Buddhism Without Beliefs: A Contemporary Guide to
Awakening. By Stephen Batchelor. Riverhead Books, New York, 1997 -
pp.127. Price USA $21.95, Canada $29.50
Review by Urgyen Sangharakshita
Why does one write book reviews? This was the question that occurred to
me recently, when I resumed writing them after an interval of several years.
On reflection I concluded that one engaged in this minor form of literary activity
principally for four reasons. In the first place, through a review one can draw attention
to a book that might otherwise be undeservedly neglected. Then one can point out
particular beauties in a work, especially if it is a work of imagination, in this way not
only delighting in those beauties oneself but perhaps being the cause of others delighting
in them too. Again, reviewing a book enables one to correct factual inaccuracies, expose
muddled thinking, and challenge onesided views. Finally, by obliging one to engage closely
with the product of another mind, writing a review helps one to clarify and refine, even
to modify, one's own ideas.
Most of these reasons entered into my decision to review Buddhism Without Beliefs,
of whose appearance on the scene I was made aware through excerpts published in the Spring
1997 issue of Tricycle, the American Buddhist review. As I later discovered, these
excerpts were taken from three sections of the book, sections headed, respectively,
Agnosticism, Imagination, and Culture, the lengthiest being taken from the first section.
With certain elements in Batchelor's thinking I found myself very much in agreement, for
instance his insistence on the importance of the agnostic imperative in Buddhism and his
contention that dharma practice was more akin to artistic creation than technical problem
solving. I therefore procured a copy of the book from which the Tricycle excerpts
had been taken. Unfortunately, Buddhism Without Beliefs proved to be something of a
disappointment. To begin with, it was a slim volume of 127 pages including ten pages of
Sources and Notes, whereas I had expected a more substantial work. That it was only a slim
volume was no accident, as I afterwards realised. Moreover, the author ... But to give
reasons for my disappointment is in effect to start reviewing the book, and since it is
best to proceed systematically, I shall look at (i) those points in it that are acceptable
and (ii) those that are unacceptable, (iii) examine Batchelor's idea of a belief-free,
agnostic Buddhism in detail, (iv) offer a few general observations, and (v) ask myself
what I have learned from the exercise.
The work consists of fifteen short essays divided into three groups. The first group,
collectively entitled Ground, contains essays on, respectively, Awakening, Agnosticism,
Anguish, Death, Rebirth, Resolve, Integrity, and Friendship; in the second, entitled Path,
essays on Awareness, Becoming, Emptiness, and Compassion, while the third, entitled
Fruition, contains essays on Freedom, Imagination and Culture. In looking both at the
points that can be accepted and those that are unacceptable, rejoicing in the former and
deploring the latter, I shall deal with them in the order in which they occur in the book.
Obviously I shall not be able to deal with all such points, or even to deal with each
essay individually. I shall try, however, to cover all the points that to me seem
important.
(i)
Batchelor begins at the beginning, going back to Siddhartha Gautama's
awakening (as he calls it, instead of the more usual Enlightenment) and to his giving, as
the Buddha, his first discourse, delivered to his five former ascetic companions in the
Deer Park at Sarnath, near Benares. This is where many expositions of Buddhism begin; but
Batchelor, in addition to summarising the discourse, draws attention to the fact that each
of the four ennobling truths (as he calls them) of Anguish, its origins, its cessation,
and the path leading to its cessation, which together form the core of the discourse,
requires being acted upon in its own particular way. Anguish has to be understood,
its origins have to be let go of, its cessation has to be realised, and the
path leading to its cessation has to be cultivated. Thus 'Buddhism' (the inverted
commas being Batchelor's) suggests a course of action; the four truths are challenges to
act. Though more Buddhists may be aware of the distinction between the first discourse's
four ways of action than our author thinks, his emphasis on the importance of action
certainly deserves to be taken seriously by all Buddhists. As Professor Richard F.
Gombrich has recently pointed out, albeit from within a different perspective, karma or
'Action', in the word's primary sense of morally relevant action, lies at the heart of the
Buddha's world view [1]; such action being, as he goes on to point out, not only physical
and vocal but also mental. Though Batchelor nowhere mentions Going for Refuge, Going for
Refuge to the Buddha, the Dharma, and the Sangha is likewise an action - the central,
definitive act of the Buddhist life, by virtue of which one is a follower of the Buddha.
It is in fact as a direct consequence of our Going for Refuge, after 'hearing' the
Buddha-word, that we seek to understand, to let go of, to realise, and to cultivate. Thus
karma in the sense of morally relevant action, and the act of Going for Refuge, can in
truth no more be separated from the first discourse's four actions than these can be
separated from one another. Together they form 'an interwoven complex of truths' (p.4)
even richer than the one envisaged by Batchelor.
As I have noted, Batchelor speaks of the four ennobling truths rather than of
the four noble truths (the usual translation of arya-satya.) This enables
him to speak of the Buddha's experience of these truths as ennobling, so that awakening
granted to his life a natural dignity, integrity, and authority, and this in its turn
enables him to distinguish between authority which is natural and non-coercive and that
which consists in imposing our will on others 'either through manipulation and
intimidation or by appealing to the opinions of those more powerful than ourselves' (p.6).
The distinction is an important one, and in view of the widespread modern habit of lumping
true authority together with false and rejecting both he could well have said more about
it. Though unfortunately he does not do this, at least he recognises that there are
degrees of awakening, thereby implicitly also recognising that there are degrees of
ennoblement and, therefore, degrees of true authority. In other words, there is a
spiritual hierarchy - a hierarchy of degrees of awakening or ennoblement or true
authority - and this hierarchy is a true hierarchy, as opposed to the false or at least
conventional hierarchy based on earthly power and worldly position. Batchelor appears not
to see this, though it follows from the distinction he himself draws between the two kinds
of authority, for on the page immediately preceding the one where he speaks of degrees of
awakening he uses the word hierarchy in a pejorative sense that suggests he lumps true
hierarchy together with false hierarchy in the same simplistic manner that people lump
together true and false authority (pp. 11 and 12).
Awakening is an individual matter, and Buddhism declined as fewer and fewer Buddhists
succeeded in achieving this state. Batchelor in effect attributes the decline to increased
monasticisation and he may well be right, at least to an extent. He is certainly right
when he points out that the traditional explanation for the decay of the religion relies
on the Indian idea of the 'degeneration of time,' as he calls it, a notion that regards
the course of history as a process of inexorable decline. 'According to this notion, those
who lived at the time of the Buddha were simply less degenerate, more
"spiritual," than the corrupted man of humanity today' (p.12). Batchelor does
not enlarge on the topic, but in its Buddhistic form as the doctrine of the three periods
of the Dharma - the period of the True Dharma, the period of the Image (or Counterfeit)
Dharma, and the period of the Destruction of the Dharma, in which we are now living - the
idea of the 'degeneration of time' influenced the course of the Far Eastern Buddhism
profoundly. Yet though the consciousness of living in the Dark Age of Buddhism
precipitated doctrinal and spiritual developments of enormous importance, in my view there
can be little doubt that the notion of an inevitable decline of Buddhism is
inconsistent with both the spirit and the letter of the Buddha's teaching. Social and
political conditions admittedly may be less (or more) supportive of the practice of the
Dharma at one period, or in one place, than another, but intrinsically it is no
more difficult to practise it now than it was in the past. The idea of the 'degeneration
of time', and therewith the doctrine of the three periods of the Dharma, is one that can
have no place in Western Buddhism. Likewise there can be no place in Western Buddhism for
the inverted form of the idea, according to one popular version of which, humanity having
entered the Age of Aquarius, spiritual progress will henceforth be collective and
automatic.
