Further to my recent post about academic commentary on the current situation in Burma, I came across an article in The San Francisco Chronicle that quotes two scholars who have interesting things to say about the religious dimension: Ingrid Jordt and Bruce Matthews. Anyone intrigued by some of the karmic implications of aid and disaster in Burma today will find this article is worth a look.
Scholarly comments on religion and the cyclone
May 16th, 2008 by Nicholas Farrelly · 33 Comments
Tags: Burma · Cyclone Nargis
33 responses so far ↓
1 david w // May 16, 2008 at 9:02 am
It might be reassuring to stigmatize the military elite’s Buddhist practices and beliefs as primitive (’animism’) and bizarre (non-mainstream), but I’d be interested in knowing exactly just which of their ideas and actions are outside the mainstream. Historically speaking, employing astrology is NOT non-traditional, non-mainstream mysticism and superstition, even if modernist Buddhists would like to imagine that to be the case. It is very established and very conventional and very common in Theravada countries, both past and present. Just like relying on other ’superstitions’ like divination, palm-reading, spirit mediums, etc.
This isn’t to say that other actions by the military - such as shooting monks and displaying total unconcern regarding other’s suffering - wouldn’t be deemed immoral from a conventional Buddhist perspective. But I don’t think that is what Clapp, for example, is refering to when she seeks to portray the generals as poor Buddhists.
2 Stephen // May 16, 2008 at 1:04 pm
In a related note, given Ingrid Jordt’s comment in Burma’s Mass Lay Mediation Movement that the SPDC’s recrowning of the Shwedagon Pagoda’s Htidaw (finial) in 2002 and the country’s lack (at the time) of any large-scale natural disaster was seen as an indication of the regime’s overwhelming parami and thus karmic legitimacy, the New Light of Myanmar carried an article on May 13th in which they assured all concerned that an assessment team had “conducted a survey to find out whether the Htidaw (Umbrella) of Shwedagon Pagoda was tilted at an angle due to the storm” and that despite the cyclone, the “Shwedagon Pagoda’s Htidaw remains intact“.
3 Robert // May 16, 2008 at 1:52 pm
“Historically speaking, employing astrology is NOT non-traditional, non-mainstream mysticism and superstition, even if modernist Buddhists would like to imagine that to be the case.“
Well, it may have happened frequently anyway but, DN 2 says:
“Whereas some brahmans and contemplatives, living off food given in faith, maintain themselves by wrong livelihood, by such “animal” arts as:
reading marks on the limbs (e.g., palmistry);
reading omens and signs;
interpreting celestial events (falling stars, comets);
interpreting dreams;
reading features of the body (e.g., phrenology);
reading marks on cloth gnawed by mice;
offering fire oblations, oblations from a ladle, oblations of husks, rice powder, rice grains, ghee, and oil;
offering oblations from the mouth;
offering blood-sacrifices;
making predictions based on the fingertips;
geomancy;
making predictions for state officials;
laying demons in a cemetery;
placing spells on spirits;
earth-skills (divining water and gems?);
snake-skills, poison-skills, scorpion-skills, rat-skills, bird-skills, crow-skills;
predicting life spans;
giving protective charms;
casting horoscopes —
he abstains from wrong livelihood, from “animal” arts such as these.”
4 davit // May 16, 2008 at 4:07 pm
agree,
Clapp repeats the typical protestant Western or is it orientalist approach to Buddhism. This view of Buddhism feads a rather simplistic view of the situation in Burma.
Regime = evil, violent and un-Buddhist,
People = simple, democratatic, compassionate non-violent Buddhists
In one sense the regime could be seen as an extreme form of a Thervaradan Buddhist state. In the eyes of its leaders, the people are simple and easily influenced by dangerous outside forces, therefore they need a wise elite to lead them. If the wise mind has to forcefully keep its untamed body in check by extreme ascetic discipline, then so be it. To have outsiders come in to care for its members is not only a loss of face but a potential cancerous infiltation of the mandala.
5 david w // May 16, 2008 at 9:56 pm
Robert,
I don’t deny that the Pali canon has certain passages regarding right livelihood that prohibit monastics from practicing astrology along with other ritual-cum-esoteric arts. But:
1) These passages are directed at monastics, and are not presumed to be moral instruction / prohibitions for lay people. It is a classic modernist presumption to imagine that lay people are supposed to model their behavior on the rules of practice for monastics. History indicates that this presumption was not shared by most historical (Theravadin) Buddhists.
2) There are other passages, narratives and stories within the Pali canon that indicate that clearly monastics did do such activities and that their performance was not so unusual or atypical.
