follow their personal path.
However, I have a problem with what I call "pop Buddhism". For example, one day I struck up a conversation with someone I didn't really know well, and somehow the conversation got around to religion. They asked what I "was", and I said Buddhist. They responded, "Oh, me too." I was quite surprised and asked which school. "Whaddya mean?" I said that I was Theravada Buddhist, and they replied, "Oh, I do yoga." I told them that, IMHO, yoga is not Buddhism, although some may use elements of yoga in their Buddhist practice. They insisted, so I asked them to tell me some of the principles of Buddhism. Of course, they didn't know any...at all.
Every once in a while I go and participate on a website called newbuddhist.com. It's a good site, although it suffers from having a total mix of people from all Buddhist schools, so I often see disagreements that about things being discussed, and that's really just different interpretations based on different schools of Buddhism. But, I digress. Sometimes on that site I see someone cook up some homemade recipe of their own personal philosophy, they toss in a dash of Buddhism, and then they think their philosophy is Buddhism. Frankly, it drives me nuts.
I started to learn about Theravada Buddhism in 1986 on my first trip to Thailand. After many subsequent trips there, and living there for a couple of years, I feel comfortable with Thai Theravada Buddhism. This past summer I had a very long conversation with a Thai monk here in Colorado about animism, and how it is so intertwined with Buddhism in Thailand. I pointed to the temple's spirit house, and he said, "Well, that's not Buddhism". And then I pointed to several things inside the temple and he said, each time, "You're right. Those things are not Buddhism." I was telling him and another monk about some of the things people said on the newbuddhist site, and they literally laughed out loud. And, we came to an agreement that it was important for Americans (especially) to be able to separate out things that are Buddhist and things that have attached themselves to Buddhism (such as animism, which is cultural, but not Buddhist).
So, if somebody tells me about their philosophy and that they follow Buddhism, I am sometimes likely to say, "Well, there's a lot of what you're telling me that is not Buddhism. So it would be better to say something like, 'My personal philosophy is somewhat based on Buddhism...'" "Well, whaddya mean?" And I will ask them to tell me where Buddha talked about something they are attributing to Buddhism...and very often Buddha said no such thing.
And that's where temples, like the one here in Colorado Springs that I attend, that still focus on ritual and tradition are so important. Not because everyone has to focus on ritual and tradition, but because such temples are like a solid foundation from which people can develop their own path. And as they develop that path, I think it's important that at times they touch base with the ritual and tradition to make sure they are not totally out of alignment with Buddhist principles. But the opposite danger is, of course, that people get so wrapped up in ritual and tradition that they miss out on the actual teachings. There's a Thai lady at the temple who speaks Thai most of the time, but sometimes English. It doesn't matter, because I can see the body language and hear the tone of voice that she uses with people and just know that she is not communicating with others using Buddhist principles; yet, she knows all the lay aspects of the rituals.
So to sum up, my big thing is to not call something in "your" path Buddhism, if it is not Buddhism. I'm not saying don't include in your path. But just saying that if we get sloppy and don't realize what is and isn't Buddhist teaching, that soon our culture will lose the real perspective on what Buddha taught.
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