Category Archives: Religion & Medicine

An Old Problem in Indian Medical History Revised

Original guest post by Kenneth Zysk (University of Copenhagen)

I this paper I should like to revisit a problem in the history of Indian medicine, which is yet to find a satisfactory resolution. The issue centres on when and where Āyurveda came into existence and from where all or part of it could have derived, in a word, the origins of Āyurveda.

The Origins of Āyurveda

At the core of classical Āyurveda stands the aetiological theory of the three doṣas (tridoṣa), broadly defined as defilements of wind (vāta), bile (pitta), and phlegm (kapha). Disease is said to occur when for one or several reasons one or more of the doṣas moves from its seat to manifest someplace else in the body. On the surface of it, since the theory includes three well-defined Sanskrit terms, occurring together, it would seem to be a straightforward exercise to trace this transparent mode of thinking in Indian literature prior to the earliest medical treatises, in which the theory was first fully expounded. However, such has not been achieved and at present two opposing theories have been put forth for the origins of the three āyurvedic doṣas.

One maintains that the theory was wholly indigenous to the subcontinent, being embedded in early ideas of four of the five basic elements (mahābhūta): fire (agni) which characterises bile (pitta) and wind (vāyu), universal form of bodily wind (vāta); and perhaps also water (āp) and earth (pṛthivī), which characterise phlegm (kapha). The fifth element, space (ākāśa) is the realm of sound and does not easily fit to one of the doṣas. Sometimes it is paired with five to give bile. This analysis, however, occurs in the second level compilation found n Vāgbhaṭa’s seventh century Aṣṭāṅgahṛdaya Saṃhitā. It is also the point of view of most Indian scholars, while the other, advocated mainly by western scholars, posits that the theory is related to, if not dependent on, Greco-Roman medicine, since in its fundamental conceptual basis, Sanskrit doṣabears a similarity to Greek chymos, which gives rise to the four humours of black bile (melaina cholē), yellow bile (xanthē cholē), phlegm (phlegma), and blood (haima). While blood (rakta) is not counted in the list of three doṣas, Meulenbeld has shown that blood was considered in the same way as the doṣas in the classical Āyurveda.[1]The only missing pairing between Greek-Roman and Indian medicine is the doṣacalled “wind,” which was not one of the humours, but Greek pneumalike Sanskrit prāṇais found in a medical context.

Although Sanskrit doṣaoccurs in its original meaning of “defilement” or “fault” from the period of the early Upaniṣads (c. 800 BCE), its specific medical sense is first expounded in the Sanskrit treatises of Caraka and Suśruta. The medical notion of doṣacould not have come from nowhere, but from where and how.

Putting aside the two opposing points of view, I shall began afresh, starting with an examination of old literary sources in Sanskrit and working my way forward to the first systematic and composite treatises, the Carakaand Suśruta Saṃhitās, which date from around the first centuries before and after the Common Era.

Vedic Medicine

An early form of medicine was represented in the Vedic Saṃhitās from about 1300-800 BCE. Among these primarily religious treatises, there was no single text devoted exclusively to diagnosis and treatment of illness and malady; but rather randomly placed charms and incantations in verse were embedded in the earliest treatises of the Ṛgvedaand Atharvaveda for use in rituals to heal the sick and the suffering. The lack of a single text or texts dedicated to the subject of medicine indicated that healing was part of the overall socio-religious matrix in the earliest Sanskrit literature. On the other hand, only in its broadest underlying conceptual basis does a form of healing utilising incantations and rituals occur in the earliest āyurvedic treatises, especially in the context of maladies affecting children. Moreover, no direct linguistic parallels exist between the Vedic and āyurvedic incantations. This naturally implies that the āyurvedic aetiology of the three doṣas together with the extensive list of remedies based on it could not have derived solely from the medical theories and practices found in the early Vedas.

It must naturally also come from somewhere else. Could then part of the overall conceptual basis have derived from beyond the orbit of the Indian subcontinent, as several early western scholars of Indian medicine maintained? To try to answer this question, we must take the next histoical step and examine the literary sources composed between the Vedic hymns and the earliest medical works. My study therefore included an investigation of the later Vedic treatises of the Brāhmaṇas and Upaniṣads and the literature related to them. A deep study of these texts is still a desideratum, since I merely surveyed the principal texts. The cursory examination of them, however, revealed that there was little in the way of medicine that differed from that found in the Vedic Saṃhitās; and, moreover, there were still no individual texts devoted exclusively to medicine, with the exception of the formulation of the five bodily winds.

Although not a book per se, the fixed group of five bodily winds (apāna, prāṇa, vyāna, samāna, udāna) is a well-established idea that evolved from yogic practices involving breath control or prāṇāyamafirst mentioned in the early Upaniṣads and later picked up and medically altered by the early āyurvedic authors.[2]  The occurrence of the doctrine of the five bodily winds in the medical treatises is simply not enough information to establish the later Vedic literature as the principle and only source for the three doṣas, and therefore it was not a viable place for further investigation. I turn my attention rather to a more promising literature, not in Sanskrit but in the Middle Indic language of Pāli, in which the earliest Buddhist scriptures were composed.

Buddhist Medicine

The Monastic Code or Vinaya Piṭaka of the Buddhist Pāli Canon contained a large section devoted to medicines, along with numerous references to healing theory and practice throughout the earliest parts of the Canon, which probably took shape some centuries before it was written down in Sri Lanka in about 29 BCE. This would place the Buddhist medical doctrines historically immediately prior to and contemporaneous with the earliest āyurvedic treatises.

In summary, these sources revealed the following major points. Already in Pāli Buddist literature there is found:

  1. a presumed understanding of the idea of the three doṣas;
  2. a practical approach to healing indicated in case histories and remedies;
  3. a legend of a famous healer, Jīvaka, which has travelled with Buddhism throughout Asia; and
  4. a clearly defined role of the healing arts in the early Buddhist monastery or Saṅgha.[3]

The content of the Buddhist medical theories and practices points to an important intermediate step in the evolutionary history of Indian medicine from Veda to Āyurveda. Moreover, the medical knowledge was preserved and transmitted not by composers and proponents of Brahmanic doctrines and beliefs, but by knowledgeable and literate ascetics living what appeared for the most part to be a mendicant’s lifestyle. The study of early Buddhist medicine made the Sanskrit tradition that was maintained and transmitted by the Brahmans, even a more unlikely source of early āyurvedic theories and practices.

But, does the Buddhist involvement in early Indian medical history bring us closer to finding the origins of Āyurveda? Only in so far as it localises elements of what later became āyurvedic medicine outside the Sanskritic orbit of brahmanic knowledge. Moreover, it shows that the aetiological tridoṣic theory was already well formulated by the time of earliest Buddhist scriptures. The “smoking gun” that provides the precise origin of the doctrines of Āyurveda is still wanting. So, for time being, we shall have to admit that a direct transmission from one medical text to another may never be found and moreover might never have occurred. Some might say “well then give it up and move on to something else.” I preferred, however, to be more creative and widen the sphere of investigation.

I started to look to other systems of thought and practice that are related but not central to medicine. These include systems of knowledge found in the Indian astral science or Jyotiḥśāstra, especially those parts that have some connection to medicine, such as the divinatory system of human marks or physiognomy.

Although these studies are ongoing, they so far indicate that at least part of the āyurvedic system of medicine in India was shared with other systems of Indian knowledge, which indicate also influence from non-Indian forms of thought in antiquity. Three important points come forth, which show

  1. a literary link between information in the early Sanskrit medical treatises and early Sanskrit astral literature;
  2. a fundamental similarity to systems of physiognomy from ancient Mesopotamia and from ancient Greece; and
  3. a possible dual role played by the Indian doctor as healer and diviner.[4]

Conclusions     

Perhaps we shall never find the precise origins of the āyurvedic theory of the three doṣas and the methods of the cures based on it, but we have come closer to identifying possible, viable places to search for additional information. Moreover, I have become more and more convinced that we should not expect to find a single text or group of texts from which the early Sanskrit medical treatises were translated or on which they were based. Rather we should consider Āyurveda as a medical system that evolved under the influence of fruitful exchanges of important theories and practices of different kinds of healers, such as Jīvaka in the Buddhist legends. It is likely that the exchange continued for centuries at a time when contacts between different healers were possible. This would imply that the interaction was constant and lasted long enough for intellectual exchange and practical learning to take place and be recorded. For the time being, this is perhaps the more realistic approach to the origins of Āyurveda, which could allow us to speculate that the tridoṣa theory resulted from assimilation and adaption, where a Greco-Roman conception of the four humours blended with Indian philosophical notions of the three guṇas or qualities (sattva, rajas, and tamas) and thenfive basic elements (mahābhūta), both of which were well-known among proponents of Sāṃkhya, with whose philosophical notions the composers and compilers of the classical medical texts were conversant. The precise means by which the assimilation took place could indeed be a fruitful topic of exploration.

