Can we accept secular Buddhism as Buddhism?

Exploring Theravāda's connections to other paths - what can we learn from other traditions, religions and philosophies?
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Dhammanando
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Re: Can we accept secular Buddhism as Buddhism?

Post by Dhammanando »

sphairos wrote: Fri Mar 26, 2021 2:24 pm I have BA and MA in Religious studies and know what I am talking about, unlike you.
In which academic discipline(s) is it the consensus that Buddhism needs to be categorised as something other than a religion? And what does the consensus hold that it should be categorised as?
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Pondera
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Re: Can we accept secular Buddhism as Buddhism?

Post by Pondera »

Coëmgenu wrote: Fri Mar 26, 2021 2:44 pm I think sense 4

4. a cause, principle, or system of beliefs held to with ardor and faith

is how most people in my life use the word religion, and most of these are native speakers of English. I don't particularly think this is nonsense and, if you insist on that categorizing this rather mundane dictionary entry as "nonsense," I think then that it is you that should back up that it is nonsense. If you want to personally stick to word senses popular in the Academy, that is fine. I don't think the Academy dictates the language of the people like Académie française, but rather the exact opposite. I know several in "the Academy" who would call claiming Buddhism to not be a religion "cultural imperialism," but I am not one of those.
That would contradict the Buddha’s insistence that we verify his teachings on a personal level.
“Kālāmas, it is reasonable for you to be uncertain; it is reasonable for you to doubt. Your circumstance is a basis for uncertainty and doubt.
“Kālāmas, do not go by hearsay. Do not go by tradition. Do not go by what seems appropriate. Do not go by scriptural authority. Do not go by thought. Do not go by inference. Do not go by logic. Do not go by personal preference. Do not go by a teacher‘s semblance of competence. Do not go by the thought ‘This contemplative is our teacher.’ Instead, Kālāmas, when you know for yourself, ‘These phenomena are unwholesome, blameworthy, condemned by the wise; when committed to, they lead to harm and suffering,’ then abandon them.
https://suttacentral.net/an3.66/en/suddhaso

It would seem to me that every religion considers its own scripture to be the authority - and it is with faith and ardour that believers hold to it.

What we have from the Buddha are a collection of discourses spoken to various peoples with various meanings and intentions.

The Buddha inspires faith quite naturally. He would not consider you a follower of his dhamma, however, if you stopped at faith.

“Do not go by tradition”. This is another key component of any religion. The only traditions the Buddha erected were a life of poverty, meditation, ethical behaviour, and conformity to the monastic code.

Anyway. If it is a religion, it is also a philosophy, and a step by step guide to personal happiness.

Not many religions can say that.
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Re: Can we accept secular Buddhism as Buddhism?

Post by Coëmgenu »

Pondera wrote: Sat Mar 27, 2021 7:31 amThat would contradict the Buddha’s insistence that we verify his teachings on a personal level.
This is actually ubiquitous to almost every single religion that exists. As a Buddhist, you or we or whoever might be skeptical of the claim that a Muslim has verified the teachings of Islam on a personal level and feels that their faith is experientially confirmed by an empirical body of no-longer-esoteric knowledge. We might be skeptical of the claim that Islam is not a religion, but rather a technology for the realignment of society and the world to godliness. We might be similarly skeptical of Christianity, particularly the eucharist, baptism, confession, etc., as a "technology" for theosis and salvation. There are Hindus who claim to be enlightened through a personal experience of Śiva. Tons of Christians will line up all the way down the block to tell you they have personally seen, heard, or felt, or experienced, the presence and/or glory or love of their quadriconsonantal Lord. Saying "our religion is empirical" is Buddhist exceptionalism. I am also a Buddhist exceptionalist, so I actually get where people are coming from in this thread, but IMO it seems here in this thread to be fuelled more by assumptions and a lack of knowledge about what other religions actually claim about themselves than a conviction that Buddhism alone is "most right" or "right."
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Re: Can we accept secular Buddhism as Buddhism?

Post by DNS »

I'm also in the camp that says Buddhism is a religion. Some popular definitions:
Scholars have failed to agree on a definition of religion. There are however two general definition systems: the sociological/functional and the phenomenological/philosophical.[4][5][6][7][8]

Emile Durkheim defined religion as "a unified system of beliefs and practices relative to sacred things, that is to say things set apart and forbidden - beliefs and practices which unite into one single moral community called a church, all those who adhere to them."[9]

Max Lynn Stackhouse, defined religion as "a comprehensive worldview or 'metaphysical moral vision' that is accepted as binding because it is held to be in itself basically true and just even if all dimensions of it cannot be either fully confirmed or refuted".[10]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Definition_of_religion
Durkeim is an older definition, but even then, it could be argued that Buddhism has sacred things, with temples, Buddha-rupas, 4NT. It certainly has a set of beliefs and practices.

