Why Redesigning the Dharma?
In my previous post, “Welcome to Redesigning the Dharma,” I briefly explained what led me to create this website. If you haven’t read that post yet and you’d like to understand what this website is about I encourage you to have a quick look. This post builds on the prior one, and elaborates in more detail what this project of “Redesigning the Dharma” might entail.
In many ways the seeds have been planted for several years, listening to people like one of my teachers Vince Horn on his podcast Buddhist Geeks interview guests about the evolution of The Dharma in modernity. The latest inspiration came from participating in an online course with Stephen Batchlor on “Secular Dharma.” While I think that Stephen’s vision for his project is a bit different than my own, he clearly was encouraging each individual, and groups of like minded individuals, to take up the task of critically engaging with the teachings that we s
The Dharma--the teachings of The Buddha--has never been a fixed, permanent or static “thing,” or dogmatic code. The Dharma has always had to adapt to new cultural conditions as the teachings travelled across time and place. As depicted throughout the early sutras, the historical Buddha himself adjusted the teachings to the various learning styles of people that he encountered, as any skilled teacher should.
Stephen Batcehlor describes The Dharma as a “constantly evolving code of awakening,” a definition that really resonates with me. The historical trajectory of Buddhism is analogous in many respects to open source coding. This is helpful for modern practitioners of The Dharma to bear in mind, so that we maintain the delicate yet important balance between reverence for the wisdom of the tradition while not shying away from the necessity of redesigning the dharma to adapt to new cultural and historical contexts.
Design is a carefully chosen word because the process of Design speaks to the fundamental human drive for creativity. Creativity is one of the most defining features of being human, and yet it is not a capacity with which the early teachings of The Buddha engage very much.
Zen is perhaps the most notable exception to this trend, and Vajrayana to some extent as well. Yet despite the beauty of Buddhist art and architecture in many Theravada Buddhist countries, the vision for human flourishing mapped out in the early sutras really does not speak to the vital relationship between human creativity and spiritual practice.
What the early sutras offer is a very compelling path for bringing an end to dukkha, mental suffering or the various lesser forms of chronic dissatisfaction and dis-ease that recurrently plague the human psyche. These early teachings also offer an affirmative vision for human flourishing through an ethical framework; moreover, they cultivate the positive antidotes to these mental afflictions, the four immeasurable qualities of the heart: loving kindness, compassion, appreciative joy and equanimity.
However, for the vast majority of people in the modern world, to live a meaningful life involves more than what is offered in the early sutras. Of course, there are very obvious differences between axial age India and what it’s like living in a modern, capitalist country. However, as practitioners, how often do we consider how differences in context might, or might not, affect our relationship to the teachings?
While so many of The Buddhist teachings have a felt quality of timeless wisdom, differences in context can matter. The meeting of Buddhism with science is certainly a major feature of The Fourth Turning. In many ways, The Dharma and science can complement each other, such as a trauma informed approach to mindfulness, integrating western psychology and buddhist psychology, including the insights of neuroscience and positive psychology along with other facets of your Dharma practice.
However, at other points they might conflict. When they do so, will we be quick to fall back into a form of religious dogma or can we get curious about how Buddhism itself might have its own blindspots and limitations? For example, cognitive scientist Evan Thompson has pushed back on the constant refrain in vipassana centers that the practice that we’re engaging with is simply “seeing things as they actually are.” However, to use any sort of language or map to orient ourselves necessarily implies a view, with its own particular biases and omissions, and for The Dharma to posit itself as objective and neutral is really a sort of claim to power that really makes it quite similarly limited to most other such claims from other philosophical systems.
There is another crucial difference as well, which is that all three major turnings of The Dharma have centered on monasticism. Thank you to the monastics, or else we wouldn’t have these teachings. There were always lay practitioners, and lay practitioners increasingly enjoyed an elevated status within the Mahayana and Vajrayana traditions. Some of the most prominent Tibetan practitioners were householders.
However, monasticism was the container for which these teachings and practices were designed and through which they were transmitted.
From my perspective, perhaps the most important task of adapting The Dharma requires us to be very explicit about the fact that contemporary Dharma practitioners must carve out a householder path from a monastic tradition.
In most western countries, clearly most practitioners and even teachers are not and do not intend to be monastics. In order to speak fully to the lives of people The Dharma will have to engage more explicitly with issues and questions to which monastics have always had and always will have a different relationship: money, worldly ambitions, and sexuality are obvious examples.
Artistic pursuits are another one. Again, we see how many monastics in Zen or Vajrayana could, to some extent, fulfill this basic human need; however, artistic expression does not seem very central to the sadhana of most monastics, particularly in the Theravada tradition. However, for most lay people, a happy and meaningful life is a creative one, and so spiritual practice must engage our artistic impulses.
As an American who has practiced mainly in Western Dharma contexts, I’ve become more aware of some of these needs. It was also through studying with in an explicitly householder spiritual path--a Nondual Shaiviate Tantric path with Paul Muller Ortega--that really helped to clarify for me the importance of this need for modern Dharma practitioners to more explicitly carve out a householder path within their own traditions.
Yet, it is also through living in a Buddhist country in Asia that I have come to see first hand the need to carve out a householder path within traditionally Buddhist countries. Having lived for the past ten years in Thailand, I’ve come to see how many Thais relate to The Dharma, which is with great reverence and devotion. Buddhist values are taught to children at a young age. Mindful presence, loving kindness and generosity are often on clear display in very obvious and collective ways in Thailand, which make it a wonderful place to live.
From my perspective, there are also many ways in which attitudes take hold that strongly defer people’s opportunity to awaken in this lifetime. The belief that you have to renounce the world in order to awaken is clearly a great hindrance--or perhaps we could categorize within one of the traditional Five Hindrances: Doubt.
Awakening may sound like a grand term but in many ways what it entails is not, so when people defer opportunities to practice The Dharma and awaken, what they are really passing on are very tangible benefits to be free from a great deal of mental suffering and to live a life filled with more joy, peace and love.
What could a reimagining of The Dharma offer to the struggle for human rights and democracy in many of these traditionally Buddhist countries? What could The Dharma offer to the world in terms of combating the climate crisis? Contemporizing visions of Engaged Buddhism in not only western countries, but these more traditionally Buddhist ones, seems to be a central task for Redesigning The Dharma.
These are just a few of the topics that I hope to engage on this website, which I hope can be a space for Dharma practitioners from all walks of life, from various cultures around the world, to have conversations on these important topics. I want this to be a platform where many people can continue to iterate collectively on this ever evolving code of awakening that is The Dharma.