Provocative "Tricycle" article on "The New Tradition of Early Buddhism"

@SeanOakes Thanks so much for joining in the conversation. It’s great to get a perspective from the inside of the movement being discussed.

But this is a result of a selective reading of the Pali texts, no? If your focus is almost exclusively the Satipatthana sutta and the Metta sutta (which is what the Insight community did for the first decades of its existence), you get a very distorted idea of what the Pali texts contain.

I don’t disagree that the Insight movement was never Theravada in any meaningful sense. For me the switch to “Early Buddhist” is just one more step to claim legitimacy.

I am not hopeful. The Buddha’s teachings as they are have always been relevant. The blame lies on the teachers who are not willing to show this and instead settle for a distorted teaching to appeal to a larger audience. And with that I’m not targeting only the IMS+ community. Monastics can be no less guilty of this.

The problem with the argument of “Well, we’ll give them this distorted thing and then maybe some day some people will be curious to learn the real thing” is that once distortion has been legitimized, then it is used to de-legitimize the authentic teachings. And we know that once people form an initial idea about something it’s very hard to change it. So many times I hear people confidently declare “That doesn’t sound like Buddhism to me!” simply because they have been lied to about what the Buddha actually taught, as we have it in the EBTs.

It’s important to remember that this was in many ways a defense against colonialism. That leaders had to justify to the colonizers that Buddhism deserved not only respect, but deserved to exist. It was not, to my knowledge, a reaction to local Buddhists dissatisfaction with the way they lived Buddhism.

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That is right, and one must remind that pitfall. Nonetheless, I was regarding the cases of East Asian countries and Thailand where the nationalist movement itself triggered the reformed Buddhism. Maybe we need a broader term of the “colonizers.”

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Hello @SeanOakes. Thank you for this wonderful reflection.

I agree philosophical consistency is not the concern of your average practitioner, but rather people like me. Still, by presenting certain ideas as ‘what the early texts say’ we don’t do any favour to those practitioners and they can be puzzled if and when they read certain suttas. Being forward about discrepancies and changes, instead, has many benefits.

I do appreciate your mention of Thai Buddhist thinkers like Buddhadāsa who incorporate ideas that would be heterodox in light of the EBTs. But isn’t this a point in favour of retaining ‘Theravāda’? As a living tradition that is not confined to the suttas. I’m just wondering, as I read your comment; just as I’ve also wondered why not embrace Mahāyāna teachings more explicitly. In light of this and the varied influences you point out, it seems neo-EB have many reasons to not identify with the label ‘early Buddhism’. But, again like you, I see the appeal of the phenomenological aspects of the early texts and their very direct language (having started out in Tibetan Buddhism, this felt like discovering a treasure!), though I think cosmological and imagistic element are very much there in the Pali suttas, just generally ignored.

I do need to clarify something:

“Analyze” describes well what I’m doing, “decry” or “lament” wouldn’t. So, at the end of your comment, the concern you see as implied in my text isn’t totally warranted: I’m not critiquing neo-EB as a deficient response to saṃsāra, just pointing out it’s not early Buddhism’s.

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Thanks so much Sean, that’s a really insightful and welcome viewpoint. There has been some discussion behind the scenes among monastics about Bernat’s article and the discussion here, so it certainly struck a nerve!

If I may, could I raise a few questions? I don’t really know much about the “American Buddhism” scene, so a lot of these things I just find puzzling.

One thing that you raise is the question of, let us say, “renunciation”.

Now, an Asian Buddhist might say something like, “I’m not really into renunciation, I enjoy my life too much. But I respect it, and one day I may be ready for it.” Whereas an American Buddhist, it would seem, would say, “I’m not really into renunciation, I enjoy my life too much. And anyway, renunciation is such a negative, repressive idea, that’s not what true growth is about.”

IYO, is that a fair assessment?

I zero in on renunciation because it evokes two specific memories for me.

