Spiritual culture
as a Dhamma practice is above all about what you do. Any Wesak will normally centre on a circumambulation of a
shrine carrying flowers, incense and candles: these represent morality,
meditation and wisdom, the three limbs of the Buddhist Path. Inwardly, the practitioner will be
recollecting these as well as the Buddha’s calm, compassion and happiness.
Considering the topics that one could spend an hour or so considering, this is
a pretty good theme for the heart/mind to turn over. And not to be limited to one day per year,
Buddhists will hold similar events on several other markers in the year,
and even make up a few to keep topped up.
After all, such occasions bring people together in a friendly (and
sober) way, and at least in Asia, they support the dropping of disputes and
differences, and the affirmation of harmony in the human and natural world – and
that’s good news.
In the West, such
events and all the paraphernalia of images and tokens gets a mixed reception
because another term for spiritual culture is ‘religion’ – and a good number of
Dhamma-practitioners are uneasy about religion. ‘Religion is about blind
belief, right? Isn’t religion an affirmation of myths and other-worldly
hocus-pocus? A sacrifice of the intellect on the altar of superstition? The
transference of power to non-existent gods that keeps us under the power of a
priestly institution? We don’t want any of that.’ Quite rightly so. Meanwhile, religious forms and observances and
all kinds of cultural rituals – from weddings to funerals, to graduation
ceremonies and presidential inaugurations – are practised by the majority of
humanity. They give reference to something beyond (if within) the
socio-economic parameters of making a living and attachment to fleeting
sense-phenomena, and become sources of consolation, faith and harmony
in the face of death, evil and conflict. Ritual, especially corporate ritual, highlights an undertaking by driving a mooring post into the drifting stream of
mind. It can of course be driven in with ulterior motives: the fact that
religions are also used for political ends, to establish power structures, rake
in donations and become sources of conflict highlights the way that humans can
corrupt just about anything. However, in the broadest sense of the word, religion – an external form or convention that establishes references to moor and
steer one’s life by – is inevitable; it just has to be used wisely, to keep it connected to valid experience and practice.
So the choice is
around using religion wisely, rather than whether ‘true’ spirituality needs
such an expression. This is because all spiritual practices sooner or later,
and particularly as they become corporate, produce religious forms. Religion is
the outer, visible and enactable aspect of what is intimately experienced
as truth, compassion, ethics, transcendence and so on. There is no way that these inner experiences
can be communicated and referred to except through an outer form. As an early
example, there is the occasion recorded in the Buddhist texts of 1250 arahants
(enlightened disciples) spontaneously gathering at the Buddha’s dwelling in the
Bamboo Grove at Rajagāha. They had no needs, and made no requests; it was just
an observance, an collective act of affirmation of the Buddha. And the Buddha’s response wasn’t to tell them
to go away and meditate, but to mark the occasion with a summary of
Dhamma-practice – the Ovāda Pāṭimokkha
– that has been learnt and recited ever since. On other occasions he recommended visiting and revering as shrines the
places where one has made commitments to Dhamma, or where a Buddha has
lived. And more commonly, he advocated
bringing to mind and dwelling on the qualities of the Buddha, the Dhamma and
the Sangha as a source of uplift, of calm and of self-assessment. In fact, this is the basis of Buddhist
practice in the Asian tradition.
In the West, the
Dhamma-culture has other accepted forms.
Here rather than gather around the Buddha, we gather around a teacher;
we offer that affirmation, often for a fee. We meet in Dhamma-centres and
subscribe to the rituals of silence, routines and however the management and
teacher want us to behave. We have faith (some might say belief) that this will
be for our welfare – as it often is to a degree. Coming out of our
socio-domestic scenario has its benefits, and although the narrative continues
in our heads and hearts, our sense that some transcendence is possible is
supported by the outward forms of teacher, companions, structure and systems. More subtly, the goal itself
is encapsulated in the language structure of the teaching: whether you have jhāna or ñāna, and confirmation by the teacher as to the level and stage you are
at, will all give you something to hold onto, sign up for, or a means of comparing yourself with others. Of course, worldly influences
are there: the centre and the teacher have to make money; there are
advertisements, celebrities and marketing strategies. Spiritual authority is invested in the teacher.
There is the expectation that you participate in more events. It's a modern-day Church.
There are also
Buddhist conferences to which delegates and speakers are invited to deliver
talks, debate issues and make collective pronouncements. Others may also purchase a ticket to attend. And rather than images and
rituals, texts are the preoccupation. Even hard-bitten rationalists find
themselves referring to, and of course debating, the validity of, scriptures.
