Sorry Buddhists, Your Religion Sucks Too

The first time I posted this blog, it was on Myspace. I was agitated by the opposition I received to it, not because of the opposition itself, but because much of it was at the hands of fellow so-called atheists and freethinkers. This seems to me to be a big problem, and so I feel it necessary to repost here.

Strictly speaking, I’m growing rather tired of Buddhists and their nonsense. I often see them worming themselves in with the freethinkers, no doubt convinced that they belong with us. Perhaps even more annoyingly, many in our court are granting them free reign to do so. In fact, it rather seems that the Buddhists are given, if not a free ride, then a dishonorable mention at best. Even among our most volatile atheist commentators Buddhism is hardly even mentioned.

Of course I understand that this is mainly because Western Buddhists cause so little trouble here. No doubt there are a lot more destructive and powerful religions running rampant in our society that deserve much more attention, but that's not the point, and it certainly doesn’t let Buddhism off the hook...except in Sam Harris’s case, because I’m told he actually considers himself a Buddhist!

Clearly, there is a great deal of misconception as to what Buddhism even is. Therefore, I'd like to begin by noting the distinction between Eastern Buddhism (i.e. real Buddhism) and its pop culture Western equivalent. Modern Buddhism in the West is essentially the same as any foreign import - just a castrated, mutated version of its true form. It’s molded to our culture and tastes in a way that fits us best for the purposes of selling it to us, often losing a great deal of its original purpose and meaning in the process. I think it’s very important to note that Buddhism in the East does not have the ever-so-cuddly track record that a lot of Westerners are told it does.

I should also take this time to note that unlike most, I actually do have an accurate concept of Buddhism. This is because I have an education, specifically five years of Japanese history, culture, and language. Par for such a course is an extensive study of all relevant Asian history, language, politics and religion, and this included Buddhism and its many applications throughout history. After my fellow supposed freethinkers read this blog, I was disgusted to see that all of their "facts" to the contrary consisted of decrees and descriptions made by Buddhist priests and practitioners, with only their titles as the source of their expertise! This should be an obvious red flag for the Appeal to Authority logical fallacy. Indeed, it's a complete given due to the simple reason that a holy man is not an objective resource. All holy men have a vested interest not only in the delusion to which they've attached themselves, but to selling that delusion to you. Can you think of a less trustworthy source than that? Would you go to a Catholic priest to hear objective, historical facts about Catholicism? Not I, and nor would any serious researcher. Yet my unfortunate fellows were stricken with the blinds of compartmentalization and did not see this tremendous flaw in their thinking.

Of course Coke is good! Michael Jordan says so! Well, pour the Coke in your eyes and you may have an idea of what that level of stupid felt like to me.

In any case, when faced with facts about Buddhism that do not jive with their preconceived ideas, Westerners (whether Buddhist or not) inevitably still have the balls to opt for the defense that many religious people attempt…namely declaring that these more savage Eastern Buddhists must not be real Buddhists, that they must be doing it wrong. This is a fallacy, and one that should be easily recognizable to the practiced skeptic.

What makes this fallacy all the more outrageous is its source. Specifically, having most Westerners “educate” you on Buddhism is a lot like a dude from California trying to tell you that real Italian pizza has pineapples on it. In fact, Buddhism is so warped and diluted in the West that some insist it’s not even a religion at all!

Well then, they seem to be unaware of their biggest adversary...our government. We've given Buddhism tax exempt status as a religion, and yet I’ve never heard a Buddhist declare mistrial on this. My usual policy is to declare that the day I see these people disputing Buddhism’s tax exempt status is the day I'll listen to their assertions, and as I’ve never heard a single one of them utter a peep, I usually invite them to shut the fuck up. 

But in this blog I will deign to address these people and their claims about the cruddy neutered version of their religion. Don’t relax yet, Buddhists – it’s still not much better.