Since Batchelor's idea of a belief-free, agnostic Buddhism will be examined later, I
shall not look now at those points in his essay on Agnosticism that I find acceptable. The
next two essays, on Anguish (the term Batchelor uses when referring to dukkha as
personal experience of the kind of suffering caused by self-centred craving) and on Death,
do not require much in the way of comment. Both strike a meditative note. In the first he
takes the reader through a simple exercise in respiration-mindfulness and in the second
through a meditation on death. The guidance he offers here is obviously based on personal
experience and moreover is framed, in both cases, by heartfelt reflections that from time
to time crystallise into aphorisms that are themselves appropriate subjects for reflective
meditation. Not only do we try to forget the idea that the only certainty in life is that
it will end, but 'Everyone collaborates in everyone else's forgetting' (p.22). Similarly,
'Evasion of the unadorned immediacy of life is as deep-seated as it is relentless', so
that 'Even with the ardent desire to be aware and alert in the present moment, the mind
flings us into tawdry and tiresome elaborations of past and future' (p.25). Batchelor also
reminds us, in connection with Siddhartha's encounter with the four sights, that when the
questioner realises that he himself is the question, such a question is a mystery, not a
problem, and that 'It cannot be "solved" by meditation techniques, through the
authority of a text, upon submission to the will of a guru' (pp.26-27). Other aphorisms
are 'Reflective meditation is a way of translating thoughts into the language of feeling'
and 'How extraordinary it is to be here at all' (p.32), the second of which put me in mind
of Spinoza's wonderment at the fact that there should be anything rather than nothing.
Less aphoristic, but equally true and no less worthy of reflective meditation, is a
sentence that comes towards the end of the essay on death: 'To meditate on the certainty
of death and the uncertainty of its time helps transform the experience of another's death
from an awkward discomforture into an awesome and tragic conclusion to the transience that
lies at the heart of all life' (p.33).
The essay on Rebirth opens with the declaration 'Religions are united not by belief in
God but by belief in life after death' (p.34). Buddhism, of course, teaches rebirth, and
Batchelor recognises that the Buddha himself accepted the idea and found this 'prevailing
Indian view' (p.35) sufficient as a basis for his ethical and liberating teaching.
Although he taught dharma[2] practice to be meaningful whether or not we believe in
rebirth (a quotation to this effect from the Pali Canon prefaces the essay), the evidence
does not suggest that he held an agnostic view on the matter. Is it then true that, as
often claimed, you cannot be a Buddhist if you do not accept the doctrine of rebirth?
Batchelor is aware that, from a traditional point of view, it is indeed problematic to
suspend belief in the idea of rebirth, since many basic notions then have to be rethought,
'But if we follow the Buddha's injunction not to accept things blindly, then orthodoxy
should not stand in the way of forming our own understanding' (p.36). Orthodoxy and blind
belief, it would seem, are synonymous! Not that the idea of rebirth presents no
difficulties. Unfortunately Batchelor drags across the trail the old red herring of the
alleged incompatibility of the idea of rebirth and the central Buddhist idea that there is
no eternal self. However, he is right when he points out that the mere fact of rebirth
does not entail any ethical linkage between one existence and the next. He is also right
in pointing out that 'While the Buddha accepted the idea of karma as he accepted that of
rebirth, when questioned on the issue he tended to emphasise its psychological rather than
its cosmological implications. "Karma", he often said, "is intention":
i.e. a movement of the mind that occurs each time we think, speak, or act' (p.37). Though
Batchelor does not actually tell us this, the fact that karma is cetanaa implies
that skilful actions are to be performed not so much because they will result in a good
rebirth (the cosmological reason) as because they will help us understand, let go of,
realise, and cultivate (the psychological reason). What he does however tell us, and very
rightly, is that the Buddha 'denied that karma alone was sufficient to explain the origin
of individual experience' (p.37).
The point is an extremely important one; so important I wish Batchelor had enlarged
upon it, the more especially as he makes it clear that the Buddha's denial that karma
alone suffices to explain the origin of individual experience is in contrast to 'the view
often taught by religious Buddhists' (p.37). Who these religious Buddhists are he does not
say (in his vocabulary 'religious Buddhists' means, apparently, those Buddhists who are
not agnostic Buddhists), but they certainly include those Tibetan lamas and their
disciples who, as I know from personal experience, not only teach but strongly, even
vehemently, insist that karma alone is sufficient to explain the origin of individual
experience. In the words of an eminent Gelugpa lama, 'All happiness and suffering
is the exclusive result of our individual karmic deeds created through past
lives' (my italics).[3] He could hardly have expressed himself more clearly. The Buddha
was no less clear. There are at least three passages in the Sutta-Pitaka of the Pali Canon
in which he speaks of the various non-karmic factors in human experience, and in
one of these, addressing the Wanderer Sivaka of the Top-Knot, he explicitly rejects the
view of those recluses and brahmins who, like the Tibetan lamas and their disciples, hold
that 'whatsoever pleasure or pain or mental state a human being experiences, all that is
due to a previous act.' Holding such a view, he declares, 'they go beyond personal
experience and what is generally acknowledged by the world. Wherefore do I declare those
recluses and brahmins to be in the wrong.'[4]
Though it might seem that there are only two options, either to believe in rebirth or
not, Batchelor is convinced there is a third: to acknowledge, in all honesty, I do not
know. If it is a question of either knowing or not knowing in the absolute sense
then, clearly, we do not know and should admit it. Such acknowledgement is not
incompatible with a provisional belief in rebirth as the more reasonable of the two
options (or of the three, if we include the Christian and Muslim option of post-mortem but
not pre-natal existence). Nonetheless Batchelor's emphasis on the desirability of
agnosticism in connection with the question of rebirth is a welcome one; especially when
one considers the kind of fantasies in which some religious Buddhists, as he calls them,
have indulged in this regard.
Also welcome is his emphasis, in the essays on Resolve and Integrity, on the fact that
Dharma practice can embrace a range of purposes (all subordinate to the supreme purpose,
awakening) and on the fact that ethical integrity is rooted in empathy. Thus at times we
may concentrate on 'creating a livelihood that is in accord with our deepest values and
aspirations. At times we may retreat: disentangling ourselves from social and
psychological pressures in order to reconsider our life in a quiet and supportive setting.
At times we may engage with the world: responding empathetically and creatively to the
anguish of others' (p.42). Though Batchelor himself does not draw the conclusion, such a
position tends to undermine the monk-layman dichotomy: at one time in our Buddhist life we
may be living more as a monk, at another more as a layman. More specifically, at different
times, and for longer or shorter periods, we may be working in a team-based right
livelihood business, enjoying a solitary retreat, raising funds for a third world social
project, teaching meditation, or writing a book on the Dharma. As for his emphasis on the
fact that integrity is rooted in empathy, Batchelor reminds us that it requires courage
and intelligence as well, because every significant ethical choice entails risk, since we
cannot know in advance the consequences of the choices we make and have to learn from
concrete mistakes. He also reminds us that ethical enquiry is not the same thing as moral
certainty and that 'While moral conditioning may be necessary for social stability, it is
inadequate as a paradigm for integrity' (p.48).
But welcome as are his emphases on resolve and integrity, still more welcome is
Batchelor's assertion that dharma practice is embodied in friendship, and that 'Our
practice is nourished, sustained, and challenged through ongoing contact with friends and
mentors who seek to realise the Dharma in their own lives' (p.49). Despite the fact that
the Buddha stressed the importance of spiritual friendship (kalyaa.na-mitrataa),
even declaring it to be the whole of the holy life (brahmacarya)[5], books on
Buddhism rarely mention the subject, and it is therefore all the more heartening to find
Batchelor devoting an entire essay to it. Besides singing the praises of friendship, and
emphasising its significance and value, he points out that the forms of Buddhist
friendship have changed over history and that today a new model may be needed. He is very
much alive to the fact that true friendship can be compromised by issues of power, and
warns 'We should be wary of being seduced by charismatic purveyors of Enlightenment.' Our
true friends 'seek not to coerce us, even gently and reasonably, into believing what we
are unsure of. These friends are like midwives, who draw forth what is waiting to be born'
(pp. 50-51).