Bibliography

Meulenbeld, G. J. 1991. “The Constraints of Theory in the Evolution of Nosological Classifications: A Study on the Position of Blood in Indian Medicine (Āyurveda);” in G. J. Meulenbeld, ed. Medical Literature from India, Sri Lanka and Tibet (Leiden: E. J Brill): 91-106.

Zysk, K. 1991. Asceticism and healing in ancient India. Medicine in the Buddhist monastery. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press. Paperback: New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1991. Indian edition: Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1997, reprint, 2000. [Vol 2 of Indian Medical Tradition]. Second revised edition under preparation.

______________, 1993. “The science of respiration and the doctrine of the vital breaths in ancient India,” JAOS, 113.2: 198-213.

______________, 2000. “”Did ancient Indians have a notion of contagion?”  in Lawrence I. Conrad and Dominik Wujastyk, eds., Contagion. Perspectives from Pre-Modern Societies(Aldershot, UK: Ashagate), 79-95.

______________. 2007. “The bodily winds in ancient India revisited.” Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute (N.S.): 105-115.

______________. 2016. The India System of Human Marks. Text, translation, and notes. 2 Vols.  Leiden: E.J. Brill [Sir Henry Wellcome Asian Series, Vol. 15].

______________ 2018. “Greek and Indian Physiognomics.” Journal of the American Oriental Society,138.2: 13-325.

Notes

[1]Meulenbeld 1991; cf. Zysk 2000.

[2]Zysk, 1993 and 2007.

[3]Zysk, 1991. I am happy to report that a revised, second edition of this study should be out soon with Motilal Banarsidass.

[4]Zysk 2016.1: 25-53; Zysk 2018.

Purple Cloud Podcast: Daoists and Doctors: Michael Stanley-Baker

In this episode Daniel interviews Michael Stanley-Baker about his in depth study of the spiritual and medical practices of the Shang Qing school of Daoism. The podcast delves into the relationship between religion and medicine, the visualisation and meditation techniques of the Shan Qing practitioners and touches on the roles of played by important figures such as Ge Hong and Tao Hong Jing. Listen to the show here!

Modernity, Identity, and Contemporary (Non-) Buddhism

Moderator’s note: Many practitioners of Asian medicine and Asian-based health modalities are grappling with questions concerning the historical roots and cultural status of their disciplines today as never before. In response, Asian Medicine Zone is launching a new series of practitioner essays exploring how changing conceptions of “tradition” and “modernity” are impacting their practice and field in the 21st century (these are organized under the tag “tradition/modernity”). If you’re interested in contributing to this seriesplease email a short description of your proposed essay to the moderators. Here, we’re pleased to share our second offering in the series, which focuses on a reassessment of the therapeutic practices of mindfulness meditation and lifestyle coaching in light of recent scholarship and critiques of Buddhism.

I grew up firmly attached to my mother, a hippie and follower of the White Eagle Lodge, a self-described “Wisdom School for the New Age,” in the UK during the 1980s. By the time I reached adolescence, I had mediated, journeyed to power spots, been healed energetically and blessed by Indian Gurus, and taught all manner of transcendental spiritual truth. 

Buddhism caught my interest in my early teens. After several exploratory years, I joined a Tibetan Buddhist group just after turning 19. Like many other young Brits in the 1990s, my relationship with Buddhism was informed by New Age ideals, unreflective romantic orientalism, a desire to experience mysticism and escape from materialism, and a warped view of Asian Buddhists as being in possession of something inherently special. Although I didn’t recognize it then, I was clearly a product of the historical and cultural influences of the time.

Coming to understand the significance my own cultural formation as a modern Buddhist-based practitioner, psychological counselor, and life coach – and then deciding how best to respond to this – has been a lengthy process. Over time, it has revolutionized how I understand, experience, and engage with my self, my work, and my practice, both personally and professionally.  

The shift began when I first started to seriously question the cultural direction that the Western Buddhist world was heading. When I found that such inquiry was mostly met with resistance within Buddhist circles, I turned toward a wide range of scholarly and critical literatures – religious studies, Buddhist studies, cultural history, and postmodern theory – for answers. As I explored these materials, I found myself most powerfully drawn to the question of how subjectivity and selfhood in contemporary Western Buddhism is developed and maintained. 

Diving deeper into this inquiry eventually led to the conclusion that the ideas and practices that dominate Western convert Buddhist communities help shape and support identities that conform to the ideological super-structure of the larger society. Seeing this process of socially conformist identity formation more clearly shifted my personal identity as a Buddhist-based spiritual practitioner. At the same time, it generated ethical tensions for me in my professional work as a counselor and life coach who utilizes Buddhist-based to including mindfulness and meditation. As I came to see such practices as embedded in a cultural matrix that I found problematic, the question of how to resituate the therapeutic encounter in an alternative framework of meaning became paramount. 

Currently, I am exploring whether a “metamodern turn” might help resolve the philosophical and practical tensions that run between more traditional Buddhism, modern Buddhism, and the relatively unexplored terrain of post-modern Buddhism. Most pivotally, I am interested in whether some sort of metamodern reframing might serve to reinvigorate the second purpose that Buddhism has historically served: that is, the alleviation of suffering through the reduction of ignorance. 

Emergent dissonance

During my teens and early 20s, it was perfectly normal for me and my companions to carry out traditional deity practice in a Gompa one weekend and study with a New Age teacher from the States the next. We got high on the positive vibes in the process. Powerful feelings were sought, as well as mystical insights and revelatory truths. 

Although I would spend time with other Buddhist traditions such as Goenka’s Vispassana and Soto Zen, Tibetan Buddhism held the greatest appeal. I spent 15 years following the Gelugpa and Kagyu traditions intensely, as well as a neo-Shamanic group from the States on the side. During that period, I also trained as a Person-Centered Counselor, Life Coach, and Core Shamanic Counselor. All of these activities were connected by a sense of meaning and purpose that would be best defined as spiritual and salvational. 

The cracks that would eventually emerge in this identity came from my father’s influence. He was a Marxist, an intellectual and history buff, and an avowed atheist. My parents had divorced when I was one. Weekend visits to Dad’s home involved him taking me along to political protests whilst boring me with the truths of anti-capitalism. But his imprinting had an important, if delayed effect. 

As Tibetan Buddhist groups began to grow in the UK and the States, many appeared to be moving towards commercialization. At the same time, many New Age teachers were appropriating aspects of Buddhism. Fake Lamas and Gurus were discrediting themselves and their groups through inappropriate behavior. Their money-making was becoming grosser and more evident. My paternal history meant that I could not help but notice this emerging alignment with capitalist goals. 

These observations began to chip away at my romantic readings of Buddhism and the New Age. Eventually, I realized that the spiritual practices and groups I had been engaged with were not separate from the wider society, as I had believed. It seems ridiculous to say now, but I had previously seen the meditation cushion, sweat lodge, or retreat center as direct routes for escaping from the illusory material world and entering into something authentic, powerful, and more real. 

By the early 2000s, I had stopped frequenting New Age teachers entirely. As the decade rolled on, I began to slowly withdraw from Tibetan Buddhist groups, while only intermittently engaging with others. Eventually, I began working with a European Shingon teacher who I discovered via the “Buddhist Geeks” podcast. 

With the benefit of hindsight, I realized that I had come to Buddhism for a variety of reasons, many of which were simply romantic. Some, however, were less problematic. In particular, I was fascinated by the possibility of learning to better understand and address my own ignorance, and its general role in creating suffering. My pursuit of this foundationally Buddhist aspiration, however, took a nontraditional route. 

Modernism, Texts and Disruption

The first years I spent within traditional Buddhist convert groups in the UK (mainly Tibetan but also Southeast Asian and Japanese) had been marked by a lack of access to other voices that resonated with my personal concerns. I searched for, but failed to find some sort of informed, intelligent, and critical engagement with Buddhism as it was developing in the West. It seemed that my intuitions and observations were mine alone. This increasingly distanced me from Buddhist groups, as well as the materials they relied on to validate their practices. 

Were it not for the Internet, which enabled me to engage with Buddhism more critically, I would likely have abandoned it all together. Instead, I started exploring relevant academic literatures and related work online. Initially, I focused on academic books that crossed over to a general audience. Notable titles included Donald S. Lopez’s Prisoners of Shangri-La; David Loy’s The Great Awakening: a Social Theory and Non-Duality: A Study in Comparative Philosophy; Geofffrey Samuel’s Civilised Shaman; and Sam Van Sheik’s, Tibet: A History. I also perused books, articles, and podcasts by religious studies scholars such as Rita Gross and John D. Dunne, as well as non-academic writers and thinkers including Stephen Batchelor and John Peacock. 

