[Buddha-l] Bourgeois Buddhism

[Franz Metcalf]

Dear Richard et al.,

You focused the debate onto one point, one question, a very provocative one:

> I'm just asking what lies behind the suspicion of
> scholarship. It seems, well, not terribly Buddhist
> to me.

I think you're correct to intuit that this suspicion is not intrinsically Buddhist. But of course I'd quickly have to add that that intuition presupposes knowing what *is* Buddhist. And that was the originating question leading to your remarks. So there's a circular quality to any possible answer to the question, as Bob Woolery pointed out, earlier in this thread. (Or is petitio principii? It's been a good long time since I played with logical terms.)

I think there's something American in this suspicion. Note that it has been voiced here by an American and most powerfully rebutted by a European. So that's one factor behind the suspicion. Another surfaced in a back-and-forth we had here in January 2010, contained in the threads "'Western Self, Asian Other'," and "Response: Western Self, Asian Other." Both these arose out of responses to an article written by Natalie Quli in the JBE <http://blogs.dickinson.edu/buddhistethics/files/2010/05/quli-article.pdf>.

In a paper I wrote, soon after, I responded to this idea, promoted by Quli rather differently than it was here, that we are not, as scholars, to legitimize or delegitimize forms of (non)Buddhism. I append my words, in case anyone wants to dive in. The brief version is that we as Western scholars should not decide what is Buddhism because such decisions perpetuate colonialist discourse. Here is how she puts it:

> Although issues of “real” Buddhism and “counterfeit” Buddhism may be reasonable and important for Buddhists themselves, it is not our job as scholars to make such determinations. Our role is to describe and understand Buddhists—of whatever persuasion. To do otherwise is to attempt to silence the native, the old colonialist strategy of controlling the native through controlling her history, ensuring that only elite, academic experts have the knowledge necessary to “speak” for Buddhism (Quli 2009, 15).


Cheers,

Franz

=====

So now we come to the question that hits closest to home. Am I usurping the rightful place of my interpreters to legitimize themselves and their practices as “Buddhist”? Am I allowed to be part of a Buddhist (de)legitimization process? I submit that I am. Not that my judgment is right, still less that it alone is right. Mine is merely one voice among many. It does not silence [Genpo Roshi's] or any of his admirers’, neither in intention nor in application.
 
My authority arises from considerable familiarity not only with the Zen tradition, but with practice in the [White Plum Asanga], and with an education in what constitutes Buddhism. This understanding of Zen is very different from, but in some ways not inferior to, that of full time practitioners in that lineage. Following Charles Prebish (Prebish 2002, 78-79), I am a “scholar-practitioner,” the contemporary position analogous to the gantha-dhura bhikkhu, scholar-monk, a position that traditionally afforded considerable freedom of critique. The devil in pushing this parallel is in the details of just where in the Buddhist tradition the gantha-dhura calling and the scholar-practitioner calling fall. I thank Ms. Quli (email communication, February 26, 2010) for alerting me to the possible danger in stretching this laicized scholar-practitioner parallel too far. It is one thing to call Thanissaro Bhikkhu a scholar-practitioner: he is a gantha-dhura bhikkhu. But, regarding Zen, what about Taigen Dan Leighton Sensei, or Brian Daizen Victoria, or Duncan Ryūken Williams? Each situates himself differently within the tradition, but all are ordained Zen Buddhist priests. Then there is me without even jukai. Is my critique less legitimate? Since I lack a public, long term, traditional identity, should my critique be subjected to a stricter hermeneutic of suspicion? Even if we say “no,” there are further questions:
 
> Who can and should do such critical, constructive work on behalf of current Buddhist traditions? What supervision should they have, from teachers and communities, Buddhist and academic? What norms of traditional and modern learning should they have, and from whom should they acquire them? What settings will they work in? (Makransky 2008, 146-147).
 
Am I the right person to this critical-constructive work? Now? Here?
 
These questions demand further reflection. In addition, the category of scholar-practitioner tends to efface the border between subject and object of study. Neither Genpo nor I are, fundamentally, fixed entities either inside or outside the borders of anything. Letting go of such essentializations legitimizes greater freedom for the “other” as well as the “self.” For now, I reserve the right—precisely parallel to the right Ms. Quli assigns to self-defined Buddhist practitioners—to call my own role and work as a Buddhist scholar “legitimate.”

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Makransky, John. 2008. “The Emergence of Buddhist Critical-Constructive Reflection in the Academy as a Resource for Buddhist Communities and for the Contemporary World.” Journal of Global Buddhism 9 (2008): 113-153.

Prebish, Charles S. 2002. “Studying the Spread and Histories of Buddhism in the West” in Westward Dharma: Buddhism Beyond Asia, Charles S. Prebish and Martin Baumann eds., Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 66-81.

Quli, Natalie E. 2009. “Western Self, Asian Other: Modernity, Authenticity, and Nostalgia for ‘Tradition’ in Buddhist Studies.” Journal of Buddhist Ethics, 16, 1-38. <http://blogs.dickinson.edu/buddhistethics/files/2010/05/quli-article.pdf>