Like the essays on Anguish and Death, those on Awareness, Becoming, and Emptiness
strike a meditative note, as Batchelor leads us through an exercise in the expansion of
awareness, a reflection on the five primary factors of mental life, and a contemplation of
the fact that things are devoid of intrinsic, separate being. In course of so doing he
reminds us that 'To meditate is not to empty the mind and gape at things in a trancelike
stupor' (apparently a point that still needs to be made) and that 'emptiness', which he
admits is a confusing term, although used as an abstract noun 'does not in any way denote
an abstract thing or state' (pp. 64-65 and 81). The essay on compassion introduces us to a
variant of the mettaa-bhaavanaa or 'development of (universal) loving kindness'
practice which Batchelor rightly sees not just as a separate exercise but also as a means
to developing mindfulness and loosening the grip of self-centredness. 'Insight into
emptiness and compassion for the world', he reminds us, 'are two sides of the same coin'
(p.88). But there are dangers. The exaggeratedly altruistic person may come to think of
himself as the saviour of others, thus risking messianic and narcissistic inflation.
Freedom - spiritual freedom, the freedom of awareness - is of the essence of Buddhism,
and it is not surprising that Batchelor should devote space to the subject. His essay on
Freedom is not so much an essay on it as a paean to it, and we are left with a sense of
exhilaration at the prospect of our being free from confusion and craving, free to
realise our creative potential, and free to be for others. What perhaps is
surprising is that the last two essays in Buddhism Without Beliefs should be
devoted to Imagination and Culture. Studies of the Buddhist, or at least the Buddhistic,
culture of this or that 'Buddhist' country are not unknown, but to devote an entire
section of a book on Buddhism to the subject of imagination is to my knowledge
unprecedented - and very welcome. Batchelor sees imagination as the faculty through which
authentic vision finds expression in concrete and vivid forms. For him, therefore, 'Dharma
practice is more akin to artistic creation than technical problem solving' (p.103), as I
noted at the beginning. 'The technical dimension of dharma practice (such as training to
be more mindful and focused) is comparable to the technical skills a potter must learn in
order to become proficient in his craft. Both may require many years of discipline and
hard work' (p.103). The potter's raw material is clay. Similarly, 'The raw material of
Dharma practice is ourself and our world, which are to be understood and transformed
according to the vision and values of the dharma itself' (p.103). Moreover as soon as
imagination is activated in the process of awakening, the natural beauty of the world is
vividly enhanced and our appreciation of the arts enriched. Great works of art in fact
succeed in capturing both the pathos of anguish and a vision of its resolution, while the
Buddha's four ennobling truths themselves provide us with 'not only a paradigm of
cognitive and affective freedom but a template of aesthetic vision' (pp.105-106).
Batchelor does not go so far as to describe the Buddha himself as an artist (though he
might well have done), but he does say of him that his genius lay in his imagination. 'He
succeeded in translating his vision not only into the language of his time but into terms
sufficiently universal to inspire future generations in India and beyond. His ideas have
survived in much the same way as great works of art. While we may find certain stylistic
elements of this teaching alien, his central ideas speak to us in a way that goes beyond
their reference to a particular time or place. But unlike ancient statues from Egypt or
Gandhara, the wheel of dharma set in motion by the Buddha continued to turn after his
death, generating ever new and startling cultures of awakening' (p.107).
Such a culture of awakening is forged, according to Batchelor, from the tension between
an indebtedness to the past and a responsibility to the future. We have to distinguish
between what is central in the Buddhist tradition and what peripheral, between elements
vital for the survival of Dharma practice and alien artifacts that might obstruct that
survival. Nor can a culture of awakening exist independently of the specific social,
religious, artistic, and ethnic cultures in which it is embedded. Resisting creative
interaction with those cultures, Dharma practice today could end up as a marginalised
subculture, a beautifully preserved relic. On the other hand, through losing its inner
integrity and critical edge it could end being swallowed up by something else, such as
psychotherapy or contemplative Christianity. In any case, a culture of awakening - a
culture in which the Buddha's eightfold path is cultivated - is always an expression of a
community. 'Community is the living link between individuation and social engagement. A
culture of awakening simply cannot occur without being rooted in a coherent and vital
sense of community, for a matrix of friendships is the very soil in which dharma practice
is cultivated' (p.114). At this point I started wondering where I had heard it all before,
and just where I had seen the idea of a culture of awakening being translated into action.
But that is another story. Like the essays on Agnosticism, Friendship, and Imagination,
that on Culture is something of a departure and therefore deserves, like them, to be given
serious consideration by Western Buddhists.
(ii)
Being able to agree with a respected fellow Buddhist is pleasant,
having to disagree with him is painful. When one has looked at those points in Buddhism
Without Beliefs that are acceptable, and rejoiced in them, it is with reluctance that
one turns to those points that are unacceptable and that have, therefore, to be deplored
and rejected. For this reason I shall touch on only some of the more significant of these
latter points which, fortunately, are few in number. In any case, my principal
disagreement with Batchelor is in connection with his advocacy of a belief-free, agnostic
Buddhism, and with this I shall deal separately later.
If it is true that 'Religions are united not by belief in God but by belief in life
after death' (p.34), then it follows that they are united by the belief that consciousness
- for want of a better term - is separate from the physical body and can exist
independently of it. Similarly, if consciousness exists independently of the body, it
follows that it cannot be explained in terms of brain function. To believe that it can be
so explained is materialism, just as to believe the contrary is idealism or at least
immaterialism. Batchelor appears to believe that consciousness can be explained in
terms of brain function. At least he dismisses the notion that consciousness cannot be
explained in terms of brain function as an 'article of faith' adopted on account of
'ancient Indian metaphysical theories' (p.37). It is odd, he thinks, that a practice
concerned with anguish and the ending of anguish should be obliged to accept these ancient
theories and, along with them, the article of faith in question. But if the belief that
consciousness cannot be explained in terms of brain function is an article of faith, the
belief that it can be so explained is no less so, inasmuch as the brain of which
consciousness is supposedly an epiphenomenon is 'material' and belief in the existence of
'matter' is as much an article of faith as belief in the existence of 'spirit'. Since
Batchelor dismisses the notion that consciousness cannot be explained in terms of brain
function, it is not surprising to find him rejecting 'a transcendent absolute in which
ultimate meaning is secured' and insisting 'Dharma practice starts not with a belief in a
transcendent reality but through embracing the anguish experienced in an uncertain world'
(p.40). Dharma practice may indeed begin in this way (though how one 'embraces' anguish is
not clear); but this does not mean that it cannot begin in any other way. Logically
speaking it begins with the 'existence' of what may be described as a transcendent
Absolute, for as the Buddha declares in the Udaana 'There is, monks, an unborn,
unbecome, unmade, uncompounded; if there were not, there would be known no escape here
from the born, become, made, compounded' (i.e. there would be no ending of anguish)[6].
Batchelor also insists 'Dharma practice can never be in contradiction with science', since
the former's concern 'lies entirely with the nature of existential experience' (p.37). But
if consciousness can be explained in terms of brain function, and if the physical organism
is indeed 'capable of consciousness' when in the course of evolution it reaches a certain
degree of complexity (p.29), then it would seem that inasmuch as existential experience is
unthinkable apart from consciousness such experience is, like consciousness itself, the
concern of science rather than religion, so that there is nothing left for Dharma practice
to concern itself with. Here Buddhism is subsumed under science, and 'dharma practice'
becomes no more than an applied science. Probably Batchelor would not agree that such was
the case, but none the less it is what appears to follow from certain of his assumptions.
