I’ve now read about one-third of “In the Words of the Buddha”. I personally appreciated getting the additional sociological and historical background so I’m happy that you recommended it and that I got it. However, its talk about reincarnation and realms of divine beings and so on doesn’t really do much to convince me differently about this:
monks in robes teaching Buddhism, who accept religious and supernatural elements, are dismissed as religious men.
I think the book is, if anything, dissuading me from the idea that modern Western practitioners would benefit from spending time familiarizing themselves with the Pali Canon. (Assuming that they don’t have, like me, an interest in its history for its own sake.)
I had previously been somewhat influenced by some of the Western apologetics and meditation teachers who said things like “no, Buddhism is really a philosophy rather than a religion, you can read it secularly and interpret all the stuff about rebirth etc. metaphorically”. Whereas the impression I get from the book is that it really is a religion complete with all the supernaturalness and superstition, and that even the more secular parts like the moral advice contain bits we’d rather ignore, such as the Buddha mentioning that one good type of wife is the one who’s like a slave (with even the editor of the book including a footnote that says it’s a good thing later Buddhists have ignored this recommendation). I now think the people saying that you can really just read the stuff metaphorically are cherry-picking the bits that happen to fit the framework they’re in favor of.
Now there were some pieces of advice I liked there too, but overall the task of figuring out what can be trusted seems hard enough that one would be better off by just ignoring the whole thing and going with what we’ve learned about meditation in more secular contexts, as reported by people with more reliable epistemics. Of course such people aren’t completely trustworthy either, as you point out by e.g. Culadasa’s sex scandal. But then nobody is and the fact that we can witness the way their practice goes wrong when embedded in the context of Western householder life seems like a good way of refining our models further, whereas the Pali Canon is fitted into a very different cultural and historical context that we don’t actively observe.
I agree with a lot of what you have said, and I am largely on board with the thrust of your message. The later parts of the book discuss some of the things more relevant to what we have been talking about, like meditation and “awakening,” and these are also the more interesting bits, in my opinion. It also shouldn’t be surprising that the Pali Canon contains 2,500 year old texts that we find odd! -- but if you enjoy history/mythology/sociology then it can be quite interesting.
I think what is missing is that a proper takeaway, for you, should be to update from the secular models as well. You say that the creators of these models have more reliable epistemics, but I do not like the comparison: the creators of the secular models have poor epistemics. As you put it:
“the impression I get from the book is that it really is a religion complete with all the supernaturalness and superstition … I now think the people saying that you can really just read the stuff metaphorically are cherry-picking the bits that happen to fit the framework they’re in favor of.”
and I completely agree with this! But this makes me trust the modern authors less, not more. “Religious Buddhism” may be too hard to swallow, but “Metaphorical Buddhism” is dishonest and does not make sense when evaluated on its own terms. Unfortunately, proponents of Metaphorical Buddhism launder the quality of their ideas with the reputation of “The Buddha.” I think if you finish the book and then go back and read something like MCTB you won’t be able to look at it in the same way.
Let me try to give a rough summary of my own overall view on the issue: There is now a panoply of things calling themselves Buddhist meditation, or Buddhist meditation inspired, that are present in contemporary life. The latest example I am aware of is jhourney.io. These range the gamut from completely secular to very traditional with a lot of stuff in between. Programs like Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) have clinical evidence that a moderate amount of (MBSR’s version of) mindfulness meditation leads to demonstrable changes in psychological traits that most of us would find desirable. I find the evidence for this to be quite good, though perhaps not excellent, and the cost to benefit ratio of adding this type of meditation to a secular life is probably worthwhile.
In addition, I imagine that for many people going to something like an American Zen center weekly would enhance their quality of life, and I would bet you could easily demonstrate this at the clinical level.
But I do not trust a lot of the modern authors who venture beyond this territory and into “higher stages of the path,” like enlightenment or deep stages of meditation. The claims they make about “being enlightened” make little sense from a traditional perspective, are poorly defined within individual authors and contradictory between authors, and are often cherry picked, distorted, and dishonest presentations. For example, Scott Alexander reviewed MCTB and in his review at one point asked, “if this is enlightenment, then why would you even want it?”—which was absolutely the correct question to ask given Ingram’s description of enlightenment!