The more modern definition from Stackhouse would definitely include Buddhism, as noted by previous posters, there is kamma, rebirth, sila, even if one doesn't include cosmology (which is obviously religious).

So in a way so called "Secular Buddhism" is an oxymoron. :tongue:

Buddhism is a religion, so how could there be something called "secular Buddhism"? I think the term is okay though, since some are skeptical of the religious concepts and doctrines or some outright deny the religious elements of Buddhism and claim the Buddha never taught them. As some have noted, it's not our place to accept or deny them, they already exist. We just can't call them "Theravada" or "Mahayana" but we could call them secular Buddhists.
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Re: Can we accept secular Buddhism as Buddhism?

Post by Goofaholix »

DNS wrote: Sat Mar 27, 2021 3:56 pm So in a way so called "Secular Buddhism" is an oxymoron. :tongue:
You're right, Buddhism is the name of a religion so it's an oxymoron. Secular Buddha Dhamma would be more correct but then that's more of a mouthful.
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Kim OHara
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Re: Can we accept secular Buddhism as Buddhism?

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DNS wrote: Sat Mar 27, 2021 3:56 pm I'm also in the camp that says Buddhism is a religion. Some popular definitions:
Scholars have failed to agree on a definition of religion. There are however two general definition systems: the sociological/functional and the phenomenological/philosophical.[4][5][6][7][8]

Emile Durkheim defined religion as "a unified system of beliefs and practices relative to sacred things, that is to say things set apart and forbidden - beliefs and practices which unite into one single moral community called a church, all those who adhere to them."[9]

Max Lynn Stackhouse, defined religion as "a comprehensive worldview or 'metaphysical moral vision' that is accepted as binding because it is held to be in itself basically true and just even if all dimensions of it cannot be either fully confirmed or refuted".[10]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Definition_of_religion
Durkeim is an older definition, but even then, it could be argued that Buddhism has sacred things, with temples, Buddha-rupas, 4NT. It certainly has a set of beliefs and practices.

The more modern definition from Stackhouse would definitely include Buddhism, as noted by previous posters, there is kamma, rebirth, sila, even if one doesn't include cosmology (which is obviously religious).
I think that part of our problem here is that Buddhism crosses boundaries which we take for granted in the West, i.e., it overlaps not only religion but also science (psychology in particular, but also cosmology) and philosophy (how we know, and the limits of what we can know); medicine too, if we want to separate psychotherapy from psychology.
And from the other end, the Buddha probably wouldn't have categorised his teachings as "a religion" because (as I understand it) his culture made little distinction between religion and the secular world: "religion" permeated daily life in the way that it still does in (e.g.) modern Bali or Thailand.
So "Buddhism is a religion" is only partially true, whichever way you look at it.
So in a way so called "Secular Buddhism" is an oxymoron. :tongue:

Buddhism is a religion, so how could there be something called "secular Buddhism"? I think the term is okay though, since some are skeptical of the religious concepts and doctrines or some outright deny the religious elements of Buddhism and claim the Buddha never taught them. As some have noted, it's not our place to accept or deny them, they already exist.
Buddhism is also a science, however, and science is secular. :smile:
In fact "secular" Buddhists abandon more of the "science" part of Buddhism than of the "philosophy" or "psychotherapy" parts, and take varying positions on the "religious" part.
Cosmology is one tipping point. The whole Buddhist description of the world centred on Mt Meru has been falsified by science, just as the whole Biblical creation-in-seven-days has been falsified. Many Christians deal with it by reinterpreting Genesis as poetic, not literal, truth. Doing the same with Mt Meru seems like a reasonable way forward, especially since the Buddha's culture did not make such a strong distinction between the two.
And saying "Believe in the literal truth of Mt Meru or you're out!" is an incredibly good way of shutting people out of the dhamma and its advantages.
We just can't call them "Theravada" or "Mahayana" but we could call them secular Buddhists.
It's not a horribly bad label but I have to ask -
Is that useful to them? To you? Why?
Is it fair to them?
Does it unite people or divide them?

:namaste:
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Re: Can we accept secular Buddhism as Buddhism?

Post by DNS »

Kim OHara wrote: Sun Mar 28, 2021 1:28 am It's not a horribly bad label but I have to ask -
Is that useful to them? To you? Why?
Is it fair to them?
Does it unite people or divide them?
Yes, because they like the label themselves. It's not necessarily a derogatory term when they use it themselves. There are all kinds of labels, some helpful, some useful, some not so much.

