Comments on “Why Westerners rebranded secular ethics as "Buddhist" and banned Tantra”

I suspect that the Tibetans and ancient indian Buddhists may have had some of the same issues, hence the famous Padmasambhava quote, here quoted by Khenpo Namdrol “My view is more vast than the sky, but my conduct is as fine as the smallest grain of sand.” We should not abandon the most subtle teachings on karma, the law of cause and effect. Following this advice, the gurus of the past also held the view that was greater than the sky, but followed the conduct prescribed by the teachings on cause and effect.”. As one rises through the vehicles one should not outwardly abandon the earlier vehicles for a number of reasons, clearly illustrated by the messes caused when this principle is abandoned. The more one is representing a formal Buddhism the more one must outwardly abide by these principles. The more one rises through the vehicles and the more one lives as a secret yogi the more one may live by the higher principles. A dzogchen yogi should be indistinguishable from a regular person or practitioner, unless one is clearly a crazy wisdom yogi, or a chodpa in those societies and everybody knows what you are up to, but that is not without its risks. This is one of the reasons for the practices to be secret and that they should not be openly discussed as this brings a number of risks for everybody involved. If one can not abide by these.guidelines then it is might be best for one not to be given the opportunity to ruin ones life and the reputation of ones religious community. In one sense the Dalai Lama’s proscription against tantra may have been shrewd. If Tantra is outwardly banned then its practitioners will have to be more secretive about it, as they should have been, for good reasons. If nobody suspects that you are a tantric then you won’t be being watched and publicly mocked, as the community can say “oh, we don’t do that stuff, we follow this mahayana stuff. We don’t know what you’re talking about”. Unfortunately, throwing out Tantra was going way too far. The Dalai Lama himself comes from a heavily Mahayana sutric tradition of Tantra so it is no surprise where he would put his emphasis. Still, what may be a little crazy about this idea is that I personally think that tantra and dzogchen/mahamudra (the inner view of tantra, really) is the view most suitable for the modern world on many levels. I can’t really see the appeal of the lower vehicles except as truly necessary developmental tools. Still, they are not places to stop. However, if one has not gotten these lessons elsewhere then they are absolutely necessary developmental exercises. I often, however, run into plenty of people who shake their head at tantra and say that that tantra stuff is silly, degenerate, and full of useless ritual and superstition. Then they will often state a view of the world that belongs to tantra and dzogchen/mahamudra, while at the same time promoting the practices and teachings that stand in complete opposition to it. A lot of westerners really need to do some more thinking and reading. Of course very few of them have ever actually read many of these texts. BTW, I like your idea of the goal being the development of Nobility, that sounds about right, and suitably undegenerate in orientation- a positive vision instead of the typical view of tantra as the rejection of norms.

Ah yes, Tsok – memory lane. It was my questioning comments on that post, that caused Aro Tantrist Buddhists to reject my application to study with their teacher. How dare I question tantra ethical techniques.

It was ironic, that when I met practicing tantrists in person I found several bad mouthing each other’s behavior during the ritual that flouts the traditional Buddhist morality against nudity – a supposedly liberating practice. Yet these same people condemned my doubts and way of expressing my doubts.

In the end, one could declare Tantric ethical systems as higher than liberal leftist ethics, but for me, this is an empirical claim. No matter how reasonable something sounds, I want it tested over time. We should be able to test if people change differently operating (supposedly) under different systems. My suspicion is that they don’t. But I have no more evidence there than those claim otherwise. – Remember the studies showing the Ethic Professors act no differently than us unsophisticated folks.

Concerning your contention that the Insight Meditation Society has imposed a Consensus Buddhism on the West and by extension, Buddhists all over the world; let’s look at the numbers:

According to the IMS website, 20,000 people receive some sort of IMS publication: email, newsletter, books.
IMS can only accommodate about 3,000 people annually in their North American retreat and study centres.

Buddhists worldwide: approx. 500 million
Buddhists as percentage of world population: 7 to 8 percent

China has the largest population of Buddhists in raw numbers, approx. 244 million or about 18% of its population. Most Chinese Buddhists practice Mahayana or Chan Buddhism. Japan has either 45 or 85 million Buddhists (Pew vs. ARDA), either 36 or 67% of its population. Most Japanese Buddhists are Mahayana.