  • One is Bush the senior who said, with regards to the 1992 Kyoto climate agreement, “The American way of life is not up for negotiations. Period.”
  • The other was a then unknown-to-me (but suspiciously bald-headed) gentleman at a climate change panel in the Religions for Peace conference in Vienna, who said, “We can no longer ignore the necessity for nekkhamma.” When he used the Pali, I learned he was Buddhist! (Nigel Crawhall; he works on interfaith for the COP conferences.)

It seems to me that the modern focus on “mindfulness” is related to this. Of all the factors of the path, the “non-judgmental” aspect of mindfulness is perhaps the most malleable. Sīla requires changing behavior, right view requires changing beliefs—which is even harder—and samādhi starts with that rather disturbing bit about being secluded from sense pleasures. “Mindfulness”, in modern understanding, is more of an adverb: it’s not what you do, it’s the way that you do it. So you don’t have to change your way of life. You can be a Bushist and a Buddhist.

Now, I get what you’re saying about gradualism, and I agree. It’s fine, we’re all on a journey! No worries!

My concern is whether this way of thinking is capable of a meaningful response to the challenges of our day. It seems to me that it’s rooted in boomerism, and fundamentally aims at self-healing. But where’s the point of self-healing when all your pretty retreat centers are literally on fire?

As Nigel said, what matters now is renunciation: and it is coming for us whether we like it or not. Our children will inherit a planet sickened and devastated by our greed and selfishness. They will have less than us of what matters; and this process is already well underway. We can’t just keep on doing the same thing we’ve always done, with a bit of mindfulness sprinkled in. And we can’t make merely cosmetic adjustments around the edges.

And again, it seems to me that this kind of Boomer Buddhism (is that a less-bad word for it???) is being, and will be, rejected by young people, for good reason. Their parents drove an SUV to a nice mindfulness retreat and felt better about themselves while destroying the world. :oncoming_automobile: :fire: :skull:

So for me the real issue—and this is by no means limited to American Buddhism—is that Buddhism is being radically undersold. We have so much that can help us adapt and respond, to find meaning and value, yet we have pre-emptively decided to leave it all on the table, because it didn’t answer the concerns of a passing age.

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This view on Buddhism is much older than the Boomers.

The first Victorian adapters of Buddhism (e.g. the Theosophical Society, etc) intentionally gutted Nibbāna, since “annihilation” was such a shocking and unpalatable goal to the Victorian mind. Western Buddhism has been struggling with Buddhist cosmology ever since.

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Thank you for the post, Bhante. This is a good summary of the difference I see between most of my Thai friends (here and in Thailand) and most of my NZ convert friends. The article, and this thread, have been very useful to me in bringing these issues into focus. But it is complicated. Some of the convert Buddhists who are uncomfortable with the total renunciation message of the suttas are very vociferous, and actually take action, about climate change and other such issues. And perhaps those of us who think that renunciation is a good idea in principle, but not quite yet, are a little too relaxed at times…

However I think this is key:

I am sometimes dismayed by the arguments from convert sources that the Buddha was really some kind of secular humanist who took on the cultural baggage of the time, and we can be just as liberated as the Buddha was without all of that. With this mindset, the “one day I might be ready for it…” option will never be an option.

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I’m a bit hesitant to join in here given that the general level of erudition and practice on these forums is far beyond my own, but the comments by my friend and mentor Sean Oakes and several of the responses (especially that of Ven. Sujato) prompt me to share a few reflections.

I just finished an online ānāpānasati retreat lead by Bhikkhu Anālayo and I feel confident that most of the 205 participants in that course from all over the world are practicing with nibbana rather than a smoother ride through a privileged life in samsara in mind.

