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.)

Very helpful introduction to Vajrayana Buddhist meditation

Meditation: Advice to Beginners
Bokar Rinpoche
Clearpoint Press, 1993

This slim volume, a collection of talks given by Bokar Rinpoche to his students in France, is a wonderful resource for beginning (and not so beginning) Vajrayana Buddhist meditators. As another reviewer has noted, the book abounds with contemporary analogies, yet the material is firmly grounded in the traditional Kagyu lineage of Tibetan Buddhism. The book includes a brief section on the preliminary practices (i.e., the Four Reminders and ngondro), and it also provides detailed descriptions of proper meditation posture. As well, Rinpoche gives lengthy explanations of the two basic forms of meditation in the Kagyu tradition---shinay (shamatha, "calm abiding") and lhatong (vipashyana, "superior vision")---and also describes different methods of each for the reader/student to put into practice. Finally, and most importantly to this reviewer, Rinpoche continually stresses that diligence in practice is far more important than "good" or "successful" meditation; for me, it is so easy to become discouraged in meditation because of my goal-oriented, perfectionist nature, so these reminders to "just do it" are simply indispensible.

(This review was originally written on June 7, 2006.)

An interesting idea, but not always an interesting read

The Self-Aware Universe: How Consciousness Creates the Material World
Amit Goswami
Tarcher, 1995

The author, famous/infamous for his appearance in the film What the Bleep Do We Know?, begins with a fascinating premise-that the only metaphysical interpretation of quantum physics that accounts for all data is monist idealism. This monist idealist interpretation of quantum physics is akin to the worldview of Advaita Vedanta, in which there is, absolutely speaking, one fundamental reality-Mind/Conciousness (the Sanskrit word is Atman or Brahman, depending on whether one approaches it from the perspective of the individual or the whole). This nondual, nonlocal fundamental reality is apprehended dualistically as the subject of experience (the noumenal world of the individual mind) and the object of experience (the phenomenal world of individual objects). Goswami's most interesting thesis is that the quantum level of mind is that empty silence wherein free choice and novel creativity occur, whereas the classical level of mind is the conditioned chatterbox that operates on habit and repetition; this "two truths" approach allows his model to include and transcend the insights of behaviorism, etc.

As I said, this is a fascinating interpretation, and one that resonates with the philosophical-religious worldview that has been called the perennial philosophy. Alas, this book is not as well written as I would have liked; sometimes the parables he relates don't connect meaningfully to the material at hand and at other times each paragraph seems only slightly related to those preceding and following. As well, the prose is often stilted and occasionally even embarassing (although, in his defense, he is a professor of physics and not creative writing). He only spends 1/3 of the book developing his thesis, a big mistake when you are rocking the boat so thoroughly. Another problem with this book is that the last 1/3 is a completely unnecessary (in my opinion) application of this interpretation to the spiritual path. There are scores of better books on the religious/spiritual practice of nondualism, so why bother? Is it to give the imprimatur of science to something that had previously been merely religious, and therefore suspect? Or is to fill pages?

In short, Goswami's book expresses an interesting idea, although it is not always an interesting read.

(This review was originally written March 28, 2006.)

An essential companion to contemplative practice

The Myth of Freedom and the Way of Meditation
Chögyam Trungpa, Rinpoche
Shambhala Publications, 2002

For starters, this is not a book for reading only; instead, it is a companion to regular contemplative practice (albeit not necessarily one that is "Buddhist").

I was "forced" to read this book as a graduate student at The Naropa Institute (in the same way that all students are "forced" to read textbooks) and found that I got very little out of the book. While at times his presentation was incredibly lucid, at other times Trungpa's turns of phrase made little sense, leading our circle of student heretics to coin the descriptive phrase "Trungpa-babble." (Full-disclosure: One of the reasons that this book appeared so jargon-laden at the time I first read it probably had to do with the fact that my sitting practice was very new and so I had little experience with which to compare Trungpa's ideas.)

On re-reading this book as one of the titles on my guru's reading lists, I was impressed by how much of the same material that had once left me cold now applied directly to my life and practice. Trungpa definitely takes the "romance" out of spiritual practice and reveals it to be as mundane as going to work, eating dinner, or taking a bath. Like those other activities, though, meditation (in this context the basic practice of sitting with oneself and familiarizing oneself with the neurosis and clarity that make up the mind) is essential to a life fully lived.

(This review was originally written March 21, 2006.)