The countries with the highest percentages of Buddhism per population are all Theravada countries (except Bhutan and Mongolia: Vajrayana), 50% or higher: Cambodia, Thailand, Myanmar-Burma, Sri Lanka, Laos.

US has just under 4 million Buddhists, or 1.3 percent
UK has 196,000 Buddhists, or 0.4 percent.
Canada as 500,000 Buddhists, or 1.5 percent
Australia: 467,0000 or 2.1 percent
North America: 1.1 percent
Europe: 0.2 percent

According to a demographic analysis reported by Peter Harvey (2013):
• Eastern Buddhism (Mahayana) has 360 million adherents;
• Southern Buddhism (Theravada) has 150 million adherents; and
• Northern Buddhism (Vajrayana) has 18.2 million adherents.
• Seven million additional Buddhists are found outside of Asia.

So of the 7 million Buddhists found outside of Asia, twenty-thousand have some connection to Insight Meditation Society, even if it’s no more than receiving emails from the organization.

By contrast, 378 million have no connection with any Theravada tradition.

Of the 150 million who practice in a Theravada tradition, only twenty-thousand are even casually connected to Insight Meditation Society, that is, 0.013%, barely a blip on a global scale.

So while I appreciate the disproportionate power that certain spokespersons from IMS might have, at 0.013 percent of Buddhists, in no way do they represent a worldwide consensus of what Buddhism is about.

The 150 million Theravada Buddhists might vigorously disagree with the idea that the Insight Meditation Society resembles or represents their religious practice in any way. I currently practice in a Theravada tradition from Sri Lanka, taught by Sinhalese monks, in which the main meditation practice is not vipassana, but metta bhavana. Being a sangha of immigrants from Sri Lanka, it bears little resemblance to the white wealthy western converts of the Insight Meditation Society, either in culture or practice.

Correction: 20,000 is 0.0000133% of 150,000,000 of Theravada Buddhists; and 0.00028571% of 7,000,000 Buddhists “outside of Asia”. I never was very good at math.

Total Buddhists in US, UK, Canada, Australia, (i.e. predominantly white, english-speaking countries): roughly 5 million. How many of these are Insight or some western version of Theravada? You’re saying one million or more are somehow “influenced” by or aligned with Consensus Buddhism. But you do not present any kind of rigorous statistical model for how you arrived at the one million. One million X “factor of 3” equals 3 million, more than half of the Buddhists in said countries, many of whom are immigrants and not the “Consensus” profile. One million X “factor of 10” equals twice as Buddhists than currently exist in said countries, 10 million vs. 5 million.

What datasets did you use? What is your method of sampling? Are you over-counting, by counting all those who get emails from IMS + read a Jack Cornfield book + attended an MBSR retreat, who might be the same people? I really appreciate sociological analysis of religious phenomena, but it has to be supported by empirical evidence.

Because you’ve create this boogeyman called “Consensus Buddhism” which is supposed to have taken over Western Buddhist practice and suppressed everything else, and imposed this silly thing called “western ethics” on everybody. But when you actually look at the numbers of people who might be involved with this “consensus buddhism” it’s a vanishingly small number of people, less than 100,000, if that, compared with the 7 million Buddhists “outside of Asia”, the 150 million Theravadins, and the 380 million Mahayana/Vajra practitioners. Conclusion: who cares what they think? who gives a shit? They don’t represent me as a western Buddhist. In fact, like you, I am very critical of what they teach. And furthermore, their ethical or moral positions are far better explained as a function of CLASS STATUS than it is by some other cultural factor, e.g. Californian, feminist, etc. I agree with you that they use Buddhism to wave some kind of flag showing that they belong to this exclusive group, but they don’t take any effective action based on their supposed ethics or morals. Such action requires taking political risks, tolerating conflict, fomenting dissent and being “not nice.” Instead, they actually use Buddhism to exempt themselves from amy moral, ethical or social responsibility.