Moreover, he is convinced that 'One of the great realisations of the [18th century]
Enlightenment was that an atheist materialist could be just as moral as a believer - even
more so' (p.35). But if an atheistic materialist can be moral, then on the basis of his
reasoning it should be possible for a materialist scientist - one who by definition shares
Batchelor's rejection of a transcendent Absolute - not only to practise what in effect is
the Dharma but to practise it without ceasing to be a materialist.
When discussing friendship Batchelor rightly points out that our true friends do not
seek to coerce us, and that it is possible for friendship to be compromised by issues of
power (pp. 50-51, 53) In other words true friends do not seek to exercise power over us,
and perhaps do not even consider themselves as being morally possessed of such power. Here
power is equated with coercion or the exercise of force or authority without regard to the
wishes or desires of the person or persons who are its object. This is the sense in which
I use the term when I speak of the power mode as contrasted with the love mode, as I call
them, and maintain that power has no place within the sangha or spiritual community and
that members of the sangha or spiritual community relate to one another solely in
accordance with the love mode. So far all is clear and there would seem to be no
disagreement between Batchelor and me. However, towards the end of the essay on Friendship
he speaks of the possibility of imagining a community of friendships in which diversity is
celebrated rather than censured, smallness of scale regarded as success rather than
failure, and in which 'power is shared by all rather than invested in a minority of
experts' (p.54). Here power is clearly power in the sense of coercion. That this is the
case is indicated by the fact that only a few lines back he says 'true friendship has
tended to be compromised by issues of power' and before that 'true friends seek not to
coerce us' - thus equating power and coercion. In speaking of the possibility of a
community of friendships in which 'power is shared by all rather than invested in a
minority of experts' he is therefore speaking of the possibility of one in which force or
authority is exercised not by a few over the rest but by everybody over everybody, which
is absurd, unless it is to be exercised not internally but externally, i.e. over a person
or persons not belonging to the community. Batchelor has in fact imposed on his community
of friendships a 'democratic' constitution, complete with equal rights for all, without
considering whether this form of constitution is the appropriate one for a spiritual
community. He has also failed to see that the idea of power being shared by all is
inconsistent with his earlier recognition that there are degrees of awakening and
ennoblement, and therefore of authority, for if there are degrees of authority (whether
coercive or non-coercive) there are, correspondingly also degrees of power, and if some
have more power than others then power cannot be said to be shared, i.e. equally shared,
by all. The difficulty is partly due to the fact that Batchelor nowhere defines power, or
tells us in what sense (or senses) he uses the term, thus ignoring a contemporary
philosopher's warning that 'it is disastrous to talk of power without first engaging in an
analytical exercise of some complexity. [7]
Two of the points on which I disagree with Batchelor relate to the Path, disagreements
regarding which are a serious matter, pertaining as they do to the very means by which
Enlightenment or Nirvana is to be achieved. Both these points arise in connection with the
cultivation of awareness. Having spoken of awareness, in the sense of stopping and paying
attention to what is happening in the moment, as 'a very reasonable definition of
meditation', Batchelor goes on to describe it as 'a process of deepening self-acceptance'
(p.59). The first point is by far the more unacceptable of the two and hence the more
decisively to be rejected, ignoring as it does all higher spiritual experience. Stopping
and paying attention to what is happening in the moment may be a reasonable definition of
mindfulness or awareness (sati), which is indeed an important practice, but is
totally inadequate as a definition of meditation (samaadhi), which besides
mindfulness or awareness includes the eight vimok.sas or 'emancipations' and the
nine samaapattis or 'attainments'. Without a full experience of these higher states
awakening is incomplete, though of course there can be degrees of meditative experience
even as there can be degrees of awakening. That such is the case is clear from what the
Buddha, speaking to Ananda, says of his own attainment of Enlightenment:
And so long, Ananda, as I attained not to, emerged not from these
nine attainments of gradual abidings, both forwards and backwards, I realised not
completely, as one wholly awakened, the full perfect awakening, unsurpassed in the world
with its gods, Maaras and Brahmaas, on earth with its recluses, godly men, devas and men;
but when I attained to and emerged from these abidings suchwise, then, wholly awakened, I
realised completely the full perfect awakening unsurpassed ... [8]
In reducing meditation to stopping and paying attention to what is
happening in the moment Batchelor is in effect precluding the possibility of
Enlightenment. Such reductionism is not uncommon in Buddhist circles today and was not
unknown in the past. As Professor Richard F. Gombrich has recently shown in How Buddhism
Began, in a fascinating chapter entitled 'Retracing an Ancient Debate: How Insight
Worsted Concentration in the Pali Canon', the ambiguity of the term paññaa or
insight led to a differentiation between release by both insight and meditation
(the kind of release exemplified and taught by the Buddha) and release by insight alone.
This led to the development of the idea that Enlightenment could be attained without
meditation (i.e. without any experience of the samaapattis), simply by means of paññaa
in the sense of a process of intellectual analysis.[9] Batchelor's affinities would seem
to lie with the modern representatives of this kind of development. Just as they emphasise
vipassanaa or insight in the intellectual sense at the expense of samathaa
or calm, similarly he reduces meditation to stopping and paying attention to what is
happening in the moment. The result in both cases is the elimination of meditation in the
normative Buddhist sense.
'Self-acceptance' is one of the catch phrases of Californian psychobabble, and it is a
pity to see a respected Buddhist like Batchelor falling victim to this usage and to its
underlying ideology. Not only is awareness 'a process of deepening self-acceptance' (p.59)
but 'There is nothing unworthy of acceptance' (p.59). Indeed, awareness 'embraces'
whatever it observes, though Batchelor at least warns us, rather confusingly, that to
embrace a mental state like hatred does not mean to indulge it but to accept it for what
it is (p.60). The root of the confusion, and thus of the wrong view and wrong practice
which that confusion entails, is a misuse of the word 'accept', which means: 'To take with
pleasure; to receive kindly; to admit with approbation' (Johnson); 'To receive with
favour; to approve' (Webster); 'To tolerate or accommodate oneself to ... to
receive with approval' (Collins); 'regard with favour' (Concise Oxford).
Johnson in fact, after giving his definition of 'accept', makes the precise meaning of the
word perfectly clear by adding, with his usual perspicacity, 'It is distinguished from receive,
as specific from general; noting a particular manner of receiving.' Thus it
is obvious that there can be no question of a Buddhist, least of all a Buddhist meditator,
ever regarding the unskilful mental state of hatred (to take Batchelor's example) with
pleasure, or approval, or toleration, or favour. For Buddhism it is axiomatic that hatred,
like all other unskilful mental states, is to be be rejected, even though in most cases
the rejection will admittedly be a gradual process rather than instantaneous. So axiomatic
is it that actual quotations from the scriptures are hardly needed, and it is perhaps
sufficient simply to refer to the Dhammapada's 'Kodhavagga' or Chapter on Anger and
to the references and citations in the Pali Text's Society's Pali-English Dictionary under
'Kodha'. The proper attitude to unskilful mental states, as well as to unskilful speech
and unskilful bodily action, is not acceptance but awareness in the sense of recognition
(i.e. recognition of the fact of their unskilfulness), followed by the taking of measures
to rid oneself of those states. In the case of skilful mental states, speech, and bodily
action, awareness will be followed by measures to cultivate and develop them. All this is
clear from the Buddha's teaching of Right Effort (samyak-vyaayaama), the sixth
factor of the Eightfold Path, which is fourfold, consisting in the effort to prevent the
arising of unarisen unskilful qualities; to suppress arisen unskilful qualities; to
develop unarisen skilful qualities; and to maintain arisen skilful qualities. Here there
is no talk of the unskilful being 'accepted' or 'embraced'. Dharma practice involves not a
weak, and probably indulgent, 'self-acceptance', but an unflinching self-knowledge that
recognises both one's strengths and one's weaknesses and which, while accepting and
encouraging the former, no more hesitates to reject the latter than a man who, in the
traditional comparison, finding a dead snake round his neck hesitates to fling it off.