3) The relevance of the Pali canon to the behavior, practices and education of even monastics is unclear in the living traditions of Theravada Buddhism. Few monks before the modern era read the Pali canon, much less in its entirety. (It is not even clear how widely available the Pali canon was to most living Buddhist communities.) Most of a monastics religious education was obtained through reading the vernacular canon that included much scripture, teachings and manuals that not infrequently diverged from specific teachings of the Pali canon (which was itself, ambiguous and contradictory on many points anyway, per #2).
4) The actual mainstream tradition of living Theravada Buddhism (in contrast to scriptural (Pali) orthodoxy) was formed out of a complicated interaction between the Pali canon, the Pali para-canonical tradition, the vernacular canon, and the localized oral customs, practices and beliefs of particular and/or regional Buddhisms. And in that actual, living ‘mainstream’ tradition, astrology, palm-reading, etc. were accepted, valued and pervasive.
5) The gist of my argument is this: when I think about mainstream tradition I don’t think of a limited scriptural canon that modern Western philologists have elevated into THE standard for proper Buddhism. I look to the more complicated, plural sets of normative references that actual historical Buddhists (in Burma, Thailand or wherever) have looked to themselves.
6 david w // May 16, 2008 at 10:23 pm
Stephen,
Thanks for passing on that ‘news’ about the Htidaw. I myself wondered about this point after reading a short account describing damage to the Shwedagon complex. However, given the propensity for newspapers to print regime propaganda and the fact that this account fits perfectly what we would expect the regime to claim, I would be interested if anyone has obtained reliable, third-party confirmation of the Htidaw’s status. After all, the newspapers also tell us that no one is dying of illness in the devastated delta, right?
7 Robert // May 16, 2008 at 11:57 pm
david w:
“The gist of my argument is this: when I think about mainstream tradition I don’t think of a limited scriptural canon that modern Western philologists have elevated into THE standard for proper Buddhism. I look to the more complicated, plural sets of normative references that actual historical Buddhists (in Burma, Thailand or wherever) have looked to themselves.”
If I understand you correctly by “plural sets of normative references” you mean people looking to things like the Mahavimsa (for Sinhalese for example) vs. the actual Pali Canon?
I know traditions don’t exactly follow the canon, I suppose I was just objecting to the suggestion that the anti-divination/mysticism stuff was somehow of modern invention. There just doesn’t seem to be anything in the canon encouraging divination, though some performing of “protective” chants and stuff is permitted if I remember correctly. Anyway, the person in the article is right I think if you define “mainstream” as “canonical”, but as you’re saying if you define it as what the average Theravada Buddhist in SE Asia thinks then you may be right. “Mainstream” was probably the wrong word to use there, but then again I tend to get the canonical view of things and am not enough of an anthropologist to know what is really “mainstream.”
I don’t think the anti-superstition ideas are limited to monastics though. In the Samyutta Nikaya in one set of suttas, the conditions of hell rebirths for people in various harmful professions (including fortune tellers) are described, suggesting that anyone practicing these things as a living is bound for a bad destination. I don’t remember the exact collection of suttas, but they all follow the formula: [Monk sees vision of corpse, etc, pierced by needles, etc.] [The Buddha says:] “That was a [fortune teller, etc] in this very Rajagaha.” Some of the other professions listed are things like “horse trainer” so it’s fairly obvious that he’s not talking about ascetics or something.
The frustrating thing about Buddhism is that it so readily syncretizes with various things people already believe, and it’s arguable if you can include whatever those various things are in Buddhism or if they’d just be doing those things whether Buddhism came along or not…..
8 jonfernquest // May 17, 2008 at 12:47 am
“Historically speaking, employing astrology is NOT non-traditional, non-mainstream mysticism and superstition, even if modernist Buddhists would like to imagine that to be the case. ”
I completely agree. All one has to do is to have lived there for a while amongst so-called (in Pali speak) “lay people” or “householders” [Pali imaginaire: gahapati] to understand that **what is considered superstition in white middle class western America** is just accepted reality in Burma and other countries where Buddhism thrives. Although even here there are degrees. Talk with the monk about your dreams, ok, but hire an “aut-lan hsaya” (black magician, sorcerer) to put a hex on your philandering father’s girl friend? But I have seen people who considered themselves religious do this.
That life and thought even in the Sangha has perhaps never really conformed to the expectations of “protestant Buddhism” (in the sense of Richard Gombrich and Gananath Obeyesekere) is certainly readily apparent from recent research by scholars such Peter Skilling (Pali scholar and current head of the Pali Text Society), Michael Charney (SOAS, author of Powerful Learning, 2006), and Gregory Schopen at UCLA.
