A Culture of Awakening

By | July 15, 2014

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At the end of May I attended a four day workshop at Upaya Zen Center in Santa Fe called “A Culture of Awakening.” It was led by Stephen Batchelor with Roshi Joan Halifax. I will try to discuss the ideas presented and my impressions of them. For those that are interested, all seven of the talks plus question sessions are now available as podcasts at Upaya.org. Three related themes emerged for me. The first two talks (podcasts 2 &3) touched on the religious aspects of a secular Buddhist practice and as well as a caring and careful engagement with our world. Talks three and four (podcasts 5 & 6) then looked at how this careful engagement could be seen as the Buddha’s Fourfold Task and (podcasts 8 & 9) how this practice could re-frame our engagement with life, what I am calling a practice of awakening. Then, in the last talk (podcast 11), Stephen looks at how the fourth task, cultivating a path, culminates in the development of a Culture of Awakening.

I would like to separate the idea of Buddhism from the practice of Buddhist teachings.It is debated whether Buddhism is a religion or not. When Buddhism is seen as a religion it partakes of both a positive view of religion as being of great moral, ethical and spiritual value in the world and a not undeserved reputation of much of organized religion as being dogmatic, inflexible, narrow minded and self-serving, if not financially and morally corrupt. However, I think that debate is really beside the point here. It seems to me that there is an important difference between seeing something as a religion and seeing something as religious. Making a religion out of practicing the piano is not the same as someone who practices religiously. Believing in a secular definition of religion, I find it hard not to recognize a religious aspect of Buddhist practice

Religion is a useful term not easily replaced in the English language and can actually be free of any connotations of theism or the supernatural. I like this definition from Dictionary.com: “a set of beliefs concerning the cause, nature, and purpose of the universe,” and another from Wikipedia: “religion is an organized collection of beliefs, cultural systems, and worldviews that relate humanity to an order of existence,” and religion differs from a private belief in that it is something social, shared with a community. In addition, the concept of religion implies some sort of faith. “Faith can be understood as commitment beyond independent objective certification to the truth of some overall interpretation of experience and reality.”¹ This has nothing to do with anything divine or any transcendent realm, though I believe a life without transcendent experiences is missing something deep, regardless of whether they occur on the cushion, in nature, on the battlefield, with a loved one or from ingesting psychedelics.

Faith is commitment without conclusive proof. I have faith, supported by experience and intuition, that there is likely some “order of existence,” that there is likely some existential meaning. And whatever that might be, and it may only be what we ourselves bring to it, I act as if there is some greater meaning because it helps me to live a better life and be a better person. I usually need some help with that, it doesn’t seem to just come very naturally. Stephen talks about the everyday sublime, that when common, everyday experience is really looked at, it is truly awe inspiring and beyond description. There is a Korean Zen koan he is fond of: What is This? It’s a bottomless question, but there are answers to be found the more deeply we pay attention to our daily lives. I work at the practice of Buddha-dharma because I haven’t found anything more meaningful. It seems critical to be very clear about our meaning when using the terms religion and religious, and that to deny what I’ve described as the religious aspect of our practice risks losing something profound.

Now we come to what I am calling a practice of awakening. When we wake up from sleep we return to our-life-as-it-is, not as we dream it. Waking up can also be the realization that one is caught up in one’s own views or reactivity and not seeing or responding to things-as-they-are. For a teaching on a practice of awakening, let us look at possibly the most universal and fundamental teaching of the Buddha from a new perspective, one presented by Stephen: the Four Noble Truths considered not as Truths to be believed, but as a fourfold task to be performed.

