Socially Constructed, Culturally Defined:
Considering Mahayana Buddhism for Process Philosophy
By Freeden Oeur
Submitted for INTR 342: Science and Religious Experience
Professor Crampton
Final Paper
Williams College, Spring 2003
"Religious suffering is, at one and the same time, the expression of real
suffering and a protest against real suffering. Religion is the sigh of the
oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless
conditions. It is the opium of the people."
Karl Marx (1844)
"Science frees us in many ways… from the bodily terror which the
savage feels. But she replaces that, in the minds of many, by a moral terror
which is far more overwhelming".
Charles Kingsley (1866)
* * *
Classical sociological theory teaches that all social phenomena—be it
intangible, like an idea or a belief; or tangible, like institutions or a nation’s
rights engraved into a written constitution—are interrelated to some extent.
Two domains of social life that exert a particularly strong influence on the
lives of individuals are science and religion. As dominant forces, both have,
throughout history, conflicted with each other in fascinating ways. This paper
will consider how the two might be integrated into a single mode of thought.
My broad aim is to demonstrate how Mahayana Buddhism can be used to satisfy
the primary goal of process philosophy, which combines the otherwise conflicting
spheres of science and religious life: "the integration of moral, aesthetic,
and religious intuitions with the most general doctrines of the sciences into
a self-consistent worldview." (I heretofore refer to this as a "single
worldview.") Doing so will first require an examination of the core tenets
of Buddhism and the debunking of a popular misconception of the faith—the
idea that Buddhism is an atheistic tradition. Next, I will consider how the
tenets of Buddhism—chief among them, the idea of "emptiness"—satisfy
the restrictive requirements of a form of "rationalism" that science,
David Ray Griffin writes, privileges. Finally, I consider how a lack of a supernatural
element in Mahayana Buddhism is consistent with process philosophy as developed
by Alfred North Whitehead and advocated by Griffin. My analysis, in keeping
with the interdisciplinary nature of the course, will use as a foundation the
idea—posited by anthropological and sociological theory—that all phenomena
are socially constructed and culturally defined. Science and religion, in other
words, exist within cultural frameworks and are thus defined and shaped by prevailing
cultural beliefs and norms. Another main argument I make is that Buddhism allows
for an understanding of, and can help to explain, society—the principle
goal of sociology, a social science that is more similar to the traditional
"hard sciences" than most people would believe.
Perhaps the most striking difference between Buddhism and other old-world faiths
is that Buddhism has no god. Nonetheless, I will demonstrate that core features
of Buddhism are similar to basic conceptions of God across theistic religions,
and that a characterization of Mahayana Buddhism as "atheistic" is
an unnecessary roadblock for the application of Buddhism into a legitimate expression
of process philosophy. First, the term "atheistic" proves to be a
hindrance. Eugene Long, editor of the International Journal for Philosophy of
Religion, defines an "atheist" as:
One who looks to his own existence for meaning and purpose and who interprets
reality as indifferent or perhaps even threatening to his efforts to achieve
authentic experience… on those grounds, at least, Buddhists do not appear
to be atheists… indeed, some commentators have argued that many of the
characteristics assigned to Nirvana [in early Buddhism] are very similar to
those assigned to God in the Western tradition.
This argument has found consensus in theological circles. Polkinghorne suggests
that what I will refer to as a "God-like" concept may exist, in particular,
in Theravada Buddhism when he writes that it "is at most agnostic, with
the concept of nirvana said to play something like the fundamental role played
by God in other faiths." Is it then incorrect to consider Mahayana Buddhism—which,
John Power writes, represents a major paradigm shift from earlier schools of
Buddhism including Theravada—as lacking a "God-like" concept?
It is far too simplistic to argue that Polkinghorne would agree to his above
statement on the basis that Mahayana Buddhism also privileges nirvana at the
heart of its teachings. Yet, Mahayana Buddhism is qualitatively different from
its Theravada counterpart in that it does not see nirvana as the only end. Indeed,
the hero of Buddhism, the bodhisattva, delays his own enlightenment, manifested
in the experience of nirvana, in order to help others reach the path to enlightenment.
