Adapting to the West

Buddhism is a religion founded by a single person named Siddhartha Gautama before 2600
years ago in Northern India which later spread far and wide across the world.
It is interesting to note that this religion was spreading from East to West,
compared to other major religions in the world such as Christianity which
spread from West to East. Most importantly, Buddhism has been very successful
in changing and adapting to different cultures around the world. This essay will
discuss the developments that have occurred in Buddhism being successfully
adapted by the western societies.

But first, it is important to have a look at how Buddhism evolved in
India. How possible was for one single man to come up with a religion that
suits to every culture around the world? It is evident that Buddhism first had
to invade into Indian society. The closest reason how Buddhism could
successfully get into Indian culture was Siddartha being born to a leader of
the republic of Sakya in Northern India. As Harvey (1990) argues that Gautama,
according to Mahayana tradition was known as ‘Sakya-muni’ means ‘Sakyan sage’.
But the Sakya republic ‘was not Brahmanizd, and rule was by a council of
household heads, perhaps qualified by age or social standing’ (Harvey 1990). This
helped Siddartha to be famous in his ascetic life as it was not common for a
son of a leader to renounce during that time.

The Brahman tradition invaded the cast system. Therefore as Harvey (1990) points out, a
cast of a person is determined by birth. Since Siddartha was born to a higher cast
who ruled a republic it could be argued that it was not difficult for Buddhism
to penetrate into the Brahman society in India. It also could argue that the Sakyan converted
to Budhdism following their leader’s son’s (Siddartha) footsteps. However
Buddhism was successfully adapted by Indian culture. It is clear by going
through the story of the Indian Empire Asoka who converted to Buddhism and
contributed a lot towards spreading the religion across the neighboring
kingdoms (Williams 2000).

Secondly, it is fair to argue that Buddhism had political influences
for it to spread far and wide. This not only includes Asia but also the west. Political
assistance to accept and spread Buddhism came into effect from the time of the
Buddha. It was not hard for Buddhism to be accepted by Sakyan society, due to Siddartha
being the son of the Sakyan leader (Murty 2003). But it is not fair to argue
that Buddhism was only accepted by Indian society due to Siddartha’s social
statues. The political influence came into effect by many Indian kings
converting themselves to Buddhism both during the time of the Buddha and after
his passing away. It is evident that Buddhism had political acceptance during
the time of the Buddha by going through the legendary stories of the Buddha
(Jathaka stories), (Cowell 2000). Many monasteries where Buddha was living were
donated to monks by kings and philanthropists at that time. This clearly shows
that Buddhism had state sponsorship.

Another major step for Buddhism to well settle in India was
the Empire Asoka’s conversion to Buddhism (Friedlander 2010). This can be seen
as a turning point for Buddhism to travel far and wide across the continent and
also to spread to the west. Friedlander (2010) argues that if Asoka had never
adopted Buddhism as a state religion, it might not have been known this well.
It is due to King Asoka’s actions to promote Buddhism, Smith and Novak (2003)
argues that Buddhism was spread towards west such as Syria Egypt and Macedonia.
Smith and Novak (2003) points out some beliefs that Buddhism made influence to
Greek philosophy while Goddard (2007) depicts that King Asoka had send envoys
to West.

Buddhism has been very successful in changing and adapting to different
cultures. The reason being that Buddhism is a religion that cannot be ‘indexed’
(Lancaster 2008). This means that Buddhism has been very flexible to adapt by any
culture without any disturbance to the original norms of that culture. As Cousins
(1998) argues ‘a pure Buddhism has never existed’ due to the reason that it has
‘become syncretistically mixed with other religions’. This characteristic of
Buddhism has helped Buddhism to be adapted by western cultures. It can be
argued by referring to both Lancaster’s (2008) and Cousins’s (1998) that Buddhism has the characteristic to travel far and settle in to any culture since Buddhism has portable sanctity quality.

Buddhism was never restricted to geography, language or to a particular
culture. Lancaster (2008) argues that Buddhism use monks, texts and relics of
the Buddha to take Buddhism from one continent to another. Buddhism is the
teachings of the Buddha and where ever the teaching can go, the religion can go
there as well. Buddhism, according to Lancaster (2008) does not restrict
translating its texts to any language or any format. Therefore the teachings of
the Buddha in Tripitaka (3 baskets of texts) were translated to English and
other western languages. Buddhism goes hand in hand with new technology as
Buddhism does not restrict converting its holy texts to new technological
platforms. Buddhist holy texts can be written into CDs and can be transported
via hard drives and can be uploaded to the Internet. Therefore Lancaster (2008)
argues that Buddhism has been successfully adapted by the West due to its portable
nature and its unique characteristic of changing according to the technology of
the West.