Take Upagupta’s fight with Mara in which he uses a trick to hang a dog head around his neck and then engage in a knock down drag out fight in which they are continually changing form and shape (bull, garuda, you name it…), followed by Asoka’s so-called “auto-cremation” (lighting himself on fire as a form of worship). This is all going to offend nice bourgeousie sentiments, along with Asoka trying to run Upagupta over with an elephant when he first meets him (not polite), and little tidbits like a monk who vomits his food to feed a dog….etc.etc….in U Kala’s Mahayazawingyi this more raunchy folk part (from the Loka Pannyati cosmological work, in Pali but with Sanskrit origins) was all spliced together with the more rectifying and normative depiction of the Third Buddhist Council from the Sri Lankan Mahavamsa, but then the Upagupta part was completely cut out and censored when the Hmannan [Glass Palace] Chronicle chronicle was written in the modern era, 19th century. Some similar modernist editing of poor old Upagupta also took place in the Thai Traiphumi cosmology, I believe. In fact, it doesn’t make sense to think of a unified Tipitaka or Theravadan religion, historically, better just think localised monastic and textual lineages. In short, think local and you’re doing justice to the truth.
When good ol’ Samak came back from Burma came and gleefully told the media that **the Burmese generals meditate**, what an uproar. Because Samak is a “good old boy” type, he can probably understand the Buddhism that people actually practice a little bit better. He’s not one of these preaching protestant Buddhists like Chamlong Sri Muang who is going to change everyone in his own image.
My wife used to donate and prepare and cook in a big cauldron, Mohinka for the Dhammayangyis [lay female buddhist devotees] attending a meditation retreat at (former dictator) Khin Nyunt’s monastery (Nei Pyi-daw Kyaung) next to our apartment in Tamweilei township. Would I said to my wife, hey why are you making noodles for that killer-dictator-hsaut-kaung-gyi Khin Nyunt? Even though it was army interrogator who cracked her father’s skull against the wall 10 years before? Life is a little a lot more complex than many arrogant “educated” people assume.
9 Lleij Samuel Schwartz // May 17, 2008 at 3:38 am
re: Robert
What? Don’t tell me you’d have rather had a history of monks stoning people to death for “blasphemy against the Dharma,” now, would you?
10 david w // May 17, 2008 at 4:54 am
Robert:
By ‘plural sets of normative references’ I mean, in part, para-canonical scriptures and texts like the Mahavamsa (with the recognition that these literatures were themselves diverse and regionalized in character across the Theravada world, as Jon indicates in his post). But I also mean a whole range of non-scriptural texts, such as manuals of instruction regarding teachings, practices, behavior etc. Something similar perhaps to “Dhamma for Dummies”, “Paritta chanting for Dummies”. So rather than read the Pali or vernacular canonical scriptures, one could read summations, compilations, etc. Much actual training of monastics actually begins with such texts actually, at least today and presumably in the past, before moving on to the scriptures proper. And many monastics presumably never did and still never do move on to study the scriptures per se, or at least to any significant degree. In addition to these two textual (but non canonical forms) of knowledge and instruction, however, one must also add traditions of practice and belief passed on via oral and performative instruction but which are never formally textualized per se - i.e. local oral customs, etc.
Again, I don’t disagree that not only do certain parts of the Pali canon seek to prohibit monks from practicing ‘beastly arts’ but unvirtuous karmic consequences are also predicted for those who do engage in them, whether they are monastics or laity. My central point is that 1) in reading the Pali canon, it is useful to keep in mind that the presumed audience for the vast majority of its scripture are monastics. Laity would presumably have little interest in the general content, much less the details, of the Vinaya or Abhidhamma collections, for instance. Much the same is probably true for the Sutta collection as well. And 2) the Pali canon spends a lot of time discussing the proper behavior of monastics and very little in comparison discussing, at least in any detail, the proper behavior for the laity.
What you find frustrating about Buddhism - its syncretic propensities - is undoubtedly what anthropologists find most interesting! It is perhaps worth pointing out, however, that Buddhism is probably not any more frustrating in this sense than the other world historical religions. The monotheistic traditions, however, put a lot more energy into policing and regulating the boundary between a ‘pure’ scriptural orthodoxy and messy tradition and popular practice. They also seem to deploy more zeal in sometimes trying to eradicate those adaptations and syncretisms. Not that reformists - both modern and pre-modern - in Theravada Buddhism haven’t tried to do the same as well at various moments in history. While monks don’t stone people to death for blasphemy, they haven’t been above burning down spirit shrines, seeking to outlaw astrology, and condemning spirit mediums when the reformist / purifying impulse grabs them.
11 Robert // May 17, 2008 at 7:38 am
No, of course not. This isn’t a total dichotomy. I just mean it’s frustrating in the sense that Buddhism gets things attributed to it that technically weren’t really originally supposed to be a part of it. Then you get this argument of whether some belief is “Buddhist” simply because some Buddhist believe it, or if the term only applies to things that originate from certain sources that can be tied somehow to Siddhartha Gotama or whatever branch of Buddhism.
