Have you ever wondered why some of the people who follow teachers in ancestral Buddhist communities, and their ‘traditional’ teachings, loathe secular Buddhism and secular Buddhists, at times with a palpable feeling of distaste that clearly is not rational? I know I have.
These will be people who have accepted some (but not all of) the broad range of Buddhist truth claims without questioning. Here, for instance, is one of the rules that was spotted in a list pasted onto the wall of a Goenka-style vipassanā retreat centre in India:
Associate professor of psychology at the University of Auckland, Aotearoa New Zealand, Danny Osborne, examines the causes and consequences of inequality. Writing on the reasons that some people follow authority figures in Scientific American recently, he suggested that:
Authoritarian followers share three tendencies: they obey authority figures from their in-group (called authoritarian submission); they punish rule breakers (authoritarian aggression); and they rigidly endorse long-held traditions (conventionalism).
This brought to mind some of the adherents of ancestral, traditional Buddhist communities that I’ve come across over the years. Is it reasonable to use Osborne’s description of authoritarian followers as one way to understand the criticisms, the shunning, that secular Buddhists and secular Buddhism receive from other Buddhist tendencies?
At an event in Melbourne
Introducing themselves as a ‘secular vipassanā group’, Melbourne Insight Meditation brought together Ajahn Brahmali from Bodhinyana monastery, Perth, and Stephen Batchelor in February 2014 in a public event to discuss and debate the relevance of early Buddhist texts in the modern world.
Near the start of his opening statement, Brahmali offered this binary proposition: that ‘a gulf was opening’ up between secular Buddhism on the one hand, and traditional Buddhism on the other’. And the thing is, by traditional Buddhism he didn’t just mean the organisation he adhered to, but all the other Buddhist tendencies. Whatever happened to the middle way, I wondered‽
He went on to draw a line between what Buddhism is, and what it isn’t. ‘We have so much in common’, Brahmali said. He then went through some of the aspects of the world view of his dharma community that he said were among the core shared ideas of all Buddhists. Among these, said that ‘the texts of the Pali canon … is essentially the word of the Buddha’. Really‽ Is this the view of Zen, Chan or Sŏn practitioners? Or Tibetan, or Mongolian Buddhists?
Another essential element Brahmali proclaimed was belief in rebirth, ‘the fact there is another life after this one’, with the purpose of practice being to achieve awakening, as a result of which a practitioner would suffer no more rebirths. He was very passionate, making it clear that we need to take this teaching seriously.
Stephen Batchelor responded by describing Buddhism as an historical phenomenon, a response to particular human situations. As practitioners, we need to acknowledge that the worldview we have today is as much informed by the natural sciences and other philosophical, cultural and social developments as it is by historical texts.
The richness and power of the early Buddhist tradition brings with it a repository of teachings, he stated. Interpretation is unavoidable, an ongoing task. We need an understanding of the historical circumstances of which these texts were a record. Gotama, the Buddha, responded to the needs of his audience. For us in the twenty-first century, wherever we are, we need to develop a historical critical analysis of the texts in the Pali canon, applying the skills of philology as well as critical thought.
As a human being who suffers, we ask what it means to be human. Our engagement with these ideas create a living tradition, one that is in an ongoing conversation with the past. ‘A dead tradition,’ according to Batchelor, ‘is one that just keeps on repeating what has been handed down over the centuries, intent on preservation, but rather suspicious and perhaps even rather threatened by interpretations that don’t accord with the traditional view.’ This was a formulation set out in Alasdair McIntyre’s 1981 book After Virtue.
Instead of attacking what he felt Brahmali might believe or practise, Batchelor attempted to look for common ground between secular Buddhism and ancestral traditions. ‘Secular Buddhism is a work in progress, an idea that some of us have found helpful’, he stated, not just a crude opposition to religion (which is how the word secular is conventionally used), but something of this age, of this time. ‘I do not see a contradiction between the words religious and secular’, he said. Religion is not about adopting certain religious beliefs, the emphasis on beliefs being a feature of the Christian world; it is ‘that about which we are ultimately concerned.’
Interestingly, the debate was planned to have been held in the Buddhist Society of Victoria’s centre in Malvern East, Melbourne. Purporting to be open to all forms of Buddhism, this organisation (whose spiritual director is Ajahn Brahmavaṃso) demands that any lay teacher must in writing affirm the truth of rebirth and the superiority of monastics over lay people before they can be allowed to offer teachings. (See its policy statement, clauses 4 and 6.) When Stephen Batchelor refused to sign such a document, and it looked like the meeting might have to be cancelled, Melbourne Insight Meditation arranged for the debate to take place in the Augustine Center in the Melbourne suburb of Hawthorn.
