Early Buddhism continues its impeccable lack of existence in US academia

[NgXinZhao]

Well, to have more Buddhists who are interested to do research in academia, there would require quite a few facilities, cultural set up.

I know that Bhante Aggacitta (40+ vassa) is doing early Buddhism research on his own and every few years or every year he goes on tour around Malaysia to various Buddhist societies to show what he has discovered, some new way of interpreting this or that given this or that sutta maybe late. Next year’s one will be about “entering the stream and beyond.”

So we have monastics who does that already. Why not in an academic setting? It could be the reputation of academia. That given the choice of priotising practice vs taking a PhD in Buddhism, most monastics would just advice whoever who asked them to go practice meditation, go become a monastic etc.

Seriously, having gotten a bachelor’s in Buddhism, I also would recommend that one should priotize the practice as the degree is of minimal help on one’s own path.

Another concern is the money issue, how many monasteries are rich enough to sponsor their monastics to study a PhD? How does one ensure that there’s enough support so that the monastics doesn’t have to deal with money? Are the vinaya of the scholar monastics in Buddhist universities super good so that there’s no qualms about sending junior monastics to go and study with them?

Let’s see who’s the ready made candidates to learn Pāli and Chinese and write the papers in English? Mainly the Malaysians, Singaporeans, maybe some Chinese who lived aboard and have good grasp of both English and Chinese. But of course still it takes some years to properly learn Pāli.

Chinese being so much harder to learn compared to Pāli is going to place a super high barrier for people who doesn’t know Chinese to learn just for EBT research.

We do have some good scholar monks from Malaysia who are masters in all these languages. One of my teacher, Ven. Dr. Dhammapāla and his academic teacher, Ven. Dr. KL Dhammajoti.

Ven. Dhammapāla prefers to teach in a monastery, even to lay people or monastics rather than to teach academia.

Indeed, given the choice to give a dhamma talk where one can inspire faith in others, vs giving a lecture in academia where one cannot assume that the student is a Buddhist or wish to walk the path, it’s much more satisfying to talk to believers.

Also, the dhamma itself has a strong call for practice, so it’s not that easy to remain in academia for so long, in the case that there might be dual thinking that one should be spending more time in retreats than to do academia job.

Perhaps if the only thing wished for is submitting papers, then some people with the skills of writing academic papers may wish to visit Bhante Aggacitta or others to collaborate on writing their findings in EBT to publish to the academic world.

But then who reads those papers anyway? which might be behind paywalls. With the internet, it’s easier to just post on YouTube your lecture series and directly benefit the masses. (Yes, Bhante Aggacitta’s workshops are on YouTube). https://youtube.com/channel/UCFuc6xw6Pm1RcUFvLTz0IBQ

Thus perhaps it’s that the academic people should pay more attention to the new media of Buddhist research. Than we trying to penetrate into writing academic papers.

[SDC]

@sujato

Don’t set up this kind of artificial polarity. I’ve learned a lot from academics over the years, and I know that many academics have learned from practitioners, or indeed are practitioners themselves. There is a place for a healthy and supportive relationship.

@stephen

It seems to me here that you are conflating academic and spiritual pursuits, and possibly selling academics short. There is certainly room for both, as well as plenty cross fertilization.

Hi Bhante, Stephen,

The academic is attempting to present an arrangement of evidence in support of a position, without bias, under the premise that the reader will endeavor to accept it, or not, based on reason and intelligence; while the practicing Buddhist, on the other hand, is making use of their own bias to develop the capability to verify what reason alone cannot access. Academic study is certainly valuable, but such methods cannot reveal or replicate the presence of wisdom in a manner for just anyone to understand. The reader and writer alike must be engaged in that lifestyle to some extent in order to know what is beneficial and why; what is worth saying and when; and since it would always be the intent of academic analysis to overlook the undeniable influence of one’s own development in Dhamma when it comes to understanding what is being presented, it is perhaps advisable to acknowledge where academic study may presume to go but doesn’t…and can’t.