So you mean things like the Niyama Dipani (which is actually Burmese) and other Dipani on similar subjects. BTW, if you know of any of these that pertain to politics in some way (how laypeople should act, how kings should act, etc) I’d be interested in looking them up. I know Steven Collins has written about “Mode 1″ interpretation of Dhamma which involves a sort of conventional socially-imposed idea of justice, though I doubt any commentaries or manuals on this have been translated into English due to their political incorrectness.
I may be a bit naive with regard to this but I’m not totally unaware of it. It is kind of funny to see the beliefs the people in the US who study Buddhism and compare with actual people from Southeast Asia. Most of the beliefs considered superstitious by westerners (and it’s not limited to America, to be sure) that I have personally encountered tend to be “superstitious” interpretations of kamma.
What’s funny is that, just in wondering whether some of these interpretations of how kamma works are compatible with what’s stated in the Tipitaka, I’ve gotten blasted by other white westerners who’ve essentially told me I’m full of crap and don’t know anything about how kamma works.
Funny, but the beliefs that they’re claiming are crap seem to be basically what some Thai people I’ve known actually believe. I wonder if they’d go up to these Thai people and tell them they’re full of crap? Maybe I should arrange a conversation and see what happens.
So it’s quite true that westerners are out of touch with what actual people in say Southeast Asia believe, and I think part of it is that westerners inherit this Christian tradition of trying to figure out what a religion is really suppose to be about by reading scriptures and such. Not only does this tradition not exist in most places but most people are sort of lacking the research materials anyway….
12 Stephen // May 17, 2008 at 2:13 pm
Evaluating whether some belief is “Buddhist” seemingly depends on whether one is an anthropologist or a practicing Buddhist (not that one can’t be both). Most observers can acknowledge the syncretism of popular Theravada (and other) Buddhism, but from a Buddhist point of view a particular practice or doctrine is only ‘Buddhist’, per se, if it leads towards nibbana. Or as the Kalama Sutta suggests, it is only when “These qualities are skillful; these qualities are blameless; these qualities are praised by the wise; these qualities, when adopted & carried out, lead to welfare & to happiness” that they should be practiced.
Nevertheless, this doesn’t mean that folk beliefs and ‘un-orthodox’ practices can immediately be dismissed as un-Buddhist when measured against the Kalama Sutta. Winston King’s suggestion, when criticising the limited relevance of the “export Buddhism” which Westerners had largely taken as Buddhism proper, was to understand the diversity of belief and practice as fitting on a gradient leading towards nibbana. Nat worship and other popular practices are a Buddhist (i.e. nibbanic utilitarian) ‘good’ insofar as they allow Buddhism to embrace a wider audience without alienating those not interested in (or possibly, whose kamma is not ripe enough) scriptural study or vipassana. Nonetheless, such practices are only beneficial so long as they lead a person towards more refined dhammic practice (even if this happens over many lifetimes). If people get attached to nat worship or whatever and aren’t progressing towards nibbana, then there are legitimate Buddhist grounds for initiating reform.
13 Grasshopper // May 17, 2008 at 4:49 pm
I think taking a scientific approach to analysing spirituality will see whomever barking up the wrong tree. Socially, of course there are differences in interpretations of Buddhism accross borders because there are different cultures, but to (in my eyes) imply that one is more legitimate than the other is irrelevant because you can’t say what is a legitimate significance. Trying to deconstruct faith only results in nothing… Maybe I don’t quite follow what your point is Robert, other than to confirm whatever it is you believe. Westerners are out of touch with what actual people in South East Asia believe? Are you a Westerner? Have you attended a Western university? How do you know?!
14 Grasshopper // May 17, 2008 at 5:07 pm
*** I don’t mean that analysing spirituality is incorrect, I mean that trying to climb to some sort of moral truth through having a scientific deconstruction of a faith is irrelevant to people who have a significance to the faith, and therefore trying to use a deconstruction of the faith itself as a basis for determining right and wrong is hypocritical. It insists on social order being arbitrary and I can’t have a meal with someone in that sort of context, so good luck on the giddy ropes of misanthropy!
15 jonfernquest // May 17, 2008 at 9:51 pm
Stephen: “…from a Buddhist point of view a particular practice or doctrine is only ‘Buddhist’, per se, if it leads towards nibbana.”
