The Dalai Lama was recently in Pittsburgh, and a friend who sometimes commutes to work with me was going to hear him speak. She told me that she had been to some Buddhist retreats and was much impressed with a particular Vietnamese monk who lead the retreats (His name escapes me). I asked her if she was a Buddhist and she said she was a Quaker but much taken with Buddhism. I told her that I had a problem with a religion which declares that the material world is not real. I also had problems with the willingness of devotees of the Dalai Lama to ignore certain aspects of the history of Tibet, namely the gross exploitation of Tibetans by the Buddhist monks who ran the nation. We picked up another friend of mine and on the long commute between Pittsburgh and Johnstown, the discussion continued. It centered around the issue of nonviolence. My Buddhist devotee argued that no good could ever come from violence, as evidenced by the sorry history of various communist revolutions, including those of China and Cuba. My other friend and I disagreed sharply, pointing out that these revolutions had achieved much good (and has used much justified violence) and Cuba was continuing to do so, despite many difficulties. I also pointed out the superior achievements of China before its turn to capitalism vis a vis a nation such as India, whose Gandhi is also worshipped by many of the same people now taken with the lamas. We both said that there is a heavy dose of daily violence in the good old USA and it ill behooves us to say to the victims that it would always be in their interest to eschew violence as a legitimate tactic in a revolutionary situation. And so on and so on.
Eastern religions, mysticism, a fascination with American Indian rituals, shamanism, new age stuff, etc. are all basically ways for consumer-happy and/or oh so liberal upper middle class people to feel that they are doing good in this world. I like my Quaker/Buddhist friend and think that she is a good person who would stand up for the oppressed (unlike most other "mystics"). And, of course, nonviolence has been a great tactic in many situations, and those who have espoused it have shown the greatest courage (e.g. the Berrigans--if we ignore their repulsive stand on abortion--and the heroic Vietnamese bonzes who immolated themselves in protest of the war). But surely those who believe as my friend does should at least educate themselves about the nature of the horribly repressive and violent societies in which we all live, including those in which religions of various stripes are powerful political forces, and surely they should learn the truth about the revolutions which have occurred in opposition to capitalism.
michael yates
Louis Proyect wrote:
>
> (From the essay "Detachment and Passion" in Philip Lopate's "Portrait
> of my Body")
>
> Even without Claire and Molly, I had been coming up against the
> Buddhist challenge. All during the seventies the New York cultural
> scene was saturated with Buddhism: benefit poetry readings with Allen
> Ginsberg, Anne Waldman, and John Giorno; concerts by Philip Glass and
> other musicians of tantric orientation; conferences at the New School
> on what Buddhist psychology had to offer Western psychotherapies.
> Writer friends of mine were conscientiously studying Tibetan grammar.
> There was a definite upscale chic attached to Buddhism, especially the
> Tibetan strand--a pedigreed intellectual respectability such as had
> never burnished, say, the Hare Krishna or Guru Maharaji sects.
>
> The first Buddhist wave had been Japanese: the Zen of the fifties and
> sixties, introduced by Alan Watts and D. T. Suzuki. The next influx
> was Tibetan, dominated by the flamboyant, Oxbridge-educated Chogyam
> Trungpa, whose poet-disciples established the Naropa School in
> Boulder, Colorado. Molly and Claire looked askance at
> whiskey-drinking, philandering, bad-boyish Trungpa, preferring instead
> their aged, gentle lama, Dujam Rinpoche. The old man lived mostly in
> France; but his American followers had established a center in New
> York, and every few years he would visit it--to the immense excitement
> of his devotees.
>
> Socially on the fringes of this scene, I would sometimes be pulled in
> by curiosity, the chance to witness one more Manhattan subculture.
> Once, Molly invited me to hear the Dalai Lama address a packed church.
> I could barely understand a word of His Holiness's talk, due to the
> thick accent of his translator and bad acoustics, and the little I
> heard sounded like platitudes about our need for love and world peace.
> Now, it may well be that platitudes ultimately contain the highest
> wisdom attainable. But I was looking for evidence to debunk the scene.
> I never doubted that Buddhist practices had great efficacy for
> Tibetans; I was only dubious that the beaming middle-class Americans
> in the pews around me would ever get beyond their consumerist pride in
> fingering esoteric traditions.
>
> The American devotees I knew also displayed a parvenu fascination with
> Tibetan aristocracy (the Dalai Lama and his retinue, the ranks of
> lamas) that I can only compare to the way Texas moneyed society
> grovels before the British royals. One night I was taken to an event,
> at a Soho loft, honoring a group of Tibetan lamas who had just arrived
> in the States from India. The lamas sat on a raised platform and
> conversed among themselves, while an awed, handpicked, mostly Ivy
> League audience, kneeling and lotus-squatting below, watched them eat.
> What struck me was the determination of the devotees to wring
> spiritual messages from the most mundane conduct. If a lama belched,
> it became a teaching: "Don't take anything too seriously." If several
> lamas laughed (at a private Tibetan joke), the audience would join in
> gratefully, as though being taught the mystery of joy. Meanwhile, a
> bevy of dahinis, attractive young women chosen to serve the lamas,
> advanced with dishes and finger bowls. These American women, probably
> all willing to be identified as feminists, who would have been shocked
> if asked to perform such duties for their countrymen, were blushing
> with happiness at the chance to serve the robed contingent. Other
> women in the audience gasped as one of the tall young head-shaved
> priests stood up, his saffron robes leaving his muscled arms bare. The
> monks inspired rock star crushes.
>
> Shortly after the feast had ended and the entire lama delegation had
> left to go to another party, those remaining milled about, still
> processing the privilege they'd been given. The Princess of Bhutan and
> her seven-year old son were pointed out to me. Much was made of the
> little boy's playing with a top, as though it were a precocious
> demonstration of spiritual powers; when the top skittered over the
> loft floor, everyone oohed and clapped. I wasn't sure whether the
> child was being drooled over because he had royal blood, because he
> was mischievous (high spiritual marks for that in this crowd), or
> because he was of an age when future Dalai Lamas are customarily
> detected.
>
> I was glad not to be won over by this display; it saved me an enormous
> bother. On the other hand, I could not simply reject an immensely
> complex, sophisticated tradition just because of some sycophantic
> behavior on the part of certain followers. The little I knew of
> Buddhist doctrine actually appealed to me, by virtue of its insistence
> on the void, on mindfulness, and on the universality of suffering. In
> fact, I could go along with at least two of its four "noble truths":
> the first, that existence is suffering, I could accept wholeheartedly;
> the second, that the cause of suffering is craving and attachment, I
> was less sure about, but willing to concede. I balked only at the
> final two: that there is a cessation of suffering, called Nirvana, and
> that the way to Nirvana lies in dissolving the self and following the
> "eightfold path." As with Marxism, I agreed with the analysis of the
> problem, only not the solution.
>
> Louis Proyect
> (http://www.panix.com/~lnp3/marxism.html)