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When I was planning my stopover in Bangkok on a trip to Bhutan I wanted to visit the Mahayana Buddhist<\/a> monastery where the English Buddhist John Blofeld<\/a>\u2019s ashes were interred. My friend the Buddhist scholar Justin Whitaker connected me to Will Yaryan. Will was a mostly retired professor of religious studies keeping his hand in at the Mahachulalongkornrajavidyalaya University in Bangkok. Justin said Will knew a lot of people. My, he was right. I\u2019ll forever be grateful for the connections Will provided, both to visit Blofeld\u2019s resting place, but also the site where the Trappist monk and interspiritual saint Thomas Merton died.<\/em><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/em>So, recently, when I discovered an essay Will had written, \u201cBig Tent\u201d Buddhism: Searching for Common Ground Among Western and Asian \u201cBuddhisms\u201d,<\/a> I quickly read it. It turns out it is available several places around the interwebs, I link to where I found it.<\/em><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/em>The overall thesis is compelling. And it had a couple of digressions I found tantalizing, including references to Universalism and specifically the Theravadin monk Buddhadasa\u2019s version. but I found myself particularly attracted to a specific part of the essay, where he discussed the well-known debate between Stephen Batchelor and B. Alan Wallace. Will introduces a very human element drawing upon Stephen Schettini, who knew the men when all three were Vajrayana monastics together. <\/em><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/em>I found it a telling comment on many things, not least of which is the debate in contemporary and modernist Buddhisms over the centrality of the classic understandings of karma and rebirth. And what might actually fit the word \u201cclassic.\u201d But it goes even deeper by introducing the totally human part of debate. And I found it invites something worth noticing how and what we can know.<\/em><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/em>For me one among several conclusions out of this read is that the entire project really is a matter of investigating the mysteries of intimacy, of knowing as a discovery of unknowing, of letting go, of letting be, but with a deep and abiding conviction that all we need is found within presence.<\/em><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/em>But, perhaps you\u2019ll have a different take away. I suggest even if you\u2019re familiar with the debate, this will be worth a read.<\/em><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0Excerpt from Big Tent Buddhisms<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n Will Yaryan<\/p>\n The ideas of former Tibetan and Zen Buddhist monk Stephen Batchelor, author of the controversial Buddhism Without Beliefs, 48 have been especially contentious. The antipathy of traditional (although modernized) Buddhists toward secular Buddhists could be seen in the critical response Batchelor\u2019s views received from B. Alan Wallace.<\/p>\n They could be spiritual twins. Both went to Dharamsala, India, in the early 1970s to study at the Tibetan Works & Archives, after it was established by the Dalai Lama, and both ordained as monks. B. Alan Wallace from Pasadena, the son of a professor at a Baptist seminary, was three years older than Stephen Batchelor who was born in Scotland and raised by a single mother in a London suburb. Both were sent by the Dalai Lamai to Switzerland to study with Gesh\u00e9 Rabten, first at the Tibet Institute Rikon, then located at Le Mont-P\u00e8lerin, and later at the Swiss hamlet of Schwendi where they helped the contemplative Tibetan monk establish Tharpa Choeling (now Rabten Choeling). Joining them there was Stephen Schettini, who two years ago published a memoir, The Novice, with the subtitle \u201cWhy I Became a Buddhist Monk, Why I Quit, and What I Learned.\u201d<\/p>\n Wallace and Batchelor have become proponents of two seemingly diametrically opposed views of Buddhism. Wallace represents the traditionalists, and Batchelor the secularists, and their views were aired in a sometimes contentious exchange during the last year in the pages of Mandala, a quarterly published by the Foundation for the Preservation of the Mahayana Tradition (FPMT) established by followers of Lama Thubten Yeshe. Wallace began with \u201cDistorted Visions of Buddhism: Agnostic and Atheist,\u201d and Batchelor responded with \u201cAn Open Letter to B. Alan Wallace.