Buddhism in the west

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Zen Temple ( Chicago , USA)

With Buddhism in the West is religious and philosophical influence of Buddhism on the culture of so-called Western world refers. It also includes the spread of Buddhism in the “West” and the increasing exchange between “Western” culture and Buddhism. An intensive preoccupation with Buddhism has only been taking place in the western world for around 100 years.

history

Antiquity

The first knowledge of Buddhism reached the Mediterranean region in ancient times :

The Pompeii Lakshmi ivory statuette , found in 1938 in the remains of Pompeii (during the eruption of Vesuvius in 79 AD ), probably originated in Bhokardan ( Shatavahana ) and proves the Roman-Indian trade and cultural relations

In Alexandria , Egypt , a Buddhist school is said to have existed for a long time, which is believed to have influenced Greek philosophy . Eastern influences are particularly evident in Pythagoras and Empedocles , then in Gnosis - a Crypto-Buddhist was even recognized in Basilides - and in Neoplatonism ( Plotinus and Porphyry ), in Apollonius of Tyana and in Origen . Gnosis and Neoplatonism could for their part have had (re) effects on the development of Mahayana Buddhism.

Buddhist embassies at the time of Aśoka , (268–232 BC)
Buddhism and the trade routes in AD 1

middle Ages

Buddha made a somewhat curious entrance into the Christian world by means of the legend of Baarlam and Joasaph (also Josaphat) (originally 'Bodhisattva') from the early 6th century , which was widespread in the Middle Ages and is nothing more than a Christian reworking of the Buddha legend, which of course was only brought to light centuries later. With the canonization of the two legendary figures in 1583 (name day: November 27), Buddha was accepted as a supposed Christian hero in the Catholic Church's gallery of saints.

With the rise of Islam and the breakdown of intellectual transfer between East and West (from the 8th century), existing knowledge about Buddhism was forgotten again. It was only through the reports of Marco Polo (1251–1324), who spent many years at the court of the Buddhist Mongol emperor Kublai Khan , that news about Buddhism reached the western world for the first time. But they were dismissed as fantasy, heresy and paganism and so hardly noticed. The western image of Buddhism was subsequently shaped by reports from Christian missionaries.

Modern times

Although an entire Buddhist people, the Kalmyks, have lived in Europe since the 17th century, centuries would again pass before Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646–1716) and then above all Arthur Schopenhauer (1788–1860) first Western philosophers of modern times dealt in depth with Eastern thought. Schopenhauer described himself as the "first European Buddhist", but his knowledge of this religion was still very rudimentary and incomplete. Nevertheless, he is seen as an essential pioneer of Buddhism in the western world. In the second half of the 19th century , a lively activity of translating Buddhist source texts began in rapid succession, which increasingly conveyed a comprehensive and previously unknown level of knowledge.

20th century

"Hsi Lai" Temple ( Los Angeles , USA)

At the beginning of the 20th century , Europeans (including numerous Germans and Austrians) also moved to the East for the first time to study in the countries of origin of Buddhism, with some emerging as translators into German, such as Karl Eugen Neumann , or even joining the Buddhist monastic order and opened Buddhism to the West through direct encounters with and dealing with teaching ( Nyanatiloka , Nyanaponika , Lama Anagarika Govinda , Ayya ​​Khema ). Conversely, from the 1950s onwards, Asian teachers, including the Vietnamese monk Thich Nhat Hanh , increasingly went to the western world, where they in turn contributed to a great reception of Buddhism in the West.

Today almost all shades of Buddhism are represented in the West, above all: Theravada , Vajrayana and Zen , but also different European neoplasms, such as B. the Western Buddhist Order founded by Sangharakshita (in Germany: " Friends of the Western Buddhist Order "), or the Diamond Way, coined by Ole Nydahl . Jack Austin (1917–1993) strived for an ecumenical Western Buddhism that included the traditions of Asia with his influential Western Buddhist magazine .

The teachings of “Pure Land Buddhism” ( Amidism ) and the various schools of Nichiren Buddhism are also less widespread in Europe than in the USA . Buddhism became known in the last few decades mainly through the fate of the Tibetans and their most famous representative, the 14th Dalai Lama .

Buddhism and Western Science

The spread of Buddhism in the West also led to an encounter with Western science. The principle of dependent arising (strict causality within the phenomenal world without the assumption of a transcendent reality) is considered by some to be more compatible with a strictly scientific worldview than the recourse to a creator god anchored in the Western, Judeo-Christian tradition. The dictum of many Buddhist teachers that one should follow science when Buddhism is wrong (Dalai Lama, Lama Ole Nydahl, etc.) is then not only a testimony to a great deal of trust in one's own teaching, but also in the great potential of science interpreted. Because Buddhism is not a religion of belief but a religion of experience, Buddhism and science share the application of empirical methods. The Buddhist philosophy of Mahayana , however, contradicts the reductionism and physicalism prevalent in the natural sciences , since it declares the experience of a reality that exists independently of consciousness to be an illusion and therefore regards the experience of the nature of the mind as the only possibility of experiencing the real nature of things . However, in the more recent western epistemology and the philosophy of science , anti-realistic or even idealistic positions are increasingly represented ( Dummett ).

The biologists and neuroscientists Francisco Varela and Humberto Maturana refer explicitly to Buddhism.

