Your Weekly Dose of Buddhism

Most people in America don’t know very much about Buddhism, and in my opinion that’s a bit tragic.  In the minds of many, Buddhism is an image of consumerism, more New Age quackery, or just the same thing as Hinduism, but these are all wide of the mark to varying degrees.  Buddhism is strikingly different from so much of Western religion and philosophy, and yet it is still a religion and a philosophy, and it’s for this reason that I think more people should know about it.  It’s a radical but highly relevant alternative to the way many of us think about the world, and I think it has a lot of good things to offer all of us, from the dabbler to the convert.

Because of this, every week or so I’m going to try to find something Buddhism-related out there on the Internet and blog about it.  My goal is to give you, our dear Consider readers, a taste of something unfamiliar – just that.  If you decide to go off and learn more about Buddhism, then that’s wonderful.  If you decide you don’t really like this whole Buddhism thing, that’s fine, too; at least you’ll know a little more about it.  Our goal at Consider is to make you aware of things that might otherwise have passed under your radar.  When we succeed in that, we’re happy people.

Anyway, this week I’ll start with a book review from the Guardian of a book on a sort of stripped down, humanist view of Buddhism.  According to these beliefs of the author:

Reincarnation and karma are rejected as Indian accretions: his study of the historical Siddhartha Gautama – one element in the new book – suggests the Buddha himself was probably indifferent to these doctrines. What Batchelor believes the Buddha did preach were four essentials. First, the conditioned nature of existence, which is to say everything continually comes and goes. Second, the practice of mindfulness, as the way to be awake to what is and what is not. Third, the tasks of knowing suffering, letting go of craving, experiencing cessation and the “noble path”. Fourth, the self-reliance of the individual, so that nothing is taken on authority, and everything is found through experience.

Rejecting reincarnation and karma would be a big step for lots of Buddhist practitioners, but I think this view of Buddhism gets at what makes it so attractive.  It’s a very pragmatic approach, one less focused on doctrine and belief and more on the practical means of dealing with human suffering.  I think the author also rightly recognizes that “there is a hunger…for community and ritual” in many among us, and that communities – including religious communities of all sorts – fulfill this need.  What I’m not a big fan of is the author’s rejection of all transcendent elements of Buddhism.  What makes it a religion at all is the fact that it offers people a way to transcend the limiting conditions of their existence.  Without that possibility, Buddhism becomes just another way of life.

-Aaron Bekemeyer