My remaining points of disagreement with Batchelor, apart from those connected with his
advocacy of a belief-free agnostic Buddhism, are two in number, and since they relate to
topics on which he touches only lightly I shall deal with them briefly, even though each
of them represents the tip of an ideological iceberg of enormous dimensions. Concluding
his essay on Compassion, which he rightly describes as the heart and soul of awakening,
Batchelor says: 'It becomes abundantly clear that we cannot attain awakening for
ourselves: we can only participate in the awakening of life' (p.90). With the first half
of the sentence I have no quarrel, but what is this awakening of life? The phrase
suggest a collective attainment of Enlightenment, in which the individual
participates by virtue of the fact that 'life', as represented by humanity as a whole, has
reached a higher stage of evolution. Here Batchelor appears to have fallen victim, at
least momentarily, to that particular strain of New Age thinking according to which the
Age of Aquarius is upon us and we shall all ride to Enlightenment on the crest of an
evolutionary wave. Such thinking is inconsistent with his own rejection, in the essay on
Awakening, of the Indian idea of the 'degeneration of time', an idea of which the New Age
notion of automatic spiritual progress for everyone is the 'positive' counterpart. The
second of these two remaining points of disagreement is not dissimilar to the first. In
the essay on Freedom Batchelor speaks of awakening as 'the awesome freedom into which we
were born but for which we have substituted the pseudo-independence of a separate self'
(p.99). Into which we were born? The phrase suggests either that freedom is our destiny
(cf. 'the man born to be King'), in which case it is redolent of New Age ideology, or that
we as infants are born free and awake and only later, when we have learned to speak and
say 'I', develop a separate self, in which case the phrase is suggestive of a
Rousseauistic, or a Wordsworthian, idealisation of infancy as a state of innocence and
purity and the child as not only 'best Philosopher' but 'best Buddhist'.
(iii)
Eastern Buddhists, and Western Buddhists to the extent that they are
followers of this or that form of Eastern Buddhism, often give their assent to
propositions for which there is no proof. They assent to such propositions either because
they are to be found in the scriptures or because they encounter them in the teachings of
their own lama or guru. Some are of a 'scientific' nature, relating as they do to such
areas of modern knowledge as history, geography, and astronomy, and of these propositions
some, again, have not only not been proved true but have been shown to be demonstrably
false. We now know that the Buddha was not born in 1030 B.C.E., that the earth is not
flat, and that the sun and moon do not revolve round Mount Meru. Batchelor's 'agnostic
Buddhist' is therefore perfectly right in not regarding the Dharma as a source of
'answers' to what are really scientific questions and right in seeking such knowledge 'in
the appropriate domains' (p.18). This is no more than what all Buddhists should do. At the
same time, we must be careful just where we draw the line between the respective spheres
of Buddhism, correctly understood, and the different sciences. Batchelor says of the
agnostic Buddhist that he is not a 'believer' with claims to 'revealed information about
supernatural and paranormal phenomena' (p.18). This is rather too sweeping, for we must be
open to the possibility of there being phenomena which are inexplicable in scientific
terms, though some scientists may, of course, believe that science will be in a
position to explain them one day.
Batchelor's agnostic Buddhist is also perfectly right in founding his agnostic stance
on 'a passionate recognition that I do not know' (p.19). This is a recognition that
is badly needed in many parts of the Buddhist world, where only too often 'infallible'
lamas and 'omniscient' gurus think they know when in fact they merely believe, and
therefore I hope that agnosticism in this healthy sense will blow like a refreshing
breeze through gompas, viharas, zendos, meditation centres, and international Buddhist
conference halls everywhere, scattering to the four winds of heaven whatever
pseudo-answers, dogmatic assertions, and exaggerated claims prevail in those places. There
is much that we do not know, whether regarding the world, regarding Buddhism, or regarding
ourselves. In every field of knowledge, what we know is infinitesimal compared with what
we do not know. Nowhere is this more true than in the case of Buddhism. In speaking about
the Dharma we ought, therefore, always to distinguish between what we know from direct
personal experience (e.g. that respiration-mindfulness can lead to the attainment of the
dhyanas), what seems reasonable to us according to the evidence at our disposal, (e.g.
that people are reborn after death), and what we accept on the testimony of the scriptures
(e.g. that the Buddha was Enlightened). These categories are illustrative rather than
definitive, and we must in any case always bear in mind that with regard to the second and
third of them, at least, considerations of a more general philosophical nature cannot be
excluded.
The breeze of a healthy agnosticism has of course blown, from time to time, through the
corridors of Western thought. According to Batchelor, the methodological principle that
T.H. Huxley expressed positively as 'Follow your reason as far as it will take you' and
negatively as 'Do not pretend that conclusions are certain which are not demonstrated or
demonstrable' runs through the Western tradition, from Socrates, via the Reformation and
the (18th century) Enlightenment, to the axioms of modern science. This is what Huxley,
who coined the term 'agnosticism' in 1869, called the 'agnostic faith', and Batchelor
believes that the Buddha shared this faith, for he, too, 'followed his reason as far as it
would take him and did not pretend that any conclusion was certain unless it was
demonstrable' (p.17). There are several points to be made here. In view of the fact that
for a thousand years the Western tradition was a Christian tradition one cannot really say
of Huxley's agnostic principle that it 'runs through' that tradition. It is also doubtful
if Socrates was an agnostic, for while he regularly exposed the pretensions of those who,
though they claimed to know, in fact merely believed, he also asserted the immortality of
the soul, accepted the pronouncement of the Delphic oracle regarding himself, and
maintained that there was a daimon who at times directed him to refrain from a
certain course of action. It is even more doubtful to what extent the agnostic principle
runs through the Protestant Reformation, for did not Martin Luther, its great inaugurator,
not only preach salvation by faith rather than works but go so far as to call reason a
whore? There is no doubt that the principle runs through the (18th century) Enlightenment.
At the time of the French Revolution the breeze in fact became a hurricane that blew down,
at least for the time being, all manner of ancient idols. Unfortunately it also set up an
idol of its own in their place, an idol called Reason, which in the form of a young woman
from the Opera was taken in procession to the cathedral of Notre-Dame, set on the high
altar, and worshipped with the singing of hymns[10]. Batchelor does not set up any idols,
not even an idol called Agnosticism, but he certainly believes that 'Buddhists' (to borrow
his own inverted commas) do something very much like this in relation to Buddhism, and to
this aspect of his thinking I must now turn. But first there is a final point to be made
in connection with his claims on behalf of Huxley's 'agnostic faith'. The Buddha
definitely believed that you should 'follow your reason as far as it will take you', but
this does not mean that there is not in man a higher faculty capable of taking him beyond
reason. The Dharma is explicitly stated to be atakkavaacara, 'beyond reason' or
'inaccessible to logic'[11]. This was why the Buddha initially hesitated to communicate
his discovery of it to the world[12].