The suffering addressed in the four noble truths is a liability for each individual, and the writer must take that on from their own point of view if they expect the reader to do the same - as is found in the suttas. Otherwise, there is the enduring promise of developmental Dhamma knowledge being available for shared consideration, and that it can be gained without striving. Heaps of praise for the academic who is willing to acknowledge that such a thing is not possible, but I seriously doubt the person who considers this an issue would put together a work divorced from that immediate, subjective view of suffering.

I’m not suggesting it be cast aside or ignored when it is available, but reliability is severely limited when paired with the constantly shifting variables present in one’s own view. Striving must address you in order to pertain to the goal of the path, and any prominent writings that don’t take this into consideration run the risk of seriously misleading the reader. Again, as long as the writer makes this clear, then at least a useful degree of uncertainty looms over the entire work, and there is less of a chance of it inducing the reader to forget about their role in the maintenance of their wrong view.

Perhaps I’m taking the matter too seriously, but I don’t think it is a bad thing to question our expectations for nothing other than clarifying what it is we hope to gain from the “utterance of another”.

[Vaddha]

@SDC

The academic is attempting to present an arrangement of evidence in support of a position, without bias, under the premise that the reader will endeavor to accept it, or not, based on reason and intelligence; while the practicing Buddhist, on the other hand, is making use of their own bias to develop the capability to verify what reason alone cannot access

Greetings.

The book I’m writing is presented in a style meant to bridge this divide between impersonal Buddhology and practical Dhamma for the spiritual seeker. This is from the Introduction:

Though largely theoretical in style, the practical dimension of this work hopes to inspire the reader to plunge into the structure of their experience for a personal investigation of their own suffering and the core of their being, contextualized against the background of the immediacy of saṁsāra. Paṭiccasamuppāda must be approached from a personal and practical perspective, leaving no room for hypothetical explanations nor mere inference without first experientially discerning its underlying principle and contents. If the present work accomplishes nothing else, may it serve as an emphatic push towards existential inquiry and resolution: a Noble Search. With this practical dimension in mind, included in each section are metaphors and imagery, both original and drawn from the Pāḷi canon, encouraging the practice-oriented reader to see each section as a form of existential exploration through the world of early Buddhist thought, inviting individual introspection and insight.
The overall presentation, then, attempts to challenge the divide between the practical manual for the devout Buddhist and the well-cited scholarship of Buddhological theses. The Dhamma cannot be separated from its existential implications and personal urgency; likewise, it is essential to support any understanding of early Buddhist praxis informed by the early suttas themselves and the scholarship surrounding them. In keeping in line with the teaching style of the early discourses, these two dimensions are united in the present work. The reader with purely intellectual interests in Dhamma will likely find it difficult to trudge through a text steeped in the soteriology of early Buddhism and the consistent beckoning to existential self-examination or phenomenological bracketing5; the attitude of this text is not one of a mere mental stimulant. On the other hand, the practice-oriented reader may struggle to ignore the profound implications that come with the textual analysis, at times calling into question well-established standards of praxis resting their authenticity on particular theoretical assumptions. Rather than allow the text to be co-opted by a particular categorical genre familiar to Western academia, the goal of the presentation style is to re-incorporate the pragmatic, urgent attitudes of early Buddhist soteriology and epistemology into the guiding knowledge of scholarship.

Thought this might resonate with you and perhaps highlight how the two can go really well together, but they tend not to.

Us practitioners can take advantage of scholarship, and other people being payed to do this research and take it less personally are no harm to us. It’s best that it be done by practitioners, but practitioners need to practice. There’s a lot more time for a professor with a grant to study these texts in depth, and for us to then evaluate their research and improve on it or practice accordingly.

Mettā

[stephen]

@SDC

The academic is attempting to present an arrangement of evidence in support of a position, without bias, under the premise that the reader will endeavor to accept it

Anyone who speaks about the dhamma publically could be said to do this, including the Buddha himself.

