Buddhism: seeking the phronemos, or “where do you throw your hat?”

I write this in partial response to a question casually posed to me by Paul Dietrich, the head of the Religious Studies department here at UM. I had been invited to his office to discuss the possibility of my taking on the Buddhism teaching for the department. The current professor and my mentor of sorts, Dr. Alan Sponberg, has requested a two year leave to work to establish an intensive two-year training (both academic and practice-based) program in England in the Friends of the Western Buddhist Order. (whether I get the position is still up in the air, something I’ll no doubt cover at length in future postings)

Paul and I were discussing my background in Buddhist studies and somewhere along the way one of us noted that Dr. Sponberg (aka, Saramati, his ordination name) is a member of the Western Buddhist Order and Paul asked something to the effect of, “and where do you throw your hat?”

My response was that I don’t throw my hat anywhere. I have practiced with virtually every major Buddhist tradition at one time or another, and the closest I’ve come to throwing my hat anywhere was probably with the FWBO (but even that would have been a half-hearted hat toss), or with Geshe Michael Roach’s teachings in the Tibetan Gelug tradition. I’ve all but ruled out the FWBO at this point for reasons I won’t go in to now, but the local FWBO center is still where I’ll go for my ‘Sangha’ nights. My karmic connection to Geshe Michael is still very strong (I highly recommend his course on Shantideva’s “Guide to the Bodhisattva’s Way of Life”), but I’ve chosen a path (academia) that keeps me at a distance from Geshe Michael and his teachings at least for the time being.

Part of that path, and part of philosophy in general, is the demand that we each know for ourselves what it is we might claim to be good, true, or beautiful. We can be thought of as standing firm on our knowledge (be it empirical, rational, phenomenological, etc) and moving forth only methodically from there. This is contrary to religious motivations, where we throw our hat, or take a leap of faith into this or that tradition.

I’ve met countless Buddhists all too willing to throw their hat into this tradition or that. And it worries me. On the one hand I recognize the power of tradition to move an individual forward on a spiritual path: clear direction, discipline, kind guidance, a safety-net in case of crisis, social networking, and so on. Philosophers need all of this too, and, to an extent, have it. My difficulty, my worry, is that I’ve also seen countless people hurt by the traditions they’ve so thrown themselves into (I’ve never seen anyone hurt by the realization that their favorite philosopher/philosophy is flawed).

This happens when the aim of the tradition, the spiritual advancement of each of its individual members, becomes secondary to other interests (the comfort or reputation of the leader(s), financial or geographical growth, acquisition of precious/holy objects, etc). This can only happen if members uncritically see the higher-ups in the tradition as somehow beyond human flaws, to be a perfect embodiment of practical wisdom, or phronemos (the person who lies at the heart of Aristotelian ethics). Once they do this, it is all too easy to just give up their critical faculties, their judgment of what is right and wrong, questioning what is spiritual progress and what is conceit and delusion.

That giving up, that surrender can sometimes be spiritual progress (if you’re a bit too full of yourself, for instance), but it mustn’t be an end in itself. You cannot live a whole life of surrender to any tradition or leader. You cannot give up that freedom which makes you human – it will come back. You will doubt yourself, your tradition, your leaders. To suppress that doubt, when it arises naturally, is to live a life not merely of surrender, but submission, subservience, and ultimately sub-humanity.

So my advice is that you don’t ever throw your hat, anywhere, but instead hold it and yourself as open to the world. If ever you enter a tradition (yes, even academia), do so half-heartedly, or rather, with a still-open-heart. Enter the tradition for your spiritual growth, not to be a part of something. Most of all, never allow yourself to be closed off from other traditions – never believe in claims to being unique holders of truth, unique paths to salvation or awakening or happiness. Maintaining openness is not easy, it takes discipline, some kind guidance, and often the help of friends. But openness is a path with a direction only you can know.