I think we turned a corner in "Buddhist Modernism" today. I've been trying, not entirely successfully, to get the students excited about the questions raised in David McMahan's Ris of Buddhist Modernism: how are the Buddhisms we encounter in places like the US related to the traditions of Asian Buddhism of the past (and present)? McMahan argues that much of "Buddhist modernism" is specifically of this time and place, continuing concerns western folks had before ever they encountered Buddhist texts or teachers - though it's being "of this time and place" doesn't automatically delegitimate it: more than most traditions, Buddhism has a history of hybridizing itself with different cultures. The question "Is it Buddhist?" isn't quite the right one, but it's an important one too. Much of what Buddhism has been in other times and places is absent from Buddhist modernism.
The class discussion has been about a version of that question a student put two weeks ago: 'is it OK to ignore the guidelines?" - to adapt Buddhist practices and ideas to your own purposes? The discussions have oscillated between reflections on respect and appropriation of a foreign tradition on the one hand, and questions about personal commitment to Buddhism on the other. The rather safe consensus seemed to be that if you respect that others (=Asians) have traditions and don't claim to speak for them, and your own engagement is serious and not just trendy, everything is OK.
In vain did I proffer a third question; whether our self-medication with Buddhist medicines is likely to be effective, given that we are unenlightened. (I posted that line from McMahan about how most Asian Buddhists would see the self to which the self-medicator defers as deluded on this blog in partt because the class didn't want to go there.) But today we'd read McMahan's fascinating account of how trends in modern western literature take you to a place very close to mindfulness - to the point where writers in the 1950s described stream of consciousness writers James Joyce and Virginia Woolf as Buddhist!
So we had a new question: can one be Buddhist and not know it? The class was excited at the idea. It turned out to be the way into the discussion I've been trying to have - pedigree and intention may be secondary questions compared to the question if something is actually working. I didn't spell out the further implication - that one could think oneself Buddhist and be mistaken - but it's within reach.
The class discussion has been about a version of that question a student put two weeks ago: 'is it OK to ignore the guidelines?" - to adapt Buddhist practices and ideas to your own purposes? The discussions have oscillated between reflections on respect and appropriation of a foreign tradition on the one hand, and questions about personal commitment to Buddhism on the other. The rather safe consensus seemed to be that if you respect that others (=Asians) have traditions and don't claim to speak for them, and your own engagement is serious and not just trendy, everything is OK.
In vain did I proffer a third question; whether our self-medication with Buddhist medicines is likely to be effective, given that we are unenlightened. (I posted that line from McMahan about how most Asian Buddhists would see the self to which the self-medicator defers as deluded on this blog in partt because the class didn't want to go there.) But today we'd read McMahan's fascinating account of how trends in modern western literature take you to a place very close to mindfulness - to the point where writers in the 1950s described stream of consciousness writers James Joyce and Virginia Woolf as Buddhist!
(McMahan starts his chapter with this epigraph from Mrs. Dalloway:) 
