Buddhism as religion, philosophy, psychology, or other

The question of what no-self means goes straight to the issue of the context in which Buddhism is being interpreted, which I’ve only said a little about before.  Two friends have made comments that demonstrate this issue:


1.  related to common sense a self must exist in some form, because the continuity of who we are essentially defines one real person as existing, both as a physical and a mental entity, as a relatively continous perspective, history, collection of attitudes and preferences, relationships, etc.  Of course if self is only interpreted as a collection of elements that all change over time that's still sort of the point.  What "real" in "real person" means is the question.

2.  related to other Indian philosophy Buddhism is a rejection of the philosophical position declaring atman is real (or instead asserting "anatman," or that there is no permanent, enduring self).  It's not really different than the first point except that in one case there is a real self observed because of common sense and everyday experience and the other relates to different old forms of Indian philosophy.  Philosophy and common sense don't necessarily need to overlap a lot, though.


Atman is essentially “self,” but maybe that’s not so simple.  The concept of soul could relate here, and exactly what is meant would almost surely shift depending on the way other philosophical concepts are arranged (assuming it's taken to be philosophy).  All of this is complicated from being a debate conducted 2500-2600 years ago, so the modern form is almost certainly not exactly the same.  Western philosophy is something else entirely, itself occurring in different forms, and Western religion something else again.  The short version is that at least in part the Buddha was probably rejecting schools of thought that said self (atman) is real, although in other core teachings he wouldn’t accept either “self” or “no-self” as a good answer.


So before I say more about self and no-self related to these two points, in the next blog entry, I’ll back up and fill out these contexts a little as a necessary background for different answers.

Main branches of Buddhism

It would be easy to overgeneralize Buddhism even taken in different senses since there are several different main branches of Buddhism (three are usually described, but even that may be too simple), and different schools or specific traditions within those.  These would refer back to different core teachings, and mix with cultural aspects and beliefs, and the conclusions or specific teaching points and related practices would therefor vary.


I’m not really the best person to fill in this section since I’m not a historian of Buddhism (I’ll get to the contexts that I have related to) but here is a sketch to show what I meant.  If someone is interested the main Wikipedia article is a decent starting point, with lots to read beyond that.

credit Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddhism

1.  Theravada:  the oldest or original main branch, the division that Thai Buddhism is a part of, along with closely related regional traditions in Laos, Cambodia, and Myanmar.  Sri Lanka is the other notable location for this tradition (but again, what do I know).  One interesting aspect of this tradition is there is a Buddhist cannon, in the main form in Pali language, of received teachings and texts including essentially all we have of direct teachings from the Buddha himself (aside from possible later discoveries, which I really won’t get into).

The tradition was oral for centuries so it seems possible these teachings shifted a bit, but the story is they didn’t, that chanting really is effective word for word preservation.  It’s my impression (based on studying Christianity as religion in school) that those New Testament texts and content changed a lot over the first half a century, based in written works, but it’s hard to say how that informs a likelihood of these early Buddhist teachings as shifting.  An official selected cannon also is likely to have sifted and rejected some content, a process more familiar from Christianity, and it’s very difficult to say what ideas or content was circulating then that didn’t make the cut.



2.  Mahayana:  a later tradition or wave of Buddhism.  Why waves, or branches, why the discontinuity?  That’s yet another good question I won’t really answer.  But we see how modern Christianity has shifted over the last half a century and extrapolating that it’s easier to imagine that a tradition could change, or split, or even go relatively dormant and then start again in a different form.  Chinese Buddhism (Chan) and Zen, the closely related Japanese branch, are the forms we’re most familiar with, but then these relate to ideas mixed with other traditions, especially Taoism (which is nice).  My understanding is that this branch originated within India, as the first branch did, and there are lots of great stories about what different emperors or individuals did related to the developments.

A religious historian could say a lot more.  It seems as well to at least mention Bhodidharma, for being such an influential, interesting and semi-mythical character, who deserves further reading in Wikipedia type sources or any number of other places Google turns up.

http://faculty.luther.edu/~kopfg/referenc/buddhist.html

One might naturally wonder how the two branches relate, and how the new context could tie back to anything but the same original teachings.  My impression (versus an informed understanding) is that there was a substantial break related to new teachings re-surfacing, but don't take my word for it, read up a bit.