Scholarly works that contextualized modern Buddhism, neo-shamanism, and other spiritual practices in an overarching cultural-historical framework enabled me to see how my own private, personal practice was actually, in great part, the product of Western history and the forces of modernity. David L. McMahan’s The Making of Buddhist Modernism was particularly pivotal in this regard. For me, reading this and other texts was a form of practice, as enlightening as any experience I’d had sitting on a meditation cushion or in retreat. Engaging with them burst my ideological bubble and challenged many of my remaining beliefs about Buddhism. It disrupted my sense of what it meant to be a Buddhist and spiritual person, and changed my clinical practice. 

By and large, I felt quite alone in this process. As far as I could see, there were no Buddhist teachers offering signposts for where to go next. All were firmly committed to the narratives of their traditions, or uncritically embedded in Buddhist Modernism. The prioritization of unreflectively visceral “experience” from teachers and practitioners alike seemed to be part of a more general anti-intellectualism in Dharma centers. Among those who had engaged with works detailing the historical particularity of modern Buddhism, the dominant reactions were either: 1) defending their own particular tradition, which was seen as not having fallen for such delusion; 2) rejecting Buddhism as a whole; or 3) searching for a more “authentic” form of Buddhism. 

For me, no such options were available. I wanted to engage critically with contemporary Buddhism, but not abandon it altogether. 

At this point, I wondered if a further possibility existed: Perhaps some sort of Buddhist postmodern turn? I had found the work of Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty, and other precursors of postmodern philosophy helpful in attempting to make sense of being and embodied practice from a non-Buddhist viewpoint. Now, I was motivated to explore postmodern theory more thoroughly in light of my shifting understanding of contemporary Western Buddhism and its relationship to modernity, identity, and culture. 

Here again, having access to the Internet proved invaluable in terms of researching and accessing relevant materials. That said, finding direct connections between Buddhism and postmodern thought was not easy.  By and large, I continued to grapple with the implications of my ongoing intellectual explorations for my Buddhist-based identity, thought, work, and practice on my own.  

Consequences

Gaining an understanding of the historical formation of Western Buddhism led me to radically rethink my relationship with contemporary Western spirituality as a whole. I also became deeply uncomfortable with how I used to understand therapy and my role as a therapist. I realized that I had long held a salvational vision of therapy, and had been transmitting the myths of the Buddhist modernist project unwittingly. 

I recognized that Buddhist groups have a tendency to form particular types of identities whilst inculcating specific codes of behavior, linguistic habits, and taboo areas of discussion. I also saw that these directives were almost never made explicit. If brought up in discussion, they evoked defensiveness and avoidance on the part of students and teachers alike. I came to view this phenomenon as intimately related to the creation of an ideologically shaped Buddhist identity. 

I began to frame meditation within different conceptual and perceptual frames. I stopped using Western Buddhist jargon and spiritual tropes. I came to believe that recognizing the role of modernity in forming Western Buddhism and shaping the experiences, beliefs, practices, and concepts of its practitioners was itself a powerful form of practice. Moreover, I now saw it as necessary one if Western Buddhism is to act as a genuinely liberating force.

Western Buddhist, being blind to its own influences, does not see that the language and practices of Buddhist modernism are part of an ideological apparatus that creates subjects within a discourse of pseudo-liberation. In fact, Buddhism is incapable of providing an adequate response to the complexities and implications of modernity on its own. This should not be surprising, as Buddhism was never designed for such a purpose. Tools from the Western intellectual tradition are required to respond to the challenges that Buddhist modernism presents, both for individuals and for those groups committed to a therapeutic approach to practice.

Uncovering the historical roots and cultural formation of modern Buddhism within one’s own work, life, and practice can be liberating and transformative. It can also be highly disruptive and difficult to navigate. Within Buddhist discourse, concepts such as Enlightenment, the Bodhisattva, and the Four Noble Truths act as grand narratives. In contradiction to the Buddhist notion of no-self, they provide a solid foundation for the creation of religious or spiritual identities. 

Challenging the solidity of such perceived final truths by means of cultural history and postmodern theory destabilizes sustaining ideological norms. This undermines not only the certainty of dependable, pre-existing identities, but also the pay-offs that are implicit in the promise of an end to suffering, awakening, or whatever else is currently on offer in Dharma halls or therapeutic encounters. 

The problem is that while subjectivity comes under attack in the work of postmodern thinkers such as Derrida and Foucault, postmodern theory offers no real replacement for the modernist subject. The resulting lacuna is particularly problematic for the spiritually inclined, who are drawn to practices such as Buddhism. Postmodernism provides no clear basis for new models of selfhood that are sufficiently robust to sustain any sort of meaningful practice. 

It’s no surprise that many Buddhists resist exploring the more potent insights of postmodernism. They rightly intuit that it conflicts the therapeutic, religious, and/or mystical aspirations that most commonly motivate engagement with Buddhism in the first place. Glynn (2002) goes as far as saying that subjectivity is “denatured” by postmodern thought and thus incapable of “self-actualization.” To the extent this is true (and I think it essentially is), it also undercuts the commonly made marriage between Buddhism and self-help/self-development. 

As a therapist utilizing Buddhist tools and concepts, this necessarily presents a challenge. I don’t want to encourage salvational fantasies by directing clients deeper into a culture that promulgates them via the language of True Nature, Buddha Nature, Awakened One, and so on. On the other hand, if the carrot of enlightenment is not held out, whether explicitly or implicitly, what final vision of the individual is to be held? What is the purpose of engaging in this, or any other sort of therapeutic and/or spiritual practice? 

Undermining the modernist project presents a profound challenge to Buddhist-based clinical practice. It raises questions about the use of meditation to bolster well-being, and as a tool for the development of a psychologically robust individual. Ethically, it raises questions about the purposes that Buddhist practices are being put, and their true compatibility with the liberationist aims found in much traditional Buddhism. 

Non-philosophy, non-Buddhism

I continued to explore relevant work on the Internet as such questions simmered. Eventually, I discovered the Speculative non-Buddhism (SNB) website, which had been founded in 2011 by Glenn Wallis, a former professor of religion at the University of Georgia. SNB provided precisely the sort of critical engagement with Western Buddhism, informed by a vast array of modern and postmodern theory, that I’d long been looking for. My discovery of this online hub of critical thought was extremely important for my developing relationship with Buddhism. It also further disrupted whatever certainties I had formerly held around the role of therapist. 

My initial encounter with SNB was marked by reading Tom Pepper’s 2001 essay, Buddhist Anti-Intellectualism, which hit me like an intellectual bomb. Pepper’s critique of Buddhism went well beyond anything I had heard before. His description of how Dharma centers in the West resisted Western philosophy and engaged in “spiritual snobbery” captured my own sentiments, and reinvigorated my relationship with Buddhism as a site of critique. 

Pepper argues that Western Buddhism’s anti-intellectualism is rooted in and nourished by its over-focus on “experience,” which effectively serves as a retreat from thought. While this is an understandable “reaction to the desolate landscape of post-modern thought,” Pepper argues “a more useful . . . response is to escape up, into the limits of philosophical rigor.” 

Wallis’s experimental text, Nascent Speculative Non-Buddhism (2013), leveraged another pivotal turn in my evolving relationship with Buddhism and clinical practice.  This work develops a heuristic that combines a variety of thinking tools, many of which come from Continental philosophy. Here, Wallis’s core influence is the work of François Laurelle and his concept of “non-philosophy.” By adapting it to create the concept of “non-Buddhism,” Wallis generated what is perhaps the most intriguing critique of Buddhism to emerge in this century. 

Non-philosophy is not a postmodernist concept per se. Rather, it emerges from an attempt to rethink philosophy, drawing on ideas found in Derrida and Heidegger. Laruelle posits a number of relatively simple concepts, but presents them in very complex ways. In part, this is because he is attempting to build a conversation about philosophy that does not fall into the “decisional matrix” that he identifies as being at the heart of all philosophical theory and practice. 

Laurelle’s  foundational concept is what he defines as decision: an unconditional, non-reflexive commitment to an ideology or thought-world. Laurelle notes that out of decision the world becomes the subject of philosophy, in the sense that the world is remade in the image of said philosophy through a dialectical splitting of the world, with the philosopher confusing the philosophizing image of the world for the world itself.

In transferring this concept to Buddhism, Wallis defines decision as a commitment to Buddhism as the source of truth. Buddhism provides a totalizing means of understanding the world and our selves in it, one that encompasses the whole person and their most intimate spaces of selfhood. Buddhist metaphysics provides a lens through which the world is seen and experienced. Despite Buddhist teachers’ claims to the contrary, it provides a perceptual filer. This is an important insight as it means that descriptions of experience within Buddhism are in part ideological and not pure, perfect reflections of reality. 

While drawing on postmodern thought and evidencing an acute awareness of the limits of modernity, Nascent Speculative Non-Buddhism does not embrace postmodern irony. True, it is playful and creative in its style, mirroring much of the rhetorical strategy of postmodern thinkers. But hidden within this ostensibly destructive prose is an aspiration for Buddhism to do more. There is a clear desire, dare I say hope, to find a way forward that incorporates relevant insights across ideational and geographical boundaries, and historical and cultural phases. Wallis describes today’s unprecedented opportunity to draw from this vast array as “the great feast of knowledge.”

