I recently enjoyed listening to a 30-minute discussion on Buddhism in the West on BBC Radio 4’s ‘Beyond Belief’. It was a good programme and as it happens two of the three contributors were friends of mine. Nagapriya is a fellow member of the Triratna Buddhist Order and these days Will Buckingham is a writer and philosopher. I don’t know the third contributor, Ani Rinchen Khandro, a nun from Samye Ling. I thought Nagapriya in particular came across very well.
However, I want to comment on what struck me as the weakest part of the discussion. Asked what Buddhism in Britain would look like in thirty years they seemed to respond by describing what it is like now. That set me thinking about what it might actually be like. These thoughts mostly extrapolate from what’s happening now, but I think they go a bit further than the programme did.
The first area to consider is established Buddhism: the large and small Buddhist groups that have dominated British Buddhism in recent decades. It seems fashionable to dismiss these and say that real developments are occurring in non-affiliated Buddhists. In part this is because the largest organisations (Sokka Gakkai, the New Kadampa Tradition and the Triratna Buddhist Community) have sometimes been controversial; but in fact there are many other organisations some of which are growing quickly. I think dismissing them is a mistake. The organisations face challenges as their founders or leaders retire or die, and some may struggle to find a younger generation of members. They also face the usual challenges faced by growing organisations of all sorts. But, whatever the rights and wrongs of the criticisms, they have momentum, vitality and many resources for practitioners. In particular, they offer community. People will need these just as much in thirty years as they do today. I don’t know what new movements will have emerged in thirty years time, but I do expect that organised Buddhism will still be here and be thriving.
A second reflection goes along with the first and qualifies it. My observation of members of my own Order is that among those who have been practising for several decades, quite a few are developing very considerable depth of practice. They have very a effective meditation practice, including regular experience of states of dhyana and so on; they have a thorough understanding of the Buddhist teachings and consistently live according to them; and there is something else as well. They seem to have absorbed the Dharma so deeply that it has become a part of them and they never forget it, even when things get difficult. I’m not really given to being starry eyed about my Order or the people within it and I don’t like grand claim. But this is my observation. In many cases I know the faults and limitations of these individuals, but I also see their growing virtues.
It seems to me that if you stick at it sincerely and with a modest degree of intensity, and keep going for long enough, gradually you will start to realise and even embody the Buddhist teachings, at least to some extent. Put a little more strongly other words, I think I see quite a few people around, including good friends of mine, of whom it seems reasonable to say, they may well be ‘stream entrants’, or at least well on the way to being so. This is very good news. Traditionally A Buddhist spiritual community, or sangha, needs at its heart an arya-sangha: a ‘Noble Community’ of men and women with an unshakeable degree of realisation). I see no particular reason to think that this phenomenon is confined to my Order alone. Over the years I have met individuals from various traditions whose practice has clearly brought very substantial fruits. Not everyone, and not necessarily the people in leading positions. I just think that Dharma practice works (or can work).
In thirty years time, we will see many more fruits of this development. There will be many people with sufficient experience to speak with confidence and authority from their own understanding of Buddhism. This will strengthen the organisations, but it will also challenge them. When people feel they are ‘independent in the Dharma’, they often tend to go their own way (Reginald Ray’s departure from the Shambhala Community is a recent example of this sort of thing: there are many others). One aspect of this, which we already seen in the US, is that as people master the approach in which they were trained they will look to the resources of the Buddhist tradition as a whole. The meeting of theBuddhist traditions on this level will augment popular eclecticism and we shall see more of what Joseph Goldstein in his book, One Dharma (reviewed here) calls ‘the emerging western Buddhism’: a new, pragmatic non-denominational form of Buddhism. We have aslready seen many developments in western Zen, Western Vajrayana and western Theravada and we shall doubtless see many more.
