Buddhist modernism
Encyclopedia
Buddhist modernism consists of the "forms of Buddhism
that have emerged out of an engagement with the dominant cultural and intellectual forces of modernity." While there can be no complete, essential definition of what constitutes a Buddhist Modernist tradition, most scholars agree that the influence of Protestant and Enlightenment values have largely defined some of their more conspicuous attributes. David McMahan cites "western monotheism
; rationalism
and scientific naturalism
; and Romantic expressivism" as influences.
Examples of such movements and traditions of thought may include Humanistic Buddhism
and Engaged Buddhism
(which started in the Sinitic World
and constitute the foundations of the contemporary Buddhist revival in China
, Taiwan
, Japan
and Vietnam
as well as of the propagation of non-denominational forms of Buddhism in the Western World), linkages between Buddhism and Gnosticism
, the Japanese-initiated Nichiren Buddhism
and Soka Gakkai, the New Kadampa Tradition
and the missionary activity of Tibetan Buddhist masters in the West (leading the quickly growing Buddhist movement in France
), the Vipassana Movement
, the Triratna Buddhist Community, Fo Guang Shan
and Juniper Foundation
.
can be classified as Buddhist Modernist in that it employs all of these traits. That he was a university-educated intellectual steeped in knowledge of Western philosophy
and literature allowed him to be particularly successful and persuasive in arguing his case to a Western audience. As Suzuki presented it, Zen Buddhism was a highly practical religion whose emphasis on direct experience
made it particularly comparable to forms of mysticism
that scholars such as William James
had emphasized as the fountainhead of all religious sentiment. As McMahan explains, "In his discussion of humanity and nature, Suzuki takes Zen literature out of its social, ritual, and ethical contexts and reframes it in terms of a language of metaphysics derived from German Romantic idealism
, English Romanticism
, and American Transcendentalism
." Drawing on these traditions, Suzuki presents a version of Zen that can be described as detraditionalized and essentialized:
Scholars such as Robert Sharf have argued that such statements also betray inklings of nationalist sentiment, common to many early Buddhist Modernists, in that they portray Zen, which Suzuki had described as representing the essence of the Japanese people, as superior to all other religions.
, Japanese Zen still flourishes as a monastic tradition. The Zen Tradition in Japan, aside from the New Buddhism style of it, required a great deal of time and discipline from monks that laity would have difficulty finding. Zen monks were often expected to have spent several years in intensive doctrinal study, memorizing sutras and poring over commentaries, before even entering the monastery to undergo koan practice in sanzen with the roshi. The fact that Suzuki himself was able to do so as a layman was largely the invention of New Buddhism.
At the onset of the Meiji period, in 1868, when Japan entered into the international community and began to industrialize and modernize at an astounding rate, Buddhism was briefly persecuted in Japan as "a corrupt, decadent, anti-social, parasitic, and superstitious creed, inimical to Japans need for scientific and technological advancement." The Japanese government dedicated itself to the eradication of the tradition, which was seen as a foreign Other, incapable of fostering the nativist sentiments that would be vital for national, ideological cohesion. In addition to this, industrialization had taken its toll on the Buddhist establishment as well, leading to the breakdown of the parishioner system that had funded monasteries for centuries. In response to this seemingly intractable state of turmoil, a group of modern Buddhist leaders emerged to argue for the Buddhist cause. These leaders stood in agreement with the government persecution of Buddhism, stating that the Buddhist institution was indeed corrupted and in need of revitalization.
This movement was known as shin bukkyo, or "New Buddhism." The leaders themselves were university-educated intellectuals who had been exposed to a vast body of Western intellectual literature. The fact that what was presented to the West as Japanese Zen would be so commensurate with the Enlightenment critique of "superstitious," institutional, or ritual-based religion is due to this fact, as such ideals directly informed the creation this new tradition. Proponents of New Buddhism were concerned with internal reform and a return to "pure" or original Buddhism, what they saw as the vital essence of Buddhism, devoid of ritual and superstition, highly empirical and scientific, an ideal tradition that Western scholars themselves had largely created a few decades earlier, beginning with the work of Eugène Burnouf
in the 1840s. Imakita Kosen, who would become D.T. Suzuki's teacher in Zen until his death in 1892, was an important figure in this movement. Largely responding to the Reformation critique of elite institutionalism, he opened Engakuji monastery to lay practitioners, which would allow students like Suzuki unprecedented access to Zen practice.
