[Buddha-l] ethnic Buddhism.

[Richard Hayes]

On Mon, 2008-06-23 at 09:00 -0400, Patricia Q. Campbell wrote:

> I'm sure this list has discussed this issue at length before I joined
> several months ago. But, regarding a recent post that mentioned
> Western Buddhism as 'non-ethnic' Buddhism:  please, please let's avoid
> such terms. Western Buddhism is just as ethnic as any other. It's just
> an ethnicity (we) westerners often fail to recognize as such.

Sangharakshita, founder of the notorious Western Buddhist Order, uses
the term "ethnic Buddhist" to designate a person who thinks of herself
as Buddhist by birth. It is not used as a term of disparagement but is
used to make a distinction (which may be quite a useful one) between a
person who follows a tradition more or less uncritically and habitually
and a person who follows a tradition through deep conviction. (In Quaker
tradition, such people are often called birthright Quakers. Since the
largest percentage of the Quaker population is now in Africa, I suppose
African Quakers might call birthright Quakers ethnic Quakers.)

Sangharakshita claims that the people he calls ethic Buddhists are not
in any way to be diminished, but that such a person's conviction may
have a different quality from that of a person who has chosen to be a
Buddhist after weighing many options. Needless to say, what he calls an
ethnic Buddhist may very well choose to be a Buddhist after weighing
other options and then be a "convert". (There is nothing to say that a
person cannot convert to the religion of his birth; indeed, is that not
exactly what is meant by being "born again" in Christian circles?)

I am inclined to follow John Dewey in thinking that making distinctions
can be quite valuable, so long as distinctions are not hardened into
false dichotomies. Making a distinction between an ethnic (or
birthright) Buddhist and a convert is useful so long as we do not fall
into thinking that Buddhist converts are not ethnic (which, as you point
out, would be false, since everyone is ethnic, except perhaps those wise
people who refuse to identify with the places of origin of their recent
ancestry or who know that if we go back far enough we are ALL Africans)
or that birthright Buddhists lack the sincerity of those who were born
outside of Buddhism and then adopted it by choice. 

> I use the term 'western Buddhists' to refer to people raised in
> non-Buddhist familial and cultural backgrounds, only because it is the
> term used and understood by the people I interview in my work.

If one can show that much latitude in the term "Western," could one not
show a similar latitude in the term "ethnic" (as Sangharakshita has
done)? After all, if one makes it clear how one is using a term, one can
liberate it from the grips of those tempted to be excessively literal in
their understanding.

> Might I recommend an article by Professor Victor Hori, "How do we
> Study Buddhism in Canada?" which will be coming out later this year in
> a text called Wild Geese: Studies of Buddhism in Canada. He addresses
> this issue very skillfully.

I look forward to seeing that. It was my experience in being Hori's
colleague for a decade or so at McGill that there is very little that he
does not do very skillfully. It will be interesting to me to discover
how I studied Buddhism in Canada (since I assume his "we" includes at
least a former version of me).

-- 
Richard Hayes
Department of Philosophy
University of New Mexico