Speculative Non-Buddhism
Buddhism in Ruin (Online)ruins of the buddhist real
This intensive online session revolves around the question, “What might we make of Western Buddhism today?” The question, of course, assumes that an intervention is necessary. Why? We will explore the contention that in aligning their tradition with the contemporary wellness industry, Western Buddhists evade the radical consequences of Buddhist thought. With concepts such as vanishing (anicca), nihility (shunyata), extinction (nirvana), contingency (paticcasamuppada), and no-self (anatman), Buddhism, like all potent systems of thought, articulates a notion of the “Real.” Raw, unflinching acceptance of this real is held by Buddhism to be at the very core of human “awakening.” Yet these preeminent human truths are universally shored up against in contemporary Buddhist practice, contravening the very heart of Buddhism. How does this contravention occur? And how might this disavowal be reversed? We can put the issue in Buddhist terms: how might a dedicated Buddhist once and for all “abandon the raft”?
Our text will be Glenn Wallis, A Critique of Western Buddhism: Ruins of the Buddhist Real. The critique of Western Buddhism in this text is threefold. It is immanent, in emerging out of Buddhist thought but taking it beyond what it itself publicly concedes; negative, in employing the “democratizing” deconstructive methods of François Laruelle’s non-philosophy; and re-descriptive, in applying Laruelle’s concept of philofiction as buddhofiction. Through applying resources of Continental philosophy to Western Buddhism, A Critique of Western Buddhism suggests a possible practice for our time, an “anthropotechnic”, or religion transposed from its seductive, but misguiding, idealist haven.
We will meet over Google Hangouts. A link will be provided on registration. Sign up for Google Hangouts here.
Facilitator: Glenn Wallis holds a Ph.D. in Buddhist Studies from Harvard University. He is the author of six books including Cruel Theory/Sublime Practice and Basic Teachings of the Buddha as well as numerous articles, chapters, and essays on various aspects of Buddhism per se and Western Buddhism in contemporary society. His most recent work, A Critique of Western Buddhism: Ruins of the Buddhist Real, employs the “non-philosophical” methods of French thinker François Laruelle. Wallis has taught at Brown University, Bowdoin College, and the University of Georgia. He is the founder of the blog Speculative Non-Buddhism.
Reading: Glenn Wallis, A Critique of Western Buddhism: Ruins of the Buddhist Real (London: Bloomsbury, 2019). A 
printable pdf file will be sent on registration. Bloomsbury has made the entire Introduction available. The following reviews will give you some idea of what the book is about:
Chaim Wigder, “Killing the (x-)buddha(ist subject): A Review of Glenn Wallis’ A Critique of Western Buddhism”
Matthew O’Connell, “A Review of A Critique of Western Buddhism: Ruins of the Buddhist Real”a
Annabella Pitkin, “A Clarion Call for Buddhism”
My response to Annabella Pitkin
My response to Ann Gleig on SNB
Nullity is freedom…this is one point that I think we disagree on. If I understand ‘Ruins’ correctly, you’re saying that: “vanishing (anicca), nihility (shunyata), extinction (nirvana), contingency (paticcasamuppada), and no-self (anatman)” adds up to an absolute nullity, and to insert anything into that empty space is to ‘cheat’ the nullity of its raw truth and power, to reneg and go back to ‘something’ that is more satisfactory. However, my interpretation is that all that emptiness means you’re free to do whatever you want. The Buddha had little to say about the social sphere–so do whatever works for the situation, like social anarchism. The Buddha had almost nothing to say about social justice. Good! Start the revolution, goddamnit! Educate, agitate, organize! as Dr. B. R. Ambedkar would say. The Buddha had nothing to say about aesthetics. Great! create whatever you want, there are no limits because there is no proscribed, predetermined good/bad right/wrong art. (and def. no religious art). There is no ‘you’–so make up whatever you want, create your own ‘personality drag’. Dress up in drag, change your sex/gender, name, life story–whatever. Nirvana is extinction–‘come back’ as something else entirely. Become an alien in your own country. But if Buddhism is ultimately non-productive, if emptiness is really sterile and utterly dead, then what’s the point? Last stop on the train, time to get off. I don’t want to waste my time on stuff that’s non-productive, and uncreative. I want to ‘play’ with Buddhism, and that’s how I utilize it to create a ‘Buddho-fiction.’ I’m not looking for ultimate truths of any kind. It’s metaphorical, not metaphysical. Buddhist emptiness or ‘space’ is room to play, imagine, create. Or maybe I’m not understanding your thesis at all. If so, I apologize, but maybe you could explain it better in light of my specific form of confusion.
” …. vanishing (anicca), nihility (shunyata), extinction (nirvana), contingency (paticcasamuppada), and no-self (anatman) ….”
I’m not a Buddhist, nor a Buddhist scholar. I do practice various kinds of meditation inspired by the so-called “Buddhist” tradition (among other things), and find it beneficial.
Not being a Buddhist scholar, I’m not all that invested in the terms quoted above, but I will say that it has been persuasively argued by many that all of these terms of absence are not what they seem to most folks — modern Westerners especially, perhaps.