Advocates of New Buddhism, like Kosen and his successor Soen Shaku, not only saw this movement as a defense of Buddhism against government persecution, they also saw it as a way to bring their nation into the modern world as a competitive, cultural force. Kosen himself was even employed by the Japanese government as a "national evangelist" during the 1870s. The cause of Japanese nationalism and the portrayal of Japan as a superior cultural entity on the international scene was at the heart of the Zen missionary movement. Zen would be touted as the essential Japanese religion, fully embodied by the bushido, or samurai spirit, an expression of the Japanese people in the fullest sense, in spite of the fact that this version of Zen was a recent invention in Japan that was largely based on the Western philosophical ideals.
Soen Shaku, Suzuki's teacher in Zen after Kosen's death in 1892, made this telling statement about what was at stake in bringing Buddhism to the west: "Religion is the only force in which the Western people know that they are inferior to the nations of the East ... Let us wed the Great Vehicle [Mahayana Buddhism] to Western thought…at Chicago next year [referring to the 1893 World Parliament of Religions] the fitting time will come.” According to Martin Verhoeven, "The spiritual crisis of the West exposed its Achilles' heel to be vanquished. Though economically and technologically bested by the Western powers, Japan saw a chance to reassert its sense of cultural superiority via religion."
emphasizing departures from tradition.
, as well as more recent figures like Shunryu Suzuki
, Sangharakshita
, Alan Watts
, Thich Nhat Hanh, Chögyam Trungpa
, and the Fourteenth Dalai Lama."
Buddhism
Buddhism is a religion and philosophy encompassing a variety of traditions, beliefs and practices, largely based on teachings attributed to Siddhartha Gautama, commonly known as the Buddha . The Buddha lived and taught in the northeastern Indian subcontinent some time between the 6th and 4th...
that have emerged out of an engagement with the dominant cultural and intellectual forces of modernity." While there can be no complete, essential definition of what constitutes a Buddhist Modernist tradition, most scholars agree that the influence of Protestant and Enlightenment values have largely defined some of their more conspicuous attributes. David McMahan cites "western monotheism
Monotheism
Monotheism is the belief in the existence of one and only one god. Monotheism is characteristic of the Baha'i Faith, Christianity, Druzism, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism, Samaritanism, Sikhism and Zoroastrianism.While they profess the existence of only one deity, monotheistic religions may still...
; rationalism
Rationalism
In epistemology and in its modern sense, rationalism is "any view appealing to reason as a source of knowledge or justification" . In more technical terms, it is a method or a theory "in which the criterion of the truth is not sensory but intellectual and deductive"...
and scientific naturalism
Naturalism (philosophy)
Naturalism commonly refers to the philosophical viewpoint that the natural universe and its natural laws and forces operate in the universe, and that nothing exists beyond the natural universe or, if it does, it does not affect the natural universe that we know...
; and Romantic expressivism" as influences.
Examples of such movements and traditions of thought may include Humanistic Buddhism
Humanistic Buddhism
Humanistic Buddhism is a modern Buddhist philosophy practiced mostly by Mahayana Buddhists. It is the integration of people's spiritual practice into all aspects of their daily lives...
and Engaged Buddhism
Engaged Buddhism
Engaged Buddhism refers to Buddhists who are seeking ways to apply the insights from meditation practice and dharma teachings to situations of social, political, environmental, and economic suffering and injustice...
(which started in the Sinitic World
Sinosphere
In areal linguistics, Sinosphere refers to a grouping of countries and regions that are currently inhabited with a majority of Chinese population or were historically under Chinese cultural influence...
and constitute the foundations of the contemporary Buddhist revival in China
China
Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...