And they may very well write a book or two, in which their opinions and ideas
will be lifted out of the temporary flow of dialogue into a lasting form
– the new orthodoxy. This will be on sale to the general public. So rather
than the affirmation of the Buddha and the offerings of flowers, we move
towards the affirmation of the teacher (and his or her words and system) and
the requirement of money. Some call this
‘secular/Protestant Buddhism’ and see it as an advancement. To me, it’s religion again: the external form
of spirituality, with its benefits and drawbacks.
Even the attempts
to clean up religion becomes another religion. Witness the Protestant and
Puritan movements in Christianity, with their preference for texts over images, their taboos, dress-codes, and required communal observances. And when
religion is banned altogether, then statues of the Great Leader are erected,
his thoughts are canonized, and veneration of his birthday and his
tomb become the required ritual. As an alternative, one could surrender one’s spirit to the icons of materialism – designer-labelled apparel, gadgets and
consumables – or to its rituals: the game, the show, or the party.
The Buddha accepted
the spiritual-religious-cultural process, but challenged or validated the
connection between interior and exterior. For example, on one occasion, having
demonstrated in debate the contradictions and blindness in the ascetic
practices of Nigrodha, the Buddha then refrains from dismissing Nigrodha’s
rules and observances or from presenting his own. In an act of great spiritual
generosity, he instead advocates that Nigrodha keeps to his own religion but
inquires into its interior aspects:
Nigrodha, you may think: ‘The ascetic Gotama
says this in order to get disciples.’ But you should not regard it like that.
Let him who is your teacher remain your teacher. Or you may think: ‘ He wants
us to abandon our rules.’ But…Let your rules remain your rules. Or you may think: ‘He wants us to abandon our
way of life.’ … Let your way of life remain as it was … I do not speak for any
of these reasons.
There are, Nigrodha, unwholesome things that
have not been abandoned, tainted, conducive to rebirth, fearful, productive of
painful results in the future … It is for the abandonment of these things that
I teach Dhamma. If you practise accordingly, these tainted things will be
abandoned … and you will attain to and dwell in this very life by your own
insight and realization, in the fullness of perfected wisdom. D.25.23 (Udumbarika-Sihanāda
sutta)
A further example
of the Buddha’s advocacy of wise reflection is laid out in the Kālāma sutta (Numerical Discourses, A. 3, 65). In
summary, the Buddha advises the Kālāmas to not rely on ten sources of belief.
These are: the four sources of scriptural authority (texts, oral transmission,
lineage and hearsay), the four bases of personal reasoning (logic, inference,
cogitation and contemplation) and two examples of authoritative persons (exemplars
and speakers). However he does encourage direct apprehension of what is skilful
or unskilful in accordance with what is
‘praised by the wise’.[1]
Belief in one’s own opinions therefore has to be balanced with the consensus of wise
companions.
Balance and
connection between the interior and exterior domains is the key. All
mental/emotional ‘interiors’ have sensory, communicable ‘exteriors’ and furthermore
interiors and the exteriors affect and shape each other – and that means
that we have to be conscious and responsible around that process. We can’t stop
our deeds affecting our hearts and minds and that of others. We can’t prevent
our attitudes, affirmations and inclinations from affecting the world. If we
hold to a mind-set that transfers wish-fulfilment and authority to an exterior
form, then belief in that is what happens, along with blind (or enforced)
devotion. If on the other hand we negate the value of exterior forms, then
suppression, iconoclasm and a society shorn of depth-values is what happens.
Either that, or we must look for satisfaction through the senses or the
intellect. But if, in that case, we hold to a mind-set that ascribes truth to our rational
processes, then individual arrogance and the dismissal of social life is
what happens: the great disbelievers can’t live in or engender a corporate
transmission. The responsibility as always rests with bringing the interior and
the exterior into harmony: individually we have to practise mutual respect, inquiry
and individual humility; as a collective we need to keep referring to and
working with each other.
Fortunately extreme
positions don’t last long: one of the great disbelievers, Krishnamurti, was
also a mystic, and a loving (and flawed) man who encouraged education as his
corporate legacy. Maoism has been quietly replaced by secular materialism or
spiritual observance – and life goes on as before. Protestants, Catholics,
Buddhist and others get together to discuss ‘God as a verb’, the role of
transcendence in the material world, or of spiritual community in an age of
fragmentation. With time, common sense
surfaces and asks for both deep inquiry and collective action: does this
attitude, speech or action lead to suffering, or not? If I affirm this set of
words as the only truth, does this lead to conflict, or to the welfare of
myself and others – or not? Because if the interior and the exterior don't meet at a place of value, society breaks down under the pressure of
