Buddhist modernism (also referred to as modern
Buddhism, modernist Buddhism and Neo-Buddhism)
are new movements based on modern era reinterpretations
of Buddhism. David McMahan states that modernism
in Buddhism is similar to those found in other
religions. The sources of influences have
variously been an engagement of Buddhist communities
and teachers with the new cultures and methodologies
such as "western monotheism; rationalism and
scientific naturalism; and Romantic expressivism".
The influence of monotheism has been the internalization
of Buddhist gods to make it acceptable in
modern West, while scientific naturalism and
romanticism has influenced the emphasis on
current life, empirical defense, reason, psychological
and health benefits.The Neo-Buddhism movements
differ in their doctrines and practices from
the historical, mainstream Theravada, Mahayana
and Vajrayana Buddhist traditions. A co-creation
of Western Orientalists and reform-minded
Asian Buddhists, Buddhist modernism has been
a reformulation of Buddhist concepts that
has deemphasized traditional Buddhist doctrines,
cosmology, rituals, monasticism, clerical
hierarchy and icon worship. The term came
into vogue during the colonial and post-colonial
era studies of Asian religions, and is found
in sources such as Louis de la Vallee Poussin's
1910 article.Examples of Buddhist modernism
movements and traditions include Humanistic
Buddhism, Secular Buddhism, Engaged Buddhism,
Navayana, the Japanese-initiated new lay organizations
of Nichiren Buddhism such as 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, Dharma Drum
Mountain, Fo Guang Shan, Won Buddhism, Tzu
Chi, and Juniper Foundation.
== Overview ==
Buddhist modernism emerged during the late
19th-century and early 20th-century colonial
era, as a co-creation of Western Orientalists
and reform-minded Buddhists. It appropriated
elements of Western philosophy, psychological
insights as well as themes increasingly felt
to be secular and proper. It de-emphasized
or denied ritual elements, cosmology, gods,
icons, rebirth, karma, monasticism, clerical
hierarchy and other Buddhist concepts. Instead,
modernistic Buddhism has emphasized interior
exploration, satisfaction in the current life,
and themes such as cosmic interdependence.
Some advocates of Buddhist modernism claim
their new interpretations to be original teachings
of the Buddha, and state that the core doctrines
and traditional practices found in Theravada,
Mahayana and Vajrayana Buddhism are extraneous
accretions that were interpolated and introduced
after Buddha died. According to McMahan, Buddhism
of the form found in the West today has been
deeply influenced by this modernism.Buddhist
Modernist traditions are reconstructions and
a reformulation with emphasis on rationality,
meditation, compatibility with modern science
about body and mind. In the modernistic presentations,
Theravada, Mahayana and Vajrayana Buddhist
practices are "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 reformulated in universal terms,
and the modernistic practices significantly
differ from Asian Buddhist communities with
centuries-old traditions.
=== History ===
The earliest western accounts of Buddhism
were by 19th-century European travelers and
Christian missionaries who, states Coleman,
portrayed it as another "heathen religion
with strange gods and exotic ceremonies",
where their concern was not understanding
the religion but to debunk it. By mid 19th-century,
European scholars gave a new picture but once
again in concepts understood in the West.
They described Buddhism as a "life-denying
faith" that rejected all the Christian ideas
such as "God, man, life, eternity"; it was
an exotic Asian religion that taught nirvana,
which was explained then as "annihilation
of the individual". In 1879, Edwin Arnold's
book The Light of Asia presented a more sympathetic
account of Buddhism, in the form of the life
of the Buddha, emphasizing the parallels between
the Buddha and the Christ. The sociopolitical
developments in Europe, the rise of scientific
theories such as those of Charles Darwin,
in late 19th-century and early 20th-century
created interest in Buddhism and other eastern
religions, but it was studied in the West
and those trained in Western education system
with the prevalent cultural premises and modernism.
The first comprehensive study of Buddhist
modernism in the Theravada tradition as a
distinct phenomenon was published in 1966
by Heinz Bechert. Bechert regarded Buddhist
modernism as "modern Buddhist revivalism"
in postcolonial societies like Sri Lanka.
He identified several characteristics of Buddhist
modernism: new interpretations of early Buddhist
teachings, demythologisation and reinterpretation
of Buddhism as "scientific religion", social
philosophy or "philosophy of optimism", emphasis
on equality and democracy, "activism" and
social engagement, support of Buddhist nationalism,
and the revival of meditation practice.
