Buddhism without jargon

Buddhism Without Beliefs
Stephen Batchelor
Riverhead Trade, 1998


After reading most of the other reviews for this book, I'm wondering if maybe I read a different edition than everyone else. The 1-star folks claim that this book throws away such venerable Buddhist ideas as karma and rebirth, that author Batchelor asserts his view of a "Buddhist agnosticism" as the "original, pure, true" Buddhism, and that this book is tantamount to heresy and should be reviled. Most of the 5-star reviews view this book as something akin to the Fourth Turning of the Wheel of Dharma. From where I'm sitting, this book is significantly less offensive and dismissive than the 1-star people would have you believe, while also being slightly less earth-shattering than most other 5-star reviewers assert.

Basically, Buddhism Without Beliefs boils down to Buddhism without jargon. Batchelor discusses a good deal of traditional Buddhist ideas, but he does so without using the Pali and Sanskrit terminology and threadbare traditional examples that can hinder clear communication. In fact, it is this judicious reframing and masterful retranslation of many received Buddhist teachings that makes this book so powerful. For example, instead of discussing the Four Noble Truths (always written with initial caps), he talks about "four ennobling truths." While this might seem to be a mere exercise in semantics, he makes it clear that it is not: "Yet in failing to make this distinction [i.e., that each truth requires a particular action on the part of the practitioner], four ennobling truths to be acted upon are neatly turned into four propositions of life to be believed" (p.5) Right out of the gate, Batchelor's point is clear. If Buddhadharma is to be a lived reality, a practice with efficacy in one's life, then for many of us it cannot be approached like an ossified belief system.

The rest of the book is equally powerful and lucid. "We discover that we have been thrown, apparently without choice, into a world not of our making" (p. 22). How much more succinctly and clearly can one summarize the existential dilemma---dukkha in Pali---intuited by the Buddha? And using language that also invokes Western thinkers like Heidegger and Ortega y Gasset in the bargain! "Evasion of the unadorned immediacy of life is as deep-seated as it is relentless" (p. 25) Breathtaking and to the point! He discusses Buddhism's unique approach to ethics (shila) in his chapter on integrity--"Dharma practice cannot be abstracted from the way we interact with the world. Our deeds, words, and intentions create an ethical ambience that either supports or weakens resolve. If we behave in a way that harms either others or ourselves, the capacity to focus on the task will be weakened" (p. 45). Spiritual friends and gurus, like the Socratic ideal, "are like midwives, who draw forth what is waiting to be born. Their task is not to make themselves indispensable but redundant" (p. 51).

About awareness and mindfulness he says, "one of the most difficult things to remember is to remember to remember" (p. 58) That is one of the craziest things I've ever read, precisely because it captures my own often absurd experiences on the zafu so vividly! Commenting that "focused awareness is difficult not because we are inept at some spiritual technology but because it threatens our sense of who we are," Batchelor could be accused of channeling Trungpa Rinpoche (p.62), hardly the model heretic.

And in his most provocative chapter, he does not dismiss the possiblity of rebirth out of hand, as many reviewers have alleged: rather, as he says quite clearly, "it may seem that there are two options: either to believe in rebirth or not. But there is a third alternative: to acknowledge, in all honesty, I do not know....Dharma practice requires the courage to confront what it means to be human....To cling to the idea of rebirth can deaden questioning" (p. 38) Again and again and again, in cogent chapter after chapter, Batchelor explores what it means to practice Buddhadharma without necessarily clinging to a religious orthodoxy that can numb as easily as it can awaken.

Does someone who gets a good deal out of this book have to then chuck any tendencies toward Buddhist religiosity that naturally arise within them? Of course not. Readers also, if they are like me, don't have to get rid of any tendencies toward Christian religiosity that naturally arise within them either. That's the beauty to me of Batchelor's Buddhist agnosticism. It is about experiencing what arises without prejudice and just seeing what happens. In that sense, this book echoes all the other meaningful dharma books I've read. What it adds is an openness to doctrinal uncertainty and ambiguity that is refreshing for those of us looking to awaken while taking refuge from dogmatic religiosity.

(This review was written on July 13, 2007.)

So does this book count as God's wisdom or man's?

The Battle for the Mind
Timothy LaHaye
Baker Book House, 1980

Timothy LaHaye, best known as co-author and idea man for the Left Behind series, vomited up this work back in 1980 just in time for "morning in America." In it, he pits "God's wisdom" against "man's wisdom," and in the time-honored tradition of ideologues of every stripe, proceeds to define the former as everything he values and the latter as everything he derides. This isn't the place for a full rebuttal of this book (and that this book even needs rebutting bespeaks the current anti-intellectual state of the nation), but suffice it to say that LaHaye manages to be breathtakingly wrong-headed 100% of the time. To add insult to injury, his writing is juvenile, impressive only to those who recently graduated from his alma mater, Bob Jones University.