Just as non-philosophy drags philosophy out of its own rarified sphere, robbing it of its specialness in the process, so does non-Buddhism demand that Buddhism test out its axiomatic claims in the world, beyond the gates of Buddhist ideology. This requires a meeting of minds across intellectual boundaries, a cross-cultural, cross-discipline explorative endeavor. 

Both Laruelle’s and Wallis’ work is radically democratic in that it seeks to liberate the subject from its dependency upon any totalizing system. Adapting non-philosophy to the practice of non-Buddhism supplies a creative ground for a democratized exploration of practices and thought beyond the rules, taboos and persuasive rhetoric of lineage holders and orthodoxy. 

I want to make clear that I am not arguing for the superiority of such an approach. I would simply argue that Wallis provides a novel Dharma door through his work on Buddhism by means of Laurellian thought. Seeing Buddhism as culture through the lens of non-philosophy, which itself is informed by and in conversation with the Western intellectual tradition, enables the development of form of meta-knowledge that remains tethered to Buddhist insights while dismantling Buddhist orthodoxies. 

Therapeutic Implications

Speculative non-Buddhism provided a vast array of conceptual tools for thinking about my coaching business and how it might best serve people who found mainstream Buddhism problematic and didn’t want to suspend their critical thinking skills at the Gompa door, but had no sense of where to go next. Increasingly, my clinical work specialized in critically engaging with Buddhist materials in conjunction with a similarly critical utilization concepts and practices associated with self-help, change work, maturation, personal development, waking up, gaining insight, training the mind, working with the body, and becoming more intellectually capable. 

Rather than seeing meditation as a means of connecting to the true nature of things, I viewed it one tool among others for grappling with the fact that ideological filters and decisional matrices necessarily structure and influence our understanding and experience. This perspective allowed me to reframe the therapeutic relationship as a creative dialog that allowed for a conceptual reframing not only of Buddhism, but also of the person engaging with practices such as mindfulness. 

In this sense, the Buddhist-based tool of mindfulness practice becomes a means of synergistically exploring and addressing the shared nature of subjectivity and the ideological currents that run through all spiritual practices. Therapy provides a dynamic space for thinking and experiencing beyond the decisional matrix of a given Buddhist tradition, as well as the overall cultural climate and its ideological thrust. If well realized, this process is not a means of liberation per se, but rather an act of liberation from the delusion of transcendence: In other words, a practice of immanence. 

Any system of thought and practice can steer its practitioners into a decisional matrix, and prescriptive forms of being and perceiving. From this perspective, a counseling intervention can be put into the service of liberating a client from the decisional matrix (e.g., traditional Tibetan Buddhism), whilst rendering the materials of Buddhism available as democratized resources that cease to hail the practitioner into conformist identities. This supports the client/practitioner in exiting the modernist-self and moving towards thought and insight that draw from the wider knowledge community. It offers an alternative to the more common subjective frames that encourage either retreating into pre-modernist desires and irrationality, or spinning off into postmodern cynicism and fragmentation. 

Metamodern Buddhists?

Recently, I’ve begun exploring the emerging body of work on “metamodernism” as a means of further developing and articulating my understanding of Western Buddhism(s), the purposes that meditation and mindfulness can serve, and the therapeutic act. 

Metamodernism is one among many labels that attempt to describe emergent cultural shifts that are moving beyond postmodernity in the arts and culture more widely. Vermeulen & Van den Akker and Abramson characterized it as capturing the desire to resolve the conflict between modernity and postmodernity. As a term, it has begun to appear tentatively in academic discourse, but is very much in its infancy and may never truly take off as a new marker for the current cultural zeitgeist. Nonetheless, its emergence is evidence of the need to respond to the diminished cultural status of postmodern theory, which is increasingly understood to have a very limited ability to respond helpfully to either our current cultural and artistic climate, or the religious and therapeutic landscape we inhabit. 

Metamodernism can be understood in a variety of ways. Vermeulen & Van den Akker describe it as a structure of feeling incorporating principles of multiplicity and paradox, as well as the loss of distance. Abramson sees metamodernism as the cultural milieu of the internet age, with characteristics such as collaboration and simultaneity that mirror aspects of internet culture. 

In terms of the individual, metamodernism offers a creative response to the certainties of modernity, which are no longer psychologically compelling, and the fragmented postmodern self, which undercuts purpose and meaning. Metamodernism recognizes that if the nature of the self is fluid, it still requires stable foundations in history. In contrast to postmodernism, there is a preference for the reconstruction and realignment of cultural resources, rather than purely deconstructive relationship with them. 

I believe that a metamodern paradigm might provide a means for religions to refind themselves in an appropriate relationship with the contemporary world due to its embrace of multiplicity and paradox. This is the framework that I have adopted in my therapeutic role with regard to both teaching meditation and reconfiguring spiritual concepts in interrelationship with a larger ecology of ideas, theories, and practices. Resources and relationships that I am particularly drawn to include Western psychotherapy and self-actualization, Shamanistic worldviews and their compatibility with process-relational ontology, and Buddhist concepts of emptiness, Buddha nature, and interdependence. 

All these concepts and many more can be explored critically within different systems of thought, and applied as practices within each framework for different ends. This encompassing of possibilities rooted in the material world of historic contingency and finitude reinvigorates the field of spirituality in terms of thought and practice without leaving aside intellectual engagement. 

In this context, a practice like meditation can serve multiple ends. Many people who come to my coaching practice would like to be able to embrace the irrational aspects of ceremony or deeper meditational insight without having to sign on to a preset belief system or identity. Exploring the complexity of selfhood within the context of the therapeutic relationship enables us to better understand and experience how we are individuals and collectively formed beings that are finite and rooted in history. We also gain better insight into how we are enmeshed in both individual and collective forms of ignorance, suffering and selfhood. Together, we unpack each line of inquiry that arises while drawing on a wide variety of materials and practices. 

Many of my clients might be loosely defined as a new category of practitioner, one that comes after that of “spiritual-but-not-religious.” They are basically secular. Yet, they find the rationalism, empiricism, and scientism of both atheism and secular Buddhism to be less than satisfying. And, they understand that all of these “-isms” are products of modernity. They desire a spiritual path of sorts. But, they want to remain fully aware of the problems of both religion and spirituality. They recognize that an affective practice is needed and that the term “spirituality” serves signify something of value. At the same time, they recognize that it is bogged down by a great deal of baggage. 

It could be said that we carry within us the seeds and consequences of both premodernity, modernity and postmodernity. Banishing the cultural legacy associated with one or more of these epochs can be seen as a form of denial, or an ostracism in which part of our shared selfhood is bypassed or alienated. The macro-cultural, historical phases that each of these terms designates is part of our shared human selves and history. They reference the diverse array of ideas, practices, and opportunities available as our identities and experiences of self become more fluid, yet necessarily remain rooted in our material existence and indebted to our collective past. 

Bibliography

Books 

Batchelor, Stephen. Buddhism without beliefs: a contemporary guide to awakening. Bloomsbury, 1997. 

Batchelor, Stephen. Confession of a Buddhist Athiest. Spiegel & Grau, 2010. 

Boon, Marcus and Eric Cazdyn and Timothy Morton Nothing: Three Inquiries in Buddhism (TRIOS Series) University of Chicago Press 2015.

Laruelle, François. Dictionary of Non-Philosophy. Translated by Taylor Adkins Univocal Publishing, 2013. 

Lopez, Donald S. Jr. Prisoners of Shangri-La: Tibetan Buddhism and the West. Chicago University Press, 1998. 

Loy, David. Nonduality: A study in comparative philosophy. Humanity Books, 1988.

Loy, David. The Great Awakening: A Buddhist Social Theory. Wisdom Publications, 2003. 

Lyotard, Jean-François. The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge, Manchester: University Press, 1989.

McLeod, Ken. Wake Up To Your Life. HarperOne, 2001.

McMahan, David L. The making of Buddhist Modernism. Oxford University Press, 2008.

Polt, Richard. Heidegger: an introduction. Cornell University Press, 1999.

Samuel, Geoffrey. Civilized Shamans: Buddhism in Tibetan Societies. Smithsonian University Press, 1993.

Van Schaik, Sam. Tibet: a history. Yale University Press, 2011. 

Wallis, Glenn. A Critique of Western Buddhism: Ruins of the Buddhist Real. Bloomsbury, September, 2018. 

Wallis, Glenn, and Tom Pepper and Matthias Steingass. Cruel Theory|Sublime Practice: Towards a Revaluation of Buddhism. EyeCorner Press, 2012.

Wallis, Robert J. Shamans/Neo-Shamans: Ecstasy, alternative archaeologies and contemporary pagans. Routledge, 2003.