If a church was not properly labeled, a Muslim might enter thinking it's a place for Salah (Islamic prayer), although the architecture usually gives it away and that's another sort of label.
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Post by sunnat »

Yes, you may accept secular buddhism as buddhism.
Either way, when you peel off the label you basically have the teaching, The Dhamma, the universal truth, : the path. Atheists, theists of any persuasion, in short, human beings can all walk the path to the end at which point there are no more labels or views. However, as buddhism is not something that The Blessed One created but a religion created by ordinary ignorant adherents, to now deconstruct buddhism by secularism creates an oxymoron. Rather, secular trainees in The Dhamma could be said to return to the roots of Buddhas dispensation when there were no buddhists anywhere.
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Re: Can we accept secular Buddhism as Buddhism?

Post by oatsandmilk »

SarathW wrote: Thu Mar 18, 2021 9:52 am Can we accept secular Buddhism as Buddhism?

There are many kind of Buddhist schools. Mahayana, Theravada, Ambdekar, Secular etc.
The question is what is the minimum standard to accept as Buddhist teaching?
- Is that the members take three refuges?
- Is it that the school follows Tipitaka?
- Can I pick and chose and make a new Buddhist school
- If I don't know or understand Kamma Vipaka, rebirth Nibbana, etc can I drop them and make a new school?
- Do secular Buddhist follow Tipitaka or some sort of reference point (book)?
- At what point it could be heretical?
:thinking:
I spent quite a long while as a SB. I think I largely am one even now.

The stress is on following 8FP and not speculate about Nibbana, rebirth, etc.

The advantage is that you can spend more time on actually being a Buddhist and less time worrying about how to be one (can I be the guy who stacks meat at supermarket and still be a Buddhist type of questions).

The disadvantage being that you enter flatland Buddhism quite swiftly. (refer to this article by Akincano Weber)

They study the Tipitaka as well as Mahayana Sutras.

Many of them are (lay) scholar Buddhists and have an excellent grasp of theory. They know why they reject existing traditions.

On the whole they do not meditate much. Maybe half hour at most. Jhanas are last on their bucket list.

:namaste:
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Re: Can we accept secular Buddhism as Buddhism?

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Hi OatsAndMilk,
Thank you for the thoughtful post.
oatsandmilk wrote: Sun Apr 11, 2021 3:56 pm
The advantage is that you can spend more time on actually being a Buddhist and less time worrying about how to be one (can I be the guy who stacks meat at supermarket and still be a Buddhist type of questions).
While this may be true for some, having forced myself to read Stephen Batchelor's After Buddhism, as a result of reading Ven Anālayo's Superiority Conceit in Buddhist Traditions, viewtopic.php?f=16&t=39730 , I was surprised how much space Batchelor devoted to talking about what he saw as the problems with traditional Buddhism. It would be nice to just have an exposition of what he thinks, without all that clutter.

Thanks for this link. It's great:
oatsandmilk wrote: Sun Apr 11, 2021 3:56 pm The disadvantage being that you enter flatland Buddhism quite swiftly. (refer to this article by Akincano Weber)
From the article:
If Secular Buddhists want to be more than just secularists, they will need to look at and sift through Buddhist traditions with as little prejudgement as possible. This means actually trying to understand things like ethical conditionality (kamma-vipāka), renewed becoming (punabbhava), the status of the supramundane (lokuttara) and the role of the absorptions (jhāna)—without trying to write them off, just because they somehow sit uncomfortably with Western values and current beliefs. There is a whole set of Teachings pertaining to the topics of realization and the domain of lokuttara, (the transcendent / supra-mundane dimension); these Teachings emphatically insist on the possibility of an embodied, subjective experience of the numinous through the practice of meditation. I see some Secular Buddhists struggle to acknowledge this aspect of the Teachings—and I would like at least the question to be considered legitimate, what my personal relationship to the possibility of realization is. If we give up the possibility of realization we’ve turned the Teachings into another brand of critical humanism—and, so I believe, Secular Buddhism will become to the Buddha’s message something akin to being its own “near enemy”.
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Re: Can we accept secular Buddhism as Buddhism?

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What I never liked about secular buddhism is that I feel it's taylor-made. Following buddhism should be done even if it teaches things we don't like.
Akincano Weber wrote:... without trying to write them off, just because they somehow sit uncomfortably with Western values and current beliefs...
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Re: Can we accept secular Buddhism as Buddhism?

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mjaviem wrote: Sun Apr 11, 2021 10:19 pm What I never liked about secular buddhism is that I feel it's taylor-made. Following buddhism should be done even if it teaches things we don't like.
Or maybe if it teaches things you absolutely cannot accept, then don't join it? I don't see anyone trying to take Christ out of Christianity and calling it Secular Christianity. Or arguing "Jesus didn't really say there is a God or an afterlife." They just accept that they can't accept it.
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Re: Can we accept secular Buddhism as Buddhism?

