Does Buddhism need the supernatural stuff?

I'm a big fan of Stephen Batchelor! Now featured at Examining Our Religion.

I'm a fan of Milarepa. The notion that Buddhism is "secular" makes no sense to me as the word is used in today, that is, rejecting multiple states of being and consciousness .

This sounds like a secularist plot, let's take the Buddhism out of Buddhism and the Christianity out of Christianity.

And the paricipants who talk of getting rid of suiperna tral stuff show themselves to be charlatans. What might be "supernatural stuff" to a secularist is perfectly natural to a Buddhist.

That is is sort of what it sounded like to me also.

Whatever "the supernatural stuff" is (I'd love to see a definition that makes sense), "Buddhism", an abstract concept that's supposed to stand for the aggregate of beliefs and practices of people who call themselves Buddhists, cannot possibly "need" or "not need" it. Meaningful questions would be whether Stephen Batchelor "needs the supernatural stuff" in his Buddhism (no); whether he wants Buddhists to agree with him and dump "the supernatural stuff" (yes); and whether the majority of Buddhists in the world would agree with him (doesn't look so). For the last one, of course, there's the difficulty of translating this very "Western" question into terms that will mean the same thing to the majority of Buddhists, who are not Westerners, that they mean to us.

The profundity of Tibetan Buddhist teachings and teachers includes the supersensible. As the Dalai Lama states, "In the path of Dzogchen nothing needs to be abandoned... the subtle mind of Clear Light can be recognized within all experience." The classic Life of Milarepa is one expression;another , the Lukhang Temple.

http://www.asianart.com/articles/baker/index.html

The wall inscriptions of the Lukhang Temple that accompany many of the specific images are drawn from a 15th century work entitled Kunsang Gongdu, The Realization of Vast Beneficence, a compendium of Dzogchen teachings revealed by the Terton, or "treasure revealer", Pema Lingpa. The Lukhang murals illustrate key episodes in the life of this great master, a direct ancestor of the Sixth Dalai Lama who is credited with the Lukhang's original design at the turn of the 17th century.

The present Dalai Lama, the fourteenth in a line of incarnations dating back to the 14th century, was forced to leave Tibet in 1959. Only years later did he receive the initiations and spiritual empowerments that would prepare him for the yogic practices richly illustrated on the Lukhang's mud-plastered walls.

The paintings depict esoteric practices of the earliest traditions of Tibetan Buddhism. Tantric yogas such as mystic heat (tummo), consciousness transference (powa), lucid dreaming and corrollary visions are all given vibrant expression. In scenes not unlike those of Hieronymous Bosch, animated figures flow across the walls within a surreal blue-green landscape influenced by the painting styles of Qing dynasty China.

The eastern mural portrays the 84 Mahasiddhas, Tantric masters who flourished in India more than 1000 years ago. Kings, hunters, prostitutes, scholars as well as common laborers, they founded lineages which were originally propogated outside of monastic institutions, signifying that the spiritual path- and its fruits- are in no way contingent on orthodox lifestyles or religious conventions. The northern and western murals- each approximately five meters long- illustrate the practices and meditative disciplines of Dzogchen- the stage of "Great Perfection"- in which the adept awakens to the all-pervading Buddha Nature within his innermost being. As His Holiness theDalai Lama states; "In the path of Dzogchen nothing needs to be abandoned... the subtle mind of Clear Light can be recognized within all experience."

Ann are you sure this Batchelor guy is really a Buddhit and not a wannabe David Koresh (which he seems to be to me) He obviously does not understand the concepts of Maya (The Grand Illusion) without that the Buddhist philosophies are nonsense.

Then there is the problem of Oneness. If we are all part of one great whole (Bramah) there's no way to get rid of the supernatural stuff, it's part of us.

But as you say there is no heavely afterlife unless of course what we think of as heaven is just a different dimension where time does not exist (as in Sidhe, the celtic "other world")

I'll stick with being a Druid, it's much less complicated and we have less hangups about sex.

I'd suggest that you read his book to clarify your questions, but I know that you prefer to comment on books without reading them!