\u201d Stephen Schettinni weighed in with his own reminiscences of the two one-time friends with \u201cAn Old Story of Faith and Doubt.\u201d Buddhist blogger Ted Meissner has also made extensive comments on his Secular Buddhist blog. This is no tempest in a teapot, but a serious discussion of fundamental differences between two prominent Western Buddhists that raises question about whether all \u201cbuddhisms\u201d can fit under the same big tent.<\/p>\n Wallace is not subtle, and comes out with both guns blazing. Calling Batchelor\u2019s opinions in numerous books \u201cridiculous,\u201d \u201cgroundless speculation\u201d and even \u201cillegitimate,\u201d he writes that his old colleague was \u201crecreating Buddhism to conform to his current views\u201d despite the \u201cconsensus by professional scholars and contemplatives throughout history,\u201d and ignoring the \u201cmost compelling evidence of what the Buddha taught.\u201d Wallace takes aim at Batchelor\u2019s ideas presented in Buddhism Without Beliefs (1997) and most recently in Confession of a Buddhist Atheist (2010), which show, Wallace argues, his \u201cstrong antipathy toward religion and religious institutions\u201d and his \u201cblind acceptance of materialist assumptions about consciousness.\u201d Wallace then pulls out his Weapons of Mass Destruction and links this \u201cscientific materialism\u201d with \u201cthe unspeakable tragedy of communist regimes\u2019 attempts to annihilate Buddhism from the face of the earth.\u201d (Granted, he piggybacks this on a critique of atheist Sam Harris who advocated the practice of Buddhism while making similar allegations against religion in general).<\/p>\n The real target of Wallace\u2019s over-the-top ire is undoubtedly Batchelor\u2019s denial of rebirth and karma. Wallace believes rebirth was central to the Buddha\u2019s teaching, and was a unique position for his time. Batchelor thinks it was a prevailing belief in the Indian worldview and that the Buddha neither affirmed nor denied it, but rather treated it as irrelevant. Wallace thinks his old comrade thus takes the \u201cillegitimate option to reinvent the Buddha and his teachings based on one\u2019s own prejudices.\u201d He says this is the route followed by Batchelor and \u201cother like-minded people who are intent on reshaping the Buddha in their own images.\u201d Wallace believes an experience of the Buddha\u2019s wisdom can be accessed through meditation, and he criticizes Batchelor\u2019s account for describing \u201cthe experiences of those who have failed to calm the restlessness and lethargy of their own minds through the practice of samadhi, and failed to realize emptiness or transcend language and concepts through the practice of vipashyana.\u201d<\/p>\n Near the end of his diatribe, Wallace calls Batchelor and Harris \u201cboth decent, well-intentioned men,\u201d but says their writings may be regarded as \u201cnear enemies\u201d of the true Buddhist virtues described by the commentator Buddhaghosa: loving-kindness, compassion, empathetic joy, and equanimity. Their view of the Buddha\u2019s teaching are \u201cfalse facsimiles of all those that have been handed down reverently from one generation to the next since the time of the Buddha.\u201d<\/p>\n Batchelor\u2019s response is more measured and collegial. He begins by apologizing for \u201cany offence I might inadvertently have caused you and others through my writing.\u201d He recognizes that his views might \u201cconflict with Buddhist orthodoxy\u201d and might seem \u201cpuzzling, objectionable and even heretical to followers of traditional Buddhist schools.\u201d His students, however, have included many frustrated by traditional forms of Buddhism who find themselves confronted with a \u201cChurch-like institution that requires unconditional allegiance to a teacher and acceptance of a non-negotiable set of doctrinal beliefs.\u201d Batchelor writes that he left the Tibetan monastery where they had been colleagues because \u201cI could no longer in good faith accept certain traditional beliefs.\u201d He then went to Korean to study as a monk in the Zen tradition\u201d which he found \u201crefreshing and liberating.\u201d<\/p>\n As for rebirth, Batchelor says, \u201cthe Buddha would have regarded this entire argument as being beside the point.