Return to authenticity

Eastern Buddhism may find some cures for technological and scientific materialism from Buddhism’s new homes in the Western world

Published: 31/03/2009 at 12:00 AM

Newspaper section: Outlook

http://www.bangkokpost.com/leisure/leisurescoop/14293/return-to-authenticity

At a time when many Thai Buddhists are feeling increasingly hopeless over clerical apathy, monks’ acts of misconduct and society’s fierce worship of materialism, contemporary Buddhism in the Western world may help to provide some innovative answers.

At least that is what Prof Craig Warren Smith believes. Currently in Thailand as a visiting lecturer at the Chulalongkorn University Centre for Ethics of Science and Technology, the former professor at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University says reformers in various professional fields in the West have drawn their inspirations from Buddhist mindfulness.

“In management, for example, Edward Deming drew from Zen monastic practices to formulate Total Quality Management in the 1980s,” he says. “More recently, MIT professors Peter Senge and Otto Sharma drew from Zen Buddhist principles to bring ideas about ‘learning organisations’ into management.”

Meanwhile, Robert K. Greenleaf helped to establish the field of corporate leadership through his book Servant Leadership which conveys principles of Mahayana Buddhism.”

Concurrently, the Shambhala Institute has been a gathering point for those who wish to link Buddhist meditation with management, while Daniel Goldman, a student of HH the Dalai Lama, introduced the concept of emotional intelligence that has had wide application in management and education, says Prof Smith.

In economics and development, His Majesty the King’s ‘sufficiency economy’ and Bhutan’s Gross National Happiness can be traced back to E.F. Schumacher’s famous Small is Beautiful, which has a chapter on Buddhist economics.

Similarly, many of the “thought leaders” in the field of sustainable development are practising Buddhists or are influenced by Buddhist ideas, he says.

“Nobel laureate in economics Amartya Sen’s Development as Freedom also drew heavily from the Buddhist kingdom of Ashoka to criticise the Lee Kuan Yew (Singaporean) doctrine of authoritarian economics that has been embraced by China and other Asian countries,” he adds.

In health care, Sogyal Rinpoche’s Tibetan Book of Living and Dying has greatly influenced health care professionals’ approach to the experience of death and dying.

“Many concepts of wellness and preventative medicine also involve mindfulness training,” he adds.

Among the pioneers in this field is Jon Kabat-Zinn of the University of Massachusetts Medical School. Himself a meditation teacher, his introduction of stress-reduction techniques through mindfulness practices 20 years ago have now become widely accepted.

Meanwhile, the Dalai Lama’s interaction with leading neuroscientists has led to the formulation of a field called contemplative neuroscience that links neuroscience innovations with Buddhist practices, he explains. In the field of education, he names the Naropa Institute as a main driver of contemplative education in the West which was later welcomed by educators around the world.

Buddhism, he adds, has helped to shift the focus of educational reform from formal education to the shaping of informal learning processes and inner growth through mindfulness. Many thinkers have also drawn from Buddhism for their critiques of modern science for glorifying matters while disregarding the mind.

One of them was Francisco Varela, who passed away in 2001, he says. “He was an innovator in biology with a Harvard PhD who drew from Buddhist principles to criticise the scientific method.” Apart from setting up “first person science” based on Buddhist abhidharma and sutras as well as Western phenomenology, Varela also founded the Mind and Life Institute,which mixes Buddhist viewpoints with science.

Another leading critic of mainstream science is Alan Wallace. A former monk and translator for the Dalai Lama, his works help to deconstruct the sanctity of mainstream science by exposing “scientific materialism”. These pioneers are part of the contemporary Buddhist movement in the West that Prof Smith is also part of. An expert in the field of spiritual computing, he is working with the technology labs of many computer giants to bring Buddhism-inspired principles into the design of next-generation software to answer the spiritual needs of surfers.

All these reformist initiatives are a result of the West’s embrace of core Buddhist teachings and practices in the past century. When planted on Western soil, which does away with the cultural influences of the East, contemporary Buddhism is forced to return to the essence of its teachings and tradition to reveal and uproot materialism.

In modern times, such materialism is the union of technology/science/consumerism. Following in the footsteps of Buddhism’s age-old tradition, contemporary Buddhism in the West seeks to undo this union. Buddhism in the West has emerged not as a quiescent movement but has become a positive force and an instrument of reform, he says.

“It expresses itself in largely hidden ways through innovative ideas and methods that are transforming society. “These innovative ideas are now impacting Asia. And it is causing reformers to draw upon Asia’s Buddhist roots in new ways,” he adds.