Great links Ian, highly recommended.

Supernatural ... that which transcends the five natural senses concerning a "higher" more "spiritual" realm.

PS ... but then again, maybe Supra-natural better fits ?

Ann
LOL,
But I did avidly read The Girl With A Dragon Tatoo and the other two Girl books avidly and recommend them very highly especially for those who deny we are surrounded by conspiracies large and small. And Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Luis Zafon which is really about human imagination is sublime.

Jerry,
We'd better not let Ann see thgis but here is an extract from an excoriationg critique od Stephen Batchelor posted on a buddhist website.

"In a scathing review of Batchelor’s work in Mandala magazine, B. Alan Wallace wrote: “Although Batchelor declared himself to be an agnostic, [his] proclamations about the true teachings of the Buddha and about the nature of the human mind, the universe, and ultimate reality all suggest that he has assumed for himself the role of a gnostic of the highest order. Rather than presenting Buddhism without beliefs, his version is saturated with his own beliefs, many of them based upon nothing more than his own imagination.”

Read the whole article at buddhistgeeks.com It seems to me that very often western Buddhists want to cherry pick the cuddly bits of the philosophy and ignore the difficult philosophical concepts.

I thought that that was a great, and fair, article ... from it:

But perhaps karma is less a Newtonian game and more like biologist Rupert Sheldrake’s “morphic field” theory—an amorphous, energetic, living continuum that is in constant flux but has a kind of inherent memory and continuity. The morphic field of karma, influencing and influenced by everything we do, can give rise to any conceivable expression of the energies contained within it; but to presuppose that its expressions must follow a linear and orderly sequence is like asking Jackson Pollock to follow a paint-by-numbers scheme.

I have read some of Rupert Sheldrake and enjoyed his thinking. I have also read some of Dr.Tarts writings in belonging (loosely) to IONS.

Batchelor received little of the teachings from teachers in India. See my note below to Ann and above to Aniko on Tibetan Buddhism.

The problem is with the word "natural". What is "nature"? One definition would be that it's the totality of existing things--but in that case, nothing is outside or above it. Other definitions depend on excluding something from "natural": what is man-made is not natural (even though "man" is part of nature). These are useful concepts that fulfill needed functions, but they're obviously not logically consistent. Similarly, another definition by exclusion is that natural is that which is not supernatural, so defining supernatural as that which is not natural is fully circular.

That which passes beyond the veil (and not necessarily in one direction only).

I'm not an expert in drapery, so don't ask me any more questions about it.

So nature is that which doesn't.

Oh, I flipped it. Hopefully not a flop. Right.

Put simply, nobody needs "supernatural stuff." On the other hand, it can be fun and stimulate thought. Metaphor seems like something basic to the human psyche. Aniko summarized the problem very nicely in a sort of koan.

"Supernatural" may not be "needed" from the objective sense of egoistic physicality ... but it is very pertinent to the spiritual advancement should one want to evolve beyond this "realm" ... IMnsHO

Nippy,
The Pythagoreans (to whom I usually refer as science worshippers) believe the world is made from mathematical formulae. They're wrong. The physical universe may be made frtom atoms but the world (a very different thing) is made from stories.

The narrative is all.

The meaning is beyond the narrative, it is the direct experience of the real, "between the words". Metaphors are for the mind, which is only a tool that knows nothing real ; but experience, like consciousness is infinite. As the Buddhists say, "Man is not limited to forms."

Like who should really care what those two have to say in such a debate ... why are "they" so important ... in fact, why are the three pictured so important ?? One of the bunch may possibly have some wisdom to pass on ... but so much of it all is just about the supposed need that too many folks have to be told things by the peer approved "authorities" because they have no confidence in thinking for themselves.

IMnsHO

Stephen Batchelor wants the belief in reincarnation eliminated from Buddhist doctrine. (It's already been severely minimized in Zen Buddhism).

I also suspect (although he doesn't say this) that he feels, like some other Zen Buddhists, that belief in God is yet another addiction we humans have to overcome.