Here’s the recording of their debate, and the discussion that followed.
How do you feel about this conversation? You can if you wish leave your thoughts in the comments below.
I would suggest that some Buddhist monastics are not actually practising the dharma – Gotama’s teachings – that much. Rather, what they are practising is the vinaya – the monastic rule for ordained Buddhist monks and nuns that was developed gradually from thirteen years after the Buddha’s awakening. For them, a good life and ultimate transcendence springs from meticulously following the rules.
Meanwhile, back in Wellington
In 2010, Wellington Insight Meditation Community (WIMC), which I was involved with at the time, discussed joining the New Zealand Buddhist Council (NZBC). In the end we didn’t apply to join since some of the members of the WIMC committee were strongly opposed to paying a fixed subscription fee to be part of a Buddhist organisation, rather than being able to offer support for it as dana.
Also, what amused my secular Buddhist sensibilities at the time was that for an organisation to become an NZBC full member, it needed to be an incorporated body, and a charity registered with the NZ Charities Commission. This prevented Secular Buddhism in Aotearoa New Zealand (SBiANZ), an informal network of spiritual friends that I was also involved in, from taking up full membership.
Keen, though, to contribute to the life of the Council and to help promote awareness of the dharma in Aotearoa New Zealand, SBiANZ applied for associate membership as a ‘Buddhist individual’. NZBC ignored the fact that this was not a ‘Buddhist individual’ and the application, I am pleased to report, was accepted.
Actually, that’s not all it was necessary for everyone to ignore. To become a full member, an organisation or individual was asked to declare that they were either Theravada, Mahayana, or Vajrayana. No ‘Other’ category was available.
We made the point to the Buddhist Council that if they were to operate as a representative organisation in twenty-first century Aotearoa New Zealand, they needed to make room for ‘Others’ among their categories of Buddhist organisations. In time, the category ‘Other’ did become available.
Given the opportunity to write something in the ‘Other’ box, what would you have written in place of Theravada, Mahayana or Vajrayana? What I came up with was Aniccayana – The way of impermanence. Could this perhaps be the way of a creative, secular dharma – or one of the many ways?
Another possibility we discussed at the time, somewhat tongue-in-cheek, was Kiwiyana. The word Kiwiana (without a y) usually conjures up images of buzzy-bees, Swanndris and hokey-pokey, so might our claim to be a Kiwiyana community have raised the profile of secular Buddhism in this country?
Returning to Danny Osborne’s Scientific American article, it would appear that he had the current US president in mind with his conclusion that:
Democracy rarely falls at the hands of a single individual. Rather it dies through the complacency and obedience of otherwise well-intentioned authoritarian followers. We must help them follow their better angels. As the historian Timothy Snyder has warned, ‘Most of the power of authoritarianism is freely given.’
How far could this go towards explaining the reasons why some people follow dharma teachers who demand obedience?
Biography
Ramsey Margolis has had an interest in secular Buddhism since reading Stephen Batchelor’s ‘12 Theses on Secular Buddhism’ in 2005. Ramsey ran Wellington’s first course on secular Buddhism in 2007, and currently serves Tuwhiri in the role of publisher.
15 Replies to “Why do some people follow dharma teachers who demand obedience?”
Thanks for this wide-ranging and thought provoking essay, Ramsey! Before commenting, I wish to confess that I’ve opted to forego watching the nearly 2-hour video clip you provided of the 2014 debate and discussion between Stephen Batchelor and Ven Brahmali.
With that off my conscience, what struck me the most was the strong parallels existing between authoritarian dharma teachers and authoritarian political leaders. I think that Timothy Snyder has it right concerning both students of authoritarian teachers and followers of authoritarian politicians. In either case, it is they who give the power to the teachers or to the leaders that they follow. And in both cases, I suspect that at least part of the explanation for why they so thoughtlessly hand over such power might be attributed to their desire for simple answers to complex questions.
It would be useful for students seeking enlightenment to reacquaint themselves with the meaning of that term in 18th century Europe and merge the two understandings. A good starting point would be Kant’s short essay, “What is the Enlightenment?” Here is the first paragraph:
1. Enlightenment is man’s emergence from his self-imposed immaturity. Immaturity is the inability to use one’s understanding without guidance from another. This immaturity is self-imposed when its cause lies not in lack of understanding, but in lack of resolve and courage to use it without guidance from another. Sapere Aude! “Have courage to use your own understanding!”—that is the motto of enlightenment.
