[Buddha-l] Re: Buddhist Charities (was Will new the pope verify...

[Andrew Skilton]

Richard Hayes (re charitable activity amongst Buddhist groups):
>What one really needs to get a complete picture is what larger outfits are up to. 

Revealing my woeful ignorance, is anyone out there constructing such a picture?

>My mission in life is to get everyone to convert from Windows to Linux.

OS8.6 to OSX is enough for me nowadays.

>My impression has been that Western Buddhists like to think of themselves as not being 
>at all interested in proselytizing, because they like to think of themselves as being as 
>unlike Christians as possible. But my impression is that Western Buddhists are in fact 
>deeply interested in proselytizing and are mostly in denial about that fact. 

Again from my limited experience, I agree that most Western Buddhists whom I have met who are actively involved in a Buddhist organisation, are often profoundly obsessed by proselytizing. 'Lone' or unaffiliated Buddhists have seemed rather different in this respect. While those so obsessed may not have had much perspective on this obsession, I am not sure that they were/are exactly 'in denial' regarding it. I have witnessed too many explicit discussions of the subject, not to mention recruitment campaigns etc., among Buddhist colleagues to go that far. There were even times, in the circles in which I moved, when any lack of interest in proselytizing was regarded as evidence of 'falling away from the faith'! (and I recall a time when the founder of the group I was involved with opined that one in twenty people on the street were 'ripe' for recruitment and it was our job to go out and get them.)  

But on reflection it does occur to me that my suggested link between economic necessity and recruitment is an incomplete explanation (and was not intended to be complete) and also the least interesting potential explanatory factor.  I suspect that another if not the major factor contributing to such an obsession is the need to replicate in others the newly constructed self-identity of the convert as a form of validation.  I have seen this conversion obsession fade after some time (several years?), perhaps as the convert's new identity becomes more solid (or fades away in its turn), although there are also those in whom that need appears not to fade * perhaps because of the fragility or grandiosity of the self-identity that they have constructed?  And there are always those for whom recruitment feeds or supports their institutional status, this in turn reflecting a host of other possible personal needs.  

The pressure to recruit, however motivated, can be seen as influencing further features of groups who heavily proselytize. Attention inevitably focusses on those most easily recruited * young, single, male(?), disaffected, etc. etc. (I'm not sure of this suggestion or where it goes...but it is all probably spelt out in 'an introduction to conversion studies for high school students'.)

Another possibly unrepresentative observation is that such organisations tend to be constantly renewed from within through the raising of relatively young recruits (young in any of several senses) while older and more experienced folks drift or step towards * if not beyond - what might be described as the institutional periphery.  The constant supply of tender identities running the show ensures a continuing concern with further recruitment.

Richard's comments re Christianity seem also to be close to the mark, and certainly in my experience I would say that many UK Buddhists I have met have been in denial regarding their resemblance to Christian churches in this respect * and maybe in others, despite sometimes belligerent denials of the fact. Interestingly, I was always struck by the fact that the founder of the group in which I garnered most of my experience was (and still is?) explicity set against his organisation being the subject of any sociological observation or study, and a policy of extreme caution if not non-cooperation was implemented as a result.  An obvious interpretation of this position is that thereby the group itself is protected from external observations and the potential for greater collective self-awareness remains unrealised and blind spots unexamined.  All rather like a fragile individual writ large...

Mind you, I strongly suspect that this analysis is well-worn territory in '(religious) conversion studies'. I am woefully ignorant of any critical work on the psychology of conversion in Western Buddhist groups.

>One issue that has concerned me a lot for a long time is the way in which individuals... >have dedicated almost all their time, energy and money into working for Buddhist (and >other non-Christian) organizations that either fold or lack the resources to take care of >these individuals when they become old or sick. They end up having no retirement funds, >no health care and no resources to provide for a dignified senility. In a country like the >USA, where every herring hangs by its own economic tail and where the very idea of >society taking care of individuals in need is increasingly under attack, this is a very >serious problem.

Assuming that this is made in connection with my rather eliptical comment about Buddhist responses in the UK being to some extent determined by living in a welfare state, I think it is worth commenting that as far as I know the situation in the US that Richard bewails in his post is very similar in the UK. My point was not so much that there is in the UK a welfare system that will look after dedicated 'dharma farers' at the end of their usefulness to their group, but more that, despite the increasingly serious erosion of welfare benefits here since the 1980s, UK society in the second half of the C20th allowed people to think that they will and should be looked after even if they take no economic responsibility for themselves throughout their active economic life! The result in my view is too many Buddhists who have effectively constructed themselves as needy and/or economically incapable as a result of their Buddhist practice and consequently exploit the hard-pressed resources of the broader community. I have no idea how representative the exploitation of welfare benefits is of the majority of UK Buddhist groups (or those in other welfare societies), but my own experience suggests that without the support of welfare benefits some UK Buddhist organisations would have been far less apparently 'dynamic'. All that aside, I'm sorry to read that US Buddhists end up in such straits (anaatha) without even the delusion that the state will protect them. 

>On the whole I find the picture of Buddhism in the West pretty discouraging.

Hmmmm, certainly a mixed bag...but there is a lot of goodwill, a lot of hard work, a lot of idealism, and probably a lot of personal benefit achieved. Perhaps some of these not always directed along the best channels...  Despite the tenor of my comments I am profoundly grateful to have met with Buddhism, even initially in a Western manifestation, and have no doubt that many others are too. 

Andrew Skilton