(I should add that I don't know if Batchelor defines himself as a Zen Buddhist, but his ideas seem to align best with that sect).

Ann,
Batchelor is a "beginner" when it comes to Buddhist teachings - ten years and he thinks he knows! Thich Nhat Hahn received only a partial initiation in some of the teachings. The Dalai Lama received many of the advanced teachings from extraordinary lineage teachers. R. Thurman gives an informed account of the knowledge that the Dalai Lama received and teaches. See my note above on the Lukhang Temple. The article is quite good on the scope of the Tibetan teachings and the history of the Dalai Lamas . http://www.asianart.com/articles/baker/index.html

Are you grading Buddhists in order of their knowledge? They all have different things to offer, Char. Batchelor shows how valuable "beginner's mind' can be. And, with all due respect to HH, Thich Nhat Hahn, being much more intuitive than the Dali Lama, is the better teacher.

I speak for myself but feel that many American Buddhists would agree with me. If you visit an American Buddhist sangha, you are much more likely to hear Thich Nhat Hahn's words than the Dalai Lama's.

Do you mean Clarke, Ann?

Yeah. Maybe everyone should just ignore me. I have a fever which is clearly scrambling my brain.

(The answer, though, is that of course he is grading. He has made it clear before that he sees spiritual enlightenment as coming in incremental packages of secret teachings and delivered to the select few who are ready to receive it by an elite possessor of wisdom.

If that's wrong, Clarke, please correct it.)

Among contemporary remarkable teachers (men and women) , there are have been not a few Tibetans. The miraculous seems quite normal and practical for them. Their spiritual achievement was recognized by many. The medical skills of Tibetans are also noteworthy. In general, many Tibetan monks and nuns are well-trained and very effective in their work . There is certainly a hierarchy but also equality among members of the community.

I dunno about hermetic knowledge accumulated quantum by quantum. The history of mysticism is filled with people who were spiritual innocents who had a mystical experience that suffused them with enlightenment. In Medieval Europe there were many people like that. Some of them were canonized and others were executed as heretics.

True ...

Nippy,
Non-local consciousness as modern scientists have shown and has been described precisely in many traditions (as Patanjali) and sacred books ( as the Bible ) is not limited to mysticism and visions. Thus healing at a distance, telepathy, remote viewing past, present and future etc are part of human potential , possessed by some naturally and/or learned from teachers as prartical skills. The church was afraid of "witches" who were real healers because they were a threat to their power. People in power are afraid of people with such powers today. Some are afraid of people who can see their "secrets", especially" !

Zen Master Thich Nhat Hahn says in his public talks that he does not believe in a heavenly afterlife-- heaven is to be found here on earth. If you read between the lines, it seems clear that he does not believe in an afterlife at all, except that we will be recycled to become part of something else.

The culmination of everything that I have read so far from my own spiritual perspective, leads me to believe that we do have an eternal soul which is our personal basis of all eternal experiences, of which physical life is only a part of, like a "school" we enroll (incarnate) into for the "teachings" it offers our soul.

Having had the experience(s) that I have had, based upon the common belief that a GOD (not God nor gods) is the Whole of the UNIverse, which at it's "heart" is UNconditional Love and as the Whole, is the Truth of all interconnective intelligences, we are each mini-creator parts (gods)(made "in the image of") of that Whole ... as such, we make our own reality(s) ...

Thus, as it is said in many circles, "Heaven" is what we would make our experience to be as what we most wanted ... where as "spirits" we manipulate time and space to our own liking, creating the experience we think we want much more "directly" than we are able to do here where time and space (and others, our co-creators) are such a part of it all.

It is also "said" that those who "learn their lessons" here during life, hopefully awakening to their own "Spiritual truth", gaining such "Enlightenment", will make their subsequent return to the Spiritual Realm, upon physical death, much more "progressive" as pertaining to the ongoing eternal quest for the betterment of the "Whole" ... as compared to those who have yet to learn such lessons, who will relatively "waste" their spiritual afterlife just creating personal fantasies as a form of selfish enjoyment ... pending their realization "there" that it is a waste concerning eternal advancement, upon which realization they will have to "return" through another incarnation (re-incarnation) to eventually learn the needed lessons required for a more serious advancement.