Whether or not there is true knowledge or wisdom present depends on the nature of the speaker.

There are people who work in academia who are sincere and devout Buddhists, and I am sure there are many monastics who are not.

I see no reason to create this dualism, or perhaps even antagonism.

[SDC]

@stephen

@SDC

The academic is attempting to present an arrangement of evidence in support of a position, without bias, under the premise that the reader will endeavor to accept it

Anyone who speaks about the dhamma publically could be said to do this, including the Buddha himself.

He didn’t expect his words to bring about knowledge immediately for every listener - even though they occasionally did. In most cases, they would only have taken it up on the level of appreciation and faith, and the Buddha would then offer instructions on how to go about developing it to the extent of direct experience. That is a key difference.

@stephen

Whether or not there is true knowledge or wisdom present depends on the nature of the speaker.

It depends just as much on the listener. And if the speaker did possess such knowledge they would know - having once been in a position of not understanding - that not all listeners have the same capabilities.

@stephen

There are people who work in academia who are sincere and devout Buddhists, and I am sure there are many monastics who are not.

I see no reason to create this dualism, or perhaps even antagonism.

I’m wondering if you may be misunderstanding a few things I’ve said. I’m not trying to vilify those who approach things academically, but simply trying to show why those methods have limitations. A devout scholar can just as easily shift gears and write something deeply personal, outside the confines of the academic structure. So, I’m wondering why, instead of asking the academic community to use their methods in the direction of the suttas and vinaya, we aren’t asking for more firsthand accounts of striving from those who are so very gifted in art of communication. In the end, I would rather see those of profound intelligence come out from behind the academic confines, and even if the work is an account of personal failure or tragedy, at least it puts struggle and striving in a place of great prominence.

[SDC]

@Vaddha

Thought this might resonate with you and perhaps highlight how the two can go really well together, but they tend not to.

It just seems to me that once the writer is willing to expose themselves, that personal context takes precedence over any previously gathered information - whether it was from Wikipedia, the suttas, or a prominent monastic. The application of information with the goal of altering the lifestyle is a forfeiture of normalcy, no matter how small the application. The prospect of success in that endeavor cannot be known with any degree of certainty at the outset, and is not necessarily relatable to others afterwards. Not all writers are willing to take this into consideration.

Your idea sounds very fascinating and I can’t wait to see how it comes together.

[sujato]

@SDC

The academic is attempting to present an arrangement of evidence in support of a position, without bias, under the premise that the reader will endeavor to accept it, or not, based on reason and intelligence

Once upon a time, maybe, but the whole point is that this is no longer what is actually done in mainstream humanities academia in the US (and to some degree elsewhere too). It’s driven by ideology, not reason.

So look, whatever you think about purely rational inquiry, I get it, you have a point, but that is not representative of Buddhist academia in the US.

@Akaliko

talking to oneself

I’m not talking to myself, I’m talking to the people on this forum. It’s not about trying to reform US academia, it’s about lettings folks know what is going on. I feel like I wasted a lot of time and effort thinking that this stuff was meaningful and taking it seriously. But every time I looked closer I found that the facts simply weren’t there.

What I would like, really, is that any prospective students in the US who are thinking of studying Buddhism, just do your due diligence. Don’t assume that because someone is teaching Buddhism in a big (or small) university that they know what they’re talking about. Don’t assume that because someone is published or has a reputation that you want to learn from them. If they’re teaching Buddhism without being grounded in what the Buddha taught, avoid them. And if their driving motivation is to make a problem out of their chosen field, know that their field will be barren and yield a harvest of tears. There are good teachers around, but you’ll have to search for them.

[Vaddha]

@sujato

It’s not about trying to reform US academia, it’s about lettings folks know what is going on.

Slightly off topic, but I’m an anthropology major in Argentina (well, a drop-out leaving to ordain). US Academia tends to affect all academia as do all things from the US of A, and this is certainly true in the academia here as well. This behavior has become a global phenomenon.