On every Buddhist holy day my dear wife and my mother in law take a little basket of food and go to the monastery to feed all the people in our lives who are no longer with us on this planet earth (i.e. dead) and that includes my mother who died 30 years ago and our two pet dogs who died, and they they feed their spirits (I guess, any citations to the mechanics, history, precise terminology, of this sort of activity would be welcome). It is also probably relevant that they are Tai Lue, because I read somewhere (no systematic research) that Tai Lue unlike others, have rituals that involve **ancestors** (people in northern Thailand do have those spirit houses though). Maybe Terwiel’s book on comparative Tai ritual has details.
Anyway, my point is, that they are definitely **serious practicing Buddhists**, always observing the five precepts, and my mother in law the eight precepts sometimes, but apparently not preoccupied with “nibbana” like so many westerners are, just in being decent people, in fact I’ve never heard anyone in the family even mention the word or idea: nibbana. They are concerned about the danger of ghosts from time to time. I think they were just raised this way. Lucky.
16 Grasshopper // May 17, 2008 at 10:46 pm
*** “you can’t say what is a legitimate significance.” for someone other than yourself***.. anyway, I post again to say that what Stephen says is a far superior response.
17 Lleij Samuel Schwartz // May 18, 2008 at 12:11 am
re: jonfernquest
See here.
18 Robert // May 18, 2008 at 4:55 am
I’m not completely sure that’s accurate. Even if you’re an anthropologist it seem reasonable to distinguish between “originated from Buddhism” or “originated from somewhere else” rather than simply label a people “Buddhist” then attribute everything they believe to “Buddhism.” Furthermore you also have the idea of practices, as you mention, which are either encouraged, simply “ok”, or discouraged by canonical Buddhism.
For example, I don’t see why monks would burn spirit houses since you could see this practice of building them as a sort of brahma-vihara whether there are actual spirits there or not.
What you say makes sense though if you’re an anthropologist without any knowledge of Buddhism (or perhaps history even) who approaches a group of people, accepts whatever label they give for their beliefs (such as “Buddhist”) then tries to infer what “Buddhist” means simply based on their beliefs. If this is the case then the same anthropologist probably should come to the conclusion that Santaria is simply Christianity or something. Regardless though, i think the anthropologist would have to admit that their label of “Buddhist” was entirely local to that group.
This is exactly why I don’t see any problem with certain “superstitious” (from the point of view of westerners) beliefs. Some beliefs “lead toward”, some are basically neutral, and some do tend to “lead away” (like astrology).
I’m a westerner and I’ve attend a Thai Theravada temple for quite some time. Unlike some westerners though I actually talk to the Thai people instead of just ignoring them and going on with Dhamma class or meditation. I’ve also been studying this issue on my own to some extent. The “westerners” that I was primarily thinking of were Buddhist westerners. My guess is that non-Buddhist westerners may be even less likely to know what anyone else in the world anywhere believes.
It is true that my experiences are anecdotal. The Thai people I’ve known have usually been more like “reform” Buddhists. I’m not a scholar but I have been trying to study this kind of stuff on my own from a “scholarly” perspective. Next I think I’m going to look up Winston King….
19 Stephen // May 18, 2008 at 1:56 pm
Jon, thanks for that personal account and I think it fits in fine with the notion of the gradient of Buddhist practice. Just trying to be a “decent” person is a very wholesome way to live. But still such a life, from a Buddhist perspective, leads towards nibbana even if someone doesn’t verbalise the term “nibbana“. But here do we come to the point that people of Christian, Hindu, Islamic or whatever faith who lead ‘wholesome’ lives are reborn as Buddhists? Possibly. While such a statement may make non-Buddhists cringe, this perspective nevertheless allows for a large degree of tolerance within Buddhism (and thus the syncretism that’s so ubiquitous). So long as an act of thought, speech or deed is done with wholesome (i.e. selfless) intention, it leads towards the cessation of the self, and it’s somewhat besides to point to argue about whether it’s Buddhism proper. Although, the Buddha on his deathbed did urge, “All compounded things are subject to vanish. Strive with earnestness!“. So, I think the Buddhist take on things is that the shortest route to nibbana is superior to the long way around. Although Buddhism embraces a wide range of spiritual practice it nevertheless encourages people (according to their particular level of spiritual development) to move up the gradient of dhammic practice and towards the ultimate goal of nibbana.
20 jonfernquest // May 18, 2008 at 10:16 pm
Stephen, the first chapter of :
Tiyavanich, Kamala. Forest Recollections: Wandering Monks in Twentieth-Century Thailand. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1997.
Contrasts wonderfully the scholarly Pali imaginaire with more localised rural “folk Buddhism.” (Over the last six months I’ve been studying Pali rather intensively (studying matching English-Pali sentences in Buddhadhata’s Pali Primers during the walk to work, while keeping an eye out for sixteen wheelers emerging into Bangkok streets, as well as Jatakas and Suttas at home), and it seems from reflecting on the vocabulary in these texts that the **frequency of occurence of the word “nibbana” itself in Pali texts isn’t really that high**. Perhaps expressions that express the idea of nibbana and the “cessation of samsara” are more common, like “putting out the lamp.” Steven Collins book has more of those metaphors, I think. In the suttas people are always gaining sudden realisation and becoming arhants and that’s technically “attaining nibbana” or “final cessation” I guess too.)