, Taiwan
Taiwan
Taiwan , also known, especially in the past, as Formosa , is the largest island of the same-named island group of East Asia in the western Pacific Ocean and located off the southeastern coast of mainland China. The island forms over 99% of the current territory of the Republic of China following...
, Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
and Vietnam
Vietnam
Vietnam – sometimes spelled Viet Nam , officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam – is the easternmost country on the Indochina Peninsula in Southeast Asia. It is bordered by China to the north, Laos to the northwest, Cambodia to the southwest, and the South China Sea –...
as well as of the propagation of non-denominational forms of Buddhism in the Western World), linkages between Buddhism and Gnosticism
Buddhism and Gnosticism
Certain modern scholars, notably Elaine Pagels, have proposed that similarities existed between Buddhism and Gnosticism, a term deriving from the name "Gnostics" given to a number of Christian sects by early Christian heresiologists.-Manichaeism:...
, the Japanese-initiated Nichiren Buddhism
Nichiren Buddhism
Nichiren Buddhism is a branch of Mahāyāna Buddhism based on the teachings of the 13th century Japanese monk Nichiren...
and Soka Gakkai, the New Kadampa Tradition
New Kadampa Tradition
The New Kadampa Tradition ~ International Kadampa Buddhist Union is a global Buddhist organisation founded by Geshe Kelsang Gyatso in England in 1991. In 2003 the words "International Kadampa Buddhist Union" were added to the original name "New Kadampa Tradition"...
and the missionary activity of Tibetan Buddhist masters in the West (leading the quickly growing Buddhist movement in France
Buddhism in France
Buddhism is widely reported to be the third largest religion in France, after Christianity, and Islam.France has over two hundred Buddhist meditation centers, including about twenty sizable retreat centers in rural areas...
), the Vipassana Movement
Vipassana movement
The Vipassana movement refers to a number of branches of modern Theravāda Buddhism, for example in the various traditions of Sri Lanka, Burma, Laos and Thailand including contemporary American Buddhist teachers such as Joseph Goldstein, Tara Brach, Gil Fronsdal, Sharon Salzberg, and Jack Kornfield...
, the Triratna Buddhist Community, Fo Guang Shan
Fo Guang Shan
Fo Guang Shan is an international Chinese Mahayana Buddhist monastic order based in the Republic of China , and one of the largest Buddhist organizations. The headquarters of Fo Guang Shan, located in Kaohsiung, is the largest Buddhist monastery in Taiwan. The organization itself is also one of...
and Juniper Foundation
Juniper Foundation
Juniper Foundationis an organization that works to adapt and promote Buddhist practice in the modern world. It was founded in 2003 by five individuals, Segyu Choepel Rinpoche, Hillary Brook Levy, Christina Juskiewicz, Pam Moriarty and Lawrence Levy...
.
Overview
Buddhist modernist traditions often consist of a deliberate de-emphasis of the ritual and metaphysical elements of the religion, as these elements are seen as incommensurate with the discourses of modernity. Renunciation of worldly matters, devotional practices, ceremonies and the invocation of bodhisattvas among other traditionally widespread practices are often perceived as culturally contingent, therefore rather dispensable, sometimes inconvenient or impracticable. A number of Buddhist Modernist traditions, especially during the colonial period, have also been characterized as a defensive reaction against the threat of Western hegemony, wherein Buddhist Modernists attempted to protect their native Buddhist traditions from modernist attacks by presenting their traditions as being more commensurate with, and often transcending, modernity. Buddhist Modernist traditions have also been characterized as being "detraditionalized", in that they are often presented in such a way that occludes their historical construction. Instead, Buddhist Modernists often employ an essentialized description of their tradition, where key tenets are described as universal and sui generis.D.T. Suzuki
For a number of reasons, several scholars have identified D.T. Suzuki—whose works were popular in the West from the 1930s onward, and particularly in the 1950s and 60s—as a "Buddhist Modernist." Suzuki's depiction of Zen BuddhismZen
Zen is a school of Mahāyāna Buddhism founded by the Buddhist monk Bodhidharma. The word Zen is from the Japanese pronunciation of the Chinese word Chán , which in turn is derived from the Sanskrit word dhyāna, which can be approximately translated as "meditation" or "meditative state."Zen...