Adherents of Theravada Buddhism, however, seek only their own personal enlightenment.
The difference between Mahayana and Theravada Buddhism, then, is one of purpose:
whereas bodhisattvas in Mahayana are concerned with promoting the welfare of
others, adherents of Theravada are only concerned with promoting their own welfare.
Buddhism, indeed, teaches of a higher purpose, but does not teach that this
purpose—or the understanding of the purpose—can be embodied in a single
being like the Christian God or Allah of Islam. Still, Mahayana Buddhism possesses
elements that are "God-like." A key argument of my paper is that not
all religions fit into discrete categories of either "theistic" or
"atheistic." Mahayana Buddhism is unique in that it neither has a
god nor is completely atheistic, and that its place along the continuum between
both makes it a better candidate for the process philosophy as developed by
Whitehead. My discussion now turns to how Mahayana Buddhism satisfies the requirements
of the "single worldview." Whitehead argues that a major point of
conflict between science and religion centers on the fact that science is associated
with two types of naturalism: naturalismnm (with the "ns" standing
for "nonsupernaturalist") and naturalismsam (with the "sam"
standing for "sensasionalist-atheistic-materialistic"). The former
position precludes the existence of any supernatural beliefs into a single worldview,
while the latter assumes a more extreme position by ruling out any significant
religious beliefs altogether. My purpose is to introduce Mahayana Buddhism as
a possible example of creating a worldview that adopts the latter, more restrictive
form of naturalism. I do not seek full integration, but rather to show that
Mahayana Buddhism allows us to get closer to a single worldview.
Can any religion be integrated into a single worldview if the naturalismsam
doctrine is adopted? My analysis takes a quick—but nonetheless necessary—detour
to consider this problem. The integration of two concepts, of course, requires
some accommodation and reconciliation on the part of those concepts. The merger
of any religion with a "sensationalist-atheistic-materialistic" form
of naturalism would serve not to integrate the two, but to annihilate that faith
altogether. How can a single worldview purport to benefit both the scientific
and religious communities if it privileges science at the expense of religion?
This purported "worldview" is, indeed, bordering on a kind of philosophical
nihilism, a complex doctrine that denies, among other things, the existence
of morality and religious beliefs. Interestingly, Mark C. Taylor, a leading
advocate of a postmodern theology , argues that "nihilism "more closely
resembles the Christian selflessness, Jewish exile, and Buddhist emptiness than
any simple libertinism or antinomianism." Griffin dismisses the first two
examples and affirms Taylor’s choice of Buddhism. Emptiness, for Buddhists,
does not imply lack of substantive value: Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche, a Buddhist
monk and leading philosopher of the Mahayana movement, writes that "the
empty nature of the mind" is at the heart of bodhichitta, the universal
compassion that is practiced by all bodhisattva. Griffin agrees with Taylor’s
claim that the Buddhist principle of emptiness denies the existence of svabhava,
or "self-existence." In other words, "things are empty of self-existence
in that they ‘exist by nature of their interdependence.’"
Ultimately, Buddhism makes a claim that is fundamental to classical anthropological
and sociological theory: all social phenomena take on an identity only through
its relation to other phenomena. All social phenomena (and especially social
institutions) become so interrelated in a society that their function and purpose—indeed,
their identity—come to be defined in terms of the function and purpose
of other institutions. I do not argue that social phenomena lack intrinsic value,
as Buddhism claims. I do, however, argue that Buddhism, like sociology, claims
that no phenomena are purely autonomous. We gain a better understanding of phenomena
by conceding the relational character of all phenomena: We know of a thing—anything—only
through its relationship to other things. Here, the Buddhist faith and social
science provide the same answer to a basic but nonetheless fundamental question:
"How does anything acquire an identity?" Additionally, naturalismsam,
and in particular the sensationalist doctrine that I will consider in a moment,
posits that all religious experience, as defined chiefly by William James, are
influenced by cultural beliefs. Wayne Proudfoot argues that:
What constitutes an experience as a religious experience… is not something
inherent to the experience but the interpretive categories brought to it from
the person’s culture. Rather than religion’s being a product, at least
partly, of religious experience, so-called religious experience is entirely
a product of religious beliefs—which are themselves to be explained in
nonreligious terms.
