The Personal Is Spiritual (Buddhism: A Series, Part 3)

To this day, I don't call myself a Buddhist. My lack of acceptance of such labels was reinforced by Buddhism Without Beliefs: A Contemporary Guide to Awakening by Stephen Batchelor. A former Buddhist monk and now lay Buddhist teacher, Batchelor explores issues of Buddhism from, what he terms, a Western perspective.

Through the book I came to identify Buddhism as a religion, but Dharmic practice (living the teachings of the Middle Way -- a name the Buddha gave his teachings) as an existential approach to life. This approach appealed to me for a variety of reasons. Batchelor's emphasis on a non-denominational Buddhist practice was something I found engaging. At this time I was also beginning to get a better understanding of the sociology, geography, and history of early Buddhism and its denominations. I was also learning more about early Islam and its interactions with Buddhism (a great book on the history of Islam is Destiny Disrupted: A History of the World Through Islamic Eyes by Tamin Ansary).

The different denominations of Buddhism were not terribly familiar to me. I had a vague understanding of regional differences in practice from the hilarious and surprisingly informative The Savvy Convert's Guide to Choosing a Religion (with such selling points on the cover as "Most Approved by God!" and "Get the Best Faith for Your Buck").

Batchelor's iconoclasm (which I would later understand the controversy of) really appealed to me. By putting some of the more arcane and obscure aspects of Buddhism in a historical context, and then treating them with a sort of reverent agnosticism, Batchelor found a way to embrace Buddhism without feeling tied to pieces he found questionable.

However, at this point I was beginning to feel like I was coming to have a more individual understanding of some of the concepts discussed. Some of the same ideas that hung up Batchelor were also hanging me up, particularly things like Karma and Rebirth. However, having a very cursory understanding of Buddhism, I approached much of Buddhism more as an intellectual exercise and sociological project than something overly personal.

This would begin to change as I allowed myself to be more open and honest about my skepticism and where it came from. That topic and The Heart of the Buddha's Teaching by Thich Nhat Hanh will be the focus of my next entry.