IMnsHO.

PS ... having since read the link on Maya that Ian provided above, I recommend that all go there for a more complete concept about what I wrote above.

"Stephen Batchelor and Don Cupitt will be debating with Madeleine Buntingthe possibility of religion without supernaturalism . . "

Ain't no reason to debate that possibility, as far as I'm concerned, because there are oodles of religions without supernaturalism. Any and all belief systems/ideologies/philosophies/world views etc., are religions, if the person relates to/through them religiously, which is to say places significant faith in them.

Human-authorityism is the most accepted lately, with Scientism topping the denominational variants, it seems to me, though Mass-mediaism runs a close second and third I reckon ; )

A minor point, but....

Since the venerable Buddhist monk and writer is Vietnamese, not German, it's Thich Nhat Hanh.

Every time I think I've learned how to spell his name and don't check, it backfires on me!

The fact that you've got an "nh" in initial and final positions doesn't help. If you're from South or Central Viet Nam (he was born there, in Quang Ngai province), it's pronounced "Tut Nyak Hahn"; if you're from the North, it's "Tik Nyuht Hang".

I've been to see him speak several times, and he was introduced using the latter pronunciation.

(Which is odd, becasue he's South Vietnamese. But perhaps it's the best the host could do with a Vietnamese name).

While I knew nothing about the dialectal situation in Vietnam, after reading your comment my guess would have been that the northern dialect carries more prestige and is associated with "correctness"--much like Pete confirms below. You wouldn't introduce a Texan speaker pronouncing their name with a Texan drawl, would you? :)

In re Vietnamese culture, the speakers of the Hanoi dialect look down on the Saigonese as mush-mouthed southerners and the Southerners view the north as elitist snobs; everybody considers those from Central Viet Nam to speak the archetypal rural yokel's dialect (strange, because Hue, the ancient capital, is in Central VN). Perhaps Thich Nhat Hanh has changed his Central Vietnamese Quang Ngai accent, as might a Geordie who became Archbishop of Canterbury. In any case, what matters is what he says, not how he says it.

Thank you so much for the explanations, Aniko and Pete. I never would have guessed that!

And, for the record, Thich Nhat Hanh's accent is a mess-- I'm amazed that English speakers can follow him at all. His English is laced with not only Vietnamese but French sounds. (His main monastery is in France, so I suspect French is his second language).

French was the second language of the educated Vietnamese of Thich Nhat Hanh's generation, by necessity rather than choice. Viet Nam (in those days known as "French Indo-China", composed of Tonkin (the northern third), Annam (Central) and Cochin China (the South) and later including Laos and Cambodia was conquered by France from 1858 to 1887 and remained a French protectorate until 1949-1954. The French tended to rub the faces of their colonial populations in their assumed superiority and most citizens of the area loathed them, but all educated citizens felt that speaking French was at least an attempt to place themselves on a level with their de facto rulers. Vietnamese has quite a few French loanwords (va-li -- from valise -- for suitcase; sa-phong -- from sapon -- for soap, if I remember correctly, which I probably don't) but the language was already so loaded with Chinese loanwords (and the Vietnamese hate the Chinese even more than they hate the French, which throws a monkey wrench into the "Domino Theory" so beloved of U.S. strategists during the war) that not many were taken up for regular use. Then only decent thing the French ever did for the Vietnamese (besides teaching thempâtisserie, at which they excel) was the creation by the Jesuit priest Alexandre de Rhodes of Quốc Ngữ (and when I can copy a word with the proper diacritical marks, I am very happy) from 1624 to 1644, the script now used for the Vietnamese language.

All this is far, far afield from the point of this article and of your comments, but it may be of interest.

Yes,, I'm aware that Vietnam was once a French colony. One of my favorite movies of all times take place at the end of the colonial era (I think): The Scent of Green Papaya. (The movie is pure beauty and has almost no politics in it).