Znamenski, Andrei, A. The Beauty of the Primitive: Shamanism and the Western Imagination. Oxford University Press, 2007. 

Websites

Abramson, Seth. “What Is Metamodernism?” Huffington Post (01/05/2017, Updated Jan 09, 2017) https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/what-is-metamodernism_us_586e7075e4b0a5e600a788cd

Abramson, Seth. “Metamodernism: The Basics” Huffington Post (10/13/2014, Updated Dec 12, 2014) https://www.huffingtonpost.com/seth-abramson/metamodernism-the-basics_b_5973184.html

Abramson, Seth. “Ten Basic Principles of Metamodernism” Huffington Post (04/27/2015, Updated Dec 06, 2017) https://www.huffingtonpost.com/seth-abramson/ten-key-principles-in-met_b_7143202.html

Chapman, David. “A bridge to meta-rationality vs. civilizational collapse” Meaningness (Last viewed 07/29/2018) https://meaningness.com/metablog/stem-fluidity-bridge 

Damico, Philip. “An Introduction to Metamodernism” The Metamodernist (February 18, 2017) https://themetamodernist.com/2017/02/18/an- introduction-to-metamodernism/ 

Gross, Rita M. “Buddhist History for Buddhist Practitioners” Tricycle (Fall, 2010) https://tricycle.org/magazine/buddhist-history-buddhist-practitioners/

Ivakhiv,  Adrian J. “Žižek and his Others” Immanence: ecoculture, geophilosophy, mediapolitics (UVM Blog) (November 24, 2009, last viewed 29/07/2018) http://blog.uvm.edu/aivakhiv/2009/11/24/zizek-and-his-others/ 

McLeod, Ken. Unfettered Mind: Pragmatic Buddhism. http://unfetteredmind.org/

O’Connell, Matthew. “Post-Traditional Buddhism: The Quiet Revolution?” elephant journal (November 21, 2012) https://www.elephantjournal.com/2012/11/post-traditional-buddhism-the-quiet-revolution-part-one-matthew-oconnell/

Pepper, Tom. “On Buddhist Anti-Intellectualism and the Limits of Conceptual Thought” Speculative non-Buddhism (blog) (October 2011, last viewed on 01/03/2018) /2011/10/25/buddhist-anti-intellectualism.

“Postmodernism” Apologetics Index (Last viewed July 30, 2018) http://www.apologeticsindex.org/p02.html

Sobol, Hokai. Personal website. http://www.hokai.info/

Žižek, Slavoj. “From Western Marxism to Western Buddhism” Cabinet Magazine, Issue 2 Mapping Conversations (Spring 2001) http://www.cabinetmagazine.org/issues/2/western.php

Journal articles

Brassier, Ray. “Axiomatic heresy: the non-philosophy of François Laruelle.” Radical Philosophy 121 (2003): 24-35. https://philpapers.org/rec/BRAAHT-3

Clasquin-Johnson, Michel. “Towards a metamodern academic study of religion and a more religiously informed .” HTS Teologiese Studies/Theological Studies, Vol 73, No. 3 (2017). https://hts.org.za/index.php/hts 

Glynn, Simon. “The Freedom of the Deconstructed Postmodern Subject.” Continental Philosophy Review 35: P.61-76 (2002)

Laruelle, François. “A Summary of Non-Philosophy.” The Warwick Journal of Philosophy, Pli 8 (1999): 138-148. https://plijournal.com/files/laruelle_pli_8.pdf

Vermeulen, Timotheus, and Robin van den Akker. “Notes on metamodernism.” Journal of Aesthetics & Culture Volume 2, 2010, no.1 (Published online: 25 Jan 2017). https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.3402/jac.v2i0.5677

Wallis, Glenn.Nascent Speculative Non-Buddhism.” Journal for the Study of Religions and Ideology, vol. 12, issue 35, (Summer 2013). http://www.jsri.ro/ojs/index.php/jsri/article/view/710

Yousef, Tawfiq. “Modernism, Postmodernism, and Metamodernism: A Critique.”
International Journal of Language and Literature, Vol. 5, No. 1 (June 2017): 33-43

Events

Paul Smith, Anthony. “History of Non-Philosophy: From Philosophy I to Philosophy IV, Or What’s Behind the Move from the First Non-Philosophy to the Second” A Symposium on Non-Philosophy, University of Warwick, UK, (March 5th 2010, last viewed 07/29/2018)

Audio

Peacock, John. “Buddhism Before the Theravada.” Insight Meditation Center Audiodharama. (Septemer 3rd/4th 2011) https://www.audiodharma.org/series/207/talk/2602/

Buddhist Geeks Podcast, https://www.buddhistgeeks.org

Chapman, David. “18. On stages of maturation, Dzogchen & the future of Buddhism.” Interview by Matthew O’Connell on January 6, 2017. Imperfect Buddha Podcast:  https://soundcloud.com/post-traditional-buddhism/100-imperfect-buddha-david-chapman-on-stages-of-maturation-dzogchen-the-future-of-buddhism 

Dunne, J. “Awakening to Buddha Nature.” Upaya Zen Center (January, 2012) https://www.upaya.org/tag/awakening-to-buddha-nature/

Freinacht, Hanzi. “Metamoderna” Interview by Tom Amarque Podcast on February, 17, 2018. Audio: http://www.tom-amarque.de/lateralconversations/2018/2/17/hanzi-freinacht-metamoderna-engl

Ivakhiv, Adrian. “11. On Immanence & a world after enlightenment.” Interview by Matthew O’Connell on May, 30, 2016. Imperfect Buddha Podcast: https://soundcloud.com/post-traditional-buddhism/72-imperfect-buddha-podcast-adrian-ivakhiv-on-immanence 

Sobol, Hokai. “On Buddhism.” Interview by Matthew O’Connell on May 26, 2007. Imperfect Buddha Podcast: https://soundcloud.com/post-traditional-buddhism/113-imperfect-buddha-guest-hokai-sobol-on-buddhism

The Dharma Overground https://www.dharmaoverground.org

Wallis,  Glenn. “16. On non-Buddhism.” Interview by Matthew O’Connell on September 16, 2016.  Imperfect Buddha Podcast: https://soundcloud.com/post-traditional-buddhism/92-imperfect-buddha-podcast-glenn-wallis-on-non-buddhismpart-1

Video

Žižek, Slavoj. “The Irony of Buddhism.” Zizekian Studies Channel, Youtube (Published, August 14, 2015) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nfUWtuOyEvk

Zen training in the U.S.: tradition, modernity, and trauma

Mushim and son at Green Gulch Farm Zen Center in 1990 when she was a penniless single mother, following six years of monastic practice under a vow of poverty. (Photo credit: Jack Van Allen)

Moderator’s note: Many practitioners of Asian medicine and Asian-based health modalities are grappling with questions concerning the historical roots and cultural status of their disciplines today as never before. In response, Asian Medicine Zone is launching a new series of practitioner essays exploring how changing conceptions of “tradition” and “modernity” are impacting their practice and field in the 21st century (these are organized under the tag “tradition/modernity”). If you’re interested in contributing to this seriesplease email a short description of your proposed essay to the moderators. Here, we’re pleased to share our first offering, which artfully explores the encounter between traditional patriarchal authority and contemporary social justice commitments in the author’s life, practice, and community.

Having spent over 30 years of my adult life as a Buddhist practitioner in the U.S., I’m certain of only one thing, which is this: in the process of spiritual maturation, the path is not always clear and straightforward. In my personal experience as a practitioner, there’s been a lot of both/and – a particular experience can be abusive and traumatic, and it can lead to insight and breakthrough. Necessary spiritual surrender can mix potently with what Western psychology calls poor boundaries. And, it seems to me, some people will always be drawn to take paths of greater risk in varying degrees, up to so-called crazy wisdom. Others will develop by staying true to conventional mores with quiet patience.

In 1984, I was living as a renunciant under a vow of complete poverty in a Buddhist community in the United States. Our teacher, a strong-willed Asian man, resided most of the time in Canada, with periodic visits to our startup temple in the Midwest. Probably like most of our convert Buddhist community, I had moved into the temple full-time with a great deal of hope and projection that the teacher, who was described by his senior students as a Zen master and enlightened being, would be my major role model of elevated qualities of compassion and wisdom as I somehow imagined them to be.

I had immediately been appointed office manager and treasurer when I moved into the temple. I started the office with a landline phone, a cardboard box for petty cash and receipts, a checkbook, and a small wooden bench that could be used as a tiny desk if one sat cross-legged on the wooden floor. There wasn’t enough money in the bank to pay our utility bills and mortgage when I moved in, so we cut every corner and pinched every penny.