I think that the authors should just stop calling themselves Buddhist and acknowledge that they are running their own religious experiments. There is nothing wrong with this, per se, but the mixing of the two is what bothers me. Earlier I said,
“If you’re interested in learning about Buddhism, I recommend starting with the Pali Canon, the collection of Early Buddhist Texts that offer the best historical record of the teachings of Siddhartha Gautama, the Buddha.”
and you replied,
“I think the book is, if anything, dissuading me from the idea that modern Western practitioners would benefit from spending time familiarizing themselves with the Pali Canon.”
I think I need to be more precise: if you are intersted in learning about Buddhism, then start with the Pali Canon, or an anthology like “In the Words of the Buddha.”
On the other hand, if you are fairly confident already that you don’t want religious baggage, and do not believe in things like other realms, rebirth, etc., but you are still interested in some type of ideal like enlightenment and radical change through meditation, then go ahead with more modern secular authors. But know that if those modern authors say they are Buddhist inspired, their link to historical Buddhism and to the historical Buddha’s ideas is a lot more tenuous than they are implying and would have you believe. Try to evaluate their ideas on their own terms, and see if you like what you see. Furthermore, know that the track record of modern people (and certainly not just modern people) running religious experiments and claiming to be enlightened is not necessarily amazing.
Anyway, do let me know if you finish the book, and then go back and read something like MCTB. I would be very curious to know your thoughts!
Ah. Yeah, I agree with your point that if someone is claiming that the secular interpretation of Buddhism is The True Interpretation and you can see that even in the original sources, that’s a reason to be doubtful of them. They are, as you say, laundering their own ideas with the reputation of Buddhism.
I think the difference is that I don’t think I ever put sources like MCTB in the category of writers who make claims about the original meaning of the suttas. Though it’s certainly possible that those claims were there and I just glossed over them. (And okay, admittedly the whole name of the book is reasonable to read as making a claim about what the original meaning of the teachings was.) But I read you to be saying something like “treat these modern secular writers as people who might be drawing inspiration from some Buddhist sources but are fundamentally doing their own new thing”, and I think that I was already reading many of them as doing exactly that.
After reading the parent comment by Mascal’s Pugging, I too bought a copy of In the Words of the Buddha so I could familiarize myself with the Pali canon. I read 14% of the way through the book, got bored, and moved on to other things. Like Kaj Sotala, I found it interesting solely for anthropological and historical reasons. I did find it worthwhile to read part of the book, if for no other reason than to know what I’m not missing.
Facets of Buddhism are undeniably religious. Last summer, I flew to Taiwan to attend the Buddhist funeral of my grandfather. We attached my grandfather’s disembodied soul to a plaque and I carried it to its final resting place in a Buddhist temple. Whenever we crossed over running water, (even if it was a nearly-invisible canal) I verbally notified my grandfather’s disembodied soul so that he wouldn’t get washed away by the water. I did the same thing when passing through doorways.
We gave him food for the afterlife, just like el Día de los Muertos.
That’s superstition. My only hesitation against calling it a “religion” is a pedantic nitpick around how the Western ontology of “religion” as a discrete unit was invented by monotheists; therefore “polytheistic religion” constitutes non-cladistic thinking. Except we chanted the Amida Buddha’s name too, and Amida Buddhism qualifies as a religion even by that nitpicky standard.
but overall the task of figuring out what can be trusted seems hard enough that one would be better off by just ignoring the whole thing and going with what we’ve learned about meditation in more secular contexts
I feel the same way, noting that “more secular” does not mean “entirely secular”. Last weekend, I wanted information about life after Stream Entry. I found a good book on the subject: The End of Your World: Uncensored Straight Talk on the Nature of Enlightenment, by Adyashanti. The book is ruthlessly empirical, but it is also from the Zen tradition and quotes the Dao De Jing, which means it’s not unadulturatedly secular, either.
Meanwhile, the scientific journals are still trying to figure out for sure whether meditation reduces anxiety. Imagine writing a grant proposal for a large-scale double-blinded study of whether intense meditation for three decades years causes psychosis. How would you even do a proper control group? We’ve got people who have built a city on Mount Everest and the scientists are still debating whether the Himalayas really exist.
For what it is worth, the later parts of the book discuss the things you might be more intersted in, like meditative/path models. The scientific research is quite interesting, in particular, I find the brain scans of monks to be incredible.
