BATCHELOR’S AGNOSTIC BUDDHISM:

PRAGMATIC PRACTICE OR SECULAR SCIENTISM?

Rev. Ozmo Hyonjin Piedmont

Stephen Batchelor, a lay Buddhist teacher, scholar, and former Tibetan and Korean zen monk, puts forth several interesting themes for practice and contemplation.  His efforts are centered around re-discovering the essence and purity of Buddha’s original teachings, which has led him to move beyond a devotional certainty to a doubting uncertainty that renounces all ties to any one Buddhist tradition, while drawing from and incorporating all Buddhist traditions as various aspects of the Dharma. As a self proclaimed agnostic, he avoids all aspects of buddhism as a religion, and instead, tries to apply directly the teachings of Buddha into daily life, as a way to encounter head on the existetial dilemma of suffering and how to be at peace with this through application of Buddhist priciples. He avoids whatever teaching that cannot be directly proven or experienced in his own practice, including karma and rebirth.  He says that one can be a good practicing Buddhist without these terms. He applies his understanding into a present world orientation where action takes precedence over metaphysics.  He has a sensitivity and valuing of the lay perspective, the everyday man or woman that humbly maintains and sustains their practice day to day in acts of kindness and devotion and compassion to others.  In this way, Batchelor shows himself to be a humanist, valueing the qualities of the Buddha as a man in his search to make sense of the world around him, attempting to bring him down out of the sky as being a godlike icon of perfection, and rather sees him as a man in search of meaning, embedded in the culture and society of his time, grappling with certain givens of his world, but contributing a unique perspective of living a balanced and harmonious life without the need for a deity, nor adhering to any idea that deals with beginnings nor endings. 

            On the blogsite Wordpress (Wordpress, 2012), many Western pratitioners admire Batchelor’s stated intent to strip away the Buddha’s cultural imbeddedness, that which was carried over from Hinduism and Jainism, and focus on what is uniquely Buddha’s original message based on four central themes: the principal of conditionality; the process of the four truths,  the practice of mindful awareness; and the power of self-reliance.  In Batchelor’s mind, this is a much more pragmatic practice based on humanistic values, self improvement, and social reform.  You don’t have to believe in any Absolute, nor adhere to the dogmatic beliefs of either karma or past lives, nor try to attain any ultimate truth, Enlightenment, or Nirvana.  Instead, one follows a process of practicing the Eightfold Path as contained in the Four Noble Truths in order to eliminate craving, fear, and hatred and thus live a more meaningful life in harmony and participation with others. 

            Nevertheless, Batchelor’s rejection of religious Buddhism and its teachings of ultimate truth related to spiritual essence, referred to as Buddha-Nature, dharma-dhatu, or the Cosmic Buddha, negates much of that which makes Buddhism meaningful to many people throughout the world, distorting its message due to scientific, secular and therapeutic biases. In a similar fashion, Batchelor’s agnostic nihilism can be seen in his treatment of the term “emptiness.” He writes:

“Emptiness” is a confusing term. Although used as an abstract noun, it does not in any way denote an abstract thing or state. It is not something we "realize" in a moment of mystical insight that "breaks through" to a transcendent reality concealed behind yet mysteriously underpinning .the

empirical world. Nor do things "arise" from emptiness and "dissolve" back into it as though it were some kind of formless, cosmic stuff. These are just some of the ways emptiness has been appropriated as a metaphor of metaphysical and religious consolation.

"Emptiness" is a starkly unappetizing term used to undercut yearnings for such consolation. Yet ironically it has been called into the service of such longings. Shunyata (emptiness) is rendered into English as "the Void" by translators who overlook the fact that the term is neither, prefixed by a

definite article ("the") nor exalted with a capital letter, both of which are absent in classical Asian languages. From here it is only a hop, skip, and a jump to equating emptiness with such metaphysical notions as "the Absolute," "the Truth," or even "God." (Batchelor, 1997:81)

             

Batchelor’s definition of emptiness denies its association with any aspect of religious Budhdism, reducing it to a nihilistic term that has neither substance, nor essence, nor any kind of mystical significance, nor God, nor any Absolute whatsoever.  For him, emptiness is the absence of any blockage or obstacle based on mental habits of greed, anger, and delusion.  But by whose authority does he make this claim?  Is seems contrary to what the Buddha said himself. The Buddha is recorded as saying:

There is something that is unborn, not become, not created, uncompounded; for if there were not, it would not be possible to find a way of escape from what is born, become, created and compounded. But since there is that which is unborn, not become, not created, uncompounded, we know that a way of escape from what is born, become, created and compounded is possible. [Udana, VIII.3]

All traditions of religious Buddhism claim that there is a spiritual essence, the Unchanging itself, and that there is an everyday experience of reality that is based on impermanence and ignorance to this ultimate essence, causing suffering, but one can directly experience this essence through practice and contemplation. 