Also one needs to bear in mind that the way Buddhism is structured any one enlightened teacher is a completely valid reference source, so if someone made claims from that stated context to re-interpret Buddhism in a modern form (now one that’s something on the order of 800 years old, but modern awhile ago) then that still does work.  More on all this in a later section on Buddhism as religion versus other interpretations.


3.  Vajrayana:  More of the same from Mahayana; new texts can be found or drafted, with new Masters, new interpretation, and spread to new places.  Under this branch we get a very interesting tradition in Tibet, with lots of different mystical connections (like Tantra—a few nice twists there) and a return to an academic philosophical tradition in addition to a monastic based religion.


4.  Other:  really seems there should be some way to capture how the last few centuries have progressed, doesn’t it?  In a way the whole point of those branches seemed to be the emergence of major traditions though, and what’s going on with New Age in America or elsewhere really isn’t that (no offense intended).  All the same I’m sure there are interesting other groupings or interpretations out there, or else I wouldn’t have just written a “4,” even if I’ve got nothing substantial to say here.

Buddhism as religion, philosophy, psychology, other

This is really my main point for this post, so I'll try to get on with it.

Buddhism as religion

That’s what those branches essentially were, broad groups of religious traditions.  But different people were interpreting Buddhism as other things at the same time, even related to those traditions and some of the same content.  “Popular Buddhism” must surely be a new thing related to how we are taking it, ideas that mix in, but surely not new related to someone going in that direction.  It’s hard to say what the Buddha intended because he seemed to be presenting ideas in different contexts, which would be quite appropriate since surely there wasn’t just one main context to work within at his time either.

Wat Pho, where I ordained!  (credit www.bangkok.com)

In my own experience, relating only to the Thai tradition, and not intended as a summary of that tradition, a lot of the focus within a religious context is on the rituals, moral codes, meditative components, and other practices that are derived from the teachings.

In case you weren't believing that last claim...

A monastic tradition is the main sub-set of that here (in Thailand), but of course it all relates back to everyone else that is Buddhist as well, or most people here.  It might sound like I’m saying philosophy or everyday interpretation drops out, and of course I’m not; that’s part of it.  But to the average person those are secondary to the acts of going to the temple for ceremonies or advice and how everyday observances relate, for example the degree to which they follow the five precepts (main restrictions, for example not to kill).


The philosophy does tend to get minimized for the average person that accepts Buddhism as their own religion (per my experience).  They don’t struggle to learn the background of early Indian philosophy, competing schools, and all the core concepts (Pali terms that come up, like atman or vasana), although the general background does come up.  Christian awareness of the New Testament and how it relates to the older teachings is a good parallel; who really studies all that.  Some do, and it informs more of the perspective of priests and ministers and such, but what the average person works with is a bit general.  That's not such a bad thing, until they seem to have lost track of even that.

Buddhism as philosophy

I should start by saying I had some bad experiences with modern analytic philosophy education (philosophy as logic puzzles or arguments that don’t relate to ordinary experience at all) so I could be a bit biased against this general direction.  It wasn’t just a bad class either, or several, but I’ll leave that personal history aside for now.

Philosophy is an interesting subject.  For us in the West it started with the Greeks asking questions about the meaning of life and more specific questions about the nature of reality and self.  Plato telling us his take on Socrates' teachings (who didn’t write them down) is the main starting point, but that was based on a number of Pre-Socratic sources and schools of thought, which we have only fragments of now (like“you can’t step in the same river twice,” by Heraclitus), but there must have been a lot more development we’ve just lost track of given the dating (roughly the time of the Buddha, or way back).

Indian philosophy is a different thing.  The emphasis on different historical schools of thought is different, and their use of formal logic was a bit developed compared to Western ideas, which did get around to that more later.