According to Batchelor, Buddhists make the mistake of turning 'four ennobling truths to
be acted upon' into 'four propositions of fact to be believed' (p.5). They do this because
'the crucial distinction that each truth requires being acted upon in its own
particular way (understanding anguish, letting go of its origins, realising
its cessation, and cultivating the path) has been relegated to the margins of
specialist doctrinal knowledge' (p.4). I have already questioned Batchelor's assertion
that 'few Buddhists today are probably aware of the distinction' between these four kinds
of action (p.2), and it is still more questionable whether the four truths were, in fact,
turned into four propositions on account of a failure to make this admittedly important
distinction. Batchelor does not tell us exactly when the 'mistake' was originally
committed, or just who committed it, but he appears to believe that it was committed
shortly after the Buddha's death, perhaps even before it, and that it was subsequently
committed by all Buddhists except for a handful of iconoclastic Indian tantric sages and
others who were, presumably, the forerunners of his belief-free, agnostic Buddhism. He
does however tell us into just what propositions the truths were - and are - turned. 'The
first truth becomes: "Life is Suffering"; the second: "The cause of
Suffering is Craving"' - and so on. (p.5). But if we turn to the locus classicus
of the Buddha's teaching of the four truths, the Dhammacakkapavattana-sutta or
Discourse setting in motion the Wheel of the Doctrine, what do we find? We find the Buddha
telling the five ascetics:
'Now this, monks, is the noble truth of pain [or suffering, dukkha]:
birth is painful, old age is painful, sickness is painful, death is painful, sorrow,
lamentation, dejection, and despair are painful. Contact with unpleasant things is
painful, not getting what one wishes is painful. In short the five groups of grasping are
painful.
'Now this, monks, is the noble truth of the cause of pain: the craving,
which tends to rebirth, combined with pleasure and lust, finding pleasure here and there,
namely the craving for passion, the craving for existence, the craving for non-existence'
-
And so on[13]. Here we obviously have a number of propositions.
In particular we have the proposition 'The five groups of grasping (pañcupaadaana-kkhandhaa)
are suffering' and the proposition 'The cause of pain is craving'. Having affirmed these
and the other two propositions (i.e. those relating to the cessation of suffering and the
way thereto), the Buddha goes on to declare that he has, respectively, understood, let go
of, cultivated, and realised them. Here there is no question of four ennobling truths to
be acted upon being 'neatly turned', in Batchelor's phrase (p.5), into four truths to be
believed (or if there is, it is the Buddha himself who is responsible for the
transformation), much less still is there any question of the turning being due to a
failure to make the crucial distinction that 'each truth requires being acted upon in
its own particular way' (p.4). Believing in a proposition of fact is not
incompatible with acting upon it. Indeed, action presupposes belief, whether explicit or
implicit. It was only because the five ascetics had come to believe that their
erstwhile companion had in fact attained Enlightenment (they did not know this)
that they were able to believe the four noble truths and act upon them. This is not
to say that belief may not sometimes be blind; Batchelor equips with initial capital
letters the words making up the propositions into which, he alleges, the first two truths
were 'turned'. This would appear to signal his conviction - I had almost said his belief -
that belief is blind almost by definition. For him therefore, action, i.e. acting upon the
four truths, and belief, i.e. believing in the four truths as propositions of fact, are
not only distinct but separate, not only separate but mutually exclusive. Nor is this all.
Action and belief being mutually exclusive, for Batchelor it follows that Dharma practice
consists in acting upon the four truths to the exclusion of all beliefs, and although he might
argue that he believed in the four truths, but not as propositions, the fact of the matter
is that a belief is necessarily expressed in propositional form. It is his advocacy of
this belief-free dharma practice that characterises the agnostic Buddhist and
distinguishes him from those Buddhists who, by turning the four truths into propositions
to be believed and thus the Buddha's teaching into a 'religion' (for Batchelor a
pejorative term), make it possible for 'Buddhist [to be] distinguished from Christians,
Muslims, and Hindus, who believe different sets of propositions' and for 'the four
ennobling truths [to] become principal dogmas of the belief system known as
"Buddhism"' (p.5).
We have seen that for the Buddha, in the Dhammacakkapavattana-sutta (and
elsewhere), belief in a proposition of fact is not incompatible with acting upon such a
proposition. It remains for us to see what consequences flow from this position, as well
as what consequences flow from the contrary position adopted by Batchelor, namely, that in
the case of the four truths, at least, action and belief are incompatible, even mutually
exclusive.
Belief in the four truths as propositions of fact is not incompatible with action upon
them because neither the belief nor the acting is ever absolute. There are degrees
of such belief and degrees of such acting, the latter being usually commensurate
with the former. We have no hesitation in setting out on a journey to Rome, for example,
because we really do believe that there such a place exists and that if we take the right
road we will sooner or later arrive there. On the other hand, there are occasions when we
are not sure - perhaps cannot be sure - either that the goal on which we have set our
heart exists or that, assuming it really does exist, that we have adopted the right means
for its achievement. Nonetheless, believing that it exists and that the means we have
adopted are the right ones, we go on employing those means until such time as experience
confirms both our belief in the existence of the one and our belief in the rightness of
the other - or does not confirm them. Belief of this kind is relative, not
absolute; qualified, not unqualified; provisional, not final; and tentative, not certain.
It is on account of this provisional belief - as for the sake of convenience it may
be termed - that we accept the four truths as propositions of fact and act upon them in
the particular way each requires and according to the degree of our belief. Actual knowledge
of the four truths comes only with the attainment of the Transcendental Path. Not that
provisional belief is ever mere belief. It is belief that enjoys the support of evidence
and arguments which, though they may not be conclusive, are yet sufficiently strong for us
to be willing to take the risk of acting upon the belief. Provisional belief is therefore
also rational belief. In the case of the five ascetics, they were initially unimpressed by
the Buddha's claim to be Enlightened and refused to listen to his teaching. Only when he
had convinced them with an argument ('Have you ever known me to speak like this
before?'[14] ) did his declaration ('The Tathagata is an Accomplished One, a Fully
Enlightened One'[15] ) become for them a proposition of fact to be (provisionally)
believed. Similarly, it was only on account of their provisional, rational belief in the
four truths he subsequently taught them that they were able to act upon those truths and,
by so doing, come to know them for themselves and attain Nirvana[16]. Here there is a
progression from ignorance and scepticism to actual knowledge (or transcendental
knowledge, as pace Batchelor I prefer to call it), via the successive stages of a
provisional belief which, as it is confirmed by experience, becomes less and less
provisional and provides an increasingly firm basis for further action. The path is thus a
graduated path in which, as the Buddha said when comparing the Dharma and Vinaya to the
Great Ocean, 'there are progressive trainings, progressive obligations, progressive
practices, there being no sudden penetrations of supreme Knowledge.'[17]
Since the path is a graduated path instruction must be methodical, beginning at the
beginning, and not introducing more advanced teachings until the disciple has mastered the
more elementary ones. We find the Buddha adopting this approach on a number of occasions.
He adopted it with Anaathapi.n.dika, the wealthy merchant who was to be one of his
principal supporters:
'Then did the Exalted One discourse unto Anaathapi.n.dika, the
housefather, with talk that led gradually on, thus: of charity and righteousness and the
heaven-world; of the danger, uselessness, and defilement of the passions, and of the
profit of giving up the world. And when the Exalted One saw that the heart of
Anaathapi.n.dika, the housefather, was made pliable and soft without obstruction, uplifted
and calmed, then did he set forth the Dharma teaching of the Buddhas, proclaimed the most
excellent, that is, suffering, the arising of suffering, the ceasing of suffering, and the
way leading to the cessation of suffering.'[18]
A discourse of this kind is known (in Pali) as an anupubbiikathaa
or 'graduated discourse', dealing as it does with the ever higher values of charity (daana),
righteousness (siila), the heaven-world (sagga), and the path (magga).
It was to provide, in the centuries that followed, the pattern for discourses and
systematic expositions of the Dharma throughout the Buddhist world, in the case of the
Mahaayaana being associated with the concept of upaaya-kau'salya or 'skilful
means'. In 12th century Tibet, for example, we find 'Teacher' Drom, Atisha's chief
disciple, leading a pious, but perhaps simple-minded, layman to a deeper understanding of
the meaning of Dharma practice in the following manner:
'One day an old gentleman was circumambulating the Ra-dreng
monastery. Geshe Drom said to him, "Sir, I am happy to see you circumambulating, but
wouldn't you rather be practicing the Dharma?"
