Issue

15th Issue (Mar, 2010)

Passion and Buddhism:
Bringing Buddhist Ideas to the West

Gerald Sze

Introduction

“Allen, I just saw a flyer on the bulletin board in the Student Union building, which was about Buddhist meditation. Do you want to come with me to check it out on Sunday?” Betty asks her friend Allen with excitement on the phone.

“Are you crazy? Do you know what Buddhists do? One Buddhist sect discourages their practitioners to think. This sect may even be anti-intellectual. Meditation practice is merely about experiencing reality in the altered state of consciousness. The question you should ask yourself is, through meditation, would any enlightenment you experience give you any  insight to deal with your relationship problems and help you to become a better person? To ask this question would require the development of your intellectual mind. I go to university to use my knowledge to help me think intellectually so that I can take responsibility for my own life and choices. And when you become a Buddhist, you are supposed to detach from your emotions and desires including your passion for dancing and love of music. Buddhists claim that the cause of suffering is our desires and passions. You know I want to experience my life to the fullest. I have no desire to live my life without passion, sensitivity and  love. Buddhism definitely is not my kind of religion,” Allen responds with agitation and anger. 

“Oh… maybe you have a good point. I don’t see how I could give up dancing,” Betty says with quiet disappointment in her voice. “I ’m probably not going to explore this religion then.” 

How do Western Buddhist practitioners bring Buddhism to mainstream culture? How can practitioners meet the challenge of incorporating centuries-old philosophies into modern Western culture and avoid having to begin by dispelling myths abut Buddhism?

Buddhism originated with Buddha, Gautama, in India 2500 years ago. Although Buddhism died out in India in later centuries, it survived in the neighbouring countries. Not only has Buddhism survived, but it has also flourished and made important contributions to the cultural development of those countries. One of the reasons Buddhism is able to take root and flourish in a new environment is its resilience to embrace the host countries’ way of thinking and living. Buddhism made its way to North America in the 1960s. Although it spread rapidly across the fabric of North American culture since then, many Westerners have misconceptions of the’ doctrines and practices of Buddhism. The challenge to Western Buddhist practitioners is how they bring Buddhism to the mainstream culture and how to plant Buddhist ideas in the soil of the experiences, knowledge, wisdom and insights developed in the West. This is the thesis of this article.  

Buddhism began with Buddha’s spiritual quest for enlightenment. Buddha began his spiritual journey with the renouncement of all worldly possessions. He almost starved himself to death at one point in his six-year spiritual ordeal before reaching enlightenment. Upon utter physical exhaustion, Buddha came to realize that what was stopping him from liberating his own suffering and reaching enlightenment was his “tanha”.(In Pali, tanha means desires, thirst and cravings). Later Buddha developed the doctrines of Four Noble Truths from this insight.

The concept of tanha encompasses various aspects of human desires and its effects. It includes sensual pleasures, the thirst for life and death, worldly attractions, as well as clinging to a mental and emotional state. Tanha also means addiction; a strong intense attachment to the object of desire. Tanha, the cause of the psychological suffering, is also the source of the rebirth cycle. The solution to the suffering and the cessation of the rebirth cycle is the third and four noble truths. To stop suffering and rebirth is to transform tanha following the Buddha’s Eightfold Path.

Desire is intentional. For example, an intention to be the Buddha or reach enlightenment is a desire. Because desires are the motivational forces for everything in life, including the desire to have no desires. The Buddha does not discard desire. In fact, he includes the right intention (desire) as one of the Eightfold Paths. It is the choice of desires and how to apply the other Eightfold Paths that help Buddhist practitioners experience the state of neither desire, nor no-desire. This state of consciousness is nirvana which is also a synonym of enlightenment and the cessation of the rebirth cycle. Religious writer, Theodore Ludwig succinctly describes this state of consciousness, “Nirvana is not the extinction of existence, nor is it a state of being experienced only after death. Nirvana (blowing out, cooling off) is the experience of full life and meaning achieved by eliminating all forms of grasping and attachment.”[1]  

The Buddha could see that tanha can be both a roadblock as well as a vehicle to Buddha-hood and enlightenment. Some tanhas are negative, such as the addiction to chemical substances, material things, relationships or sex. These desires yield destructive, unsatisfactory consequences and often cause harm. On the other hand, some tanha are positive, such as the desire to grow to be a better person. These desires yield positive consequences, which enable the person to grow and change. Because all human conscious actions are directed by intention, the goal is not to annihilate all desires before Buddha-hood, but to develop the capacity of non-attachment to all desires.

