Buddhist modernism
Buddhist modernism or Protestant Buddhism are terms used to describe modern and contemporary Buddhist movements.
The situation is different with the term “ committed Buddhism ”, which was introduced in 1963 by the Vietnamese Zen master Thich Nhat Hanh (born 1926) and is now used by many Buddhists in Asia, America and Europe as a synonym for socially committed Buddhism.
The beginnings of the Buddhist reform movements go back to the Dharmapala coming from Sri Lanka , which radically criticized traditional Buddhism, re-evaluated the role of the layman and introduced meditation as a general practice. The Buddha's teaching is based on reason, rationalistic, atheistic, scientific, a philosophy of life, not a religion. A strong politicization as well as fundamentalist and nationalist tendencies characterize these movements.
Buddhist modernism (also called Neo-Buddhism) arose in Ceylon (today Sri Lanka) as the original cultural renewal movement of Buddhism, which was threatened with decline under the pressure of European conquests and Christian missions since the 16th century. As a reaction to this foreign infiltration, they went in search of their own national identity and initially reflected on their own cultural tradition, which was understood as a bulwark against increasing westernization. The humiliation and devaluation of the autochthonous culture associated with the colonial status, as well as the discrimination by the colonial rulers ultimately led to the politicization of Buddhism, which was actually turned away from the world. Progressive Western ideas such as democracy and socialism, which had reached Ceylon and Burma in the course of colonization, were passed off as the achievements of their own culture.
Buddhist modernists like the Nestor of Buddhist modernism and Sinhalese patriotism, Anagarika Dharmapala, claimed democracy as a product of their own cultural tradition. The Ceylonese DC Vijayavardhana saw the community of property of primitive Buddhism as an early form of communism and wrote: “The early Sangha, as established by the Buddha, comprised real communists whose rules and practices have disappeared from the earth. They were a classless community of equals [...] They had no individual property; the whole property belonged to the community ”(DC Vijayavardhana, The Revolt in the Temple Colombo 1955, p. 595). Vijayavardhana emphasized that the ideal Buddhist way of life and real communism are completely compatible on an economic level. The incompatibility of Buddhism and Marxism in philosophical terms is clearly seen by this author when he writes: “There is, of course, a fundamental difference between Buddhism and Marxism as far as the philosophical concept of these teachings is concerned: Marxism, which is based on a materialistic conception of history, teaches metaphysical materialism as its philosophy. ”(ibid.) This would contradict the spirit of Buddhism, for which everything material is ultimately an illusion. Although the monastic community of property of primitive Buddhism and a real communism were born from the same spirit, contemporary Marxism, especially in its Soviet form, cannot be accepted by the Buddhist countries of Southeast Asia.
By idealizing the past, the political demand was made to restore Buddhism to its old privileged position and to make it the state religion again, a status that Buddhism had always enjoyed during the historical monarchies of Ceylon and Burma. This was the hour of the "political monks" who, disregarding the Vinaya rules (monastery rules), interfered in politics like a lobby and fought for the restoration of Buddhism in state and society. In the first half of the 20th century, the neo-Buddhist movement exerted an enormous influence on the politics of some Buddhist states in Southeast Asia and contributed to the stability of democratic institutions: because where parliamentary democracy was introduced, it was important that it was legitimized could be given to one's own cultural tradition, which facilitated their acceptance. The democratic structures of the Buddhist order (Sangha) were viewed as a model that was to be transferred to the state and society (e.g. the principle of equality and the principle of majority decision-making in votes: in the Sangha all monks are in principle equal and the abbot is the abbot is elected by the monks' assembly). In this way the principles of democratic self-government could be claimed as part of the Buddhist tradition.
Especially in the Theravāda Buddhist countries of Sri Lanka and Burma, neo-Buddhism inspired the political freedom movements and promoted the national struggle for independence against foreign rule. The ideas of freedom and equality borrowed from the West were used as ideological weapons against the imperialism of the British colonial power.
In 1956, Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar in India called on the untouchable caste ( Dalit ) to convert to Buddhism as a protest against their oppression (this movement is often referred to, mostly pejoratively, as "Neo-Buddhism"). In Thailand it was Buddhadhasa Bhikkhu (after another spelling ' Buddhadasa Bhikkhu ' 1906-1993), who represented a Dhamma socialism. In Japan, the Sōka Gakkai was founded in 1930 , which is also politically active through the Kōmeitō party . The exiled Dalai Lama and Aung San Suu Kyi, the Burmese critic of the regime, both winners of the Nobel Peace Prize, are two of the most famous of the contemporary. Representative of a Buddhism that expresses itself on peace and environmental issues and promotes a commitment to a more just society.
In Europe and North America in the 19th and 20th centuries, philosophers and scientists, doctors and artists increasingly grappled with Buddhism, boosted its popularity and had a direct impact on the Buddhists of Asia through their commitment (Schopenhauer, Pali Text Society, Hermann Hesse , HS Olcott). In 1902 Allan Bennett, a chemist from England, was the first European to be ordained a monk in Burma. Numerous Europeans followed his example ( Nyanatiloka ), many buddh. Associations were founded by Paul Dahlke , Karl Seidenstücker , and Georg Grimm . Karl Eugen Neumann presented essential translations of Buddhist texts. Lama Anagarika Govinda founded the Arya Maitreya Mandala in India in 1933 . In England, Sangharakshita (born 1925) founded the Friends of the Western Buddhist Order, a lay Buddhist organization, in 1967.
Today there are numerous international Buddhist networks. In 1950 the Association of the World Fellowship of Buddhists in Sri Lanka was established to promote understanding between the various currents within Buddhism. In 1989 the International Network of Engaged Buddhists was created in Thailand.
Individual evidence
- ↑ The term "Protestant Buddhism" comes from Richard Gombrich's Theravāda Buddhism: A Social History from Ancient Benares to Modern Colombo. (Routledge & Kegan Paul, London 1988) and was made decisive by Gananath Obeyesekere in The Two Wheels of Dhamma: Essays on the Theravāda Tradition in India and Ceylon, The American Academy of Religion, which he co-edited . Studies in Religion, Monograph Series No. 3. (American Academy of Religion, Chambersburg, Penn. 1972, pp. 58-78) in relation to the Buddhist national movement in Ceylon.
- ↑ cf. the article in English Wikipedia on Anagarika Dharmapala
literature
- Dharmapala, Anagarica: A Message to the Young Men of Ceylon , (Colombo 1947)
- Bechert, Heinz: Buddhism, State and Society , Vols. I - III, (Frankfurt / Berlin, 1966–67)
- Sarkisyanz, Emanuel: Buddhist Backgrounds of the Burmese Revolution (The Hague 1965)
- U Ba Swe: The Burmese Revolution , (Rangoon 1952)
- Vijayavardhana, DC: The Revolt in the Temple , (Colombo 1953)