Thank you Lance, your response hits the nail on the head.
Speaking at St Paul’s Cathedral in London in March 2011 on what he considered distinctive about what the Buddha taught, Stephen Batchelor described the fourth aspect as being:
ʻ…the Buddha’s emphasis on self reliance, on becoming autonomous. Again, a phrase you find in the early texts quite a lot: “the person who has entered into the path has become independent of others in the Buddha’s teachings”.
‘And yet today so often we find this emphasis on finding a teacher, becoming devoted to the teacher, somehow almost surrendering your autonomy in order – as in the Tibetan schools would say – to receive the blessings of the lama or the guru, which to me is totally alien to the originality of what the Buddha first presented.’
https://secularbuddhistnetwork.org/stephen-batchelor-buddhism-in-a-nutshell
I agree and thank you for your Kantian addition to the debate.
Whatever way I choose, I know that I always have to row my own boat, but most of the time I have no certainty of making the correct decision of what direction to take.
This is because I am fundamentally ignorant of many things or what some like to call ‘unknown variables’. I often feel I’m listening to my heart and intuition and not so much trying to find answers with my intellect.
The moral of this story for me is: accept uncertainty, its the actual state of living in an impermanent world full of emptiness (as the Buddha called it).
Like trying to put up a camping tent on a cloud.
Dear Ramsey
Since first reading Stephen Batchelor’s writings in 2015 (After Buddhism), I’ve found compelling the open question that animates his life’s work: “What does it mean to practice the dharma of the Buddha in the context of modernity?”. I look forward to its exploration in writings and discussions by lay and monastic teachers.
In Batchelor’s meeting with Ajhan Brahmali, however, I was struck from the outset that their public encounter was framed by the moderator as a formal debate of timed, opposing arguments and how—notwithstanding this assumed framework—Batchelor attempted to approach it instead as a conversation that might creatively cover a range of topics. My impression was that they were operating on different wavelengths.
Brahmali’s myopia about the necessity of belief in rebirth as a litmus test of true Buddhist identity was for me a drawback in that he was unable to engage any other topic or listen to Batchelor’s nuanced perspective on rebirth; and, the length of time it took Brahmali to arrive at excluding Batchelor from the fold of true Buddhists made his participation in the debate at best repetitive. In the end, Batchelor included himself as a Buddhist and affirmed the great breadth of the dharma even to include encounters such as his and Brahmali’s.
I can see why you put this recording in the context of microaggressions that secular Buddhists can encounter—from exclusion on registration forms designed for signing in at Buddhist events or into Buddhist organizations, to public talks framed as oppositional debates across the “gulf” separating secular and “traditional” Buddhists (Brahmali’s terms). In response to your asking for comments on the event: I found it disappointing in failing to explore in an open way relationships among Buddhist perspectives. But it was an interesting example of the tone-deafness of some—not all—monastic interlocutors.
I think as Buddhists (whatever that means) we need to remember that by far, our basic state is ignorance.
It is well illustrated in the Tibetan Wheel of Life Image with Lord Yama where the central circle displays the snake, rooster, and pig, symbolising hatred, greed, and ignorance in that order, respectively. It is possible to conclude that hatred and greed are just extensions that arise out of ignorance. The sectioned images around the outer circle called the Twelve Links of Dependent Origination also reflect the view that ignorance is the fundamental cause of suffering and delusion. The first two frames on the top right hand side of a blind man walking with a cane, and a potter making pots – some good some bad – also tells us that whatever we think , feel, or do, is often founded on delusion or mistruth and thus something we need to be wary of in our adherence to our beliefs and perceptions; or that of others.
I have found this a great source of visual teaching which hangs on my bedroom wall so I can look at it every day when I wake up. What I have learned from it is that I actually know very little with certainty, even though I’m 71 years of age and have been a passionate learner all of my life. I’m university trained in science and Western philosophy which helps in some ways in thinking carefully before drawing conclusions, but I also know my assumptions, feelings, and thoughts are frequently based on incomplete evidence and so I could be completely wrong. This with the conclusions I draw on many things.
To understand this has made my life a lot easier and given me the ability to laugh at myself. I can now accept to be totally wrong without pain, since I am constructed in such a way that I cannot aways be certain of much at all. Everything I think or believe may not be the truth, including what I write here. I have also been heartened to read that Einstein who was arguably one of the most itelligent physicists of the scientific world has said:
“We still do not know one thousandth of one percent of what nature has revealed to us.”