I’ve now read about one-third of “In the Words of the Buddha”. I personally appreciated getting the additional sociological and historical background so I’m happy that you recommended it and that I got it. However, its talk about reincarnation and realms of divine beings and so on doesn’t really do much to convince me differently about this:
I think the book is, if anything, dissuading me from the idea that modern Western practitioners would benefit from spending time familiarizing themselves with the Pali Canon. (Assuming that they don’t have, like me, an interest in its history for its own sake.)
I had previously been somewhat influenced by some of the Western apologetics and meditation teachers who said things like “no, Buddhism is really a philosophy rather than a religion, you can read it secularly and interpret all the stuff about rebirth etc. metaphorically”. Whereas the impression I get from the book is that it really is a religion complete with all the supernaturalness and superstition, and that even the more secular parts like the moral advice contain bits we’d rather ignore, such as the Buddha mentioning that one good type of wife is the one who’s like a slave (with even the editor of the book including a footnote that says it’s a good thing later Buddhists have ignored this recommendation). I now think the people saying that you can really just read the stuff metaphorically are cherry-picking the bits that happen to fit the framework they’re in favor of.
Now there were some pieces of advice I liked there too, but overall the task of figuring out what can be trusted seems hard enough that one would be better off by just ignoring the whole thing and going with what we’ve learned about meditation in more secular contexts, as reported by people with more reliable epistemics. Of course such people aren’t completely trustworthy either, as you point out by e.g. Culadasa’s sex scandal. But then nobody is and the fact that we can witness the way their practice goes wrong when embedded in the context of Western householder life seems like a good way of refining our models further, whereas the Pali Canon is fitted into a very different cultural and historical context that we don’t actively observe.
Is there something that I’m missing?
I agree with a lot of what you have said, and I am largely on board with the thrust of your message. The later parts of the book discuss some of the things more relevant to what we have been talking about, like meditation and “awakening,” and these are also the more interesting bits, in my opinion. It also shouldn’t be surprising that the Pali Canon contains 2,500 year old texts that we find odd! -- but if you enjoy history/mythology/sociology then it can be quite interesting.
I think what is missing is that a proper takeaway, for you, should be to update from the secular models as well. You say that the creators of these models have more reliable epistemics, but I do not like the comparison: the creators of the secular models have poor epistemics. As you put it:
“the impression I get from the book is that it really is a religion complete with all the supernaturalness and superstition … I now think the people saying that you can really just read the stuff metaphorically are cherry-picking the bits that happen to fit the framework they’re in favor of.”
and I completely agree with this! But this makes me trust the modern authors less, not more. “Religious Buddhism” may be too hard to swallow, but “Metaphorical Buddhism” is dishonest and does not make sense when evaluated on its own terms. Unfortunately, proponents of Metaphorical Buddhism launder the quality of their ideas with the reputation of “The Buddha.” I think if you finish the book and then go back and read something like MCTB you won’t be able to look at it in the same way.
Let me try to give a rough summary of my own overall view on the issue: There is now a panoply of things calling themselves Buddhist meditation, or Buddhist meditation inspired, that are present in contemporary life. The latest example I am aware of is jhourney.io. These range the gamut from completely secular to very traditional with a lot of stuff in between. Programs like Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) have clinical evidence that a moderate amount of (MBSR’s version of) mindfulness meditation leads to demonstrable changes in psychological traits that most of us would find desirable. I find the evidence for this to be quite good, though perhaps not excellent, and the cost to benefit ratio of adding this type of meditation to a secular life is probably worthwhile.
In addition, I imagine that for many people going to something like an American Zen center weekly would enhance their quality of life, and I would bet you could easily demonstrate this at the clinical level.
But I do not trust a lot of the modern authors who venture beyond this territory and into “higher stages of the path,” like enlightenment or deep stages of meditation. The claims they make about “being enlightened” make little sense from a traditional perspective, are poorly defined within individual authors and contradictory between authors, and are often cherry picked, distorted, and dishonest presentations. For example, Scott Alexander reviewed MCTB and in his review at one point asked, “if this is enlightenment, then why would you even want it?”—which was absolutely the correct question to ask given Ingram’s description of enlightenment!
I think that the authors should just stop calling themselves Buddhist and acknowledge that they are running their own religious experiments. There is nothing wrong with this, per se, but the mixing of the two is what bothers me. Earlier I said,
“If you’re interested in learning about Buddhism, I recommend starting with the Pali Canon, the collection of Early Buddhist Texts that offer the best historical record of the teachings of Siddhartha Gautama, the Buddha.”
and you replied,
“I think the book is, if anything, dissuading me from the idea that modern Western practitioners would benefit from spending time familiarizing themselves with the Pali Canon.”