At least one preeminent scholar believes there is evidence that the earliest version of the Buddha’s first sermon, The Turning of the Wheel of Dharma (Dhammacakkappavattana Sutta, Samyutta Nikaya 56:11) did not contain the terms noble or truth, rather that those terms were a later addition to the sutta.² If we accept this opinion we are then left with just the Four, which are dukkha (suffering or stress or dis-ease), samudaya (the arising [of craving ³]), nirodha (the ceasing [of craving]), and magga (the path). The sutta goes on to teach that dukkha is to be comprehended (parinna), samudaya is to be let go of (pahana), nirodha is to be beheld (sacchikata), and magga is to be cultivated (bhavana). The sutta then goes into the twelve aspects of the Four: “‘Such is dukkha. It can be fully known. It has been fully known.’ ’Such is the arising. It can be let go of. It has been let go of.’ ’Such is the ceasing. It can be experienced. It has been experienced.’ ’Such is the path. It can be cultivated. It has been cultivated.’” Each of the Four is to be recognized, performed and accomplished; they become the Fourfold Task, each step leading to the next, back to the beginning and on again in a progressive, positive feedback loop. The Buddha concludes: “As long as my knowledge and vision was not entirely clear about the twelve aspects of the four, I did not claim to have had a peerless awakening…”

This core teaching requires no belief in ultimate truths or rebirth or karma from a previous life. It doesn’t depend on advanced meditative states or becoming fully enlightened. It is a simple and straightforward, yet deep and challenging practice to wake up to things just-as-they-are. The unavoidability of suffering in this life is to be intimately known, our own, as well as that of others. With a deeper knowing of suffering or stress or dis-ease, we can have increased insight into the arising of grasping, craving and attachment. Because what arises ceases, we are able to experience some ceasing or letting go of craving and attachment, even if it is only momentary. Letting go, our behavior is less influenced by the reactivity that stems from craving and attachment and is more open to cultivating the path with a deepening understanding of our seeing, thought, speech, action, livelihood, effort, mindfulness and concentration. Then, the more we are able to pay attention to, and work with, our seeing, thought, speech, action, livelihood, effort, mindfulness and concentration, the more insight we can have into the inevitability of dukkha and the fact that the subsequent craving and attachment can be let go of. We find that when we let go, we are then able to experience periods of an easing of a reactivity influenced by desires or anger or confusion and have the space to respond to life instead of react to it. Martine Batchelor calls this creative engagement, working with thoughtful response instead of habitual, often thoughtless, reaction. This enables a deepening cultivation of the path.

The Fourfold Task is a progressive, positive feedback loop, an ongoing practice of waking up. It is a practice where we aspire to be guided by loving-kindness, compassion, sympathetic joy, and equanimity as well as the intention to avoid evil, cultivate good and lessen the suffering of all beings, for what is the point of dharma practice without morality and ethics? We practice to wake up to life-as-it-is with deepening compassion, appreciation, dedication and resolve. This is a fairly radical reinterpretation of the Turning of the Wheel of Dharma teaching, but one with new clarity and purpose. The Fourfold Task is a distinctly Buddhist approach to a caring and careful engagement with our lives and may appear deceptively simplistic compared to more complex and sometimes arcane teachings that can be found in various Buddhist traditions. And while simple is not necessarily easy, it can be helpful when considering a teaching’s wider appeal.

Now that we’ve had a look at both the so called religious aspect of a Buddhist practice and what I refer to as “a teaching on a practice of awakening,” the more challenging question comes up: how can teachings such as this be popularized to a degree that would have some positive effect on the attitudes, feelings, values, and behavior of our more widespread culture?

The current popularity of yoga and “mindfulness” and MBI’s (Mindfulness Based Interventions) would appear to open a window of opportunity for a more widespread social acceptance of practices and teachings based on Buddha-dharma.

It is estimated that in 2012 over 20 million Americans were practicing yoga, an increase of close to 30% in four years. There are some insights to be had from looking at this Eastern spiritual tradition’s rapid rise in popularity. One is the apparent hunger and thirst that exists for some regular meaningful practice not provided by the Judeo-Christian traditions. Another is that yoga is seen by our culture as primarily body work, more concerned with physical fitness that spiritual fitness. Yet, regrettably, when something becomes popular in our culture it is usually followed by money and commodification. Often this can have the consequence of diluting the character of that commodity. But dilution is not necessarily destructive, and it differs from a diminishing of spiritual perfectionism.

From the Yoga Journal: “In fact, this householder yoga may be just the kind of enlightenment our world needs from us. This is the enlightenment of the Bhagavad Gita, one of the most beloved yoga texts of all time, which tells us to live in the world without clinging to it—to play our roles in our work and family lives with full commitment, but without attachment to the outcome of our actions.