That is not very much, only 0.001%
He died way back in 1955, but I think what he said still holds fundamentally true and gives us some idea of our ignorance from yet another perspective that validates The Buddha’s teachings on ignorance.
I note in today’s world as it has always been, people often argue, sometimes with dire consequences, as if their own personal view is the complete and utter truth. This is sometimes exacerbated by the desire to be righteous and then use ad hominem or diatribe to attack others that don’t share their view. And then follows the pain of suffering as negative emotions accompany further negative arrow-like aggressive or defensive thoughts and opinions.
As the world appears to become more divisive and Philip of Macedon II’s ‘divide and conquer’ tactics are often employed in the world media and politics, it is obvious where this could be headed. Do we really want something like Kali Yuga or would it be better to find views we all hold in common and reinforce our commonalities and appreciation for the beautiful diversity of views that we all share together, even if they are contrary to our own? Can’t we hold gratitude for the diversity of views instead? Aren’t they the full expression of what the Vedic teachings have always called or symbolised as divine play or Lila?
I like to think of the 19th Century Japanese woodblock printer Hokusai, who spent many years compiling 36 views of Mount Fuji or Fujiama. Every view is different, yet reflects some truth of the mountain itself. Should we argue that only one view is the correct one?
We could also remind ourselves that none of the views shows more than half of the mountain and the truth is that not one print is the noumenal mountain itself. Just like Rene Magritte the surrealist painter cheekily wrote “Ceci n’est pas une pipe” (this is not a pipe) on a painting of a pipe. It was not a real pipe but an illlusion.
So I suggest – and I’m not aiming this at anyone in particular – that we all take cold showers and accept that we know very little, that each person’s view is important, and that much of what we consider to be the truth is pure ignorance especially when we construct theories about other people and their motivations. Turning blind righteousness about your own views can then be turned into laughing at yourself or taking yourself far less seriously, and that is a lot more nirvana than samsara in my opinion.
This article & discussion offers a rich vein of conversation, one that is rightly unresolvable. I am grateful to those who sustain the ongoing and varying lineages springing from the teachings of Siddhartha Gautama. I have learned much by collaborating in study of varied translations of written recollections of what folk remembered being told he said.
My scholarship is rusty, but I recall having heard that he said that a practitioner of the way ought never to quote his words or revere his images. That we ought to strive ceaselessly for our own liberation.
Still, these lineages have kept the dharma wisdom alive over generations.
Now ready for new iteration.
Like Stephen Batchelor’s translation of Verses From The Center – sacrilegious anathema to orthodox Buddhists.
Yet his “Awakening” opened up the living dharma path for me, was transformative for me.
Anathema or not.
As so often in the dharma, it’s not either or.
Though I must say that as an egalitarian who finds great merit in spiritual practices that can inform the everyday lives of those who inhabit the world, I find the whole superiority of the monastics shtick anachronistic, feudal, presumptuous, and offensive.
I appreciate the commitment and devotion of that life. I’m infinitely grateful for what the lineages have accomplished and made possible. Still, no reason to be uppity about it.
For me, the dharma path is a contemporary Buddhism deeply informed by the interwoven lineages and vital in daily life.
I read this with interest. As a layperson I find several issues on both sides.
Looking at the traditional perspective, I find that the insistence on rebirth as the litmus test of a “True” Buddhist to be based on a fundamental misunderstanding of eternity, or eternal existence or the cycle of multiple lives. If one, purely on a philosophical basis, looks at the most basic and fundamental tenets of Buddhism, such as interconnectedness, one quickly realizes that Traditional Buddhism has been, post Gautama, fatally infected with Hindu thought.
I do not think that the idea of rebirth was one fundamentally held by Gautama. I think he meant something completely different, that he intended it as “you, and your actions, your cause and effect, resonates down the centuries” because, at the most basic level, everything is ultimately, if you “zoom out” far enough, one thing. And that one thing continues.
Then the entire concept of a “True Buddhist” is nothing but the “No True Scotsman” fallacy writ large.
On the Secular Buddhism side though, I see a constant and increasing dilution of the Dharma. For example, the denial of awakening, or the conflation of it with the European enlightenment, which is also why I reject that term, and prefer the term “realization.” Then I find that the dilution of the Dharma really takes off when I see how it has become some kind of liberal, social justice tool. It becomes this diaphanous idea, this feel-good preciousness and sweetness that almost wants to “out-cute” suffering and the reality of it.