This is where I might say a number of random sampled ideas from different positions except the last class I took on Indian philosophy and last books I read were a long time ago.  Suffice it to say they argued about things like if the self is real or not real.  What they meant by self would have depended on lots of other context, the way they arranged lots of other ideas.  It wasn’t exactly religion, and not exactly meant for guidance of an ordinary person making ordinary life decisions either; it was abstract—philosophy.  One might argue that assumptions of this sort underpin everyday worldview (a philosopher might), or a different philosopher might be fine with completely separating the two.

I have no idea how integrated the two different scopes were 2500 years ago in India, or how religious beliefs and contemplative traditions (meditation) interrelated.  It’s really not that interesting to me either; that reconstruction project would seem unlikely to ever circle back to my own everyday experience.

The modern Western division is more about two different main schools setting up different approaches and frameworks for ideas (Analytic versus Continental; but why read up on that, watch it explained on YouTube).  To some extent there is a parallel debate on particular points about Realism versus Nominalism, or how “real” some abstract ideas of entities really are.  What is meant by “real” is quite diverse and complicated, even mind-numbing, so I’ll leave it at that (no link; knock yourself out on Google-searched articles if you like).

Related to Buddhism and Indian philosophy, as these relate to Western philosophy, and referencing back to the earlier chart of main branches, only some parts of these are seen as having philosophical components that relate to modern philosophy.  Strange, right?  It means most aren't formulated in terms of logic and arguments.  The main one usually referenced is the work of Nagarjuna in the Madhyamika school of Mahayana (really interesting stuff, if a bit abstract and technical).  Yogacara is likely to also have components that are framed in terms Western philosophy could appreciate and work with but might have just not been as fashionable in relation to people taking these up, or it could be something about what they actually said.

Tibetan Buddhism is another interesting exception here.  In that chart it's listed as "Tantric," which invokes images of Hollywood stars participating in exotic sex practices, and that must be part of it.  There is also very technical, logical, and developed Tibetan Buddhist philosophy, nothing about seemingly sordid mystical practices, and of course the Dalai Lama ends up writing popular books that aren't really examples of either.

Buddhism as psychology

To me this is where it gets interesting.  Buddhism can also be interpreted as a description of how reality works, not really in the sense of a set of abstract ideas being interpreted against other dominant sets of abstract ideas, but in terms of experienced reality.  This gets closer to modern psychology, how we see the ego versus id or superego, and on from there and to later forms and models.

One interesting difference is that the Buddha—in some teachings—was quite clear about limiting his teaching to what was useful, and leaving aside parts of theories and explanations that wouldn’t really apply in practice, so he didn’t seem to be sketching out any sort of model of reality, be it philosophical or psychological.  He also said a broad range of different things, so everyone can make of Buddhism what they like and find some early teaching justification for that.  Since a lot of the vast Pali cannon isn’t translated into teachings that can be accessed in English, or other modern languages, that process will just keep unfolding over time.

Just starting with the idea of no-self, only a little, not in detail yet, we see how a positive model, a description of what is, might not be part of the approach at all, at least related to that one concept.  One more nice blog link gets back to that subject, no-self,, but I'll return to it again myself later.  There are other parts of other teachings that do go more in that direction, describing reality a little, but to me it’s also possible to drift towards a general interpretative stance that accepts the teachings are to be practical guidance, not a model, an idea that is very plainly stated in some early references.  This leads to a final category of what Buddhism can be taken as, although there could as easily be others.

Buddhism as self-help

www.fakebuddhaquotes.com/the-thought-manifests-as-the-word/

I’ve intentionally embraced a context description here that reaches towards a lot of diverse ideas in modern times, some of which are a bit fuzzy or even of dubious purpose.  Buddhism wasn't exactly ancient self-help, of course.  Which to reference as an example of the modern adjusted forms: cults, accepted popular authors, or something like Scientology?  For each tree is known by its own fruit, as they say (Luke 6:44),  so unless people are committing suicide or attacking other unrelated independent thinking it seems best to just let them be, but also as well to be careful about the sources, what comes from what.