@sujato

Don’t assume that because someone is teaching Buddhism in a big (or small) university that they know what they’re talking about.

Having read some Buddhology material, it seems most people who do research the early suttas often tend to be much less knowledgable anyway. You consistently see them making claims and trying to go for revolutionary theses that can be disproven with a handful of suttas they might have missed. Maybe I’m wrong, but you get the feeling that they haven’t really read through them all, but just learned the history externally and skimmed through relevant sections or what they were assigned. The academic work that is more knowledgable tends to be by scholar monks.

Perhaps an exaggeration, but I think a lot of it can be chalked up to the research being done by puthujjanas most of the time. Not to dive too much into this, but no matter how much information one has stuffed in their head, if they have fundamental wrong view , an uneducated villager in Iron Age India knows more Buddhism than they do.

I really don’t have that much exposure though, so I could be way off here. Definitely thought this was a good point and valid warning.

Mettā

[Meggers]

Yes, fine, but surely there are other avenues than American academia for you?? I recently got my paws on 18 essays published through Dharma Drum Institute of Liberal Arts (DILA) Series out of Taiwan (2020).

OK. It’s probably Pureland and noticeably driven by virtue ethics and ‘what to do with your money if you’re a rich, good Buddhist,’ but, hey, they have bhikkuni.

Silver lining in every cloud. Maybe they’d love to have you as a visiting scholar, who knows.

Here is the first section and the titles the essays …

I. THE COLLECTIONS OF CONNECTED DISCOURSES: STRUCTURAL AND REDACTIONAL PRINCIPLES

The Sagātha-vagga in the Saṃyutta-nikāya: Formation and Vedic Background
Oskar von Hinüber

Peyāla in the Skandha-saṃyukta: Contraction and Expansion in Textual Transmission
Bhikkhu Anālayo

Reading Repetitions in the Saṃyutta-nikāya and Early Abhidhamma: From the Mahā-vagga to the Dhammasaṅgaṇi
Rupert Gethin

[sujato]

@Vaddha

I’m an anthropology major in Argentina (well, a drop-out leaving to ordain)

I’m glad to know you’re making responsible life choices!

@Vaddha

you get the feeling that they haven’t really read through them all, but just learned the history externally and skimmed through relevant sections

Oh very much so. At one memorable conference, a speaker was asked something about how their paper related to something in the five precepts. But they couldn’t answer, because they didn’t know what they were.

Again my main point is really just for people to not be too impressed with academic credentials and look at what they’re actually doing.

@Meggers

surely there are other avenues than American academia for you

Sure, and Dharma Drum is great. Again, all I’m really saying is that any serious study of Buddhism should be grounded in an understanding of what the Buddha taught, and not take the dismissal of the possibility of knowledge as the starting point of inquiry.

[stephen]

@Meggers

Here is the first section and the titles the essays

Three highly regarded scholars and very much worth spending time with.

[Meggers]

Well my take on the reason why there’s a movement away from Theravada at an academic level is because of the history of Buddhist studies in the West. It was dominated by UK colonialism, so although there are various streams of interest now, roughly, Theravada and the Pali canon are the ground and foundation for our beginning to learn about Buddhism. And it hasn’t been pretty. There is a kind of exhaustion with having to rely upon the Pali canon, knowing now, a little more about its history of development. And you’re in the middle of these conversations still taking place, so I understand the tension.

The US gravitated strongly toward Unitarianism right away, then Japanese Zen with Suzuki, then Tibet, which still reigns supreme in the US. Obviously for political reasons, but who can really criticize that.

Academics are so highly specialized in their very minute areas of study and their primary occupation is the production of new knowledge. It’s a blood sport. It always has been though. The game has just changed. The humanities have taken a beating for close to 50 years now, religious studies was gutted 30 years ago. Precisely because of Said and Orientalism and his attacks on places like Harvard.