Bernat’s article in Tricycyle was briefly mentioned by Ven. Anālayo as something he’d recently been made aware of, so perhaps he will have more to say. One thing he did offer - not in response to the article specifically but tangentially related to it, is that he prefers that dukkha be used as is rather than translated whenever possible because no one word in English conveys its range of meanings. In particular, he pointed out the key importance of “incapable of providing lacking satisfaction/unsatisfactory” as characterizing even pleasant experiences as being the sense of the word when life is more broadly characterized as being, or being imbued with, dukkha, and how that clearly contrasts with nibbana as the supreme happiness. If I’m recalling correctly, he kind of bookended this point that dukkha need not denote (coarse) suffering just as sukkha at its more profound levels is happiness or bliss without pleasure or rapture. In no way am I claiming to fully understand or be able to represent Ven. Anālayo’s views but personally I find Early Buddhist teachings to be nibbana-affirming rather than samsara-denying.

As for how the Spirit Rock/Insight Meditation Society/Barre Center for Buddhist studies communities ought to identify themselves, the question brings to mind my own fumbling self-identification when the question “what type of Buddhist are you?” arises among friends - and what comes to mind for me is the old joke “yeah I’m a Marxist - of the Groucho persuasion.” So I guess I aspire to be a “Buddhist of the Gautama persuasion” and thanks to the trailblazing scholarship of Bhikkhu Sujato, Bhikkhu Anālayo and a handful of others the maps and indications of what that path might look like are better than ever.

As someone who came to “Early Buddhism” after decades of Tibetan Buddhist study and practice I’ve long been struck by the plethora of contradictory meditation instructions and earnest competing claims of authenticity and being “what the Buddha really taught” offered with the most frequency and stridency by Mahasi and Goenka partisans - while of course those techniques were in fact invented in late 19th and early 20th century Burma on the basis of the commentarial literature and are, as I understand it, quite far removed from Buddhist practice as the suttas and āgamas describe it. Jack Kornfield for one is certainly well-aware of these competing claims and has responded to them by making the classic 9 day introductory Spirit Rock into a “smorgasbord” sampler consisting of a bit of Mahasi, a soupçon of Goenka and phrase-based metta for dessert (with a nod to Ajahn Chah and perhaps a tip of the hat to Ajahn Buddhadāsa buried somewhere in the mix?). I don’t find that kind of well-intentioned muddling any more helpful than “Buddhist” teachings from the most famous published authors in that community that contain far more Advaita Vedanta, Tibetan Dzogchen and A.H. Almaas than they do teachings from the suttas.

So into this “time-honored” mélange of Burmese noting and body-scanning meditation techniques and “trust-your-own-basic goodness” Dharma lite philosophizing Joseph Goldstein and other fans of Ven. Anālayo’s research and writing have thrown…Ven. Anālayo himself, living in a hermitage at BCBS. And while Bhikkhu Anālayo goes to great lengths to honor later traditions and practices, I feel confident that some the key distinctions he makes between Early Buddhism and later Theravāda traditions are as mind-blowing to senior teachers in the IMS/Spirit Rock world as they are to students. How long had Sharon Salzberg for example believed that phrase-based metta was the Buddha’s own practice? What are the chances that anyone other than a few monastics would have known that the common elements (between the Pali texts and their āgama parallels) of mindfulness of the body in satipatthana practice are dissecting the body into its anatomical parts and elements and maranasati - rather than the calming, non-discursive embrace of sensations of breath at the tip of the nose and equally narrow attention to the soles of the feet during walking meditation that are pretty much the entire first establishment of mindfulness as taught in those centers. (And of course this choice to sidestep the cemetery contemplations goes right along with sidestepping teaching about rebirth and nibbana as the very purpose of the path in underlining the vital important of what Ven. Sujato says about renunciation above).

These Western insight communities are certainly a big tent. It’s easy to let the sometimes-maddening (to me anyway) eclecticism of the most famous teachers get in the way of appreciating people like Sean Oakes who are devoted to the suttas and to practicing for liberation, and who model that in a clear, uncompromising and inspiring way for their students. But there are a lot of people like that diligently practicing and studying at all of these centers, plus Gil Fronsdal’s Insight Retreat Center and many other places. And it heartens me to see that it’s the retreats with monastics that fill up instantly at these places (even if it does mean I’ll never get a chance to sit with Ajahn Sucitto in this lifetime!).