The idea of real versus non-genuine Buddhism is a different thing than someone offering their own thoughts on interpretation of general concepts, of course.  In the fake quote cited in the previous picture, the sentiment is fine but it just wasn't a teaching of the Buddha.  Per that author, Bodhipaksa:  We can be fairly sure the Buddha never said this, although we can be equally sure that he said things like this.  The actual passage is so nice that although it's not a real quote of the Buddha, and doesn't have a lot to do with this blog content, I'll repeat it here anyway:

The thought manifests as the word;
The word manifests as the deed;
The deed develops into habit;
And habit hardens into character.
So watch the thought and its ways with care,
And let it spring from love
Born out of concern for all beings.


I'm definitely not trying to put words into the Buddha's mouth in this blog, or create definitive interpretations.  I'm just talking around some ideas, my own limited understanding.  It doesn't hurt to compare Buddhism to self-help, there's just limitations in context analogy in doing so.


The next related question might be about the form of what the Buddha intended; was this a set of teachings for the masses, or only for monks and other contemplatives?  Or both?  Did it need to be tied to a complex description of reality to function (a metaphysics), or did it not?  To what extent to the branches of the eightfold path represent parts of the same journey one person would need to take to find the value, or to what extent could someone “walk” one branch and not the others?  To that last question it seems like some degree of mixing must be required; how know what the practical aspects mean without some theory, or how to lead a life of appropriate practice without embracing some element of the moral code, and so on.

I’ll cut this short but clarify this is generally how I’m trying to interpret Buddhism; as practical guidance that applies to everyday life and can help modify an ordinary worldview.  It’s about introspection, and changing perspective, or at least that seems clear enough to me.  That’s not really the most common take on Buddhism, and for many it’s more or less completely invalid, or else at least missing a lot of the point.  So be it; maybe I’m dead wrong.  Per my wife that would be consistent with my approach to a lot of other everyday subjects, and my conclusions.

My wife is Thai, and Buddhist, by the way, but has nothing at all to say about core teachings.  She learned all that in a class in grade school but it’s essentially gone now.  Buddhism here ties to religious rituals, and the daily life practices should relate to the lay-person precepts (funny how that works out), and they do see the contemplative aspects as relevant to both monks and lay-people to some extent, so the theory creeps back in there a little.  Monks are sometimes very familiar with core teachings and the Buddhist cannon, or some others not so much.

"Smorgasbord" faith (not a description that's derogatory to everyone):  how to pick which parts to embrace

Just by reading fuzzy and personal interpretation themed blogs like this one one could hardly pull together what aspects should be relevant or not, never mind what was original.  Personal preference also doesn’t seem like a great guide, since past bias towards some context may turn out to be a start mostly in the wrong direction.

An example might help here:  Christianity is often interpreted so that faith is one main aspect, or even the main aspect.  Taken one way, what you do can be seen as secondary to what you believe, because God or Jesus can forgive any lapses in actions but not a limited faith (acceptance of certain ideas).  Of course all this could be seen as a bit less relevant since I'm claiming Buddhism could possibly be valid as religion, or as a few other things instead.

Of course this analogy with Christianity is open to debate, and Christians definitely wouldn’t generally see it that way, that actions are relatively irrelevant (or most probably wouldn't).  All the same if this type of context or approach is translated to Buddhism the limited scope of applicability seems to not hold at all, for any of the different contexts I’ve described.  Buddhism as religion would be more likely to accept that effective rituals are more important, along with a sum of actions, so that merit and karma relate to what you do, not what you think.  Philosophy is obviously about what you think, and to some extent psychology, while the “self-help” context sort of depends on how one is taking it.  Regardless of emphasis all wouldn't seem to claim one is "doing Buddhism" without more than one part involved, part of the original message.

Seems like I may have dropped out even a glance at what “New Age” contexts are about but I suppose it’s not my place to say.  As I take it those really do generally share my own take on trying to make Buddhism apply to everyday life so I’m sympathetic, even if I have to be skeptical of the effectiveness of crystals or wary of angels creeping back into the set of ideas, or even worse, aliens.  But I’ve been to Sedona a few times so I can meet people in the middle a little with all that, I’m just equally agnostic about a lot of ideas, reincarnation / rebirth and others that are less mainstream.

In the next entry I’ll get back to how I see no-self as being a different issue in these different contexts.