Most universities won’t even offer religious studies anymore, and the programs that are available are highly selective, because everything is driven off whatever academic is drawing the funding to support that person’s research “program,” and so anyone who comes into that program underneath that person has to fit into his/her highly refined research agenda. Social Sciences dominate in NA. The Humanities themselves are struggling for justification. It’s very difficult. Nowadays most academics are more business people and networkers than they are researchers, writers, teachers. “Serving the profession,” which is supposed to be assigned the least value, and is usually considered volunteer, has become an overwhelming drive, not by choice for most, but because of the commodification of learning.

I was lucky. I am the product of a hotbed of radicalism, and I thank the people who have supported very much. And they still do, which is astounding, and speaks to how good they are, not me. I get where you are coming from. Canadians struggle with this problem all the time, as neighbours to our dear friends to the south, and the pressures that come on us from them. That place is one heck of a machine. But you’re right, it’s not all that bad. There are little pockets of glimmering joy here and there. Just have to stick tight and be warm (ed) when you find them.

[mikenz66]

@Vaddha

Having read some Buddhology material, it seems most people who do research the early suttas often tend to be much less knowledgable anyway. You consistently see them making claims and trying to go for revolutionary theses that can be disproven with a handful of suttas they might have missed. Maybe I’m wrong, but you get the feeling that they haven’t really read through them all, but just learned the history externally and skimmed through relevant sections or what they were assigned. The academic work that is more knowledgable tends to be by scholar monks.

That’s probably not surprising, particularly in the case of work by graduate students, who are really just learning their subject.

One of the interesting (to me) issues is the difference between graduate research in Arts, Humanities, etc and Science and Engineering is that in the latter [I’m in physical science] a PhD is very much an apprenticeship. My hope is that by the end of their PhD students will be pointing out errors in my thinking, but it’s uncommon for a student to think up the project themselves - the majority are working in an established programme, and most publications are a team effort.

My impression is that Arts and Humanities are quite different from Science and Engineering - the Arts students are likely to be working largely by themselves. That can be great - the students are expected to be very independent, but it presumably has some pitfalls.

[Snowbird]

@sujato

just do your due diligence.

Just ask them to read some Pali out loud. Or even just ask them to say the word “Theravada”. A surprising number can’t even do that.

[Onze]

Just came in to say that as a partially dropped out academic (still teaching, and research for teaching, but under no pressure to publish anything) I’m getting a lot of piti from this thread, and the issues described therein definitely apply to other subfields of knowledge than EBT.

Could the situation described by Bhante @sujato not also be perhaps because the upshot of some work in EBT is (as least the perception that) some of what other traditions take to be Buddhist is… perhaps… not so Buddhist after all‽ That could be upsetting for people, who in general do not like being upset. Major theme in Buddhism, obviously, and we all know what happened to Socrates…

This is part of what draws me to this site and the work being done by @sujato and others in the Thai forest tradition… The weird and beautiful combination of trying to recover the essence of a partly diluted or confused tradition (a “rich” tradition,if you prefer), an inherently conservative project (in the noble sense of the term) as well as, for lack of a better term, something of a punk attitude? The same kind of thing that might draw a Christian to e.g. Francis of Assisi, but with scholarship and minus the stigmata.

Well, if you’re going to be throwing wrenches into machines, however kindly and from a pure heart, it’s going to be upsetting some people, isn’t it? They might fight you if they have to, or not if they’re good Buddhists, but ignoring you remains much less onerous.

[SDC]

@sujato

@SDC

The academic is attempting to present an arrangement of evidence in support of a position, without bias, under the premise that the reader will endeavor to accept it, or not, based on reason and intelligence

Once upon a time, maybe, but the whole point is that this is no longer what is actually done in mainstream humanities academia in the US (and to some degree elsewhere too). It’s driven by ideology, not reason.

So look, whatever you think about purely rational inquiry, I get it, you have a point, but that is not representative of Buddhist academia in the US.