I noted with great interest that one of the initiatives at IMS for next year is a project to better acknowledge the Asian teachers who the founders of IMS and Spirit Rock studied with. And of course it’s wonderful to see Goenka-ji, Munindra-ji, Mahasi Sayadaw, Sayadaw U. Pandita and Ajahn Chah being acknowledged and celebrated. I just hope that along with that there’ll be much more focus on a somewhat earlier Asian teacher who brought rebirth to an end sitting under a Bodhi tree and how what we know of his teachings and practice relate to everything that’s happened since. As Ven. Anālayo said just this morning in response to a question about how to “hold” and respect various layers of Buddhist tradition, “it’s important that we don’t become dogmatic. And it’s equally important that we don’t become confused.” Surely there’s no better place to learn that approach than right here at Suttacentral. Deep gratitude to all who make this site possible, and who participate on these forums.

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I feel that many of these western centers are deeply concerned with branding, and the branding is tied to the ability to attract consumers and funding. The efforts seem largely focused not on getting closer to the historical Buddha, but getting closer to the consumers that provide financial support via retreats and paywalls. In terms of why interest in the EBTs and actual Dhamma has now gained some interest may be due to SuttaCentral’s influence, and the way that monastics from/associated with the BSWA have been welcomed by various groups around the world. Perhaps the way that Bhikkhu Bodhi, to his great credit, stepped up and formed BGR and established public events to support food security and other notable efforts has brought people in touch with the Dhamma that otherwise might have turned to dodgy stuff like Shambhala or New Kadampa.

When I see centers that had previously ignored/dismissed the EBT Dhamma starting to use Pali terms or inviting Theravada monastics, my initial reaction is of cynicism, but at the end of the day, if some people are awakened to the Dhamma this way, then it’s all good. For myself, when in a spiritual quest some 25+ years ago would scour the Barnes & Noble for books on Buddhism, Jack Kornfield’s A Path with Heart was my gateway drug. The book itself was welcomed at that time, but in meeting Dr. Kornfield, I met the compelling Ajahn Chah, and from there the path opened up for me.

Nice, thanks! For me, one of the abiding benefits of close textual study is that it can clarify historical context, and dispel certain kinds of false or misleading paths. But at the end of the day, what the Buddha taught was already a broad tent, with space for many different kinds of people. So we need to honor that.

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Kevin, thanks for your compelling and well written essay, above. Much appreciated. I also was not aware of Sean Oakes, and found his website which I’ll read in more detail later today. In any case, one paragraph from his website touches a bit on part of the subject matter here:

Maybe because convert Buddhist practitioners in the West have had a preference for advanced deconstructive practices (like vipassanā ), this layer of teaching hasn’t been as emphasized as teachings such as impermanence (anicca ) and selflessness (anattā ), or mediation instructions in general. But I think we lose something important when we omit these foundations, and arguably make achieving the liberative fruits of practice more difficult.

Wait… what?? What does he mean by vipassana if it doesn’t include the ti-lakkhaṇa? Does he just mean “Goenka-style body scanning”? And aren’t those just more “advanced deconstructive practices”? White People Buddhism confuses me… :confounded:

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In this connection, some good advice from Ñānamoli’s Thinker’s Notebook

To get out of the puddle of muddle one has to learn to be precise, without falling into the prison of precision.

To get out of the prison of precision, one has to learn to handle the suggestive, the non-committal, the general, without falling back into the puddle.

