This page criticizes the religious aspect of Buddhism but praises the worldwide social work done in its name. A great force for good in international politics, the only religion to hold that position, Buddhism is unfortunately another example of a religion of historical mistake and confusion, having little merit in its obfuscation and mysticism. It supports a wonderful intelligence, but fails to justify its ultimate delusions.
All elements of Buddhism were borrowed and taken from already existing ideas in India. Just like Christianity, Islam, and all other religions, it was formed from the beliefs of the present culture, a mixture of various trends of the time. It was not a sudden, new, unique revelation. It grew slowly. The teachings of its founder were not written down by the founder himself but written down by many people many years later (four centuries or so) exactly the same as Christianity (60-200 years) and Islam (one generation), and then argued over due to the differences. It shows all the hallmarks of a mythical set of stories, happening into a religion as a mistake.
"What doctrines, it must now be asked, were special to Buddhism? Not Karma, that was common property which Buddhism shared. Not in asserting that a right mind was superior to sacrifice, that was a primary doctrine of the Jains, and pre-Buddhistic, both within and without the pale of Brahmanism. Not in seeking a way to salvation independently of the Vedas, that had been done by many teachers in various sects. Not in the doctrine that defilement comes not from unclean meats but from evil deeds and words and thoughts; Buddhist writers themselves say that is derived from previous Buddhas. Not in the search for peace through self-control and renunciation; that was the quest of a myriad recluses and all previous Buddhas. Not in the view that there is a higher wisdom than that attained by austerities; that, too, is pre-Buddhistic. Not in the doctrine that non-Brahmans could join an Order and attain religious blessedness; other orders were open to men of low social status and even to slaves. Indeed, the rigid separation of caste was not yet established in the early days of Buddhism.The admission of women was not an innovation as it was practiced by the Jains, and even the tradition makes the Buddha accept it reluctantly in the twenty-fifth year of his preaching."
"Pagan Christs" by JM Robertson
"For the first five hundred years the Scriptures were orally transmitted. They were written down only at the beginning of the Christian era, because at that time the decline in faith threatened their continued survival in the memories of the monks. Different schools wrote down different things. [...] The years between A.D. 100 and 400 were the golden age of Buddhist literature."
"Buddhist Scriptures" by Edward Conze, Penguin Books, 1959. p12
"The historicity of Buddha is accepted by all. But there is no unanimity of the date. In Sri Lanka, 483 BC is accepted as the date of his nirvana while in Burma 544 BC is accepted. In Tibet it is believed to be 835 BC, while in China, 11th century BC is the accepted date. Buddha was an Indian and the Indian Puranic tradition believes that the nirvana took place in 1793 or 1807 BC"
Stories of "The Buddha" are compiled stories from multiple people and multiple events, canonized and amalgamated, there was no singular "Buddha" as is traditionally taught in Buddhism, and no aspect of Buddhism is other than that you'd expect to find in early India. In short, it is entirely possible that there was no Buddha and that the stories of the Buddha's life were merely the same stories of similar lives of other sages, given a new catchy name. Such is the way religions are developed! Some modern Buddhist apologists have acknowledged this and said that Buddhism is the revival of the stories of the last Buddha, thousands of years beforehand, therefore claiming that Buddhism pre-emptively informed Indian beliefs. This is similar to the Christians saying that Satan planted on the Earth many religious beliefs similar to Christianity in the first century, so as to discredit Christianity when it emerged. Such explanations seem to be rather paranoid and rash! The truth is, Buddhism and Christianity were copies of earlier beliefs developed in the same way as other religions developed from culture and history.
According to the 2001 National Census, in England there are 152 000 Buddhists, 0.3% of the population.
What we think of as "Buddhism" is too limited by the Pali scriptures and too influenced by self-help mysticism, whereas Buddhism contains much more in the way of superstition, ritual and dogma than we'd like to see.
