12.18.08
Reinventing the sacred: the problem with Buddhism!
The previous post on Buddhism sounds like the defense of someone in a cult fending off critics. My intention is very different, and I am not a Buddhist, in fact, a critic, and certainly unwelcome for that reason in most Buddhist circles.
The real problem with Buddhism is not anything that the current perspective of science can understand or even be aware of.
Buddhism (never an ‘ism’) is suffering the after effects of its over two millennia of tidal wave dynamism, the end of which is a kind of chaotic collision with modernity and the demand to renew itself for a ‘new age’, that ironic term given the opposite of its true meaning by so-called ‘New Agers’.
The point can be seen from looking at the history of Buddhism, and seeing how its generation from the Axial period was a unique moment that hasn’t repeated itself in the modern context. The result is a kind of madhouse of degenerating spiritual paths rapidly being taken over by occult freelancers and every kind of pseudo-buddhistic Nietzschean guru-criminal fomenting fascist anti-modernism. The immense discipline of the Buddhist sangha is being lost (in fact it was probably lost a long time ago, the Tibetans giving revealing snapshots of desperation efforts to survive in the unique, and uniquely hostile, environment of Tibet). Buddhism was once a radical movement of reform, but elements of its amorphous totality have degenerated into an esoteric anti-modern conservatism.
So I hold no brief for ‘Buddhism’, that thing with an ‘ism’ on the end of it.
But, as Rajneesh, clearly jealous in his vain hope to outdo Gautama and found a neo-Buddhism, noted, Buddhism has helped more people over the millennia, and really helped those people, than any other movement in the history of man. That is not a reason to expect the same in the future. Nor any real evaluation of something that always had the accusation lobbed against it of a dark side.
In any case, the repeated reference to the phrase from S. Kauffman’s book Reinventing The Sacred is a reminder that scientists are in no position to reinvent anything (Christians aren’t far behind in that regard) in the realm of religion. The issues are complex, intractable, hard to grasp, and fraught with peril. And scientists stumble on the first step, and can’t even get their own house in order on evolution.
We should note that Blavatsky, a Buddhist proxy, was the almost the first of the great anti-darwinians (and exceptionally confused in other ways no doubt). So where have scientists been all this time?
In any case, the coming destruction of Buddhism is a reminder of the pitfalls of coming attempts to ‘reinvent the sacred’ (world domination through self-organization theory): they will be phoney baloney and Buddhist remnants will be lurking in the woods to counterattack.