Is The West Ruining Buddhism?

there's a famous quote by a 9th century zen master that goes like this if you meet the Buddha walking down the road kill him [Music] which is a provocative enough statement that a lot of people have used it to grab attention just like I'm doing now and while it is open to interpretation it's not generally understood to mean that you should literally kill a man in the street but we'll get back to this I was first introduced to Buddhism by my dad when I was pretty young and well I don't consider myself a Buddhist per se and definitely don't practice meditation with any real regularity and generally I am just your average distracted self-absorbed Millennial desperately trying to cling to dreams of what I want my life to be like in the face of my own aging and the prospect of impending Global catastrophe in general inexorable existential malaise a lot of the ideas of Buddhism really resonate with me and I'm not the only one in recent years Buddhism has seen an explosion of popularity within Western culture take for example the practice of mindfulness meditation while it's often presented in the secular context it has clear Origins that Trace back to Buddhist teachings and it's kind of everywhere these days [Music] some have criticized this so-called mindfulness Mania or mcmindfulness as stripping away the ethical foundations of the practice and turning it into just another tool for increasing productivity or reducing stress in this desolate Wasteland of late stage capitalism see in traditional Buddhist teachings one of the goals of mindfulness is to bring you towards a greater compassion for all beings so if the goal of your meditation practice is simply to give you the mental Clarity to more effectively run a business that exploits the labor of your severely underpaid employees you might be missing the point one of the things that makes Buddhism unique when compared to other major religions is that it has often been more readily embraced by the scientific Community various Studies have been done looking at the potential mental benefits of meditation and the Dalai Lama is a frequent participant in scientific conferences and dialogues in the book why Buddhism is true author Robert Wright argues that Buddhist practices are uniquely suited to helping us overcome some of the negative aspects of our evolutionary programming you you may have even heard it said that Buddhism is more of a philosophy than a religion but philosopher Evan Thompson pushes back on this way of thinking in his book why I'm not a Buddhist where he refers to a concept he calls Buddhist exceptionalism Thompson feels that many practitioners of modern Buddhism are too quick to put it on a pedestal as something that is uniquely compatible with science or secular philosophy but in his opinion Buddhism is just as much a religion as Christianity or Islam popular and sometimes controversial atheist author podcaster neuroscientist philosopher and creator of the waking up meditation app Sam Harris has said he believes there's an argument to be made that Buddhist tradition taken as a whole represents the richest source of contemplative wisdom that any civilization has produced but he then goes on to say that he believes the wisdom of Buddhism is trapped within the religion of Buddhism Sam believes that the best way to access and spread the wisdom of Buddhism is to divorce it from the more overtly religious and dogmatic aspects of the practice which sounds like something an atheist would say this way of thinking generally aligns with a movement called secular Buddhism which views Buddhist teaching through a more rationalist lens and steps away from many of the Supernatural and ritualistic elements so what's up is Buddhism true does it deserve special consideration among other major religions is it more like a philosophy is it cool that so many people in the west are putting their own spin on Ancient Eastern traditions and in doing so possibly burying the underlying ethical foundations in favor of a much more individualistic and self-centered conception of Spiritual Awakening well I'm probably very much not the right person to answer any of these questions except for the first one which is purely rhetorical but this is YouTube and it's often hard to tell if you're listening to an actual expert or just another random white guy with a microphone so let's keep going remember the whole murdering the Buddha in the street thing from the beginning well in a foundational Buddhist text called The Diamond Sutra it is said that you should let go of all teaching even the Buddha's teaching so one possible interpretation of killing the Buddha is that you're more killing the idea that you need to find a Buddha in order to know the truth now keep in mind this is what's known in Zen as a koan which is an often seemingly paradoxical riddle or or story where if you think you've come up with a nice clever intellectual answer you're probably wrong what's the sound of one hand clapping the cake but all this points to a central idea in Buddhism which is that no specific teachings no texts no Masters can truly provide you with the answer you have to seek understanding for yourself through direct experience this goes hand in hand with the Buddhist idea of non-duality and learning to see through the illusion of words labels and Concepts now as I said many of these ideas were introduced to me as a kid but I remember starting to think that there was a bit of a contradiction here and I even asked my dad about it like if all that's true then why are there so many books about Buddhism why are there different schools of Buddhism why are there disagreements within the Buddhist Community about the best way to practice Buddhism essentially why are there so many labels and Concepts about something that is teaching you to ultimately transcend those now in hindsight this may have just been me trying to be a smart ass kid like wait you said words aren't important then why are there so many words see the essence of Buddhism is often conveyed non-verbally there's even a famous story of the Buddha giving a sermon where all he does is hold up up a single flower and while supposedly much of the audience was confused by it one of his pupils simply smiled understanding exactly what he meant and if that works for you well that's great but the truth is that most of us are pretty attached to words and speech and might feel a little ripped off if some dude just sat up there holding a flower the entire time Japanese zen master Suzuki roshi was once asked to summarize all of his teachings in a single phrase and he said this Everything Changes indeed the understanding of impermanence and the realization that our attachment to things is what causes us to suffer is one of the most fundamental truths in all of Buddhism so it's not to say that words and Concepts have no importance or no meaning it's just that an attachment to them or an over-reliance on them will always lead us astray to put it another way maybe Buddhism can't free us from but it can help us see it for what it really is which is and as you learn to see more clearly the hope is that you will naturally be led towards a greater compassion for other sentient beings or maybe not morality is a difficult topic and the way in which your religious beliefs do or do not make you a more moral person is definitely a topic for another video but my point is that well most religions are inevitably reinterpreted and modernized and split apart into different schools and denominations one of the things that makes Buddhism unique is that one of its core teachings is that all of those divisions are ultimately superficial so while some in the Buddhist Community might disagree with me I think it's wrong to be too attached to one style of Buddhism or one idea about the way Buddhism should be in the context of the modern world if nothing is permanent and everything changes then one of those things inconstant flux is Buddhism itself so I say go crazy with it kill the Buddha make up your own form of Buddhism make yourself the Buddha combine Jesus and Buddha and worship a Jesus Buddha subscribe to my YouTube channel because in the end nothing is sacred or everything is and I'm cool either way [Music]

Channel: Corey Campbell

Views: 27,178

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Id: ZQyYEbqTwDY

Length: 7min 46sec (466 seconds)

Published: Fri Dec 02 2022