I think I need to be more precise: if you are intersted in learning about Buddhism, then start with the Pali Canon, or an anthology like “In the Words of the Buddha.”
On the other hand, if you are fairly confident already that you don’t want religious baggage, and do not believe in things like other realms, rebirth, etc., but you are still interested in some type of ideal like enlightenment and radical change through meditation, then go ahead with more modern secular authors. But know that if those modern authors say they are Buddhist inspired, their link to historical Buddhism and to the historical Buddha’s ideas is a lot more tenuous than they are implying and would have you believe. Try to evaluate their ideas on their own terms, and see if you like what you see. Furthermore, know that the track record of modern people (and certainly not just modern people) running religious experiments and claiming to be enlightened is not necessarily amazing.
Anyway, do let me know if you finish the book, and then go back and read something like MCTB. I would be very curious to know your thoughts!
Ah. Yeah, I agree with your point that if someone is claiming that the secular interpretation of Buddhism is The True Interpretation and you can see that even in the original sources, that’s a reason to be doubtful of them. They are, as you say, laundering their own ideas with the reputation of Buddhism.
I think the difference is that I don’t think I ever put sources like MCTB in the category of writers who make claims about the original meaning of the suttas. Though it’s certainly possible that those claims were there and I just glossed over them. (And okay, admittedly the whole name of the book is reasonable to read as making a claim about what the original meaning of the teachings was.) But I read you to be saying something like “treat these modern secular writers as people who might be drawing inspiration from some Buddhist sources but are fundamentally doing their own new thing”, and I think that I was already reading many of them as doing exactly that.
With regard to MCTB specifically, this felt especially clear with Ingram including a chapter trashing the whole traditional Theravada conception of enlightenment and then following it up with a chapter presenting his own revised model as a replacement. That felt like him basically saying “yeah fuck those original religious guys, let’s do something different, here’s a model based on my own personal experience instead”.
Anyway I agree that it’s good to point that out for anyone who missed that, or who interpreted books like MCTB differently.
After reading the parent comment by Mascal’s Pugging, I too bought a copy of In the Words of the Buddha so I could familiarize myself with the Pali canon. I read 14% of the way through the book, got bored, and moved on to other things. Like Kaj Sotala, I found it interesting solely for anthropological and historical reasons. I did find it worthwhile to read part of the book, if for no other reason than to know what I’m not missing.
Facets of Buddhism are undeniably religious. Last summer, I flew to Taiwan to attend the Buddhist funeral of my grandfather. We attached my grandfather’s disembodied soul to a plaque and I carried it to its final resting place in a Buddhist temple. Whenever we crossed over running water, (even if it was a nearly-invisible canal) I verbally notified my grandfather’s disembodied soul so that he wouldn’t get washed away by the water. I did the same thing when passing through doorways.
We gave him food for the afterlife, just like el Día de los Muertos.
That’s superstition. My only hesitation against calling it a “religion” is a pedantic nitpick around how the Western ontology of “religion” as a discrete unit was invented by monotheists; therefore “polytheistic religion” constitutes non-cladistic thinking. Except we chanted the Amida Buddha’s name too, and Amida Buddhism qualifies as a religion even by that nitpicky standard.
I feel the same way, noting that “more secular” does not mean “entirely secular”. Last weekend, I wanted information about life after Stream Entry. I found a good book on the subject: The End of Your World: Uncensored Straight Talk on the Nature of Enlightenment, by Adyashanti. The book is ruthlessly empirical, but it is also from the Zen tradition and quotes the Dao De Jing, which means it’s not unadulturatedly secular, either.
Meanwhile, the scientific journals are still trying to figure out for sure whether meditation reduces anxiety. Imagine writing a grant proposal for a large-scale double-blinded study of whether intense meditation for three decades years causes psychosis. How would you even do a proper control group? We’ve got people who have built a city on Mount Everest and the scientists are still debating whether the Himalayas really exist.
For what it is worth, the later parts of the book discuss the things you might be more intersted in, like meditative/path models. The scientific research is quite interesting, in particular, I find the brain scans of monks to be incredible.