== Japan: Neo-Buddhism ==
The term Neo-Buddhism and modernism in the
context of Japanese Buddhist and Western interactions
appear in late 19th-century and early 20th-century
publications. For example, Andre Bellesort
used the term in 1901, while Louis de la Vallee
Poussin used it in a 1910 article. According
to James Coleman, the first presenters of
a modernistic Buddhism before a Western audience
were Anagarika Dharmapala and Soyen Shaku
in 1893 at The World Congress of Religion.
Shaku's student D.T. Suzuki was a prolific
writer, fluent in English and he introduced
Zen Buddhism to Westerners.
=== "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 Soyen
Shaku, was not typical of Japanese Zen during
their time, nor is it typical of Japanese
Zen now. Although greatly altered by the Meiji
Restoration, 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 a result 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 Japan's need for scientific
and technological advancement." The Japanese
government dedicated itself to the eradication
of the tradition, which was seen as foreign,
incapable of fostering the 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 Buddhist institutions were indeed corrupted
and in need of revitalization.
This Japanese 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
of this new tradition. This reformulation
work has roots in the writings of Eugène
Burnouf in the 1840s, who expressed his liking
for "the Brahmins, the Buddhists, the Zoroastrians"
and a dislike for "the Jesuits" to Max Muller.
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 Soyen 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 Western philosophical ideals.
Soyen Shaku, Suzuki's teacher in Zen after
Kosen's death in 1892, claimed "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."
=== 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 Buddhism 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 has been described by hostile
critics 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, Mohammedanism, in Taoism,
and even positivistic Confucianism. 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.
== India: Navayana ==
A Neo-Buddhist movement was founded by the
Indian Dalit leader B. R. Ambedkar in the
1950s. Ambedkar held a press conference on
October 13, 1956, announcing his rejection
of Theravada and Mahayana vehicles, as well
as of Hinduism. He then adopted Navayana Buddhism,
and converted between 500,000 and 600,000
Dalits to his Neo-Buddhism movement. All the
elements of religious modernism, state Christopher
Queen and Sallie King, may be found in Ambedkar
Buddhism where his The Buddha and His Dhamma
abandons the traditional precepts and practices,
then adopts science, activism and social reforms
as a form of Engaged Buddhism. Ambedkar's
formulation of Buddhism is different from
Western modernism, states Skaria, given his
synthesis of the ideas of modern Karl Marx
into the structure of ideas by the ancient
Buddha.According to Ambedkar, several of the
core beliefs and doctrines of traditional
Buddhist traditions such as Four Noble Truths
and Anatta as flawed and pessimistic, may
have been inserted into the Buddhist scriptures
by wrong headed Buddhist monks of a later
era. These should not be considered as Buddha's
teachings in Ambedkar's view. Other foundational
concepts of Buddhism such as Karma and Rebirth
were considered by Ambedkar as superstitions.Navayana
abandons practices and precepts such as the
institution of monk after renunciation, ideas
such as karma, rebirth in afterlife, samsara,
meditation, nirvana and Four Noble Truths
considered to be foundational in the Buddhist
traditions. Ambedkar's Neo-Buddhism rejected
these ideas and re-interpreted the Buddha's
religion in terms of class struggle and social
equality.Ambedkar called his version of Buddhism
Navayana or Neo-Buddhism. His book, The Buddha
and His Dhamma is the holy book of Navayana
followers. According to Junghare, for the
followers of Navyana, Ambedkar has become
a deity and he is worshipped in its practice.
== West: Naturalized Buddhism ==
Other forms of Neo-Buddhism are found outside
Asia, particularly in European nations. According
to Bernard Faure – a professor of Religious
Studies with a focus on Buddhism, Neo-Buddhism
in the forms found in the West is a modernist
restatement, a form of spiritual response
to anxieties of individuals and the modern
world that is not grounded in its ancient
ideas, but "a sort of impersonal flavorless
or odorless spirituality". It is a re-adaptation,
a kind of Buddhism "a la carte", that understands
the needs and then is reformulated to fill
a void in the West, rather than reflect the
ancient canons and secondary literature of
Buddhism.Some Western interpreters of Buddhism
have proposed the term "naturalized Buddhism"
for few of these movements. It is devoid of
rebirth, karma, nirvana, realms of existence,
and other concepts of Buddhism, with doctrines
such as the Four Noble Truths reformulated
and restated in modernistic terms. This "deflated
secular Buddhism" stresses compassion, impermanence,
causality, selfless persons, no Bodhisattvas,
no nirvana, no rebirth, and a naturalists
approach to well-being of oneself and others.