Hi Bhante,

I admit I’m not aware of the trend you are referring to, but my concern is not so much with the proposal/mode of inquiry/beliefs driving the research as it is with the basic premise that conclusions on Dhamma are available for review by anyone of average intelligence. Development in Dhamma doesn’t adhere to that premise at all - direct knowledge of transformation remains confined to the individual. That is an impasse that cannot be cleared from an external point of view. So, any research that endeavors to describe development or a developed state would require additional effort and development on behalf of the reader and writer alike in order to grasp the full extent of what is being proposed. Is that going to be what we see? Will it be clear? Is it a feature of the current trend is US academia to conclude with an invitation/offer more so than with a judgment? Because that at least has the potential to be helpful. It explicitly acknowledges the need for the establishment of conditions as a foundation for development in Dhamma.

It would just be unfortunate to see an academic trend in EBT research that doesn’t take this into consideration or assumes it goes without saying. Ideologically driven or not, if the writer shows no appreciation for the fact that there are inherent limitations to what can be shown upfront, there is the risk of obscuring the purpose of taking up Dhamma as a lifestyle.

To be clear, I’m not trying to hold anyone accountable for appreciating great academic achievements. I just want to ensure that both priority and limitation have a prominent place in this discussion.

[sujato]

@Snowbird

even just ask them to say the word “Theravada”. A surprising number can’t even do that.

Can confirm.

@Onze

the issues described therein definitely apply to other subfields of knowledge than EBT.

Indeed. Again, I’m no expert, but I follow Tom Nichols aka radiofreetom on twitter; he recently had a thread where he talked about why so many analysts still say silly things about the Ukraine war. It’s not the same phenomenon we’re seeing here, but there are things in common. He said of current paradigms:

They are seductive because they relieve scholars of knowing anything about the areas they’re talking about. No need to learn languages or master cultural knowledge.
…
One of the most cringe moments in my career was a senior IR guy saying “You don’t need to speak Korean to understand Korea.”
Why so cringe? He said to a Korean-American scholar who spoke Korean and forgot more about Korea than that guy would ever know. Yikes.

Here’s the whole thread (Also, for those not on twitter, this is the kind of thing it does better than anywhere else: give an insiders perspective on areas of crucial expertise.)

Again, I don’t want to draw too much comparison, his main complaint was on over-reliance on data in pol-sci, which isn’t a thing in Buddhist academia, ar least not in the same way. The basic problem is disconnect from any reality other than what is projected by ideological priors.

@Onze

some of what other traditions take to be Buddhist is… perhaps… not so Buddhist after all‽ That could be upsetting for people

Oh it absolutely is. I gave a talk at a Uni where I spoke of “authenticity” and one of the teachers said, “maybe use a different word, some people might be threatened?” I said, “It’s the word that means the thing I’m talking about. What word should I use?”

Surely this is an interesting field of study?

[mikenz66]

@sujato

Tom Nichols aka radiofreetom on twitter:

This was the great wave of quantification, when meaningless and equations and graphs and “broadly comparable studies” became the fashion.
… the pretense to being “scientific” - or as we sometimes called it, “physics envy” - got out of hand.

If they knew us better, they wouldn’t be envious…

But seriously, I’ve seen this sort of thing in management, especially from scientists turned managers, where a few graphs generated from “data” is used to it to draw daft conclusions about how things should be organised…

[sujato]

@mikenz66

If they knew us better, they wouldn’t be envious…

I have this theory that the entire intellectual development of the last century boils down to the humanities and social sciences being jealous of the hard sciences and just wanting a bit of that sweet, sweet theoretical precision and predictive confidence. Or at the very least, to be able to say that there has been some meaningful progress in their fields.

[Khemarato.bhikkhu]

@sujato

projected by ideological priors.

@sujato

disconnect from any reality

@sujato

jealous of the hard sciences

I think a lot of this comes down to funding.

Research grants, etc are given out by a combination of bureaucrats and millionaires with ideological priors and no expertise. The rest is just evolution towards whatever works to secure resources in that environment.