Why do you want tantra to be included in “Mindfulness Mayo?” As I asked you before, do you want something as complex and nuanced as Tantra to be homogenized into a marketable product like “consensus Buddhism”? If I were a tantra practitioner, I would be glad that they left my form of practice out of that mush.

David, there seems to be an East Coast / West Coast thing happening here. I was chatting with Foster Ryan, who is actually a friend of mine, originally from New England. He was saying that in Los Angeles, he confronts the “Consensus” all the time. People talk about it, it seems to infect conversations about Buddhism in every sector. This is apparently a West Coast problem. I live on the East Coast, and I don’t mean Boston. I mean Atlantic Canada, Halifax, Nova Scotia. You have to believe me when I tell I have never heard anyone talk about a “consensus” here. I have never read “One Dharma” or Jack Kornfield’s books, and I don’t know anyone who has. The only “consensus” is the near total domination of Shambhala, which is Vajra. Their international headquarters is here, and they own huge amounts of property all over the island. People on the East Coast are Traditionalists. The Zen is really strict Soto Zen, none of this Brad Warner stuff. Theravada is an Asian immigrant form, with no trace of West Coast pop-psychology. Even East Coast IMS is traditional. The Barre Centre in Massachusetts split with the West Coast IMS precisely because of their rejection of the “consensus”. They insisted on a traditional Thai Forest practice. So that’s why I didn’t understand this frustration with the “Consensus” and I didn’t even know what it was—I have never experienced it here. But you should also understand that the “Consensus” doesn’t hold everywhere. It’s a California thing.

From my perspective, buddhism has no ground for moral values at all. When the underlying principle is that everything is emptiness, then everything that comes from this notion is irelevant. So everything you will count as a buddhist morality will come from someone somwhere saying “I think it should be like this”. And this will work to the extent, that if someone actualy practice, at some point it will be seen through and abandoned(?).
In Christianity, everything springs from the notion that there is an unique soul in everyone. This is a solid base (even if false, becouse it is unsolvable) - becouse it is creating a pernament value, to build morality on.

Hi David, this revelation came as a tremendous shock to me. To me the DL was always a ‘good guy’; I had no idea he was trying to kill Tantra. The best way to lose a tradition is to make it secret, and that is effectively what he did by his decree. Of course, then the westerner ‘buddhists’ went and formed a secret vigilante group to track and harass suspected Tantrikas. I have been a Tantrik since birth; my mom was one of the first practicing Tantra in the west. I have been on the receiving end of online abuse, death threats, even physical violence orchestrated by that group. I have evidence to back up these allegations. Would like to consult with you on an appropriate course of action.

Hi there, I just came across this site and am devouring it. I would like to know more about what you called the Dalai Lama’s agenda with respect to the “Open Letter” conference. Couldn’t find the referenced “Buddhist Geeks” podcast.

My overarching interest, and what led me to your site, is that I’m trying to understand why so many prominent Buddhist commentators seem to buy into superficial, mainstream news narratives regarding current world events. If they really want to implement compassion, it seems they should spend the time and energy going down rabbit holes of independent media rather than swallowing wholesale the propaganda coming from corporate mockingbird press on issues such as COVID, Ukraine, climate change, etc. I think your series on Buddhist ethics (or lack thereof) goes a long way toward explaining this; that is, there is a blanket imperative to feel compassion but with no guidance on ethical implementation. Further, I think the self-flattery of “I’m a compassionate person” tends to blind good people to any awareness of the deeper narratives and agendas relating to things like COVID. “I’m too virtuous to ‘question the science’.” I call it “the blindness of goodness”. But–and now I will fully out myself as a conspiracy realist–I also wonder if people like the Dalai Lama are not simply blinded by goodness but rather are consciously onboard with a technocratic, eugenicist population control agenda which they have convinced themselves is the only ethical way for humanity to proceeed.
So I’m looking for that missing link, but also any insight into my overall theme here. And I’m definitely not interested in hearing uninformed opinions from people who have yet to question official COVID narratives and therefore have no idea what’s going on. They are a lost cause almost three years into this.