Western Buddhism is simplified, compartmentalized and has its real heart removed. The community (sangha) of Buddhism in the West is completely missing[Jones, p275-6], Buddhism is a social religion, not a solitary one, yet in the West Buddhism is practiced completely solitarily. What most Westerners think of as Buddhism is hardly any more than New Age mysticism with a more respectable name.
Buddhism is not suited to specialized cultures where life, work, pleasure, relationships, entertainment, spirituality, are all in different boxes. Buddhism is too dogmatically holistic, whereas New Age is the opposite: Dogmatically individualistic. What many Westerners consider Buddhism is merely the more respectable elements of Westernized Indian New Age.
In Buddhism, ultimate transcendental reality is nirvana, complete abolition of the self. The same dilemma faces Buddhists as faces theists: Why is it that there are any beings at all that are not in this perfect state?
The common defence is that it is somehow better if little bits of consciousness are deluded for a while before returning to Nirvana... but how can anything be "better" at all, when compared to Nirvana? How can Nirvana be bettered? If it can be "bettered", how is it different from the real world? The questions have remained unanswered by Christians and Buddhists for two thousand years. The answer is that there is no God to put people into Heaven, and also there is no Heaven or Nirvana for the forces that be to usher us in to.
Buddhism has the greatest record for peace and morality. Considering its size it has a wonderfully surprising record, Christianity, Islam and other religions' more peaceful elements only come equal to Buddhist movements. War, intolerant killing, torture, ignorance, monopolisation and coercion are hardly present in Buddhist societies. Compared with other powerful religions, Buddhism is saintly.
But nonetheless, various forms of Buddhism in various times have been instruments of war and violence. Buddhist sects have argued and fought over doctrine, over populations and methods, over pride and national independence.
"Conze has argued [...] that 'some of the success of the [Tibetan Buddhist] Gelug-pa [sect] was due to the military support of the Mongols, who, during the seventeenth century, frequently devastated the monasteries of the rival Red sects. The long association of Japanese Zen Buddhism with military prowess and aggressive imperialism has already been noted... [...] and Trevor Ling has argued that South-East Asian Buddhist kingdoms were as militarily aggressive and self-seeking as any others. Walpola Rahula [describes] a war of national independence in Sri Lanka in the second century BC conducted under the slogan 'Not for kingdom, but for Buddhism'""The Social Face of Buddhism" by Ken H Jones, p285-286
Buddhism has integrated itself with governments and found itself manipulating the populace just as many other religions have done.
"After the Meiji Restoration feudalism was replaced by a State dedicated to overseas expansion, and the Zen establishment found a new role in nurturing absolute obedience to it and supporting imperial wars of conquest. In the 1930s Zen Masters occupied themselves more and more with giving military men Zen training [...]. The events of this military epoch in the history of Zen have been chronicled by Ichikawa Hakugen, a Zen priest and professor at Kyoto's Hanazono University, who in books like The War Responsibility of Buddhists, condemned Zen's (and his own) collaboration with Japanese fascism.""The Social Face of Buddhism" by Ken H Jones, p212
Buddhism in Japan and the USA has seen the emergence of "training" for corporate employees designed to quell dissatisfaction and discord, in short, of covering up the symptoms of illness and bad practice rather than tackling the problems of social malaise and industry work standards. Buddhism, despite its highly socially-centered morality frequently slips into individual remedies when in order to be consistent and true to its own teachings it should be engaging in wider social work.
There is a lot of suffering in the world. This fact leads Buddhists to look to Buddha for an answer, and leads Christians to look to Christ for an answer. Both claim that ultimately a blissful state can be attained with no suffering, that eventually everything will be alright. The psychological attraction of such beliefs is one of the greatest factors behind the success of religions that explain away suffering.
But, Christianity and Buddhism have both dehumanized suffering in history and have both led people to accept suffering when they should not. In Christianity, especially historically and within conservative Christianity, suffering is a test from God, a result of the sins of us and our ancestors. In Buddhism, suffering is the status-quo of life and in popular Buddhism a person suffers now for their transgressions in previous lives. Both Christianity and Buddhism explain away present evil as an unavoidable circumstance that we are better to accept than to combat.