To address the “Buddhism is not a religion” claim, I quote from John Horgan’s excellent article Buddhist Retreat – Why I gave up on finding my religion:

“For many, a chief selling point of Buddhism is its supposed de-emphasis of supernatural notions such as immortal souls and God. Buddhism "rejects the theological impulse," the philosopher Owen Flanagan declares approvingly in The Problem of the Soul. Actually, Buddhism is functionally theistic, even if it avoids the "G" word. Like its parent religion Hinduism, Buddhism espouses reincarnation, which holds that after death our souls are re-instantiated in new bodies, and karma, the law of moral cause and effect. Together, these tenets imply the existence of some cosmic judge who, like Santa Claus, tallies up our naughtiness and niceness before rewarding us with rebirth as a cockroach or as a saintly lama.”

Quite so. The notion inherent in reincarnation and karma indicates a supernatural force working on our behalf. It assures that justice is served, punishment and rewards are meted out, and everything will turn out hunky-dory in the end. In other words, Buddhism offers us the same two major outs for avoiding responsibility for ourselves and each other that the Christian god or any other actively theistic religion offers.

So there's your religion, Buddhists. Suck on it.

The problem is that people in the West have diluted Buddhism down to something so vague and meaningless that the very core tenets of the religion itself have been sacrificed, even including karma and reincarnation! This makes it annoying and tiresome to try and pin down anything that a Buddhist must believe in order to so title him or herself, but I think that as a Buddhist you must at least contemplate what are so very humbly (haha) referred to as the Four Noble Truths, which summarize Buddhism’s entire view and purpose. Here they are in all their divine glory: 

1. Life means suffering.

To live means to suffer, because the human nature is not perfect and neither is the world we live in. During our lifetime, we inevitably have to endure physical suffering such as pain, sickness, injury, tiredness, old age, and eventually death; and we have to endure psychological suffering like sadness, fear, frustration, disappointment, and depression. Although there are different degrees of suffering and there are also positive experiences in life that we perceive as the opposite of suffering, such as ease, comfort and happiness, life in its totality is imperfect and incomplete, because our world is subject to impermanence. This means we are never able to keep permanently what we strive for, and just as happy moments pass by, we ourselves and our loved ones will pass away one day, too. 

2. The origin of suffering is attachment. 

The origin of suffering is attachment to transient things and the ignorance thereof. Transient things do not only include the physical objects that surround us, but also ideas, and -in a greater sense- all objects of our perception. Ignorance is the lack of understanding of how our mind is attached to impermanent things. The reasons for suffering are desire, passion, ardour, pursuit of wealth and prestige, striving for fame and popularity, or in short: craving and clinging. Because the objects of our attachment are transient, their loss is inevitable, thus suffering will necessarily follow. Objects of attachment also include the idea of a "self" which is a delusion, because there is no abiding self. What we call "self" is just an imagined entity, and we are merely a part of the ceaseless becoming of the universe. 

3. The cessation of suffering is attainable.

The cessation of suffering can be attained through nirodha. Nirodha means the unmaking of sensual craving and conceptual attachment. The third noble truth expresses the idea that suffering can be ended by attaining dispassion. Nirodha extinguishes all forms of clinging and attachment. This means that suffering can be overcome through human activity, simply by removing the cause of suffering. Attaining and perfecting dispassion is a process of many levels that ultimately results in the state of Nirvana. Nirvana means freedom from all worries, troubles, complexes, fabrications and ideas. Nirvana is not comprehensible for those who have not attained it. 

4. The path to the cessation of suffering.

There is a path to the end of suffering - a gradual path of self-improvement, which is described more detailed in the eightfold Path. It is the middle way between the two extremes of excessive self-indulgence (hedonism) and excessive self-mortification (asceticism); and it leads to the end of the cycle of rebirth. The latter quality discerns it from other paths which are merely "wandering on the wheel of becoming", because these do not have a final object. The path to the end of suffering can extend over many lifetimes, throughout which every individual rebirth is subject to karmic conditioning. Craving, ignorance, delusions, and its effects will disappear gradually, as progress is made on the path.

I ought to mention that these passages are among the most intelligible Buddhism has to offer. Buddhism often takes things much farther however, traipsing freely within the walls of the metaphysically pretentious looney bin. Here’s a quick sample, the likes of which you can find on any Buddhist website:

The Seven Cosmic Laws of the Universe emanate from the Divine, and then descend through the four Octaves of Reality to finally manifest as the Laws of Nature in the Material World.