The third development which I think will be especially important in Buddhism’s future in countries like Britain is the astounding growth of interest in Buddhist practices such as meditation and mindfulness in secular contexts. This has taken off in the last few years and there has been nothing like it in the western engagement with Buddhism since the counter-culture of the 1960s. Thousands of people are learning mindfulness, and in Britain a good number are doing so on the NHS. They are often highly motivated and the courses are backed by a formidable and rapidly growing body of research. All this won’t go away. In fact, it may well be that meditation and mindfulness really do become part of the mainstream in western societies: taught in school and hospitals everywhere and pervading the culture.
Mindfulness and meditation are not Buddhism, but they adjoin it, and it will fascinating to see how the relationship between the two develops. On one hand, mindfulness training is likely to become increasingly medicalised, professionalised and secularised. On the other, it will be evident that mindfulness alone is just one aspect of what one needs to develop, and that the Buddhist path includes many more resources (the most important are probably compassion, ethics, sangha, a comprehensive view of the path, a social challenge, and the notion of Enlightenement). I suspect that at least some of the committed practice communities will be appreciated as reservoirs of deep experience, and that the realised individuals I mentioned earlier will be seen as a tremendous resource. It may even be that the relationship of these two communities will be analogous to what we find in Buddhist countries where there is both a popular or ethnic lay Buddhism and a committed core of monastic practitioners. Between the two will be secular Buddhists like Will Buckingham and Stephen Batchelor.
The impact of the mindfulness boom raises other intriguing possibilities. Will there be further booms as Buddhist ideas and practice make a significant contribution in other areas of cultural life? There are already significant crossovers in areas such as the arts, psychology, philosophy and environmentalism, but occasionally something just catches fire and expands exponentially. By their nature, these things are impossible to predict.
Those, at least, are a few of my thoughts about the future of Buddhism in the UK. What are yours?
These kinds of prophetic exercises are usually wishful thinking. I don’t know what will actually happen in 30 years’ time, but I do know what I would like to happen – and the things I would like to happen are also amongst the things that might possibly happen if enough peopls make them happen.
I would like the universalisable inisghts in Buddhism to become increasingly detached from formal Buddhism. You have already mentioned ways that this is happening in the area of health. I think it also needs to happen in philosophy. We need a Middle Way Philosophy (not just mine – I would like others to take it up too) to challenge the limiting assumptions of the analytic and continental philosophies currently entrenched in the West, and the absolutism vs relativism dichotomy they perpetuate. Such a philosophy can be helpful to everyone by giving conceptual support for spiritual and moral progress in a way that is applicable to all and interrelated with practice. Once the philosophy is clarified, it will be easier for politics, education and the arts to follow.
I hope that increasing numbers of people will adopt useful Buddhist practices without feeling the need to believe in ‘enlightenment’ or insisting that this is necessary for spiritual progress, and that karma and rebirth (and concepts like stream entry, that depend on it) will go the same way as indulgences and chantries. I hope that leading Buddhist thinkers will be prepared to start doing some hard thinking and throw out a few outdated plastic toy babies along with the bathwater. In the next few years the theory needs to catch up with the practice.
Like the contributors on ‘Beyond Belief’ I would not expect Buddhism to grow much more in the next 30 years in terms of formally committed people. I would expect (or rather, hope) that the key insights of practical value will spread incrementally through Western society and increasingly offer an alternative way of thinking. However, I think that unfortunately the more you cling to concepts like the need for an Arya-sangha (as illustrated in your article), the harder you will make this process, and the more likely you are to consign Buddhism to being a minority cult with very limited influence, obsessing over irrelevant metaphysics whilst remaining under the illusion that you are helping the world by doing so.
Hi Robert,
We disagree on this, I think. Firstly just look around the Buddhist world in the West. I can cite the consistent growth of Buddhism as grounds for thinking it will continue to grow. What evidence, not just interpretations, is there to the contrary? Also, the growth is not necessarily in groups that have dropped Asian garb: look at the NKT, for example.
Secondly, a principal driver for the growth of Buddhism has always been the example of Buddhists themselves (this is something that most commentators leave out) and I think that western Buddhism is breeding such individuals. I am not sure if secular or post-Buddhism is doing so. I think people develop impressive Buddhist qualities through committed practice with some degree of intensity, and that usually requires some kind of faith that it’s worth the effort.
