Buddhism in a Secular World

Alan Watts, a 20^th century philosopher who is best known for his works in eastern philosophy once said that understanding Buddhism is like grabbing water, at first you see the water is there, but when you grab it, you realize that there is nothing there. It is true, in a philosophical sense that the concepts of Buddhism are as fleeting to grasp as water is. Buddhism is a religion of many parables from Zen Masters, and understanding it is like understanding the nature of mind, but that is probably because to study Buddhism is to study the mind. As a secular humanist one of the things that most attracted me to Buddhism is the fact that Buddhism as a religion is secular in nature. That is to say that Buddhist need not believe in the existence of any god or gods in the traditional sense. This I believe makes Buddhism extremely unique in comparison to the majority of world religions which center around questions of the supernatural. To Alan Watts, Buddhism was more of a form of psychotherapy and not a religion at all. While the layman commonly confuses and equates Buddha to the deity of Buddhism, this is not the case. In a sense, the religion that we call Buddhism can be thought to be a form of apathetic agnosticism; it does not care about the existence or non-existence of gods.

The exact translation in Sanskrit of Buddha means, “to become awoken,” or “awakened one.” The Buddha is just a label for a man, like Christ is a label for a man (or king) who has been anointed with a mixture of oils (Hanh). The Buddha's real name was Siddhartha Gautama. He was a prince born to a royal Hindu family of the Sakya Dynasty in Kapilvastu, Lumbini (Nelson). Although a descendant of royalty, he was a regular man like you and I. There is much to say about the legends of his birth, but we will for the purposes of this short essay ignore the historical ambiguities of his birth and focus on the center of his teachings.

Throughout his early years the young prince was sheltered from the outskirts of the kingdom by his father, King Shuddhodana (Gyatso). When he grew older, guided by his curiosity, he ventured into the world beyond and during these trips he observed four sights; an old man, a sick man, a corpse and an ascetic. These four sights had a great impact on the young prince and made him realize the suffering of all beings and compelled him to begin his spiritual journey which led to his enlightenment. The important thing to consider is that he was just a mortal man who made certain observations about the nature of human suffering and proposed a set of teachings in order to live better lives, or as a means to end the suffering. The observations that he made are known in Buddhism as the Four Noble Truths; suffering is universal, desire causes suffering, ceasing to desire relieves suffering and escape from suffering is provided by the eight fold path. (Fiero)

The path that Buddha proposed to be free from suffering are known as The Eight Fold Path; right view, right intention, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, and right concentration (Knierim). The first two deal with faculties of analytical thought and wisdom, the next three with ethical conduct and the control of personal behavior, and finally the last three with mental development and generally becoming a better person. The eightfold path is really the equivalent of any model for positive behavior and growth that the secular world has to offer. Perhaps it is even better than most I have seen because it also focuses on self-awareness. We should be interested in the correlation between meditation and neurological brain chemistry, and the role that that plays on human physiology as well as on the psyche. These are the core teachings of the Buddha and they offer the foundation for my conclusions.

As you can see Karma and Reincarnation are not fundamental cores of Buddhist teaching. While the Buddha spoke frequently about rebirth (upupatti) he did not speak about reincarnation. Since he taught the doctrines of *impermanence* and *non-self* (anatman), there is nothing that could reincarnate. This was part of the Buddha's overall rejection of the core truths of the Vedic/Hindu tradition. Some scholars or religious adherents may argue that he actually believed some variant of traditional Hindu concept of reincarnation; however, it was only as an expedient. “He did not believe in traditional reincarnation but since his listeners were so bought into it, he used it as an expedient means (upaya) to convey much more pragmatic practices.” (Lantz) Another thing one must consider is that the Buddhist scriptures, including the Tripitaka (or Pali Canon), the Mahayana Sutras, and The Tibetan Book of the Dead, were written hundreds of years after his death and although literal reincarnation stories exist in the scriptures they are not likely those of the Buddha but added later by editors.