To me, a denial of the ubiquity of suffering, it’s necessity in being the driver of growth, specifically personally, along the path, is the primary characteristic of a misunderstanding of what Buddhism is, and what it is for.
So let me be as clear as I can. There is no “true” Buddhism that exists without a rigorous and focus goal of realization. Buddhism without realization is not Buddhism. It is what Buddhism is for, what its goal is, and why Gautama taught it.
To me, Buddhism can be simply summarized as follows:
Suffering is ubiquitous. Suffering has a cause. Suffering can be overcome by realization, which is the end and ultimate goal of the Noble eight-fold path. The NBP exists for the purpose of realization. The different portions of the N8P is what we need to live, the path we need to follow for the mind and the body to become prepared for realization.
There must certainly be other “paths” to realization, but Gautama lived and discovered one. The outcome of that was what happened to him under the Bodhi tree. Nothing mystical.
I see realization in the same way I see the learning of a language. Neural pathways are established via meditation. They are further nurtured via the strictures and discipline of the N8P.
In the same way as language, one has to “grow” first a basic, then a good, and then a mastery of said language. Only then, can one understand and have a realization of high-level concepts and complex expressions of that language.
This is what the 4NT and following the n8P does. It develops neural pathways that are required before we can fully “get” the reality of the universe. That, to me is also why those that have experienced realization find it exceedingly hard to explain realization, and what it is that one comes to a realization, an “aha” of “how stuff actually works.” It is like trying to explain high-function mathematics to a 3rd grade maths class. Realization is not an understanding in the normative sense. It is the creation of a highly focused, active and advanced pattern of thinking through rigorous discipline, much in the same way freedivers spend decades to get to a specific depth.
The continuous dilution of what I see as the true goal of Buddhist practice is a huge negative in the secular world. It then just becomes another “help myself, help others” warm and fuzzy among many.
I do not believe that the potential of Buddhism can be reached without realization, and that an attempt to “make the world a better place by using Buddhism as a moral and ethical framework” is nothing but a diversion by the virtue-signaling ego. Why? Because it’s hard, does demonstrably require focus, and concentration and rigorous discipline, which many eschew. The ending of suffering in ourselves and others cannot truly occur without the realized individual (and many of them), and this constant precious warm and fuzzy route that secular Buddhism will only serve to render it as “one among many.”
We need to get back to focusing and understanding and also achieving the thing that happened under that Bodhi tree. Everything else can only ever come after that.
If one submits to a master then one should be certain that they are genuine.
But how do we know that?
We know that money can affect the minds of people so that they become false gurus.
We know that other material gains, even a free bowl of food every day, could be similar if someone’s motivations are false.
We know that some institutions use large amounts of gold and other precious materials to decorate their temples in what could be often described as spiritually materialistic largesse; and take money from already impoverished people. Same for many other temple decorations that are hardly proscribed by the original Buddha and the lifestyle he counselled.
We know that some may have distorted (Buddhist) egos that uniquely seek power over other people.
We know that some seek sexual favours and other types of favours given they are seen as important ‘spiritual’ people who can easily influence others through their vulnerability to naivety.
We also know that some may claim that have false Siddhi-like powers to impress followers, and that some followers may fall victim to superstition.
So the road to awakening is riddled with some degree of treachery and danger.
Maybe if we meet some Buddhas on the road we should [metaphorically] kill them, as the saying goes.
But many stories also suggest that devotion to a teacher may be beneficial, and Buddhism is full of them.
Since no one can really tell you what to do or choose as a seeker, (secular or not), then aren’t we always rowing our own boat on the ocean of dharma with no real certainty of what direction to follow? This due to our own ignorance often crashing into us like waves that arrive we can never predict.
Yet on the other hand, I also think about the wonderful diversity of approaches that can be found in Vedic and Buddhist teachings that offer a great deal of approaches and possible niches for aspirants to follow. One size does not fit all. And this can be like a garden of flowers where no flower is uniquely the beautiful one, while all the flowers make the aesthetic experience far more enriching.
I would say that this explains the huge diversity of teachings and approaches one not only finds in India and many other countries, but also within Vedic teachings and Buddhist dharma. There is an entry level for everyone, as well as many schools of thought available to all those who continue on the path.
To make wiser choices results from understanding the Dharma and doing the practices. Mistakes will certainly be made on the way, and even choosing false or the wrong teachers may be part of the process – but there is no other way: that’s how we learn.
