The state of Modern Buddhism

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NewAgeNerd

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When I was studying Buddhism back in the day, I often wondered about all of the different schools. There was the Buddha's original teachings, which he foreshadowed would die out a scant thousand(500? I can't remember the exact number) years after his death, the mahayana or so called greater vehicle which arises early in the C.E., then later we have the tantric schools and their so called diamond vehicle. In addition we also have the Zen school, the Nichren School, not to mention a vast number of independent schools of Buddhist thought, and lastly we have American Buddhism, a syncrestic Buddhism that seems to have arisen out of the advent of modern communicative methods. My question is what Buddhism do you identify with and why? In addition, do you feel that we should sort through all the branches of Buddhism and reclassify them? Afterall, many of the schools contain contradictory messages, and many are in direct opposition with the Buddha's "original" teachings as we have them preserved today. It greatly bothers me that Buddhism seems to be a property of western social scientists, and not eastern practitioners, many of whom would disagree with lumping all of these very diverse religions under one label.
 
Namaste NewAgeNerd,

thank you for the post.

NewAgeNerd said:
When I was studying Buddhism back in the day, I often wondered about all of the different schools. There was the Buddha's original teachings, which he foreshadowed would die out a scant thousand(500? I can't remember the exact number) years after his death,
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5000 years, actually. with the inclusion of females into the Sangha, the true Dharma was only going to last for 2,500 years. as such, Buddha gave a few additional instructions to the female monastics to ensure the Dharma remained for 5000 years.

the mahayana or so called greater vehicle which arises early in the C.E., then later we have the tantric schools and their so called diamond vehicle.
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actually, the Mahayana arose shortly after the first schism at the First Council.. mostly based on a disagreement concerning the Vinya.

In addition we also have the Zen school, the Nichren School, not to mention a vast number of independent schools of Buddhist thought, and lastly we have American Buddhism, a syncrestic Buddhism that seems to have arisen out of the advent of modern communicative methods.
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well... remember that Zen and Nichiren both, are Mahayana Vehicle schools. are you aware of the difference between Vehicles and Schools within Buddhism? there are three Vehicles or Yanas, as they are called, which are the Hinyana, Mahayana and Vajrayana. within each Yana, there are a multitude of schools, with the exception of the Hinyana where the only extant school is the Theravedan school.. as such, that Yana is usually called Theravedan Buddhism. the point to bear in mind is that there were several other schools of the Hinyana Vehicle and to presume that Theraveda was the sole view is an historical inaccuracy.

i'm unaware of a school of American Buddhism. however, my feeling is that most of the schools in America are of the Mahayana and Varjayana, though there are some Theravedan schools that i'm aware of.

My question is what Buddhism do you identify with and why?
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i practice the Vajrayana teachings as found in the Tibetan canon, in particular, the teachings of the Nyingma lineage as they were originally taught in non-monastic settings for the use by laypeople. in my view, it is a matter of aptitude and capacity, more than anything else. as the Buddha taught that there are 84,000 Dharma Doors, it should be of no surprise that there are all manner of methods and techniques designed for the various types of beings that are out there.

In addition, do you feel that we should sort through all the branches of Buddhism and reclassify them?
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not really. i'm not sure what the point of that would be... as "classification" in an of itself, is only a marker for us along the way. once we reach the other shore, even the Raft of Dharma is left behind.

Afterall, many of the schools contain contradictory messages, and many are in direct opposition with the Buddha's "original" teachings as we have them preserved today.
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it is my personal view that it seems this way due to an improper cognition of the teachings themselves. as you know, the Buddha gave his teachings predicated on the particular audience that he was addressed based on their particular needs. thus, you can have teachings which seem to be contradictory until we are able to factor in the other elements of the teaching. in many of the English recensions, they leave out these essential bits of information and simply present the teaching. it is my view that this can lead to many confusions in an already confusing enough subject.

It greatly bothers me that Buddhism seems to be a property of western social scientists, and not eastern practitioners, many of whom would disagree with lumping all of these very diverse religions under one label.
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i'm not really sure what this means. i would agree that social scientists without a knowledge of the Dharma are unlikely to be able to transliterate the texts correctly.. if that is what you are getting at.
 