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plabit wrote: Mon Apr 12, 2021 12:37 am
mjaviem wrote: Sun Apr 11, 2021 10:19 pm What I never liked about secular buddhism is that I feel it's taylor-made. Following buddhism should be done even if it teaches things we don't like.
Or maybe if it teaches things you absolutely cannot accept, then don't join it? I don't see anyone trying to take Christ out of Christianity and calling it Secular Christianity. Or arguing "Jesus didn't really say there is a God or an afterlife." They just accept that they can't accept it.
Perhaps, but there are exceptions...
In the book, Christianity Without God, Lloyd Geering makes a case for his take on a naturalistic Christianity. Geering is Emeritus Professor of Religious Studies at Victoria University, Wellington, New Zealand.

The very notion of non-theistic Christianity may seem ludicrous to many modern conservative Christians. It probably sounds like “democracy without voting” or “football without a ball” or perhaps “chocolate milk without milk”. This is because of an interesting fact about most conservative Christians: they don’t know much about Christianity or their own Bible.
...
https://www.snsociety.org/review-of-llo ... thout-god/
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Re: Can we accept secular Buddhism as Buddhism?

Post by plabit »

Kim OHara wrote: Sun Mar 28, 2021 1:28 am I think that part of our problem here is that Buddhism crosses boundaries which we take for granted in the West, i.e., it overlaps not only religion but also science (psychology in particular, but also cosmology) and philosophy (how we know, and the limits of what we can know); medicine too, if we want to separate psychotherapy from psychology.
Does it though? Is this not rather a modern abuse?

Philosophy maybe because some of its content could be conpared to Platonism (reincarnation, some notion of liberation, a unitive consciousnes to be subsumed into depending on the version of Buddhism).

But psychology is an abuse. Buddha was not looking for crazy or mentally ill people to teach but by his own statements for the wise. As when he was relunctant to teach and had to be convinced that someone who could understand him even existed!

But modern psychologists have commercialized the dhamma by claiming their therapies are the dhamma. Like mindfulness which in one form at least is the opposite of the dhamma, i.e. when they say to sit in "non-judgemental awareness" allowing every intrusive thought trounce around in your head and not judging it. Whereas Buddha in the Eightfold Noble Path under Right Energy says here one arouses energy arouses effort to abandon bad thoughts that have already arisen and to prevent the arising of unarisen bad thoughts (i.e. the opposite of non-judgemetal awareness related to thoughts). So the psychologists are misrepresenting Buddha, not to mention engaging in psychological malpractice by recommending a practice (i.e. not judging instrusive thoughts) that will lead an already mentally ill person to further mental illness by encouraging the proliferation of intrusive thoughts!

(Not to mention their claim that mindfulness solves all mental illness should be looked into by the FDA and they should be prosecuted for fraud and lose their licences!)
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Re: Can we accept secular Buddhism as Buddhism?

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plabit wrote: Mon Apr 12, 2021 1:00 am
Kim OHara wrote: Sun Mar 28, 2021 1:28 am I think that part of our problem here is that Buddhism crosses boundaries which we take for granted in the West, i.e., it overlaps not only religion but also science (psychology in particular, but also cosmology) and philosophy (how we know, and the limits of what we can know); medicine too, if we want to separate psychotherapy from psychology.
Does it though? Is this not rather a modern abuse?
No. It is the difference between how we categorise knowledge in the modern West and how people categorised knowledge in ancient India.
Philosophy maybe because some of its content could be conpared to Platonism (reincarnation, some notion of liberation, a unitive consciousnes to be subsumed into depending on the version of Buddhism).

But psychology is an abuse. Buddha was not looking for crazy or mentally ill people to teach but by his own statements for the wise. As when he was relunctant to teach and had to be convinced that someone who could understand him even existed!

But modern psychologists have commercialized the dhamma by claiming their therapies are the dhamma. Like mindfulness which in one form at least is the opposite of the dhamma, i.e. when they say to sit in "non-judgemental awareness" allowing every intrusive thought trounce around in your head and not judging it. Whereas Buddha in the Eightfold Noble Path under Right Energy says here one arouses energy arouses effort to abandon bad thoughts that have already arisen and to prevent the arising of unarisen bad thoughts (i.e. the opposite of non-judgemetal awareness related to thoughts). So the psychologists are misrepresenting Buddha, not to mention engaging in psychological malpractice by recommending a practice (i.e. not judging instrusive thoughts) that will lead an already mentally ill person to further mental illness by encouraging the proliferation of intrusive thoughts!

(Not to mention their claim that mindfulness solves all mental illness should be looked into by the FDA and they should be prosecuted for fraud and lose their licences!)
CBT and the 'secularised dharma' therapies are a different issue. I think you're partly right but I wasn't talking about them at all.

:namaste:
Kim
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