Rob, thank you for taking the time to comment.
It does seem that you and I may have very different personalities, or perhaps more pertinently be at difference stages of development in our practice. And I heartily agree that one size does not fit all.
I would also suggest that as we age we not only change the size of our clothes as our body shape changes but the style too. The French composer Erik Satie was known as ‘The Velvet Gentleman’ due to the fact that for seven years he only ever wore one of twelve grey velvet corduroy suits, before exchanging them for the black suit and bowler hat that marked the lower level of the French civil service of the period. An exception that proofs the rule, perhaps‽
So the static picture you paint about the need to ‘submit to a master’ misses Stephen Batchelor’s point about becoming ‘independent of others in the Buddha’s teachings’.
When I’m with someone who’s new to meditation and the dharma, I may kick off the discussion on the ways we might practice meditation effectively by likening it to teaching a child to cross the road.
With a 2-year-old, or a 3-year-old, with a forthright tone of voice we say something like: ‘hold daddy’s [or mummy’s] hand when we cross the road, and don’t let go’. Giving a 3-year-old too much choice in these situations is not a good idea.
At around the age of 5, we may stop together at the side of a road we’re about to cross and offer them some instruction: ‘look left, look right, look left again, and if it’s safe we can cross the road’. (For those of you who live in countries where you drive on the right, the order is different of course.)
Yet when you watch teenage boys cross a road, they appear to not be using their eyes but their ears, almost daring drivers to run them over.
So a teacher to whom you devote yourself – and this may just as easily be a book or an online course to a human being – can be very useful, but only for a period of time. At some point, we outgrow the need for instructions and become independent of others in the teachings. Just as rules are necessary for us as children (think: the ten commandments); as adolescents and adults, we learn to creatively break them.
For several decades I was a political activist and trade unionist before sitting down and closing my eyes to meditate. I brought to my practice a hesitance when with people who wanted me to follow them without question. Whether a dharma teacher or a political leader, as far as I was concerned they had to earn those stripes.
And, yes, I moved my political allegiances around as I felt appropriate, rather than sticking with one worldview, organisation or tendency. (Interestingly, as I age I find myself going back with a fresh curiosity to the propositions that had interested me as a teen.)
So, rules are good as we start our practice of the dharma, but they need to be broken if we are to grow, and enjoy a sustainable, satisfying and useful practice.
I’ve very much appreciated the efforts of dharma teachers over the years that I’ve been engaging with the dharma and have supported some with a lot of energy. On one occasion, I used the unexpected windfall of a bonus from an employer to journey from Aotearoa New Zealand to Tucson, Arizona, to take part in a retreat led by a teacher whose work I had been paying a lot of attention to. I wasn’t disappointed.
But the idea of ‘submitting’ myself to a single teacher never appealed.
As a postscript, with Jacques Grove’s comment above in mind, happily abandoning the metaphysical truth claims contained in the so-called ‘Noble Truths’ – a mistranslation that would have been better rendered into English as ‘truths of the noble ones’ – and replacing them with four tasks to be accomplished led to a seriously useful aha moment in my secular Buddhist journey.
Dear Ramsey,
In your reply you say:
“So the static picture you paint about the need to ‘submit to a master’ misses Stephen Batchelor’s point about becoming ‘independent of others in the Buddha’s teachings’. ”
And,
“It does seem that you and I may have very different personalities, or perhaps more pertinently be at difference stages of development in our practice.”
Your first quote above actually surprised me since I thought I had made a comment that was anything but “static” or a fixed view. I sought to weigh up the balance between approaches that are found within Buddhism, whether secular of not.
Secondarily I concluded at the end of my comment, that on the path, one may make the mistake of choosing a particular teacher but later they may turn out to be the wrong choice, so one moves on. I think many of us have done this, which led to even selecting secular over religious, but in my opinion the experience can be seen as a teaching in itself, and then we can move on. Ignorance prevents us from knowing much about anyone until we get to know them. Teachers expect students to be learners and sit quietly and listen. Some faith in the teacher is always part of the process, even if we are listening to Stephen Batchelor or anyone else.
I actually start my discussion by listing a number of ways that one could be deceived or deluded by a teacher. Hence the statement about metaphorically “killing the Buddha on the road” if you met him: in other words someone claiming to be a Buddha may very well be a fake and therefore a ‘teacher’ to avoid. This koan from 9th Century Buddhist master, Linji Yixuan, is usually interpreted to mean that “to turn the Buddha into a religious fetish is to miss the essence of what he taught.” (www.learnreligions.com/kill-the-buddha-449940)
So I cannot see why I’d be promoting the ‘static’ notion of welcoming submission; rather the contrary.