There is Enlightenment in seeing how things actually are, while recognizing the possibilities of what could be. From this, one figures out how to get there from here. You are the part of the Equation who fills in the blank.

What does that even mean?

I’ll save you the headache – it doesn’t mean anything. It’s fluff, it’s mind-waste, it’s as meaningful and substantive as a fart on the wind, and it serves only to appeal to pretentious dimwits who are impressed by pretty colors and who like to pretend they’re learned and sophisticated, but I'm sorry, I've forgotten how vague Buddhism is that such things may not be canon for every tofu-eater, so let's return to the Four Noble Truths.

Starting with #1, I guess my question would be…why focus on the negative? Life does mean suffering, but it means joy as well. It is odd that I of all people should have to defend this, but I do so on the strongest possible terms. Perhaps our periods of happiness and comfort are temporary…but by that same statement, so are our periods of sadness and suffering! Why say that life is just a shit sandwich peppered here and there by meaningless pleasures? Why not say that life is beautiful, with hardships and pain along the way?

When we place things in historical context, this makes more sense. In 500 B.C.E., when this philosophy first arose, life certainly was pretty damned awful. But things have changed. I’d be the last person to call our civilization ideal, but comparing it to the way it was 2,500 years ago is no contest. Today we have medicine and clean water and ample food and wet tee shirt contests and movies to go to and gifts to give. We can treat our loved ones with medicine and marvel at the wonders of nature with profound understanding. We can tuck ourselves in at night and not be afraid of wild animals and demons lurking in the dark. I rather think it would have been impossible to have what we would call a “good day” at all in 500 B.C.E.

But whether we set Rule #1 then or now does not change the fact that sadness and joy, pain and pleasure, wants and fulfillment are merely two sides of the same coin that is human life and experience. Emotions go up and down, we laugh and we cry...and the pleasures become all the sweeter when we come through the pain to reach them.

So I’m going to have to call bullshit on Noble Truth #1.

As for the other three “truths,” which constitute the bulk of Buddhism's outlook and sales pitch, I defer again to John Horgan:

“Buddha's first step toward enlightenment was his abandonment of his wife and child, and Buddhism (like Catholicism) still exalts male monasticism as the epitome of spirituality. It seems legitimate to ask whether a path that turns away from aspects of life as essential as sexuality and parenthood is truly spiritual. From this perspective, the very concept of enlightenment begins to look anti-spiritual: It suggests that life is a problem that can be solved, a cul-de-sac that can be, and should be, escaped.” 

Ridding yourself of desire is not a solution to life’s problems any more than not playing soccer is the way to win a game. “I’m going to go sit on my ass over here and I’ll win!” No, you’re not winning. You’re copping out, you’re taking your dolly and going home, and in the process you’re needlessly abstaining from the fun of a game of soccer.

As always, Buddha had some stock bumper sticker phrases to relate this idea:

“He who loves 50 people has 50 woes; he who loves no one has no woes.”

And no love either, douche. Talk about throwing the baby out with the bathwater! I have something to knock that one out:

“It’s better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.” 

Apathy is not a solution. It’s giving up. It’s an escape. At best, it’s a coping mechanism. Apathy doesn’t bring you joy any more than not eating a hamburger makes you appreciate its flavor.

Because apathy is apathy, stupid.

Personally, I don’t want to not desire. I don’t want to learn to do without. Yearning for things outside of life is life, and denying it is what people in prison have to do.

Taking things to the next level, what proof do we have that adopting the Buddhist canon and being apathetic about life will make us better, more compassionate people?

"Much more dubious is Buddhism's claim that perceiving yourself as in some sense unreal will make you happier and more compassionate. Ideally, as the British psychologist and Zen practitioner Susan Blackmore writes in The Meme Machine, when you embrace your essential selflessness, "guilt, shame, embarrassment, self-doubt, and fear of failure ebb away and you become, contrary to expectation, a better neighbor." But most people are distressed by sensations of unreality, which are quite common and can be induced by drugs, fatigue, trauma, and mental illness as well as by meditation.