Meditation and spiritual practices such as
Vipassana, or its variants, centered around
self-development remain a part of the Western
Neo-Buddhist movements. According to James
Coleman, the focus of most vipassana students
in the west "is mainly on meditation practice
and a kind of down-to-earth psychological
wisdom."For many western Buddhists, the rebirth
doctrine in the Four Noble Truths teaching
is a problematic notion. According to Lamb,
"Certain forms of modern western Buddhism
[...] see it as purely mythical and thus a
dispensable notion." Westerners find "the
ideas of karma and rebirth puzzling", states
Damien Keown – a professor of Buddhist Ethics.
It may not be necessary to believe in some
of the core Buddhist doctrines to be a Buddhist,
though most Buddhists in Asia do accept these
traditional teachings and seek better rebirth.
The rebirth, karma, realms of existence and
cyclic universe doctrines underpin the Four
Noble Truths in Buddhism. It is possible to
reinterpret the Buddhist doctrines such as
the Four Noble Truths, states Keown, since
the final goal and the answer to the problem
of suffering is nirvana and not rebirth.According
to Konik,
Since the fundamental problems underlying
early Indian Buddhism and contemporary western
Buddhism are not the same, the validity of
applying the set of solutions developed by
the first to the situation of the second becomes
a question of great importance. Simply putting
an end to rebirth would not necessarily strike
the western Buddhist as the ultimate answer,
as it certainly was for early Indian Buddhists.
Traditional Buddhist scholars disagree with
these modernist Western interpretations. Bhikkhu
Bodhi, for example, states that rebirth is
an integral part of the Buddhist teachings
as found in the sutras, despite the problems
that "modernist interpreters of Buddhism"
seem to have with it. Thanissaro Bhikkhu,
as another example, rejects the "modern argument"
that "one can still obtain all the results
of the practice without having to accept the
possibility of rebirth." He states, "rebirth
has always been a central teaching in the
Buddhist tradition."According to Owen Flanagan,
the Dalai Lama states that "Buddhists believe
in rebirth" and that this belief has been
common among his followers. However, the Dalai
Lama's belief, adds Flanagan, is more sophisticated
than ordinary Buddhists, because it is not
same as reincarnation, rebirth in Buddhism
is envisioned as happening without an assumption
of an "atman, self, soul", rather through
a "consciousness conceived along the anatman
lines". The doctrine of rebirth is considered
mandatory in Tibetan Buddhism, and across
many Buddhist sects. According to Melford
Spiro, the reinterpretations of Buddhism that
discard rebirth undermine the Four Noble Truths,
for it does not address the existential question
for the Buddhist as to "why live? why not
commit suicide, hasten the end of dukkha in
current life by ending life". In traditional
Buddhism, rebirth continues the dukkha and
the path to cessation of dukkha isn't suicide,
but the fourth reality of the Four Noble Truths.According
to Christopher Gowans, for "most ordinary
Buddhists, today as well as in the past, their
basic moral orientation is governed by belief
in karma and rebirth". Buddhist morality hinges
on the hope of well being in this lifetime
or in future rebirth, with nirvana (enlightenment)
a project for a future lifetime. A denial
of karma and rebirth undermines their history,
moral orientation and religious foundations.
However, adds Gowans, many Western followers
and people interested in exploring Buddhism
are skeptical and object to the belief in
karma and rebirth foundational to the Four
Noble Truths.The "naturalized Buddhism", according
to Gowans, is a radical revision to traditional
Buddhist thought and practice, and it attacks
the structure behind the hopes, needs and
rationalization of the realities of human
life to traditional Buddhists in East, Southeast
and South Asia.
== Other New Buddhisms ==
According to Burkhard Scherer – a professor
of Comparative Religion, the novel interpretations
are a new, separate Buddhist sectarian lineage
and Shambhala International "has to be described
as New Buddhism (Coleman) or, better still,
Neo-Buddhism".In Central and Eastern Europe,
according to Burkhard Scherer, the fast growing
Diamond Way Buddhism started by Hannah and
Ole Nydahl is a Neo-orthoprax Buddhism movement..
The charismatic leadership of Nydahl and his
600 dharma centers worldwide have made it
the largest convert movement in Eastern Europe,
but its interpretations of Tibetan Buddhism
and tantric meditation techniques have been
criticized by both traditional Buddhists and
non-Buddhists.Others have used "New Buddhism"
to describe or publish manifesto of socially
Engaged Buddhism. For example, David Brazier
published his "manifesto of the New Buddhism"
in 2001, wherein he calls for radical shift
of focus from monasticism and traditional
Buddhist doctrines to radically novel interpretations
that engaged with the secular world. According
to Brazier, the traditional Buddhist traditions
such as Theravada and Mahayana have been "instrument
of state policy for subduing rather than liberating
the population", and have become paths of
"individual salvation rather than address
the roots of world disease".