I also point out that there are many stories of teachers within Buddhism where students have been asked to submit to show that they are worthy of the teachings, and demonstrate a great deal of faith in the teacher as a ‘master’.
One example would be that of Marpa and Milarepa where the former (the master) instructs the latter (the student) to construct a tower, and then tells him to destroy it – again and again. He does this for the said reason that this is about demonstrating devotion to the master and removing karmic obstacles. This is what I was told when a Tibetan Lama recounted the story to me.
There are also many Zen Buddhist stories for example, where monks are even beaten by sticks carried by masters, if they give the wrong answer to a koan. So why do they even stay in the monastery and submit to this treatment if it is not promoted as something mandatory or beneficial to do? Why do so many stories of devotion, which can also be translated as submission, actually exist?
Within the structure of formal Buddhism with priesthood-like hierarchies this kind of behaviour has been fairly common: one must show faith and sometimes blind devotion to a teacher if one seeks the ‘precious teachings’. It happens in Theravada institutions too.
I think where you misunderstand me is that you may assume that I agree with this method of teaching, but I don’t – far from it.
Maybe I have not made myself clear, but in reference to your second statement I quote above, I would say communication is similar to a telephone in that there is a transmitter and receiver, yet with humans, subjectivity and personal differences in perceptions, feelings, and thoughts, are commonly the cause of why the message is sometimes misinterpreted. I accept fully that it may have been my poor expression of ideas that gave you the interpretation you made.
I have experienced within Tibetan Buddhism situations where one is expected to prostrate to a teacher and not even look them in the eye if they want to continue to be part of a teaching or initiation – it is as if they are a Buddha, so transcendent and beyond being a simple human. This sort of thing made me doubt what was going on given I actually came to the conclusion that one of the high-level Rinpoches I was subjected to, who may have once been a good teacher, was now very old and utterly senile. I won’t name him or go into details but it made me see how the institution protected the notion of submission to a teacher to the detriment of reality. The repeated occurrence of this on one occasion was fundamental to my moving along the path, and heading in the secular direction.
I do not follow any specific teacher nor devote myself to any specific path. I may pay respect – out of gratitude – to either if I feel I gain insight, but I remain somewhat of a renegade, another type of person that is also promoted within Buddhism and often within Vedic teachings as well. The Buddha in my view was one himself.
Your comment of 5 June is excellent, thank you Rob! Thought provoking and utterly apposite.
Starting at the end, I like your statement that Gotama, the Buddha, was a renegade. I’d qualify this by suggesting that he became a renegade as a result of what he discovered during his journey. If he hadn’t left home to become a mendicant and, when he felt appropriate, turned his back on his formative teachers, you and I probably wouldn’t be discussing these ideas today.
And whether we appreciate one specific teacher’s work, or devote ourselves to a particular path, in my experience what is most useful is to be part of a community of practitioners. There’s no longer any need to travel 11,500km to sit with a teacher, as I did when I went from Wellington to Tucson.
But while I set up dharma communities in this city, not everyone has this drive. This I recognise. Secular Buddhist Network is trying its best to be a virtual community with sub-groups, regular and irregular meetings, offering heaps of resources. Being with other warm bodies in real life looking each other in the eye, though, feels heaps better than sitting in front of a screen with a bunch of people we scarcely know.
It’s worth mentioning here that LA Insight meditation teacher, Eugene Cash, observed that in the present era in which understanding of the dharma is deepening in places it had not previously set root, the three jewels could be better expressed in reverse order: 1) community; 2) the teachings; and 3) the example set by the Buddha. This very much resonated when I set out to practice.
You write that someone might select ‘secular over religious’; this comparison doesn’t work for me. When I was younger, yes, I did use this binary, but I don’t now. I’m older, softer, see things with greater depth, in colour mostly, a lot less black and white. Thankfully. When we look back at the plethora of Buddhisms that have appeared in different parts of the globe – some of which no longer exist – I feel it preferable to look back at ancestral Buddhisms, and may use the description traditional Buddhism (but with care as traditional can be a loaded word) when comparing it with living, developing, secular dharma.