From the Mahayana Buddhist perspective, everyone has a Buddha Nature. The goal (desire) for Mahayana practitioners is to actualize the Buddha Nature within. To actualize Buddha Nature, a practicing Mahayana Buddhist vows to be a bodhisattva who does not enter nirvanic state unless all sentient beings are free from their sufferings. This solemn vow is an expression of altruistic desire.

Some Buddhist writers translate the concept of Buddha Nature as “life-essence.” Although we all have Buddha Nature, this pure life essence is clouded by impure desires, which permeate in our distorted personality structure. A Mahayana Bodhisattvas, who vows to free all human suffering, will diligently cultivate her/his quality of desires and the capacity of non-attachment in their personality by following the Eightfold Path.

To put it into psychological terms, when practicing Eightfold Path, all Buddhist practitioners, reardless of which school they belong to, should cultivate a well-balanced, integrated personality structure which is the basis for enlightenment (nirvanic state), wisdom and compassion. In this regard, the concept of compassion and Buddha nature, emphasized by Mahayana practitioners and the concept of self-salvation and arhantship, emphasized by Hinayana practitioners, are interdependent and this developmental journey involves many stages.

Because the journey of the Buddhist path involves a number of developmental stages, the body of knowledge in Western psychology can be integrated into Buddha’s teaching. From the Western psychology perspective, there are many stages involved in transforming the personality structure. Western psychologists put forth different stage theories regarding various dimensions of personality development. One of the influential developmental theories is Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. At the mature developmental stage, a Buddhist has a desire to actualize her/his potential including Buddha Nature.

Thus, the purification program, the four noble truths, taught by Buddha shouldn’t be absent of all desires prior to Buddha-hood. The goal is to purify the unsatisfactory desire and to be non-attach to the desires including the desire of no desire. Paradoxically, a practicing Mahayana practitioner must live with her/his life with strong intensity of desires in this developmental journey in order to actualize Buddha Nature. This strong intensity of desires can be understood as passion. Simply put, passion is Buddha Nature in motion. 

There are many ways to manifest this primordial life essence. This life impulse is the energy source of moral value, art, beauty and creativity. This is the same life energy that enables us to celebrate life with laughter in the joyful moment or cry in the midst of sufferings with our fellow human being together. In Man’s Search for Meaning, Viktor Frankl[2] points out that despite the degradation, torture, and facing imminent extermination in concentration camps, prisoners could feel awe and wonder from the aesthetic beauty of a sunset. Because of their love for life, these women and men found the strength and meaning to endure the most inhumane conditions in these concentration camps ever created in human history.

However, the ultimate expression of this primordial life essence is the passion with the prefix of com - compassion. The meaning of compassion literally means suffer together. It is the primordial life essence in us that gives rise to compassion. If a person truly loves life, it is a natural response in this person not to leave the suffering fellow human beings behind. The capacity to love life is the same capacity to endure the suffering with our fellow human being together. This capacity is vividly demonstrated by Christ. Thus, it is the passion for life that enables Christ to be crucified on the cross. It is the passion for life that enables Mother Teresa to serve the poorest of the poor in India. It is the passion for life that enables Nelson Mandela to endure all hardship, isolation and suffering for 27 years in prison. It is the passion for life that enables all Mahayana bodhisattva to take vows to free all suffering in the world.

If we understand the concept of passion, the life impulse of our desires, in the way manifested by the aforementioned saints and ordinary people facing dire conditions in concentration camp, it is imperative for practicing Buddhists to cultivate passion so that the Buddha Nature in them can shine through their personality here and now in relationships and in life.

Although Buddha’s teachings are universal, the way to understanding his teachings changes over time because life is an evolutionary process. Due to the growth of knowledge, especially in the Social Sciences, engineered in the West, this body of knowledge opens a new door for humanity to understand Buddha’s teachings based on the deeper understanding of who we are. Buddhism, as an institution, is a living and evolving system. It will die if it cannot respond to changes in time and environment. In order for Buddhism to take root in the West, Western Buddhist practitioners must integrate the wisdom, insights and knowledge discovered by Western minds into Buddhist thoughts.

In conclusion, when experiencing our true nature existentially, we are not only free from our conditioned conceptual mind, but also discover the common source that gives rise to the unique cultural and religious expression of goodness, beauty and truth. If the Chinese can give Buddhism a new expression by developing Chan Buddhism, I have confidence that Buddhism in the West can develop its unique expression to respond to what humanity needs at this point in human history.