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Bhante, my fault for just pasting a clip without better context, and I’ll have to read his website to get a better sense of what he is saying in terms of vipassana…my guess is he is referring to the “vipassana movement” popularized in the west. I’m in Thailand now, and Thai people Buddhism confuses me…hello, Ganesh! :elephant:

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@sujato eu agradeço pela sua resposta, acho também muito importante buscar as pessoas para lhes ensinar o que é necessário para que elas tenham um vida melhor, buscando viver a dhamma. Segue uma parte de seu comentário:
Também há uma distinção a ser feita com base no fato de que “budismo” nem sempre é uma coisa única e coerente, e nunca foi. O Buda ensinou dhamma, o que essencialmente significava que ele ensinou tudo o que seria mais eficaz para ajudar a aliviar o sofrimento das pessoas com quem estava. Ele não apenas enfiou a impermanência goela abaixo nas pessoas, ele respondeu à situação de vida delas. A chave aqui é que é bom, na verdade essencial, encontrar pessoas onde elas estão e caminhar com elas nos primeiros passos de sua jornada; a questão é se isso é tudo.

Google translation
I thank you for your answer, I also think it is very important to seek out people to teach them what is necessary for them to have a better life, seeking to live the dhamma. A part of your comment follows:
There is also a distinction to be made based on the fact that “Buddhism” is not always a single, coherent thing, and it never was. The Buddha taught dhamma, which essentially meant that he taught whatever would be most effective in helping to alleviate the suffering of the people he was with. He not only shoved impermanence down people’s throats, he responded to their life situation. The key here is that it is good, indeed essential, to find people where they are and walk with them in the first steps of their journey; the question is whether that’s all.

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One essential tradition regarding ‘studies in Early Buddhism’ is Samyutta/Samyukta Buddhism, which is based on Ven. Yinshun’s works.

See Choong Mun-keat, The Fundamental Teachings of Early Buddhism (2000) pp. 7-11, indicates that the Chinese scholar-monk Yinshun has demonstrated the historical important of Samyutta-Nikāya/Samyukta-āgama (SN/SA) in Early Buddhism in two books: The Formation of Early Buddhist Texts 原始佛教聖典之集成 (1971), and Combined Edition of Sūtra and Śāstra of Saṃyukta-āgama 雜阿含經論會編 (1983) (Cf. also pp. 2-7: “1. Historical background”).

In the following recent article, the same author provides further useful information on this topic/issue:

“Ācāriya Buddhaghosa and Master Yinshun 印順 on the Three-aṅga Structure of Early Buddhist Texts” in Research on the Saṃyukta-āgama (Dharma Drum Institute of Liberal Arts, Research Series 8; edited by Dhammadinnā), Taiwan: Dharma Drum Corporation, August 2020, pp. 883-932.

https://www.academia.edu/44055729/%C4%8 … hist_Texts

https://www.academia.edu/39352226/The_F … ukta_agama

According to Ven. Yinshun, Saṃyukta-āgama/Saṃyutta-nikāya was not, at first, being termed as nikāya or āgama, but generally named the ‘Connected Discourses’ 相應教 Saṃyukta-kathā. About the term Saṃyukta-kathā, see p. 899, note 21 in the above-mentioned paper (2020) by Choong Mun-keat.

Calling the Saṃyukta/Saṃyutta as āgama/nikāya ‘collection’ was until when the other three nikāyas/āgamas (MN/MA, DN/DA, AN/EA) were gradually developed and expanded from it (相應教 Saṃyukta-kathā). Cf. pp. 10-11 in Choong Mun-keat’s Fundamental Teachings of Early Buddhism (2000).

The extant SA and SN, and also other āgamas/nikāyas, are sectarian texts. One can seek an understanding of early Buddhist teachings by studying them comparatively (p. 11).

It is likely the term, nikāya, was first being used in Early Buddhism for the four āgamas/nikāyas.