Thinking this over, the old gentleman felt it might be better to read
Mahaayaana suutras. While he was reading in the temple courtyard, Geshe Drom said, "I
am happy to see you reciting suutras, but wouldn't you rather be practicing Dharma?"
At this, the old gentleman thought that perhaps he should meditate. He
sat cross-legged on a cushion, with his eyes half-closed. The teacher Drom said again,
"I am so happy to see you meditating, but wouldn't it be better to practice the
Dharma?"
Now totally confused, the old gentleman asked, "Geshe-la, please
tell me what I should do to practice the Dharma?"
The teacher Drom replied, "Renounce attraction to this life.
Renounce it now. For if you do not renounce attraction to this life, whatever you do will
not be the practice of Dharma, as you have not passed beyond the eight worldly concerns.
Once you have renounced this life's habitual thoughts and are no longer distracted by the
eight worldly concerns, whatever you do will advance you on the path of liberation."'
[19]
Strange to say, this anecdote from the Kadamthorbu or 'Precepts
Collected from Here and There' features as the epigraph to the second part of Buddhism
Without Beliefs, on the Path, though Batchelor appears to have mistaken its
meaning. He appears to believe that practices such as circumambulating monasteries,
reading suutras, and even meditation as practised by the old gentleman, are a
complete waste of time. They are a waste of time because they form part of religion,
along with exotic names, robes, and insignia of office. Buddhism became a 'religion' when
the four ennobling truths to be acted upon were turned into four propositions of fact to
be believed. Authentic dharma practice therefore has nothing to do with practices
and observances of a 'religious' nature. For Batchelor, as we have already seen, acting
upon the four truths and believing them as propositions of fact are incompatible, even
mutually exclusive. Curiously enough, in his 'reworking' of Geshe Wangyal's translation of
the anecdote from the Kadamthorbu he substitutes for Drom's final reply, which is
sufficiently plain, straightforward, and practical, a version 'heard from Tibetan lamas'
(p.122). 'When you practise', Drom is made to say, 'there is no distinction between the
Dharma and your own mind' (p.55) - a gnomic utterance that could well have left the old
gentleman feeling more confused than ever.
Batchelor illustrates his thesis that the four truths are simply injunctions to act,
and have nothing to do with belief or with religious practices and observances, by
referring to a passage in Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. In this passage Alice
enters a room to find a bottle marked with the label 'Drink Me'. As Batchelor points out,
the label does not tell Alice what is inside the bottle but tells her what to do with it.
Similarly, 'when the Buddha presented his four truths, he first described what each
referred to, then enjoined his listeners to act upon them' (p.7). For reasons I have never
quite understood, Lewis Carroll's classic children's story has always been popular with a
certain type of British Buddhist (the late Christmas Humphreys was fond of describing the
work as 'pure Zen'), and it is interesting to find Batchelor citing it in this connection.
Apparently all we have to do is act upon the four truths without asking any questions,
just as Alice drank the contents of the little bottle simply because the label told her to
do so. Not that the 'wise little Alice' of the story was going to do such a thing in a
hurry. Though Batchelor does not mention the fact, she decides to look first and see
whether the bottle is marked 'poison' or not; 'for she had read several nice little
histories about children who had got burnt, and eaten up by wild beasts, and many other
unpleasant things, all because they would not remember the simple rules their
friends had taught them such as, that a red-hot poker will burn you if you hold it too
long; and that, if you cut your finger very deeply with a knife, it usually bleeds;
and she had never forgotten that, if you drink much from a bottle marked
"poison", it is almost certain to disagree with you sooner or later.'
Apparently Batchelor has not read any such nice little histories, for he evidently
thinks we should be less wise than Alice and drink the contents of the bottle without
first seeing whether they will disagree with us or not. In Alice's case there was only one
bottle, it was not marked 'poison', and drinking its contents only made her grow smaller.
Today anyone who follows the White Rabbit down the rabbit-hole into the Wonderland of the
spiritual supermarket will find themselves confronted not by one bottle but hundreds, of
all shapes, sizes, and colours, and all marked 'Drink Me' - some of them in very large
letters indeed. Among the bottles there is one, usually also marked 'Buddhism', that
contains the four truths. Why should we drink the contents of this bottle rather than the
contents of one - or more - of the various other bottles? All bear the same injunction:
'Drink Me'. Admittedly, the label on the yellow 'Buddhist' bottle tells us what
ingredients its particular contents contain. As Batchelor says, when the Buddha presented
his four truths, he first described what each referred to. But the labels on all the other
bottles also describe what their respective bottles contain, some of them at great length
and in very forcible terms. Some, indeed, describe not only the advantages to be gained
from drinking the contents of their particular bottle but the terrible things that will
happen to one if one does not drink them. One might argue (if argument was
permitted) that the contents of the Buddhist bottle are described by the Buddha; it is the
Buddha who enjoins us to act upon the four truths, and since he is the Buddha, having
himself understood anguish, let go of its origins, realised its cessation, and cultivated
the path, we have no alternative but to comply. But how do we know that the Buddha is what
he is said to be, i.e. Enlightened? Like the five ascetics, we need to be convinced of the
fact, and it is only evidence and argument that will convince us. Once convinced, we are
in a position to develop the degree of rational faith sufficient to enable us to start
acting as he enjoins. We may also need to be convinced that 'anguish' is, in fact, caused
by craving, that craving really can be made to cease and that there is a path leading to
its cessation. There are people who doubt all these things, and who are no more prepared
to comply with an injunction to act upon the four truths than they are prepared to observe
the Ten Commandments. Batchelor's assertion that action and belief are incompatible not
only rules out 'the dogmas of the belief system called "Buddhism"' (p.5) but
precludes both the possibility of developing a rational belief and the following of a
graduated path. Authentic Buddhist practice consists in acting upon the four truths, to
the total exclusion of practices and observances of a religious nature ('religion' is
equivalent to belief), and we act upon them simply because we are so enjoined. Strictly
speaking, indeed, there is no question of any 'because'. We are told to act upon them, and
we act, just as Alice was told 'Drink Me' and she drank - except that in our case we are
not, it seems, allowed to harbour any doubts. Buddhist agnosticism thus turns out to be a
form of authoritarianism. The Buddha speaks - or Batchelor speaks in his name - and we
have no option but to obey.
(iv)
That 'Le style est l'homme même' and that 'the medium is the message'
may well be clichés, but there is still a good deal of truth in them. An author's choice
of words, as well the way in which he actually uses those words, can often reveal
something of his conscious and unconscious intentions. In the preface to Buddhism Without
Beliefs Batchelor tells us that he has tried to write a book on Buddhism in
ordinary English that avoids the use of foreign words, technical terms, lists, and jargon.
This is obviously a laudable aim. But he also tells us, 'The one exception is the word
"Dharma," for which I can find no English equivalent' (p.xi), which is really
rather ingenuous, suggesting as it does that he has found English equivalents for all the
other Buddhist terms. The reader is thus lulled into a false sense of security and into an
uncritical acceptance, therefore, of words such as awakening, freedom, awareness, and
meditation as being the actual equivalents of traditional Buddhist terms and as providing
us with a vocabulary adequate to the discussion of important aspects of the Dharma. It is
also noteworthy that although he professes to write in ordinary English there is a whole
class of words that Batchelor repeatedly employs not in accordance with standard usage but
only pejoratively. Such are the words religion, belief, spiritual, mystical,
transcendental, holiness, hierarchy, ritual, and institution. Even 'Buddhism', within
inverted commas, is employed in this way. All these words, in their pejorative sense,
Batchelor associates with what he terms 'religious Buddhism' (also pejorative). Words such
as freedom, democratic, secular, and pluralist, together with the fashionable
'vulnerability' and 'empowerment', he on the contrary associates with belief-free,
agnostic Buddhism. Moreover, Batchelor is not above occasionally playing to the populist
gallery, as when, speaking of the challenging of certain views, he declares, in ringing
tones as it were, 'The doors of awakening were thrown open to those barred from it by the
strictures and dogmas of a privileged elite. Laity, women, the uneducated - the
disempowered - were invited to taste the freedom of the dharma for themselves' (p.13).