The argument goes that all of these terms of absence (or lack) are a direct consequence of the “Buddhist” principle of Pratītyasamutpāda (dependent origination, dependent arising, contingency). They can be understood as pointing to something as everyday and ordinary as interdependence — but they are perhaps best understood as making a basic ontological claim (when ‘unpacked’ within Western philosophical terms and concepts).
That claim, it is argued, has been often dramatically misunderstood as sugggesting that things and beings don’t really exist (!). It is argued by some scholars that this is not in fact the case at all. What is absent or lacking is nothing more or less than the unchanging and/or independent self-existence of things and beings. In other words, it is understood that all of these ontological claims are ultimately singular and posit a single, singular proposition: that all beings and things have their being in process and relation.
It’s a process-relational ontology. So all the principle of Pratītyasamutpāda proposes is that beings (including selves) and things (objects) are fundamentally misunderstood when we see them as changeless or independently existing. (One can discover this by studying systems theory [theories] and ecology — but no one says “birds don’t exist” in ecology!)
In “Buddhism” there is some effort at creating conditions for “awakening” — which seems to me to amount to nothing more nor less than deeply experientially (not merely cognitively, but with one’s whole awareness) realizing that one does not exist as a separate, independent, unchanging self. This is basically a natural (not supernatural) psychological process and discovery. It’s got nothing to do with magic carpets or beans / beanstalks.
Above, I put “awakening” in the customary negative terms as what awakening reveals which is not the case. It can equally be put in positive terms: what actually is the case. (Just like we do when talking about the weather: It is raining; I am wet; It’s a cloudless day; I am dry. Nothing all that sophisticated or fancy. Positively stated, “awakening” is realizing that “I” exist in radical “interbeing” with everyone and everything, all of which is a dance of process and change. In “awakening” this realization is not merely cognitive assent but imbues the totality of one’s awareness and experience. Intellectual insight is not, of itself, “awakening”. Something more occurs on a deep psychological level (so to speak).
Perhaps it is time to demystify “Buddhism” so we can get on with living our extraordinary and ordinary lives?
“Date: Saturday, June 29, 2-6pm EST
Cost: $95. (Discounts available on request.)”
I’m delighted to know that discounts are available upon request, as $95 for four hours (multiplied by howevermany students) renders workshops of this sort inaccessible to a great many people.
Hi Shaun. I don’t think we disagree on this point. When you first acknowledge the raw truth that emptiness must remain empty, and then assert “emptiness means you’re free to do whatever you want,” that’s the makings of buddhofiction. It’s fiction because your axiom is, as you say: metaphorical, not metaphysical. It’s buddho because we employed an x-buddhist concept to stimulate this very discussion. That’s why I would not claim that “Buddhism is ultimately non-productive.” It’s way too productive!
Hi James. I have been practically giving away the seminars up to this point. If a seminar brings in, say, $500, I give around $400 to the facilitator and $50+ for expenses. I have paid out of my pocket for many of them. As soon as I created a pay-what-you-can model, virtually every participant paid $0-$20. Many of these low-payers were professionals and professors and Ivy League grad students. The chair of the art department at one of the most expensive private schools in the Philadelphia area paid $20 for a session. I could cite literally 50 additional such examples. Give an inch, they’ll take a yard. I will try online to generate some revenue. If people are unwilling to pay, I will soon close the entire project down. I will have to go back to full time teaching or something else and won’t have the time or energy or inclination for seminars. How wonderful it would be to operate outside of the circuit of money. But…
Thanks for sharing that, Glenn. I, of course, had no idea! But I have had a similar experience when offering my classes (I teach a practice which blends contemporary somatics and mindfulness meditation) on a voluntary donation basis. I have never charged a fee for my teaching and facilitating. Costs–space rental mainly–have always exceeded income. I’d make more money selling pizza, but that’d be a lot less fun!
Just to clarify: These seminars, online or in person, have absolutely nothing to do with “The Dharma” or with wellbeing or with anything resembling spiritual succor. They are sessions that anyone who has attended graduate school will recognize. We read shit, the facilitator opens with a presentation, and then we go at it with questions, comments, arguments, and all the rest.
Hmm. I find it at least a little bit odd that your seminar would be cleansed of any concern for well-being, as everything I know or can say which seeks to criticize capitalism and neoliberalism (which I gather you do you in your writings) has well-being (not the narcissistic aberation of that term) as key. Anyway, I can understand your suspicion and distaste around “The Dharma” and “spiritual succor” (sucker?). But I’ll keep the well-being. Thanks.
Dear Glenn, thanks for the awesome work with the SNB.
For the past four years I’ve dwelled in the world of x-Buddhism. Gil Fronsdal, Goenka, Alan B. Wallace, Ken McLeod, and Joseph Goldstein, you name it. I’ve visited SNB occasionally and got so absorbed with the discussion here. Writings really stir the s**t out of me every time. You know, with the tone and everything. But still I keep coming back as I consider it to be a pretty damn Buddhist thing to do. Tearing open again my spiritual wounds that I thought could be healed for good with a little bit of Dharma podcast and daily meditation practise. But nope, it all suffering again and I like it! Thank you for that.