It was under these pressured circumstances that I was quietly working in the office when the “Zen master” suddenly walked in and began screaming at the top of his lungs at me for making a long- distance phone call for business reasons during a time when rates were higher. As Zen students, we were taught to “eat the blame,” so I did, and simply apologized until he went away. A few days later, having complained to the temple director who told him that the reduced rate times for calling were different in the U.S. than in Canada, he sheepishly reappeared in the office and said he hadn’t had full information. This was somewhat short of an “I’m sorry I unfairly vented my rage on you.” But it was the best I could get under the circumstances.

I couldn’t talk to anyone outside our temple system about such incidents because they would immediately say, “Why don’t you leave?” And the fact was, I was also learning a great deal. There were so many beautiful aspects of our communal temple life of meditating together and manual work, cooking and cleaning and eating together. The teacher was also immensely talented and caring in many ways. It was confusing, and in the Buddhist practice we were doing, it was okay not to know everything at once.

Traditional Zen stories and Zen lore are full of anecdotes that involve hitting and yelling and enduring unfair accusations. By the time I became a renunciant, I was an adult woman with a master’s degree. I’d been married and divorced. I had worked various jobs in the secular world. And I’d been exposed to the women’s movement and lived through the civil rights era in the U.S. I was open to going through some strong, and even traumatizing experiences for the sake of spiritual training.

Things continued to be a dynamic mess. I ended up in an Asian monastery for 8 months in 1987-88. There, my life and identity as I had known them continued to be blown up. As I said some time after I returned, I felt as though I got completely chewed up by the patriarchy.

It is also completely possible that if I had been smarter and had better boundaries, I wouldn’t have ended up as badly as I did.

But I survived. I got back to California, and, struggling continuously with extreme poverty, raised a Buddhist child, and continued my practice. I promised my son and myself that I would find a way to live in Buddhist community where power was more equally distributed, and codes of ethics and democratic structures were in place. Buddhist life might continue to be a mess. But I wanted, at minimum, a more workable mess that aligned with my cultural values. I distinctly remember thinking, upon returning to the U.S. from the Asian monastic system, “I don’t have to get my way, but I will be damned if I don’t at least get to vote. I am an American, and I want my vote!”

I didn’t want to overthink any of this. All systems and forms have limitations, and attachment creates suffering – this is a universal principle of Buddhism which I personally have never found to be untrue. That being said, the reason I began Zen meditation in the first place was because I wanted to find a situation in which I could live with other people with forms of practice that encourage well-being, kindness and justice, while at the same time providing support for Awakening. And I’ve been fortunate, because I’ve spent the last eleven years working with others to create a diverse and social justice-centered urban meditation center in Oakland, California, where I live. For me, and for many others, East Bay Meditation Center has been the intersection of Dharma practice and community-based social justice activism and awareness where I can constantly explore Liberation in ways that don’t separate the spiritual world from the real experiences of structural violence that I experience or witness every day.

As a Buddhist teacher at East Bay Meditation Center, I teach in trauma-informed ways that I have learned as a yoga student from the social justice-based Niroga Institute in Oakland, California. The traditional forms of spiritual training that require students to withstand humiliation and abuse from those above them in a hierarchical model are, I’m convinced, not essential to a 21st century Eightfold Path. Why? Because for most people, especially those in communities targeted for oppression, life is already full of traumatic humiliation and abuse. What we need are ways to become resilient, whole, and wise in seeking environmentally sustainable ways to coexist nonviolently and joyfully.

My Bodhisattva vows, the same as millions of others who have taken these vows, are “to save the many beings.” Where the rubber meets the road is that we are different from one another, love is not always the answer, and conflict is inevitable. I’m fine with this particular dynamic mess of imperfection, as long as it’s worked with in the service of systemic justice and equity.

Healing Experiences of Vipassanā Practitioners in Contemporary China, Case study 5

This is a case study that is part of a series of linked posts:
Introduction, case 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5

Case 5: Candasaro

Before ordaining as a monk in Thailand, Candasaro had worked at a private factory as a production manager in Sichuan for over 30 years. In 2008 he started exploring Theravāda meditation by learning observing the breath[i] with Pa-Auk Sayadaw’s method at Jiju Mountain for about two months in Yunnan. He later gave up this practice as he could not see any sign[ii] emerged in his sitting. “My personality is quite fast-paced. It’s difficult to cultivate calmness.”[iii] In May 2011, he firstly learnt about the practice of dynamic movement at a ten-day retreat led by Luangpor Khamkhian Suvanno, from Thailand, in Hongzhou.[iv] During the retreat, he tasted a sense of joy[v], a positive outcome of meditation.

Candasaro found that dynamic movement suited him perfectly. He explained about the practice: “In the beginning [you] observe the movement of the body. Later [you can] observe the mind. All practices are similar. They firstly cultivate calmness by bringing awareness to one point. That is developing an ability of concentrating the mind. Without calmness, it is impossible to practice vipassanā. When you open the six sense doors, you hold one of them, like a monkey holding the main pillar. In dynamic movement, the main practice is moving the arms. In Mahāsi’s method, it is about the rising and falling of the abdomen. … I like observing the movement.”

He also practiced the dynamic movement at workplace. “While I was working at the control room, I managed the office work and communicated with my colleagues [when it was necessary]. The workload was not so heavy. There was only about one working our every day. It was relaxing.” Then in October 2011 Candasaro joined an organized trip to stay at WatPa Sukato[vi] for two months in South Thailand. This was the first time he travelled to Thailand. Located at Chaiyaphum Province, the temple covering an area of 185 acres, including a river and Phu Kong Mountain that was 470 meters above sea level. Sukato means ‘good’. Luang Phor Kham Khian Suwanno, the first abbot, shared his intention of building the temple, “Sukato is a place where people come and go for wellness, also for the beneficial impact of the environment, human being, river, forest and air. This is the wellness in coming, going and being. This wellness is born from earth, water, air and fire, not from one person alone. …There are shelter, food and friends who will teach, demonstrate, and give advice. Should one wish to stay here, his or her intention to practice dharma shall be fulfilled.”[vii]

In this huge forest temple, there were around 30 monks and 30 lay people only. As there were plenty established huts, every resident could stay in one hut.[viii] Every morning, all residents woke up at 3 o’clock in the early morning to prepare for the chanting and dhamma talk at 4 o’clock. Around 6 am, Candasaro and other monks, dressed in yellow monastic robe, formally visited villages nearby carrying their alms bowls for their daily alms round. (See Fig. 3 and Fig. 4) In Chinese Buddhist communities in China, alms round practices have been faded out for many centuries. With bare feet, the monks lined up tidily first and started walking towards one of the target villages. After entering the village, they stopped in front of a household where donors were waiting with cooked rice and food. Whenever people from households offered food to monks one by one, they would line up before the householders and chant blessing words in Pāli. All the monks went back to the monastery with the received alms. At around 7.30 am, volunteers in the monastery kitchen finished preparing the foods so that the monks and all residents could have their first meal. For monks, this was also the only meal according to their precepts.

In August 2012, he stayed there again for a month. In 2013, he decided to quit his job and receive early retired pension. He decided to ordain as a bhikkhu and settled at WatPa Sukato. He enjoyed his monastic life very much, “I don’t need to spend any money by living at a monastery. I have been working in government and business sectors for many years. I am very tired of them. And my wife agreed to that [the separation] ….  After you practice diligently, awareness lead you to have a strong sense of renunciation from the mundane world. Firstly, [it’s] renunciation; secondly, you do not attach or crave something.” (See Fig. 5)

Although Candasaro could not speak English, he had learnt some basic Thai words to communicate with Thai people for his daily basic needs. Over the past four years, he went back to China a few times to attend retreats and also invited some friends to travel to WatPa Sukato. In 2017, he returned to China and settled in Fujian Province. He started teaching dynamic meditation and led alms round in the village.

[i] Ch. guanhuxi; P. ānāpānasati.

[ii] Ch. chanxiang; P. nimitta.

[iii] Ch. ding; P. samādhi.

[iv] Luangpor Khamkhian Suvanno was a disciple of Luangpor Teean.

[v] Ch. xi; P. piti.

[vi] See “Wa-Pa-Sukato,” Tourism Authority of Thailand, https://www.tourismthailand.org/Attraction/Wat-Pa-Sukato–3354

[vii] Ibid.

[viii] Ch. gudi; P. kuṭi

Healing Experiences of Vipassanā Practitioners in Contemporary China, Case study 4

This is a case study that is part of a series of linked posts:
Introduction, case 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5

Case 4: Jiang Hailong

Since May in 2006, Jiang Hailong, a forty-six-year-old civil servant from Fujian Province, had started practicing vipassanā with Goenka’s method for ten years. He attended four ten-day retreats and five eight-day satipaṭṭhāna retreats. Jiang said: “Learning vipassanā can purify the mind and cultivate wisdom. After a car accident in October 2005, I started suffering from headaches all the time. They could not be cured, although I had tried various kinds of treatment in clinics by spending a lot of money.”