The vast majority of Western students are not exclusive devotees of a particular guru or lineage—they’re interested in practices, not sectarian loyalties. Western yoga is an increasingly eclectic, democratic path, in which hierarchical structures are being dismantled and gurus dethroned. Once-separate yogic paths fertilize each other on a regular basis: Hatha yogis do Headstand at the lunch break on Buddhist meditation retreats, seek out Advaita Vedanta masters, and get shaktipat (transmission of psycho-spiritual energy, “shakti”) from siddha gurus.

The typical yoga class owes its emphasis as much to Buddhist vipassana (insight) practices as it does to Patanjali’s Yoga Sutra. And Western yogis have also inevitably begun to cross-pollinate yoga with Western approaches to spirituality, psychology, bodywork, and mind-body healing. Until you’ve taken a few hatha yoga classes in India, you won’t fully realize how thoroughly most American classes have been permeated with a unique marinade that includes everything from somatic psychology to Reichian bodywork, from modern dance techniques to 12 Step Programs. As yoga gains more and more acceptance in the medical world, it’s inevitably flavored with the language and concerns of Western science.”⁴

These same kinds of developments are happening to Buddhist practice as it seeks establishment in the West and they will likely continue if it is to be adopted into the more widespread culture.

The current popularity of “mindfulness” and Mindfulness Based Interventions (MBI’s) stemming from Jon Kabat-Zinn’s pioneering work, has led to it’s practices being introduced into medical settings as well as educational settings from primary to college levels. This is a mindfulness that, in order to be accepted by the medical and educational communities, has been intentionally cleansed of any religious aspects. In a report on mindfulness instruction in schools, one system stressed that they only used common language to describe their practices. To address the concerns of some parents that they might be teaching foreign religions they referred to yoga as stretching and meditation as calming exercises. But mindfulness taught with morality and ethics washed away has led to concerns and criticisms from both within and without the MBI community. As MBI instructors Lynette Monteiro & Frank Musten put it: “The ethical factor, sīla (morality), is the heart of mindfulness practice, regardless. Without it, the process of cultivating attention becomes a mindless directing of sense organs to stimuli”.⁵

There is an expanding list of conditions being treated with MBIs: chronic pain, depression, weight loss, smoking cessation, anxiety, insomnia, MS, coronary heart disease, cognitive therapy and even Law and Conflict Resolution. Mindfulness has also been used by companies to increase productivity and by the military for soldiers leaving for or returning from stressful deployment. Whether MBI’s can be effective treatments for most of these types of issues is undetermined at this time. What I’ve been able to find is that the majority of supporting evidence is based on scientifically low grade studies or is anecdotal (not considered scientifically valid unless it is overwhelming), though rigorous studies have been done and more are underway. However, it seems widely accepted that regardless of other outcomes, people going through mindfulness based training develop reduced stress levels, greater relaxation and an improved quality of life. These outcomes are of great benefit to these persons and to our society and culture. When their training is finished it is not uncommon for participants to decide they want to go deeper into the practices that they have found of such benefit and to then search out local Buddhist centers. What they find is often not what they anticipated. The practices can so be steeped in cultural trappings and customs, as well as presuming a belief in assorted metaphysical doctrines, that the whole experience is found disconcerting and disagreeable. But determining which aspects of the many forms of Buddhism may be responsible for interfering with a more widespread acceptance of the teachings is a difficult undertaking, with answers tending to be situational and complex.

One thing I am becoming wary of is the value of Buddhist jargon, be it in Sanskrit, Pali, Tibetan, Japanese, Chinese, Korean or English. Jargon is very useful to those experienced in a subject, but most confusing to those that are not. I understand that many words, phrases and concepts are difficult to translate adequately, but jargon is insider language. Consider these often misleading or misunderstood English terms: no-self, emptiness, the deathless, the unconditioned. Where the Buddha was skilled at presenting his teachings in terms that were familiar to each audience, has Buddhism in the West been not so skilled at meeting such a challenge. Stephen has also commented that he thought it important to translate Buddhist terms into common language.

