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.
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.