As for minority cults with very little influence … I fear that sounds to me like a good description of philosophy departments, whether they incline analytic, continental or some other approach.
There’s a much broader discussion to be had about Buddhist metaphysics, but perhaps that will need to wait.
Hi Vishvapani,
I agree with almost everything you say here, but disagree that it has the implications that you appear to be drawing from it.
You may well be right that formal Buddhism is continuing to grow at present, and that it will continue to do so. I was not making a prediction based on empirical evidence, as I said, but indulging in wishful thinking. All prophets do this to some extent, even if they are projecting from existing trends, though I may be doing so more than you are.
I also agree that the biggest driver for the spread of Buddhist insights comes from the example of people. I was myself first influenced to get involved in Buddhism by people rather than ideas. I’d also agree that “people develop impressive Buddhist qualities through committed practice with some degree of intensity” (perhaps adding a “may” before the “develop”). I also agree that “that usually requires some kind of faith that it’s worth the effort”, but perhaps what you mean to imply here (without, interestingly, wanting to say it explicitly) is that such faith has to be based on formal commitment to metaphysical claims beyond experience. If that is what you mean (and I don’t want to put words in your mouth) I would strongly diaagree. I think the faith that practice is worth doing develops from commitment to goals that can be related and validated in experience, not the belief that a person who lived 2500 years ago achieved an absolute state of final knowledge.
I fear you’re remarks about philosophy departments are rather misplaced, as I don’t currently have the privilege of beloging to one. Nor, given the conservative pressures exerted on them by the research assessment framework, do I expect tham to produce much of great importance that will change anything very much in the foreseeable future. I would certainly not propose philosophy departments as an alternative to religious movements, as you seem to be assuming.
I would merely like religious movements such as the TBC to recognise the extent to which they are offering philosophies that are subject to critical investigation, and to offer a more open community that can help a wider range of people, without requiring them to commit themselves to metaphysical abstractions in order to get seriously involved. Then the future of Buddhism could be bright indeed.
Hi Robert,
I agree that (returning to the topic, ‘the Future of Buddhism’) the issue of the relationship between those who wish to commit themselves to an overtly Buddhist path and those who wish to draw from Buddhism without calling themselves Buddhists is an important one for the future. I think Buddhism does have the potential to affect western societies in a profound way, and that means both having communities of people who are some of whose members are committed to highly focused practice, and also influencing a much wider sphere. The mindfulness movement is the most interesting development in this regard, which is why I’m involved in it, but we are only starting to explore the relationship between that and committed buddhism. It’s not so clear to me just how Buddhist organisations, including the TBC, can foster that ‘officially’, as it were. I rather feel that all that will tend to happen informally, though no doubt views and attitudes affect how much that happens.
Your bracketing of “secular or post-Buddhism” here, and recommendation of the ‘Secular Buddhist’ website, made me think here about ways that post-Buddhism is not necessarily secular Buddhism: see http://www.moralobjectivity.net/forum/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=220&sid=537a3ff4d580add993a7ed3e5df3a37a .
An interesting discussion! My own particular interest is in the broader impact of Buddhist ideas and practices beyond what will, I still think, remain a relatively narrow circle of Buddhist practitioners. The growth of Buddhism may, as you say, continue; but compared with some of the earlier triumphalist views of the forward march of Buddhism in the West, I suspect that this will remain relatively slow. Western Buddhism will change shape, no doubt – or the various Western Buddhisms will; but the West will probably not become ‘Buddhist’ as was once fondly imagined.
You are right, I think, about the broader influence of ideas & practices drawn from Buddhism, for example the increasing use of MBCT/MBSR. But that is not the same as the growth of Buddhism itself. And whilst Buddhists are often keen to seize upon the evidence for things about Buddhist practice that work, there are aspects of Buddhism that seem to me to be profoundly dubious – the notion of rebirth being one – in the face of which this enthusiasm for evidence seems to be rather less pronounced. It was the big ‘r’ that, in the end, caused much of this to unravel for me, although I continue to meditate, and my sense of ethical practice owes a great deal to Buddhism.