== 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
Soyen Shaku, Dwight Goddard, D. T. Suzuki,
and Alexandra David-Neel, as well as more
recent figures like Shunryu Suzuki, Sangharakshita,
Alan Watts, Thich Nhat Hanh, Chögyam Trungpa,
and the Fourteenth Dalai Lama."
== See also ==
Buddhism and science
== Notes ==
== References ==
=== Bibliography ===
Chitkara, M. G. (1998), Buddhism, Reincarnation,
and Dalai Lamas of Tibet, APH
Coleman, James William (2002). The New Buddhism:
The Western Transformation of an Ancient Tradition.
Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-515241-8.
Flanagan, Owen (2014), Science for Monks:
Buddhism and Science: A BIT of The Really
Hard Problem, MIT Press
Hayes, Richard P. (2013), "The Internet as
Window onto American Buddhism", in Queen,
Christopher; Williams, Duncan Ryuken, American
Buddhism: Methods and Findings in Recent Scholarship,
Routledge
Keown, Damien (2000). Buddhism: A Very Short
Introduction (Kindle ed.). Oxford University
Press.
Konik, Adrian (2009), Buddhism and Transgression:
The Appropriation of Buddhism in the Contemporary
West, BRIIL
Lamb, Christopher (2001), "Cosmology, myth
and symbolism", in Harvey, Peter, Buddhism,
Bloomsbury Publishing
Trainor, Kevin (2004), Buddhism: The Illustrated
Guide, Oxford University Press, ISBN 978-0-19-517398-7
James, Alan; Jacqui, James (1989). Modern
Buddhism. Aucana. ISBN 0-9511769-1-9.
James, William (June 1902). The varieties
of religious experience : a study in human
nature. London: Longmans, Green & Co. p. 534.
ISBN 0-585-23263-6.
Josephson, Jason Ānanda (2006). "When Buddhism
Became a "Religion": Religion and Superstition
in the Writings of Inoue Enryō". Japanese
Journal of Religious Studies. 33 (1): 143–168.
Lopez, Jr., Donald S. (2008). Buddhism & science
: a guide for the perplexed. Buddhism and
modernity. University of Chicago Press. ISBN
978-0-226-49312-1.
Lopez, Jr., Donald S. (2002). A Modern Buddhist
Bible. Beacon Press Books. ISBN 0-8070-1243-2.
Masuzawa, Tomoko (May 2005). The invention
of world religions, or, How European universalism
was preserved in the language of pluralism
(1st ed.). University of Chicago Press. p.
359. ISBN 978-0-226-50988-4.
McMahan, David L. (2008), The Making of Buddhist
Modernism, Oxford University Press, doi:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195183276.001.0001,
ISBN 978-0-19-518327-6
Metraux, Daniel A. (2001). The International
Expansion of a Modern Buddhist Movement: The
Soka Gakkai in Southeast Asia and Australia.
University Press of America. ISBN 978-0-7618-1904-2.
Prebish, Charles S.; Baumann, Martin (2002).
Westward Dharma: Buddhism Beyond Asia. University
of California Press. ISBN 0-520-23490-1.
Satō, Giei; Nishimura, Nishin (1973). Unsui:
a Diary of Zen Monastic Life (illustrated
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ISBN 978-0-8248-0272-1. Retrieved 28 May 2009.
Sharf, Robert H. (August 1993). "The Zen of
Japanese Nationalism". History of Religions.
The University of Chicago Press. 33 (1): 1–43.
doi:10.1086/463354. ISSN 0018-2710. JSTOR
1062782.
Suzuki, D. T. (1996) [1956]. Barrett, William,
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Suzuki. New York: Three Leaves. p. 294. ISBN
978-0-385-48349-0.
Verhoeven, Martin (1998). "Americanizing the
Buddha: Paul Carus and the Transformation
of Asian Thought". In Prebish, Charles; Tanaka,
Kenneth. The faces of Buddhism in America.
University of California Press. p. 370. ISBN
978-0-520-21301-2.
== Further reading ==
Sharf, R H (1995). Buddhist modernism and
the rhetoric of meditative experience, Numen
42, 228-283
McMahan, DL (2004). Modernity and the early
discourse of scientific Buddhism, Journal
of the American Academy of Religion 72 (4),
897-933
Ulanov MS, Badmaev VN (2015). Buddhist World
in Global Context. International Journal of
Economics and Financial Issues. 2015. № 5
(Special Issue). pp. 15–17. [1]
Webb, Russel (2005). Heinz Bechert 26 June
1932-14 June 2005, Buddhist Studies Review
22 (2), 211-216