Finally, he started practicing vipassanā to help relieve his physical pain in his daily life. He shared with me in a grateful tone: “I practice mindfulness every moment. From my experience, I feel pain in my head if I don’t practice. Yet with moment-to-moment awareness, the headache can be released. I can see clearly the change in the mind and the body. The whole body is composed of waves and particles. They emerge and disappear. I can see the phenomenon clearly during sitting and in my daily life. There is no concept of my arms, legs and head. They are waves only, with the vibration of particles. They arise and fall like bubbles… many bubbles …arise and fall… very quickly.”

Jiang highly recommend the teaching of Goenka. He believes that the teaching can lead to liberation of life and death. “Without awareness, I feel so painful. It is suffering. With awareness, the pain is relieved. Previously I had hatred towards the pain. Progressively the pain and hatred have faded away. A pleasant feeling even sometimes arises. Yet [I remind myself] not to attach to it.”

Jiang highlighted meditators should report to meditation teachers, who would give instructions during interview. Jiang thought that he did not practice well. He said shyly and humbly, “I have never dared to share with anyone about my practice–the experience of impermanence and not-self. But when I report to teacher, he confirmed that he could see it [in a similar way].”

Healing Experiences of Vipassanā Practitioners in Contemporary China, Case study 3

This is a case study that is part of a series of linked posts:
Introduction, case 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5

Case 3: Xie Mingda

Xie Mingda, in his 40s, was born in Shamen of Fujian Province. With the influence of his parents and relatives, he has had chances of learning Buddhism since he was a child. “I attended some classes of Buddhism, and learned some Chinese Buddhist scriptures, such as The Diamond Sutra. I have a few good friends who have ordained as monks in Chinese Buddhist tradition, and also some in Theravāda tradition. I have been interested in learning scriptures in Theravāda tradition and Pāli language.”

Since 2008 he has attended ten-day vipassanā retreats of Goenka’s method for ten times, twenty-day for once and thirty-day for twice.[i] He has also served ten-day vipassanā retreats ten times as a volunteer helper.[ii] Nowadays he practices meditation for two hours every day. He found that his physical health has improved. His mind has become more balanced and more compassionate.

“I had suffered from Ankylosing Spondylitis, a disease related to immune system. It took me a few minutes to get up from sitting meditation posture. After I insisted to practice regular meditation, my body has been improved a lot. I feel that the body is full of energy after meditation.” However, he emphasized that a right attitude of meditation practice is important. In the beginning of his practice, he hurt his leg as he tried to strive for good results.

Overall, Xie Mingda showed a great sense of gratitude to meditation practice. “[Through practicing meditation, I have experience the sense of impermanence[iii] and not-self.[iv] Comparing with a few years ago, I feel that the sense of self has been reduced.” The benefits of meditation have influenced his mental state. “I work in Futures trading [which renders me a lot of stress.] After practicing vipassanā, the anxiety emotion has been reduced. The mind has become more balanced. I think that my frequent donation also helps.”

[i] See Vipassana Meditation website for details https://www.dhamma.org/

[ii] It is usually called as Dhamma worker (Ch. fagong).

[iii] Ch. wuchang; P. anicca.

[iv] Ch. wuwo; P. anattā.

Healing Experiences of Vipassanā Practitioners in Contemporary China, Case study 2

This is a case study that is part of a series of linked posts:
Introduction, case 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5

Case 2: Wu Jianhong

After the experience of curing sub-arachnoid hemorrhage, a life-threatening condition in 2013, Wu Jianhong, a 50-year-old civil servant, has changed his lifestyle rigorously. He was still impressed about the shocking moment: “I visited a medical doctor after having a long-term serious headache. After the assessment, I was shocked that when he asked me: ‘Do you have any religious belief? You’d better have one as you cannot do much either office or labour work in future.’ I said I didn’t know that as I have never explored any religions. The doctor said he became a Christian after studying abroad in France and the United States. I said that I was not interested in Christianity. I think that I may be interested in Buddhism.”

Wu then reflected on his previous lifestyle: “I remember that I used to experience mental stress from my office work. And I was quite frustrated about my unsatisfied achievement, such as my financial situation and social status. Then I was pessimistic about many things in my life. And I started some unhealthy habits. For example, I addicted to gambling and drinking. [However,] when I was sick, I thought it was time to understand my life again. I started thinking: why do human beings live with suffering?”

“What are the origins of suffering? … I had never thought about that. I spent most of my time on work, entertainment and drinking. From the book, I remember a quote. ‘The source of suffering is an attachment to self.’ ……When we compare with others [about our achievement], we experience mental stress and suffering…… I finally understand that the cause of suffering is ‘the self’.” Wu Jianhong received a few books about Buddhism before the operation. After returning home from the hospital, he read Heart Sutra and Human Wisdom, a book written by Venerable Jiqun, the abbot of the Xiyuan Monastery in Suzhou. As he knew the great variety in Buddhist practices, he had an idea of exploring a way of practice. From reading The Diamond Sutra[i] and the Platform Sutra of the Sixth Patriarch, he found that meditation was suitable for him. When his body was recovering, Lu visited Xiyuan Monastery to attend his first one day meditation retreat with Mahasī’s vipassanā method. “I remember that when I registered for the activity, I kept a very pious mind. It was so fortunate that I was selected to join the meditation retreat. ……Since then, I have learned to practice mindfulness at the present moment.”

As Jianxi Province is more close to his home, Wu then visited Yunshan Monastery in Jianxi for about three times every year to join seven-day or ten-day vipassanā meditation retreats.(See Fig. 1 and Fig. 2) For example, he first attended seven-day retreat led by Sayadaw U Indaka, a Burmese vipassanā teacher who practices with Chanmyay Sayadaw’s method.[ii] He also explored some books on vipassanā meditation. ‘Venerable Juexing gave me two books: Don’t Look Down on the Defilements and Dhamma Everywhere.[iii] After reading them, I felt that [the practice] is the same as that of Platform Sutra. I have already found my way of practice. I do not need to explore anywhere. I can understand my life.” To him, the practices of the Northern School and the Southern School are the same. “I am willing to learn whatever is beneficial to me…….I will check that whether the practice is about the Fourth Noble Truth, the Eightfold Path and the Twelve Links of Dependent Origination.” He does include the practice of reciting the Buddha’s name of the Pure Land tradition. When he is agitated, he practice meditation. “I calm down myself, and practice observing the breath. There are many ways of practices, for example, bringing awareness to some parts of the body.”

Wu Jianhong has cut off all his habits of gambling, smoking and drinking. Instead of spending time on entertainment, he enjoys practicing Buddhism and meditation. “In daily life I think, if Buddhist practice cannot be brought into daily life, it is difficult for us to survive in this society.” However, most of his family members, including his father, siblings and his wife, misunderstand his big change. “They even slander [me]. Yet I continuously insist [my practice]. Why? It has been greatly beneficial to me, including my body recovery. It support the recovery of my body and mind. I can see the changes. I used to have bad temper. Now I rarely lose my temper.” Despite the existing misunderstanding of Buddhism in the society, Wu does not intend to argue with those people. “I try to do my best about what I need to do. I think it shows how I have changed with Buddhist practice.”

[i] Ch. Jingangjing; Skt. Vajracchedikā-prajñāpāramitā-sūtra

[ii] Sayadaw U Indaka is the disciple of Chanmyay Sayadaw following the lineage of Mahāsi Sayadaw.

[iii] See U Tejaniya 2014.

Healing Experiences of Vipassanā Practitioners in Contemporary China, Case study 1

This is a case study that is part of a series of linked posts:
Introduction, case 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5

Case 1: Lu Hongji

Lu Hongji, a Chinese medical doctor from Shanxi in his 40s, is who has received benefits from vipassanā meditation of Mahāsi’s method. He started exploring various Buddhist practices, including canhuatou in Chan practice, since 1996. When Pa-Auk Sayadaw visited Guangdong Province in 1999, he became interested in the meditation practices of Theravāda traditions. With the encouragement from a friend who visited Myanmar, he traveled to Myanmar two times. He recalled: “In the first visit I had stayed at the meditation center of Chanmyay Sayadaw for over four months. In 2014 I had spent nearly four months at the meditation center of U Paṇḍita Sayadaw, who is famous for the strict rules for meditation practices. In the beginning I misunderstood that vipassanā was the same as qigong. Only after I have committed to the practice that I can fully understand the method. Now I understand that it is a unique practice. But it is connected with the practice of observing the mind from Chan tradition. I practice walking meditation to reduce the sense of sleepiness before sitting meditation. Each time after serious practice, my body is soften. I can feel the warmth in the abdomen area. The mind has become gradually awake and serene. With right mindfulness, insight developed from vipassanā meditation arise to deal with all kinds of thoughts in the mind. Practicing vipassanā has brought me an experience of great change in my life. For instance, I stop pursuing those materialistic goals which tire me. I am contented with the inner peace at the present moment.”