            Though Bachelor’s attempts to apply pure Buddhist Dharma without any religious trappings may be admirable to some Western practitioners, he tends to dismiss the “comfort” that the everyday person gains from the meaings associated with such teachings as the Absolute, karma, and rebirth. These teachings are fundamental to Buddhist practice, and address the human condition, transcending religion itself, and perhaps aiding in the survival of humanity as a species.  Without this Truth and the peace of mind it brings, there is really no reason to live and die and go through all that we go through.    

            Buddhist scholar and practitioner B. Allan Wallace (2013), believes that Batchelor is distorting and reinventing the image of Buddhism to fit his own prejudices. Rather than professional research and scholarship into previously unknown sources of Buddhist texts, he sees Batchelor’s work as speculative and conforming to his own views.  In spite of several centuries of consensus by Buddhist and secular scholars throughout the world over the last two and a half centuries which view the Pali Cannon as the definitive representation of Buddha’s teachings, Batchelor presumes to present the real Buddha and his real teachings, eliminating karma and rebirth as unnecessary cultural biases for Buddhist practice, even though he contradicts the Buddha’s continual reference to karma and rebirth as essential to the practice of his teachings. For Wallace, this is nothing short of arrogant assertions based on the materialistic assumptions and prejudices of modernity. Wallace also points out that Batchelor’s antipathy toward religious beliefs and religious institutions goes beyond mere rejection of those beliefs, but that he takes the illegitimate step to deny that the Buddha even taught anything that would be considered religious in today’s standards, accusing Batchelor of attempting to recreate the Buddha in his own image of agnostic, existential, and therapeutic biases. Even though the Buddha himself claimed to have direct experience and knowledge in seeing his past lives while sitting in his first watch of the night under the Bodhi tree, Batchelor dismisses this as irrelavant, and mere filtering of ideas through the predominate cultural lens of the time and the culture he was in; a mere projection of his imagination. In Batchelor’s denial of religious revealed and experiential truths in Buddhism, Wallace sees Batchelor’s prejudice as fervent scientism, which places absolute truth in the domains of physics, biology, and neuroscience, without considering the profound experiential studies of consciousness that Buddhist and Hindu practitioners have been examining for two and a half centuries.  

            Bachelor, like any thinker and philosopher, has his cultural context and biases that color his findings and his assertions of reality and truth. This then tends to distort his understanding of the value of religious Buddhism and its metaphysical and mystical underpinnings. Instead of agnostic buddhism, it is more accurate to call his form of practice existential humanism which values pragmatism, socially activism, and personal creative expression.  His biases reflect a certain scientism, a belief in the superiority and ultimate authority of science to explain everything.  This arises out of our collective inheritance of both the 18^th century Western Enlightenment rationalists as well as the second World War that devastated the world with ideologies and metaphysical declarations serving political ideologies for domination and control. There is noble desire to free the individual from dogmatic religious and political institutions, and to value to individual freedoms over a collective mind-set.  Yet, such a cultural stance tends to eliminate all that does not fit into this world view, such a any representation of a God or Absolute, or any metaphysical truths that may emerge from spiritual practice and religious tradition. Likewise, Bachelor is the product of Western obsession with psychological insight, having unlocked the domain of the personal and collective unconscious and archetypal themes through the modern revolution of psychoanalysis and psychotherapy.  This then places the human experience in the center of a materialistic world view that values reason, science, and pragmatism. Batchelor’s ideal is a secular culture of awakening based on friendship and collaboration. This has its value to counteract the shadow side of religion that has often historicall abused its role in terms of power, control, manipulation, superstition, and greed.   But it is biased because it  perverts Buddhist religious understandings and teachings.  In his effort to free the individual from the tyranny of institutional religious dogma and political maneuverings, Bachelor discounts centuries of collective wisdom in an attempt to modernize and redefine Buddhism according to modern needs and considerations. Bachelor dogmatically rejects anything that does not fit into his scientific, humanistic, psychological world view.   In so doing, he eviserates many of the essential teachings of Buddhism, those that do not fit into a very confined set of standards and beliefs of the modern consciousness.  An example of this is Batchelor’s reduction of practice to two primary aspects:

“...dharma practice has two objectives: to let go of self-centered craving so that our lives become gradually more awake; and to be

receptive to the sudden eruption of awakening into our lives

at any moment.”(Batchelor, 1997:99-100)

But what is this awakening? Isn’t it more than just an exerience in the mind and the body of the practitioner? Isn´t it just as valid to call this awakening Buddha-Nature as it is to call it unkowing and freedom?  Why is it so important for Bachelor to eliminate karma and rebirth altogether? Is it because he fears what cannot be pinned down, that which is beyond his rational and scientific world view that only can imagine something real if it measurable and perceivable with the senses?

