What the Buddha Taught:

First, I must indulge in a pointed rant regarding the pronunciation of Buddha, Buddhist, Buddhism. It is one of my pet peeves, and I liken it to fingernails on a chalkboard. It is not pronounced BOO-duh. Or BOO-dizem, or BOO-dist; like they are meditating on the impermanence of booty or something. (I wish I had an impermanent booty...) It is Bu as in good, not Bu as in food. And while we're on the subject, he is not the "Dolly" Lama. He is the "Deh-lie" Lama. Thank you. I just had to get that off my chest. Or booty. Or, whatever...

You know that expression, "leave your problems at the door?" I wish we had a similar one for my World Religions class. Or all of Seminary, actually: leave your Christianity at the door. Today was the third day of our discussion of Buddhism. We started out gently with the biography of Prince Siddhartha/Gautama Buddha and then some introductory material; sort of the broad strokes of Buddhism. For today, we jumped into Theravadin Buddhism feet first, with one of the most difficult and profound writings on Buddhist thought; the Buddhadhamma: Natural Laws and Values for Life (Buddhadhamma refers to the corpus of the Buddha's teachings) by Thailand's pre-eminent Buddhist monk and scholar Phra Prayudh Payutto.

I love this professor, by the way. She is gentle and sincere and very enthusiastic about the material; especially Hinduism. She wrote her dissertation on a comparison between Ramanuja (a Classical Hindu philosopher) and St. John of the Cross. But she is also very confident in her teaching abilities (she lectures without notes, and writes Sanskrit without cheat sheets) and she knows her stuff. No question. Good thing, too. She was taking fire from many sides today. These sweet, little, American, not-terribly-worldly MDiv students are having a very difficult time wrapping their heads around these very foreign concepts. I think that if they ever managed to retain and understand some of this their heads might actually explode.

I had fun today. Real fun; like I haven't in a long time. I felt alive; every nerve was tingling. You couldn't shut me up. And the professor was thoroughly enjoying this, too. Not that I was coming to her defense; she certainly didn't need it. I prefer to think of it as more of a tag-team operation.

Let's set the scene: Jane Godley is behind me, sighing and huffing and mumbling, "o.k...what?! I'm so confused. I don't understand" etc. It was all I could do not to turn around and slap her. A few kept banging their heads against the brick wall that separates their American enculturation, Christian indoctrination, and Western education (such as it is) from the whole of Eastern thought, and kept asking terribly inept and ill-formed questions. Most were just staring straight ahead and trying not to move or even breathe for fear of drawing unwanted attention, and God forbid they be asked a question like, "what do you think?" (Um...they don't.)

Their biggest problem was dealing with the concept of no-self. A basic tenet of Buddhism is the belief in the impermanence of things. Every thing in this world, including humans, is in constant flux. When we fail to recognize this and live in ignorance we cling to things and/or people, and then suffer needlessly when those things/people are gone from us. All life is suffering. To end suffering one must be free from attachment. This includes an attachment to self, what we today would call ego. Or, what the "Kids in the Hall" (not the Canadian variety show; scroll down. You'll know what I mean.) would call soul. They simply cannot set aside their belief in a creator God, an eternal soul or their modern concept of self for one second in order to attempt to grasp what the Buddha is teaching.

Now, I have no way of knowing what most of these people studied (or didn't study) in their undergrad work. I get the impression most of them majored in Marriage and Family, or Feelings, or Fluffy Little Animals. I have a strong background in philosophy. It was a large component of my major. Which, I concede, probably gives me a better than average advantage. And in order to participate in today's discussion you really needed at least some experience with philosophical thought, method, and process.

My favorite moment came when John Godley threw this bomb: "Now, I have a friend who was taking a philosophy class, and at the end of the class he stood up and challenged the professor by saying, 'prove that I exist.' to which the professor replied, 'if you didn't exist, I would ask who or what just asked that question?' Would the Buddha (BOO-duh) answer differently, since according to him we don't exist?" Without missing a beat, the professor responded, "well, the Buddha would probably say that would depend on what you mean by 'I'. In every language we have a utilitarian way of talking about self, but that is just so we can communicate with each other and function on a very superficial, perfunctory level. It doesn't speak to the higher truth." He had nothing in return, demoralized and silenced for the moment.

Jane Godley pipes up: I don't understand how there can be no concept of self. I mean, I recognize that we are all different, have different talents, different memories. So, how can they say there is no self, when obviously we are different. And the professor returns the serve: Buddhism does not deny that we are all different. We are; and they recognize that we are unique. But there is no essence, no eternal soul in Buddhism. When you die, your existence is transported to another life and another reality. But in this life, your form, the one we all recognize as Emily, is conditional. It depends on all these other things and people being here and recognizing and mentally reassembling your aggregate parts. But you are always in flux.

John Godley, having recovered (sort of...) said: I guess I'm just asking a Western question for which their is no Eastern answer. By far, the most insightful thing I have ever heard him utter. I could stand it no longer. I knew I had already monopolized much of the time, but NOTHING the professor and I, and a couple of other MTS students who were clearly understanding this but were probably a little battle-weary, were saying was sinking in. I addressed John's issues first: I think that you are right in saying it is a Western question for which there is no Eastern answer. But more than that, it is anachronistic. Our concept of self is a very recent development. It has come to us from Enlightenment thinking and Modern Psychology. They would have had no concept of self that would be in any way recognizable to us, and vice versa.

And now to Jane: And I think you can grasp the concept of the impermanence of self on a very practical and concrete level. You are not, in fact, the same person you were yesterday or even five minutes ago. Your hair is longer, your nails are longer, you have lost brain cells and dead skin cells, you have lost and gained knowledge and memories. To which the professor said, "yes, I think that's exactly right. And that is the kind of example the Buddha would have used; something from nature that was visible and demonstrable to his students. He just took it much further, to the entire universe and beyond." I scored major points with her. And John and Jane probably think I'm an even bigger freak than previously imagined. All in all, a very successful day.