Lu Hongji emphasized that it is important to learn meditation from an experienced teacher with skillful instruction skills. He said, “A good teacher can guide students to overcome any difficulties during meditation. Meditation can improve physical health. Once I gave meditation instructions to a few young people. The body of a student was weak. While he was practicing sitting or walking meditation, his body moved obviously. Strong reaction during meditation reflects that the body is weak.” He explained that, “[From the perspective of Buddhism], physical movement is a reaction of the wind element. That is also an imbalance of the four elements (the earth element, the water element, the fire element and the wind element). From the perspective of Chinese medicine, practicing meditation gives rise to positive energy (Ch. yangqi). The physical reaction is due to the interaction of the energy and the blocking area in the body.” Although meditation can heal the body, Lu reminded that one cannot strive in meditation practice. Meditators should prepare their body with a balance of four elements before the development of the mind.

Healing Experiences of Vipassanā Practitioners in Contemporary China

This is part of a series of linked posts:
Introduction, case 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5

 

Meditation (chan), recognized as one of the key practices in Chinese Buddhism, has in mainland China historically been restricted mainly to monks at Buddhist monasteries. However, there has recently been an increasing number of laypeople learning various satipaṭṭhāna meditation practices from the Theravāda traditions, especially vipassanā derived from Burmese and Thai teachings. Hundreds of people have attended seven-day or ten-day vipassanā retreats in different parts of China. Drawing on interview transcripts from recent fieldwork in mainland China, this chapter focuses on the healing experiences of Han Chinese vipassanā practitioners.

Vipassanā, as it is known today, is largely a product of the modern era. With the influence of colonization and Buddhist modernism in the late nineteenth century in Southeast Asia, various Buddhist meditation practices were modernized. Scholars have identified Ledi Sayadaw (1846-1923) as a key player in the modernization of vipassanā.[i] As a Buddhist scholar and meditation teacher in Burma, Ledi Sayadaw simplified the theoretical underpinnings of meditation (the abhidhamma), and emphasized the cultivation of insight through vipassanā rather than the intensively ascetic mental absorptions known as jhāna. These innovations evoked a massive increase in lay people learning meditation in Burma.

After the independence of Burma in the 1950s, the vipassanā meditation teachings of Mahāsi Sayadaw (1904-1982), and their adaptations by lay teacher Satya Narayan Goenka (1924-2013) have become popular, and have spread to other Asian countries such as Sri Lanka and Thailand.[ii] Since the 1960s, some westerners travelled to Myanmar and Thailand to learn meditation as monastics or lay practitioners. Vipassanā meditation has been spread to Europe and North America by these Western meditators, as well as by Asian monks who have established meditation centers in the West and published meditation manuals in English.

Since the turn of the century, various meditation practices from Theravāda traditions have also been spread to Malaysia, Singapore, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and then mainland China through published books, websites, and travellers.[iii] Some Buddhist monastics and lay people from China have travelled to Southeast Asia to stay at meditation centers for a few months, or even a few years, to learn meditation. After returning to mainland China, some Chinese practitioners have organized retreats, inviting teachers from Myanmar and Thailand to teach vipassanā meditation in China.

In the mainland Chinese context, vipassanā meditation is translated as neiguan chan (lit. “internal contemplation meditation”), which emphasizes the observation of the mind and the body. Among those vipassanā meditation practices transmitted into contemporary Chinese societies, popular teachings include that of Mahāsi Sayadaw and Goenka from Burmese lineages, and the dynamic movement practice of the Thai monk Luang Por Teean. There are currently six vipassanā meditation centers set up offering Goenka’s meditation program across the country,[iv] and one meditation center offering Luang Por Teean’s teachings in Sichuan.[v] Although there is thus far no center dedicated to Mahāsi Sayadaw’s system established in China, a few famous disciples of his, including U Paṇḍita Sayadaw (1921-2016) and Chanmyay Sayadaw (b. 1928) have led retreats in China.

The three systems of meditation have their differences. Mahāsi Sayadaw has highlighted the role of vipassanā in helping the practitioner to overcome suffering by understanding the true nature of body (rūpa) and mind (nāma) as being composed of the Five Aggregates, according to the classic Buddhist doctrine. Unlike Mahāsi Sayādaw, Goenka uses the terminology of modern science. He explains that the mind and body are “nothing, but subtle wavelets of subatomic particles,”[vi] and he highlights vipassanā’s adaptation for modern life as a “secular, universal and scientific technique.”[vii] Unlike both Mahāsi Sayādaw’s and Goenka’s methods, which teach meditators to sit still with closed eyes to attain calmness, Luang Por Teean’s meditators practice rhythmic movements continuously. Keeping their eyes open, they believe that this practice can train the mind to become active, clear, and pure and to realize a state of freedom.

Overall, the transcripts from interviews that are excerpted and translated below will demonstrate that a number of Han Chinese practitioners of vipassanā have claimed to experience significant therapeutic benefits from their meditations. Many experienced practitioners shared that the main cause of suffering is attachment to self and material things in Buddhism. Vipassanā meditation has facilitated them to understand impermanence and not-self through mind-body experiences, so that they can deal with physical pain from their physical illness. The strong moment-to-moment awareness from the meditation practice in daily life can help meditators to reduce the sense of self and attachment to material world. With the right attitude of practice, the mind can cultivate calmness and joy with a balanced mental state. Hence long-term meditators can easily contented with their balanced mental state in daily life. Without a striving mind in the mundane world, one can reduce suffering and unhappiness gradually.

[i] Braun 2013. Burma is used in this chapter to refer to Myanmar before the end of colonization.

[ii] About the influence of the teaching of Mahāsi Sayadaw in Myanmar and Thailand, see Jordt 2007 and Cook 2010 respectively; about the influence of the teaching of Goenka in Burma and Asian countries, see Bond 2003.

[iii] About the development of vipassanā meditation in Taiwan, see Chen 2012; about the development of vipassanā meditation in Hong Kong, see Lau, Ngar-sze. 2014. “Changing Buddhism in Contemporary Chinese Societies, with special reference to meditation and secular mindfulness practices in Hong Kong and Taiwan.” MPhil diss., University of Oxford.

[iv] See the website of Vipassana Meditation centres in mainland China, http://vipassana.sutta.org/

[v] Mahasati Dynamic Meditation Centre, http://www.zndzc.org/

[vi] Hart 1987: 115.

[vii] Goldberg 2014: 79.

FURTHER READING

Bond, George D. 2003.The Contemporary Lay Meditation Movement and Lay Gurus in Sri Lanka.” Religion 33: 23-55.

Braun, Erik. 2013. The birth of insight: meditation, modern Buddhism, and the Burmese monk Ledi Sayadaw. Chicago; London: The University of Chicago Press.

Chen, Chialuen. 2012. “Nanchuan fojiao zaitaiwan difazhan yuyingxiang.” Taiwanese Sociology 24: 155-206.

Cook, Joanna. 2010. Meditation in Modern Buddhism: Renunciation and Change in Thai Monastic Life. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Goldberg, Kory. 2014. “Chapter 3 For the Benefit of Many: S.N. Goenka’s Vipassana Meditation Movement in Canada.” In Flowers on the Rock: Global and Local Buddhisms in Canada, ed. John S. Harding, Victor Sogen Hori, and Alexander Soucy, Montreal & Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press.

Hart, William. 1987. The Art of Living: Vipassana Meditation as Taught by S. N. Goenka. Onalaska: Harper & Row.

Jordt, Ingrid. Burma’s mass lay meditation movement: Buddhism and the cultural construction of power. Athens: Ohio University Press, 2007.

Mahasī, Sayādaw. Dhamma Therapy Revisited: Cases of Healing through Vipassanā Meditation. (Aggacitta Bhikkhu Trans.). Taiping: Sāsanārakkha Buddhist Sanctuary, 2009. (Original work published 1976)

Pagis, Michal. 2009. “Embodied Self-Reflexivity.” Social Psychology Quarterly 72, (3): 265-283.

Schedneck, Brooke. 2015. Thailand’s International Meditation Centers: Tourism and the global commodification of religious practices. Abingdon: Routledge.

U Tejaniya, Sayadaw [Dejianiya Chanshi]. 2014. Bie qingshi fannao [Don’t Look down on the Defilements: They Will Laugh at You]. Translated by Li Mingqiang. Jianxi: Jianxi Buddhist Academy.

———. 2014. Yiqie doushi fa [Dhamma Everywhere]. Translated by Li Mingqiang. Jianxi Buddhist Academy.

GLOSSARY

Abhidhamma     ‘higher teaching’; refers to the collection of commentaries on Buddhist canon

Chan                            (Ch. meditation)

Jhāna                           mental absorption or trance

neiguan chan               (Ch. internal contemplation meditation)

satipaṭṭhāna                 foundations of mindfulness

rūpa                             body; physical component

nāma                            mind; mental components

 

See also: Case Study 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5