\u201d Batchelor continues to study the Pali Canon, an authority on which both former monks agree, but they come to different conclusions about the meaning of suttas based on different selections and interpretation. Both cite the Kalama Sutta. Batchelor adds that \u201cthis is the only text I know of in the Pali Canon where the Buddha explicitly states that the practice of the Dharma<\/a> is valid and worthwhile \u2018even if there is no hereafter and there are no fruits of actions good or ill.\u2019 This is the closest he comes to an agnostic position on the subject.\u201d He notes also that he and Wallace both cite passages describing the Buddha\u2019s awakening. \u201cIt is hardly surprising that you select a Pali text that describes it in terms of remembering past lives, while I prefer to cite the accounts that don\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n Batchelor\u2019s view of the intractability of language is particularly galling to Wallace who quotes him as saying: \u201cWe can no more step out of language and imagination than we can step out of our bodies.\u201d This contradicts Wallace\u2019s certainty that experiences confirming his traditional view are gained through meditation and practice, outside of our linguistic cages. Batchelor sees this as an attempt to claim privileged insight into the texts.<\/p>\n \u201cThe Pali canon might be the most uncontested record of what the Buddha taught, but that doesn\u2019t mean it speaks in a single, unambiguous voice. One hears multiple voices, some apparently contradicting others. In part, this is because the Buddha taught dialogically, addressing the needs of different audiences, rather than imposing a single one-size-fits-all doctrine. And it is precisely this diversity, I feel that has allowed for different forms of the Dharma to evolve and flourish<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n I can think of no better words for a manifesto of \u201cBig Tent Buddhism.\u201d<\/p>\n Schettini, the ex-novice, has a unique perspective. \u201cAlan and Stephen were both elder monks and teachers in our little community, and so role models to the rest of us.\u201d The two shared close quarters but differed in temperament. He says Batchelor \u201cput on an air of nonchalance\u201d while Wallace seemed \u201cuncomfortable in his skin.\u201d Wallace is \u201ca loyal traditionalist and authority figure\u201d who feels \u201cboth qualified and responsible to state what is acceptable and what is not.\u201d On the other hand, Batchelor \u201cis more concerned about the plausibility of the teachings ascribed to the Buddha than dependent on whether or not he actually taught them.\u201d The crux of the difference, according to Schettini, is that \u201cwhat to Alan is historical fact is to Stephen debatable.\u201d Batchelor\u2019s rewriting of history and reconstruction of what\u2019s been \u201ctrue\u201d for traditional Buddhists \u201cundermines the august pretentions of scholarship and tradition and infuriates Alan.\u201d<\/p>\n What\u2019s troubling to Schettini about the exchange of his elder monks is that \u201cAlan questions Stephen\u2019s integrity. That\u2019s not debate; it\u2019s personal.\u201d Wallace\u2019s tone is unfriendly and rude, treating him as an upstart while claiming to be a paragon of correctness. \u201cAlan sees himself as representative of the tradition in a way that Stephen is not\u2026 I think that icons are important fixtures in the Dharma landscape and so are iconoclasts.\u201d Wallace\u2019s creed raises two important questions for Schettini: Are these teachings and people really sacred? Is Alan trying to keep Buddhism pure? He says Buddhism a religion for Wallace, and therefore sacred, but not for Batchelor. And the former novice agrees with Batchelor that purity is impossible. \u201cBuddhism is a construct.\u201d Can Western Buddhism not handle diversity? \u2013 he asks. As for himself, \u201cI lost faith in the scholarly illusion of the straight and narrow\u2026I don\u2019t know exactly what the Buddha taught. I wasn\u2019t there.\u201d<\/p>\n The great debate between Batchelor and Wallace puts in stark contrast the traditionalist and the secular incarnations of buddhisms. Traditionalists like Wallace abound; he publishes frequently, is leading a retreat in Phuket in Thailand as I write, and speaks and teaches his version of the dhamma around the globe. Batchelor, on the other hand, has spawned a generation of followers with his doubts about purity and the \u201ctrue\u201d tradition, gathering a new generation of hardcore, pragmatic and secular Buddhists to his orbit. Can the disciples of each all hang out together in today\u2019s \u201cbig tent Buddhism\u201d?<\/p>\n