Thank you for your reply!

As to the point of 5000 years, this might be something specific to the Tibetan canon. The Japanese and Chinese Buddhist schools believed fervently that they were already in the age of the death of the dharma, this is why pure land buddhism arises. I have consulted my volume of buddhist scripture(an amalgmation of Mahayana and Therevada scriptures) and according to the translation Donald S Lopez, as a result of allowing women into the sangha the Buddha predicted the dharma would last for only 500 years, this is despite the stringent rules the Buddha added for nuns.

I was aware that Nichren and Zen are part of the Mahayana, and my reference to the Mahayana as a school was a mistake of semantics on my part. However, there are schools in the Mahayana, pure land and so on, which I meant to encapsulate with this umbrella term rather than listing them seperately.

As to reclassification, I forgot that this site is first and formost a religious forum. I enjoy studying Buddhism, but am not anymore a practitioner. As a result for the aid of me and people like me, I was wondering if we should seperate all the various Buddhisms for greater accessibility, much like what is done with the Abrahamic faiths.

The bottom line is, there are things the Buddha actually said and actually taught, and then there are things attributed to him. The Mahayana claims to be a revelation of the Buddha and perhaps this is the case, who am I to say. Nevertheless, there is a fundamental difference between what the Buddha actually said and taught(the short, middle, and long discourses) and the later sutras which are attributed to him(for example, the lotus sutra).

Before I had extensively studied Buddhism, the Nichren school that I studied with told me that the Lotus sutra was spoken by the Buddha. This lead to my mistaken belief that all of the Buddhist world should embrace such a refined teaching. You can imagine how this is problematic. I suppose to most Buddhist it does not matter how other people view Buddhism, and this is probably why the mass classification of all of the various reilgions influenced by the Buddha into one branch has been allowed to continue.
 
Namaste NAN,

thank you for the post.

NewAgeNerd said:
As to the point of 5000 years, this might be something specific to the Tibetan canon. The Japanese and Chinese Buddhist schools believed fervently that they were already in the age of the death of the dharma, this is why pure land buddhism arises.
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there are only three Tipitakas, and the Japanese and Chinese share the same one... the other is the Tibetan and the Pali. http://www.comparative-religion.com/buddhism/

regarding the time frame for the duration of the Dharma. when we find a teaching which does not seem to reflect on the reality of the situation, what does one do? in the Buddhist context, we are supposed to set that teaching aside.

a more thoughtful and informative treatment regarding women and their impact on Buddhism can be found here:

http://www.buddhanet.net/e-learning/history/wbqcontents.htm

I have consulted my volume of buddhist scripture(an amalgmation of Mahayana and Therevada scriptures) and according to the translation Donald S Lopez, as a result of allowing women into the sangha the Buddha predicted the dharma would last for only 500 years, this is despite the stringent rules the Buddha added for nuns.
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who is Donald Lopez? in any event, there are three phases that the Dharma is said to undergo, the True Dharma, the Sembelance Dharma and the Final Dharma. depending on ones tradition we are either about to end the period of True Dharma or the Sembelance Dharma. i can understand the appeal of the Tariki Pure Land schools during this time, however.

As to reclassification, I forgot that this site is first and formost a religious forum. I enjoy studying Buddhism, but am not anymore a practitioner. As a result for the aid of me and people like me, I was wondering if we should seperate all the various Buddhisms for greater accessibility, much like what is done with the Abrahamic faiths.
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ah.. i see what you are saying. to be frank with you... we didn't have a Sanatana Dharma section until we had several Hindu members... so... if we get more Buddhists and they'd like to section this bit out, i'm sure Brain would be happy to accomodate them.

The bottom line is, there are things the Buddha actually said and actually taught, and then there are things attributed to him.
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however, since none of the teachings were written down when they were delivered.. it is mainly an oral tradition, even to this day... there is no real method to discern this other than textual critiques, which have their own issues.

the Buddha explained how one could determine if a teaching was an authentic Buddhist teaching or not and this is really the method that one should employ to determine these things, in my view.

