One of the key features of a secular understanding of Buddhism is the viewing of the Buddha as a human being rather than as a supernatural being. It's seen as one of the 'three refuges'....that a human being achieved awakening which serves as an encouragement to the rest of us mere mortals that we too can do this.
In the first blog post on this site (Secular Buddhism: Does a Label Help or Hinder?) I attempted to explore the pros and cons of adopting the label 'Secular Buddhism'. One of the down-sides is the propensity to start locking down one's view as belonging to the 'secular' camp and possibly missing out on helpful things from other 'camps'. One antidote, I suggest is to use whatever means are available to continue encouraging open questioning. In this spirit I'd like to hear views on the pros and cons of continuing to call Siddhattha Gotama 'The Buddha' rather than Siddhattha or even Sid for short.
As I write this post I feel some anxiety which is the result of an expectation that this question will be seen as heretical by some and that it might spark some flames of objection that could come my way. I've actually been 'blow-torched' for questioning things in other realms of my life lately so the anxiety is even higher than normal. However despite the pain that sometimes comes along with it, the freedom to question is one of the few things that feel sacred to me, so despite the flammability of the question, I'm putting it out there.
My current thinking on it (subject to change with the considered views I hope are shared in reply to this post) is that, as with all things, there are advantages and disadvantages. I'll have a go at starting the list:
POSSIBLE ADVANTAGES OF 'SID/DHATTHA'
- It reinforces the view of Siddhattha as human and therefore the view of awakening as a real, attainable possibility for us.
- It helps keep us away from the slippery slope of pedestals, deifications and the religifying of the dharma.
- It prompts us to look at any attachment we might have to Sid being on said pedestal - we can ask 'what is that?' (as the Zennies would say) and does/how does it help?
- It keeps us focused on the fact that dharma practice is about getting to the other side of the river, not building a shrine to the raft.
- It helps prevent the adherence to the teachings just because they came from Siddhattha rather than subjecting them to the rigour of our own life testing.
- It helps us relate to the persona of Sid as a wise friend rather than an authority figure - those of us with a secular orientation are more likely to be influenced by the former.
- (For Australians) it's in keeping with Australian culture of nick-naming everything that we feel affection for and/or anticipate will have any kind of longevity in our lives.
- (Also especially for Australians) it helps circumvent mistrust of authority figures.
- It's a symbolic reminder of the fundamental shifts that come along with Secular Buddhism.
POSSIBLE ADVANTAGES OF 'THE BUDDHA'
- The fact that the Buddha has an honorific title might encourage newcomers to test the teachings out more fully than they otherwise might if he was seen as just another self help guru.
- When speaking with the general population it's clearer who we're talking about.
- We are less likely to upset those of a more traditional Buddhist orientation
- It's easier to avoid 'us and them' identification between the secular and traditional approaches.
Believe it or not, I've tried very hard to be balanced about this. Any omissions in this list are due to the limitations of my own personal experience rather than an attempt to push an agenda. Based on the list above and my own view of the world, the advantages of 'Sid/dhattha outweigh the advantages of 'The Buddha' but I genuinely invite and look forward to hearing others' views.
The emergence of Secular Buddhism as an identifiable movement is very new. The movement itself has been growing for some time - as Stephen Batchelor said to me a couple of weeks ago - 'it's an idea whose time has come'. That rings true with my experience both in the sangha (meditation group) that I help run and with my experience more generally. However it is only in the last couple of years that we've started to see web sites dedicated to 'secularising' Buddhism, it's only in the last year that the first Secular Buddhist Association has appeared (see www.secularbuddhism.org) and indeed it's only in the last few days that a substantial entry has appeared in Wikipedia under 'Secular Buddhism' courtesy of Stephen B and Winton Higgins.
It's very exciting to be involved in bringing to life something that has so much potential and so much apparent support out there. As with everything though, there are upsides and downsides. As I see it, the upsides are many. These are not just the legitimizing of a wider array of experiences as elements of serious dharma practice, but importantly, they include the accessing of the invaluable insights taught by Siddhattha Gotama, by a much wider audience who are unlikely to benefit from it otherwise. In addition, it helps bring together people with similar values and orientations and it also helps us formulate a conversation about the forces that have brought us together, what they mean, and what we do and don't want them to produce.
The potential downsides also need to be considered as we coagulate and label this 'movement' so that its impact is beneficial and not harmful. I thought it would be a good first post on the SBA blog to invite discussion on it. My hope is that this will help us move forward mindfully in a way that mitigates the potential downsides.
There are two obvious downsides that occur to me. The first is the ever-present tendency of human beings to co-opt things into our identities. Siddhattha spoke of the creation and desperate clinging to a fixed identity or self concept as a key source of our suffering and angst. It would be both ironic and unhelpful if we began clinging desperately to the idea of our 'selves' as being 'secular Buddhists', adopting the views coming from our own camp simply because it's 'our camp', rejecting helpful practices or ideas from other camps because they're not from our camp, or reacting badly to criticisms or challenges to the movement.
One of the most common requests fielded by Ted Meissner who runs the US site, is that Secular Buddhism finds funding for the establishment of its own premises. To me, this is one of the key ways to entrench identity - get yourself an address, a hierarchy, an institution. Siddhattha led a peripatetic life and was sedentary only during the rainy season for obvious reasons. Both my intuition and my experience in the corporate world tell me that getting ourselves a geographical home is a very slippery slope to entrenchment in fixed identity - we need to be very mindful to stay attuned to this.
Related to this is the second obvious potential downside which is that it could create a bit of an 'us and them' mentality with other Buddhist traditions. Psychology has a label for this phenomenon (see, labels can be useful): Social Identity Theory. This is a common pattern where human beings define who is in and who is out according to some criterion (and there are many....which football team you barrack for, which political party you vote for, gender, race, education, how you dress, wealth, age, dialect or accent - the list is endless). Once we know the bounds of the in group we then over-emphasize the differences we have with the out-group, we over-emphasize the similarities we have with the in-group, and voila!...we have divisiveness.
So what should we do to try and avoid these common pitfalls? Three ideas come to mind. First, be very clear on our goals. Ted Meissner and his colleagues have done a great job of clarifying these for the Secular Buddhist Association in the US and we'll be reviewing these as the basis for a similar statement for the Australian chapter.
Secondly, we can cultivate a vigilance of our intentions and keep them firmly planted on these goals. We can do this by questioning ourselves and others as we orient our way through the emergence of the movement. Importantly, those of us who are involved in expanding the presence of secular Buddhism can structure checks and balances into our processes to make sure we are living the values we aspire to.
Thirdly, we can include prominently in our intentions, friendliness to all beings including all those who have adopted or been born into religious Buddhism. While this sounds obvious it's likely to be tested because some of these people will find secular Buddhism threatening....so they may not behave in very Buddha-like ways when we cross paths.
What do you think? Are there other potential pitfalls? Do you have other ideas for making sure we don't fall in to them?