can be classified as Buddhist Modernist in that it employs all of these traits. That he was a university-educated intellectual steeped in knowledge of Western philosophy
Western philosophy
Western philosophy is the philosophical thought and work of the Western or Occidental world, as distinct from Eastern or Oriental philosophies and the varieties of indigenous philosophies....
and literature allowed him to be particularly successful and persuasive in arguing his case to a Western audience. As Suzuki presented it, Zen Buddhism was a highly practical religion whose emphasis on direct experience
Direct experience
Direct experience generally denotes experience gained through immediate sense perception. Many philosophical systems hold that knowledge or skills gained through direct experience cannot be fully put into words.You cannot grasp it;Nor can you get rid of it....
made it particularly comparable to forms of mysticism
Mysticism
Mysticism is the knowledge of, and especially the personal experience of, states of consciousness, i.e. levels of being, beyond normal human perception, including experience and even communion with a supreme being.-Classical origins:...
that scholars such as William James
William James
William James was a pioneering American psychologist and philosopher who was trained as a physician. He wrote influential books on the young science of psychology, educational psychology, psychology of religious experience and mysticism, and on the philosophy of pragmatism...
had emphasized as the fountainhead of all religious sentiment. As McMahan explains, "In his discussion of humanity and nature, Suzuki takes Zen literature out of its social, ritual, and ethical contexts and reframes it in terms of a language of metaphysics derived from German Romantic idealism
Idealism
In philosophy, idealism is the family of views which assert that reality, or reality as we can know it, is fundamentally mental, mentally constructed, or otherwise immaterial. Epistemologically, idealism manifests as a skepticism about the possibility of knowing any mind-independent thing...
, English Romanticism
Romanticism
Romanticism was an artistic, literary and intellectual movement that originated in the second half of the 18th century in Europe, and gained strength in reaction to the Industrial Revolution...
, and American Transcendentalism
Transcendentalism
Transcendentalism is a philosophical movement that developed in the 1830s and 1840s in the New England region of the United States as a protest against the general state of culture and society, and in particular, the state of intellectualism at Harvard University and the doctrine of the Unitarian...
." Drawing on these traditions, Suzuki presents a version of Zen that can be described as detraditionalized and essentialized:
Zen is the ultimate fact of all philosophy and religion. Every intellectual effort must culminate in it, or rather must start from it, if it is to bear any practical fruits. Every religious faith must spring from it if it has to prove at all efficiently and livingly workable in our active life. Therefore Zen is not necessarily the fountain of Buddhist thought and life alone; it is very much alive also in Christianity, MohammedanMohammedanMohammedan is a Western term for a follower of the Islamic prophet Muhammad. As an archaic English language term, it is used as both a noun and an adjective, meaning belonging or relating to, either Muhammad or the religion, doctrines, institutions and practices that he established...
ism, in TaoismTaoismTaoism refers to a philosophical or religious tradition in which the basic concept is to establish harmony with the Tao , which is the mechanism of everything that exists...
, and even positivistic ConfucianismConfucianismConfucianism is a Chinese ethical and philosophical system developed from the teachings of the Chinese philosopher Confucius . Confucianism originated as an "ethical-sociopolitical teaching" during the Spring and Autumn Period, but later developed metaphysical and cosmological elements in the Han...
. What makes all these religions and philosophies vital and inspiring, keeping up their usefulness and efficiency, is due to the presence in them of what I may designate as the Zen element.
Scholars such as Robert Sharf have argued that such statements also betray inklings of nationalist sentiment, common to many early Buddhist Modernists, in that they portray Zen, which Suzuki had described as representing the essence of the Japanese people, as superior to all other religions.
