[Buddha-l] Can Buddhism "evolve"?

[Piya Tan]

It's interesting how words work. The word "evolve" for example, usually
connotes some level
of "natural selection" which apparently applies to Buddhism it seeps into
the fabric of extra-
Indian societies, and is in turn transformed by the fabric itself into new
religions, albeit rooted
(even tenuously) in Indian Buddhism.

Some may say that Buddhism began to "devolve" outside India, or within India
itself after the
Buddha. Again here it depends who is saying it and what his intentions are.
An academic scholar
probably would be more interested in things "as they are", a descriptive
reporting so that some
kind of academic measuring is possible for debate and dissertation. The
traditional meditator
however would be quite happy with the old gold, the original McCoy, as it
were.

I have been reading about memes for some time now, and I think it is one of
the most fascinating
ideas we can use. Dawkins invented the term, and people like Susan Blackmore
are giving it a
Buddhist application (eg "Waking from the Meme Dream", in "The Psychology of
Awakening," 1999/2000), which I find very helpful in explaining some of the
more abstruse aspects of
Buddhism (like not-self).

Now the question that has arisen for me is this: if memes are simply selfish
replicators--they aim
only to perpetuate themselves--and all religious ideas and aspects are
memes, how is it that the
early Buddhist memes do not replicate themselves as well as or even better
than the indigenous memes of the foreign society? Is this because early
Buddhism is less memetic? Or that the indigenous religious or social memes
are stronger?

Blackmore does say that Buddhism (or at least some aspects of Buddhism)
helps us to get out
of the meme cycle (like good meditation, and of course awakening itself).

Piya Tan



On 5/26/07, Bob Zeuschner <rbzeuschner at adelphia.net> wrote:
>
> Indian Buddhism did *evolve* in China, and Japan, and Tibet.
> Chinese Buddhism tried to be Indian, but ultimately it was not Indian
> Buddhism.
> American Buddhists may try to identify with the traditions of their
> Ch'an, Zen, or Tantric founders, but I suspect American Buddhism will
> not be Japanese, Chinese, or Tibetan.
> But it may take a a few hundred years to evolve (I hope we have a few
> hundred years).
>
>
> curt wrote:
> >>
> > The key word (already emphasized by Chris) is "deliberately". Often
> > people who are interested in such deliberations are fond of
> > "evolutionary" metaphors ("Buddhism must evolve" - or some such
> > nonsense).
>
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