Evaluating whether some belief is “Buddhist” seemingly depends on whether one is an anthropologist or a practicing Buddhist (not that one can’t be both).
If the world wasn’t such a screwed up place with so many laws preventing people of different cultures from living with each other **everyone would be an anthropologist**.
21 Robert // May 19, 2008 at 9:24 am
My perception (whether accurate or not) is that most laypeople in Buddhist countries don’t really see the point of nibbana and instead are basically shooting for higher rebirth by being virtuous and such. My personal guess as to why this isn’t the case in the west is that in the west only the people who see some point to nibbana get interested in Buddhism. The ones who don’t (and thus want to pursue “higher rebirth” in one form or another) end up following another more common religion that talks about virtue and essentially what amounts to higher rebirth.
One scholar divided de facto Buddhist practice as being concerned with three things: protective “magic” (evil spirits, etc), higher rebirth, and finally nibbana. I don’t remember the scholar’s name or the exact terms he used for these things. Does anyone know?
(And yes, the offering of merit to hungry ghosts is canonical. I can provide the actual sutta talking about that if interested. It is worth noting that this is only supposed to work, according to the sutta, for hungry ghosts, not other lower or higher forms of rebirth.)
22 jonfernquest // May 19, 2008 at 10:08 pm
Thank you, Lleij Samuel Schwartz, for that link to an explanation of providing food for ancestors.
But the explanation in that book by a Pali scholar on Buddhist ethics, does not address local variants or lineages of Buddhism (such as Tai Yuan or Tai Lu), except for the Chinese Mahayana, in passing.
It’s this sort of book by western scholars that attempts to dictate authoritatively once and for all what is correct, without admitting the **fundamental contingent nature of most Buddhist texts**, that perhaps should be questioned a little bit more.
As for the fundamental contingent nature of Buddhist texts, **every successive reformation changed the textual corpus, and then asserted that the reformed product had eternal relevance**. Anne Blackburn (2001) goes into the process for the 18th century Syam Nikaya reform in Sri Lanka in great detail. I would say that overall this was usually a very **political process rooted in samsara**.
**Debate may well have been the initial natural norm between viharas**, which after all did begin as many decentralised and localised communities. The behavioural rules of the Vinaya do not exclude intellectual diversity. There were periods of lively debate between several different schools of Buddhism at places like **Nalanda University or at the Abhayagiri Vihara** before Parakramabahu I’s assertion of Mahavihara hegemony. (see De Silva’s history of the Polonnnaruva Dynasty or Mahavamsa Tika).
Growing political centralisation may well have made unity within the Sangha essential, and then you find kings performing reformation, and asserting the one true practice and interpretation, but from a broader perspective, this itself **might** be samsara. Anyway, this is just one interpretation and broadly construed, there does seem to be a tremendous amount of diversity and tolerance within Buddhism.
Robert: “…the offering of merit to hungry ghosts is canonical. I can provide the actual sutta talking about that if interested. ”
I am.
Parittas to provide protection from danger, are routinely memorized by lay people in Burma, and are extremely important, and don’t seem to have much to do with nibbana. Also the Avadanas/Apadanas provide numerous of cases of small but sincere offerings that lead immediately to a better rebirth and in the long run to nibbana. John Strong’s article on the Avadanas is good to read. Lay Buddhists are important too.
23 Stephen // May 20, 2008 at 12:51 pm
Jon, thanks for the book recommendation. I see what you say about the overt reference to nibbana being infrequent in cases, especially in the Thai forest tradition which you mention. Perhaps one of the reasons why Ajahn Chah’s teachings are so popular are their everyday focus on mindfulness, rather than the seemingly distant goal of nibbana. However, Ajahn Mun, one of the grand daddies of the Thai forest tradition, did make an explicit vow “not to be reborn again.” While the many “local variants or lineages” are plentiful, it still seems as though there are limits to a cultural relativist approach to Buddhism. Despite the diversity, as far as I understand it, Buddhism has a clear internal measure of legitimate practice; and this measure is whether an action is “wholesome” and leads to a “cessation” of attachment to the self and the related suffering which such attachment entails. Within these limits, however, there is plenty of room for diversity and debate. But to suggest that any practice that would call itself “Buddhist” is a legitimately Buddhist “local variant or lineage”, seems to go a bit too far.