"New Buddhism" and Japanese Nationalism
Scholars such as Martin Verhoeven and Robert Sharf, as well as Japanese Zen monk G. Victor Sogen Hori, have argued that the breed of Japanese Zen that was propagated by New Buddhism ideologues, such as Imakita Kosen and Soen Shaku, was not typical of Japanese Zen during their time, nor is it typical of Japanese Zen now. Although greatly altered by the Meiji RestorationMeiji Restoration
The , also known as the Meiji Ishin, Revolution, Reform or Renewal, was a chain of events that restored imperial rule to Japan in 1868...
, Japanese Zen still flourishes as a monastic tradition. The Zen Tradition in Japan, aside from the New Buddhism style of it, required a great deal of time and discipline from monks that laity would have difficulty finding. Zen monks were often expected to have spent several years in intensive doctrinal study, memorizing sutras and poring over commentaries, before even entering the monastery to undergo koan practice in sanzen with the roshi. The fact that Suzuki himself was able to do so as a layman was largely the invention of New Buddhism.
At the onset of the Meiji period, in 1868, when Japan entered into the international community and began to industrialize and modernize at an astounding rate, Buddhism was briefly persecuted in Japan as "a corrupt, decadent, anti-social, parasitic, and superstitious creed, inimical to Japans need for scientific and technological advancement." The Japanese government dedicated itself to the eradication of the tradition, which was seen as a foreign Other, incapable of fostering the nativist sentiments that would be vital for national, ideological cohesion. In addition to this, industrialization had taken its toll on the Buddhist establishment as well, leading to the breakdown of the parishioner system that had funded monasteries for centuries. In response to this seemingly intractable state of turmoil, a group of modern Buddhist leaders emerged to argue for the Buddhist cause. These leaders stood in agreement with the government persecution of Buddhism, stating that the Buddhist institution was indeed corrupted and in need of revitalization.
This movement was known as shin bukkyo, or "New Buddhism." The leaders themselves were university-educated intellectuals who had been exposed to a vast body of Western intellectual literature. The fact that what was presented to the West as Japanese Zen would be so commensurate with the Enlightenment critique of "superstitious," institutional, or ritual-based religion is due to this fact, as such ideals directly informed the creation this new tradition. Proponents of New Buddhism were concerned with internal reform and a return to "pure" or original Buddhism, what they saw as the vital essence of Buddhism, devoid of ritual and superstition, highly empirical and scientific, an ideal tradition that Western scholars themselves had largely created a few decades earlier, beginning with the work of Eugène Burnouf
Eugène Burnouf
Eugène Burnouf was an eminent French scholar and orientalist who made significant contributions to the deciphering of Old Persian cuneiform....
in the 1840s. Imakita Kosen, who would become D.T. Suzuki's teacher in Zen until his death in 1892, was an important figure in this movement. Largely responding to the Reformation critique of elite institutionalism, he opened Engakuji monastery to lay practitioners, which would allow students like Suzuki unprecedented access to Zen practice.
Advocates of New Buddhism, like Kosen and his successor Soen Shaku, not only saw this movement as a defense of Buddhism against government persecution, they also saw it as a way to bring their nation into the modern world as a competitive, cultural force. Kosen himself was even employed by the Japanese government as a "national evangelist" during the 1870s. The cause of Japanese nationalism and the portrayal of Japan as a superior cultural entity on the international scene was at the heart of the Zen missionary movement. Zen would be touted as the essential Japanese religion, fully embodied by the bushido, or samurai spirit, an expression of the Japanese people in the fullest sense, in spite of the fact that this version of Zen was a recent invention in Japan that was largely based on the Western philosophical ideals.