Proudfoot makes the claim that religion is, above all, a social phenomenon:
it exists within a cultural framework that is constructed of non-religious components.
Although this example of what Griffin calls "explanatory reductionism"
is a clear—and perhaps, biased—attempt to remove the mysticism and
irrational elements that are commonly associated with religion, it is helpful
insofar as it demonstrates that culture and religion are not mutually exclusive.
Religion is not a mystical force that exists beyond and external to individuals.
It not only exists within individuals, but within a community that shares a
culture. As Clifford Geertz writes, all our religious beliefs are based on a
reality that we experience in our everyday lives: the religious perspective
is "the conviction that the values one holds are grounded in the inherent
structure of reality, that between the way one ought to live and the way things
really are there is an unbreakable inner connection."
In light of the above argument, I argue that the Buddhist principle of emptiness
satisfies all three requirements of the scientific association of naturalismsam
and, thus, allows us to get closer to achieving a single worldview. Naturalismsam,
again, requires that all religions be sensasionalist, atheistic, and materialistic
if they are to be included in a worldview. We have already considered the issue
of atheism. If we consider Buddhism on strict terms, then it is atheistic. Recall
my argument that although Buddhism has "God-like" features, it still
lacks a God—a single, all-knowing creator that exists in other faiths.
What, then, of sensationalism and materialism? Whitehead writes that the sensationalist
doctrine of perception posits that we perceive of things by means of our physical
sensory organs. This doctrine was adopted by Hume, among others. Here, we run
into a complication: Mahayana Buddhism would appear to adopt a nonsensationalist,
or nonsensory, doctrine of perception, which claims that one can perceive the
world without ones sensory organs; this doctrine allows for a genuine religious
experience in the sense of direct perception of a Holy Reality. For example,
all schools of Buddhism, not just Mahayana, place meditation at the heart of
the path to the attainment of buddhahood (the bodhisattva path). The goal of
meditation is to use the mind to respond and react to, and understand, the physical
world. Indeed, in higher levels of meditation, as a result of meditative concentration,
"all traces of physical lethargy and mental scattering have been eliminated,"
and the individual experiences a dimension of clarity known as "pliancy,"
which is defined as "a serviceability of mind and body such that the mind
can be set on a virtuous object of observation as long as one likes; it has
the function of removing all obstructions." Clearly, this irrational form
of perception is wholly inconsistent with the sensationalist doctrine. Or is
it? A little known feature of meditation is that higher levels of meditation
allow one to experience extra physical sensory, referred to as "physical
pliancy." A common misconception of meditation is that the experience of
it is completely internal and that it does not render any effects that can be
felt external to the body. One should not take the Buddhist principle of emptiness
to imply a disregard for the capacities of the mind, for according to Powers,
higher levels of meditation allow one to experience physical bliss. He writes:
"a subtle energy current called a ‘wind’ courses through subtle
channels in the body, giving rise to feelings of physical lightness."
I concede that my above argument is somewhat tenuous. Meditation and the sensationalist
doctrine, indeed, are not entirely compatible. To borrow Barbour’s description,
I would argue that the relationship between the religious expression and the
scientific requirement falls somewhere between conflict and dialogue, what Barbour
terms "independence" but I, should add, falls closer to dialogue.
I contend that the sensationalist doctrine cannot completely reject Mahayana
Buddhism on sensory perception grounds alone. This fact, coupled with Mahayana
Buddhism’s strict characterization as an atheistic tradition, brings us
closer to the elusive worldview. If the human condition is defined by the zeal
for acquiring as much knowledge as possible, then Mahayana Buddhism has excelled
at the task of offering possibilities for a single worldview—a concept
that, we must remember, is dependent on enormously restrictive criteria.