24 jonfernquest // May 21, 2008 at 3:55 pm
Stephen: “Despite the diversity, as far as I understand it, Buddhism has a clear internal measure of legitimate practice; and this measure is whether an action is “wholesome” and leads to a “cessation” of attachment to the self and the related suffering which such attachment entails.”
I find it difficult to see how grand statements like “Buddhism has X” or “Buddhism believes X” are even possible. All that I’ve ever seen is plural hybrid Buddhism*s*, Buddhism mixed with something else, a local culture. Based on discussions, many westerners seem to believe that they practice a universal culturally sanitized version.
Perhaps the influence and example set by monks for lay people is important for “wholesomeness” and “cessation of attachment to the self” among lay people. The book by Kamala Tiyavanich above describes monks mixing a with lay people before rigid standards were imposed by the “reformed” urban center (which also enforced exclusion of women from the Sangha). This mixing with lay people is certainly something completely missing from modern urban Bangkok, where after work all one finds are a completely unwholesome mixture of massage parlours, luxury department stores, and bars. I find it hard to see how a highly cloistered Sangha that does not actively mix with lay people is conducive to mindfulness among lay people. They leave a large gap for Christian missionaries.
Peter Skilling despite being such a mild-mannered guy, presents some rather radical theses (albeit discretely and politely) about localised but connected intellectual lineages in Buddhism:
Peter Skilling, “Geographies of Intertextuality: Buddhist Literature in Pre-modern Siam ” Aseanie 19 (2007).
Peter Skilling, King, Sangha, and Brahmans: Ideology, Ritual, and Power in Pre-modern Siam, In Buddhism, Power and Political Order / ed. by Ian Harris. - London: Routledge, 2007 - (Routledge Critical Studies in Buddhism)
Things I’ve learned from Skilling’s papers and talks he gave at the Siam Society: Many of the murals in temples at Pagan, Burma were influenced by strains of thought from Nalanda University and the Pala dynasty as was Tibetan Buddhism. In fact, the oldest Thai commentary was originally written in Sanskrit but now only exists in the Tibetan language. Local lineages were certainly connected and communicating, enforcing some universal Budddhist standards.
25 david w // May 22, 2008 at 10:57 am
Stephen,
It isn’t evident to me just how effective Buddhism’s supposed “clear internal measure of legitimate practice” is given the amazing plurality of practices and beliefs existing within the tradition. Unlike Catholicism, Buddhism is famous, like Islam, for lacking any clear, definitive authoritative hierarchy. Thus the incredible profusion of sectarian traditions of vinaya practice and theological discourse in India. And when one rolls geographical and ethnic diversity into the mix, the proliferations of Buddhisms becomes so profuse as to leave a number of modern scholars, ala what Jon has said, to wonder if there is any singular “Buddhism” underneath and behind all that diversity. I think in fact you can extend that suspicion of singularity to the supposedly coherent and bounded traditions of Mahayana, Theravada, Vajrayana as well, which also dissolve as singular, coherent, well-bounded entities upon close analysis.
Buddhists throughout history have seriously disagreed with each other over what is virtuous and what is conducive to liberation. While appeal to those categories, in the sense of the style and rhetoric of disagreement, may unite them, substantively and logically they have all too often reached very different substantive conclusions about what counts as virtuous and conducive to enlightenment.
While modernist reformers look to the (Pali) textual canon as the final arbiter, this is only so successful in practice regarding the lived tradition as I have indicated previously. Moreover, what is frequently overlooked is how each reforming project creates a new invented tradition of great antiquity, again as Jon has pointed to. In addition though, I think modern scholars of Thai Buddhism, for instance, fail to recognize how much this new universal vision of Thai Buddhism advanced by the reformers is deeply partial and biased in its royalist and Central Siamese presumptions. While Kamala has highlighted the latter dimension, few have commented on how the Chakri dynasty sought to make their royalist Buddhist literatures, sensibilities and moral compass THE standard by which the Buddhism of a new nation state was understood as a uniquely timeless and universal Buddhism.
26 Robert // May 22, 2008 at 3:26 pm
Jon: Check out AN 10.177 Janussonin Sutta - To Janussonin (On Offerings to the Dead) Translated from the Pali by Thanissaro Bhikkhu.
Excerpt:
So that is the canonical basis for the dedication of merit to peta. It is worth noting that the food isn’t simply burned or something; in my experience it is given to monks, then the monks chant while the laypeople pour water into bowls. Thus the good kamma of giving food to monks is dedicated. The food itself isn’t literally “given” somehow such as by burning.
Nat worship is different though. There are various protective chants but there’s no imperative to build spirit houses or anything, as far as I know, in the canon. I don’t think there’s anything against it though. I think the idea is that being concerned for the welfare of all beings is good, so if you think there’s a being somewhere it makes sense to be concerned for it.
