Speculative Non-Buddhism

weaving a bloody tapestry of ruin

Archive for the ‘True Believers’ Category

Raises the Buddhist banner

Mindful Lobotomy

Posted by Glenn Wallis on February 10, 2012

Obedience to normalcy
is what lobotomies are for.—Crass

Someone sent me a link to Tricycle magazine’s “Daily Dharma” for February 3-10. My first response, when I get such links from the Buddhist glossies is to hit delete. Ready for some procrastination, though, I read this one.  The advice distilled in this “Wisdom Collection” confirmed a growing suspicion of mine:   meditation/mindfulness in present-day North America is hardly distinguishable from lobotomy.

Consider this. Among the “good results” of a prefrontal lobotomy are calming of obsessive-compulsive states; reduction of chronic anxiety; lessening of recursive introspection; amelioration of affective disorders; reduction of  feelings of inadequacy and self-consciousness; reduction of emotional tension. Sound familiar? Most significantly—Kabot-Zinnites take note!— prefrontal lobotomy

has also been used successfully to control pain secondary to organic lesions. In this case, the tendency has been to employ unilateral lobotomy, because of the evidence that a lobotomy extensive enough to reduce psychotic symptoms is not required to control pain. (My source for all of this is Leland E. Hinsie and Robert Jean Campbell [1970]. Psychiatric Dictionary. Fourth Edition. Oxford University Press.).

I am not saying that meditation has similar effects as a lobotomy. How could I? Pardon the pun, but “meditation” is nowhere near as cut and dry as “lobotomy.”  My point is that the contemporary western rhetoric of meditation/mindfulness suggests a similarity. In case you think my comparison of the two is overly cute (as opposed to merely cute), here are some pearls of wisdom from Tricycle’s “Daily Dharma.”

In “Finding Sense in Sensation,”  S. N. Goenka recommends that we attend to the “arising and passing” of sensation. Why? Well, precisely not to feel life more acutely; precisely not to be more alive to the rich, intricate textures of human existence. No. The “sense in sensation” is to “understand its flux,” in order to  “learn not to react to it.” Fuck that is my reaction. Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in Critics, True Believers | Tagged: , , | 86 Comments »

Feast, Interrupted

Posted by Glenn Wallis on December 27, 2011

A Review of B. Alan Wallace’s Meditations of a Buddhist Skeptic

In the following essay, Tom Pepper escorts B. Alan Wallace to The Great Feast of Knowledge. The Great Feast of Knowledge is a speculative non-buddhist trope intended to capture a scene where Buddhism’s representatives discuss their views and theories alongside of physics, art, philosophy, literature, biology, psychology, and other disciplines of knowledge. A central contention of speculative non-buddhism, of course, is that all forms of x-buddhism confuse knowledge of the world with discourses on knowledge of the world; and that we need a critical practice like The Great Feast to help us discern the difference. In such an exchange, Buddhism loses all status as specular authority. That loss is significant because it permits a consideration of Buddhism’s views on equal footing with the feast’s other participants.

On the surface of things, Pepper and Wallace seem to have much in common intellectually. Pepper, after all, is a literary scholar who characterizes himself as “a Buddhist who is also interested in philosophy of science.” Anyone who has read Wallace knows of his training in physics, philosophy, and religion. Indeed, as he writes on his website, Wallace sees himself as a “progressive scholar” who “seeks innovative ways to integrate Buddhist contemplative practices with Western science to advance the study of the mind.”

But the two thinkers, to my mind, could not be any more different. From a speculative non-buddhist view, the difference between them lies in their respective willingness and reluctance to engage thought in the service not of tradition’s validation, but of knowledge itself—even if, as Pepper points out, knowledge itself may have no discernible terminus.

But that’s just my view. Please, pull up a seat, and enjoy the feast!

Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in Speculative Non-Buddhist, True Believers | Tagged: , | 91 Comments »

Fanged Dialogue

Posted by Glenn Wallis on October 13, 2011

In sum

All X-Buddhisms are incapable of genuinely conversing with the sciences and the humanities. They are, furthermore, unable to comprehend themselves. For both, we need Speculative non-Buddhism (or something like it). All Buddhism can ever achieve is a Narcissus-like self-referential iteration of its self-given image—as this or that X-Buddhism. For Buddhism must at all costs preserve its majestic omen pontificator: “The Dharma,” Architect of the Cosmic Vault and the Keeper of its Inventory. Only by feigning dialogue at the Feast of Knowledge can Buddhism preserve itself. This is fanged dialogue.

*       *      *

In this post, I want to continue articulating the procedures of Speculative non-Buddhism. Because my method can appear abstract, it may help if I use a concrete example to get some traction. To that end, I want to refer to a recent article by Rita Gross called “Buddhist History for Buddhist Practitioners” (links at bottom).

Rita Gross is an exemplary Buddhist studies and feminist scholar. She is also a senior teacher in Shambhala Buddhism. I am not critiquing her article point by point here. What I am doing is extracting the major premise and the major conclusion, and then analyzing these to illuminate Speculative non-Buddhist theorems. Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in Accommodationists, Constructivists, Speculative Non-Buddhist, Traditionalists, True Believers | Tagged: , | 42 Comments »

Ted Meissner Responds to B. Alan Wallace

Posted by Glenn Wallis on May 12, 2011

I would like to draw further attention to a recent debate. This debate is important for several reasons. First, it reveals a real, a serious, and an ever-widening fault line within contemporary western Buddhism. Second, as such, it exposes the outline of two compelling narratives about Buddhism that, I suspect, will increasingly compete for the attention of prospective converts in the coming decades. Third, it highlights the rhetorical approaches, values, assumptions, agendas, and animating impetus behind each approach. Finally, it can be used to further illuminate my project here by contrasting an aporetic-speculative argument with one that seeks to stoke Buddhism’s charism.

Some background. In the October-December 2010 edition of Mandala Magazine, there appeared an article Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in Constructivists, Critics, Secularists, Traditionalists, True Believers | Tagged: , , , , | 21 Comments »

Post-traditional Buddhism Compared to Non-Buddhism

Posted by Glenn Wallis on May 6, 2011

Post-traditional Buddhism Compared to Non-Buddhism
Glenn Wallis

In a question posed to him regarding his recent Buddhist Geeks podcast, Hokai Sobol talks about what he terms “post-traditional Buddhism.” Below is a transcript of his answer, including an addendum made later. I thought his remarks might mark a good opportunity to clarify what I mean by “non-Buddhism.” I don’t mean for my comments to be a detailed critique of Sobol’s idea, or even much of a critique at all. Rather, I want to use his idea as a wedge, as a way to mark a distinction with what I am advocating. I will be brief and suggestive for now, drawing on what I wrote in the “What is Non-Buddhism” page.

Sobol, in the bio accompanying the podcast, says that he “is committed to the formulation of an authentic, no-nonsense spirituality for the 21st century.” Towards this end, he is working towards the development of what he calls “post-traditional Buddhism.” He articulates this form of Buddhism as follows: “post-traditional in the strict sense means evolving Buddhism beyond ethnocentric identities, parochial attitudes, and ideologically-based loyalties; in the broad sense it means also being alert to modern and ‘postmodern’ reactivity when it comes to spiritual principles of authority, verticality, and devotion.” While he advocates for the “post,” however, he by no means wants to rend this “post” from the tenuous yet tethering hyphen that separates it from “traditional.” In other words, he wants to “make a practice post-traditional without throwing the baby with the bath water of the tradition.”

Sobol’s post-traditional Buddhism, in other words, is careful to preserve tradition. It almost appears to come down to something like a generational divide. But, in this case, the younger generation is well-enough behaved; for Sokol sees a need to protect tradition from “modern and ‘post-modern’ reactivity.”

To both traditionalists and post-traditionalists, non-Buddhism must appear as ill-behaved to an extreme. Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in Critics, Post-traditionialists, Traditionalists, True Believers | Tagged: , | 6 Comments »

 
Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.

Join 78 other followers