See also Ven. Yinshun in his book (CSA vol. 1) states that Samyukta-agama is the foundation of both the four agamas/nikayas and Mahayana Madhyamaka and Yogācāra’s essential teachings:

"《雜阿含經》(即《相應阿含》,《相應部》),是佛教界早期結集的聖典,代表了釋尊在世時期的佛法實態。佛法是簡要的,平實中正的,以修行為主,依世間而覺悟世間,實現出世的理想——涅槃。在流傳世間的佛教聖典中,這是教法的根源,後來的部派分化,甚至大乘「中觀」與「瑜伽」的深義,都可以從本經而發見其淵源 。這應該是每一位修學佛法者所應該閱讀探究的聖典。

… 其實,四部阿含是先有《雜阿含》 ,九分教是先有「修多羅」,「祇夜」,「記說」(這三分也還是先後集出),二者互相關聯,同時發展而次第成立的。《中阿含經》([A1]一九一)《大空經》,說到「正經,歌詠,記說」(《中部》一一二《空大經》所說相同),正是佛教初期三分教時代的明證。

《瑜伽論.攝事分》中,抉擇契經宗要的摩呾理迦,是《雜阿含經》的部分論義,也就是「所說」——「修多羅」部分的論義。「修多羅」分陰、處、因緣、聖道四大類,在《雜阿含經》的集成中,「修多羅」是最早的,正是如來教法的根本所在 。"

https://www.dhammawheel.com/viewtopic.php?f=29&p=655491&sid=19870b64d850112ba7ad953247594377#p655491

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Indeed! Have you heard about Rishi Lingdum? :joy: And I’ve basically given up on understanding Tibetan Buddhism :confounded: I’m barely smart enough to understand Early Buddhism, let alone all these ethnic forms (of which White Buddhism is just another)

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Hi @Snowbird. Any teaching from the Pāli Canon is going to be selective, and that’s true for any body of literature. Every teacher chooses what to emphasize and what to ignore. The question I think is interesting here is around what’s the result of the choices we make around what to teach. In some traditional Theravāda cultures, laypeople were barely taught anything more than dāna and sīla, and a simple kind of right view around kamma and rebirth. Now in a movement like Insight Meditation and other forms of modern and postmodern Buddhism, we’re teaching bhāvanā in way more depth, but with less emphasis on kamma, rebirth, dāna, and sīla. What will be the result of that? It has positive aspects, including things like the jhāna revival, and the culturally-beneficial aspects of the mindfulness movement, but drawbacks as well, including the cognitive dissonance @Bernat describes.

When you use terms like “as they are,” “authentic,” and “actually taught,” you’re putting forward a fundamentalist position that contains its own cognitive dissonances. If we’re reading the texts in translation, learning from modern teachers who studied the texts within modern cultural conditions, and carrying the interpretive frameworks we learned from whatever our culture of origin is, we’re already far from what the Buddha actually said. Authenticity as you’re describing it is as much a colonial discourse as the new ecumenical tradition of Insight Meditation is. That doesn’t mean it’s wrong to search for the earliest layers of the historical record we have access to, or to try to sort out what’s historically earlier in the development of the religion. But I think it’s important to acknowledge that conservative and liberal reinventions are both reinventions.

A place I agree with you in not feeling hopeful is around the teachings on rebirth and kamma in the Pāli Canon. I don’t see many non-Asian practitioners taking on that view in any meaningful way. I have deep concern for the fruits of this in terms of the decline of liberatory teaching in contemporary lineages. But I feel limited in my ability to successfully bring people to this view that is so radically different from the prevailing ideology now.

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Hi Ven. @sujato.

I think it’s important to differentiate an American focus on sensual pleasures like wealth and power, which so often impel unwholesome actions, from pleasures like sexuality, music, and art, which can be enjoyed in very wholesome ways. The marginalization of Christian moralism in the 60s has resulted in the development of ethical forms of sexuality, eating, intoxication, and other activities that used to be morally condemned. But then when it’s common, as it is in progressive culture here, to pursue hedonism with ethics (consent, sustainability, etc) foregrounded, why would teachings like renunciation be appealing? We don’t respect renunciation teachings unless they’re connected to a demonstrable ethical good, like reducing greenhouse gasses. So it’s easy to convince people to favor electric cars or make changes in lifestyle that are eco-conscious, but not easy to convince them to renounce sex or drugs, because now that there’s no hell to be condemned to, why would you?

