For the past decade or so, I’ve had a growing interest in 1) Buddhism, 2) Buddhist philosophy, and 3) Buddhist psychology. These are three quite distinct domains, which have a tendency to get smooshed together in the United States. Let’s take them one at a time:
Buddhism itself. Buddhism is a religion. I know, I know. Your drug dealer says it’s “just a life philosophy, man,” but hear me out . . . He’s wrong. About many things.
Buddhist philosophy: Buddhist philosophy, like Indic philosophy generally, is a rich, complex mesh of mathematics, physics, metaphysics, ethics, and more. And yes, Buddhists argue with each other. When you believe that the human understanding of reality itself hinges on discourse, you argue.
Buddhist psychology: This is the very messy territory I’ve been wading deeper into lately. Because while much of Buddhist psychology, as we understand it in the West, was introduced via Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction and Jon Kabat Zinn’s work, Buddhist psychology of course goes back much farther and, again, there’s a great deal of disagreement amongst the various schools.
Satipatthana Sutta
The word “mindfulness” itself is the modern English word or translation of the Pali word sati. Sati refers to memory: the Wikipedia translation of sati is “to remember to observe.”
The Satipatthana Sutta is a Pali text. Its title means simply, The Discourse on the Establishment of Mindfulness. As you can probably guess, this puts it in both the 1) Buddhism as religion, and 2) Buddhist philosophy buckets.
There is potential to have a very long conversation about cultural appropriation here. I’m opting not to dive into that too deeply here, mostly in the interests of time and space. That being said, I do have mixed feelings about the particular path by which mindfulness-based techniques came to the United States. Jon Kabat-Zinn was seminal in this regard. Kabat-Zinn studied with a number of Buddhist teachers. Generally, I feel grateful for his work in developing Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction. MBSR is an effective, non-pharmacological intervention that helped put mind-body medicine on the map. It got people to take seriously the health impacts of stress. And it taught people to slow down, and listen to their bodies. All of which I love.
Recently, though, I came across this quote. Which I did not love. Regarding teaching mindfulness, Kabat-Zinn said this:
“I wanted to offer instead a kind of translation of a universal understanding or approach that was never really about Buddhism. The Buddha himself wasn’t a Buddhist, and the term Buddhism is an invention of Europeans. And, of course, Buddhists could really care less because it’s all about non-duality."
That last bit pissed me off. It seems to conflate all Buddhists — from Malaysia to South Korea, India to Japan — and ascribes to them the beliefs of (you guessed it) your drug dealer who says, “Whatever, man! It’s all love!”
Saying that Buddhists couldn’t care less because [insert pet stoner phrase here] is like saying that American Christians have no concerns about the US losing its cultural identity, because you talked to a bunch of priests and pastors. Talk to Christian clergy — or Buddhist monks — and you will walk away with a very different view of Christianity in America, or Buddhism in Asia, than if you spoke to non-ordained Christians in America or Buddhists in Asia. Not to say the clergy and the monks don’t have a right to their opinions, but they generally have different views than the everyday folks.
It’s fair to say that the Buddha wasn’t Buddhist. But you know what? The people of Vietnam certainly are, and it matters to them. The nearly 10,000,000 Buddhists who remain in India are Buddhists, and it matters.
And then I caved
Somewhere along the line, even though I get angry about the slicing and dicing of Buddhism into convenient, consumable little bites, I genuinely fell in love with mindfulness meditation, and — as cliché as it sounds — trying to bring mindfulness into my everyday life.
On top of all of this is my work as a psychotherapist. What I’ve found, over and over, is that I can’t make heads or tails of any psychology that doesn’t take account of the human mind/heart, and body. For that, I need Buddhist psychology (which does indeed go much deeper than mindfulness) and somatic psychology. Embracing mindfulness has allowed me to ground myself and my patients, and it has been an absolute lifeline when it comes to working with stressor-related disorders (MBSR is, again, incredibly effective) as well as addictions. I can honestly say I wouldn't know how to work with addictions without Mindfulness-Based Relapse Prevention.
If you wanted to learn more about the history of Buddhism in the US, you kind of can’t dive into this without talking about race. A great book on the topic is Be the Refuge, by Chenxing Han. Roughly two-thirds of Buddhists in the US are Asian or Asian-American, a fact that is often unknown to the White folks who are interested in or even practicing Buddhism. I don’t agree with every take on things Han has (I mean, I don’t agree on everything with anyone), but she offers important corrective information on the cultural history of Buddhism in the US.
As before, I want to offer you a quick invitation to pause. Maybe close your eyes,, and consider whether you want or need to stay on your screen after this. If it’s time for a break, maybe step away from your screen, let your eyes adjust, and have a quick stretch. I swear, the internet will still be there when you get back. :)