For LaHaye, following "God's wisdom" does not simply mean regarding the King James translation of the Bible as absolutely inerrant in all matters. It turns out that God is also the mind behind such wisdom as free market capitalism and American patriotism. The Bible, and Judaeo-Christian morality (as LaHaye defines it, of course), are the "intellectual base[s] for a morally sane society" (p. 49), an assertion that would certainly surprise ethical adherents of religions other than Judaism and Christianity. LaHaye even goes so far as to equate God's wisdom/Christianity with "science," albeit apparently not the same science that has its origins in reason and empiricism.

In opposition to "God's wisdom" is the wisdom of man, which LaHaye equates with humanism. But "humanism" for him does not simply mean the "broad category of ethical philosophies that affirm the dignity and worth of all people, based on the ability to determine right and wrong by appeal to universal human qualities" (source: Wikipedia article on "humanism"). Rather, LaHaye's "humanism" entails atheism, Communism, liberalism, socialism, Freudianism, higher criticism, feminism, sexual liberation, art, self-determination, rock music, tolerance, evolution, rationalism, empiricism, situational ethics, Unitarianism, and just about everything else that LaHaye doesn't like or find "moral." (Hard to believe he didn't include the commitment to universal literacy in his laundry list since the ability to read is what has led so many to embrace the "evils of humanism." Maybe he covered that in a sequel.) LaHaye is only the second person I've encountered who seriously regards Renaissance nudes as precursors to pornography (the first person being my father). He also makes no bones about condemning both the Renaissance and the Enlightenment as eras that brought us to this sorry state by insisting on evil ideas like individual dignity, self-determination, and the brotherhood of man. The fact that free market capitalism is as much a product of these eras as Marxian socialism escapes LaHaye, as does the fact that the Constitution was inspired by the Enlightenment ideas of Baron de Montesquieu etal. (That LaHaye attributes the idea of "separation of powers" to the Bible with a straight face indicates perhaps that he needs a straightjacket rather than a publishing deal.) Also conspicuous for its absence is any mention of the other world religions, even those that predate Christianity. I guess Buddhists, Hindus, Muslims, etc. are all just atheist, amoral humanists in disguise.

LaHaye's so-called research is pathetic. He bases his discussions of humanism on two publications and falsely asserts that these two works are definitive, "the official position of the humanist movement...accepted by the faithful as the current mandate on humanist beliefs, values, and goals" (p. 85). One doesn't even know where to begin dismantling this monstrous claim. First, humanists, as narrowly defined, don't have an "official position" since one of the claims of humanism is that each is to be guided by his or her conscience. In fact, this description says more about LaHaye's projections and understanding of the faithful-as-automatons than it does about humanism, however one defines that term. As well, since LaHaye's "humanism" effectively includes every worldview except his own, finding a definitive source would be IMPOSSIBLE. And then there is the matter of citations. If he wants to quote scripture, he is right there with chapter and verse, but when he makes the craziest assertions about the evils of "humanism" he does so without a single source to back him up. Oh well, my reliance on facts and evidence is probably just indicative of humanist indoctrination.

This book would be laughable if LaHaye were merely one more fundamentalist moron who can't come to grips with a bigger, more complex world than the one into which he was born. Alas this is not the case. The ideas he expresses in this book inform his best-selling Left Behind series, which has influenced millions of self-proclaimed American Christians. Throughout his book, he talks about how "humanists" are unfit for holding public office in the US (a position that flies in the face of Article VI of the Constitution) and repeatedly advocates that "Christian, pro-moral Americans" take power back by whatever means necessary. If you don't find that a chilling thought, read about how non-Christians are treated in the Left Behind books or play the new Left Behind video game, and you may change your mind. When examined, LaHaye's us-versus-them worldview reveals itself to be murderously pernicious and downright fascistic.

Alas, with the dawning of the 21st century, it looks like "taking the power back" is precisely what LaHaye's acolytes intend to do. Those of us who still care about individual freedom and Enlightenment (i.e., Constitutional American) values would do well to read this book to see what we are up against. It ain't pretty.

(This review was originally written on February 22, 2007.)

Intriguing and, frankly, disquieting book about Humanistic Judaism

Jews Without Judaism: Conversations with an Unconventional Rabbi
Daniel Friedman
Prometheus Books, 2002

In the interest of full disclosure, it should be noted that I am neither a Jew nor a Judaist, and so my interest in the topics discussed in this slender (yet surprisingly pricey) volume is primarily intellectual.