Soen Shaku, Suzuki's teacher in Zen after Kosen's death in 1892, made this telling statement about what was at stake in bringing Buddhism to the west: "Religion is the only force in which the Western people know that they are inferior to the nations of the East ... Let us wed the Great Vehicle [Mahayana Buddhism] to Western thought…at Chicago next year [referring to the 1893 World Parliament of Religions] the fitting time will come.” According to Martin Verhoeven, "The spiritual crisis of the West exposed its Achilles' heel to be vanquished. Though economically and technologically bested by the Western powers, Japan saw a chance to reassert its sense of cultural superiority via religion."
Other "New Buddhisms"
Others have used "New Buddhism" to describe various movements real and aspirational, such as David Brazier, who wrote a 2001 book called The New Buddhism, and James William Coleman, who wrote a 2001 book of the same name. The former is a "manifesto for a socially engaged Buddhism" while the latter is a study of Buddhism in the WestBuddhism in the West
Buddhism in the West broadly encompasses the knowledge and practice of Buddhism outside of Asia. Occasional intersections between Western civilization and the Buddhist world have been occurring for thousands of years, but it was not until the era of European colonization of Buddhist countries in...
emphasizing departures from tradition.
Lopez's concept of "Modern Buddhism"
Donald S. Lopez Jr. uses the term "Modern Buddhism" to describe the entirety of Buddhist modernist traditions, which he suggests "has developed into a kind of transnational Buddhist sect", "an international Buddhism that transcends cultural and national boundaries, creating...a cosmopolitan network of intellectuals, writing most often in English". This "sect" is rooted neither in geography nor in traditional schools but is the modern aspect of a variety of Buddhist schools in different locations. Moreover, it has its own cosmopolitan lineage and canonical "scriptures," mainly the works of popular and semischolarly authors—figures from the formative years of modern Buddhism, including Soen Shaku, Dwight Goddard, D. T. Suzuki, and Alexandra David-NeelAlexandra David-Néel
Alexandra David-Néel born Louise Eugénie Alexandrine Marie David was a Belgian-French explorer, spiritualist, Buddhist and writer, most known for her visit to Lhasa, Tibet, in 1924, when it was forbidden to foreigners...
, as well as more recent figures like Shunryu Suzuki
Shunryu Suzuki
Shunryu Suzuki was a Sōtō Zen roshi who popularized Zen Buddhism in the United States, particularly around San Francisco. Born in the Kanagawa Prefecture of Japan, Suzuki was occasionally mistaken for the Zen scholar D.T...
, Sangharakshita
Sangharakshita
Sangharakshita is a Buddhist teacher and writer, and founder of the Triratna Buddhist Community, which was known until 2010 as the Friends of the Western Buddhist Order, or FWBO....
, Alan Watts
Alan Watts
Alan Wilson Watts was a British philosopher, writer, and speaker, best known as an interpreter and popularizer of Eastern philosophy for a Western audience. Born in Chislehurst, he moved to the United States in 1938 and began Zen training in New York...
, Thich Nhat Hanh, Chögyam Trungpa
Chögyam Trungpa
Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche was a Buddhist meditation master and holder of both the Kagyu and Nyingma lineages, the eleventh Trungpa tülku, a tertön, supreme abbot of the Surmang monasteries, scholar, teacher, poet, artist, and originator of a radical re-presentation of Shambhala vision.Recognized...
, and the Fourteenth Dalai Lama."
See also
- Islam and modernityIslam and modernityIslam and modernity is a topic of discussion in contemporary sociology of religion. Neither Islam nor modernity are simple or unified entities. They are abstract quantities which could not be reduced into simple categories. The history of Islam, like that of other religions, is a history of...
- Modern Orthodox JudaismModern Orthodox JudaismModern Orthodox Judaism is a movement within Orthodox Judaism that attempts to synthesize Jewish values and the observance of Jewish law, with the secular, modern world....
- Modernism (Roman Catholicism)Modernism (Roman Catholicism)Modernism refers to theological opinions expressed during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, but with influence reaching into the 21st century, which are characterized by a break with the past. Catholic modernists form an amorphous group. The term "modernist" appears in Pope Pius X's 1907...