I now consider materialism, the last criterion of naturalismsam. The mechanistic
doctrine of materialism is defined by a rejection of a non-physical mind or
soul, and the embrace of the belief that "everything in the world, including
human behavior," can be understood "in terms of locomotions and external
relations of vacuous actualities." If we consider first the two criteria
for mechanistic materialism, then Mahayana Buddhism is immediately rejected;
the non-physical mind and soul is a prerequisite for the bodhisattva path and,
eventually, nirvana. I would argue, however, that the second requirement of
"locomotions and external relations of vacuous actualities" is a feature
of Mahayana Buddhism. Mechanistic materialism implies that the world is largely
deterministic: that all actions and behaviors are the inevitable consequence
of previous actions and behaviors. I argue that three features of Mahayana Buddhism
are consistent with determinism. In my second paper, I demonstrated that the
bodhisattva path is both rigid and uncompromising, which creates a "blueprint"
that all bodhisattvas must follow. The bodhisattva path is a test of endurance
whose end point can only be reached after the bodhisattva passes through a set
of ten strictly defined, discrete, and hierarchical levels. This path is considered
deterministic because nirvana is the direct result of a specific set of actions
and behaviors. Second, the idea of karma is entirely consistent with determinism.
As Power writes, "Buddha taught that one’s present life is only one
in a beginningless series of rebirths, and each of these is determined by one’s
actions in previous lives." Karma, indeed, is the principal example of
individual and personal determinism. Last, Mahayana Buddhism has as a central
doctrine the idea of "dependent arising." This doctrine, which is
closely related to the Buddhist tenet of selflessness, states that "all
compounded phenomena arise due to causes and conditions external to themselves,
remain in existence due to causes and conditions, and eventually pass away due
to their causes and conditions." "Dependant arising" is further
divided into a set of actions called "links," and these actions are
closely associated to the concept of karma in that these actions are said to
determine an individual’s future birth.
In the above analysis I have demonstrated that Mahayana Buddhism is not only
applicable to the process philosophy, but that the idea of emptiness allows
for Buddhism to fit within the narrow and restrictive framework of naturalismsam
that would, presumably, reject many other faiths. In the final part of my paper,
I will argue briefly that Mahayana lacks a supernaturalistic element. The privileging
of supernaturalism by most religions, we should recall, is a barrier to formation
of single worldview. Rudolf Otto argues that "there can be no religion
without the supernatural." Otto, however, qualifies this argument by saying
that supernaturalism implies the existence of a creator who "has purposely
determined the existence of life and human intelligence in this world."
Griffin agrees, and adds that supernaturalism has as a core tenet the belief
in a God who possesses coercive omnipotence. My analysis here has come full
circle: Mahayana Buddhism lacks a supernatural element because it lacks a God.
As I argued at the beginning of the paper, although Mahayana Buddhism may have
God-like elements (namely the belief in nirvana) it does not possess a single
god who is said to possess the "coercive omnipotence" to determine
the "existence of life and human intelligence in this world."
Process philosophy, above all, seeks to take two domains of social life that
have traditionally been pitted against each other, and to integrate them into
a single worldview. The purpose of my paper has not been to consider the single
worldview itself per se (if one can even be imagined), but rather, to demonstrate
how several of the core elements of Mahayana Buddhism may help to tear down
some of the high walls that exist between science and religion. I have also
attempted to demonstrate that science and religion, though possessed of their
own respective intricacies and internal logics, are nonetheless shaped by cultural
beliefs and norms. If we accept that idea that all social phenomena are invariably
shaped by other social phenomena, then we can move onto a consideration of how
science and religion shape each other in various ways. Religion, the sociology
of religion teaches, cannot be seen as a force that penetrates from high above;
rather, it, like all social phenomena are caught up in what Clifford Geertz
calls the "webs of significance" that we create for our own lives
and from own personal realities. Religion, indeed, is a cultural system that
creates a conception of reality —a way of understanding and making sense
of the world in which we live. Since the aim of science—be it the hard
sciences or the social sciences—is also to gain a better understanding
of our lives, cultures, and societies, then perhaps one day the two domains
of social life will merge beautifully to help expand a body of knowledge that
forms the essence of the human condition.
REFERENCES
* * *
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of
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Philosophy of
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