A larger question might be how much of the rich twenty-five hundred year tradition of the Buddha’s teaching can be let go of before something of essential value may be lost? Personally, I find metaphysical dogmas, such as complete-perfect-enlightenment, rebirth, previous life karma, ultimate truth, and the questionable idea of merit, unknowable and unnecessary. A presumption of acceptance of these doctrines is problematic and can drive more than a few people away from the practice. I also have the impression that the cultural strangeness of many traditions prevents people from being open to the teachings. It could be the robes or the bowing or the chanting or the practice language, which can all be perceived as uncomfortably foreign or strange (although that seems to be an attraction for certain folks).

Zen, as an embodied practice works for me, as a philosophical practice, not so much. While I have been practicing in the Soto Zen tradition for many years, adherence to a Japanese style of practice has it’s limits. Yet, if the forms and liturgy and bowing and robes disappeared, I would miss it and feel that something of value was lost. For me, there is a way that the forms foster a deep reverence for things-as-they-are. It is also important to me that the robes, forms and liturgy are a direct connection to the legacy of 2500 years of practice. But it’s difficult, what works for some doesn’t work for others. It’s not easy trying to find a middle way.

I’ve argued that religious may be the most accurate, and valuable term to describe the practice of the Buddha’s teaching, unfortunately it’s likely not the most helpful when it comes to trying to widen the teaching’s appeal. While we can often have a pretty good idea of which kinds of language might be less helpful, determining the kind that would be more helpful is a greater challenge. Despite it’s being in widespread use, the label Secular Buddhism hasn’t garnered that much enthusiasm, but it’s likely to stick, as a preferable alternative hasn’t yet surfaced.

Gil Fronsdal, a Buddhist teacher and attendee at the Barre Center for Buddhist Studies conference on secular Buddhism in March of 2013, does prefer another term. In the introduction to his very engaging article “Natural Buddhism” he writes: “My, perhaps idiosyncratic, understanding of secularism sees “secular Buddhism” as somewhat oxymoronic. Instead, I prefer the term “natural Buddhism.” I use this expression for understanding and practicing Buddhism without relying on supernatural explanations; i.e., on beliefs that fall outside of the laws of nature as we know them.”⁶ The meaning of his use of natural is only clear when used in opposition to supernatural, natural Buddhism by itself implies a Buddhism that is not artificial, whatever that might mean. When he explains what he means, I think “natural Buddhism” is a very good choice of words, but without the explanation it’s quite misleading.

Another attendee at the Barre conference, Akincano M. Weber, in his article “Secular Buddhism-New vision or yet another of the myths it claims to cure?”⁷, made this observation: “The term “secular” is both charged and diffuse. Let’s look at some of its many meanings:

Depending on context I can see the following uses of “secular”:

as an antonym for “orthodox”, i.e. “liberal,”, “tolerant” or even “pluralistic”;
as meaning “not bound by tradition”, definitely as “not-fundamentalist”;
quite literally, in the sense of “as of this century” (saeculum),
as “non-monastic” and “not part of a clergy or church”
as “not of one unified view of the world”;
as “non-metaphysical” and decidedly concerned with “this world”
as “non-religious”
as “worldly” in the sense of opposed to “sacred”

If we were to lump all these different notions together–no doubt under loud protestations of the people subscribing to one but none of the other meanings above–we would probably arrive at a mix not too dissimilar from what we have as contemporary Buddhist movements in the Western world. There may be a few explicitly orthodox, traditionalist, monastic, metaphysical, religious sacralists around–but even many monastic women and men share at least one or more of the above “secular” values.”

Last year’s Barre conference on Secular Buddhism brought together over thirty people with a “long and deep interest in Buddhist thought and practice.”⁸ They considered it premature to look for answers to the questions posed by Buddhism in the post-modern world and worked at trying to come up with what they called threshold questions. Sometimes the hardest work is finding the right questions, and it is usually easier to find answers to questions of What than to questions of How. The previous discussions of the two issues, the religious aspect of practice and the practice of awakening, have been concerned with What they are, whereas How a culture of awakening is to be more widely developed is a more complex question, resisting clear answers. And while the answers to the threshold How To questions can be a gateway to new explorations, the answers to How Not To are probably more readily available. Buddhism took centuries to accommodate itself to new cultures and civilizations in ancient Asia, so the post-modern world is in fairly early days, still this may be the time of greatest opportunity.