The Mahayana claims to be a revelation of the Buddha and perhaps this is the case, who am I to say.
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i'm not sure that i would use the term "revelation" which has a specific connotation in English. perhaps... revelaed or... expounded, would be a better choice?

Nevertheless, there is a fundamental difference between what the Buddha actually said and taught(the short, middle, and long discourses) and the later sutras which are attributed to him(for example, the lotus sutra).
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ok, like what? the Short/Middle/Long discourses are all part of the SutaPitaka section of the Tipitaka, which also includes the Vinya and Abidharma, also taught by the Buddha.

you'll note, doubtlessly, that all of the Suttas/Sutras begin with the phrase "thus i have heard...."

Before I had extensively studied Buddhism, the Nichren school that I studied with told me that the Lotus sutra was spoken by the Buddha.
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fair enough...

This lead to my mistaken belief that all of the Buddhist world should embrace such a refined teaching. You can imagine how this is problematic.
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indeed, i can. it would be rather strange, don't you think, for the entire Buddhist Sangha to embrace one particular teaching? especially since we know that beings are of differing capacities and practice the Dharma according to these capacities.

I suppose to most Buddhist it does not matter how other people view Buddhism, and this is probably why the mass classification of all of the various reilgions influenced by the Buddha into one branch has been allowed to continue.
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i would have to say that you are correct... most Buddhists don't really care all that much on how non-Buddhists view the tradition. some sure do, though, so this is more of a general statement than anything else.
 
I personally follow the kadampa school of mahayana buddhism, but this is not so much a choice as it is the only spiritual guidance I could find when I first came to buddhism.

I have studied the Vajrayana and the Hinyana briefly and am confident that the mahayana is the right vehicle for me, but I am not totally sure what other schools exist and what the differences are. I know for example that the Dalai Lama is the head of the Gelugpa school, but some books I have read describe the Gelugpa tradition and the new Kadampa tradition as being one and the same.

Vajradhara, you seem to be quite knowledgable, perhaps you could offer some perspective on this.
 
Namaste AF,


welcome to the forum and thank you for the post.

the Kadampa tradition founded by Atisha is the direct source/inspiration of the development of the Gelug tradition founded by T'songkapa.

you may find this link to be of some value, from an historical perspective:

http://www.tibet.com/Buddhism/budintro.html
 
Hmmm.

I've been approaching the idea of sects, schools, vehicles, etc. in a different way lately. It seems that the "truth" of the dharma lies in direct experience. So, I've been using direct practice to experience truth, rather than reading and trying to figure things out intellectually. (Not that I don't read voraciously ... I do. But I seem to be in a "hands on" phase lately. :D)

Metta,
J
 
Namaste Zenda,


i've always rather taken the view that reading the texts and the other formalized practices are rather like preparing for an adventure.... sort of a "gathering of the gear" as it were.

once the gear is gathered... off you go!

some folks require more gear than others, it would seem :)
 
a good compass, is invaluable, in my estimation :)


in my own adventure, i've discovered that having dry socks is something that i am quite fond of.
 
A compass ... yes ... obviously important both in reality and in allegory. :D Dry socks are not a necessity for me ... can always walk barefoot until they air out. It's hard to get warm in the cold though unless you can do what those heat-generating monks can do ...

Ack! I'm attached to warmth!!! Must go site now ...
 
tummo... the Inner Fire...


i've only engaged in Tummo practice twice now... i'm not very skilled at it at all :)

it's hard to say if i was somewhat successful or just experiencing heart burn :)
 
Zenda71 said:
Hmmmm ... heart burn = inner heat, right? ;)
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indeed... but it's not likely to keep me warm on a snowy winters evening :)

i read a fantastic book on HH The Dalai Lama the past week and, in this book, His Holiness talks about meeting a Tibetan Freedom Fighter that had forsaken armed resistence after developing the Tummo, without any prior instruction. pretty fascinating stuff... the book was written by an ethnic Chinese who was, as you may imagine, a bit uncomfortable meeting the Dalai Lama for the first time :)
 
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