27 Robert // May 22, 2008 at 3:36 pm
Is there some way to RSS subscribe to comments on this blog post? The mail subscription thing isn’t working for me. Thanks.
28 Nicholas Farrelly // May 23, 2008 at 1:17 am
Hi Robert,
The back-office of New Mandala recently underwent a major upgrade and it appears that not everything is back to full functionality.
We are currently trying to troubleshoot the issue with the mail subscription feature. And we hope, of course, that we can offer a fix in the coming days. Thanks for your patience, and for drawing this issue to our attention.
Best wishes,
Nich
29 jonfernquest // May 23, 2008 at 12:28 pm
Thank you Robert for the reference to Janussonin Sutta (On Offerings to the Dead). That sounds exactly like what I saw, but water was thrown over people also, as a sort of blessing, I guess, and the food was given to Akhas waiting outside.
30 Robert // May 23, 2008 at 2:09 pm
Nicholas: Looks like it’s working now. Thanks!
Jon: That’s interesting. In my experience the water was just poured on trees or used to water plants, after the chanting. I have seen water scattered on people with a sort of bamboo whisk/brush thing as a blessing but only very rarely. My experiences are mostly at a Thammayut monastery and I think they kind of frown on too much “superstitious” ritual. (I was just reading about how King Mongkut, founder of the Thammayut, rejected the traditional Buddhist/Hindu/Indian cosmology in favor of modern science along with rejecting a lot of superstitious practices.)
What does Akhas refer to?
31 jonfernquest // May 24, 2008 at 12:19 am
Robert, I guess you can call them “supersititions” if you want to, but given that I live with the people who take them seriously. I have to show proper respect, even to those Jatukam amulets.
Michael Charney’s new book Powerful Learning (2006) discusses the Burmese analogue of what King Mongkut did with the Thammayut, documented by Craig Reynolds in his 1972 PhD dissertation.
In Burma they had a 100 year ongoing dispute in the Sangha on the way that the robes of monks should ne wrapped over their shoulders when they enter into villages for alms.
I think the bottom line is that as states got bigger, and they had to in the face of European colonialism, Kings had to assert control over people, economics, religion, culture, you name it. Basically, use it (and put a boundary down), or lose it. (This is supposedly the origin of the Prah Vihear dispute).
If local customs or rituals defy the laws of physics or other science, I just look at them as a form of poetry. Hopefully, it’s not poetry that makes people violent and nationalistic.
32 Robert // May 28, 2008 at 3:17 pm
I actually have some of those amulets though I’m not sure if they are that specific type. I should have put “superstitious” in quotes since I was really talking about whatever King Mongkut had declared a discouraged practice (and I’m not sure exactly what that list is. I should do some reading.)
The thing is that some of these practices, even if they seem irrational to some, can still be helpful to people. For example, people with sleep paralysis often think they’re being harassed by a ghost at night. In reality this is a mental condition brought on by anxiety and can be treated with anti-anxiety drugs, but often some sort of protective charm will help prevent the disorder because it reduces the anxiety that causes the condition. (People feel safer knowing the ghost will be scared off by the charm, reducing their anxiety.)
So all of these practices have to be looked at in terms of whether they’re harmful, harmless, or actually helpful somehow rather than whether they’re based on empirical science or something.
33 jonfernquest // May 30, 2008 at 8:43 am
Robert, thanks, this discussion has been fruitful for me, prompting me to do some research on Tai “hybrid” Buddhisms. The following references are useful:
Tanabe, Shigeharu (1991) Religious traditions among Tai ethnic groups: a selected bibliography, Ayutthaya : Ayutthaya Historical Study Centre.
“Buddhist Proselytism, c. 1400-1560,” in Victor Lieberman’s Strange Parallels: Southeast Asia in Global Context, c. 800-1830,” Cambridge University Press, 2003, has a good overview of the development of Buddhism in early Tai polities. It also cites all the important western papers on the subject.
“From Opposition to Syncretism: A Preliminary Analysis of the Tai Lue religion,” by Leshan Tan, in the proceedings of the 4th Thai Studies Conference in Kunming, referenced in the Tanabe bibliography above, has a very interesting discussion of the development of Tai Lue religion, with a lot of references to primary sources in Chinese. There are other papers in the proceedings, but they seem to suffer from methodological and terminological problems like referring to Tai Lue marriage customs as “free love” or religious practices as “primitive taboos.” Apparently, most of the work on Tai Lu religion is in Chinese without (yet) a thorough bibliographical study to guide the scholar like Foon Ming Liew and Grabowsky’s “An Introduction to Tai Lu sources of the History of Moeng Lu (Sipsong Panna),” published in Aseanie, decembre 2004.
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