The basic premise of this book is that Jews are a cultural, ethnic, and/or national group, that Judaism is the religion that this group has historically practiced, and that the two have been distinct and not necessarily overlapping categories since the time of Napoleon. In fact, Rabbi Friedman repeatedly asserts, most contemporary American Jews (the "culturally Jewish") are "Jews without Judaism," those who value certain aspects of their Jewish heritage without feeling compelled to believe in the G-d of Abraham or follow the guidelines outlined in the Torah. Instead of condemning these folks for abandoning their religion, this unconventional rabbi applauds them for their courage to admit to their irreligion as he introduces them to what he calls "Humanistic Judaism."

I've often heard contemporary liberal Judaism described as "ethical monotheism," but in this collection of fictional dialogues Rabbi Friedman openly derides monotheism (and theism in general) as untenable and without empirically verifiable foundation. (It is definitely odd to read a rabbi openly admit to being an atheist, and in the dialogues he explains how he feels his role as rabbi is not compromised by this lack of faith.) As well, he repeatedly critiques the idea of "Jewish ethics" or "Jewish values" (such as justice, compassion, and education), seeing them instead as the same liberal, secular values shared by other beneficiaries of the Enlightenment:

"There is nothing distinctly Jewish about values. This was the contradiction inherent within Reform Judaism. Values are universals: if they are valid, they are valid for everyone...For nonreligious Jews, the fiction that there are 'Jewish values' that they are upholding gives them the illusion that they are still maintaining Judaism. In fact, they are starting with the values of their Western, liberal, secular culture and then 'finding' them in traditional texts...The irony is that truly religious Jews---Halachic Jews---often advocate contrary values [based upon the written and oral Torah]." (pp.42-3)

In a similar fashion, Rabbi Friedman points out that many of the traditions found in contemporary Judaism are rooted in the need to maintain a Jewish identity rather than through the desire to obey G-d and His commandments.

This lack of faith in Judaism is not wrong, but is instead cause for rejoicing, Rabbi Friedman asserts, for two reasons. The first is that "one of the great benefits of Jewish experience, and of being Jewish, is that we are free from belief restrictions. The essence of being Jewish is the freedom to believe whatever truth your mind reveals to you" (p.57). (Ironically this assertion doesn't ring true for the same reasons that there aren't uniquely "Jewish values"---freedom to question and the primacy of reason belong to the ethos of the Enlightenment in general and not to one particular ethnic group.) The second reason is his contention that contemporary American Jews no longer face the ostracism and prejudice that forced them to establish an identity based on separation and difference from the dominant culture, and so the maintenance of this separation through heartfelt participation in the daily religious life is an outmoded behavior for most American Jews.

This book will probably help many cultural Jews feel good about their ability to remain Jewish without being Judaists, but it also feels a bit shallow. If there is no real difference between being Jewish and being non-Jewish in terms of faith or ethics, and if there is no need to maintain a sense of separate identity in a pluralistic secular society, then why continue to identify as Jews at all? Why not be Unitarian Universalists or even better, "humanists" (since that appellation is less of a mouthful)? Rabbi Friedman finally gets around to describing Humanistic Judaism on page 92 as "a nontheistic religion that combines a humanistic philosophy of life with the holidays, symbols, and ceremonies of Jewish culture," yet he concludes that this "religion" affirms the same old Enlightenment values as most of the culture at large. Are decontextualized holidays and symbols enough? Are they even necessary? Rabbi Friedman's conclusion seems to be that they are not:

"Once the two-millennia-old consciousness of difference---based upon exclusion---has disappeared, whether future generations of Jews will choose even to draw together into communities of fellow Jews is doubtful. That they will need or wish to formalize and express their Jewishness by means of holidays, ceremonies, and rituals is unlikely. Jewishness will be more a fading memory of ethnic ancestry than an experienced reality." (p. 102)

This disappearance need not be cause for alarm, he asserts, because the sense of separation between Jews and non-Jews was initially engendered by millennia of intolerance and persecution. Assimilation, to Friedman, seems a small price to pay for an end to those social conditions.

This was an intriguing and, frankly, disquieting book. Beginning with the premise that Judaism and Jewishness are distinct and non-overlapping categories, the author concludes that the former has all but disappeared, and that its demise ultimately portends the disappearance of the Jews as a people. That this is seen as a good thing might have been expected from a white supremacist or fundamentalist Christian writing on Armageddon, but it is definitely odd, to say the least, coming from a rabbi.

(This review was originally written on November 25, 2006.)