Now that we have established the foundation of Buddhist teachings and separated fact from fiction in terms of its supernatural theology, let us briefly examine The Eightfold Path from a secular perspective so that I may properly address the issues at hand. The first of the eight fold path is right view. It is the cognitive aspect of wisdom. It begins with the intuitive insight that all beings are subject to suffering and it ends with complete understanding of the true nature of all things (Knierim). Then we have right values, which are a commitment to mental and ethical growth in moderation. This is the goal of critical thinking and rational discourse, in order to achieve liberation from ignorance we examine what we know and what we believe, create order out of chaos, and understanding out of ignorance. Next we have right speech. One should speak in a non-hurtful, not exaggerated, truthful way. If we are to consider the wellbeing of others, it becomes evident that going about insulting and hurting others emotionally is not the most effective manner for a civilized society to conduct itself. Most people would agree that it is not right to unnecessarily hurt others with our words, it is simply not profitable or in the best of interests of a society as a whole to function in this manner. Then we have right actions which are in essence a product of our values. Wholesome action, avoiding action that would do harm. This again is a question of secular morality. Every cause has an effect, sometimes the effects are negative, and sometimes they are positive. One need not believe in a supernatural existence to understand or agree with these statements, but rather simply partake in honest rational deliberation about the suffering of others and how our own actions and words can affect that. It is not necessary to go further and debate why positive reactions are better than negative reactions, for I am hoping this presupposition is one you are willing to accept.

The fifth path is right livelihood, one's job does not harm in any way oneself or others; directly or indirectly. For example, a weapon maker, drug dealer, a soldier of combat, etc. There is a movie by Nicholas Cage's called Lord of War that charts the life of the Ukrainian immigrant Yuri Orlov from his early days in the early 1980's in Little Odessa, selling guns to mobsters in his local neighborhood (Carvalho). His business of gunrunner supplying illegal weapons in disturbed areas of the planet increases with the end of the Cold War, and Yuri bribes a Russian general to sell most of his arsenal. Meanwhile, he becomes a millionaire, making a profit at the expense of others.

Then there is right effort. One should make an effort to improve. Only psychologically afflicted people ignore this. It is common sense to want to become a better person. We desire, some of us anyways, to acquire an education and learn more every day, to become better fathers or mothers to our children, to grow more aware or conscious of our own behavior, learning from our mistakes. We all want better, we all desire a comfortable and happy life and to make the world a better place. We should all want this because it is beneficial to all sentient life including ourselves, and not just because it is a rule or commandment that one must obey or else suffer the consequence. In comparison, Christian and Islamic morality is partly driven by egocentric motifs where one is focused around the rewards and punishment of our behavior, or worse yet, punished for what are supposed to be our private thoughts.

Following right effort we have right mindfulness, the mental ability to see things for what they are with clear consciousness. Great examples are abusive relationships, drug addictions, and even dealing with traumatic experiences. “Modern clinical psychology and psychiatry since the 1970's have developed a number of therapeutic applications based on the concept of mindfulness.” (Anonomous) In 1970, Dr. Jon Kabat-Zinn founded the Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction program at the University of Massachusetts to treat the chronically ill. There is indeed and objective correlation that can be measured between mind and physiology in modern science. (Kabat-Zinn)

Finally, we have reached the last of the eight fold path, right meditation. What is implied in Buddhist philosophy is a state where one reaches enlightenment and the ego has disappeared. This is the most interesting one to me in my study of neuroscience, consciousness, and psychoactive entheogens. They are all, none the less, a study of cognitive psychology and mental properties. Meditation is nothing more than an individual training his or her mind to induce a mode of consciousness, either for some benefit or as an end in itself. If you can manage to seep past the new age nonsense in your local book store that has been recently interwoven into meditation, you will soon realize that at its core there is nothing mystical about it.

In Buddhism there are no applications for ritual in the supernatural realm, only systematic rituals designed to heal the mind of internal conflict. The Dhammapada (“moral path”), a collection of 423 verses compiled by Buddhist scribes preserving the sayings of The Buddha, essentially deals with moral conflict as questions of how our actions effect the well-being of others including ourselves (Fiero). The Buddhas approach to morality was one that dealt with questions of how we control our own thoughts. In the opening verses of the Dhammapada he says, “all that we are is the result of what we have thought: it is founded on our thoughts, it is made up of our thoughts. If a man speaks or acts with an evil thought, pain follows him, as the wheel follows the foot of the ox that draws the carriage. All that we are is the result of what we have thought: it is founded on our thoughts; it is made up of our thoughts. If a man speaks or acts with a pure thought, happiness follows him, like a shadow that never leaves him.” (Muller) As you can see, unlike the dominant monotheistic religions of the world, or even some ancient polytheistic ones, these are not moral constants that one must obey, nor are they absolutes that exist objectively. They do not appeal to the emotional well-being of jealous and sometimes violent gods who behave irrationally. Buddhism is rational morality, morality that is centered on the question of the wellbeing of sentient beings. The 14^th Dalai Lama, the political and spiritual authority of Tibet recently sent out a message to the world that I believe emphasizes my point, “All the world's major religions, with their emphasis on love, compassion, patience, tolerance, and forgiveness can and do promote inner values. But the reality of the world today is that grounding ethics in religion is no longer adequate. This is why I am increasingly convinced that the time has come to find a way of thinking about spirituality and ethics beyond religion altogether.”