Batchelor indeed is stronger in rhetoric than in argument, in assertion than in
demonstration. There is in fact very little in the way of actual argument in his book,
which is probably why it is such a slender production. Reading it, I was reminded of the
occasion when, nearly thirty years ago, I heard a solemn-voiced Norman O. Brown slowly and
deliberately reading extracts from his forthcoming book Love's Body to an audience
of some three hundred American undergraduates. The reading was received in complete
silence. There were no questions afterwards. No questions were expected. The oracle had
spoken. Buddhism Without Beliefs will certainly not be received in silence.
Questions will certainly be asked (they are being asked already), despite the fact that
much of the book is written in an oracular, categorical style that gives one the
impression that Batchelor is speaking ex cathedra. This impression is heightened by
his noticeable fondness for the imperative mood, sentences in which mood are scattered
throughout the book. None of this is surprising. Reliance on rhetoric rather than
argument, an oracular, categorical style, an ex cathedra delivery, and a fondness
for the imperative, are all characteristics of the language of authoritarianism.
This is not to say that Batchelor himself necessarily has an authoritarian personality.
The authoritarianism is inherent in his intellectual position, according to which acting
upon the four truths and belief in them are incompatible, so that authentic Dharma
practice consists in our acting upon those truths simply because we have been enjoined to
do so, anything of the nature of ('religious') belief, even rational belief, being
entirely excluded. Nor is it to say that Batchelor's reliance on rhetoric is a matter of
personal choice. This too is inherent in his intellectual position, for if one is
convinced that Dharmic practice consists simply in compliance with, or obedience to, an
injunction, not much room will be left for argument. Batchelor is in fact not unaware of
the danger of 'falling a prey to the bewitchment of language' (p.40), and if he does fall
prey to that bewitchment himself to an extent, it is due as much to the logic of his
position as to inadvertence. Similarly, if there is a trace of messianism in his attitude,
this is not because he is unaware of 'the danger of messianic and narcissistic inflation'
(p.90), much less still because he has any messianic pretensions, but rather because he is
genuinely convinced that he, perhaps alone in his generation, has discovered what the
Buddha really taught and how it can be made relevant to Western culture.
Disagreement with a respected fellow Buddhist is painful, as I observed earlier, even
as agreement is pleasant. Though there is much in Batchelor's book that I find
unacceptable and which I deplore, fortunately there is also much that is acceptable to me
and in which I can rejoice. Similarly, though I am obliged to reject his basic thesis as
illogical and as a serious misrepresentation of the Dharma I can, at the same time, not
only appreciate his sincerity of purpose but sympathise with his position. It is not easy
to be a Western Buddhist. Inheritors as we are of an enormously rich and complex spiritual
tradition that does not always speak with a single voice and comes to us embedded in a
variety of colourful alien cultures, it is not easy for us to separate the essential from
the non-essential, to decide what is relevant to our spiritual needs and what is not, or
to determine the exact nature of the relationship between Buddhism on the one hand and
Western culture on the other. If some of us, in our struggle to make sense of Buddhism for
ourselves and others, should happen to overestimate the importance of this or that aspect
of the Dharma, or allow ourselves to be carried to extremes of affirmation and denial, as
Batchelor does with his advocacy of a belief-free, agnostic Buddhism, this is
understandable and forgivable. Extremism will always find a following, and Buddhism
Without Beliefs will no doubt find many appreciative readers. This need not dismay us.
People come into contact with the Dharma in a variety of ways. Many, I know, have come in
contact with it through reading Lobsang Rampa's The Third Eye or Christmas
Humphreys' Buddhism, or as a result of seeing a Bruce Lee film, and I am confident
that at least some of those in whom an interest in Buddhism is awakened by Buddhism
Without Beliefs will sooner or later find their way to more adequate sources of
information. The end of the golden string now being in their hand, they have only to wind
it into a ball.
(v)
What, then, have I learned from writing this review? I must confess I
have not learned anything I did not know before, though the exercise has certainly helped
clarify some of my perceptions and this is always useful. It is clearer to me than ever
that the Dharma is an ocean, and that its depths are not to be plumbed by reason alone,
that the human mind is capable of mingling truth and falsehood to such an extent that in
some cases 'A Hair perhaps divides the False and True' and it is difficult to separate
them, that ideologically speaking Buddhism's near enemies can be more dangerous than its
distant ones, that language must be looked at no less clearly than its content, and that
for one seeking to understand and explain the Dharma sincerity is not enough. Finally, it
is clearer to me that while the writing of reviews may be a minor form of literary
activity, so long as new books on Buddhism continue to be published it is possible for it
to perform a useful, even a necessary, function.
Urgyen Sangharakshita
Sangharakshita is the founder of the Western Buddhist Order.
© copyright retained by the author
Notes
Richard F. Gombrich, How Buddhism Began, Athlone Press, London & Atlantic
Highlands 1996, pp. 48-49
Quotations from Batchelor's book, and references (without quotation marks) to specific
points he makes, adhere to Batchelor's own typographical conventions.
Thrangu Rinpoche, King of Samaadhi, Rangjun Yeshe Publications, Hong Kong,
Boudanath & Arhus, 1994, p.89. According to the same author, ibid. p.47, children die
of starvation in Africa due to their lack of merit.
Sa.myutta-Nikaaya XXXVI, II, 3, 21. Tr. F.L. Woodward, The Book of Kindred
Sayings, Part IV, Luzac, London 1956, p.155
Sa.myutta-Nikaaya XLV, I, I, ii. Tr. F.L. Woodward, The Book of Kindred Sayings,
Luzac, London 1930, p.2. Woodward translates kalyaa.na-mitrataa as 'friendship with
what is lovely.'
Udaana VIII, 3. Tr. Gombrich, op. cit. p.42
Peter Morris, Power: a philosophical analysis, Manchester University Press 1987,
p.4
A.nguttara - Nikaaya IX, IV, 41. Tr. E.M. Hare, The Book of the Gradual Sayings,
Pali Text Society, London, 1978, p.295
Gombrich, op. cit. pp.96 et seq.
For a colourful description of the ceremony see Thomas Carlyle, The French Revolution,
Chapman and Hall, London 1871, Vol.III, pp. 193-194
Majjhima- Nikaaya, Sutta 72. Tr. Bhikkhu Ñaa.namoli and Bhikkhu Bodhi, The
Middle Length Discourses of the Buddha, Wisdom Publications, Boston 1995, p.593
Bhikkhu Ñaa.namoli, The Life of the Buddha, Buddhist Publication Society, Kandy
1978, p.37
Sa.myutta-Nikaaya LVI, XII, II, i. Tr. Edward J. Thomas, Early Buddhist
Scriptures, Kegan Paul, Trench, and Trubner, London 1935, p.30
Majjhima-Nikaaya, Sutta 26. Tr. Ñaa.namoli and Bodhi, op. cit. p.265
ibid., p.264
The Ariyapariyesanaa Sutta (Majjhima- Nikaaya, Sutta 26) does not actually
mention the Four Truths. The Dhammachakkapavattana-sutta (Sa.myutta-Nikaaya LVI,
XXII, II, i) speaks of them as having been taught to the five ascetics.
Udaana V, 5. Tr. Peter Masefield, The Udaana, Pali Text Society, Oxford 1994, p.97
Vinaya-Pi.taka ii, 6, 4. Tr. F.L. Woodward, Some Sayings of the Buddha, The
Buddhist Society, London 1973, p.96 changing Woodward's 'Norm' to 'Dharma'.
Geshe Wangyal, The Door of Liberation, Maurice Girodias, New York 1973,
pp.141-142