As for secular Buddhist approaches, I too am a little sceptical, because ultimately I don’t think that ‘secular’ and ‘Buddhist’ sit very comfortably alongside each other. I’d like to find a way of thinking and working through all this without falling into what may be a peculiarly Western dichotomy of religion (kooky rituals, spooky immaterial stuff beaming across the universe, etc. etc. etc.) and secularism (long faces, a general allergy to poetry, not much fun at parties); but this is very much work in progress.
All the best,
Will
PS How
Oops. My PS was cut off. That should have read ‘PS – how do I get myself a nice little profile picture thingy to go with my comment, rather than that strange anonymous portrait?’
I think Buddhism does have the potential to affect western societies in a profound way, and that means both having communities of people who are some of whose members are committed to highly focused practice, and also influencing a much wider sphere.
So all we seem to disagree about is the conditions for highly focused practice. I think this involves supportive communities and traditions for passing on expertise, yes, but that commitments to claims that lie beyond experience interfere with such practice and discourage many people in the West from engaging in it.
It’s not so clear to me just how Buddhist organisations, including the TBC, can foster that ‘officially’, as it were. I rather feel that all that will tend to happen informally, though no doubt views and attitudes affect how much that happens.
They can foster it ‘officially’ by reforming their intellectual superstructure so that it is consistent and intelligible, rather than offering an incoherent mix of traditional metaphysics and helpful practices. If you do that you remove the big barrier between Buddhists and non-Buddhists, defuse ‘secularism’, and enable a lot more people to benefit.
Realistically, that requires committed liberal Buddhists such as yourself to take on the conservatives where necessary, and make a definite choice in favour of a reformed Buddhism in order to ditch the irrelevancies and more decisively include most of the Western population. That may require ‘splitting the Sangha’, the ultimate traditional sin, in order to create a bigger, more sustainable Sangha in the longer term.
If you leave the wider impacts of helpful Buddhist practice to only happen informally, your impact will remain very limited, if only because you won’t have enough more intense practitioners, and some will still be put off by the contradictions in what they are offering. You need to offer a gradual and incremental path for all, all the way to an intense practice, rather than only those who are willing to suspend their critical faculties (and then struggle with the unnecessary intellectual conflicts this creates subsequently), or only those who are prepared to swallow dollops of Indo-Tibetan culture with their muesli.
I think Buddhism will reflect Western PC sensibilities particularly feminism more and more which is o.k. but….I am concerned that it will get so dominated by issues such as enviromentalism and perhaps in time feminism that it will loose its spiritual roots and become a post hippie radicals talk shop for whatever the radical vogue is in the future. Whilst I see the importance of engaged Buddhism, this all has to be about the attainment of Insight and living in the world with wisdom and compassion as the fruit of Insight.
Can this be our future or is it going to degenerate into a small bunch of shop at Waitrose types telling everyone else how wrong their opinions are, because they are the guy with all the right opinions?
I also see the MBCT drift as worrying. Once the Uni’s have got their talons into this, will Joe stream entrant be banned from teaching meditation because he hasn’t paid a Uni for a course ? This is the path Complimentary Therapies are heading with people pushing for an accredited Diploma as a minimum standard so it could be how it goes.
I would like to see the Sutras become much more familiar to Buddhists but this would perhaps require new translations due to the archaic nature of existing translations.
My wild card crystal ball gazing finale is to say that one of the biggest influences on Dharma in years to come will be the works of Echhart Tolle.
Yes queue laughter, but I reckon he’s got it.
This article is interesting, but neglected perhaps the most important factor in what Buddhism will look like in 30 years, the impact of advancing science. In just 15 years we have learned an enormous amount about the relationship between meditation and the brain, for instance, and are uncovering various technological means to enhance cognitive function (transcranial magnetic stimulation/direct current stimulation, etc.). Much of this learning is being driven by increases in computing power, which as we know is still doubling every three years. Imagine if developments in the skillful means of Buddhism were to parallel the developments in computers in the last 30 years – it’s a rather extraordinary prospect.