Tricycle | Awake in the World

Today all the great religions are struggling to remain relevant in a modern world intoxicated by the appeal of consumerism. Buddhism, a quiet, apparently weak religion, has been losing ground over many decades in its own Asian homelands. Though evidently overmatched, Buddhism may well have hidden resources, adaptive features that could counteract the subtle messages of the Market. For one, today’s global village of consumers, increasingly alienated from their traditional world, may turn out to be fertile soil for the seeds of Buddhist thought to take root. We live a decentered existence, alienated from our natural environment and disembedded from our traditional communities, interconnected instead by invisible networks of communication, information, and trade in a virtual world that is at once inescapably present yet utterly insubstantial. The constantly shifting ground of this “advanced economy” has become a kaleidoscope through which we directly experience the insubstantiality, the transitoriness, and the dissatisfactory nature of all worldly life. And it isn’t just the virtuality of modernity that offers itself to the Buddhist view. The very unleashing of desire that fuels the consumerist vehicle can end up driving individuals down two possible Buddhist roads. For many, like Shakyamuni himself, the unhindered indulgence in objects of desire leads to the discovery that sensual gratification is not a reliable path to happiness. For the mind that is ripe and self-reflective, affluence undermines its own false promises, and many Westerners have come to Buddhism from disillusionment in the successful pursuit of worldly gratification. That disillusionment is the first phase of renunciation.

The second road is the tantric path, where the fuel of desire—produced in such abundance by the perpetual pump of consumerism—is poured directly into the fire of emptiness blazing in the furnace of a wisdom consciousness. As Lama Yeshe, who had a deep understanding of the Western context, put it, “The path of tantra is essentially one of transformation, and the principle of transformation of energy—on a material level at least—is well understood in the West. While the great explosion of desirous energy in this century is considered to be a serious obstacle to most spiritual paths, it is actually helpful for the practice of tantra, where desire is the fuel propelling us to our highest destination” (Introduction to Tantra, London, 1987, p. 26).

Does the dharma really need our protection? Does the ultimate truth need protection? If we really understand the dharma and its transformative power, isn’t every seed planted in every mind—regardless of the medium that delivers it—one more opportunity for awakening? When the consumerist beast bites down on this jewel, what will break, the diamond or the demon’s teeth? In the end, the question of the commodification of Buddhism comes down to a question of “who’s zoomin’ who”? Which way of life, Buddhism or consumerism, is stronger, vaster, more stable and encompassing? Which has the expansive power to co-opt and use the other to reproduce itself without itself mutating into the other?

Are there any guiding principles that can help contemporary Buddhists influence the direction of this process? Though the mantra of those engaged in creating modern Buddhism is “preserve the essence, abandon alien cultural artifacts,” the truth is that no one controls the outcome, because religions, like languages, evolve along their own unpredictable paths. Only time will tell what forms Western Buddhism will take. What is demanded of those who seek to preserve the authentic teachings is continuous mindfulness of the central values of the tradition, and a present awareness of the context in which we live and practice.

The values of renunciation, altruistic concern for the welfare of others, and realization of interdependence are by their very nature a revolutionary threat to consumer capitalism. The Market responds by co-opting and commodifying the social structures that express those values. Waking up to this tension leads us to questions that the monotheistic religions have been struggling with for centuries, but which most modern Buddhists have avoided: Is modern capitalism, with its retinue of social injustice, militarism, and environmental destruction, ultimately incompatible with the Buddhist way of being in the world? And if it is, what is a good Buddhist to do about it?

Those who work in the arena of socially engaged Buddhism have begun to grapple with these issues, but for the most part Western practitioners have sought in the dharma a refuge from the painful and seemingly intractable social ills that surround us. For Buddhists in the developed world, waking up to our true nature may have to include the recognition that our very leisure and fortune to pursue the dharma is dependent on a global economic system that leaves hundreds of millions of other people—with whom we are inseparably interconnected—wretchedly poor, hungry, and exploited. To turn our face away from the homeless beggar on our street corner because we are late for meditation may illustrate the most elegant finesse of the Market: to sell us a Buddhism that is so otherworldly and self-absorbed that we withdraw from the struggle to build a better world, and by default leave the Market to reign in every realm save that one little corner of our own mind.

Based on a wise understanding of our circumstances, we must bring skillful means to bear on the project of actually leading all beings out of suffering. This means drawing on the precious resources that Buddhism offers the world: its penetrating analysis of the sources of greed, self-grasping, and hatred, and its powerful methods for transforming the ingrained delusion that we are isolated from other beings into the direct experience of our interconnectedness.

If contemporary Buddhists wish to preserve the values that lie at the core of the tradition, if we seek to create a Western Buddhism that is at once true to the intention of the Buddha and appropriate to modern conditions, we must proceed with a clear-eyed awareness of the social, political, and economic context in which we live and practice. Once we awaken to where we are, we must take the responsibility to transform that world into a matrix of opportunity for wisdom and compassion, not just for ourselves but for all others. To purify and transform both our inner and outer conditions in this way is of course a very long-term project, one that faces many obstacles and will require continuous vigilance and persevering effort—not unlike and not separate from the struggle for personal liberation. ▼

David Patt is the author of A Strange Liberation: Tibetan Lives in Chinese Hands. He is currently editing Steps on the Path to Enlightenment: The Lam Rim Chenmo Commentary of Geshe Sopa, for Wisdom Press.

Images © A. Trayne; Anjali jacques Oule.