Literature:

  • Humberto Maturana, Francisco Varela: The Tree of Knowledge. The biological roots of human knowledge . Goldmann, 1987, ISBN 3-442-11460-8 .
  • Francisco Varela, Evan Thompson : The Middle Way of Knowledge. Scherz Verlag, Munich 1992, ISBN 3-502-13750-1 .
  • Jeremy Hayward: Exploring the Inner World. Insel, Frankfurt 1996, ISBN 3-458-33523-4 .
  • Jeremy W. Hayward, Francisco Varela: Daring Paths of Thought. Scientists in conversation with the Dalai Lama. 2nd Edition. Piper Verlag, Munich / Zurich 1998, ISBN 3-492-22115-7 .
  • Artur Przybyslawski (ed.): Form and emptiness. Buddhism and Science. Buddhistischer Verlag, Wuppertal 2007, ISBN 978-3-937160-11-5 .

Prominent Western Buddhists

Well-known Western Buddhists can be divided into two categories. Some are celebrities like Richard Gere , Tina Turner , Steve Jobs , Orlando Bloom and Allen Ginsberg , of whose “being a Buddhist” is publicly talked about because of their otherwise-related notoriety.

On the other hand, there are Europeans and Americans who have studied Buddhism so intensively that they can pass on their experience and knowledge. They include: B. Alexander Berzin , Pema Chödrön , Jeffrey Hopkins , Jack Kornfield and Robert F. Thurman .

In Germany, too, people who have found Buddhism have endeavored to pass on the Buddhist teachings for more than a hundred years; among others Friedrich Zimmermann , Karl Seidenstücker , Georg Grimm , Nyanatiloka , Nyanaponika , Lama Anagarika Govinda , Harry Pieper , Ayya ​​Khema , Karl Schmied , Alfred Weil , Sylvia Wetzel and Yeshe Udo Regel , as well as in Austria Karl Eugen Neumann , Fritz Hungerleider and Genro Koudela and in Switzerland among others Max Ladner and Marcel Geisser . Current Buddhist teachers who are well known are e.g. B. Sangharakshita or Ole Nydahl .

Criticism of Western Buddhism

The adaptation of the Buddha Dharma by the West has led to more or less strong modifications of the teaching with regard to its interpretation and its form ( rituals ). On the one hand, the object of criticism has become forms of Buddhist practice that are only 1-to-1 copies of Asian models and do not take sufficient account of the different cultural backgrounds of the West. Variants of Buddhism that under the influence of New Age or esotericism, as well as capitalist market mechanisms, undermine and flatten the original teaching are also considered worthy of criticism .

Buddhist teachers predicted early on that the Dharma would fail in the West if it clung too tightly to the shape that had grown in Asia and demanded that Western followers of the doctrine understand “that we are living in the 20th century and here in the West World are integrated into a high-tech civilization. When Padmasambhava came to Tibet, he had to switch from the Indian culture to the Tibetan one and the same thing has to happen here too. ”( Lama Anagarika Govinda ). And Thich Nhat Hanh , who made an outstanding contribution to the development of a genuinely Western Buddhism, warns: “If people in the West introduce an exotic form of Buddhism into their society and think that this particular expression of Buddhism is the only true Buddhism, then it will the oil never dissolves in water. Buddhism can only be successful in the West if it grows out of your experiences and integrates the components of your culture. "

However, adapting to the West can also result in the Western way of life completely reshaping the originally religious life experience. The philosopher and cultural critic Slavoj Žižek therefore sees Western Buddhism as a “fetishist ideology” for the capitalist age. According to him, it enables you to “fully participate in the hectic race of the capitalist game, while supporting the impression that you are not really in it, that you are well aware of how worthless this spectacle is - what really concerns you is peace of the inner self, to which one can always withdraw. ”According to Žižek, Buddhism allows one to fully participate in the dynamics of the economic system, but at the same time promises mental health and thus functions as a“ perfect ideological supplement ”for capitalism. The “wellness Buddhism” denounced by Žižek is also criticized by practicing Buddhists, who oppose it to a socially engaged Buddhism that consciously deals with the occidental tradition.

In the context of this criticism, those voices also count who see Buddhism merely as a fashion religion for educated middle-class people, who, in addition to the opportunity to relax, the Buddha-doctrine gives them the chance to present their personality in an interesting and exotic way. In this context, an increasing tendency can be observed to integrate Buddhism in a flattened, esoteric and easily consumable form in the wellness culture or to use its iconography (Buddha statues etc.) as an exotic decorative accessory in furnishing and living.

Another problem that arises in connection with Western Buddhism is the question of the extent to which Western thought patterns are merely projected into a foreign culture, whereby Western "value patterns, personality and social ideas are whitewashed with a Buddhist-sounding terminology and processed therapeutically, so that a change in the relationship between the individual and society is being prevented ”.

See also

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Karl-Heinz Golzio: The expansion of Buddhism in South and Southeast Asia: a quantitative study on the basis of epigraphic sources. Volume 16 of Religious Studies Series, Peter Lang Verlag, 2010, ISBN 3-631-61259-1 , p. 17
  2. ↑ Birgit Zotz : Jack Austin and the principle of dialogue. In: Der Kreis No. 271, May 2014 ISSN  2197-6007
  3. ↑ Lama Anagarika Govinda: The Book of Conversations. Munich 1998, p. 170.
  4. ↑ Thich Nhat Hanh: The Diamond Sutra. Theseus 1993, p. 107.
  5. ^ Franz-Johannes Litsch (8 years member of the DBU council): Western Buddhism - No thanks? .
  6. ↑ Michael von Brück: Introduction to Buddhism. Frankfurt 2007, p. 496.