                There are certain aspects of Bachelor’s agnostic buddhism that are interesting and valuable for the modern day practitioner.  He does challenge the norms and assumptions of institutionalized Buddhism. There may be dogmatic beliefs that need to be de-emphasized or redefined according to our modern needs.   In challenging the sacred beliefs, and even challenging the commonly held images of the Buddha himself, he is bringing new life to the tradition, forcing us to rethink what is essential to buddhist practice, and to question that which is either irrelavant or detrimental to a modern world view and sensibility. There are certain valuable ideas of Bachelor that do enhance modern day practice.  Batchelor values personal creativity, pragmatism, and social consciousness. It is valuable to be able to say, “I don’t really know,” the basic definition of an agnostic, which in Bachelor’s view, is the doorway to awakening. Questioning and healthy doubt is important to spiritual growth, and unknowing as a deep value for both Buddhist agnostic practice as well as religious Buddhism, which counters blind acceptance and dogmatic belief, for the hope of direct experience and perception of Truth. 

            Nevertheless, Batchelor’s denial of religious Buddhism is a loss of that which is most inspiring, motivating and beautiful of Buddhist tradition.  He sees the Buddha as a product of his time and culture, biased in his teachings, and confined by pre-existing religious norms. Ultimately, Bachelor’s agnosticism is uninspiring, lacking the tools of faith and trust in something that can be directly related to through symbols and images of the sacred and the divine.  Bachelor’s approach is far too rational and scientific.  There really is no place in agnostic buddhism for the intuitive, mystical, non-rational aspect of religious experience, that which actually speaks to the majority of people in the world who suffer enormously due to war, famine, greed, disease, and hate, people who are just trying to survive, who need hope and faith in a way that speaks to them in their world here and now, needing a personal relationship to a higher power that comforts, guides, and liberates those that seek and open their hearts and minds to the Mystery of Life.  Without this belief and faith, the world becomes cold and meaningless.  Our survival both physcially and spiritually requires a leap of faith, to trust, to seek That which is the expression of love, compassion, and wisdom, which is with us even now and to the end of time.   

            There is a certain aspect to Batchelor’s writing that leaves one cold and uninspired.  There is very little room in his agnostic Buddhism that allows for Mystery to unfold, an Absolute guiding us, or a metaphysical reality to comfort us.  He discounts the devotional aspect of religious Buddhism which has incorporated prayer, merit, spiritual beings, rebirth, and karma as integral aspects of all forms of Buddhism. He sees these aspects as scientifically unprovable, and therefore, eliminates them.  It is as if there is no meaning but that which one gives it. The only truth for Batchelor is his truth based on science, psychology, and reason.   

                As is stated in the The Most Excellent Mirror Samandhi, “You are not Him, He is all of You” (Tozan).  This “something” that can only be hinted at through names and symbols, which cannot be pinned down, niether through reification, nor through ignoring or discounting, simply Is, and can be directly perceived when the little self is not distracting one with obsessions, attachments and complexes.  To know this “Something” is to know Buddha, the Universe itself, which is wise and compassionate without measure; and it comforts us.  How can Batchelor just throw the baby out with the bathwater, when 2,500 years of Buddhist practice has incorporated elements of magic, mystery, intervention, protection, and merit as skillful means which are preserved and incorporated into a tradition that speaks to the psyche of the collective consciousness of humanity.  In the final analysis, if the religious and devotional aspects of Buddhism serve to overcome suffering, to live more fully, to enjoy life, then that is all that is important and should be honored and preserved in Buddhist practice.   

Bibliography

Batchelor, Stephen. (1990). The Faith to Doubt. Parallax Press: Berkeley, CA. _______________. (1997).  Buddhism Without Beliefs: A Contemporary Guide to    Awakening. Riverhead Books: New York.

Tozan, Ryokai. (9^th C. c.e.) “The Most Excellent Mirror Samadhi.” Soto Zen Scripture,            Shasta Abbey: Mt. Shasta: CA

Wallace, B. Allan. “Distorted Visions of Buddhism: Agnostic and Atheist.” Mandala      Magazine.

            Accessed May 27, 2013.

            http://www.mandalamagazine.org/archives/mandala-issues-for-  2010/october/distorted-visions-of-buddhism-agnostic-and-atheist/#fpmt_anch01

Wordpress.com (Oct. 1, 2012). “Stephen Batchelor: The Secular Buddhist.”

            Accessed May 27, 2013.

        http://agnosticbuddhism.wordpress.com/

“Udana Sutta: Exclamation” (SN 22.55), translated from the Pali by Thanissaro Bhikkhu.           Access to Insight, 19 May 2012.

            http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/sn/sn22/sn22.055.than.html.       Retrieved on 26 May 2013.

If you enjoyed this article, please consider making a contribution to the MBZ Sangha.

DONATE