Your concern about “mindfulness” is en pointe. It has very much been observed that contemporary mindfulness is amoral, along with being relentlessly individualistic. Both of these make it an ideal teaching for those who wish to preserve the status quo. I partly think this is a result of confusion in the first generation of teachers in the West, who conflated Zen and Taoist ideals of non-doing and shikan-taza with mindfulness as presented in the Satipaṭṭhāna Sutta. But it’s also the result of us not being able to really shake off the ghost of neoliberalism/capitalism in our practice. We’re obsessed with self-improvement, which just means self. This is painful and hard to treat. When I teach mindfulness, I emphasize the active aspect of it for this reason, and the discernment of wholesome vs unwholesome states.

Yes, but with respect, I hear some snark in your words. There’s always a balance between focusing on one’s own liberation, and attending to the conditions of the world, as you know well. Many practitioners I know are wary of teachings on renunciation specifically because they can suggest turning one’s attention away from the crises of the burning world. We have to remind well-meaning progressives here often that individual renunciation, like downsizing your lifestyle and carbon footprint, is not a very substantial action if one wants to truly affect the course of climate change or of the consumer economy. Large scale political action is far more relevant.

So there certainly is the American fixation on comfort and entertainment, but within the Buddhist community, I more often see a sincere desire to be part of positive change in the world, but a kind of hopelessness because the forces of evil are so entrenched. This is the thing that can feel generational—young people being more inspired by communal action and fighting for their futures while the older generation may be more resigned.

I’m with you in this concern. I don’t know the answer, but look for ways to bring forward those aspects of the teaching which help us adapt and respond wisely.

One last piece I’ll add here is that meaningful renunciation, which I think is at the heart of a powerful Buddhist response to the current world, depends in large part on material conditions that make renunciation possible not just as a psychological shift but as a sustainable lifestyle. But how do we do that? Here there is effectively no wild land that can be inhabited without a huge amount of purchasing power—and certainly not pleasant groves just outside sustainable cities that could support monastics. And even if you have the money to buy land, there’s hardly any monasteries, and minimal lay support communities. So it’s not easy to get inspired by monastics and become one.

And for lay people drawn to renunciation, I don’t know a lot of people who are materially comfortable and indulging in wasteful habits while the world burns. Most I know are struggling to get by in a ruthless market, in a country with shitty healthcare and no safety net. What is renunciation to us? I barely make my bills and don’t have much saved for old age, and that’s even with the privilege to live in co-housing, sharing resources with others, and having avoided debt. A meaningful Buddhist response to the world we live in I think has to contend with the limited avenues open to most people, and offer views and practices that can actually help turn our hearts toward peace even if we can’t maneuver much in our current situations. This is why the acceptance and non-judgment teachings have taken such root here—they are actually realistic about how much of our lives we have control over and how much we don’t. They’re not enough by a long shot, but I don’t want to denigrate people for not being more radical when very few radical options are widely available.

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To me it seems, “the West” has thoroughly rewritten what the “vipassana movement” was into a new Western form of “Insight movement.” The vipassana movement starts with Ledi Sayadaw, accelerates with the Mula Mingun Sayadaw U Narada and then goes international with Mahasi Sayadaw und SN Goenka. At least the three Sayadaws stress the importance of kamma, rebirth, dāna, and sīla.

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For sure, @anon31486827. There’s been a huge shift in emphasis from the Burmese vipassanā movement to globalized forms like IM. I do think it’s a distinct movement, a new school that’s way more ecumenical and unitarian-ish than its predecessors. Again, I think the shift has as much to do with the cultures and worldviews the Dhamma encountered as it was globalized as with individual teacher choices around what doctrines to emphasize.