Siddhartha Gautama is estimated to have been born sometime around 556 BCE. Although it is not sure exactly when and there is still debate on the matter, the discrepancies are only a small distance apart. Siddhartha may have lived so long ago, but his philosophical works should not be discredited by westerners and secularists with little patience for religious ad hok. I assume you, the reader, are familiar with Socrates and Plato, two of the greatest philosophers of Hellenic culture whom are responsible for contributing more to the development of western philosophy than probably any other great thinker. As a matter of fact some even call Socrates the father of western philosophy. Socrates was born in 469 BCE, roughly around the same time period as Siddhadrtha, and Plato was his student. They were citizens of the city-state (polis) of Athens. These two men lived over 2500 years ago, yet their secular philosophical ideas and opinions are still of great source of knowledge to anyone who begins a quest in the realm of critical thinking in the western world today. In the Apology, Plato writes his version of the speech given by Socrates as he defended himself in 399 BCE against the charges of “corrupting the young, and by not believing in the gods in whom the city believes, but in other dalmonia that are novel.” (Miller)

Let us take a look at the constitution of the United States of America for a brief moment. It is also a secular guideline for behavior within the government body and its given society. These philosophical systems are simply guidelines (in this case they are laws) for behavior in the collective mass of human existence. Buddhism, along with a small handful of eastern religions and other world views, does not propose to answer questions about the origin of the universe. This is an essential principle that any naturalist must surely appreciate. One of the biggest problems with religion in the modern world is the perversion of scientific knowledge as well as its ability to handicap scientific advancement. For example, stem cell research, one of the most promising medical advancements in human history, withers away in the hands of the collective mass of human ignorance which rather concern itself with gay marriage, pre-marital sex and abortion than to come face to face with the grim reality of human suffering and our ability to minimize it with modern breakthroughs in science and medicine. It is because of this that we cannot dump all religions into one basket.

Buddhism is indeed unique as a world religion and quite frankly a breath of fresh air. It does not propose cosmological explanations, does not propose an afterlife or eternal life, does not propose belief in god or gods or any other entity that may exist beyond space time (whatever that even means). It does not propose a supernatural world of any kind, and does not propose miracles of any kind, that is, the suspension of natural laws. In fact, the only reason we call Buddhism a religion at all is because what is does do is propose a problem (suffering), and propose a solution (awareness). Their system of becoming aware is nothing more than cognitive psychology and the conscious reprogramming of human neuro-brain chemistry. Although understanding Buddhism may take one a life time to accomplish, for practical purposes, understanding what it is not instead proves to be much more beneficial to us in an world beset with faith based religions. Maybe Alan Watts was correct all along, and Buddhism is not at all a religion but instead one of the first forms of psychotherapy in human history. The British scholar, teacher, and author Stephen Batchelor once said, “his [Buddha's] awakening is not about some privileged state of mind or the unconditioned state but rather about a complex of truths. He awakens to a way of understanding the world and then a way of behaving in the world.”

Works Cited

Anonomous. Wikipedia. n.d. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mindfulness_%28psychology%29>.

Carvalho, Claudio. IMDB.com. 2007. <http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0399295/>.

Fiero, Gloria K. Landmarks in Humanities Third Edition. Christopher Freitag, 2013.

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Hanh, Thich Nhat. Living Buddha Living Christ. 2007.

Kabat-Zinn, Dr. Jon. Full Catastrophe Living: Using the Wisdom of Your Body and Mind to Face Stress, Pain, and Illness. Random House Publishing Group, 1990.

Knierim, Thomas. The Big View. n.d. <http://www.thebigview.com/buddhism/eightfoldpath.html>.

Lantz, Sabio. Triangulations.worldpress.com. 17 10 2010. <http://triangulations.wordpress.com/2010/10/17/did-the-buddha-teach-traditional-reincarnation/>.

Miller, (Plato) Paul Allen. The Apology. Univerity of Oklahoma Press, 2010.

Muller, F. Max. The Dhammapada: Path of Virtue. Penguin Classics, 2002.

Nelson, Walter Henry. Buddha His Life and His Teachings. Great Britain: Penguin Group, 2000.