Rob, I commend you to Martin Hägglund’s work. He writes well on secularity and the critique of religion, and more, in his book This Life: secular faith and spiritual freedom, developing this further in an interesting LA Review of Books article:
https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/marx-hegel-and-the-critique-of-religion-a-response
You felt that I had misconstrued your critique of blind devotion to a teacher, labelling your approach as static. That’s not actually what I was referring to. But first, how else might we think about something being static? That it’s not moving, or perhaps that it’s stuck.
Looking at your discussion on which teacher to choose, I saw no mention of whether it’s appropriate for a practitioner to need a teacher. We can respond to this question by thinking about the need for a teacher at any given stage in our practice, or whether we need a variety of teachers, or perhaps ask if we no longer need a teacher. At some point, a dharma practitioner will let go of the need for a teacher completely. Gotama was clear about this.
I would also ask whether a community of practitioners can fulfil this need for a teacher. I may be castigated for suggesting that the blind can lead the blind, but this isn’t the case in my experience. When a dharma community is run democratically and many voices are given free rein, the expression of all these voices can be truly nourishing.
You ask why so many dharma stories portray devotion and submission, in which a teacher is seen to hit students a stick. This may be because some Chan/Sŏn/Zen teachers taught that a sudden awakening can be followed by gradual cultivation. Other teachers, though, taught that awakening is a gradual process.
Lastly, I totally agree that asynchronous communication can be fraught. I live in Aotearoa New Zealand where calls to Australian phones are considered local calls, so don’t cost a ¢. If you like, you can send me your phone number and I’ll happily call you. Send a message through the Tuwhiri website contact form with your phone number and the best days and times to call
https://tuwhiri.org/pages/contact
This is an open invitation to all readers, but if you’re outside Aotearoa New Zealand and Australia please include your email address.
As a postscript to this post, here’s a poem from the poet and grandmother Rebecca del Rio who lives in Catalunya (I believe) that compliments my feelings about why I penned the post in the first place:
Prescription for the disillusioned
by Rebecca del Rio
Come new to this day.
Remove the rigid overcoat of experience,
the notion of knowing,
the beliefs that cloud your vision.
Leave behind the stories of your life.
Spit out the sour taste of unmet expectation.
Let the stale scent of what-ifs waft back into the swamp of your useless fears.
Arrive curious, without the armour of certainty,
the plans and planned results of the life you’ve imagined.
Live the life that chooses you,
new every breath, every blink of your astonished eyes.
Ramsey, this was a thoughtful and well-written piece, and I appreciate the spirit of inquiry behind it. Still, I’d challenge a few of your underlying assumptions.
You frame traditional or “ancestral” Buddhists—particularly monastic communities—as authoritarian, uncritical followers of power structures. But from within the Theravāda framework (and yes, that includes Goenka’s lineage and Ajahn Brahmali’s community), what you call “obedience” is better understood as training in ethical restraint—not submission to a person, but to Dhamma-Vinaya. This isn’t blind allegiance; it’s the disciplined relinquishment of craving, opinion, and ego, which are the actual roots of suffering.
You cite Danny Osborne on authoritarianism, but this misses a central point: Buddhism doesn’t treat obedience as a virtue for its own sake. In fact, the Buddha famously told the Kalamas not to follow authority, scripture, or tradition uncritically—but he also didn’t invite them to form a spiritual buffet based on modern preferences. He taught that there is right view, and right view isn’t democratic.
Batchelor’s secularist stance may appeal to those who find rebirth implausible, or who reject religious language, but it places interpretive authority in the hands of the modern self. That’s not liberating, to my view, it’s a new form of attachment, this time to historicism and psychology. The Pali Canon doesn’t call that “freedom.” It calls it māna, conceit.
You suggest that monastics are “not actually practising the Dhamma” but instead only following Vinaya. That’s a bold claim for someone outside the training. Vinaya is the Dhamma-in-action for monastics. The Buddha said so himself. To separate them is to misunderstand the path laid out in the suttas.
Yes, secular Buddhism is a modern project. But it isn’t necessarily Buddhism. When it reinterprets core teachings like rebirth, kamma, and nibbāna into metaphor, it doesn’t modernize Buddhism—it removes its function. That’s not evolution. That’s dismantling.
You ask why some traditional Buddhists find secular Buddhism distasteful. It’s not out of authoritarianism—it’s because from a Dhamma standpoint, something vital is being lost: the possibility of liberation from saṃsāra, not just psychological suffering. That’s not small.
—A lay Theravādin who takes the suttas seriously
I love all of Rebecca del Rio’s poem, Ramsey. Especially the ending that encourages and consoles me right now:
“Live the life that chooses you,
new every breath, every blink of your astonished eyes.”