"The poor, the powerless and the diseased are therefore assumed to owe their misfortune to moral transgressions in past lives, no matter how virtuously they may strive to improve their condition in this life. This mystification is applied also to whole peoples and nations. [...] "This retributive view of kamma is quite alien to canonical Buddhism, as Buddhist scholars and teachers have made clear on many occasions.""The Social Face of Buddhism" by Ken H Jones, p66
The result is a depressive acceptance of social ills, taken as they are to be endured rather than cured. Anti-progressionist, such views have led the world into its darkest years. As with Christianity, when popular Buddhism informs, for example, a painfully disabled person that their present torture is a result of their own past actions or sins, the result is a harmful negativity and horrifies any compassionate person that such doctrines ever came to be. Karmic resolution and Christian sin are both harmful concepts with negative affects on society, especially on the weak and unfortunate.
You can spot Buddhist psycho-babble from quite a while off, there is a distinctive feel and look about Buddhist therapists and self-development. The truth is that Buddhist psychology is like Communist ideology or Christian guilt methodology: It only suits a particular type of person. Buddhist practices are not a universal solution to social ills or spiritual problems, but a certain type of solution catering for only certain types of person.
For a religion that makes universalist claims about the enlightenment of all beings, it is stuck with a mythology about Indian, Chinese and Eastern-style sages, teachers and students; when it is only a certain portion of humanity that can exist in those roles. The rest do not fit into the Buddhist mould, and Buddhist advise and counsel is counterproductive.
Ken Jones notes the real dangers that Buddhist ego training presents to certain types of people, producing neurotics and psychotics at worst, and mental imbalance at best. He notes the difficulty of adapting traditional Buddhist methods to swathes of society who do not conform to the model of the ego that Buddhist psychology requires of students.
Buddhist unfortunately, for a religion with so much social potential, falls over its own dogma and mythology when it comes to individual, personal development of people in general. It operates best as a peace movement, as a mediator, as an intelligent social commenter rather than a personal religion.
Those who do take earnestly and naturally to the methods of Buddhist self-development are those who are already more developed and already more intelligent Humans. Lower Buddhism, of the masses, is dumbed down and mostly useless as a unique tool, functioning as a smotherer just like popular religions do in all countries. Higher Buddhism caters for those who are already on a higher level, just like scholarly Christianity suits the intelligent and elitist Satanism suits the naturally strong and mature, Buddhism doesn't offer much insight into how the masses may improve themselves beyond offering the same social programs that socially aware governments offer.
Buddhism is a wonderful religion socially, participating as a principle player in all forms of global peace & stability movements, very environmentally aware and an intelligent force for good in world politics. Historically it has contributed much less inhumanity to the world than have all other religions of similar stature. But its greatness is limited by its own dogma and mythology, its psychology is too idealistic and assumptive and its self-development aspects are too specific. In the West Buddhism has become no more than the respectable elements of New Age, merely called "Buddhism" and missing all of its main elements, replacing them with commercialist and popularist gimmicks. The London Buddhist Society and other high-brow Buddhist institutions in the West are inactive, elitist gatherings of intelligent pseudo-Buddhists, genuine Buddhists in the West are very hard to find.
In an age where the UN and many secular multinational organisations have more strength and much willpower, social Buddhism has passed its hey-day as a useful tool of humanitarianism and global welfare. Although still instrumental in many peace movements across the world, Buddhist groups could be replaced with secular organisations with little real change.
Either overly mystical, overly monastic, idealistic or secular, only the world-wide social elements of Buddhism have genuine merit, the rest is yet-another self-fulfilling religion of superstition, assumptions and psuedopsychology. Despite this, Buddhist mentality and intelligence is bettered by no other religion, and Buddhism is not a danger to anyone, an aid to many, and given its history it will always remain a force for long term social good.
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By Vexen Crabtree 2004 Nov 14