Even if you achieve a blissful acceptance of the illusory nature of your self, this perspective may not transform you into a saintly bodhisattva, brimming with love and compassion for all other creatures. Far from it—and this is where the distance between certain humanistic values and Buddhism becomes most apparent. To someone who sees himself and others as unreal, human suffering and death may appear laughably trivial. This may explain why some Buddhist masters have behaved more like nihilists than saints. Chogyam Trungpa, who helped introduce Tibetan Buddhism to the United States in the 1970s, was a promiscuous drunk and bully, and he died of alcohol-related illness in 1987. Zen lore celebrates the sadistic or masochistic behavior of sages such as Bodhidharma, who is said to have sat in meditation for so long that his legs became gangrenous.”

Excusing the speculative conclusion in the second paragraph, let's focus on the example. For what could make one do something so hideously awful - and what could make one praise someone else who did it - but religion? Common sense would have anyone looking at this man and calling him what he was – a huge dick. Only through the delusional veil of religious praise and infallibility (or in Buddhism’s case, “enlightenment”) are such things so easily excused, let alone celebrated.

Speaking of Buddha and his catchphrases, I count their constant dispersion among the most obnoxious practices of active Buddhists. These people are like the free samples lady at the grocery store, popping in to dispense what they consider to be little nuggets of wisdom. Then they expect us all to be blown away by the amazing insight contained in the wisdom of Buddha. Well I have heard the words of wisdom decreed by their great prophet, and I am nonplussed.

Here are a few:

“A dog is not considered a good dog because he is a good barker. A man is not considered a good man because he is a good talker.”

“A jug fills drop by drop.”

“Hatred does not cease by hatred, but only by love; this is the eternal rule.”

“He is able who thinks he is able.”

Uh…seriously guys, are these fortune cookie rejects really what makes Buddhists all starry-eyed and groveling? Most of them are no different from the little cultural taglines we throw out every day:

“A penny saved is a penny earned.”

“A watched pot never boils.”

“He who can hear is not the same as he who will listen.”

You like that last one? I just made it up on the spot. Now make statues of me, build a shrine and worship me, and pay $1,000 to come listen to me talk about stupid shit like the Dalai Lama does.

Granted, I did pick some of the more insipid little tee shirt snatches in my examples, but that’s not the point. Even if some of these sound bites have some worth (as many of them do), none of them are anything even remotely profound or brain-bustingly wise. We certainly have far better moral and intellectual teachers today. You don’t need the titles and trappings of Buddhism to help you realize these things and far better, so why bother defining them as such?

Because it sounds cooler when you say it in Buddha-ese I suppose, you poseurs.

This touches on another point, one that culminates against the Western Buddhists: If you dilute Buddhism down so far that it has lost its very tenets of life-as-suffering and reincarnation, then what you’re left with is something so incredibly bare bones that putting on the Buddhist label…or perhaps even any label at all…is pointless. In my foray to meeting PZ Myers, a self-professed atheist/Buddhist accosted PZ about his denial of “spirituality.” In his rejection of religion, she said, he was eliminating the proven(?) benefits of such things as meditation and self-reflection.

“You mean spirituality without spirits, right?” PZ asked, and when she confirmed this, he replied that there was certainly nothing wrong with being calm and introspective and contemplative. In fact, it could probably do some of us a great deal of good. But in its incredibly watered down form, what need did she have to dress her habits in Buddhism, or even spirituality?

The question cuts to the heart of the issue. If you want to meditate, why can’t you just go meditate? Is all this talk of spirituality merely a way for people to define themselves as part of a hip group, or do they have an obsession with the ritual aspect of such things? And how beneficial is meditation anyway? As it turns out, not very. Its effects have been quite exhaustively tested for decades, and it has been shown to do things such as lower blood pressure and calm nerves.

The problem is that you can get the exact same effects by sitting still for a bit.

Ah, but don’t tell Buddhists – there’s a profit to be made on these meditation cushions.

Look at that floral pattern. How chintzy.

Here’s where I meditate:

Hey, I bet you’ve got one too! Try using it. It works.

In summary, sorry Western Buddhists, but you’re the ones who are doing it wrong.

Buddhism is a religion...inasmuch as you allow it to be anything at all, and you’re actually better off calling it a religion because as a philosophy, it sucks.

For a rationalist and skeptic any delusion is harmful, and Buddhism is no exception. So Buddhists, stay out of our territory, because you don't belong here.