In conclusion it can be argued that Buddhism travelled to West due to many reasons. One is the western invasion to East. The second one is that Buddhism was sent to West by Empire Asoka. The third reason is the increasing Asian migrants to the West who brings Buddhist practices with them and set up temples. Whatever the way it took to travel to West, it is clear that Buddhism did settle well in Western counties. That is why Buddhism has been very successful in changing and adapting to different geographic and social contexts. The above mentioned reasons show how Buddhism travelled far and wide. But let us now have a look at some reasons as to how Buddhism was successfully adapted by the West.

It can be seen that the Buddha had a clear idea of spreading his teachings when he called upon his disciples and said;
‘Go your ways, O monks, for the benefit of the many,
for the happiness of many,
out of compassion for the world,
for the good, benefit, and happiness of gods and men.
No two should go on the same direction.
Teach the Dharma which is beneficent in the beginning, in
the middle, and in the end …’

(Smith, Novok 2003)

The above English translation from the pali texts shows that spreading the teaching was something that Buddha himself instructed to monks. Therefore Buddhist missionary starts from the time of the Buddha. Buddhism invites people to ‘come and see’ the teachings (ehipassiko in pali), which means it does not ask someone to believe the teachings because it is said by the Buddha or it is famously followed by others. In Kalama Sutta (AN 3.65) of the pali cannon outlines a conversation between the Buddha and Kalama, where Buddha brings valid points of how to believe a belief. In the conversation (translated to English by Thanissaro Bhikku) the Buddha says to Kalama;

{‘Don’t go by reports, by legends, by traditions, by scripture, by logical conjecture, by inference, by analogies, by agreement through pondering views, by probability, or by the thought, “This contemplative is our teacher.” When you know for yourselves that, “These qualities are unskillful; these qualities are blameworthy; these qualities are criticized by
the wise; these qualities, when adopted & carried out, lead to harm &
to suffering” — then you should abandon them.’ Thus was it said. And in
reference to this was it said. }

(AN 3.65; Thanissaro Bhikku; 1994)

This is why Buddhism was successful in adapting and changing to different societies in the West. Buddhism argues people to ‘come and see’ the religion and then believe, which is a phenomena that is not available in any other religion on earth. Buddhism challenges people to critically think and analyze the Dhamma (teachings) and then follow it if you think it is right.
Buddhism therefore does not ask people to believe on a mythology or follow the
belief because you are born to it. That is an important point where the West took the opportunity to grasp Buddhism as a growing religion. Western scholars, therefore were able to carry out academic research on Buddhism, simply because it was an ‘open to comment religion’
unlike other religions. Hence according to Harvey (1990) ‘western scholars have thus played a key role in bringing knowledge of Buddhism to the West’. Another reason for Buddhism to be well settled in the West was the attraction of psychology and psychotherapy aspects in Buddhism. As Fenner (ed Foster, 2011) argues ‘it has taken very little time for the rich
psychological theories, insights and practices of Buddhism to capture the
attention of Western professionals’. Therefore Buddhism’s interpretation of how human mind works, worked well for the Western societies. Thereafter Buddhist meditation techniques were adopted by the Western psychologists for clinical treatments (Fenner 2011).

Lastly, Buddhism’s idea of the existence of the outside world from an individual clearly matched the Westerners. According to Lancaster (2008) the idea of everything being ‘a perception’ on human mind can be illustrated further. According to Buddhism, outside world is a perception that One has in their mind. But Buddhism does not deny the existence of an outside world. It
rather says that One sees the world through his or her mind and it is a perception of that individual. ‘All you can experience is the brain’s reaction to what you get from the six senses (Lancaster 2008)’. Therefore Buddhism was seen as a science in West than a religion. Western research on meditators for neurological studies ‘which confirm that accomplished meditators produce unique and characteristic brain-wave power patterns’ (Fenner 2011) show the interest
of the science towards Buddhism. Therefore it can be argued that Westerners ‘came and saw’ Buddhism before they simply accepted it as a religion.

In conclusion, Buddhism was rich enough to produce a critical approach to humanity for the people in the West. Buddhism’s central place is the individual. Its main idea is for the individual to attain Nibbana. In saying that Buddhism made it open to anyone from every society to practice Buddhist theories irrespective of the language and cultural barriers by allowing the texts to be translated and transfer in any format. Not only that, the sacred aspect of Buddhism could be made by bringing the relics of the Buddha from one
country to another to establish sacredness of that land. The branches of the Boo tree where the Buddha attained Enlightenment are allowed to be planted anywhere in the world and thus this helped Buddhism to travel to West. Most importantly the Buddhist thought of Enlightenment or Nirvana which is the last state to eradicate sufferings can be achieved by any individual. This simple aspect could have helped Buddhism to be very successful in changing and adapting to western societies.


This is a research writing submitted to the University of South Australia
Copy write 2011 by Prasanna Jayanath


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